The Berserker and the Pedant (3 page)

"Anyone could have been killed by giant ants on the first day of their dumb quest," Pellonia remarked as she stomped through the tall, dry brush, smacking down the grass with a stick. "Stupid temple didn't have to send along babysitters."

Gimnur Hammerfist, lead babysitter, walked ahead and fell into pace next to Gurken. Gimnur was armored in elven-forged steel, though it was nicked and dinged from heavy use in battle. A thick metal shield with dents that could only have been made from something as strong as the club of a frost giant was slung from his back, and he carried a large hammer weighted for smashing. A jagged spear tip protruded from the top of his helmet, presumably used to skewer his foes when rushing into a melee, for he did not seem the type to enjoy ornamentation for ornamentations sake. Gurken had offered to share a leather sleeping sack, only to be laughed at and told that real dwarves slept on cold, bare earth.

"Gurken," Gimnur said, a friendly tone in his voice, "You're of the Stonebiter clan, eh? Tell me now, I always thought that name was a jest! A family of dwarves biting stones, the mere thought of it makes me chuckle." He chuckled, as if to accentuate his point. Gurken gritted his teeth. Now wouldn't be a good time to become wroth, having just left the city and there not being any true foes at hand. His traveling leathers had begun to chafe and Gimnur was disturbing his naturally good cheer.

"A common misconception, Hammerfist. The name was earned by my forefather for an act committed to save our king. It's a glorious name! I bade you to respect it." Gurken raised one eyebrow and his leather gloves creaked with a sound of agony as he tensed his hands. Isa, the dwarfen rune of challenge and frustration, pulsed in a low blue light on the head of his axe.

"Bade you?" Arthur whispered to Pellonia. "That's not even close! He's doing this deliberately!" Pellonia rolled her eyes. Arthur wore wizarding robes of traditional dark blue, silk, and smooth against the skin, highlighted with yellow mystical symbols embroidered along the hem. He did not wear a hat, as it was not required of his order and far too stereotypical, though out of necessity, he did wear spectacles. A sleep sack, provided by Gurken, was slung over his shoulder and stuffed with books, parchment and inks.

Throkk, assistant babysitter, shambled behind Hammerfist. Throkk was tall as a tree, if the tree stood about eight feet tall. Bulky, thick black hair tufted through every opening in his clothing, and he smelled as though hygiene was not something weighing heavily upon his thoughts. He wore skins crafted from various beasts that he'd fought and slain. Whoever cleaned the skins had clearly not been overburdened with a sense of duty and took neither joy nor pride in a job well done. The juicy bits had long since dried, mind you, but they still provided a certain intimidation to those whose sensibilities included not wanting to see the insides of flesh.

"Throkk not scared of tiny Gurken dwarf and shiny axe. Throkk MASH!" Throkk glared at Gurken and mashed the ground with his club. He'd deftly crafted this club in the early hours of their long journey by uprooting a small tree and meditatively stripping the limbs and roots with his teeth as they walked. A small ant, no bigger than a breadcrumb, crawled from under his club where it had struck the ground.

Pellonia and Arthur gasped, pointing at the ant. The ant considered them, and crawled away. Gimnur and Throkk laughed at their reaction. Not a polite chuckle, no - there was a bit of pointing and clearly erroneous statements such as "I can't breathe" and impolite implications as to their valor and worthiness for the quest.

"You! You just made a BIG mistake," Pellonia taunted. "Gurken is going to become wroth. You know he's a templerager, right? You won't like him when he's wroth! Gurken's going to tear into you with his axe and… um, apparently, savage you with the sleep sack he is taking out of his pack. Then… brutally untying. And ruth…less…ly… climbing…in?" She looked at Gurken with a mixture of anger and confusion, sprinkled with a bit of wonder and a dash of concern. 

"Gurken!" she whispered, as Gimnur and Throkk thrashed on the ground in uncontrolled laughter. "What are you doing? Now isn't the time for a nap!"

Gurken, standing with an open sleep sack about his feet, dropped the sides and held out a fist towards Pellonia. He raised his thumb, "Firstly, the merchant selling these sleep sacks spoke about how they can ward off a certain degree of moisture, thus making them fit for sleeping dry even in the rain, so long as the water did not puddle underneath."

"What does that have…" Arthur began.

"Have you not learned it's unwise to interject me, wizard?"

Arthur ceased his interjection, preferring to listen to Gurken finish, rather than listen to his own voice - despite his enduring love for it - the cost would likely have been more than he wanted to pay. 

Gurken raised his forefinger. "Secondly… the shopkeeper also said they would provide comfort from small rocks, a miscomfort I can attest to, having felt it often enough that small impressions are permanently etched upon my back." 

Arthur gritted his teeth upon hearing the word "miscomfort"; but let no one say that wizards are unable to learn, as he said nothing.

Gurken raised a third finger. "And lastly," he smiled, "according to the good vendor, the sacks have the agreeable convenience of keeping various biting insects…"

"Such as ants?" said Pellonia.

"Such as ants, " Gurken agreed, "at bay."

"Gurken," Arthur began, having waited for a lull in the conversation so as to not inappropriately interject, "It's one tiny ant."

"As to that," Gurken said, "you are, as always, faultless in your art of perception. There is currently only one tiny ant. But, is this not the field upon which we encountered much larger ants which resulted in a certain amount of death among us? Also, wasn't the appearance of larger ants preceded by that of smaller ants?"

Throkk lifted a foot, and stomped on the little ant. It was too small to make a proper squishing sound. As if Gurken had been granted the gift of prophecy, a somewhat larger ant crawled over Throkk's foot, this one as big as a hand.

"We run!" Arthur said, staring and pointing at the ant. "We should retreat! Withdraw to fight another day, I always say."

"Run!" scoffed Gurken, "I, a templerager of the Stonebiter clan, run? I think not! You? A learned and powerful wizard run from mere ants? I think you'll not do that twice! Unless you're satisfied with how that turned out last time."

"Well, shouldn't we fight?" asked Pellonia, pulling out a blade, albeit one more appropriate to the peeling of fruit than to piercing a carapace.

"What, fight ants? Come, now what have they done to us?"

"Besides kill us?" Arthur murmured in a voice low enough to avoid interjection.

"Nope, nothing to be gained by it. There is but one thing to do. I see you are both standing there doing nothing, and it would take far too long to open your own sleep sacks and set them up. So, are you getting in here with me? I can't continue to wait for you."

Pellonia and Arthur scrambled over to Gurken, stepped in the sleep sack, and helped pull the sack up and over their heads.

Throkk and Gimnur guffawed, rolling on the ground. "Ooo, the ferocious templerager. Does he need a nap before he fights?" Gurken and his friends laced up the side of the sleep sack; Pellonia's stuck out her tongue as she threaded the tie through the holes, Arthur held the sides up high, and Gurken looked smug and smiled at Gimnur Hammerfist.

 Throkk stood up and went over to look at the larger ant. He raised his club, intending to strike a deadly blow and crush the beast, when it sprayed him in the face with a pulpy - and rather rank - liquid. Throkk howled in rage and crushed the ant with his club. "Tiny ant no spray Throkk! Throkk squish tiny ant like bug!" he bellowed, wiping the fluid from his eyes.

Pellonia and Gurken could no longer be seen; the sack had been bound up the side and over their heads. Arthur, having the greatest height, looked on as a pair of ants crawled out of the tall grass and into the clearing, scrambling towards poor Throkk. They sprayed foul smelling mist into the air as they came. Throkk smashed one ant with his club as Gimnur crushed the other. 

"Gurken, what are you doing?" Gimnur demanded, the change in tension in his voice betraying his growing concern. "It's just a few measly ants!"

Arthur finished lacing the sack closed, and the trio, unable to coordinate their movements, promptly fell over. A dozen more ants scurried into the clearing, spraying mist in the air. The ants scrambled over the sack and charged past, towards the remaining combatants. Gimnur and Throkk made fast work of them. "Is that the best they can do? Spray us with a bit o' disgusting mist? We can kill thousands of these little buggers without breaking a sweat! Bring it on!"

As if in answer to his taunt, a sink hole opened in the ground, ten feet from Gimnur and Throkk. Dozens of small ants, and one ant of considerable size, streamed out of the hole. The ant of considerable size's head was as big as Throkk and its mandibles made loud "toch toch toch" sounds as they opened and closed.

Pellonia, peering out a tiny hole in the seam of the sack, saw Throkk and Gimnur charge the giant ant before being obscured by it. She heard the sound of a battle cry, followed by the sound of battle screaming, battle crying, and finally, battle silence.

"This is NOT our fault," Pellonia said.

"Still, we should return their remains to be mended," said Arthur.

The sack was scooped into the air, and pinchers compressed around them, trapping their arms at their sides. The giant ant brought them to the hole and dove inside.

Episode Three

The Berserker and the Ant

Pellonia, who to all appearances was a twelve-year-old girl with chestnut pigtails, freckles, and impish little dimples woke up in the very uncomfortable and rather unfamiliar position of being pressed between Arthur and Gurken and sewn into a leather sleep sack.

"Well, THAT happened," she said in disbelief, peeping out a hole in the hem of the sack. The darkness extended beyond the confines of the sack and into the space beyond. She listened, but could not hear anything over the sound of Gurken's thundering dwarfen snores. She floundered around in the darkness of the sack until she found his beard and followed the clay-caked mat of hair up to his nose, and - the effort requiring both of her hands - pinched his nose shut. He snorted air in through his mouth and woke.

"Wha-? Where are we?" he said, smacking his parched lips. "Are there foes about?"

"We're wherever the giant ant carried us. Now shut it, you're louder than a sickly dragon. I'm trying to listen." She listened, there was nothing to be heard but the cacophony of silence. She cut the leather binding on the sack with her knife, pulled open a hole, and crawled out. She cut the rest of the leather cord, freeing Gurken and Arthur from the sack.

"What do we do now?" Pellonia asked.

Gurken stood up, stretching his legs. He was rather thrilled that the sack had worked as advertised. Though he had slept upon the earth, it had shielded him from small rocks and lumps prone to cause discomfort and disturb one's sleep, he had remained dry - though to be honest, there was little enough moisture about - and it had protected them from insects, like ants, that were prone to bite tender and exposed skin - just ask poor Throk and Gimnur.

"Seeing as we've just awoken, a coffee wouldn't be out of order," Gurken said.

"A coffee? We don't even know where we are! We can't even see!" Pellonia gestured in the dark to indicate that they could not see.

"Well, hold on, it's a tolerable temperature, we're neither too cold nor too hot. We're neither being rained on nor battered by a too hot sun. I hear no foes seeking to skewer us, and we've camped here safely through the night unmolested. Coffee necessitates fire, which will provide light, with which we can learn where we are while we brew our coffee. Shall we put this plan into action?"

Pellonia could think of no argument against, so Gurken picked up Arthur with one hand and shook him awake.

"What? No, please don't kill me! I didn't even say anything this time!" pleaded Arthur.

Gurken chuckled. "Wizard, we need fire. Can you magic us one?"

"Can… you… magic us one? Really, that's how you ask?" asked Arthur, plainly irritated at the rough treatment.

"Can you… magic us one… please?" Gurken said, confused.

"When one requests an invocation from a wizard, one ought deliver the request with decorum and respect. 'Esteemed wizard, we are in urgent need of a fire; perchance you might conjure one for us?'"

"Perchance you might conjure one for us?" Gurken asked, this time with irritation in his voice.

"Right, then. I'll still need some wood."

Gurken fished around in his pack and brought out some kindling which he handed to Arthur. A few moments later there was a mystical sound eerily reminiscent of flint and steel clicking together, a sorcerous crackle as dry weeds curled in the sudden heat and a warm arcane orange glow that washed over Arthur's face.