Fat Barbarian: A Humorous Fantasy Adventure (Fat Barbarian Saga Book 1) Read online

  “That was my idea, you know,” protested the king. “I just let her run with it. Are you saying it worked? How strange. I thought we’d be able to use it to get rid of some layabouts.”

  “Oh,” said Natalie. “Surely, you meant to start them training to be part of a standing army for Kingdom’s defense.”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

  “We must have misunderstood, Your Majesty,” said Duke Farley.

  “It seems like a solid enough idea, send a report on it to me and Exchequer Barster.”

  “Already done, my liege,” rumbled Farley.

  King Fosdick turned to leave and stopped himself.

  “Who came up with this plan, brother?”

  “Sir Gerund, the grandson of the Earl of Barsto.”

  “I thought all the knights were with Fangnar.”

  “Most of them are. Some stayed back. They had various reasons.”

  “Where is Gerund?”

  “He’s here in Castle Fosdick, father,” Natalie replied. “His family was at Barsto.”

  “Barsto… That damned Baels took it over,” the King muttered as he put his finger on the castle’s location. He looked up and his gaze softened. He shook his head vigorously and looked at his daughter and brother.

  “Anyway, carry on,” said King Fosdick, the words tumbling out. He turned and left the map room, took a few steps, and realized he had gone off track. Why had he stopped there?

  Oh, yes, he thought. Money. He was there to find out about the money Hugh McTaggart had stolen from Kingdom Fosdick. Surely someone would know what happened to it. Natalie and Farley wouldn't know. They were too busy playing with wooden soldiers.

  Still, that was a lot of armed men standing around. That is what standing armies do, of course, he thought. Hopefully, they had some older soldier around to keep them busy rearranging the barracks, combing the grass, and generally tidying up when they weren’t training. Idle hands are Set’s workshop his father always said. Idle hands with weapons, well, that’s just trouble waiting to happen. Those troops should probably start going on patrols or something.

  His reverie broke when Lord Rumsfeld, a courtier of some sort and a quite useful fellow, called out for him.

  “Majesty! I have grave news!” The courtier continued to run toward him. King Fosdick stood and waited.

  “Fascinating, Rumsfeld. Have Sir Gerund come visit me today. We must have words.”

  “Of… course, Majesty,” the man made a quick note and looked up. “About the grave news—”

  “Really,” he replied, putting his hands on his hips. “Grave news? People should stop digging. I’m tired of grave news.”

  “I, um, of course, my liege.” The man looked confused or conflicted, like a dinner guest who had just accidentally eaten a large roach and wasn’t sure if the thing to do was to spit it out or commit and eat it.

  “Tell me the news as we walk.” The King turned and resumed walking. It would come to him, he thought. Or not.

  “I have grave news,” Rumsfeld repeated.

  “We established that. What is it“?

  “A report from the Northern Marches, Majesty,” he said, slightly out of breath as they walked. Fosdick recalled seeing there were four wooden soldiers near the Northern Marches.

  “Please don’t keep me in suspense,” King Fosdick replied. “Out with it.”

  “A green dragon has just appeared and is attacking the villages!”

  He stopped walking and turned to Rumsfield, who offered a paper to the King. Fosdick took the paper read it and looked back up a Rumsfield.

  “Is this correct? This green dragon is roughly the size of eighty horses?”

  “That is what they say, majesty.”

  “Has it made any demands?”

  “No, Majesty,” he pointed to the text of the message. “It burned two villages, turned Earl Farley’s castle into rubble and made a nest out of the rubble.”

  The King rubbed his temple with his right hand. At least McTaggart was out of the way. Move one trouble aside and another takes its place. He looked up at Rumsfeld.

  “Tell them not to worry,” he said. “We’ll send someone.”

  With that he turned and walked back down the corridor toward the map room.

  Gator Shoes

  Bardulf was excited. He had a quest to save Queen Prunella and return her to King Fosdick. The King would reward him.

  First, he would have to find the Sorcerer. He had no idea how to do that. He would begin where he solved all his problems: at the Tavern, the saloon, the bar, in deep meditation through inebriation.

  Bardulf liked Tavern Fosdick because it had ale, Astra, and the strange landlord who ran the place. He couldn’t recall being there much before, but these memories were etched into his mind.

  “What’s your name, tubbo?” asked the landlord when the barbarian sat down at the bar next to Jimmy Flowers. It was a game they played. “Here - have some chips. You fat bastard, you need your chips.”

  “Bardulf. My name is Bardulf.”

  “That’s a good Fosdickian name, Bardulf,” said the fat bastard landlord. “And what do you do?”

  “I’m a barbarian and I-”

  “Whooo, big fella. Just because I asked doesn’t mean I care. I sure as fuck don’t want to hear the story unless it begins and ends with you buying a fuck ton of drinks.”

  Bardulf reached into his pouch, pulled out a few coins, and put them on the bar. The landlord beamed and collected the coins.

  “Now, we’re talking,” the man said as he pocketed the money. “Go ahead and tell the story. I’m going to pour some brews for the filthy, beautiful souls wasting their lives here at the fine Tavern Fosdick. Wanker.”

  “I am on a quest to rescue Queen, um, Pricilla” said Bardulf searching for the name.

  “That’s PRUNELLA, you foul foreign wanker,” corrected the landlord.

  “That’s it! Queen Prunella. You see, after Hugh McTaggert--"

  “BOOO!” said the beautiful souls wasting their lives in the dank tavern.

  “He’s a real shit, that one,” said the landlord.

  “He might hear you!” exclaimed one of the drunks.

  “No, I heard he tripped and fell on a giant dirk and it killed him. All his guys are dead, except for Bernie, but he never talked much.”

  “That was me,” said Bardulf.

  “What? You? How? You’re the fattest fuck of all fat fucks who ever fucked fat.”

  Bardulf stood up.

  “Oh. You’re built weird and I’ll give it to you that got a few muscles under all that lard,” said the landlord. “I can see how you could kill him, if you actually were the Ramekin, instead of a bloated cunt.”

  “After you told me about the reward, I figured I should handle him. And, because he ran off the friars.”

  “Don’t get me started on those bastard monks,” moaned Jimmy Flowers. “They ran me into bankruptcy, bought my shop, and now all I can do all day is hide from my wife and kids with you lot.”

  “Fuck off!” exclaimed the beautiful, tick-infested people of the Town Fosdick.

  “Nobody likes you, Jimmy Flowers,” said the landlord. “You brought that bastard McTaggert to town. On top of that, you’re generally an unlikeable fuck. Order another beer or I’ll have Mr. Bardulf here clip your head off next.”

  Bardulf regarded the landlord for a moment, his grey eyes betraying nothing. He realized he could stay here and pull people’s heads off or he could get on with the business of saving Queen Prunella.

  Expecting a decapitation, the lovely people in the tavern grew hushed, save for a few slurps of ale.

  “I’ve noticed there is a flaw in my plan to rescue the Queen. I need to know where to find her,” he mumbled to himself. Bardulf turned to the crowd of unemployed reprobates occupying Tavern Fosdick and addressed them.

  “Good people of Kingdom Fosdick! I, Bardulf the Ramekin, shall rescue your queen and set Kingdom Fosdick to right. I shall rid
you of the scourge of the Sorcerer as I rid you of Hugh McTaggert. But first, I must learn one thing. Where can I find this Sorcerer so that I may rescue the queen?”

  “What about the damn dragons?” a voice cried.

  “Yeah, the dragons are fucking awful. They take over castles, make all kinds of demands. They’re like big scaly McTaggarts.”

  “Do they have anything to do with the queen?” Bardulf asked. “I must find the queen first. Where is she?”

  The crowd murmured again. People looked at each other. No answer came. A crow cawed in the distance.

  “No one? No one knows where the vile sorcerer abides?”

  Silence.

  A sound like sound of the crow calling haunted the tavern. It was like a cackling laugh, like a rusted metal hinge, and it came from the back of the tavern

  “Hehehe, I know where you might find the Sorcerer. But there is a price. Do not bother me with your coins, Bardulf. I would have you perform a task for me.”

  The crowd talked amongst itself again. Bardulf strolled to the back corner of the tavern, the corner people always avoided. As he got closer to where the voice came from, he saw a figure, perhaps a man, perhaps something else, in a tattered yellow cloak. His face was hidden by the hood. A plate with fresh chicken bones lay in front of him beside a half empty glass mug of pale ale.

  A pathetic pale ale. A foul drink for a foul man who just ate fowl, thought Bardulf.

  “What manner of man are you?” asked Bardulf as he stood before the form in tattered yellow.

  “I maybe a man such as you have never known, Bardulf the Ramekin. Yet also one you know well,” he rasped.

  “What would you have me do, oh creature whose name I do not know, so that I may find and rescue Queen Prunella?”

  “I need a new pair of shoes.”

  “What sort of shoes? And how do I know that you know where the Sorcerer lives and hides Queen Prunella?”

  “I am a wizard and I see many things that are hidden. Come closer and I shall show you.” Bardulf walked over and leaned down toward the man, putting his face in front of the hood. The wizard’s arm crept toward Bardulf’s head and a waxy hand extended behind his ear. “Careless. You had a coin behind your ear, Bardulf.”

  The Ramekin stood amazed at this feat of wizardry. He rubbed the thick black stubble on his head as he thought. If anyone could help him find the Sorcerer, it was this yellow wizard.

  “What sort of shoes do you require, oh wizard?”

  “A very special pair.”

  “Yes?”

  “A pair of alligator shoes, size 9.”

  “Alligator shoes?”

  “Yes. Crocodile shoes are not acceptable. I just don’t like them. I need alligator shoes.”

  “Very well, I will get you a pair of alligator shoes,” said Bardulf as he stood. “Do you require anything else to give me the location of the Sorcerer and Queen Prunella?”

  “NO!” suddenly there was a puff of dust and the yellow wizard disappeared, leaving nothing behind but his beer. Bardulf stood and stared for a moment. It was too fantastic, too magical. A vortex formed in mid air and the old man’s waxy, cadaverous arm came out, grabbed the mug of pale ale, and pulled it back into the whirling shades of yellow.

  “What are you waiting for,” came a disembodied voice from the vortex. “Go get my shoes!”

  There was a dry cackle that faded and disappeared with the vortex.

  Bardulf noticed to room was quiet. All eyes were on him. A sound came, like someone clapping. Soon, everyone joined in, adding whistles to the clapping.

  Bardulf walked toward the tavern door.

  “Fuck all, Big Bardulf,” said the landlord in a booming voice. “That was fucking fantastic. He never spoke before, much less performed magic. Fucking brilliant.”

  Filled with purpose, Bardulf left the building.

  The Ramekin got about fifteen feet before he realized now he had another problem.

  “Excuse me, old woman!” he said to a bent-over crone wearing a lavender babushka. “I’m on a quest for alligator shoes. Where can I find them?”

  “Bugger off! I’m thirty seven. My back is acting up. You try looking young when you’re working in the fields all day and night, you gigantic tat.”

  “I’m sorry, but can you help me?”

  “Sure,” she replied. “But you best show me the money.”

  Bardulf handed her two coins, but made sure to wipe them off first.

  “You’ll have to go two miles south, to the Swamp du Stink. You’ll find it if you follow your nose.”

  “Thank you, old woman,” Bardulf exclaimed. She threw a dirt clod at him as he walked away. She missed, but called him an asshole as he headed to the south gate.

  When he arrived at the swamp, the barbarian started looking for the shoes. He looked in trees. He looked in swamp grass. He looked in logs. He couldn’t find shoes anywhere.

  “This looks like an opportunity for violence,” Bardulf said.

  He approached an alligator sunning itself on the side of a pool of muddy water. The alligator saw him and spun in Bardulf’s direction with a thrash of his tail, but the barbarian was too quick. He grabbed the alligator, dislocated its jaw with a mighty heave, pummeled its head, and flipped it over.

  Disgusted, he threw it off to one side.

  Another alligator saw the commotion and looked at Bardulf as a long term meal. It swam toward him. Bardulf waited in the water and pounced when the gator approached. It didn’t stand a chance. The massive warrior dispatched the alligator, flipped it over, snorted, and threw it on top of the first gator.

  Bardulf repeated the battle four more times, creating a pile of six massive reptiles.

  He stood over the corpses and thought. The barbarian reached down and grabbed three tails in each hand and strode back to City Fosdick.

  When he returned, the people of City Fosdick watched him with great interest. Some were whispering about his muddy appearance and strange cargo. Soon a crowd started following him as he made his way to Tavern Fosdick.

  He pushed the door to the tavern open with his foot and dragged the clutch of alligators behind him as he walked toward the corner where the wizard had been sitting.

  The chair was empty.

  Bardulf turned toward the crowd and bellowed “WIZARD!”

  “No need to get excited,” rasped a voice behind him.

  Bardulf turned and there was the wizard in yellow, sitting at his table, drinking a yellow beer.

  “How did-”

  “Wizard,” said the wizard, pointing to himself. The crowd murmured.

  “You tasked me to bring you alligator shoes, size nine, so I went to the swamp,” Bardulf said. Noticing a small shrug underneath the wizard’s tattered robes, he continued. “None of the alligators had shoes, so I brought you alligators instead. Now I want to know what kind of game you’re playing.”

  “No game, Ramekin.”

  “How can I get you alligator shoes if alligators don’t wear shoes?!”

  Tavern Fosdick was quiet. The wizard’s laugh came like the wind through dry autumn leaves. The tavern landlord brayed like a donkey.

  “You really are the Ramekin, the Doom of Dragons, Bardulf,” said the wizard. “Have a seat. Let the adventure begin.”

  Wiz Words

  “We’ll be serving fried croc for a week and it won’t cost me a penny!” exclaimed the grinning landlord. “Do you realize that food costs are one of the hardest expenses to control in this business and that fellow just gave me free food? It’s a windfall. Maybe we can make some jerky, too!”

  “Alligators,” said Bardulf the Ramekin.

  “What?”

  “You said crocodiles. These are alligators.”

  “Same thing.”

  “No, they’re related, but different,” he said. “The alligator’s snout is more of a U shape. Also, crocodiles are bigger and more aggressive.”

  “Look at you and your fancy college education,” the landlord
retorted. “They’re the same because they both taste like chicken.”

  Back at the table, the wizard sat in his chair like a wax sculpture, except that wax sculptures rarely drink beer.

  “Fried.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Fried, Ramekin, fried,” he repeated. “This won’t work out if I must repeat myself or say things again. You are doomed if I constantly reiterate.”

  “You said ‘fried’ and I don't know what you mean, wizard.”

  “Get me some fried alligator, Bardulf. You may call me Mort.”

  The barbarian went about the details of arranging some fried alligator for the wizard, brought the old man’s bar tab up to date, and came back to the table. The wizard hadn’t moved though he seemed just a tad dustier.

  “Now, Mort the Wizard, can we get on with telling me how to rescue Queen Prunella, please?”

  “It will be dangerous.”

  “Danger and I are old companions.”

  “It will be perilous.”

  “We covered that. What was it you said about reiterating things?”

  “You must face two dragons.”

  “Dragons?” said Bardulf, his face contorted. “Dragons are difficult beasts at the best of times. They can be clever and brutal. Never underestimate a dragon.”

  “There are two of them. Perhaps three.”

  “You mentioned that, wizard.”

  “There is a red dragon,” Mort said. “This dragon lives in a red castle, just beyond the forest. The red dragon guards the red sword, a sword you must possess if you are to defeat the Sorcerer.”

  “How do I defeat the red dragon? Does he have a weakness?”

  “The red dragon guards the red sword with great ferocity because that sword is the only thing that can slay it. The dragon will not let you take the sword, but you must. And you must kill it or it will harry you until it can regain the sword.”

  “I must steal the sword from the dragon guarding the sword and then kill it with the sword.”

  “Exactly,” said Mort the Wizard, as took a drink of his ale. “There are further dangers unknown to any, save those who have already fallen to them.”