Dumb Luck

Chapter 1

Swamp, fort, and grunting.

The swamps a nasty fucking place. Dead leaves floating on top of oily water. Mud, lots of it. The kind of mud that looks normal but when you step on it all the stink gets squished out. The kind of mud that sticks to boots.

John was kicking the black stuff off of his boots as I was ringing out my cloak. I’m Jack by the way.

“God should be ashamed of this fucking mud!” John was saying. He always thought god should be ashamed of things John didn’t like.

“Maybe...” I returned distractedly. It didn’t really matter what I said to John. He was going to do whatever he was going to do.

“So thats it? Thought it would be nicer.” John stood looking up at a craggy mountain face and the ruined old fort that topped it. I hadn’t noticed it as I was still getting the swamp crap off my boots.

“Big son of a bitch isn’t it?” I said looking up the mountain trying to trace out a path we might take to get to the fort.

John was taking off his pack. He rummaged inside and came out with an oversized pot and a fire bow, you know, those little sticks and strings outdoorsy types use to start a fire. John was an outdoorsy type, he’d have the fire going in no time I was sure, he’d also be telling me how I needed to learn how to use a fire bow myself. Oh, hold on here it comes.

“You know, you really need to learn to do this! I won't always be around to help you start a fire.” John was beaming with pride as he blew into the smoldering clutch of leaves.

“Now’s not the time for me to learn it though.” I returned. I actually did know how to use a fire bow, but John liked starting fires and it made him feel good to know stuff I didn’t.

“Why not? Good as anytime.” John replied.

“Because for one, you already have the fire started and two, if you aren’t around to start a fire in this swamp I’m not going to make it out of here without you.”

John seemed puzzled at first then once understanding my gist, shrugged and continued building the fire.

“Hey, John, you think we should have a fire so near the fort? I mean, what if they see us?” I asked.

“Think they will see it from there?”

“I don’t know... In all the stories the heroes never light a fire once they get close to the goal right?” It sounded reasonable to me.

“Well, this isn’t a story and we, sure as shit, aren’t heroes.” He kept building up the fire.

John was right, we weren’t heroes. At best we were thieves. At our worst we were murderers. I mean, really, we weren’t that good of fellows. Hell, once John killed a guy. Not only that, he then dragged him all the way up a hill to throw him off a cliff. I’d asked him why he did it, the cliff part not the killing, and he said it was because he wanted to make people think it was a suicide. I told him that suicides don’t stab themselves in the stomach with a knife. He had argued that if you had stabbed yourself in the stomach that it would hurt so bad that you just might jump off a cliff to end the pain. John’s always been the smart one.

Snapping back to the present, “Why can’t we be the heroes? I mean, look at us. We have swords and shields and stuff! We have been in a load of fights. And look at that castle! We are going to storm the shit out of that thing!” I felt heroic... or was that hungry? Most things that I thought were heroic I often did because I was hungry.

“Thats not a castle, its a fort. And we’re not storming it. We are sneaking in stealth like. And we’re here to steal from it if there’s anything left to steal. If you want to be a hero you have to save a lady in trouble or kill a bad guy or something.” John said throwing a rotting log into the fire he’d built up. “Weren’t you just saying you didn’t want anyone in the fort to see you? Me on the other hand, look at this bold heroic fire I just made. I don’t care if they can see us. Heroes stuff that is.”

“Think there are any ladies in there?” I asked.

“If there are, I’m stealing those too!” At this John made thrusting motions with his hips while smiling.

John hung up his leathers on a line over the fire to dry. I did the same but also hung up my shield and cloak. Johns shield and cloak had been on his pack. He said I should do the same but I think I look way tougher when I wear my shield and cloak.

We sat by the fire and talked about how we were going to sneak into the fort and find all kinds of treasure and how we were going to get very drunk when we came to the next inn hauling all that gold. It was fun but I don’t think John really thought there was going to be a lot of treasure.

“Think there will be any ladies at the next inn or just more whores?” I asked pulling a dry loaf of bread from John’s pack.

“Whores, one way or the other there are always whores.” John answered “Since when did you start caring about ladies?” He asked.

“Since you told me I had to save one to be a hero.”

“Not worth it.”

I was suprised, “What do you mean, not worth it?”

“Heroes always get bothered with villains now don’t they? Ya, one day you’re saving a lady the next day you’re dealing with a bunch of creepy villains that want to kill you, and why do they want to kill you Jack?” He asked raising an eyebrow while I thought about it.

“Because... Oh, because you’re a hero!” I’m pretty smart too.

“Exactly! Now who needs that trouble when you can just stick up some drunk guy in an alley and buy a good whore?” John looked well pleased with himself and tore off a piece of bread.

“You know I don’t like whores.” I don’t. They lie to you and take your money, and the next day you want another one. I think John likes them even though he’s allergic, sometimes he gets a bad itch after he has a night with one.

“Why is that? Don’t you like girls?” John asked.

“Sure I do, but I don’t think whores and girls are the same thing?”

“The fuck they aren’t, have you ever seen a man whore?” John asked

“No. I mean I like girls but I don’t want to pay for them.” I said.

“Cheap bastard. Besides, you pay for them one way or another.”

We ate the rest of our dinner and checked to see if our clothes were dry. They were. It was cold out so we put our leathers on while they were still warm. Mine were too warm and I think it did something to my insides because it made me have to poop really bad. I told John I was going to relieve myself.

“One or two?” John asked.

“Two.” I answered and John threw me a rag.

I walked to the waters edge and hung my butt off an exposed root of one of those water trees, you know, those trees that look like they are on stilts. I always though if the damn tree didn’t want to get wet, it shouldn’t live by the water. After a grunt I heard a splash and turned around to see my handiwork.

“Holy shit!” I screamed, scrambling off the root and buttoned up my pants.

“What is it! Did they see the fire?!” John rushed up beside me and looked where I was pointing. “Wow there big fella! Lay off the meat! That must have been building up to a while!” John slapped me on the back in congratulation.

“No, not that, look at that.” I took a step closer to the water and the object poking out of its surface, a human hand.

“Fucking hell! What the fuck?! When did you become a cannibal?!” John backed away from me with his hands raised defensively.

“I’m not! I didn’t poop it! I think it was already there!” I was hurt that John thought I had eaten a man, and apparently without chewing.

“I knew that...”

We both approached the shore and John pretended to gag on the smell. Actually he was right, I needed to lay off the meat. The hand was gray and slimy with rot, and now a little brown.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“How should I know?” John answered.

“He’s gotta be somebody.” I said.

“Well, of course he’s somebody, I mean, everyone is somebody, right?” John asked.

“Yes, he’s definitely somebody.” I answered.

Once in agreement that I had relieved myself on a somebody we decided to get a stick and poke a somebody. We did. Poking a dead somebody is never as exciting as you think it will be.

Once John poke a dead somebody and that somebody screamed at us. At first we thought he was a zombie but John figured out who the dead somebody was and it turned out he wasn’t a dead somebody or a zombie, just an asleep somebody. We were relieved.

This dead somebody didn’t scream.

“Well, he’s not a zombie.” John said. I was relieved.

“He is dead though.” I said. John just looked at me.

“How long ago did you see him?” John asked.

“Right before I yelled holy shit.” I answered.

“I think people can hold their breath that long. We had better wait a while before...” I don’t know what we were going to do once we were sure he was dead and not just holding his breath but I didn’t want to let John know so I just sat down on the shore and waited.

“How long can people hold their breath John?” I asked. It had been a long time since we started waiting.

“I don’t know.” John looked like he was thinking really hard. “You hold your breath and when you have to breath we will know that guy, the guy thats not a zombie, we will know he’s not holding his breath. Then we will know he’s dead.”

“Smart.” I started holding my breath. I didn’t want the guy that wasn’t a zombie to scream at us so I held my breath as long as I could. When I woke up John was laughing at me.

“You held your breath for a long time!” John said. I smiled at him, proud of myself and wiped the mud off my forehead. “I think he’s dead.” I waited to see what John was going to do then helped him pull the dead, not asleep, not a zombie, guy out of the water.

We hung our leathers back up on the line over the fire. They were still warm so it wouldn’t take long for them to dry.

While our clothes were drying we started what John called a preliminary examination of the dead guy. I didn’t know how to preliminary examination so I just looked at the guy while John preliminary examinationed. It looked like John was just poking him with a stick some more.

The corpse was tall. Big guy. Big ribbs. Big hands. Most of him was bones now, the flesh rotted off by the water or eaten away by fish. The idea of fish eating a man was creeping me out. So in my head I told myself fish didn’t eat him, it was frogs.

“John, do frogs have teeth?” I asked.

“They have mouths don’t they?” John asked.

“Yes frogs have mouths.” I answered. “Just because they have mouths though doesn’t mean they have teeth. Some of your whores didn’t have teeth.”

John shrugged. “I don’t know if frogs have teeth.”

Besides being big the corpse was also wearing armor. Not leathers like me and John. He had heavy metal armor, nice stuff too, all carved and fancy with little chains and buckles. That’s probably what killed him, swimming in armor. Whoever the dead guy was, he wasn’t smart.

“Think that armor still works?” I asked. John looked like he was thinking really hard.

“Lets stand him up and find out!” John answered.

We tied the corpse to a tree and took turns hitting it with our swords. None of the ribs fell out from behind the armor so we agreed the armor still worked.

“Do you mind if I take his armor?” I asked.

“Now how the hell are you going to sneak around in metal armor? Those little chains and buckles are going to clink every time you take a step.” John said, he was right.

“Maybe I won't have to sneak if I have armor.” I said.

“Well what kind of thief would you be if you didn’t sneak? Not a very good one.” John asked and then answered.

“Ok. Think its worth much?” I asked.

“Only one way to find out. We will sell it at the next town we come to. Lets see what else he’s got on him.

Turns out he had some nice daggers in his coat but we had smashed them up pretty bad when we were testing the armor. He also had a little coin purse but the coins were weird looking, not from around here. We stashed those away and continued our pilfering.

His pack held a rotten bed roll, smashed up water jugs, rotten papers, some silver cutlery which we stashed, a simple wood bowl, a smashed up smoking pipe, a smashed up looking glass, and two silver rings. The rings were really neat looking. Big square things with wolf heads carved into them. John and I both put one on. They looked tough as hell. Wolfs are tough.

His boots were too big for John but fit me well. They were leather with big black metal buckles, not the kind the clinked though. We put those up on the line over the fire and wiggled back into our leathers.

Standing there playing with our new rings we both eyed the corpse, still tied to the tree.

“What should we do with him?” John asked.

“Leave him there I guess. Better than being in the water.” We both shrugged and turned to look at the castle, I mean fort, on the mountainside.

---

The walls of the ruined fort were not quite ruined enough. We must have climbed around the outside of the fort for a hour before finding a crack big enough to slip through. Once inside the prospect of finding treasure became grim. The dusty courtyard we found ourselves in was completely empty. No barrels. No crates. No tools. Not anything more than dust and fallen leafs.

“Crap.” I said

“What’s the matter?” John asked.

“There’s nothing here, it’s empty.” I answered.

“It’s just tidy. Whoever lived in the fort kept it clean, you know, like the inside of rich peoples homes.” John was an optimist. “There’s probably loads of stuff inside!”

We scanned the courtyard and decided to look in the tower keep first, because if  John were a boss John would want a good view of those he bossed. Also, if I were a boss I’d have nice stuff at hand.

We bounded the stairs in an all too none-sneaky fashion to find a large wooden door at the top. John hunched down into proper sneaking form as we approached the door and I followed suit.

John leaned in to whisper, “Are you ready for a pay day?” He then kicked the door in and flourished his hand towards the inside of the room.

“...Fucking empty.” Johns optimism was waning.

A small drunken voice came from behind the large wooden door, “You ass hole! You squished me!” The voice belonged to a somebody that was currently pinned to the wall by the heavy door.

John and I jumped back and drew swords.

“Wolves attack!” John screamed then charged into the room.

“Wolves attack?” I laughed, “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked. John looked about the room then walked back to where I was standing and sheathed his sword.

“Oh, ya. I...um... I thought we needed a name, you know, like proper bandits.” John’s face was a little red for some reason but I dismissed it due to his brilliant idea of having a bandit name.

“Fearsome that is! Wolves! Wait, why wolves?” I asked. John held up his hand and waved his new wolf ring in front of my face. “Right, thats good!”

“Ya. Ok, on three I’ll say wolves attack and we charge in, ok?” John asked.

“Right!”

John didn’t count to three but instead screamed wolves attack and rushed into the room again drawing his sword.

“You didn’t count to three!” I said and John started walking back then stopped.

“It’s ruined now. Just get in here. We’ll do it next time.”

We walked into the room to see one arm sticking out from behind the door clutching a brass heralds horn, you know, one of those little trumpet things people blow into when an important person like a king walks into a room, you know, long straight metal thing that gets wider the farther it gets from the mouthpiece, one of those.

“Who are you?!” I barked at the guy behind the door.

“The door is stuck! I think you knocked it off its hinges. What the devil are you doing kicking in the door like that?” The voice sounded weird and for the first time I noticed the hand holding the trumpet was green.

“Who are you?!” John asked.

“It’s me Ruppert! Who else mans the watch tower on Thursdays?!”

“Ruppert?” John and I asked in unison.

“Ya! Now get this stupid door off me!”

John and I shrugged and sheathed our weapons. The door had in fact had been knocked off its hinges and was a motherfucker to move. Once free the trapped goblin wheezed out a small cough and rubbed at his ribs while regaining his breath. He then turned to face us.

Everyone froze. John froze because he’d never seen a goblin before. I froze because I had never seen a goblin before. The goblin froze because he didn’t know who we were, he’d seen a goblin before of course.

The goblin slowly started moving. Inch by inch he pulled the trumpet towards his mouth. John, realizing the goblin ment to blow the horn, slowly unsheathed his sword. Seeing this the goblin slowly lowered the trumpet. In turn John slowly slid his sword back into place. The goblin began to move the trumpet back towards his mouth, which was pursed, and ready to blow. I began unsheathing my sword with equal speed. The goblin lowered the trumpet. We took turns eyeing each other when the goblin bolted for the door blasting a high pitched note.

“Wolves attack!” We screamed in unison as we gave chase, swords flailing about. We had almost caught up with the little green bugger just before he darted out into the courtyard. As we rushed out of the tower after him there came a sound. Goblins. Lots of the little fuckers. The courtyard was full of them.

Ruppert smashed through the front row, his trumpet flung overhead, disappearing into the mass of green faces and bared grey teeth. John and I slid to a halt.

I had heard about goblins, you know, in a bards tale or from soldiers passing through town, but I had never thought I would actually see one... let alone fifty or so all in one place. They were short, just like in the stories, but they didn’t seem like the goblins in the stories.

“Are you goblins?” John asked, apparently reading my mind. They seemed stunned by the question. They turned to each other, murmuring under their breaths.

One of the green guys stepped forward saying, “Ya. Goblins. What do you think we are?” This reply seemed generally supported by the collective, green heads nodding to each other.

“Oh, right. Wasn’t sure. Never seen one of you fellows before.” John answered. This seemed to only further their confusion.

“Never seen one of us before? Who are you? Can’t be a soldier.” Another goblin said stepping out of the crowd. The rest of the goblins seemed in agreement that we were not soldiers.

“Oh, um... I’m John”

The goblins murmured amongst themselves some more. “John who?” The first goblin asked his long green ears twitching back and forth as if actively listening for the answer.

“John of the Wolf Bandits.” John answered elbowing me, well pleased with himself.

“And I’m Jack of the Wolf Bandits.” I chimed in grinning.

“Wolf Bandits?” The second goblin asked looking to the first, “You ever heard of the Wolf Bandits?” The first goblin shook his head, as did many of the other goblins.

“How big is your bandit clan?” The second goblin asked, his lower jaw jutting out past his long nose. He needed to clean his teeth, I mean, I know I’m not the cleanest guy but damn! His teeth were all cracked and black stuff was growing along his gums.

“Oh, well, just the two of us right now.” John answered sheepishly. The goblins looked back and forth and muttered some more. They seemed to come to a consensus, nodding to the first goblin.

“In that case you’re in some trouble... We are going to eat you, you know that right? I mean we are goblins after all.” The first goblin said raising a sparse and bristly brow, a question hanging on his green face. A few of the goblins started stretching in preparation.

“I didn’t think goblins actually did that...” John looked to me, a questioning expression on his own face. I shrugged.

“Well... aren’t you going to run?” The second goblin asked. I found myself wondering how he spoke so clearly with such a heavy underbite. The goblins that weren’t stretching were passing out weapons in an orderly fashion.

“Is that how this works? I mean... We could stand and fight, right?” I asked, noticing for the first time since seeing the goblins that John and I were still holding our swords.

The goblin conferred once more then nodded to the first goblin. “I guess so but there’s a lot of us, right? It’s not likely you’ll last long.”

“True... But where would we run, I mean, you’re all over the courtyard. The only place we could run is back into the tower.” John replied. He turned and looked back at the tower staircase. “We’d just have to fight you at the top of those stairs and we would be way more tired after climbing them again.”

The second goblin scratched his bald head, sending transparent green flakes of skin to drift in the air. “I guess so but most people run. It’s kind of a goblin tradition really. People see a bunch of us and run, we swarm over everything in our path and then kill people. If you don’t run we won't really be able to swarm around and get all chaotic. That’s the best bit about being a goblin really.” The rest of the goblins smiled. Some of them seemed to look off into the distance as if reminiscing about swarmings of days gone by.

“Oh. Well, I mean, I guess we could run but... I mean we already hiked all the way up here from the swamp, climbed around the wall, went up those stair to the top of the tower...”

“Then we chased Ruppert back down them too.” I added. Ruppert had nudged his way to the front of the goblin pack. He gave a little wave and a toothy smile. I waved back.

The goblins did not look pleased.

“Do you guys actually have to kill us?” John asked.

The first goblin seemed surprised. “Yes! Yes, we have to kill you! We have a reputation to uphold! If we just let people go after they invade our fortress then more people will try it! No! We can’t let you go! We are going to eat you then scatter your bones in the swamp! Tradition!”

I became aware that the corpse we found in the swamp was probably their doing. “Did you guy kill a guy recently and dump him in the water? Had heavy armor and wolf rings, boots like these?? I asked lifting my footwear for their examination.

The first goblin looked over the goblin pack and waited for an answer, his anger replaced with curiosity. A shorter than average goblin stepped forward. “Yup. Guy went by the name Simon. Tasted like a rich man but fought like a beast. Took off Grimly's leg he did.” The fat goblin pointed to another freaky looking goblin that sported a peg leg.

“Why didn’t you guys loot his corpse?” John asked eyeing the ring encircling his finger. “He had some nice stuff. Could have sold it for a nice bit of coin.”

This sent the goblin pack into laughter. “Sell? Who the fuck would buy anything from a goblin? Ha! Just walk into town and chat up a friendly shopkeeper? Fucking hell, you guys are clueless!”

“What do you mean?” I asked. The goblins burst into another wave of laughter.

“Goblins don’t make coins and your kind won't have anything to do with us. Your kind hate us, just like we hate them.”

“Why do you hate us?” John asked.

Confusion. Total and utter confusion. The goblins looked back and forth at one another and mumbled in pairs and group.

A new comer to the conversation piped up. “For one, they killed my parent!”

“Oh...” John looked at the ground and wore a look of regret. “Sorry to hear that. Was it your mother or your father?”

Another burst of laughter. “You’ve got shit for brains haven’t ya!” The goblins we near tears before the roaring laughter died down. “There are no mommy and daddy goblins. There are just goblins!”

“Goblins!” The crowd echoed, waving their weapons over head.

“I don’t get it.” I said. This was met with another round of howls and back slaps.

Seeing that we weren’t joking, the goblin with the peg leg stepped forward, the goblins cheered. He threw his sword to one side and took a wide stance. He adjusted his stance getting lower, placing his feet just so, you know, the way people do before lifting something really heavy. He clenched his jaw hard, the muscles of his face tightening. Then grunted loudly. The rest of the goblins cheered him on with word of encouragement. He adjusted his stance and strained, his face turning from its speckled green and sickly yellow to a shade of red. Veins popped from his temples and he bobbed his torso up and down, fists balled tight with white knuckles. The grunting grew louder. Then, as unbelievable as it may sound, he laid an egg.