You Must Be This Tale To Live

Tryggvi Fuchs was short. He was barely a hand taller than his right-hand man, Harmanga "We Can Sell It" Grabstrangler, aka Harry, who was a dwarf. A dwarf who could speak a few languages, read a few more and write in all of them, making him invaluable in a localized resistance against a far superior foreign invasion.

"But height isn't a prerequisite for becoming a legend," Harry wrote in his journal at the table where Zear "Stubby" Stenbold tossed in fever-dream. "People of all stature accomplish great and wonderful things in their lives. The story-teller often makes up for a lack of height by embellishing other details. These tall tales are quite astounding creations."

While he wrote, he spoke aloud, for the boy to hear. "There's one tall tale about Tryggvi Fuchs and a group of damnens he met after he fed the first Gien invasion to another group of damnens. Now, damnens are ferocious Drakes, eh, lad? Not one-slash-kills like your Gien friends. Nope, these things have hides, hands and arms carved of rock and tipped with four sharpened claws, as big as swords, each of them. They're big, oh, are they big. Each of them is a tall tale writ true to life, they are.

"And they're smart, these damnens. Smart as a Gien general, each of them. Deserve their field batons, their medals of command. Some say they can read each other's minds, they work so well together. A single band can hold off an attacking force of goblins while help is on the way. They know their land, lad. They know every inch of that jungle that is our back door." Harry smiled a bit in memory of Tryggvi's encounters with the damnens. The truth at least, will be written here, he thought.

He bent back over the page, eyes gleaming in the candlelight. "But the one thing you can't forget, you Mar, you Giens, is that the damnens, alone of all the Drakes, are immune to magic." He punched the pen hard against the paper until the ink bled too much, almost eclipsing the "c."
"No, outright cunning is the only way they can be beat, and Tryggvi's the only man who's ever beat them."

"What foul tales are you spinning now, Harry?" The smooth voice poured into the room like hot wax into cold water.

"I'm writing your wanted poster for the Giens, Tryggvi," Harry said without hesitation. "I thought I'd see if I can make some money off them."

"Glad to see your spirit hasn't changed."

The leader of the resistance limped across the room and sat down in a chair on the opposite side of the table and stared at Stubby. Harry watched his friend as he removed his broad brimmed hat the color of mud, exposing a head bald mostly because of the number of scars on it. Grey hair streaked the long, dirty moustache and thick beard that covered most of the face where an eyepatch and bent nose didn't.

You'd never think that voice came from this face, Harry thought.

"What's this one, then?" Tryggvi said, adjusting his eyepatch and gesturing to Stubby.

"He's the lead vocals of the band you used in the tavern. He came to join our band, because his is dead."

Tryggvi stared at the sewn-up, fever-red face of Stubby for a long minute.

"Better'n we expected, that," he said, finally. "Well, his face is the worst part, right?"

"Yeah. What are you thinking?"

"It's almost time for the tribute."

Harry hesitated. There was not a whole lot of things in life that made his spine try to creep out of his body and hide somewhere, but the tribute was one of them.

Harry shook his head. "We said only Giens."

"He gave up his citizenship when he defected."

"He just wanted to make some money!"

"He consorted with the enemy with no intention to destroy them. He accepted their existence." Tryggvi's words were his mantra. They were what helped him justify everything he did. "He chose to believe the Mar would not defeat the Giens. He gave up."

"I didn't spend half the day saving his life to have you give him to the damnens."

"You know they don't kill most of the tribute."

Harry shuddered. "Tryggvi," he said, pleadingly, thinking fast. "I believe him when he says he wants to change. What if he brought a Gien to replace him?"

Now Tryggvi's good eye fixed itself on Harry, and the dwarf imagined seeing into the mind of a man who gave a man and a woman to the most vile race of creatures on the planet so they could be domesticated like ... like sheep.

The eye bored into Harry's face, and the dwarf couldn't keep his head up. I can kill mercilessly, I can steal, and rape, and burn, and destroy any opponent, Harry thought. But I can't challenge this man for sheer atrocity.

"Fine." Tryggvi said sternly. "He's got two days."

The resistance's leader rose to his feet, making him not a whole lot taller. He leaned across Stubby's body, poking a finger at Harry.

"And he's not to know why, you understand? I don't want him running off. And it needs to be male, right? It's his replacement. I've got the girl."

"She's well-used, huh?" Harry said as Tryggvi reached the door, trying to get a bit of the old camaraderie back.

Tryggvi grunted and left the room.

Harry took a deep breath and stared at the boy, who was, if not alert, at least awake. The boy's eyelids flickered open and closed, but the pupils seemed to focus on Harry. The dwarf patted Stubby's leg.

"Don't worry, lad, we'll find a way out of this one. Get some sleep, and listen to Tryggvi's wanted poster."

Stubby's eyes closed again, and his breathing grew even. Sweat broke out on his forehead halfway through Harry's recitation, but the dwarf didn't notice.

********

Tryggvi Fuchs collapsed onto the log, his leg inflamed, the fever burning through his very body. Hallucinations surrounded him.

He grabbed his waterskin and took a long drink, then poured the rest over his wound. Unsteadily, he drew one of the throwing daggers and concentrated. Using every ounce of his will and a thick stick wrapped in leather, he scraped at the pus-covered, blackened and rotting flesh on his leg where the sword had cut him so many weeks ago.

The pain was unbearable, and he nearly snapped the stick in two with his teeth. The last thing he wanted, though, this deep into damnen territory, was to give them another reason to kill him.

He washed the wound again, and passed out. When he woke, they had surrounded him.

These were goblins though, their flattened faces and squinting eyes boring into Tryggvi. Two had spears ready to strike.

"By all the gods," Tryggvi said, "am I glad you're not the damnens."

They stepped back in alarm, for he had spoken in their tongue. After many looks at each other, one of them stepped forward. A leader maybe.

"You speak our language?" it said.

Tryggvi tried to sit up, but dizziness forced him back down.

"Yar," he said. "I speak your language. We are allies, you and I."

The goblins looked confused, and leader barked an order at the ones with spears to keep them at the ready.

"We are not allying ourselves with the Mar," the leader said. "We are destroying the Mar."

Tryggvi used every ounce of willpower he had left, and sat up. The world wavered around him, but he held still, using a sword as a crutch.

"You are destroying the Giens," he said, and paused. There really was no word for them. Even Mar literally translated as enemy. Hard to make a distinction. "Invasion," he tried. "From the east, in their thousands. Many more than you. Do not fight me. Fight the invasion."

"Those weak creatures?" the leader scoffed. "They do not see mud until it is thrown into their faces." All the goblins laughed.

"They are numerous beyond count," Tryggvi said, his voice deepening. "Their magic is very powerful. They will come, and they will level the forest and remove the mud and put up their dwellings and there will be no room for goblins or Mar to fight."

The goblin leader ruminated on this. "And we will kill you anyway, but thank you for the warning."

"Wait," Tryggvi said, swaying slightly. He held up both arms to stop the spears from thrusting forward. "I'll make a bargain for my life," he said, and then vomited.

The spear-holders stepped back, and the leader didn't press them. Goblins always liked an easy way out, if they could find out.

"Tell us your bargain."

"You must aid the damnens, right? You must give them Mar?"

"You want to go?" The goblin made a fair show of incredulity, but mostly looked as though his bowels had just been removed.

"No, no," Tryggvi said, grabbing his sword out of the mud with a gloved hand. "We will build a town here, right here. And here we will help repel the invasion. I will provide your tribute."

The leader seemed impressed. "For your life, you will give up one of your fellow Mar?"

"Not Mar, Gien," Tryggvi said. "Will the damnen know the difference? They want food. New food could be good, for you." He heaved again, but his stomach was empty.

"Maybe we'll leave you," the goblin leader said. "Maybe we'll see what these Giens are."

The goblins left, and Tryggvi drank some more water and passed out again. This time, when he woke, he could feel them. Feel the damnens, watching him from the trees.

"I made a bargain! With the goblins," he said loudly, in goblin. "You talk to them if you want to kill me!"

There was no sound, no change of presence.

"You know the Giens," he said again, in damnen. "I can offer you nothing. But they offer you thousands. Wait, before you kill me. Wait, or they may not come. You will enjoy what you find."

Maybe he felt approval, but he drank again and passed out, the fever throbbing in his veins, his stomach calling for his head in a noose, and his leg demanding it be cut off.

This time, when he woke, he vomited first, and there were the Giens.

A Dwarf was the translator.

"Er, have you got a needle?" he asked, his eyes burning into his skull.

The Dwarf produced a black packet of needles, much to his amazement. The general shouted something at them.

"He says," the dwarf, whose name was Harmanga, said, "where is your army?"

"I am but bait, for I am weak and dying," Tryggvi said, staring at Harmanga with burning eyes. "My army lies in ambush behind me, waiting for your silly soldiers to come and take me."

Harry took care of Tryggvi's leg and fever with herbs and his needle while the general sent scouts out and paced. When the scouts never returned, the general ordered a retreat, but Tryggvi took hold of Harry's arm.

"Be wary," Tryggvi told the dwarf. "The damnens will have surrounded us by now."

"What are damnens?" Harry said as the screams began.

"Run this way," Tryggvi said, and using a sword as a crutch, he led the dwarf away from the Giens. Through the deep swamp they marched, ever away from the sounds of fruitless battle, as the damnens slaughtered the army brought before them.

Finally they rested in a clearing, many miles from the Giens.

"You saved my life," Harry said. "I would have surely died."

"You are the one smart person in that entire outfit," Tryggvi answered the unspoken question. "They all believed themselves invincible, and now they are defeated."

"But how did you know the damnens had surrounded us?"

"I made," he grunted as he shifted his weight, "an arrangement."

There were sounds in the brush.

"Stay still. They just want me."

Using a long stick Harry found as a crutch, Tryggvi stood and held the hilts of both swords, the points resting in the ground. His arms shook just to do that.

Eight damnens appeared at one end of the clearing, howling ferociously. They stopped when they saw the man and the dwarf. The sounds of sixteen sets of claws unsheathing punctured the air.

Tryggvi, half the height of the monsters, feverish, leg bandaged and weak from weeks of running, fumbled one of his swords. With two hands, he raised the other one.

"My magic cannot harm you," he reminded them needlessly, in their tongue, as they spread out a bit. "And my skill is no match for your numbers. But I promise you this, by Marrish and seven other gods, the first three of you who come within my reach will die." His voice grew darker and stronger with each word. A wind whipped the air. The crutch fell as he spoke, and he stood straighter.

The damnens hesitated.

"So, which three want to die?"

Tryggvi stepped forward, lurching a bit as his foot stuck in the mud.

Then, with howls and screams, the goblins attacked. From the left and from the right, the smaller Drakes pounced on their masters, spears flailing. Most of them fell, but so did three of the damnens. The rest of the damnens fled, bleeding, with curses for the goblins.

The goblin leader mounted a damnen corpse and stared down at where Tryggvi was desperately trying to pick up his second sword, and Harry was making himself still as a statue.

"I know," Tryggvi said hoarsely, down on one knee in the mud. "I know. Double, right?"

"Man and woman," the leader said.

"Fine. Let me get going."

********

"You see, right?" Harry whispered to the sleeping Stubby. "Do you see how the truth can be changed, just by writing it down? But I'm sure you don't understand all the implications here. We are giving two Giens to the goblins every tribute. Once per month. They give them to the damnens, who eat them or breed them. Tryggvi made that arrangement when we decided to use this place, though. Not back then, 25 years ago. And so the damnens don't know. But we can tell the damnens, and the goblins know that. So they protect us. Get it?"

Harry took a deep breath and stared at the words he had written. "History could be changed," he said. "This could be found, and everyone will think this is true. And I wrote it, because I wanted to discredit the man." He giggled lightly. "Discredit him! So that a hundred years after we all are dead, people will say, he was a bad guy. What, do you suppose, does it matter at all?"

He held the papers over the candle flame until they took fire, and held them until the pages had burned nearly to his fingers. Then he tossed them to the ground.

"Only you will know," he told the passed out Stubby, "that I could have destroyed Tryggvi Fuchs."

He pulled another piece of paper close to him and started writing down the truth.

Copyright 2005-2007 Eric Zawadzki and Matthew Schick. All Rights Reserved.
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