Blurb
A plucky underdog. A powerful necromancer. And the idiot heroes bent on murdering them.
Kobolds are supposed to run away—it’s what they’re best at. But Jack? Born with a club foot, he’s had to adapt. Resilient and clever, he clawed his way to respectability as majordomo of a premiere subterranean estate. He even found a father figure in the famed necromancer who owns the place.
Life was perfect… until a superband of overpowered do-gooders arrived bent on burglary and murder. These mercilessly righteous warriors of light cannot be beaten, or at least that’s how it looks on paper.
Jack must choose between survival and the people he loves… unless he can somehow defy the stats and find an unconventional solution.
If you like Terry Pratchett, J. Zachary Pike, or Nicholas Eames, you’ll love Majordomo. Buy now, before the price goes up or the murderhobos descend.
Excerpt
Chapter Two
Eniwin smiled. The sheer surprise of the move threw me.
This was last May, at Craggenrack, in the reception foyer. Right after she tried to rob the place.
“Raiders, boss. Side door.” Rock, the captain of the guard, had shaken me awake with gnollish hands the size of my head. His doglike features—the long nose, sharp teeth, and terrible breath—sharpened into focus before my tired eyes. It wasn’t the worst way to wake up, but it was close. Plus, it was two in the morning, so off the top, I was in a foul mood.
“They tripped the door knocker,” he said.
This brightened things considerably. I’m especially proud of that trap, having designed it myself. We mainly use Craggenrack’s side door for deliveries, cleaning staff, and the like. It’s not a secret passage, but if you’re stupid and it’s dark out, you might mistake it for one. It draws dim-witted burglars like moths to a flame.
The outer door opens into a deliberately narrow stone hallway. If you’re legit, you follow this for fifty yards, turn right at the arrow, and report to reception. If you’re a thief or a party of robbers, then halfway across the foyer, a massive granite slab drops from the roof, trapping you inside and, with any luck, grinding your rearguard to pulp. The guards slam down a heavy iron portcullis at reception, and the whole thing becomes a duck shoot.
By the time Rock and I got there, the place was choked with bodies. You could smell blood and smoke from a hundred paces. Three of Rock’s guards lay dead on my side of the portcullis. Somewhere under the hail of crossbow bolts, a mage had returned fire. Looked like lightning. These things happen. It’s one reason I’ve got so much experience recruiting.
Hadn’t helped the mage. He was lying midway up the ambush with a black-feathered arrow in his eye.
I found Eniwin McGoo under a barbarian with a half-dozen arrows in his back. He’d tried to claw his way out, but it took three massive counterweights to move that block.
She was a tiny thing, not more than three feet tall. Soaked in blood, shivering from shock, plainly terrified. Normally, “no survivors” is something of a mantra for me. Frankly, it’s a big part of the Craggenrack brand.
She didn’t hold her hands up or beg for mercy, as remnants usually do. She didn’t even look at the dagger in my hand. Sometimes that’s all they can see. They’ll literally look the thing right into their jugulars.
Eniwin McGoo met my gaze shyly, brushing aside a singed blond forelock from her cheek with a bloody hand. Her emerald-green eyes were as bright as an August moon. Her smile struck me as nervous, how you’d look if you were hoping someone would like you.
It kindled a smallish lump of heat in my stomach. Not being magical myself, I don’t know if you can cast a charm spell just by smiling, but in hindsight, I’m guessing it’s possible. For a brief, flickering moment, I argued with myself. She didn’t seem dangerous. Or likely to cause further trouble.
I should have resisted. I failed.
It happens.
I put my knife away, reached out a claw, and helped her to her feet. Rock stepped forward, his huge, two-handed sword at the ready. I waved him off.
She really was tiny. Harmless. Truth is, I wanted her to like me. Seems ridiculous in the midst of all that carnage, especially looking back on it. They were the third party to try Craggenrack this year. We hadn’t left a single survivor.
I guess I was lonely. Aside from Nepherous, I didn’t have many people to talk to. Not really talk. The staff were just that, staff. Some were good at their jobs, some not. Aside from maybe Rock, you wouldn’t say there was friendship there. The suppliers and contacts I saw on recruiting runs were all men, mostly human, and mostly prejudiced against kobolds. They tolerated me, at best, out of fear. Nepherous’s name got us discount prices and a steady supply of manpower. It rarely bought me a warm look or a genuine welcome.
Don’t get me wrong. I knew she wouldn’t do a one-eighty and move in or anything. Standing in the hall amid yet another pile of dead bodies, I simply liked the idea of someone walking around out in the world with a good thought for me. Maybe wishing the setup was different so that we could spend some time. Have a drink, that kind of thing.
What with my foot and my philosophy of combat, I rarely have the time or space even to consider sparing anyone. So that, too, was a novelty.
It was a short leap from there to inventing a reason to keep her alive. I told myself she could convey a warning to others.
“Don’t be afraid,” I said in the most reassuring tone possible. We stepped past the dead mage and turned toward reception, a small room cut into the stone that also served as a defensive post. “I’m inclined to leave you alive if we can come to an arrangement.”
She swallowed hard, looking fearful and hopeful all at once. “Thank you,” she said, and I felt like she meant it.
“I’m tired of these pointless attacks. One group after the next. Sold on fairy tales, driven by greed, thinking they can steal from Nepherous. As if the likes of this”—and here I waved back at her dead companions in what I hoped was a callous kind of way—“has even a gambler’s chance against him. So many dead, and for what? You didn’t even disturb the man’s sleep.”
“I’m really sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She cast her eyes downward in an elaborate demonstration of shame.
I walked her away from the ambush scene and the guards, toward our front door. I’d have liked to keep her for a time, to get to know her. With three guards dead, I didn’t trust Rock or his men. Plus, where would she stay? If you want a girl to like you, you can hardly invite her to your dungeon. There was no way to pull it off without sounding creepy.
“I will grant you your life, and in return, you will be my messenger.”
She nodded enthusiastically.
“Go to the towns along the river. Tell all you meet of the fate of your party. How they died in the first hallway, barely inside the door. How one-sided the battle was, and how none but you had the slightest chance for survival.” I smiled at her. “They did not have your green eyes to fall back on.”
I’m not sure the compliment landed as I’d intended. I decided to cut my losses. “When you have done this, you will quit adventuring. Find another way to earn a living.”
We approached the front door, a small but thick stone piece that opens into a large cave. Dawn was breaking outside, and the first rays of sunlight were already lighting up the dank, black walls. “Do we have a deal?”
She offered her hand, forcing a smile. Nodding, she grasped my claw, squeezing it. “Thank you, sir. You are merciful and kind. I won’t ever forget it. Not ever.” A tear ran down her cheek, leaving a path through the soot and grime.
I held up a finger. “Never again. To your dying day, Craggenrack is a place to be feared and avoided. I expect you to use all your powers of persuasion.”
Her smile brightened for the first time, maybe because we were at the cave’s mouth. “I will,” she promised.
“Now go.”
She ran on little legs through the cave and back into the world.
Now here I was, months later, sitting in the Rolled Gnome, pondering the magnitude of my folly. Of course she had charmed me. Of course she was now selling maps to Craggenrack. I mean, of course she was.
How could I have been so stupid? Not just stupid—weak. Desperate. Pathetic. I could hear my father’s voice in my ear as plain as day, even though I hadn’t seen the man in thirty years. Some things never really leave you.
Instinct kicked in, and I felt the urge to run. It was a roaring flood, a desire invulnerable to logic or long-term self-interest.
As always, Nepherous saved me. His voice, gravelly, sage, calm, echoed in my other ear, my surrogate father so superior to my biological one: You can’t run from your mistakes or your shame. Avoidance only fuels the fire.
There it was. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. My life in a nutshell.
Nor could I leave a bard to tour the city-states and free towns of Pentost, selling directions to Craggenrack and telling tales of treasure to drive up the price.
I wasn’t worried about Nepherous. He’d understand. But there were plenty among the staff who’d hold the uptick in violence against me, and if my conversation with Leek was anything to go by, the quality of replacements was on a downward trend.
I flagged down my waitress, a wizened crone who looked eighty if she was a day.
“Where would a man go,” I asked, keeping my voice low, “to find a halfling bard? I’m partial to blonds, especially. Maybe one telling stories of adventure in between appointments?”
She shot me a cautious look and shook her head. I had to put a silver coin on the table to get my answer.
“The Brass Cauldron,” she said hoarsely, snatching the silver off the rough wood. “They won’t serve the likes of you, though. No offense. Not her, not none of them.”
The Brass Cauldron. Shit.
I ordered another drink.
About the Author
Tim Carter writes fiction, video games, and movies. He draws inspiration for his fiction and movies from a lifelong love of strategy and role-playing games, especially Dungeons and Dragons.
He lives with his wife and two dogs in Vancouver, Canada. He is best known for writing the console game Sleeping Dogs, writing and producing the Dead Rising series of movies, and producing the digital series Mortal Kombat: Legacy.
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