Flash Fiction First Friday is an effort to publish something small on the First Friday of every month. The goal is simply to write more and to share more, and not get completely bogged down in huge projects. These pieces can spawn from writing exercises, prompts, or just freewriting. The point is that they're low-commitment.
I'd love to see your flash fictions pieces if you participate, too! Either use the tag #flashfictionfirstfriday or comment below with a link to your blog.
This short was written for my writing workshop. We each generated a random prompt from DonJon's RPG tools and had to write a story based on a "job" given by the random generator and also tie it in with an emotion--also randomly generated.
The Quest I got was: "An ancient elf archer named Orol seeks a company of adventurers to hunt down and capture the notorious highwayman Helthra. Before the end, the party discovers that his information is wrong." The emotion I was supposed to convey was guilt.
This piece was definitely not in my normal wheelhouse, so it was fun. I'd love to hear if you use DonJon as a writing prompt, too!
Orol and the Botched Job
The inn was raucous with card games and a group of locals singing along to a bard’s out-of-tune lute. In the back corner, where it was relatively quiet, sat a group of four. Their tense shoulders and stiff postures didn’t match the revelry around them.
“You Orol?” asked a gruff man, leaning across the table where candlelight caught his blond hair.
“Aye,” said the slender-eared elf. He had a bow slung across his shoulders in a casual sort of way. “I take it you are here about my job posting. Who is accepting?”
The blond man leaned back in his chair. “I’m Garm. This is Sheila and Durich.” He gestured at his two compatriots, a slender woman in a hooded robe and a dwarf with beads in his braided beard. All three mercenaries carried themselves warily, like they were used to mistrust.
Orol slid a ‘wanted’ poster across the table. In splattered ink, the image of a hardened woman with a scar bisecting one cheek peered up them all. “Helthra,” read the poster. “Wanted for: banditry. Location: unknown. Reward: 1000 gold.”
“Sure, we seen all the posters all over town,” said Garm. He shared a skeptical glance with his party. “What else you got?”
Orol tapped a long finger on the poster, pointing to “Location: unknown.” He smiled like split wood. “I scouted out her camp myself,” he said. “Would that I had more than my bow at my side—I would have ended the problem already. But I need to share the load, and thereby share the pot.” He held out his hand, cupped, and it was easy to imagine it flowing with gold coins.
Sheila spread her fingers out on the table. “What does it mean by banditry? What’s this Helthra actually done?”
Orol regarded Sheila with some impatience. “You need a reason to do good deeds?”
Durich the dwarf shook his head. “Had our names sullied by taking job postings in good faith. We don’t do anything on faith anymore.”
Sheila inclined her head. “We’re more careful about the questions we ask before agreeing to work now. That’s all.”
Orol shrugged. “Your history is not my business. Helthra is a menace. Her band watches the roads and hijacks anything bigger than a farm wagon. Then she ransoms our goods back to us. Food will be tight this winter if we do not get that grain back. She is building a fortress out there, at the top of the hill. They mean to terrorize the valley and demand tolls from anyone on the road. Our best chance is to storm it now, before she can complete her defenses.”
Garm elbowed Sheila as delicately as his form would allow. “See, eh? We can feel good about this one.”
“Unlike last time,” she said. Her brows furrowed, and gaze averted.
“It won’t be like last time,” replied Garm, quieter.
With a breath, Sheila nodded and seemed to come back to herself. “Very well. How many in the camp? What of their composition? I’ll need to prepare my spells.”
Orol spread maps out on the table and used steins to show enemy troops and cutlery to mark defensive lines. He spoke of the archers he’d seen watching the horizon, great hounds that sniffed the wind and howled at any unrecognized scent, and of Helthra herself, sitting atop a pile of stolen goods, like a throne made of grain. So detailed were his descriptions, the props seemed to transform themselves into miniature versions of the fort and bandits. Orol’s plan was so clear, it could not fail.
They left that night. It was easy to follow the elf across the countryside, high as the moon was. About an hour’s canter north of town, the party slowed. Campfires were just visible, dotting the next hill. Just as Orol had described, scouts shadowed the hillside and archers were posted on rudimentary watchtowers.
“That’s quite an operation for a bandit,” Sheila said, peering through her treasured spyglass as the others hitched the horses.
“They recently claimed ownership of the lumber mill upstream,” said Orol.
“Still, why not just fortify the mill? Why not raid a small town and take over? Bandits don’t build forts.” Sheila lowered the spyglass and turned to Garm and Durich. They heard the trepidation in her voice but carried on with their battle preparations. The party joked that Sheila was their moral compass, but they were eager to get back to work after their string of bad luck, and it was easy to slip back into old patterns.
“Maybe they got sick of hiding in damp caves, eh?”
The party’s raid on the camp was flawlessly executed. Orol rained down arrows on the camp, knocking and pulling faster than an eye could track. Garm and Durich fought with sword and axe. First, they stationed themselves outside the fort’s gate and felled anyone who poured forth. Bodies piled in heaps of thin leather armor. The pair made their way inside and mowed down anyone with a weapon. Meanwhile, Sheila protected them all with her spells. They were like opalescent bubbles that should have popped at the flap of a butterfly’s wing, but somehow deflected arrows and blades as well as steel.
By the end, all four of them had worked their way inside the fortress. They stood in a loose circle, backs together, breathing heavily. It was almost dawn. Helthra had not been among the bandits. There had been no villainous monologue. Durich started checking bodies, looking for the face they’d seen on that wanted poster.
“She ain’t here,” Durich announced. He’d been very thorough.
Garm swore before putting an arm around Sheila’s shoulders. This was treading too close to another failed job.
Orol chuckled. At first it was a low noise that could have been an owl in the distance, but it picked up until he was laughing. Cackling. Something was wrong with him.
The mercenary party gathered together to face their elven guide.
“Friend, we did the job. You still owe us half the pot,” said Garm, ever practical.
Orol’s cackling increased in pitch and cut off abruptly. “There is no pot. There’s nothing to split. But now that you’re here…” His face seemed different. Gaunt and angular, even for an elf.
The party froze, all three of them locked in place by some kind of sinister magic.
“Fey tricks!” Sheila cried. “Don’t listen to—”
But her voice was cut off by Orol’s. “I see what you did. I see the faces of everyone who died because of your negligence. The burden you carry must be so, so heavy,” he said, his voice like a reeded instrument. “Lay down your weapons. Don’t you think it’s time to pay for the damage you’ve done?”
Sheila was only able to mouth the word, “trap.” Garm fell to his knees next to her. He was still holding his sword, but his grip had loosened. Durich’s lips had pulled away from his teeth and transformed his face into a hateful grimace.
Orol went on, “Don’t you think those families deserve justice? So many died because you chose to take the easier path. Gods, the fire. All those people you left inside. And it could have been prevented.”
Garm was overcome. His sword fell to the ground in a metallic clatter that he didn’t seem to hear. Tears were streaming down Sheila’s face. Her expression had shifted from fear and surprise to something like desire.
“He’s right,” she said. “We deserve what we’re about to get. We deserve it and more.”
Orol grinned, exposing fangs that had not been there before. His face was snakelike and predatory. “Yes, that’s it—"
With a great battle cry, Durich leapt forward, axe held aloft. With powerful dwarven muscles, Durich brought the blade down into the crook of Orol’s neck, splitting him like firewood.
The illusion was broken. The charm lifted, freeing Garm and Sheila.
“How did you resist him?” Sheila asked.
Durich wiped his blade. “Couldn’t you tell? I got some fey ancestry in my blood. I’m immune to their charms.”
“Immune?” Garm said, getting up and brushing his hands clean. “You were just as taken in by him as we were!”
“Well, somewhat immune,” said Durich.
The three mercenaries stood, not for the first time, surrounded by innumerable corpses as the dawn came. The illusion of the fort and the bandits dissolved away as the sun rose, revealing a great ring of white stones that marked the fey creature’s lair.
“You think any of that stuff about Helthra was real?” asked Garm.
“Does it matter?” Sheila asked with a shaky voice. “Was he right? I know it was magic, but… we do deserve to pay, don’t we? We can’t keep running.”
“Aye,” said Garm. “I reckon we should have listened to you all along. It’ll be a long trip back to the city.”
“Let’s go meet our maker,” said Durich.
Copyright KR Holton, 2024
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