A Secret Man of Blood

Chapter Eleven

Gaia is speeding through southern Samaria and, onboard, Anya, Boon, Indigo, Sig and Squad are sitting around a table playing Dudgeon and Dragons, a roleplaying game which is won by the dragon who can settle down and lead the most boring, down-to-earth existence. Squad's dragon has a mortgage and five kids, so he's doing well.

Boon's dragon has been left wandering the streets, with only a small dog for company. Sig is the Dudgeon Master and controls the flow of the story and events around the characters. Sig's smile licks upward like a slender flame, mischief in his eyes. "Do you dare, sir?" he baits Squad. "Do you dare?"

All other events go unnoticed in the teeth of this tension.

Squad rolls. Double six!

"Well done," Sig purrs, leaning back in what he must think is a mysterious, cool fashion.

Boon breaks the tension between Sig and Squad by leaning forward and shaking his head. "I was an immortal, synthetic assassin bred to dominate and destroy, now I'm a homeless bum whose only possessions are a small dog and a blanket."

"You lost your blanket last turn," Sig reminds him.

"Oh, God!" Head in hands, Boon looks up at Sig. "I want to enter the Bumfights of Kesselmarach: if the Dudgeon Master could lend me some food to improve my strength—"

"Eat your fucking dog!" Sig barks and everyone laughs, including Boon. Sig dramatically points across the table at Squad. "Well done. You've earned a sip – a mere sip I remind you – from the Chalice of the Whingeing Giants..." he strokes his beard sagely, voice growing heavy with confidence. "But, in addition to being the Dudgeon Master, I am also the guardian of that sacred chalice. You will get your sip, the sip that has been so precious to you all these years," (Squad literally didn't know this chalice existed until Sig invented it five seconds ago.) "Yes, the sip will be yours...if you pass the test."

"Okay, what is the test?"

"...I don't know."

"You're not very good at this whole sacred guardian thing, are you?"

Sig nods resignedly. "There's a chink in my armour."

"Calling it armour is generous," Indigo smiles. "Does anyone apart from Sig know the rules?"

"I have a solution," Anya says. "We get Sig and lock him in a room."

"And wait for him to talk?" Indigo asks

"No – just lock him in a room. Starvation is our friend."

"I'm trying to hold this game together," Sig protests. "You're looking at a desperate Dwarf."

"We know," everyone replies in unison.

Picking up a card, Sig reads from it to Squad. "Before you can grab the chalice, your rival and arch-nemesis Baron von Shitheel, storms through the door." Squad rolls a five and Sig reads. "You battle Baron von Shitheel, knocking his blade aside and putting your sword though his skull—"

"Yes!" Squad shouts.

Sig continues. "Before he dies, von Shitheel looks in your eyes almost pleadingly, as if he's saying, 'Good sir knight, we have loved and lost on the field of battle many times and, though you've cut me down, you were and always shall remain my brother.' You imagine he's thinking all this as your sword crushes his head...although, in hindsight, he was probably just shitting himself."

*

Close to the location of Mount Ballard, a top-security Samarian base located within a hollowed-out mountain, Boon and Squad disembark from Gaia. They're the only ones who've been invited into the actual base, but Sig takes a massive swig of whisky and follows them out.