How To Avoid Death On A Daily Basis: Book Two (8 page)

We spent the rest of the week exploring Fengarad. There were various interesting places in the lanes and side streets, including a red light district any red-blooded male would have investigated fully. Needless to say, the three of us got horribly embarrassed at the first sight of a scantily clad woman giving us the come hither, and we swiftly came up with excuses to head off to some other part of the city.

We might not have acted quite so scared if she hadn’t looked like Steve Buscemi in drag. Who am I kidding? Of course we would.

The girls, oblivious as ever, had no idea why the woman wanted to speak to us in private. The only thing of interest to them was where she’d purchased her bikini top.

I eventually convinced the others we should split up, or at least, I should split up from them. We were familiar enough with the layout of the city that I didn’t think they’d get lost, and as long as they were together they wouldn’t get into too much trouble. Probably. I just needed a little time off from playing Dad.

They were a bit nervous going off on their own, mainly because of the problem with reading signs and street names. Out of the group, I was by far the best at reading. This was because on our journey to Fengarad, while they had been chatting and getting to know each other, I had spent my time studying the book Grayson had given us.

I could now recognise most words without having to spell them out phonetically. They, on the other hand, knew each other’s favourite colours.

Having to rely on themselves would be good for them, and it wasn’t like they would face any danger in the middle of the city. Our main goal was just to learn where everything was and to dig up any cool places that might be worth further investigation. We were basically tourists. Even they couldn’t get themselves killed sightseeing.

My routine was to wake up early and go to the public baths which I had discovered. No, it wasn’t a pickup joint for gays. Or maybe it was, but no one propositioned me—which was both a relief and very depressing. I looked forward to encountering elves and dwarves so they could reject me, too.

After my nice long soak (alone), I’d go to the Emporium and spend an hour or so shooting arrows.

After a couple of days, I had to make a booking for these sessions, as others had started to want to use the alleyway. The bow salesman, whose name was Temel, had started a side business in archery training, bringing in a cousin who was a soldier to offer guidance, and business was booming. I got a lesson for free, seeing as how I was the one that made this lucrative new venture possible, and was informed that pretty much everything I was doing was wrong.

Can’t say I was surprised. He corrected my poor posture and grip and my aim improved. Slightly.

I would spend the rest of the day poking about in the city, returning to the inn in the evening. Over dinner, we’d exchange information. A lot of Flossie’s and Claire’s reports revolved around where to find the best bargains, and I could see the will to live slowly being drained from Maurice and Dudley—rather them than me.

If you think my portrayal of Claire and Flossie as obsessed with shopping seems a little unfair, you could be right. After the intense pressure of trying to survive in a crazy fantasy world where death was around every corner, perhaps it was just their way of relaxing. Or, maybe they were a couple of shopping-mad bimbos. Hard to say.

Before going to bed, I did my exercises. Sit ups, push ups, squats and lunges. I was determined to be at least fit enough to run away properly. Then I practiced with the sword, but I didn’t feel very confident with what I was doing. At some point I would need to hire someone to train me.

A blacksmith on the outskirts of the city made me a spike like the one I’d given up. He was a bit baffled by my request and I had to talk him through how to make it for me, but in the end I got something pretty close to the original. It felt good to have my trusty spike back.

I also bought a large piece of lead from him. The sap I’d tried to make using bits of old metal had never felt right. This time I got a professional seamstress to sew the lead into some leather and the whole construction was a lot more solid.

I returned to the Municipal Directory to try and figure out what the place was for, and how I could use it to my advantage. Master Nevin had shown us the window where we could get our money and other items, but I still had no idea what all the other windows were for.

My plan was to hang around and see if I could pick up any information, but trying to inconspicuously stand next to people in an attempt to overhear their conversations did not go down well. I got some threatening looks and had to quickly make myself scarce.

In the end, I just joined the longest queue and waited until I got to the front. It took about two hours.

The woman behind the window looked like her family had just been murdered, and she was the one responsible. If you’ve ever been to a post office, you’ll know the look.

“Yes?” she demanded.

“Oh, is it my turn?” I was stalling, trying to figure out what she did. She was in a small office with nothing in it, as far as I could tell.

She glared at me. “What service do you require?”

“What services have you got?”

This earned me a look at her teeth, which she bared at me. “Do you have something to hand in or not?”

“Maybe later.” I could feel every person in the line behind me staring as I walked away.

It took me another two days to discover the stairs leading to the basement. Down there I discovered a throng of people, all of them armed to the hilt, milling about. The walls were covered with posters offering bounties on various monsters, like the ones Grayson had in Probet. There were dozens of them. And these had a lot more details about each creature.

There was also a map on one wall, but unlike the one in Probet, this one was being constantly updated with information on where targets could be found.

We still had lots of money, but it had started to noticeably go down. Eventually, we would have to find a way to make more, and claiming bounties was the obvious way to do it. But I was very reluctant to go down that route again. I needed another method.

But there was one poster that caught my interest.

“I want to head out to the marshlands tomorrow,” I told the others over a dinner of roast chicken and potatoes. The meat wasn’t chicken and I’m pretty sure potatoes aren’t blue, but that’s what it tasted like, and I had learned not to ask questions I didn’t want to know the answer to.

“Why?” said Claire. “What’s in the marshlands?”

“Frogmen. It’s about time we got back into the adventuring business.”

The other stopped eating and looked at each other somewhat apprehensively.

“You can calm down,” I said. “There won’t be any killing. Maurice, what did you write down about the frogmen in your notes?”

Maurice took out his notebook and flipped through it. “Ah, frogman, uses basic beast magic.”

“Exactly. It’s the only mention of actual magic I’ve come across. So, we’re going to find some frogmen and we’re going to learn magic.”

The following morning we got up early and prepared to leave. We were fully geared up, with bags stuffed full, clothes that actually fit, and weapons all sharpened. We looked like a bunch of nerds going rambling, but we were prepared for every eventuality. Monsters, injuries, dangerous terrain, light showers—we had an answer for them all.

Claire handed me an envelope which was addressed to Commander Ducane. I opened it and read the letter inside. It was an anonymous tip off about the farmboys we had encountered and how they were responsible for the kidnapped girls and not the mouse warriors as people had assumed. She’d been careful not to reveal who the letter was from.

“I know we don’t have any real proof,” she said, “but perhaps Ducane will look into it. At least, if more girls go missing, they’ll think to question those boys.”

I nodded. “Sure. But you can’t send this.” I put the letter back in the envelope.

“Why not?” she demanded, her voice ramping up as she laid into me. “If they hurt more girls, it’ll be on us. This is the least we can do, and it’s not like he’ll know who sent it. I know it’s a longshot, but we can’t just do nothing. We can’t!”

I waited for her to finish her tirade before speaking. “I agree. We should do something. But you can’t send this because you wrote it in English.” I handed the letter back to her.

“Oh,” she said.

We waited the half hour it took for her to translate the letter, and then headed out.

“How exactly are you going to get the letter to Ducane without him seeing you?” I asked. The others looked at me like I must be joking.

We were headed to the Municipal Directory, for some reason. They seemed to know what they were doing so I just followed.

It was quite early and the place was a lot less busy than usual. Claire immediately got in line and reached the window in about five minutes. The woman serving was the same one I’d spoken to the other day.

Claire handed over the letter. “I’d like this delivered today, please.”

The woman took the letter. “Two chobs.”

Claire paid and that was that.

“So, this is where you send mail?” I was stunned they knew this. “What about the other windows?”

“That’s for handing in bounties, that’s for paying taxes, that’s for reporting problems with public roads and buildings, that one’s for requesting help with rogue monsters…” Maurice went round the room pointing to each window.

“When…? How did you figure this all out?”

Maurice pointed at the one window that had no line. “We asked at the information desk.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me this?” That’s what the evening meets were supposed to be for, not the latest prices of blusher and lipstick.

Claire shrugged. “We thought you knew.”

That was the problem with acting like you were smarter than everyone—sometimes they actually believed you.

There were a number of things I looked for in Fengarad but didn’t find. Book shops didn’t exist, although I knew books did. Now that I could read, books seemed the obvious way to gather a lot of information quickly, but they were incredibly rare. Most likely, there were private libraries somewhere. My guess would be that there was one in the Palace, but I had avoided that part of the city because palaces are where princesses live.

The other thing I couldn’t find was a compass. It would make life a lot easier if we knew which direction we were going in, but no one understood what I was going on about when I asked shopkeepers if they sold them. Perhaps magnets didn’t exist, or maybe there was no North Pole to attract them.

We left Fengarad heading north. At least, I think we did. The marshlands were a huge area with no towns or cities—not human ones, anyway. It took us two days to reach them. I expected to find swamps and crocodiles, but it was more like a series of lakes linked by narrow tributaries. Trees were sparse, but all sorts of other vegetation grew in and around the water.

Forcing our way through the tall grass, reeds and thick foliage was a chore—the one thing we didn’t bring was machetes—but on the upside, we were quite well hidden from whatever might want to have us for lunch.

Insects buzzed and hummed around us, but we saw no other creatures. No frogmen.

Once we had worked our way into the heart of the marshes, it was really hard to know which way was which. We may well have been travelling in circles. We had quite a lot of food with us, mostly dried meat and nuts, and there were also fish in the water, although they seemed particularly adept at avoiding the nets we had brought with us. After four days, there was some grumbling about what we were doing and how maybe it was time to head back.

I, of course, told them they could leave anytime they wished. Or rather, I said, “Well, fuck off then.”

On the fifth day, we finally saw our first frogmen. Flossie returned to our camp from a visit to the little girl’s room, doubled over like she had the world’s worst stomach ache, but she was in fact trying to avoid detection.

“Quick,” she whispered at us, “over here. Ah’ve seen ‘em.”

We followed her through the undergrowth to the edge of the water. We all lay on our stomachs, peering through the grass at the platform of logs floating on the lake. There were four frogmen on the platform. A female with a child, a large male with a spear and an elderly male sitting on what looked like chair made of wicker.

They literally looked like large frogs. They had skinny limbs, compact torsos, webbed feet and the bug-eyes and wide mouths you associate with frogs. The only un-froggy thing about them was that they weren’t green. Their skin colour was light brown.

We lay there watching them for a few hours.

The larger male—he was about as tall as Dudley—used the spear to catch fish. He was good at it, scoring pretty much every time. There was a small fire burning on the platform, over which hung a pot. The female cleaned and cooked the fish. The child spent most of its time with her, occasionally going over to see what Dad was up to, and usually getting shouted at. They were too far to hear what they said, but they certainly spoke.

When they weren’t fishing or cooking, they swam. Messing about in the water, diving for various plants they used for cooking, teaching the kid to leap out of the water onto the platform—it looked like an idyllic life. One we intended to disrupt.

The older male spent his time smoking. He had a long pipe that he puffed on pretty much constantly. It was the first time I’d seen anyone smoking in this world. I had assumed tobacco didn’t exist until now, although there was no way to confirm it was tobacco.

What was more interesting, though, was how he lit the pipe. Every now and again it would go out and then he would raise his hand and a flame would appear from his finger. Like magic.

We continued to watch our family of frogs over the next few days. Three people would remain at the water’s edge while the other two stayed at the camp. Every few hours one of us would rotate.

The weather turned and it started to rain. We set up our tents and continued the surveillance. Our food was rapidly depleting and the best we managed with fishing was two in one day. I knew we’d have to make our move soon, but what that move was, I still wasn’t sure.

We couldn’t just go up to them and ask them about how to do magic. The bounty on frogmen was only 100 bits. You’d have to come all the way out here, find them, and then kill them. It was a lot of effort for not very much money, so not many people bothered hunting them. But I still couldn’t see us being treated as anything other than a threat.

They spent all their time on the water. They even slept on their platform. However, once a day the male would use his spear to punt the platform to the far side so the older male could go onto land for about half an hour.

I decided to find out what he was up to, so the next morning, I worked my way around the edge of the water and hid myself in the undergrowth. And waited.

The old guy was smaller than me, but no doubt he’d be able to put up a fight if need be. I’d warned the others if they saw me running, they should do the same.

After a couple of hours, the platform came floating across the water and bumped into the bank. The old frogman stepped off and somewhat unsteadily made his way onto land.

I kept my head down and waited for him to pass, then I slowly followed on all fours. Since he was a beast, there was a good chance he had heightened animal senses and would be able to detect my presence, so I was careful to be quiet and didn’t follow too closely.

He did pause a couple of times and look around. Perhaps he felt like he was being watched, but he didn’t seem too suspicious, just slightly puzzled. I wasn’t particularly familiar with amphibious facial expressions, but he looked a bit dozy.

He walked for about five minutes until he came to a small group of bushes. He pushed them aside to reveal a hole in the ground which he crouched over. Yep, he was going to the toilet.

Why he had to do this on land, and why the rest of his family didn’t need to, was a mystery. What I did learn, though, was that frogman poo smells just as bad as ours, and their farts are high pitched and kind of tuneful. I’ll never be able to listen to an Ellie Goulding song the same way again.

As I lay there, I considered going back to the others, organising a plan and then coming back the following day to capture him. It would take some time getting them sorted out and confident in what they were supposed to be doing, but it was probably the safest way to do it.

On the other hand…

I crept around the back of the bushes, wincing every time I made a noise. There were no twigs to step on, but even brushing aside stalks of grass seemed to be inordinately loud.

I managed to get right up behind him before he noticed me. It must have been a terrifying sight, my face looming towards him through the bushes as he tried to take a quiet dump. He let out a startled yelp and then keeled over as I hit him with my sap.

It was risky—there was no way to know if the sap would work. I’d never tried it before, and frogman physiology could have been very different to ours. His large, slimy head might have been covered in rubber for all I knew.

Fortunately, I connected well and his bulbous eyes rolled back in his head.

For those of you planning to kidnap someone while they’re shitting outdoors, here’s a couple of tips. If you drag them away by their arms, they will leave a streak of shit along the ground that will make it pretty easy for you to be tracked. Better to grab their legs and drag them off that way, although you’ll have to hold your breath. And don’t look down.

I knew I had some time before he would be missed, so I dragged him as far as I could in ten minutes and then tied him up. He was still breathing but out cold. I poured some water over his head and slapped him a bit, but that didn’t seem to do much. I ended up sitting down next to him and eating some jerky, waiting for him to come round. I just hoped I hadn’t put him in a coma.