The man’s words, unsurprisingly, did not soothe what was a growing unease about my situation.

  Fine, I was quickly becoming downright terrified by it.

  That probably isn’t something you want to hear if you’re still under the illusion that I’m the hero of this story.

  Despite all my best intentions and years of cultivated hermitcraft, far away from places like this, I’d fallen into the clutches of a death cult. The very death cult that would skin me alive before draining me of blood. Just for the fun of it.

  I may have forgotten to mention, if you didn’t already know, that in the ensuing years of the Worm, after they summoned it and subsequently butchered it, they had climbed, on ladders of rib cages and dry bones, to the top of the food chain.

  And since you’re probably wondering, yes, they did have a hand in Humphrey’s rise, however nebulous it may have been.

  As they have in the fall of many kingdoms and the rise of several other questionable characters. They wanted to be a shadow hand, manipulating from a distance.

  And there was no one to stop them.

  That I knew of, at least.

  So many had been killed in the years since their gambit. So much blood spilled for no reason save for their own machinations. It was like a slow creep. Only now, fifty years since the Worm came, that we see the true cost.

  We used to have gods and demi-gods. Now we have blood-sucking cultists whose ambitions are as mysterious as the moon and the stars.

  Sorry, I’m sure you already knew this.

  My fellow captive was either drunk or mad, I’d decided. His voice came in and out of understanding as the snare root worked its way out of my body. It felt like a tide coming in and out, taking with it different senses and sensations.

  But I was able to catch some of his words, most of which were condemnations on the two of us. I’d have told him to shut up, but my lips still did not work so I was left to listen to his coarse words. He was of the mind that our imminent deaths were inevitable.

  I was of the same mind, but I didn’t want to talk about it. Even if I had been able.

  “Aren’t we two desperate sods?” he mused eventually, when I could hear him. His chains were noisy, and he cared not to sit still. So, he carries on. “I suppose you didn’t think you’d end up here?” His voice is gruff. “These cultists, I swear. They are a scourge. A plague.”

  This made me frown. Or try to, with my paralyzed mouth. I think it just made me drool more. The man was speaking like some noble or knight. Scourges and plagues. Wait, that was more like a zealot.

  Which would be just my luck, by the way. Caught by the Cult and trapped with a madman.

  My day was getting worse, which may surprise you, but it was something I was used to. These things had a tendency to cascade toward the worst possible scenario.

  Still, I mused to myself, madmen can be useful.

  He wasn’t the only one that was allowed to muse in situations like this.

  The chains jingled some more. “Where do you hail from?”

  I grunted.

  He grunted back. “Snare root. A favorite little trick of theirs. Doesn’t it warm you up a little bit?”

  I would have narrowed my eyes if I could. This man, who I assumed was the Gadfly fellow the drunk guard had spoken of, seemed to have quite the background with the cult.

  Not a merchant, which would have made sense, him being this far into the mountains.

  Perhaps he was just a simple bandit with bad luck.

  Cowed only by the cult and their many long fingers throughout Calastros.

  The explanation was thin.

  No one had that bad of luck. Save for maybe me. And no one survived multiple encounters with the cult. Unless there was something else going on.

  “You know, if you try to wiggle your left pinky toe, I’ve found it the most effective way to overcome the root’s effects,” he offered.

  I grunted again, getting annoyed.

  Though, admittedly, I did switch from trying to move the fingers on my right hand, which had yielded nothing, to trying my left pinky toe. The tide pulls of the root were still strong and the focus required was taxing.

  To my surprise, and furthering annoyance, he was right. I could feel that toe after just thinking about moving for a few seconds.

  He must’ve gotten lucky.

  “Strange thing,” he said gruffly. “Not my first snare root,” he chuckled.

  After about ten minutes of wiggling, I let out an involuntary groan of pain as my entire left side felt like it had been struck by a lightning bolt.

  “Of course that is a possibility,” the man said sympathetically.

  The muscle cramp kept on until I fell off the bench they’d set me on, and the chains wrapped around me locked my arms into awkward positions.

  But I could move, much to my chagrin.

  It was just as embarrassing as you might think, to be stuck in such an uncouth position.

  It did, however, give me a view of my cellmate, who sat leaning against the back wall, his hands chained in front of him, quite calm. The chains fell between his legs to a bolt that had been driven into the stone floor.

  He was a bulky fellow with mountainous shoulders and a neck like the trunk of a billow tree. It was like seeing a boulder with a face. And a beard. A beard that would have given a Miravalian elder pause as it fell thickly to his center chest.

  Long, dirt-colored hair cascaded from his blocky head to gather around his neck. He wore, too, a thin leather cuirass and dark gray pants. His bare arms were thickly muscled like the rest of him and covered in scars of such various depths it looked like someone had tried to stitch him back together with the scars themselves.

  Looking at him gave me the feeling he could run at a mountain and the mountain would jump out of his way. Maybe his eyes were the reason for this. They were a light grey-granite color. Conjuring the image of a writhing storm.

  I felt uneasy in the first few seconds of meeting them, as if they might just strike out from his eye sockets and grapple me. I knew they saw something in me, now that he’d gotten a look into my eyes. Just as I’d seen something in him.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  He was no mere bandit. That much I could tell. There was a nature to him beyond the thirst for gold or pillaging that so many wore so blatantly in their countenance. No…he was

  Of course I was jumping to a bunch of conclusions.

  “I am called Gadfly,” he said after a moment.

  The tone in which he said it inferred some kind of kinship between us. Which scared me. He may have seen too much in my eyes. The snare root had robbed me of my careful safeguards.

  “Madcap,” I replied, my mouth still groggy.

  He smiled, not showing his teeth, his eyes glittering with a bit of mischief. “I’m sure it is.”

  Gadfly said this as if his name was actually Gadfly.

  “How did they get you?” I asked him.

  He watched me struggle to untangle myself from the chain lock puzzle I’d found myself in.

  “I tried to buy a bit of Alluvian crystal from the blacksmith. Found myself in here about twenty minutes later.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “Can’t blame the bastard either.”

  “Do you know why they’re here?” I asked, rising to sit on the bench and rubbing the spots on my arms where I was sure bruises were forming.

  “Why do they go anywhere? Power. Treasure. They are ruthless bandits, in my opinion. None better than the lowest blood-thirsty scoundrel.”

  My eyebrows did their best to rise. “Do you want them to torture you before they kill you?”

  He laughed, throwing back his head. “They’ll do their worst no matter what I say.”

  In truth, he didn’t seem the slightest bit afraid of the fate he was slated for. He was certainly handling it better than I. Maybe he really was a bandit. He portrayed that kind of laissez-faire attitude toward his life.

  I’m sure the scars told that story.

  Even I didn’t have anywhere close to that many scars on my entire body. Though he probably had five years on me. Even in my best years after my tragic loss at the hands of Humphrey I could not have acquired such a meshwork.

  “Who do you think they’ll do first?” he asked next, and I just stared at him, slack jawed. “Of course, you’re hoping it's me. And of course, I’m hoping it's you,” he said, continuing casually. “Not that it really matters. We both know, probably, that whoever goes first won’t have to listen to the screams of the other.”

  It was frightening how simply he considered these things, and I was beginning to think he was some kind of psycho.

  “That is of course, unless we get out.” He looked up at me. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

  He really was, wasn’t he. And for some reason he was being far more calm and logical in this situation than I was. Not very heroic of me, but again, we’ve already talked about that.

  It was also revealing the rather simple bit of mind games he was trying to pull over on me. As if one dead man really needed that much convincing to trust another dead man. All this talk of our imminent fatal fates wasn’t necessary.

  If we didn’t work together to get out, then we’d die. It would have been much easier for him to just say that to me. But I understand his hesitance. Strangers in strange places and what not. It also told me that he had guessed something. And this guess had led him to a conclusion.

  The correct conclusion.

  He needed me.

  “Are you trying to point out the obvious?” I asked, annoyed.

  He grinned again and I thought he might be trying to hide something from me. Another one of those itchy feelings.

  Then again, I was hiding a hell of a lot from him as well.

  “I knew you’d understand me. Not one to give into doom. Or roll over for these animals to gut us.” He leaned toward me. “Why are you here, Madcap?”

  “I’m going into the mountains,” I said slowly. “In search of certain…artifacts.”

  “Indeed,” Gadfly said, his voice resonant. I could tell he really didn’t care why I was there. “Then let us help each other.”

  Ah, of course. I’d hoped for a desperate man and instead I’d found someone who had all their marbles. Maybe even had more marbles than I. Maybe even had a mission like mine.

  “Are you going to tell me why you’re really here?” I asked, leaning back against the cold bars of the cell.

  “I’ll tell you only that I am out for blood,” he said mysteriously, though deadly serious.

  “A manslayer?” I asked, unimpressed. It was rather disappointing.

  “There is no financial gain here for me. Only vengeance,” he said seriously.

  I laughed at that and hearing my own laugh echo back shocked me to silence. I wasn’t sure why, either, but the sound was jarring. I just stared at Gadfly, seeing him in a different light now. In his proper light.

  He was a martyr.

  And that made him far more dangerous than I’d like. Now I was just hoping for a drunkard.

  “Then what is the deal?”

  “You help me get out. I’ll help you get your…artifacts.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “That’s all?”

  He shrugged. “That’s all.”

  “I don’t have to help you with your bloodthirst?”

  Gadfly’s mouth made a tight line. “That path is mine alone.”

  I grunted, rubbing my wrists where the shackles were taking skin off. “Who is the aim of your vengeance?”

  He smirked, a dangerous gleam flashing in his eyes. “I’ll keep that to myself. What are these artifacts that you seek?”

  I smirked back. “Likewise.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Well, then, perhaps we should focus on getting out of here.”

  I looked down at my hands and sighed. This whole plan had gone up in flames. I’d been looking for a patsy and found a man on his own journey that was bound to be as bloody, if not more bloody, than mine. If I were a smart man, I’d effect my escape and be done with it. If I was a really smart man, I’d hail caution and avoid the Barrows altogether.

  But the crown, the crown, I tell you, it calls to me. It beckons my waking thoughts as much as my dreams.

  I’m not justifying what I’m going to do, but it's important to note I knowingly walk headfirst into the danger.

  Assuming both Gadfly and I make it out of the cell alive, I would still have use of the man. Would I put my life on the line for him? Obviously not. But I would unshackle him and let him exact his own violence as he sees fit.

  I was getting the feeling he was a skilled player in the realm of violence. It wouldn’t be shocking even to say I was interested to see just how skilled.

  A good warrior is hard to find and very…intriguing to observe.

  I’m getting off track.

  “Any ideas?” I asked him, my own mind flitting through the possibilities.

  He smiled again, hanging his head slightly to look at me. “Must we play these games?”

  I had guessed correctly, then. He had seen much. The man was no dolt, despite looking like one. Alright, I’m just being mean. But when you put a lot of effort into being mysterious and someone reads you like a damn picture book, it does not feel good.

  I leveled him with an annoyed look. “Normally I would play these games,” I told him. “But seeing as how I like my blood inside my body, I will cut to the chase.” But it was weighing on me, so I had to ask, “How did you know?”

  Gadfly gave a rueful grin. “You’ve got that look about you.”

  That made me chuckle. “I’ve become lazy, then.”

  Somehow, we’d found common ground.

  “If that’s what you call it. But I think I see more than most,” he said, his voice almost soft. “Your eyes do hold some mischief that is not often found in us mere mortals.”

  “I really am losing my edge,” I sighed. “I will blame the snare root.”

  “Indeed,” he agreed. “Or you just need to spend more time with people.” He said it offhandedly, almost. An observation so acute it made me wary. “Happens to the best of us.”

  “Us?”

  He chuckled deeply. “You don’t think I’ve been lost to the world before? One does not end up on the path I’m on without it.”

  “Lost to the world…” I mumbled quietly, considering the phrase.

  It was not inaccurate in the slightest. It was even my ultimate goal to be completely lost to the world for the rest of my life. I wondered if he could see this too.

  I didn’t like this philosophical dive into my psyche.

  “You are from Halfgard,” I say, raising my head. “From the great mountain city?”

  He bore many of the markers of a man from that region. Namely, that he was built like the boulders that he no doubt grew up climbing over. Second were the light eyes. Cloud Eyes, as they were called in the other kingdoms. It had taken me a moment to dredge that up from the corridors of my mind.

  “Indeed, my friend. But not from the great city. Further into the hills,” was all he said.

  He became somewhat withdrawn at this mention of his home and I decided not to push him any further. I was stalling now, still thinking of how I’d get us out of here.

  “You will need a weapon.”

  “Get me out of this cell and out of these shackles and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  The finality of the sentence told me that yes, he really would take care of the rest. This kind of competence was startling to me. It was rare after all. Then again, his current predicament made me question this.

  He chuckled again, reading my expression. “Trust me,” he urged. “We will ruminate on this as an entertaining story in no time at all.”

  The bad thing was, I wanted to trust him.

  Here is another little tidbit of advice: when you find yourself in a doomsday situation such as I’ve found myself in, sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind. Not taking the risk is a risk in and of itself.

  Gadfly could simply cut my throat once he was free.

  It would be a calculated risk.

  I was willing to take it.

  Who knows, I might even make it out of this thing with a friend.

  I’m joking. That was a joke. One does not make friends when their face is on a wanted poster.

  “What’s say you, man? We don’t have all day,” he said, rolling his blocky head in a circle, stretching. The motions were accompanied by a series of sharp cracks from his joints. The man groaned with each stretch.

  It made me frown. His absurd calmness was reassuring, and I was actually getting excited to see what he could do with a blade. Or whatever tool he’d choose to lay waste to our foes.

  My god, I was talking as if I was part of a team.

  I really did need to get out of here as fast as I could.

  That being said, I did have to do the hard part first.

  Gadfly was looking at me expectantly, cool as a cat in his shackles.

  I nodded slowly and let a careful smile stretch across my face. “You sit back and relax,” I told him confidently. “Watch and learn, dear Gadfly. Watch and learn.”