The Dragon's Hump - Part the Sixth

It has been 15 years since the last installment of Brigands of the Bog, the epic series of sprawling fantasy novels by acclaimed author Jack R. R. Pendarvis. VICE is especially proud to present The Dragon's Hump, the 11th and final book in a series that many have called "the only work of its kind written entirely under the effects of gin." All 1,000 chapters will be presented here in weekly installments, after which The Dragon's Hump will be published in a single volume, in or around 2031, shortly after the death of the author.

“I’m living the dream!” was something Lord Hexulon often shouted aloud to himself with no irony alone in the Arena of al’Manderbar, which was what he called his apartment.

He traced over the engraving with his long, begrimed fingernails, the pictorial representation of the Seat of Black Hellstone he wished to buy. If it looked this good in a pictorial representation, he could only imagine the real thing. Lord Hexulon just had to scrape together a few more shakmars for a down payment and everything would be fine.

He really hoped he could get it delivered before Serval Lancet arrived with the Princess Mur in tow. She would see the Seat of Black Hellstone, and how comfortable he looked on it, and forget her rage at being a helpless pawn in his bloodthirsty plot.

She would say something like, “What is this fabulous object as if carved from the heart of a mythic, gleaming rock?”

And Lord Hexulon would say, “What, this? Oh, I didn’t even realize I was sitting on it. It’s a Seat of Black Hellstone, that’s all.”

And Princess Mur would think, “Who is this guy? He’s got it together, all right. I guess I had him pegged all wrong.”

Then the stage would be set. He could move out of his apartment and get a nicer place. With that sweet Princess money coming in he could quit his crummy day job and start thinking seriously about laying waste to the kingdom.

He crumpled the brochure in his fist and started laughing maniacally at how great it would be to lay waste to the kingdom.

“That’s going to be the best,” he said. “I’ve kept my feelings bottled up for too long. It’s not healthy!”

Little did he know that his faithful lackey Serval Lancet was lying around in the forest with his head cut off.

Claron Pard, who had witnessed the whole decapitation, had made his way back to the campsite to tell Princess Mur the bad news. So lost was the empathic outlaw in brooding reflection that he forgot his disguise of hood and robe as he stepped into the circle of firelight.

“Serval Lancet!” the Princess cried. “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick. Yet you seem no worse for the wear. Indeed there is a pleasing new musk about your person.”

Claron Pard cleared his throat noncommittally. He hated himself for doing it. Why not just tell her the truth? Yet cruel fate had taught him to play every angle he was given.

“There is something I need to tell you, Serval Lancet. I have been wanting to make out with you for the longest time,” said the Princess. “Your intoxicating muskiness really puts it over the top. Let’s make this relationship happen. We both want it. I’m going to keep my eyes closed the whole time because that’s the way I like it. And besides, I know you’re shy.”

His face hidden deep within the recesses of the rough-hewn hood, Claron Pard moved his eyebrows up and down lasciviously.

Meanwhile, in a secret byway of King Samsor’s compound, Sir Gravulet prepared to render Lord Hexulon’s plans quite moot in any case.

Stood he now in the vestibule outside the Chamber of Forgotten Dreams, where the tube of fragrant bark was kept at a frosty thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit for preservation purposes. The vestibule itself was somewhat warmer, but a breeze blew under the door, or so Sir Gravulet fancied, a breeze that mayhap gave a little howl as it swooped through the crack, and with it the faintest fragrance of debilitating loveliness, or so it was imagined by the changeling knight.

“It’s going to get colder,” said the Stumbling Man assigned to the Chamber, in the quiet yet annoying way of the Stumbling Men.

They always sounded like they knew something you didn’t know!

And maybe they did.

Was it not the Stumbling Men alone who were granted the right to walk up the hill called The Dragon’s Hump with their shoelaces tied together? And who but the Stumbling Men were allowed to put their mouths to the Talking Hole?

When the time came for the Mouthless One to cheerfully imbibe his poison draught through ear or nostril, who but the Stumbling Men were sent stumbling around the countryside looking for a new person born without a mouth worthy to be the new Mouthless One?

“It is about to get colder,” repeated the Stumbling Man, “because now is the time when you are required to remove all armor and weaponry, and indeed all clothing and accoutrement of any kind, and to stand before the tube of fragrant bark naked and unashamed with everything hanging out.”

It was not that he minded a slight indignity now that the tube of fragrant bark was within his grasp. But Sir Gravulet was, as you may recall, not entirely a person, but rather a kind of fleshly automaton cobbled together from handsome body parts and inhabited by a little red ogre who was an expert with the levers and pulleys that surrounded him in his corporeal nest, but who possessed, perhaps, an imperfect grasp of the niceties of Folan anatomy. What if he had gotten some of the details wrong? Were he to be found out, but one choice would remain.

But to slay a Stumbling Man! Such an act was unheard of. Not even an ogre might be up to it. The Stumbling Men were foresworn never to defend themselves. Tying their shoelaces together was just one symbol of that.

What honor could there be in dispatching a Stumbling Man, however mercifully?

Honor there would be none. Necessity, however, there might be a lot.

Drawing in a breath of deepest contemplation, Sir Gravulet reluctantly unzipped his trousers for the big reveal.

Previously - Part the Fifth, Part the Fourth, Part the Third, Part the Second, Part the First

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