The Strongest Feller Around, Pt. 1

A new week,  a new story!

I was a couple months out of Quail’s Leap when I fell in with this lot of traveling performers who’d wander from town to town telling stories and performing plays and dances, swindling the foolish and seducing the dumb. They were a right fun bunch, in that way that people who live on the weird side of proper society can be. It was nothing but dumb luck that I’d met them.

It was a warm day in the early summer, and I was napping beneath a tree. I’d taken to wearing a robe and wrapping a cloth around my face to obscure my features. I learned pretty fast that not every human could accept me as quickly as the people of Quail’s Leap; it only took me getting chased out of a village by a mob throwing rocks and waving around pitchforks and torches for me to get a grasp on that idea.

I could have taken them, I mean. Don’t get me wrong. But it didn’t seem right to beat a bunch of humans senseless just because they were trying to protect their homes from something strange. That’s all.

But there I was resting when something jabbed me in the gut. It’d happened before, usually some curious farmer with more curiosity than caution, or an animal inspecting their environment. A few times it’d been would-be robbers, but that was rare and usually accompanied by some dumb threat like, “Your money or your life!” I rolled away, my hand going for but not drawing the knife I kept hidden in my robe. I heard a yelp and looked around scanning my surroundings for the person or thing that had accosted me.

There was a man before, his hair thinning a bit a the front, his cheeks and his stomach a bit pudgy, his clothes suggesting a certain amount of refinement and a greater amount of wear from constant use. His eyes were because of my display, but not even a few seconds had passed before he cleared his throat and stuck out his hand. I looked at it suspiciously, then at his face, and finally resolved not to touch it. “What do you want?”

He frowned, pulled his hand back, cleared his throat again, and smiled a big toothy smile. “My name is Enrico Enrici, teller of tales, bard of ribaldry, lover of life. Tell me, stranger, who might you be?”

“Tusk,” I said. I thought about it some. “Tusk Willvic.”

“That’s an odd name, Mr. Willvic,” Enrico said.

I shrugged. “I just made it up.”

“Ah. I see. That makes sense.” Enrico looked me up and down, and for a moment, I actually felt a bit uncomfortable. I’d earned a few meals since I left Quail’s Leap by doing odd jobs for humans I came across. Once I saw a farmer buy a horse, and he looked at its teeth and he walked all around the animal looking at it and saying nothing. Enrico Enrici was giving me that same kind of look. “You’re awfully spry for a big fellow, aren’t you, Mr. Willvic?”

I snorted. “What are you getting at?”

Enrico smiled at me again and a sense of unease filled me. I began looking around, half-expecting this to be another robbery. Any moment and men armed with knives and with their faces wrapped in cloth to obscure their identity would jump out at me. “I’m just saying, one wouldn’t think it to look at a man of your stature. What are you, six feet tall? More? And when I nudged you with my foot, you rolled away and you were on your feet like a cat. Tell me, where does a man learn such a skill?”

“Didn’t learn it. I’ve always known how to do it. Always known how to do other things, too.”

Enrico’s eyes went wide at this, and his smile changed a bit. It was less like he was smiling just to smile and more like he was smiling because he’d thought of something that really made him happy. “Is that so? Tell me, what else do you know how to do?”

“I can fight,” I said. The thought of getting into a scrap with this guy made me smile behind my mask. He looked pretty heavy, but I thought if I had to, I could lift him up over my head and throw him.

“Fisticuffs?”

I frowned. “Fisticuffs?” He held up his hands, bounced slightly on his feet, and threw some puny little jabs at the air. I actually laughed at that, and even though Enrico Enrici struck me as the kind of feller who didn’t blush easy, he blushed at that. “Yeah, I can do ‘fisticuffs.’ I can fight with anything. Sword, axe, staff, bow.”

“Who taught you?”

“Always knew. Or else I taught myself. But it feels like I always knew how.”

Enrico considered this for a moment, his arms crossed across his chest, one hand stroking his chin. “No,” he finally said. “That simply won’t do.” He looked at me and frowned. “The robes kind of make you look like a monk, don’t you think? Maybe that’s the angle we’ll go with. ‘The Mad Monk! Last of a forgotten order! Trained in all of the martial arts by the spirits of long-dead masters!’” Enrico grinned, and his eyes narrowed. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I think we can work with that.”

It was my turn to look this human up and down, to size him up. Unlike me, he didn’t seem to mind being on display at all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t want a damn thing to do with it.”

Enrico chuckled. “I haven’t even offered you anything yet! How unfair of you to assume that I’m up to something. Your presumption wounds me. But tell me, haven’t you ever wanted the opportunity to earn a decent wage for doing next to nothing at all?”

“I don’t need any kind of wage. So long as I’ve got a bow, a knife, and my hands, I’ll never go hungry.”

“But haven’t you ever wanted to be the center of attention with people gazing upon you with awe and wonder?”

I grunted and gestured at the robe I was wearing. “You think if I wanted that I’d cover myself up like this?”

“Then I assume that you’ve also never wanted to test your skills against the foolhardy and boisterous people of the land, yes?”

Out of anything Enrico Enrici could have offered me, this alone made me stop and think about things. I hadn’t been in a decent fight since that mess with Sir Perceval. Once or twice a drunk human had taken a swing at me, but any fight that ends with a single push knocking somebody flat on their arse and keeping them there isn’t a fight at all. And I didn’t even count the bandits. Beating on those no-good grots was fun, but only because they were trying to take what wasn’t theirs to take, not because there was any sport in it. He must have sensed my hesitation, because he kept going on about this when he let his other questions drop completely.

“Let me tell you something. I’m the leader of a troupe of traveling entertainers, and we go to and fro all across this fine land. So many different people, so many different sights! But, if you’re as good as you say you are, then Mr. Willvic, no one has ever seen anything like you! With the right story, you’ll draw crowds! With a little bit of patter, you could be a hero, or a villain, or anything you like! We’ll tell people… we’ll tell people that you come from a far off place, and that it is your goal in life to find the greatest warrior in the world and best him! Just think, you like fighting? You can fight the strongest warriors in all the land, and people will flock from all around to bear witness to your skill and courage!” In an instant, the smile fled from Enrico’s face. He shrugged, turned his head as if somewhat bored. “That is, if you’re as strong and as tough as you say are.” He turned back to face me, his expression neutral. “I mean, you’re probably not. No one could be that good at fighting. No one could be that strong.”

I growled, the rumble deep and low in my throat. “I’m that strong.”

“Of course, of course.” He waved his hand as if trying to wave away my words, and I thought back to the wizard. The wizard used to do that all the time whenever someone would show up in his chambers and start going on about how they would put a stop to his plans. “It was a silly idea, anyway. Never you mind. I’ll leave you be. Good day, Mr. Willvic.”

Enrico turned to walk away, but I put my hand on his shoulder and held him in place. “I’m the strongest feller around, you hear me? I’m the strongest in this town, the next, and the one after that. If there’s anybody who can fight like me, drink like me, or eat like me, I haven’t met them.”

Enrico didn’t turn his head but the tiniest bit, just enough so that he could look at me over his shoulder. “Is that so? How do you know?”

I grinned behind my mask. “Just one of those things I’ve always known.”

Enrico turned and grinned back. “A fine answer. A fine, fine answer.”