Chapter Three
The sun streaked boldly across the land as Jack stumbled across the farm. Despite all common sense (of which Jack was born fully lacking) he'd ridden the entire night through the dark foreboding forest half singing quarter remembered songs and when the words weren't coming always falling back on "tip me over and pour me out."
Even the creatures of the forest felt sorry for the boy belting inn songs of which he didn't understand even the first entendre loudly through the dark night and clomping over fallen bracken that would have snapped the ankles of any other man or horse. Jack's entire life operated upon a string of good luck, bottomless patience, and the ability to be incredibly pathetic without realizing it. So, carting a head heavy with sleep and a belly full of highly poisonous berries and amazingly their only known antidote a sprig of mistletoe that caught in Jack's throat as he traipsed through the forest, the mighty adventurer was in high spirits as he spotted a small farm beginning its morning dance.
Even as a spec in the distance, loud crashes and incoherent screaming drifted on the wind to Jack's ears. Well no one ever said a great Barbarian was much of a morning person. In fact, it seems to go against their very idiom. If it weren't for the increasing levels of swearing and groaning coming from the barn this land would be idyllic. Pastoral poets would break into tears tearing at their breasts and other various attempts at scenery chewing to capture its true beauty in verse. Jack, on the other hand, noticed that they had both brown and black cows.
He aimed Horse towards the farmhouse, eerily silent, hoping to find someone inside with a bit cooler head than the voice threatening to damn for all eternity some inanimate object. Didn't they have squires or something to handle all the boring day-to-day needs? Knocking on the almost quaint front door produced nothing but silence, Jack tried once more thinking the squire was busy doing squirely things and perhaps a bit hard of hearing.
"Eh! What are you on about?"
Jack spun about to find a young woman cradling a load of firewood, staring at him accusingly. Her dark features and raven hair put Jack in mind of the old bedtime horror tales of night spirits that would claim young boys who got lost in the woods at night. The type that as they got older encouraged boys to hope they managed to get lost.
"I . . . I'm sorry. I must be at the wrong house. I was just, I should be going," Jack bumbled down the stairs, his boots sliding off the bottom step as he teetered to keep from falling to the ground.
Slogging the wood down, the girl wiped her hands off on her apron and stared Jack up and down, taking in his homemade scabbard (a few bits of old leather from a broken rein) his armor (dinner plates that he'd tied together and his mother would kill him for if she noticed missing) and his trusty steed nosing through the wood pile looking for something good. "Why're you wearing that scarf? It's goin' on hellfire by now?"
Jack tried to smoothly pull the scarf from his neck, managing to wind it tighter. He gasped for air but the girl ignored it as her face lit up and her guarded marble face softened, a few smile lines turning her human. Between haggard breaths, Jack realized that this girl no longer about to drag him off to her lair and eat his fingers was gorgeous, and aside from the hair color, skin, height and age could be his beloved Anne's twin.
She smiled wide, Jack was sure his knees were going to buckle, "You're an adventurer aren't you? Come to learn to slay the great beast and win your lady love's hearts."
"Don't you mean heart?"
"You're only getting one lady out of it? Look at you," Jack started to lower his eyelids to look at himself but caught the woman's ample assets and froze unsure of how to pull his eyes away without looking like a lecher. She chose to ignore this faux pas, "You're covered in the forest. Have you been riding all night? Oh, I must get you all fed and washed up. I can help with both," she lowered her eyelids, her coquettish act broken by the fire burning beneath. Jack was certain he was going to pass out this time.
"PENNY! WHERE DID YOU GET TO NOW?" the bellowing from the barn broke the spell of young hormones, "THE CALF IS DOWN BUT I NEED A BUCKET OF WATER TO WASH THE CRAP OFF!" Sweat poured off of Jack as he realized the voice wasn't getting louder but closer.
The cow shit covered barbarian turned the corner and Jack met for the first time what he envisioned would be his beloved mentor and best friend. He'd spent most of the trip dreaming up an iconoclast to shake the very foundations of society now a wise old man, crippled from fights but still wiry and agile who would reprimand Jack lovingly and over time they would become as father and son to build him into a stronger man.
Instead, a robust northern woman, her farm friendly frame covered in a leather apron atop a pair of unwomanly trousers, approached holding her shit-covered hands out in front of her. Her hair was cropped short, and she moved with a steadfastness that belied the anger building inside as she approached her farm hand flirting with a young moron.
"I'm sorry, Mistress. I came to fetch the water but I found this man instead," Penny slightly curtsied eliciting an eye roll from the large woman.
"Well, unless you think I should wipe my hands off on him do you think you could go get one now?" a small squeal escaped Jack's lips at the idea of being used as a towel, but he was subdued as the thought that this must be his future mentors wife entered his mind. Adventurers could have wives, right, "What's he doing here anyway?"
"Oh it's so romantic, he's come to learn how to slay something from the world's greatest hero and win his ladies heart."
The woman snorted. Realizing that no water would be forthcoming till she got rid of this guy she rubbed what little shit off she could on the ground and stuck her hand out, "I am Cas the Barbarian, nice to meet you."
The combination of lack of sleep, dark forest spirits, the stench of shit and a stomach rolling as two poisons tried to cancel each other out finally laid claim and Jack crumpled up his head smacking against the steps. The armor dislodged and a dinner plate spun out down the road.
"Hey, kid. You all right?" Something nudged him in the ribs.
"I got some water."
"I really don't think he needs it. There, his eyes fluttered. He should be fine in a few minutes."
The voices drifted in and out of inky blackness. Through closed eyelids, Jack could make out two tall black figures standing above him debating his fate. Strange, he never put much stock in the old sanctorium's tales of a soul being measured before passing on to the gate's of Everal for the second test as being true. The urge to close his eyes tight and wish he were back home surprised Jack so much he regained conscious. Just then, Penny, in trying to be helpful, threw half of the sudsy water - also filled with whatever the Barbarian washed off - onto his head. Jack shot up, shaking and sputtering the water out of his nose, the closest he'd come to drowning in his life.
"I told you, now go and get a towel so he can dry off and then get to it."
Penny scampered off, a bounce to her step that reminded Jack of the schoolchildren when they managed to steal some scrap iron from the back of the smith, a new toy clutched in their grubby mitts. Cas offered him a hand and gently he rose, steadying himself against the wall.
"Here, drink this. Don't worry, it's fresh. You'll probably hear a ringing for a bit but that should pass, the headache will be a doozy though. Your head bounced against just about every step on the way down, but nothing got cracked. Er, your 'metal plates' got a bit damaged but a hammer should fix it right up."
Cautiously sipping from the mug decorated with a pink cat teetering on five legs, Jack tried to check for brain damage. As there was very little for the ground to have damaged and he was a bit unsure how to tell (he'd never tried to count past 100 and his memory operated on more of a spur of the moment variety) he gave up and turned back to Cas, "I came here to find you."
She took the empty mug back, "So I gathered, most people don't arrive on my doorstep as the cock crows to flirt with my farm hand, pass out and head home."
"My village is in danger," he'd been crafting his script the whole night, but none of it had gone right. For starters, he hadn't planned on dirty, sudsy water to be working its way into his small clothes as a woman loomed over him.
"And I am the only one that can stop the giant fire breathing dragon from destroying it and save your lady love who you've never actually met but somehow know you're soul mates and possibly something about dead relatives. Am I getting close?" Jack opened and closed his mouth, his brain searching through his script for a good response, "Look, kid, I'm retired. I gave it all up. No more stabbing giant anythings or rescuing damsels in distress, who probably got themselves into the danger in the first place, stupid dating guides about how to find your white knight. I have a new calf that needs a rub down and a distressed mother that needs watching. So once you're dry, be gone." She turned back towards her barn, hoisting a fresh straw bale on her massive shoulders.
"It's an Ogre." Cas turned back to look at Jack who stared hard at his hands, "It's not a Dragon, it's an Ogre."
"Well, bully for it," perhaps not the best cutting insult but Cas was exhausted after a night up with a breeched calf and a cow who she was fairly certain was a tax collector in another life.
"My name is Jack, the Farrier's son, and my home needs someone to stop a giant Ogre. If you won't do it, then I will."
Cas paused again, slowly lowering the straw to the ground, "What did you say?"
I have no idea, Jack thought, that didn't come from me. Did it? Oh, gods. Everyone's right, I do read too many stories. But his mouth was on a roll his brain wasn't aware of, "You heard me."
Inwardly he shuddered as angry footsteps and rough broken hands brought her face into his, he wasn't sure if he could survive another shock to the system and braced himself but was surprised to find her refrain from punching him in the eye or other painful areas. Instead, she looked him up and down.
"And what makes you think a scrawny little turd like you could last 5 minutes against a full grown Ogre?" there was a playfulness belying her words, almost as though she was enjoying this and hoped he'd continue.
"Well maybe if I had someone teach me the basics," Jack felt like he had the tiger's tail in the conversation and feared letting go.
"I'm guessing 'which part is the pointy end of a sword' will be the first lesson. Look, I'm sure you're very nice and lots of girls will like you once they get to know you but," Cas heard a small squeal and caught Penny leaning out the kitchen window waving a piece of paper. Oh gods, how could she forget? And the fuckers were coming around in a week too, "look, kid, you got any coin?"
Jack blinked twice, expecting a slap and getting a begging hand instead, "A bit yes? My mother is a well known Smith in these parts."
"Room and Board is 20 silver a week, 10 if you help out around the farm. And with your physique you're gonna need all the help you can give."
"I, I don't know what to say."
"You say 'Thank You,' also you ask nicely where the back pump is. You just stepped in horseshit. PENNY! Make a room in the barn, Jackie Fair is staying."