ARCHIBALD
"What the fuck do you think I pay you for, pissin'? Get me beer!" He tossed am empty cup at Archiblald, the remaining contents of what was once beer flung onto him. He dodged it, falling onto the ground.
He stood up, the cackling and howling laughter rising up around him. Would've been cleaner to be hit by the spit, rather than fall to the floor. He looked at his suit, covered in meat grease and old beer and spit.
Lord Hugo cracked his whip at Archibald, screaming at him to get up and get going. He scurried away as quickly as he could, but was still whipped on the behind before he made his way out.
He rubbed his rump, mumbling something about Lord Hugo, something he'd never say aloud. Lord Hugo is a tyrant. A horrible, slobbering...
He cleared his throat. A gentleman doesn't speak in such ways. He continued down the hallway, to the kitchens, with what composure he could muster.
He had served knights, lords, princes, kings-even an emperor once-but he had never come across anyone so vile as Lord Hugo. He had no surname; supposedly he was a bastard (though he cut off the tongue of anyone who mentioned anything about it). He had gone through fourteen wives, one after the other bearing him only daughters. He had had his wives slain, as well as all the baby girls he had.
Archibald cringed, remembering the night. He had seen many horrors in his fifty years, but none such as what he witnessed that night. Lord Hugo had born to him over thirty girls, some as old as twelve, some as young as a freshly born baby.
Lord Hugo was told by a foreign priest of sorts that he was cursed with daughters, for his foul doings. He said they lived to remind him that the gods hated him. That had been enough for Lord Hugo. He had the priest hung onto the rafters of his great hall and, gathering his family, made the priest watch as he and his men murdered all of them.
Archibald had been there. He loved them all more than Hugo could love anything. Ever. He almost hated the priest, though he couldn't have known. Besides, if not the priest, then some king would've mocked him.
It was his fifteenth wife he was on now. A hob-elf from some forest in the far east. She had long green hair, pointed ears and firmer breasts than Archibald had ever seen. She is... she is a sort of...
"Slut?" The cloaked creature quickly shifted out of the darkness, a reptilian smile creeping on its face, long and wide.
"Sissis. What do you want?" Archibald asked, angered. He could read minds, but he wasn't permitted to do so. If he was caught doing it, Hugo would have his head.
"Hugo couldn't have my head if a god gave it to him. It would slip from his greasy palms, into the gutter." Sissis laughed. It had been a reoccurring joke around the castle (albeit a very quiet one) that Lord Hugo was as unlucky as a black cat. He was, Archibald agreed, but he was also crueler than any devil. Who needs luck when you have arms as thick as a baby foal's torso?
"Where are you going?" Sissis hissed.
"To fetch beer for m'lord Hugo." He kept walking, despite the lizard's attempts to get in his way.
"Come, Archibald, leave this place. Come with me." Sissis pleaded. "I like you Archibald, you are a good man. Come with me east, to strange lands made of candy and great heroes and adventure. Leave this horrible place."
Archibald ignored him. Many of the villagers who lived on the outside the castle were good friends of his. They would be slain in a heartbeat, if he left, just to spite him. Not to mention he was bound by oath to serve whoever held Caste Ironfist.
"Fine then," Sissis said sadly. "I will return again in a month. Do not die before then. I intend to bring an army of sellswords along with me, so we may take Ironfist Keep from the demon Hugo." He crept away, back into the shadows. Archibald sighed.
He made his way to the kitchen, people bustling all about.
Archibald remembered what his old candy friend had said once. "Be glad you are born a peppermint man, Archie. Creatures in these lands hate the taste of peppermint."
The thought of old friends saddened Archibald and the thoughts burned inside his mind, aching. There had been a winter when the soldiers had taken pieces of Archibald to keep a from starving. They had been under siege by foreigners for over two weeks and everyone was starving.
They had stared at Archibald with hungry eyes.