The Adventures of Duncan & Mallory: The Beginning Read online

  Copyright Information

  Based on the graphic novel by Robert Asprin and Mel White.

  Copyright © 2013 by Fawcett Associates, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Wildside Press LLC.

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  Chapter One

  Sleeping was one of Duncan’s favorite pastimes. The young Romancer had been accused of being able to sleep anywhere and through anything, but he was having a hell of a time sleeping through this battle. He wondered briefly why war had to be so loud. Why men had to fight with shields, swords. and all manner of things that rang with loud, percussive noise and made it hard to enjoy a well-deserved nap.

  Was all that armor clanging and banging around really necessary? Horses were making hoof-clumping sounds and whinnying in that shrill, feminine way that never seemed to fit something as large as a horse, and men were crying out in pain as they gasped their last breaths.

  Had none of them heard of dying with dignity? Had they no pride?

  It didn’t help that he was wearing segmented metal leggings and knee cops and a fifty-pound chain mail shirt that hung to just above his knees. It wasn’t comfortable to walk in or fight in, and it certainly wasn’t comfortable to sleep in. As he tried to shift to get more comfortable, his chain gathered in all the wrong places. He cried out in a voice several octaves higher than his own as he reached down quickly to untangle himself.

  He thought briefly about doffing his armor, but quickly decided against it. After all, it wouldn’t do to get caught out of armor on a war day.

  The reluctant warrior felt he just needed a few winks before he joined the war. He was exhausted; besides, his fellow soldiers did a perfectly good job of dying without any help from him. Duncan was in no hurry to die for honor or community or anything else, for that matter. Finally he managed to get into a position where his feet were above his head; it was awkward, at least he was almost comfortable.

  Duncan didn’t care at all about the war. At one time he’d tried to care, but he’d never warmed up to the idea. Of course he’d never told anyone that. They wouldn’t understand. All they cared about was battle and fighting. They ate and breathed war. He ate whatever he could get his hands on, breathed air, and as long as he could keep from dying in the war, he’d go right on doing those things.

  Yes, eating and sleeping and breathing were his favorite things—in that order. The only other things he had ever been interested in were chasing women and tinkering. Since no woman would give him the time of day, he’d spent a lot of time tinkering with things—building and inventing them. Most of what he made didn’t really do what he’d wanted it to do; and things he tried to fix often wound up just as broken as they’d been when he’d started, but on occasion he actually got something right.

  Because of his dreams of being an inventor, he spent a lot of time watching the village blacksmith. Sometimes the smith needed someone who was strong and stupid, and he’d give Duncan some task to perform. Maybe afterwards he’d give him a quick lesson on working metal. More often, he just told Duncan to bugger off and threw a hot coal at him.

  When you were a Romancer, your career choices were pretty limited. You could be a farmer and raise food for the army. You could be a blacksmith and make weapons and armor for the army. You could be a soldier and go die in the war. As far as he could see, there wasn’t much future in any of those things, least of all in being a soldier.

  Oh. Romancers all talked about glory and honor; but what were glory and honor, really? You couldn’t bed them. You couldn’t stick them in a loaf of bread and make a sandwich out of them. So as far as he was concerned, they were as useless as armor pajamas.

  Duncan wanted to be a great inventor, or at the very least a blacksmith. But his father was a major, his brothers had been soldiers, all of his family had always been soldiers, and there was never any question that he would do anything but fight in the war. His heart had never been in it. To tell the truth, he had no natural ability for combat at all. In fact, the only thing he’d gotten good at was running and hiding. His arms and legs seemed too long for his body, and usually, the minute he drew his sword he promptly tripped over his own feet. Oh, he was big enough and strong enough, but with a sword in his hand he was more dangerous to himself than anyone else.

  No, a soldier’s life was no life for him. Duncan wanted to leave his mark on Overlap in a different way than all his ancestors, by creating grand and glorious inventions. Most of all, he wanted to be alive to enjoy it.

  Boats came along the river from time to time and sometimes they stopped for pickups or deliveries. The sailors would go to the local tavern and weave tales of the rest of Overlap, and he would listen intently. They talked of grand cities and amazing machines even more fantastic than the steam-powered boats they sailed up and down the river. Duncan thought if he could get away from Spurna he could make his mark on the world. He had a lot of ideas and had no doubt that his inventions would make him very rich someday.

  In fact, he’d been up till the first lights of false dawn working by lamplight because he was on the brink of creating something that he was sure would make him a household name. When completed, his fabulous invention would put all kinds of pudding into donuts. He was almost finished, too. It just needed a few final adjustments. Duncan could have finished it today; but no, he had to go fight in the stupid war.

  Today was a battle day and nothing would do but that he get up minutes after he’d gone to sleep and march off to the front.

  Stupid war.

  Duncan shut the sounds of battle out, shifted his position again, and drifted off to sleep with visions of pudding-filled donuts dancing in his head.

  So sleepy, but he had to get up. After all he had to make the donuts. Pulling his tall, slender, well-muscled body out of bed he took a long look at himself in the mirror. His dark, brooding brown eyes took in his features—a regal nose, bronze skin and a strong chin, longish black hair framing his face. “Damn, I’m good looking.”

  He didn’t get to admire his reflection long because then he could hear them. A crowd stood admiring his machine as it cranked out dozens of the delicious pudding-filled donuts. They made loud sounds of delight as they watched the machine work its magic. Then they began chanting his name in a symphony of praise for the joy and wonder he had brought into their dim lives. “Duncan! Duncan! Duncan!”

  “DUNCAN!”

  The dream was swept quickly away as he awoke to the shrill, enraged voice of his father. “Duncan, you lazy good for nothing—get up!”

  Father’s boot landed squarely on Duncan’s backside, making his chain mail jiggle. He woke the rest of the way up and tried to stand. He fell down three times because his right leg had gone to sleep. When he finally got his legs under himself and stood at his full height of six-foot-four, his five-foot-eleven father still managed to tower over him. The major had always had this effect.

  Duncan’s father was a barrel-chested man with arms and legs like tree trunks. His hair was short and grey—as was his mood on most days. His brown eyes seemed to forecast a storm. The major’s nose was a hawk’s beak, his chin a sharp point. His face and forearms were covered with the scars of numerous battles. The major’s mouth was set in a permanent snarl, and his idea of a smile was an irritating smirk.

  The major was not a pleasant man at the best of times, and today was clearly not the best of times.

  “Ah…hi Dad,” Duncan stammered out, shifting his mail shirt and sword till they were hanging straight.

  “‘Hi Dad?’ Is that all you have to say?! Where in the name of all
that is unholy were you this morning?”

  It’s pretty obvious where I was. I was lying under this tree taking a perfectly good nap, Duncan thought, but had the good sense not to say that. Instead, he said, “I was guarding the rear flank.”

  “Guarding the rear flank!” his dad thundered, and then his lip curled into that smirk. “It looked to me like you were sleeping.”

  “Sleeping. That’s just what I wanted the enemy to think,” Duncan said, managing to sound sincere. “They’d think they could sneak around me, but when they tried I’d spring up and attack…”

  “You are two miles from the front,” the major countered.

  “Ahh…well if they were going to try a rear attack they’d want to come way around, or you’d just see them and…”

  “I had to kick you to wake you up.”

  “Part of my plan. It wouldn’t do for me to jump up when they were too far away now would it? Where would be the element of surprise in that?”

  “We had a war this morning. You were supposed to be there and instead you took a nap!” the major said, pounding his finger into Duncan’s chest hard enough to knock his nearly three-hundred pound body back a few inches. He obviously wasn’t buying the battle strategy story.

  The major’s right arm was in a sling and his hand was bandaged up to three times its normal size. It was clear the war hadn’t gone well for him, which was, no doubt, why he was in an even worse mood than usual.

  “Once again we were counting on you. Once again you promised to take your place in the shield wall. And once again, you were a no show.”

  You’d think after a while you’d quit expecting me to be there, he thought. He tried another tactic. “Was that today?” Duncan managed to look confused—which wasn’t that hard for him on most days.

  “Don’t give me that bull! You’re standing here in your armor.”

  “I, ah…I… You know me, always ready for action. Why, I’d sleep in my armor, just to be ready at a moment’s notice. I was rolling on the ground to loosen it up when you came up. I was…”

  “Making up a list of lies to tell me!” Using only his left hand, the major grabbed him by the front of the tabard he wore over his chain and shook him till his armor and his teeth rattled. “The enemy came through the hole you were supposed to fill. Our clan was lucky to escape with our lives. Well, some of us were, anyway.”

  As he finished speaking he slung Duncan into the tree he’d been sleeping under only moments before. As he did, a clod that had been lodged in Duncan’s right knee cop fell out, making a small dirt cloud. Even this seemed to tick his father off.

  “We lost the war! What do you have to say about that?”

  “Does this mean dinner is going to be late?”

  “Dinner! Dinner! Is this all a joke to you?”

  Somehow he couldn‘t hold his tongue. “Let’s see. The third Tuesday of every month at exactly ten o’clock in the morning at the banks of the Sliding River on a field chosen by our ancestors over a hundred years ago we have a war with the Centaurs. At the end of a bloody, two-hour battle the bodies are counted, a winner is declared, and the winner gets to claim they own the Sliding River for a month. Gee, I don’t know why anyone would think that was funny. I don’t know why they would think it was—oh I don’t know—completely insane.”

  The major was shocked speechless. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long. “That’s what’s wrong with you, Duncan!” His father was yelling now, pacing back and forth and throwing around the hand that still worked in grand gestures to punctuate his yelling. “You care nothing about tradition. Why, all my brothers died in the wars. My father, my uncles, all your brothers died in the wars. My little cousin Remy twice removed on my mother’s side died in the wars. The problem with you is, you think you’re too good to do what the rest of us do. Let me tell you something. Our family has a long proud tradition….”

  “Of dying?”

  “We’re warriors. We’ve always been warriors and we’ll always be warriors….”

  “Till we die a horrible death on the end of some Centaurs’ spear,” Duncan mumbled.

  “It’s an occupational hazard. There are worse things than dying.”

  “Really?” Duncan rolled his eyes. “Worse things than dying? I can’t think of any off hand. Could you name a couple?”

  “Being a coward for one thing, Duncan. Being a coward is worse than being dead.”

  “That’s only one thing and… I really don’t see how being a coward is worse than being dead. I can live with being a coward. Really, I can. But I can’t live with being dead.” A confused look momentarily clouded his eyes; then he shook it off. “Come on, Papa. The wars…they’re just stupid. You’re fighting over who gets to say the Sliding River is theirs for a month! Everyone swims in it, fishes in it, boats go up and down it. No one charges toll, whether it’s our river or theirs, because everyone knows that the river doesn’t really belong to anyone. It can’t belong to anyone.”

  “You make it sound as if all our family—all of your own brothers—have died for nothing.”

  Duncan looked at his father in mock shock. “Oh, no. They died for the glory and honor that comes from saying the river is ours…for a month. Unless, of course, we lost the month one of them died. In that case, I suppose, they really did die for nothing.”

  “The Centaurs are our sworn enemies.”

  “Because they want to say the river is theirs?”

  “Yes precisely.”

  “But it’s not theirs, it’s ours.”

  “Nope they won this month,” his father said, looking at the ground. “Poor cousin Remy died for nothing.” Then he looked up with fire in his eyes and glared at Duncan. “Because some idiot decided to take a nap instead of going to the war.”

  “I don’t see how my dying would have helped. Did it ever occur to anyone that we don’t have to fight? Maybe we might settle this whole non-dispute by playing a heated game of tiddlywinks? Or anything else without a sharp point that kills people… Of course tiddlywinks takes skill, but I’m sure we could adapt. Or here’s—an idea—we could just let the Centaurs say the river is theirs because it really doesn’t matter at all.”

  Looking back at the confrontation, Duncan was never quite sure which of those things he shouldn’t have said had caused the Major’s next outburst, but he probably shouldn’t have been surprised by it.

  “Get out!”

  “What?”

  “Get out!”

  “Out of where?” Duncan asked, confused. If he meant for Duncan to get out of his armor, that seemed like a really good idea.

  “Out of my house. You are not my son. You are a clumsy, lazy bum with no discipline, no loyalty, and no honor. A warrior’s training and a warrior’s rations are wasted on you. Get out of my house, get out of this village, get out of this country. Just get out!”

  “But….”

  “No buts. You have embarrassed your family for the last time. Pack your things and go.”

  His father stood over his shoulder while he packed his meager possessions—made even more meager because every time he picked something up to pack it his father said, “That’s not yours. I paid for it. That makes it mine.”

  “Do you expect me to go out in the world with nothing?” Duncan asked in disbelief.

  “Dying’s looking better and better, isn’t it?” the Major said in a gloating tone.

  “It’s over quick. I’ll give you that,” Duncan spat back. “You know what? I don’t care. Anything is better than being stuck here. I’ve wanted to go for a long time.”

  “Then quit whining like a girl and pack faster. I’m meeting the rest of the army at the pub to talk about the battle and raise a glass to the dead.” As Duncan went to stick another blanket in the makeshift pack he’d built, his father shook his head. “One blanket ought to be plenty for a self-sufficient fellow like you.”

  When Duncan left the house and started towards the stable his father ran in front of him and held up his goo
d hand.

  “Just where do you think you’re going?”

  “To get my horse.”

  His father shook his head.

  “Come on, you expect me to march out of here on foot?”

  “Soldiers march, boy. I expect you’ll crawl or skip your way out of here. That horse belonged to your brothers before you. He’s forgotten more about integrity than you ever knew, and I’ll be hanged if your worthless hide will ride him. Now get moving.”

  The major marched him to the edge of town in utter silence.

  Their village was mostly a collection of cut-stone buildings with slate roofs. The fighting arena sat square in the middle of town and dominated it: a circle of columns topped with massive rocks, around a patch of dirt. The town was littered with marble statues of dead warlords. As a child, Duncan was sure they were watching him. As an adult, he grew to hate them because he realized the only way to get a statue was to die and then…well, you couldn’t really appreciate it, could you?

  As they walked Duncan paid attention to the familiar sights. The blacksmith was busy at his forge making a new sword but he still took the time to raise his hammer in the air, shake it wildly, and holler, “Good riddance!”

  Duncan wasn’t sure what it meant, but it was no doubt a parting wish for him. He smiled and waved back.

  The blacksmith shook his head and turned back to the forge burying himself in his work so he wouldn’t have to think about his young, almost-apprentice leaving. It put a lump in Duncan’s throat.

  They passed the tavern he had so many fond memories of—at least, until the last six months, when he hadn’t been allowed in the door. The bar keep had told him it would take Duncan at least two years at his measly warrior’s wages to pay off his debt. Warrior’s pay got bumped up for every war you fought, every injury you received, every Centaur you killed. Since he’d never done those things, he was still making minimum wage. He’d decided there was no reason to pay his debt if he wasn’t allowed in the bar till he’d paid it off. Why pay not to go someplace and not to drink? It made no sense to him.