Eat, Slay, Love Read online

  Eat, Slay, Love

  Eric Ugland

  Air Quotes Publishing

  Air Quotes Publishing, Inc.

  V 1.1

  Copyright © 2021 Eric Ugland

  Cover by Sarah Anderson/No Synonym

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of Fiction. Of Fantasy. All of the characters in this novel and series are fictional and any resemblance to people living, dead, or undead is purely coincidental and surprising. Mentions of places are incidental, accidental, and mostly inconsequential. The magic and spells have been researched in absolutely no way whatsoever, and any ill-effects after you attempt to cast them are completely on you.

  Those of you looking for the thing, we’re on pause right now while trying to come up with a new way to play the game.

  To Grover Cleveland

  The best writing dog I’ve ever known.

  Too bad you can’t read.

  1

  I took a bracing and cold shower, cleaned what seemed like an inch of dried grime and blood off my body, and walked out to dive into my bed.

  But there, in the middle of the clean white sheets, sat a small package. Blue wrapping paper with a silver bow.

  I picked the box up and took it over to my desk. I had to undo the ribbon to get the tag out.

  Montana of Coggeshall

  Perhaps it is for the holiday that you have done such a service for me as ridding Osterstadt of vampires. I abhor those vile creatures, those perversions of nature. They made things so very difficult for me and mine. I fear, as well, you did a good job with your disguise, of hiding your identity, for I did not even know you were in the city until that final morning. And what an exit you made, the Hero of Osterstadt, a duke of the Empire. Certainly not what this rebellious city council was imagining. What a time to be alive, eh? But I digress. As you did such a kindness for me, giving me an unparalleled holiday gift, I felt it only right I do the same for you.

  Happy Solstice, and enjoy your Fiend Night,

  The Master

  “Fuck,” I said. “I killed the wrong master.”

  I dropped everything I had in my hands. The note fell to the desk, and the ribbon fluttered to the floor. Then I took a few careful steps away from the box. Knowing The Master, there was an equal chance the box would kill me as give me a genuine present.

  I went over to the door, backing up there, doing my best to never take my eyes off the box — just in case. It could be a mimic waiting for the right time to bite my head off. Not that it would necessarily work, but I wasn’t too fond of anything biting me anywhere.

  When the doorknob hit my back, I reached around and opened the door.

  “Your grace,” one of the minotaurs at my door said, either surprised to see me backing out of my room, or surprised to see me backing out of my room naked. “Are you—”

  “Get Nikolai and Emeline here now,” I said.

  The minotaur looked at me for a moment, and I chanced breaking eye contact with the box to glare at him.

  “Now.”

  The minotaur charged off, his hooves clattering down the hall.

  I stepped back into my room.

  The other minotaur guard followed me in, coming up next to me. He had his short sword out, and a small shield on his left arm extended to deflect whatever blow might be coming.

  He did not see the danger as I saw it, moving through the room quickly, looking for any obvious threats. The blue wrapped box didn’t catch his eye.

  It hadn’t changed, at least insofar as I could tell, since I set it on the desk.

  “Has anyone come in here lately?” I asked.

  “Besides your grace?”

  “Besides me.”

  “No.”

  “No one was in here after I came in and took a shower?”

  “Not from the front entrance,” he said. “Why?”

  “Is there another entrance?”

  The minotaur pointed to the door leading out to my oversized balcony.

  “Check out there,” I said, still eyeing the box.

  I caught the look that flashed across the minotaur’s face, a mixture of confusion and concern. But he composed himself quickly and stomped outside into the falling snow.

  “I could have gone quite some time without seeing your naked butt once again,” Nikolai said.

  “Keep your eye on the box,” I said, pointing to the desk, “and I’ll put something on.”

  “The box?”

  “The blue one.”

  “I only see the one. Why am I watching it?”

  “I’ll tell you when Emeline gets here.”

  “Won’t she tell me when she’s here?”

  “Nikolai, you know what I mean.”

  “Sorry,” he said with a wry smile, wiping the sleep out of his eyes.

  I grabbed a set of clothes and pulled them on. When I turned back to Nikolai, he was leaning against the wall with his eyes shut.

  “Nikolai!” I snapped.

  His eyes shot open, and he looked around.

  “I’m awake,” he said, not convincingly. “Why am I here again?”

  “The box,” I said, pointing.

  “Is it a present for me?” Emeline asked, walking into the room.

  “Not quite,” I said. “Or, at least, not that I know of.”

  “Why are we here, your grace?” Nikolai asked through a yawn.

  I pointed at the package.

  Nikolai raised an eyebrow.

  “Is this an early Fiends’ Night present?” he asked, stepping toward the box.

  “Not for you,” I said.

  He frowned. “You wake me up—”

  “It’s from The Master.”

  “The Master?” Emeline asked. Her face went pale and all happiness in her demeanor disappeared.

  I nodded.

  “This was sent prior to you killing him?” Nikolai asked. “Do you expect it is some sort of means of revenge?”

  “It’s not from The Master I killed,” I said.

  “Different master,” Nikolai mused, tilting his head a little while peering at the blue-wrapped box. “They should pick titles that aren’t quite so vague.”

  “I killed the wrong master,” I said. “That’s a thank-you present from The Master we were actually after.”

  “Thanking you for not killing him?” Nikolai asked.

  Emeline shook her head and looked around the room, maybe searching for something that might make sense of the whole situation for her.

  “Thanking me for killing the other master in Osterstadt,” I replied. “Apparently The Master we were after wasn’t very big on vampires.”

  “Which means he’s not a vampire,” Nikolai mused.

  “I knew it,” Emeline muttered.

  “Yeah, well,” I said, “I fucked up.”

  Emeline pulled her pouch off her belt and dropped to the floor on the other side of my bed.

  Nikolai got all the way to the desk, stopping to peer down at the package. Without touching it, he scrutinized the whole thing. He went over each side, gave it a sniff, and probably would have tasted it if he could’ve figured out a way to do that without using his tongue.

  “You assume it is trapped?” Nikolai asked.

  “I decided to be careful for once,” I replied.

  “Fetch Reinhart Claewins,” he barked.

  I heard the clomp of Minotaur boots on the stone.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Someone to take a look at this for us,” Nikolai said, standing up straight, with a slight groan. He stretched his back out, and I heard his tendons c
reaking in protest. He winced, and shook his head.

  “You need to take those potions,” I said.

  “And what potions are those?” he asked.

  “You know damn well,” I snapped in reply.

  His only response was a frown.

  The door to the balcony opened, and my minotaur guard came back in, covered with snow. He shook the snow from him, and gave a nod to Nikolai before turning to me.

  “There is no evidence anyone has been on the balcony, your grace,” he said. “But the snow makes it difficult to determine—”

  I held my hand up. “It’s fine, bub. You tried—”

  He nodded, and turned to head back outside.

  “Whoa,” I said, “where are—”

  “Someone must guard this door as well,” the minotaur replied. “It is a vulnerability.”

  “I—” I started to disagree, but Nikolai held a hand up to me. I sighed, and let the minotaur go outside.

  “Emeline,” Nikolai replied, “are you quite done with your ritual?”

  “Her what?” I asked, realizing I’d lost track of the woman on the far side of my oversized bed.

  “You do not smell the magic on the air?” Nikolai asked. “She’s got something going on there.”

  We both walked around the bed to see Emeline staring intently at a small copper bowl filled with clear liquid.

  “Emeline?” I asked.

  She ignored us, keeping her attention on the bowl.

  The color of the liquid flashed to blue.

  “Fuck,” she said. “He’s here.”

  2

  “Who’s here?” Nikolai asked.

  I bounded to my dresser and pulled my unfillable knapsack out of the bottom drawer. I grabbed a spear from the bag and turned, ready to fight. I scanned the walls, looking for some sign of an invisible person moving around.

  Nothing.

  “The Master,” Emeline said. “He’s here.”

  “He can go invisible?” I asked, wishing I had some sort of heat vision. Instead, I closed my eyes, and I reached out with tremorsense.

  Still nothing. At least, nothing out of the ordinary. I could feel footsteps from people moving around, some vibrations from creatures outside, and the rumbles from the underground river and waterfall just a few yards away. Which gave me one more reason to be impressed with the work the dwarves had done engineering my home.

  “He’s not here here,” Emeline said. “He’s in Coggeshall.”

  Nikolai crouched at the bowl and peered at it.

  I walked over, tossed the spear on the bed and looked into the bowl myself.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “It is what I got the night I went out by myself,” Emeline replied. “It is a small ritual that can find The Master.”

  “So where is he?” I asked.

  “In Coggeshall.”

  “That’s the best it can do?”

  “It’s better than you can do.”

  “Why didn’t you let me know about this before I killed the wrong master?”

  “Because you shunted me out of the damn city and told me The Master was a vampire.”

  “She’s got you there,” Nikolai countered. “I take it the color changes to indicate closeness?”

  Emeline nodded. “If he was in the room, it would be purple. Town, blue. County, turquoise. Dukedom, Green, Country, yellow, Continent Orange. World, Red. On another plane, white. Dead, black.”

  “Blue,” Nikolai said. “Does the shade alter at all?”

  “No,” Emeline said.

  She pulled out a small piece of parchment and unrolled it. It had swatches of color on it.

  “The guide,” she said, holding the parchment flat next to the bowl.

  “That’s blue,” I said.

  “I know,” Emeline said. “So he’s in this town.”

  “Well shit,” I said. “Let’s go find him.”

  I jumped on the bed, snatched the spear, and was halfway to the door before Nikolai cleared his throat hard enough to stop me in my tracks.

  “What, exactly, dear duke,” he started, “is your plan here?”

  “We, um, go find him,” I replied.

  “Find him. The Master. Here. In Coggeshall.”

  “Yes.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “He’s got to be among the newcomers, so--“

  “So you just stab them all? Kill every last one?”

  “No, but—”

  “Accuse one of the more influential members of the Empire of being some undiscovered monster?”

  “Okay, yeah — it’s not exactly the best idea.”

  “It would not endear you to them, and I do not see how it could offer you any insight into which of them might be The Master.”

  “You don’t think The Master is so egotistical he’d skip the chance to out himself?”

  “Are you seriously asking that question?”

  “Not now, I’m not.”

  “I doubt The Master has become what he is today by being as foolish as you seem to think he is. There’s little to gain by going after The Master right now, half-cocked and poorly dressed.”

  “So what do you suggest?” I asked, slamming the spear butt into the ground.

  “I suggest,” he said, leaning back against the nearby wall and stifling a yawn, “that we pause and think for a moment. Given the weather, no one is going to leave the holding today. Or tomorrow, likely. Certainly not for an extended trip anywhere. The weather has blessed us to a certain degree, in that you can make an edict to restrict travel until things clear.”

  “And then Fiends’ Night,” Emeline offered.

  “I believe the weather will hold until then, or at least close enough until then to keep anyone from leaving.”

  “Fiends’ Night? Why does that matter?”

  Nikolai shook his head as a smile spread. “I apologize, your grace, but occasionally I forget your, erm, origins. No one travels during Fiends’ Night.”

  “Why?”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Hold that thought,” Nikolai whispered.

  We all stood there for a second.

  “Tell them to come in,” Nikolai hissed.

  “Enter,” I bellowed, giving Nikolai the side-eye before realizing that one, it was my room, two, I was the duke. I stopped looking at Nikolai.

  A small man entered the room, somewhere between a dwarf and a human. Perhaps a half-dwarf? He was probably over four feet, but less than five, for sure. Thin, which really set him apart from dwarves, and older, with just a bit of fuzz on his face. He had patches on his clothes, and a small pair of spectacles hung out of a vest pocket. He held a hat in his hands.

  “You requested me?” he said, his voice high and a bit delicate.

  “I did,” I said. “Or, um, my chancellor did.”

  “Ah,” the little man said, giving a slight nod to me before turning his attention to Nikolai. “Then I am here to serve. Though not exactly sure what it is I am to do.”

  “Reinhart Claewins,” Nikolai said.

  “Aye, that’s me.”

  “You joined the holding at a bit of an odd time, eh?”

  “Dependin’ lot on your definition of odd, sir.”

  “I’m no knight, Reinhart.”

  “Beggin’ your pardon, uh, Chancellor. But still, dependin’ on—”

  “Right. I think of it as an odd time, but I suppose, for you at least, not as much.”

  “Not as much, no.”

  “What was going on?” I asked. “Why—”

  Nikolai held up a hand. “A moment, if you will, your grace.”

  I shrugged, and leaned on my spear. I noticed that there were more minotaurs up and about. Two were outside the open door, and two stood inside the door. Plus the one freezing his horns off outside. They felt the danger. Or they felt that I felt the danger. Or, well, you get the idea.

  “You’re a man of particular skills, Reinhart,” Nikolai continued, walking
slowly over to the desk.

  “I have been, erm,” Reinhart started to clarify, but then stopped himself. “Yes, chancellor. Supposin’ I am.”

  “I need those skills right now.”

  “You need a finish carpenter?”

  “If I did, would you be the man I would call?”

  “I am a carpenter, your grace,” Reinhart said to me.

  I smiled and pointed to Nikolai. “I’m willing to bet he’s about to say different.”

  “You are a fence, Reinhart,” Nikolai said.

  “See,” I said.

  “I would never—”

  “Can it,” I said.

  “We may be a backwoods province, but we are not country bumpkins, Reinhart. We know each and every person who comes into this holding, especially those who swear allegiance to his grace, the Duke of Coggeshall.” Nikolai nodded his head in my direction. “Your skills and prior profession are well-known to us.”

  “I ain’t done nothin—”

  Nikolai held up his hands. “And I accuse you of nothing but your Choice. I know what it is you have done, and recognize that, so far, you have been a model citizen. However, I do need your rather particular skills to open this box here.”

  “A box, eh?” Reinhart said. “That seems like something I might be able to help with.”

  He smiled, and rubbed his hands together as he approached the desk. He moved easier now, more lithe and sure-footed, making me feel that, perhaps, his older appearance was just that: an appearance. He pulled a small piece of metal out of one of his sleeves. It was very slim and looked an awful lot like a lock-pick. He used the lock-pick to check the wrapping paper, moving the box around carefully.

  “Did you find it here?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “On the bed.”

  “Ah,” he said, and immediately picked the box up and peered at the bottom.

  He tutted a few times, but I had no idea what he’d found.

  Then, exceedingly carefully, Reinhart slipped his metal pick into the paper, cutting a small hole. He glanced back over at us, then hunched over the box. Suddenly a bit of light bloomed from somewhere on his person. Reinhart used the light to peer inside the hole. He then cut a hole on each side of the box, giving him the ability to look at everything under the paper.