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The BloodVaine EpicChapter 10: Green Fox
Green Fox trudged along the street, blind drunk. He bled from a dozen neat slashes on his back and was using his once-ornate axe to support his bleeding body. A stone struck the back of his head and he collapsed.
When he woke, he felt around his body, it seemed the same. As he reached for his belt, he realized his bag of gold was missing.
“Oh megablocks …”
Now covered in filth from the streets, he made for a nearby inn, the wolf's head. As he staggered inside, he recognized the innkeeper from his days in the Wolfpack. Pulling up a stool, he leant over to the innkeeper.
“Heeeey, remember me?”
“Oh tyco, not you…”
“So, can ye giv’ a guy a drink?”
“So, can you pay?”
“Aaaah, about that... Ye’ see... I sorta…”
“No money then?”
“Ahhh...ahhh...no.”
Green Fox staggered around the floor, looking for unguarded flagons. He promptly passed out. He woke up the next day.
“I had a good life as a Forestman...and look at me now...what went wrong?...I hope me’ ol’ mate Bjarn made more of ‘is life than I did…” he muttered to himself.
He decided to ask the innkeeper.
“So, mate, ye knows of a Forestman named Bjarn?”
“Aye. I hear he’s in high places over at the League o’ Forestmen. Probably rich, as well.”
“Maybe I should pay Bjarn a little visit.” Green Fox said.
Green Fox lay on the back of the slow-moving hay cart, inside the hay, and thought about the best way to make his peace:
“Bjarn, mate... sorry about stealing your hat... I assure you... it was very...nice... And I needed that money…”
Try as he might, he couldn’t get a good angle on this situation. Being hung-over and bleeding badly didn’t help. Suddenly, with a jolt, the cart stopped. A surly-looking man in a bloodstained apron got off the front and grabbed his pitchfork. He thrust it into the hay, and the prongs narrowly missed Green Fox’s eye...
He stood up.
“I surrender!”
“Roight, off wi’ ye. Kin ye pay?”
“Er...pay...yes, actually.”
He produced the innkeeper’s purse.
“I trust this will do?”
“Roight. In ye goes.”
And the journey continued.
After a few hours, they reached the border of a great expanse of forest. Green Fox got out of the cart and walked towards the woods. It was overgrown and dark, but he battled through it with his axe until he came to a small clearing. He figured this would be a good place to rest for a while, and to bandage his wounds.
He tore up his bloodstained shirt into strips and crudely wrapped them around his many wounds. Just as he was congratulating himself, a green-fletched arrow thudded into the ground between his feet.
Later that afternoon, Bjarn sat in his quarters, rubbing his head. The event with Reno had exhausted him, but still had his duties to attend to. Bjarn scanned the list of persons currently residing in Drullen Bell Keep and blanched. Besides the regular residents and the guests Reno, Aros, Alex, Luxus, Shainya, Rosa, Graygon, Radjar Kath, and the other Dark Foresters, there had been three entries added since the last time he checked by a scribe;
Logan, found dehydrated in forest, infirmary.
Sir Dractor, found wounded in forest, infirmary.
‘Green Fox’, caught infiltrating Delvarden Gard Swamps, jail.
Green Fox?!?! Bjarn swore. The son of a megablok should never have come back, how dare he!
Bjarn slammed the book shut and exited his room. He had some unfinished business with Green Fox.
Green Fox lay alone in the cold, damp cell. The only light coming from a grate on a door on the other side of the room. A rotund Forestman slept outside the cell on a three-legged stool, a ring of keys round his spear. Suddenly, light flooded into the small room. Bjarn flung open the door, and he and two Forestman guards strode inside, Bjarn having nothing but a look of contempt on his face. A guard kicked the stool away from under the jailer, as he woke up, very startled. He got up, straightened his green cap and saluted Bjarn.
“H...h...hello, sir. What a su...surprise, sir.”
Bjarn calmly replied, “Open Green Fox’s cell.”
The jailer looped the ring off his spear and opened the barred door.
“Guards, jailer, please leave.”
Bjarn, alone, stepped inside the cell. Green Fox got up:
“Hello, Bjarn, mate. Look, I know I still have to pay you back that money...but then...there was that Black Falcon...and then I got sidetracked with that horse race and the card game...I had that game rigged! But so did he, and then there was that…”
Bjarn’s icy stare stopped him speaking. Green Fox said sheepishly, “I still have yer hat…”
He took his battered Forestman’s hat and placed it at Bjarn’s feet, grinning nervously.
Bjarn kicked away the hat and punched Green Fox in the face.
“You son a megabloks! You took from me much more than my tyco hat!”
Bjarn began kicking Green Fox, a stream of swears issuing from his pursed lips mingling with Green Fox’s yelps and pleas.
“Please, sir, tis just a joke, ‘onest! I jus’ came to get a bit o’ money!”
Bjarn’s anger tripled. Giving the unfortunate Green Fox one last stinging kick, the Forestman leader hissed, “You will rot in this jail until you die, shifty-brick! I’ll see to that!”
Bjarn exited the jail and stormed upstairs and the jailer reappeared with some iron manacles and chained the now-unconscious Green Fox’s feet to the floor.
When he awoke half an hour later, his head was awash with pain. He tried to stand up, but the chains cut into his ankles. He collapsed and gave a loud groan. The hat lay on the cell floor, but he couldn’t reach it. His mouth was full of blood and a few teeth, which he spat out on the dirty floor. He picked up the teeth and put them in his empty purse, in case he might need them.
The jailer left the room and locked the door on his way out. Through the small barred window on the door, he could hear two voices, one the jailer’s, and the other Bjarn’s.
“So, sir, what do we do with the prisoner?”
“Well, I have no intention of leaving him there for the rest of his life, of course.”
Green Fox brightened.
“I intend, instead, to have him executed at dawn, possibly with that man calling himself Sir Dractor.”
“Sir!?!” the jailer was shocked.
“No...no...I don’t mean that....keep Green Fox in his cell until I return...forget what I said about Sir Dractor...my…"
Bjarn rubbed his head.
"My nerves are frayed...within the last month I learned I was king...and so much has happened since then...no...just keep Green Fox in his cell...I’ll be up in my chamber...alert me if there is trouble…”
Bjarn stumped off. He cursed his foolish mouth. He would like nothing more than to kill Green Fox with his bare hands, but that was against the code of the Forestmen...as for killing Dractor...he had not known what he had said, he had not even seen the man yet. Bjarn rubbed his skull again. He was so tired.
Green Fox knew that if he was to escape, it had better be now. He called out to the jailer:
“Uuuuugh... I feel sick…"
As the jailer got up and grabbed his spear, Green Fox discreetly slipped the teeth from his purse into his mouth.
The jailer simply said, “And you believe I’ll fall for this?”
“Mmmmmmurrgh!”
Green Fox spat out the teeth, along with some blood. The jailer screamed and hurried to open the door, and once inside, knelt down beside Green Fox, unlocked the manacles and dropped his spear. Green Fox got up, grasping his throat and staggered to where the jailer’s spear lay. Without hesitation, we picked it up and swung the butt at the jailer’s head, knocking him cold. He grabbed the keys and left the cell room. He was in a stone corridor with doors on either side, the length down. He opened the nearest one to him, and slipped inside. He heard two Forestmen, talking to each other walking towards the door.
“Right, unlock the door.”
“I ain’t got the keys.”
“Oh, I do. Silly ol' me.”
Green Fox quickly locked the door from his side.
“The lock’s broke.”
“Let me try.”
“Yeah, go on, then.”
“Yup, it’s broke.”
“Megablocks.”
Green Fox heard them walking away down the corridor. The room appeared to be an armory, and he instinctively grabbed a dagger and thrust it under his shirt. Clearing away some dusty Forestman caps, he found a small chest, unlocked. Inside was money!
He estimated that inside the chest was roughly the amount he owed Bjarn, and maybe some more. Shoving it into his purse, he unlocked the door and ran back to the room with his cell. Inside, he looped the keys back round the spear and dragged the unconscious Forestman onto the stool in what he judged to be a sleeping position. The spear poked through the bars of his cell and he grabbed the keys and locked the cell door. Then, he locked himself in his manacles and threw the loop of keys back over the spear. They missed, but it was good enough. Scratching a small hole in the floor of his cell, he buried the dagger, just in case. With the money in his purse, he waited eagerly for Bjarn’s return.
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