Chuckle Grim (5 of 5) - The Village

A steady cold rain showered the riverstone village. With the weather driving everyone indoors, the night had the local tavern packed. Celebrations to spite the storm. Tavern maids danced. Adventurers cheered and traded wondrous stories. Bards played tunes from foreign lands and sang of legends from tabletops.

It was a sight to remember, an atmosphere of cheer and easy bliss that some would carry with them forever. Memories were being made. Friendships sparked. But the wizard was no part of it. He couldn’t be. How could he?

He had left his king and kingdom. The very realm he had helped claim and guide for decades. It had been a home more than any place he had ever known.

He watched the head fizzle from his ale, as certain as he was that his king and realm had done the same by now. It had been four days since he’d fled. The boy had brains. He had hoped good sense would've brought him here by now. But he knew the stories of the Chuckle Grim. Countless arrogant kingdoms had fallen to rumor, myth, and worse.

Osric sighed as the ale turned flat. “To my king and home. . . and Oli,” he murmured, then drained the pint.

Someone screamed. The music faltered, then died. The room stilled as a silhouette stood dripping in the tavern’s doorway.

It was a young lad. Clothes caked with mud, barefoot, muttering something no one could make out.

Osric paid it no mind at first, assuming the commotion was just crossed words between drunks. That was until one of the tavern maids cried out.

“Someone fetch a healer! This boy. . .he—”

The wizard shot up from his table and stormed for the door. “Oli? Oli, is that you,” he shouted, forcing his way through the crowd. “Oh, will you all just move? Move! I’m the damned healer!”

Osric pushed through the doorway and caught the boy in an embrace.

“You’re alive. Thank the wind and stars, you’re alive,” he breathed, then his expression fell grim.

The life that once shone in Oli’s eyes was gone. He had faced something ancient and vile. Come back from it as little more than an echo.

Osric rolled up the sleeve of Oli’s casting arm, or what had once been his casting arm. It looked as though it had been blasted clean away. Charcoal and soot blackened the side of his neck and shoulder, the wound cauterized where the arm had been.

The magic required for such a blast. And the blood he must have lost. It left Osric staring in disbelief. It was a damned miracle the boy had reached the tavern at all.

Osric wrapped Oli in the pale glow of a healing spell, fearing the boy might die of exhaustion alone. He leaned close and spoke in a low voice

“The king?”

Oli’s eyes were distant, but tears slipped down his face all the same. He clutched Osric’s collar and whispered, “Chuckle Grim. . . Os-Osric. . .you were right. . .to flee.”

Torment twisted the boy’s face. He would be haunted the rest of his days, and not a soul would believe him or understand. No one except Osric.

“I know dear boy. . . I know.”