Gary Miller had just finished chopping down his second tree that morning when the Baron’s men came for him. “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it,” he blurted out as soon as he saw their uniforms.
The sergeant gestured for his men to stay still, then took a step nearer. “No, you didn’t, sir - yet.” That confused Gary enough that he nearly dropped the axe. “My lord has need of your services.”
Gary sighed. Dimly he’d been afraid it would come to this. He never wanted to be a hero, but a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and surviving it added up to a reputation. He weighed the axe in his hands for a few seconds. He was all alone, faced with the three soldiers. Could he take them on and survive that too?
But that wouldn’t pay off. If he did this favor for the Baron, there was a chance that he’d be left alone to live his own life, most of the time. For attacking the Baron’s men - he’d never know peace again.
“All right, where to now, my good men?”
[spoiler]They led him down the wide road into town. It was market day, and there was no way of getting to the Baron’s mansion in town without struggling through the crowds. They were cutting through a small open square down the lane from the market green, surrounded by modest houses and shops. A tired old pack horse crossed the square thirty yards away, pulling a simple cart - nothing more than a flat plank between two study wheels, laden down with cream-colored boxes and packages.
A man dressed in black stepped out of a crowd ahead of the horse, standing right in its way. The horse’s groom called out in annoyance, and then - the next thing Gary knew, the horse had leapt into the air, its front hooves reaching waist height, and it was squealing in absolute terror.
Gary immediately bolted the other way, looking for some way out of the square, and felt a hand clamp around his shoulder. He looked up at the grim sergeant, and then pointed ahead to a narrow passage leading between a squat inn and a chandler’s storefront. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “That leads to a back alley, yeah?”
“But you’re supposed to…”
“We’re not,” one of the other soldiers said, running ahead. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir. And he hasn’t talked to the Baron yet. Our orders were to bring him in to talk.”
The sergeant looked over his shoulder at the square, and then hurried Gary along. Gary took one look back before they hurried in between the buildings. The poor horse was still in a dangerous frenzy, and nobody was approaching either him or the man in black, who had wandered around to the back of the cart and was examining some of the spilled packages.
Within the hour, Gary had arrived at the Baron’s mansion, and sat in the very presence of the petty lord. Baron Hofstad sat upon a great padded chair and behind a wide table, close to the fire, while Gary had to perch on a rough stool, but he’d been offered a mug of fine wine.
“I understand that you were witness to an unpleasant scene on your way here, Miller,” the Baron snapped.
“Yes,” Gary agreed. “And I gather you want me to deal with the man responsible.”
The Baron blanched for a second. “Well, yes. You are well renowned throughout the Barony as a man of uncommon prowess, and bravery.”
“I faced down a bear once, and killed two enemy soldiers for you,” Gary muttered. “Was there anything else?”
“The little matter of the evil wizard.”
Gary sighed. How these tales grew in the telling. It was just a short alchemist who’d run around the village throwing smelly concoctions at people - infusion of onion leaves and what have you.
“Okay, let’s get down to it. What makes this man in black so fearsome, that your guards hesitate to face him? Is he mighty and strong, or with hell-begotten powers to move living creatures without touching them? I didn’t see everything that happened to the horse in that square, but -” He tried to think of a poetic way to finish that sentence, and gave up. “It was peculiar.”
“Nobody knows for sure,” the Baron said. “The only people who have faced him directly - are too frightened to give a sensible account of what has befallen them.”
“I see. So, why should I solve this little problem for you?”
“Is it not your problem as well? This man in black may come for your wife and your little boys next.”
“Has he been known to rampage beyond the town?”
“Not yet - but who knows what tomorrow may bring?”
“I could just wait and see. It isn’t hard to see somebody coming up the road from town.” Providing you’re watching, instead of chopping down a tree. If only Gary had been watching that morning…
“Do the lives of the common townspeople mean so little to you?”
“Do they really mean much to you?”
There was a tense silence for a moment. “I could pay you a hundred gold coins if you dispatch this threat. Enough to pay for the finer things in life.”
“You mean kill the man?”
“Well - if you can deliver him safely to my guards, in chains, then that would be acceptable. But it would be on your risk. If the precautions against an escape are insufficient, I would hold you responsible.”
“And how much will you pay my family, if I perish in the attempt?”
Now the baron showed a lazy smile. “I don’t know. Perhaps we should ask them. I have more of my guards bringing them to town already.”
Gary felt a ball of ice grow in the deepest part on his stomach. “And let me guess - if I prove reluctant to face the man in black, you’ll have them put out as bait for him. So that I’ll have to challenge him to save their lives.”
“Why, Mister Miller, that would be… desperate.” The Baron grinned. “I wouldn’t advise you ever make me feel that desperate, sir.”
Gary groaned. "Let’s wait until my wife gets here. She’s the shrewd haggler in the family, not me.
The sun was dropping towards evening when Gary left the Baron’s mansion, carrying a fine sword and wearing the first suit of armor from the guard’s barracks that fit him. His beloved Lisbeth and the children were enjoying the hospitality of the Baron, but everybody understood that if Gary ran away from his task, their safety would become peril.
He felt like he was in one of those old stories where the great prince goes into the dark caves alone to challenge the monster. Everybody out on the streets seemed to be staring at him, from the richest banker to the poorest beggar. Nobody seemed to know where the man in black might stay or who he had befriended to hide him when he wasn’t terrorizing the townspeople and committing his crimes. There seemed to be a few more people than usual who were wearing light, pale colors, and Gary wondered if that was a deliberate reaction, an attempt to silently say ‘Don’t look at me. I can’t be the Man in black.’ Still, there was enough contrast in any knot of people to make it hard to be sure where he might be lurking.
Gary went first to the square where the incident with the draft horse had taken place, but nobody seemed to remember the incident, and Gary couldn’t describe the crowd that the man in black had stepped out of with any detail. Lacking any other clues to find the trail of his quarry, Gary started wandering the streets of the town aimlessly, calling out to the man silently. You have to come and face me. It’s that or my family is put into hazard.
After nearly an hour of wandering around like that, Gary looked up and saw a man dressed in black, standing alone at the other end of the street. He checked that his sword was still in its sheath and walked forward to meet his fate.
“Why did you come here?” he asked.
“I had to do something to stop you thinking at me like that. It’s really annoying.”
“You - you could tell?” Gary breathed. The man in black shrugged. “What’s your secret?”
“Do you really expect me to tell you?” Now that Gary got close, he saw that the man was very young, possibly still in his teens, though his clothes looked like those of a senior officer in the army.
“Maybe. I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.”
“I don’t know it all. I don’t know why I can do what I do. Perhaps I was born under a mighty star.”
“You realize that I have to stop you from hurting people.”
“You, really?” The boy pulled out a cheap hunting knife. It might not be as fancy as Gary’s borrowed sword, but it could kill him just as well. “What makes you think that you can succeed where everybody else has failed?”
“I don’t know, only that I must try.” Gary pulled the sword, and suddenly felt a mortal dread fill his soul. Suddenly he realized what had happened to the poor horse - if jumping three yards into the air could have helped him escape from that fear, he’d have jumped too. But unlike the dumb beast, he had the wits to know it was pointless.
He took two steps backward, and then with a huge effort of will he ordered his feet to stay stuck to the dirt. They trembled, but stood fast.
“Gods above,” the boy muttered. “How are you not around the corner by now?”
“I have two things on my side, or perhaps three,” Gary growled. “The one that I’m not certain of, is that people tell me I have a natural surfeit of courage. Whether that be so, whether I am better able to resist fear, I cannot say. But I do know for certain that fear is just a humor running through my veins. It cannot hurt me, and I shall not let it rule me.”
The boy edged cautiously closer. “And what is the last thing?”
“That last, is that I am more worried about what happens to my family if I fail in this task than I could ever be of you.”
“Indeed, fascinating.” The boy crept further. “But for all of those three things, it seems that all of your iron will can only keep you from fleeing. It cannot drive you to lift your arm against me or walk closer to the terror. And having you rooted in place like a great oak tree - that works for me.”
And with that, he charged at Gary, his knife leading, pointing at the exposed flesh of his neck. Gary took a deep breath. He knew that he had one moment to act, and that he wouldn’t be able to unsheathe the sword and use it in time - not without this boy noticing. And he didn’t think that a single blow with his closed fist would get the job done.
So he dropped into a crouch, which was surprisingly easy, as his terror seemed to approve of that course of action, hugging himself tightly in a ball upon the ground. He felt the boy stumble over him, and then the fear was gone from his heart. Gary suspected he knew what that meant.
Surely enough, when he stood up again and examined the boy; he had managed to fall upon the knife. Blood was gushing out onto the dirt.
[/spoiler]