It turned out, if you already have an undeserved reputation for heroism, being the first one to start barking about taking up arms and defending your home is a really, really good way to get pressed into…Taking up arms and defending your home.

  I wasn’t press-ganged of course, no. Nothing so unfortunate as that. The only thing shackling me in place was the weight of expectation and my own ego. I never had a chance.

  When you’re dealing with a defensive act, a properly-made one that is, what you really want to look for are the men-at-arms. These are your professionals, the men who make a living out of other people’s dying. Ostensibly, all of them can fight mounted. In practice the major definition really just comes down to them owning a suit of steel plate—or most of one.

  But Shepleberry didn’t have any men-at-arms, or rather its people didn’t. They were all under the service of Baron Levoir, and no word had come back from him despite several messages. That meant that we’d be forming a rather unorthodox sort of militia—one using the stereotypical pitchforks and scythes.

  On the other hand, a lot of the weapons were better than that. Plenty of folks had actual spears or swords—albeit old ones kept over from mercenaries or soldiers a few generations past in the family. Most used bows.

  An Anglyn longbow is a famous weapon, even now. Notorious throughout history for its range, power and lethality. This is, for the most part, total horseshit. Fact is a longbow is about as basic a bow as you can hope to make—and certainly does not deserve to even be in the same conversation as those composite weapons used in Mogdalia.

  Their reputation in war doesn’t come from nowhere, though. What was the saying? Ah yes; “If you want a good longbowman, start with his grandfather.” Anglysh men were taught to shoot from a very young age, for the most part. I wasn’t—my father had never raised a weapon in his bloody life—but plenty of folks among Sheppleberry had fathers and, on occasion, grandfathers who’d fought in the Twenty Years War that put King Hengrys on his throne.

  Among Sheppleberry, we had a solid thousand people in all—supported by the Thaumaturgically-treated croplands the farmers tended on behalf of Baron Levoir. Fifty or so people had grown up learning to shoot a longbow from that number, with maybe twenty practicing regularly enough that they could’ve made a proper soldier. Everyone else’s contribution would be more imrpovisational.

  On the other hand, that made it better than mine. For the most part my time in the preparations was spent getting yelled at by my father.

  “You’re having the damned peasants militarise!?” He roared, as I was called into his office in the estate.

  “Good afternoon to you father. Oh, my time in the dungeons? Terrifying, I nearly died you know. Seeing such paternal concern though it…It warms my heart and melts my fear, really—”

  —”DON’T GET GLIB WITH ME YOU LITTLE COCKWART!” As always, my sarcastic wit served to rather instantly enhance the fury of my father. I smirked, knowing that that always made a splendid desert after a course of the snark.

  He seemed to realise what I was doing, glaring at me as his rage cooled from a bonfire into mere glowing coals.

  “One day,” he continued, nostrils flaring, “one day, and you have set the town into a frenzy.”

  “No I didn’t,” I lied, “they did that all by themselves.”

  “You’re the one who suggested they ready a fucking defence!” He snapped. My father was not a very tall man, but he made up for his lack of height with extra weight in blubber. All six of his chins wobbled as he spoke, and the drooping moustaches he’d so carefully grown seemed to dance in sympathy of his rage. I found the sight rather hypnotic, staring at them rather than listening very intently to what he said.

  Finally I snapped into a verbal state of mind, as his temper reached some sort of crescendo.

  “Why did you have to go down there in the first place you stupid little bastard!?”

  That pricked my temper.

  “It wasn’t my idea!” I snapped, and he just rolled his eyes.

  “So you let someone else shove you into danger? Stupid as well as foolhardy.”

  I bristled at that, but he just kept talking.

  “Who was it? Can’t have been Laryck, that idiot. Doubt it was Will, no…It…It wasn’t Vara was it?!” My face burned, apparently telling him everything he needed to know “Ha! You let some fucking woman lure you underground? A peasant girl, no less. What were you hoping to root her in a cave?”

  “Should I have found a whore to marry instead?” I shot back. He didn’t retort, just glared at me. I considered it a point scored—and didn’t consider the insult to my own mother.

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  “This is bad you know,” my father glowered as he sat back down and started pouring himself a drink. “Levoir has been demanding answers of me—me. Not my town, of course, oh he’ll be the fucking first one to remind you, but the moment these inbred goat-fondlers start acting up everybody’s eyes are on me. That’s a mercer’s life though, nothing is our property but it’s all our responsibility.”

  I did feel a shade of sympathy for my father at that, given that I was also a money-grubbing parasite, but he banished it as efficiently as ever.

  “What did you even find down in that dungeon?” He growled. “A few shamblers?”

  “Yes.” I replied, after a second, finding myself suddenly embarrassed. Shamblers weren’t a common sight around Sheppleberry, but they were far from rare either. Most people would never have seen one, but the stories got around. There was, after all, a reason Sheppleberry—and indeed my father’s estate—was guarded from the outside by a towering wall of logs.

  Granted, those walls hadn’t been used for a while. I was glad to have them now though.

  “A few shamblers?” My father pressed. “How many is a few?”

  “Uh, six, maybe. Seven in total.” He scoffed.

  “All this over seven shamblers, they won’t even make it to the gate.”

  I wanted to add more, to tell him about the presence I’d felt following me—even, for a mad moment, the things I’d heard after touching that carving but…No. I hadn’t even told my mother about that. I did not want to find myself decreed a madman and shipped off to wherever madmen went. Better to be eaten by the shamblers than have that as my fate.

  “What did you call me for?” My question surprised him, but it shouldn’t have. I wasn’t half so stupid as he thought, and I knew that I wouldn’t be eating into his valuable trading time just to get yelled at. My father’s eyes narrowed.

  “Stories have been flitting around about your…heroics.” His lip curled, clearly he knew better than to take any of them at face value. “I want you to live up to these stories, or at least to trick the local idiots into thinking you have.”

  Ah, there it was.

  “You’re getting invited to places you weren’t before?” It was a guess on my part, but apparently a good one.

  “Not places, yet, but Duke Vrestig has apparently been asking about you.”

  That was no small thing, even I had to note. Vrestig ruled much of the lands neighbouring ours, controlling everything for ten or twenty leagues in every direction—starting from a few dozen miles to the north. I’d never heard him to catch father’s ear before.

  “That’s…” What, exciting, hopeful? Life-changing? “A large update.” I said at last. It was an understatement to be sure, the ear of a Duke might well bring us closer to getting that noble title father had been seeking for so many years.

  “Basically, it means don’t fuck about and avoid embarrassing us.” My father added that as if it were somehow tangential, but I could tell by the look in his eyes that it was the real reason I’d been called here.

  “Don’t fuck about, like by starting a peasant militia…” I trailed off as I saw the anger on him.

  “Yes. Of course you’ve already done that now, you little shit, so my advice would be make yourself look as impressive and not-useless as possible, and try to find some way to call it all off before it can end unceremoniously and with everyone remembering that you were the one who wasted their time.”

  That bothered me more than I’d expected it to, and I was speaking before I could think the words through.

  “You don’t think there’s the slightest chance we’ll actually be attacked? People have been seeing things from the Dungeon since I crawled out.”

  My father waved a dismissive hand, contemptuous, it seemed, of the whole world at once.

  “Bah. These illiterate shit-snorters see ‘things’ everywhere, they were seeing things in the Dungeon back before I squirted you into your mother. This will all fizzle out in a few more weeks, just you wait.”

  I wanted to argue, but I was far too tired to commit to it. And my father always had a way of crushing that out of me.

  “Alright then,” I conceded instead. He didn’t even look back up, just sent me off with another lazy wave of his hand.

  “Remember what I told you,” he grunted, “and try not to fuck up.” Without another word, his attention was back on his papers. I made myself scarce.

  At Sheppleberry, I was shocked by two things. The former was that Jeevs had apparently followed me from the estate, and the latter was just how much change had overcome the town in so small a span of time.

  Granted, the first was far from unpleasant. Jeevs was an excellent servant. More to the point, he was six and a half feet tall, almost as wide as a doorframe at the shoulders, and could literally dual-wield fireaxes when chopping wood for hours on end. If there were anyone in this whole region I’d have wanted at my back when the shamblers came shambling, it was Jeevs.

  It was hard to put much stock in one man’s strength, though. Around me the town of Sheppleberry had mutated into a combative thing. Though people still went about their work in the streets, I saw that all who weren’t busy with their required tasks were dedicating the free time to preparing us.

  None of what was done actually made much sense to me, because of the “moron” thing, so I’ll explain it with my not-inconsiderable hindsight. Big, heavy stone tips were being prepared for a lot of arrows—called “smashers” and made specifically to break bone. Anti-undead projectiles. That and the sling bullets, for those few among Sheppleberry who still used such old-fashioned weapons.

  Rocks were being piled up by the walls, alongside the platforms built about a yard from the tops for defenders to stand, and some idiot had decided to start gathering up oil—because burning undead sounded absolutely wonderful to be attacked by apparently. I didn’t have the sense to complain about that, or contribute much of anything. Just went around quietly needling out what everyone was doing and making strategically worded suggestions to seem like I was helping.

  I wasn’t helping, but like always nobody seemed to actually notice that. Somehow I actually convinced myself I was fucking tired from all the work I wasn’t doing, and decided to take a “rest” by making my way to the tavern. If I’d known what was waiting for me there, I might not have.

  Vara looked up as I stepped in, before I could recognise her and make my way out.

  “Feels like it’s been longer,” she observed. I was held in place by her words, considered them—a rare reaction for me when women spoke back then—and finally responded.

  “It…It has.” Without quite knowing why, I took the seat beside her. And I didn’t even look at her tits.