Making It Up As I Go Along

By Brian Wakeling

Follow the intrigues of life in the Inpokkari capital, find out where Half-Orcs come from, discover what life is like for ordinary folk in the North, and learn some ancient history that may or may not become relevant.

The short stories in this collection were originally published online as they were written. Now you can own them in a far more convenient format. Includes a never-before-seen story dealing with the royal family of Turnobae-Galorndan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9780244172077

Book preview

Making It Up As I Go Along

Making it Up as I Go Along

Short stories from the

Have Sword & Sorcery: Will Travel™

setting

by Brian Wakeling

About the Author

Brian Wakeling was born in the Midlands, bred in the Home Counties, raised in Yorkshire, and went to university in Edinburgh, where he studied fencing and drinking at QMUC - from where he was finally kicked out for the second time in May 2000. He returned to Yorkshire nine months later where he tried to get a life, but couldn’t afford one. In summer 2005, following his ambition to get a job in a theatre, he moved down to London - and almost completely failed in this ambition. He has been writing in one form or another for most of his life. He was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome in March 2009. He currently spends way too much time playing computer games.

Other Books

Have Sword & Sorcery: Will Travel™

Please Kill the Neighbours

Finish the Job So We Don’t Have To

All’s Fair in Love and Politics

Things Never Go Smooth

Cult Following

Customs & Duty

The Dragon, Shrouded

The Dragon, Rising

The Dragon

Making it Up as I Go Along

Copyright

Copyright © Brian Wakeling 2008-2018

I, Brian Wakeling, hereby assert and give notice of my right under sections 77 and 78 of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. Any unauthorised copying, lending, distributing or hiring is prohibited, whether by electronic or by any other means.

All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The GURPS rules and system used as part of the creation of this work are © Steve Jackson Games. GURPS is a Registered Trademark of Steve Jackson Games.

Cover image:

Detail of The Burning Fields by Lies Thru a Lens, Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licences/by/2.0/deed.en)

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

First Edition 2019

ISBN 978-0-244-17207-7

This forms part of The Published Works as defined in the SOAUL

(http://www.sabremeister.me.uk/soaul.html)

Have Sword & Sorcery: Will Travel is a Trademark of Brian Wakeling

http://www.sabremeister.me.uk/Hsaswt.html

Introduction

So – short stories.

These were all originally published on the internet, first on LiveJournal then on Dreamwidth after LJ started enforcing Russian anti-gay propaganda laws, as a means to raise and maintain interest in the book series. I dare say if I had maintained some sort of regularity of posting them, those aims would have been far more effectively achieved.

It was always my intention to accumulate enough of them to publish them in dead-tree format. If I had managed to keep up an average of one story every two months, from the time I started writing them to the time I finished the last, I would have written fifty-four of the damn things, enough for two anthologies this size. Don’t worry though, real life and idea burnout stopped you having to wait another year for another volume.

Each story has a short introduction, the date of original publication, and the date it is set in-universe (for comparison, the novels run from the end of 1209 to mid-1214), so if you want to read them in chronological order, you can do.

Enjoy!

The First Short Story

The opening paragraph is a parody of the infamous Bulwer-Lytton opening that has spawned innumerable efforts by Snoopy (among others). At one point, I had decided that all my books would begin with it raining – no particular reason, just because. At this stage I wasn’t planning on there being sequels to any of the stories, either.

Published (LJ) 17/04/08

Chronology 17/04/1208

It was raining. It was, after all, a dark and stormy night. The rain fell in torrents onto the cobbled streets, ricocheting up with a noise akin to a crazed stilt-walker tapdancing. There was no-one about in the city’s streets (for it is in Tasal that our story is set), and the darkness was broken at occasional intervals only, by lantern or torch-light from open tavern doors.

Most of this was lost on the young thief hanging by her fingertips from the gable of a roof. If she swung just right, she could reach the windowsill. She had a long hooded cloak to keep the worst of the weather off, but it wasn’t waterproof, and nor were her clothes underneath it. She flexed her legs and tensed her forearms. Her booted feet thudded against the closed shutters. Damn! Too far! Whoever was inside would have heard her, and the impact had loosened her already tenuous grip three storeys above the streets.

The shutters opened, the dim glow of a fire in the room beyond mostly blocked out by the silhouette of a short and thickset man. The thief took her chance, swung again, and landed her feet on the sill. Her fingers released their hold, her back curled, and the man at the window caught her hands with lightning reflexes and pulled her in. She collapsed, drained, on the bare floorboards, as the man closed the shutters behind her.

Well? he asked.

The girl clambered to her feet, her numb fingers fumbling with the clasp of her cloak. You had better have those blankets ready, she gasped, and that drink!

The man, and now that his face was lit by the fire it could be seen he was roughly the same age as the girl, hurried forward. Piled on the chimneybreast as it sloped back were three heavy blankets, nicely warmed by the heat of the fire through the stone. He ignored them and picked up the large tin mug of steaming liquid nestling behind them. He passed it to the girl, who grabbed it in both hands and took a long and careful sip as he unfastened her cloak for her. She closed her eyes as the first sliver of hot mead slid down her throat, restoring some of her body’s heat leached to the elements. She let out a long, slow breath as the cloak was released and flung clear. She opened her eyes and handed the mug back. The man put it on the floor by the hearth and picked up the blankets as the girl blew some warmth onto her fingers and began undoing the drawstrings at the neck of her shirt. The man sorted the blankets and held out the warmest as she pulled the tattered shirt over her head, and flung it towards the door. He draped the blanket across her shoulders as she bent and hauled off her boots, then peeled her soaking wet breeches from her legs, and flung them after the shirt. She shrugged off the blanket and pulled her shift over her head, dropping it behind her and picking up the blanket again to wrap herself in it quickly. She noticed the other’s grin.

Don’t get any ideas! I need to warm up for a looong while first.

You always do need warming up, he replied, smirking.

She’d untied her soaking loincloth and now whipped it at him. Blankets! Drink! she snapped. He tossed her the remaining two blankets, which she caught and draped over her shoulder. She used the first to give herself a brisk towelling, before tossing it in the direction of the door. Then she wrapped herself in the other two blankets, picked up the mug in both hands, and retreated to the corner between the wall and the chimneybreast, where a large and thick straw pallet served as a bed. She took a long drink, again closing her eyes to savour the taste and warmth.

While she had been drying off and getting settled, the man had been retrieving her sopping wet clothes. The cloak and the breeches he laid out flat on the floor in front of the fire, the shirt and shift were laid on the chimneybreast where the blankets had been, with the loincloth on top of them. He searched each garment before laying it down, and when he was done, he picked up the discarded boots and searched them too. Finding nothing, he stood them by the hearth, then collected the thrown blanket, rolled it, and placed it at the base of the door. Then he turned to face the girl, who was smiling at him. You didn’t get it, he said, disappointed.

You didn’t find it, you mean, she replied.

He hauled his own shirt over his head, casually dropping it behind him. Once again, the girl silently admired the rippling muscles of his torso, highlighted so well in the firelight, as she had done many a time before. What’s the difference? he asked.

The girl took another drink and smiled at him. Perspective, she said, simply.

He grunted, and unknotted the short length of string that served as a belt. He let it drop, then pulled his breeches down, stepping forward out of them. His legs were just as finely muscled as his arms and body. His loincloth followed the rest of his clothes, then he grabbed their last blanket and sat next to her on their bed. He arranged the blanket around them both, his arm reaching around her back. Tell me, he said, resignedly.

Why the sad voice? she asked.

Lirin - you didn’t get the ring! That’s why you went out tonight, to get the ring!

I know, Ander. But who said I never got it?

He gestured hopelessly at the drying clothes. It’s not here!

Lirin took another drink. Yes it is. You just can’t find it. Yet.

Ander slumped against her. Fine. I’ll have another look in the morning.

You may have to wait a bit longer than that.

He looked at her. Tell me.

She took another drink, and sighed. I ran into Mathis. Why do you think I came in over the roofs?

Don’t tell me he got it?

No, he didn’t. But I had to do some pretty quick dodging to get away. He found me just at the wrong time, and I didn’t have any hands free.

So..?

I swallowed it.

Ander breathed a sigh of relief. You got it, then. Thank the Gods. Lirin took another drink. Oh, he said. Shit.

Precisely, she confirmed.

On the Origin of Half-Orcs

How do Half-Orcs come about? Some sort of rape is usually implied, what with Orcs being traditionally characterised as barbaric savages who go around pillaging villages. Yeah, well, that wouldn’t work here, as in my world Orcs are more like DS9-era Klingons. It also wasn’t the case for at least one minor character in The Order of the Stick, whose backstory was very briefly explored around the time I wrote this, but I have no idea which came first. This story was intended to have a sequel at some point, but it was six years before I got around to it.

Published (LJ) 19/04/08

Chronology 14/04/1208

It was dusk, and the storm which had been threatening to break all day was just beginning to do so. The young woman was the only person heading out of the city - she was the only one on the road out of town, apart from the cluster of sentries at the gate. She hurried up to it, drawing her cloak up tight around her against the gusts of wind, before it was closed for the night.

Evenin’, Gisele, greeted the Sergeant. Back again tomorrow?

She shook her head tiredly. Festival’s over, Balen, I’ve been allowed the day off.

He chuckled. Wouldn’t we all like that? Not everyone who works for the Burgomeister can prompt his generosity like you can. She smiled in appreciation. Go on, get home with you. And be careful! he called after her.

She half turned and called back, I will! just as a gust of wind pulled her cloak open and swirled it around her. She grabbed it and pulled it close again, just as the first raindrops fell. She hurried on up the road, as fast as her weary legs would take her.

Normally, she worked as a seamstress and wardrobe maintainer for the Burgomeister of Venega - it paid enough to keep her alive, but not all that much. Now that her parents had died the money went further, but still not really far enough. And so, for the last two years, she had volunteered her services for the Festival of Kos at the Temple of the Mountain Gods.

The last of the light from the sky and the lights from the town disappeared almost simultaneously as she turned the bend in the road and the trees began to close in around her. Just another half mile to her small cottage. It was a woodsman’s cottage - her father and his father and his father before him (and so on) had made their livings there as lumberjacks, woodcutters, charcoal burners and occasionally guides. She had no brothers, and although pretty, no suitors more serious than the gate Sergeant.

Which was why she was able to work for the Festival without revealing that she was, in fact, doing so. As everyone knew, any woman working the Festival of Kos was no better than a common whore. A woman working the Festival would spend twelve hours a day for two weeks naked, save for a small veil and a few pounds of jewellery, in the Temple, dancing, gyrating, and having prolonged and repeated ritual sex with the priesthood and most prominent congregants. It was demeaning, exhausting (and after the first day, not enjoyable) work, but it paid much more than any whore – or seamstress – earned in the same time. Most of the other women who worked the Festival were the town whores, who used it as a means of increasing their income. As she, and a few others, were not in the habit of selling their bodies, said bodies were in somewhat better condition, and consequently they were paid more. And it was that money, that she had in a purse at the bottom of the small pack she had on her back under her cloak, that would allow her to -

She tripped on a tree root half-buried in the