Reluctant Hero
I was a baker by trade.
Ironport is a pretty busy town, and plenty of people live and work here. Porters, fishermen, laborers, and vendors fill the streets. With so many people, I had plenty of work churning out loaves of fresh bread. But a big city had its own problems. Thieves and thugs lined the streets, taking money out of honest folks’ pockets.
Children were the worst of the lot.
It had been a pleasant day, a little chilly, with plenty of workers. The ship Gloria had finally returned from her journey to Alvaria, braving the risky Marshlands, instead of taking the normal round-trip journey. She bore a resplendent cargo of Alvarian alloy and gold, a vast amount of wealth that was usually considered far too risky to transport within sight of the Old Sea Vikings. They might let an empty ship slip by, but a vessel filled to the brim with exotic metals? Certainly not.
It had been a great celebration when it returned, for Alvarian alloy was rare in Ironport, due to the stranglehold the Marshlands held on the only available sea route to Alvaria. Workers had spent days moving the metals onto shore, and I had made a fortune selling bread to them. The fourth day was a fair one, nowhere near as profitable as the previous days, but at sundown I had a pretty pocket full of coins.
And the little grubbers took the lot.
I chased after them with my rolling pin. I had spotted them, dirty and dressed in rags, sneaking up on the shop. I was willing to let a loaf or two go, feeling generous after the day’s profits. But they went for the money bag!
“Get back here thieves!” I yelled, chasing them through the alleyways. Little bastards, thought they could lose me in these streets. As if. I had grown up on these streets, and although they may have changed since I left the city for the countryside, the city blood in me guided me sure as day.
The kids were splitting up, hoping to throw me off by holding bags of rocks. I knew that trick, it was old as the stones. Coins were heavier than rocks. I chased after the boy that held his bag low, not the one who pretended to, but the one who really did. “Give that back!”
The chase wound through street after street. I followed the kid, shimmied up the drainage pipes and the walls where he did. Finally, he made a mistake. He crawled into a tunnel, knowing I couldn’t go in as well. But boy was he in for a surprise. I knew where the tunnel exited.
I ran around the building, quickly reaching the exit. Good. No footprints in the mud where it opened up. I stood to the side, waiting for him to appear.
Silence. No movement. The tunnel was still as night. Had he seen me and gone over the other side?
I quickly ran back and checked. No new footprints. Then I saw it. Blood. It flowed, thick and muddy, out of the tunnel entrance.
“Kid?” I asked. “I’ll give you a loaf or two, just come out.”
Nothing. Silence.
I swallowed and lighted a torch. Putting it in my left hand, I held on tightly to the rolling pin with my right. I stuck the torch in the tunnel. All I could see in the light was more blood.
Then something lunged out of the darkness.
I smashed it, instinctively, with the rolling pin. It fell, hissing, to the ground. My left arm had two slashes in it, shallow, but long. Red blood dripped down them.
The thing was a bizarre, massive insect, the size of a dog. It hissed and scrabbled over the ground, a disgusting white ooze flowing out of it. I picked up a large rock and threw it at the bug. It hit with a satisfying crunch. The ooze flowed onto the ground around it.
When I had calmed down, I began to think. There was no way I was going to get those coins back. I couldn’t fit in the tunnel, and there might be more… things in them.
I had never seen something like that before. Never, not once, neither in Ironport or the countryside. It was unnatural.
I walked back to my shop, jumping at every shadow. The streets were deserted. It was as if everyone had vanished.
“Hey you!” someone yelled. “What are you doing out on the streets?”
It was a council soldier.
“What’s happened?” I asked, half in fear and half relieved.
“Lockdown! The Gloria had some bad stuff on it. Dark magic.”
Dark magic? I glanced at my arm. The wounds seemed normal. “I saw something weird.”
“Describe it,” the soldier ordered.
“It was like a huge bug… I killed it with a rock. Biggest bug I’ve ever seen. Size of a dog.”
He turned to his left. I followed his gaze to a council captain, motioning with her arms. “Hey Mary! This guy says he got one of them!”
The captain turned back. “You did? How?”
“I hit it with my rolling pin and crushed it with a rock.”
“Figures. They’re immune to swords and magic. Bloody captain didn’t check to see if his cargo was clean. We’ve lost three men already.”
“You mean the captain of the Gloria?” I asked.
“Yeah. You look pretty strong. How about you help us get rid of them?”
“Me?” I shook my head. “One was enough. I’m going home.”
“We’ll give you a hundred crowns per bug you get.”
I did some quick math. Kill three more bugs and I could make up the money I had lost!
“We’ll include the bug you already got too.”
“I’m in,” I responded. “But I’ll need a pair of metal gauntlets. And something better than this rolling pin.”
She nodded. “What do you do for a living? Town guard?”
“Baker.”
“Well then, Baker the Bug-Catcher, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
End
Notes:
The bugs were eventually exterminated, and the captain of the Gloria was heavily fined. No more lives were lost that day, thanks partially to a baker who stepped up to slay the monsters. He would live on in local legend as Baker the Bug-Catcher, and children would sing songs with his name in it for years after.
As for the baker, he went on to establish a wealthy baking company, providing loaves to workers and fishermen at cheap prices. He would marry the daughter of a ship’s captain, raise a family, and settle down in the countryside. But he would never forget the time, however brief, when he was a hero.