Chapter 109
Charles Flynn
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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'Flynn!' Galahad shouts at me through our mental link, and I sit up halfway in my current bed, feeling woozy. 'Flynn, you have to wake up and get out of there! He's coming!'
I shake my head in the hopes of bringing clarity. 'Who's coming? What are you-'
That's when the wall explodes, and a stocky man with black hair, a thick moustache, and a thoroughly crazed expression breaks through the shattered bricks with a cry of "AND HEEEEERE'S ATTILA!"
As I'm still reeling, he grabs me by the arm and chucks me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, before turning and running out through the new door he just made.
'All Servants, HELP!' I send as I feel my stomach start to churn from how I'm bouncing up and down on his shoulder as I run. 'I'm being kidnapped by Attila the Hun!' And chalk another one up on the list of sentences I never expected to hear myself say.
Did I forget to post guards? Is that why this is happening? Sonnuva- This is why I have to be more paranoid! Because when I'm not, shit like this happens! Or Medea poisons me.
Attila dashes like a madman through the streets, ducking every which way and turning corners at speeds only a Servant can manage. I think I feel my ribs strain under the G-force as he rounds one particularly sharp bend without slowing down in the slightest.
Eventually, though, we reach the outskirts of Rome, and he tosses me down to the ground.
I lie there for a moment, completely and utterly exhausted and feeling like I've just been tenderized.
Then Attila kicks me in the ribs. "Get up."
I comply, wincing as do so.
He points at a horse waiting for us. "Get on."
"Where are you taking me?" I ask, deciding that I should at least try to get some information out of this.
He blinks in surprise. "Why, my camp, of course, where we can celebrate our new alliance!"
Huh? "What new alliance?"
"Why, the one Chaldea and I just entered into!" Attila explains cheerfully. "The one where your Servants have agreed to unconditionally obey my orders and help me, forfeiting all of their share of the loot, in exchange for me not killing you!" His eyes harden. "Now get on the damn horse, Master of Chaldea, or it's back over the shoulder for you."
I reluctantly get on the horse behind Attila. 'He's planning to use me as a hostage to secure your compliance.'
'Can you get away?' Caesar asks desperately.
I think back to the madcap dash through the streets of Rome. 'No.'
'How'd he know we were here?' Yan Qing asks in frustration. 'Hell, how'd he even manage to sneak past us? Who was on watch?'
There's a moment of silence over the link, before Galahad reluctantly speaks up. 'Actually, I don't think anybody was on watch. Flynn didn't assign us any.'
'I thought Augustus was providing us security!' I protest. 'We were in his house!'
'Hold on.' Romulus orders, settling the brewing argument. 'Even when it isn't assigned, Cursed Arm usually takes up guard duty. I can't see him with my Imperial Privilege-granted Clairvoyance.'
'Then…' I falter. How the Hell did Attila kill Cursed Arm with anyone noticing? 'I'm beginning to think that we have greatly underestimated Attila.'
That gets a chorus of agreements.
'We're trying to get you out, apprentice.' Medea says, her voice determined. 'Stay strong.'
And so, I try to make myself comfortable, as I ride away from my allies, and deeper into the grasp of the Hun.
---
I hear the full story, or at least as much of it as we know of, as I ride behind Attila.
The first thing any of my Servants knew about Attila's smash-and-grab was when Georgios, Galahad, Medea, and Caesar all suddenly felt a powerful Servant's presence near my chambers. Galahad tried to warn me, but... well, I know how effective that was. Yan Qing was in a brothel halfway across the city in the opposite direction. Romulus was out reassuring the people and couldn't be seen to leave abruptly. To do so would be a grievous blow to morale.
The Servants at hand simply weren't fast enough to keep up with Attila's break-neck pace through the city. Beyond that, the Huns launched a sneak attack that covered his escape.
We've been completely outfoxed. Now, all I can do is wait and watch for when my captor slips up.
So glad I brought a few vials of my poisons with me.
---
After a few hours of uninterrupted riding at speeds no horse should be able to sustain, our destination comes into view. It's a sprawling mess of a tent city, various Huns carousing as they go from tent to tent, speaking in a tongue I don't know.
As soon as we ride into view, the city's inhabitants pour out of it to meet us, chanting, "A-TTI-LA! A-TTI-LA!"
He dismounts, raising his hands in the v-pose of a triumphant athlete. The minute he gets off, the horse keels over, stone dead. "My people! Once more, as it has always been, and as it shall always be, I HAVE TRIUMPHED!"
"A-TTI-LA! A-TTI-LA!"
"I have taken the commander of Chaldea! I have walked the very streets of Rome, and NONE COULD STAND AGAINST ME!" he roars, beating his chest, and then, to my confusion, pulling a human skull out of a pouch tied to his belt. "Oh, come on, Bleda, bitch at me. Pull that Roman dick out of your mouth and complain about how awesome I am."
He holds up the skull, and then, to my confused horror, starts moving its jaw with his thumb and talking in a high-pitched falsetto out of the side of his mouth. "'Oh, noes Attila! Now the Romans will never pay us all that tribute money, and I won't be able to pay off all my boyfriends! I'm gonna go cry myself to sleep, and then write you an angry letter, you hear me? A VERY ANGRY LETTER!'"
Attila casts the skull down in the blink of an eye, shattering it against the ground. "Shut up, coward!" He frowns. "Okay, somebody get me a new skull. I want to mock my dead brother some more."
"A-TTI-LA! A-TTI-LA!"
I look around in confusion. Did… did they not just see that? The great crowd of Huns still stare at him with admiration, not a single one letting any sort of doubt and dismay creep onto their features as they chant his name with blind adoration. Attila the Hun just used his dead brother's skull as a hand puppet. Am I the only one who finds this weird?
"Now then! My guest and I have had a long ride back from Rome! PREPARE THE FEAST!"
"A-TTI-LA! A-TTI-LA!"
"And knock off the chanting. It's getting old."
"A-TTI-LA! A-TTI-LA!"
"Next person who says 'Attila' is getting my sword rammed straight down their throat."
Dead silence.
---
"So, Mister Flynn, how are you liking your accommodations thus far?" Attila asks me, gnawing on a leg of lamb.
"Can't say I much care for the looming threat of death, Lord Etzel, but the food, at least, is good." I reply, chewing on a Roman pastry that they apparently stole from a cookshop along the Via Appia.
"Glad to hear it!" he cheers, before holding up the skull. "'Don't mind my brute of a brother. He has no appreciation for the finer things in life.'" The skull/Bleda is thrust uncomfortably close to my face. "'I, on the other hand, am fully capable of appreciating all of life's… subtler pleasures. Tell me, Master of Chaldea, are you married?'"
I do my level best to keep smiling, even as I scream internally. How do I come up with a way out of this? Attila the Hun propositioning me through a human skull he's using as a hand puppet and pretending is his dead brother is not remotely something my life has prepared me to respond to.
Let's see, what sort of response would Attila be pleased by?
Okay, this one's a bit of a gamble, but… "I would rather stick my dick in a rabid badger than ever have sex with you."
Attila gives a great, shoulder shaking belly laugh, and slaps me on the back (which isn't doing my ribs any favors.) "Well, you heard the man, Bleda. You've been rejected! Time to drown!" he then dunks the skull in the wine barrel. "'Oh noes! I can't breathe! Help me, Attilaaaaa! I'm droooowniiiiinbrglbrglbrgl."
'Galahad, is it normal for a grown man to use a human skull as a hand puppet and pretend it's his dead brother?' I ask over the mental link, desperately trying to cling to some semblance of reality as the Huns on the benches laugh and applaud their leader's performance.
'Flynn? Thank God. We haven't heard from you in hours. Some of us were starting to get worried.' Galahad replies. 'And no, that's not even remotely normal. Why are you even asking me that?'
'Because Attila's doing it, and it's really starting to wear away at me. And everyone in the camp is just treating it like it's completely normal. I was honestly starting to question my sanity for a while, there.'
I get an overwhelming sense of resignation from my Shielder. 'This is the guy that outsmarted us.'
'Yeah. I'm starting to think he might just be doing it in order to make losing to him even more humiliating.'
'Just stay alive, find out what you can, and contact me if you feel like you're losing your grip on reality again.'
'Will do. You guys got a plan to get me out of here?'
'Not telling you. You might accidentally give it away.'
'Fair enough.'
Attila is looking at me, his face a few inches away from mine.
"Lord Atli?" I ask, leaning backwards in my seat to get away from him.
"You can call me Attila again, I already executed Bleda for doing so, so the rest of you are in the clear."
I look, and, sure enough, Attila's prismatically reflective sword has been thrust down through the keg he drowned "Bleda" in, its blade driven between the skull's jaws.
"Is there a reason you've been staring at me?" I ask with a pained grin.
"We're going to see the witch. And strategize." He pauses, his eyes narrowing even further as I wilt under his gaze. "Is my nose bleeding?"
"No."
"Good. It'd be embarrassing to die of a nosebleed twice." He grabs my hand. "Come on."
And so, I'm dragged out of the feast hall, towards the abandoned hut, which Attila kicks down the door of.
"Honey! I'm home!"
"Etzel." A woman's voice says in greeting. Its owner walks out of the shadows, a full-bodied woman of German ethnicity, dressed in black. She stares at us with hateful eyes. "Why have you disturbed me? Have you found Hagen? Speak quick, before I decide to rip out your tongue."
"No. I have not yet found your brother, Kriemhild." Attila tells her with a forced smile. "But I have found the Master of Chaldea!"
"I care not for Chaldea," she snarls. "Find me Hagen! I'll cut him down with my true husband's blade."
"Yes, dear, but I just thought you should know that he's very important for our Hagen-finding activities, and you shouldn't kill him. Just making sure we're all on the same page, you know?" Attila's smile is a bit forced.
"Yeeeesssss," she says, smiling in a manner that in no way whatsoever reassuring. "He knows, doesn't he? He knows where my brother is. He knows where Hagen is!' She lunges for me, pinning me to the wall by my collar. "TELL ME, BOY! WHERE IS HAGEN?" Her mad, wild eyes stare into mine, and I find that I can't look away. "Tell me. Tell me, or I'll boil the flesh from your bones, and bind your soul into the slurry, an eternally screaming, self-aware cauldron of simmering meat."
"Ah, Kriemhild, he doesn't actually know where Hagen is." Attila interrupts, prying her clawing hands away from my throat, and then flinching when she looks at him. "R-Remember? I told you when I was asking you to scry for him. His Servants can find Hagen for us, since there are six of them, and they aren't caught up in the war effort."
"Hm?" she seems to think about it for a moment, and then releases me, softly petting me on the head like I'm a cocker spaniel that's been good. "Yes, that'll do. That'll do quite nicely." She smiles, and it's a beautiful, broken thing. "Be a good boy, little Master, and find my brother for me soon, won't you?" She leans in to whisper in my ear. "I don't think that I can wait much longer."
Then she turns about and stalks off into the dark and shadowy depths of her lair, leaving me and Attila to shakily make our way out.
We both let out a sigh of relief when we're out of sight of Kriemhild's cabin.
Then, Attila turns to me. "You wanna go get drunk together?"
"Hell yes."
I shake my head in the hopes of bringing clarity. 'Who's coming? What are you-'
That's when the wall explodes, and a stocky man with black hair, a thick moustache, and a thoroughly crazed expression breaks through the shattered bricks with a cry of "AND HEEEEERE'S ATTILA!"
As I'm still reeling, he grabs me by the arm and chucks me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, before turning and running out through the new door he just made.
'All Servants, HELP!' I send as I feel my stomach start to churn from how I'm bouncing up and down on his shoulder as I run. 'I'm being kidnapped by Attila the Hun!' And chalk another one up on the list of sentences I never expected to hear myself say.
Did I forget to post guards? Is that why this is happening? Sonnuva- This is why I have to be more paranoid! Because when I'm not, shit like this happens! Or Medea poisons me.
Attila dashes like a madman through the streets, ducking every which way and turning corners at speeds only a Servant can manage. I think I feel my ribs strain under the G-force as he rounds one particularly sharp bend without slowing down in the slightest.
Eventually, though, we reach the outskirts of Rome, and he tosses me down to the ground.
I lie there for a moment, completely and utterly exhausted and feeling like I've just been tenderized.
Then Attila kicks me in the ribs. "Get up."
I comply, wincing as do so.
He points at a horse waiting for us. "Get on."
"Where are you taking me?" I ask, deciding that I should at least try to get some information out of this.
He blinks in surprise. "Why, my camp, of course, where we can celebrate our new alliance!"
Huh? "What new alliance?"
"Why, the one Chaldea and I just entered into!" Attila explains cheerfully. "The one where your Servants have agreed to unconditionally obey my orders and help me, forfeiting all of their share of the loot, in exchange for me not killing you!" His eyes harden. "Now get on the damn horse, Master of Chaldea, or it's back over the shoulder for you."
I reluctantly get on the horse behind Attila. 'He's planning to use me as a hostage to secure your compliance.'
'Can you get away?' Caesar asks desperately.
I think back to the madcap dash through the streets of Rome. 'No.'
'How'd he know we were here?' Yan Qing asks in frustration. 'Hell, how'd he even manage to sneak past us? Who was on watch?'
There's a moment of silence over the link, before Galahad reluctantly speaks up. 'Actually, I don't think anybody was on watch. Flynn didn't assign us any.'
'I thought Augustus was providing us security!' I protest. 'We were in his house!'
'Hold on.' Romulus orders, settling the brewing argument. 'Even when it isn't assigned, Cursed Arm usually takes up guard duty. I can't see him with my Imperial Privilege-granted Clairvoyance.'
'Then…' I falter. How the Hell did Attila kill Cursed Arm with anyone noticing? 'I'm beginning to think that we have greatly underestimated Attila.'
That gets a chorus of agreements.
'We're trying to get you out, apprentice.' Medea says, her voice determined. 'Stay strong.'
And so, I try to make myself comfortable, as I ride away from my allies, and deeper into the grasp of the Hun.
---
I hear the full story, or at least as much of it as we know of, as I ride behind Attila.
The first thing any of my Servants knew about Attila's smash-and-grab was when Georgios, Galahad, Medea, and Caesar all suddenly felt a powerful Servant's presence near my chambers. Galahad tried to warn me, but... well, I know how effective that was. Yan Qing was in a brothel halfway across the city in the opposite direction. Romulus was out reassuring the people and couldn't be seen to leave abruptly. To do so would be a grievous blow to morale.
The Servants at hand simply weren't fast enough to keep up with Attila's break-neck pace through the city. Beyond that, the Huns launched a sneak attack that covered his escape.
We've been completely outfoxed. Now, all I can do is wait and watch for when my captor slips up.
So glad I brought a few vials of my poisons with me.
---
After a few hours of uninterrupted riding at speeds no horse should be able to sustain, our destination comes into view. It's a sprawling mess of a tent city, various Huns carousing as they go from tent to tent, speaking in a tongue I don't know.
As soon as we ride into view, the city's inhabitants pour out of it to meet us, chanting, "A-TTI-LA! A-TTI-LA!"
He dismounts, raising his hands in the v-pose of a triumphant athlete. The minute he gets off, the horse keels over, stone dead. "My people! Once more, as it has always been, and as it shall always be, I HAVE TRIUMPHED!"
"A-TTI-LA! A-TTI-LA!"
"I have taken the commander of Chaldea! I have walked the very streets of Rome, and NONE COULD STAND AGAINST ME!" he roars, beating his chest, and then, to my confusion, pulling a human skull out of a pouch tied to his belt. "Oh, come on, Bleda, bitch at me. Pull that Roman dick out of your mouth and complain about how awesome I am."
He holds up the skull, and then, to my confused horror, starts moving its jaw with his thumb and talking in a high-pitched falsetto out of the side of his mouth. "'Oh, noes Attila! Now the Romans will never pay us all that tribute money, and I won't be able to pay off all my boyfriends! I'm gonna go cry myself to sleep, and then write you an angry letter, you hear me? A VERY ANGRY LETTER!'"
Attila casts the skull down in the blink of an eye, shattering it against the ground. "Shut up, coward!" He frowns. "Okay, somebody get me a new skull. I want to mock my dead brother some more."
"A-TTI-LA! A-TTI-LA!"
I look around in confusion. Did… did they not just see that? The great crowd of Huns still stare at him with admiration, not a single one letting any sort of doubt and dismay creep onto their features as they chant his name with blind adoration. Attila the Hun just used his dead brother's skull as a hand puppet. Am I the only one who finds this weird?
"Now then! My guest and I have had a long ride back from Rome! PREPARE THE FEAST!"
"A-TTI-LA! A-TTI-LA!"
"And knock off the chanting. It's getting old."
"A-TTI-LA! A-TTI-LA!"
"Next person who says 'Attila' is getting my sword rammed straight down their throat."
Dead silence.
---
"So, Mister Flynn, how are you liking your accommodations thus far?" Attila asks me, gnawing on a leg of lamb.
"Can't say I much care for the looming threat of death, Lord Etzel, but the food, at least, is good." I reply, chewing on a Roman pastry that they apparently stole from a cookshop along the Via Appia.
"Glad to hear it!" he cheers, before holding up the skull. "'Don't mind my brute of a brother. He has no appreciation for the finer things in life.'" The skull/Bleda is thrust uncomfortably close to my face. "'I, on the other hand, am fully capable of appreciating all of life's… subtler pleasures. Tell me, Master of Chaldea, are you married?'"
I do my level best to keep smiling, even as I scream internally. How do I come up with a way out of this? Attila the Hun propositioning me through a human skull he's using as a hand puppet and pretending is his dead brother is not remotely something my life has prepared me to respond to.
Let's see, what sort of response would Attila be pleased by?
Okay, this one's a bit of a gamble, but… "I would rather stick my dick in a rabid badger than ever have sex with you."
Attila gives a great, shoulder shaking belly laugh, and slaps me on the back (which isn't doing my ribs any favors.) "Well, you heard the man, Bleda. You've been rejected! Time to drown!" he then dunks the skull in the wine barrel. "'Oh noes! I can't breathe! Help me, Attilaaaaa! I'm droooowniiiiinbrglbrglbrgl."
'Galahad, is it normal for a grown man to use a human skull as a hand puppet and pretend it's his dead brother?' I ask over the mental link, desperately trying to cling to some semblance of reality as the Huns on the benches laugh and applaud their leader's performance.
'Flynn? Thank God. We haven't heard from you in hours. Some of us were starting to get worried.' Galahad replies. 'And no, that's not even remotely normal. Why are you even asking me that?'
'Because Attila's doing it, and it's really starting to wear away at me. And everyone in the camp is just treating it like it's completely normal. I was honestly starting to question my sanity for a while, there.'
I get an overwhelming sense of resignation from my Shielder. 'This is the guy that outsmarted us.'
'Yeah. I'm starting to think he might just be doing it in order to make losing to him even more humiliating.'
'Just stay alive, find out what you can, and contact me if you feel like you're losing your grip on reality again.'
'Will do. You guys got a plan to get me out of here?'
'Not telling you. You might accidentally give it away.'
'Fair enough.'
Attila is looking at me, his face a few inches away from mine.
"Lord Atli?" I ask, leaning backwards in my seat to get away from him.
"You can call me Attila again, I already executed Bleda for doing so, so the rest of you are in the clear."
I look, and, sure enough, Attila's prismatically reflective sword has been thrust down through the keg he drowned "Bleda" in, its blade driven between the skull's jaws.
"Is there a reason you've been staring at me?" I ask with a pained grin.
"We're going to see the witch. And strategize." He pauses, his eyes narrowing even further as I wilt under his gaze. "Is my nose bleeding?"
"No."
"Good. It'd be embarrassing to die of a nosebleed twice." He grabs my hand. "Come on."
And so, I'm dragged out of the feast hall, towards the abandoned hut, which Attila kicks down the door of.
"Honey! I'm home!"
"Etzel." A woman's voice says in greeting. Its owner walks out of the shadows, a full-bodied woman of German ethnicity, dressed in black. She stares at us with hateful eyes. "Why have you disturbed me? Have you found Hagen? Speak quick, before I decide to rip out your tongue."
"No. I have not yet found your brother, Kriemhild." Attila tells her with a forced smile. "But I have found the Master of Chaldea!"
"I care not for Chaldea," she snarls. "Find me Hagen! I'll cut him down with my true husband's blade."
"Yes, dear, but I just thought you should know that he's very important for our Hagen-finding activities, and you shouldn't kill him. Just making sure we're all on the same page, you know?" Attila's smile is a bit forced.
"Yeeeesssss," she says, smiling in a manner that in no way whatsoever reassuring. "He knows, doesn't he? He knows where my brother is. He knows where Hagen is!' She lunges for me, pinning me to the wall by my collar. "TELL ME, BOY! WHERE IS HAGEN?" Her mad, wild eyes stare into mine, and I find that I can't look away. "Tell me. Tell me, or I'll boil the flesh from your bones, and bind your soul into the slurry, an eternally screaming, self-aware cauldron of simmering meat."
"Ah, Kriemhild, he doesn't actually know where Hagen is." Attila interrupts, prying her clawing hands away from my throat, and then flinching when she looks at him. "R-Remember? I told you when I was asking you to scry for him. His Servants can find Hagen for us, since there are six of them, and they aren't caught up in the war effort."
"Hm?" she seems to think about it for a moment, and then releases me, softly petting me on the head like I'm a cocker spaniel that's been good. "Yes, that'll do. That'll do quite nicely." She smiles, and it's a beautiful, broken thing. "Be a good boy, little Master, and find my brother for me soon, won't you?" She leans in to whisper in my ear. "I don't think that I can wait much longer."
Then she turns about and stalks off into the dark and shadowy depths of her lair, leaving me and Attila to shakily make our way out.
We both let out a sigh of relief when we're out of sight of Kriemhild's cabin.
Then, Attila turns to me. "You wanna go get drunk together?"
"Hell yes."