The door flung open and as if a geyser had erupted skyward, a flurry of men dove into the treasure room screaming and yelling. One by one the men’s cries shrank to confused whimpers and then to silence as they looked out over the ransacked room below. Their baffled faces only intensified at the distant whooshing of enormous wings. The terrifying cry of a hellish creature stopped several of the men mid-step as they slowly descended the stone stairway. 

The enormous hole torn through the stone wall became visible as they moved closer to the Lavender Neckerchief, who sat on a step below it. His eyes vacant, the men carefully stepped around him to descend into the now bare treasure room.

Larbin, the largest of Neckerchief’s men, stopped and peered through the gaping hole into the night sky, searching for any sign of the beast. “What the hell was that thing? What did this?”

“A dragon.”

“A dragon?”

“Yes.” Sigh. “A dragon.”

“Where did he get a dragon from?”

“I really don’t know,” exhaled Neckerchief. He tilted his head back wistfully, peering up at the stars above. “This trap was to be the final chapter in our long-fought rivalry, our battle of wits, our tête-à-tête.” He delicately traced a finger along the seam between the large stones “He was to be trapped within these walls with the best of his men and we were to have at it!” He flung himself from the wall with a spread of his arms and he descended the final few stairs to the main floor of the treasure room. “It was here we were to have our final flourish! Our last hurrah!”

Neckerchief extended his hands out towards the stones beneath his feet, almost drawing them to him with a clenching of his fists as his knee settled upon them. “Here, he may have lay exactly. Drawn his final breath. Taken in his last observation. That of the face of his arch-rival, nemesis, and ultimately, his superior. Moi.”

Larbin retrieved the discarded jester’s hat, as thrown frivolously from the stairs above during the Lavender Neckerchief’s big reveal. “None of that happened, Lavendar Neckerchief. They took everything. The riches you’ve had us steal from barons across the land, who most surely now all want our heads! What do we do now?”

Neckerchief plucked at his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t care about the Barons and Lords, let them dream of our demise. I’m tired of plotting elaborate ruses for the Hood to fall into. Tired of playing cat and mouse.” He raised a bony finger into the air in triumph. “Yes! Let us go knock on his door! I shall take our feud directly to the Crimson Hood…with a full-frontal assault!” 

The men sniggered in unison. “Full-frontal.”

Neckerchief stifled the chuckles and whispers with an eyebrow raised over his most sinister stare. He had practiced it at length for just such an occasion. 

Larbin pushed between the other men, all a good foot shorter than him, and stepped forward clutching Neckerchief’s discarded jester’s hat. The hat he had worn so majestically. “I’m sick of your plots too, Lavender Neckerchief. I’m tired of all the games and ridiculous, foolish schemes.” He threw the jester’s hat at Neckerchief. “Why don’t you just stick your jingly hat back on and tell us a joke!”

Neckerchief reached for Larbin with both hands. The speed of his movement took Larbin completely by surprise, barely giving him time to realise what was happening. A blade slid effortlessly across his carotid artery as Neckerchief gripped him loosely at the back of his neck. Neckerchief’s silken yellow jesters sleeve began to darken as Larbin’s neck opened and his legs gave way under him, folding the large tree of a man to his knees. Neckerchief peered down at him glumly, his hands about the man’s face. 

“Larbin, my most vicious warrior. I lament at your passing. You truly would have been most useful in the full-frontal assault.”

Sniggers. 

“Will you grow up!” snarled Neckerchief as he stepped towards the remaining men, flicking blood across stone. Larbin slumped to the ground. “You are going to take up arms once more in my name and we will not stop until the Crimson Hood kneels before me! Too long this man has bested my advances. Now the Crimson Hood’s luck has fully and completely run dry. I will remove that hood he wears and reveal to all the true face and failure of the man underneath.”

*******

If you enjoyed the first chapter of Jester’s Reckoning, please consider buying the first short story Jester’s Fortune, and leaving a review on Amazon or scrolling through (again and again and again!) on Kindle Unlimited right here!

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Thanks for reading,

Chris

Watch me be stupid: https://www.youtube.com/@chandlerdoma

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