How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying (Dark Lord Davi #1)

by Django Wexler

A handstand goes poorly, since my coordination is still just above couch potato levels, but I can spring back up with ease.

This, also, turns out to be a bad idea. Or maybe a good idea I should have been doing all along?

Understandable—if I were suddenly confronted with hundreds of orcs bellowing “Yellow Submarine,” I might bolt too.

“I’m Gnarr Jarlskel, right hand of the Jarl of Virgard. He bids me ask what the hell you think you’re about.”

So real

“I was expecting… not this.”

My thoughts when my students actually do an assignment well and when they are asked

Civilization! You can tell because it smells real bad.

These are probably meant for sitting on, but the combination of stone, fur, and pillows is giving me a sort of Mildly Kinky Sex Dungeon energy. I picture Gnarr pulling out padded handcuffs and a ball gag and have to choke back a snort of laughter.

Apparently, sitting in dignified silence is now the thing.

Good to know

Odlen opens her mouth and hisses at her brother like an angry cat. Frankly I feel like joining her. If anyone ever had a punchable face, it’s this guy.

Never fuck anyone you would be upset having to kill, that’s my new motto.1

This should be everyone's motto

That’s more confidence than she evidently feels, but she lets it pass with a sigh.

Score one for the mouse cowboy.

Then I can feel the floor dropping out from under my heels, and I commit my soul to gravity.

Me going down any water slide, rollor coaster, or any other death flirting activity one can think of

Fortunately for him, we’re on the same wavelength.

Everybody loves a good cloak.

Only by the very strongest effort of will do I manage not to stick out my tongue at him.

Yes, come and join the Modern Horde! Diversity is our strength! Diversity and stabbing!

“Are we talking ‘speeches in the Great Hall’ trouble? Or ‘beware the ides of March,’ ‘et tu, Brute’ sort of trouble?”

The problem with mountains—follow close here, this is complicated—is that they’re very tall.

He cuts off, because it’s kind of hard to talk when someone has elbowed you in the throat with considerable force.

God bless minions who follow orders.

We’re not out of danger, but at least we’re no longer dangling our collective cock in a bear trap.

Tyrkell follows us because of course he fucking does.

“You are the best cowboy mouse a girl could ask for.”

But sometimes you roll that natural 20 anyway.

Then we all take stock for a bit. Except the yetis, stock-taking is not their strength.

You think Sibarae worried about how many of her people got hurt? Obviously not, she was too busy gnawing on my intestines.

The look she gives me is full of—not worship, like she used to gaze at Amitsugu, but respect. It’d be moving, if I wasn’t making all this up as I went along.

Oh Jesus fucking Christ. Really? That’s what this is about?

Men and trying to regain favor

I stomp out, feeling uncomfortably like a harried mother making a threat that her kids know she won’t follow through on.

Fucking men

Real

God, it’d be better if she’d yelled at me.

I’ve never frozen to death, oddly. From my experience thus far, it seems a pretty pleasant way to go.

“Nobody has trouble talking until someone tells them to ‘talk about something.’ It’s the single most anti-conversational thing you can say.”

“Nothing we can do from here.” “Not true. I can fret.” “Very practical.”

After all, after I’m dead, she won’t remember any of this.

This is both morbid and sweet at the same time

Then—well, it’s time for another one of those lines of asterisks, isn’t it?

If the Prince sneaks up on us tonight, man, he’s fucking earned it.

“Ladies and gentlesnakes!”

This will be my new way to get my class's attention

“And I turned up with an army. That seems like a reasonable qualification.”

“Great. Good talk. Remind me to introduce you to Droff, you two will get on famously.”

There are spectators, apparently!

If there are shenanigans afoot, better to have them on hand.

He ignores me. Probably wise.

Really? I walk halfway across the world to get here, to the Convocation where we choose the fucking Dark Lord, and it turns out we’re competing in some fucking American Ninja Warrior shit? How does that make a bit of fucking sense—

I’m thinking rapidly as we line up. I don’t think you need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure this one out. Who do we know who (a) directly benefits, (b) is a sadistic psychopath, and (c) is literally venomous? Oh, wait, Hamlet, she’s standing right over there grinning her snaky head off.

The Dark Lord, who has led unstoppable armies to murder me and my friends hundreds of times, gets chosen by this sub–J. J. Abrams–level bullshit? What the fuck is going on?

Okay listen up: Fuck you. Yes, you, Dave. If your name isn’t Dave, pretend I wrote your name.

Somehow, with a full belly, it’s hard to feel as bad. The tricks the meat plays on the mind.

“Shut up, would you? The adults are talking.”