Kill the Farm Boy (The Tales of Pell, #1)

by Delilah S. Dawson

“I thought a Chosen One just leaves a trail of blood and chaos behind him.”

It soon began raining in a very nonmagical style. There were no rainbows, no leprechauns, and, after a few brief moments, no gleaming sun parting the clouds. Just a boy and his goat taking their first muddy steps toward a moist, squelching destiny.

The turtle, for his part, was playing dead, and rather convincingly. The hedgehog liked the turtle better that way, but she still had a boyfriend back home in the garden and wasn’t interested.

But he had to admit, at his ripening age, that such a beard would never be his unless he managed to stumble across a particularly hirsute dwarf corpse while holding a very sharp knife in an area with little foot traffic.

He had followed her suggestion immediately, and he still wasn’t done fiddling with his tower. He had many improvements to make, in fact, and assumed he’d be fiddling with his tower and grooming the shrubbery around it until he was a doddering old man and his tower was falling down.

Toby was quite content, and that meant he now had one goal: kill the farm boy. For the general economy, of course. For the good of the people.

The goat looked her up and down as if assessing the nutritional value of her clothing.

she could infiltrate the camp ahead in complete stealth and stealthily purloin information like a gopher smuggling ale into subterranean oblivion.

Her mental prose was as purple as a very purple thing.

She advanced on the camp, cloaked by her actual cloak of mystery and menace but also by the night, two cloaks that cloaked great together,

quick roll call revealed that none of them had ever beheld the magical elven Morningwood before, home to the proudest stands of timber anywhere.

“I am known by many names, some of them intended to be less than kind. Nostrildamus is a favorite of the local assorted cretins, as is Nebuchadnoser, Noseph of Nosareth, Nosy McHonker, Booger McSchnozz, Beaky McSnotlocker, and Lord of the Sneeze.

Pooboy was one hundred percent dead, the Mayor of Deadsville, the Emperor of Not Getting Back Up Again, a Bowl of Deadamame, the President of the Board of Deaducation, the Deaditor in Chief.

Fia, for once, looked relaxed and cheerful, possibly owing to the new breastplate and greaves that complemented her chain-mail bikini, although he did find it peculiar that the beautifully molded metal featured a very wide window of cleavage right over her heart, which seemed like a major design flaw for a warrior.

“Everyone’s scared all the time,” he responded. “But that’s no reason not to keep on.”

Sometimes that’s what you have to do: just keep going until everything makes sense.” Her gaze flicked to Argabella, and she smiled a secret smile. “Keep moving, and good things will start to happen again.”

“Moths?” Lord Toby whispered in the voice of a tiny little boy, his eyes unfocused in the distance. “Moths diving and swooping for the lights in my eyes, intent on sucking out my soul?” Fia broke the long uncomfortable silence that followed. “Wow. Most people just have some kind of shapeless thing under the bed or something hairy in the closet. Extra credit for originality, Lord Toby.”

He was simply one of the most dangerous creatures in the world: a person of small talent and large purse who was thoroughly certain that he deserved more.

And I think you know only one mage could have accomplished this: the infamous eastern scalawag—that rascal!—the Dread Necromancer, Steve.” Fia’s fists clenched, and her muscles bunched and rippled. “Gah! Not Steve! I hate that guy!”

They were utterly like frogs in all the ways that are terrible—and weaponized.

The marmoset’s eyes blazed with blue fire. “Yes!” Then her fur flattened all around, and she drew back. “I mean no. I want to get him. Personally. Vengeance shall be mine.” And a very squeaky vengeance it would be, Poltro couldn’t help noticing.

You are safety and warmth and comfort in front of a fire until you need to be the fire itself. I understand that. I trust that.”

But life is what happens when you’re making other plans to steal someone’s still-beating heart for magical reasons.

A silence fell about them, cold and damp like a used bath towel, bereft of joy or fluffiness or contentment or anything good.

I hear our illustrious leader has acquired a full cask of the good stuff, the latest vintage of the master, Amon Tiyado.”

“Oh, yeah. I can’t bleat when I’m thinking in words. Um. BAAAA.” “BAAAA?” another goat asked. “Yes, I clearly said BAAAA. Don’t patronize me, Deirdre.”

At that moment, Gustave realized that intelligence was only one part of the equation and the rest was predicated on rebellion, hard work, and tenacity.