THE JOHN BRUNI MUSEUM OF MEDIOCRE (AT BEST) SHIT #53: KROK THE BARBARIAN

[I was still in college when I wrote this one. I was sick and tired of reading sword and sorcery books where all the authors ever did was copy Conan the Barbarian. There is only one Conan, and I don't need wannabes in my life. So I wrote this to make fun of those assholes. I was also sick and tired of heroes being these giant sword-swinging warriors. I felt that the average joe should be represented at least somewhere in fantasy. I'm also sick and tired of using the phrase "sick and tired," so I'm going to stop now.]

It was a peaceful day in Rweovah when Knob’s Tavern received a very large visitor. Knob wasn’t in, but Yral was tending bar. The only other people there were Yral’s wife Xandra and his daughter Kendella. They were sitting at a corner table where Xandra was teaching Kendella how to play Chebbeckaqua.

The place was usually busy with people, but there was a war on, and all the men without families had gone to fight in it. Knob was supposed to have gone with them, but instead he fled to the mountains, gibbering something about how his mother was dying. Yral found that funny, considering how Knob once told him his mother had died ten years ago.

Yral decided that the tavern was now his, and he was thinking of changing the sign outside when the stranger entered. He could tell the giant was from the north due to his enormously muscled frame wearing merely a loincloth and wooly boots. In his boulder-sized hands he held a sword and shield. His hair was a long black river down his back.

“Barkeep,” he said, his voice vibrating the room, “give me strong ale. Your best.”

Yral looked skeptical. Where the hell did this guy keep his money? “Five pieces,” he said as he got the ale he gave everyone else. He poured it into a stein.

To his horror, the man put down his sword and shield and reached into his loincloth. When his hand came out, it slapped five pieces and a couple of kinky black hairs onto the bar. Yral stared at the coins. The hairs were bad enough; there was a thick stench coming from them.

“Sorry,” the giant said. “I have no pockets.”

“The least you could do is wash your balls,” Yral said quietly, so his daughter wouldn’t hear him.

“I’ve been out in the wilderness a long time,” the giant said.

“There’s rivers in the wilderness.”

The giant hid his face with the stein as he drank deeply. Yral blew the hairs away, and with his thumbnail, he pushed the coins into the wooden tray behind the bar. They clinked with the others, but they didn’t look quite so shiny.

When the giant finally put the stein down, he asked, “Have you seen a skinny man with a very long mustache, black hair, and long fingernails? He’s dressed in robes.”

“Can’t say I have,” Yral said. “No one’s been in here today.”

“If you do, tell him Krok is looking for him.”

Something clicked in Yral’s head. “You mean, you’re Krok the Barbarian?”

“You’ve heard of me?”

“Yes,” Yral said, thinking back on all the stories he had heard about the Barbarian. The man was a hero, but he was certainly a violent sort, what with taking on the entire Vstak army and winning, conquering the land of Zebbacki and eating the evil king—he left the king’s head on a stick outside the castle—and saving the children of Bordecaidanode from the bloodthirsty Gabbans, among others. Yral, a pacifist by nature, shuddered to think of these acts, even if they were heroic. He thought maybe Krok had been too busy on a journey for such simple things as bathing and decided he would forgive the Barbarian his uncleanliness.

“I must make use of your privy,” Krok said. “Shake the old Banathia,” he added with a wink.

“Out back,” Yral said, hitching his thumb toward the back door.

Mere seconds after Krok left (carrying both sword and shield, as if he expected to fight an army in the privy), a skinny man with a very long mustache, black hair, and long fingernails entered. His robe flowed around him like a rain cloud. The stranger looked around and grimaced. “A child in a tavern? A young girl?”

“She’s my daughter,” Yral said. “What can I get you?”

“Ale. Your strongest.”

Yral got the ale he gave everyone else. “Five pieces.”

To Yral’s relief, the man did not reach into a loincloth; his robes had inside pockets.

As soon as the stranger downed the ale, he said, “Children shouldn’t be in taverns. Neither should women. It’s a place for men.”

“Of which there happens to be a shortage,” Yral said. He pointed to Xandra and Kendella. “They’re my family. They stay.”

“I don’t care if they’re your family or mine. I demand that you make them leave.”

Yral was about to say more, but Xandra said, “We’ll go.”

“You don’t—” Yral began.

“We’ll be down at Faldaranax’s house, okay?”

“Who’s the mean man, Mommy,” Kendella asked.

Before Xandra could so much as reprimand her daughter, the stranger swooped down on the little girl like the shadow of a bird of prey. “I could turn you into a shetinelika, scurvy whore!” he hissed.

“That’s it,” Yral said as he vaulted over the bar. “You’re leaving n—”

The stranger held up a hand, palm out, and Yral stopped in his tracks, unable to finish his sentence. The stranger dropped his hand, and Yral hit the floor, dazed.

Before the stranger could turn his attention back to Kendella, Krok reentered the tavern, adjusting his loincloth. His eyes locked with the stranger, and Krok said, “Lundonivun.”

Lundonivun grinned as he began to chant under his breath. Krok moved across the room so quickly Yral wasn’t sure whether or not to believe his own eyes. The Barbarian roared as he brought his sword down on the sorcerer. Lundonivun vanished before the steel could split him in half. He reappeared behind his assailant with a sword of his own, but Krok must have known Lundonivun’s style; he whirled around and parried a blow that would have taken his head from his shoulders, then went to deliver a blow of his own. This time, when Lundonivun disappeared, he did not reappear.

Krok turned in a circle, his muscles tensed for the sorcerer’s attack. A wind whipped his hair back, which Yral thought was strange, considering the doors and windows were closed.

The wind grew stronger, only touching Krok. Yral sat up and saw his wife and daughter cowering in the corner. He wondered if he could get to them without being touched.

He leaned forward to try when Krok’s loincloth ripped and fluttered away like a sick moth, dropping golden turds that clinked on the floor. The Barbarian’s face went red when he realized his hairy, toenail-sized genitals were exposed for all to see. It looked like a flea on an elephant. He moved his shield to cover it, which distracted him enough for Lundonivun to materialize and thrust a dagger into Krok’s throat. The giant dropped his sword and shield and fell to the floor, convulsing and grabbing his throat.

Lundonivun watched the Barbarian die before turning back to Kendella. “I believe,” he said, “that a certain girl owes me her tongue.” He held up his blade.

Yral moved to Krok’s body, knowing there was one way out of this. No time for worrying about morals—he had to save his family.

The Barbarian’s sword was very heavy, but Yral, fueled by fear and rage, picked it up easily as he moved toward the sorcerer’s back.

“Stick out your tongue, whore!” Lundonivun howled.

“Stay away from her!” Xandra screamed, using her own body to cover Kendella.

As Lundonivun reached out to slap Xandra away, Yral jammed the sword into the back of the sorcerer’s neck. The blade went through to the hilt, and when Yral twisted it, the head ripped away and thumped on the hardwood floor. The body spasmed before joining it. Lundonivun’s mouth opened and closed before the life left his eyes.

Yral and Xandra rushed to each other, clasping Kendella between them. The adults cried, and Kendella said, “Daddy’s a hero.”