Page 39 of Morfran, Dark Lord Reformed

“Where’s your nearest shower?” he finally asked.

“Down that hall, to the right.” Tritonia gestured with a spindly thumb. It was the wrong way.

Sulking but still trying to appear gracious, Morfran thanked her and kept up the pretense that he was completely new here by going the wrong way before asking a nearby guard the right way, then rerouting back to the bathhouse, his boots squelching the entire time.

The bathhouse was actually a natural thermae set into the ground and wrapped by a balcony overlooking it. Steam spooled out of the sea-green water, smelling slightly of stale egg-salad sandwiches. Morfran yanked off his slimy clothes and deposited them in front of a statue of a horse wearing flippers and sank into the water, in a mood fouler than the smell of the pools.

If the Elmswood Rebels had taken the city only with a great, bloody loss, he might feel okay about it. As it were, they’d taken it by a weird fluke, and he couldn’t help but feel like they’d cheated, or that they’d struck a great bout of luck, or both.

He submerged his head in the steaming water to calm his thoughts. When he came back up, he wasn’t alone.

Gueldefore stood at the side of the pool, still in all his knightly attire. It was goopy with tentacle slime, and his hair was crusty and sticking up like he’d been electrocuted. His hands were clenched into fists at his side, his expression furious. Morfran guessed having a giant squid try to eat you would naturally be upsetting.

“I am a knight!” Gueldefore growled, expressing his feelings about Morfran trapping him up in the crow’s nest earlier. “Do you understand? A hero! Heroic knights are not squid bait!” After each exclamation he stomped his foot.

Morfran snorted and went back to sulking.

Gueldefore did not like that, nor did he seem used to such a dismissive reaction. “I underwent rigorous training at the age of three to earn the honor of being a knight. That means all heroic opportunities that arise are required to go to me first. If I pass on them, which I won’t, then someone else can take the chance. That someone shouldn’t have been you, however, because all you are is a turncoat of Lord Morfran’s, and that stain shall forever sit on your résumé.”

Heroic? Morfran almost had a physical reaction to that, specifically in the vein of puking. He hadn’t done any of those things to be heroic, nor had that word ever crossed his mind as he’d plunged into the esophagus of that sea monster. He’d killed the squid for three reasons: 1) it was an abomination and needed to be put to rest, 2) Brim had threatened Benjamin and her kids if he didn’t, and 3) if Morfran hadn’t done what he did they all would be dead, which unfortunately would include him, and he didn’t want to die, namely for selfish reasons.

While Morfran tried not to vomit at the implications of what he’d just done, the knight was still rambling about his rights.

“And I was the one who helped steal Lord Morfran’s shipment of new weaponry last year. That was me. I had to wrestle eight bloodhounds during all that! Earned a few scars because of it, and afterwards I was crucial in saving our lead chemist’s life when Morfran’s men tried to burn him alive, and— Are you even listening?”

Morfran sighed deeply. He’d get no peace here. He scrubbed off the last of the squid goo and wasabi and rose. A towel hung over the raised leg of a stone horse. He wrapped himself up and walked past Gueldefore.

“Egads, man!” Gueldefore shouted. “Just who do you think you are to ignore a knight?” He reached out to shove Morfran’s shoulder.

That was the last straw.

Morfran snatched his hand out of the air, twisting it so fiercely the knight bowed into the direction and was soon staring at Morfran’s feet. His vow to never decapitate a man again was being greatly tested, especially since Gueldefore’s sword was in its scabbard and oh so close. “You’ll have to forgive me that.” Morfran heard the venom in his own voice. “Before I deserted, I was well-renowned among Morfran’s army as the one who killed knights, and the urge still hits me like an addict trying to quit but who suddenly finds himself within reach of his drug. So you see, it isn’t that I’m ignoring you.” He leaned closer to the man. “I’m ignoring the impulse to remove your head from your body.”

He shoved Gueldefore hard. The man stumbled a few feet but hastily righted himself to glare at Morfran. It was evident he hadn’t liked that. No, not at all. Knights were all about honor and one-upmanship, and Morfran had clearly spat in the face of both.

Right when Gueldefore’s fingers twitched towards his sword, cheery voices funneled into the room from the halls, and soon Brim and his merry men were entering with laughter and jokes and jostling. It cut through the tension like a knife slicing through Camembert cheese.

“Oy, Bernard!” one of the men—Bill—hollered out as they approached. “We haven’t stopped talking about your guts back there. Thought you were crazy, we all did.”

“I’ve never seen anyone willingly ask to be flung into a monster’s mouth before,” Theodore stated. “It was most excellent.”

“Glad you’re on our side now— Oh, is that you, Gueldefore?” Owain asked. “What happened to you?”

Morfran affected a grin, false as it may have been, and let the men love-tap him. As much as it irked him, it was better than hate taps, which often resulted in deep bruising as well as the feeling that they wanted to remove his spleen from his stomach and feed it to their dogs.

They wanted to know how he knew the squid was allergic to wasabi, and if he knew what Morfran was like, and if he had any embarrassing habits they could point and laugh at.

He internally sighed and settled back into the bathwater as a dozen or so enormous half-naked men settled in beside him to listen to him roast himself. It was one of the worst days of his life, second to only one, and as he told them false, humiliating tales about himself, from the corner of his eye he saw Gueldefore spit in his direction and stalk away.

The next few days weren’t any better. The Elmswood Rebels believed that their fight against Morfran was picking up steam, and so Morfran spent many days inside Tritonia’s war room pushing tiny tin soldiers across a fancy map and helping plot out ways he could kill himself.

“You say he’s allergic to honeybees?” Owain, who had a habit of scoffing after sentences, asked. “We could collect all the hives in a fifteen-mile radius and ship them to his doorstep.”

Brim humphed and haa’d, stroking his beard, and said, “Possibly. The Beekeeper’s Guild does live near Castle Atrago. But they might be concerned the bees would be harmed, and you know how insect rights activists can be.”

“Why don’t we behead all of his soldiers and stake their heads on pikes in all the cities we take back?” Gueldefore offered from his position at the head of the table. “A little bit of psychological warfare, and a way of fighting back using his own game.”

Elena, who was sitting across from Morfran, shot Morfran a look that said she was interested in how he’d react. Morfran perfected a look of apathy and shrugged. He’d only have to feign interest in battle plans for so long—they would soon be marching inland, whereas she’d be staying in Lake Dumast to help rioters along shorelines. She was leaving tonight, which he was relieved about. She’d been breathing down his back since they’d arrived.