Rham the Uncivil

Rham the Uncivil was draped over a bench at an Inn pissed on the inn's cheap, tasteless but particularly potent ale. He was a happy barbarian hero.

"Hullo again," he said as a homely serving girl approached his table. She smiled politely at him and Rham wobbled on the chair in a very worrying manner. "I'll have another of the same please," he slurred politely, because even when you were a hero you still had to have manners.

"Are you sure?" asked the maid, slightly concerned. "You have drunk rather a lot."

"Nonsense I'm as sober as a newt," lied Rham unconvincingly, to prove his point he made a playful grab for the girl, missed completely and found himself lying face down on the cold hard floor.

"Hmm," 'hmmed' the maid. "I think a bucket of cold water may be in order here. Why do you men drink so much?"

"I'm having a good time," muttered Rham from the floor. The waitress refrained from further comment and just left him to it.

Two men were watching the situation from the other side of the bar. They were royal soldiers on an urgent mission to find Rham and deliver a message from their King. The King had heard that the great hero was in town and had sent his men out to find him. Now they had they were shocked slightly by the state he was in.

"Are you sure that's him?" Kurt Grenache asked his companion in disbelief, scratching his mop of greasy black hair with an equally scabby hand.

"He fits the description," replied Royd Thistle. "A big beefy git, with long brown hair and blue eyes. It's him all right." Grenaches drained his drink, it tasted like nothing more (or less) than pig swill. "Maybe we should sober him up a little bit," he grinned, he wasn't a vindictive man by nature but he tried very hard to be, he would take a chance to bring Rham down a peg or two with both hands. Thistle, who was a vindictive man, grinned nastily. "I know exactly what you mean, Kurt."

Rham felt himself being hauled off his hard resting place by big hands and then thrown back unto his bench. He was about to thank his new found friends when he had cold water thrown in his face and his whole happy world was turned upside down.

"By the gods," cursed Rham, attempting to clamber from the bench.

"Sit down unless you're growing," growled a hard voice, as rough hands shoved him back into the seat.

Rham shook his head in a vain attempt to clear some of the mist away that was suddenly clogging up his vision. That didn't work so he reached for his enchanted sword, Exclaimer, It would have had to be a reach of epic proportion as he remembered that he had handed it into the Innkeeper as a sign of good faith.

So instead of leaping straight into the attack he took the chance to study his two assailants. They were both big, thick set men, who looked like they had both been hit very hard with the ugly stick. They also didn't look that bright, Rham guessed that they had to be royal soldiers of some kind. That guessed, he sprang into action.

Rham upturned the table, crashing it into Grenache and sending him tumbling to the floor. The hero followed his up by hitting Thistle with a tremendous right hook, the man joined his partner on the floor.

"By the dark god," muttered Rham, blowing on his fist and trying desperately to stay on his feet. "Talk about granite chin."

Grenache had by now staggered to his feet and had his sword drawn. He had an evil look on his face that suggested he had forgotten all about his King's message. Rham easily dodged out of the way of Grenache's clumsy thrust and brought his knee up into the unfortunate soldier's groin. The man's sword dropped from his grasp and he collapsed into his own ball of eye watering pain.

"Ouch," winced Rham turning his attention to Thistle. "That's gotta hurt."

Thistle wobbled to his feet and waved frantically at Rham to cease.

"Hold it, hold it," he gasped through as aching, maybe broken jaw. "We don't want to fight you. We have a message from the King of Pisspok."

Rham paused for a moment to listen to the slightly blurred man's babbling but only because the room didn't spin quite so fast when he was standing still. Thistle prattled off the King's message to Rham as if his life depended on it, which in his considered opinion it probably did. In truth Rham was totally rat-arsed and probably wouldn't have had enough sense to hurt either of them that much, perhaps a broken bone or two but nothing too serious.

As it was Rham didn't catch all of it in his drunken state, the gist of it seemed to be that King Osward the third of Pisspok desperately seeked an audience with him, the world's greatest hero. Rham turned the request over in his mind for a few minutes, before deciding that he was too pissed to be bothered to do anymore thinking. "Okay I'll see him but first of all I need a little rest." he slurred. His decision made he smiled inanely, shrugged, slumped back to the floor and slipped into what could only be described as a drunken stupor.

Osward sat at the end of the long narrow room, on a golden throne and surrounded by advisers, concubines and various other toadying sycophants. There were a dozen or so guards standing to attention around the room and they were all staring with contempt at our hero. Thanks to his escapades Rham was well known over the world and his presence normally evoked two emotions in people, they either loved him or loathed him. Rham in his less than prefect hungover state just ignored them. "Rham of Rainrok, I believe," said Osward as Rham reached the throne and much to the King's annoyance didn't bow.

Rham nodded curtly. He bowed to no one but his own king, plus if he attempted a bow in the state he was in he was liable to end up on his face. "I am Rham," he said.

"You are a difficult man to track down, we have been seeking you for many months" said a thin, snidey looking man who stood at the King's side, he had a totally hairfree head and a face like a snake. He stared at Rham like a cat eyeing a fat, juicy looking mouse.

"You tend to stay alive longer that way," said Rham returning the stare. A silence fell upon the throne, as the two men attempted to stare each other down, it was pretty tense. Finally the snake man smiled and turned to his king. He whispered something in Osward's ear and then turned his attention back to Rham.

"This is Kailef," said Osward. "He is my adviser and mage, excuse him if he seems rude but he is very suspicious. But what he says is true, we have been seeking you for a long time. Your deeds and conquests are legendary throughout the land. We were told however that you had retired, given up the heroing business and settled down. Imagine our surprise then when you turned up in my Kingdom yesterday."

Rham shrugged, all he was concerned with at that moment was clearing up his headache. "You wanted to see me," he said.

Osward nodded. "My men have searched far and wide for you Rham, so you can appreciate how pleased I am you actually meet you at last." Rham gave the king a very small smile.

"I am in need of your services," continued Osward. "I want someone with your special talent for tracking people down. Is it true that you can track a man to Necropolis and back if you wanted?"

"I've never needed to go quite that far," admitted Rham. The king laughed loudly and somewhat falsely to Rham's mind. "So who do you need tracked down?"

"My daughter, Maria," said Osward. "She has been kidnapped and is being held against her will."

Rham raised an eyebrow.

"I have received a ransom note," continued Osward.

"May I see it?"

Osward eased his massive frame out of his purple velvet throne and threw a fat, stumpy arm around the hero. "Rham I think it's time for a little chat in private. Come Kailef."

The king led Rham into an adjacent room, that while somewhat smaller than the throne room was no less lavishly decorated. "This is my private study," said Osward. "I use it to finalise my private plans, policy changes, holiday rotas, spreadsheets etc."

"That's nice," sighed Rham. "The note."

Kailef handed a parchment to the hero, Rham took it without thanks and gave it a quick perusal. This wasn't the kind of job he normally took on, rescuing royalty was not really his scene. Especially Princesses, they tended to be right pains in the butts, but unfortunately Rham had this built in hero instinct and no matter how hard he tried to override it he couldn't fight it, he knew he would end up helping the King. Especially if there was a reward involved.

"This note comes from Necropolis," he said. Osward nodded. Kailef said, "We came to that conclusion as well."

"We sent some of our own men out to search for the entrance to Necropolis," said Osward. "But they either came back unsuccessful or they don't come back at all."

"I would say those are the ones that found the hidden entrance," said Rham.

"I must say that I am surprised that you don't quiver at the name Necropolis, most of my men were too scared to even think about going there," said Osward.

Rham shrugged, the name did strike fear into his heart, he had been there. Of course being the hero he was he was not about to admit that. "I've been to worse places," he said.

Kailef gave the hero a look of pure evil, he trusted Rham about as far as he could throw him and as he probably would have struggled to even pick him off the ground, that wouldn't have been very far.

"I doubt that," he said. "Anyhow using magical powers far beyond the imagination and understanding of a barbarian I have drawn a map of where they are holding Princess Maria. It should be quite accurate."

"I hope so," said Rham, taking the map. "There is a very deadly difference between quite accurate and absolutely accurate."

"The main problem will be finding the entrance," said Kailef.

"I know where it is," smiled Rham, placing the map in the inside pocket of his jerkin.

"I hoped you would say that," said Osward, picking up a large jug of some sweet smelling wine and three gold goblets.

"Okay Osward." began Rham, refusing the offer of a drink. "I am heading that way anyhow so I will see if I can slip by Necropolis and grab back your daughter, but I am not making any promises, do you understand."

So it was a few short hours later, as the sun set behind the Murky mountains Rham and Exclaimer set off to seek out the hidden entrance with a new horse, fresh supplies and half the promised reward upfront. "Well done, moron," snapped Exclaimer once Rham had relayed at that had gone on with Osward. "We have to go down into the Netherworld and get back some whining Princess."

Rham waited until the sword's barrage of abuse had finished before he replied. "Is there any point to this string of insults?" he asked. "Or is it just your normal pointless abuse? I can help it can I? I am a goddamned hero, I cannot refuse to help someone in distress. It's in my blood."

"As you well know by now," said Exclaimer. "I'm not one for whining-"

"Not much," muttered Rham.

"All I am saying is that you don't really know where the entrance to Necropolis is do you? No one does."

"Ah, but I do," said Rham. "I went there once to bring back the three headed dog that lived there."

"So I have heard," said Exclaimer. "So do you know where the entrance is then?"

"The Enchanted woods," said Rham.

"Ah, the three leagues wide expanse of woodland in the South, that is populated by trolls, goblins, giant spiders, wood elves and a necromancer?"

"I have been there before," said Rham coldly. "Many times, it isn't much worse than the Lothewood, where I found you."

"Another tiny matter that I would like to bring up," continued Exclaimer. "What are we going to do once we have found the entrance?"

"I don't really know," admitted Rham. "I thought we'd play it by ear."

"That's not very comforting," said Exclaimer, in a voice that suggested he was not completely convinced.

"It won't take long," Rham assured the sword. "We'll find the entrance, steam in, grab the girl and then be on our way before you can say Fiddlesticks."

"Fiddlesticks."

"This is just fecking marvellous," complained Exclaimer. "I knew this was going to happen. Here we are pouncing around the forest, without a clue as to where the goddamn entrance is."

Rham ignored the sword's ranting. "Hmmm," he muttered, watching their fire slowly burn itself out. It was nearly midnight in the forest and the night was filled with the sound of sorts of animal noises and a few other mysterious sounds that were frankly better off staying unknown. And of course the constant whining of Exclaimer.

Rham did the sensible thing and fell asleep.

"Phsss."

Nothing.

"Phsssss!"

Still nothing.

"Damn," the pale "phssing" figure cursed. "He never did know when to wake up." The figure tried to shake the sleeping Rham but his transparent hand passed straight through the barbarian heroes' arm. "Aaargh!" the figure cried in frustration.

That got Rham's attention. He awoke instantly and sat bolt all right, reaching instinctively for Exclaimer. "By the gods!" he swore, his eyes focusing on the weirdest sight he had ever seen, recently at least.

"So you finally decided to wake up, Rham," said the pale figure.

"!" Replied Rham.

"Oh, come on Rham," said the figure, attempting to slap Rham's shoulder and failing miserably. "Don't tell me you've never seen a ghost before? I thought you were the intelligent type."

"But you're dead," said Rham.

"That's one of the requirements of being a ghost I'm afraid," smiled the deceased one. "It's one of the crosses one must bear."

"Who in Necropolis' name is this old fool?" demanded Exclaimer.

"He's...er..." began Rham, before he paused. He didn't really know how to introduce the apparition. "It's my father," he said.

"Artha at your service," said Artha

"Artha?" gasped Exclaimer. "Artha the berserker? I don't believe it. The same man who single-handedly killed all eight members of the Harvey Troll gang?"

"No, Artha the miller," Artha corrected the sword.

"By the Gods!" continued Exclaimer. "My all time hero, bloody hells. Rham you never told me you were the son of Artha...what do you mean the miller?"

"He means he's a miller," snapped Rham, "What do you think he means?"

"So you're not the world's greatest living hero," moaned the sword.

"I'm not even living anymore," said the ghost.

"Quite," said Rham. He was over the shock of seeing his dead step-father and now was quite anxious to discover what it was he actually wanted. He quizzed his "Pa".

"I'm here to help you," announced dad.

Rham shook his head. "To do what?"

"To find the entrance of course," said Artha. "I've been watching your antics so far and to say I was horrified at your pathetic attempts would be an understatement. It is embarrassing-"

"Yes" interrupted Rham. "I get the message. So can you help?"

Artha smiled. "Of course. Just follow me. Oh by the way, Duck!" Rham ducked instinctively at the command from the ghost, old habits die hard. As he did a spear struck the tree behind him and quivered dramatically. The hero leapt to his feet and drew Exclaimer in one smooth movement. There was a slight rustle of leaves in front of him and another spear came flying out at Rham. He easily parried the spear with Exclaimer and then charged recklessly into the trees.

"Rham!" Artha called desperately after his adopted son. "Never charge in anywhere blind." It was too late though Rham had disappeared into the woodland.

"Oh dear," sighed Artha. Rham was beginning to understand the ghosts wise words of wisdom, he was now surrounded by a host of wood elves, who didn't look that pleased to see him.

"Whoops," he ventured.

"Okay, you short legged, slant eyed, pointed eared freaks. Come quietly or face the consequences," ventured Exclaimer.

The elves, who were indeed short of leg, slanted of eye and pointed of ears, didn't speak the common tongue, they just stood and stared at Rham, their weapons ready to skewer.

"I guess we can't talk this over," smiled he and then sprang into action. Exclaimer swung in a great arc that relieved some of the elves of their weapons, the sword then swung back the over way in a very similar arc and relived Rham's attackers of some of their most prominent limbs. Our hero then did what all heroes have to do in some situations, he ran.

Rham went past his ghostly dad like a bolt of lightning. "Run Dad!" he shouted over his shoulder, as he disappeared into the trees again. "We're surrounded by elves."

Artha watched his son crash through the undergrowth and sighed. "Why should I run? What can they do, kill me?"

"Rham," called Exclaimer, as their charged blindly through the forest.

"Later," panted Rham, near to exhaustion, he wasn't used to running.

"It's quite important," called the sword again.

"Tell me later," snapped Rham. He had spotted somewhere to take cover and access the situation. Away to his left was a smallish cave, half concealed by trees and it looked as if it might be large enough to hide a man. He changed direction and headed for the safety of the cave.

Seconds later Rham dived headlong into the cave. Just as he entered the cave there was a blinding flash and everything seemed to turn upside down. His world was filled with bright lights in all the colours of the spectrum and a few that hadn't even been discovered yet. He was also falling, falling into oblivion.

He called out to Artha and the shout seemed to last forever and to follow him down as he fell deeper and deeper into the pits of the world. "Aaargh!" he added as he finally stopped falling and landed with a soft thud on fairly solid ground.

It was pitch dark, so black that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, not that that is what Rham really wanted to do. "Exclaimer?" he whispered.

"I'm here," replied the sword coldly. "And I must say that I am a bit disappointed in you recent behaviour, running away from a few midgets, leaving an old man to die and then to cap it all, diving into a bottomless pit. Very clever I must say-"

"Shut up," hissed Rham. "Artha will be fine, he's a ghost."

"There is one more thing," the sword went on regardless. "Something I tried to tell you earlier."

"What?" snapped Rham, rather louder than he would probably have liked.

"You've left all the provisions behind," said Exclaimer smugly.

"Damn!" cursed Rham and kicked out violently. His foot connected with something solid, there followed a spine tingling crack and the whole area was suddenly flooded by light. "Aaargh!" he continued, as his pupils went from saucers to pinpoints in a fraction of a second.

"By Necropolis," a dozen gruff voices cried out at once. "A human has come down the tradesman entrance."

Rham staggered through the newly made opening in the hidden entrance and as his eyes began to adjust to the light, he saw that he was in some sort of guard room. A guard room full of demons, correction a guard room of very surprised demons. All of who were staring at him.

"Hi, is this Necropolis?" he asked cheerfully, to break the ice.

"Kill him!" they all answered him, grabbing up the nearest weapon and moving menacingly towards him.

"I guess so," grinned Rham and prepared to fight his way through 40 or so demons. This was just the sort of odds he liked.

The demons all rushed at our hero waving their badly made weapons and grinning evilly. Tired though he may have been, Rham was in good form, he cut, he hacked, he parried, he slashed, he blocked, he hacked (again), he even found time to clean the demons green ichor from the busy Exclaimer. In five minutes it was all over and he stood in the middle of the room, 44 demons were dead and he had a splinter in his thumb from one of the many smashed tables that now littered the guard room.

He used Exclaimer to remove the splinter, much to the swords annoyance, then pulled out the map that Kailef had given him. The map which he had conveniently decided to keep on him and not with the rest of his stuff. Hmmm.

"According to this map Osward's daughter is only a few hours march from here," he mused.

"That's assuming the map's accurate," muttered Exclaimer.

"Hmmm and of course that's if this is the entrance shown on the map," Rham cogitated.

The pair of them fell silent and realised what a stupid job they had attempted to do.

"Aren't you going to say I told you so?" asked Rham.

"But I didn't, did I?" replied the sword quietly.

Rham sighed. As luck would have it, or more to the point that I did not want to ruin the plot, the map was accurate and the entrance was the right one. Rham quickly and silently made his way through the deserted streets of Necropolis. In the land of eternal night it was midnight, just as it was 'upstairs' and as such all respectable demons were either at some seedy club connoting diabolical plans, or in their seedy homes doing the same. No self respecting demon would have been seen dead in the streets at midnight, unless it was part of some dire plan.

This enabled Rham to move through the dimly lit cobbled streets unnoticed.

"I recognise this place," muttered Rham, as he made his way past by rows of dull grey houses and equally dark and dingy shops offering gross looking products.

"And what a lovely place it is too," Exclaimer commented, they had reached a sign that read:

SCREAMING CORNER - HELLOWAY PENITENTIARY SOULS

"Quite," agreed Rham sadly. "Can't you hear the souls screaming?"

"Sounds more like a girl," said Exclaimer.

Rham had a quick look at the map. "According to this map we're here," he grinned.

"We'll see," answered Exclaimer sceptically.

Rham made his way quickly through the penitentiary, there had been a couple of guards at the prison's gate but the hero had dealt with them without even slowing pace, he could have finished them off in his sleep. Now he was speeding along the badly lit corridors flanked by rows and rows of empty cells.

He was heading towards the hideous screaming that was still echoing around the jail. "Damn all this water," complained Rham, as he found one muddle after another. "It's everywhere don't they ever clean this place up?" Rham reached the cell where the shrieking was originating from and he had the shock of his life. The cell had one occupant, a small petite girl. She was beautiful. She had long blonde hair down to her hips, an impossibly curvaceous figure and when she turned to look at Rham he noticed that she had the most wondrous eyes he had ever, one was green and the other was blue and they complemented her deep tanned skin perfectly. All this with herbal make up and after living in a cell for a month.

"Wow," gasped Rham.

The girl stopped screaming at last and stood up. It then seemed to Rham that the only sound in the whole dungeon was his beating heart, and that was going to the dozen. She walked up to the cell door and Rham could see glimpses of her curves through the rips and tears in her dirty clothes.

"I'm Rham, I have come to rescue-" he began.

"About bloody time," interrupted the girl, in a voice as common as a

pleasant girl and twice as course. "Where in the gods' name have you been. I've been stuck in this pit of despair for weeks. Look at my face it's a total mess! Look at my clothes they're all ruined."

"Erm," mumbled Rham as his dreams came crashing back down to earth.

"Erm?" snapped the girl. "Is that all you can say?"

"No," said Rham. "I've just a bit confused, are you Maria Princess of Pisspok."

"No, I'm Grima Slimeball wicked witch of the west," snapped the girl. "Who the hell do you think I am?"

"Princess Maria," sighed Rham miserably, he was just learning that King's daughter had a nasty temper that flared up at regular intervals.

"Now open this door," she demanded, just to emphasise that fact. Rham obliged by breaking the cell door open with Exclaimer, another use that the sword was not too happy about. He felt that a sword of his standing should not have to do anything as mundane as lock breaking or splinter removal for that matter.

Rham held the door open for the princess. He didn't know why but he felt compelled to do the blonde beauty with the fiery temperament's bidding.

"Thank Necropolis for that," sighed Maria ungratefully as she stormed out of the cell and down the corridor. "Take me home, right now."

"Right fine," sighed Rham and followed Maria down the corridor with a great misgiving in his heart.

"I knew she was going to be like this," muttered Exclaimer.

Yaargh was an important demon, at least he thought that he was a prominent demon. He was certainly a big demon, he was captain of the entrance guards, the motley crew of demons who guarded the hidden entrance and had just had their number reduced by the number of forty four. He had just received the shock of his life, returning from a top level meeting with his superiors, i.e. a roasting from Hades, the Lord of Necropolis, for what his inept guards got up to. He had reached the guard room and had discovered that his whole night shift had been wiped out. To say that Yaargh was not a happy demon would be a slight understatement.

He took one look at the bloody mess in the guardroom and let out a hideous roar.

"Okay keep very quiet, Maria," hissed Rham. They were outside the penitentiary and about to head for home.

"All right," snapped Maria. "You don't have to tell me what to do, I'm not an idiot."

"Yeah I know," replied Rham, in a hoarse whisper. "Just keep it quiet."

"I will," said Maria, in a voice that could in no way be defined as quiet.

"I can be-"

"Will you shut up," interrupted Rham sharply. He glanced nervously around, demons were easy enough to dispatch but he was getting rather weary and he didn't fancy odds of 2000 to 1, things could get rather sticky.

"Don't talk to me like that," continued Maria. "I am a princess you know."

By this time a few demons had come out of a nearby building (a pub) to see what all the noise was about. There were five of them and they were of the big, ugly and murderous looking variety.

"What's all this noise about?" one of them demanded.

"Uh oh," muttered Exclaimer.

"Hang on a moment," one of the more observant demons said. "They're not demons, they're normos."

Rham acted with all the speed that had made him number one in his particular field. He pushed Maria towards the nearest exit, shoved the King's map in her hand and told her to run as fast as she could. For once the girl didn't comment, she just ran.

"Five to one," smiled Rham as the demons approached him. They outnumbered him, were a good foot taller and a foot wider but there was something about the way the normo was grinning that disconcerted the demons.

"Just the odds I like," Rham went on.

"So do we," said the demons and rushed him.

Rham felled the first down with a well timed slash but the others who had no idea of fighting (and were half drunk) just crashed into him. Exclaimer was knocked from his grasp, a strong right hook caught his chin and he hit the cobbles hard, a kick in the stomach followed and things were beginning to look a little bit iffy.

Then all of a sudden the demons stopped in their beating of Rham, looked away to the right, straightened up, screamed and then ran off back into the pub.

"Rham?" a familiar voice called. "Are you all right?"

"Of course I'm bloody not," moaned Rham, rolling painfully onto one elbow and staring at the spectre of his dead father. "I've just been beaten up by a bunch of goddamn demons."

"Only five though," smirked the dead man, as he tried unsuccessfully to help his son to his feet, he made a mental note to himself to try and remember how to move things. "Funny, you wouldn't have thought that demons would be scared of a ghost."

"Especially the ghost of a miller," said Exclaimer.

"Shut up, Exclaimer." Rham clambered to his feet clutching his stomach, then just when he thought things couldn't be much worse he remembered-"Maria!" he cried in sudden panic. "Dad did you see a girl on your way down here?"

"What, a small petite looking girl with long blonde hair?"

Rham nodded furiously, he had visions of his fee disappearing.

"Yeah, some demons had her up by the entrance," said the ghost.

"What?"

"A few demons had her."

"Come on, Dad," said Rham, grabbing up Exclaimer and making a remarkable recovery from his beating, it's amazing what the fear of loss of money can do to you.

Rham rushed through Necropolis towards the entrance at top speed, hacking anything unfortunate enough to get in his way. He reached the guard room in record time and burst in.

"Unhand that girl," he cried, before the words could die in his throat. The few demons Artha had mentioned were in fact least fifty demons, all heavily armed and looking very mean.

Rham himself was panting like a dog and completely knackered.

"It's Rham the Uncivil, I believe," said Yaargh, with a malicious smile, or a friendly snarl, it was hard to tell through all the teeth.

Rham gave a tired nod of his head and decided that if he got out of his alive he would give up drinking and try to get fitter, all the non-stop running around and fighting was beginning to catch up with him.

"It's so nice to meet you, after all the things I've heard about you," continued Yaargh smiling still. "It's a shame that you won't have much time to appreciate it."

"Don't worry yourself, the pleasures all yours," said Rham. "It's time to prove your worth as a magic sword," he added to Exclaimer.

"Oh great," moaned the sword. "The great supposed hero Rham is weary so now it's up to his poor old hard done by sword to get him out of it. Well no way. You got us into this ridiculous situation, so you can bloody well get us out of it."

"Fine," hissed Rham. "But remember, if I fail you will spend the rest of eternity in the Necropolis, being used as a demons butt crevice scratcher."

"Hmmm," mused Exclaimer, Rham did not paint a pretty picture. "Who do you want hacked?"

Rham made gestures to the mass of demons that had encircled them and were closing in with murderous intent on their faces. "Take your pick," he just had time to say before the demons attacked.

Their axes, broad swords, spears and maces all rained down in the general direction of Rham, but the hero and more importantly Exclaimer were equal to the task. The sword was unbelievable, it was a blur of steel, it was everywhere, parrying, blocking, hacking, slicing and thrusting.

While the sword worked it's magic and moved with a life of it's own, dragging Rham this way and that, the hero spotted Maria right at the back. She was being held by two smaller demons and looked very sorry for herself.

"Help me," she mouthed to him.

Yeah, and who's gonna help me, Rham thought bitterly as Exclaimer parried another series of blows and in turn relieved a few more demons of their more prominent limbs.

By now the demons were slowly beginning to become a little wary of Rham, because even though they outnumbered him 50-1 and also had him surrounded. This figure was dropping all the time and they were growing less keen to attack him as they had been, this was mainly due to the fact that every time someone did, someone ended up limbless or lifeless.

New tactics were needed, so the demons all took a couple of steps back and watched Rham. This suited him down to the ground as it gave him a few seconds to get this breath back. Once he had done that he surveyed the situation he and Maria were in.

It was pretty grim.

"Exclaimer it's time for plan 2b," he announced dramatically, deciding that a bit of kidlogy wouldn't go amiss.

It worked for a few seconds, all the demons took another step away from the mad man, unsure of what the fighting dervish was going to do next. Look at it from their point of view, here was a man who had come down to Necropolis armed only with a sword.

"Plan 2b?" said Exclaimer. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," grinned Rham, gripping the sword like a berserker.

"Go!" the pair cried and sprung into action.

Plan 2b seemed to consist of Rham charging headlong through the throng of demons, screaming loudly and hacking anything that got in his way. The demons were in disarray, they were not used to this sort of behaviour, usually people came down to the Necropolis full of fear and dread but not this bloody maniac.

The demons apparently came to the conclusion that in this case discretion was the better part of valour and fled from the mad eyed beserker. "Blimey, who would have thought that suicidal plan would work," said Exclaimer cheerfully.

"Hmmm," sighed Rham, moving over to where the now unconscious Maria had been dropped by the fleeing demons. He lifted her gently from the ground and was about to attempt to relive her when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to look into the chest of Yaargh.

"Oh well, it nearly worked," said Exclaimer. Rham dropped the unfortunate Maria to the ground again and brought his sword around in a deadly dead arch. The demon was too quick though, he blocked the blow with the handle of his axe. He followed this up by striking Rham's jaw with his third fist.

Rham staggered back, tripped over the prone body of Maria and hit the floor hard. "By the gods, Exclaimer," he hissed. "Can't you even hack your way through a wooden handle?"

"I don't see you doing any better, Mister," Exclaimer bit back.

The pairs conversation was brought to a premature close as Yaargh kicked Maria out of the way and brought his axe down towards Rham's head. Poor old Maria's gonna have some bruises when she comes too, Rham thought compassionately as he attempted to avoid the descending axe. He almost made it, but the axe sliced through his leather jerkin and cut into his arm.

"Aaargh!" he cried out, more in anger than pain as the cut wasn't that deep. "Flesh wound." He shouted, bringing Exclaimer up and into the demon's arm. He grimaced as he felt the sword cut deep and struggled to get to his feet as green blood spurted from the demon's wound. The demons accompanying scream seemed to shake the entire foundations of Necropolis; although, of course, in reality it did no such thing.

Rham made it to his feet and tried to force home an advantage but the demon was no novice warrior, he easily parried the heroes blows, then renewed his own attack. Rham found himself being forced back towards the far wall, he really did not want to get pinned down against a wall. In one last desperate attempt to change the course of the fight, he lunged forward trying to force his opponent back but although he rained blow after blow down on the demon, Yaargh would not yield.

Rham was by now tiring and there is only so much a magic sword can do. Yaargh saw his chance, he pulled out a small rapier like knife and with one of his spare hands (one of the ones that wasn't holding the axe) drove it into Rham's thigh.

Rham fell onto one knee in pain and Yaargh pressed home his new advantage. One blow from his axe sent Exclaimer spinning away to crash into the wall and one blow from his foot sent Rham crashing to the ground. "Ouch, that smarts!" complained Exclaimer from the ground.

The demon swung at Rham but our hero managed to duck under the blow. He pushed the dagger deeper into his leg in the process but he was on his feet and facing his enemy.

"That's gotta hurt," smiled Yaargh.

"Can't even feel it," lied Rham.

"You have made a worthy adversary," snarled Yaargh. "But enough is enough, now prepare to die...aaarrghh! Why you little bastard for that I'm gonna strangle you with my bare claws."

Yaargh was not too impressed by the dagger that Rham had painfully pulled from his thigh and thrown into the demon's chest, in fact he was bloody angry. "Ah," sighed Rham as the demon tossed his axe to one side and moved in for the kill. Trying to the last to overpower his opponent, Rham leapt forward and gave Yaargh the old one-two, unfortunately Yaargh replied with the one-two-three-four. This left Rham flat on his back on the floor. He wasn't on the floor for long however as the demon's massive claws helped him up to his feet by his gonads, not a very pleasurable experience, and eyeballed him.

"I'm gonna crush your head like an orange," sneered Yaargh and he meant it.

"Oh good," smiled Rham, defiant to the last.

"Say goodbye Rha-urk!" The grip on Rham's neck loosened suddenly and a hideous look of surprise came over the demon's face. He let go of the hero completely and then crashed to the floor, sporting an axe in his back. Rham followed him closely to the floor. He collapsed with relief and exhaustion. Seconds later he looked up and saw the grinning face of the Princess. "Maria?" he gasped. "I never knew you had it in you."

Maria ran a hand long her hair and shrugged. "What, you've never heard of a warrior princess before?"

"No," gasped Rham. He was close to exhaustion and felt like he could sleep for a week. He knew that he couldn't, not yet anyhow. He staggered to his feet, at least he was still alive. "Dad, I don't suppose you could transport us out of here could you?"

Artha smiled proudly. "I guess you've earned that much," he said. Rham had just enough time to grab up Exclaimer before it all went pink. Artha was true to his word and when the pink faded away the three on them were on the outskirts of the woods.

"That was excellent," said Rham.

"I know," smiled Artha. "It's the only way to travel."

"It's a shame you couldn't use it to get us in there," added Rham.

"I couldn't, Son," explained Artha. "There's only so much interfering that I can do. You have to make things happen on your own. That's what being a great hero is all about."

"Like you would know," muttered Exclaimer.

"Oh yeah," continued Rham. "Like when you showed me-"

"Are we safe now?" said Maria, from the forest floor interrupting the feuding pair.

Rham nodded. "Safe enough."

"Good," Maria smiled at the hero.

"She must be concussed," muttered Rham.

"I guess we must be off," she smiled and tried to get up.

"Hang on," said Rham and knelt down beside her, gently easing her back onto the ground. The hero then gave her a quick look over, being very careful not to linger on any of the expanses of pale flesh, that were exposed through the rips in the princess' clothing.

"Are you all right?" he asked, genuinely concerned; she was beautiful after all. "You don't seem to have any wounds, just bruises. Unlike me," he finished feeling a sudden jab of pain in his leg, face, arm...oh what the heck? his whole body felt like it had been stomped on by a mountain.

He helped Maria get to his feet. She took his hands in hers and glazed into his eyes with her big odd coloured eyes. "Thanks for saving me," she purred. "I'm very grateful."

This was more like it, thought Rham happily, this was how he expected recently rescued maidens in distress to behave. "That's okay," replied he and kissed the girl.

The change was as incredible as it was inevitable. Maria's face drew back and the look of gratitude was replaced by the familiar one of anger. "How dare you! You...you...barbarian," she cried and slapped Rham's face, hard. The blow caught the weary Rham off guard, and more by shock than power, caused him to fall to the forest floor. Maria announced she was going to walk home on her own and stormed off into the forest.

Rham tried to call after her but he felt a sudden uncontrollable urge to laugh, the urge had begun in the bottom of his throat as a tiny titter but by the time it reached his mouth it was a full scale guffaw. So there sat Rham, the world's greatest hero, laughing his head off while the beautiful but tempestuous Maria went stomping off back into the Enchanted wood.

Artha watched the whole episode, shaking his head in disappointment. Heroes did not behave like that in his day, he thought sadly and disappeared, his task for now complete.

"Typical," muttered Exclaimer, getting in the last word. "Just bloody typical."

Bio:Craig has been writing since birth (it seems) with as much luck as one might expect. He spends his time between getting up early to write, working on www.steelcaves.com, the e-zine he helps to run and looking after his son, Aidan, who is one and a bit.

E-mail: craig@renaissance2000.freeserve.co.uk

URL: www.steelcaves.com

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