The Spell-Slinger

He strode into the town at sunset, deck of playing cards in his hand.

As the people of Dragon’s Gulch watched on in unease, he casually sauntered down the main and only street, his broad-brimmed hat pulled low, concealing the top half of his face. He carried a deck of cards which he would shuffle, flip over, then shuffle again, his hands never stopping their motion as he walked. Somehow intuiting which building was the town’s bar, he paused in front of it, then pivoted to walk towards the bar’s entrance, his spurs jingling musically in the evening stillness. He stopped in front of the swinging doors and looked around, noting how the townsfolk shied away from his gaze. Nodding to himself as if this were what he expected, he pushed the doors open and stepped inside. The interior looked much the same as any other bar in this part of the outlands, a handful of dilapidated chairs and tables scattered about at random, while a group of townsfolk, shivering despite the heat, clustered around the wooden bar at the end closer to the door. The stranger strolled past them up to the bar, ignoring their stares. He looked at the bartender, one of the many dwarves who lived among the humans of Dragon’s Gulch, a serious looking fellow with an extraordinarily long beard, and asked, “Got anything to drink?”

The bartender blinked and said, “Well, Sir, we have soda water, some liquor, some…”

“Whatever’s your best, I’ll take that,” the stranger said. The bartender complied, filling a glass mug and setting it on the bar before his guest.

The stranger took the deck of cards which he still held and shuffled it once more. Then, he drew a card seemingly at random from the center of the deck. He looked at the card he drew, which had a highly detailed drawing of a round wooden shield on it, then nodded with satisfaction to himself before setting it down on the bar. Once he had done so, he tapped it significantly with one finger, then looked up at the bartender.

The bartender wrinkled his brow. “Sir, I don’t understand.”

The man sighed and tapped the card again. It began to glow with a crimson light, which slowly spread to encase the whole surface. The bartender and all the townsfolk drew back with exclamations of awe and fear. The stranger took his glass mug and, after draining it with a single gulp, slammed it down on the bar as hard as he could. It bounced off the shimmering red field harmlessly, damaging neither the wooden surface nor the cup. He tapped the card again, and the aura vanished.

“This card,” the man said. “Is my payment. All you must do is tap it, and whatever it’s touching will be coated in a similar field.”

“A spell-slinger,” the bartender said in a hushed voice of awe. His guest nodded to acknowledge that the title did fit him.

“Another one?” one of the townsfolk asked.

Slowly, the spell-slinger turned to look at the man. Although his face was still hidden by his hat, the slightest quirk of a curious smile could be seen beneath. “Another? I thought I was the only spell-slinger of any worth in these parts.”

At that, the man he spoke with snorted. One of his companions used his elbow to hit him in the side, hard enough to make him almost double over in pain as he wheezed.

The spell-slinger slowly walked over to the group, the ringing of his spurs on the wooden floor the only sound in the entire room. He stood so close his face nearly touched that of the townsman who had spoken, who by now had gone pale and seemed about ready to flee in panic. “What you just said, that sounded quite interesting,” the spell-slinger said, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “I’d like to hear more about this other spell-slinger, please.”

The townsman gulped, looking to the rest of his companions for assistance, but found none. He stared back at the patiently waiting spell-slinger, then, taking one last, nervous gulp, suddenly said, “He’s with the bandits, Sir.”

The spell-slinger beckoned with one hand, as if trying to coax more information out of the man. “Bandits?”

The townsman blinked, realizing he had to explain himself in more detail. “There’s a group of bandits, Sir, camping out somewhere nearby. They come by every month, demanding money, food, and other supplies, and say that if we don’t do as we’re told they’ll burn Dragon’s Gulch to the ground. It’s been like this for almost a year now. Normally, we would have at least tried to fight them off, but they’ve got a spell-slinger with them. Calls himself ‘Johnny Cutter.’ The sheriff didn’t think he was a real spell-slinger. We haven’t had a sheriff since.”

“‘Johnny Cutter,’” the spells-slinger said, echoing the name. “I’ve heard of him. They say he’s fast.”

The townsfolk all nodded emphatically at that. “Oh, that he is, Sir. Very, very fast.”

The spell-slinger turned away from the group, holding up his deck of cards to the lantern light of the bar as he inspected them. “Hmm,” he said. “These bandits, you know exactly where they live?”

“No,” one of the other townsfolk said. “But their camp must be in the foothills to the north of town. That’s the direction they always ride in from, at least.”

The spell-slinger considered this. “Bartender,” he said after some time in thought. “Will that spell cover a room for the night?”

The bartender blinked, looked down at the playing card still lying on the bar. “That it would, Sir.”

“Good,” the spell-slinger said, walking over to a chair at the far back of the room, sitting in it, and casually putting his legs up on a nearby table as he did so. “Because I will be spending the night here. Tomorrow, I think I’ll take care of this bandit problem of yours.”

The townsfolk stared at him in amazement as they mumbled their thanks, hardly believing what they had just heard. Ignoring them, the spell-slinger took out a second deck of cards that hung from his belt and began idly shuffling through them. Once he grew bored with that, he drew a revolver from his side as well, and, after a brief inspection, nodded to himself with satisfaction as he returned it to its holster. Then, he started shuffling both of his decks together and sorting them back out, repeating this process over and over.

The townsfolk, seeing his disinterest in any more conversation, left him alone, returning to their former place by the bar. After a few minutes, however, one of the younger townsfolk, a gangly man with a shock of blonde hair, walked over to the spell-slinger and sat down across from him. The spell-slinger didn’t acknowledge him, focused on his equipment as he was.

“Why playing cards?” the youth blurted out. “You and Johnny Cutter both use them. Are they required for magic?”

The spell-slinger stopped, slowly looking up at him. “Have you ever seen magic done, boy?” he asked.

“Not aside from you two,” the youth admitted.

The spell-slinger nodded at that, then lifted a single finger into the air. Moving his finger slowly, he drew a circle in the air, which hung there and glowed with a faint ruby light. The boy watched, eyes wide, as the spell-slinger drew several more intricate symbols within the frame of the circle, then, once finished, snapped his fingers. The symbol popped out of existence, filling the entire room with a frosty breeze that sent chills down the necks of everyone present.

“A simple cold spell. Magic is all about concentration, and symbols like that are the best way to do that. You use them to channel one’s own innate power. We in the business call it ‘grit,’” the spell-slinger explained. “But it takes time to draw them just right, and time isn’t something one always has, especially in a fight. So, some of us use playing cards- which have symbols already drawn on them- as a kind of shortcut, to skip right to the magical part. Understood?”

The boy nodded slowly.

“Good.” the spell-slinger said, leaning his chair back against the far wall of the tavern. He tipped his hat down to cover his face. His voice slightly muffled by the hat, he said, “Now scram, kid.”

The youth hastily complied, and the rest of the townsfolk gave the spell-slinger a wide berth as well. Soon, the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, as well as the audible snores coming from his direction, told them that he had fallen asleep.

“What are you going to do about him?” the man who the spell-slinger had questioned earlier asked the bartender.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The bartender shrugged nervously as he stroked his beard. “Let him keep sleeping there. What else can I do? If he wants to sleep down here instead of in the room he paid for upstairs, I won’t tell him otherwise.”

“Do you really think he can stop Johnny Cutter?” the man asked.

The bartender picked up a dirty cup and began to wipe it down. “Who can say? Cutter is awfully fast, but this fellow seems to know his business.” He looked over to the sleeping spell-slinger thoughtfully. “I suppose tomorrow will tell.”

***

The next morning, the spell-slinger rose with the sun, making his way down the town’s streets on foot toward the foothills beyond as the first rays of light illuminated the streets of Dragon’s Gulch. News of his bold claim that he would put a stop to the bandits had spread through Dragon’s Gulch like a wildfire during the night, and everyone had gathered along either side of the street, watching him leave with bated breath.

As he reached the signpost that marked the town’s outer perimeter, he stopped to look back at the townsfolk. He smiled reassuringly to them. “I will be back before sunset,” he told them. Without another word, he turned and walked out of the town, accompanied only by the sound of the jangling of his boots' spurs on the dusty road.

The trail, as winding and decrepit as it was, led the spell-slinger quickly enough to his destination. He trekked through the brush covered hills until, as the sun hovered right above the noon mark, he reached a long, narrow valley between two exceptionally steep ridges. He crept up to the edge of the valley, making sure to hide behind a rock outcropping to avoid detection.

In the valley he saw all manner of hastily thrown together shacks and tents, as well as several rings of stones that the spell-slinger deduced were used as fire pits for cooking food or boiling water. At the opposite end of the valley from where the spell-slinger hid were about a dozen horses, all tied to stakes in the ground to keep them from wandering off. Beside the horses stood a small mountain of half-opened bags and boxes of supplies stacked haphazardly. Numerous goblins and humans alike milled throughout the camp, working on various tasks, totally oblivious to his presence.

“You know,” the spell-slinger shouted as he stood up at the far end of the valley. “This spot is just ripe for an ambush. It would be a lot smarter of you to post some lookouts along these ridges, but I suppose you were too overconfident for that.”

Finally noticing his presence, the bandits scrambled to respond, a pair of humans and one goblin reacting by charging toward him. Before they had even crossed half of that distance, the spell slinger had reached into his belt, drawn a playing card, and sent it hurtling with inhuman accuracy towards the three bandits. The card began to glow mid-air, and a halo of crimson light extended around it in a flat disk. As that disk passed through the trio of bandits, it sliced them each neatly in half, killing all three instantly. The card arced through the air and then flew back to the spell-slinger, who caught it deftly between two fingers as the halo evaporated. Now, he had the undivided attention of everyone in the little bandit camp, who froze in place, watching him with the frightened eyes of cornered animals.

“I want to talk to Johnny Cutter,” the spell-slinger said.

“Right here,” a voice from behind him said. The spell-slinger’s eyes widened slightly in surprise as he slowly turned around to see a man wearing an all-black jacket, belt, and even hat standing behind him. “Oh, I noticed you sneaking up on our little camp. I wanted to see what you were about before acting myself. Did you really think I wouldn’t have at least some basic alarm spells set up around the camp’s perimeter? Really.”

The spell-slinger remained silent, watching his opponent’s every move carefully. Johnny Cutter smirked. “Still, that was some mighty fast card play you showed just now.” With such speed that it seemed his hand hadn’t moved at all Cutter plucked a playing card of his own out of his belt and idly twiddled it between several of his fingers. The spell-slinger watched this impressive display dispassionately. “But not quite as fast as me. There’s only one other spell-slinger in the outlands who can match my skill. Quick Flynn.” Johnny Cutter twisted his wrist, and the card seemed to disappear, before he made it reappear in his other hand. “And Quick Flynn’s dead, friend.”

The spell-slinger’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I’m not Quick Flynn.”

Cutter chuckled as much. “I thought as much.”

“…I’m the man who killed Quick Flynn,” the spell-slinger continued.

Cutter considered that, running the edge of the playing card in his hand along the side of his face as he did so. “Well now, stranger, I do believe you just made this interesting. It has been a while since I have faced a real challenge. Dragon Gulch’s pathetic excuse for a sheriff barely even qualified as exercise. What would you say to a friendly duel, between just the two of us? My boys would stand aside, to keep this as fair as possible.”

“Agreed, on one condition,” the spell-slinger said.

“Oh?” Cutter asked, disinterested. “And what’s that?”

“If I win, your men will leave Dragon’s Gulch alone, forever.”

Cutter’s lip curled up in disgust. “So those mewling townsfolk sent you. I should have guessed as much.”

“Not exactly,” said the spell-slinger.

Cutter sighed. “All right, stranger, I’m bored enough that I will humor you; it’s a deal.”

Cutter gestured to his men, who drew back into a rough semi-circle around the pair, watching them anxiously. Cutter slowly and casually returned the card in his fingers to the pack slung on his belt and waited for the spell-slinger to do the same with the card in his own hand. Once he had done so, the pair faced off against each other, hands held almost casually at their sides and away from their decks, gazes locked in steely determination as they patiently watched each other for any move.

Nervous mutterings could be heard amidst the assembled bandits as they watched the pair of mages face off without so much as the slightest hint of movement. Both men might as well have been carved from stone, Cutter’s former wry expression gone, replaced with an icy concentration matched by the spell-slinger’s own emotionless, collected stare.

The waiting dragged on, neither man budging, hands hung loosely at their sides, not even twitching in the light breeze which blew through the valley. Cutter’s green eyes met the spell-slinger’s own brown ones as each man searched the other for weaknesses. Cutter grimaced at what he saw. The spell-slinger didn’t even blink.

With blinding speed Cutter reached for his deck, and at the same instant the spell-slinger did the same, leaning backwards ever so slightly as he did so. Cutter drew first, holding the card between two fingers for a fraction of a moment before expertly hurling it at the spell-slinger. Reacting with instinct alone, the spell-slinger drew out a card with a defensive spell drawn into it, blossoming into a shimmering field of red energy around him just as the card that Cutter had thrown exploded in a cascade of violet sparks. The blast from the card’s explosion was strong enough to send the spell-slinger tumbling over backwards, although the position in which he had been leaning allowed him to do a somersault and land facing Cutter. He struggled to get back to his knees, face charred and sooty from the explosion, only to se Cutter standing there triumphantly, another card already in hand.

“That wasn’t half bad. In fact, it was a mite faster than I expected, and your response was flawless,” Cutter said. “Not that it matters. I have a disintegration spell right here, already drawn and ready. I can hurl it at you, and you won’t even have time to draw another card to defend yourself. I-”

While Cutter talked, the spell-slinger reached for his holster and drew his pistol, bringing it up and firing at Cutter who, completely unprepared and defenseless against the gun, was hit squarely in the forehead by the bullet. The impact sent him reeling backwards as he collapsed to the ground.

“Shut up,” the spell-slinger said, wiping the soot from Cutter’s magical explosion off his face as he got back to his feet.

“He cheated!” one of the bandits protested, and the others nodded in agreement, ready to charge the spell-slinger.

The spell-slinger, eyes steely and cold, turned in a slow circle as he met the stares of each bandit in turn. He drew another card from his deck and held it at the ready. “As I recall, there was no mention in Cutter and I’s agreement of guns being forbidden,” the spell-slinger said. “And Cutter’s end of the bargain still stands. Leave Dragon’s Gulch, and never return.”

One of the goblin bandits bared his fangs at the spell-slinger as he snarled, “Make us.”

The spell-slinger, gun in one hand, newly drawn card in the other, sighed to himself as he prepared to face the bandits. “Have it your way, then.”

***

As the sun set below the roofs of Dragon’s Gulch, the townsfolk began murmuring and gossiping among themselves about the possible fates of the spell-slinger, and if the dreaded Cutter had managed to kill him or not.

“He was too ambitious, that one,” one of the dwarven miners said gloomily. “Did he really think he could take on all those bandits and a spell-slinger by himself? Sheer madness.”

“Look!” someone else shouted excitedly. “He’s coming back!”

All heads turned and saw, to their collective amazement, the spell-slinger limping back into town, leading a group of horses whose reins he clutched in his hand. One of his eyes was swollen shut with a bruise, and his left leg was twisted to the side and dragged slightly behind him, but he was alive, and the triumphant smile on his face told the townsfolk everything they needed to know.

“Did you do it?” the bartender asked in amazement.

“The bandits are no more,” the spell-slinger confirmed. “Good people of Dragon’s Gulch, you can rest easy; they won’t ever haunt you again.”

An enthusiastic cheer went up from the crowd. “Good Sir, please stay and be our town’s new sheriff,” the bartender pleaded as he stepped towards the injured man. “You’ve proven yourself more than capable of the task.”

The spell-slinger shook his head as he passed the horses’ reins to the bewildered bartender. “I’ll be needed elsewhere soon. Can’t settle down for too long in any spot. Feel free to keep these, however. Think of them as a parting gift from the bandits.” The spell-slinger tilted his head upwards, eyes closed, as he breathed in the evening wind. “Matter of fact, I think I’m needed elsewhere at this very moment.”

“But what will we do if more danger arrives?” the bartender asked.

Reaching into his pack of cards, the spell-slinger drew one out with an exceptionally detailed design of a lantern on it. He tossed the card to the bartender, who fumblingly caught it, then passed it and the horses to other waiting townsfolk. “Consider that a beacon, friend. If you need me, tear it in half. I’ll know.”

“Can we at least convince you to stay the night?” the bartender asked.

Ignoring him, the spell-slinger drew out another card and struck it against a nearby wooden signpost. To the townsfolk’s surprise, the card began to let out a high-pitched ringing sound, as if it were made of fine crystal. Holding up the card above his head, he looked to the townsfolk and, after giving them a wink, said, “I’ll be seeing you.”

As he spoke, a sudden gust of wind stirred up a cloud of dust, forcing all the townsfolk to close or shield their eyes. When the dust devil died down as abruptly as it appeared, the spell-slinger was gone. In the dust where he had stood laid a lonesome playing card, whatever design that had been etched on it now so faded with age as to be unrecognizable.