The Last Best Quest Ever

Chapter 1

IF I HAD LEARNED ANYTHING in my years of questing, it was that members of the royal court always appreciated a grand entrance.

They were gluttons for pageantry and suspense.

They salivated over any spectacle and devoured drama and pomp.

And since the upper class didn’t have to work for a living, unlike lowly peasants such as myself, they had endless hours to fill with various forms of entertainment.

Gossip, secret liaisons, and treason were the normal fare, but even elaborate plans for a coup d’état became boring after a while.

Thus, they invented different avenues of distraction, diversion, and amusement.

The kingdom’s monarchs organized all manner of competitions and celebrations, much to the delight of the lords, ladies, and lieges of the court.

They gorged themselves on lavish feasts, sophisticated fashion, and complicated dancing.

And, of course, there were the tournaments.

The monarchs loved to watch knights pummel one another with dull swords or spear one another with pointy sticks while hurtling at full speed on horseback.

Unfortunately for the spectators, the court couldn’t indulge in sword fights and jousting matches daily, or there would be no knights to defend against the threat of warlords, bandits, and the sporadic vengeful gnome.

So they had to turn to other sources of daring entertainment.

That’s where I came in.

I was an expert at questing, the broad term for a variety of daring and courageous tasks, including monster hunting, magic or divine object retrieval or destruction (depending on the day), and the occasional VIR (very important royal) recovery mission.

(Princess Avriel was very excited when I showed up to rescue her from the swamp sprites instead of Lord Ethan, as he harbored a very large and very unrequited crush on her and had vowed to be her champion despite his utter lack of prowess when it came to feats of rescue or romance.)

Anyway, I was great at winning quest competitions. The best at it, in fact, in the entire kingdom. Exalted throughout all the land. And though I wasn’t someone who enjoyed prolonged attention, it was an act I was willing to play for the gold.

For a time.

With my vast experience in these matters, I knew that absolutely nothing topped a theatrical last-second entrance.

Which was how I came to be there, impatiently waiting outside the closed double doors of the castle’s great hall for my final performance.

I pressed my ear to the glossy polished wood while I listened for the best moment to announce my arrival.

If this was to be the last time I would enter the presence of royalty as the most decorated quest competitor in all of Avoury, I would do so in style.

Magnificent, boorish, boasting style. Even if it meant upstaging my opposition, and especially if it irritated my fiercest competitor.

Princet Aven was fun to tease.

“Well, as no one else has returned from the Dark Wood,” the king’s voice rang out, “then I believe I must declare Princet Aven the—”

Ah, my cue. I rammed my shoulder against the heavy door so it swung wide open, startling the guards and the banner bearers, and cutting the king off mid-sentence.

The ornately carved handle slammed into the stone wall, the impact reverberating amid the gasps of the court as I took a brash step over the threshold.

I swept my brown hair to the side, revealing my blood-splattered face, and tossed the tattered hem of my cloak over my shoulder to full effect.

Between the sword at my side and my dirtied leather armor, I appeared gruesome and battle worn as I stood proudly at the back of the hall, every inch the mighty adventurer the bards proclaimed me to be.

“Sorry I’m late,” I called as I strode in, lugging the heavy corpse of a monstrous spider behind me by its own web, which was kind of poetic in a macabre and gross way.

“I was a little caught up.” The crowd stared at me in stunned silence.

“Caught up. Get it?” I sighed. The castle court had no sense of humor.

“The spiderweb?” I jiggled the thick strands entwined around my hands for emphasis.

A twitter of disgusted laughter echoed throughout the chamber but abruptly changed to horrified gasps when one of the long, hairy legs of the spider twitched.

The thud of a liege fainting followed shortly after.

I gripped the sticky fibers I’d looped over my shoulder and dragged the creature across the stone with a foul scrape and squelch.

The ribbon of carpet that led to the royal dais bunched beneath the eight-legged carcass, while a wide swath of black blood and green, viscous venom seeped from beneath it, spreading out toward the jeweled toes of the courtiers, who pressed handkerchiefs over their mouths to ward off the stench.

Yeah. It was dead. Very dead, despite the occasional postmortem spasm. And heavy.

I grinned as my gaze slid to Princet Aven.

My stomach leaped gleefully at their attractive pout, their fair skin reddening with annoyance as they crossed their arms over their pristine royal outfit.

Aven had a wheelbarrow of smaller spiders, adolescents compared with the one I was dragging toward the raised thrones of the king and queen.

Not a bad showing for the second best, and if I had been one minute later, they’d have won the challenge and the court’s favor this time.

There were other participants lined up behind Aven, some with a smattering of dead spiders and one with a large bat.

Lord Ethan, with his ridiculous curled mustache, had obviously missed the entire point of the adventure, which was to cull the Dark Wood’s man-eating spider population down to a manageable level.

The Dark Wood was thick and wild, and during peak foliage season it was so dense that light scarcely broke through the canopy of leaves.

The populace thought it cursed, but the path cutting through it was the shortest way between the farms and ports on the northern edge of the continent and the rest of the kingdom.

Taking the route through the wood took a third of the time it would take to venture around the perimeter—which for a trader or a farmer was no menial deviation.

Unfortunately, the spider population had exploded as an unhappy herald of spring.

I and my fellow questers had been tasked with bringing back as many dead creatures as possible to create a safer way through the wood for the prime trading months of the spring and summer.

The reward was a sack of gold and the esteem of the kingdom.

It was the perfect last quest. A way to earn a bit of gold and one last chorus of enthusiastic huzzahs.

I paused next to Princet Aven and bowed to the king and queen, seated on their thrones atop the raised platform.

The bulbous body of my bounty smelled like death, the stink wafting anew each time I moved it.

It was positively vile. But the king stared, delighted, and the queen giggled as I dropped the web to the floor with a loud splat.

“I apologize for my tardiness, Your Majesties.” I bowed again at the waist. “This,” I said with a gesture toward the body, “was difficult to lug all the way from the depths of the Dark Wood.”

Aven rolled their blue eyes and dropped their arms with a soft huff. I ignored them, though I inwardly preened.

“You’re forgiven, of course, Ellinore,” the queen said. “Especially as you have brought a fine specimen.”

The king gestured to the stone wall behind them, where a gigantic bear rug hung above a recessed stone shelf.

The ledge held a quill from a manticore, a magnificent pearl from the Eastern Sea, a silver thimble from the swamp sprites, and a scale from the famed Golden Dragon, about the size of a small shield, which gleamed in the sunlight.

“Yes. The fangs will make an excellent addition to the other trophies you have brought to us.”

I internally flinched but hid my distaste behind a wide smile. “I agree, Your Majesty.” One of the spider’s brittle legs cracked and fell off, eliciting another waft of death so overpowering that I clamped my mouth shut to keep from vomiting.

The king wrinkled his nose. “A quite pungent creature.”

I laughed through my clenched teeth. “Yes. Well, it’s dead. That’s what happens.”

“Of course.” The king’s gaze cut to Aven, standing by my side. “I was just about to declare my dear brother’s only child, Princet Aven, the winner of this little competition, as they have killed the most spiders. But we cannot deny that once again you have prevailed.”

“Wait. How did she win?” Aven asked, gesturing to the corpse behind me. “That’s one spider. The quest was to kill many spiders. To decrease the population.” They pointed at their wheelbarrow. “Twelve is much greater than one.”

“Princet Aven does have a point,” the king said, stroking his gray beard. He was a stately man, a warrior in his day, and the sharpness of his blue eyes was rivaled only by Aven’s. “The quest did specify quantity.”

“Yes, Princet Aven does have a magnificent point,” I said with a wink in their direction.

“And while this is but one spider compared with Princet Aven’s bounty, this is a mother spider.

And all her eggs are also now… gone.” Gone, but not dead.

Merely relocated by a friend. But that bit of information would remain between myself, my friend, and the ancients. “And she cannot procreate again.”

“Well done, Ellinore.” The king cleared his throat and addressed the crowd. “Once again I hereby declare Ellinore the Brave—the Spider Slayer—the winner. She has triumphed in this quest!”