Captive of a Fairytale Barbarian Read online

  Captive of a Fairytale Barbarian

  Elizabeth Gannon

  (NOTE: For the convenience and comfort of the reader, all completely made-up languages and terms in this book have been translated to their nearest English equivalents. I recognize that some authors simply invent their own fictional languages, but I don’t have the patience to do that on a large scale and I detest reading it even more.

  This is a novel, not a nonsense word vocab test.

  You’re welcome.

  – E. G.)

  Text Copyright © Elizabeth Gannon 2017

  All rights reserved

  Cover Image Copyright © Elizabeth Gannon 2017

  All rights reserved

  Published by Star Turtle Publishing

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  Books by Elizabeth Gannon

  The Consortium of Chaos series

  Yesterday’s Heroes

  The Son of Sun and Sand

  The Guy Your Friends Warned You About

  Electrical Hazard

  The Only Fish in the Sea

  Coming Soon: Not Currently Evil

  The Mad Scientist’s Guide to Dating

  Other books

  The Snow Queen

  Travels with a Fairytale Monster

  Nobody Likes Fairytale Pirates

  Captive of a Fairytale Barbarian

  Coming… Eventually: The Man Who Beat-Up Fairytale Prince Charming

  If you enjoy Elizabeth’s books, you may also enjoy books by her sister, Cassandra Gannon.

  The Elemental Phases Series

  Warrior from the Shadowland

  Guardian of the Earth House

  Exile in the Water Kingdom

  Treasure of the Fire Kingdom

  Queen of the Magnetland

  Magic of the Wood House

  Coming Soon: Destiny of the Time House

  A Kinda Fairytale Series

  Wicked Ugly Bad

  Beast in Shining Armor

  The Kingpin of Camelot

  Coming Soon: Happily Ever Witch

  Other Books

  Love in the Time of Zombies

  Not Another Vampire Book

  Vampire Charming

  Cowboy from the Future

  Once Upon a Caveman

  Ghost Walk

  Dedicated to whoever first invented cupcakes.

  I love you. Call me.

  Table of contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Author’s Note/Commentary on book

  Sneak Peek!

  “Barbarism is the natural state of mankind…. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”

  – Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian

  Chapter One

  "Long ago, in a hideous and half-remembered antiquity, back in the misty forgotten first-dawns when beasts and monsters and men, fought for brutal supremacy to discover whose gods were the strongest and whose blood would dye the ocean waves a hot crimson red, The Wasteland was born. A grim naked land, bleached by blistering sun and terrorized by shadowy horror. And of the many killers and kings who fought and died on that terrible ground over the eons untold, the greatest was Tzadok, The Wasteland Butcher. Through the corpses he came, bringing barbarity to the civilized and horrific doom to his unworthy foes. This is how his saga begins…”

  – Chronicles of the Salt, stanza 32

  The Eleventh Year of the War of Gold and Silver

  You don’t belong here.

  If Tandrea’s life could have been summed up in one simple statement, it was that. Because Tandy didn’t really belong anywhere.

  But especially not here.

  She looked at the soldiers surrounding her on the road, and bit her lip nervously.

  She was not an adventurer. She was an academic. She had spent her entire life behind the high walls of Galland’s Academy of Learning— the central and most prestigious educational facility in the region— and was quite happy with that situation. Not that she exactly belonged there either, since she wasn’t Gallandish, but she at least felt like she had some kind of place. Knew she could contribute something and be useful, even if it was never appreciated. She could further the cause of scholarship in a proficient and capable way.

  She could at least pretend she belonged somewhere.

  Tandy’s parents had been from Nellith, far to the east of Galland. Her skin was the characteristic green of her ancestral people, which didn’t exactly make her welcomed in a new land, particularly one as xenophobic as Galland. Her parents had immigrated there before she was born, drawn to the kingdom because of the prominent positions in the Academy which were offered to them.

  In the years since though, Galland had gone through what was officially called a “Restructuring,” but anywhere else would have been called a “revolution.” Or perhaps more accurately “a complete collapse of all aspects of a civilization.” No matter how you chose to refer to it, it wasn’t pleasant.

  Galland’s king had become envious of nearby Baseland and its vast wealth. Neither ruler had been invited to the birth celebration of the new heir to the throne of Eloqudelle. Something had gone wrong at the event though, and all of the rulers of just about every other kingdom were incinerated inside the building, when a fire broke out and they’d been unable to escape it. The event, which came to be known as The Feast of Burning Kings, was what launched the entire world into war. Baseland was the King of Galland’s ally in The War of Gold and Silver, but he couldn’t stand the idea that they had so much, while he had slightly less “much.” So after expending untold amounts of gold and lives in a mostly fruitless quest to gain more power for himself, the kingdom was left with very little.

  Things were the worst for the lower classes and they became envious of what their leaders had. The common Gallanders wanted the kind of life that the king and the aristocracy viewed as so mundane and inferior to the Baselanders. Thus, there were riots. The riots led to open revolt. The king was hanged, along with the royal family and his advisors. The mob didn’t stop there though, and publically executed anyone who had more than the common man. They humiliated wealthy men and women, tortured army commanders, ransacked any building associated with
the previous regime, destroyed art they saw as celebrating excess, and supposedly “redistributed private property to the masses” but really they just kept it for themselves.

  The goal was to make everyone the same. Make sure no one had more than anyone else, so that peace could be restored.

  But envy doesn’t work that way.

  It isn’t rational; it’s a beast, eating you away from within.

  So while the previous order had been tossed aside and rendered powerless, there was still the idea that there were somehow hidden factions of the old guard in the kingdom, trying to reintroduce the teachings, culture, and customs of the “immoral” aristocracy. Hiding their wealth and valuables, continuing to lord over everyone from hidden places and behind secret disguises. Conspiracies were thought to be everywhere, their dark agents always looking for ways to corrupt the morals of Galland.

  Neighbor against neighbor; father against son.

  Every single person you saw throughout the day could be the one who led the mob against you. Because once the accusations started, few people could prove they were innocent.

  A large part of the “Restructuring” was a backlash against... well… learning. Intellectuals, minorities, artists, scientists, city officials, and the people who objected to the new order, were now seen as dangerous and injurious to public order. Individuality was the enemy. Such people were almost certainly tools of the enemy, sabotaging Galland’s strength and subverting its morals. The policy became to “Disinfect” the troublemaking elements within society, particularly those who dwelt in the urban areas. If you had something, no matter what it was, the mob wanted it. They craved it, envious to the point of madness.

  Thus, the kingdom had set up the Guardians of Culture, their secret police force, to ensure the “safety” of the populace and its mission. They patrolled the streets and countryside, looking for any signs of disloyalty, intellectualism, or individuality. They kept a tight grip on the kingdom, making sure everyone behaved according to their cultural mores and rigorous standards. There were rules about everything from what words could be used as greetings, and how long your hair could be, to who could get married and when. If you didn’t follow the rules, you got sent away for “Disinfection” on one of the islands off the coast.

  Generally speaking, people didn’t come back from those camps and farms.

  Tandy’s mother certainly hadn’t, anyway. She’d been against the changes to the political system of the kingdom. The slow erosion of rights and the establishment of martial law. She’d spoken out against them, quite vehemently. Tandy’s mother was a brilliant woman… but that hadn’t been especially smart of her.

  Her mother was dragged off one night and never returned. Her name had then disappeared from all documents in the kingdom and officially she had never existed at all.

  And her mother wasn’t alone. Countless others had suffered the same fate.

  Eventually, the Guardians of Culture even managed to shut the Academy down. Learning was no longer required. Galland needed soldiers to defend her honor in the War of Gold and Silver, and to capture more property which the other kingdoms were allegedly wrongfully withholding from Galland. An education was not necessary for that. In fact, exposing young Gallanders to outside viewpoints or even the country’s own uncensored history, was tantamount to treason. The state would tell them all they needed to know about the world. Each “fact” carefully chosen from a short list of acceptable words citizens could use in conversation, because even the dictionary was jealous of Galland, apparently.

  Which made Tandy’s current position all the more bizarre.

  She was an academic, which made her about as popular as a witch would be in other kingdoms. She was a hated outcast. And she didn’t approve of the new religion the Gallanders embraced, The Primacy, which didn’t help her case. In Tandy’s opinion, it was a silly cult which attracted only the near terminally stupid. She’d made the mistake of informing one of their priests that once, but the man… hadn’t agreed.

  So, Tandy was an enemy of the state. She didn’t really feel like she was, but that’s what they’d told her. Rather than being imprisoned as a traitor or sent off for “Disinfection” though, she’d been… urged to join up with the expedition to reclaim Galland’s heritage. Ancestral lands which were “stolen” from them over the years and which the kingdom now wished to take back in order to “regain their honor.”

  In all honesty, Tandy didn’t think that was really true. Granted, her area of expertise was spoken language and not history, but she was still fairly familiar with the discipline. She did read quite a bit, after all.

  Galland had never ruled The Wasteland.

  Not ever.

  But the kingdom didn’t want to hear that, viewing the savage region as being up for grabs.

  Since the Guardians of Culture had taken up the “righteous duty” of executing most of the professional and scholarly class, however, the country no longer had anyone who could inform the Wastelanders of the fact that they were now part of the Gallandish Empire. That they were no longer entitled to their own lands, and that Galland would outdo or undo the perceived advantage they thought the Wastelanders had.

  They were going to take over The Wasteland and seize its property, or they were going to destroy everything in the attempt.

  Because Galland would rather have nothing than risk someone else having something too. Would rather kill its neighbor than endure the fact its neighbor had something Galland wanted.

  Thus, Tandy had gone from teacher to prospective conqueror.

  But she didn’t belong here.

  Tandy was not a fighter. She had never even held a sword.

  Luckily, that wasn’t her role here. She just had to walk beside Minister Hamtramck and translate for him. That was it.

  She hoped.

  “You have experience at this, correct?” The Minister asked, sounding disgusted with Tandy, his assignment, The Wasteland, and the world in general. Generally speaking, a Minister with the Guardians of Culture should have been hunting down disloyalty at home, not traipsing across the world to fight in a war. But apparently not even the army could be trusted, so he was forced to supervise and lead them, despite the fact that he had about as much experience in the field as Tandy did.

  The minister had no business leading the soldiers. The soldiers had no business marching into The Wasteland. And Tandy had no business being here at all.

  But no one asked her.

  No one ever asked Tandy her opinion. That wasn’t how things were done in Galland.

  She bit her lower lip again. “Umm… a kind of experience, yes.” She hedged.

  “’Kind of’?”

  “Well, I had been translating for years at the Academy, before it was shut down. But it was to… you know… children.”

  “Teaching them Wastelandi.” He finished for her. “Well, that will have to…”

  “Umm… mainly Introduction to Nellith, Minister. And a few other languages.” She interrupted. “But the principle is the same. I was also in charge of translating foreign texts and books for the Academy’s library, and sometimes I was called upon by the former magistrate to translate for official proceedings of local government, when required.” She cleared her throat. “I served as his translator during his trial and eventual execution for disloyalty to the state. I was able to accurately translate his last words, despite the fact that they were in a very obscure dialect.” She nodded with no small amount of pride. “I often find that curses and profanities are some of the most difficult things to effectively convert to a new language. They so often mean more than a simple translation would have you think, and the deeper meaning is lost.”

  He did not appear at all happy to learn of her previous status or her skill at deciphering her previous employer’s shouted oaths of vengeance.

  Tandy looked very different from the other Gallanders and she had knowledge which they didn’t possess. These facts won her no friends at home or on this expedition. Add
in the fact that she had also served in the previous government, and she was always seconds away from being killed for disloyalty.

  If she were lucky, she might get away with merely being raped and permanently jailed for Disinfection.

  But she doubted it. She wasn’t that lucky.

  Her end would be far worse.

  But in either case, Tandy hadn’t belonged in government.

  The previous magistrate had been a simple civil servant in one of the smaller districts, and had only called upon her to translate in negotiations with tradesmen and neighboring kingdoms because he liked staring at her breasts during dull periods in the meetings. Not to say that Tandy wasn’t good at the interpreting work or that she didn’t take pride in it, just that to view her as having any kind of power in that situation was silly.

  Tandy very rarely had any kind of power.

  Mainly, she spent most of her time now just trying to stay out of people’s way and not get burned alive over anything.

  It was a lot harder than it sounded and it filled most of her day.

  Hamtramck’s long face took on an even sterner look at the mention of the previous magistrate, who officially had never existed as a person. She shouldn’t have brought him up. If they had still been at home, Tandy would have been severely disciplined for that slip. As it was though, so far from Galland, there was little he could do. He still needed her and there was no one else who could do her job. They’d all already been executed. “Can you at least speak the language of these savages?” His voice was filled with obvious distaste.

  “It is within my skill set, yes.” She nodded. “I’m afraid that there exists no definitive theoretical lexicography on Wastelandi, however. Most of the scholarship on the language family is… limited.”

  “By what?”

  “By the fact the lexicographer so often dies before completing the dictionary study.” She nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “The… the Wastelanders kill them all too quickly. It seems to be something of a habit with them. Umm… bordering on ‘hobby,’ in fact. It’s basically the only activity which can unite all of the Wastelandi clans.”