Evil men, p.1
Evil Men, page 1
Evil Men
by T.J. Land
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Copyright 2023 T.J. Land
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
Cover photo courtesy of Adrian ‘Rosco’ Stef on Unsplash
I did not use AI to create any part of this book or its cover and I will never, ever use AI to create anything as long as I live.
Content warnings:
Violence, war crimes, ableism, racism, abuse, child abuse, animal death, rape.
NOTE: A more detailed list of content warnings is available on the next page. That list contains spoilers; skip it if that’s a problem for you.
Content warnings with spoilers:
Intense, recurring ableism directed at the main character, who has achondroplasia.
Racism and sexism directed at secondary characters.
Implication of sexual abuse of a tertiary character who is a minor.
Depictions of police brutality and public execution.
Graphic description of war crimes and mass death.
A rape scene told from the perspective of the rapist, who is a main character.
For all the good men I’ve been lucky to know.
PART 1
“…and I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep, and where are his sons’ sons that dare approach me? I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. Then I was but young and tender. Now I am old and strong, strong, strong, Thief in the Shadows!”
(J.R.R. Tolkien, ‘The Hobbit’)
Take me to the room where the red’s all red
Take me out of my head
S’ what I said
Yeah, ow
Hey, take me to the room where the green’s all green
And from what I’ve seen it’s hot, it’s mean
(Queen, ‘Dragon Attack’)
Chapter 1
He’d spotted seven snow-coated corpses on his way to the summit thus far and had paused only to spit on them for discouraging him.
“Daisyhearts!” he rasped as he dragged his aching body over another infernal rocky ledge, his fingers throbbing inside the thick, expensive gloves he’d stolen along with the rest of his climbing gear. “Custardspines! May your widows laugh when they think of you! May your – nngh, ow, ow – may your bones roll downhill and land in a cowpat!”
To give his mind something with which to occupy itself besides the biting cold, he wondered as to their identities.
His research had revealed that seventy-two men and women were known for a fact to have died on the way to Evil Veronica’s icy pinnacle, and over two thousand according to legend and rumour.
Most of the known casualties were idiots; highborn second sons with a chip on the shoulder, more money than sense, and everything to prove. They usually died before reaching the halfway mark, which he’d passed eighteen hours ago.
“Could have gone to university, you rich twit,” he chided one reddish-grey lump that might have been a boulder as easily as a person with a click of his tongue. “Could have become a renowned scholar or… or one of those wanky artists who paints meadows. Made something of yourself. What a waste.”
Which wasn’t entirely fair, he knew, given that many of the corpses had, in fact, been men of learning who’d made the climb in search of new plants, a better view of the stars, or, in one notable case that people were still chuckling over, to find out if angels could be charmed from the Heavens if you just got high enough and sang the right hymns.
Over there, for example.
Unless he was very much mistaken, that was the great bronze telescope of Lord Fabian, renowned astrologer and absolute loon, poking up from the pile of murderous white powder that had killed its erstwhile owner ten years ago.
“Hey there, beautiful,” he crooned at it. “I’ll tell you what, eh, if I could get you down the slope and back to civilisation, you’d probably earn me enough to buy a nice little observatory of my own. And drugs! Oh, I’d buy so many drugs. Enough to bury a horse in.”
Gods alive, he was cold.
Chapter 2
His name was Skitter.
(For now.)
He was a thief.
He wasn’t, by nature or upbringing, a hunter, a navigator, a diplomat, a polyglot, or a murderer, though he’d been forced to achieve some competence in all those arts in the weeks since embarking on his journey to Evil Veronica, and when he’d told people where he was going and what he was doing, they’d all, without exception, thought he was joking.
When they’d realized that he wasn’t, and that they needed to find a polite excuse for their laughter, they’d quickly directed their attention to his general lack of preparedness.
“No bow? Not even a slingshot? Hah! How will you feed yourself along the way? Did you even consider that?” said the farmer at whose farm Skitter had stopped to ask for directions.
“No, sir.”
“Aah, you soft cityfolk are all the same. Think your meat and fruit miraculously twinkle into existence in the marketplace.”
“Can’t argue with that, sir,” Skitter replied, and thanked him for his council, departed, then returned later that night to steal his bow and slingshot.
“No horse? Eh? You plan to travel across the country on foot?” a merchant he’d met at an inn some nights later had exclaimed. “My dear, dear boy! It’ll take you two years! At least! You’ll certainly not make it before the weather turns ugly, I’ll tell you that.”
Nodding thoughtfully, Skitter had paid for the man’s beer before slipping out the back and making off with one of the two sturdy chestnut stallions pulling his wagon.
Too big for him to ride, so he’d exchanged it in the next town for a more usefully-sized pony.
“No map?” croaked the ancient hag in whose rickety cottage he’d spent the night in exchange for holding her huge horrible dog still while she yanked a thorn from its paw. “Here, take this one. Don’t mind the stain; just a dollop of stew.”
Skitter had lingered an extra day to repair the hole in her roof.
Before he’d left, she’d ventured, “Didn’t know your sort climbed mountains. Thought you mostly worked in circuses. Are you sure you know what you’re doing? Not that it’s any of my business. Still. Place you’re headed – it’s cursed, you know. Them slopes is rife with wicked spirits and suchlike. I’ve heard stories would curdle your blood, let me tell you.”
Her shoulder wasn’t within reach so he’d patted her hand. “You’re a kind soul, Mags. I’ll take care, I promise.”
What Mags didn’t know was that Skitter had certain advantages those who’d climbed Evil Veronica before him had generally lacked.
Unlike the rich thrillseekers, he wasn’t a complete fool obsessed with comfort or making a name for himself. Lord Prush, he’d read, had carried with him eight changes of clothes and his three favourite novels. Lord Trystan, hopeful of meeting savages and bringing home their heads as trophies, had taken his sword, shield, and even his armour, the twit. And the Earl of Busby, famously, had tried to lug his violin to the summit.
Skitter didn’t own eight changes of clothes. Or a sword. Certainly not a violin.
And, unlike the noblemen who’d preceded him, Skitter had spent very few of his days sitting in a chair.
Thievery was a demanding profession, doubly so for him. As the city watchmen all had longer legs and he couldn’t hope to outrun them, he’d learned to avail himself of whatever advantages his surroundings might bestow. Fences could be jumped; walls could be climbed; carts and market stalls could be ducked beneath; if worst came to absolute worst, he could burrow into some disgusting place, a sewer pipe or a pile of urine-soaked laundry, and hide there until the danger had passed.
All this, he’d reasoned before setting off, should surely give him an edge over the many who’d failed, his height and inexperience notwithstanding.
Cursed or not, Evil Veronica had been conquered before, dozens of times. She wasn’t nearly as high as Wrathful Beatrice to the east or as steep as Roaring Moira to the north, and it had, by all accounts, been at least three thousand years since her last eruption.
Grit, wit, and forward-planning would surely see him through.
Chapter 3
“Realistically,” he told the latest corpse, “I’m going to have to eat one of you.”
Glassy eyes stared back at him in reproach.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’d take no pleasure in it.”
The wind had picked up again and he was huddled in the shelter of a rock that looked, he thought, not unlike a flaccid willy, nibbling the last of his squirrel jerky and wishing it was roast pork, or grilled fish, or even a lump of stale bread.
He had enough whiskey left in his flask for three very modest sips.
After that… well.
He’d get there, or he wouldn’t.
He took one of his three remaining sips and let the alcohol sit on his tongue for a full minute before swallowing.
“We felt awful about it. Of course we did. And… and we never spoke about it when Winter was over and things were back to normal. Just moved on with our lives. Dad started teaching me how to make shoes, which was his trade. No, we never talked about it, not once. Maybe we should have.”
The wind whistled up the slope.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: ‘Hang on. What sort of person is this before me, who, on the one hand, wants to stay alive so much that he’s willing to chop off a dead beggar’s fingers so his Mom can put them in a stew – who, on the other hand, gives so few fucks about staying alive that he’s here, by his own free will?’ That, my friend, is a very reasonable question. And all I can say is…”
For a moment, he let his eyes settle on the horizon. It was beautiful.
Maybe that was enough, even if he did die up here.
Instead of two more modest sips, he took one big gulp and then threw the flask as far as he could, watching it tumble down the mountainside. “All I can say is it’s been a really shit year.”
***
“I’m sorry. You’re what?”
“I’m getting married.”
“Married.”
“To Doris Bluewood!”
“Married. To…”
“Doris Bluewood? You know, the clockmaker’s widow. She’s no beauty, but she doesn’t have any children I’ll have to contend with, and when she sells the shop she’ll have a nice little pile of cash.”
Skitter nodded slowly. “I know her. Nice woman. I’m just a touch confused, Mark. You say you’re marrying her.”
“What’s confusing about that?” asked Mark, smiling his bright, stupid smile.
“Nothing, I suppose. Except that, uh – well. I was rather under the impression you were already married. To me.”
“Oh, Skits, don’t be silly,” Mark tutted, and continued packing. “Now, where are my boots?”
***
Panting with exertion, he said to a lonesome skull, “I feel like I’m giving you all the impression that I’m a miserable asshole. Not so! I tell very good jokes. All my friends say so. The ones that are left. The ones fucking Mark didn’t fucking take with him, the fuck.”
He was almost there. Almost at the top, at the lip of Evil Veronica’s colossal crater.
The problem was that he wasn’t sure he could move another inch.
Everything hurt.
He could barely feel his fingers anymore.
God, what a stupid idea this had been.
“Motivation,” he mumbled, this time to himself. “Let’s think. Okay. If I get up there – in there – and it’s all as Professor Carruthers said, then in very short order I’ll be fed, warm, and very rich. Actually rich rich, not just ‘rich for a peasant’ rich. I’ll be so damned rich I’ll never want for anything ever again.”
Sucking down a deep, freezing breath, he took another step up the slope.
“Never have to worry about Mom and Dad and the leak in their roof. Never worry where my next meal’s coming from. Never be cold, or lonely, or frightened. I’ll buy a tavern. Two taverns! One of ‘em just for us properly-sized people. Nobody else allowed in! Not even the damned queen! Fuck yes. I’ll have every piece of furniture built exactly to my specifications. No more dangling legs. No more having to climb up onto the nearest passed-out drunkard to reach my beer, oh no, not for me and all my new friends.”
Another step. Another. Another.
“There’ll be music. A fireplace. Cats! Ooh, yes, lots of cats. And none of them skinny. I’ll have the fattest, happiest cats in the country.”
Another.
“And there’ll be a big fucking sign on the door and it’ll say, ‘If your name’s ‘Mark’, you are BANNED from these premises for LIFE’.”
Another.
Skitter was so focused on his tavern, and on putting one foot in front of the other, that he almost didn’t notice when he reached the top and would have stubbornly marched straight into the volcano’s maw had he not caught himself at the last second.
***
The first person to reach Evil Veronica’s summit and make it back to civilisation was Dayledrick Carruthers.
Skitter wasn’t one to admire toffs, but for Carruthers he made an exception. The man, now thirty years in his grave, had been a marvel.
While the rest of his social circle were chasing foxes or marching off to war to kill a few foreigners and impress their fiancés, he’d dedicated his life to the study of philosophy, ethics, maths, and, above all, zoology. His book, Beasts of The Earth and Sky, was now regarded as necessary reading for all first-year university students.
Skitter’s father and mother had never been taught letters, so they’d paid a whole copper coin every month to attend their local theatre’s Education and Edification Evening, where an elderly actor would read aloud Carruthers’ most popular chapters, typically those pertaining to dangerous exotic beasts that drew cries of horror and delight from the audience – lions, rhinos, crocodiles.
(“How remarkably interesting tonight’s reading was!” said Mom, who always said things like that, clutching Skitter’s hand in hers as they made their way down the dingy street in which they rented their tiny flat.
Dad, who liked to come away knowing five new facts about the animal under discussion every time, muttered, “Green-grey scales, up to sixty teeth, strong jaw, eats meat, spends most of its time lying still in the water or on the riverbank.”
“Who cares?” Skitter had complained, twelve years old and sullen. “It’s not like we’re ever going to see them. We’re never going anywhere.”
They’d both looked at him and they’d looked so sad he’d wanted to slit his own throat.)
Last year, Skitter had stolen a copy of Beasts of The Earth and Sky.
Not from a small local theatre. He didn’t steal from his own people. He’d snatched it up while snooping around a nobleman’s attic, on the hunt for trinkets that wouldn’t be missed. The sight of a pile of lovely, barely-opened books left to gather dust in a corner had struck rage into his heart and he’d made a point of pissing in the rose garden before leaving the premises with his prize.
He’d read the whole thing, front to back.
The chapter concerning Carruthers’ journey up Evil Veronica was the very last one, because what Carruthers had found in her crater had very, very quickly converted all his interest in ethics and zoology into a fevered fascination with physics, astronomy, and a dozen other esoteric fields the current scientific community didn’t hold in high regard. It had also inspired an overpowering addiction to various narcotics.
***
Stairs.
Actual, real, God-be-praised stairs.
They sprouted from the crater’s inner walls like a bizarre fungus, descending in a spiral.
Skitter sat down, right there in the snow, and burst into maniacal laughter. “Yes! Yes! Fuck you! He was right! The old kook was right on the money! Ha-HA!”
Then, turning around and raising both fists high in the air, he called out, “Hear that, dead-os?! Hear that, Mark?! I fucking win!”
Chapter 4
Historically, stairs and Skitter hadn’t been on good terms.
The flat he’d grown up in had been above a bakery, with a single external staircase leading to the street below.
