Duke Grandfather- The Whole Story Read online

  Duke

  Grandfather:

  The Whole

  Story

  James Maxstadt

  Duke Grandfather: The Whole Story

  Copyright © 2019 by James E Maxstadt

  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.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2019

  ISBN:

  James Maxstadt

  Visit at jamesmaxstadt.com

  Cover art: SelfPubBookCovers.com/ RCMatthewsArtist

  Other titles by James Maxstadt

  Tales of a Nuisance Man

  The Duke Grandfather Saga, Part 1

  Duke Grandfather Saves the World*

  or at least a small part of it

  The Duke Grandfather Saga, Part 2

  Duke Grandfather Hears Voices

  The Duke Grandfather Saga, Part 3

  Duke Grandfather Unleashes Hell

  A Duke Grandfather Novella

  Rejected Worlds: A short story anthology

  Solomon’s Exile

  Solomon’s Journey (Fall 2019)

  To Barb, who read these, corrected them, listened to them, and had to hear about them over and over. And most importantly, who encouraged me to keep on going.

  INTRODUCTION

  In the grand scheme of things, taking a little more then a year and a half to put out three books and a novella really isn’t that bad. Lord knows I’ve waited a lot longer than that for a series to continue, (looking at you, Martin!). But honestly, it wasn’t that bad.

  I love Duke, Lilly and all the rest, and it was a lot of fun to find new players in the game as I went. Some of them surprised me. I never expected Brindar to be in as many stories as he was.

  For that matter, Lilly herself. When I first started writing Duke’s adventures, it never occurred to me to give him a love interest, let alone one like her. But after her first appearance in “Unconceived” she kept showing up in my mind, and there was no helping it. Duke needed to ask her out. But being Duke, and Capital City being how it is, it obviously couldn’t be a simple date.

  I’m not quite sure where Duke and Co. go from here. There are other stories I could tell for sure. And at some point, I just might. I like the idea of writing a history of the gun, and indeed, already have the origin of it told in “The Crafting”, which you can get by going to https://storyoriginapp.com/giveaways/5cad4ba6-54ab-11e9-916c-8f6031e386a8.

  I also kind of like the idea of writing some of Lilly’s adventures. The ones that she has when working for the Watch, and Duke isn’t around.

  But all that will or won’t come down the road somewhere. For now, read on, enjoy the stories that are here, and I’ll see you on the other end.

  If you enjoy the book, please take a moment to leave a review. Thanks!

  Table of Contents

  Tales of a Nuisance Man

  Duke Grandfather Saves the World*

  Duke Grandfather Hears Voices

  Duke Grandfather Unleashes Hell

  Tales of a

  Nuisance

  Man

  James Maxstadt

  For Barb, who got me to start writing again, and is always my inspiration

  Contents

  THE BEGINNING

  NUISANCE MAN

  UNCONCEIVED

  ROGUE

  LILLY

  THE TOKEN

  CLAN WAR

  FUN FAIR

  THE WITCH’S BROOM

  WINGED TERROR

  THE WEDDING

  THE ENDING

  AFTERWORD

  THE BEGINNING

  The old man rocked in a chair near the hearth, his cloak gathered around him, as if the fire wasn’t enough to keep him warm. But past the veined hands holding the cloak shut and the long hair, turned silver with age, was a pair of bright, blue eyes. They were eyes that had seen a lot in their many years, and remembered it all.

  A young man entered the room and approached the older one.

  “Grandfather,” he said, sitting down in a chair opposite.

  The old man leaned forward and smiled, but didn’t say anything.

  “Grandfather,” the young man tried again, a bit of exasperation creeping into his voice. “I know you can hear, and understand me, just fine.”

  At this the old man settled back again into his chair and let the cloak fall open. Under it, he was dressed in simple clothes; a leather vest over a white shirt, with brown breeches and black boots. Around his waist was a wide black belt, and hanging from that, his weapon of choice. It was an unusual, possibly unique, weapon. The gun that had helped make him the most famous Nuisance Man of all time.

  “Fine,” he said to the young man, no trace of tremor or confusion in his voice. “What was it that you wanted again?”

  “You promised to tell me. Look, I’ve even brought a tablet and stylus to write it all down.”

  The old man grimaced.

  “Why do you want to know this stuff? It’s all ancient history.”

  “We’ve been through this, Grandfather. Mom says you have amazing stories about your time as a Nuisance Man. I don’t want them to be forgotten.”

  “Pfft. And after your papers blow away? Or burn? Or rot in the course of time? Who will care then?”

  The young man sighed.

  “Grandfather, we’ve already argued all of this. You promised.”

  The old man looked skeptically at his grandson.

  “Alright, but two conditions. No, make that three.”

  “What?” the younger said, eager to begin.

  “First, I’m thirsty, so go get me some ale.”

  The young man got up, only to freeze when a voice called out from the kitchen.

  “No ale! The healer says it’s not good for him!”

  “Ignore her,” the old man said, but his voice dropped to a whisper. “You get me ale, and then I’ll tell the story.”

  “I’ll work on it.” The younger man looked thrilled to be in on the conspiracy. “What are the other two conditions?”

  “The second is that you stop calling me Grandfather!”

  “But you are my Grandfather.”

  “It sounds like you keep calling me by my surname. Very disrespectful! Find something else to call me!”

  “How about Granddad then?”

  The old man chuckled.

  “Old Granddad Grandfather, huh? I like it. It’ll confuse the stupid people.”

  “What’s the third condition, Grandfa…I mean, Granddad?”

  “Good boy. I always said you were a quick learner. Might have even made a decent Nuisance Man, if you didn’t take after your Grandmother more.”

  The young man glowed at the praise.

  “The third condition,” the old man continued, “is that you keep silent and listen! No interrupting. I’m too old to keep repeating myself.”

  “I can do that, Granddad.”

  “Then go get my ale.”

  A few moments later, the old man settled back with his mug of ale in hand, and told his grandson how it all started.

  NUISANCE MAN

  Sometimes a shot in the face is all it takes to get an ogre’s attention. The problem is, once you have his attention, you have to figure out what to do with it. I broke that cardinal rule on my latest job. Getting cocky I guess, but having an Ultimate Weapon will do that to you.

  And now, here I am running. It’s embarrassing really, running from an ogre. Ogres aren’t dangerous. Well, that’s a l
ie. Really, ogres are extremely dangerous. What I should have said is that for me, ogres usually aren’t dangerous. Usually, I can call up the type of little metal ball I want, aim carefully, and blam! Dead ogre. But when you forget to change the ammunition type from your last job, which was a simple extermination of a bugbear, you have to take the consequences.

  The question that kept running through my mind as I ran down the alley; heavy footsteps pounding right behind me, was why? Why this particular job? Usually, if someone hires me, it’s because they have a serious problem. Take the bugbear for instance. They’re usually not that big a nuisance. They hang out, eat garbage, and spoil food if they get near it. But in this case, one of them thought it had it made. It moved in on an old lady and flat out refused to leave. Its mistake was that the old lady had some money put aside. She was a nasty, old bat, with no friends or family, but she had enough money to hire me. I walked in, made sure I had the right ammunition, and blammo, just like that, no more bugbear.

  This ogre, though. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was minding his own business, doing his thing. So why…?

  Guess I should start at the beginning.

  My name is Duke Grandfather. Yes, really. I don’t know where it comes from either. I have no idea how the name got passed down, but it did. Somewhere in my past was some joker who thought it’d be a good idea to hang the surname Grandfather on the clan. Duke, well, that’s because my mother had visions of grandeur for me when I was born. I loved Mom, but she wasn’t the brightest. She never could understand that you had to be born into royalty to be royalty. Instead, she kept telling me that I could be whatever I wanted to be. I guess that included becoming a Duke.

  I grew up in one of the rougher parts of our fair city, which is the capital of the kingdom, if I do say so myself. From where I grew up, you could look way up the hill and see the castle, all agleam in the morning light. Or afternoon, or whenever you happened to glance up. The fact was most of us hardly noticed it. It was just there, like the moon or the sun, and equally as accessible. Folk like us didn’t get royal invites to the Princess’s birthday party. We just muddled along.

  I’ve killed a lot of pests and cleaned up a lot of messes in his Majesty’s Royal Kingdom, and thus far, it seems to have escaped his notice. Imagine that.

  See, Capital City, as it’s called, is actually a pretty interesting place. The King has called for it to be an open city, meaning that any and all are welcome here, no matter what race, species or creed. Technically, anyone can come live, set up shop, procreate and enjoy the benefits of living in an enlightened society.

  The reality is different. Capital City is still a human city and shows every sign of staying that way. The dwarves, orcs, kobolds, rat people, slime men and everyone else have their own towns and cities. Of course, the bleeding hearts all say that those places aren’t as grand as our city, so of course they all want to come here. I’ve got news for them. Walk down the street in any one of those places and see how long your desire for equality will last. About as long as it takes your body to hit the dirt.

  But I digress. As always happens, this sudden influx of outsiders brought along the bad element along with the good. Sure, there was Daddy Dwarf and his family, setting up a blacksmith shop and plying their trade. But there were also the loan sharks and their muscle, the beggars and the conmen. You name it, it started showing up.

  It wasn’t long before people, normal people I mean, started getting a little loud about this. Before too long, it got loud enough to be heard all the way up on the hill. As if that wasn’t strange enough, word came back from the hill too. Officially, His Majesty wasn’t going to do anything about the influx of others coming to our fair city. He believed in his vision of an open community. However, it didn’t mean that his subjects were going to be left to fend for themselves in this new world. No, indeed. That’s when the Nuisance Men came about.

  I was still pretty young when I saw my first one. He was a big fellow, bearded, with a whopping big sword. You know, barbarian type. The sword was so big he wore it hanging down his back in a scabbard, rather than from his belt. He wasn’t wearing any armor, but he had so many muscles it looked like arrows would bounce off him. He was shirtless, practically pantless, and smiling at every woman who looked at him. There were lots of those. Men too, but he didn’t seem to notice that.

  I was one of the ones doing the staring. What was a monster like this doing walking through our streets? He should have been out hunting down hill-giants, or slaying manticores with his teeth or something. Instead, he headed for a goblin that was in an intense conversation with a young man. The man saw the barbarian coming over the goblin’s shoulder, and got all pale and started to shake.

  He needn’t have worried. Friend barbarian walked up behind the goblin and poked him on the shoulder. I winced. There are pokes, and then there are pokes. This one looked like it was designed to leave the goblin’s arm hanging off by a thread.

  The goblin squeaked, but turned around with a nasty grin on his face.

  “What the hell?” it shouted. Its voice was tinny and scratchy. It was one of those voices that would give you a headache listening to a few words.

  “Rumblesnatch Grubfinger?” the barbarian asked. His voice was as different from the goblins as night is from day. It was deep and rich, rumbling up from his massive chest. I’m pretty sure a few ladies actually swooned.

  The goblin looked up, way up, at the man mountain, and then, not too wisely, said, “Yeah, who wants to know?”

  That was it for the conversation. The barbarian didn’t say another word. He whipped that enormous sword out of the scabbard, brought it up over his head and down, slicing the poor goblin nearly in two, all in one smooth motion. Chop. Over.

  There were the usual screams and cries of dismay, but the barbarian didn’t let it concern him in the least. He simply wiped his sword off on the grungy clothes of what was left of the goblin, re-sheathed it, and waited. In a remarkably short time, considering who they were, the City Watch arrived. I saw this all, because unlike some less stalwart folks, I stayed where I was, sitting on a barrel, in a front row seat. This was going to be good.

  I was expecting a real battle royale, with the barbarian against the Watch. At first, he’d toss around the couple who showed up, and then more would be summoned, and more. Finally, they’d take him down by sheer numbers. There would be blood, and bruises and possibly broken bones. But unless that barbarian was really stupid, there wouldn’t be any more deaths. Kill a watchman, and they called out the necromancers. Those guys were scary. According to the stories, they killed you slowly and painfully, and then they got really creative. If you were lucky, you might get to go to your final reward in a century or two. If you weren’t, well, they supposedly had ways to make sure you went somewhere else. Creepy people.

  Instead of the battle though, the Watch came up to the barbarian like they were old friends. They chatted for a moment and he pointed at the remains of the goblin. One of the watchmen wrote out a missive and handed it to an errand boy, which populate the city like fleas, and sent him on his way. Then they all shook hands and parted. The barbarian heading off to the taverns, the Watch back to whatever they were doing before the incident.

  Pretty soon, a rat man came by, towing a cart. He threw the corpse in the cart, smeared the blood with a filthy old cloth, and went on his way. I really didn’t want to think he had just collected his dinner, but the thought wouldn’t stay away.

  Anyway, that was the first time I saw a Nuisance Man. I was hooked, and convinced that I found my calling. You know, now that I relate this out loud, I really sound like a nut job. I mean, I watched some poor creature get cut in two, and here I was thinking I was divinely inspired. It wasn’t quite like that.

  I knew who that goblin was. Rumblesnatch was far from an upstanding citizen. He had barely enough brains to pick on the smaller and weaker, and to disappear fast and completely when he needed to. I unfortunately had a run in or two with him mysel
f. That guy he was talking to? His name was Jonny Weatherstrop and he was getting married in a couple of days. Rumblesnatch was threatening to tell his betrothed that he had proof that Johnny was diddling a local barmaid. He wasn’t, but it didn’t matter. Rumblesnatch had “proof”. He was shaking him down when the barbarian showed up.

  No, I didn’t lose any sleep over Rumblesnatch’s death. Watching him get his made me wish that I had the means to stand up for me and mine. Seeing the Nuisance Man, and knowing that they existed, gave me that purpose.

  Or something like that anyway. Maybe I was a nut job.

  I guess I should explain about the Nuisance Men. They grew out of this need to control some of the less savory elements that entered our city when the King opened the borders. If someone had a complaint, they filed it with the Watch. The Watch then “investigated” it. I use that term loosely. The Watch aren’t exactly known as paragons of equal rights. Most of the time, they filed the claim and put it on the Board simply on the word of the person who complained. They were supposed to actually investigate the claim first, and only if it had true merit put it on the Board, but that’s not how it always worked out.

  Once on the Board, any registered Nuisance Man could bid on it. For instance, in the case of our friend Rumblesnatch, the barbarian probably got in touch with the person filing the complaint and told him or her that he would handle it for something like 5 gold rubles, paid in advance. They always get the money up front. No one argues that point, and to my knowledge there are no cases of a Nuisance Man not living up to his contract, unless he died trying. The party who filed the complaint agrees to the fee, the money changes hands and the nuisance goes away. The Watch then verifies that the target was indeed the same one they had on their Board and dutifully removes it.