"I'm mean and tired. I break vainglory seekers and make them spit out regrets. So don't try me. I'm trying to get some actual rest now that I'm retired." -- Anon Guest
The trouble with being the best is all the egotistical neophytes trying to boost their way to the top of the mountain by besting the best. Which is tremendously annoying when that best person in question is trying to enjoy their retirement.
Hasryk the Kingslayer had learned this after a long career of defeating tyrants and helping better rulers take command. He had hoped to retire into obscurity on a small, self-sufficient farm on the outskirts of a village in the middle of nowhere. Hope was such a frail and fragile thing. Hasryk got to enjoy retirement for one week after moving in when the first braggart found him.
"So, the mighty kingslayer has come to this," would soon become fighting words.
The first time, the speaker was a young lady in decent Adventuring clothes. Prepared for travel and prepared for trouble at the same time. She crowed about his aged state for a little bit and asked him if he remembered Lorryton.
"I'm sixty-eight," he said. "I've been Adventuring since sixteen, and its twelve years at best 'till I'm due to meet the Hostess of All Peoples. I've forgotten half of everything before my forties. Just state your grievance and get on with it."
"You killed my great-uncle Tirambulaan. He was a great man. Die." She attacked.
He only had his cane, but that was enough to disarm her in less than a second. Her weapon was light, made for agility. And she'd been trying to use it like a cudgel. Hasryk tested its heft and balance. "Nice sword. Did you know that Tirambulaan found true love at the age of forty-five? With his twelve-year-old niece? Did you know he had his faithful wife of twenty-seven years executed so he could marry that niece? Did you know... he only married that little girl because he got her pregnant?"
"Lies! Slander! Give me my sword back you thief!"
The local watchman, who had come for the fracas, put his hand on her shoulder. "Stand down, miss. That's his by right of conquest."
"Public record," said Hasryk. "You can read it in his diaries. Did you know all his daughters died in childbirth before they got married? Or... had any lovers? Fascinated with multiple births, that man. Fed each and every one of his daughters fertility potions. And he didn't look very far for a sire, to put it politely."
"LIAR!"
"Go to the museum, little girl. Ask to read his diaries. See it in his own words. And if I am still a liar after you've done throwing up... I will give you this sword and let you put it through my heart."
Her name was Laanyr Fitztam, and she never came back for that blade. She was just the first.
He learned, after the third, to carry his sword whenever he left his bed. One of them had tried to claim their vainglory while he was on his way to the privy in the small of the night. They were kids, so he wasn't inclined to kill them. Many didn't even have an argument with him, they just wanted the prestige of besting the famous Kingslayer.
The watch gained the habit of warning him when folks were looking for him. He gained the habit of telling the watch where he planned to go. It often stopped things getting bloody.
Time and the actions of vainglorious youth wore on him all the same. One young pup came about Hasryk killing his father. The little boy under the bed was all grown up and seeking vengeance.
The kid was sixteen. Gods.
"You don't know what your old man was going to do to you, lad. I'll buy you a pint and tell you his story from the other side. Then we'll see if you need more to forget what you've been told."
That was one of the rare ones. The ones who came because they thought they were supposed to. The ones who could be talked out of vengeance.
Few could be talked out of vainglory.
It was a winter cold that bested him. Hasryk the Kingslayer spent his last days in a hospice bed with his cat keeping him company. Coughing and wheezing and waiting for Mistress Dark to take him.
Finally, one found him in his death bed. "So. The mighty kingslayer has come to this," they said.
"Yes, yes. You've come to best the best. I used to break the vainglorious and make them spit out their regrets. Go ahead. Slay an old man in his deathbed. You gonna kill the cat, too? Not much to crow about, is it, kid?"
They raised their sword, almost prepared to strike. It would be a clean blow that severed man and cat in one cut. They looked strong enough to do it.
The cat, uncaring, groomed herself and then Hasryk's hand.
The kid dropped their sword, and pulled up a stool. "You're right, sir. It isn't much to crow about. I'd rather hear your stories, while you can still tell them. If you please, sir."
[Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash]
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