The Accidental Necromancer
Seven Arm Lengths isn’t Impressive

I parted from the two women with reluctance, but if what I wanted to do worked, it could make a difference. We didn’t know when the trolls would make a move against the forest, and stores were going to close on Earth soon. When I told them I had to hurry back, Xyla paved a way for us. I kissed the girls quickly at the tomb, and then went inside and up.

The chainsaw wasn’t a good weapon, given what happened when the blade hit metal. I should have known better. But I could get quality weapons on Earth that weren’t guns. Maybe the system, or the world, or whatever agency that stopped me from bringing guns through the portal would stop any weapon, but it hadn’t stopped the chainsaw, so I doubted it.

I could buy a sword. There were probably laws against carrying it around in Maryland, because I’d never seen anyone do it, but I knew that there were places that sold them. I found one thirty miles away, and it closed at six, so that was my first stop.

The store sold all kinds of blades, from utility knives to katanas. I wanted something easy to learn to use, but I didn’t want to sound like a crazy person or they might not sell to me. Still, it had to be usable as a thrusting weapon in case the “stab” in Backstab limited the use of the skill.

I bought a katana and a foot-long pointy dagger, and I made sure they were quite sharp. I told the sales guy that if I had something hanging on the wall, it made a difference to me that I knew it was usable.

“I totally get that,” he said.

If I had actually wanted to hang it on a wall, I don’t know that I would have cared, personally. It felt weird to interact with the guy because I felt like a weirdo buying a sword I actually intended to fight with, but I also felt like I was wearing a disguise, speaking with a deep voice and moving with a man’s body, when my mind was a world away and visualizing Abby with the weapons.

Then I headed to a sporting goods store. I bought two compound bows. Gren’s bow, I noticed, was made from a single piece of wood. A composite bow would have been an improvement, but a compound bow was better yet, even if it was more fiddly. I didn’t know much about shooting a bow myself, although I’d been fair to middling as a Boy Scout, but I could learn from her, which is why I bought two. I walked away with a bunch of Easton FMJ arrows, too, and was kind of shocked to find out how much they cost. We’d have to save them for the real fights. I bought a bunch of cheaper arrows for practice purposes, but I suspected that even they might be an improvement over the ones Gren had.

Or maybe not. Maybe they didn’t make them like they used to.

I grabbed some fast-food hamburgers and a cola. On a whim, I got some for the girls, too. Maybe they’d like them, maybe not. When I’d been kissing Gren I noticed she had some pretty sharp teeth, and so I expected trolls liked to eat meat. I wasn’t sure how keen Xyla would be about her hunting down the forest animals, so she might love a burger.

Kathy was sitting on her porch when I got home, and I waved and hurried by. I didn’t want the burgers to get any colder. There was one more package on the porch, so after I got the door open and set down the food, I picked that up and tossed it inside. More clothes, I assumed, but it could wait.

Then I went back out for the weapons. I could feel Kathy watching me, and the boxes the bows came in advertised the contents in full color and big letters. She walked over. “Can I help you carry anything? I’m not doing anything.”

“Uh, sure.” There wasn’t any good way to refuse, and she was right there.

“Bows?” she asked.

“Yep,” I said. There didn’t seem any more to say than that. I let her carry one box, and I carried one and the arrows.

She glanced at the bag of fast food. “That’s a lot of food for one person,” she said.

“I’m expecting company.”

“Well, they better come soon or it will be cold. Is that why you have two bows?”

“Um, sort of?” I decided I’d get the sword and the dagger later. If she saw those she’d really start to wonder.

She looked around. “You got rid of that horrendous wallpaper,” she remarked. “But you need some furniture.”

I nodded. “I live light, usually.”

“Needs a woman’s touch,” she said. “What does the girl I saw the other day think about it?”

“She thought it was amazing, actually.” The truth served me well, in this case. I didn’t have to say that she thought running water was the best thing ever.

“Huh. Well, is there more?”

I shook my head. “No, that’s all of it. Thanks for the help.” I moved toward the door, as if to show her out.

“Is company a hot date?” she asked.

What was I going to say? I suspected Kathy was going to sit on her porch and watch, and she’d see that no one came. “Hope so,” I said. “They might be a little bit flaky.”

I said they, because I instinctively didn’t want to suggest that Xyla was flaky. But Kathy pounced on the word. “Two women?” she asked.

She wasn’t far off base with that. “Kathy,” I said slowly. “It’s nice to have neighbors who care, but…”

“Ah. I’m being nosy. And maybe they are gender fluid, or non-binary. None of my business, right? Well, if you need anything, just feel free to knock on my door.”

“Thanks. And thanks again.”

She waved, and I couldn’t help but notice her long bare legs as she walked away.

I locked the door behind her and went downstairs with the food, one of the bows, still in the box, and the arrows. I stripped before going down the ladder, and when I got to the bottom I grabbed the gothy dress to put on. I really loved it, but it wasn’t very practical. It felt silky smooth against my body.

Then I unbolted and unlocked the crypt. I needed to install a peephole as well as a lock, I realized. I had no idea what I was in for when I stepped out. The place had seemed safe, in a way, with Xyla, although Xyla was her own kind of dangerous. Now it was a world full of trolls and who knew what else. I wished I’d brought my sword in from the van.

But no one was outside, and the forest was dark, with only a little moonlight coming through. I revved up the line trimmer, and waited, eating my burger and sipping my coke. Yeah, the burgers were gonna be cold. I finished my food and unboxed the bow, and then thought about what I could use as a target. I didn’t think Xyla would appreciate me taking potshots at the trees. Maybe I should just go to bed and try again in the morning. I’d been waiting a good half an hour, and I felt I needed to use my time efficiently.

I set up the box on top of the broken down stone wall of the guardhouse, nocked an arrow, and took a few steps back. I wasn’t going to be Robin Hood or anything, I knew that. But at ten feet, I could hit a target that big, and I knocked it of its perch. I set it up again, then stepped back further. I had a long way to go, but I could get the hang of it eventually. *Thwack*.

“Seven arm lengths isn’t very impressive, Abby,” said a voice from the woods. Gren.

“She has other impressive lengths,” said Xyla.

I looked at the two of them. “I brought dinner. But it’s cold. And this,” I said, hefting the bow, “is for you, Gren.”

“I have a bow,” Gren said. “And that one looks odd. But did you say something about food?”

So Gren and Xyla ate burgers, while I explained the mechanical advantage of a compound bow. “The pulleys let you draw more, and make the draw easier,” I told her, demonstrating. I hadn’t been drawing it all the way, because I’d been shooting at a short target, but now I realized I had to turn slightly to avoid my breast. I never had that problem in scouts, but it was an easy adjustment and I was glad I hadn’t learned the lesson the hard way.

“This is really good,” Gren said. “But it’s supposed to be warm? If you put it over a fire, the bread part would burn and the green bits wouldn’t stay crispy, would they?”

“Um no.”

“It looks complicated to make,” Gren said.

“I don’t make it, I buy it from — oh, never mind.” I wasn’t going to get sidetracked by talking about fast food restaurants. “Try out the bow.”

“Oh, alright,” Gren said, making a face.

She took the bow, and four arrows, and walked toward the woods.

“Where are you going?”

“Well, there’s no point in testing it at seven arm lengths, is there?” Gren said over her shoulder.

I could hardly see her anymore when she finally turned around.

“I think we better get out of the way,” Xyla said.

I nodded. We moved to behind one of the walls of the old guardhouse. I wasn’t sure what Gren was shooting at, exactly, but I assumed she had something in mind, and it wasn’t the box, which had fallen down.

The arrow hit just above the door of the mausoleum.

“Crap!” Gren yelled.

“Those cost money!” I yelled.

“Bah! Coins. You should make them yourself!”

She shot again and hit right where I thought a good peephole should go. The arrow embedded itself in the door with a loud thunk. Then she stepped back.

She placed an arrow next to it, in the dark, and she must have been a good seventy yards away.

“Yes!” she yelled and stepped back further. I couldn’t see her anymore, and I didn’t know how she could see a target from there. But another arrow came, arcing more than the others, and hit the door a few inches lower than the last two.

“That’s all of them, right?” Xyla asked. “Is it safe to come out?”

“That’s all of them,” I said. “And I think Gren’s a good enough shot we don’t have to worry about it too much.”

Gren was running out of the woods. “This thing is amazing! My first shot was way off, but once I got the hang of it — wow, that’s good. And these arrows are deep in the wood. Amazing! Abby, bountiful bringer of bows!”

“I think that means she likes it,” Xyla said.

“A feller of foes it can be,” Gren said. “Especially with practice.”

“Um, yes. Can you practice on something other than my door?” Although maybe I should replace the whole thing with something made of steel. With a peephole. But it was a non-standard size, so it was going to have to be a custom project. I had no idea when I’d get around to something like that, or when I’d be able to afford it.

“Well, I wasn’t going to shoot at one of Xyla’s trees,” Gren said. “You know how our green gardener gets. Besides, they come out.” She started yanking out the arrows.

“And leave holes,” I said.

“Not all the way through,” she replied.

It was the opposite of home improvement. I sighed.

“We can find a dead stump for you to shoot at,” Xyla said.

“And then, some live trolls. Just the bad ones.” Gren licked her lips. “Four foes, in particular.”

Oh yeah, right. Bringing my allies and lovers better weapons seemed like an obvious move. And of course I knew weapons were for killing people. The way Gren looked brought it home in a weird way.

The way Xyla and Gren told the story, they were the good side, and the four trolls led by the pyromancer Baredzem were bad, and maybe the other trolls were good or bad or neutral, depending. But I’d heard just one side of the story.

I shrugged. Maybe I was wrong. But I’d picked a side, and I’d have to see how things played out. Besides, I was tired, and my yawn showed it.

“Come,” Xyla said. “We’ll find another place, away from here, for you to practice.” She winked at me. “Let’s let Abby go to bed.”

“In there?” Gren said. “With no windows?”

“She’s very light sensitive,” Xyla said, and led Gren away.

I waited for them to be out of sight, then waited a little longer, remembering how Gren had been able to hit the door when I could hardly see her in the gloom. Clearly she had better night vision than I did. Then I picked the box up and went back inside.

I wondered what sleeping as Abby would be like. But I couldn’t do that in my bed, so I took the dress off, and climbed back up the ladder.