Blood Ties by Peter David Page B

You I can follow around and say whatever I want, and thanks to your precious sense of honor, you can’t do a damned thing about it!”
    â€œAnd if I get fed up with you and shoot you myself?”
    â€œThen I prove that your word means nothing. It’s win-win for me!”
    â€œBeing shot is a win for you?”
    â€œIt would mean I wouldn’t have to listen to your puerile opinions anymore, so yes.”
    â€œFine,” I said, doing my damnedest not to let my exasperation show. “Do whatever you want.”
    With that comment, I continued on my way. I resolved right then and there that the smartest and simplest way to handle things was to stop talking to the stupid creature. It was just reacting to my discomfort. If I gave it nothing to respond to, then sooner or later, it would get bored with following me around and look for fresh game to torment.
    That was my reasoning, at any rate.
    In retrospect, I have to admit that when I’m wrong about something, I’m not just wrong in a small way. I’m wrong in a huge way.

Chapter 4
    Unnecessary Difficulties
    I WALKED FOR SEVERAL DAYS, AND THE gnome stayed right with me. It was incredibly annoying because if the stupid thing hadn’t been following me, I would actually have enjoyed the time to myself. Instead, he continued to harangue me almost nonstop. It seemed the only time he ceased was when he was gathering breath, which surprised me since I would have sworn the stupid things had no need to breathe.
    It was all I could do to ignore him. He kept spewing out scattershot insults about everything and anything, regardless of whether it had any bearing on my life. He insulted my nonexistent wife, my deceased parents (as if they still lived), and my never-born offspring. Although, to be truthful, I was simply assuming that I had no offspring. It was entirely possible that somewhere out there, little Finns were running around who only had secondhand knowledge of their father courtesy of tales spun about me by their mothers. I suppose I could have checked back with all the women I’d slept with to see whether any of those trysts had borne fruit, but really, who has that kind of time?
    Basically, he was just trying to get a rise out of me, and there was no way I was going to allow him to do so.
    After several days of travel, I was feeling weary around midday and found a relatively secluded spot where I could grab a quick rest. I wasn’t the least concerned that something would sneak up on me and try to kill me. The gnome was having way too much fun hurling insults and he wasn’t about to allow the object of his dissection escape through the expedient of being slaughtered by a passing balverine or some such. I actually managed to fall asleep despite the harangues. When I awoke, the sun had moved a bit through the sky, indicating that at least a couple of hours had passed. I waited for the usual avalanche of snide comments from the gnome, but none were forthcoming.
    â€œMaybe somebody shot it,” I said hopefully to the empty air.
    I started walking, still braced for a flurry of insults.
    Still nothing.
    Could it be? Has the stupid thing finally grown tired of harassing me?
    It seemed too good to be true, but after several more hours had passed, I was convinced. The gnome had tired of my lack of response and moved on to find more-easilyinflamed prey. My strategy had paid off.
    Before I could celebrate my newfound freedom from the perpetual harassment of the gnome, I heard the thundering of hooves in the near distance, which surprised the hell out of me because it always seemed that there was never a horse in Albion when you needed one. Whoever it was was approaching very quickly. I had no idea who it could be, nor did I desire to find out. There were simply too many things that could go wrong in Albion to take for granted that someone wasn’t going to be out to get you.
    To that end, I decided to dodge the issue entirely by