The little, yellow clay ball spun as it sailed through the air. Up it went, until it reached the top of its trajectory, high above the green fields and the tiny dry-stone walls that kept them in place. A short, sharp bang shattered the afternoon silence and less than a second later the ball exploded, larger fragments falling back to the ground, leaving only fine dust to be carried off by the light wind.
Squire Broderick lowered his rifle, an understated smile returning momentarily to his lips. “I make that 58 for 57.” He said in his broad shire accent.
“S’right. But be remembering you went first.” Gentling Farmer Broad replied dryly, his own short lived celebratory smile from his previous shot fading as he pushed another round into the breech of his rifle.
Given their matching countenances and physical appearances, it was commonly believed by those that worked for them, and the wider town’s populace, that Broderick and Broad were the best of friends. They were both in their early fifties, portly, but with wide set shoulders and thick forearms that hinted at a more athletic youth. Their hair was fading from grey to white as it retreated from the tops of their heads, and yet their eyes were as bright with life as they had ever been. Friends though, they were not.
They had grown up on neighbouring farms but had never got on despite each having a love of riding aralezes and shooting rifles. They had served as wild runners, combining their passions, and found themselves assigned to the same regiment for five years. For the most part they had ignored each other until the day that Broad had saved Broderick’s life. Even that most humbling act of compassion did not bring the young halfings any closer. Broderick’s matter of fact thanks were parried with the most sincere and literal declaration from Broad that he would have done the same for anyone else.
Over the next five years Broderick would go on to rescue Broad no less than once a year, and Broad would save Broderick from certain death another four times. Retiring from the army they returned to their respective farms where they worked tirelessly, producing exceptional harvest after exceptional harvest and expanding their landholdings in every direction, except in which their neighbour lived. You would be forgiven for thinking that their devotion to their separate lives would have meant the two halfings would have no need to communicate, and yet never did two people communicate quite so much, albeit mostly through the medium of letters dictated by the landowners and passed, via their solicitors, with regard to boundary walls, the roaming rights of forest trolls and any number of other agricultural banalities. Each letter was pragmatic, to the point, utterly without charm, and yet oddly, given the size and frequency of their solicitors’ invoices, always in accord with the enquiry that had prompted it. Never had halflings of the law made so much profit from clients who agreed so utterly and so vehemently with one another and were so accommodating of one another’s perfectly reasonable requests.
Quite how the annual shooting match between the two had started was anyone’s guess. Its origins had been lost to time and censure. Any labourer or farm hand on either property caught discussing it by either Broad or Broderick would be abruptly informed that it was a halfling’s god given right to stand on the back of a forest troll, in their own field and shoot at clay balls all afternoon if he so desired, and that if another halfling wanted to do the same thing own their own land at the exact same time it was no business of neither man nor beast, nor any other void cursed abomination. What was more, if two halflings should choose to undertake this activity simultaneously, and of their own volition, it did not infer that said halflings were in competition with each other. And so Broad raised his rifle as Broderick loosed a little red clay ball into the sky using a sling.
The forest trolls, from the backs of which they were shooting, stood patiently on either side of the grey stone wall that divided the fields, and the farms, from each other. Stoic, Broderick’s troll, and Stodge, Broad’s troll, had worked for the halflings for many years. They had arrived at the farms at similar times, when the halfings were beginning the expansion of their respective rustic empires and worked diligently pushing harvesters and gathering crops. Broad’s and Broderick’s successes had ensured meals were plentiful, there was always work to keep them occupied, and there were sturdy, weather proof outbuildings to shelter in when the weather got so bad that even a forest troll yearned for a respite from nature.
The halfings and trolls had aged together, times changed and with them needs, wants and responsibilities. The farmers no longer really farmed, that was what the farm hands did. Broderick and Broad supervised and oversaw, so Stodge and Stoic would spend their days carrying the landowners across their estates as they could navigate both field and forest far easier than any aralez could.
Another series of evenly spaced shots rang out across the rolling countryside. Clay ball after clay ball was loosed until dusk began to settle.
“146 to 145.” Broderick said, “Good time as any to call it a day, dusk’s a comin’ in and it’s unnecessary to make old eyes work any harder than they would in the day. That’s a young halfling’s luxury.”
“We’ve time for one more.” Broad responded firmly, “You went first.”
Without argument or remonstration Broderick launched his final red ball into the sky. Broad lifted his rifle and tracked the ball’s journey. He drew in a breath and held it just as the ball reached the peak of its flight.
At the point at which Broad’s finger was about to squeeze the trigger a squirrel scampered through the grass and sunk its teeth deep into Stodge’s ankle. The shock, rather than the pain, caused the troll to turn and lower his gaze, to see what had caused the sudden sensation, which sent Broad’s shot wide, and the little red ball fell back to earth unscathed.
Later than evening Broad sat alone at his kitchen table, a generous glass of port and an equally generous cheese board before him. He rolled a red clay ball around in his hand and pondered over the day’s events. It had been a day, and to have a day was a good thing, many halflings he had known throughout his life no longer had days, so it was only right to count your blessings. A momentary smile lit up his face as he remembered how Broderick had been distracted the year before by that rather unfortunate incident with the deer; and would never forget the incident two years before that with the hedgehog that had also resulted in Broderick missing his shot.
“All’s fair.” He chuckled, before placing the little red ball on a shelf at the end of a row of thirteen other little red balls.
That night Stoic settled down to sleep under the canopy of a great oak. Not far above him a squirrel slumbered in its branches, safe in the knowledge that none of it’s natural predators would approach it with a forest troll in such close proximity, awake or asleep.
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