Dan the Warlord

by Hondo Jinx

  Dan the Warlord

  Gold, Girls, and Glory #4

  Hondo Jinx

  Hondo Jinx

  Copyright © 2018 by Hondo Jinx

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Dan the Warlord is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Edited by Karen Bennett

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  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. A Royal Pain in the Ass

  2. Teel Elan

  3. Esteemed Brother

  4. Whispers in the Dark

  5. More Whispers in the Dark

  6. Surprise, Surprise

  7. The Shot Heard ‘Round the Wildervast

  8. Upon a Troubled Brow

  9. The Ultimatum

  10. Payback’s a Bitch

  11. The Morning After

  12. The Stench of Fear

  13. I Only Have Eye for You

  14. The Flames of Destiny

  15. Come Back, Come Back

  16. Building the Horde

  17. Let There Be Light!

  18. Getting Wild in the Wildervast

  19. Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

  20. A Sight for Sore Eye

  21. The Wedding Party

  22. Curves of Clay

  23. Destiny’s Vessel

  24. Barbarians and Politics Don’t Mix

  25. Destiny’s Defender

  26. The Face of Civilization

  27. Combustion

  28. A Change in Plans

  29. Blood and Fire

  30. Never Threaten a Man’s Family

  31. Sacrifice

  32. Double Down, Savage

  33. The Dream within the Nightmare

  34. The War for the Wildervast

  35. The Golden Daughter

  36. Hades Followed After

  37. I Will Have Vengeance

  38. No Longer the Warlord of the Wildervast

  39. Cock Block Buddy Fucker!

  40. Sexual Stamina V

  41. The King of the Wildervast

  1

  A Royal Pain in the Ass

  Speed kills.

  Tatiana was a blur of motion, dodging Dan’s thrust, spinning to one side, and launching a lightning-quick, two-strike attack with the quarterstaff. The beautiful black panther girl was the fastest opponent Dan had faced since sparring Holly’s brother, Briar, back in the grove.

  But timing beats speed.

  Dan blocked the first strike with his wooden sword. Simultaneously, he drove forward, anticipating her second strike, and jammed the she-panther’s attack with his lead shoulder.

  A second later, Tatiana was on her back, pinned to the mat beneath him.

  Again.

  Tatiana’s golden eyes flared, and her upper lip peeled back, baring bright white—and very sharp—teeth. “Get off me, you brute, or I’ll bite you!”

  “Kinky,” Dan said, enjoying her frustration almost as much as the feel of her lithe body squirming against him.

  “Release me this second, you filthy animal!”

  Dan laughed, lifted off her, and helped the flustered cat-girl to her feet.

  “What’s the matter, princess?” Dan said. “Not used to losing?”

  “Stop calling me that,” she said, stomping the mat with exasperation. “And for your information, no, I am not accustomed to losing. My father was a champion of the fighting pits, and I, as a handmaiden to Princess Kah’Dreel, studied under—”

  “The greatest martial arts masters in the world,” Dan interrupted. “How come I keep whipping your ass then?”

  “You’re too big,” Tatiana growled.

  “That’s what she said,” Nadia quipped from the sidelines.

  Dan’s gorgeous, smart-ass wife trained with Tatiana every chance she had. Most of Nadia’s time, however, was spent exploring the fortress, evaluating treasure, and taking care of her urchins, who spent their own days lurking and mingling, eavesdropping for Mother Wolf, who in turn kept Dan informed.

  Things were good in the fortress. Busy but happy.

  Jorbin Ateel had done an excellent job of getting everyone settled alongside the numerous red elves Big Bob Bannon had employed to staff the castle and his two dozen remaining half-orc mercenaries, who had been perfectly loyal henchmen to Dan since one of them deserted—and instantly burst into flames, having violated the succubus queen’s justice as set out in the magically sanctioned duel between Dan and Bannon.

  All systems were up and running, and everyone had a suitable job. Many of those who’d traveled in Dan’s caravan had traded in their swords and bows for ladles, brooms, or teaching slates, but Dan was happy to know that his cooks, maids, and teachers could easily pick up those swords and bows again if needed.

  Dan had learned from Bannon’s mistake. Winning the throne was one thing. If you wanted to hold it, you needed people you could rely on.

  “I’m next,” Parus said, stepping onto the mat and slicing the air with his wooden sword. The red elf sparred like he fought, with fearless abandon and surprising ferocity.

  Not that any of that really helped him against Dan.

  Leveling up kicked ass. As an eighth-level barbarian, Dan spotted attacks and openings with an ease he had never dreamed possible. Within the tangled forest of any combat moment, his brain and body now cooperated seamlessly and with remarkable speed. Seeing was thinking was doing.

  When Dan had the time, he sparred all comers. He beat them easily, but each opponent tested him in different ways—especially when he faced two or three at a time.

  Sparring kept him sharp, and it was fun as Hades.

  Not that he had much time to spar.

  Ruling was, it turned out, a royal pain in the ass. So he lived for these moments.

  Since Dan took power, Parus had been overseeing the initiation of several thousand new recruits, namely his red elf cousins, whom Dan had inherited from Bannon. There hadn’t been time yet to relocate the elves, let alone to arm or train them. Parus’s days were consumed by planning, assigning roles, overseeing communication, and what to Dan seemed an unimaginable mountain of administrative bullshit.

  The red elf bore up cheerily enough beneath his work, but Dan knew that Parus lived for these sparring sessions as much as he did.

  “All right,” Dan said, beckoning to his red elf general. “Bring it, you fiery bastard!”

  Before they could begin, however, a soft voice called from the doorway.

  “Pardon the interruption, husband,” Chloe said, her French accent as thick as ever. She smiled sweetly, batted her long lashes, and lifted the hem of her frilly black skirt as she curtseyed. She looked like a small, very attractive human—except her swishing tail of feathers.

  Whether or not the monster girl was hiding other non-human features beneath that sexy black-and-white maid uniform, Dan couldn’t say. He’d been so busy that Chloe and Bannon’s other two widows, Clarissa the serpent girl and Petronia the gargoyle, remained Dan’s wives in title only.

  For now, he thought, taking in her fishnet stockings, shapely body, and heart-shaped face. “What is it, Chloe? Another emissary?”

  Over recent days, he had received a steady stream of emissaries from groups both within and beyond his territory, which he had renamed not Flame Valley or Teel Elan—either of those choices would have caused extreme divis
ion between his elven wives—but Freedom Valley.

  “No husband, not an emissary,” Chloe said, and bit her lip in a severely cute way. “Your wife requests your presence on the throne room balcony. Au revoir.” And with another curtsey, she departed, her feathery tail swishing behind her.

  One of my wives, Dan thought. Which one?

  This was the question he pondered as he picked up his real sword, set his bronze crown back on his head, and left the others to train among themselves. He had spent too much time sparring already. He needed to visit the forge and check on Agatha, who was working night and day to rebuild the Fists of Fury.

  But first, he would go to the balcony and see what his mystery wife wanted.

  It wouldn’t be Holly. His grey elf wife was obsessed with their new home. She split her time praying before the great, dead delving tree; haunting the dusty library of her ancestors; and tending to the baby purple worms, which she had moved into the bowels of the castle, terrifying pretty much everyone. Holly was so obsessed with these pursuits that every day and every night, he had to remind her to eat and sleep—for her health and for the health of their unborn son.

  Nor would Ula beckon him now. These days, Ula glowed like the magical blade of her new axe. She had helped her husband to take a powerful fortress and now served as his top general, which meant that she was busy reviewing the armory, studying the castle’s defenses, and gathering information about the valley’s scope, topography, tribes, and neighbors. What more could a hobgoblin warrior woman want?

  Thelia also glowed with satisfaction. Shortly after Dan’s coronation, she had experienced another scary-ass fire prophetess moment, speaking to the massed valley elves from a pillar of flames, declaring herself the True Matriarch and Dan the Warlord of the Wildervast. Since then, she had been working her sweet little red ass off leading the red elves, mastering her burgeoning fire magic, and studying the powerful magical item she had gained from Bannon’s treasure.

  The ring of spell holding had belonged to an ancient red elf wizard. It held four spells, two of which Thelia had already identified. One of those, levitation, Dan had experienced back in Campus Quest, when Zeke had lifted him into the Tower of Terror. The other, animate corpses, sounded even creepier than the giant spiders Dan had faced atop the tower, and indeed Holly worried about her sister-wife dabbling with necromancy.

  Holly also worried about the ring’s two remaining spells, which Thelia had not yet identified. Holly’s concerns were natural enough, given the long-simmering tensions between the two wives and their people, who had a long history of conflict, culminating thousands of years ago in this very castle, then known as Teel Elan, when Mooret and his red elves usurped the fortress, founding Flame Valley and driving the grey elves to the brink of extinction.

  Thelia’s ring was one of the items that Wulfgar had mentioned, Dan realized, one of the things Dan couldn’t use. They hadn’t found the scrolls yet. Nor had they found the artifact that Wulfgar had mentioned, and part of Dan hoped that they never did.

  In Willis’s campaign, artifacts were incredibly powerful, incredibly weird, and incredibly dangerous.

  What artifact was hidden within the castle?

  The question plagued him throughout his days. But right now, he mainly wondered which wife was waiting for him on the balcony.

  It seemed unlikely that one of Bannon’s widows would summon Dan now. Petronia called to him from her pedestal every night, but during daytime, the gargoyle remained a frozen statue. Clarissa was too unobtrusive to interrupt him.

  That left one wife and his official guess for who was beckoning him.

  Zamora.

  The otherworldly sylph remained her moody, unpredictable, insatiable self. Here for a moment, then gone, then back again. Happy, curious, melancholy, changeable as the winds themselves. Of all his wives, the capricious wind nymph cared the least about his responsibilities.

  Yes, it would be Zamora calling him to the balcony, wanting what she always wanted.

  Sex.

  Sex and seed. Dan’s life essence.

  She would beg him to make love out in the open air, where they both could feel the power of the wind.

  Sure enough, when he strode across the high-vaulted throne room and out onto the broad balcony overlooking Freedom Valley, Zamora awaited him, hovering several inches above the stone floor, her ethereal blue hair wavering overhead like a gas flame.

  “No,” he said. “Not now.”

  Zamora tilted her pretty head with seeming confusion. “What do you mean, Master?”

  “Sex,” Dan said. “I’m too busy to have sex with you right now. Wait until tonight.”

  Every night since winning the throne, he had enjoyed a knock-down-drag-out orgy with his lovely wives. But daytime was for working. He had fought hard to earn his bronze crown, and he wasn’t going to piss everything away by partying 24/7.

  Zamora tossed back her head, releasing a whirlwind of laughter. “Oh Master, you don’t know me as well as you’d like to think. The wind blows in many directions, and I do manage to think of things other than your life essence.”

  She disappeared, going invisible again.

  A second later, a breeze coiled up and down Dan, caressing his body like a cat made out of wind. “But now that you mention it,” Zamora’s voice breathed in his ear, “your seed does sound delicious.”

  “Stop fooling around,” Dan said. “Why did you call me up here?”

  Zamora reappeared a few feet away, a playful grin on her face. Windy days always made her extra-mischievous. “Griffons are flying this way from the south,” she reported. “Twenty griffons, ridden by grey elves. Holly’s family approaches!”

  2

  Teel Elan

  Help me, Holly prayed. Help me to help you.

  She knelt between the enormous roots of Est eel Est, the great delving tree, which towered gray and leafless within the gloom of the central keep.

  Prayers to the dead. Prayers for the dead.

  Here in this ancient place, which had been the very heart of grey-elf power in bygone millennia, Holly waited, listening for a whisper from her long-lost relatives, hoping to feel a magical connection to the world around her as she had in the woods and meadows outside.

  But she heard no whispers and felt no connection.

  She was merely a speck of vitality in this vast, lifeless chamber. A tiny point of existence surrounded by death.

  But I am not alone, she thought, putting a hand to her stomach. The past may be dead, but I carry the future.

  And yet, to pave the way for her child, she needed to do all that she could to call upon the past, anything she could to resurrect the tree of trees.

  Please help me.

  The ground vibrated.

  Excitement surged through her. An answer at last? From whom?

  Were her ancestors, dead and dust, calling to her from within the embrace of Est eel Est’s roots? Or was the tree itself returning to life, reaching out to her?

  The vibration strengthened. The ground beneath her feet rumbled and then split open to either side of her. Geysers of soil and dead moss sprayed into the air.

  Her prayers hadn’t been answered after all. And yet she couldn’t help but smile.

  “You startled me,” she said, and knelt to stroke the heads of the young purple worms. The circular mouths puckered and dilated, a sign she had come to recognize as happiness.

  The worms were growing rapidly. They had tripled in size since she had saved them in the mountains, perhaps even quadrupled. It was hard to say for sure since they never rose fully from their tunnels.

  Laying a hand upon their hides, which grew a darker purple every day, she could sense their size and power, as well as their contentment. The purple worms were not intelligent in human terms, but neither were they non-intelligent as people believed. She was able to communicate with them through emotion and imagery.

  Thus, she had trained them to return to this place after setting them free and to a
bstain from eating her or her people.

  Soon she would attempt to control their tunneling. She had released them beneath Est eel Est with the hopes that they would loosen and aerate the soil and nourish the roots with nutrient-rich castings. But she needed to limit their number of tunnels or soon she wouldn’t be able to approach the great delving tree.

  She could work on that later. For now, she needed to see to more pressing matters.

  “Wait here, my babies,” she said, patting their purple hides and sending waves of love into them.

  The young purple worms shuddered with joy, mouths opening and closing.

  “I’ve been expecting you,” she said, and hurried across the chamber to where the wheelbarrow waited.

  Gripping the handles, she pushed the barrow across the ground. Dead moss crackled beneath the wheel, and the gruesome load sloshed back and forth, filling her nostrils with iron and rot, bile and waste.

  The kitchens above provided a steady supply of food for her pets.

  “Here you are, my lovelies,” Holly said, and dumped a wriggling mass of bloody intestines into the mouth of one worm.

  The worm pulsed up and down, chugging innards and whining with satisfaction.

  “Don’t be a piggy,” Holly laughed. She spun the wheelbarrow and poured the remaining intestines into the mouth of the other worm. “There you go.”

  She stroked each of the worms, reminding them of her simple wishes. Come back to me. Do not eat my people or livestock.