by Sam Ryder
For the first time since she’d been returned from the dead to me, I saw a flame twinkle in her eyes, the smallest sign that the old Eve, the good part of the old Eve, was still in there. She firmed up her chin and said, “I’ll leave immediately. See you when I return?”
“Yes,” I said. “Be safe.”
“And you.” She kissed my cheek and turned away.
FOUR
BREAKING TRIBAL
“You have grown very close with Eve,” Vrill said the moment I stepped over the line burrowed into the ground. I knew what her statement was meant to be—bait. She was baiting me into a nasty conversation, one that would not end well.
I might’ve been a fish back on Earth, but here on Tor I was not. “Vrill, I gave a portion of my heart to Eve. Not because I wanted to try to hurt you, or her, or myself, just because. It just happened. It doesn’t take away the portion of my heart I gave to you.”
Vrill looked ready to call her dragon over to bite my head off, but instead she just turned on her heels and walked away. I could practically see the steam rising from her ears, that’s how much she was fuming. I let her go, because sometimes people need time to process. I owed her that much.
Instead, I headed over to where all the artifacts had been gathered inside a large stone hut. After the Three had finally allowed us to take the artifacts gathered for hundreds of years, we’d organized them into three categories: weapons, armor and other. The ‘other’ category consisted of various trinkets that served little purpose if they couldn’t be ‘activated’, which meant the right person would need to come along and use the artifact, unlocking the power. Like me with my hammer. On its own, my hammer was a powerful weapon that could be used to smash shit up. However, in my hands, it also had a unique power: creating shockwaves of energy each time I smashed it into something. For whatever reason, it was paired to me. Now we just had to figure out who was paired with the rest of the items.
I’d been mulling over this for the last couple of days and had finally decided we needed to bite the bullet and take as many of the items with us as possible when we went to meet with the other tribes. Maybe we would get lucky and one of the trinkets would light up and shoot off fireworks when it got close to one of the tribal leaders. That would give us a hell of a bargaining chip.
Still, the thought of hauling all this shit around was not a tantalizing idea. We needed a cart. Better yet, we needed a marmot to pull our cart. Unfortunately, our one resident marmot was still comatose. Hmmm, I thought as I reached the storeroom and gazed upon the bounty the goddesses had finally handed over to us. There’s always Vrill’s dragon… The thought of going airborne on dragonback simultaneously thrilled me and made me want to gouge my eyes out. I wasn’t afraid of heights, but I’d also never flown on dragonback before. Plus, every time Mrizandr looked at me I got the distinct impression he was wondering how I’d taste and whether a little bit of Tabasco sauce would bring out my flavor.
Lace prowled up beside me, purposely flicking her tail in my face, as she liked to do. “Ryderrr,” she purred. “Want to fuck?” That was also something Lace did. Her forwardness made Vegas call girls look as shy and prudish as nuns-in-training. She exuded sensuality the way most people sweated from their pores. She was slender but strong, with small breasts that fit nicely in one’s palm. Her ass was round and firm. The truth was, Lace and I had been intimate, and she was pretty mind blowing in the sack. Which made it a very tempting offer, something with no strings attached that had the potential to clear my mind. Neither Vrill nor Eve would get jealous of Lace. Sexuality was pretty fluid on Tor, where a few stolen moments of pleasure were something everyone needed after fighting in the Black.
“What? Asfandiar isn’t around?” I said, playing hard to get.
“Nice try,” Lace said. “I can smell your arousal even more than usual. Seeker senses.” Lace, as our latest Seeker, had received all the benefits of being upgraded by the Three. Which meant super senses. Considering her senses were already pretty super, I guess that meant super-super senses. “Plus, I had Asfandiar once already. His stamina is…lacking. He’s sleeping now.”
Great, so I’m sloppy seconds, I thought. Then again, I’d already been with Vrill since the last Black, so we were in the same boat. “Thanks, but I’m good. Anyway, don’t you have a Seeking mission to get to? We still need to locate Persepheus’s heart.”
Lace crinkled her petite nose and said, “The Three haven’t mentioned anything.”
“The Three aren’t calling the shots anymore.”
“And you are, Demigod?” she asked, a clear challenge in the question.
“I didn’t say that. Our decisions will be made more by committee than anything.”
“A democracy?” Lace scoffed. “On Protos the democratic governments are weak and easy to exploit. My people have a strong dictator that rules for life.”
For some reason, that surprised me. “And what if the dictator is corrupt?” I asked.
Lace smiled a fang-filled smile. “Then we eat him. Or her. Then we pick a new dictator.”
Of course they did. If I had to guess, the dictator was assassinated regularly, but I could be wrong. “Sounds like a lovely planet to visit in the springtime,” I said dryly.
Lace narrowed her green eyes, her black vertical pupils thinning into bladelike slits. “You have a death wish, Ryder? Springtime is when the gloths are hunting.”
I didn’t know what the fuck a gloth was, nor did I want to. “I knew that,” I said. “I was joking.”
“Humans are a queer race,” Lace said, flicking me in the face once more. “I’ll be in my hut wet and ready if you change your mind about the fuck,” she added, before sauntering off, her hips and ass swaying seductively.
This time, however, I was less tempted after hearing about the whole eat-the-corrupt-dictator thing that occurred regularly on her home planet. Instead, I turned back to the room of unused artifacts, once more considering how many of them we could transport on our journey. A cleared throat pulled my attention to the hut’s doorway.
“Hello,” Vrill said, wearing a softer expression than the last time I’d seen her, when she stalked off fuming.
“Hey. I was just thinking about bringing some of these artifacts with us on our journey.”
“It is a good idea,” Vrill said, not giving away anything with her expression. “Sam. I’m sorry. I overreacted. I was away for a long time and I do not know what experiences you had in my absence. I do not like Eve, but I cannot fault you for your feelings toward her.”
This was something I had always loved about Vrill. She didn’t typically hold grudges—save perhaps the one she held against Eve and the Three—and she was quick to want to reconcile. She was also as kind a person as I’d ever met. “You have no need to apologize. You also have history I am not a party to. But please, I am not trying to hurt anyone. All I want is to end this struggle. I want peace. You deserve it. We all do.” I purposely didn’t mention the Three or Eve as Vrill probably didn’t think they deserved peace, nor the return of their kingdom.
She stepped closer and into my waiting arms. I held her tight, my hands on the exposed skin of her lower back. “You know,” she said. “I do have a dragon that is willing to carry a hefty load.”
“Do you?” I said.
She looked up at me, frowning in that perplexed way that stole my breath. Even her confused look was utterly attractive. Her expression morphed into one of understanding, and she said, “That was human sarcasm, wasn’t it?”
I nodded. “You’re picking up on it much faster now.”
“You use it a lot.”
I did. Beat was one of the few people on this strange planet who got my humor and reciprocated with plenty of her own. Vrill, however, was a quick study. “What are the chances of, say, your dragon—”
“Mrizandr.”
“—Mrizandr eating me? One in ten? Five in ten?”
Vrill laughed and I knew any gap between us had closed to nothing. “
Zero in ten, Sam,” she said. “Mrizandr wouldn’t want to eat you. You’re all muscle and no fat.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So I should keep working out and I’ll be okay?”
She kissed my lips softly and said, “I don’t know what that means, but I’ll just agree. Anyway, you weren’t planning on making the trek on foot, were you? The distance between some of the tribes is many leagues. Our journey would take days without end.”
I was planning on walking, but I didn’t say that. “Of course not. I was thinking we would capture a few monsters and ride on them.”
“Now I know you’re joking,” Vrill said. “Of course we’ll take Mrizandr.”
“Of course.” Actually, I’d only been half-joking with the ride-a-monster comment. We’d recently theorized that some of the monsters may be able to be “tamed” using the goddesses’ primordial ooze in the same way we’d freed Vrill and Mrizandr’s minds from the Morgoss’s black magic. “I’ll have some of the Warriors load up as many of the items as they can into a couple of sacks and tie them off. Will that suffice for Mrizandr to carry?”
“Yes,” Vrill said, kissing me again. My hands slid lower, beneath her waist, curling around her ass and tugging her tighter against me. I’d never fully cooled off after Lace’s sultry offer. “Save it for the road,” Vrill said, kissing me harder.
“Or we could do it now and then again on the road,” I suggested. I wasn’t some pubescent horn-dog, but my new body’s libido was off the charts.
“Should we invite Eve?” Vrill said, pulling back. She immediately backtracked, saying, “Sorry, I’m sorry. I guess I’m still struggling a little.”
Dammit. I couldn’t fault her—this would be incredibly hard for anyone. She was one of the strongest women I’d ever met, so if she was having trouble coming to terms with things, their history must be beyond anything I could comprehend. Perhaps a few days away from Eve and camp were exactly what we needed to get over this little bump in our relationship. “It’s okay,” I said, meaning it. “Let’s get ready to go. The Bronze time is fading fast.”
The truth of my words was evident in the striating rays of bronze and silver light that were alternating as they crisscrossed through the stone hut’s glassless window. I always loved the changeover from the Bronze to Silver time. Unfortunately, it also meant we were nearly halfway to the next Black, which meant we’d lingered here for too long.
Vrill stepped away lithely and said, “I’ll tend to Mrizandr. I’ll meet you at the northern ward shields.”
~~~
Beat was drilling her Warriors hard when I found her. I knew what it was: an overreaction to what had happened in the Black. Though she knew she’d been stubborn and overconfident, she also felt they were underprepared. Drilling her soldiers was her way of rectifying that and preventing it from happening again.
I caught her eye and gestured her over. Rather than telling her Warriors to take a break, she put one of them in charge and had them continue in her absence. “Don’t you think you’re overdoing it a little?” I asked. “The next Black will be upon us soon. They should rest.”
“Are you going soft on me, Ryder?” Beat said, squinting as she gazed at the silver sun just as it was passing by the bronze one.
“I just think rest is as important as training right now.”
“Pussy.”
There was no venom in the insult, her smirk as broad and carefree as always. Was she overcompensating for the pain she felt at having lost one of her own? It was always hard to tell with Beat. “No, thank you, I just ate. Anyway, we’re leaving soon.”
“You and Vrill, right? Are you taking the dragon?”
“Yeah, is that okay? Will you be all right without us?”
“You normally just get in my way, so yeah. But not having Vrill and Mrizandr will leave a hole to fill.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“I missed my calling as a standup comedian. Or a bodybuilder. Or, wait, a bodybuilding standup comedian. Yeah, that could be my shtick.”
I chuckled. I loved this chick. She was, and would always be, my best friend. I had strong bonds with Vrill and Eve, but this was different. Given Beat’s strong preference for females, we didn’t have sex to get in the way of things. We were bonded in an entirely different way. “Seriously though, are you okay?”
“Oh boy, here comes dead-serious Ryder,” Beat said, punching me on the shoulder, which felt like getting thumped by a meat tenderizer given her upgraded Protector size. “I’m fine, Sam.” She rarely called me ‘Sam’, which meant she was also being serious now. “We’re going to kick monster ass while you’re gone. When you get back, all you’ll see are piles and piles of ash as far as the eye can see.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what we saw. Beat wasn’t boastful. She didn’t make threats, she made promises, and generally backed up her talk with action. “I’ll hold you to that,” I said, punching her back.
“Anyone ever told you that you hit like a girl?” she said.
“Anyone ever told you that you are a girl?” I shot back.
“Nobody still alive,” she said.
I shook my head. “See you on the flip side?”
“Hells yeah, Ryder. Give ’em hell.”
With that, I headed toward the designated meeting spot at the northern portion of the ward shields. Before I’d gone to say goodbye to Vrill, I’d asked Asfandiar and a few of the other Warriors to fill a couple sacks with the most fancy-looking artifacts. Now, as I headed toward the spot, I saw he was already there, waiting. There was no sign of Vrill yet, but that didn’t worry me.
“It is done, General,” Asfandiar said in his overly formal manner. Eve had used her time- and world-traveling ability to bring the ancient warrior back from Earth’s distant past. The dude was jacked, and yet these days I made him look small. He gestured to a couple of bulging sacks tied off at the top.
“Thank you, Ass…uh, Asfandiar.” I barely managed to not say ‘Ass-Fan’, which was Beat and my juvenile nickname for him.
“Is anything else required?” The Warrior was standing at attention, like I was a drill sergeant and he the grunt awaiting orders.
“At ease, soldier,” I said. “Return to your post.”
He saluted, not like a modern-day soldier might salute with a flat hand to the temple, but with a thumped fist on his chest. I returned the motion and he strode away. I stood next to the sacks, waiting. The day was calm and hot, the dueling suns like distant fires roasting me alive. This was the hottest part of the day since both suns were visible above the horizon, but soon the bronze would fall away and the Silver time would begin in earnest. It would still be hot, but far more bearable.
I heard a sound and turned toward it, squinting at the ward shield, which shimmered slightly as the silver sunlight filtered through. As a Warrior and then Protector, I could only see landscapes through the goddess-summoned ward shield. As a Seeker and now Demigod, however, I could make out the shapes of living things through it. And right now I was seeing something very large and winged, soaring across the sky and heading in my direction.
Normally I would think oh shit and draw my hammer in preparation for a fight with a gargat. But I knew it wasn’t one of the winged gargoyle-like creatures. For one, they burned up in the daytime. For two, they hunted in packs and were rarely seen alone. For three, this winged creature was far bigger than a gargat. Still, I backed up a few steps, my instincts firing.
The ward shield rippled as the massive dragon passed through snout first, his maw cracking open to reveal rows of jagged teeth lit by a roiling fire brewing in the back of his throat. His leathery wings beat rapidly in reverse to slow his progress, kicking up dust and dirt and stinging my eyes so much I was forced to shield them with my hands.
The mighty dragon landed, knees bending to cushion his weight. He gracefully tucked his wings behind him and, as the dust cleared, revealed Vrill sitting statuesque on his back. She looked like a dragon queen, as comfortable aboar
d her terrifying steed as a knight on horseback. “Mrizandr has just finished hunting so he’s not as tempted to eat you,” she said.
I froze, eyes widening at the thought of the dragon slamming its jaws down on me like T-rex once had on the blood-sucking lawyer sitting on the toilet in Jurassic Park. Wait. Was she… “You’re joking,” I said in amazement.
Vrill laughed. “I learn from the best,” she said. “Yes, Sam, it was a joke. Like I said, you would not make an appetizing meal for Mriz.” That was the first time I’d heard her use the shortened version of the dragon’s name. It felt wrong somehow. If anything, the majestic dragon’s name should be made longer in honor of his mightiness. “Coming?”
“How do I…”
The dragon lowered itself flat onto its stomach, legs splayed out. I guess that answers that, I thought. I approached one massive leg, gawking at the foot-long claws protruding from its toes. The height from the ground to its back was too great even for me to attempt a jump. The dragon made my seven-foot-tall height look almost childish. Instead, I took the hint and clambered up onto its forepaw on all fours to maintain my balance. I’d seen Vrill do the same thing, except upright, making the feat look easy. It was not. Though the dragon’s leathery skin was firm, there was some give to it, which made balance difficult. I could feel the warmth through my feet and hands, reminding me that this beast could entomb me in a gout of fire at any second.
With that in mind, I crawled up its leg and then accepted Vrill’s outstretched hand, allowing her to pull me up onto the dragon’s back. I could feel the creature—there was no other way to describe it—purring beneath me, just like a cat.