The Alfas to either side of her struck her down and started to kick and stomp her with a fury I found astonishing. "There is always a choice," I shouted, and made no move to stop them. I suspect the traitor was beyond hearing me by then.
I pointed to the man before me. "You. Your name?"
"Keenen Dree."
"Keenen Dree, retrieve your weapon. Come with me to the tower." Then I called, "My young warriors! Frieda! To me! Wives, please stand guard duty!"
As my pixie boys and Frieda made their way to my side, I looked over the crowd of DTs and freed slaves. After swallowing the bile that rose in my throat, I shouted fiercely: "People of Scarborough Faire, hear me! Execute the Alfa witches for their atrocities! Make sure they are dead! The Sun is mine!"
With savage glee, the crowd closed in on the assemblage of monsters they surrounded.
I learned later that the Alfas were the Sun's priestesses; like so many cultures, she who had the most raw power became their leader. Before Keenan Dree and I had even broken into the tower, the freed slaves and armswomen had hewn down the last of those priestesses, and had begun the process of beheading and quartering the bodies. I would not normally have allowed any foe so barbaric a fate, but those women deserved it ten times over.
At last Keenen Dree and I bashed through the reinforced oak door leading to the interior of the Climbing Tower, and pushed through into the darkness inside. The interior wasn't very large, perhaps five steps across. There was a wood-timbered hole leading down into the ground; Dree was too big to fit, so Frieda and I entered cautiously, because any more of us would have just gotten in each other's way, and I wanted this to end quickly. The boys flew behind. The tunnel took us down at a steep slope to a point about 30 yards along and ten deep, where it leveled out, stopping at a gopherwood door set in a finely built limestone and brick wall. Apparently, there had been masons among the captured men; the structure looked solid.
Unsurprisingly, the door was locked; and there was no way we'd be able to break through the thick gopherwood. But that was solved in a few moments, when Gray and Icky brought me a hardened luminium key of a type used before the Ruin. It was a moment's work to unlock the door and enter the stone-walled chamber beyond, the two boys right behind me.
It wasn't much, just a safe room, maybe twenty feet on a side. The last Alfa was huddled against the far end, unable to run away from the influence of our Dawn Steel blades. She whirled to face me, trembling and shouting, "How dare you! I am the Sun that lights your life! I am your Empress! Grovel before me!"
"There won't be any groveling," I told her, trying to conceal my shock. This "Sun" everyone was so worried about was just a girl, barely past her majority, if that; but more than that, she was plain, pitted with acne, the type of girl whose personality was usually praised instead of her looks when someone extolled her virtues. My Old-Father had Hanukah sweaters that were better-looking.
I couldn't kill this child, no matter how threatening her former slaves thought she was. I decided I'd give her the opportunity to surrender, lowered my sword, and took a deep breath to offer quarter.
That was very nearly my undoing.
Apparently, this safe room had been far enough away, and the walls sufficiently thick, for the mana sink not to drain all the Sun's powers. As I inhaled, I caught the scent of her—a perfume compounded of pure female, sugar cookies, and a rich, earthy fragrance my soul recognized as dark chocolate—and realized what an idiot I was. Obviously, my first sight of her had been some cruel trick of the light. This was no witch, but a young goddess: fully mature, with a fabulous, lush body even S'linkitha would have killed for, and so blindingly beautiful I had to look away. She was indeed a Sun, in beauty and in power; Aurora paled in comparison. My new Goddess was as brilliant as full, glorious noontide.
I knew I would love her forever, and do whatever she asked. Indeed, I would die for her, though I couldn't tell her so; I was so stunned by her glory that my vocal cords were frozen, my lips and tongue paralyzed. It was as if I had turned to stone.
Fortunately, she offered guidance. In the loveliest voice imaginable, sweet as ripe raspberries and so erotic it left me shaken, with a certain part of my anatomy stonier than the rest, she advised, "Fall on your sword." Instantly, I reversed the Dawn Sword, put the pommel on the floor, wedged it in place between flagstones, and, worshipfully let myself fall.
Just then, a bothersome insect flew in the face of the Sun, all clattery wings and spindly limbs, yelling shrilly, "YOU LEAVE MY DADDYMAN ALONE!" As if by magic, there was suddenly a blade buried in the witch's left eye.
I don't know why the Sun's enchantment failed to work on Icarus. Maybe it was because he was the smallest and youngest of my Dixie sons. Maybe he didn't have quite enough time to mature fully inside the host. But whatever the case, he flew through the Sun's enchantment like it wasn't there, and put an end to her.
As the enchantment broke I flinched aside, enough that the Dawn Sword only grazed my right side instead of skewering me, and time seemed to slow as the mortally wounded Alfa's thrashing arm batted my little boy from the air. He crashed into the stone wall and bounced off, falling to the floor, where he lay still. Then a second Dawn Blade blossomed in the Alfa's throat, and the Sun fell like a sledgehammered steer. There came an incoherent scream as Gration flashed past me.
When my head cleared, the Sun was dead, a look of shock on her plain face. Gration was on the other side of the room, kneeling on the floor, cradling a pathetic little bundle in his arms and bawling. I looked around for the other Dixies, and found them hovering above their brothers in a loose circle. They let me through as I crawled over to Gray, afraid of what I'd find; and as I found it, my heart broke.
I knelt beside my sons and took Icarus's tiny, wrecked body in my hands. As Gray screamed and wept and beat the floor in his grief, I could feel Icky's crumpled wings twitching, his heart stuttering as fast as those wings used to buzz as his body shut down. His spiky red-orange hair was stained crimson from a nasty head wound, both arms were broken, and his hips were twisted unnaturally. I looked away, barely able to see through the tears.
"Daddyman."
The little voice shook me to my core; I jerked my head back to his still form. I was shocked to see my son's eyes open. He looked at me, his gaze a piercing, calm green, and said in a surprisingly normal voice, "Don't worry, Daddyman, it doesn't hurt."
"Icarus...?" I said thickly.
"I'm going to be okay. The Goddess says in a minute or two, I'll be fine again." He smiled. "She's so pretty. She loves me, I can tell..."
I whimpered, "Not as much as I do," and tried to swallow past the lump in my throat as he continued, his voice a little weaker now, "Did we win?"
"Yes," I said quietly. "Yes. We won, thanks to you and Gray. You boys saved my life. You saved us all, my brave warrior Icarus."
"Oh. That's nice." Icarus's eyes slowly closed. "Can we go visit the girl-pixies now?"
"Yes," I whispered. "Right away."
"Dibs... on the redheads." He sighed deeply, then began to sing, breathy and barely audible, "Here come. The hero. Dixies. Hurr-rayyy. Hurray. In our new. Land. We took our sstand. And now... we'll... boinnnn..."
And then my baby boy stopped singing forever.
Inside the safe room, eight pixies and their father screamed their grief at the heavens.
Epilogue
When the next morning dawned, it found my little nation in full control of Scarborough Faire. After the last Alfa bitch died at Gration's hand, all resistance ended. By then, I didn't give a damn anymore, and didn't lift a finger to save the quislings. The family members of those they had helped kill literally tore them apart. The mothers who'd lost their children were especially vicious. I couldn't blame them. I made sure I watched until the deed was done, as a form of penance.
After they had cleaned up in a nearby stream, the survivors of the battle bedded down in several wooden buildings and Yorkshire Tower castle, where I stood watch all night, unable
to sleep. Keenan Dree and my sons accompanied me.
At dawn, I offered them all, old and new races alike, the option of leaving or staying to join my new nation. Most stayed. I had Montana and Freddie distribute food, supplies, and new clothing to those who left. There was plenty of it. Turned out the Alfa witches had whole wagons and buildings filled with military materiel, some of which looked to have been hoarded since the Step Through, including more of the fancy uniforms they'd been wearing. Apparently, those were dress uniforms for the officers of the other Earth's infantry. Montana surmised that at least one of this lot had been a quartermaster, probably more. Quartermasters, she explained, were greedy bastards who had a tendency to hold onto supplies for as long as they could, even when honest soldiers desperately needed them. I wondered dully if all quartermasters on their Earth had in fact been born out of wedlock, and if that had turned them feral on the Day of Ruin.
I just nodded and looked over the new members of our community. Twenty-seven fellow baseline humans had stayed, 12 of whom were women; most of the rest were children and old men. All the surviving olbytla women and their daughters: another 21 in total. All sixteen of the bunny-pooka who called themselves sylvies. All fourteen wolfin. Three cat-like moggies. Of the armswomen who had fought with us, seven baseline humans, four pooka, and two olbytla had died during the fight. Three more pooka were as good as dead.
Freddie and Montana got them all fed and properly clothed in the oddly mottled clothing they called BDUs, which had to be cut down for the olbytlas. Fortunately, several of the human ladies were seamstresses. I watched, expressionless, until they were done. At that point, I took a gulp of much-needed water to soothe my aching throat, then stepped forward and addressed them in a booming voice:
"In the name of the Dawn Goddess Aurora, without Whom we could not have triumphed, I welcome you as citizens of this new community. I am your leader, born Tobias Fell, of the Misha people in the year before the Day of Ruin. Henceforth, you shall know me as Fell Tobias.
"Those of you who call the new races represented here demons, along with all the many other races not yet part of our community: know that they are not. With a few rare exceptions, they are as human as you are. Many were born here, making them natives like you; their eldest members came from another Earth much like ours. They simply look different now because of what befell them on the Day of Ruin. So our first law is this: You will no longer call them demons. You will call them by their names. You will call them your friends, your neighbors, your countrymen. Henceforth, we are all human beings together, nothing less. We may belong to different races, but we are all humankind, from the largest giantess to the smallest pixie."
My voice almost broke then, but I forged on: "If any of you cannot accept that, leave now. There will be no more bigotry in this community. We are all citizens, with equal rights. We are all humankind; that is all that matters.
"As we build this community, and later this nation, I will hold myself to a high standard. I will hold all of you to an equally high standard, one that we can all be proud of. This community shall become a bastion of efficiency, of cleanliness, of bravery, of safety, and of industry.
"The new races among you: know that within a few years, you will no longer have to depend upon the men of baseline humanity, which I propose to call terrans after the old Latin word for Earth, to give you children. I, and my brothers like me across the world, are now mature, and are prepared to provide you with boy children so that in time, you may have your own men."
There was a collective gasp, and I paused until they settled down. Then I spoke loudly, my voice ringing out above the crowd. "When you entered this place, you may have seen signs calling it Scarborough Faire. The older terrans among you may remember that in the years before the Ruin, it was a place of fellowship and happiness, where people gathered yearly to celebrate a simpler lifestyle that their society remembered fondly. Since the Day of Ruin, we have lived that simpler lifestyle every single day. Here is where that comes to an end. Here is where we all, new races and old, come together to begin rebuilding the civilization we all lost on that day, finding ways to replicate technology that the nanites, the bitty-swarms, will not tear down. This is a place of new beginnings, and it deserves a new name.
"Henceforth, the former Scarborough Faire will be known as Icarus Township, after he who flew too close to the Sun—the young male pixie who sacrificed his life during yesterday's battle to save his brothers and I, and perhaps all of us. By this name, our settlement shall become famous far and wide as our achievements grow. So say I, Fell Tobias, and so it is!"
"So mote it be!" our new citizens replied in a roar.
I turned on my heel and walked steadily back into Yorkshire Tower, where I found an out-of-the-way oubliette, sat down, and fell apart.
I learned later that the Mamas had organized our new citizens into grave duty teams, issuing them collapsible plastic shovels from the Alfa hoard, along with stretchers for the bodies—and baskets for the bits. They told them exactly where to burn the remains of the Alfas and their Judas goats, and where to inter the bodies of their fallen fellows—both in the vast "parking lot" field, separated by hundreds of yards, as far from the township as possible while still being within the bounds of the old Faire. They put the men and women to work and went off to their own private hells. Meanwhile, the Dixies set up a training ground in the farthest east of the fair's neighborhoods, a place called Pecan Grove.
During the conquest of Scarborough Faire, we original 17 had lost just one warrior to the Alfas' dozens. Most generals would call that a great victory, but in my eyes, the price wasn't worth what we'd won. Not yet. It wouldn't have been worth it even if the Faire had been made of solid Dawn steel.
I was determined that in time, it would be worth more, in my son's honor.
Our family, our tribe, had been seventeen in number. Then, like the mythical figure he'd named himself after, little Icarus had flown to close to the Sun, and had died for it. Now there were just sixteen of us, and in the wake of our victory, the family mourned.
CONTINUED IN THE SECOND BOOK OF FELL TOBIAS,
THE FATHERING LAND
Afterword
I hope you've enjoyed your introduction to Tobias Fell's warped version of Texas, and look forward to his continuing adventures. I intend to publish the Books of Fell Tobias as inexpensive novellas first, then collect Books 1-3 in one larger volume, and Books 4-5 in another. The first three are complete, and the other two are in progress (I don't always write linearly). If these books do well, I may continue with Tobias's memoirs as he literally fathers a new country, and drags back together the tatters of his worldline's progressive version of the CSA.
If you're wondering who did the cover art, I must take the credit and/or blame. I got tired of artists either not answering my emails or quoting me prices out of my price range; the good art by someone else will have to wait until the collection volumes. Meanwhile, this is what I had in me. It was fun, and didn't take too long. Yay royalty-free art, Pixabay.com, and naked centaur boobies! Thanks also to Keith James, a talented writer and artist who provided concept art and support early on. I could only hope to be as talented. His novel, The Secret War, is great — and he did his own cover art.
You may have noticed that the story is a fondly over-the-top version of the modern harem novel, as practiced masterfully by William Arand, Michael-Scott Earle, Jan Stryvant, and Eric Vall — some of my personal favorites. As a red-blooded American male, I enjoy reading them, so I consider this series as poking good-natured fun at the subgenre. Tobias doesn't just have seven wives, he has hundreds of lovers, because of his nature as a boymaker in a world where men have become scarce — and, until his explosion onto the scene, nonexistent for the new races. So he has sex a lot. It's part of his job; in a very real sense, reproduction is more important in this series than the sex act itself. Unlike some harem novels, I don't really get into the erotic aspects. I focus more on world-building, the parts of most harem no
vels I like the most. Also, there will be real-world consequences in his married life, something I don't often see in harem novels, where the ladies rarely get jealous or cheaty. Let me know if you'd like to have more explicit sex scenes, as I love doing practical research.
I realize I've posit a few plot points some might find objectionable, like the Dixies being born sexually mature and, like all young men, very interested in (and capable of) the act. They're basically flying bundles of hormones, as my narrator mentions. They also go to war within a few days of their birth. It's the nature of the pixie lifecycle, at least up to that point. But I'd love to hear your thoughts about this and other unusual aspects of the stories, including my liberal application of deus ex machina. That's hard to avoid when deities actually exist and take an active role in world affairs.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch: As an independent author, reviews and word of mouth are my lifeblood. I'll be happy if I make enough money on these books to buy an occasional frappuccino at Starbucks, but I'll be even happier if I can pay my mortgage! So I encourage you to leave a review; even a brief one will help. Tell me what you liked and what you didn't, and feel free to let me know directly at [email protected].
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