Chimera King Box Set Books 1-3

by Atlas Kane

  “After peace was struck, Vormer lashed out like the viper he is. Thirteen of our most powerful defenders were slain in the night, and the rest woke to chaos. Vormer was forcing oaths of fealty on any who had not already done so. We fought as hard as we could. We fought, and for that I will always be proud.”

  Her voice cracked, and Imenda wept silently, her blue eyes growing red.

  Satemi finished the elder’s tale and did so in a voice of iron. “We fought, and the best of us fell. Minda and I, and most of these around you, managed to escape simply because we were less of a threat. The battle spilled out of the city, and a group of us fled. We’ve been here in this village for months now, trying to feed ourselves and regain a fraction of the life we once had.”

  She placed a hand on Imenda’s back. “I was lucky enough that my attachments were few in this world. Others lost those who they’d loved for years.”

  More questions sprang up in Cade’s mind, but to ask any now would seem crude. Instead, he thanked the woman for her story, and gave a few nods to the villagers standing around.

  The porridge was done by then, and yet they waited awhile longer. The meal cooled slightly, and according to Grissen, Minda would return with a few others, berries in hand, to flavor the village’s breakfast.

  Sure enough, five minutes later, a cheerful cry broke through the mumbled conversations that had broken out amongst the people. Cade was cut off mid-sentence, trying to explain to Grissen what bacon was, when Minda shouted. “The Quotal Tree blooms again!”

  There was a rush of excitement that passed like a wave through the small crowd. Cade was thoroughly confused, but his new friend explained simply, “It is something that must be both seen and tasted Cade. Your arrival is most fortunate.” Trusting that he would eventually find out what all the fuss was, Cade waited along with the rest to hear the news.

  After the woman finished rinsing the berries, they tossed them in the cook pot, and crude bowls were handed out. Cade was eating from a fire-hardened fruit husk when Minda gave a full report.

  “Once again, the Quotal Tree is in full blossom. I have been checking its progress for over a week now, and the buds have finally opened! Birds are already swarming the place, so we should eat at once, and then head over.”

  Cade was dying to ask what a Quotal tree was until Imenda rose on a stump, her arms held aloft. “Quiet! Quiet! Now as you know, there is little in this world so fair as Quotal honey. But we must choose a champion. Who amongst us will bait the buggbears? Are there any volunteers?”

  Grissen laughed and tucked his hands into his armpits. “No bloody way. Creepy bastards, they are.” Looking to Cade, he added, “I had to do it the last harvest anyhow, so I’m the lucky one here.”

  After a moment of muttering, a woman in the back cried out. “Draw straws then? I’ll fetch them.”

  Clapping her hands loudly, Imenda shook her head. The old woman had a devious look on her face, and when she glanced around the crowd, her eyes landed on Cade. “We have a new member, and though the task is… unpleasant, it isn’t deadly. I nominate Cade the Terran to act as champion! Does anyone second my motion?”

  A volley of hands filled the air followed by laughter. Cade shrugged, not knowing what he was in for, but understanding that a newbie had to pay their dues.

  Imenda grinned and added, “Cade, you should now have a quest notification. Antinium tends to notice such actions, and awards them with quests.”

  He brought up his UVS, and sure enough, found a new quest.

  Quest: Bait, for Honey

  Difficulty: Easy

  Reward: A share of the Quotal Honey and respect from the villagers

  Description: The legendary Quotal Tree has come into full bloom. If its honey can be collected within six hours, the food source may be enjoyed by all. You were selected to Bait the vicious buggbears. This entails entering their den and fighting off their warriors while the villagers harvest the honey. You must remain within the buggbear den for a total of 10 minutes. No buggbears may be killed or future crops of Quotal Honey discontinue. You have the option to choose one companion to assist you on this quest.

  When Cade finished reading the description, he looked up at the sky and laughed with abandon. His face pulled into a smile so broad it hurt.

  Not wanting to give the impression he’d lost his mind, Cade looked to Imenda and announced to everyone within earshot, “I choose Satemi to accompany me!”

  The warrior woman scowled, her eyes javelins that somehow only urged him into another fit of laughter.

  He was not the only one who did so.

  How fitting is that? he thought. Forces me to do a psycho mask-trial last night, and now I get to drag her into some shit hole den with me. Poetic justice!

  Only twenty minutes later, and half the village was standing a good distance from a remarkable tree. It was only twenty feet tall, and its few branches were bare of leaves, having already fallen when the plant flowered. It was a dumpy specimen, looking like an old woman whose bosom and beauty had fallen to bulge around her belly.

  Minda spoke at length of the process, and Cade learned she was an incredible nerd despite her ferocity. Somehow, I always fall for nerdy chicks, he mused as she continued her lecture.

  “The trunk of the tree is actually hollow. Tunnels are carved out by the buggbears and used to house their young. That is why it is so wide at the base. The more the creatures damage the tree, the more it expands to produce new healthy tissues to allow it to thrive. The best part though, Cade,” she said, her eyes brilliant sparks of enthusiasm. “Is how the two species have evolved to live together. The honey attracts prey for the buggbears, and the tree provides them with shelter. The buggbears provide fertilizer in the form of their droppings and, as you will soon find out, protection!”

  He watched her speak at a fast clip, taking in her lips and eyes as they moved through an endless series of expressions. It was hard to listen to what she was saying. Not that he didn’t at all care to find out everything there was to know of this tree, but because she was so cute he preferred simply to watch her.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Satemi said from behind him. “Oh, and thank you so much for bestowing this honor on me, Cade. I’ll be sure to remember it.” She stood shoulder to shoulder with him and observed their objective. He knew she wasn’t as upset as she made out. It was her decision to put him through hell, and in a way, she deserved this.

  A young man came up to Cade and handed him two lumps of soft clay. “For your ears,” he said simply, then winked.

  Satemi took two of the same and nodded, pushing a ball of moist clay in each ear.

  Not wanting to ignore useful advice, Cade did the same.

  Grissen, and two other villagers as nimble as he, stood ready for the harvest. Each had a pouch made of leather large enough to hold an ostrich egg.

  Three others, stockier in build, paired off with them. The method was simple. They would sprint at the tree, hoist up their scrawny counterparts, and get the harvesters close enough to the prize to scoop out the honey.

  The tree had three blooms that reminded Cade of the nectar-filled flowers insects fell into and died. Bright red with cobalt splotches, they looked like nothing more than exotically painted scrotums.

  The association did nothing to calm Cade’s nerves. Are we just a bunch of idiot bugs attracted to this thing like everything else? A cloud of insects and birds thrummed around their target, a bounty that seemed to feed a great many.

  As he watched, a bright yellow bird wobbled in the air and fell to the ground. Quick as a groundhog, something popped its head out of a hidden burrow long enough to snatch the creature away.

  “Oh shit! So was that it?” Cade asked, his voice louder than usual to compensate for his clogged ears.

  “Yes. The honey is so rich it can be intoxicating, especially for smaller creatures. The buggbears will feast as well,” Minda explained, pleased he had seen a firsthand display.

  Cade chewed h
is lip. “It didn’t seem so fierce. Not sure what all the fuss is about.”

  Satemi clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Terran. You’ll find out soon enough.”

  At last, someone counted down, and the harvest began.

  Cade and Satemi ran ahead, and as they approached the tree, he spotted the entrances to the den below. There were several holes, no larger than four feet high and the same wide, yawning up at the sky blackly.

  He chose one, Satemi another, and both plunged into the earth. Bear crawling was the word Cade would use to describe his movements, and the irony was not lost on him. He might have laughed but a stench like a troll’s unholy taint assaulted him.

  He struggled with his breathing and almost vomited then and there. Yet somehow, Cade kept crawling until he emerged into a subterranean chamber. Light spilled in from all sides. At least a dozen such entrances marked the room, but they were distant enough that it remained gloomy and hard to see.

  Satemi joined him a moment later, her eyes watering, face wincing like his own. The ground gleamed with a moist patina of shit. He didn’t have to be told it was shit. He just knew. And as he looked around the gloomy chamber, still having to crouch under a veritable chandelier of roots, he spotted his first buggbear.

  The thing is tiny! He almost said aloud. I can kick that little turd’s ass, no problem!

  Then as irony often dictates, the creature’s bigger brother showed up. Not much taller, but twice as thick, the buggbear looked like a scaled wolverine that had learned the trick of walking upright. It blinked at him a few times, sniffing the air. The screech that followed acted as a second violent assault on his senses.

  Cade ran forward and punched the beast in its stomach. It rebounded from his blow, rolling back until it thumped against the wall. For a second, it ceased its screaming. But when it stood up again, its panic-induced reee filled the air once more and was accompanied by a dozen others.

  Buggbears rained down from ceiling, the wavering roots dropping them like nightmare fruit.

  They surrounded him.

  Hands pressed to his ears, all he had time to do was exchange a look of terror with Satemi. The clay earplugs were helping, but the sheer volume made the screeching painful nonetheless.

  She was no better. All there was to do, apparently, was crush your hands to your skull and endure the stench and terrible noise. I can do this for nine more minutes. It is painful and really freaking weird, but I can do this, he told himself. Yet after another thirty seconds of the screaming, the chunky forms of the buggbears rocking side to side, he felt his teeth would explode.

  As quickly as the auditory attack began, the chamber fell into an eerie silence.

  “Ah!” Cade exclaimed, the sense of relief almost overwhelming. Then the beasts rushed them.

  Like many good-hearted but flawed adults, Cade had imagined boxing a group of children. Watching a bus of kids roll by, their chattering, screechy voices remarkable in both volume and stupidity, he had for sure thought of smacking tiny humans around.

  He wasn’t a psycho. Cade had never done it. Ever! But the thought… yeah. And in those twisted-ass daydreams, he’d imagined their tiny, ineffectual bodies falling as easy as weeds in the wind.

  But the buggbears were not children. Each weighed anywhere from sixty to seventy pounds. Only three feet tall, the beasts that rushed him tilted their heads, exposing flat and bony scalps. He dodged the first few, but eventually, the attacks landed.

  It felt like he was being struck by a sledge hammer.

  “Just don’t fall down, and you’ll be fine!” Satemi screamed, seeing him take a nasty hit on the side of his knee.

  “Well then what the fuck do we do?” he shouted back, shoving one of the buggbears away.

  She grinned. “Kick their tiny asses!” Satemi swung her fist and smashed the face of a nearby buggbear. It tumbled away, and two more took its place.

  Cade tried using his fists, but though Satemi was tall, his own height hampered him further in this cramped space. After a few failed attempts at punching the monsters fast enough, he found a rhythm of kicking them donkey style and shoving with his hands. Slowly rotating, surrounded though he was, he kept the buggbears from landing too many of their ridiculous headbutts.

  The endless brawl was bad enough, but occasionally, a few of their ranks would fall back, and scree attack. These were the worst part. His ears were numb and ringing, and his head throbbed after the initial auditory attack. Each subsequent round of abuse made things continually worse. The only way this could be worse is if the bastards sang Polka, he thought, remembering a movie he’d seen long ago that was as ridiculous as the situation he now struggled in.

  Time dripped past them like a river of smelly and painful honey. His head swam, and twice, he almost fell. Satemi snapped a hand out and caught his arm. They found a rhythm and ground out the minutes. And as he jabbed another diminutive beast in its blunt nose, hearing it scream in pain after, Cade knew this would most likely be an experience he would never be able to appreciate again in his life.

  Then a voice shouted down the tunnel, as lovely as an angel’s. “We’re done! Get out while ya still can!”

  “I love you, Grissen!” Cade growled, kicking another buggbear away to tumble into his fellows. “Let’s go Satemi!”

  The two darted toward the nearest exit. The light of day called to Cade, just a few feet away. But then the woman slipped and skidded across the dank soil. She cursed and tried to get up. And Cade saw one of the largest of the buggbears charging. Its stout body ran fast and sure-footed, its clawed feet propelling it easily. Cade only just managed to throw a desperate punch at the thing, his fist crashing into the fur and scales on the side of its head.

  He hauled Satemi back to her feet, and they ran again. Scrambling up the tunnel on all fours, the two burst above ground in a moment. The blinding light of day crashed over them as did the rampant cheers of the people awaiting their return. Panting with exhaustion, smeared with crap from head to toe, Cade grabbed Satemi’s hand and bowed. This induced more cheering from the villagers.

  Cade looked Satemi in the eye. Her white eyes flashed brightly, the normal bronze of her skin darkened further by excrement. She was messy and smelled horrible, but he found the woman as beautiful as she was brave. “We did it,” he said simply, grinning like a fool himself.

  “Yes, Cade. We did,” she replied. “And if you make me do it again, I’ll pluck out your eyes and leave you in the heart of the jungle alone and naked.”

  The moment ended as the beasts got their bearings and the entire colony of buggbears followed them. Now that they were in the open, they started screaming once more.

  Cade needed no further prompting. He flipped off the gang of cretins and sprinted side by side with Satemi, following the retreating mass of villagers.

  Thankfully, being severely territorial, the buggbears did not follow for long.

  After spending an hour bathing in a nearby spring, scrubbing every inch of his body with sand and a crude bar soap made of boiled fat and a citrus-like plant, Cade was ready to enjoy his reward. Washing himself back to back with a gorgeous woman, whose powerful frame made him think of a superhero, was less sexy than he imagined given the lingering stench of shit. Yet when he was finished, the two shared a look of mutual respect. There were few situations Cade could think up that would make for such a unique and enduring bond.

  Everyone had waited till the two champions were recovered from their task. The bruises on Cade’s body were already faded, but his ears continued to ring. It was a small price to pay for having come so far in the sight of the village. Cade looked around him, seeing the faces of the men and women who had learned to accept him in a single day. He knew this would be a life he could accept.

  The honey was sweeter than sunshine or a first kiss. It brought tears to his eyes, and then laughter to his lips. Everyone passed the pouches around, drawing up mouthfuls of the golden prize by dipping in a stick and twirling it around.
The day was one of celebration, and all labor was specifically forbidden by Imenda.

  That night, Minda approached him solemnly. He hoped for another invitation to her tent, but instead, he was invited on a mission the following day. “It is a hunt of great importance. I consider the hunt a sacred thing, and I have rules. Tonight, you must find a tent of your own. We have spares, or you may entice another to share their furs with you. I will see you in the morning.”

  Cade coughed in embarrassment. He wasn’t there to sling D at every woman who’d have him. He wanted to learn to survive in this world, and eventually, to thrive. When he’d finished assembling the tent Imenda lent him, Cade lay down in borrowed furs. His body thrummed with exhaustion, and yet he closed his eyes smiling.

  He remembered the brilliant taste of honey and the things it brought to mind. He thought of sunsets and clean sheets fresh from the dryer. He thought of rain in mid-summer. He thought of Ketzal, so far away, unable to share any of the joy she deserved.

  14

  First Date to the Grasslands

  “We will need a great many more skins if we are to remove ourselves from this place. Minda scouted a suitable location for our new settlement, but if you wish to be a part of it, Cade, it would be more than helpful if you brought us the building materials we need.”

  “Listen to what she says, Cade. If you’d like a tent of your own, make sure to bring plenty of hides back. Then you can make all of the fancy noises you want,” Satemi said wryly as Imenda finished her speech.

  He laughed, any tension between them having been scrubbed away with sensory shock and buggbear feces. “You know, if you stop by some night, I can show you how I manage such a variety of expressive sounds.”