by Logan Jacobs
The invaders were both maybe five foot eight, so not tall, but they had the girth to make up for the height. They weren’t fat, but they weren’t exactly layered in bulging muscles either. They looked more like mall cops than raiders, but the fuckers even had the nerve to laugh at their own antics while holding onto one of the women by the hair and forcing her to watch the blaze. The rage and contempt built up inside me, and my vision narrowed into a tunnel focused on the larger of the two men.
But then I realized they weren’t human men at all.
They were some kind of monster.
They had a gray-green sickly colored flesh and wore nothing but breeches on their bodies. Both of them had a pronounced hump on their backs that reminded of a dorsal fin on a shark. Their huge, sharp teeth glinted in the firelight and darkness, and their beady eyes held no emotion. The raiders carried weapons that were a cross between an axe and a mace, and they reminded me of the weapons the Uruk-hai carried in The Lord of the Rings. Come to think of it, these guys were about as pretty as the super Orcs were.
I wanted to slap myself to make sure I was really awake, but I didn’t have the time right now.
I tapped Mira on the shoulder, and she turned to look at me.
“I’ll go around the edge of the shadows and get behind the one on the far side, then I will give you the signal to attack when I am ready,” I whispered as I motioned with my hands.
She nodded her head in agreement and positioned herself to strike as soon as I gave word. She hunched down into a crouch that reminded me of a large cat ready to spring on its prey and stayed there silently watching.
I quietly made my way over to the fucker on the far side of the fire, and I made sure to stay in the shadows. I’d intentionally chosen him as my foe because he still had a death grip on one of the women from the village. I hadn’t been able to see the woman’s face from my previous position, but as I crept closer to the beast, I could see he’d imprisoned Sela, the woman who found me on the beach and brought me to this village I now call home.
That just pissed me off even more.
The look on her face was anything but scared, though. Her lips were twisted in a furious scowl, and she bared her teeth at her assailants. There were small cuts on her cheek and forearms, and her clothes were torn in places, but she still struggled to break the grip this son of a bitch had on her and refused to give up.
“You might as well stop fighting, bitch!” the beast laughed mockingly. “Let me show you the only thing you are good for!”
He’d dropped his weapon on the ground and was working to undo his breeches with one hand while holding onto Sela with the other. She was kicking and wiggling against him as hard as she could, but the monster-man probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds, so her struggles weren’t doing much.
“I’m going to feed you this cock, and you are going to swallow all of it until I decide it’s time to fuck all your other holes,” he growled. “Then Brahg is going to come over here and have his turn. If there is anything left of you, we will pass you around until you’re all used up and then throw you overboard.”
“Anything you put in my mouth, you will lose!” Sela spat at the man.
She was rewarded for her cheeky retort with a backhand across the side of her face.
The rage inside me bubbled, and I had to force myself not to jump on this disgrace of fucking life right then and there. It would ruin our surprise attack, and we needed that element on our side.
“Fine, you bitch!” he snarled. “I’ll start on your asshole first, and then you’ll beg me to use your mouth instead!”
Suddenly, Sela locked eyes with me, and I minutely shook my head at her from where I stood in the shadows. She immediately stilled her fight against the monster and calmed herself. She was a warrior and smart enough to keep this asshole’s back to me so I could sneak up on him.
“I knew that would take the steam out of you, you worthless female,” laughed the soon to be dead man. “Now, be a good girl and open your mouth up wide.”
I made it to the spot I’d picked out for my attack while this asshole spewed his monologue. Then I slowly moved into the light and gave Mira the signal to attack.
It was time to murder this piece of shit.
I sort of duck walked behind the man-beast as quietly as I could. Sela never even glanced at me and just continued to struggle against the man’s efforts. He was trying to hold her and rip off her dress while grappling with his own belt.
“Hold still, bitch,” he grunted, but when she spat him, he only laughed in a creepy high pitched manner.
He was still laughing when I reached him, and before he could even figure out what was happening, I laid my spear silently in the grass nearby and approached with the sword upside down in my hand.
Then I raised the sword above my head and brought the point of it down onto the back of his neck with every bit of strength I had. I pushed all the way down as far as I could and severed his spinal cord and anything else that got in the way. I pulled my weapon out as quickly as I had sunk it in the fucker and was greeted with a gush of blood to my face.
I wiped the hot blood from my eyes and looked over to see if Mira needed my help. She’d delivered a few solid blows to the monster she was fighting, but he was unfortunately still alive.
So, I ran up behind him and drove my sword right into his lower back and felt bones crack from the force.
Mira took this moment to slit his throat from ear to ear, and we both watched as he fell to the ground dead.
A noise drew my attention, and I turned to see Sela getting to her feet, and in a surprising move from the standoffish woman, she rushed over and hugged me tight, but only for a brief moment. Then she stepped away from me as fast as she had rushed into my arms.
“Are you okay?” I asked her. “Are there any more invaders?
“Yes, I am okay, and there are only three others,” she informed us. “It was a small scouting party meant to weaken our defenses before the large group shows up. They have done this once before.”
“Do you know where they went?” I asked.
“They headed toward the palace,” she replied. “I must thank you. My foot got stuck in a ground burrow, and he was able to get his hands on me. I would have died before I let his foul manhood touch any part of me.”
“I wasn’t about to let that happen,” I assured her.
Then I picked up my spear and handed it to Sela as an unspoken offer to have her join us.
An evil and terrifying grin spread across her beautiful face before she took the spear from my hand with pride, and I knew she was ready for some revenge. I grabbed up the blunt weapon that belonged to the dead man at my feet and headed off in search of the rest of these bastards, and the two warrior women followed in my wake.
We carefully stalked toward the palace and kept our eyes out for any sign of the raiders. As we made our way closer, we were intercepted by one of the twin guards.
“Thank the goddess I found you!” she breathed heavily. “They have Darya and Talise as hostages and are trying to use them to gain entrance to the palace. Our queen is strong, but is waning under their demands. They may have already killed Isla!”
“Fuck!” I yelled. “We need to get there quickly so the queen doesn’t surrender, but I need more time to take these bastards by surprise.”
“I can sneak back in the same way I got out here,” Zarya offered. “There is a hidden back entrance into the palace. They won’t see me.”
“That’s perfect!” I exclaimed. “Tell her to buy time, but not to give in and that we are on our way.”
With a quick nod of her head, Zarya hurried back to the shadows and toward the back of the palace. She was gone in the blink of an eye, and I turned back to the other warriors at my side.
“Let’s go kick some ass, ladies,” I ordered, and we began to run toward the palace.
By sticking to the shadows, we were able to get about twenty yards from the men holding the women hostag
e in the courtyard of the palace.
I only saw two of the three men left, and I wondered if the last ugly asshole had gotten murdered or was trying to roam around the back of the palace. The one ugly monster closest to me had blood gushing down from his face and restrained a thrashing Darya in a full nelson type hold, so I assumed she was the one who had broken his nose.
The second remaining beast was holding Talise. He held the healer by the hair with one hand with her back flush against him, and he was alternating groping her breasts with the other. He was licking her neck and trying to force his tongue in her mouth.
Talise wasn’t moving or making a noise while the man molested her, and the dark spot under her swollen right eye made me think her attacker had punched her a few times before he’d pulled her to the palace entrance. The beautiful healer just stared at the prone form of Isla a few yards away, and I knew all she wanted to do was to check on her friend and make sure she was okay.
“Goddamnit!” I said under my breath as I gritted my teeth. I had to do something fast. Fuck this asshole who was assaulting the most caring woman to ever live.
I may have been new to this world of monsters, but I was going to kick this guy’s fucking ass.
I looked at Mira and could see her shaking from fury, since Talise was her closest friend and practically a sister. I caught her attention and tried to mimic what I wanted her to do. I received a curt bow to let me know she knew what I wanted. I did the same with Sela, and she responded in kind.
It was time to obliterate these pieces of shit.
Mira and I exchanged places, so I was behind the goon holding Talise. Sela was positioned to attack the other one who was holding Darya, and Mira was holding a spear in each hand as she stood closer to Sela.
“Come on, pretty little queen,” mocked the raider holding Talise, and he grabbed her chin and tried to pry open her mouth, “I am going to become bored with my toy very soon. I will hate to have to use it all up, throw it away like the trash it is, and then find a new one. But, if you don’t open up those gates like a good little girl, that’s exactly what I will do.”
At those words, Mira took off at a sprint, with Sela close behind her, and me hot on their heels.
Mira got a ways ahead of me, because she, like all the other warrior women, ran like they were trying to put Usain Bolt to shame. Just before reaching the raiders, Mira jumped into a graceful leap and buried both spears in the back of the beast holding Darya. He screamed, dropped the twin, and reached around to try to pull the spears from his back. Then he fell onto his knees and sent Mira flying over the top of him. She landed and jumped right back up to put herself between the man and the palace.
“Come on!” Mira snarled and bared her teeth at her opponent.
The raider on his knees growled, reached over his shoulder, and yanked one of the spears from his shoulder.
The beast holding Talise gaped at the sight of his bleeding comrade, but he didn’t have time to react before the healer elbowed him straight in the gut and slipped from his grasp.
Now, he was mine.
With my running start, I had enough momentum behind me that, when I swung my blade toward the bastard’s neck, I successfully removed his head from his shoulders. Blood and gore spewed from the headless corpse, and then the body collapsed at my feet with a thud.
My opponent was dead, so I looked over at the warrior women and saw they were having trouble with the last remaining raider. Mira held a short stone sword, but she stood behind Sela hugging the right side of her ribs. One of her spears was still sticking out of the raider’s back, but he wielded the other one with a ferocious intensity.
Sela was parrying his blows with her own spear, but the force behind his attacks had her stumbling back a step. The hafts of their weapons met again with a deafening clap, and I saw Sela’s arms shake.
I was standing thirty feet away, so I threw my spear from where I was and hit the raider in the space between his ribs and his hip bone. This caused him to falter, and I watched as Sela shoved her speartip through the beast’s left eye socket. Then she jumped back and let the man fall. In an amusingly macabre manner, the lifeless head was elevated about a foot from the ground and balanced on the point of the spear. I took a lot of satisfaction in his death as I watched gravity take over, and his head slowly slid down the length of the spear until his face touched the ground.
Movement to the right drew my eye, and I looked over to see Talise kneeling over Isla. The healer did a thorough exam on the woman and frantically motioned for a stretcher to be brought out. Isla was still alive. I hoped like hell Talise could fix her.
Next, I searched for Mira and met her eyes.
She smiled at me and started to close the distance, but suddenly, the grin and color drained from her face.
“Behind you!” she screamed.
I turned just fast enough to get my head out of the way but still slow enough to take the brunt of the last raider’s weapon against my left shoulder. I felt my own hot blood spew out in a gush and heard this horrible beast laugh.
I didn’t feel much pain from my shoulder and that concerned me, but I had no time to think about it. I fell to my right knee where I scooped up an abandoned spear with my right hand that went unnoticed by this cocky bastard.
He thought he had the best of me, and as he walked back and forth, he pontificated his next attack in a classic asshole move.
“You killed my brothers and now, now you are going to pay,” the egomaniac shouted. “I am going to rip you apart and make these whores cook you for my next meal. Then I am going to fuck and murder every single one of them. I might even slit their throats while I am still ins--”
I plunged the spear right into his windpipe and straight up through his brain, all while he was too busy celebrating a victory that wasn’t his. I watched him fall into a heap on the ground and was satisfied they were all dead.
I wanted to stand up and find Mira and Talise. That was what my intentions were. Instead, I fell to the ground myself.
Suddenly, Mira was there and saying something to me I couldn’t quite hear over the pounding in my head. I tried to tell her to speak up, but nothing would come out of my mouth. I tried to sit up to get closer to her, but my body wouldn’t cooperate.
“Ben!” the beautiful warrior yelled. “You stay with me, do you hear me, Ben?”
I didn’t know why she was screaming. I could hear her fine now. I once again tried to speak to tell her I’d decided not to leave, that this was where I wanted to be. This was home now if they would have me. I was going to stay, so she didn’t have to ask me.
Nothing came out of my mouth but something bubbly and wet, though, and I couldn’t seem to find a way to make my words form. I also tasted blood, but didn’t know if it was mine or from the beast I had just killed.
Oh shit, that couldn’t be good.
“Talise, hurry!” the warrior woman shouted.
I wanted to comfort Mira, assure her I was fine, but then blackness descended over my vision and took me far, far away.
Chapter Six
“His heart and lungs both sound good and strong,” I heard a soft female voice say, “I think he just has to recover from the blood loss.”
“He has been mostly unconscious for four moon rises, barely waking to eat, and definitely not coherent,” replied the sexiest voice I’d ever heard. “I am just worried.”
“Apparently, I’m pretty tough to kill,” I said in a rough, dry voice, but my jaw ached when I moved it.
Then I opened my eyes to see Talise and Queen Nerissa rush over to my bedside with surprised looks on both of their faces.
“Thank the gods and goddesses, you’re awake!” the queen gasped. “You had us all worried.”
She sat on the edge of my bed, put her hand on my face to caress my cheek, and ran her fingers through my hair. It was the first time she’d ever touched me, and I could have died a happy man right then and there. Her hands were like a cool bath on a hot summer day, an
d they were soft and comforted me tremendously.
“Definitely not my intentions, Your Majesty,” I said as I tried to talk past the tenderness in my jaw. “I would much rather be doing so many other things.”
At that moment, Talise came over to do an examination of me. She felt my forehead, held candle light near each eye, trailed her fingers along my throat and chest, and palpated my stomach. She looked so serious doing it all, and I had to chuckle.
The healer gave me an admonishing look, but I could tell she was fighting a smile of her own. “What is so funny, Ben?”
“I have never seen you being so serious,” I replied, “that’s all.”
“You did give us a fright,” she whispered. “You got quite a nasty wound there.”
“What exactly happened?” I asked as I tried to frown but winced from the pain. “All I remember is the last monster coming at me and me jamming a spear in his head. I know he managed to hit me, but I’ve been out for four days?”
Talise came closer and pulled back the blanket covering my body. My left arm, right below the shoulder joint, was covered in thick bandages, and she slowly peeled them back to reveal a gnarly gash that had been sewn up and covered in a thick green paste. The injury wrapped around my deltoid muscle like a crescent moon and was a few inches deep.
I tried to move my shoulder a bit to see how it felt. Surprisingly, there wasn’t a sharp pain, more of a dull and throbbing ache like when old injuries acted up. I was amazed at how much I’d already healed in only four days. These women had some kind of magic medicine.
“This doesn’t feel as bad as I thought it would,” I told Talise, “just a little stiff and sore. What did you do?”
“It was a very deep cut all the way to the bone,” she replied gravely. “I cleaned it out very well, sewed it up, and applied a poultice I’d been working on to help speed up the healing. It seems to be working well on you. You also took a backhand to the jaw when the imbecile missed, but that doesn’t seem to be affecting you too much.”