Monster Empire

by Michael-Scott Earle

  With my outhouse complete and the day slowly waning, I focused on setting up some trip wires that would alert us to anyone or anything approaching our little homestead. I didn’t have enough rope in my pack to cover my needs, but the vines that Nika had been working with were thin and strong, and she had gathered enough of it for me to use. All I needed was something loud enough to act as an alarm. What I really wanted were some jingle bells or an air horn, but I had to settle for something more primitive.

  I went down to the river, found two nice big round stones, and hauled them back up to our site. Next, I fashioned two deadfall traps out of my straight branches, and I positioned the traps just a few feet from our site where the hill began. It took some doing, but I finally got them right, and carefully rested the round stones up against the thin slabs held up by the trap. I then laid out my extra tarp on the hill just below the balanced stones. If all went according to plan, when something tripped the line, the deadfall traps would spring, and the round stones would roll over the tarp and make a thunderous racket which would alert me to the presence of any trespassers nearby.

  I ran the vine cordage down the side of the hill, across the face, and back up the other side. Then I carefully tied off the line to the sticks holding the deadfalls. It took a few tries to get it balanced correctly, but it was soon set up just as I wanted.

  Next, I went down to the river and used the cordage to fashion two similar trip lines, one about fifty yards upriver, and the other fifty yards downriver. But these trip lines I rigged to hold up heavy logs balanced on the shore of the water. If the trip lines did their job, then when they were activated the logs would be released and drop into the river. I was a light sleeper and certain that I would be able to hear the disturbance.

  When our work was done, we swam in the river as the second sun chased its twin over the western horizon, and we made love by the fire. A calm contentment settled over me that night as we lay on our new bed. Maybe it was having a place to call home. Maybe it was having a woman who loved me under my arm.

  Whatever this feeling was, I never wanted it to go away, and a dreamless sleep soon pulled me down into Nika’s warm embrace.

  But my sleep didn’t last long, and I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of a log crashing into the river.

  There was someone near our camp.

  Chapter 6

  The sound of the log alarms had been faint, but I was sure I’d heard it, so I sprang from bed and doused the small fire with water. As it died with a hiss, I moved to the doorway of the structure and military crawled to the edge of the hill. Nika woke up and slowly crept to my side, and I placed a finger to my lips to indicate for her to be quiet. She understood the gesture, and we watched and listened.

  Faint voices rode up the hillside. They were human voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The red moon illuminated the thick clouds above with a crimson hue, but left the rest of the world in darkness. I let my eyes adjust for a few minutes as we listened, and soon I could make out the outlines of trees and a few other landmarks.

  “I don’t think they saw our fire,” I whispered. “But it sounds like they’ve stopped for the night. Probably by the river. I’m going to go down and investigate. You should--”

  “I’m coming too,” she whispered, and the look on her face told me not to argue with her.

  “Alright, hold on,” I told her before I crawled back to camp to grab my utility belt and gun. When I returned to her side, she grinned from ear to ear and brandished my pocket knife.

  “We’re not killing anyone if we don’t have to, understand?” I told her.

  She frowned, then nodded. “Alright, Ken Jewell. In the underdark, killing people and taking their stuff is the best way to get loot, but you are my husband, so I’ll do as you ask.”

  We quietly moved down the hill, careful to avoid my trip line. I heard three distinct voices below and to the left about three hundred yards away as I led Nika to the riverbank. A copse of trees sat at the bottom of the hill on that side, and we moved through them like thieves in the night.

  I was surprised at how stealthy Nika was, and I had to glance back once in a while to make sure that she was still behind me. Her soft footfalls reminded me of Legolas from The Lord of the Rings, and while I had been trained for such silent stalking, I might as well have been a lead-footed Gimli next to her.

  The glow of a campfire suddenly lit the trees about fifty yards in front of us, and I heard voices celebrating. There were three men by the sound of it, though I kept my ears peeled, and my eyes alert for any sign of a sentry.

  I halted Nika, pressed my finger to my lips again, pointed at myself and her, and then made a hand gesture to indicate that we go slowly. She nodded and got down on all fours. Nika wore my extra pair of underwear and my t-shirt tied tight beneath her ribcage in a way that revealed her midriff in a tantalizing way. She looked more like a model than a spy, but I was able to pay attention to the task at hand.

  We crept on hands and knees in the spaces beneath the thick pine boughs and used game trails to maneuver the underbrush. Tall oaks lent us their secret passageways, and soon we were positioned twenty yards from the trespassers.

  I spied the group between two branches. Three men sat around the small campfire, and two of them carried on like a bunch of chatty Cathys. They had no horses with them, just big bulging backpacks, and to my dismay, a lot of weapons. Each man had a bow and quiver full of arrows resting against their packs. There were also metal traps and a half-dozen thin spears. It was clear to me that these men weren’t soldiers or warriors of any sort. They were hunters, and their most recent kill hung from a tree behind them. It was a six-point buck.

  I glanced over at Nika, but her eyes were locked on the dead deer. When she finally glanced at me with hope-filled eyes, I shook my head. She mouthed please, and again I shook my head.

  “Alfred, you want a smoke?” one of the men asked.

  The man beside him, presumably Alfred, nodded and reached out for the offered tobacco bag. “Thank you kindly, Ned.”

  Ned looked to be the oldest of the three. He had that toothless look that reminded me of a bat-shit crazy moonshiner, and the racoon hat and furs he wore pegged him as the real hunter of the group.

  Alfred, on the other hand, looked to be about forty and from high society. He wore a fine brown suit with lacy frills that put Torrance’s Sunday best to shame. Twin mustache tips twirled up on the sides of his proud nose, and his boots reflected the campfire light, suggesting polished leather.

  The third traveler was an older boy, and neither of his companions asked him if he wanted to smoke. He sat staring at the fire with a far-away look in his bright young eyes. His baby face told me he was about seventeen, but he was much taller than the other two men, though he hunched beneath some burden of shame, or so it seemed. His clothes resembled Alfred’s, as did his nose, and I guessed they were father and son.

  “Hey, Johan,” Ned said as he puffed on his pipe. “Go on and shave off a piece of tenderloin like I showed ye and put it on the hot stone.”

  Johan reluctantly obeyed and dragged his feet over to the hung carcass while his father Alfred looked on with pride.

  “Yer boy did good today,” Ned noted. “Took down that buck with one shot.” A thin whistle escaped the toothless man’s wrinkled lips, and he tipped back a bottle.

  Alfred glanced at Ned happily and twirled a mustache with one hand and nodded. “His mother didn’t want him to come. Said he was too tender a heart to take a life, but I know there’s a lion in him somewhere.”

  “Sure there is. Say, sorry about making ye two come all this way in the dark. But I wanted to get as close to Buckshire as possible. The forests around the village are teeming with game, and I wanted to be ready when the first sun rose.”

  “Quite understandable, old chap,” Alfred replied.

  Johan returned with the long tenderloin, and Ned took it from him and slapped it down on a smooth stone he had been
heating in the fire. The meat sizzled, and the aroma of venison soon found us.

  I glanced over at Nika, and her wide eyes regarded me pleadingly.

  Oh shit, mamma looked hungry.

  “What is that?” she asked and licked her lips.

  “It’s venison. Deer meat. But we can’t take any. We absolutely must not be seen,” I hissed.

  “Oh, but Ken Jewell, the baby is so hungry,” she whispered.

  “I’ll get you a deer, alright? I promise. Just stay calm.”

  She turned back to spy on the travelers, and I made sure to keep her in my peripheral. The sizzling meat didn’t help matters, and I found my own stomach growling hungrily. I wondered what else they had to eat in their bags, and I imagined sacks of potatoes, carrots, apples, jerky, cheese, and bread.

  God, how I missed bread.

  An angel and a devil might as well have been sitting on my shoulders. One side kept showing me images of food, and the money that was sure to be in the men’s coin purses. I had some coins from the kobolds, but if we robbed these three, I would be able to buy more tools.

  But the other side of me pleaded caution. We couldn’t rob these men and let them live, and I hadn’t sunk so low that I was going to kill another man for his property, let alone three.

  “Say, Ned,” Alfred asked. “What can you tell us about this wanted man that everyone is talking about? Didn’t that happen close to here?”

  I froze.

  Ned puffed on his pipe and grinned at the men. “Oh, I can tell you a thing or two about the foreigner,” he said with a suspenseful tone to let the tension build. At length, he continued. “He goes by the name of Ken. Some say he’s got a hunchback, but others say it’s just a big pack, but everyone agrees that he wears strange, dirt-colored clothes, and he’s got a power that no one likes to even mention.”

  “What power does he have that could be so bad?” Alfred asked.

  Ned leaned in, eyeing them both with a mystified look. “They say that he can bring monsters up from the underdark--”

  “To the surface world?” Alfred said with alarm.

  “Into the sun,” Ned elaborated.

  Nika glanced at me with realization, and I gulped.

  “Yep!” Ned declared, and his sudden outburst startled both of the others and me at the same time. “That’s what they say. And last he was seen he was headed toward these hills.”

  Alfred gave a nervous laugh and twirled his mustache so fast I thought it might catch on fire. “Now then, Ned. Enough of your campfire stories. You are going to scare the boy.”

  “You just asked me,” Ned said as he shook his head.

  “I’d rather kill a monster lover than a poor innocent deer,” Johan boasted, and his voice was a reflection of his father’s.

  “Hear, hear,” Ned said. He tossed back another drink and offered the flask to the young man. “Go on then. Today was your first kill, you’re nearly a man!”

  Johan glanced at his father, but Alfred was scanning the dark trees with a look of fear. The young man hurriedly took the bottle, gulped down the concoction, choked, and then spewed half the contents into the fire. The flames surged when the alcohol sprayed, and Alfred gave a yip and fell back off the pack he was sitting on.

  Ned howled with laughter, and I turned to share my grin with Nika, but she was gone.

  I glanced behind me and scoured the forest. I looked left and right and searched the trees, but I saw nothing. It wasn’t until I glanced back at the group that I noticed her crawling across the ground behind them toward the hanging deer.

  I pulled my M17 out of its holster quietly.

  Nika was hard to see even when I knew where to look. She had discarded my t-shirt and underwear and crept through the underbrush naked, as slow as a stalking lion. Her skin appeared much darker than I remembered it being, even in the moonless night, and her claim about being good at hiding played in my mind. I was terrified that she was going to be detected, but a part of me was also proud as fucking hell of her capabilities.

  Ned spoke my name again, and I turned my attention back to the conversation, my M17 ready to drop the first one who saw her.

  “The story goes that they ran him out of Hamstead, and he sprouted bat wings and flew off into the dark woods. Other people say that the knights of Hamstead chased him down the road and into some hole leading to the underdark. Still others claim that he ain’t even real, and it’s just the governor trying to create reasons to raise the taxes. But whatever the case, if I come across him, why, I’ll drop him like Johan there dropped that buck.”

  He turned around, and I grimaced, but Nika must have sensed it, and she froze. The tense moment passed when Ned turned back to the fire and spit in it, and I took my finger away from the trigger. Then I saw Nika emerge from the underbrush and crawl on all fours toward the deer with my pocket knife in her mouth. She was exposed now, and no matter how good she was at hiding, or how her skin tone changed, if any of the men glanced back they would see her there less than ten feet away.

  I tensed and watched with growing anxiety as she sawed at the carcass. Her movements caused it to wiggle ever so slightly, but Ned was in full force it seemed, and he continued with his rant and kept the men’s attention.

  “They say the monster lover has two powers, not just the one I told ye about,” he said.

  “No!” Alfred exclaimed wide-eyed.

  “What’s the other one?” Johan said with a slight slur followed by a hiccup.

  Ned shrugged. “Beats me. The seer didn’t have time to read his stars that far before she died of shock.”

  I blinked. Had I really killed the old witch? She had still been breathing when I had set her down on the floor. I hoped that it wasn’t true, not only because I didn’t wish her dead, but more importantly, because I didn’t wish myself wanted for murder. But given the rumors that had begun to spread about me, I guessed that I might as well be.

  If I was found, I was sure to be killed, dead Granhelga or not.

  “He killed the seer? Say it isn’t so. You are pulling our legs,” Alfred said.

  “Wish I was,” Ned replied and then drank again from his flask. He offered it to Alfred, and the dignified man tossed back a shot like an old pro, though he coughed afterward.

  Behind them, Nika slunk back into the shadows, and I let out a sigh of relief. The conversation turned to monsters, and Ned recounted the recent raids that had happened in the nearby towns and villages. His colorful stories gave me a rough idea of the surrounding communities, and I learned that there was another village like Hamstead a good five miles to our south.

  A few minutes later, Nika returned to my side with three big hunks of meat wrapped in my extra t-shirt, and a tongue and heart balled up in my shorts.

  “That was a very dangerous thing to do,” I hissed.

  “I know,” she said with a grin as she eyed my crotch. “Danger makes me so horny.”

  I stifled a laugh and tried to shoot her a glare, but she was just too irresistible crouched there naked beside me with that triumphant look on her face, so I kissed her instead.

  “No more sneaking off, you understand?” I told her, but she only smiled and shook her head.

  “You worry too much, Ken Jewell. Goblins are really good at sneaking.”

  I turned my attention back to the men. They would notice the missing meat sooner or later, so we had to get away.

  “Listen,” I said, and glanced back at Nika, but again, she was gone.

  I cursed under my breath and scoured the campsite, wondering what in God’s name she was up to now. Then I saw her crouched behind the men as Ned told an animated tale about battling a giant arachnid.

  “Then I pulled back my bow and took aim at the giant spider,” Ned said.

  Nika moved closer to the men.

  “And I’ll be damned if that crazed arachnid didn’t spray its foul web my way,” he went on.

  Nika was right behind Ned now, and I watched with terror and amazement as the disca
rded bottle that he had laid at his side disappeared.

  “What did you do then, Ned?” Johan asked, completely enthralled, and totally oblivious as Nika plucked contents out of the pack he sat on.

  “Why, I jumped out of the way, son!”

  Alfred laughed and puffed on his pipe, quite enjoying the story, and blind to the green hand that lifted his coin purse from his belt loop.

  “Then I popped up from behind my shelter and let loose a single arrow,” boasted Ned as Nika disappeared into the shadows once more.

  “Did it hit the spider?” Johan urged.

  “Did you save the village?” his father begged to know.

  “My arrow flew true that day, my friends, and took the beast right in the middle of its hundred eyes,” Ned reported proudly.

  The father and son leapt to their feet and cheered, and that’s when Ned reached for his flask and found it missing.

  It was time to get the hell out of there.

  “Who’d I give the flask to last?” Ned asked with confusion.

  Nika returned with a wide grin on her face and an armload of loot. I pointed at her, myself, and the trees leading back up the hill. She nodded, and we high-tailed it out of there. Behind us, an argument broke out about who had stolen Ned’s liquor, and I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself. I had been on my share of dates in the past, but this one took the cake.

  Nika was amazing.

  I led the green-skinned woman back to the riverbank just below our site, and we crept back up to the shelter. I could see the glow of the men’s fire perhaps six hundred yards away, and I could barely make out their continued arguing, but we were safe for the time being.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” I said as I turned and faced Nika.

  She put her loot on the table and grabbed the shirt full of dripping meat and the shorts with the heart and tongue in it. “Did I do good?” she asked with cherubic innocence.

  My heart melted, and I chuckled at my emerald bride. “Nika, if you had been caught, you might have gotten hurt, and I might have been forced to kill those men.”