Monster Empire

by Michael-Scott Earle

I glanced back at the beat-up cart and noticed that the collision had knocked off the front wheels.

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said. “You two bring the loot back over to the cart.”

  I ran back to the cart and checked the back wheels. The axle was still intact, and the wheels still spun, so I knew that with a little ingenuity and a little elbow grease, I could turn it into a wheelbarrow. I located the breaking bar and used the dwarven wrench to take the one remaining wheel off the dislocated axle. The axle was a little bent, but it wouldn’t be an issue. What was going to be tricky was attaching the two bars to the cart.

  The front of the cart was now the back, and there was a hole right where a handle would go on the back-right side. I put the breaking lever through the hole and tied it down with a length of rope. When I lifted the cart, all the pressure would be on the entry hole and the bottom of the makeshift wheelbarrow. The rope was only needed to keep it from moving from side to side. Happy with my right handle, I went to work similarly attaching the axle to the left side.

  By the time I was done, Calli and Sawsaw had piled up all the loot near where I was working. We hurriedly loaded the wheelbarrow, and I tested the weight of the load. It was heavy as all hell, but I thought that I could manage it as long as Calli sang.

  A shitload of treasure was a good motivator too.

  “You want a drink before we head out?” I asked Calli as I offered her my water tube.

  “Uhh, yeah,” she snapped her eyes up to meet my gaze, and I realized that I had caught her checking me out.

  “Here,” I said as I wiggled the end of my camelback again.

  “Thank you,” she said as she took it, then she tossed back her long blonde hair to drink.

  The movement made my denim clad monster twitch, so I glanced away and saw Sawsaw trying to sneak off with Calli’s trident.

  “Hey, give that back to her,” I said.

  He froze and turned to me with a pouty face.

  “Now,” I reiterated.

  “Die, die, die!” he yelled and pretended to fight off his imaginary enemies.

  “I’ll get you a die, die, die later when we get home,” I promised.

  Sawsaw smiled happily and returned the trident to Calli, who seemed to love the little dude’s antics.

  “You are as cute as an underdark dolphin, aren’t you?” she asked with a twinkle in her aquamarine eyes.

  He grinned at her and batted his brown eyes.

  “You make cute babies, Ken,” she said as she turned to look at me, and I felt my cheeks flush a bit.

  “Uh thanks,” I said. “Let’s get going, or I’m not going to be making anymore.” I hefted my load and started wheeling it into the tunnel to the right. “Sawsaw, you run ahead and make sure the way is clear. Calli, you mind clearing my path of stones and other obstacles while you sing?”

  “Not at all,” she said as she passed and touched my shoulder. “I can do anything you ask.”

  I almost dropped my load as I watched her walk ahead like a runway model. Her toned ass peeked out from beneath my t-shirt, and her curvaceous hips swayed as she walked. I might have drooled, but the cart was super heavy, even with her singing, and I realized that we still might not have enough time to get out into the sun before the goblins caught up with us.

  We were going to need to hurry.

  It was a real bitch hauling that cart through the underdark, but I got by on images of all the supplies and food that the treasure would buy. If I could get the loot back to the house, I might be the richest man on the surface world. I would build a stone fortress there on the ridge and defenses that would decimate our attackers.

  Calli and Sawsaw helped to get the cart over ledges and through the rougher terrain, but by the time we reached the room with the natural spring where Nika and I had first made love, we were all covered in sweat and panting so much that Calli had to stop singing. I figured we needed a break, so I put down the cart beside the pool and told everyone to catch their breath. While they recovered, I moved back to the tunnel that led us there and listened as my heart rate came down. I didn’t hear anything, but right before I was about to return, the sound of angry goblins drifted toward me.

  “Shit!” I hissed under my breath and rushed back into the room. “The goblins are coming. Let’s stash some treasure in the pool. Take with you only what you can carry.”

  “Oh, no,” Calli said. “We can’t take it all?”

  “It will slow us down too much. Those goblins are maybe one, two minutes behind us. Don’t worry, we’ll come back for it,” I assured her.

  “No,” Calli growled. “I will give you the strength. This is my strongest song, and I can only sing it once every year.”

  Before I could argue she began to sing, and her voice reached glorious new heights. It reverberated in the small room and filled my mind and body with overwhelming fortitude. I felt invincible as I stood bathed in her magical chorus, and when I lifted the wheelbarrow, it felt as if it weighed almost nothing whatsoever.

  “Calli, you’re amazing!” I yelled, and then we raced through the room and into the next tunnel with all the loot intact.

  When we finally reached the tunnel that would lead us out, I warned Calli of the trip wires and showed her how to get around them. Sawsaw erupted into the sunlight at the end of the tunnel and happily urged Calli on.

  “Are you sure that I can follow?” she asked nervously as she stood at the threshold.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “My power is to bring mons--I mean people like you out of the underdark. It worked for Nika, and you can see that the sun doesn't affect Sawsaw. I don’t really know exactly what ‘bonding’ means, but I know it’s worked before.”

  She glanced at my son, who stood in the sunshine with a happy grin on his little green face. I could still see her hesitation, so I placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “Put your hand out into the sunlight to test it,” I suggested, and then I glanced back over my shoulder at the sound of the approaching goblin horde.

  “Ok,” she said sheepishly as she grabbed ahold of my hand for support. Calli slowly moved her other hand toward the slanted beam of sunlight that shone into the cave.

  “Go on, you can do it,” I told her.

  She trembled beside me and finally thrust her hand out into the light. Her milky-white skin seemed to glow in the sunlight, and Calli took in a startled breath.

  “See,” I said, “It works--”

  “Ouch!” she cried and pulled her suddenly smoking hand back into the shade.

  “Oh shit, I’m sorry,” I told her as my stomach dropped. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Booboo?” Sawsaw said and he rushed back in to see if she was alright.

  Calli smiled down at him as he fussed about her. She looked to me as well, and I saw her begin to blink away tears.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said. “You were just trying to help. I was silly to think that I could go out into the light and be part of your family.”

  “No,” I said. “There must be an explanation. It should have worked.”

  The goblins were drawing closer with every passing second, and now Calli was stuck.

  “Sawsaw,” I said as I pushed the wheel barrel full of gold out of the tunnel and set it in the sun beside the horse so the goblins couldn’t get it. “Race back to the house as fast as you can and get your mother to come. Maybe she can figure out why my power isn’t working for Calli.”

  “Sawsaw,” he said with grim determination. Then he saluted me, waved to Calli, and sprinted away.

  The shrieks and curses of the goblins echoed through the tunnel when I returned, and I knew that they would come around the corner at any moment.

  “Come with me!” I urged Calli as I grabbed her hand, and we ran to the back of the cave.

  I took the tunnel to the right and then moved to my pitfall trap. I had designed it for just this type of situation, but I had assumed that some crazed monster would be after me when
I used it, not a pack of vicious goblins with spears and bows. The trap might work on a few of them, but they were going to smarten up real quick when they saw their friends fall to their deaths.

  It was still our best chance of survival.

  I still had six shots in my M17, and two spare mags. I would use it to kill every last one of the bastards if it meant defending Calli. She had entrusted me with her safety, and I wasn’t going to let her down.

  “Careful now, go around the moss,” I told the beautiful siren as we reached the end of the tunnel, shimmied around the ten foot circular rim, and waited on the shelf on the other side.

  “What now?” Calli asked as she gripped her trident.

  “Now we wait. The pit fall will take some of them, but we’re going to have to fight the rest,” I explained.

  “What if we don’t have to fight,” she said as she gazed at the moss that covered the pitfall.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am a siren,” she said as she handed me her trident. Then I stepped back as she spread her arms wide and raised her head toward the heavens. She looked like a Greek goddess as she stood there majestic and proud.

  I was about to ask her what she was doing, but then she began to sing. Her voice gave me instant goosebumps as it rose to the ceiling and echoed throughout the small alcove. Her song was wordless, but it spoke to my heart and my soul like nothing else ever had. My heart soared as her voice rose, and at that moment I knew that I was in the presence of great magic.

  The goblins seemed to think the same thing. They ambled into the tunnel, their faces devoid of the rage that had laced their taunting growls. The beasts were transfixed on her, and they slowly shuffled forward like sleepwalkers.

  Four of them stepped onto the moss at the same time, and as intended, the branches snapped, and the goblins fell into endless darkness. I held my gun to the side and watched with amazement as the others followed their hapless friends and one after the other, fell into the pit of doom like lemmings.

  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and my mind instantly went to the story of the Pied Piper leading the rats out of town with his mesmerizing melody.

  When the last of the group of thirty goblins stepped into darkness and fell to his death hundreds of feet below, Calli ended her song with a haunting lamentation.

  Her final note seemed to linger forever as it bounced off the walls, and then the beautiful siren smiled at me.

  “That was amazing,” I told her after I closed my mouth and wiped the drool from my chin.

  “Thank you.” She blushed. “It is hard for me to sing that when I am not in the water, so I’m glad that it worked.”

  “You just saved our asses,” I said as I peeked down the tunnel. “I know there are more of them coming after us, but I can’t hear any. Can you?”

  “No,” she said as she shook her head.

  “Then we’ve got some time,” I said. “I don’t know how much, but--”

  “Do you really think that your wife can help me?” she asked.

  “Only one way to find out,” I said as I took her hand. “Come on.”

  We snuck through the tunnel, and I checked the other one that led deeper into the underdark. I didn’t hear or see anything, so I led Calli back to the cave exit.

  Sawsaw and Nika arrived five minutes later and rushed into the cave.

  “Dadda!” Sawsaw yelled when he saw me.

  “We’re alright, little dude,” I told him.

  “Sawsaw said that goblins had you cornered,” Nika panted, and I guessed that they had both sprinted back as fast as they could.

  “Calli here lured them into my pitfall,” I said, and my wife smiled at the beautiful siren.

  “You must be very clever to be able to do such a thing,” the goblin woman said as she looked Calli up and down approvingly. “I’m Nika, it is very nice to meet you.”

  “Hello Nika. I’m Calliope, but you can call me Calli. I love your name, and I have never seen a goblin so beautiful.”

  “Thank you!” Nika gushed. “I’ve never seen a merwoman so pretty. You are too pretty to eat, for sure.” Nika offered me a look that suggested I had chosen wisely.

  “Uhh, thank you,” Calli said, and her blue eyes nervously looked at me.

  “I can see why Ken Jewell, my beloved king, chose you.”

  “Chose me?” Calli asked as she raised an eyebrow.

  “Uh, it’s not important right now,” I said as I rested my hand on each of the beautiful monster women’s shoulders. “We’ve got to figure out why my power isn’t working for you. Do you have any ideas, Nika?”

  “Hmm,” she said as she paced back and forth in front of the exit. “The witch told you that you could bring monsters out that you had bonded with, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I repeated.

  “I wonder what she meant by bond?” Nika asked as she tapped her chin.

  “I don’t know, really.” I said. “I kind of thought it meant befriended. But I have befriended Calli, and it didn't work. She got burned by the suns.”

  “Could it be that you can only help certain monsters?” Calli suggested.

  “No. Granhelga just said monsters. She said that my power was to bond with them and bring them out into the daylight.”

  “Wait!” Nika said and slapped a palm to her forehead. “What if bond means that you have to have sex with them?”

  Calli and I shared a look, and the siren seemed hopeful.

  “Do you think that’s what it means?” I asked Nika, and she offered me a devilish grin.

  “Only one way to find out. You should definitely have sex with her right now.”

  We both looked at Calli, and the beautiful siren looked me up and down. Then she regarded Nika quizzically.

  “Are you telling me that I get to have sex with this beautiful man of yours and then walk out into the sunlight?” she asked skeptically.

  “Oh yes. We have been waiting for someone like you,” Nika said. “Make love to Ken Jewell, walk in the light with us, and join our family.”

  Calli leveled me with an erotic gaze, glanced back at the nodding and smiling Nika, and then slowly peeled off her t-shirt.

  Then the beautiful blonde woman reached her hand out to me.

  “It will be fun to try,” Calli whispered, and I saw Nika wrap her arm around Sawsaw and then walk out of the cave so that we could have some privacy.

  “Please make love to me, Ken Jewell,” the blue eyed woman purred as our eyes met. “Please let me walk in the sun with you.”

  Chapter 16

  Calli’s tongue urgently explored mine as her hands moved over my chest, down my abs, and into my pants. She gasped when she took my hard cock in her hands, and then she practically panted as she frantically undid my belt and pants.

  I lifted her up, and she wrapped her arms and legs around me. My hands gripped her firm ass as I carried her to the right side of the cave and laid her down on a bed of soft green moss. I pulled off my shirt, and she finished undoing my pants as if she was unwrapping a gift she had been longing for. When I moved onto my side to pull off my boots, she was on me like a cougar. Then she trailed kisses down my stomach and took me in her mouth.

  I instantly forgot about my boots and the pants around my knees.

  After a few minutes of giving me a wonderful blowjob, Calli hurriedly climbed on top of me then pushed me inside her. She began to sing as she gyrated, and her words might as well have been cupid’s arrows. The beautiful siren’s song echoed throughout the cave and created a chorus of ecstasy in my mind.

  I held her milky white ass as she rode me like a rodeo cowgirl.

  She dug her nails into my chest and then grabbed my head to stare into my eyes. Her gaze was hypnotic, her song made my head swoon, and soon I was lost in a sea of never ending pleasure. She urged me to fill her with my magical seed in a voice laced with passion and lust, and I couldn’t resist her command.

  We climaxed together, and our chorus of pleasure seemed to sha
ke the entire underdark.

  I lay there half-dressed and panting. Calli had collapsed on top of me and hugged me tight as she continued to spasm and jerk with orgasmic aftershocks. She finally lifted her head, and I smiled at her. Her long blonde hair was disheveled, but in a wild, sexy kind of way. Her big blue eyes regarded me lovingly, and she kissed me.

  “Thank you, Ken,” she whispered. “Thank you for saving me from the goblins.”

  “Uh, you're welcome,” I said, although we still didn’t know if I had to have sex with a monster woman in order for them to walk in the sun.

  The beautiful siren gave me one last kiss before she climbed off of me and faced the cave exit. I pulled up my pants, retrieved my molle pack full of loot, and joined her at the threshold.

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  She let out a nervous little laugh and wiped at a tear forming in her eye.

  “I hope this works,” she told me as she took my hand.

  “It’ll work,” I assured her, even though I didn’t quite know for sure.

  She nodded and replaced her nervous look with a brave, resolute face. Slowly, we raised our hands into the sunlight and held our breath.

  Her skin didn’t burn, and she exhaled a sigh of pleasure.

  Then we took a step together, and then we took another. We crossed the threshold of light, and the twin suns’ beams washed over Calli as we emerged.

  The blonde woman’s face still looked concerned, but as the rays of light washed over her soft skin, a wide smile spread across her beautiful face.

  “Oh, Father of the Deep, I have been blessed,” she said musically.

  Nika and Sawsaw were waiting by the oak tree that I had tied Charlie to, and my wife smiled at the two of us.

  “Nika…” Calli said, too choked up with emotion to finish the sentence.

  Nika rushed over to her and hugged her like a long-lost sister, and Sawsaw did backflips as he sang, “Holy shit, holy shit, hooo-lyyy shiiiiiit!”

  “Welcome to the surface world,” I said to Calli, and the women both wrapped their arms around me as we danced with Sawsaw.

  “It is amazing,” Calli said as she spun a circle in the sunlight and let her tears sprinkle down her cheeks. “Thank you all so much. This is such a wonderful gift. I am so happy.”