Tribe Master 3: A Fantasy Harem Adventure

by Noah Layton

  After being provided with provisions in the form of several days supply of bread, meat and vegetables, we completed a final check on our weapons and armor and headed out in a line like a coordinated military force to the southern side of the land.

  Two guards unlocked the gate as we approached and provided us passage into the wilderness, and as the gates closed behind us Ralos stopped our group and drew us into a circle.

  ‘From here there is no time to waste. We move quickly and silently, unless something blocks our path, in which case we kill it swiftly and continue. We should reach the Bridge of Keltamir by tomorrow, presuming nothing interrupts our passage.’

  ‘That’s how far away this place is?’ I asked, trying to hold back my shock.

  ‘Unfortunately, yes,’ Ralos replied, as the pair of us set aside our impromptu rivalry for a few moments. ‘The wood-elves may be feral, but they move fast. They will be getting closer and closer to their lands by the second.’

  A chill ran through me at the thought of Santana and Mariana being trailed along for that amount of time. They could have been in cages, or strung up by their ankles and wrists…

  I thought of my wife being prodded with spears and screamed at.

  It was the dead of night and exhaustion should have been setting in, but I had never felt more awake in my entire life.

  For her I could set aside my ego about answering to Ralos.

  ‘Lead the way,’ I said to him.

  ‘Single file,’ he responded, looking to us all. ‘If you feel your pace slowing take another potion. Let us move.’

  We all drew a potion of haste from our inventories and drank them down, throwing the vials aside.

  I looked out into the wilds of Agraria, unsure of what kind of hell awaited us out there in that midnight abyss.

  Ralos drew a deep breath and began to jog ahead along the path. The sun-elf guards followed, Lara and Elera moved behind, and I remained at the back. We jogged for a minute before the potion suddenly set in.

  Our pace increased unnaturally fast; the last time I had taken one of these was weeks back, when Ariadne and I had journeyed to the bandit camp that had attacked us.

  That seemed like an age ago, and at the time it had been one of the most dangerous things I had done in my life.

  Now we were literally running towards enemy territory.

  But it didn’t matter. All I could think of was Santana, and whether she was safe.

  And if she wasn’t…

  I didn’t know what I would do.

  Chapter Ten

  Blurred shapes rushed past all around. Any one them could have been a creature waiting to jump out and take us down, but I didn’t give a shit. I would go down swinging or die before I keeled over. I wouldn’t sleep until I got her back.

  I gritted my teeth and focused ahead as we tore through the forest, sprinting at an Olympic pace like it was nothing.

  We had been running for hours now, dodging past trees and ducking beneath branches as we smashed through the undergrowth in a coordinated, single-file line.

  For Ralos and the guards this was probably second nature. They were a coordinated tribe that had been raised from the ashes of war. No doubt they were all battle-trained.

  But when they were overwhelmed by a fighting force of a thousand, things changed fast.

  To Lara this was also part of who she was. She had been a hunter for years, and had literally grown up learning how to track down prey of all kinds, as well as surviving in the wilderness.

  I had been training since I arrived in the military, and pushing through pain and difficulty was part of who I was; my dad had been teaching me how to do it since I was a kid.

  Elera was the outlier. She had lived in the wilderness her entire life, but I didn’t know how used to this kind of thing she was.

  She had probably never had to endure running for long distances, but with the help of the potion of haste she was doing a fine job of keeping up with the rest of us in formation.

  My nymph had already proved herself to be loyal; with the shelter and love that I offered her, she had given her loyalty and love straight back to me.

  She would be a formidable force once we reached the rivers, and she would appreciate the water. Even though she had a hefty supply of Essence of the River, the potion that kept her alive outside of water, she still needed the sensation of it against her skin to keep her mind steady.

  For hours the route continued, and we continued to chug back the potions of haste as the sun began to rise and fill the forest with light. Eyes open and pressing ahead as light filtered through the leaves and branches and trees, I hardly noticed.

  Thoughts had stopped running through my mind after what had happened. The only thing that remained was a raw, wordless, animal anger.

  Someone from my pack had been taken.

  I was so entranced that I almost failed to notice Ralos’s quiet call to bring our group to a slow. After another fifty yards we stopped in a small, rare patch where the trees gave way to a patch of light that shimmered down on us.

  We stopped and gathered around, crouching together in the undergrowth.

  ‘We are entering unmapped territory from this point onwards. The bridge of Keltamir only a few miles south of here, but the closer we get the more the wood-elf numbers are likely to increase. Their outposts are scattered around the area.’

  ‘Any idea how many?’

  ‘More than can be counted. Some are abandoned, some are maintained. They build them quickly within the trees, like a bird building a nest, then abandon them afterwards. We must remain alert from this point onwards.’

  With the last potions of haste that we had taken wearing off, we moved through the forest at a fast walk. If we moved any faster our footsteps would be too loud, even with the white noise of the forest.

  Elera moved to my side.

  ‘I have never been this far from my home before.’

  ‘Me neither,’ I replied. ‘Even the Black Patch wasn’t this far out.’

  ‘Do you really think that we can trust these sun-elves?’

  ‘We don’t have a choice. They’re our only way to get Santana back.’

  We continued on for another mile, halting at every foreign sound that seemed too loud to be coming from the trees, until it revealed itself to be a wild hog or a bird scurrying about in the bushes.

  I stayed focused the entire time. Even on the total lack of sleep that we were all suffering with, it was everyone’s responsibility to stay alert.

  I meant what I had said to Elera, too. In this land I didn’t trust anybody, but Artrix had kept his word so far, and even though Ralos was a hothead, he was loyal to his father – that much was obvious from the show of power that the tribe master had demonstrated just hours ago back at the land.

  ‘There.’

  Ralos spoke from the front, and we all came to an immediate halt. He pressed a finger to his lips and pointed ahead.

  We kept watch on our footsteps, ensuring that we moved silently, until a large but obscured opening granted us a view onto the threat that lay ahead.

  The wood-elves might have abandoned the outposts in the trees, but a few still remained behind on the ground.

  In the clearing ahead were a group of six, all males. Five looked much like the others that had attacked the sun-elf homeland, sitting around a fire over which something was cooking; it could have been an animal but it was too charred to make out.

  So they liked their food moving or burnt to a crisp.

  Their spears were resting against the nearby trunks or on the logs they were seated upon, but they were the last things that I was afraid of.

  The main threat came from the sixth wood-elf.

  At first I wasn’t even sure that that was what this thing was. It bore the same green skin as its comrades, and the same gnarled, sharpened teeth protruding from its lips, but everything was twice as large.

  It’s head stood seven feet above the ground, and that was while seated. After
a moment of us watching him he stood, bringing his hulking form to a height of ten feet. A tattered loin cloth hung around his waist, and as he stood he wrapped one of his bulky hands around the handle of a hefty, stubby war hammer that was smeared with dried blood.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ…’ I whispered beneath my breath.

  I turned to Lara, who was usually ready for a fight, but her eyes were wide with bafflement.

  ‘I didn’t even think there were any left…’ She whispered.

  ‘What is that thing?’

  ‘That’s a wood-troll,’ Elera chipped in. ‘I have only ever heard about them from my nymph-sisters in fairy tales.’

  ‘You have fairy tales?’ I asked her.

  ‘Why is that so strange to you?’

  ‘Because you are a being from fairy tales.’

  ‘I am very much real – and so is he, by the looks of things.’

  ‘And his hammer,’ Lara added.

  I looked past Elera to Ralos, who was quietly conferring with his guards. I looked at him and nodded my head in the opposite direction of the clearing.

  Our group of six pushed back to convene.

  ‘We need to take these things down fast and quietly,’ I said.

  ‘A brute force attack, then,’ Ralos said. ‘There are six of us and six of them. One each.’

  ‘Aside from the big guy,’ I replied. ‘He counts as five guys on his own. You really think one of us needs to draw the short straw and take him out?’

  ‘Are you afraid, tribe master?’

  ‘Not for myself,’ I said. ‘For all of us. It’s our duty to keep each other alive.’

  ‘There is no need to be reluctant to show your fear,’ he said flatly. ‘I am willing to attack the beast.’

  ‘Can we cut the dick-measuring contest for a second?’ I said in a stern, hushed tone. I wanted to leap at this dickhead and wrap my hands around his neck, but then we would be a man down.

  ‘I do not know you that well,’ Elera said, turning to Ralos. ‘But I think Jack would win such a contest.’

  Lara suppressed a laugh, and I might have joined in if the constant thought of Santana wasn’t at the back of my mind.

  ‘We can do this quickly,’ I continued. ‘We just have to use everyone’s strengths. We’ve got the upper hand considering they don’t even know we’re here yet.’

  ‘And what brilliant plan do you have in mind?’ Ralos said, biting the inside of his mouth.

  This fucking guy. One second he was okay in my books, the other he just couldn’t put his ego away.

  But no matter how much he was getting on my nerves, I needed him and his men. We were better as a team than we were separated.

  ‘All right,’ I said, taking a second to think of a plan of action. ‘Here’s how we’re going to do this.’

  A few minutes later we were in position.

  I, Ralos and the sun-elf guards converged on either side of the clearing, I and a guard on the closest side and Ralos and the other guard opposite us

  Meanwhile, Elera moved to the spot behind where the gigantic wood-troll was seated, hunkered down on a gigantic log that, upon closer inspection of the nearby trunk, he had pulled down himself.

  Finally Lara, moved to the point opposite the troll, which gave her a clear shot directly at his head.

  We were all at the ready, waiting with bated breath.

  If everything was timed right, we would take the entire group down in seconds. We had the element of surprise on our side, and that was invaluable when used properly.

  Fuck it up, though, and all hell would break loose.

  Fighting wasn’t the way it appeared in the movies. It was bloody and messy and people could get killed in the most unlikely ways. Insane, improbable things could happen.

  I could still remember a trip to Ypres back when I was a kid where we visited a Somme museum, and saw two bullets that had struck each other in mid-air and wrapped around each other. The chances of it taking place were statistically impossible, but it could still happen.

  Our process was finalised. All we had to do was execute it.

  We waited.

  Waited.

  Then, finally, the variable shifted. The wood-troll stood from his seat.

  Through the bushes I saw Elera’s blue hand slide along the ground like a snake.

  Whoosh.

  A burst of ice flew from her hand and clung to the wood-troll’s legs. He tried to move then, realising that he couldn’t, began to grunt.

  The painful sensation of the cold must have hit him, because he suddenly began to yell.

  The wood-elves stood with questioning tones in their native tongue, looking to their gigantic comrade.

  TWANG.

  An arrow flew from the shrubbery where Lara resided and slammed straight into the troll’s eye.

  I couldn’t believe the accuracy of the shot – she was damn good with a bow, but this was incredible, even for her.

  We weren’t done with him yet, though. My hunch was that he would have the same capacity as an animal to continue moving, even with his brain damaged.

  I raised my hand through the leaves, aiming at his chest.

  ‘Telekinea!’

  Using my power stone back at the land of the sun-elves had worked because of the confined space.

  This group of wood-elves were too spread out for me to have any real impact.

  Now, though, I focused its energy on the big bastard in front of me.

  The wave of telekinetic energy struck him exactly as I needed. With his legs frozen in place and his head stunned, the strike sent him flailing back and slamming into the bushes, too dazed to recover.

  Now.

  With Lara and Elera’s primary task completed, the remaining four of us leaped from the bushes and began swinging.

  There were five wood-elves remaining, all standing at human height, but three didn’t even have their weapons in hand by the time we started attacking.

  I moved to the one immediately in front of me as he scrambled for his spear. I screamed out viciously and swung my sword down over my head. With a slash it cut straight through his arm, severing it and sending him into a mad frenzy.

  I grunted angrily, stepped back on my heel clear of him as he dived towards me with teeth bearing, and swung wide from left to right.

  My blade cut through the front of his neck. Blood splashed through the air as his jugular tore, splattering onto me as he fell to the ground, choking in a prolonged death rattle.

  To my right, the guard who had been paired with me was driving the tip of his spear down into a wood-elf’s stomach brutally as the feral assailant flailed on the ground.

  Up ahead, the second guard speared the third wood-elf through the face and tore the end free. We all turned our attention to Ralos, but he was doing fine on his own, even with the two wood-elves that had turned his way.

  The first was already incapacitated, prostrate on the floor as Ralos slashed through the body. Breathing wildly like a predator, he turned to the final wood-elf and raised his sword.

  ‘WAIT!’

  I yelled the word out and sprinted forward, dropping my sword as I reached Ralos and grabbing his arm.

  My own formidable strength was matched by his own as he strived to bring his weapon down in frenzy. He tried to throw me off, but I clung on and pushed him to the side.

  ‘What?!’

  Just like his father, it was the first time I had truly seen him lose his temper, but in times of war everything was on the cards.

  ‘We need one alive.’

  Ralos gritted his teeth and momentarily gathered himself.

  ‘These things are animals, Jack. Even if he could speak our tongue, he won’t.’

  ‘Then you can kill him yourself when he proves that to be true.’

  He shot me a hard look, but there was no way I was conceding to him.

  The wounded wood-elf coughed upon the ground, a stab wound at the top of his left pectoral spilling with fluids as his lungs fille
d with blood.

  Aside from him, all of our enemies were dead – or at least that was what I thought.

  In the shrubs nearby there was a groan and a shuffling. At first I thought that it was the squealing grunt of an angry mother boar intent on protecting her young.

  Suddenly, a large column rose up from the bushes before slamming down upon the forest ground.

  No, not a column – it was the wood troll’s arm, a closed fist at the end.

  Almost immediately after, he began forcing his way up, guided by some prevailing electrical signals in his brain that were still pushing him forwards.

  Shit.

  ‘Kill him!’

  One of the guards yelled it out, but it didn’t make a difference. We were all thinking it.

  The six of us converged on the wood troll like a pack of wolves ourselves, unleashing a torrent of slashes and arrows and bolts of frost until he ceased to move.

  The fight had taken less than a minute from beginning to end, and even so it felt like the whole process had started and finished in a few blurred seconds.

  I returned to the dying wood-elf, pointing my bloody sword at his chest as I looked him in the eyes. The two grey-white orbs grafted into his head glared back at me as blood continued to froth from his mouth.

  They couldn’t speak English, but if I used the most basic terms I might have somehow gotten through to him.

  ‘The women,’ I growled, ‘Where?’

  Ralos joined me at my side while the guards and my wives kept watch for any other threats.

  ‘This is pointless, human,’ Ralos said. ‘You will get nothing from him.’

  ‘I might as well try.’ I dropped my sword to the ground and kneeled, grabbing the wood-elf by the throat. My reaction was to drag him towards me, but with no clothes his neck was the only leverage I had, and instead of trying to bring him to me, I forced him back into the dirt, compressing my fingers tightly around his neck.