I sprang to my feet and faced the door. The startled orcs inside growled and cursed, and soon my opponent charged out with two buddies.
Doughboy suddenly came out of nowhere to land on Okrock’s face. He went down screaming in terror. A second orc charged me with a spear, but I slapped it aside with the butt of my weapon and easily dispatched him. I broke the war hammer of the third in half when he swung it down at me, and a heavy boot to his chest sent him falling back into the trailing orc. I hacked them both when they went down inside the door. A sharp sound alerted me to danger, and I barely ducked to avoid a crossbow bolt.
“D!” I yelled, and the little killer looked up at me from the stump of Okrock’s neck.
He ran toward me and bounded onto my shoulder, and I prepared for another attack.
When no one emerged from the room, I yelled, “You’re surrounded. Surrender now and I’ll let you live, but if you make me come in there, I’m going to feed you to Doughboy.”
“Piss and blood in your mother’s eye!” an orc screeched.
“Wrong answer,” I said. I chucked D into the room, waited for the screams, and charged.
Doughboy had latched onto an orc’s face, but another one—presumably the captain, given the big wolf skull he wore on his head—was aiming a crossbow at him. He fired as I appeared, and the bolt went through Doughboy and into the orc’s face.
I shoulder-slammed the captain and sent him careening into the wall hard enough to shatter his fancy headwear.
“Human scum!”
I buried my blade in his chest and watched the hateful light go out of his eyes.
A glance around the fire lit room. There were no more orcs.
“Come on, Doughboy, let’s get that lifeboat untangled.”
I walked out into the rain and saw Eva standing ten feet from me. Behind her, a grinning orc held a knife to her neck.
“Drop the halberd,” the orc growled in a voice that sounded like he was dry heaving.
I glanced back at Doughboy, but he was suddenly gone. Eva quivered and silently begged me to help, but there was nothing I could do. The orc had a blade at her delicate throat, and any move on my part might end her life. If this had been a movie, I would have suddenly produced a dagger out of nowhere and thrown it across the deck into his eyeball.
Why couldn’t life be more like movies?
“Drop it, or I slit her pretty throat.”
“No you won’t,” I bluffed. “If she’s dead she won’t be any use to you.”
“I can still have fun with her corpse.”
If my anger had surged at the sight of the blade to her neck, now it boiled. I wanted to rip the skinny fucker’s head off, but I had to keep my cool.
I laid down my weapon. “Don’t do anything hasty.”
“Shut up, stupid human, and turn around.”
I turned around.
“Walk back to Gorgock slow.”
I walked backward and prayed that Doughboy would make his move soon. The orc was most likely going to stab me in the back when I got close enough, and while I had trained to disarm attackers who wielded knives, to spin around and do it took incredible timing and a whole lot of luck.
One, two, three steps back. By the sixth, I would be within range and close enough to kill. The orc would have to remove the dagger from Eva’s neck to do it.
I was close enough to smell the orc—he stank of wet dog and garbage—but he didn’t strike.
“Keep coming,” he said in a tone that told me he was grinning.
He wanted me even closer, so I wouldn’t have room to maneuver.
The next step would be my doom, but if I didn’t take it, and I provoked him, the princess might die. Goddamn it, where was Doughboy?
I let out a slow breath and took that final step back. When the chains on the orc’s armor rattled, I twisted and donkey-kicked the oncoming blade. I got lucky as hell and batted the blade out of the orc’s hand. The princess sprang into action once the knife was out of the picture and bit the orc’s arm.
Gorgock pulled another dagger and lunged for me, but I got him in an arm bar and broke his arm with a satisfying snap. He howled in pain and swung his other fist, but I easily blocked it and twisted his arm until I heard a pop in his shoulder. Then I kicked him in the chest as hard as I could and sent him crashing into the large crates behind him.
I was about to finish him off when the princess screamed bloody murder and leaped on the prone orc, stabbing wildly. She yelled and cried as she buried the blade repeatedly in his back. The scene made my hair stand on end.
By the time I hauled her off him, she must have stabbed the orc a dozen times. She kept right on hacking at the air as I wrapped my arms around her and took careful hold of her wrists.
“It’s over, Eva.” I took the knife from her and tossed it aside as she turned and buried her face in my chest.
Something landed next to us, startling me, and I instinctively shoved Eva behind me. But it was just Doughboy. “Where the hell have you been?”
He spit out four elliptical eyeballs and pointed at the main mast, then held up my backpack, which was stuffed with furs. Two hunched over figures were in the crow’s nest.
“Oh. Thanks, little dude.” He had most likely just saved our lives and grabbed our luggage.
Doughboy quivered when he saw the state Eva was in. He cooed and padded over to her, put the luggage down, and hugged her leg.
“It’s okay, Doughboy,” she said through sniffles. “I’m all right.”
“Are you sure?” I asked and lifted her chin. “The orc didn’t hurt you?”
“No, thanks to you.”
The ship suddenly lurched.
“We need to get out of here,” I said. “Come on!”
The rain started again, and the wind picked up. We struggled through the pelting downpour and made it to the orc ship’s starboard rail. The gangplank was no longer attached to the human fishing vessel, which was listing badly. Air bubbles exploded from the starboard side, and I knew we didn’t have much time.
There was enough space between the ships for the lifeboat. I chopped the rigging keeping it from dropping into the water in half, and it dropped with a splash. I watched for a minute to make sure it floated, then I cut about fifty feet of rope from nearby rigging and handed one end to Doughboy.
“I’m going to throw you down. You tie this to the boat, okay?” He jumped up and down in what I interpreted as excitement, and I dropped him over the side.
He fell straight down, landed on the edge, and jumped inside.
Eva and I ran toward the stern to pull the boat out from between the ships, saw the armless, legless dragon looking right at us, and plowed to a halt.
Eva screamed.
I barely managed to hold back a surprised yelp.
His eyes were bloodshot and sunken, but I saw no fury in them, only resignation. He blinked tiredly.
I approached him cautiously.
He didn’t move.
“Would you like me to end your suffering?”
After a moment, he bowed his head and closed his eyes, and I heard something like a sigh from him.
I wished I didn’t have to do it.
He must have been magnificent at one time, but he had been abused, tortured, and broken. He would never recover, and even if he did, what kind of life could a dragon with no arms or legs have?
I took a couple of running steps and thrust my blade into his bared chest, putting all my weight behind it. It sank in all the way to the wood handle. The dragon quivered violently, then stilled and sagged against his restraints. I withdrew the blade; only a little blood trickled from the wound.
He was dead.
Eva had tears in her eyes. “You did a good thing, Jake Baker.”
I couldn’t respond.
I found the rope ladder we had used when we first climbed aboard and tossed it over the side, then tied the boat rope to the rail beside it. “I’ll go first, in case you lose your grip.”
&
nbsp; She nodded and followed me down. Lightning crashed nearby. It startled her, but she held on. The fishing boat lurched, and the crash of splintering wood screamed against the battering ocean waves. The rope ladder moved outward, suspending us in midair for a moment before slamming us back into the side. The princess screamed and lost her grip, but I managed to catch her.
The boats were sinking fast. We had to get out of here before they went down, or we would be sucked down with them.
One of Doughboy’s sticky appendages suddenly shot across the water and latched onto the bottom of the rope ladder. He pulled the lifeboat toward us.
“Fuck yeah, Doughboy! You the man.” I cheered.
When the boat was beneath us, I helped the princess into it and cut the line connecting it to the fishing vessel. A big wave carried us away as lightning turned night into day for a fleeting moment.
Thunder boomed and the rain fell hard.
We were well away when the fishing boat dropped below the water, pulling the orc ship down with it.
I didn’t bother trying to use the oars in the tumultuous waves. Instead I hurried to the back of the boat and took hold of the rudder.
Doughboy was becoming a sodden mess, so I unshouldered my backpack and stuffed him inside it. The waves were high, and I fought to steer into them. If we were broadsided, we were doomed.
I fought the ocean for hours, and we almost ate it more than once, but the storm finally broke, and the waters settled. Every muscle in my body screamed with fatigue and exhaustion had dulled my brain. It was hard to think, hard to move, but the boat had nearly a foot of water in it, so I set to the arduous task of bailing it out.
Afterward, I collapsed on the bottom of the boat beside Eva, passing out like a toddler at dinnertime who’d missed his afternoon nap.
I awoke with the sun in my eyes. My neck spasmed when I tried to move my head, and the pain in my muscles screamed to life once more. “Eva?”
“Are we dead?”
I groaned and inspected the princess. The rain had washed the blood and soot off her face, but she still had makeup-streaked tears down her cheeks that gave her a Goth appearance.
“Surprisingly, no,” I said with a weak laugh and gently wiped under her eyes.
“What are you doing?” she asked with a frown and brushed my hand away.
“You’ve got … never mind.” I stood, joints aching.
The ringed planet—the Eye of Zodin—hovered near the horizon. The sun looked to have just risen, and I remembered my question for the princess. “How many hours are in a day on Tarth?”
“Twenty-two,” she said tiredly. She was wiping makeup off her face and realizing what a sodden mess she was.
“Interesting.” I glanced at the sun. “Does this region have seasons?”
“Of course it does.”
“Does it ever get really cold or hot in your kingdom?”
“It’s mostly warm and rarely snows. What does it matter right now? We’re in the middle of the ocean, I need to bathe and change clothes, and I’m absolutely starving.”
Now that the danger was gone, the princess was returning to her royal pain-in-the-ass ways. I let out a sigh, grabbed the oars, and rowed west.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” the princess asked as she wrung out her dress.
“Toward your kingdom.”
“That storm could have blown us in any direction,” she whined. “What if we’re going back to that dreadful tower and the Goblin King?”
“That would suck, but we are going west, which is the right direction,” I said patiently.
“I’m starving.”
“There’s food in my pack. Help yourself,” I said too roughly.
“Don’t yell at me. I’m tired, and I—”
“I steered this bitch all night through a fucking monsoon, and now I have to row all day, so you’re preaching to the choir, sugar tits!”
She stopped complaining, but her body language told me she was less than pleased to have to get the backpack herself. She set it heavily on the small front bench seat and opened it with a jerk.
She screamed and fell back into my lap.
“What is it?” I asked and peered at the bag. “Damn, D, you look like shit.”
I pulled him out. Waterlogged, he slipped through the cracks in my fingers and oozing over the edges of my hands. I handed the princess the backpack and placed him on the front seat to dry out. His eyes were beady and pink, and he looked like he couldn’t take on any form at all.
“You just rest, bro. You deserve it. You’re a hero.”
I resumed rowing, and since Eva was now sitting at the back next to the rudder, I asked her to steer.
“I don’t know how,” she said dismissively and sniffed the dried meat like it was rancid.
“Toss me some of that.”
She did so, and I tore off a chunk and talked with my mouth full, just because I knew it would piss her off. “Last night I watched you stab an orc to death with a dagger, I think you’re capable of a lot more than you think. So unless you want me to steer this boat with my dick, take that handle and keep us pointed in the direction opposite the sun.”
“Why are you so crude?”
“Why do you need constant drama? For Pete’s sake, we just survived a frigging sea battle. Aren’t you grateful? Glad to be alive?”
“Of course I am.”
“Then act like it.”
She sulked and nibbled on the smoked meat while lazily steering the boat. I had to remind her to stay on course half a dozen times. I was dead tired, and she was too. Maybe I’d been a little hard on her that morning, but I wasn’t in the mood for her shit, and I was annoyed that she seemed to have forgotten what we’d been through. There had been a closeness between us in the darkness of that ship. A bond had formed—I thought.
The Doughboy bandages on my right arm were hard and crusty like a scab, and I had the urge to peel one off. I hurt everywhere except there, and I wondered what magic Doughboy possessed.
The thought flew from my mind, when I glanced over my shoulder and spotted land on the horizon. “Look!” I said and pointed.
“Is that…?”
“Hell fucking yes, it’s land.”
“Oh my gods, Jake. Row faster!”
“You just keep your hand on the stick and steer us home.”
Scowling with determination, she focused on keeping the boat pointed straight as an arrow. I forgot all my pain and rowed my ass off. I couldn’t help but grin at the thought of leaving the ocean.
As we drew closer, I realized we were headed to an island or a peninsula. I didn’t really care either way. Even from such a great distance, I could see that the land was green and lush. Where there was green grass, there were animals to eat it. Better yet, there were towns and villages, hot food and warm fires… and beer.
I groaned when I thought of tipping back a cold one and rowed faster than ever. Soon we were crossing the breakwater and riding toward shore. I let out a triumphant cry as we skidded to the stop on the sandy beach and leapt off the boat. Falling to my knees, I hugged the earth. “Oh, thank god.”
“Aren’t you going to help me out?” Eva called. She was white-knuckling the sides of the boat as it rocked back and forth in the waves.
“Someone shoot me now,” I grumbled and laboriously got to my feet.
I slogged through the water to the boat and opened my arms. The princess sat her pretty ass on the edge of the boat, steadied herself on my shoulders, then slid into my arms. I walked out to sea.
“What are you doing?” she asked, alarmed.
When the water was up to my waist, I dropped her. She must have been bitching underwater, because she came up spitting and sputtering and full of fury. I laughed and trudged back to the boat to check on Doughboy. He was still looking pretty waterlogged, and he was crashed out, so I picked him up like a baby and found a nice warm rock to let him dry out on.
There was still some dried meat and cheese left, an
d I’d eaten half of it by the time the princess stormed up to the beach.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she said in a huff.
“Can’t you though?” I lay against the backpack and closed my eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting some rest. What does it look like?”
“What if there are goblins or ghouls or worse on this island?”
“Then you probably already scared them away with your mouth,” I said, cracking myself up.
She said something in reply, but no sooner had I closed my eyes than I was out like a light. My sleep was dreamless, from what I remembered, and I think I could have slept a full twenty-four hours if the princess hadn’t woken me up.
“Baker, someone’s coming.” She sounded far away at first, an annoyance I rolled over to forget, but she persisted. “Someone’s coming, and there are a lot of them.”
I was more irritated than concerned as I opened my eyes against the glare of the sun, which was high in the sky. The ringed planet was dipping past the horizon now. The smell of the ocean wafted over me as a wind blew in, carrying sand. It pelted my skin like a blaster, and I raised my arm. She was pointing at a rocky bluff covered with what looked like two dozen monkeys. Well, they looked like monkeys. They had short gray fur on their legs and arms, and a patch of tan fur on their bellies that became orangish as it moved up to their heads. They looked a lot like proboscis monkeys, with small brows and long noses.
The monkey creatures walked upright and carried crude spears. As they approached, they fanned out across the beach and effectively blocked our escape into the jungle.
“We don’t want any trouble,” I said. Like most people, I’m grumpy as hell when I’m awakened prematurely.
They chattered in their monkey language as they closed in, but for some reason I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I guess the goddess hadn’t taught me every language after all.
I raised my enchanted pizza shovel high above my head. “That’s far enough.”
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