“Because where I come from we have lighters.”
“What’s a lighter?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. It’s a device to make fire.”
“Well why don’t you have one of those?”
I slipped and jammed my pinky on the plank.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled. “Can you please not ask stupid questions while I’m trying to do this?”
I set everything back up again and frantically renewed my efforts. My muscled ached and my hands were getting sore, but I was determined to make fire if it was the last thing I did.
“You don’t have to be so mean about it.” She pouted.
I ignored her and furiously spun the stick. When smoke appeared, I held my breath.
“Oh my gods!”
“Stay back… don’t breathe.” I twirled the stick with renewed vigor.
The smoke grew thicker, and I blew on it ever so gently. Ten seconds later, a tiny flame burst to life. I dropped the ember into the dried grass by spreading the gap in the plank, and when it fell, it went out.
“Shit!” I said and gently blew on the grass. There was still some life left. A piece of grass was charred.
The princess lamented, but I refused to quit.
I blew on the grass again, urging the thing to light. I was about to curse and throw everything against the wall when a small flame sprang to life.
“Yes, yes, yes.” I put more grass and moss on the fire, puffing on it, and transferred it to the log cabin-style wood pile I had set up in the fire pit.
“You did it!” the princess exclaimed.
I tossed small branches on the fire, and soon it was crackling and snapping.
The princess clapped. “Three cheers for my champion!”
I fed the fire until it was sending out a heavy wave of heat, then set to work skinning the rabbit. The princess didn’t want to watch, so she snuggled up beside the fire with a happy smile on her face.
I removed the skin, and along with the guts, feet, and head, I took the time to bury it outside so that it wouldn’t attract predators. When I returned, I washed the rabbit, skewered it through the ribs, and propped the stick across the stones so the rabbit hung over the flames.
As the rabbit cooked, Eva sat up and licked her lips. “It’s about time!”
It grew dark outside, but the fire made it nice and toasty in the cave. We sat in comfortable silence, watching the fire and thinking of nothing. The fat from the greasy meat flared, cracked, and sizzled. Soon the smell of cooking meat filled the cave, and my stomach did a somersault. Waiting for it to be ready was excruciating, and she made it clear she was struggling too.
“Why’s it taking so long?” she whined, firelight reflecting in her yearning eyes.
“It takes time. Haven’t you ever cooked anything before?” I asked even though I knew the answer.
“Of course not,” she said, as though it was something to brag about. “We have the greatest chefs in the world in Everdyn Castle.”
“You can eat it now if you want, but don’t complain to me when you get sick. Raw meat will do that to you.”
“I know that,” she said and rolled her eyes. “But can’t you turn it up or something? Make the fire bigger and it’ll cook faster, right?”
“Sure, but it’ll burn the outside,” I explained. “I mean, I like it charred, but we’ll do that at the end, seer in all those juices.”
“Oh gods,” Eva groaned. “I’m soooo hungry.”
“I hear you, babe.”
“Why do you call me that and the other names?” she asked, frowning. “Don’t you know that it’s disrespectful?”
“You’re disrespectful all the time. And I’m pretty sure I’m your elder.”
“It is not required of me to be respectful to those below my station,” she recited as though it had been pounded into her head for years, which it probably had.
“I require it. Like I said before, respect is earned, not assumed.”
“You have some strange ideas. When you finally get me home, I can appoint an etiquette instructor to work with you.”
I had myself a good laugh over that one. “Darling, I think you’re going to find you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I’m not big on kissing ass.”
“I’ve never m—”
“You’ve never met a man like me. I’m probably the only person in your life who has ever called you on your shit.”
“My… shit?” she said, uncomfortable with the word.
I turned the rabbit and offered her a sly grin. “Yeah, you know, like how you act like you’re so special. You lean on your title like a crutch, and it keeps you from really living life. Think about it. You don’t even know how to cook.”
“Not everyone needs to know how to cook, Baker.”
“That’s true, but everyone should try it. You might find you love it, and you’re good at it. What I’m trying to say, Eva—”
“Evangeline,” she corrected. “I don’t like your nickname anymore.”
“Whatever. There is more to life than sitting around, telling people what to do and being miserable to everyone.”
“I’m not miserable,” she said, taken aback.
“Really? From what I’ve seen, all you do is complain and argue.”
“No I don’t.”
“You’re doing it right now,” I said with a laugh.
Talking had helped me forget my hunger, but another pang was twisting my stomach like a wet rag. The meat was almost done, so I lowered it into flames and turned it faster.
“I’m actually a fun-loving person and very pleasant to those who deserve it,” she said haughtily. “But in case you haven’t noticed, I’m in the wild beyond the Monster Bane Mountains, with a beast of a man who addresses me by nicknames more suited for a chambermaid.”
“You don’t think a champion brought to you from another world by a goddess qualifies as someone who deserves your respect and pleasantries?” I asked with an arched brow.
She was stumped by that one. I pulled the rabbit out of the fire.
“It’s ready, but it needs to cool down,” I said.
“I know how hot food works,” she said with a scowl. Then she surprised me by tearing a back leg off the carcass. She stared me in the eye, pursed her lips, and blew.
Passion stirred in me. “You’ve got some bad girl in you, don’t you?”
She shrugged and coyly looked away.
I tore off a strip of muscle and juggled it in my mouth until I could chew and swallow. A long groan of pleasure escaped me. “Oh damn that’s good,” I said and grabbed another chunk.
“It could use some spices.” She was daintily nibbling on her piece.
“You can eat like a human being you know. No one’s here from your court or whatever. No one cares.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tear off a chunk of meat like you mean it.”
Her nostrils flared. “Why are you so bossy?”
“Just try it. I think you’re going to find you like it.”
“By the gods, fine!” She ripped a big piece of meat from the thickest part of the thigh and glared at me as she ate it. Grease and dribble trickled from the corners of her mouth, and her eyes rolled back as she chewed.
“Good, isn’t it?”
She sighed as she bathed in the joy of indulgence. “I’ve never had such wonderful food in my life.”
She laughed drunkenly and ravenously ate more with a comical growl. Her antics made me laugh, and soon I was holding up a hand for her to stop.
“I’m going to choke!”
“Good!” she joked.
Seeing the princess acting so casually left me feeling warmer in the stomach than the food did. When she smiled, my heart swelled. When she laughed, my spirits soared. When our eyes met, she took my breath away.
The rabbit had been big, but as it turned out, our appetites proved bigger. We ate the entire thing except for the front legs, which we were saving for the morning.
I leaned
back on a slanted stone, cracked open the bones, and scooped the marrow out with a twig. “Want some?”
“You got me to eat with my hands, and somehow you persuaded me to forget my manners. I will not, however, be eating that.”
“Have it your way,” I said with a shrug.
Now that I had some food in my belly, I turned my attention to the scabs on my arm. I’d forgotten about them, and they didn’t hurt in the slightest, which I thought was strange.
I peeled off one of the dried pieces of magical dough, and to my surprise, the wound was no longer there. The skin was completely healed.
“Holy shit,” I said and peeled off another makeshift bandage.
“What’s wrong?” she asked sleepily.
“Look,” I said and peeled off another one.
“Doughboy’s skin heals wounds?” she said with a look of astonishment. “He’s so weird. I miss that little guy.”
“Me too,” I said and removed the rest of the crusty dough.
She curled up on her fur blanket by the fire and gave a contented sigh. I watched her in the firelight when she wasn’t paying attention. She was beautiful in the orange glow. The flames played off her blonde hair, turning it orange. Her high cheekbones, V-shaped chin, and plump lips were accentuated by the ambient light. I felt like I could look at that face forever.
She gazed at me. “What?” she asked softly.
“Do you think you’ll ever learn to love Lord Berdink?” The words came out of their own volition.
“I told you, it isn’t about love. It is a logical union between—”
“Don’t you want love?”
“I… I have love. My subjects love me.”
“That’s not the kind of love I’m talking about.”
“I love my sisters, and my mother and father.”
“That’s not the kind of love I’m talking about.”
“I… Why do you care?”
“I like to think we’ve become friends,” I explained. “And I don’t like to see my friends make mistakes.”
“Friends…,” she said, as though the word was foreign to her.
“I hate to see a girl like you handed off to some pompous lord you don’t even love.”
She locked eyes with me. “Perhaps if someone else stepped forth that was a better fit, I might reconsider.”
“Could you do that?” I asked a little too eagerly. “I mean, being betrothed and all. Can you get out of it?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps. But I would need a good reason to do so. And if that reason was, say, another man, then that man would most definitely have to be a lord or nobleman.”
I wanted to say, “What about a goddess’s champion?” and I suspected Eva was thinking the same thing, but I let it go.
We lay there in silence for a while, neither of us saying what was really on our minds.
“Do you miss your world?” Eva asked.
“I do,” I said tiredly. “I had just started a new job when the goddess pulled me here through a friggin’ wormhole. My friends and family probably think I’m dead. And poor Michelle must have thought she was going nuts, seeing me disappear like that. Shit, I hope she isn’t suspected of foul play.”
“Who’s Michelle?” She was suddenly alert and on her elbows, staring at me.
“A girl I met in one of my business classes at college. She works at the pizza parlor where I disappeared. I only got the job because I was trying to get in her pants.”
“Get in her pants?”
“Never mind.” I got up and stretched. “You should try and get some sleep. I’ll go check things out, make sure there’s nothing lurking around out there.”
I tossed a couple more pieces of wood on the fire and walked toward the mouth of the cave with my pizza shovel over my shoulder.
“Jake?”
“Yeah?”
“I… I’m glad the goddess sent you,” she said with a small smile.
“Thanks,” I said. “Sleep well.”
Outside, I scanned the landscape. The Eye of Zodin was out in force tonight, and it looked bigger than it had before. I was mesmerized by the distant planet and the shimmering ring around it. It was quiet, and there was zero wind. The clouds didn’t appear to be moving until I looked closely.
I spent about half an hour gathering flat rocks and piling them up in front of the cave mouth. I laid a load of dry branches behind the shoulder-high wall I had created.
If anything tried to sneak in, I was hoping I would be alerted when they stepped on the sticks. I would have stood watch all night, but I was dead tired, and we still had a lot of traveling ahead of us.
I fell asleep that night about a half a second after I rested my head on the backpack. My dreams were full of goblins and pompous lords, and for some reason, I dreamt of Roman Romano again. I don’t remember what he said to me in my dream, but he was laughing.
When I woke, the princess was already up and combing her hair with a silver comb. I didn’t ask her where she’d been keeping it.
“Good morning,” she said cheerily.
“Good morning.” I looked out the mouth of the cave. The colors of sunrise spread across the sky above the top of my stone wall.
“I believe I know where we are,” said Eva.
I sat up, stretched, yawned. She was looking at our map. “Really?” I walked over and looked over her shoulder.
“I think that this is the long-nosed monkey island,” she said, pointing at a small island. She moved her finger along the parchment. “And this is where we encountered the Goblin King, which means we are here.” She tapped the spot.
“Uggland?” I said, wondering if I had pronounced it right.
She nodded. “That means we still have to cross all this land and then somehow cross the Monster Bane Mountains.”
“What are those?”
“It’s a mountain range that separates the Badlands from the civilized world.”
The Badlands encompassed the entire map east of the Monster Bane Mountains. We still had a long haul ahead of us.
“Damn,” I said under my breath. “Look how much farther we still have to go. The Goblin King really whisked you away, didn’t he?”
“I was unconscious for most of it,” she said, and she looked away. “I hadn’t been away from home more than half a day when he found me.”
“Why did you run away?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s like you said last night. I wanted something more out of life and boy, did I get it. I’m so stupid. I should have just stayed home and—”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a little adventure.”
“I guess I got it.”
“I’d say,” I said, and we shared a laugh.
We ate the last of the rabbit, put out the fire, and emerged from the cave into the early morning sun. I was in a good mood, until I saw a big bird flying toward us across the ocean.
“Ahhh hell no,” I said and raised a hand against the light to get a better look.
“What is it?” Eva asked. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s the Goblin King,” I said and spit in the dirt. “He’s back.”
“Get back in the cave!” I told Eva, and my sudden command made her jump.
“We should try to run,” she urged.
I shook my head and twirled my pizza shovel. “No more running. Besides, he’d catch up to us in a matter of minutes.
“Oh, Jake….”
“Get in the cave. I’m going to teach this son of a bitch a lesson.”
Eva unexpectedly hugged me, eyes watering. Then she rose up on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. “Fight well, my champion.” Her hand lingered on my cheek dramatically, and I offered her a reassuring nod.
I turned my angry gaze on the approaching bat. It was about a half a mile away and getting closer every second. I spun by pizza shovel, which now felt like an extension of my body.
“You’re a badass champion,” I reminded myself and prepared to
face the Goblin King for the second time.
The bat stopped beating its wings and dropped into a dive like a Kamikaze pilot.
I took long, slow breaths.
The bat closed to four hundred yards, three hundred, two….
Sunlight gleamed off the diamond-crusted blade.
The bat swooped down, and I charged, ready to eviscerate the Goblin King’s mount, but it pulled out at the last moment. I watched it go by, confused by the erratic behavior.
Then I saw him.
“D?” I said in disbelief.
Either I was hallucinating, or Doughboy was latched to the bat’s face.
“Doughboy!” I screamed when I realized he was real.
The bat crashed hard and skidded across the ground. I sprinted over as Doughboy flopped off the bat’s head and staggered drunkenly. I dropped to my knees, smiling from ear to ear.
“What the… how did you… where’s the Goblin King?”
Doughboy grinned at me sleepily and attempted to explain things to me in his strange, garbled language.
“Wait, wait, slow down,” I said and pointed at the bat. Its eyes were missing, and there was blood on Doughboy’s tentacle-like arms. “Did you, like, mind control that thing?”
He nodded eagerly.
“When the hell did you learn that?”
He shrugged and gestured at the bat.
“What happened to the Goblin King?”
He acted out the Goblin King’s bat crashing in the jungle, then explained with pantomime and sound effects how the Goblin King had pursued and almost killed him. At some point Doughboy took mental control of the bat and flew the hell out of there.
“Did the Goblin King’s bat survive?” I asked, glancing at the one Doughboy had flown on, which was now very much dead.
He shook his head, and I figured that meant we had some time before he got off that island and came after us.
“Doughboy?” Eva said from the mouth of the cave. She ran over, and D did a little dance and leapt into her arms. “How did you survive?”
“I think he poked his doughy little tentacles into the bat’s brain and somehow took over its mind,” I explained.
He crossed his arms and nodded like he was the coolest wad of dough in the world. “Sweeeet.”
“That’s amazing,” she said and laughed.
Monster World Page 11