“It really is, and it’s going to come in handy,” I said. “Good job, little dude. I’m glad you’re back. Things just weren’t the same without you.”
To my surprise, he blushed, and for added comedy, he grew long black lashes and batted them at me. To top it off, he cooed like a dove.
“All right, don’t get too full of yourself.” I said affectionately.
Doughboy leapt up and hugged me, and I turned away from the princess, because for some reason tears had formed in my eyes.
“You’re crying,” she sang, girly glee barely masked behind her devilish smile.
“What can I say? I’m a sweetheart.”
“Yes, you are,” she said and pinched my cheek.
I was happy she touched me. She’d been cold toward me since the sea battle, when we had seemed so close. She’d clung to me, and knowing I was the only thing that stood between her virginity and a dozen smelly orcs had given me a strength I could never have summoned if I’d only been fighting for myself. Defending her gave me purpose.
Hell, it was my only purpose now.
But beyond that, beyond me being trapped in this strange, wonderful world full of magic and mayhem, was the fact that I was falling for her.
Maybe it was because she was the only woman I had spoken to in a while. Maybe it was the way she looked when she smiled. No, fuck that. I could hold my own against the hottest of them and not get too attached. There was something about her, and it wasn’t just the fantasy of banging a virgin princess from another world. I guess… I guess it was like looking at a caterpillar before she spins her cocoon. A super-hot caterpillar, mind you. You just know that someday that caterpillar was going to change into something marvelous.
The sun was rising, and my heart ached to behold such indomitable beauty.
She said, “I said I think we should get going.”
“For sure. Let’s make sure we don’t leave any tracks. We need to get rid of the bat too. Doughboy?”
He sighed and grabbed a wing. Together we hauled the bat into the cave—with no help from the princess—and then blocked the entrance. I laid a single white rock at the entrance as a marker, in case I ever came back this way.
I hoped I never came back.
I took a long pull from the waterskin, poured some over my head, then opened the map on a flat rock. “It’s about 300 miles to your kingdom. If we walk an average of five miles an hour for eight hours a day, that’s forty miles a day. We’re looking at seven or eight days of travel.”
“Once we get through the Monster Bane Mountains and into civilization, we can charter a wagon and horses,” Eva said.
I recalculated. “Then we should only have four or five days of travel left. Let’s get started.”
The princess sighed like a tired kid on a hike, but at least she didn’t start in with the bitching.
The most direct route west brought us back to the river, and I filled our waterskin. We had to walk about half a mile to find a place to cross, and even then, I would have to do so by submerging to the waist.
“I’m not getting all wet,” said the princess.
“Then you’re not getting across,” I said and stripped off my shirt.
“What in the world are you doing?” she asked. It looked like she had a hard time keeping her eyes off my chiseled body, which was even more defined due to the recent lack of food.
“I’d rather not walk around in wet clothes,” I said and removed my pants. I kept my boxers on out of respect.
“Such a beast,” she said, but there was amusement behind her scowl.
“All aboard,” I said to Doughboy, and he eagerly bounced to my shoulder.
“What a good idea,” said the princess. She presented herself to me with a small curtsy. “I will allow you to carry me across, my champion.”
“Oh, now I’m your champion. I thought I was a lewd beast.”
“You are both,” she said with a sly grin.
“Spread your legs a little and hike up that dress.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you piggyback, you’re going to get your ass wet. If I carry you like a bride, same thing. I have to carry you on my shoulders.”
“I will sit on your shoulder like Doughboy,” she declared.
“It’s a lot harder to carry someone like that. Who do you think I am, Atlas?”
“Who is Atlas?”
“Never mind, we’re wasting time.”
I grabbed her, which made her squeal, and lifted her into position. I hooked my right arm around her legs, like she was a stack of lumber, and walked into the river.
The water was cold as hell, but it felt good. It was about seventy degrees already, and the sun hadn’t even been up for an hour. After we reached the other side, I put the princess down on dry land with a groan. She didn’t weigh much, but 110 pounds on one shoulder was a lot to carry. D was easy to take across in comparison.
She dropped my boots and turned her back while I got dressed. I took off the wet boxers and pulled my pants on. I’d have to go commando until they were dry, but that didn’t bother me much.
When I was fully dressed, the three of us headed out once more. The forest was sparsely wooded at first, but the farther we went, the larger and more ancient looking the trees became. It steadily grew darker too, and soon it was hard to see the sun through the thick canopy.
“I don’t like this forest,” said Eva.
I hacked at a thick vine, then stopped for a minute to lean on it and catch my breath.
“Try cutting your way through it,” I said. You’ll like it even less.”
I finally stumbled on a game trail that went east to west and strapped my pizza shovel to my back before breaking into a jog. Doughboy hitched a ride on me.
“Wait up!” she called.
“We’ve got to make some time when we find paths like these. You’re a healthy young woman. You shouldn’t have any trouble running a little.”
“I can’t do it in these shoes.”
“Maybe next time you’ll wear something more practical when you’re traveling through the wild.”
We ran for about a mile before coming to a winding river I hadn’t seen on the map. It ran west, in the exact direction we needed to go, but stranger yet was the small raft tied to a tree on the muddy bank.
“Something’s not right.” I studied the other shore with mounting suspicion.
“By the gods, how lucky is this?” Eva said as she came to a stop beside me, painting to catch her breath.
“It’s a little too lucky, don’t you think?”
“Not sweeeet?” Doughboy asked.
“Not sweet at all.” I turned to Eva. “What are the odds that we would not only find a river running west but also find a raft waiting for us?”
“Surely it is the work of the goddess,” Eva suggested with a naïve smile.
I scoffed. “The goddess hasn’t done shit for us. Why would she start now?”
Eva glanced around nervously. “You shouldn’t talk disrespectfully about the goddess.”
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, Celesta. You know I love you,” I said to the sky. “I don’t like it. There’s something fishy going on.”
I told her to wait with Doughboy and went over to the raft. There were tracks in the mud. Two pairs, by the look of it, but they didn’t go into the forest. They led halfway up the bank and then disappeared near the water.
“It’s like they docked and then jumped back in and swam away,” I reported. “And look, the feet have only three toes, and they’re webbed.” I planted one of my feet next to one of the tracks; it left a print twice as deep. “They were about 100 pounds.” I tried to imagine the web-toed creatures that had been here. “What kind of creatures are these?”
Eva shrugged.
“Come on, you live here. You must know what lives here.”
“There are a few web-toed creatures that I know of. There’s the frog-like murlocs or nommos, or maybe, well, there are said to be rusalki in the Badlands as well.”
“Any chance those are nice creatures?”
She shook her head. “They are not nice at all.”
I considered our options. We could ignore the raft and keep walking, or we could steal it and make better time on the river. Hell, we might even get lucky enough to float all the way to the Monster Bane Mountains.
“I’m getting eaten alive,” said Eva and swatted a mosquito.
The bugs weren’t bothering me, but they rarely did. It was a gift I guess, or they didn’t like my blood.
“It’s probably the perfume the monkeys put on you,” I suggested. “You smell like a French who—I mean, it’s pretty strong.”
“At least I don’t smell like a dog,” she said and continued to battle the bugs.
I sniffed my left armpit. She was right, I was pretty ripe.
Doughboy sent out his tongue more than three feet and plucked a bug out of the air.
“Yes, Doughboy, eat the little newts,” Eva said, clapping happily.
I made a decision. “Fuck it, let’s take the raft.”
The princess clapped some more and climbed on. I instructed her to sit in the middle. I untied the raft, and with Doughboy on my left shoulder like a parrot, I walked onto the raft and picked up the long pole set across it. No traps were sprung, and no monsters erupted from the trees. I pushed off, and the surprisingly sturdy and waterproof raft entered the current.
The current was strong, and the raft moved along at a good clip. Had I been on the bank trying to keep up, it would have taken a medium jog.
“Now this is what I’m talking about,” I said as the canopy opened up and let the sun shine. I enjoyed the warmth on my face.
Eva riffled through my pack and pulled out a single piece of dried meat and a small brick of cheese. “I’m hungry.”
“Me too. Maybe we’ll get lucky and see some game on the bank.”
“That would be surprising,” she said. “There is nothing here but monsters.”
“That’s not true. The rabbit wasn’t a monster. You’d be surprised how good animals are at not getting eaten. Besides, for a place supposedly infested with monsters, this place is surprisingly quiet.”
“This forest is ancient,” said Eva, glancing around with paranoia etched on her beautiful face. “I can feel it watching us. I can hear it whispering.”
“Calm down, Legolas,” I said, but the truth was I had felt the same thing. I didn’t want to let on that I was a little freaked out. Even Doughboy was alert.
“Who’s Legolas?”
“Never mind,” I said and pushed us along. The water had grown deeper.
I caught the sun now and again through the trees, and once it moved past midday, it showed me we were still running westward.
A few hours before sundown, it took a sudden turn south, then east. I was considering abandoning the raft, but then it turned west again.
Eva gave me a shove and inclined her head toward shore.
Drinking at the river was a creature resembling a wild boar that must have weighed eighty pounds.
“Shh,” I hissed and put down the pole.
I crept over to the pack as the raft languidly floated toward the boar. The animal hadn’t seen us yet, and I held my breath as I took up the crossbow. I nocked a bolt, then brought the weapon to my shoulder.
I took careful aim and gauged the distance.
The boar looked up.
I squeezed the trigger.
The boar squealed and fell in the water. It convulsed and squealed some more, but then it climbed up on the bank and took off at a run.
“Shit!” I grabbed the pole, steered to the bank, jumped off, and tied the raft to a stump.
“Come on, Doughboy!,” I yelled and went after the boar.
Doughboy shot out his arms until they stretched more than twenty feet, took hold of two different branches, and swung through the forest like Tarzan.
“Don’t kill it!” I yelled. I didn’t know what kind of chemicals he produced when he ate faces, and I didn’t want his seconds.
I caught up to him a minute later. He had four doughy tentacles wrapped around the boar, and two others were attached to trees to hold it in place.
“Keep it steady!” I urged and lifted my crossbow.
A point blank bolt between the eyes ended the boar’s life, and Doughboy released it.
“Good job, little dude,” I said and high-fived him. “We’re going to eat like k—”
“Jake! Jake!” Eva screamed in the distance.
I dashed toward the river.
“Help!” she hollered, and the fear in that word made my heart drop.
Her voice led me to the riverbank, about halfway back to where I had tied off the raft, and I realized she must be floating down the river. When I crashed through the bushes, I nearly fell face first into the water, but I caught myself on a tree.
She was floating along on the raft. She spotted me and waved. “Where’s the pole?”
“It fell in.”
“How the hell did it fall in?”
“Who cares? Just do something.”
I glanced at Doughboy and wondered if he could stretch far enough. He must have known what I was thinking, because he backed away and shook his head.
“Come on, D. You can do it.”
“Not sweeeet,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, but if you save the princess and our raft, It will be really sweet.”
“Sweeeet?” He considered it for a moment, then nodded reluctantly.
“Thanks, bro.”
Doughboy groused and wrapped one arm around a nearby tree trunk, then he shot the other arm out over the water. It grew as thin as a breadstick and nearly 50 feet long, but it reached the raft and attached to the wood.
“Holy shit, D, you did it!”
The raft stopped moving downriver and angled toward shore. The princess might have made it if she had stayed put, but she crawled to the nearest corner to be closer to Doughboy’s long appendage.
Her extra weight, and the way that the raft was already tilting due to being tethered to Doughboy against the current, caused the corner to dip below the water. After that, it was over.
She slid into the water and took Doughboy’s appendage along with her. He grunted, let go of the raft, and stretched to the max, while the river tried to tear the princess from his grip.
“Don’t let go!” I told them both. I grabbed Doughboy’s arm and pulled them in.
Somehow the little wad kept himself together, and we successfully brought the sodden princess up on shore.
By then, the raft had floated away out of sight.
“I tied the raft to a tree stump. What the hell happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said and coughed up water.
She was keeping something from me. “Eva, what did you do?”
“I… I might have gotten bored,” she said sheepishly. “And I might have untied the line from the boat.”
“Why in the hell would you do that?”
“I wanted to practice braiding,” she said in a near whisper.
“You wanted to practice braiding?” I was astonished. A mirthless laugh escaped me. “Wow, Just wow. I hope it was worth it, because now we don’t have a raft.”
“You’re the one who jumped off the raft!” she suddenly bellowed, wringing out the hem of her dress.
‘To get you food!”
“Oh, so you’re not going to eat any of it?”
“That’s not the point,” I retorted. “Bah!”
“Not sweeeet,” D croaked. He looked like shit, and his stretched arm wasn’t snapping back like it should have.
“Damn it, look at Doughboy. He’s friggin’ waterlogged.”
“So am I!”
“Calm down and be quiet,” I hissed and glanced around.
She glared at me, fuming.
“Stay with Doughboy and try not to do anything stupid,” I told her. “I’m going to get the boar.
When I came back, Eva was st
ill by the river, but she was no longer sulking. Instead, she was grinning ear to ear.
“You won’t believe what I found.”
“What do you mean, found?. I told you not to go anywhere.”
“I had to relieve myself,” she said with a wave. “But I found a cabin.”
“Did you approach it?”
“No, but—”
“Was there smoke coming from the chimney? Was there anyone around? Were you seen?”
“No, no, and no. Come on, I’ll show you,” she said and turned toward a game trail.
“Wait,” I said and stuffed Doughboy into my pack. He was soggy and slippery, and his tired eyes regarded me with something like reproach.
“You’ll be okay, buddy,” I assured him and buckled the flap over him. “Lead me to the cabin, and try to do it quietly.”
We traversed thick forest, passing knotted trees with old man’s beard hanging from their outstretched branches and a small clear patch of clover, where the sun shone orange in its voyage toward the horizon. On the edge of the clearing was a cabin.
It was small, perhaps twenty by twenty feet. Its roof was covered in moss, but there didn’t appear to be any holes. The windows were boarded up. So was the door, which had been painted green and stood out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the brown cottage. The walls were made of mud bricks, and little pieces of grass stuck out of them. There was a chimney, but no fire was currently burning. The weather was warm enough to warrant not having one, but people who lived in cottages tended to keep the fire going for cooking purposes.
“Stay behind me,” I whispered to her. “And walk in my footsteps three paces behind me. Got it?”
She nodded.
I adjusted the backpack and gripped my enchanted pizza shovel. After one last glance around the perimeter, I moved toward the cottage, listening intently, and soon I was standing in the doorway. The green door had a round brass knob, and above the knob was the letter A in gold leaf. It felt like someone was on the other side of the boarded up window. The image of a crazy clown flashed in my head, but I ignored it.
There were worse things in this forest.
I was nervous, but I was made stronger by Eva’s faith in and dependence on me. I knocked.
“What are you doing?” Eva hissed.
“It’s called manners.” I knocked again, and when no one answered, I tried the knob. It turned. I motioned for her to move back, then opened the door.
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