by Logan Jacobs
“I have never been away from home,” she finally sighed.
We both knew I was aware of that, but I could tell something inside Mira just needed to get that out.
“I know.” I nodded. “You miss them.”
“Yes,” she replied. “But it’s … ”
I waited for her to finish her thought, but she never did.
In a very un-Mira like move, the warrior twisted a piece of the sheet up in her fingers, untwisted it, and twisted it back up again.
“Talk to me,” I urged and shifted closer to her.
“I don’t know how to describe this feeling,” she murmured. “Like my heart is not in my chest anymore. It feels as if it’s still back on the island.”
“You’re homesick,” I informed her. “It happens all the time back where I’m from, like when kids go away to college or someone moves for their job.”
“College?” She quirked an eyebrow at me curiously.
“It’s school, but they go somewhere else,” I explained. “The point is, you just miss your home. It’s perfectly normal.”
“I’m a warrior.” She shook her head hard. “I shouldn’t feel like this. I chose this mission, to follow my king. I shouldn’t be in a tent by myself, all sad.”
“Well, you’re not exactly by yourself.” I smirked.
“That’s not what I meant,” she murmured, and I could tell she wasn’t in the right headspace for jokes.
“Of course not,” I recovered quickly. “I just meant you don’t have to feel guilty, okay? If you ever feel like it’s all overwhelming, or you’re homesick, just talk to me about it. Trust me, I felt like that many times in my life.”
“Did you feel this way when you washed up on our shores?” she asked, and her gold eyes regarded me seriously.
“Not one bit,” I replied. “At that point, I was ready to leave. There was nothing for me anymore.”
“Okay,” Mira sighed, and she went back to twisting the cloth in her fingers, untwisting, and twisting it again as she stared blankly at the wall of the tent.
I wrapped my arm all the way around her and held her close. I couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty, since I’d let her come with me on this trip, but then again, Mira had made her own choice. Plus, without her, I would have had a much harder time with, well, everything.
I waited until Mira fell asleep before I curled up next to her and let myself drift off, since I didn’t want to fall asleep first and allow her to sink back into the sadness.
When I woke up, Mira was still sound asleep, and I wanted her to stay that way, so I crept from the tent and out into the warmth of the morning as quietly as I could.
Once again, the village was still asleep, except for Jemma, who I could see down on the main platform. I watched as she dropped down and did ten push-ups, planked for half a minute, and then sprang up to scale the tall tree in the center of the platform.
That woman was a little spit fire. I’d known it the moment I’d met her, and I absolutely loved it.
As Jemma was in the boughs of the tree, I climbed down to the platform and waited at the bottom for her.
She saw me the moment she emerged from the branches, sweaty and bathed in a morning glow, and a bright smile lit up her face.
“Hi, Ben,” she greeted. “Sleep well?”
“I did.” I nodded. “I can see you did, too. Was yesterday’s training too easy for you?”
“Oh, my Goddess, no!” she exclaimed quickly. “It was extremely difficult, but I want to work on that. I want to make sure I am ready for anything that comes my way. So, when I woke up this morning, I realized it was a good idea to do some extra training under the warmth of the morning sun.”
She smiled and tilted her face up to soak in the yellow rays.
“Hmm,” I hummed and playfully narrowed my eyes at her. “Well, in that case, do you think you could beat me up that tree?”
Jemma glanced from me to the tree and sucked in a large, long breath.
“Absolutely,” she laughed. “Ready?”
“Go!” I shouted.
Instantly, the two of us took off for opposite sides of the massive trunk.
I grabbed branch after branch and used my legs and muscle power to propel me faster and faster up the tree, but I was still no match for the auburn-haired woman with the long, long, long legs.
Jemma had length and time on her side. She’d climbed these trees her entire life, while tree climbing was something I’d hardly done in the last eighteen years.
When I finally made it to the top, Jemma was perched on a slender branch with a proud smile on her face.
“And they call you the Dragon King,” she teased.
“Just because I’m king doesn’t mean I can’t admit when I’m beat,” I laughed. “Good job.”
“Thank you,” Jemma replied, and she wiggled proudly on her perch.
I leaned against the thin trunk at the top of the tree and surveyed the view.
I was high. Like mountain high, and I could see the entire island and beyond from up there.
I gazed down over the tops of the bright green trees, over to the golden sands of the beach, and I saw birds fly above the treetops. They were what had made those chirps the other day, but there didn’t seem to be too much meat on them. They looked happy, though, as they flitted from tree top to tree top.
I turned my gaze in a different direction, and I could see the remains of our raft down on the beach, as well as the decaying body of the first warg I’d ever killed.
Beyond the island, my eyes were met with the deep azure ocean. It stretched on for miles and miles, well beyond the horizon, and I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of monsters lurked in its dark depths. That run in with the squid was all the convincing I’d needed to know the stories from Mira’s childhood were true, and there were all sorts of terrors in the ocean.
And I wanted to sail it for the foreseeable future. Perfect.
I traced the circumference of the island with my eyes. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was in search of, but I wanted to really get to know this place from way up in the trees before we ventured out again.
Behind me was the mountain on the far side of the island, and it loomed up above us, covered in trees just like the rest of the place.
And just a little ways down from that, on the beach, I saw what looked like a house.
“Holy shit,” I breathed and sat straight up against the trunk of the tree.
“What?” Jemma asked, and she glanced around in alarm.
“Down there.” I pointed at the little building nestled on the beach, and I realized it was more like a hut than a house as I studied it more closely. From up in the trees, thanks to my enhanced dragon-vision, I could also see small, dark figures as they moved around the structure, but it was difficult to make out exactly what they were doing.
One thing was for sure though. They were definitely orcs. And they’d made a residence on this island.
The stupid fuckers really thought they were about to take over.
Not on my fucking watch.
“Oh, my goodness,” Jemma breathed as her eyes landed on the little orc hut. “We had no idea. All this time … We’ve been too terrified to venture outside of the forest for fear we might lose our cover.”
“Yeah, well, maybe that was a good plan.” I nodded. “Now, we have the advantage. They have no idea we know where their camp is.”
“Ben.” Jemma’s voice was quiet, but her eyes were wide and trusting as she looked up at me. “What are we going to do?”
I thought it over for a brief moment as I watched the orc activity from way up in the sky. The little black figures converged around what looked like a table of some sort as they discussed whatever horrible plans they wanted to execute next, and I saw a few larger figures with lumbering gaits, which I knew were wargs.
As I watched, one of the wargs crossed the path of a pudgy little orc, and the orc immediately smacked the warg so hard its large body smacked to the
ground. I wasn’t able to hear a thing that was said, but I knew for damn sure the orc was having an angry meltdown on the warg.
So, that was how this worked. The orcs used violence and fear to keep the monsters in check, and then forced them to do their evil bidding.
“We should do a reconnaissance mission,” I finally said. “See if we can sneak up on them and figure out what they want. Maybe they’ve got a base we can hit, or maybe there’s a separate place they keep the wargs that we could find and take out those monsters in a few minutes flat. I don’t want to just start up a battle and go in there blind without knowing anything.”
Jemma nodded as she thought it over.
“We should tell Ainsley,” the slight woman suggested. “I am sure she will want to join you.”
“Good idea,” I agreed. “Let’s get down from here before they see us.”
Jemma and I started to climb back down the massive tree, and we had almost gotten back to the bottom when a rush of commotion pierced through the air. I could hear the sound of frantic footsteps and hushed whispers as voices and words shot back and forth through the air.
Jemma and I quickly scrambled down the last few feet to find a terrified scene before us.
Women rushed back and forth from platform to platform as they started to fold up the vine bridges and take down the tents.
I caught Mira and Ainsley in the center platform as they tried to call for some sort of order, but their voices were lost in the din of the panic.
Jemma snatched the arm of a thin brunette woman with soft hazel eyes as she passed us.
“What is happening?” Jemma demanded.
“Wargs have been seen in the area,” the woman said, and her voice shook with terror. “Nalya spotted them. She said there were at least ten, possibly more. It is not safe here anymore, Jemma. We must move.”
“No, we built traps at the foot of the tree,” I pointed out. “The wargs can’t get up here anymore. And if they do, you can fight now. We can beat them.”
The brunette looked at me for half a second, and I could see in her eyes that she wanted to believe I was right, but instinct won out, and she shook her head.
“We are afraid, Ben,” was all she said. Then she hauled the tangled mess of white cloth closer to her body and rushed off again, headed toward the cooking tent.
Jemma and I ran toward the center platform to join Ainsley and Mira, and along the way, it took every bit of grace the two of us possessed to avoid running into any of the many frantic deer women as they dashed and leapt all around us.
“Nalya saw a group of wargs,” Mira explained to us when we approached.
“Yeah, we’ve been filled in,” I said. “You guys can’t leave. We’ve worked so hard to build things up here. The gardens, the hunting spots. It would all go to waste. You’d be right back where you were before I came. Worse, actually.”
“I know,” Ainsley sighed, “but they will not listen to me. I suppose a president cannot do much good when her people refuse to take her orders.”
“No.” I shook my head determinedly. “We’re not moving. We’re not running. Those monsters don’t get to have their way anymore.”
“Seriously,” Mira growled, and her gold eyes flashed. “A Dragon King never gives in and we are the Dragon Kong’s women.”
I nodded in agreement and turned to face the rest of the camp. Then I sucked in a massive breath before I shouted, “Hey, everybody, listen to me!”
Instantly, as if my yell was some sort of magical homing beacon, every single woman in the camp froze and turned to look at me.
“Look, I get that you’re scared,” I said, “and you have every right to be. But you can’t keep running from these wargs. It’s unsustainable, and honestly, it’s not going to do you any good from here on out.”
“It’s worked for us so far,” Theora called back. “I’m still alive.”
I took a moment to make eye contact with every single woman in the village. I wanted them to know I saw them, that I heard their concerns, but more importantly, I wanted them to know I was here, now, and I wasn’t going to let any of them die. That wasn’t my style.
“Has it really, though?” I asked the brunette. “How many of you have still been killed?”
Theora sucked one of her pretty pink lips into her mouth and cast her eyes away from me. I hated to see the hurt flash across her face, but it was necessary. I couldn’t let these women just revert to their old ways simply because they’d gotten scared again.
“Too many,” Ainsley breathed, but I could tell the response was reflexive.
I turned to see shiny tears had pooled in the corners of her clear blue eyes, and I wrapped a comforting arm around her fragile shoulders, then planted a soft kiss on her thick hair.
“I know,” I murmured in her ear, before I turned back to the group. “And those of you here were alive, yes, but you were starving and terrified. You could barely feed yourselves from the scraps you’d grown, and if you move, you’ll have to start those gardens all over again. The seeds in the hanging planters won’t be ready for some time, either. So, I want you to ask yourselves: were the lives you lived before I came really lives at all?”
The weight of my question hung in the air as the women considered it. I knew it was asking a lot of them to expect them to change their ways, but they’d already changed so much. They’d started to eat meat, learned how to hunt, learned how to shoot, and were on their way to learning how to fight.
This was just one more shift that needed to happen to fix their broken island.
Finally, Sarayah spoke up.
“I do not want to go back to the way things were before,” she said seriously. “I am tired of being scared all of the time. Ben is correct. We need to stay. We need to fight the wargs.”
It seemed Sarayah’s decision sparked every other woman in the camp to nod her head in agreement. These women certainly were far more co-dependent than I could understand, but I was thankful I’d managed to get someone on my side.
“The wargs haven’t even come up here yet,” I pointed out to the crowd again. “The traps we’ve set around the tree are nearly impossible to avoid unless you know the way. I’m not asking you to battle them right now. I’m just asking you to have faith in yourselves that you will be ready when the time comes. It’s asking a lot, for me to have you change your ways, and trust me, I get that. But change is a good thing.”
“Plus, Ben and I know where the wargs’ base camp is now, so we can attack them in their own home,” Jemma announced in an excited voice.
Shit.
I hadn’t planned on revealing that to the whole village just yet. I’d figured I’d talk it over with Ainsley and Mira, and we could develop some sort of strategy together, before we announced it.
The words were out, though, and a commotion was already brewing in the village.
“You know where the base camp is?” someone shouted fearfully. “How many are there?”
“How close is it?” another woman asked.
“Did they see you?” a third cried out.
After that, questions poured out of their mouths, faster than I could keep track of. They wanted to know how many wargs there were, they wanted to know about the orcs, if we’d seen any prisoners, and, most importantly, how fast they could get away.
I gave Jemma a sidelong glance, but I could tell the small woman already regretted her words.
“Sorry,” she murmured, and she put a soft, caring hand on my arm.
“It’s alright,” I reassured her.
“Everyone, calm down!” Ainsley finally bellowed when she’d had enough of the questions.
Surprise colored both mine and Mira’s faces at the blonde’s tone. It was sterner than any I’d ever heard her use before.
It was the tone of a president.
And it worked. The questions ceased, and the women waited in impatient silence for me to explain.
I looked out across the crowd and was surprised to see that many o
f their faces were now full of anger instead of fear.
Those were the warriors I needed.
“I don’t know the answers to those questions,” I finally said. “I was up too far to get a very good look, but I do know they’ve erected a base camp on the far beach. And yes, there were orcs on the island, too.”
A fearful gasp rose up.
“Did you see any prisoners?” Theora asked, and she sounded half hopeful.
“No.” I shook my head. “But who knows? They could have been hidden away. We need to get a better look.”
“What are you proposing, Ben?” Ainsley asked.
“I’m proposing I take a search party out,” I replied. “A small number, maybe four or five. We can sneak up to the base and try to get a clearer picture of just what we’re dealing with here. Rule number one of battle: never go in ignorant if you can avoid it.”
“Well.” Mira grinned. “It looks like we’re going on a top-secret mission. I like this idea.”
I smirked back at the warrior.
I knew I could always count on her to kick orc ass by my side.
Chapter Eight
The next morning, Mira, Ainsley, Jemma, and I rose at the break of dawn and gathered the supplies we needed. By our calculations, we didn’t think we’d be out past dinner, thanks to the relatively small size of the island and how close the orcs’ camp was. So, we just packed a sack of dried meat and fruit for each of us, as well as a few handfuls of tree nuts. Then Mira and I grabbed our sea glass swords and a bow with arrows, while Ainsley and Jemma got their own bows.
Soon, we were on the main platform with our supplies, ready to head off on our mission.
The entire village had gathered around us, and the women stood with nervous looks on their faces as they wrung their hands and told us to be careful.
They’d never thought of this before, I’d learned from Theora the night before. The woman had been too terrified to venture out and find this camp, despite the fact that they’d all drawn the logical conclusion that the wargs had to have a home somewhere.
To them, we were brave pioneers, like Columbus when he set out to sail into the unknown.
I took a breath and reminded myself of the exact direction we needed to head in. Straight west, the same direction as the sun while it set.