by Sam Ryder
Just like that he was gone. I knew it like I knew my own screenname on A-Civ. The ooze could repair a lot of injuries, but it couldn’t bring someone back from death once they’d crossed over.
Full of anger and a strange mix of sorrow for the alien man I’d only known for a couple of long weeks, I spotted my hammer where it lay beside the dead troll. I sprinted for it, not slowing my stride as I reached down and grabbed it with my uninjured hand.
The hound was still gnawing on Dravon, ravenous in its hunger. It didn’t see me coming, until I’d bashed its skull in. Flames roiled from the hole in its head but weakened little by little before dying completely.
I turned, ready for the next attack.
It never came. My comrades and allies had done their duty too. Not a demon or hound remained standing. The second troll was down too, the victim of at least two more of Lace’s exploding arrows.
Dravon was dead. Merlin too, the gills in his neck gasping for water as if they didn’t realize he wasn’t in the ocean of his home planet.
Panicked, I searched for Beat. She stood facing away, but slowly turned, taking in the carnage just as I had. Her eyes met mine and I could see the relief. It was followed a moment later by shock and fear as she looked past me.
I followed her gaze, horror washing over me. Kloop, our invincible Protector, bled from more than a dozen wounds. His front horn had been shorn off. He was on his knees, staring right at me but not seeing anything. Because his eyes had been gouged out.
He collapsed face forward. “Help!” I screamed, rushing toward him.
FIFTEEN
LEADERLESS
Eve’s face was covered in grayish blood, almost like ash. I’d seen it before. To a newb like me, Protector Kloop had always seemed invincible, but that didn’t mean I’d never seen him get injured. I’d seen him bleed that same grayish, ashy blood.
I could see it in Eve’s dark, beautiful eyes. The failure. The sadness. This wasn’t some game to her, even if it had felt like that at the beginning. This was life and death. Her job was to protect the Three, find a way to nurture them back from the brink of death. The Protector and the Warriors were a major part of that. And she’d lost so many. Our numbers were dwindling.
I didn’t ask about Kloop, because I didn’t need to.
Our Protector was dead.
It was strange how each day in this place, each Black, felt like a year. Bonds were formed more quickly than back on Earth. I might’ve known Beat a decade. Kloop had felt like someone I’d known from childhood. Maybe not a friend, exactly, but someone I respected and trusted.
Even Lace was growing on me. I trusted the cat-woman to have my back the same as she trusted me to have hers.
All the other Warriors I’d met when I first arrived were dead.
I was fortunate to be alive, my ruined hand wrapped in a strange cast made of those glowing vines. Eve had silently helped me with it, painting my flesh with primordial ooze before tying it off. Then she’d gone to check on Kloop, who’d been entombed in the ooze to try to save his life.
A howl rose up from the canyon, throaty and carnal. Minertha. Though even Eve had painted the earth goddess as someone who used men like a connoisseur relishes fine wines at a tasting, the truth was in her anguished cry.
She’d loved Dravon in the way only a goddess can love a mortal.
“What is the status of the wards?” I asked Eve. It felt like a cold thing to ask at a time like this, but it was also a matter of life or death for the rest of us. The only good news was that the Black that followed our battle was uneventful. No additional monsters attacked the shield, providing a much-needed reprieve.
Eve looked at me, her head cocked to the side with confusion, like I’d spoken a different language. “Wards?” She spoke that single word as if it was something I’d made up. Nonsensical.
The way her entire body slumped spoke of pain and weariness. Sorrow. Kloop had been her hope, I realized in that moment. Someone she could believe in. Someone who hadn’t died in twelve Blacks or less. He’d been an exception to the rule of death.
Until now. She looked lost. Afraid. Barely a sliver of the strong, confident-to-a-fault woman who’d offered me the ride of a lifetime on her motorcycle.
I went to her. I opened my arms. I expected to be rejected, slashed to pieces by swords made of sharp words.
Instead, I watched what fight was left in her disappear as she fell into my arms. She was warm against me. Her blood-splattered face pressed against my neck. Her body shook with sobs. “I’m so tired,” she said.
“I know.” Though I couldn’t fathom the years she’d spent surviving day by day, even two weeks was long enough for me to understand how hard it was for her. I could feel the impact that daily loss was having on my own psyche. Like a mouse gnawing at the insides of my skull every night before the Black.
She shoved me back, breaking the spell of our embrace. “You know nothing, human,” she spat. Her cheeks were slick with tears, Kloop’s ashy gray blood mixing with them and dripping from her chin. Her fire was back, for which I was glad.
“You’re right,” I said. “I know nothing, because I’ve been told nothing. Or at least very little. We know who we’re fighting for, but not why. Why is all this happening? What happened all those years ago? And what will happen if the Three die?”
Eve stood there, seething, her hands fisted at her sides. Her teeth were clenched together, her lips peeled back in a silent snarl. “Ask the Three if you want. I only came here to tell you Minertha has summoned you.”
~~~
My mind was a tornado as I trudged up the hill. Minertha? Since the goddess had played her little newb prank on me that first day, I was pretty sure she didn’t know I existed. What could she possibly want with me at a time like this, when the world was crumbling around us?
I thought of Dravon, how he’d always been kind to me. Like Vrill was. I thought of how he’d died saving my life. My own vision began to blur, but I blinked the tears away. I needed to stay focused if I was going to survive the next couple of Blacks. Or even the next few minutes with the earth goddess.
Though I hadn’t been summoned since Persepheus after my first Black as an official Warrior, my hands and feet were calloused now, which made sliding down the glowing vines an easy task. I landed with bent knees in the gully. Naturally, my eyes wandered toward Persepheus’s slicky, mossy rock, but it was empty.
I turned right and found Minertha staring at me. Though her face was cut from stone—with a stare to match—she was painfully beautiful. Like a carving of a Greek goddess come alive. Her lips parted. “Come, Sam Ryder,” she said.
I walked over slowly. As before, she was half-hidden by the rough-textured rock that rested in the center of the large boulder she used as her bed. Her long legs were the color of earth, but smooth like polished stone. Her torso was mostly invisible, but I could just make out the swell of her voluptuous uncovered breasts.
It wasn’t the time for it, but I also didn’t mind the distraction from all the pain of the last day.
“Come,” she said again, motioning with a hand to a set of steps that curled around the edge of the boulder, all the way to the top.
I ascended the steps carefully so as not to trip. Mostly because I was exhausted, both mentally and physically. My hand was still wrapped in the ooze-cast and my legs were sore from fighting the hellhounds.
I made it without falling, and Minertha came into full view.
I breathed in and out, staring. She was perfection, but in a completely different way to the perfection of Persepheus. Where the sea goddess was all grace and soft curves, Minertha was a mixture of texture and sanded stone. She was fully naked, as I’d anticipated, but even my own foolish fantasies couldn’t have done her justice. Her chest was the upper half of an hourglass, her nipples slightly darker than the rest of her earthy skin, standing erect. Her curves descended into a narrow waist before flaring out into those polished stone hips. The area between them was shav
ed. She moved her hips slightly from side to side and bit her lip.
“Do what you want with me, human,” she said. “I want to feel something again. One last time.”
I felt a stirring in my loins. Despite everything, the gravity of the situation, the death and sorrow, I was still a man. How could I not in the face of such beauty? And I wanted to feel something too. Badly. Completely.
But Dravon. But Kloop. And Merlin and Ton and all the others I’d known only fleetingly. There were times for pleasure and times for pain.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I cannot.”
Her expression changed, flashing anger. “You would dare defy me? You would resist my offer?”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “It just…doesn’t feel right. I’m sorry for your loss.”
With that, I walked away, because I didn’t think I would have the strength to refuse her again. And for the sake of Dravon’s memory, I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.
~~~
I’d told Beat what happened, though she still didn’t seem to believe me. “Wait, so pretty much the hottest woman you’ve ever seen in your life offered to pleasure you and have your babies and all that, and you turned her down?”
“Maybe?” I said. “Okay, yes. Yes, I did. Does that make me an idiot?”
She laughed, which was such a great sound right now, even if it felt a little out of place. “It makes you surprising,” she said. “Not in a bad way. Just…surprising.”
“Thanks? I think?”
“Why’d you do it? Or I should say not do it.”
I shook my head. Even I wasn’t entirely sure, except… “Sex should be between two people with their eyes wide open. They should know and understand what they’re doing and what it means—whether it’s love or a bit of fun or something else. Min—Minertha—and I were both blind in that moment. Neither of us really understood what it meant. So I couldn’t.”
“Deep,” Beat said. “But wise too. You are full of surprises, Sam.”
“I hate surp—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Beat said. “It’s starting.”
She was right. Eve was standing where Kloop normally stood, waiting for those of us who were left to gather. It was strange. She was sleight of frame where Kloop had been a behemoth, and yet she seemed to fill his space in its entirety.
To an outsider, we would’ve looked pitiful. Certainly not like the group of Warriors tasked with defending Three goddesses. There was me, Beat, Lace and the new ocean-dweller, Millania. So few. Eve was still a day out from having the energy to go out to Find more potential Warriors.
One Black stood in between, and we were all who were left to defend it.
But that wasn’t for hours still. Lace had told us that this ceremony was inevitable, because a new Protector needed to be chosen. Though she hadn’t been around when Kloop was chosen, he’d explained things to her before. The Three Goddesses made the choice. It wasn’t based on days of experience necessarily, though that was likely a factor. They would choose whoever they thought would give them the best hope of survival.
Which was Lace, clearly. Not only was she the most experienced, but she was the best Warrior, a natural at using multiple weapons. She was rarely injured because of her agility. She was a good strategist too, and Kloop had regularly consulted with her before each Black.
Eve cleared her throat. “Before I discuss the matter of Protector,” she said, “there’s something you all should know.”
“What?” Lace said, never one to beat around any bush.
“The monster dead are gone.”
“Of course they are,” Lace said. “We killed them under the suns. They must’ve turned to smoke by now.”
“They didn’t,” Eve said. A cryptic statement that spoke volumes. I might’ve been new to this planet and the strange rules that governed it, but I’d seen firsthand what happened when monsters died outside of the Black. Or when they died in the Black and then the Black ended. Poof.
“Then where did they go?” I asked.
“There were runnels in the earth,” Eve said. “Like they were dragged away. It happened during the Black.”
“By other monsters?” Beat asked.
Eve shrugged, which seemed way too nonchalant an expression for the seriousness of the conversation. “Presumably. I don’t see why any of the other tribes would take them. The demons, maybe, for their fireblood, but the hellhounds were taken too.”
“And the trolls?” I blurted out. I couldn’t imagine their massive corpses being dragged anywhere.
“Gone,” Eve said. “Deep chasms were carved into the ground by their passing.”
“Where?” I asked. In the light of day, visibility across the flat, featureless plains was remarkably clear. You could see for miles and miles.
“The Mountains’ Shadow,” Eve said.
“What the fuck?” Beat said. “I might be new around here, but what kind of monster is large enough to drag a dead troll miles and miles?”
It was a good question, but I was also wondering why the bodies would be taken. While I chewed on that question, Eve said, “The Morgoss.”
I exchanged a glance with Beat and could see that her frown was as deep as mine. I’d never heard the name, but it sounded like the sort of thing I’d rather not meet. “What’s the Morgoss?” Lace asked. Which surprised me. I assumed she, being the most experienced of us, would know of every monster this place had to offer. The fact that this was something new to her scared me a little until I remembered that she hadn’t been on this planet all that long either.
“The Three Demons that supplanted our own Three Goddesses,” Eve explained. “They are the creators of the Maluk’ori. None of you have heard of them because they haven’t emerged from their lair in over a hundred years, since they first conquered this planet.”
A chill ran through me. That didn’t sound good. “Have you seen them?” I asked.
Eve shook her head. “Only the Three have seen them. The goddesses have nightmares sometimes. They’re always about the Morgoss.”
Awesome. Demon parents large and strong enough to drag trolls a hundred miles across unforgiving terrain who had conquered three immortal goddesses and now gave them nightmares? Sounded like an awesome video game, but real life? Kinda sucked.
“What are they going to do with the bodies?” Beat asked, her nose wrinkling. “Can they…bring them back from the dead?”
“There are no necromancers in the monster fold—at least not that I’m aware of,” Eve said. “And it wouldn’t make sense. Monsters breed like any other species. Using their concubines, the Morgoss can produce hundreds of their own demon spawn each year. Reviving a few would be of little interest to them. They don’t care for their young the way other races do. Humans, for example.”
Right, I thought. Because my parents ever really cared for me. Still, she was right. Most humans would do anything to save the lives of their children, even die. The fact that these demons wanted their own children’s bodies for some other purpose was a tad freaky. “Darkness,” I muttered.
“What?” Eve said, narrowing her piercingly beautiful eyes in my direction.
“This is about Darkness with a capital D,” I said. “Isn’t it? Dark magic. They are trying to accomplish something with all these bodies. You or the Three must have a guess.”
“I haven’t told the Three and I don’t plan to. Neither should any of you.” The last was said with Eve’s typical note of command, the voice of someone who expected to be obeyed without question. When no one responded, she said, “Is that clear?”
The four of us Warriors looked at each other. Slowly, heads nodded all around. I was the last to agree, even if I really didn’t. Why shelter the goddesses from a mystery they might be able to help explain? Yes, they were weakening day by day, but if they could help us we might be able to save them.
“Onto the next topic,” Eve said. “The Protectorate Succession. The Goddesses have conferred.” She didn’t m
ention them by name, which made me wonder whether she was including the mysterious third goddess, Airiel, in the statement. “The vote has not been unanimous.”
“Meaning?” Beat said.
“Meaning they haven’t chosen a Protector,” Lace growled, not sounding particularly happy with the news. She bared her fangs before adding, “Meaning we are leaderless.”
“I will fight with you tonight,” Eve said.
Silence. We all stared. None of us had been here long enough to know whether this was a thing Eve did, but I’m certain we were all thinking the same thing: No, Eve didn’t usually fight. She was desperate.
I clapped my hands together. “We should rest before the Black.”
“Trying to play leader, are you?” Lace said, an edge to her tone.
“No, I’m trying to get a nap,” I said, refusing to rise to the bait.
Beat, Millania and Eve were already dispersing, but Lace held up a single hand, paw, whatever. One of her retractable claws shot out and she slashed it through the air like she was cutting my throat. Then she smiled and purred, “Stay here for a few minutes, will you, Sam?”
“Uh, sure,” I said. The cat-woman continued to be something of an enigma to me, her moods changing as quickly as the color of the sun.
When the others had reached the bottom of the hill and rounded the bend, Lace strutted toward me. Her tiny outfit hugged her curves in a way that was as sexy as it was intimidating. I steeled myself for whatever was to come.
She still had her claw out.
“Who do you think they’re going to choose?” she asked. Instead of stopping a few feet away from me, she pressed forward, rubbing her face against my shoulder, still purring. Like a cat. Because, well…
“You,” I said, answering honestly.
“Liar!” She leapt up so quickly I barely had time to get my hands up to protect my throat. But Lace wasn’t trying to kill me, or else I’d have been dead. She did, however, manage to knock me over and steal my lunch money. Okay, the second part didn’t happen—I had no money, or lunch for that matter—but she did knock me over, landing on top of my chest. Her back was arched like a feline with her hackles up.