by Logan Jacobs
“That is a very interesting story,” Nadir said thoughtfully, and then she turned to me. “You are not the enemy I first thought you were.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” I laughed. “All of those things I did for them, I want to do the same with you.”
“But you want something else, correct?” Nadir asked as she cocked an eyebrow at me.
Damn. The woman was smart as a freaking whip. I hadn’t even planned to say anything about the fire breathing beast until I’d at least had the chance to start helping them, but either Nadir was secretly a mind reader, or she could already read me like an open book.
“We want to know about the fire beast,” I confessed. I didn’t want to lie to this woman, not that I thought I could even get away with that, and I sure as hell didn’t want her to think I was untrustworthy and leave us.
“Of course, you do.” Nadir nodded in understanding. “I suppose you have never seen such a beast before?”
“Not in real life,” I replied.
“Neither have we,” she growled. “Until the monster stole our treasure.”
“What treasure was that?” I asked.
“It was our treasure!” she exclaimed and bared her sharp teeth. “That was what it was. The greatest treasure we had found in a very long time.”
“So shiny,” Jira sighed and twirled a strand of white hair around her finger.
“And beautiful.” Malak nodded.
“Wait, let me get this straight,” I started as I began to catch on to just what was so special about this treasure. “You only liked this thing because of how it looked? It didn’t mean anything to you?”
“What would it mean to us?” Nadir looked horrified. “It was our treasure, and it was taken from us. And you, Ben of a Different World, will help us get it back.”
“Yes!” Trin shrieked, and she flung her long grayish hair over her shoulder. “Ben will get the treasure back. You are such a mighty warrior, this should be very simple for you.”
“Precisely.” Nadir nodded. “You have fought many battles and defeated monsters and enemies. You will be our champion, and you will retrieve the treasure for us. It is settled. Now, I would like to take my people to bed.”
For a moment, I sat there in just a little bit of shock at the announcement. I hadn’t exactly planned my queries about a fire breathing beast to turn into a rescue mission for some treasure that seemed to have no actual value, other than being pretty.
But Nadir had already stood up, with her women right behind her, and started to march in the direction of the tents like she owned the place.
It was actually pretty damn hot.
“Uh, I shall go show them to their tents,” Anora announced as she scrambled up and tried to catch up to the women before they took someone else’s tent on their first night in our camp.
“Well, my king, it would appear we are going on a treasure hunt,” Mira laughed.
“It would appear that way,” I chuckled.
I watched Nadir’s curvy form disappear into the first tent she saw, without permission from Anora, of course, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
I was in for an adventure on this island, in more ways than one.
Chapter Seven
Jemma and I retired to our own tent for some more attempts at making a baby, while everyone else went their separate ways to bed. Some of the women slept on the ship, and others in the tents, while a few rotated the guards to make sure no enemies, orc or animal, tried to attack us in the middle of the night.
When I woke up, Jemma’s chartreuse eyes were right over my face as she stared at me intensely, like she wanted to memorize my face.
“Shit!” I gasped. “Jemma, you scared me.”
“I am sorry,” she laughed. “I did not mean to. I just wanted to see why Nadir kept doing that yesterday.”
“Doing what?” I asked, still half asleep.
In answer, Jemma stuck her face back over mine and widened her eyes in a way that was both comical and terrifying at the exact same time.
“You mean staring at me?” I laughed.
“Yes, but in such a strange way.” Jemma nodded. “She did it to Mira and me, too, so I wanted to see what happened when I did it.”
“I think it’s just her way.” I shrugged. “She’s probably very good at reading people. She just wanted to make sure we weren’t lying to her.”
“Yes, she was extremely guarded,” Jemma mused and pursed her lips. “Very strange. But she is beautiful, and I like her.”
“You like everyone,” I replied.
“Not the orcs,” she pointed out, and her cute face crumpled into a frown. “Or the wargs.”
“Nobody likes them,” I laughed.
Suddenly, our peaceful morning was interrupted by a loud flapping noise, and then an intense blaze of light nearly blinded me. Someone had yanked the flap to our tent open, and I squinted in the bright sunlight.
Jemma gasped in shock and fell off me back onto the thin mattress we shared. I just blinked my eyes in the light and reached for my sword, before I heard Nadir’s voice and stopped.
“You all sleep for a very long time,” she grumbled. “Who sleeps so much at night?”
“When else would you sleep?” Jemma demanded, and I could tell she was slightly annoyed at the rude greeting from the raccoon woman.
Nadir just blinked at the deer woman and didn’t answer. Then she adjusted the fur strap of her clothing, turned on her heels, and marched away.
“We will bring you to our camp today,” she called out over her shoulder. “It is time to leave.”
“Right now?” I asked as I scrambled to my knees and crawled toward the front of the tent to peer out. I could see Trin, Malak, Lezan, and Jira near the ashes of the fire as they chowed down on freshly caught, raw fish.
“Yes, right now,” Nadir replied. “We must introduce you to our family so we can get our treasure back. They will be very happy to see you.”
“If they do not try to kill you first,” Jira murmured, quietly enough that I wouldn’t have been able to hear her if I didn’t have my dragon hearing.
“Great,” I sighed. “Were you all taught to shoot first, then look?”
Of course, that question was met with a set of confused looks, but I didn’t have the patience to answer right then.
“We are coming,” Jemma called out to them. “Give us a few minutes.”
“Hurry,” Malak barked.
I closed the flap of the tent so Jemma and I could change into fresher clothes in relative privacy.
“They are very serious about this treasure,” she whispered. “Do you think it is worth it, Ben?”
“The treasure, probably not,” I answered. “But I do want to see this dragon, if that’s really what it is, and figure out if we can somehow get this beast on our side. You saw what it did to that orc ship. Imagine what it could do to their entire island.”
“That is a fair point.” Jemma nodded as she slipped out of her worn pants and into a pair of cleaner ones. “These women are very strange. I do like them, though. And it is not just because I like everyone. There is something interesting about them. Different.”
“Yeah,” I murmured as I thought about Nadir’s steely gray eyes. “There is.”
We changed quickly and met the women outside, where Mira and Sela already waited for us. The warriors still rubbed sleep out of their eyes, and I could tell Nadir had roused them in a similarly rude fashion to the way she’d roused Jemma and me.
“You are all here,” Nadir said, and she spun her crude rock axe around in her hand as she looked at us. “Good.”
“Ben, will you require anyone else to come with you?” Jira asked.
“George,” I replied. “My water dragon.”
“The beast is coming with us?” Malak breathed with wide amber eyes.
“He won’t hurt anyone,” I promised her. “But I want him with me if this fire breathing monster you talk about is what I think it is. We ne
ed a creature that knows way more than I do, and that’s George.”
I am here, dear one, George announced as he bounded up next to us, with a freshly caught fish in his mouth. Quickly, he flipped the fish up into the air and tilted his head back to snap it up in his powerful jaws. Then the water dragon swallowed the fish all in one go, and he looked at me with a satisfied smirk.
“Glad somebody enjoyed their breakfast,” Mira grumbled as she held up a piece of half stale coconut bread. “I simply wanted a bit of bread. That was all.”
“We have no time to worry about our food,” Nadir sighed impatiently. “We must go. I do not want to live much longer without our treasure. We must get it back.”
I walked over to Anora and the other women to have a brief conversation with them.
“Watch the ship,” I instructed. “Don’t wander too far from the beach since we don’t know what’s in those woods, and keep your eyes peeled for any orcs.”
“Yes, my king.” Anora nodded.
“Alright, lead the way,” I said as I turned back to Nadir.
Nadir took us down the beach a little ways, still in sight of our encampment and ship, before she made a sharp turn into the tree line of the forest. She walked not more than four feet in and came to a stop in front of one of the giant, gray boulders that dotted the landscape.
Quickly, Jira walked up to Nadir, and they both bent down and started to push the boulder. After a moment, it rolled just a little bit, enough for me to see there was a huge, dark hole underneath it.
“You guys use a tunnel system,” I said, and I had to admit I was impressed. This explained why we hadn’t seen anyone until they’d decided to attack us. They hadn’t even been above the ground.
“This island is full of many terrifying creatures,” Nadir explained. “The tunnels are not perfect, but they do keep us much safer than traveling on land.”
“Is that how you saw us before we saw you?” Sela asked. “The tunnels?”
“Yes.” Nadir nodded. “We knew when you had traveled into our old camp, and that was when we came above ground and attacked. Of course, you were not our enemy, as we discovered.”
“Not in the slightest,” Mira replied before she glanced back at George. “I do not believe this tunnel is big enough for you to fit, my friend.”
George peered down into the space, but Mira was right. The tunnel was large enough for us to fit, but it definitely couldn’t hold a twenty-foot-long, four-foot-wide water dragon.
That is alright, dear ones, George replied. I will travel above the ground and use my nose to follow you.
“What if you’re attacked by one of these monsters they’re talking about?” I asked with a furrowed brow. I knew George could take care of himself, but that didn’t make me any less nervous to leave my water dragon alone, above ground, on a strange island with monsters we didn’t know.
George didn’t answer, but I could see in his eyes that he, too, was hesitant.
“Any chance we could travel above ground on the way there, so we don’t have to leave George?” I asked Nadir. “The five of us should be plenty of protection against whatever beasts come our way. I’m sure we’ve dealt with much worse before.”
Nadir glanced between George and me and cocked her head.
“I suppose,” the woman relented. “But only on the way there, and we must hurry. I do not like to traverse these woods for very long.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at her.
Unsurprisingly, she didn’t smile back, but she did give me a half nod that was about as good as a smile, since all I’d gotten from this woman were steely looks and glares.
“Let us go quickly,” she insisted.
Malak and Trin replaced the boulder quickly, and then we followed Nadir as she strutted through the trees, with one hand on her little axe and her eyes completely alert.
The five of us took a cue from these women and scanned the pretty woodlands constantly, just in case something jumped down from one of the trees or barreled toward us with massive, gnashing teeth.
It was strange to think this island, with its soft, fluffy grass, pretty flowers, and twisted trees could be home to any sort of real monsters, but I could also tell Nadir and her women weren’t exactly weak little Barbies, either. If something scared them, it was probably because it was terrifying.
Nadir and the women didn’t talk much as we walked through the forest. I got the feeling they were all the strong, silent type, but that didn’t stop me from becoming curious about them.
“So, do you guys live underground, too?” I asked.
“No,” Trin replied as she glanced at me with a puzzled expression in her amber eyes. “Who lives underground? I imagine that would be quite a dirty life.”
“We make our homes in the trees,” Lezan explained, and she gestured above her two-toned head. “Much like the tree you encountered before we attacked. We have simply moved because the orcs knew where we were.”
“We had to move a lot, too” Jemma sympathized. “We didn’t live inside the trees, though, but we did make our camps in the branches.”
“Shh!” Nadir hissed and suddenly pulled up to a complete stop. Then she whipped around and silently motioned for us all to duck behind the wispy branches of one of the trees. It wasn’t too much cover, but since I didn’t know the island yet, I said nothing.
“It is a wildabear,” Jira murmured so quietly, her lips barely moved. “Everyone stay completely silent. They are blind.”
That explained the inherent lack of cover. Though, the fact they were terrified of a blind creature made my own heart start to pound in panic. I was reminded of a horror movie I’d seen what felt like eons ago, where the terrifying creatures that killed everyone were completely blind. The slightest noise would bring them out, and they’d tear a person up in an instant.
That was definitely not the kind of beast I wanted to encounter just yet.
So, I forced myself to take shallow, silent breaths as we waited, and not too far away, I could hear the cracking and thudding of some very large feet as their owner traversed the forest.
And wherever big feet were, an even bigger body followed. And most of the time, those bodies had massive teeth and sharp claws.
George was right behind my back, and he wrapped his tail around us nervously as Jemma shifted closer to me. We waited and listened as the footsteps got closer and closer, until finally, we were able to see the beast.
I could see why it was called a wildabear. The thing resembled a brown bear, only it was about twice the size, with longer, thinner legs that looked like they could run a mile in sixty seconds. Its two eyes were a milky white, with no irises or pupils, and it had two vampire-like fangs that hung down from its massive upper jaws. Those things looked like they could crush a person and drain their blood faster than I could even blink, and a shiver raced down my spine.
The wildabear came forward, with its nose to the ground as it snuffled along and blew up clouds of dirt and dust. The milky eyes remained fixated on no spot in particular, which made the bear look eerie and creepy.
It stepped one of its massive paws onto the exact same spot I’d stood just a few moments before, and then it just froze in place, the same way a hunting dog will freeze when it spots its prey. Only this beast couldn’t see a thing.
The bear pressed its nose even further into the ground with a shake of its head and took a giant inhale. Clearly, it could smell something.
I risked a glance out of the corner of my eye to see the reaction of Nadir and her women, but I made sure not to make a sound.
The racoon women all looked terrified out of their minds, and when I considered the fact these women had seemed virtually fearless up until now, it only made my heart pound faster.
So, I slowly wrapped my hand around the hilt of my sword, careful not to make a sound. I didn’t draw it just yet, since I knew that would alert the bear to our presence, but I held it there, at the ready.
The wildabear snuffled at the ground w
here I’d stood for another moment before it abruptly lifted its massive head. If it hadn’t been blind, the thing would have looked straight at us.
Jemma pressed her slender body even further into me, but the rest of us were absolutely frozen. No one moved or breathed while the beast stared at us.
Even with the other women and George, I wasn’t sure we could take this beast if it decided to attack. It was way too fucking big.
By the grace of the gods, though, something cracked elsewhere in the forest. A twig or a leaf, maybe, under the foot of some poor, unsuspecting animal.
Immediately, the beast’s head whipped toward the sound so fast it was nothing more than a blur. Then it paused for a brief moment before it took off at a high lope, eager for its next meal.
We all stayed frozen for a little while, in a silent agreement to just wait until we knew for sure the coast was clear.
Finally, Nadir took a breath and shuddered the fear from her before she turned to me.
“And that is why we travel underground through the tunnels,” she informed me.
“Can’t say I blame you,” I muttered.
The rest of our journey was blissfully undisturbed by any blind but deadly wildabears. We saw a few more chickens, one of which Malak caught, tore its head off, and then bit down into it, bones and all.
“Breakfast,” she explained with a shrug. “Nadir did not let us eat before we left today.”
Most men probably would have been absolutely disgusted at the way she consumed raw, freshly caught meat, but I thought it was the biggest damn turn on. These women were wild and uninhabited in a way that felt like they came out of a cowboy and Indian movie and straight from the first century all at the same time.
After another two hours or so, the twisted trees began to thin, replaced by the same red trees we’d seen before, when we’d explored one of their old homes uninvited.
This time, though, it wasn’t a small patch of the gargantuan trees. Instead, it was almost as if the entire forest had completely changed and was now populated by the giant, livable trees.
“Woah,” Jemma breathed as she looked at the massive trees. “This reminds me so much of home.”