by Aaron Crash
“Ideally, we’d have an eastern wall out there,” I said. “It might take me a week to get through the sand, dig through the rock, and get something built, but I’d be pressing my luck.”
Figg pulled back but kept my hand. “We could go to Sweetleaf. You could get your concentration ink. And perhaps I could get another one of the Pentakorr brands. Rumor has it Dvey had a jalana there, in a city floating in the clouds. Most say it’s the air brand, but others claim it was the Ksu Jalana.”
“The earth brand,” I translated.
Geeze laughed himself into a cough. “This is desperate. But we were desperate before and we found victory. You would leave in the morning. You can fly, dragon boy, can you not?”
“No, not dragon boy,” I said with a sigh. “And dragon man isn’t much better, since I have a name now. Axel Drokharis, pleased to meetcha.” I shook my head. “I don’t like the fact that we’re leaving again. Also, we have Dryx to consider.”
“Who is Dryx?” Figg asked, face screwed up in frustration. She didn’t like it when she didn’t have all the information. Control issues? Yes, and she’ll have fries with that.
“Remember that nice girl with the wings we called Angelina?” I asked. “Well, turns out, her real name is Dryx. And it’s like she’s trying to deal with her trauma by sleeping with me and taking off. I’m not exactly complaining.”
“I am not complaining at all,” Rhee put in. “She’s hot as fuck.”
“And we all know how hot fuck is,” Geeze put in.
Figg made a face. “Not in front of me, Grandfather. I know you still have your appetites, but I don’t want to hear about them.”
I mouthed a “thank you” to my summoner.
She tipped her head. “Do you think it was those seeds she was eating? Could they be affecting her? Or perhaps she’s more demon than angel?”
“For the record, I’d fuck a demon.” Rhee couldn’t control herself. She went and grabbed some of Geeze’s bilk and took a swallow. She let out a big ahhh. “Sorry, Geeze, I needed a draught. Aye, I’m getting thirsty. We should’ve been at the celebration an hour ago.”
“I understand like few can,” the old-timer said. “As for this woman, I have had to tell Bragg Bharta and Nina Heart, several times, she is not an angel. She is of the Wingkin, also known as the Jataksha, from faraway Reytah, or you would know it as Rydd R’Tah. The Jataksha are a strange people, and they have kept to themselves.”
Figg’s face glowed and she smiled a rare unguarded smile. “Yes, the Wingkin saved our world from dragons. They saved us from demons. They are a wonderful people.”
Wonderfully crazy. I didn’t say that, but I thought it. “Yeah, I know, Figg. We all know how great Lalindra Namenri was.” That was the name of the hero my summoner tried to grab. Instead, she got me. Lucky girl.
The sorceress lost her rare smile. “Not was, Axel. Lalindra Namenri is alive, sleeping in her castle, waiting for when the demons might attack again. She is a queen now, with limitless power.”
I shrugged. “Well, if Dryx comes back, we can ask her about Lalindra. For now, I don’t know what to think.”
Rhee let out a huge sigh of annoyance. “We have a plan. Can we go to the festival? All this talking is not doing a thing for my thirst or my hunger. Did I mention I was both thirsty and hungry? We have to celebrate! We’re alive, and we’re lusty, and we have a new adventure waiting for us.”
Figg exploded. “It’s not an adventure, Rheesee! Once again my village is in trouble! Once again, people have died! And it’s from our deeds! We stole the water brand from Ibbithy, and we slew her brother!”
I raised a hand. “I killed the brother. That was me.”
Figg’s eyes widened. If she’d had Superman laser eyes, I would’ve been reduced to ashes.
Rhee, though, stepped forward. She grabbed Figg’s hands. “Finniwigg, I’m sorry for losing my patience. You’re right. This is your village. We’ll save it like we did before. You’re wrong, though, to think we caused this. The merfolk are to blame. We won the water brand through our own skill and power. And we didn’t steal the merfolk’s treasure.”
I rubbed my chin. “And treasure that included Dryx in a box. Which is going to be the hottest toy this Christmas. What do you give the kid who has everything? Dryx in a box.”
Figg drew her eyebrows together. “What is Christmas?”
Rhee sighed at me, clearly wanting me to shut the hell up so we could get to the party.
Geeze, though, laughed his ass off.
“You didn’t get any of that,” I said.
“I didn’t,” he admitted, “but you thought it was funny. I’d laugh for the two of us.”
That made me go over and give the old-timer a hug. I liked Geeze, and I’d been worried I’d lost him.
Figg was right to be upset. This protecting the town was stressful. However, I thought we might have a secret ace up our sleeve. I leaned back. “Suffice it to say, the timing of all this is interesting. Uncle Dog spends some of the merfolk’s treasure and boom, we get hit by the merfolk. Was Squidbeard the one who put Dryx in the box?”
Geeze leaned forward and pinched my cheek. “You are clever, dragon boy. I’ll try and suss some of that information out. Meanwhile, get out of my perch and leave me be. I have jimps and beer, and we’ll be eating kraken leftovers for days. Eat your fill tonight, for you leave in the morning!”
Chapter Eight
FIGG DIDN’T PAUSE. She went right down the ladder and created a hard pathway across the water. She walked across the hard water to get to the cobblestone street. I was already stripping, but Rhee put a hand on my arm. “Don’t get me wrong, dragon boy. I like you naked. But Figg has some issues with flying. She hasn’t told you because she doesn’t want you to think she’s weak. Let’s just walk to the market.”
“So, if I’m dragon boy, what are you?” I asked with a smirk.
“Too hot for dumb nicknames.” Rhee winked.
That had me laughing. Rhee had that old-school quick wit.
Figg had left her path, so we could follow her into the Old City.
Geeze had provided Agni magic to streetlamps, so even the alleyways were lit. We walked by some houses where a few babies cried. Dutiful mothers would be inside taking care of their infants while other women went to the festival.
Figg wasn’t marching with her usual pace, which was furious and determined and God help anyone who got in her way. No, she was almost meandering, walking slowly, eyes cast down, lost in thought. Stranger yet, she wasn’t smoking.
Rhee ran ahead. She kept having to wait for us, her big ridiculous feathered hat on her head. I stayed back with Figg, using my ancient artifact as a walking stick.
“In America, I’d pay you a dollar for your thoughts. Dollars are rupas, only greener.” I tried to lighten the mood. Not sure why because that had worked exactly zero times on my summoner. “What’s wrong, Figg?”
My summoner turned and stopped. We were close enough to the market that I could smell the hunks of kraken frying. Those would be the tentacle parts. I didn’t know what kind of pot they’d find to boil the lobster parts. I trusted Mumi, though. The woman could cook. I was still fretting over butter. Could you make butter out of goat’s milk?
“I will give you a rupa for your thoughts,” she said.
“Thinking about butter.” I shrugged. “But I’m sure I’ll live. What has you down? Is it Dryx? Are you jealous?”
Figg gave me a bored look that said she wasn’t jealous, and I was stupid for asking. “You are a good sort of man, Axel. As long as you are good to me and Rheesee, you can do what you like with women. And Dryx is beautiful. I’m curious about her past, and I’m very happy she is talking again.”
“You don’t seem happy.”
Figg wasn’t about to melt in my arms. She stood up straight, head held high. Her grin surprised me. “We shouldn’t be torturing Rhee like this. But yes, I am troubled, not only by the merfolk, but also by this quest to Sweetleaf. It w
as my idea, yes, but I have my worries. There is a reason why humans fled to the coast. The Nectar Grasslands are savage. King Dvey had strange ideas on how to address the Great Disease. On the coast we have the firebloods, but they are mostly mindless. Out there?” She motioned to the grasslands to the west. “The spawn of Dvey have minds, but they are beasts as well. We will be in constant danger. I fear for our lives.”
She lowered her head.
I raised it with two fingers on her chin. “Figg, I give you my word. We’ll win the next brand, and I’ll get my concentration ink. We’ll be back here by the end of the week. That will give us time to prepare for the next merfolk attack. We handled the firebloods easily enough. We can handle whatever is out there in the grasslands. Do you want to tell me what we’ll be facing?”
Rhee, sighing loudly, walked back to us. “You two are trying to kill my spirit. But I’ll be strong. And at the end of the night, if Axel isn’t there, I’ll find that Dryx person. I’ve never licked a woman with wings before.”
“Can I tell her what’s wrong?” I asked my summoner.
Figg shrugged.
“Figg is worried about what we’ll find in Sweetleaf.”
Rhee laughed. “Monsters, of course, the spawn of Dvey. Big men with huge horse cocks that spit fire.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Wait, men with horse cocks? Or horse men? And where does the fire come from?”
My summoner was frowning her little face off. “I heard there are stone creatures that fly through the air and land on you, crushing you.”
The pirate elf stuck out her tongue. “Stone creatures flying? That’s impossible. However, lava cum? That could work.”
I wasn’t going to argue the biology and the physics of lava cum. “In the end, it doesn’t matter. We’re going to Sweetleaf. We’ll get my ink. We’ll get the next Pentakorr brand. Then we’ll come back here and finish the sea walls.”
Rhee gave Figg a friendly push. “This is how I’ve lived most of my life. While you’re at the party, be at the party. When you’re in the fight, be in the fight. Oh, wait. Am I at the party? No, because you two fucks are getting in the way of my good time!”
Figg scowled, grabbed the elf, and kissed her. My summoner pulled back, her lips wet and red. “Rheesee, I love you. And I am a fuck, I guess. But I’m a fuck who worries over her town.”
My heart kinda melted. I ushered them farther down the street and we passed Tiajati College and then hit the marketplace. The drummers were drumming, and women played some stringed instruments, but I missed Geeze’s tricked-out clarinet. Well, once he healed up, he could play at the next victory party.
The market stalls were mostly empty. There were tables and chairs scattered around where people and families sat, eating and watching the musicians and the dancers. A few fires flamed here and there, just for the light and the happy flames, rather than being about heat.
On the southern edge of the market, Mumi had set up shop. She’d brought a series of slender tables and set up a single line thirty feet long with little stools on either side. She had a jar for rupas, and she was charging for her booze. The food, though, was free, since it came from the battlefield. She was also supplying some of the extras. I’d saved her business, and the people would make sure her expenses were covered.
Mumi, a big woman with a sweaty face and permanently frizzy hair, called me over. I went. Never keep a woman who’s willing to feed you waiting. She had piles of lobster meat, full steaks, taken from the kraken. In the market, Mumi had set up a huge oven, four big cavities, powered with Agni magic. Trays of lobster meat went in, and she braised them with some sort of sauce. Her brush was the size of a commercial painter’s paintbrush. She had a tub of whitish liquid.
Hacked-up tentacles boiled in the grease around her. This was the fish fry to end all fish fries. Geeze had been right. We’d have meat for days if not weeks. I knew victory was sweet, but actually eating the bodies of your enemies? That made it even more delicious.
Women danced, a few of the fishermen danced with them, and there was plenty of bilk to go around. A few people did shots of samarandha, the tree-fungus whiskey made from fermented herbs and the rotten stumps of tell trees. Tell trees grew along the riverbanks in the Nectar Grasslands. They were tall, like your typical ash tree. The other kind of tree was maunin tree, and maunin means silence. Both kinds of trees had been chopped down for the half-timbered houses of Foulwater. I hadn’t seen an actual tell tree yet. The samarandha tasted minty at first, then it hit you like a lawnmower bag, and it ended with a definite anus taste. Not that I spent much time contemplating how your typical anus tasted. However, this shit was nasty. The bilk helped chase away the summer-lawn flavor.
Or you could smoke. Smoking helped.
Rhee danced over, and yes, she’d done shots with some of her woman friends, while Figg talked with rajani. My summoner had rolled herself a bidi and was smoking while she drank.
My slutty elf tried to pull me toward the dancing. I didn’t let myself get pulled. “Rhee, I love you, and I’ll dance, but I have to eat my weight in lobster first. I’m just hoping there’s butter.”
Mumi heard that. “Axel! Yes, of course there is butter. From the goats!”
She slammed a plate down, and it was thirty-two ounces of lobster dripping in a white sauce. She had a knife and fork for me. I sat at a long table, with Rhee on the other side. She’d gone for the rings of calamari, breaded, the size of a hubcap on a 1964 Impala. There was a big bowl of red sauce next to it.
First things first, though. I cut off a hunk of my lobster steak and took a bite. The buttery flavor hit me first. Yes, it was creamy butter. So, goat milk butter was similar to cow’s milk butter. Cross-worlds travel was broadening my horizons. As for the lobster itself? It was moist and meaty and perfect.
“Uh oh,” I said. “We have a problem.”
Rhee had sawed off a few bite-sized pieces of her kraken tentacle. She dipped it into the red sauce. “What’s the problem, dragon man?”
“I’m going to be too full to travel tomorrow.” I ate the rest of the steak happily. It was lobster heaven. I tried some of Rhee’s Detroit-sized calamari. The red sauce was spicy, with a nice tomato flavor to it. Both the lobster and calamari tasted just as good as home if not better.
Mumi gave me a tankard of bilk, and I sipped it, enjoying the sourness, the kombucha-ness, of the bubbly milky drink.
Rhee and I were eating when Figg and the rajani came over. The rajani settled around us like a flock of MILFs looking for their own Pornhub channel.
They’d all survived the merfolk attack, and I was grateful for that.
Glancing around, I didn’t see Uncle Dog or his mother, the cackling crone, Granny Heehee.
Cheriela explained why. “Dog and his mother are in their house, and it’s a good thing they are. Everyone knows he stole from us. That won’t happen with the diamonds.”
Cheriela was a good-looking blonde with an Iowa-farmgirl face. She was the type of woman who’d make you a breakfast of cinnamon-apple pancakes after a night of sweaty love.
Figg, ever serious, nodded. “I told them about the diamonds you found. And that we have to keep them safe for the town. I also told them about our quest to Sweetleaf.”
Deela laughed. She was a thicker kind of blonde than Cheriela, a little ditzy, and she liked to laugh. She had a dizzy look on her face now. “Sweetleaf? You do know it was named after the quality of their dully leaf. You should bring us back some, Figg. I know you like the dully.”
My summoner scowled. “I smoke mostly tebbeck now. I have a clearer head. Besides, the dully never dulled me all that much.”
I could attest to that. Dully was Xiddian marijuana, while tebbeck was the tobacco equivalent.
Figg didn’t stop her talking or the scowling. “We are not going there for commerce. This is a desperate quest.”
Monala, another blonde, and another woman from the Nectar Grasslands, was a tougher woman, quieter, and yet, there was a definite
dirty passion to her. I could light a bidi off one of her ferocious looks. “We told Finniwigg that there are some humans still in Sweetleaf, but not many. Mostly, it is the Wynnym who rule there now. As for the flying stone men? We never saw them, but there are strange things in the Stallion King’s city. It’s one of the reasons why we left.”
Another was that the women were too small, but I’d never gotten an answer about how big the women of the Nectar Grasslands were.
Before I could ask more questions, Cheriela took control of the conversation. “We can’t trust Uncle Dog. We will take care of him. As for this war with the merfolk, we can’t send boats out fishing again. We managed not to lose any of our catch, our nets, or our craft during the last attack. We were lucky. So for seven days, we can’t fish. We have this bounty, though, for now. Mumi hasn’t claimed it all for herself. She is being generous.”
I nodded and kept eating lobster. I wanted to be buried in a lobster coffin. Just pour goat butter sauce right inside. I’d be fine for all eternity.
This did bring up a question. “So, why is Uncle Dog the rajan of Foulwater? He’s an asshole.”
That made the rajani laugh. Figg sighed. “I will tell this tale. It is full of tragedy.”
Rhee stood up. “I know this one. I’m going to go dance.” She sat back down. “Wait, I’m too full for dancing. I’ll drink. Aye, I think drinking is important on a night like this. I think I remember how.”
Mumi heard that. “Elf! If you forgot how to drink, I’d go out of business!”
That made the pirate elf pout. “I’m doing better, Mumi, since I met Axel. You have to admit that.”
Mumi just laughed.
Figg held her bidi while she told the story. “My father was the old mahat rajan of Foulwater.”
“Mahat rajan, great king, got it.” I nodded for her to continue.
My summoner relaxed some. “My father, Alvigg Nightshine, was a good man, and my mother loved him. All of his wives loved him. He was the Master Fisherman of the village, and he truly lived up to that title. Raiders came and took my mother and my sister, my true sister. They were taken. They died. We know this. My father and his other wives went to retrieve them, hoping against hope that they weren’t too late. And they all died.”