by Logan Jacobs
When all of that was done, everyone was exhausted, and the sun was starting to set. Even Mira and I had started to feel tired after the monster battle that morning, and then the physical exertion from cutting the lumber.
“We’ll have plenty of wood to start building for now, at least,” I said as I surveyed our stacks of wood. “When we come back here, we can get even more if we need it. Wood houses will be a hell of a lot safer than bamboo ones when storm season hits.”
“Nerissa will be so excited.” Mira smiled. “Storm season weighs heavily on her. When you came, the repairs were much easier, but in the storms before, it had been incredibly difficult to repair it ourselves.”
“This’ll help,” I assured her. “We should probably get those hungry troops fed a good dinner before we start training them in the morning.”
For dinner, we feasted on some of the freshly killed tarrel meat Sarayah and Nima had hunted that afternoon, and we gorged on sweet fresh fruits for dessert. The garden had really bloomed in the last week, and it produced more of the wonderful citrus fruits that Mira loved. The warrior even reminded me we needed to gather some to take back to Hali before we set sail for home.
I sat next to Ainsley through dinner, as I always did, but I couldn’t help but notice she didn’t once touch her food. She laughed and talked as everyone else ate, but the small portion of tarrel meat and the potatoes she’d taken grew cold on her plate.
“Is everything alright?” I murmured into her ear.
“Of course.” She nodded, but there was hesitation in her tone. Her blue eyes darted around to the other women of the village, and I could tell she hadn’t exactly told the truth.
“What is it?” I asked. “You can tell me anything, you know.”
“I know.” The blonde turned to smile at me, and I looked straight into her beautiful, wide blue eyes. Her breath caught in her throat as she searched my face, and I couldn’t help but think about just how close her body was to mine. If I reached my hand out just a few inches, I could feel the warm softness of her breast in my hand.
“Anything I can do to comfort you?” Slowly, I traced my fingertips across her knee.
“Not here,” the deer woman murmured and averted her alluring gaze. “Come to my tent at bed time.”
Every time before, that offer had made me go crazy with lust. This time, though, my dick went hard, but my brain remained on high alert. I wasn’t sure exactly what Ainsley wanted with me tonight, but I could tell it was about more than sex.
I waited anxiously for all of the women to head off to bed, and when Ainsley finally stood, I followed her quickly. I grabbed her hand in mine and laced our fingers together, and I was surprised to feel her normally cold hand was warm and sweaty.
As soon as we got to her tent, Ainsley plopped down onto the mattress. It was almost like she didn’t even have the energy to stand anymore, and that was when I really got nervous.
“Ainsley, are you okay?” I demanded as I sat next to her.
The blonde surprised me completely when she actually laughed at my reaction. For a moment, I waited in confusion as she covered her snickers with her hand and regained her composure.
“Oh, Ben, I am sorry!” she exclaimed. “I did not mean to worry you. I am perfectly alright. I was just abnormally tired tonight.”
“Okay,” I replied hesitantly.
“Alright” and “abnormally tired” were not normally two things that went together.
“Please forgive me for causing you such a fright,” she pleaded and wrapped her hands over my knees. “I only wanted to give you this news in private, before the entire village knew. Ben, I am with child.”
My eyebrows just about shot into my hairline before the most enormous smile spread across my lips.
“Ainsley, that’s fucking amazing!” I gasped. I wrapped her in a tight hug, and then I kissed her mouth with all of the fiery passion I possessed in my body. “Wait, but how do you know so quickly?”
“The Goddess Nira blesses every mother with the same dream once she conceives,” Ainsley explained as she palmed her belly and smiled. “It is a dream about the birth of one’s child, telling you exactly how it will happen. I had that dream last night. And, as you can see, I have already begun to feel the effects of pregnancy in my body.”
It took me a moment to process everything she’d just said. The moment I did, though, a joyous laugh burst out of my mouth.
“We’re having a baby!” I shouted, and I pulled Ainsley to me to kiss her once more.
Chapter Three
We woke up the next morning blissfully happy, just as we’d done every morning since the orcs had been defeated.
“First day of training,” Ainsley murmured as she stretched out on the mattress and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
“Yep.” I grinned, and then I glanced down toward her stomach. “Maybe you should take it easy. I mean, for all I know you could be three months along, and I don’t want you to do anything that would hurt the baby.”
“Ben, I am not three months along,” Ainsley chuckled. “I am not quite sure what that even means.”
“Well, the dragonkin women give birth to our kids within a matter of two or three moons,” I explained. “Where I’m from, pregnancies take much longer. Around nine moons.”
Ainsley’s eyes widened, and I nervously wondered if her pregnancy would be fast, just as the dragon women’s were.
“Two to three moons?” she gasped. “That is very fast, Ben. It will take me at least six or seven moons to be ready for birthing. This pregnancy will not be so rushed, I assure you.”
“Good,” I sighed in relief. “I still think you should take it easy, though.”
“My people do not ‘take it easy’ during pregnancy,” Ainsley countered as she shook her head. “It is much better for mother and child to exert oneself more, in fact. I will steer clear of any danger, but I must make sure my blood flows fast and my body is healthy.”
“Alright,” I relented with a furrowed brow. “But no monster fights. First sign of danger, and you run, got it?”
“Understood.” The strawberry blonde nodded seriously. “But I believe we must start soon, if we are to be ready in eight nights’ time.”
“You’re right,” I replied, and I slid to my feet and stretched.
The village was awake and excited by the time Ainsley and I left our tent, and we gathered at the cook tent for a hearty breakfast. The women all made sure to eat plenty of meat so they’d be fueled for the upcoming workout, and I smiled at the sight.
“Good morning, Ben,” Sarayah greeted as she approached the breakfast table with a plate of fish and fruit in her hands. “I am excited to learn to sail the ship today. Our ancestors have never left this island before.”
“Really?” I asked. “Well, then you get to be a pioneer!”
A soft smile spread across Sarayah’s pink lips, and she ducked her head to try and hide the blush that colored her cheeks, but I caught it anyways. Now that the brunette had asked about having my baby and wasn’t so adversarial toward me, I figured our relationship would progress much like Jemma and Ainsley’s had.
And, I was drawn to Sarayah. The fire with which she’d asserted her position, even though she was against me, when I’d first arrived was a welcome change. She was stubborn and determined, much like Mira had been when we’d first met. Though the friendship I’d found with Mira wasn’t there just yet with the brown-haired deer woman, I had a feeling it would come soon enough.
I glanced down her body, which was wrapped in a flowy white dress, and let myself imagine what she would look like without the clothes to cover her. She had a perfect, hourglass figure and round, plump breasts I longed to hold in my hands while I pleasured her.
“What is a pioneer?” Sarayah asked when she’d regained her composure enough to look back at me.
“An explorer,” I told her. “Someone who does something before everyone else.”
“Like you,” she said.
&n
bsp; “Yeah, I guess,” I chuckled. I’d never really thought about it that way, but she was right. Ever since I’d landed on the dragon women’s island, I’d become a pioneer.
“I think I shall call you that.” Sarayah nodded firmly. “Ben, the Pioneer.”
“Draco Rex, King, and Pioneer,” I laughed. “I’ve got quite a lot of nicknames.”
“Just wait, we’ll think of more,” Mira snickered as she joined us for breakfast, and her own plate was piled with nearly twice as much food as anyone else’s. The warrior could out drink and out eat anyone I’d ever met.
I glanced around the table to see most of the women were close to finishing their meals and were nearly ready for the day.
“When everyone has finished with breakfast, meet me down at the beach where the orc ship is,” I announced. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”
Nearly an hour later, everyone was down at the beach with full bellies and excited minds, and I glanced at the ship and debated what Mira and I should work on first with the women. We needed to figure out how to man the ship in its entirety, but the best place to start would be the sails.
“Alright, everyone, climb aboard,” I instructed the women. “We’ll take a quick tour first, and then we’re going to learn how to work the sails.”
“Oh, my, this deck has not been cleaned in ages.” Jemma wrinkled her nose as she looked down at the scarred deck, dirty with mud and only the gods knew what else.
When all fifty deer women were aboard the ship, I took the group around and pointed out the different parts and the names for them. I taught them about the bow and stern, port side and starboard, and what the use of the different ropes and sails were for. Since there were two masts with two sails, I made sure they understood the basic mechanics of sailing a ship with the three sails as well.
“Sometimes, we’ll only have one sail up,” I explained. “It will depend on wind speed and strength. We don’t want to travel so fast we’re out of control, especially with a vessel this size.”
“How do we steer the ship?” Theora asked with a tilt of her head. “We must be able to turn toward your home island.”
“Good question,” I said, and I turned away from the mainsail and hopped up the two steps to the raised deck where the steering wheel was housed. “This is how we’ll steer the ship. It’s called a steering wheel, and it attaches to a tool at the lower back of the ship called a rudder. The rudder will use the force of the water to turn the ship whichever way we need to point it. Would you like to try it?”
The women’s eyes all widened as they stared at the new piece of technology. Even Mira was impressed, though she did her best to hide it.
After a moment of hesitation, the crowd of deer women swelled forward and took a good look at the wheel I held in my hands. I showed them how to turn it and explained which way the wheel needed to go in order to steer the ship.
Sometimes, I forgot the most basic pieces of technology were revolutionary to the women of my islands. A steering wheel was so normal to me. In fact, a ship like the orc vessel was normal to me, if a bit outdated. Movies, books, and history had made sure I knew exactly what to do, and it was kind of like my entire life had been preparing me to help these women.
“What is that stench?” Theora gasped as we descended down to the second level.
I took a hefty whiff of the air and immediately knew what she referred to. It smelled like shit and blood. Clearly, the orcs were too disgusting to even bother cleaning out their feces.
“Let’s get this tour over with, and then we’ll clean the whole ship,” I reassured her. “There is no way we’re sailing this thing without scrubbing it top to bottom.”
We finished a walking tour of the ship, and I made sure I explained every little bit of the ship to the women, even the parts I wasn’t sure we’d need to use.
Then I divided the women into groups so we could start cleaning the nasty ship. A few of them went back to the village to grab soap and pumice like stones we could scrub with, while the rest of us started to break down the cages that were kept below the decks for scrap metal. We scrubbed the ship from top to bottom, and a few hours later, we had a shiny, clean vessel, and we took a short break back in the village to get some rest before the real fun started.
When we came back out onto the deck in the late afternoon, heavy with new knowledge and ready to start our serious training in the morning, Jemma walked over to one of the cannons curiously.
There were four of them, two on the port side and two on the starboard side, pointed out of a hole cut in the rail of the ship. Next to each cannon was a barrel of gunpowder and a box full of heavy metal cannonballs. The cannons were on a rotating base, which allowed them to swivel around so we could aim them in almost all directions.
“That’s a cannon,” I told the auburn-haired woman. “It’s like a giant gun.”
“What’s a gun?” Ainsley asked.
Jemma frowned, and the other deer women didn’t show any more understanding, so I wracked my brain for a way to explain it.
“A gun is a weapon that fires metal at a super high speed using gunpowder,” I explained after a moment. “The metal is called a bullet, and it can rip through skin and organs so fast it’ll kill a person. So, a cannon is basically that, just big. We take one of these metal cannonballs and place it on top of packed gunpowder. Then we light the fuse, and when the heat and flame hit the gunpowder, it explodes. The cannonball is shot forward with a hell of a lot of force, and when it hits its target, stuff gets destroyed. It’s actually pretty awesome.”
The only real reference I had for a cannon explosion was all the pirate movies I watched as a kid, and the inner child in me was just about screaming for joy. It wasn’t exactly that I wanted an excuse to fire the cannon, but … I really wanted an excuse to fire the cannon.
“Can we fire it?” Sarayah asked, and her green eyes were ablaze with excitement as she stared down at the cannon hungrily.
“Not yet,” I chuckled. “Knowing how to fire the cannons won’t do us much good if we accidentally sail ourselves right into a giant rock, like a wayward Titanic. Trust me, the movie wasn’t nearly as horrific as the real thing.”
As often happened when I referenced anything from pop culture, I was met with a whole lot of blank stares.
So much for my wonderful metaphor.
“We just don’t want to crash and burn because we were focused on the cannons,” I finished. “Mira, let’s start with a split group. You take half to do strength training in their arms, and I’ll take the other half to start learning how to work with the sails.”
“Yes, my king.” The jade-haired warrior nodded. She picked half the women, the ones who were on the skinnier side and would need a bit more help, and then directed them off the boat and to the beach.
Mira and I had discussed a game plan for strength training the night before, and the exercises we’d devised ran the gamut from two person wheelbarrows to circuits filled with burpees, pull ups, and climbing trees.
“Alright, let’s get started.” I clapped my hands and turned back to the other twenty-five women.
Sarayah, Ainsley, Jemma, and Theora were in my group. They had all proved themselves to be valuable assets, talented fighters, and quick learners, so I knew the four of them, in addition to Mira, would make up my main crew.
“This ship is so enormous,” Jemma murmured with awe as she looked around. “I wonder how it was made.”
“I think the orcs have got some pretty advanced technology compared to all of you guys,” I told her. “But that’s why you have me here. First and foremost, let’s talk about knots.”
I walked the women through all of the knots they would need to know to tie off the sails when they were both opened and closed, and we spent some time practicing. I wanted to make sure every single woman was adept at tying knots before anything else. I’d learned in the Coast Guard that there was nothing worse than a poorly tied knot. Everything else could run completely smoothly, bu
t if the knots were too loose, sails could fall, and people could get hurt. Conversely, if the knots were too tight, that could create a huge problem for us if we needed to get the sails up during the middle of a nasty storm. I didn’t want to encounter a storm like I’d found on the dragonkin women’s island while we were in the middle of the sea, but I also knew I needed to be prepared for anything and everything.
The next few days were spent on the basics with each group. I showed them all how to tie the knots, how to raise and lower the sails, and how to steer the ship depending on the different weather conditions. I also explained how we never wanted to sail straight into the wind, but rather at an angle, so we still retained the utmost control over our massive vessel.
The deer women were intelligent and quick, and they picked up on the things I taught them as if they were born to be on the water. For a group of women who hadn’t even wanted to leave the island, much less sail an enormous pirate ship, they did an amazing job.
Two days into our training, Mira and I sat down near the fire outside the tent we shared while we watched the deer women relax after a long day of training.
“Do you think they’ll be ready?” I asked her as I sipped some cool, clear water from a leaf.
“With you leading them, they will be ready for anything.” She nodded. “We are building a good crew here, Ben. Soon enough, you will have an army large enough to fight the orcs and win. And then we will show those fuckers of mothers why they should not mess with women.”
Mira’s expression grew dark as she stared out into the night, and I was sure she imagined just what it would feel like to defeat the orcs once and for all. I’d imagined the same thing a thousand times before.
In my head, the orc king looked like a messed up version of Jabba the Hutt, complete with the fat, drooling mouth and a complete stupidity. I wanted to wrap a chain around his meaty neck and take him out Princess Leia style. Or, I wanted to run my sea glass sword right through his chunky middle and watch the life drain from his eyes. What he and his orc people had done, and continued to do, to all of the islands in this world was heinous.