by Logan Jacobs
Mira, Sarayah, Theora, and Jemma went to unfurl the sails, while the rest of the women walked around the deck and made sure everything was in order for us to sail once more.
Meanwhile, I climbed up to the steering wheel and turned it gently.
Slowly, over the course of about ten minutes, the ship turned northwest. I kept myself alert and watched the storm at our back to make sure it didn’t suddenly shift directions and try to take us out again. Storms on earth had been unpredictable, but the ones in this world seemed far worse, almost like they had a mind of their own.
When we’d finally gotten ourselves pointed in the right direction and I could feel the ship as it moved across the now smooth waters, I finally took a breath and started to relax.
“You all need to get some sleep,” I ordered Mira and the other women. “The few of us who are awake can handle the ship for now. That was some good sailing, you guys.”
The women all grinned weakly at me as they made their way below decks, where I was sure they would pass out as soon as their heads hit the mattress.
Ainsley, Thornen, Brenna, and the few other women who had ridden out the storm below decks came up then, ready to help me man the ship for the moment.
“That was terrifying,” Ainsley breathed as she ran up and wrapped me in a hug. “You were so brave, Ben! I am so proud of you.”
“Thanks.” I smiled and kissed her gently, and then I bent down to the little compartment below the wheel, where Mira had stored a few strips of dried tarrel meat. “Here, have some dried meat.”
Ainsley bit into the tarrel jerky hungrily, and I watched her chew in satisfaction for a moment before I turned back to the open ocean.
For the next day, our ride was smooth and uneventful. Normally, I longed for adventure, but in this case, I was perfectly content to have a smooth, easy ride.
If I never saw another one of those massive storms in my life, I’d be perfectly content.
The island still hadn’t come back into view, though, which admittedly made me slightly nervous. I wasn’t completely sure what we would do if we ended up not being able to find it. I had the orc map, but that wouldn’t be much help to us if we didn’t have any landmarks to refer to as we sailed. There was not a single island in view, not even one that wasn’t ours. Somehow, the dark storm had thrown us far away from where we wanted to be, and it had not given us any choice in the matter.
A few hours later, just as I’d begun to lose hope, a tiny, dark speck appeared along the horizon.
An island.
I wasn’t sure which island it was just yet, but I knew it was a landmark. If it wasn’t our home island, we’d be able to at least use it to find our way back.
A day and a half after our encounter with the massive storm, I stretched out on the upper deck under the bright, warm sun as Mira steered the ship. I looked up at the clear blue sky and watched as the clouds passed over our heads. Earlier this morning, the island had become clear enough that both Mira and I could tell it was the dragonkin island. I’d gotten us back on track after the villainous storm had rolled through, and now, we were close to home. We’d be there soon, and I’d tell my children of the massive adventure their dad and aunt had just been on.
I watched as a thin, white cloud floated over me. It looked kind of like a breadstick, and for the first time in a while, I found I missed some of the food I’d enjoyed back on Earth. When I was in the right mood, I could absolutely murder three basket fulls of the bottomless breadsticks at my local Olive Garden.
I’d trade all the breadstick baskets in the world, though, for the life I lived now. I was surrounded by strong, resilient, beautiful women, with an adventurous future ahead of me, like a real life video game.
Breadsticks didn’t hold a candle to that.
The sun finally warmed me enough that I was ready to move, so I rolled onto my side and stood up. Then I strolled over to Mira and wrapped an arm around her waist.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
The warrior looked beautiful on the ship. Her gold eyes held an intensity I’d never seen before as she grasped the wheel and stared out across the ocean, ready to yell out any danger she saw. The sun glinted off her jade green hair and made it seem even brighter and shinier than it normally did, and the light that fell on her pierced ear made the jewelry glimmer.
“Perfectly fine.” She grinned at me. “I think I was made for the ocean.”
“I think so, too,” I chuckled. “I’m glad you’ve taken to it so quickly. That’s why you’re my second in command.”
“That is the only reason?” She quirked a dark green eyebrow at me.
“One of the many,” I corrected with a smirk.
I pinched her ass gently, which elicited a surprised yelp, before I turned and walked down the deck to check on the rest of the women.
Jemma was at the railing at the starboard side, and she leaned against it and gazed out over the pristine waters. The expression on her face was calm and meditative, and she only tore her gaze away to glance up at me when I touched her shoulder.
“The ocean is beautiful, Ben,” she sighed with a warm smile. “I am so glad we all decided to come. I cannot imagine what it would be like to miss this.”
“I’m glad, too,” I replied. “Though I have to say, if you had told me you didn’t want to come, I would have been extra disappointed.”
A blush crawled over her cheeks, and she pressed her head to my shoulder. A second later, though, she sprang up straight and pointed toward the water as her eyes went wide.
“Look!” she gasped.
I looked down to where she pointed, and my own eyes went wide.
Some sort of whale had come up alongside the ship, and it swam right next to us. The thing was massive, like Moby Dick, but with bright purple flesh and a trail of spikes down its back. As I watched, the enormous whale flipped over, and we could see its soft, striped underbelly for a second before it flipped back over and sprayed a spout of water straight into the air.
“Oh, my goodness!” Jemma exclaimed.
Her cry brought a crowd over, and soon the whale had its own audience as the deer women watched it swim beside us. It had a massive, split tail fin, and, as if the creature wanted to cater to its audience, it brought the fin up and out of the water before it smacked it down, hard. A wave of water crashed up from under the whale’s tail and soaked us all, but the deer women didn’t care. They stood there as water dripped from their faces and clothes, and they watched as the whale swam peacefully.
After a little while, the animal grew tired of entertaining us, and it dove down into the murky depths of the ocean.
“That was amazing!” Jemma jumped and clapped her hands together. “The ocean is my favorite place. It is full of such wonderful creatures.”
“It’s full of some dangerous ones, too,” I warned her as I remembered the squid Mira and I had encountered on our journey to Jemma’s island. I knew the squid likely wasn’t the only monster in the dark waters. Mira said the dragonkin people’s old stories basically told us such, but I didn’t want to say that to Jemma just then. The auburn-haired deer woman was too happy and excited for me to ruin it with tales of terrifying sea monsters.
“I want to see more creatures,” Jemma announced and turned back to the ocean, almost as if she hadn’t heard me. I knew she had, of course, but I also knew the auburn-haired woman well enough to know she liked to focus on the positive things over the negatives. Jemma wanted the ocean to be a safe and happy place full of wonderful creatures, even though she knew it wasn’t.
We all watched the waters below for a few hours as we waited to see more creatures. We saw a lot of brightly colored, tropical fish, and they were a mixture of bright orange, blue, and purple colors. Most of them swam in schools and were tiny, but there were a few round, fat fish that swam along, too. They floated to the surface, where we could all see their dark blue, almost navy scales, and then they dove right back down again.
The coolest creatu
re we saw, though, was one that looked like a cross between a dolphin and a bird. It had the long nose and dorsal fin I associated with dolphins, though the creature was a hot pink color, but on its sides were two fins that looked like thin wings. As we watched, the dolphin-bird leapt from the water, as a dolphin does, but it flapped its wings as hard as it possibly could to help it catch some air and stay up as long as possible.
I watched, wide eyed, as the creature did this multiple times. It elicited gasps and cries of joy from all the deer women, and it even got a smile out of me.
Then, on its last jump, just before it landed back in the water, the dolphin-bird turned its head toward us and let out a massive caw. The sound was so loud, it rivaled the call of an eagle.
“Oh, my Goddess!” Jemma gasped, and then she turned to me with a smile. “Ben, that sounded like a bird! Do you know what that is?”
“No idea.” I shook my head. “But it’s pretty damn cool.”
We watched a little while longer in search of more magical creatures. I was curious what else we would see, and how much it would or would not remind me of home. It fascinated me that some of the creatures seemed so normal, and others were similar to ones I knew, but with strange little differences.
“My king,” Mira called out to me and interrupted our watch party. “I believe you may want to see this.”
Immediately, I hurried up the steps to where she stood. The last time I’d been roused from my rest to see something, there had been a massive storm not too far from our ship.
That wasn’t the problem today, though. Instead, we had a different kind of villain on our hands.
About a mile and a half away from us, a smaller vessel was on the ocean. It was made of a dark wood, and from what I could see from this far out, it had two cannons on it.
“As far as we know, the orcs are the only ones who have ships, right?” I asked Mira.
“We’ve never had another species try to invade the island,” she replied with a frown. “Jonas would know the answer to that question, though. What do you think?”
“I think we wait it out,” I replied. “It looks like we’re on course to run into each other. If we get closer and confirm the ship is full of orcs, I say we blast them out of the water and put those cannons to good use.”
“And if they are not orcs?” she asked. “What if the ship belongs to another kind of people?”
I glanced at the little black ship again, and I squinted hard as I tried to make out whether or not the ship was full of orcs, or another kind of people. I had to admit, it would be nice if we could meet a friendly species with the technology and supplies to build their own boats. I could have a fleet of vessels at my disposal.
But then again, my gut told me this wasn’t the case. I had a feeling that if there was another island whose inhabitants could build boats like that, the dragonkin women or the deer people would have encountered them. After all, they’d both encountered the orcs.
“If they’re not orcs, we’ll see if they want to be friends,” I answered her question. “But I highly doubt they’re friendly faces.”
“As do I,” Mira sighed.
I could tell she had the same thought process I did. It would absolutely be nice to make another ally with that kind of ocean power, but I planned to reserve judgment until I could get a better look at them.
I looked out across the ocean at the dark ship that sailed closer and closer to us, and I inwardly readied myself. The orcs would probably think we were one of them until they got close enough to see us.
And then, we’d probably have an ocean battle on our hands.
Chapter Six
We waited and watched over the next hour as we drew closer and closer to the ship. About fifteen minutes in, we noticed the ship had turned toward us completely, and it started to make an obvious effort to meet up with us.
At that point, my gut said it was an orc ship for sure. They’d likely seen our ship, realized it was one of their own, and assumed the ship was still full of orcs.
Dumbasses.
I couldn’t wait until they got close enough to realize there was not a single orc on the ship.
And sure enough, when they did get close enough, I could tell the ship was manned by a crew of orcs. It was a smaller vessel, maybe seventy feet in length compared to our hundred and fifty, and there were about thirty meaty, sweaty, and densely packed orcs aboard.
“We are going to use the cannons!” I shouted.
The orc who was at the bow of the ship and acted as the lookout started to yell something to his own crew as well, and I was sure they’d realized we weren’t exactly friendly faces.
“Ben, how do we load the cannons?” Sarayah demanded.
“Shit.” I realized we’d never actually gotten to the lesson on cannons I’d promised them. I’d never even loaded one in my life, but it probably would have been helpful for all of us to have done a test run before we got onto the ocean. Of course, I hadn’t exactly expected to run into another orc ship.
“Here,” I said to the woman as I started for the cannon, but I kept one eye on the orc vessel to see if they loaded their own.
To my absolute surprise, though, they didn’t start to load their cannons. Instead, the orc ship was a flurry of activity as they maneuvered their sails around for a moment.
And then the ship started to turn away from us.
“Oh, hell, no!” I yelled aloud.
They wanted to run away from this fight. The orcs must have noticed we were bigger and stronger than them. Plus, it wasn’t too hard to deduce my crew and I must have gotten the ship from somewhere. There was no way we’d found it abandoned, and even though the orcs only had half a brain split between the lot of them, I knew even the stupidest one in the bunch would guess we’d killed plenty of orcs to get our shiny new ship.
They knew we were ocean predators.
“Should we follow them?” Mira shouted down at me.
“Absolutely!” I hollered back. “We will not let them get away from us.”
We were too close to the dragon women’s island for my liking, and I wouldn’t let my family and children be in harm’s way.
So, I leapt up onto the main mast and unfurled the sails from where they’d been at half mast. The gentle breeze had been enough to push us calmly along before, but now we needed far more than a gentle breeze and a soft push.
So, I snapped the sail all the way down and tied it as taut as possible. The breeze beat against it, and I felt the ship pick up speed.
Then I whirled around and eyed the smaller orc vessel. We were the bigger ship with the bigger sails, so I was confident we could catch up to these orc bastards.
Plus, we had the massive cannons.
“Mira!” I shouted at the warrior. “Catch up to them and pull up abreast of their ship. We’re going to blow these assholes to pieces.”
“Yes, my king!” Mira bellowed back. All the sails were unfurled now, and the warrior had a look of determination as she steered the ship forward and aimed directly for the smaller orc vessel.
“Theora, Jemma, help me with this!” I yelled as I climbed back down the mast. “I’m going to need you to help aim. Swing the barrel around and point it straight at that ship.”
“Yes, Ben.” Jemma nodded, and she and Theora pushed the cannon together and aimed it exactly where I told them to.
With that taken care of, I rushed below deck and dragged one of the gunpowder barrels back up to where the cannons sat, and inside was a metal shovel on top of shiny black powder.
I’d never been this close to so much explosive material before, but I shoved the nerves down deep inside of my stomach and grabbed the shovel.
I needed to do everything I could to make these assholes pay, and a cannonball up there asshole was a really good method.
I started to pack gunpowder into the base of the cannon where the barrel met the fuse. I wasn’t completely sure how much to use, so I put three shovel’s worth in, just to be safe.
&
nbsp; When I was satisfied it would be enough to cause an explosion, I picked up one of the dense metal cannon balls, which weighed about six pounds, and as I lifted, I spared a glance toward the smaller orc ship.
Mira sailed with the skill of someone who’d been on the sea for years instead of a couple days, and we’d almost pulled up alongside the smaller orc vessel. The orcs on board squealed and ran about as they tried to get their own cannons ready, but even if they could, ours was much bigger than theirs.
They didn’t stand a chance.
“Yeah, it’s not so fun to try and run for your lives, is it, you bastards!” I shouted over the ocean. I didn’t know if they could hear me, and I didn’t really care. It was satisfying just to know we were about to give them a taste of their own medicine. Any and all orcs were fair game to me, and I wanted to make them feel just a fraction of the fear they instilled in other people as they hopped from island to island, killing and taking what wasn’t theirs.
I lobbed the cannon in the front of the barrel, heard it slide on top of the gunpowder with a satisfying zing, and shoved in a wad of cloth in so the ball didn’t slide out as we aimed. Then I stepped back proudly for just a moment before I caught the expression on Jemma’s and Theora’s faces.
“How do we fire it?” Jemma asked with a furrowed brow.
I looked down at the cannon and searched for the hammer, and when I found it, I looked over at Jemma and Theora.
“You guys are going to want to step back,” I warned.
They both took a few nervous steps back and stared at each other out of the corners of their eyes as I readied myself to fire the cannon. I knew the kickback would be a hell of a lot harder than that of a normal gun, so I bent my knees and found some sort of solid ground as I got ready.
The cannons on this ship didn’t use a fuse, which was good news, since it would have been a hell of a task to try and get a spark going right in that moment. Instead, the canon had a gunlock method, where we’d pour gunpowder into the cartridge, then yank back a string, which released the hammer and created a spark.