by Logan Jacobs
We both knew the answer to that question, though. There was no way any people had managed to escape the terror of the orcs. With what I knew about the brutal nature of their king, I was sure they would have been sent to every single island to find out if it could be conquered. Hell, they probably would have even conquered an empty island, just for the hell of it.
“I doubt it.” I shook my head. “They’re too greedy to leave anything alone.”
“Of course,” Jemma sighed, and the auburn-haired woman looked down and played with the hem of her shirt as she tried to hold back tears for all of the cultures that had been ravaged by the brutal monsters.
“Hey,” I murmured and slipped my hand over hers to stop their nervous movement. “We’re going to stop them, and I’ll make sure they can never hurt anyone again. And when I’m done, we’ll have an entire community of women that you can befriend. There will be so many different cultures and people, it’ll be like a crash course in world events.”
“And children!” The deer woman grinned. “Lots of children.”
“And how many of them will be ours?” I asked her as I stroked my thumb over her wrist.
“I don’t know.” Jemma furrowed her brow and thought about the question. “Six.”
“Six?” My eyes went wide as I thought about Jemma having to go through labor six times. “Are you ready for that?”
“Absolutely,” she giggled and flashed me a blinding, adoring smile. “I’d have your children for the rest of my days, if I could.”
A faraway look entered her eyes, and she pursed her lips in thought.
“I can see you thinking,” I chuckled. “You’ve got a terrible poker face.”
“A what?” she giggled.
“It means your emotions are written all over your face,” I explained. “Remind me to make you some cards, and I’ll teach you how to play.”
“Alright.” Jemma nodded before she ducked her head and blushed. “Well, I am just wondering when I will receive the dream from the goddess Nira, the way Ainsley did.”
“When you’re ready for it,” I assured her. “Maybe you’re meant to travel the world right now, like we talked about. But if that ever changes, and you want to stay home with the kids, you let me know.”
“Of course.” Jemma grinned. “You know everything about me, Ben.”
“Good,” I said, and I leaned forward to kiss her soft, warm lips.
“What island shall we visit next?” Jemma asked when I pulled away as she shifted excitedly. “After we defeat the ghost ships, of course.”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “I want to figure out where we will have our home base first.”
“Is this not it?” Jemma asked as she looked around at the village below us. “It seems very secure.”
“It is.” I nodded. “But we don’t know what else is out there. And while the terrain here is great, it lacks some natural resources that I think could be really helpful to us, like lumber and metal.”
“What is metal good for?” she questioned as she blinked at me in curiosity.
“Well, we can carve all sorts of things with it and use it to build our own boats,” I replied. “Most importantly, we can make nails and screws from metal, which will help out with our buildings. It’ll hold the wood together so we don’t have to use clay and twine anymore, and they’ll be stronger against the wind.”
“That sounds wonderful.” Jemma smiled. “How do we know which islands will have these things? Does the map say anything?”
“Here,” I said, and I pulled out the old, worn piece of paper I always carried with me. “Let’s take a look.”
“Woah.” Jemma’s eyes popped open, and she gently took the map in her hands.
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “The world’s a lot bigger than you know.”
The auburn-haired deer woman stared at it in silence for a long moment. Then she trailed one long finger over the ridges and creases in the paper and hopped from island to island with her hand.
“Where do the orcs live?” she murmured.
“I’m not sure.” I shook my head and peered over her shoulder at the map.
Just as I remembered, there was the dragon woman’s island to the far west, and I pointed to the island where the deer women came from.
“That’s your home island,” I explained. “I decided to go there the first time I saw it. See how close we are?”
“The journey felt so much longer,” she laughed.
“Yeah, that’s because some nasty storm decided to run us miles off course, remember?” I chuckled.
“How could I forget,” Jemma giggled.
I gazed down at the wrinkled brown hide and assessed the other islands. Some were big, like the dragonkin women’s island, and some were small, like Jemma’s homeland. Others were nothing but tiny dots on the maps, which I was fairly sure meant they were nothing more than rocks or small chunks of land in the middle of the ocean.
“We need to explore at least five of these islands before we can decide where we want to put our base,” I murmured. “Now that we have the orc ship, it won’t be too much of a problem to move all of the important stuff, if that’s what we choose to do. We won’t have to pick up and take everything, though, because if we do move, it will be to an island that has plenty of its own supplies.”
“Which one should we go to first?” Jemma asked, and her gaze was eager as her eyes trailed over the map before she glanced back up at me. “I cannot wait to explore the world by your side, Ben.”
“And I’ll be glad to have you with me.” I smiled.
Jemma grinned back, and my heart ached with how much I loved the auburn-haired woman.
I would let nothing happen to her, to any of the women. No matter what.
Even though I’d built the guard tower and consolidated our forces, and Jonas was working on a solution, I was still worried about the ghost ships. I wished there was something I could do, but even as my mind ran a mile a minute and tried to think of some way to fight the maldungs off, I knew I wouldn’t have a solution until Jonas finished his memory potion. I was a damn intelligent guy, but even I couldn’t see into the past.
Jemma and I sat up on the guard tower for a while and looked over the islands as we tried to pick the one that would have the best chance of giving us what we needed. It was hard to tell from the map, but we could see which ones seemed to have trees, while others looked to be made more of dirt.
I decided it was best to put off any missions to find the orc island until we were able to explore the rest of the islands first and build up a stronger army. If we happened to stumble upon the orc island before we were ready, I planned to hightail it out of there.
After we’d done a reconnaissance mission, of course.
I wasn’t even sure if the island of the orcs was on that map. For all I knew, it was thrown together by a crazy old woman with half an eye. What I really needed to do was explore the world beyond the map. I was hopeful I’d find a shitoad of islands filled with beautiful women who all needed my help, and every single one of them would get it.
I knew one thing for sure. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the orc king and wring his neck. Until that could happen, though, I had a plan in place.
Jemma and I would first sail to the next island over, the opposite way from the direction hers was in. It seemed to be a fairly flat island that looked from the map like it might have a lot of bushes and shorter trees. There didn’t seem to be a forest drawn on it the way there was with Jemma’s island.
I wondered for a moment just how the orcs had drawn up the map of all the islands. I didn’t like to think about the fact that they’d probably had to travel to them all in some form to figure out exactly what each one possessed.
At the same time, it made me curious about the world I was in. If the orcs had drawn this map themselves, then I had to wonder if there were other islands that weren’t even on the map I’d taken from the dying orc’s rowboat.
For all I knew, thi
s world could be as big as earth, with endless possibilities of places to go and people to meet.
And I couldn’t wait to explore it all.
Chapter Twelve
Now that we’d consolidated the women under my rule and manned the guard tower night and day, I decided it was time to start focusing on crafting more weapons. The ghost ships weighed heavily on my mind, which made two days feel like an absolute eternity, but I knew it did no one any good for me to worry and wring my hands over something that was currently out of my control. So, I threw myself into the work to try and keep my mind as occupied as possible. In my opinion, there was no such thing as “too many” when it came to weapons, and Sela had mentioned a close range spear would probably be a good idea for the deer women.
We were now at an advantage where that was concerned, since we had the use of bamboo at our disposal. The deer women were stronger now after all of our training with bows and sailing, but now that we had lighter, more flexible bamboo, I wanted to try my hand at making some spears for them.
We also needed more swords for some of the dragon women who didn’t have one yet. I wanted to make sure they all had two weapons at their disposal, one for close range fighting and the other for long range. Since most of the dragonkin women were already adept with a sword, I knew it wouldn’t be an issue for them to hone their craft, and I asked George and Nixie to make more sea glass for the spearheads and swords, since it was nearly indestructible.
Once the weapons had been made, I also planned to start helping the deer women train for close combat fighting. They were much stronger now, thanks to the training they’d done to sail the orc ship, as well as all the meat they’d eaten since I met them, so I knew now was the time to start training them to be full combat warriors.
I almost couldn’t wait until I’d gathered up an army full of monster women from all the different islands. The looks I imagined on the orcs’ faces when we stormed their island with all of our troops would be absolutely priceless.
The day after Jemma and I were stationed to watch the guard tower and had planned out our next excursion to the second closest island, I went to the patch of bamboo that grew in the jungle and picked out a few of the thicker shoots.
The wood-like surface was smooth and almost soft against my hands, which was a good sign. The deer women were much more gentle than the dragon women, and I knew the grain of the wood could sometimes be harsh on their hands.
I tested a few of the shoots I’d picked out against my knee, and I slammed them down over the bone to make sure they wouldn’t break on impact. The ones that did were discarded, and I was left with two nice sized bamboo stalks that would make perfect spears. They’d be about five feet long, and I’d add a sharp tip to them with the sea glass.
Now that I had my bamboo shoots, I went back to the palace and set myself up on the patio with a little work station. Then I called on George, and the dragon happily coughed up a few pieces of sea glass for me.
I used George’s tooth to carve the sea glass into a sharp spearhead. When I was done, I poked the rock below me to test it out, and just as I wanted, the stone crumbled under the impossibly sharp tip of the sea glass.
This would rip an orc to shreds, and I couldn hardly wait.
Now that I had the pieces I needed for the spears, I took them into the kitchen. I’d asked Talise to make some of her black tar from the ganjika plant, so I could glue the tip onto the body of the spear. I’d debated whether or not I should use twine, but I decided against it. The twine could snap far too easily, and then the tip would come off the spear. I didn’t want that to happen in the middle of a battle.
Back in the kitchen, I was greeted with the strong, heavy smell of the ganjika tar. It was as if someone had mixed the smell of weed with some nasty cow dung. Despite the unpleasant aroma, though, I knew the tar was the strongest bonding agent I could find on the island.
“Ben.” Talise grinned when I came in. “Are you going to tell me why you wanted the ganjika tar so badly?”
“For this,” I replied and held up the two pieces to my spear. “I want to see if Ainsley’s people can use it, just like Sela suggested.”
“That is a beautiful spearhead,” Talise replied. “Here is the tar.”
The black-haired dragonkin woman helped me to ladle some tar over the flat bottom of the spearhead. We then pressed it onto the bamboo and held it there for a few minutes while the tar dried.
When the black goo had turned hard and looked like dried lava, I wiggled the spear around in the air to test it out. But no matter how many times I whipped it back and forth or slammed the spear down onto the table, the spearhead never came off.
“Perfect,” I said to Talise as I kissed her on the cheek. “I’m going to have Jemma test it out and see if she can lift it. Thank you for your help.”
“Of course, my king, and those spears will be the perfect weapons, I just know it,” the healer chuckled as I left the kitchen.
I found Jemma on the patio, with her eyes closed and her face tilted backward so the sun poured right down over her creamy skin. There was a slight trickle of shiny sweat in the valley of her breasts, and her long auburn waves flowed from her head and toward the ground like a waterfall.
“Working hard, or hardly working?” I barked in my best impression of an army general.
Jemma’s eyes popped open, and she sprang upright in surprise.
“Ben, you scared me!” she gasped. “I was just taking a little break in the warm sun. It is so lovely to be able to sit in the sun whenever I please. A very welcome change from the shade of the trees.”
“It is pretty nice, huh?” I nodded and tilted my own face up to the sky to catch a few rays for a moment.
“What is in your hand?” Jemma asked as she stood and gestured to the spear I’d just made her.
“This is for you,” I replied with a grin.
“May I see?” she asked.
I nodded and handed over the spear to her carefully.
Jemma balanced it for a moment in both hands, and then gently spun it to grip the weapon with her right, dominant hand. She peered cautiously at the tip, and then back at me.
“It looks like a small version of your sword,” she said.
“It sort of is,” I agreed. “You shove that pointy tip into an enemy, and it’ll run him right through. So, if you can’t shoot your bow and the orc is getting too close, you can use this instead.”
“I love it,” Jemma giggled. “Thank you, Ben.”
I showed the deer woman a few different moves with the spear, but I kept them fairly simple since she still hadn’t trained in hand-to-hand combat just yet.
“Now you try,” I said and handed Jemma the spear when I was done with my display.
Jemma took the weapon back gingerly and quickly copied my movements. She spun it over her head and stabbed it forward, like there was an orc in front of her she needed to impale. Then she flipped it over a few times and stabbed backward, as if there was an attacker behind her.
“This works, Ben,” she gasped when she was finished. “I can use this!”
“It’s not too heavy, right?” I clarified. “You don’t think you’ll get tired and suddenly have a ton of trouble using it?”
“Not at all,” she replied and clutched the spear to her like it was her new favorite thing. “I think even some of the weaker women will be able to use it. How do we carry it if we also have our bows, though?”
“We’ll create some sort of strap so you can sling it along your back, similar to the way you carry your bows,” I told her. “That way you can even switch between weapons if you need to.”
Jemma nodded and grinned back at me. She fooled around with the spear for a little while longer before I decided it was time to go and gather some women so we could start a production line for the spears. I wanted to create enough spears for all of the deer women to have by the end of the day, and then we could begin to work on training the next day. Sela and Mira had volunteered to he
lp me out, and the three of us would train the deer women in hand-to-hand combat.
“Talise,” I called as I entered the kitchen, “we’re going to need some more ganjika tar.”
“Do I look like a proper warrior?” Jemma strutted in proudly behind me, and she held the spear aloft.
“Oh, Jemma, that fits you well.” Talise grinned when she saw the weapon. “Do you plan to make more, Ben?”
“As many as we possibly can,” I replied. “How soon can you have some of that tar ready?”
“Give me about an hour,” the black-haired healer said.
Jemma and I headed down to the village and gathered a group of some of the deer women, as well as a few dragonkin women, to start carving spear tips and fashioning them into weapons. After about an hour and a half, we had enough spearheads to make eighty weapons, which was the perfect amount. I always preferred to make more and have an extra store of them, just in case some broke or were ruined somehow.
Talise brought the ganjika tar into an open space in the village, while the women went to find bamboo shoots to make the handle of the spears. When we had enough bamboo shoots for all of the sea glass tips, Talise helped me glue the sharp stone onto the shiny wood.
Once the tar was dried, I stared down at eighty perfect spears. Their heads glittered in the sunlight, deadly sharp and absolutely terrifying, and a satisfied grin spread across my face.
“I would not want to be an orc on the other end of one of those,” Theora murmured, and the brunette nodded her head appreciatively. “This was a brilliant plan, Ben. When do we get to train with them?”
“Tomorrow,” I replied. “Everybody, choose a spear. Tomorrow, Sela, Mira, and I are going to show you all some hand-to-hand combat.”
“Hand to hand?” Brenna’s green eyes were wide as she stared at me. “You mean we will fight the way we have seen you and Mira fight?”
“Absolutely.” I nodded. “I’ve got complete faith in you guys. You’re going to make some badass warriors.”
Brenna looked like she didn’t believe me for one second, but I’d show her one day soon, I knew. She’d probably shape up to be one of the best fighters of the bunch, and I couldn’t wait until she could see that in herself over the next few days.