by Logan Jacobs
Much like his brethren, the monster turned first into a rotted corpse, and then into a pile of flesh that fell through the ghost ship to the sand below.
“Vern!” Tarun screeched behind me.
I whipped around to see the captain was behind the wheel of the ship as he steered it over the village and toward the castle, but he looked over the spot where the last ghost had fallen with a wide, angry gaze.
Which he then promptly turned on me.
“Here we go!” I suddenly heard Mira cry out.
I turned to see the warrior had managed to make her way behind the wheel of the second largest ghost ship, and she’d started to steer it toward the castle as the crew scrambled about and attempted to attack her. The genius warrior, though, managed to fend them off with wild, unpredictable turns that sent the entire crew tumbling from one side of the boat to the other.
I hardly had a moment to smile in congratulations at the warrior when I heard a scream from the other boat.
“Ben!” Jemma screeched. “Help!”
I whipped around to see the auburn-haired deer woman was caught in the grasp of two orcs as a third readied his sword to chop off her head.
“No!” I yelled.
In a flash, I was directly in front of her. Somehow, I’d managed to move through space as if I’d teleported, and I went from the deck of Tarun’s ship to in between Jemma and that nasty blade in a millisecond.
I spun around with no hesitation, and in one fluid motion, I kicked the stomach of one of her attackers so hard the beast flew back and away from her. Within the same instant, I shoved my blade forward on instinct, and I drove it right into the chest of the prehistoric orc who held the blade and was ready to separate Jemma’s head from her shoulders.
The only problem was my blow did absolutely nothing. The monster merely frowned and glanced down at my blade as if it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience before he continued with his wild, haymaker sword swing.
So, I yanked an arrow from my quiver and thrust it right into the side of his head. This time, I didn’t even take the moment to watch happily as he dissolved before I turned back toward Jemma.
The deer woman struggled against the grip of the last ghost as he tried to drag her back over the ship’s deck and away from me. I wasn’t about to let that happen, though, and I loaded an arrow into my quiver and shot him in the heart before he could do anything more.
There was only one more ghost on that ship, and he stood behind the wheel. So, I made quick work of him, even as he drew his sword and got ready for a charge, and then the second ghost ship had been dealt with.
I turned as a cheer went up at the palace, and I watched as Theora and Sela dumped a stream of antidote over the ghost ship Mira had sailed up below them. The jade-haired warrior was nowhere to be seen, but the entire second ghost ship dissolved until it was nothing more than a pile of old boards and rotting flesh that then fell to the ground with a thunderous crash.
Two down, one to go.
“I’m going to get behind the wheel!” I told Jemma, and I dashed across the deck and behind the wheel of the ship, which was still as it hovered above the center of the village.
I grabbed the wheel with both hands, but then I realized I had no idea how to sail a ship that didn’t even use the wind.
As it turned out, though, this didn’t matter all that much. The moment my hands touched the wheel, the ship started to sail forward on its own.
“Ben, you are sailing the ship!” Jemma exclaimed as a wide grin overtook her face.
“Be proud of me when we actually get up to that beast, Tarun,” I shouted as I willed the ship onward, but we weren’t quite fast enough. As I watched the remaining crew on Tarun’s ship start to load the cannons and aim them right toward the castle, I was fueled by nothing but pure, unadulterated rage.
I clocked the distance between his ship, the balcony where Sela and Theora stood, and the ship I was on. Then I quickly spun my ship around to the side and screeched to a halt just underneath the balcony.
“Give me the antidote!” I hollered at the two women. “Jemma, take the wheel!”
In quick succession, I grabbed the heavy pot of antidote from the women while Jemma took the wheel. She seemed to read my mind as she pushed the ship forward and toward Tarun, but the ghost man paid us no attention as he focused on his crew.
“Load cannons!” he bellowed.
I sucked in a deep breath, tucked the pot under my arm, and sailed straight up into the air just as Jemma came up next to the massive ghost ship. The hulls screeched against one another as she spun the steering wheel, and Tarun whirled around in shock just as I swept over the starboard side of his ship, where all of his crew stood to load the cannons, and rained down a pot full of antidote all over their heads.
Instantly, they crumbled and dissolved, along with the canons and half of the ship.
“No!” Tarun screeched.
My feet hit the remaining half of the deck, and I absorbed the impact with my knees.
And then I felt something warm and wet on my shirt.
With a start, I looked down to see that some of the antidote had gotten on me, and it had already started to spread. My skin began to turn from a pale, ghostly white back to its tanned, natural color.
“Shit!” I gasped.
With the very last bit of my ghostly self, I nocked an arrow, aimed at Tarun’s surprised skull, and let the projectile fly.
The very last thing I saw was his half rotted face as it exploded with the bright red color of the antidote. Then I turned back into my living form and dropped through the vapor like deck of the ghost ship all the way back to the hard, red dirt.
It took me only a second to suck in a breath of actual, real, fresh air and feel it fill my lungs before I turned my gaze to see Tarun’s body fall into a pile of mushy rottenness.
We’d done it. The maldungs had been defeated.
As if to prove my point, the last of the ghost ships evaporated into mist and disappeared. We were left with a couple of piles of rotten wood, decaying flesh, and a few destroyed huts, but we’d done it.
We had won.
Chapter Sixteen
“It feels so good to be back in the world of the living once more!” Jemma exclaimed as she downed one of the vials of antidote Talise had saved for us.
“Tell me about it,” Sela gasped as she copied Jemma’s actions.
I watched as the color and solidity came back into my warrior women, and I smiled.
“That was the most exciting battle we’ve had yet,” I laughed. “Ghost ships and magic potions. It was pretty awesome.”
“Speak for yourself,” the blue-haired warrior grumbled. “I would much rather stick my sword through a thousand orcs than drink any more of that damned potion. I felt as if there was no weight to me.”
“That is probably because there wasn’t,” I reminded her.
Just then Ainsley and Nerissa rushed into the kitchen with flushed cheeks and mussed up hair.
“You look like you’re feeling better.” I grinned at the strawberry blonde deer woman.
“The adrenaline has made me feel perfect again,” she panted. “How are you? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” I chuckled and grabbed both Nerissa and Ainsley’s hands, mostly so they wouldn’t spot the massive gash on my back. I’d get it taken care of soon, but for right now, I just wanted to revel in our victory.
“You have defeated the maldungs!” Jonas cried out as he ambled into the kitchen, too.
Out in the halls, the castle came to life once more. I heard all of the village spill out of its doors and into the town as the women appraised the damage and looked over the disgusting remains of the maldung ships.
“We did.” I nodded. “And now, I am absolutely exhausted.”
“Let me get you to bed,” Ainsley offered as she took my hand.
“Yes, all of you, rest up,” Nerissa agreed. “I will have Hali and her assistants prepare a feast tonight. Now
that we do not have dangerous, conquering ghosts to worry about, I think we could all use a good meal and some proper fun.”
“That sounds like a dream come true,” Jemma sighed.
Talise, Jonas, Nerissa, and Careen helped lead the other women off to their own beds to rest up after the battle, while Ainsley took me by the shoulders and steered me toward my chambers.
“You look as if you have not slept in days, Ben,” she scolded gently. “Why is that?”
“Well, you see,” I snorted, “first, we had to go on a quest into the jungle. Then, there was this magic potion we drank. And, once we drank that, we had to battle three massive ships filled with dead, rotting ghosts.”
“Oh, right, that little thing,” the blonde giggled.
We passed a few women in the hall, who all proclaimed their gratitude for me and the other women now that the maldungs had been defeated. I knew many of the dragonkin women wished they could have fought alongside us, but they also knew that wouldn’t have been feasible.
Besides, if Talise and Jonas’ antidote hadn’t worked, it was a hell of a lot better to lose five of us than a hundred and fifty.
Ainsley pushed me through the door frame of my bedroom, but she stopped me before I could fall into the bed. I was so bone tired I would have just gone to sleep with my dirty, nasty smelling clothes on, and not even have cared. The last time I’d slept had been a two hour power nap the day before, and prior to that, I honestly couldn’t even remember.
“Clothes off,” Ainsley ordered. “You should not dirty your bed with this outfit.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I laughed as she yanked my torn shirt over my head.
The blonde wrinkled her nose as the smell invaded what I was sure were her overly sensitive nostrils thanks to her pregnancy hormones, and then she started to unzip my pants. Her hands passed over the cut on my back as the deer woman went to pull my pants off, and I couldn’t help but wince at the sting. Now that I was no longer filled with adrenaline, the cut was bothersome and slightly painful.
“Oh, Ben!” Ainsley cried out when she saw the gash. “Let me clean that out for you. Lay down on your stomach.”
“Whatever you say,” I muttered as I collapsed face first onto the bed.
“I’ll be right back,” Ainsley said as she made her way over to the door.
“Mm-hmm,” I hummed, and my eyes started to drift closed.
Some indeterminable amount of time later, Ainsley returned with a few damp towels and a healing poultice she’d most likely gotten from Talise. Then she approached me where I still laid sprawled out on the mattress, and the blonde tentatively trailed her fingers down the wound that ran along my spine.
“So interesting,” she murmured as she spread a poultice over the gash.
“What is?” I asked in a hazy voice. I felt like I was mere moments from passing out from sheer exhaustion.
“That you can be injured in your ghost form and retain it once you are back on this plane,” she responded. “I do not know much about the rules of magic. It is fascinating to me.”
“It’s less fascinating when it’s your back that’s slashed open,” I chuckled.
“That is true,” Ainsley replied as she finished with my back. Her hands were so gentle they were almost able to lull me fully to sleep even as she poked and prodded at the open wound on my back.
“How’s the baby?” I murmured when Ainsley bent down to kiss the top of my head.
“Wonderful,” she sighed. “I believe we will have a strong and healthy child, Ben. I could not possibly be happier.”
“I can’t wait,” I muttered as I drifted off to sleep and dreamed of a baby with Ainsely’s strawberry blonde hair and bright blue eyes.
I didn’t wake up until the raucous laughter and excited drumming outside of my window permeated my dreams and became too loud for even a champion sleeper like me to ignore.
When I blearily opened my eyes, I gathered I’d gotten about four hours’ worth of sleep. The sun hung low in the sky, a perfect golden hour, and it sounded like the entire village was out on the dining patio. There were drums and singing, and I was almost certain the celebrations could be heard from the next island over.
Not that I would ever complain about that. I loved to see and hear that my women were happy.
After I just laid there and listened to the revelry for a moment, I rose from bed and slipped into some comfortable, clean clothes, and then I ventured out into the hall.
“Daddy, don’t let her catch me!” Arrick cried out as the little boy sprinted down the hall, hid himself behind me, and cautiously peeked around my waist.
“Who?” I asked in confusion.
“Marella!” he cried out at the exact same moment his big sister let out an indignant shriek.
“Arrick!” she hollered out from down the hall. “Where are my seashells?”
I looked down with a raised eyebrow to see my son held three pretty, colorful shells in his hand.
“Are those yours?” I asked him.
“Nope.” He shook his head, and I could only chuckle.
A moment later, Marella stomped out of her room and turned her furious purple eyes on her little brother.
Before I could even get a chance to discipline him for stealing, the little boy was off like a shot, and he sprinted off down the hall and out of the castle.
“Arrick!” Marella screeched again before she took off after him.
“Siblings,” I laughed and shook my head, then continued on my way.
I peeked into the kitchen, where Hali hummed along to herself as she turned an entire boar’s head over an open fire. Two of her assistants were also in the kitchen. One chopped vegetables to grill, and the other mixed bread dough for coconut bread.
Hali glanced up and saw me, gave me one of her megawatt smiles, and then continued with her task. She swayed her curvy hips as she danced around, and I watched her round ass for a moment.
Perhaps the red-haired cook would want a baby from me soon.
Finally, I made my way out into the garden, where everyone was seated at the tables in preparation for the feast. Some of the dragonkin women swayed and slithered as they danced about, while a group of the deer women beat on drums and sang one of their haunting songs.
“How is everyone feeling?” I asked as I approached the raised platform where Nerissa, Ainsley, Jemma, Theora, Mira, and Sela all sat. Talise and Careen were nearby, with the twins and Oshuna, and up on the grassy hill, George and Nixie were laying out in the last rays of the setting sun and watched over the action while their children wrestled just a few feet away.
“As if I have been hit by one of those ships,” Mira mumbled as she rubbed the shaved part of her head. “It feels as if I have imbued far too much alcohol and ganjika, and then been thrown into the ocean to be at the mercy of giant squids and other monsters. Does no one else feel this way?”
The jade-haired warrior looked desperately at the other three women who had been in battle with us, but all three shook their heads.
“Sorry, Mira, I don’t.” I grimaced as the warrior shoved her face back into her hands to block out the light.
“Ben, please, have a seat.” Nerissa grinned over at me. She patted the chair next to her, the one designated for me as her king, and I obliged, of course.
“You look well rested,” Ainsley remarked as I sat down.
Nerissa slipped her hand over my thigh, under the table so no one else could see, and then she looked up at me with wide, innocent eyes.
I knew exactly what that meant, and I grinned back at my queen before I answered Ainsley’s question.
“I feel much better,” I replied. “The cut on my back doesn’t even hurt anymore, either. Whatever poultice you put on there really did the trick.”
“It was one of Talise’s.” The deer woman smiled. “She truly is gifted with the healer’s touch.”
“Yes, she is.” Nerissa nodded, and the queen gazed out over the clear, open ocean, free of any ghostly ships
now.
“That was quite the exciting battle,” I chuckled. “But I, for one, am very glad it’s over. I didn’t like the idea that those ships could just appear and disappear at will.”
“I did like feeling weightless,” Mira mused. “It was as if I could have jumped out of this world, if I chose to.”
The conversation turned into a barrage of questions aimed at the five of us about just what it felt like to be ghosts. The rest of the village joined in, and the discussion bounced from woman to woman for the next twenty minutes, until Hali and her assistants brought out the feast.
Either the redheaded chef had either added some sort of addictive substance to the meal, or I was just absolutely starved. The moment the first piece of tender, juicy, fatty boar meat touched my tongue, I absolutely could not get enough, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d eaten an entire animal all by myself.
The meal lasted into the darker hours of the night as we all feasted and celebrated. I danced with most of the deer women, and many of the dragonkin women, as they praised their individual gods and gave thanks for the fact that we had won the battle.
I kept my eye on Nerissa, though, and when she rose from her seat and nodded her goodnights to the women around her, I bid good night to the ones around me and followed my perfect queen into the castle.
“I’ve missed you,” I murmured as I nuzzled her coffee colored neck.
“Not as much as I have missed you, my king,” she murmured.
“I beg to differ,” I chuckled in a husky voice.
Nerissa swept her silver hair to the side and tilted her neck so I could ravish her bare skin with kisses, and we walked hand in hand to her room, where the queen instantly shut the door and then spun around with a look of ravenous hunger in her eyes.
“Kiss me,” she ordered softly.
“Yes, my queen.” I grabbed her around the waist and drew our lips together in a kiss that was at once heated and gentle. We moved as one, and I let my tongue flick in and out of her warm, wet mouth that drew me in over and over, like a soft pillow at the end of a long day.
My hands moved under her shirt, where I could caress the soft skin of her toned stomach, and then even further, to the roundness of her breasts. I kneaded them gently in my hands, let my thumbs graze over her nipples occasionally, and relished in the low, guttural growl that escaped her throat every time I touched their peaked buds.