by Dante King
The squads had all fallen into an easy camaraderie. They all talked amongst themselves, and even Ashrin and Jazmyn’s squads mingled with the men and women of the lesser dragonmancer’s coteries. There was even a game of cards starting up amongst some of them, headed by none other than Rupert.
I smiled to myself, wondering how long it would be before the other coterie members discovered that Rupert was the Mystocean equivalent of a Vegas card-counter.
Gazing aimlessly about and enjoying the sensation of not walking, I noticed Diggens Azee sitting some way away on a boulder. The gnoll was looking quite pensive and so I decided to go over and offer him a penny for his thoughts.
As I strolled across the camp, the gnoll delved into his rucksack and pulled out a small can. A switchblade appeared in his hand. He punched the blade into the top of the sealed can, tucked the knife away, and took a swig.
“What’ve you got there, Diggens?” I asked.
“A tinny,” the gnoll grunted.
“A tinny?” I asked.
“Yeah. A tinny. Something I came up with, for when I go walkabout down here looking for my fortune,” Diggens said. “It’s ale, see, but sealed up in this here tin. Keeps the grog fresh and stops your bag stinking like a bartender’s rag when your skin gets punctured by a pick or nail.”
I blinked down at the little green-skinned humanoid.
“Are you telling me you invented beer in a can?” I asked incredulously.
Diggens flicked his can. “Nah, it’s not a can, it’s tinny. ‘Cause it’s made of tin.”
“Where do you make them?” I asked, intrigued.
“In my shed,” Diggens said, taking another sip and sighing appreciatively. “Only when I know I’m going walkabout, you know. Although, I do normally have a batch of two dozen or so hidden in a hole in my yard, so that they keep nice and cool.” He took another appreciative sip. “Can’t beat a cold tinny, fella.”
I nodded slowly. “You know,” I said. “You could probably make a boatload of scales selling these.”
Diggens waved a skeptical three-fingered hand at me. “Righto, fella,” he said.
“I’m serious,” I said.
“Yeah, Old Sleazy reckons I could be onto something too,” Diggens said. “Reckons if I started tying six of them together and flogging them, I’d become rich as… Well, as someone with a shitload of cash, I guess.” The gnoll burped. “What can I do for you anyway, fella?”
“You just looked a bit pensive,” I said. “I thought you might have something to get off your chest.”
“I don’t know about my chest…” Diggens said, “but I’ll not lie to you; there’s been a sense of disquiet building in me all day.”
The firelight from the campfires flickered on the walls of the chamber. Shadows danced, rising and falling across the roughhewn ceiling.
“A feeling of disquiet?” I asked in a low voice. “What do you mean?”
Diggens beckoned me closer, and I leaned in.
“While the warrens down here have been cleared and made safe for the most part, there’s something still around, know what I mean, fella?” the gnoll said. “Something unseen. Something I can almost taste on this stale mine air. Something I can almost smell. Something that I can almost detect, right on the edge of hearing…”
I found myself subconsciously holding my breath.
“What are you—” I began to say.
Diggens let off a fart of such epic magnitude that I thought the blast brought a little dust down from the ceiling. He ripped long and loud, the sound bouncing and rebounding off the cavern walls and running off down the tunnels branching off it.
Diggens Azee collapsed in on himself, laughing so hard that I thought the bastard was going to be sick. Over at the campfires, those who had been playing cards looked up from their hands. The mouths of some of the women had fallen open. To my consternation, most of them were looking at me.
“What…” I started to say.
I glanced down and saw that Diggens, despite being in the middle of dying from laughter, had his arm up and was pointing at me.
I looked back at the twenty flabbergasted watchers.
“It wasn’t me,” I said, and gave Diggens a kick.
My nostrils flared as a bit of chuckling started up amongst the coterie soldiers, probably instigated by Bjorn, who was somewhat of a connoisseur when it came to toilet humor.
“Fuck me,” I said, peering down at the prostrate gnoll, “I can taste pie.”
Tears were running down Diggens’ green face. “Not surprising, really,” he managed to choke. “Not when I’ve dropped my lunchbox with that sort of gusto!”
Eventually, Diggens managed to get himself under control.
“Strewth, that wasn’t a bad little breezer that one, was it?” he said.
I looked at him expressionlessly. “So, that was all a load of shit was it? Not the gigantic fart you just deployed, the part about you feeling something weird about this place, I mean.”
Diggens considered this, the self-satisfied smile on his wide face slipping a little.
“Nah,” he said. “That feeling I was talking about wasn’t just a case of flatulence brought on by Old Sleazy’s gastronomic delights, fella. There is something else.”
The gnoll reached down and began unfastening his bedroll from the top of his rucksack.
“I fear we’re going to be in for some trouble down here, Mike Noctis,” he said. “Diggens Azee can’t be sure of too much in this life, but he can bloody well guarantee you that.”
I left Diggens to sort out his sleeping spot—and wipe his ass—and went to converse with the other dragonmancers. Out of respect for their station, their campfire was set away from the coterie members.
Once again, I was impressed and humbled to see how everyone ate and talked together like equals, both dragonmancers and squad members alike. The coterie members were all getting along like a house on fire, gambling and joking and telling tales of their training and the scrapes they had been in.
Ashrin and Jazmyn weren’t all high and mighty, as I had worried they might turn out to be. They had shown the more severe sides of their personalities at times during our trek, but I figured that was to be expected on a mission of such magnitude.
The two more experienced dragonmancers were speaking with Renji and Tamsin when I stepped into the circle of warmth. Renji, as armorer and quartermaster, was admiring their equipment, while Tamsin was asking the black-clad women about their Titan Slots.
“Both of us have, indeed, unlocked the Titan Slot,” Jazmyn admitted.
Tamsin and Renji exchanged looks of respectful awe.
It was funny to me, in a way, to see the usually fierce and foul-mouthed hobgoblin acting like a starstruck teenager. It appeared that even the hardest and sharpest warriors had soft spots.
“But it can’t be a whole lot of use down here, with such confined spaces, surely?” she asked Jazmyn.
Jazmyn glanced over at Ashrin. The two exchanged impish smiles.
“Your dragons don’t always have to be large, you know,” Jaz said.
“They don’t?” Renji asked in her solemn, imperturbable voice.
Jaz snorted, ripped a bit of jerky off a strip she was holding in her hand, and masticated with obvious relish. She caught me looking at her, rolled her eyes heavenward, and said, “Even Old Sleazy’s fucking jerky has that something special!”
“You were, um, you were talking about being able to choose the size of your dragon when you utilize your Titan Slot…?” Tamsin said, trying to keep her tone respectful while she was obviously eager for an answer.
“You can shift their sizes as the situation requires it,” Ashrin said.
Tamsin let out a little growl of delight and clapped her long-nailed hands together.
“I had heard rumors of this, but my preceptors would never tell me whether it was true or not when I asked them,” the hobgoblin said, her bright golden-yellow eyes flashing with excitement. “They always s
aid that such things, such knowledge, had to wait. I knew it could happen, though!”
“But how?” Renji said, voicing the question that was on my tongue also.
Ashrin looked at the three of us and bit her lip. The gesture was an innocent one, but it still sent a flash of heat to my groin.
“It’s normally something that dragonmancers are only taught when they reach Rank Three,” Ashrin said slowly, “but, considering the importance of this expedition, perhaps Jaz and I might be able to teach you girls a trick or two…”
Jazmyn shrugged and ripped off another bit of jerky. “Any edge we can get down here could be the difference between success or failure. I think it could be a good idea. So long as you girls don’t go shouting about it when you get back to the Academy, obviously. I don’t feel like being on the receiving end of a world-class General Shiloh asshole tearing.”
Ashrin launched into a long-winded explanation about the mental magical controls needed before one even thought about accessing their Titan Slot. I was just leaning forward to immerse myself in the description when I caught sight of Diggens at the back of the cavern.
The gnoll was crouched over, his snubby nose almost touching the floor, and looked to be searching for something. Every now and again, he would prod at the hard earthen ground with a thick finger. Slowly, and without a glance at us, Diggens cruised off down a passage and out of sight.
Unable to resist unexplained behavior, I got up, mentioned that I was going to use the little boys room, and followed the gnoll.
“Mike, where are you off to?” Jaz asked.
I repeated that I was going to take a quick leak in one of the passages.
“All right, but I’m going to have to come too. General Shiloh’s orders,” Jazmyn said.
I made an unimpressed face.
“Don’t worry, I won’t peek,” Jazmyn said, grinning salaciously.
I laughed, nodded, and followed Diggens Azee.
Rounding the corner of the passage that Diggens had taken, I saw the flicker of his hat brim candle bobbing some one-hundred yards ahead of me. As I approached, I saw the squat figure kicking around a pile of rubble with his great clomping boots. I drew level with him and noticed that he had unearthed a weird glowing stone.
Diggens crouched down, pulled a trowel and brush from his extensive belt, and began digging around the stone. I watched, enthralled, as the thick, clumsy-looking fingers moved with a concert pianist’s care and dexterity. After only a few moments of careful excavation, the stone popped free of the clutches of the earth and Diggens pocketed it.
“What’ve you got there, Diggens?” I asked as I glanced at Jazmyn who was waiting a stone’s throw behind us. She had a smile on her face that said, “What is it with males and needing to piss together?”
Diggens sat back on his haunches and pushed the brim of his hat up with his fat forefinger.
“You ever heard of a guilty epsorodite, dragonmancer?” the gnoll asked me.
“No,” I said.
“How about an olive augrogrossular stone?”
“No.”
“Any idea what occurs when a layer of viridian zorokizite is subducted into a seam of torbygen?” the gnoll inquired, scratching at his ass with the trowel he had just used to uncover the strange glowing rock.
“No,” I said flatly, “I do not.”
“Well, I’ll just say then that this here rock is a powerful little geological delight unique to Galipolas Mountain, and will fetch me at least one fuckload of scales when I come to sell it to the artificers.”
Diggens shot me a wide smile and secreted the gem into some pocket or pouch. Then he went back to poking about in the pile of rubble.
Suddenly, something else caught my eye. Something brighter even than the gnoll’s avaricious grin.
It looked like a play of light, a moving wisp of glowing vapor, perhaps.
I followed this odd thing a little further down the tunnel, but before I could determine what the heck it was, the wisp vanished.
Jazmyn followed along behind me. Her face was calm, unruffled, but she held a knife in her hand all the same.
From behind me, Diggens Azee called, “Careful, fella, it’s all too easy to get lost down here if you’re not used to such places.”
Barely hearing Diggen’s words, I said, “Did you see that? The little ball of light?”
“I saw,” Jazmyn said softly. “Though what it was…”
Diggens replied in the negative. “Too busy looking for my retirement fund, dragonmancer,” he said.
Frowning, feeling like I had not seen the last of that strange eldritch wisp, I turned and headed back toward the cavern in search of dinner, Jazmyn stalking along behind.
* * *
Sleep that night was a broken affair. I was used to sleeping somewhat uncomfortably, so it wasn’t camping out and sleeping on straight rock which woke me. It was the companies of soldiers periodically marching through the large cavern. Their steel boots trudging past us never failed to wake me from my light slumber, and by the time I managed to doze off again, another company would inevitably troop past.
Where we were camped was as safe as I imagined it was possible to be in the Subterranean Realms, what with the Empire’s armored soldiers stomping by every hour or so. Given that the Empire had cleared this area, shored up the tunnels, and squads regularly marched through them to keep the braziers and torches burning, I should have felt perfectly sanguine. However, I couldn’t help feeling something tickling at the base of my spine. A feeling of unease warned of danger looming on the horizon.
Next to me, Tamsin slept like a log. Her chest rose and fell, her breath hissing through her sharp teeth. A thin sliver of yellow eye peeked out from under one lid. I wondered whether hobgoblins could do as dragons were said to be able to do and sleep with one eye open.
Renji lay on my other side. The djinn had gone to sleep on her side, facing me, and had not stirred for at least three hours.
As yet another company of armored soldiers clattered past, I let out a soft sigh and rolled onto my side.
And found Renji gazing steadily at me.
“Trouble sleeping, Mike?” the djinn mouthed.
I made a sarcastic face and held my finger and thumb about half an inch apart. “A little,” I said.
Without saying another word, perhaps because she did not want to risk waking any of the other dragonmancers lying around us, Renji reached across with one blue hand and started fumbling with the front of my breeches.
Within a handful of seconds, my cock had been liberated from its material prison, springing out into cool subterranean air.
I opened my mouth to say… something, but then Renji took me in her hand and began to stroke and massage me.
Renji, pumping away on my prick, leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “Have you ever felt the grip of a blacksmith’s on your tool, Mike?”
My cock, like all my muscles, had been dragon-enhanced after the Transfusion Ceremony, and could now reach a hardness that I could never have achieved in my fully human days.
Renji’s strength, obviously, had grown too, and so I found myself walking a fine line between exquisite pleasure and delicious pain.
Renji, without ever slackening her pace or asking for anything in return, worked me for a glorious ten minutes or so. She built me up like a pro, adapting to every fluctuation of my breath, every twitch of my face or body. Dimly, I reflected on whether this was a djinn skill, but didn’t spend too much thought on the matter. It was not long before pleasure flooded my brain and squashed out any other concerns.
When I reached the point where I could take no more, when I was on the very cusp of release, Renji slipped down and covered my cock with her warm and eager mouth. I buried my face in my scrunched-up blanket as I jerked and spasmed. Blazing white light filled my closed eyelids. Renji quietly and willingly swallowed my jizz.
Letting out a long, slow breath I looked down. The blue-skinned djinn pulled away from me, smiling con
tentedly to herself and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“You tasted better than I could have imagined,” she said in a husky whisper.
Without another word, she snuggled into her blankets, closed her eyes, and rolled onto her back.
Despite the warm fug of blissful release, there was a little twinge of unseen coming danger that I had felt earlier.
Making a conscious effort to stop dwelling on the intangible, I sighed and rolled right over onto my stomach.
And saw that Ashrin and Jazmyn were both awake and both looking at me.
It was obvious, at a glance, that they had gotten an eyeful of what had just transpired with Renji. It was all in their knowing smirks. I could feel sweet post-coital oblivion stealing over me. Refusing to care, I just shook my head and drifted into sleep.
The next time I awoke, it wasn’t from the sound of steel boots hitting the ground, nor was it the stoking of the campfire for breakfast.
An ethereal blue glow pulled me from the warm waters of sleep. A pulsing erratic light flickered and throbbed through the barrier of my closed lids until my unconscious was forced to do something about it.
I opened my eyes.
The weird little will-o’-the-wisp light—ghostly blue and insubstantial—was bobbing right in front of my face. It was silent, but the color and the wavering intensity made me think that, if it had been making a noise, it would have been the buzzing of those fluorescent tube lights in the crummier kind of malls.
“Get out of here,” I grumbled quietly, not feeling in the mood for whatever this was, what with the broken sleep I’d been enjoying. “Go on, scram.”
The will-o’-the-wisp darted out of range of my swatting hand, then bobbed closer to me. It scooted closer and then further away, this way and that, circling my head. It wouldn’t leave me alone, like a gnat at a barbecue. It was almost as if…
“Are you trying to tell me something?” I muttered, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
The will-o’-the-wisp flashed a brighter neon blue.
“Was that a ‘yes’?” I said, frowning.
The strange blue wisp flashed brightly again.
That woke me up. Suddenly, every one of the forty winks that I had been trying to catch went out the window. The feeling of impending tribulation, which had been slumbering in my gut since the evening before, flared up.