by Erik Reid
Momma Jumbo counted the coins herself this time, and quickly. Clara took the collar and leash off the little girl and patted her on the back, sending her onward to whatever room the slave-age children waited in. She wrapped the collar around her own neck and walked toward us, her head bowed.
“Thank you, Momma Jumbo,” Dani said. “It has been a pleasure.”
“You will speak no word of the bargain struck here today,” the kobold queen said. “If I have customers come back here to haggle, I’ll send my oldest after your throat with a sharp blade.”
“You’re a real mother,” I said. “You know that, ma’am?”
The red woman leaned forward, her bulging tits rolling off her pregnant stomach as she stared me right in the eyes.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t often get the credit I deserve.”
CHAPTER 5
We left Momma Jumbo to gestate her next batch of inventory, leading Clara down the long corridor that ended at the “kobold hole” entrance. Dani made no effort to take Clara by the long rope leash that trailed from her small collar, and I was grateful for that. It left Clara what little dignity she still had in this circumstance.
As we walked, the sound of digging still rang out behind us, as did the cries of countless red-skinned babies and toddlers. I couldn’t exactly liberate those kids, or they’d all starve with no takers to support them, and I wasn’t in a position to rail against this world’s version of the slave trade. Hell, I had just participated in it.
Still, I felt good about what we did there. We released this beautiful young woman from the clutches of an abusive handler. That had to count for something.
Clara kept her eyes on the floor as we walked, passing stone doors and massive boulders that blocked off rooms with unknown contents.
Suppressing the urge to try one last time to pry that boulder-door aside was torture. I hated leaving a site with lingering curiosities. Oh, well.
Just outside the tunnel, a vertical rock face stretched upward. Clara didn’t hesitate to start the long climb toward sunlight once we arrived at the hallway’s end. Her grip was confident and she ascended with impressive resolve. She had obvious skill with climbing, far more than I did, but she still struggled to support her own weight.
“Clara, sweetie,” Dani said. “Let me fly you to the top.”
“I should not burden my taker,” Clara said. “Mother demands that her children prove their fortitude by making this climb without aid, but she also has a policy she always respects. If a given cannot climb to the surface, she will issue a complete refund. Please, don’t worry if I fall. You will not lose the value of your investment.”
“I don’t want a refund,” Dani said, “I want you to be safe and healthy.”
Clara continued to climb, despite Dani’s offer. We watched her ascend from the pit’s depths, prepared to catch her if she slipped. I also didn’t mind watching her legs hard at work, flexing and tensing with each step. She was agile, and flexible, seeking out footholds and handholds at the furthest extent of her reach.
The temptation was there, of course, to take a step forward and watch more closely, but something about gawking up the poor girl’s skirt seemed like it would be poor form considering the circumstances.
After Clara finally pulled herself over the edge of the pit, Dani held her arms out.
“Someone wants a hug,” I said.
“And that someone is you,” she replied. “Put your arms around my neck and wrap your legs around my hips.”
“Yes ma’am.” I climbed onto Dani carefully, expecting her to stumble or wobble. She didn’t budge. Her legs didn’t even bow a single inch.
“You’ve got strong legs,” I said.
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” she replied. With a broad grin and a flash of excitement in her eyes, she bent her knees and leapt high.
Her wings pumped fast, catching us from falling and buoying us in the air. Each flap of those forest-green leathery wings added to our altitude. I clung tight to her body, holding my chest against her bosom and resting my cheek against her cheek. I let my scruff graze against her jaw as I held her tighter, then breathed lightly against her ear.
Each time her shoulders rounded back to spike her wings downward, her chest pushed forward, heaving her plump, supple breasts against me. I ran my fingers up the back of her neck and nestled them in her long, dark green hair.
Our aeronautical embrace was short-lived. Before I knew it, we had touched down on solid ground beside Clara.
I let go of Dani and realized she was breathing heavily. “Hot and bothered?” I asked.
“A little,” she said, “but mostly worn out. Flying is very, very exhausting. Draykin can only do it for short periods — even shorter with additional cargo.”
Clara, meanwhile, was on her knees. Her arms were shaking from overexertion, so I helped her to her feet. We started the long trek toward the Varrowsgard city wall, still invisible in the distance, but Clara’s feet shuffled along, listlessly. It looked like the climb had taken a lot out of her.
“Clara,” I said. “Are you sure you can handle this trek?”
She nodded and looked away.
“Dani,” I said. “I don’t think your girl here has the wherewithal for this. We might need to stop and rest.” I glanced at Clara. She stayed serious and steadfast with each step. “Or maybe some fresh water would do her good. Or a nice meal.”
Clara’s mood seemed to perk up at the mention of food. Of course she was hungry; judging from her narrow waist and slender limbs, she had been kept that way for a long time. Maybe being Dani’s given would actually improve her lot, compared to being Momma Jumbo’s unwanted child.
What the hell kind of a world did I wake up in? If it was a dream, my psyche was ten times more fucked up than I realized.
“It’s a long walk back to the fisherman we found earlier,” I said. “Clara won’t make it that far.”
“Come here, Clara,” Dani said. “You’re my responsibility now, and I will make sure you get the food you need. I’ll carry you there myself.”
The kobold girl’s face tightened with worry.
“Let me,” I said. “She doesn’t want to burden you, Dani, and it’s only fair. You carried me up; I’ll carry your slave girl from here.”
“Please don’t call her that,” Dani said. “It’s not the same thing at all.”
“Fine,” I said. “I hated it after I said it anyway. Even in sarcasm, it’s demeaning. Clara?” I bent my knees and waited while she climbed onto my back. Her arms wrapped around my neck and my hands found a spot under her thighs to support her.
And that’s how we walked, for a full hour, across the low hills that sat between Momma Jumbo and our next meal. Clara’s rope leash dragged along the ground beside me and her small, perky breasts lay against the base of my neck while her chin perched on the top of my head.
The return trip was slow going and we almost trudged right past the pond without realizing it. The water was still and quiet, with a full range of fishing gear heaped beside it but no fisherman in sight.
“Who leaves their tools unattended like this?” I asked. “How trusting are you dragon people?”
Clara jumped down from my back and I took a few steps closer to the water. There were fish in it. “Think he’ll mind if we borrow his pole while he’s gone?”
“Something tells me he won’t,” Dani said. “Look.”
A single tree sat beside the pond, and behind that, a draykin tail stretched out in the grass. As I rounded the outer perimeter of the pond, I saw the rest of the fisherman’s body — along with a thick trail of bloody grass.
I jogged toward the man’s body and crouched beside him. It was the same fisherman alright. I turned his head and pressed two fingers against his neck for a pulse, horrified that there wasn’t one.
“He’s dead,” I said. “And pale. Whatever did this bit him in the neck with a pair of fangs. Look at these punctures.”
A small box
with fish sat in the shade of the tree. Dani walked toward it. “They left his catch here, and all of his tools,” she said. “This wasn’t a robbery.” She took a few steps closer to the fish. They were all wrapped up in green leaves, ready for sale.
“I hate to steal from the dead,” Dani said, “but I don’t know when Clara ate last.” She stepped right up to the small box.
“Ah!” Something snapped and Dani screamed. A fishing net erupted from the ground, tangling her in its webbing. Her tail thrashed against it, slipping through a gap among the net’s sturdy threads, but the rest of her body stayed tied up.
No sooner was Dani incapacitated than two sniveling creatures came bolting toward us from the distance. They must have hidden behind the next nearest tree, waiting for their trap to spring.
“Fuck,” I said. “Clara, help Dani down from there.”
The draykin woman was already tearing at the net with her long, sharp nails, but the webbing wasn’t coming loose. I doubted she’d resort to fire.
“What the hell are those things?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Dani said, still struggling to break free. “I’ve never seen anything like them!”
The dark shapes that bounded toward us had arms and legs like mine, but they raced ahead on all fours like something out of a horror movie. Their faces were so gray they looked dead already, and their eyes were glowing pits of blue with no white.
Dani hadn’t seen these things before, but had I? There was a strange familiarity to their grotesque features. Part man, part canine. Feral and crazed. Out for blood.
Bloodhounds. The word rose in the back of my mind, spoken in the same low, gruff voice as that weird old fortuneteller woman. And there would be plenty of them.
I pulled off my hoodie and threw it on the ground. What little protection it might offer wasn’t worth restricting my range of motion or leaving a hood to dangle behind my back, perfect for yanking on to throw me off-balance.
I stepped toward the oncoming creatures while Clara started climbing the tree. Her fingers gripped the trunk with ease, not bothering to search out knobs or branches to support her. With any luck, she would untie the net in time for Dani to help with the fight, which she would only do if I stalled their approach.
One creature was faster on its feet, and it charged toward me ahead of the second one. I tightened my fists and waited, jabbing forward when its face was within range. I struck quickly and landed a punch flat against its nose. Its head whipped back and howled, spreading its mouth open wide. A rush of foul breath hit me like a thick wall of noxious fog.
“Your breath reeks,” I said. “What, they have Taco Bell here, too?”
The creature recovered quickly, staring me down as a thick trickle of black started to ooze from its nose. It didn’t reach to wipe its face clean as that black goop approached its upper lip. Its focus was only on me, its eyes burning bright and blue as they stared into mine.
When my opponent lashed out at me, it wasn’t with a punch or a kick. It brought both arms forward with its fingers spread out, thrusting ten long, black nails at my chest. I brought both of my hands to my face with my forearms vertically aligned with my chest, then whipped my arms out to the sides when my attacker closed in. I ruined its attack, swatting its arms outward and away before those disgusting claws could touch me.
And that was all the lead time I had before the second attacker caught up to us. It brushed its comrade aside and tackled me to the ground, hissing directly into my face.
Its two front teeth were so long its mouth couldn’t contain them. They extended like small downward tusks from its face, past a cracked, gray lower lip, adding a secondary level of menace to its already hateful veneer. A mane of greasy dark gray hair sat in an unkempt pile of shag atop its head.
Its weight bore down on me, making it difficult to breathe. I swung my arms out wide and pummeled that monster in the ribs, but its body barely flinched. It tolerated the attacks, using its hands to hold my head flat against the ground while I punched and punched. It leaned in close as I stared up, my gaze fixating on its mouth.
Those teeth. They looked like a bat’s incisors from afar, but up close they were much worse. Their sharp points were the start of a twisted spiral. They were shaped like screws, with a razor-thin tread that wound around the tooth up toward the creature’s gray, slimy gums.
I tried to roll to the side, but I couldn’t shift the creature’s weight enough to knock it off me. Its nose twitched as it sniffed hard at my face and neck. Finally it sent out a long tongue and licked the scrape that ran down my arm.
That tongue was like sandpaper, tearing my wound back open and slathering it in saliva that burned like salt in my torn skin. That burst of agony inspired a surge of strength in my body and my arms thrust upward, knocking the bloodhound off-balance enough that I rolled it off me and scrambled to my feet.
I stood between both attackers as they circled me like predators trapping prey. Their bodies hunched as they sidestepped, with their legs cutting strange arcs with each half-shuffle around the invisible arc they traced around me. Their hips were at odd angles, like animals meant for all fours who were just learning to stand.
The faster of the two darted at me, so I pivoted my attention toward that one. It was only a feint though, and the creature pulled back just as fast. I realized the ploy too late. The next moment, the second attacker jumped onto my back.
A sharp pain erupted deep inside my neck as that monster sank those screw-tipped fangs into my flesh. My breathing stopped and my body filled with ice. A sickening sucking sound filled my ears as this mangy, fanged creature siphoned the blood out of my body, pumping my veins in reverse as it used its incisors like straws.
I twisted and fell, landing on my side and struggling to control my limbs as the life drained out of me.
A thud behind me sent a mild vibration through the ground. A second later, a pair of hands grabbed the monster that had me pinned and whisked it away, tearing those incisors from my flesh.
I gasped for air, suddenly able to move and breathe again. “Dani!”
The draykin woman was airborne, lifting the blood-sucking fiend a few yards in the air. Her wings flapped madly and her face strained with effort, then she dropped its body and swooped toward the ground. She landed on one knee, off-balance after pushing her capacity for flight past its limit.
I reached for my neck. It was wet with a slick of hot, red blood.
The fiend Dani had saved me from turned its claws on her, and she swiped her own back in return. The two scratched at the air for a while before Dani spun and whipped her tail along the ground, tripping her foe. Good, I thought. She can handle herself in a fight.
I stumbled toward the pond’s nearby tree, my body still recovering from the sense of freezing solid. The second bloodhound didn’t leave me a moment’s respite. It charged me and I ducked to the side, letting it crash into the tree trunk instead. The impact knocked Clara from the branch she hid on. She rolled deftly into a landing that didn’t seem to hurt, then slowly retreated.
The creature turned back and growled, bearing those menacing teeth, then charged. I was only a few feet away, so I reached wide and grappled with it, wrestling for control over who would dominate this fight.
As we fought, we stepped forward and back, this way and that. At one point I knocked over a bucket of pond water, releasing a few small bait fish back into the pond. Some of the fisherman’s gear also spilled out, and his long fishing pole slipped from its resting place and lay flat in the grass.
I reached for the pole, but the bloodhound pushed me back then headbutted me. I went down like a sack of flour.
The second my back hit the ground, my opponent pounced, trapping me beneath its heft. I held one arm up and braced my palm against its chin, doing whatever I could to keep that terrifying mouth away from me.
Meanwhile, I felt behind me for the fishing pole. My fingers searched the blades of grass and grazed against the pole, my only hope o
f a weapon to wield against this creature. I stretched further, struggling to roll it toward me enough to scoop it up in my hand.
The bloodhound was ready for the kill. It reared back its head and hissed, then lunged for my neck with its jaw open wide.
Now I had it. I gripped the fishing pole and carried it in my fist as I punched upward, holding the pole so that it would run up and down the length of the bloodhound’s face. My fist aimed for its open mouth, but the pole stopped my fist from entering far enough for that monster to bite.
The bloodhound was confused for a second, which was my opening. I rolled and took it with me, pinning the monster onto the ground with myself on top.
I pulled back my fist and punched, hard. The fishing pole kept my hand from entering its mouth while I bashed its face repeatedly. Its jaw worked furiously, but those ferocious teeth couldn’t grip my skin and drain my blood. Not now.
My knuckles sang with pain as I pounded its face, breaking open its oily skin and painting its cheeks with its own black blood. Then, its teeth started to loosen.
The bloodhound became frantic, thrashing its limbs with no clear plan, bucking and twisting to throw me off its prone body. I punched one more time, with all my strength, and its screw-tipped teeth broke free. They landed in a wet, bloody mess beside its face.
What a pitiful little mongrel this thing became without its teeth. It started whimpering and scratching at me with its claws, but only weakly. I took the fishing pole out of its mouth now that I had neutered its bite, and pressed the length of that pole against its neck instead, sinking deep into its flesh until it couldn’t breathe anymore. It squirmed and twitched — until it didn’t.
Its eyelids fluttered, then fell to hide its burning blue eyes. Its hands fell away from me and its arms plopped onto the grass by its side. I had strangled the thing to death.
When I looked up, Dani was crawling toward me holding one hand against her ribs. The fiend she had tussled with had Clara by the rope leash that extended from her collar. It pulled her face close to its own and sniffed at her pink skin while she tensed and cowered away as best she could.