by Erik Reid
The simki’s skin didn’t cool down to her normal peachy tone, but she also wasn’t a raging firestorm of untamed kicks and relentless punches. We had caught her before it was too late.
My focus on their fight drew attention away from mine. Before I knew it, the bloodhound bit me, its spiral teeth piercing my forearm and filling my veins with ice. My heart struggled to beat, the whole current of my body shifting into reverse and halting the organ meant to regulate my river of blood.
It was a river whose dam had broken.
Oscar swatted at the monster’s head, but all of my movements were strained now. Weak. My vision started to black out at the edges as oxygen-rich blood flowed into the bloodhound rather than through me. After a few useless smacks from Oscar against the bloodhound’s face, I managed to hook a thumb into its eye socket and press deep, twisting its face away from my arm and dislodging its mouth from my flesh.
The second it stopped siphoning blood from my body, I could breathe again. My heart hurt as it lurched back into motion.
“Yowww,” the creature said, lolling its tongue around in its mouth while I regained my composure and prepared again to fight. “Yooouuu should haff stay underkrownnnd.”
“And you,” I said, “need a speech pathologist.” I reached toward the creature’s chest, grabbed hold of the tattered gray shirt that covered its lumpy gray body, and punched it so hard in the face I broke its jaw.
“So much for learning human-speak.” I walked forward as the monster stepped back, then I punched it in the chest, snapping a few ribs. When it fell to the floor, I pounced on top of it, tore its chest open, and reached inside the putrid soup of black, slimy organs to find the heart and crush it.
Energy Reserves Up: 2.1%
Kaylee caught a punch with her open palm, then grabbed a bloodhound’s hand and held it in place while her other arm chopped against its elbow joint. Bone cracked and the monster howled, then she kicked it to the ground and stomped her foot through its head. Its skull dented and the creature went limp, shards of bone likely skewering into its brain. She poked two fingers into the base of its throat, tore the skin, and dragged that wound down its front. In another moment, she had the heart, and she threw it my way.
Energy Reserves Up: 2.5%
Dani crash-landed on the stone floor and rolled to a stop a good distance from us, tossing her sword aside to avoid landing on it. She panted and let her wings and tail lay flat, clearly exhausted from all the effort it took to fly to the limited extent draykin were capable of.
The airborne bloodhound circled above her.
Kaylee and I both prepared to run, but then Clara caught my eye. She had climbed two stories up with her nimble kobold hands, and now she clung upside down from the ceiling. Just as the bloodhound dove toward Dani, Clara kicked off the throne room’s ceiling and took aim at the flying menace.
She landed on its back, weighing it down enough that it skidded into the floor with Clara riding atop it. She brought both hands around to its neck and her hands pulsed in pink light, melting the creature’s throat until its head rolled away and the body disintegrated into a gelatinous gray slime.
The queen still stood in the center of all this, dazed and off-balance.
I took a step toward Kaylee, but she spun toward me and whipped her monkey-like tail out, smacking me in the leg and preparing to pounce.
“It’s me,” I said. “We’re safe for now. Everything’s over.”
She breathed in short bursts and scrunched her eyebrows down, wrinkling the blindfold. Her pose was still aggressive, and I braced for impact just in case.
“Kaylee,” I said, with melodramatic patience. “Let’s all relax.”
Slowly, she calmed. Her skin tone lightened and her posture went from threatening to lax. She pulled off the blindfold and frowned.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just kept thinking about how I lost control at Benoch’s, and then it started to happen again, and I hit you.”
“It was nothing,” I said. “It was your tail, and it didn’t hurt.”
“Not this time,” she said. “If I could hit you, I could hit anyone. Even my friends in the enclave. Maybe I should never go home again.”
Her lip started to quiver, so I pulled her close. “Now, now… now is not the time for this. Later is. When we’ve finished saving the world and plucking the cold black heart out of every snarly bloodhound.”
“There will be more,” the queen said. “You cannot stop the bloodhounds from raging against the crown. Goddess willing, anyway.” She hiked up her dress and climbed onto the stone platform to sit on her throne again.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. I looked over at Dani. “She’s sad that we saved her life. Where’s our thank-you?”
“What good would her appreciation do at this point?” Dani asked. “Without any support to offer us, she’s just another woman. And we’re four people going against a demonic army. One that sits atop the highest mountain peak, impossibly out of reach.”
“True,” I said. “But one of our ‘four’ is a kobold with a keen sense of climbing. If only we all… Huh.”
I looked back at the queen as she leaned to the side and sighed.
“Queen Zolocki,” I said, “your royal highness and, oh jeez, what else were you… waker of winds and oracle of ages?”
She sighed. “Master of moons, tamer of wild rivers, and breath of the birds of song.”
“Yes,” I said. “Royal woman of many epithets, give me all of your money.”
“Kyle!” Dani exclaimed.
“What?” I asked. “I have a plan, and it won’t come cheap.”
“Take it,” the queen said. “There are no coins that could bring my daughter back to me.”
“Not gonna argue with that,” I said. “Look, Queen Zolocki, we don’t see eye to eye — and not just because your throne is two feet higher than everything else in the room. You believe in blood debts, and sending people you value into underground prisons, and giving up hope when things look bleak.”
The queen nodded faintly and kept staring into the middle distance, looking over my shoulder toward the open doorway and the war-torn city beyond it.
“I don’t know if we can win this thing,” I said, “but I know we’re going to try. Because I’m wearing leather from head to toe and I have an alien tech gauntlet that speaks to me in little silver letters. If anyone here is supposed to save the day and get all of the girls, it’s me.”
Now she focused on me and gave a half-smile. “After all my shortcomings, you would—”
“No, just to be clear, you’re not one of those girls. You’re kind of a basket case. I just meant that even if I’m not the hero you deserve, I’m the hero you need right now. Because I’m Kyle the Human Hero, and I vanquish shit.”
“Of course,” she said. “Goddess speed.”
I gave her a nod and a smile.
“Reset Draykin Domain waypoint,” I said. “No more stables for us.”
Waypoint Marker Set
A spot of blue light gathered beneath my feet, then a beam of light shot upward from it. Oscar’s text floated alongside the new waypoint.
Draykin Domain
0 Ft.
“Girls, let’s hit the treasury.”
In the hallway behind Queen Zolocki’s throne, glass cases held golden statues with polished jewels set within their eyes. Rubies on a draykin woman with red wings and a tail that changed from gold to rose gold as it reached its tip. Another with emeralds, and then sapphires.
I strode past those displays toward the round room that opened up at the hallway’s end. Stone shelves were set into the walls here, rising four stories high in a silo of accumulated wealth. Each shelf held burlap bags cinched tight around the top.
I lifted one and heard coins jingling inside. After tugging the cord open, I handed it to Dani.
“There are a thousand rounds in there, aren’t there?” I asked.
She reached her hand inside and pulled out a fistful
of small black coins. “At least. But how does money help us ascend a mountain?”
“It doesn’t,” I said. “Nothing will. The high ground at Benoch’s hill would have given us an advantage against those bloodhounds if we weren’t so badly outnumbered. Terrain is useful, but it’s not enough to turn the tide against sheer numbers.
“A mountain though? That’s the ultimate high ground. We’ll have a tactical penalty and A’zarkin’s vast doggy-style army of snaggletooth vampire offspring to contend with. We can’t just climb up. They’re ready for that.
“No, we need to buy ourselves an element of surprise. Everyone? Take a bag. It’s time to visit the baby factory.”
CHAPTER 26
“Do you have any idea how many mouths we’ll have to feed?” Dani asked.
She strode alongside me, her arm looped in mine and her legs swinging in time with my own so that our feet hit the ground at the same time. It was nice to see she had warmed up to me again, now that we had unpacked some of my simki-induced dalliances.
“There’s no other choice,” I said. “Kobolds are good at digging, and we can make our ration packs stretch in the short term. God knows Momma Jumbo barely feeds those poor kids.”
“Goddess,” Dani said. “You keep saying ‘God’ like the all-powerful being who created the realms was a man.”
“My realm is full of sexist assholes,” I said. “Maybe the Goddess thought it was easier to dress up as a dude where I’m from and avoid that nonsense. Sort of like Mulan.”
“Are we there yet?” Kaylee asked from behind. “Everything out here seems so flat and never-ending. I just want to see the kobold hole and learn about where Clara’s from!”
“It’s another half-mile or so,” I said.
“Is that… far?” Kaylee asked.
“Not at all.”
“It’s nice,” Clara said, “to have a peaceful moment beneath the sun’s warm rays without a brood of bloodhounds chasing us. And I’m glad Kyle isn’t spending Oscar’s energy on waypoint travel when our destination was within easy reach.”
“Actually,” I said. “I couldn’t. I don’t have a waypoint marker there. I can only set them where I stand. Unless… Oscar? Use Remote Access to set a waypoint marker.”
Set Current Location as Waypoint Marker? Y/N
“No,” I said, pointing ahead. “Set waypoint marker there.”
Set Current Location as Waypoint Marker? Y/N
I sighed. “Still no clue what Remote Access is for, but setting waypoints from memory would have been nice. Go zipping around the world in the blink of an eye, taking everyone with me.
“Maybe if I set enough waypoints, we can open a travel agency when this is over.
The half-mile trek ahead of us was shorter than the distance we had already covered, leaving the pillaged remains of Varrowsgard to smolder long behind us and its desolate queen to dwell on her separation from the golden egg she had so jealously guarded.
When the crack that split the ground open into a wide smirk came into view, Kaylee was the first to break into a run. She peered over the edge of the cavern, gaged a spot to climb down, and vanished below the lip of the rocky crevice. Clara was quick to follow.
“Am I the only one that wasn’t made for climbing?” I asked.
“Kaylee’s accustomed to scaling trees,” Dani said, “and Clara has that perfect kobold grip. I’m no climber though.”
“No, just a woman with dragon wings who can glide downward lickety-split.”
“Draykin are not dragons,” she said, then leaned close and whispered in my ear, “monkey.”
“You don’t get to call me that and run away,” I said. “Come back here!”
Dani laughed and stuck out her tongue, then jumped. Her wings spread wide and she glided easily toward the bottom.
I, however, took my time. The rocky ledges were a challenge to navigate, but I had done it once before. After a slow and careful climb, I touched down at the bottom of the foyer to the kobold labyrinth ahead.
“Hi, Oscar,” I said. “It’s me, Kyle. Set us a waypoint called Kobold Kommune.” A blue light indicated the job was done.
“Wow,” Kaylee said, marveling at the network of tunnels and small rooms that comprised Clara’s old home. “I’ve never seen tunnels like these before. Imagine the hiding and seeking you could do!”
“Stay where I can see you,” I said.
“Mother would not approve us wandering without permission,” Clara said. Still, she paused at an intersection where another tunnel ran across the one we walked through. The mewling cries of baby kobolds echoed from our left, but it was the right end of the tunnel Clara listened toward. The faint, intermittent sound of metal tools banging against rock carried toward us.
“That’s them,” she said. “My poor brothers, destined to dwell beneath our mother’s rocky ceiling and iron fist until the constant effort of their digging wears their bones to dust.”
“Destinies can change,” I said. “We’re changing them.”
I walked forward with purpose, leading the girls down the long tunnel toward Momma Jumbo’s central chamber. We passed by doorways that Dani and I had peeked into before, as well as stone boulders we hadn’t slid aside on our exploratory venture into these caverns last time. Oscar could make quick work of rolling those boulder-doors aside, but we had no time to sneak and peek now. We had very important business to attend to.
We were buying slaves. Again.
The orange flicker of torch-pit urns drew us deeper into the underground complex, with the scent of burning oil and the haze it produced thickening until we reached the high-ceilinged room at its heart.
Momma Jumbo sat there, ever ready to greet her customers with a scowling face and a rotund, red stomach. Somehow, it was twice as large as the last time we had seen the woman, and her blood-red face was tired and sweaty. She tracked our movement with her eyes but said nothing as we approached.
“Momma Jumbo,” Dani said, coddling a sack of round, black coins in her hands. “We’ve come to ask for the sale of two dozen kobolds. The older ones, who dig the tunnels because they fell short of other takers’ standards.”
“Daniana Weyforth,” Momma Jumbo said. “You do have a taste for the defective, don’t you?”
“A child given would lack the strength for the labor we need,” Dani said. “I believe every one of your children is strong and able — traits they inherited from their mother, of course.”
“Even the ones past the age of first taking?” the woman asked.
“Especially them,” Dani said.
The woman rested her hands atop her plump stomach and tented her fingers together. “You’ll take them well, taker?”
“Of course,” Dani said. “I will treat them with all the respect and care a taker owes a given.”
Momma Jumbo seemed satisfied at first, then she glanced at Clara and her mood turned sour. “What’s wrong with this one?” she asked, glaring at Dani and waiting for an answer.
“You tell me,” I said. “Every time you’ve spoken to Clara, you’ve found something wrong. All I see is a beautiful girl with a rare talent and a generous heart. I don’t see anything wrong at all.”
The kobold matriarch turned to face me slowly. “Do you speak for the taker, monkey?”
Kaylee huffed behind me, but the insult wasn’t enough of a provocation to turn her cheeks red, and I had no interest in teaching Momma Jumbo about political correctness.
“He does,” Dani said. “Kyle speaks for me, and by extension, my given, because I owe him a blood debt and—”
“My children are not to be traded!” the red woman said. “Had I known you would pass my daughter off to the first man that offered you protection I would never have made the sale! You disrespect me and my business.”
“We’ve treated Clara well,” I said. “She’s our equal on this journey, and her life is better now than it ever was here. She’s even had tutoring.”
Now the kobold woman leaned forward w
ith a look of sincere interest on her face. As she shifted her weight, her bare pendulous breasts rolled to the sides, sloping down her massive, pregnant belly.
“Is that true?” she asked.
“Yes,” Clara said. “I have lived days of sun and study that I never thought would be mine, and I have died in the arms of a bleeding warrior surrounded by vicious beasts. My journey into the sun has taken me back into shadow, but it is a journey I am privileged to take for all I have learned of myself and the Goddess’s bounty.”
“You and your Goddess-damned sun worship,” the girl’s mother said. “And what’s this about death?”
“I am destined to destroy the demon A’zarkin,” Clara said. “Though the price of this feat is likely my own life. This is the role the Goddess determined when she touched my newborn mind. This is the reason for my gift.”
Momma Jumbo stood from her stone seat. The act took effort, and time. Her swollen red feet flattened against the rock floor as her full weight bore down on them. Her knees cracked and she reached toward her lower back, thrusting her hips forward as she rebalanced her posture. A dingy gray rag tied around her waist, sparing us from the sight of her gnarly, unkempt nether-regions.
“You have taken a sweet young girl — an empty-headed one, but sweet — and ruined her,” Clara’s mother said. “You treated her care like it was a trifle you could barter away with your idiotic draykin blood debts. You should be ashamed.”
“I am not ruined,” Clara said. “I have purpose now.”
“No,” Momma Jumbo said, sitting back down with a thump.
“No what?” I asked.
“This draykin came into my home as a first-time taker and promised to uphold her duties. She has failed, in the worst way. You will have no more of my children.