“Split it up?” she said it slowly, one word by one word. And then, she seemed to think for a while and she acted out her thinking posture, putting her index finger on her puckered lips and pondering the stars. Abruptly, she turned to them and said in her feminine most soothing voice, “Of course, not. It’s all mine now, lil’ bro.”
“Hell, no. This is our cash. We split it up, six ways,” and this, in Oudag’s mind was a generous offer. Everyone inclusive of Rika got their fair share. After that, Oudag took out his axe intended to hack anyone who was going to mess with his money.
“Oh, are you stupid or something?” said Rika, capitulating, looking down at her smooth groin. Then, she looked at the pale sky as if to seek some enlightenment. “Hmmm… but you are.” She looked at Oudag pitifully, as she bent her left knee and squatted down while keeping the right leg straight. Her hairless vulva was in full view under the pale moon as she caressed her smooth thigh.
“Oudag, no,” someone shouted but too late. Oudag threw his axe and it spun through the air towards Rika.
She launched herself with a thrust from her bent leg, and flew towards Oudag swaying a little to avoid the spinning axe. She was very quick and her skin colour changed to dull black with spots and stripes of yellow, her natural colour.
Drurk the most fearful one, was the first to scram followed by the others, afraid of any collateral damage. Oudag drew another axe from his suit and got ready to hack Rika. When she approached, Oudag dealt her a powerful blow aimed right at her head, to split her skull. Rika simply slid over the axe, like water flowing round a rock and then she coiled around his arm and round his waist to get to the back, her body becoming a serpent. She trapped him in a neck lock, arms around his neck and legs around his waist.
“You know, I kinda like you,” whispered Rika to his ears before she slit his throat with her hidden razorblade going one whole round while she slid her body over the shoulder to the front and then away. She landed several feet in front, with her back towards Oudag. He stood still, motionless. Slowly a red line appeared around his neck. Slowly, it started to bleed and then suddenly his head fell off while his body was still standing. His blood spurted out of his opened neck like water gushing out of a pipe. It was a bloody fountain.
They all knew Rika was not the usual nightly whore but none of them knew she was this deadly. None of them had seen her in action. Except Bilfur. She stood in front of the fountain, her yellow spots receded and her blackness turned creamy white. Now that she was standing among them, they could admire her at close range. She was perfect: long slender legs with a gap, short body, pear-shaped breasts, round buttocks, slim and elegant waist and one very alluring face. She had her hair loose; her long lush black hair covering half her back, the only thing on her body that she could not control the colour of, aside from the eyelashes. And as she stood at the centre of the circle of beastmen, one dead, her hand caressing her hips and asses, she said, “What a pitiful sight. But you died while feeling my breasts and my crotch through your back. Sad, that it wasn’t the other way around.” They could smell, at the top of the clear gap between her thighs, that she was beginning to get moist.
“And what are you all waiting for? Throw him to the flowers or throw him to the dumpster. Whatever,” she ordered, turning and walking away to the tavern with her hair and her asses swaying from side to side. “And be quick. We have a morning coach to catch.”
After a few steps, she said again, “Drurk, hurry up and come to my room. I want to see you tonight.”
The others looked at Drurk and Drurk looked back at them, one by one. A mysterious silence had dawned upon them. It was too much to handle. Their Big Brother Bilfur had been killed by a stupid shot that had to go his way. Now Oudag, standing there spewing blood and making the ground red. And Drurk, he was going to have a go at the big brother’s pussy. How that all would turn out? It was anyone’s guess. They were not clever enough to think of the intricate connections between various possibilities.
“What did she mean by that? What? Am I goin to die? Is she goin to kill me?”
“I think she just want you to bang her,” said Brun.
“Bang! Why! I ain’t wanna bang her. What!”
“Good luck, bro” said Kroll. “Don’t get your hands dirty. We’ll take care of Oudag here.”
“Wait! This ain’t right. Ye’ all gotta help me. We’re bros. I ain’t want to bang her. Help me.”
Brun looked at him and did not know what to say. The three of them picked up the blood soaked Oudag and carried him closer to the graveyard and threw him over fearing the soul-eaters would get them. But they were quite reluctant to touch the head. They had cut down many heads before but this was family. Finally, Ghella let out a grunt, ran over to the head and kicked it like ball and they watched the last remain of Oudag, the projectile, disappearing into the night. The beastmen were not sentimentalists but this time, they could sense a lost, the closing of a chapter of their lives and the beginning of another.
Soon, the soul-eaters would extend their tiny tentacles from their roots. They would emerge from the earth and penetrate Oudag through the pores. They would worm their way in into Oudag’s most inner sanctum and secrete their digestive fluids, which would dissolve Oudag’s flesh, inner organs and bones and then, thoroughly absorbed them. All that would be left of Oudag’s once muscular body would be his clothes and his dead skins and body hairs.
******
Back in the tavern, a black silhouette flew into a small opening of a rectangular duct, a secret conduit that ran through the complex for it to access the hidden chambers. Following the duct, after several bends and junctions, several vertical and horizontals sections, it emerged in a dark room hidden in the basement of the complex, which happened to be the office of the boss. It flew round and round in that big office before flying through yet again another small rectangular opening on a wall near the ceiling and into the secret chamber, in which a square wellhead with a side length of twenty feet was located. The silhouette descended into the square well spiralling down close to the walls, which were smooth and plane, scaling or climbing was an impossibility except for the beings with suction cups, and six feet thick, made of bricks hauled all the way from the Black Mountains, and boring into the ground another thirty feet, all the way to the level below of the underground halls. At the bottom, there was a brick door, ten feet thick, which led into a vault. The black silhouette flew, rounding the shaft, all the way down, its long wings disintegrating as it flew, and when it reached the bottom, it zoomed straight into the closed door, disappearing along the narrow zigzag seam between the double panels, its width the width of a speck of dust, and into the cavernous vault.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Finkler was busy arranging the books on their proper shelves. He took pride in making sure that every book had its own place. The vault had many rows of these double-faced bookcases, on the shelves of which tomes and volumes of books were neatly lined up, sorted and labelled. It was a veritable library. The elf’s elegant sword was on one of the shelves too and so were the various weaponries that the boss and Finkler had collected over the century. Towards the far end, boxes and crates stacked among themselves, or on racks, neatly and orderly arranged, with a long table, empty except for a candelabrum holding five sticks of candles, situated in between. Gas lamp was not permitted; paper and gas did not go well with each other. The reflected light of the candles from the white marbled walls was enough to illuminate the whole vault.
The black silhouette emerged from the inside of the door, flew around the vault near the ceiling and finally stopped at a shelf near Finkler. It stood on the shelf on his two hind legs. The other four were hanging loosely without anything particular to do. With a tail, it would resemble a fire dragon.
“So, what do you have for me?”
“The beastmen were at the graveyard and the dumpsters. They were looking for Bilfur’s earring. Then Rika showed up. She said that she has the earring. ...” And the silhouette continued to tell Finkler every minute details of the fight.
“Thank you, Biggy.” Finkler looked at the silhouette paternalistically and smiled as if to say, well done. “This is as stupid as they can get. Don’t they know we have eyes and ears all around the compound.” He took out a slim metal case from his inside breast pocket. It was made of copper with intricate flowery etching on its cover. He opened it and contained within was beads of moonstones glowing in pale blue. He took one and fed it to the silhouette. It snapped at the moonstone, its neck elongated for a second to reach the flying moonstones, and gulped it down in an instant. Immediately, the silhouette glowed in pale blue from top to bottom. This was one of the bat-bug creatures called the gawk. Afterwards, the gawk seemed refreshed, energized and shrieked. Its beak grew, lenghtened and enlarged. Biggy thoroughly enjoyed the snack.
Finkler laughed a little and said, “Here, have a another one.” He threw Biggy another. “Then, you must go and find the boss and tell him. I’ll have Figgy to look after the idiots.”
He closed the case, looked at the cover, tracing the lines of the etching with his long dainty finger deep in thought. He caressed the flowers and a little smile lined his thin lips. He put it back into his inner breast pocket and said softly, absentmindedly, to Biggy perhaps,
“Looks like Dono is right. Something very interesting is about to happen. First, the Trembling Leaf. And now, the Earring of the Mannequin. Both came loose, at the same time, unbound from their masters, unknown in their destinies. It’s a sign. It’s a sign. For a century, I’ve been here. For a century, I’ve been keeping quiet. For a century, I’ve trained. I think it’s time to go out and have some fun. Don’t you think so? Tell Dono, tell the boss. He is right. I am his faithful slave.”
******
“So, how long were you cursed?” asked Darius, breaking the awkward silence.
“Close to a century now.”
“Oh, what a bummer. To be stuck like that for a century. But looked on the bright side, you’re forever young now.”
The girl just looked at Darius without speaking.
“But wouldn’t you think that it’d be much better that you’re stuck at a more teenage form? Now, that would be splendid.”
Elena was becoming annoyed again. A branch fell from above as if it came out of the sky and landed right next to Darius. “Whoa! Alright, alright. Let’s get to sleep now. It’s very late.”
The fire burned from within and heated up the surrounding driving away the dampness and the mist. It kept burning throughout the night while they slept on the opposite side of the fire.
Morning arrived. Over the night, it had consumed the log cabin until the pile collapsed leaving behind what look like now a heap of embers and ashes. The once vibrant fire was dying lazily dancing among the glowing remains. The girl had already woken up. She did not need much sleep. She was picking some blackberries that Oldbark had grown for them. The elf was still sleeping, dreaming of the nightly affairs that the elves enjoyed so much. She picked up a pebble and threw it at the elf. It hit him right at the forehead.
“Ouw!” he shouted.
“Get up and pick some berries. We are going to reach the first tributary today. After we crossed it, Oldbark wouldn’t be able to supply us anymore.”
The elf, having just woken up, brushed his eyes and tried to focus. “You shouldn’t throw stones at people.”
“And you shouldn’t be having those lewd dreams when a little girl is around.”
“I can’t control it,” the elf exclaimed. “It’s a dream. And it’s not my fault that you can read my mind.”
“I don’t care. That’s irresponsible. You’re like stripping naked, in public, and in front of ladies and children.”
You haven’t got a point, he thought. Rather than arguing with her, he got up. There was no water to wash up so he just gathered the berries as instructed. They put it all in a sack that the elf had with him. It was all part of the Elf’s Essential Toolkit for Campers package with slogans like ‘Your Camp Will Never Be The Same’ and ‘Don’t Be A Fool, Just Use The Tool’ that was selling all over the coastal cities like hot cakes. The firestarter that he had lost was part of the package.
They started their journey again and after about two hours, they reached the tributary. The forest simply opened up and the river was flowing across right in front of them. What a torrent. Before this, the elf thought that it would be just a small lazy creek, how big can a tributary be, and they could just skip across. But this was a whole different ball game.
They walked onto the bank which was a few steps lower than the forest floor. The bank was rather wide, about 20 feet in width and littered with sharps rocks and pebbles. The opposite bank was much narrower and sloped upwards to the forest in just a few steps.
The water was crystal clear with a tinge of green. Darius went to the edge to get some water to drink and wash his face. He asked Elena whether she wanted any water but she declined like she had something against water. He was able to see all the way to the riverbed. Just a few steps further, it dropped sharply to a depth much greater than his height. The elf squatted down and while filling up his water bottle, he looked further down to his left trailing the water flow. It was the confluence where the tributary met with the main river at a rather sharp angle. Their water crashed among themselves, circulated and eddied, creating foams, ripples and bubbles, and they splashed about in their violent frenzy, like in the elf’s dream where the dark figures partly coloured red by the campfire wrestled about in ecstasy, hugging and pushing away, grasping and rolling, struggling, playing, resisting and ultimately relenting. Their colours, one green and the other brown, clashed and mixed in a convolution inevitably becoming one. It was a turbulent and loud affair.
“Is there a bridge somewhere?” the elf shouted. “I couldn’t jump this one. It’s too wide. And don’t ask me to swim. After the incident, I’m still a bit scared of the water.”