Ch: 248 Betcha Five Dollars He’ll Kill You Dead
Gary woke way before dawn, since the crater lip would hide the sun til almost third bell. He stretched and went outside to start a pre morning workout breakfast for the gang. The scent of coffee and impossible apple fritters with vanishing, imaginary fryer oil got the kids moving before Ivy and Tallum appeared. Tawny led the little ones in their morning physical training, while Liam and Ivy flogged the others mercilessly onto the lava flow for a run.
The course led down the flow, into the abandoned village high street and then they would turn about at the crumbling, rotted wharf and run back around the perimeter of the crater. Traversing the entire half moon of land inside the crater was about five miles, or as Liam called it, a warmup.
A few short months ago, a five mile run in weighted packs and full gear would have broken him, body and mind… Now, he had his mind on Shai’s jingling, singing hips, all the way back to the lava flow cliff, overlooking that isolated black sand beach. It was only notable, because all three kids, Tawny and Arenjay were standing at the edge, looking down on the stretch of smooth, fine sand.
“What’s up?” He wheezed as Shai hurled a towel across his heaving shoulders. He had his hands on his knees, nearly doubled while gasping for rapid, shuddering breaths… like healthy people do…
“You tell me…” Tawny answered cryptically. He staggered as close to the edge as an unsteady person should and peered over. A legion of tiny marks had been scratched into the smooth packed sand of the beach, thousands of tiny lines and squiggles.
“It’s an apology note… a really nice one too. He really is a poet… still a jerk though. Good manners on paper… or sand, are no substitute for good old fashioned good manners.” He grumbled after reading for a few moments. “He’s afraid I’ll leave him here… Putz.”
“Fie gary, dinnae let that over grown seafood platter vex thee. Let us go smash summat wi violence an hae done wi his inky tentacleness.” Shai grumbled cheerily, with Wilf bouncing on her knee like he used to.
“Good call! Let’s clear the workbench and start a summer season with open hands!” Tallum opined from the breakfast table. “Now come eat. I want to get moving.”
“Tallum is speaking sense! I have a hot date for midsummer’s day back in Wheatford!” Gary mused. “There’s this girl I like that lives there, gonna marry that girl...” He started plucking his banjo, while Shai squealed and squawked in giggling outrage, demanding to know who the hussey was.
Together, with their aged local friend riding on the dog cart, the whole troop marched out of the shade and up the valley wall, headed north.
“He said it took days to crawl here down some muddy brook…” Gary sang when they reached the top of the cone and looked out on a highland plateau, a dry, dusty place of deep cut streams and scrubby, thorny brush.
“Now it’s all you, Big T.” Gary swatted the giant on the shoulder as he walked out onto the dusty plain holding a bent copper and brass rod in each meaty fist.
“I gotta hang back here with the kids and familiars, cause we emanate too much magic…” Gary told the old man while they watched the giant slowly walk in a wide semi circle a few hundred yards away.
“Dowsing is a delicate art, I’m less than hopeless at it, but Tallum… he’s got a gift.”
As if on cue, the giant held up one hand and pointed north by northwest with the other. “He’s got the trail! Mount up!”
All three tiny kids reached down and seized straps with bronze clips attached. With quick, practiced movements, they clipped themselves to the wagon securely with rings mounted to their adorable play armor... which suddenly seemed less adorable and more functional.
Amy leaned over and passed a loop of sturdy cord backed with soft wormhide leather around Arenjay’s shoulders and waist, then clipped him in with a smile.
When the old man looked up, each of the older kids was straddling a strange, wheeled wood and steel construct, shaped vaguely like an abstract nightmare vision of a horse.
Together they rolled out in near silence, with the dog cart clattering along behind. “Gary an Shai say we’er too little fer bikes.” Amy complained.
Six armored riders led the wagon, in a loose V formation, with two trailing behind slightly. They made surprisingly quick progress, limited only by the rough terrain and sure footed Otho’s ability to find a trail for the wagon.
A half dozen bone rattling miles later, they called a halt. Tallum silently pointed off to a gully north of their ‘road’; a pitted, rutted scraggly thing barely noticeable from the surrounding badlands, both the road and the gully. The only remarkable thing was the small flock of ravens or crows circling the little nook.
“I smell dead things.” Ivy said softly.
“Looks like this is our stop…” Gary murmured as he stretched and limbered up. “Who’s staying with the kids?”
Dannyl, Tallum and Tawny watched from the walls of the hastily conjured house, while the little ones complained about having to stay inside the house with Otho. The rest gamely marched up to the dark, dank arroyo cut into the stone and earth.
A wide, murky stream flowed out, sinking into a ditch beside the ‘road’, where it vanished into the sand. Jagged volcanic stone and rounded river rocks competed for dominance, suggesting some seriously weird geology. The stream led deeper into the hillside to a wide fissure with a cave halfway up the wall from this opening, ravens darted in and out, accompanied by a rank smell of old meat.
A trail led up, so with stink rings engaged, they started climbing. Their rugged path was short and uneventful, the trails debauched onto a wide, shallow cave covered with crucified small animals and wildlife, dozens of creatures. Deer, rabbits, household pets, livestock…
One humanoid victim lay at the center of the grisly display, a young dogboy, crucified, like the others, but with a brass crown of octopus tentacles strapped to his head. He was nearly mummified by the dry desert air, what the crows hadn’t had a go at, anyway.
“Aww, shit…” Gary snarled. “These fucking… they have to come back and recharge the ritual with a fresh sacrifice every few months…” He spat and cursed in some unknown language for a few minutes, while Shai and Becky listened with interest.
“You can do that… with a whole fist?” Becky demanded in a shocked whisper. “I’m out!” The sergeant scampered over with Liam and the rest, while Gary worked through some things.
“Does he have a plan, or are we just cleaning up this nightmare?” Liam asked calmly. “I understand his fury…”
“He’s still a little volatile after…” Becky waved her hands around in general chaos. “He’s working his way around to something.”
Shai seemed to agree, she was in deep consultation with him now, standing over the body of the dogboy, cruelly staked out on a slanted platform to die alone, looking out over the desert.
She nodded once and turned around without further comment and left him alone to work. She marched through the charnel mess and joined her kin at the entrance to the cavern.
“Come, we leave him here tae work his arts alone. Ye should suspect what he contemplates…” She said calmly. “We will await him at home.”
“Really? You’re gonna just turn him loose up here?” Ivy demanded. “What’s he planning? One of those funeral rituals of his?”
“Nae, he works a curse tonight. Tis nae fit fer our eyes, lest we spoil the workings. Come.” Even as they marched down the path, Gary was stripping off his clothes and tucking them away. Music was coming from the cave as well, low thudding drums and mad, skirling pipe.
#
It was pure music… A fishmonger was shrieking at a brazen seagull, perched out of reach and enjoying a particularly plump kelp greenling she had just filched. A smith was hammering on a hot iron object like it had just insulted his mother, as a baker sang about bread and rolls into the village square.
Gabriella looked all around in dazed wonder, stumbling over the cobblestones. Who knew they were all uneven? Not at all like the smooth floors of the palace! But the people, so many of them! They moved about their lives, some bustled and hurried, others seemed to drift like thistledown on a breeze… that was another new thing! One had landed in her hair, clinging there until Spider plucked it away. Everything was so exciting!
“Stay close please… Gabbie.” Spider almost choked, trying to call her anything but some variation on ‘Radiant’ or ‘Divine’.
“Yes auntie!” She answered with a giggle, feeling outrageously naughty.
They had abandoned their stolen boat and walked a few miles overland to the village, crossing a number of tiny canal hamlets along the way. All the people on the canals seemed to know each other, explaining why they had ditched ‘Sand Dab’ on a shady waterway, to drift in a random direction.
Their direction was for the bay on the Shallow Sea, where a long white ship waited at anchor. An old man, weathered brown as a tree root sat on the aft rail, playing a flute with a tassel swaying along to the beat of a small stringed instrument in the hands of a handsome, dark skinned young man with straight, jet black hair and a ready smile. The music was wild and free, urging listeners to dance with the simple joy of it.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The music spun to a gentle stop when George stepped onto the dock. “You have our reply?” The old sailor asked quietly, looking at the two women behind the plainclothes priest.
“Our reply is… complicated. We will ask the boon of transport, master Barney.” He handed over a blue wooden token with a dolphin inlaid in golden wood on one side and a ship carved in the other.
The old salt passed the token back with a smile. “Passage was arranged by your hostess, get aboard. I assume you wish to move quickly?” The old man winked at his young companion for some reason. That fellow leapt to his feet holding his hands out as if begging them to remain silent.
Gabbie was excited and called out happily. “Oh yes, we are in some haste!”
“Oh, gods! No!” The young fellow moaned piteously. “No one ever listens to Kermal Singh… The bloody disappearing boy…” He complained, while helping with what little baggage they had. “Should have signed on for Adventure with the Dreadnought… Pretty girls and hotsprings too…!”
“I’m Barney, Master of Kingfisher, fastest ship on the water. That’s young Kermal Singh, squire to duke Rummel himself he’s yer guide and surety, until we hand you over to Esperanza or…” He shrugged. “Gods alone know.”
As he spoke, the old man was swiftly moving about his vessel, tugging this, unwinding that…
“How soon can we depart, master Barney?” George asked impatiently.
“How soon do you want it? We slipped into the channel some minutes ago.” He replied from the tiller. “Gotta wait til we’re in open waters to get any speed under her.”
Sure enough, the noise and bustle of the village had grown faint, as they slipped along the glassy smooth water of the small bay of Siltmarsh. The ship made a soft, satisfied moan as the wind took her sail from behind, plowing her forward passionately.
“Nope, nobody listens to Kermal, now we get screaming boatporn until the journey’s… happy ending.” The young squire was still complaining under his breath, which was soon drowned out by the gushing shipgasam clenching the slender hull in a thousand tiny frissons of excitement.
The passengers all sat very still, blushing vigorously and trying to restrain any wayward giggles.
Hours later, the noises had long since ceased to entertain. Unsettled by the ship’s noise and constant motion, Gabbie spoke up. “How long can it go on like this?” She asked.
“Well…” Kermal muttered. “If Barney thinks real hard about Fantasy Adventure League… he might go all night.”
“Gods man…” Spider groaned. “The Emp… Gabbie is listening!”
“I’m not a child, Auntie!” Gabbie fussed petulantly. “I’m a grown woman, I’ve stolen a boat and gone on the lam… and everything!” She paused for a moment, smiling to herself.
“Am I… a pirate now?”
“I’ll put in a good word for you with admiral Amy, Pirate Princess of the Shallow Sea.” Kermal said offhandedly, with a scandalous wink at her imperial majesty..
#
Gary came ambling down the arroyo just after dawn, dusty, tired and looking grimly satisfied. As he stepped out of the dim crevice in the earth, splashing through the murky stream, a flurry of small black animals darted away, running or flying for the distant sunrise and vanishing into the morning haze.
A faint, chiming resonance shook the house, where the Bathers and their aged guest were already at breakfast. “That’s it for your lake entity, master Arenjay…” He muttered tiredly.
Amy and the boys swarmed around him as he staggered for the bath, his dusty, dirty clothing vanished piece by piece until he also disappeared, with the kids and Shai.
“That’s it?” The old man asked. “What, the mons…-” The old man’s jaw snapped closed on the ‘M’ word, even though the kids were nowhere in sight. “The creature is gone? Just like that?”
“If he says it is… it’s gone.” Dannyl mumbled through a biscuit. “He’s weird, but this is his specialty.”
An hour later, a clean, but still tired Gary kept up as they pedaled back the way they came. The trail down the mountain nearly flew by, the rugged terrain and scattered trees blurring with the speed of their passage.
The old man found himself standing on his own front porch, looking out over the valley and its network of farms, paddies and canals with a heartfelt smile. He could almost hear the sound of children swimming in the reservoir again, already.
“Gonna be a good summer season…” He mumbled around his new pipe, as sweet pungent smoke sent his stoned brain to reflecting over the hectic and mad events of the last day and a half. “A fine summer indeed.”
#
The dog cart and bikes vanished into Gary’s backside when they paused in a meadow for lunch and a rest. Seahorse was bobbing among the hungry ducks and swans when lunch finished and the kids began throwing crumbs of bread to the quacking hooligans.
Otho wasted no time curling up in his favorite spot under a bench amidships, with a doggie huff of exhaustion. “Lazy mutt…” Ivy whispered fondly, while rubbing his ears, when she took her seat on the bench above the big fluffy beast. “You did good, you’re a good boy!”
Gary was sitting on Shai’s toes again, leaning back on her knees and getting scritches of his own from her free hand, as they sailed down the placid canals.
“Ye were also a good boy… now tell me whae ye did up in that cave lad… Ye did nae just clear way that nightmare…” She whispered in his ear, while the kids were napping on Otho’s broad flanks.
“They had a stash of ritual tools tucked away in a side chamber… a sacrificial knife… some hammers and a shit ton of ritual components…” He answered softly. “I may have made some ‘improvements’ to their little torture kit. When they come back to refresh their ritual…” He shook his head sadly.
“Whoever or whatever gets dragged up here to be sacrificed is going to be really confused… should be a hell of a show, it’s a shame we won’t get to see it.”
#
Evening came early, as the little family set up housekeeping at the edge of the downhill run to the Shallow Sea. The view as sunset crawled over the water and up the mountainside was stunning, made even more so as the scattered homesteads and hamlets on the shore and mountainsides slowly lit their windows in the gathering darkness.
#
Two long days and nights passed on the leaping splinter of fast moving and deeply upsetting ship that was Kingfisher. Barney used his skill and arts to launch his vessel into the waves as though they had been shot from a bow, flying for northern waters, arrow swift and terrifying. Kermal Spent most of his time practicing his instrument and pretending that they were not flying over the sea in a distressingly intimate and provocative way.
When the long slim ship kissed the docks of Port Clement, young Singh shuffled his charges off Kingfisher and down the pier to a wide, blue three masted ship, whose captain greeted George and Kermal with exuberant, buxom embraces.
“Esperanza, captain of Esperanza’s bounty, I present Gabbi, Auntie Ess and George… your passengers to Wheatford.” The young squire bowed and smiled at his companions. “Captain Esperanza will be our guide for the rest of the journey. Sadly, duke Rummel is overseeing an undead interdiction at the moment, or he would have met us here as well.”
While he spoke, the young knight in training bustled the whole weary crew aboard and helped them get settled in far more luxurious accommodations than Kingfisher had provided.
“This one will give you use of the bath in her cabin, you will be safe and private here, on this unworthy one’s honor.” She said, with a deep bow that flustered both Kermal and George. “No questions will be asked, nor will any secrets be revealed, so says the crew of Esperanza’s Bounty. We sail as soon as we can untie.”
Even as she spoke, the subtle rocking of the ship changed, bringing a radiant smile to the buxom trader’s lovely, olive features and sparkling brown eyes.
“Lady Esperanza…” Gabbie began, taking a seat on the wide, low bunk and gesturing to a nearby chair.
“Captain Esperanza, mistress Gabbie, or Ranza if you wish…” The trader smiled warmly at the young woman. “We shall become close on this journey, I think.” She purred. Sitting close beside Gabbie, on the wondrously soft bed.
“Ranza, what can you tell me of Trelawny Belen, our host… we are at an awful disadvantage.” The young woman in common clothing asked quietly.
“With sweet Tawny and her crew, there is no advantage to be taken…” She sighed, draping a slender arm around the empress and hugging her close in a shocking display of casual intimacy that sent Spider and George into panicked rigidity.
“Sister Ranza will see you are introduced to them gently and watch over you, until you are ready to swim in those deep waters.” She cooed gently.
“For now, a bath and change of clothes will aid you more than whatever this poor sailor could tell you of your host. “Come now, we bathe and change; this one has some things that will fit you in stores then This unworthy will show you your quarters.”
Her guardians sat poleaxed and numb, as the beautiful, busty young trader led the empress of the Empire of Light off to the bathroom attached to her cabin.
#
When the door closed behind them, Gabriella found herself truly alone with a true stranger for the first time in her young, sheltered life. “Ranza… perhaps…” Gabbie began.
“Hush darling, Ranza will take care of you.” She casually and skillfully stripped herself and the radiant and divine monarch of Light in a terrifyingly brief time.
“This one has smuggled reluctant brides away from unwelcome marriages more than once. Don’t be shy, you are safe here, child.”
Before the empress had time to register the impropriety and sudden intimacy of the whole thing, hot, steamy water began to deluge from a fixture in the ceiling of the chamber, drenching them both in warm, cleansing rain.
A sweet scented bar of soap and a soft flannel cloth began easing her into a state of bliss, as Ranza’s skilled and gentle hands did their work.
Within a few short minutes, Gabbie was clean, warm, dry and dressed in a strange long shirt of the softest cotton and plush slippers made to look like silly, jolly anglerfish. Whenever she stepped just so, the tailor’s arts and craft would gape their felt fanged mouths, while the lures dangling over her toes lit up in a charming golden glow.
She flopped back on the narrow, but comfortable bunk in her small cabin with a gasping sigh and spread eagle in the soft bedding, while her guardians took turns bathing in the miraculous bathroom.
“Kingfisher had nothing like this…” She sighed softly to Esperanza… who casually sat on the bed with her and cuddled close. “Barney has a passion for speed…” She whispered sleepily in her new friend’s ear.
“Yes, this one has sailed with that old madman… This unworthy prefers comfort… and passion.” Ranza sighed as Gabbie drifted off to sleep. “Rarely has your unworthy captain felt so at ease in the company of a new friend…” She placed a gentle kiss on the sleeping girl’s forehead and left her there, smiling in blissful dreams.
With a soft giggle, Ranza noticed that Gabbie’s toes danced in her sleep… much as sweet Shai’s did, moving to music only she could hear. “Too adorable…” The captain whispered, as she shut the door.
#
Old Arenjay smiled at the bustling activity around his formerly quiet, nearly abandoned village at the foot of the volcanic cone. He’d put out the word and within a day, the people had started returning.
Once more, fishers were sending their slippery catch down the mountain, while the kids splashed in his deep mountainside pool just as they once did.
The sun sank behind the mountains, bringing quiet and stillness, relatively. The sounds and scents of a busy, lively village soothed the old coot off to sleep, rocking in a chair on his porch and looking up the mountains with a sleepy smile.
Deep in the night, a strange thudding noise woke him, some odd sound; almost like colossal footfalls that sent him bolt upright in his chair with a wooden squeak of alarm. In the darkness, something huge moved, towering a dozen feet tall at least and reeking of an open grave.
The figure staggered into the moonlight, drawing a gasp of mortal terror from his aged throat, as fear strangled his scream in his throat.
The creature shambled into his yard, shedding bits and particles of its form, in a reeking shower of corpse dust and tattered flesh. Dozens of animal skulls peered from its massive, lumpy body, a legion of bared fangs and empty eyesockets surrounded the ghastly, half shredded face of a young dogboy. His eyes were missing as well, a darkling trail of mist and shadow tears wept from his empty sockets, running down his ragged, sunken cheeks.
The old man sat petrified, as the nightmare thing slowly leaned over him and gently placed a small, trembling form in his lap. Silent save for its soft, thudding footfalls, the creature vanished back whence it came slipping into the brush and scrub of the untamed mountains and darkened overgrowth.
As it walked, it shrank rapidly, seeming to crumble into dust and soil as he watched, still too terror stricken to move or breathe. When the bundle in his lap stirred and mewed softly, Arenjay scrabbled at the shredded, bloody bundle of ragged clothing.
A moment later two huge blue eyes looked up at him in fear and confusion from a dark furred face. A catgirl, barely more than a kitten, mewed and squirmed helplessly in his arms. In a panic, the old man ran his hands over her in the moonlight… Her fur was bloody and matted, though she seemed unmarred and unharmed, beyond bloodstains and mind rending terror.
“Where did you come from, my dear?” He whispered in the night.
#
Gary woke with a start, as his shadow boiled and shook. It spilled out of the bed he shared with his whole family and poured onto the floor. It ran in thick streams from his body, filling the room with dark, bestial, bloodstained, claw fingered, fang mawed shades, looking down on the sleepers all around him.
“Hey guys… hang out til dawn, ok? I’m gonna need a little more rest to finish this.” He whispered softly to the bloody clawed specters all around the bed. As one, they nodded and slowly sank back into the darkness with weary sighs.
“I need a different job…” He murmured sleepily.
#