by Simon Archer
She looked away, suddenly seeming shy. "I was trying to… keep my balance. You sent me spinning, and I don't know how to--" She bit her lower lip. "My people look up to me. They respect me, perhaps like me, but they treat me always as a leader, not as a friend, and certainly not often as a lover. If I take a man to my bed, how do I know he wants to be there, instead of doing what I want because I am his leader? And then the others, will they get jealous of the man I bring to my bed?" She let out a slightly defeated sigh.
"Well," I said mischievously, "you could always just sleep with all of the men."
She laughed with a mixture of surprise and glee. “Yes. You are a wise man, Garrett. This would certainly solve the problem. Except,” she paused and tried to look serious, “what about the man I do not want to sleep with?”
"Man?” I questioned, “Is there only one in the whole village?"
Thera tried to hide a smile. "There are..." She held up her fingers as she silently counted. "Three, no, four. Those would be unacceptable. The rest I would be willing, for the sake of keeping the peace, you understand."
"Of course. For the good of the village,” I agreed with a hum. “Earlier, you guys were saying there are other Blue clan villages. Maybe you could send the four to another village."
"Brilliant! I have never known such wise counsel until you arrived." She kissed my cheek, though I wasn’t sure if she was joking about my counsel or being completely serious.
So, I changed the subject. “Do I taste as wise, as I do strong and sweet?”
With another peck on the cheek, she then held my lower lip gently between her teeth while she ran her tongue across it. "Hmm. Wisdom is a subtle flavor on you, but I do taste it, nonetheless. I should like to explore that side of you more.” She gave me a wicked grin. “Unless, of course, you’d rather sleep?”
23
Thera was up before dawn, which seemed criminal given that there was no way we’d gotten more than a few hours of sleep. This was worsened by the fact she turned out to be a covers hog, so I spent the vast majority of the night shivering because she’d made some kind of weird nest with all the furs. Given her nature as some kind of bird-person, made sense.
Still, when she leapt to her feet and started going about her business before the strange sunlight had even entered the hut, I couldn’t help but groan.
“Oh, I’m sorry to have awakened you,” Thera said, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “I was trying to be quiet.” She turned to face me with two small clay cups in her hands.
“It’s okay,” I said as I stifled a yawn. To be honest, it wasn’t hard because she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing, and while I’d thoroughly explored every inch of her last night, I couldn’t wait to do it all over again. And again.
“Are you sure?” she asked, clearly concerned as she sauntered back toward me.
“Positive,” I said as I propped myself up on one arm. Thera slipped under the furs and nestled her naked body against mine.
“Good.” She nodded. “Because I’d hate for you to think I’m a bad host.” She offered me one of the cups. “Warm beverage?”
“That would be nice,” I said, taking the cup as she shimmied her ass against my groin before laying her head on my arm.
“I always awaken when the Chickacrow hollers.” Thera smirked. “It is an unfortunate problem because it happens about a half-hour before dawn, but I’ve learned to embrace it.” She took a sip from her own cup. “After all, it is these quiet hours when no one is around, and I get to just… be.” She looked off into the distance as she spoke, and it was obvious she was seeing different surroundings than those around us. “Sorry. I…” She let out a breath. “It is hard to explain.”
“Honestly,” I said as I took a sip of my own beverage, and was surprised to find it tasted like cherries and tea, “I totally get that.” I turned my gaze heavenward. “I used to go for a run early in the morning, so I could just think.”
“Runs?” She spat out the sip of tea she had just taken. “You like to run?” She gave me an aghast look. “Running is what we use for punishment for other things.” She shook her head, and this time, a small smile played across her lips. “And you do it for fun?”
“Yeah, well.” I shrugged. “I’ve done a lot of sports, and I’ve found one thing to be true for all of them.” I gave her a peck on the forehead. “Running makes you better at everything for exactly that reason.”
“You make an excellent point,” Thera said as she finished her drink. “Would you like to run with me?” She looked into my eyes. “I am not very fast and cannot go very far, but I think I might enjoy it more if you were to come with me.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” I said as she slipped out from the furs and began to get dressed. Like always, watching a beautiful woman get dressed, even with as little as Thera wore, was both the best and worst thing in the world.
“I am glad.” She turned toward me once she was done. “But you cannot run while you’re in bed.” She cocked her head to the side and looked at me. “Or did I break you last night, and you are unable to get up?”
“I’m not broken,” I said as I climbed out of bed and stretched. Then I got myself dressed. “Say, is there somewhere where we can bathe?”
“There is a river about a quarter of a mile from the village. We use it to gather water.” Thera smiled at me. “Why, do you wish to wash off my scent?” She gave me one of those deadpan looks I’d seen a hundred times before but was unsure of how to navigate on a woman’s face, whether or not I’d slept with them.
“Imagine I gave you whatever answer is most pleasing to you,” I said with a grin. “You think we can head that way? Either way, I’d love to see the river.”
“That destination will be as good as any.” She looked a bit dubious. “But we will have to rest when we get there. A quarter-mile run… is far.”
“Right,” I said as we headed out of the hut and into the night itself. The air was humid, but not overly so, and as I sucked in a deep breath, I tried to put myself in the right headspace for the run. Only, I didn’t get the chance.
“Last one there is a rotten egg!” Thera cried and took off at a sprint.
“But I don’t know where we’re going,” I yelled back as I took off after her.
“That’s why I’ll win!” she called back to me. “Now, try to keep up!”
I did just that. It was a bit strange because while I was a fairly experienced runner, after all, but I had a hard time keeping up with Thera. Even when she slowed from her sprint to a steady jog, it was difficult, and from the way that my heart pounded in my chest, and not at all because I could actually call up the data in my mind’s eye, I knew we were going about two minutes faster than my normal pace… and Thera was supposed to be bad at running.
“I’m starting to feel like you trolled me with the whole bad at running thing,” I said in between breaths. Admittedly, it was hard to talk because I was focused on my breathing. In through the nose and out through my mouth. I tried to time it for when my feet struck the earth, but even that was difficult at this pace. Still, the moment I succumbed to breathing quicker and harder, I knew my energy would start to decrease at an exponential rate.
“If you can talk,” Thera gasped as her chest heaved from the effort, “you aren’t going fast enough!” She sucked in a huge lungful of air before bursting forward, her feet practically flying over the ground.
“Actually,” I said as I added my own burst of speed, so I could keep up with her, “unless you’re, like, in a competition or whatever, you’re not supposed to run so fast that your heart rate shoots up and you can’t actually carry on a conversation.”
“Lies!” Thera replied, but even as the word burst from her lips in an explosion of breath, I realized she was slowing down, and not wanting her to feel bad about it, I slowed down my pace to match.
“It’s true.” I nodded. “I run all the time, and I’ve had a bunch of training.” I smirked. “Though it may be different for you
to be honest. For all I know, we have different body chemistry.”
“Not that different,” she said as she turned to look at me with a sexy twinkle in her eye. “In fact, I quite like your body.”
“Aww, thanks,” I said. To be honest, I’d have said more, but at that moment, we burst through the treeline, and I found myself staring at a river unlike any I’d ever seen. For one, it was giant and full of rapids, reminding me of the few times I’d gone white water rafting with my friends. For two, since the sun was just starting to rise, the way that its rays hit the water made it look like a river of blood, rather than one made of water.
For three, fishlike creatures were leaping from the churning water, and from the look of things, they were headed upstream.
“Samlon,” Thera said as she pulled to a stop beside me. “They…” She bit her lip. “They change.”
“Change?” I asked as I raised an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean they change?”
“This is their change season.” She pointed. “That is why they swim upriver. When they reach the top, there is a basin. Once they reach the basin, they will bury themselves in the mud and rest there for several days. Then the new creature will burst out from the fleshy husk that is this state.” Her gaze soured. “I do not look forward to that. The creatures that emerge are vicious and dangerous.” She held her hands apart. “With great big claws and gnashing teeth.”
“That sounds terrible,” I said as I watched the Samlon swimming upriver. “How do you deal with them?”
“We don’t, typically.” She shrugged. “The adults are very territorial, so often as not, most of the younglings get killed before they can claim territories of their own. And since they are smaller and follow a similar spawning pattern during the season, other bigger predators come to feast on them.”
“Ah.” I nodded. That made sense. “It’s like back home. We have a fish that swims upstream to spawn, and great carnivorous creatures called bears stand in the river and scoop up the passing fish.”
“Yes. It is just like that.” Thera nodded. “But on both ends of the cycle.” She gestured at the river. “I can show you where the others hunt at another time if you like.”
“I wouldn’t mind that, but I have a question.” I gestured at the Samlon. “Why do you not also capture the fish?”
“We do sometimes.” Thera shrugged. “It is more as a last resort, though.” I must have looked at her strangely because she turned on her heel and made her way back toward the forest. “I will show you why.”
She quickly pulled a small hollow branch from a plant that looked surprisingly similar to bamboo and then pulled what looked like a knapped obsidian blade from her belt. With a few deft strikes, she stripped off the leaves and branches before turning the end of it into a point.
“Are you going to catch one?” I asked as she pulled some twine from her pocket and fixed it to the back end of the spear. Then she made her way back toward the river, spear in hand.
“Yes.” With that, she flung the spear at a Samlon that had strayed a bit too close to the bank.
She must have done it a bazillion times because the spear caught a leaping Samlon right through a hole in the side of its head that would have been where the gills were on a normal fish. The tip of the spear punctured the other end of the creature in a spray of blood, and as it started to fall, Thera jerked back hard on the twine. The Samlon’s entire trajectory changed, and it crashed onto the bank of the river.
Careful to keep hold of the twine, she sprinted forward and grabbed hold of her spear. Then she drove the end of it into the ground for leverage as the Samlon continued to thrash its massive body. Even still, I could see that the spear she’d made was being sheared away by the scales on the creature, and, well, she was really careful not to touch the fish.
“Are they sharp? The scales I mean.” I pointed at the fish. “Because you seem to be avoiding them.”
“Yes.” Thera smiled at me. “The scales are very sharp, and it is easy to get sliced to pieces, even when they’re not struggling.” Once she had the spear firmly driven into the ground, she released it and grabbed a rather large rock from the shore. Then she flung the boulder down at the creature’s skull… and the rock just bounced off the flailing fish.
“And they are very difficult to kill.” She looked at me. “You can’t smash through their scales very easily, and their heads are basically empty. Even if you stabbed them in the eyes or through the breathing holes as I have done, it will not kill them.”
“So, how do you kill them?” I asked as she removed the twine from the spear and put it back into her pouch.
“We let them sit here in the air.” She sighed. “It takes about half a day for one to die that way. It happens from a combination of suffocation and drying out.”
“And, let me guess, you pretty much have to defend the downed Samlon the entire time from other predators?” I asked with a nod. “Is there a downside to say, boiling them alive?” I stared at the writhing fish. “Like why not throw it right on the fire?”
“Its scales will protect it from that too.” Thera shrugged. “Unless you could make the fire very, very hot.” She looked up at the sky. “There were legends of fire wielders who could do it, but even then, those were just that. Legends.”
“Ah.” I stared at the fish. “Mind if I try?”
“No,” she laughed, “though I will not be surprised if you figure out a way to kill the Samlon easily. If you could, it would be very nice because their flesh is very tasty.”
“Well, I’ll give it the old college try,” I said as I recalled everything Ishmael had taught me about fishing. And as I recalled his wise words of “stab it with all the fury of hell” or whatever, I wished I’d taken my sword from the weird rock in Thera’s room.
Since I hadn’t, I did the next best thing. I took a deep breath, held out my hand, and then used my “of the Cold and Dark” title to freeze it into a solid block of ice. And that ice lasted around three seconds before shattering into a spray of scintillating shards as the creature continued to writhe.
“Okay, so they’re ice-proof,” I said as I stared at the creature. Part of me wondered what would happen if I summoned a creature to try to claw it to death, but before I did that, I had another idea. Well, to be fair, I had two separate ideas.
“It is not that surprising to me that your cold attack did not hurt the Samlon.” Thera gave me a conciliatory smile. “After all, they come from the great northern mountains where the water is more ice than anything else. It is said they can travel straight through the snow flurries and be unharmed.”
“Well, what does kill them?” I gestured at the fish. “You said wild predators hunt them.”
“I said wild predators hunt them after they change. Then their scales are much less hard.” Thera shrugged. “I’m sure other animals deal with them like this, but I do not know which ones, nor how they kill them.”
“Right.” That struck idea one. That left idea two, and that was the least favorite of my ideas. Still, it had to be done. Tentatively, I made my way closer to the creature.
“Be careful, Garrett,” Thera warned. “If you get too close, you can get very hurt. Those scales are sharp.”
“I’ll do my best to keep myself whole,” I said as I called upon my Auric Armor to shield myself. Then, after dumping a metric fuck ton of Aura into it, I reached forward and bashed the thing in the side with my Hand of the Destroyer King.
The Hand of the Destroyer King has encountered a hostile enemy. Special ability: Feel the Truth has been activated. You can now see the enemy for what he truly is. For the duration of this battle, strikes delivered to the opponent’s weak point will deal more damage than normal.
And as I stepped back, I saw a small spot, roughly the size of a nickel on the underside of the creature begin to glow. Perfect.
I watched it for a few moments, and as I did, I realized that as the fish writhed, it actually stretched the scales in that spot in such a way as t
o create an opening. What for, I was pretty sure, but I’d know in a moment.
With a flick of my wrist, I pulled a long, thin dagger from my inventory. It wasn’t a super nice one or anything. Just one I’d picked up in the Bazaar when I felt like going rogue, as it were. It was also kinda red for some reason.
I hefted my dagger in my hand as I followed the movements of the fish. Then I darted forward and stabbed the fish at the moment where the red spot was biggest. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, actually. But what I didn’t expect was for the blade to slide effortlessly into the fish up to the hilt.
You have killed creature: Samlon.
“H-how… How did you do that?” Thera said as I raised my hand over the corpse and used Auric Extraction.
Pattern: Samlon has been learned. Would you like to create a Samlon?
“I hit it in this spot here.” I withdrew my blade, and as I did, a whole host of gore spilled out. “Seems like it’s a weak point.”
“I wish to try,” Thera said as she jerked the spear she’d used earlier free of the now-dead fish, refastened her twine, and stalked toward the river.
A few moments later, she had another writhing Samlon on the bank, and several more moments after that, she stood before the fish flustered and angry.
“This is not working!” she hollered as she brandished her blade at the fish. “Why will you not die?”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked as she came over to me, clearly still angry.
“I wish you to show me how you did it, though much slower so I can see.” She nodded. “Then I will be able to figure it out.” She gestured toward the dead one. “The problem is that one is already dead and sliced open, so it looks different.”
“Oh, I may have a way to deal with that,” I said as I summoned my own Samlon, and as the green fish lay on the bank, I realized that the fish wasn’t draining nearly as much Aura from being out of the water as I thought it would. Considering what Thera had said about this fish’s hardiness, that made a lot of sense.
