by Randi Darren
Then he stood up, holding the green stone tightly in his hand. He wasn’t about to risk losing it.
Another hour passed before the same raft-like boat started creeping up the river.
Steve put his empty hands together in front of him. Only a small slice through the skin along his knuckles remained of his battle, and it was healing well. It’d been from punching Linne’s enchanted and blessed sword barehanded.
Everything else had faded quickly under Gwendolin’s ministrations. Supposedly, it was all done without magic, but he was beginning to doubt that. She seemed to have a power over him all her own.
“Ho the craft,” Steve called, watching the vessel without a concern. If they decided to be stupid, he’d just pick up a rock and chuck it right through their hull.
He was done playing games. Done dealing with idiots.
Steve was just done.
“Ho the shore!” called a voice back. A woman came up to the side of the boat. Steve assumed it was the owner. She was a young woman that looked to be in her twenties. She had a very similar bearing to Geneva, but she belonged to some type of reptilian race.
Or so Steve guessed from the green-scaled skin, yellow eyes, and complete lack of hair. She had small ridges coming out the top of her head that reminded him of an iguana.
“Would you be the owner of the farm, and husband to Military Governor Gosti?” asked the woman.
“That I am,” Steve said. Then he looked back at Nancy and gestured to the water. Before he could look back at the water, witch-stone was already rising up from the riverbed.
Faster than last time, a pier formed that stretched right out to where the boat was heading.
The woman watched what happened closely. Her head tilted curiously to one side as the stone formed into place and stopped.
“Drop the anchor,” said the woman, turning to address someone else. “Hurry up, you little fool.”
Sounds like I’ll be pulling off a lizard’s head today.
I doubt she’d be willing to serve under Geneva and me.
Well, so be it. I’m done.
Standing there, Steve waited. He wasn’t about to do anything problematic at the moment. Not till he could get his hands on the military governor in a far easier fashion.
If she was anything like Linne, she was probably underestimating him.
With a shudder, the boat bounced up against the pier and then came to a stop. The splash of something going over the edge likely meant they’d dropped the anchor.
“Idiot!” said the lizard. “Are you trying to sink us?”
There was a response that Steve didn’t hear.
Then the military governor hopped up over the side of the boat and onto the pier. She was dressed in a full-on military uniform.
Isn’t a shining doll in armor like Geneva, at least.
“I’m the military governor,” said the woman, walking up to him. “My name is Ssisik. You have the honor of meeting me personally.”
“I’m Steve,” Steve said.
“So I see,” said the woman, her eyes moving back and forth. She was likely reading the entirety of Steve’s information. “You’re a most… interesting man.”
Steve shrugged. He really didn’t want to be here. He’d rather be running around the citadel city in the east. Figuring out how to knock down the walls and butcher Linne.
“Your people told me you sent them up this way to secure whatever it was that was changing the water. Making it something that kept out the Creep,” Steve said, getting right to it. “That’s me. I’m the reason it’s doing that. And I’m certainly not giving away my ability to treat the water, nor am I leaving my home.”
“Yes. So my people told me when they returned,” admitted Ssisik. “And that you’d told them I should be here. Today.”
Steve nodded at that.
“Thank you for coming,” Steve deadpanned. “I’ll make it simple so there’s no qualms about this.
“I’m bedding a Fae princess, a few nobles and minor nobles, and the military governor herself, Geneva Gosti. I’ll not be bullied, pushed, or pressed on. I’m going to respond to anything and everything with violence. Right now my attention is focused on the false-fallen-whore of a commander Linne Lynn.”
“The… the citadel commander?” asked Ssisik.
“Uh huh. I’m going to fuck her in the skull. Right through her eye, and into her brain,” Steve said with some heat in his voice. “After I bury everything she loves or owns in a mountain of shit.
“Any problems with that?”
“No… no problems from me,” Ssisik promised. “I’ll just manage my governorship and keep it running as per Her Majesty’s orders.”
“Hmph. I’ll offer you trade then,” Steve said, changing the subject. “We have an overabundance of food—clean food, free of the Creep—and would be happy to exchange it for goods.”
“Oh? Wonderful,” Ssisik replied with a smile, showing off her very sharp teeth. “We have some concerns about long-term food growth. That’ll help us offset that.”
“Great. We also trade with Filch, Faraday, Hilast, and Rennis,” Steve continued. “So if you have anything else you want to trade further into these lands, we could act as a midpoint. Maybe make Filch a trade hub, since you can reach them by river from my farm.”
“Ah, does this river go all the way up then?” Ssisik asked.
“No. Dead-ends at my lake. But I can dig it out enough that you can start bringing boats up into a safe harbor. Can move by wagon or such from here to Filch, while others travel to Filch as well,” Steve said, planning out what he thought would work. “Beyond that, I have nothing to discuss with you.”
“Ah, alright,” Ssisik said, looking momentarily bewildered.
“Oh, and before I go,” Steve said, staring hard into the lizard’s eyes. “I should tell you now. I single-handedly beat Linne in a fight. She ran from me.
“I give you this statement because the next time we meet, I may be done killing Linne. At that point, it’s very likely I’m going to tell you to join me and Geneva. Or I’ll have to sail south and see what I see.”
Ssisik blinked once, her eyes focusing and then unfocusing on Steve.
“I understand,” said the governor, then bowed at the waist to Steve. “I’ll be ready, and will gladly pledge my allegiance to you when that day arrives.”
“Good. You’re welcome to travel up to the lake if you wish for dinner and to rest the night,” Steve said. “I’ll be leaving soon, I think, to murder Linne. Tomorrow possibly.”
“I think… we’ll simply return home. My sincerest apologies for leaving so quickly, but I feel like I should get my trade goods in order immediately,” Ssisik said.
“Right,” Steve replied. “Goodbye then.”
He said nothing more. Steve stood there waiting for Ssisik to get back on her boat and leave.
Fuck off already. Shit to do.
Cat-girl to fuck through the eye.
Turning, Steve didn’t bother to see her off. He really did have other things to work through. The last thing he wanted to do was sit here.
***
“I don’t like it,” Nikki said.
“I’m pretty sure we’re past liking or not liking it,” Lucia countered. “Linne killed some of our number. Killed them. They’re dead.
“Our direction is clear. We go and kill them all.”
“No, it isn’t,” Nikki disagreed, shaking her head. “We could easily reach out to her and see if she’s willing to surrender or face the queen’s judgment. We don’t have to be the ones to seek her out and carry out her sentence.”
“Yes, we do have to be the ones,” Steve said in a flat tone. “Because we’re the ones who let her remain when we could have easily taken care of her before this. But we didn’t. I didn’t. I should have stomped over there and kicked in her teeth and buried her face in a pit.
“And because I didn’t do that, I’ve got four more dead wives that… that are my fault. And I’m going
to fix it.”
“It isn’t your fault, and we don’t have to be the ones to do it,” Nikki continued. “This is all Linne’s own doing, and we can let her suffer the consequences without having to be the ones to dole it out.”
“No, because if we rely on the queen and her justice now, she’ll probably pardon her,” Lucia said with a shake of her head. “She killed, at most, a mayor and a once-soldier. A Human mayor. The queen will pardon her with a slap on the wrist and little better.
“No. If we don’t drop the axe on her, no one will. No one can.”
That’s right!
Lamals has always been against Humanity. Let alone men.
The queen won’t do shit for us because Shelly was just a Human. A mayor, certainly, but also just a human. If anything, she might even say it’s pointless because it should have been handed over to Geneva.
No, the queen won’t help us here.
“…can work it out through the queen. I’m sure we can have her imprisoned for the rest of her life,” Nikki said. “It isn’t like I don’t have anger in my heart over this, you know. It isn’t as if I don’t want justice. I just think for it to be proper justice, we need to seek it from the queen.”
“And I truly believe the queen won’t have any of it,” Lucia stated, tapping two fingers to the table. “Because we don’t matter to her. We’re on the eastern end of nowhere, and Linne can just claim she’s the only thing holding back the Creep. It isn’t like the queen knew of anything that was going on out here. She’s worthless!”
“That’s not true at all. She sent out the military governors, after all, along with soldiers,” Nikki said. “And supplies. That was all to bring the population back into a manageable state. Not to grind it into the ground or anything like that.”
“That’s… amusing, in a way,” Steve murmured and then laughed. It caught both Nikki and Lucia off guard. “That Ssisik from the south. She was going to force our farm into her domain. If it wasn’t for the fact that I told her I was Gennie’s husband and going to kill Linne.
“We’d be fighting on two different fronts if we went your route, Nikki. It’s a lovely sentiment. A beautiful one. But it just doesn’t fit in our world. This is all… it’s all a shit show. It’s all just one big battle to the death. And I refuse to be the one on the other end burying more family.”
“That isn’t what Misty would want. Or Xivin, Shelly, Kassandra, or Chessa!” Nikki declared. “They would all tell you that this’ll just become a never-ending circle of violence. We must use this opportunity to be better than them.”
Laughing at that, Steve looked up from the table to Nikki’s face.
She was as beautiful to him as ever. Her pure and loving heart that’d won him over and brought him ever closer to her.
Now it was pushing him away from her. Faster and faster by the second, he realized Nikki wasn’t ever going to see eye to eye with him on this.
“We should talk to the others,” Nikki cautioned. “It’s their lives too in this, isn’t it?”
Steve, Nikki, and Lucia all turned to look at everyone else in the room.
Jaina, Ferrah, Ina, Airlea, Gwendolin, and Nancy were all present. They just hadn’t decided to join the conversation.
“I think we should see the queen’s justice served,” Ina said, shrugging her shoulders. “I think… I think that if we get any further into this, it’s just going to get worse.
“What if the queen sends her armies against us for taking up arms in the way we’re talking about?
“No one’s ever gone after a citadel commander before.”
“And if we let them keep going the way they have?” Gwendolin asked, shaking her head. “Then what? They were coming to demand even more from us. That’s why Linne killed everyone. Because they said no.
“Only a monster would allow someone like that to remain in power. No, the queen will give us no justice, and she’ll see to it that we vanish.”
Jaina flipped her hands up in a neutral gesture.
“I don’t care,” she said. “I’ll follow Steve. He’s my husband, my pack master, my alpha. I’m his Creep Witch. I’ll kill everyone for him, or save everyone. No matter.”
“I don’ rightly care either,” Ferrah drawled, leaning back in her chair. “I just want to work metal and live my life.”
“Well, I’m very new here, and I’m not formally a wife yet,” Airlea said. “But I think we should go with Nikki’s suggestion. If we seek out the queen’s justice and it fails, I’d be willing to consider alternatives then.”
“I’d say by the time we knew she wouldn’t do us any good,” Gwendolin countered, folding her arms under her breasts, “it’d be too late for us to do anything about it. You seem to forget that our Steve isn’t normal. He isn’t going to just be allowed to live freely after we seek out the queen’s justice. Not unless we’ve protected ourselves sufficiently.”
“Geneva would agree,” Lucia said, nodding her head. “She’s not here, but I can reasonably speak for her.”
“Yes, yes,” Jaina agreed. “Gennie would push for Lucia’s statement.”
“I’m Steve’s,” Nancy said, as if that were the only answer that mattered to her.
“So,” Steve said, deciding to summarize it. “We’re at an impasse as far as opinions go. Three neutral, three to attack, three to hold.”
“And five dead,” Gwendolin huffed. “Five lost because we seem to believe others will care for us in the same way we might for them.
“No. I’ll not wait around for them to come for my children.”
Gwendolin laid her hands on her stomach. The implication was clear she was including her unborn child as well as Nia in that statement.
“What… what if we did both?” Nikki inquired, looking both pained and upset.
“Both how?” Steve asked.
“You go capture Linne. Alive,” Nikki explained. “Bring her back, and we tie her up and sit on her. We send for the queen’s justice after that. If she tries to do anything other than give her that justice, through Geneva, then we… we can reconsider then.”
Steve raised his eyebrows at that.
“No, let’s not reconsider then,” Lucia countered. “Let’s consider now. What would you have us do if the queen said to release her and let her go.”
“I’d say… I’d… I don’t know,” Nikki offered lamely. “I wouldn’t know until the time came. That’d be more or less committing to going to war against the queen, wouldn’t it?”
“Maybe that’s what it’ll take,” Gwendolin said, her hands stroking her stomach. “To protect what’s ours, maybe that’s what we need to do. I already lost a husband and five wives to little better than the evilness of others. Maybe it’s time Lamals fell.”
“Maybe it’s time indeed,” Lucia pondered, leaning back in her chair. One hand went to her stomach, and the other caressed her chin.
“No!” Ina said. “No. That won’t solve this. It’ll just replace a broken government with a new one no one trusts. If anything, even more people would die and be hurt in such a thing.
“A civil war never results in a hand-off of power that benefits the citizens.”
“Why do the citizens matter at all?” Gwendolin said in a hiss. “They didn’t care when I was left nearly on the street because they forced my husband to go and die! The only thing that saved Nia and me was Steve. A Human man.
“A Human man that would be little better than a chair in the capital. And you somehow think the queen will give us justice?”
“But, couldn’t we all end up losing more by starting a civil war?” Airlea asked. “Isn’t it just as likely we could all die doing such a thing?”
Everyone stopped talking at that.
It wasn’t as if Airlea was wrong—that was clearly what would happen if they lost such a fight.
They wouldn’t be imprisoned or hit with a slap. They’d be executed, one and all.
“We’ll capture Linne,” Steve said, coming to a decision. “Captur
e her and bring her back here. If possible. If I can reasonably tie her up and drag her here, I’ll do so. But I’m not going to risk letting her live over tying her up.”
“I… I can agree to that,” Nikki said with a heavy sigh. “May fortune favor us and your capture of her, but I can agree to that plan.”
“I don’t like it,” Ina said. “It leaves far too much room for her to simply die.”
“I’d say it leaves far too much room for the queen to butt in and ruin our lives,” Gwendolin said. “But I can agree to the plan.”
“Right… so who’s going with me?” Steve asked.
“I am, obviously,” Lucia said.
“Me, me,” Jaina said in a hurry, raising an arm above her head.
“I’ll stay,” Ina added. To Steve it sounded like she wanted to say something else entirely. “I’ll go to Filch and keep it safe from the Creep.”
“I… I know the area really well,” Airlea said. “I’ve often been on the other side of the Creep wall since it fell. Just to explore. The Creep leaves Unicorns alone. Or more importantly, it stays away from our horns. So I’ll go with you.”
Well that’s frightening.
I wonder if people would kill a Unicorn just for the horn.
“No,” Steve said after a second. “You stay here, Airlea. Pretty sure there’s going to be a lot of fighting in this. Unless you’re going to tell me you’re proficient with a weapon?”
“I’m… alright with a lance, but… no. I’m not that good with it,” Airlea murmured, looking down. “I just want to help and earn my keep. That’s all.”
Well, aren’t you a darling one?
“Thank you for volunteering. Stay here. Maybe practice with your spear,” Steve proposed. “Keep making leather armor.”
“Okay,” Airlea said.
“I’ll stay,” Ferrah said. “I’ll keep forgin’ steel. Arms and armor to make.”
“I’ll remain behind as well,” Nikki said with a sigh. “I would wish to go, but someone must remain here of course to manage the farm. Without… without… ah… I’ll be forced to travel between Filch and here, I think.”
