by Han Yang
Copyright © 2021 Han Yang.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
ASIN: B093FTRVGL
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously.
Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.
Acknowledgements
Thank you for giving a new author a shot. This book is dedicated to my crazy children, loving wife, and the cat. Huge shout out to El Geron for the cover art, talk about one crazy good image of Tarla. Actually the cat made this tougher, always hitting keys when I’m not looking. I’ll get you Spooky
CHAPTER 1
Moonguard City
“Good morning, sleepy head,” Mom said from the doorway of my bedroom.
I groaned from being woken up. “Mom, last night was hell.”
“Son, you have two grandparents helping and wet-nurses at your beck and call. Mags crying for no reason is common. Could be gas, could be growing pains, and it could have been worse with you doing it on your lonesome.”
Tarla exited the shower with a towel wrapping her body and another in her hair. “Mrs. Wilhimer, good morning.”
“Clare, please. Good morning. Your… goblin ogre queen needs the King. Interesting dynamic. Is she another of your laissez-faire lovers?” Mom asked with a raised left eyebrow.
I knew she was taunting me for not marrying Tarla. I grunted with a hand shooting out from under the covers. She got the message when I pointed for her to leave.
“I jest, Tarla. It just feels off because you aren’t married,” Mom said and left.
Tarla shut the door and said, “Such a stubborn woman. I know -”
I lunged out of bed, flung Tarla over my shoulder, and carried her to our soft mattress where she grinned. Fifteen minutes later, okay, more like ten, I left the room to see what Nee needed.
“What are you smirking about?” Bell asked from the hallway cutout she read at.
“Just happy. What has you camping outside my door?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Need to talk with Tarla.”
“She is taking a shower. Should be out in a bit,” I said.
“She should already -” Bell said then paused, putting one and two together. “Caitlyn wants to have a word.”
“Urgent?” I asked.
“She’s a god, Damien. Everything is urgent to her when it involves waiting on mortals,” she said.
“I’d like to think I’m kinda special.” I left her to wait by her lonesome.
She hollered as I faded away, “You owe her.”
I agreed and merely gave an over the shoulder thumbs up. I turned at an intersection for the main court area. A single, poorly drawn painting caught my eye. It was the only thing hanging on the barren walls.
A unicorn in a meadow. Quaint, likely drawn by a child, and just what the drab place needed.
“There you are. Come, my Lord,” Fernando said. “Nee sent me to fetch you.”
“How’s life treating you?” I asked.
“Undead life is great. I have two blissful wives, and I don’t laze about or try to cheat others. It’s made a world of difference. Need anything special from me?” he asked.
“Until we have our navy ready to sail, I need you to keep figuring out how to sail. The other fleets are still hovering, and our ability to fight them is minimal,” I said.
“The repairs are minimal, but I will be honest with you. Most of the sailors fled by boat, not foot. It will take some time to figure all this stuff out. I know you will be traveling via portal soon and have received trade offers. Mercenary crews would do wonders,” Fernando said, placing his hands on his hips with a sigh.
I nodded, already knowing we lacked experienced sailors. The consensus was to sail out of our port and likely lose the crews and ships. It was another dynamic we needed to prepare for before losing vital ships.
“Nee said the same thing.”
“Of course, she’s smart. I thought goblins would be dumb, but not that one,” he said.
Our steps echoed in the narrow hall. I shook my head. “She isn’t a goblin anymore. I’m considering upgrading her again to see what happens.”
“Nick would know,” Fernando said.
The man just had a way of making you want to squeeze his neck until his head popped off.
I relaxed. Nick was on a vital mission, a quest I wished him luck with. It did hurt that he had left without my aid, but there was no stopping him.
Our walk ended at the main war room. Dozens of attendees stood patiently between my skeleton guards. Ike, Yermica, Jenovene, and Nee waited for me. Both ends of the table remained vacant.
I slid into my spot at the head of the table with a smile. “Good morning, nobles of Moonguard City. What can I help with?”
“So chipper,” Ike said. “I wonder what that’s like.” I heard a thud. “Ouch. Why did you stomp on my foot? I haven’t slept well because of all the construction.”
“Oh… I thought you were complaining about other things,” Jenovene said in an apologetic tone.
“Ha! I make more noise than that infernal construction,” Nee said with a grin. “Which brings up item number one. Can we have some down time? Splitting stone, sawing lumber, cracking rocks, and even the damn chains are too much.”
“Denied. Morale is high. Let them suffer until the walls are done. Create earplugs or headphones. I slept with a pillow over my ear when I wasn’t awake with Maggie,” I said sternly. “No matter how much you complain, the construction continues. Period.”
“Three envoys arrived. The first two are actually positive,” Jenovene said. “Trade delegations who arrived with thank you notes from the sea victory. Linus City is four cities south and Oberi is twelve. Both want to welcome us to the region and have brought trading lists with them.”
Jenovene had shifted from camp administrator to diplomatic relations. I needed a diplomat, and she had trained for it her whole life.
“Great news. I figured we would have armies on the horizon already,” I said.
“Scouts say a few are mustering, but nothing more than their normal skirmishing over the contested farmlands. So far at least,” Ike said.
“And the third envoy?” I asked.
“Ah, a prickly bunch from the high elva. They are requesting any children we have to be delivered to them. They will properly disseminate the rescued children to the region before you convert them into skeletons,” Jenovene scoffed.
“How many did we save?” I asked.
“Elva? None. A few thousand children. Most were dragged onto the ships and captured by the local navies,” Jenovene said.
I turned to Yermica. “Thoughts?”
Since the camp stopped moving and we had become a city, the roles had shifted for Yermica too. She continued to be the Ostriva noble in charge of managing living issues. Instead of wagon wheels, overcrowding, or need for blankets, she had shifted to managing homes, schools, and daycares.
“A lot of the children they fed off of are ogre young. Slow growth, heavy blood amounts, and easy to manipulate made them ideal targets. Ogre parents who lose their children are different. Their young are capable at a young age and leave well before they should. If we give them up, I doubt the ma
jority will be reunited with their real parents, and I would expect most to become pawns to a new ruler,” Yermica said.
Nee nodded and added, “If we open the gates to let envoys visit and reclaim lost children, we get the positivity of their return. The high elva can suck a fart.”
“Crude, but she has a point,” Jenovene said.
“Great, let’s reunite some families, and we will only release them if their parents claim them. No fee, no proof needed, and even a travel expense paid in gold. That will bring some goodwill. Hide the ogre children,” I said.
“Whoa, didn’t see that coming,” Ike all but blurted.
“Politics,” Jenovene said, placing her hands together so she could rest her chin over the table. “I think the King is right, even if others may disagree. We have revived ogres who can act as perfect parents. A solid all around plan. I firmly disagree about construction breaks.”
“Ha! See, I have to deal with defenses. We need repairs now, not later,” Ike boasted.
“I’m glad I can make you both a bit happy. What else?” I asked.
“I can handle the rest,” Nee said, folding her arms with a pout.
I tapped the table and said, “What if I employed silencers meant for conversation secrecy over loud points? It won’t completely fix the problem, but it should help.”
“By the creator, yes,” Tarla said, arriving behind me. “What did I miss?”
“We’re not slowing construction, the high elves are denied, we’re trying to get rid of children without parents besides the ogres, and there’s two more envoys,” I said.
“Great, I can handle it from here. You need to see Caitlyn and delve into the dungeon under the harbor keep,” Tarla said with a mischievous grin. “Oh! I know what magic type your mother got.”
“She didn’t dare!” I blurted.
“Oh, but she did,” Tarla teased.
The others glanced around the table in confusion, and I said, “Sir Gregory, my father, is a stonemelder. Lady Clare, my mother, is keeping her magic type a secret. To most, apparently.”
“She didn’t tell me,” Nee said with a shrug. “I have boring pay numbers to go over and when we finish, expect a tax proposition.”
“Your mother will be in the church,” Tarla said.
It didn’t take a genius to realize I wasn’t needed. “Do you guys not want me micromanaging?”
Tarla winced and said, “Damien, you got us here. Your sheer will put us into a home, and your tactics did what other generals failed to - conquer this city. Let us handle the mundane. You still get final say once we prepare a report.”
“I need to ensure the troops aren’t lazing about and relying on the minions,” Ike said, excusing himself.
Yermica spoke up. “Asha wanted to let you know that the Coorg Woods need life breathed into them. Hunting is sparse, and he recommends sending blooming mages to foster growth. The border clearing is going smoothly, and the citizens are hard at work processing what the minions drag in.”
“Excellent news. Which leads to my next issue. The church and our need for portals. Is Asha sleeping at the moment?” I asked.
“He is watching Jax, my King. However, he told me that he agrees. We need to start stripping other areas before we kill the entire woods,” Yermica said.
I nodded in agreement and slid back my seat. The others stood, but I waved them down. I left the room guards and headed to the winding private ramp.
The barren walls echoed each footfall inside the curving tunnel. The sounds of anvils smashing rang loud through a few window slots. Everyone hated the incessant noise, but that was the sound of progress.
The vamperia ruined sections of the city during the fighting to buy time. It was up to us to rebuild as well as convert. We needed raw stone, lumber, gravel, slate, soil, farm animals, forest animals, and the list kept going.
The area was hyper competitive, and if we wanted to make it our home, a lot would have to change. Everything required hard work, and I couldn’t help but feel a tad overwhelmed.
So far, most had refused to trade with us. The fall of Sorona in a single day was still settling into the Garo leaders. That fact, that undeniably frightening fact, shocked the other nation’s cities.
Should they help us in case we win against the elva and vampeira? Or force us to starve? What is keeping me from turning our might onto them and razing their cities to increase my power before the fleets returned with an army?
King Lin wasn’t the weakest of the nation states. I figured the others were waiting patiently for the high elva and the wood elva to crush my defenses. To me, it made sense for them to stay neutral militarily. After I was defeated, the elva would leave the city open for a new ruler to expand into, and a new fight over this city would happen.
“You okay, your Grace?” Jorma asked from one of the couches inside the highly guarded area.
She was transcribing notes from one book into a personal ledger.
“Walk with me,” I ordered. She snapped her journal closed, tucking both tomes into her satchel. “The cave, tell me about it.”
The cave was the hidden alcove that King Lin had escaped from. Since it connected to my city, I had Peth and Jorma investigate the location.
“Small. Only a thin boat can enter and the mast must be folded or detached. Great for a small dinghy or narrow row boat. A sloop, maybe, but again, you would need to fold the mast. There were signs of limited use, and some caskets of pickled fish were left behind. Peth may have eaten them all,” Jorma said with a snicker.
“She’s growing. I get this notion in my head that we need this mighty fleet of dragons or griffins or eagles and it hits me. I gotta feed the big lugs,” I said with a smirk and a happy chuckle.
We exited the main restricted area of the keep. Bright early morning sunlight crashed down through fast moving clouds. A dozen white haired guards boxed us in as we proceeded to exit the main keep. The constant clang of work forced us to raise our voices.
“Dragons need companions,” Jorma said. “They’re like felines that way. Even in nature, they tend to congregate. Peth is a talker, and I help somewhat. But she constantly asked for others to interact and talk with. She and Ossa are opposites in more ways than their magic types.”
“Yeah, they also have a price tag that reaches into the cost of cities,” I said, raising my head to soak up the warming rays. “Tell Peth I’m trying. The others have been hiding how much our treasury holds and are telling me we need to start raising taxes.”
“That’s not good,” Jorma said, coming to the same conclusion as I had.
“I even left a lot of the dead to be harvested for the treasury, and we ended up with a nice chunk of Zorta from robbing King Lin. Nice and amazing are different though. He sent most of his earnings to his Emperor, and his dastardly sister stole the rest. So Peth may have to wait for months or years.”
“There are other options. None are free, sadly. Grandpa had dragon hunter teams,” Jorma said.
I paused, causing the guards to halt in the middle of the street. The flow of citizens walked around our blocky formation while a few stared beyond the guards to see their illustrious leader. I hated feeling special and wondered what they viewed me as: monster or savior? Based on the warm smiles and friendly waves, the latter.
I stared down at Jorma and said, “This sounds lucrative. Why has it not been brought to my attention?”
“Uh, it's horrific actually and rarely succeeds. Basically a team distracts a momma dragon, who gets ten levels of pissed off. A second team tries to extract her fertilized eggs, which may not be fertilized.
“Or her young which broadcast a shriek that they’re being abducted. Even if you get eggs, the momma tends to kill the first team, draws a ton of attention, remember I just told you their social creatures, and the second team tends to die before making it home.
“There’s a reason why dragons are so rare. They breed slow and are hard to capture. You don’t just go out and tame them. You either captu
re them when they're young, or you breed those you captured while they’re young,” Jorma said.
“I guess that makes sense in a way. I don’t like it, but the mission sounds fine for goblin skeletons.”
“Yup, it might be. Just know this, and this is assuming you find a female before a male - if she is nesting, she will call for help. Meaning the whole area will be on the hunt and they scan far and wide,” Jorma said. “Would hate for you to be like ‘oh darn, thirty dead skeletons turned to ash.’ You go to walk to your portal and dragons are guarding it while the others hunt you.”
“Yikes, and we’re walking again,” I said, and the guards transitioned into a walk. “Interesting information, thank you. Certainly is something to think about. All it takes is one successful trip to make it worth it.”
“Yup, but Peth, Ossa, and Zhogath are all long term investments. They grow slow. It might be better to just amass wealth and buy your animals. Assuming you settle down at some point. Dragons will die to a well-placed bolt and if they crash hard enough, can’t be revived. And honestly, a rhino breeding program would be more prudent than a dragon breeding business.
“Especially in this area. A charging mass of skeleton rhinos would break almost any formation.” She sputtered her lips in pause. “Actually, you need something faster. You get the point. And for the port, hydra breeding makes sense,” Jorma said.
“I was thinking dolphins or something that can hunt for themselves.”
“And kill them!” Jorma said in dismay.
“Dolphins are cute and friendly. I would assume we wouldn’t harvest them and treat them like a horse. I’m sure they can hunt for us. Just a thought. They want the food they catch, not the orbs,” I said.
“Not a bad idea, you continue to surprise me with your insight,” Jorma said.
I smirked. “Luck and mostly cheating. On Earth we had dolphins trained to do basic tasks or even put on shows. Having them bring us fish before they eat them or corral schools should be an easy task for a water siren.”
“I check my tracker every day. No magic yet,” Jorma said.
We turned from the vacant noble banking and high end retail area to the inner keep gate. Everywhere I looked, skeleton guards posted to secure the inner city. The big buildings we shifted by would one day reopen and return to life.
