by Logan Jacobs
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Chapter One
“… And then our very own Draco Rex decided to spare the orc’s life,” Mira, the jade-haired, golden-scaled dragonkin woman explained to her sister. “But it wasn’t an act of mercy. Oh, no… Our king wanted to send a powerful message to our enemies.”
“Yeah,” the racoon woman Nadir added with a snort, “if you mess around with Ben and his loyal subjects, you’ll end up a head shorter!”
The dragonkin queen, Nerissa, simply shook her silver-colored head and smiled. We were all gathered on the beach as we looked out at the pristine, deep blue ocean that stood before us, on the spot where the battle in question had taken place not even a month ago.
“How many times have you told me this story, sister?” Nerissa mused. “It hasn’t been very long since Ben’s victory over the orcs, yet I think I’ve heard the tale at least three times a day every day since.”
Mira shrugged. “You should have been there. It was one of the greatest battles in our peoples’ history, dwarfed maybe only by Oshun’s victory over Valron the volcano God.”
“Your god killed another god?” Jemma the deer-woman gasped.
“Now, that’s what I call a deity.” Nadir whistled. “Unlike that anti-violence, no meat-eating person you were telling us about, Jemma.”
The auburn-haired Jemma scowled at the Coonag leader and narrowed her chartreuse eyes into daggers.
“What are your gods like, then?” she huffed.
Nadir looked over at the other Coonag women, who all began to chuckle. Then the dark-haired racoon woman crossed her arms over her chest and gave her friend a little half-smile.
“Are you sure you wanna know?” the Coonag leader mused. “Because I promise Mapacheder is way mightier and cleverer than any of the gods you’ve ever heard of.”
“They can’t possibly be a more powerful warrior than Meerlu.” The green-eyed Sela placed her hands on her hips as she flicked back her light blue hair. “He took out an entire army of Ash-Biters on his own.”
“Ash-Biters?” I had to interject, simply because I thought the name was curious.
Sela looked at me as if I’d grown a third eye. “Ash-Biters. The foot soldiers of Valron?”
“Perhaps Isla could show him to the archives when things settle down somewhat?” Nerissa suggested. “Ben may be our Draco Rex, but he’s yet to take a deep dive into our history and creed.”
“That’s because I haven’t had any time,” I objected with a playful smirk. “I’ve been too busy building up fortifications, exploring other islands, and protecting everyone from orcs. You say I can do all that once things begin to ‘settle down,’ but I know better. Things aren’t ever going to ‘settle down’ as long as there are orcs still out there murdering and pillaging innocent people.”
Nerissa placed her dark hand up onto my chest and let out a long sigh as she ran it down my torso.
I pulled her in close, touched the large bump on her stomach that bore our second child, and kissed her softly on the top of her chrome-kissed head.
The queen smelled faintly of sweet saltwater and beechwood as I tenderly nuzzled my nose into her silver locks, and I couldn’t help but fantasize about the last time we made love. Being pregnant already made Nerissa super horny, but the fact I’d been away for days during my last adventure made her never want to take her hands off me. She’d ravished my body the second she saw me after our victory against Captain Carnog, and we’d done the horizontal dance many more times in the weeks since.
Surely, my beautiful mate was due at any moment now. The dragonkin had a gestation period of only two or three months, and we were quickly approaching that timeframe. More obvious was how her stomach now looked like an overripe watermelon, the kind that would burst open if you even looked at it wrong.
Any day now, Nerissa would deliver me the gift of another child.
And that made me all the more anxious to have her out here on the beach.
Sure, the queen had lived on this island her entire life, and she probably knew more about the dangers of the ocean and its creatures than I could ever dream of. Still, I wasn’t crazy about the pregnant mother of my children being out here, where we’d fought off countless invaders who’d come to our home with the intent of killing us and stealing our women.
There may not have been any clear and present danger, but I knew it was out there somewhere, just waiting to rear its ugly head.
“Sooooo, do you want to hear about Mapacheder’s exploits, or not?” Nadir’s harsh voice cut through my daydream.
“You’re going to tell us anyway,” Jemma noted with a chuckle and a roll of her chartreuse eyes.
“Of course, I am!” Nadir stated with a sharp-toothed grin. “Mapacheder is the greatest god in the history of gods. He single-handedly created the island we used to dwell on by pulling up a pillar of rock from the bottom of the ocean floor. The tree you found us living in? That was the hilt of his mighty battle axe.”
“Doesn’t sound like a great warrior to me,” Sela grumbled under her breath.
“I’m getting there!” Nadir hissed. “Mapacheder was such a great warrior he completely wiped out any and all who opposed him. He once killed a giant turtle said to be the size of an entire island, and do you know how he did it? He ripped out the creature’s throat with his bare teeth, bite by bloody bite.”
Jemma tried to keep her composure, but I could see she was unamused.
“And?” Sela scoffed. “Anyone can kill a giant turtle.”
“That’s just a single seed in the forest that is Mapacheder’s stories,” the Coonag leader continued. “Even in the womb, the warrior god would not be denied his kill. Legend has it that, when his mother was attacked by the great hound that tried to eat the world, Mapacheder chewed himself out of his mother’s stomach from the inside. Just as the hound was about to snatch his mother up, he burst forth from her pregnant belly and devoured both of its eyes. Then, while it was blinded, he sculpted a spear out of a stick and skewered it straight through the heart!”
The rest of the Coonag women let out a “hurrah” in unison, but the dragonkin women didn’t seem too impressed.
“Who would believe a crazy story like that?” Mira chuckled as she nudged me in the ribs.
“Oh, yeah.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Totally unbelievable.”
Obviously, I was being sarcastic. Now that I was living in a world full of dragons, orcs, and monster women, I wasn’t going to write off anything as impossible, no matter how far-fetched it sounded.
Unfortunately, my sarcasm wasn’t picked up by the dragonkin warrior.
“I knew you’d agree with me,” Mira purred. “Great minds think alike, and all that.”
A quick glance at Jemma, however, told me she believed every single word of what Nadir had said, and she was very disturbed. Her lips were pursed into a thin line, and her eyebrows were knitted together with concern. The deer women had been pacifist vegans when I’d met them, a race of people who refused to even fight back against their own assailants. Even though I’d gotten them to change their ways, they still weren’t as bloodthirsty or eager to fight as the other women I’d encountered along my many journeys.
Lezan must have made the same observation, because she grinned from ear to ear.
“She did warn you,” the multicolor-haired woman teased, but Jemma wasn’t biting.
“I’m perfectly fine.” The deer-woman cle
ared her throat. “In fact, that doesn’t even sound so bad. I’ve seen much worse on my travels with Ben.”
Are you alright, Jemma? Tirian’s dragon voice asked through our mental bond. I sense you are very distressed.
Jemma shot daggers up into the sky with her eyes as the small silver dragon appeared through the clouds above, and I chuckled to myself, even though I knew nobody but Mira, Jemma, and I could understand what he was saying.
“What’s so funny, Draco Rex?” Sela questioned with a quirk of her head.
“Oh, nothing.” I smiled as I shared a knowing look with Mira, the only other person on this beach who shared the dragon bond with Jemma and me. “I’m just enjoying hearing all of these stories about your gods, that’s all. Tirian? How are things going out there? Did you and the water dragons find the wreckage yet?”
I found it, alright! Tirian boasted with a puff of hot air from his nostrils as he landed onto the sandy ground before us. Before George or Nixie even came close to sniffing it out.
“Good job,” Jemma praised as she scratched her bondmate under the chin. “Do you think you can take us to it?”
The silver dragon nodded his head excitedly as his back right foot stomped into the ground repeatedly, like a dog whose owner had just found the sweet spot. Then Tirian’s eyes closed as he fully basked in his bondmate’s love.
I can get you back out there, he finally purred, just as long as you can keep up with me in those rowboats of yours.
“We can keep up,” I reassured the small fire-breathing reptilian. “As long as I didn’t miscalculate the weight of the ropes we’re taking with us, or how much those cannons are going to weigh once we have them attached to the other end.”
“Isla reassured me the ropes she gave us are some of the strongest she and her apprentices have ever created,” Nerissa explained. “They’re made out of coconut husks and have been braided ten times. I’d guess they could hold a whole ship, let alone a few silver explosion tubes.”
“Then we’d better be on our way.” I grinned. “I’m practically chomping at the bit to see what we can salvage from whatever is left over of those orc ships.”
That wasn’t an understatement. The orcs seemed to be the only species in this strange new world that had continuous access to iron and other metals, and they knew how to turn the precious material into crude, powerful weapons whose durability was second only to our own seaglass.
Still, there was only so much you could do with seaglass. With the metal from the cannons, the possibilities were endless. We could build our own iron weapons or armor, or we could even start using it for architectural purposes. With this kind of sturdy material, we could fortify our beach wall even further or add some steel hedgehogs along the shore or even start using it for something as simple as making steel cookware.
Then there were the cannons.
Sure, we could try and simply outrun our enemies with our streamlined and speedy ships, but if they ever came up to us with a massive fleet full of cannons, we would be hopelessly outgunned. The only way to even the odds was to get some firepower of our own, even if it had to be secondhand.
Queen Nerissa remained on the beach, with the twins Zarya and Darya at her side for protection. Meanwhile, the rest of us wandered down to the shoreline, where we had a small fleet of rowboats waiting for us. There were five boats in total, an amalgamation of boats we’d stolen from slain orcs and ones that were originally built by the Dragonkin of this island.
Tirian’s wings flapped majestically in the sky above as we boarded our boats, tied one end of the provided coconut husk rope to the hook built into their stern, and then began to row out to sea.
In my boat, I was accompanied by the dragonkin warrior Mira, plus the two beautiful, long-legged deer women Jemma and Theora, the deadly Nadir, and her Coonag friend Malak.
Mira and I mainly handled the paddles while Jemma navigated via her dragon bond with Tirian, and the two Coonag women looked around excitedly.
“This is great. Ben,” Nadir whistled as she ran her hand through the briny water. “I’ve never really spent time in the ocean before I met you.”
“Really?” I raised an eyebrow at the dark-haired woman. “You never even went swimming in it?”
“The Coonag people aren’t the greatest swimmers.” Malak shrugged. “Also, we never wanted to go out on the ocean. That was where the invaders always came from, so we just assumed it was as vile and evil as they were.”
“Having seen the things that dwell in its depths,” Mira spoke up, “I can promise you’re not very far off. The ocean is a very dangerous place, which is why I’m glad we have three dragons backing us up right now. Why couldn’t we have just brought out the big ships, again?”
“We could have,” I explained, “but that would have been a logistical nightmare, trying to figure out how to attach the cannons. Plus, I don’t want to take one of our important vessels out into an area with an active shipwreck. That’s just asking to accidentally run into a piece of jagged debris and ruin our hull or rudder. This way might be a little more tedious, but it’s ten times safer.”
“Unless we run into another sea creature,” Jemma noted, and she sounded like she was only partly joking.
“George and Nixie are scoping out this area,” I assured her, “and they’d let us know if there was a deadly sea monster lurking around. Wouldn’t you, guys?”
Of course, we would, dear one, my water dragon George spoke up telepathically. Though I can’t promise we wouldn’t run away to safety first.
George! Nixie, his mate and Mira’s bondmate, huffed. Don’t even joke about that. We’re not a family of cowards.
He knows I’m joking, the blue dragon promised his beloved. I would never abandon the dear one, not even if the situation looked completely dire and lost. I will follow him to the very ends of the world, if that’s what he so desires.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, buddy.” I smiled, even though I knew George couldn’t see me. “Tirian says he found the shipwreck. Do either of you have eyes on it yet?”
I’m not sure--There! Nixie gasped. Oh, Ben, you really did a number on these ships.
We did quite a number, George reminded his mate. We completely decimated the giant metal boom sticks, all on our own.
“How bad did you guys fuck them up?” I questioned, though I doubted the water dragons were going to remember. “I know you gunked them all up with mud and seaweed and all that and caused them to backfire, but do you remember if there was anything salvageable left over?”
I don’t, dear one, George sighed, but we can easily find out. Give us a moment…
The fleet of rowboats continued to follow Tirian until he finally came to a stop about a quarter mile off from the shore. The silver dragon then looked down, spat a small blast of red-hot fire at the water below, and circled around to tell us where the ship was located.
“Alright, George and Nixie!” I called out telepathically. “We’re in position. Do you have anything for us?”
I can see one of the metal boom sticks right now, George announced. It actually looks pretty much intact. This must have been one of the few we spared.
You take the left side, and I’ll take the right, Nixie offered. We pull on three, and then we’ll take it up to the surface so they can tie it up to their boats. Ready?
Sure thing, the other water dragon responded. Ready when you are, dear. One… Two… Three!
Both of the scaly creatures let out a grunt of determination as they supposedly picked up the cannon in their mouths, and soon, I saw the silhouettes of our two friends appear underneath the surface of the water. Sure enough, they were carrying the slim metal cylinder between the two of them like a pair of chihuahuas trying to double-team an oversized stick.
The second George and Nixie broke through the top of the waves, I barked out an order to the rest of my crew.
“Everybody tie onto different parts of the barrel!” I commanded. “It’s going to be heavy as hell, b
ut if we all distribute the weight evenly, we can get it back to shore in one piece.”
The rest of the warrior women did as they were told, and soon we had five loops of the coconut husk rope looped around the top of the sunken cannon. Our boat lurched downward for a split second, and for just a moment I worried I’d miscalculated our buoyancy and we were going to sink. Thankfully, though, the distribution of the weight between the five rowboats made it a bearable load, and we began to head back to shore towing our treasure.
Once we were back at the beach, each one of us grabbed onto the rope at different points and then began to tug on it as hard as we possibly could. It was a bit of a struggle to get the cannon up onto the beach, but we eventually were able to secure it into place.
Then we ventured back out to the shipwrecks and repeated the process once more.
“Two cannons?” Mira gasped as George and Nixie dipped beneath the water again, and then she smiled as realization kicked in. “That’s enough firepower to sink another ship, isn’t it?”
“It sure is!” I grinned. “And we’re not even close to being done yet. If I counted right, there were at least five cannons on the side of each ship, and there were three giant vessels during our battle. That means there could be up to thirty of these things laying down there, just ripe for the taking.”
I would maybe change your estimates, George warned in my head. This ship seems to be the one Nixie and I completely destroyed. The cannons are still here, but the tips of each of them look like they have been split open.
“Yeah, don’t worry about those for right now,” I chuckled. “They’re kaput. We can come back later and salvage the metal for some other use, but as far as a weapon goes, it’s pretty much worthless.”
So, we delivered the second cannon to the beach, turned around, and began to head back toward the site of the shipwreck.
What in the gods is wrong with this one? Nixie grumbled, and I could hear in her voice that she was straining.
I’m not sure, my love, George agreed. It appears to be stuck on something…
George! Nixie gasped. I don’t think it’s stuck on something. I think it’s stuck on someone.
