by Eric Vall
“Y-you refuse me in spite of my standing?” the wavy-haired royal sputtered. He obviously wasn’t accustomed to rejection.
“Yes,” Annalíse replied quickly without the slightest note of sympathy.
“Oh c’mon, give the guy a chance,” Rana said with a snicker before her lips curved into a devilish grin. “He is, after all, the great and benevolent king of Valasara. An opportunity like this is one in a lifetime.”
“Indeed, it is.” Alistair nodded. “Listen to your friend, she speaks wisely.” Apparently, the king was not only accustomed to rejection, but he was also unacquainted with sarcasm as well.
“No.” Annalíse shook her head. “I don’t wish to offend you, but I’ve already told you of my decision.”
“But--” the king started to say.
“That’s quite enough.” I held a hand up to interrupt him. “She’s given you her answer, let’s leave it at that.” I had heard all I was going to hear from this pathetic king, and I wasn’t going to let this nauseating attempt at Annalíse’s attentions go any further.
Alistair glanced back and forth between myself and Annalíse until realization suddenly came to his face. “Ah, I understand now. You own her. This is the reason why she refuses me. I will gladly purchase her. I believe fifty gold coins should be a reasonable price.”
My blood began to boil. He talked about buying Annalíse so nonchalantly as though he were offering to buy livestock. The man’s impudence was infuriating, to say the least.
“She is not for sale,” I stated.
“Fifty gold coins is more than fair. You’d be foolish not to accept such an offer,” he said smugly.
“Listen to me,” I said as I narrowed my eyes at the dark-haired man. “I’m going to say this one more time. She’s not for sale. You’ve already made a frequent nuisance of yourself by your incessant pestering, now you add further insult by treating her as a commodity.”
“I-I did not mean--” he stammered in shock.
“You speak as though she were merely some object or animal that you can trade for,” I said angrily. “I don’t know how you run things in Valasara, but this is something that I won’t tolerate. Leave her alone or I will destroy you.” Just to be certain my point was made, I let a fraction of my dark power color my eyes jet black. As the darkness pulsated within me, I momentarily contemplated ending the insufferable king’s life, but I reigned in my dark abilities. He wasn’t worth my time, he was nothing more than a mere mortal, a weak figurehead who was unworthy of his title.
Alistair gulped when he stared into my eyes, and his body quivered a bit. His guards took a step closer to him, and one of them moved to step between myself and the king. Without hesitation, I wrapped a hand around the muscular guard's throat and lifted him off the ground with ease, and the big man trembled in my grasp as he grappled at his throat. I bore the man no ill will, but I wanted to get my point across to the king whom he served.
“Have I made myself clear?” I growled to the group of men. Both the pompous man and the other guards had turned pale and their lips quivered with fear.
“W-we shall take our leave,” the king said as he looked around uncomfortably. People had stopped to watch the spectacle and whispered amongst themselves.
I released the guard from my grasp, and the man plummeted to the ground. When he picked himself up and took a step back from me I saw the fear continue to well up in his eyes.
“I-I have business to attend to elsewhere in the city.” Alistair glanced around our group awkwardly and tightened his lips before he and his guards shuffled away into the crowd.
“Now that was just sad.” Rana chuckled as she shook her head. “Rejection, verbal bashing, and threats. All in all, a complete package of public humiliation, not too pretty.”
“It needed to be done.” I shrugged.
“I appreciate your help, but it wasn’t necessary,” Annalíse sighed. I would have thought that she would have expressed relief at finally being rid of the king, but I knew she had a lot of pride. “He would have given up eventually.”
I shook my head. “I doubt that. He’s shown his persistence, and he’s definitely the type that’s used to getting what he wants. He wouldn’t have stopped. The man needed to be dealt with.”
“You dealt with him all right,” Rana said with a twisted grin. “The way that went, I wouldn’t be surprised if he never showed his face out here again.”
Annalíse opened her mouth to say something but closed her mouth again. Then she opened it once more. “Let’s be on our way.”
Before long, we were on our way, the sounds and smells of the market behind us as we rode off into the vast desert. Miles and miles of golden sand stretched out before us without a tree or landmark in sight.
“Alright, as you might have noticed, there aren’t exactly any paths for us to follow,” Rana called back to the rest of us. She steered Anu so that she caught up to Annalíse who led our party, followed by Morrigan atop Tiberius, Carmedy, and then me. “I’ve done some digging though, and we should arrive at the next dungeon in a day or so if we keep heading north.”
“Excellent,” I said.
“Naturally, I have an excellent sense of direction,” the red-headed woman put a paw on her chest proudly, “but I have this little beauty just in case.” In her other paw, she jiggled a small compass.
Carmedy giggled. “I never thought I’d see a fox with a compass.”
“Go on, laugh it up.” Rana smirked. “I’ll have you know that--” The fox paused for a moment and stared behind us. I looked over my shoulder to see what she was looking at but saw nothing.
“Is there something wrong?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” Rana said dubiously. “I feel like, like someone is following us, but everything is out in the open around here and there’s no one around.”
“Perhaps you made a mistake,” Morrigan said casually. “Perhaps our time at sea has affected your senses somehow.” I expected Rana to be offended by the elf’s words, but her expression was still one of concern and suspicion.
“Yeah, maybe,” the fox muttered. She continued to squint at the land behind us for a few more moments before she turned back in her seat. Even though Rana had turned around, her ears still twitched and her tails switched with frustration.
“Rana’s instincts had never been wrong before,” I said, and the fox-girl turned to me with surprised eyes. “Morrigan, send your ravens behind us to look for presuers.”
“Yes, Master,” the pale-elf said, and the birds instantly leapt from her shoulders, let out a caw of delight, and then pumped their wings to raise high into the sky.
“Everyone continue onward as if we are not suspecting followers,” I said, “but be prepared to fight.”
The four women nodded, and then we rode in silence. Each of us rested our hands on either weapon or potion, and the tension in the air was measurable.
The twin ravens returned after what felt like fifteen-minutes, and then they cawed softly into Morrigan’s ears after they landed. My lover nodded with her usual emotionless expression, and then she turned to the rest of us.
“They have not seen anyone following us, but they do agree with Rana and feel that there is something amiss.”
“Are they using magic?” Carmedy gasped.
“I do not know,” Morrigan said with her usual shrug.
“Master, what can we do?” Annalíse asked, and I was a bit surprised that she was asking me for help so quickly. Perhaps it was because she was unused to dealing with others that might have illusion magic.
“We continue onward,” I said as I nodded ahead. “It will be impossible to ambush them out in the open desert, so we will maintain our guard and hope to surprise them once we enter the dungeon.”
“That’s a good plan,” Rana said as her mouth formed a wicked grin. “I like surprising people.”
“Agreed,” I said, and the other three women nodded.
A few minutes of silence descended upon us, an
d then Rana dropped the pace of her lizard so that she rode beside me. Her green eyes met mine, and then she gestured for us to slow down a bit more so that there was a good thirty feet between us and the rest of the party.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Uhhh, no,” she said, and her voice was barely over the sound of our lizards walking across the sand. “I, uhhh, just wanted to say thanks.”
“For sending Morrigan’s crows to investigate your suspicion?” I guessed.
“Yeah,” Rana said as she cleared her throat. “Look, I know we haven’t exactly gotten along, and there is no way in hell I’m going to call you ‘Master,’ but… uhhh, yeah. Anyways. That’s all I wanted to say.”
“Your instincts have always served us well,” I said. “I have told you before that I value you.”
“Yeah,” she said, and her eyes looked away from me. “I’m going to go--”
“Rana,” I interrupted her, and she turned to look at me. “You will call me Master soon.”
“Uhhh, nope,” she chuckled. “Not going to happen, demon man.”
“Not only that,” I said, “but I will have you as a lover, and you will enjoy the experience tremendously.”
“Ugh,” she groaned, and then pulled her paw over her face. “Now, I’m sorry that--”
“You have already thought about us being together,” I continued. “You have as much pride as Annalíse, but this is not a matter of pride. I care for you, and respect you, and we will give each other amazing pleasure.”
“Look, I have absolutely not thought about fucking you,” Rana said, but as she spoke her eyes strayed to my lips and her face turned almost as red as her hair.
“I am not speaking about fucking,” I said. “I would make love to you. There is a difference.”
“Why do I even bother?” Rana hissed, and her voice was loud enough to reach the other three women, and they all turned around on their mounts to look at us.
“When you are ready, you can come to me,” I said as I shrugged.
“Ugh,” Rana groaned again, and then she clicked her tongue twice to make her lizard trot ahead.
But as soon as she almost made it back to Morrigan’s side, the fox-girl turned around to look at me again. She saw me watching her, and her face turned a darker shade of red. Then she let out another loud huff before she stuck her nose up on the air, turned around, and then made her lizard trot up to the front of our caravan.
Her tail wagged the entire time.
Yes, Rana would soon be mine.
Chapter 6
“Is it just me, or is anyone else already sick of this heat?” Rana moaned a few hours of travel later. “I feel like one big sweaty mass of fur.”
“It is pretty hot,” Annalíse said as she wiped her brow. “It could be worse though. I heard someone say that today was actually the coolest it’s been all month.”
“Well that’s great news,” Rana grumbled. “Why couldn’t we have gone to one of the continents that has nice breezes and cool mountain air? That sounds more up my alley.”
“Because this was the closest continent, a fact you know very well,” I said with a dry chuckle.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Rana said absently. “I still have a right to complain though. It feels hotter out here than it did back at that dungeon with the lava.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Carmedy said suddenly as she began to root through the bundles on her belt of alchemical supplies, now tied over her robe for easy access. “Can we stop for a sec?”
Annalíse brought our party to a halt and then turned to look over her shoulder. “Why did you want to stop?” Annalíse asked the black cat with a somewhat annoyed expression. The swordswoman frequently displayed impatience and always became agitated when something delayed our travels. Carmedy didn’t reply at first, and her mutterings to herself only increased as she pulled a few leaves from one of her pouches. “I can brew some salve to help alleviate the effects of the sun so our skin won’t get so blistery,” Carmedy said thoughtfully, as she scrounged around in her various pouches. “Let’s see, I have aloe, and some zinc, and…”
“Those might make it actually tolerable,” Annalíse said with a laugh. “The sun out here is no joke, especially since our water supply is limited.”
“Here you go,” the feline finally said upon completing her work.
After she climbed off Xerxes’ back, she handed me two leaves, one that held a white cream and another with the same mint-smelling pink powder that she had used to keep us cool in the lava dungeon. Carmedy proceeded to walk to each of the others to hand them some cooling powder.
“Remember, the effects of the cooling powder are temporary,” the green-eyed woman reminded us. “It’s only going to last for about an hour or so, and then your temperature will return to normal. You can take it now if you like, or you can save it for later. Just keep in mind that I can’t give you another one every time the cooling effects when off. I don’t know how long it’ll take for us to get to another town that has the ingredients I need to make more, so it’ll be best if each of us only take one per day.”
“You mean there’s only going to be one hour each day where I’m not dying of heatstroke?” Rana whined as she looked down at the leaf full of powder in her paw.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Carmedy said with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, that’s the best I can do for now. The salve I gave you should help a little though.”
“It’s more than enough, Carmedy,” I said as I slathered the white salve onto my face. “Thank you.” The cream was soothing and had a fresh scent to it, and it did indeed make the heat a bit more tolerable. The black-haired feline smiled at me and nodded her head in appreciation. Annalíse and Morrigan also said their thanks readily as they rubbed the cream into their skin, and I gave Rana a look to hint that she should also show her gratitude.
“Yeah, thanks, pussycat,” Rana said with a sigh, and she also spread the salve onto her face. “I guess one hour of sweet cool bliss is better than none.”
“You’re welcome,” Carmedy said brightly as she climbed back onto Xerxes’ back. While the rest of us decided to save our powder for later in the day, Rana decided to take hers. I couldn’t blame her. Compared to Carmedy, who only had fur on her ears and tail, Rana’s more extensive fur had to make the desert heat near-unbearable.
“Ahh, much better,” the fox woman sighed after she dumped the contents of the leaf into her mouth. “Now I’m not going to melt into a puddle of fox goo.” Carmedy and I chuckled at that as we continued to ride through the desert.
There wasn’t much to see out here, save for endless hills of sand that reached out in every direction and the occasional rock. There were no trees, I didn’t even see any wildlife crawl amongst the sandy terrain. I raised a hand to my eyes and looked up at the cloudless sky, and even the birds were absent. Perhaps they were smart enough not to go into the untamed desert.
As if on cue, a hot wind blew across the glittering golden sand, and grains flew into the air. This heat was fearsome, but I had faced far worse things in my time.
Rana’s voice broke into my thoughts. “So, Annalíse, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Actually, we’ve all been meaning to ask you,” the fox corrected herself, “why were you acting so weird back on the ship?”
Annalíse said nothing in response to Rana’s question. Instead, she continued to stare straight ahead as we forged ahead through the merciless desert. The fox was silent for a moment and waited for the freckled swordswoman to offer an explanation but Annalíse gave no indication that she had any intention of speaking. Rana glanced back at the rest of us and gave us a look of disbelief. Carmedy shrugged her shoulders, and Morrigan waved her hand as though to urge Rana to continue her interrogation. Rana nodded and bit her lip with determination.
“Annalíse, come on. You can’t pretend like you didn’t hear me,” the fox said as she turned back around to face the swordswoman who rode beside her. Rana leaned over in her seat and poked
at Annalíse’s shoulder repeatedly. “I’m not going to stop bugging you until you answer me,” the fox added in a sing-song voice.
Annalíse released a heavy sigh and was silent for a moment longer. “Are you certain we’re still headed in the right direction? It’s quite easy to get lost out here, many people have ventured out into this desert and never escaped it.”
“Really?” Carmedy said fearfully. “You mean… they died out here?”
“Yes,” Annalíse replied. “Every dungeon has its perils regardless of the continent, but the dungeons here, it’s as though there’s an added level of cruelty because you have to survive the journey to the dungeons before you even face what they have in store.”
“Okay,” Rana chimed in and held up a paw. “First of all, yes I am certain that we’re headed in the right direction. I hate to use this old chestnut but, have I ever steered you wrong?”
I chuckled at Rana’s words, she was right. In our journey thus far, she hadn’t made any mistakes in relation to her navigation skills. In fact, I very much doubted that the fox had ever gotten lost in her life.
“Second, we’re going to be just fine,” the curly-haired fox woman continued, “I admit I complained about the heat. It’s not exactly a picnic, but it’s going to take more than some sun to stop me from getting to those dungeons, and I’m sure the same goes for the rest of you. Third, nice try.” The red-headed thief snorted. “That was pretty slick changing of the subject like that, implying that I didn’t know where we were going.”
I was impressed by Rana’s perceptiveness. We all knew how offended Rana got when someone questioned her instincts or navigation skills, but the clever fox had seen through Annalíse’s plan.
“So, now that we’ve established that we’re not lost and not going to die,” Rana continued, “how about you tell us what’s going on with you?”
“Nothing’s going on with me,” Annalíse said a bit sharply. “I don’t know why you keep bothering me with this. You asked me while we were shopping at the market, and now, you’re bringing it up again. I told you before, there’s nothing wrong.”
