God Conqueror 2

by Logan Jacobs

  “The one that shoved another ram off a cliff?” Ilandere exclaimed in horror.

  “The one that fought and won,” the she-wolf replied calmly. “Don’t give me that look, horse. You know there’s truth in it. Think about it. When Vander fights something and wins, it makes you wanna fuck him, doesn’t it?”

  “Ahhh,” Ilandere turned bright red and seemed incapable of forming a response.

  “Yeah,” Lizzy continued with a wicked smile. “You want him to really pound your tight little hole, and then spray his seed all in your womb. Don’t ya?”

  At that point, Elodette came to her rescue. “You will not address the Princess in that disrespectful manner, wolf,” she said coldly as she laid a threatening hand on her bow.

  “What are you gonna do about it, shoot me?” Lizzy snickered. “I could rip your throat out, horse. And besides, what makes sense for the rams don’t make no sense for us. We got three Vanders and counting so there's no reason we can’t share.”

  “Hey!” I said. “I’m right here, you know. I’m not just a piece of meat.”

  “I wasn’t fighting over mating rights,” Elodette sputtered. “He’s a human! I was just correcting the vulgar way you always express yourself even in the presence of royalty.”

  “I been around longer than you or the princess horse,” Lizzy snapped. “Vander never complains about the way I talk, so if you don’t like it, you can fuck right off.”

  “You guys, I think the elevation and the exertion are making us all a little lightheaded,” I said. “Why don’t we just, uh, take a little rest in this nice sunny spot and enjoy a midday meal?”

  After we had all dismounted, Willobee tugged at my sleeve. When I looked down at him he said nervously, “Master, their unstable temperaments and heated emotions will give the spirit of the mountain an opening to possess them.”

  I sighed. “This spirit of the mountain stuff isn’t really helping either, Willobee. There’s not… you don’t mean there’s another god or something around, do you?”

  “No,” the gnome answered. “It is the mountain itself. We have roused it just by being here where so few intelligent creatures have ever dared to tread. We must take care not to anger it.”

  “Er. Okay,” I said. “Just… uh… give me a heads-up if we’re doing something that you think will piss off the mountain spirit then, all right?”

  “Of course I will be vigilant, the safety of my beloved master and many beauteous damsels depends upon it,” Willobee replied.

  “Thanks buddy, I appreciate it,” I said.

  Once we had eaten and fed, watered, and rested the horses sufficiently, we continued on our way. Lizzy and the centaurs were still feeling a little cross with each other, but by that point everyone was too tired to feel like arguing. As I had predicted, the terrain was steeper the second day. But that also meant that we were getting close to the top. I had planned our route so that we could cross the range at the lowest convenient point, a dip between two peaks, but I was pretty sure that would still be higher above sea level than any of us had ever been before.

  Besides the rams, we also spotted bobcats, foxes, and even a cougar off to the sides along our route, but none of them approached our large party, and the horses did not get spooked by their presence. Generosity, Virility, Fury, Slayer, and Chivalry seemed to accept that Mount Ugga belonged to the wild beasts, and the wild beasts seemed to accept that our domesticated mounts were just passing through.

  A few times we encountered narrow ledges, passages blocked by boulders or rubble, or stretches that were too icy for the horses’ and centaurs’ hooves to gain any traction, and I had to seek out an alternate route for my party. Whenever that happened, Willobee would close his eyes and start up his eerie, hypnotic gnomish chant addressed to the spirit of the mountain while my other two selves and the rest of my companions awaited my return. I wasn’t quite sure whether that made everyone feel better, or at least distracted them, or just made them more nervous, but the gnome seemed convinced that it was important, so I let him do his thing while I did mine.

  After we got past a particularly treacherous bitch of a rock field, I gathered everyone together on the other side to check in with them and inspect the horses’ hooves for damage.

  “Ilandere?” I asked. “Are you all right?” I knew that there was no reason she shouldn’t be all right physically, since one of my selves had been escorting her the entire way, but I wasn’t sure how much of an emotional toll the perilous crossing might have taken on the sensitive little centaur.

  “Of course I am,” she replied with a smile. “You are with us, and I trust you and know that you would never let anything happen to any of us, Vander.”

  That made my heart feel full, but it was also a lot of pressure to live up to that expectation, and I knew that certain circumstances were beyond my control.

  “Even a god cannot necessarily predict the vagaries of nature,” Florenia said, which expressed aloud what I was thinking. Then she continued serenely, “So it is entirely possible that one or more of us will die a sudden, violent, and arbitrary death upon this mountain, through no fault of Qaar’endoth’s, but it would of course be the highest honor to give one’s life in the course of his noble quest to save the world from the ravages of The Devourer and avenge his murdered friends. So really, we have nothing to fear.”

  “Princess, remind me again why we are still tagging along with these suicidal zealots?” Elodette groaned, but by this point, whenever she made comments like that, she didn’t really expect a response or to change Ilandere’s mind. They had lost their viciousness and just seemed like a familiar habit.

  “Because Vander is the kindest and most loyal--” Ilandere began.

  “Stop, please stop, you are hurting my ears,” her handmaiden interrupted. “It was a rhetorical question, Princess.”

  “Do you miss your herd, Elodette?” I asked.

  Ilandere had spoken to me many times of the harsh and austere lifestyle that their nomadic centaur herd led. They were a tough, fierce people and had little sympathy for those who could not keep up. I knew that living among them and trying to fit in with them and meet their expectations had caused the delicate princess great suffering and distress, but her handmaiden, on the other hand, was the epitome of the ideal centaur warrior. And she hadn’t exactly joined my merry little band of misfits by choice, like the others had, one way or the other. She had tracked us down only to “rescue” Ilandere from my clutches, and when she realized that she couldn’t convince Ilandere to return to their herd with her, the mighty huntress had stayed reluctantly in order to continue to serve and defend the princess to whom she was sworn by oath.

  So I was shocked when instead of delivering an immediate emphatic answer, the brunette centaur hesitated. After a pause that at first made me think she wasn’t going to deign to respond to my question at all, Elodette said stiffly, “Well, obviously, centaurs are the noblest and most rational of all races. And it’s quite undignified for me to be tramping around like this with a part-wolf mongrel and a gnome while under the leadership of a human. Not that you’re half bad for a human, but still. However. I have to admit that sometimes you’ve showed me new ways to approach problems that nothing in my herd’s centuries of tradition and history would have prepared me for. Centaur ways are, on the whole, far superior, but… maybe we can be a little too narrow-minded and set in our habits sometimes, and maybe being exposed to your strange ideas will ultimately expand my capabilities and adaptability. So I guess I don’t mind hanging around for a little longer until the Princess finally tires of you, human.”

  It was, all in all, one of the sweetest things the surly and sarcastic centaur had ever said to me. I kind of wanted to give her a hug after that, but that probably would have been pushing my luck too far, so I settled for grinning and agreeing, “I knew you’d warm up to me eventually, Elodette. It was just a matter of time.”

  “Pfft,” she groaned and rolled her eyes. “I’m not warming up to y
ou, human, just stating that I don’t hate you. Don’t let my words infer that we have any sort of relationship.”

  “Sure thing.” I grinned at her, and the warrior-centaur studied my face for a few moments before turning away.

  It did seem like her eyes rested on my lips for a bit though.

  Soon after that, we came to another rock field, about forty feet across. As usual, I scouted out a path across first. I mentally noted a few rocks that proved unstable beneath my footsteps to make sure my companions avoided them and stopped to shift the angle of a large slab of stone from sideways to flat so that the horses and centaurs would have somewhere to step at that point. Then, I stayed on solid ground on the other side of the rock field and waited for my companions to join me.

  Willobee happened to be riding second in line at that point, in front of another of my selves on the saddle of Slayer. Slayer was a bit grumpy about the double load, since the gnome, despite being only three feet tall, only moderately chubby, and without any visible muscle mass, somehow managed to weigh just as much as an average-sized human male, and was wearing his too-long chainmail shirt on top of that. But the brown destrier’s mood seemed to improve a bit when I dismounted in order to lead him and Willobee along the path that my first self had picked out.

  We were about halfway across when the herd of curly-horned sheep appeared about twenty feet above us and started crossing the same rock field in the opposite direction. At first I thought it was cool that these rugged wild animals with their headbutting, death-defying ways seemed so comfortable with our presence and trusting of our intentions that they were willing to come that close to us without much more than a few glances of curiosity.

  Then, a particularly large ram stepped on an unstable rock.

  I heard a scrape and then a clatter. From the first side of the rock field where they awaited my guidance, Florenia and Ilandere both screamed in horror, while Lizzy yelled, “Watch it, Vander!”

  The huge rock came tumbling down straight toward me, Willobee, and Slayer. I tried to pull Slayer forward out of the way. He neighed in panic and refused to move.

  The rock passed us by so close that it ruffled Slayer’s brown tail. He neighed again and showed all his teeth as his eyes rolled in terror.

  “Yeah, I know that was a close call, but it’s gonna be okay, big boy, I promise,” I said as I patted his neck.

  Then, the mountainside groaned, as if it had been bruised by the impact of the falling rock. I heard an ominous grinding and felt a vibration through the rocks that I was standing on.

  Then the avalanche started.

  Chapter Seven

  As the rocks started sliding and tumbling downhill all around us, my first instinct was to protect Willobee, but Slayer had already sensed the avalanche a second before it became audible to us, and before I had a chance to react, the destrier reared up and bucked the gnome off his back, which turned Willobee into just one more shiny, round, flying boulder mixed in with all the rest. Then, in the most astonishing display of athleticism I had ever witnessed from a horse, Slayer bounded from moving rock to moving rock as if he were weightless instead of over a thousand pounds, and left me and Willobee behind. I dodged the largest rocks and used my arms to shield my head from the smaller ones as I looked around frantically for any glimpse of my little friend, but he had already been buried from sight.

  Within a minute, it was all over, and the mountainside was still again, and all the rocks sat inert in their new positions just as if they had always been there. The only differences were that Slayer was now standing on the far side of the rock snorting angrily, dripping with sweat, and emitting waves of adrenaline while my self that was with him attempted to soothe him, and Willobee had completely vanished from sight, as if he had never existed.

  “Willobee!” I screamed at the top of my lungs as I searched the rock field for the sight of blue velvet, for the glint of silver chainmail, for a tuft of lavender hair, for any sign of hope that my actions hadn’t doomed my faithful little friend to be pulverized to death under tons of rock where his body would never even be found.

  Ilandere, off to the side of the rock field, clasped her hands over her mouth and started to sob.

  Lizzy, on the other hand, screamed, “That’s not funny, you stupid little gnome! Get your fat little ass out here right now!”

  My self who remained with them on that side started picking my way carefully across the field while my self who had already crossed left the disgruntled Slayer to his own devices and joined in the search as well. I continued calling for Willobee with all three voices, but I left pauses so that I would be able to hear any response that he made, no matter how faint.

  Lizzy and Florenia both stepped out onto the field to assist me in the search.

  When I saw them move to do that, I said, “No! Stay where you are. The rocks might still be unstable. I can’t risk--”

  But Lizzy snorted and ignored me completely. After a moment’s hesitation, Florenia did the same. The centaurs, at least, had the sense to stay where they were. The other women’s weight might not disturb the mountain further, but the centaurs’ would pose a much greater risk. However, they did pace back and forth along the edge where it was safe for them to step, and combed the field with their eyes just as intently as the rest of us were doing. Elodette did, anyway; Ilandere’s eyes were so tear-filled that I doubted she could see anything out of them.

  “No. No. No,” I muttered to myself. I punched the nearest rock so hard that it shifted a couple inches, and what felt like the majority of the bones in that hand shattered. The explosion of pain was a welcome distraction from the wave of despair and remorse that was swelling up in my chest.

  Florenia clutched my wrist above my mangled and blood-soaked hand and whispered, “It is not your fault, Qaar’endoth, there are uncontrollable forces up here…”

  “If he is gone, it is my fault,” I snapped.

  “Please reassimilate,” she said. “Your hand, you need a new one.”

  That was when Elodette called out to me. “Vander! Look.”

  My three selves, as well as the two non-equine women, converged on the spot that she was pointing at. There was a pile of rocks there, just like in the surrounding four hundred or so square feet of mountainside. But unlike anywhere else on that mountainside, there was a foot-long white ostrich plume protruding from a crevice between those particular rocks.

  “Willobee!” I yelled as my heart pounded like crazy in my ribcage. “Can you hear me? Are you under there?”

  At first there was no response. Then after a few long moments, a small voice squeaked, “… I think I angered the mountain spirit.”

  I laughed with joy and relief. Florenia was smiling, and Lizzy was grinning from ear to ear too. “You all right, Willobee?” I asked him. “Don’t worry, we’re going to get you out now.”

  “Tell Slayer that he and I are no longer friends,” Willobee replied. “And that his treacherous revolt has failed to make an end of Willobee of Clan Benniwumporgan.”

  I reassimilated my self with the wounded hand and sent a third self out again so that I would have six fully functioning hands. Between my three selves and Lizzy, we were able to clear away most of the rocks above the spot where the gnome’s indignant voice was coming from. We focused on the smaller rocks first and made sure we took care of all the ones higher up that were likely to roll down when we removed the others supporting them, which created a sort of gently sloped depression in the mountainside above the hidden pit in which the poor little gnome was trapped.

  Eventually, there was only one rock that still prevented him from being freed, the largest, which we had saved for last. I calculated the safest and easiest direction to roll it in. Then Lizzy and my three selves all got into position, established our hands on its surface, and prepared to push.

  “Three… two… one!” I shouted, and we all strained at the same time. At the same instant as the rock grated forward by an inch, the rocks above shifted and groaned.
A little stone the size of my fist bounced menacingly over the boulder that we were focused on trying to move, over the spot where Willobee was trapped, and continued on its way down the mountain. “Stop!” I said.

  “What’s going on up there?” Willobee asked. It was frustrating to hear his voice from only a few feet away, and be able to see his ostrich plume, and yet be unable to reach him. “Guys, the mountain spirit sounds kinda angry again.”

  “All I need him to do is release you,” I replied, “and then I’ll stop fucking around with this arrangement of rocks that he’s got set up here. Since he seems so particular about it.”

  Lizzy, Florenia, and I all set to work clearing away more rocks from above that last critical boulder. Then when I thought the situation seemed improved, we made another attempt at the giant stone. That time, we barely moved it half an inch before higher rocks started slamming down on top of it. Three the size of my skull bounced down in a similar trajectory to the one taken by the fist-sized one on the first attempt. That seemed to me like a warning shot from the mountain spirit. The women and I froze and looked at each other in silent dismay.

  Willobee, of course, couldn’t see exactly what we were doing. But he seemed to have some sense from the rock-shifting sounds and the ominous pauses in between that things weren’t exactly going smoothly.

  “Master,” he began, “I will understand if it becomes necessary to leave me behind, but if you do, I beg of you that you will grant me my last request first, which is to say farewell to my two noble steeds, Snowstorm and Feather. And also, a cask of honey mead with a tube leading into this crevice.”

  “Snowstorm and Feather?” Lizzy snorted. “Did your brains get shaken up by a teensy little rockslide like that, gnome? You mean Luna and Chrysanthemum?”

  “You mean Damask and Diamond?” Florenia asked. Willobee had a confusing habit of changing the names of his two white ponies, the ones we had left safely in the care of Lord Kiernan’s household, at whim. The ponies themselves seemed accustomed to this habit of his and never failed to answer to any one of the new names he invented.