by Kami Bryant
“Really? All by yourself?” and with that Mormorant started chuckling which turned into violent laughter which caused him to hold his sides and then his stomach. The guards joined in with hysterical belly laughs. “Stop. Stop,” laughed Mormorant. “I can’t.”
Beau shook his head and said, “There are other people in this world and the next that hate you as much as I do.”
“Sure. Sure. Ha! Ha! Ha!!!” continued Mormorant. “Wait. Wait. I got it,” he shouted with delight. “I will nail your dick to a tree stump, paint you in honey and let ants devour you.”
“Wow,” said one of Beau’s guards.
“Hmmm. What else? Stick you in a brass bull, set a fire underneath it and let you slowly cook? That one is very effective,” said Mormorant scratching his chin. Judas Cradle? Iron Maiden? No, something slower. Tar and feathering? No, no, no. What else? What else? Thumbscrews? The rack? No, no, no something else.”
“I like the roasting alive,” suggested one of the guards.
“That’s just because you want to eat him,” said the other guard.
“No, no, no,” said Mormorant. “Hot pinchers, rippers, damn, I just can’t think of anything good enough. Let’s see….hmmmm,” said Mormorant. “Types of tortures: sharp, blunt, hot and cold. Let me think.”
“Slowly sawed in half?” suggested one of Beau’s guards.
“I just can’t decide. Hmmm. A slow acting acid to melt your skin slowly and excruciatingly? That might be fun.”
“I am not going to tell you where she is. Do whatever you want to me. I will not give her to you.”
“Okay,” said Mormorant. “I am sure that I can think of some more ideas on the way there. Throw him in.” And with that the two guards shoved Beau into the cage on the skiff with the common folk that they had rounded up earlier.
Beau sighed as he took a seat in the cage as the terrified people screamed and tried tearing at the thick wooden cage bars with their fingernails. An older man, sat beside Beau on the floor of the skiff.
“It will be okay, son,” said the man.
“I will plan an escape soon. I just lost a friend and….it was my fault. If I could have stopped her sooner. I told her not to rush in.”
“Your friend died trying to help us?” said an older woman, her hair messily coming out of her tight up do. “And you are mad because you told her to do nothing and let us die?”
“I am sorry,” said Beau. “We were outnumbered,” he sighed. “I will get you out of this. We can escape.”
“What is your plan?” asked the older man.
“I am thinking,” replied Beau.
FIVE YEARS AGO, IN TRAETAN
Beau lay on a luxurious feather bed, his chest coated in his blood. Layla looked down upon him, her fangs red and asked, “Why won’t you just stay here? With me?”
“No,” Beau responded groggily. His tongue wasn’t obeying him, he tried again, “No.” Yeah, that sounded clearer, he thought.
“But why?”
“The girl I love is in Mirovia,” slurred Beau. “I have to save her.”
“Surely she’s forgotten all about you by now.”
“No. I love her, and she loves me,” said Beau. He tried to sit up and saw stars. He relaxed and tried to focus on Layla and stop seeing tracers on everything. “I am going to throw up,” he said.
“Hmmmm?” purred Layla.
“Give me a moment,” tried Beau but it sounded more like ‘gifmeammmmmmmmmtent.’ He tried again to raise his head and push away Layla. “I need a break, Layla.”
“Okay,” pouted Layla. “Juice?” she asked. “Cookies?”
“How can I stop Mormorant? He’s a demon.” asked Beau as he tried to clear his head of the fog hovering over his vision. “I am going to kill him,” he declared his voice a bit stronger.
“By yourself? But you are just human, my dear. A tasty human, but just a human,” said Layla.
“Who is powerful enough to stop a demon?” Beau asked.
“I can,” declared Layla calmly licking Beau’s blood off his chest with her long, soft tongue.
“You can?” asked Beau trying to push her off. “You could kill him?”
“I could, but why would I bother? What’s in it for me?”
“What do you want?” asked Beau.
“More tasty humans?” asked Layla.
“But you can’t kill them, and they have to be willing. Just drain a little bit each day,” offered Beau.
“Hmmm,” shrugged Layla. “Maybe. I don’t know. He hasn’t done anything to upset me. I don’t usually kill people unless I am really angry or very, very hungry.”
Beau sighed and rested his head back on the feather pillow. “What about ogres?” he asked Layla dreamily as she continued to lick his chest. “Can you kill them?”
“Anyone can kill an ogre, darling,” said Layla. “Even your little fairy could kill an ogre. Even you,” she laughed.
“How?”
“Oh, they are notoriously stupid. Tell them a riddle and they will sit and try to solve it for days, weeks even, until they starve to death, silly things. Or you could trick them to kill themselves or each other. Ogres taste gross, but I once convinced an entire kingdom of them to kill each other for my amusement. That was fun,” she added.
“So, their weakness is that they are stupid?” asked Beau curiously.
“Hot headed, stupid and strong. I told an ogre once that there was a spider crawling in his hair and he picked up this huge boulder. A boulder larger than your little fairy and he hit himself in the head with it,” laughed Layla. “Over and over and over,” she chuckled. “So stupid. So, amusing. Have you had a long enough break yet, my love?”
“Stop,” said Beau. “Get off me.”
“Beau, my love,” pouted Layla
. “I love you so much. Stay with me forever. You would be so happy here.”
“You don’t love me,” replied Beau. “Liar.”
“But I am so good at pretending,” she laughed.
PRESENT DAY IN MIROVIA
“Wait,” said Beau. “I got it!” He then stood up in the cage on the wobbling deck of the skiff. Not really a smooth ride when piloted by an ogre, he thought. “Hey, you!” called out Beau to the nearby guard. “Hey, ugly!!” he shouted.
The guard growled and turned to Beau and the other captives. “What you want?” he asked.
“Hey, can you drop the glamour, so I can see your true self?” asked Beau.
The guard seemed to be thinking about it and then finally said, “No. Lord said always keep glamour on.”
“Well okay, sure. Probably wouldn’t matter much. You all look the same to me anyway. Like a big gob of Bonelich snot!”
“What you SAY!!!” growled the guard.
“Get away from him!” ordered the guard piloting the skiff. “Do your job!”
“So, he’s the smart one, huh?” asked Beau of the first guard. “He can talk in complete sentences.”
“Shut up,” grumbled the large man in the black bowler hat. “Shut up,” he repeated quieter.
“Hey,” said Beau leaning out between the bars to peer closely at the guard. “Were you the one that Mormorant was chewing out about letting my friends escape, stealing hover scooters, a skiff with a cage full of captives and how many plasma protorifles? Hmmm?”
“SHUT UP!!” said the guard pushing against the wooden bar of the cage trying to grab Beau who danced away out of his reach.
“Yeah! I think you are. He doesn’t really respect you much, does he? Kind of treats you like horse shit, huh? Or Mistbug shit?”
“SHUT UP!!!” howled the guard ramming the cage with his shoulder, as he tried to reach Beau, causing the wooden cage to tip precariously on the skiff.
“STOP IT!!!” shouted the guard trying to pilot the skiff. The more he yelled at the other guard and the more he got distracted, the more the skiff began to tip and wobble causing the cage to wobble and slip.
“Move back,” whispered Beau to the other c
aptives. All the common people moved to the far side of the cage, away from Beau and the angry guard. Beau reached through the bars, grabbed the sliver of obsidian off the guard’s neck. The guard howled and doubled in size. He was seven feet tall and almost the same across. His green skin bubbled with his anger, his biceps the size of Beau’s head bulged with veins. His tusks shot out of his mouth and slobber dripped down his face. All the captives behind him started screaming.
“STOP IT!!!” shouted the other guard and the skiff tipped and wobbled again as the pilot started losing control of the skiff.
“OH MY GOD!!!” howled Beau in hysterical laughter. “Your tusks are so small. Micro tusks!!!! Ha, ha, ha, HA! Oh, my god. My human teeth are bigger than your tusks!”
“AAAAGHHHHH!” screamed the ogre and he pushed the cage off the skiff. The other guard ran over, forgetting that he was supposed to be piloting the skiff which began spinning out of control and then crashed into a tree. The cage full of captives fell to the ground, the wooden bars breaking. “Ow, ow, ow,” said Beau still laughing. The common people were in a big heap moaning with their pain. “Come on. Let’s get out of here, people!” he shouted and began to push people toward the trees. “Go! Go! Go!” he screamed picking up people off of the ground and pushing others. “Come ON PEOPLE!! They will be back, and they are monsters who are going to EAT YOU!!” which got people moving and finally they stood up and ran screaming into the trees. “Fantastic,” said Beau. “That was fun.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After Juniper and Em hijacked the hover skiff and released all the prisoners they flew back to camp.
“We had a skiff when we kidnapped you from the castle, but we cut it up for parts,” said Juniper idly.
“What?” asked Em. “Where’s Beau?” She saw Ned holding Miss Katherine as she sobbed on his shoulder and Emmeline sobbing into her hands. “What has happened?” she called out, as Juniper brought the skiff in for a light landing near the group.
“Beau was captured, and Miranda was killed,” answered Ned quietly. “We think we should run. We don’t think this camp location is safe anymore.”
“Beau was captured?” asked Em. “We have to go back for him!”
Juniper nodded her head with agreement as she jumped off the skiff to land near Em’s position.
“What are we supposed to do?” sobbed Emmeline. “Without Beau and Miranda? Where are we supposed to go?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sakes,” grouched Emberlyn. “What a sorry group of rebels you are. You are just completely lost without your leaders? Don’t you know how to fend for yourselves? Pathetic, all of you,” and with that Emberlyn spun on her heel and announced, “I am going to change these clothes and then we can go save Beau. I will bring your leader back to you and then he can deal with you.” Emberlyn was surprising herself with the amount of fun she was having. She wasn’t exactly sure why she was so concerned about Beau’s welfare, but for some reason she was.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Beau stood his ground as he saw the huge battle hovership baring down on him. He held his plasma protoblaster and hoped he would be able to kill some of the bastards before he died. I’m sorry Em, he thought to himself. He wasn’t afraid to die but his one regret would be that he hadn’t had enough time to save Em. Beau hoped somehow that Juniper would find a way to save her. Juniper had said that the only way to save Em was to teach her to feel and love again, but maybe that wasn’t true, maybe Juniper would find something. Or maybe, if necessary Juniper would be gentle before killing Em. Beau sighed. I am sorry that I couldn’t show you how much I love you, Em.
The battleship floated closer and Beau could see her five plasma protocannons pointing at him. The sperm whale shaped brass covered ship torpedoed toward him. The brass shone in the sunshine. It would take one blast from one protocannon to tear Beau in half, having all five cannons that were longer than Beau himself, aimed at him, seemed like quite a bit of overkill. Beau shook his head, wondering why the fuck he was holding his plasma protoblaster in his hand. There was no way he was going to so much as scratch the brass hull. Beau closed his eyes as the cannons took their final aim. Beau could hear the shrill whistle as the guns were laid and the Tesla coils were primed. Well fuck, thought Beau.
“Beau!” shouted a voice. Beau opened his eyes and saw the blast of a plasma protorifle lacerating the starboard side of the battleship. “Beau,” screamed the voice again. Beau turned behind him and saw a brass hovership rushing toward him, Em standing beside Juniper at the bow holding a protorifle. “Come on!” she screamed.
It was the most beautiful sight that Beau had ever seen. Em had changed out of her earlier violet outfit and now wore black leather pants, a cream-colored corset, knee high black leather boots and brass goggles perched on her loose dark brown curls. Beau could hear the Tesla coil prime the protorifle and Em blasted the warship again. The cannons of the battleship were starting to turn away from Beau and taking aim at Juniper and Em standing on the hover skiff. Shit, thought Beau and he ran toward the women as the skiff raced toward him. The skiff came closer and lowered till it was hovering two feet off the ground and with a running jump, Beau launched himself to the deck. He caught the railing of the stairs and Beau heaved himself the rest of the way up. Em gave a whoop, primed her rifle and blasted the quickly gaining warship. The skiff with a lurch, turned away from the warship and Beau heard the angry screech of the propellers, the stovepipes shooting out more black puffs of smoke.
“Um guys?” asked Beau. “The skiff can’t take much more of this stress and those cannons are going to blast us out of the sky!”
“We can outrun them,” screamed Em. “Juniper, take us up higher, we can lose them in the clouds.”
“What the hell are you doing, Em?”
“The skiff is smaller and faster; we can lose them!”
“The skiff can’t go up as high in the aether as that warship can. You are going to get us killed.”
“One blast of those protocannons will tear us apart! We have to lose them; it is our only chance!”
Beau turned away from the two women and saw two silver shapes launch from the approaching warship. “We have company!” he shouted as the hover speeders flanked the skiff.
Em aimed her protorifle at the soldier on the port side of the skiff. The soldier dodged the blast. The cocoa skinned man wore a starched white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black trousers, black bowler hat and black vest. He pulled his plasma protoblaster out and aimed at Em. Beau pulled her out of the way and the blast shot harmlessly over her shoulder.
“I am your queen!” shouted Em. “You will not dare to shoot at me!”
The second soldier on the starboard side was now blasting his weapon, a long gold protorifle much like the one Em was aiming at the soldier on the other side of the skiff. This soldier wore a shiny breastplate, loose grey trousers tucked into his brown boots. He wore a long brown duster that flew out like wings from his shoulders as he maneuvered the hover speeder. Not soldiers at all, thought Beau. Mercenaries. The mercenary with the long brown duster had slicked black hair, the sides of his head shaved, a black soul patch and close groomed beard that gave the man a dastardly look. Or pirate mercenaries, thought Beau.
“Juniper!” screamed Beau. “Do something!!”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Juniper calmly.
“Anything!” replied Beau.
“Okay, HOLD ON TO SOMETHING!” she screeched, her eyes a solid black.
“Aw shit,” said Beau. “EM!!” he screamed, wrapped a thick rope he grabbed from the rigging, around his waist and looped the rope around her to tie her to his body.
“What the fuck!!!” screamed Em. And then she started to scream as the skiff stopped hovering and started to fall out of the sky.
Beau saw the astonished looks of the pirates’ faces and then he couldn’t see anything as the skiff’s fall gained speed. His ears full of the whooshing air and Em’s screams of terror. Then the skiff started to hover and
flipped over backwards, completely changed directions and sped off toward the warship and away from the hoverspeeders.
“JUNIPER?!!!” screamed Beau. “Are we ramming the very large warship with the very large protocannons pointing at us?!!”
“HANG ON!!” answered the eerie voice of Juniper with an edge of hysterical laughter.
“OHHHH MYYYY GOOODDDDD!!!” howled the terrified Em.
The skiff turned on its tail and started rising over the warship. The cannons started to turn but not in time and missed the skiff piloted by the crazy mage. Beau saw one of the hover speeders trying to break in time, but couldn’t and crashed into the warship with a huge explosion. Beau saw that the prow of the warship had burst into flame. Then there was a blast shot from behind them and Beau saw that the hoverspeeder piloted by the pirate in the brown duster was gaining on them. Then Beau and Em slid across the floor of the skiff as Juniper guided the skiff into a loop da loop, and then she once again did the trick of letting the skiff fall out of the sky. The hover speeder didn’t have enough turning radius to turn in time, and Beau saw a blast from the warship’s protocannons grazing the tail of the hoverspeeder which knocked it out of control.
“AW SHIT!! I AM GOING TO PUKE!!!!” screamed Emberlyn.
“JUNIPER!! GET US OUT OF HERE!!!”
The skiff’s propellers screeched in protest as Juniper turned the conveyance again and then they shot away in the other direction. Beau turned behind him and saw that the warship was having a lot of trouble trying to turn to continue their pursuit and the fire on the deck seemed to be spreading.
“THAT WAS AMAZING, JUNIPER!!! YOU ARE SO CRAZY!!!”
“OH MY GOD!” said Emberlyn and as the skiff started slowing down she pushed her head over the deck and Beau listened to the sounds of her violently getting sick as he gently stroked her back.
