by Jez Cajiao
The scent of coconut sun lotion filled the air, and her skin practically glowed with health, and maybe just a touch of sunburn.
She pulled these images from my past each time, adjusting them to herself, and every single time, I was captivated all over again. She stepped forward, her beautiful green eyes staring up at me as she wrapped her arms around my neck, and she stood on tiptoes to kiss me.
It was a long kiss, gentle, but deep, and I wrapped my arms around her too, feeling her wings flutter as my hands brushed them.
She broke the kiss after a moment, leaning back to look at me as we held each other.
“I don’t like you fighting when I’m not by your side,” she whispered, and I smiled appreciatively, leaning forward to kiss her back.
“I’m all right, Oracle…” I whispered. “I’m a big boy, you know.”
“So you keep saying…” She grinned up at me naughtily. “But you never seem to want to prove it?”
“Oh, you little minx!” I laughed and she released me, stepping back, and making a point of looking down at my pants.
“I mean, if that was true, surely it’d be easily proven…?” she said as she winked at me.
“Hey, my nickname used to be ‘Tripod’, and we both know it’s not because I’m really fucking stable, put it that way.”
I boasted to her, winking before shaking my head. “Honestly, Oracle, I really want to, damn, do I want to, but…”
“But now’s not the time, and you need to figure things out. I know, Jax, I just like teasing you, and after feeling you get hurt when I didn’t know what was happening…”
“You were scared, and you wanted me to pay you some attention?” I gently finished her sentence for her.
“When you put it like that, it sounds so childish,” she complained, releasing my neck, and stepping back to fold her arms across her impressive chest.
“It’s not; it’s perfectly normal,” I reassured her, resting my palms on her shoulders, and looking into her eyes. “Look, we’ll talk about this later, okay? When we’re back at the Tower, and nobody needs rescuing.”
“Okay, Jax. I know… it’s just… well…”
“I know,” I said, smiling at her. She smiled back, and I released her. I took a deep breath as she shrank down to her usual size, flying over to hover before my eyes.
“Let’s get things sorted out, and then we can have that chat, okay?” she said, and I nodded, and she shifted again. He clothes vanished and reformed, becoming her ‘fighting’ outfit of yoga pants and sports bra, with two lines of camouflage paint on either cheek.
“Just so you know what you might have to play with later; I’m yours, and you’re mine, Jax… but only if you’re good…” she whispered, throwing me a saucy wink and disappearing out of the porthole. I shook my head and… adjusted… myself before walking out onto the ship’s deck.
I knew damn well she didn’t have to be naked to change her outfit, she just liked to friggin tease me. And worst of all, it damn well worked!
My entire brain just shut the fuck down whenever she did it, like my cock was wired to the ‘reset’ button. Whenever it sprang to life, my brain froze.
I took a deep breath and looked around, letting the door swing shut behind me. I noted the uncertainty in the crew’s faces as they watched the tree line and Flux. He stood halfway down the deck, talking to Oren, and as I walked over, I caught the tail end of their conversation.
“…they be criminals, an’ deserve no mercy.” I waited patiently for him to finish, and when he saw me, he jerked his chin toward the three men that Lydia was talking to. She was on the ground already, her squad gathering as she threw one of the men a backpack. It wasn’t particularly large, but it had a few days’ worth of rations for each of them, and they were in a forest, after all. There had to be a fuck ton of food around if they looked.
Next, she passed out three swords, one to each of them, and gestured over their shoulders toward the far side of the valley. The men began speaking, low at first, but then becoming more agitated, until a sound made them look to their right, where Bob slowly walked out from behind Decin’s ship.
There was a long moment of stillness, and Lydia pointed again at the forest behind them, then at Bob, clearly giving them the chance to choose one or the other. Unsurprisingly, after seeing their most vocal member have his head half crushed by Bob earlier, they shouldered the pack, snatched their weapons, and started off into the forest, stopping when they were almost out of sight to shout some abuse back.
I was a bit surprised in truth when they did that; not that they would want to get the last word in—bullies always did—but that this would be true in a world with magic, as well. Oracle got the last word in, though, in reality, and that word was ‘Fulgur’.
The bolt of lightning was a weak one, she’d obviously not channeled any more than the standard into it. The sight of it hurtling across the distance between the two groups and causing a small sapling to explode which sent all three scrambling frantically into the distance and out of sight, was worth it.
It took a few minutes more to get things under control on our side, mostly because the three had been despised, and everyone was laughing their asses off.
I grinned at Oracle, and she shrugged before smiling back at me, then flying off the side of the ship to take her usual perch on Bob’s head. I walked to the side of the ship, waiting as Flux climbed down and rejoined his people, and I looked down at my small strike force. There were six guards from the Tower, three Mer, and a giant skeleton tank with a wisp riding his head. I couldn’t help but smile at them, and of course… do a superhero landing.
I jumped from the side of the ship, landing with one hand thrown out behind myself, the other flat on the ground. One knee was planted firmly, and I had thrown the other leg out to the side. I gritted my teeth as I straightened up, enjoying the looks of surprise from the others, and I forced myself to walk forward through the group, taking up my place at the front as we started into the forest to follow the tracks that disappeared into the sun-dappled wilderness.
Chapter Nine
I tried to hide the pain; there’d been a damn rock under my knee when I’d landed, and it was killing me, but after a second, I felt a gentle pulse of power spreading through me, and I sent Oracle a silent ‘thank you’ through our bond, receiving an impression of gentle laughter in return.
So, I’d been caught by her; that was fine…I could live with that.
“Lord, Cheena here is a skilled scout; might we…” Flux asked me, stepping up to walk alongside me and gesturing ahead. The trail was easy to follow for now; easily dozens of beings had stomped, dragged, and occasionally shit their way through the forest. The literal piles of crap that littered the trail on occasion were enough to make me want all goblins to die a painful death alone.
I nodded to Flux, watching him dispatch Cheena to rush ahead, just as I heard a foul squishing noise behind me and heard Cam start cursing. He’d just learned a valuable lesson about watching where he stepped. The smell was awful, but the occasional tracks that stood out were worse.
There was a multitude of small goblin tracks, and the occasional huge cave troll footprints, but the worst were the clear drag marks. I was very new to tracking, but even I could tell that Decin’s crew were being made to carry a heavy load. I hoped they were carrying loot from the ship, but I was all too afraid they were carrying their dead instead.
“Spread out and keep your eyes open!” I called to the group as we moved on, following a slight incline. As we jogged along, I took the time to work on the tracks. I tried to single out an individual set of tracks, then followed that one for as long as I could, picking up the trail again and again as quickly as I lost it, and pausing periodically for people to catch their breath. After a few minutes, I got a skill level notification, then another within forty minutes after that.
Congratulations! You have reached Level 3 in the Skill ‘Tracking’! No longer will you have to hope that your date w
ill be in touch; now you can follow her home! Once this skill reaches level 10, you may choose its first evolution.
After an hour or so, Cheena seemed to appear from the forest a dozen feet ahead of us. One second, she was nowhere in sight; the next she casually leaned against a tree. I slammed to a halt, carving a small furrow in the covering of forest mulch, and leveled my naginata at her before I realized who it was.
“Impressive, Lord…” she said, her voice low and carrying an atonal thrum that I had to guess was amusement.
“Cheena… report please…” Flux huffed, coming to a stop alongside me. I turned to look at him quickly, confused as to why he seemed to be flagging so badly; he seemed pretty fit and healthy? I looked back to find the massive youngling also struggling along, far in the rear. His weapons were stowed, but he had to keep grabbing trees to pull himself along. I was distracted by Cheena’s voice as she spoke up.
“The camp is a mile or so further up the hill. Two scouts are outside, neither of which are worth a damn. The camp looks to be a large collapsed ruin, as you suspected; the entrance is simply a hole that leads down, with maybe half a dozen goblins in and around the entrance. I can’t get close enough to sense any deeper.”
“Sense?” I asked Flux, and he gestured to his tendrils.
“What you called sonar earlier, Lord Jax, I…”
“Seriously, Flux, we’re about to charge a goblin-held ruin and fight side by side. I think we can drop the ‘Lord’ for now, okay?” I interrupted, and he nodded gratefully.
“Very well, thank you, Jax. I suggest we pick off the scouts first, then use your archers to kill as many of the remaining group as quietly as possible. We have no way of knowing how many are inside, after all.”
“Cheena, can we get close enough to drop down behind the goblins? To stop them from running into the camp hole and warning the others, I mean?” I asked her and she shrugged.
“I probably can, as could Flux, but you and your people…forgiveness, Lord but you are poor at woodcraft; even your hunters.”
“I know,” I said, looking back up the trail in the direction of the camp.
“My people are freed slaves and villagers. We can fight, but don’t expect a huge amount of skill or experience yet. All we have in abundance is heart.”
“We have more than that, Lord,” came a voice from my left, and I turned to face Lydia.
“I don’t mean to question your abilities, Lydia. I’m very proud of you and the entire squad, I simply mean…”
“Yeh mean that we’re new to fightin’, and we are, Lord, but we’re fightin’ for each other, and we fight for you. We’ll not fail yer, just trust in us,” she said, fixing me with a glare.
“I do trust in you, Lydia; I trust in you all. Never doubt that, and please, I don’t care what Barrett said, call me Jax. We’re all in this together. When I give an order in front of others, or we’re being formal, you can call me ‘Lord’; otherwise, just call me Jax, okay?”
I turned to face the rest of the group squarely, and I spoke quietly, but my voice was pitched to carry to all of them. “We’re going to go and rescue the prisoners up there…might be that they don’t want to join us, might be they do. Either way, I’ll not leave them in the hands of goblins. I’m proud of you all, both for the fights we’ve had, and the trip so far. I know you’re scared; fuck, I’m scared, but I’m going up there. I’m going to kill those goblins, each and every one of them, because from what I know of them, they’re evil little shits. They’ve captured Flux’s younglings, and that alone would be enough for me. Some things, you don’t let happen, and they’re exactly the kinds of things goblins do to prisoners."
"This is your last chance to walk away; if you do, I’ll understand, but if you come with me, if you’re going to stand by my side up there, then I need to know…” I paused for a long second, making direct eye contact with a few, “…because there might only be a few dozen to a hundred goblins up there, and I saw you buggers fight in the Tower. If you’re all going to come up there and fight, I need to know, as I’ll need to kill some quick to be able to keep up with you all!”
There were a few scattered snorts and grins, but nobody walked away, and I heard Lydia mutter just loud enough to be heard. “…really is crap at speeches….” I turned to Flux and his two scouts, noting how exhausted they all appeared.
“Are you able to do this? Seriously, Flux, you all look terrible.” And they did; they were leaning over, clearly out of breath still and their skin looked… dry. “Is this because of the water? Do you need it?” I asked and Lydia pulled out a waterskin, throwing it to Cheena, who immediately offered it to Flux. Flux emptied a little over his head, gills at the sides of his tendrils greedily pulling it in, before he passed it back, allowing Cheena and the unnamed youngling to do the same.
“We are a species that cannot live long from the water, Jax; our kind can adjust, becoming more used to the arid atmosphere you all prefer, but it takes time, and we cannot survive without water for long.” Flux said, a low whistle accompanying his words, and I guessed that it was his equivalent of a concerned sigh. “We will go on, though; we must.”
“Here, will this help?” I asked, casting ‘Summon Water’ to bring a gentle fountain of clean, cool water up from beneath the forest mulch. There was a brief pause, before Cheena stepped forward and leaned into the water, letting it coat her head and pour over her body for a handful of seconds. When she stepped back, shaking herself, I felt a low vibration in the air. Immediately, Flux gestured the youngling forward and rested a grateful hand on my shoulder.
“Thank you, Jax. This will indeed make things much easier for us. I had not considered that you might know magic that could be useful to us in this way.” While he was speaking, I felt Oracle cast a second spell, and a new fountain sprang to life next to Flux, who nodded his thanks and leaned into it. When he was refreshed, the other two started taking turns in the fountain as my own squad took advantage of the spell to wash hands and faces, took drinks, and generally relaxed a little.
The spells only lasted ten seconds usually but channeling a little extra mana into them kept them around long enough for everyone to use. The mana cost was less than forty in total, and I’d recover that in just over fifteen minutes. I gave everyone a minute to get themselves together.
“Okay, Flux, if you and Cheena can lead the way, you’re both a lot better at stealth than we are. Watch out for any scouts. When we get closer, we’ll take a look and come up with a plan.” I said getting a round of nods and general acknowledgement.
The last mile of the hike took about thirty minutes.
The forest was overgrown heavily enough that we could only see, at most, a few dozen yards at a time, and the trail the goblins had made seemed to follow the path of least resistance, always dragging left and right, heading in the general same direction, but we probably walked twice as far due to the zig-zag nature of the trail.
“Hsst!” Cheena let out a hiss of warning and dropped down low, seeming to melt into the bushes and vanish without a trace. I paused for a second, then hurried to hide behind a fallen tree to one side of the trail. Looking around, I could see the others were as poorly hidden as I was, all except the three Mer. I concentrated, searching where I’d last seen the youngling, and picked him out after an extensive search, and I’d only found him because he made an awkward wave at me, having caught me looking. He was crouched by the side of the trail, daggers and short spears drawn. I watched him an amazement as he slowly seemed to blend into the long grass, and I cursed myself, remembering my own chameleon spell. I cast it quickly, and a second later, saw my mana drop again as Oracle cast it on Bob.
I’d not even considered him; he was a bone-white skeleton construct over eight feet tall, and at least four across. The bugger was huge, and even with the spell, he was crap at hiding. I facepalmed as I saw him; he stuck out on either side of the tree he was hiding behind, but I had no time to reposition him as I saw the first goblin come into view further
down the trail.
It was a short creature, with long pointed ears, bald and maybe four feet tall. It looked like it’d never eaten a real meal in its life.
Its belly protruded, and it walked like a toddler in need of a nap, slowly and listlessly. There were four of these creatures that came into view over the next several seconds, ranging from three and a half feet to nearly five feet tall, and in color from a grey to a dark green. The biggest was clearly in charge and would occasionally hit the others with its club as they walked. Every time they slowed even further down, it would smack the nearest, driving the group forward.
They were all dressed in filthy loincloths, and all had clubs, ranging from short sticks to one small goblin that was determinedly dragging a club that must have weighed half as much as it did.
I watched them, confused, as I wondered about all the concern the others had shown. These creatures were no threat; surely, they were more comical than scary?
There was a rustle further up the trail, and a few more wandered into view, the noise level from the creatures slowly rising as more and more started to appear, and soon enough, there were a dozen of them, and they kept climbing in number. By the time the first few were level with the space where Cheena had vanished, there were easily twenty, and my heart had dropped. It dropped even further when the chameleon spell on Bob was refreshed, as, for a second, he seemed to flicker, and one of the first few goblins froze, staring at him. It growled something, and the entire group went silent, then finally they moved forward as one, bunching up around the one that had seen him.
More were coming, turning from a trickle to a flood, and I gave up counting when they reached thirty, and yet more kept hurrying down the trail. The possibility of prey luring them to move was the first spark of interest I’d seen in them.
There were three larger goblins now as well, each over four and a half foot. The tallest and heaviest of them had a spiked club and wore mismatched armor that covered most of its body, obviously the leader in the way the others deferred to it as it stomped forward, kicking others aside.
