by Aaron Crash
It was small-town politics at their worst. I wanted no part of that. If I had to choose, though, I would support the rajani, because those five women cared about the town, and they did all the work to take care of it while Uncle Dog took what little credit he could.
It was the rajani who had dug the defensive trench along the western wall. If you have to suffer through a politician, look for one with blisters on their hands from digging. Then you’re headed in the right direction.
I flew by Geeze’s perch, a tall tower that rose out of the floodwater on the northeast part of Old City. Geeze’s chimney wasn’t leaking smoke, nor did I see him on his balcony. His little place seemed deserted. It put a bad feeling in my gut. Something was up. Or would be.
Catching a breeze, I turned south to the Yellowmud River, which cut through the southern part of town. It had been flooded near the eastern sea walls, but we’d fixed that. Now, only a single channel ran through the town and emptied out into the bay, under the mangrove forest where little huts had been woven in the trees. That was the Hintala Village, and some people still lived there. More and more, though, were moving to the city.
A central wooden walkway connected the New Pier to the Old City. I flew over the Hintala Village, which wouldn’t be a village for long. We had plans to rip out the trees, dig out the silt, and have a working harbor close to the city again. Foulwater had tried a harbor at the Temple of the Good Ancients but it proved too far and too dangerous to be workable. You had the monsters in the temple, and you had the sea creatures prowling the depths. No, we had to have a port closer, which meant a ton of work.
Foulwater had once been a great place to live. I wanted to help improve its future, which probably meant we needed to rename it.
But first? I needed to end this latest crisis. Uncle Dog couldn’t go around taking money and spending it on stupid stuff.
As a dragon, I flew to the northern part of the New Pier, to the shipyard there, a place called the Kaccarra Ank Shipwright. It was run by a sly middle-aged man named Victorio Varuna, who never met a one-sided deal he didn’t like. He had a high widow’s peak and terrible moustache. I could forgive the hairline but not the facial hair. I was embarrassed for him.
The pornstache bastard was best buds with Palmer Barggby, who ran Barggby’s General Store. Both Victorio and Palmer were Foulwater natives, and both had done well despite the raiders and the economic devastation. The store was just south of the shipyard.
I didn’t see Palmer, but I saw Victorio, talking with Uncle Dog. Cheriela, one of his blonde wives, pounded the wooden dock on her way to rip Dog a new asshole. I wanted to be there to see it, but first, I wanted to check on my girlfriends.
I flew over the Salt Licker Inn, our local hotel, and Mumi’s tavern, our local dive bar.
To be close to her favorite watering hole, Rhee had docked the Twilight Gem on the south side of the New Pier. That was where I landed. I wish I could say I simply turned into my partial form, a dragon-man with wings, also known as a Homo Draconis form. I misjudged the distance, turned human, and fell into the water. With how warm the air was, the sudden plunge into chilly water felt good. With my pants in my teeth, I swam over to the ladder and climbed up onto the deck of the Twilight Gem. No one was on the ship.
I knew why. Rhee and Figg would’ve lost their shit after my kidnapping.
I sighed, dried off, and got dressed. In my pants, tunic, and vest, I picked up the Calcifax staff, a length of petrified wood, and hurried down the docks to witness the massacre currently underway in front of Victorio’s office. He owned most of the northern docks, and he had his men working on pounding boats back into shape, scraping off barnacles, and doing maintenance. It was like a series of medieval aircraft hangars, but there were more boats than airplanes. Victorio’s office was a little shanty standing over oily water. In front of it was a covered deck with a few ash-stained tables and benches. It was like the smoking section outside of a King Soopers grocery store.
I walked up just in time to see Cheriela slap Uncle Dog across the face.
Victorio stood back grinning. He was mostly forehead, black hair, and dumb moustache. His skin had the yellow nicotine-tones to go with the bidi in his fingers. He was barefoot, in greasy blue pants and a filthy white shirt with the sleeves cut off. It was the Caranja version of a wifebeater. He nodded at me.
I nodded back.
Uncle Dog, in a faded maroon tunic and frayed sandals, touched his cheek. He was portly, stubbled, and had little hurt piggy eyes. He laughed, though, because he was a man who could always find a laugh. I think it came from being so lazy. Between you and me, I truly believe lazier people are happier people.
Cheriela was the color of a pissed-off lobster—bright red and ready to pinch. “May the seven devils damn you, Doggig. How could you? You didn’t need a new boat.”
He looked hurt. “But it wasn’t for me, Cherie. It was for us, my love. You and all my wonderful wives. Now that we are in the manor house, we need to have an equally nice house on the water, where it’s cooler. You know the heat gets to me. It was a necessity.”
Cheriela’s gold hair seemed to stand on end. “No, you selfish asshole, you didn’t get it for us. You got it for you and your witch of a mother.”
Uncle Dog held up a hand. “Now, wait, that’s not fair. Leave my mother out of this. However, Heehee also suffers from the heat terribly. This will benefit us all.”
Cheriela realized it was useless to try and talk with Dog. She turned to the shipwright. “Victorio, can you get us the money back? I’m assuming you brokered the deal.”
He squinted at her through the smoke. “I can’t. The money is gone. My contact in Trident is delivering the boat. You can’t get out of the deal, not without repercussions. My Trident guy has contacts in the Praachi Mariners. If you don’t want Mariner trouble, you won’t try and welch on the deal.”
The Praachi Mariners were part law enforcement, part death squad, and all bad. Rhee had lost both friends and family to the Mariners.
Once again, I wondered how Uncle Dog had ever won a position of power in Foulwater. And how he had gotten five amazing wives when he was such a... well... a dog.
Cheriela closed her eyes. “And now, I have to kill my husband.” She jumped forward to strangle the man.
I watched for a bit, because come on, who wouldn’t? But when Doggig went from red to purple and stopped struggling, I grabbed her and eased her back.
It took some doing, and I had to do it without dropping the stone staff on anyone. For me it was like a length of balsa wood. For most others, it was several hundred pounds of dense stone.
Uncle Dog shook his head. “No one appreciates the sacrifices I make for this village.”
“Not helping, fucker,” I growled at him.
I had Cheriela turned around. “Cherie, we can deal with this. We can use this boat somehow.”
“It’s not a fishing boat,” she snarled. “It’s not even a battle vessel. It’s a pleasure barge. It’s useless. He’s useless. We turn our backs for five seconds, and he goes off and makes this deal. No one will benefit.”
“I benefitted,” Victorio said with a nicotine-stained smile. “I got a hefty commission. That money will make it back into the city. It’s not all bad, Cherie.”
“Hey, fucker number two,” I warned. “You’re not helping either.”
Geeze limped up with the help of his ram’s head cane. He was sweating and wearing armor. Kind of. A rusted cuirass of some unknown metal covered his chest, and he had a single ornate thigh guard. That was it. His blue eyes were a little muddled, and other than cottony balls of hair around his ears, he was bald.
Cherie’s brows furrowed. “Geeze, what is the problem? Have the raiders returned?”
A confused look fell across his face. “I was lost in Flow magic. No, that’s not right. The Vanka, the water, that’s what we call it here. I saw something... in the water. Coming in the water.” His eyes went wide. “You. Dragon boy. You must help us
. And my daughter was looking for you. Not my daughter, the girl with the golden eyes, my Nightshine.”
Geeze was old, and his head sometimes didn’t work so well. I couldn’t very well blame him for that, but I needed clarity. “Finniwigg Nightshine. I think Figg and Rhee are looking for me. I had a little altercation with our winged guest.”
“The Jataksha!” Geeze hollered.
Uncle Dog didn’t pause. He slunk away, moving fast.
Cherie yelled after him. “And you, Doggig Balaka, don’t think I am not beating your ass over this.”
The town’s worthless mayor didn’t turn back but kept on going. That made me worried. If Uncle Dog was leaving, it was a good bet a fight was coming.
Victorio tossed his cigarette into a pot sitting on the table. He stood with his hands on his slim hips. “Heard rumors of shit going down. Yeah, dragon boy, you and your girlfriends got the water brand, but you also pissed off the merfolk.”
Geeze snapped his fingers. “The merfolk! Yes! They are coming! They’ll be here any minute, riding their kraken, with vengeance in their hearts!”
Shit. The kraken had been released. I hate it when that happens.
Chapter Four
THIS SHIT FELT UNFAIR. We’d worked for weeks perfecting the western walls. There were other raiders out there, and from what I’d heard, they were far worse than the Kankar. Dvey was the demon king who had ruled the Nectar Empire, and he’d brewed up all kinds of monsters out on the Nectar Grasslands.
And yet, here we were, getting attacked from the sea. Okay, but before I kicked some ass, I had to take care of a few pieces of business.
I laid down the Calcifax staff before I stripped off my vest and tunic and dropped them to the wood. Then I addressed Victorio. “I’m going to stop this dragon boy thing right fucking now. I have a name. It’s Axel. It’s only a matter of time until I start breathing fire, and I’ll torch anyone who calls me dragon boy.”
Victorio nodded, chewing a lip. “Right.”
Geeze wasn’t going to be so easy to convince. “Please, dragon boy, you can fly out there to see if I’m right. You can use your flames to slay them.” The old man really wasn’t firing on all cylinders. Normally, he was far more sarcastic than fearful. And I could appreciate a good bit of sarcasm, so that was worrying.
Cherie had already raced off. She’d be running to the Temple of the Seven Angels, to ring the bells and gather our warriors. That needed to include Figg and Rhee. Together, the three of us, along with Geeze, would fight off the incoming merfolk. I did take a second to wonder what a kraken was. There had been any number of stories about such things.
Well, I’d see in a minute. I dropped my pants.
Victorio held a hand over his eyes. “Axel, give us some warning. I don’t need to see your pinga.”
“Everyone loves dragon cock, Vic,” I joked.
I snatched up the Calcifax staff, threw myself off the dock, and shifted into my True Form. I’d been practicing shifting while maneuvering around with the artifact.
I held the stone staff in my front right claws, and it was like I was holding a single Escrima stick. A memory came to me, and I could smell incense, like from a Catholic church, and one of my mothers was teaching me to fight with the Filipino fighting sticks. I had to blink my eyes. Was that a memory of my mother?
Then current events made pondering impossible. The water boiled as huge monsters emerged from the deeper waters of the bay. I got my first look at the kraken. They had the red exoskeleton of a lobster. Eyes on stalks were covered with blinders, and there were reins dangling to their backs. They had pincers the size of compact cars—one of those claws could wreck a Kia Forte easily, although in my True Form, so could I.
Underneath the scarlet armored bodies of the things were black tentacles with bright red sucker cups. So the kraken were basically lobster octopi, which is the name of my progressive rock band.
Mermen rode on the backs of the kraken. The fish people didn’t have human legs, or fins, but they too had tentacles. On Caranja, the merfolk could shift their bottom halves into three different flavors: human legs, classic fish fin, or Little Mermaid Ursula tentacles.
The mermen all clung to their saddles with their octopi coils. They had their weapons strapped to the saddles of the kraken so they could grip the reins with both hands. The mermen were big and ugly, with big fishy eyes on the sides of their heads. They had long beards, entangled with seaweed and other sea crap. They didn’t have noses. They made up for it with their squid-like ears. Instead of hair, they had three bony ridges rising off their skull.
So you had octopi men, riding octopi lobsters, and they were racing toward the New Pier.
The mermen let out a cry. Around them echoed the shrieks of mermaids, splashing through the water, swimming fast with their fish fins. The beautiful women all had pastel-colored hair. You had your pinks, your aquas, and your light greens. These crayon-headed women were armed with tridents and spears—mostly big jagged spears, along with quivers of javelins that looked like the spears out of a speargun. I didn’t see any guns.
Damn. I missed guns. An M60 in each of my scaled fists would have solved a lot of problems.
Victorio and his workers, mostly women, had come out with their own set of spears and a few swords. As for Palmer Barggby, he was there with a battle-ax that looked like he’d borrowed it from Conan of Cimmeria. He and his wives weren’t going to let the attack destroy their business.
The bells clanged in the Old City. Cheriela was there, raising the alarm. She’d be back with the rest of the rajani as well as Bragg Bharta. I was sure Nina Heart would be there with him, and they’d come with weapons.
By then? The few forces on the docks would be dead, the New Pier would be destroyed, and those lobsterous octopi would be snapping their claws through the Hintala Village. At least most of the kids would be at the school in town, and that would include both Nameless and her sister, Fransigga. Nameless was still learning to read, while Fran was already casting spells. Fran? Yeah, I called her Fran. Both were cute kids.
Once again, Foulwater needed saving. A lot of people had died last time, but I’d come a long way since that fight.
The first wave of kraken and mermen were seconds away from the New Pier. We needed a defensive wall, but the bedrock below was under a lot of silt. Getting stone to emerge from the water would be quite the trick, even with the Calcifax staff.
A kraken clambered up onto the dock. A huge pincer reached to destroy the front windows of Mumi’s Tavern of Bilk and Food. Already, the chubby woman and her serving girls were fleeing back toward the town.
“No one fucks up my bar!” I roared. I flapped my wings, lashed my tail, and dropped down on top of the kraken. I landed with my back foot on the merman, breaking his spine. I couldn’t bite through the armored head of the lobster. I’d have to do a little shucking first.
I rammed the stone staff into the plate of the crustacean, prying away the chitin. I kept forcing the staff until I pried off the thing’s head. A disgusting black filth splashed back into the water along with its body. I felt like I was at Captain Jack’s Seafood Buffet in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. With the kill, I felt the warmth of the magical energy filling my atma.
Pincers came clipping down on my tail. My scales held, thankfully, but it hurt like hell. A tentacle grabbed my leg. Using my dragon-y strength, I slammed my staff into the cone head of the lobstrosity and discovered that kraken brains were a gooey black color. More shakti flowed into me.
The merman clambered down onto the dock, armed with a trident. He tried to drive that three-pronged spear into my gullet.
I lashed out and bit off his head. Got a nasty taste in my mouth, not unlike gas station sushi. I didn’t swallow his skull but spat it out like the shell of a sunflower seed.
His neck hole geysered red blood before the body toppled into the water.
Victorio and Palmer had done their bit to repulse the Kankar, but I never really thought their hearts
were all that into it. Here, though, they were fighting on the front line to save their livelihoods. They were doing a good job keeping the kraken at bay. Out in the ocean, I heard chanting, and there were a dozen mermaids, holding hands, standing on something. A wave surged and swept Victorio, Palmer, and all their wives into the drink.
I’d lost my army with one well-placed wave. Fighting merfolk who could control the very water wasn’t going to be easy. Mermaids swam forward through the swirling yellow water with fish tails. They then shifted their tails into octopus tentacles to climb onto the dock, where in a wiggling of flesh and bone they grew legs. They were running forward on either side of a single kraken who was making a break for the city itself. Watching those tentacles boiling under the giant lobster body did make me blink. What the hell?
An arrow appeared in the chest of the merman driving the kraken. I recognized that arrow. Rhee was very particular when it came to her archery.
Then water rose, ripping mangrove trees up like they were sticks. They came smashing through the mermaid army, along with a firehose of water, driving them back.
Figg had her bident raised. Her left arm flashed like lightning, but brightest of all was the Vanka Jalana. The water brand gave her powers far more powerful than the mermaids’. My summoner looked like an Egyptian goddess of water torture riding a wave and tossing mermaids aside.
Rhee had dropped her bow and drawn her sword, a curved cutlass she kept razor sharp. She cut off one tentacle, then another. She reached for a throwing dagger and hurled it through the eyestalk of the kraken. Another followed. She’d bought a bunch of throwing daggers and had been practicing with them. Her days of sitting on her ass drinking were over. Now? She’d jumped in to save Foulwater once, and she was doing it again.
Figg used the water brand to pluck defenders from the water and to send kraken and merfolk back, staggering.
A kraken snapped at me with a pincer.
I fried the thing’s face off with an Agni Trick. Two simple words, “Agnaat injit!” Fire burst from my claws, soaking the kraken in flames. It sizzled like a lobster thrown into a backyard grill. I grinned as I felt the shock of more power replacing the shakti I’d used on the spell.
