by Aaron Crash
Figg and Rhee had rallied the dock troops, and they had reinforcements coming, fighting men and women from Old City. We needed a wall, though, a place to make our stand. Good thing walls were my specialty. Yet how could I draw them up from under a hundred feet of silt and a good twenty feet of water?
Then I heard a musical voice, laughing. “So, the dragon saved the town of humans from the land raiders but failed them when it came to the sea.”
I spun.
There, astride her own kraken, was a red-haired, blue-eyed mermaid wearing what looked like armor made from shimmering water. Underneath, she was naked. Her pink and white tentacles gripped the saddle of her kraken.
There was Ibbithy Alyyb BuBano, of the BuBano family, and this time, she didn’t have a trident, but a big lobstrosity to use against me
“Dragon, I’m going to see if I can’t cut your pinga off you,” she spat.
And then from the ocean came a hundred of the things, and the docks were overwhelmed by merfolk and kraken. It was like a bad day at your local Red Lobster. People were now on the menu.
Chapter Five
A WALL OF FIRE ERUPTED in front of the kraken and merfolk running the length of the pier.
It was an impressive piece of magic, and it was coming from an unexpected source.
Geeze stood, sweating, with his cottony white hair standing on end. The light from the fire barrier flickered off his old armor. He had a rather maniacal look in his eyes. His right arm held his ram’s head cane like it was the staff of Moses.
I needed that distraction. I slithered into the water, under the kraken, gripping the Calcifax staff. I’d used some of my shakti to cast the little fire spell and to shift, but I had plenty of mojo left to try and work a miracle.
I couldn’t see a thing, not with all the silt swirled up. Then I was sliding into the mud. I let it draw me down. Both my hands were on the stone staff. Using my magic, I could feel the stone down there. I also felt something else, something deeper. I tasted diamonds. Don’t ask me what diamonds taste like, I don’t know, but there were minerals down there, minerals we might be able to use.
But I was more worried about the stone at that point. And not just the stone, but the sand. I could create a shelf there, hardening the sand, which was a new ability I’d been practicing. I had a lot of raw materials to use—the sand, the stone, and yes, even some of the rock that held the diamonds.
The dock was about three hundred yards from the north to the south. That was going to be too much surface area for me to cover. But if I could build a central wall, that might give us a rallying point we could use to repulse the merfolk and their kraken.
I was holding my breath, and I didn’t have long, so I went all in. I reached down under all that mud and pulled up with every bit of shakti I had.
Around me, a rock wall started to rise in a roar of water and movement, so much noise, so much displaced stone. I was caught up in a whirlpool of debris as the water gushed downward. I felt my massive body being pulled below.
I only had seconds before I’d be a permanent resident of the deep-down dark. I was out of shakti, every bit of it, and I lost my dragon form. I became an embarrassingly naked human. Opening my eyes, the salt stinging them, the grit making me wince, I positioned myself over the rising rampart.
The ascending stone struck my feet. I rode my new wall up even as I created it. The line of stone rose, and I hardened the silt under it, creating on-the-fly sandstone. What took millions of years, normally, and tremendous pressure, I did in seconds with the Calcifax staff.
Then, on my mud-stained rock wall, I burst out of the sea. My aim was good. I had thirty feet of wall, about ten feet tall and three feet wide, at the very center of the New Pier, between Barggby’s General Store on the north side and the Salt Licker Inn on the south.
Kraken were knocked away. Merfolk were crushed between my wall and the dock. Wood and bone splintered. Sludgy yellow water swept away the black blood of the lobster as well as the red blood of the merfolk. Shakti from the kills swirled around me, and I felt some of it leak into my atma, but I think I’d gone negative. I’d strained my new powers to the breaking point.
On top of my wall, barely conscious, I reeled as a merman scrambled up the side, leaving behind his wounded kraken. He hurled himself up on his tentacles. He landed, his coils reaching for me. He raised his ax.
I still had the Calcifax staff. I held it. I would go out fighting.
More fire blazed down the dock behind me, finishing off my barrier to the south. As for the north? Figg had formed a wall of water, ten feet tall and impervious to the sorcery of the merfolk. The villagers had arrived with bows, and were shooting arrows. Rhee had retrieved her own bow, and she was taking down mermaids left and right. She hated the merfolk with a fiery passion.
The merman in front of me had an inky beard of black hair falling from his nightmarish face. No nose, just slits and a mouthful of fangs. He looked at me with black eyes.
I was feeling laughy, dizzy, and done for. “Wait, let me guess, your name is Squidbeard. Because your beard is so dark, right? The color of ink? Right? Squidbeard?”
He wasn’t amused. “I’m Illbro Brinnib, the Ocean Father Divine of the Brinnib family. You and your dry cunts stole the Vanka Jalana from my people. We have come to cut the mark off the cow fucker who branded herself.”
I shouldn’t have laughed. I really shouldn’t have. He was this huge octopus man with flexing muscles dripping with sea water. Those black tentacles seemed to be everywhere. He held a barnacle-encrusted battle-ax with a serrated blade. That thing would chop the shit out of me, both going in and coming out.
And yet, I did laugh. “Illbro. That’s ill, bro. And so you know, she’s not fucking cows, she’s fucking me. And this whole dry cunt thing? I don’t know where to start.”
Foulwater defenders had brought ladders from the shipwright’s, and they were scaling my wall to get on top. Both archers and spear women were there, including Cheriela and her blonde sister-wives. The brunettes were off on their fishing boat.
On the ocean side, Ibbithy rode a fountain of ocean water. She stepped off on human legs with her trident in her hand. The weird liquid plate mail still covered her. She curled a lip. “Back, friend Brinnib, for that one is mine. He killed my brother.”
Brinnib moved like he was skating on snakes. “You hated your brother, Princess. And yet, I will honor the treaty we signed. He can hardly stand. Building this wall has taken everything out of him.”
I set the staff on the ground, spit in my hands, and rubbed them together. “Not everything, Squidbeard. I’m gonna hit me a home run. That’s Earth talk for fuck you.”
“Earth?” He grimaced, showing fangs.
“My hometown.”
It was just the three of us. Yes, I was screwed. Might as well talk and give myself some time. I was feeling the shakti from the world around me leaking into my atma. It was going to take a bit for me to get my power back. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a bit. I was about to be speared and chopped into chum.
I took up the staff and faced the two bosses—Father Squidbeard and Princess Water Armor.
Illbro glanced down. “Diamonds, there, in the rock. You brought this wall up from the depths. There are riches there, under the silt. Such riches.”
“We came for vengeance, Ocean Father,” the mermaid spat. “And we came to reclaim the treasure they stole from you and your people. Once we have added the salt of their blood to the ocean, we can come back and perhaps look into a potential mine.”
All of this wasn’t adding up.
Getting revenge for stealing the Vanka Jalana away from them made sense. Who doesn’t like a good bit of revenge? But as far as the treasure? We didn’t steal anything from Squidbeard or any of the other merfolk.
Illbro came forward and slashed at me with his ax. I struck it away with the stone staff. I didn’t so much use my strength as the dense weight of the petrified wood. His ax went clattering across the top of
it. I caught a tentacle on a back swing. I pulverized it, and the squish felt good. He screamed in pain as he drew his coils in like a dead spider. He probably didn’t want me smashing more parts of him. And where was his dick? Did he have a ninth appendage underneath? That wasn’t something I really wanted to consider.
I batted Ibbithy’s trident away. I got lucky, but she was quick. She hit my legs with the shaft and put me on my ass.
The spines of her trident were in my face. They were hooked, so once she jabbed me, pulling them out would take a good chunk of my flesh. The thing was? I liked my flesh where it was.
“Come on, Ibby,” I said. “We had some good times, right? I didn’t kill you when I could’ve. You kept looking at me, I kept looking at you. It was like love at first sight.”
She made a face. “I never looked at you. I can’t love you since you’re a cow fucker. And yes, you let me live. That was your mistake.”
It seemed she was going to ram her trident into my face, but in the blink of an eye, everything changed. From above, a muscled figure drove a foot into Ibbithy BuBano. It was a kick for the ages. And there, above me, was the winged woman I’d rescued. Her white feathered wings were dazzling in the sunshine.
Dryx plucked the trident away from Ibbithy. The angel girl whirled it around and tried to stick it through the mermaid’s chest. The mermaid’s water armor grabbed the tines and held them. That armor certainly was impressive.
Ibbithy threw a punch, but Dryx blocked it. The angel girl used all of her considerable strength to break the trident at the tip, then took the length of wood and snapped it over her knee.
In seconds, she had two fighting sticks, only she wielded them like swords. Dryx was a warrior. I hadn’t been wrong. And she was saving my life.
Dryx lost her shit. She smacked Ibbithy over and over, driving her back, until the princess had no choice but to leap away. She did a perfect backflip and hit the water with a tail instead of legs.
Dryx turned on Squidbeard, her fighting sticks ready to pummel him into calamari. “Call off the attack, or I will kill you.”
Did I just hear the angel girl talk? I was on my back, blinking, trying to get my wits together. I’d managed to get the wall built, but it had cost me dearly. I was just glad I had smacked that octopus man.
Squidbeard glanced at Figg’s wall of water to the south, my wall he was standing on, and Geeze’s fire barrier to the north. Then his gaze fell on Dryx. She would best him in a fight. He had a conch shell hanging around his neck, half hidden by his beard. He blew a long, loud blare. I had to wince, and I thought I might lose consciousness, it was so loud.
He scooped up his ax, glaring at Dryx, then at me. “We will return. For my treasure. For the diamonds. For your lives. Foulwater is ours.”
I watched as Dryx looked upon the merman, and it was clear she recognized him. She let out a scream of fury. She was going to use one of the those sticks as a catheter. But before she could reach him, Squidbeard rolled back on his tentacles and slipped over the edge.
She went right after him, wings spread.
I crawled over. Squidbeard hit in his fin form and didn’t leave much of a splash. The Russian judges would’ve been forced to give him a good score because it was a perfect dive. Dryx was too late. The merman swam fast and deep to get away from her. I’d seen my fair share of angry women, but I’d seen bloody murder in the angel girl’s eyes. She wasn’t going to get revenge today, though, not unless she could somehow turn aquatic.
The merfolk army retreated along with their kraken. The lobsterous octopi tucked their heads down, pulled their pincers behind them, and sprayed water from the center of their bodies. It was jet propulsion at its finest.
I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes.
I must’ve lost consciousness, as a wail woke me. “Axel!”
I figured it was Rhee, who would be terrified I’d been killed. She did worry. Figg would’ve yelled at me for smashing up a good bit of the New Pier, but her anger was only a cover for her love. With how much she raged, she must adore me.
No, it was Dryx above me, touching my face, tears trailing down from her aquamarine eyes. “Your soul is weak. You have pushed yourself too far. Will you die?”
So I had heard her talk. She spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, in a rather stiff accent without much inflection, maybe slightly Russian sounding. Maybe she was related to the judges who’d scored Illbro’s dive.
My mouth was dry, I was exhausted, and yet, I had to smile. “I don’t think I’m going to die.”
“No, I think you’ll die. You look very pale. You’re even uglier than you usually are.” She buried her face in my chest. “You are so disgusting. You really do make me sick to my stomach, to look at you, without wings, like a puny weakling who never wet his pinga.”
I touched her white hair. “No, Dryx, I’m going to be okay. You saved me.”
She wasn’t hearing me. “Farewell, brave warrior. Farewell, Axel Drokharis, the last of the hideous dragons that plagued our world. I bid you a safe journey into the Aether, to the sky above the sky. Know that while you were ugly, you did help me with the Quickening. Goodbye. I wish you a good death.”
I wasn’t going to argue with her. No, I was too tired and perplexed for that fight. Had she used the word “quickening”? Oddly enough, I knew what that meant, and it wasn’t what most people thought.
I touched her head and let her cry. Well, I’d picked up another woman who wasn’t exactly the poster child for mental health and emotional stability. I couldn’t wait to get her story. And it seemed she knew a thing or two about dragons. That might prove very interesting indeed.
Chapter Six
DRYX FLEW OFF. I FELT her leave.
After that? I was in and out of consciousness as I was pulled from the wall. Someone put pants on me. That was nice of them. I heard someone say that the people out fishing had avoided the merfolk army and were on their way back.
The New Pier had been burned, broken, and nearly splintered to pieces. There was blood and bodies and battle remnants all over the place. You had your choice of smells. Wet dock from Figg’s water magic. Or burning wood from Geeze’s fire magic.
I leaned against the wall while first one woman, then another, cried over me. Not Dryx, she’d taken off already. However, Mumi had seen me save her tavern from kraken love. The big woman wept over me, thanking me again and again for saving her business. She smelled like her hot oil and fried jimps. Kind of made me hungry. She then hurried away to make sure people had something to eat and drink. There were kraken parts all around. I was wondering if lobster and calamari were on the menu. I could eat all I wanted. The merfolk attack might be the tastiest almost-massacre in the history of raiders.
Once Mumi left me, my second crier arrived. It was Rhee, who had lost track of me during the fight. I held the pirate elf while sobs wracked her body. When they’d seen the wall, they’d figured the worst, since no one could work that kind of magic.
The price had been steep. While I held my slutty elf, and around me was the chaos of the town cleaning up the fight and checking on the wounded, I checked the Five Magics Skill Tree.
I’d hit level four, so I could unlock another category. That had me thinking about what I needed to do, and what my end goals were, but I wasn’t sure how the skill tree worked. If I unlocked all of one branch, Agni for instance, would that give me access to the Anjagar Dayva abilities?
Or did I have to master every category on all four branches? If that was the case, I needed eighteen more levels. The merfolk had been beaten, so I didn’t need to choose my next spell set right away. However, I wasn’t going to wait long. I needed magic on my side. Unused inventory wouldn’t help me, and I wasn’t going to be that kind of gamer. At least one of my mothers, not sure which one, had taught me right.
Figg helped Geeze limp over. Figg had a gash on her shoulder and a new dent in her bident. Geeze was both smoke-stained and drenched. The old man squinted and leaned heavily on his
ram’s head cane. “That was a good trick, lad,” he wheezed. And then he sagged. Good thing Figg was there to help him because he was gone from the world.
I couldn’t lose my favorite elderly amputee. “Figg, you have to heal him.”
I closed my eyes, wondering where Dryx had flown off to. Or if she’d come back. She’d been pretty sure I was dead. She might’ve been right.
With my atma completely drained, I couldn’t stay conscious. I probably should’ve asked for a kiss, maybe a quick blowjob, since both killing and sex filled my atma with magical energy. My life was both a bad pickup line and the ultimate justification for war.
I woke in my attic room in the brothel. Rhee was there, cleaning me with a cloth and a bowl of warm water. It smelled perfumy, like sweet sage. The balcony doors were open wide, and she’d opened the windows on the other side of a short hallway near the staircase down.
The evening breezes had come to cool us after the hot day. I inhaled and smelled both Rhee and the ocean. I was alive and feeling better.
The balcony doors faced east, so I got to see beautiful sunrises. I had a fireplace in the southeastern corner, but I wouldn’t need that during the summer months. My bed was by the fireplace. Across the way was a table and chairs, and I had a big bathtub against the western wall. Down the hall was Dryx’s mattress, the privy, windows, storage, and steps down to the other floors of the brothel. It had started out as a bathhouse but then was upgraded to brothel. Or it was downgraded, depending on where you spent your Sundays.
Rhee burst into fresh tears when she saw my eyes flicker open. “You can’t go away from me, Axel. You have to stay with me forever. Or I’ll go back to how I was. No, I won’t. I’ll... I’ll kill myself if I lose you.”
