by Logan Jacobs
“Oh, my goddess!” Jemma gasped before she shuffled close to me and wrapped her slim body around my arm. “I have faith in you, Ben. You can defeat them.”
“Of course I can,” I murmured as I patted her arm.
“But before their ships could be overtaken, each of the captains had their crew take a potion that would transport them to a different plane of living,” Jonas continued. “Their physical bodies would die in the flood, but the spirits inside would live on in another form. This way, they could come back when the time was right, to finish conquering the world and taking their power. Their battle was not done until one would reign victorious over the others.”
“Great.” I grimaced. “So, we really do have a bunch of pirate ghosts to contend with. Does the legend say anything about how we defeat them?”
“No.” Jonas shook his head. “It is just a legend. Everyone loves a story that ends on a cliffhanger. No one wants to know the entire thing.”
“You’re right about that,” I sighed. “So, do you think they’re still an issue? Or do you think they’ve gone?”
Jonas looked back out over the ocean and tilted his head in thought.
“I do not know,” the old man admitted after a moment. “The legend does not say they will disappear at any time, so maybe we are in luck. Maybe the maldungs have been banished to the other plane forever and will no longer bother us.”
“Let’s hope,” I grumbled as I looked out over the sea again.
These ghost ships would come here, beach themselves on the shore, and probably attack, if Jonas’ tone was any indication. I could fight off orcs, wargs, and insane jungle cats, no problem. I wouldn’t even blink when faced with those.
But I had no idea how the hell I was supposed to fight ghosts that weren’t even actually alive. Could the fuckers even be killed? Or would they just come back, over and over again, until they’d managed to kill all of us.
As we climbed down from the peak and headed back down to the stream and the space where we would build our new garden, I couldn’t rid myself of the sense of unease that had crept over me the moment I saw the ships. I’d learned a few things since Jonas had made me crash land on the island, and the most important was the things that seemed easy never were.
So, if those ghost ships decided they wanted to try and resurrect themselves to finish out some millennia long feud and conquer the world, then they would have to think again. Because there was no way I’d let some long dead, power hungry idiots take over my island and assert their power.
This place was mine, and if they wanted to fight me for it, I’d sure as hell make sure they paid.
I’d just have to figure out how the fuck I was supposed to kill something that was already technically dead first.
To take my mind off this new crazy problem, Jemma and I cleared away some of the weeds and dead leaves in the area where we planned to build the garden, and we came up with a simple plan before we headed back down to the village.
The three of us resolved not to tell anyone about the madungs until we figured out whether or not they were really an issue. For all we knew, they’d disappeared and would never be seen again. Plus, because the two groups of women were still getting used to each other, I didn’t want to instill panic and fear in them through talk of old legends and undead sea captains with a thirst for conquering the world.
I fell asleep wrapped around Jemma’s slim figure to comfort her. The auburn-haired deer woman had tried her best not to show it, but for the rest of the day, I could tell she was unsettled. She’d tried to remain calm as we’d all relaxed around a warm fire before dinner, and she attempted to distract herself with conversation over the food, but I knew it hadn’t worked. During the entire meal, I caught her glancing back toward the ocean more than a few times as she tried to figure out whether or not the maldungs would come to attack us.
What I didn’t tell her was that I was doing the same thing. Women needed their man to be confident and sure of himself. They needed a rock to ease their fears. I had to be there for these women who’d lived so long with terror and now come to depend on me, so I decided to keep my worries to myself until it was actually something that needed to be handled. But still, all throughout dinner, Nerissa and Ainsley could tell I was distracted, even though I promised them it was nothing.
So, that night, as I tucked my children into bed and watched their little eyes flutter closed while they dreamed about their safe home and their loving family, I resolved not to let the thought of maldungs worry me any further. If they decided to attack, then that was what happened, and I would fight them off. But I knew there was nothing I could do right then to make sure they didn’t reappear and attack us, so I had to force my mind to give it a rest.
It was a problem for another day.
I laid in bed and looked out the window as I listened to Jemma’s soft post-lovemaking breathing. The sight of the dark blue ocean, not far from the castle, with the moon over it, calmed me even further, and there were no maldungs in sight that night.
The next day, Jemma and I brought Mira, Theora, Sarayah, and a few of the other deer women to the site we’d found for the garden, and the deer women instantly got to work. They told Mira and me where they needed the ground tilled and, since the two of us were much stronger and better equipped for that sort of labor, we turned over the dirt and created rows to plant seeds.
When the earth was ready, we planted a plethora of different vegetables and fruits in the ground. There were carrots and potatoes, as well as some coconut trees and banana trees, and lastly, Hali entrusted Mira with some of her precious seeds from the magical fruits the gryphons had gifted us weeks before. The redheaded cook had made her request as if it was a top secret mission to the moon, and Mira, as she always did, obliged.
The warrior pulled the brightly colored seeds out of her pocket to a chorus of oohs and aahs. Just like the fruit, the seeds were a bright, vibrant, almost unreal color, but unlike the fruit, the seeds were fuchsia pink. They were ovular and thick, like pumpkin seeds, and had been dried with the type of precision only Hali could bring to the table.
“Those look glorious,” Theora said as she carefully fingered one of the seeds. “What do they grow?”
“The most delectable fruit you will ever taste,” Mira sighed with a dopey grin. “And just wait until you see what Hali does with them. The woman’s a genius in the kitchen, but when it comes to the desserts she makes with these fruits, she may as well be a magician.”
“How exciting!” Brenna clapped her palms together and stared at the seeds.
After the deer women had finished planting the special seeds from Hali, we set about building a fence around the garden, and then a net enclosure over it. I knew the jaguar like jungle cats could jump extremely high, so I didn’t want to leave any bit of our garden vulnerable to them.
When all of that was over, the deer women sighed and admired their handiwork.
“You can all go get some rest,” I told them. “I’m going to take a little hike.”
I wanted to go back to the peak and check to see if the ghost ships were still there, or if they’d disappeared completely. As the women turned back toward the village, Jemma fell into step beside me.
“I will accompany you,” she told me with a soft smile. “It is very calming to be this high up, in a strange way. I do not know if that even makes sense.”
“Yeah, it does,” I laughed as I wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
It calmed me, too, to be able to see so far out. I’d always loved the ocean, but the one here was so much brighter and filled with more life. I could see whale-like creatures jump and play in the far off water, and birds soared overhead as they flew from island to island.
We climbed all the way to the peak, and I held my breath as we crested the very top of the mountain. I readied myself to see those enormous, ghostly pale ships, but thankfully there was nothing except clear, beautiful ocean below us. Not a single, maniacal ghost ship in sight.
>
We stayed there for a little while, until the sun started to hang low in the sky.
“We should get back,” I told Jemma. “The sun will set soon, and we’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”
“What are we doing?” she asked as she tilted her head curiously.
“I want to use the rest of the lumber to start reinforcing the huts we’ve already built,” I replied. “They might withstand the storm season this year, but I know if we add some wood in the right places, we could get another two or three years out of them before they have to be completely rebuilt. And by that time, we’ll have a great system in place for harvesting lumber and bringing it back here.”
The next day, the entire village was up bright and early to help me start reinforcing all of the buildings. We carted the last of the lumber into the center of the village, and then we divided into groups of both deer women and serpent women, so we could work quickly to get the buildings finished.
While some of us did that, Mira and Darya led a group of deer women back to the gardens, where they could help tend to them and try to speed up the growth process. We knew the small garden the dragonkin women had been using before wouldn’t be quite enough to sustain an additional fifty women for too long. The deer women, though they ate meat now, still ate far more vegetables and fruits than they did meat, and so I knew the supply of food would run out quicker than any of us had planned.
“Alright,” I said to the crowd of women as I stood next to the first hut in the village. I planned to use it as an example to help me explain to them exactly what needed to be done. “So, the most important thing to do is reinforce the most vulnerable parts of the structure. That means any of the flat parts of the wall. The corners and bottoms should be much less flexible, which means it’s a lot harder for any storm to knock them down. So, what we want to do is create an ‘x’ here on the face of the wall inside, to stop the bamboo from bending inward when the wind hits it.”
I showed the women how to secure the reinforcements to the bamboo, and what to look for to make sure all of the structures were completely sound and sturdy.
It took the group of us the entire day to finish all of the buildings, but when we were finished, I felt a sense of satisfied relief. I knew now the huts would stand up to multiple storm seasons, which meant I could rest more easily if I happened to be away on a trip. The women knew to hunker down in the castle for the worst parts of any storm, but I didn’t want the huts to be destroyed while I wasn’t there.
With the sun high overhead, I returned to the palace, sweaty, tired, and ready for some of Hali’s delicious meat. When I entered the doors, I was greeted by a very tired George.
“Hello, dear friend.” I grinned at him. “How are you? You look tired.”
Dear one, two children are exhausting, he chuckled. Thank the gods sea dragons grow so fast. I do not think I could keep up with them for much longer.
“I’m just glad I have a lot of help with mine,” I laughed. “Because I don’t think I could keep up with them, either.”
George tilted his massive blue head as he looked me over.
You look worried, he remarked. Is it because of the maldungs?
“You read my mind, huh?” I chuckled, and George nodded. “Yeah, it is. I don’t like not knowing things. The orcs are nasty and a major problem, but at least I know what to expect. With the maldungs, even Jonas is unsure. He seems worried, and that makes me even more worried. I just brought the women back to this island. We are far too vulnerable right now to deal with a band of ghost ships.”
George considered my statement for a moment, and I could feel, through our bond, that he was diving through the archives of his mind.
When we’d first bonded, George had shown me he knew all of the history of his kind. It was buried in his mind the same way DNA is buried in a human’s cells, only George was able to access that information whenever he needed to.
I see, the dragon sighed. It seems the maldungs were very threatened by my kind, dear one. Perhaps if they come, Nixie and I might be able to do our part and scare them off.
“And if they aren’t scared?” I asked him. “Got any tricks for killing something that’s undead?”
There is more to the legend Jonas told you, but I do not know what it is. George shook his head. Perhaps the old man has more information?
“He couldn’t remember anything else,” I sighed. “But maybe it’ll come back to him at some point. I need to get some food and get my mind off this. Thank you, George.”
Of course, my dear Ben. The dragon smiled toothily at me. Now, I must go find those unruly children of mine before dinnertime.
I watched the dragon amble back through the palace doors and head down toward the garden, where his dragon children were likely happily at play with all of my children. Then I turned toward the dining patio to see what wonderful food was being served for dinner.
“Ben, this meat is delicious!” Jemma exclaimed when I sat down next to her. “Where does it come from?”
I glanced over to see she held a fat chunk of dark, roasted boar meat, and I grinned. Boar meat was my absolute favorite.
“It’s from something called a boar,” I told her. “They live in the jungle. I can take you on a hunt for one, if you’d like.”
Jemma’s chartreuse eyes went wide, and she nodded vigorously.
“Please!” The deer woman grinned. “I want to learn all about the meat of this island. I have never tasted anything quite so rich and salty.”
All of the other deer women seemed to agree, and by the end of dinner, I had a little hunting party ready to go in the morning. Theora, Sarayah, and Brenna joined Jemma and me, and we headed into the jungle at the crack of dawn.
Just as Jemma had done her first time in the jungle, the other deer women looked around wondrously at all the new plants and animals we encountered.
I found some boar tracks pretty quickly, and we started to track it through the forest. The women kept their bows raised and at the ready, and I did the same with my sword. I knew the boars tended to burst out of the brush and dash at us, so I’d warned all of the women in advance. The last thing I needed was for any of them to freeze up from the surprise of it all.
“This place is beautiful,” Theora breathed. The dark-haired beauty had her bow raised, but she wasn’t looking where she aimed as she craned her neck to try and stare into the tops of the trees. “I wonder what it would be like to climb one of these trees.”
“Let’s get this boar, and then you can find out,” I told her with a grin.
That seemed motivation enough for the deer women, because they all quickly turned their attention back to the task at hand and quietly padded on through the forest.
Less than five minutes later, I heard the soft snuffling that signaled the boar was somewhere near, so I quickly put my hand up and indicated for everyone to stop. The deer women froze immediately, and we all waited as the snuffling grew a little bit louder.
Suddenly, a massive boar, with twisted yellow tusks and mean black eyes, burst forth from the green bushes in front of us and made a mad dash toward us.
“Fire!” I hollered at the women as I raised my sword in case the boar got too close. This was their hunt, though, and I wanted to see the look of absolute joy on their faces when one of them killed him.
Sure enough, Jemma’s arrow sailed through the air and pegged the boar right in its heart. The creature squealed and stumbled, then came to a halt right in front of us. Dirt kicked up under its massive body as the dead animal slid along the ground before it came to a stop right in front of Theora’s feet.
“This is an awfully ugly creature.” The deer woman grimaced.
“That was my arrow!” Jemma gasped as she turned to me with a broad smile. “I did it!”
“You did.” I grinned back at her. “Do you want to learn how to gut it?”
All of the women nodded vigorously, so we picked up the carcass, and I took it back with me to where Arrick’s pole
still stood. I showed the women how to slice open the boar and spill its guts to the ground, then chop it into pieces so it was easier to carry.
When that was done, Jemma turned to Theora, Sarayah, and Brenna with an excited look on her face.
“We shall climb the trees, now,” the auburn-haired woman said, and they all took off toward the trees.
“Ben, come on,” Sarayah yelled over her shoulder. “You cannot leave us alone to do this. What if one of us is hurt?”
There was absolutely no way I could resist her big, green eyes, so I made sure the meat was tied up tightly, and then I took off after them all and up into the tops of the tropical trees.
The deer women still had an advantage on this playing field, and all four of them made it to the top before I did. When I got there, they all had already started to admire the luxurious view our perch afforded.
“Look, there is the village,” Brenna said, and she pointed about a mile and a half away, where the village sat nestled in the dirt, near the sand of the beach.
“That mountain is enormous,” Theora gasped as she turned to see the tallest peak on the island.
“Ben showed me what is up there,” Jemma said. “It is absolutely beautiful, Theora. We can see our home island from all the way up there!”
Jemma turned to grin at me, just as the breeze picked up slightly. The wind blew her soft tan skirt to the side, and it gave me a perfect view of her luscious, curvy ass. I could just barely see the lips of her pussy, barely covered by the thin strip of cloth she called underwear, and if we hadn’t been on a serious mission to get our gardens started, I would have ravished her right then and there.
“How does it look?” Sarayah demanded as if she was afraid the entire forest would have burned down in our absence.
Which, based on the orcs’ previous plans, wasn’t a completely off base fear.
“Beautiful.” Jemma grinned. “It looks beautiful. Especially from all the way up there.”
I listened happily as the women picked out different points on the island to admire and talked about how much they could see from the tops of the trees.
