Chaos god, p.12
Chaos God, page 12
“It is the dried meat of a wild hare,” Elora answered, and a subtle pink flush spread over her pretty face. “This is from the last one that Ayen caught, I have been saving it for a special occasion.”
I smiled at the sweet beauty in front of me, and I took a bite. The meat was tender and softer than any jerky I’d ever had. It was a little gamey, but it was full of flavor, and it was a bit more savory than I would have expected. It was really delicious, and I was honored that Elora had decided to share it with me. I ate the jerky slowly and enjoyed every bite of the soft meat.
“It’s really good,” I said as I chewed the last bit.
“I am glad you enjoyed it.” Elora licked a bit of salt from the tips of her fingers.
The sight of her fingers between her lips had my blood running hot, and I felt my cock threaten to grow stiff inside my jeans. I cleared my throat as I realized how long it had been since I’d last had sex. I needed to keep my mind focused, or I was going to embarrass myself in front of this beautiful warrior.
“So,” I said, and I cleared my throat again. “Where did you want to start?”
“I believe a short lesson on demon anatomy may be helpful,” Elora replied, and her voice took on a scholarly tone. “They have similar bodies to humans and elves, however, there are a few key differences that I believe you will find helpful.”
“Okay, that makes sense.” I nodded, and I forced my mind into attention.
“Demons have strong joints,” Elora started to explain. “They are nearly impossible to dislocate, and they are in slightly different positions than you may expect. On a demon’s elbows, for example, the most vulnerable point is located at the very top of the joint.”
I watched Elora’s nimble fingers as she pointed to just above her own elbows, and I pulled the demons we’d fought into my mind’s eye. I tried to remember what their arms had looked like, and I realized they had indeed bent at the location Elora was pointing to.
“Huh,” I breathed. “That’s really interesting.”
“Their knees are the same way,” Elora said, and she bent slightly to point at the lowest parts of her thighs. “Do not bother aiming any attacks below this point. Their hooves are incredibly tough, and you will waste time trying to inflict any damage.”
“Good to know.” I nodded and tucked the information away in my brain.
“Their ribs are also much further apart than yours or mine,” Elora continued, and she laid a hand gently on the exposed pale blue skin below her breasts. “The demons have wide gaps between these bones, but the gaps are protected by thick bands of muscle. It takes a great deal of force to puncture through this tissue.”
“I noticed that,” I said as I recalled the extreme force it had taken to pierce into the demon’s rib cage.
Then I realized that, despite the excess force it required, the task had seemed almost easy at the time. Perhaps easy was too generous of a word, but it was much less effort than I would have expected it to take. There wasn’t time to ponder on the fact at the moment, though, because Elora continued with her lesson about demon anatomy.
Over the next several minutes, Elora informed me about the weak spots in a demon’s head. Much like human infants, they had two seams between the bones in their skulls. The beautiful elf told me there were connection points behind each of their horns.
“I suspect their skulls connect here to allow their horns to develop over their lifespans,” Elora said, and she ran each of her index fingers through the thick waves of her silvery hair as she spoke. “We do not know if demons are born or if they hatch from eggs, but we do know that infantile demons have horns. I suspect the skull forms around these bones and then fuse together behind them.”
“Maybe it’s an evolutionary feature they developed to protect the soft spots,” I mused.
“I do not understand.” Elora furrowed her silvery eyebrows at me.
“Oh, um,” I quickly reconsidered my words with the assumption that Elora didn’t understand evolution. I felt safe in the assumption that she had no idea who Charles Darwin was, either. “Maybe, throughout their history, the demons with larger horns were more likely to survive because the horns protected these soft spots in their skulls, so they were more likely to breed and procreate.”
“Hmm,” Elora pondered my theory for a second. “That is an interesting idea.”
“Not that it matters either way.” I shrugged. “But I’ve always been curious about stuff like that.”
Elora smiled at me, and then she braced her feet at hips-width apart. “Shall we spar?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed hard, and my blood started to heat again. “Okay.”
“Are you ready?” Elora asked, and a mischievous glint filled her amber-and-ruby eyes.
Before I could respond, the sexy elf took me by surprise and launched herself at me.
Elora took full advantage of my slow reaction and hooked one of her arms firmly around my neck, and the other one up under my shoulder. Then she wrenched my neck to the side and had me in a firm hold.
I followed her lead, and I countered the move to the best of my abilities. I reached up and gripped her forearm firmly in my hands, and then I bent forward fast and hauled her over my head and to the sand. I caught her before she slammed into the loose sand so that she wouldn’t hit hard, and I looked down at her with a cocky smirk.
“Hmm,” Elora hummed up at me. “Well done.”
“Thanks,” I said, and I held a hand down to help her back to her feet. “I’ve got some experience with hand to hand combat.”
“Is that so?” Elora narrowed her eyes playfully at me, and then she took my hand. Her fingers were small and warm in my palm, and I ached to put my hands all over her. I pushed the alluring dreams of her nearly naked body away, and I took a step back to prepare for another attack.
“I used to be a prize fighter,” I explained. “It’s how I took care of myself for a long time.”
“That is a curious profession,” Elora said, and she brushed a bit of sand off of the backs of her legs.
“It kept a roof over my head and food in my belly.” I shrugged. “It’s a spectator sport on Midgard actually, millions of people like to watch that kind of thing.”
“Like a gladiator?” Elora asked, and her eyes lit up with curiosity.
“Yeah,” I chuckled. I thought of Russell Crowe’s big fight scene in Gladiator, and I tried to picture my own glory days at that kind of level. “Sort of.”
“You are a fascinating man, Levi,” Elora said, and she raised her arms up to a defensive position.
“Come on,” I taunted her, and I coaxed her forward with my fingers like Morpheus had done in The Matrix.
This time, Elora darted to my left and came at me from the side with a flurry of precise strikes. I blocked them easily as I retreated backward for a few paces, and I watched her footwork as we moved together over the beach. Elora rarely picked her feet up from the sand, and instead, she slid the balls of her feet over the ground in precise half-moon stances. I kept a hold on my poker face, and I allowed her a few more strikes before I quickly stepped forward and moved my right foot between her legs.
I’d planned on knocking Elora completely off-balance, but instead, she impressed me with a sudden cartwheel to the side. Her handprints marked the sand clearly where she had escaped my hold, and I stared at her with amazement.
“Damn,” I said out loud, but in my head, all I could think about was how hot it was that she was so fierce and agile.
“Advance,” Elora instructed me with a teasing tone, and she shifted her left foot back slightly in preparation for my next move.
I decided to give her a little more, and this time when I moved, I came at the beautiful elf with a few half-speed strikes. I gave her a quick left-right combo, and Elora expertly blocked the first and ducked out of the way of the second.
“You’re fast,” I said.
“You are not.” Elora grinned.
“Am I going too slow for you?” I asked with a laugh. “I can go faster.”
“I prefer some things slow,” Elora said, and I swear she winked at me.
My brain stalled in a fog of desire, and for maybe the first time in my life, I had no witty comeback.
I gritted my teeth together in determination to accept her challenge. Then I faked to the right, and I dashed in on the left. I was sure I was going to make contact this time, but Elora caught my left arm, used it as leverage, and suddenly had her legs wrapped around my waist before she flipped me off-balance.
I landed hard on my back on the sand with Elora seated daintily on my chest. It was an entirely too inviting position, and even though I could have bucked her off easily, I let her stay mounted on my hips.
“You are a capable fighter,” Elora said with admiration. Her long ponytail flowed over her shoulder and brushed against my throat like a feathery river of satin, and she released my arms from her grasp. She sat up, but she made no move to get off my chest.
“Thanks.” As I tried to come up with something else intelligible to say, my hand moved of its own free will, and suddenly it was caressing gently over the bare, pale blue skin of Elora’s right knee.
My gaze was superglued to Elora’s mouth, and my brain nearly caved in on itself when her cute pink tongue poked out and ran over her full lips. I forced my eyes up to hers, and I couldn’t help but notice she was looking at my mouth as well.
The tension was palpable, and I wanted to swim in it forever, but sadly, after a heavy moment, Elora cleared her throat, and she stood up from my chest.
“We should return to camp,” Elora announced, and her voice had an enticing breathy quality to it. “There is much to do.”
“Will it take long to remake all the baskets and stuff we lost this morning?” I asked as I silently gloated to myself about the very clear effect I had on this unbelievably sexy woman.
“Yes,” Elora said, and the teasing tone of her voice was gone. “It will take Wyn days to weave a new net for fishing, and without those baskets, we will struggle greatly to gather enough fresh drinking water for everyone. It will take more than a few trips to the river to haul in enough water, and it is a day’s journey there and back again. I fear we will see the effects of water starvation before the baskets are all remade.”
“Water starvation,” I repeated. It was an interesting way to say dehydration, but I couldn’t deny that it was a pretty apt description. I whistled for Frida to come back from her romping in the waves, and then I turned to Elora. “There’s nowhere else to get water from?”
“No.” Elora shook her head. “The swamp water is toxic and diseased, and the ocean water is too salty, of course. The river is our only source of drinking water.”
“I don’t suppose there’s much rain here,” I said sourly.
“I do not remember the last time it rained,” Elora said sadly. “I do love a pleasant rainstorm.”
“Hmm.” I thought for a moment about the predicament before us. Suddenly, something from middle school danced into the forefront of my mind, and I smiled a bit smugly at Elora.
“What is it?” the beautiful elf asked me.
“I know how to get us clean drinking water,” I said. “Right here, from the ocean.”
Chapter 9
“What do you mean?” Elora shook her head in confusion. “Ocean water cannot be consumed. It will only make you die of water starvation.”
“Yes, if you drink it like it is, it will make you sick, and you’ll quickly die,” I agreed. “But if you take the salt out, you’re left with good, clean drinking water.”
“I do not understand,” Elora sighed, but she looked at me with a small glimmer of hope. “How can you remove the salt from the water?”
“Come on,” I said, and I started walking back toward the camp. “I’ll explain everything.”
“Very well,” Elora started walking alongside me, and Frida quickly romped over to trail behind us.
“Okay, how much do you know about how rain is formed?” I asked as we walked leisurely across the sand dunes.
“Rain comes from the clouds.” Elora shrugged. “Clouds are formed from water that is in the air, and when enough collects together, it falls to the ground.”
“Yeah, that’s good.” I nodded. “So the water gets into the air through evaporation.”
“What is this?” Elora asked.
“Evaporation is the fancy word for when a heat source turns water into a gas,” I said. “And there’s a way to force water to evaporate with a campfire.”
“Do you intend to make clouds, Levi?” Elora stared at me with awe.
“Sort of,” I laughed. “I’m going to teach you how to evaporate seawater, which will leave the salt behind, and you’ll be able to harvest drinking water from it.”
“That sounds like magic,” Elora breathed. “Are you a sorcerer?”
“No, and it’s not magic,” I laughed, and I smiled at the elf’s beautiful, child-like wonder. “It’s seventh-grade science.”
“I find myself confused by your words quite often, Levi,” Elora murmured at me.
“I don’t mean to confuse you,” I said apologetically, and my eyes fell to Elora’s hand that swayed gently at her side. I had a strange desire to lace my fingers between hers and hold her hand as we walked.
“We have different backgrounds and different educations.” Elora shrugged and smiled. “We will learn to understand each other as we spend time together.”
“I’d like that,” I said, and the bright purple blush that spread across Elora’s cheeks filled my chest with warmth.
“As would I,” the beautiful elf glanced up at me before she looked away.
We walked the rest of the way to the camp in companionable silence, and it felt like I’d known her much longer than just one day.
Once we arrived back at the camp, I was pleased to see that everyone had returned from their various errands. Goren and his father sat side by side, and they appeared to be checking the condition of the baskets that had survived the fire. Ylva and Rathal were in the middle of cleaning a few iron tools, and it looked like they had two knives and the head of a hammer whose wooden handle had been lost.
The blonde sisters and the black-haired elf walked up to the fire pit at the same time that Elora and I did, and their arms were filled with large stacks of reeds, long swamp grasses, and lengths of vines. The three of them settled onto stone seats, and they started to spread their harvest of supplies out in front of them.
“Wait here,” Elora said, and she walked over to Wyn.
The old man leaned in close to his surrogate granddaughter, and he nodded as he listened to what she had to say. He murmured something back to her, and his gray eyebrows arched high on his forehead. Then Elora glanced at me, turned back to Wyn, and shrugged.
While I waited for her to return, I watched the blonde sisters and the skinny black-haired elf organize and count the reeds, grasses, and vines they’d collected.
The shorter blonde woman picked up five long strands of thick grass, and she started to weave them expertly together. Within a few minutes, the bottom curve of a wide basket started to take shape. Beside her, the taller sister started to braid three vines together into a length of rope.
“Two handles, Azariah?” the taller blonde woman asked her sister.
“Yes,” Azariah answered, and then she held her hands out to demonstrate her intentions for the basket’s size. “Roughly here.”
“Very good.” The taller blonde nodded.
While the sisters worked together to weave and braid the makings of a large basket, the black-haired elf picked up a smooth bowl-shaped stone, and he walked away toward the western edge of the camp. He returned a few moments later with a thick, dark gray mud in the stone bowl. The skinny elf sat back down and started to sprinkle in some ash from the fire pit into the thick muck, and he mashed it around with another cylindrical stone.
“Remember, Elion,” the taller sister said to the black-haired elf. “The paste must be fine enough to be smoothed into the crevices, or the basket will leak.”
“Yes, Arlindra,” Elion said with a slight roll of his lavender eyes. “I am well aware.”
I enjoyed watching the three work together for a few more minutes until Wyn gathered everyone’s attention once more. Elora wandered back over to stand beside me, and she smiled at me.
“Elora has just informed me that Levi claims he can get us clean drinking water from the sea,” Wyn announced without preamble.
The small crowd erupted with exclamations and questions.
“That is impossible,” Ylva scoffed, and Rathal nodded emphatically beside her.
“I have never heard of such a thing,” Elion gasped.
“It must be magic,” Arlindra decided as she tied the end of her braided vine rope.
“That would be a blessing of immense proportions,” Quintus said.
Many other remarks were drowned out by the commotion, and Wyn knocked the end of his staff twice on a nearby rock to regain order among the group.
“Levi claims this is science,” Wyn said. “If he can indeed provide us with water, his presence will be entirely invaluable to us.”
“Hear, hear,” Azariah said firmly as she continued to weave her basket.
“How does it work?” Goren asked as he leaned forward. “What must we do?”
“Well, first we’ll need to build the fire back up to a good size.” I gestured at the small flames that danced in the bottom of the pit. “I’m also going to need this cauldron filled with seawater, so I need some volunteers to do that.”
“We will rebuild the fire,” Arlindra said, and she jerked her blonde head at her sister.
“I shall fetch the logs,” Azariah agreed. “You begin repositioning the embers and the cauldron.”
“Yes, sister.” The tall warrior picked up a length of iron and set straight to work pushing the embers into a larger pile. Then she used the bar to nudge the cauldron closer to the center of the small flames, and once again I was impressed by the construction of their fire pit.
“Awesome,” I replied, and I smiled at the two sisters. “Thank you.”
