Monsterworld, p.120
Monsterworld, page 120
part #1 of Monster Slayer Series
I shook my head. Oh goddesses, I’d never seen her so smitten before. Not that I could blame her—the pair were a sight to behold, their tight-fitting skins held together with various leather straps fitted with a veritable arsenal.
Misha and Chastity each introduced themselves to Beat, then I introduced them to Vrill. “Welcome,” I said, once the women had gotten acquainted. “There’s plenty of food and water right now, but it won’t last forever so you’ll be expected to hunt.”
“Easy,” Misha said. “What should we do with the gorillas?”
Several times the gorillas had tried to get inside the shields, but they were unable. “We’ll need to paint them with some primordial ooze. That should do the trick.”
“Are you sure it’s such a good idea to invite them inside?” Beat asked.
“They’re friendly,” I said. “At least now they are.”
“The Syrene created them. Are you sure you can trust them to stay friendly?”
Misha answered. “Yes. The deal with the Syrene is ironclad.”
“Well, better they’re on our side than the Morgoss’s.”
“Want to get settled?” I asked Misha.
“Please have someone help our sisters get reacquainted with this place. But Chastity and I would like to get up to speed on the current situation as soon as possible. We saw blood on the ground outside the ward shields upon our approach.”
I nodded. After calling for Asfandiar to take the women around—“It would be my pleasure,” the warrior said, much to the delight of the tribeswomen—I quickly got Chastity and Misha up to speed on what we were planning to do. As expected, they said, “We’re coming with you,” at the exact same time.
“Are you certain?” I asked. “This is not expected of you. All we ask is that you help us in the battle to come.”
“We are keen to contribute. We care about Bu’ploog, greatly. But we are tired of hiding in the shadows while evil is permitted to roam free. This is our chance to help change the course of history, of our own lives.”
“Nice speech,” Beat said, looking duly impressed.
Misha smiled at her. Beat smiled back. Chastity smiled at her. Beat smiled back.
“Uhh,” I said, trying to get everyone back on track. “The plan is to leave before the next Black. That way we are well-rested. Between the gorillas and our replenished forces, any monsters that happen to attack should be repelled without too much difficulty. Meanwhile, we’ll be distracting the Morgoss due to our presence in Annakor. Any questions?”
“Just one,” Misha said. “Where is the dragon, Mrizandr?”
Because Vrill was here, I’d left Mrizandr’s situation out of my update. I didn’t want to upset her. Oh shit, I realized. I really am coddling her.
Vrill answered with her chin held high. “Mrizandr was grievously injured by the shadow creatures. He saved many lives before he was overcome.”
“Are you saying he’s dead?”
“No,” Vrill said quickly. “He is comatose. We’ve administered ooze daily, but he has yet to recover.”
“I—I’m sorry,” Chastity said.
Vrill looked surprised by the genuineness of her statement. “Thank you.”
I clapped my hands together, trying to bring the mood up a few notches. “Who’s hungry?”
Everyone’s hand went up, including my own.
ELEVEN
ANNAKOR THE THIRD
Silk and Lace were the last two to join our group. Looking over the women standing in a semicircle around me, I wondered how I was so lucky to have such incredible warriors helping me.
Vrill, a warrior princess who rode a dragon into battle.
Beat, my BFF and the toughest chick I’d ever met on Earth or Tor.
Lace, with her Wolverine-like claws and unmatched tenacity.
Silk, bearer of Valencia’s locket and a warrior’s heart.
Misha, who I’d never seen back down from anyone, not even a giant gorilla.
And, finally, Chastity, the one I’d known for the shortest amount of time but who I’d already learned was a tigress in more ways than one.
Not to mention the two goddesses waiting in the wings to help us if needed.
It was, quite literally, the dream team.
If there was a goddess of fate, clearly I’d done something to please her.
There was only one person missing, but now she arrived, clearing her throat to get our attention. “Hello, sister,” she said, her eyes locked on Chastity.
“What?” Beat said, eyes flicking from Eve to Chastity and then to me.
“Oh, did I forget to mention that?” I said.
“Conveniently,” Beat said, offering me a glare. I didn’t feel bad. This was Eve and Chastity’s news to share.
Chastity stepped forward. I was ready for another Vrill/Eve type of showdown.
It didn’t happen. Instead the two women embraced, holding each other fervently. I gawked, shocked that there was no animosity between them. I had assumed…
“How have you been?” Chastity asked when they finally pulled apart.
“Other than almost dying that one time, I’m good,” Eve said.
“I heard about that. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“You too.”
“You two aren’t…angry at each other?”
Now they turned their stares on me. “Why would we be?” Eve asked, genuinely surprised.
“I guess I just assumed…”
“And we all know what ‘assume’ really means,” Beat said helpfully.
“You assumed wrong,” Chastity said. “I left to seek my own path, not to spite my sister.”
“And I never faulted her for that,” Eve clarified.
Mind. Blown. “That’s…good,” I said. “Should we get going then?”
While the sisters had been reuniting, Vrill was saying goodbye to her mother, Delaqua. Then Delaqua took my hand and looked up at me. “Take care of my daughter,” she said.
“Mother!” Vrill protested.
Delaqua said, “You may be a strong woman, but you are still my daughter and I worry. I’ve only just gotten you back, I cannot lose you now.”
“You won’t,” I said, squeezing the Lri Ay woman’s hand. “I promise you. And please, look after the Lri Ay who have already arrived here on Tor. They are your responsibility while we are gone.”
“Thank you. I will.”
I flexed my reattached arm, realizing the feeling had just returned to it. The recover was impossibly swift—the benefits of being a God and treated with primordial ooze provided by Three goddesses.
With that, we turned away, walking toward the ward shields, a line of badass.
~~~
I’ll spare you the details of our journey across the wastelands—been there done that. Instead, I’ll fast forward to our approach to Annakor. Thus far, our journey had been uneventful. As we’d timed it, the Black was creeping up on us, but not so quickly that we wouldn’t make it inside the demons’ fortress well before night hit.
Annakor was a series of dark towers that culminated in spike-like spires. According to Eve, this place had once been the color of snow, but had somehow become tainted due to the Morgoss’s presence. All around the fortress were jagged cliffs that might’ve been the teeth of a horde of angry beasts about to crush us between their jaws.
The winding trail that led from what I liked to refer to as “the front door” to the mountain pass we’d taken to get here, was crumbling and in disrepair. Mostly because it had been trod by hundreds of monsters over the years, stomping out to attack the inhabitants of Tor. “Stick to the center of the path,” I warned everyone. “Single file.”
I was tempted to lead the way to protect the women from any potential attack from the front but knew from watching many horror movies that the most likely person to be killed was the one at the back. Thus, I said, “Ladies first,” gesturing for the others to go on ahead.
Beat said, “Who you callin’ a lady?”
“I meant no offense, fair maiden,” I said.
Beat laughed. “Those are two words I never thought would be put together to describe me.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I said.
“There’s also a last time for everything. Call me that again and I’ll add your face to my list of Things I’ve Beaten Senseless.”
“Noted.”
Beat followed the others and I fell in behind her, careful to stop and glance back every several steps to ensure that nothing had snuck up on me. On either side of the trail, there were sheer cliffs that fell away into chasms that had no bottoms to be seen. Although it was as black as pitch down there, I could feel the creepy sensation that shit was moving. Like…dead shit. I could tell the others sensed the same thing, because we all hurried on, anxious to get to the demon fortress.
Ha. Let me repeat that: We were anxious to get to the demon fortress. We really were a screwed-up bunch.
When we finally reached the gargantuan iron door that led inside, I half-expected it to be open and waiting for us. Hell, I almost expected the Morgoss to be waiting for us. I almost wished they were, then maybe we could just cut to the chase and fight to the death. That’s where all this was heading anyway.
“Should I knock and ask to borrow a cup of sugar?” Beat asked.
I had a sense of déjà vu. Had she made the same joke or something similar the last time we were here?
“We could welcome the demon overlords to the neighborhood and bring them a housewarming present—a plant or something,” I replied.
Vrill, Eve, Lace and Silk took our weirdness in stride, while Chastity and Misha exchanged a look that seemed to say, What the hell is going on?
Back in the day, as in a few months earlier, opening the door on my own would’ve been impossible. Now, however, I gave it a sturdy FBI-swat-team style kick and it slid open on well-oiled hinges, slamming against the inside of the wall. Despite having walked through this very door twice before already, I was fully prepared to find a room I’d never seen before.
I wasn’t disappointed. As usual, the room had changed, a little trick the Morgoss liked to play on their rare visitors. Ivy grew up the walls, as thick as a wizard’s beard. Trees, thorny bushes, and other scraggly plants poked from cracks in the stone floor, breaking the hard blocks into brittle pieces. Vines hung down like braids from Rapunzel’s hair.
We’d just stepped into a jungle. A jungle usually came with jungle animals. “Be alert for any movement,” I said, casting my eyes upwards, half-expecting to find demonic red-eyed monkeys looking back at me. When I found the branches and foliage empty of life, I looked down at my feet, where surely there must be venomous snakes slithering in to infect me with their poison.
Again, nothing.
Strange.
“This forest is not natural,” Chastity said.
“You mean, besides the fact that it’s growing inside a fortress?” Beat said.
“Besides that. I don’t like the way it smells.”
“That was just Sam. Leafrat gives him flatulence.”
I coughed out a breath. I’d missed Beat. Only she could bring fart jokes to a suicide mission. “I’ll have you know—God-farts smell like roses and unicorns.”
“Unicorns are horses. Horses walk in their own poop. Thank you for making my point for me.”
“Children,” Lace said, baring her fangs. “Any chance we can get the hell out of the unnatural forest sometime in the next century?”
No one was opposed to that, so we headed through, picking our way carefully to avoid getting snagged on any of the thorn bushes, which were numerous. As we walked, I began to understand what Chastity had meant about this forest. It was eerily quiet, the rustle of our boots on the undergrowth echoing like a mother shushing her baby to sleep.
After about ten minutes, we reached the other side. We’d walked in approximately the same direction as we’d taken the last two times entering this space. The previous two times had led us to a door.
“Uh, where’s the door?” Beat asked, voicing the question we were all thinking as we stared at the slab of rock blocking our way forward. Although it was difficult to tell due to the thick coating of ivy, there was no sign of seam or hinge or doorknob.
“We probably just got disoriented in the forest,” I said. “We’ll walk the perimeter until we find it.”
I felt like if anything we’d gone too far right, so we walked to the left, sticking close to the ivy-sheathed wall, which curved away from us. Strange. The last time we were here the room was square-shaped. Now it was a circle. Every so often we would stop and poke around in the ivy to make sure there wasn’t a hidden door. Each time, we were disappointed.
After a solid hour, we stopped. “I’m pretty sure we’ve been to this spot already,” Silk said.
“She’s right,” Lace said, sniffing at the ground. “I can smell my own scent.”
“Maybe we missed it,” I said. “We could cut away the ivy as we go.”
“We could split up and cover more ground,” Misha suggested.
“No,” Beat and I said at the same time. Our experience in this place told us that sticking together was of the utmost importance.
Misha raised her eyebrows. “There’s nothing in here except us.”
“Right now, maybe,” Beat said. “But things change in a hurry in Annakor.”
“She’s right,” I said. “We stay together. Any other suggestions?”
Vrill had been awfully quiet, as had Eve. Eve was poking around in the ivy, deep in concentration. Vrill was looking up. “We need to climb,” she murmured.
“Climbing’s not really my thing,” Beat said, which mirrored what I was thinking. All my climbing experiences on Tor had nearly resulted in my death.
But when we followed Vrill’s gaze up the wall, we all knew she was right. “Shit,” Beat said. “Someone give me a boost.”
Sure enough, about fifty feet up a stone landing protruded from the wall. Around the edge of the platform we could barely make out a doorframe.
So we climbed. Some of us were natural climbers—Silk and Lace, for example. Misha and Chastity held their own, their experience living in the forest serving them well. Vrill and Eve were good enough athletes that they had no problem keeping up. Beat and I, on the other hand, we bigger and bulkier than our companions, so we took longer, seeking out the sturdiest branches to ensure they could hold our weight. We helped each other along the way, pulling and even pushing when necessary.
“Why couldn’t it be Misha or Chastity helping me climb?” Beat muttered when I was forced to shove her ass upwards when she struggled to reach the next branch.
“You’re really smitten by those two, huh?” I said, chuckling.
“It’s been a while for me,” she said. “While you’ve been whoring about, some of us had to stay focused on the task at hand.”
“Sexual frustration leads to anger. Anger leads to pain. Pain leads to the Dark Side,” I said.
“I’m not sure that’s how Yoda described it in Star Wars.”
“I was paraphrasing. Anyway, you deserve a little pleasure amongst all the pain, too.”
“I know. It’s just, some things don’t change.”
“Meaning…”
“It’s not easy for someone like…me.”
“You mean, a lesbian? I’ve found most of the women on Tor to be rather fluid in such matters.”
“Yeah, but they like men too. I don’t. Not in that way.”
“Trust me, that wouldn’t bother any of them. And with the bod you’re rocking? You’d make them go crazy.”
Beat managed a smile. “Thanks, Ryder. You really are a good friend.”
“Good? No. I’m the best friend.”
“I wouldn’t go that far…race you to the top!” With that, Beat redoubled her climbing efforts, still struggling but putting in the effort. Even still, she didn’t stand a chance. I might not be a natural climber, but I was a God. I used the branch I was on like a springboard, bending my knees and then launching myself upwards, skipping the branch she was pulling herself onto and grabbing the next one. I grabbed it and kicked my legs forward, swinging out and releasing into empty air, grabbing the next branch and using my momentum to curl around it and then clamber onto it. From there I climbed the normal way, hand over hand, stepping behind me.
Soon I reached the landing, where the others were waiting, staring at the door. “It’s locked,” Eve announced.
“Anyone have a paperclip?” I joked.
“A what?” Vrill asked.
“Never mind,” I said. “A credit card should work too. If I can just figure out where I put my wallet…” I made a show of feeling around in my nonexistent pockets.
Everyone looked at me like I was nuts, which I was.
Beat finally joined us, breathing heavily as she dragged herself up onto the platform and then to her feet. She stroked her chin as she stared at the locked door. “I think the artist was trying to convey the depths of her sadness at being called Pizza Face during her awkward adolescent stage.”
Beat, as usual, had managed to turn all the confused looks from me to her, something I’d always appreciated about her.
“There must be a key somewhere,” Vrill said, trying to get us back on track.
“Or,” Eve said, pointing along the face of the curving wall. “We’re trying to open the wrong door.”
Sure enough, in the direction she pointed there was another landing that led to another door. I turned back the other way to find one more in the opposite direction. How many more landings and doors might there be?
As it turned out—eight, spread equidistant from each other, like the numbers on a clock. Which, of course, was the same number as people in our group. Coincidence? I think not.
“Maybe we each need to take a door and try to open them at the same time?” Vrill suggested.
It was an interesting theory, but of course meant we would need to split up, something I was loath to do. Then again, we were out of options at this point. “OK but be prepared to shout if you need help.”
