The Duelist 6, page 3
“Excellent,” Zoie said as her velvety ears twitched. “I will be most interested in the progress of such a thing. What is the second update?”
“The second update is--” I stopped abruptly as I backtracked over the words spooling out in front of me in Jenner’s spidery handwriting.
My heart pounded, and I read it over a third time just to make sure I was reading the words right.
“Husband?” Shay leaned into me to get my attention.
“Mercedes,” I breathed. “Jenner says he found the other half of the book.”
“The Book my brother gave you?” Amaya piped up and looked upside-down at me.
I frowned because I didn’t remember if I’d told her about it yet, and then I nearly rolled my eyes at the futility of keeping things secret from a touch-telepath.
“Yeah, the book that hopefully has some answers in it about… you,” I said, and my wives and I gazed down at Amaya with matching expressions of hope and longing.
It was clear the oryx-woman didn’t need her Touch powers to interpret what was plain on all of our faces. This could be one step closer to truly freeing her from the Order and from the impending Oath she would soon be forced to take, which would catapult her into a life of indentured servitude and unable to be with those she loved.
And even though it was mostly unspoken, it was something all of us ached for.
“Oh,” Amaya said in a dazed sort of way, and she looked at all three of us in turn. “You, too…?”
Zoie and Shay both nodded in response to her question, but it was the much more articulate Shay who answered.
“Dearheart, if you don’t understand how Zoie and I feel about you by now, you must look harder,” she said as her emerald eyes brimmed with emotive tears.
My cat-wife smiled in turn and reached across me to nod and hold Shay’s hand in solidarity.
The oryx-woman blinked rapidly in a tell I was starting to realize meant she was taken off-guard, and her pouty mouth gaped open a few times like some adorable guppy.
Apparently, I was wrong.
Maybe there were some blind spots touch-telepaths had after all. Whatever the case, I felt like I had the remedy for all of us.
“That’s it,” I declared and got to my feet with my hands on my hips. “Everybody, up!”
Three baffled faces peered back at me, but they all trusted me enough to follow my instructions when I maneuvered all of us around like props.
When I was satisfied, I placed myself half-sideways on the far end of the sofa with Amaya mostly reclining against me, and her lanky legs were sprawled out over both Shay and Zoie’s laps.
“There,” I said with one arm wrapped around the oryx-woman as the three of us reveled in the closeness.
“That really is much better,” Zoie purred, and she draped herself over Amaya’s bare legs and rested her cheek on one pale kneecap.
“I concur, thus,” Shay singsonged. She ended up sitting with her back against the armrest with the oryx-woman’s narrow feet nestled in her lap and completed the circuit. “Continue with Jenner’s letter, my darling.”
“Hm.” I lifted my chin from where it was resting over Amaya’s shoulder, and with the hand not full of my lover’s pliant form, I raised the letters up once more. “Okay… so. The book. Jenner says, oh…”
Amaya stilled when she registered my sudden disappointment as I read the words. Because the augur-woman was connected to all of us, the feeling echoed down the line until I had three sets of eyes staring at me.
“What is it, my love?” Zoie ventured as she raised her head.
“Jenner still can’t make out what language the tome is written in, and he’s had little luck in finding anything similar that could work as a reference,” I relayed. “So it’s like we’re right back to square one.”
“We might not know what it says, but we have all of it back together at least,” the cat-woman pointed out sagely and then laid her head back down on Amaya’s knee where the oryx-woman immediately began to comb her fingers through Zoie’s midnight-black hair. “Mm, is there anything else in the update?”
“Nothing else from Jenner,” I sighed and shuffled the last remaining pages of the stack. “The last thing appears to be from Sentinel Griss, actually. Oh, shit.”
“What is it?” Shay asked as she paused the foot rub she was in the middle of giving until Amaya not so subtly nudged her to start up again.
“According to this, the Lord Asher has died,” I said. “Griss is now the Lord Asher by Passing Rite-- kind of how Sskorn passed his greater status onto Sskern, I guess-- and he wants Sskern and I to come back as soon as we are able to.”
“Do you think we’ll be ready for that?” Amaya mumbled as she sank deeper into our cuddle puddle. “To leave soon, I mean?”
“I’m planning on it, flower,” I said as I kissed the top of her head. “Besides, Griss also said it’s high time for the Terran Regent to pick a wife, or whatever, so it sounds like we don’t really have a choice. Whatever the case, I’d better tell Sskern about this.”
I gently moved Amaya’s sleepy form off me so I could stand up.
“Would you like me to compose a response to Jenner and Rylan while you and Sskern address Lord Griss?” Shay asked me as she tucked a soft blanket around herself and Amaya’s feet.
“That would be wonderful,” I said and made sure to lower my voice when it seemed like the other two women had hunkered down for a nice little snooze.
I didn’t blame them. After living for a few weeks as village folk, we had all adapted to resting at about this time of day.
“What should I write down?” Shay asked like she was ready to get to work on this task for me even though I could tell she was getting sleepy, too.
“Tell both Rylan and Jenner to go back to Nata with Captain Nemis when The Soaring Light is finished with repairs,” I instructed. “We need to get that book to Mec for him to see. Maybe there’s something he can fill in now that the two halves are together. Tell Rylan to keep working with Crackers, and see if he can train him to fly from Nata to Terr. Tell them if it works, I’ll be able to send the power source, and hopefully the material for the sails once we obtain them.”
“Okay.” She nodded and then tucked a cushion against Zoie’s side so the cat-woman could nestle in like she was so fond of doing. “Bring me some stationary? And maybe get another tunic when you’re up there?”
“Oh, yeah. We had a brief… wardrobe mishap,” I said with a bashful smile as we both glanced at the oryx-woman still wearing my shirt, and then I rubbed the back of my neck when I was suddenly super aware of the fact I was basically half-naked.
“A pleasant one, it seems.” My phoenix-wife smirked, and I shook my head as I went to retrieve some paper, an ink pot, and a fresh set of clothes sans my boots that I remembered were still outside somewhere.
“I’ll be back shortly,” I whispered when I handed over the items as well as a thick tome from one of the bookshelves so she could have something sturdy to write on. “Try to get some rest, too, sweetheart.”
“I will,” she hummed as I kissed her on the crown of her scarlet head. “Take the demon with you in case he decides to cause a racket.”
“You think of everything,” I said with one more kiss. “Come on, Crackers.”
The disagreeable pterosaur seemed to sniff disdainfully at me, but he kept quiet as he flapped over to my extended wrist.
With that, I exited the cottage and down the path ready to get this task over with so I could come back and join the Sexy Nap Conference taking place without me. So, after I rounded up my boots from where I’d dropped them, I hurried at a fast clip toward Fasha’s.
When the gem-cutter’s house came into view, Crackers began to flap and screech all of a sudden.
“Hey, Crackers!” I tried to calm the cantankerous creature, but he shrieked and tried to snap at my fingers until he got so fed up he flew off and perched on a branch. “Aw, come on. Get down here, you stupid mutt.”
“Screech,” Crackers said and actually turned his back on me.
“Fucker,” I muttered, and I looked around for something to entice the bastard down.
Or for something to throw at him.
Before I could find either, part of Fasha’s roof exploded in a spectacular display of wooden shrapnel.
“Fuck!” I shouted, and then in an eerie repeat of earlier, I pelted toward the front door fully prepared to face the worst.
However, when I actually got across the threshold, I rolled my eyes.
“Hey, chief.” Horus popped up from where he’d taken cover under the workbench, and more sheepish faces like Zerr and Sskern appeared as they, too, aborted their hiding places.
And above all three of them was a massive hole where the wall met the ceiling.
Chapter 3
“What have you done?” Fasha, the fiery little compy-woman, yelled as she burst into her cottage along with Anwaar, and also Thas, who looked pretty silly holding a large basket full of black and white flowers.
“Fashie, now, it looks bad, but it’s not as bad as it seems!” Leader Zerr tried to explain, but the irate woman wasn’t having it.
“It looks like you destroyed my roof!” Fasha hollered, and then she reached for the nearest hand tool and started coming after the alligator-man.
“Fashie!” Zerr yelped as he rapidly backed away from the mad gem-cutter and her wickedly sharp awl. “Dearest! You wouldn’t want to do anything you’d regret, right?
“My regret is you!” she thundered.
“Annnnd, that’s our cue,” Horus said as he gathered an interesting-looking contraption up under one arm and then hauled ass through the back door.
I didn’t need to be told twice, and along with Anwaar, Sskern, and Thas, the four of us zipped out after the falcon-man as fast as we could.
“Yikes,” I snickered, and the sound of banging and more arguing could be heard loud and clear even though I closed the door behind me.
Although, the big hole probably negated any sort of soundproofing anyway.
“What exactly happened?” the ibex-woman asked as she picked a few long splinters out of her auburn hair. “We were all in the garden when something blasted through the roof.”
“Ah, sorry about that,” Horus said and placed the strange mechanical device on a large tree stump near Fasha’s work shed. It was clear the only purpose of the once old tree was now just another work surface that had several half-finished prototypes in various stages of completion.
“Explain this invention, Natavian,” Thas ordered as we gathered around Horus so we could see the cylindrical thing.
From this angle, it looked a little like a rocket launcher, and as I examined the large-caliber barrel coupled with what was obviously a shoulder rest on the underside, I figured I had to be correct that it was a launcher of some sort.
“Sskern and I call it… the Rock Launcher!” Horus presented rather anticlimactically even though he threw in some Jazz Hands.
“Wait until you see what it does,” Sskern said, and the raptor-man simply grinned like the cat who got the canary.
“Clever,” I quipped. “Does it launch rocks, by any chance?”
“Why, yes it does!” Horus bantered back without missing a beat, and he scooped up a softball-sized rock from the convenient pile at his feet. “Observe.”
Then, like the Ultimate Ham he was, he loaded the rock into the long iron-like tube, pulled this weird plunger-thing back like a Super Soaker, and then yanked a cord under the barrel to release the mechanism like he was on QVC.
Twock.
“Woah--!” Horus shrieked when the force overbalanced him, and the projectile went high and wide.
Boom.
Tree limbs fell to the ground as the sizable rock crashed through the branches.
“Oh, hell, yes,” I said and turned around to face Horus who had fallen on his ass, so I held a hand out to help haul him back up. “This is the ‘ranged weapon prototype’ you were talking about earlier?”
“Yes, indeed,” the falcon-man said. “What do you think?
“I think it needs improvements in stability, but overall, it creates a lot of damage in its wake,” I said. “Even if the Lower Terrans can’t actually ‘ash’ the demons and prevent them from respawning, they can damage the fuckers enough to take them down until the RSE is over.”
“What is an are-ess-ee?” Thas interrupted with a tilt of his tattooed bald head.
“Oh, well, it used to be a Red Moon, right?” I reasoned, and the larger man nodded. “But for some reason, it’s not just the Moon but the Sun, too, so the term Red Sky Event makes more sense. RSE.”
Thas stared at me with the most stonewall expression I’d ever seen, and I honestly couldn’t tell if he understood what I was saying.
“Of course,” he finally said as deadpan as anything.
“Anyway.” I cleared my throat, and Horus had to cover up a snort. “I think there might be a way to make it more effective.”
“What are you thinking, Alex?” Regent Sskern asked as he moved some more stuff out of the way so Horus could set the launcher back down on the stump.
“A better shoulder rest, for one,” I said as I scanned the scrap material scattered around for something that would replace the flat chunk of crumbling moss. “Here.”
I marched over to the detritus from the decimated tree branches and grabbed a few pieces of curved bark that had broken off. When I came back over to the worktable, Horus was right on my heels with a curved whittling knife.
“This one.” He picked the one I was already handing him, and then, like he was reading my mind, he quickly shaped it to fit more ergonomically against the curve of a shoulder.
“How do we attach it?” Thas asked.
“It should probably be detachable to an extent so the wearer can adjust it to their preference, but…” I ducked down and pulled out an odd object wrapped with some sort of pliant leather cord, and I unraveled it so I could lash the shoulder rest to the Rock Launcher.
“Awesome,” Horus said and went to reset the device, but I stopped him.
“Wait.” I bent down and ripped up some familiar-looking vines growing at the base of the ancient stump-slash-table. “Hand me two more rocks.”
“You got it,” Horus said, and he and Sskern each handed me equal-sized rocks.
Then I wrapped the strange vine around one rock, and because of the way the thorns jutted out when pressure was applied, I was able to secure the rope to itself almost like extra-strength Velcro.
“Knife,” I instructed, and my trusty second slapped the small blade he was using earlier into my palm like a surgeon’s assistant. I cut the rest of the vine with a quick slicing motion, so that when I wrapped the other end around the second rock, there would be about a meter of vine stretched between them. Then, when the task was done, I motioned for Horus to load the “chained cannonballs” into the barrel while I settled it on my shoulder.
“And once you have your target, let it fly by pulling on the wire here,” he instructed as he gestured to the rudimentary trigger. “Careful of the kickback.”
“No kidding,” I snorted, and then I walked around so I could lean over the stump and brace my elbows for more stability. The contour of the shoulder rest helped a lot when I lined up my shot, but even when I was expecting it, the recoil from the powerful device still jerked my shot up more than I wanted.
I tried to compensate for the power by going low when I aimed at the copse of smaller trees bordering Fasha’s small garden, but it ended up clipping more of the branches instead of slicing through the wiry trunks like I intended.
“Darkhell,” Horus deadpanned.
“I know.” I clicked my teeth in disappointment and tried to figure out how to adjust for next time. “Just a few more degrees down, and it would have been perfect.”
“No, Alex, that was incredible,” the falcon-man repeated. “It razed that whole area.”
“This is something that will change the tides when it comes to fighting the Scourge.” Leader’s Zerr’s voice drifted out from behind us, and we all turned to greet the two elders.
It seemed as if they had come to a truce at least, even if Fasha’s sharp face was still pinched whenever she glared at the back of Zerr’s head.
“How long did it take to make this?” Thas asked the small compy-woman.
“Only a day,” Fasha said. “If I had more help, I could up the output by five times, even with the modifications.”
“We should get working on your design right away,” Zerr said. “I will spread the word, along with Thas, won’t we?”
“Indeed, Leader,” Thas confirmed.
“Hey, Zerr?” I asked. “Consider the number you think you might want to make, and then double it.”
“Why so, Ambassador?” the alligator man asked.
“It might be worth it if Lower Terr could present this design to the Upper Echelon as a sign both the village and mine-folk are willing to work on including other Aventollian allies in matters of military and trade,” I said.
And if I’d rehearsed that particular speech a few times in my head, well… no one had to know.
“And why ever would us Low-ish ever agree to that charade?” he asked with an arched and scaly eyebrow.
“I’m glad you asked, Leader,” I said formally. “This brings me to my next thing. To say sorry about how we blew a hole in your roof, everyone is welcome to come back to my place for some food. There’s actually a lot I’d also like to discuss with you and the Regent, if you’re willing.”
“I admit I am intrigued,” the Leader said as he rubbed his chin. “We accept, but we will give you a moment to prepare for us. Thas, go with the Ambassador with the basket of whatever we have left.”
“Yes, sir,” the big man said and went over to the small garden so he could pick up a covered bushel of what I figured was produce of some kind.
