Elm Tree Road
Author: Anna Jacobs Narrated Bynicolette McKenzieunabridged — 9 Hours; 3 Minutes
Date: 2011-11-01 00:00:00+00:00
Description: After being driven from home by their brutal father, the Willett sisters find themselves facing greater heartache in the wider world. Nell, the middle daughter, has left home to be with her lover, Cliff, fearing what reprisals might come from marrying against her father's wishes. The couple head for Lancashire, but Nell's happiness is short-lived. A gypsy palm-reader tells her she will still find her destiny, under `three big trees on a hill' and her luck does seem to change when she meets Gil, and farmer and a gentleman who she can't help but feel drawn to. Could the trees on his land be a si
Publisher: Soundings, Limited

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Chapter 1

The rap of wood-on-wood was audible from the lobby when I walked in through the double doors of the martial arts training center.

I followed the sound down the hall and stopped outside the open door of the training area to watch.

Indy and Ellie were sparring with their trainer, along with another guy I didn’t recognize. My two warriors were using the replicas of their own weapons that I had asked the trainer to have made so they could practice new techniques faster and with more intensity before they moved on to the more careful execution with their real weapons.

And they needed as much practice as possible. It had already been four days since my warriors won their first battle side by side in the Bayalon arena. They’d practically decimated their opponents, Mavra and Zenia, and their superior weaponry and armor had more than excited the fiery crowds in the legendary city.

Now, we were set to return to Bayalon and go double the stakes against the very same warriors, and I was determined to see my women leaving their mark and gaining as much glory as they deserved there.

While I gained a hell of a lot of jewels.

Ellie was using two wooden tonfas with foam blades to parry the attacks of a stout, muscular guy wielding two foam practice axes.

This sort of sustained defense was something I hadn’t seen the dainty blue-haired fighter do before, and I was impressed as I watched her parry several axe blows in a row. She used the long, straight end of her tonfas to redirect the axe blows, rather than the other side that had a foam tomahawk-like shape, and I assumed this was because the tiny warrior would be sent flying if an axeblade were to interlock with the tomahawk-like one. By using the straight end instead, it seemed like she could sweep aside the axe’s strikes with less chance of them becoming interlocked.

The axe-wielding guy was raining blows on her high and low. I nodded with approval as she swept one strike to the side, dodged a second, and used the gap to hack at the guy’s unguarded shin when she rolled to the side. I heard the pained breath hiss in through his teeth, and I smirked slightly at the strength the petite warrior possessed.

Maybe her innocent appearance was what had made the guy decide he didn’t need any shin guards.

Then my attention was grabbed by a familiar, wildcat-like growl of frustration that was accompanied by the scraping sound of wood against wood. I turned just in time to see Indy’s practice sword go flying from her hand thanks to a deft wrist movement by the trainer who was her opponent at the moment. From what I could see, my princess had pulled a move I’d seen her use against Zenia in Bayalon, where she hooked her shorter blade around the edge of the shield in an attempt to snatch it from the man’s hand. I wasn’t sure exactly what he did to turn the tables, but somehow he’d used the shield to send Indy’s weapon sailing off to the side instead.

The double-bladed wooden sword skidded and tumbled across the floor, and the trainer tried to use the moment to get a jab in at the princess with his own wooden sword.

But his aura of calm, focused intensity flickered slightly as Indy jerked to the side with shocking speed. In the process, she swept the foam training version of her chain whip around at the trainer’s ankle.

The feathered flag at the end of it whipped through the air as the chain entangled itself with his legs, and the light-footed man was suddenly sent into a short stumble.

He recovered himself just before Indy jerked hard on the chain whip, and I held my breath to see what would happen next.

But then the practice chain snapped off right below the handle.

My princess huffed in disbelief and scowled down at the wooden handle in her grip, then at the rest of the chain that slithered to the floor, but then she mirrored her trainer as he straightened up and slipped out of his fighting stance.

Somehow, the change in his demeanor was so distinct that it was as if he had altered his entire appearance in front of me.

Suddenly, he wasn’t a fierce opponent, but a patient and proud instructor with an easy grin instead.

Although Indy also eased out of her fighting stance, I still saw a hint of the prowling grace that rarely left her posture.

“Nice footwork,” the trainer was saying. “Let’s focus on your grip this time and give it another go before—”

He cut off mid-sentence as Indy’s eyes caught sight of me over his shoulder, and her gaze lit up like a fireworks show. The bright red-gold of her irises was suddenly brindled with amber radiance, and flecks of rose gold danced through them like dust motes in a sunlit forest.

I cleared my throat slightly to draw the trainer’s attention away from this jaw-dropping sight, partly so he wouldn’t get too suspicious
and partly to keep him from falling in love with my princess.

He whirled around with a slightly punch-drunk look, but his expression cleared up when he saw me.

“Oh,” he chuckled, and he folded his hands behind his back as Indy carelessly lobbed away the wooden whip handle to bound over to me. “Right. Next time, then.”

I smiled as Indy flung herself into my arms, and then a blue-haired blur joined her as Ellie raced over to us with a tiny, bird-like screech that I never would’ve expected from her a week or so ago.

“How’d it go?” I asked, and I mostly directed my question at the trainer for now, since I knew I’d already be getting a play-by-play of the session’s coolest moments from the women on our way home.

“Did you tape the session?”

I immediately felt two heads nod against my chest in response.

“Yeah, boss.” The trainer nodded. “Yeah, that was a great suggestion. I actually have had a few other advanced students who requested that in the past, so I just set up the same camcorder on a tripod for this session. It’s only a few years old, so the HD is still really good. I’ll make sure to break down the footage before their next session so I can go over it with them.”

“Awesome,” I said with approval.

I was nowhere near being an expert when it came to this fighting stuff, and I couldn’t help but be a little proud that I’d had the idea of starting to record my warriors’ training sessions so they could critique it with the help of their fighting master.

And the way my women still seemed floored to have a backer who put so much thought into their training made me feel even more awesome.

“We practiced some zui quan today, too,” the trainer added.

“It’s–”

“The fighting style of drunkards,” Indy said proudly.

I raised my eyebrows, and the trainer chuckled again.

“Some people call it ‘drunken style’, boss,” he explained. “But it’s actually, uh… a lot more serious than that.”

“And more complex,” Ellie added with enthusiasm. “We will stun our enemies and dazzle the crowds.”

“I don’t doubt you will.” I smiled down at the dainty warrior, but I was feeling slightly preoccupied now as a thought returned to me, and I glanced back at the trainer. “Their next session is scheduled for the day after tomorrow, right?”

“Right,” he confirmed. “I’ll make sure we don’t hit it too hard. I know you have, er… that event coming up.”

By the way he said this, I thought he still assumed it was all part of some movie gig, and maybe that my two women were just devoted method actresses.

“Perfect,” I said with a nod. “I think we might pick up a few extra weapons before then. Nothing too crazy, but it’d be cool to have them try out a few hand-to-hand moves with those in mind…”

“Of course.” The trainer nodded respectfully.

“One more thing,” I added. “This might be kind of a weird question, but do you have any, uh… training dummies, or something along those lines?”

“He means human dolls,” Indy whispered loudly to Ellie. “Very large human dolls. They are bigger than you, Ellie.”

I exercised my poker face to the maximum extent as I did my best to ignore this comment and the strange look it drew from the trainer before he responded to me.

“I don’t have any for sale,” he said with an apologetic look. “But there are several different kinds that might be useful for some home training practice, if that’s what you’re looking for. Some version of
each kind is generally available at your standard martial arts supply store or on Amazon.”

I nodded and then led the women out into the lobby after the trainer. He ducked behind the front desk and grabbed a pamphlet from its surface.

“This shows all the main categories of training dummies,” he said as he handed it over. He pointed at a picture of a dummy that looked like a tall wooden post with wooden rods sticking out horizontally in various places on it. “The Wing Chun is awesome for hand-to-hand stuff, and we messed around with one earlier for a few minutes. But if you get one of those, have them be careful about using it to block, because it can be a little tough on the palms. It can be a bit hard on the forearms at first, too, even with vambraces. After their event is over, they can put some more extended time into that sort of dummy. It’s no replacement for training, but it’s a great supplement that we can go into later.”

“Cool.” I glanced at the assortment of dummies on the pamphlet. “What about the other kinds?”

The trainer’s finger traveled down to a picture of a free-standing dummy that was human-shaped next. “Even though they have each other to spar with, a grappling dummy can be really
useful. They can use it to practice some of those close-range grappling moves without holding back and worrying about injuring each other. Just make sure it’s not too heavy.”

I nodded as I absorbed all this and accepted the pamphlet from him. Then I collected the women’s new practice weapons to bring home with us, along with the practice axes and practice sword that were meant to resemble Zenia and Mavra’s weapons. I returned the trainer’s parting wave as I headed toward the double doors.

My two warriors were brimming with enthusiasm as we walked out to the car.

“I cannot wait to pummel Mavra with the masterful moves I have learned,” Indy said in a dreamy voice. Somehow, she managed to sound both deeply meditative and gleefully vengeful. “I am becoming more skillful with the shiny metal whip, too. I will show the fierce cat-woman that we are not to be trifled with.”

“I approve,” I said solemnly.

But I was still feeling slightly distracted as I pondered the fact that my two women had already shown that they weren’t to be trifled with.

Ellie looked at me with a thoughtful expression in her big blue eyes as she got in the passenger seat that Indy offered her.

“John?” the dainty warrior asked shyly. “What is it?”

“Mmm?” I glanced over at her as I started the car, and just like with Indy, it took a conscious effort to focus on her words instead of her delicate, tempting beauty. I took a moment to gather my thoughts before I replied. “Well… There’s something that occurred to me recently about your upcoming fight, and I’m trying to decide how to handle it.”

“Is something wrong?” Ellie asked anxiously.

“Not exactly,” I said slowly as I drove us out of the parking lot.

“It’s just… Zenia and Mavra were good fighters, but they didn’t even manage to lay a finger on you during your battle. And yet, that bald-headed bastard who backs them still had the guts to challenge us again. It makes me think there might be something more to this.”

“More?” Indy asked. She was in the back seat, but I could hear the frown of confusion in her voice. “Like what, John? More weapons?”

“No.” I shook my head as I steered us toward home. “More warriors, maybe.”

“More warriors?” the two women echoed in unison.

I nodded. “It would explain why he gave us seven days. Maybe he was planning to duel someone and take their warrior. Or warriors, even.”

My own two warriors absorbed this in sudden silence, and I felt like their minds were now racing as much as my own.

I calmed my thoughts and shuffled them into order while I drove. By the time we got back to my little cottage in Long Beach, Washington, I knew what I wanted to do next.

“Okay,” I said decisively while I held the door open for the two bombshells to enter. “I want to get in touch with that woman from the leatherworks store and ask her about some new armor for you two, and then work on getting you both some more weapons for hand-to-hand stuff. Like the brass knuckles I was telling you about, maybe.”

“Yes, John,” Indy agreed as she skipped through the door.

“Zenia will taste the wrath of my blows for weeks after our battle.”

“Right.” I smirked as I remembered the savage backhand my princess had dealt to her red-haired opponent in Bayalon. “Just, uh… don’t get carried away, please.”

“I will keep a level head, John,” Indy said obediently.

“I will do the same,” Ellie chimed in. “We will be full of controlled fury.”

“Attagirl.” I grinned as I pulled out my phone.

Then I strolled over to the couch to sit down while Indy marched Ellie into the bathroom. I stretched out my legs while I searched for the number to the leatherworks store.

The phone rang several times before the familiar, bubbly voice of the pink-haired leatherworker picked up. “Hide ‘N’ Seek, this is Abbey.”

“Hey there,” I said. “This is John. I’ve come in a few times–”

Suddenly there was a huge crash from her end of the line, followed by a muttered curse.

“Sorry, John,” her brisk, sunshiny voice picked right back up like nothing of consequence had just happened. “Think I just broke my toe. I’m moving some… stuff… into the back room.”

She paused with a grunt of effort at whatever she was doing, but then I heard her do a little gasp.

“John,” she repeated. Now there was a note of excited recognition in her voice. “You mean, the John with the two lovely shieldmaidens?”

“That’s me,” I chuckled, but I was slightly confused because of how many Johns must have traversed her store over time. “How could you tell?”

“Your voice.” She sounded slightly absent-minded now. “It’s, umm… nice. But anyway… What can I do for you, John?”

“Well…” I drummed my fingers against the arm of the couch.

“The carbon fiber reinforcement on those boots you outfitted my, uh, shieldmaiden with… That was some good stuff.”

“Thanks!” Abbey sounded like she was bursting with pride.

“Are you looking to get some more of it? That’s all I’ve been up to lately. I think I’ve really perfected— ouch!”

“Uhh… You alright, Abbey?” I asked with a slight sense of alarm.

“Oh, yes.” Her voice became brisk and cheerful again.

“Stabbed myself with my new overstitcher for the leather. That’s what I get for multi-tasking, though. I’m making more reinforced armor, and I’ve been honing the technique. I’d be happy to show some of them to you and your shieldmaidens, if…?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I confirmed. “I was hoping to maybe get some custom stuff. Will you be in the store any time
soon?”

“I’m here now!” Abbey said brightly. “I’ve been doing all my stitching and stuff in the back of the shop lately. We’re technically open ‘til seven, but I’ve been staying here until nine or ten since I started sprucing up the back room. You’re welcome to head on down whenever.”

Suddenly the bathroom door swung open in front of me, and my eyes widened at the state of the two women prancing out into my living room.

Words seemed beyond me all of a sudden.

“Hot damn,” I murmured. Then I realized I was still on the phone, and I felt my face turn beet red. “I mean, uh… Nice. Thanks, Abbey. We’ll be there.”

I hung up the phone and ran my eyes over the two women from head to toe.

A faint cloud of steam poured out of the bathroom after the two towel-wrapped women. The heat of their bath had brought out a pearly-pink glow on Ellie’s porcelain face, and Indy’s golden skin was glowy and gleaming. Their wet hair tumbled down their backs, and
the burning of Indy’s red-gold eyes were perfectly complemented by Ellie’s angelic, sapphire-blue gaze.

The sight of their perfectly-shaped forms pressing through the towels was almost enough to make me forget my sense of purpose, but I regathered myself after a long moment.

“Time to get dressed, my shieldmaidens,” I said with slight reluctance. “I have to send a quick message, and then I want us to head down to Portland soon.”

“The strange city!” Indy clapped her hands together, and the towel slid down and exposed the spellbinding sight of her naked breasts. Her long fingers traced temptingly over her dark nipples before she hitched the fabric back up. “Is that where we will get our new weapons, John?”

“Uhh,” I mumbled as I gave my head a quick, hard shake.

“Yep. And I’m going to have you both fitted for some custom armor, the kind that’s reinforced like Ellie’s boots.”

“They spared my ankles from a cruel fate,” Ellie murmured.

Then resolve crept into her heart-shaped face, and she lifted her chin. “I won’t let the scaly-legged woman get close to such a strike in
our next fight. Our new training will aid us well. But… I am grateful for the protection of this armor, John.”

“Very grateful,” Indy amended. “And very honored. No warriors have ever been so lucky.”

“It’s not luck,” I said truthfully. I felt slightly flustered, like I always did with these comments, but I also thought I might be starting to get used to them. “You deserve it. Both of you.”

The two women had radiant expressions, but then Indy’s got a commanding expression as she removed one hand from holding up her towel to grip Ellie’s dainty arm.

“Come, Ellie,” the princess instructed. “Let us dress.”

I chuckled at the firm, big sister-like attitude that Indy took on with the doll-faced fighter.

Then I looked down at my phone to type out a text message to my Portland-based friend.

You working today, St. Nick?

As usual, his reply came in a string of separate texts: Yep.

Well, I’m in the shop, anyway.

You thinking about coming down to P-town, Johnny boy?

I shook my head with a mixture of amusement and disgust as I replied.

Don’t call it P-town.

Sorry, he replied. Clown Town, I mean.

I snorted. Never mind. P-town it is. But yeah, I have some more jewels to drop off, so I was thinking I’d swing by.

His reply came in a new burst of messages:

Sure thing, Johnny boy.

By the way, I have the perfect idea for that thing you asked me about.

I’ll tell you when you get down here.

Deal, I responded. See you in a few hours, Nickiboo.

There were a ton of ideas flitting through my mind, and I took some time to get them in order while my women got ready for our trip to Portland. We only had a few days until we were set to go back to the legendary city, and I wanted to make sure I had all my boxes checked before my warriors faced off with Zenia, Mavra, or whatever other fighters that bald-headed wizard-looking motherfucker decided to throw our way.

The trip to Portland would already cross a few major things off the list, like getting the women fitted for reinforced armor, grabbing some new weapons for their close-range fighting, and stopping by Nick’s pawnshop.

This last errand was important for reasons other than dropping off my jewels.

All my past trips to the desert world had been opportunistic. I had taken the portal exit when my schedule and route made it possible. But for this upcoming visit, I had a timetable. A specific date when I needed to be back so my women could battle the bald backer’s fighters for double the winnings of what we had walked out with last time.

So I had recently engaged my wily friend in cooking up a scheme to make sure I had a shipment that would get me back on SR 14 at the perfect time.

Nick didn’t have direct connections in the world of truck drivers, but he did have some mysterious business connections at his disposal. I had to find a way to get Marsh to send me out for a shipment at exactly the right time, but getting Marsh to do anything convenient was an uphill battle. It was the opposite of what the jackass always did when he had the chance. I had some general
ideas of how to go about swinging things in my favor, though, and I knew that if anyone could be trusted to help me work out the exact scheme, it was Nick.

Granted, having to juggle my boss’ bullshit was wearing on my nerves with this one, but a huge part of me couldn’t seem to give a shit. I was becoming filthy stinking rich thanks to my trips down SR

14, and that made up for a hell of a lot.

The gem and pearl haul from my first few trips to the oasis cities had now brought about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars into my bank account, even with some of the pearls still not sold yet.

That was over double the amount of money I made in a whole year as a truck driver.

On top of that, there was the future income from the jewels I had in my possession now, the ones I was about to drop off today.

These were my winnings from the trip to Bayalon with my women several days ago.

And a few days from now, I’d be returning home with double the loot.

I’d be that much closer to hopefully swiping my boss’ business right out of his greedy, spiteful hands.

But I needed to make sure my warriors were safe, and that they would come out of their upcoming battle as the victors. Not only so I could secure the bag, but because I had already come to care about the two women more than I could even explain.

I felt another surge of pleasure at the fact that the two gorgeous warriors belonged to me as they hurried down the stairs.

Indy was ready to prowl the streets of the strange city in her Princess Jasmine pants, gold belt, and the skimpy top that hugged her ample breasts. Ellie wasn’t far behind in her cropped jeans and teal velvet bralette, and the dainty fighter’s platform boots clomped eagerly down the stairs behind the swift, softer tap of Indy’s beaded sandals.

I got to my feet and watched with affection as the princess snatched up Ellie’s clingy white sweater and threw it over the blue-haired warrior’s delicate shoulders. The sweater’s buttons hung open, and I was suddenly acutely conscious of the outline of Ellie’s nipples pressing through the velvet fabric that emphasized her small, high breasts.

The sight of the two women made the idea of outfitting them with more clothes flit back into my mind. They looked gorgeous as hell no matter what they were wearing, but I couldn’t deny that the fairy godmother-like lady had done them justice in finding clothes
that suited them perfectly. The increasing confidence of Indy’s panther-like sway in her Princess Jasmine pants, and the way Ellie’s hand strayed up to stroke the previously undreamed-of softness of her velvet top, were the type of little pleasures I lived for already, even though this was still new to me.

I took damn good care of my women, and their gratitude seemed to roll off them in waves every time their eyes met mine.

As we got started on our drive south to Portland, I glanced at the two warriors in my car and let myself revel again in the way they were getting more comfortable with me, and with each other, too.

The dynamic between the three of us was something I had never even imagined myself feeling until recently, and I loved it.

I was one lucky son of a bitch, and things would only keep getting better.

I couldn’t wait to put my plan into motion and make our next trip to Bayalon happen.

Before I’d found the mysterious portal, the prospect of jumping through hoops was challenging in a way that left me feeling a little deadened, although my love of being on the road had definitely made up for it.

But things were different now.

Navigating these twists and turns of being a backer was challenging in a new way that excited me. Because I was no longer just scrambling to keep in good standing with my boss.

Now, I had a plan for putting that buzzkilling bastard in my rearview mirror forever.

I was taking measurable steps toward getting Spitfire out of his clutches, and maybe even doing the same with his trucking business.

The possibilities for what I could do in the future were practically unlimited. At this point I didn’t just feel like I had stepped into one of the fantasy books I had always loved listening to. Now, it felt like I was the one holding the pen.

Better still, that would go hand in hand with providing the best for the two incredible warrior women who now belonged to me.

And the ones who might belong to me in the very near future.

Chapter 2

I parked on the curb near the pawnshop. As I stepped out of the car and strolled down the sidewalk with Indy and Ellie at my sides, I felt like the pearly-gray sky was bright and promising instead of dull and gloomy. Even the dead ostrich in the window display of the creepy taxidermy shop looked less eerie than usual as we passed.

The bell on the door of the Screaming Goose pawnshop tinkled lightly when we walked in. I immediately spotted Nick hunched over the jewelry counter beside Vero. Unlike Nick’s shaggy, untamed mop of dark hair, the appraiser’s slicked-back, helmet-like bronze hair stayed perfectly in place without even a strand escaping to fall down over his face as he bent over whatever he was doing on the counter.

It seemed like the sound of the bell took several moments to penetrate Nick’s consciousness, but once it did, he abruptly straightened up to see who had come in.

When he spotted me, his sharp green eyes brightened, and he sprang out from his place behind the jewelry counter.

“Hey, Johnny B—” He paused with a look of mock terror at my unamused expression, and then amended himself. “Uhh…

Bossman. Johnny Bossman.”

“That’s me,” I said dryly. Then I gestured at the two women who hung back slightly behind me. “Nick, you’ve met Indy… and this is Ellie. Ellie, meet Nick.”

The dainty warrior shrank slightly further behind me, but she gave a shy little wave at Nick, who looked as shocked as if Damian Lillard had just burst in the front door on horseback to ride around his pawnshop.

My friend’s eyes glazed over slightly, and his stare followed the two women until they disappeared into the same aisle where I’d found them playing the Twister-Jumanji game last time we’d been here.

Then he looked back at me with an expression of dumbfounded respect. “Nice.”

“Thanks.” I smirked and returned his clap on the shoulder before I glanced back at where Vero was hard at work behind the jewelry counter. “Uhh, dude... Just out of curiosity… are those dentures?”

“Hmm?” Nick swiveled his head around to look at Vero like he had forgotten his employee was even there. “Oh, yeah. This hundred-year-old lady paid us like thirty grand to bedazzle her dentures, and now she wants her sister’s done, too. Talk of the town, apparently. Or the retirement home, at least.”

As I watched, I finally realized that was exactly what Vero was doing. He seemed entirely focused as he used a pair of tweezers to carefully squeeze another tiny jewel into place on one of the fake teeth.

“Only you,” I muttered, and I felt a mixture of disbelief and respect at what I was pretty sure was only a tiny tip of the iceberg with my friend’s shenanigans.

“Yeah, you know me.” Nick shrugged, and a familiar cheeky grin overtook his face. Then he strolled over to lean against the other side of the jewelry counter and rolled up the sleeves of his rumpled dress shirt. “Speaking of oddly specific business ventures, I have an idea for getting you your shipment. Well… several ideas, actually.”

“Alright.” I followed him over and stood with my arms crossed.

“Hit me with the one that’s the least batshit crazy first, Wile E.

Coyote.”

Nick let out a deep, dramatic sigh of disappointment. “If you say so. Okay, well… First of all, you don’t have to load your own shit, correct?”

“Into my trailer, you mean?” I snorted. “No. I’m not even allowed to lay a finger on it, actually. Company policy.”

“Good.” My friend rubbed his hands together, and he had a faintly wolfish expression on his face, like I had just set a juicy steak down in front of him. “And you said your boss hates you, yes?”

I grimaced. “Yep. Making my life as difficult as possible is his favorite hobby.”

“Mm,” my friend muttered sympathetically. “Sounds like a total fucktrumpet. Luckily, I just so happen to own the creepy taxidermy shop next door. Sort of.”

“What do you mean, ‘sort of?’” I asked with slight suspicion.

“I run it through a holding company in New Mexico.” Nick waved one hand in a vague and careless gesture. “And that company is registered through my lawyer’s firm. So it’s more, uh…

anonymous for me, as a business owner.”

“Right.” I laughed and shook my head. “Of course.”

“Gotta keep my reputation squeaky clean,” my friend said with an innocent smile. “And this holding company of mine owns more taxidermy shops in Eastern Washington, so…”

I ignored the puppeteering motions he was doing with his hands as I stared at him with curiosity. “Why the hell is Eastern Washington so interested in taxidermy?”

“Waterfowl.” He shrugged, as if that explained everything.

“Anyway, I’ll make sure your boss is told that the load will smell like complete ass, so—”

“Will it smell like complete ass?” I asked pointedly as I thought of the taxidermy shop’s stench.

“It’ll smell like dead birds,” Nick said with a small smirk. “But assuming the load is assigned to you, I’ll make sure the packaging is done right. You won’t smell a thing in that old truck of yours.”

I rubbed my jaw as I mulled this over. “And what’s the worst-case scenario here? I mean, is there any chance of Marsh finding out it’s me orchestrating this through your business?”

“None,” my friend said without hesitation. “The only people who know that are in this room. As far as anyone else is concerned, the request will come from Deadhead Boutique.”

He gestured at the door behind the jewelry counter that led to the creepy taxidermy shop as he spoke the last words.

I laughed again. “Charming.”

“If all goes well, you’ll be delivering your load to Party Fowl Taxidermy Studio,” Nick added. Then he continued in a drawn-out voice. “You’ll have a…”

“Don’t say it,” I groaned as I realized he was going to hit me with a cheesy pun.

“Duckload of ducks,” he finished in a loud voice.

I rolled my eyes dramatically before I punched my friend affectionately on the shoulder. “Thanks, dude. Seriously.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” he said in a voice that sounded equal parts sincere and rueful. “You should’ve heard all the other plans I had cooked up, oh, man…”

“Soon, Dr. Evil,” I laughed. “But first…”

I reached into my jacket to slowly pull out my pouch of jewels as I strolled over to the velvet mat on the jewelry counter.

Then I stopped and turned to look at my friend again. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m having you orchestrate all of this?”

“Nope,” he replied promptly. When I raised my eyebrows, he just shrugged. “You haven’t asked me to do anything highly illegal or risky, so unless you’re in a sharing mood, then… none of my business, Johnny boy. It’s about time some good shit came your way. Especially since a chunk of that good shit is coming my way, too.”

“Touching,” I snorted in response to the last statement, but I could still recognize the note of sincerity in the rest of my friend’s words. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Nick smiled but then slipped into his back-to-business tone. “Now, let’s take a look at those jewels. Vero…?”

After a moment, the bronze-haired appraiser popped up like a jack-in-the-box from where he’d knelt down to arrange the finished dentures in the glass display case, where I assumed they were placed to attract the attention of any aging customers until the lady who had requested them stopped by to pick them up.

His eyes lit up at the sight of the gems I was carefully pouring out onto the velvet mat.

“Excellent,” he murmured, and he approached the jewels with such reverence that I was tempted to ask him if he wanted some
time alone with them.

I tucked the pouch into my pocket after I had finished emptying it and then glanced at my phone to see the time.

When I saw that it was four o’clock, I sighed. “Oh, damn.”

“Places to go?” Nick waggled his eyebrows and glanced at the aisle that my two warrior women had disappeared into. I narrowed my eyes at him, and my friend plastered an expression of utmost innocence on his face. “Just asking.”

“Sure,” I muttered, and I gave him a mock threatening scowl.

“Just remember who’s putting this money in your pocket, bucko.”

Nick’s sharp green eyes lingered on the jewels that Vero was poking and prodding around under the microscope now. I could tell that this sentiment was warring with his impulse to launch into a string of vulgar jokes.

Finally he nodded. “Whatever you say, Mr. Bossman.”

A small laugh escaped me as I waved goodbye to my friend and then strode over to see what Indy and Ellie were up to.

To my amazement, the first thing I saw when I turned the corner of the aisle was my princess crouched precariously on one of the higher shelves. She was clinging onto its edge with one hand to
keep her balance while she stretched her other hand upward to place a top hat at the peak of a towering array of other hats.

There were all different kinds of hats in this tower: A few wide-brimmed straw hats, several French berets, a bowler hat, some visors, four fedoras, and more. I even caught sight of something I thought was an orange hard hat, the kind that normally was worn by a construction worker.

The foundation of the hat tower was a huge brown cowboy hat, and it was sitting on top of Ellie’s blue-haired head. It was so big that the cap part was almost covering her wide blue eyes, and she was holding her dainty arms out slightly in a way that made her look like a little mannequin as she concentrated on keeping the hats balanced.

The urge to laugh was overwhelming, but I stayed completely still to avoid attracting the two women’s attention while Indy completed her masterpiece.

My princess carefully eased the top hat into place on top of a safari hat that had been the tower’s crowning glory previously. Then she slowly removed her grip from it. When the top hat was clearly going to stay without toppling, Indy’s long fingers reached out to grope around for more hats from the shelves around her.

Then she realized there were none. The top hat must have been the last of them.

“All done, Ellie,” she announced as she clapped her hands together in triumph.

The dainty warrior started to look up at her reflexively but then froze in place as the tower of hats swayed dangerously on her head.

“How many hats?” she asked in an excited tone.

Indy leaned out precariously from the shelf again and craned her neck to see all the hats from top to bottom. I saw her full lips moving silently as she counted.

“Twenty-one hats,” she declared.

I chose this moment to slowly approach, but my movement still caught the princess’ eye, and she wobbled on the shelf as she almost lost her grip. “John!”

“Princess,” I greeted her, and I managed to keep a completely straight face as I looked the tower of hats up and down. Then I glanced at Ellie. “Were you, uh… planning on wearing these into battle?”

“No, John,” the dainty fighter responded in a slightly nervous voice. “We were just—”

But the rest of her sentence was cut off as the tower of hats started to lean further and further, until finally it was clear there was no rescuing it. Hats started showering to the ground one by one in a series of small, muffled thuds.

It took about half a second for Nick to appear at the end of the aisle. His approach was quick enough for him to catch sight of the last several hats tumbling to the ground, and he skidded to a stop to stare at the scene.

Then his green eyes traveled over to me with an expression that told me he was both completely baffled and working hard to fight off a laugh.

I shrugged with a mixture of apology and amusement, and my friend slowly raised his hands before he backed away around the corner with exaggerated slowness, like he was leaving a dangerous crime scene.

My poker face finally broke when I saw the sad little way Ellie was looking around at the field of fallen hats around her. I joined in as Indy patted her consolingly on the shoulder and then started scooping up hats off the ground with impressive speed.

I helped replace the hats on the shelf, and then I chuckled at the look on Nick’s face when I strode out from the aisle. I didn’t stop to chat this time. Instead, I just gave him another jaunty wave before I left with the two beautiful women at my side.

Other than the fact that it had been hilarious as hell to me, I loved the fact that my two women felt comfortable stacking twenty-one random hats on Ellie’s head in a public place. Even though it seemed like a simple and playful act to me, I realized the two women had probably never been able to play dress-up in their lives, considering the single, well-worn garment that had been their only outfits when I first met them.

I felt amazing all over again when I thought about the fact that I had now outfitted them with new clothes, weapons, and training.

It felt even more amazing to know that this was just the beginning of what I would be able to provide for these two neglected women.

When we were outside it, I glanced up at the store’s vine-covered sign that I hadn’t really paid much attention to before. The words “Hide ‘N’ Seek” were just barely visible peeking out through the leafy plants, and I snorted with laughter as I realized it was a play on words.

“Amazing,” I said under my breath as I held the door open for my two women.

At first the store seemed empty except for the crowd of leather-clad mannequins, but soon I saw a head full of electric-pink curls bobbing around through the white plastic heads, and the familiar worker who I now knew as Abbey appeared.

Her eyes widened as she saw the three of us. “Hey, strangers!”

“Strangers?” Indy asked in a shocked and displeased voice.

She tossed her hair haughtily, and I knew her red-gold eyes were flaring underneath my sunglasses.

I stifled a laugh. “It’s just a saying, princ… uhh, Indy. It means we’re the opposite of strangers.”

Indy’s full lips relaxed slightly into a mollified expression, but then I saw her mouth the words “foolish” as she muttered under her breath about Abbey’s choice of words.

The pink-haired leatherworker seemed keen to gloss things over with my proud princess, and she started chattering away as she led us immediately through the sea of mannequins.

“So,” she said over her shoulder as we headed toward the back of the store. “You’re interested in some more reinforced leather
armor?”

“Yep,” I confirmed. “I actually wanted to see if we could invest in some custom stuff. I mean, if you do that sort of thing. I’d obviously be willing to pay more for—”

“Of course!” Abbey’s voice was full of excitement. She started walking in slow circles around the two women while she looked over every inch of them in a closer way than before, like she was assessing every little part of their anatomy.

Ellie looked faintly unnerved, and I was pretty sure Indy was, too, but she stood straight and proud as the smaller warrior gravitated closer to her side without realizing it. I recognized the protective stance my princess took on, and it was so adorable that it made me miss Abbey’s next words.

“Sorry,” I mumbled as I turned back to the pink-haired leatherworker. “What did you say?”

Abbey waved a hand. “Oh, I was just saying that I’m going to go get a measuring tape. Then we can talk while I…”

Her voice faded away as she bustled through a curtained doorway at the back of the store. It didn’t take long for her to emerge
with a measuring tape slung over her shoulder and her arms full of assorted pieces of leather armor.

“Okay,” she said briskly as she dropped the leather unceremoniously in a pile on the floor. “These are just to see if you like any of the general styles more than the ones you already have, as soon as we hammer out some basics. Then we can go into more detail. May I…?”

She cautiously extended her hand that was holding the measuring tape toward the princess. Indy’s head swiveled over toward me, then back to Abbey, and she nodded slowly. I saw her long fingers reach out to subtly pat Ellie’s delicate shoulder.

The two women obediently held different limbs out at intervals while the pink-haired leatherworker carefully assessed every part of their bodies with the tape and jotted numbers down on a notepad after each measurement.

Then Abbey showed us different pieces of leather armor and talked us through every aspect of them in a way that made me once again appreciative of her total lack of smooth, swindling attempts.

“Making something like this custom will allow for even more mobility,” she explained as she held up a piece of leather shoulder
armor that was similar to the ones I had bought for Ellie on our last trip here. “Even with the carbon fiber sewed in. The thonging that I weave through the leather segments will follow the shape of the shoulder perfectly when it’s measured.”

I listened carefully as she explained more about the shoulder armor and then followed up with greaves and vambraces.

“So…” I took a moment to think about how to carefully phrase the question I wanted to ask. “With those vambrace things, the ones that cover their forearms… Do you have the kind that, er, protect the hand, too? Or maybe just the knuckles?”

“Like gauntlets?” Abbey’s face brightened. “I’ll be right back.”

She rushed into the back room again and came out with an armful of different styles of leather gauntlets.

I looked them over closely and tapped on the pair that would cover the women’s forearms and knuckles best while still leaving their fingers free.

One of Indy’s long fingers reached out and joined mine in tapping the leather.

“Strong like Ellie’s boots,” she murmured in approval. “And…

many pieces.”

Abbey nodded. “These ones are more like bracers than gauntlets. They’re good for keeping mobility while adding some protection for the knuckles.”

“That’s perfect,” I said. I drummed my fingers against my thigh for a few moments while I thought. “So… In our, uh, larping thing…

Indy here fights with a sword in one hand and a chain whip in the other. So if we’re trying to be realistic, she’d need extra flexibility in her whip hand, right?”

“Yep.” The leatherworker’s pink curls bounced as she nodded again. “It would make sense to have a bracer like these– the one with knuckle protection– on her sword hand, and just a vambrace like she already has on the other, if that’s what you were thinking.

They could both be reinforced with carbon fiber, of course, like you asked.”

I grinned. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. And could there also be carbon fiber reinforcements in the knuckle area specifically?”

“In the knuckles…” Abbey pondered this for a moment. “I haven’t done that before, but it’s definitely possible. My dad rides motorcycles, and he actually has a pair of gloves that have hardened knuckles. I can’t remember if they’re carbon fiber, or like… Kevlar.

But there are tactical gloves with both, I think. If I take some
inspiration from those, I’m sure I can incorporate carbon fiber knuckles into the bracer.”

“That would be perfect.” I had to fight off a smirk as I contemplated Indy backhanding Zenia again, this time with reinforced bracers.

Even though the princess was still wearing my sunglasses, a glance at her face told me she was thinking the exact same thing.

We went over some more details, like getting two bracers for Ellie, and some other adjustments to the new, reinforced armor Abbey would be making for the women.

I had a huge level of appreciation for how thorough and thoughtful the leatherworker was, but when I mentioned this, she just waved a hand airily.

“It’s literally my favorite thing to do,” she assured me. “I love theorizing about this stuff, and coming up with functional versions of something that could’ve existed once. And if it’s something that has never existed at all, well, that’s even cooler. Medieval-modern fusion.”

I chuckled at the phrase. “Sounds like something that would be in the Yelp description of a Portland restaurant.”

Abbey slapped her knee as she laughed at this, then winced.

“Quit cracking jokes like that,” she said in a mock stern voice as she wagged a finger at me. “I’m going to have to start wearing poleyns around the store.”

I could only assume poleyns were some sort of medieval knee armor, and I had to smile at the leatherworker’s antics as we worked out the final details and decided on the styles of the women’s new leather armor.

“Do you think you could do a rush order?” I asked after we had agreed on the specifics. “If only for the bracers? I mean, I know it’s a lot of stuff to do in a short time, so I’ll understand if you can’t…”

Abbey toyed with one of the piercings in her lip and got a calculating look on her face, and then she ducked into the back room again to check how much of each type of leather and carbon fiber she had.

“I’m almost certain I can have three pairs of bracers done within a few days,” she said decisively. “I can’t say I’m a hundred percent sure because I haven’t done carbon fiber knuckles before, but I think I can do it by then. I’ll work on those first, and then do the
other stuff as quickly as possible without compromising on quality. I still want to equip you guys with my top work.”

“I appreciate that,” I said genuinely. “I’ll pay extra—”

“Don’t worry about that for now,” the leatherworker assured me with another wave of her hand, although her pierced face was glowing with pride and excitement about her work. “Payment after.

Do I have your phone number already?”

“Nope,” I said, and I accepted the pen she was holding to scrawl down my number at the bottom of her notepad. “This is my cell number, so you can call or text.”

“Wonderful!” she cheered. “I’ll text you updates and then give you a call when I’m done. I can’t wait to get started on these.”

I felt just as excited when I left the leatherworks store, and the feeling was reflected on the faces of the two warrior women at my sides as we headed back toward the car.

The fact that they would have the functional equivalent of brass knuckles incorporated into their leather armor was an idea that hadn’t occurred to me until I was in the shop, and I was glad Abbey was so thrilled to go along with it as I contemplated how much better this would be than traditional brass knuckles.

I felt confident that the option I had agreed on with the leatherworker wouldn’t have the same possibility of hurting my women’s hands as brass knuckles, and it also removed the possibility of the knuckle armor slipping from their grip. I wasn’t sure if Mavra and Zenia would’ve been quick enough to snatch up a pair of brass knuckles off the ground and use them if that were to happen, but it seemed better not to find out.

Not to mention the fact that this would just be that much more unexpected to my women’s opponents.

I knew the blood count would be higher in the fight they would be walking into a few days from now, so taking these steps alleviated some more of the tension. I’d been nervous after considering the possibility of my warriors facing one or more different and unexpected opponents when we returned to Bayalon. Now, between the new armor, the additions I had requested for their upcoming training session, and the few other preparations that were forming in my mind, I felt fully confident that Indy and Ellie would be safe and victorious in their battle.

The prospect of hitting up even more oasis cities in the future was dizzying to me in the best way imaginable. My two women were getting more skilled in martial arts by the day, and I had even more
ideas for ways to up their training and conditioning after we returned from Bayalon again.

But for the moment, I had plenty of excitement in the immediate future to hold my attention. Indy and Ellie’s feverish eagerness, along with the additional commas I’d soon be seeing in my bank account, made it easy to be focused on the task at hand.

Which brought me to the next action to check off on my list.

“We made a pretty big entrance to the legendary city on our first visit,” I reflected.

“Your war chariot was thunderous,” Indy agreed with a hint of smugness. “And our new weapons helped awe the guard into acceptance.”

“Hell yeah.” I grinned. “But I was thinking for the second time, maybe we could make an even bigger entrance…”

Chapter 3

The two warrior women looked at me in confusion, so I decided to clarify things. “Like, not just at the gate, but when we’re moving around throughout the city, before your fight.”

“How, John?” Ellie asked with a small furrow in her pearly brow.

“Well, I was thinking we could get you two a little more, uh…

finery.” I paused to take in the two women’s facial expressions before I quickly continued. “Something badass, but easy to take off or change out of before the fight starts.”

Indy frowned doubtfully, but the dainty warrior on my other side started to look thoughtful.

“We would stand out from the other warriors,” Ellie mused.

“Most do not have such finery to wear.”

“Exactly,” I said with a grin.

I directed us toward the store I had looked up on my phone, Luminos Apparel. According to Yelp, there was a huge range of medieval style clothing, and it seemed like it was frequented by cosplayers and costume designers alike.

“More human dolls,” Indy said skeptically as the store’s window display came into view.

I didn’t blame her. The mannequins in the window display were wearing some fussy medieval gowns with about a hundred too many ruffles. The best use they would have served for my warrior princess probably would’ve been to smother her enemies with those skirts.

But here on Earth, we were in the digital age, and the Yelp reviews for this shop made me decide it was worth walking in and taking a look around. I had seen pictures of the type of shit I was sure my two women would love, so I was gentle but unyielding as I propelled the two women into the store in front of me. As soon as we were inside, I spotted the type of clothes I had seen on Yelp toward the back of the store.

And so did Indy.

“Come, Ellie,” she commanded, and I snorted as the princess took off toward the back while pulling the dainty warrior along behind her.

I sidled up next to them when they came to a halt in the back area of the store, and both women turned in circles to look at the treasure trove of clothes there.

There were a ton of Daenerys Targaryen-style dresses with jeweled bodices and draped or flowy skirts, but they ranged from queenly to queenly and scandalous. There were also various pieces of “armor” that had a similar shape to the leather armor I had bought for my two women, but with a purpose that was clearly decorative.

Some of them even looked like they belonged at some sort of red carpet event, but they still held a war-like element, and I knew the combination would immediately draw everyone’s eye in Bayalon.

There were corsets, shirts, and shoulder armor made out of shiny metallic scale-mail in all different colors like black, gold, and copper. Some outfits even had queenly capes or cloaks made of silk or sheer gauzy fabric. A lot of the clothes were medieval in style, but some had more modern twists. Others look like they belonged in ancient Egypt, and some were vaguely Greek Goddess-like.

The two women drifted toward different areas of clothing like there was a gravitational pull to them, and I stuck next to the more vulnerable Ellie for the moment, since she was both tinier and newer to Earth. I still kept a careful eye on my princess, partly to make sure she was safe, but also to ensure she didn’t backhand any innocent customers who got too close to her.

There was no fairy godmother-like women to guide our journey here, but my two warriors were both getting braver and bolder in my world already, and it didn’t take them long to get the hang of the whole “snatch up anything that looks pretty” thing that I not-so-subtly encouraged.

Then I lounged around near the changing room while my two women trooped inside together. I heard them whispering and giggling for what seemed like forever, but I let them have their fun.

Then I watched the two bombshells parade out in different outfits like they owned the place.

Soon Indy strutted out in a skin-hugging black gown with a long, V-shaped neckline that revealed a generous amount of her plush golden cleavage. It even went down far enough to display a portion of her toned abs. There were glittering black beads on the dress that accented the lush curves of her form, and she wore a skimpy bralette made of gleaming gold scale-mail underneath that made the dress only slightly less revealing. She wore gleaming golden scale-mail on her shoulders, too, and a gauzy black cape flowed down to the backs of her ankles.

As I looked Indy up and down, I still almost couldn’t believe this woman was mine.

“You look like a fucking warrior goddess,” I told her with total honesty. “I’m slightly concerned that someone in Bayalon will jump us at the sight of you in this, though. And… maybe it’s not the most practical thing for striding around in the desert world.”

I could see that Indy agreed with this idea, but she also looked slightly mournful as she ran her hands over the fabric of the dress and toyed with the golden scale-mail bralette. Her bottom lip poked out in a way that immediately got to me.

As I studied her outfit more closely, I could see that the scale-mail and the cape definitely seemed like they were separate pieces from the dress, and I gave them a thoughtful look.

“I think you should get the whole outfit,” I said decisively. “But maybe just wear the shoulder scale-mail and cape with your romper thing when we go into the city. You’ll still look every fucking inch a warrior queen, but it’ll probably be a lot easier than wearing the dress and then changing before battle.”

Indy’s face brightened, and her eyes flared like a desert sunrise. “I may take the dress home, then, John? And wear it here on Earth?”

“Hell yeah,” I chuckled at her reaction as she bounded back to the changing room.

Then I realized Ellie had been in the changing area for a while now, and I was just debating whether it would be weird to call out and see if she was alright when one of the doors creaked open, and the dainty warrior shyly flitted out to stand in front of me.

“Ellie…” My mouth suddenly felt dry as I drank in the blue-haired fighter with my eyes. “Damn.”

The dress she wore was somehow both ethereal and faintly scandalous. It was a shade of pale, airy periwinkle, and the upper part of it bared the tops of her small, high breasts. The bodice sheathed her dainty form so closely that they were almost spilling out of the top, but she looked at ease in the dress.

And she looked fucking beautiful.

The dress’ long skirt flared out a little toward the ground. Its delicate appearance was both emphasized and balanced out by the corset that encircled Ellie’s waist and abdomen. I had no idea what the corset was made out of, but it looked almost like polished blue porcelain, and it had swirling designs made of gold leaf on its edges.

It seemed as decorative as a painting that belonged on the wall of a
museum, but the shape of it had a war-like aspect that immediately drew the eye.

She wore shoulder armor, too. Each one was made of the same polished material as the corset, but they were a rich shade of pink. Instead of just being shaped like the protective leather shoulder pads that she would wear into the arena, these were intricately molded to look like two big pink flowers that sat upside-down to cup her petite shoulders under their petals.

Then Indy marched out wearing her normal Princess Jasmine pants again and clutching her new clothes in her arms.

“Waspie,” she commented with an approving look at Ellie’s corset. She reached out to touch the material, and her fingernail made a clinking sound against the polished surface when she tapped it. “This armored finery is very nice. I think Ellie needs these clothes, John.”

Ellie smiled shyly, and I rubbed my jaw as I contemplated the anatomical details of this outfit.

“The corset and shoulder flower… things… can go on over your normal fighting outfit, right?” I asked as I stood up and tapped the material myself.

“Yes, John.” Ellie twirled around in front of the mirror and watched the dress’ skirts swirl around her ankles, and I thought about the fact that neither of these women had ever owned a fancy dress in their lives.

So I ended up giving it the same verdict as Indy’s new outfit.

When we were carrying the clothes up to the idle-looking guy at the front desk, I suddenly realized there was more than just the two dresses and decorative armor in the collection of garments my ladies had chosen.

I came to a halt.

“What is all this?” I asked, and I plucked up a skimpy, sheer lace garment and stared at it. “Is this lingerie?”

I was more curious than anything else, even without seeing the price tag, but Ellie’s face immediately blushed a vivid, pearly pink at my words, and she averted her big blue eyes. She studied the blank white face of the nearest mannequin like she was staring at a fascinating painting, and I turned my gaze toward Indy to see if she knew what was going on.

To my surprise, my princess did the same exact thing. I glimpsed about a dozen scattered colors dancing through her eyes
before she hurriedly shoved my sunglasses back onto her face, and a blush of bright pink spread across her golden-hued skin.

I glanced down at the lingerie again, then at the two women, and I thought of the whispering and giggling I’d heard when they were in the changing rooms together.

Finally, I shrugged to myself and placed the heap of clothes on the counter, lingerie included.

Altogether, the price for the new clothes was well over a thousand dollars, and I winced reflexively at this information before I suddenly realized I could afford it now.

And these stunning, badass women deserved to be treated to something like this for the first time.

They were both still blushing slightly when we left the clothing store, and I shook my head again at the mysterious ways of women.

As we walked back toward my car, I fished the pamphlet that the martial arts trainer had given me earlier out of my pocket and scanned over it to find the Portland location of the supply store.

Since we were already here, I figured we might as well go to one of the bigger locations. They were more likely to be stocked with home training equipment for my warriors to practice with.

I let out a low whistle as I led the way into a labyrinth of wooden post dummies inside the store, along with a crowd of various human-shaped ones. There were other kinds, too, from simple sandbags to more elaborate contraptions constructed from tires and PVC pipes.

Indy walked up to a wooden-post dummy and reached up to tap one of the rods that stuck out from it. “We practiced with these during our training for a short time.”

“They were formidable,” Ellie added, and she gave the sea of posts a slightly mistrustful look. “The wooden arms move.”

Eventually, I managed to track down a worker in the middle of the wooden labyrinth, and I ended up deciding to get several different kinds of dummies: One of the wooden-post kinds, and two that were human-shaped.

One of the two human-shaped dummies was the grappling kind, and the other was like the upper body of a person mounted on a stand. With the latter option, a weapon could be placed in the dummy’s hands.

I grabbed some wrist wraps and a few other accessories for my women’s home training, too. Thankfully, the guy behind the
register allowed me to pull my car up to the curb right outside the store, and I managed to shove the wooden-post dummy, which was boxed up in several pieces, into my trunk. The grappling dummy could be curled up enough to squeeze in on top of it.

The person-on-a-stick dummy ended up wedged in the back seat with its head in Indy’s lap, but my princess didn’t seem to mind.

She just settled in with her fingers tapping an idle rhythm against the dummy’s blank, featureless face, and she looked like she was already daydreaming about putting it to good use.

Now that the idea had occurred to me for the warriors’ bracers, I realized it might be a good idea for me to get some reinforced gloves of my own. The kind I wanted weren’t available in the store, though, and I stopped to grab a pair on our way home. They were half-finger gloves that left some extra room in my first few fingers, so I’d still be able to handle my gun. I figured the gloves would come in handy if I needed to fight my way through a crowd like I had last time we’d left Bayalon.

Especially if that required punching one of those fiery volcano beings in the face again. This way I wouldn’t burn my knuckles on one of those motherfuckers.

The sky was getting dark when we finally headed back to my little cottage. It took several trips to bring the dummies inside, and I stared at them as I set the last box containing the wooden wing chun dummy in my living room.

“This is gonna take up half the room when it’s all set up,” I muttered as I stared at the three training dummies.

I decided to save the setup until later, since Indy and Ellie had just had their training session earlier today.

The two women immediately darted upstairs with their bags of new finery, and I was about to head upstairs, too, when the ominous Imperial March song suddenly filled my living room.

“Shit!” I fumbled to snatch up the phone and silence it. Then I took a deep breath before I answered. “Hello?”

“John.” As usual, Marsh’s gravelly voice spoke my name like it left a bad taste in his mouth. But a familiar self-satisfied tone crept into his voice as he went on. “I’ve got a shipment that’s perfect for you.”

“Oh, really?” I asked warily, but a small thrill ran through my chest at the statement. “Where to?”

“Walla Walla,” he said with a growing note of grim delight in his tone. “From Portland. It’s to a shop called Party Fowl Taxidermy Studio.”

“Taxidermy,” I repeated slowly. “Uhh, you mean, like…”

“Stuffed dead animals,” he finished in a crisp voice. “Birds, to be specific. Mostly ducks, I’m told.”

“I see.” I strived to infuse my voice with the perfect mixture of acceptance and gloom. Then I asked the question that I already knew the answer to. “When’s it for?”

“Friday,” he said triumphantly. “Hope you didn’t have any big plans.”

“I can do Friday,” I said, and I had to dig deep to use my calmest and most neutral voice so I didn’t betray the excitement that was making itself felt in my speeding pulse.

Because I did have big plans, as a matter of fact.

And those plans were contingent on this shipment being assigned to me.

“I’ll text you the info, bird-boy,” my boss cackled hoarsely.

Then the line went dead.

I couldn’t help letting out a small, exhilarated laugh.

Marsh thought he had just screwed me over, but he hadn’t.

It was the other way around.

I officially had my schedule set to drive through the portal again Friday night.

Marsh could call me “bird-boy” all he wanted. I didn’t give a fuck. Now I was that much closer to stealing that bastard’s business out from under him.

“This bird-boy is about to fly the coop,” I muttered under my breath as I dropped down onto my couch and let out a satisfied sigh.

With all the excitement, I had expected the next few days to drag by. Instead, time seemed to fly in a way that surprised me. I focused most of my effort on making sure my two warriors were ready for the fight.

Coordinating their training almost felt like the easy part compared to being strict about not letting them go overboard with the dummies at home.

There was one time when I emerged from my five-minute shower to find the two women converging on the grappling dummy with perfect coordination. They even acted out a move where Indy used different techniques for dislodging the dummy from on top of

Ellie when she was lying on the ground with it on top of her, and vice-versa.

But when the situation devolved into the two warriors pummeling and throwing the dummy in earnest, I eventually decided to intervene.

No matter how fun it was to watch.

I allowed Indy to practice using the metal version of her chain whip against the other two dummies, though. I had solved the issue of the cramped space by squeezing each dummy into two respective corners of the room, and then dragging one out to the center whenever the women wanted to practice on it.

The dummies were perfect for fine-tuning new chain whip moves she’d learned in training. Unlike the foam version of the whip she’d been using in her training session, using the metal version against the fighting master in earnest could’ve had unwanted consequences. But with the dummy, she didn’t have to hold back, and I watched with approval as she went to town flowing through some of the moves she’d learned.

When the chain whip’s weighted metal spike scraped against the ceiling again, the princess froze in place and shot me a nervous
look.

I still assured her these little scrapes weren’t a huge deal, although it did lead me to imagining a home where my warriors would have plenty of space to do some training. A space that had even more equipment, and where they would have a better surface to spar on than the carpet of my little old living room.

It was an amazing thing to envision, and the fact that this idea was actually within the realm of possibility for me was about as thrilling as watching my two warriors strive to prove to me that they were more battle-ready than ever.

When I got a text message from Abbey the leatherworker that I could come pick up my women’s new bracers, I decided we’d go grab them right away so Indy and Ellie could have them at their next training session as planned. Making the two-hour drive again seemed like nothing in light of the fact that my warriors would be equipped with this type of armor for their upcoming fight. From the sheer amount of exclamation points Abbey used in her messages, I knew they must have turned out even better than anticipated.

As promised, Indy’s single bracer and new vambrace were both reinforced with carbon fiber, including the knuckle area of the bracer. They were both the same color as the leather armor she
already owned with the same gold swirls, but when my princess put them on and did a casual punch against her own open palm with the bracer, her mouth fell open at the concentrated strength of the carbon fiber knuckles.

Ellie’s two fawn-colored bracers had the carbon fiber knuckles, too, and I was happy my petite little warrior had this extra protection in case she lost one or both of her weapons for any reason when she was in the arena. She had been slowly working on strengthening her strikes, including the hand-to-hand kind, but the reinforced knuckles would lend more impact to those strikes, and it would protect her delicate hands in the case that she did need to fight that way.

I stayed to watch the women’s next training session so I could go over the footage of their last one with them and their trainer. Even though I wasn’t going to be the one out there in the arena, it seemed like a good idea for me to watch over the critique of their moves and the trainer’s suggestions for improvement. That way when I was at the sideline of the arena watching them, I could even call out specific things I remembered if it was necessary.

No matter what happened in that crater stadium, or any of my warriors’ fights for that matter, I was determined to never be like the
backers I’d seen who roared threats at their fighters from the sideline.

Part of my reasoning for this was the simple fact that I cared for and respected my two warriors.

Well, that seemed simple to me, at least. But I knew that to the asshole backers I’d met in the oasis cities so far, this was something they straight-up just didn’t understand, and probably never would.

Still, even if I did have the same lack of caring toward my women, I had seen first-hand that trying to terrify a warrior into winning was supremely unhelpful when things got real in the arena.

When the bald backer with the wizard staff had tried that with his own fighters, it had given them a burst of desperate energy, but the desperate part had ended up contributing to their downfall in the fight as they hurried to best my women as quickly as possible.

As I watched the video footage of Ellie strengthening her counter-attacks and Indy increasing the intricacy and precision of her chain-whip moves, I felt a growing sense of pride in the spirit they showed in applying themselves to their training. They seemed fully determined to never stop improving, and I was just as determined to keep finding ways to help them do that.

And then kick more ass in more desert cities.

And come back with more warrior women in my possession.

Chapter 4

When I woke up on the day we were going through the portal again, my two warriors were already up and trying on the outfits they would wear in the arena with the new additions.

“Whoa…” I muttered through a groggy yawn.

Indy was strutting around in her usual blood orange romper, plus the greaves and corset that were made of black leather with gold swirls, along with the matching bracer and vambrace that were new to her and reinforced with carbon fiber. Her outfit was completed by the decorative golden scale-mail that covered her shoulders, and the gauzy black cape fluttered behind her as she swayed across the room.

Ellie wore her usual white, dress-like romper, but she had replaced the ribbon around her waist with her new polished, deep-periwinkle corset with its gold edges. The matching prebattle shoulder armor was fastened onto her dainty shoulders. Combined with the corset, the upside-down flowers sitting on her shoulders accented her delicate beauty in an eye-catching way, and they betrayed a slight hint of the fact that she was a ruthless, badass warrior who could slay just about anyone in her path.

I could only imagine the looks Indy and Ellie would get in Bayalon when people’s eyes were caught by their flashy new attire.

Their metal weapons, sturdy leather armor, and badass fighting in the arena had already gotten them plenty of attention on our first trip.

Now they had all that, plus this new war-like but decorative finery to walk around in before the battle took place. From what I had seen, even the most famous of the legendary city’s warriors didn’t possess anything similar, and I knew it was sure to draw even more attention to my stunning, deadly warriors.

That would bring more people to the arena, more repute to my women, and maybe even more repute to me as a backer.

If all went well, it would also draw more money into the bulging pouch of winnings I would be receiving from the gray-skinned bookies after the fight was over.

After all the preparation we’d done over the last few days, my nerves about the fight had mellowed, and I could tell it was the same for my women as they shed their new finery so they could spar for a bit before leaving. They seemed keyed up and determined, but not too anxious.

I got out of bed and stretched as I watched them raining light and playful blows on each other in my attic bedroom, and the sight
made me smile more than ever.

“Do not be so forgiving, Ellie,” Indy grunted as she jutted her palm into the dainty fighter’s ribs. “You are too fond of me, pretend I am your opponent.”

“I am,” Ellie almost growled, and she whipped around in a high kick that Indy easily dodged. “Stop being so tall and spry, and I will beat you properly.”

“See?” Indy huffed and dove at Ellie’s hips. “Too many compliments! Too much fondness! Beat me–”

A swift elbow to the neck from Ellie cut off my princess’ words, and she staggered away with a satisfied smile on her face.

“Much better.” Indy nodded. “Now, harder next time.”

After that, I spent some time making us breakfast and taking a few jabs at one of the human-shaped training dummies with my new tactical gloves. Then I made sure everything was packed and ready before we started off in my car and headed to the company lot to trade it for my war chariot.

When I rumbled out of the gate behind Spitfire’s wheel and waited for my two women to ascend gracefully into my cab, I felt like the luckiest man alive.

“I always adore seeing you in your war chariot, John,” Indy purred as she sent me a cat-like smile. “You exude the same brawny fierceness, and I like this.”

Ellie nodded in agreement, and she patted Spitfire’s dash in the same way I always did. “A sturdy chariot for a deserving man.”

My heart nearly cracked open at this, but I tried to keep my shit together as I steered us toward the highway.

I discussed every aspect of the leadup to their fight with them as we headed toward Portland to pick up our duckload of dead ducks. We hit on every little detail, like when and where the women would change from their decorative armor into their battle gear, plus the caffeine pills they would take about forty minutes before they were set to go out into the arena.

I was more glad than ever that my old clunker was a cabover when it came time to maneuver from the narrow city street to the cramped area where I’d be picking up my load. Spitfire’s tight turn radius and good visibility did a lot to reduce the hassle of setting myself up at a good angle and backing smoothly up to the loading dock in the cramped confines of the alleyway outside the taxidermy store.

I chuckled slightly at the awed reaction this accomplishment got from the two warrior women in my cab. It honestly hadn’t been the easiest skill to learn back when I first picked it up, and I had worked hard enough to master it that a little praise went a long way.

Most people didn’t appreciate the skill, especially not the people I was picking up from. I had learned from Doug, my favorite and more seasoned trucker at the company, that those people would always take a driver’s ability to back up a big rig for granted… until something went wrong, and they thought they might have to pay for any sort of damages to the loading area. Thankfully, that hadn’t been an issue for me as a truck driver so far, and as long as I stayed careful, it probably never would be.

Soon I was waiting patiently with my two women for the feathery cargo to be loaded. As Nick had promised, the taxidermied ducks appeared to all be packed into sealed crates, and these were quickly tucked into Spitfire’s trailer with wooden planks bracing them snugly against each other.

Nick himself was nowhere to be seen, but that was what we had agreed on back when we hammered out the details of our plan.

Other than the fact that he already wasn’t personally involved in this
part of the process for the taxidermy store, it also seemed smartest for him to refrain from being too chummy with me here and now.

Not that there would be anyone I knew of who had seen us together in the shop enough to make the connection, other than Vero. But it still seemed best to err on the side of caution.

Once the trailer was loaded, and I was sure everything was well in place, I drove us out of Portland and up onto SR 14 to head east.

“On the road,” Indy chanted, and her glossy black hair streamed back in the wind as she leaned down to carefully roll up the window that I had taught her the workings of.

“You are very good at that,” Ellie praised, and the princess smiled smugly as she admired the closed window.

“Yes, I have mastered this contraption,” she agreed.

The sun was just past the center of the sky as we drove along the river. Washington had been graced by a soft blue sky today that was strewn with gauzy clouds at the edges. It cast the river’s surface into a calm azure shade, and it felt almost like we were driving into a late summer afternoon as we headed into eastern Washington.

Eventually the big tree-clad slopes and rocky cliffs dwindled into lower and lower hills covered with dry yellow grass, and then they flattened out almost completely.

“Party Fowl,” I muttered to myself again as the sign of the lonely shop finally came into sight on our right. I shook my head at the pun for a second time with a mixture of amusement and disbelief.

“What does it mean, John?” Indy asked with a frown.

“It’s a joke,” I explained while I drove us across the crumbling parking lot that was almost empty except for a few derelict cars. “Uh, a really corny joke. ‘Party Foul’ means doing something stupid at a party, basically. And ‘fowl’ is also what some types of birds are called. Including the ones that are in the trailer of my truck right now.”

“Foolish,” Indy whispered in a disparaging voice.

“Yeah, explaining it really kills the last scraps of humor,” I sighed mostly to myself.

When I glanced over at Ellie, though, she seemed to be fighting off a smile that threatened to appear on her pouty pink lips. I made a mental note to think up some extra-cheesy puns to shower her with at the next opportunity, because that smile was adorable as hell.

Once we had dropped off the ducks, I directed us back toward the highway and drove back west through the scrubby desert. The shadows gathered in every small hollow in the land as the sun moved lower in the sky into the cover of the gauzy clouds. By the time we took the usual exit to turn around and access the portal exit on the other side of the highway, dusk was falling in earnest.

I slowed slightly as we rolled down the ramp of the portal exit.

Then I glanced at my two warriors. “Ready to rumble?”

“Rumble?” Ellie echoed in a nervous voice. “I suppose the fog is very… rumbly.”

“We are ready, John,” Indy said with a toss of her hair, but I thought I saw her long fingers reach over to twine through Ellie’s in the faint glow of dusk.

“Let’s do this thing,” I exhaled, and I guided the truck steadily ahead into the gently swirling fog that was starting to appear on the road in front of us. Then I raised my voice slightly. “And by ‘this thing,’ I mean this, uhh, super fun journey through the enchanted fog. It’s so luminous and… swirly. Gorgeous, really.”

Either I was imagining things, or the fog’s swirling was becoming more gentle as we continued to roll forward into it.

Then, to my surprise, Ellie picked back up where I had left off.

“The fog is dazzling and radiant. It is…”

“Majestic,” Indy added solemnly. “Fierce and mighty as a wild gorsican, but beautiful, glowing with the l-light of many sss-sunlit gems—”

I could’ve sworn I saw the increasingly colorful swirls of fog ruffle themselves slightly in a way that reminded me of a bird preening, or my princess tossing her hair proudly. Then the cab around us started to vibrate with slowly increasing force.

Suddenly, the truck rocketed forward into the mist.

“Shit!” I whooped. “I mean… yeehaw!”

“Shit,” Indy agreed in a sputtering whisper.

“Yeeee…” Ellie squeaked. “H–”

A snort of laughter exploded out of me, but then it turned into a choke as the truck picked up more speed, and Ellie’s statement died down.

Tendrils of flowy, glowing fog streamed past Spitfire’s windshield. I felt the same slightly unsettling loss of gravity as usual, but to me it seemed like there was less turbulence in our journey as
we zoomed along. Maybe it was just the effect of me getting used to these journeys, but it almost seemed like a fun ride.

Then we slowed and drifted down with a gentleness that I hadn’t yet experienced in the foggy portal, even on our last trip home when the fog had seemed to react to my lighthearted flattery.

This time, there was only the lightest imaginable bump when we touched down on the Moonstone Road.

“Wow,” Indy whispered as we rolled out of the fog.

“You two okay?” I asked, just to be sure. “This trip was pretty fu– ugh!”

I groaned as the familiar Jell-O-like feeling ran through my body, and the two women both shivered.

Then I exhaled slowly and urged Spitfire back into motion before I spoke again. “The question stands.”

“We are fine.” Indy tossed her hair. I saw shades of silver and pale yellow flickering through her red-gold eyes, but it looked like it was starting to dissipate already now that we’d landed.

When I reached out to trace my fingers over her hand, the rest of the silvery-yellow fragments fled at my touch.

It wasn’t as blatant in Ellie’s case, but I could see the calmness creep back into the dainty warrior’s eyes too when I was in close proximity, and it made me glad.

“The flight was smooth this time,” the doll-faced warrior observed. “Fast, but smooth. But the wobbly feeling was still…”

Indy shuddered. “Not nice.”

“Definitely not nice,” I agreed. Then I took in the gleaming white road and darkening desert ahead of us, and I gave Spitfire’s steering wheel a grateful pat. “At least we’re here in one piece, though.”

“Here to make the crater arena shake with the cheers of the crowd,” my princess declared with renewed fire flashing in her eyes.

Ellie nodded vigorously in agreement, and I smirked as I thought of how well our preparations would pay off in the arena.

No matter who my women faced.

I made sure we were regularly referencing the map Indy had been making as we headed back to Bayalon, partly to keep us on track, and partly because I figured it couldn’t hurt to check the times against each other and make sure it was as accurate as possible. I didn’t see us getting lost out here at this point, but then again, it
never hurt to be careful in this scorching desert land where gorsicans were the sole life form outside the oasis cities. That I knew of, at least…

When Bayalon’s fiery balls of light swam into appearance on the horizon, I slowed the truck to a momentary stop so my women could don the new decorative armor they would wear before they entered the arena.

The gold scale-mail that covered Indy’s shoulders glinted brightly even in the dim yellow overhead light of my cab, and combined with her gauzy black cape, it gave an impression that was both regal and fierce. The polished pink twin flowers that sat on Ellie’s shoulders and the gold-edged, deep periwinkle corset that enclosed her waist made my pearly-skinned warrior look like some divine warrior sculpture that had just escaped from an art museum.

I gave them both a look of deep, silent appreciation before I coaxed Spitfire into motion again.

My warrior women were equal parts stunning and badass.

The fireballs that lit the walls of Bayalon got brighter and closer as we drove along. The sandstone walls towered over our heads as
we approached, and soon we were close enough for the writhing motion of the red-orange light to become visible.

When we pulled up beneath the patterned shadows that danced across the ground around the city, I didn’t hesitate to split the night air open with a deep, baying honk of Spitfire’s horn.

After a few seconds, the small, high-set door in the stone wall opened halfway, and I saw the shadow of a head dart out for the briefest of moments. Then the door swung shut.

A few seconds later, the hollow, metallic sound of a chain winch could be heard, and the big brass gate started rising up into the wall above. I glanced at my two women to make sure they were following my lead as I made sure all my gear was in place, and I prepared to exit the truck.

By the time our feet thudded to the dusty desert ground, the last of the gate was retracting smoothly into the wall overhead, and we strolled right in through the entrance of the legendary city for the second time.

We were approached by the same broad-shouldered, skinny-legged guard I remembered from our first trip, and his fierce, hawk-like face was full of excitement and recognition. His yellow eyes
lingered on the new additions to my warriors’ clothes with a look of appreciation that bordered on awe.

“I knew you three would be back,” he swore. “My brother bet me twelve creds that we’d never see you again. Sucks to be him.”

I snorted, but I allowed a small smirk to creep over my face.

“Well, here we are.”

“Hell yeah,” he chortled. “Can’t wait to put some tokens in my pocket betting on your fight tonight. Cheers.”

“Cheers.” My smirk deepened as the roars of the distant crowd almost drowned out my reply. It sounded like it was already a lively night.

My warriors’ weapons clinked in my duffel bag as I led the two stunners between the black-domed buildings of the Old Town that rose out of the volcanic stone ground like bubbles. I kept a sharp eye out as we passed by the shadowy buildings and their yards full of ominous, toxic-looking plants. Some of the glowing foliage shifted threateningly as we walked past, and I saw a row of plants that looked like giant Venus flytraps lining the edge of the road. The plants silently yawned their mouth-like traps open wide when we
passed, like they were hoping one of us would trip and fall inside, but otherwise they made no movement toward us.

I cast a wary glance up at the spiky, javelin-like branches of the creepy head-tree I remembered from our first venture here, but the branches just glowed in pulsating silence while the strange mist that cloaked them swirled around.

Still, I quickened my pace slightly, and my two warriors hovered a little closer to me while we walked. I gave their wrists a reassuring squeeze as we continued on with no sign of the creepy, head-harvesting old lady we had seen before.

The cheers and roars of the crowd rang out intermittently, and they got even more audible when we left the town with its bubble-like buildings behind. I allowed our pace to slow, and we walked through the moss-strewn landscape with the volcano island in our sight ahead. The slopes were dark, but a steady white light spilled out of its open top.

I took the same simple route from back when we followed the now-dead Barsava and her traitorous, sallow-skinned friend who had pushed her to her death in one of the invisible pools on the offshoots of the main path. There was no one in sight here this time, and the offshoot where I remembered the poor raccoonish woman
disappearing looked flat and empty in the ruddy light of the fireball lanterns.

It seemed like the incident was on my two warriors’ minds, too.

“I wonder if the evil, greasy-haired backstabber is still alive,”

Ellie said in a small voice, and she drifted even closer to my side.

“Maybe the lake-beast decided to devour him,” Indy suggested hopefully.

“He’d deserve it,” I muttered. “Oily, double-crossing, human-sacrificing bastard.”

Well, I guessed Barsava technically hadn’t been human, but still, she had seemed to trust the greasy-haired man.

“Anyway…” I said briskly. I was planning to change the subject as I decided it was best to pull my warriors’ minds away from the gloomy memory, but a sound from behind us made me freeze in place. I pulled the two women over toward the edge of the path and glanced back. “Are you two getting the feeling that we’re being…

followed?”

Suddenly, Indy stiffened in my grasp. I glanced over and followed to exactly where her smoldering gaze was fixed on the area of the path behind where we’d been walking.

Then I reached into my jacket to rest a hand on the grip of my pistol, just in case there were any fuckers around here who were unwise enough to choose me and my women as targets to sacrifice to their evil Cyndrigon creatures.

Something roughly the size of a Great Dane was shuffling down the path in our direction. From the strange, awkward way it moved, I could see that it definitely wasn’t a dog, or at least not one like any I’d seen before.

When it got closer, I realized the creature was something that looked like a shrunken dragon with a spindly body and huge, leathery wings that jutted out from the backs of its arms. The beast seemed like it wasn’t accustomed to walking on the ground, and the movement clearly didn’t come easily to it. The backs of its folded wings poked awkwardly up in the air as it used its arms to help it shuffle down the path.

“Spectrid,” Ellie whispered from my side.

I heard a soft ringing noise that seemed to accompany the dragon, and I couldn’t figure out what it was coming from until I saw the fiery light twinkle off something on its long, sinuous neck.

Then I realized it was a bell. The dragon-like creature, or Spectrid, or whatever it was called, was wearing a bell around its neck like a damn housecat.

The three of us watched in silence as it scuttled past us without looking in our direction. Afterward, it took a left to skirt around the lake.

The soft tinkling of the bell faded from hearing, and I turned to the dainty warrior next to me.

“Spectrid?” I repeated.

“We had them in Gavahna, too,” Ellie explained. “You talked to one, back when–”

“When we were leaving the Diamond Gap?” I guessed.

“Interesting. Do you know, uh, why it was wearing a bell? Are they kept as pets, or something?”

“No…” The doll-faced fighter looked hesitant. “As you saw, they can talk very well, just like people. Their memories are flawless, too. So… they are spies, usually.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Spies that wear stuff like top hats, and tinkly bells around their necks?”

“If a Spectrid is owned by a person, that person is required to have them wear something that makes it obvious.” Ellie pursed her round pink lips thoughtfully as she stared after the Spectrid with her wide blue eyes. “I think it’s so people will realize there’s a chance they’re being observed when they see an owned Spectrid nearby…

but also because it’s against the laws to capture a Spectrid that’s owned by another person, since their secrets might be discovered.

Or… those were the laws in Gavahna, anyway.”

“Interesting,” I muttered. From the obviousness of its approach, I was doubtful that the little dragon-like creature had been spying on us.

But even if it had been, it wasn’t like the Spectrid could’ve learned anything that would work against us. In the desert cities, it seemed like spying would be something reserved for an enemy who wouldn’t be leaving at the end of the night. If someone here meant us harm, they basically only had until sunrise to see it through.

Still, I was doubly on the alert as we headed to the lakeshore so we could cross over to the volcano arena.

But we arrived there without incident, and soon I saw the far-off silhouette of the ferry against the light of the fiery lanterns on the volcano-island’s shore.

Soon the fire lantern on the ferry’s prow swung toward us, and it didn’t take long for the little craft to make its way to the shore we stood on. From the cheers and roars that thundered out of the volcano crater again, it seemed like most people from the city were in there, but a small trickle of people showed up to take the ferry alongside us.

One of them was a stooped-over old man with frazzled, flaming-red hair. He was pushing some squeaky wooden contraption along in front of him that looked like it was part wheelbarrow, part medieval-style hotdog cart. Clouds of steam and conflicting pungent smells wafted out of the cracks in several sealed compartments in it, and there was even a little glass case on one side that rose up to display some sort of wares that the red-haired guy was selling. A post of scarred black metal jutted upward out of the one corner of the cart, and it had a small version of one of the fireball lanterns hanging from it to illuminate the vendor’s wares.

I did a double-take when I saw that the things displayed in the glass case weren’t food at all. They were vambraces and greaves just like the ones my women wore in the arena.

Well, they were supposed to be just like them, I thought. But as I looked at them more closely I saw that they were an incredibly poor
copy. They were painted to be the same shades of the fawn leather of Ellie’s armor and the black of Indy’s with its gold swirls, but they were misshapen and poorly-shaped, and they definitely didn’t seem like they were made out of leather. I thought they might be crafted from some sort of tree bark.

I nudged my two warriors subtly and tilted my head toward the cart, and I saw both of their eyes widen when they realized what the wares were.

Indy opened her mouth with her eyes flaring, but I squeezed gently on her wrist. “Shhhh.”

The princess looked at me like she was going to ask why, but then her eyes flicked back to the red-haired man. I could tell it was because she had seen the ominous red glow that spilled out from his throat onto the hand he used to shield his mouth when he yawned.

Indy’s full lips closed, and she nodded slowly at me before she folded her hands in front of her and stood completely still.

When I glanced over at Ellie, I saw the red-hot glow from the man’s mouth reflected in her big blue eyes as she stared at him in silence.

The crew on the ferry seemed a little reluctant to let the hunchbacked old vendor onto the craft, but once all the other passengers had gotten aboard, they allowed him to push his creaky wooden cart up the ramp and squeeze into the remaining space on deck.

He gave another cavernous yawn as the craft pushed away from shore, and when a small belch burst from his lips, a wave of heat washed over the whole boat, and the glow from his mouth brightened. The nearest passengers all shuffled nervously away, and the red-haired vendor covered his mouth apologetically.

Other than the two hundred-degree bastard who I had punched after my warriors’ first fight here, this was the most blatant sign I had seen of a possibly harmful form of magic from these fiery volcano beings. For the most part, the magic had seemed a part of their appearances and temperaments, and definitely something that shaped their identities and politics, but there hadn’t been many signs of magic that could be deliberately used against others. This stooped-over old vendor seemed mild-natured enough, but the magma-like glow that emanated from his mouth was just another reminder for me to be on the alert with these beings.

I shot another glance over at the wares visible from his wooden cart and reflected on the fact that the “armor” in the glass case there was unmistakably meant to be a replica of my warriors’

leather armor. Some of the other passengers on the ferry even did a double take to look at the replicas more closely, too, but from their lack of interest afterward, it seemed just as obvious to them that the wares were poor copies.

In any case, it was clear that the two gorgeous warriors who stuck close to my sides were a far more exciting sight to the people around us, and to my surprise, I even thought I was getting some looks, too.

My women were undeniably eye-catching and impressive as hell. The light of the fireball lanterns winked off Indy’s scale-mail shoulder armor and the gold leaf trim on Ellie’s polished corset. The princess’ gauzy cape streamed behind her as the ferry picked up speed. The closest backer, who was a short, stocky man with plaited copper hair, raked his eyes over my two women from head to toe with a hungry expression.

My warriors definitely seemed aware of the guy’s aggressive stare, and they moved slightly behind me in a way that gave me a little bit of a rush. It was the same feeling that tended to sweep over
me unexpectedly whenever I saw signs of how much the two fierce and flawless warriors trusted me to protect them outside the arena.

I gave the copper-haired backer a deadpan, stone-eyed stare until he finally turned away with a slight flush on his face under the light of the fireball lanterns.

He turned his attention back to his own warriors, who were three slim, bow-legged women with pale green skin and moss-like hair. Their copper-haired backer was clutching three wooden javelin-like weapons that I assumed must have belonged to his women. The javelins looked like they definitely could’ve come from the creepy head-tree back in the Old Town. Other than the obvious lack of impaled heads on the weapons, the only differences were the lack of any ominous, pulsating glow or swirling mist. The weapons looked like they were layered with dark bloodstains, though.

Indy scanned her eyes over the weapons with a look of disturbed respect in her red-gold eyes, and I knew she was remembering the javelin-branched tree, too, with the human heads that had adorned it like fruit.

Ellie was focused intently on the open top of the volcano crater we were approaching. When the red-orange light spilling out of it flashed back to white, it made her pearly skin and blue eyes
luminous. The faint bloodthirsty expression that flitted across her doll-like features made me smile. I could tell my dainty warrior was dying to get in the arena again and show her stuff.

I was feeling pretty damn stoked myself, and I drummed my fingers against Indy’s wrist that was still in my grip as I shifted my weight from one foot to another. The princess was vibrating slightly in my grasp now, and a small shiver like an electric current ran through her at the movement of my fingers.

Then the ferry bumped against the stony shore of the volcano, and the wooden ramp splashed down to provide a path off the craft. I was the first to exit with my two warriors, and the crew gave me a respectful nod as I passed.

As soon as we were off the boat, I pulled my two warriors to the side and allowed the other passengers to pass and head up the steps to the Caldera stadium. Indy and Ellie followed me unquestioningly, and they hovered next to me while I released my grip on their wrists to unzip my duffel bag and rifle through it.

I shifted the women’s weapons to the side to access one of the thermoses I had stashed in the duffel bag. It was slightly cold to the touch, and the ice cubes inside it clinked around as I pulled the thermos out.

“The frigid, icy water of Earth,” Ellie whispered reverently.

I chuckled. “Yup. I figured it’s about time for you two to take your caffeine pills, like we discussed, and make sure you’re hydrated.”

“Yes, John,” the two women said together in a way that I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of.

I popped two caffeine pills out of the plastic packaging and handed one to each of my shieldmaidens. Then they passed the thermos between them, and they both let out a blissful sigh as the chilled water passed their lips to wash down the caffeine pills.

I let them drink their fill after, then took a small sip for myself before I slipped the thermos and remaining caffeine pills back into my duffel bag. I pulled out the two warriors’ weapons to sling them over my shoulder before I zipped the bag shut. Then I led the way up the black volcanic stone stairs toward the source of the fresh onslaught of roars and cheers that was filling the night.

At the top of the staircase, I paused for a second to take in the sight below.

The crater arena was just as cavernous as I remembered.

Every inch of the stone benches carved into its slopes were packed
full of people, and they were all perched on the edge of their seats as their screams died down. Another hush fell over them as they watched the fight that was taking place, and for a brief time, the only sound in the arena was the clash and scrape of weapons that echoed around the crater.

There were four fighters down in the flat, black stone arena.

Two of them appeared to be the type of slender, nymph-like beings I had glimpsed on our first journey to Bayalon. One had a mane of emerald-green ringlet curls that were tamed into a low ponytail, while the other had fine tawny hair that was cropped into a short pixie cut.

Both of their skin was a light taupe color, and the same fawn-like white spots were patterned across their cheekbones and temples.

Each one of them had a short sword that I thought was made out of deer antlers.

The third warrior in the arena was a prowling, sharp-limbed woman with a pale gray complexion. Her skin didn’t look stony in texture, like the skin of the bookies. It was perfectly smooth, and it had a faint but noticeable layer of dark smoke that hovered close to its surface.

This gray-skinned woman was unmistakably some sort of volcanic being, although at this point there was no way to tell
whether the smoggy smoke that clung to her was a sign of some sort of magic that could be used in combat. As far as I had seen, that sort of thing seemed like it was against the rules here, and most of the city’s inhabitants didn’t seem to have that type of magic in the first place.

The smog-veiled woman also had wings. They looked more dragonish than fairy-like, and she kept them folded tightly against her back as she and the two nymphs fanned out to approach the fourth warrior in the arena. From the way the three of them were moving together, it definitely seemed like a team battle.

But this meant the fight was three against one.

That didn’t make sense.

How the hell was that fair?

The fourth warrior had wings, too, but they weren’t at all like the smoggy fighter’s leathery, dragonish pair. Instead, these wings reminded me more of a phoenix. They were covered with white feathers at the base where they met her shoulder blades, but the feathers’ color darkened toward the edges of the wings.

She had long hair that was black on one side and platinum-blonde on the other. It was bound back in a single Viking-style braid
that ran down the center of her head and trailed down her back to rest between her wings. She pursed her lips to blow a stray strand of hair out of her eyes as she faced her three opponents, and then set her tapered jaw in a grim, focused expression.

Other than her eye-catching appearance, I couldn’t stop focusing on the fact that the black-and-white-haired warrior really had no one on her team whatsoever.

I looked everywhere for another warrior, but this was it.

It was genuinely three against one.

“Bold,” Indy whispered, and I glanced over to see that her red-gold eyes were fixed intently on the outnumbered warrior.

The smoggy woman was approaching her from the front, while the two nymphs were set to angle in toward her right and left shoulder. When her opponents rushed her, the outnumbered woman showed no sign of backing away, and her pale silver eyes looked entirely unruffled as she surveyed the three warriors who were about to confront her.

I was watching closely, but she moved so fast that I still almost missed it.

First, she darted forward like she was going to meet the smoggy woman head-on, but at the last second she jerked to the side just enough to brush past her. Then she brought her spear into a hard backward thrust, the sort of movement she might use to elbow someone standing behind her.

The motion sent the butt of her spear hurtling directly between the smoggy woman’s leathery wings.

A strangled screech burst from the gray-skinned woman’s lips when the wood rammed into her upper spine. The sound was somehow both high-pitched and guttural, and her eerie voice was thick with pain.

She was sent into a headlong flight away from the spear-wielding warrior’s back. Her bat-like wings unfurled in a way that seemed like an instinctive attempt to slow herself, but it mostly just succeeded in entangling her with the tawny-haired nymph who had been approaching from the other side.

Even as the two allies tumbled to the ground together behind her, the black-and-white-haired fighter flowed forward again and pulled her spear into a sharp forward thrust at the green-haired nymph she was now approaching.

The spearpoint jabbed hard into the delicate taupe skin of the nymph’s shoulder, and a small rivulet of blood immediately appeared there. It trickled down to join another wound near the crook of her elbow, and the nymph let out a squeak of pain that was soon eclipsed by the crowd’s roar of approval.

The tail of the spear-wielder’s black-and-white braid spun behind her as she tucked her wings and threw herself into a graceful spin in the other direction, back toward her remaining two opponents who had just scrambled to their feet after giving each other an irritated shove.

I knew enough by now to realize that baring her back to her multiple opponents even for a second was risky as hell, especially with wings thrown into the mix, but the spear-wielding warrior seemed fast enough to mitigate the risk, even with the slight drag created by her wings.

I only took my eyes off the fight long enough to keep from tripping while I navigated the stone benches. I led my women over to the area I remembered from our first visit, near the bottom of the sloped stadium just above where the bookies clustered near the backers’ lounge.

Another backer yanked his jet-haired warrior to the side to clear a spot for us in the second row, and I felt my jaw tighten slightly as I took the seat with my own two women.

The other backers seemed to consider themselves above the way the rest of the crowd was leaping to their feet and bursting into a fresh chorus of cheers at every blow, but a glance around showed me that they were deeply respectful of the spear-wielding fighter, if in a reluctant and wary sort of way.

I didn’t understand the reluctance quite yet, but I shared every ounce of respect as I watched her complete her spin and skip toward the tawny-haired nymph.

The nymph hacked at the spear shaft with her deer-horn blade like she was hoping to lop the head off the weapon, but the spear proved sturdy enough to weather the blow as the black-and-white-haired warrior allowed it to scrape harmlessly against the wooden shaft.

Without breaking stride, she darted another half-step closer and snaked the spearhead out to hook it deftly around the deer-horn blade’s ornate crossguard. Then she spun the spear in a small, swift loop that sent the nymph’s blade flying from her grip.

The deer-horn weapon was still spinning through the air when the black-and-white-haired fighter drove her speartip into the nymph’s upper kneecap in a place that almost perfectly mirrored the dried-up wound on her other leg.

The black-and-white-haired warrior moved on and left the collapsing nymph without wasting a second. Now she and the smoggy-skinned fighter moved to face each other again.

I saw the spear-wielder’s bright silver eyes flicker around to take stock of the two nymphs. One was still collapsed on the ground off to the side, while the other was hanging back warily behind the gray-skinned warrior.

The smoggy woman shouted something as she advanced. I couldn’t understand the words, but their tone had the jeering ring of mockery in it.

Whatever the statement was, it made the small, sharp taper of the spear-wielding fighter’s jaw tighten, and her silver eyes bored into the smoggy woman’s dull, flint-gray gaze.

Then a pale golden glow started to flare out from the black-and-white-haired warrior’s skin. It wasn’t evenly spread. Instead it was purely concentrated into a tracery of thin lines that looked
almost like glowing scars. It reminded me of something I had only ever seen in documentaries, where there were cracks in the surface of volcanic stone that reveal the golden glow of magma lurking just below the surface.

The sight was just as startling to me as the smog that swirled on the skin of the bat-winged woman, but this was somehow both stunning and slightly ominous.

Any signs the two nymphs had shown of wanting to reenter the fray suddenly vanished, but the gray-skinned fighter had a savage, mocking smile on her face as she bounded forward to meet her glowing, black-and-white-haired opponent. A husky, crazed laugh burst from her gray lips as she swung her axe, and cords of wiry muscles bulged from her otherwise-gaunt arms.

The more fights I had seen in the desert cities, the more I had noticed that axes seemed to be more common than swords. I thought the reason might’ve had something to do with how impossible it seemed to give a precise shape to the lumpy black metal, much less get it to hold the type of edge and balance that I now knew made a sword truly effective.

My warriors’ fighting master had also mentioned some of the advantages of axes during their training, when we had discussed
their opponents’ weapons. I knew now that axes could make up for the lack of sharpness because of the extra blunt force they possessed.

The smoggy-skinned woman in the arena now seemed to be well aware of this advantage, and she was putting it to good use, or at least trying to.

Just from seeing it in motion, I already thought the axe might’ve been capable of hacking through the slender wooden spear-shaft in a way that the deer-horn blades weren’t, and the black-and-white-haired fighter seemed to have come to a similar conclusion. She made some quick, sharp feints with her spear to keep her opponent at a distance, but otherwise she ducked and danced deftly away from the storm of axe-blows. As she did, she kept all her opponents in her line of sight in a way I appreciated more now that I was learning things from my own warriors’ lessons.

The gray-skinned fighter shouted another jeering comment, lunged forward, and hacked savagely down toward the spear-shaft with her axe. Her mocking laugh rang through the crater with renewed glee as she finally succeeded in lopping off one end of her opponent’s spear.

But she had fully committed herself to the blow in a way that provided a tiny opening before she could raise her axe again. Her eerie laugh turned into a hair-raising shriek as her silver-eyed opponent took advantage of this gap in a way that no one quite seemed to expect: She arced the now-bladeless spear down in an overhead, axe-like blow that brought the flat of it crashing down on the gray-skinned woman’s exposed knuckles.

The smoggy woman’s husky shriek dropped down into a pained snarl as her bony hand spasmed visibly. The axe slipped from her grip and clanged to the ground. The mocking smile on her face curdled into an ugly mixture of rage and fear in the split second before the jagged, broken end of the spear-shaft rammed into her vulnerable shoulder in a quick and savage thrust.

The black-and-white-haired warrior’s gold-patterned skin flared to the sort of blinding white glare I associated with lightning as she put her whole body into delivering the blow. The splintered wood bit deeply into the fleshy region of her opponent’s skin in a place that was close enough to the smoggy woman’s jugular that the whole crowd cringed reflexively toward each other.

Then the silver-eyed warrior jerked the spear free. The flaring, crisscrossed lines in her skin ebbed back into their previous shade of
luminous gold, and the crowd realized that a rule-breaking mortal wound hadn’t been made.

But from the way everyone shot back to their feet and erupted into a new level of screaming, the blood that was now gushing from the gray-skinned woman’s shoulder must have been the fifth and final wound required to win the fight.

There was a loud, gong-like boom from the bronze arches above the arena, and the gargoyles crashed to the ground on their metallic feet.

“Artemn the Abandoned is our victor,” the lead gargoyle boomed.

The backers around me were silent, but in the rows above us, I could hear some of the crowd talking amongst each other. They sounded slightly breathless from screaming, but their voices were still full of energy and admiration.

“They need to give her a better byname,” one of them complained in a deep croak. “Like… ‘Artemn the Undying,’ or something.”

“‘The Undying Tempest,’” a squeaky voice suggested.

“That’s too long,” someone else grumbled. “‘Golden Tempest’

would be better.”

“Wait,” a wheezy, older-sounding voice interrupted. “Why’s she called ‘the Abandoned,’ again?”

“Because she’s so good that no one wants to fight her,” the squeaky voice responded irritably. “Try to keep up, grandfather.”

“Didn’t you see how those nymphs were playing hide-and-seek out in the arena?” another person added with a snicker. “Great balls of fire, I can’t wait to see who faces her in next week’s fights.”

“They will find a way to keep her out of the arena,” the deep, croaky voice replied in a knowing tone. “Or the backers will all manage to bow out–”

“Remember the year when they decided to draw straws?” the squeaky voice giggled. “Poor Scakri.”

“Screamie, you mean?” another voice cackled. “I’ve never heard anyone holler like that.”

The wheezy voice scoffed in reproach. “You would, too, if someone hit you right in the dumplings with a…”

The people dissolved into a babble of impassioned arguments.

I turned to my two fighters and spoke in a low voice. “That was pretty damn impressive.”

Both of my warriors nodded vigorously, but before they could say anything in response, one of the stony-skinned bookies I recognized from our first visit was waving energetically at me as he approached.

“Would you and your warriors like to come to the lounge now?”

he asked, and he had to seize the head of a frizzy-haired man in the front row to avoid crashing into him completely. The bookie ignored the man’s furious string of curses as he addressed me over the top of his frizzy hair. “You’re next after the fight that’s about to start, and trust me, that won’t take very long.”

“Sure thing,” I said. I stood and grasped my two women by the wrists to lead them out of the stands and follow the bookie into the nearby lounge. I leaned closer to the bookie as we walked inside and lowered my voice slightly. “So, uh… You probably have some knowledge of who exactly my warriors will be facing, right? I mean, I sort of got the impression that Zenia and Mavra were going to be joined by a third fighter.”

I only allowed a small hint of displeasure to creep into my normally easygoing tone, but the bookie picked up on it immediately.

“Ah…” The rocky gray skin of his face creased into a nervous smile, and his eyes darted around the lounge. The bald backer was nowhere to be seen yet, and the backers for the fight that was starting now were already striding out of the lounge to take their place in front of it, right on the side of the arena. The bookie seemed to draw courage from the emptiness around us, and he took a step closer to me to speak in a hushed voice. “Master Freyos has done some, ahh… rule-bending, you might say…”

I folded my arms and fixed the bookie with an unblinking stare that made it clear it was in his best interest to tell things to me straight.

He cleared his throat and glanced around again before he obliged. “Well, this week of fighting is the one that allows outnumbered fights, but there are certain rules in place that prevent them from being too uneven. But Master Freyos requested for skill to be taken into account, and, well… Your warriors are excellent fighters, it couldn’t be denied. And Master Freyos can be most, ah…

persuasive.”

“Interesting.” I was thinking fast about how to handle the situation. A glance at my women told me they had heard this loud and clear, and they both gave me eager nods when our eyes met, so

I turned back to the bookie and spoke with less frostiness in my voice. “So, that means it’ll be three against two, just to be clear? And that’s because my women…?”

“Have been established as high-level fighters,” the bookie finished. He still seemed slightly nervous about what my ultimate reaction would be, but he didn’t flinch away from the no-bullshit stare I sent him. “Master Freyos’ reputation has taken a bit of a dip because of that, but he believes it will be outweighed by the glory and wealth that would come to him if his warriors win the fight. It will be to six-blood, so it’s double the risk and double the reward, you see.”

“Right,” I snorted. “So, has he not considered the fact that they might lose, or…?”

I was a little surprised, but not much.

The bookie shrugged. “Master Freyos… does not truly entertain the idea that his warriors may lose, I think.”

“But you do?” I asked with a slight smirk.

“We take all possible outcomes into account.” The bookie’s voice was solemn, but he tossed in a barely noticeable wink. “That is
why we’re willing to open a line of credit for you if necessary, as we have with Master Freyos. You are both, ah… highly respected.”

I allowed myself to feel smug for a brief moment about the fact that I was already as respected as Freyos, but then I took the time to mull this over before I nodded evenly.

Most of the tension cleared up from the bookie’s expression when he determined that I wasn’t going to wring his neck or something for the last-minute discovery.

I dismissed him with a wave and stepped into a close huddle with my women. “Are you sure about this, my shieldmai–”

“Yes, John,” they immediately chorused, and both warriors took another step to bring themselves even closer to me, like they needed to communicate the strength of their agreement with a touch.

I gave them both a long look.

“Alright,” I finally said as I pushed away a slight flutter of nerves.

As soon as I had fully committed to going through with the increased risk for my warriors, I felt calm and focused.

I ran a hand through my hair as I exhaled. “I guess we were sort of prepared for something unexpected.”

“And our reputations will soar even higher when we best the three fighters of the cruel bald wizard,” Ellie said with a feverish look in her big blue eyes.

“The heavens will shake with the cheers of the crowd,” Indy agreed with a nod. “The very stars will rattle with their awe.”

I thought of what the bald-headed backer’s face would look like when my women triumphed despite his best efforts to make it impossible for them, and I smirked slightly at the image. “I’m counting on it.”

Chapter 5

If you’d like to see a map of John’s adventures, you can find it in my Facebook group (Search for Logan Jacobs in Facebook Groups), or on my Patreon (search Google for Patreon + Logan Jacobs).

I went over some more details with my two warriors while we watched the fight before theirs. The bald-headed Master Freyos was nowhere in sight yet, but from all the pains he had taken to swing the odds in favor of his warriors, I didn’t doubt the motherfucker would show himself soon.

One of the backers for the current fight stood out to me in an eerie way. He was an elven-eared man who reminded me strongly of the unnamed black-haired guy I had seen on my first visit to this city, the one who I had witnessed shoving his friend Barsava into the clutches of a Cyndrigon.

This man had the same sallow skin and curtain of dark, greasy hair, but it had streaks of gray in it. He was also dressed more nicely than Barsava’s killer had been. Instead of a fancy but shabby-looking frock coat, this man strode around in charcoal-colored breeches
made of some rich, satiny fabric. His immaculate white shirt looked just as expensive, and it had fancy lace sleeves that were so long they almost trailed on the ground. It looked like a cross between a pirate-style shirt and my grandmother’s window curtains, and I had to bite back a laugh as I refocused on the two stunning warriors at my side.

I guided them to a bench inside the lounge and gave them both another few sips of water while they exchanged their decorative armor for the leather kind I had stashed in my duffel bag. Then I pep-talked my women and tried hard not to be too distracted by the scene in the arena, where an elven woman was doing battle with a hunched-over warrior who had olive-green skin.

The green-skinned woman didn’t seem like any sort of forest creature, like others I had seen in the oasis cities. Her skin seemed hard and almost crusty, and she had something that reminded me of a turtle shell covering her back, but it seemed to grow right out of her skin. It was the same olive-green color, but it looked like it was made of some bumpy, crystal-like material.

Whatever sort of being the woman was, the crowd seemed to despise her, and most of the moves she pulled received a barrage of boos and jeers.

When she whipped out something that was unmistakably a poisoned dart and hurled it at her opponent’s eye, the audience erupted into a collective roar of fury. Most of the beings shot to their feet, and I heard strings of elaborate, unfamiliar curses being shouted at the green woman for violating the rules of Remembrance during a non-lethal fight.

I was just finishing my pep talk when the lead gargoyle boomed out that the turtle-shelled woman and her greasy-haired backer were disqualified, and the two of them fled the arena at a run.

Small bits of coal-like rock pinged off the green woman’s hard rocky back as she scurried up the black stone steps behind her backer.

“You got this,” I murmured to my two warriors as they turned back from the chaotic scene in the arena and faced me excitedly again. “Remember your training. Let Mavra tire herself out, then get under her guard when she does those wide swings. Don’t let either of your blades get caught on the crossguard of her axes. And with Zenia–”

I cut off as Zenia herself appeared around the corner of the backers’ lounge. Her bald-headed backer, who I now knew as Master Freyos, shunted the red-haired warrior further into the lounge with his ebony wizard staff, or whatever the hell it was supposed to
be. Zenia cringed hastily away from the smoldering black orb at the top of the staff, and she almost collapsed with relief when the backer switched his attention to his other fighters so he could drag them into the lounge, as if they weren’t moving fast enough for his taste.

The bookie hadn’t lied. Master Freyos had three warriors now.

I turned to my own two fighters with my eyebrows raised.

“I repeat,” I said in a low voice. “You can take these bitches.

But if you want to back out, I will make it happ–”

“No,” Indy and Ellie insisted in unison.

My response was drowned out by the bald backer’s escalating voice. He towered over all three of his fighters, and I could tell it gave him a sense of power as he vented his fury at them.

“Laggards,” he said in a thundering snarl, and he hauled his two other warriors in with savage yanks on their wrists. “I swear on D’Landreth’s Tomb, if we are late–”

But when he turned in my direction, he seemed to forget all about reprimanding his women. His black eyes lit up with a look that was somehow both grim and gleeful as soon as he caught sight of me. Then he gave me a deep, mocking bow so low that his forehead almost swept the floor.

I just gave him my coolest and most unruffled smile in return.

If he was hoping to see some hint of doubt or anxiety about the addition of his new fighter, he didn’t find it in me or my two warriors. I knew for a fact my poker face was like a damn concrete wall.

And this was despite the fact that this new fighter gave me the damn heebie-jeebies right from the start.

She was gaunt and bony, with chalky-white skin and long, stringy black hair. There were some flap-like appendages on each side of her neck that looked like scarred, dried-up gills. She walked with a gait that was almost hobbling, but at the same time it had the prowling air of a predator. Her eyes were an eerie, pupil-less shade of rusty orange that reminded me of the moon during an eclipse, and they looked hungry for blood as they flickered over every inch of my two warriors without a trace of fear.

By my side, Indy just gave the new fighter a steady, measuring look with her contrastingly beautiful red-gold eyes. Even though my princess was bursting with excited energy and maybe some degree of nerves, she hid it insanely well as she moved on to scanning her eyes briefly over Zenia and Mavra, and I was reminded again of how well she had veiled her expression back when we first met. Now that she had given the new warrior a once-over, I knew she was checking
for any sign of new weapons on the two warriors she had fought before. At the same time, the look on her golden face clearly implied that they might as well be a pile of shit on the ground, for all she cared.

My princess tossed her hair and turned back to me and Ellie with a murderous smile blooming on her face. When our eyes met, I saw the smolder that lurked beneath their surfaces. It was like watching a fireworks show from underwater, and it was fucking mesmerizing.

And I felt pretty damn special when I saw that the gold sparks dissolved as soon as my princess looked away from me.

On my other side, I caught just a hint of bloodlust in the tiny, wolfish smile that Ellie shot at me. Her nose wrinkled slightly at the sudden waft of dead fish smell that swept in with her pale, spindly-limbed opponent. Then her round, pouty lips returned to complete the mask of innocence that her doll-like features presented. It didn’t betray the savagery she was capable of in the slightest, and I smirked as I thought of all the other things she had shown me she was capable of.

Like swallowing every inch of my cock with total wanton abandon.

Another feeling of unreality swept over me for the briefest of moments as I watched my women prowl out to the center of the black stone arena. The green-haired lifesavers had carried off the fallen elf from the last fight, so my own fighters were free to gather around the lead gargoyle along with Master Freyos’ three warriors.

Indy and Ellie both turned to face me one last time, and they gave me twin smiles that were full of deadly promise.

My adrenaline kicked up about fifty percent.

The crowd immediately made their excitement known when my two women appeared. They all cheered, but soon they fell into a hushed, excited murmur of conversation over who they were betting on. As I heard my women’s names spoken, I saw people darting down to place last-minute bets with the bookies, and the buzz of excitement was accompanied by the clinking sound of black coins being dropped into the bookies’ pouches. Another wave of excitement and pride surged through my stomach.

“On one team, we welcome back the Elsodie and the Induya for a second time,” the lead gargoyle called in a clanking boom as he gestured at them, and I didn’t miss the fact that he put the names of my warriors first this time. Then he gestured to Zenia, Mavra, and their new fellow fighter while he went on. “On the other team, we
have Zenia the Red, Mavra Wild-Strikes, and Tazabelle the Trickster.”

From the way the gargoyle stumbled slightly over the last name, I got the impression that this warrior was new to the volcano arena.

I had no idea why the hell she was called “the Trickster” yet. To me, that seemed like a playful or mischievous name that didn’t fit this siren-like woman at all, or at least not yet. She didn’t exactly look like a barrel of laughs. Not to mention the fact that she shuffled around like a damn zombie and smelled like a week-old bag of dead fish.

The crowd seemed to feel slightly uneasy about her, too, and a wave of muttering ran around the stadium at the sight of her gaunt form shambling out into the arena. But the fact that she was accompanied by the more well-known Zenia and Mavra seemed to redeem her somewhat.

I turned my gaze to Master Freyos’ fighters, who were as intimidating as they’d been last time.

The light winked dully off the red, mermaid-like scales that covered Zenia’s narrow legs as she strode out into the arena. Her bizarrely angled and scarred ankles gave her the same strange but
graceful gait I had noticed in her previous fight against my two women. Her long, fiery hair was pulled into a sleek, tight knot at the top of her head, and it emphasized the pale and stern planes of her face.

Mavra prowled alongside her with twin axes in hand. A few loose strands of yellow-blonde hair that had escaped her low ponytail stuck to her forehead from the faint sheen of sweat that covered her sandy-beige skin, and her cat-like green eyes looked bright and almost feverish. I couldn’t tell if she was nervous or just excited at first, but then a leering grin lifted the corners of her sphinx-like features as she fixed her gaze on Ellie. The cords of muscle in her arms flexed with anticipation as she gripped her axes more tightly.

My dainty warrior’s blue eyes met Mavra’s unflinchingly, and I saw no hint of unease cross her doll-like features as she prowled a slow circle with Indy at her side.

Then the gong-like sound rang out from overhead, and the stadium was suddenly filled with Tazabelle the Trickster’s high, quivering howls that I thought confirmed her being some sort of evil siren.

But her song had no lure to it. Instead, it had the opposite effect. I had a strong desire to get as far away from this woman as quickly as possible. Her eerie call felt like it was piercing through the walls of my skull, and I set my jaw as I focused on my warriors and tried to shut the sound out. I knew the sound must be even more aggravating up close, and I hoped they were able to fight through it.

Indy and Ellie definitely seemed unsettled, but I saw the princess shake the tension out of her golden shoulders before she took up a stance like the one their trainer had taught her. Next to her, Ellie’s chest swelled as she took a deep, clearing breath, and I did the same as the warriors all burst into motion.

Tazabelle’s cries were clearly meant to sow chaos and throw my warriors off. I could tell this was the case from the way the sound pierced all our ears like nails on a chalkboard, but now it was time to see how the feral-looking siren fought.

She teamed up with Mavra first, and I tensed slightly as they both made a beeline for Ellie from separate angles.

Mavra’s axeblades were already windmilling through the air as she added her yowling war cries to the siren’s constant stream of keening calls.

My blue-haired warrior didn’t back away. Instead, she took a few light, skipping steps around to put the siren between herself and Mavra. The sphinx-like woman was forced to pause her windmilling motion, and I saw her feline features bunch up in a look of frustration.

“Mine!” she snapped at the siren.

But Tazabelle paid her zero attention. I couldn’t tell if it was because of the loudness of her cries or just feigned deafness, but the siren just charged at Ellie with her obsidian-tipped spear raised high.

Ellie met her unflinchingly. She lashed out with one of her tonfas with incredible speed, and she hooked the tomahawk-like blade around the spear’s crossguard like she did this every damn day. The siren’s howl ramped up into a deafening shriek as Ellie reeled her in with an unexpected yank of the tonfa.

My petite warrior did a graceful, lightning fast half-pivot to send Tazabelle stumbling past her. Then, without breaking step, she used a sharp punching motion to send the shorter blade of her tonfa into the left side of Tazabelle’s gaunt, chalky-white lower back.

And just like that, we had one-blood.

The siren’s cry escalated into a scream that could’ve shattered glass, but Ellie didn’t so much as flinch. Her blue eyes just narrowed with focus as she used the flat end of the tomahawk-like blade to give Tazabelle a hearty shove in the small of her back that sent the siren stumbling away.

Ellie’s heart-shaped face was still calm and focused as she completed her pivot to face Mavra, who immediately started up her windmilling again.

My dainty warrior immediately danced around the sphinx-like woman, and I nodded with approval as I saw that she was sticking to her training as closely as possible by putting Mavra between herself and the siren. Tazabelle had now fallen to her knees, but turning her back on the feral siren was the last thing I wanted Ellie doing.

Meanwhile, Indy was on the other side of the arena putting some new moves to use against the fiery-haired Zenia. Their blades clashed together, and I saw that my princess still had her whip folded tightly in her hand for the time being.

When Zenia jerked her domed metal shield up to block one of Indy’s sword strikes, the longer of my princess’ two deadly-sharp blades screeched harshly off the shield’s black metal surface. Her
scaly-legged opponent took this moment to lash out with her black metal blade and land a slash on Indy’s unprotected upper arm.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I heard the sentiment echoed around the crowd in a new variety of unfamiliar curse words.

A thin red line sprouted in Indy’s smooth golden skin. It marked only the first of six wounds that would be required to win, but I still felt every muscle in my body tense at the sight of any blood on my princess’ skin. In the corner of my eye, I saw the movement of the bald backer angling his head slightly toward me, but I continued to focus every ounce of my attention on my two warriors while adrenaline coursed through me.

My princess only twitched slightly at the painful kiss of the obsidian on her arm, and she didn’t hesitate to repay Zenia in kind.

In her sword strike, the red-haired warrior had extended herself far enough that it was visibly awkward for her oddly-shaped ankles. She was off balance, and now the princess was under her guard before she could retreat.

Indy’s eyes flared hot and red as she hooked her curved blade around the rim of Zenia’s shield in a move that had been monumental in their last fight. I saw the muscles of her golden arm
tighten as she jerked her elbow back to yank the shield from her opponent’s hand.

But now it became clear that Zenia had done something to secure the shield to her forearm for this fight. Instead of the shield flying out of the red-haired warrior’s grip, Zenia herself was yanked directly toward my princess.

The movement was clearly unexpected to both of them, but the scaly-legged woman managed to arc her sword sideways at Indy as she came lurching toward her.

My princess kept her whip clutched tightly in her palm, and I knew it wasn’t very useful at such close quarters. There wasn’t even enough time or space for her to angle the spike at Zenia in a stab, but the princess did manage to get her forearm between them.

Zenia seemed to have put all her upper-body strength into the arcing blow, and a shudder ran up her arm when the blade was deflected by Indy’s reinforced bracer. Then the black metal sword scraped uselessly off the leather surface.

Even from the side of the arena, I saw the whites of Zenia’s eyes as they widened, and her gaze flickered toward Indy’s bracer. I knew she had come prepared for the leather this time, but she
clearly hadn’t been prepared for the added hardness of the carbon fiber plates inside of it.

Then, before either of them could make another move, the howling siren came crashing into them.

“Shit!” Indy hissed viciously as they tumbled to the ground.

I clapped my hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing aloud at the princess’ use of one of my much-spoken curses for the first time.

The smug look of Master Freyos just made it harder not to laugh, because he clearly thought I was in turmoil about the fight.

I rubbed my jaw hard to force the smile away before I glanced back at him, but a trace of amusement must have still shown on my face, because a look of unrest flickered in his coal-black eyes.

Then the remains of his smile curdled completely as pandemonium broke out in the arena.

Zenia, Indy, and Tazabelle the siren were all in a confused tangle on the ground. My princess had managed to land with her legs tucked. Now she rolled to the side and extended them in a savage kick aimed at the shield that was still secured to her opponent’s arm.

The soles of Indy’s feet slammed into the domed shield at an angle that made the red-haired warrior’s shield arm fold up completely like a slamming door. Hundreds of gasps rippled through the crowd as the rim of the shield came crashing into Zenia’s teeth with a crunch that was audible even through Tazabelle’s incessant howls.

My princess didn’t pause to admire the bloody red ruins of her red-haired opponent’s mouth, or to congratulate herself on bringing the score up to two-blood for us and one-blood for them.

Tazabelle came lurching at her with a Gollum-like hiss, and the siren’s chalky-white face was filled with vengeful malice.

Indy didn’t even pause for long enough to extend her whip or aim a slash of her sword. There was no time.

Instead, my princess sent her bracer-clad fist flying straight at Tazabelle’s chalky-white nose in a brutal punch as she lunged forward to meet her opponent.

There was a wetter and more muffled crunch as the siren’s nose broke under the force of the carbon-fiber knuckles.

This immediately earned an outbreak of whoops, jeers, and shouts from the crowd that echoed all around the crater. Scuffles
broke out as people collided with each other in the process of scrambling to their feet for a better view. I saw a few people go down in the turmoil, but no one seemed willing to take their eyes off the fight long enough to do anything more than send their neighbors a furious swipe or elbow to the ribs.

The savageness of my princess’ punch seemed to garner a level of excitement and approval that immediately got the hot-blooded beings riled up. But the punch also caused Tazabelle to pause in her endless howling as a gush of blood oozed from her cracked nose.

We were up to three-blood now.

Unfortunately for every being with functioning ears, the pause was only for a split second.

The siren’s bony fingers flew up to clutch her nose, and the shriek that came from her lips sounded like the whistle of a train as she felt the wetness of blood there. After that, she threw herself into a furious scuffle with Indy. Between the siren’s fresh screeches and the crowd increasing their volume, the crater arena was alive with a chaotic clamor of sounds.

Then a clash from the other side of the arena caught everyone’s attention, and I looked just in time to see Mavra’s crossed axeblades sending one of Ellie’s tonfas spinning out of her hands.

Still, I felt a surge of pride that my dainty fighter had just managed to bring us up to four-blood with a bright red gash in Mavra’s bicep, even if it had ended up costing Ellie one of her weapons.

I knew my warrior was a match for this brutal, sphinx-like woman, but my heart still raced as Ellie brought her other weapon up just in time to sweep aside a fresh axe blow with its longer, straight blade.

She was doing a good job of redirecting the blows without actually absorbing the force of them, just like she had in her training.

But from the sessions and footage I had watched, I knew this wasn’t a good strategy for more than a few blows, even when the petite fighter had both her tonfas in hand. It would be too easy for Mavra to hook her axeblade around some part of the t-shaped weapons.

I saw a flicker of anxiety run over my blue-haired warrior’s features as the sphinx-like woman came at her with a renewed energy and speed. Ellie ducked, dodged, and danced away from the
wild blows of her opponent with superior speed and grace, but she still looked tiny and vulnerable to me all of a sudden.

“Come on…” I breathed. “Stay focused, Ellie…”

There was a puma-like growl from Indy as she surfaced from her scuffle with Tazabelle for long enough to catch sight of the way her dainty teammate was being pursued by Mavra.

But the feral siren immediately took advantage of my princess’

split second of distraction. Tazabelle’s bony hand flashed upward, and she raked her long yellow nails across Indy’s face.

There was a surge of motion through the crowd as anyone who was no longer standing shot to their feet. Screams of fury toward the siren’s underhanded move overwhelmed even the sound of her howling.

Next to me, Master Freyos’ shoulders hunched slightly as some of the curses from the crowd were hurled at him personally, and I saw his knuckles whiten as he clenched his wizard staff more tightly.

My own nails dug into my palms as my fists clenched tight.

Blood was now welling out of three long gauges across Indy’s golden
cheekbone. That was two wounds that Freyos’ warriors had managed to inflict on my own so far, and both of them were on Indy.

Worse still, Tazabelle had just managed to flip her over. Now Indy was face-down, and her arms were trapped against the ground by the howling siren. I forced myself to unclench my fists and smooth my face out into a perfectly blank expression as the bald-headed backer scoffed and sneered in my direction again.

But the truth was that the sight of blood running down my princess’ face almost made me fucking lose it. My heart pounded in my ears as I realized there was nothing I could do for the moment except trust in the skills of my warrior princess, and hope that the gear and training I had provided her with would see her through this.

The siren’s bony hand shot out to lacerate the golden skin of Indy’s exposed cheek again, and an electric current of fury ran through me as a third wound was made on my princess in almost the exact same spot.

“Fucking bullshit,” I seethed under my breath.

I was only slightly vindicated by the way most of the crowd was making their shared outrage known. Their wave of boos joined together to thunder through the crater. So many fists were shaken
that the crowd’s movement reminded me of a pot of water about to boil over.

Indy seemed to be on the verge of losing her shit, too.

She may have been trapped, but my princess was armed and dangerous.

When Ellie stumbled into her field of vision for a second time with Mavra advancing aggressively, Indy’s visible eye flashed a pure, livid scarlet.

Her hands twitched at the sound of Zenia’s footsteps scuffling nearby during a gap in the siren’s screeches. The red-haired warrior had finally struggled to her feet.

She wasn’t directly in Indy’s view, but one of her knocked-out teeth dropped and bounced across the ground. I could’ve sworn I heard the pinging sound of it hitting the volcanic stone.

I felt like I was experiencing the same rush of pure adrenaline that Indy was as she caught sight of it and realized that Zenia was about to join in with Mavra against Ellie. There was a faint roaring in my ears like the rush of the ocean as I held my breath and watched.

My dainty warrior was barely holding off the sphinx-like woman with the twin axes. Her second tonfa had skittered out of reach. She
had no respite from the axe swings to reach it, and Mavra was charging at her with the sort of tunnel vision that a hunting hound gets when it scents a rabbit.

A rabid, crazed hunting hound on crack.

And honestly, as I watched the sphinx-like woman, I decided there definitely must be some equivalent to crack in this desert city.

This woman was fucking insane. She’d had nowhere near this level of endurance before.

Or maybe it was just the gloating expression of her backer on the sidelines that fueled her further.

Then there was a sudden hitch in the siren’s wailing, and I was amazed to see Indy launch herself to her feet with Tazabelle still on top of her.

“Yes!” I hissed, and I couldn’t help but shoot to my feet as I watched my princess shock everyone.

The siren was gaunt almost to the point of being skeletal. She must have only weighed eighty pounds, but the way my princess rose smoothly to her feet still floored me.

It floored Tazabelle even more. The siren gave a monkey-like screech and slid to the ground, but managed to keep her feet by
latching onto my princess’ arm.

At the feel of the siren’s yellow nails digging into the skin of her arm, Indy let out a wordless shriek of her own that told me she’d just about fucking had it with this shit. Before any more of her blood could be spilled, she brought a leg up and savagely kneed Tazabelle in the crotch with unrestrained rage.

The gurgling groan that burst from the siren was almost lost in the tumult of approval and encouragement from the crowd, and she slumped over slightly. I almost felt sorry for her for a brief moment.

Then Indy whirled and sent the hilt of her blade slamming into Tazabelle’s bony rib cage.

The siren staggered back with a fresh chorus of shrill cries that could barely be heard over the crowd’s screams. People were clutching each other’s shoulders and punching the air with glee, excitement, and satisfaction at the siren getting what she deserved, Despite being at the eye of a chaotic storm of sound, my princess was laser-focused. She completed a second murderous spin by bringing her shorter blade around and slashing it across Tazabelle’s forearm. Then, almost before I could blink, Indy sent a light, sharp jab of her sword at the siren’s lower back.

My pulse thundered in my ears almost as loudly as the crowd at the fact that my princess had repaid the pale-skinned siren in kind.

And she’d brought us up to five-blood in the process.

I smirked as Indy sent the wounded siren on her way with a sharp kick that sent the siren stumbling into Zenia, and I felt a thrill of grim approval in my gut as I watched the two allies tumble to the ground together.

The move had given Indy a moment of reprieve, too, and I could see her chest heaving as she gave her head a quick, hard shake and zeroed in on Mavra, who was cackling madly as she backed Ellie up to the edge of the arena.

There was a small metallic thud that could be heard through the siren’s screeches when my princess let the weighted spike of her chain whip fall to the ground. Then she arced it at the sphinx-like woman’s calf.

The chain wrapped around Mavra’s ankle with a precision that filled me with grim satisfaction.

But I didn’t let myself celebrate yet, because this shit was far from over.

My women were at five-blood now compared to the three-blood the bald backer’s team had against my princess.

Zenia was now grappling with the siren who was supposed to be her teammate, but Mavra was still going strong. At the moment, though, she was going down.

My princess exhaled hard with the effort of yanking on the whip. Her efforts were rewarded by the almighty thud of the sphinx-like woman crashing to the ground flat on her back as her feet were jerked out from under her.

A surge of elation swept through me, but I kept it in check as I spotted Zenia getting back to her feet again on the other side of the arena.

The red-haired warrior’s entire lower face was covered with blood, and she was swaying visibly on her scaly red legs, but her face was filled with hatred and determination as she raised her sword and came at Indy from the back.

“Behind!” Ellie screamed.

Indy wheeled around in a sharp pivot that brought her whip around with it. The weighted spike whistled through the air, but with
no idea exactly where her target was ahead of time, my princess hadn’t been able to aim with her newly-honed precision.

The crowd’s volume dipped momentarily when Zenia managed to bring her shield up and the weighted spike bounced off it with a deep, hollow clang. There was only a slight hitch in her stride as she continued her bull-rush at my princess, and a brief hush of respect lingered in the audience.

Then everything shifted.

Indy immediately flowed into a new type of movement I hadn’t seen her do before. The usual fierce brutality of her moves were now tempered by a fluid sort of sway. She twisted, whirled, and leapt with all the grace of a dancer. Her whip clinked and slithered across the ground as she twitched it out of the way and met a flurry of sword strikes from Zenia with the straighter one of her two blades.

Her intervention with Mavra had allowed Ellie to send one of her axes sailing across the arena. I watched with slight anxiety as the sphinx-like woman recovered with unsettling speed and sent her remaining axe arcing at the blue-haired warrior in a ferocious swing.

“Come on, Ellie, you know what to do here,” I breathed through gritted teeth.

The fighting master of Earth had taught Ellie that axes were a strong weapon for offense, but were a little lacking when it came to defending against others’ strikes. And a single axe was even less promising on the defensive front, especially with Mavra’s style of using wild, unrestrained swings. They were powerful, but the way she put every ounce of her strength behind them made her more vulnerable in between strikes.

The trainer had helped my petite warrior capitalize on a skill that already came naturally to her, and it countered Mavra’s technique perfectly as she used it now.

When the sphinx-like woman went high, Ellie went low. Her speed was incredible, and the axeblade skimmed just inches over the top of her head in a way that made my heart stop for a second.

But the axe blow didn’t land, and now Ellie had her chance.

At the same time, my princess drew everyone’s eye again by executing a move that reminded me of a soccer-style slide tackle during a gap between one of her red-haired opponent’s strikes. Indy landed a light slash across one of her opponent’s scaly red legs before she knocked Zenia’s feet out from under her.

“Good girl!” I growled with satisfaction and approval.

The red-haired warrior thudded to the ground with a broken-up groan and rolled onto her back. Then the red-haired warrior pressed her hand gingerly to the spot where Indy’s blade had slashed her.

She winced sharply in pain at even the light touch of her own fingers, but when she pulled her hand away, I didn’t see a speck of blood on them.

But it didn’t matter.

Every finger in the crowd was suddenly pointing to the other side of the arena, Ellie had just evaded another whirlwind of strikes from Mavra and dropped to one knee. Now she drove the tomahawk-like blade of her tonfa into the side of Mavra’s calf.

Blood gushed from the sphinx-like woman’s leg, and her howl of pain and rage was completely lost in the sky-shaking screams of approval that came from the crowd at my warriors’ actions.

This was the sixth blood wound they had drawn.

We had won.

The gong-like boom came from overhead, and the brass gargoyles thudded to the ground and gave each other a simple nod.

“The Induya and the Elsodie are our victors!” their leader boomed.

The crowd was uproarious, and I could tell my women had won over just about every damn one of them as people screamed, whistled, and stamped their feet until I felt like my teeth were rattling in my skull from the noise and booms that echoed around the crater.

A lot of it was wordless screaming at first, but then I heard people start shouting suggestions for my women’s fighting titles to replace the simple way they were announced by the brass gargoyle.

“Induya Silver-Whip,” one of them cheered.

“Induya Fire-Heart,” a booming voice argued.

“Fire-Eyes!” someone else interjected.

“The Blazing One!”

I couldn’t help the huge grin that came to my face, and as my two women approached me with euphoric expressions, I saw fingers pointing at Ellie, too, while names rang out for her.

“Little Cobra!” one of them declared in a screech.

“Little Wolfling,” another insisted.

“Hungry Wolfling!”

“Brighthand!”

The chaotic beings of the volcano city seemed fucking elated, and I could tell my two warriors were drinking it up.

But the smiles that came my way when our eyes met were meant for me and me alone, and it felt like the most powerful drug in the fucking world.

Even more powerful than whatever crack-like substance had been given to Mavra, who was visibly shaking with fury as she bored her cat-like eyes into Ellie’s back. Nearby, Zenia was practically wilting with shame, and Tazabelle the Trickster was sulking with murder written in her rusty-orange eyes.

Neither of my warriors paid their opponents the slightest ounce of attention. Instead, they approached me with all the pride in the world, and it was all I could do not to pull them both into my arms.

“You were fucking incredible,” I told them in quiet amazement.

The two women warriors glowed with pride.

All of us jumped slightly as Master Freyos slammed his siren warrior up against the wall of the lounge once she was within his grasp. Then he whirled to face me, and his black eyes were cold with rage.

“Here we go,” I muttered as I reached into my jacket and rested my hand on the solid, reassuring grip of my gun.

The bald backer’s wooden staff rapped furiously against the floor as he stomped over to me, and I could see a muscle jumping in his jaw. A wave of heat swept out from the black orb on his staff, and the red-orange lines that spiderwebbed across it started to shift threateningly.

I curled my fingers tightly around the grip of my pistol, but I didn’t draw it yet. I just returned his stare with my calmest expression.

“Good fight,” I said politely. “You have some mighty warriors on your hands.”

Master Freyos looked like he might spit on me.

But I wasn’t afraid of this motherfucker. Every nerve in my body felt alive, and it took effort to rein myself in from daring him to make a move and see what happened.

He glanced around at the elated people spilling out into the arena, and the brass gargoyles who were watching over everything with an intent look on their blunt features, like they were determined not to let things get out of hand this time.

Corded muscles were visible in the bald backer’s meaty neck as he swallowed his rage and sneered at me. “Good fight.”

He grabbed the sphinx-like Mavra by the scruff of her neck and shoved her out of the lounge in front of him along with his other warriors.

“What a peach,” I muttered as I turned away.

“Master Freyos is quite charming,” a clever, reedy-sounding man’s voice said from nearby.

I turned around with surprise and saw that it wasn’t a man. It was one of the dog-dragonish creatures I had spotted with my two women earlier. A Spectrid.

And like Ellie had said, it spoke just as well as a person, with an impeccably sardonic tone that automatically brought a dry smile to my lips.

The Spectrid was also wearing three hats stacked on top of its head.

I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments to push away the urge to laugh hysterically as my warriors’ previous tower of hats came to mind.

When I opened them again, the wyvern-like creature had an expression that I thought might be a smile. It made his toothy fangs
stick out to the sides in a way that should have been intimidating, but somehow just came off as goofy.

“Savoring the moment?” he asked, and his sharp green eyes reminded me slightly of my friend Nick’s as he glanced at my two warriors behind me.

“Y-yep,” I said, and then I cleared my throat to remain serious as I realized all the excitement might be manifesting itself in the urge to burst into laughter. “Er, is there something I can do for…?”

“Oh, yes.” The Spectrid gave his head a little shake before he drew himself up to full height and folded his clawed hands in front of his scaly chest.

One of the bookies ducked hurriedly out of the way as the motion caused the spikes on the creature’s wings to jab out to each side.

Then the Spectrid dipped his sinuous neck down in a respectful bow. “I’m here to give you my master’s sincere congratulations, and to extend a cordial invitation to attend the sacred Reprieve.”

I blinked in shock.

What the fuck was the sacred Reprieve?

Chapter 6

I raised my eyebrows at the wyvern-like creature. “The re-what?”

“Ah, of course.” The Spectrid clapped a clawed hand to his forehead, and the bookie who was hovering respectfully with my pouch of winnings veered hurriedly out of the way. “You’re not from here. The Reprieve is one of the gatherings held by Bayalon’s backers during Remembrance. Well, the most notable backers, rather.”

“Oh.” I tried to digest this piece of information and figure out why the hell one of these guys would invite me to anything. From what I had seen, backers typically hated each other’s guts.

Especially mine.

“The Reprieve commemorates the suspension of fighting that happened between Bayalon’s volcano beings and water beings during the Great War,” the Spectrid added helpfully. “There are normally just two gatherings held by the backers– one before the Remembrance festival, and one after. But this year the council has finally agreed to extend the festival to three full weeks of fighting for the first time in years. Their only condition was that the backers must
hold a third gathering before the final week of fighting to celebrate the Reprieve. It signifies the backers’ willingness to intermingle on peaceful terms before the fiercest week of fighting takes place.”

The Spectrid’s words filled me with curiosity about the apparent complexities of Bayalon’s backers compared to the other oasis cities I’d been to.

And then there was the matter of what the hell they wanted with me.

I decided to play along for the moment to see exactly where this was heading.

“When and where is this, uh, Reprieve thing held, exactly?” I asked in a tone of casual courtesy.

“It’s held at a different backer’s estate each time,” the Spectrid explained. “This year it’s at Lord Krasur’s estate, two days from now– so, just before the final week of fighting. It’ll be an, er, overnight event. Lots of festivities.”

He inclined his dragonish head to the side as he said this last part, and I glanced over to see a crowd of backers lurking a short distance away from the lounge. They immediately stood out from the rest of the babbling crowd from the way they all had their fighters
and slaves clustered close by, plus the trademark snooty way they carried themselves.

Oh, yeah, and the way they were all staring not-so-subtly at me like they were waiting to see my response.

Part of me felt like I was in high school again.

I thought about how Master Freyos had proved to be just as much of a man-baby as the seething lizard-man priest I had slain in Gavahna and the sneering Lord Vath I’d annihilated in Kortico. Why should these bastards be any different?

These backers clearly loved playing games and flaunting their power to each other.

In other words, all the pompous but seedy-looking fuckers who were watching me might now be my new best frenemies.

But here in the desert world, I was starting to realize that as frivolous as these little power shows might seem to me, the stakes could be anything but frivolous.

I turned back to face the Spectrid. “So, is the Reprieve just for the backers exclusively, then?”

“Correct,” he confirmed. “Well, the warriors are present for the measuring–”

“Measuring?” I interrupted.

“Ah, yes.” The Spectrid paused and sent another brief glance at the women behind me with his bright green eyes before he went on. “The warriors are brought along as well, and the Mediators attend briefly to measure them and sort them into classes according to size and weight.”

“That’s a thing?” I asked with some surprise. “My warriors’

measurements weren’t taken for the fights they’ve done so far.”

The Spectrid nodded. “Classing is only for certain types of fights– the kinds that take place during the third week of Remembrance. They’re extremely high-stakes, and they’re taken even more seriously, so…”

“Noted.” I lifted my eyebrows as thoughts crowded into my mind at this discovery. This Spectrid seemed eager to ensure I’d be attending this Reprieve gathering, so I decided to address the most important of the thoughts here and now, and see if he was willing to answer my questions before I indicated that I’d be showing up for this thing. “Are all the fights for the third week planned at the Reprieve, then?”

“All,” he confirmed. “After the warriors’ measurements are taken, the leader of the Mediators sits down with the backers, and they hash out the schedule for fighting and whatnot. The Mediators tend to be especially strict about classing the warriors when it comes to outnumbered fights, to ensure an even balance. Oh, and a few bookies are in attendance, of course. They don’t have any part in the planning for third-week fights– that’s reserved for the Mediators by tradition, since a bookie might be bribed to shift the fighters around–
but some attend to listen, so they can be made aware of the schedule and plan accordingly.”

“Right,” I murmured, and I carefully filed this information away for later. “So, will attending this Reprieve mean my women are offered a place in the third-week fights?”

“Oh, yes,” the Spectrid said with a spark in the bright green depths of his eyes. “I mean, you’ll be free to refuse, of course. After how well your warriors fought, the honor of attending the Reprieve is extended to you regardless of whether you intend to book for any third-week fights. But if you do, the Reprieve is when that’ll be arranged. Otherwise, it’ll just be a chance to enjoy the–”

“The festivities,” I nodded and suppressed an eye roll at the thought of sharing drinks with the backers who were still eyeballing
me intently.

But as I mulled it over, I realized it really might be worth rubbing elbows with these bastards for a night and scoping out their women.

And if I accepted now, I could always change my mind later.

It’s not like anyone was going to come tracking me down if I didn’t show up at this thing.

“Why not?” I finally asked with an easy smile. “Sounds like a good time.”

“Excellent.” The dragonish creature gave me another goofy-looking grin and accompanying bow. “I’ll convey your acceptance to my master. In the meantime…”

He pulled off one of his hats and rummaged in it, and I watched with amazement as I distinctly heard things tumbling around inside.

Did this talking dragon really have a hat like Mary Poppins’

damn magical purse?

After a few seconds, he made a small triumphant noise that told me he’d found what he was looking for. His clawed hand came
out of the hat clutching a scroll of pale green paper that was tied with a fancy little black ribbon.

“Directions to Lord Krasur’s estate,” he said smoothly as he handed me the scroll. “And other necessary details.”

“Thanks.” I accepted one of the few pieces of paper I had seen in any of the oasis cities with a little surprise.

Then again, if anyone had access to rarities like paper and ink, of course it would be these high-rolling backers.

The Spectrid nodded his dragonish head politely in response to my thanks, and his scaly tail twitched behind him as he scuttled out of the backers’ lounge.

The relieved-looking bookie who had been hovering nearby finally approached to hand me my bulging pouch of winnings. He stopped to congratulate me on a fight well fought, but then immediately scurried away again as several men who were clearly backers swooped into the lounge and surrounded me.

As if on cue, the other backers who had been watching me from a distance melted away into the crowd.

I tensed slightly as I considered the possibility that the six men approaching now were all about to jump me, or challenge me to a
duel, but instead something happened that would’ve taken me utterly by surprise about ten minutes ago.

The backer who had stepped up directly in front of me smiled at me in a way that wasn’t a sneer. Then he stuck out his hand for me to shake.

I shook it with a mixture of surprise and suspicion, but I gave the group of men a laid-back smile as I looked around at them.

It took some effort not to let my smile turn into a smirk as I saw the way they were eyeballing my women and the flashy metal weapons I now had slung over my shoulder.

I thought I knew what sort of game we were playing.

These bastards wanted to size me up.

Or size up my warriors, anyway, and apparently gauge my own status as a backer.

“That was a hell of a fight,” the guy shaking my hand said. He looked human as far as I could tell, with a head of spiky black hair.

His raspy voice was appreciative, but the foxy glint in his jungle-green eyes was almost as bright as the gem in his shiny silver tooth that winked under the lounge lights. “That moon siren was a nasty
piece of work. Word is that Freyos won her dueling one of the fissure elves down near the rift.”

Tazabelle the Trickster was presumably the siren in question here, but I had no idea what the moon had to do with her kind. I was equally stumped by what the hell a fissure elf was, and why they would be lurking around a rift. But the statement didn’t seem to require much of a response from me specifically, so I just nodded as if half this shit wasn’t absolute gobbledygook to my ears.

Another one of the six backers stood with his thumbs tucked into the pockets of a thick silver robe that looked way too damn hot for this place. At the words “fissure elves,” his expression darkened, and he shook his head.

“Not those seedy bastards,” he complained in his low, reedy voice. “You know, half of them can’t even cross the lake because of the Curse. Just goes to show they’re every bit as scummy as they were a few thousand years ago.”

“Moon sirens are just as bad,” another one growled.

“Unsurprising that those two would partner together.”

“Crazy that the fissure elves have managed to tame any of them,” the spiky-haired backer reflected.

“I think ‘tame’ might be a little generous,” I muttered as I glanced back at the deep scratches on my princess’ face, and another small pulse of anger swept through me.

The backers all nodded in a sympathetic way that seemed patently phony to me.

Their friendliness seemed overdone to me in general, and it automatically filled me with suspicion, but the more I talked with these men, the more my guess about their motives solidified in my mind.

Most of the other backers who had been watching me from a distance had been conspicuously fiery, now that I reflected on it.

They had all seemed to be volcanic in nature, but so were a lot of Bayalon’s beings.

I hadn’t thought much of it until I noticed how much of a contrast there was in the backers around me now.

This group looked to be just about anything but fiery. The raspy-voiced man with the spiky hair who had shaken my hand was the most human-looking of them. Two of the others looked like some sort of semiaquatic goblins with webbed hands and vivid teal skin.

The reedy-voiced one in the silver robe looked vaguely elven, but I
noticed a faint mist swirling around his fingers as he stroked his close-cropped silver beard. A fifth had some sort of frilly green gills that kept escaping from the high, stiff collar of his shirt, while the man next to him had features that were faintly serpent-like.

These were water beings.

I thought about the way they had only swooped in after the Spectrid had left me, and how the fiery backers watching me had vanished as soon as they spotted them.

And then there was the fact that this “Reprieve” thing seemed like the gargoyles forcing them all to play nice with each other for the third-week fights to take place.

By all appearances, this wasn’t just about individual rivalry between the backers. It was more than that. They were divided into two factions that hated each other.

Were these watery bastards really trying to win me over?

I kept my face smooth and held back a snort of laughter as they continued to schmooze, and I nodded along politely.

Finally I decided I would continue to dance their dance for now, because this shit could definitely work in my favor, even if these guys didn’t realize it.

“So,” I said in a leading voice. “You guys are going to the, uh, Reprieve, right?”

The serpent-like man let out a disgusted, hissing sigh like a popped balloon. “Not by choice, I promise you.”

“Krasur is going to be insufferable,” the silver-bearded man agreed with a grimace. Mist swirled around his fingers as he reached up to rub his temples, like just thinking about this gave him a headache. “Well… more insufferable than usual.”

“Impossible,” the teal-skinned goblin next to him grunted.

But the spiky-haired guy who had shaken my hand gave them all a chiding look with his jungle-green eyes. “Now, now, my friends, remember this is a time of–”

“Slaughter?” the snake-like man suggested with a delighted expression, and I thought he was either very dense or just had a short attention span.

“Not outside the arena,” his spiky-haired companion reminded him with a tight, controlled smile. His dislike for the fiery volcano beings was only slightly better disguised than the other water beings around me. At the moment, he had a clear tone in his voice that was suggesting the snake-like man should shut up and stop making them
look like the assholes in the equation. “Anyway… are your warriors restricting, Dibrin?”

The question was directed at one of the teal goblins.

“Restricting… food, you mean?” Dibrin the goblin cackled and waved one his webbed hands. “No. Gaining.”

“Mine, too,” the man with frilly gills declared. “They are fierce enough to take on the robusts.”

“But not fierce enough to face the Abandoned.” The silver-bearded man smirked. “Such a strange coincidence that she’s classed as fine-boned.”

“Restricting is a craven’s trick,” Dibrin the goblin said in a tone of agreement. “There is no honor in warriors fighting below their class. Better to gain and fight those above.”

I was strongly tempted to roll my eyes at the way the statement was made as if these men themselves would be striding into the arena instead of their warriors.

“Either way, you’re avoiding a fight,” the silver-bearded man replied.

“So are you, Mek,” Dibrin snapped.

Back in my world, I had heard of boxers cutting or gaining to be in a different weight class. I only knew the basics, but between this and the Spectrid’s mention of measurements being taken at the Reprieve, this “restricting” and “gaining” shit the backers were talking about sounded a hell of a lot like that to me.

I’d also heard the hawk-like guard at the gate mention some sort of fighting classes on our first trip here, like “gossamer-level”

and “mezzo.” It seemed to me like “fine-boned” must have been somewhere between the two, while “robusts” was probably on the higher end.

“So…” I frowned slightly. “Some of you guys want to put your warriors into a different fighting class to tilt the odds in their favor for these upcoming fights?”

This part was slightly confusing to me. For fighters back on Earth, the concept made some amount of sense. But here in the fighting arenas of the cruel desert world, it seemed sort of unusual.

Brutality was an integral part of the fights, after all, and this pussyfooting around seemed like an odd change in tone. There had to be something else to it.

One of the teal goblins sighed. “Third-week fights are a little…

different. They’re either to the death, or the stakes are ruinously
high.”

“Ruinous,” the spiky-haired man agreed. “Even for us. And a battle against the Abandoned isn’t even a fair fight. Everyone’s scared of her.”

“Because…” I stared at him in surprise as I thought back to the winged woman’s fight. “She glows?”

I worked to keep every hint of amusement out of my voice and imply that this question was just for further clarification, but the men all bristled like I had insulted their mothers.

“It’s not our courage that’s lacking,” Dibrin the goblin said in a taut voice. “Tension between the oasis’ water beings and volcano beings is always high in general, but especially so during this time.

The Abandoned stokes that tension with her… glowing nonsense.

She’s too wild.”

“More importantly,” the spiky-haired man added, and he cast a glance around before he leaned in closer, like what he was about to say was confidential. “Besides the risk of losing a lifetime’s worth of wealth, it’s too risky to pit one’s warriors against the Abandoned. Her backer is… formidable.”

“Don’t beat around the bush, Semmo,” Dibrin the goblin said irritably. “He’s not ‘formidable.’ He’s absolutely insane. A madman.

Sure, things are tense between the different beings, but for most of us, life goes on outside the arena.”

“But not for this guy?” I guessed.

“Exactly,” the man with gills replied. Several of the frilly appendages had escaped his collar now, and they were wiggling around like they were agitated. “And the same thing goes for anyone who so much as blinks in the fiery bastard’s direction.”

“It’s not just that he kills on a whim,” the silver-bearded Mek elaborated. “Although he does do that quite… explosively. But more than that, he’s known for having long-running feuds.”

“That’s understating things,” one of the teal goblins added in a nervous voice. “He makes people’s lives a living hell.”

“Interesting,” I murmured. “What’s this guy’s name, exactly?”

I didn’t bother to keep the curiosity out of my voice, and the other backers all looked at me like I had lost it. But I was honestly intrigued as hell, and even if I weren’t, I already had reason to want the low-down on this fiery motherfucker.

“His name’s Imiath,” the spiky-haired man grunted. “I wouldn’t go nosing around with him, though.”

“Got it,” I said with a nod.

But inwardly, I was already calculating whether I’d be able to duel this Imiath jackass.

Long-running feuds weren’t something that fazed me in the slightest, for one. I didn’t live here. I could walk out of this damn city and never come back if I felt like it.

And there was no question that I would walk out, whether I crossed this guy or not. I would have my gun on me at all times.

The gears in my brain were turning fast as the water being backers continued to sympathize with each other.

I knew for a fact that my asshole of a boss would be going out of town next week. So if I really did go through with coming back to attend this Reprieve thing, I could stay the night. I could have my warriors measured and classed.

And maybe they could even fight against the Abandoned in the upcoming week.

I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d go about making that work yet, but if this was really going to be the biggest fight of the most notable
week in the Remembrance festival, then I sure as hell wanted to be the one to win all those riches.

And then duel her backer sometime after, so I could win Artemn the Abandoned for myself.

After watching the glowing warrior fight earlier, I was amazed at what she might bring to the table for me if I challenged her backer.

Coming back for the Reprieve could provide the perfect opportunity for catching another glimpse at her, or at the least learn some more about this volatile, feud-having Imiath motherfucker.

In the worst-case scenario, I’d have to schmooze with all these lunkheads for a night at the Reprieve. At best, I’d set myself up to win an even more stunning amount of riches, have a nice little duel, and then walk out of here with the fierce, dazzling Artemn at my side.

I glanced over at the two stunning warriors who already belonged to me. Indy was looking around the lounge in a bored, haughty way, but I saw the hidden smile playing around her lips, and I knew my princess was listening. The same went for Ellie, whose face was a mask of picturesque innocence as her blue eyes studied the nearby wall.

The idea of adding the fierce winged woman into the mix was dizzying, but in a good way.

I decided for sure that there was no way I’d be missing out on this Reprieve thing.

But for now, it was time to hit the road with my two warriors and bring tonight’s haul back home to Earth.

“Well,” I said with an overdone yawn. “I’d better get going.”

The other backers looked slightly crestfallen for a brief moment before they resumed their careless and confident expressions.

“You will be back for the Reprieve, then?” Dibrin the goblin asked. He used a voice that almost came off as bored, but I saw the eagerness in his eyes as he waited for my answer.

I paused for a moment like I was reflecting before I replied.

“Probably. Sounds like a good time. And so do those higher-stakes fights I’ve been hearing so much about.”

The backers all gave me cordial goodbyes before I left with my two warrior women prowling at my sides.

“Badass fight, my shieldmaidens,” I congratulated them again.

“Or should I say… What was it… Fire-Eyes and Little Wolfling?”

“Thank you, John,” Indy said in a voice that was somehow both giddy and solemn. Prismatic twinkles danced through her eyes like a meteor shower when she shared a look with me. “Ever since I was a girl, I’ve dreamed of something like this, but I never thought it would truly happen.”

“We are champions in the city of legend,” Ellie agreed in a hushed and reverent voice. “The weapons and training you provided us with have honed us into warriors worthy of this legendary city. We are grateful.”

“Well, you did quite a bit of the honing part yourselves,” I said in a reasonable tone. “You’ve been working your asses off. You deserved this win.”

I meant the words with every fiber of my being, and it had nothing to do with the heavy pouch of jewels that clinked with my every step. When I saw the way my two warrior women glowed at my praise, I was pretty sure I would do this shit for free.

Although, I couldn’t deny the jewels were a damn good bonus.

And just as importantly, they would help me invest even more in my warrior women’s training.

I hefted the pouch in my hand so the jewels inside rattled and clinked more loudly.

“Sounds like a better home to me,” I joked. “One with a view, maybe over the river.”

“The river,” Ellie repeated in a soft, dreamy voice. But then the faraway look faded from her doll-like features, and there was excitement in the way the light of the Old Town’s fireballs glinted off her blue eyes. “You are becoming more well-known as a backer, John.”

“As he should,” Indy added with a trace of smugness in her solemn voice. “John cares for us like no other backer cares for their warriors.”

We had to wait for a minute or two before the hawk-like guard showed up to open the gate for us, and I passed the time by taking a closer look at the scroll I’d gotten from the Spectrid.

To my surprise, there was actually a little map of the oasis that took up the lower half of the paper. It had been drawn in deep black ink that bled slightly, but every line still seemed carefully drawn.

The map was pretty detailed in some areas and incredibly vague in others. The location of Krasur’s estate was marked in a rare
splash of bright red ink, and I saw that it was almost on the opposite side of the oasis from the Old Town where we stood now.

A route was clearly marked on it that started at the gate, and I was impressed to see that there was even an alternate route drawn in a neat, dotted line.

The only other colored ink on the map was seen in a few small X markings that immediately caught my attention, with some small words penned out next to them.

“Avoid at all costs,” I read out loud. I raised my eyebrows and then rolled the scroll back up and tucked it back into my pocket for the time being. “That should come in handy.”

Soon the guard came sprinting out from the buildings of the Old Town with impressive speed, and I had expected him enough not to reach for my gun this time.

He skidded to a halt in front of us and then paused to brace his hands against his knees while he wheezed from the speed of his journey here.

“Amazing… fight,” he panted when he finally straightened up.

His hawk-like face was alive with excitement and admiration in a way that made me proud of my warriors all over again. Me and my two
women were about to walk out of the legendary city for a second time with our names on everyone’s lips.

And it wasn’t going to be the last time.

“Thanks,” I replied. I cast a sideways glance at both Indy and Ellie, and the renewed looks of pride on their faces were enough to bring a grin to my face.

I fought off the temptation to take them both into my arms again and kiss them right in front of the guard, and instead I just gave both of their wrists a squeeze.

“I’m a rich man thanks to you three,” the guard boasted with a smirk of satisfaction, and both pockets of his tunic made a jingling sound when he patted them. Then an eager look lifted his fierce features. “Will you be coming back again?”

“Of course,” I chuckled. “Wouldn’t want to miss a third round of Remembrance ass-kicking.”

“It will be wonderful,” the guard said with a slightly distant look on his face, like he was already dreaming of it. Then his yellow eyes came back into focus, and he gave us a friendly farewell wave as he hurried off to open the gate.

The winch chain rattled and creaked as the gate rose up for us, and we walked out into the dim hint of sunrise that was spreading over the desert sky.

Once we’d climbed up into the truck, the soft light filtered in through the windows, and it lit my two women in a way that made them look even more surreal.

Then Indy’s gaze flared with the dizzying, post-fight passion I could now immediately recognize. The look in Ellie’s angelic blue eyes was getting easier for me to read, too, and the hunger I saw there now made me feel slightly weak in the knees.

But…

“Here?” I asked with a glance back at the closing city gate. My disbelief faded as I stared at my fiery princess and thought about the way she’d seemed thrilled by the risk of getting caught back in Gavahna’s temple. Compared to that, this was private as hell.

“Here,” Indy confirmed breathlessly. To my surprise, she shoved aside the curtain that covered the sleeper in the back of my cab.

“What is it with you and curtains?” I chuckled and shook my head. But as I ran my eyes over every inch of her tantalizing form,
my cock was already starting to stiffen.

When my princess reached over and started to undress Ellie next, my breath caught slightly in my chest.

I didn’t think I’d ever get over how fucking gorgeous these two women were.

Or the fact that they not only belonged to me, but were brimming with desire for me to ravish them time and time again.

“Well…” I shrugged and decided to give in to the two women who looked like they were starving for my love, and the irresistible desire to give them exactly what they wanted right now.

Because I couldn’t deny that I wanted the same thing just as much.

“Guess there’s a first time for everything,” I murmured.

Chapter 7

Indy’s breasts were luxuriously soft and full in the pearly glow of dawn. Her long fingers strayed over to Ellie’s small, uptilted breasts while she undressed her, and they toyed with the dainty warrior’s rosy-pink nipples in a way that immediately got every ounce of my attention.

Ellie gasped as Indy’s butterfly-light touch traveled down to stroke her between the legs next, and I paused to watch in silent amazement at the alluring sight of my two warriors. Their breasts brushed together in a way that was incredibly tantalizing as my princess leaned in and gave Ellie a soft kiss.

Then Indy pulled back and turned the doll-faced fighter by her petite waist so she could give Ellie a light smack on the ass.

My princess’ eyes flared brighter as she turned her eyes back to me.

“I am sorry, John,” my princess said in a voice that was both sultry and teasing. “That is your job.”

My throat was dry as I watched the hypnotizing show that Indy had been giving me, and I felt like I was in a dream as I made my way into the sleeper area.

I barely got my hands out in time to catch Ellie as the princess gave her a firm little push inside.

“Ellie will undress you now,” Indy said in a voice that was firm with command. “Won’t you, Ellie?”

“May… May I?” she asked me shyly. Her big blue eyes were full of longing as she looked up at me, and every inch of her delicate form already quivered slightly in my grasp.

“Like you even need to ask,” I murmured as I bent to kiss her soft, plump lips.

Her delicate, insistent hands succeeded in their careful pulling and plucking to take my shirt off, but she ended up staring at the zipper of my pants with resentment after several tries.

“This fastening of your pants…” Her round lips slipped into a deep pout. “It is…”

“Foolish,” Indy suggested from outside the sleeper.

“Yes.” Ellie scowled down at the zipper.

Then, before I could even reach for the thing, Indy suddenly pushed her way into the sleeper with us and shunted the other warrior to the side. “You are too slow, Ellie. You must be bolder, remember?”

The sleeper felt a little cramped with the two nude women crammed inside with me, but I had no complaints as Indy managed to successfully tug my zipper down.

Her eyes flared with triumph at defeating the foolish device, and she started pulling down my pants and boxers at the same time.

I stared at her with a mixture of amusement and arousal as she removed them completely with a few quick, deft motions and only a small amount of assistance from me.

“I am not slow,” Ellie insisted with a fierce scowl. “I am bold, too. Very bold.”

To prove the truth of this, she shoved Indy out of the way and bent down with the clear intent of wrapping her pouty pink lips around my cock.

The suddenness of her move surprised me and Indy equally, and my princess gasped as she stumbled out of the sleeper on her knees.

But then she sat cross-legged on the center console with her smoldering eyes drinking in the sight of me and Ellie, like she was more than content to watch us. Something about it almost made me blush, despite the experience I already had with both the stunning
princess and the blue-haired warrior who was now pressed up against me.

Ellie crouched all the way down as she lowered her face toward my lap. Almost before I could react, she had already taken the tip of my cock into her mouth.

I sighed and closed my eyes for a few seconds as the doll-faced fighter took more and more of my shaft into her mouth with apparent ease. She didn’t stop ‘til the whole throbbing length of me was sheathed in her throat.

“Holy shit,” I whispered. “Ellie…”

The petite woman raised her head slowly from my cock, and then she paused in her work to look up at me.

“This feels good, John?” she asked shyly. “I’m doing it… well?”

“Very well,” Indy answered for me, and I couldn’t hold back a chuckle. But the idea of laughter faded from my mind when the princess went on in a purr. “Ellie is a very good girl, isn’t she, John?”

“That would be an understatement,” I murmured as Ellie bent her head to effortlessly swallow my cock again.

I couldn’t help but wind my hands into her long blue hair for a moment as she once again took so much of me inside her that her
long eyelashes were brushing against my groin. Her lips lingered there at the base of my cock, and I sighed again.

“Fuck,” I groaned.

I tried to pause her with another touch on her blue hair so I could change my position slightly, but Ellie refused to unglue herself from my cock again despite my best efforts.

When I shifted up onto my knees, I accidentally hit my head against the top of the doghouse area, and I repeated my curse with less pleasure as I lost my balance and we went down like two dominoes. Then I pulled back with an apology on my lips as my hips were sent lurching forward unexpectedly toward Ellie’s face.

She finally pulled back with an ashamed expression.

“I am sorry, John,” my doll-faced fighter said in a suddenly nervous voice. “I am very sorry. I just wanted to…”

“Uhh,” I chuckled, and I reached down to brush a hand over her pouty pink lips. “You definitely don’t need to apologize, Ellie. That was fucking hot. But I didn’t mean to–”

“Good girl,” Indy interjected again.

I slowly turned to raise my eyebrows at her, and she shrugged coyly.

“I am good, John?” Ellie asked shyly.

“The best,” I assured her in a rough whisper.

A little smile danced across her pouty lips before they returned hungrily to my cock, and the blue-haired warrior gave a tiny moan while she took me into her mouth again.

I rested my hands gently against her hair, but I pulled them back apologetically when I reflexively thrust my hips forward for a second time.

“Sorry,” I panted as I braced my arms against the wall of the sleeper again. “Maybe this position isn’t—”

“That was… nice,” Ellie interrupted in a voice that sounded desperately shy, but also filled with just as much arousal as the hot longing that was coursing through my body. “I… I liked that, John.”

“What?” I stared down at her with slight confusion.

“John,” Indy said with a patient sigh. “Ellie likes it when you are firm with her.”

Her tone made me laugh again. “Uhh, thanks, princess. But…”

Ellie nodded up at me with an irresistible look in her big blue eyes. She moved to sit up against the wall of the sleeper, and she put her wrists out against the wall on each side of her head.

I slowly moved over to kneel in front of her, and she scooted herself down until her lips were at the same level as my cock.

I didn’t even have time to ask her if this was exactly what she wanted again before she grabbed one of my hands and moved it to pin her wrist against the sleeper’s wall.

“Firm,” she said in a voice that was both pouty and begging.

I kept a firm hold on her wrist and then grasped her other in my free hand.

Then I used my grip to hold her up against the wall. “Like this?”

She nodded, and her blue eyes were filled with desire as she looked up at me and opened her mouth slightly.

“Let me know if you want me to stop,” I said firmly. “Alright?”

“Yes, John,” she said with a hint of impatience in her sweet voice. “But that is not what I wish for. It… pleases me to be with you this way. And… I am a good girl, like Indy said.”

“My good girl,” I agreed in an unsteady whisper, and I finally pressed my cock lightly against her pouty, pleading lips.

She immediately let out a soft hum of pleasure that I was becoming familiar with, and I slowly filled her mouth with my cock again.

When the tip got to her throat, another soft little hum urged me on, so I continued to push my hips forward until my full length was submerged in her throat again.

“Fuck,” I breathed, and I paused there for a moment to savor the feeling before I pulled back.

I paid careful attention as I continued with my thrusts to see if this was overwhelming for my doll-faced fighter. She gave a small, soft gag every now and then, but when I started to pull back, her hands immediately squirmed free to grip my thighs and pull my hips forward again.

Finally I started to thrust faster and with less restraint. I reveled in the soft, wet pliancy of her throat gripping my cock as I plunged it in and out, and I moved with more and more confidence as the petite woman showed zero signs of wanting me to stop. Instead, she widened her mouth slightly like she was beckoning me to go on.

I looked down at her delicate, ethereal face while I pumped the entirety of my cock into her mouth again and held it there.

It felt fucking amazing, but suddenly I felt the overwhelming need to fuck the blue-haired beauty.

She made a small pouty face when I forcibly pulled my cock out from between her lips, but when I pushed her down on her back onto the cushion below us, a little gasp of pleasure spilled out of her lips, and she eagerly splayed her legs wide for me.

I moved into a sitting position with my legs folded underneath me and my weight resting back on my heels. Then I spread my own legs enough to shift my knees under Ellie’s outspread thighs.

I leaned forward slightly to grip my hands around her delicate waist. The dainty warrior squirmed eagerly toward me when she felt my cock brush up against her entrance.

“Be patient,” I growled in a mostly-teasing tone as I hovered there.

“Yes, John,” she whispered, and her whole body went completely still. “I only want to do as you say.”

“Good girl,” I said softly.

Then I slowly moved my hips forward and pushed my throbbing cock inside her. The tight, velvety feeling of her pussy wrapping around my shaft was all-consuming. I savored the view of my blue-haired warrior’s perfect body squirming with pleasure as I filled her tiny form with my cock bit by bit. The sight made it worth
doing a little extra work with my hips to keep my body upright while I pushed my hips forward.

Then I started to fuck her with faster thrusts, and the sight of the beautiful woman writhing and whimpering helplessly in my grasp spurred me on. Her pert, perfect breasts bounced slightly with each motion, and I let my hands roam up to explore them in a way that made her gasp again. Her petal-pink nipples were stiff and taut as I brushed my thumbs over them.

Ellie moved to put her wrists over her head while she arched her delicate form to accommodate my thrusts.

Then I moved forward and lowered my body over hers so I could push her legs up around my shoulders and fuck her while I pinned her wrists up over her head. She whined breathlessly against my lips while I kissed her, and I felt like there was nothing else in the world except for Ellie at that moment. I could’ve sworn I felt her pulse racing as fast as mine when I kissed her delicate neck again.

I turned my kisses into gentle bites while I increased my tempo and buried my full length in her taut, soaked passage with unrestrained need. It gave way to the increasingly urgent thrusting of my rigid cock in a way that was completely intoxicating, and every inch of me burned when she started to moan my name.

“Ohhhhh…” Ellie moaned, and she pulled her wrists free from my grasp so she could circle her arms around my shoulders, and her hands clutched at me to urge me on.

Soon she twisted and shuddered against me with the strength of her climax, and I lost myself in the way she continued to gasp my name again and again. I cupped her doll-like face in my hands and kissed her while she whimpered against my lips.

“Fill me up,” she begged. “Fill me with your seed.”

“Yeeeesss,” I groaned as I gave in to the building yearning to flood my petite warrior with the tidal wave of cum that was waiting to burst out of me. My hips bucked convulsively against the backs of her quivering thighs, and I groaned against her slender throat with the sweet release of my sperm surging into her womb.

Afterward, I stayed with my cock deep inside her for a long moment, just savoring the wicked pleasure of pumping my seed into the ethereal, innocent-looking woman who was still quaking against me with unbridled ecstasy.

I was feeling spent when I slowly pulled out of her, but it didn’t take long for Indy to start teasing me with her body again. Her
smoldering eyes were fixed on my face as she toyed with herself just outside the sleeper.

She stared at me with undisguised lust as one of her long fingers circled her clit temptingly.

Finally Indy crawled into the sleeper and pressed herself down on Ellie next to me. The princess took one of the other woman’s little pink nipples in her mouth and sucked it until Ellie gasped and squeaked.

Indy raised her head to give me another taste of her burning stare.

“Am I a good girl, too, John?” she asked with her scorching, sultry gaze fixed on me.

I felt hyper-aware of her every move as I watched her long fingers wander down to tease Ellie’s cum-filled pussy for me.

Then the princess shifted herself over to me and reached down to cup my hardening cock in her hand.

“Perhaps I am naughty,” she whispered as she moved to press her supple curves against me. “You might need to punish me, John.”

“I think that could be arranged,” I growled, and I gave her golden ass a firm smack before I turned her by the hips and crushed
her against me.

She gasped and clutched onto my shoulders, and I felt her nipples harden against my chest as her ample, unbound breasts pressed against me. I reached around to cup her perfect ass with one hand while I slipped one finger into the tightness of her already-drenched pussy, and then I added a second. She practically melted into my grip, and I took my time enjoying her small, breathy gasps at the slow thrusting of my teasing fingers.

Finally, Indy turned and laid on her stomach with her hips tilted upward to bare the glistening perfection of her pussy to me.

I was rock hard again by the time I moved to press my tip against her entrance. Then I delved inside with a slowness that allowed me to fully absorb the silky embrace of her passage. It stretched tautly against my rigid cock as I forced my full length inside. Then I paused there before I rocked my hips forward even further, and I was rewarded with another little gasp from the princess.

She spread her legs wider and contorted herself to grind her hips against me.

“John,” she pleaded in the breathy whine that I loved. “F-firm…

Please…”

She trailed off into another shivery gasp when I bit the side of her neck and stirred my hips in small, rhythmic circles. The warrior princess was practically writhing with tormented lust at the slow and prolonged presence of my cock inside her, and I fucking loved it.

“You said you wanted punishment,” I reminded her in a playful growl.

Then I rocked my hips forward until my full length was crammed into her soaked tautness again, and I restrained her for a long moment while she writhed in my grip and tried to urge me into motion.

“Please, John,” she begged. “I need you. Take me firmly.”

The way she was already purring and quivering beneath my touch sent another wave of awareness to every part of her body that soon made it impossible to resist fucking her in earnest.

I kissed her golden shoulders and the back of her neck while I wrapped my arms around her. Her body melted beneath me when I finally burst into a rhythm of intense thrusts, and her hands clutched at the cushion below us while she filled the cab with moans.

There was nothing I loved more than the way the fierce, headstrong princess was like putty in my hands when we were in private. I could feel every quiver and ripple of pleasure that coursed through her lithe body every time I filled her with my cock, and soon I lost myself in the perfect oblivion that was Indy.

She surrendered herself to me completely in a way that filled me with a fierce sense of possession, and after a while, I pulled out of her and flipped her around so I could get a glimpse of her scorching-hot eyes while I fucked her.

“Hurry, John,” she whispered, and she wrapped her luscious lips around my finger and sucked it.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I panted, and I urgently plunged my rigid length inside her again.

I stretched her softness to the limit and alternated between kissing her hot, feverish lips and biting her neck in a way that made her moans ramp up even more.

A searing need to claim her shot through me, and the feeling of her whole body contorting and spasming against me when her pleasure peaked was almost enough to drive me over the edge. Her
climax felt electric to me, and she raked her nails down my back as my name spilled out of her lips again.

Finally the gripping, quivering sensation of her pussy engulfed me completely. I grabbed a fistful of the cushion below as I buried my cock in her with one last breathless, urgent thrust, and I anchored my hips snugly against hers while I unleashed a torrent of cum inside her.

“Ohhhh… yeeeesss,” she groaned as soon as she felt me pour into her, and both of us spasmed uncontrollably as my own orgasm forced Indy into another immediate climax, and she started wailing as my cock throbbed heavily with each spray of cum. I couldn’t tell how long we moaned for until we finally came down from our shared ecstasy, but Indy had finally milked me of every last drop when I looked into her eyes again.

The colors swirling hotly there were fucking breathtaking, and I lowered my face to kiss her trembling lips again.

“Good girl,” I whispered up against her lips.

She mumbled incoherently in response, and her red-gold eyes were a combination of dreamy and smoldering when I slowly pulled out of her.

For a few long moments, all I could do was look at the two perfect women as they laid there limp with pleasure and filled to the brim with my cum in the cab of my truck.

They belonged to me, and I was already addicted to letting them know how much I appreciated every inch of them, inside and out.

“You’re perfect,” I said in a simple, quiet voice. After a few moments, I noticed that the sun was almost completely visible over the desert horizon now, and I knew it was about time we got back to Earth. I stretched and reached for my discarded clothes. “Ready for another rumbly ride?”

Indy paused with her romper half-on, and her dark nipples were a tempting sight as her fingers hovered over them.

The blue-haired warrior who was rousing next to her froze in place, too.

“A ride?” Ellie repeated.

“Uhhh.” I chuckled. “Through the fog, I mean.”

“Oh.”

The way both of these women seemed to jump at the chance to prove they were mine was threatening to go to my head, and I
was careful to put myself back into a focused mindset so I didn’t crash the damn truck thinking of their perfection.

I drove us back to the Moonstone Road, and then we cruised down the glossy, iridescent white expanse. When the foggy portal came into sight, I didn’t even have to ask the usual question.

“We are ready, John,” Indy declared.

“Ready to rumble,” Ellie agreed.

“Let’s get rumbling, then,” I chuckled. Then I raised my voice to a tone that was almost a yell. “Through the enchanted fog. Which…

is pretty much my favorite thing to do, for the record. Always a blast.”

“A beautiful blast,” Ellie added.

“Fearsome and radiant,” Indy said with a nod. Then her voice started to vibrate with the sudden rumbling that enclosed us, but she went on bravely. “Mmm-m-most impressive.”

The rumbling picked up as the glowing fog spiraled around us, and soon the truck vaulted into the air.

“Wheeeee-haw,” my doll-faced warrior squeaked as we hurtled through the luminous fog.

We touched down on the gray road of Earth with a landing as light as the flutter of Ellie’s eyelashes against my skin.

I raised my eyebrows, and after a long moment I spoke. “So, it’s confirmed. The fog is definitely subject to flattery.”

“The fog is quite touchy,” Indy criticized in a whisper.

“Shhh,” Ellie hissed. “We do not know how well the fog–”

Her voice cut off when the truck bumped slightly like it was going over a speedbump, and I glanced in my rearview mirrors and gassed it a little.

“The fog has good hearing,” Indy said nervously. “Its senses are sharp. Very impressive.”

I snorted as we rolled onto the entrance ramp to SR 14. “I think we’re safe now. Probably.”

We drove back west toward home with the sun rising behind us. I felt like I was still riding on the euphoria of the night, my steamy scene in Spitfire’s cab, and the possibilities for my future.

Or, our future.

Because my warrior women were very much a part of everything I pictured from here on out. I couldn’t imagine my life without them, and it was crazy to know that they were so attached to me.

I loved the fact that they belonged to me, and the knowledge that they loved belonging to me just as much was one hell of a drug.

And the fact that I might be able to add the flawless, glowing winged warrior to my collection of badass beauties made me feel giddy, too.

Especially because by all indications, things wouldn’t stop there. Instead, this was only the beginning.

The sky was the fucking limit, and I couldn’t wait to get started on the next part of my plans.

I started sorting my thoughts as I cruised down the highway feeling closer than ever to my two women.

After a few minutes, I realized I didn’t want to wait to call Nick, and there probably wasn’t any need to. It was still early morning, which meant that odds were my crafty friend was probably still awake.

“Call Nick,” I commanded my phone, and I felt slightly self-conscious again as the women both stared at me.

“Calling Nick,” the phone replied in its cool, robotic voice.

Ellie stared at it with wary awe again, and Indy leaned over to whisper to her. “John speaks commands to the phone contraption,
and it does as he wishes.”

I nodded solemnly and did my best to focus on not exploding into laughter while I waited for Nick to pick up.

To my excitement, he did.

“’Ello, poppet,” he greeted me.

“Shut up,” I said briskly, and both of us snorted with laughter before I went on. “Listen, I want to start this off by saying I have company with me, and you’re sort of on speaker here, so please keep the language, uh…”

There was a moment of silence before he replied. “I can do Rrated at best.”

“PG-13,” I said in a mock stern voice. “Or no more jewels for you, Nickiboo.”

“Wait a second.” My friend’s bantering voice perked up even more. “There are more jewels?”

“Yeah.” I let out another snort of laughter as I realized this bastard was wide awake. “But we’ll leave that for later. There’s something else I want to discuss with you first.”

Chapter 8

“Oh, shit,” my friend said in a voice of deep intrigue. “I mean, uhhhh… oh, shizzle. Lay it on me, Johnny Bossman.”

“If you say so, Snoop Dogg,” I muttered. Then I adjusted to a carefully casual tone as I went on. “I was thinking it would make a whole lot of sense if that taxidermy store requested another shipment.”

“Which taxidermy store?” he asked in his most innocent voice.

“Fine, I’ll say it.” I sighed deeply. “Party Fowl.”

Nick guffawed. “Tell me that’s not hilarious.”

“That’s not hilarious,” I said promptly.

“Okay, okay,” he snickered. “So, another duckload of ducks.

Righto. I’m gonna need a few more details, though.”

“Yeeeeeah.” I rolled my eyes at the cheesy wordplay, but a smile still crept onto my face at my old friend’s shenanigans. “Well, I need this to happen on a specific date next week. And… I also need to keep my truck for a couple days. Marsh is already going to be out of town, so it’s a perfect time. The other managers know my truck’s
been having some problems, so it shouldn’t be too questionable for me to have to stay overnight somewhere off the road. But…”

“Here comes the ‘but,’” my friend interjected in a voice that was already alive with mischief.

“It would really help if the other managers had some sort of, uh, distraction,” I went on. “Just… something to keep them occupied so they don’t ask too many questions. The last thing I need is Marsh thinking something fishy’s going on.”

“Of course,” Nick mumbled in a preoccupied tone that told me his chaotic mind was already into this idea. “Keep Marsh out of it, gotcha. And about this ‘distraction’ you speak of…”

“No pipe bombs,” I commanded in a voice that was only half-joking. “No mysterious deaths or kidnappings. And nothing that will put you at, uh, undue risk. Got it?”

“Sure, sure,” my friend agreed in an easy tone. Then a note of curiosity crept into his voice. “You gonna tell me why?”

I made a noncommittal noise, and Nick just laughed again in response.

“Okay, Johnny Bossman,” he said thoughtfully. “I’ll sleep on it and start scheming. Then I’ll call you back, and we’ll bounce some
ideas around. Or we can do that if you swing by the shop to drop off your gems while I’m there.”

“Deal,” I said with a smirk. “Thanks, St. Nick.”

“Sure thing,” he replied. Then his voice got devious again.

“Speaking of gems, maybe you and those two lady fr–”

I stabbed my finger at my phone to end the call. Then I sighed into the sweet, awkward, profanity-free silence that filled the cab.

“That was your beanstalk shaggy-haired friend,” Indy said with interest. “He will… help us? To deceive the Marsh-lord and go back to Bayalon?”

“Looks like it,” I confirmed. “Nick’s a little bit of an evil mastermind. But, uh… in a good way.”

“He is very sneaky and full of tricks,” Ellie said in a meditative voice. “Dirty moves are good sometimes.”

“Mmmm.” I sent a sideways glance at the doll-faced fighter.

“You would know, Hungry Wolfling.”

My words immediately brought a bright pink blush to Ellie’s pearly face, and she looked every inch the shy, innocent angel again.

I had known from the first day I met the blue-haired angel that there was a hell of a lot more to her than met the eye, but I hadn’t suspected until more recently that she would shock me when we were in private, too.

She wasn’t just an utter badass who hungered for blood in the arena.

She was also a skillful, submissive temptress who hungered for my cock when we were in the bedroom.

Or in my truck.

Or wherever else I wanted.

Because she belonged to me, and she fucking loved it.

And so did I.

“What’d you say?” I asked, and I struggled to refocus from the memory of her moaning while her sweet, pouty lips were wrapped around my cock.

“I said the people gave us many names after our fight,” she said patiently.

“Many fierce names,” Indy agreed with an excited little clap of her hands. Then she gave the slender, blue-haired warrior an
appraising look. “‘Little Wolfling’ suits you well, Ellie. ‘Little Cobra,’

too. You are very small. But… very spicy, too.”

Ellie’s cheeks got faintly pink again. “‘Fire-Eyes’ is good for you, Indy. Or ‘Fire-Heart.’ You are quite spicy yourself.”

My princess gave the doll-faced warrior a gentle pat on the head in response, and I couldn’t help but grin at the way she doted on her fellow warrior. It was undeniably adorable as hell. And from what Indy had said about being owned by a backer with multiple fighters in the past, it was clear that me acquiring more warriors was something that was more than just acceptable to her. It excited her.

Just about as much as it did me.

As if she had read my mind, Indy turned her fiery eyes on me with an excited look swirling in their blazing surface.

“Will we be seeing the mighty winged warrior again when we return to Bayalon, John?” she asked eagerly.

“Oh, I hope so.” I smirked. “I mean, I’ll be going to this Reprieve gathering thing, and all the high-profile backers will be there. That woman was one hell of a warrior, so I’m thinking her backer will be there, too. If not, well, he seemed pretty damn
infamous, and now I know his name. So either way, I should be able to find out some more about him, and about her.”

“Artemn,” Indy said the winged warrior’s name in a quiet, careful voice that reminded me adorably of the first time we’d met.

“Pretty,” Ellie murmured.

I repeated the name under my breath. It sounded like a mixture of “Artemis” and “Autumn” to me, and it rolled off my tongue easily.

“The crowd was right,” my princess added with a slight furrow in her golden forehead. “This warrior is worthy of a better title than

‘the Abandoned.’ Her backer is foolish to allow such a thing.”

“Very foolish,” I chuckled in agreement.

“Yes.” Indy was quiet for a moment before she spoke in an especially solemn voice. “I am very glad that you are not foolish, John.”

I smirked. “Oh, thanks.”

“I meant…” My princess blushed slightly. “You are much more than ‘not foolish.’ You are the best backer I could ever have imagined, John.”

Dammit. Now I felt like I was starting to blush, and I just mumbled a vague response as my face got hot.

The way both of the women looked at me was almost dizzying, and I had to remind myself not to let it go to my head.

Not too much, anyway.

Despite her sleepiness, my sensitive, doll-faced warrior seemed to sense my bashfulness immediately, and I was pretty sure the reason she quickly changed the subject was on my behalf.

“Maybe we can give Artemn a better name for battle,” she suggested.

“Artemn Stormstrike,” Indy said immediately. “Artemn the Untamed. Artemn Silver-Eyes.”

“Very nice eyes,” Ellie mumbled sleepily.

When I glanced over at the doll-faced warrior, she had her head tilted back against the seat, and her long eyelashes had fluttered shut. From the tone of her voice, I felt like she was already dreaming about this new woman as much as I was.

I pictured the phoenix-winged warrior with her black-and-white hair and her bright silver eyes. The small, sharp taper of her jaw and the moody expression on her face had given her beautiful features a wildness that was incredibly alluring to me.

And then there was the part where she had literally started to glow from within.

I had to admit, that alone was pretty damn cool.

Artemn the Abandoned had clearly earned her name, and her level of skill and fierceness in the arena had clearly been a big part of that. But I thought another big piece of the puzzle was that her backer, the notorious Imiath who I’d heard so much about, had decided to take advantage of the unique dynamic that existed in the volcano city because of its explosive history.

That history was etched into every aspect of the legendary city in so many ways. And despite the fact that the Remembrance fighting festival was entirely centered around that history, I thought maybe Artemn’s glowing fury was a reminder of that past violence in a way that was a little too tangible for her opponents’ taste. In combination with the fact that her backer was unhinged enough to make life a living hell for anyone who dared to piss him off, this had put Artemn on such a high pedestal that no one was willing to send their warriors into the arena against her during the third-week fights.

But as an outsider, I had no part in any of this history. I was impressed as hell by Artemn the Abandoned’s fighting, but for me, she wasn’t the living embodiment of several lifetimes’ worth of
fighting, feuds, and outright wars. When I looked at her, I saw a badass fighter with strengths that could be leveraged in amazing ways.

But every warrior had weaknesses. And if my own two warriors went up against her in the arena before I won Artemn, I knew they had the skill and clear-headedness to work together and exploit those weaknesses. Indy and Ellie didn’t have identities and emotions that were tied to this ancient, ongoing dynamic that came from Bayalon’s centuries of fiery conflict.

Whether my two warriors fought against Artemn or not, I planned to work out a way to duel her backer before I strode out of Bayalon for a third time.

And after that, I was sure this amazing, winged warrior would prove to be more than capable of learning to thrive in a team of warriors. If we did make a return trip to this legendary city later on, and they fought as a trio, I knew that Artemn’s reputation there meant I’d need to anticipate Indy and Ellie being attacked with a new level of intensity by their opponents as they all scrambled to avoid the glowing wrath they feared from the Abandoned.

But when we went to new desert cities, away from the legendary Bayalon where Artemn was basically an unwilling
celebrity, she could have the chance to earn a nickname of her own choosing.

For now, the two warriors who were already mine had shown me not only that they were utter badasses, but that they learned crazy fast. Their training on Earth was progressing better than I had even anticipated, and I had watched them enough to know they could handle themselves.

Lately I had been living in the moment in a way that was incredibly thrilling to me, and sometimes it made my head spin. But planning for the future had a new excitement to it, too, one that made my pulse speed up a little just thinking about it.

This new warrior woman was officially a part of those plans now, and I couldn’t fucking wait to put them in motion.

There was no time over the next two days to sit around and feel impatient with how busy I was making preparations for our third trip to Bayalon. Instead I felt like I was constantly buzzing with excitement, and the fact that this stuff felt like it was starting to come naturally to me only added to it.

It wasn’t that it was a piece of cake seeing to the training and preparation of my two warrior women. There was a lot that went into
it at times.

But it just felt right to me somehow.

Navigating the logistics of our return trip was a little more daunting, but I felt more than ready to face the challenge, and it didn’t hurt that Nick was fully in his element orchestrating parts of the plan. My friend was chaotic, clever, and he delighted in chaos.

Having something purposeful to channel that chaos into seemed to delight him.

And I couldn’t deny that it was fun as hell.

Back in middle school, Nick and I had been a pretty formidable duo for a couple of kids. Finding ways to sabotage playing in the school band was one of my favorite childhood memories.

But we weren’t kids anymore. Now, my friend was a well-honed chaos machine, and the potential rewards of our plans were more far-reaching.

“Remember when we tried to convince Mrs. Paine to let us play ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears in the marching band?” Nick asked me as he leaned over the counter of his shop. There was a faraway look in his sharp green eyes as he blew a bubble with the lime-green gum he was chewing.

“Yep,” I mumbled absently. “We saw some college band play it on TV and thought it was fucking hilarious.”

I looked up from the names I was writing down for him and stabbed my pen toward his bubble in an attempt to pop it.

Nick jerked his head back out of my reach, but the smirk appearing on his face dissolved when he started choking on his gum.

“When Mrs. P said no, we plugged all the trumpets with chewing gum,” I went on in a raised voice that could be heard over the sound of his furious coughing. “Which you still chew, like a damn teenage girl–”

I slapped away Nick’s hand as it came sailing in my direction.

“Truce,” he wheezed, and he braced himself against the jewelry counter with both hands before he picked up where I had left off. “Then we bribed one of the college band students from Western to record them playing it in practice.”

“He gave you a fucking computer virus because you were stupid enough to download it from his LimeWire account.” I smirked.

“Doofus.”

“It was worth it,” Nick insisted. “Admit it, twelve-year-old you never would’ve figured out how to use a Bluetooth speaker without me.”

“Four Bluetooth speakers,” I corrected. “If I remember correctly.

And you never would’ve been brave enough to duct tape them inside the tubas if you didn’t have me backing you up. Pipsqueak.”

Nick’s green eyes narrowed. “I was two inches shorter than–”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I waved away his outrage and went back to reminiscing. “It took them… what was it, two days to figure out who to punish?”

“Three,” he amended. “First they thought the whole band was in on it, because everyone else really believed that’s where the music was coming from.”

“Those speakers were pretty powerful for what they were,” I reflected as I remembered the way the sound had been amplified by the horns. “No one wanted to admit that their instruments had been tampered with, because then they’d have to ‘fess up to Mrs. P that they didn’t do their warmups.”

“Then somebody snitched,” my friend finished, and he shook his head ruefully. “I should’ve switched up my methods for blocking
the wind instruments. That’s what gave us away… The gum in the valves was too uniform.”

“Well, I trust that you’ve moved past your pipsqueak ways.” I raised my eyebrows as I finished writing and slid the paper across the jewelry counter to him.

In response to my first statement, Nick just snorted and gestured wordlessly at the door to the creepy taxidermy shop. Then he bent over to read the names and phone numbers I had written down.

After a second, he tapped his finger over one of the names.

“Who the hell is Snillip?”

I jerked the paper back toward me to see what he was pointing at, and I rolled my eyes.

“It’s Phillip,” I corrected. “You Dingus. He’s–”

“The head honcho,” Nick finished with a nod. “After the big guy who’s all Marsh, no Mellow. I remember.”

“Right.” I snatched the pencil back and circled Phillip’s name.

“So call him first.”

“Gotcha.” Nick popped another bubble with his lime-green gum. “I’ll say I’m from the credit union, and that the maximum on the
corporate card has been exceeded by…”

My friend paused and pretended to squint at another name I had written down.

“Phane,” he finally said.

His voice and face were acutely, impeccably serious.

I glared at him wordlessly until the expression dissolved into an evil smile.

“Shane,” I said forcefully, and I punctuated it with a strong poke in the chest.

“Oof,” he grunted. “Not my fault you have caveman handwriting, Johnny boy. Okay, so when Phillip asks why the hell I’m calling him, I say this is the phone number I was given, blah, blah, blah.”

I nodded. “Phillip will be super pissed off, he’ll hang up and call Shane right away. But Shane never, ever answers his phone. He takes forever to get back to pretty much anyone except Marsh.”

“So then Phillip will be blowing up Shane’s phone,” Nick went on. “But true to character, Shane won’t answer, which will only aggravate Phillip more. If Phillip hasn’t called me within an hour or two, I’ll dial him again. But… he probably will call me, yes?”

“Yep,” I said merrily. “He’ll be pissed, plus terrified of Marsh catching wind of it and blaming him. And he knows Shane’s a lazy-ass, so he’ll be determined to just handle it himself and get it over with.”

“Cool.” Nick started jotting things down at the bottom of the paper with a speed that I hadn’t seen since ten years ago when he was cribbing one of our high school exams. “So I give Phill-with-no-chill the runaround on the phone while he’s trying to figure this out.”

“He fucking hates being called Phill,” I warned. Then I paused.

“So yeah, do that. Give him the runaround, say you’ll be freezing the corporate accounts or something if this shit isn’t handled.”

“Waste his time,” Nick summarized with a nod. “Make him furious and desperate, blah, blah, blah.”

“Good.” I smirked. Then I gave my friend a stern look. “Don’t get carried away with the voices, Nicholas. Or the names.”

“What?” Nick shot me a deeply wounded look. Then his voice went up an octave and took on a robust Irish accent. “You don’t like Roisinn?”

“That’s… actually pretty uncanny, Nickita.” I couldn’t stifle a laugh. “But please, no Ro-sheeeeeen.”

“Fiiine,” he sighed. He returned to his usual voice as he went on. “So after a long and agonizing series of phone convos, I’ll start to throw in signs that it wasn’t actually Shane who did this. First they’ll suspect the other manager. After some more statements from me, they’ll change their minds and think that one of them must’ve gotten careless, and someone now has their corporate card number. Phill will be seeing red, Shane’s tiny pea brain will implode from confusion, and the other manager will either rat them out to Marsh, hurl accusations at them, or both. Yes?”

“Amazing,” I chuckled. “See? Less crazy than your other ideas, but still effective. No need to go all Wile E. Coyote on their asses.”

“Yet,” my friend immediately added with a malevolent grin.

“Yet,” I agreed with a snort.

Nick was quiet for a moment as he scanned over his notes, and I turned to rest one hip against the jewelry counter.

Then a flash of motion caught my eye.

I jerked my head around to see Ellie emerging from one of the aisles. Her lithe figure was sheathed in what must’ve been at least two-dozen sweaters, vests, jackets, and coats all layered on top of each other. There were so many that her arms stuck out to her sides
in a way that reminded me of childhood pictures of me on a snow day when I was forced into an absurdly large puffy jacket by my grandma.

My jaw dropped as I took all this in.

Then Indy emerged from the aisle and stood with her hands on her hips. She looked the coat-swaddled warrior up and down while she nodded with approval, and then she looked up at me.

A silent wheeze of laughter escaped me as I watched the two women slowly disappear back into the aisle.

Nick’s normally-keen eyes were completely absorbed in his notes, and after a few more moments, he straightened up again and sent me a mildly curious look. “Does this have something to do with your plan with Gordon?”

“Hmm?” I whirled back around and worked to iron out the quiver of laughter in my voice while I spoke. “Oh. Uhhh… Yeah, actually. Sort of. In a way. Indirectly.”

“Don’t worry,” Nick said with a familiar sly smile. “I’m not going to start poking around in your business affairs. I was just curious.”

“That always was a curse of yours,” I teased. “That, and being a pipsqueak.”

“Not anymore, Johnny boy,” my friend promised as he carefully folded up the paper and slid it into his breast pocket. “I’ve matured into a discreet, efficient, non-meddling businessman.”

“I think you left a few things out,” I muttered.

“Like ‘genius?’” he suggested.

“Sure,” I admitted. “But also, like… ungovernable, law-skirting, and generally disheveled.”

I glanced down at his attire to emphasize the absurdity of the rumpled, layered, and utterly mismatched suit vests he was wearing.

Nick clutched his chest dramatically. “I thought that was what you liked about me, Johnny boy.”

“Always has been, St. Nick.” I paused to reach into my jacket for the pouch of winnings I’d brought along with me. “Oh, yeah.

Almost forgot about these.”

My friend lived up to his promise of not meddling to an impressive degree when I presented him with my latest haul of jewels, but he couldn’t seem to hold back a low whistle at the size of the bulging pouch I pulled out of my jacket.

“Wait a second,” Nick said.

I waited patiently while he vanished like a groundhog, and I heard a series of quiet, muted beeps. Then he resurfaced with a bigger version of the goose-embossed box that I had seen Vero sweep my jewels into before.

“Vero’s not going to be in ‘til tomorrow,” he explained. “So I might as well make sure these babies are locked up tight.”

My friend pulled the lid off the box and watched with his mouth slightly open as a little waterfall of gems poured into the box from my pouch.

Other than the fact that there were a hell of a lot more of them, I noticed there was a lot more red in this haul of gems than the basic variety of colors I had seen in other cities. There seemed to be plenty of jewels like rubies, but also several stones that I thought could be fire opals. Almost everything that wasn’t red seemed to be some shade of blue, and the colors were all rich and vibrant.

When the last of them had tumbled into the velvet-lined box, my friend counted them each with a nudge of his finger as they clinked lightly against each other. Once he was done, he silently replaced the lid on the box, locked it, and folded his hands on top of it.

“Nicholas?” I prompted. “I haven’t heard you be quiet for this long since the time when you wedged Bang Snaps into the hinges of everyone’s instrument cases during band class and were waiting for everyone to pack up.”

“I wanted to savor the moment of my chaos unfolding,” Nick said with a fond glint in his sharp green eyes. They came back into focus as he looked down at the closed box, and then up at me. “I’m pretty sure you just gave me at least two hundred grand worth of jewels.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Two–?”

“Two hundred thousand smackeroos,” my friend said with a nod. Then he backtracked. “You already know I’m no appraiser, obviously, and Vero will be able to answer with more confidence. To be honest, the difference between rubies and red diamonds is hazy to me, and the fact that sapphires can be like five different colors sort of complicates things. So… could be more, could be less. But at first glance, some of these look even better quality than what you’ve brought in before, and if I’m comparing them to shit I’ve had on the shelves in here before, they’re pretty damn impressive.”

The idea of the numbers in my bank account doubling almost made my eyes glaze over, too, but I pulled myself back to the
present moment.

“Speaking of impressive things,” I said slowly. “I sort of have an event coming up, and I was thinking I’d grab some clothes while I’m here in Portland. I mean, like, a suit. A nice one. I’ve seen you wear some pretty snazzy stuff when you’re not mismatching it like a damn court jester–”

“That’s my thing, Johnny Jackpot.” Nick didn’t seem the slightest bit offended at me calling him a court jester. Instead, he started hunting through his pockets with a clear sense of purpose.

I watched with increasing amusement as he tossed the contents of his pockets down onto the glass jewelry counter. There were several small scraps of paper with words or even random doodles on them. Other than that, my friend came up with an empty Skittles bag, five snapped rubber bands, two playing cards, and an impressive set of little toys that were like the ‘90s version of fidget spinners: a tiny slinky, a yo-yo, a Koosh ball, and a squishy water snake toy.

I snorted with laughter as I recognized these were pretty much the same type of objects my friend had always been stealing from his older sister’s bedroom when we were kids.

“Where do you even get this stuff?” I asked when the fourth piece of a dismantled Rubik’s cube skittered across the countertop.

“This is a pawnshop,” Nick reminded me. When I raised my eyebrows at him, he just shrugged. “Fidgeting helps me think.”

He carefully placed a tiny toy skateboard on the counter, and I shook my head silently while I gave into the temptation of putting two fingers on it to push it around on the working wheels.

Finally, my friend slapped a business card down on the table with a caw of triumph. “This is my suit guy. He’ll help you polish up that whole ‘Johnny Depp’s rugged younger brother’ thing you’ve got going for you.”

“Don’t go there,” I said with a playful scowl.

Then I snatched up the business card, thanked my friend, and gave the counter a brisk pat before I turned to walk away.

“I’ll text you updates, Johnny Bossman,” he called after me.

I walked away from my friend feeling both amped up and satisfied as I strolled into the aisle I’d seen my two warriors disappear into.

When I rounded the corner of the aisle, I stopped in my tracks.

Indy was in the process of layering yet another coat over Ellie.

It was a huge trench coat, but even the big floppy sleeves were a tight squeeze over my petite fighters’ coat-clad arms, which now looked about as thick as small tree trunks to me. My sunglasses were propped up on Indy’s forehead, presumably to give her better visibility as she tugged the coat onto Ellie with small huffs and grunts of effort.

“Stay… still… Ellie,” she commanded the dainty warrior breathlessly. “Almost… there.”

There was a slight ripping sound as my princess finally succeeded in tugging the coat into place, and one of the seams in the back split.

Indy stumbled slightly as the fabric gave way, and my sunglasses slid back down onto her eyes. She stepped quickly away from her fellow warrior and folded her hands behind her back, and her head swiveled around while her lips pursed into an unconvincing expression of innocence.

I shook my head with amazement as I approached and squeezed one of Ellie’s coat-covered arms. “How many coats?”

“Twenty-seven coats,” Indy said in an unusually small and nervous voice. “It was my doing, John. Not Ellie’s.”

I opened my mouth to say something but closed it again.

Then I wordlessly grasped onto Ellie’s wrist and towed her up to the front of the store.

Nick was crouched down to rearrange some of the shop’s odd-looking jewelry in its glass display, but his head jerked up at the sound of our footsteps when we rounded the corner.

His green eyes slowly widened as he took in the sight of my stunning warrior swaddled up in what was probably every single coat in his shop. He didn’t speak for a long moment as he slowly straightened up from his crouched position.

“Would you like a bag?” he finally asked in an impeccably polite tone.

“I think we’re good.” I choked back a laugh as I glanced at Ellie. Then I looked back at my friend with more seriousness. “How much?”

He cast a calmly appraising eye over my blue-haired warrior and the twenty-seven coats that were crammed onto her tiny body.

“Ten bucks,” he said at last. When I shot him a baffled look, he just shrugged. “Friends and family discount. Or whatever.”

I bit down on the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing as I slapped a twenty-dollar bill down on the counter. “Keep the change, Nickiboo.”

Then I strolled out of the Screaming Goose with Indy prowling on my left side and Ellie waddling behind me, because the normally petite warrior could no longer fit through the door on my other side.

“I’m impressed,” I finally admitted as we walked back to my car and attracted only a small amount of curious stares from people passing by.

“We are grateful for the gift of many coats, John,” Indy said in a meek voice. “It is… very nice to try on clothes sometimes.”

“Many clothes,” Ellie added quietly. “Warriors are never permitted many clothes.”

“Well, they are now,” I said gravely. Then a small snort of laughter escaped me, and I poked at Ellie’s coat-sheathed shoulder before I opened the car door for her. “After you, my shieldmaiden.”

It was starting to rain, so I decided to drive us to the leatherworks store.

“Although… I guess one of us is dressed for it,” I muttered to myself with another amused glance at Ellie. But I paused as we were getting out of the car. “Maybe we should get you out of those so you can make sure your new armor fits in the leatherworks store.”

I soon realized that standing there out in the increasing drizzle was just going to end in all three of us getting soaked, so I marched my two women into Hide ‘N’ Seek with Ellie still wearing the majority of her many coats.

“It’s you!” the pink-haired Abbey shrieked at top volume.

I thought this was from a combination of genuine excitement and a desire to make up for Indy’s displeasure at her last greeting.

If it was the latter, it clearly worked. My princess tossed her hair as the door swung shut behind us in a blast of chilly air.

“We are back, Abbey,” she declared. “Your armor served us very well in our fight. We vanquished our enemies and came out victorious.”

The leatherworker’s face burst into a sunshiny smile, and she didn’t question my princess’ statement in the slightest.

“That’s what I like to hear,” she cheered. “I have the rest of your…”

Abbey trailed off as her blue eyes traveled over to Ellie, who was now several times bulkier than her normal petite size.

“Oh,” I chuckled as I plucked at the outermost of my dainty warrior’s twenty-something coats. “Uhh, yeah. We might need a few minutes.”

Abbey was silent for a few moments before she gave us a simple nod.

“I’ll help,” she said brightly. Then she just led us to the back of the store.

It was definitely a team effort to get Ellie out of the many coats, and all four of us were panting when I finally threw the last one, a thick fleece sweater, on top of the pile we had removed.

“Good cardio,” Abbey puffed, and she braced herself against the back wall for a few seconds to take several deep breaths.

Then she headed into the curtained back room to get the rest of the leather armor I had ordered for my women.

“All reinforced with the same carbon fiber as the others,” she assured us, and she offered the new greaves, shoulder armor, and corsets to my warrior women one piece at a time.

They were made in the same style as the previous ones, but like the bracers and vambrace that we had picked up as a rush order on our last visit, they were reinforced with carbon fiber plates.

“So, were the carbon fiber knuckles a big hit?” Abbey asked me as we watched Indy and Ellie try on the armor to make sure it fit.

“Hell yeah,” I said with a grin. “We had a lot of fun, uh…

playing around with those.”

The leatherworker beamed with pride. Then, when my warriors were done fastening their new armor, she took the time to check how it fit and watch my women go through various movements to make sure it allowed enough range of motion and didn’t cause any discomfort.

When all proved to be well, Abbey did a little skip that made her electric-pink curls bounce. “I’m happy to have served you, my friends.”

“You’ve outdone yourself,” I said truthfully as I thought back to how my two warriors had made use of their bracers in the arena.

Looking at them now with the reinforced versions of the rest of their armor, I felt a huge sense of gratification at the extra level of
protection the reinforced armor would provide without being heavy or awkward.

I tipped Abbey double what I had last time, even though she tried to wave me down.

“You deserve it,” I said in a firm, no-nonsense voice as I slid the money back across the counter toward her for a third time.

“Very wellllll,” she sighed, but a pleased flush appeared on her pale cheeks. Then she glanced back at the mountain of coats that was heaped at the back of the store. “Do you want a few bags for those? I have some pretty big reusable bags in the back that would make them easier to carry.”

“Sure,” I said, but then Abbey gestured for me to follow her.

The back of the place was just as I’d imagined it: poorly lit, packed floor to ceiling with boxes of leather and metal fittings, and smelling of sandalwood. Any open space was positioned next to one of three industrial-looking sewing machines, but Abbey bounced through the maze without even disturbing the dust.

“I think they are in this box…” she trailed off as she opened a cardboard lid. “Yes! First try!”

“Thanks,” I said as she handed me the bags.

“Least I can do for all the business you’ve given me.” Abbey bit her lip and then cleared her throat. “Hey, can I ask you something? It might be a bit personal, but it’s been bugging me, and… I dunno… I can’t get it out of my head.”

“Uhhh… yeah?” I clenched my jaw and prepared for the obvious.

“Do you not like me?” she asked as she blinked her eyes.

“Uhhh… what?”

“I mean, sorry. It’s a weird question, but all the other LARPers that come into the shop are always trying to get me to play with them, you three are like the first group who hasn’t brought it up.”

“Ohhhhh!” I gasped. “It’s… yes… Live Action Role Playing.

Yes, it’s what we are doing, but we think you are totally cool. We like you a lot.”

“Okay, awesome.” She smiled shyly. “So, it’s like… a closed game or something? Just you three play? I know you are kinda the dom, and they are your subs– but maybe you are calling it ‘king’ and

‘queens’– sorry! I just find it interesting, and want to know more about it. If you are okay telling me more. Holy shit. I’m just talking, talking, talking. I didn’t think I’d get this nervous.”

“Uhhh, yeah,” I said. “It’s just the three of us for now.”

“For now? So, someone else can join?”

“Uhhh… well… you see…” I hadn’t expected this at all from Abbey, so I was caught completely off guard.

“Oh, wait.” She suddenly turned a bright shade of red that made her pink hair look even pinker. “Is… it… sexual, too? Like are you three actually sleeping togeth– oh, my god! This is so none of my business. I feel like a total idiot.”

“That’s okay,” I said as I waved my hands. “It’s totally fine, but now you know why we want to keep it private.”

“I can understand that,” she said as she nodded frantically.

“The three of you are super-hot, sooo yeah. Okay, now that I’ve made a total ass of myself…”

“It’s fine,” I said again. “Really. We appreciate all the help you are giving us with the armor.”

“I’ll keep doing my best,” she said, and then she let out a nervous giggle as she led me out to the front of the store.

In the full light out front, I could really see how red her face was, and she just gave my two lovers a shy wave before she nodded to me and then dashed back.

My women each raised an eyebrow at me when Abbey disappeared, but I figured it would take too long to explain to them.

So I walked out with my two warrior women sharing the load of coats that had ended up taking up four bags, despite how tightly we had tried to squish them inside.

While we walked back to my car, I continued to mull over the impulse that had made me ask my city-dwelling friend about getting myself a suit, and now I finally decided to broach the subject to my warrior women.

“So about this Reprieve thing,” I started. “First of all, I’ve been thinking, and… I want you to wear the new dresses you got on our list trip to Portland. I mean, if you–”

“Our dresses?” Indy repeated in a much shriller voice than usual. “Our nice new dresses with their fancy armor?”

“Those are the ones,” I confirmed, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I mean… as long as you think you’ll be comfortable. I was just thinking of how much these backers love to flaunt their shit to each other. And they were so keen to get an eyeful of my two badass warriors with their flashy weapons–”

“And you,” Ellie pointed out in a quiet voice.

“I guess.” I shrugged, and the car felt weirdly hot all of a sudden. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is… why not give them a show?”

“Fill them with fascination and envy?” my princess clarified in an almost dreamy voice.

“Something like that.” I smirked slightly, but the expression faded as I stared down at the business card in my hand. A sigh of resignation escaped me. “But that means I’ll have to get some new clothes, too.”

“Clothes?” Ellie repeated. “We will watch you test out the new clothing?”

“Like you did with our dresses?” Indy added helpfully.

“Ummmm…” I rubbed my jaw absently while I glanced over the route on my phone’s GPS. “Well, it’ll be a little different. You two would look smoking hot in anything, even a potato sack. But if my suit fits even a little wrong, I’ll look like a jackass. So–”

“I heard you say that before,” Ellie interrupted with unusual boldness. “What does it mean, John? It sounds…”

“Not nice,” Indy finished with a frown. “It is puzzling.”

I checked for traffic and started driving for the sole purpose of delaying the answer to this question so I could figure which part to address first. So far, I had gone to great lengths to avoid explaining the meaning behind most curse words to my warrior women who were unfamiliar with much of Earth’s slang they had encountered.

“‘Jackass’ is sort of an insult,” I finally said. “It’s kind of like calling someone, uh, stupid. But it’s more… vulgar. So, not great to say to someone’s face.”

“Then why did you say it to your own face?” Ellie pointed out.

“That seems…”

“Not very nice,” Indy finished with a frown.

I just shrugged in response while I turned a corner, then continued my explanation. “If we’re speaking literally, then ‘jackass’

means ‘donkey.’”

There was a long moment of silence.

“Donkey,” my princess repeated in an extremely quiet voice.

“The fuzzy small-horse creatures with the big heads, who I admire?”

“Yep,” I admitted. “Not that I think they look dumb! It’s just a weird figure of speech.”

I pulled up to the curb outside the tailor and turned to see how my princess was taking this news. When I saw small blue pinpricks swimming in the red-gold of her eyes, I reached across the center console to snatch up her hand.

“That is not nice,” Indy said in a fierce whisper that wobbled slightly at the end. “What could the donkeys have done to deserve this talk?”

“Nothing at all,” I assured her while I stroked her hand gently.

“They’re very nice creatures. People are…”

“Foolish,” Indy whispered. “Foolish, foolish Earth humans.

Inferior to the donkeys, that is certain.”

I patted her hand in silent agreement and watched the rose-gold haze in her eyes sweep away the blue pinpricks.

“I like the donkeys, too,” Ellie said from the back seat. Her big blue eyes looked sad, and I knew she was remembering the videos Indy had shown her. “They seem like very gentle creatures. Not worthy of such a term.”

I put my arms around both of my women when we got out of the car and pondered this idea. “Weren’t there any insults in Gavahna that just, uh, didn’t make sense? Or in Kortico?”

“Birdbrain,” Ellie offered.

“That makes good sense, though,” Indy said in a stubborn voice.

When I thought of the way I had seen a giant bird using a human as its beast of burden in Kortico, I had to agree with this statement.

“Bozo’s beard?” Ellie suggested.

My princess shook her head and grumbled about foolish people, but when she looked into the window display of the store and saw clothes, her face brightened slightly.

“We will find gifts for John now?” Indy asked.

I sighed. “Guess so.”

The tailor’s shop was small, but it had fancy lighting like a photography studio. One wall was nothing but a sea of ties hanging side by side from top to bottom. Another was made up entirely of shelves that held dress shoes. A third wall was entirely devoted to panels of fabric that were a slightly different shade of black or gray.

When a piece of the wall detached itself and started walking toward me, I jumped slightly, and even my two warriors were taken
by surprise. Both of them dropped into an immediate crouch, and the cheerful blond tailor froze in his tracks.

“Hi,” I said, and I waved a subtle hand at my two women behind my back while I faced the guy. The sight of them both immediately straightening up into a prim, proper position was almost as good as the terrified expression on the tailor’s face, but I managed to hold it together. “I’m, uh–”

The man flinched suddenly, and when I heard the sound of a phone in his pocket burst into a series of back-to-back buzzing, I realized there was a good possibility that my friend was behind it.

“I’m so sorry,” the tailor said. “Excuse me for just… one moment.”

He slipped the cell phone from his pocket with an expression like he was going to throw it on the ground and stomp on it, but whatever he saw on the screen seemed to make him change his mind. After a moment, he slowly replaced the phone in his pocket, folded his hands, and acted like nothing had happened.

Except for the fact that he was now addressing me with a level of nervousness that made me vow to figure out what the hell my friend had said to him.

“Looking for a suit?” the tailor asked with excessive carefulness.

“Something like that,” I said.

Some of the tailor’s nervousness seemed to leave him as he used a cloth tape to measure my chest, waist, shoulders, and arms, and I stood there feeling like the world’s most awkward mannequin.

Still, I reminded myself that the result of this would be well worth it.

Then I tried on a few different suits that roughly fit, and the tailor asked me a bunch of questions that I never even would’ve given thought to, like how I wanted the buttons and pockets to be.

When he asked me if there were any other details I wanted him to keep in mind, my mind went blank for a second before something hit me.

“Can you, uh…” I hesitated for a second. “Can you tailor it so I can carry my gun? I mean, I have a licen–”

“Oh, of course.” The tailor waved a hand. “What kind of gun and how do you carry it?”

I was only surprised for a moment that he both accepted this immediately and seemed like he had done it before, which made it a hell of a lot easier when it came to figuring out the details.

The way the desert cooled down at night almost made me consider wearing the gun under a jacket, but I thought it still might get a little toasty. In the end I decided on an inside-the-waistband holster with a slightly stiffer cloth in the suit, so the imprint of my weapon wouldn’t clearly show through the fabric of my pants.

It wasn’t that the other backers would have some sort of problem with my carrying my weapon. In fact, it would be considered weird as hell if I didn’t have one. And I wasn’t hoping to shoot anyone at this peaceful gathering whatsoever. But my experiences in the desert world so far had told me that nothing was too crazy to not expect. Being able to have a suit tailored for concealing and easily drawing my weapon was a huge plus for me, not just for protecting myself and my women from whatever might come our way, but for later on when it came time to duel the infamous Imiath.

And in any case, I couldn’t deny I was looking forward to strolling into this backers’ gathering looking like a million bucks, with my two lethal and flawless warriors at my side.

The tailor’s eyes widened slightly when I said I wanted the suit done in two days, but when I made it clear I was willing to pay the price, he was silent for only a brief moment before he nodded.

The six grand I’d be paying for the rush-ordered suit felt like almost nothing in light of the money I was hauling in from my trips to the desert world.

Then we headed home, and my women put on all their gear together while they sparred playfully in the living room.

I watched them as I started running through the steps to make sure my warrior women were in peak condition. Other than that, a big part of my focus was staying in touch with Nick to make sure the puppeteering was going as planned when the trip got closer. I had no doubt my friend would be successful in every part of the tasks we had planned out in his shop, but keeping an eye on things made me feel more prepared for any unexpected moves Marsh might decide to throw my way.

The next day, I decided to pick up a little more gear for all three of us after my warriors’ training session.

“We already have our weapons for battle, John,” Indy protested as I directed them into the store ahead of me.

“This isn’t for battle,” I said cheerfully. “This is for the Reprieve… gathering… thing.”

Both women came to an abrupt halt, and I guided them off to the side of the door like two nervous horses so people could pass us by while I talked to my women.

Ellie was already wringing her hands nervously. “We are not permitted to carry our weapons–”

“Outside the arena, I know,” I finished calmly. “But–”

“People will stare, John,” Indy said with a frown.

“That’s why we’re at this store,” I said in a firm voice. “Listen…

There’s a strong chance that you two will be separated from me at this Reprieve thing. So I think it’s best to get you weapons that can be concealed for self-defense. They’ll be small. Nothing like you’d carry into battle. I just would rather err on the side of caution when it comes to your safety.”

Toward the end of this speech, I saw Ellie’s lower lip tremble slightly. Next to her, a scattering of colors whirled through Indy’s eyes so fast I could hardly tell what they were. I glimpsed a scattering of prismatic blue, rose-gold, and purple shards for the briefest of moments before they were gone.

For a moment, I thought I’d done something horribly wrong.

Then Ellie sniffled slightly, and she spoke in a wobbly voice.

“That is…” My blue-haired warrior seemed lost for words. “Very unusual. But also very…”

“Nice,” Indy offered in a slightly choked voice. “Very nice.”

“I’m flattered,” I chuckled with only a hint of sarcasm. But I knew what they meant, so I pulled my two women into a hug. “I thought I made this whole ‘I care about you like crazy’ thing clear already, my shieldmaidens. It’s not only your prowess in battle that I’m into.”

The way they both squirmed closer to me when I hugged them was about enough to melt my heart, and I gripped them both tightly in my arms.

“I know you care for us, John,” Indy said in a steadier voice. “It is still just strange to hear sometimes. But… in a very good way.”

“Surreal,” Ellie added. “Nice.”

Despite all I had seen of their harsh world, sometimes it was still hard to wrap my mind around the fact that me caring so deeply for these two incredible women was something that was shocking and unexpected to them, and I gave them one last squeeze with my arms before I urged them into the store ahead of me.

I was careful about what weapons I chose for them. As tempted as I was to arm them to the teeth, I knew that was not only frowned upon in the desert cities, but for all I knew, it could actually get them into trouble at this mysterious Krasur’s estate. I had no idea what the consequences might be if my women stabbed someone, even in self-defense. Sure, a folding knife might be easy to hide, but a stab wound itself was hard to pass off as just the result of a little scuffle.

So I carefully hunted through the shelves of various self-defense weapons for something that would be enough for my women to protect themselves if they were surprised by anyone or anything that might catch them off guard, but not something that would leave blatant signs of them carrying a weapon around in this guy’s estate.

Finally I came to a stop in front of some little devices that looked a bit like brass knuckles, but functioned more like a stun gun.

I felt fairly certain that a jolt of powerful electricity behind someone’s punch was something that would floor the shit out of most people in Bayalon. True, there were a few people I’d seen with overt magical abilities, but they had been a tiny minority amongst all the city’s inhabitants I’d come across when we were there.

Then I remembered that electronics like my cell phone and GPS always fizzled out for the duration of my trips to the desert world. They always came back to life immediately upon reentering Earth, but for some reason, they just wouldn’t function on the other side of the portal.

I stared at the stun-gun knuckles for a long moment before I grabbed a few of them and tossed them in the basket I was holding.

An idea had occurred to me for how to get them to work after passing through the foggy portal.

But if they didn’t, I still wanted my women to be ready.

So I tossed several small, concealable pepper gel canisters into the basket, too, and I reminded myself we’d probably need to do a little careful practicing with it. Luckily, I knew from my experience with the gorsican in my first trip to the desert world that pepper gel was a hell of a lot better than pepper spray in terms of blowback, so my women could give the canisters a shot without any mishaps before we reentered Bayalon.

“What do these devices do, John?” Indy frowned as she picked one up and turned it over curiously in her long fingers.

“Shoot pepper gel,” I said briskly. “This stuff was sort of instrumental in my defeat of the gorsican near Kortico. Well, it wasn’t in one of these little canisters, but it’s the same substance.”

My princess’ eyes widened, and she clutched the canister to her chest with a look that seemed reverent and almost afraid.

I chuckled as I moved on to something else that caught my attention: A monkey’s fist necklace.

“What is the purpose of this device?” Ellie asked when I held it up by the cord for her to examine. Her big blue eyes studied the object that looked like a big knot of leather as it swung back and forth like a pendulum. “A necklace?”

“It looks foolish,” Indy said with a skeptical look at the object.

I responded only by grasping Ellie’s delicate hand by the fingers and facing her palm toward the monkey fist. Then I swung it gently by its cord so the leather knot thudded softly into her hand and revealed the weight of the hidden steel ball it was wrapped around.

Her round, pouty lips fell open into a perfect “o” of surprise, and she accepted the necklace with amazement when I held it out to her.

“What is it, Ellie?” Indy demanded, and she tried to snatch the necklace from Ellie’s grasp. “Let me–”

Indy’s half-spoken command cut off when the dainty warrior dodged nimbly to the side and swung the necklace by its cord with impressive coordination. Before my princess could react, the big round “pendant” had thunked into her right hip.

“You are like a tiny little demon,” Indy hissed at her fellow warrior with what I thought was a combination of shock and outrage, and she aimed a playful smack at Ellie’s hindquarters while she addressed me in a calm voice without looking my way. “John, may I please have a necklace to smack the tiny demon with?”

“All in good time,” I teased as I added another monkey’s fist to the basket.

I ended up grabbing a few armored vests for my women, too.

In the arena, the vests would’ve been pretty weighty, but I thought they were alright to wear around this Krasur bastard’s estate for a night, and they wouldn’t be too bulky under the women’s normal clothing.

I already had my own armored vest and the half-gloves with steel knuckles I’d picked up before our last trip, so now I just hunted
for a little something extra that might come in handy if I was caught off guard by one of those fiery volcano beings. When I came across some neat little self-defense whips with steel cables braided over them, I snatched up several.

Whether it was from the moment of closeness we’d had before entering the store or the simple fun of swinging the monkey fists at each other in the parking lot, I was pleased and relieved at the way my two warriors seemed to be losing their hesitance with the self-defense weapons to some degree.

“Stop monkeying around,” I said in a mock stern voice as we got in the car.

Both women froze in place, and I sighed when I realized my corny joke had fallen on deaf ears.

“Monkeying?” Ellie repeated with a little frown.

“It’s a type of… Earth creature,” I explained while I started the car. “That’s what these little necklaces are named after.”

There was a short silence while the two women digested this information.

“I would like to see one of these monkery beasts,” Indy said in a tone of quiet respect. “They sound small, but mighty. Like Ellie.”

I snorted with laughter. “I’ll show you some monkey videos on the phone-box when we get home.”

When we got back to my little cottage, we settled onto the couch for a while, and I showed my two women a compilation of primates doing funny things on video.

I wasn’t disappointed by the result. Three videos in, both of my fierce warrior women dissolved into hysterical giggles at the sight of a gorilla flipping off the camera.

“Wait a second.” I paused the video and looked from side to side to take in the way they were both shaking with laughter. “This means something to you?”

I demonstrated the gesture, and Indy and Ellie both clutched at their sides while their giggles escalated.

“It is…” Indy recovered herself slightly and acted like she hadn’t just done the cutest snort imaginable. “A sign of utmost disrespect.”

“It sort of is here, too.” I raised my eyebrows.

Apparently flipping someone the bird was multi-universal.

I strolled over to the counter and unloaded our haul while I watched my two women spar playfully again. I was so focused on
watching them that the sound of the Imperial March ringtone scared the shit out of me, and my phone dropped from my hands. My two warriors’ heads whipped toward me as they froze mid-blow.

I pressed a finger to my lips before I picked up the call from my boss that I’d been anticipating.

“Hello?”

“John,” Marsh barked in his gravelly voice. I could hear the faint rush of the ocean in the background. My boss still used the same sour tone he always addressed me with, but it was like music to my ears today. “I’ve got another shipment for you.”

Chapter 9

“Another shipment,” I repeated in my steadiest voice. “Where to?”

“Same place.” A familiar note of smug glee rang out clearly in Marsh’s tone. “Hope you didn’t put too much work into airing out your trailer, bird-boy. It might smell a little foul. Hah, hah.”

I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly through my nose as I recognized Nick’s fingerprints all over this ridiculous piece of bird-related humor. It didn’t help that my boss’ gravelly laugh sounded more fitting for a crow than a person.

“John,” Marsh snapped. “What’d you do, fall asleep or something?”

“No, no,” I said quickly, and I was careful to keep any traces of laughter or lightheartedness out of my voice. “Sorry. I’m on it. Can you send–”

Then the line went dead, and I lowered the phone.

“Right,” I muttered under my breath. “Always a pleasure.”

But despite my boss’ typical jackassery, I had a light feeling in my chest at the fact that I now had the load officially on my schedule.

My mind was just wandering to the crafty friend who had helped swing this my way when my phone burst into a frenzy of

“pew-pew-pew” noises that told me I was receiving a new string of texts from Nick himself.

The first three messages were devoted entirely to a wall of

“hahahas” worthy of the Joker, and I shook my head with the knowledge that they were probably a pretty accurate representation of what my friend was actually doing at the moment. Other than Indy, that bastard had the most infectious laugh of anyone I had ever met, and once he got started, he’d even start laughing at the sound of his own maniacal laugh.

Focus, Nicholas, I texted back.

His reply came in four more messages:

Sorry, Johnny boy.

Just needed to get that off my chest.

Did your boss make the “foul” joke?

Hahahahaha…

I pushed the phone aside and slowly lowered my head until it thunked against the counter.

“John?” Indy’s soft, solemn voice came from somewhere startlingly close, and I jumped as I realized she had crept up to my side with the panther-like stealth she often used. Her fiery gaze was fixed on me now. “Did something bad happen?”

“Something good happened, actually.” I straightened up and smiled. “My boss called me with the shipment for tomorrow.”

“The plan that you and your shaggy-haired friend arranged?”

Ellie asked. She was near the coffee table, but now she bounded up to the island counter and rested her elbows on it while her wide blue eyes watched my face.

Sometimes the doll-faced warrior’s ethereal, sapphire-blue eyes made me blush just as much as Indy’s scorching, sultry gaze did, but in a good way.

“Yep.” I nodded a little blankly and then leaned forward to rest my elbows on the counter, too, before I responded. “So our third trip to Bayalon is officially happening.”

“Excellent,” Indy purred as she leaned forward to mirror our pose. “We will go back so John can attend his backers’ gathering party–”

“I wouldn’t say it’s ‘my party’ in any way,” I interjected in a mutter.

“And we will learn more about the Artemn?” Ellie finished.

“That’s the goal,” I agreed with a yawn. “That, and letting those sleazy backers talk my ear off.”

“They respect you, John,” Ellie said with a thoughtful little hum.

Then she hesitated for a moment. “You should be careful.”

“Ellie is right,” Indy said gravely. “The big bald wizard with the stick has proved that he will stoop low in an attempt to best you. The others may be just as treacherous and sneaky.”

“Pretty sure that’s their thing,” I pointed out, but I grinned reassuringly as I reached out to sweep my two women toward the stairs with me. Then I quoted a phrase I’d heard often from Indy.

“Rest is important before a battle.”

“There will be no battle tomorrow,” the princess herself pointed out, and she sent me a quizzical look with her red-gold eyes.

“Not physically, at least,” I said under my breath.

“Hit the hay now,” Ellie murmured in a soft, sleepy voice.

I chuckled at how fast the dainty warrior was picking up on these phrases, and how eager she always was to jump into my soft,
warm bed at the end of the day.

Considering she had been sleeping in a crunchy bed before, I was pretty sure the bar was practically on the floor when it came to comfort, but it felt damn good to provide her with the softest sleeping surface she ever could have imagined.

After a good night’s sleep, my women were pure energy from the second they woke up, and I was feeling pretty pumped myself while I threw a quick breakfast together for the three of us.

Then we sat around my little table with three mugs of carefully portioned jitter juice, and I hunted through the jacket I’d worn to Bayalon to find the scroll I’d been given by the Spectrid.

I unrolled the scroll and laid it flat on the table to take another look at the map, and my two warrior women leaned in to do the same.

“Woooww,” Indy said in a voice that was soft with awe. “A map of the legendary city.”

“That will be very useful,” Ellie murmured.

“Agreed,” I said. Then I tapped my finger against one of the conspicuous red X markings on the map. “Especially shit like this.”

Indy squinted at it and frowned. “What do the writings say, John?”

“It’s labeled ‘the Rift,’” I explained. “And it says to avoid it at all costs.”

My warrior women both gave identical “oooohs” of intrigue, and I gave them both a narrow-eyed look with an extra focus on my daring princess, who had personally admitted to me that she used to climb into a mysterious place called the Violet Abyss just to find out if it was bottomless, like the tales of Kortico claimed.

“Repeat after me,” I said firmly. “We are not exploring the Rift.”

“We are not exploring the Rift,” my two women mumbled in unison.

I chuckled. “Good. I’m serious, though. I heard one of those backers say something about our good friend Master Freyos winning Tazabelle in a duel near the Rift.”

“Tazabelle,” Indy repeated in a tone of utmost loathing.

Her eyes flashed red at the memory of the howling, clawing moon siren, but it dissipated slightly at my touch.

“Your nemesis,” I said with a nod. “If that’s where she came from, then who knows what other crazy types of beings lurk around
there?”

“Ones we should slay,” Ellie whispered immediately. “For vengeance.”

I let out a snort of startled laughter at the obvious longing for violence in the angelic warrior’s voice.

The look on her heart-shaped face told me she didn’t genuinely hope to stroll into the mysterious area of the Rift, but just in case there were any doubts, I repeated myself. “We are not exploring the Rift.”

Then we were interrupted by a fresh volley of laser sounds that told me Nick was texting me, and I slid the phone toward me to see what news my sneaky friend had for me.

Unsurprisingly, it came in four separate texts: The plan is in motion.

I told Phill-with-no-chill about the corporate card.

I could practically hear him grinding his teeth over the phone already.

You sure he can be trusted not to lose his shit and kill Phane– I mean Shane– just to end the suffering?

I snorted and picked my phone up to text him back.

Unlikely, I replied. I’m glad things are going as planned. I’m still set to pick up my shipment in a few hours?

Three more texts came in response:

Affirmative.

Don’t worry, they’re all boxed up.

I’ll keep you updated about what’s happening with your managers.

I typed out a thanks and instructed my friend to text me if he just wanted to gloat, but call if it was something that needed my immediate attention.

Then I stood up to stretch.

“Everything’s on schedule,” I said to my two eager warrior women. “Let’s get our stuff together and then–”

“Skeeee-daddle?” Indy finished.

“Onto the road?” Ellie added.

I smiled as I noticed the dainty warrior’s question turned into a chanting tone that I knew she had picked up from the princess, and I made a mental note to work some Willie Nelson into one of our drives soon.

“Onto the road,” I confirmed. “Our route will be the same as last time we went to Bayalon. We’ll go get our trusty chariot, Spitfire, and then head down to Portland to pick up the load. After that, we’ll make the trip east and head through the portal on our way back.”

“Will we practice with our deadly spray-venom before we enter the city?” Ellie asked eagerly. “The kind you used to slay the gorsican?”

“Of course,” I chuckled. “I’m thinking we might as well wait until we’re in the desert to do it, though. There’ll be lots of open space, no one to stare at us in confusion, and no pesky rain showers or wind gusts to interfere.”

Pepper gel wasn’t as likely as normal pepper spray to be affected by these things, but it still made more sense to me for the women to test out the self-defense weapons in the environment they’d be using them in.

If they had to use them at all.

“Remember, they’re a last resort,” I added. “I mean, if anyone fucks with you, don’t hesitate. And use your best judgment for which one you want to use, this or the monkey’s fist.”

“We may… choose?” Ellie asked hesitantly as Indy carefully draped the monkey’s fist necklace over her delicate neck from behind.

“I trust your warrior’s instincts,” I said firmly. “If you feel genuinely threatened, then the choice is yours.”

“We will be careful and wise,” Indy assured me with a toss of her hair. “We will navigate the social customs of the legendary city well.”

I smiled at my princess’ gung-ho attitude as I made sure all our supplies were packed.

“Ready, shieldmaidens?” I asked.

My two warrior women just responded by racing for the door.

Outside, the sun was peeking weakly through some heavy gray clouds that already made me glad I had seen that Spitfire was outfitted with good windshield wipers. Odds were that I would need them on our drive today.

We headed to my company lot, and then my two warriors waited outside the gate while I did the switcheroo. When I came rumbling out of the gate in the semi, a slight drizzle was just starting to fall.

Inside the cab, Ellie used one delicate finger to swipe off a raindrop that had fallen onto her slender shoulder. Then she held her finger up closely to study it.

“The rain feels… nice,” she said with a note of surprise in her sweet voice. “So cool and gentle.”

Considering we were in the Pacific Northwest, my two warriors had seen rain several times by now, but I thought this was the first time Ellie had truly felt Earth’s raindrops fall down onto her pearly skin. The way she said it felt nice reminded me of how she’d sounded when she was shocked at the softness of my bed, as if there was some extreme alternative for her.

Now that I thought about it, I had to wonder whether Ellie had actually experienced rain before she came here. I knew her temple had worshiped water as the thing that made their oasis’ existence possible, but not whether they had seen a true rain shower in living memory.

When I asked her, Ellie frowned slightly.

“Gavahna did not have true rain,” she explained. “But it was very… humid. Every now and then, a mist would settle over parts of the land. It was not a nice sort of mist, though. Too many of the crops
had foul, acidic plants that were picked up by it, so the mist stung our skin. We had to stay inside when that happened.”

“Well, there isn’t any stinging mist here,” I assured her. Then I thought of acid rain, and I amended myself. “Not that I’ve felt, anyway.”

“This rain tickles my skin,” Indy added with a slight frown.

“Pesky.”

I chuckled as we bumped down onto the road and headed toward the highway. “It’s not always that way. Sometimes it pours down from the sky like crazy. And sometimes it even freezes.”

“Freezes,” Ellie whispered with awe. “I have heard of such frigid rain in the old tales of my temple.”

“Was there a name for it in your tales?” I asked curiously.

Sometimes I almost forgot how so many kernels of truth seemed contained in the stories my blue-haired warrior had learned at her temple in Gavahna.

“A forgotten name,” Ellie said with a shrug. “Now it is just called ‘frigid rain.’”

“Well, here it’s called ‘hail’ when it’s solid,” I explained. “And

‘snow’ when it’s soft.”

“Solid?” Indy repeated in a rare, startled voice. “Like the clinking cubes that chill our drinks?”

“Sort of,” I laughed. “But, uh… usually a lot smaller. And less square.”

Both my warriors seemed slightly unsettled by this idea, and I saw them do an almost identical motion of rubbing their arms like they were imagining frigid cubes falling from overhead.

“John’s chariot is strong,” Indy finally said in an adorable voice that told me she was reassuring both herself and Ellie. “It protects us even from the mighty portal fog. It would hold strong against the hail of Earth.”

“Yep!” I patted Spitfire’s steering wheel in agreement. “She’s a tough old gal.”

The rain was falling in earnest by the time we reached Portland, and my warrior women were both absorbed in watching the way it beaded into droplets on the windows, and how it was swept away from the windshield by Spitfire’s wipers.

Picking up my load from the creepy taxidermy store next to Nick’s pawnshop went a bit faster this time, and it wasn’t long before
we drove away to take the same route as last time toward Party Fowl in eastern Washington.

“On the road,” Indy chanted softly.

“With a foul new delivery,” I added under my breath.

We cruised down SR 14, and the patchy clouds with their rain showers dwindled the further east we got.

Once we had dropped off my load at Party Fowl, I turned us back around and took us west.

The sun was just barely setting by the time we reached the exit that I now knew as our turn-around area by sight. We were a little ahead of schedule, so I decided to stop and grab a quick dinner with my two warrior women.

“A wise notion,” Indy said in agreement. “We do not know the customs of these sneaky backers of Bayalon. They may poison their guests.”

“If they feed them at all,” Ellie pointed out. “In Gavahna, fresh food was so much safer to eat that it was hoarded by those who could afford it. Or steal it.”

“I can see that,” I admitted as I thought of the variety of blatantly toxic plants I had seen in Gavahna, and how the ripest of
them had been prone to exploding in a burst of sizzling acid. “We’ll be careful. Somehow I don’t think they’re likely to offer us a three-course meal, anyway. Although that Spectrid did say something about ‘festivities,’ which I assume means drinks.”

By the time we turned around to get back on SR 14 heading east again, the sun was grazing the horizon.

Then we took the exit and drove right into the fog.

Despite how smoothly our last few flights through the portal had been compared to the ones before, rolling into the misty, swirling expanse was always a little nerve-racking.

So I decided to kill two birds with one stone by filling the anxious silence with some words directed toward the fog itself, since it had proven itself to be both sentient and responsive to flattery.

“The fog looks especially beautiful today,” I announced at top volume as it slowly surrounded us. “Billowy, in a regal sort of way.”

“Most regal,” Indy agreed, and her voice sounded faintly nervous as her red-gold eyes flickered around in every direction.

“Like a… a king’s cape.”

“Very striking,” Ellie added. “It whirls and flows with utmost g-grace.”

We all fell silent as the cab started to vibrate as usual. Then the golden light of dusk was replaced by foggy halos of purple, green, and red, and soon Spitfire took off like a smooth rocket into the fog ahead.

We touched down with all the lightness of a damn butterfly landing on a leaf, and I had to shake my head in amazement again.

“Gotta love it.”

The desert world came into view ahead, and the fading light of dusk returned with it. The Moonstone Road glimmered ahead of us, and I drove us straight down it for a short way before I slowed to a halt.

“Time to give the pepper gel a shot,” I announced as I parked the truck.

My two warriors scrambled to exit the cab, and they waited eagerly while I came down with the pepper gel canisters.

“It’s nothing too complicated,” I said with a chuckle, and I handed out a canister to each of my warrior women and showed them how to turn the safety off. “Alright. Just point and sh– shit!”

I threw myself to the side as my princess got trigger-happy with the canister, and a stream of pepper gel went shooting past me.

Indy immediately released her finger and lowered the canister with a look that was a mixture of horrified and impressed.

She was silent for a long moment as she stared down at the little canister, and then she hung her head. “I am sorry, John.”

“No harm done,” I said with a glance at the glob of pepper gel on the ground nearby. “Maybe, uh… aim the other way next time, though.”

I watched closely as both of my warrior women tested out the gel with a few quick sprays of the canister, and I was tickled by how both of them seemed so thrilled about the new little weapon that seemed like nothing too special to me.

Although my encounter with the gorsican in my first trip here had definitely made me look at the more gel-based pepper spray products with more respect.

“Cool,” I said with a grin. “Now, let’s see how fast you can–”

Before I even finished the sentence, my women had both whipped the monkey’s fist necklaces off their necks and swung them at each other.

I snorted and shook my head as I watched the two cords intertwine, and the cord-wrapped steel balls ended up locked
together while my two warrior women dissolved into a playful but furious tug-of-war.

In the end, I had to break their scuffle up with a firm hand.

“Tiny little demon,” Indy whispered, and she wagged one long finger at her fellow warrior in a tut-tutting gesture that made me stifle a laugh. “Just like a little Earth monkey.”

Ellie’s big blue eyes narrowed.

“Ogre,” she hissed in response. “You are… big and clumsy like a–”

“As much as I hate to break up another tug of war,” I interrupted with a grin while I grasped my two women’s hands and pulled them back toward the truck. “We’d better get going.”

“Yes, Ellie,” Indy chided her fellow warrior and tossed her long black hair. “You should not get distracted so easily.”

“Princess,” I said in a mock scolding tone. Then I reached out and landed a light, unexpected smack on the lush curve of her ass.

“This is no time for naughtiness.”

Indy’s eyes widened as gold sparks shot through them, and my favorite little smile played around her lips in the fading light.

But her voice was solemn when she replied. “Yes, John.”

“Good girl,” Ellie added in a sly whisper.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the playful dynamic between my two lovers, and I didn’t miss the way their eyes lingered on me when we climbed back into the truck.

Then they started stripping down to change into their dresses, and when I did the same with my suit, it took all my effort to stay on task. I had to remind both myself and my warriors that there would be time for fun later.

“Right now, we’ve got a party full of sleazy backers to impress,”

I teased. “We’ll celebrate after.”

Ellie’s lips slipped into a pout, and Indy stared at me with unconcealed longing that made me look forward to tearing the dress off her as soon as our mission was done.

As I started up the truck again and directed us toward Bayalon, I thought back to the scene that had unfolded in Spitfire’s sleeper a few nights ago. There was no doubt my old clunker had seen a lot of things in her lifetime even before I owned her, but I was sure nothing as scandalous and sexy had taken place inside any part of the cab before.

And what would, without a doubt, take place inside it again in the future.

The sun set as we continued across the desert. When my headlights washed over the gorsican graveyard, it only mildly startled me this time. And when the fiery balls of light that lit Bayalon’s walls swam into view past it, I didn’t hesitate to leave the battlefield of slain gorsicans and people in our dust.

“Okay,” I recapped as we approached the city. “Remember, when we get to this Krasur guy’s estate, we’ll be in a situation that’s pretty much new territory for all three of us. I know I don’t need to tell you twice to stick close to me whenever it’s possible…”

I trailed off, but I saw the silhouettes of my two warrior women nodding when I glanced over at them.

“We will, John,” Indy promised.

“Good girls.” I smirked slightly as I pulled us up to Bayalon’s gate. “Ready?”

“Ready,” my two warriors said in unison.

Spitfire’s horn howled at the city’s gate, and my smirk got bigger at the way the stone door didn’t even swing open for the
guard to look out at us. Instead, the muffled clank of the gate’s chain winch started almost immediately, and the gate slowly rose upward.

“Fancy seeing you three here,” the guard called as we strolled through the gate. A smile appeared on his hawk-like features when he loped up to us, and I got the impression that our arrival was the most exciting part of his job.

Which made sense. I got the impression no one and nothing ever arrived at this gate except for me and my women.

His hawk-like eyes flared open even wider at close range when he took in the sight of us dressed to the nines. My two women looked an amazing combination of fierce and beautiful as they clung close to my sides, and I smirked as the expression on his face confirmed to me that the legendary city had never seen anything quite like this before.

“Couldn’t miss out on the Reprieve,” I replied with a casual shrug.

“I’ll let you get to it,” he finally said as he waved us by. “Have fun.”

“We’ll do our best,” I chuckled.

Once we were walking through the Old Town, I was all business again, and I led my warrior women through at a quick pace.

I waited until we were out of the black, bubble-like buildings and the threatening toxic plants that filled their yards. Once we were into the region where the land around was mossy and filled with pools of water, I pulled out the scroll I’d been given by the Spectrid.

“Okay,” I said briskly. “So the area we’re in right now is called…

the Kettles. Makes sense, I guess.”

I glanced at the pools of water around us and the variety of odd-looking creatures that traversed them.

“Then we’ve got to take the Twisting Lane,” I went on in a murmur as I traced my finger down the route on the map. “Hang a right and travel through something called the Coin Stacks… Then cross over the Clanging Narrows. After that, we go straight and make sure we avoid something called the Tapestry… Then we’ll be at Krasur’s estate… which is either on top of the Tufted Cliffs, or inside the Tufted Cliffs. And uhh, Bob’s your uncle.”

My final quip was completely lost on my two warrior women.

Despite how different just about every aspect of their features were, they both managed to stare at me with their brows furrowed in
identical expressions of confusion at what was obviously an Earth-specific phrase.

“My uncle was called Molko the Damned,” Ellie objected.

“My uncles all died in duels,” Indy informed me with a careless shrug. “They were fools.”

I tried to process all this at once and felt like my brain was short-circuiting.

“Right,” I exhaled. “Just a figure of speech. But we’ll definitely talk uncles soon, because I need to hear the story behind ‘Molko the Damned.’ For now, though, let’s go cross over the Clanging Narrows, whatever those are.”

We continued down the black volcanic stone path. No cheers rang out of the conspicuous volcano arena, and there was no sign of the bright, steady white light that would indicate a fight was taking place. Only a dim, ambient red glare came out of the open top of the crater.

When it came time to turn off the main road, my mind was on the Barsava woman who we had watched sink into what had appeared to be solid ground on one of the little offshoots of the road.

This clearly wasn’t the same path, but I still checked and double-
checked the map before we took the turn marked on it, and even then, I made both of my warrior women hang back while I checked that the footing was solid before they joined me.

The Twisting Lane lived up to its name in a simple way with its looping turns and hairpin bends that took us off into a new region of the oasis. The land surrounding the path was covered with a bunch of plants that just looked like tree roots that had decided to grow upward out of the ground. They were completely bare except for some thick bundles of flossy, mint-green vegetation that reminded me a little of cotton plants.

There were two main differences, though. The first was that these bundles of vegetation glowed with a faint but ominous light, and the second was that they were as big as beehives.

I was just considering these facts when a third difference became immediately obvious: These pale flossy bundles weren’t any sort of vegetation at all.

One of them gave a few brighter pulses of mint-green light, and I suddenly saw several sharp movements in the bundle’s surface. It reminded me of a pregnant stomach with a baby kicking beneath, but in an eerie, alien way that I immediately didn’t like. It was more like something was trying to escape from inside the white
hanging bundle, and whatever it was, I was pretty sure it wasn’t something I wanted to meet.

I sped up our pace slightly while keeping a wary eye on the flossy bundle that was moving. Then there was an especially sharp motion in its surface that made me jerk my head around.

Yep, definitely not vegetation.

These things were some combination of cocoon and egg sac.

I cursed under my breath and snatched the wrists of my two warriors to urge them along while a mass of wriggling, wormy creatures burst out of the glowing bundle. The flossy strands it was woven from flew in every direction.

Some of the wormy creatures hit the ground with small, muted thuds and thrashed around there, but most of them revealed a pair of crusty, moth-like wings that snapped out and sent them fluttering up into the air in a thick, white cloud.

Ellie’s head immediately swiveled around toward the cloud of horrific moth-creatures, and her mouth popped open with surprise.

Then it snapped shut as one of the little beasts went rogue and veered down at my dainty warrior like a creepy little paper airplane.

I gave her a sharp jerk to pull her along faster, and we made it away without any more of the fluttering creatures pursuing us.

When the path straightened out, and the cocoon-laden trees dwindled away, I glanced around to make sure we were alone.

“Sorry,” I finally panted with an apologetic look at my two warrior women. “Didn’t mean to jerk your arms off.”

Indy was rubbing her golden shoulder in an absent-minded way, like she had hardly noticed.

“Horrible, disgusting creatures,” she said in a quiet, grave voice. Then she glanced at her fellow warrior who walked on my other side. “They could have snatched Ellie up and carried her away.”

My blue-haired fighter shivered, and I pulled her slightly closer to me in a protective gesture.

“Uhh, I think not,” I assured her.

Now that the nasty moth-creatures and their cocoons were behind us, I kept a sharp eye out for any other possible dangers while we continued down the now-straight path. It was made of the same volcanic stone, and so was the ground all around us.

Soon we entered a region where the fireball lanterns that hung on posts to light the path revealed an army of tall, thin shadows that loomed all around us.

I quickly realized that these weren’t any sort of trees, though.

They were columns of black volcanic stone that rose straight up out of the ground. I could see thin, horizontal furrows that were spaced out regularly on the columns’ surfaces, so they had a slightly lumpy appearance.

“Coin Stacks,” Ellie said in a tone of sudden understanding.

Her long, delicate finger pointed at the volcanic stone columns.

They did resemble coin stacks, at least if the coins had been in the process of slowly melting downward. But as I gave them a closer look, I realized these seemed like dried lava formations.

Still, there were no glowing flossy egg sacs hanging from them. They were dark and silent, and they didn’t seem in danger of exploding any time soon, so I kept our pace at a normal brisk walk and just stayed vigilant for any creatures that might be creeping through the forest-like expanse of stone columns that were rearing higher and higher around us.

“Fascinating,” Indy whispered. Her long hair rippled under the fiery light as her head swiveled around to stare at the columns.

“Skinny stone-stack trees.”

I saw one of her long fingers reach out tentatively toward a passing column, and I gave her wrist a squeeze while I pulled her along with a little more speed.

“No tapping the mysterious stone trees,” I said firmly.

My command echoed weirdly through the columns around us.

The further away it got, the more it started to distort into a stony, goblin-like tone that took on a life of its own as it repeated my words more quietly.

At the eerie sound of it, Indy immediately turned to face forward again and hurried along faster at my side.

After a while, I thought I heard the sound of other voices ahead of us, and I tensed slightly. It sounded like a whole army of people.

But as I got closer, I noticed that the voices had the same stony, goblin-like chuckling that my echo had taken on as it traveled through the columns.

By the time we got to the source of it, I could tell that these weren’t voices at all. It was the chuckling sound of water that came
from several deep, sliver-thin chasms that opened up in the volcanic stone below us to cross the path.

We stepped over them carefully. Most were no more than a few inches wide, but when I glanced down, I could see the rush of water somewhere below, and I thought the gaps must connect somewhere to form a river that flowed past us underground.

The stony chuckling of the water was incredibly eerie as it bounced all around us off the stone columns, and both of my warrior women seemed relieved when we left it behind.

Soon the stone columns on our sides dwindled in height until they disappeared completely. They were replaced by more flat, bare volcanic stone like the kind that made up the path underfoot.

Then a shuffle of motion off to our right caught my attention. I saw that the movement spread over a surface area about as big as a basketball court, and I glanced sharply over to see what the hell it was.

“Flowers?” Ellie guessed tentatively. Her big blue eyes squinted over at the flat expanse of shuffling objects on the ground.

On my other side, Indy shook her head.

“Carpet,” she said in a voice of total certainty.

I cast a doubtful look over at what was looking more and more like a giant, basketball court-sized rug shuffling across the stony ground toward us. It wasn’t moving with a threatening speed, but it was definitely moving.

“Both?” I finally guessed as I spotted different patches of flower-like blossoms bobbing along the surface of the giant rug. But then my eyes widened, and a realization surged into me. “It’s the Tapestry. From the map.”

All three of us immediately picked up our pace, and I tightened my grip on the women’s wrists as they pressed closer to me.

When we were no longer parallel with whatever the hell this tapestry thing was, I risked a glance back to watch it approaching the black stone path we had just hurried down.

My warrior women did the same, and all of us gaped in disbelief when an army of knee-high, undeniably malevolent-looking shrubs and plants marched across the path together.

There were an abundance of ferns whose sharp, spiky leaves rasped loudly against each other while they marched. But there were a ton of other plants, too. I saw plenty more of the carnivorous-looking plants that I had seen in some of the yards back in the Old

Town. They were like giant Venus flytraps, and some of them even snapped their teeth menacingly as they scuttled along with the other plants.

The tapestry of marching plants all clustered close together to maintain their rug-like appearance except for when they parted to stream around the posts of the fireball lanterns that lit the path.

Once the whole basketball court-sized field of plants had crossed the path, they shuffled calmly off into the distance together without paying any attention to us.

“Holy shit,” I said under my breath as we continued down the path. “So, there’s a marauding tapestry of plants just roaming around Bayalon. Good to know.”

“I am glad we skeeee-daddled,” Indy said with a nervous laugh. Then her voice went back to its usual solemn tone as she added, “The plants would have picked Ellie up and carried her away.”

“I’m starting to sense a theme here,” I said dryly, and I pulled my doll-faced warrior a little closer to me again. “But we would definitely slay the shit out of those plants if they tried anything, wouldn’t we, Indy?”

“Without hesitation,” Indy agreed in a stout, loyal voice. “We would slice them to pieces with ease and skill in the name of our small friend.”

I smiled at the true note of big sister-style protection I heard in my princess’ over-the-top banter.

“I could defend myself from the plants,” Ellie piped up.

I glanced down at the angelic warrior at my side and thought of what I had seen her do in the arena, and I snorted. “I don’t doubt your prowess, but there were about a thousand plants, Ellie.”

“I would cut them to ribbons,” the petite warrior insisted. “Every single one.”

But all three of us were distracted from our conversation when a deep, ominous rumble shook the volcanic stone under our feet.

The path ahead of us bucked visibly, and I threw both of my warrior women behind me.

Then a whole, surfboard-sized slab of stone was sent hurtling skyward as something erupted out of the path’s surface.

Chapter 10

A roaring rush of water shot up into the dark sky above us. The surfboard-sized slab of stone that it had knocked loose went sailing off to land with an ear-splitting crash nearby, but that was nothing compared to the roaring that came from the hole it had left behind as water continued to blast skyward.

I backed up with my arms stuck out to the sides so my two warrior women were forced back behind me. A fine spray of mist came billowing out to every side, and I made sure we retreated to a wary distance just in case it was some sort of toxic liquid.

As my heartbeat slowed slightly, and I took in the way the water was jetting up into the sky, I knew this was probably a geyser of some kind, especially considering the fact that this oasis’ main feature was a volcano. I guessed it wasn’t too surprising for there to be something like this.

Back on Earth, geysers were typically made up of hot water, as far as I knew. I had seen one at Yellowstone Park, and this didn’t look all too different from it. But still, this wasn’t Earth. This was the chaotic white-sand desert world where I had seen a variety of
mythical, magical, and often highly-toxic shit that I never would have believed was possible in the past.

“Stay behind me,” I commanded my two fighters. I had to shout to be heard over the water’s rush, and I glanced at both Indy and Ellie in turn to make sure they understood.

Their eyes were both open wide with shock as they tore their gaze away from the jet of water that had erupted out of the volcanic stone in our path, and the two warriors nodded at me as they shrank behind me.

I gave the roaring fountain of water a measuring look and noticed that it seemed to be dying down, but I was still vigilant for any sign that said otherwise as I unrolled the scroll with the map of Bayalon again. I flicked my eyes down briefly to make sure there was nothing on the map here.

There wasn’t.

I didn’t know exactly what the scale of this map was, but judging by how long it had taken us to get from place to place so far, it seemed to me like we were extremely close to the Tufted Cliffs where Krasur’s estate was.

I allowed the scroll to roll up again in my grip as I raised my eyes from it and scoured over the land ahead.

The geyser was slowly decreasing in height, and I squinted through the mist that billowed around and above it for any sign that we were near our destination.

A strangled shriek from the gap in the ground jerked my attention back to the mouth of the geyser, and my free hand darted to rest on the grip of my gun at this first sign that there might be some sort of being behind this rush of water, instead of it being a stunning explosion of nature.

There was a sudden deafening gurgle from the geyser’s mouth that reminded me of someone choking. Then there was another huge, brief blast of water that seemed to dislodge something that had been stuck inside.

At first, I thought it might just be another huge chunk of rock.

But as the dark shape was sent hurtling skyward, it let out a desperate, strangled screech like the one I had just heard. The screech faded swiftly in volume as the figure quickly gained distance from the ground until it was small and distant overhead.

“Holy shit,” I said under my breath.

Then the geyser’s spray died off completely. I drew my gun as the figure in the air revealed itself to be distinctly humanoid. It was at least a hundred feet in the air, probably more. Now gravity was pulling it back toward the ground with a speed that suggested whatever this being was wouldn’t survive the fall.

At least, if it was a normal human.

But in this world, there weren’t many ways to tell who was who, and what was what, so I decided I’d be ready for it to be just about anything.

Then a roar of fury from somewhere further ahead of us grabbed my attention.

A new humanoid figure came sprinting out of the darkness on the volcanic stone path. Its head jerked up sharply to take in the airborne shadow that was now flailing its limbs frantically like it was hoping to fly as it started to fall in earnest.

The person on the ground loosed an arrow at the falling figure.

It looked like the projectile hissed within an inch of its head, but missed.

“Splat,” Indy whispered from behind me, like she was rooting for the mysterious figure to die upon landing.

I overcame the urge to laugh and stayed vigilant as I waited to see if this prophecy would come true.

Then a dark shadow swooped out of the sky with a stunning suddenness. I thought I recognized the small, dragonish shape of a Spectrid, but before I could be sure, it had collided with the falling figure with the speed of a missile.

The two figures skidded to the ground on the path ahead, and the person standing on the path threw themselves out of the way. I saw the silhouette of a bow and arrow being tucked into a leather sling on their shoulder, and then they dusted off their hands and walked toward me.

They seemed to think this shit was handled. For all the attention they paid to the scuffle that was now going on between the Spectrid and its target, they could’ve been two dogs frolicking innocently past.

When the person headed in my direction, it didn’t take long for me to realize this was Mek, one of the water being backers who had approached me after my warrior women’s most recent fight. He was wearing a similar silver robe to the one he’d been wearing then. The light from the fire-globe lanterns glinted off the silver hair that was
plaited tightly back from his face, and the close-cropped silver beard that covered his jaws.

I made sure the safety was on and smoothly tucked away my gun as he held up his hands to indicate the lack of weaponry in his hands, like I might still doubt his intentions.

“Good to see you,” I said, and I was surprised that I actually meant the words a little as my eyes roamed back to the ongoing battle between the Spectrid and the figure who had shot out from the geyser. “Uhh, any idea what the hell–?”

“Fissure elf,” he said with a dark look back at the wrestling figures. “They normally don’t stray so far from the Rift. My guess is this one has had dealings with Freyos, so he was probably targeting you. We’ll find out soon enough.”

This sentence was punctuated by a high yowl of pain from the fissure elf, who had now been pinned to the ground by the Spectrid.

I stared more closely at the fissure elf, and I realized he looked like a type of being I had seen a few times in Bayalon already. One of them had been the greasy-haired bastard who had shoved his friend to her death without batting an eye.

The only other knowledge I had of these fissure elves was that Master Freyos had most likely won the rabid moon siren, Tazabelle, from one of them.

In other words, these oily-haired fuckers were now at the top of the “be on the lookout for” list I had been forming in my mind for this oasis city.

“How’d you know what was going on?” I asked Mek with curiosity.

He raised one of his hands and waggled his fingers at me, and the mist that always clung to his fingertips swirled around them. “I don’t have the same sort of magic that my far mistier ancestors did, but I can sense things sometimes…”

Then he seemed to truly take in the sight of my two women for the first time, and he trailed off midspeech.

I was about to break the silence by thanking him for the surprising attempt to help me with these oddly specific senses, but the sound of more footsteps ringing out against the volcanic stone path caught both of our attention. We turned around to see someone tall and bulky approach the Spectrid and the fissure elf that was pinned to the ground under it.

The dragonish creature did a little hop to clear the way, and the tall, bulky person aimed a furious kick at the fissure elf. They gestured furiously as words were exchanged between them.

Then the tall person flicked their fingers at the fissure elf with a disgusted gesture and muttered some command to the Spectrid, who immediately seized the fallen elf by the nape of the neck and started dragging him away.

Soon the tall, bulky person approached us, and I recognized him as Krasur. I had seen him from afar while he stared at me and waited for my response to the invitation his Spectrid had given to me.

I glanced over his shoulder at where the dragon-like creature was dragging the fissure elf away, and I wondered whether this was the same Spectrid.

As he approached, the first thing I noticed about Krasur was that there were two big patches of shiny white scarring on the top of his forehead. His hair came down in a sharp widow’s peak between them. When I gave them a closer glance, I realized that the big scarred patches seemed to protrude out of his head slightly, and I got the distinct impression that this guy previously had some type of horns sprouting from his head.

This seemed like an awkward thing to ask about, so I just removed my hand from Indy’s wrist briefly to shake the meaty hand he stuck out to me.

“Vermin like that don’t usually venture into this region,” he grunted. He had a low, rough voice that had a strong note of apology in it at the moment. “This isn’t how I would have liked to meet an honored guest.”

I just shrugged and smiled without giving any hint of the fact that I didn’t plan on trusting the fucker any further than I could throw him.

Which wouldn’t have been far, because he was built like a damn castle wall.

“No harm done,” I said in a mild voice.

Krasur hardly seemed to hear me. The veins in his thick neck were bulging slightly at the insolent “no thanks to you” expression that was clearly displayed on Mek’s silver-bearded face after my statement.

Despite the fact that no words were spoken between them, the tension was thick in the air as we turned and headed into the dim, shadowy region where the fire-orb lamps disappeared.

I could only assume that the Tufted Cliffs had a reason behind their name, because the only sign that they were there was the fact that they blocked out any of the land beyond.

The cliffside looked blank and silent at first, but then Krasur spoke a few words in a language that was unrecognizable to me. His voice was unrecognizable, too. It dropped by at least a whole octave to an impossibly low tone, and it suddenly sounded sharp and stony.

Whatever the hell his words were, they caused a door in the cliff to swing abruptly inward.

We walked into a tunnel that zig-zagged sharply into the cliffside. There were regular hollows in the wall that held burning torches, and in their light I spotted several other tunnels interconnected with the passage we were in. A confusing babble of sounds echoed through all of them as we passed, and I wondered exactly how many people were here.

Then we came into a huge, round cavern. Its high ceiling was dome-shaped, and the whole top half of the room was covered in mosaic tiles, except for several thin, shadowy holes that riddled the ceiling. A huge black metal hoop hung from the ceiling, and there were some roiling, fiery globes hanging from it in a way that made it look like a janky but pretty impressive chandelier.

The light showed that most of the mosaic’s tiles were different shades of beige, but on one side, there were patches of black tiles that were arranged into an oddly familiar shape.

Prickles went down my spine as I stared at it and tried to figure out why it rang a bell for me. It was a simple shape that looked a lot like a frowning face with two big, circular black eyes. The “mouth”

below them was made up of several more circles that were arranged into a simple downward curve.

“Gorsican,” Ellie whispered from behind me in a hushed voice.

She was right.

That’s why the frowny face had given me the chills. It had an uncanny resemblance to the eyes of a gorsican and their weird resemblance to a frowning face.

“Oh, shit,” I muttered.

“What was that?” Krasur said in a voice that was absent-minded, but in a surly sort of way.

From the look on his face, I realized he had been just as preoccupied as me. He was just tearing his gaze away from a cluster of water beings on the opposite side of the room who were returning his gaze with blatant distaste.

“Oh, I was just admiring your…” I waved a hand vaguely at the black part of the mosaic that looked like a gorsican face.

Krasur seemed to grasp what I was saying, and he nodded knowingly. When he spoke again, his low, rough voice with its forced tough-guy tone suddenly took on a whole new attitude, one that I had heard often back on Earth. It was a type of speaking that was usually reserved for museum workers, or tour guides.

“You know,” he said in this completely unexpected tone. “In the place where we’re standing at this very moment, there was once a gorsican that was said to be the queen of their kind.”

I glanced at my two women, and they both looked as filled with doubt and disbelief as I felt.

“This was the body,” Krasur went on, and he made a sweeping gesture that indicated the big chamber we stood in, with its rounded shape and thin, jagged holes in the ceiling. Then he jabbed his fingers around to each side, presumably to indicate the huge amount of tunnels that branched out in every direction. “And those were the legs. I had the mosaic done in black where its eyes had been.”

As I looked around at the cavern and its complex of zigzagging tunnels, this not only made perfect sense to me, but it
actually seemed pretty well within the realm of possibility. Even the holes in the ceiling made sense as the place where the gorsican’s array of stingers would have stuck up into any lava that swept over it.

Either this fucker was telling the truth, or this oddly-shaped cave had been very cleverly made by someone.

I couldn’t help but ask the burning question that I could clearly see written on my warrior women’s faces. “So, uh… What happened to this queen of the gorsicans, exactly?”

“Burned to cinders,” Krasur said with a tone of delight in his museum-guide voice. “This is a lava cave. The gorsican was engulfed by hot lava in one of the eruptions, and then it burned away and left this cave in a perfect mold of its body. You wouldn’t believe how many people I had ki– err, eliminated– to get this place.”

After all the shit I’d seen in this desert world, Krasur’s casual near-acknowledgment of murdering the competition for this piece of prime real estate hardly shocked me. At this point, what struck me as weird was the combination between this careless, everyday violence and a type of showy pride that I typically associated with suburban snobbery back home.

Krasur paused like he was allowing me to absorb and be impressed by his statement before he went on. “Anyway… the warriors’ measurements won’t be taken for another half-hour when the gargoyles show their ugly faces, so if you’d like some refreshments…?”

I nodded and kept my women’s wrists in my grip as we headed across the huge, high-ceilinged cavern.

There were about two dozen backers in the room, and they all had at least one warrior with them. Most had several, so there were a lot of people in the big room, but its immensity still dwarfed all of them.

“Must have been a pretty mighty gorsican,” I said in a low voice that I knew only my warrior women would hear.

They both nodded as they looked around, and I knew they were picturing the unwelcome idea of this ancient beast’s vastness while they looked at the cavern and the endless zig-zagging tunnels that branched off in every direction. Those really must’ve held the creature’s legs before it withered away.

The idea of such a huge gorsican was pretty unnerving, but it came in second to the fact that every damn eye in the room was on
me in a way that I just wasn’t used to. The cavern suddenly seemed like the most wide-open space I had ever crossed, and I had to focus on keeping my appearance calm as my hand itched to grasp the grip of my gun.

I kept both hands wrapped around my warriors’ wrists instead, since that seemed to be not just socially acceptable, but pretty much expected from the backers.

When I saw all the looks Indy and Ellie were getting, a mixture of pride and possessiveness pulsed through my body. All the backers looked like they wanted my women, and all the other warriors looked like they wanted to be them.

I also noticed that the backers appeared to be the mixture of water beings and fiery volcano beings I’d been anticipating. The fiery ones were more conspicuous, and I thought this was both from their flashier appearances and boisterous attitudes. But when I took note of the more reserved and standoffish water beings, I realized there might be just as many of them.

For the most part, it seemed like standing in the same room together was the most “willingness to intermingle” that these guys could stomach. I guessed that would change when the gargoyles arrived, but for now it was just the various beings clustered with
others of their kind. The silver-bearded Mek was brooding at the edge of the same group of backers I had met before, but there were more clusters of people I didn’t recognize, too.

The “refreshments” ended up being pretty impressive. On the end of the cavern Krasur led me to, there was a whole wall with shelves carved into it that were full of colorful glass bottles. It was one of the few signs of glassblowing I had seen in the desert world, and the bottles were sort of lumpy, but clearly a lot of effort had been put into making them.

When the idea of drinks was presented to me, I was alert to the idea of something like poison. Then again, I was just as wary of the danger that distilling practices in this place might range from distasteful to downright poisonous if there was hard alcohol in the equation.

In front of me, Krasur slammed a hand down on the bar-like stone counter that ran parallel to the wall, and the solid rock actually rattled at his touch.

“Dummon,” he boomed at the top of his lungs. “Something fiery for our honored guest.”

I had no idea who the hell Dummon was, but soon he came scuttling out from one of the tunnels.

He was a short flaxen-haired man in a black robe with sharp, pointed features. His hands perused quickly through the bottles like he could sense what they were by touch, and it didn’t take long for them to choose a burgundy-colored bottle that had bands of bright red running through it.

From the way he whipped up a drink with several other ingredients, I thought Dummon must be Bayalon’s equivalent of a bartender. When he was done, he poured a careful portion of the concoction into a big, shiny obsidian cup, and then he poured the rest into a similar but much smaller cup that was about the size of a shot glass.

Then he gave Krasur a questioning look.

The thick-necked backer nodded and waved his hand impatiently in response, and Dummon promptly picked up the shot glass and drained it in a quick, neat gulp.

Krasur stared at the mixologist for a long moment like he was waiting for something, and I thought I saw him counting under his breath.

“Good,” he finally grunted. Then he waved a hand at Dummon.

“Off with you.”

Dummon bowed respectfully and swept away into the tunnel he had emerged from.

Then Krasur presented me with the big obsidian cup like he had whipped up the drink himself.

“Thanks,” I said as I accepted the cup. Then I glanced at the tunnel where his drink-making servant had disappeared. “Why, uh–”

“Just an old custom,” he assured me with a shrug.

“Traditionally, a slave always tests a guest’s drink in front of them– to check for poison, you know.”

It took effort to keep the polite smile from sliding right off my face, and I just nodded like this wasn’t absolutely scummy to me. “Of course.”

I had a momentary urge to refuse the drink outright, or pour it over his thick head, but instead I took a small sip.

“Pretty smooth, eh?” he asked.

I couldn’t lie, it was pretty damn smooth.

The drink had a cinnamon-like spice to it that almost made my eyes water, but it was tempered by a mellow, honey-like taste that
seemed to ripple through my whole body.

“Good stuff,” I agreed as I swirled the drink in its glass.

Krasur seemed like he was just dying for me to ask what was in the concoction. Just when I was contemplating how much I really didn’t want to listen to a lengthy new spiel about who he had killed to get his hands on these ingredients, we were interrupted by one of the other backers.

It was one of the teal-skinned goblins I had seen before, but I didn’t think this was one of the two who I’d met. This one was taller, and he wore something like a crown on his head that looked like it was made out of bright purple coral.

He had two women in his grip. Both of them had navy-blue hair and walked with a stiff, hobbling gait. They were wearing matching pants made of shiny mermaid-like scales that were all in different shades of blue.

“Ariv,” Krasur greeted the goblin. He cast a glance at the two navy-haired warriors and then gave the goblin a mocking smile.

“Trying to make yourself some new Zenias?”

The goblin let out a short, humorless laugh that sounded incredibly forced. “My warriors are freshly cut, Krasur. Give me two
moons, and you’ll be eating your words… and so will Freyos.”

His words made me realize suddenly that these women weren’t wearing pants at all.

They had the same scaly legs as Zenia, just a different color.

And just like Zenia, they had oddly-angled ankles that appeared to have more bones than was humanly possible.

But the backers’ words also made me realize they probably weren’t human. These warriors’ ankles were swathed tightly in bandages, and it seemed to cost them a huge effort to walk.

“Two moons?” a new voice repeated from nearby. It was sharp and scornful, and it came from a tall, sneering backer who appeared out of nowhere to join the conversation. “Two hundred moons, you mean.”

And just like that, the backers were all swooping in like vultures.

“You’re one to talk, Yovu,” Dibrin the goblin piped up as he stepped in. “How long has it been since you’ve won a fight, again?”

The skinny Yovu suddenly puffed up like an angry toad. “Watch your mouth, filthy goblin.”

I raised the obsidian glass in my hand and drained the rest of my fiery drink in one long gulp.

When I lowered my glass, my eye was caught by someone else doing the exact same thing. It was the silver-bearded Mek, and he was rolling his eyes so hard all I could see was white.

When he had drained his cup, he caught my eye and raised his glass in a sardonic toast.

I smirked and returned the gesture as more backers clamored to join the conversation-turned-argument.

Then three sharp, ear-splitting booms cut through the noise.

Krasur’s face pulled into a deep scowl. “I keep telling those brass-eared bastards not to knock like th–”

“I’ll get it,” Mek announced in a voice that clearly told me he wanted any excuse to leave the room.

The deep clank of the gargoyles’ strides echoed through the cave as they shuffled in from the front hall. It was weird to see them outside the arena, and the leader seemed to have a hard time lowering his voice to a non-deafening volume as he swiveled his metallic head around to gaze over the room full of backers.

“Let’s talk,” he boomed.

Chapter 11

There was a loud scraping, scuffling noise from the direction of the entrance hallway, and everyone’s heads turned toward it.

“What was that?” one of the gargoyles boomed, and there was a faint creak as his brass head swiveled toward the tunnel.

“Rats,” another one grunted. His brass shoulders clanked when he shrugged dismissively.

“A rat infestation, Krasur?” the tall, thin backer named Yovu cackled. “How embarrassing.”

“Silence,” the lead gargoyle rumbled, and I was surprised at how easy it was to see the sheer irritation on the blunt, brass features of his face up close. He turned back toward the entrance tunnel. “That’ll be the bookies. Somebody let them in.”

There was a moment of silence before Krasur sighed and stomped off toward the tunnel with a surly expression.

Soon, several bookies came shuffling into the hall with Krasur rushing them along from behind.

Then the lead gargoyle clapped his metallic hands together in a “let’s get to this” gesture that echoed deafeningly off the walls of
the cavern.

In response, Krasur raised his low, rough voice to bellow into one of the tunnels. “Rug!”

A servant immediately came scuttling out and unrolled a long red velvet rug.

“Warriors,” the lead gargoyle boomed, and he waved one big brass hand toward the rug in a sweeping motion. “In a line, if you please.”

I gave my two warrior women’s wrists a reassuring squeeze before I nodded for them to join the other women who were now streaming over to the rug to stand in a line at the gargoyle’s command.

Many of the warriors were ones I hadn’t seen yet, and some of them were pretty impressive, but I noted that I didn’t see Artemn the Abandoned anywhere among them. Zenia, Mavra, and their backer Master Freyos were conspicuously absent, too. From the way the other backers I’d met had talked about Freyos when I first met them, it had seemed like he was one of them, if not very well-liked. I thought it was odd for him not to be here.

But no one mentioned the absence of Freyos, Imiath, or their warriors. Instead, one of the gargoyles stomped forward with clanking strides to open up something that looked almost like a massive brass folding table. Once the poles and hinges of it creaked and snapped into place, I realized it was a T-shaped frame about twice as tall as me. Its heavily-weighted bottom thunked solidly against the stone floor in front of the velvet rug.

Then two gargoyles stomped forward holding two huge brass bowls. When I saw the three chains that were attached to each of their rims, I realized they were giant weighing bowls. The gargoyles secured one of them to each arm of the T-shaped frame.

Once it was all set up, I could see that the contraption was a giant version of a basic, old-fashioned weighing scale, like the kind that probably would’ve been used to weigh gold on Earth several hundred years ago.

The fact that the gargoyle mediators had brought their own weighing scale for measuring the warriors spoke volumes to me.

Plainly, they didn’t trust the backers to use any equipment of their own.

More gargoyles produced a few sacks that bulged full of some heavy objects that jostled metallically together. When one was
overturned above the measuring plate, a cascade of uniformly-sized brass blocks came tumbling down with a chorus of rattling clangs.

After that, there was a flurry of activity as the warriors clambered up one at a time to sit in one of the two bowls that hung from the scale. Two of the warriors were even more petite than Ellie, and they had to be boosted up by one of the gargoyles to sit in the center of the measuring bowl.

Then, depending on the size of each warrior, the gargoyles removed or added blocks one by one until both bowls were level.

Then a gargoyle counted and double-counted how many of the brass blocks were in the other measuring plate, and the numbers were barked out to a bookie who stood nearby. The bookie jotted down the measurements with a fancy quill and jar of ink on a pad of brown paper, while another gargoyle watched over his shoulder with an attentive, beady-eyed gaze.

The whole process was incredibly detailed, but the gargoyles carried it out with a practiced swiftness that kept things moving.

When it was Indy’s turn, she ignored the helping hand that was offered to her by one of the gargoyles. I watched with amusement as my princess sprang up with her gauzy black cape flowing behind her.

One of her lithe golden legs slipped free from the long slash in the
skirt of her skin-tight dress as she settled cross-legged onto the brass measuring plate. Then she sat straight and proud while she was measured against the brass blocks on the opposite side of the scale.

The gargoyle there picked up a few blocks, and my princess rose up slightly. Then the gargoyle stepped back to squint carefully at the scale’s height before he shook his head decisively and dropped one of the blocks back in.

The other mediators who stood back with their brass hands on their hips looked at him with nods of agreement when Indy appeared perfectly balanced on the scale.

“Fourteen,” the measuring gargoyle grunted to the bookie with the quill.

The number was carefully jotted down, and then my princess vaulted promptly to the ground with the measuring bowl swinging gently behind her.

The gargoyle nearby seemed to think better of offering her assistance this time, but he did hold out his hands to offer Ellie a boost in the same way he had with some of the other warriors.

He never got a chance to assist her, though.

Indy shot him a narrow-eyed, red-gold stare as she stepped between them with a protective look, and the gargoyle pulled back with an expression on his blunt features that suggested he didn’t quite know what to make of this. Then my princess swept her cape back from her shoulders, and one golden thigh slipped free from her dress again as she knelt smoothly and cupped her hands for my petite, blue-haired warrior to put her foot in.

Ellie gave Indy a grateful look as she took a delicate step up with the princess’ assistance and then leaped the rest of the way onto the measuring bowl. The long, silky skirt of her pale periwinkle dress billowed out slightly and settled around her legs when she folded them neatly beneath herself and sat back on her heels.

My princess firmly jostled a few warriors aside to claim a new place on the velvet rug to be close to the scale while the gargoyle who was doing the measuring slowly removed several blocks from the measuring bowl.

The measuring gargoyle scratched his head in thought, and everyone winced slightly at the sound. After a moment, he put one of the blocks back, then frowned and took it off again.

A flurry of comments were exchanged between the brass mediators, and the sound reminded me of a time from my childhood
when Nick had snatched up a spatula at the grocery store and held it out to one side while he ran down the kitchen aisle, where the pots and pans all hung side by side in a row. He had made them clatter together like a bunch of tuneless, clanging wind-chimes that echoed through the whole store.

The ear-splitting racket had brought half the store’s employees chasing after my sneaky friend, and I smirked at the memory of snaking my foot out from around the aisle corner to trip him.

Then I was jerked back to the present by the higher-pitched clang of a block being dropped back into the measuring bowl.

Finally, the brass mediators all nodded at each other.

“Eleven,” the measurer grunted.

The bookie with the notepad scribbled down the number, and Indy stepped forward to offer Ellie a step down from the measuring bowl.

But everyone froze in place when three deep, loud thuds came from the direction of the entrance tunnel.

The gargoyles scowled at the disturbance, but the backers all shared a tense look.

The thuds started again, and they were more insistent this time. The sound was dull, but somehow had a harsh grating note to it, too.

Krasur finally started off toward the entrance tunnel. When he had gone to let the bookies in earlier, he had walked with a quick, angry stride, and his irritation had been plain to see, but now he carried himself with the air of someone who was about to walk into a lion’s den.

Everything in the cavern was so quiet that the gentle sound of the weighing scale creaking now sounded like the screech of a tomb opening. Nobody moved, and after a long, tense moment, the head of the household returned.

Krasur’s bulky form looked small in comparison to the build of the man who strode into the room in front of him. The guy had to be over seven feet tall, and that was without counting the pair of massive horns that jutted diagonally up from his forehead.

The horns had an odd, undulating shape to them. They were a dull bronze color that darkened to deep black at the ends, but I noticed that the razor-sharp points looked like they were coated with some thick, goopy liquid that had a faint reddish sheen to it.

The undulating curves of his horns were echoed in the naked blade he clutched casually in his hand. The blade’s center looked like it was made from the dull black metal I had seen in all the oasis cities I’d been to, but the edges held a different color. They were a deep reddish-gray with more shine to it, and I could just faintly see the folds in the sword’s surface where the two metals had been forged together. The undulating edges looked like they had been shaped with a precision and sharpness that I was sure the lumpy black metal alone never could have achieved.

The horned backer flicked his blade to dislodge a small chunk of rock that was wedged onto it. As the rock clattered to the ground, I suddenly realized what the harsh thunks from the entryway had been. This bastard had decided to knock with his blade instead of his fist.

And apparently the wavy sword had been able to pierce the stone of the cliff.

The horned backer slid the sword into a broad leather scabbard at his hip, and the smile that appeared on his cruel face only made him look more intimidating. The pupils of his eyes were a cold, bottomless black, and instead of white surrounding them, there was just a pure, deep red.

Any shred of doubt I had that this was Imiath disappeared when he turned and yanked Artemn the Abandoned into the cavern behind him.

Everyone ignored the fresh, angry bruise that was clearly visible on Artemn’s small, tapered jaw, which seemed like pretty standard practice when it came to how people viewed the warrior women.

But the backers seemed almost shocked by the three deep scratches across Imiath’s temple that somehow weren’t oozing blood. As the towering, black-eyed backer strolled up to join us, his expression dared anyone to say something about the wound.

Everyone in the room quickly averted their eyes, except for the lead mediator, who looked at Imiath unflinchingly.

“You’re late,” the gargoyle commented. Annoyance was etched deeply in his hard brass features, and his booming voice was so curt that his brass jaws slammed together with a crunching sound at the end of the statement.

“I had some business to attend to,” Imiath said in an offhand voice.

Or as offhanded as someone with his voice could sound.

It was sharp, stony, and almost impossibly low in a way that reminded me of the tone Krasur had used to open his magical cave door, but Imiath’s voice was different from Krasur’s in the same way a wolf’s snarl was different from a chihuahua’s growl. Despite the incredible deepness of it, I got the impression that he was actually raising the pitch of his voice, like his normal tone would make it impossible to speak in a way that could be understood by us. The effort of doing it seemed to give him a slight accent that reminded me vaguely of Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, which might’ve been a little comical if the prong-horned backer hadn’t been so intimidating.

Then Imiath paused as something near his hip made him flinch slightly, like a bee had just stung him. He twitched the sleeve of his robe in irritation, and something came tumbling out of his pocket: A glass orb about the size of a crystal ball. Its deep black color was smoldering with angry swirls of red.

The orb didn’t shatter when it hit the floor, but a deep crack split through half its surface, and dark smoke immediately seethed out of the gap.

“Is that Freyos’?” Yovu blurted. His sneer was gone, and his long, thin face looked blank and shocked.

That’s when I realized the orb was the very one that had sat on Freyos’ wizard staff.

My stomach tensed as I looked back at the hulking demon motherfucker beside Artemn.

“We quarreled,” Imiath confessed with a mock mournful sigh.

He gave the fallen orb a casual kick, so it skittered across the floor.

“I’m afraid our good friend Master Freyos is, ah, no longer with us.”

Silence reigned for a long moment, and everyone just stared at the trail of dark smoke swirling across the ground after the orb.

Finally, the lead mediator broke the silence.

“What happens outside of the arena– and outside of the Reprieve– is none of our affair,” he finally said. He shrugged his brass shoulders with a faint creak and then waved a hand at Artemn.

“Your warrior will be measured next.”

Then the measurements started up again like nothing had happened.

I shared a quick look with my two women, and I saw the excitement I was feeling reflected subtly in their faces. I thought I saw the undercurrent of the nervousness I was experiencing, too.

Then again, I would be an idiot not to be wary of this Imiath bastard. It would’ve been a sign of insanity if I weren’t immediately considering this from every possible angle.

The good news was that I now knew a little more about who and what Imiath was, and hopefully I’d be able to learn a bit more throughout the Reprieve. Not just about him, but about Artemn.

The lead gargoyle’s confirmation that I’d be able to duel the prong-horned backer as long as we were outside the arena, and outside of this gathering, was equally thrilling.

The bad news was that Imiath was a whole new level of violent and bloodthirsty. He had apparently killed one of his fellow fiery beings during the three weeks of the year when they were supposed to be at least somewhat on the same side, and united against the water beings they shared a deeper hatred for.

But what seemed more ominous to me was that he clearly didn’t have Zenia or Mavra with him.

From how reluctant Imiath was to release his furious grip on Artemn now, I didn’t think he was the type to let his warriors out of his sight, not to mention keep them out of the third-week fights, which they would have to be measured here to enter.

So what the hell had he done with Master Freyos’ women?

Killed them outright? Cut them loose?

A new flurry of clanking activity from the gargoyles pulled me out of my reverie, and I saw that the warrior women were now being sorted into groups based on the weights the bookie had written down for them.

There were only two warriors in the lightest-weight group.

These two had the same pale taupe skin and white spots across their temples as a few other warriors I had seen here, but they looked younger and more fragile to me, like they might blow away at a light breath of wind. They huddled close to each other while the gargoyles continued sorting out the other women.

Ellie was sorted into the next group, along with three other fighters. Two of these were the rangy women I had glimpsed earlier, the ones with the thin, scaly blue legs like Zenia’s. The third warrior in the group was a gray-skinned, gray-eyed warrior. Her pale silver-blue hair was so long it covered her like a blanket and obscured most of her body from sight. When she’d been measured earlier, she had revealed a pair of thin bowed legs that were only half the size of the long spindly arms that she kept tucked close to her body.

Indy was in the next group, along with a warrior woman who was strangely wide and seemed like she belonged several weight classes up at first glance. But when I glimpsed her from the side, she proved to be incredibly thin from head to toe. Her bright white skin had streaks of pale blue running up and down it. I wondered what the hell kind of water being she could possibly be, and if that had something to do with her odd body type. It gave the impression that someone had used a rolling pin to squish her into the flattest shape imaginable.

Then Artemn was sent over to join that group. Indy’s eyes flared slightly at the sight of the winged warrior approaching to stand next to her. The silver of Artemn’s eyes looked bright and perky, but distant, too, and she was staring around the room without looking at anyone in particular while she stood with her wings tucked around her body like she was cold. A few locks of her half-black, half-white hair had slipped free from their braid, and she shook them out of her face as she waited for the other groups to form.

In the end, there were nine groups total, and the lead gargoyle named them in his deep, clanking voice to confirm which groups were which.

“Waif-like.” He waved a hand at the two nymphs in the smallest group, and the insulted looks on their faces told me this result might have been unexpected to them. Then he moved on to the rest from smallest to largest, starting with the group Ellie was in. “Gossamer, fine-boned, lower mezzo, mezzo, upper mezzo, robust, heavy, cosmic.”

I noticed that Dibrin, the teal-skinned goblin, was looking highly displeased with these results, and I thought he might be backer to the warrior with the blue-and-white skin who stood in the same group as Indy and Artemn.

Finally, the leader of the brass mediators turned to Krasur with an expectant look.

“We’ll settle the details in the loft,” Krasur said in response to his gaze. “There’s a trapdoor, so if you don’t want to take the stairs–”

The gargoyle nodded and immediately turned to stomp toward the entrance tunnel before the backer had finished his sentence.

“Don’t let the door thump you on your way out,” a smooth voice muttered from nearby.

A small, surprised laugh escaped me at hearing a sarcastic comment so similar to something I might’ve heard back on Earth,
and I turned to see that Mek had sidled up next to me.

“Are they always that way?” I asked with curiosity.

“You mean stiff-necked, terse, and utterly humorless?” he chuckled. “Only for the last… oh, few hundred years or so.”

I smirked and nodded in response, but then my eyes found the smoking black orb that now rested against the wall of the cavern, and the expression faded. I glanced back at the gargoyles as the last of them disappeared into the entrance tunnel, and then at the back of Imiath’s horned head.

“They don’t care one sand-speck which of us lives or dies,”

Mek intoned. His voice was so quiet I could barely hear it, but it sounded serious now, if a little cynical. “As long as the sacred traditions are upheld, their cold, brassy hearts are satisfied.”

His eyes darted to Imiath, too, but he quickly looked the other way and strolled off when Krasur raised his voice again to move us all along.

“Backers, let’s head upstairs,” Krasur growled. “Your warriors are welcome to refreshments down here. Dummon will see to it and then provide drinks for us.”

At the sound of his name, the blond servant flitted out of one of the nearby tunnels almost immediately.

I lingered with my eyes on my own two warrior women for a few moments, and they both gave me tiny, solemn nods as they returned my gaze. My smirk returned as I saw Ellie’s pale, delicate hands fiddling innocently with the monkey’s fist necklace she wore, and Indy’s fingers twitched slightly toward the pepper gel canister I knew was tucked into her dress.

Most of the backers chatted idly with each other, but not a single one of them spoke to Imiath, and they all averted their eyes from him whenever they could manage to, even at close range.

Or especially at close range.

Up close, the guy seemed even more absurdly large, and I saw a muscle jump in his jaw as he fixed his black-eyed gaze on Artemn until she vanished from sight with the other warriors.

Then the backers all headed into one of the tunnels after Krasur, and we took a few zigzag turns before we walked up a stairway that had similar sharp, jutting turns.

Finally we came out into a cozier cave room with a skylight that covered almost the whole ceiling, and I realized we must be just
below the top of the Tufted Cliffs. This room had a smoother, rectangular shape that told me it had probably been carved out of the stone, and not something that had occurred naturally like the rest of the gorsican-shaped cavern and its tunnels.

I wasn’t alone in looking around for the gargoyles, but Krasur started off toward a shadowy corner of the room where I figured the trapdoor must be.

My thought was confirmed when a small square of the ceiling there burst down before the bulky backer could reach it. The trapdoor slammed into the wall with an ear-splitting bang. A mushroom cloud of dust came billowing down with it, and then the impact knocked the trapdoor off its hinges completely.

Several of the gargoyles immediately started to squeeze themselves inside one by one, and they ignored the trapdoor that was tumbling to the ground completely as they thudded down.

Krasur cast a sour look at the now-busted latch on the trapdoor, but he didn’t say anything about it. He just claimed a seat in one of the huge squashy armchairs that filled the room in a rough circle and waited.

The lead gargoyle’s brass wings creaked shrilly when he folded them up tightly against his back, and then he dropped into the biggest of the chairs with a clanking grunt.

The bookie with the notepad perched on the seat that was next to his. The other bookies had vanished, and I saw the shadows of the rest of the gargoyles loitering around on the rooftop outside, presumably to keep the cozy upstairs lounge from becoming overwhelmingly cramped.

Then the real business of this entire affair began.

I had known ahead of time that this part of the night would involve some degree of negotiation between the strict, tradition-obsessed gargoyles and the greedy backers, but I didn’t know that so many of them would be haggling like fishwives over every little detail of their fights.

One thing that could be said for the haggling was that it sure as hell wasn’t boring. I found myself thinking the only thing that could make this better was some popcorn as I sat back, sipped my drink, and waited my turn.

“I want my fighters reclassed immediately,” Yovu demanded without preamble. The skinny, long-faced backer puffed up again in a
way that was incredibly frog-like. “They should be in gossamer, at least.”

“At least?” the spiky-haired backer named Semmo hooted in his husky voice. “You’re lucky those string beans are even allowed in the arena. Be content with waif-like, Yovu.”

A wave of muffled jeers and laughter ran around the backers.

Yovu’s previously reed-thin neck and chest swelled up even more, which seemed to confirm he wasn’t a human at all, and was instead some sort of water being descended from frogs.

“Silence,” the lead mediator snapped, and his brass jowls clinked together with annoyance. “Yovu, if you’d like to schedule your warriors for a fight in the second half of the week, then you may have them reclassed closer to the fight. Otherwise, be quiet and allow the rest of us to get on with scheduling.”

Yovu’s face reddened like he’d been slapped, and he deflated visibly as he gaped at the mediator in silence.

The gargoyle only waited on his answer for about half a second before it snapped its fingers impatiently at the skinny man with a metallic pinging sound that echoed around the room. I moved my obsidian cup to cover my mouth while I tried not to laugh. Two
seats over, I saw Mek choke on his drink and break into a furious fit of coughing.

On my other side, Semmo leaned closer to me, and his silver tooth winked under the light as he plastered a merry look on his face.

“What a scumbag, eh?”

I nodded vaguely in response, but privately I thought this might’ve been the most ironic statement I’d heard so far that night.

From the second I met him, this spiky-haired bastard had been full of nothing but overdone jolliness and thinly veiled greed.

“You,” the gargoyle boomed, and he suddenly pointed one of his brass fingers at me in a way that made me feel like I had just been called up to the chopping block for a second.

I was strongly tempted to shout “No, you!” but I pushed away the impulse, along with all the other smartass comments that sprang into my mind.

Instead, I just lowered my obsidian glass and returned the gargoyle’s stare with a respectful nod to show him he had my attention, since I had no idea exactly what I was supposed to say in response.

“Do you wish for your warriors to fight as a team again?” the gargoyle offered in his clanking voice.

I got the impression that my status as a high-ranking newcomer had earned me about five extra seconds of patience with this brassy bastard, so I answered quickly.

“Yes,” I said firmly. Then I decided to risk using the gargoyle’s small display of patience to learn some more about these fights before things were put down in ink. “What are the rules for that, exactly? I’ve heard the third-week fights are higher stakes…”

“That is true.” The gargoyle nodded in a stiff and creaky way.

“In the third week of Remembrance, one-on-one fights are typically to the death. Team fights have a little more flexibility, which increases with how many people are on each team. As a rule, though, outnumbered fights are strictly non-fatal. No exceptions.”

“And what about the, uh, winnings?” I asked. “Any specific rules for those?”

“Sky-high,” the gargoyle said bluntly. “At the very least. And the less blood is involved, the higher the winnings will be– to balance things out, you see.”

“Or the losses,” a low, sardonic voice added from somewhere nearby.

The gargoyle shot a stern look around the group, and his neck creaked as his head swiveled from side to side in search of whoever had made the comment.

Finally he shrugged impatiently and turned back to me.

“Any more questions?” he boomed.

“Yeah.” I hesitated for only a bare moment before I decided to just get to the point. “I brought my warriors here because it was rumored to be the city of legend when it comes to arena fights, and it sure as hell hasn’t disappointed us.”

The gargoyle just listened intently, but the many backers nodded in quick agreement, and several of them smirked smugly to themselves as if this was obvious.

“But now that my warriors have proven themselves in the first two weeks,” I continued, and I could sense that I had absolutely everyone’s attention now. “I want them to face off with the fiercest and most feared of all your fighters, or as close as your rules will allow. This is about more than just gems for me. I came here to enter them in a fight that will leave no doubt that whoever walks out of the
arena victorious is the best of the best. In short, I’m here to enter my warriors in the most legendary fight ever seen in this legendary city.”

Every eye in the room was locked on me, and the hush that fell over the roomful of backers was heavy with tension.

Then every backer abandoned their usual tough-guy personas as they all leaned forward in their seats to see how the hard-eyed gargoyle would respond to my bold claim.

Chapter 12

Almost every backer had gone completely still, but I was sure I sensed a stir of movement from Imiath’s direction across the room.

The guy was over seven feet tall, even minus his massive demon horns, so his movements weren’t exactly hard to miss.

I made sure not to give the horned backer so much as a glance, because if I betrayed the fact that part of my claim was meant to goad him, it could blow my plan to pieces. Instead, I just looked at the lead gargoyle steadily as he gave a rumbling hum like he was mulling my words over.

Then the gargoyle turned his brass head with a slow creak and beckoned to the bookie who sat nearby with a notepad. The gray-skinned bookie’s whisper was quiet and discreet, but the gargoyle’s attempt at such quiet speech sounded like a clumsy person trying to stealthily sort through a cupboard full of pots and pans.

I thought I had done enough of the subtle prodding with my words that would be needed to pique Imiath’s interest in a fight between Artemn and my two warriors. After all, the horned backer had already shown that he had one hell of an ego, even by the standards of the other backers in the room. He clearly had the same
desire to prove he was better than everyone else, but he was also more reckless and volatile, and other than avoiding pissing off the brass gargoyles too much, he didn’t seem to give a shit about the costs. Not to mention the fact that he was fueled by rage and bloodlust.

The lead gargoyle I had just pitched my idea to was a little trickier. He was the one I had to worry about most right now, because I knew that inspiring Imiath’s desire to send his warriors against mine would mean nothing if this brassy bastard didn’t give us the green light.

As far as I had seen, the words Mek had last said to me downstairs seemed to be an accurate judgment of what I had seen and heard from these gargoyles so far: They weren’t just sticklers for the ancient rules of Bayalon’s volcano arena, they were obsessed with them. These rules were pretty much the sole reason for their existence, and the brass beings might even be bound by some ancient magic to uphold the customs. Either way, there was little to no chance they were going to budge on the rules and restrictions.

So at the moment, I was just aiming to remind this stubborn metallic being that he had already admitted my women were officially counted among the highest-level fighters. This had happened back
when he agreed with Master Freyos’ request to send three of the legendary city’s warriors against my own two women without prior warning, instead of just the two I had originally agreed to. And in that fight, my women had once again come out resoundingly victorious as a duo.

In other words, pitting my warriors against Artemn in the third week was not only something that seemed perfectly within the bounds of this gargoyle’s sacred customs. It also had another aspect I was sure would play into the one human-like weakness I had spotted in him: Impatience. Accepting my proposal would immediately free him from the sheer irritation he had shown for haggling with the backers.

A haggling which was sure to increase when it came time to find someone else who was willing to face Artemn the Abandoned.

I hoped that the gargoyle and the bookie he was whispering to were coming to the same conclusion. By the glances I was getting regularly from the bookie, I thought the gray-skinned being sensed that this would likely end up benefiting him, too, but I couldn’t quite gauge the brass gargoyle’s reaction from the soft clanking of his muttered words.

Finally, the lead mediator turned back to me.

“There are several different fights your warriors qualify for,” he boomed. “After their most recent fight, their skill level was lifted from

‘refined’ to ‘formidable.’ The former is our third-highest level, and the latter is our second-highest. However…”

The gargoyle paused and scratched its brassy jaw with a metallic, nails-on-a-chalkboard screeching sound that drew a cringe from every non-gargoyle in the room.

The brass mediator cast a look of displeasure around at everyone before he continued.

“Things are complicated by the fact that your warriors have shown a high level of skill when fighting as a duo,” he went on. “This is unusual. Such adequate teams are generally made up of three or more fighters. Your two warriors’ skill levels are enough to bring them against a team of three upper-mezzo warriors who are in the ‘refined’

category. Upper-mezzo falls several weight classes above your warriors’, which would add more of a challenge.”

I listened closely to this complex tangle of rules and committed them to memory in case I needed to argue my point.

But the gargoyle was far from done.

“‘Refined’ is one skill level below your warriors’,” he went on.

“Which lends a certain balance to things. It falls well within the rules, and the purse is quite high. But… because of the difference in skill level, I cannot accurately say that these warriors are the ‘best’ our city has to offer.”

The gargoyle paused again like he was making sure I wouldn’t change my mind and accept this offer.

I nodded once to show I understood, and the brassy mediator took a moment to gnaw thoughtfully and loudly on his metallic lip before he continued.

“We have a few warriors who are classified as ‘formidable,’” he grunted. “That’s the same skill level as your own warriors. And there are two warriors in Bayalon– owned by separate backers– who are classified as ‘elite,’ which is one level up. It is a skill level reserved for warriors who have gone undefeated time and time again.”

The gargoyle angled his head creakily toward one of the nearby backers as he mentioned these elite warriors. It was a man I didn’t recognize, one of the quiet and standoffish water beings. He had hair that reminded me of the green, Fruit Roll-up-like strips that grew from the heads of the lifesavers who tended to wounded warriors. But instead of hanging loose and unbound, this backer’s
hair was arranged into a tall, swirling hairstyle with a shape that looked like it belonged in a McDonald’s ice cream cone instead of on someone’s head.

This swirly-haired backer had a slightly intimidated look lurking behind the arrogance of his yellow-green eyes, but the expression was tinged with something like excitement, too. His eyes flicked over to me, and he seemed to be slightly considering the possibility of sending his warrior into the arena against mine.

He took long enough to respond that I had plenty of time to remember he was backer to the gray-skinned warrior with the blanket of silver hair. I even had time to wonder how long his own hair could possibly be when it wasn’t wrapped up like that. It had to be at least a hundred feet.

Then the gargoyle gave a clanking sigh of impatience and waved a creaky hand for the backer to continue his thinking.

In the meantime, the brassy being turned to me again to give me more of an explanation.

“Your warriors would outnumber their opponent in this fight,” he acknowledged. “Miephyn the Knitter, she is called. She’s in gossamer for weight, but her skill is classed as ‘elite,’ and it has
been for a long time. She is famously fierce, and has proven herself fighting outnumbered on several occasions–”

“But not as many occasions as Artemn,” Imiath interrupted.

Even when he was talking quietly, his impossibly deep voice penetrated enough to cut through the conversation with ease. Its stony, guttural-yet-sharp quality was automatically menacing, and the effort of raising its pitch seemed to increase his accent slightly.

“Miephyn the Knitter may try her silly needle-swords against another opponent– or sew her backer a new backside, whichever he prefers.”

Another ringing silence fell over the backers, and I realized this guy was actually feared enough to make all of them shut the hell up so that he could speak.

The lead gargoyle seemed to be the only one who didn’t share these fears as he sighed and shifted in his chair to stamp a metallic foot impatiently against the ground below. “Say what you mean, Imiath.”

“What I mean is this…” Imiath’s voice kept the same air of arrogant amusement, but now he abandoned his lazy, reclined posture for the first time. He leaned the upper half of his absurdly tall body forward, braced his elbows against his knees, and fixed his
cold black eyes on my face. “My Artemn will show these newcomers who truly rules the city of legend. You say that Miephyn the Knitter is famously fierce, but is she fierce enough to be called the Abandoned?”

“Warriors’ bynames do not dictate their merit in the arena,” the gargoyle said with irritation, but then he nodded grudgingly, and he looked back at me with a calmer expression. “But Artemn can truthfully be called the fiercest and most feared of our warriors, as you requested. She is the embodiment of our city’s proud and savage history. However…”

The last word had an extra ring of authority in it, and I set my jaw grimly as I prepared for this rule-obsessed gargoyle to dictate exactly how difficult this was going to be.

Imiath waited in silence, too. The way his dark eyes were focused unblinkingly on the lead mediator’s face confirmed that as much as the horned backer might claim to rule this city, the gargoyle’s word was law.

“Artemn has an unparalleled level of experience and success with fighting alone against multiple opponents,” the gargoyle told me with an unyielding note in his clanking voice. “Most often three
opponents, in fact, and sometimes at weight levels several times her own.”

“You allowed her to face those two scrawny little dryads along with Vyrdeh,” Imiath put in with a new and more dangerous tautness in his deep, guttural voice. “Surely–”

“Surely nothing,” the gargoyle interrupted bluntly. “That was the second week, and besides, the nymphs were both in gossamer, Imiath. In combination with Vyrdeh’s lower-mezzo class and their skill level, their fight was within the bounds of our laws. But as I was saying…”

The gargoyle sent Imiath a crushingly stern stare that I was sure would have resulted in the towering backer squashing him like an ant if he hadn’t been made of pure and sacred brass.

Then the mediator unclenched his metallic jaw again with a harsh squeak to continue talking to me like nothing had happened.

“If you schedule your fight for some time in the second half of the week, you may have your warriors remeasured and reclassed on the day of the battle,” he boomed. “Because of the high skill they showed together in the arena, they may fight against Artemn if your
gossamer warrior– the Elsodie, I believe she is called– moves up to fine-boned.”

“Fine-boned,” I repeated with a nod. Then I paused. “And that means she would have to gain…?”

“One scrap,” the gargoyle informed me in a matter-of-fact clank.

“One scrap of…” I frowned as I tried to figure out exactly what the hell he was talking about. “Err… brass? Like the blocks you used to weigh the warriors?”

“Precisely.” The gargoyle nodded and clapped his hands together in a business-like and deafening gesture. “You may have some time to make your decision while the earlier fights are scheduled.”

Then something thunked down into my lap from nearby. It bounced against my thigh, and I caught the cold, hard object half by reflex.

It was one of the brass blocks.

Or scraps.

Or whatever the hell they were called, for whatever damn reason.

I glanced up and saw that one of the other gargoyles who was squeezed into the corner of the room had taken a few steps in my direction. He was holding the same sack I had seen the brass blocks poured out of earlier, when the measurements were taken.

I looked at him questioningly to see if I was just supposed to heft it in my hand or take it with me to use for my own measurements, and he spoke to me in a deep metallic voice.

“You take scrap,” he instructed in a caveman-like grunt. Then a warning note entered his clanking voice as he went on. “But make sure you bring scrap back.”

The “or else” was clearly implied in his tone. I nodded solemnly as I inwardly wondered why the hell the lead gargoyle was so well-spoken in comparison to this one.

Still, I felt hopeful as I wrapped my fingers around the metal block and weighed it testingly in my hand. I was sure this thing was about three or four pounds. Definitely no more than five.

Which was within the realm of possibility for my petite warrior to gain by the second half of the upcoming week.

I waited patiently for the leader of the brass mediators to finish arguing with the spiky-haired Semmo. It was hard not to roll my eyes
as the backer’s nice-guy persona withered in front of my eyes. I wasn’t sure why he thought it was worth getting in a shouting match with the cranky, unyielding gargoyle after seeing the brassy bastard say no to Imiath, who was about twice Semmo’s height, three times as broad, and a hundred times more intimidating.

When they finally finished their argument, the spiky-haired backer’s voice was even raspier from all the shouting, and his gold tooth glinted as he ground his teeth at the gargoyle who was turning away from him with disgust.

I held back a snort of laughter at the way Semmo’s expression turned into a clearly forced smile when he saw my eyes on him.

Then the gargoyle switched his attention back to me.

“You,” he boomed. “John. Have you made your decision?”

Every eye in the room was locked on me again.

“Yeah.” I nodded with calm decisiveness. “My warriors will face Artemn the Abandoned.”

I kept my words simple and direct, and then I waited for him to offer me a date before I said anything else. I was determined not to have a haggling showdown with this gargoyle unless it proved absolutely necessary.

“Which day of the week do you prefer?” the gargoyle boomed.

“Third, fourth, or fifth?”

I was surprised that he offered me this level of flexibility, and I was even more surprised that Imiath wasn’t bulldozing his way into the conversation to dictate which day the fight would be.

I tried not to smirk at this.

The guy was intimidating as hell, but he was clearly so eager for me to agree to this fight that he’d take any day I chose.

But I also had no idea if the same concept of seven-day weeks existed in the desert world, or if the days even had names like the ones that existed on Earth. I thought about how my warrior women had told me the odd-sounding words they used for what I would’ve called “northwest” or “northeast,” and I realized something similar might apply to different days of the week here.

“Uhh…” I hesitated and then scratched my head and tried to look absent-minded, like I’d just forgotten where exactly we were at in the week. “Which day is today, again?”

The bookie stepped forward to answer. “Today is the first day of the week, sir. The fifth day of this week is the final day of

Remembrance. It is the most anticipated day of fighting, and the audience will likely be larger.”

I nodded and then took advantage of the silence to think this through fully for a few moments before I committed myself. One thing I knew from all my trips to the desert world was that time itself passed in the same way. When I crossed through the portal, the sun was always in the same place in the sky it had been before I passed through, and the date was always the one I expected when I came back to Earth.

In terms of the days’ names I used back home, today was Sunday. If that was the first day of the week here, then the three options I’d just been offered for my warriors to fight on were the days I knew as Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Scheduling the fight for Thursday would give my petite warrior the most time possible to gain weight.

And the more people who were there to witness and bet on my two women, the better.

“The fifth day of the week,” I finally said with certainty.

“Imiath?” the gargoyle grunted.

“The fifth day,” the horned backer agreed in his guttural voice.

His tone was almost civil, but his black eyes were filled with bloodthirsty promise as he bared his teeth in a savage smile.

“Done,” the gargoyle boomed, and he turned his head toward the bookie with a metallic squeak.

“Do you have a time in mind?” the bookie asked me politely with his pen raised over his notepad. “I would suggest scheduling it to be the final fight of the evening, when the crowd is most, err, invigorated.”

From my past experiences in the desert cities, I knew by now that this was a pretty sound tactic for getting people to invest the most in my warriors’ fight.

“The final fight of the evening,” I confirmed.

“Very well,” the gargoyle said in the most agreeable tone I’d heard his clanking voice use. Then he sent another look between me and Imiath. “Since this is the final fight on the final night of Remembrance, the victorious warriors and their backer must go down to the sanctum for at least an hour after the fight is over. If you have any objections to this, you must schedule your warriors’ battle for a different time.”

I paused and looked back at his stern face for a second.

“Uhh…” I hesitated. “This isn’t necessarily an objection, but what exactly will we do in the sanctum?”

“Thank the gods, of course,” the gargoyle clanked in reply.

The bookie stepped in again. “Just some quiet prayer, you know, thanking the gods for the victory.”

“Right,” I said, and I mulled this over for a second before I nodded. “No objections here.”

I had no idea who the hell these gods were, but I didn’t see any harm in hanging out in this sanctum with my two stunning, victorious warriors after the battle was over.

In fact, this could work perfectly to my advantage.

Imiath signaled his agreement with a nod, and the bookie scribbled it down.

I was careful to keep myself from returning the horned backer’s stare for longer than it took to give him a respectful nod. I kept my face blank, smooth, and free of any indication that a possible plan was already racing through my mind.

I didn’t think he wanted to murder me at the moment, considering he hadn’t yet accomplished his goal of proving to the
whole city that his warrior was superior to my two. But then again, this guy seemed to go off on anyone who wasn’t made of sacred brass at the drop of a pin. I didn’t want to piss him off.

Well, not yet.

After our fight was done, and he had failed in his goal, I was sure this prong-horned motherfucker would come for me the second we were outside the arena.

But what if I lured him into a duel before then?

I knew already that dueling inside the volcano arena during Remembrance went against the sacred laws of the city. I had no idea whether these rules technically applied to the sanctum. Odds were that they did.

But if I pissed Imiath off enough to lure him into following me down there thinking I was easy prey, I could be ready to put a few bullets right between those ugly horns. My gun was quiet enough with its suppressor for no one else to have a clue what had happened.

At least, not until someone realized that my hour was up, and they went looking for me. Maybe I could even hide Imiath’s overly large body somewhere in the temple. Either way, I would walk out of

Bayalon with Artemn added to the group of warrior women at my side.

It wasn’t a plan yet. It was just the beginning of one, a possibility. I needed to learn a lot more about the layout of this sanctum place first to know if there was a chance of it working.

But it was a start.

For the moment, though, I accepted another drink from Dummon while I watched the rest of the haggling play out between the gargoyles and the backers. Some of the tension seemed to have drained out of the room now that Artemn, Indy, and Ellie were out of the realm of possibility for these backers to worry about their warriors facing off with, but things still got a little heated at times.

I sipped my drink slowly and tried not to laugh as the gargoyle reeled toward Mek and pointed his brassy finger.

“You,” he boomed.

“Me,” the silver-haired backer admitted with a deep sigh, and he shifted forward in his chair with an air of wanting to get this over with.

The flurry of back-and-forth that ensued was pretty tame compared to a lot of the shit I had just witnessed in this upstairs
room, and I found myself slightly curious about Mek’s clear lack of enthusiasm for the whole vying-for-dominance dynamic that went on between the backers.

When everything was done, I felt a little like I was in a dream.

This was partly because I had scored an upcoming fight between my warriors and Artemn, but once I got to my feet, I realized it might’ve also had a little to do with the few spicy-sweet drinks I had downed.

Not to mention the fact that both my ass and mind were half-numb from sitting through all the haggling.

Imiath’s hard black eyes were still full of arrogant amusement as they flickered over to me. Then he turned to lead the way down the stairs, and he crouched to avoid hitting his horns on the top of the tunnel.

The other backers waited a few moments to give him space before they moved to follow, and they all gave me wide-eyed looks that told me they respected my audacity.

Even if they did think it was batshit insane of me to risk Imiath’s wrath.

“Very bold,” Mek murmured from over my shoulder on the descent back to the cavern. He was silent for a moment before he
went on in a voice that dropped down to something even lower than a whisper. “Best plan your route out of the city ahead of time. Unless you plan on actually going into the sanctum?”

At the bottom of the stairs, I stepped to the side, and the silver-haired backer followed my motion.

“I’m considering it,” I said in a quiet, casual voice, and then I gave him a shrewd look. “I mean, the gargoyle did say it’s required.”

“True enough,” Mek said with a shrug. “But then again, if you don’t plan on making a return trip, it likely wouldn’t have any consequences for you to simply…”

He trailed off, and I nodded to show that I got the general idea.

It was similar to my line of reasoning about dueling Imiath in a forbidden place, just a different course of action.

“You know,” I said in a careful voice. “I’m actually interested in learning a little more about the, uh, sanctum. And the volcano gods.”

The silver-haired backer looked like I had just told him I was interested in swallowing my own eyeballs, but then he seemed to decide that was my business, not his.

“You’ll want to talk to Gyrard,” he advised. He turned around and scanned over the sea of backers, and then pointed at a ginger-
haired man with a pale, grim face. “You’ll probably also want another drink or two to get you through it.”

“Good to know.” I smirked and clapped him on the shoulder. I was a bit surprised by this rare sign of something that seemed genuinely well-meaning from any of these backers. “Thanks.”

It wasn’t enough for me to let my guard down and spill my plans or anything, but it was surprisingly refreshing to encounter anything other than what I had experienced with the other backers here, which mostly ranged from strategic attempts at chumminess, thinly veiled hostility, and outright hostility.

The tiled shape of the gorsican eyes seemed to stare down at me again as I entered the main cavern, but soon there was more than enough to distract me from the sight.

Another round of drinks was served, and the backers quickly escalated to a state of rowdiness that made me realize most of them must’ve already had a good buzz going.

Which sort of explained why Semmo had escalated to top volume arguing with the gargoyle.

I decided to wait a bit to approach the grim-faced Gyrard until I had a discreet opening, and I sipped my drink slowly while I watched
the argument unfold.

Then, as if on cue, the spiky-haired backer swayed up to me and clapped a hand on my shoulder.

“The guest of honor,” he greeted me with a jovial laugh. The gust of air that blasted out of his lungs solidified my notion that this dude reeked of someone who couldn’t handle their liquor.

But I just chuckled along with him and was inwardly thankful that he was about as plastered as he was self-obsessed. That meant I didn’t even have to do that much work acting like this guy wasn’t an utter slimeball.

Privately, I was also wondering when the hell I would be able to tell my warriors that I had just secured them a fight against Artemn, but I decided to bide my time. I watched the interplay between the fiery volcano beings and the water beings of the oasis partly out of interest, and partly just for entertainment.

The way everyone bounced around to converse with different groups made me feel like I was at a damn ballroom dance where everyone was constantly changing partners, but I enjoyed the fact that it kept things from getting dull. If I got bored with a conversation, I could just hit shuffle and move on to the next cluster of people.

Soon, one of these shuffles took me into the same group as the man named Gyrard that Mek had told me about.

The grim-faced backer swept a few strands of long ginger hair away from his forehead, and he almost dislodged his entire head of hair in the process.

Was this motherfucker really wearing a toupee?

I politely ignored the desperate shuffling he did with his hands to put the hairpiece back into place while I exchanged some words with the other backers. Semmo was in the group, and he spent most of the time blustering on about nothing while he shot Gyrard looks of deep dislike.

After Gyrard had recovered himself, he started listening to the conversation I was having with such intensity that he might as well have been looking at me under a magnifying glass.

I ignored him for the moment, partly because it took all my focus to understand what the hell Semmo was even saying to me.

“I reckon your warriors–” The spiky-haired backer’s slurred words cut off as a huge belch burst through his lips, and then he went on. “They’ve got a good chance against the Abandoned. All that shiny metal…”

The surrounding backers all seemed to perk up at the mention of my superior weapons, but I made a point of not commenting on the subject.

I could practically smell their greedy intrigue, and it was stifling.

“Chance does not exist,” Gyrard declared in a tone that made it clear he was about to commandeer this conversation.

But that was exactly what I wanted.

So I ignored Semmo’s outraged look at being interrupted and gave Gyrard my courteous attention while he went on.

“All our doings are dictated by the will of the gods,” the ginger-haired backer said in a sage-like voice. Then he gave me a pretentious little nod. “Quite wise of you to accept the opportunity to visit our sanctum.”

I could think of about a hundred replies to this comment that ranged from snarky to deeply insulting, but I pushed them away and kept my mask of politeness in place.

“I’m honored to have the opportunity,” I said in a grave voice.

“The sanctum sounds like a cool place.”

“Cool?” Gyrard scoffed. “It’s quite hot, I assure you. Except for the sacred pool, of course.”

“Of course.” I paused to take a deep and necessary gulp of my drink. “You know, I actually forgot to ask the gargoyles how to get into the sanctum.”

“Oho,” the ginger-haired backer’s usual gloomy face brightened, and he rummaged in his pockets. “Have a look at this, then.”

He pulled something out of one of the pockets in his thick yellow robe. It looked like the same yellow-brown paper I had seen a few other times in Bayalon, but it was folded into an elaborate shape that made me think it was some piece of origami at first.

Then Gyrard unfolded it, and I realized it was a brochure.

I stared at the paper thinking it was the last thing I would’ve expected to find here. Between the yellow-brown paper and the spidery handwritten words, it looked sort of medieval. But other than that, it was just like a pamphlet I might’ve picked up back on Earth if I were a tourist at the damn Roman Colosseum.

I accepted the brochure, or pamphlet, or whatever the hell it was, with a murmured thanks, and I ignored Gyrard’s eyes on me while I unfolded it.

On the biggest portion of the folded paper, there was a map of the whole oasis, and it had different places marked on it that I thought were religious sites. Each one had a page number listed on it. On other folded pieces of the brochure, there were page numbers.

Each page had a wall of handwriting crammed above and below a map of the site.

I felt a thrill when I saw that one of those sites was the Caldera volcano arena, along with the sanctum, which was…

“Is this below the arena?” I asked as I tapped the sanctum that was marked on the map.

“Yes, indeed,” Gyrard supplied, and he looked delighted at my interest in the subject. “You know, most people these days don’t care to learn about it. It’s the fighting they’re focused on, but there are several features of the sanctum that are staggering for how old it is.

No renovations at all. Simply dazzling. Quite advanced for its time.”

“Oh?” I prompted in a tone that clearly implied I cared to learn all about these features.

As Gyrard burst into speech, a part of me was thinking that Mek had been absolutely right about this being a total snoozefest, but when I kept the rewards in mind, it was easy to hang on this
ginger-haired bastard’s every word like I deeply cared about all these historical relics.

“Can I keep this?” I finally asked, and I pointed at the brochure I still held in my hand.

“Certainly.” Gyrard looked like I had just made his day, or maybe even his year, and he went into another rant about the fantastic details of the sanctum.

I listened closely, but when he was deep into a tangent about the difference between words like “lava” and “magma,” he seemed unlikely to accept a different direction of the conversation. I decided I had learned enough, and I started looking for ways to extract myself from this conversation.

But then a distraction arrived.

“You!” a voice boomed from behind me.

It had no clanging sound to it and didn’t sound quite as deep as the voice of the gargoyle, but it was a pretty good impression. I turned around, and the sight of Mek stabbing a finger at me in a near-perfect imitation of the brass gargoyle’s pointing was enough to get a genuine chuckle out of me.

The silver-haired backer had clearly gone through a few more drinks, but he didn’t seem that much worse for the wear compared to the others. I took the excuse to duck out of the conversation with Gyrard, who didn’t even seem to notice me leaving, and I approached where Mek was standing on his own. He looked like he had just managed to get out of another agonizing conversation with the other backers.

“No, you,” I argued in my best attempt at Semmo’s raspy, slurring voice.

“Nooo,” he protested in a shrill squawk that sounded incredibly similar to the skinny backer named Yovu. Then he puffed out his chest while he balled up his fists in mock fury. “You!”

The sight almost made me spit out my drink, and so did the swiftness of Mek’s reaction when the nearby Yovu’s head swiveled in his direction.

The silver-bearded backer’s chest immediately deflated to normal size, and an expression of almost too-convincing innocence took over his face. I had another strong feeling that this guy would get along extremely well with Nick if they ever crossed paths in some alternate universe.

“There’s only one way to get through this night,” Mek declared, and then he drained his obsidian glass again to demonstrate.

“Agreed,” I muttered. I glanced around at the crowd of sloppy-drunk backers and flicked a hand to gesture at the room as a whole.

“Well, unless you’re a complete and utter–”

We were interrupted by the sound of shattering glass. On the other side of the cavern, people scattered away from a scene that soon proved to be more than just a carelessly dropped drink.

Imiath slammed one of the water being backers up against the cavern wall. The thud was audible, and it ended in a crunch that left me surprised the guy on the receiving end was still conscious. His eyes were wide and terrified as Imiath bent to get right in his face, or as much as the towering backer’s giant horns allowed.

I studied the hulking bastard from the side as he pulled back and sent a fist slamming into the wall, hardly an inch away from the shorter backer’s head. A crack immediately split through the stone there.

I turned away and shook my head at how berserk this bastard was. “He has to be the only one who’s not drunk.”

“Just insane,” Mek breathed over the rim of his obsidian cup, and he looked down to closely examine the details of its stonework when Imiath’s dark gaze swept over the room, like he was daring anyone to challenge his actions.

Then the horned backer stomped off into one of the tunnels, and Mek glanced at me again with his eyebrows raised.

“But then again, you were insane enough to challenge him,” he pointed out.

“You don’t think my warriors are capable of taking on the Abandoned?” I joked with a smirk.

“It’s not that.” Mek shrugged, and his eyes wandered over to the crack in the stone where Imiath had punched it. “I’m just not sure if your skull is capable of withstanding that monster’s fist crashing into it. Unless there’s some sort of magical armor built in there, like with your warriors’ leather.”

I just tapped my temple in response. “It was like this when I found it.”

Mek’s explosive snort of laughter seemed genuine, but as soon as he turned away, I shook my head silently at my own comment. Maybe these spicy-sweet drinks were getting to me a little.

The backers’ volume was slowly swelling again now that Imiath showed no signs of returning, but they quieted down again when Krasur waved a hand and raised his own voice to be heard.

“Backers,” he called in a tone that was slightly slurred, but still impressively steady for the amount of drinks I had seen him throw back from across the room. “If you’d like to convene with your warriors and tell them what fights they’re scheduled for, Dummon will show you to the–”

Krasur cut off when an enormous hiccup burst from his lips, and he just waved a hand at the servant who now waited at the mouth of a nearby tunnel. My impressed feeling faded slightly, but a thrill shot through me at the prospect of seeing Indy and Ellie again, and I nodded briefly at Mek before I made a beeline for the flaxen-haired servant.

I dogged Dummon’s heels so closely in the tunnel that he seemed to get nervous, and he picked up the pace to take one of the interconnecting tunnels that branched off from the one we were striding down.

When we entered the drawing room and my eyes found Indy and Ellie, I breathed a small sigh of relief I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

I allowed a brief grin to flash across my lips at the feeling of warmth I got at the simple sight of my two warriors. I had only been apart from them for a few hours, but being rejoined with my women still gave me a buzz that the spicy-sweet drinks couldn’t rival, even if it was just for a few moments.

Some of the other warriors separated into ones, twos, and threes to come to their backers as the men trickled into the room.

Others looked around with a slightly forlorn expression.

Artemn was nowhere to be found, and I guessed that Imiath had dragged her home with him when he had left in a rage.

When I asked my two warriors about it, they nodded solemnly.

“His fury was terrible to behold,” Ellie whispered, and she shivered in a way that immediately tempted me to pull her petite body into a hug. “A tall, looming, cruel man.”

“Tall as a cliff,” Indy agreed in a voice of extreme dislike. “And vicious as a viper. He hurt Artemn.”

“Just now?” I asked in a low voice, and I thought of the bruise I had seen on Artemn’s jaw back in the cavern. “Or earlier, before they got here?”

“Both,” Ellie replied. “But… she was still able to walk when she left.”

The note of optimism in this statement was another reminder of the appalling norms of the desert world, and I sighed as I shook my head.

Indy nodded in agreement, but she had an uneasy look on her golden face. “He likes to hurt her very much, I think. She did not say so, she hardly said anything at all, although we learned some small things. But I could tell.”

We had to cut off this bit of our conversation when some of the other backers arrived, and more people came within earshot.

But I was still able to give my warrior women the good news, and I was rewarded at how quickly the unease was chased off their faces by excitement and awe.

“It won’t be to the death,” I assured them after. “The outnumbered fights never are, according to the gargoyles. But–”

“That is what the other warriors said,” Ellie admitted. Then she hugged herself slightly with a giddy look in her blue eyes. “I am glad we will not have to slay her.”

“Very, very glad,” Indy said with a vigorous nod that made her ponytail fly in every direction.

“That would sort of throw a wrench in our plans,” I joked with a small, wry chuckle. Then I pulled out the brass block I had wedged into my pocket. “Have a look at this.”

A furrow of confusion appeared in the pearly skin of Ellie’s forehead as she accepted the block from me.

She weighed it in her delicate hands before she gave me a questioning look. “What is this, John?”

“I was going to tell you,” I said. “The gargoyles had one condition. In order for you two to face Artemn, you’ll have to gain this much weight.”

“Let me see, Ellie.” Indy darted a hand over to snatch the block out of the dainty warrior’s grasp and then looked at it closely as she turned it over in her long-fingered hands. Her golden eyes looked bright and confident when she lifted them and handed the block back. “Ellie can gain this much weight easily, John. You will hold her down, and I will hand-feed her with tasty morsels to plump her up.

Forcibly, if I must.”

I suppressed a laugh with great effort and looked between my two warriors. I noticed the other backers were already leaving with a speed that didn’t even allow their warriors time to process the information before they were left alone again, but I lingered for a few moments to let our discussion play out.

“I do not like this idea,” Ellie objected, and her frown deepened. “Being plump would make me slow.”

“We won’t make you plump,” I reassured her with a chuckle.

Then I lowered my voice more and broached an idea that had been growing in my mind already. “At home, there are people I can pay to manage your diet and fitness. We can help you gain weight fast without slowing you down. How does that sound?”

“I would be honored,” Ellie said with an awed look. “It is strange to think you have so many people who serve you. You command a great deal of power, John.”

I snorted. “A great deal of cash, maybe. But I guess that’s pretty damn cool, now that I think about it.”

“We will earn you more riches, John,” Indy declared, and she handed the block back to Ellie. Then she rubbed her hands together with excitement. “I vow it.”

“I vow it, too,” Ellie added, and she weighed the brass block in her hands again. “I will gain sufficient weight to enter the arena against the Abandoned.”

“That’s my girl,” I murmured. Then I glanced around at the room that was now empty of backers, and I sighed. “Guess I’d better get going.”

“The other backers count you as one of their own,” my blue-haired warrior whispered with a nod. “But they are unnerved by you, too. I saw it in their eyes.”

“As they should be,” Indy interjected in a soft purr.

I paused to take one last look at my princess’ flaring eyes, and at Ellie’s sapphire-blue gaze, and I sighed again.

“Stay safe,” I reminded them in a quiet, firm voice. Then I got to my feet and glanced over at the other warriors. “Where will you all sleep?”

“There are guest chambers for us to sleep in,” Ellie explained.

“Dummon says they are small, but have soft beds.”

“Better than crunchy, I suppose,” I muttered.

I resisted the urge to bend and kiss my two warriors, and I headed back to the zigzagging tunnel to rejoin the other backers in
the main cavern.

The festivities lasted long enough for me to consume another few spicy-sweet drinks, although I made sure I paced myself while I watched the other backers down enough drinks to flood the whole damn place.

By the end, multiple backers had passed out in various positions. Yovu was sitting slumped against the wall with his frog-like neck bulging and deflating with each snore. Mek was behind the bar, where I assumed he had gone to take shelter from the annoyance of socializing, and then fallen asleep.

I saw Krasur with his knees bent and his forehead pressed against the stone wall of the cavern, and at first I thought he had passed out standing up in this odd position, but then he straightened up and stepped away from the wall with a growl of displeasure.

He caught sight of me and stomped over.

“That madman cracked my wall with his oversized fist,” he complained in a slurred voice, and he staggered sideways slightly as he gestured back at the crack in the wall that he’d been pressing his face against. “I can feel the draft.”

I raised my eyebrows, but I decided not to question why exactly he had needed to use his forehead to discover this.

The thought did lead me to glance at the two shiny, scarred patches on Krasur’s forehead again, though, and I noticed they were in the same places where Imiath’s horns sprouted from.

Despite his drunken state, the burly backer seemed to notice my brief gaze.

“I’m a demon,” he said bluntly, and some of the slur vanished from his voice. “Lithids, some call us. If they’re playing nice, anyway.

The old tales call us lithic demons. But whatever name people call us by, they don’t do much else to hide their dislike.”

He paused, and I saw a muscle jump in his jaw.

I was feeling pretty generous between the spicy-sweet drinks swimming through my veins and the accomplishment of scheduling my warriors’ fight with Artemn, and I could tell this burly bastard had something he wanted to get off his chest, so I just nodded to show him I was willing to listen to his rant.

“My horns were cut off when I was a kid,” he grunted, and he rubbed one of the shiny, scarred patches with an absent expression.

“That’s why I’m so small.”

My eyebrows shot up.

Krasur chortled at my expression and amended himself. “Well, small compared to others of my kind, anyway. Like Imiath.”

Several things clicked into place in my head.

“I see the similarities,” I admitted. But then an expression that looked genuinely sad crossed the burly backer’s face, and to my surprise, I actually felt for him. So I raised my voice to a more optimistic tone when I went on. “But I see plenty of differences, too.

Other than the, er, horns, I mean, and the height.”

“You’re not from here,” Krasur said with an attempt at a smile that turned out as more of a grimace. “So you wouldn’t quite understand… but my ancestors were involved in the eruptions that nearly destroyed this oasis. My forefathers came from deep underground, and they brought only chaos and destruction with them.”

“Sure,” I said in a reasonable tone, even though this was a hell of a lot to process all at once. “But wasn’t that all hundreds of years ago?”

“Our city has a long memory,” he sighed. “‘The city of legend’

is a fitting name for more than one reason. Legends are never
forgotten here– the good or the bad. And the fact that my kind helped to rebuild the city doesn’t seem to count for much. That’s why so many of the buildings look the way they do. They were shaped out of the lava with the magic my ancestors had.”

I thought of the bubble-like stone buildings I had seen in the Old Town, and how they seemed to rise out of the dried volcanic stone below, and I nodded. “That should definitely count for something.”

“Thanks,” he grunted. Then a look of grim reflection crossed his face, and he sighed. “Never will, though. Especially with someone like Imiath around.”

I thought it might be some consolation to Krasur that Imiath wouldn’t be around for too much longer, but that wasn’t exactly something I could take chances sharing, so I just nodded with a slight sympathy that I actually felt.

Ever since I’d first met him, Krasur had seemed just as sneaky, underhanded, and double-crossing as the other backers, and he wasn’t someone I would trust under any circumstances, but I still didn’t think he quite deserved to be associated with someone like Imiath.

“Bold of you to pit your women against Artemn,” the burly backer added in a low voice. “Not that they aren’t astounding warriors. I’ve never seen anything quite like them, to be honest. And those weapons of theirs…”

Krasur trailed off and let out a low whistle, and then he watched me in a way that made me realize he was hoping I’d spill my secret to him. I already knew good metal was coveted in the desert cities, but after seeing Imiath’s blade earlier that night, I now realized that there was some extra tension around the matter in this place. As far as I knew, the horned backer’s wavy, sharp-edged blade was something that no one else here possessed.

But providing anyone here with good quality metal wasn’t something I was ready to even consider at the moment. Not with the amount of two-faced snobbery I’d witnessed from most of them tonight, so I just moved on to the curiosity that was growing in my mind around the horned backer’s weapon.

“That blade of Imiath’s seems really unique,” I commented. “I haven’t really seen anything like it here. All the other weapons I’ve seen have been made of that black metal.”

“Uclum,” Krasur supplied. “That’s the black metal, I mean.

Imiath’s blade is something rarer. Sciotine, it’s called. Before the
great war, every family of lithic demons had a sciotine blade, or several. No other beings could go down so far underground, you see, to mine the metal, and to forge it. Well… no beings with hands, anyway.”

The burly backer paused and shuddered for a moment at the thought of whatever creatures he was referring to, but then he picked back up on the story again.

“Then the war ended,” he explained. “And part of the peace pact was for the lithics to return their swords to the ground, down in the hottest parts of the land below. Somewhere that they could never be retrieved from.”

“Then how does Imiath have one, exactly?” I asked with a frown.

Krasur shrugged and shook his head. “Either his ancestors managed to hold onto it without anyone finding out, or he was mad enough to go down and get one. Wouldn’t put it past him.”

“The blades didn’t, er… melt?” I asked. “When your ancestors cast them down there, I mean? I got the impression there was magma involved, or something.”

“Oh, they melted,” Krasur said in a dark voice. “But some people say there are still lithics down in the bowels of the land… but the centuries spent down there have changed them, if you believe the tales. Generations born and died without seeing the sun. Just the hot red smolder of magma…”

He trailed off, and there was an almost dreamy look in his eyes.

But then he seemed to snap out of it, and he went on with his tale in his usual gruff, blunt manner.

“Anyway,” he said. “There’s talk that Imiath risked going down there and was granted a sword, or had one forged. Who knows what lengths he went to for that to happen… and for him to make it out alive?”

“Who knows, indeed,” I muttered under my breath. The more I learned about this Imiath bastard, the more I couldn’t wait to free the desert world from his presence. “So, is he, uh… invulnerable, or something?”

I figured this wasn’t an odd question to ask considering the information Krasur had just shared with me, and the burly backer seemed to agree.

“I think Imiath’s just as mortal as the rest of us,” he shared in a confidential voice. “I saw him bleed once, at least. He got punched in the nose.”

I shot him a quizzical look. “Who was even tall enough to reach his nose in the first place?”

“Elf dropped out of a tree and clouted him on the head,” Krasur said with quiet glee, and he cackled like this was one of his favorite memories. Then his expression soured slightly, and he shrugged.

“Granted, the elf was skewered on his horns right after. Must’ve had a death wish. But the punch actually seemed to cause Imiath pain, if you’ll believe it.”

“I can only imagine,” I said.

There was a brief silence, and Krasur’s eyes glazed over slightly like he was reliving the scene.

“I’m rambling,” he finally grunted as he seemed to come to his senses again. “Anyway, it’s late. I’ll show you where the guest rooms are.”

I followed the zigzag of another tunnel after him, but I gave the burly backer a generous amount of space as he still showed some signs of drunken staggering.

Soon the tunnel widened and revealed another flight of stairs that led upward into a dim, candlelit region.

Krasur reeled to a stop at the bottom of the staircase and turned around.

“Stairs probably aren’t a good idea for me at the moment,” he decided, and he waved a hand vaguely at the staircase. “Guest rooms are on the left in the hallway just upstairs. I think a few of the guys have headed up there to pass out already, so… best to knock and have a look inside before you take your pick of the rooms.”

“Right,” I said as I wondered how many of the backers had even made it upstairs before they passed out. Then I clapped the burly man on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

I walked up the stairs alone and knocked cautiously on the first door that appeared on the left. There was no response, so I slowly pushed open the heavy, dark wooden door.

After just a few inches, the door thunked into something solid, and there was a grumbling groan from inside.

I glanced down and saw a pool of vomit trickling from under the door.

“Not this room, then,” I muttered under my breath, and I pulled the door shut with a click.

I checked the rooms one by one as I went down the hallway.

There were candles burning in all of them, and they all had the same rounded ceilings. There was a big four-poster bed in each one, and a fancy stone nightstand with swirling flames carved into it. A few had other items of furniture that were made of the same dark, shiny wood as the doors.

I ended up choosing the last room on the left. This was partly because I figured the drunken backers would be looking for the closest place to pass out if they made it upstairs, so they were less likely to come stumbling into my room.

The other reason for my choice was that there was a solid-looking wooden chair that I might be able to wedge under the door handle before I went to sleep.

I wasn’t taking any risks in a world like this.

I walked inside and closed the heavy wooden door behind me.

There was a little post on the wall where a glass-paned lantern hung to light the room. The bright candles flickering inside it cast a warm glow around them.

I crossed over to grab the lantern and carried it around by its handle while I slowly circled the dark corners of the room, and then dropped down to look under the bed.

When I was satisfied that there were no drunken backers snoozing somewhere in the room, I yawned and stripped off my shirt.

Then I remembered my plan with the chair. I seized it by its wooden backrest and heaved it over to the door. Then I tilted it back and wedged it under the door handle. It wouldn’t be enough to stop someone from coming into the room, but it would slow them down, and it would make enough noise to rouse me.

I was just looking for a good place to hide my gun when there was a deep, low creak from the direction of the door, and the chair scraped slowly inward as the door was forced open.

Was one of these sneaky bastards actually creeping into my room?

Chapter 13

I swiftly drew my gun and readied myself for whoever, or whatever, was about to come through the door. As I did, I resolved not to be too trigger-happy in this situation. I had no idea exactly who this was yet, and I didn’t know what the consequences of me wounding or killing a fellow backer at this sacred Reprieve might be, even if it was in self-defense.

The heavy wooden door of the guest room only opened about five or six inches before it scraped to a stop. I thought this was because the front legs of the chair had gotten caught on one of the uneven dips in the wooden planks of the floor. The chair probably would’ve fallen if the intruder gave a good hard push, but they abandoned trying to open the door any wider.

Instead, they just slipped into my room in total silence. If I hadn’t put the chair in front of the door, I might not have even been alerted to their presence.

My first thought was that the only one of the backers who was small enough to fit through such a small gap was Yovu, who I was pretty sure I could take on even without a weapon, and with one hand tied behind my back. Especially considering that fucker was
most likely in no fit state to do any sort of fighting. The skinny, frog-like backer had been passed out on the cavern floor downstairs last time I saw him.

As the intruder silently advanced toward me, I could see the shadowy outline of their form more clearly.

Nope, this definitely wasn’t Yovu.

The candlelight washed over the intruder’s face, and I realized it was someone who I was even more surprised to find sneaking into my room here at Krasur’s estate. I lowered my gun and stared in disbelief.

“Ellie?” I whispered with a mixture of shock and amusement.

Then I looked at her with slight concern. “Did something happen?”

My dainty warrior stepped shyly forward, and the candlelight bathed her pale, heart-shaped face in a gentle glow as she shook her head. “I… I wanted to come see you.”

“We wanted to come see you,” a familiar voice corrected in a tone that was part whisper and part hiss.

Then I heard a shuffling clink, and I glanced over to see another shadowy person squeezing through the tiny gap in the doorway. The candle’s glow winked faintly off the scale-mail bralette
this second intruder wore as it scraped against the wood. When Indy finally made it into the room, her red-gold eyes flared in the candlelight as she shot an accusing look at Ellie.

“You are so tiny, like a little Earth monkey,” she almost scolded.

“I could hardly fit through the gap.”

Then Indy looked down and plucked gently at the gold scale-mail bralette that showed through the long, low neckline of her dress, like she was checking that all the scales were still intact.

After that, her long fingers traveled up to slip the dress’ straps from her shoulders without hesitation. It caught on the swell of her hips, but she brushed it off so it slid to the floor.

“Indy,” I growled softly. “I’m pretty sure this breaks some sort of rule–”

“Punish me, John,” my princess urged, and she darted past Ellie to place her half-naked golden body directly in my hands. “Take me firmly.”

I stared silently at her for a long moment and then looked at Ellie. The doll-faced warrior had a hungry, hopeful look in her sapphire-blue eyes as she watched us.

I shook my head with amazement and mulled this situation over for a moment. Then I shrugged and pulled myself out of the princess’ long, grasping fingers so I could stride over to the door.

It gave another muted creak when I pushed it shut, and I turned around just as the gilded scale-mail of my princess’ bralette clinked together in her effort to yank the skimpy garment off.

Her ample breasts bounced temptingly as they spilled free.

The sight was almost enough to make me forget everything else in the world, but the clinking sound made an extra measure for safety occur to me that would help us avoid any less-welcome intruders.

So I crossed the room in two big strides to snatch the bralette from her grasp.

Indy watched me with her mouth slightly open, and a frown of outrage appeared on her face when she saw that I was moving away from her again.

But once I had wedged the chair back into place and then draped the scale-mail bralette carefully over the door handle, my princess’ flaring eyes calmed slightly, and she nodded with a knowing expression.

“A wise notion,” she whispered as I came back to her. “We will hear any of the nosy backers if they come snooping.”

I gave my head a little shake to make sure I wasn’t dreaming as I watched Indy’s fingers trail up the bare, golden skin of her abdomen in a tantalizing caress. Then her long fingers traveled up to her breasts and traced around her dark nipples in a way that already had me rock hard.

“I will be first this time,” my princess announced, and she pounced on me like a wildcat in a way that left me no choice but to drop her or catch her.

I caught her, and then I immediately slipped my hands around to cup her bare ass in my hands. Her ripe breasts skimmed against my chest, and I found that I was already aching to push my cock into the eager princess.

I clutched her hard against me when our lips met. She moaned hungrily against my lips, and the high, breathy tone of her voice almost made me lose any fucks I had left to give about someone hearing us.

But not quite.

“Hush,” I growled sternly against her lush, love-starved lips. I removed one hand from her ass long enough to land a light smack against it while she wrapped her legs around me.

“Take me, John,” she hissed again. “Firmly. Quickly. Deeply.”

“I’m wearing pants, princess,” I pointed out in a low, patient voice.

Indy huffed at this foolishness, but she loosened the grip of her legs and then allowed me to set her on the ground.

After that, she knelt and took my pants off with a swift ferocity that made me impressed with both her skill and with how sturdy the buttons and zipper of the rush-ordered suit turned out to be.

Then the thought was swept from my mind as Indy moved forward to press the full arch of her lips lightly against my rigid, aching cock.

The princess wrapped her lips around my length, and I allowed her to tantalize me with her wet, hungry mouth for a few moments. It felt amazing, but suddenly I couldn’t wait any longer: I needed to fuck her hard and hear her moan with ecstasy.

I reached down to grasp her by her upper arms and then pulled her firmly into a standing position.

“Naughty girl,” I whispered roughly against her ear. Then I smirked and switched to a lighter, teasing tone. “What will my esteemed fellow backers think if they hear your moans?”

“I am very naughty,” my princess allowed in a sultry purr.

“Surely you cannot allow this insolence to go unpunished, J-Joh–”

Her voice trailed off into a breathless gasp as I spun her by the hips and clutched her unresisting form against me. She tilted her head back so it rested against my shoulder. Then she stood on her tiptoes to accommodate me while I bent my knees slightly.

I pushed my hips forward until my cock nudged against the inside of her toned thigh, and she gasped again and arched her back impatiently in an attempt to speed things up.

“I don’t think so,” I growled softly against the side of her neck.

“Naughtiness can’t go unpunished. You’ll wait until I’m good and ready.”

“Please, John,” my princess pleaded with breathless longing. “I need you… now…”

I just wrapped my arms around her lush, supple body from behind and grabbed her hands to push them together in a prayer-like position against the swell of her heaving breasts. Then I closed one
of my hands around her wrists and anchored her body tightly in my arms while I lingered with my cock poised just outside her entrance.

My free hand roamed down to tease her clit with a light, flickering touch that immediately coaxed a whimper from her lips.

The sound sent a wave of heat coursing through every inch of me, and I finally guided my cock to push urgently into her waiting pussy.

I bit back a groan at the satisfaction that already pulsed through me at the feel of her tight, silky wetness yielding to my rigid length bit by bit.

“How’s that?” I teased softly as I stirred my hips around.

“Good,” Indy panted. “So… good…”

Her airy gasps ramped up into wild moans as I continued to press my length further into the taut, wet embrace of her passage.

I used one hand to cover her moans in the way I knew she liked while I kept my other wrapped around her wrists to restrain my eager princess with a firm grip.

When I had first met Indy, she had been almost unreadable, full of defensive stares and silences. That made the way she squirmed and moaned in my arms now even more thrilling, and soon

I went from fucking a standing princess to supporting her completely while her body melted back against me. My free hand wandered up to cup one of her breasts as they started to bounce with the force of my thrusts.

After a thrilling while of fucking her like this, I eased back to rest my weight against the stone nightstand in a sitting position.

“Fuck,” I whispered raggedly as I pulled the princess down into my lap. In this position, my cock jutted up inside her to stretch her silky tightness to the limit, and every inch of it seemed to mold itself around my length.

“Oooh…” my princess gasped and wriggled against me.

My name burst from her lips again and again as I bounced her on my lap until her golden ass was slapping against my thighs, and soon she wailed against my fingers as her whole body contorted with the force of her climax.

Then she collapsed back against me while the spasms overtook her body, and one of her golden arms snaked up to wind around my neck and clench her fingers into my shoulder.

I grazed my teeth over Indy’s neck while I drove my hips up relentlessly to get my fill of ravishing the breathless princess. My
own breaths were fast and shallow when I picked up my rhythm even more, and I continued to fuck Indy with urgent, carnal need. She fueled me more as she sucked one of my fingers and moaned around it. My body was filled with heat, and my cock ached to fill the princess with my cum, but I held out until Indy squirmed in my arms again in a second climax.

Then I pulled her down hard against me while my hips bucked with the storm of my final thrusts, and she parted her legs even more to allow every last bit of my cock to squeeze into her soaking pussy.

I groaned with pleasure and clutched Indy’s quaking body down tight against my lap one last time and held her there while I finally flooded her with my cum. Each heavy pulse of my cock made her whimper for more, and I leaned back against the wall as I held her in my arms and let my seed spray into her body. Every now and then, I stirred my hips around, and she did another little shudder of pleasure that made me smirk against the golden skin of her neck.

When I finally lifted the satisfied princess to the ground, I was surprised to see Ellie sitting patiently on the bed. She still wore her dress, and her slender legs were tucked under its long, flowy skirt while she watched me and Indy.

When our eyes met, a pearly blush spread across her cheeks, and she looked away.

“Ellie is so very shy,” Indy murmured in a voice that was equal parts sultry and sated. The butterscotch and rose gold shards that danced through her eyes were joined by some new sparks when she looked at me, and she smiled coyly.

“Let’s see what you can do about that,” I growled softly. “Go on…”

My princess was suddenly all energy again as she pounced on Ellie.

“Oh!” the dainty warrior gave a small squeak of surprise as my princess pushed her down and kissed her.

I watched as Indy glanced back up at me and then started to tease Ellie with an amount of patience that she hadn’t shown when she was begging for me to fuck her firmly. Her long fingers moved up to slip off the strips of Ellie’s periwinkle-blue dress, but Ellie stopped her.

Then Ellie’s shy blue eyes darted over to me, and she bit down slightly on her pouty lower lip for a moment.

“John,” she finally whispered. “I like it when you undress me…

Will you? Please?”

The way she pleaded for my touch was irresistible, and there was still something incredibly arousing in the simple act of undressing the innocent-looking warrior. But I took my time as I made my way onto the bed.

Indy moved aside for me and settled back cross-legged to watch us. The way my princess stared at us made a blush threaten to creep up my neck, but I told myself that there was only room for one shy person in this equation, so I moved forward to slip the bashful blue-haired warrior’s dress straps off her pale, delicate shoulders.

Ellie sat up straighter. She shivered as I bared her small, pert breasts to the cool air of the cave room, and I automatically moved toward her in response.

“Mmmm…” the doll-faced woman hummed with pleasure as I cupped her breasts in the warmth of my hands.

Her rosy-pink nipples stiffened against my palms, and then they started to rise and fall more quickly as my hands journeyed
around her perfect, petite body. I started to harden again as I continued coaxing little gasps of pleasure from her round, pouty lips.

I roved my hand down to toy with her clit until she squeaked, and then I moved to press her down against the bed with my body hovering over hers. I kept my touch light and deft while I slid a finger into her tight little pussy until she was writhing eagerly against my hand.

Then she wriggled out from under me, but only for long enough to push insistently at my chest with her delicate hands until I chuckled and rolled over onto my back.

Ellie didn’t even ask if it was allowable this time. She just took one long look at my face to drink me in with her big blue eyes before she lowered her head toward my lap.

I eased back to prop my back against the wall that the bed was pushed against, and the dainty warrior followed my motions. Then she took my still cum-coated cock in her mouth again and wrapped her lips around it hungrily. I closed my eyes for a brief moment at the pleasure of feeling her throat bulge to accommodate my cock, but then I opened them to watch the thrillingly scandalous sight of her swallowing my length again and again until I was back into a completely rigid state.

I couldn’t resist her for another second. I clutched her blue hair in a firm grip, and I let out a soft hiss of pleasure as I forced her off my cock.

Ellie pouted as I pulled her away, but when I pushed her down under me again, she squirmed eagerly to part her legs and surrender her body to me in a way that immediately brought the animal in me back to life.

The way this shy, angelic woman reacted to a firmer touch made it even hotter to give it to her.

“Good girl,” I whispered as I admired the view, and Ellie let out a soft whimper at the praise.

So I kissed the pout off her lips and captured her delicate wrists in mine while the head of my cock probed into the taut wetness of her pussy. I managed one long, slow thrust before the little moan of pleasure that spilled from her lips urged me on into a faster and firmer rhythm.

I fucked the petite, gasping warrior with renewed energy, and the way she clung to my shoulders fanned the flames of my need to hear her moan my name in her sweet, silvery voice.

I pushed her legs up around my shoulders and savored the wicked pleasure of seeing the normally innocent-looking woman squirm excitedly in my grip while I plunged my cock into her again and again.

Then I tumbled her around to fuck her from behind. I meant to stop and savor the view for a little longer, but Ellie arched her back to present the irresistible sight of her glistening pussy to me.

When I lowered my body over hers again, her breath hitched as soon as my cock breached her entrance again.

“Mmmm…” she hummed wordlessly with her round, pouty lips pressed together, like she was trying to hold back her moans.

I exhaled slowly with the bliss of my cock filling her again from this position. Then I burst into fresh thrusts, and I was rewarded by more quivery moans that were loud enough for me to need to press my hand over her mouth. The sound filled me with primitive longing to hear it spill through my fingers again, and I fucked the ethereal warrior with a feverish onslaught of thrusts that filled me with satisfaction.

She spasmed hard against me, but I just pinned her wrists down again while I rocked my hips against her to drive her further
into her climax. The whimpering moans that spilled out of her urged me on until I finally slid my cock home one last time and pumped the delicate warrior full of my cum.

“Mmmmm!” Ellie twitched and mewled like a kitten, and she eagerly pressed herself upward and back into the convulsive jerking of my hips as I unleashed spray after spray of my seed deep inside of her.

The way she wriggled her ass like she couldn’t get enough of my cum sent a whole new wave of ecstasy through me. My vision started to black out as her tight tunnel milked me of everything I had to offer, and by the time I was finished with her, Ellie was limp with satisfaction.

Then I almost collapsed on top of her, but I thought better of it and eased myself to the side so I could lie there panting.

“Nice,” Indy whispered with a dreamy tone in her soft, solemn voice.

I snorted with quiet laughter. “Thanks. I think.”

Then I got serious again as I looked at the two women who had snuck into my room during this sacred celebration, and I let out a long, slow sigh of appreciation.

“You’re both incredibly bold to show up here like this, but I have to admit, I fucking love it,” I murmured.

“How could we resist?” Indy asked and stroked a long finger down my spine. “We cannot sleep well without seeing you, even if it’s only for a moment.”

Ellie gave a little nod as she nuzzled herself closer to me. “Yes, we need goodnight kisses.”

I grinned as I left a kiss in her blue hair.

“I feel the same way,” I admitted. “But if we want to make it out of this city alive, we’re going to have to find out how to sneak you back out…”

“Yes, John,” Indy agreed, and with that, I felt her weight lift from the bed.

As soon as their clothes were back on, Indy was back to being a fierce and self-possessed warrior, and Ellie was a picture of innocence.

I knew by now that these were the things that were like armor to them here in the dangerous desert world. The way this armor flickered under my gaze and melted under my hands when I held
them was still enough to make me slightly dizzy whenever I remembered that these women belonged to me.

“Come, Ellie,” Indy commanded in a whisper. “We must not be found here by the sneaky backers. We will continue dancing the silly dance as we must do to enter the arena with Artemn. And then…”

My princess’ eyes flared, and I crushed both of the women against me in a long, lingering hug before I opened the door.

I raised a hand to pause them while I stuck my head out into the tunnel and looked left and right.

“You’re good to go,” I whispered with slight reluctance.

“Good,” Ellie whispered in reply. “Nice.”

Then Indy moved to urge the dainty warrior out the door with her, but I caught Ellie’s arm before she could leave me. Her cheeks were flushed from her orgasms as I left a soft kiss on her pouty lips.

“Good night,” I growled softly, and the dazzling smile she sent me almost made my knees weak.

Indy smirked as she finally nudged Ellie onward, and I saw their shadows dart down the hallway and out of sight.

“Unbelievable,” I murmured to the empty room.

I was exhausted beyond belief, but I looked around the room and tried to calculate where the best place to keep my gun was while I slept. I wanted it within fairly easy reach for me, just in case, but not somewhere where it would be sighted if someone else happened to intrude into my room.

Odds were that any of this city’s inhabitants wouldn’t know what to do with a gun even if I handed it to them, but I wasn’t about to take any risks.

Especially not here.

After the excitement of the day and having my way with my two warm, willing warriors who had snuck into my room, I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the fluffy pillow of Krasur’s guest bed.

I was woken up in the morning by the sound of a brisk, light rap of knuckles against my door.

“Just a second,” I grumbled. I got up and scrambled back into my suit, and I made sure my gun was in place before I straightened up and went to drag the chair out of the way.

When I pulled the heavy wooden door open, I was struck by the sight of Dummon, the servant who had made drinks for everyone all night.

Even by my standards as an early riser, this bastard was oddly bright-eyed, and I looked at him with slight suspicion as he bustled into the room.

I cleared my throat politely, and at the sight of my “what the hell are you doing” expression, he made an apologetic face.

“S-so sorry,” he mumbled in a nervous voice. “Krasur likes us to come in and clean the rooms in the morning, while the guests are still abed.”

“Of course he does,” I snorted. Then I paused and glanced around. “But what do you mean, ‘us?’”

In response, Dummon just turned his head toward the hallway and whistled.

Several four-legged, greyhound-sized beasts immediately barged into my room, and my hand leaped to the grip of my gun as I skipped aside and looked wildly around at the creatures.

They had skinny, slender bodies and long claws that clicked against the floor when they slowed to a trot. But their heads looked distinctly un-canine. The best thing I could think of to compare them to from Earth was a skinny anteater.

I watched with utter fascination as one of them swept its long, tubular snout around on the floor with a suction-like sound.

Another obediently followed the snap of Dummon’s fingers, and it lowered its long, tufted tail to the ground to sweep the stone floor like a broom.

“Sir,” Dummon said with an anxious little bow, and he gestured back at the bed. “Would you like to…”

I glanced back at him as he trailed off, but then I continued on my path toward the door with a little wave. “I’m good, thanks.”

I left Krasur’s servant and his bizarre form of room service behind and headed down to the main cavern, where I could hear a few sleepy-sounding voices bouncing around off the domed ceiling.

“Morning,” I said breezily as I strolled into the room.

The few backers who were awake just mumbled groggily in response.

I headed toward one of the tunnels that I was pretty sure led to the drawing room, but Krasur hurried up to me. He looked disheveled, and there were dark circles under his eyes, but he seemed completely alert and clear-minded.

Which sort of impressed me considering the level of drunkenness I had seen him achieve last night.

“Leaving so soon?” he asked in an unconvincingly casual voice.

“Yep,” I said with a firm nod. “Thanks for having me over. It’s been fun.”

“You’ll be back, of course?” the burly backer asked. “Next week? There’s another gathering just after your warriors’ upcoming fight, since it’s the last day of Remembrance fighting, you know. No measuring involved, of course… It’s just for the backers to celebrate and, er, mingle, and whatnot. So you could head back here and enjoy some post-Remembrance festivities after your warriors have finished, if you’d like to.”

I saw the motion of several heads swiveling toward me after his words, and suddenly everyone in the room seemed wide awake.

“Sounds like a good time,” I said with an ambiguous smile.

Even though I hadn’t fully committed myself to attending the post-Remembrance gathering with these words, none of the other backers asked any further questions. I wasn’t sure if it was because they were worried I’d decide against it completely if they were too
pushy, or if they just assumed I’d be showing up because of how exclusive the gathering was.

Whatever the reason was for their silent acceptance, I was eager to get back to my warrior women. So I just gave the room of backers a casual wave, and when my eyes came across Mek on the other side of the room, I added a joking salute.

I couldn’t tell if the silver-haired backer understood the motion, but he returned it right away with an eye roll that vanished as soon as the water being he was talking to turned away from me to pick back up on whatever conversation they’d been having.

Then I made my way through the zigzagging tunnel that I was pretty sure led toward the drawing room. Soon I heard the sound of women’s quietly chattering voices echoing through the tunnel, and I followed them until I came out into the drawing room.

Indy and Ellie didn’t look the slightest bit sleepy, and their faces both lit up when they caught sight of me.

They abruptly abandoned their conversation with the two tiny nymphs they’d been speaking with and rushed over to me.

“Ready to go, shieldmaidens?” I asked quietly.

“We are ready, John,” Indy said with a toss of her hair.

We left the offended-looking nymphs behind. My princess prowled along on my left, and Ellie glided along on my right as we headed out of Krasur’s estate.

I could practically feel every backers’ gaze following us in a strained silence whenever we passed another one, and I didn’t even work to keep the smug smirk off my face. Everyone looked haggard, worn out, and greedy as hell, but my women and I managed to calmly look like a million bucks leaving all these snooty bastards behind.

Outside, the door swung shut behind us, and I looked around at the desert city that I had never seen in the light of day until now.

Then I rummaged through my suit pockets until I found the rolled-up map I’d been given to find my way here.

I looked at the map closely before we headed off, and I kept it tucked into one hand while we passed carefully around the surfboard-sized hole in the ground from yesterday. It seemed dark and silent at the moment, but I still gave it a wide berth as I skirted around the area with my two women.

I glanced back at the now-dark and silent cliffs. There were big tufts of grass that swayed innocently at their top, and I turned away
with a snort as I thought of the night I’d just had inside the gorsican-shaped cave below.

My life had gotten seriously weird lately, but I had to admit, I loved it.

“Watch out for the tapestry,” I reminded my two women as I seized their wrists with a motion that was only partially playful. Then I looked at them with a smirk. “Sleep well?”

Ellie nodded with a look of utmost innocence in her big blue eyes, but a bright pink blush crept over her face. “We were very tired.”

“Tuckered,” Indy said with a nod of solemn agreement, and she turned away to hide the sparks in her eyes.

I wasn’t sure what I liked more: The way the princess had picked up on another word of Earth slang in the cutest way imaginable, or the fact that both of these women were blushing about moaning my name last night.

“So,” Ellie said quickly. “After our next fight, you will win Artemn to our side?”

“Always with the subject change,” I chided her with a small, teasing smile. I glanced around in every direction to make sure we
were alone before I went on. I didn’t think there was a huge chance of us being stalked by the seven-foot-tall backer, but in this world, it was best not to take chances. “I learned last night that duels are fully permitted during Remembrance, as long as they’re outside the arena. So once you win your fight and we head out of there, that big, horned bastard will be fair game for me.”

“He is… very tall,” Ellie said nervously.

“I think we covered that,” I chuckled. The sound echoed eerily off the columns that rose around us like big, stony trees and cast thick bars of shadow across the path, and I lowered my voice even more to avoid hearing it again. “Tall guys go down about as easy as short ones, if you’ve got good aim.”

Indy nodded knowingly. “John will slay the cruel backer with his doom weapon with swift, silent accuracy.”

“Something like that,” I agreed with a grin, but my smile faded when I took note of the area we were heading into, and I cast a dark look at the trees ahead that were laden with bulging, flossy egg sacs, or cocoons, or whatever the hell it was we had witnessed hatching yesterday. “Keep an eye out for flying worms.”

Both women shivered and drew closer to my sides.

We made it down the Twisting Lane without being assaulted by any horrible, fluttering worms, and I allowed myself to breathe a small sigh of relief as we turned onto the main road toward the edge of the city.

“How will you do the slaying, John?” Ellie asked in a quiet voice. “I mean… where?”

“Will you lay a trap?” Indy asked with a sudden flare of excitement. “A sneaky trap for the tall, ghastly backer? To lure him into your clutches?”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” I said wryly, but I got more serious as I pulled the two women closer to me and lowered my voice more. “I have a better plan.”

Chapter 14

“I saw enough of Imiath to know he’ll come to me after the fight is done,” I shared with my two women in a hushed voice. There didn’t seem to be anyone lurking in the yards of the Old Town that we were about to head into, but I still kept my voice down as I went on. “I have a pretty decent idea for the location of our duel. And I also got a pretty good confirmation that that horned bastard is mortal enough to bleed, which means that…”

I removed one hand from Indy’s wrist to mime a gun-shooting motion with my fingers.

Both women watched me with fascination.

“Kapow,” Indy whispered.

Ellie frowned at her. “Ka… pow?”

“John’s old weapon of doom made a large kapow,” Indy shared in a wise voice. Then she paused, and I thought I could see the memory playing out in her red-gold eyes. “It was very loud, and it hurt my ears. It drew every eye in the city. And then John took me away.”

“Any regrets?” I asked with a small smile.

“No,” Indy said with a vigorous shake of her head that sent her ponytail whipping back and forth. “I would not go back there. I would never leave your side, John, even if I were being chased by wriggly white moths, or the monstrous gorsican that created Krasur’s cave.”

“Well,” I replied with another chuckle. “For what it’s worth, I’d fight a hundred Lord Vaths for you, princess. For either of you.”

“Kapow,” Ellie repeated in a whisper, like she wasn’t even aware of our conversation anymore. She seemed to be trying to picture what the sound could possibly be in action.

I snorted and shook my head affectionately before I went on.

“And I’ll tell you both about my little plan, too. But right now we need to keep an eye out for creepy old women and trees full of human heads, or anything along those lines.”

We walked through the black, bubble-like stone buildings of the Old Town that rose up on both sides of the path, and I decided the toxic yards were just as creepy-looking during the day. The glow of the plants was much fainter, and some of them actually seemed to shrivel into themselves under the sunlight, like they hated the brightness and warmth. I got the impression that they were just dormant and waiting, and they rustled ominously as we passed by.

My warrior women didn’t resist when I ushered them along ahead of me toward the edge of the city.

Soon we emerged from the Old Town with the sandstone walls up ahead, and I glanced around to see if the same guy was guarding the gate as usual.

There was no one in sight, but when I whistled, it only took a few moments for someone to pop out from behind one of the jutting columns inside the wall.

It wasn’t the hawk-like man who had let us in and out of the city before. Instead, it was a crotchety and cranky-looking man with a gnarled wooden cane. He had a grizzled, graying beard, and he was wearing a bowler hat that my women both stared at with wide eyes.

“Aha,” he crowed when he spotted us. His voice was old, quavering, and rough as sandpaper, but it was filled with excitement, and he ran his brown-eyed gaze over the three of us with a look of recognition as he hobbled toward us. “I saw your warriors in the arena, sir. Very fearsome.”

I smirked and glanced at my two warrior women. Indy tossed her hair proudly, and Ellie glowed with only a hint of wolfishness behind her innocent smile.

The bowler-hatted man nodded and went on. “Will you be returning for the third week?”

“Yep,” I said casually. “Later in the week. After all, my warriors are going up against Artemn the--”

“The Abandoned?” the bearded guard finished in a shocked croak. He was silent for a long moment, and then he gave me and my warrior women a look of deep respect. “That’s mighty bold of you.”

“Err… Thanks.” I gave him a dry smile and then gestured at the solid brass gate. “We’d better get going, before my truck turns into a pumpkin or something.”

My comment was met with bewildered silence from the bowler-hatted man, but then he just nodded and hurried off to open the gate for us.

“Luck be with you,” he called as we strolled out into the desert.

I just waved in response and walked on out of the legendary city with my two warrior women prowling at my sides. I could already feel the growing heat of the day through the soles of my dress shoes, and I glanced at the merciless blue sky that stretched out above us as we strode toward Spitfire.

“A foolish man,” Indy said in a smug, lofty voice. “We do not need luck. We will be prepared with our training, weapons, and unwavering ferocity.”

Ellie frowned slightly in response to the princess’ tone of voice.

“Do not be arrogant, Indy. Complacency is the enemy of all warriors.”

“I am not arrogant.” Indy bristled. “You should not be so…

small.”

“Hey now,” I scolded, and I put a hand out to each side to keep my two warriors apart. “Be civil, shieldmaidens.”

I released their wrists to playfully smack both of their asses at once.

“I love it when John punishes me for all the world to see,” Indy purred immediately.

I blinked and then raised my eyebrows at her. “I thought curtains were your thing, princess.”

“I do not think I would like being seen,” Ellie interjected as her frown deepened.

“Of course not,” Indy said with a toss of her hair. “You are so shy, Ellie. It is cute, but quite silly.”

“Your moan is loud enough to awaken Tignith’s ghost,” the dainty warrior retorted, and she danced out of Indy’s reach when the princess’ long hand reached over to give her a playful slap. “It sounds like the fabled warhorn of dread.”

“Your squeaks of lust are small and shrill,” Indy hissed. “Like a tiny little mouse. Although admittedly, a very sexy mouse.”

I smiled as I listened to my women’s banter, but my mind was starting to wander as we all climbed into Spitfire’s cab. Now that I had scheduled my warriors’ fight against Artemn, I would need to make some serious preparations for our return visit.

The first one would be calling Nick once we were through the portal. I was sure my crafty friend would be more than game for cooking up a new plan that would keep Marsh out of my hair while I returned to Bayalon for a third time. Nick had pretty much been chomping at the bit to fuck with Marsh already. I just needed to give him the green light and oversee the plotting, mostly to make sure he didn’t go overboard.

I’d also need to get going quickly on my petite warrior gaining some weight, for a start, along with ensuring some more training sessions for my women between now and Thursday.

“What are you thinking of John?” Ellie asked with her sweet, quiet voice raised just enough to be heard over Spitfire’s rumble.

I wasn’t surprised at the perceptiveness of my sensitive blue-haired warrior, but I did feel the same sense of surprise I had whenever she felt comfortable enough to straight-up just ask me a question.

Considering the fact that asking this type of question had been completely unfamiliar to her before the last week or so, it was still a damn good feeling.

“Well,” I mumbled while I buckled my seatbelt, and then I thought for a few moments as I urged the truck into motion. “I’m thinking about your training, for starters. Like having you train with your fighting master wielding a practice spear, the way I requested with Mavra and Zenia’s weapons.”

“May they rest in peace,” Ellie added quietly.

“More likely they are in pieces,” Indy pointed out in a gloomy little voice.

Despite the savage, borderline hatred that had flared between Freyos’ past warriors and mine in the arena, I knew the idea of them being slaughtered by a backer in cold blood disturbed them.

I felt the same way as we drove through the increasingly hot desert and onto the Moonstone Road. By the time the foggy portal came into sight, I was thinking more deeply about my future attack, and possible defense, against Imiath.

By all indications, the horned backer was absolutely insane, and I thought the silver-haired backer Mek had given me sound advice when he told me to plan my route out of the city ahead of time.

Except for the part he didn’t know about, which was that a crucial part of that plan was dueling Imiath.

There was no doubt that the hot-headed backer would come for me after my women defeated Artemn in the arena. That part was predictable, but beyond that, the guy was a complete wild card to me. Who knew what kind of shit he’d pull?

But I was fairly certain he wouldn’t expect me to pull something like killing his crazy ass in the sanctum.

And even if he did, I was dead certain he wouldn’t be expecting me to have detailed knowledge of its layout. From what the long-winded backer, Gyrard, had told me, not many people even cared to find out at all. Imiath himself might not know.

After the big fight, I knew the horned backer would immediately be filled with rage about my two women winning against Artemn. And considering the sanctum was a place where only the victors of the fight were supposed to go, I was sure this would be one of the easiest places to lure the horned backer into.

It would also give me more privacy than anywhere else in the city to duel Imiath. There would be no bystanders to realize that I had slayed that fucker below the arena. All I had to do at first was find a way to infuriate him enough to make him sidestep the rules and follow me inside.

Then I’d walk out of the city with the horned backer’s wealth in my pocket, and his warrior woman at my side.

No matter where my duel with Imiath took place, I was thinking a bullet to the head might be the best option for the killing blow, especially since Krasur had seen the fucker’s nose bleed.

“First rule of zombie killing,” I muttered under my breath.

But then there was the possibility of Imiath’s giant, undulating horns getting in the way. Those things were thick as hell, and I had no idea if they would repel a bullet if I happened to aim a hair too far
to the side. I was a decent shot, but I was no sniper, and this fucker would probably be a moving target.

Well, he’d be moving toward me, most likely. And sure, close proximity might make aiming a little easier, but I didn’t want to let that wavy blade of his get any closer to me than I had to.

Not to mention the big-ass horns themselves, which appeared to be coated with some type of poison, and which I now knew for certain were capable of skewering someone.

“Oh, shit,” I muttered suddenly. “Almost forgot… Would you just look at this fog, shieldmaidens?”

“So magnificent,” Ellie squeaked.

We went on praising and flattering the portal’s fog as we drove into it, and soon we were swept away into its shimmering, swirling center.

We landed with a feather-light touch that I was starting to get used to, and I gave the fog an almost affectionate glance in my rearview mirrors when we rolled out of it and back onto Earth.

Then I drove on up to the entrance ramp to SR 14. My electronics all flickered and buzzed back into life.

As my phone continued to vibrate with what were probably a billion or so texts from Nick, I decided to stop at the next exit.

“Where are we going, John?” Indy asked with interest. Her ponytail gleamed and rippled in the morning light as her head turned back and forth.

“To get some water,” I announced. “And some frigid jitter-juice.

Also, I need to see how the situation is going with Nicholas.”

“Your shaggy-haired friend,” Indy murmured with a nod.

“That’s the one,” I snorted. I glanced at the phone on my dashboard that was still buzzing madly away as text after text rolled in.

I pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot and parked the truck.

When I unlocked my phone, I saw that there were no missed calls or voicemails, which was immediately a good sign to me. I had told Nick to text me with updates, and to call me with any emergencies.

I scanned over the texts while I walked into the restaurant to order our jitter juice.

Once I had scrolled past the first series of Nick’s “hahahas,” I saw more texts from him assuring me that things were going to plan and gloating over every little detail of how things unfolded.

I ordered the drinks, and after some more basic updates and texts that made me hear Nick’s maniacal laughter in my head, things started to get pretty entertaining.

Dude, Phane just cried on the phone.

I think it was fake at first, but then he told me his whole life story, and the true waterworks began.

Side note: I think I have some genuine dirt on this jackass now, in case you ever need to blackmail him.

You’re welcome.

After that, my crafty friend’s text messages went on long enough for me to accept my drinks in a carrier and balance them on one hand while I walked out of the restaurant.

I shouldered through the door and continued to scroll through the texts with the laughter building in my stomach.

“I come bearing gifts,” I said as I reentered Spitfire’s cab.

“The frigid, refreshing jitter juice,” Indy crowed with an eager clap of her hands.

My two warrior women were bouncing with excitement when I handed them their drinks, and I had to chuckle.

“Don’t get brain freeze,” I reminded them in a slightly distracted voice as I scrolled through the last of Nick’s texts and confirmed that all had gone well.

Then I glanced at the clock on my phone and saw that it was ten o’clock, and I decided to try calling my nocturnal friend instead of texting him back. There was a chance he was still awake at this point, although he might have just gone to sleep.

He picked up on the first ring, and for a few seconds all I heard was the maniacal guffaws of laughter that had hardly changed in sound since my childhood.

“Hello,” he finally greeted me in a smooth, overly-formal voice like a waiter in a fancy restaurant. “Who is this?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I take it you had fun?”

“That shit was so easy, Johnny Bossman.” My friend hooted with laughter again. “They walked right into my web.”

“Perfect.” I smirked, but I got serious when I went on. “Are you up for something a bit more challenging?”

“Always,” my friend said without missing a beat. “Tell me.”

I laid out the date when I’d need to be gone, and my friend didn’t ask me what the hell I was doing for the time being. Instead,
he interrupted me with a question that seemed much more important to him.

“Wait a second,” Nick said in a slow, cautious voice, but I could already hear the glee creeping into it. “Are you saying I get to fuck with Marsh?”

“I’m saying you get to fuck with Marsh,” I allowed. “But–”

I waited for a fresh storm of guffaws to die down before I went on.

“I want to take you up on your offer to delay him coming back from vacation,” I said, and then I added some sternness to my voice.

“But nothing too crazy, Nicholas. I don’t want to be responsible for anything–”

“Got it, got it,” my friend agreed hastily, like he wanted to move on to more pressing details. “What country is he in, again?”

“Australia, now.”

“Crikey,” Nick muttered with feverish anticipation in a perfect Australian accent. “Okay, okay, I need some time to think.”

“Marsh isn’t set to come back just yet,” I pointed out with a chuckle. “Try and get some sleep.”

“It’s about that time,” my friend mumbled, and he went from bouncing off the walls to yawning in the blink of an eye.

“Call me when you’ve had a good snooze,” I instructed.

“Sir, yes, sir.”

I hung up the phone and turned to see both of my warrior women with their lips pressed tightly together and their eyes squinting shut. I couldn’t tell if these were looks of pain or bliss.

I had just decided it was most likely a mixture of the two when Indy confirmed my theory.

“Frigid fingers stabbing into my skull,” she mumbled as her eyes finally snapped all the way open again. “But… so delicious.”

Ellie’s eyelashes fluttered up next into their normal wide-eyed expression, and she gave her head a little shake that made her blue hair swirl around her shoulders. “Ouchie.”

“Pain is good, my little Ellie,” Indy reminded her. “It makes you strong.”

“I am already strong,” Ellie shot back at her. “You are… overly large. Perhaps you should learn not to be so tall.”

“Mouse,” Indy hissed in response. “Monkey!”

“Speaking of being large,” I interrupted in a loud, firm voice that didn’t betray the fact that I was fighting off a laugh. “Ellie, well… you are pretty strong for your size, actually. But we need to make you a little heavier, so you can be reclassed before your fight.”

“But not slow,” Ellie said fretfully. “Right, John?”

“Definitely not slow,” I assured her as I started up the truck.

“We’re going to go all out. I’ll track down a specialist who will know exactly what food you need to eat, and what type of stuff to do or not do in your training, so you can gain weight but be in peak condition, too.”

I knew that managing weight in the short-term was a pretty common thing in boxing, but personally I wasn’t too sure of the ins and outs of doing this shit in a way that would maintain Ellie’s full level of badassery, not to mention every aspect of her health.

It felt amazing that I’d be able to afford to hire someone to handle this aspect without hesitation. Without having to worry about cost the way I would’ve in the past, I could focus more energy on making sure my women got the best help possible to hone their skills in every imaginable way.

As I drove us back to my company lot, I organized a list of other things to do in my head. I’d need to call my warriors’ fighting master and update him on the spear thing, along with making sure he could coordinate with whatever type of nutritionist or dietitian I decided to hire for my women.

I also planned to sit down and pore over every little detail of the map of the sanctum I’d gotten from Gyrard, and probably write down the important bits of what he’d told me, too. I had a pretty good memory, but I didn’t want to risk a single one of those pesky details slipping out of my mind.

I parked Spitfire in the company lot and then headed back out with my two warrior women in my car. After that, we headed home to Long Beach.

Even though I still didn’t spend much time in the little cottage I’d been renting for years, somehow coming back here with my two warriors made the place feel more like “home” than it ever had in the past.

At the same time, I felt a thrill of excitement when I thought about being able to move onto a better home in the future that could accommodate the three of us, not to mention some of the continued training my two warrior women would be doing.

Well, hopefully that would change to three warrior women on Thursday.

Soon Indy and Ellie both bounded into my bathroom to reunite themselves with their favorite conditioning soap, and I went about unpacking my stuff for the moment while I sorted through things in my mind.

Then my phone rang.

It was a number I didn’t recognize, which I normally might’ve let go to voicemail, but at this point I had so many things going on that this might be something important.

And I was damn glad I did, because it turned out the call was from Gordon, the business broker I’d recently paid a visit to.

As soon as he had identified himself, I walked over to sit down at the table while we continued our call.

“Hey there,” I greeted him. “New phone number?”

“One of many,” the broker said with a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “This is one of my more private lines.”

“I promise I won’t rat you out to anyone,” I chuckled. I had no idea how far this guy’s business affairs extended, but considering my
crafty friend Nick was thriving business-wise and keeping out of trouble, I didn’t have any qualms about whatever Gordon was up to outside of the personal business affairs I was paying him to investigate.

“I’ve wrapped up my due diligence on the business matters we discussed,” he said in his usual brisk, business-like voice that had a hint of excitement behind it.

My pulse quickened as I prepared myself to either be very, very lucky, or completely fucked when it came to me taking over Marsh’s business.

“Go on…” I said as calmly as possible.

“I think I’ve found some possibilities for swinging things in your favor,” Gordon informed me, and my stomach seemed to jump up into my throat. “If you’d like to meet again and discuss the results…?”

Chapter 15

“Definitely,” I replied as my palms began to sweat with anticipation. “Did you have a specific day in mind?”

“My ledger is free tomorrow,” the broker said smoothly. “I’m at the same office in Astoria where we met before, if you don’t mind making the drive.”

“Sure thing,” I replied. I knew from experience that this was only about a half an hour’s drive from my home, and that my warrior women’s training center was on the way there. “Would sometime around two o’clock work for you?”

“In the afternoon?” he asked. The question seemed entirely serious, like he would actually be up for a two AM meeting if I requested it.

“In the afternoon,” I confirmed with a chuckle. “I’ll be heading south around then, so as long as it works for you…?”

“Absolutely,” Gordon said without skipping a beat. “Two o’clock it is. Do you need the address to my office again?”

“Nope,” I replied. “I remember. The tall, signless building that’s eerily empty except for your stuff?”

“That’s the one,” the broker replied with a note of wry humor in his voice. “Sixth floor, like before.”

“Perfect,” I said briskly. “I’ll see you then.”

After I hung up the phone, I sat there and let the excitement course through me for a few seconds before I turned to my next few tasks.

I paused when my two towel-clad warrior women emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam.

“Mmmm,” Indy murmured in a blissful voice, and she stood there for a few seconds just stroking her damp hair, with her toes curling into the not-so-fluffy rug like it was the fluffiest thing she’d ever felt. “Sometimes I forget how soft everything is in your abode, John.”

She moved on to stroking the towel in a way that reminded me of the reverent way she had held the luxurious towel back in the hotel room we’d stayed in during her first night on Earth.

I laughed and then roamed my eyes over the alluring sight of my princess’ cleavage swelling above the towel that clung to the ample curve of her flushed golden breasts.

Next to her, Ellie was all pale, glistening perfection, and the towel was no less revealing. The cloth slipped down as I stared at her, and the rosy-pink tip of one small, high breast peeked out. She took her time pulling the cloth back up, but she still blushed in the same shy way I was getting familiar with.

Somehow, it was almost more enticing than if she had stood in front of me fully naked.

The sight of the two women side by side and the memory of their bodies intertwined at my command made me long to make them quiver and moan again right here in my living room, but I set that thought aside for the moment as I got to my feet.

“It’s time for some crunchy soup,” I announced. “And then I’m going to make some calls, including one that will help us figure out how to up our nutritional game.”

“Yes, John,” Indy agreed as she looked down at her fellow warrior with a teasing expression. “We must make you heavier, my tiny friend.”

“I will become heavier,” Ellie vowed. There was only fierce determination in her big blue eyes as she looked at me. “We will win more riches. And we will win Artemn, too.”

My princess got serious again too as she nodded in agreement. “We vow it, John.”

“I believe you,” I said with a grin, and then I allowed just a hint of roguishness to creep into my voice. “My two good girls.”

I smirked as both of my warrior women flushed even more. But Indy’s eyes smoldered shamelessly at me, and Ellie bit her lip with her usual shyness while she suddenly became extremely focused on her crunchy soup.

Once I had finished my own cereal and fortified myself for the series of phone calls I was about to make, I watched my two warriors head upstairs while I dialed the number for their martial arts trainer.

He answered after a few rings and then listened closely while I outlined my new goals for my warriors, starting with the spear.

“No problem, Boss,” he said. “We can do another foam practice version of the weapon. Or maybe even a wooden shaft with a foam tip. Is there a specific type of spear you had in mind for them to practice against?”

I described the spear I had seen Artemn wielding as closely as I could.

“Sounds like a naginata,” he said thoughtfully. “Speaking realistically, that would make sense for someone fighting against two opponents. They have a long reach– good for keeping opponents at a distance, and they’re pretty versatile, too, when it comes to both attack and defense. The wielder has quite a bit of reach with how the weapon can be spun.”

“Sounds about right,” I said as I remembered the way Artemn had used her spear.

“We already have a few bamboo versions of those on hand,”

the trainer said. “If you want to head inside for a minute before the training session, I can show you and see if it’s the same thing you have in mind.”

“Perfect,” I agreed. “There’s something else I want to discuss with you now, too…”

I brought up the need for Ellie to gain weight by Thursday, and that I wanted to get a professional involved when it came to my warriors’ diet.

The trainer didn’t seem all too surprised by the request. He still seemed to be under the assumption that they were either super into method acting, or part of some medieval contact-sport revival.

“I actually have some people I can put you in touch with,” he offered. “I’m not certified with that stuff myself, but I’ve worked with some professional fighters in the past and coordinated with their dietitians. Usually those fighters are wanting to cut weight, but I’ve had a couple who were trying to gain. Wanted to prove themselves fighting against the big guys.”

“Sounds promising,” I said in agreement.

The trainer gave me some names and phone numbers for dietitians and then agreed to tailor the next few training sessions toward both practicing against a spear-wielder together, and coordinating with the dietitian to help Ellie gain some weight.

I hung up feeling accomplished and excited for my two fighters, and the first small thrill of progress made it easier to navigate through the next tasks that still required sitting at my little dining room table.

I decided to look up the names and numbers for the dietitians my women’s trainer had recommended. These days, it was common for all types of professionals to have their own websites, or at least a LinkedIn page, so I could compare these guys’ portfolios and see which one of them really knew their stuff.

There was one named Tor, who actually had the fighters he had worked with listed on his website.

The other dietitians hadn’t seemed bad to me, but the main features of their websites had been either their certifications, or the series of paragraphs that I knew were like the professional version of an “about me” section on Facebook.

This Tor guy had all of the above, but the “about me” thing was short and to the point.

What I liked most was the list of fighters he had worked with, complete with links to articles with their wins. When I scanned over the articles, it was easy to confirm his claims as I saw his name mentioned as the fighters’ dietitian.

I took a little more time to do some scouting, but in the end, I decided on this Tor guy, and I called his number feeling both excited and determined.

He picked up pretty quickly, and I introduced myself and my interest without beating around the bush.

As little as I knew about this nutrition stuff, one thing I was pretty sure of was that the fact that my warriors were women was an
important detail for the guy to know, and I included a few other relevant details in the same straight-to-the-point way.

I appreciated that he paid me the same courtesy as he replied.

“I’ve got my hands pretty full,” he apologized, and his gruff voice was both blunt and friendly. “I’ve got a wait list of clients at the moment, and I’m actually just getting around to calling the first of them today to take on their fighter.”

This wasn’t exactly music to my ears, but it wasn’t unexpected, either. I had seen this guy’s success rate. The fact that he was almost completely booked was another sign that pointed to him knowing his stuff.

But my determination didn’t waver, and I didn’t hesitate to play a card that was newly available to me.

“I’ll pay you double your usual rate for a last-minute consultation,” I said boldly. “And if you agree to take my two fighters on, then I’ll increase your usual fee for that by half.”

There were a few moments of silence on the other end of the line, and I waited patiently for him to think through my words.

“That’d be three hundred dollars for an hour-long consultation,”

he warned. “After that, I typically charge three hundred per month.

For clients who are willing to pay upfront, I charge eight hundred dollars for three months, or fifteen hundred dollars for six months.”

“Understood,” I said calmly.

Then I heard what I was pretty sure was the clicking of buttons, like he had just whipped out a calculator, and I waited patiently again while the tapping continued.

“So,” he went on with an air of wanting me to know what I was getting myself into. “In your case, if we decide to proceed, then that’d be four hundred and fifty dollars for a month. If you paid up front for three months, it’d be twelve hundred dollars. For six months, you’d be paying me twenty-two fifty upfront.”

“Agreed,” I said firmly. “As long as you can do the consultation tomorrow, preferably in the morning.”

There was another long stretch of silence before Tor answered.

“Tomorrow morning, then,” he agreed. “How does ten o’clock sound?”

“Great,” I said. Ten o’clock would fit pretty neatly into tomorrow’s increasingly busy schedule.

I confirmed a few other details with the dietitian, including that he would be willing to coordinate with Indy and Ellie’s trainer. I did this partly to ensure an important detail, but also because I figured this form of name-dropping could only help my chances of this guy agreeing to take me and my two women on as new clients. He agreed and then gave me the address to his practice’s office in Cathlamet.

“One last thing,” I added. “Do you, uhh… have any general advice for my fighter to get a head start on gaining some weight? I mean, since we’re on a really tight schedule here…”

“Hmm,” Tor mumbled, and I heard a brief shuffling of paper from his end. “She’s very petite, you said?”

I confirmed a few other details I had run through about Ellie, and then I snatched up my pen again while he reeled off with some advice.

When I said I didn’t have any whey protein on hand, the dietitian grumbled for a few seconds.

“I’d advise either picking up some whey powder or taking a little trip to the grocery store,” he said. Then he grunted. “Or a restaurant, I suppose, if they’re willing to accommodate you. Dinner
tonight should include something like salmon. Chickpeas would do alright, too, if she has some brown rice along with them. Don’t go overboard on protein, though. Carbs are still important. If you’ve got some bananas lying around, that’d do nicely…”

He spouted off another few things about my petite warrior’s dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow and paused for me to scribble them down

I thanked him and hung up with another box on my list checked, or as checked as it could be at the moment. I felt pretty confident that I’d be able to reel this guy in with the prospect of coaching my warrior women’s nutrition, especially since I planned on immediately proving that I wasn’t fucking around about paying upfront.

Only the best for my beautiful fighters.

Afterwards, I looked down at the list of options for dinner that night, and I drummed my fingers while I thought things through. Then I looked up at my lovers as they bounded down the stairs together, and I got to my feet.

“How about we go out for dinner and do some plotting over a good meal?” I suggested. “I just talked to the guy who will help with
your diet, and he’s willing to meet with us before your training session tomorrow. But in the meantime, there’s a pretty decent restaurant not too far north from here. It’s not as fancy as the place we went to in Portland, but it’s right by the ocean, and their salmon will be a hell of a lot better than anything I could cook.”

“You are an excellent cooker, John,” Indy argued. “The puny bird eggs you make for us are very delicious.”

Ellie nodded. “The crunchy Earth soup, too.”

“Thanks,” I snorted. “But salmon isn’t exactly within my realm of experience like the puny eggs and crunchy soup I’ve served you, my shieldmaidens.”

“What is sa-mun, exactly?” Ellie asked with a frown, and she pronounced the word in a slow, careful way.

“It’s a type of fish,” I said. When my dainty warrior looked slightly alarmed, I chuckled and hurried to reassure her. “It doesn’t have any bones in it, though. Or at least, not if you get it at a decent restaurant like this one. It’s still fresh, but, uh… thoroughly deboned.

And we can still order you a steak or something else with a decent amount of protein, just in case the salmon isn’t to your taste.”

The wary look faded from Ellie’s blue eyes, and she looked reassured as she nodded in agreement.

Meanwhile, Indy was repeating another word I had mentioned in her soft, solemn voice.

“Ohhh… sheeeeen,” she whispered. Then she shook her head. “Ohh-shen. Ocean. Those are the waterlands of Earth we glimpsed from your chariot? Before we went to Gavahna and plucked Ellie from the lizard-man’s clutches, I mean?”

“Those are the ones,” I said with a smile. “We’re so close to the beach here, it feels like a crime that you haven’t been able to see the ocean yet. I figured we might as well do it right. You’ll be able to see the waterlands while we eat a nutritious dinner that will work toward Ellie’s weight gain, and then afterward, maybe we can even walk out so you can feel the sand between your toes.”

“Sand,” Indy repeated, and she looked uncertain about whether this was a pleasant idea or not. “Sand is… rough.”

“Rough and grainy,” Ellie agreed. “It hurts my skin.”

“Sometimes,” I said with a grin. “But on Earth, a lot of the beaches have sand that’s soft and fine.”

Then I paused for a moment and reflected before I went on.

“The beach here is pretty nippy, though--”

“What is nipply?” Ellie interrupted in a dubious voice.

“The female breast, of course,” Indy said impatiently.

Despite all the time and closeness I had already spent in the glorious presence of these two women’s bare breasts, something about discussing nipples made my face redden at the moment.

“Nippy,” I corrected in a brisk, firm voice. “It means cold and windy.”

“Foolish,” Indy immediately commented in a mutter of disdain.

“Maybe,” I chuckled as I pulled my two women toward the stairs so we could change. “But we’d still better bring some sweaters. It’s called ‘nippy’ because the cold air feels like it’s biting you.”

I shared this detail mostly for shock value, and my warriors’

reaction didn’t disappoint.

“Biting your skin?” Ellie asked in a voice that sounded equal parts awed and disturbed.

I nodded, and both women were silent for a moment except for the tap of their feet against the stairs.

When we were up in my room, I saw that Indy was wearing a similar expression to the one I had seen on her when I had offered to get her a different type of drink after her first frozen McDonald’s coffee had given her brain freeze.

“I will stride through the soft sands of Earth,” she insisted. “I will withstand the fierce bite of the frigid air.”

Ellie nodded resolutely, and her blue eyes narrowed in a way that almost dared me to try and stop the two women.

“Alright, then,” I said with a grin, but then I gave them a stern look over my shoulder as I bent to open my dresser drawer and rummage for some hoodies. “You can’t do any sand-striding in your fancy dresses, though. Pants only. And I’m sorry to say you two will be stuck with wearing my big old sweatshirts for this beach outing, but soon we’ll get you some--”

I cut off when Indy skipped forward to snatch one of the hoodies from my hand.

My princess held the sweatshirt blissfully against her face, and I chuckled as the one I handed to Ellie was met with a similar sort of reverence.

A few minutes later, we were heading out, and I drove us the short way north to the seafood restaurant I had in mind. We got there just as the sun was starting to set.

When I led my two warrior women to the table by the window, they were both silent with awe as they stared out at the fiery sun sinking toward the ocean.

I smiled at the sight of them, and their amazement made me appreciate something I had gotten used to even more. Even up in the colder parts of the west coast, the sun setting over the ocean was hard to beat.

At that moment, I thought the only thing that could beat watching an ocean sunset was watching an ocean sunset with my two warrior women.

Soon the waiter came to take our order, and the women watched the ocean with rapt attention until our food arrived.

After her first bite of salmon, Ellie practically inhaled the meal I had ordered her, and I watched with amusement as bite after bite of the fish disappeared.

Indy, on the other hand, took one tiny bite of the fish and wrinkled her nose.

“Steak is good,” she decided as she pulled one of the steak dishes toward her. “Very scrumptious.”

“Personally, I have to agree,” I admitted. “But salmon is high in, uhh… amino acids, or something.”

“Acids?” Indy whispered, and she looked at the last bit of salmon disappearing into Ellie’s mouth with a new respect. “Burning acids?”

“No,” I chuckled. “No burning, I promise. I’ll leave that for the trainer to explain to you, though. Tonight we have other stuff to discuss… like my plan for dueling Imiath.”

As I spread open the map of the sanctum I’d gotten from Gyrard at the Reprieve gathering, I had to admit to myself, there was a thrill about sitting around a table with my warrior women and plotting things out.

But that didn’t make me take it any less seriously when it came to deciding on things here. The consequences could be dramatic if this plan didn’t unfold well.

“Remember not to get involved,” I instructed Indy and Ellie, and I waited for them both to agree before I went on.

Considering I had won each of my warriors in a duel, I knew by now that they were already used to staying out of the backers’

affairs. But I also knew that there hadn’t been the sort of connection between them and me with any of their past backers. Not even close.

There was no teasing about them being good or naughty here.

I was absolutely not fucking around when it came to the idea of my women getting between me and the hulking, murderous backer named Imiath.

Once my warriors had given me their words, I nodded and went back to the map.

“So,” I said briskly. “At the Reprieve, I learned that the victors of the battle--”

“Us, of course,” Indy said with a proud toss of her hair.

I gave her a stern look, but I softened it with a smile at the end.

“Yes, you,” I said, and I reached out to pat both of my women on their hands. “As the victors, you’ll be required to go down to this sanctum thing for an hour with me after your battle. Since it’s the last fight of Remembrance, or whatever.”

My women nodded to show they understood, and I went on.

“The main entrance to the sanctum is right here,” I said, and I tapped a little spot that was marked on the map.

Both of my women leaned closer and stared at the map.

“This is inside the backers’ lounge,” Ellie pointed out with a frown. “Why did we not see it?”

“It’s under a damn rug,” I shared, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. “It’s like a trapdoor, sort of. A trapdoor that can only be accessed at certain times.”

“And one of those times is after our fight?” Indy murmured with a light of murderous red excitement flaring in her eyes. Then it dimmed slightly as she frowned. “So, how can we be sure Imiath will follow us inside, John? Will it be guarded?”

“I don’t think it’s guarded,” I said. “Or… not exactly. But I’m still not sure how long people-- like the bookies, gargoyles, and other backers-- will stick around after the fight, or how much attention they’ll be paying to the door area. Maybe Imiath will have to wait until they’re gone and then try to sneak in. So the short answer is that we can’t be absolutely sure. That’s why I have a back-up plan.”

My women both let out small “oohs” of excitement, and I chuckled again before I went on.

“But this one comes first,” I said firmly. “It’ll require more planning, but if it works, it’ll give me the element of surprise, so I figure it’s worth giving it a shot. Worst-case scenario is that Imiath is unable to get into the sanctum, and he lurks around as close to the entrance as possible until our hour is up. In that case, he might be outside the entrance, waiting for us to come out. Or even on the volcano’s shore just outside.”

“That sounds very bad,” Indy pointed out.

“It would be,” I said with a smirk. “If there wasn’t another way for us to leave the sanctum.”

“I thought there was only one entrance left,” Ellie objected.

“The others were sealed, you said.”

“Sealed,” I acknowledged. “But not filled. According to one of the backers, there used to be a whole bunch of entrances to these tunnels that lead in or out of the sanctum. Basically it’s the center of a whole underground cave system, tunnels made by the lava in the past. Some of the entrances even ran under the lake and came out on the other side.”

“How did you learn this knowledge, John?” Indy murmured with a fascinated look.

“One of the backers is extremely, uh, devoted to this stuff,” I said with a slight grimace. “Likes to yammer on to anyone who will listen. Basically, he thinks it’s wrong that the non-backers can’t go into this sanctum at any time anymore. There are only a few other entrances that aren’t fully sealed, and they come out in different temples outside the lake. Those entrances are blocked off by doors, or trapdoors.”

“But…” Ellie frowned. “Surely they are locked?”

“Probably,” I said with my eyebrows raised. “But locked or not, every door has a gap. And a gap can be leveraged. Especially if the door has hinges made out of shitty black metal… and if I’ve got one of these.”

I pulled out my phone and pulled up the steel forced-entry style wedges I had been looking at.

I had of course already considered whether I could shoot the damn thing open like in the movies, but after some thought, I realized there were too many contributing factors that could make that unrealistic when the time came. And there was no way I’d let my entire escape plan hinge on a shitty movie trope I wasn’t sure I could pull off.

“The narrow part goes into the gap of the door,” I explained as I showed the two women. Then I pulled up a picture of the type of axe-shaped multi-tool I had known Doug to carry around with him in his truck. “And then I use something top-heavy like this to--”

“Wham,” Indy whispered.

“Exactly.” I grinned. “So basically, we have two scenarios. Like the first one I mentioned: Imiath follows us into the sanctum, and I’m ready to finish him off with my gun. The other option is that he’s lurking around waiting for us to come out, or for the door to be unguarded. But it won’t matter, because in that case, we’ll be coming out of one of the other entrances.”

“But if that happens, then how will you duel him?” Ellie asked.

I smirked. “I just so happen to have an invitation to the backers’ post-Remembrance gathering. It’s another like the one we went to, but with no measuring. Basically like an after-party. So if and when Imiath realizes we’re no longer in the sanctum…”

“He will be even more enraged,” Indy said with delight. “And then--”

“He will come looking for you at the gathering,” Ellie finished with a wolfish smile.

“And I’ll be ready,” I said.

“Kapow,” Indy summarized. “Silent kapow.”

I smirked and nodded.

I thought the plan was pretty damn good. I’d still be ready for any scenario, though, because the desert world seemed capable of throwing unexpected shit my way at any time.

I folded up the brochure-like paper with its maps and put it away.

The tab for this little seafood restaurant wasn’t quite as much as what I had spent down at La Caverne, but it still felt damn good to be able to treat my warrior women to whatever they wanted here without a second thought.

Afterward, I looked outside at the beach, where the sun was setting the cold Pacific ocean on fire with its light.

“Ready to feel the frigid air of the beach?” I asked in a grave voice.

“Yessss,” both of my warrior women hissed with glee.

There was a door that led out onto the empty, windswept patio, and from there, a simple, low rope fence separated the patio from the beach.

I held the door open for my warriors, and I watched with a smile as they raced out and leaped over the little rope fence like it was a track hurdle.

Both of them shrieked as their feet sank into the unexpected softness of the sand, and they keeled over after a few steps.

“Soft,” Ellie squeaked, and she flopped onto her back and started doing a motion that reminded me of someone making a snow angel.

Indy sat up straight, picked up two handfuls of sand, and stared at it as she let it spill through her fingers and back onto the ground.

“It is so thick,” she marveled. “Thick and fine at the same time.”

“And cold,” Ellie agreed with a small shiver.

“The ocean roars,” Indy added with a startled look. I even thought my bold princess seemed slightly intimidated as her red-gold eyes roamed over the sunlit water that stretched into the distance ahead. “Like a fierce and mighty beast awakening.”

“It is very beautiful, though,” Ellie murmured.

“We must touch the water,” Indy said with sudden, steely determination. Then she sent me a sideways glance. “Will you brave
the waters with us, John?”

“Always,” I said with a grin. “But it’s better to go barefoot.”

I almost felt like a kid again for a second as I found a place for us to tuck our three pairs of shoes into the tall grass that bordered the beach, and my two fierce beauties raced across the sand to reach the waves. Then they both hung back and watched me step into the water. Once they were sure it was safe, they followed, and both women gasped immediately at the icy-cold temperature.

Still, after a few moments they both splashed bravely into the waves up to their knees.

I stood back to admire them for a second, but soon Indy splashed her way over to me again. She threw her arms around my neck, and the child-like feeling was immediately gone as my black-haired warrior pressed her lithe body up against mine.

When Ellie joined her and attempted to jostle her aside to press against me, I soon decided we should get going before this scene turned a little too adult to be seen on this public beach.

“You’re both shivering,” I pointed out as I became hyper-aware of their bodies quivering against mine. “And we have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Busy on our mission to plump up our tiny little warrior,” Indy agreed in a stage whisper.

I smacked her lightly on the ass and looked at her with a playful scowl. “Be nice, princess.”

“Again, John,” she whispered.

Indy seemed like she was about to present her entire exquisite self to me right there on the beach, so I immediately grabbed both women’s hands and pulled them along with me toward where our shoes were stashed on the shore.

I blasted the heat in my car on the way home, and my two warrior women moaned with delight as the frigid chill was slowly banished from their bodies.

At home, my phone started ringing just as I was getting out of the car. The Imperial March song blared out into the silence, and both of my women jumped.

I ushered them silently toward the front door as I picked up the call.

“Hello?” I answered with the phone clenched between my ear and shoulder.

“John!” My boss’ gravelly voice was raised to one of its loudest possible volumes. The sound rivaled the blast of a foghorn, and it took all my effort not to drop the phone to the ground.

“Hey, Marsh,” I said politely as I closed the front door behind me and my two warriors.

Once it was shut, I hurried to transfer the phone to my hand so I could lower the volume and listen to Marsh’s bellowing without bursting an eardrum.

My boss yelled often and loudly, and for a whole variety of reasons. But I knew by now that this particular shout of his was reserved for special occasions, usually when he was extremely stressed and needed to take it out on someone.

There were people yelling in the background, too, and then Marsh’s voice became muffled for a few seconds, like he was holding the phone away from his mouth while he shouted something back at them.

If the accents of the people he was arguing with hadn’t given away the fact that they were Australian, the words they used would have. I distinctly heard them hurl insults like “bloody cunt,” “piss off,”

and something that sounded like “budgy smugglers” in the pause before my boss returned his attention to me.

“John,” my boss repeated at top volume. “Are you there, or what?”

“I’m here,” I said without a trace of laughter in my voice. “What can I do for you, Marsh?”

“I have a job for you,” he snapped. “Accept it, or you’re fired.”

Chapter 16

I blinked in surprise at the intensity of this outright threat, even coming from Marsh.

Then I smirked ever so slightly as I realized Nick must’ve already whipped up his plan and set it in motion. I was impressed at the speed of this execution, even coming from my sneaky friend, and I wondered what the hell Nick had done to this bastard to make him feel extra spicy today.

But I kept my voice serious when I replied to Marsh.

“Accepted.”

“Good,” my boss said in a vicious voice that implied the exact opposite, like he’d been hoping I would turn the job down so he had an excuse to ream me out. “It’s for Thursday. I hope you’re up for another foul-smelling load.”

“Sure thing,” I said in my usual easy tone. “What is it? More ducks?”

“Nope,” Marsh informed me with savage glee. He paused to send another snarling shout at someone in the background, and then returned to our conversation with one word. “Mummies.”

“Uhhh…” For a few seconds, I wasn’t sure if my boss had just decided to pick up some Australian slang, or if Nick had really duped him into something this fucking insane. “Sorry, did you say--”

“Mummies,” Marsh repeated in an ear-splitting shout. “Do I have to spell everything out for you, John?”

I immediately thought of a million sarcastic remarks, from a simple “yes” to expressing doubt for his abilities to spell anything longer than three letters.

But at the moment, I needed this fucker to think he was pulling one over on me, instead of the other way around.

“Uhh, sorry,” I said in my politest tone. “But, just to be clear, these are--”

“Fucking mummies, John! Dead human remains wrapped in thousand-year-old shrouds, or something. Accept the damn job.”

Since my boss seemed like his brain was on the verge of exploding, I didn’t bother reminding him that I had already accepted the damn job. I just repeated my acceptance and asked for the details.

“I’ll text you,” he snapped, and I was thankful that this was a phone conversation as I clearly heard the spittle flying from his
mouth. “Goodbye, John.”

I heard him bellowing the words “rat bastards” at someone before the line went dead, and I finally sat back and allowed myself to have a good, long laugh.

When my phone started firing off with “pew-pew-pews,” it took me a minute to pull myself together. I raised the phone again, but then it started ringing.

It was Nick.

“Hahahahaha,” he whooped maniacally.

My friend’s evil laughter reached a new level of hilarity and contagiousness as it continued. Soon, I couldn’t help but join in, too, until finally my side started to ache.

“Stop… laughing…” I finally gasped. “Breathe.”

There was a pause, and the only sound was Nick sucking in a deep gulp of air to refill his lungs.

“Good,” I said in a mock stern voice. “Now, speak. I’m extremely impressed by your speed, Nicholas, but I need to know what’s happening.”

“Mahhsh…” My friend’s voice took on a strong Australian accent, and it was quivering with the effort of not laughing. “He’s
been held up.”

“By?” I asked as I vigorously rubbed my jaw to discourage another laugh.

My friend’s Australian accent continued.

“The coppuhs,” he managed to croak in between laughs. “They caught him trying to smuggle a b-bouncy mouse.”

I was silent for several long moments as my friend continued to gasp for air.

“Y’know,” he finally prompted, still in his accent. “A little Joey. A

‘roo.”

I couldn’t help but slip into the same joking accent for a second as I mumbled, “Oh, crikey.”

“So,” I finally said in my normal voice when we had both recovered. “Smuggling a kangaroo. Is that why I heard the guys in the background call Marsh a… what was it… ‘budgy smuggler?’”

“No,” Nick said in a strangled voice that told me he was fighting off tears of laughter. “‘Budgy smugglers’ isn’t related to actual smuggling, per se. It’s Aussie slang for a s-speedo… which is all that Marsh is wearing right now, as he’s being interrogated by the coppuhs.”

“Ew.” I immediately stopped laughing at the mental image this presented, but then a snort escaped me as I realized how much my boss was truly losing his shit right now. “Okay, so there are some more pressing details about this we need to discuss. Like, for one, do you really have mummies in your possession? I mean, am I actually going to be hauling dead bodies around?”

“Oh, right.” My friend’s voice was still slightly breathless from his laughing fit, but he managed to pull himself together as he addressed my question. “Should’ve told you. You’re not going to be hauling anything.”

“What?” I asked blankly. “How would you even–”

“The ‘museum’ you’re supposedly hauling those mummies to is actually a front for…” Nick paused, like he was trying to think of how to phrase things. “To put it simply, funneling highly coveted and patently illegal imports from overseas. Mostly stuff related to alternative medicine.”

“Riiight,” I said. “Thanks for putting it simply.”

“You’re welcome,” my friend said briskly. “Anyway, this place is super under the radar with their shady doings. But a word from me…”

“And that would all crumble,” I finished. “Got it.”

“Exactly,” Nick said in a smug voice. “The mummies in question are a recent delivery that’s already taken place, but as far as Marsh will be aware, they’ll be hauled there by you a few days from now.”

“Amazing,” I said with appreciation. “But what are the prospects of me getting into some sort of legal tangle here? I mean… What if–”

“Even if something were to happen,” my friend cut in, like he’d just been waiting for me to ask. “Any scrutiny would fall on Marsh.

He was so eager to stick you with this mummy mission that he hardly even cared to listen to what he was actually agreeing to. My only regret is that I didn’t ask him to sign away his life to me or something. That croaky old bastard probably wouldn’t have even noticed. Hah, hah.”

Nick slipped into an impressively accurate imitation of Marsh’s harsh, gravelly, crow-like laugh at the end that made it impossible not to laugh, too.

“We’ll save that option for later,” I joked. “For now, I’m extremely pleased with your, uhh…”

“Hard yakka?” my friend suggested in an Australian accent.

“Coming the raw prawn?”

“Roight,” I agreed. “As long as things don’t get too out of hand.

I mean, a little outrageous is okay, but…”

From day one, Marsh had been a continual pain in my ass. My spiteful boss had taken every possible opportunity to put me into situations that ranged from irritating and stressful to downright infuriating. The fact that I never lost my cool had only seemed to increase his desire to see that happen.

So, as long as the outcome of Marsh’s suffering wasn’t fatal, I had no problem with proxy-pranking this bastard into oblivion.

Like he had read my mind, my crafty friend added some words of reassurance.

“I won’t go too far,” he vowed. “Well… okay… no physical harm will come to him. I promise.”

I blinked with surprise at this rare show of self-restraint, but then I nodded and reflected for a moment.

“Or his family,” I added.

“’Course not,” Nick agreed immediately. “This is one of my higher levels of skullduggery, Johnny boy. No women or children
shall be harmed in the making of this mischief. They’ll suffer from secondhand embarrassment at worst, and a lot of waiting around while Marsh is running around like a chicken with its ugly head cut off, but that’s it.”

“Good,” I said with another smirk of deep satisfaction. “Alright, I have to admit, I’m extremely curious about how quickly you put this into play.”

“Well,” my friend explained in a cat-that-ate-the-canary type of voice. “I took a little nap after our last phone convo, and then I had a dream.”

“A dream,” I snorted. “Of course.”

“A dream where Mahhsh finally got what was coming to him,”

he went on in a louder voice. “And when I woke up, I felt inspired as hell. Giddy, even. Had to get going on it.”

I shook my head with amazement. “You’re a gem, Saint Nick.

Keep up the good work.”

“Oh, I’m all over this,” my friend vowed with his voice full of feverish anticipation. “I’ve pawned off my pawnshop managing duties to Vero for the time being so I can dedicate myself to full-time shenanigans.”

“Right,” I chuckled. “So… living the dream, then.”

“Hell yeah,” Nick whooped. “Sowing chaos, making Marsh lose any mellow he might’ve possessed--”

“Absolutely none,” I interjected in a mutter.

My friend cackled and went on to finish his list.

“And delivering each part of his torment in separate stages.

That way it’ll buy you maximum time to do…” he paused, and I could hear the shrug in his voice as he continued. “Whatever the hell you’re doing. Which I have no doubt is something of equal coolness and importance.”

“Oh, it is,” I admitted with a smirk.

“Like some illegal mods of that old classic truck on yours,” Nick elaborated in a thoughtful voice. “Or, of course, expanding your business horizons with Gordon.”

“Maybe,” I said mysteriously. “Or… maybe not.”

“Keep your secrets, then,” my friend said in an impressive imitation of Frodo from The Lord of the Rings.

“Speaking of secrets,” I led. “Australia? Seriously? How the hell do you have any sort of connections in Australia that could pull off something like this?”

“Nope.” Nick let the word pop on his lips with finality. “You’re not showing me yours, so I’m not showing you mine.”

“Fair enough,” I muttered.

Then he guffawed again as he returned to discussing his master plan, and a few minutes later, I finished the conversation with Nick and hung up feeling like I had just eaten another juicy steak.

I turned around and saw that both of my women were watching me closely from their perch on the couch, and I strolled over to join them.

“Your plan is unfolding well?” Ellie guessed with a tone of cautious yet evil glee in her sweet, clear voice.

“The plan with your shaggy-haired friend,” Indy added. “To drive the loathsome Marsh-lord into madness.”

“It’s unfolding very well,” I chuckled. “I have our next trip to Bayalon officially scheduled, and the Marsh-lord is definitely on his way to madness. My shaggy-haired friend likes to play with his food, though. Which is perfect for us. My boss will be one hundred percent out of my hair for the next five days, or maybe even a full week. The grand finale is planned for the night we go through the portal, and it’ll take several days to unfold.”

“And the other managing men will be busy?” Ellie chimed in.

“Very busy,” I said with a nod. “And even if they did think something was off with me, which they shouldn’t, considering the way Marsh is losing his shit already, no one will want to test his wrath further with any pesky details like me and my old clunker. I mean, chariot.”

“You are very wise, John,” Indy said with an excited clap of her hands. “We will train furiously for the next few days–”

“Not too furiously,” I cautioned with a pointed look at Ellie. “But your fighting master and the dietitian will be working together to make sure your training and diet are tailored toward being perfectly prepped for your fight with Artemn, and toward making Ellie a little heavier. Well… assuming the dietitian agrees to take you two on.”

“He will,” my blue-haired warrior said with the utmost confidence. “You played the treacherous backers like a master fiddler, John. This will be no different.”

“I like your spirit,” I chuckled. “Although I think it’ll be, uh, a little bit different. But I do think it’ll go well. Assuming we go to sleep pretty soon here, so we’re not like three zombies in the morning.”

“Zom-beeee,” Indy repeated with a frown.

I got up and stretched. “You know, the undead.”

My princess’ frown deepened, but Ellie nodded with simple understanding.

“The wicked legion of the reborn,” my doll-faced warrior said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Pretty much,” I chuckled, and I grasped my two warrior women by the wrists to pull them upstairs.

The fresh air from our little beach jaunt had tired my two warriors out, and they fell asleep even faster than I did once our heads hit the pillows. Before I slept, I took a brief time to savor the awful afternoon Marsh was now having halfway around the globe, and then I ran over my plans for the next few days in my mind to soothe myself to sleep.

For once, I woke up before my two warrior women. The early morning sun was sending its pale golden glow slanting down through the blinds of my window, and I took a few moments to admire the flawlessness of the two slumbering beauties in my bed. Ellie’s round, pouty lips parted slightly as she mumbled something in her sleep, and Indy’s fierce, bold features were softened by whatever dreams my princess was having.

I got up, stretched, and headed downstairs to go through my early morning routine and prepare for the day ahead. With my skin freshly scrubbed, my jaw shaved smooth, and a good night’s sleep fueling me, I felt refreshed as hell. Between that and the excitement of my plans, I didn’t even need a cup of coffee to be feeling keyed up and ready for the day.

So when I brewed a fresh pot of coffee for my warrior women to drink when they woke up, I only took a small amount for myself, with a generous amount of half-and-half. Then I sipped it slowly at the table while I went over our schedule in my head.

First we’d be heading to my warrior women’s hour-long consultation with Tor the dietitian. After that, we’d be a little earlier for the women’s training session when we headed back north, but I figured we could just take our time and give Tor the chance to call my warriors’ fighting master to coordinate some stuff. Since they had already worked together several times in the past, I was pretty sure this would go quickly and smoothly.

Then I would go in to discuss things with the trainer and stick around for the beginning of the women’s session to make sure things were going as planned. After that, I’d head up to Astoria to meet with Gordon while my warriors carried out the rest of the day’s training.

Once that exciting task was complete, I’d go pick up the women, and we’d probably grab some food that followed their new meal plan before we headed home.

Soon my warriors came bounding downstairs, and I whipped up some puny bird eggs to go with the cups of warm coffee I gave them.

We sat around the table in the little morning ritual I had come to love when we were home, and I went through the plans for our day with my warrior women.

“I’ll pack your new armor in my duffel bag,” I added as we got up and stretched. “So you can wear it to your training session after our appointment with the dietitian.”

“We do not need to impress the food expert with our champions’ attire?” Indy asked with a slightly crestfallen look.

“Nope,” I chuckled. “You’ll impress him plenty, though, especially if he’s smart enough to call your fighting master ahead of time. And then there’s how much money I’m offering this Tor guy.”

Once we were all ready to go, I drove us to the office in Cathlamet that Tor the dietitian had given me the address to.

On the outside it was a neat and unremarkable brick office building, and a plaque of the practitioners outside the front door confirmed we were in the right place. Once the secretary buzzed us in, there were more signs scattered through the plush office setting.

Tor looked to be in his late forties, but he was straight-backed and fit-looking for his age. He had a calm, even face, but his expression wavered slightly as he took in the sight of my two warrior women following me into his office.

He shook all of our hands before we sat. Then he took his own seat behind his desk, and he leaned forward to brace his forearms against the wooden surface while he ran an appraising eye over my two women. He ran a hand through his buzzed black hair and sighed.

“It takes a lot for me to bail on a client once I’ve agreed to take them on,” he said bluntly. “But I’ve talked to Benny, and he had a lot to say about these two. Well, the three of you, actually.”

My eyebrows flew up, but I just nodded silently while I wondered what the hell Benny the trainer could’ve had to say about me.

“Cash is great,” Tor went on without beating around the bush.

“But I value commitment just as much. And I mean genuine commitment. I’d rather offer my services to a dedicated circus master than one of the many idiot coaches who want to cut weight the fast way, no matter what the cost to whoever they’re coaching.”

I realized there was little to no likelihood that this guy would’ve accepted an hour-long appointment with me and my women if he counted me as one of those idiots.

Singing my own praises wasn’t my thing, though. It didn’t seem like something that would work on this guy even if I cared to do it. So I just raised my eyebrows at the dramatic circus master comparison and chuckled.

“Sounds like high praise,” I joked.

He grinned in response, but then he shook his head. “You don’t strike me as either of those, and these two women definitely don’t strike me as clowns. That’s why you’re here.”

A small current of excitement rippled through me, but I just nodded calmly and let Tor go on with his statement.

“When Benny mentioned medieval-style leather armor, I was a bit skeptical at first,” he went on. “But to revive that sort of fighting as
a full-contact sport, or whatever it is you’re doing, well… that seems pretty damn cool to me. Not what I expected at first. And most importantly, Benny assured me of these two women’s dedication and skill… and of the active role he’s seen you play in coordinating their training. I respect that.”

“I do what I can,” I said with a modest smile, but I made sure my seriousness about this came through as I went on. “I want what’s best for Indy and Ellie here. As hopeful as I am about Ellie gaining those pounds for the event we’ve got coming up, I’m not interested in cutting any corners that might affect her health.”

I cast a glance at my two women as I spoke, partly to make sure they knew I meant the words, but also to make sure neither of them spoke up declaring their willingness to sacrifice their health or lives in the arena in front of this dietitian, who had no suspicion of the deadly nature of their otherworldly “sport.”

My warrior women stayed silent for the moment. I could see the excitement on their faces, but after spending so much time with someone like their fighting master, they knew the drill when it came to this type of Earthly interaction.

The rest of the hour-long consultation was devoted entirely to exploring the goals for the nutrition of my two warrior women,
especially Ellie.

“I’ve helped fighters gain before,” Tor shared as he looked at the petite frame of my blue-haired warrior more closely. “It’s not as common as cutting, of course, but I respect it.”

Then the dietitian fired up his computer, and his fingers tapped furiously away on the keyboard while he asked questions, took notes, and gave instructions.

“For your petite fighter, eating at least five times per day is important.” Tor’s fingers tapped away as he spoke, and then he looked back at us. “Three to four hours between each meal, and it’s best if one of the meals is right before sleep.”

After a few more clicks, I heard the sound of a printer firing up out in the hall, and then the dietitian continued with his talking and typing.

“Protein with every meal,” he instructed. “But don’t go overboard. About fifteen grams per meal. Amino acids are also extremely important, as I mentioned on the phone. Especially a special little one called leucine.”

“Leucine,” I repeated.

Tor nodded. “Whey protein is great in terms of both those things, especially if she has it before and after training. Oh, and I’ll be printing this all off for you, so no need to worry about burning the numbers or names into your memory too much. I’ll draw up a specific meal plan now, too, so she can gain weight as quickly and healthily as possible.”

We discussed more details of what Ellie needed to consume, and when, and how much of it she needed. We went over good foods and portions for Indy, too, to keep my black-haired warrior energetic and well-nourished.

The more detailed we got, the more I wondered if this was how people with race horses felt trying to manage their athletes, and for a moment, I grimaced at the idea. Then I glanced over to see my beautiful fighters with bright eyes and eager smiles on their lips, and I was reminded yet again that no one had ever looked after these women properly.

They’d essentially been run into the ground like beasts of burden, and having a guy like me around to build them back up and make them thrive in the arena was more than they’d ever hoped for.

Indy’s eyes shone with a hint of rose gold when she caught me studying her face, and the way she smiled at me with pure adoration
made my mouth go dry.

Then we hammered out some more specifics for managing both of their nutrition in the long term, and I agreed to pay for six months upfront, as promised.

When we were done, the dietitian ducked out of the office to grab the stack of papers he had printed off for us throughout our meeting. He put them in a folder and then gave it to me and shook all of our hands again.

“I look forward to working with the three of you,” he said with a smile that seemed genuine.

“I appreciate it,” I said truthfully. “I want the best of the best for these two.”

“Well, you came to the right place,” Tor chuckled and went to hold the door open for us. “I’ll give Benny a ring after this and go over your goals so we can coordinate, and I’ll email him the notes from our meeting.”

“Thanks,” I said with a grin that was reflected in the faces of my two warriors.

Ellie thanked the dietitian with her usual shyness, and Indy did the same with her typical solemn attitude.

Once we were alone outside the building, though, my women burst into unrestrained speech.

“What is a smootherie, John?” Indy asked immediately. “And does the food-master include pea-nuts in these nuts he spoke of?”

I shuffled through the papers Tor had given me as I got into the car with my women, and then I nodded.

“Peanuts are acceptable for both of you,” I promised. “And as for smoothies, uhhh…”

I tried to think of the best way to describe the liquified blend of foods, juice, and powders without it sounding disgusting, but then an idea struck me.

“Showing is better than telling,” I decided. “Or… it’ll be tasting, in this case. I think you’ll love smootheries-- I mean, smoothies.”

“Smoooothie,” Ellie whispered under her breath.

I glanced over the types of smoothies that were listed on the printouts we’d been given, and I saw that the dietitian had even included smoothie shops to get them at, like he had done with restaurants for the food.

Then I searched the area around us with a few quick taps on my phone’s GPS. None of the smoothie shops were in our
immediate area, but there was one on the way to my warriors’

martial arts center where we were headed now.

I glanced at the rest of Tor’s instructions again, and I nodded as I put the car into drive. “Ellie needs to have some protein before and after your training to help with weight gain, so why not treat you two to a delicious smoothie beforehand?”

“Are they as scrumptious as the puny bird eggs?” Indy asked.

Her tone was full of doubt, like she didn’t think smoothies could measure up.

“They’re pretty damn delicious,” I said in a reasonable tone as I steered us toward the quickest route there. “Well, they can be, anyway. Some people actually put eggs in their smoothies, I think.

Er… uncooked eggs. Which is kinda gross, in my opinion, and I’m pretty sure it can give you salmonella, so…”

“Salmon?” Ellie interjected from the back seat. “Salmon is good, John.”

“Salmonella,” I corrected with a laugh. “It’s not the same as salmon. It means, uh… well, basically, uncooked eggs can make you sick.”

“This is true of Kortico’s eggs, too,” Indy said in a wise voice.

“Sick, or dead.”

“Dead?” I asked with a startled feeling that faded when I remembered there was a complete and utter lack of medical care for these types of sicknesses in the desert world, even if the sicknesses did have the same properties as salmonella.

Hell, in the desert world, wounded warriors would probably be dying left and right if not for the lifesavers with the magical, kelp-like hair they used to bind wounds.

“Dead as nails,” Indy repeated solemnly in another slightly-flawed but adorable adaptation of my Earth slang. “From sickness, or from the savage pecks of the Zizyak birds, if the people were not wise enough to pay properly for their eggs.”

I decided to save my question about what “properly” meant in this scenario as the smoothie shop came into sight, and I pulled into the parking lot. We still had a bit of time before my warriors’ training session, but we’d still need to get going from here pretty soon to make it on time.

“Welcome in!” a voice screeched deafeningly as soon as we set foot inside the door.

Ellie jumped, and Indy cast a haughty look at the visor-wearing worker behind the counter, who looked like she was working solo in operating a smoothie machine, cooking a breakfast burrito, and screeching welcomes at the guests.

“Hey there,” I shouted to be heard over the deafening grind of the smoothie machine. The worker had just dumped a huge helping of almonds into it, and the resulting sound reminded me of Marsh’s gravelly, grating voice.

Then it quieted down, and the worker whipped into motion pouring the smoothie, turning off the griddle with a bump of her hips, and then packaging both to serve to the scowly guy at the shop’s only table. He accepted his order from the worker and glanced at us with a challenging look, like he was ready to fight us for his spot if we decided to intrude.

I resisted the temptation to sic my two badass women on him.

Instead, I glanced over Tor’s smoothie sheet printout that I had brought in with me.

“Can we get, uhhh…” I glanced up at the menu and its variety of oddly-named drinks with their ingredients listed below. “A…

chilled… ‘ultimate twilight’ smoothie with some, umm… ‘whey of the master?’ Is that just normal whey?”

“Whey powder,” the multi-tasking worker confirmed with a nod.

“Any infusions?”

It took a good couple of minutes to navigate the smoothie menu as I figured out what the hell an “infusion” was and what exactly was in the smoothies with names like “infinite dog,” “crimson Earthquake,” and “brutal espresso.”

Finally I walked out of the shop with my two warrior women and three smoothies, one for each of us.

Both of my women seemed almost intimidated by the chilled beverages. But then again, between the chaotic noise of the smoothie machines, the intense-sounding names of the smoothies, and the two warriors’ new experiences with brain freeze, I couldn’t blame them.

I took a long sip of my drink, which the menu had named an

“unholy slingshot,” to show Indy and Ellie that the beverages were safe.

In the back seat, Indy eyed her “jasmine monsoon” smoothie suspiciously and then took a cautious sip.

Her face immediately lit up, and tangerine-colored shards danced through her red-gold eyes as she took a deeper drink.

“Slow down,” I warned her. “You can get brain freeze from this stuff, just like with the frigid coffee.”

Indy nodded as she withdrew from her straw and gave her drink a look of deep respect and admiration. “This drink has a name worthy of a fierce warrior.”

I smiled and then turned forward toward Ellie, who sat in my passenger seat.

“So,” I said. “What’s the verdict on--”

I cut off as I saw the clear cup was already halfway empty of its

“ultimate twilight” smoothie. Ellie’s pouty lips were locked around the straw, and her eyes were pinched tightly shut with a look that I recognized as a mixture of pain and bliss.

Finally she released the straw from her lips, and a breath of air hissed out between her teeth.

I postponed my amusement while I hurried to make sure Ellie was suffering from only brain freeze and not acute cardiac arrest.

“Doing alright?” I asked as I placed a gentle pat on her arm.

“Frigid twilight in my brain,” Ellie moaned. “Owieee…”

She trailed off when I tried to take the drink from her grasp, and she clutched it protectively to her chest like it was a newborn
child.

I choked back a laugh and held my hands up in mock surrender.

“We’d better get going,” I said, and I turned to the steering wheel after another glance to gauge the physical and mental states of my warriors.

The fruity, half-frozen drinks had clearly transported them to a similar state of bliss to the one I had seen in them after they first tried coffee, and I chuckled as they sucked down the fruity drinks as fast as they could without enduring another onslaught of brain freeze. I was tickled by their adoration of the drinks, but I was also glad I had gotten them the smallest size, considering they had a training session ahead of them.

Whether it was the infusions, the fresh fruits and veggies, or just the sheer delight of downing the cold drinks, something about the smoothies had my women bouncing off the walls more than ever, and I had to calm them down before we entered the big double doors of the martial arts training center.

Inside, I took the time to go over the details of their upcoming training sessions more with the fighting master while my women
stretched. I tried not to be distracted by the sight I saw over the trainer’s shoulder as my princess arched her body back into a bridge that revealed every curve of her perfect, golden form, and Ellie bent to touch her toes like her spine was made of rubber. The dainty warrior’s flexibility allowed her to actually place the palms of her delicate hands flat against the ground, and with the way she was facing away from me, it was all too easy to picture the sight of my blue-haired warrior doing this without the white, dress-like romping garment that flowed around her hips so that I could penetrate her.

I tore my attention away from my two warrior women for the moment as I hashed out some more details with their trainer, and I was pleased to hear he had already talked to Tor on the phone.

Then he showed me the spear we had talked about on the phone. It was made entirely out of bamboo, but other than that, it was incredibly similar to the spear I had seen Artemn the Abandoned wield in Bayalon.

“That’s perfect,” I said as I looked it over, and my two women both nodded in agreement as they came to peer around their fighting master’s shoulders at the weapon.

He assured me again that their training would be thorough, but not enough to have Ellie in a calorie deficit, and then I headed off for
my meeting with Gordon the business broker while my women did their training session.

I made the drive to Astoria, and the drizzle that started pattering down onto my windshield soon turned into a thick, driving rain that filled my windshield with fog on the inside.

By the time I reached the tall, signless building that Gordon’s office was in, the pounding rain had faded into a gentle, misty drizzle again.

I parked on the street and headed into the silent building. The first floor was as empty as ever as I crossed its bland salt-and-pepper carpet and stepped into the elevator. The top level with its shiny marble floor was still empty outside the dark wooden panels of the free-standing privacy screens that zigzagged across a big corner of the room.

I strode over to the narrow gap between two of them and saw that Gordon was behind them at his gleaming oak desk. I knocked lightly on the nearest privacy screen, and the broker swiveled around in his chair with a look of welcome on his face.

“Good to see you again,” he greeted me as he stood to shake my hand. Under his mop of ginger hair, his friendly, coffee-brown
eyes looked as all-business as ever, but there seemed to be a flicker of anticipation in them, too.

I greeted the broker and then went to sit in the single gray lounge chair across from his desk.

He seated himself in front of the gleaming oak surface again and braced his elbows against it.

“So,” he said as he folded his fingers under his chin. “I uncovered some things in my due diligence. There’s some good news about your boss’ business, like that the profits are quite high, for one.”

“What’s the bad news?” I asked immediately.

“Expenses are high, too,” Gordon admitted. “And possibly getting higher. And it’s not just for your boss’ company. I reached out to a contact in the freight industry– he’s a broker, too, not a business owner– and he tells me that the landscape in the industry is probably going to get very bumpy as more people start pushing for electric vehicles, including semis. That’ll be a whole change in infrastructure, and most likely a real pain in the ass for small business owners in the freight industry.”

“Ooooof course,” I sighed.

This new discovery seemed completely in character for a society who relied deeply on the labor that truckers put in, but didn’t seem to give two shits about making things more difficult for us.

Gordon nodded in agreement. I was sure that if this guy hadn’t had any sympathy for the issue before, he probably did now after an extended conversation with some contacts in the industry, especially if that person had started at the bottom and worked their way up.

“In terms of your boss’ business in particular,” he went on, and now he propped his chin in his palm with a more thoughtful expression. “Other than the extreme expenses now, and the high potential for unprecedented costs in the future… I spotted some red flags.”

The lift in his tone puzzled me, and I frowned in confusion.

“That, uh, doesn’t seem like a good thing,” I pointed out.

Gordon shrugged, and the closest thing I had ever seen to a smirk crossed his businesslike face. “There may be a silver lining. If there is, well… it won’t be for him, I promise you.”

I sat up a little straighter in my chair as intrigue filled me, and I realized we were coming to the part of this meeting that might completely alter the whole direction of my future.

“Tell me more about this silver lining,” I said as I looked across the desk at the savvy business broker.

Gordon leaned forward and placed his palms flat against the wooden surface. “I can sum it up in one word.”

Chapter 17

“And what is that word?” I asked the business broker.

“‘Leverage,’” Gordon replied simply.

“I’m gonna need a few more words,” I joked. “I mean, I get the basic concept, but…”

“Your boss seems to have had some legal mishaps in the past,” Gordon said. “Specifically with misclassifying some of his drivers as independent contractors instead of employees.”

“Uhhh…” I stared at him. “That sounds like one hell of a mishap.”

“Multiple mishaps,” Gordon clarified with a smile. “A very big no-no for him, of course.”

“I’ll say,” I muttered as I drummed my fingers against the arm of the chair. “And why would he do this, exactly? I mean…”

“Greed,” the broker said simply. “It’s quite boring, as far as crimes go. It cuts costs for him by a good deal in terms of expenses, regulations, wages…”

“Sounds about right,” I murmured.

Gordon nodded. “And that’s why I’d be very interested in having a look at your employment contract, leasing agreement, and any other documentation between you and his company, if you’ll allow me.”

“What will you be looking for?” I asked.

“Inconsistencies,” the broker explained. “Differences in what the contract says and, well… reality. That includes what he’s charging you for and how much, along with what he’s paying you. In sum, it’s whether he’s complying with regulations.”

“And if he’s not…” I said with my pulse picking up slightly.

“Then that’d be some pretty good leverage for me?”

“Without a doubt,” Gordon confirmed. When he saw the drum of my fingers flying into a faster tempo against the arm of the lounge chair, he chuckled. “This is a lot to think about, I know. I have some suggestions, which of course, you’re free to turn down…”

“I’m listening,” I replied.

“I’d suggest that for the time being, you do absolutely nothing.”

The broker steepled his fingers under his chin. “Except for allowing me to look over the documents I mentioned. If so, I won’t charge you
another retainer for that. I could just consider it a part of my due diligence, essentially.”

“And if you find any of the inconsistencies you mentioned…” I said thoughtfully. “Then what happens?”

“In that case, I would suggest putting together a small legal team.”

I was slightly surprised by this, so I just responded with a questioning look.

“I would be on that team,” he continued. “But so would a lawyer or two. Maybe an employment attorney with demonstrated success in prosecuting these types of cases.”

“What would my legal options be, then?” I asked.

“It depends on what I find,” Gordon replied. “If I discover that there’s any violation on your boss’ behalf of the leasing agreement for your truck, then that’s similar to a breach of contract. That’s a great reason to sue. If our suit is successful, it could force him to follow the lease’s terms, and grant you your truck.”

Excitement rippled through me, but I pushed it aside for now as I nodded and tried to sort through this mentally.

“There are other options,” Gordon went on. “If a breach isn’t found in the realm of your leasing agreement, there’s still the matter of possible employee misclassification, of course. If the problem isn’t confined to you, then this could turn into an even bigger problem for your boss. And if he hasn’t been managing his money well, then he could possibly be induced to turn over some of his assets instead.

Something similar could happen if he filed for bankruptcy. The laws for Washington state can vary when it comes to exemptions, but I believe we’ll have enough leverage to show your boss that it’d be in his best interest to simply–”

“Stop being a greedy, power-hungry jackass who tries to screw over hardworking employees?” I suggested with a wry grin.

The broker chuckled. “We’ll probably, ahh, clean up the language a little when we’re in court. But the biggest thing will be that he’s clearly been violating the agreement– or agreements, even– between you.”

I thought deeply about everything I had just learned, and what my options might be in the future.

The fact that Marsh had cut corners with managing his business wasn’t all too surprising to me. If I were able to sue him and either force him to honor the leasing agreement or give up particular
assets like Gordon had mentioned, that would free me from any obligations to clean up any existing or future messes created by my boss’ shitty judgment and money management.

With Spitfire in my possession and no big fleet to oversee, it seemed like I’d also have more freedom from having to deal with any sweeping regulations like the ones I had just discussed with the business broker. I knew that the trucking industry was competitive as hell, and the changes in regulations always made it unpredictable. I also knew firsthand that changing regulations always had to come from somebody’s pocket. If I owned a business like Marsh’s, there was a chance of me having to choose between shouldering the costs of upgrading myself, or having to push it onto normal truckers.

Right now, I was one of those normal truckers. Well… sort of.

Sure, I had a hell of a lot more money in my bank account now than I had several weeks ago, but I had no intention of forgetting what it was like to have someone doing their best to screw you over, like Marsh had to me.

Owning Spitfire personally was what I had wanted for a long time now. If I didn’t have to assume the lead of my boss’ messy corporate affairs, then maybe that was all the better. After all, now I
had the time, money, and ability to build a business of my own from the ground up.

“I’ll get you those documents,” I finally said as I stood up to shake Gordon’s hand. “And if you find what you need, then we’ll go from there. Believe me when I tell you I’d love to sue this bastard. He deserves it.”

“So I’ve gathered,” the broker said, and he smiled as he returned the handshake. “I’ll do my best to see that he gets what’s coming to him. Or at the very least, that you get what he owes you.”

“Physically or mentally?” I muttered as I thought of all the stress I had endured thanks to Marsh.

I said my goodbyes with Gordon and then strode out of the tall, signless building with my mind racing.

The results of the business broker’s due diligence weren’t exactly what I’d originally had in mind when I met with him. But then again, I hadn’t known that I might have any legal grounds to come after Marsh for this sort of personal grievance.

And the more I thought about it, the more sense this choice of action seemed to make. Part of the reason I had been drawn to trucking was my dislike for sitting around trapped in one place, like I
might’ve been if I headed off to college or settled down with a regular job right away.

If I took over Marsh’s business, I had a feeling I’d either be doing quite a bit of that or paying someone to do it for me, and I had a feeling that job would be a hell of a lot harder with Marsh’s business mistakes haunting the company I’d be buying out from under him.

All of a sudden, my mind went to my favorite fellow trucker, Doug. He was a smart, seasoned, no-bullshit type of guy. After a while of working with Marsh, I had found myself wondering why the hell Doug would spend so many years working under someone like my jackass of a boss.

When I had asked him the question outright, Doug had just given me a tired-looking smile and shrugged.

Later on, though, he’d shared with me that Marsh had once offered him a manager’s position.

“The pay would’ve been better,” he had admitted. “And being out on the road constantly does get a little tiring for an old geezer like me. But I’m not about to sit around a table conniving with those greedy corporate stooges for a living.”

My mind was still full of thoughts as I drove to pick up my two warrior women from their training session, and then I headed inside to see if they were still finishing up.

When I walked into the martial arts building, I heard the familiar sound of wooden weapons clacking together. The session was clearly still going on, so I walked down the short, empty hallway with soft footsteps and stuck my head around the corner of the open doorway to look into the room where my warrior women did their training.

They were completely absorbed with their practice, so I quietly moved forward to lean against the side of the doorway and watch them complete their session.

At the moment, Indy and Ellie were both pressing the attack on their trainer, who was equipped with one of the wooden spears he had shown me at the beginning of their session. I watched them close in around him while he tried to keep them at a distance with the spear. He held them off for a while with some spins, dodges, and jabs of the bamboo weapon.

But my two warrior women were swift and relentless in their attack. I watched with a mixture of approval and pride as Indy
barreled forward and forced the trainer into a flurry of blows that sent their practice weapons rapping and sliding against each other.

The trainer no longer had the space or time to keep track of my petite blue-haired warrior. From the way he angled himself, I could tell he was trying to keep her in his peripheral vision, but she dropped down to the side and struck out at him like a snake.

He switched direction fluidly and sent the tip of the bamboo spear toward her shoulder, but it just skimmed lightly off her leather shoulder armor before my doll-faced warrior was inside his guard and stabbing savagely at his knee with the blade on one of her practice tonfas.

Indy took advantage of the opening, too, and of the fact that the trainer had unwisely turned his back on her. At first I thought she might tackle him, but she seemed to think better of it. Instead, she whacked the trainer hard in the small of the back with the flat edge of her practice blade.

A small snort of laughter escaped me as the trainer’s reflexive clutching motion switched from his knee to his lower back, and my warriors raced around him to jump up and give each other an airborne high-five.

I thought the trainer must’ve taught them the gesture, or maybe one of the high-level students he sometimes involved in their sessions. Either way, it seemed like this was the first time my warrior women had done a high-five in earnest, because they both landed with a slight wince and flapped their hands around like they were trying to shake the pain out of their fingers.

Then Indy and Ellie caught sight of me. They both perked up and raced over to where I stood in the doorway.

“That looked fantastic,” I told them as I put an arm around each one of my warriors to pull them in.

The trainer massaged his back as he followed them over with a slight limp in his stride.

“It was pretty fantastic,” he agreed with a rueful grin. Then he switched over to fully addressing me as he added, “We went through moves like this slowly for the most part, to keep Ellie’s cardio down.

Then we ran through each one at full speed, just twice for today.”

“Cool,” I said with a nod. “And you discussed all this with Tor, right?”

“Their next few sessions are fully Tor-approved,” Benny assured me. “As long as they keep up with the meal plan and don’t
do any extended cardio outside our sessions for the next few days, Ellie will be well on schedule for gaining those four pounds.”

“Perfect,” I approved. Then I looked down at my two warrior women. “Ready to roll, shieldmaidens?”

Indy and Ellie both nodded eagerly, and they followed me out into the weak afternoon sun.

“Will we be rolling to get more smoothies, John?” Ellie asked in a hopeful voice.

I chuckled as I saw both women watching me with anxious, excited expressions.

“Well,” I exhaled as we sat in the car, and I grabbed the folder with Tor’s guidelines so I could make sure I was remembering right.

Then I nodded. “That’s fine. Might even be better, apparently. You have about three meals left today, Ellie. Well, two and a half, if you have another protein smoothie now.”

“That sounds like… very much food,” my blue-haired warrior murmured from the passenger seat.

Her big, sapphire-blue eyes looked slightly worried, and I reached out to pat her slender arm while I tucked the folder away.

“Having some of the nutrients in smoothie form should make it easier,” I reassured her. “Or… so I’m told, anyway. And this Tor guy is an expert. And plus, smoothies are delicious, right?”

“They are very nice,” Indy agreed from the back seat. “May I also have a smoothie, John? Please?”

“Hmmm,” I pondered in a teasing voice, and I paused to act like I was on the brink of deciding. “Well…”

“I said the magical word, John,” my princess begged. Then she repeated it in a slow, drawn-out voice. “Pleeease?”

I was silent for a moment.

“You’ve persuaded me,” I said solemnly.

An excited breath hissed out between my princess’ teeth.

“Indy can be quite persuasive,” Ellie reflected in a quiet voice.

The combination of shyness and dreaminess I heard in my dainty warrior’s tone made me glance over at her, and when I saw the pearly blush on her cheeks, I realized she was remembering our time in Krasur’s guest bedroom.

“She can,” I agreed as a smirk spread across my face.

“Especially with the right prompting.”

“And a firm hand,” Indy added from the back seat. When I shot her a look in the rearview mirror, her eyes smoldered shamelessly at me, and I chuckled.

We made a few different stops on our way home after the smoothie shop. One was to a simple grocery store, where we could browse the aisles in peace as I picked out things that fit into both my warriors’ meal plans.

Indy and Ellie examined just about every item in the grocery store with the growing boldness they now had on Earth, but when we entered the health and nutrition store and an overeager salesman accosted us, they shrank behind me slightly.

The guy bombarded us with suggestions for trendy fitness products until I was forced to raise my “no thanks” tone to a mild shout that rivaled Marsh’s quietest setting.

As I checked out and waved off the cashier’s urges for me to start a rewards account, the thought of Marsh made my mind wander to speculating about what stage of Nick’s plan was happening now.

Most of the texts I had received from my friend lately were some intermittent, garbled “hahahas,” so I figured Operation Marsh was still in the earliest stage.

But admittedly, judging by my last phone conversation with Nick, the earliest stage had already sounded fucking hilarious.

So I texted my crafty friend when we got in the car.

What’s the move, Dr. Evil? I asked.

Then I drove home with my warrior women while I allowed the

“pew-pew-pew” ringtone of my friend’s responses to roll in.

After we’d brought the groceries inside, I reached slowly into one of the bags and presented my warrior women with a brand-new bottle of one of their three favorite liquids.

“Conditioning soap!” Indy shrieked, and her long fingers grasped eagerly for the bottle.

I placed it ceremoniously in her grip, and she shifted the jumbo-sized bottle to tuck her elbow around it like it was a football.

This freed her other hand to snatch Ellie by the shoulder and pull her into the bathroom with her at top speed.

“Women,” I murmured again with the utmost affection.

Then I opened my phone and scrolled through Nick’s messages.

Still in phase one, my friend’s first text reported.

As usual, his other additions were spread out over several texts:

I’m starting a compilation for you, Johnny Bossman.

Nay… a composition, if you will.

The biggest masterpiece since the orchestral version of Toxic I downloaded to play in marching band.

But this’ll be made up of the different audio recordings I have from all my Marsh-related malarkey.

Ol’ Marshy boy himself is featured on it a few times so far.

I wheezed with laughter as I typed out a response.

So soon, I replied. How’d you wrangle that, Nicholas? You didn’t have him bugged or something, did you?

My friend’s responses whizzed in one after another: Nah.

Maybe later.

Two of the three audio clips I have are him in the background on phone calls I had with the coppers.

Oh, and one government official.

Well… ex-government official.

I shook my head with amazement.

And the third clip? I had to ask.

The little gray bubble that indicated Nick was typing appeared right away, but his reply took so long to come that I figured the answer was either extremely complicated, or my friend was laughing too hard to type out a message at his normal speed.

The briefness of his two responding texts told me it was probably the latter.

Someone uploaded a video of his meltdown to YouTube.

Should I link you, or save it for the composition?

I took a moment to consider this before I made up my mind.

Definitely save it, I replied. Unless, uh… something happens.

Judging by Nick’s next three texts that rolled in immediately, my friend knew what I meant.

Don’t worry, Johnny Bossman.

I got this.

I should update you the same way as before, yes?

I replied to confirm the “text with updates, call with emergencies” routine with my friend, and then thanked him for his
wily ways.

I’ll buy you a drink when I’m back, I said in my final message, and then I picked up on my friend’s over-the-top speech as I amended myself. Nay… a bottle.

I’ll be able to buy it myself at this point, my friend pointed out.

Thanks to your gems and pearls.

Then he hit me with a storm of cash-related emojis, and his usual favorite, the one that looked like a smiling demon of some kind.

I set the phone aside and smirked at the confirmation of Marsh’s ongoing hardships, and then I decided to get going on some meal-prepping for my two warriors and myself.

Whipping up random basic dinners came pretty easily to me, but this meal-prepping shit was a whole new level of kitchen wizardry to me. By the time I was finally done and at the stage of playing Tetris to stack the next few days’ worth of meals and snacks into my fridge, I had decided beyond a doubt that I would pay someone else to do this shit in the future for my periods when I had time at home with my warrior women.

It felt damn good to realize that I would be able to pay for this without batting an eye.

For the moment, though, the juggling of various foods, measuring cups, and cooking utensils was entirely worth it from the way my women’s jaws dropped when they saw the meals that were now waiting for them.

Indy’s freshly washed hair tumbled through the air behind her as she came hurtling over to investigate, and Ellie wasn’t far behind.

My princess prodded a finger into a hot sweet potato with bold curiosity. She withdrew her finger with a hiss of pain, and now it was covered with a small but steaming-hot layer of sweet potato.

“Foolish,” she grumbled under her breath. Then she sucked the bit of sweet potato cautiously off her finger, and the red flare in her eyes flickered into a gold twinkle as she looked up at me. “Did you concoct this dish, John?”

“Mmm?” I mumbled distractedly. The provocative way Indy’s lips wrapped around her finger still had most of my attention. “Oh.

Yep.”

My princess abruptly turned and grabbed Ellie by her petite shoulders to march her a few steps closer. Then Indy picked up a
fork, speared a little piece of sweet potato, and presented it to the dainty warrior in a way that was somehow both cute as hell and distinctly alluring.

“Ellie will be a good girl,” Indy instructed in a purr. “She will eat her…”

The princess paused and turned toward me with a questioning frown.

“Sweet potato,” I supplied with a smirk.

“Sweet pohh-taaay-taw,” Indy purred.

“One sweet potato for one sweet warrior,” I teased as I handed Ellie her own dish.

Then I sat with my two women around the little table and ate dinner.

The scene was repeated over the next few days, but otherwise the time passed in a blur of business as we all threw ourselves into preparing for our third trip to Bayalon. A lot of this involved Ellie eating the five-plus meals per day that were tailored to her quick and healthy weight gain.

I found myself grateful for a lot of things in those few days.

One of them was smoothies, because my warriors’ love for the
blended beverages mostly kept us from the point of Indy actually shoveling food into her petite fellow warrior’s mouth.

There were other things, too, and some of them went a lot deeper than chilled and fruity drinks. As I spent more and more time with my two warrior women, I was coming to realize that whether we ate sweet potatoes and crunchy cereal in my little cottage, a filet mignon while watching the sunset at a fancy restaurant, or an egg McMuffin in the cab of my truck, I would always enjoy it just as much.

And so would they.

But I knew I wanted more for us. The tiny cottage would only hold us for so long, and once we’d won Artemn into our group, there’d be a definite need to move to a bigger place.

Especially if my women were going to be able to practice their combat skills to their hearts’ content.

I also had a hell of a lot of gems waiting to be sold by Nick, and the moment that paycheck came in, my bank account would be miles beyond anything I’d ever hoped for myself.

Then the amount would just keep increasing.

Several mental images of elaborate and expensive cabins in the woods flickered through my mind at any random hour of the day,
and every time, the deck got bigger while the number of sexy warriors in my backyard grew and grew.

Thanks to Nick’s “hard yakka” with hoodwinking Marsh, I had some extra time on the day of the battle to prep my warriors instead of hauling a load of mummies to their destination, so it was a little later in the day than our usual departure when we headed to my company lot. When I came rumbling out of the gate in my chariot, my warriors were already so amped up that they got into a fierce tussle over the pure excitement of who would get through the cab door first.

“I will never grow tired of this, John,” Indy declared once she had recovered from Ellie’s petite yet powerful elbow jabbing into her gut.

“Of what?” I asked with a chuckle as I directed us toward the highway. “Oh, you mean heading off to the desert world to kick some serious ass?”

“And take many names,” Indy agreed solemnly. “Always. But that is not all that I meant. I meant…”

My princess seemed to run out of words, but she waved both her long-fingered hands in a sweeping gesture.

“The three of us,” Ellie suggested in her sweet, quiet voice.

“Getting onto the road.”

“Soon it will be four,” Indy added. “And then–”

My princess seemed like she was ready to launch into a prebattle speech. I always loved these as a general rule, but right now I held up a hand for silence.

“Just a minute,” I said in my gravest voice. “Speaking of getting on the road, I have something I think you two might like.”

The timing was perfect, so I reached out and jabbed the play button on the song I had pulled up on my dash-mounted phone, and then I took the turn that led us to the entrance ramp of the highway.

When the strumming tune of On the Road Again filled the cab, my two warriors stared at the speakers like the voice of Tignith’s ghost was echoing out of them.

Or, that was what I assumed, at least.

Willie Nelson’s singing started just as we were on the highway with the river stretching off on one side and the craggy cliffs rising up on the other.

When Ellie heard the words “on the road again,” her pouty lips fell open in excitement, and she pointed silently at the speakers.

By the third or fourth time the words were sung by Willie, my warriors were mouthing them silently, and as soon as the notes showed signs of fading away, my princess clapped her hands.

“Again!” she insisted.

I couldn’t help the huge smile that spread across my face as I drove down the road with my women listening to what I could tell was going to be our anthem on repeat.

Despite how many times we listened to that damn song on repeat, which was about a hundred times by my count, I didn’t get tired of it in the slightest, or of hearing my warriors chant along with it.

Once we neared the area of the portal exit, I paused my usual act of repeating the song, but my warriors were still humming the tune under their breath. The effect was slightly ridiculous given how extremely serious and almost bloodthirsty their expressions were, and they hummed it more like a war song than a laid-back country tune.

It was fucking adorable.

Then they fell silent when the portal exit came into sight, and we all shared a quick, excited look.

The two of them alternated between softly chanting “on the road agaaain” and testing out which battle names they wanted to be announced as.

I also caught some more names for Artemn that they repeated to each other while we approached the foggy portal.

“Artemn Swiftspear,” Indy whispered. “Artemn Stormstride.”

“The Golden One,” Ellie suggested. “Artemn Swiftbolt.”

I smiled as I listened to my women’s nicknames for the silver-eyed warrior who would soon join their side, but then I spoke up with one of the few things important enough to pause this dialogue for.

“Hey, shieldmaidens,” I said in a loud and carrying voice. “Get a load of this fog.”

The portal’s fog swirled and danced around us with a gentle energy, and soon its glow bathed us as we were lifted into its misty heights.

Or depths.

Or whatever the hell they were.

“On the road agaaain,” Indy sang softly with her voice vibrating from the force around us. “The f-foggy, foggy road, agai– aaaahhh!”

All of us clung on for dear life as Spitfire suddenly launched into a terrifying upward flight that soon showed all signs of turning into a loop-de-loop motion.

My stomach dropped as I realized we were genuinely on the verge of going completely upside-down.

“No,” I growled in denial at no one in particular, and my voice vibrated through my gritted teeth. “This is not… a roller coaster. I am not goddamn Evel Knievel. No!”

“N-n-not… nice…” Ellie squeaked.

But all we could do was hang tight as the truck turned completely upside down for a few heart-stopping moments.

Then we went on to continue in a complete loop.

I let out a small breath as we returned to our upright state, but then I felt the whole damn truck fishtail slightly as the trailer was thrown into a wobbling sway.

Then we started heading down.

Fast.

“Shit,” Indy hissed. “Shit, shit–”

Then all three of us started to laugh with an uncontrollable giddiness that bordered on hysteria as we hurtled down through the
glowing fog.

Finally, we leveled out with a rippling whoosh that made it feel like we were hitting the bottom of a water slide.

Despite the insanity of our flight through the air, Spitfire’s tires landed on the solid ground with overstated smoothness, and I felt a surge of relief.

At least the fog respected a classic when it saw one. That was probably all that mattered.

But none of us could stop laughing.

Tears swam in my eyes and blurred the welcome sight of the glossy moonstone road that we were rolling down with an unusual speed as we made landfall in the desert world.

The fog danced merrily in my rearview mirror like it was waving goodbye, and I gasped for air through my laughter as I managed to press down the clutch and cautiously try a downshift.

“Whew,” I panted as the truck slid smoothly into gear. “Okay.

Note to self… Don’t sing in the fog. It gets carried away with the dancing.”

My laugh was starting to die down, and Indy was grabbing onto the center console as she was getting hers under control.

But Ellie’s laugh just started escalating.

“Hahahaha,” she erupted into something that sounded like a mad and squeaky witch cackle. “Ha–”

“John,” Indy said in a voice that was choked with renewed giggles. “Ellie has become possessed. She–”

The rest of my princess’ words were lost as I brought the truck skidding to a stop by force of need. I barely managed to park it before I lowered my forehead against the steering wheel and wheezed with uncontrollable laughter. Ellie’s squeaky cackling had been something that even Nick would be envious of, and I almost lost it. The tiny snort that came with Indy’s highest level of giggling just egged us all on.

Finally, I pounded my hand against the center console like a judge with a gavel.

“Order in the cab,” I commanded, but my voice was so hoarse it just came out as a croak.

My women still quieted down, though.

At last, Ellie managed to stop laughing for long enough to speak in a wobbly voice. “What are your orders for us, Joh–”

She cut off abruptly when a huge hiccup rocked her entire body with its force.

Then Indy reached over and pressed a hand over Ellie’s small, round mouth.

“Hush, little Ellie,” she crooned, and she stroked her fellow warrior’s blue hair with a gentle touch that barely betrayed how much she was shaking from stifled laughter.

Finally we all managed to regain control again, although a few giggles burst from my two warrior women whenever a new hiccup squeaked out from Ellie’s lips.

“No more laughing,” I said with unwavering sternness. I furrowed my brow into a deep frown, mostly just to keep myself from straying toward a laugh again. “Ellie can’t afford to burn any calories.

Indy, pep-talk her out of her hiccups. Go.”

My princess leaped at the chance to do one of her talks, and her voice immediately dropped into a low, warlike tone with no traces of laughter.

“Ellie…” she chanted. “Ellie the Tiny… Little W-witch–”

Another giggle burst out of both of them.

“Princess,” I growled in my most discouraging voice.

“I am sorry, John,” Indy apologized without breaking out of her low chanting tone of voice. Then she turned back to the dainty warrior and went on. “Ellie… the people of the legendary city have named you ‘Hungry Wolfling.’ ‘Brighthand.’ ‘Little Cobra.’ You have the strength to overcome these squeaky coughs. They are mere puffs of air, just a tiny breath of wind in the mighty storm of the blows you are capable of raining down– or up– on our foes.”

I found myself hanging onto every word of this speech as I drove us toward Bayalon.

But then I noticed that Ellie seemed like she had stopped breathing entirely.

“She needs some air in her lungs, princess,” I muttered into the brief silence.

The immediate sound of Ellie sucking in a deep breath of air almost made me lose it again, but I drove on with a straight face while Indy picked up on her chant again.

“Ellie,” she repeated gravely. “Little Cobra. Remember the breathing you were taught by the fighting master of Earth. Channel your energy. Direct it where you will. Do not let the squeaky coughs consume you.”

“Exactly,” I agreed solemnly. Then I reached over to grope around in the center console. “Have a protein bar, and some water.”

All three of us were back to our past state of focused excitement by the time we passed by the gorsican graveyard, and soon we rolled up outside the gates of Bayalon.

I checked that I had all my gear in place, shared a determined nod with my women, and sent the sound of Spitfire’s horn howling into the night.

It took maybe half a second before the chain winch rattled and clanked, and the solid gate started to rise up into the sandstone wall overhead.

“Oh, good,” I said with a smirk. I slung my warriors’ weapons over my shoulder in their sheaths to leave room in my bag for the extra gear I’d brought tonight. “They were expecting us.”

“They were awaiting us eagerly,” Indy elaborated in the same low, chanting voice she used for her pep talks. She kept up the stream of encouragement as she ushered Ellie toward the passenger door ahead of her. “But they still do not grasp the full extent of the power, the fury, that shall be unleashed in the arena…”

Her voice vanished as she made the leap from the passenger side of the cab, and our feet all thudded into the packed ground of the desert.

Then we strode back through the gate of Bayalon for the third time.

The familiar, hawk-like guard was watching the gate again tonight. He was pacing back and forth just inside, like he couldn’t manage to keep still.

He punched the air in a triumphant gesture when we entered the city, like he had been worried that he was hallucinating our not-so-subtle arrival until he saw our faces up close under the fiery orb light again.

“Hell yeah,” he greeted us.

That was it.

“Uhhh.” I gave him a nod and raised my eyebrows. “Agreed. I think.”

“Sorry, sorry,” the guard muttered feverishly, and he ran a hand through his short black hair. “I’m just excited about your warriors’

fight. I bribed someone to take my shift as soon as you got here.”

He whirled around like he was hoping the person would be there now. When they weren’t, he sighed and turned back to wave us on.

“Good luck,” he said with a suddenly-sober expression. Then it eased up slightly as he confided, “I’m betting on your warriors again.”

“Smart choice,” I said with a smirk.

But as we headed on into the city, I made sure to iron out any traces of a smile so my face was back into the smooth, neutral expression I planned to keep up for most of the night so Imiath’s wrath would be kept to a minimum.

Until the moment was right, after my warriors became the victors.

We strode down the black volcanic stone street and made our way through the bubble-like buildings of the Old Town that rose almost seamlessly out of it to our sides.

The glowing, toxic-looking thickets of plants that filled the yards of the town rustled slightly in the same passive but vaguely sinister way I was used to, and I continued to be on the alert as I ushered my women along.

Soon we came out into the open, where the lake was visible along with the volcano island in its center. Cheers and roars were already spilling out of the open top along with the steady, yellow-white glow that meant a fight was taking place.

I was scanning the empty area around us just in case we were being approached by any greasy-haired fissure elves, when a sudden movement in my peripheral vision made me whip my head around to look behind us. I removed a hand from Indy’s wrist briefly so I could reach down toward the grip of my gun.

“We’re being followed,” I said in a low voice.

It was a whole group of people, and they didn’t seem to be making any effort to hide themselves. As I stood there and stared at them, they came close enough on the road behind us that the fiery orb lanterns showed their silhouettes.

But I stopped with my hand hovering in midair when I realized that this group of people had the unmistakable look of a gaggle of teenage girls.

The fiery light glinted off their excited eyes as they whispered and pointed at us. Several of them were wearing short sleeves, and I
blinked in surprise as I saw shapes that imitated my warriors’ leather armor on these girls’ forearms.

At first I thought the pieces of armor were some sort of replicas, like the ones we had seen someone selling, or trying to sell, last time we were here.

But then I spotted the way the fiery light reflected off it in a different way. It looked smoother somehow, and shinier.

Then the girls came close enough that I could hear the sound of their excited whispers, and I could see the details of their appearances more clearly.

“No fucking way,” I breathed in amazement.

I stared as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing, but my fighters seemed more focused on me than our following.

“He said the word,” Ellie whispered to Indy.

“The ‘fuck’ word,” my princess murmured with her red-gold eyes fixed on my face. Her voice sounded like the narrator of a nature documentary analyzing the actions of a specific animal. “That means either something is very wrong, or something is very right. It depends, Ellie.”

I decided I might as well use this opportunity to give my poker face a vigorous workout and test its strength for the night ahead.

“Those girls have tattoos of your armor,” I said calmly, like this was just some random, insignificant detail I had noticed.

Even though my heart had leapt at the sight.

We’d sure as hell made an impression in the city of legend.

“What?” my warrior women both asked in unison, and their heads whipped around to look in the direction I was gazing in.

The oldest of the tattooed girls looked to be no more than fourteen or fifteen, and they all cowered into each other under the combined stares of my two women. There was a look of mingled worship and intimidation on their faces, and I felt a rush of pride as I realized my women were these girls’ fucking idols.

“Hey, legends,” I said quietly to get their attention. Indy and Ellie both turned their heads back toward me in response, and I grabbed their wrists as I pulled them into motion again. “Can’t be late for your fight.”

“Legends,” Ellie repeated in a little whisper, like she was tasting the word on her tongue in a new way.

“Legends,” Indy echoed with soft, steely excitement.

We waited on the shore as more screams, boos, and cheers from the crater all warred for dominance in the otherwise silent night.

Soon I saw the silhouette of the ferry reeling around near the opposite shore to turn back toward us, and I found myself drumming my fingers against my warrior women’s wrists to release some of the energy that was pent up inside me.

I knew they must be feeling just as keyed up, if not more, as the ferry approached us.

The cluster of tattooed girls stood at a respectful distance to wait for the ferry, too. As the craft approached and its bright, fiery orb light spilled over the people on the shore, I could see the raised red skin around the armor shapes on the girls’ arms that confirmed to me that these were fresh tattoos.

At my left side, Indy’s persona was as fierce and self-possessed as ever, and at my right, Ellie was cloaked in her usual innocence, but I knew both of my warrior women were actually bursting with pride.

Soon more people gathered at the shore, and they watched us with a look that reminded me of paparazzi stalking celebrities. They seemed harmless enough for the moment as they milled around
together, but I stayed watchful as I saw them eyeballing my warriors, my warriors’ weapons, and even me.

Then the ferry’s ramp splashed down to the shore, and everyone waited respectfully as me and my women boarded first.

We claimed a spot near the prow, and I did my best to ignore the people’s continued whispers and stares as I shuffled through my duffel bag and silently passed Indy and Ellie the smaller thermoses that each held a carefully measured amount of jitter juice.

It was only a few minutes before we were unloading and heading into the massive crater arena, and the benches inside were more crowded than I would’ve thought was physically possible.

People were jam-packed into every square inch of available space, and even a good bit of the unavailable space. The stairs were completely full of people sitting on them like they were benches. In the stands, people were sitting in others’ laps to make up for the lack of room to squeeze in on the stone benches. I even saw what looked like parents with children sitting on their shoulders while the people behind them muttered and scowled.

There were people perched on the rim of the crater, too, and I wondered how the hell they could’ve gotten up there with how steep and narrow the sides of the volcano were. From where the people
were sitting, their feet dangled a good fifty feet above the highest row of benches. I wasn’t sure whether this was even allowed, and from the frequent looks the brass gargoyle mediators cast around from their perches on the arena’s arches, they didn’t seem to like it all too much. But it looked like even if the gargoyles had all decided to join forces and fly around to push people off the ledges, the people probably would’ve climbed right back up faster than the gargoyles could stop them, or at least new people would’ve climbed up in their places.

I let out a low whistle as I realized how fucking packed the house was tonight. It looked like every single resident of Bayalon had shown up for tonight’s show, and we were arriving right in time for our slot.

People were extremely reluctant to tear their eyes away from the fight that was taking place down in the arena, and they grumbled slightly as they sensed the movement of me nudging my way down the stairs with my women. But as soon as one of the crowd glanced up, a murmur of excitement rippled through them with us at the center.

Suddenly elbows were flying, and bodies collided together as people started to shove each other back and give us space.

Then the excited murmurs turned into a buzz of eager shouts as word spread about our arrival, and it was like the fight in the arena wasn’t even going on anymore.

Every eye was on us, and I could physically sense the surge of expectation as the stands seemed to come alive all at once.

Chapter 18

I kept a firm grip on my two warriors and scoured my eyes over every person in the crowd as we passed to make sure no one dared to so much as lift a finger toward Indy and Ellie.

It seemed this look alone was enough to keep a good six inches of safety around them.

Dozens of hands whipped out to clap me on the back and welcome me to the arena, though, and I even felt a few fawning women stroking my arms in passing. There were several ancient-looking men in the crowd as well who appeared to be weeping as they gestured to the sky and thanked me for coming, and I did my best not to look bewildered by the reception.

I knew damn well how many of these people were betting on my fighters tonight. If all went according to plan, they’d be walking out of here a hell of a lot better off than they had been before, so I offered a few stoic nods to the adoring crowd as I guided my women down the steps.

The noise only increased the further we got into the crowd, but finally, we reached the area of the stands reserved for the backers,
right above where the bookies clustered on the ground next to the cave-like lounge area.

I was slightly startled when I noticed Dummon, the servant I recognized from the Reprieve gathering at Krasur’s, sitting in the crowd. I knew it was pretty common for backers to bring slaves out and about with them, but a lot of the slaves tended to be shoved off to the side while the backers sat in their designated rows. Dummon looked totally at home sitting where he was, though.

“Good for him,” I muttered under my breath.

Personally, I loved nothing more than seeing the twisted but deeply-rooted power dynamics I saw in the desert cities get shaken up in any way.

Although I had to admit that the blond-haired servant almost looked odd to me now without the pack of vacuum-nosed creatures at his side.

His pale eyebrows flew up excitedly when he saw me, and he leaned over to mutter a few words to Krasur.

The dark-haired backer immediately made room for me by dealing the person on his other side a swift elbow to the face without even checking to see who they were. I bit back a laugh as I saw the
skinny, frog-like backer Yovu keel over in his seat. Soon he disappeared from my line of view as he tumbled down below the sea of knees presented by the row of backers.

The person on Yovu’s other side came into view, and I realized it was the silver-haired elven backer, Mek. He was just turning away from talking to one of the goblins who sat in the row above, and when he took in the sight of Yovu rolling to a stop on the ground, his mouth fell open for a moment. Then it flattened out into a thin, tight line that told me he was doing his best not to laugh as he looked away with a careless expression and crossed one leg over the other.

Dummon, Krasur, and a warrior next to them all shrank back in their seats to let me squeeze by. For Krasur the attempt to do any shrinking didn’t do much good. He was one hefty dude when Imiath wasn’t around to make him look small, but I squeezed past the burly backer’s pillar-like legs with my two women.

Mek reached past his own warrior to prod Dibrin, the teal-skinned goblin, in the ribs. The goblin backer had been snoring with his head drooping against his chest, but now he grunted awake and shuffled down the bench to make room.

Then Mek scooted his own warrior neatly into the gap left by Dibrin, followed by himself, so there was room for me to sit with Indy
and Ellie.

I had to tear my eyes away from the hilarious sight of Yovu, who was now crawling across the floor toward the other end of the bench.

“Is he drunk?” I asked with blunt curiosity.

Mek shook his head, gave me a solemn glance, and then leaned close and lowered his voice, like he was about to tell me something extremely serious and confidential. “Just stupid.”

The laugh that was about to bubble up inside me fizzled out when I caught sight of what my peripheral vision first thought was an uprooted tree walking through the stands toward the backers’ area.

No one else was that damn tall.

It was Imiath.

Even with her phoenix-like wings, Artemn’s lithe, willowy frame suddenly looked small and frail as she was dragged along in his wake. But when they were closer, I was reminded again that she wasn’t much smaller than Indy. Her backer was just big as hell.

The warrior I planned to win tonight had her half-black, half-white hair bound back into the same Viking-style braid that ran down the center of her head like a dragon’s spine. It trailed down her back
between the white bases of her feathered wings. Her dark wingtips were tucked tightly against her back so she could slip through the crowd without buffeting anyone in the face.

Her backer’s attitude was a different story. His warrior’s long, thin black spear looked like a toy in his hand, and he carried it as if it were one. People were forced to duck, dodge, and fling themselves aside to avoid being gored by the speartip as it swung carelessly through the air with each of the horned backer’s movements.

When he caught sight of me, he stopped abruptly, and a single mirthless laugh slipped out of his lips. It sounded like a thunderclap, but about three octaves too low, and for a moment I found myself wondering what the hell would happen if this bastard coughed or sneezed. It would probably sound like a sonic boom.

Then a high, faint screeching sound caught my attention from one of the arches above the arena, and I saw that one of the brass gargoyles had slowly turned its head to fix its beady eyes on Imiath.

The volume of the babbling crowd in the arena dipped only for a brief moment before it picked back up again, and then Imiath shrugged his hulking shoulders like he didn’t give a shit about any of this byplay.

But I saw the muscles of his blocky jaw ripple with anger when he turned and strode into the lounge with a reckless speed that actually jerked his silver-eyed warrior off the ground for a second as she was yanked along with him.

The gray-skinned bookies who were clustered around and inside the backers’ lounge all looked at Imiath like he was a live tiger that had just barged into their midst.

A live tiger that they had been expecting.

They seemed especially determined to toe the line between doing their jobs and avoiding having their heads twisted off by the looming, horned backer. Then one of the bookies waved me over toward the lounge, too, and I saw the tense expression on his gray face lift slightly as I prowled over with my two warriors at my sides.

The bookies’ job may have reached a new level of stress tonight with the worry of what Imiath’s reaction might be if Artemn lost, but they still seemed to find a thrill in the sight of me and my fierce fighters approaching.

“Lord John,” the bookie greeted me. “Your fight is next.”

I stared at him feeling as flabbergasted as if he had just called me “Princess Zsa Zsa,” and I wondered who the hell’s idea “Lord

John” had been.

Krasur’s, probably.

“Just ‘John’ is fine for me,” I said in a mild voice. But that reminded me… “My warriors will be announced with different titles tonight than they were before.”

The bookie scrambled to pull a notepad out of his pocket, and then a little stub of a charcoal pencil. Then he looked up at me expectantly.

I glanced at my warrior women to see what they had chosen for their battle names.

Indy lifted her chin. “Induya Fire-Heart.”

The bookie nodded with an approving expression and scribbled this down, then moved on to Ellie.

My blue-haired warrior stood so still that it was like someone had hit pause on a video, but then I saw her petal-pink lips pursing like she was on the brink of saying a name.

“The Wolfling,” Ellie finally decided.

“Very nice,” the bookie murmured as he obediently scribbled it down. Then he looked back up at me. “Since this is the final fight of Remembrance, we typically request the backers involved to either
give over their portion of the winnings beforehand, or to establish a line of credit that will ensure the price is paid afterward. However…”

The bookie paused and scratched his jawline distractedly with the back of his charcoal pencil. A clump of his patchy beard immediately crumbled off his face, and he gave the pen a hasty shake to dislodge it before he went on.

“Imiath is quite, er…” The bookie waved a hand and trailed off like he was at a loss for words to describe the violent nature of the hulking demon backer. When I nodded to show that I knew exactly what he meant, he continued. “To ask Imiath to give up his portion of the winnings beforehand might prove to be, ah, quite troublesome for those involved. We have agreed to wait until after the fight is concluded, and all the mediators will be ready to, er, supervise the matter and ensure a smooth ending to Remembrance. Or as smooth as possible, at least.”

“I can definitely see why,” I muttered.

The bookie chuckled nervously. “So, for the sake of fairness, we will extend the same courtesy to you, of course. Then you– I mean, the winner and their warriors– will receive the winnings and go directly down to the sanctum, so everyone can cool down, you know… process things…”

Privately, I thought the chances of Imiath “cooling down” after my warriors defeated his ranged from slim to none, but I just nodded in agreement.

“And this fight is strictly not to the death,” I added, just to make sure things hadn’t changed somehow since my agreement with the gargoyles a few days ago. “Right?”

“Oh, yes,” the bookie promised. “Outnumbered fights are never to the death, and the mediators are ready to step in if things get out of hand.”

“And the blood count…?”

The bookie pursed his lips. “Considering the skill level of the warriors involved, we have decided three wounds would be best for the blood count. That is, if your warriors, as a team, wound Artemn the Abandoned three times, then they will be the victors. And likewise, if Artemn lands three wounds on your warriors– in total, of course, not three on each of them– then she will be the victor.”

“Right.” I nodded with satisfaction that no one had tried to pull some sort of last-minute trickery, like Freyos had before my warriors’

second fight against his own.

The bookie gave me a respectful little bow, stuffed away his notepad, and bustled off to make more preparations.

“The Wolfling,” I said quietly as I turned to my dainty warrior. I gave her a teasing smile. “Not feeling hungry tonight, then?”

Her doll-like features only betrayed a hint of sassy fierceness as she calmly replied. “I am always hungry, John.”

“The Wolfling,” Indy repeated softly, and she nodded with approval. “It is good, Ellie. Simple, yet fearsome. It inspires more dread, somehow. And it does not betray your status as a tiny witch.”

Ellie bristled slightly, but then I saw her lips twitch, and I hurried to move the conversation along before any of us could laugh at this extremely inconvenient time.

“‘The Wolfling’ sounds more mysterious,” I mused.

I knew if we introduced Ellie as “the Wolfling” in the new desert cities we’d go to in the future, it would only add to the “what the fuck”

factor that unsuspecting people already felt when they saw my tiny, angelic-looking warrior woman walk into the arena. They would need to stick around and see how she could have earned such a name.

Here, it was a little different. The bynames of my women had been given by these people, along with about a dozen others. So my
women choosing which one to be announced by just added to the already overwhelming excitement of the crowd as my two warriors, who had now reached celebrity status, showed themselves into the black stone arena.

And the titles did sound pretty damn cool as they rolled off the lead gargoyle’s lips and echoed around the whole crater.

They were standing at the center of the arena now with Artemn slowly prowling back and forth directly opposite, and I worked hard not to smirk at the sight.

The fiery, winged woman would make the perfect addition to our group. But first, we had a shit-ton of gems to make in this fight against her.

“Now, we welcome back Induya Fire-Heart and Elsodie the Wolfling,” the brass mediator boomed, and he gestured down at my two women. The crater rang with excited screams that seemed to shake the stone benches, and the gargoyle waited for the sound to die down slightly before he gestured down at Artemn. “They will face Artemn the Abandoned for this final fight of Remembrance.”

Despite the amount of screams and cheers that burst from every person in the crowd at her name, Artemn didn’t visibly react at
all. She didn’t toss her hair proudly the way Indy did when my princess’ name was announced. She didn’t stand demurely like Ellie did, either.

The willowy, phoenix-winged warrior had the same tense set to her sharply tapered jaw that I had seen before, and as she stopped in her restless pacing and stood on the balls of her feet, what I noticed most was that her silver eyes somehow looked both watchful and detached. She examined every detail of my warriors closely as she faced off with them, including the shiny metallic weapons and leather armor, but there was a faraway expression in her bright silver eyes that almost made them glaze over slightly.

“Here we go,” I murmured under my breath.

Then the fight began.

Artemn’s fighting style wasn’t dramatic like Mavra with her swinging axes, and there wasn’t a bunch of lunging or leaping in the way she fended off my two warriors, but something about it still drew the eye and made people hold their breath slightly. The black-and-white-haired warrior moved as gracefully as a dancer, and the spear with its long, curved end almost seemed like it was a part of her arm despite the shittiness of the blunt black metal.

Her spear jabbed, darted, parried, and blocked several blows from both of my warriors, and she slipped through them like a wet bar of soap the first several times they tried to close around her. The long head of the spear was able to knock aside blows from Indy and Ellie’s blades without getting interlocked, so Artemn was able to stay constantly in motion.

There was a low, excited buzz of movement and sound in the crowd that reminded me of a pot of water about to boil over, or a hive of bees that’s just been poked a few times.

Then the air vanished from my lungs as Artemn’s spear darted in like a snake past Ellie’s guard, and its point jabbed hard at my dainty warrior’s fawn-colored corset.

“Shit,” I whispered under my breath.

Artemn winced slightly as her speartip was repelled by the reinforcement of the carbon fiber, and the impact jarred up her arms.

She looked shocked at the armor’s ability to keep it from doing more damage.

The crowd had seen Zenia flinch in a similar way back when the red-haired warrior had tried out the strength of her black metal blade against Indy’s reinforced bracer, and it had seemed to startle
and awe them. But something about Artemn the Abandoned having a similar experience with Ellie’s corset seemed to shock and fascinate them even more.

There was a flurry of movement as people gripped onto their seats to lean forward and watch, and anyone in the stands who didn’t have a good line of sight scrambled to their feet to peer over the shoulders of the people in front of them.

Still, the black-and-white-haired warrior managed to keep her grip on her spear. And despite how well Ellie’s armor had protected her from the attempted stab, I saw my blue-haired warrior’s arm drop slightly as she cringed from the force of the impact.

Even through her shock, Artemn didn’t hesitate to take advantage. By the time the audience started shouting out advice for her to press the attack, her black spearhead was already darting in hard and fast in a different place.

I let out another low curse as the blade bit into the smooth white flesh of Ellie’s upper arm.

Hundreds of people sucked in a sharp gasp all at once, like they personally had felt the spear jab into their skin.

Shit. She had one-blood on us now.

And Artemn was still a favorite for many people, too.

Regardless of who they were rooting for, the first sighting of blood in the arena still seemed to send the normal thrill of adrenaline through the crowd. Anyone who wasn’t standing shot to their feet, and the shouts that filled the air ramped up in both volume and intensity.

Some people hollered wordlessly with excitement, while others showered praise, encouragement, or curses down on different warriors.

Inside the lounge, the tension in the air thickened slightly as Imiath sent me a savage smile. My skin was tingling with the current of tension that coursed through me, but I stayed calm and stoic as I watched the fight closely, and soon I caught the conspicuous motion of Imiath turning his horned head back to the arena from the corner of my eye.

At the sight of blood on Ellie’s pale, delicate arm, Indy had hissed like a viper, and now she launched into a storm of furious blows with the longer blade of her sword. This forced the winged warrior to retreat step by step. Metal screeched on metal as Artemn turned some blows aside with her long spearhead and danced aside from others without turning her back to my princess. She did an
instinctive quarter-pivot to keep Ellie in her sight when my dainty warrior recovered and rejoined the fray.

I watched with my fingers tapping out a steady tempo against my thigh as my two warriors closed in around Artemn like a gorsican pincer.

Louder whoops and shrieks of excitement were already drawn from the crowd, and some people in the forbidden higher seats forgot they were perched on a fifty-foot-high ledge as they shuffled forward for a better look. This sent several of them slipping off the crater’s rim, and a new chorus of yowls, scuffles, and screeches broke out as they came crashing down onto the people sitting in the top row of the stone benches.

I willed myself to stay focused on the fight instead of the growing chaos in the stands.

Despite being made out of the black metal of the desert world, the qualities of Artemn’s spear made the weapon as versatile as my warriors’ fighting master had claimed, especially in Artemn’s grip. Its long, slightly curved head was more like a sword’s blade than the usual leaf shape I had seen on most spears before, and I was more glad than ever that I’d had my warriors train against a replica of the weapon as I watched the fight in the arena unfold.

It turned into a faster and deadlier dance up close, and I recognized the determined set of my warrior women’s jaws as they felt a surge of determination to even up the score by landing their first wound on Artemn.

Her black spearhead clashed together and scraped apart with both of my warriors’ weapons in quick succession. The silver-eyed fighter kept her wings tucked tight as she alternated between spinning the spear and taking light, dancing steps to fend off Indy and Ellie’s attacks.

They continued to close in on her with calculated intensity despite the deafening screams of the crowd urging them on, and I felt my chest swell slightly with pride that my warriors were unleashing their savage skills in the arena without losing their heads.

Then my breath caught as my dainty warrior changed up the game completely. She dashed forward in a full-on bull-rush toward Artemn, and I resisted the brief urge to close my eyes as I exhaled slowly through my nose.

The second Ellie started to rush forward, her boldness already drew raucous screams of excitement, support, and alarm from the crowd, but then a hush fell again as everyone watched with bated breath to see the outcome.

The winged warrior spun her spear again and angled herself to turn aside Ellie’s unexpected, full-body attack. The ferocity of Artemn’s parry already sent my blue-haired fighter stumbling, and my heart leaped into my throat when Ellie dropped to one knee.

I sucked in a breath and clenched my teeth.

“What the hell are you doing, Ellie?” I muttered under my breath.

Time seemed to slow for me, and I realized that every eye in the arena was fixed on Ellie as she fell.

Including Artemn’s.

Then Indy sent her chain whip out in a low sideways sweep during the brief flicker in the winged warrior’s focus, and the chain wrapped twice around Artemn’s ankle. Suddenly, I recognized this was a move from my warriors’ training, and I rubbed my slick palms against my pants as I leaned forward to watch.

“You got this, princess,” I whispered.

Different wordings of this statement were screamed from half the crowd, but I hardly heard them over the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears as Indy jerked on her whip in a motion that used her whole body.

The air hissed in between Artemn’s teeth as her feet were yanked out from under her, and somehow the small sound seemed to echo everywhere in the split second of silence that fell around the arena.

Part of me wanted to hiss out a “fuck yes,” but another part felt a ripple of worry as the fighter I hoped to win later tonight fell to the ground. I reminded myself my warriors weren’t the type to get carried away as I forced myself to take deep breaths.

Then time seemed to go from slowing down to speeding up for me as an explosion of sounds assaulted my ears from every direction.

In the stands, a thousand feet stomped and scuffed against the ground as the mob jostled for a better view, and the crowd’s excited roar was peppered with more wails of dismay as people were thrown from their high perches on the volcano’s rim. Smaller, concentrated scuffles broke out throughout the rest of the stadium, but every eye was on the warriors in the arena even as people threw punches, kicks, and elbows at their neighbors. Some people were screaming at each other, while some were screaming encouragement or advice to whoever they wanted to win. Others were just screaming like they didn’t know what to feel, but wanted to make it heard.

At almost the same time, though, I was distracted by a much closer and more dangerous sound.

A crisp, crackling thud split the air of the lounge as Imiath leaped to his feet at the sight of his warrior hitting the ground, but the tips of the backer’s huge, undulating horns buried themselves in the solid stone of the lounge overhead.

Now the hulking bastard’s feet were dangling about a foot off the ground, and he was stuck in the ceiling.

The sight was so insane to me that I just stared at him for a moment and wondered what the hell was going to happen as a roar of either pain or fury erupted from his lips.

Then he thrashed his whole body in a motion I half-expected to snap some part of his body, whether it was his muscular neck or the thick horns that sprouted from his head.

Instead, his horns were jerked free from the ceiling in a small cloud of dust and rubble, and Imiath’s boot-clad feet thudded back to the ground while tiny rock chunks rained down around us.

What I thought was truly impressive about all this was that the three women in the arena stayed focused as the small, concentrated
storm of their battle played out within the wider maelstrom of chaos that had broken out in the arena.

Artemn’s feet had literally been pulled out from under her yet again. In midair, her feathered wings shot out as if by instinct, and she landed with them folded around her like a shield.

I glanced sideways at Imiath and noted that the towering horned backer was fixated entirely on the arena again, like he hadn’t just accidentally excavated a small portion of the lounge’s solid stone ceiling. Whether it was because of the narrow-eyed, no-nonsense glare that the nearest gargoyle cast down at him or just the urgency of seeing what would happen next in the arena, he became completely intent on watching the fight unfold again.

I resisted the urge to rest a hand on the grip of my gun as I stayed on my feet and watched things speed up in the arena again.

Artemn ignored the crowd’s screamed advice, which ranged from calls for payback to demands for her to spread her wings and fly far away from this fight. Her wings snapped shut instead, and she tucked them behind her back again. Then she rolled halfway over to get a hold on the spear that was trapped underneath her in her fall.

Her fingers closed around it, and she lifted it a few inches off the
ground, but the weapon was too unwieldy for her to get it between her and the oncoming Indy.

Or at least, not if she used it to stab or slice.

Clearly, this had occurred to Artemn, too. Instead of trying to send the spearpoint stabbing at Indy, she kept the weapon low and parallel to the ground as she brought it swinging around in a two-handed, sideways arc. The force she put into the blow turned her whole body sideways, and the spear shaft hit my princess right in the ankle. The crack that rang out as it made contact was immediately swept away in the tide of wordless screams that swept around the stadium.

“Oh, shit,” I groaned under my breath.

But at least no blood was spilled.

My normally-graceful princess tumbled uncontrollably through the air and landed almost flat on her back. I couldn’t hear the stream of oaths that poured out of her mouth over the crowd’s uproarious screams, but I could see her lips moving, and I was pretty sure I recognized some classics she had picked up from me along with a desert-world curse I was familiar with, “Tignith’s ghost.”

Then, before anyone had time to react further, Artemn had abandoned her spear for the moment in favor of a new and more unexpected move. The winged warrior reached out, snatched up the spiked end of Indy’s chain, and hurled her body across the short distance between her and my fallen princess.

She brought the metal spike stabbing right down into Indy’s bicep.

That was two-blood to zero.

The crowd howled as one at this move. Regardless of who they had bet their money on, the renewed sight of blood seemed to drive the crowd into a frenzy of rabid excitement.

The sound completely drowned out the wordless war cry Ellie let loose as she fell on Artemn like a tiny, maddened bird of prey. My heart pounded in my chest as one of her tonfas’ straight blades pierced into the winged warrior’s shoulder with a swift, sharp punch.

A stab wound bloomed in Artemn’s skin.

“Good fucking girl,” I growled softly now that we were only down by one-blood.

The crowd’s reaction sounded like it was equal parts stunned, exhilarated, and desperate. It was all parts deafening, though, and
my words went unheard as I crossed my arms and watched as impassively as possible.

The winged warrior was still in the lead after the two wounds she had given my women, but I knew that wouldn’t last for long. And despite the tension that reigned in the lounge, I felt a thrill of fierce pride and possession at the fact that my warriors had just landed a wound on Artemn the Abandoned. As far as I knew, that was something that hadn’t happened in years.

The black-and-white-haired fighter’s wings snapped out as she writhed away from the blow, and Ellie was sent reeling back.

One of my dainty warrior’s tonfas was sent clattering onto the floor, and a cold hand clenched around my gut when Artemn’s hand shot out to pick it up. A shout of warning sprang to my lips.

But before I could even get a word out, Indy remedied the issue with savage efficiency. She brought herself around in a tucked roll before unfolding her body into a horizontal, two-footed kick at the winged warrior.

The vicious force my princess put into the kick lifted her body off the ground slightly. The soles of her feet slammed into Artemn’s stomach, and the whole crowd let loose a collective sound that
sounded simultaneously like a groan of sympathy and a hoot of admiration.

The air wheezed out of Artemn, and she recoiled.

The crowd’s groaning hoot ramped up into a wordless roar of approval as it became clear that my bold princess wasn’t half-finished. She used the kick to leverage herself toward the fallen tonfa and snatched it up, and then she slashed its longer blade across Artemn’s unguarded forearm.

I bit back the growl of approval that came to my lips as I sensed Imiath sending me a furious, dark-eyed look, and I reminded myself now wasn’t the time to gloat.

“Complacency is the enemy of all warriors,” I whispered to myself as I remembered the words Ellie had said. Then I made a small addition. “And their backers.”

The gloating would be all the more satisfying when the time came, after my warriors had defeated Imiath’s warrior, and when I was preparing to duel him for Artemn.

Right now, though, I went back to focusing every ounce of my attention on the arena. The blood count was at a tie of two to two,
and there was only one more wound left to make one side the victor, or the victors.

The air quivered with a new level of tension, and a brief hush fell in the arena as the opponents gained some distance from each other, and the ferocious horizontal skirmish died down. Indy tossed Ellie’s second tonfa back to her as all three women scrambled to their feet.

From the other side of the lounge, Imiath’s deep, guttural voice snarled out a word that I didn’t recognize. I wasn’t sure if this was because it was in some other language or because his voice was even more impossibly deep than usual.

Other than that, what struck me most about it was his tone.

Whatever his words were, I was sure they didn’t have the ring of a command or a threat in them, like the words I had heard many backers hurl at their warriors from the sidelines when things got real in the arena. Instead it sounded almost mocking. It reminded me of the jeering comments that the smoggy, gray-skinned warrior had hurled at Artemn toward the end of the winged warrior’s last fight.

Artemn’s silver eyes flicked over toward her backer with a combination of what I thought was unease and vexation. A small shiver ran through her body, like the motion of a horse trying to
shake off a pesky fly, but with the inescapable, looming dynamic that the horned backer held the position of power between them.

My women took advantage of the tiny flicker in the winged warrior’s attention and closed around her again, but then Imiath continued to shout words that I was sure were taunts at his warrior.

Despite the giddy mayhem that had gripped the crowd, every single one of them suddenly seemed intimidated into silence.

And then a flash of hot, searing white light filled the arena.

Every person in the crater flinched back for a moment, and the audience’s fear was forgotten as they let out a collective roar of enthusiasm that reminded me of the ocean’s rush.

No one was quite sure what had happened yet, but they were so excited about it that some of them seemed like they were on the brink of passing out. A glance up at them showed hundreds of fingers clenching onto hundreds of shoulders as people clutched their neighbors for support or anticipation, and some people even reached over and laced their hands together.

The scar-like pattern of light on Artemn’s skin evened out to a less blinding shade, but it flickered erratically between gold and white as the black-and-white-haired warrior’s spear turned into a blur
of furious motion. Its long blade smashed against Indy’s in a parry that seemed equal parts offensive and defensive, and my heart skipped a beat as my princess was thrown into a stumble. Then it almost stopped as the long, thin weapon whipped around like a helicopter blade as Artemn danced over and lashed out at Ellie’s chest.

At this moment, a call of warning from me seemed likely to distract my warriors in a way that the crowd’s thundering screams never could, so I satisfied myself by biting down on my knuckles while I watched with my heart in my throat.

My women had never been faced with such a fierce opponent before. Even outnumbered, I was floored to see how strong of a fight Artemn was putting up.

Ellie threw herself backward to avoid the black spear blade three times in a row, and my concern mounted with each jump. Then I realized this was really only to make room for the move she saw coming: Indy’s short, high sweep of her chain whip.

My princess immediately succeeded in her goal of entangling her glowing opponent’s spear with the chain, and from the way Indy held her body, I knew she was prepared just in case Artemn pulled a
trick like Zenia had, where the red-haired warrior had jerked on her own entangled weapon to reel Indy in.

There was only one wound left to win the fight, and my warriors were working together like a well-oiled machine.

Artemn tried to tear her spear free, but Indy released her grip on the whip’s handle at the same moment. Then Ellie closed the distance between her and the glowing warrior’s winged back, and Indy rushed in from the front with only her sword.

At first, it looked like the chain whip’s rogue handle might strike Artemn in the chest with how hard she had yanked on the spear, but suddenly the winged warrior did a short, hard spin of her body while she kept the spear shaft tight in her grip.

A surge of dismay made my stomach drop as I realized Artemn’s spear had now turned into a damn flail.

I had never seen anyone move so fast. She was a blur of white light and savage motion as she jerked to the side, clutched the end of the spear shaft in both hands, and completed the half-pivot with a force that I almost wouldn’t have thought she was capable of.

The chain whip-flail was sent flying directly at my petite warrior’s upper chest.

Both the handle and the weighted spike clattered and tangled together as they whipped through the air and struck home. The spike didn’t hit Ellie point-first, but the thud of impact was accompanied by a slight crunch that brought a shrieking groan from the crowd.

I felt something dripping down my knuckles, and I jerked them out of my mouth as I realized I’d bitten down hard enough to draw blood.

In the arena, the score was still tied at two to two, but my dainty warrior swayed from the force of the blow that had struck her.

Despite the fact that her knees were buckling, she lashed out with one tomahawk-like blade with impressive fierceness, but Artemn’s weapon had far more reach, and the winged warrior was already skipping further out of range.

She’d even managed to dodge Indy’s incoming onslaught in the process.

Shit, this woman was amazing.

Indy skidded to a stop right before she got in a head-on collision with her own teammate. I could tell my princess was aching to stop and help Ellie to her feet.

I raised my voice to a volume I rarely used to cut through the crowd’s roar.

“Focus,” I commanded.

The single word seemed to send an electric current through my princess, and she whirled to meet Artemn as the winged warrior came at her hard and fast from the side with her damn spear-flail.

Instead of dodging, Indy turned sharply and allowed the reinforced leather of her corset to absorb the impact of the strike.

The crowd’s tumult shook the solid stone under my feet, but I could’ve sworn I still heard the breathless grunt of pain from my princess, and I felt like it echoed off the walls of my skull. The breath went out of me like I had been hit just as hard, and I dug my fingers into my arms.

“Come on, you’ve got this,” I growled.

I was incredibly relieved as I saw that the carbon fiber plating sewn into Indy’s corset had protected her from a good deal of the blow that might otherwise have brought her to her knees, but the blunt force of it was still visibly agonizing.

Still, Indy didn’t skip a beat, and a new flare of pride heated my skin as she took advantage of the proximity she now had to the
chain that was no longer whipping through the air. She grabbed hold of the chain with her hands, and I saw her long golden fingers tighten around it as she yanked it toward her with all the force she could muster.

The move caught the winged warrior off guard, and she came reeling toward Indy in a stumble that still had the potential to gore my princess through the chest with the point of her spear.

It came close enough that screeches rang out from the crowd.

Half of them covered their eyes like they were afraid to watch, and I was slightly tempted to do the same.

But I watched, and a gust of air escaped me when Indy released the chain and dropped low to skid out of reach.

Then all of a sudden, Ellie darted back into the fray out of nowhere.

“Fuck yeah,” I breathed as rolled my shoulders to release some of the tension there.

Her pale face was white as a sheet, and there was a slightly queasy expression on it, but her blue eyes were still calm and focused as she moved with every bit of the speed she normally possessed and then some.

The crowd barely had time to shriek as Ellie came in low and hard, and the long blade of her tonfa bit into Artemn’s slender bare calf with perfect precision.

Blood spilled out of the puncture wound.

A wave of dizziness swept through my body as the crowd exploded into a roar that thundered through the night.

Whistles and applause rang out in between what sounded like every damn voice in the city screaming my warriors’ names, and the tidal wave of noise threatened to rupture my eardrums as it swept over me.

But the intensity of their worshipful clamor was nothing compared to the relief, triumph, and pride that coursed through my veins like a drug.

My two warrior women had just defeated Artemn the Abandoned.

They’d defeated the most legendary fighter in this whole city.

The gong-like boom from overhead cut through the crowd’s screams, and the gargoyles all thudded to the ground.

“Induya Fire-Heart and Elsodie the Wolfling are our victors,”

their leader thundered in his clanking voice.

I strode out of the lounge as all three warriors were reluctantly tended to by the lifesavers that rushed out into the arena, but I stopped just outside it to avoid turning my back on Imiath. The hulking backer was turning toward me with a slowness that was somehow even more ominous than the way he had leapt up and impaled the stone ceiling with his horns earlier.

He started to move toward me as the crowd spilled out into the arena.

My warriors seemed safe enough for the moment. They were under the care of the lifesavers and just feet away from several of the brass gargoyles, so when Indy and Ellie eyed me anxiously over the lifesavers’ stout shoulders, I gave them a warning look that told them to stay away until it was clear that this wasn’t going to get out of hand.

Then I turned to face Imiath, and it seemed like my pulse was pounding in my ears again as loudly as the deep, gong-like sound that had signaled the end of the fight.

I really didn’t want to shoot this fucker right here in front of every resident of Bayalon. I knew the rules of Remembrance, and I didn’t even want to think what would happen to me or my women if I,
an outsider and shaker of norms in this world, were to pull a stunt like that when we were so locked into the packed arena.

Still, I let my hand shift toward my hidden pistol just in case.

But then I realized it wasn’t my pulse I was hearing.

The gong-like sound was repeating itself over and over in short, fast booms, and the crowd fell silent for only a moment before a new level of chaos broke out all at once.

Chapter 19

An airborne gargoyle landed with a ground-shaking thud between me and Imiath. The crowd started screaming in confusion and fear, but it was hardly audible over the sudden combined shouts of the nine gargoyles.

The sound was like an avalanche of pots and pans tumbling down a mountainside, and the crowd rippled back toward the edges of the arena while several gargoyles surrounded the lifesavers and ushered my warriors out of the arena and into the back of the lounge.

Then the lead gargoyle thudded down so close to my side that the ground’s vibration made me stumble slightly.

The hand I’d had hovering near my pistol swiftly fell back to my side, but it didn’t seem like this guy was pissed at me.

He was glaring at the towering Imiath even as he addressed me.

“Into the sanctum with your warriors.” He gestured at where my two fighters were in the back of the lounge as he belted out the words in his clanking voice. “The bookies will bring down your
winnings near the end of your hour, when things are calm. The peace of Remembrance must not be violated.”

From the dark look the gargoyle cast at Imiath, it was more than obvious who he blamed for this situation, and I nodded in response as I glanced at Imiath, who was now being held firmly in place by two of the brass mediators.

The hulking backer thrashed furiously against their grips again.

The movement brought the oiled tip of one long, undulating horn within inches of one of the gargoyles’ faces, but the only response was a faint creaking sound as their grips on his arms tightened.

The lead gargoyle turned back to me and sighed a deep, clanking sigh, but then he gave me a look that I thought was actually respectful instead of just his typical default sternness.

“Congratulations,” he boomed in a quieter tone. “Your warriors have brought great honor to our city during this sacred time.”

“Thanks,” I said with deep surprise. “We’re, uh, honored to–”

But before I could say anything else, the lead gargoyle grunted and turned away. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the brassy mediator cracked his brassy knuckles as he stomped over to Imiath.

My continued presence only seemed likely to inflame the horned backer even more, and there was no way any forbidden slaying was going to happen up here under the beady gaze of the gargoyles, so I headed over to where the lifesavers and two mediators were clustered with Indy and Ellie.

Imiath managed to give me one last look around the lead gargoyle’s shoulder before I headed off. A wordless snarl escaped from his lips, but he didn’t hurl any words at me as I turned and calmly walked away.

Then again, he didn’t need to say anything. The look on his face eliminated any possible doubts that he planned to make sure I didn’t live to see another day. His black eyes were filled with a combination of searing fury and cold, poisonous promise as they followed me to the back of the lounge.

I tried not to grin. This was all I needed. Now, he just had to find a means of acting on that fury and getting into the sanctum with me so I could shoot his brains out in peace.

“Guards will remain here until your hour is done,” one of the gargoyles suddenly informed me. “A bookie will arrive with your winnings near the end, but otherwise your time in the sanctum will be undisturbed.”

I nodded slowly in response.

Son of a bitch.

Plan B it was, then.

The plush rug that covered the back corner of the lounge was kicked aside by one of the gargoyles’ brassy feet, and then the round wooden trapdoor there was pulled open with a low creak.

I stared down at the feature of the sanctum’s entrance that Gyrard had told me about, but still seemed weird as hell to me.

The passage that led down to the sanctum wasn’t a staircase.

Instead, it was a slide.

The smooth obsidian of the tube-shaped tunnel was slick, steep, and polished to a high sheen that looked like it would live up to Gyrard’s claim of carrying me down into the bowels of the volcano with a fast, sweeping speed.

“Here goes nothing,” I muttered under my breath, and I strolled up to the top of it, then paused to look at my two warriors. “Coming, my shieldmaidens?”

I decided to go first on the off chance that something unexpected or troublesome laid at the bottom of the steep stone tunnel we’d be sliding down, but I made sure Indy and Ellie were
poised to come in right after me, and that Imiath was still kept in check by the gargoyles.

Then I swung my feet in, eased my body down onto the smooth and shiny obsidian slope, released my grip on the rim, and slid down into the blackness.

The slope got even steeper as I descended, and I was worried for a moment that it was going to turn completely vertical, but then it started to weave from side to side in a way that slowed me down slightly. Then it turned in a wide spiral that reminded me of a damn waterslide.

I heard a small, surprised shriek from behind me, and I chuckled as I recognized Ellie’s voice, followed by Indy’s breathless instructions for the blue-haired warrior to hold onto her hair.

We rushed downward in heart-stoppingly steep slopes that were broken up by more swooping curves, and then the obsidian tunnel-slide ended with an abruptness that made my stomach lurch. I shot out of the slide’s end and dropped like a stone into a pile of soft, fragrant leaves that cushioned my fall.

“Whoa.” I shuffled hurriedly to the side and picked up one of the big, frond-like leaves to stare at it.

Then my two warriors whooshed out of the slide’s end, and they landed side by side next to me with twin “oofs” of surprise.

“John!” both women shrieked in unison.

I had never heard a sweeter sound, and a huge grin split my face as they both dove on me in a shower of leaves.

“You were absolutely amazing,” I told them as I crushed both warriors against me in a hug.

A surge of joy rushed through me as the two women squealed happily and covered my chest and neck with kisses. They were clearly buzzing as much as I was right now, and I laughed heartily as we all almost toppled over in our celebration.

“That was truly legendary,” Indy declared.

“Hell yeah, it was,” I agreed as I admired the two adoring women in my arms. “I’m so proud of you. We came here to make names for ourselves in the city of legends, and I think we more than succeeded.”

“Thanks to you,” Indy purred.

“Hell no, I just–”

The princess placed her soft fingers against my lips. “You brought us all the way through the perilous desert to be here. You
trained us well. You made sure we were worthy of this fight and armed us better than we’ve ever been armed.”

“Thank you, John.” Ellie smiled sweetly. “This has been beyond my wildest dreams.”

“Mine, too,” I said as I stroked her cheek.

“Imiath was mad…” Ellie said in a smaller voice as she warily eyed the slide.

“Yeah, he was,” I snorted. “But it looks like the gargoyles were expecting this. There’s no way he’s getting his ass down here with us, so we’re just gonna have to enjoy the perks of being victors for a little while…”

Indy looked anxious. “Will we be too late to–”

“No, we’re killing him tonight, don’t worry,” I assured her. “But we’re not leaving without our winnings. So let’s just sit tight, and in the meantime…”

I glanced over their heads at the room around us, and I loosened my grip slightly.

“Fancy a soak, shieldmaidens?”

“Soak?” Indy asked in a puzzled tone. The warm, oven-like light that lit the sanctum glinted off her ponytail as her head whipped
around to examine our surroundings for the first time.

Then small “oohs” of excitement came from both my warriors, and I followed them as they both scrambled to their feet and bounded out of the pile of leaves we had landed in and further into the sanctum.

It was a huge, high-ceilinged cave, and the only light came from the ground below us, which was made of a soft and springy variety of volcanic stone. It was riddled with small holes like a giant sponge, and a warm, magma-like glow shone through them. It sent up a muted but dazzling radiance that almost made it seem like we were walking over a sky full of fiery stars.

“Lava?” Ellie asked in a small, nervous voice.

“Magma,” I corrected with a chuckle as I remembered Gyrard’s peevish complaints about the differences between volcanic terms.

“It’s safe enough, though. Or, uh, so I’m told.”

The cave was warm, but I didn’t feel a huge amount of heat from the ground, even when I knelt to trace a hand over the stone.

Nearby, the spongy stone surface dipped down sharply into a roomy obsidian pool filled with calm, glassy water.

I approached it with my warriors and knelt to trace my fingers through its surface. Then I watched as the hot, ambient glow reflected hypnotically off the warm water’s ripples.

“Damn,” I murmured. “This is even cooler than I expected…”

There was a rustling of motion behind me, followed by a few tiny thuds. I was just turning back to my warriors to see what they were up to, but then they both rushed by me in two blurs of motion. I barely had time to take in the sight of their clothes and armor heaped behind them on the ground before they vaulted into the water ahead of me with two almighty splashes.

I watched with surprise and then amusement as my two nude warrior women shrieked and floated blissfully on their backs in the warm water of the sacred pool.

Then Indy splashed abruptly upright. Ripples followed her in a gleaming, fiery trail across the water’s dark surface as she walked back toward me. The water in the pool’s center was just above chest height for her, but as she came over to the edge where I stood, her two perfect breasts slowly breached the surface of the water.

For a moment, all I could do was stare down at my warriors as they both made their way over to the edge of the pool. The water
that beaded on their flushed skin glowed as it reflected the red ambience of the magma that lit the room, and it looked like they were both cloaked in nothing but tiny red stars.

Ellie’s wide blue eyes looked hungrily up at me, and Indy’s flared with tiny showers of sparks as she did the same.

“Hurry, John,” Indy begged with a note of impatience beneath her coy, purring voice. “I do not wish to start without you…”

“Don’t you dare,” I growled as I let my clothes drop to the floor.

Then I slipped into the warm, glassy water.

Indy’s skin glowed like amber in the feverish light of the magma. The color of her eyes rivaled the hot glow as they smoldered at me, and suddenly my pulse was thundering as loudly as the roar of the crowd up in the arena earlier.

I was gripped with the fierce tug of need that could only be fulfilled by fucking my two warrior women, and the fact that we were in a sacred temple was now the most unimportant thing in the world.

All that mattered was that we were here, undisturbed, and these two gorgeous, nude women were filled with the same hunger for me that I felt for them. There was no volcano god in either of our universes that could sway me from filling the sanctum with their moans.

The warm water lapped against my skin as I moved toward my fiery-eyed warrior, and I immediately seized hold of the lush curve of her hips and pulled her roughly up against me. I grazed my teeth over her neck, and a tremor rippled through her at my touch.

Then I reached up and pulled the princess’ gold cuff gently from her wet hair so it spilled free. It tumbled down around her shoulders and fell to her waist with a splash, and I swept it back so I could trace my hands over the perfect swell of her breasts.

I pulled her close again and wound one hand into her wet, silky black hair while I kissed her hot, eager lips.

The hollow of her waist seemed like it was made for my hands as I gripped her tightly and turned her around.

“Take me, John,” Indy begged, and she moved to lie with her upper body flat against the dry ground by the edge of the pool. Her legs hung down into the water behind her, so she was poised with her glistening pussy exposed just above its surface.

Whether it was the heat of the volcano sanctum, the euphoric aftermath of the fight, or some combination of the two, I almost felt like I was in a fever dream as I approached the irresistible sight of my warrior princess offering her body to me. I reached out and
slowly ran my hands over the wet, supple skin of her ass, and she wriggled eagerly in my grip.

I smacked her ass once and then slid one hand between her legs to push a slow, teasing finger into her entrance. Then I switched to two.

The feeling of my fingers questing into her tight, already soaking passage seemed like more than my love-starved princess could stand, and I couldn’t get enough of the way she begged for me to fuck her.

“John,” she pleaded again. “Hurry, please. T-take–”

Her words hitched into a breathy moan of longing when I withdrew one finger. Then I abruptly moved forward and slid my hands into place on her golden hips. I bent my knees slightly until I was at the right level to guide my cock to her entrance.

When she felt my length between her thighs, my princess gasped softly and spread her legs more to accommodate me. I grabbed her toned, supple thighs just above the knees and pulled them up around my hips while I slowly probed my cock into her waiting pussy.

My normally-fierce princess splayed her hands flat against the obsidian stone and moaned with wordless ecstasy while I moved my hips forward until I had filled her with one deep, sliding thrust.

“Fuck,” I whispered, and I stayed there long enough for my princess to bump her hips insistently back against me as she begged me not to stop.

I teased her with another slow but deeper thrust, and I bit back a groan of pleasure as her passage gripped around my throbbing cock. I held her thighs tighter in my hands as I thrust inside her with more speed. Soon the water was sloshing with the movement of my legs as I picked up my rhythm, and my princess was whimpering my name against the stony floor.

Then I released my grip on her legs, moved forward a little more, and lowered my upper body over hers. I rained kisses down on the golden skin of her back and neck.

“You want this?” I growled softly against the skin of her neck, and I teased her with a soft bite that sent another quiver through her body.

“Y-yes…” Indy breathed. “Please… I need–”

My princess lost the ability to form complete sentences as I kept her bent over the edge of the pool and plunged my cock into the soft, tight limits of her pussy with unbridled urgency. The water thrashed around my legs as I fucked her with total abandon, and I moved both my hands up to pin her wrists against the stone floor while I thrust my rigid length inside her again and again.

I moved one hand to cover her mouth as her moans ramped up, and soon she spasmed against me while her whole body was racked with the shuddering force of her climax. I gently bit her neck while I continued to fuck her with the combination of firmness and gentleness that always drove her wild, and she squirmed harder against me while her moans were muffled against my fingers.

Every inch of her skin felt like it was blazing against mine as I pressed my body down to anchor her fully beneath me, and I stayed that way while I heaved my hips forward in an endless series of quick, rocking thrusts to bury my cock in the tight, wet heat of her passage.

Then I crammed every bit of my length into her soaking pussy one last time and froze there while I erupted inside her.

“Fuuuuuck,” I hissed with pleasure as my cum jetted into the quivering depths of her pussy over and over again.

The word was barely audible over Indy’s wail of ecstasy that escaped through my fingers as she contorted against me in a second climax.

I stayed there with my body pressed over hers and savored the feeling of my cum flooding into her womb while my princess whined and wriggled against me with the aftershocks of her climax.

My breathing was ragged when I finally pulled out of Indy.

Then I immediately felt it hitch again when I caught sight of Ellie watching us from her spot toward the center of the pool.

Her eyes were devouring us greedily, and the dark water rippled slightly as her hands trailed down beneath it to touch herself.

A tiny whimper of longing escaped her as her blue eyes drank me in, and I was suddenly filled with a burning lust that warred fiercely with my spent state.

By the edge of the pool, Indy rolled onto her back, sat up, and then scooted forward to slide into the water with a gentle splash. I turned my eyes to her.

“I think Ellie needs some love, princess,” I murmured in a tone of soft but rough command. “How about you indulge her for a bit?”

My princess looked at me with new fire flaring in her eyes, and I landed one splashing smack on her ass to urge her over toward Ellie.

It was getting pretty damn steamy down in the heated waters of the sanctum, and I panted as I leaned back against the edge of the obsidian pool and watched my princess toy with her prey.

Indy started by guiding Ellie over to the edge of the pool next to me, and she teased the shy warrior softly with her fingers for several tantalizing moments.

Then my princess took a deep breath and sank slowly underwater, and I didn’t need to see under the dark glassy surface to know exactly what she was doing.

A little gasp spilled from Ellie’s round lips, and her delicate hands moved back to clutch the ledge behind her for support while Indy’s tongue went to work between her legs.

Then I saw a cascade of tiny bubbles come up from where my princess’ head was underwater, and Ellie squeaked slightly as a quiver ran through her.

I was impressed by how long Indy stayed under the surface before she finally surged up with a gasp of air.

“She is ready for you, John,” the princess panted as water streamed over her lush lips. “Wet and in need of your manhood.”

“Good,” I growled softly.

Then I pulled my blue-haired warrior against me by her slim hips, but I realized this water was getting hot as hell, so I braced my hands against the ledge of the pool and boosted myself out of it.

Ellie followed me without wasting a second, and I had recovered enough to allow the delicate warrior to tease my length with her pouty lips for a few moments as I slowly started to harden again.

After that I sat back on my heels with my legs folded underneath me, and I pulled the dainty warrior roughly onto my lap with a sudden surge of need. Her small, pert breasts moved against my chest in quick, shallow breaths while I kissed and bit her neck.

Then she scooted back a small amount so she could lift her legs up around my shoulders and moved forward again, so her bare pussy was positioned right above my cock.

I had to admire her flexibility as the backs of her thighs pressed snugly against my chest, and she pressed her trembling lips against mine while I supported her with my arms.

“That’s pretty impressive,” I admitted, and my voice was almost hoarse with longing to fuck the ethereal warrior. “And hot.”

Ellie didn’t even seem capable of words at the moment. She just clung onto me and shivered with pleasure as I slowly lowered her onto my now-rigid cock.

The pleasure of my length pushing slowly up into her pussy’s taut embrace for the first thrust was one of my favorite feelings, but it was nothing compared to the renewed fire that shot through me at the sound of the soft little gasps of pleasure I earned from the shy, delicate warrior. She quivered in my arms as she sank down fully onto my lap, and the angle allowed me to sheathe every last inch of my cock inside her.

I lingered there for a moment while the pleasure rippled through the both of us. Then I wrapped my arms tighter around her petite frame and used my grip to stir her around on my cock in small circles. The shivery moan that spilled from her lips sent a current of desire through my whole body, and I started to rock my hips with increasing speed while I switched to guiding her up and down on my shaft.

“Does that feel good?” I teased her in a low, panting growl.

“Y-yes, John,” Ellie whined. “Yes, yes. Don’t stop…”

Then she trailed off. Her thighs tensed and quivered against my arms as she started spasming against me. Her high, airy whimpers reached a new peak I hadn’t heard before, and she thrashed in my arms as her hips bucked with the intensity of her climax.

Soon, her legs went limp in between each shivering aftershock that ran through her, so they dangled over the crooks of my elbows while she bit her knuckles to stifle moan after moan.

The way the angelic warrior writhed and moaned in my grip was like a siren song that beckoned me on, and I bounced her on my cock without relenting until another cry of release spilled from her round, pink lips.

Finally, I gave full rein to every bit of my lust. Ellie’s high, pert breasts bounced wildly against my chest as I clutched her against me hard and sent my hips driving upward in an onslaught of quick, fierce thrusts to fulfill my need with unrestrained urgency.

“Yes, yes, yeeeeessss!” she gasped and arched her back to accommodate me when I pulled her down to accept every inch of my cock one last time. I sucked in a breath and tensed, and then I held
her tightly in place while I finally sent a hot deluge of cum shooting into her perfect little body.

My hips jumped up slightly with each pulse of seed that I pumped into my doll-faced warrior. I sighed into her blue hair as I continued to clutch her against me, and I felt like I could spend forever just listening to her gasp as each throb of my cock tested the limits of her tight, soaking core.

I sat there for a minute just holding the gorgeous warrior in my arms as she quivered and overflowed with my cum, and I felt like I could never get enough of my two women. It was like everything else in the world ceased to exist while I was with them, and I could never see myself getting tired of the feeling.

The distant creak of the trapdoor and voices echoing down the tunnel slide hardly seemed real to me at first, but when my warriors shared a look of alarm with me, I realized it must be the gargoyles sending a bookie down with our winnings.

“Shit,” I groaned softly as Ellie slid off my cock, and Indy splashed over to clamber out of the pool. I fumbled for the towels at its edge, but I only had time to scrub it hastily over my body once before I scrambled back into my clothes. “Stay over here where it’s dim and get dressed as quickly as possible.”

Just as I was buckling my belt, a gray-skinned bookie shot out of the tunnel slide with a swish and plopped down into the leaves.

I was out of breath when I strolled casually across the sanctum to meet him, but I didn’t think the sheen of water was too visible against my skin in the dim, fiery glow of the cave.

“Here you are,” the bookie said in a voice that was slack with relief, and he passed over what I recognized to be another enchanted pouch. “It might interest you to know this is the highest amount we’ve ever had a backer win in our city’s history. Having more than three-quarters of the residents place their bets on your fighters will do that, though.”

My eyebrows shot up as I tried to process this information.

Holy shit, this city had that much faith in my fighters?

I thought back to the weeping old men and fawning women I’d passed in the crowd when we arrived. They had all gone home tonight richer than they’d been because of us.

“Imiath finally left just a minute or so ago,” the bookie continued, “so you should be quite safe to go up when your hour is over. Congratulations, Lord John. Your warriors earned this well for you.”

The words “Lord John” made me grind my teeth slightly, but I managed to give the bookie one of my usual laid-back smiles.

“They sure as hell did,” I agreed. “Thanks. So, uh… How do we get out, then? When the hour is up, I mean.”

Thanks to the map I had wheedled out of Gyrard at the Reprieve, I knew exactly how we were actually going to get out already, and it wouldn’t be the way this bookie suggested. But still, I figured it would look odd if I didn’t ask, considering I was a newcomer to this place, and we had entered through a steep, unclimbable stone slide.

This would also be a good way of double-testing the truth of no one knowing about the sealed exits, so I feigned confusion as I asked the bookie about how we would get out.

“Oh, yes,” the bookie said cheerfully. “You’ll leave through this door over here.”

He strode over through a short labyrinth of stalagmites that jutted up from the ground near the far wall, and I followed him over to see a square brass door set into the stone side of the cave.

“You just go on inside,” he explained, and his voice took on a hollow, echoing sound as he opened the door and stepped into a
square compartment in the stone. Before he closed the door, his stony gray hand gestured dimly at a thick, tasseled rope that hung from the ceiling inside. “Then you close the door, give this rope a yank, and up you go.”

He demonstrated by slamming the door shut. There was a small grate in the brass door, and I could just barely see the outline of his hand reaching up to tug the tasseled rope through the tiny square holes.

Immediately, the cavern was filled with a deafening whoosh. It had a suctioning sound to it that reminded me a little of a vacuum cleaner, but it was about ten times as loud. The portion of the bookie that had been visible through the door’s grate vanished abruptly. A split second later, a puff of smoldering ashes shot out of the holes, and I leaped back to duck behind the closest stalagmite.

“World’s weirdest elevator,” I muttered as I turned and strode away.

I clutched the pouch of my winnings as I hurried back over to my women. The jewels clinked together with soft promise, but there was no time to examine them now. Instead, I snatched up my duffel bag, stuffed the pouch inside, and then ushered my women along
toward the other side of the cavern as I pulled Gyrard’s map out of my pocket.

“Time to skeeee-daddle?” Indy sang softly.

“Time to haul ass,” I agreed with a slight distraction as I glanced at the map and scoured my eyes over the wall we were approaching. “Imiath just left a few minutes ago, so if we hustle, we’ll definitely beat him to Krasur’s estate. Just need to find our secret exit…”

I roamed my eyes over the cracks in the dark stone until I was almost sure I’d located the right spot. Then I shrugged to myself as I hefted my axe-like multitool out of my duffel bag. I set the bag down and gripped the tool’s handle. On one end, it had a rounded axe-like blade, but on the other it had something more along the lines of a robust hammer’s head.

I picked a spot near the middle of the stone wall and gave it a light, testing tap with the hammer’s head.

There was a solid-sounding thunk as the metal struck the stone, and I shook my head as I moved on down the wall while steadily landing taps on the stone.

The fourth time, the thunk had a hollow sound to it, and I felt a thrill of excitement as I stood back to give the tool a harder swing.

“Here we go, this should be it,” I muttered.

“Bam,” Indy whispered from behind me.

After two hard swings, the “bam” actually happened, and the brittle section of the wall caved in with a shower of rock shards and dust.

I coughed and waved the dust away to see an ancient, narrow stone staircase had been revealed, and then I bent to grab my bag.

“Let’s go, shieldmaidens,” I said briskly. “Time to haul ass and beat Imiath to the party.”

Just in case there was some lurking danger or drop-off in the tunnel, I went ahead of my two warriors onto the narrow stone staircase.

Soon we were in total darkness as the warm red glow of the sanctum faded behind us, and the only sound was our feet scuffing against the rough volcanic stone as we wound up through the narrow tunnel in single file.

I aimed for a mixture of speed and carefulness as I felt my way through the darkness. When things cooled down at once, I slowed a
little and glanced at the stone overhead.

“Are we under the lake?” Ellie asked in a quiet voice.

“Could be,” I murmured over my shoulder. The thought made me slightly uneasy, but then again, this tunnel had been here for hundreds of years. It didn’t seem all that likely to collapse now. “So, I’d say we only spent about half of our required hour in the sanctum, and if Gyrard’s map is right, then this tunnel should take us to a temple that’s somewhere in the Coin Stacks.”

“Very close to Krasur’s,” my princess whispered. “And then…

bam?”

“Bam,” I agreed with a chuckle. “Hopefully. Once we’re out of the temple, we find somewhere to wait for Imiath, and…”

“Kapow,” Ellie interjected. Then, after a short pause, she amended herself. “Very quiet kapow.”

“And then we will leave with Artemn,” Indy added with excitement, and the scuff of her footsteps sped up, like she couldn’t wait for the phoenix-winged backer to join us. “She was very fierce in the arena.”

“Fierce and bold,” Ellie agreed. “It was an honor to fight against her.”

“And it will be an even greater honor for her to fight at our side,” Indy finished with a soft, excited little clap of her hands.

I was about to reply, but then the dark tunnel leveled out so abruptly that I almost walked right into the door. I jerked my hands out to steady myself against the dusty old wood, and it creaked loudly at my touch, like it was already on the brink of collapsing.

I felt carefully for the ancient door’s hinges and all the seams between the wood and the walls. Then I rummaged in my bag for the steel wedge I had brought, and I carefully worked it into the gap by touch. I gave it a few firm taps with the hammer-like end of my tool, then flipped it and slowly forced the pickaxe blade into the widened gap.

The door creaked even more loudly as I put my boot against it to shove the blade in as deep as possible before I gave the handle of my tool a hard yank to the side.

The wooden door bucked twice against the several-hundred-year-old wooden bar that covered it before it burst outward in an explosion of dust and splinters.

I shoved my way into the gap it left behind and immediately felt a light current of air on my face.

Then I led my warriors out and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dim light of the room we were in. Soon, I spotted a faint trace of fiery glow off to our right, so I paced carefully across the creaky wooden floor we now stood on.

Whatever the hell kind of temple this was, it was nothing compared to the underground sanctum I had just fucked my two warrior women in. The wooden floor here was full of splinters, and I could faintly see the outline of lumpy metal statues Gyrard had told me about. The poorly shaped metal had no reflective shine under the faint shreds of fiery glow that leaked in from outside, and I couldn’t even tell what their shapes were supposed to be.

The light was coming in through the wooden slats of a window that had what looked like wooden bars across it, which seemed more suited to a prison than a temple to me.

But whatever the reason for the bars, they soon crashed outward from the force of my axe blows.

I carefully wriggled through the gap and stepped onto the ground outside. Then I turned to help my two warriors out after me, and I wedged my axe-like tool back into my duffel bag.

“Alright, come on, we’ve gotta hurry up,” I whispered to my women as we left the temple at last.

We hurried with soft, light steps across the black volcanic stone that covered so much of the city as we followed the source of the light. Soon, I caught sight of one of the fiery globes not too far off. It was shining through the gap between two column-like stones that spread out in a forest to either side of us ahead.

I glanced back at the shadow of the small, dark temple we had just emerged from, and then back at the fireball-lit path that we were now about to approach through the Coin Stacks.

“Crazy that we pretty much walked right past this a few days ago,” I murmured.

My voice was hushed, but somehow it was still picked up by the columns around us to echo in an eerie, goblin-like tone that made us all fall silent immediately.

I kept my eyes sharp and watchful as we made our way toward the path, just in case we were being approached by marauding tapestries of plants.

Or even worse, Imiath.

I was ready to take that fucker down at any time, but I’d much rather catch him off guard than have the opposite happen, so I didn’t allow my alertness to waver as we got closer to the path.

The whole area seemed deserted, but I thought I could hear cheers, whoops, and laughter in the distance. Now that the fights of Remembrance were over, Bayalon’s inhabitants were probably out in greater numbers than all the other times I had strode through the eerily empty city.

They sure as hell had plenty to celebrate tonight.

I was longing to reach out and grasp onto my warriors’ wrists, but instead I loosened my gun in its holster and kept myself between them and the path. We walked parallel to it at a short distance so we wouldn’t be seen by anyone who might approach on it. I kept my hand resting on my gun’s grip while I watched and listened hard for any approaching people. If we bumped into Imiath, I knew that bastard wouldn’t hesitate to attack me on sight, and he wouldn’t stop until I was dead.

Or until he was dead.

I definitely intended to take the second option.

We were now approaching the region I knew as the Clanging Narrows, and the chuckling of the water was echoing hollowly through the region around us as we came into sight of the cracks in the stone ground.

Then, out of nowhere, Imiath’s guttural, three-octaves-too-deep voice cut easily through the water’s eerie, clanging chuckle, and his tone dripped rage and contempt.

“Lord John.”

Chapter 20

The second I heard Imiath’s voice, I forced my duffel bag into Indy’s arms and rammed a shoulder into my black-haired warrior to force her and Ellie further away from the path. Indy instantly flitted deeper into the shadows of the Coin Stacks and yanked the dainty warrior along with her.

I wanted to give them a reassuring look, but I also didn’t want Imiath looking in their direction if I could help it. The less he was reminded of the existence of my two beautiful women, the better.

So I just wiped my slick palms against my pants and gripped my gun as I scanned the shadowy area ahead with confusion.

Where the hell was that hulking horned bastard?

Then I spotted movement ahead.

For a split second, I thought one of the stone columns had come to life and was stomping around, but then I saw the fiery light glinting off the dull bronze color of Imiath’s horns as he passed between two of the Coin Stacks about thirty feet ahead of me.

I stopped breathing completely at the sight of him, but then I realized that even though he had just spoken my name, he wasn’t talking to me.

He wasn’t even looking in my direction. In fact, I was pretty sure the fucker was completely unaware of my presence.

He was striding parallel to the cracks of the Clanging Narrows that ran through the Coin Stacks. He was just a stone’s throw away from the path now, and he was heading directly toward it. Once he reached the path, I was sure his intentions were to take that route to Krasur’s estate, because that was the place he thought he’d be most likely to find me once my hour in the sanctum was up.

Either way, he was right there in front of me, and he wasn’t alone.

He continued talking to Artemn in what was clearly an ongoing rant as he dragged her along, and I listened as I crept forward with soft steps. The stony chuckling of the water and the deep sound of Imiath’s voice cloaked any small sounds I might have made as I sneaked along parallel to the path in the shadow of the columns.

“Lord,” Imiath repeated with the same scoffing contempt in his voice. “Lord of what?”

A sour look twisted my mouth as I silently reflected on the fact that it sure as hell hadn’t been my idea to call myself “Lord John,” but
now that I knew it pissed this guy off so much, I kinda liked the ring of it.

I was probably the only trucker to ever be given the title of a lord.

Marsh would fucking lose it if he knew about it, too.

I smirked and made sure the safety was off on my gun as I moved forward through the shadows. Then I started taking sideways steps to move toward the path while keeping my eyes glued on Imiath.

As soon as that bastard came out onto the path, I would do the same.

The hulking backer stormed along toward it with fast, angry strides that occasionally jerked Artemn’s willowy body off the ground behind him, and she continued to listen to his rant in silence.

“Lord of nothing,” he spat. The sharp, stony edge that tinged his deep voice almost took over, so I could hardly understand what the hell he was going on about. “This outsider comes in with his bright metal and his outlandish warriors, and he thinks he owns Bayalon. How do you think their heads would look on my wall, Art?”

Artemn said absolutely nothing, but it didn’t seem like anything was expected of her, because Imiath ranted on without waiting for an answer.

“I’ll kill them myself,” he swore, and his voice was full of mockery as he turned to the winged warrior and laughed in her face.

“Since that greasy-haired assassin proved to be a waste of coin, and even you proved too weak to do it in the arena.”

I wasn’t the slightest bit surprised to learn that Imiath had been the one who sent the fissure elf after me on my way to the Reprieve, but a thrill of fury shot through me at the open threat to my warrior women’s lives, and I would’ve ended the too-tall bastard’s life right then and there if I’d had a clear shot.

At the moment, he was just about to emerge onto the path, but I was worried about Artemn getting in the way.

Then I saw a faint pulse of white light flicker from the scar-like patterns on her skin. Over the soft chuckling sound of the Narrows’

water, I heard a muttered comment from the phoenix-winged warrior at the same moment the light appeared.

I almost thought I’d imagined it at first, but then Imiath stopped in his tracks, grabbed her by the shoulders, and slammed her up
against one of the stone columns.

Her feathered wings shot out to the sides as she was crushed back against the stone, and the horned backer leaned as close to her face as his undulating horns would allow.

I quickened my pace as my vision turned red.

I got a pretty good glimpse at half of Imiath’s face in the unsteady light that flared from Artemn’s skin, and I was alarmed to see that he looked like he was genuinely on the verge of throttling her, or running her through with his damn demon horns.

The sharp taper of her jaw was stubbornly clenched as she returned his stare.

And then, just when I thought the tension couldn’t get any thicker, she spat in his face.

I would have laughed if I wasn’t boiling with fury right now.

The growl of rage that rumbled out of Imiath was more than ominous, though. It didn’t even sound like something that could possibly have come from a living creature’s mouth. It sounded more like a noise that would result from a giant crack in the rocky ground splitting open during an earthquake.

Then he abruptly released his grip on Artemn’s shoulders, and she slid down the stone column to land on the ground.

Now seemed like a perfect time for me to intervene, both because he had released his grip on the winged warrior, and because I really didn’t want to see her get stepped on like an ant by this son of a bitch.

So I took several steps forward while I raised my voice to call out to him.

“Hey, jackass.”

Imiath froze in place for the briefest of moments before his head whipped toward me.

He had a comically stunned look about him for a split second that sent a thrill of smugness through me, but as soon as he recovered himself, a mad, murderous smile flashed across his ugly face.

“Lord John,” he said again with a note of almost unhinged mockery in his deep, guttural voice. “Just the man I wanted to see.”

He yanked his sharp, wavy blade free of its sheath quicker than I could blink, and he didn’t even hesitate. He just flung it directly at my head.

I jerked aside and stared incredulously at the blade as it whistled past and clanked and skittered down the path behind me.

For a second, I found myself wondering if he was really insane enough to throw his only weapon out of his own reach and think it was worth the chance of facing me weaponless.

Then I looked back at the murderously smiling backer, and the two built-in weapons that sprouted out of his head. My heart was starting to race, but I still spoke in my steadiest tone.

“Nice aim,” I commented in a bland voice. “Maybe you should try your hand in the arena, you big ugly bastard. I’m sure some of the women could teach you a lesson, even with that thick, horned skull of yours getting in the way.”

Imiath didn’t say a word. He just snarled and rushed at me like a huge, pissed off bull with his horns lowered to skewer me.

For a brief moment, I considered prolonging things. This guy was a seven-feet-something-tall demon, after all. I almost felt like he should die a more spectacular death than this.

But then again, he didn’t deserve one.

So I raised my gun and shot him right between his thick, undulating horns, twice.

He didn’t even break stride as he continued barreling toward me, and I leaped out of his path feeling grim but not entirely surprised that he hadn’t just dropped dead.

He roared with fury and whirled around, and I immediately hit him with a bullet in the chest.

And then another.

And another.

But the bastard didn’t even flinch.

Uh-oh.

He just widened his hideous, deranged grin and kept walking forward like a damn Terminator.

I glanced up at his huge, poison-coated demon horns for a brief moment, and I wondered how well my armored vest would hold up against them if it came down to it.

Then I thought back to my conversation with Krasur, and a ludicrous thought occurred to me.

I raised my aim slightly and pulled the trigger again. This time, I sent the bullet right at Imiath’s nose. An oddly crisp, crunching sound split the air as the bullet struck home.

At first, there was no wound visible except a small, dark bullet hole that looked oddly pristine.

Then Imiath actually went cross-eyed. There was a sudden hitch in his stride, and he got an odd look on his face, like he was about to sneeze.

Finally, he stumbled to a stop about fifteen feet away from me.

One of his absurdly huge hands flew up to the trickle of dark blood that was leaking slowly out of one nostril. Imiath lowered his hand and stared at the blood on it, then raised his gaze to me again with a look of disbelief.

“Slimy… bastard,” he snarled in a strained voice.

“No, it’s Lord John.” I grinned. “Nice meeting you.”

Then I fired again, and again.

I was rewarded by two more eerie-sounding crunches before the horned backer swayed, staggered, and toppled over to land with a crash against the stone below. I could actually feel the ground shudder beneath my shoes, and I stumbled only slightly as dirt and a few leaves settled around me.

“I’ll be damned,” I muttered to myself.

I paced forward a few steps and cautiously nudged him with the toe of my boot. Then I gave him a hearty kick that did nothing but jostle his slack corpse.

“Dead as nails,” Indy declared as she popped out from among the shadowy Coin Stacks.

“Good riddance,” Ellie added, and she wrinkled her nose at the dead backer on the ground as she followed my princess toward me.

A silence fell, and all three of us slowly turned to look for Artemn.

For a second I thought the phoenix-winged warrior might have flown away, but then I saw the shadow of her willowy form creep slowly out of the dark stone columns of the Coin Stacks.

When the fiery light of the lanterns washed over her face, her silver eyes widened as they took in every detail of the scene, from me switching the safety of my gun back on, to the two warriors at my side looking almost as proud as if they’d slayed Imiath themselves.

Artemn’s gaze rested for a long moment on Imiath’s corpse, and her face looked completely expressionless except for the guarded, moody look she always wore outside the arena.

I was just about to break the silence with some lighthearted banter when something else broke it for me.

It was a high-pitched whistling noise that reminded me of fireworks, or the sound of an anvil hurtling out of the sky toward a cartoon character.

Everyone’s head jerked around to look for the source of the noise, and then finally I spotted a glowing blur that was hurtling toward us from the sky.

“What the hell is that?” I whispered.

All three of my warriors shrugged and shook their heads in mute, nervous confusion, even Artemn, so we all darted into the cover of the Coin Stacks as the glowing blue object streaked toward us like a meteor.

When it had almost landed, I realized it was a Spectrid, or something like one. It looked similar to the other few of the creatures I had seen, but its scaly skin was luminous. It glowed with its own light that was all different shades of blue.

The creature was also wearing an absurd, collar-like contraption that spiraled all the way down its dragonish neck and
jutted out in random places in a way that made the Spectrid’s neck look like it was covered in hedgehog spines.

When the glowing creature landed on the path, I could see that the “spines” were thicker than they had appeared from a distance, and they were actually made up of hollow pipes that almost seemed like they belonged on a pipe organ, except they were made of thin, light wood. The whistling had faded away completely now, and I realized that the sound had been from the wind whistling through all the assorted pipes.

The Spectrid’s sinuous neck weaved back and forth as it scanned the area around the path. When its gaze found Imiath, the creature looked completely dumbstruck.

It stared at the dead backer’s body for several long moments and then crept forward just far enough to stretch out its neck and prod one of Imiath’s spread-eagled arms with its long, narrow snout.

The Spectrid had a slightly nervous look on its face now, but it continued to squint around.

I felt one of the warriors behind me shifting their weight, but I didn’t hear it in the slightest.

Unfortunately, the Spectrid clearly had. Its head swiveled around instantly to gaze directly toward where we were lurking in the dark shadows of the Coin Stacks.

I sighed and quickly considered my options. Between the fact that this Spectrid glowed like a skinny blue jack-o’-lantern and the way its strange, whistling collar clearly announced its presence to everyone for several miles around, I thought the likelihood of the dragonish creature being a spy for someone was pretty much zero.

It was clearly looking for someone, though, and there was a good chance that someone was me.

What I didn’t know was why.

After all the subtle asking around I’d done before tonight, I had been certain that there weren’t any Remembrance rules that would be broken by me dueling Imiath anywhere outside the area of the arena. But the appearance of this Spectrid directly after I had slayed the hulking backer suddenly filled me with doubts. What if there was some obscure rule that hadn’t come up in the conversations I’d had?

Considering the fact that I had been prepared to duel Imiath underneath the arena itself, it wasn’t like the sacred customs mattered to me all that much, but what it came down to right now
was whether the duel mattered to this glowing dragonish creature, and whoever had sent it.

Would they try to stop me from leaving the city with my warriors?

When the Spectrid cleared its throat, I decided I might as well go out and talk to it. From what I had seen outside the Reprieve gathering, I knew that these creatures were pretty capable of taking a man to the ground if they cared to try. And while I probably could’ve just ended things with my gun here, I really didn’t want to do that unless I was forced to.

As far as I had seen, Spectrids tended to be friendly and intelligent to the point where I almost felt like I would be shooting a person. Doing something like that in cold blood and without provocation was a far cry from dueling the vicious, murderous Imiath.

I strolled out of the Coin Stacks toward the creature, but I kept my gun in its holster for the time being.

The Spectrid’s eyes were a shade of glowing cyan that was even brighter than the misty blue glow of its scales, and a look of excitement came over them as the creature took in the sight of me approaching.

“Lord John,” the Spectrid greeted me in a smooth, feminine voice. “You have been summoned to see the council of elders.”

Chapter 21

My brain went into overdrive as I contemplated this.

I had heard the council of elders mentioned only once in passing, and I wasn’t sure exactly what sort of role they played in Bayalon. Was this about my duel? Were they about to give me a stern talking-to? Would they throw me into some sort of medieval prison? Or was this something completely unrelated to Imiath?

After a moment, I decided to just be blunt, but I kept my tone friendly as I replied.

“Why have I been summoned, exactly?” I glanced pointedly at Imiath’s fallen body before I went on. “As far as I was aware, this wasn’t against any of your city’s customs, and it was pretty much kill or be killed for me here, so…”

The Spectrid lifted one of its clawed hands and waved it in an airy gesture.

“No, no,” she assured me. “Regardless of its reason, your, er…

altercation… was well within the laws of Bayalon. Well done. But the council summons you to make a… well, a request, of sorts.”

“A request,” I repeated slowly.

The fact that this had nothing to do with my duel took a lot of the tension away, but I still felt slightly suspicious. Was this council of elders interested in my warriors’ weapons and armor for some reason, like Bayalon’s backers had been? What the hell could they want from me?

“They heard about your chariot,” the Spectrid elaborated. “Our city hasn’t had visitors in over a century, you see…”

The creature trailed off, and I nodded as the probable nature of this “request” suddenly became clear to me.

I thought about it for a moment, and finally I shrugged. “Why not? I’m happy to hear what they have to say.”

It seemed both rude and unnecessary to say that I’d be just as happy to bail on these fuckers if what they had to say wasn’t to my liking, so I just left it at that.

The Spectrid’s teeth flashed into a goofy-looking grin that reminded me of the first of its kind I had met, and I couldn’t help but return the smile.

“Excellent,” the creature declared. “Since you’re still a bit of a newcomer to the city, the council sent me with a map.”

The Spectrid’s scaly hand reached up to grope around beneath the assorted pipes on her strange whistling collar. There must’ve been some sort of pouch or bag underneath, because soon her hand came out clutching a scroll.

“Thanks,” I murmured as I accepted the scroll. I unrolled it and quickly scanned my eyes over the hand-drawn map, which was done in crisp black ink. “Cool. That’s pretty much on our way out of here.”

“Just a short journey on foot,” the Spectrid said with a nod.

“The council called in a favor to get the Tapestry out of the way.

They’re all wandering around the Catacombs now, so you should be safe to cut across the Shambling Plains. Just follow the cracks of the Narrows, and you’ll be at the Stronghold before you know it.”

In favor of getting a move on, I decided to skip over my questions about how the hell the army of sentient, marching plants that made up the Tapestry had been led into these Catacombs, and what kind of favor the council possibly could’ve called in for someone to risk their skin doing it.

Instead, I decided to use this as a reminder not to indebt myself to this mysterious council as I pocketed the scroll and gave the Spectrid a nod. He looked ready to leave us again, but an idea
struck me suddenly as I realized I was definitely not making it to the soiree with the other backers this evening.

“Before you go,” I said and glanced at Imiath’s body. “Do you know of Krasur’s estate?”

The Spectrid looked at me in a way that very clearly proved this was a dumb question.

“Right.” I cleared my throat. “That sword over there… could you see it’s delivered to Krasur? I know he’d like to have it.”

The Spectrid glanced at the strange sciotine weapon and then back at me before he gave one swift nod. “Best not to leave a weapon like that lying around.”

He wasn’t wrong. I was almost tempted to take it for myself or my women to use, but the truth was, we had all the weapons we could want back on earth, and I kinda didn’t want my fighters wielding potentially-cursed blades.

Luckily, the Spectrid didn’t seem to mind the extra errand, and I knew Krasur would appreciate the gesture.

I watched as the Spectrid abruptly soared over, caught the blade in its feet, and took flight again. As it gained height with each flap of its wings, the creature’s strange, pipe-laden collar slowly
picked up on its whistling again with each breath of air that passed through them.

Soon, I was left with my warrior women, and another small shockwave ran through me at the fact that there were now three of them.

I turned toward the newest member of my group.

“I’m John, by the way,” I said with what I hoped was a friendly smile, but it was hard to tell if it came across right. I was too completely distracted by the sharp planes of her face, and her strange silver eyes. “Sorry I didn’t have time to, uh… introduce myself before…”

I glanced at the dead demon, and Artemn said not a damn word as she looked at me with a tense and unreadable expression.

“Okay,” I muttered and figured I’d give the gorgeous woman a moment to process. “So… we’ve gotta go swing by this Stronghold real quick.”

“Yes, and you are coming with us,” Indy said in a formal tone.

Ellie nodded in agreement, and the winged woman returned the gesture with a silent nod.

“But before we go…” Indy pointed at my jacket, where I had stashed the winnings I’d received from the bookie earlier. “I believe we have a spare moment to enjoy our victory tonight.”

She didn’t have to say another word.

“Oh, shit,” I murmured. “Almost forgot.”

I pulled out the bulging pouch of winnings I had received after my warriors’ fight with Artemn. The same promising clink of gems rang out that I’d heard earlier, and a jolt of excitement lifted my stomach as I opened the drawstring bag to see exactly how much wealth I had won from tonight.

There were too many jewels to pour them out into my hand.

In fact, I was pretty sure both my hands would’ve been overflowing if I had tried to hold all of them at once. So instead, I dipped one hand inside and moved a little closer to the nearest fiery lamppost while I scooped out some of the jewels.

They were all different sizes. The smallest was about as wide as my thumbnail, but it was perfectly-shaped, with so many smooth, flat faces that I might’ve needed a microscope to count them.

Despite the hot, red-orange glow of the lanterns, the gem remained
stubbornly and brilliantly blue in a way that almost made it seem to glow from within.

Another gem looked a bit like a moonstone to me, but it had none of the pale blue or purple shades that I was accustomed to, like the color of the Moonstone Road. Instead, this gemstone had a silvery luminance to it that made it even more striking somehow.

The other gems in my hand were different shades of red, orange, yellow, and every hot, burning color in between.

Holy shit. I was going to make so much fucking money from this haul.

Just a crazy amount of money.

I couldn’t even wrap my mind around how much.

Indy moved toward me, and her hand extended toward my open, jewel-filled palm. Then she froze in place, and her eyes darted to me.

“Go ahead,” I chuckled in a daze of bewilderment.

I was pretty much just seeing dollar signs floating around my head right now.

My princess’ long fingers reached out and plucked the largest of the gems in my hand, and my other two warrior women clustered
a little closer around us as Indy held the gem up to look at it under the light.

“Wowie,” Ellie murmured softly.

“I agree,” I muttered.

“It is as big as the puny bird eggs of Earth,” Indy whispered with fascination. Then she paused and amended herself. “Which is not puny at all, for a gemstone. I have never seen such a large gem.”

This gem wasn’t a jewel. It looked more like some sort of huge fiery opal to me, and it was practically alive with its own hot, burning light.

When my princess carefully placed the fiery stone back in my palm, I gave it a lingering glance, and my eyes moved to the stunning silver and blue gems, too.

Then I looked at the three gorgeous warriors who belonged to me.

I sighed softly to myself and shook my head.

Ellie’s head immediately swiveled toward me, and I smiled slightly at how fast she picked up on my rueful expression.

“What is it, John?” she asked, and she moved closer to place her pale, delicate hand shyly on my arm.

“For a second, I was thinking I should get these three gems put into some kind of jewelry,” I reflected. “And then give them to you three bombshells. But…”

I paused and transferred the pouch’s drawstring to hang around my wrist so I had a free hand. Then I used one finger to separate the three specific gems I’d been admiring from the others in my palm, and I rolled them around a little so the light played off them.

When I glanced back at my three warriors, multiple looks flashed across all of their faces, and they all spoke in a confused jumble of words that I barely caught. Until one distinct voice rang out above them all.

“Warriors should not receive such gifts,” Artemn interjected with an expression of deep alarm, like she feared this was a trap.

Her voice was soft and smoky-sounding, and I found it hard to focus as the sound sent a thrill through my veins.

“John gives us gifts,” Indy informed her in a proud voice and turned back to me with a flare of intrigue in her red-gold eyes. “What is a boom-shell, John?”

“That would be a very large gift,” Ellie pointed out in a hushed voice. Then she looked at me with a furrow of confusion in her pearly brow. “Is that why you said ‘but,’ John?”

Between the intensity of my three warriors’ reactions, it took a second for me to pick back up on what I’d been getting at.

“No,” I replied. I looked at the blue, silver, and fiery stones again, and a wave of heat swept over me as I realized the words I’d been about to say were a little over the top.

But then again, everything about my relationship with these warrior women was over the top, in the best possible way, and I fucking loved it.

So I just shrugged and went on in a matter-of-fact voice. “I was going to say that your beauty makes these gems look like three-week-old trash.”

That seemed to leave them utterly speechless.

I opened the pouch again and dropped the gems back inside with a series of soft clinks. Then I gestured at my warriors to follow me as I headed toward the Stronghold that was marked on the map.

Artemn followed along with me willingly enough as we picked out a path following the cracks in the ground that marked the

Clanging Narrows, but she kept a slight distance, and she looked at me and my warriors with a blank, shocked expression, like there were a million things about our interactions that stunned her into oblivion.

I was almost worried that she might be going into shock, but I wasn’t sure exactly what to say to reassure the winged warrior.

Indy seemed to notice this, too, and she swooped in to bridge the gap.

“You may speak whenever you choose,” she informed Artemn.

Then my princess looked at me with a proud smile. “John allows his fighters to ask unprompted questions.”

I cringed a little as I realized this woman would of course be operating under the “normal” dynamics of this world, but I was glad my princess had picked up on this.

Artemn looked slightly reassured that she hadn’t just had some extended hallucination that involved me calmly answering my warriors’ questions and calling all three of them beautiful. But other than that, she still seemed seriously doubtful and a little hostile, like she thought this was a trick to get her into trouble with her new backer.

“John, what color is the sun?” Indy asked as if to prove her point.

“Usually yellow,” I chuckled.

“Did we fight well for you tonight?” Ellie chimed in, and I smiled at the hopeful tone of her voice.

“Incredibly well,” I answered. “All three of you were amazing.

I’d say this was hands down the best fight I’ve been to. The locals certainly seemed to think so.”

A beat of silence followed this exchange as we walked onward, but eventually, our newest fighter seemed to grow bolder.

“How did you know?” Artemn finally asked, and now her silver gaze darted to my holstered gun before she looked at me. “To aim for his nose, I mean?”

“I, uh, heard he got punched there once,” I admitted as her smoky tone sent another thrill of heat through my veins. “And that he bled. Honestly, it didn’t even occur to me until tonight that demons might have such a random weak point.”

As I spoke, I reminded myself that I had already been a backer with two ravishing warriors in my possession, and the addition of one more shouldn’t make me lose my cool.

I didn’t lose it, but I still had to push away the nervous teenager-type feeling that swept over me at Artemn’s silver-eyed gaze and smoldering voice.

It didn’t help much that both my other women seemed just as dazzled, if not more so, now that Artemn was striding along next to us and actually speaking.

Indy was gazing raptly at the black-and-white-haired warrior with her mouth slightly open. Even if she had been attempting to disguise her blatant stare, my princess’ red-gold eyes would’ve given it away. Meanwhile, Ellie was trailing slightly behind while looking like she wanted to reach out and poke Artemn to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

A silence fell over us, and I slowed my pace as we came out into what must’ve been the Shambling Plains.

The plains were full of grass, but it was like no grass I had ever seen before. Every stalk of grass towered about as tall as the eight-foot-tall backer I had just slayed, although they were a hell of a lot skinnier. They all had some sort of feathery, glowing green bristles at the tops that made them look like a cross between wheat stalks and feather dusters to me.

The glowing bristles hung innocently from the tops of the grass, but I still gave them a close look as I bore in mind all the dangerous plant matter I had encountered in the desert cities I had been to so far, including this one.

“Hey, uhh…” I pushed aside my awkward, nervous-teenager feeling again as I looked Artemn directly in the eye. “Do these plants, err… do anything?”

The winged warrior seemed to grasp my meaning, and she shook her head as she tucked a strand of white hair behind her ear.

“They don’t bite,” she said helpfully. “But…”

She walked up to one of the towering grass stems, reached out, and tickled it with her finger.

I jumped slightly as the whole stalk of grass twitched and wriggled like it was alive. The motion made the feathery bristles at its top dance violently, and the glow they cast down danced along with it. A few bristles were shaken loose, and they drifted down to land innocently on the ground.

“So,” I said calmly. “The grass is ticklish. Got it.”

A small giggle escaped from Indy, and her red-gold eyes twinkled slightly. Next to her, I saw Ellie’s pouty lips press together
hard in a way that told me she was fighting off a giggle, too.

I gave them both a stern look, partly just to fight off a laugh of my own, because we had places to go right now, and a council of elders to visit.

And then there was the newly-acquired warrior who accompanied us, and the way she looked like laughter was something she had never heard before.

This solidified my belief that a laughing fit was something we should avoid right now at all costs, and I swept my warriors along with me as I strode into the towering grass.

The Narrows were easy to follow through the Shambling Plains, because the grass seemed to avoid growing too close to the close-set cracks in the ground as they zigzagged gently across the land. The chuckling sound that had spilled out of them before was barely audible now, and I thought the water must be further underground here.

As the glowing Spectrid had promised, there were no evil, violent plants roaming through the tall and silent grass. I still kept a wary eye out for any surprises, but my mind had plenty of time to
wander, and I found my thoughts going back to the future I would be shaping for myself and my three warrior women.

Tonight, over three-quarters of Bayalon’s residents had bet their money on my warriors. By now, I knew that would’ve already translated into a hefty amount of gems. But I was pretty sure the most valuable of these jewels were the ones that had come from Imiath’s personal wealth.

Now they were mine, and there was no doubt they’d put me well within reach of taking some leaps I’d been anticipating for a while now, like finding myself and my warriors a new and better place to live.

And then, of course, there was the matter of snatching Spitfire from my boss’ clutches through legal means, and then leaving his sorry ass in the dust, possibly even bankrupt, to start fresh on my own.

After a few minutes of walking, I was pulled back to the present by the changing landscape ahead of us. The grass dwindled away into a springy moss that had a rich, emerald-green color to it. The land ahead dipped into a small but steep-sloped valley that was almost perfectly bowl-shaped.

There was a cluster of tall, terraced buildings in the bottom of the valley. They were the biggest buildings I had noticed in Bayalon that were made out of something besides the black volcanic stone.

These buildings looked like they had been made from any other stones that could possibly be found. The stones were mismatched in size, color, and shape, but they had been meticulously fitted together to form what I assumed must be the Stronghold the Spectrid had told me about.

It was pretty impressive how well-formed the buildings were, and there were colorful wildflowers and vines growing on lattices that made the buildings of the Stronghold look even more picturesque, but still, it didn’t look like much of a fortress to me.

The whole place was lit by orb-like lanterns that were similar to the fiery globes that lit other places I’d been to in the city, but these had none of the hot, flickery glow I had seen elsewhere. Instead they cast a gentle, light blue luminance around the valley.

I led my warriors down the mossy slope under the cool, steady light of the lanterns. We were about halfway down the slope when two glowing blue blurs swept down from overhead.

They thudded to the mossy ground in front of us in quick succession, and I realized we were being approached by two Spectrids. Both glowed a pale blue color, but I was sure neither of these two was the same individual who had just come to find me out near the Coin Stacks. Other than the lack of absurd whistling-collar contraptions around their necks, these two were quite a bit bigger in size. They seemed more muscular, too, like they weren’t all neck and wing.

“Lord John,” one of them said in a deep, reedy voice, and it dipped its glowing, scaly neck in a respectful bow. “The council welcomes you.”

I turned my grimace at this title into a polite smile, and I glanced around as I wondered why the hell there was no door in sight.

Then the dragonish creatures both knelt to the ground, and I realized they were wearing saddles.

“No stairs?” I asked with a mixture of humor and curiosity.

“The Stronghold was built in ancient times,” the Spectrid informed me in a smooth, leading voice that could’ve easily narrated
an audiobook. “The valley can be flooded with water at the council’s command, so anyone who is unwise enough to intrude will be–”

“Extinguished?” I guessed, and I couldn’t hold back a small chuckle at my own pun.

But the glowing creatures both nodded solemnly, and I raised my eyebrows as I realized we were really going to fly up to the council on dragonback.

Well, Spectrid-back.

This was an admittedly awesome turn of events that I hadn’t seen coming.

Indy immediately marched Ellie over to climb onto one of the Spectrids’ backs in front of her, which left Artemn with me.

In all likelihood, the willowy, winged warrior could’ve beaten us there on her own, but instead she climbed onto the Spectrid’s saddle behind me, and her arms hovered uncertainly in the air like she wasn’t sure what to do with them.

Then, without warning, the Spectrid launched itself into the air.

Artemn’s arms clenched tightly into my sides and then relaxed slightly as the dragonish creature’s flight smoothed out with a few flaps of its wings.

I could barely focus on how utterly badass it was to be flying on a dragonish being. This was the stuff of the wildest audiobooks I’d ever listened to, but somehow, Artemn’s hold on me distracted all my senses.

Soon the two glowing Spectrids landed side by side on the highest terrace of the cobbled buildings, and the winged warrior hastily withdrew her arms with a muttered apology.

Then we all slid to the ground, and the reassuring words I had been starting to form were interrupted by the council of elders, who seemed to have carefully staged every part of our entrance to impress us.

A sudden cloud of smoky mist came boiling out onto the terrace. Its swirling tendrils were lit up by the lanterns’ pale blue light in a way that was both mystical and slightly spooky, which seemed pretty on-brand for the desert cities to me.

“Welcome,” a deep, ringing voice greeted me from inside the mist.

Then several people strode forward through the mist to meet us, and my suspicion about this being carefully staged was confirmed.

I had to admit, the effect was pretty damn cool, but I vowed to myself not to be too impressed by anything these people did, because there was no doubt in my mind that they wanted something from me.

It was up to me to make sure any agreements I made, or didn’t make, were in the best interests of me and my warrior women, not this council of elders.

“We’ve heard much about you,” the ringing voice informed me.

It came from the man in the center of the group, and he strode forward to shake my hand.

As I accepted the handshake, it was impossible not to notice the thick mist that coiled and swirled thickly around his hands, and I gathered that this guy was behind the special effects.

He was also vaguely familiar.

I resisted the urge to wipe my hand on my pants after we’d shaken hands, and I saw that the jaw-length hair that was tucked behind his elven ears had a similar silvery color to Mek’s.

“I believe you’ve met my son,” he said in a grudging tone that suggested he was bringing this up purely to clear up any possible
misgivings I might have about him. “And for that, I apologize. We haven’t spoken in many years. My name is Vaksahn.”

“Oh.” My eyebrows shot up as I digested this interesting development. “Err… wayward son?”

“Mekoliviath was a thorn in my side from the day of his birth,”

Vaksahn declared. “I have denounced him and his dabblings in the petty, ceaseless violence of this city’s backers. I am certain he was sent by the gods to teach me humility.”

“Ahh, yes.” I kept my voice grave and respectful, but it took some serious work. Between the irony at the claim about humility and the revelation of Mek’s full name, it was hard to bite back a laugh.

I carefully filed away the mouthful of a name for future use if I ever happened to come back to the legendary city, and I nodded politely as the steely-haired Vaksahn nodded pompously.

“These backers somehow manage to be both childlike and savage at once,” he said with disgust. “And they are forever at each other’s throats. But… that is not why we have summoned you.”

From the way he inhaled slowly through his nose, and the looks on the rest of the council’s faces, I guessed the rant about Mek
was an exhausting little tune that these people heard frequently.

“It has been long since we’ve had visitors in Bayalon,” Vaksahn went on. “We are most honored by your presence, and the prowess of your warriors.”

After the disgusted way this man had spoken about the city’s backers, I wasn’t too convinced by this supposed enthusiasm for arena fighting. I gathered that these elders were most likely playing their own game, at least to some extent. They were just more subtle about it. After all, Vaksahn hadn’t so much as questioned Artemn’s conspicuous, if silent, presence, even though there was no way in hell I would have her at my side if I hadn’t won her in a backers’ duel.

If I was being honest, I thought I preferred Mek’s amusing antics to this guy’s lofty presence. But it still seemed worth hearing the elders out.

And along with that, I knew there was a strong chance of this encounter working in my favor, if in a different way. The council hadn’t called me here to discuss this misty, mysterious guy’s quarrels with his wayward son. This was about something else. The Spectrid who had summoned me here had already given that away, even if the council hadn’t intended for that to happen.

So I just nodded respectfully and waited for him to continue.

“We have sent many messengers out in an attempt to contact the other cities,” he went on. “Hundreds. But none of them have come back. In the last few decades, we have fallen so low as to give the job to the worst of our criminals.”

“Not the worst,” a skinny, wheezy-voiced man butted in. “They draw straws.”

I raised my eyebrows and rolled my lips inward to keep a straight face as I nodded.

“The point is,” the steely-haired man continued with an irritated glance at his wheezy companion. “Any hope of messengers returning had been abandoned. But now–”

“You want me to be your messenger,” I guessed shrewdly.

Vaksahn’s eyes widened slightly at my bluntness, and I had to hold back a smirk at the subtle sign that I had guessed at what he was getting at.

“I would never presume to do so,” he assured me with a swift and reverent bow of his head. “We know you are not of the same level as other backers and no doubt have much to attend to. We were merely hoping… We…”

“We thought that a backer such as yourself must surely visit other cities,” another council member took over. One of his eyes was covered by a green-tinted, prismatic monocle, and his voice was hushed with respect to the point where it almost felt awkward. “Or at least, be planning to do so.”

Another elder nodded eagerly, and her bone-white curls bounced stiffly with the motion. “That way you could simply take the message along with you, if you so desired.”

“We would pay you handsomely upon your return,” another offered.

Finally, Vaksahn waved a hand at them for silence, and I took a moment to reflect on this idea.

While I wasn’t about to let these people’s showy magic and careful flattery sway me, the part about me planning to visit other cities was actually true.

If I accepted this request, it would give me clear directions to another desert city where my warrior women could fight.

Rolling up in my war chariot had made a hell of an impression here in the legendary city. The fact that I had been summoned by the elders was a direct reflection of that, after all.

I imagined doing the same at a new city, with the added fact that I’d be bringing what would probably be the first message that city had received in the last few centuries.

Every eye in the new city would be drawn to us. My warriors’

armor, weapons, and skills would be the center of attention in the blink of an eye.

“Where is this city?” I finally asked.

“Far to the north,” Vaksahn said, and he pulled a scroll out of his sleeve. “It is called Volluz.”

Intrigue filled me as I moved closer and leaned in to look at the map he was unrolling. It looked absolutely ancient, like it might crumble if I breathed on it the wrong way.

Even more interestingly, it looked like every city labeled on it had been written by a different person. The handwriting looked incredibly different, and when I leaned closer to look, I saw that the circles and squares marking the cities were actually little sigils. The one for Bayalon was a volcano, which seemed pretty cut and dry to me.

But the sigil for Volluz just looked like a bunch of crisscrossed lines, and I stared at it for a long moment before I looked back up at
the steely-haired Vaksahn.

“What symbol is that?” I asked with a frown. It kind of looked like a net to me, which seemed sort of odd.

“It is a symbol of many rivers,” he replied as he rolled the scroll up again. “It indicates the rivers that split up the land there, in a literal sense. In some of our old tales, though, it is referred to as the symbol of shattered glass.”

“I can see that,” I acknowledged as I thought of the symbol.

“But why?”

The white-haired woman answered. “The rivers mark the boundaries of Volluz’s provinces. They are always in conflict. Or…

they were several hundred years ago, at least. Now…”

She trailed off, spread her hands wide, and shrugged.

“Always in conflict,” Vaksahn admitted. “But never at war.

Disputes between provinces are– or were, at least– always settled in the arena there.”

“But once a year,” the monocled man added, “there was always a… well, not a festival, like Remembrance, exactly… but more of a tournament. It consisted of several fights that were
organized to include warriors from each province, and narrow them down until the fiercest of the whole oasis faced each other.”

“For the highest stakes,” Vaksahn finished. “Well… the most gems, anyway.”

I cast a subtle glance around at my three warriors, and my eyes lingered on Artemn. Her silver eyes had widened, and she looked like she had actually heard of this city.

She gave me a slow nod, then averted her eyes.

Inwardly, my heartbeat was picking up, but I kept my face expressionless as I replied to Vaksahn.

“Sounds interesting,” I said coolly. “So, if I were to go there…”

“We would give you our message,” the steely-haired council member replied. “Just a scroll, of course. And we would also give you…”

He rummaged around in his pocket. First he came up with another scroll, and he tucked it into his elbow along with the dusty old map.

Then, after a few moments, he pulled two small objects out of his pocket. They clinked together in his grip, and he held them both in his palm to show me what they were.

They looked like chess pieces to me, but extremely decorative.

Both were made of a bright, polished gemstone, but one of them was a bright, searing red, while the other was a deep, cool blue.

“What are they?” I asked with curiosity.

“Proof that the message is from Bayalon,” he said. He hesitated for a brief moment before he went on. “And… well, they send a message of their own… a message that we are interested in connecting again.”

“It may be that they have their own chariots, you see,” the white-haired woman elaborated. “Chariots capable of crossing the wasteland that our desert has become.”

“They may have simply forgotten of our city’s existence,” the monocled man added.

“I think that unlikely,” Vaksahn declared. “But they may have decided that it is only legend, and ceased to send out messengers in our direction.”

“Sounds plausible,” I murmured as I remembered that my own warriors had once thought the same thing about Bayalon. Then I glanced back at the two ornate-looking chess pieces. “These aren’t
some sort of, er, sacred treasures, are they? I mean, in the case that I’m not able to deliver the message for any reason…”

I trailed off, but the elders seemed to grasp my meaning.

“They are two of two hundred pieces we have,” Vaksahn assured me. “They are… noteworthy, as far as history is concerned.

But no one is going to go looking for them if they don’t return.”

He seemed to figure it was unnecessary to add that even if someone did care to go chasing after me in the desert, they would wither up and die in the desert before they even caught up with Spitfire’s dusty tire tracks.

That was undeniably the reason I was here, after all.

Finally I nodded.

“I’ll take the message,” I agreed. “Just this once. I’m not looking to–”

“Oh, of course,” the monocled man assured me hastily. “No commitments.”

“We are most grateful,” the white-haired woman put in.

“Grateful and honored,” another elder added.

I accepted a scroll from the steely-haired Vaksahn, and then I shared a handshake with him and the other elders.

“Will you stay and sup with us?” Vaksahn asked in a grave, formal voice.

“Sup?” I gave him a slightly startled look and then glanced at the faint hint of dawn that was visible in the dark sky. “Uhh, no.

Thanks, but it’s about time for us to hit the road.”

A dozen or so eyebrows rose at this baffling statement, but these elders clearly weren’t about to question the sanity of someone who they hoped might be their golden goose.

Fortunately for me, though, I didn’t intend to become anyone’s goose. Even though I was accepting this request, I didn’t plan to sit here trading small talk with these people, no matter how hallowed their city was.

I had gems to trade in, women to settle, and a whole other world to get back to.

“We hope you’ll allow our Spectrids to fly you to the gates, at least,” the steely-haired Vaksahn offered. “You are honored guests of Bayalon, after all.”

I thought about this for a second and then glanced at my three warriors and shared a nod with them. Then we departed and headed for the waiting Spectrids.

Artemn didn’t clench her arms into my sides this time, but her hands rested while the Spectrids took off from the rooftop terrace, and the willowy warrior leaned close against my back as the glowing creatures’ wings whipped up a sharp breeze against our skin.

Soon we touched down just inside the city gate, and we all slid to the ground.

I hastily turned my grateful pat on the Spectrid’s scaly flank into a goodbye wave as I realized the creature was giving me an affronted look in response. The dragonish beast’s goofy-looking smile was slightly reluctant, but both of them bowed to us before they took flight again, and their glowing forms slowly shrank into the sky as they headed back to the Stronghold.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of footsteps pounding toward us, and I pulled my gun out with a speed that actually made me slightly impressed with myself as my mind leaped to the possibility of Imiath somehow getting up and striding around despite all the bullets I had fired into his overly tall body. I still had eleven left in the magazine, and I wasn’t afraid to send the rest of them flying right into that bastard’s nose.

But I realized quickly that the footsteps weren’t heavy enough, and it only took a moment for me to recognize the familiar form of the
hawk-faced guard as he staggered into view.

“Sorry,” he assured me in a slurred mumble as he straightened up and attempted to look put-together. Then he sighed. “Drank a bit too much. Not used to having so much money to spend on drinks.”

He paused and grinned at me while he shook the front of his black tunic, so the pockets rattled loudly with the sound of coins and jewels clinking together.

“Righteous fucking fight, by the way,” he went on in another stream of casual speech that would’ve made him sound right at home back on Earth, or at least in some parts of it. “Thanks to you, I’m a rich man now. This night has… fuck, it’s changed my life, man.

You and your fighters… you’re more than any of us could have expected out of this Remembrance. And I’m so, so drunk right now.”

“Nice,” I said solemnly.

I ignored Indy’s small, poorly disguised giggle that came from behind me, but I allowed myself a small smirk as the guard congratulated me and went to open the gate.

I brushed my fingers over the scrolls and chess pieces in my pocket to make sure they were still there, and then I quietly rattled
my own pouch full of gems as I strode out of the gates of Bayalon for a third time.

Now I had an even bigger haul of jewels to bring back home with me. Enough for me to act immediately on a few of the changes I’d been itching to make, hone my warriors’ skills even further, and still have more money left in my bank account than I’d ever anticipated while I geared up, ensuring that I’d never have to answer to Marsh again.

Life was fucking good.

Me and my women had become legends in this fierce city of legends, and now I had clear directions to a new oasis where we could do the same.

Not to mention the fact that I now had three badass warrior women at my sides.

I glanced at our newest addition. The fragment of dim, dusty pink sunrise that lit the sky didn’t dim the bright silver of Artemn’s eyes, or soften the sharp taper of her jaw. She still seemed wild and skittish to me, but not afraid.

Some of her half-black, half-white hair had escaped from its braid, and she shook it out of her eyes as she took in the sight of

Spitfire. I had to admit, even though my old classic could’ve used a wash to take off the desert dust, Spitfire did look pretty damn impressive.

As we got up close to the truck, Artemn’s black-and-white wings had curved down to cover her shoulders again, and she reached up and fidgeted with one of the dark feathers at one wingtip like she didn’t even realize she was doing it.

Then she shook her wings back into an upright position and squared her shoulders while she turned toward me, like she was gathering her courage.

From how noticeable the move was, I was sort of expecting her to say something dramatic, but she didn’t.

“Where will we go?” she asked simply. “Straight to Volluz?”

I opened my mouth to respond as I realized there was a hell of a lot to explain here, but then my other two warriors burst into a quiet but gleeful chant.

“On the road again…”

End of Book 2

End Notes

Thanks for reading Arena Road 2: Collect and Train Warrior

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Patreon

Do you know I have a Patreon? It’s true, and it’s amazing.

When you join, you’ll get advanced chapters of my books to read and listen to BEFORE they come out. You’ll also get advanced sketches of covers, super sexy versions of my covers, and I even have an audiobook tier where you get 3-4 audiobooks a month at a
steep discount. Everyone is joining, so you should too. Click on this
link right here, or search for my name on Patreon.com

So here is the deal: Amazon doesn’t update readers when an author comes out with a new book… UNLESS you follow that author
on the store. Click here to go to my author page, and then click on
the “FOLLOW” button on the left side.

You should also join my Facebook Fan page or follow my

Facebook Author page. If you don’t follow me on Amazon or join my

Facebook page, you’ll never get alerted when my next book is out.

So do it now!

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s
imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2022 by Logan Jacobs

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Document Outline

- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21

Table of Contents

- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21