Book 3: Sound And Fury

  Chapter 24 Bungle In The Jungle

  It was a long march back to the prisoners and the token guard force, watching over the huge, frighteningly silent and obedient crowd of ragged, thin, desperate people.

  “Fake slaves…” Gandree spoke softly to the six men in the brown armor of the count’s war-band who were nervously ‘guarding’ the horde.

  “These two are probably soldiers or overseers, trying to sneak away among these poor folks. They might try something stupid… something stupider.”

  “If they put a foot wrong, we’ll just leave them trussed up and dump them in the woods… for the spiders.” Bran muttered quietly, his hard eyes and stoney face said he was not jesting.

  “You’ve seen them, right? Lurking just out of smushing range? So many giant spiders… I hear that there’s one as big as a plow horse that leads them all.”

  The huge, sober, bull of a man muttered calmly, seeming unperturbed by the dog sized arachnid perched on a bough above his head.

  “Did you know… almost all spiders, in every world, are venomous…” He smiled at the shaken men and chuckled. “Especially the local varieties.”

  /

  Daisybelle and her sisters dropped the cult stupies off at camp, then rode off to find more fun, after dumping Gandree the murder-party-pooper off, as well.

  “Amy… where is your pack hunting?” She demanded across the open comms channel.

  “We aren’t hunting, Daze…” Amy replied quietly in the goblin girl’s ear. “We’re dropping anyone who tries to sneak out with tranquilizers and paralytic venom darts… Ok, I guess we’re hunting, but we’re not killing anyone!”

  Slowly she crept forward a few yards, slipping into the shadow of a spreading oak tree. With care, she raised her crossbow and took aim. Silently releasing a slow, steady breath and atrickle of her own internal Mana, she activated the enchantments woven into the tiny weapon.

  A barely audible ‘clack’ sounded in the quiet woods, followed by a gasp and the soft sound of a body falling to the leaf litter and pine needles.

  “Cultist down… I’m tracking another.” She whispered into the night.

  “Heard, blessed one. A restraint team will cocoon the human shortly. Thirp’s blessings, lady Amy.” A soft and sibilant voice answered in her ear.

  “And… no, blessed one, I will not dispense with the honorifics and courtesy that your relationships and rank demand of me… My blessed lady Amy Ward, Child of Deathshadow and the Deadminder…” The smooth, urbane voice cut off her often repeated requests for less formality, with an easy grace and fine manners.

  “I don’t love how long winded you are either, Ithir’iyasithin-chit.” She replied in perfect orb weaver… She even nailed the local accent with her sassy bum-wiggle at the end. “I have work to do.”

  With that, she and her monstrous kitty-cat vanished into the night, stalking stray assholes.

  “Frankie, you take point, Shiro and I are right behind you.” She whispered, when she spotted her team alchemist lurking under a pine.

  “Amy? Oh, thank the gods…” Franklin Knubbel gasped with relief and sagged against his sheltering tree.

  “Are you ok? What’s wrong?” She asked, closing the distance and dropping a steadying hand on Frankie’s shoulder. “Is my dad ok?” Her keen, dark eyes scanned the area, while she checked in with Shiro, mentally.

  “The ghosts… Amy…” He gasped, still shaking and trembling.

  “Sorry… I’m extra haunted tonight.” Gary muttered sourly, as he slipped into the moonlight, a few yards away. All around him, humanoid wraiths drifted and skulked. Leering, grinning, weeping, desperate, lost or lonely; each one was unique, a lingering remnant of mortal regrets, ambitions or fears made manifest.

  “The veil is thin here and I’m no longer cursed, the dead can’t not hear my call.” He shrugged and smiled thinly. “It’s harmless, just spooky as hell.

  Several of the drifting, shadowy forms mimicked his every move and action, some in parody, others with desperate, pleading urgency. No sound came from the insubstantial whisps and figments, while their touch carried a chill that lingered oddly long on bare skin.

  “Don’t worry, I’m still on the job… right Shiro?” Amy’s dad muttered, accompanied by a silent chorus of back up singers who made no audible sound, yet seemed to add something to the man’s voice. The uncanny feline purred and mewed softly, because… they were both super creepy members of the Haunted Weirdos club. Together… with Gary a bit farther away, the four moved out into the woods, on the hunt.

  “Found him…” Amy whispered to her team a few minutes later. “Shiro caught his scent; he’s hiding in a blackberry bramble up on that slope. He has someone with him… a child, not human.”

  “Do we have eyes on them?” Frankie asked softly over the comms, as the team spread out to encircle the thorny bower. “Usually I’d toss something unpleasant in there…”

  “Let’s slow down…” Amy murmured. “Let’s send in Kree and kitten-Shiro to check it out.”

  A scant few seconds later something tiny and white drifted across the moonlit glade and vanished into the suspicious berry canes without a whisper of sound.

  Meanwhile, only uncanny eyes could detect the small, armored creature flying down into the bower from high above.

  Quiet as a falling leaf, Kree the Hive Maiden drifted down into the bushes, landing among the leaves, thorns and faded blossoms. Only a single stray, wilted petal drifted down in reaction to her arrival, as she alighted on a cluster of ripening berries.

  She peered down at the two richly robed people hiding in the thornbush, unaware of her presence, or that Shiro was slowly creeping up behind them, in his kitten form. The pair huddled together, trembling with fear, dressed in diaphanous garments with rich colors and elaborate needlework... Kree recognized such things, thanks to her bonded familiar, Gary. He had taught her so much about mammalian ways, though they remained deeply confusing…

  She flexed her Will, manifesting an intangible shadow body from her servant’s vast shadow and stepped down into the little bower. She appeared in the guise of a young human man, the image of Gary, as a youth of around fourteen. “Surrender and you will not be harmed. You are surrounded.” She intoned in her familiar’s childlike voice.

  Kree had prepared for a number of potential outcomes… Should they attack, her body was simply moonlight, save for her own tiny form hidden away in the shadows. Should one hold the other hostage or pose a threat, her sting could incapacitate, paralyze or kill, at her whim. If they ran, her friends awaited…

  She was not prepared for both of the huddled forms to scramble to their knees, silently drop their garments and kneel in the dirt, naked with their mouths gaping open, their palms up-raised in supplication… Obscenely.

  “Uh… no.” Kree muttered awkwardly at the silent, naked and utterly submissive duo. “Oh… Sweet sugar of my ancestors…”

  /

  “Uh, team…” Amy murmured into the open channel. “It’s worse than we thought… I have a couple of deeply traumatized… Survivors, here…”

  “How bad?” Ghnash’s distinctly higher pitched but still familiar voice cut through the general chatter easily.

  “Full stockholm… They are just sitting there, asking us to do… things… to them as punishment.” Amy answered, sounding both angry and deeply disturbed.

  “On our way, King Papa…” Daisybelle cut in. “This is our work, Amy…” The goblin murder-maiden’s voice had a note of gentleness and compassion that was new to Amy’s ear… One the young pirate princess liked, in her new sister.

  Ten minutes later, six warg riders pelted onto the clearing They dismounted and quickly formed up, led by the comparatively tall, composed and elegant form of queen Sabrina, still dressed in a flowing gown of silk. In silence, they swarmed into the bramble, where the escaped pleasure slaves still awaited whatever was going to befall them next.

  King Ghnash arrived shortly after, flanked by two massive wargs and riding another enormous canine, a sober and contemplative expression on his face. “Amy, Frankie… Come come with me, I will take your father’s place. This is not for you to witness.” He took the two teens by the hand and started dragging them off into the woods.

  “My daughters and queen Sabbie have too too much experience with this kind of trauma.” He muttered softly, as he led them away from the little clearing. “Good work kids. We go hunt elsewhere. It pleases me that you remember to measure twice, cut once. Not all the prey in these woods needs killing.”

  “Where are Gary and Kree?” Frankie asked, when Shiro joined the little group following the goblin king into the woods.

  Amy answered calmly, as they walked. “My papa is probably doing something stupid that will make my mom mad… But he’s also probably doing that stupid thing for all the right reasons.”

  “Something stupid… Like what?” Frankie asked weakly. “He’s always pretty stu…” The young alchemist closed his mouth on that thought, when Amy’s glare found him in the moonlight.

  “Nub nub… Is good point, Frankie. Fool Gary is super double dumb. Like a double dumbass burger with super sized, goofy fries.” Ghnash agreed. “He’s an idiot of amazing scope and depth.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  With that, Ghnash pointed to the enemy camp, lit by burning tents and uncontained cookfires. Chaos ruled in the wide, open space, as any figure that dared the vast clear zone before reaching the trees, invariably fell, mid sprint, dropped by an unseen, silent weapon or spell.

  In that swirling morass, shadows stirred, flitting from one pool of darkness to another, unseen by those who hadn’t grown up with a profoundly sneaky Papa.

  While the enemy sporadically made desperate bids for freedom in ones and twos, darking figures slipped into the camp unnoticed and dispersed rapidly among the fallen pavilions.

  “Yub, he’s infiltrating. Probably to see if there’s more slaves in the camp… There will be more, that’s double certain.” He sighed. “Light cult is super into all the things that most cults like… Money, luxuries, power, abusing others and exerting dominance. Light priests and nobles can’t bear to campaign without their pleasure slaves; there will be too many many people like these… and worse.”

  Ghnash sighed softly as he led the kids in their hunt, while his daughters did their grim work. “Goblin girls learn all too early about such things, cause the cult made goblin men all nasty, like they themselves are. The girls do prefer killing abusers, over picking up the broken pieces of the survivors… It’s goblin nature, we like gutting our enemies.”

  “Wait… so… Daisybelle and the girls are also crisis counselors?” Frankie asked awkwardly. “Those murderous little…” He felt Ghnash’s glare, even though Frankie was following behind the diminutive monarch. “Those beautiful splendid damsels…” He corrected himself. “I didn’t expect that…”

  “My girls have compassion and love in their hearts… but they are also still my goblin princesses.” The king grumbled with pride. “Let’s find more runners that have slipped the net. I will take Gary’s place as your guard, Frankie… He has other work to do.”

  /

  Maya and Harry moved in tandem, the only sound they made were low, sweet, breathy, almost musical puffs of wind from the wrong end of their flutes. Tiny feathered darts bloomed unseen on the fast moving figure, scurrying for the treeline in a desperate bid to escape the constant and maddening bombardment of the encampment.

  The well dressed, disheveled man took two increasingly clumsy steps, before crashing to the ground, motionless.

  With swift, sure fingers, new darts were loaded into their instruments, as their lullaby duet put the bitches to sleep. Their squad’s warriors, Rio and Kermal Singh, lingered near the two flautists, watching their backs and spotting prey.

  “Two cultists down on the west side…” Kermal reported dutifully over his earring. “We’re circling northeast, team one, pull back and watch for runners on our flank.”

  “Oh.. shit…” Rio muttered crossly a moment later. “My dad’s shadow wights are moving around down there… Mom’s gonna be pissed, if he does any necromancy.”

  “Aww… crap.” Kermal complained softly. “Sasha, go see if you can help Kree.” In a flash of darker shadow, the deaths-head hawk-moth flitted into the night sky, headed for the central camp. “Watch out for that ordinance, down there. Stay safe, my darling.”

  /

  Pontiff Luce watched in horror as her army slowly fell apart before the helpless eyes of her clerics, their senses shared with her through the eldritch bonds that shackled the fools to her will in the guise of granting them power.

  The order to enslave and conscript most of the able bodied population of her city of LightGlen and march them through the new void her knights had discovered had come from the very top, from pontiff Lumos and the grand council of the Light…

  Now her carefully cultivated cattle were being spent so wastefully; her forces quickly broke apart, like a ripe fruit in a monkey’s paws. Worse yet, she was still struggling with how the monkey who was peeling and devouring her army, had demonstrated his occult techniques and witchcraft.

  She’d watched, drowning in a new sensation that she suspected was called dread, as he ripped Fletcher the lich lord apart and cast his silently screaming shade into the unguessable void that awaits all mortal filth in the end.

  Now zombies guarded her gates and walls, as the remaining mortals struggled to maintain her city, in the absence of most of her slaves, laborers and peasants.

  Mills and workshops sat idle, while crops ripened in untended fields and livestock wandered aimlessly in the city’s pasturelands.

  “I shall simply have to institute an aggressive breeding program!” She muttered from her throne of white marble, into a throne room crowded with concerned local dignitaries. “Peasants can be replaced quickly enough… In twenty years we should have a fair start, if you all will get to work.” She scolded the gathered merchant lords and trade leaders.

  “Instruct your underlings to begin procreating immediately.” She sighed again and tapped her foot at the richly garbed idiots.

  “You are all so eager to fumble your jiggly parts at each other, usually…” She complained bitterly. “Animating the corpses of your dead leaves unsightly stains on my fair streets.”

  Luce withdrew her attention from the fragment of her Will that was animating her human puppet on the throne, turning her full consciousness back to more important matters. The humans and beasts were a long term problem, she had more pressing worries.

  Currently, Pontiff Lumos was berating Luce for her complete inability to access the gateway, or the mysterious GodStone that lay simultaneously on both sides of the path between worlds.

  “...Secure the artifact and facilitate its transport to the City of Light, by whatever means and methods you have available! Even if you must walk your vessel to the site and use a shovel, yourself!”

  The pontiff’s silent, mental commands rang and jarred against her essence, ringing the crystalline structure of the artifact that bound her to this world of mortal flesh… and to the council of Light.

  “It shall be done, first pontiff… I trust that I shall have priority, when new mortal slaves and servants become available on the market…” She murmured weakly, before the full brunt of the furious immortal’s rage could be directed her way.

  Luce sighed and resumed full control of her mortal puppet, taking that tiny fragment of her multifarious mind back into herself and digesting her own experiences.

  With disgust, she skimmed her memories of the last half hour of mortal time.

  The flesh and blood mortlas continued demanding the return of their conscripted apprentices, laborers and workers; while the local lords bemoaned the confiscation and deployment of their slaves, especially their pleasure slaves, in the strongest possible terms. She flicked through their complaints, demands and pleas with utter disdain. The pitiful wretches acted as though depopulating the town posed more than a simple logistical problem.

  Luce raised a single slim, pale finger from the arm of her marble throne; silencing the chamber in a moment. In a quiet rustle of costly cloth, every human sank to their knees, awaiting the pontiff’s words.

  Slim, pale and delicate, Luce brushed a few strands of her silky, white-blonde hair behind her ear, beneath her tall, white mitre. Hardly more than a girl, this body served her well, distracting and inflaming the biological lusts of her vasals.

  She’d selected and cultivated them over generations, breeding them for their vulnerability to such blandishments and enticements. Most were too busy seeking new pleasure slaves or more deeply depraved entertainments to plot, scheme or even properly murder each other.

  Pandering to their lower, animal urges certainly paid dividends; most of them would serve happily, even knowing her true nature; just for the opportunities that her service presented.

  “Oh well… I’ll just have to make more.” She muttered so softly that none heard, even in the silent cathedral throne room.

  “The Grand Pontiff has just spoken to me, from the capital itself.” She murmured, her voice clear, sweet and pleasant.

  The pontiff of Light smiled benevolently down on her gathered faithful, resplendent in their cloth of gold, silks and jewels. The cream of her domain lay scattered before her, kneeling in eager anticipation of the Grand Pontiff’s words.

  “Great Lumos, first in the council of Light and prophet of the one true god commends your personal sacrifice and wishes you to know that you will all be well rewarded… once the GodStone has been secured.”

  She spoke more softly and smiled down at the gathered nobles and merchant lords, her beautiful young face shining with pleasure.

  “To that end, you will all disrobe here, affix slave collars to your necks and report with your entire households for labor at the site of the GodStone.” She sighed and shook her head, swaying her silken ringlets as she spoke sweetly.

  “I’ve already exhumed everything that is still useful from the pauper’s field and common cemeteries… and even the noble’s crypts! Your ancestors are a shabby lot and can’t seem to keep things tidy.” She complained.

  “Worse yet, they can’t approach the GodStone without decaying to dust.” She remarked mildly, as the reanimated corpse of lord Pasqauit of WestSlope shambled in, pushing a trolly laden with rough, iron collars, glinting with etched and burnished magical sigils of enslavement and bondage. Wet gobbets of decaying, reeking… stuff dribbled along the immaculate, white marble floor behind him, marking his decrepit and rotting passage through the chamber.

  “Go on now! I have plenty for everyone and more are being delivered to your homes, as we speak. Make sure everyone gets one!”

  /

  Under two full moons, on a wide and level pasture, right beside the Wheatford Road, several thousand people sat in unnatural silence and stillness, listening to the music. They spread out in a vast, well organized circle, divided in blocks of five hundred and patiently awaiting whatever was coming next with the fatalistic resignation of the enslaved.

  As the night progressed, they stood silently, one brigade at a time and marched over to the sprawling, stone-built inn standing beside the road.

  A few minutes later, they returned and resumed their seats, each carrying a small bundle of cloth, a clay jug of water and a bowl of hot, oat and dried fig porridge, laden with honey.

  As each group sat, the next in line rose and repeated the process, all to the gently swaying sound of a violin and a collection of musical chimes, singing out from the house by the road.

  “Fie… There be so many…” Shai murmured, sounding exhausted. “That man of mine stockpiled food and goods til I feared he would burst… Now I wonder that we shall have enough.”

  The low, rumbling voice of her brother rolled in from the basement door, answering her worry with calm confidence. “We have another ton and a half of oats, then there’s barley, rye, rice, corn…”

  She sighed, as Tallum carried another two hundred pounds of rolled oats up from the basement. He had a twenty pound basket of dried figs under his other arm, bearing the burden of two enormous grain bags on his shoulder with ease.

  “Shai, you look worn out.” He rumbled quietly, his gentle manner and thundering voice always made her smile, even in times like these.

  “Take a break, I’ll hold it up for a while.” Becky offered, as her harp appeared from her sleeve. “We have the whole ladies’ auxiliary here.” Becky’s dark, keen eyes skewered her giant, red haired sister with a meaningful glare. “Sit down and eat something, or I’ll call Tawny over.”

  Shai glanced at the busy medical crew, furiously working the vast crowd, in an effort to find those among the neglected wretched who were in dire straits. “Aye… Becky, ye have the right of it… Ye awful little guttersnipe.”

  “Shut up and sit down, before you fall down.” The smaller woman snapped cherfully. “The high priestess has spoken!”

  Once ensconced in a chair, behind a big bowl of the porridge they were ladling out and a mug of tea big enough to quench a wildfire, the woman sighed a long, gusty breath of relief.

  Strong, scarred fingers tugged awkwardly at the soft collar of chamois leather at her neck, stitched with an elaborate chain of runes and sigils, picked out in spider-silk and silver.

  “I despise this thing… I’ll be glad when I kin be shed of it…” She complained softly to the moons, soaring high above. “Pity any woman who marries a witch, a madman or a crafter of curses… I’ve stepped in it thrice and more, with that awful, wicked man of mine.”

  “Yeah… it’s pretty awful.” The dusky young priestess agreed, her harp gently singing a song of tranquil and restful ease over the camp. She shrugged and shifted, trying to adjust her own enchanted, slave control collar, without disrupting the music.

  “You are ordered to relax and take it easy for a while. I don’t want to see you out of that seat till you’ve eaten and had a rest.”

  “Bossy little wretch…” Shai muttered cheerfully from behind her tea mug, as Becky drifted away; still playing and holding up the musical spell that drifted over the vast encampment.

  Over the next few long, busy hours, just a mile from the battle line, twenty thousand nearly naked, half starved, desperate slaves were fed sweet porridge, laden with honey and fruit, given as much water as they wished, and then marched a few yards away, behind a hedge.

  Five hundred at a time, they silently bathed in a vast hotspring pool and were given simple robes of soft, warm fabric that none of them recognized. Once dressed, they returned to their seats on the pasture, among the vast army of slaves; still silent, but deeply confused.

  /

  Tallum wielded a huge wooden oar, stirring the monstrous cauldron of porridge he had simmering over Shai’s forge. All the tools and machines were hidden under dust cloths, while the giant smith worked a different craft in those familiar quarters.

  The anvil held a few big buckets of honey and an open sack of salt, in easy reach of the huge chef. Baskets of dried figs, a mountain of apples, pears, plums and citrus waited beside a table laden with steaming clay bowls of hot, sticky goodness and a bucket of wooden spoons.

  The legion of scrawny, filthy people, streamed by for hours, as the giant labored at the forge, aided by a pair of ginger men only slightly smaller than himself. Marcus and Thom dished up food and passed out fruit with the same tireless energy they displayed at their own forge, below count Liam’s castle.

  “Why do we keep joining you for these boondoggles, cousin Tallum?” Thom asked cheerfully from behind his ladle, around midnight. “We’re craftsmen of good standing, respectable men in our community…”

  “Because we can’t wait to see what he’ll get up to next.” Marcus answered his twin just, as merrily. “I’ve been waiting years for this… Now help me with this pot of oatmeal, brother, you’re running low!”

  “More work, less talk, boys. We’re almost done… till the breakfast shift starts.” The ginger mountain brandished his sticky, porridge covered oar at his helpers and grinned.

  /

  “At least we don’t have to worry about latrines…” Lindsey sighed, sagging against Flash, in a moment of precious free time. Hiding among the horses, she would be able to really relax and enjoy her first break in six hours.

  The silly and completely odd people she’d found herself affixed to over the last few insane weeks had an answer for that pernicious public health problem as well.

  The Ward Co. AdventureWorks Portable Potty? tents and their Magical, Mystical, Mycelium? pellets turned a simple hole in the ground, into a fully functional, odor free, and hygienic pop up toilet in a few seconds.

  Lindsey spent a few minutes, her face buried in her familiar’s warm, sweet scented mane, trying to adjust to the kind of casual, everyday miracles she found herself constantly surrounded by.

  “Be safe… Barry.” She whispered into Flash’s ear.

  ‘Want me to go check on him?’ The leggy young stallion asked gently. ‘I can always find him, now.’ He nuzzled her neck and chuffed his warm, moist, horsie breath down her collar.

  “No, he promised he’d come back unharmed… We’ll trust him, this time.” She mumbled in her horse’s soft, velvety ear. “Now we have to get back to work.”

  Flash only grumbled a little, as he shrugged himself into harness and began pulling her ambulance cart back out into the fray.

  /