Sailing Ether Tides

Sailing Ether Tides

Book 2: Dirt Diver’s Dance

Save The Last Dance: Ch: 2

The count’s little white ocarina bird landed on Tawny’s finger and sang her his song as the sun was just coming up over Foresthome. She penned a quick note and sighed with regret that she was forbidden from visiting her friends in this trying time.

The countess had her duties to fulfill. “I need lord Argent, please.” She murmured quietly to her husband’s squire as she passed over her signed orders.

Bradlee was a big, bluff orphan with a quick wit and a slow smile. He seemed dull at first glance, but he was a clever and canny lad.

“Should I dispatch someone to fetch master Khan from the orphanage? He and Luna are instructing the arms classes today.”

“No, Brad, send a runner for lord Douche’... fetch Khan yourself, and bring the ducklings.” She announced with a smile.

“They will be taking over for the count’s guard. Your band will be in charge of civil order, local patrols and minor monster interdiction until this matter is resolved. You will draw supplies and gear from the count’s armory.” She nodded at the slip of paper in his hand and smiled. “Off you go!”

The young lad snapped a crisp salute and strode out standing taller than just a few moments before. “We won’t let you down.”

An hour later, the count’s own warriors rode out in small squads, vanishing into the trails on their assigned routes. None of Foresthome’s precious genitals were going to land in one of those awful scrotal reliquaries, not if they could help it.

#

Otho the dog was enjoying his ‘time off’... The food was good, nobody yelled when he jumped into the bath with the humans and the horsies were fine company… but his Ivy was off in the mountains without him and that felt weird.

He spent too much time with his eyes closed, looking through her eyes, since her ears and nose were so weak. Eventually Otho sank deeper into her senses, finding the tight, controlled coil that was her emotions.

He thrilled at the feelings she felt, when she looked at her big, silly human mate… a flipped mirrored image of the feelings she held for him and he shared with her.

Their bond, so close and snug, was so much like his with her… he could feel the connection thrumming and singing with tension at being so far apart.

It wasn’t uncomfortable, but always reminded him where his mistress was and what she was feeling. He chuffed in doggie satisfaction, spread out on the lawn enjoying the sunshine.

“Oh, poor doggie…” Lindsey, the new girl cooed down at him. “You must be sad that your mistress is away… let me find a tasty bone for you.”

He rolled over in the sunshine and pitifully contemplated the sorry state of his life, wondering if any dog had ever suffered more. The wide eyed, sorrowful gaze he blasted her with was way too much for the poor, fragile thing.

She collapsed down beside him and started administering emergency belly rubs and blubbering over him; the proposed bone forgotten by both participants in the ridiculous farce.

#

“I might have a streak of the thrill seeker in me…” Ivy called, in the middle of her dangerous transit of the slick slab of bare, slimy stone. “I feel all warm and tummy rubby inside all the sudden.”

“Focus up, Ives!” Amy called, as she hauled on the safety line, dragging the woolgathering mage onto safe ground at last.

“That just leaves Tallum…” Becky murmured. “We better get all hands on the lines for him… he’s a hefty one.”

Wilf and Rio were putting on gloves of resin coated, waxed boarhide, with plenty of stiff bristles still in the palms, while Liam buckled on a wide kirtle with bronze rings sewn in to anchor the whole mess. He, in turn, would be anchored by Audrey, who had rooted herself firmly in a field of broken stones and was going nowhere.

While they were arranging themselves, Tallum clipped himself in and shortened up his safety line ‘til it was snug and taut. Then the giant pulled a big round shield off his back, jumped onto the disk of gleaming steel and rode the damned thing down the slope, sliding along the safety line with a huge smile on his face.

He ended his heroic shield grind by plowing face first into a scruffy manzanita bush with a terrific crash. His shield skittered off and slid away, sailing into the valley far below like a majestic flying tea saucer.

#

“Nice trick, goofus.” Ivy sassed her giant, when he finally extracted himself from his new friend; bushy, the flattened manzanita bush.

“Your shield’s gone flying; lucky you didn’t follow it, you great fool of a man.” She frumbled, which is mostly like grumbling, but with a giddy little tushy squeeze when nobody was looking, just to let him know that it was really sexy, too.

“Sorry, love.” He smugpologized, which is the apology you give, when one knows she was secretly turned on, just as one planned.

“Gross, you two.” Becky smileplained, which is when one smiles and complains at the same… Never mind.

#

As late evening approached; which was around sixth bell among the peaks, the troop found a wide, flat clearing. Windswept, barren and less scenic than one would expect in such rugged mountains, but it was level and wide.

The kids set up with an instrumental that was always welcome. ‘Take Five’ was a masterpiece of jazz, understated, energetic and elegant, all at once.

Amy sighed as she thought of master Brubeck, the shade in thick rimmed spectacles who’d always been so kind and instructive.

To Amy, Wilf and Rio, these songs were old friends, remembered fondly from childhood and deeply missed. Once their playmates and instructors were the haunts and shadows of musical legends from another world; who would come to visit, through their papa’s strange magic and gifts.

Now the only haunts around were the shadows of mortal lives that flickered at the edges of her vision in daylight, but came close, seeking… something, in the hours of darkness. She could almost hear their voices… almost.

Amy swept her hand through a persistent shade, disrupting it for a while.

“Lotsa ghosts around…” She called out to Rio. “Let’s perform a cleansing, If Dannyl can act like a proper Death cultist for once.”

“Hey, I can’t change the climate. My lord’s trees won’t grow up this high.” He griped, from the bath.

“Well we’ve gotta do something; this is surprisingly thick.” She complained, while Shiro twitched his tail in annoyance.

“Come sundown, Sasha can handle these.” Kermal said confidently, around a piece of monster honey rock candy.

“She’s been blessed by the gods Ward and Camazotz; ghosties can’t resist her lure.”

“Hey…” Dannyl complained weakly. “I’m a qualified lay minister… I just need the proper conditions.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Becky sighed. “You’re just in the Death cult to impress girls. You were always better at making ghosts than banishing them.”

“I do have a certain murderous flair…” He smiled so smugly it hurt a little, even though he was in the baths and they only heard his voice over the hedge.

“Being in the Death cult impresses the boys too, Becks.”

“You’re gross, Dan.” The petite blonde mage scoffed with a cheerful grin. “I thought your kitty cat friend was some kind of spirit guide…” Ivy asked, petting Shiro under his chin, just the way he liked.

“Nope, he’s a spirit of Good Fortune, Hospitality, Shadow, Light and Illusion. His cursed bell draws ghosts to him, that’s all.” Amy sighed happily, as her little ball of fluff jumped back into her arms.

“Bedtime, we need to put down some miles tomorrow.” Becky called to the group. “I’ll take first watch with Amy.”

“Aww… Ok, auntie.” She joined Becky, over by the garden gate where the road ran past. “Can we go farther inside the house wards? There’s a lot of ghosts out there and they keep trying to get my attention.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about… Ghosts, and Shiro… and his true master.” Becky murmured quietly.

“We know so little about Shiro himself… and even less of the mysterious Truck-Kun he serves in the greater ether, out between the mortal realms and in the endless void.” She whispered.

“Is that all?” The girl sighed happily. “Ward explained a lot of this while I was Contracting him. Shiro’s cursed bell calls lost, fragmentary and displaced souls to him, drawing them across the void and directly before his master, Truck-Kun, who serves the Devourer of souls.”

She delivered those dire pronouncements through a sweet smile of childlike delight.

“Truck-Kun is the being who manages souls lost in transit between realms by accident… and more rarely, by design.” She shrugged helplessly. “He’s not an actual truck… that’s just the only form Gary’s culture recognized him in, so that’s how he appears to us.”

Amy smiled sadly and shook her head.

“They saw him as a runaway truck that would knock unsuspecting people into the next dimension, with my buddy Shiro sitting on the dashboard waving at them to get aboard or get out of the way.” Her smile became bittersweet.

“Which is literally how my dad got here in the first place. He got hit by a truck and couldn’t die properly.”

“You realize, there’s like only a half dozen people on the planet who know what the hell a ‘truck’ even is. Our family is so weird.” Becky sighed, as she sagged against her little sister.

“Here comes Sasha… Try to avoid looking into her eyes, or even worse, the eyes of her skull.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s pretty ookie.” Amy whispered. “She’s such a sweetheart though.”

#

Deeper darkness swirled and gathered, wherever the gigantic moth flew, her shadow fell on those clots of blacker than night, sweeping them into her wings and sprinkling a faint dusting of sparkling motes in her wake. Around and around she flew, spiraling outward; until she shot upward, aiming for the little green moon so high above.

At the apex of her flight she began to spiral back down, shedding even more motes of sparkling dust that trailed off her wings, to float up into the vast, endless sky. The darkly beautiful display went on for a few long, silent minutes; a black snowstorm of tiny motes, drifting up to the moon high above.

“Don’t tell Mariah, but right now, Sasha’s the prettiest.” Amy whispered in gentle, open mouthed awe.

#

Dawn was cold and clear and the road waited, just over there. The team hit the trail and made good time over several miles of wagon track that looked perhaps a few years old; because there was not much life or soil on the barren granite slabs.

After six long miles of smooth riding along a slowly rising grade, the trail dipped down into a tiny vale. Narrow, steep and rugged, the road continued on and vanished over a ridge and down into the monster battle.

The peaks that ringed this high valley were the same jagged and barren granite spires, riven from the earth in some distant age to tower above the puny mortals scratching at their flanks. The valley floor was lush with verdure, tall sequoias on the bottomland and aspens, oaks and pines climbing the steep sides of the narrow, fertile rift in the earth.

And it was fertile… A splendid little river ran through, dumping out in a cheeky, misting waterfall that drifted over much of the monster haunted valley below.

The headwaters of that delightful stream began with a splendid display of waterfall as well, showering over a few acres of shattered stones at the head of the little rift and floating over the vale in a fine, rainbow spray, carried by the winds.

Birdsong and the rustling of wildlife sang a merry tune, while the wind whispered of ripe berries on the vine and deep, dark forest loam.

“Oh, This is very fine…” Liam whispered, awestruck and deeply pleased by this tiny, treasure box of untouched nature.

“You’re in luck, my lord.” Dannyl sassed the smiling count. “I suspect the dungeon to be in the next valley over and downslope a few hundred yards. Shall we declare this to be the lord’s forest preserve? There are no outstanding deeds on record. I checked with the temple.”

“Yes, yes we shall.” He answered Dannyl’s sass with haughty noble sincerity and a boyish smile. “Make it so.”

#

The ‘trail’ Dannyl led them to as mid day passed was steep, steep enough that only a mountain goat would think it suitable as a travel route. They paused for lunch at the foot of the climb, near where the old cart track dipped down to join the main road.

They ate lunch on the ridge, looking down on the bug battle still raging below.

The once heavily forested slopes were devastated almost all the way around the lower reaches, where the pillbug had been rolled mindlessly along by the dung beetle, in its quest to find an exit from their shared prison.

It was the dung beetle show right now, it had the pillbug rolled up tight and thundering up a likely looking granite slope that ended at a sheer cliff face. Pillbug bounced back, unfurled and scampered over the giant horned monster, trying to roll it up and get a bite at something tender.

They watched the titans go at it for a while longer, before it was time to move again. All the extraneous gear got stowed away quickly and efficiently, along with every sign that the party had paused there.

The kids were in their climbing gear again, helmets, knee and elbow guards and light weapons, just in case. Maya and Rio took the first leg, clambering up the rocky and jagged mountainside in a slow, steady manner.

Twenty yards up, they paused to rig safety lines for the rest, as Amy and Wilf climbed up the ropes they dropped and took the lead.

Soon, Frank and Benny were atop the ridge, helping the rest up and watching the other side for potential trouble. It took a full hour to get the entire team up.

Audrey slithered up the rock face like a squirrel up a tree and joined them on the top in moments, while Liam was still climbing...

“Well, that’s a little annoying… and impressive.” He muttered, while clinging to a rock outcropping sixty feet above the ground.

The ridge top was a surprise… a wide, flat road ran along the entire valley, with a few notable gaps and collapses. The nearest of those rubble slopes led down to the floor of the rugged, jagged and far less inviting vale.

There’s our camp for the next few days…” Dannyl shouted over the wind on the peak.

Just twenty yards down slope, a wide granite ledge jutted out; it was reasonably flat and sufficiently large, but presented few other amenities, beyond its craggy height and nearly unassailable, single access point.

“Home crag home…” Wilf muttered quietly, his words swept away by the wind.

#

Lindsey spent her last few days in a dream… After the garden party, when she’d awakened hand in hand with Barry in the hayloft, with just a kitty between them, she’d thought she might burst… or die and then burst.

Her forensic training and physiology classes came to mind and she decided to stop thinking about dying and bursting. She fretted and squirmed with pent up words and emotions, since Becky and Maya were away on an Adventure… an honest to goddess Adventure!

Those thoughts and tangled feelings entangled her feet somehow, as the usually sure footed lass took a brief stumble on her morning run with Flash and the three triplets…

That was just one more oddity, like how she could not, not tell them apart with ease… While others struggled to differentiate any of the boys, one from another, to her it couldn’t be clearer.

She tripped again, while still recovering from her absent mindedness, and realized too late, she’d fallen into woolgathering… and stumbled for a third and final time, while contemplating that problem.

‘I really should focus up… this is going to be so embarrassing…’ were the only thoughts on her mind, as the world tipped on its side.

She realized a moment later that she hadn’t fallen down, because Barry and Flash had both moved to catch her… and both succeeded; trapping her between the two, her body smooshed up against Barry, with only their wonderfully thin workout clothes between them.

With gentle hands that were so very strong, he set her back on her feet and smiled. “Let’s walk a while… the others can run ahead.”

For a wonder, his brothers did just that, running ahead, rattling along in their weighted training gear, while Barry walked with her and Flash down the wide, tree lined River Road.

“Crazy few weeks… huh?” He asked clumsily, blushing at his own inept and fumbling speech.

“Oh, I suppose so… Is this abnormal in the Ward house?” She asked sweetly.

“I’d really like to say no…” He mumbled and blushed even more. “But we’re pretty weird… Sorry.”

She stepped a little closer as they walked, the back of her hand brushing his, once, twice, then he took the bait and gently clasped his huge, warm hand around hers. With a deft finger waggle and a gentle tickle to the web of his thumb, their fingers interlaced perfectly. Just perfectly.

They both got their heart rates up and increased their respiration rates, even on a gentle stroll down that dim, country lane.

#

“I thought we were doing cardio and strength training today…” Larry whispered from his concealing bush.

“Change of plans, stealth training, woodland and semi urban stalking.” Harry announced crisply into his collar button and ear cuff. “Maintain comms discipline.”

“Heard” Perry and Larry replied promptly.

“Targets found, two humans, one horse. Pitching woo…” Perry said a moment later.

“Confirmed for Woo, the pitch is weak, awfully weak.” Larry responded.

“That tracks with the intelligence we have on the subject: Dumb as a post. Back off, I’m going in.” Harry took charge of the situation, slinking through old man Purdy’s hickory coppice like a ghost. Not a single twig, nutshell or branch rattled or rustled as he passed. Two minutes later, he peered from a high hemlock bough, down onto his quarry.

“...It’s… a warm day…” Barry jabbered mindlessly, when silence would serve better. He shuffled his feet, wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers again and again as he generally became a loose pile of empty guts, while his brother watched, helpless.

“He’s dying down there, does anybody have an angle?”

#

The sun shone down through the leaves, glinting off Lindsey’s hair and making it gleam like polished amber… Her soft, pale throat throbbed at her collar, he was standing close enough to the slim, beautiful girl to see the subtle pulse.

The scent of her; freshly washed girl, warmed by a run in the sun, it tugged at something inside him that was both pleasant and a little scary… He wanted…

Growing up in the Ward clan, he never really wanted anything.

There wasn’t much a boy could desire that he didn’t have or couldn’t make or help one of his kin make in the workshops of the compound.

Never having really felt it before, the sensation struck him like a hammer blow, right in the giblets.

Her every word and gesture mattered and he really wanted to know what was on her mind… but his mouth was filled with a huge wad of stupid.

#

They hadn’t really been alone since the night of the party, when she’d spun and twirled just how Amy instructed her; to make her skirts swirl up just high enough for the briefest glimpse, then dipped and swayed to shimmy her plump darlings at him… letting a scant bit of lace and her sweetly rounded curves show.

She sighed at the memory of that moonlit night of fireworks, desire and dance…

Somewhere in this lump of clay was that boy… she just needed to dig around to find him.

“Barry, would you show me that dance again?” She whispered, hoping for a miracle.

“Oh… sure…” He stammered, seeming momentarily lost. “I uhh, I actually have something… uh…”

He fumbled around behind himself, as though hiding something from her… despite his garments lacking any serious pockets. Which was also odd, the boys never wore pouches and their pants seldom had pockets… odd that.

While she was considering that, he pulled something small and square out of… somewhere and began to turn a knob on the side.

He set a little wooden box on a tree stump and opened the lid with a soft click.

A moment later sweet, tinkly music began to play from the device, a gentle waltz, the simple tune they’d danced to first.

“It’s a music box… it’ll play for about ten minutes.” With that, he took her hand and hip, suddenly he was that same sweet, confident boy; as if summoned by the tinny music and the melody he hummed as they danced.

#

“Ok, abort mission, repeat abort, do not act… maintain surveillance.” Harry murmured with satisfaction and a good measure of both surprise and respect for the sudden display of smarts Barry’d delivered in the clutch.

“Harry, there’s a problem.” Larry came in loud, too loud, it sounded like he was moving, and fast. “Perry, I’m approaching you fast down the northwest trail, I’m being pursued.”

#

Larry had no desire to peek in on what he hoped would be, his brother’s first kiss… and maybe his first boob touch too… Nice! That was why he was ‘surveilling’ the target from a mile up the trail, while harvesting a nice crop of fresh fiddlehead ferns and a ring of morel mushrooms.

The snap of a twig behind him and a whiff of something rotten was all the warning he got, but it was enough. Larry launched himself into a forward roll, right through a patch of stinging nettles he’d had his eye on for a salad; confidently brushing the tall plants aside, as he dashed over a stream.

His would-be ambusher found the stinging nettles much less forgiving, as the filthy, gray skinned, naked humanoid let out a squealing cry of rage.

“I’ve got a mountain goblin on my trail.” The sounds of pursuit multiplied as he ran, there were at least a dozen closing in, from the sound and occasional glimpses he got as he dashed over fallen logs and around giant trees.

“Make that a dozen… I’m coming in hot.”

#

Their dance ended abruptly when Barry put his hand to the tiny silver ornament he always wore in his ear, like all the others wore as well. The Wards did seem to like silver and seemed to not care much about the expense…-

She snapped back into focus when he stepped out of her arms and kept talking while he worked briskly.

“...incoming and it’s going to be a fight, we have help coming, but you should take Flash and run back to the inn...”

Barry was saying in a crisp and businesslike manner, while he pulled weapons and armor out of nowhere at all.

He laid out spears, swords, shields, javelins and clubs all around, scattering in neat circles across their peaceful meadow, all to the tune of the sweet, tinkling ‘music box’.

A moment later he was strapping on breast and back plates, vambraces and gauntlets, right over his workout clothes.

“Wait, really, a fight?” Lindsey demanded, as her hand itched for and found a spear among the weapons he’d neatly laid around, point to point in a circle on the grass. It was wide bladed and short hafted, hefty without being heavy and looked dangerously sharp.

“Yes, a fight; mountain goblins, at least one nest. They’re chasing Larry this way.” Barry answered as he buckled a helmet on and took up a long sabre. He held a thumb thick rod of black iron in his other hand, mounted to a simple round handguard.

“You should run while you can.”

Harry dropped from a tree while they spoke and began gathering his hear from the organized chaos. The two brothers checked their rigs, tightened each other’s straps and nodded, while Perry sprinted up from the river side.

He had his own armor half buckled on; where he’d gotten it the gods above only knew. He barely slowed as he snatched a long warclub up from the weapon wheel.

“Is newgirl fighting?” Perry asked with interest while he stretched and warmed up.

“Newgirl is fighting.” Lindsey sassed him right back.

“I don’t have any armor for you…” Barry mumbled. “This was just a run…”

“Shush Barry. I’ll be borrowing this pointy thing... What do you call them?” She batted her lashes at him sweetly, while she shook herself all over to loosen up. “A spe-ar?” She asked haltingly, with a look of almost genuine wonder and confusion in her eyes, as the weapon did a few showy twirls and spins in her hands.

The time for fun was over; the sounds of running feet were coming closer.

#

Shai raised her spoon hand, to cup to her earcuff in the kitchen, smearing a clot of strawberry jam on her face in the process.

A moment later, she was ringing the alarm bell, rousing the house to war. The clamor and clangor of a house full of Adventurers stirring was nearly drowned out, as the bell’s call repeated up the shore to the keep, even as the Ward’s bell fell silent.

The mistress of the house was out, riding her machine up the road faster than a galloping horse, her brothers and sisters following in good order, flying on wheels and hooves, just minutes later.

#

“Well, fuck me.” Gary snarled, alone in the house save for Kree. He struggled to rise and grab his gear, even as the venom was slowly dragging him under.

“Sorry, my friend.” She whispered, while stinging him once more for good measure. “Your princess commands you to sleep.”

#