Dominant Species
Issue #18
by Tom Zjaba
Chapter 20
At War With The Amazons
Scott, Derrick and Ashley run through the jungle as fast as
they can. Knowing full well that the Amazons will be coming, they need to get
down to camp and warn the others. But it is still a long way off and they do not
know how long they have before the Amazons come after them. One advantage they
have is there is a path to follow, so they can just take it right to the beach.
Scott has created a light spell to help them navigate through the darkness. With
no street lights or lanterns, the jungle is very dark and dangerous. But with a
light spell and a well worn path, they are having no problem moving through it.
The spell is quite strong and illuminates a good two hundred feet radius. The
spell's power is a reflection of the spell caster. The higher the spell, the
stronger the glow. Scott is a high level and so he reflects a larger area.
As the captain of the guards returns with the guard who
slapped Ashley, they find the queen in discussion with her second in command.
She stops for a moment to see what they are doing and quickly realizes that they
are plotting the invasion of the beach. At first, she is upset as this is
something that she should be discussing with the queen, not her second in
command. But then it dawns on her, she has been replaced. Realizing this, she
quickly draws her sword, knowing full well that she is going to be killed. But
before she can make her move, a spear is thrust through her, entering her back
and coming out her front. She gasps as the spear cuts through her, hitting vital
organs. The guard who is with her, also shares the same fate, only the spear
goes through her neck. With her breastplate on, she is well protected. But her
neck is left wide open. Both of them fall to the ground and within seconds, they
are dead. They never had a chance to see their attackers, women dressed
completely in black. The Shadow Guards are the elite guards of the queen and as
their name and dress shows, they live in the shadows. The only part of them not
covered in black is their eyes, which are not covered. The rest of their face
and their body is draped in black. Even their spears and other weapons are
painted black.
The queen turns to see the two women dead on the floor. She
smiles at the Shadow Guards, who only bow and then return to the shadows. The
new captain of the guards looks over with hesitation. She knows that she could
be the next to die. It is one of the few times she has actually seen the Shadow
Guards. Everyone knows of their existence, but few actually see them. But then
they spend the majority of their time in the palace as their sole job is to
protect the queen.
An hour has passed and Derrick and his two companions are
nearing the beach. They have traveled down the mountain and are in the heart of
the jungle. Ashley is begging them to slow down. Not being a soldier, she is not
used to such exercise. "Please, I need to rest." she says as she stops running.
The other two stop and turn to see her sit down. "We really need to keep going."
Derrick says to her. Scott walks over and helps her rub her feet. "Look at my
feet. They are cut up." she says as she shows him the cuts from the roots that
grow out of the ground and the various plants they have ran over. "Why don't I
carry you?" he says to her. She looks up at him with a smile and says "Are you
sure I won't slow you down?" Derrick rolls his eyes and says "Not anymore than
you already have." Scott gives him a dirty look. He then turns to her and says
"Ignore him. Don't worry, I will be fine. Here, hop on my back." She gets up and
climbs on his back. It takes him a few moments to get his balance down. He just
needs to shift her added weight into the middle to balance it. Once he gets her
situated, he turns to Derrick and says "Let's go!" With that, the two of them
run through the jungle, faster than before.
The courtyard in front of the palace is full of Amazon
warriors. There is a sea of helmets with the flickering light of the torches,
reflecting off them. There is tension in the air as the warriors wait for the
queen. They have all been summoned here, but they do not know why. Few people
know about the escape as the queen has insured that it stay quiet. The last
thing she needs is for panic to spread through the city. This is a situation
that needs to be dealt with swiftly and completely. At that moment, the queen
makes her entrance. Surrounded by guards, she steps out of the palace and looks
at her troops. Before her are nearly a thousand soldiers. Each of them clothed
in the best armor that they can make. Most of them armed with a spear and a
dagger and trained extensively in how to kill with them. Others have bows and
arrows and are trained to not miss. The queen looks over the women and smiles.
She knows that they are among the best fighters out there. She has seen to it
that they are trained to be hard and merciless. "Amazons, I come before you with
a request. It is a request of the utmost urgency." She pauses as she looks out
over the crowd. She takes a chance to gaze at the faces of the women in the
first row. She looks to see any reactions they have. She does not see any fear
or doubt in their eyes, which is good. She then continues "Tonight, the boys we
had captured, escaped. They were aided by a traitor, one of the breeding girls.
We fear that the boys were spies for the men on the beach. They allowed
themselves to be captured to infiltrate our society and spy on us. They are now
heading back to the other men with information on our society." She once again
pauses to allow it her subjects to absorb all of it. "Tonight, I ask you to head
down to the beach and find and kill every man down there. Spare no one. This
information must not leave here or else we will be attacked. Trust me, the very
fate of our city, our people are at stake. No go forth and bring back the heads
of all the men." With that she waves to the soldiers, who all cheer her. She
then turns and heads back into the palace as the captain of the guards takes
over.
Scott and Derrick rush down through the jungle. Ashley turns
to see a scary sight. The parade of torches has begun to leave the city. While
they are a distance away, they can see them making their way through the
mountain. "They're coming!" she screams. Both of the boys turns to see them. "Do
we have enough time?" Scott asks as he sees them coming. "We should. We are
almost there." Derrick says as he sees them coming. "But we better make some
noise and let them know we are coming. This way, we will not have to find them."
Scott nods in agreement. Now as they run through the jungle, they scream out at
the top of their lungs.
The new captain of the guards walks into the palace and bows
before the queen. "My queen, the troops have been sent." she says on bended
knee. The queen comes over and instructs her to rise. "Excellent. Have you sent
everyone?" The captain nods yes as she says "The ground troops are headed down
the mountain, while the warships are headed to the bay. No one will escape, you
have my word." The queen walks over to her and puts her hand on her shoulder. "I
hope so. We cannot tolerate failure, especially with such an urgent mission." A
chill runs down the captain's spine as she knows how important this mission is.
She must succeed, no matter what the price.
The chief is awaken by the yelling. Not sure what it is, he
prepares for the worst. The rest of the men begin to wake up and grab the
closest weapon. While they are not expecting another raid from the Amazons so
soon, what else would make so much noise. As the screaming gets closer,
Bearslayer readies his bow. As the source of the noise gets closer, he realizes
what is making it. "That's Derrick!" he says as he jumps from the tree. Within
seconds, he sees the glow coming through the forest and realizes it is Scott and
Derrick. "Over here!" he screams out to the two boys. They hear the familiar
voice and run towards him. Soon, the others come out of the trees, Chief,
Howling Mad and the rest of the men. Once they reach them, Scott puts down
Ashley and stops to catch his breath. Between the running and the yelling, he is
winded. The chief is the first to walk over to the girl and offer his hand.
"Hello, you can call me Chief." She smiles at him. The men from the beach all
stay their distance. They realize that while she is a young girl, she is still
an Amazon. Derrick then points up towards the mountain. "They are coming." he
says as the parade of torches is now quite long and winding through the jungle.
"What is the meaning of this?" Bearslayer asks as he sees them coming and fears
for his life. "We broke free." Derrick replies. The chief jumps in "But why?
Were you in danger?" Scott shakes his head no. He jumps in the conversation
"They hurt Ashley and I had to save her." The chief looks at her and then at
him. "I do not understand, please enlighten us." Scott grabs her and pulls her
close. "We fell in love. When the queen found out, she was going to kill her and
I couldn't let that happen." Ashley looks at him with a sad look in her eyes "I
am sorry for causing all this trouble." The chief smiles at her and says "I
would have done the same thing." She gives him a big smile as she now feels
better. He then looks up at the light of the torches as it nears and says "We
need a plan and we need one quickly." Howlingmad turns to the beach and yells
"Look!" They turn to see the black warships with lanterns on them, pull into the
bay. "We are really between a rock and a hard place." the chief says as he
realizes how grave the situation has become.
Seeing no escape, Darr and the other men begin to panic. Darr
looks at the Chief and says "You have brought this upon us." The chief knows
that he could argue that they were living on borrowed time, but there is no time
for it. He instead turns to Scott and asks "Do you think you could put a water
breathing spell on all of us?" Scott stops and thinks for a moment. He tries to
remember what level spell it was. It was not a spell he used when he played the
game, the only reason he ever learned it was that he ran out of lower level
spells to learn. "I'm not sure, but I can try." he says as the chief turns to
Darr and says "This man is a sorcerer. He can put a spell that allows us to
breathe underwater." Darr looks at him with an odd look and says "But we don't
swim well. We would drown." The chief cannot imagine men living so close to
water and not being able to swim well. "No, the spell allows you to breathe
water. You will not drown. We can then swim over and try to take over one of the
boats." Darr turns to his men and has them move away from the chief and the
other men. He wants privacy as he talks with them. They speak in hushed tones,
keeping the conversation to themselves. After some heated discussion, they
return as Darr says "They want to stay and fight. I will go with you, but my
tribesman fear the water." Chief nods in agreement. "Very well, it's their
funeral." Darr does not understand this phrase. He just looks on as Scott
prepares the spell. He closes his eyes and chants some phrases and once again
large bubbles come out and engulf each person. The bubbles then are absorbed
into the skin. The men who decided to stay behind, look on from a distance. They
have not seen sorcery up close and are scared by it. They do watch as the group
venture into the water and disappear from sight. They watch for them to surface
but as the Amazons are nearing, they decide it is better to run and hide. They
rush off to try and get away.
Under the water, Darr and Ashley are having a hard time.
Being their first time underwater, they are in shock. Scott creates a light
spell for them to see as it is very dark under the water. He holds Ashley's hand
to comfort her, but it is doing little. She keeps thrashing around as she
expects to drown. The feel of water going into her lungs is frightening and she
is having a hard time overcoming it. But after a few minutes, they both feel a
little better. Realizing that they are not drowning, they relax a bit and can
start swimming.
The Amazons have reached the beach and found the camp. It is
abandoned, but they find the partially built boat. They look around for the men,
but see nothing. One of the women screams out "They are over here." The women
turn and follow her as they rush through the jungle towards the men who stayed
behind. Despite their efforts to hide, the Amazons find them and kill them in
minutes. The archers litter their bodies with arrows, leaving no survivors. Then
the guards head over and use their daggers to cut off their heads to bring back
to the queen. As they bring back the heads, the leader of this group of Amazons,
examines the heads and says "These are not all of them. We need to find the
rest, especially the girl. With these orders, they begin searching the jungle.
They look up every tree and look in any hole they can find.
As some of the women look over the beach, one of them spies a
light in the water. It is a good distance off, but she can see it as the rest of
the water is dark as the night. "What is that in the lagoon?" she asks as she
points out there. Some archers come over and look. "I am not sure. I do not know
of any fish that glow." They hold their torches out, trying to get a better
look. But with the distance between them, all they see is a moving glow in the
water. Another of the Amazon warriors comes over and says "Maybe they made a
boat that travels underwater."
The underwater group swims towards one of the boats. The
chief points towards it and the rest of the group just nod in agreement. As they
get close to the boat, Derrick hold out his hand to halt the rest. He then
points to himself and points up. They are unsure what he means, but they go
along with the plan. As he swims up, the rest of them follow. As he surfaces, he
swims toward the boat and grabs hold of the side. With his abilities, he easily
climbs up the side of the boat, like a giant bug. They watch as he climbs over
the top and onto the boat.
As Derrick reaches the top of the boat, he sees that the
Amazon women are ready for him. There are four archers, aiming right at him. The
minute his foot touches the deck, they let loose their arrows. Four arrows fly
through the air and hit him square in the chest. And four arrows bounce off his
chest as if they were made of foam. He reaches in his side and pulls out a
dagger he grabbed from one of the chariot drivers and smiles "Now, it's my
turn." He rushes at the women, who pull out their own daggers and charge to meet
him. He runs up and stabs the first women near him in the throat. She in turn
stabs him in the face with her dagger. His digs deep into her neck, sending
blood flying and causing her to gasp for air. Her dagger does no damage to her.
The other women repeatedly stab their daggers into his back and side, finding
that they cannot pierce his skin. As the first women falls dead, he turns and
attacks the next one. She looks at this wild child, with blood splattered across
his face and a psychotic look in his eyes and screams. The other two women rush
off as he pushes the women to the ground. She holds her hands up to stop him as
he uses the dagger to cut the cords on her breastplate. He then reaches down and
rips the breastplate off, stripping her to a shirt that is worn underneath for
comfort against the cold steel of the breastplate. "Who is in charge now?" he
snarls at her as he reaches down and grabs her shirt with his hand and rips it.
The shirt at first does not give, but he pulls hard on it. Her hands come up to
stop him, but he rips hard with his hands and tears it off, exposing her
breasts. Before he can violate her anymore, he is blindsided by two larger
Amazons, who rush and knock him down. As he falls, they jump on top of him and
hold him down. He fights to get loose and they have his arms pinned. The Amazon
warrior who had her shirt ripped off, stands up and pulls the breastplate back
on, covering herself back up. She then walks over to Derrick, being held there
and spits in his face.
While Derrick is being held down, Scott decides to go up and
lend a hand. He does a levitate spell and slowly sends himself upwards to the
boat. Once he reaches it, he sees Derrick being held down. He also sees the one
woman kicking him in the head. "Leave him alone." he yells as he rushes towards
them. They turn to face him, only to find with his giant strength and
invulnerability, they have no chance. He easily grabs the warriors and tosses
them overboard, sending them to a watery grave as the weight of the breastplate
pulls them to the bottom. In a few minutes, he has rid the ship of all the
women. With them gone, he looks over the boat and casts a spell, levitating the
entire group upwards onto the boat. Once they land, Ashley rushes to him and
hugs on him. "I never knew you were so powerful." she says as she hangs onto
him. He smiles and kisses her on the lips.
Their tender moment is short lived as the boat is rocked. A
cannonball flies over and hits into the front of the boat, rocking the whole
boat. This knocks everyone back, with some of them falling down. Before they can
get their footing, another cannonball crashes in the water only a few feet from
the boat. Bearslayer looks at the others and says "How do we battle this?" Scott
looks at them and says "I will take care of it, just steer the boat to safety."
The chief steps in and says "I will pilot the boat,
just keep us from sinking." Scott then kisses Ashley and runs over and dives off
the boat. He levitates himself over to the other boat, which freaks them out to
see a boy flying at them. They turn to aim their cannons at him and fire away.
As soon as he sees the flash of powder from the cannon, he dives into the water.
The cannonball flies over him, landing harmlessly into the water. Diving into
the water, he quickly swims towards the boat. Realizing that it will take too
long to swim towards the boat, he pauses and thinks. Then it hits him, if he
casts a haste spell, he can go much quicker and sink these ships before they can
damage their ship. He says in incantation and a swirl of magic engulfs him. The
haste spell speeds up a person based on their level. The higher the level, the
quicker they become. Being such a high level character, Scott is now bordering
on super speed. With this rush of energy surging through him, he takes off
across the water like a dolphin. He speeds through it with no problems. As he
nears the large ship, he puts out his fists and dives underwater. He swims right
below the water line and plows into the ship, punching a hole into the side.
With his giant strength, he easily smashes the wooden planks and puts a good
sized hole into the ship. Water begins to pour into the ship. Scott then swims
under the ship and punches a few more holes into it. He then takes his hands and
puts them into one of the holes he made and begins to pull on the wooden planks.
At first, he strains but as it comes loose, he finds it easier to pull apart.
This creates a huge hole in the bottom of the ship and sends hundreds of gallons
of water pouring into it. He then swims away as the boat sinks into the water.
With the first ship out of the way, he heads toward the other two ships that
makes up the Amazon Naval Fleet.
Within an hour, there is one ship left in the lagoon, with
the other three either sunk or in the process of being sunk. All that is left of
the Amazon fleet is a handful of rowboats that are paddling towards the shore.
With his work done, Scott swims back to their newly acquired ship and levitates
himself onto its deck. He is greeted by Ashley and the rest of the group as they
cheer his effort. Derrick pats him on the back and says "Dude, you were like
Superman, the way you sank those boats. That was totally awesome!" Ashley hugs
him, despite his drenched clothes. "You are like a God." she says as she
squeezes him with all her might. He smiles as he looks down on her and says "I
guess that I am sorta like a God." A cocky smiles comes over his face as he hugs
her back. He then grabs her and plants a big kiss on her lips.
Dominant Species ©
2006 - 2008 Tom Zjaba