20- Starved For Banter

We'd barely gotten Avya to the top of the first floating boulder when the first petty Master came into the picture.

The rock didn't have a lot in the way of handholds… sized for regular people. But we did have rope, and tools, and I pocketed some pitons from where I'd seen climbing supplies in a sporting goods shop in southeast Michigan. We were as careful as we could be in getting Avya started, and since she weighed less than eighty pounds, it wouldn't be insane to expect to catch her. In fact, we grabbed up the largest bedding available from the trailer and stretched it out between the remaining ladies, just in case.

She was trailing a line of rope from the trailer, and when she got to the top she was supposed to secure the line so we could start up phase two. She was just pinging in the first of the pitons near the top when Truffy gave out a strange growl. Jerry smelled the guy coming almost immediately after that.

I'd sort of forgotten about Auralla's gigantic pet. He was so quiet and unassuming it was possible to walk right by him sitting or laying down and not even think about him being there. Auralla had stationed him on the top of the trailer without me asking her to.

"We've got company," I said, grinning. I'd always wanted to say that, just like I was hoping to get in some banter right before I absolutely destroyed this asshole.

See, for a crazy amount of mana, I could now reload my shotgun. It was a simple matter of envisioning that sporting goods store out in Michigan's massive Great Lakes Crossing mall, with all the bows and arrows, fishing poles, boats, tents, knives… and guns. Guns and ammo.

But then the roar came out of the distance.

"Probably another Beastmaster," I told no one but myself.

Another minute later and they began to come into view: dinosaurs.

Of course, these weren't like dinosaurs from earth. Most of them had six legs, but they were huge like earth dinosaurs, and adorned with the kinds of horns, spines, and sails I'd seen in books as a child.

"Under the trailer!" I shouted, and the women… completely ignored me. They grabbed up their weapons and moved around so the boulders gave them cover, while I stupidly stood in the open space between those floating rocks and the semi.

The axe was in my hand, and I pocketed the nose ring in a specially built tiny pocket Auralla had added to my leather adornment.

"Hey!" I shouted, but again got no reply.

It was time to see how fast we could go. I activated

Swiftwind's Mark

, and watched as the four gigantic creatures coming at me slowed down visibly. The theropod had a rider, so I was going to see if couldn't focus the fight that way.

So I ran forward and disemboweled that big stomping bastard with Giskennen's axe. The brutal axe went up and into its underbelly a second before I was kicked and went sailing some twenty feet. The wind went out of me, but I heard a resounding crash: the t-rex looking sonovabitch had crashed on its side and thrown the rider clear, while the other dinosaurs went thundering past.

I got slowly to my feet, trying to suck down some air, but smiling. I'd taken two wounds, and that was

nothing,

not the way I was now. The UI was telling me this was worse than when the jiddara had chomped my leg. Pfft.

The t-rex thing was enormous, probably fifteen feet high at the head, and with four not-t-rex forearms. Two were helping to pick it up off the ground. It was covered in a series of small feathers in bright yellow, red and purple, but its teeth had that knifelike quality I knew and loved from the films. It fixed a predatory eye on me, but was having some trouble holding the magic in: streamers and sparklers of technicolor light were shooting out from the gaping hole in its midsection.

Another charge in, and I swung the axe down on the struggling creature's neck, nearly cutting it off. It made a sad sound (

mrf!

) and collapsed down dead.

I turned to the dinosaur's former rider, who was struggling to get up.

"Does nobody follow proper protocol around here?" I shouted. "I'm starved for some fucking banter." Then I put on the most effete British accent I could muster. "Positively bloody starved. Starved I say!"

He was a thickly muscled green lizard person with brown and black stripey patterns running down his body. A powerful iguana tail snaked a good eight feet behind him, and he towered over me by at least a foot.

He unsheathed a sword fully six feet long in the blade and snarled. "Your head is wanted in Surrek."

"And the rest of me?"

"Unimportant. I'll leave it here."

"There we go!" I shouted, "That's how it's done."

Then I teleported behind him and baseball swung the axe at his back. Amazingly, having the blade of the axe buried in his side a good eight inches didn't seem to phase him. He came back with an elbow that connected with my cheek and sent me spinning back onto my ass. It didn't hurt much, mind you, but the force was enough to send me backwards.

Several arrows thudded into his side and back when he turned to face me, but he didn't seem to think much of these either. The next few he batted out of the air with his gigantic sword, and hissed in the direction of my archers, Dallinya and Velleth. The remaining dinosaurs, which had thundered past, now wheeled around and started making for the gigantic rocks.

"Hey asshole," I told him, "focus over here, could ya? It's my head you want."

And I breathed fire right in his face.

Now this he definitely didn't like. He clutched at his face with one hand, and swung forward with his ginormous sword. The one-handed swing was ungainly and slow, and I was able to catch the arm and pommel, then use my second fire breath not at point blank range, but kissing distance.

Now he let go of the sword, which vanished (damn), and tried to cover his eyes. As for me, I used one of the first powers I'd ever gotten, and had never made a point to engage. I grabbed at his throat with my bare hands and clawed down. For just a moment, big jiddara claws appeared to be made of magic around my fingers, in orange and red, barely discernible light.

He was already bleeding magically-infused blood, washing his whole lower body in red, but now it came down in a torrent. His tail slapped at me and would've sent me careening if I hadn't grabbed onto it. Instead I used that momentum to swing around and pitch him bodily right into the path of his charging dinosaurs.

He was done. As soon as he'd been crushed underfoot not once, but twice, the life went out of him and the dinosaurs magically vanished. This was for the best, since I could see them crashing into the first boulder and pitching Avya off. Group coherence absolutely depended on little Avya doing all the social heavy lifting. I honestly didn't know what I'd do without her.

***

Once the dust settled some, Auralla supplied some more of her healing balm, and went off to collect more herbs while Hellera took Fayeen and Velleth through some more combat drills. They needed to be able to defend themselves if, say, I was suddenly trampled by a friggin dinosaur and taken out of commission.

Once Avya was done securing the rope, I used it to ascend the first of the three huge floating boulders.

The view was pretty amazing. I could tell, for instance, that the dust cloud in the direction of Surrek was a good ten or twenty miles off. And with my eyes being even better than before, I could tell that there were three individuals kicking up that dust.

"You're incredible," I told her, and she beamed at me. "And also, I need to get you back for all that teasing in the truck."

With that, I tickled the hell out of her until she was wheezing and begging me to stop. Of course, she couldn't speak, but she mouthed the words anyway.

We couldn't stay up here very long, because the ambient magic was… weird. We watched the trio of dust kickers for a short time, and discussed the possibility that they were three petty Masters or just one Master with two battle companion females. Avya was leaning toward the latter, but I wasn't going to bet on easy street. We were up there maybe twenty minutes before I started noticing how the magic was affecting me.

It started to make me see things. I soon started hearing things as well, phantom noises that made no sense. Smells and random tastes would just appear in my mouth and nose. I would've probably taken Avya for another incredibly tight, almost painful ride, because she was getting that 'I want essence sharing' look in her eyes, but the whites of her eyes also became violently cobalt blue as soon as my tickle torture stopped.

"Um," I said.

She gasped, blue eyes wide. "Your hair!"

"What?"

Upon climbing back down, I checked in the Mack's side mirror, and found that my hair, including my stubbly facial hair, was now cobalt blue as well.

While the other ladies found this hilarious, I quickly shushed the laughter. "We have three more incoming. Possibly up to three petty Masters, or two and one, or just one with two… bodyguards. I don't know what you'd call a female slave trained to fight."

"Fodder," Hellera uttered darkly.

"Expendable," Fayeen added.

"Planning time, everything on the table. I give them an hour before they arrive."

The four of Giskennen's former slaves again blinked at me, until Auralla opened her mouth and suggested taking Truffy to scout them out, and relay information back to where we would be lying in ambush. Hellera dismissed this by telling her she'd be in far too much danger, especially if there were three, and that only Fayeen was fast enough to keep up with a Master with decent speed.

This opened the floodgates of suggestions, ideas, protests and counter-ideas from the rest. Some were interesting, others a bit ludicrous, but eventually Velleth joined in and started offering possible plans. After a good five minutes, I calmed them down, and settled on the plan Hellera and I thought was the best. The dragonite was still astonished to be a part of planning, but flabbergasted when I turned and told her that she was right, and the slight adjustment would be the one we'd be using.

Then it came down casting spells, and waiting.

While lounging, and waiting for the next headhunters to arrive, I wandered over to where Avya and Fayeen were hanging out.

"It occurred to me…" I said, and kind of trailed off. I wasn't entirely sure how to handle this discussion, honestly. It wasn't like I had rehearsed this speech. "Uh…"

Avya sighed. "You want to do it

again

? Well, all you have to do is ask, okay?" With that, she turned around and lifted the back of her dress, then wiggled her ass at me.

"It wasn't about that!"

"It's always about that," Avya told Fayeen, who snorted laughter.

"I mean, I guess it sort of is about that. If either of you, or the rest of you, for that matter, had designs on motherhood, just let me know. I hadn't realized there was a special first step before popping the babies out. So if that's a thing you want, I'm not going to be an impediment to your future motherhood."

This was possibly the most awkward discussion I'd ever had. Top 3 maybe.

"Anyway I'll tell the others when we're not on the precipice of death. You want to be a mommy, that's your choice, I honor that."

"You're adorable," Fayeen said.

They were here. Jerry had smelled them approaching.

"It's time," I said, and watched as they stiffened. "Just stick to the plan, okay?"

"How m-many are Masters?" Avya asked.

Three was the answer. All three of them were male.