Tribe Master 2: A Fantasy Harem Adventure Read online

‘I was being sarcastic.’

  ‘I was not.’

  ‘How do you ever get away with being sacred in the eyes of the gods?’

  ‘The ways of the gods are open to interpretation. I think about them enough to see them in different ways.’

  I shook my head and took another drink of water while Santana raised the torch and looked into the higher reaches of the cave walls.

  ‘Do you see that?’ She asked. I turned to her as she nodded at a spot higher up. I followed her line of sight.

  Several yards up was a pocket of ore unlike any of the others that I had come across so far. It was glittering with a dark yellow that didn’t stray into the brown-orange color that bronze or copper could sometimes take on.

  ‘That’s gold,’ I whispered. ‘Gold ore.’

  ‘How much do you think it is worth?’

  ‘I don’t know, but a run of the mill trader at the post offered me 500GP for the statue of Tormund the Betrayer. She didn’t even want it, but I could tell she was trying to stiff me so that she could flip it later. If a bar or two could be crafted from ore it would at least be worth a few hundred gold pieces.’

  ‘I do not mean to be rude, but I do not think that I can support your weight.’

  ‘If you could support my weight, Santana, I’d be terrified. The barrels aren’t tall enough, but if I get a cart and some crates I should be able to reach.’

  I found a cart with its wheels intact and manoeuvred it over to the wall just below the ore. I fetched two wooden crates which I stacked on top of each other in the back, then climbed on top of them with my pickaxe at the ready.

  Positioning the pick on the glimmering gold patches, I brought it back over my head and swung it at the ore.

  13%

  24%

  Gold wasn’t too tough, but my awkward position meant my swings didn’t have a whole lot of power.

  The light of the torch became dimmer as Santana moved away from the spot below me towards the entrance to the passage that we hadn’t explored yet.

  39%

  ‘Jack…’

  I heaved my pickaxe back and swung it with a low grunt.

  56%

  ‘Jack!’ Santana called across in a hushed whisper.

  ‘What?’ I grunted, hitting the pocket again.

  71%

  ‘Someone is coming!’

  I struck it again and reached 87%.

  Santana looked over at me with wide eyes before pulling out her water canteen and dousing the fire promptly.

  Total pitch blackness consumed the cave. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

  I struck once more against the ore. It popped out of the wall and I fumbled to catch it. Promptly I shoved both into my inventory and hopped down from the crates.

  ‘Jack? Where are you?’

  ‘By the crates.’

  I still had the layout of the cave mapped out in my mind. A few seconds later Santana’s arms found mine.

  Then the voices appeared.

  ‘You didn’t see anything, you fucking idiot.’

  ‘I’m telling you, there’s a light down there.’

  ‘It’s the ore. The dark plays tricks on you down here. What, you think a monster’s going to get you?’

  ‘Fuck off. Gimme that light.’

  A second later a dim light spilled into the cave from the unexplored passage.

  The silhouettes of the objects in the cave came into view, but our unwelcome visitors were approaching fast.

  They would be here in seconds. We didn’t have time to make it to the passage out.

  We were trapped. If we tried to get out we would end up in a fight, and fighting in the dark was still my last preferred option.

  I could throw a Telekinetic Blast in their direction, but I had already seen its strength. Shaking the walls wouldn’t bring the roof down, but it could bring at least some of it down on us.

  ‘We need to hide,’ Santana said quickly. ‘The carts.’

  We rushed the carts situated right in the centre of the cave. I lifted the wooden cover of one and Santana climbed inside, after which I followed her.

  I crouched within for a moment, holding the cover above my head as I watched the light grow brighter and brighter.

  ‘Jack!’

  I crouched low inside the cart and lowered the panel carefully over us, just as the light emerged into the cave.

  There was a small gap between the back board and the cover above that we could see through, giving a view onto the visitors.

  Three men emerged from the passageway. At first I saw them as characters out of a comedy; one small, one tall and one fat.

  They all wore leather clothes with occasional pieces of armor scattered about their figures. The small one at the front led them with a torch in his hand. He moved straight past us and into the depths of the cave where I had been mining for ores just seconds ago.

  ‘Nothing down here,’ the small one said, turning to the big guy with the pickaxe swung over his shoulder. ‘You didn’t eat it all, did you?’

  ‘Hey, fuck you.’

  ‘Fuck you. The boss put me in charge.’ He turned to his taller friend, who had moved to the spot behind us where the crates were stacked on top of the other cart. ‘Anything over there?’

  ‘Just some empty boxes… And…’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘Do you smell that?’

  ‘I’ve got that allergy from rogan’s ivy, remember? Can’t smell a damned thing.’

  ‘It smells like smoke…’

  I clenched my eyes shut. Santana’s hand suddenly clasped around my forearm and held on to me tightly.

  The torch. In a hurry she had left it on the ground. It was out, but smoke would still be emanating.

  They hadn’t found it yet.

  ‘Well, I am holding a fucking torch. Dumbass. You think those glasses make you look smart?’

  ‘No,’ the tall guy replied. ‘I think they help me to see. And I see, plainly, that you are a fucking halfwit.’

  ‘I’m getting about sick of the attitude both of you are giving me. I told you, the boss put me in charge for a reason. I’m the smart one here.’

  ‘I smell smoke too,’ the big guy said.

  ‘BECAUSE YOU’RE STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO ME! Good-fucking-gods, I’m surrounded by idiots.’

  I heard the tall guy’s footsteps behind our cart. He moved away from the wall where the gold ore had been located and slowly sauntered past our right side, circling like a shark.

  In total silence, I pulled the Arcane Blast power stone from my inventory and nodded to Santana.

  She nodded lightly in response, keeping a firm grasp on her crossbow and pointing it over my shoulder towards where the lid of the cart would open.

  The taller man moved to a spot near his companions and looked in our direction, and for a second I could have sworn that our eyes met.

  Then-

  ‘Come on,’ the small guy said. ‘There’s nothing down here.’

  ‘Can we stop at Grayholde on the way back?’ The big guy said hopefully.

  ‘After putting up with you two assholes all day? I’m going to need to drink my sorrows away.’

  He turned and led the other two to the unexplored passage from which they had emerged. The taller man was last, turning and giving the cart one last look before following the other two.

  Santana and I remained in silence, our weapons still drawn, until the sounds of their footsteps and the small guy’s commanding voice drifted out of earshot completely.

  We exited the cart so slowly that the wooden lid barely creaked. I lit another torch and we checked that we had everything.

  ‘That was close,’ Santana said. ‘I thought that that man had seen us.’

  ‘Me too. I could have sworn it. Maybe we were better hidden than we thought.’

  ‘Who do you think they were?’

  ‘I don’t know, but they were looking for ores. And did you hear what the big guy said? Grayholde. That must be t
he community west of here that you were talking about before. Those guys were collecting ores, but they were doing it for someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Another tribe master, I’m thinking. Who else would be bossing them around like that?’

  ‘Or they were trading for gold pieces, or building something large. Ore could be in abundance in the west and they could be trading for something else.’

  I shot Santana a look.

  ‘How do you consider all of this?

  ‘Consider what? It is quite a simple proposition.’

  ‘But most people don’t consider it.’

  ‘I have been trading alongside my father since I was strong enough to make the walk from our homestead to the trading post. I know how to barter.’

  ‘Why haven’t I brought you along on our other missions?’

  ‘Because you love me, and you’re afraid something will happen to me. I am the youngest of your wives, after all, like you said.’

  ‘All of those things are true. Look, we need to get out of here, but the day’s still early. We could make it to Grayholde and check it out, but I’m not going through that tunnel. We’ve pushed our luck far enough today. Let’s head back the way we came, get the horses and ride above-ground until we reach this place. Hopefully we won’t run into these assholes again.’

  ‘They did not see our faces.’

  ‘Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try to start a fight with us.’

  ‘Knock them back with that new spell of yours and I’ll clean up the rest,’ she said, brandishing her crossbow.

  God, I loved her.

  Chapter Ten

  After exiting the cave and mounting our horses, we continued west above-ground. The rocky patches continued, as well as the occasional herb and patch of ore that we could recover. The more miles we travelled, though, the fewer ore deposits we found, and the ones we did were often more difficult to find than those we had previously come across.

  ‘Looks like those guys have been busy,’ I remarked. ‘I bet the other passages in the cavern back there are the only things keeping them from venturing further towards our land.’

  ‘They’ll reach Ark Point before they arrive at our land. That will keep them busy for a while. There are likely some available deposits down there, although the corpse of the mother wolf may put them off.’

  ‘I hope so, but I’m still worried. Once we find this town and explore it a little we need to get back to the tribe and make sure everybody is equipped with weapons and armor. I’ve got a feeling that somebody’s close to finding us. We’ve been too lucky for too long to avoid contact.’

  ‘You were attacked by bandits before I and my father arrived, were you not?’

  ‘Yeah, but that was total chance. They were camped nearby. Whoever those goons were, they were working for somebody who can afford to send a group out to gather resources. We need to be able to defend ourselves against a force like that when the time comes.’

  The trail continued on for miles. We had been on horseback for hours, and as the sun peaked something strange started to happen.

  I had grown used to the dense thickness of the forest and the wilds, but now the trees were beginning to thin. Not only that, but there were signs of deforestation on the ground in the form of endless rotting scraps of wood.

  This wasn’t just a thinner area of the forest; it was deliberate deforestation.

  The hooves of Arabelle and Myranthia crunched atop the rotting wood as we moved slowly between the remaining trees, which became fewer and fewer as we progressed onwards.

  ‘Wait.’

  I pulled my horse to a stop, and Santana moved hers to stop beside me.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  The intermittent, repetitive sounds were systematic, and they were coming from just ahead.

  Santana placed her crossbow in her lap and I removed my Telekinetic Blast power stone from my inventory and clasped it in my palm.

  We moved towards the sound.

  We arced to the right for twenty yards, keeping the sound on our left as we unexpectedly emerged from the forest and caught sight of the source of the sound.

  A single human man stood by a tree at the very edge of the forest. He was about to move to strike the trunk again when he caught sight of us and looked up.

  He was a hefty man, bearing a brute strength that had been built up over years of work. He was clad in a white vest stained with dirt, work boots and a pair of rough-worn leather pants. His face was spattered with blackened coal marks, save for his eyes, which were deep brown, sunk back into his head.

  We surveyed each other silently for a moment. Then, he gave me a single nod. I returned it, and he went back to his work.

  ‘Jack… Do you see that?’

  In the distance there were several streams of smoke billowing up from a town in the distance, perhaps a half a mile off.

  That wasn’t the most startling sight by a long stretch, though.

  The land surrounding the town was completely void of any features for hundreds of yards. Nothing but dried dirt and rocks surrounded it; everything had been ripped down.

  I had no doubt that it was to feed the billowing smoke that emanated from it.

  Several trails moved out towards the forest before disappearing as if they had given up on making their way out.

  I had no doubt that it was Grayholde, although the land around it left a lot to be desired.

  We set off to the town, the sounds of the horse’s hooves and the eventual smashing of the tree into the ground behind us the only signs of life at all.

  ‘They’ve completely levelled it,’ I said, looking at the flatland that surrounded us. ‘It’s definitely a mining town.’

  ‘Another threat?’ Santana said. ‘Do you think they could reach us eventually?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it to me. It’s the middle of the day and there’s only one guy cutting down the trees. I’d also expect more smoke in the air for a town this size. Looks like its dying. I’m just not sure why. Maybe we can find out.’

  ‘That is how battles begin, you know?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the land that our tribe claims as its own is occupied by you and me and the girls and the tribe’s citizens. We have a perimeter fence. You have designated it as belonging to you… But what about the land beyond the walls? We use the resources of the forest, we cut down the trees for wood and forage for herbs and mine ores… But what about when somebody else approaches and decides that they want it?’

  ‘Then I have a stern word with them. Or I kill them.’

  ‘And then the battle begins.’

  I inhaled deeply. I wasn’t worried about the prospect of a fight that I had a fair chance of winning, but so far we had only come up against forces that we could manage.

  If a legion arrived at my front door I wouldn’t know what to do. I could fight well, and so could my wives, but my citizens weren’t battle-trained, and there was no way that we could fend off any decent-sized fighting force.

  I cast the notion into the back of my mind. The goons from earlier might have been a closer threat, but despite the mining town’s progress in wiping out a huge section of the surrounding forest, it didn’t look like they were making considerable progress in getting any further.

  My suspicions were only confirmed when we finally arrived.

  There was no perimeter fence around Grayholde – the buildings simply began. Most were composed of wood that had long been reinforced and blackened by soot and coal. Despite the sunlight, there was a darkness that seemed to cast itself down upon the area.

  At the centre of the town, viewable just above the rooftops of the houses, was a small hill with a large, semi-dilapidated house upon it. Around its edges I could see figures standing and watching, and a high metal railing that bordered it.

  As with the trading post and Ichabod’s Cove, I was afraid that we would draw attention to ourselves as outsiders, but among the citizens movi
ng along sidewalks and riding horses idly up streets, we went mostly unnoticed.

  The people didn’t move like zombies in a dead midwestern town; there was a resilience in their eyes to get on with their work and to keep pushing forward, but almost all were stained with the same soot and coal dust as the buildings.

  Several stores were built in amongst the wood homes, bearing signs for food, supplies, provisions, general items, and several inns.

  ‘It is baffling to think that this is just a few miles from our tribe,’ Santana said.

  ‘Just a few miles from the homestead, too,’ I replied, pointing north. ‘Head that way for a few hours and you’ll reach your old home.’

  She shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s just… This is incredible.’

  ‘It’s a dump.’

  ‘Maybe, but… I’ve only been to a few places beyond our homestead since I was small. I have never visited towns or ruins, never seen the great rivers… I’ve never even drank wine or mead.’

  Now I felt like an asshole. She was right. She had been secluded at the homestead under the understandable protection of Jeremiah because of what he had experienced escaping his tribe during the war.

  I hadn’t even taken her to Ichabod’s Cove yet.

  ‘How about we have a drink right now?’ I said, nodding to a nearby tavern, The Iron Temple. ‘Whatever you want, you can have it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Definitely. Unless there’s something in your holy book that tells you not to.’

  There was a genuine wonderment in her eyes at the prospect of having a drink for the first time.

  We hitched the horses by a trough of water outside the tavern. Santana hooked her arm around mine and we headed to the door, feeling like a real couple.

  We moved to head into the tavern, but our opportunity was blocked by three men exiting.

  At first I moved to let them by, keeping Santana safe at my side, but as I focused on their faces something didn’t click – until it clicked entirely.

  They were the three men from the cave.

  ‘Fuck you,’ the short man said, smashing his hand against the saloon doors that barred entrance to the tavern. ‘We’ll take our business elsewhere.’

  ‘It is not your business that I disapprove of,’ a voice said. It belonged to the bartender, a wiry but strong man in his 60s who pushed through the doors to see the men out. ‘It is your attitudes.’