Returning Chapter 03

Thank you all for your kind words. and encouragement. I have been a bit busy today as it is bill pay day. 🙁

I hope this chapter is as well received as the rest. I will give a bit of warning there is a new race introduced in this chapter and some might call it a furry adventure, My proofreader does. Bah! If you think they are furries please feel free to comment and let me know, for good or bad. But then again some might think that Likka’s relationship with Rhys is bestiality.

In this chapter some real background starts coming out, to develop a world you have to have a past. to have a past someone needs to know about it.

I am particularly proud of the fight scene in this chapter it more adequately describes just how fast and agile Rhys is. Let me know what you think.

Thanx
Brootforce


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Likka was the first to wake up; she crawled out of the tent about an hour before sun up. “Is Beth going to be a problem?” she asked me in my mind.

“If she is she is a problem I have to deal with. She came through because of me so I have to get her home.”

“Rhys her coming through was an accident. It isn’t your fault.”

“It was my fault, I left and because of that I had to come back. Because I had to comeback it left some kind of scar behind. That scar pulled her through after me.”

“Rhys don’t”

“Likka I will do what I have to but I will also get her back home.”

Likka left me alone about it after that point. A short time later the others started rising to face the day. Taina came over and kissed me passionately “Thank you Rhys I needed last night.”

“You do not need to thank me, I fully enjoyed last night as well and that is thanks enough.”

As we were breaking camp I saw one of the Pindragons sitting on a branch at the edge of camp. Something nagged at the edge of my mind I almost seemed to remember something. I walked over and got a piece of leftover meat from my packs and walked over to Beth with the meat cupped in my hand. “Beth go over there to that Pindragon slowly make little cooing noises and offer it this.”

Beth took the meat from my hand and started cooing and clucking to the Pindragon. The Pindragon was suspicious at first and danced away from her on the branch. But soon the smell of the cooked meat was driving it crazy. It slowly and cautiously moved toward her. When it was about two feet from her hand it looked up into her eyes then it pounced from the branch and into her hand to start gobbling the meat down.

“Look in its eyes and coo to it, make it feel as if you like it.”

Beth looked in its eyes and continued to coo. She suddenly acted like she was mesmerized by the swirling sapphire eyes of the Pindragon on her hand. Then Beth looked at us, “Her name is Beeko.”

“Welcome to my world” I said as I mounted Reaper.

As Beth turned to walk towards her horse Beeko flew around her head twice then settled on her shoulder. His tail wrapped up over her ear and he snuggled down against her neck and started cooing contentedly.

We rode for several more days each night stopping to camp. Some nights Likka would join me in my tent other nights Taina would join me. They told me I got too worked up when they both joined me and they wanted to survive the nights. Laina and Beth both giggled when they said that to me.

Two nights before we were to arrive at Feck Laina came to me as we made camp. “Can you be gentle with someone that is inexperienced?”

“Laina, I can be as gentle as a lamb but you will still feel pain. The pain will be temporary and soon will be replaced by pleasure.”

“How much pain?”

“It is different for every woman. Some feel a lot of pain some very little. What you offer is also a precious gift you can only give once. I would be honored for you to give me this gift, I do want you to be sure I am the one you want to give it to though.”

“I don’t know what to do?”

“Do what is right for you and no one else. Do what your heart tells you to do.”

She wandered away from me and went over to talk to her mother quietly for a bit. I gathered my bow and went to hunt for some dinner. An hour later I returned with a one hundred pound haunch from a large lizard like cow that Likka called a Drog. She told me they are quite tasty and the meat brings a high price in the inner kingdoms.

I came into the camp to see all of the tents set up and the fire already going. I set about filleting the haunch out into thin slices of meat and placing it on spits over the fire. Taina had dug up some tubers and gathered some fruit and berries from the surrounding area to end up making the meal the best we had had in days.

“Rhys?”

“Yes Taina?”

“She wants to come to you tonight but she is afraid, she has become convinced that our screams in the night are from pain as well as from pleasure. I don’t know what to tell her to convince her otherwise.”

“How do you feel about this?”

“Rhys you are the greatest man I have ever met, I know your power and I know your strength, but I also know your love and passion. I know you will be gentle with her and a mother could not want more than that for her daughter’s first time. I am not scared for her but I want her to be sure she is ready.”

“Ask her to come to me to talk for a bit.”

Taina walked away to find her daughter. As I waited Beth came to me. “Would you really take that little girl to your bed?”

“That is an interesting question. If she were back were you come from she would be a little girl barely of age. Here however she is a woman five years past here marrying age. In this place she would normally have three or four children of her own by now.”

“But she is so young.”

“Yes she is by your standards, here though people seldom live to see fifty summers most never see forty. These people live short lives and have to grow up quickly. She is a woman and has more than proven herself as such to me on this trip. If she chooses me how could I dishonor her by refusing?”

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make it seam so natural that a little girl might want you to have sex with her and you make it into a loving expression?”

“I don’t know maybe it is because I care, sometimes too much.”

It was the flash of anger from Likka that had me moving with my swords in hand before I even knew I had reacted. When I reached the north side of the camp I saw four men in red leather armor astride four roan horses. Two of the men had bows drawn and pointed at Likka.

“Likka Back.” I shouted as I came to a stop in front of the men. As Likka stepped back the two men lowered their bows.

The man in the lead of the other three looked down towards me with obvious disdain in his eyes. “Are you the man from the west that is calling him self Rhys?”

“I am Rhys.”

“For crimes against the empire you are hereby sentenced to death.” Both bowmen raised there bows towards me as I tossed my swords high into the air. As they drew their arrows back my arms flicked downward and two flechettes dropped into each hand. As they released the arrows my hands flicked forward launching the flechettes as the weapons crossed paths in the air I sidestepped the paths of the two arrows. My hands grasped both arrows as they passed and two men screamed as they were blinded by the sharp barbs in their eyes. The lead man and the second began to draw their swords as I spun and launched myself into the air. As the lead mans sword cleared his scabbard I landed feet first into his chest knocking him off of his horse. As I rode his falling body to the ground I ducked under the swinging sword of the other man. Rising up I slammed the arrows upward through his breast plate and into his heart. I leaped into a twisting flip and landed over the lead man. As he tried to bring his sword up mine fell back into my hands from being tossed and I instantly crossed them both across his throat as our hearts beat for the second time since it started.

I heard the ring of steel as Taina and Laina brought down the two blind men and a gasp from behind me from Beth. “Take this back to your masters you imperial dog. Rhys is back and I am coming for them. This time there will be no war I will hunt them down like the cowardly rats they are. Let them all know I am sending them a death notice and the challenge is on the table to face me if they dare.”

“Rhys no!” Likka screamed in his head.

“I hid my face in shame for six thousand years Likka I am not hiding any more. Let them come if they dare, I will tear their world apart and bury them in the rubble.”

“But you have not gathered your forces, you can’t face them alone.”

“Wrong that is how I am going to face them this time, there will be no hostages they can force my hand with. I will wash this world clean of their stink as I strip the flesh from their very bones. For six thousand years they have been killing children just because their parents named them the same as me. This stops now.”

I turned to the terrified imperial guardsman lying below my swords, “Know this dog, if one more child dies for bearing my name I will hunt you and every man that has ever worn that armor and I will flay them alive.” As I spit these words into his face I could see my reflection in his helmet, my eyes were burning in fire as smoke curled up along my forehead and cold fog was rolling down from them.

With a snap of my minds eye his armor and weapons crumbled to dust beneath me. I stood over him and pulled my swords away. “Get on your mount and ride, ride like the wind before I change my mind and deliver the message myself.”

The man moved as if he had seen Hell’s host coming to claim him. Before the space of an eye blink he was on his feet and leaping for his horse.

“Likka take care of the girls I will go on alone from here.”

Taina slapped me across the face. “You will not, I waited six thousand years hiding like a mouse in the shadows to get my revenge and damn you Rhys you are not going to take it away from me.”

I stood up ready to fly into a rage at her words until I saw here face. She had tears in her eyes and was ready to face me with steel in her spine. I lowered my head and turned to walk to my horse.

I reached up to my horse and pulled my backpack down. Again that nagging sensation had come to me. “Rhys quiet your eyes you are scaring Beth and Laina to death.” Likka said in my mind. I looked at my reflection in the buckle on my pack and tried to calm myself. As calm returned to me the fires died and the cold fog dissipated. I turned my pack upside down and poured the contents out. On the top of the stack fell a simple leather bound jewelry case. I opened it to find the copper pendant still on its gold chain from so many years ago. I pulled the chain out and put it around my neck as soon as the pendant touched my skin it all flooded back. Every one of my memories were mine again. My eyes rolled back in my head and I fell face first into the dirt.

I awoke in the dark. I was in my tent and there was a warm body curled against me. I did not think before I turned in my half doze and pulled her up against me and began to kiss her neck as she was spooned into me.

“Rhys?” Laina’s said as I kissed her neck.

“Yes.”

“You scared me last night more than once.”

“You should never need to fear me.”

“I know that now, mom spoke to Beth and I about what had happen to you. She said you had gone into what you call Mage Rage. It is when your magic boils to the surface demanding release. But it was when my mother slapped you that scared me the most. I thought for sure you would rip her apart but you just stood and accepted here actions and words. Then when you fainted I thought you were dead and all of it was lost. I cried like a child until mom told me you were alive and breathing. Likka told us you were asleep that you had fainted from something that happened when you put that necklace on.