Perilous Jaunt Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Dante
As we set out on the cloudy morning of Esme's second day with us, I still sensed Peter's bitterness at me for allowing the kangaroo to join our journey. What was his problem? Esme had never harmed him. In fact, he had never even met Esme until the other day.
After I had returned from hunting the night before, I waited until Peter had fallen asleep to ask Esme if he had been rude to her while I was gone. She told me that Peter hadn't said anything offensive, so I didn't pester her any further and allowed her to drift off to sleep. Esme had thick fur, so I was certain that, even if Peter did beleaguer her, she wouldn't be bothered by it. Still, she was my best friend and the thought of Peter being rude to her sent me into a fit of rage.
I still could not contemplate why Peter resented Esme so much. Even as we walked through the woods that morning, our bellies filled with a breakfast that Esme herself had fetched for us, I could feel Peter's bitter gaze scorch my back as he strode behind me. A small part of me wanted to tug on his rope. Didn't he understand that Esme's presence meant better protection? He may have not been too excited about going back to his father, now that I had thought about it. I never cared to discuss the topic with him, deeming it to verge on being intrusive. But him being with his family could not have been worse than walking around Alpis, where he would be murdered or mugged. Then again...
"Are you sure you're turning him in for the reward money?" Esme asked from my right, jokingly, ending my thought before it could continue into uncomfortable territory.
My ears folded back as I gave her a questioning look out of the corner of my eye. "Of course. Why wouldn't I?"
"Well," Esme chuckled, "not that I'm one to judge, but you wandering around the forest with another man tied up does seem a bit...strange,"
"I already told you," I said, shaking my head and trying to hide how much I enjoyed Esme's banter, "it's not like that. Besides, he's not even my type,"
"Hey, you don't have to explain yourself to me. It gets lonely on the road sometimes,"
"Yeah," I agreed and whispered, "but have you listened to him complain? Give me silence over that any day!"
Esme's grin nearly stretched far enough upwards to touch her only usable eye. "Maybe your just that desperate,"
I winced at the very notion of being intimate with Peter and spoke at my normal volume once more. "Please. I've never been that horny before. And besides, you've been traveling by yourself a lot longer than I have and you're not sleeping with him,"
It was true. While I was only twenty-three years old and had been traveling since I was nineteen, Esme was forty and had been her walking across Alpis since she was twenty-five. Although, I didn't know what she had done before she had met me four years ago. Asking about her past just didn't seem appropriate, especially since she never bothered me about my own.
"You must be mistaking me for one of those bitches whose tits are bigger than their brains," Esme chortled. "I'm not interested in romance. What do I need a man for, anyways? I can make plenty of coin off the pelts of my food. Hell, I don't even need to fuck the occasional whore like you do. God gave me fingers for a reason,"
"Ew!" I said, rolling my eyes in an overdramatic fashion, pretending to be more repulsed than I actually was. "I didn't need to hear that, Esme!"
"What?" Esme said. "Just cause I'm old enough to be your mother doesn't mean I don't finger myself every once in a while,"
"Okay," I chuckled and placed my free hand over my face. "I really didn't need the visual in my head. Are going to give me the sex talk, too?"
Esme then began speaking in a creaky voice that reminded me of an old spinster, who had nothing better to do than to lecture children. "Now listen here, young man! When a man likes a lady...well, I guess he doesn't have to like her. They could just be drunk. The man sticks his hard boner in the lady's wet cunt and start going at it. This only lasts a minute, though, because the man is...a man. Then, nine months later, a baby pops out of the woman's cunt and ruins her life forever! The end,"
"But, grandma," I asked in the most high-pitched voice that I could muster, "what if two men love each other? Or two girls?"
"Ah," Esme sighed and continued to speak in her spinster voice, "that's when it gets tricky, my boy. When two men get together, they take turns shoving their cocks up each others man-cunts,"
"What's a man-cunt, grandma?"
"Oh, a man-cunt is the hole where shit comes out of! You see, men don't have lady-cunts, so they have to fuck the next best thing! It's much simpler for two ladies, though. All they have to do is slap their normal, pretty, pink cunts against each other and rub them together like two pieces of meat,"
Before she had finished, I had begun to laugh hysterically. But, after she was done, Esme joined me in my maniac laughter and was unable to utter another word.
Then, it began to rain.
At first, it was only a few droplets, which were deflected by me putting on my hood. I never comprehended why some people become so prudish when it starts to rain. It is, after all, only water.
_ Water._
_ _ I stopped walking and stood motionless in the ever-growing puddles of murky water beneath my boots. Gradually, I turned around and witnessed Peter's eyes widen in terror, telling me that he had come to the same horrid realization as I had.
Most of the makeup on Peter's face had already faded away and very little remained on his neck. A moment later, the tears that rained down upon us from the grey heavens above had washed all of the makeup completely away. Peter's clothes were now stained with his white and pink makeup. All that remained of the otter's disguise were the black gloves over his hands.
"Shit," I cursed.
Esme rotated herself and saw that Peter's makeup had been completely washed away. "At least we aren't on the road," she pointed out. "Nobody'll see him,"
"Still," I said, "there's a chance we'll run into somebody, even one of Capres' patrols,"
"They'd have to be a stupid fuckin' patrol to go this far off the road," Esme said. "Pan must have really scammed you if that shit came off that easy,"
"No," I defended the fox. "It only comes off if you put water on it,"
"Really?" the kangaroo asked, bafflement in her voice.
"Yeah. Even if you rub the makeup with your hand or pour wine on it, it won't come off,"
"Damn," Esme said.
"But that means that we won't be able to put more makeup on him until it stops raining," I said. "God knows when that will be. Peter?"
Peter had been rubbing his cheeks and examining his fingers to see if there was any more makeup on him while I had been talking with Esme. He looked up from his fingers and stared at me. "Yeah?"
"Are you okay?" I asked. "Did you get any makeup in your eyes?" He blinked and shook his head.
"Good," I sighed, my shoulders sagging slightly from the lowering of my tension. "We'll get you some new clothes at the next town down the road. So, let's keep going,"
The three of us marched through the oceans of rainwater beneath us, which had quickly grown from their small puddle states. Leaves were soon swimming in water that was four inches deep and mud began to clasp our boots, as if it were intentionally trying to make us fall onto our backs. Under normal circumstances, I would have found somewhere dry, such as a grassy knoll, and waited for the flooding to pass, but, since we were still in Capres' Kingdom, I didn't want to. There was no way that I was going to stay there any longer than necessary with Peter. The memory of the otter's makeup streaming down his face like tears only made my steps swifter and my eagerness to keep moving stronger.
"Dante," Esme called out to me through the shower of raindrops.
"Yeah?" I said and turned my head to gaze at her.
"The mud's going to keep getting worse and we'll start falling on our asses in a minute if we stay here," she explained. "We probably should stick to the main road,"
At first, I rejected the very notion of traveling on the road. Why risk running into more trouble like Peter did on our first morning together? Wretchedly, after a quick examination of the ground, I realized that the water was now a third of the way up my leg; the mud, which cleverly lurked beneath the opaque water, also seemed to be becoming more and more difficult to fight with every step I took. Esme was right. If the water level continued to rise and if the mud became any thicker, we were probably going to end up sliding from tree to tree, banging our heads on their trunks every step of the way.
"Yeah," I admitted, sourly. "You're right,"
Fighting against my internal instincts, I turned left and began to walk with Peter and Esme until we found the road, its gravel only tarnished by an occasional puddle due to the fact that it was elevated above the forest floor by tiny grass slopes. At least there's no mud.
_ _ My senses were on high alert, yet were greatly hindered by the heavy rainfall. My ears could only hear the sound of the raindrops tragic song of being burst open as they hit the ground. My nose could also only smell the rusty scent of the rainwater droplets that, with the assistance of the wind, managed to avoid my hood and slap me across my muzzle.
Despite the impediment of my nose and ears, everything ran smoothly. We walked for a good half-hour along the road and nothing bad had occurred. No Talth sprang from behind trees to rob us and no rapists dashed towards us with their pants around their boots. The only threat that we seemed to face was the possibility of catching a cold.
Hoof beats echoed like gunshots behind us.
I turned around to see a bend in the road and realized that the riders were about to come around it.
"Peter," I shouted, "hide behind me!" Peter, who also looked back to see where the hoof beats were coming from, faced forward towards me and then scampered behind my back.
Esme moved closer to me until she was shoulder-to-shoulder with my right side so that -I assumed- we could conceal Peter better. Her hand then lowered itself onto the grip of her knife.
Four knights came around the bend not more than a moment later, their tamed horses galloping at full speed between their armored legs. As they drew closer, I noticed the tiger head with bloody teeth on each of their breastplates. Capres' men.
_ _ "We can't fight them unless we have to," I whispered, once I noticed Esme's hand still firmly coiled around her weapon's grip. "If we kill them, more patrols will be sent and they'll know we're heading south,"
Out of the corner of her left eye, Esme looked at me to see if I was serious. Then, after releasing her knife and lowering her hand down to her side, she faced the oncoming knights.
Soon, the knights' tamed horses slowed their charging to a steady trot and leisurely walked towards us.
Quickly, fear began to claw its way into my mind when I realized that the knights might have been able to see over me and notice Peter. If they had been walking, Peter most likely would have gone unnoticed. However, the added height that their steeds gave them made me uncertain of whether or not we were in danger. I only hoped that Peter was crouching as low as he could behind me.
Once they stopped a mere five paces before us, the knights formed an upside-down "V" formation. All of them opened their visors and I was able to see what species they were. The two men in front were a jackal and a cougar. Meanwhile, the two knights in the back, who were nearly touching shoulders, were a bear and a ram. None of them bore a single friendly smile.
"Have you been to Tynas lately?" the cougar on the right asked in an upmost blunt manner.
Clearly, it was a trap, since these knights were most likely trying to locate their missing fellow servicemen, the same servicemen that Pan had slaughtered. If I said no, it would have been an obviously lie. We were only a day's walk out of the City and were heading south on the road. Why wouldn't we have passed through Tynas? Also, if I did say that we hadn't been in the City, it would be very reasonable to assume that I knew why these knights' comrades had been missing. Playing dumb would obviously be the best option.
"Yes, sir," I answered, my words gushing with as much respect as I could gather. "We just passed through Tynas the day before yesterday,"
Not appearing to be dissatisfied with my answer, the knight continued to further question me. "Have you seen a regiment of knights?" He then gestured to the crest on his breastplate with a stiff finger. "This would have been on their armor,"
"No," Esme answered the cougar. "We haven't seen them, good knight,"
"I wasn't talking to you, bitch," the cougar snapped at Esme. "Next time you speak to me without permission, I'll have one of my men cut your whore tongue out. And it's 'sir',"
Esme remained silent, clearly not wanting to offend the knight any further.
The cougar returned his attention towards me. "She your wife?" I swallowed, trying to loosen the tightening muscles inside of my throat. "Yes, sir,"
He shot Esme a glance and then looked back at me again. "Is she always this rude?"
I laughed and conjured a fake smile. I knew what kind of man I was dealing with now. He was a complete misogynist_._ So, the hastiest way to get him to leave us alone would be to pretend that I was as much of a sexist as he was.
"Yes, sir," I said, while rolling my eyes, as if I were recalling memories of being nagged at. "Honestly, I can't even remember why I married her, except when I see her tits. She isn't much more than that, I'm afraid, except for her feisty tongue, which has cost me a fair share of money,"
The cougar gave a devilish grin, which he tried to hide almost as soon as it appeared. He believed every single word. "Sounds like she's more trouble than she's worth,"
"She is," I then shrugged and held out open hands. "But what other bitch is going suck my cock?"
Now, the cougar was unable to conceal his amusement and snorted at my question.
Since he was clearly buying all of the bullshit that I was practically feeding him, I decided to keep going. "Oh and there's, you know, the whole joined together in God's eyes and everything. Don't want to piss off the Big Man upstairs!"
The cougar's eyes grew soft and his lips parted to allow his teeth to form a smile. "Oh? A smart man who's also religious! It's difficult to meet another respectable man these days,"
I shook my head and sighed as if I were disheartened by some tragedy. "We are a rare breed,"
"Yes," he said. "It's a shame there's so few men with brains in their heads and God in their hearts. Most of them would rather use their Sundays to visit whorehouses or become faggots instead of going to Church. Tell me, what's your favorite Bible verse?"
At first, I searched my mind for whatever generic passage that I could recall, the more cliché and overused the better. Yet, instead of reciting a parable about lost sheep or a tale of forgiveness, there was only one quote that I seemed to remember.
"Do unto others as you would have them done unto you," I answered the knight.
The cougar gave a slight nod of admiration of my response. "Not bad, but my favorite would have to be, 'And the Lord said unto Moses, 'Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from you,''"
"Can't argue with an Old Testament classic!" I said, now beginning to grow anxious from wondering if the knights would be leaving soon.
"No," he said, "you can't," His eyes then suddenly shifted and caught something at my left hand. "Why is there a rope in your hand?"
My stomach felt as though it collapsed inside of me.
Just as the cougar opened his mouth to speak again, I snapped my gun from its holster and fired it at him. The bullet had pierced his breastplate, traveling through the top of Capres' crest, making a small hole in the armor and leaving an apple-sized dent around it. Blood spurted out from the bullet hole, just as the cougar fell lifelessly from his horse.
The other knights' horses were startled by the noise of the gunshot and began to whinny in fear.
"Oh, shit!" the jackal screamed as he reached for his sword, "he's got a-"
I aimed my weapon's mouth at the jackal and pulled its trigger a second time, cutting his sentence short. Bloody chunks of flesh erupted from his right eye socket, some falling inside his armor, while the rest splattered onto the neck of his horse. He, much like the cougar, fell and lay limply in the mud.
The second shot terrified the horses even more than the first and they now cried louder as they jittered about. The horse that carried the ram became so startled that it raised its front legs off the ground to kick the air, thus dismounting its rider, before running off into the woods.
I repositioned my legs and aimed at the ram, who lay facedown on the road. At first, I thought he was going to stand up, but, after I held his helmet in my iron sights for a moment, he did not move. Then, I noticed the rainwater around his head had become a dark red. He probably cracked his skull open when he fell.
_ _ "Dante!" Esme shouted.
I looked over at Esme, fearing that she might have been in some kind of peril. When my eyes finally lay on her, I saw that she was pointing at something ahead of me. While I followed the kangaroo's outstretched finger with my eyes, I saw the bear riding away from us at full speed up the road and back towards Tynas.
Meticulously, I put my second hand on the butt of my gun and took aim once again. He was already a good ninety or one hundred feet away and maybe fifty feet from turning around the corner. If I missed, it would have taken me a couple of seconds to reload and, by then, the knight would have already gone around the corner.
My heartbeat almost stopped with apprehension as I pulled the trigger.
Click.
_ _ The knight rode around the bend and out of sight.
"Fuck!" I cursed and continued to pull the trigger repeatedly.
_ Click. Click. Click. Click._
_ _ "What's wrong?" Esme asked me.
I sighed and shoved my gun into its holster. "The rain must have gotten into the bullet shell,"
"So?" Esme demanded. "Just put in another bullet!" "There's more to it than that," I answered her. "If water got inside the chamber where the bullets are, not only will it ruin any other bullets I put in, but it also means that the entire barrel is soaked to, which would completely mess up all of my shots. I'll have to disassemble the whole thing to get the water out,"
"Goddamn it," Esme sighed and looked back ahead at the bend in the road. "He'll get Tynas by noon and be back before dark,"
"With more men," I added. "And I don't think there are many other wolves traveling with kangaroos nearby, so it won't be very hard to find us,"
It was then that I realized that Peter was still hiding behind me. I turned to tell him that everything was all right, but, instead of finding him behind me, I discovered that he was standing directly next to my left side.
My blood began to boil with rage and I started to yell. "How long where you standing there?"
The prince gave me a befuddled look. "What?"
"How long have you been standing there?" "I..." His eyes looked over my shoulder as he thought. "Since you started shooting,"
"What?" I screamed, feeling the hairs on my neck beginning to prickle with fury.
"I thought that I...that I could help,"
Dramatically, I lifted my right arm and pointed down the road to the bend where knight had disappeared. "He probably saw you! Do you know what that means? Capres would have just sent ten knights after Esme and I, but, if that bear saw you, Capres will send twenty or thirty men instead!"
The otter, for once, had nothing to say and looked down at his boots in shame.
"Dante," Esme said, "yelling won't change anything. We gotta get the hell out of here before more of Capres' knights show up,"
A piece of me still wanted to keep screaming at Peter for how much danger he had put us in, especially since all he had to do was stay behind me. Although, I valued my life a great deal, so I heeded the kangaroo's advice.
"Fine," I said. "We can use the horses to get some distance between us and Tynas,"
"Good idea," Esme said, as she moved towards the closest horse, only to hop on top of it in one humungous leap.
I then turned to look at Peter. "Peter?"
The otter finally lifted his head to look up from the ground.
"You'll ride with Esme," I said, as I held out my end of the rope towards him. "If Capres' men show up, I'll try to fight them off so you guys can escape,"
"Okay," Peter uttered sullenly and took the rope from me.
Peter then trotted over to Esme, who turned the upper half of her body so that she could help pull him up. Once the otter's dangling legs were over the back of the horse, Esme lowered him in front of her, setting him on the front edge of the saddle.
"Here," Esme said, as she grabbed the end of Peter's rope that I had given him. "Why don't I tie it around me? That way you don't fall off,"
Peter remained silent and displayed no sign of hearing her. Instead, he merely sat there, staring at the back of the tamed horse's head while Esme tied his rope around her waist.
After I mounted my horse, Esme snapped her reigns and her horse took off at full speed. I did the same and began to follow her closely behind.
While we rode, I contemplated if Peter knew that the real reason I had him ride with Esme was because I didn't feeling like listening to him apologize for the rest of the day. Even if he did say a thousand apologies to me, it wouldn't have made a difference. I was too furious to care about his remorse.