Gears of Troy 2 Read online

  After a moment, I felt her begin to twitch beneath me, her hands struggling to break free. Her moans grew louder, egging me on, and I was happy to oblige. Matanaza practically screamed upon climax, and I half-expected her men to come rushing in to the sight of their precious princess being violated. I thought it best not to linger as they might not realize it was consensual by the way we were positioned.

  She lifted her head for a fierce kiss, grinding against me with echoing desperation. I allowed myself to come hard, watching her eyes go round as she experienced her moment of triumph. I knew she thought she won; that I was simply a man enslaved to my balls, honored to be her royal person for as long as it took to make a deal.

  When my orgasm faded to a memory, I climbed down from the table, not wanting to even allow her the satisfaction of thinking she had succeeded in pleasing me. The debate was over, and there was no question who came out on top.

  “The people of Troy—my people—will never be objects of you or your father’s pleasure. You can tell him to stick that idea up his decaying ass.”

  She hopped to her feet, looking angry but failing to show an ounce of dignity with passion rash streaking her body from my rough kisses.

  “You will be sorry for this, Troy!” she shouted.

  My back was to her then. I had already zipped my pants and was walking out the door, waving her words away with a careless swing of my arm.

  She continued after me, saying, “The Hittite empire will burn Troy—and your pathetic Port Superior—to the ground!”

  She had chased me out of the room and was standing in the bright morning sun. All eyes were on us as she made her empty threats, shaking her fists in the air. I could not have hoped for a better start to the day. Not only did I have more information to go on in search of a cure for Priam, but I also left an enemy princess red in the face and exposed with her perky chest bouncing around in full view of a handful of her soldiers.

  7

  The Hittites were quick to leave after the exchange, clearly not wanting their princess to suffer anymore embarrassment. Matanaza crossed her arms over her bare chest and watched me from the tail of their barge until they were out of sight.

  The Thirians howled with laughter, all four sets of hands clapping me on the back in praise.

  “You are a legend, Troy!” shouted Linos. “What shall we do now that that is done?”

  The next course of action seemed simple: we still did not have a cure, so we would continue our search for an Egyptian vessel along the coast. The Princess gave no sign that the Egyptians had anything to do with the curse, but I wanted to seek them out and know for sure if they could help or not. Even she seemed to think there was a chance that they would recognize the magic. It seemed easier and quicker than the alternative, which was to charge into Hittite lands and demand a cure from the people of Hattusa. I was not about to find myself neck-deep in enemy territory if I could help it, and it would likely take more time than we had to spare.

  We carried on south, our tensions mounting as the sky grew dark. The last thing we needed was a storm, but, as it were, nature didn’t give a rat’s ass about what we needed.

  The torrent fell upon us, rivaling the rage of the woman I had just left behind. My ship knocked about at the mercy of the waves, each one towering skyward at a minimum of five stories. At each’s trough, we plummeted time and again down to the dark surface of the water, the crashing of our hull itself booming like thunder. My skull chattered at each crescendo of this deadly opera.

  Needless to say, the winds tugged us far from our course. How far, I could not guess, but the shore was no longer in sight, which itself was a foreboding thought. I tried not to dwell on it, my main focus being to keep everyone alive and the ship in one piece. I yelled for the men to grab the ropes of the sails with me, and we heaved them this way and that, trying to neutralize the force of the winds and the crashing of the waves coming at us like backhanded slaps from Poseidon himself. If the god existed, I wanted to have a few words with him when the whole ordeal was over.

  We went up and came down time and again. Up. Boom! Up. Boom! My men and I held the ropes tight, and I prayed we’d come out all right. There were several times I closed my eyes as cannonballs of water rained down and thought about how so much of a hero’s journey relied on luck, or fate, or whatever anyone wanted to call it. It would only be pure chance if we made it through this, but I was sure it would be recorded and retold as if it were one of the legendary feats that I miraculously pulled off in my quest to save the King, if indeed I was able to save him. Such aspects were common in legends, especially those of the Greeks, where tales were told of the hundreds of times their heroes received some support from a god or goddess that favored them, allowing them to overcome surmounting odds in moments of despair. What I wouldn’t have given for some godly favor right then in the face of another god’s apparent wrath.

  The wind screamed in my ear, like the screech of a thousand harpies reminding me of all my sins, explaining that I brought this horrible fate upon myself and had no option left but to deal with the consequences. I tried to block it all out, several times reminded of Odysseus strapped to the mast of his own ship, tortured by the cries of the sirens in the midst of a storm.

  Wham! A mass of water slammed into my face like a cinderblock, sending me to the rails. I heard the shouts of my companions and looked to make sure that they were all still on board. The threat of being lost to sea was very real, and I did not think many Thirians even knew how to swim, not that it would have done them much good there.

  Wham! Again, I was met with the force of a stone shot from a cannon, this time as I was already braced against the railing. It knocked me from my feet, and I was faced with the decision of maintaining my grip on the rope or chancing a better grip on the rail with less of a distance to pull myself up. I decided that the rope would be my safest bet and took it overboard with me. I thought I heard the panicked screams of my men, but was not sure if it was only the wind, never relinquishing its self-righteous accusations.

  I held on for my life, my body bashing against the side of the ship as it tossed about the waves. A hand reached down from over the edge, and I looked to see Linos desperately stretching for me.

  “Go back!” I shouted. “Save yourself! I can do this!”

  I didn’t think he heard me, but if he did, he did not listen.

  “Grab!” I heard him command. His belly was extended all the way over the edge at that point. It would have taken a lot less force than I’d met to send him over. A determined gust of wind alone might have done the trick well enough.

  Now, I did not only have to worry about my own safety, but that of my Thirian friend as well, and I was not about to lose the life of another chief. Artession’s death was painful enough.

  The ship ascended upward at the behest of another towering tidal wave. This was my chance, and I knew even a success was going to hurt like hell. Slowly, so slowly that it felt like an eternity in those crucial seconds, the Moonshadow rode the water elevator up to its peak like a rollercoaster climbing to the top of its rails, building the suspense until its riders could hardly bear it.

  The waved rolled on, and we dropped down for the hundredth time as if a trapdoor in the floor had suddenly swung open beneath us. I kicked away from the hull with all the strength my legs could muster and used the rope to swing me above the ship, praying that I would land on deck instead of over the other side. I pulled it off, the whole thing happening so fast that I was only able to process it several moments after the fact. My intention was to wrap the line around Linos on my descent using it to pull him away from the edge, but I knew that was a longshot. That did not work out as I had hoped, but he was still on the ship and that was all that mattered. The Chief hurried over to me and lifted me to my feet.

  “You are amazing, Troy!” he shouted over the torrent. “I have never seen another like you!”

  The praise was starting to wear on me, but I was grateful for it, knowing T
hirians did not pass it out lightly. Though, I was sure he could have pulled off the same stunt if he were in my position.

  “Grab back hold!” I commanded, tightening my grip on my own rope. My hand had almost come loose in all the action. The water was making it difficult to keep the line from snaking away in the middle of all the tugging.

  In the next instant, we were all back to our original positions, and I resumed my prayers. It stayed that way for the rest of the storm. Time lost its meaning as we fought for control of the boat. What felt like an hour could have only been a few minutes as there was nothing to mark the passage from one moment to the next in our constant game of tug-of-war.

  A time came when I felt my arms giving slack, and I came to terms with the idea that I might not make it out alive, but soon after, the storm began to weaken until it finally faded, growing tired of tormenting us. I supposed storms needed rest, too.

  No epic journey was complete, I thought, without at least one fierce battle with nature. I had hoped this storm was my adventure getting its fight with the environment out of the way early. I was doubtful I could do that again without a week or two to recover.

  When it had all finally settled, the five of us were bent over and gulping in air, our hands propped against our knees. I looked at Linos and laughed out of sheer joy. It had been a while since I faced what I thought would be my death.

  “Well,” I said, my breath slowing to a more tolerable pace, “let’s figure out what to do from here.”

  I walked over to the dash to consult the compass. We would need to head east to get back to the mainland, but there was no telling how far. That ignored the fact that we also did not know if the storm had taken us south past our destination or north backward to Troy. We would have to worry about that when we found land.

  The sky cleared as we sailed on, and I discovered that the storm had carried us into the night. My ship’s console had a clock on it, but it had quit functioning ages ago, and I had never bothered to get it fixed. That was a minor annoyance in the moment, but the time of day was little more than a curiosity to me then.

  It was probably an hour or so before we spotted land. It was Scander who saw it first on the eastern horizon. My hopes were high, but we soon discovered that this was not the mainland, only a close group of three or four islands. My ship had, to my amazement, only suffered minor damage, but it was not completely cosmetic. I decided it would be best to land and patch up the holes with the supplies I had onboard. Perhaps there would even be people there who were able to point us in the right direction.

  I was not disappointed. A group of some two dozen islanders came to greet us as we made land. They explained that their people, who had small settlements on all but one of the four islands, were not aligned with any political power and often traded with any empire that crossed their shores. They offered to take us back to their village and trade, and I thought it would be a good idea to see what kind of food and other supplies they had to offer. Unlike the Thirians, these islanders were dressed in garb common to the nations of the mainland and spoke the common tongue with only slight variations in their dialect.

  They led us to their settlement, the five of use carrying things from the ship we were willing to barter with—some extra rope, a few swords, a floatation device (I had several more), and a couple of meal packs. We did not have much on hand, but I did not expect to be in immediate need of anything they would offer us. It was the kinds of items I assumed—jewelry, clothing, tools, and food for the most part. We only traded a few things for some of their food. They offered us lodgings for the duration of our stay, for a price, but I preferred to keep an eye on my boat and hoped it would not take longer than a day to make repairs.

  Their accommodations did seem cozy from what I saw though. Their architecture favored wood over stone unlike what was common to structures on the mainland, but everything looked carefully planned and constructed using the materials available to them. I could not say the same for the former home of my Thirian friends who were accustomed to living in meager huts of mud and clay. That was not to say I thought less of them for it; their lifestyle was simply an expression of their hardy nature.

  The repairs took more work than my first assessment led me to believe, but there were no complications that prevented me from patching everything up with what I had. The most painful part of the whole process was draining all the water from the galley and drying everything off once that was done. My mattress, for one, was soaked to the core. I bent it over the edge and squeezed as much water from it as I could, but there was no getting it totally dry in the time I was willing to spend on the island. It was most likely going to get moldy before we found our way back to Troy, but that was something I decided to worry about later.

  The islanders were very hospitable, but they were always looking for a way to make a little coin. It turned out that they used the currency of several empires, including the drachma found in Troy, Greece, and Sparta. Constant trade with many nations kept the people abreast of exchange rates. That might have been good information to know before my men and I hauled armfuls of stuff to town to barter with, but it was only a minor annoyance. It occurred to me that maybe they valued the items we brought to barter more than our silver because they could turn around and trade our items to any nationality that came for a visit.

  On more than one occasion each day, I was met with a villager or two, hands out, asking if there was anything that they could do for us—bring some food back from the village, help with the ship, tell us stories. There was even a young woman who came and offered herself to each of us in exchange for a modest fee. On a normal day, I probably would have accepted, but their persistence was wearing on me at that point, so I turned her away, still satisfied with my most recent sexual encounter and also not wanting to feed into these people’s nagging.

  By noon of the third day, I decided that the repairs were as good they were going to get. The sun had not been able to dry everything to my satisfaction, but I did not want to waste any more time. The holes were patched, and that was the main thing.

  Just as we were about to slide the ship back into the water and set sail, we were met once again by a team of villagers. This time there were six of them. I assumed it was one last sales pitch, so I was admittedly dismissive, giving them a half-assed, over-the-shoulder wave as I climbed aboard.

  One of them called after me, saying, “Beware of the serpent that stalks the waters here!”

  That got my attention. This was the first I had heard about any serpent. I expected the next words out of this man’s mouth to be that they could keep it away from my ship for a price.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. The man had drawn in the Thirians’ attention, too.

  “A massive serpent was spotted not far from the shores of our islands. It has swallowed two of our small fishing boats in a month’s time.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, sir. It is a very serious matter. Luckily, you are the first trader to travel to our shores since it was seen, but we fear our home’s livelihood will suffer if it is not taken care of soon. No one will wish to trade with us at the risk of dying.”

  “How do you know it’s still out there? It could have moved on, right? I mean, it came from somewhere. Maybe it went back to wherever that was.”

  “This is true, but we do not know if it is still near or not. We have only come just now to give you a warning and implore you to slay the damned thing if you happen across it.”

  It sounded like I might not have any option but to fight it if it showed up. I was reluctant to though. I did not have any time to spare to handle these people’s problems and shuddered at the thought of having to spend even more time repairing my ship after a bout with some sea snake.

  “If I see it, I’ll take care of it,” I said.

  “Thank you, sir! We will pay you handsomely for its skin if you can manage to bring it back to shore.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I sai
d, having absolutely no intention of hauling some big-ass snake back in the opposite direction of where I was heading. “How big would you say it is?”

  “I am not sure. Those that got the best look at it are no longer alive. It is big enough to break a rowboat that fits four in half.”

  That was not helpful at all. “What do you mean, like with its mouth or with its body?”

  “Its mouth, I believe.”

  That was not comforting. “Yeah, I’ll see what I can do.”

  We set sail, and I crossed my fingers, hoping against anymore unnecessary interruptions.

  8

  Our luck had not turned around yet. Before the islands were out of sight, Linos called our attention to ripples in the water off the starboard side.

  “What do you think the chances are that that’s not the serpent the islanders mentioned?” I asked, knowing very well that I was always cursed to meet the toughest challenge my adventure could throw at me.

  As we watched the ripples grow larger and more rapid, I remembered when I first awoke in this strange land. Back then, over a year ago, I entertained the idea that I was stuck against my will in some immersive videogame experience. The suspicion faded over time, but I every so often something would happen that brought it back to the forefront of my mind. This situation—hearing about this leviathan, this “boss fight,” and then immediately coming up against the thing—was one of those times. It had the word “quest” written all over. I just hoped the reward was worth it.

  Just as I had finished my musings, the beast’s head broke through to the surface, spraying us with an explosive burst of water. In all honesty, it was not as big as I expected, but it was worse than I had hoped. Its head was about the size of the floatation device we bartered a few days back—big enough to tear a chunk out of a small boat and definitely swallow a person whole. At least three rows of dagger-sized fangs lined its mouth, and I begged the gods that the monster was not venomous, not that I was likely to survive a successful bite either way.