Wild Wastes 5 - CH 19- (Patreon)

Vince waited, crouched down and keeping himself out of sight. Next to him was Fes, the two of them nestled up against a wall. It was deep in shadows and there was no light from any nearby buildings that made it here.

Fes and Elizabeth had scouted out the area while Vince remained with Ynes in the inn. Where they sat around, talked, listened to people around them, drank a bit, ate dinner, and then he left.

They’d planned for Ynes to follow along an hour after that, which meant they weren’t long from when she’d show up. Preferably with all the soldiers who meant her ill in tow.

“I’m excited,” Fes confessed, turning her head and looking at him. Her longsword was laid on the ground in front of them in it’s sheath. It was simply too big to be on her hip without striking the wall they were up against.

“Why’s that, my beloved Fes?” asked Vince, glancing over at Berenga.

Grinning at him, Fes leaned in and kissed him briefly.

“It’s been a while since I had a chance to travel with you like this. To fight by your side and lay waste to our enemies,” she continued quietly. “Everything got so caught up in itself that I couldn’t get away. Then our daughter came into our lives… being the Fes… getting wounded… and everything else. It just stol my time away.

“I think… after our son is born I’ll have to settle down again. As long as I have a Dryad with me to help hold things back a bit, this’ll be alright. Yarie is doing the same, as is Caroline and a few others.

“They’re all trying to get their kids to come at the same time as our son. So they’re all born in a wave and can be with one another. Just like what happened with Berest and her group. It worked out rather well, really.”

Vince couldn’t deny that having the kids in waves was definitely making cohorts out of them. They’d have their group of siblings, up or down a couple years, for most of their lives.

Though realistically, he could see Meliae’s hand in this. Encouraging, pushing, problem solving whatever came up. Getting Caroline to delay her pregnancy and more or less remaining pregnant while already quite large.

For whatever plan Meliae put in front of her.

“Our little Dryad queen is terrifying. These pregancies, the waves of kids, all the Dryads working in concert in the background. It’s all Meliae at it’s heart. Everything she garnered from her mother, the world, and then her own innate talent,” Vine remarked, holding Fes’ eyes. “I’m not sure any of my personal life would have worked out without her doing what she does.”

“Probably… not. I would have given up on being a kind Fes, and would have been an Orc Fes,” admitted Berenga with a curious tone. “Driving out or killing anyone that didn’t agree with every choice I made for the family. Making it stronger, in one sense, but weakening it in another.”

Then Fes chuckled and shrugged her shoulders and grinned at him.

“Meliae is my confidant. I tell her everything. She listens, hears, and consults with me on even the pettiest of my issues,” Fes murmured. Vince had indeed noticed that Fes and Meliae often had long chats in private. They weren’t out and about with one another as bossom buddies or the like, but clearly they were in lockstep when it came to guiding the family. Now he knew why. “I’ll have to make sure I buy her a souvenir. Though I do think—”

Fes’ voice trailed off at the same time Vince felt Ynes coming their way. She was moving at a fast trot down the alley that led into this dead end. As if she were being pursued but she wasn’t quite ready to sprint.

When he got eyes on her, he also saw she was looking backward the way she’d come. Her steps heavy and almost uneven. Looking quite the part of a scared young woman at what was happening around her.

A small bend in the alley broke her line of sight from those who were more than likely after her, which triggered an immediate change in Ynes.

Her head snapped forward, the panicked look on her face bled away, and a stony and flat smile sprang up. Her eyes were void of anything at all. There wasn’t an emotion there.

Ah… there’s Ynes the Dryad who was forced to be a soldier and guardsman. I wonder how long it’ll take for that to be pushed out of her heart.

If ever, in fact.

Ynes jogged past the two of them, though her smiled warmed considerably as her eyes flitted over Vine. She kept moving and then ducked in tight behind a shattered pillar.

Vince had the impression this area used to be some sort of auditorium that’d been built for the city. Slowly making way for the city and being built around, in some cases over, and having a great deal of it’s material stolen.

All that remained was a few benches, a shallow bowl, broken bits of discarded furniture, and trash.

“She’s so in love with you that it’s kinda funny,” murmured Fes, still smiling. Apparently Ynes absolute doting behavior for him, even with her right next to him, was amusing to her. “I like her. We were talking about weapons on the way over. Best usage and stuff.”

It’s almost like there’s two Ynes in the same body.

One adorably cute and quite girly, the other absolutely lethal and well-versed in combat.

Given that she isn’t into feeling pain all the time, still wants warm, cuddly, vanilla sex, maybe she really is a woman of two minds.

“Here we go. I’m so… excited. Let’s have sex after this,” growled Fes, shifting her weight around.

As soon as it kicked off, Elizabeth would be jumping down from the roof somewhere along the alleyway. Sealing off the soldier’s line of retreat and penning them in.

“Sure, but not here you bloodythirsty monster,” Vince agreed, reaching over to run a hand over Fes’ rear end. He knew she got incredibly excited and aroused from fighting. Touching her would only make it worse for her, but better later, too. “You’ll wait for a bed, we won’t be wrestling for it, and I’m going to love you tenderly.”

“Ahhh… but… okay, husband,” demured Fes, a warm and bashful look flickering across her face before it vanished. “I don’t mind that. It’s a bit embarrassing but… uhm, I do enjoy it… when you treat me delicately.

“So, yes. Yes, tonight that’s fine. Okay. Time-time to fight.”

For Fes, she’s embarassed to be loved.

Ynes, mortified to get herself beat up.

Yet it’s both what they want at the same time.

Sex is such an interesting and weird thing.

“Where’d you go pretty thing?” called a voice from where Ynes had entered from. “You could have made this easier on all of us if you’d stopped earlier. Now we’re stuck in this nasty pit back here. Your shoulders are going to get wrecked.”

There was a general laughter that came with that statement. One that caused Vince to feel a heavy and righteous anger rise up inside of himself.

“I thought you wanted to be delicate,” murmured Fes, her hand landing atop his on her rear end. He’d started gripping at her as if he were about to throw her down to the ground and wrestle her into sex. All because he let his anger get the better of him. “I’m not in the mood for fighting you in bed after this now. So get that out of your system here and now.”

Soldiers walked into view at that point. There was at least ten that he could see, but he felt like there was another group that was trailing along behind this one. Whether to join the first, stop it, or wait for their own turn, he had no idea.

“Hurry up, and make this easy on us. You’ve got even more ‘clients’ to take care of after us,” called another soldier. “Faster we get this over with, the better for everyone.”

Yeah, no, they can all die.

Bluff or not, I don’t care anymore.

Fes beat him to action, however. She’d stood up and started walking toward the nearest soldiers. Her sword was ripped free of it’s sheathe and was held up and at her side.

“Rapists,” she hissed and swung her blade in a horizontal slash with one hand. Her prosthetic hand carried even more strength than her original limb did. Making her rather frightening to deal with.

The blade crunched through the shoulder of a soldier, then his neck. It kept going and hit a second solder, catching him in the upper arm and bisecting it outright.

Only to get lodged in the man’s torso and stuck there.

Vince had noticed in that moment that her blade looked a lot like his own now. Mr. White had apparently decided she needed a weapon that could match his own.

Having stood up a second after Fes did, Vince was on the group of soldiers even as she attacked them. Lunging forward with his sword.

He caught the closest soldier in the middle. The blade cleaving the armor, flesh, and bone neatly. Striking down to their heart.

Jerking the weapon free Vince drew back with his hand partially and then flicked it to the side, giving the end of his sword a vicious and snappy movement.

The cutting edge slashed through an armored forearm cleanly. The hand and wrist of that soldier’s arm fell away and landed on the ground with a soft thud.

Fes had already brought her big weapon around and casually deflected an attack against her left side, then launched a counter that cleaved the man’s head off from the jaw up.

Ynes came out of the shadows then, a short steel shod club in each hand. He’d noticed them at her sides previously but hadn’t really thought about them since.

A soldier had turned to face her on the approach and threw out a fairly well practiced slice with their weapon. Aimed at Ynes middle it was a good attack that’d land more often than not.

One club snapped out to strike the weapon coming her way at the midpoint along the cutting edge. There was a clang followed by the upper portion of the sword swishing past Ynes.

The cold and merciless smile on her face didn’t falter as the weapon broke. As if she’d done this often and had expected the result.

Her left foot slid forward and her body rotated, the second club coming around to crack into the man’s helmeted temple. There was a crunching of metal like noise that was accompanied by a sharp pop, followed by the man going limp and hitting the ground.

Ynes glided forward and whipped a club into the back of the head of a man who was struggling on his knees. Then stomped a booted foot down on the man’s neck with her next step.

Feisty and lethal.

Vince took the opportunity of the next soldier in his view of being distracted and calmly pushed out a lunge. The sword taking the man low in the guts when he unexpectedly took a step backward.

Yanking the blade down and away, Vince was fairly certain the man’s guts would be tumbling free shortly. Leaving no one standing in the group he and Fes had engaged.

Turning, he looked back down the alley to try and figure out where the other group was.

Elizabeth stood like an instrument of death at the mouth where the area opened and widened out. Only two soldiers stood in front of her, all the rest were laid out on the ground. Squirming about in puddles of blood or unmoving.

The two that were standing were impaled on Elizbeth’s spear. One through the chest, the other through the head. The weapon was bending in the weight, though the Platinum Dragon didn’t seemed botherd by it and held the spear in one hand. Her other hand was empty and she had an odd countenance.

Somewhere between shock and boredom.

Shaking her arm to the left, then right, she dislodged to the two soldiers. Then lifted her spear up and began executing all the fallen and wounded that were laid about on the stones.

“That’s that,” Vince said and looked back to Fes and Ynes.

The latter of which nudged a soldier’s head to one side, then bashed it in with an overhead chop of her steel club. Followed by her booted foot stamping down across their throat.

Fes looked to him with a wide smile, blood splattered visibly across her face.

“A simple and somewhat boring fight, but enjoyable still!” she said and stabbed her sword into the back of a soldier and then left it there. She tore a guard’s surcoat off and began dabbing it at her face and arms. “It’s good to be in the thick of things again. I do have to confess that I did enjoy being on the tactics and strategy side with Petra and Meliae at the same time. Even politics with Yarie isn’t that burdensome anymore.”

Ynes said nothing but moved to the next moaning soldier.

Then brought the club down on the face. Everything crumpling inward under the weight of the blow, but killing them. Ynes proceeded to begin beating at their chest, breaking and crushing their ribs with the blows.

The cold and frightening smile ever present even as she obliterated the man.

I wonder if she isn’t a Human Dryad but something else.

Hm.

Should ask her or Dea about it sometime.

***

Sitting in a row, Vince, Fes, and Elizabeth watched as soldiers ran one way down a street, Then up from a different one.

Only to rush back off in a different direction with a new squad of people amongst their ranks.

All the while citizens were looking concerned and upset as the whole thing started to unfold. As rumors about what’d happened began to spread about and how a bunch of soldiers had gone after an attractive woman.

That they were going to go out and more than likely rape her to death, then dump the body somewhere. Chalking it up to a violent crime and making it out to be nothing.

Only to have all the soldiers be murdered, stripped, and left out in the open.

Each of them with a large nail slammed through their forhead with a paper note that read “rapist” on it.

Or at least, that was the rumor they’d all spread when they made the rounds this morning. Talking to each other and doing it loud enough that other’s would over hear it.

Ynes was back at the camp right now, just in case someone could pick her out as the one the soldiers had been after. Admittedly Vince was also a possible connection, but they were counting on everyone remembering Ynes, and forgetting Vince.

Comparatively, he was much more forgetable than her.

“Seems like it’s working,” Elizabeth remarked as a squad of soldiers stopped in front of a home, than began pounding on the door. Vince couldn’t make out what was shouted, but it didn’t sound friendly. “Who’ll take the next step, you think?”

So long as they all spoke in Draconic, there wouldn’t be anyone who could actually overhear them.

On this continent, the only Dragons that existed were probably all part of Yosemite.

“Soldiers,” answered Fes with a nod of her head. “They’ll react violently and try to cover everything up with blood and more blood. Eliminate anyone and everyone that could be linked to it.”

“Us,” Vince counter claimed then took in a short breath. “Both sides are going to warily stare at one another. Wondering what the other will do. Neither of them wanting to really make the first move just in case the Tribunal or the king gets involved later.

“That way they can say they weren’t to blame. That they weren’t the ones who started it all. Plausible deniability. Which means we’ll need to strip it from them. Both of them. Make them very aware of what the other wants to do so they have to act for their own good.”

“That sounds unpleasant,” muttered Fes.

“Probably will be. We’ll just have to do it while causing the least amount of problems. For the citizens side… I’m betting there’s collaborators,” continued Vince. “And where there’s collaborators, there’s people who are doing it for bribes, money, or favors. All of which often lead back to someone who wouldn’t be welcome on one side or the other.

“Just have to find someone working for the military, that the citizenry doesn’t suspect. Someone that would be better dead than alive anyways. Then… do that. Make the death look like the military did it. Erase and remove any evidence that’d give them the appearance of having been a collaborator. Maybe make them even look like they were fighting for the citizens.

“Really stir it all up an dmake it confusing. Confusing, messy, and no one knows who’s on what side. We’ll just have to do our best to make sure the damage and problems doesn’t fall on the citizens too much. Even then though… some losses would be acceptable if it helps with our goal of destabilizing the region.

“After that… probably a good time to blow up a depot or three. Set the whole thing off with a nice… big… bang.”

Elizabeth and Fes nodded their heads to that as the soldiers took someone with them and rushed off.

“Which means you and I, Elizabeth, need to go some recon work. Figure out who’s working for the wrong side, and get this moving,” Vince said. “Fes… you’d probably do better causing a ruckus in the nearby military camps and patrols with Ynes.”

“I like it,” concurred Fes. “We’ll do that but I’ll be with you rather than Elizabeth. She and Ynes can do that type of destruction work just as well as I could, and it’ll be good for her to be there rather than me. She can read their thoughts, while you do the same here. That way we’re getting information from both ends of this one.”

“Oh… yeah. Good thing you’re as beautiful as you are smart, Fes,” Vince offered, looking at the Orc.

“You sure are full of flattery as of late, Husband. Something you want?” asked the Orc, eying him suspiciously.

“He wants to bed you,” Elizabeth answered while gnawing at what looked a lot like a chicken leg. She’d bought it from a street vendor. “He reeks of desire and I know at least half of it is directed at you, Fes. All that cuddling, kissing, and hugging you gave him last night has him unable to concentrate. He’s been churning for more of you ever since then.”

“Is he now,” purred the Orc, her eyes boring into his face. “Apparently… I should play Human wife as often as you play Orc husband, Vince.”