Swords with Souls
A Medieval Fantasy Fiction Story
By Dan Watt
(Author of BARD series)
(Author of the Plagueborn series)
– Adult content –
Three Days Late
At first the forest seemed normal, although always dark and cool. But as he led the children deeper in, he came to a wall of blackthorn bushes with patches of bluebells and forget-me-nots. The blue colored berries of the blackthorn bushes were ripe. As instructed by Lord Idris, he told the children to be careful as they picked the berries, for the stems that held them were full of thorns. As the children picked the berries, he secretly placed a forget-me-not into his mouth. Next, he instructed them to sit while they ate the berries. One by one the children fell into a deep sleep. Careful not to damage the flowers, he gently flicked a number of the bluebell flowers. A thunderous dinging sound erupted all around him and a great headache erupted inside his skull. Lord Idris had warned him not to take any of the berries, and he hadn’t, but now he wished he had.
His eyes watered from the pain behind his eyes but he managed to look up. Someone giant-sized with a long, furry rotund upper body and short stubby legs opened a section of the blackthorn bush with wide splayed hands attached to overly long hairy arms. The person’s belly protruded so much he couldn’t tell if they wore a loin cloth or not, nor if they were male or female. He saw other humanish people hurry through the opening. They picked up the children and carried them back through the gap in the blackthorn bush. Some had the head of goats attached to human torsos and goat’s legs. Others had human heads with goat horns, human torsos above the belly button, and bipedal goat legs below. The air was filled with giant fireflies. So he thought until some flew nearby. Through the blinding light he saw naked men and women with dragonfly wings. He felt himself lifted and carried through the gap.
He was set down between giant mushrooms, some of them actively spewing out spores. Sitting up he glanced around but the forest atmosphere was too dark to see many details. All the daylight colours were now different shades of blue. Diminutive men wearing tall hats circled by a wide belt with a buckle and smoking a pipe glanced his way occasionally. That’s when he noticed that each of the orphans had been placed, like him, near a mushroom. They were all sound asleep. He stood up, unsteady at first. In the distance he saw something that caused him to gasp. Two of the goat people were fornicating beside a bush.
“You can’t stay,” a mezzo-soprano female said from behind him.
He turned away from the goat people only to be taken back again as he stared at a lithe woman with skin that glistened with a mixture of tan and tea green. She was quite short compared to him. Her hair curled around the shells that covered her ample breasts and her nether region. “I’ll not leave the children with molesters,” he said, clenching the handle of his sword.
“The satyr are very sexually active, but not with children. And these children are now part of the faie.” She stepped closer to him, so close he could smell mint on her breath. “You cannot stay. Go in peace or we will take something from you.”
“You are gorgeous,” he said and immediately felt embarrassed at saying something so inappropriate for the circumstances.
She had smiled. “You cannot stay but perhaps we will meet again.” She then put what looked like a small mushroom into her mouth. For a moment he just stood there and watched her chew. Once she stopped chewing, she lifted her chin towards his face and blew out a mist. “You cannot stay but we’ll meet again.”
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