Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 11
by Christopher D. Carter, © 2014
Text and Illustration Copyright © 2014 Christopher D. Carter
All Rights Reserved
Also by Christopher D. Carter available at ebook retailers:
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 1
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 2
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 3
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 4
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 5
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 6
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 7
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 8
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 9
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound 10
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound Annual 1
Uncanny Tales of Crush and Pound Annual 2
Discover other titles by Christopher D. Carter at
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Next Issue
About the Author
Chapter 1
*
The Crossing of the River
*
The bag swayed gently back and forth like a hammock at Beni’s side, and Crush and Simon rested for a time at the bottom of the sack as Beni followed Mouchard through the forest. The giantess was careful to keep a safe distance between her and the giant warrior, but she was also careful not to let on that she was skeptical of his intentions. The incident with the sword a few hours earlier that morning had convinced her that though Mouchard pretended to be her brother and protector, he certainly was not someone that she could trust. Oddly enough, she felt closer and more trusting of the tiny human that lay trapped within the bag at her side than she did of the giant which she now followed.
With Mouchard’s eyes distracted in search of malcoons behind every tree, Beni took the opportunity to open the bag, and she reached inside to snatch hold of the tiny DAM field agent. She plucked him out gently, and then she lifted Crush up to her shoulder to see if he was more comfortable there than in the bag. He grabbed hold of her shirt and sat on her trapezius when she let go of him. Simon, too, escaped the bag and scampered up her forearm. Beni flinched in surprise at the monkey’s escape, and when she saw the furry creature crawling up her arm, she gasped and stepped backward with a start. This sudden motion had the intended effect of impeding Simon’s progress, and an altogether unintended effect of destabilizing Crush’s hold on her shoulder. With an awkward slide forward, the field agent skidded down the front of Beni’s shirt, beneath the fold of the fabric, and into her ample cleavage. Beni puffed out a sigh of irritation at the unexpected visitor beneath her blouse, and her exclamation drew Mouchard’s unwanted attention. He turned around and looked back at the giantess as she stood embarrassed several arm lengths away. She quickly put her arms behind her back to hide the open bag and the crawling monkey, and she smiled as her face turned red with embarrassment. Crush, who had been struggling to escape from between the enormous bosoms, stood still as he sensed the giant warrior turn on his heel, and he waited for a signal from Beni that everything was okay.
“Are you getting tired, Beni?” Mouchard asked as she stepped forward another pace to continue through the forest.
“Oh, uh, no. No. I am right behind you,” she said as she nodded and waited for him to continue onward. She was not sure whether he had taken notice of anything suspicious or not, and she began to sing a soft song as she waited patiently for him to move ahead. Mouchard’s eyebrows furrowed suspiciously, but he must not have been very distrustful because he quickly turned forward and marched ahead through the forest. With a quick shift of her hand, she reached inside her shirt and freed the human from her chest. Though she was reluctant to, she then placed him back inside the bag for more safekeeping. Simon sensed the danger as well, and without her persuasion, the monkey crawled back inside the bag with his friend. With the rim of the bag in her fist, she held them both up in front of her face as she walked ahead, and she projected her thoughts to Crush.
“For your safety, you will have to stay in the bag for now. I will try to be as gentle as I can, little man,” she spoke to Crush with her mind. Crush simply nodded his approval and winked at her through the twine of the bag.
“I wish every attempted rescue were that interesting,” Crush thought to himself as he sat down to relax in the pouch. Beni strode out ahead to catch up with Mouchard, and she wondered at the aggressiveness of his pace. He had increased speed, yet there seemed to be no clear reason for the sudden rush.
“You seem in such a hurry,” she said, stating the obvious as she struggled to keep up with the giant. Mouchard turned his head for a moment, and their eyes exchanged glances.
“There is little time to waste. Daylight will fade away and I do not fancy staying in this forest overnight,” he said as he looked ahead. “There are other things that live here, and we would do well to avoid them at all costs.”
“Really? What things?” she asked without hesitation. She thought that if she pretended to show fear, his trust in her would increase. Mouchard did not acknowledge her questions at first, but after a few paces, he shrugged his shoulders.
“Just things,” he mumbled to himself.
An insufficient answer, she thought, and she knew that she would have to make some changes happen before long. Under her breath, Beni began to sing that same sweet song that she had crooned earlier that morning, and she continued to follow the giant through the woods with a heavy heart. Her voice grew in magnitude as they walked through the forest, and Mouchard suddenly turned his attention to her as her voice travelled over the wood. His eyebrows furled, and his visage changed suddenly as if fear were taking over his determined attitude. Crush had not been present with Mouchard when he was cornered by the malcoons, and he thought it odd when the giant placed a finger to his lips, motioning for her to be quiet. Beni ignored his request and finished out her song over the dampness of the wooded air. A look of anger passed across his face, and Mouchard placed one hand on his sword handle. He then reached out with the other hand to forcefully grab the forearm in which Beni held the bag of prisoners. Crush snatched the sides of the bag with his claws to steady himself, and he watched as Beni bellowed out her song even louder in the face of the giant warrior.
“Quiet, woman!!” Mouchard commanded as he drew his sword from its scabbard, and Beni winced as his grip tightened on her wrist. Crush watched as the heated confrontation grew to a boil, and if he could have intervened in the troubles of giants, he certainly would have. But he was no more than a handful at best so he chose to watch events unfold. A rustling came through the woods, and in the blink of an eye, Mouchard was lifted from his feet and carried into the nearby brush on the antlers of a charging malcoon. The giant had not released Beni’s wrist at first, and she was jerked around with the impact, swinging the bag that held Crush and Simon against her waist. A scream of terror came from the bushes where Mouchard had landed, and when Crush had regained composure, he watched the leaves fly up into the air from just behind a tree. Then Mouchard emerged with a desperate leap from the underbrush, empty handed as he sprinted to the nearest evergreen and hurriedly scaled the lower limbs to get out of the reach of the bull that charged close behind. For the first time in quite a while, Crush busted out into open laughter, as if all of the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders and placed on someone else. He and Simon cackled as Mouchard climbed ever higher in the tree and shouted down to Beni.
“I told you to be quiet! Now look what you’ve done!” the warrior giant exclaimed as he looked over h
is shoulder at her from up in the tree. Beni stepped over to the broad shoulders of the wild beast that held the giant at bay and gently stroked its fur.
“I have always believed in the power of song,” she said to him as the malcoon’s head wheeled slowly toward her. Its eyes melted at her glance, and she began to hum her song once more. Beni touched its wet nose with her fingertip, and she kissed its forehead. The animal then sighed a breath of calm before returning its gaze to Mouchard. The giant looked helpless up in the tree, and it was a welcome sight to all. Apparently, in the process of wrestling with the beast, the giant had dropped his sword, and Beni made sure to pick it up from the ground before leaving him stranded.
“You will regret this, princess!!” he called out to her with a fist raised in the air. Then he realized that he had goofed, and he placed his free hand over his mouth at the slip of her true position in life. Beni caught the word, and looked at him once again in the tree.
“Princess? Of what?” she inquired. It was too late for her to expect an answer from him, having trapped him up a tree, but she thought that it could not hurt to ask. The angry part of his personality held itself at bay, and he serenely refused to answer her question. “So be it, then,” she said and with a wave of her hand, she paced off alone into the forest, leaving the giant trapped in the forest with a very flustered malcoon waiting for his descent to the ground below.
Beni trekked onward through the woodland until she was safely out of Mouchard’s sight. When she felt at ease, she sat down and rested at the base of a nearby tree. She untied the bag that held Crush and Simon, and she let them go free upon the ground to return to their mission. Crush, however, was not so certain that his mission and her future were not entwined in some way, and he lingered by her side as she rested by the tree trunk.
“You may go, little one,” she said. “You are free.” Crush hesitated as if he was looking for the right words, and then he knelt down on one knee at her side.
“My lady,” he spoke kindly to her. “We are both alone in this world, and if it would please you, I would like to travel with you to your home.” Beni listened to his request thoughtfully, and she smiled at his kindness.
“My home. I am beginning to remember a few things, but home is not one of them. Where is it that you think my home is?” she posed.
“Not long ago, I passed through a castle. Not just any castle, though. It was a castle built by your people,” he said as he began to describe his adventure to her. “There was a pendant which I picked up in the castle, and it seemed that your face, or one very much in the likeness of your features, was on the pendant. I took the pendant and carried it as a shield into the cave of the dragon where it was damaged by the dragon’s fiery breath. It served its purpose by saving my life, but reluctantly, I had to leave the pendant behind. Oddly enough, you appeared not long after. Do you remember why you were in that cave? Did you see the dragon or the pendant?” he asked, and she closed her eyes and thought for a moment as she considered his tale.
“Though the cave was dark save for the light of the dragon fire, I did see a tiny pendant at my feet upon the ground. It is as far as I can remember. There is very little else that comes to my mind except flashes of faces in a pale green light that come to my mind,” she answered as she closed her eyes again. When she opened them up again, she regarded Crush with much respect. “What is this puzzle?” she inquired of him, yet he had no clear answer to her past either.
“I do not know, but together we could find out. On the other side of the river and onward through another forest, the castle of the giants stands with a prison full of humans confined within its borders. I intend to free those prisoners and to take them back with me to my home. This world is fine for giants, but I fear that it is no place for men. If it would please you, we could travel there together, to the source of the pendant, and we could attempt to uncover any misdeeds that may have befallen you,” Crush explained.
“So you believe that I was ensnared in a tiny pendant?” she laughed. “That is a silly notion, indeed, small warrior.”
“As silly as you talking to me in my mind with no words spoken? As frivolous as trilling a song that can summon a beast, my lady?” Crush invited. The smile never left her face as she pondered Crush’s words.
“Perhaps there is truth to what you say,” she offered. “If it was some magic or ill will that held me captive within the cameo, how then am I to face that magic alone?”
“You won’t be alone, princess,” Crush said as he retrieved the crumpled up four-leaf clover from his pocket. He held it out and waited for her to take it. “This gift is something special in my world. Please take it for your own,” he continued. She reached down with her palm turned up, and Crush placed the clover in the center of her hand and backed away. She closed her hand and brought it up to her face where she could examine the speck more closely. When she placed a finger on it, the clover became wedged between the creases of her enormous fingerprint, and she wondered why Crush would feel that this dried up plant specimen held such importance. As a princess, she had never been presented with a gift that was so tiny, and certainly her sister would have been angered by the idea of receiving what looked to be lint from one’s pocket . . .
“My sister . . .” she said in a calm voice as she remembered. It was all coming back to her, and all because of the gift from the human. “Crush,” Beni spoke as she looked down at him, “I remember. All of the memories are there. Queen Dowager locked me in the cameo out of jealousy. She was the queen, and there would be no other to stand against her,” she said as she reached down with her open hand for Crush and Simon to jump inside. Once they had stepped onto her palm, she lifted them up to eye level where she could converse with them together. “You must understand that I have no ill will against humans, though one in particular destroyed our kingdom.”
“Let me guess. It must have been the Queenmother,” Crush answered her before she could get to the details.
“Yes, but how did you know?” Beni asked, and her eyebrows wrinkled in wonder at this human’s intuition.
“I am relatively new to this world, but she had me captured along with many other people from my world. The Queenmother has everyone digging deep inside the mountain past Ecklebee Forest, hauling out gold as they go, but all the while searching for something greater. I thought my last days would be spent mining for her and Prince Argentine, but I was rescued from enslavement and given my freedom. With the help of a child and a green-skinned magical being, I escaped from her clutches, and I promised to return to free the captured slaves from their torment in the mountain,” Crush explained, and before he went any farther in his description, he paused to reflect on whether he should trust Beni with any more of the delicate details of his mission.
“I see. It would do you well to know that the Queenmother destroyed our king, army, and castle, and then annexed our lands for her own. The last of the giants were spared their lives with the sworn promise of capturing humans and providing them to her as slaves for use within the mountain,” she said as she shed light on the tenuous relationship that had developed between the giants and the Queenmother.
“For your part, what are your feelings toward humans? How do you see them?” Crush posed to her, and then he contemplated whether he should have asked such direct questions of the giantess. But then, he reasoned with himself that those details were important enough to affect any of his future decisions and that he must know her feelings.
“I see humans as very small,” she replied and then smiled with the pun. “Except for the Queenmother who tried to kill me with a dragon, I see humans as equals to giants in moral value, though unequal in stature. You, in fact, are one of the few that I have ever spoken with though. My sister would sometimes walk through the prison and inspect the prisoners before they were sent to the Queenmother as payment, but I shied away from all aspects of paying the tribute. It sickened my heart to see innoc
ent people of any size held captive. When I was a child, my father was a landowner in the far province of Nother, and it was my duty to pluck the fruit from the trees of the orchard alongside the many servants employed by my father. Among the servants, there was one giant in particular by the name of Joterd, and though he was diligent and steady, he was much slower at his work than all of the others around him. Every day the other giants would collect their quota of fruit, and sometimes when they picked a rotten piece, they would hurl it at Joterd when he was not looking. ‘Rotten for the rotten!!’ they would yell as the fruit smashed on his clothes. Joterd ingored their taunts and continued his work to the best of his abilities, and when the end of the day came, he turned in to my father the harvest that he had plucked. In numbers, Joterd’s harvest was never close to the quota, but my father paid him as if it were. Joterd worked every day without complaint, and my father paid him every day for a full quota. One day, I asked my father why it was that he paid Joterd a full salary when he was not meeting his quota. I, too, respected Joterd, but I could not make sense of my father’s inequalities with payment, and I wanted to know where his motivation came from. Being proud of me for my watchfulness and attention to detail, my father handed me a rotten piece of fruit in return for my question. Puzzled and hurt by his action, I asked my father why he had not answered my question but instead rewarded me with rubbish. ‘It’s not rubbish, my daughter,’ he replied. ‘My father had a dream of owning an orchard, but no one would give up their best fruit for planting. After going to see many landowners, one relented and said that my father could have the fruit that he threw out for one season. Look out before you at the fruit trees, my daughter. This entire orchard was planted with fruit such as you hold in your hand by my father and by Joterd’s father. At a time when no one else believed in my father’s dream, Joterd’s father worked every day to help plant my father’s dream and to build the most fruitful orchard in all the land. If we look inside and believe in the good of others, good things will come.’ I then understood what my father was trying to tell me, and I planted the fruit that he had given me. The rotten fruit grew into a handsome tree that yielded a steady harvest every year after maturity.”