Epic Reads

Nectar ( 'Neck-Tar') the Barbarian tugged at his golden braid thoughtfully as he looked across the common room of the Flaming Cow Tavern. As per usual on a Saturday night, the place was crowded with all manner of creatures from men and women to the usual allotment of ill-tempered orcs, foul smelling goblins, salty pirates and diminutive Shortlings. Thick smoke hung in the air, a mix of the sweet-smelling hookah pipes of the men from the east, the sour smelling orc cigars, and the sizzling bacon stench of the Shortling pipe weed. Nectar wasn't sure how any of them could breathe the stuff, let alone inhale it.

He hoisted his massive iron mug of wood alcohol, leaned back into his chair and threw his muscled legs up onto the table. The wood creaked beneath him, but held his massive bulk indicating that it had been constructed from the best oak by the best Riston craftsmen. He was fortunate to not be wearing his heavy chain mail vest with matching loin cloth or the weight would surely have been too much. The other tables, all occupied by more than two men, women or creatures, looked just as sturdy; it was a good thing, too, given the number of brawls that occurred each week.

Currently, several dozen people had gathered around a table in the back corner, just past the large stone fireplace, to watch two pirate women arm-wrestling. As was their tradition, each of them dressed in silks and bandanas, had dozens of piercings and tattoos, and biceps the size of cantaloupes. True, next to his watermelon sized arm muscles, they would not measure up, but they could certainly outmatch most of the other men in the place. Even so, he steered clear. It was always wise to give pirate women a wide berth. They were crazy.

"What did you say!" a small voice bellowed drawing Nectar's attention to the other side of the establishment.

Nectar glanced over at the bar and saw that every stool was occupied by a horde of Goblins. Although they were not huge creatures, they were stronger than they looked and their dark warty skin provided them with natural armor making them formidable opponents. Their yellow eyes were vaguely catlike, but their faces bore more of a resemblance to bats than anything else. Currently, one of them glared down at a Shortling.

"Me am Orush. Me think you small and funny." The goblin's words slurred from too much beer and inherent stupidity.

The room went quiet as all eyes turned toward them. Nectar was on his feet in an instant, dropping his mug to the table with a slosh and a thud. He crossed in several large strides, pressing through the throng so he could get a better view. For a shortling, there was no greater insult than to be called small and funny. In fact, as a rule, Nectar always said, never call a shortling small and funny.

"I am Greg of the clan Greg and I am going to tear out your spleen!" the shortling roared. He puffed himself up to a massive three feet.

Now closer, Nectar could clearly see that this shortling had more than beer muscles. He was so thick of limb as to look like a solid cube. He would be a worthy opponent to any creatures of smallish stature.

The goblin laughed.

Greg's face flushed with rage.

"You turn funny color too! Orush buy you more beer as payment for entertainment."

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" Greg launched from the ground on powerful, if short, legs. He soared a good five feet, twisting in mid air, and landing on the bar behind the Goblin. He grabbed Orush around the neck and squeezed.

"Orush is no longer laughing!" The Goblin tried to punch the shortling but succeeded only in hitting himself in the head.

The four goblins nearest to him laughed so hard that two of them fell off their stools as Greg proceeded to block the flow of blood going to Orush's head. Orush face turned a deep shade of green as he tried ineffectively to punch and grab the shortling. A moment later, his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell face down into the bar. Greg rolled off, stood on the countertop and grabbed the Goblin's ale. He took a sip and glared at the others who suddenly stopped laughing.

"That's enough!" Huck, the portly barman stood up, a huge crossbow in his beefy hands. "You've had your fun."

"We like shortling, we no make trouble," one of the other goblins said. He turned away, burying his face in his drink.

"Good boys." Huck lowered his crossbow and then moved back towards the far end of the bar to assist a patron.

"Impressive." Nectar nodded at the shortling.

"Do I know you?" Greg asked him taking another sip and then using the Orush's head as a seat.

Nectar straightened. "I am Nectar the Barbarian, warrior of the Great North Northwestern Tribe, heir to the Dragon-butt chair and betrothed to Ambrosia, sorceress and princess to the fairy folk of the inner forests." He flexed his pectorals in emphasis.

"Oh," the buxom barmaid, who just happened to be passing, swooned.

Nectar caught her, swung around, dropped her into a chair and kissed her on the cheek. He then spun back to face Greg and smiled.

Greg raised a hand, no doubt against the gleam of Nectar's white teeth. "Is it truly you?" he jumped back up.

"Indeed!"

"Then we must have words, for you are the reason I have come! I need your help."

"Tell me, Greg of the Clan Greg…. Why have you sought me out?" Nectar leaned forward, grabbed his stein and took another sip of his drink. They had returned to his table in the back corner for a more private conversation. The other patrons seemed to have lost interest in the shortling and his brawl for they returned to their drinks, their arguments, their wrestling and their smoking.

Standing on the opposite chair, Greg stared up at him. His blue eyes were clear and honest, his expression shifting from awe to fear and back again. "I am the greatest hero my people have ever known. My full title is Greg the Grenadier." He thumped his muscular chest with one hand in emphasis.

"A grenadier? Truly?" Nectar's eyes widened. He had heard of the Grenadiers, brave shortlings who trained for years, honing their bodies to near perfection so that they could practice their impressive and elusive art. In reality, however, very few men had ever lived to see a grenadier in action and little was known about their actual fighting style.

"Yes. Unlike the mud farmers and moss growers of the other shortling clans, we of Clan Greg are tasked with protecting the Shortling lands…" He bowed his head. "In that task, we have failed."

"Tell me, my short but stout friend; what has happened?" Nectar could not hide his curiosity.

"As you know, our beautiful rolling swamplands are far to the south. We have lived there in peace farming our mud and enjoying the warmth of our moss and stick homes for centuries virtually undisturbed by the other creatures of the world. A modest trade in our unique goods has allowed us to stay abreast of the actions of, and to stay in contact with, the other races and our relations have always been good with our distant neighbors." Greg's fists closed. "Until now."

"What has happened?" Nectar arched a butt-cheek and lowered his mug to the table, no longer interested in drink as the little man's tale unfolded.

"We woke up one morning and our swamps and the river that feeds them, had dried up." Tears slipped from Greg's eyes. "Without water to drink and to grow our skunk cabbage and other swamp crops, we will starve to death in a matter of weeks. And even if our emergency supplies lasted years, our only source of income will quickly vanish as the moss dies and the mud turns to brick."

"By the gods, how did this happen?" Nectar thumped his table with one fist, launching his mug a good 6 inches into the air. He caught it and took another drink, then slammed it back down.

"We failed… I failed."

"In what way have you failed, brave shortling? Were you vanquished in battle?"

"Well, no."

"Did an enemy force invade your swampy paradise?"

"Not that we could detect."

"Then the fault lies not with you. This sounds like foul sorcery something for which you are ill equipped to handle." Nectar crossed his arms. "I and my companions, however, deal with magics often. My delicate flower of a wife, Ambrosia, is most adept at such things."

Greg's eyes brightened. "Then you will help us?"

"Your tale of woe has touched my heart." Nectar sprang to his feet. "I and my stalwart friends will aid you." He shot out a double bicep pose. "My perfect physique shall serve you well."

"Oh!" A slender blonde serving wench dropped a tray as she swooned behind him.

Nectar spun, caught the tray with his right hand and managed to catch the girl with his left. He whirled around, lowering the drinks to his table and the blonde into his chair.

"Well done!" a thickly bearded dwarf woman at a nearby table shouted. She cracked her mug against the skull of her nearest dwarvish companion in emphasis.

"Here's to Nectar, brave hero of the North Northwest!" the second dwarf agreed, wiping the beer from his head. He hoisted his mug.

"Nectar! Nectar!" others took up the call until the entire tavern erupted in cheers.

Nectar held out his hands and motioned them to silence.

"Thank you my friends. I, and my companions, are about to embark on a gallant and daring quest to save the shortlings and their mud! Let songs be sung of this day from now until our triumphant return!"

More cheering echoed through the place and everyone from pirates to goblins pounded their fists against their tables and stomped their feet against the floor shaking the very foundations of the place.

Nectar looked down at Greg. "You are in good hands my friend." He clapped the short man on one shoulder. "Now, I must gather my cohorts. We shall meet here tomorrow at ten for a quick and delicious brunch after which we shall depart on this journey." Without allowing Greg a chance to respond, Nectar pushed through the crowd towards the stairs to the upper levels. Shouts and cheers followed him the entire way.

"Nectar! Nectar! Nectar!"

"I fear the worst is yet to come, my friends." Nectar stood atop the great mound at the center of the village of Dung-Haven. Rising a dozen feet above the smoldering remains of the wooden homes and other structures, the hill offered a view across the entire area, the forest beyond and the Great Northern Mountains to the west. There was no sign of the unicorn swarm that had wreaked such damage, but the evidence of their attack was everywhere.

"There will be more? We barely survived this!" Greg of the clan Greg, the spunky shortling who had started Nectar on this quest what seemed like years ago, but which was a mere week hence, stood next to him. Although the man barely came up to the barbarian's buttocks, he had proven a stout warrior in battle and Nectar valued him as a companion-in-arms. Greg adjusted his shiny golden helmet on his head and then motioned towards the destruction with a wave of one small but muscular arm.

Although most of the wooden hovels had been reduced to smoking rubble, several were still aflame. The survivors, a rag tag mix of peasants, refugee nobles and soldiers, all of whomseemed to have forgotten all class and status distinctions in light of their shared trauma, ignored these, labeling them as lost causes. The Rampant Warthog Inn, one of the larger structures, was a hollow shell, though most of its walls appeared intact. It was there that they had set up a makeshift morgue, stacking the dead, unicorns and citizens both, like cordwood. Not all had made it there yet. The survivors still struggled to clear the town in preparation for the next attack,which would surely come soon. Here and there, the occasional unicorn corpse, riddled with arrows and spears, lay atop a dead man, elf, dwarf or shortling. In some cases, their horse-like rear ends stuck up towards the sky from which they had rained their terrible homicidal vengeance.

Nectar shook his head, never allowing his gaze to linger too long on any one spot. His attention fell upon the town lodge, a stone building left over from the Empire of the Ancients who once ruled these lands. It stood virtually untouched in stark contrast to everything around it.It was within those halls that the injured had gone, though it was not nearly large enough for all of them. Dozens of wounded had spilled out of the structure and lay on blankets in front of it. Acidophilus, Nectar's oldest surviving friend, moved about them, his green robes spattered with blood, his floppy fish hat gone, revealing the curly black hair beneath. He waved a trout over several citizens in a row, calling upon the incredible healing powers of Poseidon. Again, Nectar felt glowing pride for his stalwart companion's faith and dedication.

A group of citizens milled about between the makeshift infirmary and Nectar's hill top. Covered with dirt, blood and grime, they appeared dejected, even beaten. Hope had fled their empty eyes and with it the only chance they had at surviving the next wave. Having seen what defeat could do to warriors, even those of the barbarous north, Nectar knew that they needed encouragement, compassion and a leader to inspire them. He adjusted his furs in such a way as to reveal his muscled chest, planted his hands on his hips and flexed his pectoral muscles in what he knew to be an impressive display. Surely, this would serve to revitalize their confidence in his ability to keep them all safe.

"My people!" he bellowed. "Spread the word to your fellow survivors to stay on guard. For the unicorns will be back!"

"Even though it was I who came to you about the foul sorcerer's plot to bring about the Unicorn Fall a dozen years too soon, I can scarcely believe it," Greg mused, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Indeed. His evil knows no bounds, but I promise you this, my short friend. Lactose the Intolerant shall pay for this outrage!" Nectar clenched his fists in unbridled rage.

A soft breeze whipped up the smell of unicorn sweat. It tickled Nectar's nostrils and he remembered...

The air had been cool and salty. Nectar, barely ten summers old, had spent the morning in the family rock pit where he had been lifting small boulders to strengthen his deltoids and biceps. His mother's battle roar had ripped through the peaceful quiet of the pit, nearly causing him to drop the massive stones. Instead, he had thrown them to the side and run towards the forest at the end of the small granite ravine. His mother needed his help and even a youngling barbarian was a better warrior than most of the soldiers of the kingdoms to the south.

He sprinted through the woods, desperate to reach his mother even as her continued bellow echoed around him, louder now. An oddly fetid wind whipped up, blowing against his furred loincloth and making his flowing blond hair whip behind him.

"Somebody help us!" his mother yelled again, her fear-tinged voice chilling Nectar's blood. He had never before heard such a sound. Nothing had ever frightened either of his impressively muscular parents. His knees wobbled and he nearly fell, but he could not and would not allow fear to stop him from reaching her. With what little attention he could spare, he wondered where his father was and why he was not helping her.

Sweat beaded on his body as he crashed down the rocky forest path. Branches clawed at him, one drawing a ragged gash on his left cheek, but he ignored it. Only his mother mattered. He pumped his ten-summer-old legs hard against the ground, moving faster than he had ever run before. And then he found them.

His father lay on his back in the center of a large, grass-covered clearing. A bloodspattered unicorn had impaled him with its horn. The unicorn had fallen from the sky with such force that the creature's head had gone through the barbarian's chest and the horn had driven into the ground beneath them both. The beast's hindquarters were ramrod straight in the air, marking the direction from which it had come. The impact had broken the thing's neck, for although its body twitched, it was surely dead.

Nectar's mother, a short stocky woman who was nearly as broad as she was tall, stood next to them, holding his father's hand. Her long grey hair had matted against her face and tears had streaked down her well-muscled cheeks. She looked at Nectar as he entered the clearing and her mouth straightened out of its frown in newfound resolve. She reached a calloused elbow towards him.

"Come, my son. Stand with me and look upon this."

Shaking, Nectar crossed the space, reached out and gripped her arm tightly. Looking down at his dead father brought a flood of uncontrollable moisture to his eyes. Tears slipped out, unstoppable, but he did not look away.

"Why? How?" It was all he could manage to say.

"It was the Unicorn Fall. It comes every thirty years." She squeezed his hand tighter. "It will come again in your lifetime and you must be prepared..."

"Yeaaaaa!!!!" Ambrosia's battle cry yanked Nectar back to the present.

Nectar spun around towards the source of his one true love's melodic voice and spied her delicate form. She stood a dozen or so feet from him. She had removed her dark sorceress's robes, leaving only her two piece furry undergarments below. With her oiled abdominal and leg muscles flexed taut, her biceps popping, she held a massive unicorn over her head. Her ample breasts heaved as she breathed heavily with the exertion, but she did not waver. Below her, four peasants pulled an injured noblewoman in a red dress away from where the beast had pinned her legs.

"Ambrosia?" Nectar made no move to aid her, not wishing to insult her honor, though he could not take his eyes off of her glorious form.

She winked at him, her blue eyes bright with love for him and offered a smile, but it faded almost instantly to a frown as she looked past Nectar towards the sun. The bright rays of the golden orb dimmed against her face as a cloud no doubt had covered it. Her frown deepened; abruptly, her large eyes widened in alarm.

"Nectar ..." she breathed.

Nectar whirled around, one hand dropping to the hilt of his massive sword and saw them. There was no cloud. The unicorn swarm had returned in such force and numbers that they had blotted out the very sun itself as they approached.

"To arms!" Nectar bellowed, flexing his pancreas in preparation.

"Have at thee, varlets!"

Hrothgar's savage war cry reverberated from the alley walls. He bounded across the intervening space and met the onrushing orcs head-on. One prodigious sweep of Toothfang, his massive double-headed faery-forged axe, hewed two of the attackers clean through the midsection, and the backstroke clove a third from crown to colon. The remaining dozen swirled around him, slipping in the entrails of their comrades, but Toothfang wove a song of death among them, and heads, limbs, and viscera were scattered across the muck with every vicious swipe.

Alanyah hopped on a nearby box and drew her bow, her ample breasts straining against her leather bodice. She feathered two orcs with a single black shaft.

Hrothgar thundered his Humaliyyan battle song as he mowed down adversaries like dogs in the street. The few remaining orcs, realizing that their careful ambush had crashed upon the rocks of the giant knight's blade and assassin's bow, broke off and charged at Princess Urea, desperate to fulfill their mission.

Errik instantly interposed himself, whipping out Slackbite, his short sword. Urea clutched his jerkin in terror, her heavy breasts pressing against his back, her sweet elf breath hot on his farmboy neck. He tried to stifle his trembling, for he had never faced battle before.

Three orcs bore down on him, their piggish eyes twinkling like gems of hatred in a night sky of evil. Suddenly, a black arrow hummed past like an angry harmonica and thudded into the chest of one, knocking him sprawling. Another arrow, another dead orc.

But the last was now too close. With a foul-breathed, broken-toothed growl, he chopped at Errik with a rusty hatchet. Gritting his teeth, Errik pictured the orc as a dire gopher and Slackbite as a hoe. He met the hatchet mid-swing, beating it aside even as the blow numbed his arm and drove him to his knees.

Urea shrieked, and the orc laughed cruelly, raising his weapon again.

"No!" cried Errik. How could he ever reach Where the Sun Shines Not without the princess?

The orc took a single step forward, then lurched suddenly and unnaturally to the side, transfixed through the sternum by Toothfang—hurled with the full might of Hrothgar's iron thews—and crashed against the alley wall. His head and left arm slid to one side, the rest of him to the other, spraying gouts of thick green ichor.

"What ho, stripling!" bellowed Hrothgar, idly combing brains and gore from his bright red beard. "Art thou and the fair Lady Urea unharmed?"

Errik swallowed and staggered to his feet. Urea, her fist held to her full lips, and her limpid violet eyes wide, nodded at him and smiled demurely.

"Yes," he replied shakily. "We're fine."

Fists on hips, Hrothgar threw back his head and roared with laughter. "By Gromm, these misbegotten devil-spawn provide ill sport indeed. Not even a fair stretching of my limbs. What say you, archer-woman?"

Alanyah paused in cutting free one of her barbed arrows from its victim. "They die easily."

Hrothgar whooped again. "Well said, assassin-wench!" Placing a huge blood-clotted boot on the remains of a nearby orc, he yanked free another arrow and squinted at it critically. "Fie! This dark wood reeks of skullduggery. A weapon for night-slaying. Give me the stout yellow yew from the forests of Humaliyya."

Alanyah strode up to him and took the arrow, replacing it carefully in her quiver. "I prefer the ebon shaft," she told him boldly, "for its greater length and strength."

"Look!" cried Urea, pointing toward the far end of the alley.

There, a guttering, dented oil lamp swayed in the light breeze, and beside it hung a warped and faded sign with only one word upon it: Potions.

"It's the sign the beggar at the market told us to look for," she continued excitedly.

"'Tis so, by my troth," boomed Hrothgar, wiping Toothfang clean on a fallen foe's tunic.

"Make haste," urged Alanyah, her lithe form padding along the alley as silently as a snake, "before more of Zurmok's thugs find us."

Unhesitatingly, Hrothgar strode to the dingy door below the sign and hammered it with the flat of his axe, a single blow that sounded like a clap of loud noise.

"Proprietor!" he bellowed. "Open for Hrothgar the Stalwart!"

A slit slid open in the door, and a pair of eyes, black as the pits of a well, glared out at them. "What do you want?"

Errik peered around Hrothgar's giant frame. "Please, sir. We have an urgent need to see Ergandane the Munificent."

The eyes narrowed. "There's no one here by that name."

The slit slammed shut.

"Stand thee aside, plow-lad," Hrothgar growled. He spit into his hands and took hold of Toothfang. "Gromm strike me down if any portal ever wrought balks a Barbarian Knight of the Royal Order of Kusmuthoses."

"Wait!" Urea pushed her nubile form to the fore and cupped her slender white hands around her luscious red lips.

"Please," she called into the potions shop. "I am Princess Urea of Elfenheim. My grandfather was Porhu the Wise. He knew Ergandane at the College of Alethiomancy."

A pregnant pause ensued, gravid with expectancy.

Hrothgar glowered.

A rattling at the door heralded its unlocking, and presently the portal swung inward. They party entered to find themselves in a cramped shop where bottles of all shapes, sizes and colors festooned the shelves from floor to ceiling, glittering like stars in a crown.

A man stood there. Tall, he was, nearly as tall as Hrothgar, with wide shoulders, powerful arms, a jagged scar across his neck, and a dragon tattoo on his back. A black cloak swathed him from head to foot, revealing only his untrusting eyes.

"Follow me," he commanded in a rasping voice, "and woe betide any who bears ill will against my master."

Hrothgar snorted. "Woe betide any who betides woe on well-meaning adventurers," he retorted.

Down a narrow hallway they walked. Errik tested his injured knee and found it strong, which relieved him, for it had been hanging over his head ever since his flight from Idylldale over a month agone.

The hall debouched into a cozy sitting room with deep rugs and well-turned tables. A fire blazed in the hearth, and in an overstuffed chair sat a wizened old man sucking on a long thin pipe, his trailing white beard draped across the breast of a robe festooned with yellow moons, orange stars, blue diamonds, and purple horseshoes. His kindly, elderly eyes alit on Urea.

"Ah," he said, "you have your grandfather in you; I can see that. What does Porhu's progeny want of an old thaumaturge such as myself?"

"If you please, Master Ergandane," said Urea, pulling Errik's arm, "this young man has proof that the Dark Dwarves are rising."

The tall man in the cloak laughed derisively, but Ergandane plucked the pipe from his mouth dramatically. He leaned forward, the leaping orange flames casting his face in high relief.

"What's this?" he whispered expressively, his eyes fixed on Errik.

"Yes, sir," stammered Errik, producing the Dwarfknob from his breeches. It glowed redly in his fist. "I found this when tilling our turnip field."

"Then it's true," muttered the old sorcerer. "The red Dwarfknob has come to light. The prophecy is coming true."

"What mean you, potion-peddler?" demanded Hrothgar. "Where the Sun Shines Not truly is a fable spun by maundering fishwives in the marketplace. This hobbledehoy's rock is a gnome's jape, I wager."

Ergandane leaned forward, the crackling red flames shrouding his face in deep shadow. "Not so, my massively-proportioned friend. 'Tis a place real enough, I'm sorry to say. Under the Devilbone Mountains, they dwell. Deep in the earth where the goodly kiss of daylight has never shone. A place of unutterable foulness and evil, and if the Dark Dwarves issue forth from Where the Sun Shines Not, that foulness will spread far and wide. All of Billerikah will be in peril."

Alanyah slithered toward him like a jungle cat. "If the Dark Dwarves do exist, old man, then what of the other legends? The hoards of gold and gems they supposedly protect?"

"They are true enough, the spoils of lands conquered when the world was young and swathed in eternal darkness. Verily, the treasures lurking there cannot be overestimated."

Hrothgar barked gleefully. "No man woman-born pursues booty with more fervor than I. Point me toward this sunshineless kingdom, ancient one, and then stand ye well beyond the sweep of Toothfang."

"Address the master with respect, barbarian," demanded the man in the cloak, whose name was Fenrik, "lest I thrash the insolence from you."

Hrothgar gripped his axe haft menacingly. "Thou hast but to try, sirrah."

"Enough!" Errik snapped. The large men, startled by his brashness, stilled themselves. "Sir," continued Errik to the mage, "how can the Dwarves be stopped? Does the prophecy say? I feel the Dwarfknob pulling me there, and yet I know not what to do."

Ergandane leaned forward, the dancing yellow flames bathing his face in warm light. "The Dwarfknob, the heart of a champion, and blood of the royal house of Elfenheim must combine to quell the rising. That is all that is known."

Errik looked at his hand. "I have the Dwarfknob, the princess is of royal blood, and surely Hrothgar has the heart of a champion."

The Humaliyyan preened. "Fairly flattered I be, and yet you are aright. Fret not, callow youth. I shall lead you to Where the Sun Shines Not—and me its booty."

"And I," added Urea sweetly, gently squeezing his shoulder.

Fenrik scoffed at Errik. "You think thou art up to the task? Pshaw! Where the Sun Shines Not is not a place for boys, but for men. Only those who have girded their loins and faced true horror can brave it."

Errik gulped, for he knew Fenrik was right.

Captain Elias Seaburger gripped the wheel of the ship and peered out the bank of windows, looking across the bow of the ferry and out onto Puget Sound. The blue water rippled, the sun glistened in refractive motes, but there were no breaks in the liquid horizon that might indicate sea lions, dolphins, whales, or other things…. Elias had been piloting a ferry on Puget Sound for over forty-seven and a half years and in that time he had been called many things; crusty curmudgeon was among the most popular names. Others simply called him crazy, while a kinder bunch referred to him merely as eccentric. Regardless, Elias knew his methods might seem harsh, his beliefs antiquated and the yellow rain gear and suspenders that made him look more like the Gorton's Fisherman than a Washington State Ferry captain could be interpreted as silly, but he did not care. He would always be vigilant, always be prepared for what he knew was coming. Not a single passenger he had ever ferried had ever known the terror of Mega-Salmon and he aimed to keep it that way.

He closed his eyes for a moment, steeling himself against the vivid memories of his younger days and of the terrible truths that had revealed to him. It had been 1969 and he had just docked a much smaller ferry at the Kingston docks on his last run of the night. He had peered through the windows at the empty parking lot, the two streetlamps barely illuminating it under a darkly clouded sky. The town itself, a single strip of wild-west looking wooden buildings mixed in with small houses beyond, was dark, asleep. A single micro-bus full of hippies pulled down the ramp towards his vessel. That was when Mega-Salmon struck. The massive grey and black mottled salmon had leapt from the water, displaying its full body, twice the size of a grey whale as it soared through the air. It caught the bus in its titanic maw, swallowing it whole as it crossed the ramp to disappear into the black water, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.

Only Elias had witnessed the horror of that night, only he knew the horrors lurking beneath Puget Sound. His superiors had laughed at him, his coworkers had mocked him and the review board had nearly fired him, but with the families of the missing hippies raising havoc and with no trace of the microbus, they could not discount his story completely and he had retained his position.

Elias opened his eyes, fighting back tears, and looked around the wheelhouse. The Geoduck had been his boat for the past ten years and he had managed to add a personal touch the austere cabin. Mixed in with the computer monitors, gear controls and the massive silver wheel which he now gripped, his artistic enhancements included a ceremonial harpoon hanging on the back wall, an ornate flare gun, a tastefully displayed double-barreled shotgun and a half-dozen decorative sticks of dynamite. To the left, a map of Puget Sound hung with a white pin denoting every Mega-Salmon sighting over the years. Of course, no one really knew what those white tacks were for. When asked, he always answered by telling everyone they were dive locations he had explored.

An itch irritated his three day grey and white stubble, distracting him from the assessment of his surroundings. He reached up with the hook on his left arm and gently scratched, careful not to gouge himself with the sharp hand replacement. A splash in the water ahead distracted him but turned out to be merely a sea lion. He squinted. Mega-Salmon was out there … somewhere, and Elias Seaburger was ready for him.

"Elias?

Elias turned to see Brett Absman standing in the doorway. The handsome, square-jawed man belonged on a soap opera, not the bridge of a ship, with his ever-blowing shoulder length blonde hair, his washboard abs, and his buns of steel, but over the years he had proven to be an excellent first mate and a good friend. Brett pushed a hand through that luxurious blonde hair, caressing his own scalp almost lovingly and smiled.

"Are you okay, old man?" Concern marred his handsome features.

"Watch out boy." Elias chuckled. "Don't let this peg leg fool you. This old man can still move pretty fast." He tapped the wooden appendage that had replaced his leg after his navy submarine had been hit by a Nazi depth charge during the Vietnam War.

"Go easy on me!" Brett held up his hands in mock defense.

"I will." He nodded sagely. "Now, what's up, boy?"

"There's a whale off the port bow. Big sucker." He pointed out the left most window pane. "Check it out!"

Elias adjusted his eye-patch and peered out onto Puget Sound again. Sure enough, amassive hump emerged from out of the water, arching up and back down as the whale dove from the surface. Elias's old heart skipped a beat and his blood turned to chilled ice as he spied the black and grey mottling on the creature's huge body.

"Sound the alarm and notify the coast guard!" he roared at his mate.

"What?" Brett smiled for an instant until he realized that Elias was serious. "Why?"

"That's no whale my young friend, it's a massive Coho …" Reaching back, Elias grabbed the harpoon and the dynamite from the wall, knowing it would not be enough, knowing that at best all he could hope for was to distract the beast long enough to let his boat and its passengers escape.

"What do you mean?" Brett's voice quivered with fear.

"It's Mega-Salmon ...." A cold ball of dread sank into Elias' soul as he hobbled towards the door .... "Good bye, my friend."