Dan the Adventurer Read online

  Dan the Adventurer

  (Gold Girls and Glory #2)

  Hondo Jinx

  www.hondojinx.com

  Copyright © 2018 by Hondo Jinx

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Dan the Adventurer is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Edited by Karen Bennett

  If you would like to know when my next book is released, JOIN MY LIST.

  Contents

  1. New Sword, New Problems

  2. Into the Great Green Yonder

  3. The Night Has Teeth

  4. A Warning from Beyond

  5. The Thing in the Forest

  6. What Is It?

  7. The Grove

  8. The Iron Mother

  9. I Hate Cages

  10. The Feast of Fury

  11. A Daunting Mission

  12. Laying Down the Law

  13. Consequences

  14. Roderick’s Raiders

  15. Broken Elves and a Crazy Hobgoblin

  16. On the Road Again

  17. The Beast

  18. More Problems

  19. Ula’s Challenge

  20. Village of the Dead

  21. The Tapestry of Sorrow

  22. Foondek

  23. The Fist of Fury

  24. Grinding Away

  25. Relax…

  26. To Arms!

  27. The Lone Wolf

  28. An Unexpected Turn of Events

  29. Going Hot

  30. Farewell to Fire Ridge

  31. The Rift

  32. The Descent

  33. Run!

  34. Task of Terror

  35. Hunting the Beast

  36. You Put the Bastard in Bastard Sword

  37. Everything Falls Apart

  38. A Grim Warning

  39. The Return to Fire Ridge

  40. Holly Goes Home

  41. Black Fires Burn Again

  42. The Battle of Fire Ridge

  43. Battle at the Breach

  44. In Through the Out Door

  45. The Price of Victory

  46. The Third Gift

  About the Author

  1

  New Sword, New Problems

  “Is that chicken or rat?” Dan asked the vendor, a broad-faced old woman wrapped in a mound of filthy rags.

  “Oh, chicken, sir,” the rag woman said with a grin that all but guaranteed he’d been drooling over barbecued rat. “Only the finest chicken.”

  Dan laughed. “Oh yeah? Where did you catch these prize chickens? In the sewer?”

  The rag woman wheezed laughter. “I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir. I don’t catch ‘em. I only cook ‘em up nice and tasty with my special sauce.”

  Dan liked the old woman’s wheezing laughter. He was about to crack on her special sauce, but a skinny man whose breath smelled of onions stepped close and pressed a knife point into Dan’s belly.

  At the same second, another knife point pricked his lower back.

  “Come with us,” Onion-breath said.

  The old woman scowled but said nothing, obviously afraid.

  Onion-breath was skinny with close-cropped, gray hair, salt-and-pepper stubble, and wild eyes. He wore leather armor under a dark cloak.

  Dan couldn’t see Onion-breath’s accomplice, who stayed behind him as they started walking down the alley.

  “Nice and easy,” Onion-breath said. “Tell us what we want to know, and we won’t poke holes in you.”

  “If what you want to know is where to find the best rat kabob in town,” Dan said, “I think we’re going in the wrong direction.”

  “Very funny,” Onion-breath said. “But Gruss isn’t in a joking mood.”

  To this point, Dan had assumed that this was a strong-arm robbery. With one word, Onion-breath had changed everything.

  Gruss.

  The mobster from Philly who’d been threatening Nadia and had a rep for chopping off body parts.

  Within Dan, anger rose like flames, rapidly consuming things like his sense of humor, patience, and better judgment. “Are you Gruss?”

  Onion-breath snorted. “Me, Gruss? Think I’d be down here with the filth, mucking around with scum like you if I was Gruss? Where’s Nadia?”

  “What’s he want from her?”

  “None of your business,” Onion-breath said with a nasty grin, “but whatever Gruss wants, he’ll take.”

  “She’s right over there,” Dan said, nodding across the street and making his move.

  He shoved his right hand across his body, batting away Onion-breath’s blade, and spun with the motion. Twisting around, he slammed his left elbow into the hooded head of the thug who’d been following silently behind him.

  The cloaked thief stumbled, and a dagger clattered to the cobblestones.

  Dan rolled with the attack, following the left elbow with a looping right hand that crashed into the side of the thief’s head and dropped the hooded figure to the ground.

  Dan wheeled, meaning to draw his sword, but Onion-breath lunged forward, thrusting his dagger at Dan’s chest.

  At the last second, Dan swiveled like a bullfighter. Instead of puncturing his heart, the blade sliced a burning line across his chest.

  Onion-breath was coming back around with the knife, so instead of drawing his sword, Dan threw a two-punch combination. The left was an awkward, swatting shot, and Onion-breath hunched into it, shrugging off the blow.

  The second punch, however, was a powerful right uppercut. Dan shifted his weight with the blow, driving the punch into Onion-breath’s tucked head. Dan’s knuckles slammed square into the man’s chin, and the jolt of impact buzzed up his wrist.

  Onion-breath’s head snapped up, his legs went to jelly, and he sat down hard on the cobblestones with a grunt. His blade clanked across the stones. Badly rocked, he leaned on one arm, shaking his head, cursing and spitting blood.

  Dan’s own blood was boiling now. Onion-breath had cut him, had tried to kill him, and was trying to kidnap one of Dan’s women.

  “Tell Gruss to forget about Nadia,” Dan said, “or I’m going to come for him.”

  “Fuck you, asshole,” Onion-breath said, but he wasn’t stupid enough to reach for the knife he’d dropped. He just sat there propped up on one arm, trying to act tough after having his ass handed to him. Probably dreaming about stabbing Dan in the back.

  “This is for cutting me,” Dan said, and stomped down on Onion-breath’s arm.

  There was a loud crack. Onion-breath wailed, clutching his broken arm and wallowing around on the cobbles.

  The other thief was struggling onto all fours, so Dan punted the hooded head.

  The unconscious thug rolled over, and Dan was surprised to see that his assailant was a woman. Her nose was broken, and she was snoring loudly the way some people do when you knock them out cold.

  First time I ever hit a woman, he thought. Then he shrugged. Her gender wouldn’t have mattered to his kidneys if she’d shanked him. She was just as bad as Onion-breath.

  People crowded around, buzzing nervously. Gruss’s thugs obviously terrorized Calder Way.

  “That was a mistake,” the broad-faced rag woman said, shambling into view.

  “I’m chock-full of mistakes,” Dan said. “You don’t believe me, just ask my wife.”

  Then, sick of Onion-breath’s whining, he kicked the thief in the head and put him to sleep.

  The rag woman shook her head. “Gruss will have your hands for that, maybe your head.”

  “He’s welcome to try,” Dan said. “Tell him I live at-”

  “Hey!” Nadia said, breaking through the throng with a panicked look on her beautiful face.

  In her tight black bodysuit and hooded black cloak, Nadia definitely blended in with the Calder Way crowd better than Dan’s blond-haired grey elf wife, Holly, who followed right behind her, carrying a sack of provisions.

  Holly’s purple eyes narrowed, scanning the crowd.

  “Oh no,” Nadia said, grabbing his arm and pulling him through the crowd and away from the scene. “What have you done?”

  “Knocked out a couple of assholes who wanted to take you to Gruss.”

  Nadia groaned a string of curses and led them onto a well-lit street.

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “Forget it,” Nadia said. Practically jogging now, she kept looking back over her shoulder. “We’re leaving town. Not tomorrow. Right now.”

  “It’s too late in the day,” Holly said. “We would have to stay the night in the forest. Remember my mother’s warning?”

  Of course Dan remembered. Some mysterious monster had been eating anyone stupid enough to travel through Rothrock Forest at night.

  “I don’t care if a frigging dragon is waiting for us,” Nadia said. “It’s still safer than staying here.”

  2

  Into the Great Green Yonder

  Dan smiled, drawing his lungs full of the cold, fresh air blowing up out of the pines.

  The countryside surrounding Penn State was breathtakingly gorgeous, especially with the autumn foliage burning orange and red with the changing of the leaves. To either side of the road, the forest
spoke in birdsong and the scrabbling chatter of squirrels.

  They wound downhill into a dim forest of old timber and clumped fern. Here and there among the columnar trunks, lichen-spotted boulders sat like forgotten godlings.

  Dan breathed in the good, earthy smell of moss and loam. The forest made him feel alive and fueled his inner barbarian. He was tired of town. Tired of people and noise and drama. Suddenly, even the road felt like a leash. He wanted to plunge away into the forest and live.

  Later, perhaps.

  For now, they were traveling to Holly’s grove.

  With every passing mile, Holly had grown quieter. As a druid who had grown up nearby, she loved these woods, but she had a lot on her mind. She was bringing her parents two surprises: her human husband and the decapitated head of her grandmother.

  Nadia’s bright green eyes darted back and forth, scanning the brush and briars and gloomy woods. She kept turning and tilting her head, obviously registering forest noises that Dan couldn’t even hear. When breezes sighed past, her nose lifted and bobbed, reading the wind through flared nostrils.

  As their shadows lengthened, they left the road. Within the forest, dusk had already fallen. They wanted to set up camp before darkness made gathering firewood a colossal pain in the ass.

  Following the fold of the land, they discovered a small stream burbling among the oaks and evergreens. Dan found a patch of level ground softened by pine needles, spread a tarp over a low branch, and spiked the lower edges to the ground.

  Holly unrolled a thin, elven-made mattress the color of mid-summer sunflowers. The mattress adjusted to the ground, flowing over a tree root and thickening to counteract the slight slope where Holly’s feet would rest.

  Nadia rolled her eyes. “Elves.”

  Holly laughed. “Jealous?”

  “Hardly,” Nadia said. “If I’m uncomfortable, I’ll sleep on your husband.”

  “Our husband,” Holly said with a grin.

  “Your husband, my plaything,” Nadia said, and gave Dan’s crotch a squeeze. “Besides, I’m not sure that I’ll sleep. This moon has me hornier than a herd of unicorns.”

  “Works for me,” Dan said. “Fresh air puts me in the mood.”

  “Everything puts you in the mood,” Nadia said. “That’s why I allow you to serve me, concubine.”

  Dan laughed and gave her A+ ass a slap.

  Nadia feigned shock and started wrestling with him.

  “Hold on, you two animals,” Holly said. “Let me set our perimeter defense. Sex will be more enjoyable if we don’t get eaten.”

  “That’s not what you said last night,” Dan joked.

  “Oh, just like that, Dan,” Nadia mocked. “Eat me, eat me all up.”

  Now it was Holly’s turn to roll her eyes. She took out a sprig of mistletoe, moved it up and down as if writing invisible words in the air, and whispered a stream of Elvish words.

  Then she gave a coughing bark.

  Several seconds later, vegetation on the other side of the creek rustled. A red fox stepped out of the ferns, padded across the stream, and sat before Holly.

  “Well,” Holly said, squatting down and petting the fox, “aren’t you a pretty girl?”

  The fox’s tail brushed back and forth like that of a happy dog. Then, noticing Dan and Nadia, the fox jerked away and whimpered with fear.

  The thing’s afraid of Nadia, Dan realized. Afraid of her wolf.

  Still whimpering, the fox rolled onto her back, submitting to Nadia, who crossed her arms and stared down apathetically.

  “It’s okay,” Holly told the fox. “She won’t hurt you. This is what I want you to do.”

  Still stroking the fox, Holly spoke in growls and yips and soft whimpers. When Holly finished, the fox popped up, trotted back across the stream, and disappeared into the brush.

  “She’ll stay close and let us know if anything dangerous comes near,” Holly said.

  The girls gathered firewood while Dan pulled stones from the stream and made a fire circle. By the time they had a fire started, night had come to the forest. With darkness came cool, damp air and deeper stillness broken by the sad, soft hooting of distant owls.

  They ate, passed a flask of wine, and talked of the days ahead. The next day, they would arrive at Holly’s grove, which was magically hidden from the world.

  “Yeah,” Nadia said, “and your guards kill any strangers who enter the grove, right?”

  Holly smiled uncomfortably. “Once I make it clear that you’re my guests, everything should be fine.”

  Dan turned to Nadia with a grin. “Hear that? Everything should be fine. I feel better. Don’t you feel better?”

  “In case these elves kill first and ask questions later,” Nadia said, standing and grabbing his hand, “I’m going to get some use out of you, barbarian. Want to tag team him, elf?”

  Holly set her food aside. She’d barely touched the meal. Probably nervous about tomorrow, Dan figured.

  “Sounds good,” Holly said. “After tonight, I’m going to be out of commission for a while.”

  Female grey elves were fertile for only a few weeks out of each year. Unfortunately, Holly’s time of year was almost upon them. After tonight, she couldn’t have sex for pretty much a month.

  Dan knew that Holly wanted to have his kids but not for a long time. First, she wanted to finish college, sort out her future, and advance her druidic training. Besides, she would live 2000 years. Why rush into parenthood?

  The girls stripped, gorgeous in the flickering light. Their nipples tightened in response to the cold air, and gooseflesh pebbled their pale skin.

  Rock hard at the sight of them, Dan shed his clothes. The cold air felt good on his naked body.

  Nadia’s eyes gleamed. “I’m going to eat you up.”

  She dropped to her knees on the pine needles and took him in her mouth. There was no warm up. She sucked and pumped him, slurping hungrily.

  Holly popped onto her tiptoes, gave him a quick kiss, then knelt on the ground.

  Dan expected his lovely wife to slide in and work alongside Nadia. Instead, she slid behind Nadia, grabbed a handful of chestnut hair, and pulled Nadia’s head back.

  Dan popped free of Nadia’s mouth. Cold air tingled along his wet length.

  Holly leaned forward, pressing her incredible breasts into the smooth ivory flesh of Nadia’s muscular back.

  Nadia strained against Holly’s grip, her open mouth and tongue reaching for Dan’s member, which stood hard and shining with saliva, inches from her face.

  Holly leaned close to Nadia’s ear. “Suck our husband well, second wife, and maybe I’ll let him fuck you.”

  “Your husband,” Nadia said, her eyes staring hungrily at Dan’s manhood. “Not mine.”

  Holly reached around, smoothed a hand up Nadia’s taut stomach, and cupped her breast.

  Nadia gasped.

  Sometimes, in the throes of passion, the two women would kiss playfully, but this was the first time that Holly, who was definitely the driver of such activities, had ever groped Nadia in such an overtly sexual manner.

  “Hands off, elf,” Nadia said, but even as she said these words, her own hand closed over Holly’s and pressed it into her breast.

  Dan watched in amazement, excitement swelling within him as Holly squeezed Nadia’s nipple.

  Nadia’s eyes fluttered, and a soft moan escaped her.

  Then Holly shoved Nadia’s head forward, and Dan felt her mouth close over him again.

  Nadia sucked him greedily and pumped his shaft with one hand. With her other hand, she reached back, trying to touch Holly, but Holly batted the blindly groping hand away.