Darius felt drunk. He looked at the large cup of henequet[1] and wondered how many of those he has drunk.
"I should never have drunk," he grumbled, feeling his tongue curl. "Well, if I'm the superior, no problem!"
He ran his hand towards the rim of a mug he didn't even know was his, and raised the cup high.
"Howl!", shouted.
Several of his soldiers, all sleeping around the hall at End of the Line, Zarcophagi's only inn, shouted back.
Nobody was sober.
He felt a strong urge to urinate, he pushed one of the waitresses sitting on his lap aside, going outside the tavern to use a short wall as a urinal. He couldn't remember where the actual bathroom was.
Muttering that he should stop drinking, Darius reached under the skirt of his red tunic, lifting the fabric a little to relieve himself. Before he could, however, he heard something loud, which caught his attention.
He thought he was very drunk, when he was surprised by the presence of three Divine Fathers walking down the street lit by neon streetlamps.
He peered carefully at the men dressed in the robes of the priests, great kalasiris adorned with seams gilded with gold, believed to protect against the spirits that roamed Tammera. It had been some years since Darius had seen such a priest. The last time, he was in the worst place in the world: Tathra.
As far as I knew, Divine Fathers didn't go to Zarco. The city's technology was believed to be heka, magic, whatever the hell, pagan.
"Hi, Darius." Suddenly, he heard a female voice accompanied by giggles.
Very drunk, the man turned his face towards the beautiful body of two alien women. One was a talli, a beautiful species of alien with a bluish skin tone and who painted their skin with blue paint for an aesthetic that made them even more beautiful. The other was a kalede, lovely looking with her big almond eyes, skin red as a salmon. Kaledes were known for juggling at the time of pleasure.
Darius smiled back at her, cleaning himself after urinating, following them with merry little jumps.
"Girls…" he called, reaching over to throw his arms around the aliens' shoulders.
The girls responded with new malicious giggles. That would be a wonderful night.
Then, at dawn, he woke lazily, feeling an alien's hand on his chest and another's foot on his abdomen. He shifted confused, staggering, remembering the night before only as he sat up suddenly. Darius laughed mischievously, watching talli's beautiful body, then noticed the bare buttocks of kalede lying on her stomach at the other end of the bed. Indeed, kalede were much more than the tavern legends told.
He chuckled proudly to himself, feeling emotion at getting to taste a kalede for the first time. They were… difficult, he'd been trying to woo her for weeks. The extraterrestrial had been in Zarcophagi for three months, doing scouting missions for a company, a guild of adventurers who profited by extracting natural resources from the Deep Forest.
The other was her friend; a beautiful talli, known to worship zophu — humans. Generally, humans were always the most loved by all species.
He smiled, looking for his clothes. He donned his military uniform, experimenting amid the thrill of a cheap, bounty-seeking asshole called a hangover. Her stomach was churning.
He looked around for the bottle of henequet he'd been drinking the night before, finding it on the kitchen counter. He took it, and took a sip. It was awful. Actually, I needed a coffee... No, unfortunately there was no coffee. In that world, no. What wouldn't he do for even a drop?
Darius huffed, abandoning the clay bottle, looking for a way out before the girls woke up and he couldn't get out of bed. He was still a Centurion, he had work to do.
He left the aliens' hotel room, dancing happily — despite her hangover. Felt pretty good — despite the hangover. His life since landing on that world was not the kindest, yet he would make the best of it — despite the hangover![AdM1]
Walking down the street, seeing the world shine in pink, Darius accidentally remembered his trip to that world. Which made him come back to reality and feel the hangover bothering him.
Was it perhaps twenty-one years ago? It had been so long that, occasionally, he remembered just one hour leaving a movie theater in 1987, fascinated by the film of a cyborg policeman, in the blink of an eye he found himself robbed by a strange cone of light that reminded him of a rainbow.
Darius still felt his stomach churn at the memory of his entire body being blasted into grain, soon being remade to hurl him out of a star gate in Arcadia. Around him, he met the gaze of many soldiers. Warriors, he wasn't sure, he just realized they were people wearing Roman Legion uniforms.
A man very handsome, asked her name. When he said his name was Nelson, was stolen, and became a soldier in the legion of the great bastard Augustus Tartarus Romulus by curse and obligation.
Darius was a slacker, though he'd adapted very well for survival purposes — he'd seen what happened to deserters. One of his first missions was the Desert Campaign, participating in the Naval Battle of the Oases which was a combat between the Legion and a shaikaah led by some desert savage in Deshret, the Desert of Oases.
He had some fun years in the desert campaigns; had even been promoted. With the duty of hunting someone special: the Witch of the Abyss. A person who would make the Legion invincible if his name were stolen.
Sixteen years later, Darius has never met the Witch. Well, they suspected that the hermit healer, who lived in a cabin in the middle of the forest. But she was just a pretty woman, and she didn't look like a witch. Witches are green, have a long nose and a hairy wart in the center. With that woman, he was more interest in conquering.
"Centurion!"
Suddenly, walking down the street thoughtfully, Darius jumped back to real life. Hardly realized, trap deep in his thoughts, that was reaching out to open his office. In addition to the mission to find the witch for the Legion, the company was being paid to protect Zarcophagi, which provided a great deal of money. Perhaps for this reason, Tartaro never bothered him for the delay of his mission.
"Good morning, Varros," he yawned.
Varros came along the dirt road accompanied by Lucillas and Ilis — small legionnaires who were under his command. They were new soldiers ten years ago, just "abducted" through the star gate that General Tartaro had in his control. They were sent to train under Darius, with aspirations that they would become leaders in the near future.
But the Centurion had corrupted them, and made them good friends. He always sent reports that they weren't ready to leave Zarcophagi.
"Darius." Lucillas smiled as he approached and greeted him with a gesture of the legion, as he slapped his chest and bowed. "We're going to the forest to kill a sphinx cat that's about to metamorphose. Want to come with us?
Frowning, Darius shook his head.
"Why the hell would I bother killing a feline sphinx?" he snorted. "I have reports to write.
"Oh, man," laughed Varros, patting Ilis on the shoulder. "Looks like you don't know, Centurion."
Ilis, a female with a horse face and large teeth, a cintaori alien, snorted a laugh.
"Looks like he doesn't know, Luci, look at his face!" chuckled Ilis. Darius still found it strange to hear her laugh.
"What don't I know?" said the Centurion, confused.
The three stooges looked at each other and started laughing.
"The adventurers are talking about seeing a Berenice." Lucillas loosened her tongue. "Some believe it to be a beautiful nofret, who takes care of the sphinx-cat about to transform.
"A nofret?" Darius felt his voice thinning.
Nofret were the most beautiful creatures any man would be pleased to see.
"Well, maybe the reports can wait awhile." Darius smiled, feeling his eyes almost close with his self-serving scoundrel's smile.
His companions broke out in laughter.
"I'm very interested too," Luci commented, holding up a thumb. "They've been sighting for about six months in the forest, often near the Witch's Grove.
"Ah." Darius raised his eyebrows. "Does it have something to do with that woman?"
"No one knows." Ilis shrugged. "In the town guild, it's even being treated like a legend. Some say it's beautiful, others that a hunting beast. But really, no one has any idea what it will be.
"And how will they find such a... person?" Darius's excitement withered.
"They say she's always with a sphinx cat." Varros nodded, after glancing at the other two. "We have received a report from adventurers who returned from the forest this morning, who report seeing the sphinx hunting near the Witch's Grove. We're heading there.
Darius checked that the gladius was intact in its scabbard. Life in Zarcophagi was not peaceful, but he had sometimes let his sword rust through misuse. He had very rarely entered the forest, so he was unaccustomed to dealing with beasts or spooks.
For a nofret, he would enter hell without a second thought.
"I'm curious," he commented, smiling. "Whatever this person is, we certainly need to find out whether it poses any danger to Zarcophagi.
His mates seemed to be of the same mind, though also fueled by the curiosity of an urban legend.
Some time later, Darius and his legionaries walked silently through the grass and mud. As the Centurion well remembered, the flora of the forest was like a wildfire, and the noise beyond the gray trees was like the soundtrack of a horror movie. Wherever they went, the corpse of some adventurer appeared who had the misfortune to come across a resident predator of the haunted woods.
Darius took his usual position at the front as the small patrol passed the skulls at the Witchwood's gate. The beautiful witch had told him they were just to scare off tax collectors and unwanted onlookers. It gave a scary look, mixed with the heavy climate of the forest.
They advanced along a hunting trail, covered with trails of dried blood and animal bones. Morning dew dripped everywhere, overwhelming the frightening sounds and terrifying whispers of demons looking for bodies.
A little further on, as he motioned for Ilis to take his rear, Darius passed a stream that was in full flood, covered with leaves and pieces of wood, but the Centurion stopped halfway with his sandals dipped in the muddy current and dark. His attention swam towards his left. As he pulled his sword from its scabbard, he thought he heard laughter.
Didn't think they would find what they were looking for so soon.
He smiled in anticipation, putting his finger to his mouth, asking his mates to be silent. He made a gesture with his hand, a military communication with a gesture, for them to stay where they were while he risked his neck to find out first.
Cautious, Darius advanced as carefully as possible. He almost stepped on a dry branch, but he lifted his foot, landing carefully on the ground full of black mud. He craned his neck, remembering that there was a source of hot water there. Rumors in the city said it was where the witch cooked her victims in ritual human sacrifices, bathing in the warm blood smeared by the water.
Darius snorted, ducking behind a bush, careful not to crumble to ash. That rumor was a lie that the woman they called the witch spread, so that no one would approach her Grove. People believed anything.
Then the Centurion tensed at the sound of a voice.
— Oh, Lion! You're back, kitty!
Darius felt a shiver run down his back. It was a woman's voice. For some reason, he remembered his mother's sweet voice telling him when he was little about a female spirit of fresh water in rivers and sacred springs, like mermaid.
Curious, Darius wondered if he was about to meet a new species of female alien, and how beautiful it would be.
However, he was surprised by the image of a human woman. As the aliens would say, a simple zophet.
The strange thing was that, with the exception of the witch, there were no zophetu in Zarcophagi.
Suspicious, he stretched out again, hiding so as not to be detected. The woman had her back to him. Smoke from the hot spring covered his figure, but the thin curtain of fog didn't stop him from fully catching a glimpse of her back.
Darius' mouth dropped. Two decades ago he was no longer impressed by the things he saw in Tammera; but he became completely astonished.
She was a woman with a body as beautiful as a nofret. Her hair flowed down long, sticking wetly to dark olive skin that flowed into a curvy waist, and he felt all the blood rush to his forehead at the sight of her bare buttocks.
An involuntary reaction pulsed in his nether regions, making him gasp and bring his hand to his waist. He swallowed, turning his eyes to the woman.
"You're a little boy on the run, Lion," the woman said, laughing, squeezing the sphinx cat in her arms.
She turned in profile, and he realized she was holding the rumored sphinx cat in her hand. Was not afraid, for the animal's tail was four times its size. At any moment, it would turn into a beast and devour anyone in its path.
Darius wanted to come out of his hiding place, but he recoiled as he observed the woman's private regions, despite not seeing only her thick leg raised on top of a rock.
Her breasts weren't big, but he bit his lip, wanting to…
What the hell am I doing?, Darius shouted to himself. For a second he thought he was bewitched. He shook his head.
With the utmost silence, he didn't move. But he stopped spying on her. He took his hand to his inconvenient regions for the situation, and wanted to kick himself. Darius was a scoundrel, but he liked people to be in common agreement to feel an erection like that.
He cringed, waiting for it to pass. He had to count in ancient tammerata to get his mind off focus. And when he couldn't, he took the memories to his ex-wife.
That feeling that he was the biggest bastard in the world deflated him like a balloon. Guilt clawed at his heart, and he almost cried in disgust with himself.
He took a deep breath, peering over his shoulder. The woman was no longer inside the hot spring. He had to bend down to peer through the branches of the bushes, and he realized she was getting dressed.
Not wanting to let her out of his sight, Darius didn't notice a dry branch snap under his foot.
In a second that contained all of his life, he felt himself frozen like a piece of stone.
"I heard you!", the woman shouted.
Paralyzed and crouched as he balanced on one leg, Darius felt as if a punch from a distance had hit him. He was thrown backwards, hitting his head on the floor. For a second he thought he had been hit by a rock, and now he was seeing birds swirling in orb shapes of light in his field of vision.
"Were you spying on me taking a shower?" A woman's voice startled the birds.
Startled, Darius reached for the hilt of his gladius, which fell off as he was thrown back. He felt around the ground, however, saw a female foot kick his sword away. He looked up, dizzy, noticing the figure of a face so beautiful he thought he was seeing a fairy.
[1] Henequet means beer.
[AdM1]I know it seems strange, but it is to be repeated! He's kind of trying to ignore the hangover, hahaah.
[AdM2]Darius talks about Robocop