SIXTEEN

Never Wound a Snake; Kill it.

If it weren’t for his throbbing and bloody nose, Dungar would never believe that it was the real Sir Pent looming over him. Yet there he was, plain as day and solid as ever. He appeared to be in perfect health too, despite the massive impact he received when struck by the snake. Looks like Sir Lee may have been right after all. At least about the man’s resilience anyway, his parentage was still indeterminable.

The only part about him that was different was his eyes; they were no longer the cold, dark eyes that Dungar remembered, but rather bright, green, and ethereal looking. Clearly there was some more of the tree magic present here, but it still didn’t explain why the man was suddenly able to touch him. Physical feedback from his hallucinations seemed to have ceased once he became privy to them, so the only remaining explanation would be that this was somehow the real Sir Pent.

“How in the blazes are you alive?!” Dungar demanded as he got to his feet.

“When the snake hit me, it was with so much force that I did not land until I reached Lake Deeplu.” Sir Pent explained as he removed his gauntlets. “I managed to stay alive long enough to wash up on the shore of this island where I was healed by the tree. In return I vowed to protect it for as long as it would sustain me. It also promised me that one day it would deliver you to me, and now it appears that day has finally come!”

As he finished speaking, Pent grabbed each side of the collar of his armor and proceeded tear it in half. A series of metallic grinding and screeching could be heard as the folded metal futilely resisted being ripped apart by the knight’s impossibly powerful arms. After he had wrenched the armor from his body, the knight dropped it to the ground where it made a loud crash before he calmly walked towards Dungar.

“Oh that’s just not even fair.” The blacksmith sighed.

Effortlessly, Pent picked Dungar off the ground by his clothes and hurled him through the wall of the passageway they stood in. He landed in a crumpled heap covered with bark in a grassy meadow on the other side of the wall. Groaning, he slowly hauled himself to his hands and knees and looked around.

If he didn’t know better, Dungar would have never believed he was currently inside of a large tree. He could see no ceiling, above him appeared to be just an overcast sky partially obscured by the hundreds of branches from the forest of trees that surrounded him. He looked back to where he came from. He saw no wooden wall, just trees as far as his eye could see, trees and the angry looking visage of the former knight walking briskly towards him.

Before Dungar could react, Pent reared a leg back and delivered a brutal kick right into Dungar’s waist. The force from the blow was substantial enough to lift his entire body from the ground briefly before gravity took hold of him once more and dropped him back down onto his back. Between gasps for air, Dungar gritted his teeth and rolled out of the way before he received another. Painstakingly, he hauled himself to his feet just as Sir Pent got to within his reach. With a roar, he straightened up and drove a right hook right into the temple of Pent’s head. The blow though, solid as it was, was little more than a mild annoyance that the knight easily shook off.

In retaliation, Pent drove his knee into Dungar’s midsection before delivering a hook of his own. Once again, the force from the blow sent Dungar hurtling backwards, this time into a tree. However, rather than hitting the tree, he instead passed right through it. The lack of impact startled him for a moment, but then he remembered the banquet and his run-in with the nymphs. He studied the forest he found himself in, taking in the dim while light being emitted from the pseudo-sky and examining the sturdy looking trees, one of which he passed through like air not even a moment ago.

The situation was finally starting to make sense to Dungar, the bizarre magic of the tree and the arbitrary rules it played by. The entire interior of the wizard tree simply was what it was, an intricate labyrinth of empty rooms and passageways. The tree could conjure whatever it desired within them, but they only truly existed to those who were under the plant’s spell. A spell that Sir Pent, with his glowing green eyes and zealot-like devotion, was clearly under.

Dungar glanced at Sir Pent as the knight marched towards him, menacingly raising another fist. As his adversary lurched forward to deliver another brutal blow, Dungar took a quick step backwards into a tree. Effortlessly, the blacksmith’s entire body passed through it unimpeded. Sir Pent’s fist, however, halted as soon as it collided with the wood, resulting in a massive crack spanning the body of the devastated plant. The entire tree shook from the impact, sending its conjured leaves gently falling down onto the two men.

It was an odd, yet powerful feeling to have gained such control of the situation, and Dungar intended to take full advantage of it. Clenching his fist, he reached right through the ravaged tree and shattered Pent’s nose. Just as before, the knight recoiled from the blow very little, but the blood now oozing down his face and around his mouth proved all Dungar needed to know. The man was still vulnerable, just a little impervious to pain.

Normally Dungar would feel cowardly running away from his opponent and hiding behind trees only to pop out and crack him in the face on occasion. But rules and honor go out the window once his life falls into jeopardy. Also, if the knight intended to use dirty magic to beef himself up and swing the odds in his favor, then Dungar felt completely justified to use any underhanded tactic that came to mind to even the scales.

The scales had not become as even as he had hoped though. The blood trickling from Pent’s face seemed to have slowed to a halt, and the man’s resolve and endurance had not waned in the slightest. Dungar felt that he was a fairly fit man, but repeated bouts of surprise attacks and running away would start to wear on any non-magically enhanced individual after a while. He was far from exhausted, but his pace had become noticeably slower, and before long he could no longer outmaneuver the knight.

Dungar was attempting to make his way from one tree to another when he felt an iron-like grip take hold of his shirt and pull him sideways before he had his feet kicked out from underneath him. He hopped to his knees as fast as he could, but any attempts to get up were halted by five seemingly unbreakable knuckles.

Holding Dungar by the cuffs of his shirt, Pent lifted the blacksmith to his feet and stared menacingly into his eyes.

“Your cowardly tactics won’t work here, you sniveling craven.” The enraged knight growled. “Not so tough when there’s nothing to save you, hm?”

Pent did not wait for a response. Still holding Dungar with one hand, he took the other and clamped it around Dungar’s neck and watched sadistically as he slowly began to choke the life out of his helpless victim.

Dungar tried his very best to pry the man’s fingers apart, but it was no use. The knight’s hand was like a mechanical vice compressing his neck. Desperate, he pulled at the knight’s wrist, clawed at his face, and fell limp in his hands, but none of it was any use. The strong arms of Pent effortlessly supported his weight as his adversary continued the suffocation with his bare hands.

It was while clawing at Pent’s face that Dungar inadvertently grabbed a handful of the knight’s neatly cropped grey hair. As he grasped Pent’s hair, his mind went back to the arena and the similarly hopeless fight against the thin bird creature. Out of options, he decided if it worked once, maybe it will work again.

Gripping Pent’s hair with as sturdy a grip he had, Dungar yanked the man’s head towards him while simultaneously hurling his own head forward until the two met, Dungar’s forehead slamming into the bridge of the knight’s nose. As Dungar had hoped, the hand around his neck retreated back towards the knight it belonged to as Pent began to assess the damage on his nose that had now been shattered a second time.

Copious amounts of blood poured from the knight’s face, but as usual his resolve had not weakened at all. Gasping to regain his breath, Dungar looked up at the incredibly angered knight with worry. He had hit the knight with everything he had, there was nothing left for him to use.

Dungar hopelessly looked around the forest, desperate for anything he could repurpose as a weapon. No matter what he saw, though, it would be useless anyway, for he would not even be able to touch it. But as he looked upon his adversary, stepping around a tree as he came over to finish the fight, Dungar had the realization that it wasn’t him who needed to be able to feel the objects of the magic forest.

Throwing caution to the wind, and using the only remaining play in his book, he took off in the direction of Pent in an all-out sprint. When he reached the knight, he bowed his body forward and drove his shoulder into the man’s stomach. He did not stop running though. The momentum from his body was sufficient to lift the knight from the ground as he continued to run, carrying his opponent.

Pent screamed and pounded his fists on Dungar, but he pressed on in spite of them. Each blow sent a shockwave of pain through him, but the adrenaline surging through his body and the desperation surging through his mind was once again enough for him to phase out the pain.

Finally Dungar hit his mark. He went from a full on sprint to a complete stop in no time flat as he ran into Sir Pent’s body which had, in turn, collided with a tree. When he had recovered from the shock of the collision, Dungar looked down to see a thick tree branch stabbed right through his chest and coming out the back of him. Carefully, he slowly stepped backwards away from the branch where he was relieved to discover there wasn’t so much as a mark on him from it.

Pent, however, was not so lucky. The sheer magnitude of the collision likely obliterated many of his ribs and caused severe internal injuries. But the several inches thick tree branch jutting out from the part of his chest where his heart used to be was certainly the most grievous of the bodily harm he had suffered. The lower half of Pent hung limply as his arms felt around his injury. His breathing was hollow and labored, and gurgled slightly due to the blood seeping from his mouth.

Dungar wasn’t feeling too great from the impact either, but it was nothing he couldn’t manage. He limped slightly as he strode towards the knight, who looked up at him with an unmistakable look of defeat in his glowing green eyes.

“Some might say this’ll be a bit overkill.” Dungar explained as he cupped Pent’s jaw in his hand. “But I’m not quite sure just what this magic tree is capable of healing you of, so I need to be thorough.”

One hand on Pent’s jaw, and the other on the back of the knight’s head, Dungar began to twist until he heard the telltale sickly snap. The hollow breathing ceased and the knight’s arms went limp at his sides. As soon as they did, the room returned to the empty spacious circle it truly was. With no tree left to hold him up, the body of Sir Pent dropped to the floor where it lay like a crumpled ragdoll.

“Blimey, Mista Dungar!” Jimminy’s voice echoed through the room.

Spinning around, Dungar met the gaze of his faithful companion as the skinny man exited the passageway he came from and jogged towards him. As he reached the center of the room, Jimminy stopped and looked down at the mangled body of Sir Pent, pausing briefly when his eyes located the gaping hole in the man’s chest.

“What’s going on in here?” The gravelly voice of Blaine called out from a different passageway.

“Mista Dungar killed a guy!” Jimminy enthusiastically called back to him.

“I thought it smelled like dead body in here.” Blaine stated as he strolled into the room. “Hope it wasn’t one of ours.”

Before he reached the pair, Blaine halted mid step and looked at Dungar.

“Wait a minute, ain’t he the one that ran off earlier? Check his eyes, Jaunty! Are they green and spooky?”

Obediently, Jimminy put his face right in front of Dungar’s and looked deep into his eyes.

“Well they’re certainly scary, mate.” Jimminy relayed to Blaine. “But they’re as blue as ever.”

Shoving Jimminy aside, Blaine put his face right where Jimminy’s was in front of Dungar, poking his finger into the burly man’s chest.

“Did they get to ya, landlubber? Ye didn’t drink the qoolide did ya?”

“Enough, Blaine!” The authoritative voice of Nobeard called into the room.

The pirate captain, accompanied by Finn, Ozzy, and Larry, had entered the room during the interrogation. He still wore his exquisite black overcoat; however the garment now bore noticeable blood stains, likely the same blood that now coated his swords.

“Glad ye could make it, matey.” Nobeard addressed Dungar. “Ye had me worried that I’d be forced to gut ye.”

“Easier said than done.” Dungar quipped as he pointed to the mangled remains of Pent.

Nobeard laughed heartily as he put a hand on Dungar’s shoulder. “Impressive feat there, lad!” He acknowledged. Then he leaned in close so only Dungar could hear him. “But trust me when I say ye don’t scare me. By the way, how did ye get here so fast?”

“I took a shortcut.” Dungar explained, pointing at the hole in the wall that he was thrown through.

“Well regardless of how ye made it here, ye be here now. So let us continue with the treasure hunting. We be getting close now.”

The party of seven headed set off once more down yet another ominous passageway. Dungar and Nobeard led as Blaine, Finn, Ozzy, Larry, and Jimminy walked together in a group.

“So what happened to the rest of your mateys, mates?” Jimminy questioned the pirates.

“Well after you two left, we real pirates figured it was a better idea to look for Larry.” Finn explained as they walked. “We all started to lose it after a while though. By the time we found Larry, who was just laying down in the middle of the floor for some reason, we had already lost Wally, Ozzy, Shane, and Blaine.”

“I already told ya that I was laying in a bed!” Larry chastised him. “It was an enormous and comfy bed made entirely out of pillows. It was bliss, I tell ya!”

“And we already told you that it wasn’t real!” Ozzy admonished back. “Just like mine wasn’t either.” He added with a sigh.

“What did you see, mate?” Jimminy asked him.

Ozzy’s mouth curled into a satisfied smile as his eyes retreated to their corners and his teeth subtly bit down on his lower lip. Before he could respond, though, Blaine cut in.

“Trust me, lad, I know Ozzy here pretty well. Well enough to know that whatever temptation lured him in is not one you’d be wanting to hear about.”

“So what about you then, ya blind knowitall?” Finn mocked. “You can’t even see your own ugly mug in a mirror, so what did you feel?”

Blaine smiled to himself as well while the group continued to walk down the windy hallway. “There is no description for what I felt, lads. There be no sights, sounds, or smells which I could convey to ye with a coherent description. But I’ll tell ye this, though. I felt powerful.”

“This be the place, buccaneers!” Nobeard loudly called to the group, causing everyone’s heads to turn forward.

They stood before a large wooden door, heavily adorned with vines and flowers.

“Behind this here door lays the treasure we all seek.” Nobeard advised the crew as he gingerly reached into his shirt and produced a golden key. “This key is the only device that is capable of unlocking it. It was swallowed many a decade ago by a sea critter within the lake, and trust me, yer mind would be blown by the amount of days I spent fishing up the little bastards until I found it! All of that work will have paid off when I retrieve the fortune hidden behind this door though.”

Slowly he put the key in the lock, but before he turned it he cried out a mighty “Yarrrrr!” and drew both his swords on the party. Shocked and terrified, everyone jumped backwards out of the sharp steel’s reach. None of them took an aggressive stance, they all poised themselves to run away if the need to arose. Nobeard howled with enthusiastic laughter as he sheathed his swords.

“Sorry about that, mateys!” He apologized to the group. “If any of ye were going to betray me and take the treasure fer yerselves then that woulda been the perfect opportunity! So I figured I’d get the jump on you first!”

He continued to laugh to himself as he casually turned the key and pushed the door open. Inside was a small room with no floor and instead just a long pole leading into an abyss.

“Now I know what you’re thinking, lads.” The captain asserted as he grasped the pole. “Jumping into a dark hole while you’re exploring a magical hallucinogenic tree is about as ridiculous of an idea as cheating in a game of dice against a pirate with anger problems and a couple screws loose.”

Blaine acknowledged the comparison with a grunt of approval.

“But if ye want yerselves a piece of my sweet sweet booty then it be time to throw caution to the wind and plunge deep into this hole!”

And just like that, Nobeard courageously leapt onto the pole and slid down it into the ominous depths. Dungar was a lot less hesitant than he thought he would be. He figured with all the outrageous things he’d been put through today it was best to just not question Nobeard’s orders anymore. He had no idea how long he slid, it felt like hours, but he was relieved when his feet finally hit floor. He found himself right in the middle of yet another large circular room. However, this one was not entirely empty. On the far side, just as Nobeard had assured, there was indeed a large treasure chest on a pedestal.

As soon as everyone from the fellowship had made it into the room, a spotlight of sunshine shot from the ceiling and onto the treasure chest while a choir of soprano voices could be heard singing from an unknown location. Each member from the crew, naturally with the exception of Blaine, had their eyes transfixed on the treasure chest, giddy over the idea of what was inside. Nobeard, however, was looking around the room unimpressed.

“Huh.” He grunted disapprovingly. “I expected there to be at least some kind of final boss fight or something.”

He paused for a moment, hoping that his foreshadowing comment would maybe trigger something. But alas, he was not granted such a boon. With a dejected shrug, he strolled over to the chest and proceeded to open it.

“What do ye reckon is inside here, mateys?” Nobeard asked the crew as he fiddled with the lock. “Gold? Jewels? Weapons? Ah I can’t even contain me excitement!”

Before he had the clasps unlatched, though, another pirate fell from the ceiling and joined the crew. That pirate was none other than Eye-gougin’ Hugo Bonny.

“I should more than suffice as your ‘boss fight,’ captain!” He sneered at Nobeard. His features were every bit as sharp, and his hair every bit as oily as it ever was. The only aspect of him that had changed was his eyes which now emitted a sinister green glow.

Unimpressed, Nobeard turned back to him. “Ye timed yer entrance awfully, sailor. I’d already changed the topic since I mentioned that boss fight business, so trying to respond to it that late with a one liner just makes ye sound like a dumbass.”

“… What?” The bewildered Hugo asked.

“I’m just saying, matey, if ye wanted to make a cool entrance with a one-liner then ye gotta be fast enough to respond to the comment that prompts ya.”

“I’d trust him, Hugo.” Finn added. “He’s proven himself to be the most eloquent guy in this room.”

“Now hold up there, lads,” Blaine weighed in. “I’ve proven my ability to turn a phrase many a time during our voyages.”

“I know you gentlemen haven’t been acquainted with me all that long.” Jimminy interrupted. “But I think I should be considered as a contender for this particular title too!”

“Shut up, ye stupid little bilge rats! I’m the captain, so I’m automatically the best spoken. End of discussion!”

“ARE YOU GOING TO FIGHT ME OR NOT?!” Hugo screamed.

“Are ye waiting fer my permission or something?” Nobeard chided. “Come at me, ye sissy!”

As Hugo walked briskly towards him, the pirate captain removed his overcoat to reveal the tight pink sleeveless muscle shirt that lay beneath. The black overcoat Nobeard wore certainly did his physique no justice. After the garment was removed, his body was revealed to be something that could only be described as nothing less than hairy and hulking. Tufts of jet black chest hair could be seen sticking out from the top of his shirt as he flexed his pecs and cracked his equally hairy knuckles.

He was impressively agile for his size as well. Hugo lunged at him with a barrage of swings which Nobeard dodged with seemingly little effort before he grabbed the weaselly looking man’s arm at the wrist with one hand then used his free arm’s elbow to snap Hugo’s arm clean in half.

Dungar was mesmerized as he watched Nobeard viciously yet meticulously bash the entranced Hugo into a pulp. There were absolutely no wasted movements in the captain’s actions. Every punch, every kick, every blow delivered from each part of his body quickly moved into a follow up strike or a counter or a dodge. After breaking Hugo’s arm, Nobeard deftly leaned out of the way of his opponent’s frantic uppercut before responding with a right knee to the stomach, left knee to the face, foot stomp, and throat punch before kicking the pirate’s legs out from underneath him and punching him square in the nose as he fell sending him spinning to the ground.

The fight was over even faster than the conversation that preceded it. The crewmen gingerly gathered around the pirate captain as he kept Hugo pinned to the ground with his boot. The captain wasn’t ready to finish him off quite yet.

“As you know, my dear Hugo,” Nobeard mused nonchalantly as Hugo futilely tried to lift the man’s boot of his neck. “I’m not one who is quick to kill me own crew. Now I know this here wizard tree, seductive little minx that she is, has managed to worm her way into your brain. But after we take this treasure and get out of this place I promise ye will get better, forget all about her, and return to yer proper pirating ways.”

Hugo, like a rabid animal, continued to convulse beneath Nobeard’s foot as he gazed up at his former captain with hate in his eyes.

“I am indebted to this tree!” He spat. “It was there to save my life when the rest of you were content to leave me to drown! It has promised me life! And vengeance! Every desire that I could ever seek and that you could never provide!”

Nobeard shrugged. “Well that may be true, but it comes at the cost of yer freedom, lad. Life has itself no satisfaction if everything be given to you for free! Accompany us back to the real world. Everything you could ever desire is out there too, but I won’t be serving it to ye on a silver platter. Tis better to dish yer own plate in this life, that way ye won’t have to eat any veggies if ye don’t wanna.”

“My life …” Hugo breathed as his resistance began to wane. “Belongs to the wizard tree now! My purpose is to protect it, and die for it if need be!”

As he said those words, Blaine reached over and grabbed both of Nobeard’s swords off of his back.

“If dying for this tree is what ye wish, matey, then I’ll be happy to oblige ya!” Blaine gibed before the blind pirate stabbed both of the captain’s swords through Hugo’s eyes.

Nobeard sighed as he turned to Blaine. “Yes yes, through the eyes, how very clever and poetic, sailor. But I was right in the middle of reasoning with the poor, misguided lad.”

Blaine drew both swords from the lifeless skull of his former comrade.

“I have no time for poetry or reasoning, captain.” He stated coldly in his gravelly voice. After he did so, he then stabbed both of the swords he pilfered from Nobeard into the torso of Ozzy and snapped off both hilts.

The old, quivering man was so shocked that he couldn’t even react. He just stared disbelievingly down at the two pieces of folded steel jutting out of his chest. His hands shook and his knees buckled as his body quickly began to fail on him. Ozzy the Old managed one last pleading look to his beloved crew before his deadlights dimmed and his long pirating career reached its tragic end.

The five survivors of the original crew of ten gaped at the scene, mortified by what they had just witnessed.

“Don’t be so shocked, captain, you just said it yourself. I’m just dishing up my plate,” Blaine mused forebodingly. “And a meal as delicious as this one isn’t meant to be shared.” He added as he removed both eye patches to reveal a brand new pair of glowing green eyes.