Chapter 10: Welcome Home

The next two weeks were uneventful.

We had good weather all the way. The ship went even faster with the clean hull. I think all the damn crystals they had embedded in the ship helped as well. The food was awesome. We had fresh produce every day. The cook, Ben, excelled himself.

The ship normally had sixteen crew members, but since the Captain had a feeling he was going to have a bored crew on a ship that would rarely break down, we had left six of the crew with the girls. Half of his crew had been shifters.

They were just as happy to stay. Two of the men were of the Burgis race, and they had signed on the voyage for the adventure. They were happy to continue adventuring around the city we had found.

The other four were shifters. Two were granddaughters of one of the Bulls I didn’t know so well, a Phil Bay. They had run away to sea, several years before. Staying behind had been an easy decision for them.

They weren’t the best sailors and had only enjoyed this trip because I had played with the ship. They much preferred to stay on land and wanted to settle down. They had also taken a fancy to the two Burgis men. I think they may have even influenced the men to stay.

The last two were also a couple. They both had mermaid for their main form. They had discovered the bay was full of fish and that the androids fishing boats needed some work, so they were going to help them fix their fishing fleet.

Several of the other crew members asked the captain if they could go back and stay. They would train his new crew members. Neither the Captain nor I had any real problems with this decision. Neither did the androids.

Silver had replied with a cryptic remark that if they weren’t good people they wouldn’t be happy to stay in the city. The Captain explained to me what that meant on his next trip back.

One thing that did keep me busy on the trip back was the small box of books I was given. Apparently, the controller had said since I was the cities mage they belonged to me. I’m not sure how I qualified as the cities mage, but they didn’t explain.

I did notice several of the books in the box had the same titles, so I separated them out and left them with the girls to read. For some reason, the books were spell books that had belonged to other mages.

I’d asked if there were magical items to go with them, but the android said no. They didn’t have any magical items in the city. The books had been collected from various houses when they had cleaned them after the late inhabitants had died of a plague.

The plague had been created by a corrupt wizard, and it had killed a lot of the people in the city during the War of the Wizards. This event had happened over two thousand years before.

The people tried to rebuild their lives after they lost contact with the other continents and the wizards who ruled Federation. Then a meteorite fell on the citadel. It killed the last of the mages and reduced the shield to the area it was now.

Those that survived the second disaster packed up and left Ochre City. No humans had lived in the city for a thousand years. It was a sad tale of a once great city. The androids said the shields once protected over a hundred square kilometres of land. They also had many thousands of acres of farmland supporting the city.

I didn’t know how to fix the other shields, and I didn’t believe I was powerful enough to do this. I was a mage, not a wizard as they described one. If people moved to Ochre City, they would have to protect their lands outside the shield as they did anywhere else.

As we neared Green Island, I asked the captain to pull in close to the coast near where Cavil’s homestead was. I planned to swim ashore, and Cavil and I would meet the ship at the docks. Hail was happy to do this for me.

I’d found a spell that waterproofed my satchel if it got immersed. I thought about encouraging Red to come with me but decided against it. I only had about 10km to walk to get to the homestead, and I could do that in an hour or so.

I hadn’t spent a lot of time in merman form in the last couple of months, and it felt good to feel my tail form as I dived over the rail. It was an easy swim, and I changed back once my tail started flicking the sand.

I’d found the swim refreshing as the spring weather had already warmed up. We weren’t that far from the equator and had a strange summer, as it was milder than the last month of spring and the first month of autumn. The weeks that covered the sun at its equinox were bloody hot here.

The mid four weeks of summer were milder like mid-spring and mid-autumn but the humidity was often higher, and we often had heavy rain and tropical storms. All three mid periods could be wet. Winter was often our driest time.

I waded ashore, removed my clothes from my satchel and redressed. I slapped my hat on my head and taking note of where I came ashore, I headed inland. It was a pleasant enough walk as a lot of the forests on this side were still in place.

I could see where they had been thinned, but new trees were already sprouting up to fill the holes in the canopy. I came out of the forest near a side paddock that ran part-way along the length of the main access road from Horn City.

I was surprised to see a large group of mounted people in Cavil’s courtyard. I hunkered down out of sight, quickly stripped off my clothes and stuffed them in my pack. I loosened the straps on my pack placed an invisibility spell on it and slung it on my back so when I changed to bull it would stay put.

I changed and then ambled over to the fence, so I could see and hear what was going on. No one paid any attention to me. I was just a bull in a paddock full of cows. I stuck my head over the top rail and sussed out who was arguing with Cavil.

He was very agitated, and I noticed that at least twenty other people stood in a loose semi-circle behind him. Most of them held some sort of weapon be it a hay-fork, a staff, a cudgel or even a whip. They were his people.

It was the people on the lanky’s that interested me. I could count fourteen people. Warh and his neighbour Dick Bellows, six of the people who worked for my grandfather and I assumed the other six worked for Dick, but I only recognised two of them.

They were not people I liked as they had poor reputations. They were, in fact, his daughters but they liked to parade in male form, and I’d heard stories of what they did to their sisters. I pitied the herd if either of them ever inherited from Dick.

I’d doubt either would ever challenge him fairly as they were both gutless cowards. They were more likely to stab him in the back and then trample all over him and say it had been fair.

I finally heard what my grandfather was saying, “As soon she turns up you are to send her home.”

“I will not. I told you last month, and I’ll tell you again, Bron is my property and he will go where I tell him too, not you. As it is, it could be another month yet, before he gets back. The last ship into port told of a big storm, so his ship could be delayed for weeks.”

“The other captain said that her ship left Grayson before them, she should be back already. Did you tell her to hide?” Warh bellowed at Cavil.

It amused me that Warh referred to me as ‘she’, and Cavil called me ‘he’. My grandfather had always refused to call me a ‘he’. As far as he was concerned, his spouses and their calves were all ‘she’s’ no matter what.

“Look, for the tenth time, Bron is not here. We have not heard where his ship is. To my knowledge, he is due back next week at the earliest. The message I received two months ago said that was when I was to expect them, not any sooner.”

“That, however, is still beside the point. I will ask Bron if he would agree to help you, but that is all I can do. If he comes back with what he was sent to retrieve, then I have promised him, his freedom. It will have been well earned.”

“If I hear that you have forced him to return to Horn, I will call a council and have you dehorned. Even you can’t force a free person to do your bidding.”

“Damn it, Cavil, my herd, is dying,” Warh screamed at Cavil.

I wasn’t pleased to hear that he had the sickness back. I’d told him how to stop it, but he mustn’t have listened to me. I knew my methods worked. Lady Di for all her faults had enough brains to listen.

When I went to get my money in Garson, she had left a message with the bank to thank me and tell me the sickness was gone from her herds. She had passed on my methods to the other herd owners, and they too were doing as I had asked.

I was told that even Domo Ethen had changed his methods. Yet my stupid grandfather thought he knew better, and now he was paying for his stubbornness. I was now glad I hadn’t brought my herd with me.

“Look, sell me Bron’s contract. If she gets the herds better I’ll make sure she gets her freedom,” Dick said in a reasonable tone.

Cavil looked at Dick and then at Warh. In a tightly controlled voice, he said, “The only way either of you will get Bron’s contract is to kill me. Do either of you wish to challenge me on this?”

I gasped with his family. NO. I couldn’t let him do that. He may be the younger man, but Greta had told me that he had never fought in his life. He had inherited the herd from his father.

When Gay, the youngest of Dick’s daughters with him, nudged her lanky forward and offered the challenge, I knew they had planned this all along. The only way I could save Cavil was to offer myself as his champion.

If I lost, then he did too, but at least he would be alive. I changed back to a man, jumped the fence and then changed back. I then ambled over and cut in front of the lankys to turn and stand in front of Cavil.

Cavil looked at me in surprise and then at my grandfather. I think he was as shocked as I was, when my grandfather taunted him, “Who the fuck is this? What, you can’t even fight your own fight. You’re a bloody woolly, not a bull.”

I turned to Cavil and gave a soft low. He said to me, “Are you sure? It will win you nothing.”

I could see he wanted to say more, but he didn’t wish to give who I was away to my grandfather if the man was too stupid to even recognise me. Admittedly, I was a lot bigger than when he had last seen me in this form. I had grown even taller and broader while I was away and I was very fit.

Gay looked me over, and I could see fear in her eyes. The idiots had thought Cavil wouldn’t seek a champion. He could well lose respect by accepting me and others may challenge him, but it was his right to do so.

Calvin then stepped up to my head, and he gave me a big grin. He looked at the Bulls, “I, Cavil Hind, hereby decree, in front of two witnesses of the council, that I have already forfeited the right to be a Bull.”

There were many gasps, but he continued, “I have only been holding this office until my new master returned to announce his right to join the council. If you wish to challenge my master for this herd, you are welcome to offer the challenge to him.”

He then stepped back and presented me with a flourish. I would have laughed if I had been able to. The cheeky bugger. He’d already told me he would hand his Herd over to Greta as my spouse and partner when he died. He was just pre-empting the dying bit.

The fact Greta had my child would be enough proof that he had done as he said. Our laws said she should only be carrying my calf if I was the Bull. The fact we hadn’t told the council or anyone else was our business. I was damn sure his primary spouse and Greta’s mother, Beth, would back him up, as would Greta.

I looked at my grandfather and stepped towards him. I spat on the ground between his lanky’s hooves. It was an insult of the highest order to spit at a Bull. It showed your contempt for them. I had just issued a challenge to my grandfather.

“I believe the horn is in your field, Warh,” Cavil said ensuring that all knew my intent.

“Wait, I made the challenge,” Gay said even though I now knew he hadn’t wanted to. Something odd was going on here.

“You challenged me, not my master. I declined on the grounds that I was no longer a bull,” Cavil said. He was kinda splitting hairs as he had said he was representing me. If the Bellows were smart enough, they would pick that up.

Apparently, they weren’t as they all looked to Warh. Dick and his daughter almost seemed relieved. I pawed the ground and let out a mighty bellow. I was quite proud of the noise I made as all the lankys stepped back and the people on them all looked at me with fright.

My grandfather scowled at me fiercely. He couldn’t let the challenge go just as I knew he wouldn’t. He stepped off the lanky and stripped off his clothes. I took careful note of his physique as he did so. His age was showing, and I was surprised at the paunch he had developed in the last three years.

His legs were surprisingly skinny, and his skin was loose on his frame. His lack of fitness would slow him down. I didn’t kid myself. He may not be as fit as I may be, but he knew more about fighting than I did. He was not likely to fight fair either if he thought he could get away with it.

Cavil opened a gate to a holding yard. I trotted in and moved to the far corner before I turned. I watched as my grandfather entered. I could see him checking out the dimensions of the yard and its state. I too took note of the unevenness of the ground.

My grandfather walked around the yard a little and positioned himself, so he faced me but was just off centre. I knew why he did it. As the challenger, I had to challenge. To charge straight at him would be disastrous.

Just in front of him was a small wash created by recent rain. It would screw up my stride and wrong foot me if I tried to meet him head on. I lowered my head and charged straight at him. He lowered his head to meet me.

Just before, I stepped into the wash and striking distance of his horns, I sidestepped to my left. I then twisted on my planted front hooves. I swung my hips around and lashed out with my hoofs. Ouch! I collected something.

I pulled my legs back in and let my hips continue the rotation and stepped with my front legs so my hips swung behind me and I planted my back legs, so I was once again facing Warh. I was surprised to see him stagger sideways several times as he shook his head.

Blood poured down his face. I had lashed his cheek under his right eye with my sharp hoof. I bunched up my muscles and sprang forward with my head down low. As I planted my hooves, I ripped my head upwards. The tip of my right horn caught Warh’s and the tips locked.

Since I was already in motion, I pulled back as hard as I could. He bellowed in agony as I tried to pull the horn from his head. He shook his head, and I found myself back peddling as the tip of his horn broke off. I watched him warily as he too backed up.