Chapter 1.9 - Unlikely Alliance

Streaks of ornamental white paint covered Strong Elk’s bodyguard, a woman who nearly as big and bulky as the Chieftain she’d sworn to protect. With Auru and Billy’s neck tucked easily beneath each of her knotted arms, the expressionless Amazon dragged both wriggling captives into Strong Elk’s torch lit chamber.

The muscular, beautiful leader sat on his throne of elk bones, crowned with horns. Listless, deep in his own morose musings, Strong Elk barley raised an eye at the intrusion…until he beheld the face of the intruders.

Strong Elk’s henchwoman dumped Billy and Auru onto the dirty floor. “We found these two at the village entrance,” the giantess sniffed, dusting off her hands. “The large one has one of your fangs in his possession, so we chose to capture them rather than kill them outright.” She smirked. "Besides, I know your penchant for men with meat on their bones."

With a flash of recognition, Strong Elk stiffened his back, spread his thick legs, and adjusted into his throne. “Oh,” he sighed. “Those assholes.”

Auru pushed himself off the ground and spat in the dirt. He shot Strong Elk a nasty glare. “I only see one gaping asshole.”

“Shall I break his neck?” the big woman politely asked her liege.

Strong Elk looked like he was considering it, before he held up his hand and asked the woman to take leave. She bowed her head and left Billy and Auru at Strong Elk’s mercy.

The pop of the torchlight fire stirred Billy from his skull-rattling daze. Was it just him, or did Strong Elk look even bigger, up close? “We beseech you, Strong Elk,“ Billy mumbled. “Those...are all animal bones you’re sitting on, right?” He gulped. “Right?”

The chieftain of the Elk Clan frowned. “You two better have good reason for coming here. Unless…Auru, you wanted to mate again?” Strong Elk’s loincloth barely covered his flaccid, but thick member, which peeked out from the animal skin.

Auru’s temperament changed. “YES!”

“NO!” Billy shouted back. Seemed he would have to take the lead here. Billy got onto his feet. He repositioned his peach-emoji baseball cap backwards. “Strong Elk, Eshana told us everything. I am so sorry for what happened to you and your people. We want to kill Thunder-That-Walks just as much as you do.” Well, I don't really want to kill anything, but 'when in the Palaeolithic', I guess. 

The mighty Elk flinched. The room got colder. “What did you say? That name...”

Billy wasn’t so sure his diplomacy was bearing fruit. He shrugged. “Well, I’m usually against killing, and I kinda’ had a vegan phase because of this hot guy I wanted to date, but—”

“Your babbling conceals your courage,” Strong Elk said, much to Billy’s surprise. “Or, perhaps, your stupidity. Or both. You two really think you can kill that fiend?” Strong Elk’s cutting sneer told Billy and Auru what he thought about the idea.

“Well, uh, no,” said Billy. “That’s sort of where we were hoping you might lend a hand?”

Strong Elk cocked his head to the side. After appraising his guest for a long, painful moment, he let out a sharp, “Ha!” 

Billy was deflated.

“Let me try him,” Auru grumbled. He got off the ground and rose strong and tall. Auru puffed his chest out and addressed Strong Elk like an equal. “Strong Elk, there’s no doubt that you and I are two of the best hunters in the valley. Which is I know we can join together and defeat that mammoth.”

There was a brief moment where Billy thought Strong Elk might be considering it, but the mighty chieftain turned his head away in disappointment. “Fools, both of you,” Strong Elk said. “The thing is unkillable. I am convinced it’s an evil spirit. My best men—and my only son—threw spear after spear at it. I’m told some of those spears are still embedded in the monster's flesh. It was all for nought. The beast lives. My son is dead.”

Billy bit his lip. And here I thought this was supposed to be a light-hearted, sexy adventure. I wonder if this mammoth is infected with a degenerating disease like rabies. Something that would make it erratic but also immune to pain. If that’s the case, Thunder-That-Walk's days may already be numbered. Question is, how many more innocent people will he kill before he succumbs?

“It sounds like your people may have already weakened this thing,” Billy offered. “So, we got that going for us, right?”

Strong Elk narrowed his eyes at Billy. “How much do you know about bringing down mammoths?” he asked.

“Uhhh. Can’t say I ever tried? Not that I’ve had much opportunity to hunt mammoths before. Where I come from, they're sort of all...dead."

Strong Elk tossed his golden mane of hair to the side and fell back into his pouty droop. “Forget it,” he huffed, crossing his arms. “If you aren’t going to offer me any useful solutions…or sex…then I want nothing to do with either of you. Leave me in peace.”

Deflated, Billy considered resigning himself to a life of hunting and gathering, balanced out by having his back blown out unga-bunga style. That’s when Auru, quiet and observant up until now, stepped in. The torchlit room elongated his shadow, making him appear that much taller.

Auru pressed his fist to his chest in a gesture of respect. “Strong Elk, I do not want to hunt Thunder-That-Walks just because it means I’ll get to join the Bull Clan.”

Elk snorted. “Oh, so that’s the truth of it, then?” Strong Elk balanced his head on his hand and appraised Auru like a piece of succulent deer meat. “Well, if you two are banished from the Bull Clan, perhaps you can stay here as my personal breeding bucks. I’ll have fun making good use of you. Nightly.”

That concerned Billy for multiple reasons, the least of which was being able to walk normally ever again. He looked pleadingly to Auru. Big guy, come through!

Auru clenched his fists and huffed deeply. His strong, stern, silence was enough to command Elk’s complete attention. “I don’t want to do it just so I can have a clan again—I want to do it to help you! Because I know the hurt in your heart. The big sadness.”

Billy saw Strong Elk’s fingertips clench down on the throne’s bony arm rests. He held his breath.

Strong Elk rose from his throne and stomped towards Auru, who remained unflinching, not intimidated by the lordly brute bearing down on him. Still, when Strong Elk spoke, it was with an agony in his voice. No anger.

“How could you possibly know what I feel?” Strong Elk asked.

Auru met his eyes. “I lost my village. They are dead. And until Billy came along, I was all alone.”

Auru’s words were a stone knife to the heart. Billy quietly watched the shadows play across Strong Elk’s face, the curves and valleys of his musculature. The Chieftain looked like he was fighting a battle inside.

Finally, Elk spoke. “It seems you and I share more in common than our hunting prowess and potent virility.” Strong Elk’s enormous chest rose and fall with a long sigh. “I will consider your proposal, Auru.”

Billy whipped around to give Auru a high five, until he remembered the high five wouldn’t be invented for at least another several thousand years, so he awkwardly touched his shoulder instead. Still, good news.

“But first,” Strong Elk interrupted, “a test!”

“Motherfucker!” Billy cried out. It seemed neither Auru nor Strong Elk grasped the meaning of that curse, which was probably for the best. Just when Billy thought he was finally getting somewhere, now there was this JRPG-ass side quest nonsense! 

Ignoring Billy, Strong Elk addressed Auru head on. “There is a more pressing menace that plagues my people,” he said. “Perhaps you have heard of the wugwug?”

“Now you’re just makin’ shit up!” Billy yelled.

Auru quietly placed his enormous hand on top of Billy’s head. It shut him up. “Billy, please, use a gentle voice. Now, Strong Elk, my new friend, tell us more of this wugwug.”

“You’ve never heard of the dreaded—or, as some say, desired—wugwug?” Elk asked. “Ha! Well, that’s probably for the best, knowing your propensity for sticking your dick in things, Auru. In any case, it is not a beast. It’s a plant. One that feeds on man.”

“Man-eating plants don’t exist,” Billy said. They certainly didn’t back during these times, anyway, or else fossils of them would have been discovered by now.

Strong Elk gave Billy the stink-eye. “Do you take me for a liar, little man? Mark my words. The thing is a monster.”

“Monster?” Shit. This must be one of the paradox things Eros was talking about. “Wait a minute. What was that part about Auru sticking his dick into things?”

“It is an understandable question.” Auru politely said. He patted the front of his lion skin loincloth. “I do have a habit. But I am confused, Strong Elk. You want us to kill…a plant?”

“A plant that eats human flesh,” Billy added.

Strong Elk, however, shook his head. “Flesh? Not quite. The plant consumes human essence, yes, but its target is neither flesh nor blood but the—”

“Cum.” Billy cut him off. “It’s cum, isn’t it?” Damn it, Eros.

Strong Elk nodded affirmatively. “The wugwug has an insatiable appetite. Or, so say those few who have survived it. It seduces men with its pollen, ensnares them in its many arms, and latches on to your manhood. Then, it sucks you completely dry, until you experience such pleasure as to beg for death’s release! The power of the wugwug is unrelenting. It feeds and feeds, causing release after release until your heart gives out from maddening pleasure. They say women aren’t affected, but that’s probably because they’re smarter anyway.”

“Yeah,” Billy answered. “Because they don’t go sticking their genitals into weird plants. While that does sound strangely like one of the exact ways and methods by which I would like to die, why is it a problem for you, Strong Elk?” Auru too, looked as if he wanted to know Strong Elk’s reasoning.

The Chieftain was happy to explain further. “Many of my best men were killed by Thunder-That-Walks,” he said. “And now I am finding more who have gone hunting in the shrouded woodlands to the north are not returning. Recently, one of my huntswomen did, and she said the other men were ensorcelled by the voracious wuwgug. I have no reason to doubt her. The monster must be slain.”

Cum-sucking vampire flora aside, Strong Elk’s rationale was sound. He looked to Auru to take the lead. The large man spoke for them both. “And then you’ll help us, Strong Elk?”

The Chieftain lowered his head. “Fear and grief have sickened me for far too long,” he said, in a somber tone. “Auru. Billy. You have my word.”

That solved one problem. Potentially, anyway. Fortunately, Billy had tried to become a ‘plant daddy’ once (to impress a boy) and found that he was very good at killing green things. “Okay, guys, so how do we take care of the evil cum plant?”

“It is impossible to uproot,” Strong Elk said. “And approaching it directly is to become poisoned by its mesmerizing pollen. Legend has it that only a warrior of immense virility was able to overpower one of its kind—wait, Auru, where are you going!?”

Auru gave Elk an unintentional eyeful of his beefy ass as he turned towards the cave entrance. One would have thought he was fleeing a fire with how quickly he made for the exit.

Auru whipped his head back to Elk and Billy. “Uh, I’m going to go find it of course?”

“Right now!?” Billy exclaimed, exasperated.

Auru rolled his eyes. “My balls are aching for release, Billy! Now is the best time.”

Billy slapped his hand against his forehead. Fucking stone age himbos. “Auru. Bro. Didn’t you hear the part where it will make you cum until you die? Is everything about mating, to you?”

Auru stared at him blankly. “Yes. Now, what are you two waiting for? Let’s hunt a wugwug!”

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