Forging Ties (Ties, Book 3) | ✓

Chapter 11

"Only exotic orgies for you. Got it."

"Preferably, but I'm also addicted to human dick, so keep that in mind."

"If there's one thing I'm good at, it's having a human dick."

Duran smiled. "What a man."

#

As they journeyed further north, away from the icy mountains, the temperature rose and Hamish had to remove his coat. It was too bulky to fit in his bag, so he draped it over the top of it and carried it that way. He might have to get rid of it altogether soon. It was a hefty thing to carry around when he no longer really needed it.

The dense forest concealed many secrets. They encountered rivers that they had to find ways to cross and small mountains they had to navigate around that had remained hidden behind the trees until they were almost upon them. In the middle of the day, when the sun was high in the sky, they reached an abrupt end to the treeline and found themselves in front of vast fields of carefully cultivated farmland.

"Huh, more humans?" Hamish said, his brow furrowing in confusion as he took in the sight.

"Might be," Slone said, wrinkling his nose as he sniffed the air. "Can't say I smell 'em about, but these are bigger fields."

Duran had folded his arms over his chest, his posture tense and guarded. "I didn't anticipate this adventure involving more than one human."

"Might also not be humans," Slone said. "They sure ain't the only thing that can grow plants, and most things got to eat."

Hamish nodded, his eyes scanning the fields. "It does look exactly like the farmland back where I grew up, though. Even more so than the human settlement we passed through. They even have scarecrows out in the fields."

"Mm..." Duran kept one arm crossed over his chest, his hand on his shoulder. His other rested on the hilt of his knife. He had kept the weapon close by since they'd encountered the humans the previous day.

"We can just go around if you want," Hamish offered. "There are plenty of mysteries out here. We can leave this one unsolved."

Duran sighed and dropped his arms to his side, his posture relaxing slightly. "No, we can check it out. If they are humans, well... the other ones were nice."

"We'll check it out and then we'll keep going," Hamish said. "We have plenty of daylight left. No need to start thinking about staying the night anywhere."

They walked between the neat rows of plants, approaching a cluster of buildings in the distance. Hamish nudged at the base of one of the plants with the toe of his boot and unearthed a light brown globe. Onions.

As they passed a scarecrow, they paused to admire it. It was sturdier and more well put together than any scarecrow Hamish had seen before. In the past, he had always encountered ones that were little more than a stick dressed in old clothes with some straw stuffed in to pad it out. This one, however, had been crafted with love. It had button eyes and a big smile stitched on its sackcloth face, and its arms and legs were properly filled out inside its shirt and pants, finished off with a pair of old boots.

"Either they have very intelligent birds around here that won't be fooled by anything but the best craftsmanship," Hamish remarked, "or someone found an outlet for their artistic inspiration."

Slone leant in and gave the scarecrow a careful sniffing.

"Does it smell of human?" Duran asked.

"A lil bit," Slone said, still sniffing the scarecrow. "But other things, too. Kinda hard to say what. There are a few different scents and they're old. Probably this thing has been rained on a few times since anything living wore its clothes."