by Russ Primo
"Saving your life!" I yelled as I did the same to Mira, and received the same response from her. "We need to get out of here! It's the elves! Either they followed us here, or they were going to come here to begin with!”
As soon as the word 'elves' passed my lips, both girls' eyes shot open wide.
"Elves?" Kacie exclaimed, dropping her arms from her breasts and fumbling about in the half dark for the end of her comforter. “I thought Mira dealing with them at Wex’s bar would have been enough to keep them away!”
Mira was awake, too, and scrambling to extricate herself from the covers, which over the course of the night had gotten tangled up around their lithe, thin bodies.
“Well, I guess being threatened with a permanent time-stop wasn’t enough to dissuade them,” Mira exclaimed, dragging a delicate foot roughly out of the comforter. "I'm only an apprentice, though. Maybe I should have tried for something more shock-and-awe?”
The sound of the elves' shouts outside grew louder, until it sounded as though their voices were banging against the thin, blown-glass windowpanes.
Then, the arrows began striking the stones, the metal frame, the glass itself.
Suddenly, a sense of total and irrevocable calm settled over me.
"Get up," I commanded Mira and Kacie, as calmly as an old sage. "We don't have much time. You'll have to follow me."
It was as though my calmness was a spell that I wove over them.
Immediately, Kacie stopped struggling, and I held my shield up over their bed as a golden elven arrow split the windowpane in a thousand pieces that clattered over my magical shield and the bed around them.
If we don’t get out of here soon, we’re all dead.
Or worse.
I offered Kacie my hand and pulled her gently from the bed, being careful not to set her down on any of the glass shards that had gotten strewn about the place.
Then, I did the same with Mira.
The girls rubbed their eyes, and I cleared a path to the door back into the temple, brushing glass shards aside with my feet.
"Follow close behind me," I ordered them. "It's a complicated way, to get back."
Kacie nodded.
"Just a sec," she crooned, rubbing her arms for warmth. "I need to grab my clothes."
I shook my head, just before a banging started sounding on the door outside and an elf face appeared in the broken window.
"Follow," I growled at the girls, who stood there, shivering in the most revealing sets of lingerie that I'd ever seen.
No more time. Either they come with me and escape, or they stay and the elves take them.
Without another word, I strode out of the door, and the girls did as they were bid.
I slammed the door behind us, and wrenched a low bench over to it, jamming the back against the doorknob securely.
"That should hold them a little longer, too," I smiled.
In the hallway's dark, lit only by the blue light of my shield, the girls looked like horrible beauties, like scorned lovers, cursed to walk the halls of the living even in death.
Well, I wouldn't let that actually be their fate.
"You remember the way?" Mira asked tentatively. "It changes every week, and I don't know what it is now."
"I paid close attention on my way," I replied, giving the bench a final, testing shove with my heel just to be sure.
Even though it seemed firm enough, I doubted whether it would hold very long, once the elves came.
I hoisted the shield up on my arm, and waved to Mira and Kacie to follow me.
The path we took, now that I knew we had angry, deadly elves behind us, seemed a little more convoluted than before, even if we moved faster than I had before.
Right, left, left, left… Right, right, left, right.
And out.
The main chamber, where the large oaken front door shook with every bash that the elves leveled against it, soared into our sight as took the last turning.
"Oh, good!" Mette cried, relieved, from the altar-place. "I was starting to get worried about you, Mira! You're normally such a deep sleeper!"
I looked at Mira and saw a slight, pink blush steal up her exposed chest and into her neck.
"Did Pryvet have to slap you?" Mette continued. "I know I've had to do that, once or twice."
The light, pink blush in Mira's neck deepened and crept further up into her cheeks.
Had to slap her?
What are these two like, when there’s no one around?
"I didn't think of it," I admitted, trying to save the poor Mira some of the embarrassment, at least. "Mette, How close are you to getting us out of here?"
"Almost there, Pryv!" Mette cheered, clearly in high spirits, in spite of the banging on the front door, and the hideous red light of fires burning outside the windows. "Now, if you'll excuse me…"
She turned away from us, and I saw what she was doing up on the altar.
Mette was crouched low before the spot that had held the burning tree, earlier in the day, with her hands clasped before her ample chest as though in prayer. But now, instead of the soil that had been there before, I glimpsed the edge of what looked like a small, wooden slat.
She was again speaking in a language that I couldn't understand.
As I looked over at Kacie, it dawned on me that she didn't know any of it, either.
At least, judging by the look on her face, she didn't.
Her fine, soft features were wrinkled in confusion, her brow furrowed as deep as a trench for planting beans.
"You don't know what she's saying, either?" I whispered, leaning over to her and hoping beyond hope that, whatever it was Mette was about, she would be finished before either that huge door out front gave way, or the elves that were probably already in our temporary bedroom found their way through the maze of turnings. "I figured it was some local language, and you'd know it, too."
Kacie turned her sour face up at me.
"Not hardly," she breathed. "That's magic talk, and only the priestesses of The Mother are allowed to learn it."
She cast a glance over at Mira, who was listening intently to Mette's inscrutable words, before shivering.
"I wish we'd had a chance to get dressed, though," she admitted, rubbing her bare arms and making her chest do a jiggle thing that I had a hard time not staring at. "It's cold in here, and too dark as well."
I nodded, briefly mesmerized by her looks, before blinking and remembering myself.
She does look like she’s freezing. I can practically see her nipples piercing the underwear.
"Here," I said, unwrapping my traveling cloak from around my shoulders and handing it to her. "This kept me warmer than you'd think on nights colder than this."
She smiled at me, briefly, as though she'd been embarrassed to ask for it, and now having got it was embarrassed to not have asked.
Kacie didn't strike me as the type of woman who likes for other people to think that she needs taking care of, but who secretly wishes to be wrapped up in a pair of strong arms and cooed to until she falls asleep each night.
"Thank you, Pryvet," she said finally, after scrutinizing the fabric for some time, slinging it over her shoulders, and doing up the clasp at the front. "It's softer than I'd expect it to be, knowing it's yours."
I was almost so entranced, again with her body, that I barely registered the strange comment.
The cloak had been with me since before my village was put to the torch, and though it had fit me in my youth, the years piled onto me meant that it was a little lacking where my chest was concerned.
On Kacie's lithe frame, it sat a little better. But, still, it didn't come close in the front, and left me with a lovely shot of her bust. The cloth framed her breasts, the edges coming just to the edges of her chest, brushing up against her bra and frankly would have drawn any red-blooded man's gaze.
Still, though, my brain did process her words after some moments, and I said, "Hey, now what's that supposed to mean?"
Kacie, fortunately, did not appear to have noticed my stares, and was still fingering the cloth fabric with her fingers.
"Oh!" she blushed, glancing up into my eyes before casting hers away again. "It's only to mean that, well… I didn't know you too well, before this whole thing happened, and I always figured you were more of a rough kind of guy.
“Like, you looked like the kind of man who wears hair-skin shirts because you just couldn't care less about things like how comfortable a shirt is. I mean, anyone who could knock back a fireball like you did at the bar is probably someone who doesn't spend a lot of time seeking comfort, right?"
I was about to tell her how my mother had given it to me, and otherwise I really was that kind of guy, but just as I opened my mouth, the banging on the large front doors grew to a cacophony.
Hearing the sudden onslaught made Kacie jump, and glance nervously behind her.
She opened her mouth to say something, but was stopped by my grabbing her wrist and shouting, "Come on! We need to block it until Mette can finish our escape route!”
Yanked along behind me, Kacie gulped and nodded. I ran with her over to the jumble of pews locked against one another.
"Give me a hand with these!" I shouted to her, my yells fighting valiantly against the sounds of what must have been axes chopping at the wood. "We need to wedge the doors more!"
Without waiting, Kacie raced to grab the back of the pew I started pulling on, the two of us yanking at it fiercely until it finally popped free of the pile.
Once we get the door secured better, though, I bet they’ll just try the windows, like they did in the bedroom.
"What about the windows, Pryvet?" Kacie called out as we raced with the pew over to the oaken doors. "Can any elves get in through those? I know they're good climbers! A lot live in trees, I think!”
Well, she is pretty smart! Good to keep her around, it seems.
I looked up at the large, stained-glass windows as we slammed the pew heavily into place, turning it onto its back so that the longer backrest could hold in the floor's slats, hopefully providing more support than the regular feet would give. Or, at least, hopefully not popping out of their nails quite so easily.
The windows looked to be as tall as Wex's whole bar, and I didn't trust the glass to hold out against anything really substantial. The elves had, after all completely shattered the bedroom windows with nothing but some thicker bolts.
"If they come in through the windows," I called to Kacie, grabbing her wrist to keep her from adjusting the pew and forcing her to come back to grab another with me, "then we're in trouble. But, they're at least really high up. Probably a story off the ground, at least.
“We can’t really do anything there, but we’ll at least have the benefit of their having to slow down to climb up and then back down again. And, if they come in that way, they'll have to break the windows already. The floor will be covered in thick, sharp pieces of glass.”
Or, at least I hope they’ll have that much difficulty.
It sort of feels like I’m only trying to convince myself of something I know won’t work.
Kacie, already at the end of the next pew I'd grabbed, looked relieved to hear it, and yanked with renewed fervor at the wooden bench with me until it sprang free.
I was feeling good about our chances as we slammed this pew into place, but noticed with shock that there really weren't that many pews holding the doors in place.
With each slam on the doors, their wooden frames shook violently.
Right as I was about to turn around and get the next, the wooden door gave a horrible, gut-wrenching snap, and a good-sized crack appeared between the halves.
A rough, calloused hand shoved itself roughly through the crack, feeling around the edges as though hoping for a handle.
"Aah!" Kacie shrieked, pointing at it with a look of horror on her face. "Pryvet!"
She pointed desperately at the invasive hand, but I was already one step ahead of her.
Let’s show you to push your arm in somewhere you’re not invited, you bastard!
"Stand back, Kacie!" I shouted, brushing her away from the doorway with the side of my arm.
I took a deep breath, raised my right leg, and kicked as hard as I could at the broad side of the searching arm.
A sickening crack echoed through the church, as the sole of my foot connected with the arm, cracking the bone easily in two and sending the interior half of the arm smacking against the opposite doorway with a dull thud, before flopping off and dangling down below the small opening.
The shriek of the arm's owner was even worse than Kacie's.
It rent the whole hall, a piercing and riotous shriek that made Kacie pull her hands to her ears, and set my blood to freezing.
But I had no time to recoil at it. The elves had breached the doorway, and now it was only a matter of time before the broken-armed’s comrades pulled his dangling limb away from the opening, giving them a clear shot at Mira and Mette, up there on the dais.
"Come on, Kacie!" I yelled, wrapping my arm around her stomach and lifting her away from the door as I sprinted back to the other girls. "It's do or die time here!"
Kacie's eyes looked shocked at being hauled up so roughly, but I wasn't about to waste any time in setting her down, just so that she could make her way to the dais herself.
Please be finished soon. Please be finished soon.
"You'd better be nearly done!" I yelled at Mette and Mira as I released Kacie on the raised stones. "Because, if not, we're done for!"
Kacie looked briefly relieved to be set down, and looked over at the temple women.
Mette was in just the same pose as before, chanting in deep tones, in a language I couldn't understand.
Mira stood on the other side of what I now realized definitely was a trap door, chanting a little slower and more fumblingly than her tutor.
"Nearly, nearly, Pryvet," Mette breathed. "Something's wrong with my sisters. The way is hard to open without them, and they aren't responding to my pleas."
"Right," I sighed, turning back to the door and feeling my stomach turn as the broken, dangling arm was indeed wrenched back through the hole. "Well, take your time. It's not urgent."
The sounds of chopping increased, and within the space of a minute, the hole in the door was four times as wide, then it was wide enough for a full grown elf to enter through.
And then enter, a full grown elf did.
Full grown and, to my great surprise, amazingly gorgeous.
In a second, my mind placed the stunning elf’s face.
It was the very same one that had attacked us at Wex’s bar, not twelve hours before.
Though she was across the hall from us, I could make out her beauty just as well as I could only a few feet away, across a dimly lit bar.
Now why does someone who looks as good as you do, lady elf, have to be trying to kill me?
Wouldn’t it be easier if you just wanted to sleep with me, instead?
Long, blonde hair, fell in cascading rivulets down across the elf’s shoulders and full chest. A thin, angular face held bright blue eyes which made her seem like they were a part to her bright blue armor. Her long legs were sheathed tight in a pair of leather boots that rose above her knees.
In spite of myself, I found my mind wandering to whether any children sired with elves would count towards my Debt…
Do the children I sire have to be human children? Or could a mixed-species child work just as well?
And, for that matter, can humans and elves mate, anyway?
This was a very foolish line of thinking to let my mind wander down, for it wouldn't matter what the technicalities of siring half elf children would bring to my as-yet unseen, or at least potentially unsigned contract with The Mother, if I died before they could be sired.
I still have to clarify with Mette, whether there’s some sort of pact I have to make, now that she’s settled on terms.
Good to get it all down in my head, before I agree
to anything.
In spite of all the elf's ample beauties, she was still a warrior.
And the bow that she drew through the hole behind her was big enough to make me gulp.
Certainly, it was larger than the one she’d brought into Wex’s tavern only so recently.
"Shit!" I breathed in spite of myself. "That's a huge bow."
Almost without thinking about it, I backed up closer to Mette and Mira, so that they lined up neatly behind me.
"Kacie," I whispered out of the corner of my mouth, "Get behind me. I can't protect you if you're not."
Kacie gulped too, watching the elf watch her, and moving silently in behind Mira.
The elf's full, red lips, thinned into a line, before curling up into a vicious smile.
With what looked like practiced ease, the gorgeous elf knocked an arrow, lit the arrowhead aflame by scraping it against the stones, and drew the bow taught, its massive frame creaking and groaning under the stress and power stored within it.
I barely had time to glance behind me, ensuring that all the women would be covered by my shield.
Assuming the massive bolt the elf had drawn back didn't just break my arm outright, like I'd done to her comrade’s, I wanted to be able to fight again after this.
With a start, the elf gave out a sharp, high, shriek of anger and let the huge arrow loose with an explosion of pent up tension.
Her shot exploded from the bow with a smack of sound and a rush of air.
"Shit!" I yelled, trying to judge its flight desperately as it hurtled towards me, and wrenching my shield up at the last moment to block it.
I'd expected the arrow's force to knock me backwards, at the very least; really, I'd expected it to pulverize the small bones in my hand where I gripped the shield.
Instead, it was weird, the motion of levering the shield up at the moment of the arrow's impact seemed to pull me forward. Or, it was as though the crossing momentum of the shield and the arrow gave my arm some forward movement, even though that made no sense to me.
It’s like the shield is drawing my arm forward, instead of my arm pushing the shield forward.
