by Simon Archer
I leaned forward, and Marinka leaned back until we were lying on the tarp we had strewn across the ground. I opened my eyes, pulled my robes up, and helped Marinka undo the clasps on her armor. The firelight flickered, illuminating her soft features.
I leaned back in and resumed the kiss. I moved my hands down around her waist and pulled off the last plates of her armor. She smiled into the kiss, and I smiled back. She reached up and stroked my cheek, and then I sidled down until my head was positioned between her legs. I stroked her clit and then leaned my hand inside her while I went down on her. She groaned beneath her breath so that the others wouldn’t wake and hear… or worse, see us… but somehow that was even hotter than when she had moaned and groaned more audibly during our last adult play session.
She tasted hot and sweet, just like I would have expected, and as I dove deeper inside her, she groaned more, panting now as well. I felt her moving beneath me and looked up to catch a glance of her clapping her hand over her mouth to keep herself from making more noise, muffling but not completely silencing the sounds. I grinned and felt my cock grow hard between my legs. She came not long after that, her legs tensing beneath my chest and the muffled sounds of her cries growing louder and more frequent.
I moved up until we were eye level again and moved her hand away from her mouth so I could kiss her. I wiped her cum away from my lips first and then leaned in to meet her lips, further muffling her cries. I raised my eyes to the tents off to our side. They were still and silent but for the soft sounds of Bernsten’s snores, signifying that our companions were still fast asleep.
A few moments later, Marinka broke our kiss and pushed me gently over on my side. She bent down, her tight little body rising and falling in the air making my cock throb even harder, and took my now very erect member in her hands, rubbing my shaft up and down in the tantalizing, wonderful way she did the last time, stroking me with her fingers slowly, then more and more quickly, and then, just as I was about to come, slowing down once more to prevent me from blowing my load prematurely. I groaned under my breath, able to keep my voice down without clamping my hand over my own mouth like Marinka had to do.
Then, when I could feel myself about to cum for the third time, Marinka pulled back just enough for me to settle down a bit, and then she leaned down even more and pressed her lips over the top of my cock, running her tongue around it with gusto. I groaned again, a bit louder this time, grasping at the ground beneath me with one hand and Marinka’s dark curls with the other to try to release some of that built-up energy.
“Shh,” she whispered, pulling back from my cock just long enough for her to speak. I could feel her breath against me, tickling me, and I grew harder once more. She pressed her mouth against me again and leaned in deeper this time. I grabbed the back of her head and assisted her in getting closer to me as my cock slipped deeper into her throat. I groaned once again, stifling my voice just short of a cry, and ran both of my hands through her hair now as she worked her magic between my legs. Once again, just when I was about to blow, she sensed it and pulled back, licking her lips a bit and crawling back up my chest slowly, stopping to press her lips against my abdomen, sternum, and neck before meeting my lips and leaning into another kiss.
“Thank you,” I murmured into the kiss as she resumed stroking my shaft with her soft fingers, my cock hardening once more to her touch after a brief reprieve.
“Thank you,” she murmured back, smiling into our kiss. Just as I was about to cum, she finished giving me yet another handjob, and I moved my hands to her waist to draw her waist in closer to mine.
She responded in kind, moving her own hands from my cock to my own waist, and straddling me so that her legs wrapped around my midsection. I left one hand on her waist and moved the other slowly up her back and to run through her dark hair again. I loved her hair, soft like silk.
She moved so that I entered her, and I grasped her waist harder to assist her while I stroked her soft rosy cheek with my other hand. My cock slipped deeper and deeper into her as she thrust into me, and she was even tighter than I remembered, every side of her pressing against my cock and enveloping me inside her.
I groaned into our kiss, and Marinka raised one of her hands to press against my lips and silence me. I playfully bit one of her fingers, and she giggled audibly before I could cover her mouth with my own hand. She continued to thrust into me, faster and harder now, and I pressed my fingers into the skin on the small of her back as I assisted her in pressing harder against me. I moved my other hand down to her waist, getting as much force behind the thrusts as we were able. I moaned again under my breath, feeling myself growing close to coming once more, and thinking of the relief that would come when I was finally able to cum inside her. It was even better than I had imagined, and Marinka gasped as I filled her up. Her whole body tensed as she came as well, and then she lay her head down against my chest, her legs still wrapped around my waist. I buried my face in her hair to try to muffle the sounds of my own moans.
“I feel full when I am with you, Leo,” she whispered when we both were finished, gasping for breath and holding each other on the tarp by the campfire.
“Glad to be of service,” I whispered back, thrusting one more time inside her. She moaned once more but stifled the sound in my shoulder so the others wouldn’t hear.
19
The next morning, we all had to work together to pile Bernsten onto his horse. He was a bit more lucid than he had been the previous evening, but he didn’t seem quite sure what was happening to him.
“Whaa!” he called out when he was successfully sprawled across the horse.
“It is alright, Brother,” Nadeine said, holding his wrist. “We are taking you where we can find help.”
“Wh-where are the attackers?” Bernsten managed, his speech slow and slurred.
“We triumphed over them,” Nadeine said. “They are gone now. They cannot hurt us anymore.”
Bernsten slumped back down on his horse in response.
“Is he going to be okay on there alone?” I asked, eyeing him skeptically.
“That is a good question.” Nadeine tapped her chin thoughtfully for a second before clearly coming to a decision. “I will have to join him to be sure of his safety.”
“What about your horse?” I glanced over at the small white miniature steed that Nadeine had been riding since we left the royal castle.
“I… do not know,” Nadeine said, looking around as if hoping to find an extra person to ride her horse for her.
To me, the answer was obvious. “What about Freyja?” I looked over at the forest elf, and her yellow eyes grew wide.
“Ah,” Nadeine waffled as she turned to Freyja, her own eyes rather wide. “I am not certain…”
“I guess I could ride it,” Freyja said when Nadeine’s voice trailed off. “I mean, if you want me to.” The fox-elf shrugged nonchalantly.
“Umm…” Nadeine seemed very uncomfortable with this proposition as her eyes darted from Freyja to her horse and back again.
“Yes, Leo is correct.” Marinka stepped between them and placing a hand on Nadeine’s forearm. “It is alright,” she whispered in Nadeine’s ear, trying to keep it from Freyja’s hearing, but the way her ears twitched made it clear that she had heard.
“If it makes you uncomfortable, I can ride with your brother,” Freyja said, looking at Nadeine pointedly. This seemed to make Nadeine even more uncomfortable.
“Oh no,” she said hastily. “That will not be necessary. You may ride my horse. Thank you for your kind offer.”
“No problem.” Freyja shot Nadeine a sarcastic smirk before walking over to the horse. I moved to join her.
“Thanks for offering to do that,” I said, leaning in so only Freyja could hear. “It really is a big help. I know you prefer to run alongside us.”
“It’s no problem,” Freyja said again, but she was eyeing the horse with obvious discomfort.
“Do you know how to ride?” I asked though
I was pretty sure I knew the answer already.
“I… must admit that I don’t,” she said, looking at the saddle and packs on the horse’s back as if trying to deconstruct it down to the base problem.
“Well, I’d never ridden one either before I got here,” I said, “But it’s really easy. Here, watch me.” I climbed up on Bill as Freyja watched. “Just do what I do.”
“Yes, I can see that,” she said as her brow scrunched up in scrutiny. “But how do I keep the horse from going in the wrong direction?”
“Oh.” I smiled down at her as I patted Bill’s neck. “They’re pretty well trained. I just stick in the middle so that the people who know how to guide the horses better are in the front and back. The horses just kind of follow each other, and now that I’ve gotten used to it, Bill does what I want him to most of the time. Just stick by me, and you’ll be fine.”
Freyja nodded, looking relieved at this information. She gingerly climbed up on Nadeine’s horse and held out her arms to balance herself.
“This is… odd,” she said.
“I’ll bet, but you’ll do fine.” I grinned, then pulled on Bill’s reins so that he would follow Marinka. Freyja’s new horse trotted behind mine, closely followed by Nadeine and Bernsten.
“We shouldn’t take the main road,” Freyja explained as we rode into the underbrush. “We should keep traveling here off to the side.”
“Why do you say this?” Marinka asked.
“We don’t want to be attacked again,” Freya reasoned. “We shouldn’t follow the main path. We’ll be more conspicuous if we do.”
“That makes sense,” I said, nodding.
“Indeed,” Marinka agreed. “But will it not slow us down?”
“Some, but I think we have to,” Freyja said.
“Can we afford that lost time?” Nadeine asked, looking at her brother.
“Would you prefer we get attacked again?” I asked, looking at her pointedly.
“Of course, you are correct,” Nadeine sighed. “We will do as you suggest, Leo.”
We traveled for most of the day, only stopping in the late afternoon to track down some food and water to replenish our supplies. We looked for over two hours, but Freyja struggled to find anything when she normally had no trouble.
“I’d use one of my spells, but I don’t think we should risk it,” I said glumly.
“Agreed,” Nadeine sighed. “We cannot afford to draw attention to ourselves.”
“I would disagree if we had no food or water,” Freyja said. “But we have enough left to stretch through the morning if we eat half of what we usually do.”
“Alright, that’s doable,” I said. The kingdom elves were used to huge portions, and I had been following their leads. Half of our normal portions would be more than sufficient.
“Why do you think we are struggling so greatly to find food and water this evening?” Marinka asked, looking worried.
“It must be Viktor,” Freyja said, shaking her head and biting her lip. “The few times I’ve ventured into his side of the forest, it’s been like this all the time. He eats up all the resources. It’s how he buys the servitude of the forest elves there. He must be trying the same tactics here like Natan said. There’s no other explanation as I’ve never seen it this bad before.”
“But how?” Marinka asked. “How could he possibly be draining the forest’s resources himself? He cannot be taking it all himself, that would be impossible.”
“I don’t know,” Freyja said, shaking her head some more. “He just is.”
“He couldn’t be using a spell, could he?” I asked. “He lost his own magic, too, right?”
“I do not know.” Marinka narrowed her eyes. “We thought he had, but I am unsure, especially after seeing how much of our historical records are already… imprecise.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of him using magic here.” Freyja shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I feel like I would know if he was, but at this point, I can’t say for certain.”
“It would take a very advanced spell for Viktor to be able to drain the forest’s resources,” Nadeine said. “And he failed to master even the most rudimentary magic.”
“Well, we’ll find out when we find him,” I said. We sat there in silence on our horses for a few moments until I broke the silence. “Where should we set up a shelter?”
Freyja stood up and dusted herself off. “We should choose a different place tonight.”
“But we already choose different locations every night…?” Marinka said, shaking her head in confusion.
“I mean a different kind of place.” A hint of annoyance crept into the fox-elf’s voice.
“Like what?” I asked, curious about her idea. She was the expert here, after all.
“Sometimes I like to sleep in the trees,” Freyja explained as she scanned the perimeter of the little clearing. “It’s safer there.”
“Uh, I don’t think that’s going to work for us,” I said, looking around at our motley crew of leather packs, miniature horses, kingdom elves in heavy armor, and a still semi-conscious Bernsten. She glanced back at me, her head tilted curiously, then she chuckled as she caught on to my meaning.
“No, I mean inside the trees, not on their branches,” Freyja rolled her big yellow eyes and shot me a lopsided grin, “though I have done that as well.”
“Inside the trees?” I repeated, eyebrow quirked as I began to scan the trees myself.
“Yes,” Freyja said as if it were completely obvious. “Some of them, especially this close to the center, are hollowed out to provide shelter. There should be one not far from here. Follow me.” She mounted Nadeine’s horse, then pulled on the reins, directing it down an animal trail that cut through the woods. She certainly seemed to have gotten the hang of the whole horse riding thing pretty quickly. The rest of us moved to follow her.
Freyja followed that trail for a short while before leading us to a large tree off to the side of the underbrush. It was incredibly wide, one of the widest tree trunks I had ever seen, and after traveling through the forest these past several days, that was saying something. Its many thick branches curled up into the sky of dark green leaves, twisting off into smaller branches as they did. The whole tree and all of its parts took on a circular quality, with the branches rounded and curled. It was like something out of a children’s storybook.
“Come on, Leo,” Freyja called out, and I realized I’d been gaping up at the tree for so long that I had fallen behind. I pulled on Bill’s reins and rushed to catch up.
“Should we leave the horses outside?” Marinka asked.
“That would be best,” Freyja said, looking around at the horses, “but they’ll make it obvious that we’re inside. We’ll just have to take them with us. We can hide the packs and saddles up in the branches, though.”
We reached the base of the tree trunk and dismounted our horses, stripping them of our luggage and their saddles and reins. After that, Freyja gave us an amazing show as, one by one, she grabbed our packs and scaled the tree with them. With amazing agility, she bounced from branch to branch with the same ease you’d walk down the sidewalk until she reached an area obscured from view and tied them up there. She left behind only the pack with the remainder of our food and water.
When she was finished, we led our horses behind the tree. True to Freyja’s word, there was a small opening towards the ground. The forest elf squeezed herself through the opening and disappeared inside the tree trunk. A moment later, part of the trunk pulled back like a door to create a larger opening.
“Whoa,” I cried out, jumping back in surprise.
Freyja grinned at me. “Told you! Lots of trees have been hollowed out over the years.”
“I remember nothing of this from our records,” Nadeine gasped as she stared into the hollow beyond, shaking her head in awe.
“As we have been shown several times already, my friend, it appears our records are quite incomplete,” Marinka said as she too looked at the hol
lowed-out tree with wide eyes.
We followed Freyja through the opening, leading our horses alongside us. Most of the trunk was hollowed out, creating a wide wooden space that was full of wonder, and the interior was more spacious than I had expected. It was only a pretty tight fit because of our miniature horses. We directed them over to the side until they curled up together uncomfortably in the corner. The air had a musty quality that was exacerbated by being in such close quarters with the animals.
Past that, there were some bundles of cloth and blankets strewn across the ground, as well as small bean bag type mattresses made of stuffed grass. It wasn’t exactly extravagant, but it would do, and I had to admit it was pretty cool.
We ate and drank what remained of our supplies before falling asleep one by one on the grass mattresses to the sounds of the horses breathing deeply and shifting in their sleep.
20
We continued to travel to the center of the forest over the next several days and were able to find some food and water as we grew closer. The trees grew thicker and closer together as we traveled, and we ran into more animals, making our hunting more fruitful. The sounds of birds singing and the other animals rustling through the trees and underbrush filled the forest and followed us as we went.
“Viktor has less influence close to the center,” Freyja explained after we caught several hares in the underbrush.
“Why is that?” I asked as I wrapped the leftover meat, smoked and salted as per the forest elf’s directions, in waxy leaves before piling it into a pack. “Isn’t the center closer to where he lives than where we were before?”
“Yes, but there are more of my people in the center,” Freyja said as she filled an empty canteen with water from the spring we were gathered around. “It’s the closest we have to a government. They’re better able to resist him here.”
That made some sense, so I left it at that to focus on finishing our preparations.
Bernsten regained regular consciousness over time and seemed to be feeling a bit better after Marinka changed his bandages, reset his splint so that it was straighter again, and gave him the last gauze cloth we had to keep his leg in place. He still couldn’t walk, though, and was in quite a bit of pain. We needed to get him to the center as quickly as possible so that he could get better medical care… not that he would say so himself.
