by Hondo Jinx
“You are mistaken, dear sir,” the True Matriarch said, stepping up beside Parus. “This is not Teel Elan.” Thelia gestured toward Holly with an overdone smile. “Our husband—and Lily’s future husband—has dubbed this place Freedom Valley.”
Moro scowled.
“Family,” Holly interjected, wanting to stop this before things got out of hand, “please allow me to introduce my sister-wife, the True Matriarch of the red elves, Thelia, and Dan’s loyal officer, General Parus.”
After hurrying through the awkward introductions, Holly asked Chloe to settle their guests in the eastern wing. Those accommodations weren’t quite as nice as the western rooms, but they were plentiful, meaning her people could stay together.
Then she took her family to see the great delving tree. Knowing that Briar would want to ask about Parus and the armor—and not wanting to explain her situation until they were alone—Holly blocked her brother by talking to their father about the great delving tree during the entire walk.
Then they arrived.
“Est eel Est,” the Iron Druid breathed, staring up at the great delving tree, his features slack with awe.
“Holly,” Lily said, pressing into her, “you’ve done it. You’ve brought the tree back to life!”
“And the moss as well,” Holly said, pointing to the moss, which grew healthier and more sparkly every day. “Oh—watch out, Father. Don’t step into that hole,” she said, pointing toward one of her worms’ tunnels.
“What?” her father said, looking down distractedly and sidestepping the wide hole. After a single second of study, he said, “Purple worms?”
Holly nodded. “But don’t worry, Father. I have tamed them.”
The Iron Druid raised one brow, looking more dubious than impressed. Then, apparently dismissing all thoughts of the worms, he returned his attention to Est eel Est. “This is amazing.” He reached out and touched the tree, brushing its trunk as lightly as he might touch a newborn baby.
Holly explained everything, how she had found the scroll and cast the healing spells, then discovered that those same spells were now part of her repertoire. She told of the day the moss changed and of the first green buds and how she had organized the demolition of the tower roof… and how the project had quietly died.
“Just what the Hades is going on with these red elves, anyway?” Briar wanted to know. “What’s that bastard Parus doing, strutting around in the armor of Mooret, for fuck’s sake? Sorry, Father.”
“Huh?” the Iron Druid said, not bothering to look away from his study of the Root of Roots. “Stupendous. Absolutely stupendous.”
“So much has happened,” Holly said. “I hardly know where to begin. But things are strange here. Strange and dangerous. Perhaps very dangerous.”
“What’s up with Thelia?” Lily said. “She said hi and hugged me and everything, but she didn’t seem like herself at all. She seems weird.”
“Thelia has changed,” Holly said. “To what degree, I’m honestly not sure, but the more time she spends around Parus, the less like Thelia she seems.”
She paused for a beat, trying to clarify her thoughts. With so much to tell and all of it crackling with emotion, she didn’t know exactly where to begin. “Two weeks ago, when Dan left to gather swords, Thelia and I argued here in the keep. She was livid that I had extinguished the eternal flame.”
“Extinguished?” Lily said. “The flame burns on. We could see it from miles away.”
“They reassembled it,” Holly said. “They say the flame is a necessary beacon for all of the red elves marching this way.”
Holly did her best to fill in her family. Tatiana weighed in from time to time with details and clarifications.
Lily was stunned by the news—and with good reason, Holly thought. The poor girl had come here to get married—and had miraculously managed to persuade the entire family to attend the wedding—but was now learning that her future husband was off gathering support for a coming war, while another, ancient war quietly reignited within the walls of what was to be her home.
In stark contrast, their father remained distracted by Est eel Est, examining the tree closely and muttering prayers.
Briar cursed, demanding blood.
“Enough, brother,” Holly said. “This is my home. Things hang in a delicate balance. I must insist that you not allow your temper to destroy my family.”
“I won’t let these red—”
“Briar,” their mother interrupted, “you will honor your sister’s demand. Understood?”
Briar’s jaw was tight with anger, but he nodded sharply. “Yes, Mother.”
“Good,” she said. “That’s settled, then. Now, Holly, show me the Tower of Knowledge, please. I am curious about something I think I might find there. Lily, Briar, keep an eye on your father. Don’t let him fall into one of these big holes.”
Holly led the Steel Scholar through the familiar maze of passageways to the ancient library of their ancestors. Tatiana followed and barred the door behind them once they were inside the tower.
“Amazing,” Holly’s mother said, standing at the center of the room and staring up at the countless books lining the circular walls. She looked every bit as awed, scanning this legendary repository of history and knowledge, as the Iron Druid had, gazing upon Est eel Est.
Holly said nothing, letting her mother take in what to a grey elf scholar must be the most hallowed of all hallowed spaces.
Her mother looked Holly in the eyes. “We must protect this place.”
Holly nodded. “Yes, this place and everything else. Speaking of which, Mother, did you bring any wizards with you?”
“Some,” her mother said, “but they’re all young and foolish. The true wizards—Mefft and Shaleen—stayed home in the grove. To study, of course.”
“Of course,” Holly said, doing her best to disguise her disappointment.
Remember, she told herself, an hour ago, you had no clue that your family was even coming here. Stay strong!
“What do you need of a wizard?” her mother asked. “Were you hoping that someone would cook the general in that ugly, black armor he’s wearing?”
Holly smiled. It was so rare that her mother made a joke. “No, though I can’t deny that I would sleep better if that happened. I don’t think that Parus is the problem, honestly. I think it’s the armor and the sword. I think they’ve possessed him.”
“The arms and armor of Mooret are very old,” her mother said, “and imbued with tremendous trauma of historical significance. They held great power when worn by Mooret, and I suspect that they have gathered power over the millennia, becoming true artifacts. Based on what you’ve told me, I believe they have indeed taken over the general and likely your sister-wife, as well, to one degree or another. The artifacts will use Parus and Thelia to fulfill their own agenda, which appears to be summoning red elves from the far corners of the world.”
Holly sighed with relief. “My thoughts exactly, which is why I asked about wizards. I discovered something tucked away within a book.” She started climbing a nearby ladder. “Powerful scrolls of sorcerous nature. I couldn’t use them, of course. Only Thelia could—and I didn’t trust her enough to give her such powerful items.”
“Wise,” her mother said as Holly pulled the ancient scrolls from their hiding place within the even-more-ancient tome. “Give them to me. I will lock them inside my trunk and carry them back to the grove after the wedding.”
Holly sighed. “Thank you, Mother. That sounds better to me than you could imagine.”
22
Curves of Clay
When Dan and Agatha emerged from the mountain tunnels and squinted up at the midday sun, Agatha finally spoke. “Thank you, Dan,” the pretty cyclops said. “Thank you for what you did back there. I didn’t deserve it. If you’ve changed your mind, I’ll go back and apologize and see it—”
“Stop,” Dan said. “Now.”
Agatha bit her lip as they negotiated the narrow trail, he
ading downhill toward the valley, where waited Dan’s army of wild savages. “Were you serious, then?”
“Yeah.”
“About everything?”
“Agatha,” Dan said, wrestling with his frustration. He had just fucked up his chances at getting a howitzer, and now she was driving him nuts with her insecurity. “I say what I mean, and I mean what I say.”
“Yeah, but did you mean it when you said,” she paused, seeming to gather strength before continuing, “you know, about the stuff. Filling me. Morning, noon, and night?”
He laughed. “All right,” he said, “I might have laid it on a little thick for your mom and sisters. It pissed me off, the way they were treating you. But yeah, I meant it… if that’s what you want.”
“What I want?” Agatha laughed. “Nothing would make me happier! I would—”
And then Dan was falling.
He hadn’t even seen the woman until she attacked, shooting out from behind a boulder, shoving him over a ledge, and holding on tight even when he slammed into the embankment and slid down a bank of loose shale. The fall knocked the wind out of him. Plummeting twenty feet onto your back can do that and having a woman land on top of you sure doesn’t help.
Dan slid downhill at what felt like fifty miles per hour. His attacker held on tight, riding him like a sled. Down, down, down they raced. Dan found the breath to curse. He tried to push the woman off him, but she pinned his arms down, and he couldn’t wriggle free.
She was strong.
And naked.
And really hot.
Despite the fact that every inch of her—the strange yet beautiful face, the athletic body, even the hair—glowed the yellow-tan of fresh honey.
Which would have been weird enough without the odd seam that ran from the crown of her stiff-looking hair down her unblinking face, across her throat, and between her small yet shapely breasts, which didn’t even jiggle as Dan bounced over the rough ground.
Then his shoulders slammed into a fallen log, and he jarred to a stop. His entire body throbbed with pain, and he gasped hopelessly for air while the woman seized his wrists and pinned his arms to the ground over his head.
“Who are you?” he wheezed.
Still wearing the same vacant smile, the woman sat atop him, staring down with honey-golden eyes that still hadn’t blinked. She gathered his wrists in one hand, reached down with her free hand, and started fumbling with his zipper. “Fuck me,” she said.
Normally, Dan liked a woman who knew what she wanted, but this weird-ass broad was an exception to the rule.
Her toneless command flipped a switch in Dan’s skull, taking this encounter from strange and kind of funny to really fucking creepy, and he twisted his body hard to throw her off.
But he failed miserably.
She’s heavy, he realized then. Like, really heavy.
His perverted, robotic attacker was no taller than Nadia, less muscular, and lacked Nadia’s tremendous breasts—and yet she felt like she weighed as much as all of Dan’s wives put together—with Petronia’s plinth thrown in for good measure.
And she wasn’t just heavy. She was strong. As she displayed when, apparently frustrated with his zipper, she ripped his jeans from hip to thigh.
“Fuck me,” she said in her passionless, robotic voice. “Fill my receptacle with your essence.”
“You ever hear of foreplay?” Dan wheezed, struggling fruitlessly against her iron grip. And then he screamed as her hand grabbed his manhood.
“Fuck me,” she repeated, seeming to stare straight through him. “Fill my receptacle with your essence.”
“Hi,” he said, struggling in vain. “My name’s Dan. What’s your major?” Despite his jokes, however, wild panic rose in him as the woman squeezed and yanked his genitals… a panic fueled not only by his own powerlessness but also by the realization that he was actually getting hard.
Fast.
Because his would-be rapist was doing something to him, suffusing his junk with a warming vibration, and against his will, his dick and balls were responding… big time.
What the Hades?
“Fuck me,” the woman said again. “Fill me—”
Yeah, definitely some kind of robot, Dan thought, noting her hard, monochrome exterior. I’m getting raped by a robot woman—and my dick likes it!
Whatever material the woman’s exterior was made from, be it clay or stone or something else altogether, her insides were wet and warm and soft, which he learned when she shoved him roughly inside her, giving her signature commands yet again.
“Get off!” he shouted, but it was no good.
This horny, unblinking whatever-the-fuck-she-was clearly did not subscribe to “no means no.”
Her all-too-human channel sucked him deep inside her. She held him still, and her nether regions gripped him in a repetitive, rolling squeeze from hilt to head, over and over again, milking him with a pulsing rhythm that ran counter to her otherwise stiff, robotic nature as surely as her hot and heavenly sex ran counter to her ceramic exterior.
Dan hated to admit it, but her rhythmic pumping felt good. Awesome, in fact. Like supernaturally awesome. So awesome that even his loathing of sorcery—which was clearly involved here—failed to chill his throbbing erection.
Against his will, he could feel his balls swelling toward climax.
Shit! No! Dan was no prude, but this was wrong in the most fucked-up way. To Hades with her cum commands and voodoo vagina. Now, if only he could get his dick onboard…
“Fuck me,” the clay robot woman demanded, practically motionless as she pinned him in place and her magical channel did all the work. “Fill my receptacle with your essence.”
“You’re really not my type,” Dan said, struggling in vain against both his attacker and the orgasm building within him. “Let me go!”
Then his robotic assailant whipped away, releasing him just before he reached the point of no return.
It would have taken a powerhouse to knock her aside—and Agatha was just that powerhouse.
Dan got to his feet and rushed to Agatha’s side.
She had the creepy, ceramic woman pinned to the ground—barely, if her straining muscles were any indication.
“Help,” Agatha growled.
Slipping in beside her, pushed down on the face of the honey-colored robot. Yeah, he realized with a shudder, she’s definitely made of clay or stone or some kind of ceramic material.
“Release me,” the woman demanded tonelessly. “I must collect Dan Marshall’s essence.”
“Do something!” Agatha said. “I can’t hold her much longer.”
Dan made a fist, paused, had pity on his knuckles, opened his hand, and started pounding down on the robot’s temple with the heel of his palm.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
Over and over he pounded down, slamming the side of her head with palm heel strikes until finally, she stopped moving.
Agatha sighed with relief, and Dan fought to catch his breath. His hand throbbed, but he’d pummeled his assailant into something like unconsciousness.
“Golem,” Agatha said, still catching her breath.
“No shit?” Dan said, staring down at the unconscious automaton. She sure as Hades didn’t look like the golems he’d fought in T&T.
“No shit,” Agatha said, spreading the golem’s legs to examine a strange inscription engraved in the golden slab of her inner thigh. “Here’s her mission—to extract your essence and return to her mistress: the mighty succubus Illandria, creator and queen of the Wildervast… long may she rule.”
23
Destiny’s Vessel
As a girl in Fire Ridge, Thelia had delighted in spying on people. It was harmless and usually involved eavesdropping on gossip or watching people make love.
She would have loved having long sight at her disposal back in those days. It wouldn’t have helped with eavesdropping—the spell gave her the ability to see, not hear—and voyeurism wouldn’t have been as fun without hear
ing the lovers, but Thelia the girl would still have loved the rush of supernatural spying.
But that girl was long gone, destroyed with Fire Ridge itself.
Thelia the woman has risen from those ashes. Thelia the True Matriarch. To her, long sight was a tool, not a toy, and the only joy it brought her was the joy of knowing that she could stay somewhat apprised of Holly’s treachery.
Her sister-wife was working against her. Had been, ever since their quarrel in the keep.
With long sight, Thelia had watched her sister-wife gather supporters. Holly had given Tatiana, who followed her like a bodyguard now, the staff of smiting—a recklessly extravagant bribe, in Thelia’s opinion. Freckles and Nadia’s street urchins reported to her now, too. And Holly went out of her way to speak with the gnomes, green elves, and Bannon’s widows.
With everyone, in other words—everyone except red elves.
Holly is afraid, Thelia thought. Afraid of me, of Parus, of our people—and of the past.
It was ridiculous, of course. Here they were, facing a very real threat—the Duke of Harrisburg’s impending attack—and Thelia was doing everything she could to gather an army of red elves to support their husband.
Meanwhile, Holly was scrambling in the shadows, acting like Thelia was the real threat. To this point, Holly’s fears and plotting had been in turns comical, mildly annoying, and disappointingly pitiful.
But now the grey elves had come to see Lily marry Dan. Dozens of grey elves, with more on the way, and Thelia could no longer be so dismissive of her sister-wife’s paranoid actions. Some of the visitors—Holly’s parents and siblings, for example—were very powerful.
Just how paranoid was Holly? What, exactly, did she suspect? And what, precisely, was she telling her family?
Suddenly, Holly’s sad and silly scrambling posed a potential threat. If Holly convinced her family that Thelia was a problem, what might happen? The grey elves were few yet dangerous. Her father was one of the most powerful druids in the world. What spells did the Iron Druid possess? Whom—or what—could he summon to his aid?
