by Simon Archer
We fell apart, sprawled out in the tall grasses. I held Petra’s hand, squeezing it warmly as we tried to catch our breaths. Flowers sprouted throughout the new meadow born of our passion, and I swear a sapling or two had sprouted up among them. With a satisfied smile on my lips, I looked over at Petra, meeting her emerald eyes as they stared lovingly at me.
That was when the last scraggly remnants of the leaden chains still tied to her heart turned to dust, blowing away in a phantasmal wind.
“Thank you, William,” she said softly through long, deep breaths. “For loving me.”
“And thank you, Petra, for staying by my side, even though you’re free to do or be whatever you want,” I replied as I turned over on my side to face her better. It was crazy, maybe it had something to do with how much, well, better I felt here in Etira, but as I brought her held hand up to kiss it, I felt the desire and the strength to go another round.
As I felt myself harden again, I flashed the dryad a wry grin. “So, my dear dryad, are you ready for another round?”
19
The Weaver
“Karthas,” I hissed aloud to my Brand as I held his burning head close to Shikun’s face, “do you think the dumb bitch has learned her lesson?”
The searing red light cut through the gloom of my personal chambers in the tunnels below the Tanglethread Forest, not that I needed such a banal thing as light to see by. The glow illuminated my hideous slave’s face contorted in pain. She tried to bite those strange, plump lips to hold back her cries of agony, but the tears that rolled down her strong cheeks told me all I need to. Draconians, such powerful creatures, immune to fire and heat by stint of the blazing inferno inside them… unless that fire comes at the tip of the Brand that bound them.
“Her resolve is already broken, my master,” the Brand of Discipline sent into my mind. “And our… renewed teachings have quelled the spark of hope Libritas’ rescue lit in her.”
“Y-yes,” the draconian slave mumbled out as her head slumped against her ridiculous breasts, “I-I’ve learned, Master Weaver.”
Chained up as she was, spread-eagle on my wheel of correction, I could appreciate what few attractive qualities Shikun had to me. Her scaled limbs were thick with steely muscle, and those terrible talons always sent a shiver of delight through me. As she was now, her draconic hide scored deeply by Karthas’s heat and her softer belly and chest seared and charred by our attentions, she was almost beautiful enough for my tastes. Perhaps, when I had Libritas twisted to my side, the two Brands could work together to reshape the ugly whore into something that I could see fit to breed with.
What delightful spawn I could produce that way.
“Very good, Shikun, very good,” I cooed as I stroked her fevered brow with my top right arm. She tried to recoil from my touch, but she was far too weak to do so. “Now, tell me again what the scouts told you. Tell me how close the Uplanders are to death in my web.” I clicked my mandibles. “If your words please me, I will allow Karthas to heal your flesh, to take back your wounds. Wouldn’t that be… pleasant?”
Shikun’s chest heaved as she tried to collect her wits, and due to my intense training and hardening, the girl found the strength to raise her head. Her forked tongue licked her cracked lips as her golden eyes tried to focus on me.
“They do not come, my master,” she whispered in harsh, halting tones. “None of the scouts have seen the Uplanders, and none of your traps have been sprung.”
What she said did not please me. Not at all.
The worst part of it was that as much as I wanted to hurt her, to discipline her more, I couldn’t. I needed Shikun still, her dragon-fire and her peerless might, and I had taken the foolish bitch to her limit in our last lesson. Still, I raised Karthas and willed his burning light to flare as I aimed it at the center of the draconian’s chest.
As I wrangled my fury under control, the leonine shape at the back of the room shifted, turning its head to bring itself into the light as it called out with a lazy yawn.
“Really, Weaver?” the rolling feminine voice called out across the room. “You’re letting one little wrinkle in your plans upset you so? Master va’Khem would be so displeased to see his favorite apprentice fall so far.”
I let out a hiss of disdain as I whirled on Amalthea, one of the many slaves in the great Khaba va’Khem’s harem. As my multi-faceted eyes cut through the gloom, her hideous face, even more nauseating in its tanned smoothness than Shikun’s horned head, smiled as she shook out her mane of black hair. Much like my poor slave, Amalthea too had a ridiculous softskin woman’s chest. At least the sphinx was large, three times the size of me at least, and the rest of her body was suitably monstrous by softskin eyes, with a leonine body, terrible claws on her paws, and immense, folded eagle wings. The magic that rippled off her form was almost as great as her apparent boredom.
“Know your place, slave,” I clicked. “Though I grant you some leeway from my strict discipline as an honor to my master, you are still one of his harem, thus well below me.” I turned Karthas towards the ground. “I am not upset, simply disappointed. I did not wish to burn Kaulda to the ground, slaughter its citizens, and salt the earth.” One of my eyes swiveled towards Shikun as she tried to master her pain. “They were once tractable servants, but it appears as if they must be burnt to teach them a lesson.”
A lazy yawn escaped the sphinx’s lips as Amalthea leaned forward, crossing her front paws so that she could lay her chin on them. The intricate circle of spiked chains, the brand of my master, stood out as a black mark on the fur of her left paw.
“Won’t that simply incense the Uplanders more?” she sighed as she let her eyes flutter closed. “These… heroes… they often fight harder the more viciously you treat the common folk.”
“A calculated risk,” I admitted. Karthas muttered in my mind, eager to discipline Amalthea, but even I, the great Weaver of Tanglethread, knew where to draw a line… and one of the lines I knew never to cross was one that would anger Khaba va’Khem. “But the trade-off is plain. I anger one or two Upland warriors, yes, but I cut out all their avenues of support. The barons of Solanna are gone, the countryside under Black Rune rule, and as for the northern orc tribes? Splintered after that fool Uruk ruined them.”
Amalthea let out a low, purring hum as one of her eyes flicked open to regard me. “Then you should work fast, my Weaver, before our heroes have time to prepare. For if they are not rushing to destroy you here, then--”
“They must be using Libritas to break the chains that force the people of Solanna apart,” I hissed as I whirled back to Shikun. “The softskin is gathering allies!” I didn’t know who exactly these Uplanders were, but they were more cunning than I wanted to admit. There was no time to waste in further machinations.
The draconian managed to hold her gaze level with mine. “Please, Master,” she gasped out. “Do not make me do this. If we burn Kaulda to the ground, where will your armies get their food? Where will we cull new servants from? Where--”
It only took a fleeting thought to Karthas to send a corrective spike of white-hot agony through Shikun’s brand. Her hip sparked with molten light as a scream ripped out of her lips, and her muscles tensed and twisted as she pulled at her chains in desperation… and for a moment, a slight spark of worry crept through my calculating mind.
Because the links of her chains warped and screamed their own torturous song and the reinforced wood of the wheel cracked. Just a little and just for a moment before it ceased, but it was a stark reminder of just how dangerous my little slave could be. With another command from me, Karthas begrudgingly relented his corrective punishment, and my draconian weapon collapsed into a limp mess only held up by the chains she tried to break.
“Now, now, my dear Shikun,” I cooed as I walked up to her, shifting Karthas’s punishing heat to a soothing, icy cold, “I know that’s the pain talking. Let your master soothe your wounds, for it is time for you to do what I raised you to.”
As I pressed Karthas to her wounds, taking away that which I had given the bitch oh so tenderly, my mandibles ground together in frustration. It wasn’t my way to face my foes in open battle, and it made me wary of doing so, but if this upstart Uplander and his rogue Brand were to be brought to heel, I could not shy away from what needed to be done. Besides, it was not as if I would be risking my own life in the endeavor.
Behind me, as I worked to restore my premiere weapon of war to her full glory, Amalthea only curled up and fell asleep like the lazy, useless creature she was.
20
Sir Reginald Thorpe
If there is anything I could say about our new situation in this strange world, it was that I hadn’t felt so alive in decades. Though the work of reinforcing the village and training the good people here never quite ended, there were still small moments like this to catch one’s breath and reflect. As I stood atop the crude battlements atop the new wall that surrounded the fine village of Kaulda, I sucked in a deep breath and let it out, years of boredom and old age flooding out with it. After these past four days, I felt as if all of it was out of me, leaving me… renewed.
I looked down over the western plains, the vibrant flora of Etria cast in a multitude of colors by the Sola crystals, as I assessed the villagers training outside our new gates. Though the time had been short, the spirit and flesh of these men and women had been willing. In more pragmatic terms, the forty or so able-bodied people of Kaulda had taken to my training with a fervor. While I certainly didn’t wish to test them against a hardened fighting force, I knew they would fight hard for their homes. And if Master Willian and Lady Petra were successful in their quest…
“Hey, mister knight!”
I turned towards the familiar mewing voice of Suli Sona. The precocious young ferynx girl had clambered atop the battlements, her friend, Una, in tow. The orc-girl looked a bit less exhilarated to be up quite so high as she kept a tight hold of Suli’s paw. As I sat atop the edge of the wall, I smiled and raised a hand in greeting to the children.
“Good day, my dears,” I called out as I put my hands on my knees. “What can I do for you brave adventurers today?”
Suli dragged Una behind her until the two were standing before me, her tail lashing happily the whole way. “Our fathers said that we were too young to learn how to fight, and then they said that we really shouldn’t be poking around the weapon racks, and then--”
Una turned beet red in embarrassment as she dug one of her broad toes against the wood. “Then I told Suli that I didn’t want to get yelled at anymore by our dads.” She let out a rather cute little snort. “Since Master William helped them make up, now it’s like they’re an alliance to keep us from having fun.”
“Oh, is that so?” I smoothed out my whiskers with an amused grin. “Sounds like a deuce of a problem there, young ladies.” I arched an eyebrow at them. “However, if you’ve come to me to beg for some allowance given my nature as the trainer and coordinator of these defensive measures, you have barked up the wrong tree, well, in a proverbial sense.”
“Oh, no!” Una said resolutely. “Well, Suli thought we should try, but…”
“But somebody said it was probably a silly idea.” The kitten-girl bumped her much stouter friend playfully with her shoulder. Una didn’t so much as move, though she did let out a snort of a laugh. “What we came up here for is, well, we saw you were taking a break, mister knight, and we figured you maybe could tell us stuff about the Upland, and about you and Mister William.”
“That way, we’re sure to stay out of trouble,” Una added swiftly. “At least for a little while.”
I let out a merry laugh as I slapped my knee. “Quite right, young ladies. I believe I can entertain your questions for a bit.”
As I cast a quick glance over my shoulder, I caught a glimpse of Sullah and Wodag talking together among the training villagers, and they were both most certainly glancing sidelong up at me. Well, they were doing fine enough, and I supposed, with what was looming over us in the days ahead, they did deserve a moment of peace from their rambunctious daughters.
“What would you wish to know first?” I asked as I turned back to the pair.
“How did you become a knight?” Suli mewed out before Una could even gather her thoughts. “Did you have to fight a flame drake burning the countryside single handedly? Save a beautiful maiden from the Black Runes? Quest to the top of the Diamond Peak to retrieve an enchanted crystal?”
“Those are very specific things, young lady.” I arched an eyebrow amusedly. “It would seem to me that someone has considered the requirements for knighthood very closely.”
Una giggled a bit as Suli nodded firmly. “She always wanted to be a hero… but…” The pig-girl’s tone soured a bit as she continued. “... we don’t have a lot of those anymore here.”
Suli’s tail drooped a bit as she let out a little mew, but then her jaw set as she squeezed Una’s hand. That seemed to buck up the spirits of the poor orc-girl as Suli said firmly, “But we have heroes now, so, Sir Thorpe, tell me about being a knight.”
The spirit the two youths showed at that moment was inspiring, truly. For all their lives… for all their parents’ lives even… these girls have only known tyranny and despair, a world ruled over by slaving monsters with mind-altering Brands, burning their marks in people like barbaric savages. Neither of them has ever had any reason to expect that there would ever be any hope for them, that someone like William would come to answer the call for a hero, and yet, I could tell that they never would have stopped hoping and struggling.
Even if we hadn’t come, I could see Suli or Una marching into the Treison Woods in a decade or so to fight Uruk and his orcs in our stead.
“Well, I can tell you quite a bit about that and on being a hero,” I said with a warm smile. “While I am a knight, I would say that Master William would be a better example for a hero… and considering I have known him for almost his entire life, I can most certainly tell you about him as well.”
The two girls stared at me with rapt attention now. Suli finally let go of Una’s hand to kneel on the battlements, while Una did as I did and sat on the edge of the wall facing the village.
“So, where to start?” I muttered as I scratched my chin. “Ah, yes, knighthood.” I settled my glance on Suli. “So, my dear, in the Upland, many kinds of people can become knights. Yes, there is a fair share of warriors, soldiers, and the like, but anyone who achieves great things in their field might be fortunate enough to become a knight.”
“But what about you?” the kitten-girl pressed.
“Ah, well, I am something of a Renaissance man.” When they both blinked at me, I cleared my throat and added, “A master of many trades, you could say. In my time, I have been a soldier, a leader of men, a scholar, and perhaps my greatest love, an explorer.”
As I smiled wistfully, thinking back of my many journeys, I realized the thing about Etria that instantly endeared me to this land. It was a new horizon, in every way. From the flora to the fauna to the lands to the people, everything was new. It had been so many years since there was a new frontier, a truly new place, for me to explore.
“Wow!” Una gasped. “That’s amazing, Sir Thorpe!”
I blinked, then let out a little chuckle. “I suppose you might say that, but I do try to remain humble. It is a virtue to know your capabilities, yet avoid becoming so enamored with your successes that it clouds your vision with excess pride.” As I said that, I gave Suli a wink. “A good tip to remember for your future endeavors, lady knight.”
The kitten-girl let out a little surprised mew, then set her jaw as she nodded firmly. No doubt, she was going over my words in her mind and committing them to memory.
“But yes, it was honestly for my exploratory endeavors, seeking truth in the furthest boundaries of my home, that earned me my knighthood,” I concluded. “Though, to be quite fair, I don’t think I quite appreciated the ‘Sir’ before my name until I came here with Master William. Here
, I believe I can truly make a difference.”
“What about him?” Una asked a bit shyly as she tucked a lock of black hair behind one of her pig ears. “Master William?”
“Oh, yes!” I nodded as I folded my hands on my lap. “I was fast friends with his father, you see, another Uplander that came to Etria as I’ve come to discover. You could say that William’s heart and soul have always been linked here.” I tilted my head towards the orc-girl. “I’ve had the distinct honor of guiding and adventuring with young William since he was, well, I’d wager the same age as the both of you, if not a wee bit younger.”
“What kind of adventures?” Suli was quick to ask. She was certainly looking for ammunition to use in the ever-lasting battle to get around her overprotective father’s desire to keep her away from danger, but Una too was nodding for me to continue.
“Well, William’s father was quite insistent that the lad learned the dangers of the world and also its wonders,” I mused. “And for the years he was on sabbatical… here, as I’ve come to discover… I took William with me on my journeys. He learned the arts of survival, combat, and culture from yours truly… but his most important ability is something I can take very little credit for.” I raised a finger. “And it is this quality by which I have always considered him, well, a hero.”
It wasn’t uncommon for a father… or father-figure in my case… to want to embellish the accomplishments of their children, but in this case, I was doing no such thing. When I spoke about William, I spoke with honest pride and admiration for the man he has become. I smiled as I let my words linger, and the girls began to fidget. As I expected, it was Suli who couldn’t quite wait for me to continue.
