by Logan Knight
I explored her lips with my tongue and felt her shiver again. She snaked her hand under my arm and up the back of my shirt then dragged her nails gently across my skin.
When I moved my hand under her shirt, then felt the sweat on her back and the soft skin of her rear, she tightened her embrace and forced our pelvises together. Pleasure and anticipation swept through my body.
She took my hand and slid it up her shirt. Her nipple was hard, and when I rolled it gently between my fingers, I felt her shiver in response.
Her chest heaved with her desire as I explored both of her breasts, and she moaned, before moving her hand to my hip, sending little lightning bolts of pleasure up and down the side of my body. Then her fingers moved lower and she began stroking me through my trousers. Her grip was firm, but not uncomfortably so. It was obvious she knew exactly what she was doing.
I felt like a wild animal, passionate and hungry, but resolved to take my time. I wanted to remember every curve and dimple. I yearned to taste her skin and see the face she made when I brought her to orgasm.
I slid my hand down her body, past her well-defined stomach and into her trousers, then grazed the skin between her legs with my fingertips. When I reached a little lower, she lifted her knee, encouraging me to delve deeper.
I slid a finger inside her. She was wet, warm, and wonderful.
“Deeper,” she breathed. “Go deeper.”
I did, but I took my time. When I found her depths, she moaned and rolled onto her back.
Her body was perfect, her skin was beautiful, and the dreamy look in her eye spoke words of desire and acceptance no sound could compete with. She wanted me—all of me.
I moved my hand to my pants and worked furiously at the leather cord that kept them from falling. I never got a chance to get the binding untied, though, because Alena turned, climbed on top of me, and unbound it herself.
She pulled my trousers down just far enough to expose my manhood, stroked me a few times, and quickly slipped out of her own. She positioned herself above me and with one hand, guided me into her depths, lifted her body, and plunged me deep inside of her again.
Alena leaned forward and placed her hands on my chest, then she rose and plunged again, all the while breathing hard and making little pleasure noises.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, Reese. Yes.” She continued until we both exploded in extasy, and the face she made was wonderful.
Afterward, she rolled off me and lay one smooth leg across my groin as we caught our breath.
“Not bad for an old woman, huh?” she said.
“Old?” I laughed.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll be three hundred and one years old this year.”
I laughed until she gave me a stern look. “What?” I said. “You’re not old.”
“Seriously,” she said, “I’m almost three hundred and one.”
I frowned. “Well, you don’t look a day over three hundred,” I said. Her answer was a quick tickle.
“Look at my ears,” she said.
“Your ears are beautiful,” I said, taking a moment to nibble on one.
Alena sighed. “Look here,” she said, turning her head and pointing to a spot near the top. “Look close.”
When I did, I noticed a thin white line running along the top. It looked like a scar, but it was so small that if she hadn’t pointed it out, there would be no way I would have noticed.
“You have a little scar,” I said, “so what? Your ears are beautiful. What does that have to do with—”
“I’m an elf,” she said. “Okay, three hundred isn’t quite middle-aged, but I’m no spring chicken anymore.”
An elf? I was stunned by the revelation. Elves were something my grandmother had told me about, but I never thought they were real. She’d told me they had pointy ears, lived a long time, and were exceedingly beautiful. She said they vanished a long time ago, but she thought there were probably still some around. I thought it was just another tale—something to entertain me.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah, cool, right?” she asked, laying her head on my chest. “You just got laid by an elf. That’s cool, right?”
“That’s awesome. But I didn’t think there were any elves left. I didn’t even know they were real.”
“There aren’t many,” she admitted, “or at least not as many as there used to be. Maybe I should’ve told you in advance, huh? Are you bothered that I’m an elf?”
I ran my fingers through her soft, blonde hair and over her ears. “Not at all. You’re beautiful, both as a person and as a woman.”
We lay there and cuddled for several minutes before she scrambled to her feet. “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said as she walked to the mouth of the cave. “I set it over here so it could cool. It smells funny, and I didn’t want it to ruin the moment, right?”
She returned a few seconds later with a tin cup. “Like I said, it smells bad, but the cookbook I brought back said it’s supposed to restore your vitality or something. It says when people cast a lot of magic, they can get sick, and this will make them feel better.”
I peered into the cup, which was about half full of a thick-looking blue liquid. Little flecks of what appeared to be silver powder floated in the mixture. It wasn’t something I wanted to swallow.
“Oh, come on, you big baby,” Alena chided. “I’m not going to poison you. You’re my man now. I’m not the jealous kind, either, just don’t ditch me, okay?”
I nodded and poured the liquid into my mouth, and I felt a rush of energy begin to course through my body before I even swallowed. Blue sparks appeared before my eyes, almost blinding me with their brilliance. I was only vaguely aware of Alena taking the cup from my hand. She peeked inside then set it down. A few seconds later, my vision cleared.
“How do you feel?” she asked, leaning forward to study my face.
“Renewed. Maybe better than I’ve ever felt.”
“Good, because I made a triple batch. I was afraid it wouldn’t work, and I would have wasted the only jars I had. You’ve got two doses. I don’t have the ingredients for most of them, but I found enough stuff to make one that’s supposed to heal one of us if we get really hurt, too. Let’s hope we never have to use that one, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“Looks like the sun will be down soon,” Alena said, standing. “Probably a good idea if we keep moving, I think.”
“Agreed.” I pulled my pants back up and secured them. “This is a good place you have here. It would be best if the prison guards remained unaware of it. And it would be a bad place to get trapped.”
A minute later, we’d donned our packs, blew out the oil lamps, and crawled from the cave into the twilight of evening.
4
Alena and I crept from the cave and peered through the thorny bushes that concealed the entrance. We waited for a full minute, looking and listening for any signs that our enemy was closing in. The sun hadn’t quite set, but I wasn’t sure when their ability to track took effect, so we had to be cautious.
We heard no coughing, snapping twigs, or anything else which would indicate the enemy was close. I wasn’t sure how disciplined the prison guards were, though, so we had to be careful anyway.
“Where are we going?” I whispered.
“I don’t know for sure yet. I want to go see some people who might be able to help us, but I don’t want to go straight there. They have been hiding longer than I have, and if the guards find them, the Xorians will send an entire army to take them out. Their kind is supposed to be extinct, which is why nobody has found them. Why look for something that isn’t supposed to exist, right?”
“Who are they?” I asked.
Alena opened her mouth, paused, then closed it. “It’s going to be easier to show you than it will be to try and explain. Let’s go, but I don’t think we’ll reach them until tomorrow. It’ll mean we’ll be out all night and will either have to kill everyone chasing us or stay one step ahead of them. Th
ey probably don’t know the woods as well as I do, but they outnumber us by a lot. What do you think?”
“I’m new here,” I whispered. “I’m going to leave the directions up to you. Are you ready?”
“More than ready,” she said.
The further we traveled, the less rocky the soil became. As the trees thinned, we were able to move faster, even though it was dark and the moon hadn’t risen yet.
I had questions I wanted to ask Alena—things I wanted to know about the land of the Xorian, including the culture, where the political capital was, and the local wildlife—but it could wait. We needed to be silent as we quickly picked our way through the forest.
Alena stopped several times to study the stars, get her bearings, and change course, being diligent about making sure we weren’t being followed. She doubled-back several times and walked us through a few streams, just in case our being tracked had anything to do with our scent.
The moon began to rise during her last stop, and as she studied the stars, we heard a new sound: the soft clatter of a rolling pebble. We weren’t alone anymore. It could have been a small animal or a thousand Xorian troops.
With our swords in hand, we crouched low and peered into the darkness. The sound had come from ahead of us, and unless she’d gotten turned around, we weren’t heading toward the Black Citadel. Either we’d stumbled upon another animal or a random Xorian citizen, or the trackers had been patient.
We waited, listening for any sign that would give us a clue as to what we were facing. It wouldn’t have been a waste of time to find out the thing that had made the noise was a squirrel. The consequences of being captured were too great to risk.
The sign came a moment later when a prison guard stepped out from behind a tree and secured his armor and pants. We caught him taking a piss.
A second guard stepped out from behind another tree, and the two began creeping forward. They were about ten yards away when they stopped, crouched, and peered into the darkness. When they drew their swords, I knew for sure they’d detected us.
I raised a hand and sent a magic arrow through the first guard’s throat. The second stared at his gurgling companion in disbelief, too stunned to notice my charge until I was almost on top of him. The armored man stumbled back and raised his sword to protect his face, so I stabbed him in the leg.
He wailed in pain, blocking two more attacks before I knocked the sword from his hand and cut his throat.
“They know where we are,” I said. “We’re probably surrounded. If we move fast, we might be able to break through our enemy’s line.”
“Which way?” she asked.
“Any way,” I said.
We gave ourselves a few seconds to look around and decide which direction to go. However, the plan changed a moment later when Alena gasped and clutched at an arrow sticking from her right calf. It hadn’t gone deep, but when she yanked it out, blood started soaking into her leather trousers.
She managed not to cry out as I dragged her behind a fallen tree—the only cover in sight. As I watched her struggle to right herself, my rage flared anew.
We’d been selected for sacrifice based on nothing more than chance. We were going to be a gift to a god who probably didn’t even exist. The Xorians, it appeared, were zealots who treated their ritual as a justification for war. It was the only reason they chased us.
The people of Dahan didn’t go out of their way to find war, but when faced with it would never surrender. We would fight our enemy until they submitted, or we’d eliminated them from the world.
Alena seemed to be okay. She was squatting behind a fallen tree with me, searching for opponents.
“Where are they?” she whispered. She rose and leaned over the log to try to get a better view.
I gently placed my hand on her shoulder, encouraging her to get lower. A moment later, about a hundred yards away, someone lit a torch. It was followed by the sound of steel striking flint then torches ignited much closer than the first. We were surrounded.
“Looks like they’re everywhere,” I whispered. “We can’t hide from the guards. Somehow, they know exactly where we are. What they don’t know is that we’ve got them exactly where we want them, too.”
Alena shot me an incredulous look. “We have them where we want them?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling a sneer spread across my face. “Now we can attack any direction. We don’t have to be so picky.”
Alena smiled and turned to the guards closest to us. Based on the way the torches were bobbing and the sounds the armored men were making, they were closing their circle, trying to pin us inside. I knew we had to move soon or our enemies would be able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, removing any possibility of us being able to cut through them and escape. It was clever. They had probably been setting it up throughout the day. As soon as night fell, they knew where we were. They must have started surrounding us immediately afterward.
A group of five guards, the closest ones, approached from the north. They were only about ten yards away, so I started the show by sending an arrow into the first one’s throat. He gagged, dropped his sword, and fell, clutching his throat as if it would do any good.
My second arrow hit another guard just below his bottom lip. The man’s scream boiled into a hoarse, gurgling sound as blood foamed from his mouth. It stopped a moment later.
The three others charged forward. It didn’t look like they knew exactly where we were, but they knew which direction to go to find us.
“Hold the line!” a voice from behind the three said. “The prisoners are trying to separate us! Hold the line, and we’ll corral them together!”
I was annoyed because the man was right. It would be easier for us to fight only two or three at a time. Instead of drawing them to me, I’d have to bring the fight to them.
“Forward!” the man ordered. It was the last word he ever spoke, though, because I’d spotted him behind the three who’d advanced and sent a magic arrow through his nose and into his skull. That spell weakened me a bit, and I started to feel ill.
With the command taken out, the troops continued with their last order. They marched forward at a slow but steady pace as they decreased the distance between them. The circle was tightening like a noose. It was time to get through the line.
Three guards were getting close. The next were about five yards to my left, and another group was fifteen or twenty yards to my right. Each man had a torch, and they were casting too much light to make it possible for me to slip between them. Plus, they probably would have detected me anyway. They had to be killed in order to create a gap.
I bolted from my hiding place, over the log, and charged with my sword held high. When the first guard tried to block my strike, I spun and slashed him across his thigh.
Alena joined me and tried the same thing, but her opponent ducked and blocked her blade. The guard reversed his swing, forcing her to roll out of the way to save her neck. When her opponent took a step toward her, he caught a rock she tossed square on his nose. Blood exploded down his face and across his breastplate.
“They’re here!” the third guard yelled to the others before he blocked three quick strikes from me.
I swung low twice, baiting him to expect a third, then struck high while his guard was down. My sword smashed into the side of his helmet, which staggered him. My next strike bit deep into his shoulder, which drew a wail of pain from him before he collapsed.
When I turned to check on Alena, she was pulling her sword out of an opponent’s chest and looked ready for more, which was good, because five more guards were on the way—three from the left, and two from the right.
I fired two arrows and dropped two guards on the left, but one was still crying out when he fell. The third guard halted his charge then looked to his fallen companions and lifted his sword defensively. I was ill but shot him with an arrow anyway. With his face and head effectively protected by his sword, the only logical target was his knee. The sound of his cry of pain a
lmost made me feel bad for him. Almost.
The two who came at us from the right split from each other. One ran at Alena, and the other ran toward me.
My opponent began swinging his sword like a windmill as he walked forward. He was fast, and I had to back up as I blocked strike after strike. I searched for an opening, but as soon as I found one, I had to choose whether to get out of the way or block the next attack.
A second later, Alena joined me. Her opponent was doing the same thing. They were slowly forcing us back. We were too busy to check what was behind us, but I suspected there were more on the way. The guards were wedging us between them. Those in front were the hammers. The rest were the anvils.
I blocked one strike, but on the second, I smacked his sword hard behind his swing sending it, and his arm, +6in front of his comrade’s. My opponent screamed. His sword clattered to the ground—his hand and forearm still attached.
Alena’s opponent looked shocked for a second before she cut the man’s shin, thigh, and groin with three quick slashes. He moaned, then fainted, as blood cascaded from his wounds.
Alena looked like she was in a lot of pain and limped heavily on her injured calf, so I took her by the hand and ran. There was no time to do anything else. The circle was closing in around us. We’d created a gap, but we had to move before it vanished.
After a dozen steps, Alena stumbled. Only my tight grip on her hand kept her from falling. She didn’t look like she could go much further.
“The potion,” I said, “drink it, and don’t argue!”
She nodded, threw off her pack, and started digging in it while I prepared to engage four more guards. Another group was quickly advancing from behind them, so I knew I needed to act fast.
The first magical arrow I sent struck a guard in the helmet above his left eyebrow. It stunned him, but he wasn’t out of the fight. My second hit him in the cheek, just below his left eye, which sent him sprawling to the ground. I was beginning to feel dizzy, but I didn’t have a choice.
