Forsaken

by Cebelius

  Knowing they had to come back this way — and what they were seeking — made it easy to let them out of her sight for a time. She wandered amid the carnage, her mind on other matters.

  There were many dwarves still alive in the area, and several of them were even now trying to move. In their feeble efforts Daji was given insight into the broodmother's efficacy: none of them were capable of escape. She had crushed their legs, deformed their armor in ways that prevented them from getting it off, getting away. The dwarves had little in the way of magic, though their enchantments were famous. They had come prepared to face the broodmother, and had it been her alone they would almost certainly have killed her. Only the template's timely intervention and unexpected magic had caused their downfall.

  Yet even now it was a good bet the survivors had little idea what had happened to them, how they had lost.

  Daji decided to remedy that.

  Her vulpine grin was savage as she found a trio of living dwarves a bit behind the rest; one female, the other two male. They would suit her purposes well.

  She etched her spell in the air and stepped through it, shimmering as she assumed the form and features of a winged maiden wearing runic armor, with a sword and shield belted at her waist and a spear in her hand.

  A subtle radiance suffused the air around her, and the dwarves noticed her almost immediately as she leapt and flapped her wings once to allow her a dainty landing near them. She heard one of them murmur, voice filled with awe, "Valkyrie!"

  The dwarves were, in fact, subject to the Valkyrie, and assuming the guise of one was a calculated risk, but Daji took that risk without flinching. If a true Valkyrie actually was nearby — unlikely given the circumstances — she would almost certainly not dare reveal herself and risk the wrath of the nine-tailed demon. That such a one might report her activities to a higher power was the troubling possibility, but even that would likely only add problems for the template, not herself. Either way she gained, and so she did not worry as she slid easily into her disguise.

  "Yes," she said quietly. "Yet you've not earned my transport. Failures all, and ignoble deaths in service of the broodmother's ambition await you. I have been sent not to claim you, but to give respite, a chance at redemption. Harken, and obey."

  The dwarves stilled, and she felt their eyes on her as she smiled and knelt near each. One by one she freed them of the armor that had become their prison, healed their wounds, and told them what they must do.

  They listened, took up their weapons and shields, and trotted off into the darkness, back the way they'd come.

  Daji watched them go, and only when they were away and out of sight did she allow her form to shift, revealing again her predatory vulpine smile.

  Everything is going just the way it should. I haven't had this much fun in centuries.

  12

  From One, Many

  Given how quickly they reached their destination it was obvious that they had come upon Yara at her most desperate, and once again he had to remind himself that this was a game. In any real world, the odds of this kind of encounter happening were thousands, perhaps millions to one. In a game, such dramatic saves were the bread and butter of character advancement.

  The broodmother's den was an obvious construction. It seemed made of the same sort of waxy material that went into construction of a beehive – though it lacked the regular hexagonal shapes – and it left Abram with the impression that she'd been a long time building it. Its entrance had the look of a small amphitheater, though at the back there was a deceptively small opening that Yara fit through only by virtue of very precise movement. Fortunately for Abram, the amphitheater served to allow his dark sight to recover, and he was easily able to follow once his eyes had adjusted.

  "We will wait out here," Angie called after him.

  He glanced back to see the giant proxy had a hand on Sif's shoulder, and she said, "Be kind, Abram, and do not fear. Remember that as long as she has no cause to harm you, you will not be harmed."

  "You're not filling me with confidence here," he said dryly.

  "Well, I won't lie, you're in for an interesting time. I just felt I should warn you: don't panic. She is intelligent, but also a creature of instinct. As long as you remain calm, you remain in control of the situation."

  Abram nodded, swallowed, and turned to follow the broodmother into her den as he wryly thought, This is so not the usual boss fight.

  In the close quarters of the den Abram's nostrils were filled with strange smells, chief among them the acrid chemical reek of Yara's wounded body. Underneath that smell were others he had a hard time identifying. One of them stood out as sweet, reminding him somewhat of honey, though given the nuances and admixture he couldn't be certain.

  He watched her moving ahead of him, her legs undulating smoothly through their motion with easy familiarity despite the fact that the tunnel itself was a very tight fit for her. He could feel her through his feet as well; despite her loss, she was still massive enough that this close to her, the ground trembled.

  He tried to imagine what it would be like to face her head-on in such confines, and couldn't escape the conclusion that she would just charge over him as she had done the dwarves, and there was nowhere for him to run, no way for him to avoid her.

  Scrabbling sounds caused him to glance behind, and there he saw the swarm. They were packed tight in the corridor, and effectively cut off his escape. Too many to kill, even with a rune.

  Traces of panic arose but he worked to suppress it, struggling to reassure himself that he had walked into this free, and he would walk out the same way … as long as he kept his cool.

  Yara's gruesomely wounded backside abruptly swept out of his line of sight. He quickened his step and came out in a chamber that was large enough to allow the broodmother to move freely in any direction she wished. Rather than a typical floor, the entire room was shaped as a sphere. Aside from the narrow ledge upon which Abram stood at the entrance, there was no flat space.

  The broodmother was hastening effortlessly across the chamber, her many legs allowing her to ignore the pull of gravity as she raced along to the right and almost absently tossed the dwarves into another tunnel before climbing up, circling the entrance on her way back to him.

  The swarm entered the chamber and flowed over the walls with the same effortless grace as their mother. They split up into flows and headed for a variety of other exits, most of which hung at angles that would be impossible for a ground-bound creature such as himself to reach without special equipment.

  Abram didn't waste much time thinking about that though. Yara was coming. Without any light, her eyes shone like diamonds, and he had a hard time making out her expression until she was very close. Then he saw that she was smiling. It was a soft expression, and she brought herself up underneath the small ledge on which he stood. Her uppermost pair of legs hooked the ledge, but she didn't pull herself up. Instead, she left herself at a level that put her eyes roughly even with his. She folded her arms across the ledge and her spines rustled restlessly atop her head before settling as she said, "My home."

  "It's cozy," Abram said. "Those dwarves aren't going to be able to make trouble back there, will they?"

  Yara shook her head, her smile widening slightly as she said, "Maze. Only exit here. No weapons. Dwarves always hide, then dig. Very predictable. I get them later."

  Her crest rose as she looked him over. She lifted a hand and brushed a finger across his clothes as she said, "You strip, we bond?"

  Abram nodded, and loosened his belt before dropping it aside as he said, "Go easy on me, okay? Shamed as I am to admit it, I am not very strong yet."

  She nodded and offered him a reassuring smile as she said, "Gently, gently. You like. I promise."

  He pulled off his robes and dropped them atop his belt and book as he asked, "How did you meet Angrboda?"

  Yara's crest rose a bit and she tilted her head at the question, then said, "I found her lair. She fed me, protected
me. Showed me this place."

  "Protected you? From the dwarves?" Abram asked, wanting to keep the conversation going just a little longer as the sheer size of her made him hesitate. He had no idea what he was supposed to do with her. He suspected that he was going to be essentially a passenger in what was to come, and his nerves were fraying. This wasn't like it had been with Angie. She'd been both massive and not, her true size abstracted by her proxy. Yara was just fucking huge, and though her breasts sat atop her arms, shapely and obviously very soft, he couldn't work up the courage to touch them because he couldn't help but remember that her sex was supposedly in her mouth ... which had also produced acid powerful enough to instantly cauterize flesh.

  "No, from father," she said. "Escaped Seat of Devotion long, long ago. Mother helped. Me, Sphinx, Elle Drakaina, Ephe Arachne. We split, never saw them again. Locutors chased me. Angrboda crushed them."

  "Sphinx?" Abram asked, eyes narrowing. "Your mother ... was her name Echidna?"

  "Wow, you know mother?" she said, clearly startled.

  "Not personally. I just know that Sphinx was born of Echidna."

  "All Sphinx born of Echidna. More than one, same name. Don't know why," Yara said as she leaned forward, examining him more closely. "You savvy."

  "I'd better be," he said with a wry grin. "I don't have much else going for me here."

  She lifted a hand, reached for him, and he held himself still as she slid her hand gently around his body, cupping him as she kissed his chest. She was far too large for him to share the gesture, but decided to go for broke and leaned forward enough to gently touch his lips to her forehead just between her eyebrows, which were thin and delicate above the diamond facets of her eyes.

  "Your father was Typhon then?" he asked.

  To his vague surprise, she shook her head slightly and said, "Father was Thomas. Called Dust Lord. Typhon lives below."

  "In the Everdark?"

  Yara shook her head and simply said again, "Below."

  "Beneath the Everdark?" he asked, and saw her slight nod.

  His mind reeled with the implications, but before he could ask another question, Yara did something that drove most of his rational thoughts out of his head.

  She licked him.

  Her tongue slid past pillowy lips and brushed over his thighs, whisper soft and feather warm. It was utterly unlike anything he could have expected. Her lingual muscle was almost completely dry, and the control she demonstrated as she ran it slowly up his body captured and held his complete attention. He looked down in time to see it split once ... and then again.

  Oh my god.

  Fear shot through his mind as four muscular tendrils began to play over his body. The lower two members of the quartet wrapped his thighs and gently spread his legs as one of the upper two caressed his chest, then wound with surprising gentleness around his neck.

  He gaped, eyes wide as he looked into hers. He couldn't see past her tongue now, but he felt the last segment as it played across his chest, curled around his back, and then glided lower.

  He took a deep breath, and as he let it out he made an effort to expel his fears along with it. His eyes slid shut and he let himself simply feel what she was doing to him. The lower two tendrils were gently writhing around his legs, and their feel was sensual and slow, as was her touch at his throat. The fourth brushed over his cock once, then again, its tip writhing under his length and lifting him.

  Even divided four times, the length that supported his hardening shaft was too thick to wrap or stroke him, but the way it caressed his flesh, brushed over it with such deceptive tenderness, sent visceral thrills through his body. He hardened rapidly, and his eyes opened once he realized that — for the moment at least — his fears had faded.

  "You're wonderful, Yara," he said, his voice soft. "You're making me feel really good."

  Her vast lips curled slightly in a smile and she surprised him as she spoke without apparent difficulty despite the fact that her tongue was entirely involved with wrapping and pleasuring him.

  "Gently, gently. I promise."

  He could feel her pulse now, filtering through the flesh of her tongue to ripple against him with a curious double beat. Her tendrils slid further around him, the lower two wrapping his legs in another complete circuit as she pulled him closer. He felt her lips pressing his sides and lower legs, extravagantly soft and warm, and the tendril that had swept him up and almost effortlessly hardened him rose, its end brushing over his cheeks now as she said, "You ready. Now, we bond."

  He couldn't see it happening, but he felt it. Her tendrils tightened a bit more, and the head of his shaft encountered a soft, wet heat that he realized must be nestled at the base of her tongue's four-way split. It was a feeling Angie had made him familiar with, but Yara's sex wasn't a simple entrance. As he pressed into her, he felt it not as a slit, but as a cross. Her sex was split into four parts, and she made a sound somewhere between a purr and a hum of contentment as he slid in. For a moment, he felt a balance of sensation from four directions before his shaft, pulsing and rigid, slipped up between her uppermost folds, which caused Yara’s crest of spines to shiver with unmistakable pleasure.

  He lifted his hips, pressing harder into that upper fold, and she shivered again. He couldn't see his reflection in her eyes: his dark sight simply made them into facets of brilliant white, but he could see a subtle swirling within each facet, and when he spoke, it was without thought for the consequences.

  "Your eyes are beautiful, Yara. Being inside you feels amazing."

  The swirl within each facet of her eyes seemed to increase, grow more violent. He flexed his hips again, then again as he felt her shudder. Her hand fell away and she straightened. He felt his feet leave the ground and her tongue flexed, pressing him further into her. He was now completely involved, felt the four-way kiss of her sex against the base of his. Her arousal soaked him, dribbled down his captive sack, and he groaned as he felt the muscular action of her tongue. She began milking his cock from the inside, and it was obvious from the swirling mists in her many-faceted eyes that she felt at least as much pleasure as he did. Through it all he felt the double beat of her heart, felt it getting heavier, faster.

  The sound she made next was no purr, but a rumble of satisfaction that came from deep within her chest, and her lips whispered down his legs and up his chest as she opened her mouth wider.

  His view tilted as she turned him, and traces of fear returned as her mouth opened ever wider. He was now looking up at her eyes, could sense her attention still fixed on him despite her lack of pupils. He glanced down, and abruptly wished he hadn't.

  He still felt the heady rush of her sex flexing around his shaft, the wet heat of her, the warm ropes of her tongue caging his thighs and throat, but now he could also see her teeth, folded back against her upper palate. He saw two neat rows of apertures in her palate as well, and it didn't take a great mind to recognize that here was the likely source of her acid, and who knew what else.

  His view of the interior of her mouth was eclipsed as she closed her lips again. He gasped, half in pleasure, half in terror. Her lips were sealed around his neck. But for his head, he was couched entirely within her mouth. He held his legs as still as he could, but the pulsing action of her tongue forced his toes against the back of her throat, then past it. He felt her uvula as his feet bracketed it, and at their touch she shuddered more violently than ever. Her entire oral cavity contracted around him, and both his cock and his body were squeezed as she suckled on him.

  Her moan vibrated his entire body, and what had once been clearly reflected light in her eyes was now diffuse and completely milky in texture.

  She's really into this, he realized, and some of his fear left him again as he remembered what Angie had said to him.

  He murmured, not wanting to distract her from her pleasure so much as remind her of his presence, "Gently, Yara. Gently. Feel me, I'm close."

  It was true, and her eyes seemed to clear just a bit, th
en film over again as another moan rose from her throat. Her tongue writhed, tightening madly around his cock, which was rigidly at attention and throbbing now with the powerful urge to cum.

  Abram shut his eyes, concentrating on letting himself go. He knew that if he focused too much on what was actually happening he would freeze. He was about twelve inches from being eaten. Her lips were impossibly soft, pressed against his chin and cheeks as she suckled on him, and it was only the liquid pleasure coursing over his cock that allowed him the distraction he needed. It was sex, and yet it wasn't. It was a supreme effort to surrender, and the only reason he was able to do it was the experiences he'd had at the hands of the Mor.

  She had forced his surrender for so long that now his panic gave way to habits he'd worked hard to convince himself were fake. Yet he relied on them now, accepted his circumstances, and felt a monumental orgasm convulse his body. He shuddered as his cock bucked hard inside Yara's tongue, flooding it with his seed.

  Her sex seemed to suckle at him even more intently than her mouth, writhing and thrusting on its own against him, taking not only his shaft, but his sack in as it pulsed and pulled at him, draining him of every drop.

  He gasped, and barely managed to scrape together enough self-awareness to whisper, "Gently, Yara ... gently."

  Her entire body was trembling. Abram felt her throat flexing, knew instinctively that it was a desire to consume that fueled that flex, but after a long moment, the suction he felt eased and her tongue — still fully involved around his legs and throat — pressed him smoothly out of her mouth. Her head was tilted almost completely sideways by the reflexive tension of what he realized was her own climax. Her quills quivered atop her head and all the way down the part of her back he could see. The facets of her eyes were milky with pleasure, but he wasn't in immediate danger of being swallowed, and the last of his panic faded.