Princesses of the Ironbound Boxset: Books 1 - 3 (Barbarian Outcast, Barbarian Assassin, Barbarian Alchemist)

by Aaron Crash

  After trading some insults, Della had taught them all a lesson, first out back in a field with her sword, and then in a bed, upstairs, with her sex. They weren’t quiet about it. Everyone in that bar listened to them fuck: the banging, the howling, the grunts, and the squeals.

  The innkeeper didn’t bother knocking at the door because he knew that the orcs would either laugh at him or beat him for interrupting.

  The three wives had licked her, every inch of her, to get her ready for their man. Those Gruul women were still mad at her for besting them with her sword. They took her to the edge, but didn’t let her go over, and held her down when she tried to rub herself into an orgasm.

  Chugan Ugnish had watched, laughing, while he stroked his giant green uht.

  The wives pinned her down. She remembered their green breasts hanging off their muscular bodies, their biceps, the abdominal muscles—they were professional warriors and they looked it. Their faces were thick, jaws solid, and yet they had a vicious beauty to them. They had no pubic hair. Chugan, did, a big patch of black fur.

  When Della had pleaded with them to give her some relief, the wives made a deal with her. If Della made them come, they’d let her come. The three orc women took turns riding her face. Della licked their hairless, overheating oheesies. All the while the others touched and caressed her, taking her to the edge, but not letting her go over it.

  The sexes of the orc women had been so juicy and fragrant, so wild, and their orgasms so strong as they grunted through them.

  Right when Della thought she’d die because of her throbbing, tingling slit, Chugan Ugnish finally took pity on her. He got between her legs, his huge green uht standing out proudly from his flexing thighs.

  Della’s lust had been tinged with fear, which made all her emotions more intense.

  Della felt so small in the hands of that big beast man, so used by him as he stretched her oheesy. He filled her, so thick, so big, so alive, and so horny. The women kissed Della’s face, which was wet from their juices. They asked her how it felt to be taken by their man.

  Della hadn’t been able to answer. She remembered being beyond words. She was like a living nerve, and the experience was like nothing she’d ever had. Most of the time, finding a man was difficult, and so she’d been with women, and they satisfied each other with glass phalluses. With Chugan Ugnish it was different. There was so much to him.

  She gripped one of his arms, and they were like steel cables. She grabbed a tusk as he drooled on her tits. His sweat dripped on her face. It wasn’t long before he was ramming that huge uht into her, over and over, grunting like the beast he was. He was so deep. He was so big. His pubic bone smacked her ohi with every thrust. The first time got her attention, the second made her gasp, and the third time his body smacked into hers, she came. Finally, she came.

  One of the orc women had laughed. “She’s coming, Chugan. You made this human whore come.”

  But Della wasn’t human. Unger had taken care of her ears using powerful magic.

  “I know,” Chugan had growled. “I can feel her oheesy clutching me. Should I cover her in my seed? Should I show her the size of a Gruul’s load when his balls are heavy, and his passions are up?”

  His wives agreed it was a good plan.

  Della hadn’t been given the choice.

  The big orc pounded her more, and she lost sense of all time, and before she knew it, she was witnessing the orc coming, all over her belly, her tits, and her neck.

  Those memories tore through the Princept in her personal shower, decades upon decades later. She slumped against the wall in the hot water, which felt so good on her skin. She reached down and slid two fingers in her pulsating hole. Her other hand went to her clit. She rubbed herself and fucked herself and relived that magical night.

  Chugan fucked his other wives, but he saved all his loads for Della, and she took them, everywhere. When their man was satisfied, the women took over the lovemaking. At least then it was softer, gentler, and the people in the inn below could drink in peace.

  In her shower, Della came hard, twice, until she was on the tiles, her chest heaving, her legs curled up under her. And still the water pattered down.

  This masturbation business felt good, but she was tired of living in the past. Living in her fantasies also wasn’t as satisfying as having a real body with her. When was the last time she’d allowed herself a lover? She couldn’t remember.

  It was time to call someone, maybe two someones, from her days at Four Roads. She’d invite them to her college. Or maybe she’d find love with one of the new teachers. No, she couldn’t, that wouldn’t be appropriate. But she was lonely for the touch of another, so very hungry for skin on hers.

  A thought made her smile wryly. If Ymir did rebel enough to warrant expulsion, he would no longer be a student. And if he left, his princesses would leave with him. Della could find the threesome and play and play without any impropriety.

  For now, that wasn’t meant to be. She had a school to run, professors to hire, and research to do. What was the nature of the Black Ice Ring? And why was the Midnight Guild interested in Ymir, son of Ymok, of the Black Wolf Clan?

  Chapter Six

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON, THE day before the second semester started, Ymir was at his table on the second floor of the Librarium Citadel.

  That morning he’d lit a fire on the beach during a break in the storms. He’d spoken aloud the names of all his ancestors; he knew this would be something he’d do until he died. Even as an outcast, he would not fail in his duties.

  Now, in the Librarium, he watched the Honored Princept float upward on her Moons magic, the sorcery of sky and winds. He’d learned much during his time at the college. He thought back to his First Exam, though he couldn’t remember much. He had the sense that it had been a complicated puzzle involving history, language, warfare, mathematics, and the stupid customs of another age. As if ancient politeness was important. Current culture, yes, that was a weapon Ymir could use.

  On the Ax Tundra, manners, customs, and politeness were critical. If you pissed off a battle brother, they might not give you any elk fat when you needed light in the depths of winter. No, the rules of a society were important but only when it came to modern societies.

  His schedule for the second semester at the university wouldn’t change all that much. He’d avoided Courtly Manners and Arts taught by a professor named Denalia Fisherking by reading enough books to pass the exam. Ymir could’ve done that for his other classes. At the same time, he enjoyed the classroom experience, the camaraderie of it and the actual application of his learning. Reading about dancing had helped him dance, but actual movement was far more satisfying than words on a page.

  Ymir had been annoying Gatha without mercy, prodding the she-orc librarian to guide him to books on dwarves, fairies, and xocalati. When he asked if she liked xocalati, Gatha had given him a withering look and said she wouldn’t spend her money on candy.

  Then he’d given her a sample. He watched her face as she let the sweet melt on her tongue. There was a look of surprise on her face, followed by a little smile. When she caught him looking, she darkened her face with a frown. She couldn’t be tempted, or so it would seem.

  Even without the she-orc’s help, he found a recipe in a rare Scatter Islands cookbook, compiled by Ckir Vesset, a contemporary author who wrote travel logs. The cookbook gave a brief history of the main ingredient, the xoca bean. It was known to the world as a bitter drink the Wingkin enjoyed in their mountain cities on the Reytah continent. Most didn’t see the appeal. They would in time.

  Getting the xoca bean wasn’t going to be easy. It was still rare. And he couldn’t ask Nan Honeysweet about her suppliers. Ziziva, maybe, was silly enough to tell him. He didn’t see her outside of The Paradise Tree, though.

  Which led him to research the Fayee, the proper name for fairies on Thera and in Reytah. They lived near freshwater rivers and lakes, in small villages, more like bird’s nests than anything else. Th
ey were only twelve inches tall and so didn’t need towns that took up square miles. Yes, the Fayee were all female. And, yes, they procreated, but no one knew how. The Fayee were very suspicious of outsiders, and while they were silly, they also kept to themselves. Again and again, Ymir read that they valued their privacy, and that they had sorcery that stripped memories from people.

  One researcher insisted that the Fayee females found men they liked, shrank them, fucked them, and then removed all memories of the encounter. Other scholars disagreed and said the Fayee had been hit the hardest by the Withering, all men were lost, and now they used magic to bring forth life. Ymir wasn’t sure he believed that.

  They would be covering the Age of Withering in his history class the next semester, so he didn’t dive into any of those thick books. His understanding was that the Vempor Aegel Akkridor had brought forth dark magic to wipe out the male heirs of his political rivals, and so, after a generation, they would die. The wizardry got away from him and infected the entire world of Raxid. Aegel never needed to get rid of other kings, as he would reign for a thousand years even though he was human. Rival scholars said he was replaced every generation with someone who looked similar, and so the Akkridor Dynasty could stretch unbroken over the centuries.

  Ymir would’ve liked to read more on the histories, but he kept his focus on this newest business venture. He figured Ziziva had connections to merchants from Reytah because fairies crossed both continents, and so she had access to the beans.

  Jennybelle was looking into her family’s connection to Reytah merchants since the Swamp Coast queendoms were closer to the southern continent. The Scatter Islands were closer still to the southern continent. There was a dark-skinned woman from the Scatter Islands in his class, Mimilynn Banette, from Williminaville. Jenny would talk with her.

  This business of ending the names of girls with “-lynn” or “-belle” and the boys with “-beau” amused Ymir. Many things in the south amused him, including the easy way women loved one another and the same man. That he relished. Just because he didn’t understand it didn’t mean he didn’t like it. His magic was the opposite of that. He didn’t like it, but he was beginning to understand it.

  Loud voices echoed up to him. His three insipid enemies, Darisbeau Cujan, Odd Corry, and the viscount Roger Knellnapp shouted as they walked through the citadel. Laughing uproariously, they walked on out to the Flow courtyard and probably down the steps to the Unicorn’s Uht, where they would drink and maybe play cards.

  Ymir didn’t have to pay them any mind. He’d used them while they had been useful. Now they weren’t. And if they tried anything, he would beat them until they avoided him.

  Ymir opened another travelogue by Ckir Vesset. The author had been invited to a wedding feast in the Ruby Stonehold, one of the Morbuskor cities in the Sunset Mountains. Vesset had befriended dwarves in Four Roads. The contingent had been invited by the Knowing Guild to give a seminar on the benefits of steam power versus magic. During the talk, the wife of one of the dwarves was struck ill. Vesset saved her with elven medical knowledge he’d gained from his travels in the Ohlyrran Forest. An unlikely friendship was born, and for Vesset, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

  Most of the time, people referred to the Morbuskor as dwarves, and that included both sexes. Few people cared about being precise. Ymir wouldn’t have cared because language could be imprecise as long as there weren’t any stakes involved. The minute there were stakes, either financial or legal or romantic, then language had to be very accurate, painfully precise, and that led to contract law.

  The Morbuskor were famous for their Knowing Lore, which was different from magic—most of the time. Knowing Lore, like Nile Preat’s clocks, worked with the natural physics of the world to accomplish tasks rather than using the supernatural rules of sorcery. Sometimes the two came together, like the Knowing mirrors or the sand letters.

  At any rate, Vesset wrote of vast underground cities, alive with smoke and steam. Always he could hear the chiseling from the vast mines and the hammering of artisans at work. Combine the Knowing Lore of the Morbuskor with their magical Form skills, and they could create any number of wonders.

  Ymir wasn’t interested in their building; he needed to know more about their culture, especially when it came to the women. The scholar wrote, time and again, that the dwarves had not been affected by the Withering—they had either avoided the worst effects of it or they had come up with potions to combat it. The dwarves wouldn’t reveal their secrets. They tolerated Vesset’s presence in their underground kingdom, but they offered few details.

  The scholar corroborated what Jenny and Lillee had told Ymir. The dwarven culture prized monogamous marriages, which might last centuries since the Morbuskor could live as long as five hundred years, about half as long as the Ohlyrra. Vesset did mention there might be exceptions, something called Inconvenience Partners—those were the words in Homme. When the dwarves talked about the Inconvenience, they did so in hushed voices, full of shame. The Morbuskor were as private as the Fayee, if not more so.

  However, one thing was common knowledge: very few men left the Stoneholds in the Sunrise and Sunset Mountain ranges. Most of the time, the dwarves came out of the Stoneholds to work in colleges, or to work in the Guild, as much to learn new Knowing Lore as to teach it. It was thought these Morbuskor men were spies, and they would glean all they could from the outside world to take it back to their underground kingdoms.

  Ymir paused to consider the dwarves he’d seen at Old Ironbound. There were only a handful, and only one in the imprudens Flow class. As for dwabs? Only one. Toriah.

  Dwabs were as rare as dwarves. Most of the Morbuskor maidens looked like their men: small-chested, bearded, with overly large noses and ears. Both generally had big bellies. Vesset did mention that beardless dwabs were more common on the surface for whatever reason.

  As for Morbuskor sexuality, Vesset thought it was for procreation only.

  After his reading, Ymir was left with any number of questions. Already, things weren’t rosy with Tori. The wide little woman had been avoiding him, and any chemistry they’d had was gone. He didn’t understand why, and he didn’t understand how people could be sexless. It was an important part of life, not only for children but also for pleasure.

  Even with his reservations, he knew he had to talk with Tori, to see if she’d be interested in helping them with their business venture.

  He closed his books, gathered them up, and then lugged them down the steps to Gatha’s desk. The she-orc librarian gave him a cool look with her rose-colored eyes, so strange against her green skin. Her bone-white hair was braided and hung down her back. She was pretty, even with her big square jaw. A musky smell, slightly sweet, rose from her big, muscled body.

  “Read all those already?” she asked in a gruff voice.

  “Reviewed,” he answered. “I don’t suppose you know the secrets of Fayee fucking. Or why the beardless dwabs leave their home. Or if Brodor Bootblack is here at Old Ironbound to spy on us.”

  Gatha frowned, brow furrowed. “Stay clear of fairies. They are evil, and everyone knows it. We tolerate them on the continent because, for the most part, they keep to themselves. Personally, I wouldn’t trust some tiny bitch like that. I would rather deal with the merfolk, and that is saying something since the merfolk families are so cold and uncaring—as unknowable as they are deadly. Personally, out of all the races, I find the Ohlyrra the most attractive. Take your Lillee Nehenna, for example. She is very beautiful. And with the mark on her face, she isn’t like most of those arrogant, celibate bitches.”

  Ymir listened and wondered why Gatha was so talkative.

  She went on. “As for the dwarves, there is no love lost between the Gruul and Morbuskor. Luckily, during the Age of Isolation, we’ve had very little contact. At one time, however, we clashed up and down the Sunset Mountains, and the Long River ran scarlet with the blood of our peoples. They are cowards living in holes, selfish cowards who could�
�ve helped our continent by curing the Withering. That is what I think. As for Professor Bootblack, he’s here to teach Form magic, and he does it well, from what I’ve heard. I don’t care for his people, but as a person he has been cordial and professional with me. He wouldn’t have looked up my tunic.”

  Ymir grinned. “I regret nothing. Next time I won’t look, since it bothers you so.”

  “It doesn’t fucking bother me,” she said heatedly. That heat meant she had some strong emotion about it. She sneered at him. “I’ve heard you drank with Bootblack and Gharam Ssornap in StormCry. You should know more than me about him.”

  “Those days are behind me,” Ymir said. “Brodor Bootblack spent the winter solstice break in the Sunset Mountains, and so he hasn’t been around. I don’t expect him to be so friendly. As for Professor Slurp, he’s still mad at me because I bested him in a fight.”

  “You are wrong,” the she-orc snapped. “A defeat wouldn’t have upset him. There is more to it than that. We Gruul honor our victories and we suffer our defeats with equal honor. And don’t call him Slurp. That is a wretched fucking nickname, and disrespectful. I should bloody your nose.”

  “You could try,” Ymir said. “And that is where our flirtation will eventually lead, isn’t it? We’ll fight, and if I can whip you, you’ll fall in love with me forever. And if you win, I think you’d hate me forever because I was weak. Or you’d kill me. You do have murder in your eyes.”

  “Who says I won’t hate you forever without us fighting?” she asked.

  He gazed into her eyes. “Because here you are, talking with me, and I think it’s because I did best Gharam Ssornap and you like that. And you like that I killed Siteev Ckins when she tried to kill me.” He might as well go with the lie since it was the approved story.

  “Like I said before, keep winning, and I might give you the honor of my scrutiny.”

  Ymir smiled. “And I said I didn’t want your scrutiny. In truth, I enjoy your hostility much more. Will you keep being hostile?”