The Cross Guard (Purgatory Wars Book 3)

by Dragon Cobolt

  Meanwhile, Anix was a polar opposite of his brother in arms. He was the tallest lizardman that Brax had ever met and wide enough to make two of Vazt, with muscles like boulders beneath forest green and black scales. His nipples were pierced with silver bars, and his cock was an intense red – highlighted all the more every time inches of it emerged from the elf's hairless pussy, glistening with her moisture. His ridges brought quiet, muffled moans from her mouth as her eyes rolled back into her head, her bedraggled white hair dangling almost to the ground as she writhed between the two lizardmen.

  Raotsh was unique in the group for three reasons. The first was that she wasn't a man at all. The second was that she wasn't of the scaled folk – her body was the brilliant reddish hue of the Liliun. The third, though, was a bit more subtle. Unlike the muscular swordsmen, Raotsh - or Rao, as she normally went by - did not have sleek or bulky muscles. She wasn't flabby, by any stretch of the imagination, but she did not seethe with the raw physicality of the other two.

  Instead, she simply looked like a girl. Carefree. Happy. Innocent, even, despite wearing what amounted to a leather strap across her breasts and a thong, with two slender crystal stilettos sheathed on both of her hips. She laughed around the beer she was sipping, blowing some of it out of her nose. Coughing and wiping at her face, she set the wooden mug on the ground.

  “Holy fucking shit, General, you should see your fucking face.”

  The two lizardmen looked at their general and paused, mid thrust. Anix managed, at least, to look abashed.

  Brax thought he would never in his life see Vazt look ashamed for anything. Ever.

  Instead, Vazt simply slid his black cock out of the elf's mouth – leaving a thick string of her spittle and his pre-come connecting her desperate tongue as it lolled out, trying to lap at his cockhead.

  “Want a go, General?”

  Brax snorted.

  “Come on!” Vazt said. “She came eager-like. Didn't even pay her.”

  “Ah!” The woman cried out, her voice thick with pleasure as Anix buried himself deep inside of her again. His balls slapped her belly and she cooed happily, her eyes closing as she reveled in the feeling of his cock filling her. Brax forced his own member to stay within his body, though his balls ached to swing free and spend themselves. He had been without for... it hurt to think of how long he had gone without the touch of his Asurya.

  It will be forever, she whispered in the back of his mind.

  He shied from that thought. Instead, he shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I don't mean to interrupt my best troops' fun,” he said, “But we've been assigned a mission from God. We are to go, incognito, to the Barrier Mountains. There, we shall find the highest peak and seek out the Codex of the Ancients. God believes that we can awaken a great power with it.”

  “What!?” Vazt spluttered, his tongue hissing out. The girl managed to lean forward and capture the tip of his cock in her mouth, sucking on it happily. Vazt, ever the practical soldier, stepped forward and thrust into her throat. From the gurgling noise that the elf made, she was enjoying herself.

  Brax frowned. “Vazt!”

  “Hey,” Vazt said, grinning slyly, “You did say we should enjoy ourselves once the city was under control.”

  “Yeah,” Anix said, nodding.

  “You two are lucky the general is a soft touch,” Rao muttered into her cup, sipping from it. “If I were him, I'd have had you both crucified by this point.”

  Brax's condition had several advantages. One of them was that when he snapped his tail-tip against the wall of a house – whether it be a large mansion or a small hut – the sound was amplified. Rather than making a dull thunk, his tail rang against the wall like a gong, bringing everyone's attention to him. He frowned at the three soldiers, his eyes flashing.

  “I may be unwilling to have my soldiers whipped,” he said, his voice dark, “But don't mistake this for leniency. You will finish with her.” He pointed at the elf. “And you will report to the front gates. Do you understand?”

  “Yes sir!” All three said at the same time.

  Brax turned and stalked out, his tail lashing from side to side. He paused by the door – and heard the sound of suddenly intensified lovemaking within. Out of sight, he let himself go for a moment. His cock slid from the slit between his legs, and his balls emerged a moment later. His loincloth tented, then slipped aside. Brax did not have a difference in color between his back, his belly, his balls, his cock. All of him gleamed with the brilliance of gold and shone with a metallic sheen that even Vazt lacked.

  It had been a nameless battle, at first.

  The mercenary unit he had been a part of – back before God, before the tribes had gathered, before he had been a general - had marched out for coin and been led by a fool into a valley before a prosperous Hellenic city. There had been a priest of Zeus in the enemy camp, standing on the hill. His voice had called down a curse on the larger army that marched towards his city. The voice still echoed in Brax's memories.

  You will die to teach a fool a lesson, then! May the curse of Midas be your doom – and may your master's thirst for gold be quenched!

  The sky had split.

  The gold had come down – sheeting, pouring waves of it. Men and women screaming, clawing at their flesh as the molten metal dug in and burned into them. They were the less fortunate ones. Those who had been luckier – like Brax – had been doused completely with the first real deluge. There had been heat, then darkness. And then, for reasons that he had never learned, an endless waiting. Not death but some limbo. There had been nothing for Brax to do but stand there, poised with sword and shield in his hands, his clothes burned away, the gold worked into his very being.

  He had stood there and entertained himself with thoughts ranging through legend and fantasy, while he listened to the ever so faint sounds of first the dying, then the dead, then the buzzing of flies. Then the sound of wildlife, birds and beasts, coming back to the battlefield.

  Then…

  Her.

  Asurya.

  Who makes a statue in such a foolish pose? Laughter then, the sound of serving maids and bodyguards responding to their Princess's jest.

  And that had been the name of the battle ever since.

  The Battle of Statues.

  “Oh gods!” The happy sound of an elf climaxing – so similar to Asurya, as she rode him – sent Brax fleeing faster than any army had. He strode through the streets and tried to focus on the mission at hand. He knew which soldiers would be able to do what was needed without waking in the night, trembling and filled with the memories of what they had done. And he was already working the angles.

  There was no way to predict exactly what would happen in a chaotic system. He had learned this in the almost forgotten days of his youth, watching leaves flowing through the river and trying to spot the shifting hints that would indicate a slumbering flatfish. With flatfish, you needed to be able to not just predict where things were but also where they would go.

  That skill would serve him well.

  * * *

  Liam stepped into the small home that Sobek had gifted him, a collection of scrolls tucked under one armpit, and a fresh pot of ink in the other hand. He stopped when he looked across the interior of the room and saw the grinning face of Maurice the artificer. Maurice was a familiar pain in Liam's ass – ever since Sobek had gotten his scaled hands on the formula for gunpowder.

  But there are so many different things you could work on, Liam had said. Medicine. Education! Printing presses!

  If anyone gets gunpowder first, then those other things won't matter much, will they? Sobek had shot back. Then Maurice had come by Liam's home every other day, asking him an endless series of questions that Liam felt entirely unable to answer. He knew the rough process for producing gunpowder, but the actual chemistry was beyond him. He couldn't help the goblin find a replacement for pigshit, or narrow down what naturally occurring crystals in Purgatory co
uld be ground into powder and used as saltpeter.

  “Maurice!” Liam said.

  “In my defense, it was her id-ahh!”

  Liam blinked.

  And realized that Maurice wasn't sitting at the table. He was sprawled on the bed, his green hands pressed to the sheets, while Meg's head bobbed in his lap. Her wings were folded neatly behind her back, leaving only the glorious, heart-shaped mound of her rump visible as she bobbed her head up and down with a slow, steady, slurping noise. Her hands were on Maurice's knees, caressing the smaller man gently, her elbows pressing her tits together into a firm line of cleavage. Liam pursed his lips, then slowly walked to the side. Looking at the scene from an angle, he saw that while the artificer had been born about half Liam's size, he wasn't proportionally smaller.

  There was enough emerald green cock for Meg to wrap both of her bountiful tits around, her spittle and his flowing pre-come soaking her skin like an oil rub. Her nipples drew slow circles against his chest as she leaned forward, rocking herself against Maurice.

  Liam looked at the goblin, who was trying weakly to push Meg's head away. “If you kill me, Sobek will, uh, he'll, uh,” Maurice stammered.

  He looked like he wanted to argue that Sobek would punish Liam for murdering him. But he also looked like he was mentally recounting the various ways Liam had pulled Sobek's tail out of the fire.

  Liam leaned forward menacingly.

  Then grinned. “Can you keep it down while I'm doing my paperwork?”

  “Zuh?” Maurice asked.

  Meg drew her mouth back – tongue swirling around the thick glans of her lover – and shot a glare at Liam. “You ruined it, honey! You should have heard him. Talking about how naughty we were being, about how nooo, he shouldn't, you'd kill him.” She grinned, flicking her tongue against the very tip of the goblin's cock, causing Maurice to gasp quietly.

  “Sorry,” Liam said, laughing and ruffling Meg's hair. “But I couldn't help it – the look on his face.”

  Meg snapped her left wing out and smacked Liam's entire upper body with it. She had gotten quite good at putting just enough impact into those strikes to send Liam staggering without actually causing any real, permanent damage. Liam skidded backwards, his knees knocked out from under him by one of the office chairs he'd had custom built at great expense. His butt thumped against the silken cushion and he laughed.

  “Message received: don't ruin the fantasy,” he said, grinning.

  Meg humphed, then turned back to face the goblin man who was still looking somewhat like an Earth turkey during a rainstorm. Her palms went to her chest, closing her tits around his cock again, and she started to rock her hips up and down, using her breasts to squeeze and massage Maurice's member. The artisan closed his eyes, gritting his teeth hard as he clenched his palms on the sheets, which rumpled around his fingers. Liam, meanwhile, laid his first scroll out, dipped his quill in the ink, and started to write down the after action report that Sobek would want.

  The slick sound of titflesh wanking a hard cock filled his ears – followed by a restrained groan.

  “Oh, horror,” Liam said, his voice deadpan. “I have been cuckolded. I am filled with rage and contempt.”

  A pillow thumped into the back of his head. Liam glanced back. Meg stuck her tongue out at him, then used said tongue to guide the tip of Maurice's dick into her mouth. She sucked hard enough to hollow out her cheeks and make Maurice's eyes cross.

  Liam turned back to his paperwork to hide his wicked grin. “However could you betray me, oh light of my life?”

  This time, Maurice threw the pillow. Amazingly accurate, considering.

  Liam wrote down his summary of what little they knew about the creature that he had decided to classify Kevinos Baconitarum. He looked at the words, glistening in fresh ink, as the wet slap of lip to tit to cock filled his ears. Normally, writing a joke that literally no one else in Purgatory would get would at least draw a smile forth. But instead, all he could do was think about the reports of lizardman raiders. Rumors that Ares hadn't been seen in New Athens for almost a month – not impossible, but entirely unusual. He leaned back in his seat.

  “Fuckinggods!”

  Maurice had the trick of making it all one word down pat.

  Was that creature sent? Liam wondered. How could we prove it was? No one has seen anything alike. But those crystals it fired, they were null crystals. Perfect to stop a valk. Was it designed to trap us?

  No answers. Just questions and shadows.

  Maurice came noisily.

  Liam had become quite a connoisseur of the aural delights that came with the female climax. If he had gone back in time and told himself when he had been in high school that he would basically have a harem of eager, willing, utterly gorgeous women who had not only never heard of sexual modesty, but essentially laughed at the very concept... well, he'd have dropped dead from excitement. But Maurice's climax lacked the musical quality of, say, Tethis screaming in pleasure.

  Still, it didn't make it any easier to focus on the paperwork.

  “Ohh look at my tits,” Meg purred.

  Liam turned around on his office chair, the brass and wood that the chair used in lieu of plastic and metal making a soft rasping noise. Meg was leaning back against the bed, her wings spread. Her fingers caressed her breasts, rubbing the thick white streams of cum that splashed her face, neck and tits. She drew slow circles with her fingertips, then used her palms to scoop and rub the goblin spunk into her skin. She gleamed like she had been oiled.

  “I'm so wet now,” Meg whispered. Her eyes met Liam's.

  Liam looked at her.

  He turned back at the paperwork. It was still only a single name and a few tentative notes. He looked back at her.

  Then, grinning, he stood.

  “Fuck it,” he said.

  “No, fuck me,” Meg purred.

  Liam strode over, his hands going to his kilt. It hit the ground and his sandals thumped into the wall as he kicked them away. One narrowly avoided knocking over a hoplite shield – complete with Spartan lambda – that decorated one of the walls. His hands grabbed onto Meg's wrists, lifting them up and over her head. Meg could bend bronze with her bare hands and yet, somehow, she never seemed quite able to escape from Liam's grip, despite squirming and writhing in such a way that ended up pressing her bountiful breasts to his chest.

  Strange, that.

  A loud smack sounded and Meg squeaked. Looking past her shoulder, Liam could see that Maurice wasn't out of the game yet. His smaller palms were still enough to cup and squeeze Meg's ass hungrily. The goblin leaned forward, kissing the base of Meg's spine, then standing up on the bed, his hands pressed against her ass like she was a humanoid shelf, he kissed the base of her wings. Meg crooned quietly and Liam grinned at the goblin. The bed and his posture meant they were almost the same height now.

  And in that moment, the two shared one of the semi-telepathic conversations that could happen, when two men were getting ready to just go to town on a girl.

  If you hurt her, I will kick your ass, Liam's eyes said.

  I'm just glad to be here, Maurice's entire body said.

  Meg grinned, opening one eye. “So, who wants my feathered pus-”

  The explosion that rang out across the city of Faiyum Falls wasn't nearly as shocking as it should have been. Animals and children cried out in alarm – but most people simply took it in stride. Random explosions had become more and more common the harder that Maurice tried to build gunpowder. But it was still loud enough to fill the room and cause Meg's wings to flare in momentary surprise. Her eyes widened – and then she and Liam looked at Maurice.

  “Maurice!” they said, in unison.

  “Whoa!” he said, lifting his hands off Meg's ass. “Why are you looking at me? I'm not doing any experiments right now!”

  Liam's brow furrowed and he hurried to the window, ignoring the faint blueness that tingled around his balls. Standing at the sill, his hands on the edges of the window, he lean
ed around the edge of the building and looked out over the city. Dust rose from Maurice's workshop but Liam immediately saw that it couldn't possibly have been a gunpowder related accident. Even if Maurice had built working powder, and even if that powder had gone up, there was no way that an explosion from inside the building would have broken a hole from the roof down into the shop itself.

  “Someone just crashed into your shop,” Liam said, stepping back and grabbing his kilt. “Come on!”

  Maurice started for the door. Meg grabbed him by one arm and instead headed to the corner of the room, where Liam tugged out a small wooden ladder. The three of them scrambled up it to the roof. There, Meg slid her arm around Liam's waist, held him to her side, then picked up Maurice with her other arm. Her wings spread and she leaped off the top of the building before Maurice could so much as squeak. They did not fly so much as fall in a very controlled and artful way, landing in front of the shop without needing to spend minutes fighting through the congestion of Faiyum Falls narrow, winding streets.

  The city guard were arriving with uncharacteristic swiftness. Almost, Liam thought, as if this was some kind of amazingly important research project or something. They were a tough looking group, wearing bronze armor with leather over what the metal couldn't cover, and holding kopesh blades in their hands. The curved, sickle-like swords had a blunt edge and a sharpened one, and their hook meant they could grab and yank people around, beat people about the heads, and hack through shields with equal skill.

  The guardsmen and women looked at the three of them. “What should we do, sir?” one asked Liam.

  “Well,” Liam said, adjusting his kilt. “We-”

  He stopped.

  A horror emerged from the workshop.

  Blackened. Shrunken. Almost skeletal. The only reason why the man could walk at all was that he was clearly a valkyrie, but at this point, Liam wondered if their amazing endurance and toughness was more of a curse than a blessing. He was covered with fifth and sixth degree burns. White bone showed where his flesh wasn't blackened to a crisped char. The internal crystals that Tethis theorized gave valkyrie their amazing strength gleamed, looking like the fire had polished them.