The Academy Volume One

by Maxine Mansfield

Uthiel held onto the stone as if holding Briar herself, and slept.

  ****

  The wind billowed through the ship’s sails, and clouds streaked the sky. The first fat drops of rain pelted her skin. Briar hugged herself against the chill. The woolen blanket had been enough to keep her warm while she slept on a lounge chair, but it would not be adequate in another storm.

  Looking up into her father’s kind face, she shivered. “I think I’ll go belowdecks for a while, Papa, if you don’t need my help.”

  Midan nodded, “Go, lass. I’ll be fine. I’m just going to help set these sails. Oh, while you’re down there, will you inform Mr. Shortz the captain spotted land a few grains of sand through the hourglass ago?”

  Briar smiled, her heart leaping at the knowledge this leg of the trip was almost over, and they were that much closer to their destination. To Uthiel. Her breath caught in her chest, and butterflies fluttered in her belly.

  Her father’s words interrupted her thoughts. “We’ll make port by nightfall. If Leeky’s calculations are correct, we’ll reach Castle Kuropkat in less than two days’ time. And, if he hasn’t figured it out already, let him know a storm is brewing.”

  “I sure will,” Briar said as she scampered toward the stairs leading to the cabin area. The wind could blow, the rain could fall, VoT, it could even snow―she didn’t care. They were almost on land once more, and nothing was going to put a damper on her mood today.

  Taking the ladder’s small, narrow steps two at a time, Briar could barely contain her excitement. Soon, very soon, she would be reunited with her love, her Uthiel. Her ear-to-ear grin cracked a corner of her chapped lips, but she ignored the tingling pain.

  A pinch of camphor mixed with a dollop of linseed oil will take care of that in a jiffy, and my lips will be as good as new by the time I plant them on Uthiel’s body. All over his body, starting with his―

  Leeky’s raspy voice stopped her in her tracks outside the door to his cabin. Not wanting to interrupt, Briar peeked around the partially open door to see who was with him.

  “Ah, my dear, you look exceptionally lovely today. Did you do something new with your hair?”

  Briar covered her mouth to prevent her laughter from escaping.

  Leeky sat across the table from his blow-up doll, Miss Kitty, and it was obvious from the cups and saucers, the couple was having a tea party. A private one.

  Miss Kitty sat straight and silent in her chair. Her flat, blue eyes held their normal, surprised-looking expression. Her cheeks were rosy against the pale synthetic smoothness of her classically beautiful face. Her lips were a bright red circle, and wide open, as if she was on the verge of speaking…but no sound came forth, of course.

  Her hair hung down her back as usual, although Briar immediately saw what Leeky referred to. Several glossy strands were piled high upon her plastic head and arranged in midnight-black curls held in place with variously colored combs.

  She wore the same timeless, lacy gown Briar had seen her in the other day, although now it looked like even the slightest movement threatened to spill Miss Kitty’s more-than-ample plastic bosom over the top edge of the bodice.

  Briar had to admit she’d never seen Miss Kitty look prettier, or happier, than she did at this very moment. Or sexier, for that matter.

  “More tea, my dear?”

  Leeky lifted a porcelain teakettle to refill Miss Kitty’s cup, but stopped mid-pour.

  He held up a hand. “What the polka-dotted purple panties on the arse of a troll trollop are ya worried about, lass?…I know, I know, always concerned with overindulging or going too far. But this is a special occasion. This is our anniversary. After as many years as we’ve shared together, I believe a little overindulging is in order, don’t ya?”

  Briar hadn’t noticed the box sitting in the middle of the table until Leeky picked it up and opened it. She couldn’t take her eyes off its contents.

  A paddle. But not just any paddle. This one was lavishly detailed in what appeared to be purest silver.

  Oh my God Draka, are they actually going to do what I’m thinking? In fascination mixed with more than a dollop of horror, Briar watched.

  Leeky Shortz stood, withdrew a roll of duct tape from one of his many pockets, slipped on a pair of dark-lavender gloves, and giggled. “Ya know what this means, don’t ya? Time for Kitty and Leeky ta get freaky!”

  Briar opened her mouth to interrupt the gnome and deliver the message from her father, but―just like Miss Kitty―no sound came out. She was frozen, rooted to the floor, unable to look away or even close her eyes.

  Leeky taped the paddle to Miss Kitty’s wrist, and the doll, with her open-mouthed gape, looked surprised. Evidently Leeky wasn’t surprised at her reaction, because he unbuckled his Pants of Many Pockets, dropped them to the floor, and bent over Miss Kitty’s lap.

  “Spank me like ya mean it, Momma. I’ve been a very bad boy!” He wiggled his pasty little cheeks in obvious anticipation and giggled.

  Briar was glad it was his ass that was toward her, but the sight was still disturbing. His rounded bottom and saggy little balls reminded her of edible mushrooms she’d seen growing along the roadside in Dak Forest. After today, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to consume the delectable fungi again.

  Though it was Leeky’s hand guiding Miss Kitty’s, Briar still jumped as the first resounding thwack rent the air. Over and over the paddle came down, and with each strike, the little gnome’s buttocks glowed a deeper shade of red.

  Just when Briar was sure she could watch no more, the spanking ended.

  Leeky stood and faced the doll, his flaming red backside still toward Briar.

  “Momma gonna make it feel all better now?” He fisted both hands in Miss Kitty’s hair and gently tugged the blow-up doll toward his crotch.

  Briar gasped as Miss Kitty’s startled, open mouth disappeared from sight, and Leeky pumped his hips frantically.

  She should have been disgusted. She should have at least been repulsed, but she was neither.

  Instead, heat flowed through her and settled like a fire in the pit of her belly. How long had it been since she’d had the taste of Uthiel upon her lips? How long had it been since he filled her, loved her, until she’d screamed with release? Too long. Much, much too long.

  “Who’s your daddy now, bitch?” Leeky shouted. With a grunt, a wiggle of his bottom, and a hoot, the little gnome relaxed his stance.

  He pulled up his Pants of Many Pockets, replaced his darklavender, getting-freaky gloves with the pair of soft pink ones, and flipped on a music box sitting close by.

  Smiling, he dabbed Miss Kitty’s mouth with a napkin and extended a hand toward her. “Our song, my dear. May I have the pleasure of this dance?”

  Miss Kitty must have said yes, because Leeky gathered her in his arms.

  A tear slid down Briar’s cheek, and she sighed with pent-up longing for Uthiel as she watched the gnome pirouette Miss Kitty around the room. She knew the doll was a substitute for Leeky’s long-lost love, Lady Kattra, but the emotion shining in his eyes was all too real.

  Briar followed them with her gaze as they twirled and dipped, and twirled some more, around and around the room, as the melody played on and on. Leeky never took his eyes off Miss Kitty, nor she him.

  Briar’s heart filled with such yearning for Uthiel, she feared any moment it would burst from need. Would they ever have this kind of enduring relationship? Would he ever love her with this level of intensity? Would she even reach him in time to secure this kind of future with him?

  She shook her head to dispel the thought. Of course she would get to him in time. She must. Grasping the warm, pulsing stone through the thin material of her tunic, she held onto it tightly, as if it were Uthiel himself.

  The last thing Briar wanted to do was interrupt the dancing duo, but the message her father had given her for Leeky was important.

  The words were on the tip of her tongue when, from somewhere above deck, a loud explosion shook
the entire ship. The force tossed Briar through the doorway and into the dancing couple.

  “What the rancid earwax of a purple-striped Zorian wildcat have ya done now, lass?”

  Briar stood, rubbed her smarting bottom and glared at the gnome. “It wasn’t me this time, I swear. I just came to give you a message. The captain spotted land.”

  Leeky patted Briar’s hand. “Of course it wasn’t ya. Was just a silly thought, I’m sure. Though with ya’re history, ya gotta admit, it isn’t that far-fetched ta consider the possibility.

  “Now be a good lass and stay here nice and safe with Miss Kitty. I’ll go see what’s transpired.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  She paced the cabin until she was ready to scream. All manner of sounds came from above deck, and Briar had no idea what was happening. She glanced once more at Miss Kitty, who sat at the table, waiting patently, not uttering a word.

  Briar did what she’d known all along she would do. She disobeyed Leeky Shortz’s order.

  Complete chaos reigned on the deck. Flames leaped from sail to sail. Black smoke billowed from a large hole in the floor mid-deck. Screaming and shouting passengers ran from one side of the ship to the other. Sailors helped lift and lower small boats―suspended on long ropes and filled with people―over the ship’s side.

  Though her eyes stung and her throat burned, Briar wove her way through the debris and sailors, searching desperately for three familiar faces.

  She spotted her father first, on the far side of the ship, helping women and children into the little boats. Lightning flashed across the sky and thunder shook the already damaged ship. Fat drops of cold rain blowing sideways strafed her, chilling her body even as the heat of the fire blazing around her threatened to singe her skin. Dodging embers and stumbling around overturned debris, Briar finally made it safely to Midan’s side. “Papa, what’s happened?”

  Midan Tumbleweed glanced at his daughter, then at the small boy he hefted over the side and into the waiting arms of his mother.

  “Leeky just told me you were safe and sound belowdecks. Get back down there until we come for you. He and Sarco are helping on the other side of the ship. Lightning hit a keg of gunpowder some idiot left out on deck.”

  Briar grabbed a pregnant woman’s legs while Midan supported the woman’s thick torso. Together, they eased her into the lifeboat.

  Midan glanced around. “Ship’s going down, lass. No helping her now. Never mind going back below deck to wait for us. There’s room enough in this boat for you,” he gave Briar a quick hug, “and I want you in it.”

  Briar backed out of her father’s arms, her initial sense of duty and honor preventing her from complying.

  But then she glanced over the side of the ship at the turbulent water frothing below, and at the lifeboat right at hand. It would be so easy to obey her father and take the safe way out. No one would blame her. She was a female, after all. Weren’t they the weaker sex, and as such, entitled to protection, or even encouraged to run?

  Weaker, my half-elf, pasty-white ass!

  Briar took a deep breath and spoke before she lost her nerve, “I’m not going anywhere without you, and Leeky, and Sarco, and that’s that.”

  Midan sighed, “There’s no time to argue about this, Briar. We’ll meet ya on shore. Now be a good lass and get in the boat.”

  She shook her head, backed away a few more steps, and scooted to the side to allow other passengers access to the waiting vessel.

  “No, I’m―”

  “What the crossed hairs on the back of an Alarian mountain goat ya gonna do with a lass like that? She’s stubborn and disobedient for sure, Midan.”

  Briar stared at Leeky, who had Miss Kitty tucked under one arm. If it hadn’t been for the teasing grin on his wrinkled little face, she would’ve kicked him.

  Sarco had evidently heard Leeky’s comment because he nodded. “She’s dangerous, too. When I heard the explosion, you were the very first person I thought of, Briar.”

  She shook her head, Why had a few simple little mistakes labeled her so accident prone? “Why is it whenever anything catches fire, I’m the one people think of first? I’ll admit I’ve made a couple of small errors in judgment in the past, but I’m not that bad,” she yelled above the rising noise of the wind and the squeak of the winches as the last of the passengers were loaded into their lifeboats and lowered into the water.

  Leeky and Sarco grinned at each other, until a gust of wind blew smoke and ash in their direction. Hot cinders floated all around, and the ship’s floorboards creaked, shifted, groaned, and toppled everyone against the starboard rail.

  Midan Tumbleweed recovered first. “I do believe we have made a serious error in judgment, boys. Thought there was at least one more lifeboat, but that was evidently the last one.

  “What we going to do now?”

  ****

  Even though it was summer, and even though a fire raged close by, Briar shivered in the frigid water as she held on to both of Miss Kitty’s feet and kicked toward shore. She forced her legs to move in time with the commands from the rogue gnome, who straddled the doll’s head and braced himself by firmly wrapping his hands around Miss Kitty’s neck.

  “Pump those legs, lads. Didn’t I tell ya this would work? Miss Kitty is an amazingly multi-talented female, for sure.”

  Sarco had one arm wrapped around Miss Kitty’s waist and held her left shoulder with his other arm. Midan had a firm grasp the same way on the right side of the blow-up doll. Both men kicked furiously. Little by little, the distant shoreline grew closer.

  Ka-BOOM!

  A mighty explosion ripped through the air behind them. Briar and the others paused to gape. Their ship surrendered itself to the sea with a spectacular fireworks display. Smoldering debris, bits and pieces of flaming wood, and bright cinders shot heavenward, then floated down like stardust.

  Briar swiped at her hair and exposed arms as tiny burns stung her tender skin, but she forgot her own discomfort when she heard Leeky’s panicked shout.

  “What the scabbed-over sores on the arse of a poxed, polka-dancing troll trollop! Put them out! Knock them off. They’re burning her. Quickly, men, before it’s too late.”

  Horrified, Briar watched tiny holes appear where hot debris landed on Miss Kitty’s thin plastic skin.

  Frantically, they worked in unison. Her father, Sarco, and Leeky swatting away cinders as Briar propelled them toward the shore as fast as her legs could work.

  Miss Kitty’s shape-sustaining air slowly seeped from her synthetic body. Her countenance never once changed, and she never even grimaced from the burns. Stoically, the deflating Miss Kitty refused to abandon her mission to float her precious cargo toward safety.

  Will we make it? Briar glanced quickly toward the still-distant shore. Was she a fool to think one blow-up doll—leaking air, no less—could somehow keep them from drowning?

  Briar’s lungs and legs ached from the effort it took to drive shoreward. Tears burned her eyes as she realized that at the rate Miss Kitty was deflating, they probably weren’t going to make it after all. She was never going to see Uthiel again. She was never going to heal him, or live happily ever after.

  Glancing once more at the blow-up doll’s determined face, renewed strength filled her. If Miss Kitty wasn’t going to give up on them, then Briar certainly wasn’t going to give up on Miss Kitty, or on her quest to find Uthiel.

  “Oh my Lord God Draka! It’s not enough, men! She’s lost too much air,” Leeky shrieked.

  Briar gasped as Leeky leaned forward and ripped the bodice of the beautiful gown, exposing Miss Kitty’s still mostly firm breasts. With a hand circling each, he squeezed hard until a rubber stem popped out of the center of each nipple.

  “What the fungus-infested fourth toe on the left foot of a one-legged barbarian are ya waiting for? Blow, men! Blow for all you’re worth. We can’t lose her now.”

  Midan latched onto one nipple as Sarco wrapped his lips around the other.


  Leeky slipped a hand into one of his pockets and pulled out a pair of gloves Briar had never seen before. They were a rich teal, and as thin as a fine sheet of paper. Digging deep inside another of his many pockets, he drew out a rusty old can and flipped open the lid.

  “I’ll patch, ya men blow, and Briar, ya paddle us ta shore. We can do this. I know we can.”

  Briar kicked the water until her legs burned from exhaustion, then she kicked even harder, frustrated her only assistance could be to propel them forward.

  With the flaming ship gone, the lifeboats already out of sight, and twilight approaching, their world shrunk and quieted as each member focused on the task at hand. The only sounds were the slapping of waves against plastic and the two men’s deep breaths just before they forcibly impelled their air through Miss Kitty’s nipples.

  Briar soon realized the men used the rhythmic sound of her feet kicking through the water as a comforting cadence to work by: Kick, suck, blow, kick, suck, blow.

  Leeky’s deft machinations caught her eye. Watching the gnome at work was like scrutinizing a master. He precisely and quickly placed patch after patch. His hands moved so swiftly at times Briar lost track of them. Concentration furrowed his already wrinkled brow as, gently, Leeky inspected every inch of plastic he could reach, looking for holes, and always finding more.

  Briar was exhausted. Her legs ached and her arms were as heavy as lead.

  Uthiel needs me…kick, suck, blow…Uthiel needs me…kick, suck, blow…how much farther?

  Glancing over her shoulder, she was surprised at how far from the wreckage they’d come.

  We must be…getting…close to…land.

  With her next big kick, she angled her body to see around Sarco’s head as he closed his mouth around Miss Kitty’s left nipple and blew air into her breast again.

  A sandy shore stretched before them, only minutes away, Briar estimated. Majestic, dark mountains rose in the distance, reminding her of the two behind Castle Kuropkat.

  She redoubled her efforts. They were going to make it after all.

  A small pop and an almost inaudible hiss of air tore her attention away from the shoreline and back to Miss Kitty. Sarco, Midan, and Leeky stopped what they were doing and stared.