by Shawn Keys
***
The screams are all wrong, Adamat thought.
Had the elves betrayed Ajax after all? He knew elves. He had worked with… lied to… taken petty vengeance upon… anything he could to the elves he hated so very much. ‘Twould serve that sanctimonious bastard Errant right if the small troupe of elves he had been helping turned on him in this final moment, teaching him the folly of trusting their foul hearts.
But those didn’t sound like screams of pain.
He had crept through the break in the cliffs, emerging into the garden. Stealing into the nearest patch of trees, Adamat kept well hidden. He had discarded his armor; it was mostly ruined anyway, and not suited to stealth. Now, he clutched his bloodied longsword, the only weapon he had left, and peered through the branches.
Ajax was there, and on his knees. But not begging for his life as it should be. No, he was kneeling in power behind the forest elf who had destroyed their element of surprise and killed the local sun elf prince. Ajax was penetrating her nearly to the hilt, and the fiery-haired goddess of an elf was bucking back against him on her knees. She pressed into the ground with her elbows, embracing the pose of an animal while the beastly human knight plundered her.
Under the forest elf, there was a sea elf laying on her back. The two of them were running hands over each other, their nipples brushing and teasing each other. The sea elf’s legs were wrapped up around the forest elf as well, adding to the intimacy.
They weren’t kissing, though. Instead, both of them had their heads upturned, and were lapping at the sweet, intimate flesh of the moon elf maid who was on all fours in front of them, and the sun elf Princess herself who was on her back under her maid. They were the next link in the chain, and copying the pattern of the first two: Callistia with her legs folded up around the maid’s pale-skinned back while they lay breasts to breasts on the ground.
That would have been lascivious enough, but they were not the end of the chain! A dark elf was straddling the sun elf’s head, her legs spread wide with her center hovering over the sun elf’s face. The moon elf main was lapping and licking and feasting on the dark elf’s sex, while Adamat swore he was seeing flashes of Callistia’s tongue delving and flickering around the night-skinned elf’s anal rose, though he knew so wicked and base an action could not possibly be in the Princess’s character! She was too… prissy! A frozen block of ice that any human male would fear to think about in so dirty a fashion as this, even in his dreams!
Yet there they were, four elves with two lovers acting as their bookends, all lost in a wanton display of overt sexuality.
Adamat retreated back behind the nearest tree, laying with his back to the trunk and shaking his head. No! This can’t be real! After all he had suffered and all the honor he had sacrificed to play the cruel game of favorites among the elves, how was it possible that he was the last surviving member of a decimated force while Ajax was soaking in the sexual attention of a horde of their beauties… including the Princess he had stolen from her own castle! Impossible!
Worse still, Adamat suspected her would probably be killed should he return to Lyvarress now. The King was not kind, and not as wise as some of his kin. He had demonstrated that with his idiotic attempt to taint the reputation of his sister. If Adamat returned home with the entire Fist destroyed, the King would think he was the one who had betrayed them to the enemy. Considering he had already turned coat once, Adamat wouldn’t even blame the King that much for suspecting him.
Trapped.
Part of him wanted to rush from the bushes and slay the lovers where they coupled. Kill them all and take revenge now!
But it would be messy, and most likely incomplete. Even naked and unarmed, Ajax was a force to be reckoned with, and Adamat knew the power that Callistia wielded at her fingertips.
No. As glorious as it might be for a few seconds, it would only end in tragedy. His tragedy.
Swallowing his pride, Adamat turned away. He didn’t know where they were headed, but he would be waiting when they returned. Oh yes, he would be waiting, and see their perfect world crumble into pieces.
He slinked away into the night, plans already forming in his brain.
Chapter 18
Ajax reached for the final buckle on his shoulder armor, but Callistia’s delicate hands beat him to the task. Her refined fingers might be precise, elegant and petite, but there was strength behind them. After she locked it in place, the buckle wasn’t going to budge.
She smiled up at him. “Done.”
He couldn’t resist her. He leaned down and claimed her lips for a lingering kiss. When they parted, he let out a relaxed sigh. “This feels right. All of us, together. I feared you were going to stay behind. I would have understood, but the path would have been a lonelier one.”
She glanced around at the other elfish women readying themselves for whatever adventure awaited them. They had spent hours tangled in each other’s bodies, then a few more languishing in sleep. They were all refreshed, body and soul, and feeling whole for the first time in a while. “Yes. This feels right.” She glanced up at him. “We’re going to get through this. I don’t know what the other side holds, but we’re going to bring Quala to her home.”
Together, they turned so Ajax could address the others. “Everyone ready?”
Krizzilani sighed, giving the swirling portal a long, uncertain look. “Yes. But I’m not looking forward to this. You are all going to your version of heaven. Chaotic, turbulent it may be, but a sort of home. For me, I’m stepping into my hell.”
Helleanna hugged her from behind. Even she, who was so open with her heart, had never taken such easy-mannered liberty with the dangerous dark elf. After the last night, they were not just friends and lovers. They were bonded sisters, linked through their mutual love and orbiting around the warm mass that was Ajax’s personality. “They’ll have to get through us to get to you.”
Forming into a loose wedge, they once again approached the gazebo at the center. Ajax at the apex, he once more set foot on the first step. And once more, the Guardian stood from his repose and turned to confront them. The gargoyle intoned, “Have you made your decision? Will you risk taking steps in a world foreign to your own?”
Ajax tried to push down any doubts. The worries were still there. How could they not be? The Wyld was sure to live up to its name, and chaos was by its nature unpredictable. But he had never felt so sure they could succeed. With his women standing strong beside him and their cause a righteous one, the ogrelav knight found confidence he had never felt before. “We shall.”
The gargoyle questioned them no further. The stone creature merely closed its stone eyes, the light within vanishing behind its eyelids.
The oval portal responded to its mental commands. The swirl of black and white was a tumble of disorder. Then, like oily raindrops on a window pane, the elements of darkness ran to the sides and formed a solid outline around the oval. This left the core as one, solid, bright wash of radiance.
The gargoyle remained focused, which Ajax took to be silent permission to carry on.
He traded smiles with his lovers one last time. “Shall we?”
Pausing just long enough to see their nods of support, he squared up with the oval portal, took a last deep breath in the mortal world, and stepped into the Wyld world beyond.
The story will continue in…
To the
Edge of Creation
