Cloaks and Daggers

by Jay Aury

  The sorcerer rose. She stiffened, tightening into herself like an overwound spring. Fight. Flight. Neither of which was much of an answer in the face of those cruel red eyes. Her glance flicked to the staff he held, the twisted limbs of the peak seeming to move subtly in the ill glow.

  He circled her slowly, his staff tapping, sending little arcs of red magic crackling whenever it touched. She winced with every impact, her breath hitching with a muffled sob. He stopped before her, looked her up and down again, nodded.

  “Alright. You’ll do.”

  She swallowed.

  Tiberius sat down on the bone and hide throne. “Right. Seduce me.”

  Damera opened her mouth. Closed it. “Wh-what?”

  “You heard me,” the wizard said. He slammed the butt of his staff on the floor, Damera yelping as lightning crackling across the stones. “You’re a pleasure slave, right? Bought and trained and bred and what have you. Hm? Well! Do your job.” He slammed the staff down again, the flare of light illuminating his face. “Seduce me!”

  Damera bit her lower lip. Ohhhh, why did these things always seem to happen to her? She hesitantly stepped forward, belatedly putting a sway into her hip. She gingerly sat down in his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. Her skin crawled as the heat of his scars radiated against her. She leaned up and kissed him, but couldn’t’ stop trembling. She pulled back and looked at him to see if it was working.

  It was not.

  “You’re rather bad at this,” he noted.

  She flushed with shame. “S-sorry,” she murmured.

  Tiberius gave her a long look. “What did you do before you were taken by the orcs.”

  “D-do.”

  “Oh for gods’ sakes,” he muttered and grabbed her forehead.

  Damera froze. Pain exploded through her head like someone drove a spike into her skull. Her mind emptied. She gasped.

  She blinked.

  She was in the tavern with her father and her sister. Men came in and spoke to him for a long time. Reluctantly, he led them to her. “Daddy!” she screamed as they dragged her out.

  She blinked.

  She was naked, under the hot sun on the auction block. Shaking with fear and shame. She hadn’t seen her sister since that terrible night. Men and women in fine or crude clothes were discussing her critically, eying her. One gestured dramatically. A woman in long robes came forward and took the rope tied to her neck.

  She blinked.

  She was in a large bedroom and tied up. Mistress Vera was crouched above her, clad in nothing but sharp leathers, a leash in hand, smiling down at her. Damera’s skin blazed with the pain of the whip. A goat baa’d in the corner. Sobbing, Damera leaned forward and pressed her lips to the noblewoman’s foot.

  “Good pet,” Mistress Vera said, petting Damera’s hair. “Good pet.”

  She blinked.

  She stood in silks and gold before the jagged line of the Dragon’s Teeth. Mistress Vera stood with her. Behind her, Damera and three others waited. Soon enough orcs moved down the broken rocks and came before them. Mistress Vera spoke of bribes and troops, then passed the leash to them. Damera followed her new masters meekly.

  She blinked.

  She screamed with terrible ecstasy, her body burning with the drugs pumped into her by the orc’s shamans. Pleasure raced through her. Cruel delight she couldn’t fight. Couldn’t stop. He grabbed her breasts, the treacherous flesh singing with induced delight. The brutish orc finished in her, his seed burning her depths. He pulled out, grunting, and the next took his place. Damera moaned as he entered her, weeping in shame and pleasure and pain as he took her, her voice joining the cries of the others in the tent.

  She blinked.

  Damera gasped. She was on the floor of Fulgrim’s Keep once more. Her head pounding. Memories. Those were memories, so vivid it was like she’d lived those shameful days again. She felt her tears and swallowed thickly, stifling them. She didn’t think she’d had tears left. She looked up dully to see Tiberius slowly pacing around her. The red marks across his face glowed fitfully as he tapped his chin with the head of his staff. She made to rise, failed, and fell back with a gasp.

  Tiberius paused. Looked down at her. Stepping up to her, he crouched down, the hem of his robe whisking against her like a cool breeze. “Well,” he said. “Wasn’t that interesting.”

  “Nnn,” Damera whimpered. Hot tears cut streaks down her cheeks. She flinched at his touch, but he gripped her chin and turned her face towards him. The marks around his eyes beat with a crimson light.

  “How would you like to never be powerless again?”

  She stilled. He grinned down at her and his grip tightened. “Sick of being everyone else’s puppet? Plaything? Oh, I know what you really want. You want power. You want to be able to make anyone who stood against you crawl at your feet. Well, suffice to say I think I can solve that little issue. Oh yes. I think I can. Of course,” he added thoughtfully. “You might die anyway. But… well, I’m sure someone will succeed. Eventually. So how about it? How would you like power?”

  Power?

  It felt like such an alien word at this point. But the concept, the idea, that was familiar. She suffered at the hands of others too often not to. Oh yes. She knew of power. Sadly, generally at the other end

  Power.

  Gritting her teeth, she propped herself up, forced herself up, lifting her dark eyes up at the sorcerer. “I…I want it,” she gasped. Her hands tightened. “Please!”

  Tiberius’s grin cut his face. “That’s the spirit.”

  He stood. His robe fell from him, revealing his marked skin. Damera sucked in a breath at the full extent of those pulsing crimson etchings, but she only had a moment, for the next he was on her. He grasped her, tilting back her head. He pressed his lips to hers.

  And the world changed.

  Heat shot through her. She arched, gasping into his mouth. Something electric seemed to flow from his mouth, breathed into her. She felt heavy. Swollen. His tongue plunged into her, rolling about as if relishing her taste before the feast. She whimpered, falling back onto the floor, trembling. He crouched over her, the glowing signs in his skin like a fire against her.

  She moaned, responding, feeling the sheer strength of his magic crackling through him. Her body alive. More than alive. Supercharged. He pulled back from the kiss, her lips plumped and bruised, her breath steaming from her.

  “Let’s see now,” he muttered, leaning over her.

  “Ahh!” she cried, arching as his tongue touched her breast. She bit her lip as the burning sensation raced through her. His tongue ran up her throat, lingering there. His hands began to move across her body. “O-oh. Ohhhhh!”

  She cried out as his fingers dug roughly into her arms. Heat blazed where he touched. To silence her scream she bit his shoulder.

  “Argh!” Tiberius snarled. “Bitch!”

  She couldn’t answer. Pain raced across her, but she was used to pain. Hadn’t her life been so long defined by it? Hadn’t she suffered first under the whips of slavers, then the cruel touch of orcs. She closed her eyes tightly, and bit down harder.

  Hurt me, she thought. Do it. Do whatever it takes! But power. Give me power!

  The pain grew more acute as Tiberius continued to trace her body with his hands. His tongue. His every touch lingered, but the pain began to fade. Became something else. Where at first she whimpered, now she moaned. She undulated, her nipples hardening, her broodmotherly hips rolling, rocking. Her head pounded and her blood quickened. She rubbed her thighs, feeling the dampness between her legs.

  She released his shoulder. “Ohhhh,” she moaned. She saw her teeth marks among the pulsating curves in his skin, the indentations glowing faintly. “Ohhhh.”

  She felt his tongue again on her neck. She tilted her head, giving him more of herself as a canvas. She clawed at his back, pulling him closer. Curved her back, pressing her generous breasts against his chest.

  “Take me,” she panted. “Oh gods. Oh
gods… please… Please…”

  The touch of his tongue burned as he drew it up across her skin, along her chin, across her cheek. “Not yet,” he said. “Hard as it may be at least try and control yourself.”

  “Nnnn!” she whimpered. She ground her crotch against his leg, humping him like a bitch in heat. And still his fingers moved. Crawled up her body. Spreading their thrilling touch across her.

  She was burning. Feverish. He was muttering something now. The words were indistinguishable to her, but she felt their power. Felt them settle on her like a weight, seeping in her skin to burn. Pulse through her veins. She moaned. She whimpered. “P-please!”

  Tiberius didn’t answer. But he shifted atop her. She gasped as he pressed his cock against her. She instantly opened her legs, baring her moistened quim for him. “Yes,” she begged.

  He thrust.

  “Ahhhhn!” She threw back her head. Her hands clawed his back, drawing blood. Her pulse thundered in her ears. “Oh gods!” she screamed.

  Tiberius kissed her. She tasted blood. She drank eagerly as he fucked her. Red light pulsed on the walls, crawling across the throne. She felt it like a second heartbeat inside of her. Again the marks in her skin burned like a brand. She screamed into his mouth. Her vision swam. The drum of her heartbeat thundered.

  “Ah… ah… ahnnnn!” She cried out, cumming, her inner walls clutching at the sorcerer’s length. His hands grabbed her head, held it in place. His eyes burned into hers. His touch was like iron. She thrashed as he kept pumping, kept filling her.

  Her head spun. “Yes!” she screamed as her skin fairly hummed with some primal energy. “Yes! Fuck me!” She stared at the ceiling of the chamber, hypnotized by the whirling lights like a hundred writhing serpents. Cast there by the pulsing of Tiberius’s etched skin. The twisting shapes seemed to take the form of a woman’s face. The figure smiled, showing fangs, pupil’s slits like a snake’s.

  Tiberius snapped out a final word. It struck her like a whip. Her every muscle tensed. She screamed again. Came again.

  “Fuck!” Tiberius snarled as she tightened around him. He thrust once more, buried himself as deep in her as he could. Then he snarled a word she didn’t know.

  He came.

  The world shrank around her. Expanded in a breath. Heat seared through her as his seed burned into her. Her vision spun. The face on the ceiling opened its mouth. She screamed as it expanded further. She fell towards it.

  Darkness swallowed her.

  Investigations

  Auria reclined in her palanquin with a sigh of contentment.

  This was how a dark elf should travel.

  Magic buoyed her opulent craft through the crowds. A space cleared for her as she glided on, a troop of houseguards led by Davina leading the march. She watched Davina idly, the captain’s crimson cloak whisking about her as she led them on. Auria had been neglecting her. She really must invite the captain back to her room. Davina did so love the whips, after all. Auria smiled, then glanced out the side, pouting a little. Felix hadn’t been comfortable riding in the craft and had opted to walk, and not even her promise of sucking his cock as they travelled had been able to entice him. Strangely, that had seemed to encourage him not to ride with her. She sighed. But then, that was half the fun. And by the time she was done, he’d fuck her in Vassara’s arena before the nobility of the city. She hummed with amusement, finger circling a cloth clad nipple.

  They moved nearer the lake, where the slim masts and sleek prows of trader vessels and personal yachts crowded the reaching docks and shores. Few but the shipmasters left Vassara anymore, they usually to purchase slaves or offer some of the craftwork of the dark elven homeland to others. Vassara needed nothing from the outside world, after all. Its palaces were older than the mountains and its families the same. A static kingdom of ethereal beauty. None dared attack them, with their legions of mages and the power of the Fount at their back. In fact, that she knew of, Auria was one of the few elves of her generations to go beyond the tall walls of the city.

  Auria reflected on that idly as she flicked her finger, her palanquin drawing to a halt before one of the countless sleek buildings which formed the Shadow Street. Considering how her trip had nearly ended in the Dusk Woods, she wasn’t too surprised by that. No. She was far more comfortable in Vassara. Here the threads of power lay close at hand. Thrusting aside the filmy curtain, Auria delicately stepped down to the street level.

  Felix stood near, eying the dusky avenue warily. “Will you be alright?”

  She laughed. “I’m no blushing maiden, my knight. Don’t worry about me.”

  He frowned uncertainly. Auria felt a touch of pique. No doubt he was recalling the events of their first meeting. Yet, a strange glow of pleasure at his protectiveness enveloped her. Which reminded her…

  “My knight,” Auria said, drawing something from her pocket. “This is for you.”

  Felix took the amulet she gave him. A pendant of intricate silver threads wound around a piece of amber, a hair curled in the stone. “What is it?”

  “A gift. From me to you. Put it on.”

  Felix did so. Auria’s smile widened a little at the subtle flash of the stone as it settled against his chest. “I… thank you,” he said.

  She laughed softly and leaned up against him, her breasts pressing into his chest as she kissed him. His arms automatically moved to embrace her, but she slipped away from him before he could. “Now now,” she said with a teasing smile. “If you wanted that, you should have joined me in the palanquin.”

  Felix flushed at the suggestion and glanced at the stone faced guards. Auria laughed again, her throaty chuckle sending tingles racing down to the Rune Knight’s boots as she turned and entered the shop, her ribbons of silks drifting in her wake.

  Stepping inside, the elven noble paused. She glanced back into the looming face of an ogre standing beside a door he could probably never fit through. The hulking creature looked down at her, his beady eyes flashing from his bald bullet head, the collar marking him as bounded shining around his throat. Spiked bracers were wrapped around his wrists and she knew his broad belly was all muscle. She gave him a smile. “Agor.”

  There was a grunt from the upper slopes of mount Agor.

  “Keeping busy?”

  Another grunt.

  She gave him a pat on his arm and swept down the passage and deeper into the building. Through a door she found herself in a tall, circular room whose walls were stuffed with bookcases which, in turn, were stuffed with books. They spilled out into piles which grew across the floor and clustered in heaps. Globes of golden magic glowed about the ceiling, floating from sconces. Beneath their light a withered, thin dark elf with skin a plum purple worked behind a desk. His graying hair was a tonsured horseshoe shape about his ears. Huge spectacles sat on a slightly hooked nose as he bent over some documents. It was a delicate dance among the stacks of papers to make her way to the desk at the end. She gathered her filmy silks around her and primly took a seat.

  For a moment the scratching of the quill was all that could be heard. Then, the wrinkled elf stabbed a period on the document and raised his head.

  “Lady Auria Dalamas,” he said, clasping his bony fingers before him. “How good to see you again. What can I do for you?”

  “Hello Lithrin,” Auria said. “I’ve come for information.”

  The balding man bobbed his head. “Oh no doubt. No doubt. On what, pray? No doubt something innocuous. Oh yes. No doubt at all. I’ve had many looking for information into your movements. Oh yes. A great many.”

  Auria leaned back, straightening the filmy armour that only just covered her breasts. “Who?”

  “Captain Davina.”

  Auria rolled her eyes. “Oh. Her.”

  “Yes,” Lithrin said as he pulled out a sheaf of paper and inspected it. “Very good woman. Good captain. Worried about you. Oh so very concerned you… went off on your own…”

  “It says that?”

  He loo
ked back to her. “Hm? Oh! Sorry. No. This is a menu from Gringle’s Boar Rib Roastery. Very fine food. Very fine. You should try it.”

  “Another time.” Auria leaned her chin in her palms, blue eyes glowing. “She was worried?”

  “Oh yes. Wanted to give you an honour guard. Very keen on it. Personal.”

  She laughed. “Oh I’m sure. She’s so very fond of me. Wants to make an honest woman of me.”

  “Difficult.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Oh no. Possible. The right person… hmmm… Yes. You’re with someone new, no? Heard they came with you.”

  “You’re quick.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “So, Captain Davina. Anyone else?”

  “Oh, yes. Certainly. Hooded fellow. Came in the other day.”

  Auria tensed. She leaned forward. “Did he have a name?”

  “Hm? Name. Yes. Yes he did. But very expensive things, names. Cost a bundle.” He scratched his head, dandruff raining down like snow. “Hmm. Yes. Expensive.”

  Auria sighed. She dug the small pouch of gold from her side out and placed it on the table. It clinked with a reassuring solidity. “The name, Lithrin.”

  Lithrin picked up the bag, weighing it. “Hm. Called himself Wraith.”

  Auria bit her lower lip, brow lowering with unease. “I see… Good to know…” Her hand slipped into her pocket and retrieved the golden clasp dropped by the elf who had attacked her in Solita. She laid it out on the table, the scorpion worked on its face gleaming. “And tell me, Lithrin. Who have the Night Blades been meeting lately?”

  Lithrin cocked his head. He picked up the clasp and turned it over thoughtfully in the light. “Yes. Yes. Also, the Night Blades. They were asking about you too. Among others. A number of high nobles meet with them. More have arranged for it in the last day or two. When you returned, if I recall… Again, lately. Yes. Very keen.”

  “So I have a hit on me?”

  “You. Your friend. Oh yes. Very unfortunate. Very. Lots of gold too. Great deal. Doubtless many will be after you. Quite so. Pity.” He checked a collection of papers, adjusting his glasses. “Hm. Yes. Been upped by… thirty thousand gold pieces.”