by Aaron Crash
“That is what some stories say,” Gharam agreed. “Ymir doesn’t want order. He wants to follow the path cut by his savage, strange god. That path cuts through our world. I will be watching, Princept, to see if you follow through on your threat. I will be watching the barbarian, and I will be watching you, and if either one of you fails, I will be there. I won’t use my sword. I will use the law, upon my honor, I will.”
That made the Princept grin. Yes, everyone was watching her, in the sunlight, in the darkness, and in the rain. All eyes were on her to see if she could rein in the clansman. Oddly enough, she felt up to the task.
Gharam nodded at her. “Smile all you want for now. I have my classes to prepare for.” The big Gruul warrior paused. “I do appreciate your fight, the blood, and the steel. You understand me, Princept, and by the Pits, you’ve earned a bit of my respect. Once it is gone, however, it is gone. The Gruul know how to hate.”
Della gave him a long stare. “Yes, we know of Gruul resentment, and we know of Gruul swords. Both are very sharp and make excellent weapons.”
That made him grunt laughter and shake his head. “I don’t think I could work for anyone but you, Della Pennez. You don’t age, and I don’t know if you are demon or angel, but I do know you are a tough old cunt.”
If he only knew, she thought. She allowed a small smile on her face. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Professor, but I wouldn’t say that to another woman at Old Ironbound.”
“No other woman at this school could best me in a fight.”
Della didn’t mention Gatha in the library. No, this was a good time for her to withdraw. Gharam would go over the fight to see his mistake, and he’d think that he should’ve used magic. That would’ve been a mistake. Della wasn’t as deadly with magic as she was with a blade, but she was deadly enough.
Leaving the Sunfire Field, she entered the Librarium Citadel. Scholars were there, chatting and reading. The feasting hall was closed for the afternoon while the staff prepared for the evening meal. The citadel buzzed with life and conversation. Della took a minute to enjoy the energy from all these young people and their young lives. A school without scholars was a sad place. This felt better. Yes, all those lives meant so much drama, but they also brought hope, laughter, and love to Old Ironbound.
She noticed the barbarian at his normal spot on the second floor, at his table with a view of her office on the mezzanine. It was like the two were stalking one another. But who was the tundra wolf and who was the elk? Maybe they took turns.
Ymir was reading. That man could read for hours and never lose his focus. He was born for Old Ironbound whether he knew it or not. And he must know it. If Ymir thought Della and her faculty were wasting his time, he’d leave the next day. At least he wasn’t wearing that damn Black Ice Ring. She’d read up on it, and she needed to talk with someone about her theories, but there were precious few people steeped in artifact lore, and fewer people she trusted.
Della looked at the steps led all the way up to the door of the Princept’s Chamber. The entrance was on the sixth floor of the Coruscation Shelves. A staircase led to the seventh floor, where her rooms were. The Illuminates Spire was on the eighth floor, at the very the top of the Librarium Citadel.
She decided she’d gotten enough exercise on the field. “Caelum caelarum!” She cast the Moons magic and floated upward while scholars whispered below her. She drifted past the skeins of lightning crackling around the books, keeping them free of rust.
When she was even with the highest shelves, above the railing, over the ledge, she whispered, “Caelum inanis.” The flying magic left her, and she drifted to the ground. Then it was another staircase up to her room: the glass tables, the silver-studded furniture, and her big bed in the far corner under ornate windows, marked with rain and showing the shrouded eastern sky.
She set her sword onto a stand. She stripped off her cloak, then her robes, and finally, her pannee and her brassiere. Naked, she padded into her washroom and onto the tiles of her shower. The hot water gushed, the exact temperature she liked, a little too hot at first, just right a second later. Flow magic gave her water and Sunfire spells adjusted the temperature.
She used a lavender soap on her body, feeling the smooth soap slide over her skin. She thought of the Gruul warrior she’d just fought. She had no attraction to Gharam. But in her wilder younger days, in Four Roads, when she’d first started teaching at the Kifu Yun Lirum University, before she’d gotten hired on full time, she’d been struggling and working for Unger.
She couldn’t think about Unger. She couldn’t think about those days and what she’d had to do for money.
Unger had sent her on a job, and she’d done it. Afterwards, she found herself drinking at a tavern on the northern edge of the city, the one nearest to the Blood Steppes. A group of women came in, along with their man, a big orc soldier named Chugan Ugnish.
This would’ve been nearly a hundred and fifty years ago. Chugan and his three wives had come to sell their swords to the Bloody Dawn Guild, and they thought they were the best fighters the Holy Theran Empire had ever seen. They had been mistaken.
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 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. They 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.
