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Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 01

By: James Cody



The battle was lost even before it had started - and with it came the end of the war. Ordeyirgoss had been the last bastion of resistance against the forces of the Call of Skaelor - but even the most northern kingdom fell to the Call and its Quieting Angels and Scything Souls. The grip of the Call spread from Ordeyirgoss to the north to the Guravass isles to the south. 

The Call of Skaelor allowed the survivors of the battle of Melzay to return to their homes and spread the story of the Call's victory to the commoners and their surviving noble masters. Above all, in the skies over the realms flew the Quieting Angels, sure to quiet any dissenting voices.

Khaln Dharrec sat at the reins of a wagon pulled by two mighty oxen, the leather straps heavy in his hands. Behind him rested the bodies of his father and older and younger brother. They had fallen during a scouting mission he had volunteered for but his father had asked him to hold back, fearing his size and sometimes feral blood lust would harm the mission. 

"You were born for open battle," his father Yvrer would warn him. "I've seen you turn the tide to many a skirmish - but stealth is the talent needed now." So Khaln had watched his father and two brothers race into the night. And when the forces of the Call descended upon the last encampment of the Ordeyirgossien resistance - Khaln had lived up to his father's assurance. But the tide of battle was irrefutable and the Call was victorious. He was allowed to retrieve their bodies and wrapped them in resin soaked bandages and cover them with salt before returning home to his family's farm.

Khaln knew his return with the corpses of his siblings and father would spur a battle with his most tenacious enemy.

The mother who hated him.

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The path that cut through the countryside was a potted trail with rocks and jutting roots that made the wagon creak as the oxen pulled it forward with unerring determination. Khaln reached beneath his seat and felt the reassuring hilt of his sword - it had been hard to smuggle the weapon but he had managed to wedge it in a slot beneath the wagon's bench. His shield was tacked to the base of the spare wheel hidden beneath the wagon.

Khaln had reached for the sword when he saw the first plumes of smoke escaping the stone chimney that emerged from a dip behind a curve in the road. The sun was setting and the black smoke marred the beauty of the rosy sky - it reminded him of his mother's dark gaze.

As the front of the stone dwelling came fully into view, Khaln saw the abundant and serene greenery that he had almost forgotten as his mind had turned to blood and battle - cows grazed lazily, oblivious to the war that had reshaped the landscape while goats played and frolicked. The door to the dwelling opened and a striking figure of a woman stepped out to bathe in the sunlight that poured across the field. 

Preya Dharrec was tall and possessed the natural grace and authority associated with a royal courtesan and not a commoner's wife. Her svelte form commanded attention even when draped in the drab brown linen of her field dress. Her long black hair was pulled back from her sharp features and held tightly by a string of gut while leaves from her favourite scented tree peppered her hair. But her enjoyment of the morning sun was broken by a shadowed silhouette and the creaking sound of wagon wheels jostling over rough terrain.

"Yvrer!" Preya cried as she waived and ran to meet the wagon.

"No," Khaln's voice rang as it shattered her hope and she froze while he rode the path out from the sun's shadow. 

"Mother." He said flatly.

Preya's jaw tensed before she turned and marched past him to inspect the corpses of her husband and two beloved sons.

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"Two years at war and you are the one to come back?!" Preya demanded as she watched her son sit down at the meagre table she had often covered with bread and salted meats for her men. But even behind her anger she could see that Khaln was not how she had remembered him. He seem taller and certainly more muscled that when he foolheartedly followed his father and brothers in battle against the Call of Skaelor and their crusade against the Magii Domini, the Magedom.

"Even the Gods didn't want you?" she demanded while she slammed her fist on the table - she noted with flagrant satisfaction how Khaln's nostrils flared at the jab. Yet, the tears still formed at the corner of her grey eyes and trickled down her cheek.

"At least their bodies were honoured in the ways of Sil'hazat," she whispered, knowing Yvrer's desire to be met in death according to the rituals of his old god.

"It was parting token offered by the Call of Skaelor," Khaln said. 

"You? You dressed them?"

Khaln stood - for the first time she could remember he towered over her. Preya stepped back at his sudden presence in her space. But he simply turned his wide back to her and walked towards the door.

"I did," Khaln said as he gazed at the barn where the bodies resided before the time of burial at sunset. "He told me he loved me but that I wasn't his. I was yours, but not his. You resented me because I was a reminder of how you were used and then thrown back to this common life."

Khaln stepped out as a wind lifted dust and it seemed to dance around him. "I will bury the bodies of my family in their ancestral land - then, you will never have to deal with me again." 

Preya watched as Khaln walked to the barn and grabbed a pick shovel - over head, the sky grew dark as a flight of dark chagrin birds interrupted the sun's touch.

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When the sun dipped beyond the horizon, Khaln stabbed the soft earth with his spade and focused on the darkness beneath the ground. His arms and shoulders flexed tirelessly as he moved earth and rocks to excavate the funeral pits for his father and brothers. He could feel his mother's eyes burrow into him from the shadows of the dwelling he was raised in. But he let forgo his thoughts of her and his mind wandered. But it never went far.

After the battle of Melzay, the floating Quieting Angels and the black-clad Scything Souls parted and allowed the Matron Sonorous to step upon the field and address the defeated defenders of Ordeyirgoss. 

"Heed the Call and take your dead," the Matron bellowed. Her voice had been like thunder over the rumbling of a volcano. "The mages are no more. But the Call will always protect and bless those who heed it. Tell your lords and masters who correctly remained home that the Call of Skaelor will soon collect its tribute - and tell them of the dead."

Her banded eyes looked down and found Khaln, spear in hand and surrounded by a dozen Scything Souls, while another dozen laid dead at his feet and he, mired in their blood and gore. A quieting Angel hovered over him and dropped the bloodied bodies of his father and siblings.

"Even the forsaken must heed the Call," the Matron said as she stared directly at him. Her slim figure was revealed as a sharp wind blew her loosely tied scarlet cloak and made it flutter about her pert breasts and slightly flared hips.

Khaln had dropped the spear and with effort, he hoisted his father's body over his shoulder and picked up his brothers' bodies and left the field. The Matron Sonorous spoke of the Call while his fellow survivors watched as he carried the bodies to a wagon. He then dressed the bodies for transport and even the Scything Souls gave him deference.

Now, as sweat glistened across his skin in rising moonlight while his muscles worked the shovel, Khaln prepared the fire pits where he would lay the bodies of his father and siblings and they would return to the bosom of the Sil'hazat. After the last morsel of dirt was moved, he filled the thigh deep pits with stones he had painted black. 

"For the Abyss," Khaln said under his breath as he deposited his brothers in the far pits before laying his father to rest in the centre. He then sprinkled the bodies with kindling and scented parwa leaves before picking up the torch he had lit before beginning the dig.

"Father: Yvrer Dharrec. Brothers: Kieir and Ybon - I deliver you to the warmth of Sil'hazat. The Mother of Souls awaits you return while the Father of Flesh thanks you for what you have borrowed."

At the final word, Khaln touched the torch to each pit in turn - the fires spread slowly, allowing the parwa leaves to smoke and fill the night with a spicy scent. A few moments later, the resin in the funeral dressings ignited and the fire erupted a deep green. The flames licked the darkness, painting the ground and surroundings in greens and reds. 

As Khaln watched the flames, the presence he had felt a few moments earlier finally spoke. "Those words were perfect."

Khaln turned and looked upon Preya. She was dressed in a wispy gown the colour of the flames that did little to hide her sensual charms - and it reminded him of how young his mother had been when she had had her children. She was barely in her 45th year yet she seemed half that age.

"It wasn't that I couldn't love you ..." Preya started as she felt Khaln's gaze devour her presence - her face was flushed from the amphora of wine that dangled by her bared thigh.

"No," Khaln said. "I just reminded you it was easier to love what you lost."

Preya glared at her son - but behind her anger was a sudden, drunken fascination about him. When Khaln had chased after his father, he had been an awkward and lanky boy. After two years and the harsh regiments of battles and training, his muscles had filled out and his once round face became lean and hardened like chiseled marble. His eyes were dark like hers, but his face carried traces of his true fathers. But most striking was his long hair: black with strands as grey as smoothed river stones

She suddenly shook her head and sighed. "Khaln - go inside. The basins are in the main hall."

"What are you talking about?"

"Just get inside. The last part of the ceremony is waiting."

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Khaln stood between two basins of hot water in the centre of a circle of burning, scented candles. Preya followed him and his ears were keen to the sound of any drawn steel and his body was poised for any strike. It ached at him to feel this level of ambivalence towards his mother.

"Rest easy, young man" she said as she notice the tense set of his jaw. "The rites of Sil'hazat demand that the speaker to the dead be cleansed."

Khaln's eyes met Preya's and they stood silently, each gathering the measure of the other. 

"Remove your garment," Preya ordered. It came out as a hushed, slurred whisper.

Khaln dutifully but slowly removed his garments, untying the leather bindings that held his regalia in place. He pulled them off, making sure his every gesture was seen by the woman he called mother. He then stood naked before her, his flaccid cock and heavy balls and odd symbol of resistance. He stared firmly ahead, noticing how the fire pits still burned as Preya grabbed a cloth and dipped it in the basin to her left and she began to blot it against the skin in his neck and shoulder - the water seeped from the cloth and made the dust and dirt that crusted his skin trail towards the ground.

Preya was surprised by the gentleness of her touch as she dabbed water on Khaln neck before dipping the cloth in the opposite basin to rinse it and then back in the clean water of the first basin. "I haven't cleaned you in years," she said as her cloth was on his muscled chest. The water clung to the fine hairs that covered his skin. "You used to cry like a little brat." 

"I don't cry anymore," Khaln said quietly. He felt an instinctive twitch as his cock resonated to Preya's closeness.

Preya felt the nudge against her thigh - she smiled. "And your not so little anymore." She reached down and cupped Khaln's hairy balls, shocked at her own brazen actions. "Are you an animal now that you would fuck your mother?"

He looked down at her, his eyes unfeeling and said: "What difference would it make? When was the last time either one of us considered you any kind of mother to me?"

Preya felt a smirk draw itself across her shadowed features. "A whore, then? Something to use up and cast aside?"

She fell to her knees, the flickering candles casting chaotic patterns across her flushed face. Khaln stepped back but she grabbed his thighs.

"Did the whores suck your luscious cock, Khaln? Did they tell you it was the biggest they'd ever seen and that it filled them so when you fucked them drunk?"

"Enough!" Khaln growled while grabbing Preya's wrists and yanking her harshly to her feet. He pushed her forward until her back was pinned against the wall and his massive form hid her completely from the dancing candle light. He lifted her arms above her head and her toes could barely touch the ground. His cock sneaked behind the flimsy fabric the covered her pussy and the exposed tip of his manhood brushed against the soft patch her dark pubic hair.

"Is this what you want, Preya?" Khaln demanded, using his mother's name for the first time he could remember. "You want me to use you like you were used in Videsh'Achar?"

Preya smiled as she heard the name of the city where she had met Khaln's blood fathers. 

"Use me," she pleaded.

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From outside the stone and straw built house, the combination of grunts and moans and growls would have been enough to frighten any beast reckless enough to stray near the dwelling's walls. Inside, prying eyes would witness Khaln tearing savagely at the wispy, silky fabric of the ceremonial dress Preya had worn.

They had fallen to the floor - Khaln's cock had slipped between Preya's thighs while her wetness glistened in the candle light. They rolled around on the floor beyond the ring of candles, their lips crashing together and their tongues duelling as the aura of hate that had permeated their relationship was funnelled into some perverse expression of desire. 

Preya straddled her son, her ass rubbing against his sky reaching cock while her firm breasts were crushed to his hard chest and her tongue dug deep into mouth; Khaln felt sweat drip from Preya's body and mix with his as he devoured her lips with kisses that would have drawn blood were his tongue a blade. She raked her long nails across his cheek and neck, nearly breaking his skin, until she found one of his nipples and twisted it hard. 

Khaln hissed and flipped his position with unexpected swiftness - he landed atop Preya and began to lick and bite her neck until he found her earlobe. She still had his nipple between her fingers and twisted it violently when his teeth touched her earlobe and nibbled it. 

"Aaaahhhh ..." Preya gasped as Khaln slapped her hand aside and pinned her arm to her side and returned his lips to hers and they kissed perilously. He then moved her arms above her head and held them there while he raised himself to his knees while leaning over her. He gazed in to Preya's eyes, the chaotic cascade of emotions they communicated were a mirror of his own. They grimaced at each other, their mouths more like hungry beasts then lovers.

Leaving her gaze, Khaln let his eyes roam over his mother's blindingly seductive beauty: small, firm breasts with taut nipples and flared hips and strong thighs beneath a small waist. Her stomach had the slightest paunch to attest to her age. His cock jerked at the thought of invading her pussy - but before he did that he lowered his mouth to her nipple and sucked. Goosebumps crawled her skin as Khaln's tongue twirled madly around her nipple like a growing tornado. He released her arms and found her other breast with his hand and he squeezed her pliable flesh and then he found her other nipple. He gave it an ungentle twist like Preya gave his.

"Oooohhhh," Preya moaned as his brutality made her pussy flush with her juices. 

Khaln relented on Preya's breasts and reached between her thighs - he ran his fingers across her slit and coated them with her juices. He pushed her legs aside and she arched her back coyly as he made his way to her head. Fixating on her mouth, he covered his erect cock with the juices from her pussy.

"You wanted to be used," Khaln said. "Suck it."

Preya looked upon her son's manhood and touched it gently - it was stone, hard and warm, and though she had often feared the men that came with the appendage, she had also been fascinated by the silkiness and fragility of the cock, and by how readily men could offer it fearlessly. She brushed her lips across the tip of Khaln's unsheathed cock, its hood pulled back and it bulbous purple head exposed and her tongue snaked from her lips and circled it while she slowly pumped the shaft. She wished her tongue a constrictor so she could choke and devour him, but instead she took Khaln into her mouth and began to work her lips and tongue as he ordered. His cock soon found the back of her throat and she fought the urge to gag on it - both of her hands were working the shaft as saliva trickled down her chin. She cursed the gods for making her desire this union.

Khaln focused through his growing pleasure and observed his mother - Preya moved with patient haste as she caressed his cock from all angles with a combination of kisses and licks. But when her eyes met his, he recognized the odd combination of lust and loathing that took over his vision when he entered a battle.

"Hruunnggh," Khaln grunted as he felt a heat swell from his limbs and centre on his manhood. Gripped by a sudden, destructive lust, he grabbed the back of his mother's head and began to thrust violently into her mouth. He sought to have her taste the violence he felt when she discarded him. 

Preya was gagging under the ferocity of Khaln's onslaught upon her throat, yet she could still feel the sudden jerks and twitches of his cock that presaged his coming orgasm. She would not honour him by taking his come in her mouth. When she sensed a slight wane in his pace, she seized her opportunity and grabbed his balls and gave them a firm yank. Khaln froze mid thrust and pulled his hand away from Preya's head.

Preya pushed Khaln until his cock was well out of her mouth before letting go of his balls and she continued moving forward, forcing him onto his back while saliva dripped from her lips and across his skin.

Khaln felt his muscles tense as Preya flowed up his body like a snake until her face was inches from his. Their mouths curled into mad snarls until she reached between their bodies and placed the tip of his cock just at the entrance of her cunt. It was then that their shared gaze became a challenge - who would be the one to take the final step. Khaln suddenly grabbed her wrists and pinned her arms behind her back and she fell on him while he thrust upward, spearing her pussy with his cock. 

"Oh gods!" Preya exclaimed as she felt her cunt be split apart by Khaln manhood - the heat that came from his flesh as it merged with hers was scalding as his cock invaded her inch by inch. 

Khaln felt Preya's face fall into the crook of his neck and her breathing accelerated as he moved his hips and his cock rapidly slid in and out of her pussy. Juices splattered his thighs as her pelvis began to respond to his upward motions - Preya bit the soft skin of Khaln's neck as she surrendered to the pleasure their fucking was triggering. After a few minutes, he released his grip on her wrists and his hands found her thighs and began to caress them and grip her ass. Preya replaced her bites with kisses and brought her fingers to his hair - she allowed her lips to find his and the meeting was one of tenderness.

Mother and son settled into a rhythmic ballet as they allowed their bodies to ebb and flow to the pleasure they gave each other - Preya sat up and rode Khaln's cock like she would a long lost lover's. He reached up and caressed the sides of her body until he reached her breasts and he squeezed them gently. She moaned as he stopped thrusting and she took over and bounced up and down his cock. When she was about to have him out of her, she lavished in the sudden fullness that swarmed her as she fell back onto his hardness. Khaln felt shivers whenever he was freed from the intense grasp of her cunt and was exposed to the cool night air - but the tremors were washed away when he was enveloped by Preya's fiery cunt.


Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 01



But since they shared language of lovers, Khaln shifted his hips and Preya followed the motion until she was under him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, ensuring that he never withdrew to deeply from her pussy and that his full length served her pleasure. Khaln was oblivious to other emotions while he plunged into Preya's pussy - it was an abyss that was slowly drawing him to the edge of bliss. The ferocity of his thrusting, the friction of his cock inside her pussy, the unnaturalness of their union pushed Preya into the arms of orgasm and her entire body trembled as she came. As her orgasm made her pussy gush with fluid and strangle Khaln's cock, she dug her nails deeply in to the flesh of his shoulder and ran her hands down towards his buttocks, drawing eight rivers of blood down his back.

The sudden tearing of his skin pulled Khaln from the onslaught of his own orgasm and granted him a clarity of vision. His mother lay beneath him and his blood was suddenly on her hands - Khaln pulled himself from her grasp and he looked down upon her. Preya was arching her back and flexing her legs at the knees, his cock still sliding in and out of her cunt as she savoured every little twitch of ecstasy the friction provoked. Khaln reached for her knees and pried her feet apart. He held his mother's legs as wide apart as he could and moved his pelvis with a slow, deliberate pace, allowing his entire hard cock to almost slip out before delving back in towards her womb.

Preya rested her fingers on her clit as her son tortured her with his agonizingly slow pace - her breath became laboured and she furiously rubbed her clit while Khaln just moved deliberately. She could feel another orgasm growing from her pussy as she marvelled and hated how his muscles pulsed with unearthly strength beneath the flickering candlelight. 

Khaln watched as his mother pleasured herself - despite the abundant beauty of her bliss he felt an odd revulsion at the sight of her. He pulled out of her and unceremoniously flipped her onto her hands and knees before reentering her.

Preya bit her lower lip when she felt her son's cock enter her from behind - it was the way animals fucked. The angle he achieved made her moan when he started to move in her. She remembered this was how Khaln's blood sires had taken her. She felt Khaln grab her hips as he fucked her, his pace increasing steadily with every few strokes.

"Who was he?" Khaln demanded as his balls began to smack against his mother's ass. "My father! Who was he?"

Preya heard her son's voice through the haze of bliss - his question stirred an echo of a memory. "I don't know! They were many - knights of the Vanguard Draconis. They had three of us and they took us one after the other."

Khaln was driving into his mother's pussy while her words drifted around him like a cloud - he grasped at the confusion but his thoughts were mired as his pace quickened, hounded by the onset of his own orgasm. Preya was no longer his mother, nor was she even person - she had become a vessel, much as she had twenty-two years ago. 

Yvrer Dharrec had told Khaln that Preya had accompanied him and their firstborn Kieir on a trip to Videsh'Achar to sell salted beef and lamb in the Spring Market. There, Preya had become popular for her beauty and wit - she had also captured the attention of a nobleman who had spirited her off for 3 days and nights. Yvrer left the child with his sister and had scoured the city until he found Preya, dazed but aware, in the same place he had last seen her. Nine months later, Khaln was born.

Now, Khaln was an amoral creature, fucking his mother. His and Preya's moans and grunts painted an unintelligible landscape to the night creatures that had been drawn the the burning pyre pits. 

Khaln pounded away at his mother's sex, his member now enslaved to the lascivious motions of his desire while he felt the walls of Preya's cunt quiver and be ready to receive his come. He kept a hand on her hips while grabbing a fistful of her long black hair and he yanked her head back.

"Oh yes! Yes!" Preya screamed as her son bent her body in two - her pussy pulsed and her body was shaken as tremors of pleasure shot across her skin and into her limbs. Her fluids ran freely from her cunt, anointing Khaln's thighs as he slammed his cock towards her womb.

His mother's constricting pussy stripped Khaln of any composure and he pulled her hair harshly as his cock finally split open and a rush of his come sought to fill every nook and cranny of her nethers. With its release, Khaln felt a weariness lift from his heart as his orgasm carried much of the hatred he felt for Preya away into the afterglow of bliss.

Once spent, Khaln pulled out of his mother's pussy and collapsed to the ground, the aftermath of this odd love battle leaving him more weakened and dazed than an entire day of warfare. As he succumbed to the veil of slumber, his last sight was of his mother hovering over him. 

Preya watched her son as his come dripped down her thighs before moving to the opposite end of the dwelling to find the amphora of wine and drink a full throat full of the red liquid. She felt exhausted but also tormented by a panoply of confusing emotions regarding Khaln - how could she have let herself bed him? Had she sought the importance she had garnered when the Vanguard Draconis had taken her? Or had she finally bonded with him the only way the twisted line between love and hate had allowed her to? She looked to a far corner of the room, beyond the burnt out candles of the Sil'hazat ceremony - the hilt of Khaln's sword glinted in the moonlight. Perhaps using a sword to cut him finally out of her life would give her peace. 

Instead, she emptied the wine and fell against the wall, her thoughts heavy as she surrendered to sleep.

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Khaln awoke, groggy from the previous night's tumult, as hazy morning sunlight broke through the cracks in the boarded windows. He stood, his knees wobbly as he stretched before letting his body fall forward, he then raised his upper body towards the ceiling by supporting himself on his hands - he then raised his buttocks so his body formed a triangular shape supported by his hands and feet. Khaln then dropped his buttocks while thrusting his shoulders forward, bringing him back to his original position.  

He continued the sequence of movements for a few minutes, his thoughts centred around his breathing as the muscles in his thighs and shoulders loosened. His body was soon drenched in sweat when he finally gained his feet and stood, surveying the dwelling. Khaln noticed that his mother was absent, but also that his black leather chest armour was resting in the corner along with sword and two daggers. 

His mother had brought his weapons in from were they were stored on the wagon - his mind skirted the question as to why she had not killed him in his sleep after they fucked. He realized they were more strangers now than ever before while he found some salted beef in a cupboard and broke it with a flat bread wrapped in cloth. As he finished the bread and meat, Khaln came to realize that his past was as unimportant as was his future under the rule of the Call of Skaelor. The name Dharrec was going to die today and he and Preya would be free to go to their separate fates.

Khaln slipped into his britches and donned his armour, paying attention to the bindings that went down the right sides of the two pieces. He then wrapped the heavily buckled belt around his waist and slipped one dagger in the sheath on his right thigh and another in the sheath across his lower back. Finally, he slipped the sash that held his sword and scabbard over his left shoulder so the blade landed on his left thigh. He then wrapped his forearms in while cloth before adorning the metal arm bands he had won as a soldier. Each band was bronze in colour and carried the etchings of dragons. His fur covered boots were the last piece he slipped on. 

He drew his sword - the blade was twice the length of his sword arm and glinted in the sunlight. It was a fine blade and it had bathed in the blood of many a Scything Soul. Khaln sheathed the blade and committed himself - he would seek out the Vanguard Draconis. 

Khaln rummaged beneath the counters until he found the storage for the pails of lamp oil - looking over his shoulder, he grabbed a pail and began to throw the oil onto the walls of the dwelling. He then dumped oil onto the floor. Like in the fires of a dragon's breath, his past would burn and illuminate the path to his future - the Call of Skaelor be damned.

But as Khaln reached for a still smouldering candle, he heard moans from outside - a woman's moans and the grunts of men.

He rushed to a far window that opened to the yard and his eyes grew wide: six men were about the yard. Three were pissing on the smoking funeral sites of his father and brothers.

Another two had undone their clothing and his mother was trapped between them. Preya had been bent over and the flimsy dress she wore the night before was tattered and torn while a large, haggard man held one of her legs in the air while he thrust his grime covered cock into her moist pussy while the man in front of her had yanked her head back by grabbing a handful of her jet black hair and was ramming his manhood down the back of her throat. Tears streaked down Preya's cheeks as she gagged from the smelly cock in her spit dripping mouth. 

All seemed to be presided by a bulky man sitting on a massively muscled horse like those that were slaughtered at the cavalry rush at the battle of Melzay. All the men wore the furs of various animals about their shoulders and their exposed skin was covered in red and green pigment in varying designs. Their weapons were forged of black iron and had hilts of storm wood the colour of fresh bone. The man on the horse was adorned with the smokey pelt of a wind-wolf. A Yarczian warlord had descended from the far north.

"I told you, Preya," the mounted warlord said in heavily accented common tongue. "If your tribute was not ready, your flesh would be the price, whore!"

While the warlord had been speaking and dismounting his steed, Khaln had felt a rage come over him - had others witnessed this, they would have noticed pools of red light erupt beneath his skin. 

Moving with a swiftness and stealth thus unknown to him, Khaln had climbed out of a window facing away from the yard and made his way up the straw covered roof of the dwelling. Spying the rape of his mother, he lept from midway across the roof and twisted in mid air while simultaneously unsheathing his sword. 

Khaln landed between his mother and the posturing warlord. Hearing the heathen gasp in surprise, Khaln moved with concise precision, drawing an arc with his sword outstretched at shoulder level while pivoting on himself. The head of the man fucking Preya from behind rose into the air as it was carried aloft by a crimson geyser of arterial spray. The man in her mouth shouted while Khaln brought his sword high above his head in a high guard and dropped the blood covered blade onto the man's head, cleaving his face in two down to his sternum. Blood and brain splattered the ground and Preya's shoulders.

Khaln turned to face the warlord, but he had fallen to the ground and was backing away towards his horse - screams arose from Khaln's left and he turned and faced the men who had been desecrating the graves of his family. Two had spears and one an axe - the spear men moved to flank him while the axe wielder stood directly in front of him. 

Khaln suddenly pivoted his sword towards the ground as the spear on his right was thrust towards him - he managed to deflect the spear tip with his upturned blade while reaching beneath his sword arm with his left hand and grabbing the spear. While redirecting the spear's momentum, Khaln fell to one knee so he could be side by side with the spear man - Khaln drew a tight semi-circle over his head and as the sword reached ground level, it caught the spear man mid thigh and sliced through the leg like steel cuts through water. 

During this assault, the spear man on Khaln's left had lunged forward, only to find himself impaled on the redirected spear of his companion. The spear tip had broken through the man's back, entrails and pieces of destroyed organs and spine falling to the ground in smatterings of blood. But the left spear man's weapon managed to cut through Khaln's left shoulder, spraying blood across his face.

Khaln hissed in pain but then felt his vision go blurry as the axe man booted him in the head and sent him sprawling to the ground. The axe man lept over the spears of his fallen comrades and landed his doubled bladed weapon in the ground were Khaln had been. 

Khaln had dropped his sword and was rolling away from the axe wielder, gaining precious distance while the Yarczian's weapon missed him by a hair four times. 

The Yarczian axe man stopped swinging his weapon when Khaln stopped rolling and made his way to his hands and knees - the Yarczian came to kick Khaln in the ribs before beheading him, but those precious moments were all Khaln needed.

As the boot came, Khaln threw his upper body backwards so his buttocks fell toward his ankles. The Yarczian's kick only found empty space but Khaln, drawing the dagger sheathed in the small of his back, was able to stab the axe man in the calf. The Yarczian screamed and fell backwards, wrenching the dagger from Khaln's tired grip - but Khaln threw himself forward and pulled his other dagger from his right thigh. He had managed to manoeuvre between the Yarczian's legs just as the barbarian realized what was happening and was bringing his axe down in a two handed grip, determined to split Khaln's skull in half. But Khaln caught the Yarczian's wrists, halting the coming blow with his outstretched left hand while pressing his dagger into the heathen's stomach. The Yarczian screamed when Khaln pulled the sharp blade back, splitting the fallen heathen open to his groin. 

Khaln stood, wrenching the axe from his dying enemy's grip and wiped his dagger clean of blood on his calf. He then looked down at the terrified heathen - sheathing his dagger, Khaln struck the axe in his enemy's skull, instantly ending his screams. 

Khaln could feel his eye swelling where he had been kicked but his vision was still clear enough that he could see the Yarczian warlord staring wide eyed at his five fallen men and at the blood spattered warrior before him. But the warlord scrambled to his feet and looked over to a shocked Preya - she had crawled towards her dwelling and was using soil to wash the blood from her body. The warlord rushed to her and yanked her back by her hair as Khaln approached slowly. He had retrieved his sword and had used it to end the spear man he had injured earlier in the fight. The air was stank of drying blood and exposed viscera - scavengers could be heard rustling in the forest. 

The Yarczian warlord pressed a freshly drawn knife to Preya's throat as she remained still, her chin high and her eyes focused on Khaln. He cleaned his blade clear of blood while staring into the eyes of his mother. 

"Was this how you honoured your husband's sacrifice?" Khaln hissed.

"After you all ran off to war, I was alone," Preya stated flatly. "I did what I did to survive."

"Enough!" the Yarczian warlord shouted and kicked Preya behind her knee. "I am Treczyius - I am the wind from the mountain that freezes your bones! You will stay your hand or the whore dies."

Khaln let out a low grumble as he snarled at the warlord - pools of red pulsed beneath his skin.

"You are nothing," Preya said quietly as the warlord pressed his blade against the soft skin of her neck - a trickle of blood ran down her breast and beaded at her nipple before falling to the ground. 

"I will not die at your hand," Preya said suddenly as she unfolded her legs and threw her head back - the top of her head struck the warlord beneath his chin with force enough to smash his jaws together, shattering what teeth he possessed. Preya then slipped her hands beneath his arm and pushed the knife away from her throat, but she was too close to the Yarczian warlord's chest and when he tossed her to the ground, his knife cut across her throat. 

Khaln had covered the distance separating them and managed to catch his mother in one arm while driving his sword upwards through the warlord's lower jaw and the top of his head, piercing the wind wolf head dress he wore.

Khaln left his sword where the warlord collapsed and he gently cradled his injured mother and laid her to the ground. 

"Mother," he whispered as he tore some fabric from her tattered dress and pressed it against her slashed throat. 

"You still care," Preya wondered. "When I saw you arrive, I knew you would kill me."

"No, I ..."

Preya pressed a hand meekly to her son's lips. "Yes ... It was always going to be this way. Your fathers of the Vanguard Draconis told me this. You would have to orphan your past to fulfil you future."

Khaln leaned down close to his mother's ear and said: "Videsh'Achar?"

"Yes," Preya whispered as Khaln's lips touched hers in a gently kiss while his dagger slid past her breast and into her heart. Her last word was her last breath and Khaln would cherish them.

@@@@@

Preya's body rested in the middle of the house she and Yvrer Dharrec had built - she was covered in a sheet of white silk and flanked by the piles of remains of the Yarczian heathens who had died at Khaln's hand. He stood outside the dwelling, a trail of lamp oil pooled at his feet while he steadied the nervous steed he had appropriated from Treczyius, the dead warlord. It was a six day ride to Videsh'Achar by the main Cardinal road, but Khaln would follow the old pastoral paths that would keep him away from the forces of the Call of Skaelor - until he reached the city. 

Khaln mounted the massive horse, his sword resting confidently at his side. He noticed the occasional pulse of red illuminating the veins near the surface of his skin and he sighed, then looked over his shoulder at the sack of provisions he had taken from the house and Yarczians. He wondered if they would pursue him, or if they would more likely war amongst themselves to find a new leader. Their vengeance would come later.

Khaln cast a final, saddened glance at the dwelling he never truly thought of as home and at the silhouette of the woman he called mother and lover for one night. He pulled a candle from his belt and a flint rock from a pouch - he pressed the wick of the candle to his metallic arm band and struck the flint on the metal. The candle ignited and he dropped it to the ground. The flame found the lamp oil and a trail of fire coursed to the house. It burst into flames within seconds and was soon engulfed.

Khaln turned the horse towards the small path the led into the southern woods and that would turn westward towards the port city of Videsh'Achar. 

Epilogue:

Two hooded, female figures stood on the backs of 2 Quieting Angels and watched as the small hovel flamed uncontrollably while a rider disappeared into the woods.

"He will pose problem, Matron Sonorous," one said. The wind blew her cloak and her body was voluptuous but composed of writhing shadows. Her eyes were glowing green gems from beneath the hood but her face had no other features.

"Perhaps," the Matron Sonorous said. Her figure was slim and her breasts were small and firm. Her skin was fair and delicate. "But, you are the Matron Tenebrae. The Call will have him suffer."

"He intrigues us," they said in unison. "He may lead us to the Pneuma Dracona."

*to be continued



Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 02



I

The road to Videsh'Achar was proving to longer than anticipated. During the war with the Call of Skaelor, most armies converged onto the capital cities while many outlying territories were overrun by barbarians. The North of Ordeyirgoss had fallen to the Yarczian warlords, and their lines pushed south beyond the pastoral roads that crisscrossed the western forests, connecting the grazing fields. 

Khaln had led his steed across the rough terrain as quickly as it could while an advancing Yarczian hunting party closed in on him - at night, under the thick, shadowed canopy of the trees, the doom drums announcing his impending demise resounded and it was meant to drown him in despair. But Khaln would spend the night sharpening his sword while his horse would graze. He had also heard the faint howls of wind wolves. Legends said their howls were the source of all wind. But the sounds carried far on the winds, giving rise to the legends - he felt an instinctual urge to answer their howls. Instead, as pulses of read light ignited his veins from beneath his skin, he would swing his sword and practised the forms taught him while he trained in the Ordeyirgossian volunteer army.

And with each swing of his sword, a plan formed.

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On the third day of the chase, Khaln had backtracked towards the north and began to follow the river Abaltir that acted as a natural border between North and South Ordeyirgoss. He also hoped the terrain would flatten and he could gain speed - his hope was to follow the river Eastward until he was close in onto where a gilded stag would stop to drink.

It would be the perfect bait.

When the steed Khaln had adopted after killing the Yarczian warlord Treczyius saw the water and the flatter terrain, it snorted happily and turned to the flowing river. Khaln tugged its reigns but the massive steed had eyes only for water - so Khaln slid off its saddle and watched as the horse drank greedily. The sun was high over the trees as midday reached its peak and Khaln laid down into the grass. If there was a time to relax, it might as well be now - his coming actions would require much energy and determination.

As he rested, Khaln let his mind wander until he slept and ultimately dreamed. He stood with his surrogate father, Yvrer, in the middle of the camp of the Ordeyirgossian volunteer army on the fields near the southern keep of Balangariss castle - home of lord Velastian the Red, the commander of the southern legions and cousin to the king of Ordeyirgoss. Everywhere rested the bloodied remains of the army while the Scything Souls of the call of Skaelor - their bodies looked like overlapping fold of nightmarish fabric that writhed and bulged as they moved - used the long, curved blades that hung from their extremities to remove the hearts from the cleaved and dead soldiers. Walking towards him was the Matron Sonorous. Her cloak was fully open and her body was exposed - her breasts were small and firm and her hips flared - Khaln responded to her more sexually than he expected. But the throb beneath his garments faltered when he say Yvrer Dharrec suddenly burst into flames - though his father burned, he managed to gently turn to him. Yvrer's lips moved silently until his body crumbled to ash, his lips still whole and moving without sound.

Khaln turned and faced the Matron Sonorous - she had removed her cloak and put her arms around his neck and she whispered.

"We are the emptiness made whole."

Khaln kissed the Matron and around him, transparent dragons spewed fiery venom on their embracing forms - behind the dragons was a sentience he felt reach down through the fire and cradle his burning flesh.

Khaln opened his eyes and shook - he then jolted to his feet and swung his head from left to right, scanning the area but he was alone. The sun had dropped beneath the treeline and the Yarczian doom drums had stirred. He also heard the mounting howl of the wind wolves as the moons assumed their sentry of the nigh time sky.

Khaln gripped the marble pommel of the long sword he was awarded after achieving the rank of field leader. His jaw set and his nostrils twitched - this merry little chase was about the come to an end.

@@@@@

Khaln waited for the first lingering fingers of dawn before going in search of a gilded stag. The animals were sometimes called sun stag for the way their golden hides would catch the sun and make it look like they descended on beams of sunlight. And his patience was rewarded: after a few hours of tracking, he discovered a large buck - its single, intricate antler jutting from the top of its head - sipping water from a tributary brook to the river Abaltir. 

But as he unfolded the makeshift spears and spear thrower he had confected when he first considered his plan, Khaln also noted the other tracks he'd hoped to find - wispy claw marks in the ground and turds. The pack of wind wolves he had been hearing in the night must have been following the stag trails like he had. The proximity of the pack would make the execution of the plan all the easier.

The powerful buck was still lapping water when Khaln placed a spear in the notched end of his less than perfect spear thrower. His breath seized when the buck's ears quivered and began to rotate, seeking the source of whatever sound alarmed it. When Khaln had notched the spear, the conjoined pieces of wood creaked ever so slightly - more than enough to catch the attention the gilded stag sensitive hearing. It raised its head slowly from the water, its pelt just capturing the sun rays that dripped through the leafy canopy of the forest. 

Khaln was struck by the majesty of the animal - the sun made its hide seem to glow with deep, yellow flames while its single antler sparkled with a dizzying array of colours. Yet, for all the colour that haloed the buck, its eyes remained as deathly black as polished opals - Khaln met the buck's stare and an understanding seemed to pass between them. Khaln had never before felt this kind of intimacy with an animal, and as it stood solemnly while he raised his spear thrower, he cursed himself for the strong throw of the spear and its accuracy when it hit the buck in the neck, severing the majestic creature's spine. 

The buck riled on its hind legs and grunted when they gave way and it crumbled to the ground. Khaln wasted no time and sprinted to where the animal had fallen and he drew a dagger from a sheath in the small of his back. 

"I'm sorry," Khaln whispered as he slipped his dagger beneath its breastbone and in the stag's heart. For the second time in almost as many days, he had taken the life of a being whose beauty he had only truly seen in its last breaths. 

@@@@@

It had taken a few hours but Khaln had finally emptied the gilded stag's carcass and he had piled the viscera on top of a bed of interlocking branches and leaves. Removing the hide from the animal proved more difficult as the daggers he used for fighting were not designed for separating skin from underlying connective tissue. Khaln was covered in sweat and the blood of the stag that splattered his face, arms, and bare chest. The exposed muscles of the animal glistened with mucus and blood as Khaln cut tendons and scraped the muscles loose and tossed them onto the pile of organs.

Once the beast was completely butchered and piled up, Khaln used a heavy woollen blanket to wrap the moist matter together and tied the top with a strip of thick leather. He then used two long poles and tied them to the sides of his mount's saddle and looped parts of the blankets to the poles.

Birds had become silent as they watched Khaln prepare the carcass. He looked up at the trees and pondered how the rising sun leaking through the foliage was like eyes, judging him. His nostrils flared as he was immersed in the smell of dead flesh. He patted the flanks of the horse when it felt him mount the saddle - Khaln was wearing the stag's fresh hide. Its skull had been emptied and he wore it as a head dress, the long sole antler protruding from his head.

The wind had shifted and blew eastward so the scent of the butchered stag would be shielded from the pack of wind wolves. Khaln spurred the steed forward - the sun was breaking below horizon and he heard the Yarczian doom drums behind him and the rising howls of the wind wolves before him.

II

Wind wolves were secretive animals, even if they moved in packs of over a dozen individuals. At rest, their bodies were blurry but recognizable, yet as soon as they moved, their silhouettes became lost in the winds and they moved with the fleetness of the breeze while their flesh shimmered like a fading dream.

Khaln had ridden a half league before he even realized the wind wolves he thought he had been seeking had been tracking him just outside the pool of light of his makeshift torch. The minute he realized it, the wind wolves descended from all sides - the predators swarmed around an easy meal and tore the sack of meat and organs apart and began snapping at his horse's heels. He looked about, but all he could see were wispy afterimages of the wind wolves - yet, as the powerful horse reared up on its hind quarters, Khaln untied his package and pulled the reigns and the horse followed his commands and came about and sprinted. It trampled the pile of meat and pressed forward as the wind wolves attacked the scattered bounty.

But some of the more experienced wind wolves chased after the steed and its gilded rider - they were intrigued by the scent of stag and man. Younger wolves also joined them, drunk on the thrill of the chase after this large prey that moved more swiftly than any they had encountered before. And there was those possessed by blood lust - full of meat and their faces smeared with blood and gore, they had turned on their brothers and sisters until the galloping horse caught their attentions and the joined the chase.

Khaln gritted his teeth and drove his heels in his steed's flanks as he heard the mad wind wolves chase after him. He pointed his horse eastward and the steed dug it hooves into the soft soil and became the focus of a growing pack of wind wolves while the torch Khaln held flickered and danced.

@@@@@

Many warriors were seated on the cold ground as the air was heated by the massive bonfire. They had mixed crushed leaves and berries and dried insect shells with their piss and river water and had used the mixture to paint each other's skin in greens and blacks and yellows.

One of the painted men stood and danced around the fire, pausing to mimic stabbing an enemy with a spear or reaching into a chest and removing a heart and biting into it. He wore a wind wolf skull as a headdress. Outside the circle of men seated around the fire, a ring of drummers began to rhythmically beat their simple drums.

"Brothers," the dancing warrior bellowed. "Brothers! Hear the beating heart of our vengeance! The one who killed our chieftain Treczyius wallows in despair as the pounding of our doom drums scream we will soon feast on his bones!

"I am Thelczyius, brother of Treczyius - I am bound by the blood oath tho avenge him as you are bound to follow me into this hunt. Together we will have Vengeance!" 

At that word, Thelczyius disappeared from the fire and the painted men stood and chanted to the gods of the mountains and woods for the good bounty to find their prey and kill him well. Thelczyius retreated to his tent and found and older painted man waiting for him.

"Good speech," the older man said as Thelczyius sat on a lamb skin mat on the ground and ran his fingers across his long beard. The night outside echoed with drums and chants. "Did you mean it?"

Thelczyius snorted. "My brother was a fool to think the south would be so easily taken. If this nameless boy had not killed him, then the Call of Skaelor would have. We would be next. Once the men have had their blood vengeance and the boy is dead, we return North past the river Rhuss and we forget Ordeyirgoss and the Call."

The older man moved to the lamb skin next to Thelczyius and patted the younger man's knee. "You could have dispatched a hunting party. You are chieftain, now."

Thelczyius touched the older man's trimmed beard and smiled but also shook his head. "I had to come - to not avenge a brother would have weakened my claim. But I would wipe his name from our stories if I could."

Before the older man could speak, screams grew above the thumping doom drums.

@@@@@

Khaln had seen the flickering lights dancing between the trees as the pounding drums rang so loudly that they camouflaged the bristling sound of Khaln's oncoming answer to their doom drums. When he broke from the edge of the clearing, some of the drummers stopped and turned in time to be knocked aside or trampled by his steed. 

The pack of wind wolves was right behind Khaln and they emerged from the woods with a sound similar to a thunderstorm. Their teeth found the throats of many drummers and the ground was splattered with the blood of severed jugulars.

The Yarczian warriors seated around the bonfire gawked at the showers of blood that rose into the sky and fell like a scarlet rain onto the virgin soil. Many threw themselves to the side as Khaln rode into the encampment and lead his mount to leap over the crackling bonfire. Khaln watched as the Yarczian hunters scrambled for their iron weapons and spears. But before they could mount a threat, the wind wolves pushed into the glow of the firelight and their jaws tightened around unsuspecting limbs and the night filled with the clang of dropped weapons and screams of pain and the snarls of animalistic rage. 

Khaln cut the binds that held the gilded stag hide to his wrist and shoulders with one of his daggers and he tossed the hide over two Yarczian rushing him and they were immediately set upon by three wind wolves, their bodies solidifying momentarily as their long teeth tore the hide apart. Khaln, still seeped in gore from the stag hide, hopped off his horse and drew his finely crafted steel sword - a reward when he was promoted during the war with the Call of Skaelor - and his dagger.

Some of the warriors had gathered themselves from the initial confusion and had grabbed shields and began to counter the wind wolves, their experience in hunting the predators giving them confidence. But they had not counted on Khaln striking from the rear - his sword and dagger quickly brought the unarmoured Yarczians to their knees as he severed legs and spines. The blood he letted sizzled on the bonfire - until a large Yarczian launched himself through the fire and tackled Khaln to the ground.

Winded, Khaln struggled with the Yarczian as the barbarian knocked his sword from his hand and fought to mount Khaln's chest and land powerful blows upon his head - but Khaln managed to hook his hands behind the huge Yarczian's back and hugged his body close to his enemy's, limiting the damage the Yarczian could do. With his head tucked close to the barbarian's chest, Khaln raised his hips and slid his arms along his foe's body until he reached the shoulders. The Yarczian was unsettled and Khaln managed to slide his right arm between their bodies and grab the barbarian's opposing right arm and yank it, forcing the Yarczian to twist his upper body - Khaln then hooked two fingers from his left hand in the |Yarczian's mouth and raised his right shoulder off the ground. The Yarczian's rolled away from Khaln and as they both rose to their feet, knife in hand, the Yarczian's throat exploded in a spray of arterial blood as he heavily fell forward and struggled under the weight of a wind wolf. The predator's gaze met Khaln's as it held its jaw firmly around the dying Yarczian's neck. 

The gazed they shared made the world seem to slow down as they were surrounded by individual struggles of man versus wind wolf and the wolves were winning. A body fell into the bonfire and scrambled away as it burned agonizingly with wolves snapping at its still cool feet. The wolf holding the dead Yarczian growled as it seemed to look beyond Khaln's shoulder.

Khaln felt a hand grip his shoulder and yank him around. As Khaln turned with more speed than his attacker expected, he had time to see an older but healthily muscled Yarczian with a greying beard and small, brown eyes. Khaln wrapped his right arm around the Yarczian's left arm and dragged him forward - he also bent his left arm at the elbow and struck the Yarczian directly on the jaw while bracing the barbarian across his chest. The leverage allowed Khaln's blow to snap his attacker's back and send him crashing to the ground. 

"No!!" another Yarczian cried - he wielded an axe that would have connected with Khaln's neck had he not thrown himself towards his sword.

Khaln managed to grasp his weapon as the Yarczian was a few steps behind him. The axe fell but Khaln had already sidestepped the blow and used the flat side of his blade to glance the axe aside and he landed a heavy punch to the Yarczian's jaw. The Yarczian grunted as Khaln felt bone shatter beneath his knuckles and the naked barbarian fell to his knees, blood dribbling from his mouth. Khaln placed his blade beneath the Yarczian's chin and readied his killing stroke.

"Please don't!" the ageing and wounded Yarczian Khaln had fought earlier pleaded and grasped at Khaln's britches. Khaln hesitated when he looked down at the old man's eyes - they were dulled by the fear of loosing the only thing that mattered anymore. 

Khaln then looked over the chaos that reigned over the camp site: limbs and entrails lay scattered across the ground or were roasting in the roaring bonfire. A few had likely escaped but would later be run down by the wind wolves. Some of the ethereal predators were still feeding on the dying, would be hunters while the largest on them, the one that had gazed into Khaln eyes, stood rigidly a few feet from him and the prostrate Yarczians. The wind wolf's still form raised a small dust storm where it stood, seemingly awaiting Khaln's next decision.

"Who is he?" Khaln asked as pressed his sword in the kneeling Yarczian's throat. 

The old Yarczian yanked his younger counterpart away from Khaln's blade and they fell to the ground - the elder cradled the younger Yarczian. "He is Thelczyius - brother of Treczyius and now, by your hand, the new warlord of the Mountain Bear clan. He would have thanked you for ridding us of his fool brother but the blood oath of vengeance could not be denied."

"His blood oath has just been squashed," Khaln said as he speared the ground with his blade. "If he presses it - I'll drown him in him it."

"No worry ..." Thelczyius muttered as he spat blood and sat up next to his elder companion. "This night will become the legend I need to pull my men north of the Rhuss river."

"I'm no legend."

The two naked Yarczians stood on trembling legs. Thelczyius said: "The survivors will speak of the man who rallied the Rai`Cha - the wind wolves - to fight for him. They will speak of his glowing, blood red eyes and how the Wolf god stood by his side."

"That's the legend you'll feed them," Khaln said flatly.

"This is how we depart Ordeyirgoss," Thelczyius said. "Bloodied and beaten, but alive. With the Call of Skaelor ruling the south ..."

Khaln sheathed his sword and gazed coldly at Thelczyius. "You made a deal with them. North of the Rhuss is yours."

"At least we live," the Yarczian warlord and chieftain said as he answered Khaln's gaze defiantly. "We are no threat to them."

Khaln whistled and his massive horse joined him - its ears darted back and forth at the snarling and moans that peppered the night. It bobbed its head nervously. Khaln touched the flanks of its sinewy neck and cooed reassuringly in its ear. 

"How long do you think they will honour your deal?" Khaln asked as he mounted his steed.




Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 02



"Long enough. Longer than you will live if you travel West." 

Khaln nodded turned the horse around and they faced the wind wolf king - the predator snarled and then turned and disappeared in the night, followed by its legion of wind wolves. Khaln pointed the horse westward and rode into the night while Thelczyius wondered if this man was right about the Call of Skaelor betraying them.

III 

Khaln had been riding for almost a day and had only progressed a few leagues closer to the port city of Videsh'Achar when his mount came upon a deep drop in the Abaltir river creating a mildly turbulent watering hole with a high, thin waterfall dumping a constant shower of cool fresh water. Khaln patted the horse's neck and dismounted it and lead it slowly down a torturous goat path down the drop in terrain. It reminded him of the care he took not to stray towards one of the Cardinal Roads that were under the watch of the Call's Quieting Angels - man like in shape, their bodies had the appearance of being made of a cloud of ash surrounding a skeleton of pearl white bone, but that they had large wings composed of ascerated blades that could slice steel like wood.

When they reached the bottom of the steep grade, Khaln unhitched the bags of supplies he had collected when he had destroyed his childhood home, letting it burn with the remains of his mother and other Yarczian warriors he had slain, and undid the bindings of the saddle the dead warlord had supplied him. The horse boobed its head excitedly and whinnied and pushed gratefully against Khaln before grazing and drinking from the swirling water. Khaln looked over at the waterfall and suddenly felt heavy and wary of the killing he had been involved with since the battle of Melzay. He had seen more death since the past 3 days then during the battle proper. He touched his black hair and undid the leather buckle and stone needle he used to tighten it behind his head. The locks were matted with grime and blood and he finally smelled the stench of death that clung to him as patches of gilded stag blood and Yarczian flesh stained his shoulders and limbs.

Khaln unhooked the baldric that held his long sword and he undid his belt before removing his armour and arm bands. It was then that he noticed a break in the goat path that cut behind the waterfall to an opening into the rock - retrieving a dagger, Khaln walked the path and crouched to pass beyond the water and he found a vast, cavernous delve behind the wall of water. Mist floated about the grotto and ferocious looking spines of stone pointed downward from the grotto's palate. Sunlight filtered through the shifting wall of water and made the walls of the grotto sparkle in response -although he was struck by the beauty of the grotto, Khaln felt as thought he had just stepped into to maw of one of the dragons of legend.

Khaln dropped his dagger once he walked around the edge of the grotto walls and undid the rest of his clothing and removed his boots. Naked, he walked under the mad rush of cool water, its crushing roar filling his ears and he embraced the sound and the chill the water gave him as it peeled away layers of death and wariness.

Behind him, the shadows had begun to coalesce and a hooded figure stepped out from the darkness and quietly observed the the young man.

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The water had a harrowing ability to amplify and transmit sound seemingly from all directions, and when Khaln heard his name be whispered in the space between the water drops, he froze for a split second before throwing himself from the reassuring water and onto the hard stone of the grotto floor - the sharp protrusions of rock tore at the flesh of his back and shoulders. But he managed to roll and seize the dagger still on the ground and he let it fly into the darkness, missing the silent, motionless figure by the width of a hand. The blade clanged against the rock face at the far end of the grotto.

Khaln instinctively reached for his sword but it was outside with his steed - he opted to throw himself at the dark figure but a momentary flash of green beneath its hood made Khaln dive to his left as ebony tendrils scoured the air where he was. Khaln hissed as the impact with the ground pained his side - he clinched his teeth and scrambled to his feet and, as he was about to lunge a second time, the water mist that floated freely throughout the grotto converged on him and solidified with the density of thick ice but without the cold. 

Once Khaln was completely immobilized, the dark stranger stepped forward into the light and peered its glowing green eyes in to his dark grey ones - Khaln strained against the warm ice when he saw the dancing and swirling pools of darkness that somehow formed the feminine silhouette before him. His body twisted mightily while deep pools of red light beneath his skin pulsed but the eldritch ice held fast.

"You really should learn to control that," the hooded figure said in a raspy voice as she touched the transparent ice with a cloud like hand. The ice amplified Khaln's red glow and it filled the grotto. "A condition such as this is sure to shine like a beacon."

"Who are you?" Khaln managed to asked, his chest filling with air at great effort.

"A Matron of the Call - did you think we had forgotten you?"

"Then why did you let so many of us go?"

"To observe what you would do in defeat," the Matron said. "And you have been busy, haven't you?"

Khaln snarled and at the Matron - if he could see her mouth, she would have been smiling. 

"You bury your kin and then bed your mother - you then kill the men who were raping her and finally end her life yourself. And then you burn it all in an effort to what? Forget what you had done? But the Yarczians could not forget - and they've heeded the price for their vengeance." 

"There is a price to pay for pursuing vengeance against someone who rages for it more than you do," Khaln growled.

"Oh, we saw that, Khaln second-son - I see how you glow with red rage, even now."

The shadowy wraith Matron reached out and touched Khaln's exposed cheek with her slender, inky fingers. But where she touched his skin, waves of red light rippled across his skin like as though she touched a still body of water - Khaln felt his muscles grow invigorated from her dark touch and he heaved his thick chest and shoulder and he managed to shift his weight. The eldritch ice that held him immobile shattered and sprayed the shadow Matron with sharp shards - they passed harmlessly though her wispy form, but she recoiled when Khaln's glowing hand clutched the eldritch fabric of her black cowl. 

The Matron roiled away from Khaln, but he managed to wrap an arm around her waist and he lifted her off the ground, but as he was about to slam her to the ground, her body broke apart into filaments of black smoke, leaving Khaln empty handed. 

Khaln watched as the Matron reassembled the cloudy filaments of her body and solidified a few paces away from him. The red pulses beneath his skin had quieted and he stood before her as a normal man while he stared at the odd attractiveness of her swirling, inky black form.

"Even mages had trouble catching me - you are more than you know, Khaln second-son," the Matron said. Her green eyes glowed but she remained motionless.

Khaln dropped to one knee and suddenly felt the weight of all that had transpired since the battle of Melzay.

"Are you trying to break me or make me stronger?" Khaln asked.

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"I am the Matron Tenebrae - the suffering of the Call of Skaelor," the Matron said, taking a step towards Khaln. "I corrupt the hope that lingers deep inside."

The shadows from the back of the grotto reached forth and engulfed the entire space while her voice echoed throughout the emptiness.

"I am going to tell you a story," the Matron whispered as she lifted Khaln to his feet. Her touch was cool but her hand was solid - it had no ill effect on him. She knelt before him and she touched his flaccid cock. 

"In the beginning, there was the Living Void," the Matron whispered to his ear from the ether while her fingers gently caressed Khaln's manhood. It rose long and hard for her. "From its dreams arose the Dragons - each a facet of the Void and a reflection of the Void in themselves."

Khaln looked down and saw the Matron's glowing green eyes gazing up at him while his cock disappeared in the darkness where her mouth should have been. The Matron said, "But, as they were born of dreams, they were prone to chaos - thus, they warred. Those who died had turned to stone and their corpses had crashed together, piling until the World was created and the petrified dreams of the Void gave rise to a thought."

Khaln sighed as he felt countless lips ply his cock with countless kisses, seemingly peeling away his flesh and clutching his desire. "So the Conscious Void guided half the Dragons to stand before the World and breathe out a single, eternal flame to warm the World. The other half of the Dragons were presented the World as their home."

The Matron placed her hands on Khaln's buttocks and bobbed her head along the length of his shaft - he moaned as he felt a warmth surrounded his limbs before strafing his body and converging on his cock.

"And all was good," the Matron said. 

"But the Conscious Void was unaware of what lied outside itself and it was suddenly torn - the Void filled with the War of the Gods," the Matron said as her voice filled the cavern while the darkness she used to pleasure Khaln's cock spread down his shaft and across his crotch.

"It was a violence directed against the emptiness and all space became mired in the blood, sweat, tears, come and shit of the Gods. The Dragons of the World rose to defend it, but the dejection of the Gods found the surface of the World and the races of man were born."

Khaln looked down and the Matron's upper body seemed to melt and its liquid texture had surrounded his hips - in the darkness he could feel his cock be pumped and stroked. 

"They contained within them the divinities of the Gods as well as the living emptiness of the Conscious Void. The Void and the Gods came to a compromise: the Gods would watch the races of man act in their stead while the Void, through the touch of the Dragons, granted those races able the powers of Magic. The Magii Domini arose from the races of man to council kings and queens and thus rule from the Shades."

Khaln began to lose all sense self as the expanding darkness leaking from the Matron Tenebrae filled every pore of his skin - his memories became clouded and chaotic as past and future merged. But through the void he could still hear her voice and his orgasm was encroaching on the Matron's hypnotic tone.

"But this World was meant for something else - something that should have flourished if not for the races of man and the betrayal of the Void. We were here first ... we awoke ... we moved slowly ... and now we will reclaim our due." 

Khaln latched on to those words like a buoy. Deep within the swirling dark mass of the Matron Tenebrae that wanted to consume him, Khaln felt his orgasm morph into primal fire and a the darkness suddenly ceased to advance.

"You won't have me," Khaln whispered. His cock felt as though it was going to render itself apart as his orgasm bulged and shot into the expanding abyss - but his come burned like the eternal fire of the primal dragons and it burned away the Matron Tenebrae's expanded, dark self. She screamed as she swallowed his load - it did not carry his humanity, but a secret she could not face. The Matron Tenebrae recoiled from Khaln for the second time and her glowing green eyes shimmered as unknown emotions threatened to drown her. 

Khaln pushed himself away from the Matron in time to witness her spit out some of his seed she had taken. Her glowing green eyes glared at him with what he could only read as hate - and perhaps fear - until she melted away silently into the shadows at the back of the grotto.

"Do not go to Videsh'Achar," the Matron warned as she vanished in the shadows.

Khaln stood, his crotch and thighs covered in his drying come and ash left over from his contact with the Matron. He back away from the shadows and retreated to the rushing water, hoping it would wash the memory of this encounter with the Matron away.

IV

The Cardinal roads had originated in the central city of Melit'Zay - sister city of Melzay - and stretched out over the continent, following the four cardinal directions. They had been the main routes of commerce and were considered neutral territories in the kingdoms and countries they traversed - the neutrality was maintained by the Cardinal Watchers. But they would allows wars to break out over control of the tributaries of the Main Cardinal roads.

But when the Magii Domini had crumbled under the weight of the Arcane Ailment, all neutrality had fallen away and the Cardinal roads became rife with raiders and highwaymen - and they also served as battlefields. But the ten years of war allowed The Call of Skaelor to arise and when they moved, using the Cardinal roads as their supply lines, they followed the weakened armies of men and defeated them one after the other. 

Khaln had returned to the Western Cardinal road for it lead to the port city of Videsh'Achar - his encounter with the Matron Tenebrae was a demonstration that the Call always knew where he was so there was no need to cling to the pastoral roads. But the Cardinal road had known the woes of war: the paved stones were shattered and jutted from the ground as sharp and jagged teeth; the crystal spires that marked distances along the road were crushed and melted; bloated bodies and flies and carrion eaters littered the causeway. If death had been the architect of the roads, the Call of Skaelor paved them with the bloody departed.

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Khaln had travelled for three days when the Cardinal road led to a vast grassland. Tall, swaying blades of grass lined the sides of the amazingly pristine road like sentinels while the sun was slowly dropping below the horizon. 

He pondered the Matron's parting words: "Do not go to Videsh'Achar." Obviously, if the Call wanted to stop him, a battalion of Scything Souls or a Quieting Angel would have been enough to foil him. But they had tried to take something from him and found that difficult. So the words were meant to provoke him into turning back or resolutely continuing. Whatever the reasons, they were motivated by curiosity and control. He would answer one and destroy the other - he simply did not know in which order.

As the sun descended beyond the faraway treeline, the moons arose and bathed the Cardinal road in fleeting light that fought as the grasses reflected the light coming off the moons. Much to Khaln's annoyance, his steed reared up on its hind legs and whinnied plaintively - when he patted its neck the horse nodded its head but backed away from the expanding shadow of the rising moons. Khaln dismounted the animal and once it was free of him, the horse turned and ran from the grasslands and back towards the tortured regions of the Cardinal road. 

Khaln was going to go after the steed but halted in his tracks - his vision went black for a moment but the vertigo dissipated quickly as a moan arose from the tall grasses. Khaln unsheathed his long, polished battle sword and peered into the darkness. The grass swayed with an odd sensuality he found strangely hypnotic; to retrieve his senses he nicked his forearm.

"Khaln!" a voice cried above the grass and on the wind. It was a voice he recognized - a voice he had silenced only a few days ago.

"Preya," Khaln muttered before launching himself blindly into the sea of grass, insouciant of what might be hiding there. The blades seemed to part magically as he ran - at the same time, Khaln had a gnawing sensation that he was actually following a path being opened for him in order to corral him. Yet he could not turn away from the path or the voice screaming his name.

"Khaln!!"

He burst from the parted grass onto a clearing in the night drenched savannah. Before him stood three women: all were naked. All were his mother.

"No," Khaln snarled. The one to his left was young and beautiful, but her inner thighs were covered in blood and a dripping umbilical cord dangled from between her legs.

"You hurt my body," his young mother said as her head spun around, the snapping of her vertebrae audible on the wind.

"You hurt my spirit," the second version of his mother said, standing directly in front of him - she was as he remembered when he had slipped a knife into her heart. Each beat made a torrent of fresh blood gush from the wound he had branded her with.

"You hurt my soul," the last version of his mother said to his right. She was on the ground, her head leaning back and staring at him wantonly as she had her hands between her legs and used dirt and gravel on her clit while mouthing his name. 

Khaln screamed and charged the closest image of his mother, keen on slicing her out of his head. He swung his sword wildly at the young version of Preya - the one he had supposedly harmed during his difficult birth - but she easily sidestepped his sword and smacked it from his grasp. He swung at her, but she blocked his blow and kicked him above his knee, knocking his leg back and forcing him off balance.

While he was struggling with the younger Preya, the one that had been to his right and masturbating lifted herself from her lying position and crab-walked until she was behind Khaln. The young Preya pushed him and he fell into her counterpart's clutches. This Preya wrapped her arms and legs around him and as he struggled, her limbs grew in length and thickness and bound him like chains.

"I never fed you," the third Preya said. "No wonder you are so fucked up."

The Preya Khaln had killed stood over him with a hand covering her wound beneath her breast. "Have a drink, my most hated son," she whispered and removed her hand from the gaping hole in her chest. Blood gushed from the wound and flooded Khaln's face, painting it crimson as he struggled to breathe beneath the torrent. 

But as the blood filled his throat and immersed his lungs, Khaln's heart beat at a mad rate and he could feel his anger express a heat that spread to his limbs and the small veins just beneath his bronzed skin erupted with pulses of red light. The blood in his throat evaporated and a cloud of hot, red mist escaped his lips and nostrils.

The three wraith images of Preya scampered away from him and Khaln felt his skin render and his limbs stretched almost infinitely beyond their limits while he reared onto his hind legs. He looked down at his body and his skin was replaced by leathery scales - he howled in delight and anger while he felt his chest filled with crimson fire that he unleashed from his gaping, fanged mouth. The tall grasses surrounding the Cardinal road disintegrated and the earth was left scorched and smoking. His neck felt long and strong and Khaln looked as his arms - they had become great, webbed wings. Khaln exhaled a stream of flame from his nostrils and the great dragon he had become arose into the night above the trees as his powerful wings beat the air. A second exhalation of fire incinerated the wraiths in the form of his mother.

Higher and higher he rose and the stars themselves seemed to tremble at the sight of the mighty dragon that had arose from where Khaln Dharrec, the second-son, had drowned in blood. But the higher he climbed, the more the fire inside him yearned to be free - when he reached the outskirts of the eternal darkness between the stars, his new found hide split open and all the flames he withheld inside consumed him and when they burned out, Khaln was a man again. He tumbled in the darkness - the world beneath him was gone.




Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 02



Falling into the blackness, Khaln could only scream.

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The mighty steed Khaln had won from the dead Yarczian warlord Treczyius grazed from the tall grasses lining each side of the Cardinal road - it looked over at its rider. Khaln was wrapped in the thick tendril-like roots of a werewood - a changeling tree - while three strange dream eaters surrounded him. The were dressed in sheer white and blue garments and their curved hips and ample bosoms were enough to excite the most moral of men. The eyes of the dream eaters were inky black and their hair was comprised of wriggling snakes and tentacles. Their mouths opened wider than a normal woman's and they had unleashed their long tongues upon Khaln's prostrate flesh and they fed on his nightmares while other dream eaters arose from the darkness and left their captive meals for the repast Khaln represented.

VI 

Where there were werewoods, dream eaters were always close. The two species existed in close harmony - werewoods would hold the prey and induce dreams and the dream eaters would devourer the nightly phantasm. Once the dream eaters had their fill, the werewoods would absorb the flesh of the now mad soul left in their grasp.

But neither werewoods or dream eaters had been seen in over two hundred years as they had been banished to the Shadow Realms by the Mages of Dar and the Blade Brides. But as the Magii Domini and their orders fell under the Arcane Ailment, the spells they had casted weakened and what was once banished was freed. 

And they were hungry.

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She opened her eyes and shivered - she was still wrapped in the tendril roots of a werewood. But the dream eaters were gone. Her mind was her own again. She wriggled against the werewood and realized her flesh was still hers as well as her mind. She looked up at the stars and their configurations were not as she expected. She began to fight against the roots when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

Two dream eaters passed by her without so much as gazing at her and this struck her as very unusual - dream eaters would never leave a sane mind untouched. Unless there was a better meal awaiting them. After the dream eaters had passed, she began to work her head against the roots that held her and she managed to turn her it. She could see above the tall, golden grasses and noticed the Cardinal road as it cut a straight line through the field. It was significantly wider and more demolished than she remembered. 

Then her mind turned to the battle she had participated in on these very fields - the Mages of Dar had assembled the Blade Brides and together they ventured beyond the crystalline gates of Dar'Achar to rid the land of the menace of werewoods and dream eaters. She had been the last to join the battle as she was an untested, new initiate. The Mages had casted a powerful exiling spell, but she had been caught on the wrong side of it and had been frozen in the Umbraland seemingly forever. She had remained locked in battle for her sanity as a dream eater wrapped her in werewood roots and placed her denture covered tongue to her forehead to feast on her dreams.

But the veil between the Umbraland and the living world had faded and, she feared, all manner of unearthly creatures roamed the land. She had to learn how long she had been incarcerated with the dream eaters. 

With patience and effort, she began to work against the bark of the werewood - it slowly ceded to her effort and she finally managed to set her arm free after terrific coaxing. From that initial success, the werewood easily loosened and she fell gracefully to the ground. As she took a deep breath of air, she searched the bottom of the stagnant werewood until she found her quarry.

Two long, slender cutlasses and their golden, d-shaped hand guards. The blades were forged of lite and strong Zjiestian steel and while they were nearly weightless in her hands, they could slice a shadow off a rock.

Blades in hand, she walked with deliberation towards the assembled dream eaters.

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She found him bound between two werewoods with a dozen dream eaters applying their tongues to his head and other parts of his exposed flesh. The dream eaters salivated as the stranger's body was seized by obviously harrowing nightmares. Despite his suffering, she found the sight of this stranger captivating: he was tall with a well muscled upper body - his muscles were lean and obviously forged by work and, from the long sword she saw resting at his side, battle. His hair was black with pebble grey strands, as though they had been carved from stone.

As she stealthily neared the feasting dream eaters, her breath caught in her throat - beneath his bronzed skin, she saw that his veins glowed red with alternating pulses of light. It was an eery sight as the light grew ever brighter the longer the dream eaters fed on his nightmares. The werewoods had dug hooks into his back as they prepared the reap his flesh - blood trickled down to the ground, leaving faintly glowing, scarlet streams across the stranger's flesh. 

Before she could strike, the stranger howled in his dream and tore an arm free from the binding tendrils of the werewood, oblivious to the pieces of bloodied flesh he left in his wake. He wrapped a large hand around the throat of the nearest dream eater and while the surreal beast tried to pull away, he rammed its head into the side of the werewood repeatedly till the creature's head was nothing than a mashed heap of greyish pulp.

That was when the recently freed Blade Bride struck - her cutlasses scythed through the two dream eaters closest to her when the others realized she was there. They broke from the stranger's struggling body and tore branches off nearby werewoods - in the hands of the dream eaters, the branches grew spikes or jagged tips to be used as cudgels or spears.

A dream eater swung at the Bride's head, but she ducked and her cutlass found the creature's legs, severing them above the knee - the Bride's momentum carried her behind the slouching dream eater and her second cutlass slashed through the dream eater's head, spraying the night with grey blood. Another dream eater thrust at the Bride - she crossed her cutlasses in a "V" formation, diverting the makeshift spear and aimed a high sidekick that struck the beast on the temple. The creature's neck snapped with a loud crack and the Bride finished it with a downward stroke that separated its head from its neck.

A hiss from behind caused the Bride to twist to the right and leap over the body of the two fallen dream eaters - the snakes that swirled amongst the tentacles on a dream eater's head spat venom toward the the awakened Blade Bride. With preternatural grace, the Bride flipped backwards like a leaf caught in the turbulent draft, evading the streams of acidic venom. From the exit of her last flip, the Blade Bride threw her cutlass like a spear, impaling the dream eater's face through its mouth. The Bride launched herself from a crouching position and rolled forward till she could cut upwards, eviscerating the injured dream eater until she could grasp her other cutlass and, once violently pulling the cutlasses from the beast, the Bride cut the dream eater to pieces. 

Even as the Blade Bride shook off the dripping gore of the devastated dream eater, ten more amassed before her, each carrying a changeling weapon born of a torn werewood branch. But their attentions were quickly drawn away from the Blade Bride - the massive werewood splintered under the force of the stranger's bulging muscles as he broke through the tendrils that bound him. 

The Blade Bride assumed a defensive posture, a cutlass held at waist level across her centre line while the other was held above her head, blade pointing towards the dream eaters. But she held her breath when she saw the stranger - patterns of red light glowed beneath his skin while fountains of scarlet brightness cut through the veil of his pupils. 

Two dream eaters sprung into the air but the stranger's long hand-and-a-half sword cut through the torsos of the creatures, spraying the others with a shower of their greyish and black entrails. As they fell in bloodied heaps, the Blade Bride pressed forward, her swirling cutlasses reaching out and delivering a dismembering kiss to whatever dream eater stood in their way. The glowing stranger also struck, enclosing the growling dream eaters on two fronts. Where the Blade Bride was like a whirlwind of steel, the glowing stranger was a deliberate predator, each blow and evasion delivering the end of a dream eater and bringing him closer to the Blade Bride. 

The number of dream eaters dwindled as more fell while others escaped back on their werewoods and returned to the shadows of the forest. But one remained - the snakes on its head grew long while the tentacles stretched upwards as they unravelled, its clawed suckers primed to strike. 

The stranger was the closest and despite his somnambulant state, he struck at the dream eaters legs, kneeling and sweeping for the beast's knees. But the dream eater had seen the attack and its tentacles acted like springs and propulsed the dream eater skyward - as it rose, the great snakes it wore as hair spat a dripping cloud of venom that fell like a heavy fog to the ground. The stranger roared as he threw himself backward and away from the cloud that threatened to engulf him.

Meanwhile, the Blade Bride had latched onto a wayward tentacle and with the grace of a swallow, she lept from one tentacle to the next till she was within striking distance of the dream eater's head, but the beast twisted unexpectedly and the Blade Bride's cutlasses found empty space where they should have struck the dream eater's neck. The beast fared much better as a tentacle wrapped around the Blade Bride's neck and flung her towards the ground with the force of a falling star. Five strides from her point of impact, the stranger launched himself into the air, his legs full of unknown power and he caught her in mid fall - as his momentum shifted from his impact with the Blade Bride, he used it to spin and throw his long sword. It impaled the dream eater's head with sufficient force to send the beast reeling while he hit the ground, sandwiched between the unforgiving earth and weight of the Blade Bride that saddled him.

Ignoring his injuries, the stranger gently pushed the winded and disoriented Blade Bride aside and got to his feet, retrieving on of the Blade Bride's cutlasses at the passing. The dream eater hissed as the stranger with the glowing red patterns beneath his skin stalked it - the beast gargled and its skin ripped as its skewered head ripped itself off its body in a spray of grey blood. From the stump, a new set of tentacles and snakes grew until the head was covered in a wriggling, hissing bouquet.

The stranger spat on the ground and ran the thin blade against his palm - the dripping blood moved of its own volition and coated the blade a deep scarlet lacquer. 

The Blade Bride had regained her breath just to gasp it away - the sight of her cutlass, awarded her through the blessed rite of the matrimony of steel, in the hands of another, was appallingly beautiful. She grabbed her other cutlass and watched as the stranger covered her blade with his own blood. She had been trained to recognize magic but this was unlike anything she had been taught - his blood made the cutlass glow red in the night and though he lacked the sensual grace of one trained in the first dance of steel, his bobs and weaves had the efficiency of instinct. And when her blade did cleave a tentacle or snake head, the grey blood did not stain the crimson steel.

The stranger had gripped a hissing snake head and when it spat its acidic venom, he pulled it to the left and yanked it hard, tearing it from beast's roving head. Tentacles wrapped around his arms and legs and tried to pry him away - he responded by drawing a figure eight above his head and the cutlass sliced the tentacles binding his arms, but he dropped the blades as the weight of the thick, severed limbs pried his sword arm back. He squirmed his arms from the tangle of dying, ethereal flesh of the dream eater's head tentacles, but the beast pressed its attack.

But even as the snakes on the dream eater's head struck at the stranger, he lunged for the hilt of his sword that stuck out from the relative centre of the beast,s head - one of the largest snakes from the dream eater's clutch was at his heels and when he managed to grab his sword, the snake found his shoulder and sank its fangs deep into his flesh, inundating his blood with vicious venom. But as the snake yanked him away, the stranger's grip on his sword was strong enough that the long, silver blade followed the stranger, cleaving the dream eater's head and leaving the beast a lifeless heap.

The stranger stood amidst the dead pile of flesh that was the dream eater - blood dripped freely from the holes left in his shoulder. The glowing patterns under his skin had dulled as the venom worked its way in his tissues. His body seized and he fell to his knees.

The Blade Bride rushed to the stranger's side - on her way she opened her hand and the cutlass he had used and dropped flew to her grasp.

As she reached him, his scarlet glow had faded and his eyes were open.

"Khaln ... my name is Khaln," he whispered before his eyes rolled back into his head and his consciousness fled him.

VII

The Blade Bride had pulled the strange man from the corpse of the dream eater and had stripped him of his clothing - she had not encountered a man like him in her time as a Bride or as her time as a girl in Dar'Achar. His body was a rich collection of coiled muscles and scars that covered his back - his skin had bronzed under the sun, but it still possessed a the pallor of the Northerners she had been told of. But her concern for his origins would have to wait as she assembled branches and kindling to make a fire. Sparks flew when she struck her cutlasses together and they ignited the pile of wood she had assembled.

She rolled him onto his stomach and examined the puncture wounds left in his shoulder after his scrape with the dream eater's snake - the outer edges of the wounds flared red and streams of venom could be seen flooding his veins beneath his skin, giving it an inkish countenance. But the necrosis she had so often encountered in the past was stalled by whatever rallied the light she had seen pool beneath his skin. She moved his head and rested it on her knees and placed her palms on his temples - closing her eyes, she expanded her perceptions as she had been trained and her fingers became tingly at what lied within him. In her mind's eye, she crossed the barriers of though and reason and delved into the chaos of his sleeping mind. At this level, she should have already have felt the inklings of his soul, but all she felt was parched darkness beyond the chaos. She pulled back before the encroaching darkness could overwhelm her - yet, deeper in the abyss of his empty soul, something was dormant.

She let him go just as a massive horse approach her and nudged the unconscious man with its snout and whinnied quizzically. She stood and gently approached the calm animal - she had rarely seen such a massive horse. She offered her hand and made soft cooing sounds and patted its massive neck until she could reach the saddle and found a blanket at the rear. 

She undid the blanket from the saddle and spread it onto the ground - the horse tapped its hoof when she rolled the stranger onto the blanket. He was on his back and she contemplated him. He was the key to her finding out where - and when - she was. But she also knew the spell she was to cast was potentially dangerous for it called on her ability to bear life - she was suddenly hit with the memory of her dismissal from magehood in favour of the Blade Brides. It had been a devastating blow to her family as they had always fared well in the arcane academies of the Magii.

Her mana had simply not been deep enough to embody magic - but she would tax it now with the only spell she had mastered: the seeding spell, used to measure the might of a pair of mages. 

She leaned back onto her knees and unbuckled the shoulder guards that adorned the top of her metal and leather bodice. She tossed it aside as well as the piece of cotton that protected her neck from chaffing under the guards. She then undid the laced bindings that graced the leather sides of her red and silver, armoured bodice. It fell to the ground with a hushed clang. She then reached behind her back with her toned and graceful arms and untucked the edge of the cotton wrapped she used to flatten her breasts and protect her skin - the fabric unravelled and her bosom became free to the night air. The cool air made her dark nipples stiffen. Goosebumps spread across her olive skin and her brown eyes focused on the stranger. His lean muscles caught the flickering glow of the fire and thick, flaccid manhood beckoned like a sleeping beast.

Increments of desire stirred deep within her loins.

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The Blade Bride had undid her armoured skirt and tossed it aside and removed her undergarments - she suddenly wished her amber hair had been long and flowing as when she was studying the magehood. It was cut short at the rear and sides; she reached between her legs and found a patch of equally short amber hair above her loins. From there, her fingers slid against the folds of her labia and she rubbed it gently, coaxing the engorgement of her sex.

Her arousal came quickly as her eyes roamed across the unconscious stranger's muscled chest and powerful looking thighs. The pleasure of men was deterred by the Blade Bride coda, but her native desire for them had never left - her desire was as necessary as his for the seeding spell to work. She reached to her smallish breast and tugged at her large, dark nipple while she slipped a finger into her slit. Her juices dripped past her knuckles as her body readied itself to receive the strangers cock. 

Her wetness spread down her thighs as a familiar heat roamed across her limbs - she leaned over the stranger's lap and took his manhood in her hand. She held it straight. It was thick and hooded and she hoped the necrosis from the snake bites on his shoulder had not affected his nerves yet. She stroked it but his cock was slow to react. She closed her eyes and sighed before bringing her lips to touch the tip of the stranger's manhood. It was warm against her flesh, showing her that he had not succumbed to the venom, but the heartbeat she could feel was fast and laboured. 

She had little time left.

She added stroking to her kisses before taking him limp cock into her mouth - she swirled her tongue around the tip as she moved her hand gently up and down his shaft. She sometimes kissed and licked the sides of his cock as her hand stroked downward. With her other hand she cupped his hairy balls, lightly juggling them while returning her tongue to the tip. It was then that she felt the first evidence of his hardening flesh. Within moments, the stranger had achieved an impressive length and girth and he filled her mouth to the point of gagging. 

The Blade Bride pulled away from his stiffened manhood and listened as a the stranger made odd syllables in a language she had yet to understand. She touched her pussy and it was more wet than when she had first provoked it - she stroked the man's cock a few more times before regaining her feet and straddling him. She lowered herself until she could reach his cock and guide it till it parted her cunt lips. She hesitated for a moment, holding her breath till she had fully engulfed him and when his cock was fully sheathed within her, she felt a plenitude that she had long denied herself. She placed her hands on his muscled chest and began to gyrate her hips, allowing his manhood to press against every side of her pussy and igniting eruptions of pleasure that rippled across her flesh.




Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 02



The Blade Bride closed her eyes and savoured the sensation of fullness the unknown man gave her - he was a warrior surely as his skills against the dream eaters has proven and she felt he had the potential to be an equally formidable lover. But she had to divert part of her mind from the encroaching bliss and focus on the leylines intersecting where her body met his so she could concentrate on the formulae that knitted the web of the seeding spell. 

Her breath became ragged as she moaned the ancient words while her body naturally began to slide up and down the man's rock hard shaft. But her words were not summoning the visions of the leylines the way she expected them to - her mana was untouched while pleasure began to swell in her lower belly. She repeated the words more loudly as she fell onto the man's chest and she moved her hips rapidly, her body seeking the rapture of orgasm. But the magic was not there. There was no magic at all that she could sense. 

Her nipples rubbed against the man's hairy chest while her clit scraped against his pubic hair, creating a triangle of pleasure that made her pussy tremble. Yet all the passion and bliss she felt was for naught if she could not summon the magic to enact the seeding spell and heal the unknown man. Before she could ponder the absence of the eldritch energies, she was overcome by bliss and her pussy quivered and gushed with fluids while her back arched almost to the point of snapping.

The man groaned beneath Blade Bride as the motions of her pussy squeezed his cock, pulling him closer to his own orgasm. At the same time, she saw the pools of light form beneath his skin and the spreading necrosis was stalled. She was also struck by the image of the web of leylines becoming suddenly visible. 

Through her pleasure, she felt her mana open like a wildfire and embrace the energy of the mutual leylines she shared with the man. He was somehow linked to magic - but that was of little concern as he suddenly shifted beneath her and he thrust upwards. She felt her pussy embrace his manhood and the lingering embers of pleasure became a brazened wave that enveloped her completely. As it did so, the words she had spoken earlier for the seeding spell somehow echoed back to her along the leylines and they reached into her womb and began to extract the life essence needed for the seeding.

But despite kindled magic, the pools of red light beneath his skin wrestled against the growing inky web of necrosis the swept across his flesh from rear to front. So the Blade Bride leaned her body back and placed her hands on his thighs for support and ground her hips in a violent swaying motion that rocked his cock as thought it was the lone standing mast of a tall ship in a furious storm at sea. The invisible leylines that united them began to trickle her essence into him, finding his human mana as it floated in the disruption that caused the red hue.

His eyes opened and the Blade Bride felt his hands find her hips - she moaned as he rolled her onto her back. She looked at his deep dark eyes and the blackness in his pupils seemed to swirl like oil. His breath was hot against her cheek as his hips thrust into her with fury and desperation. One of his hands had found her breast and squeezed it roughly, making her hiss with conflicting pleasure and pain. But it was the unexpected touch of his parched lips to hers in a wanton kiss that was most alien but appealing. Her mouth parted as the instinctual dance of their tongues intoxicated her and she rested her hands on his hard buttocks in an attempt to pull him deeper into her cunt.

He rose to his knees and pushed her legs back to her shoulders and he then stretched out his legs so that his weight was supported by his toes. The main of his bulk bounced madly against the Blade Bride's ass as he fucked her with wild abandon. As each of his thrust made wave upon rolling wave of bliss crash through her, their mana and leylines merged into a single structure and she managed to utter the words that warped the seeding spell into an exchanged of life energy.

The exchange peaked as the Blade Bride's pussy tightened and she screamed as she was overwhelmed by her orgasm. The man also howled like a beast as he injected a flood of come into her womb while the leylines of magic and mana knitted his body back together - but as it was an exchange, his leylines dipped into his knowledge and she was inundated with convoluted images and emotions sprung from his memories.

As she watched him come and the red glow beneath his skin blazed like a funeral pyre, the blackened flesh eaten by necrosis was burned away and from the ashes new flesh arose, sealing the round fang wounds in his shoulder and leaving a raised, web-like pattern of scaring across his back. 

And from that point on, she was to call him Khaln.

VIII

"I am Bailla'Tayne Jeva," the amber haired Blade Bride had told the mysterious, scarred warrior. Two days had passed and she had watched Khaln grow stronger with each passing hour. He now gripped his sword and practised the forms of the Ordeyirgossian sword masters under her watchful eye. She admired his devotion to the honing of his skills. Although he lacked the grace of a blade dancer, his instinctive understanding of his long silver blade and his perfect control of momentum were a testament to an ability on par with her own talents.

Khaln felt her criticizing gaze upon his every movement - and he felt the greater desire to make her proud. She was tall with toned arms and strong legs; her olive coloured skin and short amber hair were those of the natives of the far, southern regions of the Savani coast, perhaps even as far as the Islands of the Seven Year Thunder. When he had awakened from his malady and understood that the memory of her beneath him - images full of her scent and the sensation of her firm breasts crushed against his manhood surrounded by the velvety surrender of her pussy - was a true memory and not a phantasm, he had faced her and held his head down in apology. Her answer was to kiss the top of his head. He had been taken aback by her tenderness - a tenderness he had never experienced from any woman he had bedded.

But what drew him the most was the musical quality of her accent whenever she spoke her name or how she extended the pronunciation of his name. As she dressed and stood at her full height in her skirt and armour, she was the epitome of the elegant warrior - and Khaln fondly remembered the conversations they shared. She was part of a group that seconded the Magii Domini and she had been caught on the wrong side of an exile spell. He had watched her frustration when he recounted the rise of The Call of Skaelor and the fall of the Magii Domini to the Arcane Ailment. He saw her run into the night and the screams rise from where the dream eaters had retreated - she had returned, covered in the greying gore and splinters of wood from the dream eaters and werewoods she had destroyed. He had travelled to the sight of the slaughter and he had helped her assembled her fallen sisters that had also been trapped. They had used the broken werewoods to build the pyres for the half dozen Blade Brides. Then, haggard and dirty, they had made love - and Khaln had glowed red and Bailla'Tayne Jeva mourned her past.

As Khaln finished his forms, Bailla'Tayne Jeva returned from a time in the woods and carried a hare and berries she had assembled. He sheathed his sword and removed his baldric before sitting by the campfire she had started the night she had rescued him. She tossed him the hare and he used a dagger to skin the animal and the prepared it for cooking. 

Bailla'Tayne Jeva sat across the fire and observed Khaln's dextrous hands as he stuffed the hare with flavorful leaves that would heightened the hare's delicate taste. As it roasted, he took a piece of hard bread he had captured from the Yarczian warlord he had killed behind his former home and tossed some of it to the Blade Bride.

"Can I call you Tayne?" he asked and she paused from biting into the bread and frowned quizzically.

"Forgive me, but saying Bailla'Tayne Jeva every time I want to get your attention is ... tiring."

She scoffed at him and then chuckled. "Tayne it is," she said. 

"Where are we going?" Tayne asked in turn.

"I'm travelling to the port city Videsh'Achar, to the West. I have business beyond it crystalline walls and its marble gates." 

Tayne dropped the piece of meat she had just torn from the roasted hare. "Crys ... Crystalline walls?" she whispered the question.

"Yes," Khaln said. He suddenly remembered a story his father Yvrer had told him. "The city was once known as Dar'Achar." 

Tayne sat straight and said a short invocation before biting into the meat and said, "Then, you are taking me home."

@@@@@

The mighty horse carried Khaln and Tayne as they crossed from the trampled Cardinal road that was hid by the forest and into a vast, open field - the road was in better condition but the horse bobbed its head nervously as it hesitated to continue.

Khaln grunted as Tayne gasped - the great crystalline walls Videsh'Achar that had been known for and their transparent clarity were mired with blood and their transparency had turned a sickly grey. On their tops stood silent figures: Greyish skeletons surrounded by writhing clouds of ash from which emerged large, leathery wings covered in blade. The eye sockets of the oversized skulls were covered with thick metal plates while the jaws were held shut by entwined chains.

"Quieting Angels," Khaln whispered.

One took to the air and flew silently in their direction.

@To be continued ...



Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 03



I

They screamed – none could hear them, but they screamed nonetheless. 

They had been driven from the cover of the retreating forest and into the clutches of the Quieting Angels – ash fell upon their heads as they entered the area of effect of the approaching Angel and all sound, even the thunderous gallop of the war horse that had been seized as a spoil of battle, was muted. Tayne had grasped Khaln's sword, hoping the extra length would allow a better range to keep the flying terror at bay, but though she had sliced through the creature's ash-covered chest when the Angel fell upon them and the long, silver blade silently struck true, the creature was undisturbed.

In the eerie silence, Khaln coached the mighty steed and it reared on its hind legs as the terrifying figure of the Quieting Angel maneuvered around it – spittle from the horse landed on the thick, metal plates that covered the Angel's eye sockets and the chain that held its oversized jaw sealed shut. But Khaln yanked the reins to the left and the horse threw its weight it that direction – while the horse changed pivoted, Tayne wrapped her arms tightly around Khaln's waist while he lead the horse to crash on its front hooves and kick the Quieting Angels with its hind legs. But the silent horror caught the steed's unusually powerful limbs and took to the air, dragging the struggling horse high above the ground. Khaln slipped from his saddle and hung from the reins while Tayne was snagged.

Khaln mouthed silent words meant to soothe the panicked horse, but its bulging eyes and swaying tongue betrayed its rapidly beating heart he knew was near failure. Khaln looked down and his stone gray eyes peered at a vast expanse of crashing, foamy waves and jagged rocks. 

The Quieting Angel had carried them over the cliffs and paused for a heartbeat before dropping Khaln, Tayne and their mount into the water.

They screamed – none could hear them, but they screamed nonetheless.

II

Bailla'Tayne Jeva was a native of Dar'Achar – now known as Videsh'Achar -- the largest and most prosper of the eastern coastal cities, sitting high on the cliffs overlooking the Ardent sea and the fields of Zelh'Zuri. She had been born to a minor royal house that had developed a reputation for siring powerful mages. Bailla'Tayne Jeva had not been one of them as her failure in the ethereal scripture crucible had demonstrated. She could only sense a fraction of the mystical leylines that anchored magic and her mana – the well of her life energy – was too shallow to properly manipulate the leylines. Yet, she had inherited a physical grace and prowess that was native to her father's family. She was offered a position with the Blade Brides of Achar, warrior guardians of the Mages of Dar.

She had proven quite proficient with the twin cutlasses, but had to struggle as she had started her training later than her sisters – when the Mages of Dar launched a hunt against the dream eaters and their werewoods, she had joined the battle last and found herself caught in the Umbraland with the beasts when the mages had cast their final exile spell.

After being freed after half a millenia of exile, Bailla'Tayne Jeva currently wished she was still trapped in the Umbraland. She had been separated from the warrior Khaln when the creature he called a Quieting Angel carried them over the Ardent sea and tossed them to the wind as though they were a child's discarded plaything. She would soon crash into the water at an angle and she knew the water would be as unyielding as stone.

But Tayne remembered the lessons of the old sword mage – she spun in mid air and grabbed her two cutlasses and crossed the blades as she faced the closing, watery surface head-on. Requiring split second timing, Tayne summoned her weakening mana and read the leylines – the vectors of magic – and weaved the water to her blades. Just as she was about to strike the unforgiving sea, she opened her arms wide while chanting the shield spell. The water followed the arcs of her blades and opened up to a bubble that sealed behind her, erasing any trace of her fall beneath the ocean's rippling surface.

Before the sea closed above her, Tayne had managed to collect a deep breath before the bubble of magic she created faltered and she was engulfed by the cool water. Her grip on her blades loosened and she managed to sheathe the cutlasses despite the mighty current she had fallen into. The fast moving under current lead for the rocky base of the cliffs she had just flown over. Struggling with her bearings, Tayne found the dissipating columns of sunlight and began to kick with her arms and legs to break free of the current and breach the surface of the water and relieve the burning in her lungs as her body used up her breath.

Tayne fought against the drag her armored chest plate and skirt created in the water and finally twisted in the dark depths to free herself of their constrictions. Finally able to find the power she needed, Tayne looked back at her sinking armor and cutlasses and swam mightily towards the light until, naked as a newborn, she breached the surface of the sea and took the most satisfying breath of her life.

But as Tayne swam for the distant, rocky shore, her eyes sought Khaln. His fate remained a mystery to her.

@@@@@

Khaln watched as the beloved horse he had won from the Yarczians smashed into the hard water, its bones splintering and piercing its hide, showering the blue water with crimson droplets of heavy blood. 

Khaln hit the water atop the faithful horse, its shattered body dissipating the impact he would have suffered. He entered the water nonetheless, watching as the helpless steed struggled uselessly against the water, its shattered legs still writhing as it fought still to stay afloat. Winded and bruised, Khaln still swam to the animal, determined to end its suffering with a quick stab of his sword. But he was without his long, silvery blade, remembering that it had been lost during the truncated battle with the Quieting Angel. Feeling his belt, he was relieved to feel his two daggers. 

Khaln continued to swim towards the wavering horse when he saw it suddenly disappear beneath the water. He took a deep breath and dived in, his gray streaked hair flowing around his head like a wavy crown. A long, clawed tentacle reached up from the murky depth of the Ardent Sea and pulled his horse downwards. 

Khaln reached for the horse's mane as it drowned just as the beast submerging his former mount emerged from the abyssal depths. 

Khaln had heard stories of the wailing squid, and the sight of it was more horrible than any legend he had heard. Its body was long – five times the length of a man -- and covered with hundreds of small, fanged, writhing mouths that snapped at whatever the ten long tentacles grasped and brought before them. He watched in horror as his powerful horse was quickly decimated into a bony carcass. The beast turned its attention to Khaln as the squid's four eyes, each mounted on a smooth, slimy tentacle, veered in his direction. 

Khaln kicked away from the beast, aware that his lungs burned his breath while his veins glowed red in the water, giving him a frightening halo. He burst from the water and gasp, but only long enough for a clawed tentacle to wrap around his neck and drag him beneath. 

Bubbles escaped his nostrils as Khaln was dragged head first towards the hungry mouths of the wailing squid. He could hear its multiplied cries as the mouths demanded sustenance. Tugging at the tentacle, Khaln fought to remain calm as his iridescent glow grew. He found the dagger sheathed at his back and he pulled it just as the first mouth chomped at his shoulder. Khaln grunted but managed to work himself into a position where he could place his booted legs against the squid's hide and he took the dagger to the tentacle – he sliced through it easily and the water filled with the beast's bluish blood and his own, leaking from the small bite wound on his shoulder

Khaln kicked from the squid, and as he hoped, the beast trapped his foot and dragged him back towards its angry mouths. As Khaln glided over the snapping appendages, he slashed and stabbed at them, cutting deep wounds in the sea creature. The squid released him and while it shifted its position with startling agility, Khaln had caught one of the stems that carried the beast's eyes. The sharp dagger made little work of the squid's eye and the beast squealed and retreated into the depths, the effort needed to feast on the strange glowing creature that was Khaln was not worth the wounds he was inflicting. 

Khaln put his knife in his mouth and swam towards the surface of the water, but he misjudged how close his battle with the wailing squid had brought him towards the shore and he was thrown topsy-turvy by the rollicking waves and he struck a jagged rock. The current and the tide carried him onto the shore and Khaln, disoriented but willful, managed to stand despite the dizziness that impeded him.

Khaln looked up at the high cliffs, and where he warily expected to see a Quieting Angel, his eyes met a group of hooded, androgynous figures, one aiming a bow and arrow and focused tightly on him.

"Come and get me," Khaln groaned before falling to his knees, and then into unconsciousness.

III

Tayne had managed to find an abandoned path she had once taken to reach the beach as a child, hundreds of years ago. It hugged the rocks and she kept as close as possible to their shadows – she felt exposed in her nakedness but also emboldened with a sense of freedom. She was amazed by how little the path, an echo of her childhood, had changed over the centuries. When she reached the top of the path and looked at the base of the crystal walls she had once looked upon for protection, and then inspiration, she stifled a moan. The crystalline walls were tarnished with smoke and blood from the battles with what Khaln had called The Call of Skaelor.

She had heard the word, all those years ago as she trained to be a Blade Bride. It was hushed and whispered – it was the name of an enemy that even the gods should fear. And now, the enemy's servants walked the world and all mages and other users of magic had perished – she feared that her return might be cut short as she was a user of magic herself. But, when in the presence of Khaln, her ability to read the leylines of magic was enhanced. 

She pondered his connection to magic while she scampered towards the tarnished, crystalline walls and felt around for a seam she had discovered, at first years – and now because of exile -- centuries before. Her fingers caressed the sooth covered walls until until her beaten nails found the minute space of the seam, a secret entrance built by the founders of the city and invisible to the uninitiated. She traced it until she found the corner where the mechanism was located – she pressed her shoulder to the wall and heaved with all her might until she heard the familiar click of the opening gate. A section sunk into the structure and Tayne sighed until she saw a shadow glide across the ground.

She looked up and a Quieting Angel flew overhead, a patrol she suspected was dedicated to locating her and Khaln. Pressed and breathing hard, Tayne launched herself at the door multiple times until it gave enough space that she could narrowly cross its shadowed threshold and enter the labyrinth of tunnels that crisscrossed the walls of Videsh'Achar. After she pushed the gate close, Tayne rubbed her shoulder – its tenderness told her a bruise was forming where she struck the fall-away gate. After a few seconds in the darkness, she was struck by the sickly sweet and acrid smell of death and decomposition. She took a few tentative steps as her eyes adapted to the filtered light of the afternoon sun that trickled down through the crystal walls that surrounded her; Tayne saw the bloated and destroyed bodies of the victims of the Call of Skaelor who had tried to escape the war, forgetting that war is a virulent disease for which there is no cure. 

Tayne walked slowly over the broken bones and oddly reaching corpses, unwilling to disturb their final poses, while her eyes sought something wearable – she soon found a piece of heavy jute she could use. As she grab it, she was suddenly struck with shivers as her body finally reacted to the chill of the cold water of the Ardent sea she had narrowly escaped and the weight of her predicament. Leaning against the wall, Tayne fought the onslaught of tears that swelled in her eyes as she came to grasp that her entire life was long gone and that she had lost the only person she knew in this new world. 

She ran her fingers through her short cropped, amber hair and looked to the ground and found two small rocks. She struck them together and one splintered, exposing a sharp and jagged edge. She used it to cut a hole for her head and she then slid the jute piece on like a dress. The fabric was large enough to cover past buttocks – she used the sharp rock to carve moccasins from the remaining fabric and then cut strips she used to hold the moccasins together and finally a last piece to cinch the makeshift tunic at her slim waist. 

Tayne slipped the small knife she'd made in the cinch and moved forward more hurriedly as she remembered the path leading back into the ruined city. 

Tayne had the mad hope that the Hall of Steel, home of the Blade Brides, still stood.

@@@@@

The group carried Khaln through the meandering streets of the remains of Videsh'Achar, invisible to the watch of the Quieting Angels – they were all draped in the fabric that made the body of the Scything Souls. Around them, rats and other scavengers scurried across their path, collecting what food they could find. Some survivors of the siege of the city followed the rats, taking what they could from what the rodents ignored. They passed the fountain that marked the center of the city square – it still sprouted water tinged scarlet with the blood of the city's residents. 

The sun was setting over the Ardent sea when the band reached a series of abandoned looking structures near the city's port. The buildings once stored grain, wine, spices and fish that once underlined the riches of Videsh'Achar. 

Once the doors to a large wine repository were closed, they removed the cloaks and dragged Khaln to a hook that hung down from the ceiling and was looped through a pulley. One of them passed the hook through the shackles binding Khaln's hands, then another yanked the chain and the pulley screeched as its rusted iron rotated and Khaln was soon hanging off the ground by his arms. The thick chain was pined to the floor.

Khaln's eyes snapped open and his veins pulsed red light as the bucket full of cold water stuck his face and ran down his naked chest. He grunted and twisted against the chain, the pain in his shoulders burning as his weight bore down on his wrists. But he calmed himself and studied the people watching him from the shadows of the torches flickering in the distance. They were six androgynous individuals. Each was dressed in torn and tattered linen and leather. They adored tresses or shaved heads with jeweled piercings in their ears and noses and lips. Each was armed with a dagger and small fighting ax, except for the one Khaln focused on. It was then that he noticed that although their builds were lean and muscled, the lines of their necks and hips and their lips were unmistakably feminine. 

"Where's Tayne?" Khaln asked as his eyes stayed focused on the woman with the bow and arrow. He noticed a large scar that stretched from beneath the leather band that covered her left eye.

The woman to his left stuck him hard in his ribs and snarled while he grunted. "We ask the questions."

"I have few answers," Khaln grumbled. "You're a Qoazti archer, aren't you?"

The one eyed woman nodded ever so slightly. Her had was shaven except for a long red tress of hair hanging down to her waist from the back of her head. She glared at him with a hard but beautiful brown eye – other than the scar on her left eye, her features were delicate and her skin was almost of pure alabaster. Her chest was strangely flat, which heightened the flare of her hips. In another circumstance, she would have been fiercely beautiful. Now she was just fiercely savage. He could feel her gaze as she scanned the myriad scars that intersected with the red pulses beneath his skin. 

"Show me," Khaln ordered.

Upon those words, what Khaln set in motion was a blur for nearly all the onlookers: with surprising strength, Khaln rocked his legs and swung them, using the momentum to aim for the ceiling – he then folded his legs to his chest and cried out as his arms and shoulders strained and his body stretched along the length of the chain in a kind of handstand. While this was happening and the women around him stared in astonished wonder, the Qoazti archer was already nocking an arrow to her powerful bow. Khaln let his body fall towards the ground – his crashing weight snapped the chain just as the Qoazti loosed her arrow. But where it would have met his head had the chain not snapped, the arrow pierced the shackles binding his wrists. 

Freed, Khaln turned and face the fierce warrior woman to his left – she had already her fighting ax in her right hand and she swung it with a reverse grip towards his neck. Khaln caught her wrist in his left hand and ducked beneath her swinging arm. As he came up behind her, he transitioned from his left hand to his right and twisted her arm hard and pinned it to her back while reaching around her waist with his left and yanking her dagger from its sheath. Although she had dropped her fighting ax, the warrior woman snapped her head back, crashing it into Khaln's nose. He grunted and blood ran down his lips and chin, but he remained undeterred and brought the dagger around. He held it in a reverse grip and when he placed the edge of his left hand across the right side of her neck, the blade of the dagger rested against the warrior woman's jugular. Khaln held her tight against his chest so that any attempt she made to escape would slash her own throat. 

He stared at the Qoazti archer's arrow as she held it only inches from his eyes.

"Ziel-Tan, that's enough," a tired but commanding voice thundered from the shadows and a seventh person stepped out of the darkness. "I have been waiting for you, second son." 

Khaln looked upon the man wearily – though his face and white hair were heavy with the passage of time, the older man's chest and shoulders and arms were thickly muscled. He carried a standard arming sword at his left side and a buckler hung from a hook strapped to his right shoulder. 

"I supposed you want me to let her go," Khaln said as the warrior woman growled.

"It might make eating a meal more convivial," Ziel-Tan said as she lowered her bow and replaced her arrow in its quiver. Her voice was husky and sensual.

"Apologies, then," Khaln said as he released the warrior woman and handed her back her dagger and picked up her fighting ax. 

"You're very strong," Khaln said as she yanked the ax from his grasp. "Next time, though, go for my balls." The warrior woman glared at him while her face twisted into a wicked, lecherous grin. She was smaller in stature than the others, with a noticeably curvier body. Her skin was dark and her head was shaved across its middle while two braids hung from each side of her head. Odd symbols were tattooed across the shaved portion of her head. Her features were broad and exotic and her lips full and inviting. She winked at him before retreating into the shadows. 

Khaln then turned to the white haired man and said: "You were a soldier. From Uldrund?"

The old soldier smiled. "You recognized the sigil on the buckler, eh? I was. And I may well be your grandfather." 




Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 03



@@@@@

Night descended upon Videsh'Achar and the twin moons rose to keep a watchful eye on the deserted streets. Tayne had decided to travel by darkness to ensure her anonymity, but since the sunset she had encountered nary a soul, but for the occasional stray dog or cat. 

As she walked the back alleys, Tayne was struck by how the city had grown during her exile in the Umbraland, when she was caught on the wrong side of an exile spell. But her exploration of the city taxed her sanity almost as much as her exile. The city and the walls had tripled in size and when she found the Library of the Advocates, the tower she had known to stand equal to the gates of the city in height, now reached towards the heavens. But like everything else, it was tarnished with ash and fires burned from its multiple windows. If she concentrated, she could hear plaintive moans the distance. There were survivors, but when there was a moan, a Quieting Angel flew off and the sound was eerily silenced. 



Tayne was saddened by all the wasted lives that littered the ground around her as she approached the one piece of her memories of Dar'Achar – now Videsh'Achar – to remain intact: the Fountain of Thu'll Achar. He was the God of the Advocates and the Keeper of the Truths Unknown. His image topped the otherwise simple fountain: he was portrayed as carrying an amphor full of wine from the Well of Thoughts and also the Scrolls of the Advocates. But though the water still pumped though the fountain, it was deep crimson in color, full of the blood of the dead. 

Tayne realized she was thirsty and her belly rumbled. She could not drink of the fountain, so she began to seek any kind of puddle that might have collected after the rainfall of a few days ago. 

Tayne finally found water in and upturned pot that once held a plant – the liquid was stale but drinkable. 

"A girl!" Tayne suddenly heard from behind her. She pivoted and pulled the rock she had fastened into a make shift blade from the sash around her waist – three emaciated men dashed for her. Though malnourished, they were quick and made strong by the prize she presented. They surrounded her and she wished she had her cutlasses – she also wished her magic was as strong as when she was around Khaln. But she only had her wits and her stone knife.

"C'mere, bitch," the man on her right said as he grabbed her wrist – he was likely accustomed to fearful women being cowered by his words. Instead, she stepped into the man's reach and smashed her elbow into his jaw with a vertical strike. As his head snapped back, Tayne gabbed opposite sides of his collar and pivoted while pulling her arms over her shoulder, throwing the stunned brigand to the ground. 

Another of the brigands grabbed her chin from behind and yanked her back – Tayne seized the momentum and performed a back flip while within her assailant's guard. When her head pointed at the ground, her knees smashed into the brigand's face, shattering his jaw and cheekbone. He crashed to the ground and she completed her flip with a foot on each side of the brigand's head.

In her mind, Tayne replayed the scene and she she heard a scrape on the cobblestone, she knew the third brigand was almost upon her – still crouching, she twisted and lashed out with her stone knife. It slashed against the inside of the brigand's thigh deeply enough to make him bleed out. He fell backwards and cried out. Many more footfalls echoed from the alleys surrounding the fountain. Tayne was gratified to know that even without her cutlasses and magic, she could still fight. But she could not overcome whatever numbers were to come pouring from the shadows.

Remembering the general direction of the Hall of Steel, Tayne rushed towards the south part of the city and down shadowy alleys, her ears full of the rustling of a growing mob that followed her. She dashed left and right through gradually narrowing streets she knew would force the mob into a bottleneck she hope would dissuade their pursuit. She was astonished to remember the streets and alleys that were the secret way to reach the Hall of Steel.

When she finally met the end of the winding path, the massive marble doors she expected to find had been replaced by a single, tall, stony wall. Tayne was shocked to see that such a beautiful and massive monument was gone, She banged the wall as voices in the distant night grew louder and closer. The mob, now a moving, single file of estranged and mad individuals, closed on her with a murderous intent. 

Tayne tuned to face her oncoming fate when a hiss escaped the wall she was leaning against and she fell back into an inky darkness. When the first brigands arrived where she was sure to be, they found only empty air and a blood splattered, stony wall.  

Tayne was pressed against the translucent barrier that separated her her from the murderous mob. As the mob battered and spat at the wall, she quietly watched until they mob grew tired and finally retreated back in a single file till the last man disappeared. Once assured she was alone, Tayne peered into the darkness – she could perceive the lightest hint of mint, sage, pepper and other spices.

Tayne proceeded cautiously, although the scents tugged at her hunger with a desperate tenacity. Were the smells an illusion she wondered, or perhaps a trap?

Her fears were suddenly lifted when her outstretched arms touched a cool but solid surface, Her fingers traced ancient engravings and the solid marble gates of the fabled Hall of Steel glowed with white light. Bailla'Tayne Jeva felt her eyes well up with tears at the sight of the entrance to the place she called home. She spoke the old invocation and the marble gates cracked open and the splendor of the Hall of Steel was revealed to her longing gaze. 

Bailla'Tayne Jeva crossed the threshold of the Hall of Steel and was instantly surrounded by the walls she held so dear. Each wall was braced by curving columns of gray steel that reached high. Columns of white and black marble marked the corners of the Hall as well as the downward sloping staircases that lead to the sleeping areas. The floor was made of polished cherry wood and there was a light well at the top center of the hall that allowed sunlight or moonlight to illuminate the great room. Below the well and at the center of the room was the statue of the goddess Asteytis. She had the form of a coiled snake with the eyes of a woman and fangs made of sharp steel. Asteytis was the mother of all steel and the patron of justice and vengeance.

The statue was surrounded by a richly decorated table covered with bowls of fruits and vegetables and plates of cured and salted meats. Bailla'Tayne Jeva dropped her stone knife and walked tentatively towards the buffet, fighting her instinctual drive to dive into the spoils and assuage her growing hunger. 

But the scents of the meats were overwhelming and she grabbed at the salted pork and bit gleefully into the meat. Its taste was like bliss and she grabbed at the fruits and found a cup of honey wine to wash her mouthfuls down. Bailla'Tayne Jeva remembered how such meal awaited the Blade Brides when they returned from battle, bruised and bleeding but heartened by glory. 

Yet, there was no glory now. Bailla'Tayne Jeva knew her sisters were dead – as was her family. 

She screamed and threw the empty cup of honey wine and saw it smash against the statue of Asteytis.

"Damn the Gods!" Bailla'Tayne Jeva screamed at the night. "Why did you bring me back to a world full of nothing!" She fell to her knees before the table, knocking over a jug of wine and a plate of fruit. 

"If the world is empty, child," Bailla'Tayne Jeva heard all around her. "Then, you must fill it."  

IV

The snake statue of Asteytis cracked and shook – Bailla'Tayne Jeva jumped to her feet and spun to face the crumbling monument. As pieces fell away, they revealed the form of a woman: she was tall, with tan skin and long, black hair. Her limbs were examples of toned perfection while her hips flared suggestively and her breasts, small but firm, ported pointed nipples. The high cheekbones and sensual lips and straight nose hinted to a regal ancestry, but her eyes were the same as the those of the snake statue.

"Asteytis?" Bailla'Tayne Jeva whispered before bowing to her Goddess. The avatar of the goddess motioned and the section of table between her and Bailla'Tayne melted away. Bailla'Tayne stood silent, awestruck at the force that emanated from the avatar. 

"Bailla'Tayne Jeva – daughter of Bailla'Tayne Tevam and Lady Javosis. Once a mage maiden, but the depth of your mana was insufficient. Once a Blade Bride, but lost when the dream eaters were exiled to the Umbraland. Now, you stand a refugee before your goddess."

Bailla'Tayne Jeva felt her body tingle and watched as her jute garment fell away like dust and the caked blood and crusty dirt that covered her face and limbs lifted from her soft skin. Bailla'Tayne Jeva gasped as her head seemed to catch fire and she felt an increasing weight upon her head. She grabbed a silver platter off the table, pushed away the fruit it bore and looked at her reflection. Her long, amber hair grew down past her neck and down to her lower back.

"There," the avatar of Asteytis said. "You have reclaimed your former beauty." The avatar approached Bailla'Tayne and caressed her cheek and leaned in closed and lightly pressed her lips to the Blade Bride's. 

"You are needed, Bailla'Tayne," Asteytis said as she kissed the Blade Bride's cheeks. "The world teeters on the brink of darkness." 

Bailla'Tayne Jeva gasped when Asteytis put a fiery hand on her firm breast and slipped her tongue to meet the Blade Bride's. Asteytis gently coaxed Bailla'Tayne to the floor where she lay her body atop her apostle's. Bailla'Tayne was pleasantly reminded how the feeling of feminine flesh on flesh was different from when she fucked Khaln. Where his flesh was hard and his desire relentless, a woman's touch was delicate and patient, seeking to please and be pleased in due time.

But this woman, Bailla'Tayne realized, was a goddess – her desires were beyond what an acolyte like her could understand. Yet, Asteytis's desire was clear from the way she pressed her breasts to Bailla'Tayne's, their hard nipples were like dueling diamond tips that ignited a pressing desire in Bailla'Tayne's loins. The Blade Bride sighed as goosebumps rippled across her skin when Asteytis licked the soft area at the base of her neck. The avatar's hand slid between their pressed bodies and her slender fingers worked across Bailla'Tayne's sex. The Blade Bride trembled as Asteytis kissed her nipples and squeezed her pert breasts as she worked her way down to Bailla'Tayne's pussy. 

The avatar of the goddess Asteytis parted Bailla'Tayne's legs and lavished an agile tongue across the Blade Bride's sex – Bailla'Tayne sighed and squirmed and huffed with each feathery contact between her pussy lips and the goddess's lissome lips and nimble tongue. When Asteytis flicked her tongue around and across the Blade Bride's clit, Bailla'Tayne moaned and pressed her thighs against her goddess's head while her pussy dripped across the avatar's chin. Asteytis swallowed Bailla'Tayne's fluids and then rose to her knees to look down upon her acolyte. Bailla'Tayne gazed into her goddess's glowing eyes and pushed herself away before turning her body around so she could position herself beneath Asteytis's divine pussy.

Blessed liquids dribbled down the avatar's inner thighs and Bailla'Tayne lapped at them greedily as the avatar of the goddess Asteytis lowered herself upon her acolyte's body – the two women rolled on the floor as their mouths explored the inner folds of one another's pussies.

Asteytis moaned as Bailla'Tayne encircled the avatar's clit with an agile tongue – the Blade Bride was proud that she could bring pleasure the her goddess. Asteytis trembled as her body was ravaged by an orgasm that shook the foundations of the Hall of Steel – yet she did not release the Blade Bride. Bailla'Tayne was enveloped in a growing bliss as the goddess made flesh sucked on her clit and savagely slipped a finger in and out of her pussy. 

Acolyte and goddess held each other's thighs as they settled on their sides, their faces pressed to their mutual sexes and their mouths and lips moving in a rhythm of pleasure. The flesh of the avatar of Asteytis crackled with sensual energy that plunged into Bailla'Tayne's skin as she felt her pussy quiver and her whole open up to receive the goddess. 

"My Goddess! My Goddess!" Bailla'Tayne moaned as her pussy gushed her orgasm like a burst damn – her fluids spread across her thighs and the avatar sucked the tangy juice with ravenous appetite only divinity could demonstrate. Asteytis pressed her finger to Bailla'Tayne's clit and sucked on her pussy lips and the Blade Bride replaced her moans with screams of pleasure as her trembling cunt unleashed a river of liquid the avatar swallowed with glee. 

As her limbs ceased to shake, Bailla'Tayne began to slide her stiff tongue into the goddess's pussy, finding the regions inside that she knew made a mortal woman squirm – she was happy to find the same effect in the avatar of the goddess Asteytis. They had rolled such a way that Bailla'Tayne was on her back and she licked and kissed the avatar's pussy – the goddess made flesh arched her back and moaned in a forgotten language as she came, making the floor and walls of the Hall of Steel ripple in sympathy with the ripples of bliss that roamed her divine flesh. 

When the avatar quieted from her explosion of bliss, she moved from the Blade Bride and sat down facing her. Asteytis grabbed Bailla'Tayne's ankles and dragged her over so that the Blade Bride could wrap her legs around the goddess – Asteytis supported her buttocks with her strong hands and used her fingers to tease Bailla'Tayne's dripping, excited pussy.

"Your sisters live through me, Bailla'Tayne Jeva," the avatar of Asteytis whispered. Bailla'Tayne hugged the goddess made flesh tightly but she opened her eyes and saw the phantoms of her long dead sisters. They embraced each other as they peered at the acolyte and the avatar – rays of eldritch light connected them all.

"And through you, they will act to end the menace of The Call of Skaelor," the avatar said as she kissed Bailla'Tayne. "Find the one called Khaln – go to him and together you will rekindle the sparks of magic. The fire will spread across all living souls and the The Call will crumble and the gods will arise anew."

"I've felt it with him," Bailla'Tayne said as she ground her pussy on the avatar's hand. "More magic than I ever felt before."

"Yes," Asteytis said while she slid the Blade Bride off her lap and she went to her feet."Tell me of it."

Bailla'Tayne obeyed and laid down on her back and reached between her legs, fondling her pussy at the thought of Khaln.

"It's like laying with an inferno," Bailla'Tayne whispered, her clit between her fingers while her pelvis jerked. "When he fucks me, its like being filled with a blinding light that burns clarity into me."

Bailla'Tayne slid a finger into her juicy pussy and made small circular motions in her cunt and whispered between moans: "Each thrust is like a jolt of power leaving me breathless and wanting more." Fingers found her erect nipples and she pinched them hard. "He is almost be a primal force ... a god!"

Within moments of speaking those words, Bailla'Tayne Jeva lost all perception and drowned herself in the bliss of her ignited pussy as her fingers moved in an out of her and across her clit in a attempt to capture Khaln's ferocity as a lover and she came with a deafening moan and a river of juices from her pussy.

Asteytis watched Bailla'Tayne Jeva descend from her orgasm and when she was still, she offered her hand to help the Blade Bride to her feet. "Arm yourself for there are those who would keep you from him."

Bailla'Tayne obeyed her goddess and examined the weapons lining the walls. She sought a pair of cutlasses as she once possessed but none were there – but on the walls of the Hall of Steel, she found a lightweight short spear. Its shaft was of durable dark wood and the tip was of glowing bronze with black reflections. Its edges were razor sharp and deadly. She also found a short sword that would be the perfect sidearm to complement the spear. The bronze blade was the length of her arm and its hilt was carved of gray bone covered in simple, black leather. The Blade Bride also donned a linen under dress and wore an new armored skirt to which she attached an armored breast plate that formed a V in her back and crossed in the front , just beneath her pert breasts.. It was made of small steel plates woven with flexible leather bands. The spaces on her sides were laced with chainmail and leather. And finally, she wore a helmet with a large base to protect the back of her neck and a grille in the front to cover her eyes and nose. It was adorned with ornate wings of steel and the sides and a chevron of horse hair on the top. 

"You are now as beautiful as you are powerful and deadly," the avatar of Asteytis said. She then pointed towards the marble gates of the Hall of Steel – the Blade Bride Bailla'Tayne Jeva bowed in deference to the avatar of her Goddess Asteytis and then walked though the gates, ready to vanquish any who stood between her and the man named Khaln.

Had Bailla'Tayne Jeva looked back, she would have seen only the trampled remains of her beloved Hall of Steel. In the place of the avatar of Asteytis stood a slender, feminine figure dressed in a long gray cloak that swayed over the ruins of the Hall of Steel.

V

"I am Slodovor Ven Tivar," the old soldier said as Khaln dressed in an old but well maintained, long sleeved, chain mail shirt covered with a dark, leather cuirass, pants and leather boots.

"I was there when the Vanguard Draconis staged the ceremony that ultimately lead to your birth," Slodovor added as Khaln faced him. The Qoazti archer Ziel-Tan eyed Khaln wearily as he found a decanter and poured some collected rain water.

"You said you might be my grandfather – you didn't participate in this... Ceremony?" Khaln asked, his voice acrid. 

"Not directly – it was my son Fedovor and two others who committed the acts. I ... collected the selected participants."

Khaln's jaw clenched when he imagined his mother Preya being dragged off and be fed to some scoundrels and used as a plaything in the name of some obscure order. Ziel-Tan and the other women rested the hands on their fighting axes as bursts of red light pulsed beneath Khaln's skin. 

"But you watched when they put their hands on her," Khaln hissed. 

Sensing his desire and seeing the red pulses of light, Slodovor sighed. "Killing me would not change the past – the ceremony was necessary. Your mother had the bloodline in her." Slodovor looked away from the Khaln's heavy gaze. "We were not good men."

"That runs in the family," Khaln whispered when he found a chair and let himself drop in it. The old soldier grabbed a stool and pulled it close. The women stood to the outskirts, surrounding them.

"The Vanguard had seen the extinction of magic coming long before the outbreak of the Arcane Ailment. We could not stop it – it wasn't meant to be stopped."

"So we collected the archives since the time of the Rise of Man, after the Sentient Void was filled by the war of the foreign gods and the seeding of magic. It took generations for the Vanguard to track the lineages of the first carriers of magic.

"Three male heirs and three female heirs were needed. But we didn't know which bloodlines would create the male carrier of the spark."

Khaln stood looked at Ziel-Tan and the other warrior women. "I was the only successful attempt – but not the first." 




Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 03



"It took years of trial and error," Slodovor said as he slowly stood and walked around and surveyed Khaln with a critical eye. Khaln noticed the old man's limp and then the tremor in his wrinkled hands. Despite Slodovor's tall stature and broad shoulders, Khaln saw the frailness and the wariness of the old warrior. 

"You weren't sure you'd see the success of your ceremony in your lifetime," Khaln said, following Slodovor with a stony gaze.

"All the Vanguard Draconis perished during the siege – all except me and their daughters. Past injuries prevented me from joining the battle, so I became the caretaker of the prophecy of the Pneuma Dracona and its brood. But now you're here – the living spark of magic that will rekindle the great Dragon!"

"A day will come when magic will die; the Void will forget and the Gods will cry; but from the womb of woman and the seed of man the spark will arise; and the fire will soon burn behind the dragon's eyes!" The old warrior and the daughters of the Vanguard recited the prophecy two more times with conviction and purpose while Khaln just watched them. He noticed that Ziel-Tan had not spoken and that she matched his gaze. 

"You either don't believe in this so-called prophecy, or you do, but I turned out to be a disappointment," Khaln said as he approached Ziel-Tan. The one-eyed archer appraised him, hey lovely eye scanning him from head to toe.

"I'm reserving judgment," Ziel-Tan said as she recalled his hanging body from the ceiling. He had been stripped naked and she had been fascinated by his scars and the red pools of light beneath his skin. She had even envied Onia when he had manhandled her while escaping his chains.

"You're not one of the daughters of the order, are you?" Khaln realized.

Ziel-Tan parted her thick lips into a sly smile. "There were many prophecies spoken before the oracles were silenced."

@@@@@

Khaln stared up at the high ceiling of the warehouse where the survivor of the Vanguard Draconis and their daughters housed themselves away from the spying gaze of the Call of Skaelor. They skittered across the ruin streets of the once beautiful city cloaked in the remnant garbs of Scything Souls. They had taken him in and fed him and revealed to him that even now, the identity of his father and his very purpose were a mystery despite what Slodovor Ven Tivar would have him believe. And Ziel-Tan – her words of oracles told him she had her own agenda. He was growing annoyed at being the subject of other's agendas. 

Bailla'Tayne Jeva – Tayne – was different. She was from a time when the world was full of magic so she had not known the Arcane Ailment or the war with the Call of Skaelor. In their time together, he had not felt that she had any motive beyond surviving in this era. He smiled sadly at the thought that their separation – and her hopeful survival – was best for her. Staying too long with him tended to be hazardous to one's health. He hoped that the sight of the city she so loved was not devastating to her – he missed her accent.

But what he did not miss was the moving shadows that neared him – he was nude beneath the blankets and he felt a pair of hands slide beneath them and up his legs and another pair touch his shoulders and slide down his chest.

He tensed and with sudden, snake like swiftness, Khaln had trapped one intruder by locking his legs around their upper body and by pinning the other to his chest with his powerful arms. His prisoners squirmed and squealed but Khaln's hold was steadfast, all the while the general softness of skin he felt told him he clutched women. 

"Khaln," a softly muffled voice emanated from the woman he held close to his chest. "Please, its Onia and Ziel-Tan."

"What the hell are you doing?" He demanded as he loosened his grip on the women – but despite his irritation at their presence, the veins just beneath his skin glowed with an eerie scarlet luminescence. Even his eyes glowed with a red hue. 

Ziel-Tan moved so that she rested next to him while Onia slid from his leg lock and was perpendicular to him, her busty upper body resting on his thighs. 

"I told you the oracles had spoken many prophecies," Ziel-Tan whispered in his ear as she kissed him. Beneath the red glow emanating from his body, Ziel-Tan's harsh, athletic form was softened and the flare of her hips he had noticed earlier was enhanced. But her bosom was almost flat but for her large aureole and long, hard nipples. 

"I just want to fuck the first man who ever disarmed me," Onia whispered as she took his growing cock in her small, calloused hand. His manhood glowed like a enchanted root as it disappeared into Onia's velvety lipped mouth. Onia hummed as she consumed Khaln's hardening cock, her tongue swirling around the tip before sliding down the sides of the shaft, coating it with a thin layer of saliva.

While Onia lathered Khaln's cock, he had slid a knee between Ziel-Tan's legs until the top of his thigh found the moist warm spot of her pussy. Ziel-Tan kissed him deeply and gripped his long, stone gray hair while she started to grind her pussy against his muscled thigh. 

"Ooohhh ..." Ziel-Tan moaned as her clit rubbed against the prickly hairs of Khaln's thigh – he reached across her body and grabbed a handful of her curvy ass. His middle finger found the crevice of her ass and then touched the coiled muscles of her sphincter. Ziel-Tan stiffened at that unexpected touch but Khaln felt her smile through her kiss – her tongue seemed to dig deeper into his mouth, an emulation of what might happen to her ass later on.

Onia had moved between his thighs and reached out to find Ziel-Tan's pussy, adding a few fingers to caress her companion's sex while Ziel-Tan leaked her juices across Khaln's thigh. Khaln closed his eyes as he felt his cock be encased by Onia's wanton mouth – she had added her hand to his shaft and expertly stroked it as she complemented her sucking. She took her fingers away from Ziel-Tan's sex and cupped Khaln's testicles, squeezing them firmly when her mouth reached the apex of her upward movement. 

Khaln's breathing turned into gasps when Ziel-Tan pushed herself from his thigh and joined her lips to Onia's and honored his manhood with a ballet of swirling tongues and voracious kisses. Khaln allowed himself to succumb to the pleasure these women were giving him – such relentless exercises in passion were something he had long surrendered to the past since the final encounter with his mother. Even the times he had spent with Tayne were tinged with restraint. He raised himself off the floor and grabbed Onia's waist and pulled her lower half towards his mouth – she was resting across his body and she began to shift between kissing Ziel-Tan and kissing his stone hard cock. 

"Beautiful," he whispered as Onia's meaty pussy lips were illuminated by the red glow of his skin.

"Pleeeeaaaase," Onia pleaded as she wiggled her hips. Khaln needed no further incentive and his mouth found the exotic warrior woman's pussy. He hugged her hips while his tongue explored the edges of her cunt lips, each moist contact made Onia squirm. When he teased her clit by twirling his tongue around its base, Onia trembled and sought to smother him with her sex. 

Ziel-Tan relinquished Khaln's cock and reached between her legs to ensure that her pussy was sufficiently moist, taking the sample of her juice and covering his manhood. Onia sat back on her knees and watched as Ziel-Tan straddled Khaln's lap and squatted down until his cock slid into the velvety folds of her awaiting pussy. Ziel-Tan moaned as Khaln's thick cock spread her tight cunt, the exchange of warmth and lust made them both grunt like beasts. He made his beastly sounds as he suckled and licked Onia's pussy – she responded by grinding her sex against his chin while watching Ziel-Tan lean back from her squatting position. The one eyed archer placed her hands behind her back and supported herself on Khaln's knees while she rocked her pelvis – Khaln grunted as his cock was forced in a somewhat unnatural angle as it disappeared in an out of Ziel-Tan's moist pussy. Onia reached out and touched Ziel-Tan's clit, making the archer shiver and her pussy quiver around Khaln's manhood. 

Khaln was bathed in the feeling of Ziel-Tan's tight pussy strangling his cock, the heat from her sex blazing through his shaft and seemingly making the flashes of light beneath his skin glow all the more intensely. He was beginning to feel that he might have found where he belonged: his life entwined with these women as the prepared for whatever destiny was ahead of him. He belonged.

"Ziel," Onia whispered huskily. "Let me have some of his cock." Ziel-Tan reluctantly dismounted Khaln's soaked erection and they all shifted position, Onia laid flat on her stomach and folder her legs at her knees and reached behind her back and spread the cheeks of her ass; Ziel-Tan lead Khaln to straddle Onia's ass and she then spat in her hand, using her saliva to add to the fluids she had left on his cock.

Khaln gazed down at Onia's puckered asshole and said, "This is new to me."

Ziel-Tan smiled before sucking on Khaln's middle-finger and then placing it on Onia's anus. Onia squealed when Khaln pressed slowly against the tightly wound up muscle – it opened ever slightly under his pressure. Ziel-Tan had reached into the shadows and retrieved a long rough, wooden phallus that she spat on to make it wet and slippery. Onia cooed when Ziel-Tan showed her the phallus just as Khaln had sank his entire finger into the warrior woman's ass.

"Yes," Onia hissed. "I want the two of you!"

Khaln gazed hungrily as Ziel-Tan slid close to Onia and teased her pussy by rubbing the slit with the tip of the phallus before slowly sliding it into Onia's quivering cave. Khaln had pulled his finger from Onia's sphincter and replaced it with the bulbous tip of his cock. 

"Gnnnfff," Onia mumbled as she felt her ass split apart under the force of Khaln's entry – Ziel-Tan paused from teasing Onia's cunt and let a thick strand of saliva drip from her open mouth an onto the junction of his cock and Onia's anus.

Ziel-Tan went back to her original purpose and pushed the hard phallus into Onia's cunt while Khaln probed her ass more deeply with his manhood. Onia felt the sweet intrusion of his cock ignite the thousands of embers of reluctant pleasure that lined her ass – the dichotomy of bliss and discomfort rippled through her limbs and into the depths of her mind, shading her senses with orgasmic reveries. Khaln was intoxicated by the elegant sway of Onia's hips as he established a rhythm of sliding in and out of her ass – the tightness of her orifice felt like it was stripping the skin from his manhood, drowning him in a sense of bliss that rose as a natural evolution of the pleasure he felt fucking a woman's pussy.

Ziel-Tan matched Khaln's rhythm, the phallus she held now sliding easily between Onia's pussy lips and deep towards her womb. She also watched Khaln – his body was a disturbing sight of subdued pools of red light while the web of veins, just beneath his skin, glowed with scarlet brilliance as blood rushed to his every muscle while under the influence of his bliss. She reached between her thighs and found the folds of her pussy, slipping two fingers into sex as she longed for his cock to return to her cunt.

But as her eyes grew heavy with the intoxication of pleasure, Ziel-Tan was granted a form of revelation – her beautiful right eye saw a recognizable pattern draw itself in red across Khaln's skin. She saw waterways and the web of interconnecting byways that scattered across the continent. She also saw, in the scars littering his back from his battle with the dream eaters, the great eye of the eternal storm that devoured any who ventured deep into the western sea to find the Isles of Seven Thunders. He truly was the one she had been sent to find. 

Khaln was blind to Ziel-Tan's realization as he was drunk on the feeling of his cock invading and occupying more and more space in Onia's ass. Onia was moaning as her body was racked by competing sources of orgasm – Khaln's balls slapped against Onia's buttocks as his pace quickened and his manhood began to pulse as his orgasm neared it eruption. Onia had reached between her thighs and was furiously rubbing her clit while Ziel-Tan was still staring at the markings on Khaln's flesh while mechanically pumping Onia's pussy to the point of ecstasy.

"Ahh YESS!" Onia screamed without reserve as her pussy gushed with its tangy fluids and her ass seemed to turn into a fiery flower that consumed her. Her sphincter contracted around Khaln's bulging manhood and its embrace pulled him beyond his point of restraint.

"DAMN YOU!" Khaln suddenly screamed as he extracted himself from Onia's tightening asshole just as his cock erupted – some of his seed remained in Onia's ass while the rest spurted from his cock and sprayed across Onia's back. Ziel-Tan released the phallus she used to pleasure Onia and found herself opening her mouth as Khaln stood above them, his cock glowing with utmost intensity and even his come raining upon them. His seed glowed like lava as it struck Ziel-Tan's breasts and face and she rubbed it across her skin, licking her fingers clean of the clingy remnants. Ziel-Tan the reached out and took Khaln's cock in her hand and shoved it down her throat so that what ever was left leaking of his come would go down her throat. 

Once spent, Khaln fell back and rested on the cool floor of the warehouse. When his breathing steadied and his skin gradually stopped glowing red, he rested himself on his elbows – he could barely make out the silhouettes of his lovers until the warehouse was awash in the light of dozens of torches. 

Slodovor Ven Tivar stood over a confused Khaln, flanked by the other warrior daughters of the Vanguard Draconis. Khaln saw that the aged warrior was dressed in a full mail shirt beneath a leather cuirass stitched with silver plates bearing the crest of the Vanguard Draconis – he held his sword and his buckler at the ready. The warrior women had all drawn their fighting axes and daggers.

"The revelation is complete," Slodovor said. "The path is clear. Onia?"

Khaln had already begun to return to his feet when Onia sprang from her seated position facing him – she had placed her palms on the ground and pushed while simultaneously kicking out with her legs. Still groggy from his orgasm, Khaln could do nothing as Onia's heel connected with the tip of his chin, knocking him backwards and he struck the ground unconscious.

"Ziel-Tan, Onia – prepare him for travel," Slodovor ordered. "Those of you who noted the marking on his skin, make a single chart. It has to be precise as there can only be one corridor across the Ardent sea and through the Ever Storm."

Ziel-Tan bit her lower lip and dressed while Onia did the same. Ziel-Tan would have to act soon if her mission was to be successful: she had to secret the pathfinder and keeper of the spark back the catacombs at Melit'Zay so the last living seeded wizard might save them all with the help of this wounded warrior. 

As Onia threw a bucket of water on an unconscious Khaln as a mean of washing the scent of their love making away, Ziel-Tan secretly pitied him. What a burden it must be to be the fulcrum of so many prophetic forces.

VI

Bailla'Tayne Jeva strolled the dark streets of Videsh'Achar with confidence born of her faith renewed in her purpose and her goddess. She paused and looked to the night skies and at the two moons that kept a silent vigil – they knew that when she found Khaln and brought him back to the Hall of Steel, she would bed him again and again and her magic would grow more powerful and they would remake the world the way it was supposed to be: the way she remembered it. She imagined the rebuilt walls of the city, its crystal structures reborn and covered in even more intricate decors than she had ever dreamed of.

But even as she dreamed of renewed beauty, Bailla'Tayne Jeva turned a blind eye to the squalor and destruction the siege by the Call of Skaelor had created. In the alleys she passed, the tattered survivors fought for food and water or for shelter from the the forces of the Call that sometimes swept down and took them in the night. 

But when Bailla'Tayne Jeva looked upon them, she saw people who were suffering a crisis of faith – a faith to be renewed when the will of Asteytis was fulfilled. The nightmare of the Call of Skaelor would be cast aside. 

Those who saw her, however, did not see the powerful Blade Bride adorned in beautiful armor and a majestic helmet – they saw a madwoman covered in bits of flesh and rusted tin and bones. But the short spear she wielded as well as the short sword at her side, those were real and deadly enough.

Bailla'Tayne Jeva felt a sudden tug yank her to the West and she found herself looking out upon the shore below the cliffs that towered over the harbor where ships from every island kingdom docked in order to ply their wares at one time or another. Now, the large storage silos and warehouses stood like empty monuments to a dying past. 

But one caught her eye – from its roof, Bailla'Tayne Jeva witnessed a convergence of layers of leylines. Those were the lines of ethereal forces that served as the foundations of magic, and she could only see them with this clarity when she was close to Khaln. And she had only seen such a level of leyline activity when she had fucked the warrior – her heart sank a bit at the thought of him being in another woman's embrace.

Yet, she managed to push jealousy aside and she threw herself towards the winding path down the cliffs that lead to the harbor – above her, a flight of Quieting Angels carrying Scything Souls circled her diligently.

@@@@@ 

For the second time this same day, Khaln found himself bound in shackles and being dragged to an unknown location – but he soon understood he was being dragged to a ragged sailing ship with resting sails. Two of the daughters of the Vanguard carried him with little difficulty while he concentrated on his situation: his hands were shackled behind his back but he was covered in a dark cloak. The same cloaks that hid them from the Call of Skaelor: cloaks from the same fabric as the bodies of the Scything Souls. It would be easy to throw the cloak off and have the Quieting Angels fall upon them all but shackled the way he was, he would simply be replacing one gaoler for another.

Khaln had felt that he might have an ally – since Tayne's disappearance, the one eyed Qoazti archer Ziel-Tan had shown an interest in him less fanatical than that Slodovor and his followers. And even though she had participated in the threesome from earlier that night, the look he had seen in her eyes was more concern than insane lust.

Khaln raised his head slightly and gazed out from below the hood of his imposed cloak – Slodovor Ven Tivar had taken point of this little troop and he was flanked by Onia and another warrior woman. Two guided him and another two were likely behind him. Ziel-Tan closed their caravan, her bow better suited for a long range defense against anything before them or behind them. 

As they closed on the docks, Khaln calculated his chances of throwing himself forward and rolling on the ground and back to his feet while being able to tackle Slodovor and with some luck the old soldier would draw his sword and buckler and Khaln might have a chance of grabbing the weapon, sending them both into the water.

But even as Khaln was gauging his chances, he heard a shriek from the rear – as he turned, Ziel-Tan was already knocking her second arrow as a haphazardly clad figure fell upon them.

@@@@@

Bailla'Tayne Jeva was closing upon the group approaching the harbor when she saw a flare in the leylines surrounding one of the figures – it had to be Khaln. Fearing that the danger he was already in was about to take turn for the worse, Bailla'Tayne Jeva launched herself from the descending path and down the side of the cliff that towered above the harbor.




Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 03



Bailla'Tayne Jeva fell silently but before she could touch the ground, one of her quarries had spun and

revealed a bow and had nocked and loosed a deadly arrow – but the archer's aim faltered as the arrow passed Bailla'Tayne Jeva's head and disappeared into the shadowy night. But as Bailla'Tayne Jeva silently touched the ground, a growing shriek erupted from the darkness and a writhing piece of eldritch black fabric fell to the ground next to her. Bailla'Tayne Jeva glanced at it and wondered briefly why it seemed to be bleeding as she sprinted towards Khaln and his captors. 

The archer had already knocked another arrow just as Bailla'Tayne Jeva crashed into them, her short spear at the ready. 

@@@@@

Ziel-Tan had caught Khaln glancing at strategic points and understood that the scarred but glowing warrior was about to make an attempt to escape and when his eyes met hers, they pleaded for her assistance, but it was too soon. 

Yet, the sound of rocks tumbling down the side of the cliffs caught Ziel-Tan's attention and made Khaln's attempt moot; the Qoazti archer glanced towards the sound of falling stones and saw two things: a silhouette jumping off the high cliffs above the harbor and a dozen ghostly shadows climbing down the mountain. Those, Ziel-Tan knew, were Scything Souls – foot soldiers of the Call of Skaelor. With near inhuman speed, Ziel-Tan had nocked and arrow in her powerful bow and shot it at a Scything Soul. The arrow buried itself where the heart of the creature reposed – it was said that Scything Souls started as pieces of the darkness of the Void that was spread onto the ground. The Matron Tenebrae would lead a man or a woman onto the center of the fabric and offer them a knife and ask if they would answer the Call of Skaelor. If the answer was yes, the chosen would dig the knife into their own chest and carve out their heart. Where the typically still beating and bloody organ fell on the fabric was were the Scything Soul would find its center and it would engulf the corpse from there. The knife would then splinter to better turn into the intricate blades the Soul would use as claws or teeth.

Before Ziel-Tan could nock a second arrow, the haphazardly armored figure had crashed into her and Ziel-Tan had to dodge the deadly, bronze-tipped short spear. The Qoazti archer tried to knock the tip of the spear aside but the armored figure, moving with exquisite grace, used the momentum of the diverted spear to accelerate into a pivot and flow into a spin kick where her heel connected with Ziel-Tan's shoulder, knocking the archer aside and numbing her arm.

Khaln had turned to witness the fight and saw Ziel-Tan fall to the ground while trying vainly to nock a second arrow while a woman wearing a bizarre armor was set to collide with him. She could not be of the Call of Skaelor as she could see them beneath their cloaks – he reasoned that was why the Scything Souls stayed back instead of swarming where their comrade had fallen. He upturned his nostrils in disgust at the thought that people would willingly serve the Call of Skaelor. Yet, he could not forget that the answers he had sought in the devastated city of Videsh'Achar had simply turned into another set of lies designed to manipulate him. 

Khaln shook himself loose from the weakened grip of the warrior women holding him and he spun to his right, smashing his left shoulder into a daughter of the vanguard as she rushed to face the attacking armored woman – she lost her balance but regained it swiftly and pushed Khaln forward toward Slodovor and Onia. 

"Get him to the boat now!" Slodovor screamed as Onia, her strength belittling her small stature, struck Khaln in the stomach and shoved him onto the dock. 

@@@@@

Bailla'Tayne Jeva pressed forward as Khaln was moving away from her even though he had tried to stop one of these fierce warriors from counter-attacking. But the others had managed to form a line between her and Khaln. They were armed with fighting axes and daggers – Bailla'Tayne Jeva thought this would be fun.

Bailla'Tayne Jeva ducked as one of the axes aimed for her head and swept an arc just above the ground with her short spear, toppling her attacker. Two other of the warriors lept over her spear while the other jumped back. The archer was scrambling to her feet and readying another arrow. Bailla'Tayne Jeva blocked the arc of her spear by switching her grip and bracing the shaft with her forearm before flipping the shaft over so the tip pointed towards the ground – she drove the bronze spear into the mid section of the warrior woman she had toppled. The spear tore through the warrior's stomach and when Bailla'Tayne Jeva yanked it out, blood shot upwards and the woman warrior's entrails spilled onto the dirt.

Bailla'Tayne Jeva then pushed from her crouching position and thrust towards the closest target but the warrior woman used the hook made by the beard of her ax and caught and deflected the deadly spear tip from reaching her face by stepping her right foot back, which twisted her body away from the weapon and she lashed out with a precise kick with her left leg to Bailla'Tayne Jeva's hand that held the base of the spear. The weapon flew from the blade Brides weakened grip and the cloaked warrior woman pressed her attack, her fighting ax slashing diagonally from left to right, then right to left as Bailla'Tayne scrambled backwards, narrowly side stepping the deadly ax. As she moved this way, the cloak from the warrior woman fell and her outlandish hair and pierced features became apparent to Bailla'Tayne Jeva for the first time. 

While a second warrior woman moved to flank Bailla'Tayne Jeva, the Blade Bride saw an opening when her defrocked attacker became tangled in the fallen cloak – Bailla'Tayne caught the outside wrist of the warrior's ax hand and, infused with the magic learned from the Blade Brides, Bailla'Tayne Jeva spun in mid air. As her body was suddenly parallel to the ground, Bailla'Tayne hit the flanking warrior woman's jaw with her heels while the arm she used as an anchor for her attack twisted in the first warrior woman's shoulder socket. When Bailla'Tayne Jeva touched the ground she was behind her first attacker who was screaming agony from her destroyed articulation – Bailla'Tayne Jeva opened her left hand and her bronze spear flew off the ground and back into her hand where she leisurely tossed it at the stunned attacker who had tried to flank her. The spear buried itself in the warrior woman's throat and she expired, blood dribbling from her mouth and from the large gash the spear had left. Without hesitation, Bailla'Tayne Jeva drew her bronze short sword and drove it through the back and out the chest of her first assailant, piercing her heart and ending her agony.

Bailla'Tayne Jeva recalled her blood drenched spear and sheathed her short sword while facing the last of her ax wielding attackers. This woman warrior was the tallest of the four and she held both her ax and her dagger – Jeva smiled from beneath her helmet and charged her as two more arrows from the incompetent archer flew past her.

@@@@@

Ziel-Tan watched in dread fascination as the oddly armored stranger massacred the daughters of the Vanguard Draconis with disconcerting facility – the daughters had been well trained but this stranger was moving with a grace and fluidity the Qoazti archer had never witnessed. But that did not deter Ziel-Tan from also noticing the Scything Souls had perked when of her fallen allies had lost her cloak. Once she was exposed, the foot soldiers of the Call of Skaelor had gained a fix on their escaping troop. Ziel-Tan unleashed two more arrows from her hiding place beneath the piece of fabric taken from the remains of a Scything Soul – the arrows flew around the armored stranger and found the hearts of the Scything Souls with the flawless accuracy Ziel-Tan had gained after her commensuration ceremony as a master archer. It had been a painful ceremony where she heated the tip of the first arrow she had ever loosed and heated it to a burning red. Then, after invoking the name and the guidance of the god Tiengal the Blind, she had plunged the blazing arrow head into her left eye and she thus shared in the god's divine sight.

Ziel-Tan glanced over her shoulder and saw Onia punch Khaln in the stomach, doubling him over and then shoving him hastily across the dock and aboard the ancient troller she had commandeered as her contribution and acceptance within the daughters of the Vanguard. 

Ziel-Tan looked back at the two fighting women – the armored stranger was thrusting with deadly accuracy while the daughter of the Vanguard was constantly on the defensive. The stranger's spear had already cut the daughter of the vanguard in multiple places across her arm and stomach. Ziel-Tan fell another Scything Soul just as the stranger had cut the inner arm of the ax hand of the daughter of the Vanguard, severing the tendons that held the ax. With amazing ease, the armored stranger spun the spear above her head and used the spear tip to slash horizontally across the warrior woman's face, crushing her once elegant cheekbones and reaching the upper brain stem. The warrior woman gargled and fell to her knees, her breath a series of wet, sucking rasps until the stranger stabbed her in the heart.

Ziel-Tan was momentarily stunned at the stranger's prowess until she saw the armored woman turn her attention to her. Ziel-Tan loosed three consecutive arrows towards the stranger as she charged the Qoazti archer – the arrows shattered on the stranger's spear as the figure eight shapes the stranger drew in the air connected infallibly with the projectiles. 

Before Ziel-Tan could nock a fourth arrow, the armored woman was thrusting her spear at the archer's head – Ziel-Tan dropped to one knee and deflected the spear upwards with her bow and then using it while lunging forward and sweeping the stranger's closest leg, unbalancing the stranger for a second, and seizing the opportunity to tackle the poorly armored warrior. 

They crashed to the ground hard and struggled, rolling towards the dock while being stalked by the Scything Souls.

@@@@@

Khaln saw the ramp to board the old fishing troller -- he had to act quickly. His step faltered and the warrior woman Onia that had made frenetic love to him a mere hours ago shoved him violently. But he had anticipated her gesture and once she shoved his right shoulder, he pivoted to the left while lunging his right leg backwards. It was an awkward position but it had the desired effect – Onia's momentum propelled her forward and she tripped over Khaln's outstretched leg and she toppled over him and onto the boarding ramp. As she fell, Onia grabbed a handful of the cloak he wore and carried it with her. 

Khaln was now exposed to all the servants of The Call of Skaelor as his body blazed with continuous pulses of scarlet light that gave his body an eerie, incandescent quality. He turned and dashed for the struggling Qoazti archer Ziel-Tan and the poorly armor clad woman she was struggling with. He hoped he was right in thinking the archer had an escape route planned.

But before Khaln took two steps, Slodovor Ven Tivar, clad in chainmail and his eyes a blaze with anger at the failure of Khaln to simply accept his role, crashed into the glowing young warrior. Khaln was knocked back and grunted when he hit the wooden lattes of the dock. 

"Get on that boat or die here!" Slodovor demanded of Khaln. But the unwanted second son had used the distraction and managed to slide the shackles that held his arms behind his back down his legs so that his arms where at least before him and he could mount a semblance of a defense.

"One way or another, your goal was to have me die, old man," Khaln hissed. "At least here, I'll die fighting, and maybe have the pleasure of watching the Scything Souls tear you apart." 

Slodovor grunted and lunged for Khaln's legs, the soldier's arming sword aimed for the glowing warrior's inner thigh – a deep gash there and Khaln would bleed out before the servants of the Call of Skaelor could seize him. 

Khaln kept his eyes on the tip of Slodovor's sword, knowing that any contact with its steel could be lethal as he was nude and the blade would make short work of him. He had managed to step back from Slodovor's initial lunge but the old soldier's agility with the blade was amazing as the blade suddenly sped upwards towards Khaln's neck. He gasped but managed to use the iron shackles to knock the blade aside, hoping to get inside Slodovor's guard but the weary warrior met Khaln with his iron buckler, smashing the small shield into Khaln's stomach.

Khaln had tensed his muscles at the last minute but the blow was enough to make him double over – Slodovor followed-up with a powerful knee aimed at Khaln's face, but he managed to use the shackles to give Slodovor's knee-lift something harder to strike, but the force of the blow was still enough to throw Khaln backwards.

But Slodovor was also injured from hitting the shackles as the blow had strained his knee. Grunting, he reverted to thrusting his blade into Khaln's glowing chest while he recuperated from the knee-lift. However, Khaln had anticipated the old soldier's tactic and, with impeccable timing, caught the sword just below the tip. Hoping the iron chains of the shackles would hold, Khaln diverted the blade up and towards the right while stepping to the left, bringing his body to the outside of Slodovor's thrust. Before the soldier could react, Khaln yanked the blade towards him and crashed the hilt and Slodovor's wrist across his knee, effectively knocking the sword out of the soldier's grip and he tossed the blade to the ground. 

So disarmed, Slodovor swung the buckler with a controlled arc for Khaln's head. Khaln was prepared for the counter attack and weaved below the buckler and caught Slodovor's wrist – Slodovor prudently tucked his arm close to his body to prevent Khaln from trapping the arm, but it also allowed Khaln to get close enough to deliver a powerful horizontal elbow strike to the soldier's temple. Slodovor's knees buckled and Khaln moved behind him, wrapping the chains around the stunned soldier's neck.

"So, the Scything Souls will be denied," Khaln hissed. "But I won't be."

Khaln began to pull on the opposite ends of the chains, the links digging more deeply into the soldier's neck. Slodovor clawed and struggled while the chain slowly crushed his jugular veins, then the tendons that moved his neck from side to side. Slodovor gagged and his eyes bulged while Khaln remained motionless but for his arms. The links of the chain crushed Slodovor windpipe and his throat filled with blood as bits of cartilage tore into arteries and capillaries. Slodovor finally exhaled his last breath once the pressure of the chain shattered his cervical vertebrae and his spinal column was ultimately severed.

But Khaln did not stop until Slodovor's head was finally torn from his body and fell to the ground in a pool of darkly red blood.

@@@@@

The Scything Souls had circled Ziel-Tan and the armored woman as they rolled around on the ground – the archer had managed to catch glimpses of Khaln finally fight back and she was shocked by how he dispatched a warrior that had once throned as a general in the Uldrund army. 

But before she could celebrate, Ziel-Tan screamed as the woman she fought grabbed the long tress that hung from the center of the back of her head and then unceremoniously yanked Ziel-Tan off of her with surprising strength. Ziel-Tan struck the ground hard but managed to roll and keep her grip on her bow – she reached her knees and nocked and arrow and loosed it while the armored woman drew her sword. The arrow flew for the woman's foot but she lifted her leg while slashing with her bronze sword, but Ziel-Tan had swerved away from the deadly blade and they entered into a strange and sensual choreography punctuated by flying arrows and sword thrusts and amazing feats of flexibility and acrobatics. But where the armored woman was seemingly getting stronger, Ziel-Tan was weakening.

Khaln had been ablaze in strobing red lights beneath his skin and after kicking the corpse of Slodovor Ven Tivar into the dark waters of the harbor of Videsh'Achar, he retrieved the old soldier's arming sword and charged the Scything Souls, intent on destroying as many as he can and getting Ziel-Tan out of there. 

The Scything Souls hissed as the glowing warrior crashed into their lines – their blades aimed for his limbs as they had a command to take him alive but since Khaln had no such directive, his blade cut through the dark fabric of the Souls, finding their hearts as easily as Ziel-Tan did with her arrows. For each cut across his skin, Khaln fell two of the Souls. 

But unbeknownst to Khaln, Onia, the last remaining daughter of the Vanguard Draconis, had regained her senses and had seized her fighting ax and murder inhabited her eyes.

As he fought through the scything Souls, Khaln could glimpse Ziel-Tan and her haphazardly armored enemy and found something familiar in the way the armored woman moved and fought – she could float over Ziel-Tan and strike her from unnatural angles for a normal human while her sword could float from her hand and strike independently while she recovered.

"Tayne?" Khaln said as he became motionless – the Scything Souls closed on him but Bailla'Tayne Jeva, finally recognized by her destined paramour and her magic fueled by his proximity, suddenly unleashed a powerful stasis spell worthy of the most powerful mages and all fighting ceased.

"Hello, Khaln," Tayne said as she approached him. He was unaffected by her spell but he remained still. "I knew you would recognize me." 

"What have you done?" Khaln asked as his neck tensed. "What are you doing with the Call? Why are you dressed that way?"

"These are the spirits of my sisters, beloved," Tayne admonished. "If you stopped fighting you'd see their beauty – haven't you noticed the beauty of my armor?" 

"Are you mad? You're wearing bones and dried skin!"

Tayne was confused – she shook her head and what looked to her like the spirits of the Blade Brides began to resemble the Scything Souls.

"Asteytis, help me!" Tayne pleaded to the sky as a creeping realization snaked its way into her mind.

A figure descended from the sky – it was a woman clad in a gray cloak. It swayed around her body as she touched the ground between Bailla'Tayne Jeva and Khaln. His body had returned to its natural candor and he sighed.

"You're not Asteytis,are you?" Tayne asked as she realized the beautiful armor she wore was actually the tattered physical remains of the Blade Brides. Tayne gagged and fell to her knees and threw up.

"Asteytis has never been here, but you served her well, Bailla'Tayne Jeva," the Matron of the Call told the deceived Blade Bride.

"Which one are you?" Khaln asked. "I've met the Matrons Sonorous and Tenebrae. "

The matron turned to him – beneath her cloak, her body shimmered and flowed like water trapped in a bubble. When she spoke, her face rippled like pool to which a stone was dropped.

"I am the body of the Call of Skaelor. I am the Matron Chameleonedae."

By her last word, Khaln had rushed her but his cry of vengeance was silenced as a flock of Quieting Angels drifted from the oily heavens, silencing all sound. Khaln was toppled as a dozen Scything Souls seized him and wrapped a piece of dark fabric around his head, extinguishing his scarlet glow; he was then scooped up by one of the flying horrors. Another retrieved the mad Onia that had been frozen before she could strike at Khaln.

With Khaln's departure, Bailla'Tayne Jeva's magic was silenced and the Scything Souls and the Qoazti archer Ziel-Tan could move, but before she could lunge for Bailla'Tayne Jeva, she was seized and disarmed by the Souls and soundly struck behind the head as was Bailla'Tayne Jeva.




Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 03



Before Ziel-Tan lost consciousness, she saw the Matron Chameleonedae walk in the direction of the Quieting Angel that carried Khaln away.

VII

Time was a haze when Ziel-Tan opened her eyes – her head pounded from the blow she received, but she discovered she was otherwise unharmed. She found her bow and partially emptied quiver. She also discovered the woman that Khaln called Tayne. Remembering what had happened, Ziel-Tan cut strips of the dark fabric she had used as a cloak and used then to bind Tayne's arms and legs.

After a few moments where Ziel-Tan sat and recuperated, she heard waves crashing – looking out at the harbor, she saw the the troller she had commandeered sailing out towards the expanse of the Ardent sea. At its front, beneath the masthead, she saw the glowing form of Khaln, lashed and chained to the hull of the ship as it sailed beyond the harbor. His body glowed bright red and his screams merged with the sound of the crashing waves. 

Continued ...



Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 04



I

Once upon a time, the world hinged on the decisions made by the Seeded Council - they had been an assembly of the most powerful wizards and witches and royal envoys from across the realms and city states that orbited and touched the Cardinal Roads. They would meet in the great tower forged of dark obsidian and bright crystal called the Heligopol. The Heligopol throned in the center of Melit'Zay, home of the Academia Arcana, the great schools of magic. It was also in the Heligopol that the wizards and witches had tried to converse with the Gods after the outbreak of the Arcane Ailment that brought death to many users of magic. Asteytis, Tiengal the Blind, the Sil'hazat, even Thull'Achar ... all the gods remained silent as the Arcane Ailment decimated the Magii Dominii - and those untouched by the Arcane Ailment fell to the growing menace of the Call of Skaelor. 

The Call had come from the South and its forces swept through the city states until the great northern kingdom of Ordeyirgoss united the city states of the East and West and thundered down the Cardinal road and halted the Call - fearless warriors and loyal soldiers fought alongside mages young and old to protect the Heligopol. But the Matron Sonorous spoke in a thunderous voice and many soldiers offered their hearts to the Call. Broken lines allowed the Scything Souls and Quieting Angels to overrun the city and the remaining defenders fled North until they regrouped at the gates of Melzay, sister city of Melit'Zay and entry point to the Kingdom of Ordeyirgoss. The battle had been long but the Magii Dominii and the allied forces of men had succumbed. Survivors had been allowed to leave unscathed to spread the story of the fall of the Magedom.

But even after all the death and destruction, life was a tenacious force and beneath the once golden streets of Melit'Zay, beneath the melted tower of the Heligopol, survivors of the Magii Dominii and the Seeded Council had congregated. They had also welcomed refugees from the southern regions and from the neighboring city states. With the little magic possessed by the surviving mages and the presence of an underground river, the survivors built a series of tunnels and caves where they could hide from the Call of Skaelor and contemplate the future. 

It was in such a cave that the old wizard and former head of the Seeded council, Thierann, opened his weary blue eyes just as a guard armed with a long bardiche and wearing a simple bronze and leather chest plate and a plain round, bronze helmet with chain mail hanging down the back and sides entered the chamber.

"My lord Thierann," the guard said. "Our spies ... reports are coming in: Videsh'Achar to the east, Gul'Vadesh to the south and even the realm of Ordeyirgoss to the North and West! The Call of Skaelor is silent!" 

The old mage nodded grimly as he stood and removed his meditation robes and dressed in his plain gray and green tunic - though he had advanced in age, Thierann maintained a lean physique born of a strict regiment.

"Is this not good news?" the guard inquired as he placed his bardiche by a wall and assisted the mage with his dark cloak.

"No, Liervel," Thierann said, shocking the guard by speaking his name. "It means they have him."

II

All he could hear was a continuous roar as the boat crashed forward into the cold waves of the Ardent sea. The water struck him across the chest and face with force enough to splinter wood but he remained conscious and in agony as his lacerated flesh pulsed with deep pools of red light that illuminated the spidery design of the veins and the scars of battle that pock marked his skin.

Khaln Dharrec, the Second Son, had been chained to the masthead of a stolen ship as it set sail from the harbor of Videsh'Achar and towards the West, its course leading towards the Isles of Seven Thunders and the Everlasting storm. The ship was manned by a crew of obedient seamen under the spell of the Matrons of the Call of Skaelor. The three mysterious women watched the rollicking seas as they stood on the bow of the boat, each accompanied by a Scything Soul - they were the foot soldiers of the Call, made from a willingly sacrificed human heart deposited on a piece of dark, eldritch fabric.

The Matron Sonorous walked down the steps of the aft bow of the two masted ship and towards the forward bow, the torn white cloak stood the only obstacle between her bare flesh and harsh elements that whipped around her, keeping the splashing water of the broken waves from hitting her. She stopped and pointed towards the masthead and two ensnared seamen began to pull on an intricate assembly of chains and pulleys; Khaln was slowly hoisted from the cold water and pulled onto the deck - dripping and shivering, he was unhooked from his painful harness and dragged to a mooring ring and bound there by heavy shackles.

"Feed him," the voice of the Call of Skaelor ordered. One of the sailors yanked Khaln's head back and held his chin while the other brought over a pail full of gruel. The first sailor forced Khaln's mouth open and the second poured the lukewarm gruel down his throat. 

Khaln gagged at the sudden influx of food down his throat but offered little resistance and swallowed the tasteless concoction until he felt some of his strength return - the sailors loosened their grip on him as Khaln was listless. But Khaln seized the opening and threw his arms up and seized the head of the sailor behind him and then fell back onto the deck of the broken ship. The sailor's chin crashed against Khaln's skull, shattering some of his teeth while Khaln kicked at the sailor holding the pail of gruel in the thigh, knocking him off balance. Khaln then shoved his shoulder into the stomach of the first sailor, knocking him back with enough force to push him overboard and send him plummeting into the cold, harsh sea. The second sailor had regained his footing and lunged at Khaln. The warrior's skin had erupted in a series of pulses of crimson light and Khaln knocked the sailor's reaching arms aside while side stepping to the left - he came around behind the sailor and Khaln managed the wrap his muscled arms around the sailor's head and he wrenched it brutally upwards and backwards, snapping the sailor's neck.

But Khaln's triumph was short lived as he slumped next to the sailor he had just killed, his new found strength sapped from his limbs - he noticed an acrid taste in his mouth and realized the gruel was somehow tainted with an unknown substance. He pondered if that was what enlivened him enough to exact some retribution against his gaolers.

The Matron Sonorous had observed the entire scene with interest as her white, tattered cloak whipped around her, carried by the voracious winds of the Ardent sea. Khaln watched her as the wind swept cloak seemed to tease him with glimpses of the pale skin of the swell of her breasts and the pink hardness of her nipples - Khaln also remembered his dreams of her.

"Why did you kill them?" she asked as she kneeled by his side. 

"You weren't close enough," Khaln groaned, turning towards the matron Sonorous. "When I had the strength"

"Why would you have killed me?" the Matron Sonorous's voice was less thunderous than when she had first spoken to him following the battle of Melzay - she pushed the hood of her cloak back. Her white hair hung around her slim shoulders while a strip of white fabric covered her eyes. Her per breasts were nearly touching his arm.

Khaln balked at her and said, "You took everything from me."

"That you had anything worth taking implies you had a choice in amassing them," the Matron explained as she touched his black and stone gray hair. "But for our kind, choice is ever only an illusion." 

The Matron Sonorous reached between his thighs and caressed his limp cock. Khaln grunted and turned away from the Matron - she possessed all the attributes to be beautiful but she was of the Call of Skaelor, yet through the pain and anger he felt, his manhood soon stood as erect as the masts of the ship.

"I'm not your kind," Khaln hissed.

The Matron Sonorous scoffed and stroked Khaln's hard cock. "Of course you're like us, Khaln Second-son - you were made." The Matron Sonorous straddled his lap and reached between her thighs, grasping the top of his cock and placing it at the entrance of her pussy. 

"You were made for ..." the Matron whispered as she lowered herself onto his erection - Khaln moaned as he sank into the velvety grasp of her pussy. He closed his eyes and tried to summon all the hate he had felt for the Call, but the perfection of the sensation of how she entrapped his flesh skewered his hate towards desire. 

The Matron stayed on his tool for a few moments before slowly standing, exposing her arousal to the harsh elements of the riotous Ardent sea. Khaln looked up at her and noticed her expression had changed - he could not see her eyes but the frown she bore signaled regret. A sentiment he sorely felt.

The Matron Sonorous pulled her cloak close as though she felt the chill of the sea churned air and gestured towards Khaln - two new sailors unshackled him and strapped him back into his harness and the slowly lowered him back into the water before the ship. The cold water did not quell his erection and his body glowed. A helmsman navigated the boat in the direction that made his flesh glow the strongest - the sails were set to capture the wind and propel the ship forward. It broke through the waves and Khaln cursed the gods and men.

@@@@@ 

The Cardinal Roads were once paved with richly colored bricks of orange and brown and stretched out from the city of Melit'Zay in the directions of the four winds - now they were cratered and cracked, the brightly colored bricks marred by dried blood and burnt flesh. 

Ziel-Tan pushed her mount with duress as the horse's hooves danced across the ragged terrain of the Cardinal road - she was closely followed by the former Blade Bride and follower of the goddess Asteytis, Bailla'Tayne Jeva. The Qoazti archer had bound the displaced warrior woman for having unwittingly lead the forces of the Call of Skaelor to where she was about to spring into action and free Khaln Dharrec from the clutches of the surviving daughters of the Vanguard Draconis and the last survivor of the Vanguard, Slodovor Ven Tivar. But the Scything Souls had fallen on them even as Bailla'Tayne Jeva had slaughtered the daughters of the Vanguard.

Khaln had freed himself and dispatched Slodovor Ven Tivar in a bloodied fashion - but when he had come face to face with Bailla'Tayne Jeva, he faltered in the face of her betrayal and the Call took him. Ziel-Tan witnessed Bailla'Tayne Jeva realizing her unwitting duplicity once the Matron Chameleonedae revealed her chicanery. They had been knocked out and when she awoke, Ziel-Tan saw the ship she had seized as part of her infiltration of the Daughters of the Vanguard Draconis sail out of the harbor of Videsh'Achar with Khaln glowing red beneath the masthead of the ship. She had retrieved all the undamaged arrows that would fit her quiver along with the unconscious body of Bailla'Tayne Jeva, bound her to a saddle, and left Videsh'Achar as the Quieting Angels and Scything Souls stayed oblivious to their retreat.

But not all were blind to their flight - after the first day riding, Ziel-Tan had heard a faint, far away rumble of horses. They were being pursued. Ziel-Tan had taken the Cardinal Road North towards one of the last Ordeyirgossian border outposts, separating that united kingdom from the city states of the south, hoping to double back by the East and circumvent their pursuers but they had moved more swiftly than she had anticipated. 

The Qoazti archer and her former Blade Bride prisoner were within spitting distance of their pursuers: highwaymen bent on plundering whatever ruins the war with the Call of Skaelor left, and raping what ever woman they could find. Ziel-Tan had shot an arrow high into the sky while summoning her blind-sight to see what the arrow saw. It was over two dozen hardened riders on mangy horses hellbent to run the two women to ground.

That arrow lost, Ziel-Tan pushed onward, hoping to attain an Ordeyirgossian outpost before the horde found them. Even abandoned, an armored keep was easier to fend off the highwaymen. 

"Damn it, I'm tired of running!" Bailla'Tayne Jeva cried out as she fought to keep her balance on the violently pitching saddle she was bound to.

"Thank whatever gods you pray to I don't leave you to them," Ziel-Tan screamed back, her voice barely audible above the thundering hooves of the approaching horde. She still remembered the sight of scores of Scything Souls appearing behind Bailla'Tayne Jeva at the Videsh'Achar harbor.

Bailla'Tayne Jeva was enraged at herself for having been duped and betraying her only friend and lover in this new, desolate era. She looked down at her body, stripped bare but for a band of gray fabric across her pert breasts and another piece covering her sex - her hands were tied to the bridle of the saddle. But the rapid trek of their horses had loosened the rope. Bailla'Tayne Jeva struggled against the bridle until her hands were free but still bound at her wrists. She grabbed the reigns and smacked her mount's flanks with her bare feet and the horse sprinted forward, its nostrils flaring. Within seconds, Bailla'Tayne Jeva was riding alongside the Qoazti archer.

Ziel-Tan gasped in disbelief as Bailla'Tayne Jeva reached down between the racing horses and snatched the fighting ax the archer carried at her side with an deft hand. Bailla'Tayne Jeva then lead the horse to commit to a nearly impossible breaking turn that should have sent the horse crashing - instead, it turned nearly 180 degrees in a few ground tearing strides and Bailla'Tayne Jeva was now hurtling towards the pursuing horde, ax in hand. 

Ziel-Tan stared in frustration, but also in awe as the former Blade Bride, and now former prisoner, disappeared into a cloud of dust. The Qoazti archer brought her horse around with more prudent action, but her prods at its flanks were as sharp as her voice as the colt she rode sprang forward after its stablemate. 

Bailla'Tayne Jeva was awash in regret at her actions in Videsh'Achar - she had been duped by the Call of Skaelor. She had succumbed to despair at the thought she was alone in the world and they had fed on that. Now, they had left and taken Khaln with them, tearing from her grasp her one chance at atonement. Her despair had now turned to rage and it would be calmed only by blood. 

The Blade Brides mount was within sight of the pursuing horde: she saw numerous men dressed in dusty cloaks and ragged tunics. She caught a glimpse of the glint of steel catching the sunlight and saw the spears some carried. She also heard their voices as they hollered obscenities at her - Bailla'Tayne Jeva took their words and used them as a fuel. Time seemed to slow for her and her senses were now preternaturally acute.

Bailla'Tayne Jeva saw an arm extend and a spear was launched in her direction - its line was accurate and precise. But as she saw it trace a perfect arc for her neck, she nudged her mare ever so slightly and the spear passed harmlessly by her, missing her by a hair's breadth. In turn, Bailla'Tayne Jeva gripped the bearded fighting ax she lifted from the archer-woman and she pulled her feet from the stirrups and hopped into a standing position on the saddle. As the line of rushing horses parted at her mad advance, the Blade Bride kicked off the saddle and seemed the hang in mid-air as highwayman rode past her. With impeccable timing, Bailla'Tayne Jeva landed on the saddle of the highwayman's horse and dropped into a seated position behind the stunned brigand. He could barely react when the Blade Bride yanked his head back with her left forearm braced across his forehead while digging the pointed beard of the fighting ax into the soft skin of his throat. Bailla'Tayne Jeva pulled the ax across the highwayman's neck, ripping through his jugular. A geyser of warm arterial spray shot upwards from the wound and fell onto the Blade Bride's face like a crimson rainfall.

Bailla'Tayne Jeva threw the dead highwayman off the horse, but before she could bring the steed around, she caught the glint of a spear tip and she quickly rolled to her right as the weapon had sought her head. The attacking highwayman retracted the weapon and cocked it for a second thrust while struggling to keep his mount from crashing into the Blade Bride's. Bailla'Tayne Jeva saw her opening and when the spear came for a second time, she grasped the weapon's shaft and with uncommon agility she slid her legs onto the side of her horse that faced her attacker - instead of sliding off the steed, she pushed off with her legs and managed to jump over the attacking highwayman's horse. The brigand had been unbalanced after she had grasped his spear and while he stared incredulously at her leap, Bailla'Tayne Jeva crashed into the highwayman's chest and their momentum toppled his horse. As they struck in the hard ground in an awkward roll, Bailla'Tayne Jeva felt the jagged rocks and unforgiving gravel tear the skin of her upper back and shoulders. As blood oozed from a dozen small wounds, she rolled to her feat and sprinted towards the stunned highwayman - before he could draw his short sword, Bailla'Tayne Jeva was upon him. He was a large, bulky man but his heavy tunic made him slow and the Blade Bride was able to duck beneath a wild swing from his powerful arm and the spiked tip of her fighting ax found a spot in his thigh, above his knee. The spike tore through the thick linen of his trousers and blood sprang from the wound.

Bailla'Tayne managed to pry the ax free from the wound with little effort, but it was enough time to allow the highwayman to smash his elbow into her side. Although the blow glanced of her ribs, she felt them buckle under the highwayman's strength - the Blade Bride jumped to the side to dance around her aggressor's follow up blow, managing to slip behind him and she launched herself at the back of his head. Her momentum added power to the weight of the ax and it burst through the thinner bone of the rear of the highwayman's skull - an eruption of blood, brain matter and fragments of bone flew from the wound. The highwayman feel with a garbled curse punctuating his passing. 

Bailla'Tayne Jeva had to dodge to her right as the mounted highwaymen circled her - she had managed to seize the spear of her second victim and she held the horde at bay while it closed on her. She could smell their rancid breath and the rot from the infections many of them harbored. Some where fiercely built, but most were mangy and dirty and deserving of pity. But their condition could not dispel the desire for blood and rape and meat in their eyes. 

The Blade Bride gleamed movement on her right and she instinctively threw the spear with deadly accuracy and it pierced the charging, hungry highwayman through the chest and and through his heart. The others froze as their dead comrade was tossed to the ground from his immobile horse. Bailla'Tayne Jeva was breathing hard as fatigue gnawed at her muscles from the exertion of battle - she also felt a throb from where the highwayman had elbowed her. Each breath caused a sudden, stabbing pain and she understood at least one of her ribs might be cracked. The horde of highwaymen noticed her labored breathing and some snickered. 

But the laughter ended quickly when a rain of arrows falling from the North hit the riders - Bailla'Tayne Jeva saw three arrows bury themselves in 3 necks. The Qoazti archer Ziel-Tan had finally caught up with them and was making up for her tardiness with the swiftness of the death she delivered - two more highwaymen fell before the rest of the horde panicked and turned south. But even as they turned - the clamor of voices and armor and hooves had reached their ears.




Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 04



"Rogue riders," Ziel-Tan whispered.

III

The banner held high above the riders depicted a tall tower of obsidian and crystal from which sprouted regal, fiery wings; beneath the wings were swords pointing away from each other. The same swords were at the top and to bottom of the tower; each blade pointed in the directions of the Cardinal Roads. Beneath the banner were riders dressed in gleaming polished chest plates of bronze and vermilion - thick chain-mail covered their arms and skirted their thighs. Other riders rode beneath a different banner: three intersecting arrows, each tip forming the tip of a triangle surrounded by a circle. They wore armor formed from bands of hardened leather and light chain-mail. Each had a characteristic linen band across either their scarred right or left eye and carried a bow and a side mounted quiver of arrows. 

The fleeing remnants of the highwaymen crashed into the wall of Rogue Riders - their spears clashed with the hardened shields of the cavalry of Melit'Zay while those who scattered fell to the swiftly drawn and released arrows of the Qoazti archers. Once the cavalry drew their swords, the remnants of the highwayman horde were swiftly decimated to bloodied, tattered remains by the disciplined chaos of the Riders.

Ziel-Tan watched as mists of blood shot into the air while the Rogue Riders completed their business - Bailla'Tayne Jeva was silent as she witnessed the massacre. As a Blade Bride of Asteytis, Bailla'Tayne Jeva had witnessed the destruction of entities, seen their blood and smelled their corruption, but she had never witnessed the decimation of men by other men. Where the violence of gods was elegant and poetic, the violence of men was an erratic and base experience.

The horse the Blade Bride had ridden came back and stood by her.

Two riders left the battle with the the stragglers of the highwaymen horde and approached the two women - one was dressed in the armor of the cavalry, but also wore a green cape that was pinned to his bronze epaulets, demonstrating his rank, while the other ported the leather armor of the Qoazti archers but he had golden ringlets laced into the bands of leather of the armor. 

Ziel-Tan touched her banded eye and then her lips in salute to Maca-Jal, the leader of the surviving Qoazti archers who had taken refuge in Melit'Zay. He was a tall but slender man - his dark skin and broad, proud features, high cheekbones and large, soft brown eyes and traditionally braided air hinted his regal ancestry. He returned her salute while the other rider removed the bronze helmet that adorned his head. He was shorter in the saddle than Maca-Jal but his shoulders and arms where thickly muscled. His dark brown hair was cropped short to his head and his thick jaw sported a haggard beard peppered with red and white. His blunt nose and square jawed face bore scars from countless battles and his hazel eyes moved with experience and cunning as he noted every detail he saw. 

"Lady Ziel-Tan," the cavalry man with a gravely voice more like a loud whisper. "The Seeded Council requires your presence immediately."

"Thank you, general Talveiss," Ziel-Tan answered. She studied the weary soldier with the same intensity he studied her. "But my mission is not over - I will return with the keeper of the Pneuma Dracona. Not before."

"We've been riding ever since the forces of the Call went quiet, little arrow," Maca-Jal interceded before the scarred general committed to dragging Ziel-Tan back to the Heligopol in chains - and his use of her hated nick name focused her attention on him. "The Oracle saw his capture by the Matrons - she needs whatever information she can gleam from you and your companion's interactions with him."

Ziel-Tan spun on her saddle, but was surprised to see Bailla'Tayne Jeva patiently witnessing the exchange from her mount. The Blade Bride had been watching the interactions between the new arrivals and the archer who had bound her, noting names and extrapolating relationships and opinions. 

"I am Lady Bailla'Tayne Jeva, acolyte to the Blade Bride order of Asteytis, last mage-maiden of the House of Bailla'Tayne Tevam, and a woman much too late coming home," the Blade Bride announced with the authority and melancholy her position had once given her.

"Both that order and that house have been long dead, my lady," General Talveiss growled as his hand dropped to the hilt of his arming sword. 

Before Bailla'Tayne Jeva could respond, Ziel-Tan had her bow in hand and an arrow knocked and ready to pierce the general in the face.

"She is my charge, lord general, and I can assure you, she speaks the truth," Ziel-Tan hissed as general Talveiss fired a look of annoyance at her.

Maca-Jal reared his horse on its hind legs and landed, separating the belligerent allies. "General Talveiss! As prime Archer of the Qoazti companion, you have my oath Ziel-Tan will return to Melit'Zay as ordained by the seeded council and the Oracle Cyphelia Desjaines. However, lady Jeva will be under my protection and responsibility. Are these terms suitable?"

The general reared his mount back and gazed coldly at the two archers and the Blade Bride.

"Maca-Jal - we set up camp tonight so eat and rest. The road to Melit'Zay is long and we will ride hard tomorrow."

The Prime Archer of the Qoazti Companion nodded and the lord general of the Rogue Riders of Melit'Zay turned his horse and rejoined his awaiting men.

"Alliances are fickle, aren't they?" Bailla'Tayne Jeva asked as Maca-Jal led them to where the other archers were setting camp.

@@@@@

"Cyphelia Desjaines," the voice of the Seeded Witch Odeena the Crone resounded in the makeshift council room beneath the burning ruins of the Heligopol. "We gave you sanctuary with the promise that you could deliver, as the last Oracle of Thull'Achar, the key to understanding the prophecies surrounding the Call of Skaelor."

"I also delivered the pledge of loyalty of the Qoazti archers," the Oracle said, her voice soft but firm. "They were the most successful warriors against the Call." She stood before the Council of the Seeded in full ceremonial regalia: her silver and black hair was pulled back into a simple braid while she adorned a headpiece forged of silver with two long, plated arches that encircled her ears. She also wore a green linen robe that was covered, at the collar and cuffs, with gold embroidery in the form of a comment vine found in the southern regions. Her high cheekbones and wide mouth and thin nose gave her a regal gait, but the Oracle's most disquieting feature were her purple eyes with silver irises. 

"Yes, you did," Odeena the Crone said as she struggled to match Cyphelia's otherworldly gaze. "And now they are scouring the countryside for a so-called causal nexus embodied in some poor Ordeyirgossian - and he is lost to us!" The Seeded Witch and current head of the Seeded Council straightened the simple black robe she wore over a white tunic. Her gray hair was loose around her shoulders and her hazel eyes smoldered at the Oracle.

"As you said, I am an Oracle - but I don't have the eyes for prophecy, only revelation." Cyphelia reached into a pouch and cast a handful of the ashes of a chagrin bird upon a fire pit. The ashes, having soaked in oil, sizzled as they landed on the flames and released a sweet smelling aroma. The smoke slowly rose above the council and formed the image of a boat sailing a violent sea on one side and the image of two women on galloping horses on the other.

"The Ordeyirgossian sails with the Call, it is true," Cyphelia said as the smokey image lingered. "So the Gods have chosen a different path for him. I believe what they have delivered to my agent is of equal importance. And again, it was because of the Ordeyirgossian - he remains a causal nexus."

Odeena the Crone turned from the Oracle and fixed the old wizard dressed in a gray and green tunic and said: "Thierann - we accepted this ... oracle ... under your recommendation as a former head of the Seeded Council and elder mentor. Do you still hold to your recommendation?"

Thierann left his position leaning in an entrance and approached the Seeded Council he had once presided. "I do, Odeena. None of us is equipped to understand the prophetic forces at play - our best chance resides with Cyphelia Desjaines."

"I see," Odeena nodded. "The Council will review our continued support of the Oracle and will render a decision within two days. Her emissary should have time to return then with whatever she has to present."

Odeena the Crone stood and the other three wizards and one witch, as well as the diplomatic representatives from the various refugee city states returned to their respective sections of the tunnel city beneath Melit'Zay.

Cyphelia Desjaines, last Oracle of the god Thull'Achar stormed out of the makeshift council chamber followed by a weary wizard.

IV

"Damn that sanctimonious bitch!" Cyphelia cried as she burst into her chambers - Thierann remained at the threshold as the Oracle tore off her headdress.

"You've got to remember, Cyphelia," Thierann said as the Oracle of Thull'Achar stripped from her gold cuffed tunic. "Odeena and the other withes and wizards - magic has always been a faculty of will for them. A faculty diminished by the Arcane Ailment and to see you exerting power ... they need time."

Cyphelia was fully nude now - her svelte form and small, upturned breasts moved with haste as she tossed her ceremonial garbs aside. "But you're a wizard as well! You could make them understand."

"I'm not quite the wizard I used to be," Thierann sighed as he took a seat beneath a flaming column of burning plates that illuminated the room. Cyphelia stood before him - he admired how her stiff nipples turned upwards and the flames painted flickering shadows down her flat stomach. 

"Ah yes," the Oracle said as she undid her long braid, letting her silver and black hair fall upon her shoulders. She suggestively ran her hands down her body and framed the triangle of black hair at the juncture of her creamy thighs. "The mysterious event that happened in your past - you haven't told me about it yet."

"You're the Oracle," the old wizard said as he placed his hands on Cyphelia's slim waist. "It is to you to divine it."

"I can only read what the gods reveal, Thierann of Gul'Vadesh," Cyphelia sighed as Thierann moved her hands away and grabbed her ass and drew her close where he could kiss the soft hair of her pubis.

"I have no revelations for you Cyphelia," Thierann whispered as the Oracle parted her legs and he slid off the sofa and he could position himself between her slender thighs.

Cyphelia Desjaines sighed as the experienced fingers of the old wizard Thierann parted the folds of her labia and exposed the lips of her pussy - her sigh turned to a moan as he applied his agile tongue to the sensitive elements of her intimate flesh.

Cyphelia felt a warmth spread from between her legs as her wetness grew under the subtle caresses of Thierann's tongue. The warmth climbed up her chest and she teased it to full fire when she pinched her upturned nipples - Thierann slid a finger into her slick slot and Cyphelia's knees buckled when he applied pressure to her inner spot and place his tongue on her engorged clit - her mind suddenly filled with the image of him standing heroically a midst a seeming legion of fallen Scything Souls. His hands had moved with efficiency as his will had bent the leylines of magic and he dispatched the forces of the Call of Skaelor with urgency. The old wizard had known what she was from the onset and the Qoazti archers that accompanied her swore him allegiance. 

Thierann used his tongue to slide across the Oracle's clit while he wiggled his finger inside her. She moaned and he pulled her close to his body - she was sprawled and Thierann bent his head forward and he suckled on her upturned nipple while he took long stokes across her pussy. Cyphelia gasped as her body stiffened when Thierann gently bit her nipple while quickly moving his middle finger in and out of her cunt - wetness dribbled from her sex and across the wizard's veiny fingers.

"A vision!" Cyphelia moaned. "Give me a vision!"

Thierann pulled his green tunic up past his waist where his erect cock sprang forth from a trim patch of grayish hair. Cyphelia stretched her neck to the left and deeply kissed the wizard that had saved her life - her tongue twirled around his hungrily while the touch of their lips was more gentle. Cyphelia reached between her thighs where she felt the wizard's erection bounce against her pubic hair - she positioned herself so that she faced away from him while resting on her knees.

Cyphelia took Thierann's cock, placed it against her pussy, and lowered herself upon his erection. The old wizard sighed when he felt the oracle's flesh engulf his manhood with the delicate heat that could only radiate from a woman's pussy. Thierann admired the shape of her ass when Cyphelia supported herself on his thighs and began to rock back and forth - his breath quickened at the sensation of his cock moving in and out of the Oracle's pussy.

Cyphelia felt her core quiver as her tight, moist cunt choked the wizard's pulsating cock. Her breath came in rapid, static bursts as her pleasure spawned under each long stroke of his manhood - warmth leaked from his flesh into hers and weave its way into her being. 

Thierann grunted when Cyphelia's pussy tightened around his cock, strangling it with erotic grace - he grabbed her slim waist and Cyphelia responded by re-positioning herself so that she was leaning against his chest and the flat of her feet were on his thighs. She gyrated her hips and moaned while her long, silver and black hair cascaded across the wizard's face, filling his nostrils with the scent of her oiled locks. 

As they moved, Cyphelia felt her skin crackle with a sense of dissipation while mounting bliss clouded her reason. Thierann felt a similar sense of disconnection as his own orgasm seemed to pool at the base of his cock, pulling from his extremities the arousal that peppered his skin and turning it into a swelling bubble of molten desire. But through the haze of orgasm that was about the devour them, Cyphelia Desjaines, last Oracle of Thull'Achar, became a wraith as her flesh transmuted into a mist and an image washed across the space occupied by her skin.

For Thierann, he saw as much as felt his orgasm burst from his throbbing cock in a powerful ejaculation - but where his come should have buried itself deep into the Oracle's womb, he saw it explode like fragments of starlight, filling her translucent form an illuminating the image the Gods were sharing with her. Cyphelia had thrown her head back and her mouth hung open in throes of ecstasy but where her face should have been, the image of a spitting volcano lingered. From its crater arose a pair of red leathery wings, the membranes stitched with the screaming faces of tortured souls; on her back, the Oracle displayed a ship crashing against the shores of a mist shrouded island, and in the wreckage stood four women in various cloaks; on her belly, Cyphelia displayed a frayed figure of a man with a mane of black and granite hair walking down a narrow path while thick chains protruded from his chest and were locked in the jaws of two opposite, dragon-like silhouettes. 

The Oracle spoke: "A day will come when magic will die; the Void will forget and the Gods will cry; but from the womb of woman and the seed of man the spark will arise; and the fire will soon burn behind the dragon's eyes. But the man be will given a choice tainted by the veil of lies; he will taste the fires of a longing prize; before his choice is final, blood will rain from the skies; under the mad wrath of dragon's rage and the Gods aside, the magic will rise while the Voided Man dies." 

Thierann was gasping and grunting as Cyphelia resumed her corporeal form and cried her orgasm, the juices of her pussy, mixed with the old wizard's come, dripped down her thighs and across Thierann's lap.

Exhausted, the Oracle of Thull'Achar slid from the shrinking cock of the wizard Thierann and sat next to him on the lounging sofa - he adjusted his sex back into the tunic and poured a glass of water from a carafe and handed it to Cyphelia. "Did you see?" she asked between gulps, her purple and silver eyes fixed on the wizard.

"I saw - and I heard. You've never voiced a prophecy before. It was the prophecy of the Vanguard Draconis - but you added to it."

Cyphelia arose unsteadily, her limbs shaking and her skin pallid - she declined Thierann's help and dressed herself in a simple black, silk robe and picked up a brush and handed it to the wizard and said with a shaky voice: "The Gods reveal themselves through me, Thierann. I never understand their will until its too late."

"I hate them for what they do to you," Thierann said as he moved behind the Oracle when she sat before a mirror - he began to brush her silky hair. "Every vision - and now prophecy - leaves you weakened. I'm afraid visions will be the death of you."

"You know they come only when I love, old wizard." the Oracle said finally. "If I die in your arms, I'll be at peace."

@@@@@

Ziel-Tan, the Qoazti archer, looked out from her saddle over the ruins of Melit'Zay - plumes of smoke sneaked skyward, some the result of the battle with the Call of Skaelor, others strategically placed to mimic destruction while hiding the chimney and air vents of the hidden tunnel city beneath the streets. At the center of the valley towered the ruins of the Heligopol, from where wizards and witches could look out upon the four directions of the world. The archer was still amazed at the grandeur of the city when she compared it to the interconnecting mountain villages that peppered the southern isles she called home.

For Bailla'Tayne Jeva, Melit'Zay had always been a legend and an aspiration. But now, it was as crumbled and desolate as all her other memories had been after 500 years of accidental exile. And with the disappearance of Khaln, her only anchor to this era, whatever magic she possessed was a pure jest, rendering her even unworthy to enter the dying capitol of the Magii Dominii.

"The situation must be dire indeed for both the cavalry and the archer companion be sent to find us," Ziel-Tan whispered to Maca-Jal as he guided the way down the Cardinal road that lead from the East and into the valley that surrounded Melit'Zay. 

"The future hangs in the balance, little arrow," Maca-Jal said, amused at how Ziel-Tan bristled at the nickname. "Cyphelia is weakening as her visions grow stronger. Lady Bailla'Tayne Jeva may hold a key in understanding the choices this Ordeyirgossian Khaln will be faced with."

Bailla'Tayne Jeva shivered when she heard Khaln's name, remembering the look of utter defeat he gave her before being taken by the Call of Skaelor. "I know something of the prophetic arts," she found herself saying to Maca-Jal. "I'll help anyway I can."

Ziel-Tan glared her and hissed: "We've yet to see if we can trust you, quisling." 

"What ever help you can lend will be appreciated, my lady," Maca-Jal said, dismissing Ziel-Tan's argument and while reminding her he was Prime Archer. "The Oracle will want to present you and question you before the Seeded Council." 

"Odeena might order her death," Ziel-Tan warned. "By oath, we would have to execute the order."

"We've pledged allegiance to Lord Thierann, not the Seeded Council - remember that," Maca-Jal whispered. "If they recant their support for Cyphelia, Thierann may call us to action and reclaim the council. That's where our oath lies." 

Bailla'Tayne was listening intently at the conversation between the two Qoazti archers, and felt strangely at peace knowing that the nature of human intrigue had not changed over the centuries of her unwanted exile. She was also memorizing the names: Maca-Jal, Thierann, Cyphelia ... her late father Tevam had reminded her that knowing the names of the players involved facilitated the forming of alliances. 




Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 04



"Alliances are indeed fickle," Ziel-Tan said as she glanced at the attentive Blade Bride. "You just graduated from quisling to the key to triggering a revolution."

IV

Khaln moaned as the elaborate system of pulleys and chains creaked as he felt himself rise out of the water and be hoisted above the main deck before being lowered and dropped onto the cold wood of the ship he was unwittingly guiding to the Isles of Seven Thunders. The sailors who attended him cut away from his pallid, scarred flesh, the determined parasites that suckled his limbs. Once he was clear, the sailors shackled him to a mooring ring.

The Matron Sonorous approached Khaln while he laid prostrate on the cold deck. The ship was anchored and swayed gently on the rarely calm Ardent sea while the sky was still under the light of the twin moons. The ship cast a haunting profile onto the clear waters of the sea - luminescent sea life floated near the surface of the water, and in their suspended state they lived and died. 

The Matron kneeled next to Khaln and took a piece of her tattered white cloak and dipped it into a bucket of warm water a crewman had left for her. She used it to wipe his face clean while her other hand rested on his manhood. Her gestures would have seemed gentle and caring to a witness.

"Can you hear me, Khaln?" the Matron asked, leaning close to his ear. Her voice was soft and lithesome. "We've stopped. A visitor will be boarding."

Khaln shook his head and grunted as he tried to regain his bearings - he managed to peer over the starboard side of the ship and he focused on the massive barge that was approaching the anchored vessel. The barge was so large that it could have been its ow island - it dwarfed the two masted ship sailing for the Isles of Seven Thunders. The barge's hull looked to be built of interlocking bones covered in tightly wound leather - it heaved forward under the paddling motions of dozens of wing like appendages that skimmed the water from its sides while a cloud of ash floated around its hull.

Khaln spat into the sea.

"You will be witness to an important wedding, second son," the Matron Sonorous said as she petted Khaln matted, black and stone colored hair while she continued to hold his cock. 

"Whoever it is," Khaln said, his voice a growl empty of menace, "they're not my type."

The Matron Sonorous stifled a chuckle and gazed upon the shackled warrior before laying a kiss to his forehead. "You are resilient, aren't you? Exposure to the elements should have killed you long ago, and yet you live to jest. I could learn to admire that."

"So, if I'm not the groom, who is?" Khaln asked, sitting back on the swaying deck - he savored the respite the arrival of this visitor granted him. 

"He is the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith," the Matron said as she sat in front of Khaln, her legs crossed while she leaned over and caressed his bruised thighs. "Each Matron is betrothed to a Dread Lord - but the lord of Ax'Herith is a widower."

"I thought it was impossible to kill a Matron of Skaelor," Khaln said as he observed the Matron Sonorous - his confusion was confounded by his need to hate her and his creeping desire for her.

"Oh - the Dread Lord killed his own wife," the Matron Sonorous said gravely - she paused before continuing, taking her hands away from Khaln's thighs and tucking them beneath her tattered cloak. "After he ... disposed of her, he had found a new wife - and Oracle - yet he was thwarted by a wizard of some skill. But since you presented us with a suitable candidate, he could not wait to meet her."

"Wh ... What candidate?"

"The woman who betrayed you - we took her along with you," the Matron said. 

"Tayne? Tayne who betrayed me? She's on this ship?!" Khaln's flesh suddenly burst with increasingly brilliant flashes of crimson light while the veins beneath his skin pulsed from head to toe as his anger grew manifest. He lunged forward with enough force to almost shatter the shackles binding him. 

The Matron Sonorous smiled as the lie she planted fueled Khaln's rage and the radiant power it gave him. "Yes - she has all the qualities to make a formidable Matron."

"You enjoy saying things meant to torture me," Khaln spat bitterly as his body lost its red hue and returned to normal.

"I am the voice of the Call of Skaelor, I must be heard."

"Am I the only here who listens to you?" Khaln asked as he sat back on the deck.

"You have the most to gain by listening carefully," the Matron Sonorous said as she rose and walked towards the aft of the ship. She paused, however, before going below deck. "You will make an appearance at the ceremony," the Matron said, uncharacteristically softly. "Vengeance and betrayal are not exclusive to human experience, Khaln Dharrec." 

@@@@@

A swirling cloud of dark ash formed over the massive barge that was now anchored near the smaller vessel commandeered by the Matrons of the Call of Skaelor. The barge had the size of a small island and its surface was covered with spouting, round chimney and long buildings of incoherent design. Strange trees with red and blue foliage were scattered across the barge while a small pyramid dominated the center. The cloud of ash focused above the pyramid and lightning lept from its tip, to the cloud, and back again.

The three Matrons of the Call of Skaelor stood on the deck as the cloud of ash floated towards the ship - the Matron Sonorous, the voice of the Call of Skaelor, stood at the center of the main deck; the Matron Tenebrae, the suffering of the Call of Skaelor, stood at the aft part of the ship; the Matron Chameleonedae, the Body of the Call of Skaelor occupied the fore part of the vessel. They each hummed as the ash cloud stopped above where the Matron Sonorous stood - lightning burst from cloud and struck the deck long enough to deposit a tall box of black wood in front of the Matron Sonorous. 

"Honored Dread Lord of Ax'Herith, Father of the silence and warden of the Shadowed Moors - welcome aboard," the Matron Sonorous proclaimed as the box was hefted by entranced crewmen and carried below deck.

Khaln was already awaiting in the cargo hole - he had bee cleaned, fed and given drink before being dressed in a simple blue robe with orange trimming at the collar and cuffs. He was shackled to the floor while seated on a simple wooden chair that faced the stairs that lead down from the top deck; he witnessed the crewmen carry a large wooden box into the cargo hole that was to serve as the reception area for whatever the Call of Skaelor considered a marriage ceremony. Khaln assumed the box being placed in the center of the cargo hold was somehow connected to the flash he saw from above deck. He scanned the shadows, and he was surprised that event though he still felt weak, he was alert and lucid. 

Behind the box, the three Matrons of the Call of Skaelor descended into the converted cargo hold and flanked the unadorned container. Khaln watched as each Matron, in turn, pressed their heads to the box in a kiss - but only the Matron Sonorous had lips. The shadowed figure of the Matron Tenebrae seemed to merge with the box while the fluid form of the Matron Chameleonedae rippled upon contact with the container.

Khaln could not help but observe the ceremonial gestures he was witnessing - the similarities with the ceremonies he'd seen while traveling with the Ordeyirgossian volunteer army with his father and brothers was striking. He understood he was offered privileged exposure to the workings of the Call of Skaelor - how to use that knowledge was left to be discovered.

The tall black box vibrated and the corners cracked and plumes of smoke drifted upward from the box before spreading across the cargo hold, filling it with the noxious smell of ash. After a few moments, the box fell apart into a collections of jagged pieces and Khaln saw the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith for the first time. 

The tall figure stood into the light and Khaln could see the connection to the Quieting Angels: the Dread Lord's body was comprised of an elongated skeleton with long, elegant limbs and exaggerated hands and feet. There were no skin or muscles to hold the bones together, but they were trapped in a thick web of brown and green nerves extending from the side of spinal column. Where it should have had a skull, an oversized brain with large, brown eyes floated above the spinal column. The pale matter of the large brain occasionally pulsed and bubbled, spurting dark blood into the air. 

"Blessed Matrons," the Dread Lord said. His voice resounded but it was generated by the quivering of his hideous brain - each word was punctuated by flying drops of blood. "As per the law, upon my first presence I do not set foot, but am brought here. I thank you."

The three Matrons bowed to the Dread Lord as it glided across the floor of the cargo hold. He stopped before the matron Sonorous and touched her hair. "You remind me of your sister," he said as the Matron stiffened ever so slightly. "I pray her replacement is as worthy as she failed to be."

Khaln saw the Matron Sonorous swallow hard but maintain her head bowed.

"With this new wife," the Matron Sonorous said as she gestured towards a dazed Khaln, "I present the harbinger of the Pneuma Dracona."

Khaln watched the web of nerves constricted and heaved as the Dread Lord turned to gaze upon him with his expressive eyeballs. "You believe in the prophecies of men, Matron?" the Dread Lord asked with his squirting brain.

"I have tasted him, Dread Lord," the Matron Tenebrae said, stepping forward. "The spark is present - he will awaken the Primal Dragon. The world will be remade for us."

"You appear to be a point of convergence for prophecies," the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith groaned as he stared directly at Khaln, his sickening brain quivering with his words. "I killed my wife for she spoke to me in human terms of prophecy - she had been an oracle and a sister. She failed as a Matron."

"The sea swirls with tides of vengeance, Dread Lord," Khaln found himself whispering. He locked gazes with the disembodied eyeballs of the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith. Khaln felt dizziness seize his head and he slumped in the chair. 

"Vengeance is a holy act," the Dread Lord said, its quivering brain dripping blood onto the floor - the frontal lobes bubbled unevenly, forming a grotesque, crimson drooling smile. "As is this wedding - where is my betrothed?"

V

"Would you really have shot me in the face," he asked with his raspy voice echoing in the contoured tunnels that lead to his chambers.

"I would've grazed you," she said flatly.

"No one would believe that," he pointed out. "You never miss."

"Perhaps you're just that fast."

"Ziel-Tan, I would never be that fast." 

Ziel-Tan, Qoazti archer, found herself pushed roughly past a veil of thick curtains into a well sized chamber lit from bowls of burning oils dangling from the four corners the ceiling. The far end of the chamber was occupied by a large, straw filled mattress covered with red and green linen. 

Ziel-Tan flew across the room and landed onto the mattress in a heap of laughter. Behind her, entering the chamber with resolve was general Dagleon Talveiss - he unhooked the clasps of his cloak just as the Qoazti archer launched herself at him. He pivoted to sidestep her rush but she managed to grasp his wrist and was able to transfer her momentum to him and she slammed him against the chamber wall - but the momentum caused her to fall into his arms and his response was to press his lips to hers in a harsh kiss.

Ziel-Tan savored his rough lips, enjoying the restraint he showed when he picked her up and held her close to his silver breast plate. She ran her fingers through his short brown hair and grasp a reluctant handful of his locks and yanked his head back - Dagleon grunted when the Qoazti archer kissed and nibbled the stark skin of his neck. Ziel-Tan felt his rough hands touch her toned back while she struggled with the side clasps that held his breast plate tight. 

"It's been so damn long, I've forgotten how to do this," Ziel-Tan whispered in the general's ear before nibbling its lobe. She felt his lips curve into a smile when he slid his hands down her back and past the waist of her pants. He cupped her toned ass just as the first clasp of his armor snapped open.

"A practiced hand never forgets," Dagleon said as Ziel-Tan undid the rest of the armor. She stepped back and they lifted the breast plate off his shoulders. She then helped him remove the mail shirt and the gambison that finalized his cavalry armor. 

Free of his armor, Dagleon attacked the leather bindings that threaded Ziel-Tan's bodice and it fell easily from the archer's torso, exposing her small, firm breasts to the chilled air of the underground tunnel system - her nipples grew long and she hissed when his calloused thumbs pushed down on them. Dagleon released her breasts and wrapped his arms around the Qoazti archer and their lips met again in a fevered kiss as the pair danced around the chamber while their limbs intertwined. They bounced of the wall from one side of the chamber to another in a mock battle where hateful fury was replaced by relentless desire - their roaming fingers traced each other's life histories in a map of scars.

When they finally arrived at the bed, Dagleon swept Ziel-Tan's legs from beneath her and she landed heavily onto the mattress. She snarled when he grabbed the waist of her britches and he yanked them down unceremoniously. Ziel-Tan shivered when he pushed her legs up and took a deep whiff of her musky pussy. Ziel-Tan had seen her general do the same gesture time and again and it always filled her with amorous anticipation for what followed. 

Dagleon Talveiss looked down upon the pink folds of Ziel-Tan's pussy framed by exquisitely shaped buttocks completing a lovely, heart-shaped ass. His erection strained against the bindings of his pants but he ignored his manhood's plea and leaned forward and ran his wet tongue against the moistening slit of the the Qoazti archer.

"Ooohhh," Ziel-Tan moaned as Dagleon started to move his tongue up and down the length of her pussy - his tongue dashed left to right at a furious pace while his head movements were slow and deliberate. Ziel-Tan squirmed but her britches bound her ankles and the general braced an arm across the back of her knees, keeping them pressed to her slight chest. Dagleon would stop shy of her electrified clit and he would repeat the motion, nearing her nub with every completed cycle.

"You devil to torture me like th ... this!" Ziel-Tan hissed as her limbs fought to express her mounting bliss but Dagleon's strength held her steady.

"That's for leaving me for so many months and for allowing the Ordeyirgossian to touch you," Dagleon Talveiss snarled as he climbed onto the bed and pressed down on Ziel-Tan's knees, forcing her ass in the air in an awkward position. He then started to suck on her clit while rubbing her pussy lips with the fingers of his free hands, his middle finger occasionally entering her cunt.

"Like that! Tiengal curse me I love it!" Ziel-Tan screamed as her body rocked under the force of her orgasm - the walls of her pussy spasmed in search of a cock to milk and a swell of fluids dripped from her opening. Dagleon continued to rub her pussy and suck her clit even while she tried to pull away as her flesh was inflamed and made oversensitive by his experienced touch. 

"Oooaaaahhhh," Ziel-Tan cooed when Dagleon released his grip on her pussy and moved up the bed and planted hot kisses dripping of his saliva and her juices onto her neck and breasts. "You can make me come so hard," she said as she touched his short cropped hair.

"Is that how he made you come?" Dagleon asked with his raspy voice as he rolled onto his back.

"I won't say it wasn't good - it was," Ziel-Tan said. She rested on her side and propped her head on her shoulder, the long tress from the center of the back of her shaved head dangling over the side of the bed. "I had to prove to the daughters of the Vanguard that I was one of them - they demanded I help seduce him and I took pleasure in it." 

"I'm not jealous," Dagleon said. "I've been around long enough to know that jealousy is a wasteful emotion. But I also know a young heart can be a fickle one."

Ziel-Tan sat up and removed her britches completely and then went to undo the general's - he did not protest when she pulled them off, releasing his semi erect cock.

She gently stroked his shaft and said: "Ever since I saw you carry the standard of Melit'Zay, leading the Rogue Riders straight into the maw of the Scything Souls that pursued us up from the Savanni coast, I knew you were to be my general."

Ziel-Tan leaned over and kissed her general gently while squeezing his cock. "My heart will always be yours, my general Dagleon Talveiss."

"What was he like?" the general asked as Ziel-Tan cupped his balls and licked the tip of his manhood.

"Khaln was ... young. Strong - frighteningly so. I'd even say he was fearless but - there was a sadness to him. It was like he was heartbroken, and no matter how hard he tried, his heart just kept being torn."

"You pity him?" Dagleon asked.

"Pity isn't the word, Dag," Ziel-Tan answered, her hand cupping his cock. "I think I envy him. With what he's probably going through, what he's already suffered ... I don't know if I'd have had the strength to keep fighting.

"In that respect, he reminded me of you."

"My little arrow," Dagleon whispered in her ear before pulling her face close and kissing her unscarred eye. "Let's pretend you'd never met him and that this world never existed."

Ziel-Tan returned Dagleon's kiss while straddling his waist and reaching between her thighs to grip his cock and place it at the entrance of her pussy. She dripped in anticipation as she rubbed the tip of his manhood against the gate of her inner folds - Dagleon thrust upwards, passing her gentle guidance and burying his cock deep up into her pussy. She hissed as his girth split her in two and a fiery rupture of pleasure shot up from her pussy and spread across her limbs, filling her with a sense of well being - she fell forward and while her hips rocked violently against Dagleon's; her lips met his with a gentle sway.

Their tongues met once their lips split open and they moved together like undulating sea creatures carried by competing currents - Dagleon placed his hands on Ziel-Tan's breasts and she moaned while he moved him hands in circular motions, one hand moving clockwise and the other counter. Deep in her mind, Ziel-Tan did as he suggested and imagined a world where there had never been a Call of Skaelor or even magic. They would have lived in a coastal retreat where he would go out on the open sea with a strong net and fish while she would tend to picking fruit and clearing the garden and at night they would sit by a fire on the sand and sing and make love beneath the moons.

Dagleon felt his Qoazti lover wrap her arms around his neck with desperation while he pulled her close - his hips shot upwards and his cock slid in and out of her slick, wet pussy. His every thrust was punctuated by a grunt while Ziel-Tan's cunt quivered and seemed to strip the flesh from his cock so the their union could be more complete.

"Oh yes! Yes!" Ziel-Tan moaned as Dagleon held her hips steady and just fucked her with abandon - his cock was angled in such a way that it stroked her clit during the complete cycle of his fuck. Within a few moments, the Qoazti archer felt her body stiffen and her back seemed to arch past the point of breaking and she came, drenching the general's thighs with her musky juices.

Dagleon could almost taste Ziel-Tan's orgasm as it dripped down the shaft of his cock and he reveled in the satisfaction he could deliver her - but he was far from done with her. In a fluid movement beguiling his imposing physique, the general flipped the Qoazti archer onto her back and pinned her arms above her head. 




Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 04



"Don't stop," Ziel-Tan whispered even though her pussy was sensitized to where too much pleasure could blur with pain. Dagleon touched her cheek before pulling the leather band that covered her scarred left eye. He returned his hand to pin her arms and began to take slow, deep thrusts into her pussy, digging the tip of his engorged cock near the entrance of her womb while he kept his gaze locked with hers.

Ziel-Tan moaned as each of her general's thrusts triggered waves of burning bliss to spread across her flesh - she closed her eyes and let the madness of pleasure drown the surfacing memories of the past few months while she was in the presence of the Daughters of the Vanguard Draconis. 

Dagleon watched as his lover drifted into the embrace of bliss, driven there by his relentless rhythm. His own pleasure was fanned by the sound of Ziel-Tan's labored breathing and he answered by scooping her thighs in his arms and his thrust became more about achieving his climax than prolonging hers. Ziel-Tan noticed the shift in his purpose and she was happy to free him of the burden of her orgasm so he could have his. To his every penetration, she contracted the muscles at the base of her pussy and she squeezed his member, pulling him nearer to his outcome.

Dagleon's raspy breath came quickly as his orgasm boiled at the base of his cock, the pressure pushing its way towards blissful release. Ziel-Tan wrapped her legs around her general's powerful buttocks as she felt his cock begin to throb against the sides of her pussy.

"Aaaahhhaaaahhh!" Dagleon Talveiss gasped as loudly as his scarred throat could allow when his cock ceded and his orgasm gushed into Ziel-Tan's awaiting womb - for a moment, he lost himself in the measure of ecstasy he surrendered to his Qoazti lover and she embraced his offering. He fell forward once the last drops of his come spurted from his twitching cock like farewell tears and Ziel-Tan hugged him close.

"Sleep here," she whispered when Dagleon moved to disengage from her. "Sleep in me and let's just never wake up from this dream?" He kissed her and tasted salty moisture near the edge of her lips.

For awhile, Dagleon Talveiss and Ziel-Tan of the Guravass isles were no longer warriors, but slept under a moonlit sky on a secluded stretch of sandy beach in a shared dream.

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A few hours had passed when general Dagleon Talveiss slipped from the bed he shared with his clandestine lover, the Qoazti archer Ziel-Tan, and he stood silently while gazing at her athletic dozing form. He sighed before turning and running his hand across the smooth curvature of his bed chamber's wall until he found the latch he had had made by a tradesman easily swayed by coin and threats.

After he depressed the latch, a part of the wall parted and Dagleon slipped beyond his chamber and into a secret sanctum. He grasped a burning torch and walked a few paces until he touched the torch to a plate with oil that ignited, illuminating a scabbard mounted on a cherry-wood display. The scabbard held a double edge, one handed bastard sword - its polished cross-guard glinted in the firelight. It was the sword he would wear to the Seeded council room beneath the Heligopol. 

He delicately lifted the unassuming bastard sword from its hardwood stand and gripped the tapered, leather wrapped hilt and felt the familiar tingling course though his arm. The sword was named Eldrath'Zhil, the Spellbreaker. That it was in the possession of general Dagleon Talveiss marked him as a Cardinal Watcher - a human warrior without the gift of magic but trained to harness the forces encrusted in the forged steel of the blade. The Cardinal Watchers were a secret order established after the end of the second Wizards War - the King Vadesh had forbidden prophecy as an art to ensure that all mages and kingdoms were on an equal footing. Should ever the balance tip, the Cardinal Watchers were to act with one of four swords - balance was to be restored by the spilling the blood of the offending party.

The general remembered the days before he was to be ordained as a Cardinal watcher by his old mentor, Selgan. It had always been that way: a Watcher chose an acolyte and when they had achieved the appropriate mastery, the mentor would relinquish his sword and the acolyte became the new Watcher. All four watchers and their respective acolytes had gathered in Melit'Zay for the ceremony but they had been troubled - a reprobate sorcerer named Taffen had been attempting to learn the identity of the Watchers and locate the four swords.

Dagleon Talveiss, a young soldier at the time, had returned to his mentor's home on the outskirts of the city, only to discover Taffen had somehow overpowered the Cardinal Watchers and the acolytes. Dagleon stood motionless and hidden while he spied the wizard standing a midst his fallen companions - they had been sprawled out in a circle, each Watcher holding their designated sword while their chosen acolyte lied at their feet. Only Selgan was alone. Taffen looked upon the bodies and smirked, his long white beard moving like a tentacled beast. He then spoke and ancient incantation and moved his staff above his head in a series of glyphs that commanded the leylines of magic and the bodies levitated off the ground while the unsheathed swords floated above their owners, blades pointed downward and ready to pierce the chests of the watchers.

Fear had gripped the future general as the air around the sorcerer crackled with eldritch energies that reached out with lighting to engulf the Watchers and acolytes.

Taffen had then spoke in a high pitched voice: "I condemn these weapons of denial to the Void from whence they were never born and in which they will forever err!"

The eldritch lightning that surrounded the Watchers had then funneled up the swords and discharged a burst of energy at a spot over Taffen's head - the air suddenly grew ice cold while a column of pure darkness formed in mid air. 

"I condemn thee," Taffen yelled as he twirled his casting staff above his head. "I condemn Ax'Herith, Oczeloth, Th'Aal'rhan, Eldrath'Zhil!"

Dagleon had felt his fear dissipate as Taffen named each of the enchanted swords and when he spoke the name Eldrath'Zhil, Dagleon remembered it was his duty to protect the sword and the legacy of the Cardinal Watchers. He sprang from his hiding place and launched himself at Selgan's crumbling body. Taffen saw him from the corner of his eye and he said a word and a burst of black lightning erupted from the floating structure of darkness. Dagleon had managed to grab Eldrath'Zhil before the lightning could strike him. He had brought the sword in front of him when the black lightning struck the exposed blade. Dagleon was knocked backwards while gripping the precious sword - when he finally hit a wall, the blade of Eldrath'Zhil had dug itself partially into the left side of young Dagleon's neck. Blood spurted from the wound and touched the blade still bathed in crackling black lightning; when his blood touched the lightning, energy retreated into the dark floating structure and a loud howl filled the room. 

Dagleon had pulled a kerchief and pressed it to his wound while witnessing the dark structure deform into four homunculi that fell upon the swords and the sorcerer's casting staff. A web of dark, eldritch ribbons of energy spread, engulfing the enchanted weapons and the sorcerer Taffen, entering the bodies through the eyes and ears and nose and mouth. Dagleon finally succumbed to his fear and fled the madhouse that was to be the tomb of the Cardinal Watchers. As he ran into the night, he could hear the captive Watchers and the sorcerer become ... something else.

Since then, Dagleon Talveiss strived to redeem himself and had kept the sword safe, even during the massacres that were the battles with the Call of Skaelor. Upon taking refuge beneath Melit'Zay, he kept the sword secreted away from others. 

Dagleon had glanced at the secret chamber when he had been visited by the Oracle Cyphelia Desjaines. She had knocked at his chamber door before his departure to search for Ziel-Tan and return her to Melit'Zay - the Oracle was in his chamber before he could even stand and the door was locked behind her.

They had confronted each other for some seconds - she wore a simple orange slip dress while he was dressed in britches and greaves but was shirtless.

"What do you want?"Dagleon had asked while Cyphelia cocked her head to the side and peered into him with her purple eyes with silver irises. Unlike other men, he was able to hold her gaze without effort.

"Perhaps you prefer me this way," Dagleon had said in his raspy voice, touching the scar that cut a swath across the left side of his neck. He walked toward the stand holding his silver chest plate and a sheathed, bronze ceremonial sword. He sensed her intense gaze on his muscled back, but he understood she was not examining him physically. 

The Oracle simply said: " I am here to share something with you."

The general then turned towards the mysterious Oracle but the chamber door was closing behind her and she was gone like the wind. He had started to shake his head in annoyance when he noticed a piece of scroll on his bed. He had hesitated before reading it - it was a note written in an elegant style but the language felt like a more ancient version of Guravassi lingua.

Dagleon pondered it for a few minutes until he read: The vision I had - there was more. General, you will have a choice to make soon, and even if you choose wisely, it will still be the wrong choice, but it will be the only choice you can make. A spell will need to be broken, general. I know you'll be watching, as you always do.

"I'll have no part of any prophecy or vision, Oracle," he growled, but he had seen enough to know not to discount her words. From what she had hinted, he decided he would wear Eldrath'Zhil - he just didn't know when.

Until now. Dagleon carried the sheathed Spellbreaker from his hidden sanctum and placed it behind the stand where his chest plate usually hung. He then poured himself a goblet of water and drank until he heard sheets stirring and a long yawn.

"Are you all right?" Ziel-Tan asked groggily as she stood and joined the general - both in naked glory, he noted she was a bit taller than he was.

"Yes," Dagleon said while kissing the Qoazti archer's shoulder. "You'd best return to your chamber and dress - the council will be sitting soon."

VI

Bailla'Tayne Jeva had been received kindly when she entered the underground city that sheltered the refugees that had escaped to Melit'Zay. She was offered a bath and personal chambers with a full dressing room - she accepted the hospitality wholeheartedly but understood that the appearances were merely to cloud the fact she was still a prisoner, but in a gilded cage. When she had been led underground by members of the Qoazti Companion, she had not expected to be treated so warmly when the surviving populace where living in squalor. From peasants to merchants to nobles to the surviving Magedom, the city beneath a city was divided according to station, where the wealthy and powerful occupied the plush center while the poor and suffering haunted the outskirts. After 500 years since she was exiled with the dream eaters, society had not changed.

But after being led by the Prime Archer of the Qoazti companion, Maca-Jal, Bailla'Tayne Jeva now stood in stunned silence as she examined the glory of the serpentine ribbons of obsidian crisscrossing the crystalline ceiling of the huge chamber beneath the equally breathtaking Heligopol. Hundreds could be seated in the great, coned shaped chamber, but only a few dozen occupied the space. In front of her was a series of semi circular pulpits stacked 5 rows high - men and women in once regal dress occupied the myriad seats on the different levels. The highest level had one chair occupied by a stern looking woman in a simple robe. Her long gray hair hung loosely around her shoulders - the Blade Bride deduced this to be Odeena the Crone, head of the Seeded Council. 

To one side was a table made of a slab of pink marble with jagged edges - behind it sat two individuals: a woman dressed in bright green and orange robes with a large headdress and an older man, his lean figure in a simple gray tunic. Opposite them was the audience seating, occupied by members of the Qoazti Companion and off duty Rogue riders - Maca-Jal and Ziel-Tan sat at the front of the section while general Dagleon Talveiss discussed with the sergeant at arms who commanded the guard detail protecting the chamber. The general wore a bronze chest plate and greaves but his heavily muscled arms were free and he wore a green cloak denoting his rank. Bailla'Tayne Jeva noticed the general carried a more modern arming sword while the sergeant at arms and the guards carried bronze swords. The guards stationed at the doors carried long pole-arms with long, curved blades at their tips: bardiches.

The Blade Bride also noted the arrangement of onlookers as she scanned the chamber - near every guard standing at attention were three individuals within striking distance. She was certain the general had noticed the disposition of the audience - if the revolt she caught wind of happened, the guards would be easily overwhelmed. 

"This council is not heading the revelations of the gods!" the Oracle Cyphelia Desjaines shouted as she slammed her hand on the marble table she sat behind. "The Ordeyirgossian is the causal nexus the gods used to bring Lady Bailla'Tayne Jeva to us when fate decided another path for him."

"Your prophecy was that the he was to be the key to delivering us from the Call of Skaelor, Oracle!" Odeena the Crone shouted back as the audience rustled and voices rose. "This woman is a relic - what little magic she might have possessed is only worth anything in the presence of the Ordeyirgossian ... and he is not here."

"Lady Bailla'Tayne Jeva is not a relic," Cyphelia stated. "She is a gift from a past untouched by the Arcane Ailment or the Call of Skaelor. From her account of her contact with the Ordeyirgossian - which was confirmed by Ziel-Tan - we know that he is directly linked to the spark of magic. 

"We also know the Call used her to track him while he was hidden in Videsh'Achar - and I am sure she regrets her unwitting participation in their scheme." 

Bailla'Tayne Jeva gaze narrowed on the Oracle as she reminded the council of the Blade Bride's betrayal of Khaln - the Blade Bride had stared the Oracle in her purple eyes with the disquieting silver irises upon entering the chamber and had not turned away from the gaze, which she understood was a rare feat. When she had finally broken her eyes from the Oracle's, she felt a nagging sensation that she had forgotten something since her return to the world.

Cyphelia Desjaines walked from behind the marble table and extended a hand towards the Blade Bride and said: "She has the ability to sense the Ordeyirgossian. I'm certain that if asked, as a guest of the council, she will aid us in finding him."

Bailla'Tayne Jeva bristled once again and broke her silence. "Guest? I'm no guest. At best, I'm a prisoner in a gilded cage. I come into this world and find I have nothing left. Then I found him and in the end I betray him - it eats me up inside."

"I will aid you, I will," Bailla'Tayne Jeva said as she placed her hands on the lectern she was standing behind. "Say his name."

"What are you talking about?" Odeena the Crone scowled at Bailla'Tayne Jeva. The other council members stared nervously at each other while Cyphelia Desjaines watched the Blade Bride intensely.

"You call him the Ordeyirgossian, casual nexus, prophecy ... but do any of you even know his name?"

Bailla'Tayne Jeva walked around the lectern and stood before the Oracle. "Your visions say he will change to he world - the world's already changed. It always does, regardless of prophecy or gods or magic. That's it nature."

"Did you know he was looking for clues to who his father was? Did you know his mother sold herself to a warlord during the war with the Call in order to survive? That she was raped and he was still raised by hi father as one of his own but that his mother despised him?"

Bailla'Tayne Jeva's words seemed to hover over the council chamber as she challenged the members of the Seeded Council to answer the questions she posed them. The men and women representing the city states that took refuge beneath Melit'Zay averted her gaze while Odeena the Crone was unabated. 

A sudden flash of intense light broke the awkward silence as Odeena held her hand high and willed the light to appear. "Enough of this foolishness!" the witch ordered. "Guards, return lady Jeva to her chambers." 

"I will not be silenced," Bailla'Tayne Jeva said flatly. "His name was ... is - Khaln Dharrec."

"His name is not important, Lady Jeva," Odeena the crone said. "His birth was an abomination and his actions have served to confirm that. He's in the grip of the Call of Skaelor - a position you put him in."

"I know my actions and I will atone for them," Bailla'Tayne Jeva whispered, her breath suddenly visible. Many onlookers experienced the sight of their own breath and huddled together while looking up - the air echoed with a hushed creaking as a sheath of ice formed at the center of the ceiling of the council audience room and crept downwards across the walls. "But I will no longer be a prisoner."

Odeena the Crone caught the sight of her breath and willed a ball of fire to ignite before her - she said, "Enough lady Jeva! The articles of Arcane Accession prohibit the exercise of magic by unseeded witches or wizards!"

Bailla'Tayne Jeva ignored Odeena's warning and felt the leylines of magic flow through her and stretch out like a web across the council chamber - knots in the lines stood where they intersected with people, and the knots glowed and grew thick around mages. But like all those touched by the Arcane Ailment, the knots were dim and the strands would unravel. Only Thierann seemed to have a potent, constant glow that denoted his immunity to the Ailment. 

Odeena the Crone also saw the leylines of magic, as did all of the Seeded members of the council - but she had never witnessed as striking a concentration as what passed through the Blade Bride. The Crone unleashed her fireball against Bailla'Tayne Jeva, infusing it with all the will she could center on the Blade Bride.

Bailla'Tayne Jeva saw the fireball fly towards her and in her mind, she was able to see the intricate structures of conflicting force that fueled the fire. She felt a tear run down her cheek for she had never before seen the invisible beauty behind the exploits of magic - but with a simple breath, she extinguished the Crone's fireball and watched its ethereal structures dismantle.

"She's pregnant," Cyphelia Desjaines whispered to Lord Thierann's ear.

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Thierann witnessed the fireball Odeena the Crone had cast at Bailla'Tayne Jeva and saw how it was swept aside by the Blade Bride, a feat even the most experienced and powerful seeded Witch or Wizard would have had difficulty performing. But as he felt the air grow chillier and saw the growing red glow erupt from the Blade Bride's womb and pierce through the heightened perceptions of leylines and light the faces of the attending audience, he knew Cyphelia's words rang true: the Blade Bride carried the child of the keeper of the Pneuma Dracona.

Thierann signaled to a member of the Qoazti companion to lead the Oracle back to her chambers but instead, Cyphelia Desjaines gripped the wizard's arm. 

"I didn't see this happening," the Oracle whispered. "How could I blind to this?"

"Cyphelia, you once told me an oracle can never see beyond their own death," Thierann said as he grasped her shoulders. "You have to leave now!"




Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 04



Cyphelia Desjaines blinked her eyes repeatedly as Thierann's word sank in but it was too late - every opening was blocked by a thick sheath of ice that reflected the crimson glow emanating from the Blade Bride's womb.

Thierann pushed Cyphelia into the arms of a guard and when his eyes fell upon the pink marble table they had been seated behind, it crumbled to dust and began to flow around him just as Odeena the Crone lept from her perch in the highest pulpit and landed a few paces from the glowing form of Bailla'Tayne Jeva.

The wizard willed the flowing cloud of marble dust to swarm around the Blade Bride and form a wall to isolate her from Odeena the Crone - he did not like the old witch, but he knew that her magic, weakened from exposure to the Arcane Ailment, was no match for the raw power the Blade Bride currently possessed. Even his might, untouched by the Ailment, was a fraction of Bailla'Tayne Jeva's.

It would have to be enough.

@@@@@

General Dagleon Talveiss watched, just as the Oracle of Thull'Achar had predicted. He watched as three forces of magic were about the clash: Bailla'Tayne Jeva glowed, bathed in scarlet glory from her gut; Odeena the Crone, unleashing fire and lightning against the Blade Bride; lord Thierann of Gul'Vadesh, a cloud of dust swirling around his head while part of it solidified between Odeena and the Blade Bride.

Dagleon looked over at Ziel-Tan - she was corralling some audience members to a safe place away from the mystic confrontation but there were no safe places. The general looked up at the ceiling and saw long icy fang protrude towards the floor. If they fell, they would impale any unlucky enough to be beneath them. He also saw fights erupt between the guards of the Heligopol and the Qoazti companions - the confrontation between the mages was acting as a catalyst for the mounting tension infecting all those who had taken refuge in the claustrophobic confines beneath Melit'Zay.

The general placed his hand upon the hilt of his arming sword - Eldrath'Zhil seemed to sing for its freedom when he gazed over to where the Oracle struggled with a guard who dragged her away from the conflict. Her haunting gaze trapped his and he understood - after today, the Seeded Council would no longer be. 

Dagleon Talveiss drew Eldrath'Zhil and the blade sang.

@@@@@

Bailla'Tayne Jeva was in bliss - the expanse of magic that coursed through her core had expanded her senses and she could hear the specks of dust bouncing off one another as a wall formed around her. She could feel Thierann's will upon the leylines and admired the precision he exhibited. It reminded her of how Khaln would practice his sword drills after they made love in the morning.

The Blade Bride also felt the resentment and the anger that fueled Odeena the Crone's magic - but she could also see the frayed tatters of the old witch's once magnificent power. It was a simple act to impose her will upon theirs and make their constructs unravel. 

Thierann gasped as he fell backwards when the backlash from the Blade Bride tore through his defenses. But even as tendrils of dream weaving magic sought to enter his mind and capture his thoughts, he created a maze of philosophical reasoning that thwarted the insistancy of Bailla'Tayne Jeva's dream weaving magic. He extended the maze to envelop Odeena and the other mages that were members of the Seeded Council - but, as this extension made his will cross the Blade Bride's, he felt that there was more than her will at play. The newly formed child she carried guided her application of will upon magic. That fact frightened the wizard more than he imagined.

Bailla'Tayne Jeva's smile and pleasure soured as a sliver of darkness appeared to suck the spark from the leylines of magic and spoil the constructs all the mages had weaved - even the tendrils of dream weaving crumbled as the red glow from the Blade Bride's stomach faltered.

General Dagleon Talveiss stood in front of Bailla'Tayne Jeva, his sword drawn and the point of the mat finished blade aimed at her heart. 

"Please stop, Lady Bailla'Tayne," the general asked, his quiet, raspy voice somehow echoing though the chamber. The ice that had formed on the ceiling and down the walls was melting, showering everyone in the chamber with a dousing cold shower. The Blade Bride called upon the leylines that flowed through her to lash out at the general but his sword negated her will. The effect spread to every mage in the room.

"This is Eldrath'Zhil - the Spellbreaker," Dagleon added. "For the sake of every one here, end this."

Bailla'Tayne Jeva looked around and saw people quivering in fear while others huddled away from the skirmishes that had broken out. She returned her gaze to the general who had just threatened her a mere day ago.

"I bear you no ill will, lady Bailla'Tayne, but you are threatening the lives of everyone here - I will kill you to protect them."

Thierann was behind the general and in awe of the named sword he had always thought was only a myth. "Bailla'Tayne Jeva, we need you. Khaln needs you."

The Blade Bride considered striking at the general with her skill, but his demeanor suggested he expected that. And she was certain of it when she felt the tip of an arrow touch the base of her neck - Ziel-Tan of the Qoazti companion was supporting the general. Odeena the Crone stood off to one side and shivered as they were all rained upon by the melting ice sheath the Blade Bride had conjured.

"Can you say his name?" Bailla'Tayne Jeva asked Dagleon Talveiss.

"Khaln Dharrec," Dagleon said. 

"Thank you," the Blade Bride said before she collapsed. General Dagleon Talveiss dropped his named sword and caught Bailla'Tayne Jeva before she crashed to the ground.

A moan rose in the chamber just as the general hailed two guards and ordered them to take the Blade bride back to her chambers. The general then ran over to the source of the pained moan.

Lord Thierann of Gul'Vadesh was on his knees and he cradled the head of the oracle Cyphelia Desjaines. Dagleon Talveiss gasped while Ziel-Tan stifled a cry - the oracle's robes were bloodied and torn from where a dagger had been plunged multiple times in her chest and stomach. The prime archer of the Qoazti companion Maca-Jal turned away while Thierann caressed her hair and kissed her forehead while rocking her body.

"Her eyes," Lord Thierann whispered as he touched the skin around Cyphelia's empty, bloodied eye sockets.

VII

The crew of the stolen vessel transferred their captives and cargo onto the immense barge that served as the home-on-the-sea for the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith - once the boat was unloaded, its captive crew were released from their stupor in time to witness their boat be set aflame. The Matron Sonorous kept a shackled and groggy Khaln by her side as they watched the vessel burn and heard the screams of the sailors as they struggled.

"Does it concern you that your fellow humans suffer and perish at sea?" the Matron Sonorous asked as she gestured at the rapidly sinking ship.

"No," Khaln muttered. "People mean very little to me, right now." 

"Good."

@@@@@ 

The preparations for the nuptials took place in low slung, oval shaped structure that was located near the pyramidal tower that occupied the center of the fog enveloped barge. The ceremony was set to happen when the twin moons were at their highest point in the night sky. 

The Dread Lord of Ax'Herith took position in the center of the floor and the Matron Sonorous stood behind him while the Matrons Chameleonedae and Tenebrae took up places respectively to his right and left. Khaln had been attached to the ceiling, stiff metal rings held his arms and legs spread eagle while a larger flexible corset of leather roped through loops supported his stomach.

Spheres glowed in strategic areas across the chamber, casting eerie lite on the four immobile figures. Strange scraping sounds came from the flickering shadows and Khaln could hear the patter of feet crawling across the ceiling, just beyond his vision. His thoughts were strangely clear, the way they had been a few days before when he had killed two sailors who manhandled him. 

"Matrons of Skaelor, Dread Lords of Skaelor," the Matron Sonorous began to recite. "For each one, there is one. We are the body of the Call - but our voice is incomplete."

The exposed brain of the Dread Lord quivered, spraying blood into the air as two Scything Souls carried a body wrapped in strips of linen that had been dipped in horribly pungent ointments. The smell reached up to Khaln's nostrils and he recoiled at the stench.

"We present the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith with a new bride - a new Matron to be born."

Upon those final words, the Matrons began to hum - Khaln felt the sound like a blow to the gut as the humming seemed to reverberate and be amplified by the strange properties of the oval chamber. He also felt the sonic energies focus on where he hung and he struggled but his binding held firm. 

Beneath him, the Scything Souls began to unravel the eldritch fabric that made up their bodies and they recast themselves as a table upon which rested the enwrapped body of the Matron and bride to be. The Dread Lord of Ax'Herith moved forward, the leathery strands of nerve fibers that contained his skeleton heaved and flexed in an awkward imitation of a walk. Once the Dread lord place his unblinking eyes upon the helpless woman, his brain quivered and sprayed her splayed form with its pungent blood. Each drop that fell onto the strips of linen that covered her served as a root for the wriggling appendages that spouted. The trapped woman moaned audibly as the tendrils drilled into her flesh, staining the linen and the table she laid on with rivulets of blood. She struggled against the fabric but she was immobilized as the growing tendrils wrapped around her like tentacles.

Khaln recoiled as the tendrils broke through the sides of the linen that bound the woman and espoused her slim, busty form. He felt a pang of disgust at himself when he felt his cock manifest his budding arousal at her plight - he remembered that he was told it was Tayne that was trapped there. Bailla'Tayne Jeva had betrayed him and was about the suffer the fate he had wished upon her, but the sigh of her helpless at the mercy of the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith was a fate even he could not fathom upon another. 

The Dread Lord reached out with his skeletal fingers and ran them across his captive's helpless body, lingering over her breasts and hips and buttocks. The leathery strips of dried nerve fibers that held his body together heaved and he reached out and gripped the prisoner's thighs and he pulled them apart. 

Khaln growled when he saw an appendage appear from between the Dread Lord's thighs and quiver and spray blood, much like his hideous, exposed brain. The Dread Lord stepped forward and his dripping cock pressed against the tendrils that had consumed the linen bandages that had originally surrounded her. A ripping sound arose in the oval chamber and the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith thrusted into the frail looking body of the woman in bondage - she let out a muffled scream as the bulge of the Dread Lord's appendage made her stomach bloat like a ripening corpse.

Khaln wanted to look away but the compulsion to witness the destruction of the woman who betrayed him was greater even though he recoiled in disgust as her screams managed to overpower the drone of the chanting matrons. 

The Dread Lord of Ax'Herith held his captive by the hips as he pounded her with ferocity - his bloodied member stretched her stomach beyond the point of human resistance but the tendrils that bound her also kept her form from being split in two. Her muffled screams had been replaced by cries of ecstasy as the captive embraced whatever transformation was happening to her. 

It was then that Khaln noticed that the woman's form was curvaceous whereas Tayne was slender and athletic. The voice that climbed to his ears was broken and strained while Tayne's was mellifluous and satiny - he concentrated on her movements as she had stopped being an unwilling participant in this "marriage" and was now participating wholeheartedly in the transgression.

The Dread Lord tried to pull away from the wanton hunger of his new bride, but the tendrils rooted in droplets of his own blood sprouted from her form and entangled with the fibers that constituted his body - the new Matron stood from the table, the dark tendrils had fallen from her chest and her ample breasts and flat belly were exposed, and threw herself at the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith. They landed on the hard floor of the marriage chamber and the Matron pinned the Dread Lord to the ground and found his willing cock and impaled herself on it.

Khaln watched as the Matron embraced the fiend and rode its inhuman sex with a mad abandon while it stretched and twisted her - he understood that the woman being perverted was not Tayne, but Onia. He remembered her savagery while in the clutches of the Daughters of the Vanguard Draconis; he remembered that he had fucked her in her ass; he remembered that she was the one who dragged him away to be delivered to some unknown fate.

But Khaln also saw the machinations of the Matron Sonorous: he was to be her tool of vengeance, manipulated through his own thirst to see the woman who had betrayed him suffer. He was given a potion to provide him the vitality necessary to strike at the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith. He cast a glance at his hands and saw the familiar pools of light flash beneath his skin while the erratic web of his capillaries throbbed with a crimson glow. The last time his skin had glowed this way, he had been filled with rage, but now all he felt was sorrow.

Beneath him, the new Matron had flipped onto her back and the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith had taken a position between her thighs and they fucked - his bones clanged together as he thrust into her and she wrapped her legs around his skinny waist. The dark tendrils that had enveloped her had fallen away and her new form was exposed: her skin had the scaly countenance of a snake's and it shimmered as it captured the light from the various flickering orbs of light. Her head was bald but the tattoos she had worn proudly as Onia flowed and morphed as though floating on a viscous liquid. She hissed and howled as she embraced the inhuman cock that drove into her. 

The humming of the watching Matrons had continued to strike Khaln with hurricane like forces as they centered onto where he was bound to the ceiling - he had also noticed a loosening of the loops that held his wrists and ankles. Khaln began to pant and contort his spine, applying pressure to the weakened tethers until they snapped, sending him plummeting to the floor. The Scything Souls that had supported the Dread Lord and the new found Matron shoved them aside just as Khaln struck the floor with a muffled groan. Red light rippled across his skin as he scrambled to his feet just in time to sidestep a thrust from one of the Scything Souls. As another thrust targeted his neck, Khaln used the metal ring looped around his left wrist to knock the blade aside but when he lunged for where the heart animating the Scything Soul should be, the leather bodice he wore tightened, sabotaging his technique.

The second Scything Soul had maneuvered behind Khaln and it wrapped a ribbon like limb around his neck and yanked the warrior backwards - Khaln used the rigidity of the leather bodice to his advantage by adding to the momentum generated by the Scything Soul by kicking off the floor as the creature yanked him. His body shot towards the Scything Soul like a spear and its grip faltered - Khaln twisted his shoulders and the Soul's limb unraveled like a scarf. But Khaln held on to the limb, immobilizing the blade that adorned its tip by bracing it against his body. As the Scything Soul struggled, its trapped blade cut at the leather bodice that hindered Khaln's movements and the restraint finally flew off as they wrestled. Now fully mobile, Khaln crouched while holding the base of the ethereal fabric that bound the Scything Soul's blade and he threw himself at the core of the creature - it tried to beat him off, cutting superficial wounds into his back and sides but Khaln turned the Scything Soul's own blade against it and stabbed at its dark core, piercing the human heart that powered it and spilling the black ichor that was its blood.

Khaln tossed aside the deflated corpse of the Scything Soul and readied to face the other when a shimmering movement caught his attention - he barely had time to roll with the blow as the new found Matron connected with his jaw while landing a powerful heel kick to his face. Khaln was thrown to the ground but as he continued to roll he regained his footing. Khaln snarled and tore at the tattered robes, exposing his glowing skin and bleeding cuts - the various scars on his torso and shoulders and back interrupting the pulses of light.

"Impressive, second-son," a thunderous voice resounded. 

Khaln looked beyond the Matron and saw that the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith stood to his full height. 

"You have brought me a fine bride," the Dread Lord said, his brain bubbling with each syllable. "She is now the Matron Inludidae - the scorn of The Call of Skaelor." 

"So?" Khaln asked, shaking his head. "One way or another - she's just another future corpse."

"I've had a revelation: This isn't about the Call or humans, or even dragons. It's about the Void and it's pact with the Gods - and I'm a contract."

The Dread Lord of Ax'Herith bristled at the words. "This world is ours," the Dread Lord hissed, spraying blood into the air. "You will remake it so."

The Dread Lord and the young warrior named Khaln circled each other as the four Matrons stared on - the Matron Sonorous made a fist as she felt her vengeance was soon to bare fruit; the Matron Tenebrae pondered Khaln's words, wondering if she was just a pawn; the Matron Chameleonedae was silent, remembering her time as Asteytis, relishing the worship she'd received; the Matron Inludidae was torn between the desire to fuck to young warrior and to destroy him.

The Dread Lord of Ax'Herith growled and a ball of energy appeared between the halves of his hideous brain and a bolt of lightning streaked towards Khaln. The warrior threw himself to his side and the bolt of energy struck the side of the chamber, blowing out the wall, allowing streams of mist and moonlight to seep into the chamber. Khaln rolled to his side, but before he could regain his footing, the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith moved with preternatural speed and fell upon Khaln. The Dread Lord wrapped his bony hand and leathery tendrils around Khaln's glowing body, lifted the warrior off the ground and smashed him against the chamber's wall. Khaln grunted but he reached out for the Dread Lord's face but the limb was inhumanly long - but as the Dread Lord tried to toss Khaln across the chamber, the warrior wrapped his thickly muscled legs around the Dread Lord's arm and he arched his back while stretching his body to its full length. His movements, added to the Dread Lord's momentum caused the creature to stumble forward - Khaln felt his skin go cold where it encountered the exposed bones of the Dread Lord's skeleton, but as the Lord stumbled, the warrior unwrapped his legs from around his arm and he threw them backwards. Khaln fought with the tangle of leathery tendrils that tried to wrap around him like tentacles and he managed to drag the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith to the floor.

Khaln landed on the Dread Lord, ignoring the pain that wracked his limbs where his skin touched the web of exposed nerves that held the creature together. The Dread Lord swatted and yanked at Khaln by the warrior had found strength and had neutralized the Dread Lord's reach advantage. Khaln managed to mount the Dread Lord's chest and started to pummel its sternum - each impact made Khaln's fists erupt with pulses of red light that rippled across his body. The Dread Lord of Ax'Herith unleashed another bolt of blue lightning from his obscenely bulging brain - Khaln caught the bolt in the face but held onto the Dread Lord's ribs even as he screamed in pain as flesh was peeled from his jaw. The bolt of lightning stopped suddenly as Khaln pulled the Dread Lord's ribs apart.