The Blade of Highwind: The Complete Trilogy, page 47
With a lecherous grin, Shay leaned down to plant a kiss on the amazon’s breast above her nipple. “But that really was crazy hot, honey. I’m so glad you enjoyed it.”
Isolde smiled, still exhausted but clearly over the moon. “You were right. It was more intense to experience it myself.”
“And we’re only getting started. If he can cum inside you whenever he wants, I’ll make damn sure he abuses the privilege.”
The amazon chuckled softly. “What about you?”
“Oh, I’ll manage,” Shay said, turning to face me. “Because if you can’t cum inside me, I have another challenge for you tonight.”
“What’s that?” I asked, still catching my breath.
She sidled up close to me, lips at my cheek. “I want you to get me so fucking filthy I’ll need to dive overboard to wash it all off. Can you do that for me?”
I smiled. “I’m certainly willing to try.”
Interlude
The Crusade
She’s dead. They are all dead. And without our help, you will soon join them.
Veleca’s golden gauntlets squeezed the wooden railing. She wanted to believe that the demons were lying, that they were merely trying to torment her until her willpower wavered and let them in. They yearned for a body, a vessel to allow them to cross over into the realm from which they’d been banished. She harbored no illusions about their intentions.
But for once, the monsters of the Pale spoke truth. Jurisa, the last Senosi Huntress, was gone.
An old, familiar pain twisted in Veleca’s heart, unleashing a torrent of despair.
For twenty years now, she had felt little else. The spark that had once sustained her—a desperate hope that her mistress’s crusade could somehow be revived—had long since faded. Even the dragon’s disappearance hadn’t rekindled the old flame. Veleca was a soldier, not a leader. Without the righteous determination of Inquisitrix Marcella, there was nothing to rebuild. Only ashes to mourn.
The demons were right about Jurisa, and they were right about Veleca as well. Tomorrow night, she would join her sisters in oblivion.
But not before she claimed her revenge. Not before Vorsalos and all of the Northern Reaches paid the price for their ignorance.
“That was our mistake all along,” she said. “They don’t deserve to be saved. Only punished.”
Her voice was hollow and dark; the words died the moment they departed her lips. Even sound was muted here, suffocated like everything else in this wretched realm of shadows and demons and death.
Swallowing the pain, trying her best not to choke on her rage, Veleca looked out across the motionless waters beneath the ship. If the legends were true, the Pale had once been a prison for the Fallen Gods after their defeat at the hands of the Wyrm Lords, but an eternity of torment had shattered their minds. All that remained were demons, haunted specters of raw power and emotion with just enough consciousness to yearn for freedom.
If Veleca lingered here much longer, they would eventually destroy her mind as well. At times, she wondered if that might be for the best. Her body might be more useful—more destructive—as a host.
But no, that dark thought was a symptom of their whispers worming into her head. It was time to leave this place and finish what she had started.
Veleca lifted the palm-size runestone in her left hand. When she placed her thumb in the center, the power of the ancient relic coursed through her as if she had shattered a dam.
The Runic Focus, one of the greatest surviving achievements of Avetharri artifice, was the only path to the Aether besides sorcery or the divine power of a Godsoul. Its pathways were limited to a single school of magic, but one school was all Veleca needed.
The gloom around her shifted, and with a sudden flash of green fire, her surroundings changed. She was still standing on the deck of a great warship, and she was still looking out upon a dark ocean. But here in the physical world, the moon was reflected on the water’s surface, and waves rhythmically crashed against the hull. There was a warmth in the air that hadn’t been there before, carrying with it the briny scent and soothing sounds of the sea.
And on the eastern horizon, a few miles away, was the hauntingly familiar silhouette of Vorsalos, the City of Ravens. Once a beacon of justice and temperance, now a pit of corruption and wickedness.
“Take the others and get them into position,” she snarled, infusing her voice with the power of the artifact. “We attack at nightfall tomorrow.”
“Why wait?” a monstrous voice snarled behind her. “We can take them now.”
Scowling, Veleca turned to face the horrid creature standing behind her. Its hulking frame, crimson skin, and glowing green eyes set it apart from the shambling corpses awaiting her command here on the warship’s main deck. After losing contact with her demonic lieutenant at Tel Noroth, she had been forced to summon a lesser creature—a Tezigoth, a demon of malice and rage. Though what it lacked in cunning, it more than made up for in raw power. The creature had warped and twisted the fisherman’s body she had given to it into a grotesque abomination. It was now almost twice the size of a normal man, and had a fleshy, bestial face. Long black spines sprouted from its back, and its hands were punctuated by monstrous claws.
“We will wait because I command it,” she said. “Now get our forces into position. We need to come at them from both sides if we’re to succeed.”
The demon growled under its breath. Veleca knew that if she weren’t holding the Focus, it would have already tried to tear her apart. Rage demons didn’t care about strategy or even victory, only slaughter.
But her hold on its mind was immutable, and the hulking monstrosity began to lumber toward the fracture in the Pale she had opened on the port side of the deck. It shuffled into the rift along with the rest of her undead minions, and soon she was alone. Again.
Her nose wrinkled at the stench of death. The main deck of the Black Harpy was littered with corpses and splattered with blood, but the lower cabins were undoubtedly even more macabre. A good portion of the crew had been asleep when her undead minions had emerged from the water and crawled aboard, though only a few had been fortunate enough to die in their sleep. The rest had been beaten, clawed, and gutted.
But their service to this great vessel was far from over. The Black Harpy was a fixture here in the Gulf of Denedar, an enduring symbol of Vorsalosian might. Most of the city’s citizens would find its sudden appearance in the city’s harbor surprising but not at all threatening…at least, not until it was too late.
Grinning bitterly, Veleca lifted the Runic Focus and once again allowed its dark power to flow through her. A high-pitched hiss cut through the air as the invisible fracture in the Pale widened and spewed forth more tiny demons. The spirits couldn’t survive long in the physical world without bodies to possess, but the Black Harpy was now full of empty vessels just waiting for new hosts.
“Arise,” she said, watching in grim satisfaction as the bloodied corpses strewn across the deck began twitching back to life. “Arise…and heed the final call of the Crusade.”
4
Back to Business
Mirek
Morning arrived unsolicited as usual, and when the rays of sunlight filtered in through the cabin’s porthole, I was seriously tempted to weave a transmutation spell to seal the opening and return the cabin to sweet, blessed darkness. But as my mind slowly returned to consciousness, I remembered that our late-night revelries had merely been a prelude to what might very well be the most important day of our lives.
The undead were still coming. And we were the only ones who could stop them.
“Shit,” I managed, lifting my face out of the pillow. My head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.
I turned to the side, half-expecting to see Shayera in a Dal’Rethi trance to bleed off the excess energy I must have given her last night. But no, she was lying atop Isolde right next to me, her head lodged comfortably between the amazon’s breasts where she had apparently passed out.
Grinning, I propped myself up on an elbow and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. Shay’s golden hair was spilled everywhere, while Isolde’s brown mane was matted against the pillow. Their bodies looked so sticky I feared I might have to peel them apart. I had made an absolute mess of both of them.
“Mm…” Shayera groaned, her voice muffled by Isolde’s breast. “Did we miss the apocalypse?”
“Maybe,” I muttered.
“Good. Then I’m going back to sleep.”
I snorted. But after rubbing my eyes again, I realized she actually had fallen back asleep. I blinked, wondering if Isolde might pop up and scold Shay about sleeping in, but the amazon looked practically dead, too. It was a stark contrast to Arkney Falls where she had gotten up, taken a bath, and brought us breakfast before we’d stirred. Last night had evidently taken even more out of her than our first…uh, bonding session.
“We need to get to the city,” I said, raising my voice and leaning all the way up. “The sooner we warn them what’s coming, the better.”
Neither girl moved. I sighed, struggling to resist the urge to close my own eyes and join them. It wasn’t as if we didn’t deserve a day off—we’d had back-to-back days of travel and fighting, not to mention the most intense sex of my life. It seemed like a great injustice that we couldn’t lie here all day resting. And fucking. And then resting some more.
But I couldn’t keep my thoughts from flashing to Farah and this completely insane plan she was a part of. Eventually, the anger I’d been bottling up got me awake and out of bed.
“Oh…” Isolde suddenly moaned, her eyes fluttering open and fastening on me. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” I soothed. My growing rage must have awakened her as well. “Just, uh, it’s time to get up.”
“Of course.” The amazon cleared her throat and tried to lean up, only to notice that Shay was slung over her breasts like a sandbag. And when Isolde gently tried to move her, she didn’t budge.
“I’m never leaving this tit,” Shayera said, eyes remaining closed. “It’s the most comfortable thing in the world.”
I snorted. “Shay…”
“No one gets to wake up princesses until they’re ready. It’s the law. Somewhere.”
“But day has broken,” Isolde said, sliding her fingers through Shayera’s golden mane. “We need to—”
“I’m your Maskari,” Shay said. “You have to do what I say, right? Well…I say you keep these perfect pillows of yours right here.”
Isolde looked up at me, confused and seemingly helpless. I knew precisely how she felt, having experienced the same reaction to our half-elven companion about a dozen times over the past week. It was hard to believe I’d only known her that long…
But I already knew her weaknesses nearly as well as her strengths. Stepping behind her on the bed, I gently slid my fingers up the back of her smooth inner thighs…
And pinched her on the ass.
She yelped so loudly it probably woke half the ship, and she hopped up and whirled around as if to slap my hand away. I snatched her wrist in the middle of her arc, then pulled her up and into my arms with a firm tug. Her turquoise eyes narrowed dangerously, and she tried and failed to blow the hair out of her face.
“Good morning,” I said.
Huffing in annoyance, she spun her neck around as Isolde got up.
“My pillows,” Shay lamented. “Please don’t take them away.”
“They will be here for you later,” Isolde said as she stood. “You need not worry.”
“They’d better be.”
Chuckling, I brought our lips together for a long, deep kiss. “You aren’t glowing,” I whispered when I pulled back. “I figured you’d be overflowing after last night.”
Shay smiled. “I wanted to keep every spark of energy for tonight. But I wouldn’t complain if you wanted to top me up again just in case…”
She shuffled in my lap, sliding her agile legs around my waist until she was straddling me. I could feel the heat of her quim against me, and it would have been so easy to slip inside her again. We’d had this problem every morning since we’d met, and we’d given in every time.
But today…today needed to be different. And despite her playful smile, I knew she understood that too.
“You’ll have to make do for now,” I told her. “We need to get cleaned up.”
Shay groaned. “You don’t suppose they have rainwater buckets or something on the ship, do you?”
“I saw several pump rooms last night on the way in. I’m sure we can use one.”
“Pump rooms? How is a seawater bath supposed to help? Getting hot, salty liquid shot all over me is what got me filthy in the first place.”
I snorted. “Oh, the water is cold as hell—don’t you remember swimming all the way back to the harbor?”
“To be honest, that whole thing is kind of a blur,” she grumbled. “You probably want us to freeze so our nipples get hard.”
“That’s just a bonus. Besides, you’re the one who wanted to sleep on a party ship instead of the forest.”
“And it was totally worth it. Don’t even try to deny it.”
“I won’t,” I said, brushing her cheek, then turning to look at Isolde. Last night still seemed like a fever dream. I couldn’t believe that the daughter of the dragon was sharing my bed…or that I was the man who’d been given the privilege of claiming her for the first time. In the span of a week, I had deflowered the two most beautiful and important girls in the Northern Reaches.
I really hoped that Zarach was looking out for me, because one man could only get lucky for so long. And tonight definitely had the potential to balance the scales.
“Come on,” I said, helping Shay slide out of my lap. “Let’s see what else this boat has to offer.”
As it turned out, there was an empty pump room a few holds further away, and we all piled in and closed the door behind us. Most warships had pumps, of course, but a main deck hose-down simply wouldn’t suffice for a ship that tried to double as an inn. Realizing that, the owners had gotten creative.
Still, I couldn’t help but appreciate how much easier everything was back in the Imperium where artifice and sorcery were common rather than shunned. On most Imperial vessels this size, especially ones designed to ferry important passengers to Talisham or Ebara, the arcanists could simply transmute fresh water for the crew on a daily basis, while the elementalists could heat or cool it as they wished. If any of my contemporaries from the Aetherium were here now, they would call this vessel barbaric.
But then, a lot of them were idiots. And I was the one standing here with two naked beauties about to take a bath.
The device worked reasonably well, too. While I worked the pump, Shay pointed the hose at Isolde and blasted her with bursts of cold water that made her nipples rock hard like we’d predicted. The amazon’s protests made Shay giggle, while the sight of her athletic body soaking wet made me hard. Thanks to her collar, my reaction made Isolde hot, which in turn made Shay hot…and the whole thing was about to cascade into another threesome before I stole the hose from Shay and turned it on her instead.
As she cooled off, Isolde cooled off…mostly. Ultimately, the only way to break this ridiculous pleasure loop was for me to close my eyes and avoid looking at their wet bodies. It was easily the most difficult thing I had ever done, up to and including developing my own teleportation techniques.
But eventually, I mustered the strength to push through, and once the girls were dried off and dressed, I was reasonably sure I could keep my libido under control…for a while.
The delightful smells of breakfast wafted out from the galley through the ship, and I tried to focus on my hunger rather than my companions. The deck was only about half as full as it had been last night, possibly less, and most of the customers were eating more or less quietly while nursing obvious hangovers. There weren’t any ongoing games or competitions, either; even the wenches were all upright serving food rather than scuttling beneath tables for some extra coin.
We drew several looks when we entered, especially Isolde, and I wondered if it was because of her amazon armor or because the people here had witnessed her miraculous victory last night. Regardless, I drew a few gazes as well, though they were on the nastier side. I understood why; Zarach knew I would have been jealous if I’d seen another man retire to the cabin with a pretty girl on either arm.
It felt fantastic to be that man though. I couldn’t help but strut everywhere I went.
About ten minutes later, after we’d all finished a quick meal, we headed up the stairs back to the main deck. The sun was so bright—and the ship had been so dark—that I had to squint like a bloody orc emerging from a cave. My mind raced ahead to the next few hours, and my stomach twisted when I thought about how I would almost certainly have to risk another meeting with Farah…
But before I could start brooding in earnest, I realized we weren’t alone on the deck. Standing there by the starboard railing was the burly man with a patchy beard Isolde had humiliated last night. He had two equally burly friends with him…and none of them looked amused.
“Ferryman taking his sweet time?” I asked, forcing a smile even as the back of my neck tingled in warning. Wounded pride was one of the most powerful motivators there was, and the look on this idiot’s face didn’t fill me with confidence. I wasn’t overly concerned about losing a brawl, obviously—my magic could handle all three of them without any trouble. But I had no interest in beating down some random locals.
“He’ll be along in a few minutes,” the man said. He didn’t have any weapons on him, but the men at his sides both had rather nasty-looking cutlasses on their belts. Though I was far more concerned about the two men with crossbows trying to be sneaky up on the forecastle behind us.
