Amara was at Bairro, Montreal when she heard of the king's return and so she went back home but Altan was not the only one who noticed a change of energy around her. She's been having sex non-stop with multiple partners since Montreal but as she sat naked between his legs on the bed, leaning back against his bare chest and his arms wrapped around her, holding her close it was the one person she slept with just one time, weeks ago, that bothers him. The Drakorian king was a threat but one Altan can do nothing about. He has never really had a chance to reproach the princess in a serious matter and he feared what would come from it.
"The King's return worked in our favor, didn't it?" he finally said, his tone conversational.
"How so?" Amara replied evenly.
"You're not pregnant, my queen," Altan stated matter-of-factly.
"That could have been taken care of" she shrugged.
"Still..." he intended to press on but trailed off. "You could have started a war, and for what? A backwater kingdom?"
She didn't say anything, and she didn't leave his embrace, but he felt a change in the atmosphere. He wanted to say something to soothe it, but a better part of him stopped him.
"What do you think of my chances of becoming Queen of the Central Plains?" she asked after a while.
"Not very good," he answered.
"Yes," she agreed, not taking any offense. "Even if something were to happen to my brother today, the houses would choose another within the hour. But with the South..." she trailed off. "I know you don't truly love me" she continued, "But your pretense has always been enough for me. Don't give me a reason to know better"
"...I apologize" he said, for lack of something else to say.
She relaxed back and his arms instinctively held her closer. The tensed room gradually eased, his thumb tracing soothing pattern up and down her arm.
"Are you going to invite him to your brother's marriage ceremony?" Altan spoke up again.
"I won't have to" she replied, "Father would but Deaglan has already sent out an invite. He intend to negotiate for Drakorian knight slots since it always go to waste every year. He has so much mouth to feed"
There was amusement in her tone and the reason was obvious.
"The Drakorian king won't agree to that"
"Of course he wouldn't" she cackled with laughter, "but it would be fun to see Deaglan come to that fact"
Altan does not know what to say. Even with an increase in slots he still stands no chance of becoming a knight. His best chance is with the princess but her becoming queen is very unlikely. Her best chance of taking the crown could be by taking over the south, greatly strengthen them and then invade the central plains, but how long will that take? 20 years? 30? He would have completely lost his entire development years and end up a low knight at best. The princess seems to trust the path with the Drakorian king and Altan knows he should be glad for that chance but he finds himself heavily conflicted and he doesn't like that at all.
┌─────── ♕ ───────┐
The knight Boris has gone missing and Vojnka and Erik had gone looking for him. He was their only lead and the search has seen them going towards the lands of Montreal.
The forest surrounded them, dense and shadowy. Leaves rusted underfoot, and tall trees loomed against the sky. Pale light filtered through the branches, casting silver patterns on the forest floor.
"We should rest for the day" Erik suggested, trailing behind Vojnka and her beast, his exhaustion evident.
"Not yet; we're closing in on his location," Vojnka replied, her gaze fixed ahead.
"You must think everyone has the constitution of barbarians" Erik retorted, but Vojnka remained silent, focused on their mission.
As they pressed forward, Erik's sharp eyes caught a flicker of movement to the side. In the dim light, he spotted deer horns. Without hesitation, he notched an arrow and fired.
"What are you doing?" Vojnka's voice cut through the silence just as the arrow hit it's target, followed by the animal's final, dying whimper.
"We have got to eat" he answered
"We don't have time for that"
"Yea because you ate most of our last meal" he accused, returning the bow to his back.
Vojnka said nothing and waited as he walked in the direction his arrow had disappeared into. Few minutes later he appeared, a snow furred beast in one hand.
"I would have sworn that was a deer" he said then tossed the beast forward.
The beast landed with a thud few feet away from Vojnka, its death face to her where an arrow buried deep into one eye.
Vojnka's face twisted in rage as it left the beast to meet his. "What have you done?"
Just as the words left her mouth terrible howls echoed through the night from not so distant mountains.
"What is going on?" Erik asked, looking around, but showing no signs of apprehension.
Vojnka said nothing as she began unloading the loads from her beast and tossing them to the side. The howls continued, more frequent and wide spread.
"Make your stand here" she said, mounting on her bear. "Or wherever you like but no matter what you do, do not leave the forest. You killed a moon-wolf, you are marked till death. Leaving means more death"
He still wasn't bothered. He didn't understand the danger like she did.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Don't leave" she warned one last time, then urged her beast to run.
The moon rose, gleaming off Erik's arrowhead pendant. There was complete silence, the night grew tense and the forest held its breath. Instinctively Erik took out an arrow and notched it. Something moved in the blackness under the trees. Etched abruptly in the rising moon, Erik saw a darkly blocked-out head and shoulders, brutish in outline. And now from the shadows dark shapes came silently, swiftly, running low – dozens great spotted wolves. Their fangs gleamed in the moonlight, and their eyes blazed unnaturally.
Erik drew nock to ear, and at the twang of the string a flame-eyed shadow that leapt high fell writhing. The rest did not falter; on they came, and like a rain of death among them fell the arrows of the knight, driven with all the force and accuracy of a man who does not want to die.
In his berserk fury, he did not miss. Moving about, dodging as he unleashed arrows onto them. The air was filled with feathered destruction. The damage caused among the charging pack was stunning. More than half of them remained standing. Others dropped to the forest floor, furs changed to snow white. Glaring into their blazing eyes, Erik knew these creatures were not ordinary beasts; it was not merely in their unnatural size that he sensed a blasphemous difference. It was the reality that some took two deep arrows to the head to fall, and even when mana is used it often deflected off their fur. By what godless sorcery these beings had been brought into existence, he could not guess; but he knew he faced a diabolism blacker than the wells of devils.
Haven been knocked down, he quickly stood up, drew his bow with force, and shot his last arrow directly at a large, hairy shape leaping towards his throat. The arrow flew like a streak of moonlight, swiftly piercing the creature, which convulsed in midair and crashed down, fatally wounded.
Then the rest were on him, in a nightmare rush of blazing eyes and dripping fangs. He took his blade from it's sheath and sliced through the first with fierce determination. But the desperate impact of the others overwhelmed him, bearing him down under their weight. He crushed a skull with the pommel of his hilt, feeling the bone splinter and blood and brains gush over his mana infused hand; then, dropping the blade, useless at such deadly close quarters, he caught at the throats of the two horrors which were ripping and tearing at him in silent fury. A foul acrid scent almost stifled him, his own sweat blinded him. Only his expensive leather saved him from being ripped to ribbons in an instant. The next, his naked right hand locked on a hairy throat and tore it open. His left hand, missing the throat of the other beast, caught and broke its foreleg. A short yelp, the only cry in that grim battle, and hideously human-like, burst from the maimed beast. At the sick horror of that cry from a bestial throat, Erik involuntarily relaxed his grip.
One, blood gushing from its torn jugular, lunged at him in a last spasm of ferocity, and fastened its fangs on his throat – to fall back dead, even as Erik felt the tearing agony of its grip.
One, blood gushing from its torn jugular, lunged at him in a last spasm of ferocity, and fastened its fangs on his throat – to fall back dead, even as Erik felt the tearing agony of its grip.
The other, springing forward on three legs, was slashing at his belly actually rending his leather. Flinging aside the dying beast, Erik grappled the crippled horror and, with a muscular effort that brought a groan from his blood-flecked lips, he heaved upright, gripping the struggling, tearing fiend in his arms. An instant he reeled off balance, its fetid breath hot on his nostrils; its jaws snapping at his neck; then he hurled it from him, to crash with bone-splintering force against a big rock.
As he reeled on wide-braced legs, sobbing for breath, the forest and the moon swimming bloodily to his sight, the thrash of monster bat-wings was loud in his ears. Stooping, he groped for his blade, and swaying upright, braced his feet drunkenly and heaved the great blade above his head with both hands, shaking the blood from his eyes as he sought the air above him for his foe. His hair were plastered with sweat; blood trickled from the wounds in his throat and hands.
"You are more barbarian than most barbarians I know" he heard Vojnka say in that blunt, unpolished manner he had come to get used to.
He turned to find her. She was bloodied and covered in gore. Even from this far and in the dim light he could see the deep scratches on her and her beast. She held the head of an even greater wolf by her side by it's great furs. He had thought she betrayed him and left him to die.
"So is it done?" he asked
"Barely" she said, tossing the big head forward. She walked to where she had previously tossed their baggage and squat down and began going through his stuff. She took out his healing vial and stood back up. "But I have bought you till the next full moon"
She didn't use it on herself or walked towards him, but back to her beast. He watched in silence as she fed the beast the only vial they have.
Something swept down across the stars and struck the branches of a tree. Twisting about, he saw it – the monster-bat!
With fearful speed it was rushing upon him, and in that instant Erik had only a confused impression of a gigantic bat-like shape hurtling along on bowed and stunted legs; of huge hairy arms outstretching misshapen black-nailed paws; of a malformed head, in whose broad face the only features recognizable as such were a pair of blood-red eyes. He stood his ground ready to take it on but then a powerful roar went off, trembling his ear drums badly. The monster-bat stopped abruptly, flapping it's wings desperately, then turned and sped off. Erik turn to the barbarian knight, she was stroking the under chin of her beast.
"We would need to return to the kingdom" She said standing up to face him. "The King's witch should be able to unattach the death stench from you"
He slumped to the ground, catching his breath. She walked back to the belongings she had once unloaded and packed them to her bear and began loading them back.
"We can continue," he said, "We are almost there"
"No we can't" she replied, her back still to him as she loaded the bags. "We don't even know where we were going to, and you are in no condition to help if I lose control"
Erik was tempted to say even if he was fit he wouldn't be able to restrain her but that wasn't important right now. Something else was bothering him.
"...what are you going to do about the king?" he asked after awhile.
She said nothing until she was done packing then faced him, "Hopefully I wouldn't have to do anything"
┌─────── ♕ ───────┐
I was just finishing up with the invite letter of the prince of Mittelreich's wedding when mother entered. We shared a long kiss before she broke it off and sat on the edge of the table.
"Where is your crown?" I asked, "I like it on you"
She smiled, her gaze warm. "I can't wear it all the time," she replied, her eyes drifting to the letter in my hand. "So, will you go?"
"I'm still thinking about it" I answered, folding the letter back neatly and rising to my feet. As I approached her, I placed my hands on the table beside her, leaning in, our faces mere inches apart.
She met me halfway, her smile growing wider. Our lips met again, a soft exchange noticeably filled with affection.
Breaking away again, "And if you are to go, who will you go with?" she asked
"Who else is there?"
Her laughter echoed softly. "Your wife?" she teased.
"Oh..." it came out like I had forgotten about her and that made mother laugh again. "I'm sure she will understand" I added which elicited a new laugh.
The kisses began to grow as we clutched at each other drawing us deeper but there came a knock at the door, though we ignored it, or maybe she didn't even hear it. Normally the doors will be opened after the first knock but the knights have learnt to knock a second time when mother is around if it's really important.
The second knock came, and we broke free, mother adjusting the part of her dress that she could. Moments later the doors opened and a knight came in. He bowed in greeting, mother tried not to look at him, probably fearing her passion would be easily detectable.
"The court's witch has returned, Your majesty" he announced.
"Was she successful?" I asked
"Yes, your majesty"
Finally! I told mother I wouldn't be able to free myself for the foreseeable future today till at least early morning of tommorow and she just gave an awkward smile with a nod. I followed the knight to the dungeon and that's where I found out that beneath the special dungeon there's yet another dungeon.
It was very cold and unsettling. Rusty shackles, blood stains on the walls, and eerie torchlight flickering against rough-hewn stones. There was dripping of water somewhere around and our footsteps echoed as we approached Helene and a man strapped in an old eerie reclined wooden table.
"You've done well" I told Helene when I reached her and confirmed the identity of the man captured. "What are the chances of him escaping?"
"None" she replied, "not in the next 12 hours"
I was nodding to the information as I looked down on the former knight. His eyes were closed and he was still under. I wanted to look into his eyes and see the fear. I still feel the jabs from his blade and I relived them everytime I closed my eyes, his eyes filled with so much anguish and hate. I'm not looking to cause him pain, I'm looking for relief and satisfaction, and for one of the few men who left me with a scar I fear it is an impossible feat.
"Get me the priestess" I told the knight, my eyes fixed on the man's face, hoping I will be the first thing he sees when he wakes up.