Author’s Note: If it’s a quick, easy stroke you’re looking for, I’d advise you wait for the next chapter of this story. I’d also advise that if you have a weak stomach for swords, sorcery and the wounds they inflict, you similarly look elsewhere. Sorry, but sometimes the fun takes a while to get going.
That said, enjoy the read.
Shield-Maiden
Book One: The Last of the Shield-Maidens
Chapter One: The Dagger and the Lion
The carriage was a damnable, ugly thing, Ella Staine thought.
It’d been fashioned in some high court of the realm, she imagined idly as she urged her horse under a low hanging branch, ducking low into its armored saddle. Made for the Lady Westron by master carpenters and painted by her families’ finest decorators, no doubt.
She hated it. She was not averse to the frivolity of the high-born families, in fact, due to her position as a Knight of the Court, certain lavish details were expected from her as well.
But out here, amongst the thick trees of the Golden forest, where the roots and branches ensured that they must take the most open, obvious roads to ensure any kind of progress, the carriage did nothing but make them a target.
Wilder-Men, goblins and their tooth-worm mounts, the storm-riders of the high mountains that often came to the forest to hunt. She’d fought them all at some point or another, many in this very forest. But that had been years before, when she was still young and sprightly, when she led a company of thirty swordswomen.
Now she was old, holding a ceremonial position. It was merely a position of politics; captain of the Knights of the Court of the house of Westron, a title that took almost as long to say as it did to explain. She was a glorified babysitter; little more than the personal bodyguard of the young Lady Westron.
She traced a plate-gloved finger across her armored chest and uttered a near-silent prayer as she stenciled out the symbol of House Westron; the two-headed lion.
The air was growing still; deathly quiet. Her hand tightened around the hilt of her sword and gripped her horses’ reigns tighter. A shiver of fear ran through her.
She had been forgotten, she knew, a warrior in a land of peace. The great Houses never fought any longer, not since the last war. Now her only duties were to organize the hold’s guard and chaperone her charge to and fro.
If they died here, the only one who would be mourned would be young Eliza Westron. She was afraid, afraid for the three others she’d brought with her. It had been a simple journey to the hold of the Cavalerre family, but that had been with thirty of her best fellow Knights, and ten more squire-knights, freshly recruited from the guard.
They had been sent to reinforce the Cavalerre hold. Recent attacks from Wilder-Folk had left their guard decimated and so they had appealed to their longstanding allies, the Westrons, for help.
Ella had relished the proposal, and campaigned Lord Arthur Westron personally for the chance to lead her knights into battle. Her Lord had agreed, then, on the night before they were due to depart, had explained to her that she was to take his daughter with her and to bring her promptly back.
Ella glanced back at the carriage as it trundled awkwardly across the rough hewn ground. Damn the girl. Damn her!
She’d been friends with the Lady Cavalerre, Lord Arthur had explained, and now that the Lady Cavalerre now ruled her homestead, he thought that Eliza could learn something about leadership from her childhood friend.
It had been a long night of discussing tactics the night they’d arrived, herself and the Lady Cavalerre, and much more of herself trying not to notice the flirtatious looks between her charge and the ruler of House Cavalerre. Then, she’d retired for the night, wishing her second in command good luck, knowing that her Lord had ordered her to return with his daughter the next day and leave her most experienced knights in the care of Lady Cavalerre.
The carriage had been waiting for them in outside the gates when they’d left. It was a parting gift from Lady Cavalerre, as custom dictated.
Damn her too, Ella thought bitterly.
She stopped suddenly, blinking hard, snapping back to attention as something moved at the edge of her vision. She jerked hard on her horses reigns and raised a hand in the air, signaling to those behind her.
“Ser Staine?” The woman behind her asked quietly. Her name was Myrella, one of the freshest recruits. She’d drunk gingerly the night before yet still had managed to dance upon a table and publically profess her love for three of the Lady Cavalerre’s hand-maidens. She was a small, inexperienced girl, but quick and deft with a blade or bow.
Ella’s gritted her teeth, then spat amongst the roots on the ground.
There was malice in the air.
Something wicked and sharp, something still and pointed, something that explained the piercing, still cold that had suddenly descended on the forest.
“It’s quiet,” Myrella gasped suddenly, craning forward in her saddle. “Where have the birds gone?”
The seven horses that clopped steadily along the rough, worn trail suddenly began to whinny and neigh and stomp their hooves. Ella did not answer the girl, or snarl an order at the flailing horses. Something else had her attention.
“Ser Staine?” The curtains of the carriage parted gently and Eliza Westron peeked out from inside. “Is there a problem?”
Ella glanced back at the girl, her face twisted in an annoyed snarl, “Back inside, m’lady!”
Something hard and fast shrieked through the air and creased her brow as she snapped the order. She felt the force of it, hot and sudden, across her cheek as it twisted through the air and snapped against the wooden frame of the carriage.
The Westron girl yelped out a strangled cry and jerked back inside, eyes wide.
A small ball, covered in studded spikes, had punctured the frame of the window and settled there, clinging to the shattered, scarred wood that remained.
“Steel yourself!” Myrella shouted, drawing her short-sword and holding it high. Another projectile whistled out from amongst the trees ahead and felled her horse. She jerked forward, then fell from its back with a cry, landing with a crackling thud amongst the roots of a sizable elder-wood tree.
Ella pulled her longsword free with a roared challenge and hefted her shield from its place on her horses flank. Another projectile screamed toward her. She pulled her kite-shaped shield up and angled it over her head. The ball scratched across the shield’s golden insignia and smacked against the back of one of the horses that led the carriage.
The beast snorted once, then heaved itself forward and tore free from the carriage with a whinnying cry, dragging a bar of fancily decorated timber that still hung from its saddle. Ella gave a strangled cry as the timber caught her horses ankles and sent it crashing to the ground, throwing her free.
She landed on her shield with a grunt, the full-weight of her plate cuirass crushing the air from her lungs as she fought to find her footing amongst the uneven floor beneath her. Dark shapes flitted through the trees toward them.
A guttural, archaic cry tore its way out of the forest toward them. She recognized it instantly. It was the language of the Mad-God; the language of the Wilder-Folk.
“On your feet,” Ella growled, planting the edge of her shield into the ground and forcing herself to her feet. “Get up, you foolish old bitch!”
A snarling, wild-eyed man leapt out from between the trees. He was naked, save for a flapping, blood-stained loin-cloth that he wore at his waist. His muscular frame was coated with intricate, swirling tattoos that twisted and blinked across his body; forming hissing snakes and then lidded, slits of eyes across his chest as he came at her with the axe in his right hand.
She blocked the blow with her shield, turning it slightly so the brunt of the attack slipped off its curved edge, and stabbed up at the Wilder-Man with her sword. He gave a grunt and slipped forward along the blade, forcing her back down to one knee.
More Wilder-Folk pushed out of the trees. Too many to count, roaring their ancient, debased curses and flailing their worn, cruel weapons triumphantly in the air.
She tugged at her blade, trying to free it from the dead man at her feet and gave a strangled swear as the weight of him rolled, pinning the sword beneath him. Another one of the wilder-folk, this one an emaciated mess of tangled, taut sinew and sunken, stained flesh, came charging towards her, swinging an axe above his own head in wild, circular arcs.
She let go of the sword and braced her shield with both arms as she turned to address the new foe. The axe crashed down against her shield and sent a shockwave of force up her arm. Ella grunted and stepped back, one metal-clad foot slipped in the mud and she stumbled, sinking back down to one knee.
Her hands flailed for purchased and fell on the rear wheel of the carriage. The wooden axle was crusted with mud, her glove slipped along its surface and she fell backwards, landing in the bracken-coated forest floor with a thud that forced the air from her lungs.
She gasped out a single, wheezed, wearied breath and rolled onto her side.
The wilder-man cried out again and leapt at her, axe held high.
She rolled again, away from the carriage this time. The axe split the ground with a wet, sucking sound that sent a chill up her spine. The wilder-man followed her with one, glinting, yellowed eye and tugged his axe free with a heave.
Ella went for the dagger that hung at her side; a ceremonial knife, a symbol of her position. It slid free from its scabbard with a ringing hiss.
The wilder-man let out a rasping, wicked laugh and stepped toward her.
“For Westron!” Myrella cried. Ella scrabbled backwards, her dagger held up high.
The wilder-man turned as the young warrior crashed into him, her short-sword flashing through the air and splitting the man’s axe-haft in twain. The two of them tumbled backwards, crashing into the ground as Ella finally managed to right herself against the bark of a particularly sturdy tree.
Myrella’s grunts of exertion shook her from her moment of rest. The girl was straddling the wilder-man, but her head and neck were arched back sharply, straining to avoid the glinting point of the short-sword the two were fighting over.
The wilder-man was winning, even with a lifetime of hard living having starved his arms of much of their strength. His eyes were wide and colored with stark, mad desperation.
Ella stumbled forward, stooping low and snatching the ruined, splintered shard of wood that had been the wilder-man’s axe as she did so. Another spiked-ball whistled through the air and split the wood of the tree where her head had rested only seconds ago.
A shaggy haired wilder-man cursed and frantically reloaded his sling, fitting another projectile into the nook of the thick, leather strap and whirling it high above his head, building momentum.
Ella growled and leapt forward, pushing herself off the tree with a fierce shove and lunging with the broken shard of wood. It found the shaggy haired man’s throat just as her other hand snatched the sling from his grip. He spat blood and died with a gurgle.
Ella spun, her armor clanking and crashing together as she let fly with the ball. It struck the ground beside Myrella and bounced up, like a stone across the surface of a lake, splattering mud across the struggling woman and slamming into the temple of the wilder-man below her; opening up a long, bloody gash across his skull.
Myrella grunted, shifting her weight, turning her blade back downward as the stunned wilder-man grasped at his own bloodied head. The young woman finished him with a single, downward thrust.
Myrella trembled, tried to pull her sword free and fell back into the mud, ass-first. Ella stepped over, one hand clutching her side. She wrenched the girl’s sword free with a grunt and tossed it to Myrella, pommel-first.
“Thank you, Ser,” Myrella mumbled slackly. Ella stared into the girl’s eyes for a moment. They were wide and unfocused, gazing intently at a point in the earth just to the right of the twisted man’s corpse.
“No, no,” Ella shook her head and slipped her wolf-hide flask free from her belt, taking a generous swig before offering it to the girl, “thank you.”
Myrella took the flask gingerly, her eyes fixing her superior at last and drank heavily from the skin. A second later the flask tumbled from her fingers, falling in her lap with a wet smack, “Ugh, god, what is that?”
Ella let loose with a deep, throat laugh and slapped her thigh.
Another knight, Selvya, stepped forward and handed Ella’s sword back to her with a slight bow. “Ma’am.”
Ella glanced at her. The girl’s round cheeks and dirty blonde, straw-like hair were flecked with red.
“Wounded?”
Selvya shook her head. Myrella murmured something agreeable from beside them.
The other two Knights, Janna and Catherina were already moving, patrolling the perimeter. When Janna and Catherina had entered her service and sword their oaths, they’d been completely different. Janna had been a short, stout farm-hand with worn hands and a wild mass of tangled, blood-red hair. Catherina, on the other hand, had been a slender reed of a bookkeeper whose head had been filled with thoughts of adventure.
Now, after a severe regime of training and a fast developed friendship, the two women could have been sisters.
“They’re dead,” Janna nodded, wiping her blade clean against a wilder-man’s loincloth and chucking the rag aside distastefully.
“Deader than dead,” Catherina agreed and sheathed her own short-sword.
Ella glanced around, then uttered a short, bitter curse and spat at the ground. “This was too close.”
She hauled Myrella up with a grunt, slipped her flask back into her belt and nodded to Selvya, then the carriage, “Check on her lady-ship.”
Selvya nodded and moved to the carriage, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Stop calling me ‘ma’am’,” Ella murmured.
“I’m okay!” Her ladyship cried shakily from inside the wooden death-trap.
Myrella stiffened slightly beside her.
“Trouble?” Ella cocked an eyebrow and gripped her sword tightly.
“Wait…” Myrella whispered. She pressed a single finger to her temple. “Do you…?”
Behind Ella, Janna gasped and clutched at her fore-head.
Catherina barked out a short, whimpering moan and collapsed to her knees, mud spat up around her knees as she whipped her head desperately around. “Gods!”
Ella felt it rather than heard it; a stark, warm throb that pulsed outward and upward through her shins. She suppressed a shocked gasp as her fingers loosened and her sword tumbled down into the mud.
Janna quivered, moaned wetly and collapsed to her knees beside her friend. A second later, Myrella clawed at her temples and joined them.
“On your…” Ella gasped, the warmth shot up her spine, and dried out her throat. “…feet…?”
The warmth flowed through her freely. It’s touch crept into her brain. A soft pillow of sensation caressed her thoughts. Clouded her reason.
She stuttered out a weak gasp as she took a slow, stumbling step forward. Selvya joined the others on her knees, a perplexed look on her face.
Janna whimpered, a wet, growling sound. There were words mixed in with it, Ella realized dumbly.
“…good…submit…duty…”
Ella blinked. Pain flared up her logs. Hot, spiking, sudden pain. The feeling wasn’t coming from her shins. It was coming from her knees.
She fell forward onto them without pause or thought. It felt good. Cold. Empty.
“Obedient…” Myrella hissed. She was picking at the leather that tethered her armor to her body.
Ella moaned in turn and cupped her twat through her leggings. The warmth was seeping in, spreading through her whole body now. Her cunny was dripping with desire. Her fingers pulled away and dribbled with her juices.
Her duty was to be wet.
The half-thought came unbidden to her half-mind; an innate, complete understanding of her place in the cosmos.
Something crackled and growled at the edge of the clearing. She turned and fell flat on her face, her ass up in the air.
A wilder-man stood by Janna’s side, completely naked. He was taller than the others and his limbs were riddled with tight, ropey sinew. Muscled. Well-fed.
“Strong…” Janna whimpered and looked up at him adoringly.
He slipped one hand under her chin and stroked with one dirty finger.
“Weak,” He crooned softly, a laugh bubbling up past his cracked lips.
Her duty was to be weak.
The wilder-man waved his other hand around lazily, Janna’s eyes followed it dreamily. Or rather, they followed the curved, black dagger the wilder-man held. Ella followed it too. Black lisps of smoke rose off the blade. Evil, twisted runes had been stamped into the side. The metal shone like obsidian and reflected the light palely.
Ella quivered and shifted her weight forward, crawling need-ily towards the wilder-man. Myrella’s armor chunked down into the mud beside her. Ella groaned and slipped her fingers into the tethers of her own armor. The action felt good. Felt right. Felt pleasurable. The warmth subsided, the hot, striking pain became the dull, aching throb that stoked her cunny and stiffened her nipples.
The wilder-man’s cock hung free between his leg. He twisted the dagger around, trained Janna’s eye on it and guided her vision to his thick, stiff phallus.
She moaned, fluttered her lips, and began to suck heartily.
The wilder-man gave a breathy, sudden bark of a chortle and grasped Catherina by the back of her head. The girl moaned and shivered and loosed her breastplate as the man pulled her slack lips in to join her friend.
Ella moaned.
It was her duty to join them.
Crawling forward, Myrella by her side, she moved eagerly to do so.
It was then, as Selvya tumbled down off the steps adorning the side of the carriage to join them in the mud on all fours, that Ella’s young charge finally pushed open the door of her carriage and peered shakily out, “Is it safe…?”
Her eyes widened at the sight that greeted her.
The wilder-man smiled and licked his lips.
Ella, dripping with slave-thoughts and sweat and cunny-juice, simply quaked with the weight of her own obedience. Her eyes never left the dagger.
She wanted it. Wanted it to pierce her, to maim her, to scar her skin with the same beautiful, twisted runic images that adorned it’s godly blade.
She wanted the wilder-master to mount her. Fuck her. Pierce her. Maim her thoughts and slice away her willfulness. She needed it. Desired it. Yearned for it.
It was her duty to.