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 Two: The Mark and the Forest
Janna’s dripping maw bulged around the wilder-man’s cock. She sucked and slurped and murmured he doe-eyed obedience upwards to his cruel eyes as he played the flat of his twisted blade along her cheek playfully. Her skin was stained black with soot wherever the blade touched.
“Suh-Ser Staine?” Eliza Westron whimpered weakly from behind the kneeling women.
Ella paid her young charge no heed. She had a bigger purpose now; a stronger duty. The world had forgotten her, but her Master had not. She sat up on her haunches beside Myrella and drooled her obedience into the mud, “Duty…”
“Ser Staine!” Eliza squeaked, gathering up the tatters of her dress in her hands and quivering back into the wall of the carriage.
Ella’s dulled eyes watched the dagger as it slowly turned and came to rest point-first against the flesh below Janna’s eye. Ella shivered; dimly she was aware of the other kneelers shivering too. “Unngh.”
Selvya crawled forwards on all fours; her tongue was wagging hungrily past her bottom lip as she pushed in and jostled with Janna momentarily. Wilder-master grasped her roughly by the scruff of her neck and tossed her aside, placing his other hand over the back of Janna’s head and holding her fast against his cock as he came, flooding her mouth and letting her dripping lips spill over with his seed.
The dagger curved downward and scarred Janna’s cheek with a twisted, curved star-mark. Ella breathed out a shallow, needy gasp as the dagger did its work. No blood was spilled. Black smoke dripped off the dagger-point and tattooed the mark into Janna’s flesh even as the sharp edge pressed into her unbroken skin.
Janna recoiled. The Wilder-master looked up at Eliza and leered at the young girl as the knight at his knees swallowed hard, gulping down his cum. Her eyes rolled back in her head; the thicket of red veins that stretched up to her irises pulsed once and turned black, then faded.
“Duty,” Ella hissed and Myrella, Selvya and Catherina hissed it in turn. Janna’s eyes faded into a pair of rolling, dull, milky orbs and she collapsed onto all fours, head bowed.
Wilder-master smacked his softening cock with a grin and fixed Selvya with a pointed, gnarled finger, “Next.”
Selvya whined like a hungry pup and padded forward.
Ella’s eyes, for the first time, slipped from the dagger. Janna’s dull gaze glinted like cat’s eyes as she pressed her cheek into the ground. Her chest was still, a small part of Ella’s mind croaked. She wasn’t breathing. Not breathing, Ella realized dimly, but alive. Janna was alive; she moved and looked and sucked, but at the same time not alive. It was difficult for the small echo in the back of her mind to fathom.
“This…” Ella groaned. “This isn’t…”
This wasn’t right, something told her. The kneeling Myrella jerked around at the sound and gazed dully at her. Something stirred in her warm, brown eyes.
“…right,” Myrella croaked through a strained throat.
“Yes, it isn’t right at all,” Eliza quaked quietly. She was kneeling now, but out of fear rather than any compulsion. Her back was to the wall of the carriage and she’d wrapped her arms into her dress and crossed them just below her bosom.
Ella turned her head around and downward. She didn’t dare look directly. Not at the dagger, not at Selvya and not at the Wilder-man. She crawled forward one jagged, shaky step. Her hand fell on something warm and familiar. Her fingers curled around the wolf-skin hide of her flask; brushed across the golden, two-headed lion embossed on it and gripped the drink tightly. Something in the symbol gave her strength; filled her muscles with new warmth that bled the other, poisoning warmth out.
Myrella turned to her, eyes wide, “Ser..?”
Selvya dripped with the wilder-man’s cum. Her cheek bore the same, twisted star-mark as Janna and her eyes were rolling back in her head as Ella finally looked up.
The wilder-man turned at the sound of Myrella’s voice. His cock slipped from Selvya’s dripping lips with a faint pop. His lips curled upwards into a cruel grin as he pointed a beckoning finger directly at Ella, knife held aloft.
“I’m coming,” Ella murmured weakly. She crawled forward, one limping, hobbled step and gently brought one knee up. The wilder-man cocked his head to the side in confusion.
Ella launched herself forward with a snarled growl. Without her armor weighing her down she crossed the space between them in the blink of an eye. The dagger lashed out at her, but she jerked back at the last second, catching the tainted blade with the side of her flask and turning it aside an inch from her fingers. Her other hand came around, caught the wilder-man’s wrist and forced the dagger upward. Her eyes closed a second before the tip met the underside of his chin.
Warmth and wetness spattered her face. She grunted and let the gurgling body fall away from her.
“Ser? Are you alright?” Myrella whispered. A cloth dabbed at her face, clearing away the blood. She opened her eyes. Myrella stood there, holding a swath of torn sleeve-fabric in her hands. It dripped steadily with a thick, black ichor.
“Poison,” Myrella said quietly, her eyes swung downward, toward the dead man and his knife. Ella caught her chin and held her gaze firm.
“Not poison,” She shook her head.
“Magic,” Eliza interjected from behind them.
Ella nodded, slowly, and turned around, surveying the scene. Janna and Selvya knelt side by side. Twinned in obedience; four glowing orbs stared back emptily at the knights and their charge. Ella shivered at the sight.
“We have to leave,” Eliza babbled, high-pitched and near incoherent, words bleeding into words as she spoke.
Ella nodded again and then crouched by Catherina’s side. The young woman was sobbing in great, heaving shakes. “It was…he did…I can’t…”
Ella stripped her braces and gloves from her arms and cast them aside, sliding her fingers along the young woman’s back with a shudder, “I know. It’s okay.”
Catherina’s eyes twitched left, toward the two kneeling will-dead and then halted. Ella grasped her cheek softly, then guided her face towards her enslaved compatriots and their still, aroused bodies and spread thighs.
“Gods,” Catherina gasped.
“I’m sorry,” Ella bowed her head and guided the young woman’s gaze downward. “Myrella! Get the lanterns off the carriage and gather whatever salt you can from our provisions. Throw my cloak over that blade and salt the earth around it. Then burn it.”
She stood and turned.
“Yes, Ser,” Myrella nodded. Her armor was hanging off her chest, half-buckled; Eliza was helping her with the straps.
“Leave your armor,” Ella ordered, pointing at the ground, “Weapons and whatever food you can carry comfortably and a lantern each; we travel light or we’ll never make it.”
“But…” Eliza opened her mouth slowly, unsurely as Myrella cast her armor aside and moved to carry out her commander’s orders. “But they’re dead…aren’t they?”
Ella steadied herself against as a sudden, weak-kneed sensation passed over her and nodded, “Dead, yes. But wild-folk send smaller raiding parties ahead of the main group whenever they move in force. If they aren’t headed this way yet, they will be soon. Before the moon is highest.”
Eliza shivered as if suddenly chilled as she looked upward. The sky was already beginning to darken.
Catherina stumbled to her feet and picked up her short-sword between two delicate fingers.
“Careful,” Ella murmured as she stepped forward and lifted her own blade free of the mud, cleaning it against her torn, tattered sleeve and then ripping the fabric free. Seconds later and the other sleeve was ripped free as well. She calmed her nerves with a long, slow breathing exercise and then tucked her hair back into a tight bun, winding it tight and tying it off with the fabric of her sleeve.
Eliza’s eyes wandered from the knight, to Catherina, across Selvya and Janna with a shudder and then fell on Myrella’s work. Ella’s cloak covered the man with the dagger and a shaky, scattered ring of salt ran around it.
The work of a nervous hand, Eliza reckoned, or an aroused one.
“That blade is wicked,” She said aloud as Myrella smashed a lantern over the mess and struck a tinder-box over the dribbling oil.
The cloak caught alight with a soft hiss.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ella shook her head, “I’ve seen metal and magic from every reach of the land and never anything like that.”
Ella snapped her fingers at Catherina, then jerked her head towards Eliza’s flowing dress. Catherina gave a shaky nod and dropped to one knee in front of the young woman with a grunt, unsheathing her short-sword with a flick of her wrist.
“Sorry, m’lady,” Catherina bowed her head and sliced into the fine fabric, cutting and tearing away the bottom half of the dress, leaving the buxom young lady in only her dresses bustier and a pair of short britches. Her carer’s recommendation no doubt, Ella thought dryly and spat on the ground, tearing away her own plate-metal greaves and smoothing out her leather trousers. The wide forests were well known to play host to all manner of snakes and other poisoners that bit at unprotected legs.
Myrella stepped by with a lantern and pressed one into Eliza’s hands and another into Catherina’s before offering the last of the four to Ella. Ella took it gently and held it aloft, turning it and admiring the slow-burning flame within.
“What do we do, Ser?” Catherina asked, glancing over her shoulder at the carriage.
“We make for home, on foot, fast as we can,” Ella said and let her chainmail hauberk slip from under her torn shirt and hit the ground, the other two knights that remained standing did the same.
“I meant…” Catherina murmured, kicking the piled mess of chain at her feet, “About…Janna and…”
Ella met the young recruits wavering gaze with her own and held it steady, “I’m sorry.”
Myrella gulped hard, “We’re…?”
“Leaving them,” Ella sighed, her eyes travelling over the two kneeling women; still as statues and staring blankly ahead. Her sight fell on the burning pyre nearby and she shook her head. “There’s nothing we can do for them, I fear.”
“But…” Catherina opened her mouth, a short, wailing sob slipping past her lips as she stepped forward, hands raised in a pleading gesture, “Ser…”
Ella caught the raised hands in her own, setting her lantern aside momentarily and nodded at Myrella, “I’m sorry, Catherina. Myrella, lead the way. You’re in front. M’lady, follow her closely. Catherina, you next. I’ll bring up the rear.”
Catherina’s hands slipped free of hers as the young knight took a shaky, stumbling step back. “No, no, I won’t.”
“Catherina,” Ella hissed, “Fall in!”
Myrella and Eliza pushed past them, heading into the trees, lanterns bobbing in their hands.
Catherina shook her head and retched up a pathetic, wailing sob. “I can’t…!”
Ella stepped forward, her hand chasing the younger woman’s. Out of the corner of her eye, something moved.
Dark shapes flitted between trees in the distance. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Too late,” Selvya and Janna spoke at once, their hands slipping up to their clothes and tearing frantically, eagerly at their clothes. Exposing their bare, pale skin. It was crisscrossed with pulsing black veins that were only beginning to fade into their new, pallor. Their voices were identical. Hollow and empty and full of purpose all at once.
Ella grabbed the younger woman’s wrist sharply. A great cry arose from deeper in the forest, wild and angered.
“Masterssss,” Selvya and Janna’s lips hissed, but Ella knew it was not them speaking.
“Come, Catherina!” She hissed.
“No!” The younger woman cried and lashed out; the pommel of her short-sword cracked against Ella’s nose and sent her crashing back against the bark of a tree.
Selvya and Janna stood as one, arms by their naked sides, marching in step as they turned on their heels and began striding deeper into the trees, toward the distant shapes and cries. They were out of sight in seconds, their precise, fluid steps carrying them away with a will.
“No!” Catherina shrieked and ran after them, branches crackling under foot, sword and lantern wavering aloft as she chased the two will-dead knights.
Ella rose to her feet, hot blood dripping down over her chin and filling her mouth with a sick, coppery taste. Her blood. She staggered sideward and drew her sword with a curse.
She turned. Myrella and Eliza’s lanterns had stopped. She could barely make out their shapes between the thicket of trees.
“Run!” Ella cried, high and loud.
They ran, light-points bobbing and weaving through the foliage as Ella Staine turned and charged after Catherina’s shrieking, hysterical voice.