Riposte

Purgatory Wars: Book Two

Dragon Cobolt

Uruk Press

Uruk Press

Great Britain

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© Dragon Cobolt 2017

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The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Cover by Remy Malara.

Also from Dragon Cobolt

Purgatory Wars

The Murder Stroke

Riposte

The Cross Guard (forthcoming)

Other works

A Fetch Job

"The Last Mage" in Sex & Sorcery 3

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One

Vulkas Shieldbreaker took a moment to simply admire the city of Faiyum Falls as his ship nestled into dock. Even with an Aesir's born confidence and love for his homeland, he had to admit that Coptics knew what they were doing when it came to building cities. Monuments might have made them famous, but the same skills it took to erect the pyramids could be seen here. Cranes the size of buildings, with counterweights that were as elaborately decorated as their mundane purpose could allow, lifted entire ship's stores from their decks and set them down in storage yards. Men and women and beasts of burden carted the supplies away – and a bustling crowd surged back and forth throughout the wide streets. From them rose a melange of language – Coptic, Latin, Greek, Celtic – and coins of dozens of different cities were passed back and forth.

But through it all, Vulkas saw no sign of grain.

He elbowed Thu'chan with one broad arm, almost jostling the ship's scribe over the railing. “Told you,” Vulkas said, pride brimming in his voice. “Told you.”

Thu sniffed – the sound turned into an almost musical whistle by his long, narrow, curved beak. His feathers ruffled up and he hunched his shoulders forward. If someone had decided to paint Thu at this moment, the result could have been entitled: A portrait of sour grapes. Thu shook his head, sighed explosively, and then – with the air of someone having their kneecaps drawn from their broken leg – said: “Fine. You were right, Captain.”

Vulkas laughed and slapped his back.

The rumors had been that a great war was brewing between Sobek – the Pesdjeti God of Crocodiles and Ameliorated Evil – and a pair of the Dodekatheon: Aries and Athena. Apollo was officially neutral, but everyone in the mead-halls of distant Thorheilm had agreed he was going to be aiding his fellow gods. But the terrain favored Sobek. Again, everyone had agreed on that. So, while the debates had been running around and around as to who would seek peace first, Vulkas had simply gone to the landowners and purchased as much grain as he could, then set sail.

It had been a harrowing trip around the Platonic Sea. Pirates and lizardfolk raiders alike still plagued the straits not patrolled by the Tuatha mistcraft, and the lizardfolk sometimes had access to queer magic. Two of his crew had died from unnervingly accurate lightning bolts, brought down out of a clear sky by some scrawny lizardthing that had seemed more hunched muscle and robes than proper barbarian raider. It had been one of Vulkas' throwing axes that had split the thing's head – it had taken his ax to the bottom of the ocean before they had a chance to take the robes off and see how it had controlled lightning like the crystalbacks of the jungle.

But through it all, the grain had been kept safe and unnibbled by studious attention from the ship's cats and some simple runic enchantments laid down by a priestess of Sif.

And now, here, they were poised to make a profit – a profit worth all the danger, all the dire risk.

Vulkas nodded. “Find the master of the granaries in this city – tell them they won't need to rely on fish and meat and whatever gods be damned lean pickings they've had to deal with.”

Thu nodded. “I will, sir. What will you be doing?”

Vulkas rubbed his chin and beamed beatifically – but his eyes didn't move from a Coptic woman who was standing on a spar and tying down a ship that was coming in to dock. The woman was bronze skinned and slender, her hair shaved off leaving her utterly bald, her eyes marked by dark khol lining similar to what the Aesir had been forced to adopt since they had been banished to Purgatory. The combination was quite striking, but Vulkas was more admiring the way her bared breasts gleamed with sweat in the morning sunlight, her modesty only protected by a thin cotton skirt around her hips.

“Ah, Coptics,” he sighed, then kissed his bunched fingers.

“Ugh.” Thu didn't try to hide his disgust.

“Come now!” Vulkas looked down at his friend, scribe, and second in command.

“I prefer to not put my attentions in anything as mercurial and untrustworthy as women,” Thu said, primly.

“So, who was it who broke your heart? A pretty lad, aye, not a woman,” Vulkas said, wagging his finger underneath Thu's beak. Thu shot a glare at him as the ship finally finished tying down and Vulkas laughed as he stepped off the gangplank and into the thronging streets of Faiyum Falls. He turned back to his crew – the men and women a motley mixture of races and creeds, all of them looking at him.

“Thu is in charge until I get back,” he said, his voice pitched to carry. “But once the grain is off the ship, you are free to enjoy your coppers. Remember – any who don't get back within the day, you may be left behind.” He grinned. “And none of us want to be trapped here, in such a dreary land, eh?”

His crew laughed and he already saw that several were considering staying. This bothered Vulkas not at all.

Crew came. Crew went. So long as the soul of the ship remained – so long as his hardest hands and best warriors stuck around to carry that soul – he could happily bid farewell to most of the deckhands. With that thought in his head, he turned and started to stride through the docks. Vulkas had been a huscral – a shield bearing warrior – in the arid lands that the Norse had landed when they were banished. There, the Norse peoples had met a similarly banished tribe known as the Zapandi. They had fled a terrible god, Tchernobog, who sought to corrupt all of Purgatory with his shadow. Thor had struck him down and the two tribes had intermarried to an extent that none could say who was Norse and who was Zapandi anymore. The new folk – the Aesir – had learned to tame the arid lands. Water had been found and irrigated, and vast fields of grain now spread across the steppe.

But the ancient Norse had sailed ships of hard wood and iron shod men. The iron might be gone, and the islands of the Norse a distant, foggy memory, but there were still seas to sail.

Still a profit to be made.

And selling the grain was only half of Vulkas' aims. He walked past a stall selling charms blessed by one of the Pesdjeti pantheon and shook his head. He hadn't come so far to buy charms that his gods could have made. He walked past a warehouse that seemed to be filled with jars of tar and pitch. Again, he turned up his nose and came to a side-street that bled into the docks district. He frowned as something stuck out to him as being odd. After a moment, he saw it.

There was a giant walking up the street, heading towards the center of the city.

Vulkas started to follow the giant and took a moment to gauge him. He was definitely not Coptic – too pale by half, with hair as blond as a Aesir nobleman. But he didn't have the same facial hair of most of Vulkas' kin, nor did he bear the scars that one might expect from a huscral. And, again, he was a giant. Vulkas guessed his height to be nearly six feet – though, he did note that the man's muscles were more lean than bulky. He had a youthful face, filled with frustration and was dressed in naught but a kilt, a pair of sandals, and looped baldric that held a sword that must have been more for show than anything else.

Who'd make a sword so long with bronze? Though, Vulkis admitted, he rather liked the name engraved on the scabbard in the Hellenic alphabet: Delenn. It sounded feminine, but unfamiliar. An old girlfriend? Still, no matter how impressive the name, the sword would be useless: It'd have to be three times as thick and five times as heavy as it looked to not simply bend in half – and by the time the giant swung it, he would have been disemboweled.

Maybe, Vulkas thought. He prefers to simply negate fights by being intimidating?

Then the giant opened his mouth and spoke – and Vulkas realized that the giant was walking with someone. In the captain's defense, the giant's companion was easily missed. She was as short as he was tall, her emerald green skin and long ears marked her as a gobliness. She was holding a clay tablet in one hand, gesturing to it as she spoke in quick Coptic: “I don't think anyone's going to be willing to sail no matter how much gold we offer – not with the tales of the pirates, not with the lizardfolk-””

The giant responded, sounding irritated.

Vulkas' brow furrowed.

The giant spoke no tongue he had ever heard. He caught a hint of Latin, slurred and mashed in with other words that sounded like they should make sense but did not. It was a fast tongue, and from the way that the gobliness laughed, one that lent itself to humor.

The two turned around a corner, ducking into an alleyway with the casual confidence of people used to a city.

And then, detaching from shadowed nooks and emerging from behind closed, ratty doors came five hooded forms. They were clad in black linen and had crude wooden masks over their faces. They held bronze knives and clubs and one even had a lead-weighted plumbata that he tossed from palm to palm with nervous tension. They darted into the alleyway and Vulkas felt his blood chill. He had been party to many a battle – and more than a few muggings – but he had never seen an assassination before. His first instinct won out. He sprang forward, drawing his only weapon – a dagger more for cutting fruit and sharpening a stylus than anything else – and shouted: “Ware! Ware!”

The giant might not have spoken Norse, but he heard the noise. He spun around and shoved the gobliness behind him with the same smooth motion. The assassin with the plumbata hefted it and readied to loose it. Vulkas had fought Hellenes in battle and sneered. Those battle-hardened mercenaries had underhanded their murderous darts, making the throwing harder to spot and harder to defend against.

The assassin's lack of skill gave the Aesir captain time enough to hurl his dagger. The blade plunged into the man's palm and he shrieked – but not for long. A moment later, his arm hit the ground and his head followed shortly after.

The giant stood tall and proud, holding his blade in both hands. It had moved with amazing speed and it shone with a silvery light as it caught the sun. Blood stained the edge, dripping to the floor as the giant glared at the four remaining men as if daring them to make another move. Vulkas could do no more than stare in shock, his mind reeling.

That blade!

The giant stepped forward. He beat aside a dagger – and a good chunk of a man's arm – then counter-stroked upwards, sending the assassin falling backwards in a spray of blood. The assassins weren't unarmored – they wore woven cloth tunics that were tougher and harder to cut than they seemed – but they still fell as if wearing nothing at all. The giant parried a knife stroke – blocking the attacker's blade in such a way that left three severed fingers on the ground – then punched out with his own sword-hilt. Weighted and sturdy, the curious hand-guard on the blade caught the assassin in the jaw. His head jerked back in a spray of blood and teeth.

The last assassin turned to flee – but by now, the gobliness had emerged from hiding. Her palms slapped together and she spoke a word in a tongue that Vulkas didn't recognize. Her hands spread, and then she made a tossing motion. From the space between her hands came a glowing ball of fibrous tendrils that were as tightly compacted as spider silk. They exploded outwards with a crackle, then wrapped around the fleeing man. He was trussed up in an instant and toppled forward to skid along the ground for a few feet before coming to a stop.

The violence had taken less than five seconds.

The giant wiped his blade down with a cloth he drew from a belt pouch, shaking his head as he said something that sounded like: Mudder fakker.

“Thank you, sir,” the gobliness said, adjusting her shift with one hand as she looked up at Vulkas.

Vulkas blinked a few times.

Then beamed.

“I hear you need to hire a ship?” he said, cheerily.

* * *

It had all started off so simply for Liam Vanderbilt – though, to be absolutely fair, his idea of what was strange or complicated had forever more been shattered by the fact that he had been jammed through a portal by an ancient artifact and dumped into a world of elves and goblins and winged women and magic and ancient gods who strode the world like giants. But even back on Earth, the idea of getting ready for a trip had seemed simple. He had gone on a road trip or two in his life. This trip wouldn’t be that much more complex, right? Just take his iPod down to a city owned by Brigid, the Tuatha goddess of scribes and wisdom, and get the physics, chemistry and history textbooks within turned into hard-copies that could be read without running out of batteries.

But there was an incredibly complex web of invisible supports that had spread through and around Liam's life – supports he hadn't known he had relied on until suddenly they were gone. For instance, the assurance that he would have enough to eat on every step of the journey – vague ideas of purchasing food on the way at every village and town they stopped at – all of it were smashed to pieces by a laughing Megara, his lover.

“Liam, honey,” she had said, her fingers splayed across his still sweating chest after a bout of lovemaking. “You're traveling along the inner Platonic sea – to the lands of the Tuatha. There have been pirates infesting the route ever since the War of the Fey. And even if there weren't, there are still simple truths: You can't eat gold.”

Liam had looked confused. Clucking, his lover had explained: “No farmer will sell their stock to a traveler during lean times – they can't eat it, and they can't get to where they will spend it.”

So, there had gone one support, kicked down casually.

Still, he had figured it wouldn't be hard, gathering supplies for this trip.

After all, he had been on road trips!

A single human being needed three square meals, including nutrients to prevent illnesses like scurvy. Meals tended to go bad, unless they were preserved. Preserved food cost extra. And that didn't even go into the fact that Megara, who would be coming with, required almost a quarter more food than the rest of them thanks to her superhuman metabolism and mystical abilities. A crew would need to be paid. Clothes needed to be purchased – clothes that would suit him for both the colder weather in the inner sea region and would do if he had to deal with any important dignitaries. Add to that the weapons and armor that would doubtlessly be needed, just for the additional headache. Armor and weapons needed cleaning oils to prevent damage from the elements, they needed to be packed and transported - as a heavy bronze cuirass was not something that could just be dragged around in a rolling suitcase. Ammunition for any number of battles had to be procured for those who used ranged weapons.

Then, of course, the ship itself had to be found and chartered.

All of it made the money vanish with alarming speed, and ate up hours, then days, then weeks – weeks that left him increasingly nervous. Nervous about his iPod - even shut down, he knew that it could be damaged or ruined in a dozen different ways. Nervous about Megara and Livianna - his lover and his personal slave, won in open combat a few days after he arrived in Purgatory. That was a whole pile of uncomfortable, awkward and confusing that he had no idea how to handle. But now, looking at the rapidly cooling bodies that were splayed out in the alleyway, he thought: Maybe I was nervous for entirely the wrong reasons.

“I hear you need to hire a ship?”

The voice drew Liam's eyes up from the corpses and to the man who had saved him and Tethis' life. The man looked like everyone's stereotype of a viking warrior with a single glaring exception. He had long flowing blond hair tied into several tight bundles, with a thick beard that had been combed carefully. He was broad shouldered and muscular. But unlike the stereotype, he was dressed in, well, a business suit. The comparison wasn't entirely perfect, and on a second glance, Liam saw that the two sets of clothes had almost nothing to do with one another. But the overall look of his ensemble still screamed 'well to do merchant' not 'bloodthirsty warrior.'

And his smile was entirely too disarming and cheery.

“Yes, we do,” Liam said, panting quietly as the adrenaline from the short battle ebbed from him. “One moment, though.”

He stepped over to the man that Tethis had captured with one her magical nets, nodding to her as he did so. “Good work, Tethis.”

Tethis - Liam’s personal scribe, accountant, wizard and close friend (and crush) ever since they had met - shook her head. She had been staring at the viking dude with confusion and uncertainty for the past few moments. She blushed a dark green. “Thanks, Liam.”

“I notice that I can understand your language now,” the viking said, curiously, as Liam kicked the last surviving assassin onto his back. Liam didn't look up from the masked man but he did smile as he angled the sword to tap against the mask's nose.

“It's magic. I'll explain later,” Liam said. “You.”

The assassin didn't speak – but behind the mask, Liam could see his eyes focusing. A sword almost as tall as a goblin had a way of drawing people's attentions.

“Why did you attack us?” Liam asked, frowning ever so slightly. “You better start talking quick or else I get cranky. And if you don't talk after I get cranky, then I get crotchety. Then, after that, we move right on into downright grumpy.” He grinned. “You won't like me when I am grumpy.”

There were some advantages to having your butt dropped into a world where no one had seen a single film or TV show. Cliches, for instance, weren't quite as well known. And sometimes, you could seem to be a lot more erudite than you actually were. Liam wasn't ever going to admit to Sobek that, in fact, he hadn't been the one who had invented the phrase 'all the world's a stage.'

The assassin quivered slightly underneath that sword tip, the tiny jerks of his head bumping the wood against the steel of the sword.

“I'll talk!” he gasped, his Coptic sounding very familiar. Liam used the tip of his sword to bump the mask up and off the man's face. He didn't look familiar – but the accent of his voice marked him as a native of the city.

“Who hired you?” Liam asked. “Tell me. Now.”

The man opened his mouth.

Then his eyes bugged outwards. His hands clenched into claws and he jerked at his restraints, trying to reach upwards, but he couldn't move. His throat bulged and rippled and Liam jerked backwards as Tethis grabbed his wrist and pulled on him hard, speaking words that were drowned out by the hideous sounds of the man's throat collapsing inwards and black bile spurting from his mouth. It foamed upwards – some flecks managing to reach the stone walls of the alleyway – and then sloshed down. When it had finished hissing and frothing and bubbling, there was little left of the man's skin and muscle, leaving nothing but a leering white skull. The walls were discolored from where the goop had struck.

“Jesus,” Liam whispered, his voice more fervent than it had ever been on Earth. He had killed people – and had to become comfortable with the fact that he would need to kill more in this dangerous, brutal world. But he had never seen anything like that.

“What was that?” the viking asked, sounding just as shocked as Liam.

“I don't know,” Tethis whimpered, stepping around Liam. She knelt down and looked closely at the skull, her nose wrinkling as she frowned. “I recognize some of these smells. That's basilisk bile.”

“Basilisks?” Liam asked.

“What, you don't have any on Earth?” Tethis asked, sounding shocked. “They're a menace – breed like rabbits and nothing in Purgatory can kill them but living folk. They essentially created the Desert of Sobek in the southern climbs by eating out everything in the region.”

Liam rubbed his face with his hands. The peoples of Purgatory – with the exception of the goblins and elves and lizardfolk and others who had already dwelt within – had been entirely transplanted from Earth in the Third Century AD. They had been cast off Earth by a separatist sect of the Church using the same ancient, mysterious device that had sent him here. They had been followers of the old gods of Europe and beyond – and the gods themselves. But until now, he had never thought that other things might have been cast out as well.

“Who would get basilisk venom in Fayum?” The viking asked. “That stuff is barred by nearly every god.”

Tethis nodded, slowly.

“Well, if it's that good at killing people, I wouldn't be shocked if every god has some in their own pockets. Just in case.” Liam shook his head. “That was how my world worked.”

“Your world sounds like a deeply unpleasant place sometimes,” Tethis said, quietly.

“Hey, it had showers, the Simpsons, McDonalds, and free internet pornography. It had its upsides,” Liam said.

“Well, ah, my name is Vulkis.” The viking cut into the conversation with the grace and aplomb of a bull smashing into a china shop, adjusting his collar with one finger. “Vulkis Shieldbreaker. Captain, trader, merchant, former huscral, generally good man to have at your side. Doubly so when you are accompanied by such a beautiful woman and attacked by villainous assassins.”

And with that, he leaned down, took Tethis' hand, and kissed her knuckles.

Liam blinked a few times. “I never thought I would meet a French viking.”

“Huh?” Vulkis looked at him.

Tethis – whose cheeks had turned bright green – jerked her hand from Vulkis' grip, stammering: “D-Don't listen to anything he says; most of the time, it is gibberish.”

“Ah, the joys of another world,” Liam said, shaking his head. “Come on, Vulkis. Let's discuss this somewhere...” He looked around the alleyway, then kicked at the assassin's corpse. “...safer.”

***

The door to the rather nice house that Sobek had given Liam opened and Tethis – with the ease of long practice – tugged Vulkis to the side before Liam bowled him over. Liam hit the ground with a grunt as roughly a hundred and sixty pounds of muscular, curvaceous valkyrie landed on him. Megara the Messenger – Meg to her friends – had managed to wrap her legs and hook her ankles in the small of Liam's back before he hit the ground. Her hands were on his shoulders, and when they hit the ground, her most prominent aspect – her long, flowing, bright white wings – were wrapped around them both, creating a cocoon of privacy that did nothing to conceal the sound of enthusiastic kissing.

“They always like this?” Vulkis asked, glancing down at the short gobliness who had saved him from being brained. 

Tethis nodded. She studiously didn't look jealous, which only drew more attention to the fact.

Looking beyond the pair, Vulkis saw that the owner of the rooms was the kind of man he could respect. The only table visible was covered with sprawling maps, most of them of the highest quality that money could buy, that had been annotated with dozens of additional markings. There were a trio of large backpacks that looked half filled with belongings, several bedrolls stacked beside them, three cases of javelins that looked freshly polished. And, of course, a fine elven slave who stood in the corner of the room – her collar tight enough to show ownership, but not so tight that it looked cruel.

Locking eyes with the elf, though, made Vulkis rather wish he hadn't.

She looked at him in the same way that some of his crew did – a look that meant she was not evaluating how handsome he was, nor how rich he was, nor what kind of man he was, but rather judging how quickly and easily she could murder him if need be.

Meg drew back from her lover and stood with a single smooth motion, helping Liam to his feet as he coughed.

“You will, one day, be ready for that,” she said, her voice dry.

“In my defense,” Liam said, brushing his hands along the back of his kilt, rolling his shoulders and wincing slightly, “Why would I ever want too?”

The four of them stepped into the chamber properly and the door shut behind them. The elf was immediately beside them, holding a jug of earthen clay, painted and decorated with images of Sobek in his guise as a full crocodile. She smiled sweetly at Liam, pressing up against him as she purred: “Do you want something to drink, master?”

Liam looked deeply uncomfortable and stammered something incoherent – but the girl was already rubbing herself against his chest.

Vulkis watched the display. “You, ah, found quite a slave there.”

“Y-Yes, quite a slave,” Liam said, his hands held in the air, as if he was terrified of touching her. “This is, Liv, um, Liv, handle w-whatever he needs. Drink, whatever.”

Liv turned away from her master and looked at Vulkis. Gone was the silky seductive sex-kitten that she had been projecting mere moments before. Instead, she eyed him with that disquieting look he had seen at the door again. “So,” she said. “Water?”

Vulkis nodded.

Liv got him a cup of water, then walked into an adjoining room and was gone.

“I still say, you should just call the bluff, end this run around and fuck her,” Meg said, shaking her head as she set her rump down on the edge of the table, disturbing several maps, her wings folding tightly behind her back. “She’s just trying to throw you off balance - why not throw her off balance? And into bed?” She waggled her eyebrows up and down. “It’d be fun.”

“No,” Liam said, his voice set. “Also, I thought you didn’t like her.”

Meg snorted. “It’s not that complicated. She tried to murder us-”

Liam nodded. “Hence the not liking her.”

“Yeah, but - and here is the part that you seem to miss - she’s enslaved. She’s wearing a slave collar. She literally can’t hurt us. If she tries, that collar stops her.” She shook her head. “So, I can focus on what can affect us. That. Ass.” She sketched a slender figure in the air with her hands. “And what’s the fun in having a slave if you can’t, you know?”

Liam pinched the bridge of his nose and with the air of a man who had been over this before and would most likely go over it again, said: “Because it’s rape, Meg.”

Meg frowned, her wings closing behind her back. But, to Vulkis’ surprise, she didn’t argue. Vulkis himself had never owned a slave; the Aesir frowned on the whole practice, unlike the Hellenes and the Coptics, though, there were the Thrallkind factions within the Thanemoot, who wanted to bring the old practice back. Vulkis, focusing on Meg, had to reevaluate his opinion of her. By his first reckoning, he had thought that the valkyrie would have been all brawn and sex.

Instead, she was looking thoughtful.

Tethis looked at Vulkis and saw his expression. Leaning over, she whispered in his ear. “Livana was captured by Liam during a battle – she is the daughter of Ares. Basically, an alliance of the Dodekatheon were fighting Sobek, but Apollo and Athena wanted peace. Ares, being Ares, wanted war. Megara was sent to bring the message of peace - and Liv was sent to kill her. You can see why Liam might have disagreed with that, huh?”

Vulkis nodded. Years of dealing with merchants, pirates, slavers, raiders and worse kept his face close to neutral. Inside, part of him wailed: What have I gotten myself into?

Another part was noticing the size of the apartment, the quality of the clothes, the clear wealth on display, and was rubbing their palms together in glee.

“After the battle, Liv was made a slave – but, well, Liam didn't want her to simply be sold. She was unhappy. At first. Then she found out his odd hangups about slavery and started... well...” She shrugged. “This is her twisting the knife.”

Vulkis laughed, quietly. “Why not let her free, then?”

“I tried!” Liam said, angrily. Meg snorted quietly and he turned to her. “I know you think this is silly – but in my world, my country fought a war over this issue, and we're still trying to break up illegal trading of people. I told myself a long time ago, that if I ever fell backwards in time to the Civil War, I would fight for the North – the faction that was opposed to slavery – and I'll be damned if I'll ever take advantage of a woman, just because she tried to kill me and prolong a pointless war between two city-states and that's final!”

He panted, softly, having gotten most of that out in a single breath.

Meg shook her head and stood up from the table. “Liam, love,” she said, putting her hands on his shoulders, her tone gentle. “I don't know what it is like in your world, but here? Slavery can happen to anyone – and anyone can get out of it if they work hard and aren't given to a completely hideous master. So, that means it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be.”

Liam scowled. “That sounds like the same kind of horse-shit people fed to workers who were barely making ends meet in a nine to five job.” He stopped as he saw Meg look completely baffled. He smiled at her. “Imagine jobs that are hard, degrading, and don’t even make enough money to survive on. Just because some people manage to turn it into a living doesn’t mean everyone can - and it doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve some help sometimes and now I’m ranting about social issues a few centuries too advanced.” He laughed, brushing his hands through his hair. “Sorry, Meg, this kind of stuff brings out the social justice warrior in me.”

Meg smiled. “I like that. Social justice warrior! Hah!” She flexed one arm, clearly imagining herself as one.

Liam made a face. “I won’t kill your rosy view of the term.” He smiled. “But you see what I mean? Just because some people can work their way out of slavery doesn’t mean everyone can and it doesn’t mean that it makes it okay. Some people can survive getting stabbed, we still try and stop it.”

Meg frowned, her arm slowly dropping. She quietly nodded. “Fine, fine, I’m convinced.” She sighed. “But if Liv wants to fuck you, I’ll push for it.”

“But she-”

“Yes, yes, she tried to kill us. But, again, she’s hot and she’s safe,” Meg said, shaking her head. “I’ve lain people who have tried to kill me before.”

“Not sure if I never want to hear anymore, or to hear every single detail right now,” Liam muttered. Tethis coughed, her cheeks tinged a pale green with a fading blush.

“And when we come to the Tuatha?” she asked, quietly. “What you feel about slavery does not matter if we're supposed to ask for their help and they cannot respect a nobleman who has no servants and no slaves.”

Liam rubbed his face. “We'll deal with that when we get there.”

Liv came back into the room, her lips pursed. “Master, do you need anything?” She put as much sauce as she could into that single, simple sentence she could – purring the word 'master' like a pleased cat, while cocking her hips to the side. Despite being a slender elf – unlike the far more curvaceous Meg – she managed to make the gesture an invitation to a wild night. Liam put his hands over his face again.

“No, uh, fine,” he said.

Vulkis shook his head. “Kid,” he said, setting his cup down as Liv left the room, “She's doing this on purpose. You need to make it seem as if it doesn't bother you at all.”

Meg chuckled. “Okay, honey? I saw that glance she gave you-”

“What glance? I didn’t see a glance,” Liam muttered, voice mulish.

“She gave you a total glance.” Meg rubbed her hands together, her eyes glittering. Vulkis had never seen a woman so eager to get her lover in bed with another woman. He wasn’t sure if Liam was the luckiest man in Purgatory or most doomed. Taking pity on him, he stepped forward and coughed quietly.

“So,” He said. “The ship. Payments?”

Liam nodded, stepping away from his lover. He rummaged around in the supplies that had been stockpiled in the room, bringing out a purse that bulged with gold coins.

“I cannot hope to have a ship and crew willing to get through this part of the Dreaming Sea for anything less than two hundred gold coins,” Vulkis said.

“Just to check, that’s just a different name for the Platonic Sea, right?” Liam asked. At Vulkis’ nod, he smiled. “Sounds reasonable.”

Vulkis blinked a few times and looked so shocked that he ruined his good fortune as Liam narrowed his eyes.

“You just charged double what you needed, didn't you?” Liam asked, his smile fading.

“Are you still-”

“No!” Liam snapped. “Fuck, I hate haggling. Just set the price you want and I'll pay it – no one gets screwed.”

“B-But,” Vulkis stammered. He loved haggling. The cut and thrust, the fighting, the trickery, the careful half-truths. A good haggle could pass the time better than a good book, and once he was done, he could have the glowing satisfaction of having met someone who was his match while also enjoying the delights of being paid.

Liam shook his head. “A hundred and twenty?”

“Fine, I suppose,” Vulkis said. Even to himself, he sounded sulky.

* * *

The crowd of day laborers that waited before the cranes and the loading docks beside the river were a motley mixture. Most were Coptics, yes, but more than a few had hints of other bloods in them – with different skin tones and hair colors. That wasn't even getting into the elves and the goblins and the other, stranger creatures that sometimes found work there.

Tethis – all three feet nothing of her – stood on one of the crates near the edge of the docks, a clay tablet tucked under one armpit, a stylus in her other hand. She opened her mouth and called out: “Uh, hello?”

Megara – who was sitting on the ground beside her with her hand clapped over a small cup of dice – looked up at the gobliness. She arched an eyebrow.

Tethis, seeing the look, coughed and then said, slightly louder: “Hello!”

Meg tossed the dice on the ground. Nothing good. She sighed, then stood up – her head almost the same height as Tethis' at the moment – and cupped her hands around her mouth. With a voice used to shouting across battlefields, accentuated by lungs strong enough to keep her aloft at the highest reaches of the sky, she bellowed: “Oi!”

Silence descended on the crowd as day labourers looked at Tethis – who had turned as red as it was possible for a green skinned girl to be. She rallied, quickly. “W-We're looking to hire a crew willing to handle cargo for a ship bound to leave tomorrow. We'll pay a half coin for a day's hard work.”

Several people started stepping forward. More looked uncertain. Meg glared at them. More people stepped forward. Tethis smiled, nodding slightly.

“That'll do! Now, give me your names,” she said, holding up her stylus. “And be ready to sign.”

A long, lanky figure who looked like his ancestors had shared a bedroll with a lizardman raised his hand, the scales on his palm glinting in the sunlight. Tethis pointed at him with a stylus, nodding.

“Can we use an X?” the man asked.

Watching the men work, Liam shook his head. “You know, on Earth-”

“What?” Meg asked, leaning against the side of Vulkis' ship. “On Earth, everything was loaded by machines that were built by other machines, piloted by machines that themselves were smarter than even the most smartest man in your halls of learning?” She snorted. “Let me guess, you spat lightning into hunks of glass and brought statues to life like that asshole Pygmalion?”

“Well, uh, no, I was just going to say this would have mostly be done by Mexicans where I came from,” Liam said, shaking his head. “But I count, like, five distinct species here.”

“Oh,” Meg said, blinking. “Sorry.” She smiled, wryly. “But you do sometimes go on about Earth a little.”

Liam grinned at her. “You're just jealous of our magic sex robots and third wave feminism.”

“I admit, if I never had to deal with another Hellene who assumed that I was soft and delicate like a flower because I was a woman – or that my womb caused me to go insane or any number of ridiculous things,” she said, her voice dark, “I would be very happy.”

Liam chuckled. “Not all Hellenes. Now there's a hashtag I'd love to see.”

Vulkis stuck his head over the railing of the ship and looked down at the two of them. “Hail, oh giant!” he said, sounding cheery. “Your cabin is ready, if you wish to see it. Though, we did have to knock down a wall for you to fit.”

“Oh, ha ha ha,” Liam said, dryly. “You know, once you've dropped us off in-” he stopped. “Okay, so, we've called this place the city for so long, I've completely forgotten what it is called.”

“Olimurias,” Meg said.

“Right.” Liam shook his head. “Still, once you've dropped us off at Olimurias, you can sell the story of the twelve foot man who farted lightning and threw entire stars at people.”

Vulkis looked at Liam quizzically. “What, by Odin's massive library, is a star?”

“Uh,” Liam said, then looked at the sky. For the first time in weeks, the sheer otherness of Purgatory crashed down on him. The fact that the area directly above Faiyum Falls was ocean made it easier for him to think that it was merely a strangely reflective blue sky. He shivered and tried to not think of all those people walking above him, upside down, planted to the ceiling by the forces that created this world. He wasn't sure if it was centripetal pressure or magic, to be honest. He shook his head and smiled at Vulkis. “I'll tell you when you're older.”

Vulkis made a face.

The cabin itself was – despite Vulkis' words – rather nice. The ceiling was low for Liam, but he was relatively used to that. A hammock, rather than a bed, was laced from the walls and there was a small storage chest where he could keep his things. Megara, of course, walked inside and claimed it as her own by tugging her shift up and over her head. She spread her arms, her fingers touching the walls, her wings brushing the ceiling. She humphed softly.

“You'll have to fold me in- eek!” she squeaked as Liam slapped his hand roughly on her rump.

“You won't complain,” Liam said, sagely.

The door opened. Liam moved to block Meg's butt from the world but before he could, Liv stepped into the room. She was wearing her slave collar and a shift of her own, and her arms were loaded down with several bits of luggage. She looked past them at Meg, then grinned wickedly at Liam. Liam recognized that expression on her face and already started to groan.

“Oh master,” Liv said, her voice breathy. “Surely, you need someone to serve as a masseuse for your lovely companion.”

Meg rubbed her chin. “You know, getting a rub down sounds kind of nice...”

Liam looked at her, his eyes filled with betrayal. Meg looked back at him and scoffed.

“Liam, we agreed, it’s fine if she wants to do it, and she volunteered! we did pack skin lotion – might as well apply some.” She rubbed her palms together and beamed at Liv. “You learn quick, right?”

“I know the basics,” Liv said, her voice somehow managing to sound both demure and innocent and loaded with sensual, seductive pleasure. She glanced at Liam, her hand caressing Meg's back as she murmured quietly. “And it will be such a pleasure to be ordered to rub you down. To slather you with lotion and, maybe, give you the pleasure of Sappho.” She bit her lip. “Of course, I'd need to be... ordered... to do such a thing.”

Meg chuckled. “Well, fuck me. Yeah, I can-”

“Dude!” Liam exclaimed. “What did you just say!?””

Meg looked at Liv, then looked at Liam, then looked at Liv again, then scowled. “Ah, fuck it and damn you and your social justice!” She shook her fist at Liam, but she slightly looked guilty. Liam covered his mouth with his hand to hide his smile. Meg grumbled and punched his shoulder very gently. “You also need to tell me what dude means one of these days.”

Liv sighed, loudly, then shook her head. “Well, my master has made it clear. I suppose I will go and sleep in the hold.” She hung her head forward. “Alone.”

Liam put his hand over his face. “Stop it, Liv. I know you're just fucking with me. You're the daughter of the god of war, stop with this fucking woe is me moe-ass slave thing.”

Liv chuckled. “But it makes you squirm so much,” she said, her voice a quiet purr. “Call me if you need me, master.” Her hand reached forward and caressed his belly , causing Liam to squirm – and yet, her touch was so expert, so confident, and thrummed with a kind of energy that made him gasp softly. His cock hardened despite himself – and then she was gone. Liam bit his lip as hard as he could, trying to think of grandmas playing baseball.

Meg shook her head. “Just fuck her,” she said. “That was totally an invitation, you saw it!”

“No!”

“Fine, let me fuck her,” Meg said, grinning.

“Dude!” Liam said, hardly believing his own ears. If he had gone back to himself just a year before and told himself that the prospect of watching a hot elf babe go down on a gorgeous valkyrie would have made him feel profoundly uncomfortable and squicked out, then the him from a year ago would have...

Actually, he was pretty sure the him of back then had been completely besotted with a girl named Trisha Melbourne, who had been completely disinterested in him. So, old Liam would have likely muttered something about the friendzone. Liam wanted to go back and smack himself. 

Meg stepped up behind him. “So, how do you want to spend your first night on the river?”

Liam smiled, slowly, leaning backwards into her warm embrace. His eyes closed and he turned, catching her lips with his. Meg started to take his clothes off. It took longer than her single piece shift.

But not by much.

* * *

As the ship slipped out of Faiyum Falls, a single bird took flight from the city. Black wings spreading, it soared outwards, catching a thermal, and sweeping over the river.

Following.

Two

Tethis stood behind a set of cargo crates, trying to work up her courage. She had the basics down in her head. Just walk up to Liam and tell him that she was interested in him.

Interested? Tethis' brain muttered in a snarky, snide tone that she had never had the courage to use. Your cabin is next to his. For the past two days, the only things you've heard Liam say were the word 'fuck' and 'oh god' and 'Jesus.' But no, it wasn't anything he said that made you interested, was it? It was all Meg, wasn't it? Pervert.

Tethis blushed a dark green, and rubbed her hands together to distract herself. Then she tensed; she'd heard the sounds of footsteps. Another person was walking towards where Liam sat on the other side of the crate. Over the faint rasp of Liam's whetstone sliding against the blade of his sword, Tethis could hear... Liv.

Great.

“Master,” she purred. “I could polish your sword.”

“Sure,” he said, his voice as bland as Tethis had ever heard it. “Here. Take this sword and polish it.”

Liv paused. Tethis felt glee starting to grow within her, hardening in her belly like a nut. She did a little dance as Liv tried to rally.

“W-Well, uh, sir, I will be sure to polish your long, hard sword extra good,” she said, trying to capture that playful purr again.

“Good,” Liam said.

Tethis paused in her dancing, looking out and over the side of the river. She wanted to look back to Faiyum Falls, where she could direct her prayers to Sobek. She was sure that the crocodile-headed god hadn't heard or cared that she wanted this chance – but she figured that just in case he had had something to do with it, she should at the very least send him the thanks. It was better to be safe than sorry.

It was strange things that saved lives and changed history.

If Tethis hadn't chosen today to approach Liam.

If Liv hadn't picked that moment to try and unnerve her master.

If the river hadn't bent that specific way.

If Tethis hadn't been a goblin – born, really, to dwell in the deep jungles. Her eyes didn't see color as well as other races in Purgatory, certainly not compared to the panchromatic elves. But what her eyes were made to do, they did well. They spotted movement and they put movement together into a cohesive picture and that picture caused Tethis to draw in her breath and shriek at the top of her lungs.

“Basilisk!”

Then the immense, feathered and scaled form of the basilisk emerged from the shadows of the jungle and surged into the river with an almighty splash. Tethis flung herself flat and so did most of the crew – Liv tackled a shocked Liam to the ground. The basilisk swept its crested head backwards and forward and the intense, not-quite-white glow of its gaze swept along the wooden hull. Several planks that were older than the others snapped like tree branches and splinters filled the air with a hazy whine. Several people screamed and at least one crewman who had been either fractionally too slow, or simply stood too quickly, was caught frozen on the deck, his face a mask of horror, his body a pale white like marble.

“Ware! Ware!” Vulkis bellowed as the first grappling hook thunked into the wood on the left side of the boat. Tethis scrambled up to her feet – now that the basilisk had used its gaze, it wouldn't be able to muster the same energy again for almost a full minute and a half.

Not that Liam seemed to know that.

He scrambled to his feet, his hand over his eyes, his sword in his other hand.

“What are you doing?” Liv shouted at him, grabbing his wrist and yanking it aside.

“When I say duck, duck,” she shouted. “And kill that stupid fucking thing!”

Liam looked over to the left, and saw that the basilisk was surging towards the side of the boat now. Its clawed forearms grabbed onto wood and it lunged its head forward, snapping at one of the crew who was approaching with an ax in hand. The crewman jerked backwards, then shouted at the lizard in Aesir. Tethis was fairly sure he had told it to go fuck its mother.

The basilisk spat venom in his face. The man hit the deck, writhing in agony.

Tethis knew that she had to help him – but the basilisk was there, and the grappling hooks were suddenly swarming with sleek, scaled forms – forms that had hands and grasping fingers and knives and nets and spears. She froze.

Then Liam was there, standing over the fallen crewman, longsword in his hands.

“Come on, motherfucker!” he shouted. “Let's get Chamber Of Secrets your ass!”

Tethis shook her head. She stood up and ran forward.

Liam, meanwhile, was feeling that curious mixture of sensations that every single battle in Purgatory brought out in him. There was the adrenaline rush of excitement that made things seem to slow, then stretch, then warp like taffy. Then there was the real and present fear of imminent death.

Then there was the fact he was fighting a gigantic iguana-chicken monster that looked as if it had crawled right out of the third edition Monster Manual.

That was fucking sweet.

The basilisk hissed and opened its mouth. Liam flung himself to the side and the same toxin that had killed the assassin in Faiyum Falls splattered onto the deck behind him. He scrambled up and lunged forward, his sword tip splitting the monster's snout. It jerked its head backwards and screeched in pain. Then he saw something flare around its neck. Half concealed by feathers was a crude leather collar that had been looped there - similar in design, if not in size, to Liv’s slave collar. He didn't envy whoever had put that on.

The basilisk shook its head and then snapped hesitantly at him. It was easy enough to step backwards. Then something flew past his neck so fast he felt it on his neck hair and a figure thumped to the ground behind him and to the left. Liam glanced away from the basilisk and saw that someone had thrown a javelin so hard that it had almost ripped a lizardman in half. The lizardman who was behind-

Liam spun around and saw that two more lizardmen were look at the corpse of their fellow. Other lizardfolk were being fought by the crew – axes and shields clattered while spears and knives flashed and nets flew. The hesitation of the two lizardmen proved their doom. One got a javelin in the forehead – the bronze-tipped weapon smashed through bone as if it was nothing more than plywood and sent the lizardman flipping head over tail. The other was pierced through the heart with such force that he smashed into one of the cargo crates and was pinned there.

Meg swept down from the sky, using her powerful legs and her wings to send herself darting to the deck. She landed beside the two lizardmen and flashed a grin at Liam.

“That's three,” she said, casually.

“Have I mentioned I love and am terrified of you?” Liam asked.

Meg winked at him, then swept into the air as Liam hit the deck to avoid the massive head of the basilisk biting them at the same time. He felt the scales underneath the creature's jaw rasp at his back, and then he was rolling away. He looked around, thinking furiously. The collar meant-

Aha!

Standing atop the cabin at the back of the longship was a robed, hideous looking lizardman. His hood was thrown back, revealing that his head was covered with grotesque growths that stretched and distended his skull, making him look as if he had been in a tragic woodchipper accident as a child. But what was worse was that he was screeching and waving his hands in the air, creating crackling runes of light that reminded Liam of the same type of magic that Tethis used.

She had said that her type of magic was almost unique.

But questions were for later – the basilisk was shaking its head from side to side. Its eyes were closed, but through the thick eyelids, Liam could see a glow gathering. The thing was readying another gaze attack.

Liam grabbed the javelin that had smashed into the forehead of the lizardman, yanking it free. He tossed it overhanded at the lizardman sorcerer. The sorcerer didn't see it coming but that didn't really matter. It hit the side of the cabin wall, doing little more than make a loud noise that startled the sorcerer. He screeched hideously at Liam and then started making gestures again.

Suddenly his runes were surrounded by other runes. These were more solid and sturdy and Liam looked down to see that Tethis was holding up her hands. The man she had been working with looked as if someone had laid a glowing green crystal over his face, concealing the effects of the acid. He didn't know if that was saving his life, but he was willing to guess.

Sorcerer locked down.

Boarders matched with the lizardmen.

It was time to make every single swordfighting instructor he had ever had slap their faces and call him an idiot.

Liam stood up, stepped back, then charged towards the railing. His feet pounded and he let the strange energy of the situation fill him. He kicked off the side of the ship, making a neat arc, his sword in his hands. The tip smashed into the front of the basilisk's head and – to his delight – caught and plunged in. The monster screeched and Liam pushed harder, driving Delen deeper in. Blood spurted around the monster's forehead, but Liam found that the shape of the basilisk's skull had a subtle flaw.

If someone had impaled its head with a sword, that someone could wedge their feet in the monster's eyeballs and hook on that way.

The basilisk jerked its head from side to side, screeching and howling as Liam sawed his sword forward and backwards, twisting it around. Finally, the rest of the basilisk realized that it was fucking dead and it slumped down, shattering the railing it landed on. It started to slip off the side of the boat. Liam rolled backwards, yanking his sword free at the last moment. His back hit the wooden deck and he laid there, panting softly.

“That,” he said, “Should not have worked.”

Tethis filled his vision, beaming at him. “That was amazing, Liam!”

She leaned forward, kissing him. Upside down. Liam blinked, his eyes wide. He had ogled the short gobliness more than once, but that didn't mean that he had expected this. Her tongue darted into his mouth, questing, seeking, and after a few moments, he started to kiss her back, his fingers caressing the back of her head. She drew back, panting and started to babble.

“So, I was going to ask you if you wanted to, well, you know, I mean, get to know me – like, in a sense, that is, I wanted... uh, but then the basilisk, and you, wow, the sword, also, I think I devised a cure by improvisation, but that man's face is melted, that's awful, and I was thinking we almost died, so, I should, I mean, kissing you is-”

Liam, by this point, had started to sit up. Tethis was sitting back on her thighs, still speaking a mile a minute.

“-and I don't even think that lizard tribes are supposed be this... far...” She trailed off as Liam put his finger on her lips.

“Let's talk about this later,” Liam said.

“Right,” she whispered, her eyes going cross-eyed as Liam realized he was very close to smearing her face with the basilisk blood that had splashed his hand. He drew his palm back.

“Everyone else okay?” Liam called out.

Vulkis – who had gotten slashed across the arm and was having it bound up by a furious looking Thu'chan – laughed.

“Of course!” he said. “We're all either alive – and thus heroes – or dead - and thus in Valhalla!”

Liam looked at Tethis.

Tethis looked at Liam.

“Aesir,” they said in unison.

* * *

“So, let me get this straight,” Meg said. “Right now, you two could be fucking like rabbits while I watch.” She pointed at Tethis and Liam. “But instead, we're going to be...” She made a face. “...embalming a mutant lizardman?”

“Not embalming,” Liam said, rubbing his hands together and trying to quiet his queasy stomach. “We're performing what is called, in my land, an autopsy.”

“You're looking at yourself?” Meg asked, sounding baffled.

“No, Liam explained it to me,” Tethis said, sounding excited. “The idea is fascinating. Essentially, all bodies have things inside them. Innards. They do things. This is well known – but the exact function of many of them are a mystery to us. Not to Liam's people on Earth!”

“Oh goodie,” Meg said, her voice filled with faux excitement. Then she blinked. “Wait, if you know what things do – you know what to do when they go, well, bad, right?”

Liam nodded.

Meg looked thoughtful. “Oh, that actually does sound quite useful.”

“I still say it is ill luck,” a voice called in from the side of their little huddle.

There were no medical bays aboard the ship; while Vulkis might have been quite proud of his craft, it wasn't the USS Enterprise by a long shot. That meant that this entire conversation and dissection was taking place in a somewhat tidied up corner of the ship's main deck. The rest of the deck was awash in the surviving crew – they had only lost four people, once Tethis' healing magic was used – doing their best to repair the ship. Their best was well enough. Less than two hours after the battle and Liam could hardly believe there had been a fight, save for the statue that had been tucked carefully in the corner.

The crewman who had spoken was a tall, burly looking Hellene. “Cutting open a body! You may be exposed to who knows what illness or filth or dark spirits.”

“We're just going to cut open his brain,” Liam said. “I'm working on a theory.”

The crewman snorted and walked away.

“Hate to agree with an uneducated Neo-Cretan, but why are you interested in his mucus?” Meg asked.

“The brain is where all the thinking goes on,” Tethis said, brightly. “Which is a complete shock to me. I thought it was for cooling blood."

“Wait, if all the thinking goes on inside of the brain,” Meg said, tapping her temple. “Why does getting excited make my heart go faster?” She frowned. “You'd think my brain should start to pulse, then, not my heart.”

“It's complicated,” Liam said, holding up the bronze dagger that he had scrounged off the ship. He held it up, then slowly brought it down. He cut at one of the large protuberances that stuck out of the side of the lizardman's head. He winced at the faint dribble of blood, then worked the knife, and then the scales came away and he wiped away the blood with a thumb and grinned slowly. It was a delightful sensation; the same tingle that came from successfully completing a puzzle in a point and click adventuring game.

“I was right,” he said.

“Okay, what was your theory?” Meg asked, her voice soft. “Because that's a crystal. And if your theory was my theory, than I think we just have even more questions on hand.”

It wasn't just a crystal. It was a huge nodule of hardened crystalline material that looked as if it had fused with the lizardman's skull and grown outwards like a tumor. It had the same inner glowing light as the strange creature that Liam had run into on his first arrival in Purgatory. It was the same crystal that Tethis used as her foci – the same crystal that Tethis had said that Coptic embalmers found inside of valkyrie bodies.

The same crystals used by the Ancients to craft their teleportation devices and light sources and who knows what else.

In the end, it took some chiseling for Liam to work the crystal free from the lizardman's head. Less than a minutes work. It took two hours to convince Vulkis to turn the ship around.

The Aesir looked at Liam as if he had taken leave of his senses.

“We got out of that trap, yes, but we didn't kill every single lizardman in the tribe,” he said. “They broke and ran when the basilisk died, but that just means if we come back, we- No! I won't do it.”

“Listen,” Liam said. “That lizardman was using this to cast magic. I bet the lizardman you killed on the way here? The one you said called down lightning? I bet he had crystal nodules too. We need the band around that basilisk's neck to start figuring out what they're doing with them. What if every lizardman tribe has their own basilisk to attack ships? Or cities?”

Vulkis remained stubborn, but they wore him down, pointing out that basilisk, being native from Earth, had no predators. Liam painted a picture of every river flowing with basilisks that went after ships with the single minded determination of pirate kings. Tethis pointed out that a siege force of a dozen could overcome an Aesir settlement in a few minutes. Meg just cracked her knuckles.

Liv, though, watched silently. But Liam wasn’t sure if it was Vulkis she watched or him.

Finally, Vulkis lifted up his hands and sighed. “Fine! We'll go back.”

The crew grumbled.

They were silenced by Vulkis giving them extra gold – doled out from the purse that Sobek had given Liam.

The crew continued grumbling – but much softer – as they worked their oars into the water. Liam remained at the railing, watching the river creep by as sluggishly as if he had been walking. Tethis stood beside him, rubbing her hands together. She shook her head.

“It took me years of studying Ancient artifacts to learn how to cast,” she said, quietly. “These lizardmen are doing it naturally. I don't know how to feel about it. It feels like they stole my magic. Is that weird?”

“Well, see, I'm starting to wonder if it is magic,” Liam said, frowning.

“What?” Tethis asked, her brow furrowing. Her ears tweaked up.

“In my world, we know that the universe is, oh, thirteen billion years old.” Liam looked at her. “Billion. That's a thousand million. We measure our history in decades and centuries. Millennium, if we're lucky. Now, if we measure our history like that, and we can make iPhones and cars and all those other amazing things that I've told you about, then what could someone make if they measured their history in millions? Would their iPhones and cars and stuff look like, well, this?” He held up the chunk of crystal, waggling it at her.

Tethis looked somber. “I live in a world where gods walk the lands like titans. I've heard tales of the Eye of Ra, smiting entire cities.” She gestured around her. “I've seen paintings of the great desert of glass. And you?” She pointed a finger at Liam. “You are giving me the, ah, what was that phrase?” She shivered. “The screamy-weamies.”

Liam smiled, then reached down and ruffled her hair. He paused. “I hope you don't mind me doing that.”

Tethis – her cheeks a dark green – smiled at him. “I like it.”

“Oh, just do it already!” Meg hissed, her eyes peeking from over a crate. Liam jumped almost a foot in the air. He put his hand over his heart, panting.

“How long were you there?” He asked.

“Long enough,” Meg hissed, slowly ducking back below the crate, her eyes being the last thing to vanish in the night. As they glowed an electric blue, it was hard to miss them. Liam shook his head, then looked down at Tethis again.

“All the pressure almost makes it seem unappealing, huh?”

“Oh, come onnnnnnn!” Meg groaned.

Tethis smiled – then pointed out at the river. “There! There!”

Liam leaned over the railing as Tethis summoned up a light cantrip. It flared out and showed the floating corpse of the basilisk.

Liam grinned. “Jackpot.”

* * *

“S-So, uh, this is the collar off the basilisk,” Tethis said, setting the large loop of cracked, sun beaten leather onto the table. “Let's- eeep!”

Liam had knelt behind her, his hands reaching up. He cupped her breasts, gently, through her clothes, squeezing and fondling them. They were smaller than Megara's, but considering the differences between the two women's sizes, they felt larger and a great deal softer. Tethis squirmed, her head tossing to the side as she bit her lip hard to keep from making a noise. For a moment, there was nothing but the rustling sound of fabric in the cramped quarters as Liam's fingers found the hard points of Tethis' nipples through her shirt. They were just as sensitive as Liam had hoped; playing with them turned the quiet of the cabin into a beautiful sympathy of gasps as Tethis arched her back.

Her ear-tip pressed to his lips and Liam decided to take advantage. He closed his eyes and circled the tip of the gobliness' ear with his tongue, teasing her with the warmth and the wetness. This was too much: Tethis broke her silence and actually moaned, her knees quivering underneath her shift.

“Liam.” She freighted the word with enough eager wantonness to make Liam hard for a week. His cock tented his kilt and he reached down to undo the straps and ties that kept the Coptic-style garment on his body. As he tugged at his straps, Tethis continued: “The collar? This is, so-”

“Sudden?” Liam murmured as his kilt slipped off. “I’ve learned, Tethis. In Purgatory, take your chances when you get them. The collar can wait. We can’t.”

“Liam,” Tethis whispered as his hands took hold of her shift.

There were advantages to living in a Bronze Age world ruled by magic, barbarism and ancient pagan gods.

One of those advantages was that the clothes were really easy to take off.

Not that Liam hurried the process of taking hold of Tethis' shift as she turned to face him, the basilisk collar forgotten for the moment. Her eyes locked on his and shone with an eagerness that was only interrupted by the sheet of white that momentarily covered her face as Liam pulled her shift up and over her head. It got caught on her arms for a moment and Liam grinned, an idea sparking in his mind. He pulled the fabric backwards rather than upwards, catching the hem against Tethis' nose and covering her eyes.

She opened her mouth to speak, but then Liam was kissing her. Gently, his tongue probed her mouth and felt the warmth of her own as she pressed back against him. But Liam took advantage of her semi-trapped arms and her covered eyes. He drew back as she pushed forward, leaving her mouth open and seeking. Quietly, Tethis made a sound more animal than language: Mrr?

Where did my kissing go?

Liam leaned forward and kissed the tips of her emerald green breasts, finding her nipples as dark as he had imagined them to be. He sucked on one, hard enough to draw out another word from the scribe.

“Oh Liam!”

He tried adding just a hint of tooth. Not a bite, just enough pressure to tease her and catch her nipple, then tug it outwards. Her breast was pliant enough to stretch slightly, and the hint of pain seemed to do something for Tethis as she moaned loudly again, her hips bucking. Looking down, Liam saw that her sex was completely hairless, just as he remembered from the first time he had seen her bend over without realizing her shift was riding up.

Liam wasn’t sure if her bald sex was natural because she was a gobliness or cultural because she was Coptic - it was their fashion to shave themselves bald and wear wigs, after all. He was sure that he was a total pig, though, because he loved hairless pussy.

I'm going to feminist hell, he thought as he cooed quietly. “I love your pretty pussy, Tethis.”

“Liam!” she squeaked, actually trying to get her head out from under the shift. “I- that's, uh, a bit-”

“Naughty?” Liam asked.

“I just, um, never thought I'd be, uh, complimented. On. You know.” Tethis' cheeks were dark green now.

“That's funny, cause the first time I met you, you flashed it to me,” Liam said. “Bending forward in this little thing.” He held up his shift.

Tethis' eyes widened. “And- I- oh!”

“Though, I was curious back then, if being hairless was part of being a gobliness or a Coptic,” Liam added.

“It's hygienic!” She sounded defensive.

Liam dropped his hand, his finger crooking as he gently started to rub the folds of her sex. It was green in the same way that her nipples were, the color darkening at the very edges to a near black. That accentuated the slickness of her, making her pussy-lips glisten as if they had been oiled. The slick noises made her embarrassed and she turned her head to the side. Megara, by this point, would have been basically fucking his fingers.

Liam had to admit, the shyness was adorable.

“You, uh, ah-” Tethis shook her head, clearly trying to speak without interruption. “You're good at that.”

“I haven't even started,” Liam said, casually. A faint part of his mind wondered at what he was doing – a tiny part that hadn't fully rejected some of the more sex negative teachings of Christianity. It was a part left over from a childhood summer school, before high school and college explorations had introduced him to the concepts of other thinkers than St. Augustine. But that part of his mind did have something that the rest of him listened too: What if Megara gets jealous?

He countered: What if she's watching right now?

Tethis grabbed onto his wrist with one hand, her fingers squeezing him tightly, her other hand working her fingers through the small hammock in the side of the room, the strands of the ropes tangling around her knuckles like the world's crudest bit of Japanese rope bondage. But it kept her on her feet as she ducked her head forward and moaned, her sex spreading to Liam's fingers. His thumb slid to her clit, circling it gently as he finger-fucked her.

The slick schlick noise that filled the cabin was almost as erotic as the way Tethis' pendulous breasts swayed in delicious counterpoint with her rocking hips.

Almost.

“You like that?” Liam purred.

“Yes,” Tethis gasped, barely audible.

“You like your cute little goblin pussy getting finger-fucked?” Liam enjoyed the way she squirmed and looked guilty, as if she wasn't sure if she should be enjoying that as much as she was.

“Gods, yes,” she breathed.

Liam paused in his thrusting, thumb resting on her clit. “Want more?”

Tethis nodded, her hair bobbing around her head, her ears twitching upwards. Her hips didn't get the memo that things had stopped moving and continued to rise and fall, as if she was trying to fuck herself against Liam's hand. Liam felt very wicked as he leaned forward and whispered in Tethis' ear.

“Say please, my little magelet,” he murmured.

Tamora Pierce would be pissed, he thought.

“Please-” Tethis gasped as Liam added a second finger to her tightness. He noticed, though, that she wasn't so tight that he couldn't picture his cock fitting inside of her. Tethis threw her head back and moaned so loudly that Liam was pretty sure a good chunk of the crew heard her. Hell, he'd have been shocked if the lizardmen hadn't heard her, hiding in whatever hole they had fled too. His hand felt slick with her juices as her hips bucked and rocked and she fell, her whole weight pressing against him. Her lips found his neck, kissing, sucking. Then she kissed across his muscular chest, tracing the lines of his muscles, desperately. She whispered.

“Fuck me.”

“Louder,” Liam groaned, his hands going to her hips, smearing her juices along her sweat-streaked green flesh.

“Fuck me!” she whined.

“Beg,” Liam grunted as he picked her up and pinned her against the wall, her face pressed between his nipples, his cock slotted between her green things, his cock pulsing with eagerness. Her sex was furnace hot against him – and so wet. He was pretty sure that he'd fit, with that much lubrication.

“Please, gods, fuck me,” she whispered. “I've watched you and Meg, and I want it so much!”

Liam darted his hips back and hesitated, looking down. Compacted against the wall, with her belly pushed upwards, her breasts touching her thighs, her feet pressed to his chest, Tethis looked deliciously compact. Her hair was bedraggled and her eyes were wild – all signs of the demure mage gone. In her place was an eager woman who wanted Liam as badly as he had ever seen Megara want it.

“Come on,” she groaned.

Liam pressed his cock to her sex – hesitated – then slipped the head of his cock into her. Her pussy spread before him and Liam marveled at how tight she was. Tethis' head rolled back against the wall, her eyes closing as her dark hair sheeted over her breasts for a moment, before being pushed away by her hands so that she could cup and squeeze her own tits. She found her nipples and, with the directness of her own desire, started to pull on them harder than Liam would have dared.

The playing was almost unneeded – Liam was so turned on that he had almost cum twice, just getting halfway into her tight green sex. He closed his eyes and started thinking about whatever he could to get his mind off blowing his load inside of Tethis: Baseball, THAC0, the President, anything.

It worked.

He managed to hilt himself inside of Tethis, making her croon quietly. “So... full...”

Liam opened one eye, grinning at her in admiration. “You think?”

“Mhhh!”

Liam slid his cock backwards, the shaft gleaming with her juices, then rocked forward, the wet slap of his balls against her jiggly, soft ass music to his ears. He started to thrust with a deliberate slowness, knowing that if he did her faster and harder, then this wouldn't last nearly long enough.

Liam had been regularly fucking a literal angel with the stamina of Wonder Woman so you might have thought this would have dimmed the fires of his lust for other girls. But he'd wanted Tethis since the moment he laid eyes on her. And besides, he was a college freshman.

Liam's hips met Tethis' again and again and she rocked backwards and forward, her breasts jiggling as she looked into his eyes. “I love it,” she gasped. “Your cock feels so good – so big.”

“I'd hope so.” Liam spoke around gritted teeth, still trying to control himself as he fucked her. His hand slipped to her ankle, lifting and spreading one of her legs. Fortunately, Tethis was flexible as hell. “So,” he grinned at her, “Figured anything out about the collar?”

Tethis giggled, but her laughter quickly turned into a moan, her head thrashing to the side as her sex tightened around his cock like a fist.

Liam closed his eyes, pausing in his thrusting, riding out the delightful, fluttering contractions that moved along his cock, squeezing the tip, working the shaft. It was intense and nearly indescribable and he was fairly sure that stabbing the basilisk had been easier than not letting his balls clench and spurt cum into her right then and there.

“I, ah, think,” Tethis gasped, her eyes half closed' “'S a kind of, mm, control. Crystal. Magic. Uh. Not god magic.” She shook her head. “Lizardmen don't have gods.”

“They'd have liked Dawkins,” Liam said, starting to slowly pick up the pace again. Now, his fucking could hardly be described as slow. Lazy would have been better. Casual. To an outside observer, one might even have thought that Liam was a stud who barely cared that he was screwing a girl. But in truth, Liam was fairly sure that if he went one iota faster, he'd cum and cum hard. As it was, it was a near thing.

Tethis giggled. “Y-You can go faster, you know,” she murmured.

“If I do, I-”

“You can cum in me.”

The words were spoken with a matter-of-factness that seemed at utter odds to her earlier shyness. They were as good as an order.

Liam picked up the pace, taking advantage of that feeling of eagerness that mounted as a man got closer and closer to an orgasm. Thought faded. Emotion faded. The world faded, and everything focused on the pleasure as his cock slammed into Tethis roughly, his hips bumping against her as her moans became nothing more than the background music to the gathering storm. Liam managed one more stroke before instincts drove him deep as he could go, so deep that his balls rested against her ass, that her thighs were mashed against his chest, that she was bent almost in half against the wall.

And then he came.

And came.

And came. Thick streams of cum spurted into the gobliness, filling her to the brim, then beyond – it splashed from her sex, dripping down his balls, and pattering to the floor. The wood gleamed with darkened circles, spreading outwards as Tethis gasped and panted and laughed quietly. It was the eager, happy laugh of someone who had gotten something they had wanted and found it better than their dreams might have projected.

“That was, ah, satisfactory,” she said, quietly, her voice wry and playful.

Liam leaned forward and bit her neck gently, eliciting a squeak.

“So,” Megara said, from the doorway. “How's the research going?”

Tethis lifted one arm and gave her a thumbs up.

***

The ship cleared the Faiyum river after another two days of travel, emerging from the shadows of the jungle to the broad expanse of the Platonic Sea. Named by the Hellenes after one of their ancient philosophers, it was a meeting point of cultures and peoples as a central trade nexus between the Tuatha, the Aesir, the Coptics and the Hellenes themselves. Trade ships plied the waves with oars and sails, carrying trade goods that could make a fortune in distant lands and bring them home to their eager owners.

On Earth, such trade was once thought to be the best insurance against warfare.

However, as Earth learned and Purgatory knew, such wealth meant it was, more often than not, stained red with blood. But unlike on Earth, such blood was rarely shed without warning. The reason why was clear after a mere fifteen seconds to Liam – though it would have been instantly, had he not spent time frozen in ball-shriveling panic, looking at an immense wall of water that was rushing towards the ship, every part of his brain screamed one thing: Tsunami!

Memories of walls of water smashing through cities, of tens of thousands of people killed or drowned in a few terrifying moments, the footage captured by hundreds of cheap cellphone cameras, all of it rushed through him as part of his brain was already doing some simple calculations, figuring how to save as many people as possible with Megara's strength.

Then he realized the wall of water was standing perfectly still.

Then he realized, above the wall, was a coastline that he could look at head on.

Then he remembered: Purgatory was a sphere.

It was easy to forget in the thick jungles surrounding the city he had spent the last few weeks – but the horizon here bent upwards, not down. With the panic relaxing away, he shook his head ruefully, then looked at Vulkis, who had paused nearby to look at him. Vulkis was looking both respectful and, if Liam read the bearded Aesir properly, downright jealous.

“Yes?” Liam asked.

“Oh,” Vulkis said, “Just wondering why Freya put her blessing on you, lad.”

Liam blinked. “Freya, she's the-”

Vulkis cut him off with a laugh, stepping over to the railing of the ship, looking outwards at the Platonic Sea. “Right, right, you worship that strange pain-cult. One of Freya's many domains is that of the love between men and women.” He grinned, his teeth flashing beneath his beard. “And you are blessed by that, no doubt about it. I saw that little scribe of yours earlier; she walked as if she had been riding a horse, not a man.”

“Hey!” Liam waggled his finger at Vulkis. “She's half my size.”

Vulkis snorted.

“And I'm hung,” Liam added.

Vulkis laughed, then slapped the railing. “Still! I'm not going to begrudge your good fortune. Sides, while we were getting the ship ready for sailing, there were these Coptic twins.” He kissed his palm. “You could bounce a coin off their rumps.”

“Ahem.”

The two of them turned to look at Thu'Chan. The tall, eagle-headed second officer was grumpy as when they had sailed into the port. Liam wasn't quite sure what to make of Thu'Chan. He knew that some people who pledged themselves to a god sometimes became more like them. For instance, the priestess of Bastet he had bedded who had looked like a walking, talking, humanoid house-cat.

Delightfully humanoid, he thought, picturing her breasts in his mind.

Thu'Chan, though, always seemed to be faintly dismissive of Liam despite everything, and Liam couldn't quite figure out why.

“There are no signs of any pirates on the way to Olimurias,” he said. “But that doesn't mean we can rest easily. If any of them have priests of Set or Loki or Athena-”

“Then we have Liam here!” Vulkis said cheerily, his hand slapping Liam's back. “And his magical blade. What did you call it? A plus one?” He laughed.

Liam grinned. “That was just a joke. It's not actually magic.”

“It's close enough,” Vulkis said, shaking his head. “What matters is it works and we're making good time. Don't worry, Thu.”

“Oh, no, I'm not worried,” Thu said. “Why would I be worried just because we got mysteriously attacked within a half a day's distance of a populated Coptic city by lizardmen barbarians. Lizardmen barbarians who controlled a basilisk with magic that shows the sign of no gods. Why would I worry!?” He spread his hands wide. “Everything is milk and honey as far as I can tell!”

Liam rubbed his chin. “If I didn't know you better, Thu'Chan, I'd say you were being sarcastic.”

Thu glared daggers at him, then turned and stalked off.

Liam bit his lip. “Did...” He turned to face Vulkis. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Oh, Thu, Thu, uh, Thu...” Vulkis tapped his chin. He looked as if he was trying to find a way to say something. Liam gave him that time, his arms crossed across his chest. As he waited, Liv walked forward – her face intent, showing no sign of the playful sluttiness that she used to torment him so. For that, Liam was grateful. He wondereed what she needed him for but before he could ask, Vulkis threw up his hands.

“Ah, by Hel's tits,” he said. “Thu lays men and we know how you Christians dealt with men who laid men.”

“I-” Liam opened his mouth, then closed it. “I don't actually know if your historians are accurate or if that is propaganda. But Christianity's relationship with queer, uh, that is, with people who don't... that...” he trailed off. “See, in my world, there has been a great deal of, uh, philosophical writing about-”

Vulkis looked annoyed.

“You don't need fancy words for something this simple!” he said, gruffly.

“Except it's not just simple,” Liam said, holding up his hands. “There are people who love the same gender. But there are also people who switch between – or who love people and think of their gender and sex afterwards. Then there are hormones and transgendered people and- it's complicated. But, fine, I can see you are reaching for your ax, Vulkis, very funny.” He smirked.

Vulkis laughed, taking his hand off his throwing ax.

“Fine. Simple. I am fine with people who love the same sex,” Liam said. “And if I'm very, very drunk, Thu'Chan might convince me to at least try making out with him.”

Vulkis slapped Liam's back again, then hurried off to bawl orders at some of the crew who had been slacking off. Liam turned to face Liv, who was still looking serious.

“Sir,” she said. “I wanted to apologize.”

Liam blinked. Sir? Not master? That was a subtle, but vital, difference. Sir sounded…

Respectful but not subservient.

Liv rubbed her shoulder with one hand, then stepped over to the railing. She looked out at the ocean, but she didn't seem to actually be searching for anything in particular. Her eyes unfocused and she continued speaking.

“I want to apologize for- I was-” She shook her head. “My pride. I was thinking of my pride first, and not the needs and realities of a warrior. Do you know what pride gets warriors? Killed.” She looked at him. “My pride said that you didn't defeat me. You tricked me. You cheated in our fight – and I would make your life miserable until I could find a way past the magic of the collar.” Her fingers rubbed it as she spoke. “And slit your throat in your sleep.”

“Uh-”

“But,” Liv said, ignoring Liam looking nonplussed. “You didn't trick me. You didn't cheat. You were clever and a brave warrior. And when you fought the basilisk, I realized that even if I had known about how you'd pummel me... I think you still might have won. Maybe.”

She sighed.

“And so, I want to apologize for what I have done. And I want to learn how you fight – I want to learn how to use a sword like you.” She ducked her head forward. “My father is the God of War. But the Hellenes don't fight war like your people. War's chaos. War's vicious and brutal and crude. My father is like that – and I've tried my whole life to be both elf and him.”

She grinned, slowly, lifting her head up to look Liam in the eyes.

“And I think with your style, I can. There's something very Aries in beating someone to death with the blunt part of a sword. And something very elven in the... fine craftsmanship of your long blade.”

Her voice had just a hint of a purr there.

Liam blinked a few times.

“You just told me you were planning to kill me,” he said. “And now you want me to teach you Historical European Martial Arts?”

“Well, yes,” Liv said, sounding affronted, her eyes narrowing. “I don't want to kill you anymore. You really did earn my service, even if I'd prefer to not be a slave.” Her fingers touched her collar. Liam opened his mouth – about to speak – but then stopped himself. He paused and thought to himself.

This isn't a video game, he thought. It's not a book. If I just do the first thing that comes to mind, it might not work out. Liv is an immortal elf – who knows how good she is at long term planning and lying, daughter of Aries or no.

But his soul spoke to him then.

And Liam knew, even if he died, this was the right thing to do.

He would rather be dead than continue this farce.

He reached up, touching his fingers to the slave collar. “Livanna, daughter of Aries, warrior of Sparta, I free you from your slavery.”

The slave collar didn't do anything. Liv blinked at him.

“Liam,” she said. “You need the touchkey that locked the collar to unlock it. You can't just unlock it by saying so. I mean, how stupid would that be!?” She punched his chest gently, laughing. “Any family member of a slave could just hold a dagger to your throat and force you to free them! Idiot! Moron!” She laughed as she punched him again. Liam held up his hands, trying to ward off her punches, laughing as well.

Well, he thought. Sometimes, it is just the thought that counts.

***

Olimurias took Liam's breath away. From a distance, it had seemed more like a mountain than a city but as the day slid onwards with the unwavering brightness of Purgatory, the city grew larger and larger, until Liam really began to understand the difference in scale between it and Faiyum Falls. The city was constructed on a series of tiers that had been carved into the side of a mountainous island. Buildings rose from the tiers, looking to be carved from the same pale white rock that the island had been made of, while greenery had been planted in broad, sweeping planters that made the city seem to be half forest. The port was large and expansive, carved into a natural harbor, with ships of every creed nestled into it. Dominating the two sides of the entrance of the harbor were two immense chalices carved of solid gold that glowed with flames that reached towards the sky.

“Well,” Liam said, quietly. “That's-”

The sun shut off. Liam wondered if he would ever get used to the sudden plunge into night. However, Olimurias seemed designed to cope with that kind of change, as the lights that flared on across it appeared to keep the whole thing as brightly lit as New York at night. He shook his head slowly as Vulkis called out orders to the crew.

The ship nestled into the harbor, and ropes were cast down, tying it into place. Vulkis shook Liam's hand, smiling broadly as he did so. “I'll be in town for some days – I want to get all that gold you offered to take you back, eh?”

“Thanks, Vulkis,” Liam said as he stepped away – moving onto the gangplank as Liv, Meg and Tethis followed him. Liv carried some of the luggage, but didn't move with the mincing step that she had used before. Nor did she take advantage of the ship's rocking to bump her breasts against Liam's arm. Part of him missed that – but a bigger part of him was too busy looking around himself at the city.

“So, where is the library?” he asked.

Tethis adjusted the clay tablet that she had pulled from her backpack. “This map states that the library is at the highest tier in the center of the city. Brigid dwells above it.”

Liam smiled. “Well, come on then.”

The group started into the crowd. Meg walked beside Liam, her hip bumping against his, her left wing cupping against his back. He smiled at her, whispering quietly in the tiny space of quiet that her wing produced for them: “You sure you okay with me, you know, fucking Tethis?”

“To be fair, you fucked Tethis. Once.” Meg tapped his nose. “Secondly, no. In what universe would I want my man to get less practice. And you've asked me that before and you will ask me again when you're balls deep in, say, her.” She nodded to a woman standing before a merchant stall, dressed in three leather straps, leaving vast expanses of red skin exposed, her head marked with two curving horns, her rump having a long, thin tail sprouting from above it. Liam almost walked into another man as he gaped at the woman but before he could see more, they were whisked deeper into the crowd by Meg's unstoppable momentum.

“What was she?”

“Who knows?” Meg asked. “I've never seen any like her in New Athens.”

“A Lillin,” Tethis said, hurrying to match their stride. “They're another transplant from Earth, not a native Purgatory species.”

“So, humans, Lilin-” Liam stopped short, looking down at the short scribe. “Lilin as in Lilith?”

“I don't know what that's a reference too,” Tethis said, panting quietly. “But, uh-” She was jostled by another merchant. “But can we slow down?”

“Sorry,” Meg said, blushing as she slowed her stride.

They came to one of the exits that lead away from the docks, a large ramp that smoothly ascended into the next tier of the city. There, Liam saw the guards of this place. Elves in bronze armor with heavy chest pieces and thick leather for the legs and arms for protection. The leather could turn a blade, and the chest pieces looked thick enough to make them tough nuts to crack. But what he was really impressed by were the bows. They didn't look to be quite on the level of English longbows, but they were still fairly large. The guards stood at perfect attention, and had the kind of unwavering look that he had started to recognize on elves. Despite not seeming to move their eyes Liam was fairly sure that they were watching everyone who started up the ramp, and everyone who went down it.

“Creepy,” he said.

“I'd rather have them than the guards back in Faiyum,” Tethis said, sniffing. “They were useless – we had to get ourselves rescued by a sea captain.”

“In the guard's defense, we were ambushed in an alleyway,” Liam said.

Tethis sniffed again.

They worked their way through the tiers of the city, the crowds growing more and less intense as they walked past homes and apartments. A great deal of the city seemed to be given over to the making of paper, something that made him stop and watch. The paper-making buildings had large open windows, and whatever process they were using produced a fairly intense stink. But what was coming out were large sheets of pale gray paper. It looked slightly more bumpy and uneven than the smooth paper he was used too on Earth.

But it was still paper. Not papyrus.

“What is that?” Meg asked.

Liam grinned. “It's paper,” he said, quietly. “I think Brigid – or her scholars – have learned how to make it. That's fantastic.” He started to do some mental calculations. They had come here expecting to pay through the nose to transcribe the documentation within the iPod onto papyrus or, worse, parchment. But paper had the advantage of being far easier to produce. No matter what method that they were using, it had to be cheap if so many buildings were dominated by-

Liam's brain suddenly screamed at him that something was wrong. It took him a second to realise why – instincts born of a life spent on the back of a bike causing him to pat his hips. But he didn't have pockets. He had his fanny pack. The pouch was open. His eyes widened.

The iPod was gone.

Three

There was a single moment of paralytic terror.

Then Liam looked around desperately and, once more, being from Earth saved his hide. Not because Earth had taught him anything in the vein of spotting pickpockets - growing up in relatively crime free suburbs had in fact quietly smothered that instinct in the crib - but because his pouch didn't hold coins, it held an iPod in a plastic Ziploc baggie. Two things that no one on Purgatory had ever seen before he had arrived on the scene.

So, the thief was standing only a few feet away, looking utterly perplexed as she held up the baggie with a pair of fingers. She was short and very young looking – if Liam had to guess, he'd have said she was between ten to thirteen years old. Her dark brown hair was long and bedraggled, and she had none of the signs of otherworldly ancestry that would have marked her as an elf or a goblin or any of the other weird races of Purgatory.

She was dressed in homespun rags and bits of cast-off clothing. He recognized a Coptic kilt, the fur jacket of an Aesir, and other scraps.

“Hey!” Liam shouted, pointing at her. “Thief!”

The pickpocket snapped her gaze away from the iPod she held, her eyes widening with fear. She turned and she ran into the crowd, people stepping to the side. A few did reach for her, but others simply wanted to get out of the way. A distant part of Liam could hardly blame them. A six foot something giant with a sword as big as their bodies was charging at them.

He'd have gotten out of the way too!

The thief made immediately for an alleyway, leaping and jumping over a fruit stand. She grabbed onto the support strut that kept the lighting fixture over the stand in place – the crystal smashed to the ground, shattering into a thousand pieces. The sudden darkness almost made Liam lose her, but he spotted a flash of movement and chased after.

She was running up some stairs, moving nimbly. Quickly.

But Liam had gotten a lot of cardio done during his time in Purgatory, adding to what hadn't been the body of a slacker back on Earth. He sprinted up the stairs, taking advantage of his longer legs. He grabbed at the back of the thief's rags as she darted around the corner, but his fingers only managed to graze some furs. She did squeak loudly as she disappeared into a narrow building. Liam followed and almost recoiled at the stench. Pressing through he found that they had entered yet another large paper-mill. Vats of burbling white liquid were set into the ground, and women with long handled wooden poles shouted at the two of them, pausing in their stirring to shake their fists.

The girl ignored them as she sprinted up the stairs that lead to the second level of the mill. Liam, thinking fast, headed for the front door, shouting as he went.

“Sorry! Apologies! Sorry!” He ducked under a pole swung at his head, then shouldered the door open. Out front, he saw that his guess had been good: The thief had gotten to the second story window and thrown it open. She leaped onto a rope that stretched between buildings and started to run along it. Liam grabbed a stone from the ground that had chipped off a piece of pavement. He hefted it – but hesitated.

He couldn't kill her.

The girl got to the far side of the rope, having run with the adroit skill of a gymnast. She turned and-

And blew a raspberry at him.

Liam threw the rock at her, snarling.

The rock missed her as she ducked. She stood to blow another raspberry, but then noticed that a shadow was being cast behind her, flung out by the myriad lights of Olimurias.

Liam grinned  savagely  and started for the building. The thief turned slowly around and saw that the rock had been caught. Caught by Meg. The Valkyrie stood as tall as she could, her wings mantling behind her like a fearsome cloak as she looked down at the girl.

The girl gulped.

Meg crushed the rock between her fingers, letting the ground up stone drip between her fingers, pattering onto the roof.

Liam – his hair matted with bits of feather and a single egg yoke dripping from his left shoulder – burst onto the roof, panting. He was chased up by loud, energetic shouting in several languages. He slammed the door shut, and listened to the thump thump thump of other eggs. Gasping for air, he looked at Meg and the thief. Meg had her hand on the girl's shoulder and was keeping her rooted to the spot more through sheer personality than any strength.

“Look what I caught,” Meg said, cheerily.

“I-” Liam gasped. “Think-” he gasped again. “You-”

“Give us the iPod,” Meg said.

“Tha wot?” the girl asked, her voice thickly accented, even with the magic that Liam used to translate the languages of Purgatory.

“The thingy,” Meg snapped, pointing at the baggie. The girl sighed, and held it out to Liam. He yanked it back and was about to put it into his belt-pouch when he heard a faint rasp of wood on stone. Meg, shaking her head, focused on the thief. “I have half a mind to-”

“Look out!” Liam shouted, springing between Meg and the doorway.

But his gallantry was unneeded.

The stone thrown to the ground by the dark shape that had emerged onto the roof wasn't aimed at either of them. It struck the rooftop and shattered. Crackling energy flowed from every nearby lighting fixture – the crystals within guttering, then dying. The entire rooftop plunged into near total blackness, lit only by the distant lights that weren't effected by the stone's detonation. Liam blinked, trying to get his night vision as fast as he could as the dark shape advanced towards him. It moved without a sound save for the faint rasp of... of what?

It wasn't the right sound for cloth.

But his instincts screamed that he was in danger. His blade twitched and he managed to deflect something sharp and fast rushing towards his face. Unfortunately, this left himself entirely open and pain seared along his right arm. Then his left, then his shoulder. The attacks were fast and darting in the darkness. He heard Meg moving, then heard her cry out in pain.

But the pain wasn't merely the pain of a blade cutting into flesh. Liam's head spun and he staggered, trying to swing at the darkness. Delenn rushed through air, cutting nothing. The knife cut along his skin again, slashing at his hip, his shoulder, even his back. Nothing deep, but every cut burned and seared with fire.

Poison, he thought before falling to one knee.

The blade that touched his throat was deadly sharp  and he couldn't do more than breath thinly through his lips. They felt swollen and numb. He wasn't getting enough air. His eyes went unfocused and even the dim light of the city seemed far, far too bright.

The blade tensed and Liam knew that he was going to die.

Then...

Then the blade drew away, leaving no mark. No score.

Liam hit the ground, his eyes narrowed. He felt something being tugged from his fingers. He knew that it was important, but he couldn't think why. As it was taken away, his hand reached out – and he felt another's fingers. He couldn't remember her name.

He just knew he had to never let go.

* * *

Liam's eyes fluttered open as a surge of magic flared through him. He could see, very faintly, Tethis leaning over him, her hands on his chest. Then his eyes closed again.

Time passed. He drifted here and there, sometimes hearing worried voices.

The clearest memory was that of a soft, slightly rough fingertip sliding along his cheek. A damp cloth padding across his chest. A voice, speaking musical Coptic.

“My, my, my.”

It had been female. Husky. Almost a purr.

“So, my theories are right. Nutrition is a factor...”

What an odd thing to hear, dangling between life and death.

The same strange, clinical words that were echoing in his ears when Liam woke for real. His body was splayed out on a large, comfortable mattress. A soft, silken sheet had been drawn over his body and the air felt delightfully cool. He looked around himself, trying to draw in the room. There was a large balcony to the left of him, looking out at the glittering jewel that was Olimurias at night. Distant cities flecked the sky like stars. The room he was in was beautifully crafted of wood and stone. Celtic designs were worked into the edges of the doorway leading into the corridor beyond, and two of the three walls that weren't dominated by doorway or by balcony were graced by bookshelves.

They were not filled by the standardized books of Earth – but rather a wild hodgepodge of folios, scrolls, tomes, atlases, lacquered boxes that were marked with Nordic runes, stone tablets, and even a few papyrus sheaves contained in wrappings of leaves and tied tightly by string. A few of them were laid out on a table, with stones keeping them open to the right pages. A tiny crystal set in a brass tracery of limbs and grasping hands provided light – pale and soothing – to the room and the books.

Liam shifted in the bed and noticed he was nude, save for a loincloth. His arms looked as if they had been decorated by a painter who had a knife and a deep, abiding frustration. He hadn't been scar free before, but he counted at least five across his arms, and a few more along his shoulders. He frowned, rubbing his thumb along them.

Why hadn't they been healed? Other wounds he had taken had been healed so cleanly by Tethis' magic that he didn't scar.

He heard the faint sound of paper rasping against paper from the adjoining room. Liam's brow furrowed – and he remembered the figure coming out of the darkness. There was nothing here to say that he hadn't been captured, that this wasn't the safehouse of some agent of an enemy God. Now, he didn't expect a servant of Aries to own a room that had this many books, but he could have been wrong. They might have been books about warfare. And so, he quietly swung his legs off the bed and padded to the table. He picked up one of the paperweight stones, and hefted it in his hand. It was sturdy enough and while he might not have been a powerhouse like Meg, he was fairly sure he could hit someone and stun them if he had the drop.

He planned to get said drop.

He crept towards the doorway leading out of the room. The rasp of paper came again, from another doorway that linked to the hallway that separated the two rooms. He darted from his doorway to the space beside the other and peeked around the corner, stone grasped in his hands.

Sitting in the room was a stunningly beautiful woman – for all that she was also one of the most alien Liam had seen. Her head was that of a jackal's, with high, pointed ears that stood at attention to either side of her head. Her hair was cropped and framed her head expertly, with the edges so straight that they looked like they had been marked with a ruler. Her body was curvy and slightly muscular, covered with a short, downy looking fur that was black and luxurious. It shone in the light of her reading crystal, and as her hand moved to turn the pages on her book, Liam could see that shine ripple across her, accentuating her form. She was dressed in a single piece dress with golden clasps that kept the slender straps around her shoulders, and the front hung slightly open.

She was so engrossed in her book, her tail gently wagging behind her on the stool, that she was unaware that, by leaning forward, her dress belled outwards and revealed the deliciousness of her tits. They looked perky enough to hold a quill up between them, and had a startling flash of color: two golden rings, piercing her nipples, with a slender golden chain connecting them.

Liam felt his cock hardening in his loincloth as his mind immediately went to the idea of catching that chain in his teeth and tugging and tugging – gently pulling back until she couldn't take it any more.

She turned the page again and Liam shook his head. He slid the stone behind his back, trying to not look like he had been considering braining her, then coughed.

“Ma'am?”

The girl jumped so high that Liam wouldn't have been shocked if she had bashed her head into the ceiling. Her hand went to her chest, unwittingly pushing her dress back over her breasts, and she looked straight at him with golden flecked eyes. Her ears slowly flattened as she frowned at him, paw resting on the top of the book, which had been knocked on its side by her sudden jerk.

“Master Vanderbilt,” she said, her voice reproachful. “You scared me.”

Liam coughed. “You can call me Liam, Miss, er...”

The woman smiled at him. Her teeth were very sharp.

“Neb,” she said. “Neb Maatre, priestess of Anubis.” She shook her head. “I'm sure you have a great many...” She trailed off, her eyes widening.

Liam blinked, and then remembered something. He had become used to being around people who were utterly casual in their nakedness that he had completely forgotten that he was wearing a loincloth. A loincloth covering his junk. A loincloth while he was at half mast by seeing a gorgeous jackalgirl's titties. His cheeks flushed bright red and he clapped his hands over his crotch, flushing even more when Neb merely looked more shocked.

“Sorry!” he stammered. “W-Why don't I get dressed, uh, then you can answer me some, uh, questions?”

Neb jerked her head up, her eyes meeting his. She nodded, mutely.

Finding his clothes didn't take much time and once he was dressed and sat down across from Neb, she seemed more composed, though Liam did notice that her nipples were hard as rocks, poking out against her thin dress. He decided to not mention that. And he made a commitment to himself that he wouldn't glance down at them.

“I found you,” Neb said. “Well, that is, I was buying some new books when I heard that little urchin shouting for help. I came to where you and your, ah, friend were wounded and, well...” She trailed off, shrugging her shoulders.

Liam glanced down at her nipples as her shift was drawn tight across them. 

“I tried to help you until your other friend arrived. Tethis?”

“Yeah,” Liam said. “Thanks. So, why was that thieving urchin shouting for help? And where did she go?”

“Aithene, she said her name was. As soon as I started using my magic to keep you alive, she ran off. I think she was scared you'd been going to die.”

Liam nodded, rubbing his chin. “Uh, where’s Meg and the others?”

“Downstairs,” Neb said, standing up, and adjusting her dress with one paw. “Come on, you might as well get some food too.”

* * *

As Liam came down the stairs in the building, he caught the tail end of a conversation between Tethis and Meg. He could hear the faint sound of Meg's pacing and hear the same frustrated tone that she used while he was trying to explain something that seemed obviously stupid to her. To her credit, that tone held more shades to it than mere frustration. No. It was a fine wine of irritation, spiked with the occasional hint of contemplation.

Because, usually, once she had calmed down and thought everything through, Meg was willing to admit that something made sense, even if she had dug in her heels earlier.

“It's the same reason why I cannot just bring people back to life,” Tethis was saying. “The metabolic processes need to be used; you cannot merely reverse them when it comes to toxins and poisons because the toxins and poisons remain in the body.”

“Why don't they just come out, then? Huh?”

“Same reason why-”

Liam came down the stairs and saw Meg exactly where he had expected her, standing before a window, her arms crossed over her chest, her face set in a fierce frown, her wings mantling. Tethis was seated on a cushion that had been laid out before a crackling fire-pit that sat in the center of the room. Liam noticed that the fire-pit was surrounded by a series of tiny gemstones that glowed and throbbed in time with the crack and snap of the flames. The air didn't smell smokey, and the heat seemed to be diffused smoothly through the room. No sparks went beyond those crystals.

Considering the number of parchments, scrolls and books he saw strewn about, he felt no little relief.

“Liam!”

Meg cut Tethis off by beating her wings once, sailing across the room, and tackling Liam with her now classic arm-leg-wing hug combo. Liam, by this point, had gotten fairly good at readying himself for the impact of a muscular valkyrie. Whatever Tethis had done to cure him had left him with enough strength that he simply staggered backwards and leaned against the wall as they locked lips. Meg's tongue plunged into his mouth and her sex – hot and wet and oh so very exposed by her shift riding up around her hips – pressed against the crotch of his kilt. Her hands slipped along his back and the kiss went on and on. For just that moment, the rest of the world melted away and Liam was once more back in the jungle, with nothing but the sight of Megara emerging from the water.

Her breasts, glistening.

Her body inviting.

Her eyes – those electric blue eyes – promising a lifetime, a world of…

Not just pleasure. A world of everything. Adventure and excitement. He had known, right then and there, that he'd never have a dull day with her. He might not have many of them.

But, he thought, his hand cupping her ass gently, fingers caressing the folds of her rump, I think I'm okay with that.

“Ahem.”

Meg kept kissing him, but he could feel her grin as her lips and his met, her tongue sliding out of her mouth and into his, playing and caressing his, circling around and around in the lazy pattern that she used on his cock.

“They, uh, always get like this when Liam almost gets crippled by doing something stupid,” Tethis said, her voice studiously affectless.

“That wasn't my fault the first time!” Liam glared over Meg's shoulder. “That was you fucking up the teleport altar.”

“It's not my fault you were carrying something that makes the Ancients' magic go haywire,” Tethis muttered.

Neb – who had been watching all of this – shook her head. It was fairly hard to tell, under all that black fur, but Liam was pretty sure she was blushing up a storm. Her nipples remained hard enough to cut glass. He grinned ever so wickedly, whispering to Meg: “Nips.”

With that single word, Meg looked – first – down at herself to check her shift, then back. There were some advantages to having electric blue eyes that essentially had no irises: it was hard to tell where you were looking, if you were careful. Neb didn't seem to realize that Meg was checking her out – and definitely didn't hear Meg whispering back to Liam.

“Nice.”

Liam winked at her.

Then, sadly, reality did as reality was wont to do and came crashing back down. Liam set his lover down and looked around the room. Still no Delenn. He hadn't been more than ten feet from his sword – one of the most powerful personal weapons in Purgatory – since he had arrived. To not see it was making him feel a deep sense of disquiet. He rubbed his palms together and looked at Meg.

Meg bit her lip, her wings drooping.

“They're gone,” she said.

Liam felt hollow. He slowly walked over to one of the free cushions and lowered himself backwards. He laid back until the cushion was supporting his back like a beanbag. “Both of them?”

Meg nodded, mutely.

“Fuck,” Liam said. He looked into the fire, frowning.

Silence dominated for a few moments.

“Who would have stolen it?” Tethis asked.

“The better question is who wouldn't. Any god would want their hands on it, right?” Liam asked. Meg walked over and plopped herself down in his lap, her fingers caressing his hair. She nuzzled his neck, her body pressing to his as fully as she could manage without smothering him. Liam smiled, knowing she was trying to comfort him. And damn it all, it was working, though maybe in a way that would turn Neb from blushing to incandescent. Liam shifted slightly under Meg's weight, trying to get his hard member to rest somewhere comfortable. Meg moved with him and suddenly, his bulge was slotted against her ass.

All things considered, a good place to be.

“Aries is still smarting from the ass-kicking you gave me,” Livanna said, suddenly speaking up from the corner of the room.

Liam tensed rather than jumping and dislodging Meg, but it was a close run thing. He had forgotten how still and quiet elves could be when they wanted to be. Liv stepped forward into the light, her arms crossed over her chest. “He'd want anything you have. That sword, definitely.”

“Anubis is not involved,” Neb said, with some certainty. She smiled down at Liam. “It is not in his nature – he measures the souls of men and women. How could he do anything to unbalance this?”

“Fair,” Liam said.

Meg rubbed her chin. “Apollo is a possibility. And Odin. Odin is a big enough nerd and just enough of a dickhead to be totally fine with stealing a library contained in a hunk of metal and play-stick.”

“Plastic, honey,” Liam said, distractedly.

“Whatever,” Meg said. “We might as well call it, uh, what did you call it once? Ungettium.”

“Unobtanium,” Liam said, his eyes unfocused as his mind raced.

Meg slapped the top of his head with her hand, looking cross.

Liam shook his head. “Tethis, how did you cure my poisoning?”

Tethis licked her lips. “Neb helped. She's actually quite good at both divine magic and arcane magic.”

“What are those?” Neb asked.

“It's a distinction Liam introduced,” Tethis said, sounding quite proud of him. “And extremely useful. The Ancients used arcane magic – foci crystals and internal energy to produce effects that seem to be hard-coded into the universe – and we use divine magic by calling on the gods. That's mutable and flexible, but it requires patronage and said patronage to be offered.”

“Then there's me,” Meg said, lifting up one arm and flexing slightly. “I have fucking superpowers.”

“That's catchy,” Neb said, sounding curious. “I like that. Superpowers.”

“Copyright, Liam Vanderbilt,” Liam said, pointing at them. “You all saw it, I said it, that makes it law.” He grinned, then Meg slapped the back of his head.

“I can always kill you,” she said, with her own smile. “Then it becomes my copyright, if I understand these things properly.”

“I beat her.” Liam jerked his thumb at Liv. “I can beat you.”

“I'll sit on your face,” Meg said, sagely. “You'll not even fight back.”

“Ahem!” Neb coughed so hard her glasses were almost knocked off her snout. “So, Liam, you were asking, uh, about how I – well, we – cured your poisoning. Essentially, I called on Anubis to weigh your spirit. As you were a good person, he was willing to hold you above death's door while Tethis here located the poison and drew it forth from your body. Once it was freed, your body healed naturally – with some boost from her magic.”

“Well, uh, I'm flattered,” Liam said, blushing. “I always hoped that my heart would weigh as much as a feather.”

“You-” Neb blinked, shaking her head. “You know of such things?” She pointed at his chest. Liam looked down. His crucifix – so easily forgotten, as it became as warm as his body remarkably quickly – hung there, glinting faintly in the firelight. He put his hand on it, gently. Like a man probing a tooth, he felt his faith, tensing, ready for it to be missing. But still, he felt that deep, abiding sense that there was something there. He smiled slowly.

“I'm Christian,” he said, quietly. “Not an idiot. Also, I saw all of the Mummy movies.”

“Mummy movies?” Neb asked, quietly, sounding baffled.

Ignoring her, Liam looked at Tethis. “Can you find anything?”

Tethis frowned, her ears twitching backwards. She slowly shook her head. “No,” she said. “See, I need to have part of something to find it. I found the poison because, well, Liv found some of it soaked into your clothes. She thinks it had dripped from the attacker's blade.”

Liv grinned smugly at Liam.

“Since I don't have any part of your iPod, I cannot find it. And I cannot find your sword. Delenn is made of this, uh, steel, and Purgatory doesn't even have iron.” She shook her head slightly. “We're out of luck.”

Liam sagged slowly back into his seat. He started to work through the mechanics of searching through a city as big as this, with as many ships coming and going as it had every day, with just a pool of talent five people deep and a purse of gold that was already being strained to the edge of what would be profitable. Was it even any use getting the iPod back if there wasn't any gold to pay sages and scribes?

And worse, there was another ticking time bomb hanging overhead: If the people who had stolen the iPod didn't know how batteries worked, then...

He tried to not imagine them turning it on and tapping away at the screen as the irreplaceable batteries lost more and more charge. Then, worse, his nightmare veered towards a scene that had been screamingly funny in a movie: two clueless idiots, looking at a computer, then whispering: The files are in the computer.

He shook his head. He didn't even have backups – and even if he had, they'd be on the Cloud and-

And...

The Cloud.

His eyes widened and he sat up.

“Told you!” Meg snapped her fingers. She had been speaking and he hadn't even noticed. “Told you, a mind like Themistocles this one.”

“Didn't Themistocles lead his own side into an ambush, let the enemy encircle them, then tell them: Well, we better fight really, really hard, guys?” Liv asked, her voice snide.

“Yeah, but it worked,” Meg said, sounding defensive.

“Shut up,” Liam said, distractedly. He stood up, pushing Meg off his lap, and strode over to Tethis. “Okay, Tethis, this is going to get weird. Do you know what light is?”

Tethis blinked.

Then, slowly, as if humoring a child. “Yes, Liam. Light helps us see.”

Liam laughed, quietly. “Okay, I deserved that. But what if I told you light was an object. Like water or like that wall?” He pointed at it. “It's not exactly the same, but light is made up of things. Tiny things, they're called photons, and they move through the air. My hand blocks them, see?” He held his hand up, casting a shadow on the wall. “Now, these particles are very, very tiny, and there are lots of different kinds we can't see. And one of those is radio waves – and radio waves are what my iPod uses to talk to other iPods.”

Tethis looked completely lost.

“If the bad guys are trying to get into the iPod, it will be sending out little signals trying to conne-”

“Oh!” Meg sprang to her feet. “I get it. But we need radio waves.”

“That's the best part!” Liam said, beaming. “Radio waves are just a special name for light that is going really, really fast or really, really slow or something.” He paused. “No, it's more like a beating drum – I think radio beats more quickly than light. I don't know, it's complicated and I don't have my physics text book.”

Tethis' eyes widened. “Yes, that could work. Neb, do you mind helping me work out the basics?”

Neb looked uncertain.

“I've helped you already, but...” She paused. “Magic, especially the magic of the Ancients, is still a lot of unknowns. We might end up getting hurt or worse.”

“Neb,” Meg said, her voice soft. She stepped over, taking the paws of the jackalgirl, looking into her eyes. “The iPod contains so much information. Knowledge. Medicine.” She paused. “It can jump us forward centuries and guide us past the worst mistakes. Liam's told me of Earth. There are things that people can do if they are unaware of the dangers. Weapons that can be made, mistakes that can wreck planets. Whole worlds could burn if people aren't told. Your God prizes learning, doesn't he?”

Neb considered. Her eyes – such an amazing golden hue  - softened.

She smiled.

“I did always read about adventures,” she said. “It'll be nice to be in one.”

* * *

The spell was less than dramatic.

Tethis had closed her eyes, breathed in, then exhaled a small glowing ball of light. Then, following that light, the group had set off. Liam wasn't entirely comfortable going into a fight carrying a short sword. He had trained with them a few times – they were fast, accurate weapons, and he knew that the Roman Empire had essentially conquered a good chunk of the world using nothing but an iron gladius. But still, he couldn't help but feel it was a downgrade from a steel longsword.

Maybe that was because it was.

He was dressed in the armor that Liv had been lugging around for almost the entire trip: a bronze chest piece, leather shoulder guards, and gauntlets of his own design. Working bronze to protect knuckles and fingers like that had been expensive, but Sobek had seen the use in having your hands protected in a sword fight and been willing to pay through his alligator’s nose for it.

Megara went with nothing more confining than leather – her javelins in a hip carrier. She held one in her hand, tossing it from palm to palm as they strode through the streets. Tethis walked without armor, and looked increasingly nervous as the glowing orb brought them closer and closer to the less impressive looking part of Olimurias.

Liv was dressed similarly to Liam, though she had a short, stabbing spear and a shield and a helmet that protected her face. Liam would have thought seeing her armed again after the last time she held a weapon would be unnerving but she walked with a quick, darting confidence that made her seem more cat than armored warrior. Watching her - knowing they were going into battle together - comforted him. She glanced at him as they crossed another intersection and into a collection of large, dimly lit warehouses that loomed over the roadway. The orb flew into the side of one of the buildings – shattering apart and vanishing the instant it touched the wall. Liam shook his head slowly.

“So, plan?” he asked.

“Let me do my job,” Meg said, her teeth flashing white in the dim light of the night. She tensed and, with a rush of motion and a rustle of feathers, shot into the air. She wheeled around, soaring about the top of the warehouse. When she had come back down, her wings cupping the air and canceling her motion down to almost nothing, she nodded.

“There's a window at the top – counted twenty six people in there. One of them, though,” she said, pausing, “She's different. Looked to be in charge – dressed in a feather cloak.”

“Raven feathers?” Liv asked.

“I think so, why?” Meg looked at Liv, brow furrowed.

Liv pointed with her spear. “Because she's flying away.”

The entire group spun and looked. Meg's mouth opened in a quiet O, while Liam swore. A dark form was winging through the air, soaring towards the other side of the city. Liam frowned. “That didn't look like a valk-”

“It wasn't,” Liv said, her voice so certain that no one in the group even thought about arguing. “It's a vaspjarramuninn.”

“Gesundheit,” Liam muttered.

Liv, by now used to Liam saying things that made no sense, looked down from the sky to the others. “A shroud of Muninn.”

“Odin's raven?” Liam asked. “Shit, she's a fucking skinwalker?”

“Yup,” Liv said. “Put the cloak on, become a raven. Useful for a spy.”

“Or an assassin,” Meg growled, her wings spreading.

Liam grabbed her shoulder. “No. Don't kill her.”

Meg looked at him, eyes disbelieving. “She tried to kill you!”

“No, she put her blade to my throat, poisoned me, and left me alive to be found. Not sure why, but she did,” Liam said, shaking his head. “We want her alive to figure out what she knows, and because if we know her, we know what she does. Kill her, she gets replaced.” Liam tapped his temple. “And knowing that is half the battle.”

Meg scowled. “Fine. But I'll wound her later. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“We have an opportunity, we hit them, we get the iPod back, we get the sword back. If they're there,” Liv said, nodding.

“Twenty six warriors is a lot of people,” Neb said, nervously.

“The solution is simple,” Tethis said, rubbing her hands together. “You call on the darkness of the grave to blind them. I give us the ability to see in the dark and-”

“And we Batman them. Got it.” Liam swept his sword back and forth, looking around for a door. “Liv, you're with me. Meg, take the window and look out in case any of them have infravision.”

Meg snorted, her wings spreading.

“One of these days,” she said, “You need to tell me what infra is.”

Then she sprang upwards, her wings pumping, javelin in her hand.

“Ready to make some noise?” Liam asked, looking at Liv.

She grinned. “Let's make pappy proud.”

Liv hit the door with her heel. Strength, imparted by her semi-divine heritage, shattered the locks and sent the doorway careening inwards, the wooden hinges splintering with the rebound impact. The door hit the floor and a half dozen men and women snapped their heads around. They were clustered around the crates that filled the warehouse, leaning against the walls, sitting on makeshift seats made by smaller boxes, playing dice. They gaped, clearly not expecting this. Then Tethis slapped her palms together behind Liam.

Everything became too bright.

Then everything shifted down in color and hue and Liam saw the people before him staggering. A few of them, though, were unaffected and moved straight towards him and Liv. They were elves, and they had swords. He met the first sword with his knuckles, punching the flat of the sword and sending the blade biting into the ground. His gladius speared through the elf's shoulder and neck, grating against vertebrae. While he might not have steel, he still had a good foot of muscle and fifty pounds of muscle over most people on Purgatory.

The elf hit the ground, quickly joined by another as a javelin flew down from the window and pinned her.

One of the humans who had been blinded by the darkness spell flailed with a club in Liam's general direction. Liam stepped out of his way – and then held up his arm to stop Liv as she stepped over to impale him on a spear. She glared at him, and for a second, they stood close enough to be kissing. Her nose almost bumped against his, and her breath puffed out against his face. Electricity sparked and Liam snarled, shoving her back.

A red-skinned woman with a tail was clumsily drawing on an amulet. As the amulet settled around her bared shoulders and dangled between her smallish breasts, she suddenly looked straight at Liam and then drew a bow from the ground. The short, recurved bow put an arrow into the air just after Liam flung himself flat behind a crate. Another human stumbled over him and started to try and stab him. Liam kicked out at the figure's crotch.

As she was, well, female, this did slightly less than Liam would have wanted. It still distracted her as Liam scrambled to his knees, keeping himself low. He peeked out and saw the red-skinned woman – the Lillin, he reminded himself – nocking another arrow. Then she ducked backwards into her own set of cover as one of Meg's javelins slammed home.

Liam shook his head and tried to look around the battlefield.

There!

His iPod sat there on a table, where several people had been standing around it. One of them was still there, a human holding a bronze sword with a kind of nervous terror, his shoulders hunched, his head snapping around at every call and shout of pain and fear.

Liam scrambled up and leaped over the crate, just avoiding a wild swing by the girl he had kicked in the cooter. The man with the sword swung at him; Liam parried, punched him in the gut, then grabbed the man's head and brought it smashing into the side of the crate. The man hit the ground, stunned.

Liam heard something whistling.

He turned.

A javelin shot past his nose, so close it almost cut him, so fast it ruffled his bangs.

When he blinked, he saw that the arrow sent his way by the recurved bow had been pinned to the ground, sheared completely in half by Megara's throw.

Once again, Liam wasn't sure if he was intensely aroused or intensely terrified of Megara. He didn't have time to reflect on it. He turned, grabbed his iPod, then flung himself backwards over the crate. As he landed, three arrows – all fired in rapid succession – buried themselves in the crate, wall behind him, and one of the warehouse's support struts. It seemed the Lillin – who had darted back into cover before he could see where she was – had decided to go for numbers, not accuracy.

He peeked out and saw that Liv was locked in battle with two elves, both armed with clubs. One smashed against her shield, another against the back of her head, knocking her helmet off. Liv staggered, and fell to one knee. Then with a roar of animal fury, she stood and brought her spear up and underneath the man's armored chest piece, impaling him from belly to neck. He staggered backwards and she snatched up his club, spinning and braining the other elf.

Well, almost braining.

More “teething” really, considering that the man rolled around on the ground, clutching at his hideously distended jaw. Liv didn't leave him long – she lifted her foot, to bring it stomping down on his throat.

“Liam!”

Meg's voice.

“Back exit!”

Liam ran towards the exit, narrowly avoiding getting an arrow in the ass. He saw that two of the humans had managed to get to the door and were fumbling at it. One of them held something in a cloth bundle that was exactly the length of his sword. He ran towards them and they spun to face him. He quickly saw, in their stance, that they were beyond the domains of Neb's darkness spell. Meanwhile, his own vision started to white out as Tethis's spell remained strong. Panting lightly, he lifted his sword.

“I am Liam Vanderbilt,” he snarled. “I defeated a daughter of Aries in single combat. I survived a trip through the Ancients' tombs. I've slain basilisks and I've fucked angels. Do you really think you have a chance?”

The men were silent.

“Shit,” one rasped, his voice rough, as if he had been slashed across the throat at least once in his life. “She didn't pay me enough for this fucking crap.”

A muffled clunk sounded as something hit the ground. The vision enhancing spell had left Liam looking into a searing whiteness that blotted out everything. He heard the door slam a moment later. Once they were out of sight, he sagged in relief.

He staggered forward, kneeling down, fumbling.

He felt something cold and metallic pressing to the back of his neck.

“Gotcha,” a soft voice – feminine and demonic – hissed.

Liam slowly lifted his hands. “Kill me and she won't let you get five blocks.”

“That's why you're coming with me,” the voice said, sounding amused.

“You do know we just want the sword, right?” Liam asked, his hands still raised. “You go out that door and let me go, and Megara won't give a fuck, right?”

The woman was silent for a bit.

“...Oh.”

The door opened a moment later, then slammed shut. Liam shook his head. It pounded from the overdose of light his eyes were receiving. He closed them and felt the pain ease as he grabbed his sword. It felt good to hold her again. Almost as good as holding Meg again.

Almost.

Four

It was a surprisingly quiet, subdued group that walked into Neb’s home. There was no revelry, no cheering, no laughter. Liam walked over to the cushion nearest to the fireplace and flopped himself down with all the grace and aplomb of an obese whale. Every bit of adrenaline that had coursed through him during the battle felt like it had drained away, but there was an added lethargy he didn’t recognize.

Meg and Tethis both found seats around the fireplace. Liv simply leaned against the wall, her hands working on the ties of her armor. Neb rubbed her paw along her forehead, shaking her head.

“Let me get some essence tea,” she said.

“You have essence tea?” Tethis asked, sounding surprised. Neb chuckled and walked out of the room. Liam looked at Tethis and managed to find his curiosity, despite his tiredness.

“Essence tea?” he asked.

“It’s a, uh, plant that grows in the deep jungles. Crystalbacks eat them.”

“Those are those rhinos with crystals that shoot lightning, right?” Liam asked, throwing one arm over his forehead and leaning back in the cushion. He felt his aches starting to fade.

“Yeah,” Meg said.

Neb returned, holding a bronze platter in her hands. Seated on the platter was a tea-pot and several cups. Liam was more of a Coke Zero kind of man, but even thinking about soda left his whole body panging for the fizz and tingle of drinking a soft drink. He closed his eyes, holding the warm cup of tea Neb had served him in his hands, and reminded himself that the choice was either stay on Earth and drink as much soda as he wanted, or come to Purgatory and taste Meg.

Whenever he put it in those terms, the ache faded.

“Drink,” Neb said, sitting at the writing desk. “It’ll help with the spell-fatigue.”

Liam sipped on the tea. The taste was bitter and chalky, but a few moments after he drank it down, he felt his strange tiredness fade away, replaced with the normal fatigue that came after an adrenaline rush. He blinked and looked down at the tea. But before he could ask his questions, Tethis asked hers.

“So, Neb, please forgive me if this is forward, but...” Tethis paused. “How in Duat did you afford this - and this - on tithes?” She gestured around herself at the house and the books and the fireplace.

Neb laughed. “Immense amounts of debt,” she said, her voice shy and playful at the same time.

Liam looked at her, concern filling his eyes. “That’s not something to laugh about, I’ve seen what banks do in this place. It’s worse than Wall Street.”

Neb held up one paw. “Oh, no, no, it’s a jest. Well, technically, it’s true. I am in debt, but what many people don’t know - mostly because of my blessing, it makes it hard to, well, tell…” She shook her head, getting back on track. “Anyway, my father, Djau Deepdraft, owns a bank that operates out of Sifmoot.”

“Let me guess,” Meg said, sipping from her tea cup. “He set eyes on one of Sif’s daughters and knew he needed to get someAesir ass?”

Neb squeaked, trying to hide behind her tea cup. “M-ay-beee.” She split the word into as many sections as possible, as if trying to get away from actually answering Meg. Meg laughed, loudly.

Neb looked back at Tethis. “I adopted the more Pesdjeti name Maatre when I decided to follow Anubis.”

“So, basically, Daddy’s bankrolling you?” Liv asked, sounding ever so slightly judgmental. Neb sniffed, quietly.

“I manage to provide a good chunk of my funds by performing funerary rites, soul-weighing, scribe works - though I am not nearly as good as you are, Tethis.” She nodded to the gobliness, who smiled at her. “I, uh, try to not rely on my father unless I absolutely have too.”

“And let me guess,” Meg said, sounding cheery. “You absolutely have to buy all these books?”

The entire group started to laugh - even Neb giggled, her hand going to her chest. Liam smiled and leaned back in his cushion. He planned to enjoy the rest of the evening. And he did enjoy listening to the girls talk. Tethis and Neb shared anecdotes about their time studying with different gods. Liv remained mostly quiet, but Meg was always there to interject with a quip or joke. Liv was the first to head to the stairs to get to sleep, followed shortly by Meg. When Tethis tottered upstairs, leaving Neb and Liam alone, Liam found himself suddenly without anything to say.

Neb, her finger rubbing along the edge of her cup, watched him through her eyelashes.

Beautiful, rich, exotic, Liam’s brain whispered. His thoughts dipped to the nipple rings he had seen through her shirt. Kinky.

Liam tried to ignore himself. Instead, he grabbed for something, anything, to say: “So, do you, uh, blessed by the gods have a special name? Like, uh, furry? Or something?”

Neb laughed. “Those blessed by Sobek would hate that. They have scales. And those blessed by Thoth have feathers. And those blessed by Thor are wreathed in lightning, while those blessed by Loki are protean and shapeshifting.”

Liam tried to not imagine what a follower of Loki could do if they set their mind to evil. Hell, if they set their mind to mischief.

Neb shook her head. “Some call us the Blessed. I prefer being thought of merely as the Chosen. It seems less stuck up.”

“I don’t know. Still seems a bit pretentious,” Liam said, smiling at Neb.

Neb smiled shyly back. “Sacrifices are chosen too, Liam Vanderbilt.” She stood, trailing past him to her bedroom. Liam shook his head. Something nagged at the back of his mind. Something that he couldn’t quite get his hands around. He frowned and watched the fireplace crackle for a few moments. But every time he tried to force his thoughts to settle down and sort themselves into something coherent, he just thought of the battle. Of the run back here.

Of Liviana’s svelte body.

Of Tethis’ pussy.

Of Neb’s breasts and nipple ring.

Of how much he loved Meg.

He stood up and started for the stairs. His thoughts couldn’t be forced. He was sure they’d settle by morning.Liam stepped to his room – feeling a warm glow suffusing his body from the essence tea – and stopped dead.

For laying in the bed that Neb had so graciously let him sleep in was the single most glorious sight he had ever seen. Livanna - daughter of Aries, hero of New Athens and one of the most beautiful woman that Liam knew - had one leg cocked over Megara the Messenger – the other most beautiful woman that Liam knew. Meg's knee was pressed against a place between Liv's legs, and the only reason the elven warrior wasn't moaning loudly enough for Liam to have heard her from the library was because the two women's lips were locked together tightly.

Hotly.

Moistly...

Liv made a quiet groaning noise as Meg's hands caressed one of her small breasts, her fingers finding and gently pinching the tip of her nipple, twisting gently. Liv did jerk her head back, moaning out loud. Meg worked her knee and a soft, wet noise filled Liam's ears.

Meg looked at him, cocking one wing backwards, as if to say: Well, come on?

“You'll catch bugs like that,” she said.

Liam realized his jaw was basically on the floor. He closed it, setting his iPod on the table. “I, uh-”

“Shut up, Liam,” Liv snapped. “I'm not your slave in anything but the fucking paperwork anymore. We've fought together and killed together – I am your warrior now, and in my culture, when two people fight side by side, they fuck – because if you won't lay down your life for your lover, you won't lay it down for anything.” She sat up, glaring at him. “Get over here and do your fucking du-”

“I was just going to say, uh, I might not have enough endurance for, well, both of you,” Liam said, dryly, his hands going to his kilt.

Liv opened her mouth, then closed it.

“Well,” she said, looking at Meg. Meg looked at her. They both looked at Liam.

“We're Hellenes,” they said, in unison. Meg grinned and added: “We'll manage.”

“I noticed.” Liam had turned his deadpan delivery to eleven.

Both women grabbed his wrists and dragged him forward.

There was a moment of confused sensation – the feeling of softness, of hard muscle, of fingers working through his hair – the distinct sensation of his kilt being torn from its straps and sent flying. Then Liam was laying between Liv and Meg, their fingers caressing along his chest. Meg, as was her class idiom, simply traced the lines of his muscles – the dimples of his abs, the flatness of his belly. A body that he had worked on for years, but one that had been accented and refined by months in Purgatory.

Liv, though?

Liv's finger traced along the scars that he had. One she had given him. Others, he had given himself back on Earth. Her palm pressed to the furrowed line where a burning beam had fallen against him for a few moments when he lost his first house and his father. Then, dipping her head forward, the elf started to kiss along the scars that were more recent. Her tongue traced a slow, lazy circle around and around one of the fine white marks that were left over from the first attempt on his life in Olimurias.

Meg – not wanting to be out done, it seemed – leaned forward and kissed one of Liam's nipples. Her mouth was warm, insistent, and had the expertise that came from lots of practice. Liam closed his eyes, rolling his head back on the pillow as he let himself wallow in the perfection of the moment, his hands tentatively sliding up and down their backs. He felt Meg's wing press against his arm before twitching away, taking advantage of that amazing flexibility of hers to beckon his hand further down her back. Taking the hint, he cupped her ass and squeezed. Fingers slipped between her crack, teasing the tightness of her asshole, and Meg purred against his nipple.

His other hand had found Liv's ass. But Liv had different ideas in mind. She crooked her hips, then rolled and managed to catch his wrist between her thighs, trapping his fingers against her sex. She was hot as a furnace and wetter than some of Purgatory's most humid nights. Turning to look at her, he saw her eyes were focused on him with the same predatory edge she used in combat.

Unnerving.

Hot.

He leaned forward and caught her lips with his, his fingers spreading her hairless elven pussy and sliding in. She bit down on his lower lip and made a noise more animal growl than feminine moan as she pressed herself against his chest. This meant that Meg only had to tilt her head slightly to capture one of Liv's nipples in her mouth. Now Liv purred, her eyes closing as her tongue darted into Liam's mouth, teased his tongue, slid back.

When she broke the kiss, both were panting. That, Liam thought, was a good sign.

“I want your cock,” Liv announced.

“Hey!” Meg pouted. But she didn't fight very hard as Liv swung her leg up and over Liam's hips.

Liv didn't so much slide herself down his shaft as impale herself. Her hips met his with a meaty slap, which was impressive considering how very slender she looked next to Megara. Her hips started to rise and fall as she put her hands on Liam's shoulders, pinning him onto his back. Her mouth opened, then closed, her nose flaring as she breathed in and out.

“Fuck me,” she crooned. “You're as big as I thought!”

“You didn't spy on him?” Meg asked, slapping Liv's ass. “Bad slave!”

Liv snapped her teeth at Meg and almost caught Meg's nose. Meg laughed, then grabbed Liv's hair, roughly yanking her head backwards. Liv gasped – from the fluttering tightening of her sex around Liam's cock, she clearly liked it. Liam bit his lip hard and thought about his elderly grandparents playing cricket.

Meg grinned at Liv. “He never was good at enjoying his prizes. I don't share his compunctions...”

“Not... yours,” Liv hissed, her hips rocking forward and backwards, the motion slowing now that she was being held in place.

“Mm, keep telling yourself that,” Meg said, then leaned forward. Her kiss lacked the gentleness and ease that Liam had used. She didn't so much press her lips against Liv's as she claimed the other woman's mouth. Her tongue and Liv's met, danced, fought for primacy. Meg’s breasts pressed against Liv’s back as Meg closed her wings around the two of them, her hands reaching down to squeeze Liv's hips, holding her in place.

Liv's pussy and Liv's sweet moans made it clear just what she thought of that.

Liam was now thinking of every single Republican and Democratic candidates for President playing golf as he remained perfectly still, unwilling to risk even an errant thrust. Not that he needed to move to get the best fucking of his life. It seemed like every few seconds, Liv's elven pussy did something new – a new contraction, a new sensation, a new gush of wetness – something that he had never felt with a human girl. Hell, even nothing he had felt with Megara.

“Jesus Christ,” Liam hissed through clenched teeth.

Meg broke the kiss, panting. Liv panted as well.

“Draw,” Liv said.

“Fuck that.” Meg leaned forward, biting down on Liv's neck, her hand reaching down to slap Liv's ass roughly. The elven warrior yipped, her hips starting to rise and fall faster and faster on Liam. Liam reached up – thinking faintly that he should at the very least help his girlfriend. His hands cupped and squeezed Liv's breasts, finding her nipples and tweaking them gently. She gasped and then Meg went from giving her a series of bright red bite-marks to kissing her on the mouth again.

This time, Liv's eyes rolled back in her head, her spine curved into an almost C-shape, and her sex clenched on Liam so tightly that he felt his vision white out. He barely was aware of his balls churning, barely aware of the fact that his cock was surging and that his cum was filling Liv's pussy, her womb. The only thing he had in mind was the intense pleasure of the moment.

Then Meg broke the kiss and Liv collapsed backwards. She bent almost in half – her body as flexible as a gymnast – and her hips and her sex remained nestled against Liam's, even as her belly rose and fell, her chest glistening with sweat, her body quaking with the after effects of her climax. She blinked as she lolled her head backwards off the bed.

Faintly, Liam heard her say: “You win.”

“Hah!” Meg grinned, then pushed at her gently. “Get off, I want a chance at Liam's dick.”

“No mas,” Liam mumbled. “No mas.”

“He said that the last time we tried anal,” Meg said, her eyes dancing as Liv managed to wriggle and roll off Liam, his cock slurping out of her sex. He was softening slightly, his member still glistening with their shared juices. Meg's hand closed around his shaft, squeezing him very gently. “Never got him to explain what it meant.” 

She leaned her head forward, her eyes meeting Liv's dazed gaze. “But I did get him to change his tune... just... like... this.” Meg's tongue darted out, circling the tip of Liam's shaft. She sucked her lips gently around his cockhead, tasting Liv's juices and Liam's cum. She closed her eyes, then pushed her mouth forward until her lips touched his hips. She felt him harden against her tongue and looked up into his eyes.

Liam, slowly, grinned.

“...Okay,” he said. “Uno mas.”

Liv looked baffled.

Meg slid her mouth back, panting, and then smiled as she looked at Liam's cock. “Hmm,” she said. “You know, by now, I've ridden him in the wild, in the bath, in an alleyway – well, that was more him riding me...” She grinned, her eyes going distant. “We've done it in public once. Very secretly.” She fluttered her wings. “They're quite good at concealment, if you're clever.”

Liv snorted. “If you're going to fuck in public, the whole point is to show the people around you how unrestrained you are.”

“Maybe if you're a half-Spartan bitch,” Meg said, rolling her eyes. “Us Athenians know exquisite, delicate pleasures your kind never would.”

“Our kind?” Liv asked, her voice growing acid.

“Ladies, ladies,” Liam said, his voice still weak from his earlier exertions. He sat up, his cock resting against his belly, his skin glistening with sweat. “Didn't you say you were both Greeks? Hellenes, I mean?” He coughed. “No need to fight.”

Liv snorted. “Oh, no, we're not fighting.”

Meg nodded.

“If we were, this Athenian boy lover would already be passed out,” Liv said, grinning fiercely.

“Oh, it's on,” Meg growled.

“Whoever gets him to cum first is the victor?” Liv asked, jerking her chin at Liam's cock. Liam opened his mouth to object, but Meg's hand closed around his cock, stroking him eagerly as she smirked.

“Just like a Spartan to forget the teachings of Athena,” she said, sneering. “Never fucking fight on your enemy's land.”

“Uh, Thermopylae, anyone?” Liv asked, leaning forward, her tongue slurping along the tip of Liam's cock. Her lips closed around his shaft and she pushed herself forward insistently, forcing Meg to let go or get her hand swallowed up too. Liam wasn't sure Liv could unhinge her jaw that far enough, but he wasn't exactly going to bet against it.

“Oh, were there Spartans at Thermopylae?” Meg asked, her wings mantling as she ducked her head forward. “I didn't notice over the three thousand Athenians who were there.” She kissed her lips against Liam's balls, closing her mouth around them. Liam closed his eyes and panted as Liv drew her mouth back. A line of spittle connected her lips to his cock for a moment as her hand stroked up and down his cock. She was rough but the slickness of his cum and her spittle both made the roughness feel so very good. Meg added a tiny twist to each pump of her hand, and Liam bit his lip so hard that he almost thought it would start bleeding.

“Leonidas!” Liv snarled.

“Blowhard!” Meg drew her mouth back, her hand fondling Liam. “Let's not even get into the post-Purgatory history.”

“Oh, let's!” Liv snarled, leaning closer, her nose bumping against Meg's. The two of them paused to kiss either side of Liam's cock. The sensation of those firm hands cradling his balls made him squirm, his hands grabbing onto his pillowcase. “So, was it Spartans who were tricked into the Lokiomachy and had three hundred ships burned to the waterline?”

“I distinctly remember traitors being involved there...” Meg muttered under her breath, darting her head up and kissing the very top of Liam's cock. Liam closed his eyes and leaned his head back and listened to the string of battles and names…

It was going to be a long night.

Not that he was complaining.

* * *

Liam came down the stairs in the morning, creaking and groaning and feeling rather like a cat that had not only eaten the cream and the canary, but had also gone on a Jason Voorhees-style killing spree through the canary's summer camp. He walked into the main room of Neb's apartment, taking time to admire her collection books. In a world without indoor plumbing and an overabundance of muscle bound warriors with bronze swords ready to hack you into pieces, having this many examples of the written word was a sign of refined taste and more than sufficient funds.

Then he noticed the scrawny looking eleven year old girl rummaging through his fannypack, left beside the front door so he could grab it in a hurry. She was the same urchin that had picked his pocket the day before, her hands moving with increasing desperation. She pulled out the last gold coin he had tucked into his fanny pack, then stood and turned – and froze.

Liam frowned at her. A dozen tiny thoughts that had been bouncing around inside of his head since he had woken in Neb’s bedroom yesterday solidified in a single moment of insight. He stood there for a moment, his eyes widening slightly.

The girl – what had Neb said her name was? Aithene? - bolted for the window. Liam shook himself out of his shock, grabbed the nearest thing at hand and hurled what turned out to be a heavily-bound bestiary at the girl. The spine of the book slammed into her spine and sent her pitching against the wall. She rebounded and hit the floor. Before she could get to her feet Liam was over her, grabbing her by the scruff of her neck.

“So,” he said, “I’ve been running around since you picked my pocket - never had a chance to think twice about it. But I just realized something.” He paused, staring into her eyes. Slowly, he smiled. “You are a terrible pickpocket. What pickpocket steals from a man then stands there, gormlessly, until he starts chasing her? What street rat lets herself get chased down by people literally fresh off the boat?”

Aithene opened her mouth to respond, but Liam shook her slightly, his voice dropping an octave.

“One. That. Wants. To. Be. Caught.” He frowned. “The assassin paid you to get me to the roof, didn’t she?”

Aithene nodded, her cheek pressing against the wall. Her eyes were wide with fear. Liam felt faintly sick to his stomach. Sick that he was scaring a little girl like this. Sick that he knew that it was a very good thing. But what was more, he was starting to get really mad.

Try and kill him?

He could grasp that, as much as he'd prefer people didn't.

But use a kid against him? Send her back in when you fucked up?

That was crossing a line.

Liam realized that he was grinding his teeth. To keep his dental health intact, he continued: “So, the girl hired you. Since she can become a freaking raven at will, she must have gotten here well before the ship. Right?”

“She flapped down out of the sky,” Aithene said. “Said that the underground said I was the best. Fishy job. Thought it'd be okay. Then she came back after. Said that she wanted me to go in. Said she'd kill me if I didn’t go in and get the iPod back. Listen, mister, I didn’t want to get involved with this again. But I can smell a poisoner from a mile off.” She nodded, earnestly, tapping the side of her nose for emphasis. “Never cross poisoners.”

Liam sighed. He let go of the back of her neck, frowning slightly.

“What's her name?” he asked.

“Dunno,” Aithene said, her eyes darting away. She was a good liar. For an eleven year old. Liam crossed his arms over his chest as he heard the faint sounds of others rousing from bed. Aithene, seeing his look, sighed. “I snuck after her. She goes by Bryn.”

“Bryn?” Liam asked.

“Sounds Aesir.”

Liv stood at the base of the stairs. She looked less than shocked to see Aithene.

“Not surprising, considering that she's from Odin,” Liam said.

“If she's from Odin, uh, why'd she pay me in Hellenic coin?” Aithene asked. She tugged a golden coin from somewhere in her rags, showing it to him. It looked similar to the Coptic coins that Liam had been given by Sobek, though the language around the edge was different, and the side showed the serene face of Athena. Liam frowned, taking the coin, twirling it around.

He looked at Liv.

“Say, Liv,” he said. “You ever hear of the Iran-Contra affair?”

“It's from Earth, so, no,” Liv said.

“How'd you know it was from Earth?” Liam asked, sounding defensive as he felt Aithene pluck the coin from his fingers.

“Cause it sounds stupid and made up,” Liv said, her voice dry.

Liam looked wounded.

But it was okay.

He had a plan.

* * *

The heart of Olimurias was centered on an immense building that was one part library, one part palace, and one part temple. Celtic artistry adorned the pillars and were carved into the walls, and the building itself had been hacked out of the mountain center of the island like a kind of Irish Minas Tirith. The insides, though, smelled of ink and parchment, and the faint sound of conversations in dozens of languages drifted down broad corridors with high ceilings. The guards that he had seen throughout the city were clustered more thickly here – two at every corridor intersection.

Neb lead the way – her tail twitching nervously from side to side – and tried to not look at Liam. Liam had noticed this and kept wondering about it until Meg stepped to his side and whispered in his ear.

“I wonder if her nose is as good as an actual jackal's.”

Liam remembered he hadn't bathed since last night's exertions. Momentum had caught and pushed them forward so quickly that-

“Sir?”

One of the guards held up her hand, stopping the party for the moment. She pointed at Liam's scabbard.

“You cannot bring that weapon here,” she said. “Only the guards are allowed to bear weapons.”

Liam's hand went to the belt that looped around his hips, though every instinct demanded that he put his hand on his hilt. But he stopped himself – trying to think of what it would look like if he had done the same thing with a pistol while at the local airport. He'd have been riddled with bullets faster than you could say violation of constitutional rights. So, instead, he bowed his head to the guards.

“Where can I store it?” he asked.

The guards conferred. Soon, he was holding a small crystal shard – why was everything here all about the crystals? - and one of the guards was hustling his weapon away. Meg cracked her knuckles audibly, while Liv shook her head. Neb, who had been standing nervously to the side for the entire conversation, coughed.

“So, uh, the magistrates offices are, uh, here,” she said. Her nose flared. Once again, her thin shift made what she was thinking of all too easy to see. Liam tried to not look at her nipples and think of the golden chain connecting them. Of course, trying to not think about something was basically the same as thinking about it, so it all ended badly.

They walked before the magistrates, several robed men and women who were seated behind a large shelf. A pair of stone chalices were set to either side of the shelf, burning with the flames that seemed to be Brigid's symbol. The leader of the magistrates was speaking to a group of people who stood before them.

“We find the arguments presented here to be convincing," said the leader of the magistrates to the group who stood before them. "Repayment will be taken from their trade profits until justice has been served. Next presentation.”

Liam stepped forward as the magistrate looked down at her paperwork. “Ah, the infamous Liam Vanderbilt. The man we hear is from another world,” she said, sounding skeptical. Then she looked at him. “Good Goddess, you're a giant!”

Liam beamed. “Proportional too, ma'am.”

Meg elbowed him.

The magistrate controlled her face, though there had been a hint of a smile there. She looked down at her papers. “You are here to argue that you and your diplomatic envoy from the city state of Faiyum Falls has been threatened, attacked and stolen from by a visitor to this city – an Aesir woman by the name of Bryn.” She looked up. “Specifically, that she has attempted to steal a magical artifact known as an Eye-Pod.”

“That is correct, ma'am,” Liam said.

“Bryn is known to us and has come to contest your claims,” the magistrate said, gesturing to the side of the vaunted room. Through the doorway came Bryn. Finally, under the harsh light of day, Liam got a look at the woman he was pretty sure had been behind every single awful thing that had happened on this trip from the assassins in Faiyum's port, to the basilisk attack, to the multiple thefts of his belongings.

She was pretty.

Because of course she was.

Her hair was blonde and straight, hanging around her shoulders and framing a heart shaped face, with wide, almost almond shaped eyes that were the most shocking shade of flint-gray. It looked like peering into a brooding Scandinavian sky. She was dressed in a simple, form-hugging leather jerkin and her feathered cloak. In the light of day, Liam could practically see an aura of magic around it and he wondered how, exactly, she shifted it from just being a snappy feather cloak to becoming a transformation aide. She had a tiny hammer pendant around her neck.

It looked weirdly like a crucifix.

“Magistrate,” she said, “I am here to refute these ridiculous claims.”

The magistrate pursed her lips, but Liam felt his heart falling as Bryn held up her hand. The iPod sat on her palm.

“I've been using this with your scribes – several of them can corroborate that I've been seen with it in my possession since I arrived,” she said, smoothly. Liam's hand went to his fanny pack, opening the zipper. The inside was empty. He looked up, his face shocked.

“She's lying!” he spluttered.

“Bring them in the scribes then,” the magistrate said.

Bryn had it sown up tight. Five different scribes of ascending levels of seniority within the ranking structure of the Library of Olimurias came out to testify that they had been trying to ascertain the secrets of the mysterious artifact. Which, of course, had been recovered from an Ancients' tomb – not stolen from Liam's belongings. He tried to refute them but in the end, the scribes carried more weight than the word of several foreigners and the magistrate had thrown the case out with a stern warning to not waste the court’s time with frivolous claims. Liam bowed to the magistrates, his face a mask, then hastily grabbed Meg's arm. She snarled slightly, her eyes flashing dangerously as she glared at the smug looking Bryn. For a moment, Liam felt his mask starting to slip and he hastily made sure that he was looking as if he was trying his best to control his fury and confusion. If Bryn noticed he was having a blast watching his plan come together, then she didn't show any sign.

“It's fine, honey,” Liam whispered. “We can't deck her here.”

“Remember how you said it was okay if I wounded her, though?” 

Liam nodded.

“I'm upgrading that to maiming her, got it?” Meg snarled.

Liam managed to not smile at Meg’s acting. She was good. “Come on.”

“Who could have done it?” Liv asked, outside the magistrates' offices.

“Where's Neb?” Tethis interjected.

“Obviously, it was that fucking pickpocket!” Meg said at full volume, playing her role as loud-mouthed warrior woman to the hilt. “My only question is how did that Lokifucking piece of shit parade around a fake iPod for a week? She's good, Liam, we have to give her that. Maybe an illusion. Maybe a painted mockup. You can get glass easy, I think, and if people don't look at it closely...”

Liam shook his head. “Or, Meg, she could have just bribed the witnesses.”

Meg blinked, opened her mouth, then closed it. “Right. Occam’s Razor.”

Liam was still slightly sad he hadn’t managed to convince her that it was Vanderbilt’s Razor. “Listen, Meg, we just need to find proof that-” he started.

“Where's Neb!?” Tethis spoke up, a bit too hastily, her back ram-rod stiff, her eyes wide.

Liam frowned and looked around himself. “I...” he paused, then held his hand out, getting the attention of one of the guards. “Sir, did you see a Priestess of Anubis pass by here some time ago?”

The guard nodded. “She said she needed to use a private scribe chamber. They're that way.” He pointed.

Liam sighed, looking at his friends. “Wait here,” he said. “Try and keep an eye on Bryn – she might slip up.” He slapped Meg's butt with one hand. “I'll find Neb and make sure nothing... well, nothing bad's happened.”

Meg shook her head. “Have fun,” she said, sounding murderous.

Liam started through the cavernous interior of the library, admiring how big the place was. The stacks themselves were tiered and surrounded by walkways, so that people could walk up to the book or tome they wanted. Scroll niches covered every free space. Thousands of years of history were contained here: plays, historical documents, poems. He wondered what had been carried here from Earth that hadn't survived two millennium of war and strife…

Then he came to the private scriptorium. A female scribe handled the front desk – it seemed it was a few copper pieces to use the writing areas, and you had to pay for your own ink. Liam smiled – his inner capitalist approved. “Did you see a Priestess of Anubis? She's a friend of mine.”

“Oh, she took the room at the back,” the woman said, nodding. “Seemed to be in a hurry, but the muse strikes when the muse strikes.” She shrugged. “I know how it is. I've been wrestling with my opus for-”

“Uh, tell me later, okay?” Liam asked, cutting her off, smiling. “Sorry, but we are in a hurry.”

The girl blushed. “Oh, s-sorry. But, it's just, a story about a history of the world if we hadn't been banished from Earth and how that might have shaped history in a new way-”

Liam held up his hands.

The girl turned an even brighter red. “Sorry!”

Liam stepped past her front desk and into the narrow corridor that wound through the private scriptorium. He shook his head, muttering under his breath. “What could have gotten into Neb?” He shook his head again as he came to the rear door, trying the knob and finding it was unlocked.

“Neb, are-”

“Oh, Liam!”

He stopped.

Neb gaped at him.

He gaped at Neb.

The sleek, black-furred jackalgirl was sitting on a stool, her shift tossed aside, leaving her completely naked. Her sex lips – a pair of dark black folds tucked between her smoothly furred thighs – were moist and gleaming against her paw-like fingers, spreading slightly as her hand pressed against her belly. Her other hand had cupped her breast, finger taking hold of one of her golden nipple rings, teasing it gently. Her glasses were askew, knocked slightly off where they should have been by the eagerness of her fingering.

But what was more…

She had been moaning his name as he spoke.

Neb snapped her mouth shut.

“So, uh,” Liam said, blinking a bit more, “S-Should I go?”

“Oh Gods!” Neb covered her face with one paw, grabbing at her shift with the other. “I am so sorry, I just, you smell so... I was... I'm so fucking horny. I haven't been laid in a year, and you're so beautiful and handsome and kind and maybe I spied on you while you were with your lover and your slave-”

“She's not my slave!” Liam said, weakly.

“And I just... the court case was decided s-so, I...”

Liam sighed quietly.

“I... c-can you fuck me?”

Liam blinked. “Right now?”

Neb peeked over the shift she was ineffectually using to cover her curvy body. “Well, it'll make you feel better,” she said, her voice a bit lame. “And it's not like we can stop Bryn right now. Right? So. I mean.” She spread her thighs. “Gods, I need it...” Her voice was slightly breathy and Liam tried to not laugh as he stepped slowly into the scriptorium, shaking his head from side to side.

“You try real hard to not let your inner slut show, do you?” he asked.

“Maybe...” Neb whispered.

“But I kinda got the idea you had one,” Liam said, stepping up. His finger crooked through the golden chain that connected the tips of her breasts. He had wanted to do this for days. It felt like he'd wanted to do it for months, really. He slowly tugged up, until the nipple rings were drawn taut. Her thighs spread as she moaned, her back arching as she presented herself.

Liam shook his head slowly. “Who knew you were so eager under that shy librarian look?”

Neb turned her head aside, blushing hard. Liam leaned forward, working his tongue through one of her nipple rings. He teased her, his hand cupping and squeezing her breast, the moment forgotten as he simply enjoyed the exotic feel of her. He had been with another Chosen – a priestess of Bastet – but she had been a momentary diversion compared to Neb's beauty. Her paws gently slid to his hips, and insistently slid his kilt aside. She shifted off the stool, standing and pressing herself against Liam. His hands cupped her ass, feeling the downy softness of her fur. He moaned quietly as Neb panted softly.

“I need this so bad...” she whined.

Liam kissed her neck, biting down gently, then rougher. Neb made an eager little noise at the back of her throat, rolling her head backwards as Liam pushed her against the wall, capturing her tail against her back. She writhed as his hands slid from her ass to her thighs, cupping her sex. He slid two fingers into her sex, pushing them in with the eager intentness of someone who knew exactly what he wanted. Neb responded to that confidence, melting against him as she quivered and gasped.

Then Liam's thumb found the tiny nub of her clit.

“Oh Anubis!” She moaned, her eyes closing, her breasts mashing against his chest. His paws grabbed onto his shoulders, claws pressing against his skin. Liam tensed for a moment, then relaxed as he felt that she had filed them down.

Thank God for small mercies, he thought.

Neb bucked her hips, all attempts to seem demure or quiet forgotten as she panted, gasped, thrashed her head to the side. Her ears flattened against her head as she cried out again – a wordless exclamation of pleasure as her juices soaked Liam's palm. He slid his hand from her sex, holding it up, and she lapped her broad, rough tongue against his palm, drinking her own juices. Her golden eyes met his, wanton and eager.

They said one thing: Is this okay? Do you like this?

The word master floated in those eyes. But it wasn't the slavery that Liv had been forced into. It was something baser. Something unconnected to the battlefield, to poverty, to wealth. It was something that Liam felt deeply, deeply comfortable with. He grinned at her, his voice low.

“Good pet,” he murmured.

Neb made a quiet, happy noise, her fingers licking along his fingers. He turned his hand around, cradling her jaw, his fingers plunging into her mouth. She sucked on them, her muzzle, her flexible tongue, the part of her mouth that actually had lips, all combining to make a unique, amazing sensation. He tried to imagine what that would feel around his cock and found that he was already pushing her down to her knees.

Neb the Priestess had never looked as comfortable and happy with her situation as Neb the slut, her knees spreading and her tail wagging happily as she nosed at Liam's balls.

“Good girl,” he purred. Then, starting, added, “O-Oh! Uh, if... you want me to stop, just say aardvark.”

Neb cocked her head, blinking and looking confused.

Liam's cheeks turned bright red. “So, uh, you know, you can say 'no' without me, uh, you know. Stopping.”

Neb's eyes widened. “Oh, that's as clever as superpowers!” she said, excitedly, shocked momentarily away from Neb the slut. She beamed at him.

“Copyright, Liam Vanderbilt,” he murmured. “Now, come on, get to sucking, you eager little cockslut.” He watched her face tensely, readying for aardvark. Instead, he saw Neb's eyes half close, her whole body shivering as she pressed her nose against his cock, her tongue lapping out, gently tasting him. She was hesitant, then more and more eager as she lapped along the base of his cock. Her mouth opened and she pushed herself forward.

One advantage of having a muzzle, Liam found, was it was a lot easier to deepthroat someone - even if you were clearly a newbie - since you had a good three inches of mouth before you even got to throat. Even with that advantage, Neb made a quiet gagging noise, but gamely pressed forward, until her nose bumped against the curled ruff of his pubic hair. She looked up at him through her painted eyelashes, her nipple-chain dancing slightly between her glorious tits as she writhed underneath him. Her tail lashed from side to side, wagging high like a happy dog.

“Mm, you like that, bitch?” Liam asked, his voice casual. He had never dommed someone like this before.

He found he rather liked it.

Rather liked it a lot.

He tried to picture Meg doing this and found that he couldn't get the image to form. The closest he got to it was Meg wearing a collar and looking at him as if he had completely taken leave of his senses. Now, he could picture Tethis wearing nothing but a Princess Leia slave-girl bikini. That was a mental image that fit like a glove. He grinned, slowly, then slid his hand through Neb's hair, squeezing gently as she started to bob her head, her tongue swirling around and around his cock as she gave him head.

“Good girl,” he purred. “Good little cockslave.”

Neb's eyes closed and she made a tiny, happy noise that sent wonderful vibrations through his cock as she slurped and sucked on his shaft, her hands going to his hips. She drew her mouth back enough to let his cock spring free, planting a few kisses against it, rubbing her nose against the tip of his member, smearing pre-com against her nostrils.

“Gods, you smell so- you taste so- mmmph!” She was cut off as Liam grabbed her head, then pushed his cock back into her mouth, fucking her in earnest now. His balls slapped against her chin and Neb closed her eyes. She let her head be used, her tongue the only thing that moved – other than her tail, of course – as Liam grunted quietly.

“Ready?” he gasped. “Ready for your master's cum, bitch?”

Neb pressed her thighs together eagerly, her tongue sliding against the underside of his cock. Liam thrust deep, shuddering as he let himself cut loose in a way he never had before. All the focus was on him – on his pleasure, on his movements, with Neb serving only as an eager little mouth and an eager little throat. He didn't pull back, he just remained within her and spurted his cum. Thick strands of white seed fired out of his cock, Neb's throat bobbing as she worked overtime to drink and drink and drink.

Then, panting, Liam slipped backwards. A single strand of cum and spittle connected him to her lips, and her tongue desperately quested after his cock. Neb's eyes looked unfocused, her hair mussed. Every inch of her screamed that she had been well and truly used, and - from the puddle between her thighs, dripping onto the ground – she was happy with it. Profoundly happy.

Liam leaned against the wall, his breathing becoming more and more steady. “You know,” he said. “If you beg for it, I can dump another load in that pussy of yours.”

“P-Please...” Neb whispered.

“I didn't hear that.” Liam's face was twisted by a grin. Neb stood, her knees quivering. She turned, bending over the stool in the room. She thrust her glorious, darkly furred ass into the air, her tail arching and presenting her pussy to him. Her fur was matted with moisture, making what she needed painfully clear. She tilted her head forward, the stool creaking under her weight. A single loop of golden chain dangled in the air, her breasts mostly pressed against the wood.

“Please fuck me,” she hissed. “Fill this slutty, uh, p...p...vagina w-with your cock...”

“Pussy,” Liam said, stepping up behind her. He started to grind his cock against her sex – teasing her slowly. “Call it a pussy.”

“...Pussy,” Neb whispered, her voice thick with pleasure, anticipation and shame. Liam felt another rush of power, his head spinning slightly as he took a harder grip on her hips. Squeezing. He purred quietly.

“Louder.”

“Fuck my p-pussy,” she said, her voice catching – the word was clearly making her squirm. And, from the juices dripping along his cock, get wetter. Liam ground his length against her with added strength, his smile growing wider and wider.

“Louder, bitch.”

“Fuck my pussy hard!” she cried out. “Please, just slam your dick inside my Anubis-blessed pussy and fuck my brains out.”

Liam did just as she wished.

After all, he sub was the real dominant one in D/s relationships, weren't they?

Liam's cock slipped into her sex with ease – she was so intensely wet that even her eager tightness didn’t slow him down. He rested inside of her for the moment, his eyes close, reveling in the sensation of her. Neb’s quiet, shallow gasp held tones of pleasure and tones of surprise. He could hear wonder in her moan as he slid his cock backwards slightly, then pushed deeper into her sex, wringing an moan from the base of her throat.

“You’re a virgin, huh?” Liam murmured.

“What?” Neb gasped. “I, how, how could you, ah, tell?” She groaned around the word as her hips twitched in time with his movements.

“Only a virgin would sound this surprised at how good sex can feel,” Liam purred, squeezing her hips eagerly.

Neb nodded, the small motions of her hips sending jolts of pleasure through him.

And since this was, well, round two, Liam could go for a while.

He grinned and leaned over the stool, his palms pressing against the wall over Neb's head, his hips driving against her. The stool creaked and rocked under their weight as her ass jiggled in counterpoint with his thrusts. A sudden through sprang unbidden into Liam's mind: I wonder how she'd look if she twerked. The idea of a bookish, shy girl like Neb twerking almost made him bust out laughing. But then again…

Liam groaned. “Fuck, you're a good little slut.” He laughed. “Should just take you with me.”

Neb squealed, then laughed as well. “Sounds, ah, fucking good to me, master!”

She laid it on slightly thick with that line but Liam didn't mind.

He'd never have imagined her like this, but he was damn  glad she was enjoying it. His cock plunged into her again and again as his balls gently bumped against her thighs. Her paws scrabbled at the wood of the stool, clutching to it as she cried out again and again, all attempts to be quiet failing. Not that she had particularly tried that hard. Then, shuddering, Neb climaxed. Liam didn't hold back. He thrust as deeply into her as he could and let his balls clench.

He felt his second climax of the hour rush through him and knew he was claiming Neb. Maybe not forever. Maybe not even for longer than this one meeting. But for right now?

She was his.

Panting, Liam remained deep, deep inside her.

Quietly, he whispered. “Was, ah, that good for you, Neb?” He paused. “D-didn't call you too many mean names, right?”

Neb laughed, quietly. “No. It's good.” She looked back and grinned slightly. “But, uh, mm, just so you know. I am sorry.”

“For what?” Liam asked, slowly sliding out of her.

“I just needed, uh, one sample of, uh... you,” Neb said, shyly. “To get the spell. I just, uh, got greedy.”

Her paw slapped against his chest. Liam staggered backwards as a flare of magic crackled through his body. His knees locked and he tottered backwards, crashing to the ground with a thump. He lay there, frozen, his vision slowly growing darker and darker. Neb stood over her, looking down at him, her eyes sad and nervous. The door opened and a dark, cloaked figure stepped into the chamber.

Bryn smiled.

“Your debts are paid, Neb Maatre.” She chuckled. “Paid... with interest.”

Five

Liam frowned as he watched Bryn and Neb watch him. His hands were bound behind his back – strapped and chained into the chair - while his ankles were fastened to the legs of the chair. To finalize the piece, his neck had a collar looped around it, the chain connected to both the front and back of the chair. If he tried to move his wrists, the chains yanked on the collar and it tightened. If he tried to move his neck, the chain drew the collar tighter. If he tried to rock from side to side, the collar tightened. So, basically, if he did anything but sit there, he would strangle himself.

This is not proper bondage etiquette, he thought. Bondiquette?

Bryn slapped the flat of her dagger against her palm.

“You are one annoying child,” Bryn said.

“I'm a freshman!” Liam said. “I'm at the very least an annoying teenager.”

Bryn mouthed the word 'teenager' then shook her head. “How do you activate the iPod?”

“Well, it can only be unlocked by the kiss of a handsome prince,” Liam said, casually. Bryn slapped him across the face. She was strong. Strong enough that Liam felt blood trickling along his tongue. He shook his head, then tried to spit said blood on the ground without hitting his still naked body. The splatter did manage to land on the flagstones of the room. He wasn't sure where in the library he was, but the scent of ink was still strong enough to make it clear he was still there.

“Uh, ma'am,” Neb said, trying to get Bryn's attention. The spy ignored her.

“I can hurt you a great deal, Vanderbilt,” Bryn said, the dagger flashing as it was tossed from palm to palm.

“Listen, lady, I worship a dude who was nailed to a cross for giggles,” Liam said, mentally apologizing to Jesus. But he was sure Big J would understand. “Do you really think you can threaten me with pain?”

Bryn snarled, but before she could continue, Neb tapped her shoulder.

“Ma'am!” She said. “Y-You said you'd pay me if I delivered Liam. Uh, I mean, Mr. Vanderbilt. I've done so.” She coughed. “So...”

Bryn waved her hand. “Your payment is in the office.”

She gestured with one hand, dismissing Neb. She turned back to face Liam. Neb stood there, met Liam's eyes...

And winked.

Liam managed, somehow, to keep his face completely straight as his brain screamed: Neb! Don't fucking wink at me! Go and do your part of the fucking plan! Come on! Go! Go! The longer you wait here, the longer Miss Psycho has to find us out, go!

Neb gave him a shy thumbs up, then turned and hurried out of the room before Bryn noticed. Liam sagged slightly with relief.

Neb, he thought. You are the worst fucking spy...

Then he stopped sagging as Bryn held up a wicked looking bronze hook.

“Let's start with...” She paused. “Castration.”

Liam forced himself to not gulp, keeping his face like stone – save for a small smirk on his mouth. He had an idea, but if it didn't work, he would just have to hope that Neb was fast. He looked at Bryn, who was eying him suspiciously.

“What?” she asked.

“Oh, I was just wondering if you were going to mention any actual torture, or...” he trailed off, shrugging slightly. He ignored the pressure as the collar tightened around his throat.

Bryn pointed the curved bronze hook at him. “I'm going to use this on your balls.”

“And?” Liam snorted. “Lady, before I got sucked to this soft, pathetic world, do you know what I did? Do you know what Earth is like? I come from a kingdom that's mostly Christian. We like to smash into one another at high speeds, tossing a ball wrapped in desiccated flesh to one another as a kind of trophy, using tactics, cunning and brute strength to score points. We kick around the severed heads of our enemies to worship Jesus Christ, our lord of pain and king of blood. Hell, the more devout of us spend every Sunday drinking blood and eating of the flesh of our savior.”

Bryn looked at the hook, then at him.

“Every four years, we have brutal competitions between two factions to determine who gets to lead us. It's not just a peaceful transition from father to son – or from mother to daughter, I guess.” He shrugged. “There's literal blood in the streets as we tear into one another – why, I still have scars from the fight between Obama and McCain.” He shifted, wincing slightly as the collar tightened around his neck again. “See this scar? Some rabid Republican shoved a torch right in my belly.”

Bryn lowered her torture tool.

“So, go ahead,” Liam said. “Try torture. I could use a good laugh.”

“I don't buy it.” Bryn said, her voice flat. She stepped closer, then, with a darting lung, she brought the hook up against his cheek. Liam didn't blink, didn't move. He sat as still as he ever had – repeating to himself again and again and again: I will not fear, fear is the mind killer, fear is the, uh, shit, I don't remember how the rest of the line goes.

Bryn lowered the hook.

Liam held back his sigh of relief. She was an actual professional, then. If she had been someone who didn't know what the hell she was doing, then she'd have just started cutting him. But professionals know that once cutting and smashing and burning started, people would say anything, anything at all, to get it to stop.

“Well,” she said. “We have other ways.”

She held up a vial of semi-transparent liquid containing glinting golden flecks. The whole concoction glowed with a pale light, visible even in the well lit room. Liam watched as Bryn stepped closer, her eyes dancing with clear pleasure. At least someone was enjoying themself.

“It can't be worse than that basilisk venom,” Liam said, quietly.

“Oh, liked that, did you?” she asked. “The idiots didn't even ask – just drank the whole thing when I said it was a potion of stamina.” She clucked her tongue.

“I guess it must be easy to poison people when you can control the fuckers,” Liam muttered.

Bryn's brow furrowed. “Huh?”

“We retrieved the control collar,” Liam said.

Bryn's brow furrowed further. She looked, for just a moment, completely lost. Then she smiled and nodded. “Ah, right. Of course.”

Huh, Liam thought, Well, that's just fucking great. This is totally the best time to learn that there is a completely different mysterious person who wants me dead.

Bryn's hand grabbed his cheeks, forcing his lips open. She deftly tilted the vial forward. The liquid dripped along Liam's tongue and coated his throat, flowing into his body as if it wanted to be drunk. He squirmed and thrashed, then coughed as Bryn drew her hand back, tossing the vial aside carelessly. It tinked quietly into the corner of the room as Bryn raised one leg and rested her bare foot near Liam's crotch. He coughed, then licked his lips.

“What was that?” he asked. “Some truth serum?”

“Not quite,” Bryn purred.

Liam gasped. A sudden, blazing point of light was starting to flare in his belly. It slowly suffused his whole body, smoothly slipping into his muscles, tingling through his bones. His skin quivered with goosebumps and his vision started to be tinted in a hazy pink shroud. His mouth opened and he realized he was hard. Fuck, he was practically steel – his cock strained against his belly, pre-come gleaming on the tip. He bucked his hips, gasping raggedly as he felt the collar tightening around his throat. The pressure was almost enough to get him off then and there – but frustratingly, no matter how much he bucked his hips, he couldn't get enough friction. He strained, trying to get his wrists free.

He...

He needed...

“Oh, honey,” Bryn murmured, her voice the sweetest sound that Liam had ever heard. “You need release bad, don't you?”

“What... did... you do to me?” Liam managed to get the words out around inarticulate grunts. Bryn's finger touched his throat and Liam gasped, trembling. Her finger caressed his skin – a single, gentle point of contact that made every nerve he had sing. He quivered and his cock twitched and he still didn't cum.

“I gave you an extract of pure Lillin,” she said, quietly. “Their juices drive any male wild. It's part of why your cult banished them here.” She turned away, casually undoing the straps on her feathered cloak. Bryn brushed her hands along her shoulders and her robes hit the ground, revealing that underneath she wore that skin-hugging leather shirt, and a thong that dipped between two athletic cheeks. Though, either because of a blessing or because of extended use, she retained a hint of bird-qualities.

For instance, a tuft of feathers spread above her ass like a half-skirt.

Liam wanted to grab those feathers, shove them up and plunge into her.

He wanted to take her. His mind could barely remember time he didn't desperately want to fuck this Aesir spy.

Bryn took her time slipping her thong off. She ducked forward, her tail tuft flipping up to show him the curve of her rump as she slithered the thong forward, exposing her sex. Unlike everyone else Liam seemed to have met on Purgatory, she had actual pubic hair. It snarled around her pussy lips, hiding and accenting her femininity. Liam panted, his mind filled with the mental image of closing his lips around those lips. Sucking. Dragging. Licking.

Bryn turned and tossed her thong at him with a cruel flick of her finger. It slapped against Liam's face and he whimpered, his nose flaring as he breathed in her musky scent. She stepped over, then pressed her chest against his face, mashing her leather-clad breasts and the thong both against Liam, smearing him with her juices. Liam could barely breathe, his eyes going unfocused as he panted quietly.

“What is the access code?” she murmured.

Liam whined quietly, bucking his hips.

“Tell me and I'll give you a treat,” Bryn purred.

Liam gritted his teeth, a memory surfacing around the roil of desperate lust. Time. Need. Time.

He shook his head, gasping. “Nev...” He trailed off as Bryn closed her hand around his shaft. Her thumb gently slicked over the tip of his cock, rubbing against his sensitive cockhead. Her hand stroked up and down his member, just roughly enough to give him the release he needed. But just before he came, her hand slipped down and closed tightly around the base of his cock. Liam gasped, his body trembling. An ache spread through his balls as he felt his pleasure denied.

“The code,” Bryn said, her voice almost a snarl.

“N-no!” Liam grunted, his eyes closed, tilting his head forward. The collar tightened around his throat and he felt the pleasure boiling in his balls. It was so close to pain.

Bryn leaned forward, her voice warm and wet in his ear. “Tell me, and mistress will ride your pathetic little cock. Do you want that?”

Liam whined again. He nodded, unable to form words.

“You want to stick this dick into my pussy?” Bryn chuckled. “Good. All you need to do is tell me the code.”

Liam bit his lip, hard, and tried to look conflicted. Then, desperately, he gasped out: “Y-You push the numerals nine nine two nine three nine five!”

Bryn chortled. “Was that so hard?”

She let go of his cock, turning around and starting towards the door. Liam watched her go – an agony of lust surging through him. He couldn't even remember the mission now, but he knew that he needed her. He needed her so badly.

“But-”

“I lied, you pain obsessed freak,” Bryn said, her voice casually cruel. “That toxin will burn out your soul if untreated – seems like a fair punishment to me.” She shook her head. “Enjoy the torment.”

Then she slipped away.

Liam panted, his nerves buzzing. He closed his eyes, and did the only thing he could think of. He prayed. Not to Sobek or Anubis – but he prayed.

“Hey?”

Liam opened his eyes and almost melted with relief.

A slender figure stood in the door. Short, mousy haired. Wearing rags.

Aithene smiled at him. “Do you need privacy, Mr. Vanderbilt?”

***

“I, uh, just so you know,” Tethis said, her ears flicking back, “Liam's cured. You don't actually-”

“Shut the fuck up, Tethis,” Meg said, gasping around the words as her hips rose and fell as Liam fucked her with a desperate need he hadn't felt in months. Not that his lust for Meg had dimmed – anything but. But it was hard to reach the same level of critical need that came from the first time. His hands cupped and squeezed her ass as Meg cried out, wings spreading wide. Liam let himself release, shuddering as he burst inside of his lover.

Meg panted, ducking her head forward. She kissed Liam's cheek, his neck, his lips. Softly, she whispered. “Let's, ah, not fight a spy next time. All this sneaking around gives me hives.”

“Hey, it was fun while she was femdomming me,” Liam said, casually. “It was the dying part that I didn't like.”

The door to the small chamber – a room set aside, normally, for scribes to rest in between their duty shifts - opened and Neb stopped short. Her nose flared and she breathed in the musk filling the chamber, shivering all over. Liv grabbed her shoulder, dragging her fully into the room before kicking the door shut.

“Don't get distracted, Maatre,” Liv said.

“R-Right,” Neb said, gulping. She looked at Liam and Meg – the valkyrie still splayed across Liam's chest, letting her breasts mash against him. Meg kissed at his neck gently every few seconds, her hands caressing his head. Neb, for a moment, looked profoundly jealous. Liam bit his lip, unsure of how to respond to that look. But before he could even make the attempt, Neb continued: “I've arranged a meeting with the magistrates. T-They are not going to be happy if this doesn't work. But there's an added wrinkle.”

“Hm?” Meg asked, voice muffled.

“Well,” Neb said. “Brigid is going to, uh, be there.”

Liam sat up, Meg clinging to him as he did so. “Brigid? The goddess?”

Neb nodded. “She's become interested in the fate of this iPod the more she learns about it. That's what the magistrate said, at least.” She rubbed her paw along her neck, her tail sweeping from side to side. “She's, uh, a goddess, but she's also a bit more reserved, so...”

“So, I need to take a bath, don't I?” Liam asked. He paused. “Can you still smell yourself on me?”

Neb's muzzle turned so red that it was visible through her black fur. She nodded, mutely.

Liam glanced at Meg.

Meg arched an eyebrow and with the growing telepathy of people who were in love, Liam could read her just fine.

Well, I always wanted a pet.

“Why don't you show us to the baths, then, Neb?” Liam asked.

Neb nodded again, still blushing.

“Then join us,” Meg said with a predator's grin. 

Neb looked as if she would faint.

* * *

This time, the magistrate's chambers were filled. Not merely with the magistrates, but with curious onlookers, guards to keep the curious onlookers back, servants of various types, and several priestesses of Brigid. And, of course, seated behind the magistrates on something that Liam had thought was a forgotten architectural feature before but was now clearly an obscenely tall and large throne, was the goddess herself. Like Sobek, looking at her made it clear she was a goddess. Unlike Sobek, the exact thing that made her a goddess was harder to pin down.

She was, in all appearances, an utterly normal girl. She had a cute – but not gorgeous – face with a button nose, a thin spread of freckles, and short cropped hair that looked like it had been dyed black, giving her a slightly halo'd look. Her hair was curly and suited her bookish appearance. She even had a much creased book in her lap, stroking it as if it was a cat. Her clothes were similarly unostentatious – robes that were only slightly more decorated than her scribes.

But still, she exuded power. It radiated off of her and did more than the tall throne to make her seem like a giant. Sobek had always seemed to fill rooms, but Brigid actually seemed to be nearly twelve feet tall. Liam wasn't sure if that was a trick of the light, perspective, or... well... reality.

“Have it be known,” the magistrate said. “That we are reconvened to hear new testimony and new evidence submitted against Bryn of Odin.”

Bryn didn't look nearly so smug as last time. She was, instead, looking fairly cross. She glared at Liam – and Liam smiled at her, wiggling his fingers gently.

Neb, though, looked like she was about to faint again. She stood with a slightly bow-legged stance and held a collection of parchments in her paws, looking down at them, then up at the magistrates again. Liam squeezed her shoulder, leaning forward. “You'll do fine,” he whispered. “I order you too.”

Neb smiled at him shyly, her ears perking up.

“Present your evidence,” the magistrate said.

Neb stepped up. “Greetings,” she said. “I am Neb Maatre, representative of Anubis. Uh, this court knows me.” The magistrates all nodded – though, Liam noticed, they did so with a kind of amused air, as if they were used to Neb's shyness. The jackalgirl scribe coughed and shuffled the papers, then continued, “And I have evidence, retrieved from Bryn's chambers, that show that she is, uh...” She stepped up, holding the papers out. “She is not Bryn of Odin at all.”

Murmurs of shock came from the onlookers, and Bryn's eyes widened

Neb – getting more confident as the magistrates started poring through the paperwork – turned and pointed her paw at Bryn.

“She is a Hellene from Sparta – an agent of the War God Aries, sent on a mission to sow discord and strife between Pesdjeti and Tuatha pantheons. She never wanted the iPod for Odin's library. She came to destroy what it contained after getting the information for herself, then blame the theft and destruction on Brigid – it's clearly outlined in her orders! And what is more,” Neb said, reaching into her belt pouch, and tossing a sack of coins dramatically to the floor, “She has been financing criminals with Athenian gold – paid to Sparta after the Second War of the Dreaming Straits.”

“This is remarkably damning testimony,” the magistrate said, her voice grim. “If we search your chambers, Bryn of Odin, will sympathetic magic reveal that this paper did, in fact, come from there?”

“Magistrates,” Bryn said, her voice tightly controlled. “Such magic can be, ah, misled by cunning-”

“Not when it is cast by me,” Brigid said. She didn't have the casual, human tones of Sobek. Instead, her voice rang like a gong and sounded as deep as infinity. Liam looked from her to Bryn. He saw Bryn thinking quickly. Then he saw a light flick on in the woman's eyes.

A light he had seen before.

In Liv's.

Liam started running.

“Fuck it,” Bryn snarled and flicked her wrist. The knife flew unerringly towards a shocked Brigid's throat. Then it slammed into Liam's palm. He stood there, looking at the knife tip emerging from between his knuckles, at the bright red blood dripping along his wrist, pattering onto the ground. The entire chamber plunged into complete silence, everyone standing in shock. Liam stood there and didn't actually feel a single bit of pain.

At first.

Then screams came from the crowd. Guards were falling to the ground. Men and women who had been standing in the crowd were yanking daggers from the guard's backs. Bryn was shouting orders to them as the surviving guards rushed to try and protect Brigid – who herself was standing and starting to shroud herself with a crackling flames.

Trust a goddess of learning and knowledge to be squishy, Liam thought around the sudden haze of pain.

Three of the men that Bryn had snuck into the library – their daggers glittering in their hands – rushed forward.

“Liam!”

Aithene's voice came from the crowd. Liam looked and saw the slender pickpocket holding a wrapped parcel that was almost as tall as she was. Liam felt his heart sing.

She had done her part of the plan perfectly.

Aithene threw the parcel, the cloth unwrapping as it flew and spun in the air. Liam held out his unharmed hand and managed to grab his longsword's hilt before it hit the ground. Adrenaline pulsed through his body as he swung Delenn around in a curving arc, smashing the blade into one of the knife men's chests. The attack had no finesse, but with his full strength behind the blow, it sent the man sprawling, cut down to the ribs. The other two were tackled by a rush of wings and feathers.

Then, thank god, Tethis was at his side. She yanked the knife free, slapping her palm against Liam's. A glow surrounded his hand and she said: “It'll stop it from getting worse and deaden the pain, but-”

“Got it!” Liam grabbed Delenn with both hands and looked around himself, trying to get a sense for the utter pandemonium of the chamber. The surviving guards were locked in desperate battle with the criminals that Bryn had hired, while the assassin had started for the edge of the room, trying to find her own escape. Seeing Liam holding his sword, Bryn froze – then grabbed at her necklace. The hammer symbol snapped in half in her hands, and three small chunks of white bone dumped into her palm. She tossed them out and they skittered onto the floor.

“Dragon's teeth!” Liv shouted in warning.

The bone chunks grew – grotesque lumps of muscle bulging from the white, expanding outwards as if it was a water balloon being filled with a hose. The torsos grew first – hideously over-muscled, with broad shoulders and tiny, squinting heads. Then their legs – starting off far too small to hold them up, then expanding outwards until three men stood before Liam. Each one was nude, gray-skinned, and holding brutal looking bronze cleaver – Liam would only call it a sword under duress.

“Spartoi,” Liv said, her voice tight as she came to Liam's side, her blade in her hands.

“Fucking great,” Liam muttered.

Bryn pointed. “Kill her!”

The Spartoi turned and ran straight towards the battle line of guards and criminals. They struck it like a wrecking ball hitting an anthill. Men and women went flying, as the Spartoi hacked at them with casual, sweeping gestures and their blades managed to hew limb from limb using brute strength and size rather than sharpness.

Brigid stepped backwards, spreading her hands wide. Flames surged forward, but the Spartoi surged through the fire without stopping.

“Oi!”

The shout didn't draw their attention.

But Liam, smashing the pommel of his sword into one of their temples, did. The huge, artificial soldier staggered into his fellow warrior and that warrior bumped against the other and all three fell to the ground. Liam got his feet under him again, standing between Brigid and the warriors as they picked themselves up. They shook themselves, then advanced, cleavers in the air.

A javelin sprouted from one of their eye-sockets.

The Spartoi kept advancing.

Liam gulped, and ducked away from a sword blow. The cleaver struck the stone floor and shattered chunks of white marble into the air. Liam swung at the man's wrist, cutting to the bone. No blood flowed and the man jerked his cleaver free. More javelins were appearing in their backs – flying so fast that Liam couldn't see the weapons being flung from Meg's hands to the Spartoi's bodies.

It didn't slow them down. He parried one stroke and felt his arms going numb, Delenn groaning and ringing. He dodged and another one of the Spartoi swung at him. He stepped backwards, but the cleaver smashed into his longsword, pinning it against the wall. With a hideous clang, Liam's sword snapped in half.

The fact that the Spartoi's weapon bent visibly didn't help at all.

Liam held his hilt, looking at his sword, feeling cold.

One of the Spartoi – his back looking like a forest now – tottered, then smashed into the ground, finally overcome by the number of javelins that had plunged into him. The remaining two advanced towards Liam, their cleavers held over their heads. Liam roared, then dove forward.

“Fuck you!” he shouted, then plunged the jagged edge of his beloved sword up and into the beast's crotch. There was nothing there, but the skin was still softer there than it was on the man's torso. He worked the blade up as far as he could, then scrambled away as the Spartoi fell to the ground. Two down. Liam grinned, then his eyes widened as he felt his ankles being caught.

The third one.

The Spartoi looked at him with glowing red eyes.

No more javelins.

No more Delenn.

Liam gulped slowly.

The Spartoi lifted up its cleaver.

“I pronounce on you,” a voice cried out, familiar and loud, “The Judgment of Ka – your vitality is stolen, foul one.” A glowing golden aura flared around the Spartoi's chest, shimmering and rippling. “I pronounce on you, the Judgment of Sheut – for your shadow holds nothing but darkness. I pronounce on you..”

The golden hue had spread now, consuming the shadow that spread across the floor. Liam's eyes widened as he saw that smoke was trailing from underneath the Spartoi's mouth.

“...the judgment of Ren! For you are Nameless! And so, you are Nothing!”

Neb stood behind the raised dais the whole battle was taking place on, her paws spread, golden lightning crackling over her fur. A shimmering ankh appeared behind her as her eyes flashed with more light.

“Back to Ammit with you, soulless one!”

The Spartoi roared, the first time it had ever shown a hint of pain or fear or emotion. It's eyes flared brighter red as it dropped Liam to the ground. Liam, who had seen enough movies and read enough books to guess what would happen next, flung himself forward and tackled Brigid to the ground as the Spartoi was wreathed in golden flames – the roar growing louder and louder and louder.

Then…

It exploded.

The impact jarred Liam's back and he heard whining chunks of bone and soft plops of flesh splatter the wall over his head. His arm crooked over Brigid's head and he tried to cover her with as much of his body as possible. Then, slowly, the sounds of pattering and clinking bits of Spartoi faded and Liam drew back. He realized he had pinned the Goddess of Healers and Poets to the ground, her hair mussed, her robes partially spread, showing the curve of one breast.

Shockingly, the most surprising thing wasn't the fact that – objectively – Meg had a better pair of tits. Liam had already realized that what made Brigid a goddess wasn't some kind of otherworldly beauty. He had expected her to be merely cute, as opposed to breathtaking.

No, what was shocking was that she had a tiny golden ring through one nipple.

Liam blinked a few times, but then Brigid tugged her robe shut, her eyes glinting with amusement.

“Not even you are that lucky, Liam Vanderbilt of Earth,” she said, quietly.

“R-Right!” Liam scrambled to his feet and helped her up. The two of them stepped past the ruined magistrate counter to see the survivors surrounded by the dead, looking at them in shock. Liam saw Liv helping bind up a wounded man's thigh while Tethis worked her magic on those hurt even worse. He saw the guards pushing the surviving criminals down to their knees.

He didn't see any sign of Bryn.

Then he spotted a pair of wings, barely visible past the crowds of people who were standing around to watch the aftermath.

Liam walked forward, pushing some people gently aside.

Meg was sitting on the ground, eating an apple as she lounged against Bryn, who was clutching her knee which had clearly been savagely broken.

Meg grinned around a mouthful of apple.

“Told you I'd maim her,” she said, cheerily.

Six

Liam watched as Vulkis' ship loaded with cargo and tried to not let the creeping depression slide back into his mind. He felt Meg's hand touch his back, rubbing gently.

“Hey,” she said. “You look kinda down.”

“I-” Liam stopped himself. He slowly shook his head. “I guess I kind of am.”

Meg slapped the back of his head. “Liam, you successfully pulled a triple cross: you talked a pickpocket into giving that psycho bitch your iPod, so you could get Neb to 'betray' you just to get to her offices. Then you let yourself get tortured to give Neb time to find incriminating evidence. Then, just to put a cherry on top, you fucking saved the local goddess.”

She laughed, pointing. “Look at all that fucking treasure.”

“Easily worth ten thousand XP,” Liam said. But Meg could see his heart wasn't in it.

“And, uh, the scribes say they got almost all of the books you said to copy off the iPod before it gave up the fight and died,” Meg said.

Liam ducked his head forward, his hands sliding along the stone railing that separated the side of the docks from the ten foot plunge into the dirty water of the harbor. He looked up a moment later, shoving himself to a full standing posture. “Megara the Messenger, I love you. I wouldn't trade you for a thousand slave girls-”

“I resemble that remark,” Liv interjected as she walked by – carrying their luggage towards the ship.

“When is she taking off her collar?” Liam muttered.

“Never, if I have anything to say about it,” Meg muttered back, grinning. “But go on, you were telling me how great I am.”

Liam brushed his hands along his hair. “It's true. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me on two worlds, Meg. But, the simple fact is... I loved Earth. I loved America. I loved my Mom and my family and my friends. I miss them. And, well, I thought that if I had the iPod and my longsword, I'd... always have a connection to them.”

He sighed.

“Now that connection's gone.”

Meg nodded, slowly. She cupped his cheek. “You still have that.”

Her eyes darted down to Liam's crucifix. He touched it.

“I remember when just seeing this would send you into a killing frenzy,” he said, grinning. “Not sure if I want it to be my only memento of Earth.”

“To be fair, I admit that I was operating on mistaken assumptions caused by two thousand years of historical drift and propaganda!” Meg said, putting her hand to her chest. “I'll only start choking you if you like it.”

Liam laughed.

But before he could continue, a shadow fell over the two of them. Meg's hand dropping to her javelins for a moment, but despite the shadow's size, they only saw Brigid. The goddess looked normal height, but Liam was rapidly getting used to how gods fucked with the reality that they inhabited. She was followed by a small cart, pushed along by several guards in their best uniforms. She also held a small bag in her hands.

“Liam Vanderbilt of Earth,” she said, her voice musical, but lacking the deep, resonant cascades that she had used before. “You are leaving our fair city so soon?”

“What can I say?” Liam asked. “I need a vacation.”

Brigid laughed, then held out the purse.

“I wish to grant you a boon,” she said.

Liam took the purse, but rather than feeling coins (which, he admitted, would have been surprising, considering the number of treasure chests that Vulkis was loading on his ship) he felt something hard and rectangular. And familiar. He opened the purse and looked at his iPod. His brow furrowed and before he could stop himself, he tapped the power button.

The iPod lit up, glowing brightly. The battery said it was fully charged.

“But-”

“I placed a single piece of the imbas within it,” Brigid said, sounding amused. “The fire of inspiration will keep this inspiring you until my flames are snuffed out.”

Liam's eyes widened.

“And,” Brigid said, “This fact has been lost over the years – forgotten as Purgatory lacks the metals of Earth - but it remains true in my heart.” She touched her fingers to her chest, snapping her fingers a moment later. The guards stepped forward, carrying a large parcel. Cloth fell aside, revealing gleaming metal beneath.

“I am the Goddess of Smiths,” Brigid said as Liam – his hands shaking – took a hold of his sword. “It'd be embarrassing if I let you leave without this.”

Liam looked at Delenn with eyes that were starting to brim with tears. His hands shook even more as he felt his throat closing up. But despite the emotion, he noticed subtle changes, small runes had been carved into the base of the blade where the blood groove had been. The edge of his sword shimmered faintly.

“It has been blessed by the Tuatha,” Brigid said. “It shall cut down the fey, the undead, and other supernatural enemies with ease. It shall not bend, break or dull. And...” She smiled, slightly. “And it serves quite well as a night light for midnight reading.”

“I-” Liam stammered. “I can't thank you enough, goddess.”

“Sure you can,” Brigid said, her voice prim. “This plan was too clever for Aries. Too clever by half. And even Aries knows that you cannot have an eternal war – and yet, he works for it.” She shook her head. “Sobek, I am sure, will want you to investigate further. For something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

And with that, she turned and swept away.

As she left, Liam shook his head. “Nerd,” he said.

“Hmm?” Meg asked.

“I'm just saying, only a nerd would read Shakespeare before glancing at my copy of Warrior Women From Mars.”

Meg slapped the back of his head gently.

* * *

Liam closed his eyes as sailed away from Olimuras. His sword was strapped to his hip and his iPod tucked into a small pocket sewn onto a leather strap he hung around his neck. Placed there, its speakers could filling the air with the sound of music. His friends and lovers listened in silence – even the crew remained quiet, straining their ears to listen.

The song ended and Liam opened his eyes to tapp pause.

“Told you,” he said.

“Fine,” Meg sniffed, wiping at her eyes. “Yes isn't a dumb name for a band.”

Liv, though, was shaking her head. “What do you think about what Brigid said? About Aries? Because I think she's right.”

“I think,” Liam said, quietly, “That what we've done here is successfully blocked the bad guy's attack. There's going to be a counter-strike. And when you're fighting someone you don't know, all you can do is keep exchanging blows until you see a weak point... then...” He slapped his hands together. “Pow.”

They nodded, watching the port fade. Liam's brow furrowed. “Oh, hey, I think that's Neb!” He waved.

The tiny figure waved back.

“Surprised she didn't want to come with us,” Liv said.

“Well, she said she had to finish her studies,” Liam said, nodding. “Still... she was fun. And she, once again, reminds me of why I'm so glad that different species can't interbreed.”

“Hm?” Liv looked at him.

“Well, without magic,” Liam said, chuckling.

Liv slowly stood up, her hands resting on the railing. “You do know she's just blessed by Anubis, right?” she asked. “Under all that fur, the Chosen are just as human as you.”

Liam blinked.

Liv grinned, wickedly.

“So...” she said. “How does your wicked pain cult view bastards?”

And so, they sailed on, the crew and his friends ribbing Liam over his new clan of bastards, the number of which grew every day until the crew were speculating that he had populated an entire tribe. Through it all, Liam laughed, but at night, he lay in bed and his mind went around and around, worrying at the problem of their mysterious enemy – an enemy who could hoodwink gods and control basilisks.

Where was their next riposte?

Liam and friends will return in The Cross Guard, the next book of Purgatory Wars. Turn over for a sneak peek.

Sneak Preview: The Cross Guard

Liam watched as the last bit of Cindier Stonespeaker, the former mayor of Troy's Folly, vanished under the earthen ground that made up the center of the smallish Hellenic village that sat on the edge of the Wastes of Ra, and considered that there were far better ways to spend his anniversary.

“Well,” Megara the Messenger said, sitting down beside him, “We did warn the git.”

Liam looked at his lover and tried for a smile. But it was hard to feel anything but a grinding frustration and gathering dread. He had been on Purgatory – or, since Purgatory was an immense hollow sphere with a sun in the center of it, maybe the better term would be inside Purgatory – for almost a year, give or take a few weeks. And what a year. He had faced down literal gods – all of them banished to Purgatory in the ancient past – matched blades and wits with assassins and savage lizardmen, slain monsters and lain beautiful women.

And yet, despite all of that, he could still be completely caught off guard sometimes.

“I've still not found any records of it over here!” Tethis called from the building across the way.

Any town – even one as small as Troy's Folly – that called Athena their patron goddess would have a library, especially half a year after the first printing press had been built. And of their small group, Tethis was the one most likely to end up cowering atop said library when thrust into a situation like this. The short, curvaceous gobliness scribe, mage and occasional lover was cupping her hands around her mouth to help her voice carry across the space between the library and the temple that Meg and Liam and a few dozen other villagers were sheltering on.

“Of course you haven't found any records,” Meg called back. “No one's ever run into one of these fucking things before.” She paused. “Do you think it's still there?”

Liam sighed, picked up a discarded sandal – left behind by the former mayor of Troy's Folly – and threw it out over the open ground that stretched between the two buildings. Detecting motion, the creature that had been hounding this village for two days and Liam's party since they arrived, broke the ground above it's be-tentacled, razor-toothed maw, and spat. Several dozen green-slicked crystalline darts flew into the air, leaving behind white contrails of smoke, shredding the sandal into pieces.

Meg shook her fist at the maw as the ground shook, shuddered, and subsided – the earth flowing back into place over where the creature had opened its firing hole.

Liam and his party – Meg, Tethis and his former slave and current bodyguard, Livianna – had been sent to Troy Falls after the roundabout chain of political dominoes that usually operated in Purgatory had fallen into place. Athena had stopped getting tithes from the village and had a sudden uptick of desperate pleas for aid. The soldiers she sent had vanished. Being unwilling to risk her men and women's lives needlessly, she had tapped a messenger to head to Sobek.

Sobek – the crocodile-headed Pesdjeti god of ameliorated evil and Liam's past and current patron – had extorted a few chests of gold from her, then dispatched Liam.

Why me? Liam had asked even as he packed his belongings.

Why you? Sobek had asked, sounding shocked. You defeated Aries' daughter in single combat. He had jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Livianna, who at that moment had been sharpening her short sword. You foiled one of Purgatory's most dangerous assassins, killed a basilisk single handed, broke a lizardman tribe over your knee, killed a minotaur with your bare hands...do I need to go on?

The fact the minotaur had died of an aneurysm – as Tethis had determined afterward while a baffled Liam and Meg watched her cut into the monster – didn't seem to faze a single bard in the whole damned world. And now?

Now, the only good thing Liam could say about this expedition was that the monster had eaten their horses first. Well, that, and the fact that Tethis had gotten used to her new adornments. Even with healing magic, getting sensitive parts of one’s anatomy pierced made the rigors of the road somewhat harder to bear.

“I suppose it could be worse,” Meg said, nodding. “It could be-”

The sun that hung overhead plunged from light to darkness as if a door had been slammed. Despite a year of experience, Liam still jerked with surprise. He missed sunsets. He missed driving places. He missed the internet. He missed not having to worry about dying constantly.

The sky rumbled and rain started to patter onto the roof

“-raining,” Meg finished.

“I also miss weather reports,” Liam muttered, then forced himself to his feet. He hurried back to the makeshift shelter that several of the villagers had erected on the temple's roof to protect them from the sun. Sitting underneath it, he pulled out his iPod and fiddled with it. A blessing from the goddess Bridget months before had prevented it from running out of batteries, but he was pretty sure music wouldn't help his mood at the moment.

Meg joined him a moment later, slowly closing a single wing around his shoulders. Being a valkyrie, Meg had to feel even more useless. What use was her immense strength and incredible physical acuity, against an enemy the size of a house that had a shield of earth to protect it? Even her flight was useless – the thing could spit those acid-covered darts faster than even she could fly. Liam leaned against her and sighed.

“You'll think of something,” she said, her voice confident.

Liam grunted.

“Come on,” she said. “This isn't even as bad as when we were tasked to kill that dragon.”

“It wasn't a dragon, it was a crystalback with delusions of grandeur,” Liam said, grinning slightly. “And this is, easily, ten times worse.”

“Says you. That crystalback blew a wing off.” Meg lifted said wing, flapping it once. Only quick action by Tethis' healing magics had knitted flesh and bone back together, and only Meg's amazing stamina had got her back to flying again within weeks. Liam rubbed his chin as the rain continued to patter against the temple roof and the makeshift protection. He blinked.

“Wait, why are you saying this is better than that? You-” he stopped, spluttering. Meg beamed at him, delighting in his confusion. Liam laughed despite himself. He leaned against Meg, relaxing slightly. No matter what happened, if he was with her, he'd be okay. He closed his eyes.

An idea formed...

The next morning, the sun burst into life and cleared away the clouds in about five minutes of shining. The rain faded and the surface of the temple gleamed with reflective light. The pails and buckets that the villagers had set out were tapped for water, and Liam splashed some into his face, beaming as he stepped to the edge of the temple, stretching.

“I knew it,” Meg said. “You have an idea.”

“Kinda,” Liam said, rolling one arm. “Anyone got a pair of sandals they're willing to give up?”

One of the villagers – a pretty elf girl who smiled at Liam shyly – stepped over, holding up her sandals. Liam took both of them and hefted them, then tossed one out over the field. Once more, the monster opened fire. Once more, steaming contrails were all that could be seen of the haze of crystal darts that shredded the sandal. Once more, the shredded chunks hit the ground with terrible finality.

Liam tossed the remaining sandal from hand to hand.

“Do you know what causes condensation?” he asked.

Meg shrugged. “I don't even know what condensation is.”

“Basically,” Liam said, “It's due to temperature difference. That thing is a lot hotter or colder than the world above it. Well, its guts are. Like, a lot hotter or colder.”

Meg nodded.

“Any chemical process that creates that kind of heat can't be stable,” Liam said, looking at her. “At least, that's what my layman's knowledge of biology says. And, I mean, this critter lives underground and is rare enough that no one on Purgatory has seen one before. Being underground is a great thermal regulator.”

Meg chuckled. “Like a leaf pile.”

“So, we just need to screw with that heat difference,” Liam said. He rubbed his palms together, then cupped them around his mouth. “Oi! Tethis! Livianna!”

A moment later, the gobliness and the elf were standing at the edge of the library.

“Liam had an idea!” Meg shouted to Livianna. “You owe me coin, Liv.”

“I'll pay up when you admit Plato was wrong about everything,” Liv shouted back.

“That-” Meg spluttered. “That wasn't part of the bet!”

“I'm changing the bet,” Liv called back. “The parameters have changed – you can't stick with an old bet when the situation's changed.”

Meg clenched her hands, then glared at Liam, who was covering his mouth with one hand. Meg scowled. “Spartans. You can't trust them.”

Liam shook his head. “You slept with her.”

“Well, that's because she's incredibly attractive,” Meg said. “And most of the time, she's perfectly reasonable-”

“She tried to kill us when we first met,” Liam muttered.

“But this is just-” Meg continued, ignoring him.

Liam held up his hand, pausing her tirade for a moment. He called over: “Tethis, can you make a conduit spell through space via a physical object that is linked to another physical object?”

“They'd need to be made of the same stuff,” Tethis said, nodding. “And in a great deal of contact. It'd be better if said contact took place over a sympathetically relevant situation.” She stroked her chin. “What are we channeling?”

“Fire,” Liam said.

“O-kay,” Tethis said, her brow furrowing – visible even at this distance. “What are we using as a conduit?”

Liam slid his finger to his neck, then tugged off his crucifix. He held it up, and it glinted. In Purgatory, the cross had never transmuted from symbol of hideous torture to what Liam thought of it as – a symbol of hope, unity, forgiveness, sacrifice, the endless compassion of the Savior. All things worth wearing around one's neck. But it had gotten him attacked at least three times by people thinking he was some kind of wandering sadist – usually, they were folk whose family and loved ones had died nailed to a cross in one of the harsh punishments that the gods and kings of Purgatory meted out.

It was still gold.

Tethis' ears – a visible tell even at a distance – perked up. “But we don't have any gold over here!” she said.

Liam glanced at Meg. Meg arched an eyebrow.

“Yes, you do,” Liam called over.

Tethis' blush was bright enough to almost glow. “N-No, we don't.” She crossed her arms conspicuously over her chest.

“For the Gods' sake, woman, lives are at stake!” Meg called, her voice amused.

Several of the villagers who were sheltering on the library were looking at Tethis curiously – while Liv was covering her mouth, her shoulders shaking. Tethis looked completely miserable, then turned her back to as many villagers as possible. She tugged her shift up, squirmed, then turned back around, holding a pair of golden rings connected on a chain.

“You're paying to get this replaced!” she shouted.

“Of course, I am,” Liam said.

Meg whispered to him, sotto voce: “Think she hates you now?”

“No, no,” Liam said, shaking his head.

“What will we use for the fi-” Tethis started. Then she stopped. Her eyes widened and she almost dropped her gold chain off the roof. “Oh no, you don't, don't you dare!” She shouted, shaking her free fist at Liam.

“Now she hates me,” Liam murmured to Meg. Louder, he called back to Tethis. “Listen, Tethis, everything in that library can be replaced. The price of books has dropped to coppers since the printing press came out. Athena will pay for it, I'm sure.”

“But they're... they're...” Tethis spluttered. “They're books!”

“I know, I hate it too, but do we have any other choices?” Liam called over.

Liv stepped up beside Tethis, putting her hand on the shorter woman's shoulder. “There actually is a minor problem with us setting fire to a building we are currently standing on.”

“No,” Tethis said, shaking her head, her hand going to Liv's hand for a moment, squeezing her. “The channeling spell will dump the fire through the connective items. The fires go out – we just need to time it properly. The fire needs to get hot enough – the spell needs to be ready, and we can't set the fire while that thing is down there.”

Liam remembered the first horrifying hour after they fled into town. The monster bursting through the floor of the small tavern that they had come too. The shopkeep dragged screaming underneath as his daughter reached for him. He shuddered.

“Well,” Meg said, “She's got a point. What do we do?”

“We distract it,” Liam said, turning to face the townies. “All right, everyone! Let's get some ammunition!”

A few moments later, everyone was ready. Liv was at the side of the library's roof, rope in hands, the rest of the length held by several volunteer villagers. They would provide an anchor, while she swung around to land in the library's bottom floor and start setting the fires. The spell was being created – Tethis knelt in the center of a glowing sphere of geometric lines, her foci crystal in her hands. Years of practice had made most of her spells no longer require the crystal, but the extra power couldn't hurt.

Liam already felt his crucifix shivering with sympathetic magic. The connection felt sturdy enough that even someone as mystically inclined as him – read: amazingly little – could sense it. He remembered how Tethis' chain and his crucifix had met and smiled faintly. She might not have been as submissive as the woman who had inspired her to get the, ah, accoutrement, but she still enjoyed what it brought to the act of lovemaking.

Meg bounced from foot to foot, holding one of the many sandals. Other villagers had made throwing implements by balling up clothing, and they were waiting as well.

“Remember,” Liam said. “We need to time this – the distraction has to last.”

The villagers nodded.

“Ready!” Liv called out.

Tethis – being too focused on the spell – merely nodded. One of the villagers watching for just such a gesture, called across the way: “The little priest ready too!”

“She's a wizard, thank you very much!” Liam shouted. “She casts arcane-” He stopped himself. “Nevermind. Liv! Now!”

Liv swung herself forward and whipped through the window into the library. Liam threw the first sandal. It was shredded. Another was pressed to his hand and he threw it. It was shredded. Across the way, he could see light starting to bloom behind one window. Liv had fought as a warrior for Aries for decades before joining him, and he could see her experience at the less savory tasks of being a soldier hadn't left her. He threw another sandal.

It plopped onto the ground, unharmed.

“Oh shit,” Liam hissed. And before anyone could stop him, he ran forward and leaped off the side of the temple.

Introducing Uruk Press

Uruk Novellas

Uruk Press publish the best in fantasy and science fiction erotica and our Uruk Novellas range showcases the breadth of our catalogue. At approximately 30,000 words long and free on Kindle Unlimited, they are the perfect introduction for new readers. You can also follow us on Twitter and Tumblr to keep up to date on our latest titles.

A Fetch Job by Dragon Cobolt

Julianna has one simple goal: to be the best damn wizard at Forestdale Academy of Magical Sciences and Clerical Applications of Godly Powers. The only problem is the Six, a clique of mean girls led by Tabitha Sworles, "the biggest overachiever on campus and also the most frigid bitch I've ever had the displeasure of meeting", who are making her life a living hell.

So Juli does what any self-respecting wizard would do and summons a demon familiar to help her get even. But something goes wrong. Fetch is crude, rude, obnoxious, muscular, confident, hot as hell... and only three foot tall. Juli soon discovers that size isn't everything (except when it definitely is) and that revenge is a dish best served very, very hot.

A Fetch Job is a 32,000 word erotic novella featuring a teen wizard exploring her sexuality with men, women, toys, tentacles and, of course, a cocky little demon named Fetch. Expect magic, mayhem and multiple penetration. Free with Kindle Unlimited!

The Serpent's Kiss by Cyrano Johnson

Mrs Evangeline Stone is a celebrated young journalist in Victorian London. Against her family’s wishes, she sails across the Atlantic to Verderosa, the Black Zion, following rumours of White slavery. Verderosa is unique among the Dominions of the British Empire as a land where all men, White and Black, are truly equal. But this is no utopia. As Evie journeys deep into the seamy underbelly of Daltonville, she discovers dark secrets and even darker truths about herself.

The Serpent’s Kiss is a 40,000 word alt history novella inspired by classic Victorian pornography and tinged with the supernatural. Featuring self-discovery, willing submission, corporal punishment and White women being dominated by multiple Black men, it is a must for all fans of interracial erotica. Dare you taste the Serpent’s Kiss! Free with Kindle Unlimited!

Equinox by EC Revelle

Cris has everything a child of the ancient House of Vandalia could want: money, fine clothes, and a first-rate wizard’s education. There’s only one thing she lacks: the respect of her father, the richest man in Sworza. Her chance might have finally arrived when an enchanting seductress enlists her help in a dangerous quest. Dispatched to find the Dusk Crown, a relic of a bygone age, Cris might at last be able to secure her place in the family - as long as it isn’t all just a fool’s errand.

Jeza knows there’s more to life than Sted Chisa, a simple village on the Medez Plains, but he’ll never get the chance to find out if he’s going to be chief and shaman someday. That is until an alluring young witch stops by his mother’s house, recruiting him for a mission to enter the Twilit Tower, a sacred place of power. There’s just one catch: it sits on a great convergence of leylines, warded by forbidden magic. Life outside the Sted might end up being more than he bargained for.

The spring equinox swiftly approaches, and an ancient power sleeps fitfully. Cris and Jeza find themselves set to cross purposes by the oldest forces in the Realm, pushed into a conflict they don’t understand. Their paths may just lead them to a lost secret of the Early Days - if either of them survive.

Equinox is a 27,000 word erotic novella featuring forbidden romance, sexual temptation and mouthwateringly unrestrained group sex. Free with Kindle Unlimited!

Arms And Armor by FV Meyer

"Give me your strength in exchange for my beauty. Give me your strength in exchange for my beauty. Give me your strength..."

She could have settled for a usual life in her fishing village. She could have kept her name. But as the owner of an enchanted set of arms and armor, she instead went looking for glory as a wandering champion in far-off lands. However, her dreams soon dash against the hard shore of reality.

Wielding a club she knows only as "Kanabo" and wearing a set of armor with a past shrouded in mystery, she is gifted with supernatural powers in return for offering up her body. Half hero for her deeds and half heretic for dabbling with magic, she lives a hard life on the run from the white-robed inquisitors. But will her journey end in fame or infamy? Will her enchanted protectors be her salvation or her damnation? All she knows is that arms and armor are necessary to stay alive in a harsh world where corruption, zealotry and ruthlessness abound.

Arms And Armor is a 33,000 word erotic novella featuring a bisexual female protagonist caught in a destructive threesome with dominating supernatural forces. Free with Kindle Unlimited!

Uruk Press - Fantasy

For the best introduction to our fantasy range, check out our Sex & Sorcery anthology series:

Sex & Sorcery 3

"The Last Mage" by Dragon Cobolt - In the aftermath of an apocalyptic magical war, a wandering scavenger finds hope - and more - with the last surviving wizard.

"All-Mother" by Mak Long - Ancient beyond memory, the shrine of a forgotten goddess weaves together the fates of three women, who might be the salvation of their people.

"A Man Needs A Whore, So..." by Max Keith - Drinn and Cashel are on a vital mission for the Princess Raxillene, the exiled queen-in-waiting, and hundreds of lives hang in the balance. But first they need to make a quick visit to a brothel...

"The Ballard Of Little Bird" by Cyrano Johnson - Among the Faithful, those born Fae are called “Iteni”: the outcasts. For orphaned beauty Cailin this means a life of prostitution under the thumb of a sinister slumlord; a life that, with the aid of her companion bird-spirit Bana, she will risk everything to escape.

"Two Daggers" by Jaap Boekestein - A soldier and a witch cross a dozen worlds to free a backwards planet from a fearsome monster. But which of their weapons will prevail?

"Ice And Fire" by Ben Truman - A haughty female knight and a mischievous demoness set aside their differences to escape from a monster-filled dungeon.

"The Paledrake's Promise" by Nathan Ravenwood - Tael has strong feelings for his reptilian companion Janess and doesn't believe the rumors that she sleeps around. But when his marriage proposal goes awry, he'll have to come to terms with just how unfettered her sex life really is.

"The Manse Of Magister Revaine" by Jamie MacFrey - Having quelled an insurrection, the fearsome Magister Revaine is throwing a party to celebrate. Disguised as a courtesan for the party-goers entertainment, Vivean will have no problem getting close enough to kill the vicious dictator and take revenge for her home. The only problem: no one has ever seen the Magister’s face.

"Awakening" by Alana Melos - A young wizard faces her final test to awaken her powers and unlock her spiritual and sexual potential.

Sex & Sorcery 2

"Northern Oracle" by EC Revelle - Alone and near death, Varia is offered a vision of what might have been and a future that could still be. But can her body endure the Northern Oracle's price?

"A Harem Of Harpies" by Ian Saul Whitcomb - When aging mage Bron and barbarous jackal-man Chortle Bonegrinder encounter females most fowl in the badlands of a savage realm, more than feathers will be ruffled...

"The Uninvited Guest" by Elaine Rose - A beautiful widow, her mysterious guest, a first-time lesbian encounter - it's going to be one hell of a party!

"The Victor, The Spoils" by Jamie MacFrey - The Canians have always chosen their alpha males through the Dominance: ritual unarmed combat until one man is left standing. But Vel, the headstrong young leader of her tribe, is about throw tradition to the wind to make sure she gets the right man for the job.

"The Summoning" - Lilya Loring - Apprentice wizard Ekron defies his master and uses magic to summon his perfect lover. But is true love under his nose?

"Partners" by Ian Blackwood - Gordon and Elirel have been working together for years, ever since the elf saved him from a horde of goblins. He knows everything about his friend and comrade. Oh, except he's somehow failed to notice that she's a woman.

"Queen Takes Knight" by Belinda LaPage - In an ancient land of raven-haired, bronze-skinned warriors, Rose's red hair and freckles mark her as a pariah. Impossible to love, she will never feel the touch of a man, or so she believes until a stranger is brought to the prison where she tends the cells - a warrior from an alien land, his hair and skin like her own.

"The Dark Ones" by PT Winters - The appetite of the Dark Ones for corrupting virgins is legendary. But myths can be mistaken...

"A Shade's Choice" by Guinevere A Hart - An exclusive addition to the Hells Unleashed universe that reveals the darkly erotic history of Commander Finde, head of Ardyth'tol's most elite fighting force.

"A Thimble Of Sweet Honey" by Zoe Miller - As old loves rekindle and new ones burst into spectacular flame, conscientious faery Myna, carefree runt Kless, and a very lucky surprise guest settle in to enjoy a truly wonderful spring equinox.

Sex & Sorcery 1

"Born To The Forest" by AW Freyr - Deep in the forest, Aelan encounters a woman growing in an ash tree. Has he finally found another of his kind?

"Elvish Inquisition" by Victoria Arius - Pain and pleasure blur in a world of religious persecution and unrestrained passion where a young elf must uncover a dark conspiracy.

"Norn's Cavern" by EC Revelle - A bold adventurer dares to enter Norn's cavern to slay a monster but finds all is not what it seems.

"Queen's Gambit" by Belinda LaPage - Pride comes before a fall for a rapacious nobleman bent on domination.

"Dark Wood" by DA King - The fairies of Fair Wood turn foul as the wicked Queen Morgana corrupts the land.

"The Troop" by FV Meyer - The newest recruit shows her love for her fellow troopers as they seek rest and recuperation during the war of the chase.

"Judgment's A Bitch" by Guinevere A Hart - Introducing Grand Judicar Galatea in a standalone story set in the same world as The Lady Of Dawn's Light series, for fans and newcomers alike.

“Paying Off A Contract” by John Evans - An exclusive extract from the forthcoming fifth book in the legendary Adventures Of Pervikar series.

You can also explore our whole catalogue:

Amulet – literary erotica. For those who are turned on by plot, prose and character.

Arrow – sugar and spice and all things nice. For those who want grand romance, steamy sex and happily ever afters.

Broadsword – strictly hardcore. For those who want larger than life heroes and heroines, epic escapism and lots and lots of sex.

Amulet

Dark Water by AW Freyr

Fencing Academy

Destitute and alone, Lyza Dunwall returns to the city of her birth with one thought on her mind: vengeance. But when her fortunes change and she is enrolled in the prestigious Sara Sunderland Academy of Fencing, she soon finds the world is more complicated when you’re rubbing shoulders with the likes of the Duchess Adriana, the most powerful girl in the world. Seduced by the lifestyle of the Rotham elite, Lyza must reconcile her competing desires or die trying. Meanwhile, the Weeping Maiden stalks the streets, revolution is in the air and the malevolent River Blackwater flows slowly past the living and the dead.

Fencing Academy is the darkly seductive debut from fresh talent AW Freyr. The start of a major new fantasy series, it begins the captivating Lyza Dunwall’s remarkable journey of moral, political and sexual awakening against a backdrop of murder, necromancy and swordplay. For fans of the erotic intrigue of Jacqueline Carey and the verbal cut and thrust of Scott Lynch.

Duel To The Death

Duels, assassinations attempts, political intrigue; Adriana graced front pages with fresh scandal each day.

Adriana Challette I, Duchess of Rotham, is in grave danger. Her friend and classmate Lyza Dunwall has revealed herself an enemy, and her rivals rush to take advantage. In an abandoned factory a haphazard alliance is born between new money and old magic, intent on restoring a forgotten covenant. Meanwhile, a father's rebel legacy bears rotten fruit, and a revolution is reborn.

Lyza herself is drawn into the darkest corners of the Rotham underworld in pursuit of revenge. Who are her true friends and who are those merely seeking to use her as a pawn? She must navigate these dangerous currents, whilst coming to terms with the secret of her own past.

As the restless dead seek their own restitution, uncaring for what the living pay, the city becomes a maelstrom, and in the eye lies the rivalry between Adriana and Lyza. The outcome of their enmity could put Rotham to the torch.

The Squab Fiends by Victoria Arius

A devilishly erotic blend of history and fantasy, The Squab Fiends is the tale of a sinister and perverted conspiracy which reaches the highest levels of Victorian society.

John Maginn, an aspiring writer and dilettante is exiled to India and crippled in battle as a punishment for one debauch too far. In the depths of disgrace, he is ensnared by the hypnotic Rani of Jhansi, a succubus who feeds on desire and who ties him to her ends by fuelling his addiction to opium. It is only when John faces the abyss, that salvation is offered by the mysterious Lunar Society, who offer to rebuild his leg and return his soul. Will he ever be whole again?

Elizabeth Herbert, an alluring widow with fortune and connections, is as free as any woman can be in Victorian England. While searching for her old lover Maginn, she discovers an appetite for new experiences, including adoration of the fairer sex and sado-masochism. But will she find true love and freedom, or be enslaved once more?

Damodar Rao, prepared to rule as a prince, instead finds himself indebted to a whorehouse in London. To pay his way, he learns to excel at pleasing both women and men and while honing his talents mixes with the highest in society. His love for John and Elizabeth masks the dark magic and violence running in his blood. Quick tempered but charming, where do his allegiances really lie?

Arrow

Hells Unleashed by Guinevere A. Hart

With Good Intent

As a young elf raised among humans, Céde just wanted to be normal. But when strange new powers emerge, marking her as a sorcerer, “normal” is forever beyond her reach. With her dark and sullen guardian Varrin and her stalwart half-orc companion Jorak, she journeys across forbidden lands to join others like her at the magical academy known as the Spire. There, they will learn to use their goddess-given power and prepare for war against an ancient and terrible enemy.

All the while, the demon god known as the Lord of Hordes bides his time. As celestial bodies align in convergence, a gate between worlds will open to allow his armies through to join him in plundering the world of Velith. Will Céde and her friends be strong enough to face the hordes and save their planet, or will the world of Velith be destroyed in the chaos as the Hells are unleashed? With Good Intent is the first book in the three-part Hells Unleashed series.

Bells And Buckets

Elf Céde and half-orc Jorak are young and in love and just want a normal life. But life in the magic academy known as the Spire is far from normal. Céde must come to terms with being a powerful sorceress and become the leader that is her destiny. Meanwhile Jorak must choose between becoming a master blacksmith or joining the Shades, an elite military outfit. With all these competing demands, can they find time for each other?

And time is the last thing they have. The Lord of Hordes is tightening his grip on the kingdom of Ardyth'tol. How long before he moves against the Spire and all Céde and Jorak hold dear? Bells And Buckets continues the epic fantasy romance begun in With Good Intent. The Hells Unleashed trilogy will conclude with Devil To Pay.

The Lady Of Dawn's Light by Guinevere A. Hart

A powerful, erotic adventure series for fans of romance and epic fantasy alike, now available in a single omnibus edition.

Hope's Awakening

Adri, a light-hearted and affectionate elf, is loved by everyone she meets. Even the gods are moved by the expanding radiance of her spirit. So she has no idea why someone wants to kill her. On top of that, her mother and the emperor are missing and no one seems able to do a thing about it. While those around her are tempted to despair, Adri’s faith is enough to propel her forward. Through it all, she is challenged by her love for Krellyn, a brooding dark-elf with a past darker than his flesh. Is her hope enough to save her family, the empire, and maybe even Krellyn?

Hope’s Ascension

Adri and Krellyn are now happily married and living a life of domestic bliss with their daughter Jubilee. But dark-elf Krellyn’s past won’t leave him alone. Two thousand years ago his cause was betrayed and Elelmin, the god of the high-elves, was killed by the locust-headed demon known as the Prince of Winds. The land was sundered, Elelmin’s soul was shattered and Krellyn was caught in the cross-fire. Now the Prince of Winds wants to finish what he started. Krellyn will do whatever it takes to protect his family but for them to survive, Adri must ascend to her true calling.

Broadsword

Dragon Jade Chronicle by Jamie MacFrey

The ancient Guild of Sorcerers is weakening and, at their lowest moment, their oldest enemies, the barbaric Dragon Clans, have launched an invasion of the Metropolises of the East. And this time the Clans are winning.

Pol Burr doesn't know he's a warlock until he accidentally saves the life of a knight in green armor. Lady Kiera vai Ullan was born to be noble warrior but finds herself captivated by her scoundrel saviour. Brought together through unlikely circumstances, the mismatched pair develop an equally unlikely attraction. But falling in love might be easier that staying alive, especially when they hold the key to defeating the Dragon Clans once and for all.

Dragon Jade Chronicle is a 160,000 word fantasy novel combining sorcerers and sex, princesses and passion, legends and love. With scorching sex scenes, breakneck pace and a surprising amount of heart, this erotic adventure is a must for all epic fantasy fans.

The Adventures Of Pervikar by John Evans

The classic erotic epic fantasy series from John Evans is now available for the first time in a new and definitive four volume edition.

Pervikar

Pervikar Devon is just an average farm-boy. Oh, except for the fact he is a half-ogre who stands seven and a half feet tall and has green hair. One day Per accidentally incurs the wrath of the queen by protecting two young women from the advances of a corrupt baron, and is forced to flee her assassins.

So begin Per’s adventures. Leaving his home far behind, he sets out to find fortune, fame and female companionship. As he journeys across the strange, magical world of Provost, he encounters orcs and goddesses, mages and ghosts, and even a dragon. Along the way, he learns to be a leader and a lover, and using all that nature has endowed him with, rights a lot of wrongs and beds a lot of women. Per gets his intelligence and compassion from his human mother, and his strength and… size from his ogre father.

The Rescue Of The Queen

Perikar Devon’s adventures have taken him from one side of the world to the other. He’s learned much but lost everything so, tired and weary, he returns to the Capitol in search of his friends. But before he can find them, he witnesses the kidnap of Queen Shara – the woman who tried to have him killed.

Knowing he will be unfairly blamed for her disappearance, Per resolves to rescue her. She almost murdered him, now he must save her life! Heading out of the city, he starts a long journey that takes him from a magistrate’s perverted dungeon to an orgy in a far off dwarven fortress. Will he be able to must fulfill a prophesy and overcome powerful sex magic to rescue the queen?

Karina's Quest

Karina Devon hasn’t seen her son Pervikar for over a year, ever since Queen Shara tried to have him killed. Then, out of the blue, she receives a summons from Per’s ogre father, Gar. He tells her that Per must take part in the ritual of neccar, where he must mate with every woman he has ever had sex with. If he fails to complete the ritual, the ogre god Ahhspah will take his soul. Unfortunately, Per has been a busy boy and has sown his seed across the world of Provost. So Karina must set off on a quest to reunited him with his past loves. All of them. Then there is the small matter of finding her son.

The Ritual Of Neccar

Pervikar’s adventures are almost over. Once an innocent farm-boy, the half-ogre has grown into a noble warrior. He has faced gods and ghosts, dragons and dwarves, mages and monsters. He has even taken Queen Shara, the most powerful woman in the world and once his greatest enemy, to bed. Now he has assembled her and his other lovers to take place in the ritual of neccar – the sacred ritual that will see him take on the mantle of his ogre heritage and truly become a man.

But first his mother Karina must recount how she ventured into the underworld itself to bring back a demoness and a dead woman to play their part in Per’s future. She must navigate pirates and foreign courts before entering the nine hells. Along the way, she slakes her thirst for battle with her axe and her lust for sex with her body. The end is in sight but she must confront her biggest challenge yet: being turned into a man!

Morgana by DA King

Morgana of the Black Moon. Harbinger of Hell, Ransacker of the Righteous, Violator of Virgins. Her titles number as many as her sins, her infamous cruelty only matched by her unsurpassed beauty, renowned and feared throughout the land for her mastery of sorcery and seduction.

But, dear reader, she was not always so. Before she enshrouded the kingdom in darkness, before she forged the Black Knight, before she was Morgana of the Black Moon, she was… Morgana. Simply Morgana. Born from a humble coven of simple means, named after one of the greatest witches in history, the young Morgana began her tutelage under the great Voroven, the oldest living disciple of Merlin himself! This is her story…

DA King is a writer and painter who favors pulp sci-fi and fantasy, a baroque aesthetic and erotic transformations akin to those seen in cheesy 1980s horror movies. Morgana, a tongue-in-cheek tale of evil, good and very large breasts, is his first novel.

Uruk Press - Science Fiction

Space Princess by Cyrano Johnson

The galaxy is full of wonder and adventure, but it can get cold and lonely in the depths of space. That's why the gorgeous ladies of Space Princess Entertainment are on a mission of pleasure. No challenge is too big, no planet too distant and no party too wild! Let love rule among the stars!

The Fourth Rule

Captain Titania Hollander is ecstatic to have been put in charge of the S.S. Ecstasy, spreading the Space Princess message across the galaxy. Dressed in her regulation bikini, she knows that she and her crewgirls can take anything that life throws their way. But their first mission to Kathol IV is no cakewalk. The Universal Broadcast Network seems like innocent entertainment for the planet's television loving populace but with Golden Week approaching, Tania and the rest of the S.S. Ecstasy soon discover the network is hiding dark and degrading secrets.

Ill-Met By Moonlight

Dr. Naomi Bell, Chief Medical Officer of the S.S. Ecstasy, is ecstatic to be reunited with her Academy mentor, the eminent scientist Dr. Karl Cullen. It is a reunion that promises sexual and scientific breakthrough until the sudden arrival of a nude and threateningly hot alien woman on the ship. Haughty and naive, she introduces herself as Princess Arwyn and claims to be a Faerie, the legendary creatures of Earth mythology.

But is Arwyn as naive as she seems? It is not long until she has Cullen and the rest of the men onboard the Ecstasy under her thumb. It is up to Bell, Captain Titania Hollander and the rest of the Space Princess officers to defeat Arwyn and her diabolical companion Oberon.

The Pegasus Run

Journeying to Pegasus VI to entertain the crowds at the Pegasus Run, the galaxy's greatest space race, should be a cakewalk for the girls of the S.S. Ecstasy. But Captain Hollander and her crew hadn't counted on their hated rivals, Galactic Queen Fantasia, trying to steal the contract out from under their noses. Hollander knows that Captain Mina Starks will do anything to degrade and humiliate her and the other Space Princesses so this is going to be one hell of a dance-off.

But that turns out to be the least of Hollander's worries. Soon she is enmeshed in a huge conspiracy involving the Jek, the bestial leader of Pegasus VI, Duke Khaga of the evil Khandai empire and the upper echelons of Space Princess Entertainment itself. Suddenly, losing a dance-off doesn't seem so bad. Will the crew be able to use their bodies and their minds to survive or will they end up subjugated and enslaved?

Summerland Blues

The Summerland should be a paradise - a resort planet designed by one of history's greatest world-architects, Kan “Sender” Matsuhara. No one has heard from "the Master" in decades and he was assumed dead, but now the crew of the S.S Ecstasy will be the first people to visit his masterpiece.

Time has not been kind to Matsuhara, though; and if he is hiding secrets, then even darker things lurk in the idyllic landscape of the Summerland. A world that at first seems to make dreams come true and sexual fantasies a reality soon turns into a nightmare for crew and passengers alike. But this isn't the first time Captain Titania Hollander has been in a sticky situation, and you can bet your bottom dollar the Space Princess girls are going to come out fighting.

Days Of The Bacchae

The S.S. Ecstasy is hosting a peace summit between the United Space Alliance and their old enemies, the Yalkans. When Lieutenant Nuku Vitani flies into a sexual frenzy at a formal dinner, everyone assumes it is her Ustani heritage and the catgirl has unexpectedly gone into heat. But something more sinister is afoot: Captain Titania Hollander's crew are being deliberately infected.

Soon the Space Princess crewgirls, who have so often found strength through submission, are transformed into femdom furies! Will Chief Flynn and the men of the S.S. Ecstasy make it through alive and intact? Can Captain Hollander and her girls overcome their nymphomania to unravel a conspiracy that threatens to trigger another war?

Caution: The Space Princess series contains extreme sexual content and graphic depiction of mind control and otherwise dubious consent. Never fear! The crew of the S.S. Ecstasy find strength even in submission and always triumph over adversity.

The Boys Of Colony Theta by Martin Drax

The Andrasta Y virus caused only flu-like symptoms in women but in males it was invariably fatal. By the year 2457, the population had declined from a peak of over 7 billion down to just over 2 billion people and there were just three men for every ten women. So it was that what had once been a man’s world had now become a woman’s world.

Danny, Harry and Jim were all born on 15 September 2439 in Breeding Colony Theta. Now, on their eighteenth birthday, they are about to embark on their journey to the outside world. A world in which they will be second-class citizens.

These are their stories…

Separate Ways: Danny's Story

Danny is given a government grant and told he will be sponsored to help him adjust to society. But when he is released from Colony Theta he discovers he has been sold to a business woman and her twin daughters. Kept naked in their apartment, he must serve his mistresses both domestically and sexually. Follow Danny's story as he learns about the strange and disturbing matriarchy of 25th Century Britain.

Separate Ways: Harry's Story

Most men wouldn't complain about having a larger than average penis. But Harry isn't a man, he's a male, and the size of his malehood means that when he leaves Colony Theta, he is forced to become a Consort, a Government-sponsored prostitute.

Trained for a life of sexual servitude, his virginity is put up for sale to the highest bidder and he is publicly deflowered. Follow Harry's story as he learns about the strange and disturbing matriarchy of 25th Century Britain.

The Boys Of Colony Theta features female domination, male submission, bondage, restraint, corporal punishment, clothed female nude male (CFNM), chastity, orgasm denial and CBT.

Introducing Biggest Blade Books

Biggest Blade Books have partnered with Uruk Press to bring you the best in contemporary erotica.

A Real Trouper by Court Franklin

Davey shouldn't have anything to worry about. His girlfriend Tucker is a hipster actress with feminist leanings. There is no way she'd be interested in a meathead like Mitch, one of the bros in her Crossfit class. Or so he thinks until she sees an intimate photo Mitch texts her.

Jealousy is sickening, painful, hurtful, but that passion I'd felt… That was something I needed to feel again.

Could it actually be that Davey wants to be cuckolded? Hooked on the thrill of erotic humiliation, he encourages Tucker to push the boundaries of their relationship. But after one particularly revealing performance with her comedy troupe, things start to get out of hand.

A Real Trouper is a 23,000 word erotic novella involving group sex, swinging and proof that size really does matter. Free with Kindle Unlimited!

Controlling Interest by Court Franklin

She made deals fall apart because men couldn’t keep it in their pants around her. She caused boyfriends to screw up at work because they’d do anything her pretty mouth said. She brought rich old men to the brink of a heart attack because they wanted a piece of her pretty young self so badly. And for that she needed to be punished. And she finally found herself a well-hung bully willing to give her what she so deserved.

Reagan was the belle of the ball and her fiance Brandon loved showing her off at his office Christmas party. But when he is called away on urgent business, he is forced to leave Reagan at the tender mercies of a bunch of alpha male financiers. She doesn't think she has ever met them before but they seem to know some intimate secrets about her - secrets that will ultimately unravel her self-control.

Controlling Interest is a 26,000 word novella featuring a hot young fiance cheating with multiple partners and submitting to total male dominance.

Moving In by Ashley Romero

Ambitious young Jill is so excited to be finally moving in with her laid back boyfriend Zack. But then it turns out his douchebag ex-roommate has sub-let his half of the apartment. Worse, it is being rented by Brad, the obnoxious jerk who deflowered Jill's best friend on prom night and then never called.

Jill wants Brad, his ego and his motorbike gone. But gradually his alpha male charm starts to rub her the right way. And the apartment walls are awfully thin. Perhaps Zack shouldn't have teased her about being such a prude because Jill is thinking all sorts of nasty thoughts.

Moving In is a 39,000 word erotic novella featuring a good girl indulging her inner slut with a bad boy who is bigger than her boyfriend in every respect. Is this just lust or is Jill falling in love? Free with Kindle Unlimited!

Gym Wife by Max Keith

Scott Herrick isn't a pervert; he's just a married, middle aged guy who wants to stay in shape. It's not his fault the Stair Steppers are positioned right in front of his workout area. It's not his fault that women in the gym love to wear yoga pants. And it certainly isn't his fault that Becky Lansing's ass is so goddamn irresistible.

When a wardrobe malfunction moves the pair from nodding acquaintances to gym buddies, it also lights a spark. Scott and Becky aren't getting what they need at home so they decide to embrace their inner perverts and explore each others bodies.

Gym Wife is a 31,000 word erotic novella about two people who love their spouses but satisfy their lust outside their marriage, featuring first time oral and anal. Free with Kindle Unlimited!

Fool Me Once by Max Keith

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

Liz Lerner wishes she could get over Jason Trench. Bad enough that she's been having an affair with one of her husband's sales colleagues. Worse that she has allowed him to dominate her body, using it as his no holes barred personal plaything. But it is intolerable that he has dominated her soul as well.

When Jason moves to San Francisco, it seems like Liz might finally break free of his influence. But that is before she discovers his position is being filled by his protege, the devastatingly attractive Elliot Dolan. Is history about the repeat itself?

Fool Me Once is a 39,000 word novella featuring a mature, married woman who has succumbed to sexual domination at the hands of a well hung bully but just can't stop cheating. Free with Kindle Unlimited!

Wide Open by Max Keith

His tongue lay there in a broth of saliva, a long flaccid snake pushing nervously against his lower central incisors. His eyes stayed open just long enough to meet mine as I felt them go wide. Shit, but that was a long one! A tongue like that, I could do things with.

Kim Collins's boyfriend has been away with his hockey team for weeks and she is horny as hell. So when new patient Mike Tawney walks in and opens wide for his dental appointment, she knows it is only a matter of time before she opens wide for him, regardless of little details like his pregnant wife. Kim is about to get her itch well and truly scratched.

Open Wide is a 39,000 word erotic novella featuring an aggressive female protagonist who gets what she wants. Repeatedly. Free with Kindle Unlimited!

IOU by Max Keith

A chance encounter in an art gallery leaves Eric smitten with Theresa, a friend of his wife's friend. Later, when their flirting turns serious and she offers to show him her ass but is interrupted by her husband before she can seal the deal. So now Theresa has an IOU that needs paying. Instead, she gets deeper into sexual debt until there is only one way out.

IOU is a 36,000 word erotic novella featuring two people who love their spouses but satisfy their lust outside their marriage. Playful, funny and very sexy. Free with Kindle Unlimited!

Frenemies by Max Keith

Back in college Tracey Cusumano was known as Peanut. As in "peanut butter", as in in "easy to spread". She’d been famous all up and down Greek Row for the uniquely indiscriminate and open-minded way in which she viewed the male of the species. Those days should be safely behind her but then a chance encounter brings her face-to-face with Jenn Serafini, the coldly correct sorority sister who’d beaten Tracey for President, and reopens old wounds.

Frenemies is a 39,000 word erotic novella about a suburban soccer mom with a suppressed inner slut and a simmering rivalry that is about to boil over. Free with Kindle Unlimited!