The Cross Guard

Purgatory Wars: Book Three

Dragon Cobolt

Uruk Press

Uruk Press

Great Britain

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© Dragon Cobolt 2017

All rights reserved.

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

The Blood Groove (forthcoming)

Other works

A Fetch Job

"The Last Mage" in Sex & Sorcery 3

Also from Dragon Cobolt

The Cross Guard

Prologue

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Part Two

Five

Six

Seven

Epilogue

Introducing Uruk Press

Uruk Novellas

Uruk Press - Fantasy

The Cross Guard

Prologue

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 his 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 Stonespeaker – 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 as they shredded 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, Liviana – had been sent to Troy's Folly 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 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 Liviana, 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! Liviana!”

A moment later, the gobliness and the elf were standing at the edge of the library.

“Liam had an idea!” Meg shouted to Liviana. “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 right – 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. This was one of the times where Liam had a few moments to think about how much of an idiot he was. The ground was about twenty feet away and rushed up towards him with frightening swiftness. Memories of falling before, of falling when he first arrived on Purgatory, of falling when Meg crashed while carrying him away from Aries soldiers, of falling when a malfunctioning Ancient teleportation shrine had dropped him several feet to the right of a city's walls.

Then there were no memories and just the physics of hitting, rolling, and coming up onto his side. His body felt battered and bruised and completely soaked with mud – but it was the mud that kept him from feeling more than just idiocy. Adrenaline burned away the remainder of the pain as he forced himself to his feet and started to run, his bare feet slapping on the soaked ground. He felt his feet skittering underneath him with every step and held out his arms, yelping as he skidded forward and almost slammed into the building built beside the temple.

Then the monster, drawn away from the library, burst from the ground behind him. Here, the mud saved Liam once more. Rather than emerging cleanly, as it had yesterday, the monster had to force itself through the mud. Its tentacles got gummed up on clods of soaked earth, and Liam had time to yank his blade free and slash at one. The tentacle bent with the impact, but razor sharp steel and Tuatha enchantment both sent the tentacle tip to the ground with a spray of black blood. The monster screeched and surged out of the ground more, exposing most of its hideous greyish bulk.

Liam rolled to the side as a spray of crystal shards filled the air that he had been occupying moments before. He felt his sword Delenn slip from his palms and slap into the mud. “Fucking-” Liam grunted, reaching for it.

A tentacle wrapped around his leg.

With a sound not unlike a drum being struck by the world's most enthusiastic pit crew, a series of javelins pinned the tentacle to the muddy ground. The creature wrenched itself around and the javelins and tentacle both came free with a spray of mud. Liam kicked his foot free, scrambling backwards on his palms and knees. Behind the monster, he could see the library burning.

Liv on the roof, waving her arms in a V.

“Now, now, now!” she shouted.

Liam grabbed at his crucifix and felt it buzzing. His arm rang, as if it had been touching an electrical current. He yanked the chain off and threw it at the creature's maw. The golden cross tumbled forward, then vanished into blackness. A moment later, Liam turned around and flung himself behind the corner of the temple.

A white flash of light and heat washed around the corner. Smoke filled the air. The ground shook and the temple he was leaning against shuddered in its foundations. Liam slowly peeked his head around the corner and saw that the monster and a good chunk of the center of Troy's Folly's main road had been turned roughly inside out. Mud was spread outwards along a circular wave pattern, forming an immense crater that was painted with black blood and globular chunks of orange and white organs – each one streaked and smeared with viscera. The ribcage of the beast spread outwards in a nearly perfect circle, fanning out around the epicenter of the blast.

Then the first chunk splatted onto the ground beside his foot and the cheering that his ringing ears could barely hear turned into shrieks of shock and disgust and laughter.

For at least the children could be entertained by the bright colors of the orange and green and black gore that rained from the heavens.

* * *

Athena bowed her head fractionally to Liam, Liv, Tethis and Meg. The goddess was as short as Liam had ever seen one of the mysterious beings that ruled Purgatory, barely coming up to his shoulder. Despite this, the goddess of wisdom and weaving managed to exude an almost solid aura of physical danger. It wasn't the raw strength of personality that made Sobek such a likable son of a bitch, nor the tree-ripping might of that had made Thor's one appearance in Liam's life so memorable. Rather, it reminded him of the supreme confidence of a craftswoman with decades of practice and hands gnarled but not twisted by age.

It just so happened that one of Athena's crafts was murdering people with a sharp hunk of bronze.

“You have my thanks, Liam of Earth,” she said, foregoing the booming, echoing voice that some gods used when they wanted to be impressive. “You and your companions have once again rid Purgatory of a terrible threat.”

“It's the least we could do, ma'am,” Meg said. “Though, we did lose, uh, some possessions.” She glanced at Liam.

“Yes,” Athena said, nodding at Liam's chest. “The symbol of the Christian god.”

“It's all right,” Liam said. His voice felt heavy but he squared his shoulders and tried to ignore the twinge of guilt that sparked in him.

Meg made a quiet, inquisitive sound.

Athena, though, simply shrugged. “As you wish. The payment that your patron requested is being loaded on your ship.”

“Thank you,” Liam said, bowing to Athena.

Dismissed from the goddess' presence, the four of them started down the stairs that led up to her primary sanctum. New Athens looked like everything Liam had imagined from Meg's descriptions. Broad streets, bright white marble buildings, and an abundance of learned, wise looking people who hurried to and fro on important business. The largest area of the city that wasn't dedicated to the worship of New Athens' trifecta of gods was an immense marketplace and harbor, which was stuffed with as many ships as Olimurias.

No wonder these guys almost won the war with Sobek, Liam thought. Even with him having the defensive advantage and the terrain advantage.

“Liam, are you okay?” Meg asked.

“Huh?” Liam looked at her. The two of them reached the boardwalk that wound its way from the foot of Athena's temple to the central forum that was built into the middle of the three temples. There, the faint sound of elaborate music and the creak of a crane could be heard. Looking over, Liam saw that a crane was swinging a man in an ornate mask over the center of the forum's stage. His arms were spread and he held a sculpted metal lightning bolt in one hand.

“You're just going to go sans cross?” Meg asked.

“It is the symbol of your god,” Liv said, sniffing. “If I wasn't a walking representation of everything Aries represents - shut up Meg.” Meg closed her mouth, looking cross at being thwarted. “I'd need one.”

“You don't have a symbol of Apollo,” Liam said, frowning at Meg.

Meg snorted, quietly. “I haven't worshiped Apollo since I met you.”

Liam arched an eyebrow.

“Don't let it go to your head,” Meg said, frowning. “But I've never really been a god worshiping type. I'm more interested in natural philosophy and- and you are changing the subject.” She prodded his chest.

“Okay, fine!” Liam threw up his hands. “The answer? I'm sick of people assuming I'm some psychopath because I'm wearing a still in use method of execution and torture around my neck.”

Meg narrowed her eyes. Before she could continue, Liam turned and started to walk along the boardwalk, one hand grabbing onto the leather strap that slung around his shoulder and hip, which held a small sack of his belongings against his back. Meg moved to follow him, but didn't press him. Liam's slight scowl turned into a slight smile and he took Meg's hand with his free one. Together, they walked through the city and Liam took great pride in ignoring the scandalized looks that several of the inhabitants shot his way. He could almost read their thoughts.

Showing affection? To a woman? In public?

Yeah, eat me, Liam thought.

Meg never walked small, but he did notice that she fanned out her wings extra here, thrust out her chest more, and explicitly strutted. The tut tutting intensified and Liam's smile got wider.

Coming to the docks, they found their ship readily enough. Vulkis Shieldbreaker, who had quietly become their de facto ferryman the instant that he had seen how much treasure they regularly transported across the Platonic Sea, waved at them.

“Welcome back, oh conquering heroes!” he said, his hands on his hips. “Thu here thought you would never come back.”

“Vulkis!” Thu snapped. Thu'Chan was Vulkis' second in command and personal scribe. He was also, like several people Liam had met, part human and part animal. In this case, his head was that of a long-billed ibis bird, while his shoulders were covered with a fine dusting of feathers, leaving the rest of him nearly human looking. The beak didn't stop him from speaking clearly as he lectured his captain. “I didn't expect them to die – I expected you to leave after they were a day overdue or the instant a pretty girl distracted you.”

“And once again, my luck pays out.” Vulkis preened. He knelt down to caress the large chest that one of Athena's servants set down on his deck. That, plus the trade goods he had purchased in New Athens, left the surface of Vulkis' ship filthy with treasure. But he didn't seem to be concerned, despite the increasing boldness of lizardman raiders and pirate attacks.

Instead, he simply started to dance a jig. “Gold, gold, oh gold!”

“You can at least try to pretend you're happy we are okay, you Aesir lunatic,” Liam said.

Vulkis, in liue of responding, threw his arms around Liam and hug him so tightly that Liam felt like his spine might shatter. For all that Vulkis had become a merchant, he had still started his life as a huscral, a shield-bearing, ax-throwing warrior for the Norse gods and Norse kings. And he kept himself honed. That was a big reason why he wasn't concerned about pirates or raiders, really.

Once he let Liam go, Vulkis went about his duties of shouting his crew into motion. With the ease of veterans, they cast off and the ship began to head out of New Athens harbor and towards the tiny island that sat in the harbor's mouth. The lighthouse there was nothing to the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria, and served an entirely different purpose. On Purgatory, the curvature of the world prevented the danger of running aground at night, as the ground rose upwards before you.

Rather, the lighthouse was built with great mirrors to focus the light upwards, angled towards the other side of Purgatory. At night, the fire pit could be covered and uncovered and the city on the opposite side of Purgatory could read the flashes out into a message.

“That's still something that blows me away,” Liam said, pointing at the tower. He looked at Meg and grinned. “I'd have never thought of that.”

“I thought all us Purgatorians were fools waiting for an Earthican to bring us out of the light,” Meg teased, her eyes glinting. Liam grinned at her, turning around and leaning against the railing of the ship.

“So, question,” he said. “Who does New Athens talk too?”

Meg laughed. “Who else? The City of the Dead Gods.” She blinked. “Shit, right; not a native. The City of the Dead Gods is one of the biggest cities in Purgatory - and the only neutral one.”

“As if!” Liam scoffed. “There can't just be one.”

Meg waved one hand. “Oh, there are independent towns and villages, but this is a city. No god rules it, just craftsmen and merchants in a free council that sells to everyone equally.” She smiled.

Liam looked up. “That...” He paused. “That sounds like a fantastic place for a vacation.”

Part One

One

The City of the Dead Gods boasted that it had fifty thousand craftsmen and tonight, the flames of their forges sent ashes trailing into the sky on dozens of black columns of smoke. The clangor of hammers on anvils rang through the streets, almost as loud as the cries of misery from the forest of woe that had sprouted along the road leading to the front gate.

The City of the Dead Gods had built bronze tools and charming clockwork machines that had aped the life of wild creatures. Birds that could flap their wings, turn their heads, stand. They had blown glass in many colors, using the exotic sands dredged from the vast Basilisk Desert that spread between the Barrier Mountains in this part of Purgatory.

The City of God – the city that had come into being with the arrival of Brax and his army – built nothing but weapons and death.

Brax felt his heart breaking as he looked at those forge-fires. He clenched his clawed fingers on the railing of the balcony that sat at the southern edge of the palatial estate that the Free Lord of the City had inhabited before Brax's men had dragged him and his family to the forest. There, Brax had quietly ordered his scaleguard – his most trusted soldiers – to slit their throats after planting their crucifixes. The Free Lord hadn't deserved the slow death, and his family were even more innocent than he.

“Brax,” a scratchy, echoing voice came from the manor behind him. Brax, if he had a thousand years, could not have described the sound of God. The only being on Purgatory who could have put a name to the warbling, repeating, jumping voice that God spoke with was thousand of miles away and Brax had already tried to have him killed three times. Liam Vanderbilt of Earth would have immediately known what God sounded like.

“Brax – Brax - Br-aaaaa-x -ax -ax,” the voice sang out. “Come to – me. Me!”

Brax had long since learned to translate the twisting words of God into something more straightforward. He got ready to do that again as he turned from the view and strode in through the small office that the Free Lord had once used to administrate his city. The lobby beyond the office had been turned into the resting place of God: cushions and pillows and mattresses and heaped blankets had been piled around God's crackling body, while dozens of nude slave girls tottered around him nervously – laying down the strange sustenance that God consumed. He eschewed fine wine and fine meat in favor of refined copper, sand that had been melted down and ground into powder, and lumps of crystal carved from the rhino-like crystalbacks that made the deep jungles so dangerous.

Several of those crystals vanished down God's throat as he chewed.

“Brax,” he said – Brax mentally abridging his actual rambling, repeating sentence. “The weapon production. How goes it?”

Brax shrugged his golden shoulders, his tail lashing from side to side. “My Lord, there are fifteen thousand swords, thirty thousand spears, shields enough for each man.”

“You had them counted properly?” God asked.

“Yes,” Brax said. “Under pain of death, as you ordered.”

God picked up a crystal and worried it between a finger, as a man might fiddle with a grape. “Hurm.” He popped it into his mouth and chewed. A slave stepped forward and grabbed the empty bowl, practically sprinting from the room in her haste to get away from the monster that had come to her city. Brax wondered what her position had been before the army had clapped a slave collar around her throat. The City of the Dead Gods hadn't been immune to the cancerous touch of slavery, but it had mainly weighted that burden onto criminals.

But God had made his most lenient punishment enslavement. And while the city had worshiped no god above others, that hadn't created a town of atheists. Quite the opposite. Before God and Brax, the primary cause of civil violence and riot in the city had been religious violence.

Now?

“That's slow,” God said. “We should have easily half again as many weapons. What is going on?” His crackling, buzzing eyes turned to affix Brax. There had been a time where looking into those whirlpools of power had frozen Brax with fright. Those days had long since passed. Brax looked back with the normal bland expression he kept around his God. “Sabotage?”

Yes, of course it is sabotage, you great village idiot, you walked into this town and have been killing people and forcing them to worship you instead of their actual gods, Brax thought in a deep, carefully locked part of his mind. It was the same part of his mind that dwelled with the Princess Asurya. A part of his mind that had room for laying in the palace gardens while she laid beside him and asked him of the deep jungles and the tribes that dwelled within.

Tell me the stories of your people, Braxy, she had panted as she splayed naked across his chest, her hair fanning across his shoulders. He had been able to feel the hardness of her nipples through his condition – that memory filled him for a moment. He felt his member start to rise, despite the situation.

That was the hold Asurya had on him. Even here.

Brax forced his mouth to move: “Yes, my lord.”

God stood from his cushions. He did not stand as a man – instead, he simply was standing, as if the movement from reclining to standing simply did not exist. He shook his head, then slammed a fist into the wall. Cracks surrounded the impact site as lightning crackled along the monster's shoulders and forearm. He clenched his jaws and howled – a hideous screeching sound that made Brax's feathered ruff stand on edge and his tail straighten out to a point.

Then the howl stopped. God was looking pleased.

Brax hated that look.

“I see a way to kill two birds with one stone, to fix a bug without a new build,” God said. At least, that was what Brax thought he said. “We have an enemy, Brax. An enemy that we need slain. Slain. Liam Vanderbilt, born 1997 Common Era, on Earth, North America, United States of America, Republic of California, San Francisco.” God jerked his head to the side, whirred, then continued speaking as if the stream of unfamiliar names and dates hadn't been spewing from his mouth moments before. “He must die. Die!”

“He's killed five of our men personally, and his allies have killed a dozen others,” Brax said. “And he slew a basilisk. And the minotaur-”

“The minotaur had a heart attack!” God snarled. “But no. We shall bring him here. Here!” He twitched, then held still.

Brax clenched his jaw, waiting for the sentence to continue.

God nodded. “Find the families of the saboteurs. Crucify them. But let at least one escape. A valkyrie. Yes. Let them fly and bring Liam Vanderbilt of Earth to us.”

Brax bowed his head.

In so far as plans went, it was not horribly-

“And then once you have begun the orders, pick two or three of your best men,” God continued, “And set out for the barrier mountains.”

Brax snapped his head up. He barely managed to keep the sound of incredulity from his voice. “Sir, but you want me here. I-”

“In this city, alone, friendless, surrounded by your troops, this one man will be easily taken. Taken!” God laughed. “You, Brax, my finest general.” God reached down and placed a large, rocky hand on Brax's shoulder, squeezing. “I need you to retrieve something for me from the mountains. Something guarded. Something only you can bring back.”

“What is it?” Brax asked.

“It is the Codec,” God said. “With it and Liam's head – head – on a platter, Purgatory will be ours.”

Brax grunted. Then, turning on his heel, he stalked away from his god, his hands firmly planted on the sword belt that hung around his hips and his tail lashing all the way.

* * *

Two of Brax's best men were currently balls deep in the mouth and pussy of a rather happy looking elf – while the third was leaning back in the corner, drinking heavily and watching. Brax tried to not look irritated as he leaned on the doorframe of the small house that he had finally found Vazt, Anix and Raotsh in. Vazt was a scrawny lizardman, with a belly hammered flat by a lifetime of deprivation and hard work. His arms were corded with muscle that smoothly rippled underneath his pale, sky blue scales, while his belly was the most bright golden hue that Brax had ever seen. His cock, emerging from a slit between his narrow thighs, was the same dark black as the elf's skin, emerging from a slit between his narrow thighs, while his balls – swinging free in the excitement of sex – were the same hue as his belly, glinting as they slapped against the elf's chin.

Meanwhile, Anix was a polar opposite of his brother in arms. He was the tallest lizardman that Brax had ever met and wide enough to make two of Vazt, with muscles like boulders beneath forest green and black scales. His nipples were pierced with silver bars, and his cock was an intense red – highlighted all the more every time inches of it emerged from the elf's hairless pussy, glistening with her moisture. His ridges brought quiet, muffled moans from her mouth as her eyes rolled back into her head, her bedraggled white hair dangling almost to the ground as she writhed between the two lizardmen.

Raotsh was unique in the group for three reasons. The first was that she wasn't a man at all. The second was that she wasn't of the scaled folk – her body was the brilliant reddish hue of the Liliun. The third, though, was a bit more subtle. Unlike the muscular swordsmen, Raotsh - or Rao, as she normally went by - did not have sleek or bulky muscles. She wasn't flabby, by any stretch of the imagination, but she did not seethe with the raw physicality of the other two.

Instead, she simply looked like a girl. Carefree. Happy. Innocent, even, despite wearing what amounted to a leather strap across her breasts and a thong, with two slender crystal stilettos sheathed on both of her hips. She laughed around the beer she was sipping, blowing some of it out of her nose. Coughing and wiping at her face, she set the wooden mug on the ground.

“Holy fucking shit, General, you should see your fucking face.”

The two lizardmen looked at their general and paused, mid thrust. Anix managed, at least, to look abashed.

Brax thought he would never in his life see Vazt look ashamed for anything. Ever.

Instead, Vazt simply slid his black cock out of the elf's mouth – leaving a thick string of her spittle and his pre-come connecting her desperate tongue as it lolled out, trying to lap at his cockhead.

“Want a go, General?”

Brax snorted.

“Come on!” Vazt said. “She came eager-like. Didn't even pay her.”

“Ah!” The woman cried out, her voice thick with pleasure as Anix buried himself deep inside of her again. His balls slapped her belly and she cooed happily, her eyes closing as she reveled in the feeling of his cock filling her. Brax forced his own member to stay within his body, though his balls ached to swing free and spend themselves. He had been without for... it hurt to think of how long he had gone without the touch of his Asurya.

It will be forever, she whispered in the back of his mind.

He shied from that thought. Instead, he shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I don't mean to interrupt my best troops' fun,” he said, “But we've been assigned a mission from God. We are to go, incognito, to the Barrier Mountains. There, we shall find the highest peak and seek out the Codex of the Ancients. God believes that we can awaken a great power with it.”

“What!?” Vazt spluttered, his tongue hissing out. The girl managed to lean forward and capture the tip of his cock in her mouth, sucking on it happily. Vazt, ever the practical soldier, stepped forward and thrust into her throat. From the gurgling noise that the elf made, she was enjoying herself.

Brax frowned. “Vazt!”

“Hey,” Vazt said, grinning slyly, “You did say we should enjoy ourselves once the city was under control.”

“Yeah,” Anix said, nodding.

“You two are lucky the general is a soft touch,” Rao muttered into her cup, sipping from it. “If I were him, I'd have had you both crucified by this point.”

Brax's condition had several advantages. One of them was that when he snapped his tail-tip against the wall of a house – whether it be a large mansion or a small hut – the sound was amplified. Rather than making a dull thunk, his tail rang against the wall like a gong, bringing everyone's attention to him. He frowned at the three soldiers, his eyes flashing.

“I may be unwilling to have my soldiers whipped,” he said, his voice dark, “But don't mistake this for leniency. You will finish with her.” He pointed at the elf. “And you will report to the front gates. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir!” All three said at the same time.

Brax turned and stalked out, his tail lashing from side to side. He paused by the door – and heard the sound of suddenly intensified lovemaking within. Out of sight, he let himself go for a moment. His cock slid from the slit between his legs, and his balls emerged a moment later. His loincloth tented, then slipped aside. Brax did not have a difference in color between his back, his belly, his balls, his cock. All of him gleamed with the brilliance of gold and shone with a metallic sheen that even Vazt lacked.

It had been a nameless battle, at first.

The mercenary unit he had been a part of – back before God, before the tribes had gathered, before he had been a general - had marched out for coin and been led by a fool into a valley before a prosperous Hellenic city. There had been a priest of Zeus in the enemy camp, standing on the hill. His voice had called down a curse on the larger army that marched towards his city. The voice still echoed in Brax's memories.

You will die to teach a fool a lesson, then! May the curse of Midas be your doom – and may your master's thirst for gold be quenched!

The sky had split.

The gold had come down – sheeting, pouring waves of it. Men and women screaming, clawing at their flesh as the molten metal dug in and burned into them. They were the less fortunate ones. Those who had been luckier – like Brax – had been doused completely with the first real deluge. There had been heat, then darkness. And then, for reasons that he had never learned, an endless waiting. Not death but some limbo. There had been nothing for Brax to do but stand there, poised with sword and shield in his hands, his clothes burned away, the gold worked into his very being.

He had stood there and entertained himself with thoughts ranging through legend and fantasy, while he listened to the ever so faint sounds of first the dying, then the dead, then the buzzing of flies. Then the sound of wildlife, birds and beasts, coming back to the battlefield.

Then…

Her.

Asurya.

Who makes a statue in such a foolish pose? Laughter then, the sound of serving maids and bodyguards responding to their Princess's jest.

And that had been the name of the battle ever since.

The Battle of Statues.

“Oh gods!” The happy sound of an elf climaxing – so similar to Asurya, as she rode him – sent Brax fleeing faster than any army had. He strode through the streets and tried to focus on the mission at hand. He knew which soldiers would be able to do what was needed without waking in the night, trembling and filled with the memories of what they had done. And he was already working the angles.

There was no way to predict exactly what would happen in a chaotic system. He had learned this in the almost forgotten days of his youth, watching leaves flowing through the river and trying to spot the shifting hints that would indicate a slumbering flatfish. With flatfish, you needed to be able to not just predict where things were but also where they would go.

That skill would serve him well.

* * *

Liam stepped into the small home that Sobek had gifted him, a collection of scrolls tucked under one armpit, and a fresh pot of ink in the other hand. He stopped when he looked across the interior of the room and saw the grinning face of Maurice the artificer. Maurice was a familiar pain in Liam's ass – ever since Sobek had gotten his scaled hands on the formula for gunpowder.

But there are so many different things you could work on, Liam had said. Medicine. Education! Printing presses!

If anyone gets gunpowder first, then those other things won't matter much, will they? Sobek had shot back. Then Maurice had come by Liam's home every other day, asking him an endless series of questions that Liam felt entirely unable to answer. He knew the rough process for producing gunpowder, but the actual chemistry was beyond him. He couldn't help the goblin find a replacement for pigshit, or narrow down what naturally occurring crystals in Purgatory could be ground into powder and used as saltpeter.

“Maurice!” Liam said.

“In my defense, it was her id-ahh!”

Liam blinked.

And realized that Maurice wasn't sitting at the table. He was sprawled on the bed, his green hands pressed to the sheets, while Meg's head bobbed in his lap. Her wings were folded neatly behind her back, leaving only the glorious, heart-shaped mound of her rump visible as she bobbed her head up and down with a slow, steady, slurping noise. Her hands were on Maurice's knees, caressing the smaller man gently, her elbows pressing her tits together into a firm line of cleavage. Liam pursed his lips, then slowly walked to the side. Looking at the scene from an angle, he saw that while the artificer had been born about half Liam's size, he wasn't proportionally smaller.

There was enough emerald green cock for Meg to wrap both of her bountiful tits around, her spittle and his flowing pre-come soaking her skin like an oil rub. Her nipples drew slow circles against his chest as she leaned forward, rocking herself against Maurice.

Liam looked at the goblin, who was trying weakly to push Meg's head away. “If you kill me, Sobek will, uh, he'll, uh,” Maurice stammered.

He looked like he wanted to argue that Sobek would punish Liam for murdering him. But he also looked like he was mentally recounting the various ways Liam had pulled Sobek's tail out of the fire.

Liam leaned forward menacingly.

Then grinned. “Can you keep it down while I'm doing my paperwork?”

“Zuh?” Maurice asked.

Meg drew her mouth back – tongue swirling around the thick glans of her lover – and shot a glare at Liam. “You ruined it, honey! You should have heard him. Talking about how naughty we were being, about how nooo, he shouldn't, you'd kill him.” She grinned, flicking her tongue against the very tip of the goblin's cock, causing Maurice to gasp quietly.

“Sorry,” Liam said, laughing and ruffling Meg's hair. “But I couldn't help it – the look on his face.”

Meg snapped her left wing out and smacked Liam's entire upper body with it. She had gotten quite good at putting just enough impact into those strikes to send Liam staggering without actually causing any real, permanent damage. Liam skidded backwards, his knees knocked out from under him by one of the office chairs he'd had custom built at great expense. His butt thumped against the silken cushion and he laughed.

“Message received: don't ruin the fantasy,” he said, grinning.

Meg humphed, then turned back to face the goblin man who was still looking somewhat like an Earth turkey during a rainstorm. Her palms went to her chest, closing her tits around his cock again, and she started to rock her hips up and down, using her breasts to squeeze and massage Maurice's member. The artisan closed his eyes, gritting his teeth hard as he clenched his palms on the sheets, which rumpled around his fingers. Liam, meanwhile, laid his first scroll out, dipped his quill in the ink, and started to write down the after action report that Sobek would want.

The slick sound of titflesh wanking a hard cock filled his ears – followed by a restrained groan.

“Oh, horror,” Liam said, his voice deadpan. “I have been cuckolded. I am filled with rage and contempt.”

A pillow thumped into the back of his head. Liam glanced back. Meg stuck her tongue out at him, then used said tongue to guide the tip of Maurice's dick into her mouth. She sucked hard enough to hollow out her cheeks and make Maurice's eyes cross.

Liam turned back to his paperwork to hide his wicked grin. “However could you betray me, oh light of my life?”

This time, Maurice threw the pillow. Amazingly accurate, considering.

Liam wrote down his summary of what little they knew about the creature that he had decided to classify Kevinos Baconitarum. He looked at the words, glistening in fresh ink, as the wet slap of lip to tit to cock filled his ears. Normally, writing a joke that literally no one else in Purgatory would get would at least draw a smile forth. But instead, all he could do was think about the reports of lizardman raiders. Rumors that Ares hadn't been seen in New Athens for almost a month – not impossible, but entirely unusual. He leaned back in his seat.

“Fuckinggods!”

Maurice had the trick of making it all one word down pat.

Was that creature sent? Liam wondered. How could we prove it was? No one has seen anything alike. But those crystals it fired, they were null crystals. Perfect to stop a valk. Was it designed to trap us?

No answers. Just questions and shadows.

Maurice came noisily.

Liam had become quite a connoisseur of the aural delights that came with the female climax. If he had gone back in time and told himself when he had been in high school that he would basically have a harem of eager, willing, utterly gorgeous women who had not only never heard of sexual modesty, but essentially laughed at the very concept... well, he'd have dropped dead from excitement. But Maurice's climax lacked the musical quality of, say, Tethis screaming in pleasure.

Still, it didn't make it any easier to focus on the paperwork.

“Ohh look at my tits,” Meg purred.

Liam turned around on his office chair, the brass and wood that the chair used in lieu of plastic and metal making a soft rasping noise. Meg was leaning back against the bed, her wings spread. Her fingers caressed her breasts, rubbing the thick white streams of cum that splashed her face, neck and tits. She drew slow circles with her fingertips, then used her palms to scoop and rub the goblin spunk into her skin. She gleamed like she had been oiled.

“I'm so wet now,” Meg whispered. Her eyes met Liam's.

Liam looked at her.

He turned back at the paperwork. It was still only a single name and a few tentative notes. He looked back at her.

Then, grinning, he stood.

“Fuck it,” he said.

“No, fuck me,” Meg purred.

Liam strode over, his hands going to his kilt. It hit the ground and his sandals thumped into the wall as he kicked them away. One narrowly avoided knocking over a hoplite shield – complete with Spartan lambda – that decorated one of the walls. His hands grabbed onto Meg's wrists, lifting them up and over her head. Meg could bend bronze with her bare hands and yet, somehow, she never seemed quite able to escape from Liam's grip, despite squirming and writhing in such a way that ended up pressing her bountiful breasts to his chest.

Strange, that.

A loud smack sounded and Meg squeaked. Looking past her shoulder, Liam could see that Maurice wasn't out of the game yet. His smaller palms were still enough to cup and squeeze Meg's ass hungrily. The goblin leaned forward, kissing the base of Meg's spine, then standing up on the bed, his hands pressed against her ass like she was a humanoid shelf, he kissed the base of her wings. Meg crooned quietly and Liam grinned at the goblin. The bed and his posture meant they were almost the same height now.

And in that moment, the two shared one of the semi-telepathic conversations that could happen, when two men were getting ready to just go to town on a girl.

If you hurt her, I will kick your ass, Liam's eyes said.

I'm just glad to be here, Maurice's entire body said.

Meg grinned, opening one eye. “So, who wants my feathered pus-”

The explosion that rang out across the city of Faiyum Falls wasn't nearly as shocking as it should have been. Animals and children cried out in alarm – but most people simply took it in stride. Random explosions had become more and more common the harder that Maurice tried to build gunpowder. But it was still loud enough to fill the room and cause Meg's wings to flare in momentary surprise. Her eyes widened – and then she and Liam looked at Maurice.

“Maurice!” they said, in unison.

“Whoa!” he said, lifting his hands off Meg's ass. “Why are you looking at me? I'm not doing any experiments right now!”

Liam's brow furrowed and he hurried to the window, ignoring the faint blueness that tingled around his balls. Standing at the sill, his hands on the edges of the window, he leaned around the edge of the building and looked out over the city. Dust rose from Maurice's workshop but Liam immediately saw that it couldn't possibly have been a gunpowder related accident. Even if Maurice had built working powder, and even if that powder had gone up, there was no way that an explosion from inside the building would have broken a hole from the roof down into the shop itself.

“Someone just crashed into your shop,” Liam said, stepping back and grabbing his kilt. “Come on!”

Maurice started for the door. Meg grabbed him by one arm and instead headed to the corner of the room, where Liam tugged out a small wooden ladder. The three of them scrambled up it to the roof. There, Meg slid her arm around Liam's waist, held him to her side, then picked up Maurice with her other arm. Her wings spread and she leaped off the top of the building before Maurice could so much as squeak. They did not fly so much as fall in a very controlled and artful way, landing in front of the shop without needing to spend minutes fighting through the congestion of Faiyum Falls narrow, winding streets.

The city guard were arriving with uncharacteristic swiftness. Almost, Liam thought, as if this was some kind of amazingly important research project or something. They were a tough looking group, wearing bronze armor with leather over what the metal couldn't cover, and holding kopesh blades in their hands. The curved, sickle-like swords had a blunt edge and a sharpened one, and their hook meant they could grab and yank people around, beat people about the heads, and hack through shields with equal skill.

The guardsmen and women looked at the three of them. “What should we do, sir?” one asked Liam.

“Well,” Liam said, adjusting his kilt. “We-”

He stopped.

A horror emerged from the workshop.

Blackened. Shrunken. Almost skeletal. The only reason why the man could walk at all was that he was clearly a valkyrie, but at this point, Liam wondered if their amazing endurance and toughness was more of a curse than a blessing. He was covered with fifth and sixth degree burns. White bone showed where his flesh wasn't blackened to a crisped char. The internal crystals that Tethis theorized gave valkyrie their amazing strength gleamed, looking like the fire had polished them.

The valkyrie fell to his knees and then reached out towards Liam.

“You,” he said, his voice eerily calm and amazingly normal sounding. His lips twisted. “You need to stop him. God. You need to kill God. He took the City of the Dead-”

And then his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed, face first onto the ground. Mercifully dead.

Liam stood there, watching as the guards advanced forward – only to be shouted back by Meg. Meg's voice sounded as if it was coming from very far away, echoing down a well. She directed guards, her face steady, her wings closed behind her back. Bring Tethis. Don't touch the man. There was going to be an autopsy. Liam knew, distantly, that she was doing the right thing. But he couldn't stop hearing that eerily calm voice.

You need to stop him. God. You need to kill God.

“Liam!”

Liam realized Meg had said his name three times. He jerked his head up and looked at her, blinking. “R-Right. Yes.”

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Liam looked back at the corpse.

His hand slid along Meg's arm, finding her hand. He squeezed her tightly and Meg closed a wing around her side, nuzzling his neck. Her closeness to him made it easier to say…

“No,” Liam said. “I'm not sure I will be for a while.”

* * *

Tethis blew out a sigh and stepped away from the corpse, brushing her palms along her hair. She looked back at Sobek, Liv, Meg and Liam. “All right,” she said. “There is nothing on Purgatory that could have done this – not the gods' magic, not arcane spells. Nothing can produce that much heat. The writings of Ataxis Ptolemy state that even those who fell directly under the heat of the Eye of Ra were merely stripped of water and left dried, rather than burned.” She frowned. “However, if we recall that Purgatory is a hollow sphere, there is a possibility...”

“He took a straight shot,” Meg whispered.

“...this unknown valkyrie flew here on a nearly direct course from the City of the Dead Gods and-” Tethis stopped. “Hey!” She glared at Meg.

Meg shook her head. “Valkyrie have been trying that since the War of the Ancients. No one has ever survived. The sun burns too hot.”

“To be fair,” Liv said, “He didn't either. And if the sun burns, why not go at night?”

Meg made a face. “The sun may not shine but it still provides heat. And in a straight shot, you get close enough that even at the coolest point of the night, you still cook.”

“And this guy crossed during noonday,” Tethis said, dragging a linen shroud over the blackened corpse. “What did he tell you, Liam?”

Liam, who had been remaining silent for the whole conversation, sighed. “He said that I needed to stop God.”

“Which god?” Meg asked.

“Not a god,” Liam said. “The God. My god, with a capital G. The one true god.”

Sobek growled quietly. “Kid, you've been living on Purgatory for a year and you still believe that bullshit?”

“Yes!” Liam snapped. Then quietly added, “Sobek, it's clear that we need to investigate this right now. This man was so desperate to find me, to warn me, that he flew from the City of the Dead Gods here - without even knowing if I'd be here - on a suicide mission. I don't want to even imagine what would be bad enough to warrant that response.”

Sobek slid his hand along his snout. Slowly, he nodded. “Fair. I'll go and send supplies to your ferryman-”

“No,” Liam said.

“What?” Liv, Meg and Tethis asked at the same time.

Liam's voice was grim as he explained, pacing backwards, then forward, his hands lifting up and spreading in the air. “Whatever is going on is serious. It'll take us months to cross the Platonic Sea and I've been tracking reports of pirates and lizardman raiders; we'd be lucky to get to the Tuathan straits without getting attacked at least twice. If the bad guys have another basilisk they can control with their collars, we could face multiple monsters. No. We need to get there now.”

“And how-” Sobek started, but Tethis cut him off with an excited squeal. The tall, broad-shouldered god turned to glare down at Tethis. The gobliness, though, looked too busy being excited to notice. Her green palms slapped together and she jumped up and down happily, her ample breasts bouncing under her shift.

“The altar! The altar! The altar!”

Meg's wings flared out in alarm. “We're talking about the same Ancient teleport altar that dropped Liam fifteen yards to the left of the city walls? He broke his spine.”

Liam looked at Meg. A few months ago – hell, a few hours ago – he might have quipped that 'he got better.' But instead, he just put his hands on her shoulders. He squeezed gently.

“I've talked with Tethis about this before today – she's figured out the issues and thinks she can get it to work without any more drops.” He grinned. “Besides, wouldn't you rather skip the traveling montage?”

Meg looked less than amused. She knew what a traveling montage was – the pair of them had spent hours cradling one another as they watched the only two movies that Liam had stored on the hard drive. Unfortunately, one of those was the 2005 Pirates Of The Caribbean porno spoof and the other one was Manos: The Hands Of Fate. Liam had a reason for having both on his iPod, but he hadn't yet forgiven himself for letting himself be banished to an alternate universe without at least bringing The Terminator.

“Fine,” Meg said. “But if you die, I will kill you.”

The only person less happy about this than Meg was Vulkis.

“But- but- but-” he spluttered, gesturing around himself at his boat. He had paid to affix a sleek, bronze-coated ram to the front of his vessel, giving it an extra punch if they ended up in any naval battles. A few dozen new crew were lounging on the side of the boat, their arms and armor making it clear they were more in the line of mercenaries than sailors. Vulkis put his hands on his head, tugging on his hair in exasperation. “I've always transported you, Vanderbilt!”

“Sorry,” Liam said, spreading his hands. “But the time crunch is too much.”

Vulkis made a wordless, highly agitated noise. It was somewhere between a squeak and a gargle.

Liam grinned, despite his mood. “All right, Vulkis. How about this: you sail to the City of the Dead Gods anyway. We might need assistance or support or a way to get out of the city in a hurry. If we're dead, then you can just make a profit buying consumer goods from there and selling them in, I don't know, Olimurias or something.”

Vulkis' face froze in the middle of his angry response. His brow furrowed and he started to do some mental math, rubbing his chin. Then, beaming, he nodded.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you, Liam of Earth!”

Liam grinned. “I afford you a chance to spend extra time with Liviana, Tethis and Megara?”

“Well, I knew there were multiple reasons I liked you.”

* * *

Striding through the jungles that surrounded Faiyum Falls, Liam didn't lead the way. That was left to Tethis, who had spent a great deal of her life studying the fauna and flora of the area as an amateur researcher and archaeologist. Though, thinking about it, as there was no unified school of archeology, and no accredited universities in Purgatory, Liam figured that amateur and professional were essentially the same thing. Still, Tethis picked her way along with confidence, her passage revealing a trail that Liam and Meg and Liv and their pack horses could stomp through with considerably less grace. Meg's wing batted a tree branch aside with a gunshot loud crack.

“So,” she said, glancing at Liam, “We need to talk.”

Liam knew that she wanted to talk about his mood but a lifetime on Earth had trained his soul to react to those four words being spoken in that tone of voice by a woman that he loved as if he had been doused in acid. Liam flinched despite himself.

“What is wrong?” Meg asked. “You need to talk me. First, you lose your crucifix. But then you don't get it replaced? It's a symbol of, well, you. And don't give me that horseshit about not wanting to offend people. You could have gotten one of the other symbols of Christianity you talked about. The ones not based around an execution device.” She shook her head. “So. What's the real problem?”

Liam walked forward for a few more steps. He ducked underneath a tree, pushing some leaves out of the way of his face. For a moment, he just looked out at the verdant jungle surrounding him. The beautiful flowers, so brilliantly colored. The lush green leaves. The thick vines. The buzzing of insects, whirring around him. The occasional crystal outcropping that thrust from the ground like jagged teeth. He saw a small, simian creature perched in a tree branch about fifteen feet away, watching them with beady eyes. Liam hung his head forward and turned back to face Meg, arms crossed over his chest.

“When European explorers on my world started to explore Africa, do you know what was the thing that stopped them for almost two centuries?” he asked. “Plague. Malaria killed them, and African Horse Sickness killed their mounts. It took the invention of drugs that stopped malaria and the invention of steam-engines to counterbalance the loss of horses. Once guns got good enough, the whole of Africa got chopped up and fed to the monarchies of Europe. And the same pattern existed in other places.” He sighed. “How many people here die from plague?”

Meg blinked.

“None,” Liam said. “I haven't seen a single epidemic in the whole year I've been here. Hell, I haven't even caught a cold. Meg!” He gestured to himself. “I'm from another fucking planet, you should be getting sick from any diseases I was carrying that I'm immune to. And I should have gotten sick too. But wait, there's more!”

By this point, Tethis had noticed they weren't walking. She came back, but didn't speak; just watching Liam as he got more and more worked up, his face turning red. His hands starting to shake. Meg folded her wings behind her back as Liam started to pace from side to side.

“Cancer? Do you even know what cancer is?”

Meg nodded.

“Has anyone died from it in your life?” Liam asked. At the shake of her head, he started to pace more angrily. “I've seen scars and disfigurement, but never in the rich or the well to do – and I've never seen a plague. Fuck! I haven't even seen an sexually transmitted disease. Everyone here is willing to drop their kilt at the snap of a fingers and get plowed. Why?” He shook his head. “Interbreeding is impossible without magic, so interracial fucking is basically risk free fun times. On Earth, you can get a death sentence because you had sex without protection.”

Liam threw his hands wide. “Why?”

Tethis blinked. “The gods?” she asked.

“Yes, the fucking gods!” Liam shouted, glaring at her. “Your venal, selfish, asshole gods can cure cancer through their priests. But my God? The God who loves his people, who created us in his image? He watches as we shove each other into furnaces by the millions and as we die, choking on our own fucking cells, blasted by radiation and poisoned by the very fucking drugs we take to try and fucking stop it and he doesn't do anything!”

His voice echoed off the trees. Tethis looked afraid. Liv had put her hand on the hilt of her sword. Meg, though, stepped forward. Her arms closed around Liam's shoulders and she embraced him. She used her whole body, pressing herself to him, her wings closing around him. For that moment, there was no one else. Just Liam and Megara, contained within the strength of her wings. Liam shuddered and cried, tears streaming down his face as she stroked his back and whispered soft nothings in his ear. Breathing in a shuddering gasp, Liam said: “M-My father took two weeks to die, Meg. Two weeks. Sobek-”

“No. Sobek couldn't have saved your father,” Meg said, her voice quiet. She drew back, to look him in the eyes. Her hands cupped his cheeks as her wings brushed up and down his back. Liam had never found Meg's eyes more beautiful – those deep, electric blue eyes – than right now, viewed through a refracting haze of tears. She seemed to glow. “Because Sobek was here and your father was there. And maybe that is why your God brought you here in the first place, Liam. Maybe he can't do anything. Maybe he's not even real. But you can do what he would want...”

She smiled. “And if you don't find a way to bring the gods back to Earth and strong arm them into every hospital in your world, then you are not the Liam Vanderbilt I love.”

Liam laughed, his voice wet with tears. “God, I love you,” he whispered.

“Of course you do,” Meg said, seriously. “I'm fantastic.”

Liam nodded. He held up his hands. “G-give me a second, guys.”

He turned and walked off the beaten trail, taking a moment to wipe his face down. He tugged a leaf branch off, then blew his nose. He looked at his own mucus – just to wince in disgust – then tossed the leaf away. He used a few more to finish crudely wiping his face down and once he felt halfway like a human being again, he stood there and rubbed his chin. Deep in his brain, ideas were clicking forward. He nodded slowly and then looked out at the trees.

“I'll need artisans,” he said, to no one in particular.

Then he turned and walked back to the group. He slipped his arm around Meg's back, his hand dipping to grope her rump. Liv pulled her hand away from her sword hilt with a relieved smile, while Meg nodded.

“He's okay, girls,” she said.

Liam made a face – faux offended – and slapped Meg on the butt hard enough to make her squeak.

They came to the crevasse that had the served as the first and last battleground between Liv and Liam and picked their way down the side. Once in it, they pressed on to the cave temple of the Ancients. The traps that Liam had to evade last time were still present – and still easy to avoid if you had a girl who could read Ancient writing. The same altar was there, sitting in the center of the same dark room. Liam stood and watched as Tethis got to work on it.

“I'm trying to not hold a grudge,” he said.

“It wasn't the device's fault!” Tethis said, turning to look at him. “I've figured it out – working with your iPod made it clear. The iPod uses electromagnetism in various ways, and I believe that those functions, even quiescent, altered your trajectory. I just need to compensate for that.”

Liam nodded slowly. “Got it.”

It took Tethis three hours before she was ready for them to step on the platform. In that time, Meg, Liv and Liam shared what they knew about the City of the Dead.

“Nothing,” Liam said.

Meg slapped the back of his head. “It's a city of artisans, craftsmen, smiths. The finest bronze-wights. They make glass, too. Lots of it.” She paused. “I also know that their government is a proper Athenian style democratic organization, with elements of the ancient Carthaginian merchant-nobility and mercenary armies. And it's big - lots of people and lots of money.” She shifted her wings and despite the completely different physiognomy and lack of spectacles, she managed to look like a professor pushing their glasses up their nose after delivering a speech.

“They're weak,” Liv said. “Mercs are worthless when a real fight gets going. Can't rely on them, cause gold is never stronger than blood and love.” She nodded. “The only thing that they have going for them is the defensive – when a merc has their backs to the wall, they gotta fight to the death. But on the attack? Forget it.” She snorted.

“You say that like the inability to wage wars of aggression was a bad thing,” Meg said, sniffing.

“What's better?” Liv asked. “A six month siege where half your city starves and the enemy only breaks because you've been sniping at them every night and you drop boiling piss on their heads, or a single day's battle where you break their moral and route them before they get within ten miles of the place?”

Meg blinked, looking taken aback.

“It's ready!” Tethis called over.

Liv stood up, her hand on the hilt of the sword. “I'm faster,” she said. “Better reflexes, and I can't be cut by an edged weapon. I say I go through first and make sure everything is safe.”

Liam clapped his hands on his knees. “Sounds good,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. Liv grinned at him, then turned and walked up the stairs. For a moment, the playful sultriness she had used to torment him when she had been his slave  returned. Her butt jiggled underneath her short kilt and she bent forward just enough to flash him a hint of the slender underwear that she wore.

She stepped onto the altar and Tethis brought her hands together and a crack of magic filled the air.

Meg smiled at Liam. “Wish me luck,” she said, nodding and heading up.

“Hey, we're going together!” Liam said, hurrying after her.

“Well, actually, no, going one at a time is safer,” Tethis said. “Okay, now!”

Meg vanished.

Liam shook his head, then stepped onto the platform. He tensed his shoulders and got ready to hit the ground with the impact. Tethis smiled at him, seeing his tension.

“Do you want me to give you a countdown?” she asked.

“Oh, hell no!” Liam said. “I don't want time to-”

Tethis slapped her hands together.

Two

Brax's yanked back on the reins of his horse and clenched his knees, trying to keep himself in the saddle as the horse reared backwards, hooves flashing in the air. To his left, Vazt brought his horse around and drew his sword in the same fluid motion, bringing the point aiming towards the woman who had just appeared from thin air before them. The quartet had been traveling from the City of the Dead Gods for the better part of a day, working their way along the abandoned trade route that once snaked through the Basilisk Desert. The wells had run too dry to support the towns that had served as stopping points, but there were ways to find water even in the deep desert, so long as your numbers were few and you did not mind the taste of cactus.

It was not a place one expected to meet anyone, let alone…

Brax blinked.

The woman stood up and looked around herself.

She was…

“Beautiful,” Brax whispered, his heart and his tail stilled for a single long moment as the woman shook her head.

She was an elf, with long, pointed ears and electric blue hair that she had let grow long. But to keep it from her eyes, she had it tied back in a ponytail that hung to the small of her back. Her shoulders were slender and her arms were lightly muscled, but she still held herself like a warrior. She was dressed in a bronze hauberk that protected her chest, and had a kilt that hung loose around her thin thighs. Her feet were clad in sandals. A straight sword hung from her hip. Or, more accurately, a scabbard hung from her hip, as she had stood up with the sword in her hand.

“Who the fuck are you?” she snarled, looking at Brax. Brax looked at his companions, then at the woman.

“Well, we are but humble travelers,” he said, his hand going to the small amulet that God had given him and the group. He didn't quite know how, but the amulet made him and the others seem like humans, though to his own eye and his own senses, Brax still was the same gold-scaled lizardman he had been for years. He slid his leg off his horse and gestured to Vazt and Anix and both soldiers sheathed their weapons with a grudging look. “I would ask who you were, but...” Brax grinned. “I'm more curious how I was so lucky as to have a woman as beautiful as you fall into my lap.”

The woman grinned.

“I can answer that.”

All five of them spun around to face the sudden booming voice.

Floating above the desert was a heavily muscled, heavily armored figure, wearing a horned helmet – the horns curved down and coiled before the thin rectangular slit that was the only opening on the bone-white metal. A long, brilliant red cape flapped from the god's shoulders as he looked down at the group of them.

“Dad!?” The woman spluttered.

Ah, Brax thought. So this is the famous Liviana of Sparta. Funny. He glanced at her. I thought she would have been taller.

“Silence, daughter,” Ares, the god of war, boomed. “I am deeply disappointed in you. First, you get yourself captured-”

“He had a-”

“Silence,” Ares bellowed. Liviana shut up. Shaking his helmeted head, Ares looked back at Brax and his men and women. “I have redirected my wayward daughter here. You are to keep watch over her and teach her proper discipline. If you let her from your sight, then I will crush you. Do you understand?”

Brax clenched his jaw before he responded with the first thing that came to his mind. But the last thing that he wanted while on a fool's errand was to get caught up in the family drama of the infamously dramatic Dodekatheon. But looking at Ares and feeling the raw, crackling energy emanating from his body, he knew that sometimes, discretion was the better part of valor.

And does that not define most of my fucking life? He thought.

“I do,” he said.

Ares nodded and then - with a crack of imploding air – vanished. Brax frowned slowly, his tail beginning to lash. The gods, he had always been told, needed to go from place to place. They could project images of themselves at great distance, but they were loath to do so. Sympathetic magic could use an image as well as the object it represented. There was a reason why gods had messengers and diplomats, and did not merely directly interact with one another. Brax rubbed his chin with one finger, then shook his head. It was a mystery for another day.

He turned to face Liviana.

She glared daggers at him.

“My name is Bartentonen. These are my traveling companions, Vesalius and Anathestus. And, of course, Rachel.”

Rao bowed her head to Liviana, and waved. Rao, like Vazt and Anix, looked completely human to everyone else, thanks to the last of the amulets given over by God. Not that she had wanted to wear the damn thing. She had argued that, as a lilin, she didn't need an amulet. But Brax had figured that being cautious would pay off. Plus, in some areas of Purgatory, lilin were seen as perfect brothel fodder, and the last thing he wanted to do was deal with overeager pimps and their goons.

Liviana pursed her lips for a moment, then grinned, looking straight at Brax.

“So,” she said, “What are your real names? Cause I've never met a lizardman named Barentonen.”

Brax tensed, his tail freezing. Then, calmly, he asked: “How?”

Liviana snorted, quietly. “You may look human, but you sway,” she said. “It's subtle, but easy to spot if you have practice. And he's wearing a kilt without underwear on a horse.” She pointed at Anix. Anix looked down at himself, then at her.

“It’s in how the fabric lays across your hips,” Liv said, tossing her head as she answered his unspoken question. “I’m an elf. And I’ve spent most of my life noticing small disturbances under clothes. It tends to mean that someone is armed. Now, going commando would work if you had internal genitalia – which lizardfolk do.” She frowned. “My father has been involved with several pieces of massive bullshit, all of them too sneaky by half. Now he's redirecting the devices of the Ancients? Vanishing from plain sight as if he had the same magic?”

She stepped forward, her sword tip aiming at Brax's chest.

“Who do you work for, scalie?”

Brax sighed, quietly. “Liviana, I have nothing but respect for you, and nothing but contempt for the institution of slavery.”

Liviana looked confused, then her eyes widened. She flung herself to the side, but Rao was infamously good at throwing things. Knives. Bottles of acid. Once, in a happier time, a very surprised cat.

Slave collars.

The weighted collar snapped around Liviana's throat, snapping home, then flashing as the magic within flared to life. Her hands went to her throat and her screech echoed across the desert.

“Not a-fucking-gain!”

* * *

Liam was expecting the fall so when he landed on his feet, he ended up tucking and rolling anyway. He lay on his back for a few moments and mentally kicked himself, his eyes closed as he breathed in the smell of dust, the smell of the desert filling his nose. It was a lot more unpleasant than he had expected. There was a sickly sweetness to it, thick and cloying. Iron, too. The scent of voided…

Wait.

Liam's eyes opened and he scrambled away from the corpse hanging over him. He bumped against Meg's belly, the other woman hissing curses in Greek.

The two of them had appeared in a field – a forest – of crucifixes. Dozens of people were nailed through the wrist to broad crossed planks of wood, their feet dangling in the air. Their heads were lolled forward, and several of them were starting to rot. The buzzing of flies filled the air, flying away at the sudden motion from Liam and Meg. Blood dripped from a few of the bodies, soaking into the rough dust of the desert ground. Liam covered his face with one hand, trying to block out the smells. He shook his head slowly.

“God.”

Meg squeezed his shoulders.

A loud crack sounded as Tethis appeared behind them.

“See, told you it'd – holy shit!” She stopped dead, dropping her shoulder pack to the ground.

Liam stood, his knees shaking. He looked at the bodies, trying to identify any unifying theme among them. But there were people of every race, and he saw that several of them were still bearing the religious symbols of different gods. He saw the hammer-symbol of Thor, the eye of Ra, and many others. He walked slowly along the rows, frowning as he looked up at a beautiful lilin woman who had been nailed into place. His brow furrowed slightly further – she was dressed with a black hood, and thin strips of cloth that barely concealed her breasts and her sex, leaving most of her red skin exposed. The hood seemed familiar, somehow…

But then he saw what hung around her neck.

Liam's eyes widened.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no, no, no, that's impossible.”

Suddenly the lilin woman drew in a shuddering gasp, her head rolling back slightly and her eyes opening to thin slits. Liam sprang backwards as if he had been stuck with a pin, his heart pounding. The woman managed to look winsome and unconcerned with herself, despite being nailed to a plank and left to die under the baking sun.

“Come to... watch me... die?” she whispered, between ragged, ineffectual gasps.

“G-Get her down. Now!” Liam said, looking at Meg. “Now! Now!”

Meg did him one better. She sprang up, and punched through the planks with two quick chopping gestures, her incredible strength snapping pine as if it was balsa wood held together with half a glue-stick. The lilin woman sagged and Liam and Tethis both helped her down to the ground. Laying on her back, her arms still nailed to the wood, the red-skinned, horned and tailed woman drew in deep, gasping breaths.

And there, laying between her breasts, was the symbol she had worn to her death.

A pair of lines, interweaving to create the vague impression of a fish.

It was an ichthus.

A symbol of Jesus Christ.

 * * *

“My name is Mary.”

Liam looked out of the cave that Tethis had spotted, watching the City of the Dead Gods. They were a good three miles away from the city, on a bluff that overlooked the place. The collection of crucifixes – what Mary called the forest of woe – were still visible even in the darkness of night. But even from this distance, he could see just how much bigger it was than Olimurias. It reminded him of looking at New York after a lifetime of  suburbia, though not quite on the same scale. Dotted among the buildings and visible above the winding curtain wall that surrounded the city were towering pillars of smoke.

Forge fires.

Mary's voice was still rough and raspy, despite the water that Meg had been giving her. Her wrists lay in her lap, turned upwards, as Tethis worked on them. Magic glowed along her palms,caressing and sealing the wounds. Veins were illuminated from within by the pale white light of magical healing as Tethis burned any infection from her. Tethis' forehead furrowed and her body glistened with sweat, but she made no sound of complaint, nor did she stop her work.

“I was – I am a nun,” Mary said, her hand going to the hood. She pushed it backwards. “My order – the Sisterhood of the Son – we've lived in Purgatory since its inception. Why we were banished here, I do not know.” She shook her head. “The legends say that we came with the others who were banished here because even if the followers of the false gods must be placed here, that does not mean that they should go without the teachings of Mary and her Son.”

Liam nodded and knelt down beside Mary. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Questions buzzed through his brains – millions of them. He wanted to know who had founded her order. What were their scripture? Had they taken the ecumenical councils words as writ, or had they ignored the orthodoxy of the age? How had their beliefs changed? Why did they still use the ichthus as their primary symbol and not the cross? Did that mean that their view on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was changed? How were women treated by their priesthood? Could they only be nuns? How many of them were lilun? What was the racial breakdown? What was their stance on alms and indulgences? Did they even know what indulgences were? Those had been concepts from the church's future – but then again, so had nuns.

In fact, now that he thought about it, the first nuns he had ever heard about had happened a full century after the banishment.

Unless…

Liam shook his head and focused on the here and now. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “My name is Liam. Uh. Liam Vanderbilt.”

Great opening, part of his brain muttered.

“Liam is also Christian,” Meg said, quietly.

Mary looked at Liam. Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth – then winced in pain as her movement jarred her arms. Tethis hissed quietly, the closest she had ever come to snapping at a patient. Liam nodded at Mary.

“Yeah,” he said. “I'm from Earth. I came here by accident – uh, wow. I...” He stopped. “I have so many questions but we have so little time. Why were you being crucified? Who is ruling the city?”

Mary frowned. “They came to us almost two months ago. They looked, at first, like a normal merchant caravan. The gates were flung open to let in the new traders – though people did say at the time how odd it was, that they came from the desert. None of the outriders had noticed them. It was as if…” She trailed off, her eyes becoming distant. “It was as if they had come from nowhere. Then they were in the city and the attack began. They were lizardmen but not like any lizardmen we had seen before.”

Liam leaned back on the ground. “Like mutants? They had bulbous heads and could call down lightning?”

“No!” Mary said. “That, we could have handled, I think. The City of the Dead Gods have been training as many arcane mages as possible, since the first news of them came from the Library of Olimurias.”

Tethis drew her palms back. “The sickness is burned out of you,” she said, smiling. “And, uh, I was the one who discovered the art.” She grinned. “And Liam is the reason why the textbooks have reached here so quickly – he gave them the art to build printing presses.”

Mary smiled. “Thank you for that, Mister Vanderbilt,” she said, quietly. “But the lizardmen actually had no mutant sorcerers. The only magic came from our own defenders.”

“Then what made them different?” Liam asked.

“They fought like, well, men. Organized men. Ruthless men. I heard this from a soldier I nursed, well, afterward,” Mary said, ducking her head forward. She wiped at her eye with one finger, tears gleaming in her eyes. “He died. But he told me such stories – and jokes.” She shook her head. “He said that the lizardmen knew exactly where to attack. How to outflank the soldiers. How to breech the defenses. They captured and killed most of the mercenary units and before we knew it, we were all slaves. Of him.”

“Of who?” Liam asked, a terrible fear filling him.

Mary looked at him. Her eyes brimmed with yet more tears and her voice became ragged. “Of... God, Liam. Of God.”

* * *

Meg brushed her hands through her hair. “So, here's what we have,” she said. “My javelins, Tethis' spells, your iPod and sword, and our coin purses.” She put her palms on the pack that she had carried with her through the teleport altar. “And this. What we're lacking, though, is a Liviana. Why is that, Tethis?”

Tethis shook her head as she rolled the crystal foci that she used when trying to accomplish the more complex spells in her repertoire between her palms. She pursed her dark green lips, then rolled her shoulders in a shrug.

“No idea,” she said. “If anyone was going to go off target, I would have expected it to be Liam.”

“Hey,” Liam said, trying for a grin. His smile faded instead – his eyes darted from the backpack that Meg's hands rested on to Mary, who was curled up underneath a blanket, her eyes closed. She had been healed, but the healing had left her body worn out. She'd need to wake before they headed for the city. The last thing Liam planned to do was head into a dangerous and hostile city without a guide – even if said guide had been crucified for religious heresy. It was one of those situations that felt like two shitty choices and he had to pick the less shitty one.

Meg shook her head. “Maybe we'll find Liv in the city. Maybe we'll need to hire a diviner. But Liv's tough, and we can find her when we find her. What's important is I brought this.”

Liam's eyes widened as Meg flipped open the pack, then tugged the cloth and leather aside to reveal that she had been toting around a thigh sized canister of bronze bars and wooden slats. It looked like a barrel, though several crystals had been hammered into the top, the bottom, and the sides. Meg's fingers caressed one of the crystals, causing it to shimmer faintly with the contact. She grinned at Liam. “That's why Maurice was visiting, you know. It wasn't because of my tits.”

“Huh,” Liam said. “I mean, I find that hard to believe.”

“Fair,” Meg said. “It wasn't just because of my tits.”

“What is it?” Tethis whispered.

“It's a gunpowder bomb,” Meg said. “Maurice actually told me, pre-titjob, that the issue wasn't the gunpowder.” She shrugged. “It's the using it as a weapon. Sobek wants muskets but the metals we have here burst when gunpowder burns through it. Maurice did some testing with crystals and found that when they explode, the explosion gets bigger.” She grinned. “He worked this up and I asked if I could borrow it.”

Liam slowly pursed his lips. “Asked?”

Meg grinned. “Very politely.”

“You stole a gunpowder bomb from Sobek?” Tethis whispered. “Why?”

“A valkyrie flew through the edge of the sun to warn us about an insane god. Note, Liam,” she said, holding up one finger, “That I'm using god with a lower case G.” She shook her head – so serious that Liam had to smile despite his mood. “And if we're going to kill a god-”

“We're going to do what now?” Tethis asked, her eyes wide. “I thought we were just here to find out what is going on.”

“Yeah, and then we're going to kill the bad guy. And this bad guy-” Meg jerked her thumb over her shoulder, folding her wing against her back so she could gesture to the city. To the rising pillars of smoke, illuminated from within by flickering ash. To the forest of crucifixes. “-this bad guy isn't like the last one. Remember that bitch, Bryn? She was hidden behind, like, three levels of secrets, minions and lies. This guy? He sticks up a big old sign saying blow me up please.”

She thumped her palm into the bomb.

Liam looked at the bomb.

He looked out at the city.

He grinned. “Meg, have I ever mentioned that you always manage to cheer me up?”

“Three times a day,” she said, happily. “But I do love hearing it.”

Then it was suddenly daybreak.

Liam could remember, almost as if it were a dream, what it was like to watch dawn on Earth. The slow shading of colors, the gathering light, the gentle push from dreams to wakefulness. Purgatory didn't have that. Instead, the night went from the deepest, blackest darkness to the blazing light of the noonday sun with a sudden crash. Mary jerked up and out of her bedroll, her tail lashing erratically as she reached outwards – as if she was trying to ward off attackers. She blinked a few times, kicking herself against the wall of the cave.

“Hey, it's okay,” Liam said, holding up his hand.

Mary panted for a few moments – then stood up. She brushed her palms along her butt and shook her head. Her breathing slowed. Her tail slowed. Liam bit his lip slightly as he watched her getting more and more settled. He had to wonder about those clothes. Christianity was more... restrained... than some other religions. Like all things, the actual history of the Church and sexuality was long and complicated, but in general, it shook out to being more abstention than wild, paganistic orgies.

So…

Why the hell was Mary dressed in what amounted to a fetish nun outfit for a world without latex?

Seeing his look, Mary frowned. “What?” she asked.

“I, uh, was just wondering about your outfit,” Liam said. “But we can talk on the road. Are you willing to head back to the City of the Dead Gods?”

Mary blinked at him, those beautiful, golden eyes of hers filling with confusion. “You are going there? But...” She shook her head. “Are you mad? There's an army of lizardmen there. God is there!”

“Yeah,” Liam said. “And we're going to blow him up.”

* * *

“So, disguises.”

“We need disguises?” Liam asked, looking back over his shoulder. This wasn't as useful as it could have been, as Tethis was standing at his side and remained three feet tall. He lifted one arm to look down at her as she stepped past him to glare down at the City of the Dead Gods. She didn't respond for a few moments, green finger rubbing her chin.

“Oh, yes,” she said.

“We're on the other side of the world,” Liam said. “And this isn't Earth – no photography, no internet.”

Tethis looked at him. “A flaxen haired giant of a man, easily a head taller than every single other person in Purgatory not named Thor, bearing a glowing magical longsword made a metal that only exists in the ancient depths of antiquity, accompanied by the most beautiful valkyrie-”

“Aww, thanks Tethis!” Meg called from the back of the cave, where she was busily packing up their supplies.

“-anyone's ever seen, you're welcome Meg.” Tethis sighed. “And we're a good month's sailing away from any jungles, so people might even notice that a goblin's with you.” She smiled slightly. “And let's not even forget that our guide was crucified by these people.”

“If it helps,” Mary said, her voice soft as she stepped up to stand beside the two of them, her fingers laced together, “I wasn't targeted specifically.” Her fingers went to the ichthus that hung from around her neck. “I mean, no more or less so than everyone else in my city block. We were all declared saboteurs and heretics.”

“Were you actually saboteurs?” Liam asked.

Mary shrugged. “Is it sabotage if a smith breaks a bronze blade slightly more than he should otherwise? Is it sabotage if carriages are crashed by inattentive drivers and stock is stolen because guards pay little heed? Is it sabotage if alchemists go to bed early and waken late?” She spread her hands. “I think it can only be expected, when you are forced to worship a false god at spear tip.”

Liam smiled. “You seemed to think he wasn't so false last night.”

Mary frowned. “I have...” She paused. “Reconsidered my opinions.”

“Why's that?” Tethis asked but she sounded like she was only half listening. Her eyes were affixed on the distant city. She looked speculative.

“Well,” Mary said. “You are here, are you not?” She smiled at Liam. “With your godkiller?”

“Oh, we are so calling it that,” Meg said as she came to the front of the cave as well. Their belongings had been packed into a trio of backpacks, with the heaviest gear loaded into Meg's pack, which she had looped around her shoulders, the pack containing a frame that gave her wings clearance. It wasn't enough to let her fly freely, but she could at the very least do a bit of aerial maneuvering. “We're calling it that, right Liam?”

“I was going to call it Little Boy, but that should do,” Liam said.

“Little Boy?” Mary's brow furrowed. Meg, though, punched Liam in the shoulder.

“What's the rule?” she asked.

“No naming things after Earth things unless they also sound cool,” Liam said, rubbing his shoulder. Meg had put slightly more force in that punch that she did sometimes. He could almost feel a bruise there.

“Exactly. Little Boy,” Meg said, scoffing. “Godkiller is much more dignified.”

“So, Tethis, have you figured out a spell to disguise us?” Liam asked.

“I don't think I can,” Tethis said. The she frowned at the fact Meg and Liam both looked disappointed. “I'm a healing wizard. Doing basic energy channeling is one thing, but creating raw illusions out of thin air? Extremely complex ones like making you not look like you? That's a bit beyond me, no matter how despondent you look.”

“Well, you're a biomancer,” Meg said. “Why don't you just change us physically?”

Tethis rubbed the bridge of her nose with one finger. “Yes, that's much easier. And all the mass you would need to lose to hide those wings will just vanish won't it, because it's magic, we don't have to actually do any work.” She muttered similar things under her breath as Meg sent Liam a wounded expression.

“Well, why not a glamor?” Liam asked.

“What part of raw illusions-”

“No, not an illusion. Don't make us look like anything. Just tap into the part of someone's brain that says that things are normal and rub it.” Liam nodded. “Most of the things people see are approximations based off what their brain expects to be there, right? Take advantage of that with your biomantic manipulations.” He wiggled his fingers at those last two words. Meg nodded eagerly, using one wing to hug Liam's shoulder.

“That...” Tethis paused. “That could work.”

“Robes too,” Mary said. “To make us less distinct.”

Liam gave Mary the thumbs up. She looked somewhat taken aback, her brow furrowing as she looked at the lifted thumb. Liam lowered his hand, kicking himself. Right. Different cultures. Tethis, though, had pulled out her crystal foci. She tossed it from hand to hand, then got to work. Drawing magic into herself took a few moments of focusing, then shaping it and throwing it around the four of them was a matter of minutes. The glowing diagrams that she painted into the air were oddly curved and sinuous, rather than the more geometric patterns that she normally used. Once she had finished creating the patterns, there was a loud crack and the patterns vanished.

“Did it work?” Meg asked.

“We'll know when we get there,” Tethis said as she pulled a set of robes from her pack. “When they stab us.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Liam said, pulling his own robe on – then taking out a spare. “Mary's already shown, they'll torture us first.”

Mary didn't look amused. She took the robe and held it up, her golden eyes narrowing as she gritted her teeth. “I hate wearing these things,” she said. Liam looked from the robe to the outfit she was in. He looked back at the robes.

Mary saw his look and frowned at him. “What?”

“W-Well, I'm not trying to denigrate your order, Sister Mary,” Liam said, trying to sound respectful. “But on Earth, nuns don't, uh, wear that.” He coughed. “People who, uh, pretend to be nuns do. For, uh, reasons.” Mary's eyes narrowed. Then she scowled, her fangs flashing.

“Lilin are hot, Mister Vanderbilt,” she said, thrusting her thumb to the cleft between her breasts, touching the thin leather strap that crisscrossed her chest.

“You can say that again,” Meg murmured in his ear.

“No, I mean, we're-” Mary shook her head. “We're physically hot!” Thin streams of smoke were starting to trickle from underneath her black hair as her tail lashed from side to side. “I don't wear this because I want to flaunt my body, I wear it because if I don't wear this, I drop from heat stroke before the twelve bell!”

Liam held up his hands. “Whoa, sorry. I didn't know. And I didn't mean to be offensive. Honest.”

Mary shook her head, then threw the robes on over her head. She squirmed, wriggled, then got her arms through the sleeves. Her tail bunched up under the back and she writhed her hips from side to side, trying to get it comfortable. Liam stepped over, pulling a knife. “Here,” he murmured, grabbing the robe, then carefully slicing a thin slit in the fabric. He tried to not loom over Mary but just standing near her made his head spin slightly. His nose flared and he breathed in her smell. It wasn't the scent of someone who had been staked out in the desert and left to die. It was a smell that reminded him of spas and saunas and massage parlors. Scented oils and spices. His cock hardened against his pants and he found himself leaning into her presence slightly. Her tail emerged from the hole he had cut, prodding him in the chest.

“Do remember I am a midwife of the Holy Mother, Mister Vanderbilt,” she said, her voice stiff.

Liam nodded, stepping back. He might have personal disagreements with the chastity demanded by certain sects of his faith but he also knew the difference between having a belief and being a bigot.

The latter forced the former on others, at the end of the day.

Of course, there are some beliefs that should be forced on others, an argumentative part of his brain muttered. Like, say, women have equal rights, being racist is bad, democracy is good, and so on. Wait, can you force that kind of belief? No, now that I think about it. But you can protect the right to have it, I suppose. Also, fortunately, most people who are against those things are also inclined to enforce their views with swords. And it is acceptable to kill them if they try and kill you first.

Liam paused in his considerations.

Holy shit, I miss Facebook. I need people to debate who don't just agree with me or distract me with their boobs.

He shook his head, gesturing to his friends. Attired in glamors and in robes, the quartet set out for the City of the Dead Gods.

Three

Liv walked beside the horse that the Golden Git road on and rubbed her finger along her slave collar.

“How can the same shit happen to the same person twice?” she muttered.

The Golden Git looked at her. “Huh?”

Liv scowled at him. “Nothing,” she said. Then, smiling brightly, she said: “So, I don't suppose you want to tell me all of your plans, goals, aspirations, troop movements...”

The Golden Git chuckled. “If I told you anything, Liviana of Sparta, you cannot possibly hope to trust that it would be anything but a lie. Unless, of course, telling you the truth would serve my purposes. You know this – and I know this. Thus, by the unavoidable dictates of the logic that you Hellenes so tirelessly forced into the world, you would be forced to disregard everything that I say as useless. Or worse than useless. And so I suggest we cut to the end result and not even bother.”

“Do you just really like hearing yourself talk or do you want to impress me?” Liv asked, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Yes,” the ugly lizardman leading the group said.

Liv knew their names – she could meet a new squad and affix their names in her mind without a moment's hesitation. That didn't change the fact that she wasn't about to give them the consideration that it took to use them, even in her thoughts. The ugly lizardman was the ugly lizardman, she wasn't about to get him confused with the big lizardman, or the lilin.

She shot a glance back at the lilin. She was leaning half out of her saddle in an impressive feat of horsecraft, her legs hooked around the broad belly of the beast, her hand on the saddle horn as she plucked rocks from the dirt path that they trudged along. There were a lot of rocks and scant else – the Basilisk Desert had given way to the foothills surrounding the Barrier Mountains. Boulders were strewn here and there, but many of them had been shattered over the epochs of Purgatory into a fine collection of pebbles and rocks. What wasn't covered with pebbles had dirt. The only respite from the desolation were a few shoots of plant life that emerged here and there, and even that was closer to gray than green.

“Vazt,” the Golden Git said, his voice holding an edge of warning.

The ugly lizardman shrugged.

“How long has my father been working with your god?” Liv asked.

“Two years,” the Golden Git said.

Liv frowned. She did some mental math.

“It was my God's idea-” Liv could hear the capital letter there. It chilled her and she wasn't sure why, until she realized it was how Liam referred to his Christian god. “-to start the war between Sobek and New Athens. Why do you think your father sent you after Megara the Messenger in the first place?”

“He's a war god,” Liv said, shrugging. “Seemed to be enough reason.”

The Golden Git snorted. “Athena is a war god. Ares is just an infantryman who couldn't manage to seduce Aphrodite and can't stand the sight of his own blood.”

Liv bristled. The fact she had thought and felt the same thing about her father didn't change the fact that the Golden Git had no right to speak about him that way. She started to imagine how nice a golden scale coinpurse would look but then her senses screamed at her: danger. She narrowed her eyes and looked around. Elves were natural born predators. Heightened senses, vision that picked out patterns and identified them better than even humans, and minds that could remain cool and calm in the face of even sudden danger. Immortality, also, had a hand in it. When you lived forever, you could get actually good at a task, not merely acceptable, as humans considered it.

“What is it?” the Golden Git asked.

“There,” Liv said. Yes, he was a bastard and his lilin had clapped her in a slave collar, but they were so far off the beaten path that anything unfriendly they ran into was more likely to eat her than free her. Her chin jerked towards a boulder that looked like it had been sheared in half in some ancient battle. She had seen a hint of movement there. Looking close, she saw another hint.

“Vazt, Anix,” the Golden Git said.

The ugly lizardman and the big lizardman drew their swords.

The first weapon that flew from behind the boulder took Liv aback. She had expected spears. Crude ones, but spears nonetheless.

Instead, it was another rock. Not as big as the boulder, but still large enough to turn her head into mush if it contact. She sprang forward, wheeling off one palm as the rock hit the dirt where she had been standing moments before. Earth and pebbles went flying as a volley of other rocks came sailing out from behind the boulder. The two lizardmen spurred their horses into motion, moving carefully and slowly despite the pressing need of battle. The ugly one, at least, had his shield on his arm before he started moving. The big one was slower, trying to guide his horse, move forward, and get his shield off his back all at the same time.

Liv rolled her eyes, then shot forward. She sprinted across the pebbles, darting to the side to avoid other projectiles, and then brushed past the big one. Distracted by his shield, he barely realized she had his sword.

“Oi!” he shouted.

The Golden Git, though, didn't countermand her.

The ugly lizardman, seeing her making for the boulder, scowled, then swore in his native language. He swung off his horse, lifted his shield, and started forward on foot. He kept up the cursing as a rock smashed into his shield, causing the metal to dent with an ugly, unmusical sound. Liv, though, had reached the boulder and skirted around it. Behind it were-

“Ugh!”

The creatures were hideous. They looked as if some bored deity had taken chunks of animals and pressed them together without care for function, form, or fashion. Fur melded with scales, while jointed arms ended in writhing tentacles that seemed more at home with beasts from the depth of the Platonic Sea. Eyes were mismatched and often wildly out of proportion and wrong – both in placement, size and quantity. But no matter how ugly the three beasts looked, they were ferociously strong, considering they were ripping chunks out of the boulder – not picking them off the ground.

One flicked his tentacle and sent a boulder flying at Liv. Liv ducked under it and sprinted forward. Her sword plunged, tip first, into the center of the tentacled beast. The bronze bit, but sluggishly, and even with all her weight and all of her strength put into the blow, she only felt the blade sink a few inches in. Bright purple blood and orange puss spurted from the wound as she jerked backwards, whipping her sword to the side to get some of the gunk off of it. The ground between her and the beast hissed and the sword started to smoke.

“Oh wonderful,” Liv muttered.

The ugly lizardman chose that moment to save her life. He sprang from around the boulder and, with utter economy, cut into the arm of one of the other monsters at the narrowest joints. The arm hit the floor, still holding the rock that it had been about to chunk at her head.

Liv didn't hesitate. She stepped forward, ducked a fist, then slashed at a monster's face. She cut at the forehead, the cheeks, the fingers. She didn't try and go for any flashy finishing blows – she just wanted to disable the thing. The faster it was blind, deaf, and utterly maddened by pain, the better. Soon, her sword had lost the first inch of blade, the bronze crumbling away under the monster's blood. But the creature was flailing around wildly with what limbs it had left. It's good arm smashed into the side of another creature's head – pulping it with a sound not unlike a melon being dropped from a rooftop.

The ugly lizardman, she saw, had the same idea. They both stepped away from their horribly wounded enemies.

Looking at each other from across the battlefield, their eyes met.

The ugly lizardman nodded at her.

She nodded back, smiling slightly despite herself, her breath coming in short pants.

Then the big lizardman crested the boulder, holding one of the thrown chunks of rock over his head. He grinned. “My turn!” he bellowed, then threw the rock down as hard as he could. It struck the creature the ugly lizardman had wounded right in the center of their head. Said head crumpled inwards, sloshing orange blood and black, viscous goop onto the ground. The critter writhed, then hit the ground. The last one fell over – bleeding to death on the ground.

“Well,” Liv said, quietly, “That was fun.”

The Golden Git came around the boulder. “Are you insane?” he asked.

“No,” Liv said, turning to look at him.

“You disarmed one of my best men!” the Golden Git said. “And you charged an entrenched position wearing light armor, without a shield!” He shook his head. “Do you know what your father would do to me if you died?”

“No edged-” Liv started.

“They were throwing rocks!” The Golden Git bellowed at her.  “That blessing doesn't matter one whit if you take a thrown boulder to the face!”

Liv smirked. “Nothing is more precious than a soldier dying for a cause.”

The Golden Git blinked. Then he frowned, his surprisingly expressive lips making the expression all the more foreboding. He wheeled his horse around, waving with one hand. “Give up the sword to Anix, slave. And never do that again.”

Liv's fingers opened of their own accord. She didn't have time to resist the urge, but once it was over, she felt the simmering anger she had been holding in check – barely – burn through her. She started to walked forward, her fists clenched. The ugly lizardman rode up beside her, snapping his teeth and cracking his tail near her nose.

“Shut the fuck up,” he snarled.

“I didn't say anything,” Liv growled.

The ugly lizardman rolled his eyes, so expressive and so strangely human that it took Liv aback. She remembered the look they had shared across the battlefield.

“Your face was speaking louder 'n anything else, you dumb chit,” he said, using the insult as casually as if he was breathing. Oddly, it made Liv feel less insulted, rather than more. “The General, he don't like it when people die who shouldn't.”

“To be fair, if I die while under his protection, Ares will shove his fist up his ass,” Liv said, sweetly.

The ugly lizardman blinked. He shook his head. “You think as twisted as the General does sometimes.”

He muttered under his breath as he started to knee his horse away, fully expecting Liv to follow him. Liv wondered if her collar would let her get far. If the Golden Git hadn't ordered her to stay by his side, then the collar wouldn't interpret her as disobeying him.

But then she looked down at the hideous monsters. She looked away, at the foothills that they had climbed to reach the Barrier Mountains. The vastness of the desert spread out there, broken only by the very faint glint of movement that showed where the basilisks that gave the desert its name moved.

She turned and hurried to catch up, leaving a hilt and a corroded blade on the ground behind her.

It would have to do, as a tomb marker for the monsters.

* * *

Liam looked out of the second story window of the small, smelly, roach-infested apartment that they hadn't so much rented as squatted in, and then shook his head. Everything spoke to him. The looks on people's faces. The hunched shoulders. The muttered conversations. The glances at the occasional patrol of guards that marched through the streets. “This is a city about to explode.”

Meg nodded. “And thanks to Maurice and his endless fuckups, I know just what an explosion looks like.”

Mary frowned, looking up from the crude map of what she knew of the city that she had drawn on the floor using some charcoal rescued from an open firepit. “The fact the artisan who made the godkiller apparently destroyed his own laboratory is not a comfort to me.”

Meg shrugged, as if to say: What can you do?

Liam shook his head and looked back out the window, watching the people walking by intently. Getting into the City of the Dead had been a nerve wracking affair. They had marched down from the valley, past the Forest of Woe, and came to the gates. They had been as impressive as the fortifications erected around Faiyum Falls – more so, in fact. Taller, wider, with better crenelations, and regularly placed rectangular towers that had heavy siege weapons permanently mounted. The fact that they were barely patrolled seemed almost ancillary to their size and their girth.

Of course, a single set of siege guns could pound them flat in a weekend.

The gate had been surrounded by a large tent city, filled with merchants. Many of them had a desperate air to them, and several were near to starving. Only a scant few had been allowed into the city, while lizardman guards patrolled the whole area with a censorious eye. Liam had seen what the scaled brutes had done to any who looked even slightly troublesome.

The four of them had come to the gates themselves and been accosted by an equal number of lizardmen guards. They had been dressed and armored in brutal, practical looking gear – leather and bronze that looked fairly uniform and covered their vitals, but little more. Their weapons had been short spears and shields, and they had demanded what Liam and his friends wanted.

Liam, fortunately, had come up with a fairly good story.

“We're here,” he said, “To make supplications to the true God of Purgatory, of course. We were sent by the Anzin tribes to pray at the temple.”

The lizardmen had muttered to one another, then sent a messenger back to some higher up. The messenger had left, returned, and Liam and his friends had been welcome into the city. Praying at the temple hadn't taken more than a few minutes, and none of the guards seemed to care what they did once they were inside.

“Ah!” Liam slapped the wall to get Meg and Mary's attentions as he saw a familiar, short form hurrying in from the crowds, dressed in a concealing robe. Tethis came to the room, panting softly as she closed the door.

“I never knew being a child would make me so invisible,” she said, adjusting the robes. They had been thick enough to conceal the fact that, for a 'child', Tethis was amazingly stacked, and the hood concealed her green skin. She still looked hot, sweaty, and disgusted. “But Mary's intelligence hasn't changed. There's a major slave market out by the front of the Palace of the God. It's not like any slave market I've seen before – they don't just use collars, and the people aren't just criminals. Whole families are there.” She shook her head. “It reminds me more of the chattel slavery you talked about, Liam.”

“It doesn't make any sense,” Meg muttered.

“Why not?” Mary asked, charcoal sketching a deeper circle around the slave markets on the map. Now that it was confirmed, she could mark it. The map was showing more and more confirmed landmarks every hour.

“Well,” Meg said, “When you occupy a city, you tend to want the citizenry to not immediately hate your guts.”

“Not if you're the Nazis,” Liam said, quietly. “Or the Assyrian Empire. Or Rome, sometimes. Let them hate, so long as they fear and all that.”

Meg frowned. “Even the Persians didn't force gods out of their temples...”

Liam lifted his eyebrows. To hear a Hellene say that? He shook his head.

“We're dealing with a deranged god,” he said. “Rules of morality are out the window.”

“Still,” Tethis said, “The prettiest and most effective slaves are brought into the palace. M-Male or female, any race.”

Liam rubbed his hands along his face. “Christ, I wish you hadn't said that.”

“Why do you say Christ?” Mary asked, her brow furrowed as she continued to scribble on the map.

“Why, er, don't I say Christ?” Liam asked. “We're both Christians.”

“No,” Mary said. “You're Christian, from Earth. I am a follower of Mary. She was, and will be, the true bringer of the messages of god. Justice, equality, suffering.” She smiled slightly. “Or do you not have that gospel on Earth?”

Liam blinked a few times. “Oh my god, I wish I had a week to sit down with you and just write down everything. Like, okay, do you know about the-” Meg, who had stood up, walked over and slapped the back of his head. He shook himself. “Not the time. Right. Plan Shitty is a-go, I suppose.”

Meg frowned. “I don't like the fact you called it that and none of us disagreed with you.”

Liam smiled, then knelt down as Tethis stepped over. She slipped a thin band of cloth around his neck, tying it tight, then touching her fingers to his skin. His skin darkened a few shades, until the cloth and his skin were nearly the same color. “If this works,” she said. “Then I'll have a sympathetic connection when they use the touchkey on the collar. I'll be able to make my own, and we can free you.” As she spoke, Meg tied a far redder cloth around Mary, whose finger touched the collar.

“I'm not going to be captured,” she said, quietly.

“Yes, but these people are raving psychopaths,” Meg said. “Better safe than sorry, right?”

Mary nodded slightly, bowing her head to Meg.

Liam stepped over and squeezed Meg's shoulder. Despite Mary's newfound conviction that this was a false god, part of him still worried that when 'Plan Shitty' went off, he'd learn that he had spent his whole life believing in and praying to a petty, amoral sociopath. It was a concern he had had a few times before, when life had been cruel and hard.  But he had never before had so much contrasting evidence to worry himself over. Meg, seeing his expression, leaned in and kissed him. That kiss, that moment of connection before danger, filled Liam with a tingling warmth. His hands cupped Meg's ass and she leaned into him, molding her body to his. Her breasts were firm against his chest, her nipples hard enough to cut glass. Liam felt the rest of his body responding and Meg had to push him back before he kissed her more.

“Later,” she whispered. “After we kick ass.”

Liam nodded. Smiled.

Then he turned and he and Mary walked out of the apartment and into the city streets.

They walked together in silence for a time before Mary asked: “So, are you going to marry her”?

Liam looked at her.

Mary shrugged. “You seem to love her a great deal.”

Liam's jaw worked. He looked down at his hands and he laughed. “Is it insane that the main reason why I have delayed is because I, I... I want her to meet my Mom first?” He smiled slightly. “I love my family and my friends. I miss them a great deal. If it weren't for Meg and Tethis and Liv, I think I'd have gone crazy here just out of pure loneliness.” He sighed. “God, I hope Liv is okay.”

“Mary protects,” Mary said, smiling.

“Okay, I gotta ask: Why are you named Mary, if you worship Mary?” Liam paused. “Actually, wait, a load of people in my world name their children Jesus. Though, they pronounce it Hay-zoos.”

Mary smiled. “Well, to be fair, I pronounce Mary as Mary.”

Liam blinked, cocking his head. “That sounds the same.”

Mary reached out, touching his shoulder gently. “Liam, you are using a translation spell,” she said as if speaking to a child, her lips having a ghost of a smile.

Liam closed his eyes and wondered who had taught her to use that tone of voice with him – Meg or Tethis. “Right. Right. What language are you speaking?”

“Koinapunic,” she said, her tail lashing from side to side.

Liam laughed. “I don't even know what that could possibly derive from. No wonder I'm missing pronunciation.”

Mary smiled. Then, quickly, she drew her hand back and looked away. Liam noticed that her red cheeks seemed slightly deeper red. He remembered how just being near her, smelling her, had tweaked his lusts to a low simmer – he wondered if lilin had the same instinct when they touched others. He sighed. It would explain why they had been banished to Purgatory by fundamentalist Christians in the third century AD. A race of all female sex goddesses whose very touch could arouse someone to a furious fuck-frenzy?

Huh, he thought. I wonder if it works on straight women. Or asexual men. Or gay men! Oh! Or asexual women!

“So, what is the Church like back on Earth?” Mary asked, pausing as she and he waited at a cross street for a trio of heavily laden carts to pass by, their wheels kicking up a fine cloud of dust in the air. Each cart looked filled to the brim with spears and swords. Liam tried to not think about how many metalworkers this city had, workers who were all toiling to arm a false god and his army of barbarian lizardmen. Instead, he murmured to Mary,“Well, it all started with the Ecumincal Councils...”

Liam continued as they made their way further and further into the City of the Dead Gods. It took them the better part of an hour to finally reach the heavily patrolled inner sections of the city, near the palace. The palace itself was just as Tethis' scouting had described it: shockingly austere. It was merely a large stone building with an open front patio that was supported by heavy stone pillars and filled with guards. The windows were made of glass that glittered in the morning sunlight – and suddenly Liam realized it wasn't austere at all. Those windows were the true wealth on display. They weren't the utterly smooth, perfectly clear windows of Earth. Each one had tiny imperfections, even when seen from a distance.

Each one had been hand crafted.

The courtyard before the palace looked broad and flat, with a low dais about the size of an American football field taking up the majority of space. In the center of that dais was a newer wooden platform, ramshackle and thrown together. On that platform stood a collection of bedraggled men and women and some children, while a burly lizardman with a large whip walked along the front, shouting out to the crowd – mostly prosperous looking people calling out bids. A whole string of men were sold for a few gold coins to a valkyrie merchant, the lizardman auctioneer gesturing them off the block. Liam tried to not feel sick. He looked at Mary, who looked both sad and furious at the same time, her tail lashing from side to side.

“This used to be the debate forum,” she hissed, quietly. “Where anyone who could vote could come to bend the ear of the Free Lord.”

Liam nodded. “So, are you ready?”

Mary sighed and turned to him. “Yes.”

Liam licked his lips, glanced back at the slave auction, then at her. “You're sure this will work?”

“Getting cold feet, Mister Vanderbilt?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Well, yes,” Liam said, smiling nervously. “There's a reason we called this Plan Shitty – we don't have many other options if we want to actually get inside the palace. But we are relying on invading soldiers to be moral, when even cops on Earth don't take it seriously.”

“It will work,” said Mary. “The sentence fits the crime - we don't need them to be moral, just greedy. That's why the stakes need to be so high..”

“Right.” Liam rubbed his hands together, then reached out. He grabbed Mary's wrists and shoved them over her head. She gasped and flushed as he leaned forward and licked her neck. His cock surged to life, hardening, then straining against his robes as he pressed himself fully to Mary's body. Her breasts were smaller than Meg's, smaller than Tethis' even, but she was so pliant and soft. Her smell and her taste filled him with fire as he bit down on her neck, growling, his hands sliding from her wrists to her shoulders. He grabbed her robes and tore them apart, exposing her delicious breasts to him, save for her straps.

He could taste her sweat and her eagerness and-

And he barely managed to hiss. “M-Mary. Struggle!”

Mary, who had been standing there with an open mouthed gape, blinked. Then she squirmed. “N-No, stop!”

Liam tugged one of her straps down and those breasts bounced free. Perfectly shaped, brilliantly red, and so perky that he swore he could wedge a pencil between them and have it stick, they were too tempting to turn down. Liam leaned forward, sucking roughly on one ruby red nipple. Mary bit her lip hard to keep from moaning, then managed, at last, to scream.

“Stop! Rape! Help!” She slapped at his head, weakly at first, then harder. Liam drew back, then clapped his hand over her mouth. From the excited blaze in her eyes, and the way her tongue swirled against his palm, she wanted it. Liam couldn't think of anything but her wanting it.

Then the guard walked around the corner.

For all the fact that he was six feet tall, scaled and had a long tail, a crest of feather-like scales along his scalp and was colored bright blue, the character that the lizardman guard reminded Liam of most... was Barney Fife from that old TV show. He looked relaxed, slightly incompetent, and rather than charging forward to break up what was clearly a rape, he just ambled forward.

“Thissssss man bothering you?” he hissed, his accent thick even through the translation spell.

Mary shot the lizardman a furious look, her fingernails digging into Liam's scalp. Liam drew back from her and turned to run, though he deliberately went as slowly as he could while still looking like he was trying to run away. The blunt edge of the sickle-sword that the lizardman had strapped to his hip wrapped around Liam's neck and casually pushed him to the side, smashing him into the alleyway wall across from Mary.

Liam groaned, his eyes closing.

“Rape isssss punisssshment by ssssslavery,” the lizardman said, grinning brightly. “Unlessssss you hassss a way to make me look the other way?”

Liam blinked.

And felt a rush of cold shoot along his spine.

He had brought his coin purse. As naturally as breathing. He had a good fifteen or so gold coins in there – quite an amount. He kicked himself, hard. How could he explain the purse and also not bribe the guy? The lizardman grinned at him.

“No pursssse?”

Liam looked past him at Mary, trying to glare at her. “Let me go, I done nothing wrong!” he said. “Lilin bitches are made to get dicked, we all know it!”

“Yesss, true,” the lizardman said, shrugging. “But, you know, lawssss and ssssuch.”

“Fiend!” Mary exploded, then charged forward. She slapped at Liam's face as he was pinned against the wall. He felt her tail caress his side for a moment, then a dizzying sense of relief filled him as he felt the weight of his coin purse leave him.

“Hey!” The lizardman snapped. “No asssssaulting a prissssoner without my permissssion!”

Mary flushed. “H-He called me a bitch!”

The lizardman scowled at her.

Then he looked at Liam, then at Mary. A light went on in his greedy, bright red eyes. Liam felt his heart sink. He looked at Mary, trying to tell her to run with his eyes.

It didn't work.

As they both stood behind the auction block, Mary's hands tied behind her back, Liam whispered. “I'm so sorry.”

“Just shut up and be glad your lover thinks ahead.”

“Shut up, slaves,” the lizardman who was attaching collars to the people brought up to the auction block most recently said. He stepped over to the two of them, casually snapping the slave collars around their necks. He touched a small touchkey made of crystal and wood to their necks and Liam felt a magic surge rush through his body. He closed his eyes and prayed to God that Tethis had gotten the pulse from both him and Mary. Then he opened his eyes and saw the slave master eying them.

“Hmm,” the slave master said. His hand reached down and he casually tugged Liam's robes up, exposing his cock and balls. Scaled hands fondled him and Liam felt shame burn through him as the lizardman hissed quietly, “Big everywhere. You fuck good?”

Liam didn't even want to know. “I, uh-”

“Answer!” the slave master snapped.

Liam coughed. “Uh, m-my girlfriend thinks so.”

“She make much sssscreaming?” The slave master grinned at him, letting his hand drop from Liam's balls. “You fill her up, yesss?”

Liam's cheeks were so red that he swore he had to look like Mary.

“Yes,” he said, nodding.

“Good. Palace duty,” the slave master said. “And you?” He looked at Mary and licked his lip. “God say lilin have palace duty automatically.” He grinned broadly, the expression made even more nasty by how many very sharp teeth he had. He gestured and pointed towards the palace. “Go in, find head slave, she tell you what do.”

Liam and Mary walked off, Mary's spine as straight as if it had been drawn with a ruler. Her tail was perfectly still. They stepped between the rows of guards who had made any infiltration save by this route impossible and came into the main lobby of the palace.

Once sure he wouldn't be overheard, Liam leaned over and whispered in Mary's ear. “I'll do my best to protect you.”

Mary glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Liam could see her measuring him. Then, subtly, she nodded as they entered into the main lobby. Liam knew that his first job was surveillance and intelligence gathering, but it took him a few moments to just touch his collar and try to feel what it was like. Liv had said that collars didn't actually do anything until an order was given, and Liam was sure that was right. It didn't change the fact that every nerve in his body screamed to get it off him. He drew his finger back, not wanting to risk tugging on the thing. Instead, he forced himself to look around.

The palace was built around the central lobby-room. Two wings spread to either side, while two staircases wound along the inner rim of the room, heading to the second floor. A vast, glittering chandelier of crystals was hung suspended over the room, catching and refracting the light from outside so that the interior as bright and well lit as the noonday sun. Slaves of every race – most of them female – hurried here and there, directed by a tall, stern lilin woman.

Liam and Mary walked to her just as she finished telling a pair of burly, handsome elven men to head to the banquet hall. The two elves bustled off and she turned to eye Liam and Mary.

“Two new slaves?” she asked. At their nods, she sighed and rubbed her temple. “Damn it all.”

Liam coughed. “Uh, what's wrong, mistress?”

“Don't call me mistress,” she snapped. “My name is Muttunbaal – you can call me Mutt.” She grinned. “And I'm just as much a slave as you are. And I am just as baffled as you are. This mansion is big, but it doesn't need fifty eight goddamn slaves. It needs forty, at most.” She shook her head, rubbing her hands together. “Ah, I don't know. Go clean the second story. Just look busy and come back to me later.”

Liam blinked. “Do you know why they're getting so many slaves, Mutt?”

Mutt shook her head. “Not a clue. But God doesn't like telling slaves – even me – what goes on in his head.” She sighed. “As you are new, I will tell you this: do not go into God's chambers unless he calls for you.”

“How can we-” Mary started.

“They're the rooms that glow bright blue,” Mutt said.

Liam glanced at Mary.

Mary arched her eyebrow.

Together, they set off and got to work. The second story of the house was filled with offices and bedrooms. The offices had been converted hastily into bedrooms, desks covered with cushions, papers stacked in piles in the corner. Lounging in most of the rooms were pairs of quartets of lizardmen and lizardwomen. Liam was actually a tad shocked to see the first lizardwoman as she walked out of one of the bedrooms wearing a loincloth and nothing else, her immense scaled breasts bouncing slightly as she stretched her arms over her head. His mouth had opened in shock as the lizardwoman looked at him, grinned, and raised the crest of feather-scales along her head.

“You like what you see, mammal?” she asked.

“I, uh-” Liam stammered.

“Tough,” she said, slapping at his hand and walking away, swaying her hips from side to side.

Liam shook his head.

“Why were you so surprised?” Mary asked him later as they cleaned an office. In truth, Liam was rifling through papers. So far he hadn't found anything but the old Free Lord's paperwork. Tax collection forms, census notes, correspondence with other rulers of Purgatory; all of it rendered woefully irrelevant by this false god and his army.

“Huh?” Liam looked back at Mary, who really was cleaning along the window with a feather duster.

“When that lizardwoman walked by, you seemed shocked. Yes, women only make up a quarter of the army, but-”

“Oh, no, it was her titties,” Liam said, shaking his head.

“...titties?”

Liam coughed. “Breasts.”

“No, I know what titties are,” Mary said, putting one hand on her hip as she pursed her lips at him. “I just didn't expect someone who respects women like you to use that word.”

Liam blinked. “What?”

“It's...” She paused. “Disrespectful. Isn't it?”

Liam shrugged. “I mean, I guess it can be?” He shook his head. “But Meg loves it when I talk about how great her tits are. She thinks it’s cute.”

“Is that lizardwoman Meg?”

“Noooo-” Liam laughed. “You're right. Sorry. What's okay for someone might not be okay for others.” He bowed to her. “Consider myself scolded.”

Mary smiled slightly.

“Now, as for why I was shocked by her bazooms,” Liam said, standing up.

Mary threw the duster at his head, laughing despite herself. Liam laughed as well, grabbing the duster from the air. “As I was saying, I was shocked by her gazongas-” More laughter from Mary. “-because she's a reptile. Reptiles don't nurse their young with milk. They don't have mammary glands.”

“And are these lizardfolk exactly like Earth reptiles in all other ways?” Mary asked.

Liam blinked a few times.

“You know, Mary, have I ever told you I find intelligence highly attractive?”

“You're also in a relationship with another woman,” she said, shaking her head and holding her hand out. He placed the feather duster in her palm.

“Do you know what Meg said when Tethis started to, uh, show an interest in me?” Liam asked.

Mary turned away, shaking her head.

Liam cocked his head and looked down at Mary's firm, tight, heart-shaped ass. She was wearing the leather straps and only the leather straps now. The collar fit in with the rest of her get-up alarmingly well, now that he thought about it. But what he was eying now wasn't the slave collar. It was the thin strip that almost vanished between her firm ass-cheeks. His tongue slid along his lips as he remembered the way she had tasted.

“Let me watch,” he said, quietly.

Mary snapped her head back to look at him.

Liam grinned, putting his hand on his heart. “Honest. Christ strike me down if I lie.”

Mary snorted. “Mary said there's a special place in hell for adulterers, you know.”

“Wasn't she married when she had her virgin birth?” Liam asked.

Mary's cheeks flushed. “T-That's different!”

“Totally,” Liam said, sounding amused. “I'm just being annoying.”

This time, the feather duster hit him in the face.

* * *

Night came – as it always did – with a crash. Mary and Liam both noticed it only in that the lights within the mansion flickered slightly before stabilizing, and the window they were wiping down suddenly showed a dark sky.

“Well,” Mary said, “We've got a map of the place. We know where God's room is. Now, we just need to get out, right?”

“Mmhmm,” Liam said. “Why do you think we've been cleaning this window for the past hour?”

He jerked his chin.

From one of the roofs of a building about half a mile away from the palace came a flash. It blinked and winked at the two of them for a few moments as Liam's brow furrowed. The translation spell that Meg had cast on him and kept renewing with their continual contact was good. But it wasn't so good that it could translate a specialized language of flashes and darkness, used by New Athens to communicate with the City of the Dead Gods using their great lighthouse. He h'd had to memorize that in the frantic few days they had while scouting out the city.

“Okay,” he murmured. “Meg's in position, and-” He stopped. “El Em gone?”

“Those are letters?” Mary asked.

“Lizardmen gone,” Liam whispered. He picked up a silver desk mirror that he had quietly stolen from one of the bedrooms and flashed a message back to Meg.

Plenty here.

Mary stepped to the door, looking out at the hallway beyond the room, her tail stilled with the tension. Liam nodded to himself – a lookout. Good idea.

Meg flashed back.

Only two at gate, two at other gate. No patrols. Also, weapon caravan left – heading west on river. Fifteen ships.

Liam frowned.

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

“What?” Mary glanced back at him.

“Every lizardman in the city is in the palace and all the weapons they've been making here? They're shipping west.” He shook his head. “They're leaving.”

He flashed.

God's chamber middle room on second level, rear area. Main lobby is flush with back wall. Unsure where to place bomb, please wait.

Meg flashed back.

Rumor army approach. Ra.

Liam frowned. “Son of a bitch.” Before Mary could ask him, he turned to her. “Ra's sending an army here. Either he's learned that the city's been taken – not impossible – or he's getting greedy.” He sighed. “So that's why the lizardmen are leaving. They don't want to hold the city – they've gotten what they came here for.”

“The weapons,” Mary murmured.

“Yeah.” Liam frowned, then started to flash back.

“Someone's coming!” Mary hissed.

BRB, Liam flashed, then tucked the mirror into a drawer near the window. The door opened and a curvaceous human girl – utterly gorgeous, with pale red hair and bright purple eyes – looked in on them. She wore only a thin white breast band and a skirt that stopped right below the cleft of her ass. She smiled slightly.

“Mutt said to tell everyone up here – God wants us in the lobby.”

Liam nodded. “Thanks.”

Once she turned to go, he pulled the mirror out, flashing.

God in lobby. Get ready. Will send signal when time.

Liam and Mary started towards the lobby. Before they even reached the stairs, Liam could hear the sounds of a great deal of voices. A lot of people, even if they were trying to be quiet, made a low, eager roar. When he came to the stairs themselves, he breathed slowly in. The lobby and most of the wings were packed. Filled to the brim with lizardmen and the slaves of every race. It looked like every member of the occupying army save the skeleton force that had been left on the edges had come here.

No, that couldn't be right…

There were only, at most, a hundred or so lizardmen here.

A cold chill filled Liam.

This wasn't an army, he thought. This was a detachment.

“I thought there were more of them,” Mary whispered.

“That's what they wanted you to think,” Liam whispered back. He could already see how it had been managed: spells, proper deployment of troops, just taking advantage of the fact that most lizardfolk looked similar to one another. It'd take a genius and an elite...

The city had been taken by a genius general, Mary had said. The lizardmen had fought like elite soldiers, Mary had said.

Liam rubbed his hand over his face. He suddenly felt very, very out of his depth.

Then, reaching the bottom of the stairs and coming into the edge of the massed crowd, he saw God.

Liam froze.

Then giggled.

Then laughed.

He leaned back against the bannister, his knees shaking as he laughed and laughed, his shoulders shaking as he let himself go limp. Mary looked at him, worried. But Liam shook his head, beaming at her. His eyes glinted with tears.

Tears of relief.

“That?” he whispered, voice joyful. “If that's Jehovah, then I'm a monkey's uncle.”

The creature who had claimed the City of the Dead Gods as its own wasn't a human. It wasn't a goblin or elf either. The closest thing that Liam had ever seen to it was an abstract, modern art sculpture. There were vague indications of arms and legs made of jagged blue crystals, and the torso was carved from the same stuff. Rather than having the crystal chunks connected by any kind of physical contact, the whole thing was shrouded with a crackling aura of lightning, which suspended the arms and legs and jagged, cubist head in place. The head had a pair of uneven eye-sockets drilled into it, and those eyes were filled with the only part of the thing that looked faintly alive: a glowing pair of red lights, contrasting with the blue hue of the rest of the thing.

The false god then stood, arms spread wide.

Except it didn't.

Rather, it went from reclining on a large collection of cushions to being in a standing position between blinks. It was like a glitchy computer animation.

Then the false god opened its crude, jagged mouth and Liam's relief turned into something else. Because while this wasn't his God, he still recognized that voice.

And that terrified him.

“Welcome - welcome - w-w-w-welcome,” the false god said, his voice skipping and stuttering. It was like four people were speaking at the same time, their words laid over one another, echoing and reverberating. “To my home HOME - I wish to to – inform keep aware, aware, aware, that there has been a victvictory-ry-ry-”

“Oh god,” Liam whispered.

Mary looked at him, her eyes wide with fear.

“It's an A.I,” Liam whispered.

That voice – he had heard it before. He had heard it in a video game. The warbling distortions. The repeating voices. The glitching out. It was the sound that game designers on Earth had used for years to represent an artificial intelligence gone absolutely, completely, irrevocably insane. He didn't know if this creature was an actual artificial intelligence or if it was some kind of intelligence born of magic and sorcery but it was clearly mad.

“Brax the Golden-” Liam furrowed his brow and started to try to parse the warbling words into just a single line of dialog. It was tricky, but he started to get better and better at it as the A.I continued his speech. “-has traveled to the Barrier Mountains, to retrieve an artifact of great power. It will reawaken your past – your power.” The god spread his hands wide. Liam wasn't sure when he started gendering it, but something about the creature's tone made him think male. “The Genetic Codec Unit 9821.”

“All right, that cinches it,” Liam whispered. “Crazy computer.”

“I'm lost,” Mary whispered.

“To activate the Codec, estrus must be artificially triggered, to prime genetic signaling receptors and activate reconfiguration of morphological pathways!” The false god spread his arms wide as if giving some great, rousing speech. The lizardmen listened, though quite a few of them were looking more confused than anything else. Liam's eyes widened.

“Oh shit,” he whispered. It took him a few seconds to remember what estrus meant.

“And so, I, your god, Sysminor, command you.” The false god's hand reached out. “Mate!”

But the command wasn't for the lizardmen.

It was for the slaves.

The collar around Liam's neck buzzed and he felt a heat swim through his body. His eyes went unfocused and the world seemed to take on a pink haze as he looked at one of the lizardwomen standing near him, his cock surging to life. He breathed in the smell of the crowd as the lizardwoman looked at him – confused. Liam stepped forward, his palms cupping her scaled breasts. He fondled them as behind him, Mary made a quiet moan as she pressed against a lizardman, kissing him hungrily.

Liam leaned forward, kissing the lizardwoman's neck, stripping what little clothes she wore off as she hissed in appreciation.

And he didn't mind.

Not one bit.

Four

Liv held up her hand, covering up the sun that shone down overhead and trying to not shudder with the cold that bit through the fur coat that she wore.

“We're closer to the fucking thing, why is it doing less work?”

“Air's thinner, there's less to keep the warmth in,” the Golden Git said. His voice was tight and when Liv looked down from the sky, she saw that he hadn't moved. His tail hadn't moved, his head hadn't moved – he was standing perfectly still, watching the entrance to the ancient temple. The temple had been what, apparently, their group had set out from the City of the Dead Gods to find. Liv had to say she wasn't very impressed. The temple had no carvings and no runes, no artistic decorations at all. It was just a solid metal rectangle set into the side of the mountain like a yawning, gaping mouth.

The only thing that indicated it was a temple at all had been the mutant guardians.

Said guardians were sitting off to the side, their tentacles and hands behind their backs, their variform eyes looking murderous.

Liv frowned. 

She had been with the rest of the group, peering down at the village of guardians. I say, Liv said, We come back with an army.

Rao, the Golden Git had said. A single word – a name – and his lilin had stood, several dozen slave collars looped around her left arm, her sling on her right. A sling shot had struck the temple of each guardian who was on lookout, stunning them as the lilin had rushed forward, then tossed the collars around their necks with unerring precision. Other mutants had charged forward, but in the open, with surprise on the lilin's side, they had been slapped in the collars within a few moments.

From then on, it had just been an order to disarm and stand down.

“I hate this,” Liv said, standing up in a single smooth motion and starting to pace left and right. “I fucking hate this waiting. And I don't even like your people.”

“Imagine what it must be like for me,” the Golden Git said, his voice tight.

The two of them paused and looked at the large entrance. No sounds emerged from it, no light, no sign of any movement from within.

The three others had gone in an hour ago.

Liv sat down beside the Golden Git. She frowned as she let her palms rest behind her. She considered using the only knife open to her with the slave color – her tongue – but when looked at the Golden Git she saw genuine for his bodyguards.

Liv reached out, putting her hand on the shoulder of the lizardman. Not for the first time, she found herself marveling at whatever had turned him gold. The coloration wasn't just coloration – his scales felt faintly metallic. But something had been worked into the metal to make it as soft and pliant as actual scales. She could still feel his warmth, and his muscles beneath. Her fingers caressed along his back and she felt the tension that was worked through his body.

“They'll be okay,” she said. “Why can't we go in there?”

“Hm, yes, Vazt and Anix would definitely allow that,” he said, sounding wry.

“They're your soldiers, you can order them around,” Liv said, her fingers pausing as she realized she had started to trace the curve of his neck, feeling the crest of feather-like scales that served as the Golden Git's hair. What did she care if he was tense?

He snorted. “They serve our false god, not me, not really,” he said. “And Sysminor-”

“What kind of a name is Sysminor!?” Liv spluttered, her tension forgotten as she giggled.

“That's what I wanted to know,” the Golden Git said, looking at her and grinning. Liv grinned back at him. Then, frowning, he looked back at the entrance to the ancient temple. “But still, they serve him – and he uses me as his general. And his orders were clear: I was to survive this mission.”

Liv nodded. “And having my father trying to murder you would make that hard.”

“Yeah,” the Golden Git said.

“Any idea why Ares put me here?”

“One, but you might not like it,” the Golden Git said.

Liv frowned. “I'm not having your babies.”

The Golden Git jerked his head back, snapping his head around. “What!?”

Liv shrugged. “Father's tried to set me up with great generals before. Seems to think that being good at bossing troops around can be inherited. A few were good lays.” She grinned. “Father isn't always the smartest, or most observant, at least two of them were girls. Though, in his defense, one was dressed as a man.”

The Golden Git shook his head. “No! Your father clearly thinks that we lizardfolk are going to win.”

“Well, as I said, Father's kind of dim,” Liv said. Her hand, by its own accord, had crept back to the Golden Git's back. She frowned. “Okay, if you tense your spine out of whack, you won't be able to make it back to anywhere. Lay down.”

The Golden Git frowned at her.

“I'd rather not,” he said.

Liv grinned, her teeth flashing. That had been what she was hoping for. Memories of tormenting Liam were tinted with the rosy happiness of how that story had ended but she found herself pushing it further than she had with Liam. Her palms pressed against the Golden Git's shoulders, shoving him gently. “Come on, belly down.”

The lizardman let himself be laid flat on the ground. His hardened scales didn't seem to mind the dirt and the dust and his tail twitched as Liv ran her palms along his back. She felt the knots of tension here and there. Her fingers worked into his muscles, rubbing in slow circles. He grunted in pain and Liv felt a moment's satisfaction – nothing quite like making a dickhead uncomfortable.

Her fingers traced the small of his back, coming down to his loincloth as the Golden Git's eyes closed and turned to the side. The cloth had slipped slightly to the side and Liv's eyes moved to his sculpted behind. The term was more literal here than elsewhere, due to his golden hue, but she still found her breath stopping for a moment as she noticed, nestled between his muscular thighs, a firm pair of balls. Liv gulped slightly.

Something she had never admitted to Liam – and never would – was that she…

Well…

She really liked a big set of balls. It was almost more important than a cock – since she only usually came from the ministrations of a tongue. And when you were trying to find release just before or just after a battlefield, what you wanted was someone who could both see what they were doing and using a part of their body that could be directed in more motions than just forward and back. Plus, women tended to use tongues, and women tended to be better at pleasing women than men.

But it was something about a man's balls that caused her heart to race. She knew if Liam had been here, he'd have spouted some kind of big rambly point about it. But Liv knew what she liked and wasn't about to worry about it. And Brax had an amazing pair. The light scaling on his scrotum added an interesting texture, and the lack of hair to catch grime meant that even when she leaned close, she couldn't smell anything other than a pleasant musk. Then, leaning forward, she noticed that his cock was pinned under her belly. Once more, his golden coloration seemed to have made him tougher. Most men wouldn't want their cock caught between a belly and uncovered earth.

But Brax...

Liv flushed and grabbed onto his loincloth, jamming it back over the Golden Git's bottom. “Shameless,” she muttered. “Presenting to a slave.”

His tail touched her cheek for a moment as it writhed in the air.

“I'm not the one who pushed me over,” he rumbled. Her palms pressed to his back, harder now. She felt the tension receding as she worked her palms into him, kneading him. He groaned quietly.

“Asshole,” Liv muttered.

“Mm, yes. Most people are,” Brax said, quietly. “But I try to minimize it.”

Liv snorted.

Brax turned his head. “For instance, I'm not ordering you to spread your legs right now – and I am sorely tempted too, Liviana of Sparta.”

Liv felt her sex moisten, tingling between her legs. Liam was manly, though it had taken her time to realize it. But he was a different kind of manly from this general. Brax's eyes were experienced and his voice was stern and he spoke with utter certainty as he shifted, drawing himself up onto his knees. His loincloth tented out before his cock, doing more to accent its length and eagerness even as it draped forward.

Liv scowled. “Do it. Rape a slave, why not?”

He snapped his teeth in a fierce click. “New theory as to why your father sent me: You're an attempt to drive me insane to sabotage Sysminor's plans. I may need to reconsider his genius.”

Liv snorted. “So, how long?”

Brax blinked.

“How long since you pumped those balls into someone?” she asked, her voice riding the line between teasing and insulting.

“Ah,” Brax said. “Ballslut, then?”

It was now Liv's turn to be thrown. She shook her head, flushing slightly. “Excuse me?”

Brax smirked at her, his tail lifting and twitching from side to side. “There's a one in three chance that, if you care about men at all, you're interested in their ass, their cock, or their balls. At least, when it comes to eros.” He winked at her. “Another useful Hellenic principle, that? Multiple forms of love. Eros is the madness, irrational, lustful kind of love, yes?”

Liv scowled at him. “Irrational. Yes.”

Brax leaned forward slightly, his nose almost bumping against hers. “So,” he said, softly, “I take it my guess was right.”

“Golden git,” she growled, not drawing back.

“That's not a no, you know.”

His lips were very close right now. Liv's twin instincts warred against her. The first was to find a sword and start beating him about the head with it. She wondered, faintly, if he was actually any good at using the sword at his hip. The other instinct was to grab him and mount him and see if this barbarian general was any good at using his other sword. But as she saw him leaning fractionally forward, Liv put her finger up, pressing it to his snout.

“Not in front of the mutants,” she whispered.

Brax turned his head to the side, laughing quietly. “Fuck, it's been too long.”

“A few months?” Liv murmured, her finger sliding from his nose to his neck, feeling the quick pulse of his heart. She noticed that his beat wasn't like that of an elf's – she felt it go beat beat-beat beat. She wondered if his heart normally went this fast.

“Six years,” Brax said, shrugging.

“Holy-fucking-what!?”

“Oiiiiii, General!”

Between heart beats, Liv and General Brax were a good five feet away from one another. She was kneeling and glaring off into the air, her arms crossed over her chest to hide her hard nipples, while Brax was lounging back on the ground, one leg crooked over the other, concealing his hard on as his soldiers emerged from the temple. Vazt led the way, grinning widely, sword in his hand, his other holding up something that made even Liv gape.

“I found it,” Vazt said.

* * *

Liam's mouth was fastened around a stranger's nipple, sucking on the hard tip and feeling the light patina of scaling that surrounded it, when his morality leaned forward and kicked him hard in the ass. He jerked his mouth away with a smack, leaving the green nip glistening – and then it was covered by a dark human hand as another slave cupped the lizard's tit and ground against her ass. The lizardwoman didn't seem to notice or care that Liam was stumbling back and away from her.

The sounds of pleasure were filling the air, but Liam shook his head, trying to fight down the intense lust burning through his body. His cock swung from side to side as he turned – and saw Mary. She was between two lizardmen, stroking both of their black, black cocks. Her fingers tightly gripped their shafts and her eyes were closed, her lips spread in a smile. Her thumbs caressed the triangular tips of their dicks and the two lizardmen caressed her – one squeezing her ass, the other tearing the leather strap from her breasts with a quick jerk of his claws.

Liam staggered over. As he moved away from the woman he had been pleasuring, his head cleared slightly and something became obvious to him.

He was horny as hell but he wasn't mind controlled.

He could think about things other than fucking – and when he looked at the stairs leading to the second floor, he saw several slaves slipping away. Many of them were clearly wracked with lust, but they still moved.

For whatever reason, they didn't want to be here.

So they were leaving.

He nodded. Mary just needed to be helped away from the two lizardmen who were pressing against her and she could leave as well.

“Mary!” he hissed.

She opened her golden eyes as Liam stood before her – a tail caressing his back, a woman's breasts brushing against his shoulders. Every few moments, someone slipped by him, and several times, they caressed his chest, his balls. Liam felt every instinct screaming at him. Telling him, desperately, to join. His nose, his ears, his eyes, all of them were filled with glorious sights. A human woman, her legs spread, a lizardman's cock plunging into her eager sex, while an elven woman sat on her face. A human man eagerly nuzzling a lizardman's balls, licking and sucking on them as he stroked his cock.

He looked at Mary, his eyes speaking as loudly as words: Ask me and I'll help you get out of here.

Her eyes met his and focused. And subtly, she shook her head. Her lips twisted in a slight smile. Liam saw that her eyes weren't confused, she didn't look drugged. Hell, she looked like she was more in control than him. Her hands released the two cocks she was stroking as she walked forward – her tongue darting out as she licked her left thumb. She stood before Liam and her voice purred into his ear as she put the tips of her index and middle finger against Liam's mouth. He tasted, for the first time, the musk of another man.

To his surprise, he... didn't hate it.

“Lilin are always horny,” she whispered in his ear.

Liam blinked, then leaned against her. He kissed her neck and grabbed her ass. She moaned, squirming, and whispered. “I s-should head upstairs, you're right.” Liam leaned forward. His mouth closed around her nipple. It was just as pleasant, just as glorious really, as he had imagined back in the cave. His fingers squeezed her ass tighter and Mary moaned, her voice a sweet note among the chorus of the orgy surrounding them. “Mm!”

Liam knelt down, kissing her belly. To his shock, he was being joined by another lizardman – the other man was kissing Mary's ass, tongue sliding forward to lick between her thighs. Liam kissed the top of Mary's pussy, tasting the tingling, almost spicy juices that dripped from her. His tongue circled her clit and he slid a finger into her sex, feeling the lizardman's tongue bump against his digit.

“A-Ah, yes!” Mary rolled her head back. “Head upstairs, ah, later...”

Liam kissed her sex as the lizardman slid back. From the moans coming from Mary, she certainty didn't mind having her ass tongued. Liam tasted her sex, then tasted again and again, drawing his tongue along her pussy. At the edge of his perception, he became aware that a tongue was licking along the underside of his cock. He pulled back from Mary just enough to look down and saw that a beautiful, olive skinned human was on her back under him, her hands craning up to caress his belly and his balls at the same time, her tongue swirling around the head of his cock.

Liam grinned at her and at the tiny nod the woman sent his way, he plunged his hips forward. His cock slid into her throat and her back arched, her pussy sending a thin stream of clear juice onto the floor. She was squirting just from getting her throat fucked. Liam turned back and saw that the lizardman had gotten bored tonguing Mary's ass. He had stood up behind her, lifting her leg with one hand. Mary's palms pressed against a nearby pillar, supporting herself as the lizardman put his red cock to her sex – then slammed home. His balls slapped against her belly with a loud pap pap pap as Liam watched Mary's breasts bounce and jiggle.

“Oh god, oh Mary, oh yes!” Mary moaned, her eyes closing as the lizardman squeezed her breast.

Other moans and cries calling out to other gods rang through the air. Liam pulled his cock from the woman under him and she moaned wetly. “Fuck me, fill me with your cock, please!”

Liam wasn't about to refuse. He crawled around to orient himself properly, pushing her hands above her head and pinning her to the ground. He kissed her neck, his tongue tracing the line of her slave collar. She moaned, hungrily, her legs spreading wantonly wide. Liam had stopped caring at the moment. He just let the need surge through him as he kissed the woman on the mouth. He didn't even know her name. But he knew what she wanted.

He hilted himself inside of her, his balls slapping her ass as the sounds of moaning filled his ears. Her sex was tight and smooth and so very wet. His hips drew back, then slammed home as he started to fuck her, his body gleaming with sweat in a few moments. He had never felt quite so frenzied before. His eyes grew hooded as he drew his mouth back, letting her and him pant and moan. Her climax was wordless – her back arching, her head rolling back, her breasts mashing against Liam's chest as she wailed out in pleasure.

Liam's climax came a few seconds later. His balls clenched and he came inside of her. He pulled out and suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. He rolled to the side and blinked, laying on his back as he watched a lizardman pounce on the woman he had been inside mere moments before. The lizardman's black cock slammed into her and she squeaked – then moaned. Her hips lifted to meet his and Liam grinned slowly.

She was going to have a good time.

A set of fingers caressed his head. Liam looked up and saw that the lizardwoman he had been sucking on before was standing over him. Cum dripped from her scaled sex, sliding along her thighs, while her tail twitched from side to side. Her tongue darted out, sliding along her muzzle as she grinned at him.

“Not letting you get away,” she purred, softly.

Liam laughed, taking her hand and tugging her to her knees. Sitting there, he tried to kiss her – and like kissing Neb, the jackalgirl he had met earlier that year, he found that kissing someone with a muzzle took a bit of practice. You needed to tilt your head to the side, open your mouth, and let most of the contact come from tongues. But dear god, the girl had a tongue. It plunged into his mouth and then coiled around his, then drew back as she put her hands on his chest. She made a soft, happy hiss.

“What is your name, you glorious hunk of a man?” she whispered, her voice breathy. Liam cupped her large breasts, squeezing them. He heard Mary crying out in pleasure and he spared a glance back. A black skinned valkyrie was fucking her like his life depended on it. The lilin nun looked completely lost in the pleasure of the moment – and the only thing that could have made it hotter for Liam would have been if she had still been in her nun's habit.

I am a kinky son of a bitch, Liam thought. But instead of using that as his intro, he grinned at the lizardwoman. “Liam.”

He kissed her neck. The buzzing need that still filled him seemed less intense as the orgy went on. But he didn't feel any particular urge to stop. This felt amazing. His hands cupped her scaled ass as she chuckled.

“Nice name. My name is Fizit,” she said, softly, “And I notice you rather like my breasts.”

“They are amazing titties,” Liam nuzzled her breasts, kissing them gently. Then he bit down on her nipple just enough to draw a moan from Fizit. Her fingers caressed along his back, finding his ass. She slapped him gently and Liam drew back. He had been spanked before, but what made him more curious was the odd look in Fizit's eyes.

“Unusual name, Liam. And you're very tall,” she murmured.

Liam's eyes widened.

Fizit started to stand but Liam was faster. He grabbed onto her wrists, shoving her down and pinning her under him. They struggled for a moment, her thighs pressing against his sides as she tried to work her feet between him and her. His cock, despite the deadly seriousness of the moment, bumped against her sex and the grinding motion of her hips made him groan. Fizit was wet as hell, her sex moistening the tip of his cock almost as much as her tongue could have, and she managed to press her breasts against him as she hissed out.

“He-”

Liam leaned forward and kissed her, trying to quiet her without letting go of her hands. Fizit froze and Liam tensed, ready for a bite. Instead, her tongue pressed into his mouth. Darted against him. Her thighs were still pressed against him, but her ankles hooked behind him. Liam felt his cocktip spreading her sex. He broke the kiss, hoping that the moans of pleasure surrounding them would cover anything she said.

Instead of screaming for help, Fizit moaned. “Oh fuck, I'll tell him later – I need this.”

Liam nodded, then slammed into the enemy soldier. She gasped and shuddered under him as his cock filled her to the brim. “Oh Liam...” she whispered in his ear as he kissed her neck, his hands sliding from her wrists to the ground beside her head, holding himself up as he started to fuck her. He moved slowly, gently now, trying to buy himself some time. Fizit didn't seem to mind – she moaned with every movement of his cock. “Oh Liam!”

“Fizit!” he grunted. “I, ah, was wondering, mmm, what's your rank in Sysminor's army?”

“Not his army,” she said, her voice holding an edge. Her fingers caressed Liam's back, then started to play in his hair as she looked into his eyes. “Brax. We follow Brax. Ah. Gods. Even if, mm, Brax doesn't throw orgies, he's the leader.”

“Mmm,” Liam said, nodding. “Good guy.”

“Good general,” Fizit whispered, her voice becoming even more breathy as Liam's balls gently bumped against her ass. Her hips moved slowly forward and backwards and Liam was about to ask her more questions when he felt a tongue slurp along his balls. He looked back and saw Mary – cum dripping liberally from her sex – licking his balls. Her fangs caressed them for a moment as she leaned forward and took as much of his scrot into her mouth as she could. From the beatific look on her face, it had either been far too long since she had done this, or she was fully embracing her lilin heritage at the moment.

Either way, Liam appreciated the feeling, but didn't appreciate the distraction quite so much. He had no idea he'd ever get actionable intelligence in the middle of a massive, magically-induced orgy.

Man, the CIA would love to read this report, he thought.

Fizit gasped. “Oh gods!”

Liam blinked. “Gods?” He whispered in her ear. “I thought Sysminor was the one true god.”

Fizit turned her head to the side, but despite her look of consternation, she lifted her hips more eagerly, closed her legs around Liam more tightly. He was now barely able to thrust into her but every tiny motion he made wrung a tiny moan from her muzzle. Mary's tongue had dipped down and now, Liam could feel her caressing where he and Fizit were joined. Fizit's muzzle blushed darker red as she shuddered under him.

“None of us have, ah, a choice,” Fizit said.

Liam smiled slightly. “There's always a choice, Fizit.”

She looked at him, then her eyes widened as Liam used every skill he had. He held himself up on one arm, his elbow joint almost locking as he suspended his upper torso over her. His other hand reached down and he found and rubbed her clit, wringing more pleasure from her as Mary's ministrations redoubled, as if the lilin knew how important this moment was. Fizit's eyes grew unfocused as her mouth opened in pleasure. Liam plunged deep into her and came. Hard.

His balls tightened and his seed filled the other woman as she shuddered underneath him, holding him tightly. But to Liam's surprise, he found that she was glowing. Her scales shimmered and rippled with a pale blue light, and when he looked up, he saw every other lizardman was glowing from within.

Sysminor laughed. “Yes YES yesyesyes!”

The glow brightened and Fizit clung to Liam, her eyes wide with fear and confusion and wonder. Then she cried out again and her sex clenched on Liam's cock like a fist as what had to be the most powerful climax she had ever felt ripped through her body. The other lizardmen and lizardwomen roared out in pleasure – a unified voice that shook the room. Mary drew her mouth away from the joining of Fizit and Liam, looking around with wonder.

Then the light faded and…

And the lizardfolk looked exactly the same.

“It has worked,” Sysminor said, burbling happily to himself. “Now! Soldiers! Soldiers soldiers! Stand at attention – form up! Line! Now!”

The orgy disentangled itself slowly with some resistance. Liam saw that everyone seemed a lot calmer but that didn't stop men and women from clinging to their partners as the lizardmen pulled back. There were some shared caresses, some parting kisses as the detachment of lizardmen and women walked forward. They stood before their god, their heads bowed. Most of them glittered with moisture – sweat, cum, lubrication. And yet, despite that, they had a martial air to them.

Liam walked forward, feeling more naked than he was. Which was pretty impressive, considering how the only strip of clothes he had on him was the slave collar and the tiny piece of skin colored cloth that Meg had put around his throat. He hoped to god that Tethis had that spell prepped and that she and Meg were in position.

“My soldiers – you are now unstoppable,” Sysminor said. Well, his actual speech was more rambling than that – with echoing, repeated words, added sibilants, and random and bizarre strings of words that sounded like they had come from some well of madness. Liam, though, could hear what mattered. “We shall leave nothing for our enemies. Kill the slaves, then put the buildings to the torch. This town will be ashes when the enemy arrive.”

The slaves started to draw back in horror, their eyes wide.

The lizards – the people, Liam forced himself to remember – started to retrieve their weapons from where they had left them up by the front. Most of them were hefting up bows and arrows as slaves pressed back to the wall. Several people started hammering on the doors. But the doors had been barred. There was no escape.

Liam nodded.

There was only faith.

He stepped out from the crowd. “Wait!” he called out, holding out his hand. He didn't speak the word pleadingly. He simply left no room in his voice for disagreement. Sysminor looked at him and started to buzz and crackle. Lightning surged around him and his arm pointed at Liam without any intervening movement.

“You!”

“Yes, me,” Liam said, grinning. “I am Liam Vanderbilt of Earth. You've probably heard of me.”

The lizardmen actually looked curious – not scared, but clearly not dismissing him. He noticed Fizit in the middle of the row. She had put on some kind of fancy headdress. Who was she in the army's ranks, he wondered. She also had a bow and a nocked arrow. Well, Liam thought. If this doesn't work, then at least I'll die fast.

“I have faced your kind in battle,” he said. “You fight well and bravely. You fight warriors – men and women armed and ready to face you. Do you slaughter your naked lovers?”

“They're not LOVERS -lovers lovers!” Sysiminor screeched. “Slaves – fuckmeat, for discarding – dis-carding-carding-carding!”

Liam saw that the soldiers, though, looked uncomfortable.

“How many of you have been forced to nail innocent people to crosses? And why? Because a god orders you?” Liam asked, slowly walking forward, his hands spread wide. “Because I worship a god who once ordered that a man kill his child, but stayed his hand at the last moment. That god believed in compassion and forgiveness – in fighting for what is right, for justice!” He slammed his fist into his palm. “For honor, damn it! Now, are you warriors...or are you murderers? Because if you are, do it. Kill me.”

“Kill him him him!” Sysminor screeched.

The lizardmen…

Didn't move.

Fizit let her bow dip. She looked at the soldier to her left, then the soldier to her right. She shook her head.

“I won't do it,” she said. “I won't kill them.”

Sysminor howled in fury. Lightning crackled around his body in ever greater arcs. Chunks of the floor started to raise into the air, lifting up and tumbling about his body. The wall crumbled and cracked behind him as Sysminor drew more and more pieces to orbit his body, his arms spread wide as the sounds emerging from his jagged mouth became even higher, even more painful to listen too. Liam clapped his hands over his ears as the wall tore away even more and revealed Meg and Tethis, both crouched down, Meg holding the godkiller in one hand, Tethis holding a pot and a paintbrush in the other.

They had been gluing the bomb to the wall – but now there was no wall.

Meg looked at Liam through the crowd of debris.

Liam grinned.

Then all of the sounds coming from Sysminor cut out at once as the false god stood, wreathed in wreckage and rubble.

“Your god is nothing next to me, Liam Vanderbilt of Earth. You will die. Purgatory will be mine mine and Earth will burn, burn, burn forever- burn forever...” It laughed and sang at the same time.

Liam shook his head. “Protip, Sysminor.”

Meg stood and threw the bomb. It had been half coated in thick glue, so when it smashed into Sysminor's back, it stuck.

“Kill people,” Liam said, “Don't just talk about it.”

Meg grabbed Tethis and flew into the air.

“Hit the deck!” Liam screamed and flung himself flat. The lizardmen – battlefield veterans all – flung themselves forward. The slaves were mostly cowering on the floor as well, so they didn't need to move as far, nor as fast. Sysminor reached backwards and, for just moment, the look of comic surprise on its cubist face was utterly hilarious.

The godkiller struck.

And the world came to an end in white fire.

Part Two

Five

The tent flap slipped shut as Borin the Black stripped off his armor. Care had to be taken with bronze armor but Borin didn't give a shit - he could drop his armor on the ground and merely enjoy the fact that the smiths would need to fix it. For now, he only had eyes for Kayley.

His second in command was even faster than him in getting naked. She hadn’t even stopped to bind the slash along her palm - a light cut, left by the few warriors who had stood against them this day. Her skin glistened in the dimness of the tent, as if she had been oiled. And in a way she had: oiled with sweat, oiled with fear, oiled with battle lust.

Borin’s scarred hands rasped as they slipped along her hips as Kayley pushed herself back on the cot in the tent. He couldn’t feel the details of her skin, not through the amount of scar tissue he had. But that didn’t matter. He lived for the look in her eyes as his hands cupped and squeezed her firm breasts, finding her nipples and twisting them. The mixture of pain and fear, of disgust and eagerness, of lust and love. Kayley opened her mouth and moaned as wantonly as a common whore, her legs spreading wide.

Even in the dim light of the tent, her wet cunt gleamed.

“When did this start?” he asked with a grin. Keeping himself propped up on one arm, he reached down and caressed one of the only soft parts left on his lovely second in command. His fingers spread her pussy lips and thrust in to the first knuckle. Something about how she trained herself to ride without using her hands kept her virgin tight. And Borin knew what virgins felt like. He smirked at Kayley’s expression.

Her scowl shifted to a similar expression. “About when the first, mmh, fucking guardsman was taking one of my, ah-” She bucked her hips to force another knuckle into her sex. “Javelins to the throat. And g-get your fucking thumb to work, dipshit.”

Borin growled. “I am still your general, Kay-”

“Right now,” she said, reaching down to grab his wrists, “You’re fingerfucking me. So fingerfuck me.” She showed teeth. Some people might have thought it was a smile.

It wasn’t.

Borin shifted his weight, drawing up his knees so he could sink his fingers into her hair, his hand casually catching the cat-ears that made Kayley such a treat. The place where her ear met her scalp was sensitive. He knew it. He had coaxed such sounds from her by licking that place, stroking that place. And now, he dug his fingernails into it, causing Kayley to gasp and whine, her cat-tail squirming against his balls as she writhed under him. He leaned forward and growled in her ear.

“I’m still your general, Preafectus.”

“Y-Yes, General!” Kayley moaned – her voice tinged with pain and pleasure both. His roughly work-hardened thumb had found her clit and caressed it with the gentleness that turned every bump and ridge of his scars and callouses into pleasure. Her wetness seeped onto his palm as she spread her legs so wide that he almost heard her creak.

“And you want my cock,” Borin purred.

“Yesss...” she breathed, softly.

“You want to beg for my cock, little Preafectus.”

“Yessss!” she moaned, louder now.

“Little whore...” He nibbled her eartip gently, then grabbed her hair, yanking her head back. His teeth sank down this time against her neck, leaving a mark. He bit down again. Kayley shuddered under him and he felt her sex clenching around his fingers. Borin enjoyed playing with her. Sometimes, he wondered if Kayley knew that she was essentially a pet. Sometimes, he wondered if she would care. If she was paid, if she was given people to kill, and if she was fucked properly... she didn’t seem to mind anything.

But part of Borin liked the idea she thought this was more than just a general finding relief.

His hand slid from her sex and he took hold of one of her ankles, lifting it above her head. Kayley arched her back, panting wantonly as Borin’s cock slapped against her sex. One of the few places on his body that the fire had spared. His cocktip slipped against her, sliding up and down, up and down. She whined quietly at the back of her throat, her ears flicking back against her head.

“To think,” Borin purred, “That your mother was a priest.”

“Haa-ahhh!” Kayley’s back arched harder as Borin plunged into her. His balls slapped against her ass, loud enough to fill the tent. Kayley grabbed onto Borin’s shoulders and her vestigial claws dug into his scars as he started to thrust into her with quiet grunts, his breath catching as he focused, for just the moment, on how tight and wet and perfectly smooth her cunt felt.

“Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck yes,” Kayley gasped.

Borin shifted back, then pulled out of her. His cock glistened as Kayley whimpered. But the reason was simple.

“I’m tired of looking at your face,” Borin said, growling quietly. “Hands. Knees. Now.”

Kayley obeyed as quickly as if she was on the battlefield. She thrust her ass into the air, and her tail lifted and curled upwards, presenting herself. Her pert anus looked as tempting as her dripping cunt. Borin had never taken his Preafectus that way - it was usually a pleasure he saved for those he conquered. He grinned, memories of more than a few outraged daughters flitting through his mind as he slapped his dick against Kayley’s ass. She squeaked, looking back over her shoulder.

“H-Hey, I’m not an Athenian - nngh!” Her words were abruptly cut off as Borin pushed into her ass. It was tight. Smooth. Her slickness helped guide his member in as he leaned over her back, pinning her tail against her, his hands on her shoulders, shoving her down so her breasts pressed into the bed. He purred in his ear.

“No. You’re mine. And I can do whatever the fuck I want to you, Preafectus.”

From the tightening of her rosebud, the tone of his voice alone got her off as she shuddered under him, her teeth sinking into the pillow. Borin slipped his cock backwards, then thrust forward, rocking Kayley’s entire body as she took him. Her hips moved, slowly at first, then gaining more and more speed as her body started to accept the pleasure of him. Borin lifted his head up, closing his eyes as he reveled in the pleasure of the moment, his balls swinging forward to slap her cute little pussy. He laughed, softly.

“I might stick to fucking your ass now,” he said, casually. “Mm! Never knew that you were so fucking good at taking it...”

Kayley gasped and moaned, turning her head to the side. “Mmm!” She closed her eyes, rocking her hips faster and faster.

Borin picked up the pace, his body tingling with pleasure. It came from within – not just the sensations of his prick, but also the knowledge of the power he had. The sounds that Kayley made as he fucked her. He brushed his hand along his patchy hair and his mouth split into a wide, wide smile. How many people had recoiled from him? How many women had spat at his hideous form?

And now…

Now, he looked down at the glistening form of Kayley as she shuddered in her third climax.

Of course, I do have an unfair advantage, he thought. My mother wasn’t Chosen by Bastet…

And with a happy grunt, Borin let himself go. The white hot pleasure that had been churning in his balls since he had started fucking Kayley overflowed and he thrust deep into her ass, depositing a thick load of his spunk into her. He slid backwards and grasped his cock as a thick spurt of white cum splashed onto her back. He stroked his member, wringing another two spurts out of himself, painting her from her cute little ass-cheeks up to her shoulder blades with his seed. Panting, he looked down at her body.

“Mm.” He breathed in and out.

The tent flap opened and light spilled in. Kayley – showing zero shame – rolled over, her breasts greeting the messenger who had come to the tent. Borin sat beside her, his cock softening. His body glinted with sweat, rivulets sliding along his scar tissue. He looked right into the messenger’s eyes, and saw the man flinch.

“T-The...the boats are r-r-r-ready, G-General,” he stammered.

Borin nodded. “Good.” He said. “Tell the men to load up.”

The messenger nodded.

Kayley chuckled throatily. “And when does the General board his boat?”

Borin smirked. His hand grabbed her hair, and roughly, he pressed her head into his lap. Kayley – like a good pet – started to lap at his balls, then at his cock as he hardened. He leaned back against one palm, his other hand on the back of her head – keeping her in her place.

“Last,” Borin hissed.

As Kayley’s head bobbed – utterly shameless, utterly without hesitation – Borin closed his eyes.

“When you do this next,” he murmured as he shoved her head down. The sound of Kayley gagging on his member was like music to his ears. His smile widened. “We’ll be in the City of the Dead Gods.”

* * *

The stone shifted above Liam and he blinked as he saw Fizit looking down at him. The gorgeous lizardwoman snorted – then was pushed out of the way by Megara, who grabbed the rest of the rubble and heaved it aside with a single, frantic push. Liam blinked and sat up, coughing. He felt like someone had beaten him about the head and shoulders with a large pipe. A dozen small cuts felt like they were bleeding across his body. Looking around, he saw that the palace was actually quite intact. Most of the walls were even undamaged. The roof hadn't fallen in.

Why the hell was he the only one surrounded in rubble?

“You idiot,” Meg snarled, grabbing him and holding him to her body. Something grated inside of Liam and he gasped.

“Legs, legs!” he hissed.

Then the glowing light of Tethis' magic flared through his body. Liam felt bones reconnect and – for a single dizzying moment – nerves realign. It was not a sensation he wanted to feel again any time soon. But a year of putting him back together after their adventures had made Tethis very good at her job. Soon he could feel his feet again and was standing under his own power as Meg shook him backwards and forward.

“Never. Stand. Next. To. A. God. You. Are. Killing. You. Fucking. Marvelous. Heroic. Son. Of. A. Bitch!”

She made each word its own sentence and its own shake.

Liam's head tilted backwards at bit and he mimed hanging limp. “I am slain by the shaking.”

“Asshole,” Meg snarled, then kissed him desperately. Her hands grabbed his ass and she ground against him with such intensity that Liam thought he'd collapse into a puddle right then and there. She broke the kiss, whispering. “And you didn't bring me to the fucking orgy, either? That's it. Relationship over.”

“But, in my defense, I didn't nail Mary,” Liam mumbled, dazedly.

“Oh, in that case, we're double broken up.” Meg kissed his neck.

“Is this normal?” Fizit asked sotto voce to Tethis, who giggled.

“You should have seen them after the minotaur,” she whispered back.

Meg shot them a glare. “And why are we not wasting these motherfuckers?”

Liam had managed, finally, to look down from the roof and away from Meg's beautiful body and was taking stock of the slaves. There were quite a few who had been lightly injured and were being tended too. The lizardmen all looked fine, save for one who had a chunk of rock sticking out of his shoulder. He looked more bemused than anything else as one of his friends took hold of the rock and yanked it free, then bandaged it up.

It was still dark outside.

“How long was I out?” Liam asked.

“A few minutes, I think,” Tethis said.

“Oh, good.” Liam rubbed his head. He knew that being knocked out at all was a fairly dangerous situation to be in, but being knocked out for longer than a few minutes was where you started edging closer to serious brain damage. “Is everyone okay?”

“Define okay,” Fizit muttered.

Meg leaned close and whispered in Liam's ear: “One of the big bastard's chunks of wall fell on you.”

“Huh,” Liam said.

The slaves were all looking like people who had just been yanked out of a train, then watched the train crash into another train: shocked, more confused than happy, and unsure of what to do next. Liam coughed loudly. “All right!” he said, holding out his hands. “Everyone, uh, over here. I want everyone to line up, we're going to find the touchstone and free you. All of you.”

The lizardmen – without a leader – looked towards Fizit. Fizit lifted her hand in a gesture Liam couldn't read. The lizardmen took that as a leave to sit down, save for one woman who hurried off. She returned bearing a touchkey, which Liam took and used to start unlocking slave collars. When he came to Mary, he smiled at her.

“You okay?” he asked.

Mary looked desolate. “I betrayed my oath,” she said, quietly, as Liam removed her collar.

“Yeah, you did,” he said, quietly. “If your oath was to remain chaste and a virgin.”

Mary looked at her feet. Her hair hung before her red face and Liam saw her shoulders shaking. He put his hands on her shoulders – and for once, touching her didn't make his whole body tingle. Maybe being exposed to her pheromones had left him less susceptible to a new hit. Or maybe, just maybe, she was wrong.

Maybe lilin weren't always horny.

“I betrayed my oath a long time ago,” he said. “Without even thinking of it. I took a life. Hell, I've taken a lot of lives. The fact that they wanted to kill me first doesn't, uh, change the fact that I'm a killer.” He sighed, then gently drew Mary into a hug. “I...” He groped for words, blushing. This was easier on Facebook, when you had time to think out what you wanted to say. But he closed his eyes and pushed on. “I don't want to belittle your feelings, but... killing someone is a bit worse, in my book, than having consensual sex.”

Mary snorted, somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

“And God doesn't make us perfect,” Liam whispered. “If you try and live up to his mother and his son – if you try to do good and protect the weak and fight injustice? I think he'll forgive an orgy. Or two.”

Mary looked up at him, her eyes still glinting with tears. She smiled.

“You know, they s-say Satan can quote scripture too,” she said, wiping at her eyes with tears.

Liam scoffed. “If I was Satan, I'd be trying to lay you again.”

“You are hugging me while we're both completely naked,” Mary murmured.

Liam felt his cock harden slightly.

He was away from Mary and beside Meg so fast that he could have been Sysminor. This brought an actual smile to Mary's face but she still looked deep in thought as Liam and the freed slaves got dressed. The former slaves left to go find their families, several of them bearing copies of the touchkey to free other slaves that were in the rest of the city. Fizit and her lizardmen had formed into a tight formation, weapons on hand, when Liam ambled over to them, brushing his palms along his kilt.

“So, what do we do now?” he asked as Meg stood behind him.

Fizit had gotten into her armor and placed a feather headdress on her head that made her look a good foot taller, once again reminding Liam of how little he knew about the lizardfolk's culture and organizational structure. She looked down her snout at him, her eyes unreadable.

“We have the better weapons,” she said.

“You also are down one god,” Liam shot back.

“True,” Fizit said, her tail lashing from side to side. “And an army of the god Ra is approaching.” She paused, looking away. “We may not have massacred you for Sysminor, but we owe our souls to General Brax. And he is loyal to Sysminor.”

“Loyal to a dead god?” Liam asked.

Fizit blinked. “You...” She shook her head. “You don't think Sysminor is going to stay dead? Not even the weak gods of humanity stay dead.” She shook her head again. “No, we'll be lucky if Sysminor takes more than a few days to reconstitute himself at the temple.”

Liam felt cold.

“Fortunately,” Fizit said, reaching up to adjust her headdress. “Gods tend to forget what happened just before their death. If we hurry home, we can find and explain it to him.” She sighed. “Know this, Liam Vanderbilt of Earth. Mercy here is not the same as mercy on the field. When we meet in battle, I won't stay my hand. Neither will the General.”

Liam composed his voice before responding. He bowed to her. “I understand. On the field of battle, you can fight with honor, against people with weapons – not unarmed slaves.”

Fizit nodded curtly. Then, slowly, she grinned. “And if I capture you, I know exactly where to put you.” Her eyes glittered and she turned to walk away, tail lashing away.

“Your bed?” Liam called after her, hopefully.

“Six feet under,” Fizit said over her shoulder. “You are far too dangerous to leave alive, Vanderbilt..”

Then she and her lizardmen were gone – marching down main street towards the front gate of the City of the Dead Gods. The citizenry, unaware that they had been freed, didn't even cheer.

* * *

Liam and Meg sat together at the docks of the City and watched the horizon. “God, I never thought that I'd be waiting desperately for Liv and Vulkis to show up,” Liam said, shaking his head.

They had been in the city for two days and most of it had been spent helping the Council of Freedmen put out minor fires. A few elements of the city had tried to take power – several going far enough to start attacking the reconstituted Councilmembers - so Liam, Tethis and Meg had all been busy.

Tethis had been stamping out an unchecked plague that Sysminor had looked more than willing to let fester in the poor districts. Meg had been running messages back and forth across the city, as well as organizing the surviving valkyrie of the city into scout patrols. The rumors that an army was approaching hadn't abated, though any actual sign of it had yet to appear, beyond a few farmers from the fertile coast coming to the city to give scattered reports of cavalry roaming the countryside, looting. 

And Liam?

Liam had been doing what famous people on Earth did best: standing beside a cause he supported and letting his fame shine onto it.

“Godkiller?”

Liam turned to look at the twelve year old girl who had come puffing up to the docks. She was dressed in the pale red linen jerkin and sturdy shoes of a Council messenger.

“Yes?” Liam asked, tiredly. He had stopped trying to get people to stop calling him that.

Meg faux-grumbled. “Godkiller, I was the one who threw the bomb...”

Liam elbowed her playfully but then stopped smiling when the messenger bowed her head to him.

“Godkiller, the Council wants to speak to you right now.”

Meg smiled. “Go on ahead,” she said. “I'll wait here, see if Vulkis arrives.”

Liam nodded and stood up. He brushed his hands along his thighs, then leaned forward to kiss Meg on the lips. When he drew back, she whispered: “And I'll be sure to see if I can find more people who can look for Liv.”

Liam nodded.

Following the girl through the city, he could see fear and happiness in equal measures on everyone's face. Former slaves were reunited with their families. The old city guard were patrolling the streets and people seemed to greet them like old friends. Just not seeing a scaled face or bared teeth seemed to be putting cheer into the population. But there were more than a few whispers he heard that started with the word Ra.

Ra the sun god.

Ra, the original ruler of the City of the Dead Gods, before he had been forced out and the city had become one of the most hotly contested pieces of real estate in Purgatory.

Ra, who hadn't been in the city for more than five centuries.

But the other thing he heard whispered made him feel awkward, not scared. People who saw him – and that was hard to avoid, considering how tall he was compared to everyone else – turned and whispered to their friends.

Godkiller.

There goes the Godkiller.

Liam and the messenger came to the palace of the Free Lord, which remained empty save for a legion of construction workers who were carefully setting everything to rights again. The dais before the front of the building had had the slave market cleared away, and was now hosting a spirited debate between two people. One of them was bearing the religious symbol of Thor and the other was Mary.

“That which you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do unto me, she said. We can all learn from that – did not the suffering of each slave here bring pain to every heart in the city?”

Liam almost wanted to stay and keep listening. But he instead let himself be led into the palace itself and to the council chambers, mounted on the second story. Despite the windows being open and quite a few complete scrubbings, the smell of sex remained thick in the chambers that Sysminor had once used as his own personal bed chambers.

Liam tried to not think about the mechanics of fucking that thing.

The Council were already seated when Liam came in. There were five men and seven women, all of them leaders of important industries in the city. Bronzesmiths, alchemists, glaziers, merchants. All of them had the same proportion of wealth as a CEO from Earth – the only reason why they weren't billionaires was that Purgatory's economy wasn't robust enough to have billionaires. Liam bowed to them.

“Council,” he said.

“Liam Godkiller,” the head of the council – a burly woman named Vani, who was both the head of the Guild of Alchemists and married to the best bronzesmith in the city, who sat at her side – smiled as she spoke. Her wife also smiled. In fact, every member of the council was smiling.

Liam started to get really nervous.

“The Council has been debating who is to be the Free Lord of the city,” Vani said. “And it was decided – with the threat of Ra's army on our doorstep and the danger presented by Sysminor and his lizardman hoards-”

Liam started thinking: Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

“-that the only person who could possibly lead this city through the dangers and tribulations ahead of it is a man from a world where great democracies are the status quo, not the exception. A man whose knowledge of artisanal crafts have already given us so much. A man who has faced monsters and gods and lived. A man who-”

“No!” Liam exclaimed.

The Council stopped smiling.

“I- I'm sorry, but no!” Liam shook his head. “I'm barely twenty. I've never even managed a four person project, let alone one of the biggest cities in Purgatory. I'm also technically a citizen of Faiyum Falls and another God, and I'm a Christian – and this city's mostly-”

Vani slammed her palm down on the desk.

She may have been an alchemist, but she still had the body and build of a blacksmith. Or a tavern brawler. And the slap of her palm against the table was loud enough to quiet not just Liam but everyone in the room.

“Listen,” she said, quietly. “Right now, this city is near to five revolutions. Normality has to be brought back. But everyone who was liked by the whole city? They're out there, out on the Forest of Woe, feeding carrion. The Aesir mistrust the Hellenes, the Hellenes can't stop bitching about the Coptics, the Coptics think the Aesir are nothing but a bunch of fucking upstarts. That's not even getting into the Tuatha, the Golga, and those Mary worshipers and who knows how many Cults of Sysminor we missed.”

Liam nodded.

“Now, I wanted to do this politely, but since you need to pull a Cincinnatus and try and beg off the responsibility you have to the citizens by claiming that you're not fit to be a leader, I'm going to be blunt. Either you lead us through the next few months, or I get unpleasant.”

Liam breathed in, then out. “Well, holy fuck, I've never been so completely upbraided for trying to do the right thing in my life.” He chuckled, nervously. “I get where you're coming from, but I don't have any experience.”

“That?” Vani said, sitting down, her face receding from the red it had been. “Is the best fucking thing you could have said, Liam Godkiller. Someone who knows they know nothing can learn. Someone who thinks they know everything can't.”

Liam nodded.

The rest of the Council relaxed.

Liam smiled. “Well, let's get to work, then. I've been paying some people from my purse to scout the surrounding countryside – Meg has every valk in the city doing it. But do you guys know where the army of Ra is?”

“That's another reason why we voted you in,” Vani said.

“It's three days away,” the head of the glaziers guild said, tugging on his mustache. “Our scouts say it's led by Borin the Black. But worse?” He frowned. “They say it has an Eye of Ra in the baggage train.”

Liam remembered the perfectly straight canyon that held the teleportation shrine that he and his friends had used to get here. It had been cut by an Eye of Ra. He gulped. “Shit.”

“Not a big one, fortunately,” the head of the glaziers said. “But still, even a small Eye can blow our gates to shreds.”

Liam nodded. “Well, fortunately, we just need to explain to this Borin that this city is no longer under the control of a mad god. He can go home and report to Ra that their assistance is not required.” He stopped. “I can see by all of your facial expressions that I am missing something blindingly obvious.” He rubbed his hands along his eyes. “Please, explain.”

“I can do that.”

The new voice made Liam pull his hands away from his eyes. It was a grizzled looking goblin. Muscles bulged underneath his clothes, and he walked with the casual grace of someone who had been training for battle for most of his life. His face was scarred and puckered with the marks of dozens of battles, and he wore armor with complete disregard for the weight or heat. He sat himself down at the table.

“Sorry I'm late, Council,” he said. “The name's Laurentinus. I'm the new head of the guard. We've been finding the last of the deserters and kicking them into uniform, but we're still at a quarter strength.”

Liam nodded.

“Now, Vanderbilt,” Laurentinus said, “Borin's army is a mercenary army. They're paid by loot, mostly. They don't sail down from Ra's lands and then march along the coast for a week to come to a city to turn around and head home. Specially not if Ra wants his prize plum back while we're weak and shitting ourselves.”

Liam frowned. “We're going to need to recruit more people.”

Laurentinus snorted. “They won't be any good in a fight, not with three days of training.”

“I know,” Liam said. “But we've got the walls – that gives us a defensive advantage. And we don't need to destroy the enemy army. We just need to disable the Eye of Ra so they need to attack the walls. Then we've got a shot.” He grinned. “And I just so happen to know how to disable the Eye of Ra.”

The Council all looked very pleased with themselves.

Then Liam told them his plan.

They looked somewhat less than pleased.

Vani sighed. “It's Alexander the Great all over again, isn't it?”

* * *

Tethis unrolled a scroll of paper in the vast master bedroom of the palace.

Of my palace, Liam thought. But no matter how many times he tried to think that, it never stopped sounding like a sick joke. So, instead of trying to wrap his brain around the idea that he was nominally in charge, he leaned forward and cupped Tethis' butt playfully. The gobliness grinned at him.

“You know this plan is insane, right?”

“Every plan we make is insane,” Meg said, nodding.

Looking at what Tethis had sketched, though, gave Liam hope. Tethis had lived in a Coptic city for most of her life, and had been a scholar for a great chunk of it. Most of her time had been spent on archeology, trying to discover more about the shrouded past of Purgatory – without record keeping and due to the constant exaggeration of gods and devastation brought by wars, it was remarkably hard to know more than the vaguest hints about some chunks of Purgatory's past. But the Eye of Ra, fortunately, remained one thing that had shone clearly throughout history.

The fact it was a semi-portable death ray might have had something to do with that.

“The tower in the schematic I found is really just wood,” she said. “The actual eye is this part.” She tapped the upper edge. “But all of the magic and all the alchemical reagents are useless without a priest of Ra to actually channel his power into the Eye. So, we find the priest in the camp, then we take them out.”

Meg nodded. “Shouldn't be hard.”

“Why not?” Liam asked.

“He'll be a human-eagle hybrid,” Meg said, smiling.

“Right. Wait, can't you be a priest and not one of the Chosen?”

“Well, yeah,” Meg said, wings spreading in a shrug. “But the Chosen are the best priests. Why would Ra send anyone but their best?”

“Good point,” Liam said. “So, Meg, you and I will drop behind the army camp. You wait off for a commotion – if one happens, come and pick me up. But hopefully, this.” Liam held up his slave collar. “Will let me go unnoticed until I find the priest.”

The other two nodded.

“Still no news of Liv?” Liam asked.

“None,” Tethis said, rolling up the scroll.

“Damn it,” Liam rolled away from the bed and came to his feet. He turned from the bed to the large desk that was currently cluttered with a load of papers. He shook his head. “Is it bad that half the reason why I want to do this mission isn't to save the day? No, it's to get away from the paperwork.”

Meg smiled.

Together, the three of them set out from the palace. Tethis wove the spell with one hand as they walked, while Liam tried to deal with the collection of aides and attaches who followed them out of the palace.

“Take the message for the bronzewights and tell them that they can keep their rights when it comes to trading – I don't care who makes the profit, I just want the weapons made.” Liam shook his head. “The glaziers need to cede their access to those mines, that material is needed for the alchemists. Yes, there are supposed to be explosions, tell them to be more careful with fire.” He shook his head as the messengers went rushing off.

The back of his head hurt.

Meg ruffled his hair, smiling at him. “You're pretty good at that.”

“I am?” Liam asked.

“Well, I think so.” Meg grinned. “And I am completely and totally unbiased.”

The crowd parted as they walked onto the dais, Liam saw a familiar face. Mary was standing out there, surrounded by a few other men and women bearing the ichthus. Liam smiled, walking towards them. He took Mary's hands. The days since the orgy had left the lilin nun more confident and more strident. She had been, according to reports that Liam had been given, gathering a great deal of support among people disillusioned with how the gods had failed them in the occupation.

“Mary,” Liam said. “You're a sight for sore eyes. I've been meaning to talk to you.”

“Oh?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Not about that,” Liam said, winking.

Mary laughed – and the fact she was laughing about it eased a few tiny tensions that Liam had been carrying in his back since the orgy. They were small, next to the fear of the oncoming army and the dangers of a city still riven with religious strife, but it still felt good.

“The city's guard has been badly damaged. Not a lot of people want to join – I need to find soldiers, fighters, people who know how to use a weapon. And, well, you've been getting a load of contacts among the city,” Liam said. “Can you use those contacts to find people who know what they're doing when it comes to fighting and just collect them?”

Mary pursed her lips. “If you can guarantee a lack of persecution for-”

Liam blinked. Then he slapped his hand over his face. He turned and saw that at least one messenger was waiting beside him for orders. He snapped his fingers. “Bring a message to the Council – I want them to vote on a law guaranteeing the freedom to worship any god and to make laws against religious persecution. We'll work out the paperwork when I come back.”

The messenger nodded, then turned and sprinted off. As he ran away, Liam turned back to Mary.

Mary smiled. “I'll find you soldiers, even if I have to scrape the bottom of the barrel.”

Liam squeezed her hand. Mary squeezed back, then sauntered off. As she left, Meg watched her go.

“Do you think she has strictures against sapphism?” Meg murmured.

“I honestly do not know,” Liam said. “Come on. Let's go save a city.”

Six

The army of Borin the Black, from what Liam had learned, hadn't marched the entire way from Ra's city to the City of the Dead Gods. If they had, there'd have been a good third less of them, and Liam would have had a far, far easier time of getting close to them. They had taken ships along the coast, surviving off the villages that they rowed past, and avoiding the danger of piracy by sheer dint of numbers.

Now, almost the whole army that had set out from home was here, right on Liam's doorstep.

The army was neither the organized, gridlike pattern that he remembered from pictures and news stories of modern deployments nor the wild ramshackle that he might have expected. There were clear latrines, demarcation lines between regiments, and centralized locations for the storage of supplies. But there, organization broke down. He could tell, from a distance, which part of the encampment was run by which kind of regiment, as each one seemed to be organized in a different way, with different levels of rigor.

“So,” Meg said, “I count almost two thousand infantry, half that in archers, and a quarter of that in cavalry. That makes just under four thousand bad guys – plus any camp followers, priests, mages, and what not.” She snorted. “If we had a half decent army on the walls, this would be a walkover.”

The two of them crouched on a small ridge that overlooked the broad expanse of badlands that the army had set up camp in.

“What about the Eye of Ra?” Liam asked.

“What about it?” Meg asked. She turned to face him, remaining low and using her shoulders to shrug, rather than her wings. “The Eye of Ra is a single weapon. Any battle plan that relies on a single weapon is throwing the dice. When you're fighting a war, the last thing you want to rely on is dice. And with the Eye of Ra and a decent army on the walls, I'm still betting on the walls.”

“We're throwing the dice here, aren't we?” Liam asked.

Tethis clucked her tongue. “Don't remind me.”

Her hands finished their arcane gestures as she finished renewing the symbols for their disguise. Liam looked down at himself – and once more wished that he could see if he was unnoticeable. Walking into a city had been nerve wracking enough.

“So,” Meg said, “I'll drop you there.” She pointed with one hand. “Then Tethis and I will wait. Signal us when you need it – or if there's a big ruckus - and we'll come and swoop you up. Easy peasy.”

“Peasy maybe,” Liam said. Then, frowning. “Did you pick that up from me?”

“I think I learned at least half a language in vocabulary from you,” Meg said. “It's the third best thing about you, Liam, your rhetorical flourishes.”

Liam grinned. “Ask not what your relationship can do for you, but what you can do for your relationship.”

Meg puffed up her chest, then grabbed Liam around the belly with one arm. Her wings spread and she tensed. A moment later, the night of Purgatory slammed down around them. The darkness was as shocking as ever – and it seemed to raise grumbles loud enough to be heard even from a few miles off. The three of them had spent a day observing the troops, and had noticed a pattern. Unlike a city, where there were whole guilds of people who were dedicated purely to making sure that lighting was as uninterrupted as possible, armies had to rely on their soldiers for that task.

And these soldiers?

Not quite up to it.

The lights in the camp flickered on in staggered confusion as soldiers fumbled in the sudden near pitch blackness of Purgatory's night. Crystals glowed among the wealthier regiments almost immediately, but Meg swooped down in the darkness and set Liam down in the midst of a collection of tents where the loudest sound was vociferous swearing in Latin.

Meg kissed Liam's cheek, then shot into the air. He waited until he couldn't hear the beat of her wings – not long, considering how loud the swearing was – then struck the tinder on the torch he had brought. Light flared around him and the swearing was replaced by a cheer from every tent. Blinking, irritated looking soldiers came from the tent, and seeing Liam's slave collar, didn't even bother thanking him. They just held out their torches.

Up close, Liam was momentarily surprised at how normal the soldiers looked. Then he kicked himself.

Of course they looked normal.

They were just people.

This regiment seemed to be primarily made of short, lean soldiers with olive brown skin, black hair, and dark eyes. They spoke Latin like sailors and they all carried a bladed weapon, even the one who wandered out of his tent buck naked and started admonishing his friends. He picked his fingernails with his knife as he said: “Why are you all getting excited about lights? We are sleeping in an hour, fools!”

The soldiers muttered under their breath but Liam saw a few of them standing at something that a very generous person could have called attention. The nude man stalked towards Liam. He looked him up and down and whistled quietly.

“You are the largest slave I've ever met,” he said, quietly.

Shit, Liam thought. He coughed and said. “Hodor.”

It was the first thing that sprang into his head.

The leader – Liam immediately wanted to call him a lieutenant, no matter what his actual title was – blinked slowly. “Excuse me?”

“Hodor,” Liam said again, nodding.

“Ah.” the leader pursed his lips. “I'd heard there was a dim slave in the baggage train. But not one this dim.”

“Nah, sir,” one of the men spoke up. “I think I recognize him. I never heard him talk more.”

“Who cares if he can talk if he's that big all over” a woman whispered, grinning as she elbowed her fellow soldier. The lieutenant's glare fell on them all equally and they all shut up.

“Get back to your duties,” the lieutenant said, scowling at Liam.

Liam bowed his head. “Hodor,” he said.

Then, turning, he hurried away, trying to look purposeful. As he walked along, he put his fingers to his collar. Apparently, the spell worked at least a little. He gulped. Thank you, G.R.R.M, he thought. Thank you so very much. Okay. Now, let's activate the reflective vest and clipboard of the ancient world.

Liam had once been in a tabletop roleplaying game where his friend Ted had played a character who had lacked magical abilities, spectacular kung-fu skills and James Bond-esque stealth. But that character had been able to infiltrate anywhere because he had a reflective vest and a clipboard. Bearing those items and looking like he was heading somewhere important had let him bluff his way past dozens of guards.

And so, Liam paused by a small tent – the sound of eager, vigorous, and quite happy lovemaking coming from within – and grabbed a bucket that had been left beside the entrance. He paused at the entrance.

This is just to make sure neither of them is the Priest of Ra, he thought.

He leaned down and opened the tentflap.

Within, he saw two beautiful Coptic women, their heads shaved completely bald. Both of them were completely naked, their dark bodies pressed together, hands caressing one another. The one on-top, more muscular and sturdily built than the other, leaned back and gasped. She drew her hips back and Liam saw a bright, golden dildo shining between their bodies. He nodded slowly, tore his eyes from the view, and checked the rest of the tent.

Arrows.

Bows.

Swords.

Maps.

Armor.

I am going to go on a bet and assume neither of these are priests. I mean, they don't even have robes, he thought, letting the tent flap swing shut. Then, glancing around to make sure no one could see him, he allowed himself a moment of being a young man and thought: Niiiiiiiiiiice.

Then he turned on his heel and headed forward, bearing a bucket with a serious expression on his face.

Thus disguised, he was able to scout the army base for an hour without a single person asking him what he was doing, where he was going, and who he was.

It was obvious, wasn't it?

Liam paused by a tent, taking advantage of the shadows, to listen.

“The Eye will be ready, yes?” That gravelly, rough voice sounded pure evil. Liam tried to not stereotype based on voice, but he hadn't heard a man sound as calculatingly bastardly in quite some time on Purgatory.

“Yes, Borin,” a tired female voice responded. “Though, I hope it won't be needed.”

“It'll be needed,” Borin said. He sounded like he relished it.

“Humph.”

The sound of footsteps made Liam draw back further into the shadows. He froze as still as he could, holding his breath. The spell would help, but it was still nerve wracking. Bucket or no, lounging around near the commander's tent of an army in the eve before a battle was verboten. It was verboten on Earth, and on Earth, you weren't technically allowed to torture people before killing them. Then the tent flap swung open and his breath stopped and his heart froze for entirely different reasons.

The Priestess of Ra brushed her hands along her head and stood, illuminated by the light that came from within the tent. If she had known Liam was there, he would have believed she was modeling for him.

She was a fusion – like all Chosen – of human and animal.

And like all Chosen he had met, this fusion was exquisite.

Her face was tipped by a delicate, curved beak. It looked lethal and beautiful at the same time, colored a pale gold, with a small red tip. Her head was covered with a light down of white fur, while the back of her scalp was decorated by a gorgeous crest of brown feathers. She had added paint to the feathers, adding red and golden lines to accent them. Her shoulders had two more tufts, while her arms were a curious fusion of arm and wing, with feathers sleeting along her back, giving her the same aspect of a woman wearing a cloak. Her breasts were firm and small, straining against the blue breastband that she had wrapped around her chest. A slender silk kilt surrounded her thighs, which were just as furred as the rest of her. Her legs, though, at the knee, became scaled in gold, ending in clawtips.

Her hands, too, were scaled. Taloned.

Liam gulped. His mind had immediately gone to the bedroom on looking at her – danger tended to bump his thoughts in that direction – but the idea of those claws next to his cock made said bodypart shrivel. The priestess' feathers ruffled up and she hissed, then clicked her beak and stalked off. As she strode away, he heard Borin's voice again.

“The cavalry will lead the sack,” he said, dryly. “Those Tuatha maniacs need their blood gold.”

A chuckle responded – female again. “Borin, you know there's a reason they call you the Black.”

“And here,” Borin said, his voice filled with a brutal kind of fatalism, “I thought it was because of the burns.”

The other female voice clicked her tongue. “Ra won't be happy if you give his city back burned to a cinder.”

Borin snapped his finger. “Like I care for Ra.”

“True, his gold pays no better than-”

“Shht!” Borin hissed. A quiet creak sounded as the people within the tent shifted around, their positions moving. Liam wished he could see through the thick canvas. Instead, he just remained perfectly still. “Be silent. Now. Let us give the orders – remember.” There was a faint sound of finger tapping chest. “The Samaritans are to be kept to the flank.”

Liam's brows bunched together.

Well, these guys are definitely charmers, he thought. tensed and ready to take any advantage of a chance to run. He played, for a moment, with the idea of killing them. But two trained warriors, with guards nearby? No way.

Besides, killing a general is most useful during the battle.

“Now,” Borin said, “Go. But come back soon. I'd love to plow that ass again.”

“You might not get the chance, Borin,” the woman said, sounding amused. She walked out a moment later – and Liam watched her go. Tough. Tall. Scarred to hell. There didn't seem to be an inch on her pale body that wasn't marked by the line of a knife. But she still walked in armor that essentially covered her vitals and nothing else, a thin black thong riding between her ass cheeks.

Liam heard a quiet groan of a cot – and knew that Borin was getting ready to lay down. He moved away, trying to make as little noise as he could, then followed the priestess. To his absolute complete lack of surprise, he came to a bright green and blue tent with an eye of Ra symbol hung over the entrance... and the Eye of Ra itself parked nearby. The weapon was mounted on a large wooden pole which itself was planted on a heavy duty cart, with bronzed wheels and enough places for archers to sit and duck behind cover. The wagon was painted in lurid colors and there were fearsome designs cut into the shields attached to the sides and front, all of them along the same general theme.

Get close, get wrecked, fuckers.

Though Liam was sure they'd express that more poetically, if given a choice.

The Eye itself looked nothing like the symbol that hung over the tent and had been used as a representation for the weapon, even in Tethis' illustrations. Rather than being gold and curved, the device looked like several crystals cut into circular pieces and polished to a mirror shine. They had been mounted in a narrowing set of four bronze poles. A chunk of unrefined gemstone sat between each of the crystal plates, glittering lightly from just the reflected torchlight.

Liam shook his head. “I shouldn't be shocked. But it's a fucking laser.”

“And how do you know what a laser is?”

Liam spun around.

The Priestess of Ra stood there, wreathed only in a sleeping gown, a glowing, crackling field of energy surrounding her left hand. Her eyes were as pitiless and distant as that of any eagle.

Liam remembered energies like that blowing massive Spartoi warriors into tiny chunks with remarkably little effort.

“Well, uh,” he said, bowing to her. “Greetings, honorable priest-”

“You've been enchanted to seem unremarkable. Unmemorable.” She paused. “Three cubits high? Hair the color of gold.” She clicked her beak, her tongue darting along its edge for a moment. Liam wasn't sure how, but she was able to speak utterly fluently. He'd have expected the lack of lips to be an issue.

“I might as well cut to the chase,” Liam said, improvising. “I am Liam Vanderbilt of Earth.”

The Priestess of Ra's eyebrow ridges lifted. “Liam? The warrior Sobek has been throwing at every problem he's run into?”

“Not every problem, but yes,” Liam said.

The Priestess glanced left, then right. Then, jerking her head. “Come in, Liam of Earth. I think you might want to talk to me and tell me what you are doing here before I call for the guards.”

She turned and walked into her tent.

Liam tried to not get distracted by her tail feathers – flicking up, they caused her robes to part ever so slightly at the back, revealing a hint of warm thighs and inviting buttocks. He clenched his jaw, forced his mind back on track, and started forward into the tent. Once the flap had shut behind him, he saw that the tent bore little resemblance to a mobile temple. Beyond the small shrine – complete with clay statues and tiny bowl for offerings – he saw no religious accouterments at all.

“So, Liam,” the priestess said, her voice clipped. “What brings Sobek's pet Christian here?”

“I'm not actually technically working for Sobek right now,” Liam said. “I'm here from the City of the Dead Gods.”

The Priestess snapped her head around. Her eyes narrowed.

“Sysminor – the false god who claimed the city? He's dead,” Liam said. “The Council is back in charge. There's no reason for this fight to happen.”

The Priestess looked taken aback. She lifted her hand again, crooking the middle finger of her other hand to indicate that Liam should step forward. With a memory full of exploding Spartoi in his head, Liam stepped forward and ducked his head forward. Her palm pressed to his forehead and she whispered in Coptic: “Ra, shine the light of truth on this one.”

An energy unlike anything Liam had felt surged through him. Unlike the gentle touch of Tethis' healing magics, or the almost comforting caress of the magic of Anubis, Ra's light burned. It seared through him and left him staggering and falling to his knees. He leaned his head forward – bumping his forehead against soft, downy fur. The Priestess knelt down before him, her hands on his shoulders.

“Forgive me,” she said, her voice still clipped but more gentle now. Her hands ruffled Liam's hair, the scales feeling oddly soft. “I know it hurts – it's why I cannot simply truthsee everyone I run into.” She clicked her beak. Liam was starting to get the idea that was the eagle-girl equivalent of an irritated snarl. “That black bastard.”

“Hey,” Liam said, his voice still dazed, his mind still reeling. “No racism.”

“What?” the priestess asked. She slapped the top of his head. “Stop being silly and focus, Liam.”

He shook himself, his mind drawing into sharp relief once more.

“First, what's your name?” he asked, putting one hand on his thigh as he got his foot under himself again. Standing, he felt his head spin, but only for a moment.

“Hesira,” she said.

“Hesria,” Liam said. “I have a plan to send this army running tomorrow. But it won't work if they have access to the Eye of Ra.”

She clicked her beak, hard enough to make Liam flinch.

“Damn that black bastard,” she snarled. Liam tried to not point out she had used that insult before -he figured now was not the time. Hesria shook her head and frilled out her feathers as she put her hands on her hips. She craned her head back to look into Liam's eyes. “Borin refused to march unless he had joint control of the Eye. Ra agreed to his terms.”

“He did?” Liam asked.

“Ra is among the oldest gods in the universe,” Hesria snapped.

Liam held up his hands. “Hey, not trying to insult him. Just, well, what does joint control mean?”

“It means that unless we break the sympathetic connection between Borin and the control gems, he can use the Eye in its secondary feature: firing a diffuse ray of heat. It won't shatter the walls, but it will still cook your troops.”

Liam had a sudden, vivid mental image of the Martians from H.G Wells' War Of The Worlds.

He shuddered.

“Okay. How do we break it?” he asked, trying to sound  optimistic.

Hesria shook her head. “Unless you can think of a way for me to have a deeper connection to you than to the man who has been giving me orders for the past three weeks, I cannot think of it. The sympathetic connection must be forged, it cannot be rushed or hurried.”

Liam pursed his lips.

“So...” He paused. “The connection between you and Borin the Black is your working relationship?”

“Yes, why?”  Hesria asked.

Liam looked at her. He cocked his head to the side. Then he leaned forward and, as he didn't want to risk kissing her beak, he pressed his lips to her furred throat. His hands grabbed her hips and drew her into a tight embrace, his body molding to hers. Hesria gasped quietly, her tail feathers flipping up with a quiet fhump. Then she put her scaled palms on his chest – Liam could feel, with a thankful shudder, that her claws had retracted now that she was not furious. He let her push her back.

“We can't do that!” she said.

“Why not?” Liam asked.

“Well, I...” She stopped.

“I mean, do you find me attractive?” Liam asked, grinning at her. His hand caressed the side of her beak. The priestess turned her head, bumping the blunt front of her beak against his palm, the bottom opening so her tongue could dart out and lick his skin. Her tongue was dark black.

“I do...” she murmured.

“You are beautiful,” Liam whispered back, his voice husky. His free hand caressed her rump, squeezing the smooth, hard curve of her furred backside.  Hesria moaned. “And we do need to break the sympathetic connection. Desperate times, desperate measures and all that”

Hesria' golden eyes flicked up to skewer his blue ones.

“So, I'm just a military objective?”

Liam grinned, cupping the bottom of her beak. His eyes were warm. Inviting.

He had gotten quite a bit of practice at this.

“Hesria, I'd be doing this no matter what the military objectives are...” He leaned forward, kissing the front of her beak, then turning his head to the side. Her tongue tentatively pushed out, stretching and touching his tongue. It was the most awkward kiss he had ever started but from the way Hesria melted into his arms, her breasts mashing against his chest, it clearly did something for her. His hands squeezed her ass and he gently lowered her to the cot that dominated the left side of the tent.

Hesria lifted her arms above her head, the wing-feathers that covered their backs fanning out under her. Liam took hold of her breast band, shoving it up and over her breasts. Her nipples were hard and bright pink against her white fur. She moaned as he ducked his head forward, sucking first on one, then the other. She squirmed under him, her scaled hands caressing his back.

“Oh, you aren't incompetent,” she murmured.

...thanks? Liam thought, looking up at her, his mouth fastened around her nipple. He released her tit with a quiet smack and then kissed her belly, his own cock growing harder and harder. If his kilt hadn't been hanging loose under his thighs as he kissed around the priestess' belly button, he'd have been pitching a tent as big as the one they were in. He found her slit, pushing up some of her pubic feathers – a curious reflection of Meg – and dove his tongue between her pussy lips. He tongued her eagerly, his nose rubbing her clit as he buried his face against her pussy.

Hesria moaned and arched her back. Her thighs spread wider and one of her clawed feet spread and then clenched in the air above Liam's head. He watched, out of the corner of one eye, aware of just how sharp those claws were. His hand went to her thin ankle, lifting her leg further as he kissed the inside of her thigh. From the quiet growl that emerged from Hesria, she was horny. Liam grinned and bit down on the inside of her thigh gently, then harder, drawing a series of delicious moans and groans from Hesria.

His free hand, though, wasn't idle. His middle finger plunged its length into her sex and he finger-fucked her. His thumb found her clit and circled it gently.

“Oh Ra!” She crooned, her beak opening as her tongue lolled into the air, her eyes looking dizzy as her hips twitched under his lips. Her sex clenched around his fingers and juices collected on his palm. Liam grinned, then tasted them with a single lick.

“Mm, sweet,” he murmured.

“Ahhh,” Hesira moaned, her eyes closing. “Oh that was g-good.”

“Is that enough of a connection?” Liam asked, planting another kiss on her belly, feeling her muscles tightening as he slipped his finger from her pussy. He licked his fingertip and sighed. She was sweet.

“Y-essss...”

Liam nodded. “Okay, then-”

But Hesria spread her legs, slowly, lifting her ankles as she reached down to open the soft, black fold of her sex. Her eyes were shyly averted and she murmured under her breath. “But, uh, we should be sure. Right?”

Liam bit his lip. Then he slapped his forehead. He was a fucking idiot. He reached into his belt pouch, pulling out the way he was going to signal Meg for pickup. He tapped his iPod on and saw that the clock said he had a good two hours before sunup. He tapped at it a few times as Hesira looked at him with increasing confusion.

“What are you doing?”

“Thirty minute timer,” Liam said, grinning at her. Then his hands went to his kilt and he unbuttoned it with a push of his thumbs. His cock sprang free and Hesria's eyes widened in a very gratifying way. Her arms reached to either side of the bed, grabbing onto the cot frame with a quiet click of claws on wood as Liam crawled over her. He nuzzled at her neck as her tongue flicked along his ear. She whispered, eagerly.

“I want that inside me.”

“Never would have guessed,” Liam murmured, kissing her chest. He shifted, his cocktip pressing to her sex.

He plunged into her, pinning her to the bed and himself to her. For a moment, all he could feel was her tightness, her eagerness. Then he slid back, so that only the very tip of his cock filled her wetness. He slammed back down, his balls slapping her feathered ass. Her shoulders hunched and she bucked her hips back against him with the desperate eagerness of someone who hadn't been fucked like this in a while. Liam rushed himself, knowing that in a proper world, he'd have enjoyed this for a long time.

But this wasn't a proper world.

This was Purgatory.

He broke the kiss to her neck, looking into her eyes.

Hesria's eyes were unfocused and her break opened, then closed. “Oh Ra, oh Ra, oh Ra!” She spoke in counterpoint to the soft pap pap pap of his balls slapping her rump. Her tail feathers twitched up underneath him, caressing his thighs and his balls. Her clawed hand reached up, caressing his neck. Liam felt that her claws were free – but they were very gentle as they slipped along his skin. Her eyes met his, focusing slightly. “C-Cum in me!”

Liam grinned at her.

“As you command,” he murmured.

He picked up the pace, taking her ankles in his hands and spreading her wider. He slammed home harder and faster, the cot rocking and creaking loudly. She turned her head and bit down on her pillow to avoid screeching loudly enough to wake half the camp. But then Liam felt pleasure course through his body. Heat. Whiteness. All of it surged into him and he shuddered and let himself loose inside of her. His balls clenched as he emptied both nuts into her.

“Ah...” Hesria hissed as the quiet chime from his phone told him that it was time to go.

Liam slid from her sex with a wet slurp – pausing only a moment to admire the way that her sex dripped with his seed.

He never got tired of seeing that.

Then, smiling at her, he said: “Gotta fly, Hesria. Remember, you just need to make sure the weapon isn't used – we'll handle the rest.” He paused. “Oh, and Borin mentioned that some of the soldiers wouldn't be in for a sack.”

Hesria nodded. “The Samaritan spearmen, some of the other archer units.” Her brows furrowed. “Why?”

“If you could talk to their leaders – try to get them to stand back, it'd help. Even a little bit will help.”

Tiredly, she nodded. “I'll do the best I can, Liam.”

Liam smiled at her. “That's all I ask.”

He turned and slipped from the tent.

And found himself face to face with Liviana of Sparta and a muscular lizardman made of solid gold.

“So,” Brax said. “You're Liam Godkiller.”

He looked down at Liam, then up at her again.

“Do you want time to put your kilt back on?”

* * *

There was something to be said for a lifetime of shocks - it taught one how to affect calm. Liam noticed, first, that Liv had a slave collar around her neck. Her eyes were clear: Yeah, I know, right? Liam nodded to her subtly as he finished buttoning his kilt tightly and brushed his palms along the front of his kilt. He took a moment then to look Brax over.

The General.

Someone who could take an entire city with less than a hundred lizardmen and hold it in the face of constant, simmering resentment. Someone who could instill enough loyalty for his men to turn against a god, but remain at his side. Despite having never met him before now, Liam felt as if he had a sense for the other man’s mind, seeing how his army had operated even without his oversight.

“Funny,” Liam said. “I expected you to be taller.”

“I felt the same, honestly,” Brax said.

“I don't suppose that Borin the Black is a friend of yours,” Liam said.

“No, actually,” Brax said, grinning. His hand went to his neck, where a tiny necklace was looped around his shoulders. His finger touched the amulet and his body shimmered, and in his place stood a shortish, tough-looking son of a bitch. As a human, with an easier to read face, Liam could see the steady experience, the crooked smile, the calculating eyes. Then Brax drew his finger away from the amulet and he looked like a golden lizardman again.

“So, we're both infiltrating this place,” Liam said, shrugging. “So, I think we can agree that fighting will get us both killed.”

“But of course,” Brax said.

“Now, I'm presuming you're here to find out what this army is doing parked outside of your city.”

“Well,” Brax said, spreading his hands, “It did seem prudent.”

“All right,” Liam said. “Did you run into any of your fellow lizardfolk?”

Liv, meanwhile, was glaring at Liam. She jerked her head at Brax – and if she wasn't trying to tell him to kill the bastard, Liam would have eaten the only bladed weapon he had on hand at the moment, which was a small knife tucked behind his kilt. He met her eyes, then looked back at Brax.

Brax, meanwhile, hadn't moved his hand an inch closer to the short sword strapped on his hip.

“I may have,” he said.

“Did anyone tell you that Sysminor got blown to kingdom come?” Liam asked.

“Ah,” Brax said, “That explains it.”

Liam smiled. “Don't suppose you're going to tell me what it is?”

“On the contrary.” Brax pulled something from a belt pouch. He held it up. It looked like a chunk of blackened stone, but as he clenched his hand around it, it shimmered to life. In the darkness of Purgatory, in this quiet encounter in the middle of an armed camp, it shone with a pale white luminescence. A series of rectangular screens appeared in the air, hovering around it – each one glittering with runes and words that translated as Liam looked at them, filtered through the translation magic Meg had laid on him so long ago.

Though, really, the words remained mostly nonsensical.

But that didn't change the fact their meaning was clear.

Genetotype A – begin neuropathic bionano generation.

Ansiblelink Disassociated, Reacquiring...Reacquiring…

Brax stopped squeezing on the rock and the glow vanished.

“You know what this is,” Brax said. “Plus you killed my god.”

Liam tensed. But as he watched Brax, he saw the other man pause to consider. Liam had gotten fairly decent at reading people. Something about people trying to murder you on occasion instilled that kind of ability. And in those eyes, disguised as they were, he could see a man delighting in a thorny, complicated problem.

“Liam, have you ever been a slave?” Brax asked.

“No, but I do have eyes and ears. And a soul,” Liam said, shrugging his shoulders.

Brax nodded. “Sometimes, you don’t need a collar to be a slave. Sometimes, you can be enslaved by your title, as much as by the master’s whip.”

Liam grinned. “Sysminor-”

“Is a generous god,” Brax cut in, speaking a bit more forcefully now. “He arrived without us even asking. Gave us gifts like those amazing sorcerers that you have faced in battle.”

Malformed. Mutant. Hunched and twisted by their... gifts. Liam read between the lines.

“But what choice do we have?” Brax asked. “We were here first. And yet, we have been driven into the deep jungles. We have to steal bronze - we don’t work it. You could see why Sysminor’s...” He paused, and though Brax was disguised as a human, Liam could almost hear his tail whipping back and forth. “...offer was so tempting to some. What other future do we have?”

Liam’s eyes dipped to Brax’s sword again. The weight of the other man’s regard settled on his shoulders as Liam realized that Brax was waiting for an answer to that question. He had a disguise and the sword and was clearly smart. Liam knew that if he wanted, he could bring the hammer down on him if he didn’t like the answer to the question.

Liam smiled. “On Earth, my world, we have a long history of people being pushed to the sides by others. It’s called colonization. Sadly, my people tended to be the ones who did it to others.” He shook his head. “My ancestors would kill entire tribes to get at their lands, their resources, and claim it was in self defense.” He smirked, bitterly. “I understand the choices you have, Brax. But-”

Brax pocketed the rock. And for just a moment, he looked deeply, deeply relieved. Then the emotion was wiped away and a perfect poker face settled back into place. Liam wondered, not for the first time, how much Sysminor could observe Brax.

“Liam,” he said, “Watch your flanks when we face one another. I never fight a pitched battle when I can encircle someone. And remember: you can only truly kill a god when they have taken the whole of their being to face you. Not merely part - all.” He tapped his temple, then turned and walked into the shadows.

Liam's throat worked as he gulped.

Liv remained stock still but a quiet word for Brax made her slave collar glow. She turned and walked off, her back straight. Something hit the ground behind her. Liam remained perfectly still, his mind whirling. He walked forward, picking up the scrap of leather, scrawled on with dried blood. He tried to not guess where Liv had gotten it – it smelled awful.

D. HAS PLN. DN'T TR.

Liam pulled out his iPod.

Dad has plan. Don't trust.

He tapped the 'generate wi-fi hotspot' function on.

And before dawn, Meg swooped down from the darkness and soared into the sky. Liam spent the flight back to safety in thought as Meg's wings beat loudly in the air.

Sysminor's playing a game. Brax is playing a game. Ares is playing a game. And we're all going to pay the price, aren't we?

Seven

“So, this is the best of the best?” Liam asked, looking at Mary.

She nodded, her lips pursed.

The City of the Dead Gods thrummed with energy – remarkable for a place that had seemed to be nearly abandoned. If the citizens weren't on the walls, they were preparing for the battle and waiting for the end. One way or the other.

And about two hundred and change of the best mercenaries and cut throats the city had were standing on the dais before the palace of the Free Lord.

Liam felt, curiously, as if he had been catapulted backwards Earth. In the bronze armor, leather padding and high plumed helmet that Vani's wife had made for him, he felt as if he was wearing the HEMA gear that he had worn what felt like a lifetime ago. His hand went to the scabbard of his longsword and he looked back at the soldiers.

“And the uniforms?”

Mary actually grinned.

“Hey.” She shrugged. “I said you'd approve. You're Christian, after all.”

Each of the soldiers that Mary had scraped from the City of the Dead Gods was dressed in white surcoats that had hastily had a lurid red cross stitched over their fronts. Liam smiled despite himself. Disconnected for millennia, untouched by any of Earth history or wars, and yet Mary had still chosen a garb that looked like it had stepped right from the Crusades.

The distant sound of an army marching was carried on the winds.

“Men, women,” Liam said, pitching his voice to carry. His belly buzzed and his nerves burned. But as he spoke, he felt both of those starting to fade. “Today, we are going to change history. I am the Free Lord of this city. In my world, being the Free Lord doesn't mean that you get to boss others around and give orders. It means you've taken responsibility on your shoulders to see your people through the trials and the dangers of the world. And today, that danger is clear: an army of sons of bitches are going to try and scale the walls. They're going to burn our homes. Kill and rape our families. They are going to leave this city a cinder...”

He saw quite a few people in his audience growl at that. Some looked detached. Others were nodding.

Liam started to pace before them, his back straight. He spoke louder now.

“There are four thousand of them and a thousand of us. But what will make or break this day is not that we are fighting from walls, and it is not their Eye of Ra.” He shook his head. “It's not even Delenn.” He drew his sword, squeezing the hilt to cause the magical energy within to surge with heat. Even during the brightness of the day, the flash was dramatic. He grinned. “It's that we fight for something.”

He sheathed his blade.

“We wear the cross, for we have seen it used on our loved ones and it holds no fear for us. We all pray to many gods, but we fight for one cause: this city and one another.” He paused. “My homeland has a motto: E. Pluribus. Unum.”

He looked around at the crowd. “From many, one.

There was a faint murmur among the crowd. He saw more nodding heads.

Liam lifted his fist. “From many!” he shouted.

“One!” the men and women shouted back, raggedly.

“From many!”

“One!” This time it was a roar.

Liam nodded. “This I like.” He grinned. “Now, let's go kill some motherfuckers.”

The elite soldiers may not have trained together, but they looked good as they marched in uniform towards towards the sally port.

Like all big cities with big walls, the City of the Dead Gods had incorporated quite a few tricks and traps that made defending it easier. A sally port was a small, concealed doorway that troops could emerge from to attack the enemy in a surprise flanking maneuver. As they marched to the door, Liam nodded to himself. The best horses in town had been brought there and saddled with the saddles he had shown the leather workers. Saddles equipped with stirrups.

Stirrups weren't unknown in Purgatory. But the stirrups used by Earth cavalry from the middle ages onwards were sturdier. And having every saddle bearing them – and a saddle horn to make it easier to use a lance without being unhorsed – were tiny refinements that Liam hoped would serve him and his men and women well.

Meg flew down from the sky, panting. She was clad in light armor and had her javelins at her side. “The airforce and I have finished our scouting,” she said, puffing. “Borins not doing anything complicated. His army's in a big block, walking straight at the least defended of the walls.”

“And the hidden forces?” Liam asked.

“Tethis and her magic seems to be working. Now...” She grinned at him, bloodthirstily. “Permission to harry the fuckers.”

“Harry away. But be careful.”

“Pff,” Meg said, waving her hand. “You've got twenty six valkyrie and if this city can do one thing, it's make javelins.”

Her wings spread, but she paused to lean over and kiss Liam on the cheek. The fact he was wearing a helmet that covered most of his head was entirely disregarded. Then she shot into the air, joining her fellows in the heavens. Liam shook his head.

“Scipio Africanus never had to worry about this shit,” he muttered. “No magic, no flying women, no priests.”

“No fun, if you ask me.”

Liam looked over and saw Laurentinus seated on his pony. The goblin's smaller size didn't stop him from looking pretty lethal, his hand going to the lance that was holstered on his saddle. Though, smaller was relative - Laurentinus was easily a head taller than Tethis.

“You know how to use a lance?” he asked.

“Fuck no,” Liam laughed. “I'm just here to look pretty.”

Then the sounds of battle started.

Arrows shot over the wall,thudding into the flat rooftops of the city. A few screams came from citizenry. But Liam was pretty sure those were screams of fear, not pain. Liam reached down and tugged out his iPod. He tapped it on and then looked at the sky.

“Now, let's see if Tethis' magic works,” he said.

“What's that?” Laurentinus asked, leaning over.

“A scrying mirror,” Liam said.

His phone's screen fuzzed and he saw a grainy, confused looking image. Tapping it a few times, he felt the phone growing hot as it strained with unexpected work. Then he saw it: a clear picture of the armies from overhead. Or, more accurately, a clear image of the vast clouds of dust that were growing up and around the marching troops approaching the walls. His eyes narrowed and he tapped the screen. “There. There! See! A bunch of troops are stepping aside. And those fast things-”

“Cavalry,” Laurentinus said, gruffly. “They're going for the walls. Storming them.”

Liam looked over towards the wall where the battle would be taking place. Men and women in the militia were standing on them, firing bows and slings, and hurling spears and rocks down into the masses of the enemy. Ladders thumped into place and the roar of battle sounded. Liam tensed.

This was so much easier in a videogame where one could see and manage everything. A thousand questions roared through his brain. Would his troops hold? Would the surprise on the wall hold till the right time? Could he get there in time? He gulped. Would he survive? And there was just time - so little time - for one last worry. Would Liv be okay? He closed his eyes and thought a prayer for her, trapped with Brax and Sysminor’s army. Then all the questions and all the fear faded away as the sally port was flung open by several men on the ground.

Liam kneed his horse into a trot – thanking God that he had had a year to get used to riding the damn things. He was still no horseman, but at least he wasn't an utter embarrassment.

Only two horsemen could ride through the sally port at a time. Fortunately, horses were fast. The two hundred men and women of Liam's elite force – have to think of a name for that – formed up, hidden by the wall. Liam looked back, to see if the dust they had kicked up was rising over the wall. He hoped not. He lifted his hand, gesturing and kneeing his horse into a faster canter. They came to the corner of the wall – and there, Liam saw that Borin had stationed his archers on a wide flank, the prevailing winds blowing dust away from them.

The archers didn't sound their horns – they either hadn't noticed the flanking attack, or they weren't as disciplined as they should have been.

Liam drew Delenn. He held her over his head, the sword flaring with energy and heat. He bellowed, at the top of his lungs:“From many!”

His horse broke into a gallop and the only reason Liam didn't go tumbling from its back was sheer fucking luck. His free hand grabbed onto the reins, and he tried to both hold on and not throttle the poor beast as it charged forward.

“One!” the rest of his men and women shouted.

They came in a ragged, almost delta-V formation, thundering around the wall. The sounds of their horns were more than just a moral boost.

They were a signal.

Liam didn't dare look away from the Eye of Ra and the command platform that held Borin the Black on it. The general himself was just as hideous as Liam had heard: short, malformed, with armor painted as black as night. His face was concealed by the only bit of white on his armor – a skull painted on his face covering helmet. How he survived in the heat of the day, Liam didn't want to know.

But even without looking, he could hear the shouts from the walls.

“Volley! Volley! Volley!”

“From many!”

“One!”

All the reserves that Liam and Laurentinus had placed on the wall, those hidden by Tethis' 'don't notice me spell' stood up. A hail of sling shots slammed into Borin's infantry and dismounted cavalry. Arrows rattled off shields and found flesh. Javelins and spears with weight, gravity and brute desperation on their side punched through armor.

And then Liam and his elite troops smashed into the screen of soldiers that surrounded the general. They were well drilled and well trained, but the flank attack had come so suddenly that they hadn't even formed a spear wall. Liam brought his sword smashing down and released the magical energy that it had collected. The woman he hit exploded. Blood misted the air around him and the soldiers nearby turned and ran, unwilling to face a bellowing giant armed with death.

Borin the Black let loose a torrent of curses which resolved into a simple command: “Kill him!”

But the rest of Liam's elite guard were cutting forward, pushing on despite slain soldiers and wounded horses. Sword met shield and lance pierced through breastplates as the last of the guard between Liam and Borin were hacked down. Liam spurred his mount and he sweat flecked, blooded horse thundered forward, blowing out large puffs of air from its nostrils.

Liam lifted his sword over his head. Arrows shot past him.

There was no time for fear.

“From many!” he shouted.

The counter call still came.

“One!”

And Borin did what Liam had hoped for. What Liam had dreamed of.

He did what a hundred unnamed generals had done, throughout the ages, their names forgotten because of this moment. Generals who made this one mistake at a time where empires were on the line and the future of worlds could be made or broken.

Darius III had seen Alexander the Great – a giant of a man and a terrifying presence on the battlefield – charging towards him. A lunatic with a sword, howling for his blood.

Liam was no Alexander.

But, then again, Borin was no Darius.

Borin turned and ran. He ran as fast as he could, considering his ostentatious black armor. Liam glanced back and saw that the fates were kind. The dust had blown away and the survivors of Borin's army were drawing back from the sudden withering fire from the wall. They were looking back and seeing the flags fall. Seeing their general scrambling aboard his black horse and riding desperately away as Liam's warriors - his terrible warriors, clad in blood red crosses! - chased him with swords raised.

It was like a rock smashing into a pond. The ripple flew outwards – and the ripple was fear. Men and women started to run. Whole regiments wavered and broke. Standards were shaken and horns blew as officers tried to coordinate, but Liam called his men together.

They may have never drilled together but a six foot tall man holding a flaming sword is hard to miss, even on the chaos of a battlefield.

Once together, his elite guard smashed into the few units that were trying to organize. Valkyrie flew down in groups, hurling javelins and sling stones into the enemy with their superhuman strength.

Standards fell.

Flags were trampled.

And in the end, thousands of men and women -facing the grim choice between fleeing into the desert to die and throwing down their arms – knelt to the ground, ragged in defeat.

Borin fled into the Basilisk Desert.

His bones were never found.

* * *

The sounds of celebration could be heard through the floor and through the window. Liam lay back in his bed, fingers laced behind his neck as he reclined in luxury and let Meg do all the work.

Her hips rose and her hips fell and her breasts jiggled delightfully as her palms caressed Liam's chest. Her fingers touched the other gift she had given him: a brand new crucifix, specially made for him. Her sex squeezed on his cock as her hands squeezed his shoulders. Her skin glistened with sweat and she tossed her head back as her sex clenched around Liam's cock like a fist. Meg moaned exuberantly, her wetness dripping along Liam's balls as she shuddered atop him.

“Fuck, that's some good stuff,” she said, panting heavily as she picked up a small goblet that was seated on the nightstand beside the massive bed that they shared.

Liam grinned shakily. “Are you sure it's safe? The merchant called it nightfire.”

“Fuck yeah, it's safe!” Meg said, nodding and licking the now mostly dry goblet, moaning hungrily. She tossed the goblet over her shoulder. “Besides, conquering hero needs her re-ah-ahh!” She shuddered, her eyes widening. The bright blue glow that Liam found so comforting actually flickered as her face twisted into a mask of pleasure. Her sex didn't so much squeeze him as suck on his cock as she worked her hips up and down, up and down, moving in a frenzy of passion.

Liam grabbed Meg's ass and let himself get lost in the feeling of her. She molded against him, her wings closing tight around him as Liam drove his hips up into her, no longer willing to be lazy. Meg tossed her head back, wailing wordlessly. Liam grunted and thrust up so hard that his balls swung up and slapped her right on the ass, bringing another, quieter wail of happiness from Meg.

Then...

Then Liam grunted and filled Meg to the brim. There was nothing poetic about it and yet the world felt more complete as his hands clung to her back, tracing the connection between her wings and her back. Liam felt tensions he hadn't known he felt fade as Meg kissed his neck. His cum dripped along his cock, slipping along his balls.

They lay in the haze of the fucking.

Liam's brow furrowed. “Wait, I thought I was the conquering hero.”

Meg scoffed, her response muffled by kissing his neck. He heard something something air support something something Eisenhower. He snorted, loudly, then slapped her ass.

“You are not Dwight D. Eisenhower. For one things, I would not be balls deep in you, you silly creature,” Liam said, laughing. Meg blew a raspberry on his neck. Liam laughed.

A knock came at the door to the room, audible despite the laughing and the music and the cheering that came from the streets and the lobby of the palace. Liam pushed Meg gently. Meg remained clasped to him. Liam pushed harder. The knock came again. “Liam?”

Liam groaned. “Meg, come on, I'm the Free Lord, I need to get to work.”

“Noooo!” Meg giggled, quietly. “If they elected you, they can get erected by you.” She giggled again.

“Note to self, never let you have nightfire again,” Liam groaned as Meg fluttered her wings and spread her limbs even more, trapping Liam firmly on the bed. The door opened a crack and Mary stuck her head through the opening. She turned even darker red than normal and froze. Meg, though, sat up, her wings snapping shut behind her back. She grinned and thrust out her tits.

“Mary! Does your variation of, uh, Christmolanism, uh, wait, no, let me start again,” Meg said,  blinking.

Liam – seeing her wobble slightly – put his finger on her chest and pushed gently. Meg squeaked and fell onto her back, laughing. His cock slipped from her sex and Liam grabbed his pillow and jammed it over his crotch. He coughed.

“Sorry about that, Mary,” he said. “What's up?”

“I came to, ah,” Mary said, before turning around. Her tail lashed from side to side. “I came to discuss some important, well, Council business.”

Liam nodded. He soon had Meg tucked away and himself dressed. He tapped Mary on the shoulder, then gestured to the balcony. Once they were out of the room and away from the smell of sex, Mary looked more relaxed. Though, Liam noticed, her tail did keep lashing from side to side. Her nipples thrust out against the thin leather strap she wore across her breasts. Liam gritted his teeth and tried to ignore her pheromones.

“I've been raising money and means with the people I've met during the occupation,” Mary said, nodding. “Enough to buy a slot on the Council.”

“Oh? Good,” Liam said, his hands grabbing onto the railing. “I need a lot of help.”

Mary smiled. “It is nice to hear I am wanted.”

“Oh, yeah, I want you bad,” Liam said, nodding. “I really-” He stopped and flushed brightly. “I mean, not that way. Well, uh, I mean, yes, but-”

Mary laughed, quietly. “We're going to be awkward for a while, aren't we?”

“It'll keep things interesting.” Liam tried to not think about her being fucked by a large, buff lizardman. He tried to not imagine what her pussy would feel like. His eyes slid up and down her body, and he knew that she wouldn't take him up on an offer, just by looking at her eyes. He could see her desire but also see her dedication to her faith.

And he could respect that.

“The City of the Dead Gods feels like a new place. I've never seen anything like your elite guard before – and the people I've talked to say that tensions between faiths are down. Why care if one worships Sobek or Ra or Mary if there's  Sysminor walking around out there.” Mary sighed. “Can it last?”

“It will,” Liam said. “This city is going to change the future of Purgatory.”

“Already got plans to conquer the world?” Mary asked.

“Oh, no, no,” Liam said, shaking his head. “No. But this war – it's going to be between me and Brax.”

“That’s a lot you got from one conversation,” Mary said.

Liam chuckled. “It was a weighty conversation. But still, even if Brax trips down a flight of stairs and snaps his neck, we also have whatever Genotype A has activated in the lizardmen – and us. Our advantage will be here.” His hand tapped the balcony. “The biggest city - the biggest manufacturing base - in the world.” He smiled. “We're going to be the arsenal of the resistance.”

“And everyone who buys our weapons gets to see how democracy and religious liberty works?” Mary arched an eyebrow.

“I'll admit that is the idea, yes.”

Liam turned back to look at the city. “But the city needs a new name.”

Mary's tail slapped his back. He glanced at her and saw she was looking distracted, unaware that her tail was currently sliding up and down Liam's spine. “Yesss,” she said, slowly, her fangs glinting in the reflected light of the city as a parade continued along below them. “The City of the Dead Gods – it's not a name you use for hope. For a new world.”

Liam smiled. “I already picked one. Babylon.”

“The fabled city?” Mary asked. “Where they built a tower?”

“Where everyone worked together – the source of all the diversity of the world as everyone's languages changed.” Liam grinned. “And a glorious thing to build. Something I think God will appreciate now that he's had a family, settled down, and chilled the fuck out.”

“You have an interesting faith, Liam...” Mary smiled.

“Thanks.” He shook his head. “But speaking of faith, I want someone to organize an interfaith…” He snapped his fingers. “Not an organization, but a kind of... a forum. A place where debates can be held. Where people can interact and have their problems aired and dealt with without violence.”

Mary nodded, her tail sliding up and down his spine, tracing the lines of his muscles through his shirt. “I like it.

“Do you want to be a part of it?” Liam asked. “I want someone who knows these people to help organize it.” The touch of her tail was starting to make him dizzy.

“I think I can handle that,” Mary purred. Her nipples were hardening against her straps - announcing that the contact was filling her with the same high. Liam could remember those breasts, bared and bouncing as a lizardman plowed her, as if he was still there.

He leaned forward, his voice soft. “Another thing I can do, now that I’m the lord of a a city?”

Mary blinked, those bright eyes of her looking confused. The urge to kiss her was as intense as it had ever been. Liam could imagine tugging those straps aside. Sucking her breasts into his mouth. Fucking her. Taking her. Making her moan. But then... then he shook his head. She would enjoy it. He would enjoy it. But he knew both wouldn’t be happy with who they were, afterwards. He forced himself to step back.

“Spies. For finding Liv, I mean,” Liam said. Flushing, Mary jerked her tail away from his back.

“Of course!” she said, crossing her arms over her breasts to hide her arousal. Not that it hid the scent of her. “She’s a great warrior, having her returned would help us. A lot.”

“I’d have sent spies after her if she were a lame goblin with buck teeth,” Liam said. “We call ourselves a free city. That’s going to be true - and a symbol. Freedom to worship, freedom from slavery, all of it. It’s why I called us Babylon.”

“They had no slaves in the mythic Babylon?” Mary asked.

“Not Babylon 5,” Liam said with a grin.

“And the elite guard?” Mary asked. “They're a symbol too. What will you name them?”

“Oh, them?” Liam smiled.

His fingers caressed the cross hanging from his chest. Knowing that it had been given to him by Meg - slid around his neck by her hands and kissed by her lips - comforted him. But there was something more about the symbol. . His eyes glinted as he looked into the darkness and the light.

They were going to make it mean something new on Purgatory, just as Jesus had done.

“I'm thinking...” His smile grew wider. “The Cross Guard.”

Epilogue

As Borin the Black fled from the battlefield, Brax stroked his muzzle.

Liv stood beside him and seethed.

She seethed because she wanted to be free. And she seethed because she had to bite back the urge to repeat what Vazt and Anix had said and demand that Brax move behind cover. The fight was a good way off, but he was quite visible. If a detachment of Borin's army had noticed him, they'd come down and slaughter him.

I just don't want him to get noticed because then I get captured. It's not like I like the golden asshole.

Brax, though, laughed.

“Well, I'll be,” he said. “We've got a gifted amateur here. He made some mistakes though – risked too much on a gamble. Anyone who gambles that often has to lose eventually.”

He turned to Liv, then tugged something from his belt pouch. Liv had only a few moments to wonder before it touched her throat. The collar glowed, then dropped to the ground with a thump. Brax looked at her.

“Liv,” he said, “You have a choice. You can go and rejoin Liam there. Serve as his bodyguard, keep him alive, give him advice.” He shrugged. “You'll do good there. But your father sent you here – to me - for a reason. And I say that because we both know that your father is an ass.”

His grin was wide. His teeth were sharp.

But all Liv could think about, for the moment, was how pretty his eyes were.

“So, I promise you now, that if you come with me, you will ruin your father's plans and see everything he is working towards in ruins. But I won't take a slave. Not anymore.”

Then he turned and started to walk away, moving down behind the tiny rise that they had used to observe the clash of armies. Vazt and Anix and Rao moved to flank him, and he started heading for the coast, where a tiny boat had been secreted away. It'd be a long, dangerous voyage to rejoin the rest of his army. Liv's fingers touched her throat.

She looked at Brax's back.

She looked back at the army – at the soldiers surrendering.

She looked back at Brax.

“Ah fuck it,” Liv grumbled as she headed towards the coast and an uncertain future.

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.