The Blood Groove

Purgatory Wars: Book Four

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

Other works

A Fetch Job

"The Last Mage" in Sex & Sorcery 3

Tales Of Furicana

Also from Dragon Cobolt

The Blood Groove

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Epilogue

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The Blood Groove

One

Of all the sobriquets that Liam Vanderbilt could have been stuck with, this had to be one of the worst.

"Lord Godkiller," Vani said as she bowed her head to him. "I'm sorry to say, but it just won't work."

It was sitting on the floor in the center of the office of the Free Lord's manor – in Liam's manor, though two months of staying there hadn't managed to affix the idea in his head. It still felt a bit like squatting in a murdered man's house, even though the former Free Lord of the City of the Dead Gods had been in the ground for weeks.

"Have we-ee tried bracing them with bronze?" Liam asked, his finger rubbing a circle on his temple as he looked at the shattered, blackened chunks of crystal that Vani and the rest of the bronze and crystalwights had brought to him. His voice had squeaked in the middle of the sentence, but on the whole, he was fairly proud of how in control he sounded.

"Yes, but that just means that when the break happens, it happens in focused areas," one of the crystalwights, a burly elf named Agamemnon, said. He kicked one of the chunks of crystal with derision.

Liam's hand dropped to his lap. Laced through blonde hair and tried gently to push back. But Megara - whose lips were currently fastened around his cock and whose tongue was currently wringing out pleasure that Liam could barely contain out of him - was strong enough to bend bronze with her bare hands. She wasn't getting pushed away if she didn't want too. And while the meeting had been planned, the would be armsmiths were there early. Not that that stopped Meg. Little stopped Meg, honestly. Her palm cradled his balls while her wings rustled gently under the desk. Fortunately, the Free Lord had believed in large, imposing furniture. But Liam was still sure at least one of his artisans would hear the slurping. Meg wasn't exactly trying to be subtle, throwing herself into giving head with gusto.

"Well," Liam said, gritting his teeth. "Ah. Letssss keep working at it - maybe, uh, a thicker shell? Or, uh, a circular wood bracing?"

The artisans looked less than convinced.

Liam didn't blame them. For the past two months, the City of the Dead Gods had been struggling to find its place. A new name - Babylon - hung over its shoulders lightly. A victory over an invading army and a sudden liberation from a tyrannical would-be god had given the people hope, and Liam prayed every day to Jesus Christ and every single Saint of Christendom that he wasn't totally fucking them over. During the day, he simply thought of every tinpot dictator and corrupt politician he had ever read about - from Kim Jong Ill to Hitler to Duarte - and tried to do the exact opposite of what they would have done.

To be fair, some things - such as organized death camps - had been easier to avoid than others.

The artisans left, discussing more possibilities, and Meg peeked her head up from under the desk. She wiped her mouth off, hopped onto the desk, and leaned back on her palms. "So," she said, "That was fun."

Liam made a face. And it wasn't just because she had left him as hard as his longsword.

"Oh, come on," Meg said. "You're taking this rulership too seriously. This city almost runs itself." She twitched her thighs wider, showing the loincloth that dipped between her legs was pressed against her plump nether lips. Moisture dampened it almost see-through. He could count her pubic feathers. Like all valkyrie, Meg's body was utterly hairless other than her scalp and her eyebrows. That didn't mean she lacked for... adornment.

Liam, leaning back in his chair, looked at her as if she had gone insane. Meg looked down at the papers that her palms were pressed against. A recent invention that had arrived in Babylon from the distant city of Olimurias, paper was easier to make and cheaper than papyrus or cloth scrolls. It may not last longer, but as on Earth, Purgatory preferred cheapness to sturdiness. Meg picked up one of the papers that was an accounting of the fishing fleets that served Babylon, her eyes squinting.

Liam had been rooting through the logistics reports for the better part of an hour before she arrived for a welcome distraction.

“As I said,” Meg said, tossing the paper over her shoulder. “Runs itself.”

Liam surged to his feet, grabbing for the paper. “Meg!” he glared at her.

She blushed. “Seriously, though, isn't this stuff Tethis and her scribes should be handling?”

Liam rubbed his palms against his face. “She's teaching the merchants how to pay taxes.”

Meg oofed.

“And we need those taxes. The Cross Guard need to be paid. The smiths need to be paid. The merchants that bring us food need to be paid. The Gods!” Liam flung his hands up. “Need. To. Be. Paid. And these people are worse about paying their taxes than wealthy Republicans.”

Meg's brow furrowed. “The elephant people?”

“I'm being unfair,” Liam muttered, rubbing his palms against his face. “But yes, the elephant people.”

“Funny,” Meg said. “You think they'd be the ones who remember.”

Liam drew his hands away from his face. Meg wiggled her eyebrows at him.

Liam couldn't help but smile.

The door leading into the office rattled. “Liam?”

Mary, the second most powerful person in Babylon, wanted in. When she wanted in, she usually got in. Meg's grin was demonic. Ironic, considering. She slipped underneath the desk before Liam could open his mouth. Instead, he stammered: “Come in-”

Meg's tongue slurped from the base of his balls to the tip of his cock, her mouth closing around the tip of his cock. Her lips were warm and plush, and a faint sigh of breath blew along his member. The sensation was nearly unimaginable – Meg had literally a year and change to practice giving him a blowjob. And she had started as a genius. Her mouth slipped forward with a moist sound that was nearly as erotic as the sight of her blonde curls spreading along his thighs.

The door to the chambers opened and Mary stepped in.

She was a lilin – one of the races that an ancient sect of Christianity had banished from Earth - which was why Meg's devilish look had been so ironic. Her skin was a uniform shade of ruby red. Her head was graced by a pair of curled horns, horns that Liam knew from experience were smooth and easily gripped. Her hair was raven black, and framed a face as soft and beautiful as an angel. A tail, long and whip-like, coiled from above her pert, heart-shaped rear. Again, a shape that Liam could picture in his dreams.

And he had, from time to time.

She was dressed in clothes that did nothing to cut out the simmering sexual tension between them: a sleek, crisscrossing pattern of leather straps and buckles combined with shoulder length black cloth gloves, thigh high boots and a nun's habit that sat atop her head, to add an extra, fetishistic air to her sex-goddess appearance.

The fact that, as she advanced towards the counter top, Meg was giving Liam head did not help. Her lips touched the base of his hips, her palm cradling his balls gently. Her thumb caressed the base of his scrotum, and he felt her cheeks hollow out as she sucked on him.

Liam was pretty impressed that he kept his eyes from crossing.

Mary stopped before the desk. “Good afternoon, Godkiller.”

“Afternoon, uh, Hierophant!” Liam said. He managed to not squeak. Somehow. Meg was starting to hum.

Mary smiled slightly, her fangs glinting around the corner of her lips. “Still getting used to that title.” She sighed. “Godkiller, we need to talk about the Cross Guard. I want them to begin helping to keep the peace in Babylon, not just man the walls.”

Liam nodded. Meg's palm was squeezing and rolling his balls with just enough force to wring pleasure from him. The knowledge that she could bend bronze with her bare hands just added to the thrill. His palms spread along the top of the desk.

“The problem is that, ah, I don't think that using an army to guard is annnghood idea!” He nodded. “I mean, different skills. Different duties.”

Mary's nose flared.

“So, whose giving you head? Tethis?” she asked.

Meg giggled around his cock. The sensation almost sent Liam over the edge. His hand reached down, his fingers sliding through Meg's hair. He thrust into her mouth, balls slapping against her chin with an audible smack. He hissed quietly and closed his eyes and just let himself go. His balls clenched and the molten spurt of hot cum that filled Meg's throat touched off secondary fireworks behind Liam's eyes. He shuddered, groaned, then laid back. He let himself lay limp in the chair, his cock softening.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Mary still looking to the side of the office, her eyes unfocused as she gazed out of the window. Her nipples also looked hard enough to cut crystal, poking through her straps. Liam was impressed – both in the suppleness of her leather and in the eagerness of her body.

Lilin were made to fuck. Touching them could drive men and women of both genders and any species wild. They got aroused easier, they felt the need for sex deeper, and Mary was doing her best to channel that feeling into charity, good work and abstinence. That may have been part of why she had gone from being a lowly nun from the Order of Mary to newly elected Hierophant of Babylon in a few months.

The fact that most of the other religious leaders in the city had been crucified by an insane god recently also helped.

But it was the essential nature of Mary that had made her the first Hierophant that people in Babylon actually respected. She had opened rudimentary schools, wrangling artisans who had been growing close to retiring into teaching whole classes of orphans. She had opened hospitals where prayer for the gods could be focused and used en masse, vastly increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of the magic called down by the priests of various gods. The poor loved her.

The rich hated her.

Hence…

“It's that damned-able Amund of Thor,” she said. “I'm sure that the bronzewights have paid him at least five gold rings to come to every single meeting of the faiths and throw about feces. Every consensus, every agreement that we try to come to, everything from schools to interfaith debates to new plays!” She shook her head, tail whipping back and forth in the air. Meg drew out from under the desk, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She set her rump down on the desktop, spreading one thigh to make it easier for Liam to notice just how wet she was.

Meg looked over her shoulder at Mary. “I know that exact kind of asshole. People who show up at the forum to show off how witty they can be, not to actually help govern.”

“How will the Cross Guard help?” Liam asked, rubbing his palms against his face as the afterglow of an intense orgasm faded, leaving the real world and its weight in its place.

“Well, people tend to check their tongues while standing near war heroes and people armed with swords,” Mary said.

Liam shook his head. “Mary, I get the problem. I do. Bronzewights want to keep their control on their craft. The only one who can see further than next week's profits is Vani's wife and she got voted out of leadership precisely because she is in favor of training more bronzeweights.” He rubbed his finger against his temple. “We need more bronze to make more weapons and weapons. We need more alchemists to make more gunpowder. We need more wood. We need more of everything.”

Mary sighed. “Having the Cross Guard intimidate Amund would help the priesthoods come to decisions...”

Liam pursed his lips. The priests of Purgatory were a strategic asset, but they were an asset that could become dangerous or useless relatively quickly. They channeled the power of their gods into themselves, and through that ability, could cure ailments and call down great curses. They were, understandably, as unclear as possible as to the exact limitations and requirements of their abilities. Considering the number of kings and emperors and would be despots who would gladly replace the lot if they could, Liam couldn’t even blame them.

The problem, though, was he could see that using the Guard as a way to intimidate a priest – even an asshole of a priest – wouldn’t exactly comfort those who could look past their dislike of Amund.

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “But I think I will go to the next meeting.”

Mary blinked. “Are you sure that is a good idea?”

“I won’t be there to direct, dictate or even debate. I’ll just be there as an observer. As the Free Lord, I do have that right.” Liam grinned. “Being a head taller than most people gives me an advantage, in that I can loom near Amund and glower at him.”

Mary giggled. Her smile persisted as she bowed to Liam. “I would be honored.”

As she turned to go, Liam let his eyes linger on her heart-shaped rump. Hands slid along his belly and Meg pressed her face against his shoulder blades, nuzzling him.

“It is a very fine ass,” she said, playfully.

“Don’t you have valkyrie to be training?” Liam asked, as stern as she was playful.

Meg snapped her finger, stepping away as she did so. “I knew I had forgotten som-eek!” She squeaked as Liam slapped her rump, sending her on her way with the sure knowledge that while he may appreciate Mary’s butt... hers was his.

With Meg, Mary and the armsmiths dealt with, Liam went back to his desk. He picked up some papers that had been written in a short, nervous hand – it took a few moments and the continual magic of Meg’s translation spell for him to parse the letters. Most were utterly mundane details about a merchant’s visit to the lands of Ra, beyond the Barrier Mountains. But a few letters were underlined, and piecing them together came to this: L sighted w/o BTG

Liam shook his head. His friend, companion, and sister in arms Livianna of New Sparta had been captured by Brax - the lizardman general whose soldiers called him Brax The Golden - a few weeks before. He had met the general in person, and even that short conversation had given Liam all he needed to know.

He was facing a Napoleon. A Rommel. A scaled, bright golden Scipio Africanus, with the backing of an insane, god-like AI and an army of savage lizardmen who had just absconded with the entire annual quota of Babylon’s bronzesmiths. So, not only was the enemy bigger, stronger and tougher than the average Purgatorian, but they were also armed with modern - well, “modern”- weaponry.

And Liv was in his company.

“We really need the guns,” Liam muttered.

***

“Spark!”

Laurentinus, Liam, Meg and Tethis ducked below the lip of the small mound of earth the engineers had erected a stone’s throw from Babylon’s walls. A moment later, Vani landed beside them. The hissing sound of burning gunpowder was the only noise that they could hear.

Then-

Boom.

A chunk of crystal bounced off the side of the bunker. Liam hissed as a bit of hot sand fell onto his neck. He brushed it aside as Tethis sprang to her feet and looked out of the silt. “By Sobek’s-” she cut herself off, shaking her head. “It didn’t work.”

Liam stuck his head out of cover. The cannon hadn’t burst like the previous models; they had merely shattered along the weakest part of the combination of crystal and bronze rings that was the closest Purgatory could come to cast iron. This one, though, had gone up like the Godkiller, leaving a large crater in the middle of the testing grounds.

“All right,” Liam said. “Reinforcing it with magic didn’t work.”

“I just don’t understand,” Tethis said, her palms pressing to the slit. “Why does gunpowder not channel its energy through the mystic conduit, while fire does? They’re both chemical reactions.”

“Maybe it has something to do with the mixture?” Laurentinus suggested. The chief of Babylon’s guard was as far from Tethis as it was possible to be while remaining within the same genus. He was taller than her, broader than her, and lacked every bit of curiosity and eagerness to explore that had pushed Tethis away from merely being a scribe and into active archaeology and the study of magic. But somewhere, deep in his heart, Laurentinus had found a place for fascination and questions and wonder again.

It had just taken a vague description of a musket to bring it out.

Liam pinched the bridge of his nose. The mixture of the gunpowder that they used on Purgatory wasn’t the exact same mixture used on Earth. Different world, different material. Rather than saltpeter, they used ground up flakes of the same crystal material that they used to build the cannons. The downside was that the crystals did something to the gunpowder, making it stronger. More explosive.

Finding the even ground between making a gun and making a fancy bomb was the hard part.

“We can try dropping the dosage,” Tethis said, nodding to her fellow goblin.

Meg scowled slightly. “Why don’t we just stick with bombs?”

“What, and just hope every battle we fight takes place with a day’s advanced warning?” Laurentinus asked.

“Grenades, maybe...” Vani muttered, rubbing her chin. She was doing some scratching in the dirt near the floor, her finger drawing the alchemical symbols of her trade. Her eyes looked unfocused.

“With slings?” Laurentinus said. “They don’t hold a candle to a musket. Or a cannon.”

I love how he can say that with so much authority, Liam thought. Considering he’s never bloody seen one.

“Meg,” Liam said aloud. “We do have bombs. And we’re going to use them. But Laurentinus is right – we need weapons that can stop the bad guys at a distance. We’re not going to win in melee combat when we go up against people who walk around in scale armor.”

“You might not,” Meg said, sniffing.

Vani slapped her head. “Of course the magic wouldn’t work,” she said, sounding appalled. “Tethis – the communicative properties of crystal!”

“Of course!” Tethis put her hands over her mouth. “Oh, I’m an idiot.”

“Who in the what now?” Meg asked.

Tethis and Vani started to babble magical terms. Liam tried to parse it out. He was fairly sure that there was something about mixing similar magical materials causing the spell to act as a multiplier of force rather than a redirector of force. But that was just because Tethis finished her spiel off by throwing her arms into the air: “Like putting too much air into a bladder!”

“Boom,” Vani said.

“Well, at least we can make better land mines,” Laurentinus said, rubbing his chin.

“Why not use magic to transform the crystal, rather than trying to redirect the energy?” a female voice suggested.

“If I knew a spell that could change crystal, I’d use it,” Tethis said, waving her hand. She looked at Vani. “Why would you suggest-” Tethis stopped as she saw Vani’s expression of confusion.

She, Vani, Meg, Liam and Laurentinus turned to face the new voice. Sitting in the air, about halfway between the bottom of the bunker and the viewing slit, was a woman. She had bright red hair, cat green eyes, a fine patina of freckles, and a heart shaped face with a button nose. Her eyes had black liner surrounding them and spreading outwards in circles, giving her an almost raccoon-ish look. Her hair was done in a horse tail, long enough to wrap around her belly and rest in her lap. Her legs were crossed in a lotus style, and she simply hovered in the air.

Liam conspicuously didn’t reach for his sword. Instead, he tried to sound like the leader of a city-state as he said: “Who are you?”

The girl scoffed – her voice suddenly coming from behind Liam: “Isn’t it obvious. I- oh, sorry, got distracted.” He turned and he saw that she was standing behind Meg, her hands cupping the other woman’s breasts.

Meg looked completely shocked.

“Oi!” she snarled, grabbing the other girl’s wrists.

“Sorry, that was me being bad,” the woman’s voice said from above Liam. He started as he realized she was standing on his shoulders. Though, he noticed, she weighed less than nothing. He looked up at her, then frowned. “But in my defense...” She sketched an hourglass in the air with her hands and whistled.

Meg, normally a sucker for flattery, didn’t stop glaring.

“Stop that,” Liam said. “And apologize. Now.”

The woman sighed. “Fine. I’m sorry for groping you, Megara.”

Meg nodded.

“There we go,” Liam said, trying to sound authoritative. “Off. Now.”

The woman hopped off his shoulders, her shoes crunching on the earth at the bottom of the ditch. She looked over her shoulder at him and smirked.

“Though, I do notice that no one has congratulated me on my good idea.”

“Do you know what is also a good idea?” Liam asked. “Cold fusion, communism and a Facebook comment section. It doesn’t matter if you have a good idea if you don’t know how to make it work.”

The woman looked irritated. “I follow you via context, but I still feel like I’m missing a really good joke.”

Liam shrugged. “Eh, it’s okay. Now. Who. Are. You?”

“You don’t recognize me?” the woman said, gesturing to herself. She looked back at the others. Everyone shook their head. She looked back at Liam. She frowned. “That’s just-” She shook her head, then snapped her fingers. A flash of light surrounded her, then faded. Now, a fusion of girl and horse stood before them. Taller, curvier, with an equine snout and a bushy tail sprouting from above her rump. She even had hooves, which made the same clicking sound as her shoes. She put her hands on her hips, grinning saucily at Liam. “Does this help?”

Liam furrowed his brow. “Uh... Resheph?” he asked.

“Resh-” Another snap of the fingers, another shift, back to the redheaded form. “Do I look like a stick in the mud Pesedjeti?”

“Now that she mentions it, no,” Tethis said. “The Pesedjeti don’t make asses of themselves. That’s more of a Dodekatheon trait.”

“I’d be offended if it wasn’t true,” Meg said, though Laurentinus looked annoyed.

The goddess threw up her hands. “Schlepner ring a bell?”

Liam shook his head. “Wait...” He snapped his fingers. “Wait, yes. You’re-”

He sprang backwards, almost knocking Meg over.

“Ding ding ding!” Loki, god of tricksters, shapeshifters, brother of Odin, son of giants, spread her arms. “You got it!”

“But Loki’s a boy,” Liam stammered.

“I’m a shapeshifter, honey,” Loki said, stepping onto the edge of the bunker, pushing aside the earth with ease, letting in some additional fresh air and light. “Sticking with one gender for four thousand seven hundred and eighty nine years is kind of like living in a hot spring without bathing. Yes. You can...” She paused, then continued with exaggerated care: “But why?”

As she started towards the walls of Babylon, Liam looked back at Meg and Tethis.

“This is going to be fun, isn’t it?” Meg muttered.

“Yeah. Fun.” Tethis cracked her knuckles.

“So, fill me in, what has Loki done since being banished to Purgatory?” Liam whispered.

“Stole Zeus’ thunderbolts, then replaced them with copper replicas,” Meg said, quietly as she helped Tethis scramble out of the bunker and into the sunlight.

“Took Ammit for a walk. Without Anubis’ permission,” Tethis whispered. “Said the poor dear was going stir crazy.”

Liam frowned. “So, Loki being Loki. Good to know. Say, the legends say he – er, she – got Balder killed. Is that what happened?”

“Why do you think she’s got those black rings around her eyes?” Tethis muttered.

“Right,” said Liam, “And why she’s here.”

“Oh, no, I’m not here because I’m avoiding my dear brother’s punishments,” Loki said, casually turning around and walking backwards. She smiled, sweetly. “While you were mucking around with cannons and gunpowder and secretive blowjobs-”

Liam coughed loudly and tried to avoid Tethis’ questioning look.

“Brax and Sysminor conquered Thorhielm.”

Despite standing under the baking sun, Liam felt cold.

***

It was funny what a ditch could do.

Livianna of New Sparta, daughter of Aries the God of War, rubbed her finger along her slave collar as she walked the edge of the ditch. Heaped within, piled and studded with javelins and arrows, were several hundred huscrals. Soldiers from Brax’s army stepped among them – dragging the still living to the edge of the ditch where they could be tended. Others were taking armor, weapons. One of them trilled excitedly as they held up a glowing broadax.

“Did you know,” Brax said, his voice coming from above her head and to the right, “I always wanted to own a tavern?”

Liv looked back. Brax the Golden - the title used by his master and his men – did not fit well with the unassuming general. Which, in and of itself, was a touch ironic, considering that Brax looked as if someone had dumped a bunch of molten gold over him at some point. The gold had worked into every crack of every scale and hardened into a smooth sheen that moved with his every move. It kept the fine definition of his muscles, the curve of his shoulders, even the ridges that went from his scalp to the tip of his tail.

He was beautiful.

Not that Liv would ever admit that.

“No,” she said. “But considering I am your slave, I’m going to just assume you’ll bore me with the details.”

“It was never a detailed dream. That’s the nice thing about owning taverns. You just need to make more money than you spend and listen to people’s boring stories and you’re good,” Brax said, shaking his head.

The battle outside of Thorheilm shouldn’t have happened.

The city was defended. They had walls – not as fine as some cities, but still formidable. But the general leading their defense had seen the preparations for the attack and decided to end it with overwhelming force. Liv wasn’t sure if it had been arrogance, or if it had been a desire to save people from the privations of a long siege. Either way, they had marched and ridden out into one of the most lopsided victories Liv had ever seen.

The ditch that Brax’s army had dug was broad and wide and just deep enough to be a chore to get into and out of. Splitting the army to go around it would have left the Aesir troops exposed to counter attack. And so, the infantry had marched forward into the ditch, planning to climb out and attack Brax’s line of infantry. Cavalry had gone around for the flanking attacks. There, Brax’s heavy cavalry had smashed into the Aesir’s. Bronze armor had split, horses had been gored by the raptors that the lizardfolk rode, and the infantry had found the ditch had been enchanted. Water from the river had flowed into the mud from every angle – not enough to drown, but more than enough to mire the huscrals in suddenly uneven ground.

Arrows.

Spears.

Mud.

Blood.

The Aesir had broken and fled – and then the raptors had been on them.

“A tavern huh?” Liv asked. Her voice was hollow.

The two of them walked to where the survivors were being gathered. The first generation of lizardmen sorcerers had been crude beings, crafted by Sysminor by hand. He had literally fused crystal foci into their bodies with his touch, leaving them hideous, warped, and according to Brax, slightly mad. Liv wouldn’t have been able to attest to that, she had never met one that she hadn’t immediately killed before now.

The second generation had been born after the Codec. The Codec had done something to the lizardfolk, and it had given Sysminor the ability to create people like Fizit.

Fizit was the most beautiful lizardwoman that Liv had met and the fact Fizit knew she was beautiful - by any standards - just made it worse. She was dressed in a tall headdress and furred shoulders, straps crossing across her chest, cupping and spreading her breasts slightly, while her hips were adorned with a pair of raptor skulls shaped into skirts, complete with feathers and tufts of colored fur to add to the fearsome coloration. She held out her palm as a geometric pattern surrounded her palm, flashing and cracking as one of the wounded Aesir warriors gasped in pain.

“There,” Fizit said, dropping her arm. “The bone’s set and fixed. Take him back for questioning.”

The Aesir looked conflicted as he was hauled to his feet. Since there had been a rather chunk of bone sticking out of his thigh, barely missing one of his major veins, Liv could see why he was glad to be hale. But she also could sympathize with the look of utter loathing he shot at the two lizardmen who dragged him off.

“How many survivors?” Brax asked.

“Two hundred and thirty eight,” Fizit said, turning to face him. “They say that Thor’s currently with Odin and Sif in Wotan. My spies have them there, and we’ve already started to count their gathering armies.” She grinned, fiercely. “Better news, though, from the City of the Dead Gods-”

“Babylon,” Brax said. Liv looked at him sidelong.

Fizit coughed. “Yes, Babylon.” She shook her head. “Whatever they call it, they can’t seem to produce anything more than a big bang with this gunpowder of theirs.”

Brax nodded. “Very good. Any luck on assassins?”

Fizit shook her head. “The Cross Guard are being directed by Laurentinus. He’s...” She paused. “Adequate. Good enough to catch anyone not an expert and, unfortunately, our talent pool when it comes to infiltration is relatively shallow. Assassins don’t live long, and our spies are more useful where they are. And I don’t want to trust an assassin off the street for killing Liam Godkiller. Trying to kill him and failing is worse than not trying at all.”

Brax grinned toothily. “And that has nothing to do with the fact you rode him in that orgy you threw?”

Fizit’s nares – the edges of her elongated muzzle – turned bright red. She coughed loudly. “Magic was, ah, involved. Anyway!” She waved her hands. “Liam is not our real threat at this point. The danger is that Athena and Sobek are both heading to Olimurias. That’s three pantheons. If they come to the aid of the Aesir...”

Liv snorted. “Listen, lady, you stick Athena and Sobek in the same room for a single night of debate, they’re going to be killing each other before the sun kindles.”

“Tell the men to take the stores they can from the city. Post guards and recruit from the population – use the control charms to ensure loyalty,” Brax said. “And then tell the rest of the army we’re marching for Woden.”

Liv frowned.

Brax had brought her with him as part of a plan. She knew that he hated Sysminor. He wanted to ruin whatever plan Aries had for Purgatory. But for all that, Brax was still fighting the war against the Aesir with terrifying skill and efficiency. She felt her gut churn as she looked back at the ditch, at the place where Thorheilm’s forces had been broken.

“Come,” Brax said. His voice was authoritative but Liv felt no urge to follow him, no compulsion to walk after.

Her finger went to the slave collar again. It was inert. It had been inert for days, ever since Brax had gotten his hands on a touchkey.

She turned to follow him. Together, they mounted the raptors that were waiting for them. The sleek beasts were fierce. Predators, not herbivores. They didn’t need to be trained for war – though training did turn them from merely dangerous to utterly lethal. Riding one was like riding a horse, though, and Liv had been quite an equestrian for most of her life. It came in handy when one’s job was to put sharpened pieces of bronze through other people. She took hold of the reins and rode after Brax as he started towards where the army was gathering.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his face.

It was more than just the different facial structures. She had played cards with one Brax’s bodyguards, Vazt. He had been just as expressive, just as easily read, as Liam. But Brax?

Brax had an amazing poker face.

For some reason, that give Liv hope.

The army got ready to move with amazing speed. Part of that, Liv saw, came from their kit. Rather than relying on heavy armor, the lizardfolk seemed to delight in going into battle wearing nothing but their loincloths, some adornments, and bearing shields. They had two kinds of shields, one that they carried on their person, and others that were heaped on the beasts of burden that the sorcerers controlled. The alternate shields were heavy wooden ones, designed to reflect and absorb the impact of massed arrow volleys, or to be used when facing heavy infantry. The lighter shields were made simply to help block and redirect attacks.

In veteran hands, these shields and their bronze swords were more than enough to handle the enemy, and they let the lizardfolk lope along at a ground chewing pace. And Brax pushed them hard – hard enough that even Liv’s semi-godly body was feeling the strain. But Brax didn’t seem to think he was exhausting his troops.

The reason why became clear over the next day.

Liv emerged from one of the simple lean-tos that Brax used for his resting place, carrying a chamber pot. As her fiction of being his slave, she had to do some slave work. There were spies more loyal to Sysminor than to Brax, and she wanted to put on a good show for them. But as she made her way into the jungle beside the road that the army had jogged through, she noticed one of the other lizardmen urinating against a tree. Brax had strict orders about not shitting and pissing in the camp, and his men and women followed those orders.

There was something utterly arrogant about the lizardman as he noticed her watching him piss. The look on his face was: Yeah, I’m hung. Deal with it.

But Liv wasn’t noticing his dick – which actually wasn’t a match for Brax's cock, let alone Liam’s. Not that she was noticing... Rather, she was looking at his coloration. Elves were evolved predators, born to notice details and patterns. And she had seen him being dragged out of the nasty melee that had swirled between the cavalry of both armies, his arm almost torn off. It was still in a sling, but that was just it. It should have been missing. Hell, he should have been dead.

Sysminor was many things, but he did not produce the healing magics that gods were famous for. And even the healing of Apollo would have had a hard time with that.

“Want a chance at a common soldier’s cock, huh?” he asked, wiggling to get a few droplets off his prick. Liv snorted and dumped her chamber pot, to show him what she thought of the suggestion.

The lizardman growled and stepped forward, grabbing her wrist hard.

“Listen, you little knife-eared bitch, we folk are going to be running Purgatory soon-”

His hand hit the ground. Blood misted across Liv’s face, breasts, shoulders. Both she and the soldier turned to look at the shadow that had emerged from the jungles, now lit only by the bio-luminescent shimmer of flowers and the faint throbbing of a few crystal outcroppings.

Vazt.

The General’s bodyguard was one of the few men that Liv had ever met that she was sure could take her in a straight swordfight. He moved with the same economic speed, the same deadly precision, the same drilled perfection that Liam did. Though he used a short sword, rather than one longer than some goblins. However, here, Vazt showed how he was different from Liam. He kicked the other lizardman in the groin, then grabbed him by his feathered head-ridge, and smashed his head into the side of a tree. The other lizardman bounced and hit the ground, landing next to his severed, still twitching hand.

“Fuck off,” Vazt snarled. “This is the General’s girl. You touch her again, you lose your dick and I won’t let you pick it up again.” He kicked the other man in the gut, once. Twice. “Got it?” He kicked him again.

The other lizardman grabbed his severed hand and pressed it to his stump. Then, staggering, he came to his feet and ran off, wobbling so hard that he rebounded off a pair of trees before vanishing into the undergrowth.

Liv looked back at Vazt.

She could honestly say, she had never been quite so aroused before in her life.

Vazt looked over over, his slitted eyes narrowing. He snorted, shaking his head, then turned to go.

“Wait,” she said. “Wait!”

Vazt turned back. “Yes, I’m watching you. Yes, even when you jill off.”

“I-” Liv shook her head. She scowled. “That other soldier, he was acting like he’ll get his hand back.”

“He will,” Vazt said. “Not sure what God did-” He was punctilious about calling Sysminor by the more deific title. “-but ever since the ritual in that fucking city, we get our shit together like the folk of old.”

“What, you have legends about this stuff?” Liv asked. She had never heard that the lizardfolk had had legends. She had always been taught what philosophers knew: that the people of Purgatory had been banished there by the Christian church of Earth. Humans and lilin both had arrived with their gods, and they had met the elves, the goblins and the lizardfolk. Elves and goblins had become part of the new civilizations, and breeding between the new gods and the native Purgatorian gods had produced valkyrie. But the lizardfolk had been the weakest of the original inhabitants. They had had no culture, no gods, barely a language, and they had been easily driven to their current homes.

Where, Liv had been taught, they belonged.

She felt faintly unsettled to hear they had legends. It felt like a tooth had gone loose in her memory.

Vazt snorted, then spat on the ground between them. He turned and walked away, tail twitching from side to side. Liv looked at her feet, then shook her head. She hurried back to the lean-to. When she ducked under, she paused. The General lay on his belly, head crooked into his arms. He was nude as the day he had been born – the loincloth he wore had been pushed aside by his tossing and turning as he slept. Liv knelt beside him, her eyes slowly settling on the firm balls nestled between his thighs. Lightly scaled, and the same shade of gold as the rest of his body, they made her heart race.

Liv, remembering the blood, grabbed a washcloth and wiped herself clean.

Brax groaned, shifting at the noise. Liv’s tossed the cloth aside, then reached down and yanked his loincloth back to cover him before he could fully rouse.

“What time is it?”

“By my reckoning, it’s three bells after the sun doused,” she said, quietly.

“Dawn in a few hours,” Brax mumbled. He turned his head forward, his eyes closed. “I’m noticing a bit of fatigue. Mm. Interesting.”

“So, even regeneration can’t fully recover from a day’s jogging in a few hours sleep,” Liv said.

Brax chuckled. “Was wondering when you’d notice.” He rolled onto his back. Liv was painfully aware of how he moved his loincloth to keep himself covered. From the look in his eyes, Brax was aware that she was aware. Liv scowled at him.

“I’m not an idiot,” she said. Then, quieter. “So, you had Vazt follow me.”

“Of course I did,” Brax said, his arms cocked behind his head. Laying under her, almost entirely exposed, Liv could trace every line of his muscular chest. The fine detailing of the scales simply made it more interesting. She cocked her head slightly to the side, doing some mental comparison. Liam was taller. But Brax was broader.

“Hm,” she said. “I suppose, since I can’t carry a weapon...” She trailed off. “Vazt said that your people have legends. About...” She groped for a word. “About your regeneration.”

Brax snorted. “If you are asking me to tell you tales of our past, you are asking the wrong lizard.”

Liv made a quiet, curious noise at the back of her throat.

Brax laughed, quietly. “I left my village when I was sixteen years old. Barely out of the egg, by my people’s measurements. I didn’t want to live in a poor hovel, where every year, we made less and less food. I left and I did not look back. There are people who will pay a great deal for a lizardman mercenary. We’re tough, even without the recent improvements. That’s what got be dragged into the Battle of Statues.”

Liv hissed. “I heard of that. The Curse of Midas-” She stopped. “Holy shit, you were standing in an army hit by the Curse of Midas?”

Brax’s golden shoulders shrugged.

“But-” Liv stopped herself. Every god had their favored curses. Immensely powerful weapons of war, used at only the right time, in the right places. Ra had his fearsome Eyes. Zeus used thunderbolts, but sometimes, when he needed to make a point, he could imbue a priest with the power to bring down molten gold, raining from the sky like sheets of water. She shuddered at the mental image.

“I don’t know why I survived,” Brax said. “But...” He shook his head. “We need to get going.”

His voice was gruff. To the point. But she had seen a chink in his poker face. Liv shook her head. “Who rescued you from the battlefield?”

“She... no one,” he said, standing, turning away from her as he lifted up the lean-to. Across the camp, other lizardmen were moving about, waking their units. More and more of the lean-tos were being put away.

Liv watched the General. His back was tensed up tighter than she had ever seen it. She stood, putting her hands on his shoulders. Her fingers squeezed him, hard enough to be felt through the gold that coated him. She didn’t know what to say. She could recognize loss, even if she didn’t know what caused it. And so, she merely hugged him. Her breasts pressed to his back and her hands cupped his chest, stroking him gently as she nuzzled his neck. The featherlike ridges that went from his head to his tail tip pressed against her belly.

They tickled.

“Livianna,” he rumbled.

“Shh.”

She kissed one of the feathers. His tail lifted, pushing between her thighs. The curved C shape of his tail meant that a long ridge rasped against her thigh, then against her sex. She crooned deep in her throat and dropped her hands. She caressed the bulge in his loincloth.

He started to make a noise that might have been her name. Might have been a request, an order, a plea. Liv didn’t know. She cut him off.

“General.” Her voice left no room for argument as she closed her eyes. She let her hand push his loincloth aside. She cupped his cock, then closed her palm around it, letting her fingers feel his every inch. Thick around as her wrist, and exotically ridged, touching him made her heart race. He was the enemy, yes. But she was surrounded by the enemy.

And she was in charge right now.

Brax hissed.

Liv’s hand started to glide up and down his cock, feeling the way that, even plated in gold, his member had give and softness and that strange iron hardness of a truly aroused man. She could feel the faint beat-beat of his dual chambered heart against her palm. Her thumb caressed the triangular tip of his dick, feeling the lack of foreskin, reveling in his exoticism.

Her other hand reached up to grab his shoulder, squeezing him. Because while she was jerking his prick, her palm filling the air with the sound of his cock’s slickness, Brax’s tail wasn’t idle. He writhed it forward and back, using the length of it to bump and grind against her own moist sex lips, teasing her through her own loincloth. It felt like every other feather-ridge bumped against her clit, sending a tiny jolt of pleasure along her spine. The only thing that could make it better was if he could start playing with her ears.

“Oh Asura,” he moaned.

Liv squeezed the base of his cock, feeling his orgasm building. She directed the floodgates and pushed herself against his back as hard as she could, kissing one broad shoulder as she peeked over.

His cock surged up, and then sprayed. A thick stream of bright white cum splashed along some leaves, flecking against the cup of a large, bio-luminescent flower, dripping from a low hanging branch, spreading along a ground.

Liv shuddered and let herself cum. Silently, she writhed against Brax’s back, her juices soaking his tail and her loincloth. Dripping along her thighs. But more, she felt a closeness to him. The fact he had named another woman at the height of his passion didn’t quite bother her – though a part of her, the part of her who had wanted Brax since the instant she had seen him in action, was deeply jealous.

But a bigger part of her felt like she understood the general just that much better.

His cock softened in her palm. Some of his cum dripped from her fingers as she released him.

“W...We should get going,” he rasped.

The army was on the road again, jogging and calling out hissing, sibilant cadences. And Liv was there, riding along the flank on her raptor.

And there, where no one paid her any mind, she brought her hand to her mouth.

And licked her fingers clean, loving every moment.

Two

The door to the passenger cabin opened and Vulkis Shieldbreaker - glorious former huscral of Thor, current captain of the finest vessel upon the entire Platonic Sea and sort-of-spy for the new Free Lord of Babylon - immediately regretted not knocking.

“We are busy!” Athena’s voice boomed as she threw a boot at Vulkis. Because she was distracted by two fingers thrust into her very shapely, slightly iridescent pussy, the boot hit the wall above Vulkis’ head with an impact loud enough to ruin the boot and mar the woodwork.

Artemis, her body just as nude as her... actually, that made Vulkis blink.

Artemis was beautiful, of course. Just as athletic and slender as Athena, but unlike the pale and made up goddess of wisdom, Artemis looked as if she had been tanned all over, giving her a healthy, golden glow. Where Athena was shaved bald, Artemis’ bush grew wild and free.

“Wait, aren’t you two sisters?” Vulkis asked, pointing between the entwined goddesses.

“No!” Athena threw a second boot. This time, Vulkis was saved by slamming the door before it struck his face. As he turned his back to the door and tried to think of how he might save his ship and himself from the wrath of not one but two goddesses, Thu’Chan stepped over. He bowed his head.

“Pirates on the horizon, sir,” he said, quietly.

“Thank the gods,” Vulkis whispered.

The Platonic Sea – never exactly a safe trade route in the best of times – had been driven completely mad by the start of the war. Refugees fleeing the Asier heartland as Brax and his army cut a swath through the countryside. With the Aesir fleet withdrawn from guarding their trade lanes, pirates had emerged from their atolls and their islands to attack anything they thought make make them a profit. Coming to the edge of his ship, Vulkis pursed his lips.

“Looks like Hellenes!” he said.

Then he heard a creak, not unlike a sail being drawn taut. Turning, he saw Artemis, her body as naked as the day she had been born. She was holding that monster of a longbow that she had brought onboard and was grinning as she aimed it right at his heart.

“Sorry,” she said. “But my sister is really pissed. It’s either this or becoming a spider, and let me tell you this, this is a lot less painful in the long run.”

“Whoa, whoa!” Vulkis lifted up his hands. He stepped to the side, gesturing at the horizon that rose upwards towards the sky. “Pirates.”

Artemis blinked.

Then she grinned. Wolfish. Eager.

“That’s way more fun,” she murmured.

She sprang onto the railing of the ship and loosed an arrow. She was fighting against gravity and immense distance, and yet Vulkis’ eyes caught a glint of movement. Someone fell over the side of one of those ships and the ships started to roil with motion. Artemis laughed.

“The look on his fucking face, dipshit,” she said.

Vulkis turned back and saw that Athena was emerging from her stateroom, dressed in a tunic. The goddess of wisdom had carefully pinned her curly brown hair up into a severe beehive, and she looked murderously angry. As she walked towards Vulkis, the old huscral started to think quickly.

“So, she says you are sisters,” Vulkis said, quickly. “But you said you’re not, uh, what’s that about?”

Another arrow loosed. Athena crossed her arms over her chest. She breathed in, then breathed out. “Now that you ask,” she said. “I sprang fully formed from Zeus’ head. That means that I am technically related to Zeus, and Zeus is Artemis’ father. But the simple fact is that I am a constructed being – a god, but fully adult from birth, and-”

She started to go into increasingly technical details as Vulkis saw her getting more and more distracted by explaining the intricacies of her unique position. By the time the pirates were starting to sail away, Athena had been entirely mollified by how interested Vulkis had seemed in her exposition. Artemis hopped off the side of the railing, her bow unstrung and swung over her shoulders like the crossbar of a water carrier. She hooked her arms over the bow, shaking her head.

“Fucking pussies,” she said.

“Does it ever strike you odd that comparing a coward to a part of our anatomy has become commonplace?” Athena asked, her voice dry. “Some Greeks believe I’m so intelligent because a man constructed my every being, without a single-”

“Yeah, whatever, toots.” Artemis waved her hand. “Wake me up when we get somewhere where I can shoot more people. Or if you want to sit on my face more, sis.”

The door to her cabin shut.

Vulkis breathed out a slow sigh of relief.

“When do we reach Olimurias?” Athena asked, quietly, her cheeks bright red. “And I hasten to add, we are not sisters.”

“Within the next daybreak,” Vulkis said. “Faster, if we get more headwind.”

Artemis nodded.

When she returned to her cabin with her... fellow Dodekatheon, Sobek emerged from his cabin. He walked over, then put his palms on the railing. He watched the water ripple before him. He grinned slowly.

“I can see why Vanderbilt always taps you,” he said, nodding to Vulkis. “You’ve handled having three gods aboard fairly well.”

“I still want to know, ah, why you didn’t hire your own fleet,” Vulkis said. “You could each have your own ship, and each have a dozen escorts.”

“And travel at a snail’s pace, get attacked every day of the trip, and arrive months later than we would have.” Sobek shook his head. “Better this.” He sighed. “I am sorry, I know that the enemy are attacking Thorheilm.”

“Don’t worry,” Vulkis said, his voice soft. “My family has spread far and wide since I was born there. And even if my grandfather and grandmother are still there when the lizards come, Thorheilm won't fall.” He shrugged. “And even if it did, I doubt that this Brax and Sysminor will want to kill a shoemaker and a miller.”

Sobek nodded.

The two men looked out at the waters for a time.

“So, was it true that you walked in on Artemis eating out Athena?”

“Of course not!” Vulkis let himself lean over the railing. “She was just fingering her.”

Laughter carried far across water.

***

“Here is what Odin knows for a fact about Purgatory,” Loki said, her rump settled on the largest, most comfortable chair in the office that wasn’t Liam’s. Liam had his feet up on his desk, his toes wiggling as they stuck out of the fronts of his sandals. One of the serving maids that worked at the Free Lord’s manor poured water into a cup for him, then for Loki, then scooted out as quickly as she could.

Not quick enough to avoid Loki slapping her butt playfully.

“Don’t do that,” Liam said, frowning. “Most of my servants were former slaves. I have few rules for them, and one of those rules is no touching unless invited.”

Loki pursed her lips, then shrugged. “Fair.” She looked as if she was giving him a new appraisal. “Still. Odin is a gatherer of knowledge. Lore and secrets are his greatest joy. He interviewed the eldest of the lizardfolk after the wars that came with our banishment. He collected elven scrolls and goblin tablets. He even questioned the Ancient God, who sired the valkyrie with Sif, Bastet, Aphrodite and myself.”

“Wait, you bore some of the ancient valkyrie?” Liam asked, his eyebrows rising almost off his head.

“Of course,” Loki said.

“But-”

“The Ancient God was gorgeous,” Loki said, grinning widely. “Besides, I love all of my children and they all share a theme. Eight legged horses, giant world eating wolves, snakes, Hel.” She chuckled. “That theme, in case you hadn’t noticed is-”

“Being unique?” Liam asked.

“And the valkyrie are so much more interesting than the legendary servants of my brother,” Loki said. “Humanoid, yet capable of flight. Immensely strong, and yet vulnerable to the simplest of things. Nulldarts are so cheap you can make them by accident if you are a crystalwight.” She sighed. “And unlike my other children, they had more people to interact with. Made an actual culture.” She nodded. “It’s very nice. And that is part of why I like you, Liam. You have taste.”

“Because of Meg?” Liam asked.

“Well, I was going to compliment the fine rug, but yes, Megara is an excellent choice,” Loki said, chuckling. “You know, she might be related to me. Just because she’s born in a Hellenic city doesn’t mean she was all Hellenic.”

“I’d rather not know, honestly,” Liam said, his voice dry. Though, thinking back, he felt a kind of squirming guilt as he realized he knew remarkably little about Meg beyond the simplest facts. Though, part of that was her fault. Every time he asked, she just shifted the topic to Earth.

Loki chortled. “Now. Purgatory is a hollow sphere, roughly five to six hundred miles in radius. Objects weight the same as on Earth, by Odin's estimation. The sun burns at the same temperature, but as there is no variation between dawn, noon, and dusk, the actual temperature of Purgatory is five or six degrees warmer than Earth’s. Humidity is up, hence all the jungles.” She nodded. “But the most interesting things are legends from the lizardfolk. They claim that Purgatory simply came into being. One moment, there. The next, here.”

Liam inclined his head. “Not entirely unusual. Genesis says that Earth was made in seven days.”

Loki waved her hand. “Genesis.” She said the word as if it was a curse. “Here’s where things get interesting. In all his explorations, Odin has never found the hints that there was a Purgatory before we got here. No buried bones. No striations of earth. And more, he once commissioned mortals to dig downward. The deepest mine, situated in the most shallow part of the world. They never got to the bottom.”

“Why not?” Liam asked.

“They started freezing to death.”

Liam shifted in his seat, considering.

“Now, this is all merely fascinating esoterica,” Loki said. “But it explains why Odin discovered this. He became fascinated with the crystals that naturally occur across Purgatory, and this mine of his discovered that they were growing underground, where great deals of death occurred. Natural death, that is. Rotting jungle would seep into the ground, and making fertile earth. Fertile earth creates crystal. Crystal grows up and out of the ground – fed on by some creatures that then distribute it with their own deaths. Crystalbacks, for instance, will travel after feeding. They die, either from predators or from sickness or old age or from the very crystal they eat. It grows into their bodies, and eventually overcomes them!”

Liam rubbed his chin slowly, his brow furrowing.

Loki snapped her fingers. “And that is how crystal comes to areas without the right fertility. Odin came to the only conclusion that makes sense. These creatures were made to move crystal about.”

Liam shook his head. “So, what you’re saying is that Purgatory was made. By something more powerful, more intelligent, than you gods?” He paused. “Maybe it was named better than we expected.”

Loki opened her mouth. Then she glared at him. “Stop looking so smug.”

Liam laughed. “I don’t think my God made this place. I don’t know who does. I honestly do not care. Right now, we need to work on the real issue. Materials. Cannons. Muskets.” He slapped his palm into the desk. “So get to the point: what do you know about magically transmuting crystals?”

Loki spread her hands. “Odin learned that spell five centuries ago. But it is of only moderate use for most people. It will take a crystal and harden it, making it harder to sheer, shatter, or cut. However, it also surrounds the crystal with a field, so thin that you can barely feel it – but when you swing the crystal at someone, it’ll turn all the energy away. It becomes like striking the enemy with air.”

“So, Odin shelved it,” Liam said. “Crystal armor?”

“Possible, but making pieces of crystal armor proved difficult, expensive and time consuming. Thor has full crystal plate that has been treated this way – but you can’t cover an army in it.” She spread her hands again.

Liam rubbed his hands together. “But now, we can make tubes that won’t shatter.”

Loki inclined her head.

“What’s the price?” Liam asked.

Loki smiled, standing up. Her fingers went to the collar of her shirt. She rolled her shoulders. Her clothes plopped around her ankles, leaving her luminously beautiful form entirely exposed. She put one hand on her shapely hips, her horse-tail of hair trickling along the ground as she walked towards Liam’s desk.

“You,” she said, casually, putting her finger on the desktop.

Liam gaped at her.

Loki’s eyes burned with eldritch green flames as she leaned forward, her breasts pressed together by her palms resting on the desktop, her arms framing her tits wonderfully. Her nipples were hard. Puffy. Her eyes hungry. Liam leaned back in his seat, unable to look away.

Loki held the pose for just a second – then laughed, throwing her head back. She slapped the desk, stepping away half a foot.

“Nah, I’m just fucking with you,” she said, giggling again. “We want trade rights, the first shipment of muskets for delivery to the Aesir, with people who can explain how to use them and how to make gunpowder...” She continued to rattle off points.

And Liam tried to hide his hard on.

***

Tethis grabbed her head in her hands and tugged on her hair as she looked at the paper that Liam had set before her. Liam tried to not look down her dress. Failed. There were some amazing, wondrous advantages to being the tallest man in a world that included curvaceous goblinesses. Doubly so when that world’s most popular piece of clothing was the one piece shift sans anything that Earth would recognize as underwear.

“This is...” Tethis shook her head, then slapped her palms down to either side of the paper. “And I thought those truth telling designs were complicated.”

Liam chuckled softly. “You designed those.”

“And they would have worked,” Tethis said, smiling. Inspired by stories of truth telling magics, Tethis had designed crystal devices that could effectively read someone’s emotional state. Her idea had been to put them at the entrances of the city, to check for smugglers, assassins, spies. Liam had shot the idea down – the last thing he wanted to do was make a magical TSA.

“This, though?” Tethis waved at the paper. “Where to even begin?”

Liam sighed. “I don’t even pretend to know what this stuff is about. But you’re the smartest person I know on Purgatory when it comes to magic. And most things.”

Tethis chuckled. “So, you’re buttering me up so I won’t throw this formula in your face and declare you a madman for even attempting to understand it?”

“Yup!” Liam put his hands on her shoulders. “Can you figure it out?”

“Well, the crystallic structure diagrams are accurate, but the somatic components here are...” Tethis started to go into her magi-babble. Sometimes, Liam tried to follow it. But the days where he had the free mental energy to try and grasp esoteric concepts were long gone. Instead, as she talked, Liam considered the angles on the situation in Purgatory. The Aesir were fighting the lizardmen. Sysminor had some nebulous advantage, given to him by the Codec-

“But I swear, this has to be her fucking with me. Here, it says you need a mixture of a girl’s, ah, juices and a man’s seed. Mixed inside of. Them. To, ah, complete the spell.” Tethis trailed off. “That has to be a joke.”

That dragged Liam’s attention back. “It what now?”

“Well, okay,” Tethis said. “The problem with casting spells on crystals, rather than through crystals, is that they channel magic. That’s why I use one as my foci.” She pulled out the crystal baton that she had used for all the time that Liam had known her to cast her spells. “Casting on a spell is like trying to build an aqueduct with water. Even if you do, it doesn’t do anything.”

Liam nodded.

Tethis twirled her baton around her hand. “But here, Loki is theorizing that you can get around that by changing the state of the crystal. Since the crystal is a grown object, living sympathy should bring that change. And, well, a man’s, ah-”

“Cum?” Liam asked.

Tethis turned red, all the way to her ear tips. Impressive, considering she had been friends with and the occasional lover of Megara and Liam for a year and change. Liam hadn’t thought she would have a shy bone left in her, and yet, here she was, turning red.

“Yes. Cum,” she said. “It makes children. A very profound change in a woman’s, ah, state. It literally combines the two parts of man and woman, right? And a woman’s juice is how she, ah, accepts... cum...” She trailed off, her nipples thrusting out against her shift.

Liam snorted. “I’m no mage, but the logic does seem to make sense.”

Tethis frowned. “Or it is a trickster god playing a trick...”

“Well, think of it this way,” Liam said. “If it doesn’t work, we’re just down a few hours work and Meg is up two orgasms.”

“Two?” Tethis asked.

“Well, I’m not about to let loose inside of her without having her cum twice,” Liam said, rolling his eyes. He stepped to the edge of Tethis’ office, sticking his head out into the corridor. He almost bashed his head into Muttunbaal. The former head slave of the manor house had been among the first freed by Liam when he had killed the god Sysminor. But she had immediately turned around and offered her services for a nominal fee.

Liam, remembering her talent at managing the manor when he had been infiltrating the place, had doubled the fee and paid it immediately. Since then, Mutt had been a steadfast and vital part of the household.

“Sir,” she said, bowing to him. “The nightfire merchant is outside again.”

“Again?” Liam grumbled. He shook his head. “Send him along and tell him that Meg isn’t interested. Not after her last hangover. Also, can you find Meg and bring her here?”

Mutt craned her head and looked back at Tethis. Tethis had leaned over the table to examine the papers. Her shift, chronically shorter than it should have been, rode up, exposing the green curve of her deliciously jiggly rump.

Mutt looked at Liam.

Liam frowned. “Would you believe it is for science?”

Mutt laughed. And kept laughing as she walked down the corridor.

When Meg arrived, Tethis had become completely absorbed in reading and checking the formula that Loki had left there. Meg paused in the doorway, her wings closed behind her back. She cocked her head, tilting her whole body ever so slightly to the side, and just spent a few moments admiring Tethis’ ass.

“Remind me to never correct the tailors here,” she murmured.

Babylon was in the deserts that spanned the region between two mountain ranges. Because of the lack of vegetation and their favorite foods, goblins tended to stay far away. That explained why the first tailor that Tethis had tapped to make her some fresh clothes had gotten the measurements wrong. But it did nothing to explain why the fourth got it wrong.

“Meg, we’re here for science,” Liam said.

“Oooh, kinky!” Meg clapped her hands together. “Does that mean I get to wear one of those strap-ons you told me about?”

Liam coughed. “Get me drunk first...”

“Remove consent, got it!”

Liam snorted, loudly enough that Tethis stood and turned to face them. The gobliness looked utterly distracted, her eyes unfocused, her ears twitching downward in thought. Goblins had amazingly expressive ears. They were nearly as long and pointed as elves, but far more mobile, giving them a whole range of expressions that elves lacked.

“Oh, hey,” she said. “I think that I’ve found a solution to this problem...”

“What problem?” Meg asked.

“We need a mixture of male cum and female pussy juice,” Tethis said, having fallen far enough into working out the problem that she had stopped getting flustered. “But the problem is, if we need to have the artisan fuck every time they make a cannon, we’ll have serious bottlenecks. Not to mention a population problem.”

“Contraceptive magic does exist, you know,” Liam said. “And you can have a mixture of races – like Meg and me.” He slapped Meg’s rump. Meg opened her mouth, then closed it. The look of thoughtful quiet crossed her face so quickly that Liam might have missed it. Save that he had kissed her neck a million times. He had seen her face go slack with pleasure, her back arch with the movement of his fingers, his tongue, his cock. He had been in her and with her and he could no longer see a life without her in it in some way. Trying to see a future without Meg at his side or over his head with her wings spread and her blonde tresses blowing in the wind was like looking into a city of ghosts and ash.

So, Liam saw that look.

And he made a mental note to ask. Later.

“It’s still a logistic issue. But what if we got a mixture so potent that it can be reused again and again?” Tethis beamed. “Once we have a critical mass, well, we can produce as many muskets and cannons as we want.”

Liam nodded. The words ‘critical mass’ – words from Earth, taught to Tethis by him - tumbled through his head for a moment, and he wondered at how much he should have changed the world. Bringing in guns. Printing presses. Then he shook his head. He wasn’t part of Starfleet. He didn’t have a Prime Directive of non-interference. He had been a part of Purgatory since he saved Meg and stopped the war between Apollo and Sobek.

There was no turning back now.

“How do we get that?” Meg asked.

“We use a god’s cum,” Tethis said. “Or, ah, a goddess’ juices. But the other partner needs to be mortal. It’ll be the increased level of difference between the two components – the difference between mortal and divine, that is – that will enhance the power of the spell.”

Liam mimed horror. “Oh no,” he said, voice flat. “However will we possibly manage to do that.”

“It is such a mystery,” Meg said, her voice matching him for deadpan. “I do not know where on the vastness of Purgatory we can hope to discover a god willing to lay with a mortal.”

Tethis snorted, softly. “Well, before we seduce Loki-”

“Dibs!” Meg cut her off, her arm thrusting into the air.

“We need a girl’s juices and a boy’s cum,” Liam said.

“She’s a shapeshifter, she can become a boy,” Meg said.

“Well, yes, but, Free Lord Dibs,” Liam said. “I have veto power.”

Meg punched his shoulder. “I’m your...” She paused, then settled on: “Lover, fucktoy, bodyguard, head scout, personal messenger, translator, and wife!”

“Wife?” Liam asked, feeling the room shift under his feet.

“I was going to ask you at a more dramatic point, but I g-got excited and loosed the arrow too soon,” Meg admitted, her cheeks turning red. She coughed. “Will you marry me, Liam?”

Liam felt the room shift further. It felt like he was standing on the side of a building. Falling off a mountain. No, not falling. Flying. His heart beat faster and faster and he managed, by sheer bloody minded determination, to throw out his hooks and grab the first glib fucking thing that sprang into his mind and yank it away from his mouth before it burst out and ruined his life.

The first response was: I don’t know, want to try that again a second time?

Not a time for crappy jokes, Liam!

Instead, he opened his mouth and managed to say the word that he needed.

“Yes,” he whispered. “I should have proposed the day I met you.”

“That would have been dumb and creepy,” Meg said. Her voice sounded funny. She looked funny. It was like she had too many emotions, coming out too fast, too unexpectedly. She grabbed onto Liam’s shirt and she both leaned forward and dragged him inwards. Their mouths met and tongues drove together. It was a heated crush, and her hands grabbed Liam’s back as desperately as if she and he were drowning. They broke the kiss only when the need to air became intense enough to leave Liam dizzy.

Or maybe it was the sudden change in their lives from the beginning of her arrival to now.

Or maybe it was both.

“I love you,” Liam whispered.

“And now it’s official,” Meg said. “All the times you fucked my brains out didn’t make it clear enough, see.”

“I can fix that,” he said.

Tethis knocked over an inkwell. The inkwell hit the ground and clanked loudly, but the ink stayed inside. Inkwells on Purgatory were built tough, out of metal and stone. It still drew both Liam and Meg’s gaze to Tethis. The gobliness had been trying to back quietly away from them and out of the room without actually turning away. Possibly an atavistic response.

Meg smirked. “Tethisssss...”

Tethis squeaked. The atavistic response must have felt very appropriate.

Meg pounced.

Tethis kicked her feet weakly as Meg held her against her chest, turning to face Liam. She grinned wickedly over the gobliness’ shoulder.

“So, she was saying she needed a mixture, husband-to-be,” Meg purred. She was holding Tethis by her thighs, leaving the smaller girl’s knees free to kick. Meg used that grip to spread Tethis wide, which ruffled Tethis’ shift upwards, revealing the hairless mound of her pussy. Slickness glinted there, visible despite the shadows of Tethis’ breasts. Tethis stammered.

“W-Well, uh, it doesn’t actually have too...” she trialed off as Liam walked forward, his hand going to his kilt. The cloth hit the ground and Liam’s cock silenced Tethis. His member, long and hard, bumped against her thigh as Meg dropped her arms slightly, bringing Tethis’ pussy in line with Liam’s cock. Tethis lifted her knees, whimpering softly.

“Fuck me,” Tethis breathed.

Meg grinned slowly. “Come on, Liam. You said I was here for science.”

“Mmm,” Liam purred. “I was planning to fuck you.”

“Shut up and dick the goblinness!”

Liam grinned and then reached down. He took his time gliding his cock up and down Tethis’ sex, feeling the hard nub of her clit. He leaned over Tethis head and found Meg’s lips with his own. He traced the edge of Meg’s tongue, and then felt her take charge. Her tongue and his met and played and she conquered him – and then conquered Tethis. She stepped forward, her wings enfolding him and Tethis. Liam did nothing but take the impact, grunting into her mouth as his cock was held firm.

And Meg impaled Tethis on Liam.

They broke the kiss as Tethis kissed Liam’s chest. Her tongue – so small and dark, as compact and cute as the rest of her body – flicked against one of his nipples. Her tongue circled around and around his nub, sending sparks of sensation through Liam. He grunted and started to move. His hips rocked and Meg hissed softly – the faint slap of his balls against Tethis’ green ass seemed to be giving Meg the same amount of pleasure as him fucking her usually did.

But Meg always had loved to watch.

She had pushed him, when Liam would have been glad to lay back, to expand his boundaries. To spread his heart.

He looked over Tethis into Meg’s eyes. She grinned at him, looking knowing. Proud. Wise. Mischievous.

“I love you,” Liam murmured.

“I, ah, fuck, oh gods, oh gods, I love this cock!” Tethis mewled. “Ohfuckoh-fuh-ck!”

The word became brittle and shattered as her mouth opened wide and her back arched, pressing her full breasts against Liam’s chest. Her nipples were hard little nubs that rubbed circles against his skin as Tethis writhed and squirmed. Her juices pattered onto the floor, a faint but marvelous counterpoint to the sound of his cock.

Meg smirked.

“I know,” she said. “You did say yes after all.”

Liam thrust deep into Tethis and let himself loose as he felt her sex clench on his shaft like a fist. His balls twitched and hot spurts of cum filled the smaller woman. Tethis made a noise somewhere beyond noise – as if she couldn’t breathe enough to express the pleasure she felt at being Meg and Liam’s plaything. She shuddered, her legs kicking out in the air. Then she went limp. Meg purred, kneeling down, her palms sliding from Tethis’ thighs to her back to her shoulders, keeping her propped in the air.

Advantages that came from being super-strong.

Meg’s tongue slid along his balls, making Liam squirm. His hands went to Tethis’ legs to hold her in place as she beat gently at his chest, mumbling. “No... samples... mm...”

She moaned, then. Meg’s tongue had moved from Liam’s balls to where his cock and Tethis’ tight goblin pussy joined. Her tongue licked and her lips slurped as she sucked up every bit of cum that dripped from around Liam’s cock. Meg drew her mouth back, smacking her lips.

“Salty, but satisfying.”

Tethis managed to whine out a single word: “Samples!”

Later, Tethis was sitting on a stool to keep from wobbling, and looked at the mixture of cum and juices that Meg had captured in an empty inkwell. She frowned, tapping her fingers against her lips.

“Fuck me fuck me oh fuck me, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Meg gasped out, her breasts transcribing perfect circles in the air, her hands gripping onto the wall. The loud slap of Liam’s hips meeting her hips, and the periodic rustling crack of Meg’s wings folding and unfolding with pleasure, joined her breathy narration. Tethis sighed softly.

“I should have sent them to their bedroom,” she said.

Liam, somehow, managed to grunt out. “Free Lord. Your boss.”

Tethis sighed. “Yes, Lord.”

She tried to ignore them. But considering Meg’s stamina - and volume - that was easier said than done.

***

“Spark!”

Laurentinus, Liam, Meg and Tethis ducked below the lip of the small mound of earth the engineers had erected a stone’s throw from Babylon’s walls.A moment later, Vani landed beside them. The hissing sound of burning gunpowder was the only noise that they could hear.

Loki remained standing, her hands on her hips as she watched through the slit of the bunker.

Then-

Boom.

And then-

Whump!

Liam scrambled to his feet. His whoop was loud enough to be heard over the ringing in each of their ears. The cannon had rocked backwards on its wheels, smoke pouring from the muzzle. The target that had been set up down range from the cannon had a hole blown through it larger than Liam’s head. The cannon-ball, made of a solid chunk of marble, had continued past the target and then skidded along the ground in the distinctive bouncing pattern of a grazing shot. Liam could already picture what it would do to the tight formations of classical era combat.

He felt excited.

Then, ill.

Loki grinned. “So, there you go. It works.”

Liam nodded slowly. Laurentinus rubbed his hands together. Vani and Tethis were already discussing new theories and ideas – including the creation of divination spells to put on the cannon, so cannoneers would know where their shot would go before firing. Liam let it all wash through him. Instead, he smiled at Loki.

“Want to celebrate?” he asked.

Loki glanced at him. She grinned.

“I’d love too.”

***

“Hell.”

Liv’s attention snapped from Brax the body to Brax the man. Her focus narrowed and she stood up. She had been spending the long, boring time spent waiting for scouts to return from checking out Wotan’s defenses admiring Brax’s back. And shoulders. And tail. And ass. And remembering the feeling of his exotic cock filling her hands. And thinking…

But with his curse, she refocused her eyes and realized Fizit – who she had been casually ignoring – had said a word. She reached backwards in her memory and found it.

Sysminor, Fizit had said. He’s here.

Liv stood as Brax turned to face her. “Find a place to hide,” he said.

“But-”

“Do it.” Brax put his hands on her shoulders. His eyes were filled with thoughts. Not just worries, but calculations of probabilities, considerations of the future. Liv put her hands on his hands. She stuck out her chin.

“I can handle a god. My Dad-”

“If you’re near me and he’s near me, I won’t be able to focus, damn it!” Brax snarled.

“Oh, I’m distracting then?” Liv snapped without thinking about it. Brax leaned forward. The memory of his cock filling her hand. His voice as he moaned that name, Asura. The way they had ridden in silence afterwards. They hadn’t spoken, and yet the silence hadn’t felt nervous or stilted. It had felt... good. As good as the taste of his cum, tingling on her tongue.

“Yes,” Brax whispered. His muzzle almost touched her lips. Then he shoved her backwards and turned to stalk off towards the edge of the army camp. Fizit remained beside Liv, shaking her head.

“Why aren’t you going with him?” Liv asked.

“God sees us as replaceable,” she said. “The General doesn’t want us to be the target of God’s ire.”

Liv’s ears twitched. Something about that didn’t quite track. But Fizit was good - very good, in fact - at lying. The only lizardfolk who had a better poker face was the General himself. Liv shook her head.

“Well, let's go check on the city then,” Liv said, turning and heading towards the hill. The army had camped at the bottom of a small vale between the jungle and the farmlands that spread around Wotan. Wotan. Who named a city after themselves? Odin lived there, and currently, at least three other members of the Aseir and possibly two of the Vanir had made their homes there. Liv had heard the reports, sitting behind and to the left of her ‘master.’ With six gods in residence, attacking would be suicide.

But here they were, within a few hours march, hidden only by the lizardfolk’s skill at field-craft.

Fizit followed after Liv, moving low and quickly. The top of the hill was graced by one of the ancient statues that dotted the landscape of Purgatory, this one a vaguely humanoid figure, the details worn away by time. Something in the jagged remainders of the statue filled Liv with a sense of dread. She ignored it, kneeling down in the shadows of the trees that surrounded the stone.

Wotan was one of the larger cities in Purgatory. The Aseir had come with their gods and their stories and their boats. They had come to a land as different from their home as any other, and they had needed to adapt. They had adopted other tribes into their society, and used technology borrowed from other lands and other places. Roman style aqueducts, decorated with Viking imagery, carried water to the fields and the city itself. Walls that could have graced any Hellenic city surrounded it. And the fields were finely adapted to Purgatory, growing plants in large fields of water.

Liv frowned. She could already see how an army might use those large, marshy pits to bog down attackers.

And then, out of the blue, Fizit vomited in the bushes beside her.

Liv, through long experience, managed to not give her position away by crying out in disgust. She did wrinkle her nose and turn her head to look at the lizardwoman, who was wiping her muzzle and hastily scraping up some dirt and covering the bile.

“Are you okay?” Liv whispered.

“No, damn it,” Fizit muttered.

The tone was familiar to anyone who had gone to the field of battle in a poorer army, one that couldn’t afford a priest or the sacrifices it took to keep a priest rich with magic. Far from priests and clerics, eating or drinking the wrong thing could make one very ill. And vomiting up half your body weight in water over a week was a fast way to end up very dead.

But there was something in the tone that made Liv look closer.

“Are your tits bigger?”

Fizit glared at her.

Liv cocked her head slowly to the side. “Definitely bigger. So, lizard young suckle too?”

Fizit growled and suddenly, a bronze knife was pressed to Liv’s throat. Not that she had moved to stop the knife. Instead, she just smirked.

“Tell anyone, and-”

“You’ll what?” Liv asked, her voice cold.

Fizit looked into Liv’s eyes. She drew the knife back. Her tail lashed from side to side in clear agitation.

“Not even a scratch. Your father still watches over you then.”

“He has his uses,” Liv said.

“I can get a rock.” Fizit shifted a bit. The acrid scent of her vomit had faded, now that it was buried.

“I can break your hand,” Liv shot back.

“Bitch.”

“Who knocked you up?” Liv asked.

Fizit didn’t answer.

“I think I know why you don’t want me to tell anyone,” Liv said, watching Fizit out of the corner of her eye. “It’s not the General. I’ve noticed how you look at him...”

“I don’t want to fuck the General!” Fizit snarled. “Not every interaction between a woman and a man who are close means that we want to fuck.” She snapped her teeth. “I don’t want to be with child because, in case you haven’t noticed, this is the first step to the largest war that Purgatory has known since your people invaded.”

“My people?” Liv snarled. “Did you not notice the ears? Elves are natives to Purgatory.”

“There’s not a single native elf left. You all became Hellens and Norse and-” Fizit snapped her claws together. “You became sluts for gods, like the goblins.”

“Look how well loyalty to the old gods served you,” Liv shot back.

Fizit shook her head. She stood up slightly, then turned. Her tail whipped dangerously close to Liv’s cheek. Liv didn’t flinch, didn’t let the other woman see her flinch. Once Fizit was away, Liv remained silent for a time. She worked through what she knew, what Brax had told her. The Codec had been activated by a ritual. From what little details Brax had dropped, the ritual had involved a great deal of fucking.

And Brax…

No.

Liv shook her head slowly.

Maybe. If the Codec changed things around, it might have acted as a fertilization spell. She smirked. Liam’s god is going to be pissed.

She froze as a blue glow came into her field of view. She stepped backwards into the shadows of a tree and stopped breathing. Her need for oxygen faded and she simply let herself be – her ears tensing as she listened to the sound of two voices. One made her tingle all over. The other was the voice of a mad god.

“God, please, forgive my impertinence, but are you sure this is safe – you are quite visible.”

“S-Si-lence silence s-ci-sic-silence!”

Brax and Sysminor came into view then. They were walking along the hill, Brax behind and to the left of his god. Sysminor had shrunken himself down to merely humanoid size, and dimmed his glow as he walked among the trees. But he was still unmistakably wrong. His movements were jerky and patchy, as if Liv was missing entire seconds from her vision. He merely bounced from pose to pose. His body, too, was just... unfinished. Blocky cubes and squares, like someone had hacked out a crystal statue and given it madness. An inept Pygmalion.

Then Sysminor came to the statue. He seemed to not notice the vomit, nor Liv.

Instead, he gestured.

“There there there.”

Brax knelt down and scraped at the ground, revealing a small buried gemstone. He touched it with his finger and the hill shook slightly. A door opened in the earth, loam and dirt pattering into the chamber. Liv tensed as she saw a hint of what was opening before the statue. A familiar black stone and white lines.

“What is this?” Brax whispered.

“The door way – way – way to to vic success victory-ey-ey-ey Victor victory.”

***

“Caw!”

Munin flapped as he settled atop Odin’s throne, standing above and to the right of the one eyed god.

“Caw! Loki has met success, caw! First cannons are being made, yes,” Munin pecked at the side of Odin’s throne, then fluttered forward. He landed on the table.

Thor slammed his fist into said table.

It shattered.

“Damn this waiting,” Thor boomed. “My army stands ready, father, and the lizards are right there for the defeating.”

“Thor,” Sif said, quietly. “Your army is young. New. Fighting tends to kill mortals, and they cannot be replaced overnight.”

“I...” Odin could see the pain that flashed across his hotheaded son’s face. Thor sat down at the seat, his face covered a moment later by his large hand. He tugged on his red beard and looked like he wished he could strike himself with as much force as the table. Thor had always been the most enthusiastic of Odin’s children and fellows to expand their territory, to gather fame and to see the valor of men and women shown in the starkest of ways. On the battlefield.

And now, when they were most needed, the best warriors were in Valhalla.

“We have these walls,” Sif started.

Odin’s one remaining eye widened – the warning coming fractionally before it was too late. He flung himself aside with all the alacrity he could bring to bear. And considering the millennium he had had to hone his abilities, to learn what could and could not be done as a god... that was quite fast. Still, he could feel the grazing touch of several nulldarts as they thudded into his throne. Munin took wing as Thor sprang to his feet. Three nulldarts sprouted across the redheaded god’s chest. Thor bellowed in rage and fury and grabbed for his hammer.

Mjolnir was terrifyingly destructive.

It required great power to be wielded.

And with nulldarts – crystalline weapons designed to drain magic from everything they touched – peppering his chest, Odin saw the danger. He lifted up his hand, trying to reach for his son.

Too late.

Thor’s hands went numb and opened. Mjolnir didn’t even strike the ground before the terrifying power within bucked free. The hammer glowed a searing red, then exploded with a wave of concussive force that sent Sif and Odin flying. Thor crashed into the wall with enough force to shatter brick and leave him stunned. Munin escaped through the window. The invaders were pulped, their bodies turned to mangled red meat. But the hole in reality that they had leaped through remained. And through it came more warriors. Swords drawn, darts in hands. They flung them with the deadly skill – as if they were Roman Legionaries, not merely savage lizardmen.

Odin got his throne between him and the next volley. He summoned lightning into himself as Sif hit the ground, nulldarts sprouting from her neck, her chest. She groaned quietly, kicking one leg.

Odin sprang around the throne. His lightning bolt surged towards the portal, hoping to disrupt it. Instead, it was caught by a beautiful lizardwoman wearing a feathered headdress. She staggered with the impact – and then two more lizards with similar headdresses grabbed onto her. Then four more onto them. Their bodies linked together, and then a flash exploded outwards. The lizardfolk were cast to the ground.

But considering they should have been turned to ash, Odin took a moment to be impressed.

Gestalt spellcasting.

The next lizardman who came at him was golden.

He was eschewed skill for numbers, his dart being flung at the same time as all of the other swarming warriors that entered into the council chamber. Darts plunged into Odin and he felt a terrible numbness cross his body. He staggered to one knee. The golden lizardman stood above him. Odin closed his one eye, feeling a sleep more terrible than any he had felt in his life reach towards him. Was this death – something he had seen, visited on others?

Was it death?

He gritted his teeth. “How?”

The lizardman snorted, quietly. “I’ll tell you some day. Promise.”

The pommel of his sword came down on Odin’s head.

And, with a great sense of indignity, Odin passed out.

Three

Liam Vanderbilt had seduced more than his fair share of women. He was aware of this. Purgatory was a considerably more sexually liberated world than Earth, thanks to a lack of sexually transmitted infections and the difficulty of cross-species impregnation. Since all of his lovers – with the exception of Neb Mataare, a beautiful priestess of Anubis who had been more human than her furred, tailed body might suggest – were different species, he didn’t need to worry about making love enthusiastically and widely.

Save, of course, for the religious argument. An argument he had long since kicked in the head and left back on Earth.

But as he stood in the doorway leading into the reading room that Loki was lounging in, he thought that... this felt different.

And it wasn’t just that Loki was a god. Or goddess. What was the proper term for a nominally male god in a female form?

Though that was hard to forget. Even lounging in one of the large reading chairs, with one of the freshly printed books from Olimurias sitting on one knee, the pages held up by a single lazy hand, Loki radiated the same charismatic power that Sobek did. Every inch of her seemed to crackle with potential – like Meg on mystical steroids. But there was something about needing to seduce her, about it being a strategic necessity in an upcoming war that was just...

Wait, Liam thought. A sudden paroxysm of sheer panic rushed along his spine as he realized something. I’ve never seduced a woman in my life.

Thinking back over all the women he had lain on Purgatory, he had never sought them out, beyond simple companionship. Megara had seduced him. Tethis and he had fallen in lust over the course of their adventuring together. Liv, too, had been won over more by his skill with the sword than his skill with the silver tongue. In fact, he was fairly certain that his talking had turned her off more than anything else.

And here he was, trying to seduce a goddess?

He couldn’t just go on an adventure with Loki and hope that she found him appealing. This needed to happen today.

Well, he thought. Get to work then.

Liam forced himself to walk over. “What are you reading?” he asked. He managed to not squeak.

Loki looked up. “One of the books transcribed off your Eye-Pood,” she said, smiling and turning so the cover – with plain text etched on the front – was visible.

“Ah, the history of metallurgy,” Liam said. Stay casual. Keep the conversation going. That had to help, right? “Not many people gravitate towards that. They tend to be more interested in my copy of The Black Prism or A Game of Thrones.”

“Oh, I read them first,” Loki said, grinning broadly. “You humans, for having absolutely no access to magic, have an astounding diversity of it.”

Liam laughed. He felt himself relaxing as he leaned backwards into his seat. “I’d be more worried if we didn’t.”

“And why is that, Liam of Earth?” Loki asked, her eyes sparking with amusement as she snapped the book shut, her fingernails shifting to a rainbow hue of colors. She set the book down on the stand beside her chair.

“Firstly,” Liam said, his throat suddenly dry. “It’s Liam of California. Secondly, because...” He paused. “Humans always want what they can never have. We dream of impossible futures and different yesterdays because...well...” He paused again. “It gives us something to work for.”

Loki considered. “I sometimes wonder if the reason why you humans got so far, so fast, without us is because we kept you back.”

Liam shrugged. “I can’t tell. Life didn’t change much for almost a thousand five hundred years after you left.” He snapped his finger. “Then boom. Things went nuts.”

Loki smiled. “This may sound egotistical, but that is quite relieving.”

There was silence for a moment. Liam let himself relax, let himself forget the needs of tomorrow and the dangers of today. Instead, he let his eyes slide along Loki’s form. The slender goddess seemed to revel in the attention – her skin glowed and she arched her back, fingers caressing the spine of the book. Loki sucked in a slow breath through her teeth, her eyes growing hooded as she watched Liam.

Liam’s member hardened and rather than trying to conceal it, he spread his thighs ever so slightly. His kilt tented as his cock pressed against it.

“I have to know,” Loki purred. “If you’re Christian, how do you...” She trailed off, groping for a word.

“Reconcile?” Liam asked, thinking he knew what she was going for.

Loki snapped her fingers.

“Reconcile,” she said. “How do you reconcile your Church’s teaching with your own lifestyle?”

Liam smiled. “The teachings of St. Augustine of Hippo had some really good parts to it. Free slaves. Don’t be assholes to Jews. But I really disagreed with the idea that God would create humanity to want to have sex nearly constantly and then send us to a big torture dungeon if we did it at the wrong time.”

Loki chuckled. “I only send mortals to torture dungeons if it is really funny.”

“That’s not your job, though,” Liam said, grinning.

“Like I couldn’t get Hel to do whatever the fuck I wanted,” Loki said, rolling her head back as she leaned back against the chair. She spread her legs ever so slightly. Liam licked his lips. The temperature of the room felt as if it had gone up another tick. He reached up and ran his finger along his neck, wiping away a single dollop of sweat.

“So, I gotta know,” Liam said, deciding to move the conversation towards something more... intimate. “Why the fuck didn’t you change out of a horse form when the stallion was getting close?”

“Two things,” Loki said, lifting one finger. “The stallion of yore, who I needed to distract?” She grinned. “He wasn’t a horse, per say.”

“Now this I’ve gotta hear,” Liam said.

“Well, in the era before Christianity, there were humans who begged to be made other. Sometimes, they were those born in the wrong body – those who felt as if they were woman, but had a male... parts.” She grinned. “Some were something between, and wished to be other. Others still wanted to be...” She pursed her lips. “How to put it?”

“Holy shit, furries?” Liam asked.

Loki nodded. “It mostly came from interaction with traders who themselves had visited the empire of Egypt and met their, ah, Chosen.”

Liam nodded. “So, the horse in the story was a...”

Loki shifted. In a single flash of bright white light, gone was the petite woman. In her place was a tall, black furred fusion of horse and man. His shoulders were almost as broad as Liam’s, and his muscles were as finely defined as if they had been drawn by an artist. His belly was a compact six pack, and his thighs smoothly lifted from humanoid to a horse's hooves as if it was the most natural thing in the world. And there, sitting between his legs, was a shaft to make Liam’s feel inadequate. And that was something that he could safely say had never happened to him before.

“This,” Loki purred as he stood, spreading his arms wide – as if to say: Here I am. “Is the first reason why I didn’t change out of the form of a mare.”

Liam coughed. “I, ah, can see why.” 

“And the second reason?” Loki grinned. With a flash of light, she returned to her female form, clothed once more. Liam still felt the charge of sexual energy, coursing between the two, her eyes unwilling to leave his. She moved closer, sitting down on the arm of his chair. Her legs brushed against his as the chair... didn’t creak. Didn’t shift. It was as if she weighed nothing at all. “I wanted to win that godsdamned bet, Liam of California.”

Liam grinned.

“You said furry,” Loki murmured. “Are there people like this on Earth?”

“Those who wish it, yes,” Liam said.

“Are you one?” Loki’s eyes narrowed.

“Not really,” Liam admitted, shrugging. “I won’t turn down a Chosen who looks like, say, a jackalgirl.” Memories of Neb’s firm breasts, filling his hands. The delicious sound of her yipping as he slapped her ass. Growling in her ear: You’re mine, slut.

“Mmhmm.”

Loki’s finger drew a slow circle along Liam’s wrist.

“But I never wanted to be one,” Liam said. “So, I’m more of a furfucker.”

Loki smiled. “I like the sound of it. This English you speak, it has such marvelous words. Fuck.” She said the word carefully, and Liam could tell that she had shifted from whatever language she had been using before to trying to recreate the sounds of modern English. “Fhu-ck. It... fits.”

“Well, sometimes,” Liam said, quietly. His hand slid back and then forward, snatching Loki’s wrist. She didn’t resist as he lifted her arm to his mouth, kissing the pulse-point on below her palm.

“Sometimes?”

“I sometimes fuck Meg so hard she has to fly for the rest of the day,” Liam purred, exaggerating slightly. Only slightly. “But sometimes, we make sweet love.”

“Mmm.”

Liam kissed her palm then.

Loki breathed in, then out. “For someone who has never seduced someone in your life, you are quite good at this, Liam of California.”

Liam froze

“I’m a goddess, honey,” Loki said, as if that explained everything. Liam looked up at her and, using his best poker face, thought: I’m going to murder you. Loki continued smiling.

“So, you are really good at reading people,” Liam said. “And know when to guess.”

Loki blinked at him. Liam jerked on her wrist. The goddess yelped as she fell into his lap. Her firm rump pressed against his hardness – which responded by positively surging against his kilt. His hands went to her hips, holding her in place. Touching her, even through her clothes, made Liam’s fingertips buzz. Loki looked down into his eyes, her expression torn between irritation and utter delight. Liam decided to press his advantage. His hands cupped her ass, squeezing her firmly as he purred.

“I figure you’ve tricked more than a few mortals into thinking you can read thoughts.”

“It’s a useful myth,” Loki purred. “For a time, it even worked.”

Liam’s brow furrowed. But then Loki was erasing all questions, all concerns. She did so with the effortless ease of a goddess – she did it with her mouth, with her tongue, with her hands. Her fingers slipped along Liam’s chest, pausing as she touched his crucifix, then dropped lower. The kilt didn’t slide off. It simply ceased to exist, crumbling to dust as Loki touched the hem. Loki broke the kiss, panting. Liam watched as her fingers touched the hem of her pants, then slid upwards. Where her fingers pressed, the clothing crumbled to dust, caking and crinkling and finally blowing away in a spectral breeze. Chunks flew away from belly and breasts, rolled off of shoulders, dropped from sleeves. Once the shimmering blue light of magic had faded, Loki was utterly nude as she sat atop Liam.

Liam released a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding.

“Holy fuck,” he whispered.

“The most accurate description of what is about to happen I’ve ever heard,” Loki purred. Her hands dropped to his shoulders. “Now. Shape.”

“Shape?” Liam blinked. He felt like he had lost a few hundred million IQ points. He was fairly sure that 'shape' meant something.

Loki chortled. “Do you want me in this dull form of red hair and pale skin?” She murmured. “Or does something more exotic strike your fancy?” She focused and – rather than simply flashing to a new form - she let herself shift from shape to shape with the smoothness of liquid flowing downhill. Purple spread along her skin as her hair darkened to a pale green. Her eyes started to glow as her ears lengthened, tapered to points. She grinned at him, her teeth seeming oddly sharp. “Unseelie?”

Liam managed to laugh. “N-nooo, I think, uh, I don’t want to spend the entire session worrying about eating you out.”

Loki thought that over. Chuckled. “True. I’ve heard strict Courts can trap people in the Fey that way. Though, I usually hear the mortals don’t mind.” She grinned and her very sharp teeth flashed. “Though the fact you presume that you are going to spend a good portion of this with me sitting on your face pleases the great and powerful Loki.”

Once more, her body flowed. A pair of ram like horns curled away from her forehead as her hair turned a silky white. Touching her skin suddenly felt like caressing someone who had just slipped in from the rain. Slick and damp and ever so slightly chilled. But rather than goosebumps, Liam felt nothing but glorious smoothness as her breasts swelled an extra two handfuls and pressed to his chest. Loki’s face became more welcoming, more beautifully curved and less angular. Liam felt a short, stubby tail flicking above the ass he was caressing lovingly.

“Arctic Lilin?” she asked.

Liam chuckled, looking her up and down. “Blizzard would sue.”

Loki scowled. “You keep making these references and I am beginning to see why Meg punches you each time...”

For a third and hopefully final time, Loki changed. Short, bristling fur grew underneath Liam’s fingers, the tail his hand caressed growing to fill his palm. Her hair lengthened, spilling down strong shoulders, while her face lengthened into a beautiful muzzle, her eyes becoming dark and deep as pools of water. Loki smirked knowingly.

“This form pleases you?”

Liam bit his lip.

He had gone almost a year and a half without accessing the internet. Without visiting the dozens of image boards that provided images and pornography beyond the wildest dreams of even one man. Slowly, he licked his lips and let himself slide from decadence straight to hell. “Can you... maybe... make your fur more purple?” Loki smiled indulgently, shifting ever so slightly. “Now, uh, darken the hair. Add a red streak... here.” He touched her hair.

Loki blinked, reaching up to touch her hair. A red streak slipped along her dark mane of hair. “Like this?”

“Mmmhmm,” Liam murmured. “And, well, why not go for broke? Ever heard of a unicorn?”

Loki looked at him as if he was insane. “Of course I’ve heard of them. I’ve ridden unicorns.”

“Ladies love unicorns,” Liam said, grinning broadly.

Loki punched his shoulder. “Not like that.” She paused. “Well, twice, but again, it was to win a bet.”

“Suuuure it was,” Liam purred. A horn started to grow from the middle of Loki’s forehead. Liam leaned up and kissed where horn met skin. Loki moaned against his neck, her muzzle touching his chest as she bent her head forward. Liam’s hands slipped up along her back before cupping her breasts. His fingers found her bright pink nipples. They were hard nubs, begging to be teased and caressed. When he combined his tongue licking her horn to twisting her nips, Loki quivered against him, gasping desperately.

“Oh fuck, I need this,” Loki whispered.

Liam pushed her head up with one hand, kissing her. He had a lot of practice kissing women with muzzles. Hell, he had kissed a girl with a beak. But kissing someone who could shift their mouthparts ever so slightly, to make the connection deeper and easier. It was indescribable. Their tongues met and ground against one another as Loki bucked herself against his cock. Her hot, hot pussy pressed to his sex as she brought her hips up, then dropped them down. Neither of them had a hand to spare to guide Liam. Neither wanted to stop caressing, stroking, squeezing one another. Liam’s hand slapped against Loki’s ass and she broke the kiss, moaning loudly.

“I heard something about sitting on my face,” Liam murmured. Loki stepped backwards, grabbing onto his hands. She pulled him into her embrace, then knelt down on the floor. The library was carpeted, to keep the temperature high during the evenings, when the deserts that surrounded Babylon drank in the heat of the day. His butt pressed to the carpets and he knew it would itch later. But right now?

He couldn’t give a fuck.

Loki’s hands slapped against his chest, sending Liam rolling back. He let himself lay on the carpet and watched with eager awe as Loki straddled him. Her thighs encompassed his head, and the last thing he saw before a warm, soft darkness surrounded him was her full breasts, her flat belly, and her glowing, eager eyes. Then her palms slapped to the ground behind his head and she sat on his face.

Liam loved it. He was sometimes – often, really – the more dominant partner. But right now, when serving a god - even if it was not a god he worshiped - it seemed right to be on his back. There was something in the Ten Commandments about not taking other gods before God. But, well…

He was pretty sure God wouldn’t want to sit on his face.

Though, if He ever offered…

Then Liam had no time for anything but the movement of his tongue, the press of his nose. The touching of hands to body, finding a place to grip and squeeze and stroke. One of his hands found and worked through her tail, squeezing her and rooting her, then pushing forward, dragging backwards to add an extra sawing motion to her sex against his face. His tongue dragged along those dark purple lips, tasting juices that tingled along his tongue and caused his brain to spin.

“Oh Liam,” Loki moaned. His name never sounded better than when it was being moaned by a woman. The only time it had sounded more beautiful was when that woman was Meg. He drew his mouth back just enough to breath, panting softly. He hoped Meg was doing what she normally did at times like this.

Watching.

Masturbating furiously.

Thinking of that, he slid one hand down along Loki’s purple flank and then touched two fingers to her sex. They plunged in with a simultaneous squelch and gasp from the goddess.

“F-Fuck!”

She shuddered over him and a fresh cascade of her eager juices flowed along his palm, dripped onto his face. Liam opened his mouth and sucked on her pussy, firmly. Then Loki’s fingers laced through his hair and shoved his head back to the carpeted ground. Gently enough she didn’t knock him silly – but firmly enough to make it clear. She moved forward and Liam craned her head back.

Loki crawled to the chair, leaning her breasts against it, her arms clutching to the back. She used it as a mounting, thrusting her ass up and out as she looked over her shoulders.

She flushed.

“I want it hard, Liam,” she whispered.

Liam grinned, licking his lips. “Feeling submissive, Loki?”

“Fuck, why do you think I screw mortals?” she said, slipping out of character for a moment. “My wife is the submissive one. I need to find one of you with more balls!”

Her voice rose to an almost shriek as Liam grabbed her tail, lifted it up, and slammed into her with a single casual motion. There were advantages to being practiced at fucking the Chosen. They tended to have similar advantages. One of them being the tail. It was always tougher than it looked, and nearly always made them go wild when it was tugged. Gently, of course.

"Uff. Good job I've been fucked by a horse before."

Loki dropped her head forward as Liam thrust forward, his hips and her hips meeting again and again with loud, meaty slaps. His balls thumped against her belly as Loki gasped and bumped her head forward. She started to moan incoherently, barely able to keep herself upright. Liam didn’t mind supporting some of her weight, sliding his hand under her belly to hold her up. The chair started to creak as she rocked against it.

“Fuck me! Oh fuck me!” Loki panted. “Oh fuck, Liam! Fuck my pussy!”

Liam grinned, fierce and eager.

Okay, maybe he was the dominant one slightly more than seventy percent of the time.

He reached around with his free hand, finding where their bodies met. There, his finger found the tiny nub of her clit. He caressed around it – gentle, knowing that climaxing made women sensitive. From the low wail that escaped her mouth, her face and muzzle going slack with pleasure, Liam figured he could apply slightly more pressure, slightly more direct simulation. Loki’s cunt tightened on his cock like a velvety glove and, for just a moment, Liam felt what a goddess could do.

It was less a matter of physicality, though there was exquisite and exotic motions of muscle and skin that caressed and tightened and squeezed on his shaft. But most of it?

Almost all of it, really?

It came from the mind.

For a moment, Liam’s soul blazed with pleasure. His nerve endings crackled, his eyes went white and the only thing that kept him breathing, that kept him alive was the knowledge that if he let this goddess down, he’d never be able to forgive himself. And so, he kept thrusting as his balls tightened and a torrent of hot, hot cum spurted into her pussy. Into her womb. Liam loved that bit, he loved it more than he expected as he leaned over her and shuddered.

Loki twitched underneath his grasp. Her hand had reached down and she was touching where his cock and her sex met. From that contact, Liam felt a pressure that was keeping even a single drop of cum from escaping her pussy.

Liam groaned, quietly, feeling a last spurt of seed pump into her. With shaking arms, he pushed himself backwards and looked down. The field that Loki created glowed a pale blue, and her belly had swollen slightly.

“I was talking to Tethis earlier today,” Loki said, her voice utterly controlled – as matter of fact as if they had just been casually walking along the park, and not fucking hard enough that it might have damaged the furniture. “And she-”

Loki paused.

She grunted. Jerked at her head. Liam, for a moment, didn’t understand.

Then he saw that her horn had impaled the chair. In their fucking, Loki had ducked her head forward, rocked backwards and forth, and gotten herself stuck. She grunted and tried to slide her head back. Liam trapped her. Loki sighed – then shifted. Her skin became free of fur, shifting back to pink. Her horn faded away. Finally, Liam was just balls deep inside of one of the most beautiful redheads he had ever met, rather than balls deep inside of an entirely original character he had come up with on the spot.

Definitely not a character from a TV show he liked.

“And she said you needed this bad,” Loki said, grinning as she looked back over her shoulder. She touched her belly. “Something about alchemical reagents.”

Liam laughed. “I’d ask how you asked her, considering we only discovered this this evening.”

“I’m Loki?” Loki suggested, as if that explained everything.

And maybe it did.

***

Tethis rubbed her palms together as she looked at the fifth glass vial of glowing fluid. “And we add dye to it,” she said, quietly. “Inert, non-magical dye that is. It’ll look like a blue fluid.”

“Why?” Meg asked.

“Well, ah..” Tethis coughed loudly. “Because, um, we... espionage?”

Meg snorted. “You just don’t want artisans to know they’re rubbing my boy’s spunk on their vital armament projects.”

“Well, I, uh... no,” Tethis admitted. “No, I don’t.”

“Actually,” Liam cut in, trying to rescue his friend from his fiancee. “That does fall under the umbrella of espionage. The longer the lizardmen don’t know how we can harden crystal on this scale, the better. This is a war that’s going to be won by artisans as much as by generals.”

“Good.”

Laurentinus spoke as he walked into the office. He was wearing his Cross Guard uniform and had a pair of scrolls tucked under one sleeve, his face was grim.

“What’s wrong, Laurentinus?” Liam asked.

The goblin frowned. “Woden has fallen. It fell within a day of Brax the Golden’s army marching within sight of it. Reports aren’t sure what caused it. Some traitor, they think. Someone snuck assassins in. Odin, Thor, Sif - all captured.”

“What!?” Tethis exclaimed. “At once? How?”

“We don’t know,” Laurentinus said. “But we do know this.”

He unfurled one of the scrolls. The runes were clearly of Aesir origin, and Meg’s translation spell turned them into English letters after only a few moments of examination. This gave Liam a slight advantage – and fresh reason to swear.

YOUR GODS

YOUR CHOICE

IF YOU FIGHT AGAINST GOD, THE LIVES OF ODIN, THOR, SIF, AND ALL THEIR CHILDREN ARE FORFEIT. IF YOU COME WITH AX AND SHIELD TO THE BANNER OF BRAX THE GOLDEN, FREEDOM AND RICHES TO YOU AND YOUR THANE

Above the words were a crude representation of the three gods in question, held in chains and looking quite downtrodden. Below them was a symbol that Liam had seen before – Brax’s symbol? It would make sense.

“They can’t hope this will work,” Meg said. “We’ve met Aseir, they’d rather cut off their own beards then bend their knee to this.”

“Some worry more for their gods' lives than their gods' ideals,” Laurentinus said, frowning. “And more, there are Aesir who care more for gold than honor. They’ve raided Hellenic territory for less cause than this. And there’s an allure to a general who has conquered two cities without losing more than a handful of men in under a month.”

Liam nodded. “What are we looking at?”

“Between five to ten thousand new troops for Brax. Not to mention half the Aesir navy, if he’s lucky,” Laurentinus said.

Liam felt a cold pit grow in his stomach.

He looked at the vials.

“Tethis,” he said.

“Yes?” she put her hands together before her belly, drawing herself to attention.

“Bring together the alchemists,” he said. “We need ten thousand muskets. And we need them yesterday.”

***

Vulkis grabbed a tankard of ale from the passing bar wench’s tray and hurled it. It had been some years since he had served in the armies of Thor, and a tankard of ale was far from the most deadly or precise of the gods’ weapons. But his aim was true.

And to be fair, the blond fellow with the mustache was only a few paces off.

The tankard connected with a loud thunk and the man hit the ground a moment later.

A moment after that, his fellows sprang to their feet.

“Vulkis!” Thu said, his hand going to Vulkis’ shoulder.

“You bastard!” one of blondie’s friends exclaimed.

“Traitor!” Vulkis roared.

The others drew knives. Daggers. No one had bigger weapons, not in Olimurias. Vulkis yanked a penknife from his boot and a dagger from his sleeve. He held both in his hands as Thu scrambled to his feet, drawing his own blade. Though calling Thu’s quill sharpener a knife was a bit much.

“You’re the traitor,” one of the women of the other group snarled. She advanced forward, her blade gleaming in the torchlight of The Legless Wyrm. Her eyes flashed and the clearly decorative scar that marred her left cheek twisted her scowl into a sneer. “You’re the one who wants to see Sif beheaded!”

“I’d rather have every one of them in the gallows before I bend knee to a crystalwright’s abortion!” Vulkis shouted. The woman leaped at him. He ducked her first blow and brought his fist, weighted by the hilt of his blade, into her gut. It connected with a satisfying whump and sent her staggering backwards. Thu, meanwhile, decided to ditch his sharpener in favor of a stool, which he hefted up and thrust at the woman’s partner’s chest. Thu staggered backwards as the man was joined by a friend, the two of them shoving and pushing.

“Vulkis!” Thu wailed.

Vulkis, meanwhile, had gotten his arm around the woman’s throat. She had gotten her teeth into his wrist. Blondie’s friend, though, held back, unwilling to stab with his dagger while his female partner was between him and Vulkis. Vulkis slammed his forehead into the woman’s head. She took it like a proper Aesir and didn’t even buckle.

Thock!

Thock!

Thock!

An arrow slipped between shirt and skin and pinned one of the traitor Aesir to the wall. Another was pinned by a pair of arrows catching his sleeve and slamming it into a nearby chair.

Thock!

Crash!

An arrow severed the rope holding a metal chandelier to the ceiling. It smashed into a weak plank. Shattered it. Half the plank lifted up and smashed the man who was threatening Thu to the ground.

“Now,” Artemis said, another arrow already knocked to her bow. “Does anyone want to give me an excuse to do what I wanted all fucking week and spill some fucking blood?”

Her glowing eyes swept the tavern. Those who hadn’t been part of the brawl froze. Those who had... also froze. Vulkis felt his blood turn to ice as the Dodekatheonic goddess glared straight at him.

“I come here, expecting to find my transport. Instead, I find a bunch of idiot vikings trying to murder him,” Artemis said, growling as she walked forward. The past week of negotiation and debate in the offices of Brigid had clearly left the goddess wound up beyond all endurance. Her whole body seemed to vibrate with a burning need to do something. It reminded Vulkis of the time he had visited one of the few cities that had tried to rebuild the glories of Rome and constructed a coliseum. The big cats they had kept in cages had paced like Artemis did now.

“Sorry, miss,” the woman that Vulkis held said, spitting slightly to get some of Vulkis’ blood from her mouth. “But this bastard here, he wants to get our gods killed in some foolish-”

“Coward!” Vulkis snarled, tightening his arm.

Artemis pinched the bridge of her nose, letting her bow hang from two fingers. Vulkis was fairly sure that holding a bow like that was not good for the string. But since he had never seen the goddess actually unstring the bow, he was fairly sure that mortal concerns were entirely beyond her.

In fact, the only thing Artemis cared about, as far as Vulkis could tell, was the hunt.

And worship, he supposed.

And fucking Athena.

Vulkis had retired from being a huscral because he knew that trade could earn him more than fighting, not because he was a coward. If he had been a coward, he’d never have made his fortune, nor kept his ship. But unlike swinging an ax, running a ship took something more. Charisma. The ability to pay someone like Thu to keep the books straight.

And the ability to make a leap. To connect dots.

To see a pattern.

To have ideas.

“How has the negotiation been going, my goddess?” Vulkis asked, his voice sweet. The woman he was headlocking punched at his arm, making muffled noises of complaint. Vulkis tightened his grip threateningly.

Artemis, unconcerned about the grapple, rubbed her chin. “I’m sure Athena knows how to describe it like a proper logician. I’ll stick with things I know. It’s going like shit.”

Vulkis nodded. “No action?”

“No one can agree where to go first. I say, we go to the Aesir lands, we kill the fuck out of this Brax asshole. Athena says that’s a way to get killed ourselves. That Vanir asshole says he doesn’t want Hellenic armies landing in his territory without some assurances. Brigid wants to see if we can find a peaceful agreement – she says that-” Artemis groaned, then dropped her voice to a mincing falsetto that sounded as like Brigid as a broken flute sounded like a snare drum. “Oh, we cannot have the terrors of the War of the Ancients again, no, think of the deaths.”

Vulkis nodded. “I have an idea,” he said.

“An idea to get Sif killed,” the woman hissed around his arm.

“No, shut up, you idiot,” Vulkis snarled. “Artemis, she wants to fight Sysminor. We want to save our gods. Do you really want to bend knee to Sysminor?”

The woman looked sullen. “No...” she muttered.

“So, we don’t fight Sysminor. The Hellenes do,” Vulkis said, grinning broadly. “Hellenic boats are half as good-”

Artemis scowled at him.

“A-As good, they’re as good, just as good as Aesir vessels,” Vulkis said. “Your fellow Hellenes don’t want to send their men to die? Fine. Send us, in your ships.”

“Yes!.” Artemis looked as if someone had just given her an entire caravan of nubile slave girls. She clenched her fist and started for the door, as if she was going to go out and get the ships personally. Then she stopped, growled, then turned back. “Wait. Wait. If you land, and you fight the lizardmen, they kill your gods don’t they?”

“That’s why they won’t.”

Everyone in the bar looked over at the new voice. Athena was walking into the bar, looking tired, wan, but far less edgy than her lover and fellow goddess. She put her hands on Artemis’ shoulders, squeezing and stroking her gently. Artemis seemed to relax slightly at her touch. Athena looked over her lover’s shoulder at Vulkis with a slightly amused air. Vulkis realized why and slowly loosened his grip on the woman he had been holding in a headlock for what felt like an hour. She jerked away from him, wiping his blood off her mouth.

“Exactly” Vulkis said. “Even if we did land, dressed as hoplites or auxilia, we’d be a pittance against Brax the Golden. If he can take two cities without losing a man, what would we be against him? And even that defeat is assuming we can get past the Aesir navy who have pledged their flag to Sysminor.”

Athena inclined her head.

Vulkis grinned. “But for the past ten years, I’ve sailed the Platonic Sea. If you control the sea, you control Purgatory. I can give you that control.”

“You?” Athena asked, her voice dimming to human levels.

“W-well, I mean, uh-” Vulkis suddenly realized how that sounded.

“Very well,” Athena said. “We’ll see what we can do.”

Vulkis gulped.

Thu sighed, loudly.

“What have you gotten us into this time, captain?”

Vulkis looked at his first mate, friend and long suffering scribe.

He grinned, jauntily.

“I believe that is what have you gotten us into this time... admiral.”

Four

Babylon was a nexus of trade. People arrived every day, even with the spreading war in the far south. And some of those people came to commit murder.

The four men who stepped off the Hellenic trade ship the Argos were four such people. Clad in thick robes and walking quickly away from the trade ship, they lost themselves in Babylon. They moved carefully, making sure to avoid any place where the town guard were clustered and watching. Not that they expected to be observed but one never got old being a professional assassin without being paranoid.

Soon, though, they were beyond the initial ring of guards. The guards made watchful by Laurentinus and not yet slackened by the peaceful interior.

They came to the industrial heart of the city. This place had once burned day and night for Syminor, forging bronze weapons for the army of Brax the Golden. Now, it rang to a different sound. There was still hammering and still clanging, but more often, there was the sound of hissing. The cries of ‘water!’ that came soon after. Splashing sounds as buckets were doused over alchemical vats, ruining a load but sparing dozens of lives from accidental explosions.

The murderers walked by.

They came to where crystalwights plied their trade. Here, massive beasts from the deep jungle had been penned in. The miserable creatures looked up from the deep, stone pits that held them, their eyes filled with piteous emotion. Their backs were covered with weeping sores where the crystalwights yanked the crystal that naturally grew along their spines, while their mouths were caked with powdered food.

They didn’t eat on their own, not without handlers jamming the food down their throat.

The murderers walked on by.

They came to the large plaza that sat before the Free Lord’s manor house. The plaza had once merely been a place for discussion and votes from the community leaders of Babylon. Then, later, it had become a slave market by the twisted whims of Sysminor. Now, it had become something stranger and far more marvelous than what it had ever been before. Standing and sitting on the platform, many of them using shades and parasols, were dozens of people. They were all watching and listening to a duo in the center of the plaza debate.

“You cannot simply say that might makes right,” Mary, the Hierophant of Babylon, said. Her palm slapped against her fist as she looked out towards the crowd. “Being strong merely makes things possible. But we know for a fact that being possible does not make something just. A hurricane that destroys a whole city is possible. But can we really say it is just, merely because nature is stronger than we?”

The murderers didn’t even pause to listen.

They, at last, came to their target.

Now came the hard part.

***

Liam looked at the maps unrolled on his table and, not for the first time, thanked God that the curvature of Purgatory and the existence of large numbers of people with astounding eyesight who could also fly meant that said maps were astounding.

In the past of Earth, map making had varied from exquisitely detailed to mere suggestions. While these maps lacked elevation lines and contoured designs to indicate the exact shape of slopes, they were still detailed enough to guide a scout right where you wanted them to be.

Within a few miles at least.

Since they weren’t launching cruise missiles, Liam could live with that error range.

“So, here,” Meg said, tapping another part of the map. “That’s where the other independent valkyrie tribe lives.”

“Why are there independent valks?”

“Well, lets just say, some aren’t as good at dealing with you disgusting landlings as I am,” Meg said, her smile crooking. Liam made a face.

“Really? Disgusting landlings?”

“That’s, ah, the gentle saying,” Meg admitted, coughing. “You never wondered why you’ve met, what, three valkyrie in the past year? And that’s including the ones I convinced to be messengers?”

Liam sighed. He felt a bit guilty, suddenly. All this time with her, he had never asked. But in his defense, they had been on adventures. Riding and flying out through the world of Purgatory. Slaying monsters. Laying each other. There had been a lot of that. And when they had talked, Meg had been endlessly curious about Earth, about the culture. Hell, about the movies and TV shows. She had told him about philosophy and...

And as cheesy as it sounded, she taught him about her in the most basic language there was. How to bring pleasure, joy, laughter, in every little smile and tiny caress.

“Well, when I have the best valkyrie in Purgatory, how could I wonder about the others?” Liam asked.

Meg chuckled. “Good save.” She leaned forward. Their tongues met, their lips fused, and the worries of the war and the world faded. If only for a moment. When Meg drew back, she breathed out a soft sigh. “But no. There are a few good reasons why valks don’t like to mix with others. But there are so many bad that the good get... twisted up. Tainted.” She shook her head. “We’re strong. We can fly. And we recover from almost any wound, if you give us a few weeks.”

Liam brushed his hand along a feathered wing. Not for the first time, he marveled at their beauty.

“But strength became purity,” Meg said, her voice bitter. “Flight became not a blessing – rather, being flightless became a curse. And longevity became a reason to see others as animals. My mother was kicked out of her tribe for, get this, not murdering a man who walked on the ground. Trespassing.” She rolled her eyes.

Liam nodded.

“Of course, I think her family was also unhappy with the fact she rode him until he was raw, married him, and later had his child.” Meg said, rubbing her chin.

“You’re... wait, you’re half human?” Liam asked.

Meg snorted. “Fuck no. You’re either all valkyrie or all something else. If a male valk lays a human or an elf or a goblin lass, and they use the spell that allows cross-species fuckery to lead to more than just fun...” She grinned. “Then that lass will have a goblin or a human or an elf baby. But if a valk woman lays with any of them, they’ll always have a valk baby.”

She patted her thighs. “We’re...” She paused. “Specially equipped.”

Liam looked at her wings.

Looked down at the area hidden by her loincloth.

“The wings do start smaller,” Meg said, sounding amused.

Liam chuckled. “So, our best bet to get an air force are a bunch of racist bigots. Great.”

Meg chuckled. “I think we do have an advantage. Firstly, you are marrying the most beautiful, talented, sensual, erotically pleasing-”

“And humble,” Liam said, grinning.

“-and humble valkyrie in the world!” Meg said, proudly. “And that means you can send me as an ambassador.”

Liam nodded and kept what he felt about that idea from his face.

“Secondly, I know that valks look down on non-valks. But do you know what they’ll look down on even more?” She smiled. “Non-valks trying to conquer the world and subjugate it underneath a false and insane god.”

Liam nodded again.

“You hate this plan, don’t you?” Meg asked.

“Yes,” Liam admitted. “I... we’re not even married yet.”

“I know,” she said, quietly.

“Hell, we haven’t even started talking about what getting married means. We could talk to Mary, but I mean, I might want you to marry me with my priest, but he’s back on Earth and-” Liam cut himself off. “And I... it’s much easier to go out and risk my ass, or to go with you and fight back to back with you. But, let me guess, you can’t just bring a disgusting degenerate landling to one of these tribes.”

Meg sucked in air through her teeth. “Yeah, I don’t see it working out.”

Liam sighed. “Sending you out-”

Meg put her finger on his lips.

“Liam,” she said, her voice gentle. “I was a warrior long before I met you. A messenger and a servant of Apollo. I know you’re just worried about me. But I’m still me. Not just Meg Vanderbilt.”

Liam closed his eyes.

Nodded.

She kissed his forehead, then stepped back.

“I’ll set out when the sun kindles...”

Her breast band hit the floor.

Her eyes glinted.

Liam grinned at her.

“Let's make the night last,” Meg purred.

The door burst inwards.

“Sir!” one of the Cross Guard – a soldier who had served by Liam’s side during the Battle of Babylon – stumbled into the room. He looked like he had sprinted almost two city blocks in his full armor. But whatever he had been about to say was lost in the light of Meg’s exposed tits.

Which, to be fair, were among the most spectacular tits that Liam had ever seen.

And he had seen Mary, Tethis, Neb, and now Loki’s tits.

Not that he was ever going to tell anyone but Meg that he compared them.

“Report,” Liam snapped.

“It’s Loki, sir,” the soldier said.

***

A soft knock came to Tethis’ room. She blinked, looking up from her book – recently found at one of the many small shops in Babylon – and called out. “Yes?”

“It’s me.”

The gruff voice made Tethis’ heart flutter slightly. She stood, closing the book, and walked over to the door. Opening it, she smiled at Laurentinus. The tough, scarred goblin who had been a part of Liam’s inner circle for months now looked ill at ease. His ears twitched, his eyes flicked around the room as he stepped inside – following Tethis’ gesture. She smiled slightly at him. Before she had met Liam, Tethis would have been scared silly of a handsome goblin like Laurentinus walking into her room.

She’d have positively melted in excitement and fear and nervousness.

Well.

Now, she could just admire the way that the muscular soldier filled out his uniform, and maybe speculate what had brought him here this late at night.

“I’ve been thinking about the fall of Wodan,” he said.

Tethis blinked. Her mind skittered, trying to come back on track. “Wodan?” She coughed. “Well, uh, we don’t have many details, but it sounded like treason.”

Laurentinus shook his head.

“Loki was here.”

Tethis’ brow furrowed.

“It’d take a special kind of traitor to get through Odin’s security. He’s a god of wisdom, secrets. His ravens see all, right?” Laurentinus said, sounding slightly hesitant at her expression. But seeing her nod, he continued, gaining in confidence. “Anyone else would get caught. They didn’t. They got in, they got Odin, they got Thor, they got Sif. They got the city. Not treason. Right?”

Tethis nodded again.

“How did you and Liam get here? And Meg too?” Laurentinus pointed at her.

“We used a teleport shrine,” Tethis said. “They’re shrines built by the Ancients...”

She trailed off, her eyes widening.

Laurentinus must have heard something that tipped him off. He grabbed Tethis and shoved her backwards moments before the door burst inwards in a spray of splinters. Standing there, knives in their hands, were four rough, human men.

They advanced, wordlessly.

***

Liam emerged out front to find a large crowd gathered in-front of his manor house. This was not unusual. But the crowd being armed was. Loki stood before them, holding up her hands, looking like she was torn between being amused, annoyed and afraid.

“Traitor!”

“Balder killer!”

“Kin slayer!”

The crowd, Liam noticed, were all Aesir. There was a good chunk of Aesir in the Babylonian community – their blond and red hair making them stand out among the more swarthy Coptics and Hellenes. And currently, they were being led by…

“Amund of Thor,” Liam said, making sure to pitch his voice loud enough to be heard over the angry babble, but still quiet enough that he sounded like he wasn’t trying to shout. “I see you’ve decided that debate requires weapons again.”

Amund of Thor was not exactly as hideous as Mary had sometimes described him. In fact, though Liam wasn’t a perfect judge of such things, he actually would have been fairly handsome, had it not been for the seemingly perpetual sneer smeared across his face. He was tall and strong looking and his beard was combined and pleated with no small skill. His long hair was tied back behind his head in a ponytail that gave him a somewhat rakish look. His robes were simple, and the holy symbol of Thor that hung around his neck gave him an almost Christian air. His arms were crossed over his chest.

“We’re here for the betrayer,” he said, his voice lofty.

Loki scowled. “I am a god,” she said, her voice matching and then exceeding Amund’s level of arrogance. Liam honestly didn’t like it. Loki had been approachable. Likable. Human, even. Seeing this side of her made her seem…

Smaller.

“All right,” Liam said, lifting up his hands. “There is no way that Loki could have done anything to betray Odin. The attack came while she was here. Or do you think that her magic could override Odin and Thor and Sif from halfway around Purgatory?” He shook his head. “Loki came here to help us and to get help for her people – not to betray anyone.”

The crowd murmured. He could see several people starting to lower their weapons. Amund of Thor looked sour.

Then-

A vice grip closed around his wrist. Loki hissed. “Tethis! Go! Now!” She pointed.

Liam blinked in confusion. But the look in Loki’s eyes filled him with dread. He turned and ran, no words. He just ran.

***

Tethis flung out her wrist. The bolt of energy was rapidly coalesced and still had enough punch to send one of the men sprawling backwards. He groaned and started to try to get to his feet. But the other three were already in the room. Laurentinus drew his sword. He stepped forward and his blade darted out. One of the assassins parried. But faster than Tethis could see, Laurentinus stepped closer, then slashed the other way, canceling one attack and making the other in the same fluid motion.

The assassin hit the ground, clutching at his leg.

The other, though, came at Laurentinus from the side. His sword crashed into the goblin’s side and sent Laurentinus staggering. By then, Tethis had worked up another bolt. This one took an assasin’s head off. His blood misted the wall. The one she had knocked over was back on his feet.

The fourth was over her.

Pain.

Tethis staggered.

And then the one who had come back to his feet was down.

Liam.

Tethis’ heart surged as she saw the assassin’s head lolling backwards off his head, his spine almost completely severed by Liam’s blow. Liam wasn’t even using his longsword, Delenn. He had just grabbed a sword from one of the Cross Guard.

Tethis looked down at herself.

A blade stuck from her leg.

Ah.

That was what hurt. She’d fix that.

Liam seemed to be moving in slow motion. Reaching for her. His lips forming a word. The translation spell seemed to take forever to turn it from English to Coptic.

“No!”

Tethis yanked the blade out. It felt heavy in her hand. She looked down and saw blood spurting from her leg. A lot.

She felt...

Oddly sleepy.

She closed her eyes.

***

Tethis hit the floor. Liam scrambled forward, forgetting the last assassin, not even hearing him as Laurentinus tackled him to the ground. His hand grabbed onto Tethis’ thigh, squeezing, desperately pinching. He screamed at the top of his lungs, his vision blurring. “Healer! Healer! Healer!”

The best healer was in his hands.

Tethis looked oddly peaceful, her head lolling to the side. But it was all marred by the blood. So much blood.

Too much blood.

Liam kept his hand on the wound, his body shaking. He kept his hand on the wound  when the blood stopped. He kept his hand on the wound when the healer came. He kept his hand there until Meg gently took him and dragged him back and the healers carried the wrapped body away.

He didn’t speak as Meg led him back to their chambers.

She gently wiped his hands. Her hands shook. Her eyes were filled with tears.

Liam saw clearly.

“Liam,” Meg croaked.

Liam slowly closed his hands. He felt her hands. His fingers touched her skin. He ducked his head forward. The first thing he wanted to say felt wrong. It couldn’t be right. None of this could be right. Earlier today, Tethis had been telling him about her ideas for speeding musket production. Earlier today, he was admiring her... her all of her. Her intellect, her body, her ideas. Her endless need to read.

Liam looked away from Meg and at the door.

He expected Tethis to come walking in.

“Liam,” Meg whispered.

Liam closed his eyes. He leaned into her. Quietly, he whispered. “I...”

A single word. It was too much. His throat clenched. Meg’s wing closed around him. Then her other.

And together, they grieved.

***

“It’s done.”

Liv kept her eyes closed and remained still beneath the blankets that were set out in the tent. Any general she knew would have spent the last week celebrating. Sacking a town could bring wealth and rape enough to keep a certain kind of man entertained but not Brax. Part of her felt a warm glow at that knowledge. But a bigger part, part that could look past the moment, was deeply uncertain.

The army had set out almost immediately after the fall of Wotan. Brax had left behind guards at the city, Sysminor had forged cages of solid crystal, shaped in the same way as nulldarts, and they had set off along the coast on the part of the Aesir navy that had bent their knee.

The first town they had run into hadn’t even been aware that Wotan had fallen. They hadn’t had defenses up. The boats had sailed into dock and the lizardfolk sprang from the decks of the ships. Their spears had flashed and they had rushed through the city streets. It had been over in less than an hour, with only a few casualties on Brax’s side. Those casualties had recovered in a few hours.

They moved only slightly slower than the warning and even those towns that had been warned were barely able to resist. Huscrals had started to answer the call as well. Liv had watched as the first ranked mass of heavy infantry arrived to bend the knee to Brax and Sysminor. The false god had preened as if he had kindled the sun.

Brax slept poorly that night. Groping at the air, his claws had flashed in the dim light seeping through the edges of the tent and Liv had laid there, unable to help him.

Asura. Asura.

That name from his past.

“I see.” The tent flap swung shut again and Brax stepped back to where he had been sitting. Liv watched as he sat. His back was stiff enough that she could count the ridges of his spine.

“What happened now, oh glorious general?” Liv asked. She hadn’t taken a tone like that for a while.

Brax’s shoulders bunched further. “Shut up,” he growled.

Liv shook her head. “So. You’ve taken half a dozen towns in under a week. That’s two major cities.” She frowned. “Stretching yourself thin.”

“Huscrals will fix that,” Brax said, his voice dull. “With the right mixture of forces, we can take Olimurias.”

Liv’s brow furrowed.

“With Olimurias, we have scribes and mages. We have a place to base our navy to attack the enemy. We remove some more gods from the war.”

Liv remained silent for a time. She felt her stomach clench – it was like she had eaten something unsavory. She wanted to let it out, but knew that losing this would take more than voiding herself. It was a poison feeling, not an under-cooked fish. She rolled onto her hands and knees, then pushed herself up. Remaining low, moving with the faint rocking of the ship, she came to Brax and knelt behind him.

“What have you done?” she asked.

“Fizit had an idea,” Brax said. “To ensure we don’t face...” he paused. “Difficulties.”

Liv shook her head. “An abortion?”

“What?” Brax snapped his head around, looking at her.

Liv frowned. “You haven’t noticed?”

Brax turned to face Liv head on. “No. What have you seen?”

Liv sighed. “Fizit’s pregnant. I figured you’d, of all people, would notice.”

Brax shook his head. “I, ah, haven’t had much experience. With. Uh...” He trailed off, his golden nares flushing a bright red – the blush strong enough to be seen through a magical curse. That was impressive, in its own way.

“You are not a virgin,” Liv said, rolling her eyes. Inside, she giggled. So, there were things Brax wasn’t built to handle, huh?

“With mothers,” Brax finished.

“Mm,” Liv sighed. “Well, Fizit is pregnant. How did you not notice her tits?”

Brax shook his head. “Fizit isn’t interested in me in that way.”

“So you ignore her completely?” Liv sounded skeptical.

“It’s remarkably easy,” Brax said, regaining some of his composure. He looked somber. “But...” He paused. “That’s going to be awkward.”

“What?” Liv asked.

Brax told her.

Liv grabbed his head by the frills and slammed her knee into his nose. The crunch was audible. And quite satisfying.

Brax didn’t fight back. He simply slumped to the side, letting the pain fade as he rested his head on the floor. Liv panted, her head hanging forward.

“You bastard,” she growled.

“I know,” he said.

“You fucking bastard.” Liv trembled. She wanted to hit him again and again and again. She was so fucking furious she couldn’t see straight. Her hands clenched on the floor under the tent. Right now, she could barely breathe. She ducked her head forward. Her fingernails bit into the wood.

“I know,” he said again.

“Why?” she hissed.

“Sysminor,” Brax said. “He said we needed to keep the advantage. Imagine if Liam had her and Babylon. He could build a dozen godkillers and drop them in our camp. Like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“He wouldn’t,” Liv snarled. Her fingernails ached. The wood creaked.

“Sysminor has spoken to me at length about the world Liam came from. He said that his observations...” He spoke the word with some sarcasm. Liv’s hammering heart caught. She slid her hands along the deck, flexing her fingers out. Her knuckles ached from the pressure she had put on them. Brax continued. “Their people drop bombs the size of houses on each other. They slaughter entire cities and burn armies from the inside out with noxious fumes. Liam would in an instant. He would. And so...” He shuddered. “Tethis had to die.”

Liv grabbed his head again, jerking it up as she scrambled over him. Her knees pressed against the ground to either side of him as she loomed overhead. She had been in hundreds – thousands – of fights. A lot ended on the ground. A few started there. Being on the ground and the smaller opponent meant controlling the position and leveraging your weight. But being a demigod had advantages too.

Brax didn’t fight back as she lifted his head, ready to smash it down. His eyes and hers met in the dimness of the tent. The rocking of the boat bumped him against her. She felt his smooth belly, lined with muscle, resting against her sex, separated only by her loincloth.

Liv’s eyes brimmed with tears.

“I never even told her I liked her,” Liv hissed. “You know that? Friends for a year and I never even said that.”

Brax’s hands went to her wrists. Holding her. Gently.

Liv didn’t want gentle. She wanted a world where good people didn’t have to do wicked things. She wanted to feel alive. She wanted to forget that people could die at any moment, that they were all a single mistake away from being whisked beyond. And more than anything else, she wanted Brax. She knew it was wrong. She knew she should hate him - but looking down at him, she couldn’t feel it. Instead, what she felt was a burning need. It was a feeling as sudden and intense as a hurricane, rushing through her. Filling her with a wild warmth, buzzing and burning. Fire. She leaned forward and her mouth locked against his muzzle. His tongue didn’t respond to her as she slipped her tongue into his mouth. Brax’s hands slid from her wrists.

He didn’t fight her.

He didn’t kiss back.

Liv drew her mouth back, panting.

Brax opened his mouth to speak. Liv plunged in again. This time, it wasn’t quite a kiss. Her teeth bumped against his lower muzzle. Her hands grabbed his wrists and forced his arms to her back. Her fingernails worked between scales, pinching and squeezing. Brax growled with pain. Frustration. Lust. His fingers squeezed back. Gently, at first. Then harder. His tongue tentatively touched hers.

Liv drew her mouth back again. Panted harder.

“Brax,” she whispered.

“We shouldn’t,” he said.

“Shut the fuck up,” she growled. “You do bad things for good reasons. Now do something fucking bad for a fucking good reason already.” Her hands grabbed her breast band. She didn’t bother tugging it off. It was just cloth. The tatters fell around her as Brax’s hands slipped along her hips, her belly, cupping her breasts. He was strong and rough – and yet, uncertainty kept his touch gentle.

Liv didn’t want gentle.

She pushed herself forward and bit down on his neck. Her teeth went hard, tasting gold and sweat and maleness. His musk filled her nose as she ground against him. The hurricane roaring inside of her – the hurricane born from death, the intense need for new life – made the unwashed scent of a man several weeks into campaign into something as sweet as ambrosia. She grabbed at his hips, jerking and tugging at the ties of his loincloth. She barely needed, his eagerness was starting to tent and push his loincloth aside.

Brax’s hands remained unsure. They slipped along her back, reaching tentatively down to her ass. They caressed her through her loincloth.

Liv snarled. “Are you a man, Brax, or are you just going to fucking lay there?”

Something kindled in those eyes.

“Do you treat all your lovers like this?” he asked, anger rising under his throat.

“I’m not a princess, General,” Liv hissed.

Brax sat up. His hands grabbed her hips, holding her to him as his loincloth-covered cock slipped against her sex. His size made her head spin. She preferred balls. Loved balls, really. But the look in his eyes made her feel just a bit intimidated. The word ‘princess’ had woken something deep and dark. Something that had been chained down and controlled for some time.

Liv had never been wetter in her life.

Those claws scraped at her skin. If she hadn’t been blessed by her father, blood would have gleamed on her skin. As it was, her loincloth fell to the ground and stuck to her flesh in equal measures, sweat keeping the thin fabric glued to her. Her hairless, elven sex was then filled. Not by a cock – two fingers plunged into her, then crooked. She felt his calloused fingertips find her center of pleasure with ease and she bit down on his shoulder to not fill the tent – and the deck of the ship – with her scream of pleasure.

“Insolent slave,” Brax growled.

She gasped and released his shoulder. Her voice was ragged. “Murderer.”

“Bitch.” He bit down on her neck, pushing her backwards. Liv spread her thighs. She needed this so badly she felt like she was about to melt. Her thighs spread wider still and she got her ankles behind her neck.

Those fingers inside of her drew out. Gold glittered under her juices as Brax looked down at her.

“You want a real man’s cock then?” Brax asked, his hand going to his loincloth. His golden member was as exotic as she remembered – ridged and coming to a triangular tip - but it had never quite looked so large as it did now. Liv panted, her body as open and eager as she had ever been. She arched her spine, bringing some attention to her perky breasts.

“I haven’t had a real man’s cock since I fucked Liam,” she hissed.

Brax snorted. “A human?” He asked, his voice filling with disdain and heat. Lust dripped from his words, and it set off a fire between Liv’s legs, intense enough to melt bronze. As if to accentuate his size and his length, Brax slid his palm under his dick and then let it slap down on her belly, the base teasing her clit, the tip dangerously close to her belly button.

Liv shivered, then whispered. “About the same size, General.”

Brax blinked. “Really?”

Liv nodded.

Brax smirked again - regaining his commanding attitude with a single statement. “I’m better.”

She snorted.

She put as much derision and disdain into that one snort as she could.

Better? that snort said.

Prove it.

Brax put his hands on her hips, then slipped them up to her shoulders. He poised himself over her, his tail lashing from side to side as he locked his eyes on hers. Liv trembled.

There were pleasures in moments like this.

She didn’t think of the war.

She didn’t think of dead friends.

She didn’t think of her future.

She just thought of hard muscle and sleek scales.

And the eager need burning between her thighs. The steady drip, drip, drip of her sex, slicking her thighs, puddling and soaking into the planks under her. Then even those thoughts were gone. She had thought the lust roaring through her had been a hurricane. It had nothing on the delight of finally having Brax inside her. She hadn’t quite realized just how deeply she had wanted this moment to come until it was finally here, until she felt his balls resting on her pert ass. Her hands caressed his back as she shuddered under him.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered.

Brax started to work his hips, moving his entire body, sawing his cock backwards and forward. The tip bumped against a deep part of her that set off tiny white flashes inside of Liv. But the ridges were what really made her lose all control. Her back arched as her sex clenched on his shaft like a velvet glove, her fingernails digging between scales as she screamed her pleasure.

Caring about stealth had gone.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck me, Brax! Fuck me with that fucking lance, oh Gods!”

She trembled as Brax growled, “Keep it down, elf!”

“Fuck you!” Liv gasped.

And laughed.

Part of her writhed. How could she laugh, now? But laugh she did – at the tone of aggrieved dignity in Brax’s voice as he tried to keep propriety while fucking her as hard as he possibly could in the middle of a tent city spreading across the deck of a ship.

Brax laughed as well. He kissed her neck, his hands sliding into the small of her back as he sat back on his haunches. His hips continued to work as he bucked her on his lap. She rose and fell with the motion of the ocean, her fingers aching with the pressure of having to hold him so hard. She couldn’t loosen her grip. She couldn’t even imagined doing it.

She looked into his eyes.

He looked into hers.

Then, shuddering, he ducked his head forward. His cock thrust up into her, his balls slapping against her ass, as firm as a palm striking her. Liv’s breath caught and she felt those balls twitch against her. The rush of hot, thick spunk that filled her a moment later simply set another, deeper fire inside of her as she shuddered, then crooned, throwing her head back and filling the tent with her pleasure. She kept rising and falling for a few moments, her belly crunching as she tried to wring every bit of pleasure as she could.

“Fuck,” she hissed.

“Liv,” Brax whispered.

“General,” Liv whispered back. Kissing his forehead. Nuzzling him. Kissing him again, this time on the mouth. This time, there was no hesitation, no delay. His long, flexible tongue plunged into her throat and she sucked on him gently, trembling against him as he felt his cum filling her womb.

Then, slowly he softened. He laid back, his legs stretching out once more. His cock slipped from her sex and Liv laid her head down on his shoulder, her whole body as wrung out as a wet towel.

They lay in silence.

“I’m sorry,” Brax said.

“Shut up, Brax,” Liv whispered.

Then, quieter still.

“I know.”

***

“And that’s the third barrel of water we’ve used this voyage,” Thu said, his quill scritching softly as he scribbled on a piece of paper. He looked up at Vulkis. “Having this many crew on board eats through the supplies like I’ve never seen. Do you think we’ll be ready once we find the enemy?”

Vulkis shook his head. He let, for just a moment, his nerves show. To a wall. The wall saw the uncertainty, the fear. Then, smiling, he turned to his friend and crew-mate.

“We were born ready, Thu,” he said, then started to the stairs leading to the deck of the ironically named Holkos. The ship was Hellenic to the core and had been built around the ram. Hellenes could board like the best Aesir, but their primacy in sea battles, especially on Purgatory, had always been their rams. Vast, bronze-coated, and backed up by teams of experienced rowers and slaves, their ships had eschewed letting marines and valor end the engagement.

Rather, they simply cut enemy ships in half.

Vulkis looked at the crew. The free Aesir that had come to New Athens and Faiyum Falls and other cities that had received the messages – borne at the speed of valks and fast sailing ships – didn’t even try and disguise themselves. They looked like huscrals and Aesir sailors. But behind the shielded walls of the Holkos and on the decks of the four other ships that Athena had managed to part with, they looked like they belonged.

Somewhat.

Vulkis looked out at the curve of the world, then upwards.

“Enemy!” he shouted, pointing outwards. There was a point in the distance where the curvature of Purgatory brought enemies into view. Before that point, they could be hidden by waves or depressions or hills. It was what made naval battles such a nerve wracking affair, from time to time. You couldn’t run and you couldn’t be sure when you’d meet.

Vulkis could see the distant wakes of five ships sailing between Wotan and Heilemsprigga – their flags were visible as splotches of color. Sysminor’s symbol was brutal and simple and to the point: a blue field with a sky blue edge and a single black circle in the center. Vulkis shook his head.

“We’ll catch them up before the sun winks out,” his helms-woman – the girl from the bar, Eerika – said. She had a wicked grin on her face.

Vulkis nodded, then called out to the crew. “Ready watch! We don’t want to get counter-jumped!”

The crew rushed to their positions. They might have been merchants and civilian sailors. But the memory of serving in the Aesir navy was close enough to the surface for most of them. They might have been slower in some cases, and less spry, but they readied to repel boarders, and set extra men to the oars.

The five ships – the Hykos, Argos, Ladon and the Centaur – plunged into the chop. Their prows broke through the waves. Vulkis had to admit, they punched through waves easier than a longship might. But there was the occasional yelp and shout of curses as oars slipped from unsure grips and smashed about.

The waves parted.

There were the enemy ships, trying to break and scatter.

Humans and elves and goblins glared back at humans and elves and goblins.

“Now! Now! Ram! Ram!” Vulkis bellowed.

The crew at the oars worked desperately.

Eerika yanked at the rudder.

The Hykos moved forward.

The Ladon slipped left as one bank of their oars failed to quite catch the waves. The two ships nearly collided, then both struck one of the enemy merchant ships in the front. The two rams smashed and scraped against one another with an almighty screech and splinters exploded through the air. Vulkis felt as if someone had punched him in the chest, hard enough to send him sprawling. He blinked and saw a chunk of oar was resting on his lap.

Then they were shifting apart. The captain of the Ladon bellowed insults at Vulkis. Eerika screeched insults right back.

The merchant vessel sank, its hold filled with the supplies needed by Brax and his crystalline master.

Vulkis shook himself and started to stand.

“Ware!”

The cry came from the starboard of the Hykos. Looking, Vulkis saw that one of the merchant ships that had broken away from the pack had come around. The deck had half a dozen sailors knocking and readying arrows. They loosed, and the arrows plunged into the water and deck and rattled off shields. Vulkis pointed at them.

“Bring us at them, Eerika!”

He looked back and saw the Aesir woman clutching to the rudder, her feet braced, her back pressed against wood, an arrow sprouting from her shoulder. Her face was white with pain, but she grinned at him as she shoved with all her might. The Hykos turned and the oars bit into water. The crew seemed to have a better handle on it now. They rowed forward.

The merchant ship started rowing as well. They managed to stumble partially out of the way.

The ram and side of the Hykos scraped against the merchant ship. Oars splintered and shattered. The Hykos’ oars snapped as well – but only some. More than a few had been yanked up and out of the way. The enemy ship started to drift away, but at close range, their archers were essentially shooting at free targets. Vulkis threw himself flat and dragged Eerika away from her oar. An arrow thudded into the deck right before his nose.

Now, though, the huscrals had a target they had waited for.

Throwing weapons were a large part of Aesir warfare. Vulkis didn’t know if that was how his ancestors on Earth had fought – but he knew on Purgatory, with nulldarts and throwing spears, the huscral had always relied in part on his throwing arm.

Vulkis was sure that Babylon was a city that made gunpowder by the barrel but Faiyum Falls and that goblin artificer that Sobek kept around had their own uses.

Flasks of gunpowder landed on the side of the merchant ship. Thin wood splintered and men and women alike were sent flying. Pieces, too. Fires spread along the ship and the huscrals sent up a vicious cheer.

The other merchant ships were either burning or sinking.

Not a single Hellenic ship was more than damaged.

“I suppose those thrice damned Hellenes can build ships,” Vulkis said, walking over to Eerika, taking the rudder from her hand. She looked pale as a sheet, but remained standing.

“If we sail them,” she said, her teeth clenched.

Vulkis grinned at her.

The sun winked out.

“Let's head back to Olimurias.”

Eerika, now that the night had fallen and prevented anyone from seeing her feel pain, hissed. “Can you please cut this fucking arrow out of me?”

Five

“Pre-sent arms!”

The hundred men and women wearing the red cross tunics of the Cross Guard lifted their muskets. It was a ragged motion – but they were faster, smoother, more unified than they had been in quite some time.

“Fire!”

The sudden crackling roar of musketry was music to Liam’s ears.

The muskets weren’t loaded with shot. But when they were loaded, they would be filled with lead. Liam had been worried that making bullets would be a problem, but while Purgatory lacked heavy metals, it had one thing that Earth lacked. Alchemists. Like on Earth, alchemists were interested in converting one metal into another. On Purgatory, that research had mostly been focused on creating iron.

Without iron, even the Aesir had been forced to adopt bronze weapons. Bronze was far more expensive and difficult to make than iron. Without iron, they had never found steel.

No one had made iron.

But one alchemist had accidentally found a way to make lead. Heavy, toxic, and soft, it had been relegated to a curio, especially considering how much easier other materials were to work with. And alchemists were too busy trying to make gold, after all.

“They’re good,” Laurentinus said.

“The trick is getting them good enough that they can do it in a fight,” Liam said. His palms rubbed against his eyes as he shook his head. “Keep drilling them.”

Laurentinus saluted.

When Liam returned to his manor house – the sounds of gunfire still echoing from the training yards – he tensed. The absence of Tethis remained, like a jagged gap in his mouth. His eyes would dart around, looking for her. She wasn’t in the house. Not this level, at least. Her body waited in the crypt, resting underneath a stasis spell cast by one of the biomancers in the city. The idea of having Tethis’ body dumped into the ocean, to be fed on by the fishes? It was hideous enough to make the idea of sending her home impossible. At least, until the war was over.

And Liam could put a bullet in Fizit’s head.

“It could have been anyone,” Meg had said.

“It was her,” Liam had said, quietly. “She’s their spymaster. I want her dead, Meg. Put the word out.” He had paused. “Do you have to go?”

“Now more than ever.”

Meg had left for the valkyrie village three days ago. The word was that the entire Aesir kingdom was under Sysminor’s effective control. The conquest of every coastal town had stopped trade to the larger cities inland. Strike forces of lizardfolk mages had attacked irrigation and left ruin and confusion in their wake. It didn’t take many mages to bring down torrential flooding and to blast apart aqueducts with lightning and fire.

The huscrals who had gone to Sysminor’s side had completed what Brax’s modern tactics had started. They ringed the remaining free cities, keeping them locked down.

And now, a vast storm front covered the entire coastline. The clouds blocked any movement of ships or armies from Babylon, and rendered their ability to send signals via their lighthouse utterly irrelevant. For the moment.

Liam came to his office and to the paperwork that waited for him there.

The scribes that Tethis had picked and trained were good at their jobs. Unfortunately, that just meant there was no let up in the paperwork. Liam shook his head, walked behind his desk and sat down. He started to read reports. Food supplies were remaining level. Tax income had stabilized. The fresh security measures at the dock had produced some complaints. He frowned, a tiny throb starting behind one temple.

Tethis is dead, he thought.

He set down his papers.

The crackle of gunfire filled the air.

Liam breathed out again. It was like a release valve. Hearing that – and imagining lines of lizardmen collapsing under the fury of smoke and lead - he grinned fiercely.

A knock came at the door.

“Come in,” Liam said.

Mary stepped into the room. “I came here to ask if you wanted to come and pray with me tonight,” she said. “I’m holding a vigil for the dead in the Aesir kingdom, and for our fortunes.”

Liam shook his head. He looked down at the papers.

Tethis is dead.

The crackle of gunfire. It was more steady this time. They were getting better with each repetition.

“No,” he said, quietly. “I have work to do. There’s a whole lot of sulfur that has to come from somewhere. And Ra-” He tapped a scroll of papyrus. “Said that the Pesedjeti are sending an emissary, to discuss reparations for the battle a few months ago. I need to get ready-”

“Liam, you’ve been working yourself ragged ever since you got this position,” Mary said, her voice firm.

Liam didn’t look up from his paperwork. He could hear her tail lashing from side to side.

“Work has to get done,” he said.

“You have aides. A whole council, in fact. Damnation, the world – the war – won’t end if you take more than an hour to grieve,” Mary said, her voice flashing with anger. Liam looked up at her. She glared at him. “I may not have known you for a year. But maybe that helps.” She shook her head. “Maybe the fact that I’m not a Hellenic mercenary helps too. I’ve seen how you look at the training grounds.”

“Hierophant, I think that it is time for you to leave,” Liam said, trying to sound serious. He felt rage start to boil under his belly. His throat felt tight. Mary pursed her black lips.

“Liam, it is not Christian-”

“It’s not?” He sprang to his feet. “Tell me what’s not fucking Christian about punishing evil people? What’s not Christian about killing those who threaten those I swore to protect?”

Mary shook her head. Her voice was bitter. “So. You’re just like the rest, aren’t you?”

Liam blinked. He felt as if he had been slapped and he didn’t quite know why. Then Mary laid down the words – each one brutal.

“You told me of your church. Of the councils that said who could be priests and what form Jesus and the Trinity took,” she said, sneering. Her one exposed fang glinted in the sunlight shining through the window. “You told me of the splits, the divisions, the killing. The crusades. And you said that it wasn’t Christian. That that was the divinity of the church being dragged into the mud. What are you doing here, wearing that?” She pointed at his chest. At his crucifix.

Liam looked down. His eyes screwed shut. He squeezed the crucifix. His first had been given to him by his father. It was gone, consumed to save their lives, in a spell cast by Tethis. It had been replaced by Mary. And now, it felt like she was taking it right back.

“It’s my fault,” he whispered.

Mary drew her finger back. Her tail had stilled.

“It’s not your fault,” Mary whispered.

“Neb Mataare, a Chosen of Anubis, once demonstrated a truth telling on me,” Liam said, his voice ragged. “A magical spell that can tell if someone is lying, if they mean someone harm. I worked out the mechanics with Tethis, you know?” He shook his head. “And I shot down the idea of putting up that kind of screening because I’m a self-righteous prat.” He sat down at his desk, his hand over his face. Tears dropped off his chin. “Liberty before tyranny. Give me freedom or give me fucking death.”

Mary didn’t move.

Liam slammed his fist into the armrest of his chair. “And now, Tethis is dead, and I could have stopped them, but I didn’t want to do something that is the most weaksauce fucking evil in the world. A security check in a port?” He shook his head, laughing. There was no humor in his face. “Jesus Christ, imagine how many smugglers we’d catch with that alone. But no, no, I had to be a bleeding heart liberal social justice fuckwit and let a few goddamn assassins into my city.”

Mary shook her head slowly. “They’d have found another way.”

“Would they?” Liam asked, his voice tight. “I fucking doubt it. What’d they do? Climb the walls? Those are patrolled. Hide in a cargo container? We could have searched those-”

He stopped himself.

Mary shook her head again and walked around the table. Her hand rested on his shoulder. “I don’t know what the right decision is,” she said. “Priests aren’t here to tell you what to do. Not good ones, at least,” she added as Liam shot her a look.

Her fingertips touching him created warmth that rushed through Liam, reminding him acutely that Meg had been out of town for three days. Which sounded like it should have been a sarcastic thought.

But it wasn’t.

“What we are here for is trying to help you know how to make the right decision,” Mary said. She pushed on Liam’s shoulders, spinning his chair. She smiled down at him. At that moment - her hair framed by the warm light from the window and her ruby red skin glowing with the refracted sun - she had never looked quite so beautiful.

“How?” Liam asked.

“Well,” Mary said. “The teaching I think you need to remember is this: for we have sinned and we have all fallen short from the glory of God and her Mother.”

Liam smiled slowly. “We’re all fucked?”

“We all fuck up,” Mary said.

Hearing such blunt words from the lilin nun made Liam double take.

Mary smirked at him. “And thus, all are justified freely by Mary’s grace to redeem themselves and the world, as Jesus and the Holy Spirit did.”

Liam shook his head. “Your bible’s really different from my bible.”

“But the meaning is the same. If you fucked up? You fucked up. Fix it.” She frowned. “Don’t make another mistake on that mistake, fix it.”

Liam closed his eyes, leaning his head forward. He rested against her, feeling a tightness across his shoulders fade away. Being near her made his head spin slightly but he remained focused. Fuck up? Fix it. But don’t make a new mistake. He sighed, quietly.

“We need to win the war,” he said.“And we need to win the peace.” He drew his head back. “The problem isn’t security checks.”

Mary nodded down to him.

Liam bit his lip. His hand found and squeezed Mary’s hand. She smiled down at him. Liam looked to the side, still thinking. His thoughts skittered away from Tethis and security checks. Think bigger. Don’t just make a new mistake. He visualized Purgatory, and visualized the locations of the Aesir and their cities. He could see them as if they were on a map floating before him.

The cloud bank.

The coast, covered.

The destruction of irrigation in the Aesir interior.

“He’s going to attack Olimurias,” he said, quietly.

Mary frowned.

Liam looked up at her. “Take Wotan, box in the cities. Where does he go now? North? To the Pesedjeti cities along the Barrier mountains? South? To the Hellenic league?” he shook his head. “No. Take Olimurias and you have the smartest people in Purgatory.” He stood, his hands squeezing Mary’s other hands. “And that’s where we can end this.”

Mary nodded.

“And if we can end this, then...” he sighed. “Then we can fix it.”

In the silence that stretched between them, there was a crackle of gunfire. And for the first time since Tethis’ death, Liam didn’t smile at the sound of it. He was too busy realizing just how close he was standing to Mary. The red-skinned girl was so beautiful. Touching her made Liam’s skin feel warmer and warmer. She breathed in, and that tiny motion drew his attention to the tight straps of her nun’s outfit, firm across her breasts.

He had seen those breasts being squeezed and cupped by scaled hands.

He had seen those black lips, fastened around red lizard-cock.

He had seen her sex, spreading and wanting and eager.

“Liam...” Mary whispered.

Liam leaned in.

“W-We...”

The door to the room banged open.

“Sir, sir, I was going through Tethis’ papers and-”

Vani stopped as she looked at Mary and Liam. Mary was standing by the window, looking out of it, seeming to be quite fascinated with the bustling city of Babylon. Liam, meanwhile, was at his desk, scribbling notes on a piece of paper. Vani blinked slightly, then shook herself. She walked forward.

“-and I’ve been, ah, deciphering her notes.”

“Yes?” Liam asked. Vani seemed relieved as she looked into his eyes. Liam wondered how terrifying he had looked over the past few days. He put that thought aside as Vani set a piece of paper down. She had filled it with diagrams in her own hand.

“Tethis was working on several spells. Uh, not just ways to use hardened crystal, but some healing spells that I can’t make heads nor tails of. But this?” She tapped. “She was studying teleport shrines.”

“Well, I knew that,” Liam said, his brow furrowing confusion.

“No,” Vani said, her eyes glinting. “That’s just it. She knew how to operate them.”

Liam blinked.

Then it clicked.

“Oh son of a bitch,” he whispered.

“What?” Mary asked.

“Vani, I want you to tell every scribe to start rooting through the city. I need every adventurer's journal, every record of archaeological expeditions, every piece of scholarly research we have on the shrines of the Ancients.” He tapped at the desk. “And I need you to get every wizard we have who isn’t going with the army to research how to replicate what Tethis did.”

Vani whistled slowly. “I’m just an alchemist, so I’m no specialist. But...” She shook her head. “It’s possible that we might not crack this. According to her journal, she never managed to teach anyone else.”

“She was one of a kind,” Liam said. “But if she can do it, you can.”

“Well, uh, again, just an alchemist-”

“Someone can!” Liam shook his head, laughing. It was a brittle laugh. But it was still a laugh. “Get to work, Vani.” He turned to Mary. “Mary, I’m going to need you to ride herd here. The Cross Guard are heading for Olimurias.”

“What about Meg?”

“The valks?” Liam shook his head. “If they come, send them to Olimurias. If they don’t, then...” he paused. “Tell Meg that I didn’t have a choice.”

***

Meg’s wings ached but it was the pleasant ache that came from a good afternoon of flying. Part of her was irritated, though. She hadn’t been flying enough recently. Short hops and combat was one thing, but endurance flying took regular practice. She beat her wings again, then snapped them out and caught a thermal as she looked down over the jungles.

It had taken her three days to cross the Basilisk Desert, stopping at oases that were easy to spot from the air. She had hunted with a sling and slept at night after jilling herself to sleep.

She couldn’t help it.

She missed Liam so fucking much, it was like a physical pain.

She knew he missed her the same way. But Liam could, at the very least, distract himself. There were enough fine ladies in the palace and Babylon for him to forget her. Well, not forget her. Miss her less. Meg snapped her teeth, as if she were a bird with a beak.

That didn’t help the fact she’d miss it. There was nothing quite like that exquisite moment of seeing another woman’s eyes light up when they saw him taking off his kilt. It let her re-live her moment of meeting Liam.

The moment, well…

Her life actually started.

No, that was fucking stupid. She shook her head.

Then, suddenly, her eyes narrowed and she focused in on a tiny glint of white. It was one of the valkyrie markers, designed to be easily spotted from the air but entirely unintelligible to groundlings. She beat her wings and followed the direction, swooping down, then banking to a stop.

She had landed before an open clearing.

Standing there were the valkyrie. There were easily five hundred of them. They went without bronze armor or weapons. Lumps of crystal knapped into swords, chunks worked into wooden branches to make axes. Maces of stone. Most, though, looked deadly enough with their bare hands and their slings.

Meg smiled. It felt good to be around so many of her own people – even if the sneering condescension would…

The valk leader – a tall, blond  fellow – stepped to the side. A familiar tall, blond fellow. But before Meg could think about that, she noticed who was behind him.

Meg’s wings flared and she tensed to leap.

Nulldarts thudded into her chest and she stumbled backwards.

Fizit smirked as she stood over her.

“Teleport shrines are really useful, you know,” she said, her clawed foot resting on Meg’s throat.

***

Vulkis rapped his knuckles on the wall leading into the hospital ward.

“Come in!”

The voice sounded faintly familiar. Vulkis’ brow furrowed as he stepped around the doorframe.

Neb Mataare smiled at him as her glowing palm drew away from Eerika’s shoulder. The Aesir woman looked, as she always did, mildly pissed off. But the arrow had been barbed, and the time it took to limp back to port had allowed infection to sink in. The other crew who had been injured were in similar states, and this – plus the need to repair the ships – had kept Vulkis in Olimurias longer than he wanted.

There were merchants to raid, enemies to sink…

Women to woo.

That’s just because you’re looking at Neb, Vulkis chided himself.

Liam had told stories of Neb but those stories didn’t hold a candle to the reality. She was a curvy woman, with full, out-thrust breasts and a large bushy tail, which complimented her heart-shaped rump perfectly. Her muzzle was long and dainty, and her ears came to two narrow tips, both of them perked up as she looked at Vulkis. Being Chosen by Anubis meant that she had taken after the Pesedjeti god of death.

Vulkis wondered how the Coptic dead got any rest if they shared an afterlife with people like her.

“Vulkis Shieldbreaker, yes?” she asked, her voice delicate and educated sounding. She reached up to adjust the strange pair of glass rectangles contained in a wooden frame that rested on her snout. Vulkis had never seen such a device before and he wondered what they were for.

“Yes!” Vulkis puffed up his chest, then bowed low. “And you must be Neb Mataare. The tales of your beauty barely do it justice.”

“Ugh, shoot me again,” Eerika groaned.

“You should be able to get up and leave in a few hours,” Neb said. “Just let the healing magic burn the last of the blood fever from you.” She shook her head, then looked back at Vulkis. Her eyes darted over his body. She looked curious. “You are the one who has been hitting back against those horrible lizardmen?”

“I did lead the flotilla, yes,” Vulkis said, smiling.

“How can I ever thank you?” Neb asked, her ears twitching. “I heard what those things did to Odin and Thor – the idea is just...” She shook her head. “And poor Sif!”

Vulkis paused. “Well, I can think of but one way a woman like you can thank me-”

“Oh, uh, I... actually...” Neb stammered.

“Allow me to take you to dinner,” Vulkis continued hurriedly.

“Love getting dominated, so, uh, you can order me to do anything,” Neb finished at the same time.

Vulkis blinked. “What?”

“I didn’t-” Neb squeaked, her muzzle fur not hiding the shining redness of her blush. “Dinner sounds nice!”

Vulkis smirked. “Flash me your titties,” he said, using the same tone of voice he used while commanding a ship. A voice that left no room for doubt there. The blush went from red to incandescent. He was honestly shocked that she wasn’t on fire. Then, slowly, Neb reached up, took hold of her robes, and opened them, revealing the soft fur of her breasts and her hard, black nipples. Then, squeaking, she jerked her robes shut as a pair of priests walked past, heading to another healing.

Vulkis nodded. “Your place or mine?”

“Just go before I kill myself,” Eerika shouted.

“My place, uh, is yours,” Neb whispered and the two of them hurried out into the streets.

Neb’s robes hit the floor the instant she was in her home. Vulkis’ palm came slapping down onto her ass, making her moan and lean forward, her paws pressing to the wall. His fingers sunk into the flesh of her rump as he leaned forward, purring in her ear. “I am going to ravage this ass.”

“G-Good,” Neb whispered. “So, um, there’s a lesson. A word! I mean, uh, a safe word.”

Vulkis’ brow furrowed. “Magic?”

Neb stepped away from him, turning. Her arms crossed under her breasts, shelving them as she explained, “Well, uh, it’s a word we share. Um, so, I can... say... no. And you can know I don’t mean no. I mean yes, but I’m saying no.”

Vulkis’ brow furrowed further as he worked his way through that. Then, laughing, said, “That’s clever. You’re a smart little puppy, aren’t you?”

Neb’s ears flicked up and she smiled. “You can call me a bitch, you know?”

Vulkis grinned and stepped forward. “All right. Bitch.” He weighted the word with a purring scorn that made Neb squirm as she stepped away from him and into the wall, her tail slapping against the wall. “What’s the safe word?”

Neb whimpered. “Seshat?”

“Sounds good,” Vulkis said. “Now, bitch, why don’t you get on your knees and open that slutty little mouth of yours and get ready for your savior’s cock.”

Neb moaned as she slowly lowered herself to her knees, her mouth opening. Her tongue lolled out and Vulkis slipped his leggings down, his achingly hard cock springing free. He rubbed the tip along Neb’s tongue and smirked ever so slightly.

Funny, what makes the difference to history.

What makes the difference to the world.

Vulkis cock slipped to the hilt into Neb’s muzzle. Her throat convulsed around his dick and her tongue swirled around and around his shaft. Neb had planned to visit the library of Brigid after healing the sailors. Instead, she was here, giving head. Vulkis had planned to visit his ships in drydock. Instead, he was throat fucking an eager slut.

And neither of them were outside when the flash struck.

Instead, the flash shone through a window and turned the room pale white, draining color from everything. Vulkis jerked backwards, his cock popping out of Neb’s mouth as she whipped her head around to look at the window as well. The two of them froze as a resounding boom filled the air. The walls rattled and the ground trembled and Vulkis threw himself atop the naked jackalgirl.The ceiling shook and plaster fell on them in a pattering rain. Screams were ringing out, alongside shocked, confused shouts.

“What was that?” Neb gasped.

Vulkis, his hands on his pants, yanked them up. “Nothing good.”

He opened the door. Olimurias looked mostly intact, though clouds of smoke wreathed the lower levels of the tiered city. It looked like the poorer buildings, constructed from shabbier materials, hadn’t weathered the flash as well. But the buildings in this section of the city were only showing some cracks.

But then Neb cried out. “No!”

Vulkis turned and saw that citadel in the center of the city – the home of Brigid and her library – had been struck with the razor precision of an assassin. If the assassin had been the size of a giant. A smoking hole, roughly the size of a small house, had been punched into the upper levels. Fires burned inside of the stone fortress, the wooden interior catching. Hell, even some of the stones were on fire.

“He hit Brigid,” Vulkis whispered.

“She might have-” Neb started.

“He hit the whole damn council!” Vulkis snarled.

Vulkis shook his head. He saw some guards standing about, looking confused. Vulkis breathed in. He breathed out. Thu, bless his officious little heart, had made sure to get him a fine sash. He might not be an official admiral, but he had a fine blue silk sash and he could look good in it. Vulkis squared his shoulders.

“You!” he bellowed to the guards, using his best commander’s voice. “Get more of the guard together-”

“We need to help Brigid!” the guard said, sounding panicky.

“No!” Vulkis pointed to the dock. “There’s a storm coming, men. Brax the Golden is coming! Do you want to be the third notch on his belt? No? Get your fellows and send them out to every guard house and get them to the dock!”

Vulkis turned to go – he had to get his men ready.

Neb hurried after him.

“Neb?” he asked.

“You’re going to need me,” she said, her voice tight.

Vulkis paused. He looked her up and down.

Neb looked down at her naked body.

She squeaked – and then stood straighter and kept walking, her cheeks bright red. “No time!”

Vulkis shrugged.

Then together, they started running.

The clouds that had shrouded the horizon were breaking apart, now that the strike had come. Dozens of Aesir ships, their flags replaced by the pennants of Sysminor, were advancing to the sound of drums.

***

“What was that?” Liam asked, his hands rubbing his ears.

“An attack,” Laurentinus said, frowning.

The two of them stood on the prow of one of the merchant ships that the Cross Guard had hired. The rest of the Guard – those who had been ready to go – were on the deck. Their muskets were in their hands, and their eyes were serious. The ranks had swelled since the Battle of Borin the Black. Now, rather than a motley collection of mercenaries and guards, they included people who had been civilians before. Men and women, who had joined.

Not because they worshiped the Cross.

But because they heard the motto of the Cross Guard, and they were willing to die for it.

E Pluribus Unum.

From many, one.

“What kind of attack? That’s what I need to know,” Liam said, shaking his head.

“I can answer that!” Vani said, her voice tight.

The alchemist had come with for the simple reason that they needed every mage they had. But now, she was holding one of the many new inventions that Liam’s arrival to Purgatory had brought. Telescopes were hideously expensive, and kind of crappy.

But a crappy telescope was a lot better than no telescope.

Vani lowered the telescope. “The clouds? They weren’t just a cover.”

“What were they?” Laurentinus asked.

“They were a means of power generation. I don’t know how, I’m not a weather wizard. But the end result is obvious. The clouds created a... a...” She snapped her finger.

“A charge?” Liam suggest. Then he saw it. “And then they channeled the charge via sympathetic magic.”

“Likely? Salt water,” Vani said. “If they’re sea storms, then they’d be linked to the sea. So, they channeled the charge of a coast covering storm into a single lightning bolt. That, by the way, is probably why the clouds are clearing.”

Liam held out his hand and took the telescope and put it to his eyes. Smudged and warped the image might be, but he could see the hole in the tower. His heart twinged at the thought of fire rushing through that library. And then he realized the impact had been too high.

Or just right, if you didn’t want to damage the books.

Liam swung the telescope around.

Brax’s fleet was entering into the docks.

Liam lowered the telescope. “Ready the rowers.”

***

Brax stood on the prow of his ship. He held a small spherical crystal to his eye, then lowered it.

“Sysminor spoils me,” he said, then lowered his arm to his side. The bitterness in his voice made Liv shake her head.

“Don’t throw it overboard.”

A splashing noise drew Liv’s attention. A scaled hand had grabbed onto the side of Brax’s ship and dragged herself up. She was one of the wizards who had helped to take down Odin. Liv thought her name was Zickzbit. She dripped with water, and the glowing runes around her throat flickered for a few moments. She held her breath. Then the runes faded and she hacked up what looked like two lungfuls of ocean water. Which, to be fair, it probably was.

“Did we hit?” Zickzbit asked.

Brax nodded. “You hit.”

The other wizards – each with the same spell – were scrambling aboard the boat. Anix – looking quite pleased with his position as signaler – lifted up a set of red flags, waving them over his head. Being the taller of the two of Brax’s bodyguards, he was an obvious choice for signaler. Vazt was also looking rather fine with staying back as well.

Liv wondered at a warrior that didn’t want to be in the thick of things but she supposed that being vulnerable to cutting weapons had its downside.

The ships that saw the signal started to row forward. The huscrals on the back set up a series of horn calls. The horns weren’t just to intimidate the defenders on the pier, though.

Liv could see the darting shapes of lizardfolk in the water. They might need magic to breathe underwater, but they didn’t need magic to move like lightning there.

Not the best metaphor at this time, Liv thought.

The defenders, though, had reacted faster than she expected. Guards in Olimurias armor were blocking off the ramps that led from the pier to the city. Archers started to stand on rooftops. Arrows started to fill the air. They rained down on the surface ships. Liv wondered at the huscrals who lifted their shields and warded off the arrows.

How many were just here because they had longed to attack Olimurias, but were kept at bay by Odin’s own wisdom?

How many were just here because they were terrified that Odin’s corpse would join Balder’s?

The lizardfolk were under the piers.

The huscrals reached the docks. They charged off their boats and into furious fire from the rooftops. Their shields stopped most of the arrows, but as they marched to the ramps, the heavy infantry left behind bleeding, groaning figures who sprouted arrows like merry flags.

Brax nodded to the wizards.

Zickzbit led them. She held her hands up as the other lizardfolk pressed their hands to her shoulders. They created a kind of arrowhead formation, with two lizardfolk touching Zickzbit and four touching them. Zickzbit’s hands touched together, then spread wide. As they spread, a geometric pattern flared to life between her fingertips. She trembled as the pattern flared brighter and brighter and brighter. Several white dots appeared between her fingers.

The darts flew into the air, then arced upwards. Unerringly, they fell among the archers.

Olimurias’ defenders fell by the dozen as each lizardfolk wizard sagged. They looked tired but, despite that, they started to gather energy again.

Brax watched, his face unreadable.

The lizardmen under the pier were gone.

***

Vulkis hurled a javelin. It found its mark, slipping between the shields raised over the huscral’s heads. An enemy fell. He felt good about this fight so far. The line of guards had met the enemy’s advance. There was less of them, yes. But they had the high ground, and the huscrals were trying to force their way through their lines while archers rained fire down on them. The back ranks of the huscrals might have shields up, interlocking them as best they could, but there were enough chinks that he could worry away at them.

“Come on men, we have them!” he shouted.

Then the archer standing beside him dropped to the ground, her head nothing but a smoking stump.

Vulkis’ eyes widened and he looked around. Dozens of other archers were downed as well, their heads missing as if they had never been there. Neb cried out in shock. He looked back at her. The huscrals had been throwing and shooting back as best as they could, and several of the archers had been wounded. She had been working at healing them, her nudity entirely forgotten. But she pointed at the harbor.

“It came from there!”

“Can you stop it!?” Vulkis asked. He didn’t know how magic worked.

“I can try,” Neb said, rubbing her paws together as she stood. She closed her eyes, starting to focus. Vulkis saw that the boat that held Brax the Golden was glowing. This time, he saw the darts flying up into the air. They rushed forward, all of them angling towards one location. Vulkis saw what it was and charged.

He caught Neb in the shoulder.

They fell off the roof and onto the hard paving stones below. Something snapped and Neb screamed in pain. The darts, trying to draw a straight line between their point of origin and her, slammed into the roof of the house like a rain of arrows. The roof powdered, splintered, and then the wall above Vulkis’ head bulged outwards as the bolts struck it.

And stopped.

“I broke my arm,” Neb gasped. “Oh gods, I broke my arm.”

“In war,” Vulkis said, “That’s a better alternative. Can you fix it?”

Neb nodded, whimpering.

Vulkis bellowed. “Archers! Off the roof! Off the roof!”

The surviving archers scrambled off the roofs. And a bellow of joy came from one of the ramps. He saw several Olimurias guards fleeing, and huscrals starting forward, their axes and swords raised. A guard was cut down from behind. The line he stood before wavered.

Neb hissed out words in a language Vulkis didn’t speak. Her paw lifted and a glowing darkness – tinged and tinted with gold – flared around her paw and fingertips. The darkness flew out and fell onto the huscrals. Panting, she sagged. “Disorientation – doesn’t last long.”

Vulkis bellowed the order.

“Fall back! Fall back!”

***

Liam grinned.

Fiercely.

“Smile, you son of a bitch,” he hissed.

The remaining Aesir ships that Brax had kept in the harbor were swinging around. But his ships had come around the corner of the island in a ragged, but roughly well kept line. And the Cross Guard stood in ranked files, one line kneeling, the other standing. When you had almost two hundred muskets, you really didn’t need to aim.

“Fire!” The voice came from dozens of non-commissioned officers. A concept Purgatory had had for centuries, but one that Liam had made sure his army understood and adopted with zeal. They were, after all, worth their weight in gold.

If you were a really bad haggler.

Smoke wreathed the ships, drifting away. They couldn’t use rowers, as they had the Guard kneeling in their places to give them their broadside. But the sails caught the prevailing wind and pushed the smoke away, revealing…

Well…

Modern bullets were actually quite a bit smaller than primitive ones. Smaller, more aerodynamic, and designed to spin. They tended to produce smaller entrance wounds – though their exit wounds could be quite hideous. But there was nothing quite as horrifying as a massive chunk of lead, accelerated to supersonic speed.

And Liam had the technical proficiency to make it even worse.

Babylon might not have been able to make cartridge bullets.

Minié balls, though?

Those weren’t that much harder. Especially if you had a book on the weapons of the Civil War in your iPod library.

The crews of the ships they had passed lay in twitching masses of butchered meat. Limbs had been blown almost entirely off. Heads were missing. Guts were ripped out. A scant few of the surviving Aesir turncoats were untouched or only lightly wounded. And the ships hadn’t been fared much better. Designed to be light and mobile, the ships that Brax had left to cover his rear were archery ships. Their wooden sides had been perforated just as easily as human flesh.

They weren’t sinking, but they were definitely listing.

The call for reloads started to fill the air.

And cheering came from the city.

***

Vulkis panted, his shield in arm, his body aching from dozens of minor impacts. He was sure that he was bleeding elsewhere, but adrenaline burned through his body. He wasn’t sure where Neb was. Somewhere behind the line. But the fighting still had lines. And that was something. The guard had fallen back to a second line of defense, and the Aesir attackers hadn’t managed to break through their lines. Several battles were going on in nearby alleyways – the lines breaking down into skirmishes.

But they had also gotten reinforcements.

Vulkis stood shoulder to shoulder with two toughs from a local tavern. Their scarred bodies and tattooed skin left no doubt as to their nominal profession. But they had gotten armed and they stood with the guardsmen, shouting out obscenities at the huscrals – who had drawn back from being in full contact and were hurling their thrown weapons at the group.

Here, the little things made the difference.

For one thing, the Olimurias guard used kite shaped shields. The interlocking protection left less chinks.

For another, the archers – remaining out of view of the harbor – were sending arcing fire into the huscrals, preventing the rear ranks from adding to their volleys. Enemy mage-fire stayed at a distance.

“What was that?” one of the toughs beside Vulkis asked.

Vulkis’ eyes widened. That rattling sound, that curious series of echoing booms. He looked past the huscrals and saw the harbor. There, he saw ships, wreathed in smoke. And flying high and proud above their sails, were long streaming pennants. Each one bearing the red cross.

“The Cross Guard!” Vulkis shouted. “The Cross Guard!”

The tale of the Cross Guard and their breaking of Borin the Black had spread through Purgatory like wildfire. The sight of those smoke wreathed ships, sailing past crippled Aesir vessels?

It made those tales seem like a pathetic prologue.

Even the huscral enemies seemed awed.

Vulkis calculated.

Gambled.

“Charge!” he shouted, waving his sword.

The guard rushed forward. Shields at the ready, weapons hefted up. The two armies smashed together with a resounding thunderclap. Huscrals were bowled over, trampled. Shields splintered. Heads were split. Vulkis hewed down a man with his sword, and felt it bend slightly. He didn’t care. The huscrals were trembling. Wavering.

“For Sysminor! For Brax!”

The bellow – issuing from dozens of throats and backed by the roaring sound of dozens more – came from a place that made Vulkis’ knees turn to water.

They came from behind him.

He turned despite himself.

The streets behind them were filling with lizardfolk. They were smeared with grime and more of them than he thought possible were emerging from the sewer gratings. They came out, formed, charged. They charged in waves, their spears and shields clattering. They didn’t just smash home, though. They leaped and brought their weapons plunging down into unprotected shoulders and into helmets. They brought men and women down with their sheer weight.

Vulkis brought his shield up just in time to deflect a bronze speartip. The lizardwoman facing him didn’t mind. The impact jarred his arm and then her head met his and his head lost.

Vulkis hit the ground – everything becoming swallowed in blackness.

***

“Bring us around!” Liam shouted as arrows rained down. The surviving Aesir ships were just out of range and their arrows hummed as they thudded into the arrow shields that the Cross Guard had dragged up hastily. Some overshot. Some fell between the gaps and might hit someone. But most of the Cross Guard were safe.

The sails creaked, and the oars that they could use scooped at the water.

Laurentinus risked a look. He ducked down. “We’re close!”

“Wait for it-” Liam said, holding up his hand. He waited. Then he dropped his hand. “Now!”

The shields dropped right as the incoming arrows slackened. Then the merciless broadsides came. Musketry filled the air with smoke and fire. But when the smoke cleared, this time, there were far fewer corpses on the enemy ships. Dozens of Aesir were starting to scramble to their feet from the cover they had taken.

They learned fast.

Fortunately, so did Liam.

“Ranks B, fire!” The sergeants bellowed.

Those who hadn’t fired opened up. The Aesir were consumed in smoke and Liam tried to not feel sick at the wet, meat slap of the bullets striking home. Part of him though, felt that sickness, and knew a moment of relief. He didn’t think he’d be human if he hadn’t felt sick.

As the smoke cleared, he saw that Brax’s ship was open, defended only by a pair of longships holding lizardfolk. Brax’s ship had turned, though.

Kneeling beside him, dressed in a thin slip and a loincloth, was Liv. She looked as beautiful as the last time Liam had seen her. Her blue hair had grown out in a wild corona. But he saw something more. Her hand was on Brax’s thigh, and he could almost see the connection.

He felt something inside of him twist.

He tried, desperately, to not descend into a blind fury. Something on his face must have shown. Liv glared right back at him.

Well, a distant, sardonic part of him said. At least she’s got the strength of her convictions.

In the distance, he saw lizardfolk and huscrals advancing towards the palace. Olimurias was taken. He stood there – not knowing if he should press the advantage or if he should retreat. Could two hundred barely trained musketeers do anything in the face of that?

“Liam!”

The scream didn’t come from one of his officers.

It was Vani.

He turned and saw what she was pointing at.

Liam’s heart sang.

Winging through the air were valkyrie. Hundreds of them. They were arrayed in a series of V formations, their wings beating in pattern, like migratory birds. They held javelins and slings, and the sun was shining behind them It was like an army of angels. He closed his eyes for a moment, thanking God. But more, he thanked Meg.

She had done it.

When he opened his eyes, he nodded to Laurentinus. “Wave the flag,” he said. “Indicate they should come down here.”

“Looks like they are,” Laurentinus said, grinning and looking relieved.

The valkyrie stooped and dove.

They weren’t slowing down.

Liam’s brow furrowed.

The javelin that struck his chest drove the breath from him. He staggered and fell as more wood and stone javelins plunged down. They sprouted from the backs and shoulders and heads and faces of the Cross Guard. Screams followed: screams of shock, screams of anger, screams of confusion. Liam blinked, then groaned as he grabbed the javelin.

It had already fallen to the side, leaving a hideous dent in his bronze breastplate. The metal had bent inward enough to leave a dent and he knew something was broken.

No time.

The valkyrie had finished the pass and were soaring to the sky, wheeling around.

Laurentinus was face down on the deck, two javelins sticking from his back.

The Guard looked as ragged as a sail that had weathered buckshot.

“They’re coming around again!” someone shouted.

“Steady!” one of the sergeants said, her voice as calm and steady as if this kind of thing happened every day.

Worth their weight in gold, Liam thought, his head dazed. His brain felt as if it had been rung like a bell. He staggered to his feet and bellowed. “Guns up. Do not fire until I give the order!”

The valkyrie swept down, rushing faster and faster. Liam waited.

“Fire!”

Smoke filled the air. A valkyrie plowed right into the center of the ship with a resounding crunch. Others smashed into the water. But many didn’t. Their javelins plunged home. The smoke, or the musketry, or both had thrown a lot of their aim off. As they winged away, Liam closed his eyes.

And gave the last order he wanted to give.

“Retreat! Retreat!”

***

Liv trembled like a plucked violin string. She didn’t tear her eyes away from the ships flying the Cross Guard’s banner as they sailed desperately away, already starting to rise along the curve of Purgatory.

Quietly, she hissed. “If you killed Liam, I am going to fucking rip your balls off. With my teeth.”

Brax, his voice heavy, said: “I know.”

A rustle of wings sounded and a tall, broad-shouldered, valkyrie landed. He was muscular and looked dignified with age. His hair might have been starting to turn white, though that fact it was pure blond made it hard to tell. His eyes were crystal blue and glowed like Liam’s iPod. He was definitely one of the oldest valkyrie that Liv had ever seen. For one thing, she had never seen one with wrinkles before. They tended to die gloriously in combat before that happened.

Though, that might have just been the ones who spent time with non-valkyrie.

The valk leader walked forward to Brax, his eyes crinkling with a smile.

“A pleasure to meet you, General,” he said.

“The pleasure is mine,” Brax said. “Fizit told me your name was Skyheart of the Tribe of Olympus.”

“That it is,” Skyheart said. “And I must say, it is a good thing to finally meet the man who has returned my granddaughter to me.”

“Holy fucking what?” Liv asked, her eyes bugging almost out of her head.

Meg’s grandfather looked at her as if she was a bug.

“Ignore my slave,” Brax said, his voice firm. “I’ll punish her later.”

“Good,” Skyheart said, grinning. “Now. To the victors...”

He gestured to Olimurias. Smoke still rose from several points in the city.

“The spoils.”

Six

“Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won,” Liam muttered. He wondered what Lord Wellington would think of his first foray into the field of gunpowder warfare.

A rasping, wilting voice came from the cot beside him. “Nice... saying.”

Laurentinus had taken two javelins to the back. His spine had been clipped, his lung punctured, and if they had been in Babylon, he would have been hale and hearty again within the week. Less, depending on the skill of the healer. But the ships of the Cross Guard were still a few days from the port, and their healers were stressed to the limits.

The casualties hadn’t been as bad as Liam had feared. In the first few moments after the flank attack, he had been utterly sure he had lost at least half of his forces. But after the ships had started to row and sail away from Olimurias and the threat of another raking attack from the air had faded, people had been counted, bodies had been shrouded, and the total number had been less than a fifth.

That number hadn’t climbed, but if they didn’t reach Babylon soon, it would skyrocket.

Liam felt his stomach knot. How could he have been so stupid? Brax had already shown the ability to co-opt others into his banner. He’d proved that with the Aesir. And if the valkyrie tribes were as haughty and bigoted as Meg had implied, then would it really have been that hard to convince some that humans and elves and goblins were slightly worse than the lizardfolk?

But the question he didn’t have an answer to was, which tribe had turned on them?

Was Meg, even now, trying to argue the tribe near Babylon to turning wing to the Cross Guard’s banner?

Was she rotting in some jungle?

Another person he’d failed.

Liam rubbed his temple. For the moment, he’d have gladly sacrificed his faith and several of his surviving troops for the certainty of a video game. In a video game, the camera was located far away from the action. The fog of war existed, but it was smoothly pushed back by clever use of your resources. Enemies were turned into numbers. Possibilities were dropped into a manageable number of paths. They go high, you go low. They build defenses, you build offense.

It had as much to do with reality as the idea of running a city had to do with one.

Course, I managed to screw that one up too, he thought. I’m sure Babylon’s already descended into chaos.

“Liam,” Laurentinus voice dragged him from his thinking. He looked down at the goblin. Laurentinus looked as if someone had managed to drain all the green from him, leaving his face ashen gray. Only his size and his ears differentiated him from any other human suffering from a serious injury. His hand grabbed onto Liam’s wrist – despite the weakness brought from fever and blood loss, he remained remarkably strong. “Never. Let them. Think it.”

Liam sighed.

“Never,” Laurentinus hissed. “Troops can take a defeat. Not defeated.”

Then his eyes fluttered shut. Liam remained at his side for a few minutes, watching him breathe. He slowly parsed the words and understood. He straightened, drew up his shoulders, and started for the cabin door that led to the deck. He stepped out to look at the soldiers that were keeping watch. The sun was dark, and Olimurias sat between sky and ground. He could literally see the circular top of Brigid’s citadel.

A year and change on Purgatory had cured Liam of the crushing vertigo that normally came from looking up and seeing nothing but more ground.

“Sir,” one of the sergeants said. “The lookouts haven’t seen any valks flying  this way. I think we’re cl-”

Crunch!

The entire ship rocked to the left. Guards flailed their arms and several had to grab onto the railings to keep from pitching over. Liam looked around, his brow furrowing as he tried to make sense of the yelling and shouting from the guards. He could have sworn that one of them just said...

“We’ve been rammed by a fucking shark!”

Liam sprinted to the side of the ship.

Sharks in Purgatory weren’t exactly the same as sharks on Earth, but they were close enough that, when seen at a distance, they looked the same. This one, though, filled the water with red. It trashed and then swam off. Liam’s brow furrowed as one of the sergeants held up a mage-light. They had been expensive to make, but the merest idea of bringing torches aboard a ship filled with gunpowder had made the expense worth it.

The light turned the ocean waters into a mirror.

Then the mirror shattered as a glowing hand reached from the water, grabbed onto the planks of the ship. The wood crumpled under their strength. A moment later, a bow taller than Liam flew from the water and landed on the deck behind him – nearly braining several of his guardsmen. Then a dripping, bedraggled and utterly furious looking woman dragged herself onto the boat, hand over hand. Her bare feet slapped onto the deck and she stood there, panting, her eyes wild.

“So,” Artemis snarled. “I hear you’re in the lizard killing business. I’m in.”

Liam blinked.

Artemis reached down and undid a rope that wrapped around her hips. She untied it, tossed it to a flabbergasted guard, and then stalked past Liam. “Drag the flotsam on board.”

The guard leaped to it as Liam looked from Artemis to the rope. A few moments of dragging and hauling brought the thing the rope was tied to into the light of the boat: a plank of wood from one of the destroyed Aesir ships, bearing an extremely bedraggled looking Neb Mataare. The Chosen of Anubis – who Liam hadn’t seen for nearly a year – looked tired half unto death, her left arm lashed to her chest by a crude collection of soggy cloth. Her fur was soaked through and she was clutching to the plank with her free arm.

The crew got to work bringing her aboard. Liam turned to face Artemis, who was starting to restring her bow. If it had been damaged by a few days dunked in salt water, it didn’t show it. Artemis looked like she had been wounded a few dozen times and healed – tiny white scars lightened her bronzed flesh, while half of her scalp had been burned down to the roots, making her look almost like a punk rocker.

It suited Artemis.

Liam didn’t want to know what she had looked like before healing.

“What happened?” Liam asked.

“You were there, dickless,” Artemis said, scowling at him. “I saw you running away with your tail between your legs.”

“We’d been attacked in the flank,” Liam said, trying to sound calm. “Or did you want me to led my men off a cliff?”

Artemis scowled. “You sound like Athena.”

“Athena won you Troy,” Liam said.

Artemis opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked mulish. Then she shook her head. “Fine. I’ll listen to you. But if we’re not killing lizardmen by the end of the week, your head goes on the wall. I didn’t ride a shark here to work for a fucking pussy.”

And with that, she stomped to the captain’s cabin.

Liam rubbed his temple.

“Oh boy.”

***

Meg sat in the nullcage and glared at the wall.

In the cage right next to hers, a badly burned and bandaged Athena was left to her own devices. Meg wondered if they were going to heal the goddess of wisdom – but she doubted it.

The door to the dungeon opened and Meg sprang to her feet.

“Proudfeather,” Skyheart said, his arms spread wide. He spoke the name as if he was greeting a long lost relative. The fact he was didn’t phase Meg at all.

“Asshole,” Meg said, arms crossed over her chest. “Liam told me about people who do that kind of thing. He called it ‘deadnaming.’ Fuck off. Fuck you.”

Meg’s grandfather looked aggrieved. Meg didn’t particularly care.

Skyheart shook his head as he walked over to the nullcage, careful to avoid touching the sculpted crystal of the bar. Nulldarts had been a part of warfare between landlings and valks since the first  had been born. Shaped crystal could drain their power but Meg had never seen the same approach applied to a prison until now.

“Proudfeather,” he repeated.

“Meg,” she said, her voice faux sweet.

“Granddaughter,” Skyheart said. His lips were twisting down in a frown. “I came to see if you’d listen to reason. This landling boy you’ve cleaved to-”

“Oh, we’ve done much more than cleaved,” Meg said, grinning at her grandfather. “Heck, we did more than cleave when he didn’t even speak Greek. Though, technically, he still doesn’t speak Greek.” She rubbed her chin. “Meh. He doesn’t need to speak Greek to kick your ass.”

Her grandfather didn’t look amused. His wings rustled as he drew them taut against his back. It was an impressive trick, turning the feathered limbs into a kind of pseudo-cape. Meg had used it herself. Something that most landlings didn’t know, though? It took stretching the wing muscles and compacting your shoulder blades. It was as roughly as comfortable as compacting your knees into your chest. The instant you started, you started wanting to stretch your wings out.

“I’m sure he will, considering that’s three cities conquered by Brax the Golden and your, ah, landling associate-”

“Lover,” Meg said. “Fiance, actually.”

“What!?” Skyheart’s wings snapped out and spread wide.

Liam had called that movement of wings a ‘wing boner.’

Meg had no idea why.

“You cannot marry a landling,” Skyheart spluttered.

“Mom did,” Meg said, casually.

“I won’t allow it,” Skyheart snarled. “You-” He stopped himself. “Do you know a thing about this place that Liam comes from?” He gestured wide. “I do. Brax’s ambassador told me. Their god has observed their world for years. Decades. Your toy comes from a world that makes the barbarians that live in Purgatory look like utter saints. Wars fought by millions of men – with millions of the slain. Not merely warriors, but the humble peasants at home. Weapons that burn a fighter’s lungs out from inside out, or kill from miles away without discrimination, care or honor. Flying machines that drop explosives by the millions, turning entire cities into firestorms.” He shook his head. “And that’s just how they fight. Has your precious Liam told you about the death camps? The rooms that fill with poison, so that hundreds - thousands! -  could be slaughtered as quickly as possible?”

He walked closer to the cage, his voice dropping to a hiss. “The furnaces. For the dead. Visible from above the clouds. Has he told you about that?”

Meg looked right into his eyes, her arms crossed over her chest.

“The Shoah,” she said. “Or, in English...” She paused, working the word out carefully. “The Holo-caust.”

Skyheart looked uncertain.

“Of course Liam told me,” she said, her voice soft. “And he told me something you might not be able to see from above the clouds? The people who ran those death camps? Do you know why they did it?” She stepped up, feeling the buzz of the nullcage against her limbs and her skin. Her voice was as level as she could make it, despite the fact that, if her hands hadn’t been caught under her armpits, they would have shaken.

Skyheart’s wings mantled.

Meg barreled over him. “They killed people because they thought they were impure. Lesser. Sub-human. Because they were different.” She smirked. “It’s a good thing you’re blond, granddad. You’d have fit in with the SS pretty well. What was it? Landlings are barely alive? Landlings aren’t worth your time? Landlings are ugly? Stupid?” She sneered, then leaned forward. “They’ll never know the true world that we amazing and wonderful valkyrie dwell in?”

There, she delivered the twist of the knife.

“I never told Liam you even exist,” she hissed.

Meg turned her back to her grandfather, closing her wings around her shoulders.

Skyheart didn’t respond.

He just sighed and walked away.

“Seems we left at the right time...”

The dazed voice drew Meg’s attention. Looking over, she saw that Athena had opened one eye.

“Huh?” Meg asked.

Athena groaned, lifting her head. Pain wracked across her face and she shuddered as she leaned her head against the nullcage wall. “Gods. We left that planet at the right time. Sounds like it, at least.”

“Screw that!” Meg said. “You were banished right when things got interesting. You missed out on the internet and free porn. Give or take a millennium.”

Athena laughed. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan?” Meg put her palm on the cage. “Find a way to escape, challenge my grandfather to a duel, kill him, mount his head on my future home’s wall so he can be really infuriated at all the mind blowing sex Liam and I are having.”

“How savage...”

“Shut up,” Meg said, absently, chewing her lip. “Then win the war. Or maybe win the war before the head mounting thing, I’m improvising.”

***

Liv woke in darkness, aching as she missed something. Her hands reached out – and felt nothing but warm bed next to her. She sat up, blinking. The darkness of the room shifted and the door opened. A scabbard hit the bed next to her with a thump. Her eyes shifted to adapt to the light and she saw Brax looking down at her.

“It’s a blessed blade, made by Brigid herself,” he said, quietly. “Found it in the palace.”

Liv took the scabbard, then yanked it slightly out. She looked down at the pale sheen of the bronze. It reminded her of the same glow that Brigid had put on Liam’s longsword. She smirked and looked up at Brax.

“Thanks,” she said. “But I thought slaves weren’t allowed weapons.”

“You’re escaping tonight,” Brax said. “Sysminor, in his wisdom, has lumped the wounded Tuatha defenders and our Aesir huscrals together in the same hospital. He claims it is to make the healing more efficient, in truth, I don’t think he cares if they try to kill one another. It is a situation ripe for chaos and I intend to take advantage of this. I've made a deal with one of the Aesir. She is going to 'incapacitate' Anizt, then steal a touchkey while I am trying to convince the war council to not attack Babylon. You meet with her and the pair of you escape together.”

Liv’s fingers went to her slave collar. It hadn’t worked for months. Brax had offered her freedom but said that if she came with him, she’d get a chance to ruin her father’s plans. Thus far, she had done precious little.

Beyond fuck his brains out, part of her muttered.

Since thinking of that still made her cheeks burn and her body ache for round two, she squashed the thoughts in a box at the back of her brain. Brax hadn’t looked her in the eye since then, so she figured that someone as intelligent as him could be just as confused as a swordslinger like her.

There was no time for questions or goodbyes. Liv slid from her bed and simply nodded. “Got it. Plan?”

“Get to the Hellenic League and tell Zeus that Ares is a traitor,” Brax said. “And that my army is going to attack New Athens.” He sighed. “If Ares wasn’t behind sending Artemis on a diplomatic negotiation, then I’ll eat my tail.”

“That’s giving my dad a lot of credit for being clever,” Liv muttered as she strapped the scabbard to her hip. “So. That was the big plan? Use me as a messenger?”

Brax sighed. His head turned and he looked at the door, then back at her. For the first time in what felt like years but couldn’t have been more than weeks, he met her eyes. His voice was soft. “Liv, the truth is...” He grinned and for a moment, he looked like all the weight of the world had dropped from his shoulders. “Well, I don’t actually plan anything but battles. Everything else is just taking advantage of chaos and making sure useful people are on hand.” He paused. “And, I will admit, I have an eye for talent.”

Liv nodded. Fair enough.

“Now, I have to go and talk these people into not winning the war,” Brax said. “The gods save me from intelligent allies.”

Liv paused, then kissed his cheek. The kiss turned into something deeper as his muzzle and her lips connected. His tongue plunged into her throat, his hand reaching down. He squeezed her ass firmly, his claws denting her skin. Liv shivered and reveled in her invulnerability. She pressed to him, and felt him rise to the occasion. She knew she should draw back before-

Brax shoved her back, panting. “Go.”

Liv nodded, then started out to the door. The corridor beyond was sparsely populated and dimly lit.

She grinned.

Elves were born for situations like this.

***

Brax lounged back in his seat and watched as Skyheart pointed at a map of Babylon. Being the biggest city in Purgatory had advantages and disadvantages. The biggest being that anyone on any part of Purgatory with a high enough elevation could look outwards or upwards and see your city. Add valks to the equation, and maps were almost too easy.

“We teleport attack teams of valks and your elite lizardfolk here, here and here,” Skyheart said. “We take the gatehouses, we take the palace, and we have Vanderbilt hanging from a gibbet before the day is out.”

“Y-yes yes good good.” Sysminor took up half the room. The false god refused to ever be anything less than his full scale when in a group meeting. His crystalline bulk cast a pale blue glow over everything. The Aesir leaders who had bent the knee to him were clearly in awe. Even Skyheart seemed to be impressed. But Brax, through long association, felt only crushing cynicism.

“Very good,” Brax said. “If you want to have our armies arrive in many small pieces.”

Sysminor turned his rough hewn head to look at Brax. “Ex-Ex-Explain pain pain, explain this, Brax B-B-Braxsssss.”

Brax sighed. “We had Tethis killed because she was the foremost expert on teleport shrines. But we obviously didn’t move quickly enough. My spies...” He snapped his fingers. Fizit stepped up behind him and gave him a scroll. He unrolled it, tapping the Latin letters that sprawled across it. “They say that there are new crystal objects being used by several of the city guard at certain points. The port, especially.” He shook his head. “They don’t seem to do anything. But we know Tethis was working on something before her assassination. It’d take a fool to forget about teleport shrines.”

Skyheart frowned. “You think that they made a defense?”

“I would,” Brax said.

“But we have to take Babylon,” the valkyrie general said, his voice tight.

“Yes...” Sysminor rubbed a large hand against his chin. It sounded like two boulders being ground against one another. “But how how?”

“With those walls? We need more forces,” Brax said. “I’d hate to sacrifice our...allies.” He looked at the Aesir leaders. Strum Stormborn looked as sour as any viking ever born. His scarred face had a new marking – a mass of knitted flesh where a Minié ball had clipped his chin and blown half his jaw off. Without healers, he’d never have eaten again, let alone spoken. “To take those walls. And even my genius cannot overcome cannons with grapeshot and rifled muskets.”

Sysminor started to glow brighter blue. He slammed his fists into the ground and surged to his feet, stooping forward to not bash his head through the ceiling. He started to screech and howl – the rising and falling pattern of his voice causing everyone but Brax to bridle. Even Skyheart looked like he was having a hard time not clapping his hands over his ears.

“Damn damn damn dam-d-d-damnati-on-on!” Sysminor screeched. “I want Liam – Liam – dead! I want gun-gun-gun-”

Brax held up his hand. “My Lord God,” he said, trying to sound placating. “I have an alternative route. One that will get us not only an extra ten thousand men and women, easily, but will also bolster our navy enough to force the port even with cannons.” He smiled. “The Hellenic League. Fractured. Competing. Name a time in history where Hellenes aren’t trying to kill each other.” He waved his hand. “And more, we have Ares.”

“But that gives Vanderbilt time,” Skyheart muttered.

“Give him time,” Brax said, his voice soft, “And it will leave him alone. And no matter how many guns he has, no man can stand alone.”

The others looked thoughtful. Brax, though, only had eyes for Sysminor. He felt his scales tighten, his tail still. The false god looked as if he was caught between two states, his head buzzing between two nearly identical permutations. The end result was that he looked like his head was blurring into a haze. Then his head snapped to one position.

He nodded.

And that was that.

Liam had his time.

***

Vulkis groaned as he opened one eye. His head pounded like a drum. He felt queasy – even while laying down, he felt as if he was on the deck of a ship. That made him less hopeful than he would have hoped. He didn’t hear any waves, any calls of sea birds. No sound of crew. Instead, his ears were filled with the groans and coughs of the injured. His nose flared and he could smell the faint tingle of magic.

A priest stepped over him. He wore the symbol of one of the Tuatha but which Vulkis could not say. He looked grim.

“You’re lucky to be alive, Hellene,” he said.

“Not-” Vulkis clenched his jaw, his brain screaming at him through the thick fog that threatened to consume everything. He closed his eyes and felt his consciousness starting to fade. He was drawn back by the touch of the priest on his forehead. He opened his eyes. “Not sure if I should thank the gods or curse them.”

The priest shook his head. “You were trampled. Head cracked, ribs broken. I think you should thank Ares at least for watching over you.” He clucked his tongue. “You should be walking by the end of the month.” He trailed off, his face growing haunted. “Most of our magic is being drawn to other tasks.”

Vulkis’ throat worked and he nodded to the priest.

“Thanks for doing what you can,” he rasped.

The priest stepped away and let Vulkis take a look around the hospital. The cot he was in sat in the corner of a large, dark room. Dozens of other cots were laid out near him, with dozens of injured people on them. He saw a goblin beside him. Further away, he saw someone standing upright – a lizardman. The lizardman was a giant. He was easily big enough to make two of Vulkis.

Vulkis’ eyes widened as he saw a shadow grow behind the lizardman. In the darkness of the hospital, the figure looked as if they had come from nowhere. But Vulkis’ ears told him what his eyes couldn’t: the creak of a cot, the squeak of wood. The figure that had risen from their sick bed moved with speed, smashing a chamber pot in the back of the lizardman’s head. The lizard staggered, dropped to one knee, then smashed face first onto the ground.

A quiet groan came from above Vulkis’ head. He craned his head back. A human was sitting up in the cot placed near Vulkis, watching the scene with a look of horror. He opened his mouth. “Help!” he rasped. “Help, guards!”

Vulkis’ pounding head filled with confusion. Why put the injured enemy with your own wounded? He didn’t have time to figure out the reason behind that madness, or even if there was a reason. Right now, Vulkis had to act. He  scrambled forward, ignoring the ache of his head, the scream of his ribs. His body felt as if it was about to fall to pieces but he still managed to fling himself up and over the other human. His arm forced against the man’s throat, choking the raspy voice out. The other human struggled but whatever had injured him had left him even weaker than Vulkis.

His left arm slapped weakly against Vulkis’ shoulder. The impact, light as it was, sent jagged spikes of pain through Vulkis’ chest. Vulkis coughed and, despite the darkness, saw a patina of red splash across the other man’s face, flecking his beard. Vulkis tasted blood and couldn’t help but cough again.

And again.

He was having a hard time drawing breath.

Then he felt an arm slide around his shoulder, pulling him back. The other human laid still, and Vulkis let himself be dragged backwards. He almost collapsed with relief as Eerika whispered in his ear.

“Vulkis? No wonder that mad gold lizard didn’t offer the escape job to you,” she said, sounding entirely too jovial, considering the situation. “You seem half dead.”

Vulkis closed his eyes, then coughed again. More blood dribbled from his mouth. He opened his lips as wide as he could and tried to breathe in, but he felt his chest tight and compact. He couldn’t get in air. He couldn’t breathe. Eerika seemed to have realized something was wrong by the way she shifted her grip on him.

“Vulkis?” she asked. Everything was going dim. Vulkis heard the faint sound of hurried footsteps.

Light flared before his eyes.

The priest stood there, a mage light in his hand. He looked at Vulkis, Eerika, the unconscious lizardman and the slain soldier who had fought for Sysminor. Eerika paused a beat, then said: “I can explain. Your general-”

The priest touched Vulkis’ chest. Healing energy surged through the huscral and Vulkis drew a deep, shuddering gasp. His back arched and he closed his eyes tightly. “Thank the Gods – and you, thank you so much,” he mumbled.

“Fly,” the priest whispered. “I’ll have discovered you escaped shortly. Run. Now!”

Vulkis and Eerika didn’t need to be told twice.

The two of them hurried through the hospital – as fast as Vulkis could hurry, anyway. His lungs might not be filling with his own blood anymore, but every step still sent jagged pain through his lungs and his head. But Eerika held him upright with her shoulder, her arm looped around his back. She muttered under her breath.

“I don’t know if we can trust the golden bastard, but do we have a choice?”

“Liam mentioned this Brax,” Vulkis hissed, “When I visited him in Babylon. Yeah. I think we can.”

Eerika nodded to herself.

“Neb?” Vulkis asked. “She was fighting with us – is she here?”

“I don’t know. Come on, we have to find the girl Brax wants us to help,” Eerika whispered as they emerged from the hospital onto the streets. The sun had winked out earlier, though Vulkis had no idea how long ago. Mage lights provided some illumination for Olimurias, making it clear which way to go to reach the harbor. Eerika started down the street, moving along the walk nearest to the building, keeping them to the darkest shadow. Vulkis, though…

“We’re being followed,” he whispered.

“I know,” Eerika whispered back. She paused, then pushed him to the side. Vulkis’ back thumped against the side of an alleyway – forcing the air from him with a pained wheeze. Erika turned, her only weapon a makeshift club. A blade knocked it aside and then the form stepped into the light of one of the mage torches that illuminated the streets of Olimurias.

Liviana of Sparta grinned at the two Aesir.

“I hear you’re heading for the port,” she said.

“Good gods, Liv, what are- wait. You’re the one Brax, ah-” Vulkis winced as something inside his chest grated. “He wants out?” he asked, gasping around the pain. Godkiller said that you were missing. I never heard quite what happened to you. How did you get here? With Brax?”

“Long story. Come on.” She jerked her head and started forward at the mile eating lope of a trained warrior. Vulkis groaned and forced himself forward. Eerika threw her arm around his back, helping him up and hurrying forward with him.

As they grunted along, Eerika whispered, “You know her?”

“After a fashion,” Vulkis whispered back.

When they arrived at the docks, Liv had been scouting from a hiding spot for at least five minutes. She didn’t glance back at Eerika and Vulkis as they hobbled over to her. Instead, her eyes were taking in the docks. “I count thirty scaled guards, ten Aesir,” she said. “Two of them are elves, but they’re drunk. They’re loading every ship with supplies – looks like it’s for a siege.” She nodded to herself. “So, he got through to them.”

Eerika looked at Vulkis. Vulkis shook his head, mutely. Not the time for questions.

“And there it is,” Liv said, jerking her chin.

Looking across the harbor, Vulkis' heart sank.

He had hoped for his ship – his original, Aesir longship - but that one, he saw, was currently being loaded with foodstuffs by a few goblins. No, the ship Liv indicated was barely a dinghy. A fishing ship, made to scoot out into the Platonic Sea, catch some family’s feed, then sail home.

“We’re going to New Athens in that,” Liv said.

“You have a, ah, great respect for our seamanship,” Vulkis said through gritted teeth as his body found a new piece of pain to inform him of. He shifted his back against the wall. “How do we get there?”

“I’ve been watching their scout patterns. We move, move, move,” Liv said, sheathing her sword. She turned to face him, then shrugged, knelt, and lifted Vulkis up over her shoulder. Her body strained and Vulkis wouldn’t have believed that she was actually lifting him, save that she was. Liv panted, then started forward, jogging quickly. Each jostling movement sent new spikes of pain through Vulkis. He clenched his jaw to keep from crying out as Liv sprinted forward. He could feel a tremble working through her body – her arms quaked, her shoulders quivered. But she kept going. Behind him, he saw Eerika jogging along.

They moved from shadow to shadow, the sounds of the loading and the calls of the teamsters from one to the other covering the scuff of their feet.

Then…

The sun kindled.

Cries of alarm came from every teamster, and several people almost dropped their belongings. Guards hissed and rubbed at their eyes as the normal confusion that came from those who had to work through the night – it always seemed like a surprise if you didn’t sleep through a kindling.

Liv, to her credit, didn’t stumble.

Eerika, however, froze like a panicked animal.

“Hey!” a lizardman guard standing on one of the roofs of the buildings that framed the port called out. He pointed at them. “Stop! Alarm!”

Liv put on an extra burst of speed, leaped, and landed in the dinghy. The ship rocked up and down in the water then surged almost over as Eerika sprang in. She yanked the rope that connected the dinghy to the pier, which came free. Vulkis – who had been unceremoniously dumped back onto the bottom of the ship – felt something come loose inside of himself. He clenched his jaw, then lifted his arm.

He pointed.

“There,” he said. “Tug th-” He coughed, suddenly. His hand wiped along his mouth and he blinked as he saw blood on his hand. He closed his eyes. He may have done better to stay behind. But then he shook his head. “Sail!”

Liv grabbed what he pointed towards. The wind was already starting to pick up. The sail billowed and caught and the light ship leaped forward as the lizardfolk running towards the pier. They started to hurl javelins at them, the weapons plunging into the water. Several even leaped into the water. As they started to dart towards the ship, Liv drew her sword again. It flashed in the sunlight, and with more than just the sheen of bronze. She placed her feet and when the first lizardman grabbed onto the edge of the ship and dragged himself up, she put the blade through his forehead. The lizardman twitched and the blade slipped back with a wet crunch.

Another sprang up from the other side, holding a short dagger in one hand. He scrambled forward and stabbed Liv in the back.

Liv snorted. “Come on,” she said, turning around. She grabbed the dagger in her hand, wrenched it from the lizardman’s hand. He slashed at her with his claws but they skittered off her arm, harmlessly, and Liv lopped his hand off, then kicked him in the snout. As he fell backwards, she shook her head.

“Assholes.”

The wind picked up further. The other ships looked completely filled with supplies – none were ready to set sail at a moment’s notice. Liv nodded as she put her foot on the railing that ringed the dinghy. She turned to look at Eerika, who was holding the rudder one handed, her eyes focused on the sails.

“We’re going to need to set those to rights but we might make it,” she said, laughing. “So, what’s the plan, Vulkis?”

The waves lapped against the ship.

“Vulkis?”

The two women looked down.

Vulkis’ head had lolled to the side. Blood dribbled from his mouth. Liv knelt down, putting her ear to his mouth. She frowned. “He’s drowning in his blood,” she said, quietly.

“What do we do?” Eerika asked.

But she knew the answer.

“We-” Liv started. She cut herself off.

Slowly, she shook her head. “Idiot,” she muttered as she looked down at Vulkis.

“He didn’t want to die in bed,” Eerika said, her voice soft. “He’s Aesir.”

“So, he was born an idiot, then,” Liv said. Then her face softened. “Go to Valhalla, you womanizing son of a bitch.”

***

“They’re heading for New Athens, sir,” the scout said, dropping her salute. Brax nodded, his voice curt as he responded.

“Very good,” he said. “Go to the ships – we’re sailing after them.”

The scout nodded and started off. As the rest of the army continued to muster at the piers, Brax turned and marched towards where Sysminor was holding his quarters in the Citadel. Walking through the corridors – most of them empty, and several still scorched – Brax reviewed his plans. The entire world felt like it was becoming more and more chaotic every second.

Good.

He came to the chambers – the finest ones left in the Citadel that hadn’t been burned or damage during the taking of the city and was relieved to see the pale blue glow of Sysminor’s presence underneath. No guards. Sysminor had stopped using guards recently. Brax wasn’t entirely sure why, but it made him wary. When he opened the door, he heard the quiet gasp of a female voice.

“Oh God!”

Brax peeked ever so slightly around the corner leading into the room.

Brigid was splayed against Sysminor’s chest, her eyes unfocused as the rock-like form of the false god caressed her back. The Tuatha goddess was achingly beautiful. Her face had a thin patina of freckles, and her upturned nose gave the perfect accent to the slightly bookish air she had. Her hair was long and pale white, flowing along her back like a silvery waterfall. Her back had just as many freckles as her front, and her butt was as firm and taut as a drum. Perfection – and to see it being groped and squeezed by Sysminor’s geometrically marred hands was…

Insulting.

“I can see,” Brigid moaned, her breath coming fast and eager as she ground her plump, puffy pussy against Sysminor’s knee. Her juices dripped along his blue flesh, adding an extra shine to him as her breasts squished slightly against his chest. Her head ducked forward as Sysminor’s fingers came up to caress her temple. “Oh God!”

Brax frowned.

“Yesss yess yes,” Sysminor murmured. “Think of the knowledge...”

Brigid nodded eagerly, her lips spreading into a wide grin. She looked…

Drugged.

Sysminor, meanwhile, seemed to grow more brighter. More focused. Brax frowned. He couldn’t say it for sure, but his gut said that Sysminor was - somehow - taking knowledge from Brigid.

Brax coughed, quietly.

Sysminor snapped his head to the entryway. Brax didn’t even need his long experience with the false god to see smugness spreading across his face. Brigid shuddered with orgasmic pleasure, her back arching as she gasped, her eyes widening further. Light shone from within as Sysminor touched her pussy with his finger, then plunged it home.

“What new information target lock do you have have on the the theeee traitors slaves?” Sysminor asked.

“They’re fleeing to Babylon,” Brax said. This was not the most risky gamble he had ever made in his life.

But it was up there.

Sysminor rubbed his finger along his chin as his other finger continued to plunge into Brigid. From the things she mumbled under her breath as Sysminor finger fucked her – words like parasitism and synthesis and marxism – Brax had a suspicion that far more was going on than mere sex. He didn’t hope to understand it. He merely hoped to use it.

“If we press the attack on New Athens, we won’t have time to fully take advantage of this city, but-”

“No,” Sysminor said, chuckling. “This goddess slut slut goddess has already ready give given us the information – logical – information on the mages and priests of this city city.” He nodded. “They will march.”

Brax nodded curtly.

He turned on his heel.

As he left, Sysminor hissed, then added a second finger to the goddess. Brigid wailed, her eyes closing as she buried her face against his chest. Sysminor waved a single finger and spoke a word that wasn’t a word. The invisible servants of Purgatory – the servants he was starting to contact once more – sent their message. Brigid slid her hips up, panting.

“Do...” She paused. “Do you have a cock, my God?”

Sysminor shook his head.

Brigid pouted, her silver hair spilling around her face as she muttered something under her breath. But Sysminor didn’t care. Not anymore. The door to the room opened once more.

Skyheart stepped in. The valkyrie looked as sour and as bitter as a spoiled fruit, and did not bother to hide it as he bowed to Sysminor.

“Yes, my lord?” he asked.

“You wish to attack Babylon, yesss?” Sysminor asked.

Skyheart looked up.

His face lightened.

“Come. I have something to show show you,” Sysminor said, standing. He dumped Brigid on the floor, leaving her panting, her eyes unfocused. The two of them strode from the room. “A name. Name. Perfect name perfect per-purr-fect.”

The last words she heard, before the door closed.

“Greek fire.”

Seven

Meg lashed the bowl to her hand with the bandages that Athena had donated from her injured form, rapped her knuckles against it, then glared at the bars of the nullcage. Sunlight shone through the window of the prison, causing the crystal to glow faintly. She grinned as she shifted her feet from side to side, her wings clasped as tightly against her back as she could make them.

“Wait,” Athena rasped. “Wait, wrap this around your mouth.”

She held out another one of her bandages. By this point, the injured goddess was showing a great deal of her wounds – fortunately, despite the draining influence of the nullcage, Athena had mostly scabbed over. This bandage was one of the cleaner ones, but it was still yellowed by sweat and stained by blood and the vital fluids. Meg took it with her free hand and tried to not think about what she might be breathing in. But she saw Athena’s point: better to have pus press to her lips than…

Well, inhaling a crystal that sapped her strength and numbed her flesh and might even kill her.

She went back to her position. She was currently buck naked. Her breasts were bared, her ass was flapping in the wind. All of her clothes had been piled under her feet, creating a thin insulating sheet between her and the nullcage. Liam had told her about electricity, comparing what he knew about lightning to what she had learned from a lifetime of flying. The ideas of conduction and insulation had been quite easy to grasp.

The trick had been finding the right time. It was just after the guard came in to give them their breakfast. That gave them a good two hours by Meg’s count, and it took at least an hour for the draining effect of the nullcage to fade with the insulation she was using. The only problem had been the fact that any blow she struck against the cage would immediately bring her into contact with the cage.

Athena had had the idea of the bowl.

Meg felt the last bits of her power return. She felt as fit as she had since she had been captured.

Now was the time to see if this worked.

She knelt down, tensed her legs, lifted up her arm as if she were a hoplite. The bowl was no aspis though…

Meg leaped. Legs that normally could send her hurtling dozens of feet into the air to let her get aloft sent her flying at the far edge of the cage. The bowl impacted the crystal. The cage was tough but lateral force – the same lateral force that had destroyed so many test muskets, so many test cannons – could shatter it. The air filled with crystal haze and Meg hoped the bandage wrapped around her mouth kept any from getting into her lungs. Her face felt numb, her shoulders felt numb, but then she was skidding along the ground.

And then she was glad they felt numb.

Meg scrambled to her feet.

A guard was coming into the room, and he was damn fast. His nulldart was already in his hand, and he underhanded it right at her. Meg snapped her arm down and the first dart thunked into the wooden bowl. She came to her feet and in the same, smooth motion, slammed her leg into his gut with all of her weight, all of her strength, put into it. Bronze armor dented and the lizardman flew outwards and hit the wall.

The Citadel had been forged from a single piece of stone using magic, and so the wall didn’t explode outwards, like a brick wall might have. Instead, it merely made a tiny dent.

A dent filled with blood and viscera.

The bloody sack of pulped organs and scales hit the floor. Meg yanked the bandage off her mouth and used it to brush crystal from her shoulders. She sprang over and grabbed the sword that the guard had on his hip, turning to the door. The sounds of footsteps and the calls of alarm filled the air.

“Fly,” Athena rasped.

Meg looked at her.

“Fly now,” she hissed. “Get to Babylon!”

Meg looked at the cage. At the goddess. Her brain buzzed through the possibilities and she quickly came to the same conclusion as the Goddess of Wisdom.

Meg bowed her head. “I’m sorry.”

She turned and leaped for the window. This room hadn’t been built to be a prison. It had merely been large enough for the lizardfolk to cram in their nullcages. The window was more than wide enough for her to get through and only lose a few feathers. She spread her wings and beat hard – sailing up into the air, leaving Olimurias behind. A few arrows shot after her. Meg didn’t even bother to stick her tongue out.

But she did keep her eyes open.

Where the fuck is the rest of the tribe? she thought, winging her way over the ocean, her wings buzzing with the delight of flight.

She spotted them when she looked forward. They were already halfway across the Platonic sea, tiny flecks glinting on the horizon.

Meg growled and put on speed.

***

Liam lowered his telescope.

“They’re really dumb,” he said, quietly.

“What makes you say that?” Laurentinus asked.

The goblin had recovered nicely since the battered and limping Cross Guard fleet arrived at Babylon harbor. The priests that had remained within the city had been whipped into a ferocious amount of efficiency by Mary – who had seemed to be in several dozen places at once during the hours it took to unload the wounded and the dying.

Liam turned to his second in command. “They’re flying towards the most defended city in the world in the open. After tasting our guns.” He shook his head. “With only five hundred. A valk’s strong, but still...”

“A single victory isn’t enough to hammer some truths home,” Laurentinus said. “Still, they’ll be here by the next kindling at the earliest, longer if they rest in the Mistwalker Islands. Which they will.”

Liam nodded. “Go to the crystalwights, work on making cannons. I want to show these valkyrie why siding with Sysminor is a really bad idea.”

“Yes, sir.”

Laurentinus started off, limping only slightly as he headed for one of the stairs that took one from the top of the walls to the bottom. Liam patted the stone walls. If he had ten years of peace, he’d tear them down. Thanks to him, Purgatory had left the era where tall, proud walls were of any use. He could see the star-fort expanding around the city. Cannons on every bastion, making a lethal crossfire. The seas diverted to make a moat to stymie every attack.

It’d work, so long as no one invented tanks and airplanes and heavier artillery. But by then, well…

He had stories from the Soviets and the Americans. He was pretty sure he could teach his people how to deal with a blitzkrieg.

“What are you thinking about?”

The voice caused Liam to start. He turned and saw Loki. The goddess was leaning against the matriculations that ringed the far side of the wall, her flaming hair spilling around her shoulders.

“The future,” Liam said. He paused. “Do you think I did the right thing?”

Loki chuckled. “You’re going to need to be more specific, Godkiller.”

“Christ, I forgot people call me that here,” Liam groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think Sysminor is a god. So, calling me Liam Godkiller is, at the very least, inaccurate. And a bit impolitic, considering.”

Loki chuckled. “If it helps, I’ve got a foolproof plan to avoid you killing me.” She walked past him to lean against the far side of the wall, thrusting her rump invitingly into the air.

“Stabbing me in the back if you think I’m a threat?” Liam asked.

“Please,” Loki said. “I’ve already got agents who will murder your friends if you try anything funny.”

Liam pursed his lips. “Agents...”

Loki nodded. “For years, I’ve been Odin’s spymaster. After a thousand years underneath Skadi’s snake, tied to a rock by the entrails of my own son.” Her voice grew bitter. “I’ve spied, assassinated, blackmailed, bribed...” She shrugged slightly. “Honestly, if I were you, I’d be more shocked if I hadn’t put agents in Babylon.”

Liam looked out at the sea, at the curve of the world. The approaching army was only faintly visible without a telescope, tiny glints against the wall of water that made up the eastern horizon.

“Fizit is Brax’s spymaster. She’s managed to kill one of my friends, and I am pretty sure her spies are half of why Brax has conquered the Aesir realm and Olimurias so quickly. Have your agents had any luck in finding her? Her agents?”

Loki was silent for a time.

“No,” she said. “I had a fantastic network in my homeland. I had spies around the world of Purgatory. But with the capture of Odin, they’ve evaporated. Maybe they believe the bastards who think that I sold out my brother. Maybe they simply don’t think paying heed to a dying pantheon is worth it.”

Liam put his hand on the goddess’ shoulder. He squeezed her, gently. Loki put her hand over his.

“Well, I know something we can do,” Liam said. “You’re a shapeshifter. If you grow wings, can you fly?”

Loki beamed. “It’s been ages since I flew.”

“I’d have thought you’d fly all the time!” Liam said.

“You’d think,” Loki said, grinning. “But Odin is oddly opposed to be taking the form of a race who can bend bronze with their bare hands. Do you think he might still not trust me?” She shook her head, clucking her tongue – all good humor restored, as far as Liam could tell. “No, it can’t be that.”

Liam stepped back and bowed to her. “Go and find out what that army thinks it's doing, if you’d be so kind.”

“For you, Godkiller? Anything.” Loki grinned. “I may even take that form you like so much. Though, I still want to know her name.”

“Something something Hasbro copyright,” Liam said, waving his hand, his cheeks bright red.

With a flash of white light, Loki spun in place. Pure midnight wings spread, her skin becoming a few notches more pale. Her hair had turned raven black and straight as if it had been drawn by a razor. Then she leaped backwards, let herself plummet towards the ground, then snapped her wings out. She caught the air and shot off towards the harbor. As she beat through the air, her body shimmered, then turned into an optical blur like Predator.

Then she was gone.

Liam sighed.

Babylon felt oddly empty without her. Meg was gone. Liv was gone. Tethis was dead. Liam shook his head and turned back to the stairs.

When he came to the bottom, he heard the crackle of gunfire.

No matter what the news Loki brought, the Cross Guard would be ready.

“Hey!”

The voice made Liam start all over again. A finely honed instinct for hearing footsteps didn’t matter when half the people who were walking up behind you were gods. Liam spun around and saw a robed figure leaning against the wall. But the fact that she wore a robe did nothing to disguise the supernaturally booming sound of Artemis’ voice.

“I hear we have lizards to kill soon,” she said, her teeth flashing underneath her hood.

“No, just valks,” Liam said. “But remember what we agreed on? You. Stay. In. The. Manor.” He grabbed her arm, starting to haul her away from the wall. “The last thing we need are Fizit’s spies learning that you’re here.”

“I saw them and snuck around them...” Artemis grumbled, sounding sulky.

Liam sighed. “Listen, you don’t want to waste your time on valks. We can handle valks. If every valk drops dead because you shot them from five miles away-”

Artemis puffed up her chest.

“-then the bad guys will know you’re here and not in hiding,” Liam continued. “I want you to be an ace in the hole.”

Artemis pouted all the way back to the manor.

***

Meg landed on an island, panting. Her wings folded and she knelt on the ground. There were some major downsides to escaping from prison buck ass naked. For instance, she was pretty sure she was getting a nasty sunburn on her butt. For another, her stomach was growling and she hadn’t a chance to get a single bite to eat.

She stood up, rolling her arm to try and work out the knot in her shoulder. The island she had landed on was one of the many little islands that dotted this part of the Platonic Sea. In peace-time, it had been a haven of pirates. She was pretty sure most of the Tuatha raiders had been driven off by the increase in warships sailing about.

“Well, well, well, looks like we got ourselves a pretty,” a lilting voice rang out.

Meg turned and saw four pirates stepping around the trees that made up the inside of the island. They were painted with spiraling blue patterns, and held crude weapons that looked like they had been found off old battlefields and been beaten back into shape.

Okay, maybe not all the raiders had been driven off...

The leader leered as he walked up. Meg watched him, her arms crossed under her breasts. He licked his chapped lips as he spoke.

“Tired from your f-urk!”

Ten minutes later, Meg sat at their campfire, eating a chunk of hardtack. She chewed, then spat out a chunk of bone, shaking her head. “Man, you should kill your quartermaster,” she said, looking at the four naked, bound pirates. “This stuff is awful.”

The pirate captain glared at her.

Meg stood, adjusted her new leggings, then grabbed one of their swords from the ground. It was the best of them, and she was still pretty sure Liam could have snapped it over his knee.

“Eh,” she said, her wings spreading. “Better than nothing.”

***

Liam leaned back in his seat. Being away on a heroic adventure hadn’t stopped the titanic workload of paperwork that being the Free Lord of the largest free city of Purgatory brought. Something he hadn’t expected through were the reports that he was currently juggling in his brain. Almost five thousand men and women of every race – the majority human but a couple of thousand elves and about a quarter made up of goblins and other races – had joined the Cross Guard. The crystalwights said that they could keep up with production, and training was going well.

If he could survive for a month, he’d have a large, green army. Armed with muskets.

The question was, did he have a month? A siege would be devastating. The occupation of Babylon had badly damaged the granaries. Any army could surround them, cut off the harbor, and wait for starvation and plague to wipe them out.

“Liam?”

He blinked and sat up. Mary stood in the doorway,looking as tired as he felt.

“I’ve been speaking with the priests – they say that we’re reaching an upper limit on what their gods are willing to give without sacrifice or additional followers. The problem is, well, since this city has so many worshipers, and all of different gods, there’s no way to increase one without...” She shrugged. “A-And, ah, my Church is growing...”

She looked conflicted.

“Wishing that, just for once, the Holy Ghost would get off his spectral butt and do something?” Liam asked, his voice holding a twinge of bitterness.

Mary stuck her tongue out of the corner of her lip and her face assumed a mask of such intense thinking that it was downright comical. It was an expression Liam had never expected to see her adopt. She had been too refined, too poised for it during the last few months. Her tail lashed from side to side and she slowly shook her head.

“Now that you mention it, no,” she said.

“No?”

“The gods of Purgatory are limited,” she said. “They can influence our lives and we don’t lose our choices. But our God?” She gestured to Liam and to herself – her finger stopping on the ichthus that hung from her slender neck. “She is so big, so all encompassing, that without distance, she’d smother us. Freedom is hard. But it is worth it.”

She had come to the edge of his desk.

Liam nodded. “I... yeah.”

“Come on,” Mary said. “You’ve been working non-stop since you came back from the battle. Let some of your aids handle this.”

“It’s my job,” Liam said, frowning.

“You’re worried sick about Meg,” Mary said, putting her palms on the desk. “Don’t try to hide it.” Her face was very near his. Liam felt his skin tingle slightly with her closeness. His nose flared and he breathed in her scent. “You are worried about the valkyrie coming. None of those things can be changed by you spending all night working – and this?” She gestured to the paperwork. “Needs a Free Lord who is not about to pass out.”

Liam looked down at the papers. “Yeah,” he said, quietly. He picked up a report on gunpowder manufacture. He could remember sitting at the desk, reading and re-reading the lines about production and logistics and not registering a damn thing. He set the papers down and stood, slowly. His back popped like a gunshot. He rubbed his spine. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Mary smiled.

Together, the two of them emerged from the office. Liam kept rubbing his back.

“You shouldn’t hunch over your desk,” Mary said, quietly. “You’ll ruin your spine.” She paused. “I could help, you know?”

“No healers,” Liam said. “Not for a back ache. It’ll pass-”

“I was skilled at massaging a man’s back,” Mary said, “Before I became a nun. I think that I can find theological approval for helping a fellow Christian through some pain.”

Liam blinked at her. His cheeks started to redden. “B-Back pain!” he said.

“Yes,” Mary said, her brow furrowing. “Back pain. What other kind of pain were you thinking of?”

Liam coughed. “I, uh-”

“If you say no because you’re concerned about propriety, I will take it as a personal insult,” Mary said, her hand going to her chest. “I’m a Hierophant now. I take my vows of chastity quite seriously.”

Liam chuckled. “All right, you talked me into it.” He rubbed his back as Mary walked with him to his room. He paused only momentarily at the door that led into the chamber where Neb Mataare was staying. The jackalgirl lay under her blankets, her arm lashed to her side, her eyes closed. She made quiet, uncertain noises as she thrashed her head from side to side. Mary put her hand on his shoulder.

“She’ll be okay,” she said. “The healers said the wound got septic, but they put a slow burn spell that will clear her body of the sickness within a week.”

Liam nodded. The maid servant sitting beside Neb snored quietly but seemed ready to wake at any sound that needed her.

Together, they came to his room. Stepping inside, Liam moved to the bed.

“Tunic off,” Mary said.

Liam looked at her, raising a single eyebrow.

Mary snorted. “I can’t massage you through that tunic.”

Liam shrugged. Silently, he reached up and undid the ties on his collar and chest. The tunic came sliding off as the mage-light of the room flickered and danced. He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw Mary looking at him. From the look in those golden eyes, she liked what she saw. Liam smirked and started to the bed. He winced as he slid down and laid his face against the sheets. He turned his head to the side and watched as Mary came to the side of the bed. She sat down on the bed and placed her gloved fingers on his back. Her fingertips traced the lines of his muscles.

Liam sighed and thanked God that his hard-on would be hidden by his body.

“I feel a lot of tension here,” Mary murmured. Her thumbs started to work circles into his back. Liam groaned softly. Her touch, even through the gloves, sent goosebumps along his flesh. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore it.

“Tha’ feels noice,” he mumbled against the sheet.

Those fingers pressed harder, finding and releasing knots of tension along his back and spine, working lower. They paused, momentarily, at the hem of his kilt. Liam almost felt Mary’s intake of breath. Then her hands went back to his shoulders, working and kneading at him.

Quietly, she whispered, “You’re... ah...” She gulped. “Quite strong.”

“Fanks,” Liam murmured. His eyes were closed and he just focused on the feelings that rose and crashed against his brain. His whole skin seemed to sing with the aware of where they touched. Her fingertips. Her palms. The faint press of his thigh. Then he felt a firm, snake-like grip wrap around his ankle. He grunted as Mary’s tail squeezed him. Was she even aware she was doing it?

“And what’s this?”

Her finger touched one of the furrowed burn scars that Liam almost never thought about. Touching it made him stiffen, his back tightening. Meg had asked him that question, and he had told her. His father, burning to death. He shook his head, pushing his hands underneath him to get himself up.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Liam-” Mary started.

“No, I-” Liam flushed as his kilt fell forward. If Mary looked down, she might see the hard-on he was sporting. He quickly rolled onto his side, clasping his thighs together, trapping his shaft between his thighs. It made him squirm and he hoped that she didn’t notice. “Mary, I, uh, thanks for the backruuuuuh...”

He trailed off as Mary’s gloved fingers caressed his chest.

His nipples ached.

“You’re, ah, very strong,” she murmured.

“You said that already,” Liam whispered.

“I’m still enjoying noticing it,” Mary said, her eyes glowing slightly. Her tail squeezed his ankle again, then uncoiled and lashed back, then to the side again – flicking back and forth. Back and forth. It was hypnotic. Liam found himself laying on his back as Mary’s palm pressed to his chest. “I appreciate strong men...”

“Mary, you’re a nun,” Liam said, his hand grabbing her wrist.

“Mmm, I know,” she said. “That’s why I-” she jerked her head to the side, hissing. “D-Damn it. Damn it!” She forced herself to her feet, stepping back. Her clothing – never modest – seemed all the more sheer as she stood in the mage-light. Her nipples were hard and thrust through the thin strip covering her breasts. Her tail continued to lash from side to side as she breathed in and out. Fast. Shallow breaths. “Just being near you was a mistake, I-”

Liam sat up, wanting to help her.

Instead, his movement let his cock escape.

It tented his kilt obscenely. A massive statement, primal and animalistic. The two of them froze.

Mary bit her lip, hooking her fang around her lower lip.

The silenced stretched.

Mary closed her eyes. “Fuck it,” she growled, grabbing her breast band. She yanked it up and over her head, tossing it to the side. Those perfect tits sagged ever so slightly, just enough to prove their perfection was natural. Then Mary was on him. Her black lips and his pink ones met and her tongue plunged into his mouth with a desperate voraciousness. His tongue tried to catch up, but Mary kissed him with the need of a woman grabbing a plank in a shipwreck.

She broke the kiss. Liam might have tasted blood, from the way her fangs had grazed his lips.

Her tail slithered under his kilt, then whipped to the side. Quite suddenly, Liam was naked. His cock pressed to his belly as Mary dropped to her knees – still mostly in her nun outfit. Her breasts were free, and she used this to great effect. She cupped her breasts, squeezing them together as she leaned forward, closing the soft, pillowy flesh of her ruby red titties around his cock. Liam – frozen – couldn’t do anything but groan.

“Mary!”

“Mmm,” she whispered. “I’ve wanted to do this since the orgy...”

She leaned forward. He felt the edges of her fangs graze the thick head of his shaft as her mouth closed around the tip of his cock. Mary slurped and sucked, her spittle slipping along the thick shaft of his member – she was an eager, almost sloppy cocksucker and Liam loved it. He grabbed her wimple, squeezing it. The black fabric rumpled under his fingers and his palm could feel the blunted tip of one of Mary’s horns.

She worked her tits up and down his shaft, sucking his cock into her mouth with every rocking motion. Mary drew her lips back just enough to moan: “God, your cock is fucking amazing, Liam. It’s so fucking big...”

“A-Ah,” Liam gasped. “You, ah, like big?”

“Lizardmen ruined me,” Mary said, flicking her tongue out and sliding it along his foreskin. Liam sucked in a shallow breath. “That orgy, ah, I felt so free. Then that fucking beast of a lizardman took me. And another. And another. And their cocks were so huge.” She shivered slightly. “You’re the only one who can even stand close to them.”

“Thanks?” Liam sounded slightly unsure of how to take it.

“God, I’m such a fuck up,” Mary whispered, leaning forward. Her mouth closed around his cock. She slurped, sucked, then drew her mouth back. Her hands continued to move, squeezing and sliding her tits up and down his shaft. The gentle pressure drove Liam crazy. He squirmed and bucked his hips gently, but it wasn’t like getting a handjob or wanking off. If she didn’t suck him, he’d go insane before he came.

“You are not,” he managed to hiss through clenched teeth.

She licked his cocktip again, tasting his pre-cum with clear relish. Leaving her head hanging forward, her habit brushing against Liam’s thighs, she whispered. “I’m supposed to be married to God. To be beyond this. But...” She shivered. “Touching you. Seeing you. Hearing you fuck Meg.”

“You listen to us?” Liam stammered.

“Fingering myself every time that gorgeous girl climaxes on this cock,” Mary purred, her eyes half closed. “I tailfuck myself every time you and her...” She shivered again, the motion of her tits going faster and faster.

Liam grunted. The pressure against him, the need to feel more was only getting worse. But he forced it back – trying to think clearly. “Mary,” he whispered. “No faith should make you, ah, hate yourself.”

Mary paused in her movements. She looked up at him, her eyes shining.

“There’s, ah, ways to, fuck,” Liam swore as a tiny dribble of pre-cum dripped from the tip of his shaft, his balls clenching. He had almost cum right and there, at the look in her eyes. But he forced the desire down through sheer force of will. “There’s ways to be Christian and to love and be loved physically.”

Mary closed her eyes. “I want to believe that,” she whispered. “I’m... I’m lilin. I thought I could be something different.”

“I don’t know about lilin,” Liam said. “Ignore what other people say about lilin and-” He closed his eyes. Clenched his jaw. Tried to do the equations to figure out how much mass a rocket could push. He could only remember a quarter of the equation – he knew Delta V was in there somewhere. But it still kept his shaft from spurting cum all over Mary’s face while they were having this heart to heart.

Gasping, he managed to continue: “Ignore others and focus, right now, on what you feel. Do you want to fuck every day?”

Mary nodded. Her lips planted a feathery kiss on the tip of his cock.

“Suck?” Liam hissed.

“Oh yes,” Mary purred.

“Feel my hot fucking cum all over your face?” Liam hissed.

“God yes.”

Liam let go. His balls clenched and his climax – held back so long – smashed into him like a battering ram. Cum splashed against Mary’s cheek and she opened her mouth wide. Cum hit the roof of her mouth, filling it and going down her throat with an eager bob of her neck. She closed her mouth and giggled, her eyes closing as more cum splashed her face. She seemed to revele in the feeling of Liam cumming over her face. Some of his seed splashed down onto her breasts. Mary laughed, her mouth completely clean of any cum. Her tongue darted out, licking her lips clean as well.

Liam fell back onto the bed, panting.

Mary, meanwhile, was far from done. She scrambled onto the bed, her thighs spreading. “We’re being bad, might as well go all the way,” she purred.

“Not bad...” Liam mumbled, feeling utterly spent.

“I-” Mary stopped herself, her thighs spread to either side of Liam’s chest, the bed squeaking with her weight. She shook her head. “I know. And I think I might even agree. But right now? Right now, I’m a bad nun, who's doing wicked, sinful, naughty things.”

Liam grinned. “Like sitting on my face?”

Mary nodded. “Oh yes.”

Her thighs closed to either side of Liam’s head and he had a moment to reflect on the fact that his life, in some ways, was blessed. For all the danger, for all the grief, for all the pain, he was still a man who regularly had fantastically beautiful women sitting on his face. Liam’s nose rubbed against her clit as he leaned up and into her sex. His tongue darted out and he tasted her juices again. And he didn’t even need to lick a lizardman’s spunk out of her sex.

Not that he had hated that experience. But that was a thought he had never gotten around to examining.

It was for later.

When he wasn’t devouring forbidden fruit. His palms cupped and squeezed Mary’s rump, fingers sinking into her asscheeks as his tongue darted into her sex. His lips sucked on her pussy lips as her slightly spicy juices dripped into his mouth. His throat bobbed as he drank her with the same wild eagerness.

Mary provided all the encouragement Liam needed.

“Oh god, fucking yes. Oh Mary, oh Jesus, oh fuck!” she gasped, rocking her hips in time with every moan. Her juices flowed faster still as Liam tongued her, his palm slapped her rump. As if ordered by his hand to action, her tail wrapped around his cock. Squeezed the base. Liam felt his shaft hardening again as his tongue drew out of her sex. Panting, Mary lifted her thighs up, grinning down at him.

“Think you can just fuck my virgin pussy, Godkiller?”

Liam licked his lips. “You’re not a virgin,” he said.

“My followers don’t know that,” Mary said, sticking her tongue out at him. “The orgy’s a secret.”

“Bad nun!” Liam slapped her rump again.

“I know. And I love it,” Mary said, then sat back down. Once more, darkness surrounded Liam and all he could do was focus on the pussy before him. His other hand dipped down and caressed his own balls, squeezing them as he made sure his cock was as hard as could be. Mary moaned and mewled and even squeaked as she bucked her hips against his face. She didn’t seem to cum; rather, the pleasure she was feeling sounded as if it was getting more and more intense, but never hitting anything that Liam recognized as a climax.

Then Mary was falling forward. She slapped her palms into the wall, bending forward, her whole body screaming one thing: fuck me!

“Now,” Mary growled, looking over her shoulder. Still mostly in her nun outfit, her tail flicking up, revealing her sopping wet cunt. Liam didn’t wait. He pounced on her, his hands grabbing her hips. His cock touched her sex, making her squirm further. Then he plunged into her, right down to his balls. His shaft slapped against her belly and he knew he wouldn’t last more than a few minutes with this feeling.

Her cunt clenched on him like Meg’s – with an extra edge of fluttering skill that Meg simply didn’t have. Her tail wrapped around his throat, jerking him forward. It was as if the tail was saying something that Mary’s mouth couldn’t.

Fuck me.

Liam obliged. He didn’t try to hold back. He merely plowed into Mary, rocking the other girl against the wall. Her breasts bounced in a perfect circle as she was railed hard against the wall. Her gasping, moaning voice broke into a wail after the first few thrusts, her sex clenching on him again. Then, her fingernails digging into the wall, she said something that put Liam over the edge.

“Don’t - oh god - don’t pull out,” she gasped out.

Liam couldn’t have stopped himself if he wanted to. He plunged into her, thrusting so deeply that there was no way for either of them to be closer together physically. His hands wrapped around her belly and her breasts, holding her to him. He shuddered and pumped blast after blast of cum into her quivering, twitching pussy.

Slowly, the two of them fell backwards.

Mary panted, her palm spread across Liam’s chest.

“Oops,” she said, sounding oddly not guilty. Liam laughed, quietly.

“That’s one way to raise morale.”

“Ahem,” Loki said.

Mary squeaked and grabbed the thin sheet, yanking it over her body – if she hadn’t been born ruby red, Liam was fairly sure she’d have turned the same shade she was naturally. Thanks to the sweat that sheened along her skin, using a silken sheet to cover her modesty did less to protect her than anything Liam could have thought with. The material clung to her every curve, and was soon nearly translucent. Her nipples thrust through – dark black and inviting.

“I’ve come back with intelligence,” Loki said. “But, ah, by all means, don’t stop on my account.”

“You waited till we were done, didn’t you?” Liam asked, trying to sound blasé.

“Well, how could I interrupt ‘oh god, Liam, I want to feel your cum fill my pussy’?” Loki said with a grin. As she spoke, she shifted from her valkyrie form to her normal human one. “And besides. Once you hear what I have to say, you...” She paused. “Won’t be in the mood anymore.”

“Why?” Liam asked.

Loki’s voice was soft. “They’re bearing a weapon that I’ve only read about in your works. Something even your people say is impossible to recreate.” She paused. “Greek fire.”

“Shit,” Liam hissed.

“What’s Greek fire?” Mary asked. As she spoke, she grabbed a pillow and used it to try and give herself more modesty.

“Uh, we’re not sure,” Liam said. “It was a state secret of the Byzantium empire. It was such a good state secret that we don’t know how to make it or even what it is. We have a lot of ‘it might be this,’ but nothing definite as far as I know.” He shook his head. “It burns on water. In fact, splashing water on it might actually just make the situation worse.”

“Well, they have it by the cartloads,” Loki said. “They said that the best artisans of Olimurias worked around the clock for three days to make it, using spells and the threat of Sysminor’s swords to keep them at it.”

Liam nodded, his mind buzzing.

“Okay,” he said. “Mary. I need you to get dressed and get to work. We have to be ready.”

Mary blushed, her cheeks turning almost black. She forced herself up, her head held high. She looked as dignified as she could, considering she was dressed in a sheet and nothing else.

“I want you to get the city training. Any fire they drop needs to be doused not in water, but in sand. We need buckets of the stuff,” he said. “On every corner. Every house, even. Extra people near the gunpowder factory. We need tarps over the gunpowder factory, shields doused in water to keep from catching, so we have time to throw sand on them.”

“Got it,” Mary said. She paused, then glared at Loki. Loki was clearly leering at her. “Do you mind?”

“No, the view is-”

“Loki,” Liam said, his voice flat.

Loki pouted, then turned and left.

Mary blushed. Her tail lashed from side to side. “Do you mean what you said?” she asked.

“About this being okay?” Liam asked. “Yes. I...” he paused. “Thanks, Mary. I needed that.”

Mary blushed. “I need to think about the theological implications. But, ah, speaking right now?” She bit her lip, sharp fangs glinting. “I fucking loved it.” She grinned at him.

Then she turned and left.

Liam smiled.

They had work to do. But…

He had a good feeling.

***

The sun kindled.

And the valkyrie swept forward. They had been in just the right position, readied and hidden by the darkness. Their wings spread and shot forward, hundreds of them. Their formation was quite clever: they had people at the front with shields up to ward off arrows, while other pairs were holding large canisters of Greek fire on rope.

The only problem was Babylon was ready for them.

Cannons. Muskets. Spears. All of them aimed skywards, gleaming in colors of blue and bronze.

“Fire!” the sergeants bellowed. Muskets and cannons spoke, filling the air with smoke and fire and shot. And the valkyrie flapped upwards, their wings beating, their voices crying out in alarm. Several dropped into the water before the harbor, and one canister of Greek fire struck the water and started to burn, spreading a smear of orange across the water. But most of the tribe had been far enough that the canister and the Minié balls missed entirely.

They soared up and over the wall, circling overhead. Liam shouted.

“Reload!”

The valkyrie started to drop their canisters. They tumbled down. One smashed into a house. Flames exploded outwards and started to burn. Screams rose. Others fell nearer to the gunpowder works. None struck. Driven by desperation, the Cross Guard started to fire in a ragged pattern. A few valks dropped but most of them continued to circle. More Greek fire slammed into the ground. More fires.

Liam scowled. “Volley fire! Volley fire!”

He watched as people ran along the street, dragging buckets of sand. They were flung forward and the sand rushed over the fire. Smoke continued to trail into the air.

“Grandfather!”

Liam spun around. A Cross Guard was taking aim at the valkyrie winging towards the city. Liam shoved himself forward and elbowed the crystal musket to the ground. It discharged and the air filled with smoke – but despite the smoke, Liam was cheering.

Meg pumped her wings as she shot towards the city. She carried herself upwards to be on the same level as the other valks, and leveled her sword at the circling tribe.

“I, Proudfeather of the Olympus Tribe, call upon the rites of combat. You are a fool, a traitor, and a fiend, Grandfather Skyheart, and I swear by the name of my mother and my father and by the gods themselves, I will see your head mounted above my bed tonight!” she grinned. “And then you can watch me make love to my husband from the gates of Hades itself!”

It seemed as if the entire city had gone silent. Even the fires were holding their breath. Liam had never heard Meg shout quite so loudly before. I guess that’s what a flier’s lung capacity is.

A blond figure detached itself from the formation as Liam did a double take.

“Did she say-”

“You. Don’t. Know. What. You. Are. Doing!” the leader of the valk tribe bellowed. His wings beat erratically, as if he was barely able to contain his rage. “Cease this foolishness immediately, Proudfeather!”

“So, you refuse my challenge, then?” Meg asked, sneering.

Liam yanked his telescope off his belt. He extended it and looked up. The valk leader definitely looked like an older, more male form of Meg, though his chin was broader, and his hair was closer to white than blond. He also looked like he was chewing crystal.

“I am offering you-”

“I’m sorry, I don’t accept mercy from someone who lights children on fire,” Meg snarled.

The valks hovered overhead. A single musket shot went off – and Liam didn’t even have to bellow an order. One of his sergeants cuffed the Cross Guard in question.

Skyheart trembled.

“Fine,” he bellowed. “What is your weapon of choice?”

“A landling’s sword,” Meg said.

“You want to match a landling’s sword against my eight-sided blade?” Skyheart sounded incredulous. “My granddaughter, I don’t-”

“My choice is final,” Meg said, her arms crossed over her chest.

“Fine!” Skyheart bellowed. “It breaks my heart to do this, Proudfeather.”

Meg chuckled. Then she casually tossed her sword to the side. It flipped and spun through the air, the bronze blade glinting in the sunlight that shone down from overhead. The entire valk tribe seemed to draw in their breath as Skyheart pulled a hilt from his belt. A moment later, a blade made of pure light leaped from his hilt.

Was that... a lightsabre? Liam thought. I really need to ask Meg more about her culture...

Then Meg snapped her wings shut and dove. Liam’s hand moved before he had processed the thought, closing around his longsword. His blade flashed with magical light, the enchantment that Brigid had placed on it still strong and true.

He tossed it up, handle first, and whooped as Meg caught it from his hand.

Her wings fanned open and she darted upwards, spinning around.

Steel met sunlight and sparks filled the air. The two valks shot away from one another with a resounding boom. A ripple rushed through the air and sent up a spray of dust. Liam lifted his hand to keep grit from his eyes, his heart in his throat. Meg’s arm moved with unerring speed and precision, her wings beating in a pattern that counterpointed the movement of her blade. Delenn sang with the impact and the eight-sided blade crackled and snarled like water being dumped onto a hot frying pan.

Skyheart beat backwards to evade a strike and cried out. His shin dripped blood.

The Cross Guard cheered.

“Meg! Meg! Meg! Meg!” several people started chanting.

Skyheart bellowed in inarticulate rage. He beat his wings hard, his blade whirring as he hacked and slashed at Meg. His motions were uncontrolled – and yet still graceful as he used his momentum and the fact that he and Meg were technically in free fall to bring his blade in directions that no human swordsman could match.

Meg, meanwhile, matched blow for blow, parry for parry. The two broke away. Their wings beat and they banked around one another. Liam brought his telescope up again and looked closer at Skyheart. It was hard to track the valk, but he could see that the asshole was definitely looking wary. Then the two valkyrie shot together again. Liam had to lower his telescope just to watch. Their blades met again and again and again.

They looked perfectly matched. Meg might be stronger and faster and younger, but her opponent seemed to have enough skill to make up for it. Liam felt his heart clench.

Meg was starting to look tired. Even at a distance, even moving with blinding speed, he knew her well enough to spot the signs that she was getting to the edge of her energy. He had fucked her to that point often enough. How far had she flown, without rest, without food, to catch up with her tribe?

Meg seemed to realize that at the same time. But rather than look desperate or angry... Meg looked overjoyed. She was positively beaming. She darted forward again and then rebounded away from Proudfeather’s parry. Her wings half folded and she skimmed to the side, swooping over the wall. Several guards cried out and hit the deck.

Meg arrowed her wings down, then plunged into the water, vanishing under the waves. Skyheart flapped backwards in surprise, blood dripping down his ankle. Everyone tensed, leaning forward. Skyheart looked left, then right, his eyes wide. Liam felt his heart leap into his throat. He had never felt more powerless.

What was Meg doing?

More red dripped into the harbor.

A shuffling sound from behind him drew Liam’s attention for a moment. He saw Artemis walking forward, her bow in one hand. Liam was too nervous, too on edge, to even care.

“Where is she?”

Liam shook his head. “Can you see her?”

A fin broke the surface, swimming through the bloody water. Skyheart shook his head and snorted. “It seems she over-estimated her-”

The water fountained upwards. Meg burst out of the sea holding a very confused shark above her head. With a grunt, she beat her wings, sending herself up with a spray of water. The momentum gave her a perfect chance to throw.Skyheart looked so shocked that it was almost comical.

Then the shark slammed into him, mouth first.

To his credit, Skyheart got his sword up and the shark fell back into the sea in huge chunks, but gore caked Skyheart, covering his eyes. His wings were out of position and he started to lose altitude. Meg pumped her wings once, shooting forward, sword tip first.

The stone of the harbour walls crunched with the impact. Skyheart gaped, transfixed. Right below where Liam was standing.

Meg grinned and jerked the eight-sided blade from her grandfather's twitching hand Then, with a single stroke, she beheaded him.

Meg rose into the air, panting, her grandfather’s head in her hand.

“I am now the queen of this fucking tribe and my first order is,” she said, her voice ragged and filled with pants, “Stand the fuck down.”

Liam slowly relaxed against the wall.

And with that, the battle for Babylon was over.

Eight

“So, two new notches on your belt?” Meg asked, her finger twirling around some of Liam’s sweat dampened hair. Liam laughed, his voice slightly shaky. His hand reached down and squeezed Meg’s firm rump, reveling in the fact he could feel her again. That he could feel every inch of her pressing to him. Her nipples, her pubic feathers, her wings. Being able to breathe her in with every panting, gasping moment. She nuzzled his chest. “I’m offended. Here I was, in jail, being tormented by vicious brutish lizardmen, and here my philandering husband-”

“Fiance,” Liam rumbled.

“-was fucking a goddess. And his Hierophant! The scandal! The shame!”

“Wait till you see the form I used!” came a voice.

Liam was too tired, too spent, and too deliriously happy to really give a damn about Loki barging in on him after sex again. He simply grunted and opened one eye. Loki was laying on the half of the bed that Meg and Liam didn’t occupy, by dint of the fact they were so tightly entangled it’d take a crowbar to extract one from the other. A crowbar and superman, considering Meg’s strength.

“What was it?” Meg asked. The fact she had enough energy to sit up after the round she and Liam had just gone through - not to mention having shattered her own prison with her bare hands (well, and a soup bowl), flown a marathon, fought pirates, then dueled her grandfather,  - left Liam rather impressed. And incredibly nervous.

Loki chuckled and a flash of light surrounded her. Liam had thought explaining her first form would be difficult but Loki was a master at finding new and fascinating ways to leave him squirming.

Loki looked like Meg. Everything was perfect: long blonde hair, bright glowing blue eyes, porn-star body, all of it.

Meg blinked. “Sorry, Loki, not buying it. Liam here is a grade A self-hating pervert-”

“I’m not self-hating,” Liam muttered, letting his arm rest over his face.

“You said you were going to feminist hell!” Meg said, giggling.

“It was a joke, you over-titted pigeon,” Liam muttered.

“-but!” Meg continued, forcing herself back onto the conversation, her finger thrust into the air. “He’s also a creative grade A self-hating pervert. No way he’d have a shapeshifter on his grubby hands-”

“They’re not grubby,” Liam muttered.

“-grubby hands!” Meg barreled over him, laughing. “And not make her turn into something freakishly bizarre.”

Loki smiled, slowly. “You two should go on the stage. You have the timing down perfectly.”

Meg smiled. “We’ve had a year of practice.” She paused. “You know, though, I have to say...” Her finger rubbed along her chin as she considered Loki. “You are quite attractive.”

Loki smiled, rearing up onto her thighs. Her hands went to her blonde tresses, pushing them back over her shoulders. For a moment, Liam was delighted to see two perfect pairs of tits, both of them filling his field of view as Meg and Loki loomed over him. Then Meg leaned forward and captured Loki’s mouth with her own. Now, there were two perfect pairs of tits, mashing together as wings flared and hands caressed. Liam held perfectly still. This moment had the feeling of a soap bubble.

The wrong move might cause it to pop.

Meg drew back, her tongue and Loki’s tongue still touching. Loki panted softly.

“So, how am I going to tell you two apart?” Liam asked.

Loki’s grin grew wicked.

Her sex spread and with a slow, wet, slick slurp, a cock as long and thick as Liam’s own emerged. In fact, it looked identical to his. It thrust into the air, glistening with her arousal as Loki leaned back, her pussy lips glinting beneath her new shaft. Thanks to a great deal of hentai, Liam was less shocked than he would otherwise have been. But it was one thing to watch an anime girl grow a gigantic cock and fuck a green-haired high school student silly…

And another thing entirely to see someone do it in real life.

“Now I've got the best bits of both of you,” Loki said, smugly

Meg oohed softly. “Can you change other people?”

“Nah,” Loki said, her hand going to her shaft, stroking it gently. “Ah, it’s been too long since I’ve had a cock.” She shivered slightly, which set off the most fascinating jiggling in her tits. Liam licked his lips.

“Dang,” Meg said. “I always wondered what having a cock was like. And what it’d be like to fuck a girl.” She grinned at Liam. “And Liam, honey, you’d be fine with being a girl.”

“Nooo?” Liam asked, eyeing Loki's replica cock. It looked a lot bigger and scarier when it wasn't attached to his body.

“Don’t be transphobic,” Meg said, her voice prim.

“I’ve created a monster,” Liam groaned. Meg laughed loudly, then leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. Their tongues met and played. Rather than aggressive bids for domination as had been the case with Loki, they simply shared themselves. Then she drew back, breathing steadily and true.

“I know you’re not transphobic,” she whispered softly.

Liam smiled.

Meg shifted, swinging her legs up and over Liam’s hips. Her sex pressed to his cock. It was still soft – Liam was still in his early twenties, but he had been well and truly fucked over the past hour. He smiled at Meg apologetically. She pouted.

And then Loki leaned forward.

“Let me try something,” she said, then kissed Liam. Liam felt a spark leap from her tongue to his. His back arched and energy jolted through his body. It felt like taking a hit of caffeine after going without for decades. His nerves sang and the meaty slap of his cock surging to full hardness against Meg’s cunt made his heart race. Meg lifted her hips ever so slightly, then drove herself down, hilting Liam inside of her.

Liam grunted, deep in his throat.

Then Meg screamed. “Oh fuck, yes!”

Looking over Meg’s shoulder, Liam could see, well, Meg’s face, grinning and wicked. Loki kissed Meg’s cheek, then looked right into Liam’s eyes as she started to grind her cock along Meg’s ass. Meg whimpered, her eyes half closed. “W-Wait!” she hissed. “I’ve never, ah, done it like that before.”

“And you call yourself a Hellene,” Loki said, her voice dripping with scorn.

Meg snapped her head back and glared at the goddess. Loki cut off whatever Meg might have said by leaning forward. Her tongue thrust into Meg’s mouth and Meg moaned into the kiss. Liam, feeling not at all guilty, helped the goddess with a slow, gently thrust. His hips pumped up and Meg bounced and moaned louder through the kiss. Her eyes rolled slightly back into her head as she chose to continue the kiss rather than draw back to breathe.

Loki broke the kiss first. Panted. Grinned.

“Let me show you what you were missing.”

Meg moaned again as Loki kissed the back of her neck, her hands cupping Meg’s firm, perky breasts. The goddess used her fingers to tease and twist Meg’s nipples as she kissed down her spine, leaning forward more and more. Meg’s wings spread wide, giving Loki plenty of room. Meg started to look confused, then her back went completely straight, her eyes wide with shock. Liam laughed, slowing in his thrusts as Loki’s tongue coiled and twisted and teased and explored Meg’s ass.

“What-” Meg stopped, her mouth opening wider. “Oh! Oh! Nnh ah fuck that’s wrong.”

Despite her words, she started to press back against Loki’s mouth. Liam grinned.

“You know, I could have done that,” he said.

“P-Pervert!” Meg laughed. Her sex clenched on his cock as a climax shuddered through her body. That seemed to be all Loki needed for encouragement. She reared up, her own wings spread to match Meg’s excitement, then paused.

“Say pease,” Loki purred. And in that instant, she sounded exactly like Meg, from tone to delivery to the wicked gleam in her electric blue eyes.

“Fuck you,” Meg hissed.

“Close enough,” Loki said, laughing as she drove her hips forward with the might of a goddess. The sensation on Liam’s end was nearly indescribable - the massive girth and length of, well, his own cock pressing against him, with only Meg’s sex seperating the two. It was incredible. Meg trembled, her face a mask of pure pleasure.

“Meg!” Liam groaned through gritted teeth.

“We need to do this more often!” Meg gasped out... She leaned forward and pressed her breasts into Liam’s chest, kissing his neck, sucking on his skin as she moaned happily. Her hips bucked against Loki’s thrusting and Liam felt his own body responding despite himself.

His hips slammed upwards into Meg, and each thrust that he made put a new counterpoint to the swaying of her breasts. He reached up, cupping them. Squeezing them. Finding her nipples and taking advantage of her tougher constitution by twisting them.

Meg squealed. “Ah, yes!”

Loki bit down on her shoulder, muffling her own cries of pleasure as she fucked faster and harder, making Meg tremble.

Meg reached back with one hand, her other hand on the bed. Her wings were folded to her sides, so she was able to take hold of Loki’s cheek and turn her head upwards. Their mouths touched and they kissed with the desperate passion of those deep in the throes of lust. Their tongues wrestled and the two made muffled but eager moaning noises as they continued to thrust and bounce. It was clearly too much for Loki. She broke the kiss, screaming her pleasure, her wings flaring wide as she came and came hard. Liam felt the force of her cum filling Meg’s ass. The sensation – as well as the warmth dripping on his own balls – sent Liam over his edge too.

He had less to give, thanks to the earlier session, but Meg still clenched and quivered and gasped with the pleasure of it.

Then, suddenly, Liam found the downside to being in a threesome with a woman and her duplicate.

Both Meg and Loki were lighter than they seemed, due to being in the form of valkyrie.

That didn’t matter when both let themselves go limp and started to squash him. The fact that it was four of his fiancee's pillowy tits suffocating him only added insult to injury. Then Meg and Loki both squirmed, shifted, and settled down to either side of him. Liam blinked and looked down. Neither had a cock. But then he spotted cum dripping from the girl on the right and knew she was Meg. He smiled at her.

“I love you,” he said.

“You love Loki?” The other Meg said, sitting up.

“What?” The Meg that Liam was speaking too scoffed. “I’m the real Meg, she’s Loki.”

Loki scoffed – and looked like she was about to continue fucking with them. Liam decided to cut that off by reaching down and plunging both of his fingers into Loki’s sex. Loki moaned, her body clearly still sensitized by her recent climax. She spread her thighs, her wings thumping against the bed as she arched her back. Then Liam drew his fingers from her pussy lips, holding them before Loki’s eyes.

“None of my cum,” he said.

“Dang it,” Loki purred. “I didn’t cum again.”

Liam laughed. “We do have a world to save...” He paused, then added under his breath: “Tomorrow.”

Meg grinned as she watched Liam go to town on Loki.

“It’s good to be home,” she said.

***

New Athens.

Liv watched the city grow as her small ship rose and fell on the waves.

New Athens was the second finest thing that the Hellenic people had ever built on Purgatory. The first, of course, being Sparta. And nothing made Liv feel quite as confident as seeing that standard - the lambda - flying above and ever so slightly to the right of the Athenian one. The walls were festooned with hoplites and other soldiers, and as they sailed closer, Liv stood and lifted her sword above her head.

“I am Livianna of Sparta, daughter of Ares! I come bearing news of the enemy!”

As she spoke, Eerika remained by the body, her hand resting on the sail cloth they had used to cover Vulkis. It was the most they could do, but the boat had already started to smell sickly sweet.

“Enter the harbor!” a voice called down from the walls. “Welcome home, Livianna of Sparta!”

The dinghy bobbed into the harbor before the mighty defensive works moved into position. The walls had been built to block the harbor off – an immense sheet of bronze had been crafted to serve as the gate. Green with rust and barnacles, it had been blessed by Poseidon and crafted by Hephaestus. It would hold. As the harbor gate closed, Liv saw the greeting party approach. Men and women with spears and shields and - worse - officials.

Liv sighed.

This was going to be fun.

***

“If I had known being a queen was this annoying, I’d have... well, I'd still have killed grandad,” Meg grumbled as she tossed the two valkyrie to the ground. Then, louder, she continued. “If I hear either of you insult a landling again, I will kick your fucking ass. This tribe’s going to change, and if you don’t fucking like it, challenge me.”

The two valks shook their heads as they stood, rubbing where Meg had smashed their skulls against one another.

“Now,” Meg said, waving her hand dismissively. “Wing along.”

The valks took to their wings and soared off. The tribe was restive and grumbling – not happy about having to work with landlings. Tough. Meg would get them to understand that people were people, and that her grandfather was wrong. Fortunately, Mary had lent her not inconsiderable powers of persuasion to the task. She was the gentle, guiding, nurturing focus who could connect valkyrie to landling and bring about new understanding.

And Meg was there to kick the people who were too rock stupid to understand things had changed in the head.

“We make a good team,” Meg said to herself.

“Queen Megara of Olympus!”

The young man – dressed in the official uniform of the Cross Guard’s messengers – who ran up to her was cute enough to be slightly tempting. But Meg had to restrain herself. Even if her irritation at her own people was kicking up the urge to work stress out through fucking.

“Free Lord Liam Godkiller requests your presence, and the presence of a member of your tribe,” the messenger said. “He says the name is...” He paused. “Sunchaser?”

Meg’s brow furrowed and only a monumental effort kept her from asking who the fuck Sunchaser was.

It took her a few minutes to track him down. He was in the docks, helping to unload a ship. He was easily the weediest, runtiest looking valk that Meg had ever seen. He strained with every crate he lifted off the ship, and his skin glistened with sweat in the daytime sun as he worked. Meg walked towards him. Sunchaser held up his hands.

“I haven’t done anything!” he said, quickly. “I’ve stayed on task, I’ve been working hard, see, proof!”

He gestured to two goblins who were working beside him.

One of the goblins laughed. “The kid’s been as eager as a pup, m’lady.”

Meg smirked. “You’re not in trouble... Sunchaser, right?”

Sunchaser nodded. “That’s my name, Pure- uh, Meg. Queen Meg. Queen Megara! Q-Queen Megara of-”

“Meg’s fine,” Meg said, crossing her arms under her breasts. She deliberately shelved them, arching her back slightly. To her interest, Sunchaser didn’t even seem to notice.

“Well, uh, Meg, my name is Sunchaser. What do you need me for?”

“No idea,” Meg said. “But Liam Godkiller has a plan. And the last time Liam Godkiller had a plan, he blew up a big chunk of this city.”

Sunchaser looked less than thrilled.

When the pair of them arrived in the Free Lord’s manor, they were escorted by the head servant Mutt to the meeting rooms. Liam had replaced his desk with an elongated table, where everyone could sit and be heard. Loki, Neb, Laurentinus, Vani, Mary, two men that Meg didn’t recognize and Liam all sat at the table. Liam beamed and stood as she walked in.

“Meg, thanks,” he said. “This is Sunchaser?”

“That’s him,” Loki and Meg said at the same time. Meg glared playfully at Loki. Loki stuck her tongue out at him.

“All right!” Liam said, then walked forward to the table. “Everyone be seated. Today, we’re going to begin discussing how to win the war. Night-time observation and telescopic reconnaissance makes it clear. Within two or three days, Sysminor’s entire army – about ten thousand lizardmen, ten thousand huscrals, and assorted support staff from Olimurias – are going to arrive at New Athens. If they manage to hold off the initial assault, we are looking at a siege. If not, then the Hellenic league may fall as quickly as the Aesir.”

The table looked grim.

Neb leaned forward. “The Pesedjeti are going to stand with us. The instant I rose from my sickbed, I prayed to Anubis, and heard a direct confirmation. Ra, Anubis and Set are sending their armed forces to Babylon. That’s almost fifteen thousand men and women.”

“On Earth, Egypt used chariots,” Liam said, sounding uncertain.

“No,” Neb said, shaking her head. “Not chariots. There are too many jungles, and charioteers are too expensive. Archers, mostly.”

Liam nodded. “Integrating them into the Cross Guard may be tricky. But we can use the infantry and the archers. Guns are great, but until you hit really modern guns, bow and arrow beats them for speed and range.”

Neb smiled.

“It’ll still take us weeks to get there,” Laurentinus said. “More by land, less by going over the ocean. But the ocean is swimming with Aesir warships that are going to challenge and raid us the entire way.”

Liam leaned back in his seat. “There are three people here that you may all be wondering about, by the way,” he said. “Sunchaser, Tefan and Paul.”

The two new men nodded to the rest of the group. Sunchaser just looked confused.

“It was an honor to be invited here,” Tefan spoke up, his voice soft and lilting despite his grizzled, sun worn face. His fingers were knotted with age, but still seemed quite graceful. “But, ah, I’m a potter, not a soldier. I don’t know how to win the war.”

Everyone, on hearing that, paused, then turned to look at Sunchaser. Sunchaser looked terrified. Meg elbowed him.

“I've no idea why I'm here!” he exclaimed. “I want to get to the sun! I’ve  never tried the straight shot - even at night, that's suicide - but I’ve been further up than anyone else. The air gets thinner. The ground doesn’t pull at you. It’s fascinating!”

Liam smiled. “That’s exactly why I wanted him here. Sunchaser, you say the ground doesn’t pull anymore?”

He shook his head. “No. The pull gets less and less, and eventually, you reach an area where you... you feel like you are falling, but you stay in place.”

Liam’s smile turned predatory.

“Isn’t it hot that close to the sun?” Neb asked.

“Very,” Sunchaser said. Then, his cheeks darkening. “I, ah, may have stolen a few amulets of Ra, to uh, not, um, die.”

Neb growled softly.

“Sorry!” Sunchaser said, quickly, snapping his wings forward to cover himself.

Liam nodded. “The problem with any strategic movement in Purgatory, at this range, is concealment. Brax will know, the instant we move out. He’ll know we’re mustering. He’ll know the direction of our attack. He’ll know everything until we get within the curve of the horizon.” He leaned back in his seat. “But what if there was a way to get the entire army to within a few dozen miles of New Athens in less than a day.”

The table looked at him.

“You don’t mean...” Meg said, slowly.

“Yes, I do. A straight shot. But not with just one valkyrie, but a whole army,” Liam said, slamming his fist into the table with a grin.

“But how?” Neb asked.

Then she gasped. Her paws went to her muzzle and she looked at Tefan.

Tefan looked confused.

Until Liam started to explain.

And slowly, the entire table started to grin.

***

Liv got to the thirteenth Athenian bureaucrat before she broke one of their noses. Honestly, she was rather proud of herself. Every moment from arriving in the harbor to meeting the guard, to demanding that they give Vulkis the viking burial at sea that he’d want, to arguing with the city guard, to arguing with the city guard’s superior, to working her way through the senators and councilors who infested the defenses of New Athens had been a measured attempt to drive her insane.

Now?

Now Liv just stepped over the groaning woman’s prone body, threw open the doors to the inner chamber of the Dodekatheon temple in the heart of New Athens, and put her hands on her hips.

“Father!”

There were three gods within the temple. Apollo looked his luminous self as he lounged back on the seats that ringed the central dias. He was watching his father Zeus, who was watching Ares, who was looking at Liv as if she was an unexpectedly pregnant mortal and he was Zeus. It was an oddly specific expression, and one that was common across the entire Dodekatheon. She had even seen it on Artemis’ face once when a pregnant and very beautiful Coptic woman arrived in town.

She had never gotten the full story on that.

But then something impossible happened.

Ares’ face shifted from shock to cool delight. He nodded and turned back to his father.

“Ah, good!” he said. “My daughter has returned. Liv, tell us of the approaching army. As you know, father, I have been using her skills to learn more of the enemy. It is thanks to her that we knew to destroy those foul teleporter shrines before the enemy could take advantage of them. And, further, thanks to her that we have an alliance with Babylon and can rely upon Liam Vanderbilt of Earth and his stalwart army.” He slapped Liv’s back as she walked up to him.

Liv gaped at her father.

He looked down at her. If you don’t back me up, his voice rumbled in her mind, resonant and strange, as if it came from within her ears and throat. No one else seemed to hear it. Then I will beat you to death in this very temple.

Liv blinked.

She looked at her father.

She looked at her grandfather.

Zeus nodded to her.

She coughed. “Y-Yes,” she said, her voice hitching. “The, uh, the enemy are coming.”

Zeus frowned. “We knew that,” he rumbled.

Liv shook her head. Survive the moment, worry later. She coughed. “Uh, Brax the Golden is the enemy’s general. He’s extremely talented. He’s attacked using magic and teleport shrines-”

“We’ve destroyed all of the local ones, using the notes Ares gave us,” Apollo said. If he saw anything was odd, he hid it well. Liv gulped and nodded.

“Well, uh, he’s also used aqueducts and sewer systems. It doesn’t matter how large nor how small the entrance is, if he can find it, he will.” She bit her lip. “His infantry are well drilled and able to do a forced march for weeks on end without being tired. So, he can split detachments away from his army to harass neighboring city-states with ease. Do we have Poseidon’s aid?”

Zeus frowned. “My dear brother sees fit to protect Neriad and his wife. He claims that he will send his fleet. Once the enemy has become ensnared by our defenses.”

“Hades?” Liv asked.

Apollo rubbed the back of his neck. “No message. But, ah, according to Persephone, Hades...” He trailed off. “Fell over laughing?”

Liv scowled at Zeus.

“So much for familial loyalty,” he muttered.

“Yes, Hades has no reason to resent you at all,” Liv said.

“I know, I’m his brother,” Zeus said, seeming to miss the sarcasm.

Liv wanted to beat her head against a pillar.

“Well,” Ares said. “The enemy will be here before the next kindling. I shall discuss the matter of our defenses with my daughter.” His hand went to her back and he pushed her towards the exit of the temple with him. Liv only skidded a few feet before her legs started to move. As she walked, she puzzled over what had happened.

How is no one else noticing? she thought. The Ares of her youth and most of her adulthood had been brutal and direct and, well…

He had been literally afraid of the sight of his own blood.

He had failed to seduce Aphrodite. Aphrodite.

He was ugly and crude and kind of dumb.

Nothing at all like the confident, smiling god who walked her through the corridors of the center of New Athens. She walked with him in silence until they came to a set of side chambers. From the neatness and the spartan accouterments, she assumed they had to belong to Ares. There was a battered collection of armor hanging on a post beside the wall, while several spears rested in arming racks, waiting to be used. The only thing that looked even slightly decadent was the pile of fruits on a small bowl.

“So,” Ares said, pushing the door closed. “We need to have a talk, daughter.”

Liv stepped away from him, then turned. “You've turned traitor on Sysminor,” she said, slowly. “Let me see if I have this straight. First, you work with him to try and steal Liam’s iPod back in Olimurias a year ago. Then, you send me to work with Brax while Liam needed me the most. Now?” She spread her hands. “Now you’re, what, a double - triple? - agent? You're not going to sabotage a thing in the New Athens defenses, are you?”

Ares chuckled. “Sabotage?” he asked. “I’ve strengthened them. Apollo and Zeus don’t even know about the magical wards.” He stepped forward, looking down at her. “You’ve done everything I needed you to do, my daughter.” He caressed her cheek.

Liv lay on the ground. Her head rang. She blinked colored spots from her eyes and tried to figure out what had happened. Her mouth bled sluggishly and she felt something rattling against her lip. She shook her head and sat up – and then almost choked. She coughed and spat a wad of blood and a single tooth onto the ground. Her tongue probed and felt the jagged remainder in her gums. She looked up.

Ares almost glowed with fury.

“You are a whore,” he said.

Liv panted, then growled. She sprang to her feet. “Bastard-”

Her sword was in Ares' hands before she even reacted. He brought it down to his knee and snapped the bronze blade in half. He tossed it aside.

“That’s what you won’t be having. Get an abortion before talking to me again, and I may think of you as my daughter again.” Ares turned away from her, slapping his hands together to brush the bronze dust from them. Liv blinked, looking down at her fingers, then up at Ares.

“How do you...” She trailed off.

Ares looked over his shoulder. His eyes looked a mix between pitying and furious.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to hear the answer to.” He waved his hand and the doors swung open behind her.

Liv had retreated from many battles. It was a simple truth of being a warrior. But she had never been beaten before. She had always hurried off, knowing that she could come back, turn the tables. Sometimes, it had even been within the same day.

Now, she fled. She ran and ran and ran as fast as her feet could take her.

***

Liv came to Apollo’s chambers in the dead of night. She had moved as quietly as she could, her mind focused so intensely on stealth that she barely felt the ache of her regrown tooth. The priest who had performed the healing hadn’t asked any questions. She was glad.

Apollo slept without guards – the casual confidence of a god whose sanctum was a safe distance away. He didn’t wake as Liv padded forward to the bed, his face remaining relaxed. Peaceful. He still glowed faintly, even while under the blankets. The room’s pale gold radiance made Liv feel only more nervous, not less. Apollo glowed because he was the god of the sun, of healing, of life and music.

His glow was…

Normal.

And it just threw everything Ares had done into sharper relief.

Apollo’s eyes snapped open as Liv reached for his shoulder. He tensed – then sat up. “Liviana?” he asked, his voice soft. “What in Purgatory are you doing here?”

“Apollo, I need you to focus,” Liv said, kneeling beside the bed. “Something is wrong with Ares.”

Apollo’s brow knitted. Then, slowly, he said the words back to her. “Something is wrong with Ares.” He blinked. “Something is wrong with Ares.”

“Good, you see it. When did it start?” Liv hissed.

Apollo shook his head, his golden tresses bouncing slightly. “I don’t know. But even now, it is hard to focus on. It is as if every memory I have screams at me, tells me that Ares is Ares. But...” He bit his lip, and then laid back in the bed. “It was within the last year, I believe.” He shook his head. “We need to learn what is causing this, lest we clasp a viper to our bosom.” He frowned, then focused his eyes on Liv. “There’s only one choice. We need to seek answers at the Oracle. Only she can divine this.”

“Oracle?” Liv asked. “What fucking Oracle?”

Apollo chuckled. “The Oracle of New Athens. We haven’t called on her for centuries, since she stopped speaking to us. But while she spoke, the Oracle was never wrong. So the legends say.” He shrugged. “As you are Ares daughter, you may be able to divine more than I. And, well, if you go, you will not have your loyalty torn between father and city.”

Liv’s loud snort spoke volumes.

“We have little choice,” Apollo pointed out. “If Ares means ill-”

“What if New Athens falls?” Liv asked, standing and putting her hands to her belt. “What then? Where do I go with any information I find?”

Apollo sighed.

“You take it to Babylon.”

Liv snorted. “Fucking great. Oracles. Traitors. What’s this war going to bring next?”

***

“The heat shield cracked,” Neb said, tossing the chunk of blackened, cracked pottery on Liam’s desk. Her tail twitched from side to side and her snout quivered with annoyance. As the most well read woman in Babylon, she had become the de facto head of the project that would end the war with a Purgatorian victory.

Hopefully.

“Well,” he said. “At least the gliders only crash half the time now.” He pursed his lips. “Maybe if we add water to the mix?”

“Then we get mud, Godkiller,” Neb said, putting her hands on her hips.

“Not during the construction – we add water when we put it together,” he said. “Valks can carry it.”

“Then we have a gigantic cloud of...” Neb blinked. “Oh. I’ve just figured out how we solve the camouflage problem!”

She turned and hurried off.

“I believe it was me who solved the camouflage problem right then, you... you walking cumdoll!” Liam shouted after her.

“Safe word!”

“That’s not our safe word...”

***

The Hellenes didn’t leave the beaches undefended. Several regiments of Athenian archers and hoplites were waiting on a raised patch of ground behind the boats. They opened fire with arrows sheathed in golden light, which flew unerringly towards the longships approaching their shores. The huscrals within lifted their shields up, but it seemed every arrow found a gap and a opening. Arrows thudded into armor and leather and cloth and flesh. Blood started to coat the decks before the second volley was even in the air.

The huscrals hit the beaches, howling with fury and charged towards a line of hoplites. The Aesir’s normal discipline had been broken – a strangely high number of the arrows had hit officers and veterans. The remainder were furious and their line was made all the more ragged by the fact they had to leap from boats.

The hoplites were, by and large, little better. Athenians hewed to the traditions of pre-Macedonian Greek warriors. Warriors who were, in truth, little better than militia. They tilled their fields, they debated their politics, they enjoyed their plays. And once or twice a month, they practiced getting into a line and pretending to murder one another.

It didn’t matter some were fat or old, that some were women, that some were goblins or elves or lilin. All that mattered was that they stood in a line, held their shields and advanced with their spears at the ready.

The hoplites and huscrals crashed together with a sound not unlike death. Splintering wood, shuddering mail, shivering spear. Screaming men and women, several of them dropping and trampled into the sand. The huscrals tried to close – but not a one got past the spear tips.

It was astounding.

Heroic, even.

A repeat, in some ways, of the battle of Marathon, where the Greeks of Earth drove the Persians into the sea.

A shame, then, that a single fight was not a battle.

The first moment the hoplites knew something was wrong was when they started to die. Spears slammed into unprotected backs and sides. The remaining huscrals were falling back, and the hoplites were already loudly discussing who would be grabbing some armor from the slain to make a trophy. Then screams. Cries. Pain.

They turned, trying to bring their shields around, but the detachment of lizardfolk who had swum ashore while the huscrals had distracted the Hellenes had claimed the hill. They had short spears and a lot of javelins. The hoplites tried to reform but then more lizardmen came rushing from the sea. They had waited, clinging to the bottom of the longships. Now, they screeched and leaped, landing in the center of the hopilte formations, hewing about themselves with heavy bronze blades. Wading from the surf were sorcerers who added the final stroke of terror to the utter rout.

Lightning surged from their palms, incinerating men and women alike, leaving entire ranks blinded and deafened by the strobe-brightness of their attacks.

The Athenian hoplites broke and fled, panic rearing its head through their formation. They fled or died or were captured.

By the end of the morning, the entire fleet had landed on the beach – ten miles east of New Athens.

By the end of the day, they were encamped around New Athens and their fleet was ringing the harbor. The huscrals – uncowed by their losses - began to loot the countryside. As the sun settled into darkness, smoke started to rise from the burned and burning farms.

And along the high, stony walls, the remaining hoplites stood, grim-faced and ready for the next attack.

None noticed the dark figure who moved from brick to brick, her bare feet pressed to the wall, her fingers quivering with the weight of her body.

Liv hit the sandy dirt around the base of the wall, her hand going to make sure her blue-black face wrap was still in place. She had raided a few clothing shops to find the right mixture of clothing that would make her vanish in the darkness of Purgatory. She had gotten a few knives, rations, and a new sword.

Would be nice to have Liam's sword, she thought, then grinned to herself. One of them at least.

She stole towards the lizardmen camp.

They had set up in the same pattern she remembered but there were some differences. The old camps had been set up to move at a moment’s notice. This one already had fortifications starting to sprout around it, the sound of ax blades slamming into wood and the calls of officers ordering men to place supplies here, there, and everywhere filled the air. In the chaos and confusion, Liv was able to spot a pattern and slide in through it.

When she was in the camp, she slipped her clothes off, reattached a collar around her throat, and strutted right up to Brax’s tent.

Anix blinked as he saw her, while Vazt simply held out his hand.

Anix sighed. The big lizardman slapped down a few copper coins into Vazt’s palm.

“Gambling?” Liv asked, unable to stop herself from grinning.

“I’d have thought you’d want to have seen the last of this place,” Anix muttered. “There you go, ruining my future retirement.”

“You let an Aesir barbarian smash a hunk of chamber pot over your skull for the General,” Vazt said, shaking his head. “I’m not sure you’ll get to retirement, Anix.”

Liv walked past the two of them.

Inside the tent, she saw Brax kneeling beside a scroll with Fizit. The shapely lizardwoman was wearing very little and her tail had lifted up in excitement, exposing the slit of her sex to Liv. Liv cocked her head, then coughed loudly. The two lizards turned and Fizit snapped to her full height.

“Wow, your tits are huge now,” Liv said, casually.

Fizit growled. “What are you doing here? You were supposed to be warning the Hellenes! We smashed straight through them.”

“That was just one detachment. They volunteered to slow you down,” Liv said, quietly. “Ares thought if you could be slowed down, then the whole army could muster and destroy you. Didn’t quite work out that way.’ She shook her head. “Brax, something’s wrong.”

Brax listened as she outlined what had happened. Once she was done, he shook his head.

“I don’t like any of these options,” he said. “Ares turning against Sysminor is good but an Ares with impossible powers?” He shook his head. “Trusting oracles? Fizit, tell me about this Oracle.”

“The Oracle of Athens,” Fizit said. “It operated from the years five hundred AB to six hundred AB, but then ceased giving any answers. It was discovered in some mountains north of the city, and has never been easy to reach. However, unlike the Oracle of Delphi, it was said that it required neither medium nor interpreters. Rather, it stated its answers clearly to those who asked of it.” She sighed. “That’s the extent of what we know – most of the books from that time were destroyed in various wars and sacks.”

Brax grunted.

Liv shrugged. “So, what do we do?”

Brax looked deeply thoughtful. “As much as I...” His voice became ragged. “As much as I want you here, I cannot have you stay. Sysminor is arriving in two days with the first supply convoy, now that we’ve secured the area. If he sees you...” He shook his head.

Liv reached out. Her hand ruffled the frills along the tip of Brax’s head. He leaned into her palm and there was a moment where the mask fell away, and there was no General Brax - there was just a man who needed that touch. The memory of him, driving into her, filling her, kindled Liv faster than anything she had thought possible. She drew her hand back before she simply shoved Brax backwards and mounted him then and there.

Fizit could watch for all she fucking cared.

Brax shook his head. “Go. The siege is going to last some time. Fizit, I want you to go with her.”

Fizit hissed.

“No,” Brax said, cutting her off. “You’re getting further and further along with child. Soon, even an idiot like Sysminor is going to notice and, again, ask questions. The last thing we need is Sysminor to get his hands on Liam Vanderbilt’s child-”

“Wait, what?” Liv asked, her eyes bugging almost out of her head.

Fizit’s entire muzzle turned bright red with a blush.

Brax chuckled. “She told me, after you left. She, ahem, encountered Vanderbilt during an orgy. As he was the only one who, ah, finished inside of her.” Now his muzzle was covered with a blush, shining through the gold plating. “She is fairly certain the child is his.”

Fizit nodded. “I think when Sysminor used the Codec, he made us all fertile too by accident. Cross-fertile even.”

Brax sighed and drew the conversation back on track: “We need you both out of this camp. The excuse is going to be that you, Fizit, are going to be setting up the conversion networks. And, well, you were never supposed to be here in the first place, Liv.”

Liv smiled at that. Her heart squeezed. The urge to push Brax onto his back and ride him became nearly overwhelming.

Fizit’s tail lashed from side to side. “Do you want me to actually try and set up a conversion network?”

Brax laughed. “What? Try and convince the Hellenes living in villages and towns and hamlets to stop worshiping the Dodekatheon and instead pray to a walking pile of psychotic boulders? It’s the stupidest damn idea I’ve ever heard.” He grinned. “I want you to pour money into trying.”

Fizit grinned wickedly.

“So, we’re definitely onto the final stage of your plan,” Liv said, quietly.

Brax nodded. “Fizit, get ready.”

Fizit bowed, then turned and walked off.

As she left, Liv looked back at Brax. He had turned to the scroll – a map of New Athens, she saw - but she could see his eyes weren’t moving. Liv took a step closer.

“You should go with her,” he rumbled.

“It’ll take her time.” Liv’s fingers were on the collar.

Brax grunted.

Liv’s fingers slipped down. Several soft thumps filled the tent – the only noise. Even Brax’s breathing had stopped. Brax didn’t turn around. Liv’s finger slipped along her collar again. The only piece of clothing she wore. Over Brax’s shoulder, she could see his hardness.

“My father called me a whore,” Liv said. “And said that I should be ashamed. I think he sent me with you to spy on you. I don’t know how fucking magic works...” Her hands went to Brax’s shoulders. She could trace every muscle through his scales. Her fingers rubbed along the place where his neck met his back. “But Tethis said that things that were similar worked together, or something. If I needed a spy, and had weird magic powers, what better way to look around than through a daughter?”

Brax breathed in for the first time since her loincloth hit the floor. His eyes still remained locked on the map. Not moving.

“Likely,” he rasped.

“Well,” Liv said. “Do you know what I want to do, my General?”

Brax shook his head mutely.

“I want to piss my fucking bastard of a father off.”

Liv dragged backwards. Her strength sent Brax onto his back, his head thumping into the carpeted floor of the tent. He opened his mouth, but before he could, Liv sat down on his face. Her thighs clamped around his muzzle and she leaned forward. Her nose flared as she breathed in his musk. His cock curved slightly as it thrust into the air, wobbling with the slight movement of his thighs. She fixed that by closing her mouth around the tip of his shaft, tasting his salty pre-cum.

Liv hadn’t realized how much she had missed the taste of gold until she tasted him again.

She pushed forward and smoothly took his massive cock into her throat, forcing herself past the gag reflex. Her lips touched his scaled belly and she felt her nose resting against the firm curve of his golden balls. Meanwhile, Brax felt like he was finally starting to realize the position he was in. The long lick that he delivered to her aching cunt was tentative.

Hesitant.

Then his clawed hands gripped her thighs. His fingers dug into her, as if she was a chunk of driftwood and he a shipwrecked mariner. Thanks to her blessing, his claws felt glorious rather than painful. She started to rock her hips in time with his licks, which went from the base of her sex to the very top, then teased her taint. Liv’s eyes rolled almost back into her skull as she bobbed her head up and down the massive golden cock that filled her mouth. Her tongue swirled around his member and she planted her elbows to either side of his thighs. She gripped the base of his cock and started to stroke him.

The wet sound of her slurping and sucking filled the tent, along with the smell of him and her and their eagerness. Liv’s nose flared again and again – breathing in every time she bobbed her head backwards. She was so focused on his pleasure, on bringing Brax everything she wanted, that her own orgasm struck her unexpectedly like a godkilling bomb. Her spine arched and she felt her juices gush over Brax’s muzzle and coat his long, slithering tongue.

Brax moaned, then pushed her rump up enough to gasp out.

“On me, soldier. Now.”

That tone of voice, combined with the fact that his cock filled her throat, just set off more fireworks in Liv’s brain. She drew her mouth back with one last slurp.

Once she was free, she stood, then slid her thighs forward. Her knees rasped against the rug, giving her a burning sense of friction. But she didn’t want to waddle forward, because that’d mean she wasn’t able to grind her sex along Brax’s washboard abs and flat belly and feel every tiny, smooth bump of his belly scales. Once she was at his thighs, she let out a soft gasp and brought herself up, poising over his cock. She had to half stand.

That was how long he was.

“T-Turn around,” Brax whispered.

Liv looked over her shoulder, grinning. “And deprive you of a view of this ass?” she asked, her hips moving of their own accord. She dipped just enough to let the ridged head of his shaft spread her sex. Her instincts roared at her to drive down but she held herself back.

Brax grinned slowly. “I spent months admiring that ass,” he murmured. “I want to see your face... because I’ve only seen your face when you climax once.”

Liv blushed. She looked forward, her hands planted on the ground before herself. Then she stood fully, turned around, and knelt down. The absence of Brax’s cock made her keen softly – she couldn’t stop herself. Its return brought with it a gasp. She wasn’t able to make a louder noise as she dropped her thighs down. Their bodies met and Liv’s eyes narrowed to slits but didn’t close.

She didn’t want to stop looking into Brax’s eyes.

He slid his hands along her back – wonderingly. He hissed. “I... never thought I’d feel this again,” he whispered.

“My cunt?” she asked, managing to sound coy despite the fact she was fuller than she had been since... well, since the last time Brax fucked her.

“Love,” Brax rumbled.

Liv blushed. Her whole body turned red, really. She opened her mouth, then closed it. She knew that there were things you said when someone said they loved you. Things that would make them know that you knew what they felt. That you felt something better. Once, long ago, she had been taught all the kinds of love, and she had even remembered one long enough to talk a handsome tavern boy into fucking her in the hay-loft of her stable.

Now?

She stammered. “T-Thanks?”

Brax laughed, reached up, grabbed her hair, and tugged her down for a kiss. His tongue plunged into her throat and his hips started to rise and fall, with enough motion and strength to bring his balls slapping into her ass, as firm as a spank. Liv closed her eyes and kissed him back with increasing desperation as they made love. They were both so worked up that Liv knew it wouldn’t last long. She broke the kiss, her hands planted to either side of his head. She drew her mouth back just enough to look into his golden eyes as his hands clasped to her back.

Brax’s eyes closed and he opened his mouth in a nearly silent roar, his balls clenching. Seed rushed into Liv and she quivered atop him, panting heavily as she leaned her forehead forward, letting her whole body rock with his last few thrusts. Each one pushed more cum into her, even as some dripped out around his shaft, splattering onto his belly, dripping along his balls. It started to soak the fur rug and made Liv feel like she was glowing from the inside out.

Liv breathed in. Breathed out. Breathed in.

“Eh,” she managed to say. “It was all right.”

Brax chuckled. His arms closed around her tightly, and held her until Fizit walked into the tent.

“Gods,” the lizardwoman muttered.

“Want to join?” Liv asked, as she Brax’s neck. His cock had hardened inside of her and he was still lazily thrusting. It wasn’t quite sex – rather, it was a better way to lay together. An advantage of inhuman stamina and supernaturally toughened bodies.

Fizit scoffed. “I, well...” She paused as Brax’s cock slipped from Liv’s sex. “Damn...”

“Yeah, he's almost as big as Liam,” Liv smirked.

“Almost?” Brax asked.

“It's not a competition,” Liv said with an eyeroll. “You're still fucking hung”

Only Liv’s closeness let her see the blush along his muzzle. His hands pushed Liv back and away from him. Liv stood, her knees only shaking slightly. “Go,” he said, quietly. “If... if you don’t go now, while I can’t, ah, stand...” He paused. “I’d be going with you.”

Liv gulped. She nodded, then stepped to the tent door.

Fizit grabbed her before she walked out. The lizardwoman picked up her breast band with her tail, then slapped it against Liv’s chest.

Liv chuckled. “Right.”

Nine

Brax knelt before the map of all the Hellenic cities and villages that his forces had visited over the past week and tried to not think about how close the raiding parties were getting to the supposed position of the Oracle.

Oracles…

He shook his head slightly.

“Why is there a de-de-delayyyy?” Sysminor groaned, his voice filling the tent.

Brax smiled and turned. “You mistake immobility for inaction, my lord,” Brax said. He tapped his fingers against the map. “We’ve attacked fifteen villages, getting supplies, spreading fear. The other Hellenic cities are locked down – a mere sight of our forces keeps them at their walls. My banner goes with every raiding party, and... well, I’ve painted a few of my more striking officers gold.” He nodded. “I’ve made a reputation. May as well use it.”

Sysminor remained silent.

Then laughed.

When Brax emerged from the tent, one of Fizit’s spies approached him. The young man looked as bushy tailed as a squirrel – not entirely figuratively, too, as his tail frills were very long. He saluted. “General Brax! We’ve gotten another report! Um, about the cloud.”

Brax nodded. “Any change?”

“The cloud, um, continues to float over Babylon.” The young lizardman looked up at the sky, his nictitating membranes flicking down to protect himself from the sun’s light. “We cannot see it from here. They’ve placed the sun between us and it. It’s miles up in the sky, visible from Wotan, though!”

Brax frowned. “Has it moved?”

“No. None of our spies in Babylon can get close enough to where the magic they cast to create it to take notes.”

Brax shook his head. “They’re working on some kind of weather spell. Let me find some sorcerers.”

The spy saluted again. “Sir!”

Brax smiled and filed the young man’s face away in his memory. He was definitely going on the flank attack.

When Brax started towards the edge of the camp, he saw that several of his soldiers were coming back in. They had new wounds that were already scabbing over. Siege battles, he had found, produced minor wounds that would have rapidly overloaded his sorcerers and his healing capacity, even with the priests from Olimurias. Intestines were split by arrows, wounds were slashed by dirty blades, and because the contact continued on and on, day after day, more and more wounds cropped up.

And that was with his forces away from the walls, with only periodic harassment duties.

Here, Sysminor’s blessing to his people became all the more valuable than gold. Wounds closed within days. Fatigue faded in hours. And the soldiers went back to fire arrows and taunt the enemy.

Brax stepped up to the wall of his camp.

The flags of Zeus and Apollo and Ares still flew over New Athens.

It looked like it was going to be a long siege.

Brax grinned.

***

Liv grabbed onto the lip of the next ridge, dragged herself up, then plopped her ass down on the side of the mountain. She looked down as Fizit leaped from her standing position to the part of the cliff right next to Liv. The curvy lizardwoman looked rather smug as she put her hand on the stone cliff-face, looking down at Liv.

“Getting tired?” she asked.

“Can’t you just use fucking magic to get there?” Liv grumbled.

“No,” Fizit said, quietly. “I don’t want to ping Sysminor. He’s aware every time we cast magic – I’ve been monitoring his reactions, and that’s the conclusion.” She shook her head. “So, up the next bit.”

Liv grumbled. “I fucking hate this piece of fucking shit adventure.” She gauged the wall, looking for handholds. She grabbed one, then put her foot against the wall and hauled herself up, making sure she was settled. She scowled. “So, by the way, I’m knocked up too.”

Fizit paused, then snapped her head up.

“You bring that up now!?” she asked, sounding shocked.

“Well, I was thinking,” Liv said, gritting her teeth. She hauled herself up another handhold. “I need you to tell Brax. I can’t head back. So, figured I should-” she grunted. “Tell you eventually.”

“You shouldn’t be here!” Fizit hissed. “You’re carrying the General’s child!”

“Eh,” Liv said, shrugging, then hauled herself up onto the next cleft. She panted and set her rump against the rock, turning and looking back down at Fizit. She grinned. “Try and jump that, you scaled bitch.”

Fizit smirked. She tensed, then leaped. Her claws dug into rock and she flung herself upwards. This time, she overshot and had to skid along the wall, her claws digging in divots along the rock face. When she landed, Liv scowled.

“You’re just jealous,” Fizit said sweetly.

“You know,” Liv said, standing. “Since you’re behind the death of one of my friends, I could push you over the cliff and no one would know any the wiser.” She shook her head. “But that’d piss Brax off.”

“I’m honored,” Fizit said, her voice still sweet. Then, frowning. “And wouldn’t it anger your friend Liam?” Her hand went to her belly. There was only a hint that anything was growing there.

Liv shrugged. “His god hates bastards, I think. He only had one over two thousand years, that’s a lot of fucking restraint. I figure Liam’d thank me.”

Then she turned and looked up at the mountain. There still seemed to be a fuck of a lot left to climb. Liv scowled.

“Why couldn’t the Oracle by somewhere easy to get to?” she asked, punching the wall lightly. Her knuckle contacted something that gave way. The stone that had seemed so natural before her smoothly melted down into the ground and revealed a perfectly rectangular corridor. It was lit only by the sun shining in from behind the two women – and that sunlight showed that the floor was an eerie silver color that reminded Liv of Liam’s longsword.

Fizit hissed. “I don’t like the looks of this.”

“You and me both, scalie,” Liv whispered.

Fizit reached into her belt pouch and drew a small chunk of crystal. She shook it and the mage light that had been cast on the crystal glowed to pale blue light. It shone into the corridor, revealing that it went straight into a circular room – spherical, actually. A tongue of metal thrust out over the center of the sphere, giving a place to stand. If one didn’t mind trusting their footing to a chunk of metal that could have been thousands of years old.

“Well, it fits the description of the Oracle,” Fizit said. She stepped forward, brave enough. Liv followed her, drawing her sword with a rasp. The blade shone in the light – and then Fizit grabbed her wrist, hissing. “No! The legends say any who attempted to bear a blade before the Oracle died-”

“Well, gods, now you tell me!” Liv hissed back.

“Vrepit Kloth, zenthis no. Gr’tar.”

The voice that spoke from the ceiling was fluid, turning the gutteral sounds of the language into an almost song. Light glowed into being from every corner of the room – a blue glow that made Liv feel oddly relaxed. The sword in her hand glowed white. Then the white glow flowed over her body.

“Ren’Sah Vrepit. Genko.”

The white glow faded and Liv tensed, ready for something to kill her.

“It’s speaking the language of the Ancients,” Fizit whispered.

“I wish Tethis was here,” Liv said, slowly. “Too bad you had her murdered.”

Fizit looked guilty. That was enough to make Liv hold off on any more barbs. For the moment. But while she wasn’t broken up over Tethis’ death – people died, that was the way of the world – she wasn’t about to forgive it or ignore it.

Except when you fucked Brax, a voice in her head muttered. She wanted it to sound like Liam, like a moralizing prat. But instead it sounded like hers. Liv felt something she hadn’t felt in a long while.

A twinge of guilt. She shook her head, then took a step forward. Nothing killed her.

She took another step, then another. Soon, she was standing in the Oracle’s room. The walls glowed to life, shining and showing a haze of strange symbols. They floated in the air between her and the wall – rotating, spinning. Some of them even blinked. Liv’s brow furrowed.

“It’s responding,” Fizit said. “The records say that this was how it would respond – but eventually, it stopped answering.”

Liv frowned. She looked at the floating symbols.

Something about them was familiar.

Not their shape, not their color.

It was how they were arranged.

She held up her hands slowly, then twiddled her thumbs.

“It’s an iPhone,” she whispered.

“What?” Fizit asked.

“I’ve seen Liam use his iPhone-”

“I thought it was called an iPod,” Fizit said.

“He’s called it both,” Liv snapped. “Like how sometimes my name can be spelled with one N or two. Now, focus. The symbols floated around when he tapped at them. He called them icons and when he touched them, things happened.” Liv reached out with one hand and pressed the biggest, most obvious icon.

Why not start with the biggest?

Her fingers touched it.

“Are you sure that’s a-” Fizit asked.

“Tell me, Oracle!” Liv said, her voice as commanding as possible. “What the fuck is going on with my fucking father?”

The walls around her fuzzed into a blur of colors and lights. Then, when they settled, they showed…

Green. Jungle. A statue of a valkyrie woman, standing proudly beside four other statue basis. Liv’s brow furrowed slightly. “The fuck is that?” she asked.

“It’s the Victory Hill,” Fizit said. “After the Ancient War, the five races of purgatory built statues to commemorate their victory.”

“Where’d the other statues go?” Liv asked. “And what does this have to do with Ares?”

“Valks got ideas about us who walk along the ground,” Fizit said, shrugging. “And no one bothered to stop them when they came to melt the other statues down for weap-”

The air before the statue exploded into light. A sphere of whiteness expanded outwards and vomited out a very familiar figure. Liam Vanderbilt – looking as dopey and innocent as Liv had ever seen him, dressed in a bizarre set of clothing – tumbled forward. He hit the ground and then rolled off the hill. As he rolled away, the sounds of his grunting progress down a set of stairs built into the hill filled the chamber. Liv laughed.

“This is fucking hilarious,” she said, shaking her head, then sweeping her hands at the wall. “But-”

Her hand caused the view to spin dizzily. She yelped and almost fell off the tongue of metal that thrust into the room. Fizit grabbed her shoulders, keeping her rooted as the view finished its spin and ended up looking at the sky as Liam’s exclaims of fear and wonderment – all of it in that bizarre pseudo-Latin he spoke – continued to ring out. Liv held her hands out and then slowly moved them.

The view panned around slower this time.

Liv grinned as she focused on Liam. He had just finished slaughtering a crystalback and was checking over his belongings. He started down the hill and was out of sight.

Liv bit her lip. “But this isn’t the future. This is the past. That’s how Liam came to Purgatory.” She paused. “Shit, I’ve walked within a few dozen miles of this place while hunting him and Meg.”

“Some icons have returned,” Fizit said, pointing at them with her finger. Liv looked down.

One of the icons was a jagged bar. Another was a thinner bar looped by a circle that spun slowly counterclockwise. The last was a V-shaped black line with a surrounding red circle. She touched the V-shaped one first. The image froze. Liam was halfway between taking a step and moving forward and yet, he didn’t fall. There was even a butterfly, caught between wing flaps.

Liv tapped the V-shaped one again. Motion returned.

She nodded. Seemed simple enough.

She took hold of the ring. Turning it counter-clockwise caused Liam to move backwards. If she turned it back far enough, the image would move to the moment he arrived. She kept twirling it backwards and found that the image actually turned back into a haze of random colors and blotches a few moments before he arrived in that ball of light.

“So, it’s like a sentry,” she said. “It reports on Liam’s arrival, but has nothing before. I wonder if this sentry has anything earlier than Liam.”

She reached out and touched the last symbol.

The colors swirled out.

Swirled in. Formed into the image of a dirty home. A priest of Hestia stood above a bed. An elven woman lay in it. She had haunted, bitter eyes and glared into nothingness while her swollen belly was tended to by two midwives. The midwives looked at one another, wordlessly communicating. The woman’s face, though. Looking at it...

Liv felt as if she had been slapped.

“Who's that?” Fizit asked.

“That’s my mother,” Liv said, voice grim.

She hit the cease movement button.

Fizit’s brow furrowed. “Why is your birth recorded by the sentry?”

“I don’t know,” Liv said, her voice flat. “But I don’t need to see her die in childbirth.”

“But there were priests,” Fizit said.

“That’s what I said, and I don’t need to know,” Liv said. She tapped the ‘next report’ button. This one showed her mother too – hale and healthy and looking utterly alien. She was clad in a kind of armor. It looked like armor at least. The edges were hard and straight, but also had an organic curve at the joints. There were blue crystals located in the shoulders. She was speaking to the camera, speaking the tongue of the Ancients.

“How old are you?” Fizit asked, quietly.

Liv shrugged. “Lost count,” she said.

“You-” Fizit shook her head. “You lost count?”

“My life is fighting and fucking and waiting for the next of both,” Liv said, looking at her. “Once you get past the first century, a second or third one starts looking a lot like the first one.” She smirked. “Honestly, the past year’s the most memorable I’ve had in a while.”

Fizit looked like she was reconsidering her position on not murdering Liv. Liv honestly couldn’t figure out why. But before she could ask, a loud clang sounded. The tearing of metal – and laughter. And Greek. Soldiers swarmed into the room. Each of them were valkyrie, and they carried crude looking shields and strange weapons. One of them held the hilt of a sword, while another held what looked like one of those muskets that Liam had made but smoother, sleeker, and without any sign of a firing mechanism.

Liv’s mother spun and drew her own hilt. Energy leaped from it and she sprang at the valkyrie. He knocked the blade aside with a sneer.

Liv watched, mutely, as they held her mother down.

Liv watched, mutely, as Ares swaggered into the room.

Liv watched, mutely, as screams filled the chamber – and the sound, the unmistakable sound, despite linguistic differences, of begging.

And male laughter.

Then she turned and walked out of the Oracle – the images behind her fuzzing into nothingness.

Fizit followed her.

“What are you going to do?” she hissed as the door out of the Oracle opened.

“I’m going to find Ares,” Liv said. “And I’m going to mount his head on a fucking pike.”

***

There was a small shop in Babylon that made a brisk trade buying and selling paper. The city of Babylon had an endless, voracious need for paper. Books were printed by the thousands, and the literacy rate was going up daily thanks to schools being set up by the priests and mages that Liam had been attracting to his city since the day the war began. In times of trouble, tall walls and a strong army had an allure all to their own for those who had read deeply of history and knew the result of sacks.

This shop – named something innocuous and easily forgotten – was a perfect cover.

No one asked why it made paper, or purchased ink, or sent out letters.

One would expect a professional scribe and papermaker to do such things, after all.

Linizt approached the shop in her robes and tried to ignore the pain spiking between her temples. She missed her tail. She missed her claws. She missed her teeth. She missed everything about not being disguised as a human – if only because she wanted to sink her teeth into something and rip and tear until it was all shreds.

Being a spy required patience and a willingness to listen and a mind for details and a memory that wasn’t dulled by reading and writing.

But there were limits, even to Lin’s abilities.

When she came to the shop, she knocked once, then twice, then three times more. A quiet voice spoke through the door to her: “Pass?”

“Lightning and shadow,” Lin murmured.

The door opened and the pain between her temples faded somewhat. Her handler – and the only other lizardfolk she knew in the city – smiled at her. He was handsome, even in the form of an elf. Maybe slightly more, as his elven form didn’t have that wicked scar across his muzzle that left his teeth exposed. Tark stepped back and gestured Lin into the chambers. Lin stepped forward and Tark closed the door.

Before she could even start her report, Tark leaned forward and kissed her. His lips were warm and eased the ache in her head to nothing more than a mild annoyance. Lin knew she should push him away. Remind him that there were orders against fraternization between ranks laid down by their spymaster.

Remind him that she was only supposed to be here for five minutes to give her report, not three hours. But they had been such nice hours…

Her hands gripped his hips and her breasts pressed to his chest as she kissed him back. Then Tark drew back, his voice was husky. “Report, then we can get to the fun part.”

Lin grinned. Her hand went to her robes and she casually skimmed them backwards. Tark let the robes hit the floor – his hands were too busy finding her shift and tugging it up. Lin lifted her arms and shivered slightly. The warm air of the office caressing her bare skin felt wonderful after what felt like whole lifetimes being buried under clothes. She missed scales. She missed the casual nudity of the tribe.

But she did rather like the size of her breasts in this human disguise – more so when Tark cupped and squeezed them. She closed her eyes, arching her back to thrust her tits into his hands.

“The, ah,” she said, then gasped. His fingers had found her nipples and tweaked them, sending jolts of pleasure through her. Her knees felt weak and she bit her lip, hard enough to almost draw blood. “Theeee ah um, the project. I’ve gotten close enough to, um, see what they’re doing. That cloud?” She opened her eyes, looking into Tark’s eyes. “They’re building something up in the sky. I don’t know what magic keeps it there. Haven’t found out. But the pottery they’re making goes there. And there’s also something else! The shipyards? They’re not actually building ships – that’s what we think they’re making, but no. No. The wood is too thin, and the sails are on the wrong parts of the ships. The shipwrights, though, are being watched too close for me to get any more information about the ship building projects. But I don’t think they’re making a fleet.”

Tark nodded. “Brax will know by the end of the week.” He leaned forward, then and caught her nipple in his mouth. His fingers dipped to the snarl of fur that grew above and around her sex. He caressed the folds of her pussy, then plunged his elegant middle finger all the way into her – his fingertip found the center of her pleasure and this time nothing Lin could do stopped her from arching her back and moaning.

They hit the bed a moment later.

Lin wouldn’t admit it unless under torture, but there were some advantages to not having a tail.

For instance, laying back on the bed, spreading her thighs wide so that Tark could delve his tongue into her hot, needy cunt? Much more comfortable without a tail right above her rump. She arched her spine and crooned as his tongue lapped along the folds of her sex, his nose rubbing at her clit. It felt like he wrung pleasure from her body for hours – letting her rise towards climax, then drawing it out enough to let the waters recede, then driving forward again. He stoked her higher and higher and higher, until the moment his long, thin cock pressed to her sex.

“Ready?” Tark purred.

“God yes,” Lin whispered.

Tark plunged into her.

And Lin forgot orders. Forgot the fact she was stuck spying in a city, far from her people, in a body that wasn’t her own. She forgot everything but this moment. Her thighs closed around Tark’s back and she clung to him, moaning inarticulately as he fucked her and fucked her hard. His mouth found and sucked on her neck. He added just a hint of teeth, to make Lin squirm and shudder under him. Her cunt clenched around his cock.

Tark threw his head back and roared quietly. His balls clenched and his heat filled her. Lin shuddered and panted, her eyes hooded as she breathed slowly under him.

The two spies laid together.

“What happens in Babylon, stays in Babylon, right?” Lin whispered, her hands caressing his back. Tark – who was still managing to hold himself up so he wasn’t squashing her – kissed her neck and made a quiet noise at the base of his throat that might have been an affirmative. Might not.

Lin kissed his forehead, squirmed, and pushed, and eventually got Tark to let her go, no matter how badly she wanted to stay. Once she stood, she shook her head and grabbed her shift. She slipped it on over her shoulders, feeling sweat starting to soak into the thin cotton. “I don’t know what the cloud is hiding. But it...” She paused. “It has to be big. It’s more than just magic. Be sure to tell Brax that.”

“I shall,” Tark said, quietly, watching her dress.

Lin blushed, leaned forward, kissed her handler one last time, then turned and hurried away.

Tark smiled.

A flash of white light filled the room. When it faded, Tark was no longer laying in the bed. Instead, a completely nude and utterly beautiful looking Lin was lounging there. She adjusted the covers, so that the coarse sheets covered her hips, leaving only her breasts exposed. She brushed her hair out and waited paitently. When the door opened again, Tark – the real Tark – walked into the room.

He bore with him several jars of ink and a distracted look. He staggered to a stop when he saw Lin.

Lin – Loki – grinned at him.

“We shouldn’t be doing this again,” Tark whispered, slowly, as he walked towards the bed. But his cock already showed what his plans were. Loki rolled onto her back.

“I have nothing to report,” she purred. “So, what better way to spend our time, Tark?”

Tark didn’t have an answer.

Ah, Loki thought as Tark’s cock plunged into her sex, hilting himself to her as she kissed him on the mouth. I fucking love my job.

***

Liv sat on a hill about five miles from New Athens and stewed silently. Fizit crouched next to the firepit that they had dug, with wood planted above it to break the light and smoke up to make them harder to spot. The siege of the city had settled into the bloody work of stalemate, and Liv had been glaring at it for the better part of a week.

In the back of her head, she had done the math. A fucking week to the fucking Oracle – no, not the Oracle. The sentry. Two days to climb that fucking mountain. Two fucking days sitting around at the sentry, trying to coax more information from it. Two days to get fucking down the fucking mountain. A week to fucking get fucking back. She shook her head. Now, a week of sitting. Almost a month.

Fizit had been the one who had grabbed Liv and dragged her back into the room.

“We need to learn more,” she hissed. “You can’t go off and try to kill the God of War without knowing what caused him to change.”

“I don’t fucking care!” Liv snarled. “He raped my mother. He’s going to die.”

Fizit rolled her eyes. “Come on, Liv. You can’t be this fucking self-centered, can you?”

Liv growled and opened her mouth to speak. Fizit snapped her teeth, cutting her off.

“No, shut up, and listen,” the lizard said, her tail lashing from side to side. “You knew Ares. For centuries. Tell me, honestly. Did you ever think that he romanced all the women he laid?” She shook her head. “I doubt it.”

Liv opened her mouth to respond. But she couldn’t say it. Instead, she shook her head.

Fizit sighed. “You knew he was like that. Why so mad now?”

“Because it’s my mother!” Liv shouted, yanking her hand from Fizit. “Because it’s... because...” She stopped, then closed her eyes. “Because...”

Fizit shook her head. She stepped forward and put her hands tentatively on Liv. Liv whimpered. She had never whimpered before in her life. She didn’t know what to think, how to feel. Every part of her heart screamed for vengeance. That was her mother. But Fizit was right. She had never thought about or cared about what her father did. He was just the man who had trained her, and then sent her out to do missions.

Go there.

Kill them.

Come back.

It had been her life, for centuries, and she hadn’t minded. She had gotten to fight and fuck and not worry overmuch about where the food would come from.

What had her mother done? But die?

Leave her alone?

Fizit sighed. “Now. Let's find out what we can. Then we can see about killing Ares.”

The only problem was that the two days of fiddling with the sentry produced nothing but more confusion. Not every image was as clear and well remembered as the three that Liv had first found. A great many were filled with strange smears of light and textures unlike anything she had seen before. Imagine patterns of gray and white dots, intermixed and then shaken rapidly, so that the colors continually fuzzed through one another. It was almost hypnotic but it was also nearly useless.

Sound, too, was spotty. Several had perfect recreations of sounds and voices. Too perfect, considering the fact that Liv wouldn’t forget the sound of her mother begging for mercy. Ever. But most had no sound at all. Some had sound that seemed to come from the bottom of a deep well, or was filled with unearthly screeches and howls and whistles and pops and rattling noises.

They sifted through this information while eating through the last of their rations, but it only left Liv more confused.

Apart from Liam's appearance, the the sentry only seemed to be interested in elves - and in an extremely morbid way. There were dozens of fragmentary images that showed elves being killed or dying. Some of sickness, most of violence.

Liv hadn't recognised any of them, except Ares, who appeared in three images. The first was...

The first she knew.

The second showed Ares stepping into a ruined chamber. He looked around himself, nodded smugly, and then walked over to a large chunk of crystal. His hand touched the crystal, which started to glow a pale blue. Then the image fuzzed into useless.

The last one was the only one that had given them any hint as to what had changed in Ares. It was five minutes long and most of it was a silent view of a doorway in a chamber that was dominated by several rectangular plinths. All but one were empty – the one that held anything at all contained what seemed to be a silvery skullcap. Liv had planned to leave after the first minute, but Fizit forced her to sit with a glower and a snap of her teeth. Over time, the door had started to crumple inwards. Then, finally, it exploded.

If there had been sound, Liv realized, she’d have been hearing the battering.

Ares walked into the ruined chamber, flanked by two hoplites. They looked like a scouting party, dressed in only light armor. Ares looked around the chamber, shook his head. His mouth moved and Liv thought he was ordering the hoplites to head back outside. Then his eyes fell on the helmet. He picked it up, eyed it.

His mouth moved but the angle was bad.

“He’s not going to put that on, is he?” Fizit asked.

“Why? What is it?”

“It’s an ancient artifact,” Fizit said. “I don’t know if you remember, but for most of Purgatory’s history, ancient artifacts killed people.”

Liv snorted. “Well, I mean, their shrines tended to kill people.” She remembered a few men she had lost while trying to kill Liam as he fled with Tethis and Meg into a teleport shrine.

Ares put the helmet on.

Then he fell to his knees, his mouth open in a silent scream. His body arched and he started to flicker with flames. Literal flames – they burst into being around his body. His armor turned to slag and dripped off his form as his clothes scorched away. The only thing unaffected was his skin, which seemed unharmed, even as molten bronze dripped along his belly and off his balls. He writhed on the floor, still screaming.

“Holy shit, this is awesome,” Liv whispered, grinning.

Fizit glanced at her.

The flames faded and then the image turned into a jagged mirror. It shattered into the white fuzz that meant that the sentry was confused or had forgotten or something.

Liv scowled. “Come on! Did he die or what?”

“I don’t think he died,” Fizit said. “I think that? That was the moment it changed. And more?” She looked at her. “It was a year ago.”

Liv blinked. “How the fuck did you figure that out?”

Fizit sighed. “I used my eyes. Come on. Let's get back to New Athens.”

It had taken the entire trip down the mountain for Liv to finally get Fizit to explain how she had figured it out. Snooty bitch. She had said that there were symbols she spotted in each image – they were placed right next to the main ‘interface’ (that was the word Liam had used for that kinda thing on his iPhone at least.) Apparently, she had compared the symbols every time she had had a specific date and the numbering for Liam’s arrival and the numbering for Ares’ change were so close as to be nearly identical.

“I think Liam’s arrival came after. Barely,” Fizit said.

That had given Liv a lot to think about.

Which was the problem.

She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to wait in a camp, hunting for food and drinking water from a stream while considering history and her own outrage. She wanted to plunge a spear through Ares eye socket and have that be that.

“You okay?” Fizit asked, breaking Liv out of her memories.

“No,” Liv said.

Fizit shook her head. “Have you noticed the clouds?”

Liv’s brow furrowed. The past few days had been quite sunny and hot. No sign of storms or anything. But now that Fizit mentioned it, she had noticed clouds. But they had been distant enough that her brain had filed them away as being unimportant. She craned her head backwards. The sun shone overhead – and there was a cloud streaming out from behind it. Not impossible. Save that the angle looked wrong. Clouds tended to clump close to the ground on the other side of Purgatory. This cloud seemed to be billowing from behind the sun, as if someone had started boiling water by flinging it at the surface of the sun.

“That...” She paused, groping for words.

“Is fucking weird?” Fizit suggested.

Liv nodded.

“That’s one word for it.” She did some mental math. “That’s got to be directly over Babylon.”

“Has to be,” Fizit said. “According to Brax, before I left, spies were reporting that nothing much was happening.” She frowned. “If Loki’s not behind subverting my spy network, I am going to be pissed off at Tark.”

“What if Loki is behind it?”

“Then I hope Tark’s alive,” Fizit said, shaking her head. “Still. There’s nothing in the world quite as shit as not knowing what is going on.”

“Liam’s probably going to do something stupid and suicidally dangerous,” Liv muttered, poking at the fire in the camp.

“I doubt that he’s putting himself in danger. He’s a king now,” Fizit said. “King’s don’t do that.”

***

“And if you die?” Neb asked, her tail lashing from side to side.

“Liam is not going to die,” Meg said, glaring at the nervous looking jackalgirl. “If he does, I’m killing him.”

“But Babylon needs a leader,” Neb said. “And you should at least take the secondary convoy, the one over the ocean. The safer one.”

Liam chuckled as he stood on the entrance to the wooden construct. It wasn’t the first off the production line – the first few had been carefully smuggled out of the city to be tested in the desert, far from prying eyes. The first few had also crashed. But Liam was studiously not thinking about that. Instead, he just smiled at Neb.

“If I die, then Meg kills me, and then they have a new election. I have faith in Babylon’s democracy.” He nodded. “I got to be here. This is a frightening thing to ask of any man or woman who serves under me.”

Meg snickered quietly.

Liam ignored her. “I have to be with them,” he said, his voice firm.

When he stepped into the construct, he saw the others who would be going up. Each construct had ten seats and room for their supplies – carefully packed rations, Minié balls and gunpowder. Each Cross Guard wore their uniform - a concept unknown in Purgatory, save for a few small mercenary units, or symbols painted on shields. Liam hoped that the sight of the Cross Guard in their white tunics with the red cross – the full Cross Guard, the trained Cross Guard – would put some fear in the bad guy’s hearts.

Once he was seated next to one of the soldiers – a lilin girl who smiled at him – he called out, “Take us up!”

Meg had demanded to be on the line for this transport. She and three other valkyrie took hold of the hawsers, then started to beat their wings in unison. As the transport shuddered and started to move up, the lilin hissed to Liam.

“Are we sure they won’t drop us?”

Liam chuckled. “Mary,” he said, speaking loudly enough that everyone in the transport could hear him. “Mary’s seen to that.”

It had actually been an idea each of them had contributed to – him, Meg and Mary, after one of their late night semi-regular threesomes, had all discussed the problem. Skyheart – driven by the bitterness of two generations of his family turning on him – had definitely been the most extreme, but a general sense that landlings weren’t actually people remained among the valks, even if they were following Meg. Though part of that might have been the fact Meg had already kicked the asses of two challengers before the week had ended.

So, when the project started, and the valks started to work directly with Babylon’s artisans, Meg and Mary worked together to pick the artisans they needed. Not the best artisans. The work hadn't really required skill. It just needed a complete lack of fear, the ability to follow the instructions Neb had printed in bulk on broadsheets for the workers, and the ability to trust in valkyries.

Meg had picked those who were without fear.

Mary had picked those who were personable. Charming.

“F-fuckable,” Mary had admitted after Liam had eaten her out. “I also picked the ones t-that were, uh, fuckable!”

Liam grinned at the Cross Guard looking at them. “You know these valk that are carrying us up? Half of them are marrying landlings once this war’s over. The rest have already done it.” He chuckled.

Nothing like workplace relationships.

It wouldn’t fix the problem. He was sure there were still valks who grumbled and muttered to one another about landlings. He was sure in seventy or so years, they’d be back in full strength. But for now, things were settled.

The Cross Guard laughed, looking relieved.

And Liam could settle back into his primary job of not looking utterly terrified.

Because he was.

This entire idea had seemed very clever when he had come up with it months ago. Now, sitting in the first transport to be taken up, he was beginning to really grasp just how nuts this was. They were contained in a glider, roughly the half the size as a Greek trireme, built out of the thinnest, lightest wood that could still hold a frame. The wings were based off the same designs that Liam had brought on his iPod, and they had been tested.

It’d glide just fine.

Rather than having a tow-cable and an airplane, though, the glider was being dragged upwards by four valkyrie. Other gliders were going up at the same time, but Liam’s had launched first. And as they rose up into the air, Liam started to breathe more and more. He felt like he had been jogging in place – and his head spun. He called out to the rest of the Cross Guard.

“It’ll pass – height sickness passes soon. Don’t worry.”

One of the Guard groaned quietly.

The glider rose.

The air thinned.

And then lightness that Liam had only felt twice before came to him. But rather than falling off a cliff-side or tumbling off a city wall, this time the lightness  wouldn’t end with a bunch of snapped bones. Then the glider shuddered and he heard Meg’s voice – slightly attenuated by the thin air – come through the wall. “You’re in place!”

Liam laughed. “Now we wait,” he said, grinning at the others.

The rest of the Cross Guard looked deeply queasy. Humans and lilin were worst off up here. Elves handled it slightly better. Goblins showed no sign of getting sick in microgravity, lucky them.

Liam himself just focused on not vomiting in front of the troops.

The gliders were dragged upwards in stages – the valkyrie working quickly and en masse. Four to a glider, five hundred and thirty four valkyrie alternating as quickly as possible, meant a hundred and thirty three gliders every trip. The shipwrights had been given some assistance when it came to building the gliders. Materials had been brought along the coast as fast as Ra could cut the trees down and ship them, while the guilds of magicians and alchemists shared secrets they had once kept dear to their chests.

All with the goal of building as many gliders as quickly as possible.

Ten soldiers to a glider.

Ten thousand men and women – some from Babylon, some from beyond: Aesir, Hellenes, Coptics, Tuatha. They had come and they had been drilled in the simple mechanics of gunpowder warfare. Listen to your orders. Stand your ground. Reload. Fire.

A thousand gliders. Each one piloted by a man or woman given a crash course – bad phrasing, that, Liam thought – as the other gliders were built.

It sounded like a lot to be dragged upwards to the place where the sun’s gravity and the gravity of Purgatory canceled one another out and something could ‘orbit’ safely. But when you had five hundred valkyrie, a mountain could come to Mohammad. Or, at the very least, be carted there on wheelbarrows. Liam closed his eyes and wished for a window.

But glass was expensive. There was only enough for a single slit for the pilot.

Liam could only imagine what was above them.

In the simplest term, it was a heat shield to end all heat shields. The sun was four times hotter here than it was on the surface of Purgatory. Hot enough to burn wood and crisp sails and cook men and women alike. The valks wore amulets of Ra, which protected them from the heat. But for the gliders and the Cross Guard there was the heat shield. The design was simple: ceramic tiles, layered atop one another, enchanted with the same kind of magic Tethis had used to channel heat. That heat was dumped right back into the kilns to make more pottery. Water, dredged from the ocean, purified of salt, and then dumped onto the heat shield by teams of valkyrie completed the chilling effect needed to keep the shield intact and protect the gliders beneath.

And best of all?

It covered the whole construction with a cloud of steam.

After three hours, the sounds of the valks flying around changed slightly. Liam grinned slightly, opening his eyes. “Everyone, get ready.”

***

Meg beat backwards and away from the heat shield. The amulet hanging around her neck prevented the heat from being killing but it didn’t stop her from sweating buckets. She had never felt quite so tired. But she had never been so elated, either. This was something new in the world. The gods had helped along the edges, but the basics? The real guts of the work?

All of it had been done by mortals. Mortals had made the clay, mortals had assembled the heat shield, mortals had risked their lives. Though, amazingly, none had died. Several had come close, but valks had managed to catch all of them before they tumbled out of the area of microgravity. And now there were a thousand gliders mounted to the heat shield – wings touching one another. The only thing that ruined the moment was the fact it was night.

She tried to imagine what it would look like during the day with the sun shining off the heat shield and every glider glowing with reflected light. She shook her head, squared her shoulders, and called out,“Wings! To flank! Go!”

The tribe beat their wings and men and women soared past her, flying around to the left end of the heat shield. They each wore gauntlets – thick hawser ropes were great at ripping up palms, so hand guards and gloved had been required. They came in handy here. Dozens of bronze bars thrust from the left flank of the heat shield, providing a place for the valks to grab – then start to push. And push.

And push.

Liam had explained this carefully when the plan was first being hashed out.

Weight was a function of mass and gravity. Take the gravity away, the weight was gone but the mass remained. It took energy to move mass, even if there was limited friction. Each beat of the wings caused the whole heat shield to groan quietly – and to move.

Meg grinned, her own wings starting to strain.

“Come on!” she shouted. “We’ve got this!”

The heat shield and the glider army took four hours to move from the space above Babylon to New Athens.

A flight that normally took days, if not weeks, in a matter of hours.

Sunchaser – who was on the push-bar next to Meg – beamed at her. “Think this counts as the straight shot?” he asked, gasping and panting, his whole body quivering.

“No,” Meg said. “But it’ll be close enough.”

She pulled a crystal from her belt pouch.

Snapped it.

And the magical charges in a thousand wooden mooring posts went off. Tiny blasts of gunpowder rang out and each glider dropped away from the heat shield. They started to fall forward, their wings spread out wide. Their pilots guided them forward into the darkness, their rears suddenly illuminated by mage lights, so that each could follow the other behind it. They swooped into the darkness of Purgatory’s night.

Meg panted.

Now was time for the hard part.

***

Liam clung to the side of the glider – feeling weight returning to him. The lilin next to him vomited on the floor. He patted her back one handed.

A goblin behind him whooped.

Then the turbulence faded. The atmosphere grew thick enough that the wings were able to catch it. The air was filled with the sound of creaking wings and groaning wood. Liam’s mouth felt dry. He was aware they were falling – soaring, not falling – towards the chosen battlefield. But he didn’t know if his glider was going to be the one that crashed.

Because some were going to crash.

That was just a certainty.

“I guess they can’t just call us landers now, huh?” the lilin asked, wiping her mouth off.

Liam laughed.

***

“Did you hear something?” Fizit asked.

“Yeah,” Liv said, her eyes narrowed as she looked upwards.

A dark shape swooped by overhead.

“Holy fuck!” Liv sprang to her feet. “Was that a valk?”

“If it was, it was the biggest goddamn valk-” Fizit put her finger to her temple. Magic glowed around her fingertips – the moment clearly important enough to risk tipping off Sysminor. She gasped. “Oh god. We have to get back to camp.”

“What?” Liv asked.

But Fizit was already starting to run, pregnancy be damned.

Liv gaped at her.

***

Brax rubbed his chin. Something felt wrong. He couldn’t place a clawtip on what it was, but he could sense it. The sentries seemed to be on edge, the conversation was subdued. If his men and women hadn’t been in high spirits since the siege started, he might have thought that the months of holding the Hellenes on lock would be what did it.

But…

Again, they had been in high spirits.

His ear-holes strained as he heard faint sounds. He couldn’t place them though, nor figure where they were coming from.

“Brax!”

A distant voice made him look up. He heard the commotion that followed the voice – several guards were drawing arrows and trying to draw a bead. But the figure that came through the front gate of the wooden fortifications literally barreled through the other guards who rushed to stop her. She shoved them aside with the careless abandon of someone who didn’t need to fear edged weapons.

“Brax! Look up!” Liv shouted, her body glistening with sweat in the mage light of the camp.

Brax looked up.

The sky overhead seemed dark and normal.

Wait…

The sun, even while dark, was usually visible as a sphere of silvery luminescence, so soft and easily ignored as to be forgotten. But there was no sphere. Rather, there was a black-red rectangle that filled the heavens above the camp. An atavistic fear exploded through Brax as he realized that the rectangle was coming down. He looked at Liv and heard the shout from Fizit.

“Evacuate the camp! Evacuate the camp! Now! Now! Now!”

Sysminor emerged from his tent – several of his slave women trailing after him. The glowing false god glared about himself.

Then stopped, looking up.

Without a word, Sysminor started walking towards the gate, leaving behind a gaggle of very confused, mostly naked human women. Brax turned and bellowed,“Evacuate! Now!”

Ten miles up, the heat shield – pushed carefully out of micro-gravity and into the grasp of Purgatory's surface – was still accelerating. The edges rattled as chunks broke free. The wind and the stresses it had been under over the past few weeks caused new reverberations to splinter and crack throughout the superstructure.

Five miles up, the heat shield fragmented like a shotgun shell.

The lizardman army was sprinting as fast as it could, rushing away in every direction. Huscrals and Tuatha auxiliaries lagged behind, desperately trying to keep up. Supplies were left behind. Mounts were lost. Fortifications were abandoned. And everyone in New Athens trembled in fear at the resounding sounds of the heat shield plummeting – the cracks and booms sounding like an angry god. But no god had ever cast down something like this before. A few also saw great, bat winged monsters soar by overhead. Several of them trailed behind flags, flags bearing blood red symbols.

Crucifixes.

What nightmare army brought down the sky and flew torture devices on their standards?

What nightmare army flew in the first place?

Then the heat shield impacted.

Purgatory had never seen artillery before, but the impact of thousands of pounds of heat shield had the same rough effect. The lizardman camp, supplies and fortification was utterly pulped as smoke rose into the air. Superheated fragments of pottery caused flames to roar through the destruction. Smaller chunks, knocked aside during the tumble, landed in and among the fleeing troops. Several were bisected as neatly as if they had been cut by a buzz saw. Others were crushed. Still more burned.

Several chunks even landed in New Athens, smashing down a house filled with people, leaving them stunned and wailing and wondering why their gods had forsaken them.

And then, with the same suddenness as the impact, the sun kindled.

And the people of New Athens saw the flags and the army gathered, miles distant.

The Cross Guard was here.

Ten

Years ago, the Eye of Ra had sculpted a canyon between New Athens and Faiyum’s Falls. It had been in the earlier years of Purgatory, when wars were even more violent and there were more surviving gods and more artifacts of great power. The canyon was impossibly long and straight – at its deepest, it was said to be filled with freezing, killing cold. The part near Faiyum’s Falls was familiar to Liam.

The part near New Athens was now just as familiar to him. He had studied it with Laurentinus and the other generals that Ra had sent to his side. Each had agreed. Considering the maneuverability of the gliders – even if goblins proved to be natural pilots – it was best to land in a large open area. And New Athens had made sure to clear the entrance to the canyon to make places for farms. Something about the soil seemed to grow exceptionally well.

Now, the farmers in question were causing a bit of trouble.

They had marched up to the Cross Guard, wearing their battered armor and bearing spears that looked like they hadn’t been removed from storage for years, and demanded to be placed front and center.

“Ma’am, I respect this is your home,” Liam said, rubbing his temple as he looked away from the Hellenic woman who was the leader of the group of farmers – more through force of personality, it seemed, than anything else.

“Those lizardfolks have been slaughtering us for a month. The huscrals are even worse. Rape, pillage, burning. Not to mention, they’ve been smashing our shrines and paying our priests to get us to pray to that walking pile of stone they worship,” the farmer’s leader said, her eyes flashing furiously. “And now you want to say we can’t be part of the battle?”

“No, no, you can,” Liam said, then pointed. “But the center of the field is going to be held by the Cross Guard.”

The farmers looked mutinous.

Laurentinus chose that moment to arrive carrying a musket in his arms.

“Liam, step away from that pot,” Laurentinus said.

Liam stepped away – after checking to make sure the water jug was empty. They had good supplies of water, but there was no need to go wasting it. If they didn’t win the upcoming battle, the whole army would be in a lot of trouble. They had dropped with enough rations to sustain themselves for roughly five days. Not that the enemy would know that.

Fortunately, unlike the modern wars of the Twentieth Century, smashing the enemy army – really smashing it – would essentially end the war. It wasn’t like Brax had a nation of millions of lizardmen to call on for reinforcements.

Laurentinus lifted his musket.

Fired.

Smoke filled the tent and the pottery exploded with a loud crack.

The farmers blinked.

“W-Where do we get one of those?” the farmer’s leader whispered.

Liam chuckled, coughed, and waved some smoke from before his eyes. “Later. Now, how do you feel about the flank? Also, do you have any horses we can borrow?” He smiled. “We couldn’t get any onto the gliders.” 

A flutter of wings filled the air as the farmers pointed out areas that they had missed on their defensive map, including the fact that there were cave systems throughout part of the canyon. Which was promising. They had picked this area as a landing zone, but as a battlefield, the canyon mouth had several major weaknesses. A lack of places to run to in case the army shattered was high on the list.

Liam looked up and saw Sunchaser – his face smeared with soot and bearing a huge grin – had landed.

“We bombed the fuck out of them. Uh, sir!” He saluted.

“Are they coming towards us?”

“The whole army. Though, Brax has split his forces,” Sunchaser said. ‘The lizardmen cavalry and most of their light infantry are coming straight forward. But the other two thirds of his army are swinging around. But they’re coming slow. Not sure why.”

“Did the bombs do much damage?”

“Some!” Sunchaser beamed.

***

“All those explosives, and not a single casualty,” Brax said, clucking his tongue as he eyed the craters. But despite the lack of effect from the high altitude bombs, he could already see the warfare he had understood at an almost gut level for his entire life was gone. Dead. Or at the very least on its death bed. He shook his head.

Good, he thought.

There just remained two problems.

Liv was beside him on one of the raptors, her body swaddled in a cloak, hood drawn over her head. She looked very out of place, but no one could confirm she was the same elf who had escaped and ‘betrayed’ the army. Quietly, she muttered. “What’s your plan?”

Brax frowned. “The Cross Guard are making their stand...” He glanced backwards. In the center of the army was one of their only wagons. It had been covered with tent cloth and wood, but despite the attempts to camouflage it, blue glowed from every seam. But more than light shone from the wagon. Brax could almost feel the simmering rage of Sysminor, even from twenty feet away. “But they need to know something. Want to be a messenger again?”

Liv’s teeth glinted under the hood.

“I’m getting damn good at it,” she said.

As she rode off, Brax turned to Fizit. Her pregnancy had swelled far more than he expected, considering she had only been gone for a few weeks. Her hand rested on her belly and she looked deeply concerned.

Brax frowned.

“Fizit,” he said. “I need you to lead the left flank. Remember what I said, no matter what signal you get-”

Fizit looked at him, her eyes cutting him off.

“I understand, sir,” she said, her voice flat.

***

Liam looked through his telescope.

“Sysminor is in there?” he asked, lowering the tube. The enemy army looked large. Intimidating. Every scrap of the huscrals and heavy infantry that Brax had were arrayed in a skirmish pattern. He couldn’t see the cavalry, but he was sure they were somewhere in the hills that dotted the countryside, or in the remaining bits of jungle and forest. A buzzing fly lighted on his neck and he slapped it away.

“Yes,” Liv said. She looked tired and worn but also viciously eager. Her eyes flashed. “And Brax told me he talked the idiot into gathering all of his power in one place.”

Liam frowned. His memory tugged at him and it took a bit for him to remember Tethis – his heart squeezed at the memory – telling him that gods could invest their power in people and locations. That was how they made priests and sanctums, and those sanctums were how a god could be slain and yet return to life, as Sysminor had.

“If he takes all his power into himself, and we kill him, he’s dead, right?” Liam asked.

“If he functions like any god I know,” Meg said.

“What’s the downside?” Liam asked.

“Well, he has all his power,” Liv said, shrugging.

“They’re in range, sir!” the artillery captain – a sturdy lilin woman named Festus – called out.

“Fire at will. Remember, aim low,” Liam called back.

The cannons shifted. They had brought twenty cannons, but four had been destroyed in glider crashes. One had been cracked in the landing – something in the manufacturing process hadn’t worked and it had literally shaken apart. But the remaining fifteen spoke in a bellowing chorus. Smoke and fire filled the air and Liam felt his heart leap.

He actually saw the cannon balls hit the ground and skip towards the lizardmen army, just intended.

Then they smashed with a sound not unlike shattering glass into a shimmering force field. The balls impacted at various heights and remain stuck in the air as the army marched forward. After five steps, the balls dislodged from the shield and clattered to the ground. The lizardmen hissed and roared and started to charge forward.

“Balls,” Liam muttered.

The ground between the enemy army and the Cross Guard shrunk at an incredible speed. The lizardmen passed the area that they had found was the upper limit of the muskets.

The front ranks of the Cross Guard opened fire.

Smoke poured out into the battlefield.

The shattering sound came again – louder – and then a wind rushed outwards. The smoke cleared and the first rank knelt. The lizardmen were still charging forward, their shields up. They were at nearly point blank range.

“Fire!”

The second rank opened fire.

The cannons opened fire.

A cannon ball took a lizardman in the chest and ripped him in half. Minié balls tore through flesh and shields with the same brutal effectiveness. Blood filled the air and soaked the dirt as the second rank knelt and the third rank fired over their heads. The meaty slapping sounds of the bullets thumping into the huscrals that were bringing up the rear was music to Liam’s ears.

And that made him sick to his stomach.

The air filled with humming arrows as the archers – trained archers, given to the Cross Guard by Ra and the other Coptic cities who had pledged assistance - opened fire. They were joined by Artemis’ as she started to loose arrow after arrow as well. The goddess looked like she was having the time of her life. The valks emerged from their waiting places in the canyon, soaring up into the air with bombs.

The lizardmen had reformed. Sysminor was visible now – his body swelling and growing with every moment. Soon, he towered over the battlefield. A cannon ball hit his shoulder and rebounded harmlessly. Sysminor bellowed in rage, the sound dopplering up to an ear bleeding screech. He started to stomp forward as the Cross Guard poured fire into him. If cannon shot had been harmless, he ignored Minié balls with contempt.

Liam shouted. “Fall back!”

The Cross Guard started to move but several didn’t step away quickly enough as Sysminor brought his foot down on a squad. Screams rang out from the surrounding soldiers. Liam felt his heart in his throat as he realized they might kill every lizardman, and still get murdered by Sysminor.

Valks swooped down and threw bombs at Sysminor. They exploded around the false god’s head. Sysminor roared and swung his fist in the air. The valks darted aside but he grabbed one with his hand, managing to catch him. There was a hideous crunch and Sysminor dropped the valk like a broken toy.

Liam drew his longsword, his mind buzzing. He looked at Laurentinus.

“Get the gunpowder stores together! Powder crystal and add it!”

“What are you going to do!?” Laurentinus asked.

“I’m the fucking Godkiller! I’m going to prove it!” Liam turned and ran towards Sysminor.

The battle had devolved into utter chaos. Units were drawing away from Sysminor, while others still fired desperately at him. The cannon crews stood stolidly by their weapons, firing shot after shot into Sysminor’s chest. Several large cracks had started to appear across the false god’s blue body, but it didn’t seem to slow him down. If anything, it made him madder.

Sysminor pointed at the cannons as Liam jogged towards the center of the battle, his heart hammering.

A lightning bolt leaped from Sysminor’s finger.

The cannons went up. Their gunpowder added a secondary explosion and a rain of crystal, chunks of stone, and a single severed arm landed around Liam. He lifted his arm over his head and then blinked as he saw Sysminor looking down at him.

“Liam Vanderbilt,” the resonant, echoing voice spoke.

“Sysminor,” Liam said, his sword in his hand.

“That blessing shall shall not help you here here here,” Sysminor pointed. “Brigid whore goddess revealed it’s sec- secrets to me. Me. Me.”

Liam blinked up at Sysminor as the god pointed his finger at Liam. Delenn started to shake and tremble. Liam held on tight, feeling the metal start to grow hot under his touch. He planted his feet as musketry crackled around him. The air filled with smoke and he felt his feet dragging along the ground. Sysminor clenched his fist.

Delenn shook further.

It felt like it was burning his hands, even through his gauntlets.

Liam lifted his grip, his arms straining.

“You want my fucking sword?” Liam hissed. “Take it!”

He let go.

Delenn wrenched from Liam’s grasp and flew towards Sysminor like a dart. Energy had been built up along the blade, and it did not slow as it rushed forward and plunged into Sysminor’s jagged, poorly formed eye.

Sysminor screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Diiiiiiiie!”

I just made him mad, Liam thought. Good.

“Braaaaaax! Kill or your whole people diiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!”

Less good, Liam thought.

From the clouds of smoke came a detachment of lizardmen on the backs of their raptor mounts. Brax the Golden was at their head. Sword in hand.

Liam turned and sprinted towards the dissolving lines of the Cross Guard. He saw Laurentinus standing beside a barrel of gunpowder, pouring crystal into it. One of the few horses the farmers had donated was standing beside it, looking nervous, eyes rolling. Liam banked on his sprint, reaching Laurentinus side just as he slapped the top down.

“And we’re good!” Laurentinus said, stepping away from the barrel. “If this works like the godkiller, it should be the biggest explosion that Purgatory has ever seen.”

“Well, that's what we need,” said Liam.

Laurentinus hefted the barrel up and one of the other Cross Guard strapped it home with leather and a prayer.

Liam scrambled onto the horse’s back.

He heard a familiar war cry.

Looking back, Liam’s heart stopped.

Meg had flown down, javelins in her hands. She had killed two of Brax’s lizardmen cohort, but the others had their shields up. Sysminor casually backhanded the air. Meg darted upwards-

Too slow.

No.

That massive hand smashed into Meg.

Liam didn’t even realize he was screaming until the horse under him reared nervously. Meg smashed down into a collection of trees and was gone. Liam’s whole body felt cold.

Sysminor was looking right at him. He started to stomp forward, Brax and the other lizardmen flanking him. Liam’s hands clenched on the reigns. He swung the horse around, kneed it and fled.

Right into the canyon.

Meg is not dead, he thought. Dear God, she is not dead. If she is, I will find you, Jesus. I don’t care where I have to go, what I have to do, I will find you Jesus, and I will kick your fucking ass.

The horse charged into the canyon, which swept up to either side of Liam. The trees growing along the bottom grew close and thick and the foliage that covered the ground made it hard to see. Too hard to see. His horse stumbled into a hidden hole, its leg breaking with a hideous snap.

Liam went sprawling as the horse's piteous shriek fill the air. He scrambled to his feet, his head aching. The rig Laurentinus had made for the bomb snapped and the barrel went tumbling along the ground. Fortunately, it was still intact, though it had spilled a line of gunpowder from where it lay now to where Liam knelt.

The trees parted and Sysminor stepped forward, looming overhead.

“Army smashed,” he gurgled happily. “Reinforcements on on on the way.”

Brax rode around the gods legs, his raptor panting. Brax looked grim faced, sword drawn.

Sysminor shrank down. His body collapsed in on itself, and as it collapsed, the crude, jagged patterns seemed to grow more and more refined. Sculpted muscles were formed and the face became almost elven in its perfection. Those lips twisted into a broad smile and Sysmnior spoke and, for the first time, sounded…

Sane.

“Having all of my coding in one place helps immensely with the syntax,” he said, casually.

Brax stood behind him.

“You failed, Liam,” Sysminor said, walking forward, putting his foot on the barrell Liam had invested all his hopes in. “Nice try though. This bomb might have killed my physical sleeve if I didn’t have the control I have right now.” He shivered. “I have missed full sapience.”

Liam gulped, his hand still fastened around the wood.

“Now. I’ve killed your friend. I’ve killed your lover.” Sysminor shivered again. “I never understood the pleasure of revenge until I met you, Liam Vanderbilt.” He scowled. “I slept for uncounted eons, but then you had to tip the security systems of Purgatory off. Ares told me everything you did. You woke me, Liam, you woke me into this hell. Now, I will make Purgatory what it was meant to be.”

A rattling, crunching, crashing sound interrupted him.

Sysminor looked back.

Brax was already riding forward. Behind him, two of the wagons full of gunpowder were being dragged forward by a combination of leashed raptors and terrified looking horses.

Liam used his good hand to draw a striking crystal from his belt.

Brax’s clawed hand closed around the empty scabbard that hung along his back.

Sysminor stood and glared at the wagons as they charged towards him.

He lifted his hand.

Liam slashed the ground with the striking crystal. Sparks flared.

The gunpowder caught.

Brax lifted Liam and slung him over the raptor, then banked towards the wall of the canyon.

Syminor’s palm flared with energy.

The wagon slammed into a force field that shimmered to life around Sysminor. The whole thing shattered apart and filled with air with a haze of black pwoder and splintered wood. Sysminor laughed.

Then Sysminor heard the hissing. He looked down. Just before his shield had snapped up, the line of gunpowder had burned up to the edge of the godkiller bomb.

The bomb now trapped in the force field beside him.

“Oh,” he said.

Brax reached one of the tunnels leading into the Ancient ruins that threaded through the canyon. The raptor tripped on something and Brax and Liam went tumbling forward.

The shield filled with brightness. A searing white light, created by gunpowder amplified by crystal, contained and focused by a shield, all of it sending pure energy in the only direction it could escape.

Down.

Then the waste heat from the shield touched off the haze of gunpowder and splinters that still hung in the air.

The explosion sent the two men tumbling forward, rolling head over heels. The roaring sound dampened all sounds – and then became all the louder. The explosion which whumped upwards and filled the air with smoke started to go in reverse as the roar became a whistling screech. Air tore at Liam and Brax and Liam grabbed onto the wall of the cave. The air was rushing past him faster and faster as Brax closed his hands around Liam’s legs, holding on tight.

“What the fuck!?” Brax bellowed.

Liam looked past him – and saw that a swirling vortex of air was rushing downward.

Through the haze of dirt and debris, Liam could see that the ground where Sysminor had stood was now a perfectly circular tunnel, blasted down through the earthen bottom of the canyon.

And there, maybe a few hundred meters down, was the cold, pitiless glint of stars and the blackness of interstellar space.

Liam looked up, desperately, trying to see what the cave offered. He thought he recognized the symbols for a year ago. Tethis. The teleport shrine.

“Brax!” he shouted over the roar of the wind. “We’re in a teleport shrine!”

“And!?” Brax shouted back.

Liam blinked.

“I have a theory!”

His fingers loosened. He felt himself getting dragged towards the hole.

Brax’s hands were slipping from Liam’s ankles. Liam’s arm felt like it was about to tear out of his socket.

Liam closed his eyes and let go.

He skidded towards the exit.

He grabbed Brax with both arms, so they were almost one person.

Liam shouted.

“Emergency teleport!”

***

Pain.

Aches.

Color.

Lights?

Voice?

Voice. Definitely. Meg opened one eye. The voice was familiar.

“Meg? Meg! Meg!”

Liv. Didn’t Liv go running off with lizards? Meg reached up, and tried to grab for Liv’s throat. That sounded like a traitor thing to do, traitors got their necks slapped. Her hand was forced aside and everything came into focus with a rush of healing energy.

“Meg, godsfuckingdamn it, we need you to focus,” Liv snarled. “There’s a hurricane devouring the countryside and we need you!”

Meg blinked and sat up, hearing the roar of the wind. She was sitting in a clearing. The trees were all bowing and rustling and the dirt along the ground was blowing everywhere. She shook her head and saw that Neb was kneeling behind her. She smiled at her.

“I’m not the best healer, but,” she said, shaking her head.

Meg rubbed her head. She felt gummy blood, mixing with her hair.

“Okay, why do you need me? Please, explain slow, my head kind of hurts,” Meg said.

“Liam blew up Sysminor,” Liv said, shortly. “And now air is blowing out through a hole in the planet. We need to plug it.”

Meg was less shocked than she thought she should have been. She could see the edge of panic in Neb’s eyes, and the harsh control on Laurentinus’ face. But her own ability to be surprised felt deadened by her aching head.

“A hole in the planet?” asked Meg, vaguely.

“Don't ask! But I think I know how we close it,” Neb said. “We use the last barrel of gunpowder to collapse the canyon wall on the hole. But we need you to put the bomb in the right place - the detonation needs to be inside the canyon wall, not merely at the top.”

Meg closed her eyes. “Racism?”

“What?” Neb asked, baffled.

“The valks are being racist?” she asked. “Won’t listen to landers?”

“There are no valks left,” Liv snapped. “They fled when you went down and Liam ran into the canyon. The whole fucking army’s fallen to pieces!”

Meg nodded.

“Better than racism,” she grunted. Then, shaking her head, she said: “Okay. So, um. Just to be clear, we’re going to fix the problem caused by a bomb with a bigger bomb”

“Smaller actually.” Neb said. “Like I said, we, uh, we're on the last barrel of gunpowder.”

Meg staggered to her feet. Her head pulsed with pain, pain that fled the instant Neb touched her fingers to her temples. “Right. Right. So, I get it in the wrong place and-”

“Everyone on Purgatory dies,” Laurentinus said.

Meg groaned.

“Be careful,” Neb said. “I’ve just healed the surface level pain. There’s deep injuries in here. If you strain yourself too much-”

Meg waved her hand dismissively. “It won’t matter if I fail, Neb..”

Her wings spread.

Then hit the air. Her head buzzed and she soared forward, her wings beating hard against the gale that was pushing her towards the valley. The scene below was that from a nightmare. The armies had smashed together and been torn apart, and now the wounded and the dying had been left behind. Leaderless and confused, with what seemed like the end of the world striking them with flying chunks of debris and kicked up dust, many wailed out to their gods, desperately begging for help.

No gods seemed to be forthcoming.

However, a small collection of Cross Guard, lizardmen, and a few Hellenic villagers had scraped together the last keg of gunpowder and were busily attaching a collection of leather straps to it. Meg landed beside them, her feet pressing to the ground. The ache in her head continued to pulse through her body. Meg gritted her teeth and ignored it. She grabbed onto the leather straps, hefting the bomb. It was heavy, but she could manage it. The straps helped a lot.

“Whose idea was this?” she shouted.

“Mine!”

Fizit, the spymaster of Brax’s army, looked straight at Meg, her face unreadable. Behind her, Meg could see that a whole wing of Brax’s army had arrived. But rather than coming to kill or capture, they came with healers and cots to take the wounded away from the gale.

Meg nodded curtly. She’d punch Fizit in her snout later. kicked herself into the air.

A sudden spell of dizziness struck her. One wing beat out of time.

She spun. Almost fell.

Then she forced herself back up, her arms straining. Meg beat as hard as she could, screaming mental obscenities at every single fucking valk who had ever been born. Her hands tightened around the leather straps.

She let the gale drag her backwards as she cupped her wings and caught the wind. Meg swept forward, her eyes narrowing against the wind and the grit and the debris. She felt as if she was falling. Her head spun. There was the canyon wall. And she saw her target: a shimmering golden light surrounded a crack in the canyon wall. Meg flung herself forward and brought her hands up. She jammed the bomb in, then beat her wings as hard as she could. She soared up and above the storm swirling underneath her. Looking down, she realized that in the eye of the storm, she could see a blackness deeper and darker than anything she had ever beheld in her life.

Pain shot through her head and her wings suddenly stopped working. She spasmed in the air..

Once more, she was falling – and her mind scattered backwards to the last time she had plunged into this fucking canyon.

The gale sucked her down.

The bomb went off underneath her.

There wasn’t actually that much debris, really. No more than a small landslide, though one boulder hit the hole with a shockingly loud crunch. But it was the lack of sound that was almost deafening to Meg. Her wings beat once, twice, and then she managed to slow herself so that she only hit the ground lightly. The air felt cold - as if the hole had sucked all the heat from the valley floor.

She lay there, face first, groaning.

“God,” she muttered, speaking not to any of the divine beings of Purgatory. Rather, she spoke to the god she was least sure existed, but knew was more important to her than any other.

For unlike every other god, this one mattered to her man.

“God, if you don’t have Liam pick me up and carry me home, I am going to make Golgotha seem like a fucking picnic.” She closed her eyes and tried to get her arms under her.

***

It felt a bit like being turned inside out, toenails first.

It felt a bit like having his nerves lit on fire.

It felt like an eternity.

It lasted less than five seconds – which, all things considered, was a good thing. If it had lasted longer, Liam might have gone completely mad.

And almost impossibly, it was even less pleasant than the last time Liam had been teleported. He tumbled free, hitting and skidding along the ground. A tail smacked him in the face and he spent a few moments wishing he had killed every last fucking lizardman on Purgatory. His hand went to his nose as he groaned.

“Well,” Brax said, his voice matter of fact. “We’re not dead, at least.”

“Or this is a shitty afterlife,” Liam said, pushing himself up. With his hand sliding away from his face. The two of them were in a... facility. Temple wasn’t the right word, not for this place. The walls were the same smooth black, but rather than having strange diagrams drawn on them, they were instead broken up by smooth glass windows. They looked outwards at distant cloud shrouded land. Looking left and right, Liam realized…

He could see Babylon out one window.

New Athens out the other.

“What the fuck?” Liam whispered.

Brax stood. He moved like an ancient man, his knees popping and clicking loud enough for Liam to hear it. But that wasn’t what made Liam jerk his head around to gape at Brax.

No.

It was the fact Brax wasn’t golden anymore.

His body was the normal vibrant hues of a lizardman. Blue scales along his back, yellow along his belly. An impressive set of swinging blue balls under his thighs – his loincloth was gone, as was his sword. Liam looked down at himself. He was naked too. He stood slowly, trying to not clap his hands over his junk.

“No homo,” he muttered.

“Huh?” Brax looked at him. Then, looking down at Liam’s crotch, he chuckled. “Wow, Liv wasn’t lying.”

“Excuse me?” Liam coughed, his whole body turning red.

Brax shook his head. “Now, let's go and che-” He lifted his arm to point down the corridor, towards the door that sat at the end of the hallway. “Ahhhhhh!”

His scream was loud, ladylike, and so un-Braxish that it almost startled a snort out of Liam. He shook his head as the other man looked down at himself and really seemed to notice himself. Brax’s hands dropped to his belly, patted his shoulders. He turned back, looking at his rump, at his tail, then down at his crotch. His eyes were wide as he turned to Liam.

“I’m me again!” he said, sounding shocked.

“I’ve noticed,” Liam said, quietly. “So. I was right.”

Brax’s brow furrowed as Liam walked forward, spreading his arms wide.

“Purgatory isn’t a world of magic,” he said. “Ages ago, I was talking to Tethis. I said that my iPod only seemed like magic because we had a few extra millennia. The galaxy - the, uh, universe beyond Earth and beyond Purgatory - has had billions of years. How far ahead could they be?”

“If we were advanced,” Brax asked, his voice dry, “Why did I grow up in a world of bronze, while you grew up in a world of steel? How did we get fall so far?”

He spread his hands.

Liam shook his head. “Something happened.”

He turned and looked at the door.

“And I think we’ll find out what through here,” he said, nodding to the door. Part of him knew Brax was an enemy - an enemy who had taken Liv, who had killed Tethis, whose god might have slain Meg - but the moment felt too large for everything but a driving curiosity. He was naked and in an alien facility, with technology so advanced that he had been positive it was magic for the better part of a year and a half.

He was pretty sure he was going to die soon anyway, and…

Well…

He was too tired and hopped up on adrenaline to care.

Liam reached the door first, but it didn’t open until Brax came close. It hissed open and Brax grinned sheepishly at Liam, his tail lashing fast enough to betray his excitement.

The room had clearly been designed to do something – but someone had come through and made it into something else. A bed had been laid across a table that looked designed for conferences. A few chairs had been uprooted and placed aside, leaving room for a training dummy. A chair was planted before a flower-like pod of crystal spheres that pointed outwards in every direction. A sleek helmet of crystal wafers sat on a small pedestal, with a shield bearing a lambda leaned against the wall beside it. Beyond both of those was another door, leading into a room that held a teleport shrine.

Liam’s brow furrowed. “Sparta?”

“Ares,” Brax said. Then he grunted and looked down.

Liam turned.

A blade protruded from Brax’s chest, gleaming bright red with his blood. Liam’s enemy for the past year gaped down at the sword, then looked up at Liam. His eyes dimmed and he coughed out. “Tell her I...”

Then he dropped forward onto the ground.

Ares wiped his blade with a small cloth.

“You’re welcome,” he said, looking straight at Liam.

Eleven

Liam staggered into the wall.

“You murdered him,” he said, his voice dull with shock. He dropped to his knees, his left hand going to Brax’s neck. It was a forlorn hope, but...

His hand came away – sticky with Brax’s blood.

Ares snorted. “I killed an enemy combatant, saving the life of the hero of Purgatory,” he said, casually, as he stepped over the lizardman’s corpse. “And slew the rapist of my daughter. Not murder by any stretch of the imagination.”

Liam felt cold as Ares set the blade down to lean against the wall. The god shook his head as he turned back to Liam.

“Now,” he said. “How did you get here?”

Liam gulped. “Well,” he said. “Sysminor exploded. He somehow tore a hole in Purgatory. I figured, uh...” He tried to control the tremor in his voice. His eyes flicked to Brax, then back to Ares. He let his spine stiffen. “I figured that if we didn’t get out, we’d tumble into space. Since we were in a teleport shrine, I guessed.” He paused. “Did you ever wonder why every wizard out there is an elf or a goblin or a valk or a lizardman?”

Ares waited.

“There are plenty of human priests, but no humans who used the magic of the Ancients.” Liam rolled his shoulders. “Because it’s not magic. Is it?”

Ares spread his hands. “Magic. Technology. Is there a difference at a certain point?”

Liam nodded. “So, we were going to die. And I figured that the systems of Purgatory, if they still worked at all, would want to rescue one of their citizens. Brax is - was - a lizardman, and they’re natives.” He shrugged. “And I have a translation spell. Meg put it on me when we first met. The spell turns my English into Latin or Greek or Coptic depending on who I am speaking to. Since I had nothing left to lose, I tried talking to the computer controlling the teleporter. Fortunately, it worked.” He grinned, ever so slightly. “And the Ancients had a word for emergency teleport.”

Ares chuckled. “Very clever, mortal. I can see how you defeated my daughter.”

He stepped away from the crystal bulbs that sat on his desk, finger trailing along the wall.

“So, here is what is going to happen, Liam Vanderbilt of Earth. You are going to return to your friends. You are going to tell them whatever you want – but the world will know that Ares aided in the slaying and defeating of the worst threat we have ever faced. With Sysminor and Brax dead, the lizardmen will be scattered to the winds and crushed. And with the deaths of Sif, Odin and Athena-”

Liam’s eyes widened.

Ares shrugged. “Surrender orders get muddled in times of war. We couldn’t have known that the lizardmen stationed at their cages were told to execute them.” He smiled, eyes cold. “With them dead, the Aesir and the Dodekatheon will fall into chaos.”

“Kind of a low opinion of your fellow Olympians?” Liam asked at that. Athena may have been smart, but she wasn’t the lynchpin of their pantheon.

Ares snorted.

“They will have help with their demise, help that will be unnoticed without the Goddess of Wisdom around. Brigid cannot be trusted, considering the magic she shared with Sysminor. The world will look to leaders.”

He gestured to himself, then to Liam.

“It will have them.”

Liam’s throat felt dry.

Ares held out his hand.

Liam took the hand with his right, not wanting to smear the god’s hand with blood. He felt a cold presence flood his mind and had just enough time to kick himself for being an idiot.

Thanks for letting me know you plan to betray me, mortal, Ares said, his voice echoing inside Liam's skull. His hand clenched and Liam gasped, falling to one knee, pain shooting through his body. Ares’ face was a mask of fury – all control crumbling away as he squeezed Liam’s hand harder and harder. Bones grated and blood started to drip between Ares’ fingers.

“You didn’t think I could see your plans for betrayal?” Ares snarled. “You’re as bad as my whore of a daughter. All of you ignorant, short lived mayflies.” He shoved Liam back and Liam skidded on the floor, clutching the mangled wreck of his hand to his chest. Ares shook his head.

“I was chained for millennia by people like you,” Ares snarled, pointing his finger at Liam. “Did you think I started life as a cowardly, ignorant fool? I was just Ares! Ares of Thrace, mercenary and warrior! I came to Sparta to learn of their true arts of war, and when they saw me fight, they called me Lord of War. Then Lord became God. And where my friends, my family, died of old age and sickness, I remained hale and healthy.” He shook his head. “I met the others – Zeus and Athena and Apollo. And the stories. Oh, the stories.” He turned from Liam, striding away.

“I had a real brother. A real father. But the stories said that gods must be of kin. What other way could it be?” He laughed, bitterly. “Thanks to you mortals, I became Zeus’ son. One of his few non-bastards!”

Liam pushed his legs along the ground.

“You stole my memory, my life, my everything, and now... now, I’m taking it back,” Ares whispered, his hand dropping to the helmet.

Liam’s back bumped against the teleport shrine.

“Ares,” Liam rasped.

Ares turned.

“Don’t talk. Just kill people,” Liam hissed around the pain of his ruined hand. He slapped his palm down on the teleport shrine and Brax’s blood smeared against the shrine. Somewhere, deep inside of Purgatory’s ancient machines, a genetic lock recognized a familiar pattern. Liam prayed that it didn’t get too confused by his fear sweat as he focused his mind on one thing. Not on the god before him, nor the revelations around him. No. He thought only of a computer as he bellowed: “Return teleport!”

Ares leaped forward, moving faster than Liam could have possibly imagined. A searing pain exploded through his foot.

He felt everything turn inside out.

***

Meg’s arms gave way. She was cold. She had never been quite so cold before. The ground was frozen solid, turning the air itself into freezing mist. Her body thumped into the ground and she felt the chill sapping her. Her wings beat weakly and she closed her eyes.

“Come on,” she mumbled. “I’m just a bit sleepy.”

“Meg!”

That voice made her eyes open.

She lifted her head.

She saw that someone was walking through the mist. It cleared and Meg beamed, her arms pushing herself off the ground. She felt so weak and dizzy and cold that the mere movement left her gasping for air. But Liam staggered forward and landed beside her. On his face.

She saw why. He had been hobbling along, using the wall of the canyon to support himself. His left foot was missing. It wasn’t even bleeding – it just looked like the leg had simply decided to stop being a leg there.

Liam slid forward as best as he could.

Meg closed her wing around his side.

“So,” Liam whispered. “How's it going?”

“You know,” Meg said, her voice shaky. “Could be better. I can’t get up. Too weak. Too dizzy. T-Too cold.” She shook her head. Liam shivered convulsively next to her. The two of them pressed together.

“Never thought I’d die of hypothermia,” Liam muttered. “On fucking Purgatory of all places.”

Meg chuckled. “I remember that play you told me about.”

Liam grunted.

“The one with the Jeders?”

“Jedi,” Liam murmured. He had turned his face to her wing.

“Yeah,” Meg said, her voice quiet.

“I’m not cutting myself open so you can crawl inside me,” Liam whispered.

“Aww,” Meg groaned. “You come inside me all the time.”

“Not the same!”

The mists parted before them. A figure stepped forward, clad in a makeshift set of thick clothing – bits of lizardmen furs, Cross Guard tunics, Hellenic leggings. Kilts had been wrapped around the arms, and gauntlets had been strapped to their hands. They looked like a walking pile of cloth, moving carefully forward on the blasted and frozen ground.

They paused as they saw Meg and Liam and broke into an awkward waddling run.

The last thing Liam heard was a familiar voice.

“I found them! I found them! They’re alive!”

***

Liam truly woke in bed. He had woken a few times before, fluttering in and out of wakefulness. He had felt the rocking of the boat under him and known it was still time to sleep. He had felt the settled presence of a real floor under him – but also had heard strange words in strange languages and had known it was still time to sleep.

Now, he was in a bed he remembered. His left hand reached out and landed on a firm, perky tit. He nodded.

That seemed right.

His other hand reached out.

Another tit, this one larger and softer.

Liam nodded.

Also correct.

“I see someone is awake,” Mary’s voice purred from the left side of him.

All is right with the world, Liam thought.

“So,” Mary said as Liam and Meg started to rise from the bed, moving as if they were far older than they were. “There is good news and bad news. The bad news is that...” She paused. “You’re both still hurt.”

Liam found out what she meant. His left foot was gone. In its place was an elegant, beautifully made collection of brass clockwork and smooth wood paneling. It clicked softly as he wiggled his toes – his focused thoughts making it move and twitch as if it was his own foot. He looked from it to Mary.

Mary nodded. “Yes. Hephaestus himself crafted it.”

Liam gulped. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this. So, instead of responding, he just slid his arm around Meg’s waist. Meg was looking like she was near to tears and trying to keep herself from bursting into a series of sobs. Her wing didn’t stop caressing Liam’s back. Her lips kept finding parts of his head as she nuzzled him, bumping him gently. It was like she was just making sure he was there.

“Meg’s injury is worse,” Mary said, quietly.

“I feel fine,” Meg said, her brow furrowing.

“The healers say that something broke in your head – you were badly hurt, and Neb healed the surface pains. You flew while something in your head was torn. By the time a healer saw to it, the injury was settled too deeply,” Mary said, quietly. “I’ve spoken with valkyrie, they all say the same thing.”

Liam looked at Meg. Meg looked baffled.

“Meg, you can’t fly,” Mary said, quietly.

“The fuck I can’t!” Meg snarled. Her wings fanned and she looked ready to start flying right here, right now. Mary stepped forward, her tail lashing.

“Wait, don’t-”

But Meg was at the window. Liam moved forward but felt his foot twitch unexpectedly under him. He over-balanced and fell to one knee as Meg spread her wings. She leaned out the window. Paused. Stepped back. Her eyes closed and she looked as if she wanted to throw up. Her hand went to her throat and she gasped.

“Breathe, Meg, breathe,” Mary said.

Liam forced himself to his feet.

Meg shook her head, growling. “I’m dizzy. I, oh gods, I feel-” She put her hand over her mouth.

Mary put her hand on Meg’s shoulder. “The valks say that some who got wounded in the same way, well...” She gulped. “They...”

“They kill themselves,” Meg said, her voice hollow.

Liam felt a fear unlike anything he had ever felt before burn through him. Everything stopped mattering at that moment. His hands grabbed onto Meg’s hand, squeezing her.

“Meg, I-”

“Oh, come the fuck on,” Meg said, rolling her eyes. “I’m not going to murder myself because I’m hurt. Come on.” She smirked at him. “You’re the one who told me how fast technology improves. We don’t know how to fix this now. But we will and when we do, I am going to fly again.” She grinned. “Just, you know, stick around to hold me when my bravado wears off and the reality of the situation sinks in. Okay?”

Liam closed his eyes and said a quiet prayer.

Thank God for Meg.

“Always,” he said. “Always.”

***

A war won. An army returned in victory – Liam was shocked at how many members of the Cross Guard had survived the Battle of the Blood Groove, as it was being called. Considering the amount of blood that had been spilled at the mouth of the canyon - an amount that got larger and larger with every retelling of the story - the name felt somewhat appropriate. But despite all the changes that had been brought to his life, there was still paperwork and meetings and worries.

The gods sat on the left side of the table, while the mortals sat at the right, and Liam at the head. Artemis, her face buried against the still regrowing hair of Athena. Loki, next to a red faced Brigid. If Loki’s left hand didn’t join her right on the table by the time the meeting started, Liam was going to start coughing loudly. A sorrowful looking Sif.

To the right, there was Laurentinus, Vani, Sunchaser, Meg, Neb – whose nose was jammed in Tethis’ notes and journal – Liv and Mary.

Liam coughed loudly and glared at Loki.

Loki drew her left hand from under the table and subtly licked her fingers clean. 

“The first meeting of the Babylon Council has come to order,” Liam said, trying to sound impressive and not at all like someone who could barely believe that they were all here. It still felt downright surreal. “First order of business: a situation report.” He nodded to Loki.

Loki’s palm slapped the table. Her magic of illusions came in handy – better than PowerPoint, that was for sure. A shimmering map of the Hellenic League’s territory glowed into existence. Several cities had their names floating over them. New Athens, Hydrafont, Pluto, and more. Tiny symbols flickered into being next, showing the positions of observed armies. The map expanded northward, showing the Aesir lands.

Liam sighed as he saw the symbol of Thor over Wodan. The city’s name might need to change now.

“The first rule of warfare is simple: no plan survives contact with the enemy.. Ares might be smarter than he used to be,” she said, her voice quiet, “But he either forgot that or got too caught up in everything else that was going well for him. He didn’t expect Athena to escape on her own.”

Artemis looked decidedly smug. Athena simply shrugged.

“And he didn’t think that Odin might sacrifice himself for his son and his wife,” Loki said, her voice dropping to a quieter octave. The original report that she had given Liam had been remarkably emotionless. Liam had wanted to go to her and hug her but he had still been confined to his bed. Odin had drawn all of his power into himself when the executioners came. The speed of Sysminor’s defeat played against them in this case, as Ares orders had come well ahead of the news that the Aesir were now free.

Odin had known the risks. According to reports, he hadn’t hesitated. His immense form had taken dozens of nulldarts and spears and magical blasts from the lizardmen stationed in Wodan. He had slain them all before collapsing. There had been a hope that he would simply fall into a coma. But that hope hadn’t borne fruit. Now, the Aesir were led by Thor with Munin and Hugin on his shoulders and Sif at his side.

God help them if he didn’t listen to his wife.

“The Dodekatheon has fallen into civil war. Ares urges Zeus to fight his brothers as revenge for how they failed to help him during Sysminor’s attack. Considering the long enmity between Hades and Zeus, getting that war started was roughly as difficult as getting Zeus to cheat on Hera. Apollo remains neutral, but if things go as they are, New Athens will conquer Poseidon’s capital, Hydrafont, by the end of the year. The Tuatha are struggling to recover from the scandal with Brigid and Sysminor’s apparent affair.” She rolled her eyes at that. “Pirates infest the oceans. And, as a final cherry on top, the lizardmen have not disbanded. This is good and bad. Good because it means there aren’t several thousand ravenous lizardmen turning to banditry. Bad because... well...” She shook her head. “Brax’s army has retreated into the sea, and from all reports are coming here.”

In any other world, the idea of an army of almost six thousand lizardfolk swimming through the ocean without rest might have been impossible.

But Purgatory was a place where anything could happen.

“We can meet them with hot lead and cold steel,” Laurentinus said, grinning. “Our defenses are better than ever. And those sirens the valks have gotten? They scare the shit out of the enemy.”

Mary shook her head. “They surrendered at the Blood Groove. Their general is dead-”

Liv didn’t flinch at that. Meg quietly squeezed the elf’s shoulder.

“-their god is dead,” Mary continued. “We have their leaders in captivity.”

Liam’s heart thudded faster. Their leaders: a few high ranked officers, and a few sorcerers in nullcages. And Fizit. He toyed with that thought, and put it away for later.

“And?” Artemis asked. Multiple requests had finally gotten through to the goddess that she didn’t need to boom every word she said.

Mary scowled at Artemis. “We’re not going to slaughter six thousand men and women who have already lost just because they’re scaled.”

“They started one of the most destructive wars in Purgatory’s history,” Loki said, with the tone of someone playing devil’s advocate. “And let's not forget, one of them crucified you and hundreds of people like you. You may turn the other cheek, but what about the rest of your city?”

“The War Against the Ancients was worse,” Neb said, her voice distracted as she turned a page in her notes. Liam hadn’t seen the scribe without her nose in Tethis’ notes. She was obsessively searching for a cure for Meg’s injury, even if it took puzzling through magical theory so complicated that every other wizard in Babylon had declared it the writings of a mad woman.

“That one didn’t leave a bloody hole in the world,” Laurentinus said, shaking his head.

Liam shook his head. “We’re not going to kill them. Besides.” He held up his hand. “We have an air force. We need a navy.”

Quiet came to the table.

Even Laurentinus seemed taken by that idea.

Sif sniffed and wiped at her nose. “And what of my people?” she asked. “Thor seeks to bring peace but there are so many thanes who see this as a chance to grab a name for themselves. Many are demigods.”

“We’ll lend Thor every piece of support we can,” Liam said. “We’ve got the only air force in Purgatory, and no matter what New Athens tries, we have the biggest gunpowder plant and musket making facility out there.”

Sif nodded. She steadied.

“We need more than just guns, though,” she said. “So much anger comes from old enmities. Things that came from before the war...”

“Diplomats?” Meg asked.

“I was thinking diplomats who everyone can trust, diplomats whose loyalties are to someone beyond the Aesir and who aren't loyal to a god that might want our lands,” Sif said. “I’ve noticed that your Order of Mary is quite respected throughout the city.”

Liam chuckled. “Missionaries,” he said, quietly. “But not assholes this time.”

The others looked confused. Well, the others save for Mary, Meg and Neb. But that was mostly because Neb was still distracted by reading notes. Then Neb sat bolt upright, sprang to her feet, and screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Holy fucking what? She’s a fucking genius!”

The entire room sat stock still.

“Liam?” Meg asked, looking at him.

“I don’t even know,” Liam said.

“Is Tethis’ body in the city?” Neb asked, her tail lashing back and forth. Liam blinked, then looked at Mary. Mary shrugged.

“You said you didn’t want her body to get lost, it’s in her crypt. We renew the stasis spell, so she can be emba-”

Neb sprinted out of the room, leaving behind a shocked set of gods and mortals.

Liam coughed. “Continue to discuss this without me,” he said, reaching down to carefully wind his foot until it was sure to work until he arrived at the location. Hephaestus had made something wonderful, but clockwork ran out of juice alarmingly fast. “Remember, we need to get ready to take down Ares.”

Liv brightened at that.

Liam caught up with Neb halfway to the crypts. The Chosen of Anubis didn’t slow down, and didn’t seem to even notice Liam as he called out after her. The city of Babylon bustled around them – the ending of the war had brought a return to civilian infrastructure. But more, buildings were becoming taller and others were starting to go up around the walls.

People wanted to live here.

They arrived at the crypt breathless. “You almost died so many times that Tethis knew that if she hadn’t been nearby, if healers hadn’t been nearby, you’d have not been healed properly, or at all.” Neb gasped. “So, Tethis, between working on the muskets, was working on a new healing spell.”

A faint memory tugged at Liam. He had remembered someone mentioning that.

“Yeah, but didn’t the other wizards say it made no sense?” he asked.

“It doesn’t make sense, unless you remember!” Neb tapped her temple. “The brain is where we think.”

“I-” Liam blinked. “Yes?”

“Valks know it, or at least suspect it. You know it. Tethis knows it. Some people haven’t caught up,” Neb said as she walked to the crypt where Tethis was laid. The tomb was closed tight and glowed with the pale blue light of the stasis spell. She grabbed the top of the tomb and shoved, her arms trembling. Liam sighed and stepped forward. With his help, Neb got the tomb open.

Tethis looked as she had when she had been lain there.

“Okay!” Neb said. “Watch this.”

She rubbed her paws together, then placed them on Tethis’ body.

A glowing light flashed through her palms and into Tethis. Tethis back arched. She slumped back, her funeral wrappings opening slightly.

Liam frowned at Neb. He was starting to feel a cold rage growing inside of himself, but it wasn’t even aimed at Neb. It was at this whole surreal, stupid situation. Tethis was-

Tethis’ eyes opened.

She sat up.

Gasped.

Coughed.

Then looked around, her wrappings falling off her shoulders, exposing her cushy, gently sloping green breasts. Her nipples were hard as tiny diamonds and seemed to beg for Liam to kiss and caress them. She had never looked more beautiful at that moment as she blinked up at Liam.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, man, that was dumb. Don’t pull swords ohff!”

She grunted as Liam swept her into his arms and squeezed her.

She was alive.

She was alive.

After so much death – after so many slain and lost. After so much pain.

Tethis was alive.

And soft.

And warm.

Liam kissed her. Hungrily. His tongue plunged into her mouth as his hands grabbed her clothes. Tethis moved with the same eagerness, her slender arms wrapping around his neck. Soon, she wasn’t just half naked. She was fully nude and Liam was holding her up by her rump. He stepped forward, then turned and sat down on the only bed his brain could recognize. The soft cushion of her tomb welcomed his back as he laid on his back, still kissing Tethis. She ground and bucked her hips against his chest, sliding her moist cunt against him.

Tethis broke the kiss, then reached back. Her hand tugged Liam’s kilt backwards.

“Oh gods, I can’t wait,” she whispered.

“U-Um...” Neb whimpered, standing off to the side. Despite her midnight black fur, her muzzle burned as bright as the sun.

Tethis slid herself backwards. Her green thighs spread as her ears lifted upwards and she looked down at Liam.

“Don’t you want to know how-” Neb continued.

Liam grabbed Tethis' hips and thrust into her. His back arched and his butt left the floor. His cock plunged into Tethis and she arched her spine as much as his, her hands grabbing onto the lip of her tomb. Her breasts bounced in an almost perfect circle as her emerald green skin started to glisten with sweat. She rocked her hips forward and backwards, panting and moaning. Liam grabbed onto her ass, then cupped her breasts.

He found those dark emerald nipples, pinching and twisting her nipples.

Tethis squeaked, then threw her head back and moaned again.

Ignored by the two, Neb guilty slid her paw between her thighs as she watched Tethis rise and fall from her own sarcophagi, the wet sound of sex made all the louder by the passion and by the silence filling the rest of the crypt. She couldn’t help herself. She knew that Anubis wouldn’t be happy about this, uh, happening here.

But she was sure a sacrifice or two would appease her god.

Hopefully.

“Oh Liam, oh Liam,” Tethis moaned. “Oh gods, fuck me!”

“I’m cumming!” Liam clenched his jaw. He normally lasted longer, but Tethis was so fucking tight and smooth and wet. He had forgotten how good she was. Forgotten what it was like to not have a hole in his life.

He shuddered and spent himself inside of Tethis as she lay forward against him, shuddering in time with every tremor that quivered through his body. His hands cupped her ass and he panted softly. His eyes were closed.

“Damn,” he murmured.

Together, the two lay there, soaking in the bliss.

***

“You know,” Meg said, her voice dry. “Most people would wait to learn why someone had come back from the dead before fucking their brains out.”

“Shut up,” Liam said, grinning as Tethis panted against him, her breasts squished against his chest.

“I admit,” Tethis said, sitting back. Her thighs pressed against Liam’s and her rump jiggled as she settled herself back again. Liam found himself growing hard inside of her. “We really should have gotten to the bedroom first.”

Liam grinned, sheepishly. He felt a twinge of guilt as well.

But…

“Fuck, it’s good to have you back, Tethis,” Meg said.

Neb – who had been the one to inform the rest of the council of what had happened – remained in the background. Blushing.

“Soooo,” said Meg, “We can bring anyone we want back to life now?”

“Not, ah, quite,” Tethis said, her voice rising to a moan as Liam started to lazily thrust into her again. His cum sloshed inside of Tethis and she squirmed and moaned, throwing her head back. “Ah fuck.”

Meg purred. “I have to get in on this.”

She leaned forward and kissed Tethis. As Meg was perched at the lip of the tomb, this meant she was kissing Tethis upside down, their mouths and tongues playing together awkwardly. But for all the awkwardness of the position, their passion more than made up for it. When Meg drew back, she was already looking ready to take her top off and join them in the tomb, space be damned.

Tethis panted. “I wasn’t actually dead. The spell, mm, it detects catastrophic damage or blood loss. Activates. Puts the brain into stasis, like your preservation spells. But, ah, with a feedback loop that maintains the, mm, brain. Uh. Bits. That make, fuck yes-’ Her breath came out in a tiny wheeze as Liam’s hand lazily found her clit. “Thinky, uh, stuff, words!”

Meg pouted. “Why’d you only use this on yourself?”

“It’s, mm, really complicated,” Tethis admitted.

“Most of t-the people who read her notes, uh, didn’t even know what it was,” Neb said, coughing quietly.

Tethis grinned. “But you figured it out, Neb.”

Neb turned even more bright red. “Yup!”

“Can you cast it again?” Meg asked.

Tethis nodded. Then her palms slapped down on Liam’s chest. Her eyes glowed and she grinned hungrily – the same kind of hunger she had shown when she had finally become brave enough to ask for what she wanted.

“After round two.” She started to really work her hips, looking over her shoulder at Meg. “M-ay-bee round three.”

***

Fizit lay in her cell, her hand on her belly. She felt the child inside of her kick. She had never before been so adrift. She had no one to tell her anything. No one to share a secret with. She didn’t even have her own mind. Instead, her mind was filled with that most undignified emotion.

Panic.

Abject panic.

Her hand circled around and around and around as she rubbed her belly and tried to not imagine... well, everything. The cell bars were nullcrystals, like the cages that they had kept gods and mages in during the war. She had her power, so long as she stayed at the corner of the cell. But so what? She was in a city, far from her people. With a child. Her child. Her child.

It had become more and more real, every day, every week, growing inside of her.

They could take it and dash its brains out.

They could stab it with a spear.

They could-

Fizit closed her eyes.

Footsteps made her open them again.

Standing in the door was Liam Vanderbilt. He looked in at her, his arms crossed over his chest. Since the orgy months before, she had thought of him little. But seeing him in the flesh again reminded Fizit of what had impressed her about him the first time they had met: his overwhelming size. Not the size of his cock, though that was impressive. No, it was how tall he was.

And she had never before felt more small.

Well.

Feeling and actions had little to do with one another, when you were Fizit.

She stood and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Lord Godkiller,” she said.

“Fizit,” Liam said. He opened his mouth, then closed it. “I... I didn’t know you were pregnant. But even...” He shook his head. “Fizit, Tethis-”

“I’m not sorry,” Fizit said, her tail tense, twitching from side to side. “That’s what you want to hear, right? Well, I won’t lie I lied for my people, but right now, my people might as well not exist. It’s down to me. And right now, I won’t insult you or myself. Tethis was a strategic threat. A single godkiller bomb teleported in our camp would-”

Liam blinked. His mouth opened, then closed.

“Wow,” he said. “I never thought of that.”

Fizit’s tail whipped hard enough to cause the air to crack.

“You what!?”

Liam shook his head. “Liv was at the camp. Any bomb there would kill her, and any number of other innocents.”

Fizit sighed. “Well, it’s in the past now. Please, wait until my child is born before-”

“I’m not having you killed,” Liam said. “Maybe I was tempted. But... no.” He shook his head.

Fizit hissed. “Don’t you dare do this because you pity me, Liam Vanderbilt. All I have left is some measure of pride, and I will not survive because you pity me. I-”

“Fizit!” Liam put his hand over his face. “Tethis is alive. Okay?” He shook his head. “The war is over. And a bigger one is coming. One that is going to make Sysminor look like a walk in the park. I need someone who can run a spy network, who I can trust. I have you.” He dropped his hand from his face, looking at her. “And in a few kindlings, six thousand of your people are going to arrive and need a place to stay. People to accept them.” He sighed. “It’d be a fuck of a lot easier with you. Especially once we start trying the ones responsible for war crimes.”

Fizit felt like she had been completely blind sided.

The General had told her.

He had said, when he had laid out the rough outline of his ‘plan’ - to make a peace that would end Sysminor and still give her people a home – that Liam Vanderbilt was their best choice. But that she might need to die, in the end.

Tethis had to die.

So she’d have to die.

And now…

Now…

She shook her head. “Why?”, Fizit asked, her jaw tight as she spoke. “Why do you want me to be your spymaster?”

“Have you watched yourself at work?” Liam laughed. “You make J. Edgar Hoover look like a mentally unstable paranoid who drugged his co-workers with LSD for fun.”

Fizit looked blank. “I...” She paused. “I will need to think about it.”

Liam nodded.

He turned and started to walk away. He called back over his shoulder. “And we’ll take care of your child. And find the father, if he’s still alive.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Fizit said, casually, her tail twitching from side to side. She’d never trade on her womb for her life. It felt too close to betraying all of womankind to her. But now?

“It’s you,” she finished.

Liam walked into a wall.

***

Liv’s blade hummed as she swung it around her head. She cut as fast as she could, then stopped, then cut faster, then stopped. She measured each slice – and found that it wasn’t getting any faster.

She frowned.

That was okay.

Ares had raped her mother.

He had killed her lover.

But she had time.

Elves always had time.

The door to the training room opened and Liam stepped inside. “Hey,” he said.

Liv nodded curtly to him. “Thanks,” she said. “For, uh...” she trailed off. “For telling me about... about what Ares did.” She didn’t want to say his name. Just thinking it sent a squeeze of pain through her heart and brought her to the edge of tears no Spartan should ever show.

She didn’t have time for it.

“Now, when were you going to tell me?” Liam asked.

Liv looked at him, her brow furrowing.

“You’re pregnant,” Liam said. “Fizit thinks that when Sysminor reactivated the lizardmen’s regeneration and super-stamina, he turned their cross fertility on. Normally, it takes a magical spell for two people to make a child, if they’re different species at least. But, well...” He looked like he wasn’t sure if he should be appalled, shocked, or pleased.

Liv snorted.

There were some advantages to being an elf. She could spend weeks grieving…

Later.

For now…

She drew her sword. Cut.

Still the same speed.

She had to be faster.

She would be faster.

Liam squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll help you take care of the baby.”

Liv frowned. “I, uh. Okay.”

Liam nodded. “So, what are you practicing?”

“My father was faster than me. I have to train until I am faster than him,” Liv said.

Liam bit his lip. “Your father said some things. I’m not sure I understood all of them. But...” he paused. “Fizit told me what you saw in the security station. The recordings?” He shook his head. “Do you want to hear my theory?”

Liv snorted. “No.”

“It’ll help you kill your dad,” Liam said, shrugging as he walked away from Liv and sat down on one of the benches that ringed the training room. Liv slashed at the air, sheathed her sword.

“Fine,” she said, looking right at him.

She’d grieve later.

She didn’t need to see the pity in his eyes. She refused to look at it, she refused to recognize it. If she opened a chink, anywhere...

“Well,” Liam said. “I think that gods get their powers from their worshipers.”

“No fucking shit,” Liv snarled.

“But I think it's two sided,” Liam said. “The beliefs of the worshipers changes gods to fit what they think they are. So, that’s why Ares stayed Ares for thousands on thousands of years. I mean, I’m going to be a hugely different person if I live to be a hundred. What if I live to be five thousand?” He shook his head. “But gods are still themselves. They’re still like how they are in the stories I remember reading. If they were people, that wouldn’t make sense, would it?”

Liv frowned. “So, we... what? Ares’ stories don’t seem to be sticking.”

And that helmet has something to do with it, she thought.

Liam nodded. “But your story’s just beginning. You’re world famous. How hard would it be to turn that fame into worship?”

Liv’s brow furrowed.

Liam grinned.

“How’d you like to be the next God of War?”

Epilogue

President Amanda Deinhardt signed off on yet another piece of paperwork. Despite constant crowing about becoming a paperless society, she had yet to see it actually get to the White House. But, considering the things hackers could do to computer programs these days, she supposed paper had its advantages. She was about to pick up another stack of memos when the door to the oval office opened.

One of her favorite aides – Martin Shelton – stuck his head in.

“Madame President,” he said, smiling. “The NASA guy is here for you.”

Deinhardt preferred a relaxed White House. The aides and staff repaid that – a change from the previous administration – with almost fawning loyalty. She nodded.

“Send him in, Martin,” she said.

The NASA guy turned out to be named Dr. Robert Pero. He was dressed in a suit about three decades out of fashion, wore thick bottle glasses, and looked almost entirely like a completely stereotypical NASA scientist, save for the fact that a furrowed knot of flesh was all that was left of his left ear. Seeing the glance, he smiled at the President.

“Old motorcycle accident. Glad it just took the ear,” Dr. Pero said, taking her hand, shaking it.

“Well, I’m glad to see that too,” Deinhardt said. “What is it that you needed to speak to me about? I was told that it was something that got ya’ll down at NASA runnin’ around like ants who got their hive shook up.”

Dr. Pero smiled shakily. “That’s, ah, one way of putting it.”

He pulled out his tablet. Tapping it on, he brought up a picture. It was of a gray white crescent surrounded by blackness. He tapped the side of the tablet, his voice firm.

“This is a photograph of Charon, the moon of Pluto,” he said. “The Second Horizon probe took it yesterday.” He swiped the photo left. “It took this one five seconds later. Then this one. Then this one.”

The pictures showed, clearly, a bright white flash coming from Charon. Then, later, a stream of gas shooting out into space, as well as some debris. A few glinting specs.

Deinhardt’s brow furrowed slowly.

“Dear god,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Dr. Pero said. “It’s a horse.”

Or, more accurately, half of a horse. It looked like the explosion had ripped the poor beast in half. The flash freezing from being exposed to space had rendered the image less gory – that and the fuzz introduced by the extreme distance of the Second Horizon probe. But it was still distinctly disturbing. Deinhardt had a fondness for horses, one that had helped her during the campaign trail, on interviews, and commercial spots.

She shook her head.

“Have you heard of the Vanderbilt Effect?” Dr. Pero asked.

“I think so,” Deinhardt said. “It was named after some kid, right?”

“Yes, Liam Vanderbilt is why we even know it exists. Exotic particles bombarding a specific part of space-time can create a rapidly rotating fourth dimensional object, creating a linkage between the targeted area and another.” He licked his lips. “The research at Atlanta, the work by Dr. Chelsea Brown and her husband-”

“Ah, Doc,” Deinhardt cut him off. “Concise.”

Dr. Pero gulped. “W-We assumed the exotic particle shower was a random event. Natural phenomenon, as nothing we know can make it. Weird things hit the Earth from time to time.” He paused. “But Dr. Brown did the math. Vanderbilt would have ended up in Charon.”

Deinhardt bit her lip.

“Ma’am,” Dr. Pero said. “If he went there...”

“So can we,” Deinhardt said, her eyes speculative. “

Dr. Pero nodded.

Deinhardt smiled. “We choose to go to Charon not because it is easy. We choose to go because it is necessary.” She grinned. “I’ll start making some phone calls, Dr. Pero. I think NASA just got a budget increase.”

***

Ares leaned back in his little office, situated in the center of Purgatory’s sun. Brax’s skull looked down at him from over the bed that he had made. Ares had a pleasant mental image of fucking that Fizit bitch on that bed, under her lover’s skull. If Brax’s child wasn’t in her womb, he’d eat his own sword.

There was something marvelous about taking another man’s woman.

His palm rested on the desk before him. It had taken many years of experimentation. With his mind freed from the shackles of mortal worship, he was no longer tied to being Ares, God of War. There was so much power in being a god. Powers to move, to shape, to make matter dance as he would will it. Yes, his power was actually lessened from what it used to be.

Yes, the prayers were distant and muted.

Yes, every worshiper he had now seemed to count as only a tenth of what they used to be.

But the freedom alone made it worth it.

He might not be able to make a spear that could cleave the sky. He could no longer make armies immortal and invincible when he needed it. And his priests could no longer heal by using his power.

Not that many had noticed yet. Priests of Aries rarely were called for that art.

But he could teleport. He could change his shape. He could pick apart minds at his pleasure.

He was himself.

And so, he subtly changed his hand. Soon, his skin was the skin of an elf. His blood was the blood of an elf. His heart beat came in the same steady beat beat beat of an elf. And his face, reflected to him in the mirrored surface of the wall, was the face of that elven bitch he had sired Liv in.

The desk recognized her.

“Administrator Liz’Ten, welcome back,” the computer spoke in Ancient. “How may I assist you?”

Ares smiled, and spoke in the dead woman’s voice. “Can you check on System Administrator Four?”

“System Administrator Four’s functionality has failed, Administrator Liz’Ten,” the computer said. “Do you wish me to wake System Administrator One? Or Two?”

Ares shook his head.

Three had been destroyed during the War against the Ancients - the war that had brought him and the other gods freedom. One and Two were both far too sane to be useful to him. But System Administrator Four – Sys-Min-Or – had been perfect. Scattered and confused and so easily led. He tapped his fingers on the desk, then leaned forward.

“Show me Earth again.”

The crystal pods that thrust from the desk glowed to life. Dozens of screens appeared in the air. Those in the middle showed images of the world of Earth. He could see how it had changed. The new glow of lights. Cities, each with millions - billions - of people. The other screens showed the feeds from dozens of media programs. He saw tanks driving through a dusty desert. Strangely green tinted footage of a city in flames. Anti-aircraft fire streaked through the air. In another, children were escorted from their school, panic on their faces. The police were approaching as helicopters circled.

“-at least twenty dead in this latest shooting-”

“-terror attack leaves dozens wounded as-”

“-heroic Marine and a fellow bystander stopped the knife wielding-”

“-we shall bring down fire and fury unlike anything-”

“-this far! No further! We shall-”

“-overcome!”

“No, no, we won’t go!”

The voices – in dozens of languages – flowed through Ares. He leaned back, feeling an almost sexual thrill buzz through his body, accentuated by the feminine form he had taken. He grinned and let himself slide back into his male form. His hand caressed his lap.

“War on women,” he murmured. “War on terror. War on drugs. War on poverty. Wars by the bushel. Wars by the pound. Wars for all occasion...”

His eyes glowed.

“Wars for me.”

THE END

Exclusive Sneak Preview - Cadet by Dragon Cobolt

There were many shards of many lives. They glinted and shimmered in a long string of reincarnations. They were fragmentary. They were incomplete. They were glimpses into other times and other places.

A man with gray hair, standing before a legate’s council, holding up a contract scroll. His voice is strong, booming out and filling the room. People watch, rapt, from the audience stadiums surrounding him, while hovering drones record the moment for posterity. His knuckles slap the bottom of the contract, causing the crystal-printed wafers to activate piezoelectric machinery woven through the lettering. Hologlyphs surround him, a hazy aura of evidence and arguments to underline and counterbalance his words.

A woman waving a slogan-poster before a collection of rioters, despite the rocks that whistle past her ear. She holds it aloft, and behind her are half a dozen men in heavy gear recognizable as Korvosian stormtrooper uniforms. Glowing eyed gas masks. Long trench coats, woven through with hardened strands of jade and adamant. Crossbows cradled in their hands. They look ready to open fire on the crowd of rioters – but a gesture from the woman's hand holds them back. She turns back to look into the crowd. Her eyes are filled with determination that could move mountains.

A teenager with a headband, cradling an automatic-crossbow in dream rubble, as enemy soldiers pick their way past the warped and ruined reality that had been her home. She is grabbed from behind – thrown down. Something with four arms looms over her, all gleaming metal and whirring gears. The girl shows no fear – her boot slams into the joining between the thing's legs and despite being made of machinery and clay, the man staggers backwards, his palms cupping around his crotch, his face – shockingly human, nestled as it was between the metal – contorted in pain.

The teenager laughed.

There were more shards, but none floated to the surface as the soul started to contract. The fragments started to move together, drawn inwards by a sudden increase in the local pressure of... of what?

There was no word for it in the languages of science that came before the Endwar. People that had once spoken of quanta and dark matter would have struggled to explain what was happening with anything other than a single word: magic. But there was a science here. The shinimantic properties of motonic modulation fields, interacting with natural and artificial dragon-lines of power. This science guided chunks of lifetime into contact. Where they fused, there was light. The light started off as a mere candle-flame, then grew. It hurtled into a torch in a heartbeat. It rocketed through bonfire between blinks. The light of a sun shone from the containment unit for the longest moment as the soul underwent fusion.

At that moment, when it seemed as though the soul could get no brighter... it stopped. The light dimmed to nothingness, leaving only a hazy splotch in the air, wreathed in a mist of pale white smoke. The splotch faded and the fog wafted slowly to the sides, revealing a single glittering gemstone that looked like a diamond, if the facets of a diamond could shift and flow like water. Contained within the diamond was a luminescence that was as gentle and warming as the noonday sun.

Tweezers made of a silvery metal, held by rubberized gloves wrapped around all too human hands, closed around the gemstone and lifted it up above the aetheric fusion chamber. Engineer Trasik breathed slowly in through the gas mask settled over his face. A single droplet of sweat beaded along the inside of his mask and he thanked the dead gods that someone had designed the mask to whisk sweat away before it dripped into his eyes. He moved the tweezers through the air, setting the diamond down on the scanner that dominated half of the workroom.

“Careful.” Engineer Lanisbe said, just as the diamond settled into place. Trasik started but fortunately, the scanner was already closing its protective field around the diamond as it checked it for flaws. A soul fusion, in theory, was actually fairly simple – in fact, it was less traumatic than a run of the mill reincarnation. Reincarnation left almost no memories behind, allowing a new personality to form as a human being was born, raised, died heroically in the service of their nation, and came back again.

But reincarnation was natural. Flaws occurred, but no one blamed the laws of reality when their child was born mentally deficient, or with screaming nightmares, or with an asynchronous gender. A soul fusion was done by human hands, with human minds.

With human beings who could be blamed. Trasik could already see the Intelisec Comissariat asking him pointedly: So, Engineer Trasik, why did you deliver us a drooling moron instead of a Champion? Then he could see a future working in the prayer-mills, or being shipped into a penal battalion.

“Let's check it,” Lanisbe said, voice brusque. If Lanisbe felt any emotion – let alone fear – he didn't show it as he stepped over to the scanner's control panel. Working the toggles and flicking switches with one hand, he took the time to slip his gas mask back and over his head. His bronzed face was cleanly shaven, the only hint he hadn't spent his entire life in a technical college being a pair of puckered, circular scars on his cheek. Trasik had never asked him where he got his scars and Lanisbe had never offered.

“Her,” Trasik said, taking his mask off as well.

“Don't gender it before we know what it is,” Lanisbe snapped. Trasik scowled.

“What was the order, Lanny,” he said, knowing the diminutive annoyed the other engineer. “Three girls, two boys.”

“This might be one of the boys,” Lanisbe said, stiffly. The scanner was starting to bring up some preliminary images. The first was of a woman holding a sword in both hands. She knocked a crossbow bolt from the air with a quick, artful slash. The image fuzzed into static on the screen and Lanisbe swore quietly. “Fuck, getting a lot of interference – the fusion was smooth, right?”

“Smooth as a Fair Folk's cunt,” Trasik said, grinning. Relief was making him sweat more than the initial fusion had. It wasn't always the case that the first image on the scan indicated the gender identity of the Champion. But it was a good bet.

“You're disgusting,” Lanisbe said. He had brought up another screen. The teenager that Trasik had seen momentarily. Lanisbe's brow furrowed and he paused the feed. “What's that she's wearing?”

“It looks like a headband. Don't recognize the symbol. Do we have a date?”

“Five lifetimes ago,” Lanisbe said. “Hrm, need to find out when the soul died in those lifetimes-”

“Two centuries,” Trasik said, his voice dull.

Lanisbe looked at him, frowning. The feed started to skitter forward – the quantum-interface that allowed a scanner to read the memories of a human soul, even one artificially fused together, was notoriously hard to actually pause. Souls remembered what they wanted to remember, and poor, overworked engineers had to get what they were given.

“And how do you know that?” Lanisbe asked.

“I recognize the symbol now. That's the Suryan Front,” Trasik said, putting his hands on his face. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Those assholes in Collection just fucked us.”

Lanisbe shook his head. “You're being histrionic. The Suryan Republic was conquered – part of this Champion's soul is originally Suryan. That is to be expected from time to time, Suryans and their decedents make up fifteen percent of Imperial Korvosa.”

Trasik tried to not grind his teeth as Lanisbe worked his way forward. As a logician and a rhetorician, Lanisbe was more akin to a behemoth tank. He got where he was going, yes. Eventually.

“Besides, if her core memories are properly loyal, then-” Lanisbe paused. “Oh.”

Trasik looked at the screen. The view had continued to spool forward through important memories, jumping from scene to scene like a montage edited by an over caffinated action addict.

Laying on her back, with her legs spread, the teenager was eagerly taking a man's cock. But not just any man. Those four arms, that sleek body. That was Unstoppable Destructive Locomotive 556 – one of the most famous Korvosian Champions... well, ever. Trasik started to feel relief bloom inside of himself.

“Let's not celebrate too quickly. It may be rape,” Lanisbe said, quietly. But he didn't sound like he believed it.

Trasik flicked on the speakers, then tapped on the translation program – she was speaking Suryan from two centuries before after all.

“Oh Loco! Oh Loco!” The girl's voice was high and eager. She arched her back, her smallish breasts bouncing against her chest as Loco's bottom hands cupped her ass desperately, his upper hands squeezing her shoulders. He panted, raggedly, as he pounded into her, his swaying balls slapping her butt. “Oh Loco, I love you, oh gods-”

The clear and unmistakable sound of a world shattering orgasm wailed from the speakers.

Trasik flicked the sound off.

He looked at Lanisbe and arched an eyebrow. “Think we're good?”

Lanisbe nodded. “Definitely a loyalist. Good. Let's get to the real work.”

The duo turned and took the gas masks completely off, hooking them on the wall. The small room was dominated by the scanner on the left side but the right was the real showpiece. There was a small chute that lead to the induction chamber. In the ancient past, there had been many theories about the fundamental nature of reality. Refinements in measurement and observation, extrapolations of theories, all had pointed towards a deep mystery of how reality worked. It had taken blowing the cosmos apart to really understand what was going on.

There was something deeply human about that.

But the Endwar had taught the survivors – huddled in reality shields and protected by sheer willpower – that the universe functioned on a deeper level than just Newtonian pieces bumping together. Once you knew how to tap it, the soul was all that mattered. The induction chamber was the culmination of that truth. Hundreds of mana-generators, dozens of prayer-mills, and a techno-mystical infrastructure that spread across half a continent worked to focus the energies of creation into the chamber. Those energies could cause a fused soul to imbue itself into, well...

“Bring it in,” Lanisbe spoke into the hanging speaking crystal while Trasik pulled on manipulator gloves. The door to the workshop opened and a trio of menials hurried in, pushing a vat of thick, pale gray clay. Well, menials and the teeming masses of the Populat and most of the Bureaucracy called it clay. Engineers knew better.

“So,” Trasik said. “How big should her tits be?”

He reached into the vat. The manipulator gloves created a glowing blue field that let him grab up great, big hunks of the ‘clay’ and slap them down onto the hanging operating table that was lowered from the ceiling once the soul had been checked and cleared.

“I’m not even going to dignify that question with an answer,” Lanisbe said, reaching across the operating table to grab a circle cutter. He frowned, then moved around, so that he could get to the tools easier.

Trasik worked quickly. He slapped the clay from the cart to table – throwing it down with a series of loud, wet, smacking noises. He created the outline of a human body once the mass was there – using the manipulator field generators set into his fingertips and palms to shape the clay with his will. The material rippled, flowed. Breasts formed, tipped with colorless nipples.

“Come on, we need to strategize here.” Trasik grinned up at his coworker. By this point, the joyous relief that the hardest part of the process – despite Lanisbe's words earlier – had faded to background radiation and he could focus on what really brought his life true pleasure.

Annoying Lanisbe.

“Three girls, two boys, that's what Autarch Greyling wants, yes?” Trasik sculpted hips. Ample hips. Hips you could sink your fingers into and feel them squish slightly. His fingers darted forward and he drew a thin slit between her legs, making tiny motions. Tiny corrections. When his palm slipped away, the petal that sat between the half-finished constructs legs bore more in common with deviant artwork than the imperfect world of flesh and lust that humans walked through.

“The Autarch wants a front line combatant, by the dead gods,” Lanisbe said, watching with undisguised disgust. “Not a walking fuck toy.”

“Boys age sixteen to eighteen are showing a marked lack of interest in our Champions. And why is this? Because they’re a bunch of boring dudes. Old dudes. The youngest, sexiest Champion currently fighting for Korvosa is Loco. And he's old enough to be screwing her past life!” Trasik pointed down at the featureless face underneath him. He shook his head. “And that's not even getting into the downturn in erotica sales. Half the military budget is supported by that.” 

Lanisbe managed to give his companion a scathing look, despite the fact he had just finished pulling on a face-concealing work mask. 

Trasik continued, impervious to the censorious glare. “Girls can look up to her, but we want straight boys to be requisitioning her merchandise at the gift dispensaries, having her posters on the wall, yanking their-“

“Stop! Stop... strategizing! For my sanity, if for nothing else.” Lanisbe shook his head – and missed Trasik's triumphant little smirk. He pulled out a beamcutter and aimed it at one of the arms that Trasik had so carefully formed He sliced into the skin, opening up what could be called muscle if it were not unfeeling clay. Once he was sure there was enough room for what he was going to do, he stepped away from the operating table and moved to the conveyor belt that ran alongside the workshop.

Lanisbe picked up the speaking crystal. “This is Engineer Lanisbe. We're ready for the augments. Repeat, we are ready for the augments.”

A low, droning horn buzzed through the walls.

Throughout the manufacturing temple, there were a full three hundred and thirty three engineering teams. Most of them worked in larger chambers than the cramped, two person operating theater shared by Lanisbe and Trasik – they worked in vast arrays, bent low over conveyor belts, their fingers working a single component here, a single fraction of a part there. Each piece moved from station to station, gaining in complexity and expense as new materials and more skilled laborers were put to work. The parts became pieces, the pieces became components, and then fashioned into augmentations.

In another time, in another nation, this frenzied activity could be spread over months, or years.

In Korvosa – where every engineer and technician and menial working here was another one not working to build airships or crossbows or suits of armor – Champions had to be built quickly, so that they could be put to work before Korvosa's many enemies noticed the drop in production and could take advantage.

And all those augmentations and implants were channeled to a single point, to a single operating theater, and to two engineers who worked there, together, despite the fact they couldn't stand one another, because at the end of the day, they were the best at their jobs.

“Five-Fold Muscular Enhancement?” Lanisbe asked, looking down at the unfinished Champion.

Trasik, the hardest part of his duty done, picked up a crystal sheaf. He tapped the side of it to unroll the dozens of knotted smart threads that made up the compuquipu. He used his finger – still buzzing with the energies he had used to shape the clay – to check one of the listed implants off. The compuquipu’s knots shifted, to show the record was being finalized, then stored in the Imperial Bureaucracy knowledge vaults.

“Check,” Trasik said.

Lanisbe used a scalpel to cut into the clay chest. Six baubles, each one showing an image within: a young man or woman, flying through the air as if a bird or dragon.

“Boundless Wings Dream Stabilization Unit?”

“Check.”

The head was opened and opals were placed where the eyes would be, then capped with a sophisticated array of micro-lenses shrouded by clockwork and contained within a small hemisphere of tinted bronze. Once the eye was settled, Lanisbe carefully painted blue irises and whites on them. It made humans less uncomfortable. He tapped the back of the paintbrush to activate the intelligence worked into the paint – and the eyes gained shades and glistening reflectiveness. Even without a soul, there was an amazing liveliness in them.

“Thaumographic Spirit Sight Eyes?” Trasik asked. “Or are you too busy admiring your own handiwork to actually install them?”

Lanisbe glared at him. “Flip her over,” he said, his voice sour.

Trasik laughed, reaching out and activating the table’s mechanism. A grating closed around the clay, holding it into place. Lanisbe looked down at the half-finished Champion for a few moments, his brow furrowed in thought. Trasik, holding the compu-quipu to his shoulder, walked over and elbowed Lanisbe in the side, grinning.

“Sooo,” he said. “You're admiring her butt, aren't you?”

“You have the mind of a soul-sick twelve year old,” Lanisbe said, distractedly. “They want flight, right?”

“Yess-”

“I just realized how we can do the Angel Transhuman Implantation without wings,” Lanisbe said.

“They want wings, Lanny,” Trasik said.

Lanisbe looked at Trasik. “Name a single time in history that the Army ever wanted to waste immense amounts of magical materials, Trasik.” He spoke the other engineer's name with exaggerated focus.

“Is that a trick question?” Trasik asked.

Lanisbe shook his head. “No. Hand me that fabrication unit.”

“Fab-units can't do augments, Lanny,” Trasik said. “It needs to be actually made by hand – the reality matrix will just fall apart!”

“Trasik?” Lanisbe looked up from his work. “Shut up.”

Trasik frowned. Then, quietly, he lifted up his hands – as if to say: Well, I wash my hands of this.

Besides, he thought. I can always sell him out to Intelisec. Then he goes into a penal battalion and I don't. Win win!

Lanisbe worked quickly – taking apart the two sets of wings that the other engineers had sent. He wired components into the Champion's back, attached gemstone focusing emitters onto her shoulder blades, added secondary emitters on her wrists, on the base of her feet. Once he was done, she looked as if she had been given a few sets of gaudy pieces of jewelry, and half the materials used on the wings was piled in the corner of the room near the recycling chute. Trasik opened his mouth to speak. Lanisbe picked up a mana-battery, touched it to an exposed contact point, and the unfinished mass of clay and augmentations floated up and off the table, hovering in space. He drew the mana-battery back and the Champion floated gently back to settle onto the table.

Lanisbe looked smug

“Angel Transhuman Implantation... check,” Trasik said, sounding impressed despite himself.

Lanisbe picked up the next augmentation that rolled down the conveyor belt as Trasik kicked the magical materials down the recycling chute. Doing even basic, back of the envelope math, Trasik knew that Lanisbe had just saved Korvosa the cost of almost a sixth of a Champion. He shook his head and tried to not feel impressed. He was too invested in disliking the officious prick.

“And that's the mana-cannon,” Lanisbe said, pointedly. “Ahem. Mana-Cannon. Ahem.”

“Implanted Forearm Mana-Cannon, check!” Trasik said, grumpily ticking it off. He shook his head.  “Halfway done.” He sighed, then slapped one clay buttock. He grinned at Lanisbe and saw the clear look of distaste in the other man's eyes.

Now this? Trasik thought. This is the best damn job in Korvosa.

When the last implant was placed and the final prayers were said, the time came for the most difficult and yet most effortless part of the entire procedure. Trasik picked up the tweezers. Lanisbe opened up the scanner's containment unit. He dragged the containment unit to the table – then worked some controls. The hanging table canted to a forty five degree angle, so that the Champion's head and the containment unit were almost at the same height.

Trasik breathed in, then out, then tugged his gas mask into place. His tweezers glinted, reaching into the sustenance field, grasping onto the diamond. Inside the diamond were the shards of memory: the man, the woman, the teenager.

The hero: fighting to protect people from unjust laws with the law, not by disregarding it. 

The hero: standing between the crowd and death – loyalty to the state and to the people exemplified.

The hero: a teenage warrior, falling in love with a man she should hate, her loyalty to the Korvosian cause clear.

This soul had reincarnated hundreds of times, but a larger than average number of those lifetimes had been heroic and skillful. Knowledge of law and bureaucracy, burned into her every memory. A master of organization and public speaking.

A peerless swordswoman and warrior.

It was the most precious thing in the room and, right now, it was as fragile as a spider web. A single moment of indecision, of lack of focus, could rip the component soul from the diamond, scattering the memories throughout the Sunder and dragging the soul into the Eye – the swirling storm of souls around which the whole of the Sunder turned. Once in the Eye, a heroic soul would have to live another lifetime, and countless man hours of work, ton lots of magical materials, incalculable amounts of mana, all of it would be wasted.

Along with it Trasik and Lanisbe's lives. Imperial Korvosa – and the Intelisec Commissariat – had no forgiveness. No mercy.

That fact never could get far from his thoughts, no matter how much he wished it would.

Trasik lowered the tweezers and, his rubber hands shaking slightly with nerves, he eased them open.

The diamond landed on the forehead.  Clay opened of its own accord and sealed around it. Then the engineers stepped backwards as the workshop’s final machines came to eager life. Klaxons wailed throughout the entire capitol city, telling all to rush to their living tapestries, to their crystalline projectors. At factories, shifts were ended early. At the barracks, recruits and veterans stood side by side, in uniform, their eyes glued to moving images. All across the city – and soon, all across Korvosa - every eye was watching the clay figure.

The machinery grabbed it under the arms and lifted it up, carrying it through a chute in the ceiling to the next room over. This room was surrounded by cold iron with soulcidian backing, preventing any mana from escaping. If a human stepped into the room, it was an even toss as to which killed them first: mana burn or frostbite. Mana was only liquid in the deepest cold, the cold only found in the deepest Sunder or in a hardened labratoria.

The clay body was lowered, inch by inch, into the mana.

Eyes flashed open and the body twitched, writhed. The back arched and the final characteristics formed: Red hair, short cropped and jagged – like crystals. Clay turned into blue skin, contrasting with the hair. Her eyes remained the same color, but now they glowed with real life and memories. The gemstones mounted along her back and her wrists glowed and the tank shuddered as she created a bubble of counter-gravitic energies around her form. Her back arched and she cried out – the wordless first sound of a being given life.

Was it as pleasurable as it sounded?

The last bits of detail formed – the dark blue of her pussy and her nipples. She was hairless down there, he noticed. Good, there was nothing quite as difficult as trying to get a Champion to shave when a Champion didn't want to shave.

Her eyes closed and she stretched her arms to either side of her, her toes wiggling as she flexed herself, taking delight in the movement. The scanner dinged softly.

“We’re getting a designation!” Trasik grinned, his eyes bouncing from the view of the vat and to the display on the scanner, which had fully synchronized with the internal computation of the Champion. Glyphs in Korvosian flickered across the screen. “She thinks of herself as Vengeful Crystal Hawk 45C!”

Lanisbe nodded.

That was it. Just a single, simple nod.

In the vat, Vengeful Crystalline Hawk 45C finished stretching, wiggled her toes again, then grinned.

“I'm so fucking glad that you guys finally built me,” she said, rubbing a single knuckle along her chest. “But I guess it took a while to get the shit you needed together, right?” She nodded, swaying slightly on the harness that still suspended her in the room. She yawned, slowly, covering her mouth with her hand. “So, uh,” she asked once she was finished, “Are we still at war with Korvosa?”

Lanisbe and Trasik blinked.

“Guys?” Vengeful Crystalline Hawk 45C asked. “I'm, uh, looking forward to kicking ass for the Republic.”

Silence.

“...guys?”

Silence.

“Is the fucking mic on or what?”

Lanisbe and Trasik were gone.

They didn't get caught until they reached the border. But by then, it was far too late.

Cadet by Dragon Cobolt, the first book of the Worldshard trilogy, will be released in early 2018.

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.