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.