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.”