Chapter Three

 

 

Belladonna sprawled underneath the tarp and tried to cover her ears with both hands as tightly as she could. Even that didn’t keep out the roaring and the rumble and the distant cries. And to think, just a few minutes earlier, everything had been so peaceful. So quiet. She had been sitting with Xapanos, chatting about their latest findings. Or, more accurately, their lack of latest findings.

It would have been easier to get some real information if what they had were actual scientific supplies. As it was, she had the Predator drone tucked into the box and had been peering significantly at one of the control apparatuses while adjusting dials and levers and finding out which buttons made pings and which ones made bleeps. So, every time Paladin Chastity had arrived to growl at them and ask about how things were progressing, she had pushed a few buttons here, pushed a few buttons there, and let Xapanos carry the conversation.

“I think it has to be some kind of active force. But I can’t sense a single kind of active field,” he had been saying as they waited for the sun to finally shut down and for some measure of blessed cool to come to the pit.

“Well-”

And that was when the distant crack of a musket had jerked Belladonna’s head up. She had seen a Monodeist soldier toppling off the side of the wall, her head vanished and her neck ending in a ragged stump. As her arms cartwheeled in boneless death, the entire wall had erupted with gunfire as every other Monodeist fired on the jungle surrounding them. The cannons had gone off as well, filling the air with acrid smoke and with an even deeper booming. Even at the bottom of the pit, Bella’s nose had been filled with the scent of gunpowder.

As she trembled on the dirt floor and wished, desperately, to return home, Bella felt an arm slip around her belly and draw her in close. The sleek warmth of Xapanos body was as welcome as a wrapped blanket. Without taking her hands from her ears, Bella had turned and pressed herself into the other scholar.

After what felt like an eternity, the endless roar faded. Over the ringing in her ears, Bella could hear Paladin Chastity.

“You! You! You! You! You’re with me! We cannot let these savages and heretics snipe at us without any payback. Come!”

Bella realized her nose was mashed against the dark elf’s chest. Her nose flared and, underneath the gunsmoke and the dirt and the unwashed sweat, she could scent the male musk of Xapanos. It was subtly different from the smells of maleness that she associated with her (all too infrequent) trysts. Not many people were interested in a dorky geologist with buck teeth and glasses, and despite dozens of movies claiming to the contrary, simply changing her hair style and her dress hadn’t magically made any of the hunks she had gone to school with realize that she was, in fact, played by Emma Watson.

But she had gotten lucky occasionally.

And human men had a definite richness to their base scent.

But elves.

Oh elves.

He smelled like a tree after a storm. It was exotic and almost too intense for the moment. But even if he had smelled like a rotten egg, it wouldn’t have been enough to distract Bella from the sudden tautness of his loincloth. Trapped between her belly and his thighs, his member was growing harder and harder and harder. Bella felt her fear – not merely the fear of the moment, but the fear of months of being trapped on this strange world, the fear of being surrounded by power she couldn’t understand and couldn’t begin to quantify – transform with a shocking speed into pure lust. Her body quivered and part of her rebelled at it.

She barely knew Xapanos. He was clever, and beautiful, and exotic. But she didn’t know about his family, his goals, his future.

But the aching flame that burned between her legs, burned with the same slick heat as the jungles surrounding the Mine, didn’t care. Her palms skimmed along his shoulders as the sun went dark. The whole camp was plunged into darkness. And even the natives found that sudden transition from what (to her) felt like midday to the darkest midnight...jarring. Cries of alarm and curses came from soldiers who were rushing to ready mounts, or to get weapons.

And in that darkness, Xapanos hand dipped down and found her ass. He squeezed her with strength. With conviction. Bella mewled and kissed at his neck, tasting the salty sweat that gleamed even in the darkness.

“Nnh, we shouldn’t,” he whispered.

“I don’t care,” Belladonna husked. And she didn’t. She pushed him onto his back, swinging one leg up and over. She had been forced to wear native clothes at spear point. She hadn’t imagined how nice it would be to wear a kilt without panties until she planted her sopping wet cuntlips against the bulging member that strained to escape from Xapanos’ loincloth. Her palms spread against his chest and she leaned forward, kissing him. Xapanos didn’t kiss her back. At first. Then, in the darkness, his ruby red eyes closed and his tongue plunged into her mouth as his hand cupped the back of her head. His fingers worked through her hair, and if he cared about her slightly too large front teeth, it didn’t slow his tongue as he thrust it deep into her mouth.

Belladonna sucked on his tongue as she reached back to start untying her breast band. When she broke the kiss she was panting. “Humans and elves can’t interbreed, can they?” she asked.

“No,” Xapanos said, his eyes still closed as his hands found her breasts. He squeezed her in the darkness with the deftness of long experience. The feelings he sent roiling through her with just a tweak and squeeze of her nipples and her breasts shocked Belladonna. She hadn’t realized it could feel that good. Her back arched and she pressed her breasts into his palms, even as in the darkness round them, mage-lights started to glow to life.

“We don’t have much time,” she whispered, reaching down. Another mage-light flared. None of the light shone directly on them, and no guards came to investigate them. Yet.

But…

The fact that some might come, just at this moment, sent a dizzying thrill of erotic pleasure through Bella. She found the tie of Xapanos’ loincloth, tugged. His member came free with a wet slap, his inches and inches of ebony black cock grinding against her ass and then slipping forward. The tip of his member glided along her pussylips as if they were utterly frictionless, then came to rest rubbing against her clitty. Bella’s eyes widened and she bit down on her lower lip hard enough to almost draw blood. His cock bumped against her clit with nearly the same skill she had felt in a human being’s entire hands and tongue combo.

Then Xapanos’ hands grabbed onto her hips and he slammed her down. A minute adjustment of angle meant that his cock filled her, sheathing into her with a wet slurp and his back reared upwards as he pressed his mouth to her mouth. IT was to muffle them both, and she could feel his moan escaping around her lips, even as his tongue and hers met. Dueled.

When his mouth drew back, the only noise that she could possibly make was: “Ohhhh...” It was low and breathy and whispered into the side of his neck as she clung to him. Because Xapanos was not merely sitting back. His hips drove upwards and his cock plunged up, then back, then up, then back, then up. He thrust up hard enough that his black balls slapped her ass. The only thing that kept the guards rushing about from hearing them was the calls of orders and swears and curses.

A mage-light flared on close enough that the light glimmering along his face let Belladonna see the look of exquisite pleasure and intense pain filling the dark elf’s face. His body shuddered as his hand squeezed her ass and he drove into her. Faster. Harder. Faster. Faster.

Belladonna’s climax forced her to bite down on his shoulder.

Xapanos merely choked out: “Triss!”

She had no time to be confused as the hot rush of his cum filled her. And filled her. And filled her. She felt the pulses of his heat crashing into her deepest places and filling her with a warmth and well-being that magnified and expanded the glorious, pink-tinted bliss that shrouded her mind as what felt like an unending wave of orgasms echoed through her mind. Every time the orgasm faded back, it would rebound forward again as his member twitched and shifted inside of her, grinding against her most sensitive places.

Slowly, Xapanos’ arms loosened their grip on her and she released her jaw, wincing at the pale marks she had left on his ebony skin. Before she could apologize, another mage-light flared and a guard missed spotting them only by dint of turning right rather than left. Belladonna twitched and choked back a moan as Xapanos drew out of her, his cock softening as it slurped from her sex.

His cum dripped along her thighs. Pattered onto the ground.

“I-” Bella started.

But then Xapanos shoved her away, his face a mask as he turned and stood in the same fluid motion. He yanked at his loincloth, trying to get it tied taut as he stalked into the darkness, away from the kindling magelights.

Belladonna remained on her knees, her legs quivering. She tried to stand...and found she couldn’t.

“W-What did I do?” she whispered.

Triss, her mind whispered. That wasn’t translated by the spell. That means it was a proper name. Meaning…

Belladonna’s eyes widened. She put her hands to her mouth.

“O-Oh fuck.”

 

***

 

The faint crunch of the landing raft touching the swampy, hypothetical shoreline of this part of Ceres made Simone grit her teeth. She had been looking into the soup through hazy, tinted night vision – the highest tech that the United States of America could afford – and she still had been surprised by the landing. In her defense, this was a job for a frogman. She was a Ranger. Usually, she was sent into places and situations like this a wee bit further inland.

The thought of ‘frogmen’ made her laugh. Inside. Where it didn’t show. To her left, a whipcord skinny lizardman with scales that had been darkened by body paint and camouflage netting worked into simple leather armor that protected the torso and major organs but left the arms and legs and tail free for mobility was busy checking over his pistols.

And to think, a few months ago she’d have thought serving shoulder to shoulder with a Russian would have been odd.

Simone banished those thoughts with a quick, testing probe with the pole that she had been using to nudge the raft closer and closer to the brackish shores. With nothing to go on but fog and the faint hint of branches and vines, she was careful with her legs and her feet. Far better to stick ten foot of wood into some primordial dinosaur’s mouth. Liam had told her that these swamps were mostly cleared of basilisks – the local population getting their hands on muskets had rapidly pushed the basilisks towards extinction.

According to Liam, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer species.

No native predator, he had said.

Native predator? You’re telling me they’re from Earth?

Oh, totally. They were exiled with the Christians.

The fuck was their native predator on Earth?

Without missing a beat, without blinking, without smiling, Liam had said: Roosters.

Simone swung her legs around and sipped into the water. Immediately, she regretted it. She gritted her teeth against the cold and the muck that swirled around her belly. She lifted her rifle over her head, while behind her, she heard the soft slip and slurp of her backup getting into the water with her.

“I hate swamps.”

That was Vazt, the skinny lizardman.

The bigger lizardman, Anix, laughed quietly. “You were born in a swamp, Vazt.”

Vazt muttered under his breath about electoral votes and how he had voted for Mary and how Mary would have never sent him here. Mary would have been a far better Free Lord than this upstart Vanderbilt, whose administration was one string of disasters after another. Completely incompetent. As he grumbled, Simone slowly tracked her head left and right. She lifted one hand and hissed softly. Vazt and Anix shut up immediately. They might not have been professional soldiers, as she knew them. But they were professionals.

They knew when to shut up.

“We’re clear,” Simone said a moment later. “Keep the chatter down you two.”

The two lizards nodded. Vazt checked his pistol again – the crystal and wood weapon shimmered faintly in the very thin streams of pseudo-moonlight that escaped the thick fronds of the swamp trees. Simone could see clearly through her NVGs: The pistol was shedding water like one of those hydrophobic table cloths. What kind of world was it, where her 21st century rifle might have a harder time in this terrain than some fucking flintlock using black powder?

“Fucking magic,” Simone grumbled under her breath.

The next three hours were, like many in war, a horrible combination of utter and complete boredom and total paranoia. They were in hostile territory, after-all. Ares and his forces were running supplies through the major rivers in the swamp to their Endless Mine. The locals were fighting a guerrilla war and that usually meant that they were on the ‘shoot first, shoot second, shoot a third time, then shoot the survivors.’ So, it wasn’t as if this was just a stroll in the park.

But while this was hostile territory, it was also a bronze aged swamp. Even a bronze aged city was light on the people compared to the teeming millions of Earth. This kind of landing in South America or South-East Asia would have meant wading into an area many times more populated than all but Ceres’ cities. Thus, Simone, Vazt and Anix were free to stumble about and find what they were looking for.

A river, deep enough and clear enough that it could be used by their main ship, the Liberty. The Liberty was a bit of an odd duck from everything that Simone had seen of her. She had been built as a galley, like those used by the Hellenic sailors of Earth’s own ancient epoch. But halfway  through construction, she had been refitted and reshaped to hold six cannons on her prow, which had once been built to handle ramming. Her back had been altered to hold one of those ungodly solar-nuclear-steam reactor things that were half magic, half crystal, all insane bullshit.

The end result was a long, narrow ship with a shallow draft. It could make its way along a swamp river, and it could cut through any major obstructions. And if they could get it to the rebel base, they’d be able to unload the cannons, the muskets, and the rest of the provisions that the Babylonian government had decided would serve as payment to the rebels. The Babylonians would then not only have friendly natives, but also two potential routes for their river traffic: The one charted by the Liberty and the other taken from Ares’ navy with powder, shot and steel.

That was the idea at least.

Vazt flashed the signal to the Liberty, who was lurking in the fog bank that had blown out of the swamp in the time that t hey had been searching. Simone and Anix kept their eyes open and their weapons at the ready. The question that hung in the air was which one should shoot first if they saw anything.

Anix had the gun that could be reloaded easily.

Simone had the fully automatic silenced assault rifle.

Choices choices…

A branch snapped like a gunshot. Anix swung his pistol to aim in that direction, his other hand going to the heavy maul that he used as his off-hand weapon. Simone would have had a hard time swinging it with both arms even before she had started transitioning. The fact Anix saw no problems with using it as his off-hand weapon was enough to reach her to respect the big guy’s strength.

“Did you see anything?” Anix whispered.

“No,” Simone said, then adjusted her NVG. “Shit. Yes. Movement, under the water. It’s big.”

“Do you see glowing eyes?” Anix snarled.

A flash of movement, a shimmer underneath the water, peering up and out of the liquid like two baleful eyes from the pits of hell. Simone didn’t wast time. She shouldered her M16, sighted, and waited for just the right moment. Shooting into water was a bit like shooting into a brick wall. Forget what Saving Private Ryan said: even heavy machine gun bullets didn’t retain enough punch to deal damage after a few feet. And the last thing she wanted to do was waste half her magazine on a bunch of grazes and weaker hits.

The water surged and she saw the great head, shedding water along a feather-like  crest. Those eyes met hers through goggles and down her sights. She didn’t give it more than that. Her finger smoothly pulled back and her M16 bucked against her shoulder in a short, sharp, three round burst. The silencer filled the air with a loud, angry rattle as casings plipped into the water.

Her grouping was good. She saw one of those eyes go out and the basilisk jerk its head backwards. It thrashed, let out a strangled squawk, then dropped into the water with a resounding splash. One leg kicked, and its tail writhed convulsively. Anix didn’t waste a second. He surged forward, his thighs cutting great swaths through the water. Once he was standing safely behind the basilisk's head, he brought his mace down against the skull with a meaty thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

Anix stepped back, swinging his mace once more to get bits of blood and brain off of it.

“Nice shot,” he said, casually.

“Nice insurance,” Simone said. Then. “Fucking balls.” She knelt down, her palm vanishing into the buck. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck!”

“What? What is it?” Anix whispered.

“Those casings! I fucking need those!”

Anix held up one hand, then sank down into the water with a quiet slurp. As his head vanished beneath the brackish water and roots, Simone shook her head slowly.

By the time the Liberty arrived, Anix had all three casings in his palm and the biggest, most shit eating grin she had ever seen on a walking lizard’s face ever.

 

***

 

Liam leaned on the railing and watched the swamp smoothly slip past the Liberty. The faint whirring of the engines could easily be felt through the mostly wooden hull. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with the Liberty – if he had his choice, he’d be sailing up this river on the Constitution. The Constitution had been built out of the next best thing to southern live oak, with a dedicated gundeck and twin broadsides. Her highly trained crew and sophisticated technological systems had all gone to the bottom in a single bomb-blast.

Terrorism.

Liam felt another twinge of guilt.

“You’re brooding again,” Liv said.

Liam started. He turned and saw that Liv was standing next to him. She had been in his peripheral vision and he hadn’t even noticed. That twinge of guilt was replaced, almost immediately, but a shudder of primordial horror. It was entirely reflexive, and Liam felt ashamed of feeling it. But he couldn’t not. He didn’t know if Liv had simply slipped past his perceptions, if she had teleported, if she had just been so fast that she could go from being across the deck to standing beside him in an instant. There were many different possibilities, and each had their own frightening edge.

Liam tried to take his feelings and examine them more logically.

And he realized what it was.

It wasn’t that Liv was faster or sneakier than she had been before. He had seen her superhuman abilities before.

It was the fact that her new powers were unbound.

They were growing. Every other day, she seemed to be just a tick faster. Just a tick stronger. Just a tick stranger. Her long pale white hair flowed behind her like a cape and her eyes seemed to crackle with energies that he couldn’t begin to understand. It was like he finally had an old friend back, and she was a different person.

“For fuck sake’s Liam, do I need to have you bend me over the railing and fuck me?” Liv asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Will that wipe that whipped puppy look off your face?”

Liam blinked – and felt an almost inexpressibly relief. He grinned. “It might help.”

Liv snorted. She glared at the woods, her eyes narrowing. “There’s nothing out there. No scouts, no sentries. I think that the natives might be dogging the other river.” Her ears twitched – Liam could see the tips of them jerking upwards. “Definitely on the other river. I can hear musket shot.” She paused. “Ten of them.” She cocked her head, slightly more. “They got a kill.”

Liam leaned forward on his arms, ducking his head so that he could close his eyes and focus only on what he could hear. Underneath the thrumming of the engine and the creak of hull planking, he could hear a very distant crackle, boom, pop. He shook his head. “Is that your elf ears or did Diayet teach you something?”

Liv snorted. “A little of both.” She paused. “Simone’s gone insane.”

“What?” Liam laughed, turning around and scanning the ship. He saw Simone almost immediately – her being nearly a head taller than everyone else made that a bit easier. She was near the prow of the ship, holding up her walkie talkie. She glared at it as she adjusted a dial on it, then spoke into it.

“She’s talking to herself,” Liv said.

“That’s a walkie talkie. Think like an iPhone, but...you know, different,” Liam said. “Wait here.”

Walking over to Simone, he made sure to stomp his feet slightly. Simone glanced at him and smiled. “Still no joy,” she said.

“You sound almost relieved,” Liam said.

Simone opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked down at the walkie talkie. “Back at your palace, someone tried to contact me on this. Someone speaking Greek. Or whatever it is the Greeks are speaking here.” She shook her head. “Nothing like that has happened again. But it freaked me the fuck out.”

Liam frowned. “Maybe Ares did it...”

“Corporal Jeremiah Barker here. You read me, LT? This is Corporal Jeremiah Baker, over.”

The voice that had come from the speaker was clear, pure English. If you counted a Southern drawl as English. Liam almost leaped over the side of the ship in surprise. The look on Simone’s face was something between utter and total joy and complete shock. She mastered both immediately, holding her walkie talkie up to her jaw and ear. She spoke with clear authority – Liam started to take mental notes.

“Corporal Barker, I’ll forgive you for not checking in earlier considering the situation.” She smirked, slightly. “Where are you and what’s your situation? Over.”

There was a very long pause.

“Uh, not sure if you’ll believe me, LT.”

“Corporal, I’m standing next to an elven demigoddess and riding on a steampunk ship with a nerd who named his tin-pot dictatorship after his favorite 90s sci-fi schlock. I’ll believe a whole fuck of a lot right now.” Simone lowered the walkie talkie and glared at Liam until he stopped looking so aggrieved.

There was another very long pause.

“I’m in a harem, LT.”

“A harem.” Simone’s lips pursed.

“Yeah. Some blue chick said I looked hot. Me and Tanye.”

Simone slowly lowered the walkie talkie and turned to face Liam. Liam held up his hands.

“Hey, I tried to bring Christianity to them!” he said, defensively.

“You fucked half the people on this boat!” Simone said, then put her walkie talkie to her ear, frowning. “Please, Corporal, tell me that you have your gear.”

The third pause was the longest.

“...not exactly.”

Simone mimed pitching the walkie talkie into the river.

 

***

 

The sun kindled as the Liberty nosed its way down another side-river – one thicker and more overgrown than the primary artery they had been following. And yet, every time the ship seemed ready to catch and snag , some branches and woods would slip aside and the Liberty would get further up stream. The river seemed to be getting perpetually more narrow and more confining, and yet the edges of the river never quite touched her keel. It was unnerving as hell, but Liam clung to the knowledge that this meant that they were heading down the right direction.

And then, with the flare of the dawn’s light, he knew that they were heading in the right direction.

The Liberty had come to a nearly circular grotto of open water. Not just open, though. It was clear. Blue water shimmered and glinted beneath the open sky, the trees ringing the grotto reached towards the heaven. A blink later, Liam could see the hidden fortification. Archer and muskteer posts were set in the branches, and they were manned. Crouched figures – some glittering with scales, others as dark as shadows – aimed muskets and bows at them, while rafts were poled towards the ship. Water rippled and surged upwards and cries of alarm came from the crew as solid white foam flung itself from the grotto to the deck.

Liam stepped forward, to stand between some shocked crewmen and the frothing whiteness. He held up his hands, shouting: “Belay that!”

The sailor he had shouted at dropped a gaff hook to the deck with a rattle. As the crew hushed, standing in tense alarm, the white foam surged upwards and coalesced into a feminine figure. Full, perfectly sculpted breasts made of shimmering water heaved as the woman flung her head backwards, clear-crystal hair scattering along her broad, muscular back. Her fingers were bright white, while her shoulders and chest deepened to the deep, dark black of the deepest oceans. Her eyes were bright emeralds, and she was joined by two other feminine figures. Each one had the same curvaceous form, and each one rippled as they stood in the pure sunlight.

“Liam Vanderbilt?” the center of the three women asked, her voice a strange roaring combination of surf and human voice. It was like someone had auto-tuned the ocean. It was almost atonal, and definitely ratcheted her attractiveness down in the fastest, most efficient way Liam could think of. He nodded to her.

“I’m the Free Lord of Babylon,” he said. “Are you Neriad?”

“We are her handmaidens,” the woman said. “We are water elementals. Foam and surf, given strength and thought. Cross us at your peril.” her finger thrust at him. A few growls came from the crew, and Liam could see Liv reaching for her sword. Her hand closed around the hilt, but she didn’t draw it. Meg and Tethis were emerging from the forecastle – Tethis was jerking her shift on and Meg was licking her fingers clean. Simone, meanwhile, had her arms crossed over her chest and was watching everything with an affected disinterest.

“No one is here to cross anyone,” Liam said. “I am here to offer aide and support in Neriad’s war against Ares and his Monodeists.”

The water elemental speaker tossed her head with a magnificent level of utter disdain. Her lip curled and she said. “Monodeist. Another name for a Dodekatheon worshiper. They claim to serve Ares, but we’ve seen the blessings of Zeus and Hades and Hephaestus in their hands. Neriad rejects this drivel that Ares has somehow usurped his father. This is some Athenian scheme, isn’t it?”

Liam held up his hands, trying to sound placating. “You don’t understand what you face. But even if we’re mistaken and the Dodekatheon is arrayed against you, that doesn’t mean you don’t still need what we bring.” He snapped his fingers. Several sailors hurried forward, dragging a crate between them, their muscles straining. They set it down and Liam opened the crate.

The water elementals leaned forward as one. As one their eyes widened.

Magically imbued water or no, they didn’t exactly have the best poker face. Liam smiled as he laid his hand down on the edge of the crate’s wood, making sure to stand where his shadow wouldn’t fall on the gleaming wood stocks and glittering crystaline barrels of his muskets.

“There’s another five crates in the hold,” he said. “If you don’t mind taking us to see Neriad herself.”

The water elemental speaker drew herself upwards. She thrust out her chest and put her hands on her hips, a pose that was so provocative that it bordered on parody. Her voice shifted from the roar of surf to the tinkle and drip of water, which was as annoying and hard to listen to in its own unique way.

“You may come before the Lady Neriad. But you must be...” she pursed her lips. “Properly attired.”

Behind her, Meg began to rub her palms together and cackled.