Blood Legacy

by Sarah Hawke

  “Unleash the dragon,” Jorem whispered, echoing Selvhara’s words from a moment earlier.

  “I know what we need to do,” the druid told him. “I was right all along. The dragon blood isn’t as different from lycanthropy as most scholars believe.”

  Jorem braced himself against the bookshelf, still breathless and bewitched by the sight of the two beautiful women on their knees in front of him. His cock had barely even wilted despite how much seed he had just pumped down Selvhara’s throat, though the rest of his body already wanted to take a nap.

  “Let me get this straight,” he said, holding up his hand, “you give me a second blowjob and suddenly you think you’ve figured out the whole mystery?”

  “Your seed has always contained the answers I required,” Selvhara said. “These books simply told me where I needed to look.”

  “Uh huh,” he muttered, shaking his head. This whole situation still seemed patently absurd on so many levels, but as usual their new tagalong seemed convinced about what she was saying. Then again, so did most lunatics.

  “Imagine that your heritage—your blood legacy—is a river flowing between the past and the future,” Selvhara said. “We simply need to clear away the detritus obstructing the flow.”

  “What, like eating spicy food? Because there are plenty of places we could have done that in Highwind.”

  “There are rituals for such things,” she replied, standing and turning back to the open books on the table. “But I believe I can mimic their effects with another potion. “

  Jorem grunted. “How did I know you were going to say that…?”

  He watched her work while he recovered, still mesmerized by her sleek, slender body. As usual, she seemed utterly oblivious to her own nakedness…but he wasn’t so lucky. His cock was already stiffening again at the thought of exploring her slick, tight elven quim…

  Jorem cleared his throat and wiped his hand across his face. He would never understand why or how the multiverse had conspired to give him—a man with no discernable willpower and an insatiable libido—so many awesome and terrible gifts. The fact that he of all people could channel the Aether was all the evidence anyone should need that the gods were truly dead.

  “Are you all right?” Kaseya asked. He hadn’t even realized she had gotten up and shuffled over to him.

  “I’m fine,” he told her. “But sometimes this all just feels so incredibly…surreal. I can’t believe we’re actually standing in a drow city. And I really can’t believe that a blowjob taught someone how to brew a potion…”

  The amazon smiled and shrugged. “It is how we first met…and bonded.”

  “True,” Jorem conceded.

  “It taught me that you were my Maskari. Now and forever.”

  She leaned in and kissed him. His hands clasped around her back, and for a single perfect moment they were completely calm, safe, and content. The world wasn’t on fire, and they weren’t stuck in the middle of an underground city. Everything made sense.

  Kaseya eventually pulled away and leaned into his ear. “Whatever happens with this potion of hers, I definitely think Selvhara can teach me a few things.”

  “You don’t need any help,” Jorem assured her.

  She shrugged. “I’ve told you before—I am a warrior, and a warrior always seeks to perfect her technique.”

  He grinned. “When are you planning to practice?”

  “The instant we get out of here,” Kaseya told him. “Every single morning…”

  She leaned in and kissed him again, and he was seriously tempted to pick her up, carry her over to the table, and fuck her right then and there. If they had been alone, that was exactly what he would have done. Though it wasn’t as if Selvhara was likely to mind…

  Kaseya eventually pulled away, and she took a few steps backwards to brace herself against the edge of the table as if she were taunting him. She lifted up the leather flaps of her skirt and then her leg—

  “Curious,” Selvhara mumbled, her brow furrowing intently as she flipped through more of the pages. She seemed utterly obvious to anything around her.

  “What’s curious?” Jorem asked. He shuffled over and gently pushed Kaseya’s knees together, triggering a playful frown in return.

  “This particular book actually mentions the Dal’Rethi Blade Dancers and their bonding collars,” the druid said. “The items were a powerful tool…if we had another one, I likely could have used it to help guide your progress.”

  Jorem examined the faintly glowing ruby within Kaseya’s collar. “I guess that makes sense.”

  Selvhara finally glanced up from her book. “Do you think it would be possible for me to…borrow it?”

  Kaseya’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “If Jorem put it on me for a time, I could use its power to—”

  “Absolutely not,” the amazon said. “The tan’ratha is not a toy to be shared.”

  “I see,” Selvhara said, glancing between the two of them. “I only ask because—”

  “The answer is no,” Kaseya said flatly. “Do not ask again.”

  Jorem arched an eyebrow. Apparently she was more than willing to share his cock and even his seed, but she drew the line at sharing his emotions. It made sense, in a bizarre kind of way…

  “I will focus on the potion, then,” Selvhara said after a moment. “It shouldn’t take me long to…”

  Her face abruptly froze, and the moment her nose twitched Jorem knew something was wrong.

  “What now?” he asked.

  “Someone is coming,” Selvhara warned.

  She had no sooner spoken the words before the loud groan of the spire doors echoed up the nearby staircase. Jorem hopped away from the table and struggled to fix his trousers while Kaseya snatched up her sword and shield.

  “There are two orcs,” the druid whispered, holding up her fingers for quiet. “They are accompanied by some kind of beast.”

  “Shit,” Jorem hissed, reflexively summoning a ball of flame to his hand. The heavy footfalls of armored boots were accompanied by an odd clomp that sounded more like a horse’s hoof than a foot. Jorem could hear the intruders shuffling around and talking, clearly searching for something or someone on the first floor, and it was obviously only a matter of time before they came up here…

  “Can you understand what they are saying?” Kaseya asked.

  “Yes,” Selvhara nodded. “They are looking for us.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I mean us specifically, by name and description.”

  Jorem hissed softly between his teeth. He had known all along that this would end badly. He was just surprised they had been able to loiter here for so long…

  “From their tone, they are definitely concerned about our presence in Vel’shannar,” Selvhara went on, squatting and pushing the pointed tip of her ear closer to the floor. “They do not understand how we made it past the guards in the cavern.”

  Jorem shared a concerned glance with Kaseya. He really, really wished he understood why Varassa had set all of this in motion. Surely there were easier ways to get them killed or captured than sending them on a wild goose chase through the warrens of a drow city. And the suspicious presence of the books on dragon magic made absolutely no sense at all…

  “We could go up higher,” he whispered. “Or we could try to find another stairwell and double back when they—”

  “Le’thos,” Selvhara swore abruptly.

  “What now?”

  “I finally recognize the scent,” she told them. “It’s a minotaur.”

  Jorem’s lip twitched. He had never actually seen one of the hulking half-man, half-bull monstrosities in person, but the drow allegedly kept all manner of creatures as slaves. This one must have been freed during the war.

  “One beast is no match for us, no matter how large,” Kaseya said.

  “I am not worried about it killing us,” Selvhara replied. “I am worried about it smelling us.”

  Jorem grimaced. That though
t hadn’t even occurred to him, but it essentially meant that trying to hide was pointless. The minotaur would have already caught their scent by now, and it would probably be able to track them no matter where they went…

  “As long as we kill them quickly, they still won’t be able to sound an alarm,” Kaseya said.

  “I don’t want to kill anyone if we don’t have to,” Jorem told her. “We still don’t know what the hell is going on down here.”

  “I have an idea,” Selvhara said, rummaging through her pouch of herbs. She had gathered an impressive collection from the Darkwind vault, and she mashed together a few particularly pungent reagents before tossing them in a small, slender flask. She mixed them together so quickly it almost seemed like magic, but somehow it still didn’t seem fast enough. The minotaur and his allies had started clomping up the stairs, and Kaseya hoisted up her sword and shield as she prepared to rush in—

  “Stay back,” Selvhara said, standing up and hurling the flask across the library. The sound of the glass shattering was completely drowned out by the boots and hooves, but the stench was not. Jorem had to clasp his hand over his mouth to keep from gagging, and a few seconds later he heard the minotaur snort and yell something in a deep, guttural language that sounded like a cross between snoring and retching.

  Grinning, the druid pointed in a different direction and bade them to follow her. They meandered between the shelves, essentially doubling back to the stairwell. By the time they arrived, the guards had completely passed them by. Skulking down to the first floor was easy at that point, and a minute or so later they were back out on the streets and hiding in the closest ally they could find.

  “Escar’s mercy,” Jorem breathed, slumping back against a wall and nodding at Selvhara. “Nice work.”

  “Indeed,” Kaseya said. “Well done.”

  The druid was barely paying attention. Her eyes remained glued upon the spire even as she clutched the books her arms. “The mixture should hamper their ability to track us for some time. Once they leave, we could easily return and continue our research.”

  Jorem blinked. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “We barely had a chance to investigate,” Selvhara said.

  “But you said you found what you needed, right? You can brew the potion?”

  “Yes, but…” she swallowed heavily, and her entire body seemed to wilt. “Imagine the history. Imagine the secrets!”

  “Imagine getting caught down here and never seeing the sun again,” Jorem muttered. He still sympathized with her, and he understood exactly where she was coming from…but he also knew that lingering here any longer was foolish. If Solemi’s people were looking for them in earnest, then they needed to get the hell out of here as quickly as possible. They could sate their curiosity later.

  “We’re leaving,” Jorem said after a moment. “Sorry, but that’s just the way it has to be.”

  Selvhara opened her mouth to protest but sighed instead. “You are the sorcerer,” she said. “Your will is mine.”

  The disappointment in her eyes was almost enough for Jorem’s guilt to override his good sense, but for once even a pretty face couldn’t change his mind.

  “Come on,” he said, taking her hand. “We may need you to conjure up another trick or two before this is over.”

  ***

  The dragon and his amazon dashed from street to street, eager to escape the endless dark and return to the surface. Selvhara longed to feel the sun on her skin again as well, but her feet felt so heavy she could have been wearing saddlebags for shoes. She had known all along that actually leaving this place would be difficult; the weight of history pressed down upon her shoulders more and more with every step. Long-buried memories stirred in the back of her mind, and just like when they had first arrived she could imagine herself flitting about the beautiful, seemingly endless libraries of Tir Lanathel once again.

  Oddly, the fact that she had taken the books with her was actually making the problem worse. The rough texture of the covers, the smell of the ink and parchment…every tactile detail threatened to open yet another door to her past. As always, she fought back by reminding herself that her old life had been anything but easy. She hadn’t been a princess or a noble; she had been little more than a glorified slave for most of her youth. She was objectively more powerful today than ever before.

  But you are still a slave. You have merely traded one master for another, and the One God is far less forgiving than anyone you have served before…

  “Selvhara,” Jorem beckoned from a doorway just up ahead. “Come on!”

  Burying the memories one last time, she raced forward and caught up with them. The city itself was actually even emptier than when they had arrived, and they had no trouble staying out of sight as they maneuvered their way back towards the side entrance. In theory, everything had worked out far better than they could have possibly hoped—they had found exactly what they had been looking for in just a few short hours. But Jorem continually insisted that their luck wouldn’t hold out…and he was soon proven right.

  The sudden roar of a large crowd rumbled through the empty streets, and Selvhara and the others quickly dove into an alleyway to hide. Frowning in confusion, she angled the tip of her ear towards the noise and concentrated.

  “What the bloody hell was that?” Jorem asked.

  “The reason the city is so empty now,” Selvhara told him. “The townsfolk seem to be gathered in a plaza a few streets over.”

  He chewed anxiously at his lip. “Do you know what they’re doing?”

  She closed her eyes and concentrated. Individual conversations were almost impossible to make out from this distance, even for an elf, but she did occasionally hear one female voice shouting above the others. It shifted back and forth between the drow tongue, Qevlâs, and the regional human dialect.

  “An orator is speaking to the crowd,” Selvhara said. “I cannot tell precisely what she is saying from here.”

  “Does it really matter?” Kaseya asked. “If they are distracted, we will never have a better opportunity to slip away unnoticed.”

  Jorem blew a thin stream of air through his lips. “You’re right,” he said. “Let’s just keep moving.”

  They continued scurrying through the streets, constantly on the lookout for anything or anyone that might spot them and sound the alarm. But the locals were completely fixated upon the gathering in the plaza, and Selvhara watched in real-time as Jorem’s curiosity eventually got the better of him. Instead of making a final turn onto the path leading out to the side gate, he doubled back to an abandoned cluster of buildings on the opposite side of the street.

  “What are you doing?” Kaseya asked, her eyes still flicking around as if she expected to be ambushed at any moment. “The longer we linger here—”

  “I know,” Jorem interrupted. “But I’m going to take a look anyway.”

  Swearing softly under his breath, he climbed a pile of lichen-covered rocks to get a better view. Selvhara hopped up and joined him, assuming that her elven eyes would have an easier time piercing the perpetual twilight far better than his human ones. The plaza was actually far better lit than the rest of the city, however, thanks to the fact that there were apparently a few thousand people here, most of whom were holding torches or glowstones.

  “Escar’s mercy,” Jorem murmured, shaking his head. “What the hell is this supposed to be?”

  Selvhara frowned as she studied the crowd. She couldn’t make out many faces from here, but it was obvious that the group was every bit as diverse as the army in Darkwind. Humans, orcs, half-breeds…she even spotted several other minotaurs and a handful of creatures she didn’t recognize. There were also considerably more dark elves here than they had seen before, including the orator herself.

  Like most female Vaetharri, she was a tall and slender with a thick mane of pure white hair. Her shimmering purple adamantine armor had been meticulously sculpted to cradle her feminine physique, though the elongated fingers
of her gauntlets were so sharp they were essentially claws. Combined with the bizarre leathery wings sprouting from her pauldrons, she almost looked like a half-elf, half-monster.

  “It seems like some kind of ritual chant,” Jorem whispered, pointing to the group of shirtless, heavily-tattooed drow males stoking the large fires along the sides of the plaza. “Can you tell what they are saying?”

  Between the crackling of the fires, the shouts of the crowd, and the natural distortion of voices in a cavernous space, Selvhara had trouble hearing the orator’s entire speech. But she was able to pick out pieces here and there…

  “She speaks of casting aside the old traditions and the old gods who enforced them,” the druid said, closing her eyes. “She says that it is time to move forward, not as the servants of a cruel and capricious goddess but as the subjects of a wise and powerful queen…”

  Jorem’s cheek twitched. “I guess that would explain the spider effigies.”

  Selvhara followed his eyes to the fires. A few members of the crowd had brought forward several large wooden spider sculptures, and the tattooed males began tossing them into the flames. The crowd roared its approval as the orator spurred them on.

  “She says that the surface world is broken,” Selvhara translated. “An age of darkness and despair has finally ended, and the lost, abandoned children of the Underworld are the only ones fit to bring order to chaos. Their queen promises to be their champion and protector. Her ascension will be their ascension. The powerless will become the powerful, and all shall bask in the glory of…”

  Jorem shook his head. “What?”

  Selvhara paused as a bitter chill wormed its way down her spine. “Yutsu d'lil tagnik'zun,” she whispered. “The return of the dragons.”

  He stared right back at her, every bit as confused as she was, and before either of them could figure out what was happening another loud, thundering roar shook the cavern. This one hadn’t come from the crowd, however.

  It had come from a dragon.

  Selvhara turned back to the plaza a split second before the massive, purple-black beast swooped down from somewhere in the shadows of the cavern and strafed across the city. The crowd screamed its approval, and the drow female leading them hoisted up a staff and flexed her bizarre metallic wings.