Metal Mage 9

by Eric Vall

  I gave both of her breasts plenty of attention since she was writhing for more, and when I finally released my hold on her nearly raw nipple and looked down, Shoshanne’s plush thighs were bright pink where the chains dug into her supple flesh.

  I grinned as I slid my fingers from her sopping wet pussy, but even after this, she was still too tight for my cock. I was almost as impatient as her now, though, so I locked my grip on the table and thrust firmly into her.

  Shoshanne shrieked as I nearly collapsed from the sensation of her slick and taut entrance convulsing around me, but the heat building between us kept me moving deeper. The healer’s eyes fluttered closed as she bit at her bottom lip until it was painfully red, and with each steady thrust, her soft moans got louder.

  By the time every inch of me was finally buried in the caramel beauty, I was shaking from the crippling hold she had on my erection, and I couldn’t think of anything except how soft and hot she was around my shaft.

  Then I felt her begin to tense even tighter from her enjoyment, and I lost all hold on myself.

  Shoshanne gasped as I quickly pulled myself from her, but when I roughly drove myself deep into her tunnel again, she let out a shriek that rebounded off the walls around us.

  Aurora moaned as she watched me take the healer with long, powerful thrusts like this for several minutes, and Shoshanne panted as her breasts bobbed heavily from the impact.

  Then I began teasing her clit with my thumb too, and the caramel beauty shook from head to toe as she let out a grating screech of pleasure. My blood burned when I looked down on her and found her brown eyes locked on my rigid cock, and I grinned when she met my gaze.

  “I love you,” Shoshanne whimpered between ragged breaths, and I felt my balls tense as I forced myself into her taut center one more time to send her into a shrieking orgasm.

  “I’m going to--”

  “Yes!” she interrupted me. “Please, Mason. Fill me. Pour into me and fill me to the brim with your seed. Ohhhhh, yessssss pleaseeeee.”

  I growled as I rammed into her one last time, and then I released and we both cried out as my warm seed poured into her just as she had demanded.

  The heavy pulse of my cock filling her with my seed always made Shoshanne blush even deeper, and a seductive smile came to her face as she trembled and relished in our shared climax. Then I kissed her deeply while the last of my cum surged into her, and the healer moaned as she hungrily welcomed my tongue and strained against her shackles.

  “More,” Shoshanne begged when I finally released her lips, but I just chuckled and slowly slid my cock out of her while she shivered with pleasure.

  “I’ll be right back, don’t worry,” I murmured as I left her with a brief and teasing suckle at her breast, and then I took a last admiring glance at her bright pink pussy with my semen coursing down the cheeks of her ass.

  I didn’t know how long I spent going between the two tables while the women watched me do as I pleased to both of them, but when I finally removed their restraints and unsealed the windows, the day was already fading to dusk outside.

  Aurora braced herself on wobbly legs as she chuckled with an exhausted grin on her face, and her arms couldn’t seem to lift themselves enough to put her clothes back on.

  So, I slowly redressed the half-elf in her red silk bodice while Shoshanne refused to get up, and only when I gave the healer a firm slap on the ass did she finally giggle and climb back to her feet.

  “Now, I’m the one trying to think of excuses to keep you in Falmount,” Shoshanne sighed as I helped her into her blouse again, and I tucked her unruly curls behind her ear when she looked up at me with a sleepy pout.

  “Damn me and my ill-advised ideas,” I muttered.

  “Come home by tomorrow,” she demanded, and I chuckled.

  “I’ll be back within a week,” I promised. “You have my word.”

  “But what it you can’t stop the brandings by then?” Shoshanne asked as her brow crinkled, and she clutched at my shirt to keep me flush against her.

  “Then everyone in Illaria will die at the hands of possessed ogres while I fuck you on an operating table,” I told her, and Aurora laughed as she shuffled toward the doorway.

  “That’s fair,” the half-elf decided.

  Shoshanne nodded. “I completely agree.”

  The three of us quietly snuck past the second-floor landing and headed back to the operating room on the first floor, and Raynor was busy cleaning up a large pot he’d been using for stew that afternoon. He nodded and smiled as usual when we came in, and I returned the gesture while Shoshanne blushed and made a big show of grabbing her surgical tools like she’d been looking all over for them.

  Aurora snorted in amusement and perched herself on a table with a tired sigh, and less than a minute later, Defender Urn appeared at the top of the stairs.

  “There you are,” the burly man said as he joined us. “We’re getting ready to send the last few mages to their homes. Everyone’s worn out, but it’s been a productive day at least. Are you all finished down here?”

  I cleared my throat uncomfortably as I realized the man genuinely thought we’d been busy doing productive things all this time, and Aurora turned away to hide her smile.

  “Uhh yeah,” I told the man as I fought back a grin. “We finished.”

  “Excellent,” Urn said with a nod. “I don’t know about you all, but I could use a pint.”

  “Me too,” Aurora mumbled as she hopped down from the table. “I’m beat.”

  Raynor gladly offered to set up all the Defenders with a hot dinner at Flynt’s Pub so we could regroup and discuss everything we’d heard from the recaptured mages, and he promptly hustled the younger mages out of the place to send them to the Other Flynt’s Pub. Then he brought out piping hot plates of boiled potatoes, roast beef, and freshly baked and buttered bread for everyone, and our pints of ale were kept frothing and full while we all gathered to eat at the wooden pub tables.

  My women sat around me while Defender Urn sat stoic and relatively silent across the table, and aside from the light blush on her cheeks, Aurora did an admirable job of not looking like I’d been ravaging her for the last few hours or so. Cayla’s knowing smirk proved she didn’t miss the blush, though, and Deya patted Aurora’s thigh affectionately under the table when the half-elf slumped sleepily against her.

  “So, it’s the same across the board, then,” Kurna said with a heavy sigh as he shoved his empty plate away, and Urn nodded his agreement. “How can not a single one of them recall an entrance? There’s just no sense in it.”

  “It must be some sort of enchantment,” I replied. “That’s the only logical explanation. Like the entrance of the Oculus.”

  “Yes, but anyone who knows where the entrance is can find it,” Aurora pointed out. “No one just forgets how to get into the Oculus.”

  “I have never heard of a rune which creates false or unmemorable entrances either,” Deya added. “Dragir would have told me of such a rune. Every House in Nalnora would rely on this sort of defense if it was known to us.”

  “But not all of the degree markers are known, right?” Cayla asked.

  “This is true,” Deya allowed.

  “Then he must be using knowledge he gained from the head of House Syru to guard the fortress entrance,” I muttered.

  “What is House Syru?” Defender Urn asked, and several other Defenders looked over curiously.

  “It’s an elven House that’s fallen to the Master now,” I explained. “I met with their leader just before, though, and he knew the Master personally. He admitted to me that he’d been mentoring him in the ways of ancient runic magic, and he was in possession of sacred scrolls that the elves thought were lost for thousands of years.”

  “They were the documents of our ancestors who discovered the ways of rune magic,” Deya added. “Much of the knowledge recorded in these scrolls has been lost to us after they disappeared, but if someone could decipher the ancient language of t
he scrolls, they would be able to unlock every unknown element.”

  “And the Master has these scrolls?” Defender Urn asked uneasily.

  “No,” I replied. “I have them now, but only some. Most of them burned up in a fire at House Syru, and what’s left is written in an ancient language I can’t decipher.”

  “Yet,” Aurora clarified. “We’re working to translate what we have.”

  “Until then, we can only try to keep up,” I sighed, and I scruffed my hair a bit to relieve my mounting tension. The bad news only seemed to be piling up now that we had consolidated the information, and it was becoming clear we would need a lot of preparation if we hoped to move ahead where the fortress was concerned. “This means we can’t do anything about the fortress right now. If no one who has been branded can give us a clear idea of how to break in, that leaves an exterior attack as our only option, which gives him every advantage in the fight. Given the extent of the place and the many creatures he’s housing in there, I would say we’re nowhere near prepared for that kind of battle. Especially if the Master rigged the whole fortress with unknown runic elemental defenses.”

  “So, there are sphinx, drakes, ogres, mages, elves, and what else?” Cayla asked as she narrowed her eyes.

  “I heard of chimera and griffins,” one Defender offered up, and Kurna nodded.

  “I did as well,” he agreed. “Along with a visceraya.”

  “Just one?” Deya asked anxiously.

  “One the mage I spoke with could verify,” Kurna replied. “He said it was one of the most vicious creatures in the Master’s keep, so I would imagine there are not many more.”

  “Hopefully, this is the case,” Deya said with a worried frown. “We had a visceraya stalking the woods at House Quyn for almost a year before we managed to destroy it. Thirty dogs and nearly as many of our warriors were slaughtered. They are very cunning creatures because they shapeshift.”

  “Into what?” a Defender asked, and his jaw was parted in awe as he stared at the beautiful elf.

  “Anything they wish,” she replied. “At one point, it was a dragon and burned a full two leagues of our forest away in an attempt to drive us out into the open. At another point, it disguised itself as one of our dogs. It slaughtered half our pack in one night before my brother discovered its true identity, and it was still another three months before he managed to slay it.”

  “Shit,” I muttered. “How did he do it?”

  “He lured it in with rotted entrails,” Deya said with a small shrug. “The visceraya long for nothing else, and they are never satisfied with one kill. We lined the river with the entrails gathered over a month of hunting, and once night fell, the visceraya came to feed. The guards of House Quyn closed in and cornered it on the banks of the river while the dogs kept it distracted, but Ruela was the one to finally end him.”

  “Isn’t that the wolf you live with?” Kurna asked me in a low voice, and I nodded blankly as I reached for my pint.

  “Were there any other creatures we haven’t mentioned yet?” I asked, and I glanced around the pub.

  “Besides the succubi?” one man muttered with a smirk, and several others chuckled in amusement as I rolled my eyes.

  “They weren’t succubi,” I sighed. “They were just … ”

  “Beautiful possessed women sent to lure you into bed so they might abduct you and deliver you into the Master’s clutches,” Cayla finished for me, and she cocked a haughty brow.

  “Yeah, that,” I chuckled. “Which is kind of unnerving, but predictable.”

  “You did say he’d probably use women to get at you,” Aurora said. “It just wasn’t any of us he chose for the job.”

  “Better be careful,” Kurna warned as Raynor refilled our pints. “Your reputation precedes you. It might get you into trouble one of these days.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got my hands full as it is,” I said with a grin, but somewhere in the pub, I heard a retort about having my bed full as well, and I shook my head while I waited for the chuckles to die down again. “Alright, like I was saying, were there any others we’re missing? Not women, but creatures.”

  Most of the Defenders shook their heads, and as I scanned the pub, I could tell they were as worn out from the day as I was. Their faces were weary and drawn with exhaustion despite their amusement, but one woman in the pub met my gaze, and when I took a double take, I realized she had the distinct expression of someone who didn’t want to speak up but knew that she should.

  After a long moment of me waiting her out, the woman finally looked down and nodded once.

  “Wraith Witches,” the Defender admitted in a low voice, and both Aurora and Cayla whipped their heads around as the others began muttering nervously to one another.

  “You’re certain?” the half-elf demanded.

  “I asked him the same thing three times,” the woman said. “The mage I spoke with described them as cloaked queens who never touch the ground. He said there were three of them, and they spoke in whispers that made his chest feel hollow and cold whenever they passed by.”

  “That’s them,” another Defender growled with a nod. “I saw them once, when I was a boy.”

  “Can someone explain to me what a Wraith Witch is?” I asked in confusion.

  “They’re evil spirits,” Aurora said, but Kurna shook his head.

  “More like shadows, really,” he mumbled. “Shadows in cloaks that feed on the spirit.”

  “How could the Master brand a shadow?” Cayla asked.

  “He probably didn’t have to,” Aurora guessed. “Wraith Witches are pure evil. It’s more likely they’ve joined up with him of their own accord.”

  “Where do they come from?” I asked.

  “No one knows,” Kurna replied. “Some don’t even believe they exist, but others have seen them, or found evidence of them.”

  “What evidence do they leave behind?”

  “Cold,” came the answer from the Defender who claimed he’d seen them as a boy. “They leave a cold trail of death behind them, but they sing soft and sweet. You can hardly help but follow after them.”

  I shook my head as I considered this. “How do you fight against a shadow in a cloak?”

  “You don’t,” Defender Urn informed me. “You die at the hands of a Wraith Witch. Everyone knows that. Children sing songs about them.”

  “I hate those songs,” Aurora mumbled, and I could have sworn I saw her fight back a shiver. “If the Master has them on his side, what are we supposed to do about it?”

  “Add them to the list, I guess,” I sighed before I finished my pint. “It was already a shitty list anyways. What’s a few more deadly additions?”

  Kurna chuckled to himself as he raised his glass in my direction. “Only a man set to leave for Jagruel would say such a thing.”

  “No shit,” Urn snorted. “Be careful out there. My uncle was eaten by an ogre. All we found was his bloody boots, and even those had been half-chewed.”

  “It’ll be fine,” I assured them as I stood and offered my arms to Deya and Cayla. “We better get going, though, if we’re gonna beat the Master to whoever is left in the west. Do you remember my instructions?”

  Defender Urn nodded as he and Kurna stood to walk us out, and Raynor came along while the other Defenders continued discussing the more unsettling details they’d heard from the mages today.

  “I’ll be over first thing in the morning to help Miss Shoshanne,” the barkeep said hoarsely as he held the door for us, and I reached out to shake his hand.

  “Thank you, Raynor,” I said genuinely. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done to help us out. Shoshanne will be relieved to have you around.”

  The barkeep smiled and nodded like it was nothing, and Cayla bowed lightly to the man before he went back into the pub.

  “I’ll keep an eye on the infirmary while you’re in the west,” Urn assured me. “The others have already decided on who will take over training for you and who will assist with th
e recaptured mages. We’ll keep a catalogue of any new information we can get from them, like you said.”

  I nodded. “See if you can’t get any closer to figuring out the entrance of the fortress, and if a mage named Jenik stops by, tell him to leave any messages for me in the house.”

  “I can do that,” Urn said. “Best of luck in Jagruel, and don’t go falling asleep out in the open or anything.”

  I smirked as the gruff Terra Mage rejoined the rest of the Defenders in the pub, and Kurna walked along with us through the darkened lanes of Falmount as we headed back to the western woods.

  We’d only just left the bounds of the oak trees that encircled the market place when I heard a hearty cough behind us. I turned to see Defender Hulsan shuffling toward us with his hands in his worn out pants pockets, and his shoulders were hunched like he was carrying years of labor on his back. His scraggly hair was in a careless disarray, and his farmer’s tunic hung loosely around his wiry frame with half the back untucked.

  “You look nearly worn through,” Kurna chuckled as we all slowed our pace to wait for the old Terra Mage to catch up.

  “Teaching scrawny mages doesn’t agree with me,” Hulsan grunted, and he nodded a greeting to us as he fell in step.

  “Ahh, it’s not so bad,” Kurna said genially as he clapped the man on the shoulder. “It beats hoeing in the fields all day, doesn’t it?”

  Hulsan only snorted in response, and I smirked.

  “I hear the mages are making excellent progress,” I told Hulsan. “You must be doing something right.”

  “They’re raw,” he said with a shrug. “Might be able to learn a thing or two, though. Don’t know that I have the patience to find out.”

  “Tell you what,” Kurna chuckled. “Let me buy you a pint, yeah? That’ll put a spring in your step.”

  “Don’t drink the stuff,” Hulsan muttered. “Can’t stand the smell of it even. I was just lookin’ for that healer. I ran out of Aldrin pollen this morning.”