by Nick Harrow
The combination of my supernatural strength and the war club’s leverage threw the heavily armored man off-balance. His lead foot skidded out from under him and he flung his left arm out to try to balance himself. Unfortunately, the weight of the massive weapon in his right fist dragged him even further off kilter.
The Seeker howled and fell backward through the gap in the bridge’s support chains. He swiped his enormous sword at me with one hand, and I stepped aside to let the clumsy attack slide past my face.
It was his other hand I should have been worried about.
The bastard flung a kunai at me as he fell. It sailed through the air and punched into my flesh just to the right of my navel. A wave of cold pain washed through me, and my earthbound core throbbed with frigid agony.
My legs wobbled beneath me, and I only stayed upright by bracing myself on my war club. Weakness spread through my body from my core, and all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep off the pain that threatened to overwhelm me.
The other Seekers had reached the end of the bridge. They’d be on top of me in seconds.
I staggered toward the cliffs, left hand clutched to the blade stuck in my guts, war club dragged along behind me.
“Don’t run from me, you coward.” The fallen warrior’s fingers had caught the edge of the bridge. By some miracle the weight of his armor hadn’t dragged him to his death. Just my fucking luck. “I am Jiro Kos, first hunter of the Midnight Emperor, Lord Commander of the Jade Seekers. You will face your doom at my hand.”
“You already know my name.” I dug the kunai out of my side and flipped it onto the planks in front of him. If I hadn’t been wounded, if the other Seekers had been just a little farther away, I would have stomped that cocksucker’s fingers into bloody goo. There just wasn’t time. “Fuck you.”
Chapter Five
THE JADE SEEKERS HAD a problem.
Their Emperor had told them very plainly to murder the ever-loving shit out of me. Also, their commander was hanging onto the edge of a bridge a thousand feet above the floor of a very rocky ravine by the slipping fingers of one hand. A man could chase me, or he could save his commander. He couldn’t do both.
Every man in that unit had to weigh that choice before they could do either one. That gave me a handful of seconds to drag my sorry ass farther along the bridge while they argued about who, exactly, should do which job.
My side ached where the kunai had punched through my skin, and my core felt as raw as a whore’s cooch during parade week. If I could evade the Seekers and meditate to cycle more rin into my nodes, my body would stitch itself back together. The stronger my core became, the more powerful its ability to heal itself. Earthbound should be a high enough level to deal with that little poke.
I hoped.
The wound hurt out of all proportion to the inch-wide, half-inch-deep hole the kunai had poked through me. The ridiculous pain and ache in my core worried me. That bastard Jiro Kos had done something to me.
Something very, very bad.
I forced myself to run the last twenty feet to the far end of the bridge despite the gnawing ache of my wound. It took all the willpower I could muster to push myself to widen the gap between my poor abused body and the tips of the spears behind me.
My dream of vanishing into the woods slithered out of my grasp. The Seekers were too close to me, and I was too weak to lead them on a chase long enough to lose them. I struggled to think through the blinding pain that radiated from my side with every step. My thoughts scattered like frightened birds from the agony, and every plan I dredged up seemed worse than the last. It was time for something desperate.
The Jade Seekers jeered at me, certain they were about to turn me into a pincushion. The tips of their spears danced in front of my blurred vision. So very, very close.
And yet, so very, very far away.
A single rope of woven spider silk secured all of the bridge’s timbers to the enormous chains. That cord was no thicker than my thumb, but it was incredibly resilient and so strong it was said even war mammoths couldn’t pull it apart. The woven strand had withstood centuries of neglect and weather. It had a dull silver solidity to it that looked like it would last forever.
And it came apart with a single swipe of my claws.
The bridge to Floating Village, the last link to my home, disintegrated like a child’s poorly made toy. The severed spider silk cord unraveled, and the heavy timbers it had supported plunged into the foggy abyss.
Along with all of the motherfucking Jade Seekers and their leader.
The warriors screamed as they fell, and scavenging birds mocked them with cries of their own. The sudden change in the bridge’s tension wrenched the enormous chains that had held it aloft, and the ancient iron groaned. Its links shattered and rained broken iron into the ravine, pummeling the Seekers and dragging the bridge’s ruined supports into the depths.
I sagged with relief. The Jade Seekers were gone.
And so was Floating Village.
I wanted to honor the fallen ruins of my former home. I tried to think of something wise to say, something that would be a proper homage to all the souls who had lived and died here.
“Goodbye.” Sorry, that was the best I could do with the pain in my side.
I sat down on the stony ground and took a good look at the hole Jiro had punched in me. It wasn’t surrounded by radiating black lines, and the blood that leaked out of it was still bright red. That ruled out the scariest poisons I knew.
First things first. I needed to restore my rin and let its power heal my wounds. While my breathing technique could gather sacred energy anywhere, the rocky, windswept cliffs wouldn’t have much power to offer. I limped away from the stony precipice and down the rutted caravan trail that led into the forest. A few agonizing minutes later, I was surrounded by towering pine trees.
And the smell of cooking meat.
My nose led me off the path and between tightly packed evergreen boles. The pain in my core radiated through me with every step, making me feel as brittle as old glass. I needed rin to heal, but the lure of food was too strong to resist. I’d eat, restore my rin, then heal myself.
Step one of my masterful plan went off without a hitch. I discovered the camp of the Jade Seekers, and no one rushed out to try to kill me. With any luck at all, they’d all gone into the village to find me and were now lying in a pile of broken bodies at the bottom of the ravine.
I ate big bites of roasted forest pig right off the spit at the heart of their camp. It tasted so good I didn’t even care about the hot grease that scalded my lips. The succulent pork filled my belly nearly to bursting and restored some of my flagging strength. Fighting Jade Seekers is hungry work.
Next, I parked my ass on a flat stone near the fire, closed my eyes, and took in a deep breath. My nostrils picked up the sweet, meaty aroma of the pig. Beyond that I detected the scents of oil and leather from a tent off to my right. The clean aroma of running water came from a spring deeper in the woods, and the pine trees themselves flooded the small clearing with their crisp, fresh perfume. A trickle of rin flowed into me along with the forest’s smells.
The sacred energy coiled inside my core like a snake ready to strike. It writhed in a restless circle that ratcheted up the pain in my center to a blinding fury. The energy that should have soothed my soul and helped cure me erupted with fever-hot spikes of agony. Every beat of my heart carried fresh jolts of pain to my head, where it took root and bloomed into a killer migraine.
What the fuck was going on here?
I focused my spirit sight on my core and groaned at the magmic ball of orange and black inside me. Rin, the masculine energy of the spirit world, should have been purest red. If I’d had any shio, the feminine energy, it would have glowed a deep, clean blue. And if I combined the two sacred energies into senjin, the blood of dreams, it would gleam like a polished mirror.
Unless it was tainted. Then the senjin would be as black as tar.
“Fucking a
sshole infected me,” I growled and staggered to my feet.
Jiro Kos’s weapon had injected a trace of corrupted senjin into my core, which explained why I felt so shitty. Adding rin had triggered a chain reaction between the two types of energy and filled me with destructive energy. If I didn’t purge the foul corruption from my core, soon, it would eat me from the inside out.
“Feverfew to bring down the heat,” I muttered as I prowled through the deserted camp in search of an infirmary tent. The Jade Seekers had been here for the long haul; they had to have some supplies I could use. “Ginger to soothe the energies. Narisin oil to purge the sickness.”
I tore through the first, second, and third tents without finding anything other than second-string weapons, a few scraps of dried jerky, and the personal effects of the Jade Seekers who, thanks to me, would never need them again.
I searched more tents until my head felt like it would burst and my skin was slick with sweat from the tainted senjin burning inside me. My core was a knot of agony that consumed my strength at an alarming rate. If I didn’t find what I needed very soon, I’d end up on my face, praying for death to free me from the torture.
“Jackpot,” I groaned when I found Jiro’s tent. On the outside, it was the same oiled canvas as the other tents, but on the inside it looked more like a luxury apartment.
Jiro traveled with every creature comfort he could cram into his private space. Chests overflowing with foods kept fresh by powerful scripts painted around their rims. A cot enchanted with sigils that kept it soft and comfortable, no matter the outside conditions. Cones of eternal essence that could erase a man’s most terrible moods and ensure a good night’s sleep. A cool, springy rug that covered the tent’s floor and felt amazing against my bare feet.
And, there, in a rack against the far wall, were enough elixirs, pellets, capsules, and tinctures to cure a small army of whatever ailed it.
The medicine labels swam in front of me, jumping around like a pack of drunken monkeys. I couldn’t make heads or tails of what was on the rack, and I’d be dead long before I could open each bottle or packet and puzzle out what it contained. Desperate for a cure, or at least something to buy me time to find a cure, I let my spirit sight guide me to the most potent sources of sacred energy.
Most of the bottles were bland gray smears, useless by themselves. A few glowed like bright red spikes, a sure sign they were dangerous if not outright poisonous. The blue blurs I needed were all gathered together on the rack’s lower shelves.
“Finally,” I slurred. My numb fingers fumbled with the brightest of glowing phials. I pinched the large vessel’s neck between my thumb and forefinger, dragged it out of its resting place, and promptly fell on my ass.
I had no idea what was in the phial, and I didn’t care. The brilliant sapphire-blue glow inside it promised some sort of potent healing power. It had to be good enough. The phial’s wax lid cracked under pressure from my thumb, and I tipped its contents into my mouth.
Or tried to, anyway.
Blue smoke drifted out of the bottle and flicked across my lips like the warm, wet tip of a woman’s tongue. A whiff of the sea—salty and wild—tickled my nose. The smoke flowed into my nostrils when I inhaled, and out through my mouth. It lingered on the bare skin of my chest and pooled in the spaces between my abdominal muscles like warm water.
“He’s sick.” A woman’s voice, light and lilting.
“He’s dying.” A second woman, this one’s tone firmer and harder than the first.
“His core is infected with the vile power.” Soft fingers traced the outline of my core around the aching heat of my solar plexus. “Help me, Aja.”
My blurred vision gave way to fever dreams. The smoke separated itself into two clouds, one the pale blue of a spring sky, the other sapphire shot through with crimson threads. The lighter portion settled over my body, cooling my flesh and growing heavier and more solid by the moment. It took on a woman’s shape, lithe and translucent, long strands of cloudy hair hanging around her stormy eyes. She straddled my belly and pressed herself flat against my chest like a living blanket.
A hand formed from the sapphire cloud, and its slender fingers unknotted my cord belt and flung my breechcloth away. Those same fingers formed a warm fist around my cock. Each finger tightened and relaxed in an undulating pattern that made me forget, at least for the moment, that I had a ticking supernatural time bomb stuck inside me.
I was too stunned to protest, not that I would have stopped the pleasure coiled around me for any reason.
The pale blue woman on top of me lowered her face to mine and caught my lower lip between her teeth. Her cool breath gusted into my mouth and flowed down my throat. The heat in my core lessened instantly, and the threads of pain stitched through my flesh frayed and began to dissipate. She breathed in, sucking my breath deep inside her, and the weight of her body on mine became more solid, more real. Her hips bore down on me, the firm mounds of her breasts flattened against my chest, and her hands roamed over my face as if she needed to memorize every curve and plane.
Maybe I was delirious. Or dying. Fuck it. If this was how my life ended, I’d go out with a smile.
I tangled my hands in the blue woman’s white hair and pulled her mouth to mine. Her lips were like splashes of seawater, her tongue a flicker of lightning that danced between my lips with increasing urgency. We kissed with wild abandon, fierce and hungry, and she pressed her body against me as if desperate for contact between us.
The hand below my waist vanished with a suddenness that left me gasping. It reappeared without warning and entwined its fingers through mine. The deep blue hand pulled my arm down below the woman on top of me, who lifted her hips and let out a faint, eager moan as my captured hand slipped between her legs.
The mist woman raised up and leaned back, coating my hand with slick heat as she ground against my fingers. Her body grew more substantial with every second, and her blue skin glistened with fine beads of sweat that flickered with mesmerizing firefly patterns. Her deep blue nipples jutted toward the tent’s ceiling as she arched her back, and the damp ends of her long hair brushed against my thighs. She grabbed my free hand and pulled it to her chest, holding it tight over her galloping heart.
Slick fingers slipped away from my other hand, and a taller woman with blazing red hair appeared behind the mist woman. The newcomer’s face and heavy breasts were flushed a red so deep it almost matched her hair, and her plump lips parted in a wicked grin that showed me twin lines of straight, white teeth.
“Be one with us,” she moaned, and knelt beside me. Her hand, still dripping wet, slid down the length of my prick in a slow stroke, then back up again. The sensation was an excruciating tease that pulled my thoughts into a spiral of animal need.
I squeezed the breast of the woman astride me, then traced the outline of her dark nipple with the pad of my thumb. The first two fingers of my other hand slipped inside her to meet the downward pressure of her hips. She tightened around my fingers and moaned as her muscles pulled me in deeper.
“Now,” she begged. “I need this.”
The redhead leaned over me, her hand still working with an agonizingly slow rhythm. Her hair formed a curtain around her face, and all I saw was the fiery glow of her tiger’s eyes. Her breath was hot and wild, a predator’s scent that drove me insane with desire. I lifted my head and nipped at her lower lip with a guttural growl.
“Now.” She shifted her hand’s position as the mist woman raised her hips off my fingers.
Wet warmth enveloped my cock, and I thrust my hips up to meet the blue woman’s weight. We cried out together, and I found the redhead’s eager sex with my wet fingers and stroked the swollen bulb of her clit with my thumb. I kissed the flame-haired woman in a bestial frenzy, and she met my passion with her own bruising lust.
The world vanished from around us. I didn’t feel the tent’s plush carpet, or the clammy chill of the mist-choked air. My universe narrowed to a tangle of fingers and h
eaving breasts, of hungry mouths and grinding hips. The women shifted positions so fluidly and frequently it felt like I’d sometimes start a thrust fucking one and end deep inside the other.
We burst into a ragged chorus of groans and gasps. I came in gouts of pleasure that tightened every muscle in my body. My shaft and fingers were surrounded by quivering flesh that clung desperately to me as rapturous pulses spread through the three of us in an endless torrent of mind-bending ecstasy.
We collapsed in a panting heap, the women flanking me, their legs draped over my thighs, their hands tracing the patterns of the scars my struggles with the crimson bear had left on my shoulders. The white-haired woman nuzzled my throat, her lips tracing a line between my ear and the hollow of my collarbone and back again. The redhead stared at me with brazenly appraising eyes.
“You’ve lain with the crimson bear.” She said the words as if they were the most obvious thing in the world. “And you’re still alive. Impressive for a mortal.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I had no idea how she knew about Mielyssi, but I wasn’t going to confirm her suspicions until I knew more about her and her motives.
“The smell,” the redhead said and took a deep breath to emphasize the point. “It's earthy and wild. I’ve never smelled anything else like it. Can you introduce us?”
“No.” I let out a deep sigh. It was going to be a long goddamned time until I made it back to Mount Shiki. “How do you know what she smells like?”
“It’s one of my gifts.” She shrugged. “If you see the bear again, tell her I appreciate what she taught you.”
“Thanks.” I stroked the woman’s red mane and plucked tangles from it with my fingers. The mention of the spirit animal teased a grin from my sleepy memory. The sex with her had been more ferocious and dangerous than what I’d shared with these women. Not better or worse, just different from the healing pleasure I’d just experienced. “I’m her shaman, Kyr.”