The Dark Lord's Commands
Page 16
“We are,” I assured her, “once we’re ready, we’ll come back and liberate the camp, I swear it.”
It took us three days to make it back to Gloomglow.
Slowly Jeanie began talking more to us. Surprisingly, it was Nichessa that did the most to help the little girl open up; as we walked, she told her the stories her mother had told her as a child.
The blacksmith spoke about the ancient dragon, created by Revina before the Godsfall to act as the protector of the deep places of the earth. Other times, she talked about the magma-giants, four-armed titans who were the first blacksmiths. They taught the original Dark Lords the secrets of smelting and forging black iron. Each tale led to another, creating a vivid tapestry of Duskhaven’s mythical past.
Even Marl leaned in to hear when Nichessa spoke.
We learned that Jeanie was an orphan, that she had been assigned to work in the mines as a dross hauler, responsible for removing trash and useless rock from active dig sites. On the morning of her escape, she had discovered one of the guards assigned to her tunnel had fallen asleep. Stealing his keys, she snuck into a warehouse and hid, waiting for someone to open the camp’s gate. She’d tried to sneak out when the farmworkers were returning from their shift, but she’d been spotted and the alarm raised.
She gifted the keys to us. They were made from black iron and hung from a dirty ring. I assured her we would put them to good use.
As we got close to Gloomglow, the land became greener, more full of life. Blooms of duskbells were everywhere, along with rust reeds and other plants. More creeks were forming, as well as small ponds and watering holes. Twice we spotted strange, bounding creatures, which Vexile identified as deer.
“The environmental changes appear to expand from the keep,” I explained to Nichessa, who was shocked by the rapid changes the wasteland was undergoing. “Since my coronation, life has slowly been returning to this land.” I glanced up and saw a few soggy-looking clouds on the horizon. “Who knows, maybe it’ll even start raining?”
“This is all Revina’s blessing,” Vexile insisted.
We crested a ridge, and in the distance, Gloomglow came into view. I saw the white pennant flying above the keep.
I turned to the blacksmith, “Welcome to our home.”
Chapter 16
Vexile curled up in my arms. “Today was a good day.”
I was tired, we were laying naked in bed. When we had finally been able to retire to the royal quarters, all I had planned on doing was sleeping. But, I couldn’t resist her. Smiling, I pulled her closer, magic sparking between us. Her tail languidly twisted around my legs, and I could tell she was purposefully brushing her scaly hips along the edge of my cock.
Putting my arm more firmly around her shoulder, I twisted her around, so I was looking into her luminous, lustful eyes. She’s become so confident and forceful since her ascension, I thought, gazing at her, and I love it.
We kissed, her fangs barely nipping at my lower lip and she released my legs from her binding grasp. Her hands traced the curves of my chest and arms, her fingers leaving tingling, arcane trails across my skin.
Using the tip of her tail, she nudged my ankles wide, allowing her to position the bulk of her body between my legs. She dragged the soft, smooth scales that ran along her belly across my thighs and over the underside of my shaft. The edges of her scales rubbed against my flared crown, sending me shuddering in pleasure. Juices dribbled down from her netherlips, providing fantastic lubrication. The air trapped in the bed’s canopy reeked of our shared musk.
I tried to reach for her, but suddenly she whipped the end of her tail around, and I found my hands pinned against the bed’s headboard.
I really love it.
“Allow me,” she said, as she lowered her breasts towards my mouth, her body still taunting my cock as I eagerly took a teat between my teeth, flicking her nipple with my tongue. She used her hands to massage her chest, pinching her free nipple as I tormented the other.
She continued to rub along my girth, each of us pleasuring and tormenting the other to higher and higher planes of ecstasy.
Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer. I bucked my hips, angling my cockhead towards her pussy, wanting only to bury myself into her honeypot.
She cooed and shifted, placing her pussy lips against my shaft, letting the slick flesh glide against my burning-hot skin. “Beloved, may I?”
Giving a nod, I watched as she slowly raised her hips, before slowly lowering them. Her swollen lips were pushed outward by my intrusion. They dragged against the sides of my cock, until they were wrapped around my base, my full length trapped in her loving embrace.
“Fantastic,” she said, still holding my arms above my head. “You are truly the king I always wanted.”
“And you, my queen,” I said, my eyes never leaving hers.
She began to move. But rather than gliding up and down, she began to slither side to side, her hips moving in a way that would have been impossible for a regular human. With each serpentine shift, my cock was squeezed and caressed, her channel twisting and gripping me at a different angle with each movement.
Towering above me, Vexile continued to keep her eyes locked with mine, her fingers busy flicking her clit or stroking her skin, which was flush almost red. She looked majestic, like a creature out of mythology. And she was my queen, my partner, and together we would rebuild Duskhaven.
But that was far, far away. My immediate concern was to extend our lovemaking as long as possible, to stoke the passion between us without letting it erupt. As she had said, it had been a good day, and we were determined to make it last as long as possible.
The old bed creaked and moaned under us, and I knew we’d need to stuff the mattress again, the grass inside trampled flat by our repeated performances.
“Robert,” Vexile called, arching her back and rising.
I shook my hands free from her weakening grip and planted them firmly on her hips, guiding her up and down as we reached the closing sprint. Blood was pounding at my temples, and my heartbeat was synched with her thunderous rhythm. Our magic flared and snapped, pulsing along with each movement.
Every muscle in Vexile’s body went rigid; her tail lashed out and snapped the drapes loose from their rods. “Robert!”
Her pussy clamped around me, drowning out all other sensations in a crushing, all-consuming embrace. I felt my world slam down to that single point, that one moment, and I came with her, a wave of red hot seed that tore out of me.
Vexile came again, and the bed gave one final moan as one of the bedposts snapped, dropping the canopy over us.
Panting, crying, and laughing, we untangled ourselves from the old velvet, tossing it aside.
“We’re allowed to have one bad thing happen today,” I joked, as I threw the last of the drapes to the floor.
“I’ve been thinking for a while now, we do need a new bed,” Vexile confirmed. Most of her tail was draped onto the floor, the bed no longer able to fully support her weight.
“Soon,” I kissed her brow.
The citizens had been excited to see our return and to hear about our mission to the mines. Upon our return, we gathered them in our headquarters and relayed our story. I quickly played up Vexile’s heroics in saving Jeanie from the cruel hands of the Luminark slavers. I did the same when it came to telling Nichessa’s part of the story, introducing her as my savior when all seemed lost.
Nichessa, hanging towards the back of the room, had scowled, but said nothing.
The people had welcomed her and Jeanie with open arms, the little girl had been unprepared for the outpouring of support our little community offered her. She had spent most of the meeting huddled in Vexile’s arms, staring out at the crowd with a mix of worry and amazement.
I had made sure to credit Lita and Marl as well for the parts they had played. The crawlclaw driver said nothing, but the teenager was beaming with pride as she stood with her family.
Afterward, Vexile and I h
ad a brief meeting with Riggs and Ahkil, reviewing everything that had happened while we were gone. We promised to meet with them individually, to go over their upcoming plans. Riggs wanted to expand the range his hunters covered, and Ahkil wanted to start gathering workers for the next round of repairs to the temple.
As we watched them leave, Nichessa had come over, still frowning, “Why did you do that?”
“Do what?” I asked.
“Embellish the story like that,” she had growled, “we weren’t that close to being caught by the Luminark, and I wasn’t that brave. Hell, neither were you!”
“Weren’t we?” I sighed, deflating a bit. “But no, you’re right, I did play it up, maybe a bit too much. But these people desperately need heroes and tales where the good guys win and the bad guys go home angry and stinging from the loss. They’ve been beaten down and defeated at almost every turn in their life. So they need to believe in us, the Dark Lord and his queen, because otherwise, what do they have to believe in?”
“You didn’t have to drag me into it,” she had insisted.
“Maybe not,” I admitted, closing my eyes and rubbing the bridge of my nose. “But if nothing else, you should find your stay here more pleasant now that you’re not only our guest but one of our heroes.”
We took Nichessa on a tour of the keep and outlying holdfasts the next day.
The fruits and nuts we had planted, harvested from Marshul, had quickly taken root, and we had several new varieties of vegetables to add to our ladder. While the orchards were still maturing, the spicy berry vines had eagerly sprung to life, covering one of the crumbled walls of the keep. Not only were the berries a nice addition to our kitchen, but we had found the sap from the vines dried extremely fast, creating a tight, waterproof seal. We had used it to create an adhesive and a resin, waterproofing our roofs and finding ways around our nail and screw shortage.
The blacksmith was impressed by the water system we had rigged up for our farms, using channels, sluices, and reed pipes to get the water to our crops. We still struggled to move water within the keep, but it wasn’t practical to build canals within those narrow alleys and confines. Usually, we had to run a bucket brigade to get the water where it needed to go.
Nobody particularly liked that duty, myself included, but the benefits they provided were greatly welcome. Like our bathhouse.
When we had unearthed a building containing deep, stone tubs and underground chambers meant for hot coals, I had insisted we get them back up and running. It had been a monumental effort, but the ability to take a hot bath or a quick, cold shower was a life-saver.
Nichessa thought they were an extravagant luxury until I informed her about the flea infestation we had been suffering before my arrival. But thanks to the new hygiene rules, and the availability of heated baths, the people were much cleaner and healthier.
We had also created a communal laundry area, and a latrine pit, which had been excavated in an unused area of the keep.
“It’s not a long-term answer,” I admitted, as we stood near the edge of the hole, a mound of sand and gravel sitting by the edge, “but it's better than nothing.”
Nichessa pointed towards the earthen mound, “What’s that for?”
“Every night, someone has the job to shovel some in, to cover the upper layer of waste,” I explained, as we headed back towards the keep.
“Even you?” she asked.
I nodded, pulling out the copy of The Prince that I had taken to carrying with me everywhere. “Just following the solid advice of someone from back home. The actions of a new prince are watched much more than those of a hereditary one, and when they are recognized as virtuous, they attract men much more and bind them much more to him than ancient blood would do.”
Nichessa stared at me, like I was mad, “What?”
“If you read the book, it makes much more sense,” Vexile admitted. She had paged through it a couple of times, appreciating Machiavelli’s practical wisdom.
I brought the topic back to the improvements to the keep. “The pit is only a temporary fix. Eventually, it’ll fill up, and we’ll have to dig another, but it’s better than what we had before.”
The shoes I had been wearing when I left Earth had quickly been ruined by walking through the muck that had run through the main residential streets. After digging the latrine pit, the dry, dusty avenues were seen by our people as a monumental improvement.
After the tour, Nichessa was set on seeking out Gloomglow’s forge. “A military fortress, like this one, had to have a forge for repairing and replacing equipment.”
Venturing into one of the unused sections of the keep, we finally found the forge, half-buried under part of the fallen ramparts.
“This won’t do, this won’t do at all,” the blacksmith complained, as she worked with Vexile to lift a chunk of masonry off the anvil, which was still surprisingly intact.
She kept muttering to herself as we worked to excavate the forge and to dig out the remains of the workbenches.
“Garbage,” Nichessa cursed, tossing away a bent set of tongs. “How are you people supposed to work metal without a proper forge?”
“We don’t,” I said with emphasis, “we don’t have anyone who knows how to work with metal. A few soldiers at the watchtower know about tinkering or field smithing, but only enough to keep their gear working. What metal tools we have, we’ve scavenged from the ruins, reusing or repurposing them for our needs.”
She purposefully kicked the tongs away, the twisted metal ricocheting off a pile of rubble.
“You’re the one who insisted on coming and finding this place,” I reminded her.
It was late afternoon by the time we returned to our headquarters. Nichessa’s expression looked as overcast as a thunderstorm and she demanded we bring her plenty of paper and writing implements.
I’m glad we figured out how to make paper using rust reed, I thought.
One of our citizens had been employed in a paper mill back in the empire, and he had found that the rust reeds could be boiled down to make quality paper pulp. We couldn’t produce as much as I liked, but it was better than trading for individual sheets with the watchtower.
Once we arrived, Nichessa spent the rest of the day dictating various ideas she’d had during the tour, the papers quickly filling with several diagrams as she used one of my precious few ballpoint pens.
“You’re doing everything ass-backward, even with the tools you have,” she insisted, before she began working, drawing out a way we could distribute water much more easily within the keep.
“So one person just needs to run the wheel,” she explained, pointing at the diagram, “while another feeds water into the buckets. The pulley and rope system attached will do the rest of the work.”
Vexile dutifully kept notes, writing down everything the blacksmith said as she laid out her designs.
It was fully dark by the time Nichessa finally wound down, exhausted by her outpouring of ideas. None were revolutionary pipedreams, but rather they were practical plans we could easily implement in a matter of days or weeks, using the materials we had on hand.
“Thank you,” I told her.
Vexile rolled up the reed parchments, sending them along with her notes over to the temple for safekeeping.
“This is why you insisted on me coming here, isn’t it?” Nichessa accused me.
I shrugged, then pointed to her gauntlets, “Your skills extend just beyond forging metal. Even back home on Earth, prosthetics of the quality you’re using were rare.”
Her cheeks darkened, and she turned away, “It’s nothing. Just stuff I figured out while working in the camp. Occasionally the mechanic, the woman in charge of keeping the machines in the mine running, would come to me for help. I learned everything from her.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Vexile shook her head, “It might not seem like much to you, but the ideas you provided will make real improvements to the lives of our people.”
“If
nothing else, we won’t get sore backs from hauling water everywhere,” I admitted.
Garnet left early the next morning. We had invited her to stay a few days longer to recover, but she decided to return to the watchtower so she could report to Dougherty.
“He’ll probably come here himself, in a few days, Dark Lord,” she informed me. “If you’re still planning on hitting the camp, I can’t see the captain sitting that out.”
“We would welcome his assistance,” I told her, as a crowd came to see her off. “Safe travels, soldier.”
She waved goodbye, setting out from the front gate.
“See you soon,” Jeanie called, waving from her perch on top of Dominic’s shoulders.
The two former gladiators had offered to take care of the girl; they had quickly won her trust and admiration by telling her stories of their escape from the Luminark Empire. She found their tale heroic, especially when they emphasized how many guards they had killed and the chaos they had sowed as they escaped.
It was supposed to only be a temporary arrangement, but I figured it’d become permanent very quickly. George and Dominic saw a brave spirit in the girl, and I was sure they’d make fine fathers for her.
“Is it smart to let her travel alone?” Nichessa asked, watching Garnet march away.
I nodded, “Garnet is a natural survivor. Everyone here is,” I eyed her, “including you.”
Huffing, she marched off. Several of the workers, who had heard about her ideas, followed in her wake, clearly eager to ask for her assistance. Despite her bluster, I knew she’d spend the rest of her day helping them out with their problems. Regardless of how she might act, Nichessa was a good person.
That’s why I was sure she’d ultimately decide to stay with us.
“Try it now,” Nichessa ordered.
The worker began running on the treadwheel, which had been constructed from spare wood and rust reed. It creaked and moaned, but it turned, winding the mechanisms attached to it.