Swing and Thrust: A Harem Fantasy (Sword and Sorority Book 2)

by Scot C Morgan

  Mettin kept to his word and told us much of the history of Yedia, including how they came to cross the Sea of Ronak and settle the city we were in. They'd once lived where the dragons now reigned. I tried to get more out of him about the creatures, but he wouldn't say more, not even when I told him of the small one captive in Pertlass, though I could tell hearing that news troubled him deeply.

  "We keep to ourselves up here," he said. "Pertlass will have to deal with the creature, but it is not our concern."

  I asked him for any tips I could pass on to the people of Pertlass, but he replied he had none.

  So much for help on that front.

  He was much more open when I asked him about his skills and training as a warrior. He told me his father made the decision to join the Yedian military for him when he was very young and he's loved it ever since. He shared some of the training he went through, and when he was finished I told him I'd be honored if we could train together some before my women and I left the city. He enthusiastically agreed.

  All of us talked away the better part of the evening, and then Tara said she was tired. Nithia agreed. Mettin offered for us to stay the night in his home, pointing out he had many available rooms. I thanked him and it was settled.

  Nithia and Tara retired to one of the rooms. Alara, Allison, and I were given the other one in the same hall. Mettin bid us goodnight and went to the other side of the house.

  The three of us stood in the room staring at the one large bed in the middle of it.

  "Den," Allison said, "can I stay with you until we find a way home?"

  Alara looked at me. I could tell she was waiting to see what I'd say.

  "You mean, back to Austin?" I said.

  "Yes." She nodded. "There has to be a way home." She looked at Alara. "If you don't mind. I just don't want to be on my own. Not here. Not in this world. I know there's a way home. We just have to keep looking until we find it."

  I pressed my lips tight and looked at Alara.

  "I'm not making a play for him," Allison said to Alara. "I mean, yeah, he's a stud muscle. Definitely, but that's not why I'm asking to stick with you two, and your friends.

  She turned to Allison. "You really just want to go home?"

  "More than anything," Allison said. "I don't mean to offend you. I know he's with you. I'm not trying to take him away from you." She looked at me. "You're probably happy here. I mean, with her, I'm sure you are. But for me…"

  Alara nodded. "I know what you mean. It's okay."

  I felt like I was walking on eggshells. Alara and I both knew I could send her back to Earth, but I had enough sense and respect for Alara not to volunteer my services.

  "Thank you," Allison said. "I'd do anything to get home."

  "Den," Alara said. "I know you wouldn't bring this up yourself, but I'm going to. There's no sense in making her suffer when you could help her."

  "What do you mean?" Allison said, darting her eyes back and forth to Alara and me.

  Alara stepped over and closed the bedroom door. "I'm going to tell you something which you're going to find hard to believe, but it's true. But I want you to know first, what you decide is entirely up to you. No one here is going to make you do anything you don't want to do."

  "Maybe you should sit down," I said to Allison.

  She sat on the end of the bed and I stayed several feet away, leaning against the dresser to give her space as Alara told her the basics of how she came to be in Galderia—about the summoning and my destiny, and how she wasn't meant to be brought here. Allison listened intently. Then Alara gave her the punchline.

  "Are you saying that," she looked at me. More accurately, she looked at my groin. "That is how I can get home?"

  The thought occurred to me to say 'that's where the magic is', or something like that, but I mentally smacked myself and kept silent.

  Alara nodded. I know it's bizarre, but it's true.

  "And you're suggesting I do that? Him?" she said to Alara.

  "Only if you want to," she said. "But it's the only way we know of to get you back."

  I waited in silence for Allison's reaction, expecting her to freak out any moment.

  She looked at me, then back to Alara. Both of us waited for Allison to decide—or flip the hell out.

  "Well, yeah! He's hot. I'm game." She quickly reigned in her enthusiasm, apparently in an effort to keep from offending Alara. "If it's okay with you two."

  I was smart enough to let Alara answer first.

  Chapter 29

  Alara and I lay on the bed listening to faint sounds of Tara and Nithia moving about in their room next door. It was morning. Our room had a small horizontal slit on one wall, near the ceiling. It was barely enough to let air flow through, but I could see a sliver of light shining into our room and onto the opposite wall.

  Allison was gone, back on Earth, in Austin presumably. I wondered if anyone would believe her if she told them what had happened to her. I gave her Sydney's and Monica's names before getting into it with her last night. It was awkward, telling her I'd done the same thing with them, but she seemed reassured, and I wanted her to have someone back home who could understand what she went through. At least they wouldn't think her crazy. I suggested to her that she could find them if she wanted to do so. I told her they went to the university.

  "What a night, huh?" Alara said, both of us looking at the ceiling.

  After I'd sent Allison home, Alara and I slept for a few hours, then she woke me up and we made love. I was glad she'd done so. I wasn't sure how she had taken my being with Allison, while she walked out to the balcony overlooking the sea. She said she didn't mind. She told me she considered it part of my destiny, one of my other roles as the Guardian. I couldn't say anything to that, so I just held her and told myself I was the luckiest man in Galderia.

  "Crazy," I said. "I was just thinking about what we're going to do now."

  "Yes?"

  "Well, we came to Yedia to find Allison."

  "And send her home, which you've done."

  I glanced at her and saw she was smiling. "Yes. But there's still the matter of the dragon in Pertlass. Mettin must know something which could help, but he doesn't want to talk about it."

  "You can ask him again today," she said.

  "Yeah. I should. I did spare his life, after all."

  "And about crossing the sea…not that we need to do that now, but maybe at some point. But not now."

  I could tell she regretted bringing up the inevitable trip to Thautus Kurg's dominion. "It has to happen at some point."

  "It would be good to know a little more," she said. "How we might get over there a little safer."

  "You're right. We can't do it down south, where he's more active. It would have to be up here."

  We both lay there for a few moments, saying nothing more about my destiny to face Kurg, but I knew we were both thinking about it.

  "I still can't believe that happened to you," she said, changing the subject. "And it was for their entertainment?" Unbelievable."

  "Yeah. Not for him though."

  "I know. His honor." She blew out a puff of air. "Men."

  "I tried to talk him out of it." I turned to her. "Knowing of our bond, I hated being forced to fight him."

  "But you won."

  "Yeah."

  She nudged me in my side. "Because you’re my champion." She giggled and nudged me some more. It tickled.

  I grabbed her arm. "Stop it." Then I gently poked her in the side to make her squirm too.

  Someone pounded on the door to our bedroom.

  "What?" Alara said. "Who's that?"

  More pounding boomed through the door.

  "Get up!" Mettin said. "Now!"

  Alara and I hurried out of bed. "What is it?" I said, loud enough for him to hear me.

  "The city! It's under attack!"

  "What does he mean?" Alara scrambled to slip on some clothes as fast as she could.

  I didn't bother to get dressed before
opening the door halfway. Mettin was already back down the hall. "Mettin!"

  He stopped running and turned around. "I must go and join the others. The city is in great danger."

  "Can we help?"

  "We'll take all the hands we can get. From what I've been told, we've never faced such a force before."

  He looked panicked, which, knowing how extensive his military experience was, gave me a great deal of concern over what the city might be facing.

  "We'll join in the fight," I said. "Where is the attack? What part of the city are they coming at?"

  "The south wall, but they haven't broken through. I think it's only a matter of time, though. I have to go. I'm sorry." He turned and ran off, shouting to one of his servants to bring his armor to him.

  Tara and Nithia were standing outside their room, already dressed. "The city's under attack?" Nithia said, apparently shocked by the news.

  "Tara looked at me. "I'll get my bow and meet you outside by your horse."

  "Yeah," I said. "Let me throw on my pants." I was standing in the hall naked. "Nithia, go down with Tara and see what you can find out. We'll be right behind you. Wait for us, though."

  "Got it," she said.

  Tara came back out of their room with her bow in her hand and her quiver on her back.

  Nithia nodded to her, and the two of them ran downstairs.

  Alara and I met them a minute later, now fully dressed. Tara had mounted Pudding, and Nithia sat atop another horse, she evidently took from Mettin's stable. He was nowhere in sight, but we could see numerous armed Yedians running south through the city. Alara got on Nithia's horse, and I joined Tara on Pudding.

  I turned to Nithia. "I don't want you getting too close to the fighting, okay."

  She nodded to me.

  "But I don't want to leave you here," I said. "Tara, when we get closer and see what's going on, make sure you two find someplace safe. Keep your distance and use your bow."

  "I will," she said, then we rode across town, using the Yedian warriors running toward the battle to find our way.

  We reached the city's south wall and saw scores of men and women on the wall walk shooting arrows and releasing loads from heavy wooden ballistic machines at whatever they faced from the other side. Yet more were making their way to the top, climbing the open-air stairs off to the sides or scaling ladders leaned against the wall in the middle. Several Yedians had fallen to their deaths, or maybe after dying at the top of the wall.

  Yedian warriors shouted to direct their fellow defenders to different positions on the wall. I heard men overhead screaming. I glanced up to the top of the wall. Yedians swung their swords against something coming over from the outside, but I couldn't see what they were fighting.

  I dismounted near one of the ladders. "Nithia, I want you to take cover somewhere. Don't go up there."

  She nodded and glanced around. There were injured on the ground and many of the Yedian civilians were running about in panic. "I'll see what I can do here."

  "I'm going to head up there." Tara pointed to the top of one of the towers built into the wall. "I'll have a better shot."

  "Right," I said. "Alara?"

  She'd already dismounted. "I'm coming up there with you, but I'll take the stairs." She held up her staff clearly to indicate it would be hard to climb the ladder with it in her hand.

  "Okay," I said to all three of them. "But if you need to, fall back into the city. We don't even know what we're facing yet."

  I scaled the ladder, even as another man fell past screaming. He'd just lost an arm. I caught a glimpse of the bloody stump below his shoulder. I heard strange noises through the wall and then a thunderous crash against it from the other side. Dust and debris sprayed out and down over me as I balanced the ladder with both my hands to keep it from falling.

  I looked off to the side and saw Alara making her way up the stone stairs. I wanted to tell her to stop, to go back down and stay with Nithia somewhere safe, but she was too far away and there was too much noise for her to hear me if I'd tried to call out to her. I climbed the ladder, needing to see what enemy could be so overwhelming.

  I heard a heavy thumping sound below and looked back to see several men cranking down the arm of a catapult. I continued to climb, moments later hearing a loud snap. A massive rock flew past me. I felt the air rush against my side as it went by to sail over the wall and onto the enemy outside the city.

  As I pulled myself up from the last runs of the ladder, I saw the top of a tower in the distance, beyond the wall, past the battlefield. The sorcerer's tower! How?

  Several men stood in front of men against the rising edge of the wall, a few shooting arrows downward and the others wielded swords or polearms against giant hairy monstrous legs.

  Fucking spiders!

  One of the creature’s legs plunged over the top of the wall and slammed into one of the men, sending him flying off the wall back a hundred feet or more. I averted my eyes before he hit the ground, then I drew my sword and raced into the spot where he'd been. I swung my blade at the monster, cleaving off the bottom third of its leg. With the men beside me jabbing and stabbing at the creature's body, I chopped and hacked another of its legs in two. The giant spider fell from the wall and as I watched it go down I finally saw all of the other forces arrayed against us.

  Several more giant spiders advanced on the wall, a few already climbing up the side down to the right of my position. Two equally gigantic centipedes twisted there way over the ground toward us. To my left, maybe fifty feet away, a large floating blob with dozens of eyes, all of different sizes, rose to face the men at the top of the wall. They shot arrows at it when it was coming up, but when it got closer to them they all stopped shooting or spearing at it. Then, I watched in horror as three of the men climbed onto the edge of the wall and stepped off, plummeting to their deaths.

  A blast of light burst through the air from the top of the wall to my right and exploded onto one of the giant spiders below. I looked over and saw Alara standing beside several Yedians shooting arrows onto the attacking creatures. Then I looked further back, to the tower Tara had said she was going up. She was there, a good distance from the wall, out of the monsters' reach. I watched her release an arrow, then she quickly drew another from her quiver and notched it on her bow's string.

  A thunderous blow struck the wall and I shifted my feet to keep my balance. I peered down over the edge to see what it was. Standing at the base of the wall, a humanoid creature, apparently made of stone, pounded his fists against the wall. The wall shook again but seemed to be holding.

  The fight raged on. More spiders, as well as the centipedes, climbed the wall. The floating blob of eyeballs sent several more men to their deaths, but others shot arrows into it, and it looked like it might be weakening, though it mesmerized two more Yedians into joining the pile of bodies on the tundra below.

  In a lull of the threat directly against me, I scanned the battlefield to see how many monsters there were. At first, I thought we might be taking down their numbers enough to hope for victory soon, but then I saw more crawling toward us from the direction of the sorcerer's tower, and another stone golem was on its way too.

  I glanced back at the people still running through the city. More Yedians were coming to join the fight. I saw a woman run up to a small child and scoop him up to carry away to safety. I spotted Nithia helping an injured woman away from the wall, her arm draped over Nithia's shoulders. They scrambled past another rock throwing machine being wheeled into position by a team of six men. They're going to fight for their city, I thought. But it may not be enough.

  The I spotted another creature coming toward the wall, twice the size of a man. It seemed to have come from the top of the tower. It flew toward us, flapping red wings, its tail undulating to guide its flight. I recognized it as the small red dragon which had been caged in Ruja Kurg's stronghold in Pertlass, the creature that ripped him to shreds in front of me.

  It flew toward me, with i
ts talons stretched open. It let out a great shrieking sound, momentarily stunning me. I recovered a split second before its razor-sharp claws tore into me. I ducked clear of its grasp, but the Yedian man beside me didn't move in time. The dragon hooked into the man's chest and carried him from the wall. I heard the man screaming for a moment, but then his cry abruptly ended.

  The dragon dropped the lifeless body and swooped down toward the scattering people in the streets below. They ran in horror as the dragon pluck another from the ground only to release him a few seconds later, sending him flying into the side of one of the buildings nearby.

  I decided to leave defense of the wall to the other men and go after the dragon. I watched it swoop and turn, trying to see where it would fly to next. It flew back toward the wall and I looked to gauge where it would pass by, so I could be there with my sword. But then it changed its path, I glanced ahead of it.

  No!

  "Alara! It's coming for you!"

  She didn't hear me over the screams and the sounds of battle. I ran along the wall as fast as I could, only barely keeping from falling over the inside edge.

  "Alara!"

  She heard me, but looked to me and not the dragon which was nearly upon her. Still running I thrust my sword forward to get her to look the other way and see the creature.

  It worked. She turned her head and used her staff to blast a beam of blinding white light at the approaching dragon.

  I blinked to adjust my eyes so I could see what had happened. Alara was still there on the wall, but I saw the dragon flying out over the other monsters. She'd missed it. The dragon flew toward the tower, then turned to make another run.

  I kept going, running along the wall walk, trying not to knock any of the men and women who were defending the wall off of it as I passed them. I wanted to get to Alara, in case the dragon went after her again. I wanted to slice it from the sky.

  "Den!" Alara waved me in as I got close.

  But a sudden gust of dark purple smoke blew between us, then it swirled around and engulfed Alara. I pushed myself to run faster, but I was at my limit. As I finally reached the spot where Alara had been, the thick smoke cleared, coalescing into a form beside Alara, who stood seemingly frozen.