The door to the kitchen swung open on creaking hinges. The gloom within revealed little. The cupboards were bare, save some cheese that was already growing its own ecosystem. She grimaced and slammed the cupboard shut, looking around.
And spotted a set of steps leading down.
Marianne’s interest was piqued. She had rarely visited taverns before, but along the road, she and her husband had occasionally stayed in some on the campaign trail. And it was in the basement taverns typically kept their barrels of ale. Marianne licked her lips, and not even the prospect of that deep darkness could stay her from carefully descending the cold stone steps.
She gasped in delight as the glow of her candle gleamed off misty bottles of wines lined up in racks. Huge, heavy barrels of ale filled another wall, their brands burned into the fronts, still corked tight.
“Oh gods. At last,” Marianne breathed as she grabbed a bottle from its place. She tore out the cork and eagerly took a gulp. Sweetness burned down her throat as the noblewoman tasted the rich flavour of the wine. Soothing the hurts and aches to her pride and body endured the last few days.
She sat down on the bottom step, nursing the bottle lovingly. Oh how she had missed this. This sweet bliss of oblivion of drink and surrender. Ever since her flask had run dry each day had been a misery. And was it her fault, she wondered, taking another drink. Of course not. She hadn’t asked for any of this. It had all been forced onto her by the war and its warriors. And how horrible it would be when it was all over. When they were inevitably caught. After all, both Anora and the other soldier had been lost. Taken.
And Marianne knew, without a doubt, that if push came to shove, the other two would abandon her. She again felt that old misery swell up in her chest and quickly took another drink to dull the pain. Oh yes. They would abandon her and flee, leaving her to suffer whatever fate awaited her. She knew Camilla hated her, and she had no doubt Safira was similarly inclined. Hadn’t they made it obvious with their ill feigned contempt? Their curses? Their pushing her on and on. If they were cornered, they’d probably throw her to the monsters. Trade her for safe passage.
Perhaps that had been what they’d been doing. Marianne’s hand tightened on the bottle she held. Maybe that was all they had kept the other two around for. Sacrifices to continue their journey. Selling Anora and that soldier to the monsters. Perhaps that was why they kept her around. The final token to throw away. They were peasants. It was what they did. They didn’t respect nobility in the least.
“No!” Marianne said, surging to her feet, swaying a little as the blood rushed to her head. “No. I’m not that. I’m… I’m nobility! I… I won’t…. they can’t…”
But she didn’t have a choice. Did she? After all, so long as she was with the pair, they controlled her fate. Well… well then she didn’t need them! She was noble! She would decide her fate. Clutching her half drunk bottle, Marianne slunk back up the stairs, being as quiet as she could. She reached the top and peeked about, just lifting the candle enough to see the room. No one. Little surprise. Of course they wouldn’t check on her. No doubt they were sure she hadn’t the courage to leave them. Well! She would show them! She stalked up and out of the wine cellar, glancing at the door back into the common room. No. They were probably still there, guarding the front door. But there were other ways to leave the tavern…
As quietly as she could, Marianne snuck towards the second door from the kitchen. As she expected, a rear door to allow goods to come in lay open. She pushed it aside and glanced outside.
The rain had stopped, the sky lit with a lone moon, its pale light glinting off dewy grass and the leaves of trees. Marianne glanced at the rune etched in the door’s frame and carefully stepped past it, holding her breath.
No flash of light. No blaze of alarms. So. It seemed the priestess had only attuned it to monsters. Marianne smirked at the woman’s overconfidence. She took another heavy swig of her bottle and made her way into the back.
She barely noticed the mud anymore as she splashed through it and into the waiting forest. She felt warm and good. For the first time since… well, she couldn’t remember when, she felt good and pleasant and… and sure of herself. But of course she was. She was nobility! She had an innate sense of certainty. Of knowing just what to do and how to go about it. She smiled as she stumbled deeper into the woods, giggling softly at herself. Oh, she could be so clumsy sometimes!
She wasn’t quite sure where she was going, but that didn’t seem to be much of an issue. Not so long as she was so warm and so happy. Her senses swirling with the wine. It was all fine. She was making her own path now. Her own decisions! She was Marianne Cladius! And she knew what she needed. She knew what the world… what the world had in store for her.
So delighted with her own decision, she decided to take a break, flopping down under a tree. Oh drat. She got mud all over her dress again. How odd. She didn’t actually find it revolting. It was… was kind of funny. Marianne giggled to herself and flopped against the tree, her wine bottle near the dregs.
So content was she, she didn’t hear the heavy steps moving through the woods. The creak and snap of branches until a shape suddenly stopped, sniffed the air, and turned towards her. Only when the creature stepped out of the dark did she actually look up.
And gape.
The beast standing before her would dwarf even an orc in size. He was humanoid, but barely, built of thick, powerful muscles. He loped like an ape, knuckles pressing into the mud, his body coated in a thick green fur like it were covered in moss. But its eyes gleamed with a fierce, almost human intelligence, though deeper was the instinct of a beast.
Marianne stared up at the brutish monster towering before her, and laughed.
The monster cocked its head at her. “Why laugh at yegrilla?” the brutish creature asked.
Marianne wiped her eyes. “Of course,” she hiccupped. “Of course they’d send you out for me. I knew they’d sell me out to a monster. Well. Jokes on them! I won’t… I won’t be sold… I… I’m in command of my own fate.”
Marianne pushed herself onto her knees, swaying a little. The yegrilla looked with curiosity as the noblewoman crawled towards him, still laughing. “I… I decide what’s gonna… gonna happen to me. And I say… I say, they won’t sell me. Because… Because I’m going to give myself up!”
The yegrilla stepped back uncertainly, but stopped when Marianne swayed between his legs and cupped his heavy cock. She giggled drunkenly, stroking his thick, bestial shaft, fondling his balls. “Mmm. I’ll tell you what. You… you can have me. I’m not gonna be sold. I’m gonna be… be your slut! You can fuck me and keep me. And tell me what to… to do. And I… I’m just gonna let you fuck me!”
The yegrilla was a beast of physical prowess. Of battle and brutality. He didn’t bother himself with the efforts of truly deeper thought. So when Marianne brought his cock to full hardness, when her luscious lips, stained red with wine, engulfed the tip of his cock, he merely grunted, settling down as the woman eagerly sucked at his cock.
Her tongue still tingling with the taste of the wine, Marianne barely noticed the musky flavour of the monster’s shaft. Not that she minded. Oh no. This was her decision. Her time! She’d suck this monster’s cock. She’d be his bitch, and show those two whores that no one controlled her! She moaned, gobbling up more of the monster’s massive shaft, growing delighted with the sensation of his thick manhood stuffing her mouth. She sped up. Faster. Faster. Her hand slipped between the yegrilla’s legs and fondled his heavy balls.
“Rrrrrr. Me… me cum. Me…. raaaaa!” the yegrilla howled, his cock exploding in her mouth, filling it with his thick, foul tasting seed. Marianne merely moaned, swallowing every pulse of his hot cream shooting into her mouth, mingling with the wine in her stomach.
She gasped as he suddenly yanked her off his cock. “What-ah!” she gasped as his massive, leathery hand tore away what remained of her gown, leaving her fully naked, her flesh pinked with the flush of drink and h
eady arousal. “Ohhhh. You want these?” she giggled, cupping her full breasts. “Go on. Take a feel.”
The yegrilla smirked and reached down, engulfing her heavy tits in his massive hands. “Oh!” she gasped as he gave them an appreciative squeeze. “Oh fuck. Yes! That’s it. Be rough. I’m your slut now, aren’t I?” she gasped eagerly. “I’m just your worthless human slut, hm? But better you than a bunch of… of fucking gertlings!”
“You mine,” the yegrilla assented harshly.
“Ohhh! Thank you, master. Oh gods. But… but you have to f-fuck me. All the stories say you have to… have to fuck me to claim me. But your cock is all soft. Don’t worry,” she said, panting, her eyes molten as she looked into the brutish face of her soon to be owner. “I can… I can fix that. I can fix all that…”
The yegrilla grinned, showing a mouth of yellowed, jagged teeth. He released the human’s breasts, delighting in her eager submission as Marianne pushed forward, engulfing his soft cock between her tits. Marianne moaned as she lifted and smooshed her soft breasts around his cock, masturbating him between her teats.
“Ohhh master,” Marianne moaned, her head spinning with lust and wine and despair. “Your cock is sooo big! So much better than human cock. Oh I can’t wait for you to fuck me. To fill me! Tell me, master. Will you make me your broodmother? Will you stuff my womb with your young? Will make my tits all big and milky and soft for you?”
“Yes! Me mate. Me fuck!” the yegrilla howled. He suddenly grabbed the startled noblewoman, lifting her onto his lap. Marianne gasped, then moaned as his thick cock rubbed against her folds.
“Oooh master!” Marianne moaned, pressing herself against the massive brute, her soft breasts mashing against the iron of his chest. She lifted her hips, grasping his cock and angling it towards her cunt. “Master. Yesssssss!” she screamed in ecstasy as she descended onto his shaft, stretching her around his massive cock.
“Yes!” Marianne moaned, beginning to bounce, her ass slapping his hips as she fucked herself atop him. “Yes master! Fuck your slutty human bitch! Ah. Nnnn! Fuck me! Claim me!”
The yegrilla howled, his huge hands grasping her plush bottom, lifting her, dropping her, impaling her again and again on the immensity of his cock. “Me fuck. Me mate!”
“Yesssss!” Marianne screamed with delight. “Yes master! Fuck me! Fuck your whore! Your bitch! Mate me! B-breeeed meeeee!”
Marianne screamed with delight, cumming, lost in the madness of wine and pleasure. She didn’t care who she was anymore. Her rank. Her position. Her suffering. She was his. This brute. This monster’s. She was his bitch and his slut.
The yegrilla fucked her like a beast, every thrust reverberating through her curvy frame, sending shockwaves of helpless pleasure radiating from her core. She cried out, cumming again.
She felt his own orgasm near. The twitching of his cock. The way he started to fuck her faster. Faster! His bestial shaft stretching her human cunt to accommodate his hungry breeding. “Maaaaasterrrrrr!” Marianne screamed as the yegrilla came, his cum fountaining into her clutching pussy, sending her over the edge in her orgasm. Again she came, their mingled juices squirting from around the yegrilla’s mossy cock.
“Yesssss,” Marianne moaned, her thighs quaking as she continued to ride atop the yegrilla’s pulsing cock, feeling his thick seed drool along her inner thighs. She didn’t care about her nakedness. About the fact she’d just given herself to a monster. That she’d just been fucked by it, and likely become its slave. She relished it, in fact. Lowering herself, she hilted his cock within her, resting her cheek against his chest adoringly.
“Oh master,” she moaned.
The yegrilla grunted eagerly. “You good slut.”
“Thank you master,” she panted, looking up into his crude face.
“What this?”
Marianne glanced back lazily as several large figures stepped into the clearing. Orcs, the green skinned males were leading a number of horses, their leader’s broken tusk kindling a memory in Marianne’s mind.
The former noblewoman smiled blissfully. “You’re too late,” she giggled as she began to bounce her ass, the yegrilla’s cock sloshing in and out of her well fucked cunt. “I’m already claimed. You can’t have me. Safira lied to you,” she said. “Now there’s nothing they can offer you.”
The orc with the broken tusk looked at her intently. His lip curled back cruelly. “You were with priestess,” he growled.
“Yes,” Marianne gasped, her pace increasing as the yegrilla began to mold her plush ass in his hands. She smiled wider, fucking herself atop her master’s massive pole as she stared at the orcs. “Do you want to know where… where they are?”
The orc’s eyes flashed. He smirked, looming over her as she rode her master’s cock. “Tell me where?”
Revelations
Safira watched the road from her vantage point on the second floor. The room had that stale scent of abandonment, a single bed and side table the only furnishings. She stood near the window, holding her hammer loosely at her side, feeling the blessing of her god through the hard steel.
“Arsenus, my master,” she murmured beneath her breath. “Give me the strength to see this through. The power to serve you. And the might to do your will.”
She sighed, feeling the low warmth of her god’s blessing ease through her. She took a breath, let it out.
A gentle knock at the door pulled her attention away. “Safira?”
The priestess furrowed her brow. “Yes?”
The door eased open and Camilla pushed her head inside. Safira frowned. The soldier looked nervous. Uneasy. Safira hefted her hammer. “What is it? Did you see something?”
“No. No. I was just… I was hoping to talk.”
“Oh,” Safira said. “I… suppose that’s fine.”
Camilla nodded in gratitude and shuffled into the room. She took a seat on the bed and clasped her hands between her legs, fidgeting.
Safira eyed the other woman curiously. “You wanted to talk?”
“Y-yes,” Camilla said. She bit her lower lip. “Yes… I wanted to… Oh dammit,” she muttered fiercely. “Look. I may as well just show you.”
Safira raised a brow as Camilla rose and angrily, as if only her temper were enabling her to do so, began to strip. Her tattered uniform fell to the floor, leaving her in nothing but her underwear, and as a result, unveiling a litter of scars across her pale flesh.
Safira had known war since she could walk. Combat and battle were the ways of her god. How he was praised and shown devotion. She knew the signs of battle scars, but those that littered the young woman’s flesh were not those. Many were focused around her thighs and rear, others near her cheeks, to say nothing of the strange, swirling tattoos which had only been hinted at before, now fully revealed in how they swirled across her body.
The priestess narrowed her eyes at the latter markings. “Those…”
“Yes,” Camilla said bitterly. “The mark of the royal penal legion.”
Safira knew of the penal legion. Everyone in the empire did. A punishment brigade, the troops of it drawn from jails, freedom dangled before the eyes of the soldiers if they survived ten years. A rarity, for the penal legion was sent to the front at every battle, volunteered for the deadliest of tasks and missions. Theirs was the army of the damned of any stripe, bound by the arcane markings engraved on their flesh to the command of their officers. Little more than slaves, treated lower than beasts.
“What did you do?” Safira asked.
Camilla smiled grimly. “I existed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Take a look,” Camilla said and brushed back her hair.
Safira started at the ragged tips of the young woman’s ears, like they had been chewed off by some animal. They ended now just above where a human’s would be, but closer now Safira could see how slender they were. In her mind’s eye, she traced the ear to where it would have once ended, and saw the subtle points that had once been…
/>
“Arsenus,” she breathed. “You’re an elf.”
“Yes,” Camilla said mockingly. “I am.”
“But, elves are…”
“Trapped in the Sylvan Enclave, yes. Isn’t it funny?” she said with a bitter smile. “I escape Heimsvak’s prison, just to be put into Istanov’s. The noble who found me kept me. His favorite plaything until I managed to ram a knife into his throat. The guards that came on us didn’t appreciate it, of course. Even after I told them what he’d done. Because he was noble,” she said the word mockingly. “And what was I? Some slut he’d graced with his cock. I was just lucky I managed to saw off the tips of my ears before they found me. Or I wouldn’t have even gotten the relief of dying for the glory of the empire. Odds are I’d have been given to some other noble, but with better chains.”
“I don’t understand,” Safira said. “Why tell me all this?”
“Humans are monsters,” Camilla said. “As horrible as the creatures you fight in this little war of yours. I knew that since the day I was born. But… But not all were as awful, I suppose,” she said begrudgingly. “You’ve been trying to keep us all safe. Lead us away. You saved us and didn’t… didn’t demand anything in return. I guess you’re just the first decent human I’ve met since… well, ever,” she said. “So… I know I’ve been… well, a bit of a bitch. But you’ve been trying and I just wanted you to know that… that I appreciate it.”
“I… Thank you. I… think,” Safira said.
Camilla mustered up a weak smile. “Yes. Well. I guess I wanted to know… what are you intending to do now?” she asked. She gestured at her naked body, the curving tattoo sweeping up her arm and down her flank and the curve of her hip. “Now that you know what I am… what are you going to do about it?”
Last Stand of the War Priestess Page 4