Legacy of Dreams: Freedom

by Thomas J. L. Green

  “Indeed,” Yen smiled. “Now, I will make you a bargain, Luna. You will keep this our little secret and, in fact, will come to me nicely and impress me with just what you can do with your mouth since I have already used mine on you.”

  “You can feel through that? Why should I be interested in that thing at all?” Luna inquired.

  “Because if you do, I will make this into whatever shape is the most suitable for you, whatever texture fits you the best, whatever temperature pleases you the most and keep it like that for as long as you can handle,” Yen explained “and yes, I can feel through it pretty much how a man would.”

  Blood magic is awesome!

  “Uggghhhh,” Luna was slowly waking up, Yen lying on top of her. She kept the magical cock in her the whole night. Now she was making slow circles with it to wake Luna up.

  “I thought you could handle an extra round,” Yen whispered into her ear.

  “I am tired…” Luna remarked.

  “Your love cave doesn’t seem to be,” Yen smiled and then went on to work on Luna’s neck with her mouth while she started making the circles a bit rougher. Soon enough Luna started moaning loud and clear.

  “You really aren’t hard to turn on,” Yen snickered.

  “Sorry,” Luna apologized.

  “That’s not a bad thing; I expect you to be ready whenever I desire it.”

  “I will try,” Luna replied shyly.

  “If all else fails, you really have an amazing tongue,” Yen stated and kissed Luna passionately, “it just needs a little practice… I will make sure to give you that though.”

  “Awww… you are so nice… just, could I practice on something other than on the cock?” Luna asked weakly.

  “Think you can satisfy my real parts? You are not quite there yet, Lunie… anyway, foreplay is over,” Yen concluded and went on to move her tool in and out of Luna. Luna was soon unable to anything other than moan. Yen kept it up for a long while, then postured up and went on to fuck the brains out of Luna.

  I am lying here like a dried slug. A dried slug in heaven, in fact.

  Luna lied in bed, completely exhausted. Meanwhile, Yen was dressing up to leave.

  “Do you really have to go?” Luna asked softly.

  “Can you handle anything more?”

  “I will if you give me a few hours”.

  “I don’t have time for that, my dear. Day is young and there are lots to do. After all, the tournament starts in the afternoon,” Yen didn’t budge.

  “Will I meet you again?” Luna changed the topic.

  “If you can find me,” Yen smiled.

  “Oh, come on, Yen, haven’t we played enough of these games?”

  “No,” Yen smirked, “after all, your performance is barely acceptable, so you need to make up for it in other ways.”

  Ouch! I am a newbie at this, but you don’t have to be so mean about it!

  “Will you be staying around the mansion?” Luna inquired.

  “No, I will be around the city at least till the tournament here ends,” Yen breathed.

  Luna made a vicious smile.

  “I will see you later today.”

  “Good luck,” Yen smiled back and left.

  22

  Salazar

  “Are you sure you don’t want anything from what I’ve cooked?” Yvonne asked him, half desperate judging by her voice.

  “Thank you, Yvonne, but I need this right now,” Salazar refused once more.

  “But why? You never ate lemons before!” she pressed on.

  “He needs to put on an angry face for the meeting,” Katherine answered for him.

  “Meeting?” Mark joined the discussion.

  “The tournament organization committee has an emergency meeting due to the unfortunate departure of the former chairman, Mr. Palcher,” Salazar explained.

  “Wait... so that corpse on the ground yesterday was the chairman of this whole tournament?” Mark asked.

  “Yes,” Salazar smiled, “which makes me the chairman now.”

  “Yay,” Katherine concurred as ironically as she could have.

  “But… why the lemons and not my cooking?” Yvonne didn’t let go.

  “Because your cooking is delicious and I need to look angry and vengeful,” Salazar explained.

  Yvonne blushed, but still pressed on, “can’t you just fake the face? You politicians should be good at that!”

  “We are and this is how we do it. Cold bath in the morning and unpeeled lemons are a good recipe for an angry face for most of the day,” Salazar smiled painfully as he bit into the lemon peel.

  Yvonne finally gave up and left him to his lemons.

  “Looks like a success, you look like you want to tear down the heavens and throw them at someone,” Katherine evaluated when they left the cells and headed toward the meeting.

  “I hate lemons,” Salazar concurred.

  “What else happened yesterday that you had to do all this to get rid of the stupid happy grin you had in the morning?” Katherine asked.

  “You mean aside from Palcher freeing up the chairmanship for me?”

  “That and the two young adventurers you took to the maintenance room,” Katherine replied.

  Tss! She really is good at catching me!

  “You shall see soon.”

  They walked through the complex, behind a turning they ran into a hooded man who was leaning against the wall in the corridor.

  “Seems like Palai has something more to say,” Salazar greeted with a smile. Katherine instantly drew her sword and took a defensive position.

  “At ease, Katherine,” Salazar tried to calm her down. She didn’t lower the sword though.

  “Indeed,” the man answered, “Palai says you want to mix up the tournament sites, make it Grimdawn, Cinderwell, Xona, Redwall, Illysaeas”

  Quite a change from Grimdawn, Redwall, Illysaeas, Cinderwell, Xona.

  “That adds quite some going back and forth,” Salazar countered.

  “Trust me, Salazar, you really don’t want the last two rounds in your territory,” the man smiled.

  When you are involved… I am sure I don’t.

  “Is it going to be that bad?”

  “Worse,” he nodded and vanished behind the corner. Katherine dashed after him to see where he is going but lost him as soon as she reached the corner.

  “We need to talk!” Katherine turned to Salazar, “what the hell is this about?”

  “None of your business.”

  “My job is to make sure you survive this unharmed and you seem to be doing everything you can against it! This is very much my business!” Katherine pressed.

  “Don’t worry, Katherine, I can handle myself just fine,” Salazar rejected.

  “They will have assassins waiting for you at every corner once they figure out that you are playing by the tunes of the Palai Order,” Katherine didn’t let go.

  “I can handle those,” Salazar smiled, “if you want to see a proof, then put me on the main lineup for the first round. I will make sure to silence your doubts,” he offered.

  “There is no way I let you run through a trap filed maze!” Katherine refused.

  “I will not set foot into it.”

  Katherine took a pause.

  “Alright, but you will spend the rest of the tournament on the bench if I am not impressed,” she agreed.

  Salazar grinned viciously. Then he took a lemon out of his pocket and bit into the peel to wipe the smile off his face.

  All the gathered lords and slavers were sitting around a table. The atmosphere in the room was so dense one could cut it. Salazar didn’t bother with greetings and just went on to his seat.

  “I hereby commence the emergency meeting. I would like to start with a note of regret for the departure of Mr. Palcher, the wisdom and friendship he had shared with us shall be gravely missed. Lest he finds better existence wherever he is now,” Salazar opened.

  All the men in the room nodded and kept the customary min
ute of silence.

  “Now let us proceed to the pressing matters. We have three major issues to tackle and no time for much consideration of it. First, we need to protect the integrity of the tournament and prevent any further interference from the Holy Order of Palai. Secondly, we need to secure the safety of the members of this council, so no further assassinations take place and thirdly, we need to prepare for a potential escalation should the Palai Order not let go easily,” Salazar summed up.

  “We also have the fourth issue and that is having a replacement put into the council for Mr. Palcher,” Edward Collward added.

  “True. Nevertheless, a replacement for Mr. Palcher will first require the Slaver Union itself to vote his replacement and potentially yours, Mr. Collward,” Salazar kept the steady tone, “after all, the seats on the council are attributed to positions and not individuals.”

  “That follows the rules of this council to the letter,” lord Montero of Cinderwell concurred.

  “I agree,” lord Weannu of Grimdawn added.

  “Shall we vote on this?” Salazar pressed the advantage.

  “That is unnecessary. As it has been said, this follows the rules of this council to the letter,” Collward conceded.

  “Onwards to the next issue. We need to get an idea of where the forces of Palai are located and how many are committed to this particular operation on their end,” Salazar continued pushing his agenda, “the locations of the tournament have been known for half a year. All the Palai forces are likely already well hidden in the respective cities and will be almost impossible to detect until it is too late. That’s how they operate most of the time anyway. That is why we should smoke them out. I suggest we switch the locations for the future rounds of the tournament so whatever the Order has prepared stops fitting their plans. I suggest we move the order of the sites to Cinderwell, Xona, Redwall and Illysaeas while keeping the same schedule.”

  “That would be a major obstacle to our preparations; we will completely exhaust ourselves just to do this!” Lord Montero protested.

  “Indeed, but we will also have the opportunity to catch the men of Palai moving between the cities. The Order doesn’t have enough men to have sufficient force everywhere. It is likely that they had their main force around Grimdawn and prepared for Redwall as of now. Their movement to Cinderwell would be impossible to miss even for medium quality sentries,” Salazar kept the tone unfazed.

  “I am surprised you are willing to sacrifice hosting the finals for this,” Collward joined in.

  “I have no interest in ending like the previous chairman.”

  “This will need a lot of preparations on our side, we cannot do it just like this,” Leker from Xona remarked.

  “Yes, we can,” Prince Stallington of Illysaeas retorted, “it is a purely logistical problem, tickets can easily be rearranged for different rounds and dates, while the tournament contestants shouldn’t really care where they travel or when.”

  No smiling! No smiling! No smiling! Salazar kept telling himself. Yet it was truly difficult not to because this was going exactly as he had hoped.

  There are twelve of us, this change heavily favors lords and slavers from Illysaeas and Redwall, that’s four votes. I am fifth and the decisive one so all I need is one more vote for it and it is done.

  “I do not mind the change, but do we have the resources to actually profit from it?” lord Armwell of Slupsey finally spoke.

  “Well, if we do not have the resources for an army large enough to oppose the Order of Palai during the tournament, any and all measures we take shall be meaningless. I have already instructed my court to raise an army at Xona,” Salazar smiled.

  There was a half a minute of shocked silence in the room. Then all lords soon started to chip in on how they shall have armies raised as well. Even the slavers got drawn into the debate and started making plans for their own armies.

  Once a city raises an army, every other city needs one. Facing this fact, all else becomes meaningless. I didn’t want to play this card, but I suppose I will be able to capitalize on it later. After all, if the Holy Order of Palai is up for a war, then I need to seriously beef up my own army for the case I end up being on the wrong end of it.

  “What the hell happened?” Luis Lawland of Cinderwell demanded. The confusion on his face was clear, as it was on the faces of other men present. The top members of the Slaver Union were all who were left in the room as the lords of various cities were not invited to this second, secret part of the meeting.

  “Calm down, Mr. Lawland, we shall handle this new development. Like we have always had,” Edward Collward tried to calm him down.

  “Like how? The whole point of us creating a secret army is now pointless! The whole idea was to catch the city lords unaware; now when they start raising armies as well we are ending up having a very expensive but useless toy!” Lawland didn’t let up.

  “It will take months before they have anything, we just need to execute our plan before then,” Collward refused.

  “It still is troublesome. Moving up the schedule is risky. Plus there is the obvious elephant in the room – how were we found out? Because the way it looks like is that the Holy Order of Palai is about to come at us with everything they have and the last thing we can afford is the city lords arming themselves up. What will stop them from simply banning slavery once we do not have the upper hand in terms of wealth and military strength?” Ulognar of Redwall joined in.

  “We are still way stronger than all of them,” Collward refused.

  “Are you, Edward?” a sweet womanly voice joined in.

  “Who the hell are you? How did you get here?” Woonard of Grimadawn snapped at her.

  “That’s Gly’Yen’Thn, an envoy of an associate of mine,” Collward explained.

  “A powerful associate of yours,” Yen smiled poisonously.

  “What do you want, Gly’Yen’Thn?” Collward asked coldly.

  “The usual. I offer assistance of our organization and don’t ask for almost anything in return,” Yen replied sweetly as she stalked through the room and sat down on the chair of the chairman, the one where Mr. Palcher used to sit on.

  “Your organization?” Woonard of Grimdawn looked surprised.

  “I will explain later,” Collward cut him off.

  “As usual, you will get nothing from us Gly'Yen'Thn. We like where your master is and intend to keep it that way,” Collward turned to Yen.

  “Do you really think the little armies of slaves you have built will help you, Collward? That their collars will make them save you when the sky is set ablaze? You need us way more than we need you and you know it,” Yen stated in a stone hard voice.

  “We are more than ready to face the Order and anyone else who stands in our way. Take your empty threats back to whatever hole you crawled up from,” Collward retorted.

  “I guess I will just wait for your plan to turn to dust before coming around again,” Yen smiled, “do you really think this plan of yours is just going to happen just like that? This goes for all of you. Answer yourself honestly – what exactly do you plan to do when the devil stands at your door?”

  “What the hell are you rambling about?” Ulognar of Redwall laughed.

  “You should know… Lucas is in town and I don’t think the Butcher of Balrigh has come to admire the scenery.”

  “You think we will get scared of a myth? You need to make up your bullshit more carefully if you want anyone to believe you,” Woonard of Grimdawn scoffed Yen off.

  “A myth? I guess I will come ask you again when your children are burning alive. You have no idea who you are about to face, how far will he go and what he is willing to do to achieve his goals. How you are now, you will all die this year and the Slaver Union you are so proud of will be nothing but ruins scattered around your bodies,” the voice of Yen resonated through the room as she got up from the chair and stalked to the door.

  “We are well prepared and protected. No army or assassin or whatever else th
e Palai Order can send shall reach us,” Leker of Xona joined in.

  “Won’t it… Mr. Leker? I hope you have some better guards than these,” Yen opened the door to the hallway, letting everyone see through. The hallway was full of corpses. Corpses of their guards. “Because they didn’t even manage to scream,” Yen announced before she went into the door and walked away over the corpses.

  Lawland of Cinderwell got up to close the door behind her.

  “Who the hell is that?” he asked angrily.

  “Gly'Yen'Thn, envoy of Agul Umokk. Yen for short,” Collward offered.

  “Agul Umokk? Isn’t that one of the so called Gods of demons? How do they call him… Lord of Fear?” Ulognar sounded surprised.

  “It’s just a shitty sect of deranged lunatics and Agul Umokk is just an empty name. There is nothing real behind or around it. No real power, nothing of what we have and are used to,” Collward explained.

  “Shall we have her removed?” Leker of Xona inquired.

  “Do you have spare assassins? Because we might need all of them if Lucas is truly involved,” Collward remarked.

  “You mean you believe that there is someone real by that name? For all we know, they just put name “Lucas” next to every inhuman act they do to create a phantom that would scare their opponents,” Woonard of Grimdawn probed.

  “I believe that is indeed the case since it is the most realistic explanation. It does not matter anyway. Whether it is just a nick name Palai throws around or there is something real behind it, we need to prepare ourselves for the opponent who will not play by the books,” Collward admitted.

  “What shall we do then?” Leker asked.

  “We need to move faster. Speed up everything by a month and spend no expense on making it happen. While I hate to admit it, Gly’Yen’Thn is right in one point – we need to strengthen our personal protection. All of us are replaceable, but further losses would threaten our timing,” Collward concluded.

  “Any objections?”

  Nobody replied.

  “I shall consider it done. Do not waver, my friends, we shall see this through to the end without fail.”