Riposte (Purgatory Wars Book 2)

by Cobolt, Dragon

  “Not embalming,” Liam said, rubbing his hands together and trying to quiet his queasy stomach. “We're performing what is called, in my land, an autopsy.”

  “You're looking at yourself?” Meg asked, sounding baffled.

  “No, Liam explained it to me,” Tethis said, sounding excited. “The idea is fascinating. Essentially, all bodies have things inside them. Innards. They do things. This is well known – but the exact function of many of them are a mystery to us. Not to Liam's people on Earth!”

  “Oh goodie,” Meg said, her voice filled with faux excitement. Then she blinked. “Wait, if you know what things do – you know what to do when they go, well, bad, right?”

  Liam nodded.

  Meg looked thoughtful. “Oh, that actually does sound quite useful.”

  “I still say it is ill luck,” a voice called in from the side of their little huddle.

  There were no medical bays aboard the ship; while Vulkis might have been quite proud of his craft, it wasn't the USS Enterprise by a long shot. That meant that this entire conversation and dissection was taking place in a somewhat tidied up corner of the ship's main deck. The rest of the deck was awash in the surviving crew – they had only lost four people, once Tethis' healing magic was used – doing their best to repair the ship. Their best was well enough. Less than two hours after the battle and Liam could hardly believe there had been a fight, save for the statue that had been tucked carefully in the corner.

  The crewman who had spoken was a tall, burly looking Hellene. “Cutting open a body! You may be exposed to who knows what illness or filth or dark spirits.”

  “We're just going to cut open his brain,” Liam said. “I'm working on a theory.”

  The crewman snorted and walked away.

  “Hate to agree with an uneducated Neo-Cretan, but why are you interested in his mucus?” Meg asked.

  “The brain is where all the thinking goes on,” Tethis said, brightly. “Which is a complete shock to me. I thought it was for cooling blood."

  “Wait, if all the thinking goes on inside of the brain,” Meg said, tapping her temple. “Why does getting excited make my heart go faster?” She frowned. “You'd think my brain should start to pulse, then, not my heart.”

  “It's complicated,” Liam said, holding up the bronze dagger that he had scrounged off the ship. He held it up, then slowly brought it down. He cut at one of the large protuberances that stuck out of the side of the lizardman's head. He winced at the faint dribble of blood, then worked the knife, and then the scales came away and he wiped away the blood with a thumb and grinned slowly. It was a delightful sensation; the same tingle that came from successfully completing a puzzle in a point and click adventuring game.

  “I was right,” he said.

  “Okay, what was your theory?” Meg asked, her voice soft. “Because that's a crystal. And if your theory was my theory, than I think we just have even more questions on hand.”

  It wasn't just a crystal. It was a huge nodule of hardened crystalline material that looked as if it had fused with the lizardman's skull and grown outwards like a tumor. It had the same inner glowing light as the strange creature that Liam had run into on his first arrival in Purgatory. It was the same crystal that Tethis used as her foci – the same crystal that Tethis had said that Coptic embalmers found inside of valkyrie bodies.

  The same crystals used by the Ancients to craft their teleportation devices and light sources and who knows what else.

  In the end, it took some chiseling for Liam to work the crystal free from the lizardman's head. Less than a minutes work. It took two hours to convince Vulkis to turn the ship around.

  The Aesir looked at Liam as if he had taken leave of his senses.

  “We got out of that trap, yes, but we didn't kill every single lizardman in the tribe,” he said. “They broke and ran when the basilisk died, but that just means if we come back, we- No! I won't do it.”

  “Listen,” Liam said. “That lizardman was using this to cast magic. I bet the lizardman you killed on the way here? The one you said called down lightning? I bet he had crystal nodules too. We need the band around that basilisk's neck to start figuring out what they're doing with them. What if every lizardman tribe has their own basilisk to attack ships? Or cities?”

  Vulkis remained stubborn, but they wore him down, pointing out that basilisk, being native from Earth, had no predators. Liam painted a picture of every river flowing with basilisks that went after ships with the single minded determination of pirate kings. Tethis pointed out that a siege force of a dozen could overcome an Aesir settlement in a few minutes. Meg just cracked her knuckles.

  Liv, though, watched silently. But Liam wasn’t sure if it was Vulkis she watched or him.

  Finally, Vulkis lifted up his hands and sighed. “Fine! We'll go back.”

  The crew grumbled.

  They were silenced by Vulkis giving them extra gold – doled out from the purse that Sobek had given Liam.

  The crew continued grumbling – but much softer – as they worked their oars into the water. Liam remained at the railing, watching the river creep by as sluggishly as if he had been walking. Tethis stood beside him, rubbing her hands together. She shook her head.

  “It took me years of studying Ancient artifacts to learn how to cast,” she said, quietly. “These lizardmen are doing it naturally. I don't know how to feel about it. It feels like they stole my magic. Is that weird?”

  “Well, see, I'm starting to wonder if it is magic,” Liam said, frowning.

  “What?” Tethis asked, her brow furrowing. Her ears tweaked up.

  “In my world, we know that the universe is, oh, thirteen billion years old.” Liam looked at her. “Billion. That's a thousand million. We measure our history in decades and centuries. Millennium, if we're lucky. Now, if we measure our history like that, and we can make iPhones and cars and all those other amazing things that I've told you about, then what could someone make if they measured their history in millions? Would their iPhones and cars and stuff look like, well, this?” He held up the chunk of crystal, waggling it at her.

  Tethis looked somber. “I live in a world where gods walk the lands like titans. I've heard tales of the Eye of Ra, smiting entire cities.” She gestured around her. “I've seen paintings of the great desert of glass. And you?” She pointed a finger at Liam. “You are giving me the, ah, what was that phrase?” She shivered. “The screamy-weamies.”

  Liam smiled, then reached down and ruffled her hair. He paused. “I hope you don't mind me doing that.”

  Tethis – her cheeks a dark green – smiled at him. “I like it.”

  “Oh, just do it already!” Meg hissed, her eyes peeking from over a crate. Liam jumped almost a foot in the air. He put his hand over his heart, panting.

  “How long were you there?” He asked.

  “Long enough,” Meg hissed, slowly ducking back below the crate, her eyes being the last thing to vanish in the night. As they glowed an electric blue, it was hard to miss them. Liam shook his head, then looked down at Tethis again.

  “All the pressure almost makes it seem unappealing, huh?”

  “Oh, come onnnnnnn!” Meg groaned.

  Tethis smiled – then pointed out at the river. “There! There!”

  Liam leaned over the railing as Tethis summoned up a light cantrip. It flared out and showed the floating corpse of the basilisk.

  Liam grinned. “Jackpot.”

  * * *

  “S-So, uh, this is the collar off the basilisk,” Tethis said, setting the large loop of cracked, sun beaten leather onto the table. “Let's- eeep!”

  Liam had knelt behind her, his hands reaching up. He cupped her breasts, gently, through her clothes, squeezing and fondling them. They were smaller than Megara's, but considering the differences between the two women's sizes, they felt larger and a great deal softer. Tethis squirmed, her head tossing to the side as she bit her lip hard to keep from making a noise. For a moment, there was nothing
but the rustling sound of fabric in the cramped quarters as Liam's fingers found the hard points of Tethis' nipples through her shirt. They were just as sensitive as Liam had hoped; playing with them turned the quiet of the cabin into a beautiful sympathy of gasps as Tethis arched her back.

  Her ear-tip pressed to his lips and Liam decided to take advantage. He closed his eyes and circled the tip of the gobliness' ear with his tongue, teasing her with the warmth and the wetness. This was too much: Tethis broke her silence and actually moaned, her knees quivering underneath her shift.

  “Liam.” She freighted the word with enough eager wantonness to make Liam hard for a week. His cock tented his kilt and he reached down to undo the straps and ties that kept the Coptic-style garment on his body. As he tugged at his straps, Tethis continued: “The collar? This is, so-”

  “Sudden?” Liam murmured as his kilt slipped off. “I’ve learned, Tethis. In Purgatory, take your chances when you get them. The collar can wait. We can’t.”

  “Liam,” Tethis whispered as his hands took hold of her shift.

  There were advantages to living in a Bronze Age world ruled by magic, barbarism and ancient pagan gods.

  One of those advantages was that the clothes were really easy to take off.

  Not that Liam hurried the process of taking hold of Tethis' shift as she turned to face him, the basilisk collar forgotten for the moment. Her eyes locked on his and shone with an eagerness that was only interrupted by the sheet of white that momentarily covered her face as Liam pulled her shift up and over her head. It got caught on her arms for a moment and Liam grinned, an idea sparking in his mind. He pulled the fabric backwards rather than upwards, catching the hem against Tethis' nose and covering her eyes.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but then Liam was kissing her. Gently, his tongue probed her mouth and felt the warmth of her own as she pressed back against him. But Liam took advantage of her semi-trapped arms and her covered eyes. He drew back as she pushed forward, leaving her mouth open and seeking. Quietly, Tethis made a sound more animal than language: Mrr?

  Where did my kissing go?

  Liam leaned forward and kissed the tips of her emerald green breasts, finding her nipples as dark as he had imagined them to be. He sucked on one, hard enough to draw out another word from the scribe.

  “Oh Liam!”

  He tried adding just a hint of tooth. Not a bite, just enough pressure to tease her and catch her nipple, then tug it outwards. Her breast was pliant enough to stretch slightly, and the hint of pain seemed to do something for Tethis as she moaned loudly again, her hips bucking. Looking down, Liam saw that her sex was completely hairless, just as he remembered from the first time he had seen her bend over without realizing her shift was riding up.

  Liam wasn’t sure if her bald sex was natural because she was a gobliness or cultural because she was Coptic - it was their fashion to shave themselves bald and wear wigs, after all. He was sure that he was a total pig, though, because he loved hairless pussy.

  I'm going to feminist hell, he thought as he cooed quietly. “I love your pretty pussy, Tethis.”

  “Liam!” she squeaked, actually trying to get her head out from under the shift. “I- that's, uh, a bit-”

  “Naughty?” Liam asked.

  “I just, um, never thought I'd be, uh, complimented. On. You know.” Tethis' cheeks were dark green now.

  “That's funny, cause the first time I met you, you flashed it to me,” Liam said. “Bending forward in this little thing.” He held up his shift.

  Tethis' eyes widened. “And- I- oh!”

  “Though, I was curious back then, if being hairless was part of being a gobliness or a Coptic,” Liam added.

  “It's hygienic!” She sounded defensive.

  Liam dropped his hand, his finger crooking as he gently started to rub the folds of her sex. It was green in the same way that her nipples were, the color darkening at the very edges to a near black. That accentuated the slickness of her, making her pussy-lips glisten as if they had been oiled. The slick noises made her embarrassed and she turned her head to the side. Megara, by this point, would have been basically fucking his fingers.

  Liam had to admit, the shyness was adorable.

  “You, uh, ah-” Tethis shook her head, clearly trying to speak without interruption. “You're good at that.”

  “I haven't even started,” Liam said, casually. A faint part of his mind wondered at what he was doing – a tiny part that hadn't fully rejected some of the more sex negative teachings of Christianity. It was a part left over from a childhood summer school, before high school and college explorations had introduced him to the concepts of other thinkers than St. Augustine. But that part of his mind did have something that the rest of him listened too: What if Megara gets jealous?

  He countered: What if she's watching right now?

  Tethis grabbed onto his wrist with one hand, her fingers squeezing him tightly, her other hand working her fingers through the small hammock in the side of the room, the strands of the ropes tangling around her knuckles like the world's crudest bit of Japanese rope bondage. But it kept her on her feet as she ducked her head forward and moaned, her sex spreading to Liam's fingers. His thumb slid to her clit, circling it gently as he finger-fucked her.

  The slick schlick noise that filled the cabin was almost as erotic as the way Tethis' pendulous breasts swayed in delicious counterpoint with her rocking hips.

  Almost.

  “You like that?” Liam purred.

  “Yes,” Tethis gasped, barely audible.

  “You like your cute little goblin pussy getting finger-fucked?” Liam enjoyed the way she squirmed and looked guilty, as if she wasn't sure if she should be enjoying that as much as she was.

  “Gods, yes,” she breathed.

  Liam paused in his thrusting, thumb resting on her clit. “Want more?”

  Tethis nodded, her hair bobbing around her head, her ears twitching upwards. Her hips didn't get the memo that things had stopped moving and continued to rise and fall, as if she was trying to fuck herself against Liam's hand. Liam felt very wicked as he leaned forward and whispered in Tethis' ear.

  “Say please, my little magelet,” he murmured.

  Tamora Pierce would be pissed, he thought.

  “Please-” Tethis gasped as Liam added a second finger to her tightness. He noticed, though, that she wasn't so tight that he couldn't picture his cock fitting inside of her. Tethis threw her head back and moaned so loudly that Liam was pretty sure a good chunk of the crew heard her. Hell, he'd have been shocked if the lizardmen hadn't heard her, hiding in whatever hole they had fled too. His hand felt slick with her juices as her hips bucked and rocked and she fell, her whole weight pressing against him. Her lips found his neck, kissing, sucking. Then she kissed across his muscular chest, tracing the lines of his muscles, desperately. She whispered.

  “Fuck me.”

  “Louder,” Liam groaned, his hands going to her hips, smearing her juices along her sweat-streaked green flesh.

  “Fuck me!” she whined.

  “Beg,” Liam grunted as he picked her up and pinned her against the wall, her face pressed between his nipples, his cock slotted between her green things, his cock pulsing with eagerness. Her sex was furnace hot against him – and so wet. He was pretty sure that he'd fit, with that much lubrication.

  “Please, gods, fuck me,” she whispered. “I've watched you and Meg, and I want it so much!”

  Liam darted his hips back and hesitated, looking down. Compacted against the wall, with her belly pushed upwards, her breasts touching her thighs, her feet pressed to his chest, Tethis looked deliciously compact. Her hair was bedraggled and her eyes were wild – all signs of the demure mage gone. In her place was an eager woman who wanted Liam as badly as he had ever seen Megara want it.

  “Come on,” she groaned.

  Liam pressed his cock to her sex – hesitated – then slipped the head of his cock into her. Her pussy spread before him and L
iam marveled at how tight she was. Tethis' head rolled back against the wall, her eyes closing as her dark hair sheeted over her breasts for a moment, before being pushed away by her hands so that she could cup and squeeze her own tits. She found her nipples and, with the directness of her own desire, started to pull on them harder than Liam would have dared.

  The playing was almost unneeded – Liam was so turned on that he had almost cum twice, just getting halfway into her tight green sex. He closed his eyes and started thinking about whatever he could to get his mind off blowing his load inside of Tethis: Baseball, THAC0, the President, anything.

  It worked.

  He managed to hilt himself inside of Tethis, making her croon quietly. “So... full...”

  Liam opened one eye, grinning at her in admiration. “You think?”

  “Mhhh!”

  Liam slid his cock backwards, the shaft gleaming with her juices, then rocked forward, the wet slap of his balls against her jiggly, soft ass music to his ears. He started to thrust with a deliberate slowness, knowing that if he did her faster and harder, then this wouldn't last nearly long enough.

  Liam had been regularly fucking a literal angel with the stamina of Wonder Woman so you might have thought this would have dimmed the fires of his lust for other girls. But he'd wanted Tethis since the moment he laid eyes on her. And besides, he was a college freshman.

  Liam's hips met Tethis' again and again and she rocked backwards and forward, her breasts jiggling as she looked into his eyes. “I love it,” she gasped. “Your cock feels so good – so big.”

  “I'd hope so.” Liam spoke around gritted teeth, still trying to control himself as he fucked her. His hand slipped to her ankle, lifting and spreading one of her legs. Fortunately, Tethis was flexible as hell. “So,” he grinned at her, “Figured anything out about the collar?”

  Tethis giggled, but her laughter quickly turned into a moan, her head thrashing to the side as her sex tightened around his cock like a fist.