The claviscar began to come, not the frantic, jerking eruptions of most males, but a steady stream of hot fluid that quickly began to fill out Elethrine’s rectum. Breathless, panting hard, she could only let it happen. Knowing that her control of her bum hole was about to go and that the claviscar’s cock was not thick enough to plug her, she shut her eyes in a state of ecstatic shame stronger even than when she had first been penetrated anally.
The come burst from her bottom, splashing against the claviscar’s belly and running stickily down her thighs and over her tuppenny. She cried out, closer to orgasm than she had ever been without the stimulation of her clitoris. The claviscar - used only to his own type and usually their vaginas at that - abruptly moved back. He gave a strange cry, not unlike a squeal of alarm, then lost his balance on her upraised bottom. She felt his penis pulled suddenly from her rectum and heard the crash as he fell back into the pit, then the snap and whine of the net mechanism activating.
Aisla and the dwarves returned a while later, to find Elethrine still tied in place and the claviscar struggling furiously in the net. They immediately gave whoops of joy, which turned to laughter as they discovered that Elethrine’s anus was still pulsing and oozing sperm.
Unable to resist, Rhaiton had Aisla suck him erect and immediately mounted Elethrine, buggering her happily while the maid rubbed at her mistress’s tuppenny to give her a desperately needed orgasm. Having satisfied all the dwarves and Aisla, Elethrine was untied and carried down the hill to be welcomed on the North Wind. Somewhat uncomfortable, but distinctly proud of herself, she went below decks. Supper was due to be served and then the celebration of their success was bound to be long, riotous and require the full services of Talithea, Aisla and herself.
Chapter Twelve - Maiden’s End
Elethrine gazed in rapture at the grey-black towers of Ateron, heedless of the waves that tossed the ship like a paper doll. Salt spray blew hard in her face as the seamen struggled to bring the ship around to face the harbour, but she was scarcely aware of their cries, nor of the howling wind. Instead she had eyes only for the grim citadel, bastion of the Princes of northern Aegmund, a place that had housed the enemies of her family for generations yet now seemed a place of welcome and fellowship. Beyond the keep and town hills rose in ranks, blue-black in the dull light, their outlines jagged with oak, black spruce, larch and coffinwood. To the east a craggy line of faint grey hinted at mountains, the Spine, on the flank of which her home lay.
‘Get below you fool trollop!’ one of the mates roared, but Elethrine ignored him, holding her place at the bow as she ship made her slow, ponderous turn into the harbour.
Only when the North Wind had been drawn against the quay by longshoremen and lashed to great black-iron bollards did she leaving her post, jumping onto the quay and kissing the cold stone with far greater fervour than she had shown any of the crew. As she rose to her feet she discovered Aisla beside her, the maid’s face beaming with pleasure at once more being on the soil of Kora. Talithea was still on the ship, her delicate features set in a pensive frown.
‘Why so glum Moth?’ Elethrine called up, shouting above the wind. ‘Are we not home?’
Talithea returned a weak smile and started for the gang plank that the crew were moving into position.
‘I am home, true,’ the Princess announced as she joined them, ‘and in truth I never thought to see this moment. Yet in ways I wish myself back in Apraya. Even the life of slave whore to Irqual’s corsairs seems preferable to the disgrace that now faces me.’
Elethrine did not answer but placed an arm around Talithea’s shoulders, suddenly feeling tactless for having shown so much pleasure at her homecoming. As soon as they announced themselves they would be taken to a matron for the inspection of their maidenheads. When it was discovered that Talithea was no longer virgin there would be a scandal. Her betrothal to Prince Kavisterion would be abandoned and she would be sent to some bleak celibentuary to live her life out as a shamed recluse. Elethrine, with her maidenhead intact, could confidently submit to inspection by Prince Kavisterion’s matrons and then demand an honour guard to see her safe to Korismund Keep.
‘If we could but find a witch,’ Aisla suggested.
‘A vain hope,’ Talithea replied dejectedly. ‘For we need a guard to reach a witch yet we cannot command a guard until after seeing a witch.’
‘Perhaps that is not so,’ Elethrine put in. ‘Highborn of Korismund come here occasionally - to duel, challenge or perhaps seek a ravishment. Saving the last case, their colours will be displayed at the window of any tavern they occupy.’
‘A kind thought,’ Talithea answered, ‘but hardly a practical one. No thane or squire with the courage to seek combat here would miss the opportunity to ravish the daughter of his Liege Lord, especially when she had not so much as a wooden girdle to guard her chastity.’
‘He need not know that I am so vulnerable,’ Elethrine said. ‘Besides, in the heat of ravishment he might not notice that you lacked a maidenhead, while I would simply end up wedded to whatever fine knight achieved me.’
‘You are generous,’ Talithea said, ‘and perhaps it is not such a foolish plan.’
‘Better than confinement in a celibentuary,’ Elethrine remarked, ‘where rumour says the girls are spanked bare every night to remind them of their sins.’
‘And made to scrub floors in the nude,’ Aisla put in, ‘with a lighted candle thrust in their deflowered tuppenny…’
‘I have heard the rumours, thank you,’ Talithea cut in somewhat frostily. ‘Very well, Pommette, let us try to reach a witch. Who knows - after what we have come through perchance we might succeed.’
Wrapping their heavy cloaks around them and raising the cowls to obscure their features, they set off along the quay, ignoring the glances of curious fishermen and sailors. Ateron rose from the sea, a steep town with the quality of the houses improving as the hillside rose higher. By the docks was a jumble of warehouses and low taverns. Singing could be heard in one of these waterfront bars, a rude ditty the verses of which the female and male revellers sang alternately -
Four and twenty maidens, all in a line
Each so sweet and bashful, her innocence divine
Four and twenty longshoremen, each with a groat
Quite enough to tempt a maid to lift a petticoat
Four and twenty maidens, all in a rank
Every one so naughty that she deserves a spank
Four and twenty longshoremen, each with a stick
A maiden caught and made to kneel, by such a sneaky trick
Four and twenty maidens, all in a column
Their bottoms show, their tears run down and every one is solemn
Four and twenty longshoremen, each with a treat
A bottom plump and nude and round, his very own to beat
Four and twenty maidens, all in a row
Dresses up and drawers apart and bottoms all aglow
Four and twenty longshoremen, each with a smirk
A punished girl with willing hands to hold his cock and jerk
Four and twenty maidens, all in a queue
Each with a handsome cock to lick and wondering how it grew
Four and twenty longshoremen, each with a grunt
As virtue’s lost, his prick invades, her sopping little cunt
Four and twenty maidens, all in a file
With fannies wide and cocks inside - on every face a smile
Elethrine found herself smiling. It was a variation of a common taproom song, in which the identity of the males varied but the essence was always the same - the tricking of maidens into beating and then the loss of their maidenheads. Before, the ditty had always infuriated her. This was partly because it implied that maidens were so stupid that they could be lured by the trick of offering a groat for a flash of underwear and then being tripped into a spanking position. Worse, it implied that once a girl’s bottom was hot she would cheerfully submit to cock sucking and defloweration. As she
now knew, the later part at least was close to the truth, and hearing the ditty once more brought only amusement and a fresh surge of joy at being home.
Above the docks was a commercial district with the shops and houses of artisans, then the houses of rich merchants and the lesser highborn with a few inns of quality among them and finally the keep itself, home to the Prince and his immediate circle.
The girls walked rapidly up the steeply cobbled streets, Talithea nervous and moody, Aisla and Elethrine unable to suppress their excitement at homecoming. There was also the strange feeling of no longer being taller than everybody else, for during the entire period of their exile no more than a handful of those they had met had equalled their height. As they climbed they left behind the worst of the stench of fish and rotting seaweed that had shrouded the harbour and came into areas with purer air and a generally more refined atmosphere.
‘Twice only have I been here,’ Elethrine announced as they reached the broad, semi-circular street that ran beneath the walls of the keep, ‘and was of course lodged in the keep. Some of our retinue, I believe, occupied a fine inn.’
‘The Black Cock,’ Aisla replied, ‘it is to the left.’
They turned, feeling intensely conspicuous as they moved among the crowds, not one of whom had their face covered or walked with anything but confidence, be they an errand boy or a thane. The Black Cock proved to be a timbered building five stories in height and two gables wide, with the upper stories leaning far out over the street. Elethrine scanned the windows nervously, hoping to see a familiar banneret.
‘Luck is with us,’ Aisla said suddenly, ‘see, in the side window, the green and bronze of the house Mirone. Squire Hathrul himself is perhaps within.’
‘Luck indeed,’ Elethrine answered, moving to where Aisla was peering down a narrow side alley. ‘He is young and doubtless comes to duel, yet he is married, having taken Leitea, the daughter of a reeve, some four years past. He is perfect.’
‘Let us greet this Hathrul then, and quickly,’ Talithea said with a nervous glance to a pair of men-at-arms high above on the walls of the keep.
Inside the inn an enquiry yielded the information that Squire Hathrul was indeed in residence and had gone up to his room no more than an hour before. Thanking the innkeeper, Elethrine led the girls up the steep staircase of wood polished smooth by generations of use. Her rap on the door produced an almost instant response, a handsome young man wearing only a surcoat of deep green and bronze throwing the door wide with a look of annoyance that faded to be replaced by amazement as he realised the identity of his visitors.
‘Demoiselle Elethrine!’ he exclaimed. ‘And the Princess Talithea!?
‘Squire Hathrul,’ Elethrine replied coolly. ‘Seeing your colours and being distant from fair Korismund, we chose to greet you. It is agreeable to chance upon the squire of a liege house when in a foreign city.’
‘I am honoured,’ Hathrul replied, stumbling over his words in his haste to speak. ‘But how come you here? Where is your retinue? I heard that a great demon had swept you off to the south and I feared for the House of Korismund!’
‘At a later date I shall be pleased to favour you with our saga,’ Elethrine answered. ‘For the instant, the Princess and I require an honour guard.’
‘I shall oblige, of course,’ he answered, ‘one moment.’
He disappeared back into the room, Elethrine following to find a golden haired girl sitting on the bed and struggling with the fastenings of her drawers. Her chemise was still undone, and as she attempted a curious cross between a curtsy and a bow her heavy breasts fell clear of the material.
‘Leitea,’ Elethrine greeted her, unable to resist a smile at the girl’s frantic efforts to cover her breasts.
‘But won’t you be visiting Prince Kavisterion?’ Hathrul asked of Talithea.
‘Without proper escort? Unthinkable!’ Elethrine answered quickly. ‘When will you be able to leave?’
‘Now, in the circumstances,’ Hathrul replied. ‘We had come here in the hope that I might gain some advantage on the duelling field, but the Aeg seem ill-disposed to sport at present. Your venture takes precedence in any case. We can be ready as soon as my men-at-arms can be fetched from the taverns and brothels, begging your pardon Demoiselle… Princess.’
‘Granted,’ Elethrine replied, ‘merely hurry.’
Within an hour the group were assembled in the courtyard, twelve mounted men at arms and Leitea’s maid in addition to the five of them. New clothes had been fetched at their order, and once more they were clad according to their station as citizens of Mund. The three girls kept their faces swathed in cloth as the troop clattered out along the broad street and through the wall gate of Ateron. Only when the road divided and they took the smaller, eastern fork towards Korismund did they reveal their faces, Elethrine’s tension fading as if the act of displaying her features was in itself a guarantee of safety.
Ahead of them the land rose in great broad hills, swathed in thick forest and cut by occasional gorges. The road followed ridges, crossing into valleys only when necessary. At first they passed occasional small holdings, then remote keeps, each perched on it’s spire of rock. Elethrine felt a strange pride, born of the knowledge that the vast efforts that had gone into making the keeps so strong was largely the result of the threat posed over the centuries by her own family.
The path became wilder and more narrow, finally giving way to a single track running beneath the overhanging foliage of great oaks and coffinwoods. Twice Elethrine thought to detect the faint waft of goblin musk and noted Leitea shiver in apprehension - or just possibly anticipation.
All the rest of the day they rode, moving ever deeper into the forest, until Hathrul ordered an encampment made in the lee of a great bluff that marked the start of the true foothills of the Spine. A tent was erected for her and Aisla, in which Talithea presently joined them, the three girls sleeping in each other’s arms without thought for the gossip it might cause if they were discovered.
At noon on the following day they came within sight of Aurora’s spire, a needle of grey stone that seemed to grow from the living rock itself. They passed within a league of it and Elethrine requested a halt. Hathrul obeyed, his position with respect to Elethrine preventing him from either countermanding her order or inquiring why she might wish to visit the witch.
Leaving the others at the base of the slope, Elethrine, Talithea and Aisla walked up towards the spire. As she approached Elethrine found a knot of fear building in her throat despite her feelings of righteous indignation at the way she had been treated. While Aurora had the reputation for being well disposed, and particularly sympathetic to maidens, their errand was not an easy one, and the witch’s sheer power was sufficient to make the prospect of demanding anything from her daunting to say the least. Talithea evidently did not share her qualms, but walked with a brisk, eager step. She also had the dangerous glitter in her eyes that Elethrine had come to know so well.
‘Let me speak Moth, please,’ Elethrine said, mindful of the chaos that Talithea’s temper had caused before.
‘I wish to have words with the brat Ea,’ Talithea answered, ‘as should you Pommette, and you too Aisla.’
‘We do,’ Elethrine answered, ‘yet please remember that while Ea may be a brat she is also a sorceress of some power. In any case, let us see to the restoration of your maidenhead before attempting any redress of the balance of justice.’
‘Very well, but I will not be thwarted,’ Talithea replied. ‘First I shall have the brat stripped, then I shall take her across my knee and spanked her impudent little rump. When you have both done the same, we will have her cast to the Glissades - as we were ’
‘Thank you,’ Elethrine responded as they reached the base of the spire. ‘As to the punishment, we can only hope that Aurora agrees to it’s justice.’
A single door opened into the spire, quite unguarded, which was in itself a sign of the witch’s indifference to the dangers of the outside wor
ld. The door was unadorned, with no handle or other instrument of entry, yet it swung open as they approached it. Steeling herself, Elethrine stepped within, to find herself in a bare circular room from which a stair rose to a higher level. They took this, rising to find themselves in a tall cone illuminated by slits set high in the spire above. In the centre was a dais covered in white fur and pillows of thick white velvet and on this Aurora reclined, as languid as a cat and stark naked. With one hand the witch was stroking the jet black hair of her apprentice, whose head rested on her thigh. Ea was also naked and her black in black eyes regarded the three girls with an insolent calm. A round mirror lay on the bed beside them.
Elethrine stopped, her carefully judged greeting lost in her astonishment at the two witchs’ nudity. For a woman of Mund to go naked was a thing of extraordinary shame, and during the spanking that had caused all their troubles Ea as been as outraged at the prospect of being stripped as Elethrine herself would have been. Suddenly the idea of forcing Ea to accept a naked, over the knee spanking as punishment seemed less satisfying than it had a moment before.
‘The answer to your question,’ Aurora said casually, ‘is that Ea did not object so much to being nude as to the significance that you yourselves placed on her nudity. She is, after all, a mixture of black Koran, Rai Isle highlander and nymph, and so understands little of Mundic propriety. What’s more, you, Aisla, were going to give her what was undoubtedly an unjust spanking.’
‘I… I’m sorry,’ Aisla stammered.
‘No matter, you have been punished and perhaps have learnt to curb your arrogance,’ Aurora continued, her calm, authoritative tone making Elethrine feel small, silly and anything but righteous.
‘Yet do you consider our punishment just, merely for a girlish prank?’ she managed, balancing her words to express her true feelings without showing arrogance.
‘Indeed not,’ Aurora replied, greatly to Elethrine’s surprise. ‘ If you ask to have Ea punished I must concede the justice of your demands.’
‘I humbly request that she may be punished,’ Elethrine said quickly before Talithea could speak.
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