“Well,” Liv said, quietly, “That was fun.”
The Golden Git came around the boulder. “Are you insane?” he asked.
“No,” Liv said, turning to look at him.
“You disarmed one of my best men!” the Golden Git said. “And you charged an entrenched position wearing light armor, without a shield!” He shook his head. “Do you know what your father would do to me if you died?”
“No edged-” Liv started.
“They were throwing rocks!” The Golden Git bellowed at her. “That blessing doesn't matter one whit if you take a thrown boulder to the face!”
Liv smirked. “Nothing is more precious than a soldier dying for a cause.”
The Golden Git blinked. Then he frowned, his surprisingly expressive lips making the expression all the more foreboding. He wheeled his horse around, waving with one hand. “Give up the sword to Anix, slave. And never do that again.”
Liv's fingers opened of their own accord. She didn't have time to resist the urge, but once it was over, she felt the simmering anger she had been holding in check – barely – burn through her. She started to walked forward, her fists clenched. The ugly lizardman rode up beside her, snapping his teeth and cracking his tail near her nose.
“Shut the fuck up,” he snarled.
“I didn't say anything,” Liv growled.
The ugly lizardman rolled his eyes, so expressive and so strangely human that it took Liv aback. She remembered the look they had shared across the battlefield.
“Your face was speaking louder 'n anything else, you dumb chit,” he said, using the insult as casually as if he was breathing. Oddly, it made Liv feel less insulted, rather than more. “The General, he don't like it when people die who shouldn't.”
“To be fair, if I die while under his protection, Ares will shove his fist up his ass,” Liv said, sweetly.
The ugly lizardman blinked. He shook his head. “You think as twisted as the General does sometimes.”
He muttered under his breath as he started to knee his horse away, fully expecting Liv to follow him. Liv wondered if her collar would let her get far. If the Golden Git hadn't ordered her to stay by his side, then the collar wouldn't interpret her as disobeying him.
But then she looked down at the hideous monsters. She looked away, at the foothills that they had climbed to reach the Barrier Mountains. The vastness of the desert spread out there, broken only by the very faint glint of movement that showed where the basilisks that gave the desert its name moved.
She turned and hurried to catch up, leaving a hilt and a corroded blade on the ground behind her.
It would have to do, as a tomb marker for the monsters.
* * *
Liam looked out of the second story window of the small, smelly, roach-infested apartment that they hadn't so much rented as squatted in, and then shook his head. Everything spoke to him. The looks on people's faces. The hunched shoulders. The muttered conversations. The glances at the occasional patrol of guards that marched through the streets. “This is a city about to explode.”
Meg nodded. “And thanks to Maurice and his endless fuckups, I know just what an explosion looks like.”
Mary frowned, looking up from the crude map of what she knew of the city that she had drawn on the floor using some charcoal rescued from an open firepit. “The fact the artisan who made the godkiller apparently destroyed his own laboratory is not a comfort to me.”
Meg shrugged, as if to say: What can you do?
Liam shook his head and looked back out the window, watching the people walking by intently. Getting into the City of the Dead had been a nerve wracking affair. They had marched down from the valley, past the Forest of Woe, and came to the gates. They had been as impressive as the fortifications erected around Faiyum Falls – more so, in fact. Taller, wider, with better crenelations, and regularly placed rectangular towers that had heavy siege weapons permanently mounted. The fact that they were barely patrolled seemed almost ancillary to their size and their girth.
Of course, a single set of siege guns could pound them flat in a weekend.
The gate had been surrounded by a large tent city, filled with merchants. Many of them had a desperate air to them, and several were near to starving. Only a scant few had been allowed into the city, while lizardman guards patrolled the whole area with a censorious eye. Liam had seen what the scaled brutes had done to any who looked even slightly troublesome.
The four of them had come to the gates themselves and been accosted by an equal number of lizardmen guards. They had been dressed and armored in brutal, practical looking gear – leather and bronze that looked fairly uniform and covered their vitals, but little more. Their weapons had been short spears and shields, and they had demanded what Liam and his friends wanted.
Liam, fortunately, had come up with a fairly good story.
“We're here,” he said, “To make supplications to the true God of Purgatory, of course. We were sent by the Anzin tribes to pray at the temple.”
The lizardmen had muttered to one another, then sent a messenger back to some higher up. The messenger had left, returned, and Liam and his friends had been welcome into the city. Praying at the temple hadn't taken more than a few minutes, and none of the guards seemed to care what they did once they were inside.
“Ah!” Liam slapped the wall to get Meg and Mary's attentions as he saw a familiar, short form hurrying in from the crowds, dressed in a concealing robe. Tethis came to the room, panting softly as she closed the door.
“I never knew being a child would make me so invisible,” she said, adjusting the robes. They had been thick enough to conceal the fact that, for a 'child', Tethis was amazingly stacked, and the hood concealed her green skin. She still looked hot, sweaty, and disgusted. “But Mary's intelligence hasn't changed. There's a major slave market out by the front of the Palace of the God. It's not like any slave market I've seen before – they don't just use collars, and the people aren't just criminals. Whole families are there.” She shook her head. “It reminds me more of the chattel slavery you talked about, Liam.”
“It doesn't make any sense,” Meg muttered.
“Why not?” Mary asked, charcoal sketching a deeper circle around the slave markets on the map. Now that it was confirmed, she could mark it. The map was showing more and more confirmed landmarks every hour.
“Well,” Meg said, “When you occupy a city, you tend to want the citizenry to not immediately hate your guts.”
“Not if you're the Nazis,” Liam said, quietly. “Or the Assyrian Empire. Or Rome, sometimes. Let them hate, so long as they fear and all that.”
Meg frowned. “Even the Persians didn't force gods out of their temples...”
Liam lifted his eyebrows. To hear a Hellene say that? He shook his head.
“We're dealing with a deranged god,” he said. “Rules of morality are out the window.”
“Still,” Tethis said, “The prettiest and most effective slaves are brought into the palace. M-Male or female, any race.”
Liam rubbed his hands along his face. “Christ, I wish you hadn't said that.”
“Why do you say Christ?” Mary asked, her brow furrowed as she continued to scribble on the map.
“Why, er, don't I say Christ?” Liam asked. “We're both Christians.”
“No,” Mary said. “You're Christian, from Earth. I am a follower of Mary. She was, and will be, the true bringer of the messages of god. Justice, equality, suffering.” She smiled slightly. “Or do you not have that gospel on Earth?”
Liam blinked a few times. “Oh my god, I wish I had a week to sit down with you and just write down everything. Like, okay, do you know about the-” Meg, who had stood up, walked over and slapped the back of his head. He shook himself. “Not the time. Right. Plan Shitty is a-go, I suppose.”
Meg frowned. “I don't like the fact you called it that and none of us disagreed with you.”
Liam smiled, then knelt down as Tethis stepped over. She s
lipped a thin band of cloth around his neck, tying it tight, then touching her fingers to his skin. His skin darkened a few shades, until the cloth and his skin were nearly the same color. “If this works,” she said. “Then I'll have a sympathetic connection when they use the touchkey on the collar. I'll be able to make my own, and we can free you.” As she spoke, Meg tied a far redder cloth around Mary, whose finger touched the collar.
“I'm not going to be captured,” she said, quietly.
“Yes, but these people are raving psychopaths,” Meg said. “Better safe than sorry, right?”
Mary nodded slightly, bowing her head to Meg.
Liam stepped over and squeezed Meg's shoulder. Despite Mary's newfound conviction that this was a false god, part of him still worried that when 'Plan Shitty' went off, he'd learn that he had spent his whole life believing in and praying to a petty, amoral sociopath. It was a concern he had had a few times before, when life had been cruel and hard. But he had never before had so much contrasting evidence to worry himself over. Meg, seeing his expression, leaned in and kissed him. That kiss, that moment of connection before danger, filled Liam with a tingling warmth. His hands cupped Meg's ass and she leaned into him, molding her body to his. Her breasts were firm against his chest, her nipples hard enough to cut glass. Liam felt the rest of his body responding and Meg had to push him back before he kissed her more.
“Later,” she whispered. “After we kick ass.”
Liam nodded. Smiled.
Then he turned and he and Mary walked out of the apartment and into the city streets.
They walked together in silence for a time before Mary asked: “So, are you going to marry her”?
Liam looked at her.
Mary shrugged. “You seem to love her a great deal.”
Liam's jaw worked. He looked down at his hands and he laughed. “Is it insane that the main reason why I have delayed is because I, I... I want her to meet my Mom first?” He smiled slightly. “I love my family and my friends. I miss them a great deal. If it weren't for Meg and Tethis and Liv, I think I'd have gone crazy here just out of pure loneliness.” He sighed. “God, I hope Liv is okay.”
“Mary protects,” Mary said, smiling.
“Okay, I gotta ask: Why are you named Mary, if you worship Mary?” Liam paused. “Actually, wait, a load of people in my world name their children Jesus. Though, they pronounce it Hay-zoos.”
Mary smiled. “Well, to be fair, I pronounce Mary as Mary.”
Liam blinked, cocking his head. “That sounds the same.”
Mary reached out, touching his shoulder gently. “Liam, you are using a translation spell,” she said as if speaking to a child, her lips having a ghost of a smile.
Liam closed his eyes and wondered who had taught her to use that tone of voice with him – Meg or Tethis. “Right. Right. What language are you speaking?”
“Koinapunic,” she said, her tail lashing from side to side.
Liam laughed. “I don't even know what that could possibly derive from. No wonder I'm missing pronunciation.”
Mary smiled. Then, quickly, she drew her hand back and looked away. Liam noticed that her red cheeks seemed slightly deeper red. He remembered how just being near her, smelling her, had tweaked his lusts to a low simmer – he wondered if lilin had the same instinct when they touched others. He sighed. It would explain why they had been banished to Purgatory by fundamentalist Christians in the third century AD. A race of all female sex goddesses whose very touch could arouse someone to a furious fuck-frenzy?
Huh, he thought. I wonder if it works on straight women. Or asexual men. Or gay men! Oh! Or asexual women!
“So, what is the Church like back on Earth?” Mary asked, pausing as she and he waited at a cross street for a trio of heavily laden carts to pass by, their wheels kicking up a fine cloud of dust in the air. Each cart looked filled to the brim with spears and swords. Liam tried to not think about how many metalworkers this city had, workers who were all toiling to arm a false god and his army of barbarian lizardmen. Instead, he murmured to Mary,“Well, it all started with the Ecumincal Councils...”
Liam continued as they made their way further and further into the City of the Dead Gods. It took them the better part of an hour to finally reach the heavily patrolled inner sections of the city, near the palace. The palace itself was just as Tethis' scouting had described it: shockingly austere. It was merely a large stone building with an open front patio that was supported by heavy stone pillars and filled with guards. The windows were made of glass that glittered in the morning sunlight – and suddenly Liam realized it wasn't austere at all. Those windows were the true wealth on display. They weren't the utterly smooth, perfectly clear windows of Earth. Each one had tiny imperfections, even when seen from a distance.
Each one had been hand crafted.
The courtyard before the palace looked broad and flat, with a low dais about the size of an American football field taking up the majority of space. In the center of that dais was a newer wooden platform, ramshackle and thrown together. On that platform stood a collection of bedraggled men and women and some children, while a burly lizardman with a large whip walked along the front, shouting out to the crowd – mostly prosperous looking people calling out bids. A whole string of men were sold for a few gold coins to a valkyrie merchant, the lizardman auctioneer gesturing them off the block. Liam tried to not feel sick. He looked at Mary, who looked both sad and furious at the same time, her tail lashing from side to side.
“This used to be the debate forum,” she hissed, quietly. “Where anyone who could vote could come to bend the ear of the Free Lord.”
Liam nodded. “So, are you ready?”
Mary sighed and turned to him. “Yes.”
Liam licked his lips, glanced back at the slave auction, then at her. “You're sure this will work?”
“Getting cold feet, Mister Vanderbilt?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Well, yes,” Liam said, smiling nervously. “There's a reason we called this Plan Shitty – we don't have many other options if we want to actually get inside the palace. But we are relying on invading soldiers to be moral, when even cops on Earth don't take it seriously.”
“It will work,” said Mary. “The sentence fits the crime - we don't need them to be moral, just greedy. That's why the stakes need to be so high..”
“Right.” Liam rubbed his hands together, then reached out. He grabbed Mary's wrists and shoved them over her head. She gasped and flushed as he leaned forward and licked her neck. His cock surged to life, hardening, then straining against his robes as he pressed himself fully to Mary's body. Her breasts were smaller than Meg's, smaller than Tethis' even, but she was so pliant and soft. Her smell and her taste filled him with fire as he bit down on her neck, growling, his hands sliding from her wrists to her shoulders. He grabbed her robes and tore them apart, exposing her delicious breasts to him, save for her straps.
He could taste her sweat and her eagerness and-
And he barely managed to hiss. “M-Mary. Struggle!”
Mary, who had been standing there with an open mouthed gape, blinked. Then she squirmed. “N-No, stop!”
Liam tugged one of her straps down and those breasts bounced free. Perfectly shaped, brilliantly red, and so perky that he swore he could wedge a pencil between them and have it stick, they were too tempting to turn down. Liam leaned forward, sucking roughly on one ruby red nipple. Mary bit her lip hard to keep from moaning, then managed, at last, to scream.
“Stop! Rape! Help!” She slapped at his head, weakly at first, then harder. Liam drew back, then clapped his hand over her mouth. From the excited blaze in her eyes, and the way her tongue swirled against his palm, she wanted it. Liam couldn't think of anything but her wanting it.
Then the guard walked around the corner.
For all the fact that he was six feet tall, scaled and had a long tail, a crest of feather-like scales along his scalp and was colored bright blue, the character that the
lizardman guard reminded Liam of most... was Barney Fife from that old TV show. He looked relaxed, slightly incompetent, and rather than charging forward to break up what was clearly a rape, he just ambled forward.
“Thissssss man bothering you?” he hissed, his accent thick even through the translation spell.
Mary shot the lizardman a furious look, her fingernails digging into Liam's scalp. Liam drew back from her and turned to run, though he deliberately went as slowly as he could while still looking like he was trying to run away. The blunt edge of the sickle-sword that the lizardman had strapped to his hip wrapped around Liam's neck and casually pushed him to the side, smashing him into the alleyway wall across from Mary.
Liam groaned, his eyes closing.
“Rape isssss punisssshment by ssssslavery,” the lizardman said, grinning brightly. “Unlessssss you hassss a way to make me look the other way?”
Liam blinked.
And felt a rush of cold shoot along his spine.
He had brought his coin purse. As naturally as breathing. He had a good fifteen or so gold coins in there – quite an amount. He kicked himself, hard. How could he explain the purse and also not bribe the guy? The lizardman grinned at him.
“No pursssse?”
Liam looked past him at Mary, trying to glare at her. “Let me go, I done nothing wrong!” he said. “Lilin bitches are made to get dicked, we all know it!”
“Yesss, true,” the lizardman said, shrugging. “But, you know, lawssss and ssssuch.”
“Fiend!” Mary exploded, then charged forward. She slapped at Liam's face as he was pinned against the wall. He felt her tail caress his side for a moment, then a dizzying sense of relief filled him as he felt the weight of his coin purse leave him.
“Hey!” The lizardman snapped. “No asssssaulting a prissssoner without my permissssion!”
The Cross Guard (Purgatory Wars Book 3) Page 7