Likka’s laughter was all that came back.
I woke up the next morning and retrieved a small mirror from my backpack to look at the bite the beautiful woman had given me in the night. I figured I would have to doctor it, even if I did thoroughly enjoy getting it. I wet a rag from a water bottle out of my pack and held the mirror up. I washed the dried blood off of my shoulder and looked in amazement. There was no wound, just dried blood that washed away like yesterdays dirt. I stretched and looked at my side as I wiped with the rag; the scratches were the same just dried blood down my side. “What the fuck?”
I shook my head and headed for the stream to wash off. The water was cold enough to make me worry about little Rhys shrinking away to nothing, but it got me clean.
After I put my armor back on and started to put weapons back in place, the time came to put the odd little blades back in my sleeves. The little pockets they went into were already full. I pulled one out to look at it, and looking back again the pockets were full. I just shook my head and dropped the rest of them into my pack.
We broke camp and I mounted Reaper to head east…
About noon, I was just starting to get hungry again when Likka spoke in my mind.
I pulled my rifle and dropped off of Reaper.
I dropped to one knee and waited with my rifle up on my shoulder. My hand pivoted the scope out of the way. I didn’t have to wait long. Around a bend in the road ahead came a group of howling creatures, only about five feet tall. They had a sickly green color to their skin, and looked like something out of a child’s nightmare. They had the snout of a pig and a mouth full of teeth that belong to a shark. In their hands they carried stone axes and clubs.
I pulled the trigger and my rifle roared to life. Six times I shot and six of the creatures fell dead in the road. I dropped the rifle and stood up drawing both Rugers. Alternating left to right I fired twelve more times, eighteen down. I holstered the Rugers, and drew my long swords off my back. I had never fought with these, but I did not have time to reload. I waded into the creature swinging. As the first one reached me I took his weapon hand off with one sword, and his head with the other.
The second one fell to a blade through the eye from my left sword, while the third was nearly cleaved in half from a downward blow from the right. My left hand blocked a descending club, as my right stabbed under it to pass clear through the creature’s throat. I turned to see Reaper crush the skull of one of the creatures with his hooves, as I took the head of another.
The last creature fell to Likka as she ripped out its throat. These creatures had absolutely no skill with weapons -- I had barely had to defend myself. It was like fighting animals.
I walked over to my backpack and pulled out two boxes of ammo and reloaded my Rugers and the rifle.
I un-slung my bow and, as quickly as it was in my hand, drew and fired an arrow to my left without looking. One of the Lithan stumbled out from behind a tree with an arrow in its eye.
As I placed the ammo boxes back in my pack, I wondered to myself how I had learned to do that with a bow.
I realized that ammo was going to go pretty fast if I had to use that many bullets at a time here. I now had three hundred rounds left for the rifle and three hundred for the pistols. I pulled out the last of the rabbit and mounted back up…
As evening fell, I stopped again to make camp. When I made my fire ring, I pulled out a match and looked in the knife handle. There were nine left. I screwed the end of the grip back on the knife and removed it again. There were now ten matches. “Thank you Morgana,” I thought quietly.
I mused about this as I got the fire going, and then retrieved my bow for some hunting. As I got the bow, curiosity bit me like a bug, I opened the boxes of ammo from my pack, and all the rounds I had removed had been replaced.
I walked back into camp carrying both haunches off of a buck I took down about a mile out from camp. I threw one of them down for the wolf and she began to gnaw on it like she was starving. The other one I butchered out into thin fillets, and put them on a spit over the fire. I reached into my pack and pulled out a bottle of water, knowing it would be replaced as soon as I closed the pack. I also pulled out a bowl and poured about half the water out for Likka.
After dinner, Likka moved off to scout the area as I moved over to the tent, to find the bed made completely. I just shook my head and began to write in my journal again.
As I reached to shut off my light, the woman again crawled into the tent and put her finger over my lips. I reached up to remove her dress as she smiled at me. The thin fabric slid along her alabaster skin eliciting a light moan. Once the dress was off her body, she dove towards me, and we kissed deeply. When we broke our joining at the lips, I pushed her back and down onto her back. I slid down her body, kissing and nibbling on her neck and chest. My lips touched each spot as light as the dance of a fairy, until I reached her breasts. I took one of her nipples into my mouth and began to suckle at it as she moaned with the pleasure of my touch. I moved to the other breast and kissed and sucked at it until she began to vibrate beneath me. As she moaned out her ecstasy, I slid down to kiss my way to her white patch. I reached down with my tongue and began to flick at her tiny button.
With my first contact, her legs locked around my head and squeezed. I reached up with one of my hands and dipped it into the wetness that was collecting on the petals of her flower. I slid my finger into her deeply and gently, feeling the soft, silky skin that greeted me. With a come hither motion of my finger, I began to rub the spongy flesh inside her. Then, she went wild and began to buck against my face. My other hand came up and my finger pushed into her back entrance. She squealed and cried out, “Rhhhhyyyyyyyysssssss!!!!!!!” Her orgasm seemed to last for minutes as she shuddered and vibrated.
When she relaxed her spasm of pleasure, she began to twitch with every flick of my tongue. Her hands twisted into my hair and pulled me away from her, as she whimpered and tried to cover herself from my oral assault. I withdrew my hands from her and kissed my way up her beautiful body, until she again began to lick her own juices off of my face. I pulled her legs upward as I rose, and aimed my staff toward her rear entrance. In one slow thrust, I pushed all the way into her tight rosebud. She cried out and she bit her own knuckle, as I began to thrust in and out. She was grunting with each thrust as I pushed into her. She again began to vibrate and shake as she climaxed. As she climbed into her fourth climax, I thrust with all I had, literally picking her hips up off of the bedding, and pushed into her completely as I burst. It felt like I released a gallon into her bowels, as she quivered and moaned beneath me.
Before she could r
ecover completely, I pulled out of her and altered my aim. She smiled up at me as I began to push into her tight flower. Soon she was making that deep growling sound again, as she climaxed into yet another orgasm. I lost count of how many times she growled out her orgasms, before I spent myself inside of her.
As I lay down next to her, trying to catch my breath, she started to gather her dress and slip out of the tent. I reached out and caught her hand. “You don’t have to leave, Likka.”
Her head turned quickly to look at me, “When..?”
“When you called my name, your voice is the same.”
“I have to patrol.”
“Reaper can warn us. Sleep with me and share more than just lust with me.”
She placed her dress with my clothes and crawled back up next to me. As we lay there relaxing and basking in each others warmth, I asked her, “How complete is this transformation of yours? Is there a chance you could end up pregnant?”
“I am as human as you are in this form, but you would never let me get pregnant. You have always prevented it from happening.” There was a note of sadness in her voice when she spoke.
“When I recover my memories, I am sure I will know more. Please forgive me if I have hurt you.”
“There is nothing to forgive, my love. You have your reasons and I accept them.” She snuggled up to me, and I felt her love seem to flow into me. The link between us was so deep. It was then that I realized her emotions were on full display in my head.
Soon I felt her breathing deepen and then I drifted off with her in my arms.
I awoke to the sound of birds in the morning air. Likka was still asleep in my arms and it took a bit of effort to get out of the tent without waking her. I stirred the fire up and looked through the horse packs and found a coffee pot and some coffee. Nice that this world was at least partially civilized.
I started a pot boiling as I started getting Reaper ready for the day. I checked his hooves and saddled him. Then placed his packs and barding on. Just as I was finishing, Likka slipped out of the tent smiling, then dropped down on all fours as a wolf again. We ate leftover venison, and I drank coffee and gave her more water…
Around noon, we crested a rise to see a small town below us. The town had a stockade of wooden posts all the way around it, and the trees had been taken down for farmland for a mile around it in every direction. We rode down and towards the town.
As we rode up to the gate, the guard standing there looked at me and said, “The wolf will have to be in a cage when in the town.”
“You tell her that. She might only rip your hand off and not your head.”
“I am sorry. She stays out there, or you cage her.”
I pushed past him and Likka started to follow. The guard reached to draw his sword, but mine was many times faster. By the time he had his sword half drawn, I had dropped off Reapers back and the tip of my long sword was under his chin. “I would suggest your hand come off your sword before it comes off your wrist,” I said.
As I spoke a horn blared in the distance from the direction we had come. I looked to see the farmers outside of the town dropping their tools and running towards the town. At the top of the hill, I saw Lithan come out of the tree line. There were literally thousands of them.
I watched as they began to charge down the hill towards the town. I watched as the farmers ran and a young girl fell. She struggled to get back up, but was dragging her leg. I vaulted onto Reapers back and yanked him around to ride out towards the girl. My rifle roared in my hand. Likka howled as we both ran towards the girl. Six times my rifle roared -- six Lithan in the lead fell. I stuffed the rifle back in the spear quiver. I drew the pistol on my right hip. Six times it roared before I reached the girl. I reached out with my left hand and clasped her outstretched arm. Without thought I swung her behind me on Reapers back and yelled, “Hold On!”
Reaper skidded to a halt as I holstered my right pistol and cross drew my left one. As Reaper turned to head back to the town, my pistol roared six more times, and the six closest Lithan fell. Reaper and Likka ran through the gate with only about thirty feet between us and the lead Lithan. The gate slammed behind us, as the bar was dropped into place. “Her leg is broken; do you have a doctor here?”
“What is a dok tor?”
“Medicine man, Leach, Healer?”
“Our healer was killed during the last raid.”
Why I did what I did I don’t know it was just an instinctual reaction. I reached back and brought the girl forward into my arms. I looked down at her leg twisted and already starting to swell. I touched my hand to the leg right above the break and tried to extend my healing into her. I watched as the leg untwisted and snapped back into place with an audible cracking sound. The girl screamed and passed out.
The girl’s mother ran up crying. I handed her down to her mother and said, “She will be fine now. Take her home and let her rest.”
I dropped down off of Reaper and grabbed my backpack off of his packs. I reloaded my pistols and ran for the stairs up onto the battle stage for the stockade. I looked down over the top at the sea of Lithan below. There was no thought – just rage raced through me. I leaped over the top of the wall, drawing my long swords as I fell. As I struck the ground, the world turned red in my vision.
I struck out with both swords, and creatures fell all around me. Then it was just a blur of movement in my vision as I began to dance the deadliest dance known to man. Block, strike, parry, slash, guard, and stab. Within seconds there was a ring of dead at my feet.
These creatures were just attacking instinctively. They had no skills. In minutes, I was cutting my way through the Lithan faster than they could get to me. I heard the guards on the wall telling someone that I had slipped into the battle lust. When half the number of Lithan lay dead in the field, the other half broke and ran. I dropped to one knee, as I readied my bow, and began to fire into them as they ran. I killed nearly a hundred more before they made it into the tree line.
I stood up and started walking towards the town. When I reached the gate, the guards on the wall had their bows drawn and pointing at me. “Open the gate and let me in,” I demanded.
A murmur ran through the guards as one with a crest stepped forward. “Look up at me, warrior.”
I looked him straight in the eye.
“How did you come back out of the battle lust? No one does that once the craze is upon them. They fight all, friend or foe, until they are killed.”
“Reaper, open the gate!”, I yelled at the top of my lungs.
The gates swung open with a loud crash, as my horse kicked back and broke the bar holding them in half. I walked in and mounted Reaper. I looked down and asked a young girl who was standing there. “Is there an inn around here, where a man might find a hot bath and a hot meal?”
“The Headless Griffon, sir, it is but a few blocks that way.”
I reached into the pouch on Reaper’s saddle and pulled out a gold coin and dropped it to her. “Thank you.” I rode in the direction she indicated.
Likka looked up at me.
I looked up to see a sign in front
of an inn. It was of a fancy griffon but somewhere along the line the corner had broken off the sign taking the head of the griffon with it. I chuckled to myself as I slipped out of Reapers saddle and walked in through the front door. I walked up to the bar to find a middle aged man standing behind it. “I need a room for the night, a hot bath, a hot meal, a bottle of good whiskey, and stabling for my horse with an extra measure of oats for him.”
He turned to look at me, and when he saw my blood soaked armor, his eyes got wide as silver dollars. “Yes, sir, and could I interest you in my wife’s cleaning service for your armor and clothes.”
“Armor I will care for -- clothing, yes.”
I reached into my pouch at my hip and pulled out five gold coins and laid them on the bar. He looked at them and then scooped them up to disappear into his apron. He then reached under the bar and pulled out a square bottle of whiskey and set it on the counter. He then called out, “Peotter, get in here, boy.”
A boy of about twelve years of age ran out of the kitchen area. “Yes, sir.”
“Take this lord's horse and put it in the stable. Give it a double measure of oats, and brush it down real good.”
The boy looked at me wide eyed. “Peotter, if you will move my stuff from my horse to my room, this will be yours; if everything is there when I get to the room.” I held out another gold coin.
The barman said, “I will have Missa draw a bath for you, M’Lord. Will you be eating in your room, or will you come to the common area?”
“I will eat down here good sir, and I am not a noble – I am just a common wanderer.”
“I must ask, sir, is the wolf dangerous to my other guests?”
“Only if they are dangerous to her.”
“I would actually be more afraid of the man in front of you right now, Kinal,” A voice said from behind me. “He single-handedly killed twenty-one hundred of the Lithan just a few minutes ago. The only reason he didn’t kill more is because they ran.”
I turned to see a young man dressed in fine clothing of soft cloth. “I am sure you exaggerate, Lord. I am sure if I killed that many, I would be at least a little tired.”
The Return Page 2