Dragon Jade Chronicle: The Warlock And The Warrior

by Jamie MacFrey

  Artan’s groans were erratic, his expression pained, and Olene looked up at him.

  “Fit to burst, my little spy?”

  The former court artist could only nod. Olene lifted up, leaning forward so that her breasts nearly pressed against Fione’s face, and Artan’s cock slipped out of her. She knelt before him, grabbing his cock and sucking it between her lips for one lingering taste, then pulling insistently along the length.

  Artan groaned, his cum spurting out of him, splattering across Olene’s necklace and tits as she aimed him lower. Some of it fell down her navel, and Artan grabbed at her shoulders to steady himself as Olene jutted her chest out, squeezing his cock to milk the last of his seed out over her hard nipple. She released him, and Artan stumbled backwards into the desk as Olene’s tongue cleaned what little semen hadn’t reached her body from her hand.

  Olene rose to her feet, leaning forward over Fione. The princess stared at Artan’s cum decorating the chieftain’s tits, the musty smell wafting into Fione’s nostrils, sending shivers through her body.

  “See how even your own subjects give their love and devotion to me,” Olene said, a satisfied grin crossing her lips.

  “Such go the fools,” said Fione. Olene’s grin held, but her eyes flashed as she stood and walked away.

  “Uli, attend,” said Olene, spreading her legs apart a little and stretching her arms out. The little thrall rushed forward, heaving a bucket of water, along with a rag. One thing Fione had noticed about the Dragon Clans was that their nudity necessitated an apparent cultural fascination with cleanliness. A thrall was always on hand with water to administer a sponge bath to the warriors; in Olene’s case, a copper bucket that Uli was forever putting over the fire, then taking it off and letting it sit, then putting it back over the fire, in order to keep it at the proper warmth. Each cleaning was followed by the thrall producing a bottle of oil to rub into their skin in order to keep it supple. It had pleased Olene to allow Fione the same treatment, and the princess discovered that she quite enjoyed it. Not just that it allowed her freedom from her bonds, but also the ritual of it, and the pampered feeling of having someone else clean one’s body.

  Fione had to admit that a freshly cleaned and oiled Olene was an impressive figure. Her crest added to her height, the oil in her skin catching the gleam of the candles and fire that lit the antechamber. A pair of black tattoos of dragons, their serpentine bodies coiled around Olene’s arms before journeying across her shoulders to the tops of her breasts, each snarling head appearing ready to devour a nipple, danced in the light.

  Olene settled into the chair behind the desk, watching as Artan retrieved his clothes. She picked up a dagger, rapping it hard against the surface of the desk. The two warriors entered again.

  Olene handed the sheath of Artan’s drawings to them. “Find some scribes among the Joian thralls and have them make copies of these. The two on top are spies, I want them distributed to our sentries and outriders. The rest are Sorcerers, make copies of them for the chiefs and Warmaster Varomar.”

  “Aye, chief,” said the warrior, saluting her with his fist against his chest. He pointed to Artan. “And this one?”

  “A thrall. He has some ability, he might make a suitable pleasure thrall, for Chieftain Aren, perhaps. Or perhaps Iandra’s raiders. Yes, Iandra’s raiders; they’ll enjoy his softness. Make sure they know he is a gift from me to them.”

  Artan jerked his head, his eyes wide. “I was promised a reward.”

  “And I granted you the reward you asked for. You might have asked for your freedom, but you did not. So instead you return to what you were, a thrall in the service of the warriors of the Dragon Clans.”

  “I am still of use. I could return to Tia Vashil, to the Guild.”

  “It took you four days to get here. You’ll return with a fresh horse in another four. I assume you told them nothing. What will you tell them about where you have been in a week? What will you tell them when they probe your mind with magic and learn the truth? And in what other capacity could you serve us? No warrior cares for your colorful paints or sculptures. Such weakness is for thralls. Except for your cock, you’re no use to the Clans.”

  One warrior grabbed at Artan, but he evaded the grasp and lunged at Olene, his hand closing around the wrist that contained the dagger, twisting it towards her chest.

  There was a moment, a desperate freezing of time, where Fione’s hope swelled as the knife point made a slow progress, pushing through the air towards the Dragon Clan chief’s breast, inches from her heart. And then it seemed as though time came unstuck and the reality seeped back into the room.

  Olene pulled her wrist forward and to the side in a harsh jerking movement, causing Artan to stumble over the desk. As he fell forward, her free hand chopped down on his neck, adding additional force as he smashed into the flat wooden surface. There was a cracking sound as Artan’s nose broke, and he released Olene’s wrist with a cry. In an instant, she was atop him, pinning him on his stomach with her legs, her elbow across the back of his neck, the dagger at his throat.

  “You’re of even less use to me now,” she hissed at him.

  Artan could only whimper in response, the ruin of his nose keeping him from lucid thought.

  One of Olene’s warriors stepped forward, and Olene released her hold on Artan to let the warrior lift him brusquely off the desk.

  “Carve a dragon on his chest and hang him over the River Gate,” said Olene. “Cut that hand of his off, too. Our thralls know their place, the Joians had best be reminded of it.”

  Artan was dragged away, and Uli rushed forward to scrub the blood from the desk.

  “How quickly my subjects’ love turns to hate,” said Fione.

  “You have coddled them,” spat Olene. “Your people are weak and spoiled. They think they should have the whole ox when they have only earned a hoof.”

  She paced in place for a moment, watching Uli scrubbing at the desk top with her cloth, then threw open the antechamber door.

  “Fetch my brother!” she yelled out.

  “Do they know you, this Kiera of the vai Ullan and Tau of the vai Keller?” she asked, turning her attention the princess.

  Fione said nothing, her face stone. Olene’s eyes searched for her answer, but Fione knew there was little there. A lifetime of playing favorites with courtiers had taught her the skill of concealing her emotions when she chose, such as when one’s future conquest received an audience while one’s current conquest was still in favor.

  Olene seized Fione’s jaw and snarled at her, but she held her composure and met her ferocious gaze with one of her own, and the chieftain released her in frustration.

  “Well, if you do, never fear,” said Olene. “I’ll play an excellent host to them, too.”

  Chapter 11

  “You look ridiculous, Pol.”

  “What else is new? Besides, I look any worse than you?”

  Kiera looked down at herself. A band of dragon jade was clasped over her left bicep, and another had been put over her left thigh. A necklace of jade worked in the shape of teeth hung around her neck. A jade chain harness tucked under her breasts, lifting them, and then running down her body to belt made of a ring of thick scaled plates. Another harness of jade chain hung from that, tucking around her crotch and buttocks, but concealing nothing, sharing the same part she would with a lover with the world. Other than that, she was nude. They’d bundled her armor and hoisted it up a tree near where they’d tied the horses, and she wished she could go back and fetch it now.

  Pol looked even more peculiar. The warrior he’d taken down had been wearing a long chain-netted device that wrapped around his middle finger and then ran up the arm to his shoulder, a heavy clasp holding it in place. Each crossing of the chains set with a small dragon jade ring. His necklace was made of heavy dragon jade chain, every link a rendering of a dragon curled into an “S” shape, attacking its neighbor until reaching a pendant carved in the shape of a snarling beast in the ce
nter. Most ostentatious of all was the belt, a simple leather strap with dragon jade inlay, except for the crotch. Like Kiera’s outfit, the belt contained a harness, except this one was a ring, not tight enough to constrict around his cock, unless it hardened, yet still taut enough to lift it jutting outwards, so a wandering eye could hardly help being drawn to it.

  “Yes,” said Kiera. “Much, much worse.”

  “How do they ride like this?”

  “They don’t. Most Dragon Clan warriors don’t use horses. Scouts and chiefs only, really.”

  Pol looked over her, studying her body, and Kiera grew a little self conscious, folding her arms in front of her breasts.

  “Tau and I really fucked up your tattoos, so that almost sets us even,” said Pol.

  He wasn’t wrong. The sentries they’d taken by surprise had had intricately inked tattoos, but all they’d had to copy them with was quill ink from Pol’s saddlebags. Kiera had never been a good student of art, but she’d managed to make a fair appraisal of the male’s tattoos on Pol’s body. Pol’s work had been shoddy and uneven, but at first glance it passed.

  “Well, posing as a thrall isn’t all that bad, I suppose,” said Tau. Kiera had cut Pol’s hair down until each strand could stand on its own in a rather rudimentary Clan style, but Tau could never pass for a warrior with his blond locks. They’d just cut apart a long doublet to fashion as thrall’s robes for him.

  “No one does any talking but me when we get into the city,” said Kiera. They walked along the road towards the River Gate of Tia Joi.

  For a city under hostile occupation by the Dragon Clans, there was not much in the way of security. Kiera was not surprised; the nomadic clans of the West were not ones to take and hold a perimeter. On the wide open plains, they could see an enemy coming for miles, and their scouts would detect individuals well before they reached the camp. On the battlefield, the Clans often enticed their enemies to chase them, turning around and fighting once their opponents were on the brink of exhaustion.

  But in the hills and forests of the East, the same tactics that served the Clans well on the plains failed them. The great forest that stretched from Coulain to Tia Vashil to Tia Joi grew nearly against the walls of the city, and had hidden Kiera’s group well. No one from the Clans had even detected them until Kiera’s and Tau’s swords were pressing into their backs the night before.

  There were two warriors stationed at the open gate into the city, but unlike the Guard in Tia Vashil, they were not inspecting travelers in and out of the city. Especially not members of the Dragon Clans.

  Kiera strode along the road, staring purposefully ahead, as though she were set on a particular path. Pol’s movements were more jerky, nervous. One of the guards perked up, catching his gaze. He held it a moment too long, and she approached, hailing them.

  “Where are you coming back from, Forest?” she asked Pol.

  “Fore—?” Pol started to ask, but Kiera jumped on his question, keeping him from making a fool of himself with his ignorance and exposing them.

  “Took this thrall out, find some privacy,” she said. Her voice had taken on the lilting Clan accent. Pol had once snuck into a party at the Lowvale Keep, and he’d managed to fake a passably noble accent when confronted by a gentleman angry over one thing or another—a woman, Pol thought now—but it was nothing compared to the imitation that Kiera was doing. He doubted anyone could have said she wasn’t born in a yurt drinking fermented milk and playing with a rattle made from dragon jade.

  The Dragon Clan warrior looked over Tau.

  “He looks like a fun ride, too,” she said, leering. She grabbed one of Tau’s biceps, squeezing. Her other hand reached under his doublet, handling his cock. Tau jerked, but didn’t react otherwise, staring away.

  “Feels like a fun ride, too,” she said.

  “He is,” said Kiera.

  “Docile?”

  “We let him out in the forest, he’s still here.”

  The warrior nodded. “Trade you my sword for him.”

  “I don’t—”

  “It’s a good sword,” she said. She lifted it into the air. Pol could see the whole thing was made from dragon jade, including the long saw-toothed blade. Part of him was beginning to worry. He’d never tried magic against dragon jade—what little the Guild had in the way of it was too precious for experimentation, and Kiera’s armor was a family heirloom. And here was a whole city full of warriors armed with it.

  “Can’t,” said Kiera. “Loaned him from the chief.”

  “Didn’t think Rooth liked the men.”

  “This is an exceptional man. Gotta return him though. Know where Rooth is?”

  “Forest clan’s quarter. He set up a tent in one of the squares.”

  “I’ve been scouting,” said Kiera.

  “That way,” said the guard, pointing with her sword. Kiera nodded her thanks, then motioned for Pol and Tau to follow her. As she turned her back, the guard perked up.

  “Hold, Forest, what in the hells happened to you?”

  “What?” asked Kiera, cocking her head.

  “Your tattoos. Is that supposed to be a tree?”

  It was, but it had come out more like a very artistic smudge. The scout Pol had copied it off had a long evergreen running up along the spine of her back, the stylized pattern giving off the impression of branches and needles. Pol’s rude copy gave the impression that trees were mostly trunks with some really jagged bark.

  Kiera gave him a dark glance, concealed from their questioner, before turning around completely and shaking her head. “Skin carver was drunk.”

  “Been there,” the guard nodded. She pointed to her stomach. Some sort of... creature... was chasing its tail around her navel.

  “Lizard?” asked Pol.

  “Ha!” laughed the guard. “Supposed to be dagger cat, but no one’s got it yet. On your way, Forest. I’m sure Rooth wants his special boy back.”

  As Tau went past her, she slapped him on the ass, causing him to jump and eking another chortle out of her.

  “Uggh,” whispered Pol, as they passed through into the city. “What’s that smell?”

  “Death,” said Kiera. She nodded at gatehouse behind them. Suspended from the battlements was a corpse, its hand removed and pinned to the chest by a dagger that had been plunged through the palm. A dragon, its serpentine body encircling the hand, had been carved into the surface of his skin.

  “What’s that? A warning?”

  “Yes,” said Kiera. “But not to us, exactly. I’d say a thrall who tried to kill a warrior. They cut off the hand that raised against them and hung him inside the gate so the other thralls would see.”

  Pol snuck a glance at the body. Poor bastard, whoever he is, he thought. In the stories, the heroes were always saying it was better to be dead than a thrall to the Dragon Clans. Looking at the punished prisoner, it was hard to say death was a better option.

  A massive ivory spire loomed at the center of the city. Its base was a heavy squat circle, larger even than the keep of the Guild Rock, each level of the tower piled on top of it, growing ever and ever smaller, like a layer cake. On some levels, there were ballista and onagers to set up, and in between, balconies and arrow slits broke the face up. Eventually it terminated in a watch tower, a bonfire burning at its peak. The road to Tia Joi had been shaded by the Great East Forest, and turning off it into the woods hadn’t helped, but if he’d been coming from any other direction, you could have seen it for miles. Pol realized now that a pinpoint of light he’d been able to see from his quarters in the Guild Rock that he’d always taken to be a low summer star had actually been the watchfire.

  “The Tower of Joi,” whispered Kiera. Pol stared up at it.

  The gate they’d passed under was separated from the rest of the city by a bridge that spanned many paces over a massive river, confined to its bed by the walls of a canal system that had been built around it. The waters ran quick, heading to a short waterfall that led away from the city.


  “The River Joi,” said Kiera. “It’s split by the island the city is standing on. Upstream the wall actually crosses the river, and on the other side of the city there’s a lock to let ships come up and down the river. The bridge we’re standing on can be raised or lit on fire to stop an enemy from crossing.”

  “Seems pretty secure,” said Pol.

  “It is,” said Tau. “Only Sorcerers could take this city by force. An army would have the breach the walls, ford the river or wait to build a new bridge from one side while taking fire from the Tower, fight through the city, breach the walls surrounding the Tower, then gain access to the Tower itself.”

  They crossed over the bridge, and Pol realized that the Tower of Joi had a long curtain wall that connected it to the gatehouse, forming the courtyard. The houses of the city on this side had practically been built right up against it.

  There was a narrow alley they passed, and before Tau or Kiera could notice, he slipped down it. Kiera spun as she saw him dart out of her peripheral vision.

  “Pol,” hissed Kiera after him. She stood at the entrance to the alley, trying not to look down it and draw any attention to the escaping Sorcerer. “Where are you going?”

  “Felt like a climb,” said Pol. He leapt into the air, grabbing onto a hanging gutter spout, wriggling up the wall by bracing himself in the space between the two houses.

  “We should go to the Forest camp,” said Kiera. “See what we can learn there.”

  “You go,” said Pol. He was halfway up the house now. “I’ll meet you in the castle.”

  “We should stick together,” said Kiera, trying to yell and whisper at the same time, but Pol cupped his ear, miming deafness. In a moment, he’d pulled himself over the lip of the roof and disappeared from sight. The last trace she saw of him was his feet as he hopped across the alley.

  “Fuck,” she whispered.