Dragon Jade Chronicle: The Warlock And The Warrior

by Jamie MacFrey

  She picked up a clay bowl, and ladled some of the pot’s contents into it.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to Pol.

  “What’s this?”

  “Fish stew. I told you,” she said. She gave him a spoon to go with his bowl.

  Pol spooned some of the white chunks of fish floating in his bowl into his mouth, chewing slowly at first, then quickly swallowing to avoid prolonging the agony.

  “It’s very...um…” He searched for a word. “It’s very fishy. You can really taste the fish,” he finished, lamely.

  The woman sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’m not a very good cook. I usually just roast the fish, but, to be honest, I try and avoid eating them if I can. I spend all day catching the damn things, it’s easier to trade them with someone in the village.”

  “Oh, no. No, you’re a fine cook,” said Pol. “No, it’s just, a vegetable or two couldn’t hurt. I think. Or a spice. You know. I’m not a good cook either, so I couldn’t say how good it is, m—um... what’s your name?”

  “Rouran Metil,” said the woman.

  “I’m Pol Burr,” said Pol. “You live here by yourself, Rouran?”

  “Since my husband died,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Pol.

  “Don’t be. It wasn’t recent. And... he wasn’t the best husband a woman could have. Taught me to fish like he did, though. So, I’ve gone from being a fisherman’s wife to be a fisherwoman.”

  “No children?”

  “No,” said Rouran. She looked away from him and Pol decided not to press it.

  “You haven’t seen a knight in green armor come through here, have you?” he asked.

  “No. He a friend of yours?”

  “Yes. She.”

  “Oh,” Rouran smiled at him. “A Sorcerer and a knight? I think I’ve heard that song before.”

  “Hah, well, it’s not like that,” said Pol. “Well, maybe a little. But we were on a mission together. She’s my friend, she’s probably looking for me.”

  “Well, it’s a small village, Pol Burr. Anyone like that had come through, we’d have heard about it. I usually know two days in advance when Princess Fione’s tax collector comes, news spreads so fast.”

  “Ah,” said Pol. “Well, I guess I’ll be on my way.”

  He sat up, and the world tottered again and then he was falling back into the bed.

  “Pol, Pol,” came Kiera’s voice, in the distance. Ah, Kiera, so she was here.

  A hand slapped his face.

  “What?”

  “You passed out,” said Rouran. She was kneeling on the bed over him, her hand resting on his face where it’d hit him.

  “Oh, shit,” said Pol. He rubbed at his head.

  “What happened to you?” asked Rouran.

  “We went to Tia Joi to rescue the princess from the Dragon Clans,” said Pol.

  “Your knight friend and you?”

  “And her... fiance? I dunno what he is. Big burly guy, granite face, looks like a storybook knight.”

  “Sounds cute. Except for the part where you wind up half drowned in the Joi.”

  “There was a Sorcerer with the Clans. He was better than me.”

  “Like, he could start fires rather than just stop them?”

  “Like, he could make the River Joi do whatever he wanted, like pull me under.”

  Rouran whistled. She stood up and poured another bowl of fish soup for herself, then settled into a rather simple chair next to the bed.

  “Listen, Rouran,” said Pol. “Maybe I shouldn’t stay here, regardless of how dazed I am. The Clans will be looking for me. It could be dangerous for you.”

  Rouran nodded, slurping her soup. She made a disgusted face, then ladled another spoonful into her mouth.

  “Uggh, not better with time,” she said. “Vegetables and spices. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “I am,” said Rouran. “But, you can’t walk, Pol. And you’re under my roof now. Maybe they don’t believe in guest law in the big city, but out here, it’s one of the few things you can rely on. You’re my responsibility, and you’re not going anywhere until I’m satisfied you’re healed enough.”

  “That’s a risk, Rouran.”

  “Pol, did you save the princess?”

  “I think so,” said Pol. “I don’t know. I tried to buy my friends some time so they could get away with her.”

  “Vash, you’re a fool,” said Rouran. “I guess it’s true what they say, ‘Vash blesses the fools’.”

  “You’re right. I am a fool, that’s why I should get as far away from here as possible.”

  “Pol Burr, you saved our princess, you survived the Dragon Clans, another Sorcerer, and getting drowned in the Joi. You’re rolling in luck and you’ve no idea of it.”

  Pol started to protest but Rouran waved him silent.

  “Look around you, Pol. I’ve no spouse. I’ve no little kiddies. There’s no one here but me, and I’m smart enough to know what’ll happen if the Clan comes. We tithe to Tia Joi. We don’t have their walls, their army, or their people. And Tia Joi is now in control of the Clans. What chance do we stand? Don’t you think they’ll make us all thralls too?”

  “Probably,” said Pol.

  “Then, the way I see it, my choices are help you, and at least have a Sorcerer on our side, or send you off and give us up to the Clans whenever they choose.”

  “Tia Vashil will defeat the Clans.”

  “Soon?” asked Rouran. “Tomorrow?”

  Pol was silent.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Rouran. “Finish your soup.”

  “Besides,” she said, dumping what remained of her own soup back into the pot, then stoking the fire. “It’s late into the night. You’ll break your neck stumbling over a rock out there.”

  Pol slurped at his soup while Rouran went about preparing the cottage for night, scrubbing the used dishes in a bucket of soapy water. She shed her clothes, save for a simple linen dress that hung from her full proportions. Pol gasped in shock when she let down her hair. It had been hanging past her waist, which he’d thought was a bit long. In truth, it had been pinned up, and unfurled her long black hair reached nearly to the floor.

  “You like it like that?” he asked.

  “Hells no,” said Rouran. “Imagine standing in a river all day, and then getting this wet. It takes ages to dry. But I won’t cut it until I remarry. Until then, I’m in mourning.”

  “How long ago did your husband die?”

  “Up here,” said Rouran, pointing to about her shoulders.

  “That’s a long time. You know, some women cut it when they’re ready to remarry. And in the Tia Vashil, I know the tradition was basically to let it grow for a couple of weeks.”

  Rouran shook her head, the bottom of her hair struggling to keep up.

  “Well, not out here. Here you don’t cut it until your next wedding day or folks point and whisper. Almost worth finding someone, anyone, just to get to shear it off.”

  “Why haven’t you?”

  Rouran sighed. She took the bowl from Pol and deposited in the bucket of water.

  “Because, Pol, I can’t cook and there’s always a stench of fish around me. Who would have me?”

  “You would’ve been quite the prize back in Lowvale, where I’m from originally,” said Pol. “A pretty woman like you hanging off my arm, they would have mistaken me for royalty.”

  Rouran laughed, a pleasant nervous chuckle that barely disguised her blush. Then she grew quiet again.

  “And I’m barren,” she said. “Five years I was married, with nothing. And not for lack of trying.”

  “Could have been him,” said Pol.

  Rouran shook her head. “He had a thing going with this farmer’s wife down the road. She’s got a son who looks just like him. Two, actually. If there was a problem, it’s me. The whole village knows it
, too. I hear them whispering whenever his kids cross my path. ‘Oh, look at the poor Widow Metil,’ ‘there’s her husband’s children, you know,’ and the like.”

  She caught Pol’s frown and gave him a wan smile.

  “I told you, he wasn’t the greatest husband in all the world.”

  “Clearly,” said Pol. “Sounds like a scoundrel. Why’d you marry him?”

  “Not a lot more dependable type of man in a fishing village than a fisherman. Maybe the man who owns the salting house, but Kort has a husband, and I don’t think he’d shine to a woman.”

  Rouran opened a chest in one corner of the room, pulling out a pair of rolled up blankets. She threw one out onto the floor and put the other at one end, preparing to settle down.

  “What are you doing?” asked Pol.

  “Going to sleep. What does it look like?”

  “Down there?”

  “Where else is there?”

  “Well, beds are always my first choice.”

  “You’re in that.”

  “So?”

  She fixed him with a look.

  “So, I’m a widow. And you’re... whatever you are, you’re not my husband.”

  “Rouran, don’t be silly,” said Pol.

  “I’m not.”

  “You are,” said Pol. “You just told me you’re a widow with no prospects whom the whole village already gossips about. Is the floor very comfy?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s the harm?”

  “Appearances.”

  “There’s just you and me here, Rouran. And I’m not going to say anything you don’t want me to. I owe you my life.”

  Rouran stood by her makeshift bed, looking at Pol and then back at the place she’d been planning on sleeping, considering. It was a rough, uneven set of planks, the dirt ballast of the house’s foundation poking through in places. It could have done with a rug, or barring that, a fresh change of straw. The bed wasn’t anything close to opulent comfort, but it was compared to the floor.

  “Okay,” she said. She snuffed the last candle and poked at the fire until the log had died down a little, bathing the room in a dampening warm glow. She slipped into bed with him.

  “But no hanky-panky,” she warned. “You stay on your side.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Pol, adjusting himself slightly on the bed so that there was more room between them.

  For a while, they just lay there, Pol on his back, Rouran on her side, facing away from him. He tried to think of how he could get to Tia Vashil, how he could repay Rouran for her kindness. He tried to count dragons to go to sleep, like his mother had taught him. He listened to Rouran’s soft, steady breathing, trying to match his own and calm his mind, but nothing was working.

  “Pol?” came Rouran’s soft whisper. “Are you awake?”

  “Yes,” he said. The fire was almost completely dead now. When he looked over at her, he could see just the outline of her shoulder and her nose, from where she’d cocked her head without changing her position.

  “Can I ask you for a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “You can refuse, if you want to.”

  “I probably won’t refuse the woman who saved my life, Rouran.”

  “If it’s too weird, you can refuse.”

  “What is it?”

  “Will you hold me?”

  “What?”

  “Just, if you don’t mind, could you cuddle with me? It’s been a really long time since I’ve had a bedfellow, and I would like being held again.”

  Pol rolled onto his side, slipping up against Rouran until his body was against hers, her hair pulled up out of the way and arranged down her front. He wrapped an arm around her, so that it ran from her stomach, and his arm lay on top of hers so that his fingers intertwined on top of hers. His other arm stretched over both their heads.

  “Like this?” he asked.

  “Yes, just like—no, wait,” said Rouran. She took both his hands in hers and pressed them to her breasts.

  “Better,” she whispered.

  “Undoubtedly,” he said, laughing himself when she chuckled softly. He squeezed her tight to him with his upper arms, his hands gripping in echo. Rouran gave a soft moan.

  “You’re so hard, Pol,” she whispered. It was true. His cock had become quite turgid pressed up against her.

  “I’m sorry,” said Pol. Rouran shifted against him again, sending twinges along his cock as she nestled it into the cleft of her ass. “It’s got a mind of its own.”

  “Does it?” asked Rouran. “I was under the impression it was guided by your desires.”

  “Well, my desires have a mind of their own.”

  “Do you think I’m beautiful, Pol?”

  “What?”

  “Earlier, you said that you were surprised to hear I’d not remarried, because I was so pretty. You think I’m beautiful?”

  “Well, sure, Rouran. There’s no denying that.”

  “Even with the hair down to my ankles, and the smell of fish?”

  “I don’t see how either of those could make you less beautiful,” said Pol.

  There was movement underneath the covers as Rouran fiddled with something, and then Pol felt her dress lift up away over her hips, so that his cock pressed into the bare flesh of her ass.

  “Oh, fuck, Rouran,” he said. His hand slid down her body, probing the space between her legs. “You’re so wet.”

  “I told you it’s been a long time, Pol, and you’re very cute,” said Rouran. She shuddered as his hand explored the lips of her pussy, one of her own hands cupping his. “This is why I was worried about getting into bed with you.”

  “Because I’d be unable to control myself?”

  “Because I’d be unable to control my—oh, yes... yes!” cried Rouran. Pol had pushed his cock down between her legs, the head beginning to slide inside her cunt, resisted by the tight opening between Rouran’s closed thighs. She shifted slightly, raising a leg and allowing Pol deeper access.

  “By the Sky, you’re big,” she groaned. “It feels so good. Oh, I missed this, Pol.”

  Pol reached up, his hand gripping her jaw, turning her head to him. Her eyes were half-lidded, her gaze smoky with the ecstasy. He leaned forward and kissed her, his hips moving, beginning to thrust into her as his tongue darted into her mouth.

  “Oh, yes, harder,” she groaned as she broke the kiss, turning away to grip the edge of the bed and brace herself.

  Pol’s cock plunged into her pussy on the next stroke at a faster pace, and Pol took a heavy breath of air, his chest feeling a little tighter than he might have expected.

  “Pol, it feels so good. Give me that cock.”

  “Oh, fuck, Rouran, you’re incredible.”

  He grabbed Rouran’s hair, wrapping it around one hand as close as he could to the base of her head. She was leaning forward on the bed, his cock pistoning in and out of her, coated in her juice, her pussy soaked and soft in her need.

  “Oh, yes, just like that, Pol!” she cried, as his pull tightened, her back arching. She had one hand reached behind her, grasping at his torso, holding him tight as he thrust. “Harder. Oh, Vash, Vash forgive me, harder!”

  “Ahhh, fuck!” Pol groaned at the effort, his hips slamming against Rouran, the bed echoing out each cry and groan as the rickety frame shifted in response to their movement.

  “Oh, oh, oh, Vash, you’re deep!” Rouran moaned. She was pressing back against him, her movements complimenting his pumps to wring as much pleasure from his cock as she could manage.

  “Oh, fuck!” she swore, surprising Pol. “Oh, fill me, Pol. I want to feel you come inside me. Fill—oh, fuck!”

  An explosion of profanity poured from her lips punctuated only by the great heaving gasps that rode her body as she came, her back arching and falling as if pulled up and down by some invisible string.

  Pol’s body had hardly forgotten her command, his cock shuddering as his cum raced into Rouran’s cunt, flooding it
with his hot seed. Rouran’s pussy was pulsing around him, and at the feeling of his cock echoing it back, she began to fuck hard against him, urging the last of his cum from him. The world flickered for a moment, and he was momentarily worried about the light in the sky. Then his vision went an inky black.

  When he awoke, Rouran was shuddering off the last of her climax, his cock still inside her. He wasn’t holding her anymore, and he rolled away, onto his back, to pant and gasp at the air, trying to recollect himself.

  Rouran rolled around to face him, kissing him hard on the mouth.

  “I forgot how good that feels,” she whispered. Her hand strolled down his body wrapping around his cock, semi-hard now and growing softer. She tugged gently on him, insistently pulling it back to life.

  “Oh, no, Rouran, I don’t think I can manage another,” said Pol. “I just passed out again.”

  “You’re not giving yourself enough credit,” said Rouran. She was squeezing his cock, meeting an ever more determined resistance.

  “Mind of its own,” pleaded Pol.

  “That’s what I was counting on,” said Rouran. She straddled his hips, climbing on top of him, keeping hold of the cock between her legs. She leaned forward and kissed him again, her tongue hungry in his mouth.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, kissing his neck. “I’ll do all the work. I just don’t know when I’ll have a man in my bed again and I don’t want to lose out.”

  She tucked her hands under her dress, pulling it over her head and tossing it onto the floor. She had a voluptuous fullness to her body, each curve hiding a practiced muscle, arms strong from throwing and hauling nets all day, thighs taut and defined. Her large breasts, each one big enough to fill both his hands cupped together, were capped by wide round pink nipples.

  She reached a hand down between her legs, pulling his cock upright, then sank down on top of it, plunging it between the folds of her pussy.

  “Oh, oh. Oh! Fuck! This cock was made to be in my pussy,” she moaned, leaning forward to grind him deeper into herself. She was so far forward that Pol grabbed her breasts, feeding one into his mouth.