by Pam Uphoff
"The Auralians are starting to raid up into the Southern Divide; this will give us an alternate trade route to the east, and the Auralians can hang about the mountains with nothing but troops going by." The general ran both hands over his hair, smoothing it. "Now, the Old Road. Have you taken a look at it?"
"Yes, sir. It's been covered by old lava flows in three areas. That won't be too much of a problem. Lower down they got those mud and ash flow avalanches, like what took out Garriton down south when Mount Just erupted. They've eroded over time; the surface is treacherous, but mostly limited to the areas around the rivers, where it poured down and filled the riverbeds. The rivers have cut new channels, sometimes through the ash, sometimes they shifted to completely new paths. It's going to be a matter of how much old road you want to hold too, and how much rotten ash rock you have to deal with to do so. Not to mention, the new bridges you'll be needing."
"Well, we'll get on it, as soon as the rest of the battalion gets here." He frowned. “I hope there's no trouble at the village. Ash? Was that the name?"
"Yes, sir. I sent a messenger to your troops, warning them that there'd been a bit of trouble there and that they should be prepared to pass through and keep going."
"Good, good." He shook his head. “Didn't think I'd drunk that much wine. Haven't partied like that since I was a lad with no sense at all." He shot a glance at Bail. "Not a word to Lady Baring."
"No, sir."
A soft knock on the door brought his head around. "Ah, Lefty, er, General, my head scout Carwell Lebonift. How did the village react to the troops?"
"No problem." Lefty sounded surprised. "Nice and friendly, laid out a nice feed. Ale instead of wine, but better than the troops have had for some time. Not many women around, there were no problems at all." He shrugged. "I came ahead to let you know."
"Good. So, they'll be here. . .?"
"In another three hours. I told them we had plenty of room and grub, so they won't lag."
Bail dismissed him with a sigh of relief.
The general looked around, frowning. “His Majesty asked me to check on that wretched nephew of his. Didn't get much of a chance to speak to him before he ran off with that pretty blonde."
Bail grinned. "She pretty much wore him out. He's been rather mellow, since." He leaned out the door. “Jak, tell Lieutenant Byson to report to my office. Check the stables, first."
The general was back at his map. "Should be a nice busy year or three for us, eh?"
"Possibly longer; depends on the ground beyond Mount Frost. My scouts are just up to the new pass—a canyon just like the Mage described."
"Uncanny, if you ask me. Do you give much truck to that magic nonsense?"
Bail's answer was forestalled by the appearance of Lieutenant Byson at the door. "Sir? General Baring." He came to a rather relaxed attention and saluted.
The general looked perplexed. Bail knew why; there wasn't a bit of arrogance in the young noble's bearing. He was relaxed and confident. Maybe he was sick.
"So, Byson, how are you liking this assignment?"
The young man nodded thoughtfully. “I'm getting some excellent experience, sir. Really, I had no idea how much work a good road represented."
The general eyed him. There was absolutely no sign of sarcasm.
"I think, with the captain's permission, I'll head up to the top of the pass, and assist the trail blazers."
"Certainly. Grab some breakfast and go. I believe there's a team of horses headed halfway up to clear boulders, go with them, you'll have to walk the rest of the way."
"Sir." he saluted again and trotted off.
"Old gods! How badly did you have to beat him to get that?"
"I don't know what caused it." He shrugged. “I refuse to credit getting laid at that party. He spent most of yesterday in the stables, fussing over the work horses. They're getting knocked around a bit, in this terrain."
"Should have brought mules. I'll add them to my list." The general straightened. “Well, with Byson setting such a fine example, I figure I'd best get to work myself. See you in a couple of weeks."
Bail saluted him and then sank into a chair. Witches. What had that blonde witch done to the king's nephew? And could she bottle it? He had a list . . .
***
It was a week before Never came back from the mountains. She'd rested, meditated, eaten berries and snared a rabbit. She tucked into the lunch Happy placed in front of her ravenously. "If I'd have known I was going to be up there a week I'd have taken some food."
Her mother drew a quick breath as she saw the brilliant glow of her daughter's aura. "Well, my little girl has certainly grown up in a week." She added a slice of pie to the collection in front of Never and stepped out her front door and flagged down Opinion and Particular. "Could you ask Answer and Blissful to stop by?"
Which of course resulted in all the Sisters stopping by, to make her try a few channeling exercises.
"Well, dear, for such a rough start you've done an excellent job of learning how to control the flow of power in a sexual relationship. With a bit of practice, you'll be able to control it for any purpose." Answer eyed her keenly. "And how do you feel about Lord Byson, now?"
"I nearly killed him. I used him and damn near drowned him in the hot springs. I'm horribly afraid I may have done him some permanent damage." She looked her grandmother straight in the eye. "I dare not see him again."
Answer nodded in satisfaction. "You realize your power now. You can channel the power wherever you want it." Her gaze swung back to Mostly and Likely. "You two have begun to channel instinctively, but you don't understand it yet. You must learn more, and quickly. You will have to channel power away from your unborn babies, or risk killing them in the womb."
The two young women nodded, and looked at Never, baffled. Likely fidgeted with her dress. "How did you do that, Never? Mostly and I both . . . Well, it doesn't matter, does it?"
The other Sisters were nodding, except for the New Moons, whose eyes were wide in astonishment. "Are you preggers, Never?" Opinion asked.
"I don't know yet." She looked to the older women.
"I rather think so, your glow is much brighter than I'd expect just from lost virginity. We'll know for sure in a moon's time. If you miss your flow, you've taken." Blissful told her.
"Eww!" Question disappeared from view.
Justice sighed.
"Sisters of the Crescent Moon, we will meet daily on the flat hill for practice." Answer cocked her head at the others. Idea and Furious nodded. They would be the teachers.
***
Lefty dawdled in the forest, keeping an eye on the witches. They weren't going to the hot springs anymore. Instead the three youngest women were practicing something on a flat-topped hill that had no power whatsoever. He figured it was the equivalent of young soldiers practicing with wooden swords until they were more of a danger to the enemy than themselves.
He really didn't want to know what they were doing.
It was a beautiful day, but already thunderheads were building against the mountains, threatening rain this afternoon. He cast his mind about for nearby shelter, just in case . . .
Another cramp hit his stomach. He curled up in a ball of pain. They had started last night, and if they didn't stop soon he might have to approach the witches and ask if any of them could save him. The troop didn't have a chirurgeon along, and even if they did, they were a solid day's travel away and anyway, they killed as many as they cured. He was in deep trouble if this was his appendix gone bad.
"Are you sick?"
He jerked around then hunched over his belly again. "No, go away." he croaked.
It was one of the witchy teenagers, the girl that always wore brown. She was a good tracker, but she shouldn't have been able to track him.
"Huh." A world of contempt for weak male creatures in a single grunt. She disappeared.
He cursed himself silently, and pushed to his feet. Might as well go out and introduce himself to the wit
ches, now. He made two steps before he keeled over.
After some interval of time, the pain ebbed a bit. Crunching footsteps neared. He turned his head enough to see the brown girl leading the Sheep Man.
"Well, our engineer's head scout, is it? Good tracking job, Question. This one knows a bit about hiding a trail."
"I figured, since he's a man, he'd prefer you to the Sisters."
"Oh, no doubt. Let's see your stomach, Scout."
Big strong hands yanked his pants and small-clothes down in a single powerful pull. He whimpered in humiliation, his scars and deformity open before the man and girl, and the sky and entire world.
"Auralians caught you, eh?"
"He hasn't got any nads." The brown girl stated the obvious. "Do they geld their slaves, Sheep Man? Why'd they cut off his pisser, too?"
"Yep, that's the Auralians. They use the young ones like girls, and they think it tames the old ones. Fools, eh, Scout? How many of them did you kill when you escaped?"
"Eight." The Sheep Man was so matter of fact, the horror faded a bit. The old man dug his fingers into Lefty's abdomen like a baker kneading dough. Lefty whimpered as the pain flared up.
"Let's see, three weeks since the party? That's about right. How much of that wine did you drink?"
"A lot?" It had been his first-ever hangover. The first time he'd gotten drunk since a drunken guard fell asleep on the job and cost him his manhood. He'd been ten, helping on his father's caravan.
"Hmph, well, you see, you drank some powerful fertility herbs and some powerful aphrodisiacs. You may have noticed everyone acting like cats in heat?"
Lefty nodded, curling around another wave of pain.
"Well, it all worked a bit different on you. I 'spec' Gisele was thinking about fixing up some old wombs and getting them ready for babes. Must have a damn fine healing potion in there, and a damn good thing for some youngsters. Anyhow, it seems to me you're growing some new nads. And that's a bit of a problem, for a grown man."
"What?" His voice squeaked, and the Sheep Man nodded.
"Yep. See, nads grow in the belly of an unborn baby, and shift south as they get ready to be born. By the time they are born the nads are out where they belong. These new ones of yours are going to have to do the same thing, but since you're not an unborn babe, they've got a bit further to go, and some tough old muscles to get past, and a narrow little tube to fit down."
"It's going to hurt?" he whimpered.
"Yep,"
"But it's going to work?" he squeaked. "What about my, uh . . . " He tried to look, but pain blurred his vision.
"And a voice change at the same time, poor sod. Hope they stay small enough long enough to get out." The Sheep Man jerked his pants up. "Can't imagine anything of Gisele's not working, though. I 'spect your pisser'll grow back too. If it hurts too bad, just get drunk."
"Uhh." His shaking hands settled his pants carefully around his hips.
The Sheep Man stood up and walked away.
"Thank you!" This time his voice worked. He almost wished it hadn't.
"That's pretty weird." The brown girl wrinkled her nose. "Although from what I've seen in livestock, it ought to work."
"Animals don't think about things the same way people do. They probably never notice anything has changed. They don't think about what ought to be."
She looked thoughtful. "Wolves think an awful lot about what ought to be in their bellies." She stood up and brushed leaves off her backside. "I'll get you some food, so you don't have to move too much."
"And wine?" he called after her.
***
Never was helping cook dinner in the tavern. Harry and the boys could all cook after a fashion, but with so many women around, and so few kitchens, they'd fallen into the habit of cooking in the tavern regularly. She'd heard that the winery, the tavern and Gisele's hut had been the only buildings in the Valley, when the few surviving witches had limped in. Harry had been just as old and bent and hard then as now, and had had a gaggle of lost children about even then. They seemed to find their way to him, and maybe that was why all the crippled and battered magical survivors of a war had washed up here as well.
Delight was examining bottles by the back door. "You're sure these are all that are left? We wouldn't want to overlook any."
"I searched the village, took them all." Harry ducked out the back door.
Never barely managed to keep her face straight. So far not a single Sister had had her moon flow. The Sisters of the Waning Half were of mixed feelings about the whole thing.
Question wiggled past Delight. “Can I have some food to take hiking, Never, maybe a couple of days worth?"
"Sure, honey." She cut off a chunk of hard salami, a wedge of cheese and added two small loaves.
Delight clucked at the girl and shook her head, moving past Never to check a pie in the oven. "I don't know whether to pour that wine out, or save it for an emergency."
Question loaded a bag. “Thanks, Never," she called as she skipped out the door.
"I'll put it all in a special crate." Harry carried the crate through the back door. “See?"
It had little red hearts painted all over it. He started laying the wine bottles in it. "Hmm, are you sure you brought them all in; I thought there was more left over."
"I brought up all the ones in the basket. At one point they were spread all over the village; no telling how many we missed. Or people kept for later."
"Right, well, these are going to the very back of the cellar." He carried the crate out.
Delight sighed. "It was a wonderful orgy. But I'm too old to do that again."
***
"So, you still alive?"
Lefty pushed himself up to a sitting position. "Yeah. Now that I know what it is, I keep telling myself it doesn't hurt. But it does."
"Have some wine." The brown girl pulled two bottles out of her sack, then frowned. "I don't have a corkscrew or any glasses."
Lefty dug into his pack and pulled out a battered tin cup and a thin-bladed knife.
He had to destroy the cork to get to the wine, but he didn't really care. He poured the girl a cup full and took a swig from the bottle. After a bit of work, he managed to swallow the wine with out too much of the cork, and spit out the chucks he'd trapped with his tongue. The next swallow was cork-free, and delicious. "This is good stuff. How can you get such good wine up here, and how much trouble are you going to be in for bringing it to me?"
"Who cares? The Auld Wulf makes it. This was left over from the party." She pulled the bottle from his suddenly limp hands and refilled her cup.
"Uh, should you be drinking this stuff?" He took the bottle back. "You heard what the Sheep Man said about it." He took a sip.
She frowned at the wine in her cup. "I think I'm too young for it to work on. I think boys are stupid. And you might need more. Anyhow, you haven't grown your parts back yet, so I can't seduce you."
"Oh, right. That's good. I mean, because you're so young, it's, umm. Good." He scooted back against a tree and took a long chug. This stuff was good.
She grinned. "But I could practice. Happy said Never made such a hash of seducing that pretty boy because she hadn't had any practice."
"What?" Maybe he shouldn't have drunk so much, so fast. The girl scooted over and leaned against him. She was just old enough to have some curves. Lovely curves. He'd never properly appreciated curves before. Or improperly. He took another swig, then topped off her cup. "Just practice, right?"
"Right. You've probably never kissed anyone, either, have you?"
"Well, not a girl." He'd never wanted to, probably because he'd never met someone like the Brown Girl. Well, the missing parts . . . Sure couldn't call him a virgin, though.
She hopped up to her knees and planted her lips on his.
"Yuck." She wiped her mouth.
"Yeah, that was kind of drooly." Lefty wiped his own mouth and took several deep swallows from the bottle. He put it down carefully as the cramps twinged.
"Oh," she gently rubbed his tummy. "Drink more."
The world was spinning around rather a lot, but her tummy rubs were helping. He lay flat and stared at the clouds above the trees. He could see flashes of lightning, just cloud to cloud so far, and he vaguely wondered how tall the tree they were under was but he couldn't remember why it was important. The hair on his arms was standing up with static, which he thought should bother him. The girl frowned at her fingers, and he giggled to see miniature lightning jumping from finger to finger.
The Brown Girl lifted his head and held the cup for him to drink more wine, and he sighed happily as her fingers rubbed his belly, sending tingles, pleasant ones, up his spine. She kept making him drink and the pain went far, far away, taking his consciousness with it.
Lefty had this weird dream. He was running around a beautiful green meadow dotted with flowers, and the Brown Girl was teasing him, and laughing and running away. He kept catching her, and making love to her like a man, and then she'd run away again, still laughing this odd deep . . .
"What are you doing, Scout?" The Sheep Man took his forefinger off Lefty's forehead.
"What?" he blinked and looked around. He was standing in a deep green meadow dotted with flowers. Sheep were milling about stupidly, baaing their odd deep baas . . . "Oh no." He was stark naked, and looking down he saw he had the whole works. Just starting to sag. "Oh no. Not sheep!" And a worse thought. "Where's the Brown Girl?"
"I don't know how you two got ahold of that stuff, but I'm not used to my own daughter come crying to me because she can't seduce a eunuch. I sent her home last night, sobered up and hung over." He frowned down at Lefty. "As I ought to have left you. But I want you alert and hearing what I'm telling you." He pointed back toward the forest. "You go get your clothes back on and go home. And," he leaned real close, "if I ever catch you fooling with my daughter until she's a good deal older, you're going to be right back in the same condition you were three weeks ago. Do you understand that?"