by Aaron Crash
She locked the door. We stood in a dark little room. The windows were coated in ash. There was an empty desk, an empty chair, and a door behind them.
“How did you find us, Broom?” I asked.
The big girl snorted. “You three stand out. And I knew you were dumb enough to come to the Lore Factories. You three, so stupid, and I don’t find any of you attractive. Maybe it’s mildly interesting that Axel is a dragon. Maybe. Like something that rare would be interesting. Whatever.”
Rhee went over and threw her arms around Broom and hugged her. Rhee was tall, all elves were, but she still only reached Broom’s big chest. Rhee wouldn’t mind that at all. Neither did Broom. Big Red held her close. “Oh, beans! You three are in trouble. And I can’t help you. I would never help you. That would be crazy. It’s not like I can help you get down to the testing chambers. No way. We should get going.”
Figg started breathing hard. She was about to lose her temper. I thought the screaming might start, but my summoner kept her voice to a low hiss. “Broom, are you going to help us or not? You say one thing, but I think you mean the opposite, and normally, that’s fine. If you maintain you are very popular, or that you don’t want to kiss Rhee, that is fine. But this is our lives and the fate of my town. Speak clearly!”
Broom snorted, laughed, and snorted some more. “I’m totally popular. Toole and Toil keep trying to sex on me, even when it’s not my time. As for Rhee, I wouldn’t kiss her on a bet. I always speak clearly. I totally mean what I say.” She said that last part with what might’ve been sarcasm. It was hard to tell.
Figg grimaced. “So you are helping us?”
“No! I’m not helping you,” Broom said. “That would be the end of my life here. I love Sweetleaf. It’s my hometown. People love me. The air is clean. The water is pure.”
“Ha!” Figg then did shout. “No, it’s not. It’s like living in a coal fire. I don’t need to smoke because walking around is smoking enough. And the water is sludge.”
“It’s not if you clean it.” Broom had a dopey grin on her face.
Rhee clearly adored our giant friend. I couldn’t help but be a little taken by her as well. Yes, she said the opposite of what she meant, and yes, I wasn’t sure if she was as dumb as a box of rocks or if her intelligence had armed her with a good sense of irony.
Broom didn’t have her spear or her shield, but she still had a short sword. She also had a little bag on her hip. She pulled it out. “After the fight last night, I heard that Axel’s tattoo might not be finished, so I went back to Cash’s early this morning to get some of the ink. I only did it because I’m going to charge you extra rupas for the trouble. I paid five rupas. I want six from you. See? We’re not friends. I would give my friends a discount.”
Figg was struck speechless.
Rhee dug into her pocket and came out with some coins. “Six rupas? How about five?”
“You’re such a sucker. I only paid four.” Broom snorted more and took the money, five rupas.
Figg raised an accusing finger. I put my hand over it and lowered Figg’s hand. We didn’t need to point out all of Broom’s contradictions.
I stepped in. “So, Broom, do you know where they are keeping Dryx?”
She nodded. “I can’t take you there, but I can show you the way. We can’t kill anyone, though. Deal?”
Rhee took out her five-pronged golden Frisbee. “This hit Dryx and didn’t kill her.”
Broom nodded. “Yes, that’s Toil’s chakram. He’ll be pissed you have it. Word has it the chakram came from Dvey himself. The more you practice, the more you can do with it. Toil could paralyze or he could kill by tossing around that toy. He’d gotten so good, he could throw it, and it would come back to him.”
Rhee grinned. “I might not need my throwing daggers if I get good at this chakram thing.”
Somehow, I knew my mothers would want me to make a Xena: Warrior Princess joke, but I’d never seen the show.
Broom moved to the door at the back of the room and opened it. Beyond was a shadowy hallway, dimly lit with Agni lanterns. One set of steps led up, another down, and I wasn’t sure which direction might be more dangerous. Or how much help we’d really get from this strange, socially awkward giantess.
Chapter Twenty-One
IN THE END, I FELT too shitty to really doubt Broom.
Big Red led the way through the door and to the staircase. She gestured upward. “That would take us to the storage rooms and offices. This factory closed down, so it would mostly be empty there. We need to go down.”
Down we went, passing more shadowy hallways. Agni lanterns, turned low, gave the place a very dark feel. I was reminded of certain Moscow office buildings, big industrial communist complexes with more rooms than people.
Every step down felt harder than the last. We needed to get to Dryx. At the same time, I needed to stop, rest, and finish my concentration ink.
The burning in me finally made the choice. I fell against the wall and slid down onto a step.
Figg and Rhee helped me up and my cloak fell open.
Broom was given a full view of my unit.
She turned a bright red and spun around. “Well, yes, that’s a pinga all right. Dragon with a dick. There you go. Wow.”
Rhee giggled. “You should see it when it’s angry, Broom. You’d like it, I think. Since you don’t like girls in that way.”
“I don’t. Oh my beans, I’m so turned on right now.” Her voice didn’t match the words. Like that was new.
Figg sighed.
Broom took us down another level, and we went through a door and through more offices until we reached an archway of chiseled rock. Ten-foot-tall tunnels had been carved underneath Sweetleaf. Unlike the coolness of a cave, it felt warm. I could smell fires and a chemical odor, like ammonia boiling.
The humidity level also went up. There was water gushing from somewhere, loud in the rocky halls. Agni torches in sconces provided light.
Rhee and Figg supported me as we followed Broom quickly over a smooth stone floor. The ground was so old that the chisel marks were worn smooth. We entered a vast chasm with a waterfall gushing down from above, falling through the cavern, into the darkness below. We were on a ledge, but there were other ledges above and below.
Craning my neck, I saw that there was a rectangle of daylight way up there, well, as much as it was ever light in Sweetleaf. I felt like I was in London in the 1800s, when black moths prospered because of the soot.
Broom charged down to the right. We followed the ledge around to the waterfall. There was a cavern behind it, with stone benches and a nice Agni lantern on a table. This seemed like the Lore Factory’s break room. Whatever a Lore Factory was. Cushions covered the stone benches. A gray carpet covered the floor. Near the lantern were a few scrolls, pens, and inkwells.
I was so thirsty, I almost leaned out to drink from the falling water. It looked clean enough.
In the end, I was too weak. My girls put me down on a bench, and again the cloak fell open.
Broom rushed over and closed it. She knelt in front of me. “I’m so worried for you, Axel. And I don’t have a needle. I only have the ink. Will you be better when you have the ink?”
I shut my eyes, trying not to throw up. Being hungry and thirsty, puking would not help me.
“Let’s eat,” Figg said. “Then we can decide on our next action.”
Rhee rummaged in her satchel and came out with a tube of wine. She took a swallow herself, did the ahhh sound, and then gave it to me. I sipped it. The sweet and wet hit my mouth perfectly. She then gave me a water tube. I drank the whole thing.
Meanwhile, Figg pulled out some dried fish wrapped in seaweed. With the Foulwater fish jerky, trademark pending, the texture and salt were better than the taste. I liked it chewy. Figg also had some rice balls.
We ate and drank a little while Broom paced to the ledge to the left of the falling water, the entrance to our hidden room. She kept watch. The waterfall wasn’t so loud si
nce the falls were above and below us. It was actually kind of cozy.
“I’m having Casa Bonita flashbacks,” I said. Casa Bonita was Denver’s weirdest and wackiest Mexican restaurant, still going strong in the year 2046 back on Earth.
We offered Broom some food, but she refused. Then she was back to the entrance, making sure we were okay.
Figg rolled a bidi, lit it, and took a needle out of her sewing kit. She used Agni magic to clean it and dipped it into Cash’s magic ink.
“This is so wrong,” she complained. “Khambatta University professors study for years to apply the ink. And now I have to do it. Vankaat injit!” She stabbed the ink to finish the line on my inner forearm.
Her own concentration ink was glowing while she worked on me. I winced at the needle. She was finishing up the tattoo prison-yard style. Or was that middle-school style? She didn’t know how deep to push the ink, and she wasn’t taking any chances. I’m pretty sure a couple of the pokes went to the bone. On the other hand, that pain was better than the burning in my gut.
Broom came charging back in. “Did you say you went to the Khambatta University?”
Figg nodded. “Yes. I’m a fully trained sorceress. I summoned Axel from another world.” She said it with some pride.
Rhee held my right hand tightly. “Are you feeling better, Axel? I haven’t shown it, but I’m worried. We need you at your best because I’m pretty sure your best will keep us alive.”
Broom watched us, not speaking. She seemed in awe.
Figg felt Big Red watching. “Tell us more about you, Broom.”
The giantess swished her tail up into her hands, and she began to undo the braids in her tail with her big fingers. “Me? My story is amazing. I grew up in Sweetleaf. My parents loved me. I was so popular in school, they said I could do whatever I wanted. I thought about becoming rich in the factories, or opening a dance school in the Mazes, or maybe leaving and going to a university myself. But then my mother died. My father, like most Wynnym men, had a dozen wives. But my father loved my mother the most. She was his best mare. She was so great and kind, especially to me. It broke his heart. He had to send me away because he said whenever he looked at me, he thought of her.”
The words came out in a rush. It was clear she wanted us to know her history. “I don’t blame my father at all. He didn’t want to abandon me, but he had choice. He just loved my mother so much. So, I was homeless for a bit, living in the stables, hiding. The stables are where the soldiers live, and that includes the town guard. They eventually found me. Everyone liked me so much, especially the boys, that they wanted me to stay on.” That one made me wince. “So I joined the guard. It’s been so much fun. I wouldn’t want to leave to become a powerful sorceress and travel all over the world and go on adventures. Sheesh. Who would want that?”
She laughed, and it was sad, mostly broken.
Rhee had tears in her eyes. “Yeah, Broom, it’s not like we’d take you with us back to Foulwater. No, not at all. You have it so great here. Right?”
Broom didn’t talk for a long time. She just worked on re-braiding the hair on her tail. But she’d heard every word Rhee had said.
Seeing the sadness on Broom’s face, I felt my own eyes water. The big woman had brought us the ink. She’d figured out where we’d gone while the rest of Sweetleaf was still looking. She wasn’t dumb. And yet, she was hurt, that was clear, and that hurt had started young.
The big woman caught herself. “Beans, Rhee, you’re so right. I have a great life. I don’t get teased at all for liking girls. No one thinks that’s weird. No one thinks I’m strange for not liking Wynnym men. I love them. I wish they had dark hair though, and I wish they had blue eyes. And I wish they were funny, and kind, and I wish they would take me away from this damn town.” She snorted out a laugh and dropped her tail.
Figg wasn’t talking. Her left arm glowed. She worked on my ink, and I was feeling better.
“What did your father do for a living?” Rhee asked.
“Worked in the mines,” she said. “I would come and join him, me and my mother would, and we worked so hard. He didn’t trust his other wives to help him, only me and my mom. So they all got to relax. Not that I wanted to just sit around eating and napping and playing with the other kids. Sheesh. No way.”
“We’re thinking about opening a mine,” Rhee said. “But we’d never hire you. I mean, you’d have to move to Foulwater. It’s not like you’re going to just leave your sweet deal in Sweetleaf. Right?”
“Right!” Broom snorted. “That would be crazy.”
Rhee leaned her head against my other arm. I liked her there. And I liked the idea of Broom coming with us, though I wasn’t sure I could fly her back to Foulwater. She’d have to make the journey on her own, and I hated that idea.
I didn’t want anything to happen to the giantess and her cute furry red tail.
Figg sat back and whispered, “Ksaat injit.”
My tattoo grew redder, and even started to ooze a little, but that grease soon faded away. Skin peeled away and that too disappeared until my arm was done. The black tattoo was centered around the hurricane circle.
I took in a deep breath. The pain was gone, and yet, I didn’t feel right.
I checked the Five Magics Skill Tree.
“I’m close to leveling again,” I said.
That made Figg roll her eyes.
I continued. “But the problem is, I’m low on shakti. We need to have sex again.”
The big woman nodded. “Yes, sex. But it’s not my time, and that can be awkward on me.”
Rhee laughed gently. “No, Broom, you don’t have to join us. Axel, as a dragon, gets magical power from sex.”
“This is just plain embarrassing,” I said.
Figg turned around. She stowed the ink and the needle away in her satchel. “You can wait outside on the other side of the waterfall, Broom. We won’t take long.”
Broom went and sat next to Rhee, leaning forward. She was so big, and yet, she seemed so fragile. She felt us all looking at her.
She raised her eyes to meet our gaze. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay. I’m complicated. I admit that. But I feel close to you all. Even you, Figg. I know you’re angry a lot, and I get angry too. But it’s because you’re afraid. You love your village so much, maybe not as much as I like Sweetleaf, but you love Foulwater a lot. As for sex, I’d like to kiss you all some, and hug you, and watch you. If you don’t mind.”
Rhee took the giant woman’s hand in hers. “I think I speak for all of us. We don’t mind, Broom. Do what’s comfortable for you.”
Figg nodded, her eyes softening. Broom had mentioned Foulwater, and she’d read Figg perfectly. Again I was struck by how clever Broom was, though she tried to keep that intelligence hidden. Maybe with her rough upbringing, she’d had to.
And I was curious to see what it would be like to kiss her.
Her shyness seemed to have melted away. The lantern’s light was soft on her face. I gazed into her eyes. And she gazed back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
WE HAD OUR OWN LITTLE room with a stone wall to our left and a waterfall to our right. A lantern glowed on the table.
Rhee kissed my neck and caressed my thigh. She had the cloak pulled back, so I was on display. I felt the cushion on my bare skin, and I was glad for it. The stone was cold on the back of my thighs.
Figg stood up and slipped off her tunic and dropped it. “Broom, how likely is it that we’ll get caught here?”
The big girl was having a hard time talking. Her eyes were on my cock. She’d been saying how much she liked pingas, but I hadn’t believed her. It had seemed she was far more into girls. Could it be she liked human males more than the horse men? Or was it my Dragonsoul magic drawing her to me?
Rhee turned. “Broom, we need to know how watchful we need to be. We are on the run after all.” She unbuttoned her shirt and lowered her bra, a strap of cloth she needed to keep her big tits strapped down.
&n
bsp; Broom licked her lips. “Oh, Rheesee, I can see yer... you have big... and your nipples. This whole part of the Lore Factory has been mined out. We’re fine here. I looked. We shouldn’t tarry though.” The freckled giantess unbuckled her leather armor, undoing straps on the side. She set it on a bench. She undid her sword belt and set her weapon down on the table. She wore a padded shirt under it, but the front was open, to reveal her cleavage. She had full breasts freckled like the rest of her. I so wanted to see what her nipples looked like, but she’d made it clear it wasn’t her time. I didn’t understand what that meant, but I could respect that.
Figg knelt down on the rug and got between my legs. I knew what was coming. Figg being Figg, and with our situation being so uncertain, took hold of me and without so much as a lick took me into her mouth. She sucked hard. At the same time, she stroked me. She wasn’t being gentle. She was a woman on a mission.
Rhee shook off her boots, raised her hips, and slid off her pants. Her big pink puffy nipples were getting hard. Broom came over and knelt next to Figg, watching my summoner with glittering eyes. The big woman’s gaze shifted over to Rhee, who had spread her legs. The elf cupped one tit while she rubbed her button with her other hand.
The big woman’s eyes were wide, her face was flushed, and her mouth was open. I noticed how wet her red lips were. She moved over to get close to Rhee.
Broom smiled. I watched her confidence melt her shyness. The red-haired giant wasn’t exactly turned on, I didn’t think, but she was feeling the sexual power in the room. And she’d wanted to hug and kiss Rhee from the very first time they met. The unlikely pair had a definite connection.
I watched as Rhee kissed Broom. The elf raised her chest up so it would touch the rough-spun cloth of the giant girl’s shirt. Rhee’s mouth was so much smaller than Broom’s, the wild sea elf could only kiss part of the giant’s lips. This seemed to turn Rhee on even more. She stood up and pushed herself against Broom. Kneeling, Broom was a tad shorter than Rhee, but not by much.