Looking across the harbor, Vulkis' heart sank.
He had hoped for his ship – his original, Aesir longship - but that one, he saw, was currently being loaded with foodstuffs by a few goblins. No, the ship Liv indicated was barely a dinghy. A fishing ship, made to scoot out into the Platonic Sea, catch some family’s feed, then sail home.
“We’re going to New Athens in that,” Liv said.
“You have a, ah, great respect for our seamanship,” Vulkis said through gritted teeth as his body found a new piece of pain to inform him of. He shifted his back against the wall. “How do we get there?”
“I’ve been watching their scout patterns. We move, move, move,” Liv said, sheathing her sword. She turned to face him, then shrugged, knelt, and lifted Vulkis up over her shoulder. Her body strained and Vulkis wouldn’t have believed that she was actually lifting him, save that she was. Liv panted, then started forward, jogging quickly. Each jostling movement sent new spikes of pain through Vulkis. He clenched his jaw to keep from crying out as Liv sprinted forward. He could feel a tremble working through her body – her arms quaked, her shoulders quivered. But she kept going. Behind him, he saw Eerika jogging along.
They moved from shadow to shadow, the sounds of the loading and the calls of the teamsters from one to the other covering the scuff of their feet.
Then…
The sun kindled.
Cries of alarm came from every teamster, and several people almost dropped their belongings. Guards hissed and rubbed at their eyes as the normal confusion that came from those who had to work through the night – it always seemed like a surprise if you didn’t sleep through a kindling.
Liv, to her credit, didn’t stumble.
Eerika, however, froze like a panicked animal.
“Hey!” a lizardman guard standing on one of the roofs of the buildings that framed the port called out. He pointed at them. “Stop! Alarm!”
Liv put on an extra burst of speed, leaped, and landed in the dinghy. The ship rocked up and down in the water then surged almost over as Eerika sprang in. She yanked the rope that connected the dinghy to the pier, which came free. Vulkis – who had been unceremoniously dumped back onto the bottom of the ship – felt something come loose inside of himself. He clenched his jaw, then lifted his arm.
He pointed.
“There,” he said. “Tug th-” He coughed, suddenly. His hand wiped along his mouth and he blinked as he saw blood on his hand. He closed his eyes. He may have done better to stay behind. But then he shook his head. “Sail!”
Liv grabbed what he pointed towards. The wind was already starting to pick up. The sail billowed and caught and the light ship leaped forward as the lizardfolk running towards the pier. They started to hurl javelins at them, the weapons plunging into the water. Several even leaped into the water. As they started to dart towards the ship, Liv drew her sword again. It flashed in the sunlight, and with more than just the sheen of bronze. She placed her feet and when the first lizardman grabbed onto the edge of the ship and dragged himself up, she put the blade through his forehead. The lizardman twitched and the blade slipped back with a wet crunch.
Another sprang up from the other side, holding a short dagger in one hand. He scrambled forward and stabbed Liv in the back.
Liv snorted. “Come on,” she said, turning around. She grabbed the dagger in her hand, wrenched it from the lizardman’s hand. He slashed at her with his claws but they skittered off her arm, harmlessly, and Liv lopped his hand off, then kicked him in the snout. As he fell backwards, she shook her head.
“Assholes.”
The wind picked up further. The other ships looked completely filled with supplies – none were ready to set sail at a moment’s notice. Liv nodded as she put her foot on the railing that ringed the dinghy. She turned to look at Eerika, who was holding the rudder one handed, her eyes focused on the sails.
“We’re going to need to set those to rights but we might make it,” she said, laughing. “So, what’s the plan, Vulkis?”
The waves lapped against the ship.
“Vulkis?”
The two women looked down.
Vulkis’ head had lolled to the side. Blood dribbled from his mouth. Liv knelt down, putting her ear to his mouth. She frowned. “He’s drowning in his blood,” she said, quietly.
“What do we do?” Eerika asked.
But she knew the answer.
“We-” Liv started. She cut herself off.
Slowly, she shook her head. “Idiot,” she muttered as she looked down at Vulkis.
“He didn’t want to die in bed,” Eerika said, her voice soft. “He’s Aesir.”
“So, he was born an idiot, then,” Liv said. Then her face softened. “Go to Valhalla, you womanizing son of a bitch.”
***
“They’re heading for New Athens, sir,” the scout said, dropping her salute. Brax nodded, his voice curt as he responded.
“Very good,” he said. “Go to the ships – we’re sailing after them.”
The scout nodded and started off. As the rest of the army continued to muster at the piers, Brax turned and marched towards where Sysminor was holding his quarters in the Citadel. Walking through the corridors – most of them empty, and several still scorched – Brax reviewed his plans. The entire world felt like it was becoming more and more chaotic every second.
Good.
He came to the chambers – the finest ones left in the Citadel that hadn’t been burned or damage during the taking of the city and was relieved to see the pale blue glow of Sysminor’s presence underneath. No guards. Sysminor had stopped using guards recently. Brax wasn’t entirely sure why, but it made him wary. When he opened the door, he heard the quiet gasp of a female voice.
“Oh God!”
Brax peeked ever so slightly around the corner leading into the room.
Brigid was splayed against Sysminor’s chest, her eyes unfocused as the rock-like form of the false god caressed her back. The Tuatha goddess was achingly beautiful. Her face had a thin patina of freckles, and her upturned nose gave the perfect accent to the slightly bookish air she had. Her hair was long and pale white, flowing along her back like a silvery waterfall. Her back had just as many freckles as her front, and her butt was as firm and taut as a drum. Perfection – and to see it being groped and squeezed by Sysminor’s geometrically marred hands was…
Insulting.
“I can see,” Brigid moaned, her breath coming fast and eager as she ground her plump, puffy pussy against Sysminor’s knee. Her juices dripped along his blue flesh, adding an extra shine to him as her breasts squished slightly against his chest. Her head ducked forward as Sysminor’s fingers came up to caress her temple. “Oh God!”
Brax frowned.
“Yesss yess yes,” Sysminor murmured. “Think of the knowledge...”
Brigid nodded eagerly, her lips spreading into a wide grin. She looked…
Drugged.
Sysminor, meanwhile, seemed to grow more brighter. More focused. Brax frowned. He couldn’t say it for sure, but his gut said that Sysminor was - somehow - taking knowledge from Brigid.
Brax coughed, quietly.
Sysminor snapped his head to the entryway. Brax didn’t even need his long experience with the false god to see smugness spreading across his face. Brigid shuddered with orgasmic pleasure, her back arching as she gasped, her eyes widening further. Light shone from within as Sysminor touched her pussy with his finger, then plunged it home.
“What new information target lock do you have have on the the theeee traitors slaves?” Sysminor asked.
“They’re fleeing to Babylon,” Brax said. This was not the most risky gamble he had ever made in his life.
But it was up there.
Sysminor rubbed his finger along his chin as his other finger continued to plunge into Brigid. From the things she mumbled under her breath as Sysminor finger fucked her – words like parasitism and synthesis and marxism – Brax had a suspicion that far more wa
s going on than mere sex. He didn’t hope to understand it. He merely hoped to use it.
“If we press the attack on New Athens, we won’t have time to fully take advantage of this city, but-”
“No,” Sysminor said, chuckling. “This goddess slut slut goddess has already ready give given us the information – logical – information on the mages and priests of this city city.” He nodded. “They will march.”
Brax nodded curtly.
He turned on his heel.
As he left, Sysminor hissed, then added a second finger to the goddess. Brigid wailed, her eyes closing as she buried her face against his chest. Sysminor waved a single finger and spoke a word that wasn’t a word. The invisible servants of Purgatory – the servants he was starting to contact once more – sent their message. Brigid slid her hips up, panting.
“Do...” She paused. “Do you have a cock, my God?”
Sysminor shook his head.
Brigid pouted, her silver hair spilling around her face as she muttered something under her breath. But Sysminor didn’t care. Not anymore. The door to the room opened once more.
Skyheart stepped in. The valkyrie looked as sour and as bitter as a spoiled fruit, and did not bother to hide it as he bowed to Sysminor.
“Yes, my lord?” he asked.
“You wish to attack Babylon, yesss?” Sysminor asked.
Skyheart looked up.
His face lightened.
“Come. I have something to show show you,” Sysminor said, standing. He dumped Brigid on the floor, leaving her panting, her eyes unfocused. The two of them strode from the room. “A name. Name. Perfect name perfect per-purr-fect.”
The last words she heard, before the door closed.
“Greek fire.”
Seven
Meg lashed the bowl to her hand with the bandages that Athena had donated from her injured form, rapped her knuckles against it, then glared at the bars of the nullcage. Sunlight shone through the window of the prison, causing the crystal to glow faintly. She grinned as she shifted her feet from side to side, her wings clasped as tightly against her back as she could make them.
“Wait,” Athena rasped. “Wait, wrap this around your mouth.”
She held out another one of her bandages. By this point, the injured goddess was showing a great deal of her wounds – fortunately, despite the draining influence of the nullcage, Athena had mostly scabbed over. This bandage was one of the cleaner ones, but it was still yellowed by sweat and stained by blood and the vital fluids. Meg took it with her free hand and tried to not think about what she might be breathing in. But she saw Athena’s point: better to have pus press to her lips than…
Well, inhaling a crystal that sapped her strength and numbed her flesh and might even kill her.
She went back to her position. She was currently buck naked. Her breasts were bared, her ass was flapping in the wind. All of her clothes had been piled under her feet, creating a thin insulating sheet between her and the nullcage. Liam had told her about electricity, comparing what he knew about lightning to what she had learned from a lifetime of flying. The ideas of conduction and insulation had been quite easy to grasp.
The trick had been finding the right time. It was just after the guard came in to give them their breakfast. That gave them a good two hours by Meg’s count, and it took at least an hour for the draining effect of the nullcage to fade with the insulation she was using. The only problem had been the fact that any blow she struck against the cage would immediately bring her into contact with the cage.
Athena had had the idea of the bowl.
Meg felt the last bits of her power return. She felt as fit as she had since she had been captured.
Now was the time to see if this worked.
She knelt down, tensed her legs, lifted up her arm as if she were a hoplite. The bowl was no aspis though…
Meg leaped. Legs that normally could send her hurtling dozens of feet into the air to let her get aloft sent her flying at the far edge of the cage. The bowl impacted the crystal. The cage was tough but lateral force – the same lateral force that had destroyed so many test muskets, so many test cannons – could shatter it. The air filled with crystal haze and Meg hoped the bandage wrapped around her mouth kept any from getting into her lungs. Her face felt numb, her shoulders felt numb, but then she was skidding along the ground.
And then she was glad they felt numb.
Meg scrambled to her feet.
A guard was coming into the room, and he was damn fast. His nulldart was already in his hand, and he underhanded it right at her. Meg snapped her arm down and the first dart thunked into the wooden bowl. She came to her feet and in the same, smooth motion, slammed her leg into his gut with all of her weight, all of her strength, put into it. Bronze armor dented and the lizardman flew outwards and hit the wall.
The Citadel had been forged from a single piece of stone using magic, and so the wall didn’t explode outwards, like a brick wall might have. Instead, it merely made a tiny dent.
A dent filled with blood and viscera.
The bloody sack of pulped organs and scales hit the floor. Meg yanked the bandage off her mouth and used it to brush crystal from her shoulders. She sprang over and grabbed the sword that the guard had on his hip, turning to the door. The sounds of footsteps and the calls of alarm filled the air.
“Fly,” Athena rasped.
Meg looked at her.
“Fly now,” she hissed. “Get to Babylon!”
Meg looked at the cage. At the goddess. Her brain buzzed through the possibilities and she quickly came to the same conclusion as the Goddess of Wisdom.
Meg bowed her head. “I’m sorry.”
She turned and leaped for the window. This room hadn’t been built to be a prison. It had merely been large enough for the lizardfolk to cram in their nullcages. The window was more than wide enough for her to get through and only lose a few feathers. She spread her wings and beat hard – sailing up into the air, leaving Olimurias behind. A few arrows shot after her. Meg didn’t even bother to stick her tongue out.
But she did keep her eyes open.
Where the fuck is the rest of the tribe? she thought, winging her way over the ocean, her wings buzzing with the delight of flight.
She spotted them when she looked forward. They were already halfway across the Platonic sea, tiny flecks glinting on the horizon.
Meg growled and put on speed.
***
Liam lowered his telescope.
“They’re really dumb,” he said, quietly.
“What makes you say that?” Laurentinus asked.
The goblin had recovered nicely since the battered and limping Cross Guard fleet arrived at Babylon harbor. The priests that had remained within the city had been whipped into a ferocious amount of efficiency by Mary – who had seemed to be in several dozen places at once during the hours it took to unload the wounded and the dying.
Liam turned to his second in command. “They’re flying towards the most defended city in the world in the open. After tasting our guns.” He shook his head. “With only five hundred. A valk’s strong, but still...”
“A single victory isn’t enough to hammer some truths home,” Laurentinus said. “Still, they’ll be here by the next kindling at the earliest, longer if they rest in the Mistwalker Islands. Which they will.”
Liam nodded. “Go to the crystalwights, work on making cannons. I want to show these valkyrie why siding with Sysminor is a really bad idea.”
“Yes, sir.”
Laurentinus started off, limping only slightly as he headed for one of the stairs that took one from the top of the walls to the bottom. Liam patted the stone walls. If he had ten years of peace, he’d tear them down. Thanks to him, Purgatory had left the era where tall, proud walls were of any use. He could see the star-fort expanding around the city. Cannons on every bastion, making a lethal crossfire. The seas diverted to make a moat to stymie every attack.
It’d work, so long as
no one invented tanks and airplanes and heavier artillery. But by then, well…
He had stories from the Soviets and the Americans. He was pretty sure he could teach his people how to deal with a blitzkrieg.
“What are you thinking about?”
The voice caused Liam to start. He turned and saw Loki. The goddess was leaning against the matriculations that ringed the far side of the wall, her flaming hair spilling around her shoulders.
“The future,” Liam said. He paused. “Do you think I did the right thing?”
Loki chuckled. “You’re going to need to be more specific, Godkiller.”
“Christ, I forgot people call me that here,” Liam groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think Sysminor is a god. So, calling me Liam Godkiller is, at the very least, inaccurate. And a bit impolitic, considering.”
Loki chuckled. “If it helps, I’ve got a foolproof plan to avoid you killing me.” She walked past him to lean against the far side of the wall, thrusting her rump invitingly into the air.
“Stabbing me in the back if you think I’m a threat?” Liam asked.
“Please,” Loki said. “I’ve already got agents who will murder your friends if you try anything funny.”
Liam pursed his lips. “Agents...”
Loki nodded. “For years, I’ve been Odin’s spymaster. After a thousand years underneath Skadi’s snake, tied to a rock by the entrails of my own son.” Her voice grew bitter. “I’ve spied, assassinated, blackmailed, bribed...” She shrugged slightly. “Honestly, if I were you, I’d be more shocked if I hadn’t put agents in Babylon.”
Liam looked out at the sea, at the curve of the world. The approaching army was only faintly visible without a telescope, tiny glints against the wall of water that made up the eastern horizon.
“Fizit is Brax’s spymaster. She’s managed to kill one of my friends, and I am pretty sure her spies are half of why Brax has conquered the Aesir realm and Olimurias so quickly. Have your agents had any luck in finding her? Her agents?”
Loki was silent for a time.
“No,” she said. “I had a fantastic network in my homeland. I had spies around the world of Purgatory. But with the capture of Odin, they’ve evaporated. Maybe they believe the bastards who think that I sold out my brother. Maybe they simply don’t think paying heed to a dying pantheon is worth it.”
The Blood Groove (Purgatory Wars Book 4) Page 14