by Logan Jacobs
None of them tried to jump just yet, though. They just clustered around the entrance at ground level and pushed at the boulders with all their might and raged at me first with threats, and then with promises that I wasn’t enough of a moron to trust.
“Just let us go,” Kennedy said as he made a visible effort to compose himself. He spat on his fingers and started to smooth his mustache down, even. I didn’t know if he thought a perfectly slick mustache would impress me, or if it was just a habit that made him feel better. “Just put your hand on it and do that nifty little trick you do with rocks. We won’t hurt ya, friend. We’ve thought better of it. You just let us out and all we’ll be wanting is our horses, to ride far away from you and never trouble you again. Nor those sweet girls either. Those angels. I don’t know what came over me… I must have been out of my senses… momentarily blinded by love, you see, I’m sure you understand how it is… ”
He was still talking, and I was still listening with amusement without deigning to respond, when the twins returned, one burning branch in each of their four hands.
“Still think they’re angels?” I inquired of Kennedy as I gestured toward the girls with their beacons of what would be his imminent demise.
“… Y-yes,” Kennedy stammered as he swallowed hard at the sight. “Beautiful-- beautiful angels-- ” His hand couldn’t fit past the boulders, but he reached toward the sisters pleadingly.
They giggled in unison. A more pitiless sound, I had never heard.
I took the first of the four branches from Katrina, backed up, and hurled it through the window of the upper chamber. I did the same, one by one, with the next three branches, while Kennedy and his ruffians looked on helpless to stop me. I had no way of seeing exactly how the branches landed inside. At best, they would catch on the wooden planks from the broken chest. At worst, they would be snuffed out when they struck the cave floor.
But it didn’t really matter, because the six men trapped inside weren’t going anywhere. If those four torches didn’t succeed in starting a fire, I could just send the twins back to fetch more.
As it turned out, that wasn’t necessary. After I threw the third torch, I heard yelling from inside the cave, and a commotion as the men attempted to snuff out whatever fire must have caught on. I could tell from their continued shouted curses and instructions to each other that they weren’t succeeding in extinguishing it, either.
The twins stepped closer to me and each of them took one of my arms and clutched it as we waited together.
Of the six trapped men, two did eventually jump from the window of the upper chamber, only to be finished off with my sword. Another three must have succumbed to either burns or, more likely, suffocation by smoke somewhere inside the cave system where we couldn’t see them at all, or where they were only vague, floundering shapes to our sight.
Kennedy Cox, however, never stirred from his post directly on the other side of the boulders. Where he could stand and stare at the three of us, with an intensity that never faded even after he gave up trying to talk to us and change our minds. I guess he thought of it as a sort of last reproach. Soon, he started coughing. There were gaps between the boulders, so he was still receiving some air, but it clearly wasn’t enough, as the cave filled up with swirling particles of ash. Gradually, he started stumbling and having difficulty standing upright as he wheezed for breath. Eventually, while staring at us with bulging, bloodshot eyes, he croaked out two words, and then fell down out of sight.
“What did he say?” Katrina asked. “I didn’t quite hear him.”
“… ‘Beautiful angels,’” I answered.
The twins made no response to that.
We waited for a while longer, after all the voices and movements from within the cave had ceased. Then I shrank down the boulders from the entrance of the cave for long enough to move them aside and allow the smoke to dissipate. I was still wary at that point and guarded the entrance with my sword at the ready, just in case any of the Red Kerchiefs had been sly enough to survive somehow and was just waiting for his chance, but none of them ever rose again.
I held my breath and darted into the cave system for just long enough to check the four bodies inside. Then I ran back outside and confirmed to the twins that our enemies had expired.
We’d won.
Chapter Sixteen
“You really did it,” Katrina marveled as she gazed at the rock formation across from us. “When so many of them showed up like that, I thought we were done for. I mean, I knew you’d do your best for us, but… ”
“It was all thanks to you, really,” I remarked.
“Me?” she echoed in bewilderment. Then her manner turned flirtatious. “I suppose you mean that you were inspired to acts of such great courage and ingenuity by the sight our flawless beauty?”
“No,” I said. “I mean I was inspired by your dumb idea last night about starting a fire inside the caves, to make it less dark.”
Katrina wasn’t quite sure how to react to that and whether she should pout about it, but Janina had a little laugh at her sister’s expense.
Theo leaned down to nuzzle my hair, and I stroked his muzzle with my hand. He already knew that I couldn’t have survived that predicament without him, he didn’t need me to tell him so out loud.
After I felt confident that the air had cleared enough in the caves, we went back in and started carrying out all the gold. The twins were reluctant to enter now that the caves were strewn with corpses, which filled up the stagnant air with their sickeningly sweet stench, but when I shrugged and said that in that case we could let the five thousand lie where it lay, they agreed to help me transport it. The girls used their skirts to carry heaps of coins in. I used my hat. We started piling it up outside the cave opening.
We had an obvious dilemma, however, that wouldn’t be easily solved, even if we managed to retrieve every single gold coin from inside the caves. The chest was broken beyond repair from the assault to which the Red Kerchiefs had subjected it, and we had nowhere to store the gold now, no way to carry it with us on horseback, no container that I could use my ability to shrink down to a manageable size.
Nor could we build a new one. There were trees, yes, if we walked far enough to get to some, where we could obtain wood. And I carried certain tools in my saddlebags, in miniature size so that they wouldn’t be heavy or cumbersome for Theo, and I could just expand them to a normal size when I wanted to use them. But I had no nails to build a new chest with, and the twins had nothing at all besides their horses and the clothes on their backs.
“We could put it in your saddlebags,” Janina said hopefully.
I snorted. “Even Theo has limits. Not to mention, the cloth itself has volume limitations. I don’t want to load him any further up than he already is, and even if I filled the bags to bursting, they wouldn’t contain a fraction of what that chest held.”
“Then what do we do?” Katrina asked in dismay. “Was that all for nothing?”
“You bury the gold,” I said, “and come back for it later, with a carriage and a great big empty chest. I don’t mean next week. I mean months from now, maybe even a full year from now, once this whole incident with the lawmen of Sunderly has faded out of memory for most, and there won’t be people coming around this spot anymore. When there won’t be anyone looking for you.”
“Will you escort us back here?” Janina asked.
“No,” I said. “I won’t be around anymore. I’ll be hundreds of miles away, I don’t know where.”
“But leaving is a choice for you,” Katrina said. “A choice you don’t have to make. You could stay in Dunville, you could stay with us. We have enough money-- ”
“I’m not a household servant,” I interrupted. “Bring your valet with you next time, if you think you’ll need help. Or hire another mercenary.”
“I guess I thought you’d say that,” Janina sighed. “But you ought to consider it, at least. And if you ever find your way back to Dunville, years from now, lo
ok for us, won’t you?”
“If I ever find myself back in Dunville, I will,” I promised. Both the twins and I knew that that was an easy promise for me to make, given that I had no intention of ever returning to their town again, once I had brought them safely back there and taken my leave.
“Well, if we don’t have any better option, let’s dig a hole and bury the treasure, then,” Katrina said glumly.
I went and fetched the tiny shovel, not much bigger than a ladle really, from Theo’s saddlebags. Then I came back and handed it to her.
“I-- er-- what do you want me to-- I mean,” she stammered as she held the tiny shovel at arm’s length as if it might bite her.
“Ohhh,” I said innocently. “So, you didn’t intend to dig the hole for the treasure yourself? You intended for me to dig it?”
“Well, that would be-- I mean I would very much appreciate-- ” Katrina tried to say.
“How much?” Janina interrupted sharply.
“So you are getting to know me better,” I grinned. “Ten percent. Five hundred gold coins. On top of the thousand you already owe me.”
“Five hundred!” Janina squawked indignantly.
“Or you can bury it yourself, or leave it out here in the open, it’s all the same to me,” I said with a shrug. In fact, given the circumstances, I surely could have demanded quite a bit more. But there really was a limit to what Theo could reasonably carry without putting a strain on his back.
Katrina took Janina’s hand, I guessed to send a silent message to her sister’s mind. Janina whispered something back in her ear. They went back and forth a couple of times and then turned to me with resigned faces and nodded.
“Fine,” Janina grumbled. “Five hundred.”
“Very well, let’s begin,” I said.
I chose three spots with reasonably soft sand, each about half a mile away from the rock formation. The twins protested at having to carry the gold over to three separate locations, and also at how “terribly far away” my chosen spots were, but I reminded them that once Sheriff Cavendish and his men failed to return to Sunderly and people figured out what had happened here, they were going to be searching like mad for the stolen gold. Dividing the loot into three spots reduced the chances that all of it would be discovered.
While I dug, they kept carrying me gold in their skirts. Even once I had finished all three holes, and made them deep, as deep as a grave, they still hadn’t managed to carry over nearly all of it. I had to start helping them. We emptied Theo’s saddlebags of my belongings, filled them back up with gold, and had him join in the effort too. Even so, it took us all morning and afternoon to complete the task.
Finally, in the early evening, the three hoards had all been securely packed in with dirt. I then positioned boulders strategically, not on top of the buried gold, which would invite anyone sensible to search there, but near enough to it, that the twins would be able to estimate where it was in relation to the marker boulders.
At last, I replaced my belongings in Theo’s saddlebags, and we set off on our ways, with just a couple hours left before dark to cover enough ground that we wouldn’t have any unfortunate encounters with anyone from Sunderly who came seeking after the sheriff and his deputies.
We managed to cover enough miles without incident that I felt fine about stopping for the night, and then we built a campfire.
The girls snuggled up to me almost immediately. Janina draped herself against my back, rested her sharp little chin on my shoulder, and folded her arms across my chest, while Katrina curled up in the grass on her side with her head resting in my lap.
“We only have three more days with you, after this,” Katrina sighed.
“And two more nights, after this,” I said as I stroked her back with my hand.
“So three nights, including this… which is an odd number,” Janina remarked. I couldn’t see her face since she was behind me, but I could hear the mischief in her voice.
“Does it matter that it’s an odd number?” I asked.
“Well, yes, because that means it wouldn’t be fair,” she replied.
“What wouldn’t be fair?” I played along with her little game.
“For Kat and I to keep taking turns with you,” she purred.
“Oh, I see,” I said nonchalantly. “Well, then, I suppose all three of us will have to abstain for a night. In the interest of fairness, I mean.”
“Or… ” Janina suggested. Her hands crept up to trace my jawline, while Katrina started to stretch herself like a cat in my lap.
“Or, yes, I suppose you could draw lots for the third night,” I said.
“Or this,” Janina suggested huskily as her hands crept up beneath the hem of my shirt. Her hands were chilled from the night air, but I didn’t make any complaint as she proceeded to pull it off over my head, while planting little kisses up my spine.
Katrina, meanwhile, busied herself unlacing my pants and pulling them off. I laid down flat on my back in the grass to make the task easier for her. Soon I was completely naked, and my cock was already stiff and throbbing with anticipation, although both girls remained fully clothed.
I was about to ask them to remedy that circumstance, but then they stood up of their own accord, and Katrina turned her back so that Janina could unbutton her dress for her. Then she unlaced the corset underneath. Once Katrina stood there topless, with her full, perky breasts exposed, but her stockings and bloomers still on, they reversed positions and she returned the favor for her twin. Once their light brown and olive green dresses had been shed, I could no longer tell the difference between the two of them. It was dark by then, and I had only firelight for illumination, which was too inconsistent to reveal the exact colors of their eyes. But to be honest I wasn’t really looking at their eyes, especially once they started shucking their bloomers and then stockings to reveal matching triangles of pale hair.
They stepped out of the piles of clothing left behind and walked over to me, their slender curves glowing with reflected firelight. Their legs were long and sleek, like gazelles’, and they looked a bit wilder with their ash blonde hair tumbling down their backs this way, instead of elegantly pinned up like usual. They reminded me of some kind of forest nymphs, something not quite human, that lacked human inhibitions and reveled in all the primal delights of nature.
That effect was only enhanced when they dropped to their hands and knees and crawled the last few steps to reach me. Then they bowed over my manhood, and one of them took my cock in her hands and started to suck on it, while the other fondled and licked my balls. Their curtains of hair flowed together as their heads bobbed up and down in united focus. There was a gentle intensity to their demeanor as if they were playing a flute or something. They had two mouths and two sets of hands, but they coordinated their movements as if they shared one mind. And together, they could achieve effects that it wasn’t possible to achieve with only one mouth and two hands.
Then, one of them moved around with her backside facing me in order to lick the top side of my shaft, and I reached out to push my hand between her thighs and slide my finger into her tight wetness. She moaned slightly when she felt it enter her, but then I added another finger, and she cried out with pleasure as it split her open wider. I rocked her back and forth on those two fingers while she continued to assist her twin in pleasuring me with her mouth, but eventually the sensations became too much for her to maintain control, and her mouth left my cock.
At that point, I withdrew my fingers and gripped her by the hips with both my hands and pulled her toward my face. When she understood what I wanted, she positioned herself on her elbows and knees, with her legs splayed wide and her engorged pussy hovering barely an inch above my face. It gave off the unmistakable musky scent of sex, but it still smelled fresh and clean, so I started to lap at her juices while she moaned and her thighs started to tremble.
Meanwhile, her sister was able to see what was happening and evidently decided that it was her turn to receive pleasur
e from me as well. She stopped sucking on my cock, and I felt the night breeze on its slick surface for a few moments before I felt the tip meet with the slick lips of her pussy. I couldn’t see her at all, since my face was still buried between her sister’s legs, but I could feel her fingers flutter against my shaft as she used them to open herself up to receive my cock. Then I felt the vise-like grip of her tunnel slide slowly down to the base of my shaft, with slight rocking movements as she bucked her hips.
I started plunging my tongue deeper into the twin that was straddling my face and pushing it harder against her walls until she climaxed with a cry that lasted a good minute. Then she rolled off me, and I was finally able to view the other twin riding my cock.
The sight of my face, and my gaze meeting hers, seemed to excite that twin. She lowered her hands to my chest to brace herself and started grinding even harder against me and forcing my cock even farther inside of her, with low groans as the tip hit the end of her tunnel at the deepest point of each thrust. Then I started bucking my hips to meet her, and after half a minute she cried out and I could feel her walls convulse against my cock.
No sooner had she lifted herself off than the other twin eagerly took her place and impaled herself on my dripping wet manhood. Her tunnel felt exactly the same as the other one that had just encased me, but she rode harder and faster than her sister had been doing, though, and after a few minutes I started gasping from the pressure that was building up in my shaft.
“He’s going to come,” the one who wasn’t riding me urged her sister, but she only moaned louder as she increased her pace so that her breasts bounced across her chest.
“Fine,” the one who wasn’t fucking me groaned, and then she bent down to kiss me savagely.
The dual stimulation was what I needed to tip me over the edge, and I moaned into one sister’s mouth while I sprayed my seed deep into the womb of the other one.