The Pillaging of an Empire

by Amanda Clover

  High Magus Strakken nodded his hooded head. The other red mage was draped head to foot in heavy robes. Incense burners hung from a chain wrapped around his neck, their pungent smoke breathing into the room, shrouding the elder mage like a mist. Gold and crimson embroidery sprawled across his robes, his mask turned towards the window overlooking the city below.

  No witness saw what had transpired that night. No one seemed to have realized how it was done. Only that the city awoken, and half its women were gone. Stolen away in the night. The gibbets were weighed with guards found asleep at their posts, something Arven had regretted, but was necessary to try and appease the people.

  Not that it had helped much. He and Strakken stood in the north wing of Poranovo’s palace. The place was still and tense, cleared out for the delegation of Red Mages from the capital. Light glowed from dozens of candles scattered about the room, their low flame flickering and dancing. But this was the only spot of calm in all Poranovo. Smoke spilled from across the length of the city, the low roars of rioters and shouts echoing through the dark. From their vantage point they could see the fires of the mobs at the palace gate, the chanting roar of undirected anger of the citizens at their loss. Had Strakken not been here, odds were good the mob would have already stormed the palace.

  You are concerned.

  The words thrummed in Arven’s head. He didn’t question how the other mage knew. He had never tried to enter the dark ranks where the higher sorceries were taught. But he had an inkling of the power the other mages wielded. “My wife, master. And my… my daughters. I fear they were taken.”

  Worse will come, Arven.

  Strakken moved from the window and took a seat at the desk. His mask, hooked like the beak of a bird, looked at Arven.

  The Red Mages are leaving Poranovo.

  Arven started. “My lord? But… what do you mean?”

  The city is riddled with corruption, as we have seen. Our investigation has turned up a dozen other monster cults in the city, and there are more. And with the riots burning half the city down, it will be impossible to root them out. The emperor, in his wisdom, has not seen it fit to send relief forces. The citizens are gathering their courage to storm the palace. Without the baron, the city won’t survive a week. We cannot hold Poranovo without the backing of the knighthoods, and our skills are far too necessary in these times to throw away our numbers on a useless gesture.

  “But… but master. The people… they’ll be slaughtered!”

  That is the likeliest outcome. Put it from your mind. Our resources are better spent elsewhere.

  “Elsewhere?”

  Istvanov is more than one city, Arven. It is an empire. The Duke of Ashes does not aim to attack this one city, but to destroy the empire. To tear down humanity itself. The emperor himself has been of little use. He is a weak man. He will be replaced.

  “Treason,” Arven breathed. He bit his lip as he realized what he had said.

  Strakken said nothing. His hand rose and took his mask, carefully removing it. Arven shuddered at what was revealed. Though the Red Mages wielded power that no other sorcerer could match, that not even the priests in their wisdom and devotions could call on, the price was one few would be willing to pay.

  Scars riddled Strakken’s face, the flesh burned and ridged, hideous like someone had slashed him a hundred times with a red hot knife. He had no nose, only a slit, his face that of nightmare. But his eyes burned with a red light, like pinpricks of fire in the dark.

  Sacrifices, Arven, must be made. For the greater good. The Duke of Ashes uses magic thought to be dead. His armies grow every day. Bred by his captives. Drawn from the dark places of the world. His reach infects every corner of the empire. If Istanov will be saved, it shall not be through the oaf of an emperor. The Crimson Council has decided. He will be done away with. Poravor cannot be held. So be it. But the empire will survive. Already we muster allies.

  “The Council will replace him?”

  Strakken gestured with disinterest. The Council has no interest in the throne. We have another in mind. His sister. It will be simpler if the line of succession seems to have been respected, and she has been advocating for action against the monsters rising in the west. The arrangement suits us.

  We are fighting a war, Arven. And we are losing. No more. Prepare yourself. We leave Poranovo tonight.

  “The city is doomed without us,” Arven said, but his shoulders already sagged with defeat. He knew too well the decision, made, could not be unmade.

  Yes. It is. I suggest you gather your things. You are dismissed.

  Arven bowed and departed. Behind him, Strakken lifted his mask back to his face, fitting it snugly there just as Arven shut the door behind him with a resounding boom. The masked red mage turned towards the window and eased back in his chair, tapping his fingertips together as he watched the smoke of the riots obscure the moon.

  < TABLE OF CONTENTS | NEXT UNCENSORED COVER >

  Book Six

  Pursued by the Lusty Ghoul

  By Amanda Clover and Jay Aury

  @amandasmut

  Cover artwork by Deilan12

  Map of the Empire of Istanov

  Nightmares Come

  Dana Vetta could hear the screams through the cellar doors.

  She cowered among the barrels in the Dancing Hog’s basement. Her uniform and white apron were stained with the dust and grime. But if that’s all she lost in this she would be lucky. She’d heard about some of the foresters going missing over the past weeks. Travellers who’d stopped in the inn speaking of the roads being more dangerous. Of monsters raiding the countryside. But it had all been remote. Strange. Things taking place beyond the clustered homes of Havishar and the nearby bogs. She’d laughed it off, tossing her long copper hair, freckles dimpling with her smile as she’d made her way back to the kitchen, shapely hips swaying.

  Then the world had come knocking in the dead of night, and brought with it horror and death.

  She’d been cleaning off a counter when Gorvin, the innkeeper, had burst through the door. A heavy man, he’d been a reasonable employer, always stepping in if a customer got too handsy with her. Paying her well enough and providing a decent sized room for her own use. His beefy face had always been smiling and his large arms could carry two barrels of ale all on his own.

  But that red face had been pale as chalk as he stood in the doorway, his eyes roaming and settling on her.

  “Dana! Quick. The cellar. Now!”

  Dana had frozen, stunned. “What?”

  “Now girl!” he barked, rushing behind the bar and grabbing the club he kept for belligerent customers. “Monsters.”

  “What? Monsters? But, Gorvin, that’s-“

  “Don’t argue! Cellar. Now!”

  Never had he shouted at her like that. For the first time she realized he was serious, and knew what true fear was. She hadn’t argued further. As she ducked down the steps into the rear of the inn she’d seen Gorvin step out the door, where shouts had began to build. And rising above them came inhuman shrieks that had chilled her very soul.

  She whimpered where she huddled now, her breath hitching as she listened. The sound of battle and screams were beginning to fade. Her breathing slowly eased. She raised her head. Maybe the villagers had driven off the beasts? Maybe it was safe? Maybe…

  Something banged against the cellar doors. She clutched her knees to her ample chest, her eyes widening. “Oh please,” she whispered, shaking as the doors again shuddered under a blow. “Oh please gods. Gods no. Please. Please no!” she screamed as the doors gave way with a crash. Hands reached down and hauled her, struggling and screaming, into the world above.

  She was hurled to the ground of the dirt alley. She looked up at her captors and gasped in shock. She had heard of gertlings, of course. Cruel, stunted creatures with large heads, ragged pointed ears and greenish flesh. Little more than loincloths garbed them, their weapons crude spears and clubs. Two stood over her, lit by a burning cart down the s
treet. They grinned, showing sharp teeth as they looked down at the young barmaid.

  “She good one!” one of the monsters leered.

  Dana scrambled back, pressing herself against a wall. Every breath came in great, heaving gasps as she looked frantically between the creatures.

  “Me take!” one cackled.

  “No!” the other said sharply. “Slengk want. He order!”

  The other gertling started, frank fear in his eyes. He nodded and grabbed Dana’s wrist in his bony hand. “You come! You come!”

  “Please, I don’t want ah!” Dana jumped as the other gertling jabbed her bum with a spear. The gertling grinned at her and made another stabbing motion towards her. Trembling with terror, she meekly followed the first gertling away from the tavern and into the town she’d called home.

  She was forced down the main street and past the evidence of the monster’s attack. Bodies of villagers lay scattered, their blood running into gutters and between the cobblestones of the road where she had once shopped at the farmer’s fair. Carts were overturned, their goods spilled over the ground. Every door and window was smashed and ruined, homes nothing but shells of what they once were. Gamboling among the streets were creatures of nightmares. Gertlings with sharp ears, their stunted frames more horrible for their resemblance to men as they howled and shrieked in delight. Other things stranger still prowled the streets. Canine brutes with slavering jaws bloodied with their prey. Things like men but without eyes.

  As they passed an alley a cry had Dana glance down and stop in shock. Badia, the busty tanner’s daughter, was within and on her knees, her clothes in tatters. A bristly haired monster like the bastard cross of a man and a hog crouched above her, porcine face drawn in pleasure, hands clutching the busty woman’s tits while his immense stomach rested on her back. His hips drove forward, impaling the young woman with a knotted cock.

  But the cries escaping Badia weren’t wails of horror, but ones of pleasure. Dana stared as the other woman squealed and thrust back against the brutish monster’s pounding thrusts, her eyes dim and her lips parted in panting cries. Dana stared in confusion, watching the tanner’s daughter willingly offering her cunt and plush ass to the creature. This beautiful girl had once teased men at the harvest dance but denied them even a kiss and now she thrust her hips and swung her tits against this foul, sweaty creature as if she had found the love of her life.

  “Yessss!” Badia cried eagerly. “Yess! Fuck! Fuck me! Fuck me! Mnnnn! Ahhhhhh!” Badia screamed, trembling in climax, her soft lips forming into an “O” of wordless pleasure. Her monstrous lover squealed, squeezing the young woman’s breast as he came, seed pumping into the shuddering woman, overflowing from her stretched cunt in sloppy strands that feel to the ground between her feet.

  Dana couldn’t understand what she was seeing. As she searched for some meaning behind the strange sight, she noticed a number of faint scratches all over Badia’s body. A strange thing, for her porcine lover had no such claws.

  She had only a moment to consider that, for the next she felt again the jab of the gertling’s spear. “Walk!” the creature barked, and Dana stumbled on, her thoughts awhirl with confusion.

  She realized she was being prodded to the town square late. Little surprise, for as they drew nearer to their goal, scenes such as the one in the alley grew more numerous. Gertlings and other monsters gripping the women of the town, women Dana had known all her life. And every one of those women were screaming with ecstasy, their eyes dark like they were drunk, their bodies littered with scratches as they swayed and thrust back against hideous creatures from nightmares, breasts heaving and nipples hardened with desperate desire for their inhuman mates.

  She glimpsed Analee, the candlemaker’s plump wife, on her knees and being rutted by a snarling wulfen as she sucked the lurid red cock of another standing upright before her. Matilda, one of Dana’s friends from the temple choir, was on her back being licked by one a gertling while she moaned and stroked the wee cocks of two others that were suckling at her milky breasts. And there, just beside where she was standing, gripping the wheel of an overturned cart and being plowed from behind, was Shiana, the priestess from the temple. Her blond hair, usually pulled back severely, was flowing freely about her pale shoulders and her back was arched as a gertling standing on a wooden box plundered her rear. The creature’s tongue lolled from its wide mouth as it gripped Shiana’s broad hips and thrust its scrawny body against her eagerly.

  Dana hadn’t long to dwell on it. The experiences were all blending together, numbing her in her horror. She shuddered as she was hauled into the town square and suddenly shoved to her knees.

  “Found this one! This one!” her gertling captors squealed.

  “Hmm. So you did.”

  Dana froze at the oily voice. She slowly raised her head.

  A creature sat on the steps of the old town hall. His flesh was pale grey and ragged with rot like he’d just climbed out of a pond. His arms and legs were wiry with corded muscle, so long they jutted out from him at sharp right angles. His hands rested on his knees, fingers tipped with long talons, the flesh of his fingers lined with black veins that faintly throbbed. From beneath a tangled mop of hair more reeds and moss than anything else, two yellow eyes glowed. Dana had heard stories of the thing before her. Tales of corpses hurled into the black bogs, risen by whatever foul magics lingered in those drowned marshes. A ghoul.

  He wasn’t alone. Idly the monster held a whimpering young woman with brown hair and clothes torn to rags, baring slight breasts and pale flesh.

  “Matia!” Dana gasped, recognizing the young wife of the mayor.

  The ghoul cocked his head towards her. “Oh, you know her?” the ghoul grinned, baring jagged teeth. His bony fingers slowly stroked Matia’s side, the young woman shuddering, but not daring to move. “Little surprise. You humans all live together so closely in towns like this. Little wonder. Such a shame, denying others such prettiness.”

  “Ah!” Matia gasped as the ghoul’s claw etched a slight scratch in her side.

  “Please! Don’t hurt her,” Dana said.

  The ghoul cackled in delight. “Hurt her?” he said, his hand sliding along Matia’s front, leaving another thin scratch all up her soft stomach before his palm came to rest against her mons. “Why would I ever hurt her? After all, we came here to free you all.”

  “What?” Dana said.

  “Oh yes,” the ghoul purred, grasping Matia’s breast. “I am Slengk. Your liberator from the petty lusts of your husbands and men. Such poor things,” he said in mock despair, kneading Matia’s breast, his talons leaving more thin scratches. “Forced to endure the small, petty cocks of humans. Such a waste. You all need more. You don’t need to be wives. You need to be slaves. Mated and bred like the cows you are.”

  Dana shuddered at his cooing words. She drew back from the monster. “You’re… you’re mad!”

  “Your friend here seems to agree with me.”

  Dana looked to Matia and started in surprise. The prim young woman’s eyes were dark and lidded. Her mouth parted and her breathing deepening. She moaned softly as the ghoul cruelly tightened his grasp on her breast, causing her to mewl with delight and rock her hips.

  “Matia! Matia, what’s wrong with you?” Dana pleaded.

  “Why nothing,” Slengk said. “She’s merely understanding her true place. Not a bad specimen. But I am a… discerning creature,” the ghoul chuckled. His glowing eyes fixed themselves on the two gertlings who had brought Dana. “Here,” he said, shoving Matia at the pair.

  Matia stumbled down the steps and fell to her knees. Dana winced at the impact, but then gaped as Matia eagerly crawled towards the two gertlings, mewling with need. “Please,” Matia gasped, pulling aside the first of the grinning monster’s loincloth aside. “Oh…”

  The gertling moaned as Matia took the monster’s knobbed cock between her lips, eagerly sucking at the wretched creature’s shaft like it was the finest candy. The other gertlin
g, cackling with delight, tore what little remained of the young woman’s modest clothes aside, baring a firm ass and damp cunt. Without a second’s hesitation he grabbed her ass and thrust his cock into Matia’s quim.

  “Mmmmmm!” Matia moaned, redoubling her efforts on the cock of the gertling before her, thrusting eagerly back against the second as he began to plow her fertile cunt.

  “You see?” the ghoul said, wrenching Dana’s horrified gaze back to the creature. Slengk let his smile widen further, revealing more of his fangs. “All women want to be nothing but eager sluts for monster cock. Some just need a bit of encouragement.”

  Dana jerked away from him. Faster than the eye could see the ghoul’s arm lashed out, grabbing her wrist. She shuddered at the feel of those talons on her sleeve. “Please,” she whimpered. “Please, let me go. Don’t… don’t do this…”

  “Oh there there!” the creature cackled, dragging her forward until she was barely an inch from him. “I’m not so bad, am I?”

  Dana gagged. Ghouls were hideous undying creatures, dwelling on the line between life and death, and this one reeked of rotting flesh and brackish water. His other hand snaked forward and stroked her cheek, the sensation making her shudder with its cruel kindness. The rasp of his talons against her supple flesh served as a reminder that he could open her veins with a swipe of his hand.

  “Oh my. You’re shaking! Don’t worry. I would never think of harming such a pretty thing as you. Oh no,” he breathed, grinning cruelly as his hand wandered lower, engulfing one of her soft breasts. Dana gasped as the ghoul suddenly tore open her dress, her ample breasts bouncing into the open. “Noooo,” the ghoul hissed, tongue slithering across his lips. “I think you’re far too good for that. Oh yes. You’re the cream of the crop to be sure. I’ve given every woman in this village to my good friends. But you? Hm. I just might have to keep you.”

  “Ah!” Dana gasped as the ghoul lightly nicked her with his talon. “P-please! Don’t hurt me.”