by Lia Nox
Even the air seemed at rest here.
Safe.
Erin barreled by me, her feet so light on the ground it looked as if she were floating across it. Blades of soft grass tickled between her toes, her feet twirling her around on the spot as she skipped and jumped in amongst it all.
I ran to her then, my desire to be by her the most profound it had ever been. I bundled her up into my arms and pulled her down on top of me as I fell back onto the grass; my back vibrated against earth as we both landed, but I was unhurt by the brunt of the force.
Even if I’d been marked by a bruise, it wouldn’t have mattered in that moment, so long as I could be with her like this once more.
She sat on top of me to search for any injury from my fall, but I laughed her hand away.
“You don’t really think a little fall like that would hurt me, do you?”
Eventually convinced that my words were honest, she gave me a passionate kiss, our tongues searching one another out as my hands roamed all over her. I pulled at my trousers to remove them from around my waist, my cock finding Erin’s pussy without any barriers between us.
Unlike earlier, I now wanted to thank Talos for shredding her underclothing.
Rising up like a divine figure, a goddess to all around her, she rode me while we lay straddled among the flowers of the meadow.
“You are a vision,” I murmured, then lost myself in her again.
Talos
“I can’t believe a place like this exists,” Erin laughed as she dipped her toes onto the surface of the small pool of clear water.
She sat on a small rock a few meters away from the shore, surrounded by the pool, under the shade of the trees that grew in this secret oasis.
A haven in the middle of a place that was the definition of inhabitable.
How anything had been able to grow so strongly, safe from the ripping winds and unforgiving elements, I couldn’t say, but whatever the reasons for its survival, it was a wondrous sight no matter how many times I laid my eyes upon it.
I stretched my muscles as I watched her, enjoying the lightness of walking around without my chest plate.
Even though we knew we shouldn’t relax too much, as enemies could be lurking close, we all felt as if we deserved this small reward. The storm had brought us close to ruin, our thoughts and fears pushing us further away.
With the sun so high in the sky, the warmth of it spreading out to touch all who fell beneath it, it seemed wrong to deny such a breathtaking moment in time for us to celebrate in. We’d made it through one of our toughest trials.
We’d lived.
Joining her in the pool, I waddled in until I was knee-deep into the water. It was cold, but not too much, and it helped my weary muscles relax. Kern and Roth sat close by under the shade of a tree, keeping watch.
Even though they seemed as relaxed as Erin and I were, Roth wasn’t the kind of man to ever relax. Then again, at one time of the day I’d have been as troubled as he by such tranquility.
Although now Erin was around, I found my old ways withering away under the heat of her intensity. Roth however, was always on the lookout, ready to sniff out danger and lead the team at a moment’s notice.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking at Erin, who raised her head to look straight into my eyes. I felt apprehensive as confusion took over her face. She had no idea what I was apologizing for. “I should have been more careful. I swore I would protect you, but during that storm I—”
“Hey, it’s alright,” she cut me short, her confused expression giving way to a heartwarming smile. She tucked a stray lock of hair over one ear and gestured for me to come closer. Then, she laid one hand on top of mine and rose from her seat to kiss me. I closed my eyes as I felt her lips brush against mine, and my heart started racing.
I was about to pull her close, just so I could feel her body against mine, when Roth cried out. Pulling back from Erin as quickly as I could, I scanned my surroundings but saw nothing. I looked at Roth, who was already going for his rifle, his finger pointed to a distant point on the horizon.
Despite not being able to see what he could from this view point, I wasn’t about to second guess the concern that had taken over, his pupils large pools of black as his gaze never wavered from that one spot.
Climbing out of the small pool, I closed in on Roth and narrowed my eyes into two slits. Finally, I saw what had made Roth sound out the alarm. Tiny little shapes dotted the horizon, and my heart sunk as I saw those shapes grow into fierce beasts with each passing second.
Standing on tall legs, these were the insects Kern had told Erin about—arachnid-like, they acted like a small army and tried to swarm whoever was their target.
Vile things, a blight on this planet and all who happened to run into them; it would be a glad day if their species died off.
Preferably at my hands.
Usually, our team would choose defensive positions to better handle a swarm-attack, but the oasis didn’t offer much cover. “Erin,” I called after her as I quickly donned my chest plate, fastening the straps with just one hand. With the other, I slung my rifle over my shoulder and ensured I had enough ammo on my belt. “Grab your weapon. There’s a fight coming our way.”
As much as I hated to drag her into it, I knew that there was no other way. The arachnids would try to kill everyone that stood in their path, and I preferred Erin to fight back with a gun in her hands than to have her stand around helplessly.
“What do we do?” she asked, nervously holding up the long-range rifle I’d taught her how to use back when we found the weapons cache.
“Try to pick as many of them off as you can,” I told her, knowing that my rifle would be useless at such a distance.
Without saying a word, she quickly set up her rifle atop a small rock and lay back on the sand. Closing one eye, she took aim and started raining hell on the incoming swarm.
Even though they were still a few hundred of yards away from us, I could already see some arachnids tumbling down as Erin hit them.
“Fuck, I missed,” she growled as she reloaded, then killed the next three with deadly accuracy.
We each picked off more, but the wave pressed on.
“Get behind us,” I told her moments later, as the incoming horde drew closer. “Get back to that rock.” As helpful as she had been, she wouldn’t be able to snipe down these things once they got too close.
Roth and Kern, immediately knowing what they had to do, formed a protective wall in front of Erin while she waded back into the pool to her perch, her rifle held well over head.
The three of us, standing shoulder to shoulder, roared our challenge at the creatures and opened fire, the sound of our rifles going off just like thunder.
There were simply too many of the damned creatures, and soon enough we would have to use our bare hands to stop their jaws from cutting holes into our bodies.
Grinning, I welcomed the challenge.
Even though the storm had been a challenge on its own, I was already aching for a good fight, and there was nothing quite like a battle where the odds were against those of my team.
Somehow, that brought out the best in us.
Even though we no longer had the Masters to please—we no longer cared for their prizes or feared their punishments—we had something infinitely more powerful to use as our motivation.
We had Erin.
“And here they come,” Roth cried out, already lowering his rifle and reaching for his knife.
Gritting my teeth, a pack of arachnids advanced on my position and I cut them all down with the last of my ammo. One of them survived, using its hindquarters to propel itself up. It jumped up in the air and snarled as it traced a downward arch straight toward me. The creature was larger than me, and I prepared myself for physical confrontation when a shot rung across the oasis.
The creature fell back as if a cannon ball had struck it in the middle of its bulbous chest. Surprised, I looked back over my shoulder to see Erin
sitting on her rock, holding her rifle up as she continued to pick off the creatures one by one. It seemed that she had no intention of playing the damsel in distress for the rest of the battle.
“Fall back, fall back!” Roth cried out his orders, slowly retreating toward the water as the creatures gained on us. They were relentless and vicious, and they didn’t seem to stop no matter how many of them we cut down.
Although we had already slain close to fifty of them, dozens of them kept on crawling toward us, the bullets doing nothing to scare them off.
“I’m almost out of ammo,” Kern shouted, and I glanced down at my belt only to realize that I was almost out of clips too.
The excitement I had felt before the fight started was quickly turning into a feeling of doom and desperation. Could we have survived so many trials only to die at a moment like this? Could we have found Erin only to lose her?
No, I refused to accept that.
Unleashing the last of my ammo onto a wall of arachnids, I then reached for my knife and started hacking limb after limb until my arm grew heavy, and then I just kept on cutting through my enemies mechanically. I felt dizzy with the effort, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to endure the pace much longer.
And that was when I heard it.
A roar, one that was a blend of more than just one voice. It echoed throughout the oasis like a battle cry, giving pause to our enemies, and then I saw as three shadows ran past us and dove headlong into the swarm of arachnids that surrounded us.
Surprised, I saw as Axar, Zuvo, and Tarnan joined the fray, hacking at the arachnids with the kind of relentlessness only their team was capable of. Grinning, I felt a surge of energy run through my body and joined the battle once more.
The tides had turned, and now I knew for a certainty that we would win this fight. There’d be no close encounters with death today.
We would stand victorious.
Kern
I was exhausted.
My muscles felt as heavy as lead, sweat trickled down my face, and my lungs were working overtime to get the air in. And still I kept on fighting, swinging my blade as I tried to stop the swarm from getting past us.
The enemy advanced upon us mercilessly. Despite the sudden appearance of Axar’s team, we were still in deep trouble.
To my left, Tarnan stabbed whatever creature dared step in front of him, and his frenzied attack made me redouble my efforts. I fought side by side with him, as if he were part of my team, and I felt thankful that I had returned to help us.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him between blows, stepping back right after a creature lunged for me, missing me by mere inches. Tarnan moved fast and, without a sound, impaled the monster on his blade.
“We waited out the storm in a nearby cave,” he explained as we waited for the next wave of arachnids to reach us. “Delia had become worried about Erin and as the storm came I have to admit, we were worried about your team. Then we noticed these bastards in the distance. . .and realized they were heading your way.”
“Couldn’t stay away from a fight, could you?”
“Never,” he grinned, adopting his fighting stance as another creature jumped in the air toward him. “You would’ve done the same for us.”
“Of course. Who would want to miss a fight like this?”
Tarnan didn’t have the time to reply. Surrounded on all sides, he merely gritted his teeth and used all his focus to parry his opponent’s blow and remain alive.
I moved toward him, hacking at the creatures that tried to attack him, and the two of us managed to keep them at bay for more than a minute.
“This isn’t good,” I groaned, burying my blade to the hilt into a creature’s skull. As I looked around, I saw as our two teams started breaking apart from each other, all of us fighting in different pockets of resistance.
The swarm’s strategy was to split us and make us more vulnerable, and they were succeeding. “We have to stick together.”
“Lead the way,” Tarnan grunted, and the two of us started mowing down our enemies as we moved toward Axar and Roth. Behind us we left a path littered with corpses and broken limbs, but none of us stopped to pat ourselves in the back. We simply pushed forward the best we could.
“Kern!” Tarnan cried out suddenly, and I felt one of his hands on my shoulder. I dodged an enemy’s swipe before putting it down with a quick blow, and then looked over my shoulder at Tarnan. His expression was anxious, and with a quick gesture he pointed toward the small pool at the center of the oasis.
“Erin,” I muttered under my breath, watching as the creatures moved past our two teams and slowly started surrounding the pool. Erin remained perched atop her rock, firing at the enemy even though she was surrounded and outnumbered.
She wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer without protection. “Can you make your way to Roth? I need to fall back and rejoin Erin.”
“Go, brother,” he said, and we shared a moment of silence before I turned back and left. The word ‘brother’ was something usually reserved for members of the same team, and to be addressed as such by Tarnan was surprising. . .but not unwelcome.
We were living in strange times, indeed.
“I’m coming, Erin,” I said to myself as I pushed my way through the swarm, doing my best to parry the blows of the creatures.
They struck with their sharp limbs and snapped their jaws at me, but I kept my focus on Erin as I advanced. I only took my eyes off her whenever I needed to use my blade, and all just so I could know for sure what I was hitting.
Realizing that I would have a hard time fighting through the horde, I started rushing toward the side and stepped right into the water, moving forward until it went as high as my knees. That forced me to slow down considerably, but the arachnids seemed to be avoiding the water, which allowed me to move unimpeded until I reached Erin’s side.
“You’re hurt,” she cried out, her eyes widening the moment she saw blood trickling down my arms.
I shrugged it off, ignoring the pain from my wounds. I hadn’t been badly injured, and a few bandages and a hearty meal were all I would need to make a speedy recovery.
“Don’t worry.” Laying one hand on her shoulder, I offered her a smile. “These are just flesh wounds. But what about you? Are you holding up?”
“Trying to,” she groaned. Without warning, she spun around on her heels and fired her rifle, the bullet hitting a creature right in the eyes. She had done it without even taking aim, relying on nothing but her sharpshooter instincts.
“I’ll keep them out of your way.” Standing in front of the rock where she stood, I braced myself for the three creatures that dared waddle into the water, their fangs dripping with saliva. “You just keep on picking them off.”
“Got it,” she replied, and a fraction of a second later came the sound of a bullet zooming past my ears. The three creatures in front of me suddenly became two, and I couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across my lips—I had come here to protect her, but she was the one doing the protecting right now.
Cutting the two creatures in front of me, I sucked in a deep breath as I glanced at the rest of the battle. A few yards ahead of us Tarnan, Axar, and Zuvo kept the enemy at bay while Roth and Talos destroyed the strays that made it past our defensive line.
But this battle was far from over.
Bleeding and sweating, I only lowered my weapon when the last of our enemies fell to the ground.
“Keep your head up,” Roth shouted. “I can see more of them coming in the distance. They’ll be upon us in just a few minutes.”
Why wouldn’t these monstrosities let up?
They’d been coming at us for so damn long now, it seemed like a cruel joke for more to be on the approach. We’d be fine, we’d been backed up against taller walls than this, but it was Erin who was my concern right now.
“Erin,” I called, joining her by the rock. “Are you alright?”
She looked exhausted, but otherwise fine. Her hair had bee
n tied behind her back with the braided cloth I had given her at the abandoned station, and once more I realized just how beautiful she looked.
How had one as lovely as she ended up being our beloved?
It seemed unthinkable to have dreamed that a woman such as she could care for beasts like us; we’d seen the beautiful women of the Masters’, the ones who serviced them, and had always been in awe of their charms.
Our sweet, fierce Erin outshone them all.
“I’m fine,” she said. “You?”
“I’ve never been this good.” The words escaped before I could stop them. There were a lot of things I needed to say and, even though I wasn’t sure on how to put them into words, at the very least I would have to try. “And all because of you, Erin.”
“Because of me?”
“Yes,” I nodded, reaching for her and cupping her face with one hand. “Ever since you joined us, ever since you became one of us. . .you’re my purpose. You’re the one I think about, the one I want and need at all times.”
I didn’t know how else to explain it, at least using words that she would understand, but none of it seemed to matter. The look on her face was enough for me to know that she had gotten my meaning.
“Kern’s words are ours as well,” I heard Talos say right behind me, and I turned around to see him and Roth heading toward us through the water.
“We might not know the words you would use, Erin, but we all share the same feeling.”
“We do,” Roth added, and it felt as if the four were no longer in a battlefield. It felt as if walls had been raised all around us, and the world had been left outside. Nothing but Erin mattered.
Closing in on her, I held her face with both my hands and kissed her lips.
“I will always be here for you,” I whispered. “I will fight to protect you. I will lay my life down for yours, if that’s what it comes to. But no matter what happens, I’ll always be yours.”
Then, enjoying how that word sounded, I repeated one more time. “Always.”
In a world devoid of any meaning, that was the only thing that made sense.