Eldritch Assassin

by Adam Witcher

  To his side, he heard a faint moan. Rhotha watched them intently. She bit her lip inadvertently, her face flushing now with more than just nervousness. She slid her hands against her stomach, then below to her thighs. Beads of sweat formed on her toned muscles.

  Isaac and Aerin separated, both grinning at Rhotha. Aerin reached out and took the barbarian by the hand. She pulled her close, and without hesitation, kissed her delicately.

  The women—both exploring feminine lusts for the first time—kissed slowly at first, tested the waters. Finding them agreeable, they became more wrapped up in passion. Aerin reached behind her and detached the steel armor that was little more than a brassiere, and with an expert touch, let it drop to the floor. Her exposed breasts were delightfully perky and rounded, though not as big as Aerin’s. Tiny pink nipples stood at full attention

  Rhotha did the same to Aerin’s bra, and then the bare-chested ladies pressed their torsos together, moaning and smiling at the sensation.

  Isaac enjoyed the display, feeling that he was in the middle of an impossibly erotic dream. But the girls then parted and looked at him, reminded him that he was awake. Aerin grabbed him and pulled him close too.

  The three locked into a trifecta of the flesh, nude bodies pressed into a form so malleable that it wasn’t clear where one person stopped and the next began. Two tongues entered Isaac’s mouth at once, and he split his attention between them while the girls giggled. Necks were caressed, ears nibbled. Soon Isaac was impossibly hard, and the ladies let their wandering fingers stroke his cock while he kissed them.

  “Should we lay down? Rhotha said through labored breathing.

  Without responding, Isaac picked her up and cradled her, still kissing her neck, and laid her across the bedroll. As he leaned back, he pulled her skimpy armor down past her knees and ankles, then admired the fully nude barbarian and she smiled playfully at him.

  Aerin wrapped her arms around him from behind, kissing his neck and wrapping her hand fully around his cock. He leaned forward and kissed Rhotha.

  Then he laid beside Rhotha and took her in his arms. Aerin’s warm, wet mouth wrapped around his cock, and he grunted at the pleasure. He pulled away from Rhotha’s mouth for a moment to watch her beautiful black hair bob up and down.

  Rhotha kissed his chest, then his stomach, then joined Aerin at his cock. While the elf kept bobbing, Rhotha licked the base of his cock. She kissed Aerin, his manhood between their soft lips, and the sight of it was almost enough to make him explode.

  He was in heaven. He laid his head back and alternated between watching them work and closing his eyes to focus on the sensation. But his orgasm was building too quickly, and he wasn’t through with them yet.

  Isaac grabbed Rhotha by the hips and pulled her sex close to him. He buried his face in it, licked and sucked her clit until she tilted her head back and couldn’t stop moaning long enough to suck him more. Luckily, Aerin was there to make up for that.

  Rhotha was soaking wet, and Isaac got the impression that it had been a long time since she’d lost herself in sexual ecstasy. Before long she was coming—hard, and Aerin stopped sucking long enough to embrace her and kiss her neck while she climaxed.

  Once she calmed a little, she eyed Aerin’s pussy hungrily. Eager to do for the elf what Isaac had just done for her, she playfully pushed Aerin down on the bedroll and got to work on her. Though awkward at first, it only took a few seconds for her to recognize what drove Aerin wild, and soon she was licking her with reckless abandon. Isaac watched for a moment before Rhotha stopped long enough to turn and say, “fuck me.”

  He didn’t question it. The barbarians cute, round ass was stuck up in the air while her face was buried, and he teased her with the head of his cock. She moaned into Aerin’s pussy.

  “Fuck me, Isaac! Now!”

  He slid fully in. The warm wetness of her sex was heavenly. He lost himself in his pumps. All three of them, caught in elations of pleasure, moaned and cried out, not caring if anyone heard them.

  Aerin came next, her stomach muscles tensing as she arched her back and cried out. Rhotha pulled back and yelled “yes!” in satisfaction

  With both ladies now satisfied, they turned their attention to Isaac. Aerin grabbed him, pulled him out of Rhotha, then threw him down with a force he didn’t know she was capable of. Then she quickly mounted and rode him. Rhotha lay to his side, kissing him intensely while his orgasm built.

  “Oh fuck,” he said soon, “I’m coming.”

  “Fill me up,” Aerin said, pushing his cock even deeper.

  He did. Isaac came so intensely that his vision blacked out for a moment. His body convulsed, the women caressing him in satisfaction, while he experienced the best orgasm of his life.

  Then he was laying back in post-coital bliss, a woman on either side of him. He’d never felt so satisfied in his life.

  “Holy hell,” he said after a few minutes. “You two are wild.”

  “You weren’t so bad yourself,” Aerin said, kissing him on the cheek.

  “Do you feel properly bonded to us?” Isaac asked Rhotha with a laugh.

  She smirked.

  “Close enough,” she said. “But you’ll have to come in me next time.”

  He shook his head in mock disappointment. “The sacrifices I have to make.”

  For several hours, they didn’t leave the hut. It was too late to leave that day, and they had more urgent business to attend to while they still had privacy. By the time night fell, Isaac wasn’t sure if he could go again. Yet somehow, he found a way.

  They had many urgent matters to attend to—finding phantasm gems, tracking down Aerin’s father and the rest of the five, stopping Scorpius for good—but it could all wait one more night. One more blissful session of lovemaking. Besides, they had to make sure the bond was thorough.

  13

  Rhotha woke them at the crack of dawn. Isaac protested, unwilling to leave his comfortable paradise, but she was insistent.

  “Please,” she whispered. “They’re gonna send us off with a huge breakfast feast and everyone’s gonna hover around and give us advice we don’t need. Let’s bail before they wake up.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad.” Isaac didn’t bother to open his eyes. “Let’s sleep in and wait for it.”

  “It sounds awful, let’s go.”

  “Alright, alright.”

  Isaac sat up and rubbed his eyes. Rhotha was already in full gear—her version of full, anyway. Light steel armor with a wolf pelt and a hammer around her shoulders. A satchel hung around her waist. She’d already retied her braids since last night’s escapades pulled them loose.

  Across the tent, Aerin was robed again. She meditated silently, bag at the ready.

  “Damn, when did you two get up?” Isaac asked.

  “Before you did, hurry!”

  He strapped on his clothes, sheathed Saldana’s dagger, and grabbed his own satchel. Aerin, sensing their departure, snapped out of her meditation. Rhotha nodded toward the hut’s entrance and they got out.

  Only a hint of the sun was visible on the horizon, and nobody was awake yet in Barbaros. Rhotha rushed them to the horses, and they mounted them. Aerin and Isaac rode Moonlight, and Rhotha rode the horse they’d stolen from the bandits.

  As they passed the outskirts of Barbaros, a door opened from one of the shacks, and Tonya stepped out. They locked eyes with her, but the old woman had no interest in hampering their early exit. She nodded, smiled, and waved, and that was all. They waved back.

  Once the barbarian settlement was disappearing behind them, Isaac rode closer to Rhotha.

  “You ought to name the horse,” he said. “Looks like you’ll be the one riding him. Besides, we named this one.”

  “Moonlight, right?” She shouted over the din of clomping hooves.

  Isaac nodded.

  “Then he’ll be Sunfire.”

  “I like it.”

  Isaac felt Aerin shrug behind him. “A little hoaky, but sure.”r />
  Soon, all traces of the Greatwood disappeared, and the group entered the rocky canyons. They stopped near the same place they’d camped before to rest the horses and give them water. Aerin found a large flat boulder, where she sat and pulled out a lunch of dried fruits, nuts, and cured meat. Isaac sat beside her, wondering what hot meal the barbarians would have cooked for them. Rhotha didn’t seem to care. She ate lunch with gusto.

  “So, I have to ask,” Rhotha said. “Your father. He worships Scorpius or whatever. Why? Like, what’s he get out of it? I hardly see the guy’s appeal.”

  All three silently chewed their food.

  “I’m not exactly sure,” Aerin said. “My father and I weren’t close. But I assume that he feels the same compulsions toward dark magic as I do.”

  “Right, but you don’t worship Scorpius,” she said, her mouth full of crunched nuts. “I know you’ve got the whole gloom and doom thing going on, and trust me, it works for you, I’m into it, but you don’t actually want to destroy our realm. So, what gives? I can’t imagine what he’s getting out of the deal.”

  Aerin considered the question.

  “Like I said, I don’t really know. I suppose Scorpius is offering him power, but that doesn’t explain why he’s open to his influence in the first place. I do have a theory. One of the reasons my father and I have never gotten along is that we’re too similar,” she said. “It isn’t just the dark magic thing. We both have… bleak outlooks on the world. Pessimists, you might say. We’ve both struggled a lot with keeping our minds healthy. It’s hard sometimes. But there have been times in my life when I’ve just wanted to say, ‘to hell with it’ and give in to the darkness.”

  “What, like, kill yourself?” Rhotha took another bite of dried fig.

  Isaac nearly spat out his food.

  “No, no, nothing like that,” Aerin said, unfazed by Rhotha’s bluntness. “It’s hard to explain if you aren’t into dark magic, but you can lose yourself to it. Even when you know it’s wrong, it still beckons. Like some weird self-destructive impulse. Dark magic isn’t inherently bad, but it requires a lot of care. You have to be aware of what it does to your psyche, and what you can do with it if you decide the world is a hell hole full of meaningless struggles.”

  “So, your dad can’t handle it and you can?”

  “Again, it's just a theory, and I don’t know exactly what kind of dark magic he’s into, but I think that has something to do with it. I have a lot less pressure on me. I can dress in black and talk about death and emptiness and all that, and it’s an outlet for me. A healthy way to deal with those feelings.”

  Isaac said nothing, just listened in fascination. Aerin had never spoken this openly with him before. Maybe he’d never asked the right questions. He hadn’t considered Hector's motivations much, and he felt a fool for it. It was Aerin’s dad, after all.

  “But my dad can’t do that,” she went on. “He’s the mayor—was the mayor, I should say, of Avalour. He’s got a persona to maintain. Hopeful, confident, faithful. But I know he’s been into dark magic for at least my entire life. I imagine it must have eaten away at him inside. Again, this is all speculation. My dad and I rarely ever spoke. But I think he must have come across Scorpius and something just snapped in his mind.”

  “What about the others?” Isaac said.

  They ladies looked at him.

  “The others who all tried to sacrifice me. They were all in on it too.”

  Aerin shrugged.

  “Maybe they were dealing with the same issues,” she said. “Or maybe my father is very convincing. He did get elected mayor, after all.”

  Isaac thought of the elves again—surrounding him, blindfolding him, preparing to stick a blade into his chest. Were those men all tortured souls? Did it matter?

  He shook away the thoughts.

  Once they were done eating, they mounted Moonlight and Sunfire again and resumed their journey. They didn’t speak much on the way. Isaac was lost in contemplation, and he suspected the ladies were too.

  Since they left so early, they managed to reach Avalour just after sundown. Isaac was just about to suggest setting up camp when the distant cityscape appeared on the horizon, barely visible through the evening haze. They approached it hastily.

  Though night was setting in, it was clear from the shouts and clanking metal that Avalour wasn’t settling down. Isaac turned to remind Aerin to disguise herself, but her ears were already human. He thought about traversing the city at night, but his muscles and joints ached from an entire day on horseback.

  “Let’s find somewhere to crash,” he said. “I don’t feel like going all the way back to Homoken or Whogaarden. What do you say?”

  The women agreed. They approached the stables where they’d purchased moonlight, and Isaac went inside while the women waited with the horses. Two men and the young woman sat around the front desk, all giggling as they passed a joint back and forth. All had long hair and loose-fitting clothes.

  “Hey,” she said. “We’re, um, closed for the night.”

  “Remember me?” Isaac asked.

  She furrowed her brow, stared at him through reddened eyes.

  “You’re not my cousin, are you?”

  “No, Lil,” one of the men beside her said. “I’m your cousin.”

  “I can have more than one cousin!”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “You sold me a horse a couple days ago,” Isaac said. “Mind if I shack him up here tonight? We’ve got one other as well.”

  “Oh sure,” she said. “That’ll cost… um…”

  “How about a silver piece?”

  “Yeah, exactly one silver piece.”

  He tossed her the coin and headed back out. Rhotha and Aerin had already taken the horses into the stable and tied them up.

  Isaac glanced around the street. A few humans milled about, but most of the noise came from deeper within the city. They strolled along the shopfronts before reaching an inn called The Fireside. His muscles sang in anticipation of rest. They went inside.

  While Isaac paid for a single room for the night, the ladies went to the bar and purchased a round of ales. The place was lively and crowded with humans who all sang along with a drunken bard. Isaac, Aerin, and Rhotha gathered at a table and quietly sipped their drinks, letting the day’s fatigue wash over them and listening to the music. Eventually, they went to bed, wondering what the next day would bring.

  “So how the hell are we supposed to find this gem mine?” Rhotha asked.

  They sat around the same table from the night before, now refreshed by a night’s sleep in proper beds. Fresh coffee steamed from ceramic mugs. The Fireside was much less crowded in the early morning. Half a dozen humans or so gathered lazily at the tables, and a different bard graced the crowd with wordless harp melodies. The sandy haired young musician wasn’t very skilled. His misplaced notes and off-kilter timing suggested a more skilled elven bard was recently replaced.

  Isaac considered the question, one he’d been asking himself since leaving Barbaros. Avalour was massive, and Tonya’s broken memories provided little guidance. He considered how much went on in the city that he knew nothing of—dirty politics, secret alliances, dark magic worship—and an idea struck him.

  “The old lady,” he said.

  “Old lady?” Aerin stirred some sugar into her coffee.

  “Yeah, the one who gave me the Occultus Arcaneum originally.”

  Aerin snorted when she tried to take a sip.

  “That old hag who tried to get you sacrificed to Scorpius? Yeah, I’m sure she’ll be a big help.”

  “I’m serious,” Isaac said. “Look, she’s clearly been around a long time and she knows dark magic. If anyone knows how to find the phantasm mine, it’s probably her.”

  “Her knowing is one thing,” Aerin replied. “Helping us find it is another.”

  Isaac shrugged. “I’m willing to bet we can be very persuasive if we want to be.”

  Rhotha set down her cup
and cracked her knuckles, then gripped her hammer.

  “I may not know much about dark magic,” she said. “But I can probably help you out there.”

  “Don’t you need to re-enchant that thing?” Isaac asked. “It’s got to be heavy.”

  “Way ahead of you,” Rhotha said. “I’ve got a portable enchanter in my bag. Got it fixed up while you two were still snoozing away this morning.”

  “Impressive,” Isaac said.

  After they finished their coffee, Isaac purchased some meat rolls, which they ravaged immediately, and he led them to Dorn Square. Rhotha giggled as they strode through the streets, Isaac teaching her about the ways of the city. Barbarians had little interest in big city affairs, she told him—the crowds, the politics, the strict rule of law. Now that it had all erupted into chaos, she clearly enjoyed it more than she would otherwise. Aerin, on the other hand, said little and frowned at the throngs of drunk humans parading the streets, many clad in shirts or carrying flags with anti-elf sentiments. The phrases weren’t clever. Pointy Ears=Pointy Lies left Isaac scratching his head. Even so, the elves had been cleared completely. Thankfully, Aerin maintained her disguise.

  Once they reached Dorn Square, Isaac craned his neck to look for the woman. The square no longer emanated elegance and class. Gone were the well-dress elves perusing artisanal decor, gaudy jewelry, and unneeded wares. The humans had turned it into a place to party. Scents of roasted meats permeated the area, mobile bar keepers sprayed ale into glasses despite the early hour, and a lively fiddler led an impromptu dance in the center of everything. He hardly felt he was in the same place.

  “Surely that old woman doesn’t still hang out here,” Aerin said. “This is almost too barbaric for me.”

  “Hey, watch that word,” Rhotha said. “This looks like a damn good time.”

  “We came all this way,” Isaac said. “We should at least look.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Rhotha said, walking away and not waiting for an answer.

  “You okay?” Isaac asked Aerin once Rhotha was out of earshot.