Conquests and Crowns

by S E Meliers

  ‘Yes,’ he came to stand with her. ‘They used quartz to define the stones.’

  ‘Hmmm. I thought Ogres and Trolls and Goblins to be stories, until I came here and you all talked about them like we talk about rats at home.’

  ‘Dangerous rats,’ he grimaced.

  ‘Well, maybe not like we talk about rats,’ she amended. ‘Maybe, more like we would talk about bandits.’

  ‘Yes, that would be a more apt description,’ he agreed.

  ‘But, they are a new problem?’ she was puzzled. ‘Where did they come from?’

  He sighed. ‘We unburied them,’ he explained, ‘rather like we did this chamber, and actually around the same time. They are… well, it appears we either opened a vein of nesting chambers, causing the birth of these creatures from eggs, or they hibernate in that form and sometime in the far distant past, they went to sleep during a time of little food and did not wake until we broke into their caves.’

  ‘Very odd,’ the hair on her arms stood up and she shivered. ‘Are they related? They are talked about together – the Ogres, the Trolls, and the Goblins – as if they go together somehow, and yet their names seem to categorise them?’

  ‘They go together, only in that they were all uncovered in the caves, but their chambers were not linked, although they were close together. The Trolls are the least destructive. They are not at all intelligent, and seem to just wish to continue their trollish excavations. We think they eat minerals from the rock. As long as we do not accidentally mine into a troll cave network… if we do, they attack savagely and literally tear the unfortunate miners to pieces. Their excavations are also hazardous to our miners in that we do not know where they have weakened structures – we have had an increase in cave collapses since the Trolls have been awoken. If they venture into a populated area, we will need to take… more definite action against them,’ he was grim.

  ‘Do they look like this?’ she asked pointing to a mosaic depiction of a monstrous form.

  ‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘That is an Ogre. That,’ he pointed to a larger, more reptilian form, ‘is a troll.’

  ‘Like a smaller, greyish, deformed dragon,’ she thought aloud.

  He laughed. ‘Do not say that within hearing of a dragon,’ he warned.

  She smiled. ‘Yes, Ember would not be pleased. But what I mean is that, without wings, and with a stubbier neck and tail, they’re sort of similar.’ She went back to the Ogre depiction. ‘So, an Ogre is something between a man and a Troll?’

  ‘Yes, they are bigger however – more the height of your dragon-in-man-form. Their skin is greyish in tone, thick and scaled. They have no hair, and their ears are internal. They are also able to see very well in the dark. They are very intelligent, speaking Dveygar as well as we do, and their main goal since waking has been to return to the surface where they hunt for food. They are omnivorous, and not particular about the source of the meat they consume,’ he spoke with horror.

  ‘Ugh,’ she recoiled, understanding the implication. ‘That is terrible.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘What about the Goblins?’ she asked to move them on from cannibalism.

  ‘The Goblins are menaces,’ he confirmed. ‘They are smaller in size, but many in number. They are ravenous. They have some intelligence in that they can use tools, but we have not been able to communicate with them. They are scattered all over and descend in hordes on wanderers or small villages – anywhere they think they represent the greater number. They are essentially cowards, as they will not attack where they are outnumbered.’

  ‘They are also on the wall,’ she pointed to the mosaic depiction.

  ‘Yes, we think that the mosaic was made in the time when Ogres, Goblins and Trolls were at large. Who knows, maybe whoever made the wall was also responsible for their slumber in the caves. Maybe this wall was meant as a warning not to dig deeper or risk waking them,’ he speculated thoughtfully.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said thoughtfully, looking at the white haired figure. ‘Or maybe it is a prediction?’

  He glanced at her with interest. ‘That has also been considered,’ he admitted. ‘Though, how we are supposed to make sense of it, I do not know.’

  Shade

  ‘Well, I must say, Amori is by far more entertaining than Lyendar,’ Shade commented to Song, who smiled benignly. ‘A cesspit of intrigue, spies, and murder. I am enjoying myself immensely.’ He drew in a deep lungful of air through his nose with relish. ‘Invigorating. Even the criminals are a breed apart,’ he complimented the boy pinned to the wall who protested about the gag in his mouth.

  ‘It is probably a terrible thing to say, Honesty being a good friend of mine, but I do begin to think that I was on the wrong side before. The Shoethalians are that much more… inventive,’ he explained. ‘Take this device,’ he held it up for her inspection. ‘One of the Priests, the one our lovely Lady Patience wants us to look after, in fact, Gallant his name is, had this in his rooms. Fascinating piece,’ he admired it. ‘They have actually made it rather pretty, with the smooth pear-like shape, and the elegant carvings.’ He shook his head marvelling.

  The gagged boy was crying.

  ‘You are probably wondering,’ Shade said to him, ‘why I am showing you this rather attractive piece of metal. It is because of what it is designed to do, you see. If I turn this bit here, the bit they have made look like the stem and leaves of a pear,’ he demonstrated, ‘see, the fruit opens, as if someone’s carved it into slices, whilst keeping all the slices attached at the stem. Or a flower, opening its petals.’ He cranked it open some more. ‘It opens really, really, very wide,’ he was impressed, before turning it back so the fruit closed in on itself.

  ‘Now, I see you are still unsure of the purpose of this piece,’ he said holding the fruit by its stem and dangling it from side to side in front of the boy. ‘Let me explain: it is all about where the fruit is inserted, you see,’ he grasped the fruit in his palm. ‘Imagine a mouth, or, and forgive me for being crude, a vagina or anus, with this pear inserted. As if that probably is not uncomfortable enough, once inserted, the stem is twisted, causing the pear to expand.

  ‘The human body is capable of incredible things, really,’ he patted the boy on the cheek. ‘An incredible amount of stretching. However, there is a point where it just cannot stretch anymore. Depending on where the pear is located at the time the body reaches its maximum ability to stretch, all sorts of things then happen. If, for example, the pear is in the mouth at this time, the teeth will shatter then the flesh of the mouth and the tongue will tear. The jaw will break, and separate from the skull. I think,’ he gave the stem a twirl. ‘Yes, I do think, that if the pear was to open enough, the entire bottom of the face would eventually simply be torn away. Whether a person would live so long, I cannot begin to speculate.’

  The boy’s eyes were very expressive. Pretty eyes, Shade thought, a green and grey fringed with thick black lashes. Some mother held this boy as a babe, not so very long ago, and stroked his fine ashy locks and stared into those pretty eyes as he suckled. He could imagine that mother’s horror if she knew where her son was now. So young, he shook his head regretfully. ‘Do you know what the Shoethalians call this little piece of art?’ he asked the boy. ‘They call it the Pear of Anguish. The Pear of Anguish,’ he repeated it to himself admiringly. ‘They are quite poetic, really, the Shoethalians. You never hear of a Shoethalian poet, but they do have a way with words. The Pear of Anguish. I cannot say it often enough. It just rolls off the tongue, does it not?’

  The boy whimpered.

  Song sat before the polished brass mirror and ran a brush through her hair in one smooth stroke from crown to ends. The repetitiveness of her motion was soothing to him. He was distracted long enough that his silence drew her attention and she flicked him a smile full of promise over her shoulder. ‘Minx,’ he muttered, smiling as he drew his attention back to the boy. Sooner he finished here, the sooner he could start there, he promised himself. ‘So,’ h
e smiled pleasantly at the boy. ‘Where were we? Ah, yes. Of course, with you, as the object of our little meeting here is to talk, I would not want to damage your mouth in any way that could prevent our discourse, therefore, this pear is destined for a lower, darker, more fragrant home. Unless… unless, of course,’ he blinking ingeniously. ‘By any chance, you have had a change of heart?’

  The boy spoke emphatically through his gag.

  ‘Let me help you with that,’ Shade pulled the gag out of his mouth and let it hang around his neck. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘Please,’ the boy gasped, his nose ran with snot. ‘Please. I will talk, I will talk. Just do not – do not use that thing on me.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Shade rolled his eyes skyward, pinched his lips together thoughtfully and scratched his chin. ‘I guess that would depend on what you had to tell me. Why do you not start at the beginning, and we shall see how we go?’

  The boy nodded, tonguing the snot that ran down to his lips, and watching as Shade put the Pear down on the table top with anxious eyes. ‘Let us start,’ Shade suggested, ‘with who sent you. That should be nice and easy.’

  ‘Cedar,’ the boy sniffed pitifully. ‘Cedar sent me.’

  ‘And, who is Cedar?’ Shade raised both eyebrows.

  ‘Cedar is just Cedar,’ the boy was confused by the question.

  ‘Who is Cedar with?’ Shade prompted helpfully.

  ‘Lovel and that Lord. The gold haired one. Ummm… the… Lord Charity,’ desperate to please, eyes flicking from the Pear to the necromancer, the words were garbled and it took Shade a moment to make sense of them.

  ‘The Lord Charity, eh?’ he blinked. ‘Well, is that possible? It would explain how the dead have not seen him,’ he looked at Song, who gazed back blandly. ‘Hmmm. And Lovel. Does the name mean anything to you?’ he asked her. She pulled a ferocious face, fingers at her mouth in rigor, like teeth. ‘Rrrr, to you too,’ he blinked. ‘Interesting. Lupus? Well well.’

  He turned back to the boy. ‘So I guess that would explain why you are loitering outside of the Lady’s rooms – the Lord Charity is having his wife watched. What are your instructions?’ he asked the boy, then seeing the phrasing was above the boy’s vocabulary, rephrased: ‘What do you do here?’

  ‘Watch,’ the boy said.

  ‘And?’

  The boy struggled, his chin tucking into his neck as he tried to find the answer Shade wanted. ‘We tell Cedar what we see?’

  ‘What have you seen?’ Shade rubbed his eyes. This was boring, he thought, he had expected more.

  ‘Well, the metal monsters, and the big cannon, and the pits, and the number of men,’ the boy replied.

  ‘So, defences,’ Shade nodded, that made sense.

  ‘And the baby,’ the boy added. ‘And the Lord Charm and Lady Joy.’

  ‘And the baby?’ Shade frowned.

  ‘The Lady Patience’s baby,’ the boy explained. ‘The one the barbarian Prince put in her.’

  ‘Ahhhh,’ Shade considered this news in Charity’s hands: what would the Lord make of his wife being pregnant to another man, his enemy? If it was the Lord Charity – it was always possible that the boy was mistaken, poorly educated and young as he was, or that the Lord Charity he had seen was an imposter, perhaps fostered by the Rhyndelian nobles to bolster the morale of the troops. ‘How do you give this information to… Cedar, was it?’ Who was this mysterious Cedar, he wondered.

  ‘Ummm,’ the boy was empty eyed. ‘Mire does it. I dunno.’

  ‘Mire,’ Shade grimaced. ‘I will need to speak to Mire, obviously.’

  The boy shook his head. ‘Mire’s gone,’ he said.

  ‘Where has Mire gone?’ Shade asked patiently.

  ‘To report to Cedar.’

  ‘Do you know where Mire goes in order to report to Cedar?’ Shade tried. The boy shrugged as much as he could shrug with his arms suspended above his head by rope. ‘Hmmm. I am not surprised. What else?’

  The boy shook his head wide eyed. ‘Nothing, nothing else.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that is quite enough, considering,’ Shade admitted. A bunch of pre-pubescent boys had managed to sneak into the city, the castle, and report to the enemy about the defences and status of the Lady of Amori and her children, after all, he thought wryly, that was quite an achievement.

  ‘Are you going to kill me?’ the boy whispered. ‘I will miss my mum,’ his bottom lip trembled.

  Shade sighed. ‘What are you doing away from your mother in the first place, a little lad like you?’

  ‘They took us,’ the boy was crying again and trying not to. ‘From our farms. Said we’s to be in the army, go to war. Cedar, he took us, got Lovel to taught us, and sent us here.’

  ‘Hmph,’ Shade shook his head disapprovingly. ‘Taking children from farms for the army,’ he muttered to Song, who twisted a lock of hair around her finger, positioned it on her head, and pinned it into place indifferently. ‘Stop your crying,’ he said to the boy wearily. ‘I am not going to harm you. I am going to send you somewhere where you will be with other children. If you are good, eventually you will be able to go home to your mother.’ He gestured to the skeletons. ‘Take him to the Hallows, and make sure they understand he belongs to Patience and is to go where the other children are sent.’ They untied the sobbing boy from the wall, and carried him out, a limp sack between them. ‘Luckily, the Lady Patience has just the place for stray children,’ he said moving to stand behind Song and trailing his fingers along the exposed curve of her neck. She blew him a kiss in the mirror and continued to pin her hair up.

  He leaned over and kissed where his fingers had trailed. She tilted her head to allow him better access but continued at her task. ‘Can I distract you?’ he murmured, smiling mischievously. She sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘I will not muss your hair,’ he promised, bringing his hands around her ribs to cup her breasts. Her corset was an impenetrable layer between his fingers and her nipples and he tsked in disapproval tapping his fingers against the husk that separated her flesh from him. He straddled the stool on which she perched, framing her with his thighs before lifting her up so that he sat on the stool and she on him.

  She watched his face in the mirror as she continued to do her hair, stoic against his disruption but with a small smile on her lips. ‘I will not mess you up,’ he promised gathering her skirts up so that he could slip his hands beneath and cup her knees. The callouses on his fingertips whispered against the silk of her stockings and tried to cling and draw the thread as he explored up her thighs. He found the gathered lace of her garters and then the warm bare flesh above. ‘No undergarments,’ he pressed his lips against her neck smiling. ‘Naughty.’

  She allowed him to part her thighs without resistance. His fingers traced the outer lips of her labia, soft with hair, before slipping between to the moist inner folds. He pushed his middle finger through the muscles of her vagina, breaching her slowly. She sighed and gave up on her hair, letting her head hang loose on her neck, resting its weight upon his shoulder and exposing the sensitive curve of her throat to his lips. ‘Hmmm,’ he said smugly as she shivered and wriggled within in grasp. ‘I think that was almost a hum, my dear, and a hum is only a lip part from a moan.’

  He lifted her slightly on his lap to allow his fingers greater penetration. She bit her lip, eyes glazed, hips arching compliantly with his exploration of her inner channel. He pressed his thumb against her clitoris as his index and middle finger stroked in and out. ‘Moan,’ he whispered into her ear. His hardness pressed against her, throbbed with the pulse of his heart and drove all higher intellect into retreat before this savage passion. ‘Please,’ he pleaded with her. ‘You do not need to go back.’

  Her fingers clenched, gripping his thighs, as her inner muscles clenched around his fingers. Her pulse fluttered in her throat like a butterfly against his lips. ‘Please,’ he closed his eyes. He withdrew his fingers, lifting her to her feet, and pushing her forward so she braced on her elbows against the dresser, s
cattering her various artifices, powders and perfumes before her. He kicked the stool away and dragged himself free of his trousers, fighting through the froth of her petticoats to her bare flesh beneath. His entry was forceful enough that she almost unbalanced, and only his grip on her hips kept her in place. She was slick, closing around his hard length with welcome. He moaned, and withdrew to his tip before pushing back in more gently.

  ‘Please,’ he gritted between his teeth. ‘I need you.’

  He curved an arm around her waist under the bafflement of skirts, across the soft curve of her abdomen and to the warmth between her legs. ‘Please,’ his word was at odds with his motion, which increased with his frustration. Her skirts were an annoyance, crushed between them and forcing him to fight with gravity to keep them up and out of the way. A man, he realised, needed to be an octopus at times. His hip thrusts raised her to tip-toe. The dull polished bronze mirror reflected her face back to him gold tinted, her lips parted, her brows puckered, and her eyes closed with the inner concentration that heralded orgasm. ‘Song,’ he was sure his teeth would shatter with the force of his clenched jaw as he fought against his own orgasm as she came, trembling, contracting around him. ‘Please.’

  He lost it, groaning, and exploded into her.

  For long moments, he stood with his eyes closed, as the last tremors passed, before recollecting himself and withdrawing. He tried to resettle her skirts, but the fabric was crushed. Her hair was also tumbled around her face. ‘Sorry,’ he tried for charming. She rolled her eyes and set about repairing herself.

  He fastened his trousers and poured them each as glass of wine, placing hers at her fingertips. ‘The Lady will be ready to leave any time now,’ he said. ‘I do not think Charity’s spies know of her intended journey. It is probably for the best else I am sure he would try to intercede.’

  He drank with thirst. ‘I wonder how the Lady would feel about it if he did? Would she welcome her husband back to the world of the living, or recoil from him in fear of his anger? Is he entitled to anger, I wonder? I am sure her actions, at first at least, were motivated by the wellbeing of her children, a sacrifice of self for their lives; but now? Now that she carries Cinder’s child in her womb? I imagine that would change her perspective considerably.’