The Blood Groove (Purgatory Wars Book 4) Page 11

  “Love getting dominated, so, uh, you can order me to do anything,” Neb finished at the same time.

  Vulkis blinked. “What?”

  “I didn’t-” Neb squeaked, her muzzle fur not hiding the shining redness of her blush. “Dinner sounds nice!”

  Vulkis smirked. “Flash me your titties,” he said, using the same tone of voice he used while commanding a ship. A voice that left no room for doubt there. The blush went from red to incandescent. He was honestly shocked that she wasn’t on fire. Then, slowly, Neb reached up, took hold of her robes, and opened them, revealing the soft fur of her breasts and her hard, black nipples. Then, squeaking, she jerked her robes shut as a pair of priests walked past, heading to another healing.

  Vulkis nodded. “Your place or mine?”

  “Just go before I kill myself,” Eerika shouted.

  “My place, uh, is yours,” Neb whispered and the two of them hurried out into the streets.

  Neb’s robes hit the floor the instant she was in her home. Vulkis’ palm came slapping down onto her ass, making her moan and lean forward, her paws pressing to the wall. His fingers sunk into the flesh of her rump as he leaned forward, purring in her ear. “I am going to ravage this ass.”

  “G-Good,” Neb whispered. “So, um, there’s a lesson. A word! I mean, uh, a safe word.”

  Vulkis’ brow furrowed. “Magic?”

  Neb stepped away from him, turning. Her arms crossed under her breasts, shelving them as she explained, “Well, uh, it’s a word we share. Um, so, I can... say... no. And you can know I don’t mean no. I mean yes, but I’m saying no.”

  Vulkis’ brow furrowed further as he worked his way through that. Then, laughing, said, “That’s clever. You’re a smart little puppy, aren’t you?”

  Neb’s ears flicked up and she smiled. “You can call me a bitch, you know?”

  Vulkis grinned and stepped forward. “All right. Bitch.” He weighted the word with a purring scorn that made Neb squirm as she stepped away from him and into the wall, her tail slapping against the wall. “What’s the safe word?”

  Neb whimpered. “Seshat?”

  “Sounds good,” Vulkis said. “Now, bitch, why don’t you get on your knees and open that slutty little mouth of yours and get ready for your savior’s cock.”

  Neb moaned as she slowly lowered herself to her knees, her mouth opening. Her tongue lolled out and Vulkis slipped his leggings down, his achingly hard cock springing free. He rubbed the tip along Neb’s tongue and smirked ever so slightly.

  Funny, what makes the difference to history.

  What makes the difference to the world.

  Vulkis cock slipped to the hilt into Neb’s muzzle. Her throat convulsed around his dick and her tongue swirled around and around his shaft. Neb had planned to visit the library of Brigid after healing the sailors. Instead, she was here, giving head. Vulkis had planned to visit his ships in drydock. Instead, he was throat fucking an eager slut.

  And neither of them were outside when the flash struck.

  Instead, the flash shone through a window and turned the room pale white, draining color from everything. Vulkis jerked backwards, his cock popping out of Neb’s mouth as she whipped her head around to look at the window as well. The two of them froze as a resounding boom filled the air. The walls rattled and the ground trembled and Vulkis threw himself atop the naked jackalgirl.The ceiling shook and plaster fell on them in a pattering rain. Screams were ringing out, alongside shocked, confused shouts.

  “What was that?” Neb gasped.

  Vulkis, his hands on his pants, yanked them up. “Nothing good.”

  He opened the door. Olimurias looked mostly intact, though clouds of smoke wreathed the lower levels of the tiered city. It looked like the poorer buildings, constructed from shabbier materials, hadn’t weathered the flash as well. But the buildings in this section of the city were only showing some cracks.

  But then Neb cried out. “No!”

  Vulkis turned and saw that citadel in the center of the city – the home of Brigid and her library – had been struck with the razor precision of an assassin. If the assassin had been the size of a giant. A smoking hole, roughly the size of a small house, had been punched into the upper levels. Fires burned inside of the stone fortress, the wooden interior catching. Hell, even some of the stones were on fire.

  “He hit Brigid,” Vulkis whispered.

  “She might have-” Neb started.

  “He hit the whole damn council!” Vulkis snarled.

  Vulkis shook his head. He saw some guards standing about, looking confused. Vulkis breathed in. He breathed out. Thu, bless his officious little heart, had made sure to get him a fine sash. He might not be an official admiral, but he had a fine blue silk sash and he could look good in it. Vulkis squared his shoulders.

  “You!” he bellowed to the guards, using his best commander’s voice. “Get more of the guard together-”

  “We need to help Brigid!” the guard said, sounding panicky.

  “No!” Vulkis pointed to the dock. “There’s a storm coming, men. Brax the Golden is coming! Do you want to be the third notch on his belt? No? Get your fellows and send them out to every guard house and get them to the dock!”

  Vulkis turned to go – he had to get his men ready.

  Neb hurried after him.

  “Neb?” he asked.

  “You’re going to need me,” she said, her voice tight.

  Vulkis paused. He looked her up and down.

  Neb looked down at her naked body.

  She squeaked – and then stood straighter and kept walking, her cheeks bright red. “No time!”

  Vulkis shrugged.

  Then together, they started running.

  The clouds that had shrouded the horizon were breaking apart, now that the strike had come. Dozens of Aesir ships, their flags replaced by the pennants of Sysminor, were advancing to the sound of drums.

  ***

  “What was that?” Liam asked, his hands rubbing his ears.

  “An attack,” Laurentinus said, frowning.

  The two of them stood on the prow of one of the merchant ships that the Cross Guard had hired. The rest of the Guard – those who had been ready to go – were on the deck. Their muskets were in their hands, and their eyes were serious. The ranks had swelled since the Battle of Borin the Black. Now, rather than a motley collection of mercenaries and guards, they included people who had been civilians before. Men and women, who had joined.

  Not because they worshiped the Cross.

  But because they heard the motto of the Cross Guard, and they were willing to die for it.

  E Pluribus Unum.

  From many, one.

  “What kind of attack? That’s what I need to know,” Liam said, shaking his head.

  “I can answer that!” Vani said, her voice tight.

  The alchemist had come with for the simple reason that they needed every mage they had. But now, she was holding one of the many new inventions that Liam’s arrival to Purgatory had brought. Telescopes were hideously expensive, and kind of crappy.

  But a crappy telescope was a lot better than no telescope.

  Vani lowered the telescope. “The clouds? They weren’t just a cover.”

  “What were they?” Laurentinus asked.

  “They were a means of power generation. I don’t know how, I’m not a weather wizard. But the end result is obvious. The clouds created a... a...” She snapped her finger.

  “A charge?” Liam suggest. Then he saw it. “And then they channeled the charge via sympathetic magic.”

  “Likely? Salt water,” Vani said. “If they’re sea storms, then they’d be linked to the sea. So, they channeled the charge of a coast covering storm into a single lightning bolt. That, by the way, is probably why the clouds are clearing.”

  Liam held out his hand and took the telescope and put it to his eyes. Smudged and warped the image might be, but he could see the hole in the tower. His heart twinged at the thought of fi
re rushing through that library. And then he realized the impact had been too high.

  Or just right, if you didn’t want to damage the books.

  Liam swung the telescope around.

  Brax’s fleet was entering into the docks.

  Liam lowered the telescope. “Ready the rowers.”

  ***

  Brax stood on the prow of his ship. He held a small spherical crystal to his eye, then lowered it.

  “Sysminor spoils me,” he said, then lowered his arm to his side. The bitterness in his voice made Liv shake her head.

  “Don’t throw it overboard.”

  A splashing noise drew Liv’s attention. A scaled hand had grabbed onto the side of Brax’s ship and dragged herself up. She was one of the wizards who had helped to take down Odin. Liv thought her name was Zickzbit. She dripped with water, and the glowing runes around her throat flickered for a few moments. She held her breath. Then the runes faded and she hacked up what looked like two lungfuls of ocean water. Which, to be fair, it probably was.

  “Did we hit?” Zickzbit asked.

  Brax nodded. “You hit.”

  The other wizards – each with the same spell – were scrambling aboard the boat. Anix – looking quite pleased with his position as signaler – lifted up a set of red flags, waving them over his head. Being the taller of the two of Brax’s bodyguards, he was an obvious choice for signaler. Vazt was also looking rather fine with staying back as well.

  Liv wondered at a warrior that didn’t want to be in the thick of things but she supposed that being vulnerable to cutting weapons had its downside.

  The ships that saw the signal started to row forward. The huscrals on the back set up a series of horn calls. The horns weren’t just to intimidate the defenders on the pier, though.

  Liv could see the darting shapes of lizardfolk in the water. They might need magic to breathe underwater, but they didn’t need magic to move like lightning there.

  Not the best metaphor at this time, Liv thought.

  The defenders, though, had reacted faster than she expected. Guards in Olimurias armor were blocking off the ramps that led from the pier to the city. Archers started to stand on rooftops. Arrows started to fill the air. They rained down on the surface ships. Liv wondered at the huscrals who lifted their shields and warded off the arrows.

  How many were just here because they had longed to attack Olimurias, but were kept at bay by Odin’s own wisdom?

  How many were just here because they were terrified that Odin’s corpse would join Balder’s?

  The lizardfolk were under the piers.

  The huscrals reached the docks. They charged off their boats and into furious fire from the rooftops. Their shields stopped most of the arrows, but as they marched to the ramps, the heavy infantry left behind bleeding, groaning figures who sprouted arrows like merry flags.

  Brax nodded to the wizards.

  Zickzbit led them. She held her hands up as the other lizardfolk pressed their hands to her shoulders. They created a kind of arrowhead formation, with two lizardfolk touching Zickzbit and four touching them. Zickzbit’s hands touched together, then spread wide. As they spread, a geometric pattern flared to life between her fingertips. She trembled as the pattern flared brighter and brighter and brighter. Several white dots appeared between her fingers.

  The darts flew into the air, then arced upwards. Unerringly, they fell among the archers.

  Olimurias’ defenders fell by the dozen as each lizardfolk wizard sagged. They looked tired but, despite that, they started to gather energy again.

  Brax watched, his face unreadable.

  The lizardmen under the pier were gone.

  ***

  Vulkis hurled a javelin. It found its mark, slipping between the shields raised over the huscral’s heads. An enemy fell. He felt good about this fight so far. The line of guards had met the enemy’s advance. There was less of them, yes. But they had the high ground, and the huscrals were trying to force their way through their lines while archers rained fire down on them. The back ranks of the huscrals might have shields up, interlocking them as best they could, but there were enough chinks that he could worry away at them.

  “Come on men, we have them!” he shouted.

  Then the archer standing beside him dropped to the ground, her head nothing but a smoking stump.

  Vulkis’ eyes widened and he looked around. Dozens of other archers were downed as well, their heads missing as if they had never been there. Neb cried out in shock. He looked back at her. The huscrals had been throwing and shooting back as best as they could, and several of the archers had been wounded. She had been working at healing them, her nudity entirely forgotten. But she pointed at the harbor.

  “It came from there!”

  “Can you stop it!?” Vulkis asked. He didn’t know how magic worked.

  “I can try,” Neb said, rubbing her paws together as she stood. She closed her eyes, starting to focus. Vulkis saw that the boat that held Brax the Golden was glowing. This time, he saw the darts flying up into the air. They rushed forward, all of them angling towards one location. Vulkis saw what it was and charged.

  He caught Neb in the shoulder.

  They fell off the roof and onto the hard paving stones below. Something snapped and Neb screamed in pain. The darts, trying to draw a straight line between their point of origin and her, slammed into the roof of the house like a rain of arrows. The roof powdered, splintered, and then the wall above Vulkis’ head bulged outwards as the bolts struck it.

  And stopped.

  “I broke my arm,” Neb gasped. “Oh gods, I broke my arm.”

  “In war,” Vulkis said, “That’s a better alternative. Can you fix it?”

  Neb nodded, whimpering.

  Vulkis bellowed. “Archers! Off the roof! Off the roof!”

  The surviving archers scrambled off the roofs. And a bellow of joy came from one of the ramps. He saw several Olimurias guards fleeing, and huscrals starting forward, their axes and swords raised. A guard was cut down from behind. The line he stood before wavered.

  Neb hissed out words in a language Vulkis didn’t speak. Her paw lifted and a glowing darkness – tinged and tinted with gold – flared around her paw and fingertips. The darkness flew out and fell onto the huscrals. Panting, she sagged. “Disorientation – doesn’t last long.”

  Vulkis bellowed the order.

  “Fall back! Fall back!”

  ***

  Liam grinned.

  Fiercely.

  “Smile, you son of a bitch,” he hissed.

  The remaining Aesir ships that Brax had kept in the harbor were swinging around. But his ships had come around the corner of the island in a ragged, but roughly well kept line. And the Cross Guard stood in ranked files, one line kneeling, the other standing. When you had almost two hundred muskets, you really didn’t need to aim.

  “Fire!” The voice came from dozens of non-commissioned officers. A concept Purgatory had had for centuries, but one that Liam had made sure his army understood and adopted with zeal. They were, after all, worth their weight in gold.

  If you were a really bad haggler.

  Smoke wreathed the ships, drifting away. They couldn’t use rowers, as they had the Guard kneeling in their places to give them their broadside. But the sails caught the prevailing wind and pushed the smoke away, revealing…

  Well…

  Modern bullets were actually quite a bit smaller than primitive ones. Smaller, more aerodynamic, and designed to spin. They tended to produce smaller entrance wounds – though their exit wounds could be quite hideous. But there was nothing quite as horrifying as a massive chunk of lead, accelerated to supersonic speed.

  And Liam had the technical proficiency to make it even worse.

  Babylon might not have been able to make cartridge bullets.

  Minié balls, though?

  Those weren’t that much harder. Especially if you had a book on the weapons of the Civil War in your iPod library.

>   The crews of the ships they had passed lay in twitching masses of butchered meat. Limbs had been blown almost entirely off. Heads were missing. Guts were ripped out. A scant few of the surviving Aesir turncoats were untouched or only lightly wounded. And the ships hadn’t been fared much better. Designed to be light and mobile, the ships that Brax had left to cover his rear were archery ships. Their wooden sides had been perforated just as easily as human flesh.

  They weren’t sinking, but they were definitely listing.

  The call for reloads started to fill the air.

  And cheering came from the city.

  ***

  Vulkis panted, his shield in arm, his body aching from dozens of minor impacts. He was sure that he was bleeding elsewhere, but adrenaline burned through his body. He wasn’t sure where Neb was. Somewhere behind the line. But the fighting still had lines. And that was something. The guard had fallen back to a second line of defense, and the Aesir attackers hadn’t managed to break through their lines. Several battles were going on in nearby alleyways – the lines breaking down into skirmishes.

  But they had also gotten reinforcements.

  Vulkis stood shoulder to shoulder with two toughs from a local tavern. Their scarred bodies and tattooed skin left no doubt as to their nominal profession. But they had gotten armed and they stood with the guardsmen, shouting out obscenities at the huscrals – who had drawn back from being in full contact and were hurling their thrown weapons at the group.

  Here, the little things made the difference.

  For one thing, the Olimurias guard used kite shaped shields. The interlocking protection left less chinks.

  For another, the archers – remaining out of view of the harbor – were sending arcing fire into the huscrals, preventing the rear ranks from adding to their volleys. Enemy mage-fire stayed at a distance.

  “What was that?” one of the toughs beside Vulkis asked.

  Vulkis’ eyes widened. That rattling sound, that curious series of echoing booms. He looked past the huscrals and saw the harbor. There, he saw ships, wreathed in smoke. And flying high and proud above their sails, were long streaming pennants. Each one bearing the red cross.