The Blood Groove (Purgatory Wars Book 4) Read online

  “Fuck me! Oh fuck me!” Loki panted. “Oh fuck, Liam! Fuck my pussy!”

  Liam grinned, fierce and eager.

  Okay, maybe he was the dominant one slightly more than seventy percent of the time.

  He reached around with his free hand, finding where their bodies met. There, his finger found the tiny nub of her clit. He caressed around it – gentle, knowing that climaxing made women sensitive. From the low wail that escaped her mouth, her face and muzzle going slack with pleasure, Liam figured he could apply slightly more pressure, slightly more direct simulation. Loki’s cunt tightened on his cock like a velvety glove and, for just a moment, Liam felt what a goddess could do.

  It was less a matter of physicality, though there was exquisite and exotic motions of muscle and skin that caressed and tightened and squeezed on his shaft. But most of it?

  Almost all of it, really?

  It came from the mind.

  For a moment, Liam’s soul blazed with pleasure. His nerve endings crackled, his eyes went white and the only thing that kept him breathing, that kept him alive was the knowledge that if he let this goddess down, he’d never be able to forgive himself. And so, he kept thrusting as his balls tightened and a torrent of hot, hot cum spurted into her pussy. Into her womb. Liam loved that bit, he loved it more than he expected as he leaned over her and shuddered.

  Loki twitched underneath his grasp. Her hand had reached down and she was touching where his cock and her sex met. From that contact, Liam felt a pressure that was keeping even a single drop of cum from escaping her pussy.

  Liam groaned, quietly, feeling a last spurt of seed pump into her. With shaking arms, he pushed himself backwards and looked down. The field that Loki created glowed a pale blue, and her belly had swollen slightly.

  “I was talking to Tethis earlier today,” Loki said, her voice utterly controlled – as matter of fact as if they had just been casually walking along the park, and not fucking hard enough that it might have damaged the furniture. “And she-”

  Loki paused.

  She grunted. Jerked at her head. Liam, for a moment, didn’t understand.

  Then he saw that her horn had impaled the chair. In their fucking, Loki had ducked her head forward, rocked backwards and forth, and gotten herself stuck. She grunted and tried to slide her head back. Liam trapped her. Loki sighed – then shifted. Her skin became free of fur, shifting back to pink. Her horn faded away. Finally, Liam was just balls deep inside of one of the most beautiful redheads he had ever met, rather than balls deep inside of an entirely original character he had come up with on the spot.

  Definitely not a character from a TV show he liked.

  “And she said you needed this bad,” Loki said, grinning as she looked back over her shoulder. She touched her belly. “Something about alchemical reagents.”

  Liam laughed. “I’d ask how you asked her, considering we only discovered this this evening.”

  “I’m Loki?” Loki suggested, as if that explained everything.

  And maybe it did.

  ***

  Tethis rubbed her palms together as she looked at the fifth glass vial of glowing fluid. “And we add dye to it,” she said, quietly. “Inert, non-magical dye that is. It’ll look like a blue fluid.”

  “Why?” Meg asked.

  “Well, ah..” Tethis coughed loudly. “Because, um, we... espionage?”

  Meg snorted. “You just don’t want artisans to know they’re rubbing my boy’s spunk on their vital armament projects.”

  “Well, I, uh... no,” Tethis admitted. “No, I don’t.”

  “Actually,” Liam cut in, trying to rescue his friend from his fiancee. “That does fall under the umbrella of espionage. The longer the lizardmen don’t know how we can harden crystal on this scale, the better. This is a war that’s going to be won by artisans as much as by generals.”

  “Good.”

  Laurentinus spoke as he walked into the office. He was wearing his Cross Guard uniform and had a pair of scrolls tucked under one sleeve, his face was grim.

  “What’s wrong, Laurentinus?” Liam asked.

  The goblin frowned. “Woden has fallen. It fell within a day of Brax the Golden’s army marching within sight of it. Reports aren’t sure what caused it. Some traitor, they think. Someone snuck assassins in. Odin, Thor, Sif - all captured.”

  “What!?” Tethis exclaimed. “At once? How?”

  “We don’t know,” Laurentinus said. “But we do know this.”

  He unfurled one of the scrolls. The runes were clearly of Aesir origin, and Meg’s translation spell turned them into English letters after only a few moments of examination. This gave Liam a slight advantage – and fresh reason to swear.

  YOUR GODS

  YOUR CHOICE

  IF YOU FIGHT AGAINST GOD, THE LIVES OF ODIN, THOR, SIF, AND ALL THEIR CHILDREN ARE FORFEIT. IF YOU COME WITH AX AND SHIELD TO THE BANNER OF BRAX THE GOLDEN, FREEDOM AND RICHES TO YOU AND YOUR THANE

  Above the words were a crude representation of the three gods in question, held in chains and looking quite downtrodden. Below them was a symbol that Liam had seen before – Brax’s symbol? It would make sense.

  “They can’t hope this will work,” Meg said. “We’ve met Aseir, they’d rather cut off their own beards then bend their knee to this.”

  “Some worry more for their gods' lives than their gods' ideals,” Laurentinus said, frowning. “And more, there are Aesir who care more for gold than honor. They’ve raided Hellenic territory for less cause than this. And there’s an allure to a general who has conquered two cities without losing more than a handful of men in under a month.”

  Liam nodded. “What are we looking at?”

  “Between five to ten thousand new troops for Brax. Not to mention half the Aesir navy, if he’s lucky,” Laurentinus said.

  Liam felt a cold pit grow in his stomach.

  He looked at the vials.

  “Tethis,” he said.

  “Yes?” she put her hands together before her belly, drawing herself to attention.

  “Bring together the alchemists,” he said. “We need ten thousand muskets. And we need them yesterday.”

  ***

  Vulkis grabbed a tankard of ale from the passing bar wench’s tray and hurled it. It had been some years since he had served in the armies of Thor, and a tankard of ale was far from the most deadly or precise of the gods’ weapons. But his aim was true.

  And to be fair, the blond fellow with the mustache was only a few paces off.

  The tankard connected with a loud thunk and the man hit the ground a moment later.

  A moment after that, his fellows sprang to their feet.

  “Vulkis!” Thu said, his hand going to Vulkis’ shoulder.

  “You bastard!” one of blondie’s friends exclaimed.

  “Traitor!” Vulkis roared.

  The others drew knives. Daggers. No one had bigger weapons, not in Olimurias. Vulkis yanked a penknife from his boot and a dagger from his sleeve. He held both in his hands as Thu scrambled to his feet, drawing his own blade. Though calling Thu’s quill sharpener a knife was a bit much.

  “You’re the traitor,” one of the women of the other group snarled. She advanced forward, her blade gleaming in the torchlight of The Legless Wyrm. Her eyes flashed and the clearly decorative scar that marred her left cheek twisted her scowl into a sneer. “You’re the one who wants to see Sif beheaded!”

  “I’d rather have every one of them in the gallows before I bend knee to a crystalwright’s abortion!” Vulkis shouted. The woman leaped at him. He ducked her first blow and brought his fist, weighted by the hilt of his blade, into her gut. It connected with a satisfying whump and sent her staggering backwards. Thu, meanwhile, decided to ditch his sharpener in favor of a stool, which he hefted up and thrust at the woman’s partner’s chest. Thu staggered backwards as the man was joined by a friend, the two of them shoving and pushing.

  “Vulkis!” Thu wailed.

  Vulkis, meanwhile
, had gotten his arm around the woman’s throat. She had gotten her teeth into his wrist. Blondie’s friend, though, held back, unwilling to stab with his dagger while his female partner was between him and Vulkis. Vulkis slammed his forehead into the woman’s head. She took it like a proper Aesir and didn’t even buckle.

  Thock!

  Thock!

  Thock!

  An arrow slipped between shirt and skin and pinned one of the traitor Aesir to the wall. Another was pinned by a pair of arrows catching his sleeve and slamming it into a nearby chair.

  Thock!

  Crash!

  An arrow severed the rope holding a metal chandelier to the ceiling. It smashed into a weak plank. Shattered it. Half the plank lifted up and smashed the man who was threatening Thu to the ground.

  “Now,” Artemis said, another arrow already knocked to her bow. “Does anyone want to give me an excuse to do what I wanted all fucking week and spill some fucking blood?”

  Her glowing eyes swept the tavern. Those who hadn’t been part of the brawl froze. Those who had... also froze. Vulkis felt his blood turn to ice as the Dodekatheonic goddess glared straight at him.

  “I come here, expecting to find my transport. Instead, I find a bunch of idiot vikings trying to murder him,” Artemis said, growling as she walked forward. The past week of negotiation and debate in the offices of Brigid had clearly left the goddess wound up beyond all endurance. Her whole body seemed to vibrate with a burning need to do something. It reminded Vulkis of the time he had visited one of the few cities that had tried to rebuild the glories of Rome and constructed a coliseum. The big cats they had kept in cages had paced like Artemis did now.

  “Sorry, miss,” the woman that Vulkis held said, spitting slightly to get some of Vulkis’ blood from her mouth. “But this bastard here, he wants to get our gods killed in some foolish-”

  “Coward!” Vulkis snarled, tightening his arm.

  Artemis pinched the bridge of her nose, letting her bow hang from two fingers. Vulkis was fairly sure that holding a bow like that was not good for the string. But since he had never seen the goddess actually unstring the bow, he was fairly sure that mortal concerns were entirely beyond her.

  In fact, the only thing Artemis cared about, as far as Vulkis could tell, was the hunt.

  And worship, he supposed.

  And fucking Athena.

  Vulkis had retired from being a huscral because he knew that trade could earn him more than fighting, not because he was a coward. If he had been a coward, he’d never have made his fortune, nor kept his ship. But unlike swinging an ax, running a ship took something more. Charisma. The ability to pay someone like Thu to keep the books straight.

  And the ability to make a leap. To connect dots.

  To see a pattern.

  To have ideas.

  “How has the negotiation been going, my goddess?” Vulkis asked, his voice sweet. The woman he was headlocking punched at his arm, making muffled noises of complaint. Vulkis tightened his grip threateningly.

  Artemis, unconcerned about the grapple, rubbed her chin. “I’m sure Athena knows how to describe it like a proper logician. I’ll stick with things I know. It’s going like shit.”

  Vulkis nodded. “No action?”

  “No one can agree where to go first. I say, we go to the Aesir lands, we kill the fuck out of this Brax asshole. Athena says that’s a way to get killed ourselves. That Vanir asshole says he doesn’t want Hellenic armies landing in his territory without some assurances. Brigid wants to see if we can find a peaceful agreement – she says that-” Artemis groaned, then dropped her voice to a mincing falsetto that sounded as like Brigid as a broken flute sounded like a snare drum. “Oh, we cannot have the terrors of the War of the Ancients again, no, think of the deaths.”

  Vulkis nodded. “I have an idea,” he said.

  “An idea to get Sif killed,” the woman hissed around his arm.

  “No, shut up, you idiot,” Vulkis snarled. “Artemis, she wants to fight Sysminor. We want to save our gods. Do you really want to bend knee to Sysminor?”

  The woman looked sullen. “No...” she muttered.

  “So, we don’t fight Sysminor. The Hellenes do,” Vulkis said, grinning broadly. “Hellenic boats are half as good-”

  Artemis scowled at him.

  “A-As good, they’re as good, just as good as Aesir vessels,” Vulkis said. “Your fellow Hellenes don’t want to send their men to die? Fine. Send us, in your ships.”

  “Yes!.” Artemis looked as if someone had just given her an entire caravan of nubile slave girls. She clenched her fist and started for the door, as if she was going to go out and get the ships personally. Then she stopped, growled, then turned back. “Wait. Wait. If you land, and you fight the lizardmen, they kill your gods don’t they?”

  “That’s why they won’t.”

  Everyone in the bar looked over at the new voice. Athena was walking into the bar, looking tired, wan, but far less edgy than her lover and fellow goddess. She put her hands on Artemis’ shoulders, squeezing and stroking her gently. Artemis seemed to relax slightly at her touch. Athena looked over her lover’s shoulder at Vulkis with a slightly amused air. Vulkis realized why and slowly loosened his grip on the woman he had been holding in a headlock for what felt like an hour. She jerked away from him, wiping his blood off her mouth.

  “Exactly” Vulkis said. “Even if we did land, dressed as hoplites or auxilia, we’d be a pittance against Brax the Golden. If he can take two cities without losing a man, what would we be against him? And even that defeat is assuming we can get past the Aesir navy who have pledged their flag to Sysminor.”

  Athena inclined her head.

  Vulkis grinned. “But for the past ten years, I’ve sailed the Platonic Sea. If you control the sea, you control Purgatory. I can give you that control.”

  “You?” Athena asked, her voice dimming to human levels.

  “W-well, I mean, uh-” Vulkis suddenly realized how that sounded.

  “Very well,” Athena said. “We’ll see what we can do.”

  Vulkis gulped.

  Thu sighed, loudly.

  “What have you gotten us into this time, captain?”

  Vulkis looked at his first mate, friend and long suffering scribe.

  He grinned, jauntily.

  “I believe that is what have you gotten us into this time... admiral.”

  Four

  Babylon was a nexus of trade. People arrived every day, even with the spreading war in the far south. And some of those people came to commit murder.

  The four men who stepped off the Hellenic trade ship the Argos were four such people. Clad in thick robes and walking quickly away from the trade ship, they lost themselves in Babylon. They moved carefully, making sure to avoid any place where the town guard were clustered and watching. Not that they expected to be observed but one never got old being a professional assassin without being paranoid.

  Soon, though, they were beyond the initial ring of guards. The guards made watchful by Laurentinus and not yet slackened by the peaceful interior.

  They came to the industrial heart of the city. This place had once burned day and night for Syminor, forging bronze weapons for the army of Brax the Golden. Now, it rang to a different sound. There was still hammering and still clanging, but more often, there was the sound of hissing. The cries of ‘water!’ that came soon after. Splashing sounds as buckets were doused over alchemical vats, ruining a load but sparing dozens of lives from accidental explosions.

  The murderers walked by.

  They came to where crystalwights plied their trade. Here, massive beasts from the deep jungle had been penned in. The miserable creatures looked up from the deep, stone pits that held them, their eyes filled with piteous emotion. Their backs were covered with weeping sores where the crystalwights yanked the crystal that naturally grew along their spines, while their mouths were caked with powdered food.

  They didn’t eat on their own, not without handl
ers jamming the food down their throat.

  The murderers walked on by.

  They came to the large plaza that sat before the Free Lord’s manor house. The plaza had once merely been a place for discussion and votes from the community leaders of Babylon. Then, later, it had become a slave market by the twisted whims of Sysminor. Now, it had become something stranger and far more marvelous than what it had ever been before. Standing and sitting on the platform, many of them using shades and parasols, were dozens of people. They were all watching and listening to a duo in the center of the plaza debate.

  “You cannot simply say that might makes right,” Mary, the Hierophant of Babylon, said. Her palm slapped against her fist as she looked out towards the crowd. “Being strong merely makes things possible. But we know for a fact that being possible does not make something just. A hurricane that destroys a whole city is possible. But can we really say it is just, merely because nature is stronger than we?”

  The murderers didn’t even pause to listen.

  They, at last, came to their target.

  Now came the hard part.

  ***

  Liam looked at the maps unrolled on his table and, not for the first time, thanked God that the curvature of Purgatory and the existence of large numbers of people with astounding eyesight who could also fly meant that said maps were astounding.

  In the past of Earth, map making had varied from exquisitely detailed to mere suggestions. While these maps lacked elevation lines and contoured designs to indicate the exact shape of slopes, they were still detailed enough to guide a scout right where you wanted them to be.

  Within a few miles at least.

  Since they weren’t launching cruise missiles, Liam could live with that error range.

  “So, here,” Meg said, tapping another part of the map. “That’s where the other independent valkyrie tribe lives.”