Girl 3

As always I want to extend a huge thank you to my patrons for their uplifting support and to thank YOU for reading my kinky ramblings. For those interested please check out **** Girl and **** Girl 2 before striking out on this journey of adventure.

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Prologue

The warlord sits astride a great black battlemare. Atop a rise that looked down into yawning wound in the earth the tips of her horned helm were highest points for a dozen miles in any direction across the windswept steppes. A cool breeze sways the two slender braids of scarlet hair decorated with bone and bead that hung from figure’s temples. The scales of her Lamellar armor glint red in the washed out light that was able to penetrate the endless ceiling of ash gray cloud. In the distance ribbons of black smoke rise from her encampment of elite Amazonian warriors. She was wide at the shoulders, her arms as hard and sculpted as cast bronze, her thighs as thick as a dancer’s waist stretch down past her plated kilt, and each calf above her hardened leather boots a thick knot of muscle. As the mare shifts beneath her, it’s nostrils flaring in protest against the acrid fumes that drifted up from the cleft before them, she moves effortlessly within the saddle as if the mighty steed were an extension of her own legs. Crossed across her broad back is a stout composite bow of horn and a heavy sagaris battle axe. Across face, throat, arms, legs, and every exposed patch of skin whorls of draconic imagery is painted across her flesh. A ghostly sheen of magic glinted through the design of her tattoos for those with keen enough eyes to detect it.

Her steel gray eyes narrow as she stares down into the chasm. Through bared pointed teeth she grumbles. “Fucking witches.”

Stepping forward a slender, effeminate man in simple white robes, his golden hair flowing freely down to his waist, hisses softly. “We need them, Mistress.”

His soft green eyes peer up at the warlord though he dared not actually raise his chin to face her directly. His features were beautiful and boyish though years past the blush of youth. Around his pale, elegant neck a tight collar of silver and ruby glinted. He drops to his knees beside the horse and then to his hands as well. His back straightens and his limbs tighten as he form a flawless Table position. He grunts as the warlord plants her boot into the small of his back. She dismounts, using him as a stool to ease her progress to the ground. She stops a moment to adjust her Amazonian blessing beneath her battle kilt.

Her long stride takes her swiftly to the very edge of the chasm while the **** struggles to his feet. Dusting the red-brown earth from his knees he hurries to take his place, head bowed, just behind her left arm.

“I might just pull their lying Thracian tongues from out of their throats.” She spits. “I’m meant to trust women without the gift now?”

“Listen to them first, Mistress.” The **** whispers, his voice soft and pleading. “Their sight can see what we cannot. They are ours now. Why shouldn’t we use them? As the Romans did against us. As scouts. Not watching over land but through time.”

“I do not doubt their sight. It is their tongues I distrust.”

“Let us at least listen. We can untangle the threads of their words afterward.” Gently he brushes his fingers along the back of his Mistress’ strong, calloused hand. “Please, Mistress?”

“Hrm!” She rolls her tense shoulders and nods. Turning back to her onyx mare she closes her eyes and whispers. “Wait.” The horse stills then lowers its head to begin grazing. The warlord opens her eyes then turns back to the cleft. “Come, Lysis. Let us be done with this.”

“Yes, my Mistress.” He bows deeply then hurries to follow.

Together they climb down through broken boulders toward the inky black opening at the bottom. It wasn’t so much a cave as a violent crack in the living stone. Ghastly green fumes singe their nostrils as the delve down and down and down. The way was dark except for faint glowing runes carved along the walls of the natural passage, the worn etchings older than the Olympian gods. Without fear or hesitation the warlord descends into this eerie underworld, her loyal **** close behind her as always.

“What’s this? A dragon has found us, sisters.” Comes a croaking voice as the warlord steps out into a vast underground dome. The sigils they had followed continued out into the space, carved all across the walls and ceiling of the great cavern and glowing through the **** fumes like blurry stars through a wisp of clouds.

“Not just any wyrm.” Says another. “Drakaina! The Dread Drake of the Steppe. Our new lord. What an honor this is.”

“Queen of Chains. Queen of Pains. Queen of Reins.” Rattles a third.

“No rhymes, no riddles.” Drakaina commands. “If you are truly oracles you know why I’ve come.”

“You seeks a crown.” Says the first. “A true crown! And scepter and throne.”

“An Amazonian throne?” Says the second. “An Empress? A despot? A conqueror? Forbidden! For that is the way of men.”

“Stone, crone, throne!” The third exclaims, followed by a raspy cackle. “Eee, he he he!”

“Enough games!” Drakaina’s voice, adapted to shouting commands in the din of battle across a vast plain, booms even in this grand cavernous space. Squinting against the obscuring haze her sharp eyes pick out one…two…three hunched shapes among the natural pillars. “Word has reached my ear of a prophecy. Lies and trickery no doubt, but I will hear it from your own lips. Speak!”

“YES! A prophesy!”

“Four walk as one. Four, four, four, four, five. Four as one running from curse to curse to curse. A vixen, a watcher, a red shadow, a second sister at their heel.”

“A ploughman! His heart torn from his fields. His blade torn from monster and soul. A hero of iron torn from a life of clay. A boy torn from a giant.”

“A farmer’s daughter, a bow to slaughter, by chance they sought her! He he he!”

“The outcast, a gift of green, pulls a heavy heart. A creature of mirth, a creature of appetites, a creature trapped by it’s own chains.”

“The half-born Amazon! HER!” At this cry Lysis, from his shadow, cocks a keen and subtly tapered ear. The hag continues. “Child of fiend and friend. Maiden and mother and matron made one. Walker of sand and city and brothel and glade. Worshiper and worshiped. Conqueror and conquered. Binder and bound. Eyes sealed to the world, only the marrow she sees now. She sees and she sups and she sssslurpssss! She sups and she grows. Power pours like honey across her pointed tongue. Power is but a toy in her hands. A toy, a toy, a toy!”

“A rider of wagons, once sang among flagons, becomes a slayer of dragonsssss. He he he he!”

“Stop laughing, witch!” Drakaina barks. “Which dragons? Where!? Not me!”

“She comes.”

“She comes!”

“He he he! She comessss!”

“By road.”

“By sea.”

“Through tavern and cavern and pattern. Ha ha ha ha!”

“She leaves one empire for her own. To no throne will she kneel. To no crown will she bow. No scepter will surpass her own.”

“She is the one!” The second crone cries. “The horned one. The fanged one. She wears the mark. A mark not born but forged. A scar of the heart.”

“The one that marries, the one that carries, she dances among fairies. AND SLAYS NAUGHTY DRAGONS LIKE YOUUUU!”

“Sister!” The first one gasps…too late.

Faster than an eye could blink Drakaina had pulled the bow from her back and sent a scale fletched arrow into the dark shape of the third voice. The shape shudders. From the crone’s rhyming throat comes a bloody gurgle. A moment later she drops, an unmoving heap on the stone floor. A shrieking wail fills the echoing cavern. A wail of bonded agony from two throats where had once there had been three.

“Mistress!” Lysis hisses as he hurries to his Mistress’ side. “They had more tell!”

“They will speak. One way or the other, they will speak.” The warlord smiles as she hears the weeping laments of the two remaining crones. “Whether they want to or not.”

“But, without three they cannot…”

“Send out a falcon and fetch me my necromancer. And bring shackles for these two. These witches will spill me their secrets or their guts. Both at once if need be.” She commands as she shoulders her bow. “In the meantime, fate favors those who seize her reins.” Her head snaps to look her **** in the eyes. “Find me that half-blood!”

***

Chapter 1

On a high pass that connected one valley of the mighty Apennines with the next our party stops and turns back to look out over vast plains behind us. We see dark forests just beginning to come alive with autumn color, we see fields once a blond gold now dulled from the shearing of harvest, we see the twinkling Aciris wound through the landscape like a slumbering draco, and we see the smoke of Grumentum rising to the blue heavens from its perch over looking the lands around it. And there, just along the river, a tiny spit of dark foliage we once called home.

Together on the paved road we stand. A blind demon **** girl who was Mistress, a tall and broad shouldered citizen who was ****, a buxom farmer’s daughter with the soul of an explorer and a chubby green goblin woman munching on plums. We had to be strangest family in all of the vast empire. Beside us snorted a great nameless black steed loaded with gear and somewhere in the low bushes around us stalked a hungry fox in search of mice.

My eyes turn to Collywaddle and Cassie. While Rosa and I had called this valley home for only a scant few months for the others this valley had been their whole world. What I discover was that my goblin **** was too busy with her plums to notice this landmark event and my lover and fellow devotee of the Lady with horns, her dark wooden living collar a mate to my own, had her eyes cast ahead of us looking into the distance as far as they could reach. I look to my Lady and **** girl Rosa, who of course had the wide-eyed stare into infinity of the blind, and I realize that I was the only one who had paused to take in this moment.

After one last glance at that verdant speck and one last nod in respect to everything that happened inside of it, with a chuckle I pull the steed’s reigns and turn him back the right way around. The valley was now the past, a cherished and sometimes painful memory, our focus now was on the future and the road ahead.

As we being to move again Colly, who hadn’t left my side since leaving the estate, says with her familiar lisp. “I think we should name him Ballth.”

“Balls?” I laugh.

“Ballth.” She repeats just before spitting a pit into a nearby mass of glossy leaved boxwood. “Becauthe thatth all I thee when I walk behind him. Ballth bigger than Lady Rotha’s!”

I bump her shoulder with my hip and say with a chuckle. “Voice down, we don’t know whose listening.”

“Thorry, Thir.”

“We’re not calling him Balls.” Cassie says from a dozen feet ahead of us, her bow in her hands with an arrow knocked as she watched for the gray hare she had missed just moments ago. I knew she would have strayed further from us and pushed our pace if not for the Lady and the child she carried. “I think we should name him Onyx.”

“Boooooring!” Colly, with impressive coordination given her ample…proportions scoops up a stone without breaking stride. I have to bite my lips to hide my grin, already knowing that stone would be hurled to scare the hare and cause Cassie’s arrow to fly wide of her target. I don’t say anything and just let the miniature drama play out as it will.

“Well I think we should name it Lucifer.” I offer. “The light bringer. Get it? Because him carrying everything makes our load…light?”

There are groans all around to what I thought was a pretty solid name. They hadn’t had to walk the Appian Way with all of their worldly possession PLUS Rosa on their backs. If there was anybody that could appreciate a lightened burden it was me.

A hand, warmer than any human touch, brushes my arm lightly. A voice like summer moonlight soon follows. “I thought we might name him Catalus.”

I peer back over my shoulder to Rosa who walked alongside our steed grasping the knotted rope we’d purposely left dangling from the load for her her to hold. She looked so small next to the beast, the two curving horns atop her head did little to make her lithe form look any taller. Though her unseeing eyes stared straight ahead into my back she somehow senses me looking at her. She smiles, revealing her gleaming teeth fangs and all, and the hem at the back of her skirt swayed as her tail moved more quickly.

“Puppy?” I say. “This ornery cuss?”

“He is not ornery.” She giggles, a sound more pure than children’s laughter. I still marveled how creature with such a playful soul…could have done what she’d done to that mind-**** mage we’d left in our wake. Rosa was sweet by nature but, to protect her boy and family, she was capable of bearing those slender fangs to brutal effect. “He’s proud.” She pats his side. “He was born for glory not ferrying folded robes and cutlery.”

Colly shrugs and Cassie doesn’t say a word. The Lady had spoken.

“Catalus.” I say, making it final.

“Cat for short.” Rosa says.

“A horse that’s a puppy that’s a cat?”

“He’ll fit right in!” Colly chirps as she hurls her stone.

The rock skips off the paving and into the juniper to send the hare bolting for its life. At just that moment Cassie’s bowstring sings, the streaking arrow flying unerringly to sink into the earth at the exact spot that the hare HAD been hiding. “Gods damn it!” She cries as she watches the bunny bolt around a nearby boulder and out of sight. “COLLYWADDLE!”

“Protect me, Mathter!” Colly peeps.

“You’re on your own on this one.” I say. I might have faced down an harpy and a raging magical minotaur but I’d be damned if I was going to throw myself in front of an irate Cassie.

“Eep!” Collywaddle dashes off into the bushes, boobs a bouncin and ass cheeks a jigglin, with Cassie hot on her tail.

I pull Catalus to a stop as waited for our companions to settle their differences. He snorts in protest. From his point of view it seemed that his daft human handler didn’t know whether they were walking or resting. I could practically see in his glossy eyes, ‘make up your mind!’.

Given our first moment alone I turn to Rosa and kneel down in front of her. I run my hand across her delicate sandaled foot. Though I would have loved to bow down to kiss them I was actually checking on her feet. I peer up to see her smiling down at me.

“This is different than our last journey.” She says softly. She reaches out a hand feels through the air. I lean into it. Finding my head she pets my hair. “It’s nice to have a smooth road beneath our feet again.” She pinches my chin. “Don’t you think so, my boy?”

“Paved all the way the Neapolis.” I say. “Though we’ll be diverting to Paestum. Road won’t be so smooth along that part.”

“I know.” She says. We weren’t actually headed for Paestum but a small family farm just South of there. In my mind’s eye I could see my mother through the door of my childhood home stirring a hearty lentil stew.

“My mother, my grandpa, my family…” I say softly. “…they follow old customs. They’re simple farmers.”

She strokes my cheek. “I happen to like simple farmers. Relax, my love. I understand.”

I stand, towering over her yet still feeling small in that wonderful way that only she could elicit, and slide my hand across her lean belly. With my other hand I take hers and run my thumb across the scar of the rose that had burned into her flesh the day I bought her. My palm above her womb I say. “She won’t understand. Why we’re leaving.”

Rosa’s beautiful face saddens. “She is saying goodbye to a son. That would be difficult for a mother in any circumstance.” She lays her hand over my heart. “But…” Her voice fades.

My hand gently presses into her belly. Like me she believed that anything, even a mother’s tears, was worth our daughter’s freedom.

Under the warm Autumn sun I notice a subtle dark beneath my lover’s eyes, but they were not shadows. Running my fingertips along along the smooth curve of her jaw I whisper. “You are tired.”

She doesn’t deny it, giving me a small nod.

“I will carry you.”

A fanged grin blooms. “Just like old times?” She laughs and pats Catalus’ flank. “No. Our puppy is strong. He needs a load to carry to tame his young pride.”

“Yes, my Lady.” I say with a bow. We kiss, a tender lover’s kiss.

Grabbing her around the hips I lift her petite body with ease up onto the top of our load. Though the horse huffs and shuffles he stands his ground like the good soldier that he was. Rosa shimmies to the center and grabs onto a couple of other ropes we had up there for her. Perched high above she awaits the return of our friends so we could carry on our way. I take the opportunity to check once more on our load. In particular I ensure that my strange, unique sword was well secured yet free to be drawn at a moment’s notice.

It is not long after that Cassie and Colly come marching out of the bushes, the goblin rubbing her left ass cheek to soothe a fresh sting.

“All settled?” I ask.

“Yes.” Says Cassie as she strides forward to take point again, this time with her bow slung over her shoulder.

“No.” Says Colly who hurries back to my side to clutch my hand. I look down at her pouting face. She scowls and shifts right up against my leg. While Cassie and I had dedicated ourselves to our Lady Colly was all mine and I could see that her pride was a bit bruised that I hadn’t stepped in to protect her. Colly was in a tender state right now, and not just her bountiful butt. She had experienced loss deeper than the rest of us, that wound was still bleeding. I stroke her head and down one braid. “It wath jutht a bit of fun, Mathter.”

“Same for her.” I say softly. “She didn’t mean anything by it. She was playing.”

Colly closes her eyes and squeezes my hand tighter. “I know. She playth rough.”

“Don’t I know it.” I say, rubbing a hidden bruise. “No hard feelings?”

“No.” She sighs. “Jutht a family thquabble.”

“Atta girl.”

Shielding her eyes Cassie looks back and says. “No clouds as far as the eye can see. You need a parasol, my Lady?”

“I’m okay, my girl.” Rosa says, looking up to the sun with eyes wide open. “I like the heat.”

We hadn’t started walking for more than a couple of minutes when a sleek russet form comes trotting out alongside the road proudly carrying a limp gray hare in her jaws.

“Ha ha!” Cassie cheers with a clap. “Way to go, Danae!”

“Awww, Danae!” Colly groans. “You thpoiled the whole joke!”