Skip to content

Tag: erotica

The Greatest Book Launch I ever Blundered

I finally finished my book after a stroke of wild inspiration: what if an exhibitionistic anarchist developed an obsessive fixation on a futa cop? After writing the story, and gathering feedback from friends, I did what any aspiring author would do—I sat on the manuscript for about ten months.

When it came time to give it a cover, I knew it deserved something unique, not just another AI-generated image. Enter one of my favorite Hentai artists, Evulart, who provided a custom cover along with additional versions. (You can check out the artwork on their Deviant Art here.)

Everything was meticulously planned. Weeks in advance, I had crafted my keywords and polished the blurb to perfection. The countdown began for the big cover reveal. All I needed to do was upload the manuscript.

But, being the genius that I am, I managed to upload the wrong manuscript.

Yes, you read that right. Instead of my latest masterpiece, I accidentally uploaded the manuscript of a previous book I had published. And to make matters more spectacularly disastrous, I had also splurged on a new-release give away advertising slot. Hundreds of eager readers jumped on the opportunity, downloading what turned out to be the wrong book.

Thankfully, I deactivated my Twitter (or whatever elon is calling it now) account beforehand, so no one can yell at me. Unfortunately, my saving grace came in the form of an email from Amazon, notifying me of the mix-up. This is where the story takes a turn into the realm of absurdity. Absurd and EVIL.

My first e-mail came in the robotically informative text of:

Hello,

Thank you for your email regarding the following book(s):

B0D7WDBN7R/Futa Cop’s Roadtrip Brat

We do not allow changes to the contributor or title of your book without a clear disclaimer about this change at the top of your book description. Without a disclaimer, these changes can be misleading to customers because the book’s metadata does not allow a customer to tell whether they might have already read the previous version of that content.

To consider your book for publication, please add the following disclaimer at the top of the description field: “Previously published as The Punished Nonpartisan by Saragona, Jocelyn .”

Please reply to this message when the changes are completed.

My reply to this message was equally pedantic. I explained that I had uploaded the wrong manuscript and had since corrected it.

My next e-mail from from Kindle unlimited came in the next day. By this time some one had already dropped a generous two star rating of my new book.

Hello,

Thank you for your email regarding the following book(s):

B0D7WDBN7R/Futa Cop’s Roadtrip Brat

We do not allow changes to the contributor or title of your book without a clear disclaimer about this change at the top of your book description. Without a disclaimer…

Yeah, you get the idea it was the same message. Hoping I was speaking to one of the remaining biological flesh brains at Kindle, I sent a reply that was like this:

Please let me allow me to add some context.
My first manuscript upload did not match this book description. It was for a another book of mine, which triggered this whole “content review” issue.
I have since replaced that manuscript with the correct manuscript, which matches the book description.
It would not make sense to change the book description right now, especially since this book was published less than a week ago. Please let me know if this explanation helps close the matter.

It did not close the matter. This went on for two more kafkaesque iterations. My last e-mail was a list of rhetorical questions of “why do you act as if you are not reading my replies?” typed with my angry fists. Eventually, Kindle politely said that my book was correct, available, and there was nothing more for me to do.

There is now one five-star review on it though. 🙂

So if you please, dear reader, consider downloading my blunder, Futa Cop’s Road Trip Brat. It will be free again in a few days, or on Kindle Unlimited, the supportive friend of smut authors everywhere!

Comments closed

Gender Bending the Wooden Ship Sailor

It began as a reward for violence. A token for my duty, and nothing more.

My captain picked up that wicked trinket between London and St. Augustine’s Bay. An ordinary ring. A ring of common tin. My captain had been swindled into believing it silver. After he repaid the merchant in blood, he tossed the trinket to me. I had aided him in that unpleasant but necessary affair of honor.

I wore it. It was a prize for duty. It was only when we crossed the equator, under the light of a full moon that the being in the ring spoke to me. She, or it, I still do not understand, appeared to me like a trick of Saint Elmo’s Fire one cold night on the deck. She was a woman who was as beautiful as the harlots who the Mohammedans hide from the Englishmen. Removing her veil, she spoke to me, and stated a rote words: “you’ve awoken the pact. What is your first wish?”

I wished for her at that moment. Any sailor would. She was finer than all the doxies that wait at the ports. She was even more breathtaking than the aristocrats and duchesses who sometimes call on us. But thinking her a siren of legend, I dare not touch the temptress for fear of going into the ocean. But wishes she said she could grant, per the terms the pact hammered into that ancient ring centuries ago. Laughingly, I told her I wished for my own ship.

A few wishes and more voyages later, the merchant company promoted me. A ship was mine. After more crossings at the equator, I found myself the expected heir of a great estate. It depended only on my marriage to an eldest daughter of a respectable family. I would no doubt take the place as the eldest son for terms of inheritance. As was my duty, I would no doubt honor her father with many grandsons. Perhaps my days at sea were behind me.

It was on the land, in the room of mansion meant to be mine someday, that my wish granter appeared as she often did, again out of the light of a full moon. Her skin glowed in the light my bedroom candles, contrasting with the pale night sky. The flowing of those oriental robes shimmied down her body like a slow waterfall. More and more, her beautiful skin showed to me, my phallus tented upwards as firm as the masts of the ships I’d captained.

“Wisher”, she spoke. “I have fulfilled my pact. Now you will fulfill wishes of mine.”

My night clothes whisked off my body. The bones in my body shifted in a sudden wrench of pain. Hair disappeared from my chest. The curves of my shoulders softened and weakened. Why did she weaken me?

“I will make you quite beautiful..” she whispered. The generous breasts of a woman grew from my chest. A prickle of the wind triggered a mad sensation. My nipples… they grew harder, and it felt both sinful and good.

This vixen from the ring now stood naked and regal before me. The hairs of her womanhood tantalized me, that enticing triangle. I covered my hands over my manhood.

“I am to be married!” I declared. I didn’t recognize that soft voice that spoke it. “To give children. To family… to be a worthy heir…”

“You are already married. For you bound yourself to me upon wearing that ring…”

She raised her hands lifting me off my feet and floating me in the air. My body continued its change. She sculpted me to her pleasure, making me gasp and wheeze as my soul struggled to adapt to this new body. My throbbing member remained, and I clinged to it, as if my last raft in a turbulent ocean.

“What’s you have is also mine. This house. This fortune,” she chided. “Even that aristocrat’s daughter who is to be given to you.”

Her hands caressed my changing skin. That unexpected touch felt so much… more… than anything else that had touched me. It was if a layer of hide had always been on me, and every doxie who I lay with had never touched beyond it. Now, as she caressed me, it was as if I was naked for the first time.

It was enough to make me forget my duties.

“And I would never take heirs from you,” she said. My manhood slipped away between my hand. I screamed no, only to have my hands touch a soft slit instead. Curious, I opened myself, and found a treasure I never knew I wanted.

“Oh is it that nice?” smirked the woman of the ring.

“Yes!” I sighed. That soft voice. It hardly bothered me now. Fingering myself, and listening to myself, I felt a spell cast on my mind. My mind would soon match my new body, and I welcomed it.

“Now look here,” declared the woman of the ring. Her magic yanked my hands away from my groin. Then I saw her. She had taken it from me. She had taken my phallus and now it belong to her. It rose from her groin now, as strong as a cannon.

“I promise you, our little bride will have many children,” she purred. “Now lie back, wisher, and spread your legs for master.”

Comments closed

Wickedly Reviewed: Futa Teaches Catholic Coeds Collection 1 by Reed James

Reed James Futa Teaches Catholic Coeds is a story of a reticent futanari teacher, mixed with a subtext of blackmail, and tied together with racial fetish. The story begins with Miss Zoey, a teacher struggles to keep her cock down while she teaches ethics to a room full of Catholic college girls. More than that, Miss Zoey is placed in charge of a dormitory. It includes Bella and Selena. The head nuns assure all that no lesbianism occurs here… I’m sure it doesn’t headmistress. Yes. Of course. No one would ever suspect such a thing.

Femme Dom shares her Submissive with a Futa Teacher

Miss Zoey begins her journey when she accidentally discovers two of her students breaking the rules in the bathroom. Bella moans as her master Selena treats her to oral sex. There’s little doubt that Selena is the dominant, as she eats pussy like she owns it and Bella declares herself a slave. It’s enough to give Miss Zoey an out of control erection, and can’t stop stroking.

That’s when Bella and Selena announce that they knew they were being watched. They insist that Miss Zoey play and Selena is confident, naked, and smelling of orgasm. Before this night’s done, Miss Zoey risks her job, but she can’t resist sharing a slave with Selena. Selena takes charge all the way, commanding Miss Zoey to fill Bella with cum.

Bella loves being used.

Futa Seduces another Student … or Else

As strong as this first scene was, it wasn’t until the next section of the book that I got hooked. Miss Zoey gets a blackmail letter, with orders to seduce a Japanese student, Hikaru. Zoey naturally suspects Selena, but it isn’t made clear at this point in the book that it’s her. The previous night’s hot threesome could’ve occurred loud enough for anyone to hear.

But as reluctant as she is to obey, Zoey seduces the student, who is surprisingly eager to have her first experience with a Futanari. These scene had lavish description of oral sex:

I licked my lips as her spicy musck filled my nose. Dewdrops beaded on her curls…I nuzzled her bush. Her curls spilled over my face…My lips explored deeper and deeper until I found her hot vulva. Juicy and delicious. I licked out and stroked a tight slit.

I loved the dew.

The story continues with scenes of exhibitionism and Miss Zoey’s guilty lust. Selena commands Miss Zoey to stroke herself in a hallway. Later, Bella ambushes miss Zoey with insistent submission: miss Zoey simply must accept oral, right there. Now.

The rushed exhibitionism, the blackmail, are the only things that can make miss Zoey stop thinking, and have fun.  Every sex scene in this story book comes as juicy surprise in which the only thing that holds back Miss Zoey from connecting with her students is herself. The scenes in this book are hot and occur at about the right frequency expected for a short erotic work.

Download. Enjoy. Have some fun reading the word porn.

Bonus points if you dare to read it to yourself in an undergrad classroom.

Reed James is a thirty year-old guy living in Tacoma, WA. “I love to write, I find it freeing to immerse myself in a world and tell its stories and then share them with others.” He’s been writing naughty stories since high school, furiously polishing his craft, and finally feels ready to share his fantasies with the world.

Comments closed

Wickedly Reviewed: Limbo Demon’s Desires by Rachel Kinsley

What’s the best cure for post college ennui? A new life as a sex worker for demons.

A Demon Takes Virginity

Rachel Kinsley’s book, Limbo: Demon Desires, is an easily readable, episodic, novella. Honestly, the structure of the book might be my favorite part. I read each hot chapter on lunch breaks over the course of about two work weeks.

The story begins with a set up we all know too well: Samantha is out of college, in a seedy city, and not sure where to go from there. Next thing, she visits a fortune teller who advises her that she’s marked and special. Maybe that explains why Samantha, despite having a high drive for sex, is a virgin.

Before long, an incubus visits Samantha, and her virginity is gone by the morning.

 Sex working and Temptations

After Samantha joins the demon brothel, she services demons of fear, sloth, greed and so on. In each sexy episode, author Rachel Kinsley adds some spicy temptation. The demons want more then sex. They want to corrupt Samantha through whichever sin they represent. Because of them, every sex scene has a layer of psychological domination in addition to Samantha’s submissive role. Does Samantha break?

Slut. Demons. Torture.

The answer comes at the story’s last scene. Without spoiling anything, sex with demons requires some serious sadism. There’s no shortage of humiliation, pain, and submission there. What I read was at least as intense as the most hardcore scenes I’ve enjoyed at Kink.com.  It left me exhausted to read to the end.

Naturally, I enjoyed this book. I hope you do too.

About the Author

Rachel Kinsley is an erotic author with a passion for delving into the surreal, magical, and mystical sides of sex inherent in mythology, fantasy, and science fiction. She enjoys finding ways to slip erotica into tales that already exist, as well as devising her own unconventional storylines to awaken the sexual imagination of her readers.

When not writing or contemplating delicious erotica, she creates illustrative art and indulges in her geeky addictions for video games and D and D.

Comments closed

Wickedly Reviewed: Transformed by the Beast by Sally Bend

There is plenty of short erotica that has no set up and gets to the action. Reading these is like watching porn clips when you scrub past the arrival of the hunky plumber.

This is not one of those books.

Sexy Post Apocalyptic Erotica

Sally Bend’s story begins with transgender themes right from the set up. Stephen loves his partner Brandi, who is a real girl “where it counts”. Both live in a plague ridden part of the world. What disaster caused it is not mentioned. However, what is made clear is that governing powers of a church do not care for people who live in the ruins and wastelands.

Stephan has a mission: astronomical events make it possible to visit the Beast, who can cure their diseases. This sets Stephen on a journey through a mysteriously destroyed wasteland, where he encounters a tentacle monsters and sex workers. This section of the story reminded me of the Dark Tower.

Transformation Carries the Cure

The story climaxes with Stephan encountering the beast. The scene includes hucow, submission, and deliciously lewd play with cum. Yet the part I loved most about the scene was how the gender transformation worked. Sally Bend evokes surprise, confusion, and submission at nearly every line. In fact, the transformation is so fluid that one is swept up in the process and left wondering what gender the beast is to begin with. Calling the beast a futanari seems inadequate here. Maybe the beast is a complete shifter instead.

So thanks for the recommendation, Sally. I enjoyed the story.

About the Author

Sally Bend is a queer reviewer, editor, and author of LGBTQIA books. Although shy and polite (she is, after all, Canadian), she loves the bold and boisterous expression of stories that bend the binaries of gender and sexuality.

A lover of fetish futa, feminization, femdom, and fantasy, she is most content confined in a collar and corset. Oh, and she tends to have a love of alliteration, in case you haven’t noticed!

When she’s not curled up somewhere with a book and a bottle of Coke Zero, Sally can be found online at sallybend.com.

 

 

 

 

Comments closed

The Loss and Lust of the Lightwarden: Part 05

Author’s Note: Wrath of the Lich King

This Story takes place just after the events of “Wrath of the Lich King” and on the alliance side. Please support more work like this because there are more. Become a Patron!

One Last Villian

It’s good to have friends who are smugglers. Getting out of Stormwind hadn’t cost me much, and they even had equipment they were eager to part with. They saw us as far as the roads between Stormwind and Goldshire, and cautioned us of guard patrols there. Guards who wouldn’t turn their eyes away from a freed orc, not when there had already been a bounty on his head.

Buntaro and I cut through the woods themselves. One evening, I sat near a small fire, roasting a pair of rabbits. Wolves howled to each other in the distance. Hooting came through the trees. Buntaro returned after setting some traps near our hiding space. He looked wild in that sleeveless whelp scale shirt the smugglers gave him.

"Come here, handsome," I said. I made space for him on the blanket. Buntaro cuddled next to me, and Tsali lay at our feet. We shared our catch together.

"Delicious," said Buntaro. He chomped down on the meat, and chewed it slowly. "I haven’t eaten a real meal in weeks."

"You haven’t eaten one yet. This is only to start," I said. I took my own share of the rabbit.

"Oh?" he teased. "Is this the appetizer? You have the servants coming with our next meal? Is it duck and pea soup?"

"No, silly," I said. I tossed Tsali some. He gobbled up the meat. "But tomorrow night? We will be at the Goldshire inn. You know what Innkeeper Farley cooks? Roast pig spiced with cloves and orange peels."

"Hmmm, that does sound good," said Buntaro. He tossed Tsali a share of the rabbit.

"He serves it on top spiced red potatoes," I added. "Then you wash it down with the beer, brewed out in the country side."

"Oh my that does sound good!" said Buntaro. He devoured his share of the rabbit.

"You can see why I stay there for so long," I said. In our trip, I had long since shared with Buntaro why I stayed employed there, and what I did. Buntaro knew of my lovers, and my dances. He craved to see it himself. "My room upstairs will be safe. It will be comfortable."

I snuggled closer to him, rubbing my hands up his back, touching the great muscles beneath the scaled armor. I undid the first of its buckles. Buntaro’s breathing grew heavier.

"The sheets I have? Comfortable, warm silk. I have a fur blanket to keep us both warm at night," I said. "We can stay there as long as we need."

I removed his chest piece. His warm chest simmered at my touch. Then I laid him out on his back, and rolled on top of him. He pulled my face to him, and we kissed. I stripped myself of my own clothing, and then undid his pants. I wrapped my hands around his erection, pumping it up and down. I’d never forgotten the sounds he made when I pleased him so. Hearing them, out here under the stars, reminded me of our nights in Northrend. I leaned down and teased his shaft with my tongue until he became as hard as rock. Then I mounted him, and took him into myself.

"Kolapi!" I moaned as my pussy sank down onto his shaft.

"Yasmeen…" he said looking me in the eyes.

I rode him next to the fire that night. Our grunts and moans joined with the sound of howls and chirps in the dark air.

Goldshire’s western side stood unsuspecting of two travelers off well of the road. It neared dusk as we approached, and there, we came upon Lyria and one of her recruits. It was the big guy, who still walked with pain from where the gnoll injured his thigh in the attack weeks ago. I called out to Lyria. She and her militiaman came towards us. She peered through the late sunset at us both. She stopped for a moment when she saw Buntaro, standing and proud.

"So it’s true, Yasmeen," she said. "You rescued an orc from the stockades."

"What?" I said. I had told no one.

"We had a visitor," said Lyria.

"The hunter," said the militiaman. "He came through here again."

Buntaro scowled.

"What has he done?" I said.

"Easier to show you," said Lyria. "Both of you come."

"The orc too, ma’am?" said the militiaman.

"Yes, the orc too," said Lyria. "He travels with our healer and the best fighter this village has ever seen, or did you forget how you got that scar on your leg?"

The militiaman stammered.

"I just mean what if the hunter comes back?" he said. "He’s going to hurt people again, and we don’t need no more trouble."

"Someone will get hurt if he comes back," said Buntaro in a calm menace.

"Ahh right," said the militiaman.

We were led to the inn. Farley had set up two cots in a spare room. On one lay Rhombur. His face looked a tint of green, and his skin had a clear fever to it. He had bandages on two limbs. On the other, lay Isabelle, who looked so much worse. Her face, already pale and icy, looked aged. Her eyes had sunken back, and dark circles surrounded them. Her lips had a blackened color to them. Still she looked alert, sitting half up, and crossing her arms over her chest in protection.

"What happened?" I said to Lyria.

"After word got out that the great orc Buntaro had been busted from the stockades, and a Draenei may have helped him, Jondreas returned, and asked questions." Lyria began. She told me that Jondreas sneaked into the village, and prowled between buildings. Rhombur had been the first to catch him and confront him, and became a victim of a poisoned dagger. Still, he rang the alarm and the rest of the militia went after Jondreas. They found him outside of town, with Isabelle as his captive. He had her hands bound in one of his contraptions, and she screamed in pain as he tormented her with another gadget. He had been chased off, they went on his trail, but lost him

I examined Rhombur first. I know nothing of diseases or magical curses, or poisons. I’d only seen something like the green tint of his skin his blackened veins among soldiers who fought ghouls too closely in Northrend.

"Yasmeen," he said.

"Hold still a moment," I said. I placed my hands on him, and called on the power of the Naaru once more. Light glowed over his body, healing him. Yet I knew that I could only do so much.

"Do you feel better, Rhombur?" I said. His skin had turned back to a healthy color, though his skin burned to the touch.

"I do," he said.

"You’ll need to find someone to get you to Northshire Abbey," I said. "Tell the priests there you were stricken with the ghoul flux. They can remedy you completely."

"How did I?" he said. "Was Jondreas a ghoul?"

"No," said Buntaro. "He’s an alchemist who will turn any disease into a weapon. He doesn’t care how much pain it may cause. Count yourself lucky it didn’t spread."

Rhombur glanced back and forth between me and Buntaro. Buntaro squatted near Isabelle, who pulled away in fright.

"Please, let me just look at your hand," he whispered kindly. She extended her hands out to him.

"By the light, Yasmeen," said Rhombur. "Are monsters like Jondreas everywhere outside Elwynn forest? Is that what it means to adventure? To be at the mercy of people like him?"

I had no answer for him. I turned over to Isabelle and Buntaro.

"Look here," said Buntaro. He pointed to the scarred and purple skin around Isabelle’s wrists. "Marks from spell shackles. It’s a torture device the Burning Legion uses."

"As soon as he clamped those on me, I could not cast a thing," said Isabelle. "It hurt so, but not like what came next. Not when he demanded things from me."

She showed us elsewhere on her body where it had been pierced. The wounds looked like bites.

"He mana burned you, didn’t he?" I said.

"He kept asking about you when he did," said Isabelle. "Had a message for you. Said he was heading eastward."

"All that injury because of me and Buntaro?"

"I’m not as bad as I look," said Isabelle. "Mana has been trickling back to me. I’m going to recover, and then I’m going after him."

Lyria shook her head.

"You’ll be barely in condition to ride with us, Isabelle," she said. "What good would you be when we find him?"

Isabelle raised her chin high.

"This is my village as much as it is yours."

"You left when you were twelve!"

"Shut it!" said Isabelle. "I will be there when we capture him. I will see him suffer for what he did to me, and to Rhombur, and to every one else who is here."

"Isabelle…" said Lyria in a tense calm.

"Lyria," I said, changing the subject. "What’s this about a march?"

Lyria, glad for the distraction, shared what would happen next. She planned to head to Stormwind the next morning and appeal to Marshall Dugan himself. He knew he owed Goldshire a favor after the complete disaster weeks ago, and mounted knights would be the minimum she would ask for. The militia? They knew the forest well enough. Besides, Jondreas had departed on his cart. Fresh wagon tracks would be hard to miss.

"We’re joining too then," said Buntaro.

"Kolapi…" I began.

"What?" he said.

Lyria looked nervous, as did Rhombur and Lyria. This wasn’t Northrend, where the need to survive and fight for a common purpose overrode the bad history between the orcs and humans. This was Goldshire, a place where humans picked their allies with their fears.

"You’re still an escaped prisoner," I said choosing my words carefully. "I can’t protect you from the entire city guard. Buntaro, please I don’t want to see you in a cell again."

Buntaro nodded with frustration.

"Yes, I see," he muttered.

Lyria rode off that night. Isabelle, for all her determination stayed in her bed. Sadly, we had a few mana potions in the village. Though she could take them only slowly. Mana burn scars so deep it slows the rejuvenation process. Inkeeper Farley prepared a meal for all of us, and insisted that Buntaro eat in the common room with us all. Buntaro ate everything. The villagers were slow to open up to him, but when he discussed how he had been captured by Jondreas they listened. Even Rhombur, still recovering, sat respectfully before Buntaro’s stories of combat in the frigid north of the world. Yet more than a few cautious, and nervous eyes diverted from him. I retired upstairs with Buntaro after our meal. There, in my chambers, Buntaro paced back and forth. Annoyed that he had been snubbed for his chance to chase down the hunter who had so wounded him, he grimaced.

"Knights?" he said. "Men on horses thundering away through trees? They might as well announce themselves with trumpets."

"The same knights would pursue you," I said.

At that Buntaro gave me a look. I knew what it meant.

"Buntaro, we are not in Northrend. We are among simple people," I protested. "They do not see you as I see you."

"Neither did…" he began before stopping himself.

"What?"

"Neither did Taluv see you as I see you in Warsong Hold’s great Hall," he said with a sigh.

I crossed my arms. We stewed in our frustration.

"I wish they would accept you, as your people accepted me," I confessed at last.

Buntaro waved his hand and grunted.

"Your innkeeper," said Buntaro. "He accepted me at least. So what do we do now?"

Standing up, I made myself as confident as I could.

"Let’s forget all this, Buntaro," I began as if reciting a speech. "We can travel to Booty Bay in two weeks and be on the other side of the world in two months. I have enough gold to get us a caravan for what little I care to carry."

Squinting first, Buntaro shook his head.

"Yasmeen, you know that you’re a bad liar," he chided. "Come on, you don’t want any of that right now."

"No I don’t," I pouted.

"Jondreas hurt me," Buntaro said gesturing to himself. "Now? He’s hurt your people. People who were your friends, and people who respect you. You would not let this go would you?"

He spoke the truth.

"No, that Gilnean captured you. He tricked me. He set gnolls upon our own village," I grumbled. "I have to do this."

"We both do," said Buntaro. "We head out tomorrow, ahead of knights and their noise. I bet he left tracks in his cart. Shouldn’t be hard to find."

"Because he’s laying a trap," I added.

"Oh I know!" declared Buntaro. "I don’t care. He won’t catch me again."

Walking towards my kolapi, I opened up to his arms. I would fight for him, and with him, in ways that I knew I could not within my own village. It would be madness to go after Jondreas, but he was still only one hunter. We were two, and we were angry. Jondreas would fall, and then? I would never again leave the side of my kolapi in peace or in battle.

The morning arrived and Buntaro and I set out for the road, dressed for tracking and the skirmishes as he had so many times before. Down stairs, we found the inn’s hearth blazing. Innkeeper Farley looked at us both.

"Yasmeen," he said.

"Farley," I added.

"You look dressed for danger," he said.

"I am," I said.

"You’ll be coming back? Staying again?" he said. "Ah no.. You won’t will you? No matter what happens, you’ll be moving on at last."

Having been understood, nothing needed to be said..

"Tell no one that we departed, Farley," I said. Can you do that?"

"Never saw you," said Farley. "Come back alive though. One last time? We can say good byes proper then."

"Thank you Farley," I said.

With that, Buntaro and I sneaked out of the inn. Jondreas had left a deliberate trail, one so obvious that Buntaro grew even more suspicious. Thus, we diverted away from the main road and into the woods. It lengthened our trek, but it allowed Tsali to sniff the air, the soil, and anything else that could indicate traps that Jondreas had no doubt set. In the evenings, Buntaro would set a perimeter as he often did. Only on the coldest nights did we create a fire. Our food consisted of dried rations. Still, it warmed our bellies and sustained us.

One morning on the roadside, our fire had long since burned out to ashes. Tsali paced around the edge of our camp. His chest out and his ears forward. Buntaro squatted on the ground near me. He drew his kukri and sniffed the air.

"What is it?" I whispered.

"Their fur. I can smell it," he said. I slipped out of my bed roll and hefted my shield and sword as softly as I could. We put our backs against one another, and rotated around. Tsali barked towards the north east. Then we heard a cold metal snap to the west. A gnoll yipped in pain. Both Buntaro and I turned to it. Then Tsali yelped and there was a thump. Tsali was caught in a net and being dragged away.

"No!" cried Buntaro. He ran after the net. Only then did the yaps and howls of gnolls break through the morning fog. They revealed themselves to us. Each one clad in hide armor, stuffed with branches, twigs, and leaves imitating the brush of Elwynn around it. Preparing for a fight was our only natural reaction. Uncertain, I stood my ground as a gnoll approached us. Barking and order to his comrades, he sized us up likewise. Growling ceased as our foes relaxed their weapons. This gnoll’s arm had lost patches of fur, and in their place were scabs and tiny boils.

"I am Snarg," the gnoll spoke. "I want peaceful talk."

"I am Buntaro. I want my worg."

"Gnolls do not injure our cousins," said Snarg. He looked to me. "Who are you? Why are an orc and a she-devil wandering our forest?"

"I am a draenei!" I said. "My name is Yasmeen, the name of who shall kill you if you harm Tsali or Buntaro."

Barking resounded. Snarg yapped and the gnolls calmed down. One spoke in their own language to Snarg. Snarg’s ears perked backwards, and he responded, keeping his eyes on me.

"Okay, Yasmeen," he said. "Share a story with me. Tell me about traveling north from the forests south of the river. You had a human."

"What?" I stammered.

"Speak, she-devil," he sighed.

"I traveled with a human yes. It was there we encountered a gnoll corpse tied to a tree. We took it down and covered it with leaves."

Snarg nodded.

"My scout watched this," he said. "Why did your people kill my kin and disgrace his body?"

"We had nothing to do with that!" I declared. "We seek the one who did. Jondreas, a hunter from Gilneas. He is not from my village."

"This Jondreas," he said. "he fights with a lion, wears glass eyes, and fires diseases from his cross bow. Yes?"

"He uses a rifle," I said. "His glass eyes are yellow."

Snarg’s expression relaxed at last.

"I healed many in Goldshire," I added, indicating towards his diseased arm. "I can heal that too."

"First, tell me why you seek this man," said Snarg, pulling away his wounded arm.

"I’ll tell you why," began Buntaro with indignation. He told Snarg the tale of getting captured in Stranglethorn, and of Jondreas abuse of the people of Goldshire. I added how Jondreas had antagonized the gnolls, and endangered our village. I told the gnoll chief the truth. Snarg listened.

"I warned cousin Hogger not to attack," sighed Snarg. "Now, this Jondreas has taken his head. We will remove his in repayment. My scouts tracked his stink eastward."

"Then we want the same thing!" I said. "Let me heal you and allow us to leave."

"If you can," said Snarg. He extended his diseased arm.

"Release my worg first!" grunted Buntaro.

Snarg barked an order to the other gnolls. Tsali was returned back in his net and placed in front of Buntaro. Buntaro cut the ropes and Tsali leapt out and came to heel. Snarg held his hand arm out. I sheathed my sword and invoked the power of the Naaru. Golden light swirled around his arm, and the boils and scabs disappeared. His armed cleansed, Snarg rubbed his bare skin.

"Are we free to go?" I said.

Motioning us to sit, Snarg himself sat upon a stump. He offered Buntaro’s trap back to him. It had been sprung, with no trace of blood or injury upon it at all.

"The Gilnean does not hide his trail," said Snarg. "He expects us to come at him with full force. For days, we have tracked this hunter. I have always sent only two or three to follow him."

"He sets a trap as we wait here," said Buntaro.

"Yes!" said Snarg. "Which is why we wait, outside this cave he hides in, until he wanders out. I am not my cousin. I am patient."

"And you risk less of your people in doing so," I added.

"Let us go," said Buntaro. "Show us this cave. We will flush him out for you. Do what you wish after."

"What will you do with him?" I said.

His shrugging replied first.

"Kill him. Eat him," he continued. "All in good time though. He can’t stay in the cave forever."

"You might not have time," I said. "A contingent of knights are gathering in Stormwind right now. Do you think they’ll miss that trail anymore than you or I did?"

"What? No!" said Snarg, shocked. I nodded at him. He discerned I spoke the truth.

"Let us fight with you," said Buntaro. "You can have his head, liver, spleen, for all I care. I only want to know he pays before I leave Alliance territory, for good this time."

Knowing for certain that invading the cave would be a trap, and knowing also that there may never be another chance, Snarg still shook his head in dismay.

"Are you better at spotting traps than setting them?" said Snarg. He gestured to Buntaro’s trap. "We will enter first. All three of us. Together. Yes?"

"Agreed," I said. Buntaro gave a stern salute.

We moved with the entire company of gnolls, with haste, eastward through Elwynn. We arrived at the edge of Redridge, where the trees were sparser and rocks more prevalent. Snarg pointed out to Buntaro the locations of several scouts, and we all saw Jondreas’s cave as plain as the sky. The mouth of the cave looked large enough for both a man and horses to pass through, and his cart was parked next to it. Smoke came out of the cave’s mouth. Snarg had told the truth. The trap was obvious.

Nonetheless, we trudged into the cave. Buntaro kept Tsali close. He waved a torch near the floor, and near the dangling stalactites at the cave’s ceiling. Rope was illuminated in its orange flickering. Buntaro squinted in suspicion.

"You smell it, Snarg?" he said.

"Sleep petals," said Snarg. "They smell like tulips and honey."

"Yeah they do don’t they? " said Buntaro. Following the rope with his eyes and fingers, Buntaro came to a wall. He found the trigger mechanism, and then it led to glass bottles filled with a concentrated pink fluid. The vials had a tiny crack near where the corks stuffed into them.

"Huh.." Said Buntaro.

"What is it?"

"Sloppiness."

"They’ll make good throw weapons," said Snarg. "Let’s split them among us."

And so we did and proceeded further down into the cave, following the scent of smoke.

Deeper within, that’s when we heard the yapping. I hefted my shield. Buntaro readied himself. Snarg? Snarg looked afraid.

"Torch!" said Snarg. "Light my torch now."

Buntaro did. Snarg creeped around the cavern walls and we spotted a group of gnolls devouring one of Jondreas’s horses. They huddled away from a campfire. Snarg tossed the torch towards them. The gnolls jumped away from it. Their mouths frothed with blood and foam. They looked terrified of the fire, and growled towards us. Near them, broken bottles dripped out toxic liquid.

"Run!" cried Snarg.

"What?" I said.

"They’re rabid!" he said. "Go!"

Buntaro hurled one of the vials in the direction of the gnolls. A cloud of pink haze burst out in the firelight. The gnolls inhaled it in, dazed, but not sleeping. I grabbed my kolapi and Tsali and we rushed out the way we came. Barking echoed behind us. How many? I could not count. Their foul sounds terrified us all the way into the open light. Snarg shouted at his warriors. I saw the fear flash across their faces, and then I saw the courage of their charge. Their crude shields crashed against the onslaught of at least a dozen ravenous, clawed, and biting enemies.

Buntaro, feared too much for Tsali. Having cleared distance, he readied a bow and fired arrows at our enemies. They struck the mad brutes but didn’t phase a single one. Intoning retribution I charged into the melee. Arcs of holy fire struck each furred monsters when they assaulted our allies. One brute grabbed hold of my shield. Clawing and biting tried to rip it from my grip. I could not get a clear swing at him. Howling remorsefully, a gnoll warrior speared him in the back. I pushed him aside and made ready to engage the next enemy.

Charging hoof beats pounded the ground behind me. I looked behind me and saw Marshall Dugan and several Stormwind knights ride. Behind them the Goldshire militia waited.

"No! Stop!" I screamed. Snarg’s gnolls yelped a retreat, struggling to clear themselves of the onslaught. In the confusion, I tossed one of the sleep potions towards the galloping knights. The wind carried away the gas. Buntaro fired arrows at the incoming calvary, and an arrow struck Dugan in a shoulder plate. Yet he persisted. One knight passed me and skewered a rabid gnoll. He drew his sword and pursued the others. Right as Marshall Dugan and the other knight made their way, I shouted and consecrated the ground. A great flash of yellow fire flared around me. The horses, pain searing their undersides, reeled back. Controlling their steeds proved difficult for them all. One knight fell from his saddle.

"Yasmeen!" Marshall Dugan shouted. "What in the nine hells are you doing?!"

"I said stop!" I waved my arms frantically at the militia archers. "All of you stop!"

When the dust cleared, I found Buntaro wetting his daggers on the last of the rabid gnolls. Snarg’s warriors had dismounted and cornered the zealous knight, and aimed their weapons at him. I broke up the confusion and sent the knight back towards the militia. It was then I noticed Lyria Du Lac commanding them. Isabelle rode with them too, her face was still gaunt and weak from the mana burn. Injuries abounded among the gnolls. A few of them were killed. At least one had the tragic death of dying beneath a charging warhorse.

It took all my patience to gather Snarg, Marshall Dugan, and Buntaro together. Lyria joined too, as did Isabelle.

"Alright?" said Dugan. "What’s going on? We tried to save you from these mongrels, and now you say you’ve been working with them?"

Isabelle glared coldly at Snarg.

"Watch your tongue, human," said Snarg. "I hear every word."

"It speaks!" exclaimed the Marshall. "What about you, orc?"

"Watch it, ser!" I said. "You will speak to my companions with respect."

"How’s your shoulder?" chided Buntaro. Dugan rolled his eyes, and pulled the arrow out. It released cleanly. Dugan raised his palm to his shoulder and healed himself.

"Fine, thanks for the concern," he said flatly.

"Be thankful!" added Buntaro. "I don’t barb them."

Conversing did not go comfortably. Everyone, in the heat of anger, simply wanted to fight. Still, once the rush of combat subsided in us all, our heads became cool enough to deal with the task at hand. We made for an agreement. The marshal went back to his militia, and Snarg to his warriors.

"You’re going to have a rough time explaining me, aren’t you Yasmeen?" said Buntaro.

"What’s there to explain?" I said. "Would they even understand?"

"They might," he said. "We did just stop them from killing every gnoll in Redridge."

"I don’t know."

Arriving for us all began with Snarg. Dugan returned after I did, Rhombur was with him this time.

"He’s got an idea if you want to hear it," the Marshall said.

"Used to play in these caves as a kid," said Rhombur. "That one? Sure as I stand here has a long tube you can crawl through."

"He’s right," said Snarg. "I noticed it when we entered there. Where does it exit?"

"Not far," he said.

"But Jondreas could be anywhere in this valley by now," I said.

"Only two ways out," said Marshall. "I can have the patrols monitor the river. The other way out is the pass towards Blackrock territory."

He turned to Snarg.

"I think your people know these mountains better than ours," said Marshall Dugan. "Can you track him?"

"We will not," said Snarg.

"What?" I said.

"My people were bitten," said Snarg. "Bitten by rabid gnolls and the disease will spread. We will go to our witch doctors. We cannot, and will not fight."

Snarg squinted at Dugan.

"Neither will we risk more warriors to the fury of men on horses."

Snarg and his gnolls saw to their own dead. They bound their fallen warriors in blankets and carried them away. How gnolls handled their deaths I could never learn, but it could not be cannibalism as is so common a story among humans. The diseased gnolls, they did not touch. Preparing a pyre remained our sad duty. Furthermore, we could not expect the gnolls to touch the poison bottles that Jondreas had left behind. Spreading that strong distillation of rabid disease could only bring ruin on us all. We burned those bottles with the fire. That disgusting smell brought with it terrible memories. I distracted myself and joined with Dugan and Isabelle as they examined a map. The redridge valley had only two exits. A pass leading towards the Blackrocks, and the over the rivers towards Elwynn or Duskwood.

It was too much to patrol without the gnolls. In the end we knew we had something. We had Buntaro. Jondreas would not leave this valley until he had him, and that meant we had bait. Marshall Dugan divided his men into squads to cover the passes and the rivers. That left little for us. Only Isabelle, myself, Buntaro and Lyria remained.

We knew we could not stay near the pyre. Not even for the night. Jondreas had set a trap, and we dodged it. Lyria led us up a path to an abandoned, and partially collapsed mine. There we warmed ourselves near a fire and contemplated our next step.

"The valley is too damn big," Isabelle still shivered in pain. She tried nonetheless to conjure a scrying bowl to search for our enemy.

"Isabelle you’re going to faint again," said Lyria.

"I won’t!"

"She’s right," said Buntaro.

"Don’t tell me what I can’t do," snapped Isabelle.

"Not her," said Buntaro. "I mean you. You’re right that this valley is too large. I could track for weeks and not catch up with him."

Isabelle blinked, suddenly chagrin at her own temper.

"Then you know I must scry," she said. "No matter how much it hurts. I’ll find him if it kills me."

"Isabelle," sighed Lyria. "You can’t…"

Before Isabelle snapped at her I motioned Lyria to quiet.

"Look we’re going to help you scry," I said. "There’s one thing we have to do first."

"What’s that?" said Isabelle.

I described the mana tide totem. I told her how it worked, and what we would do to ignite the flow of refreshing mana. After the battle, I needed it too. Buntaro held me close as if protecting me from Isabelle’s moral gaze.

"Harlot magic? With him?" she said. "Never have I encountered such in my studies."

"You can trust it," I said. "I’ve fought with Buntaro. This is truth: I’ve done it more times than I can count. Even arcanists benefit."

"But shaman magic and sex?"

"It’s no more taboo that what we’ve done," said Lyria calmly. She looked over to Isabelle with vulnerability I had never seen on her. Isabelle’s ice blue eyes opened as wide as saucers. She stammered to say something, but could not.

"These two are about to fuck before us and you think we have some secret we can still keep?" said Lyria.

"Oh my," whispered Buntaro.

"How long?" I asked.

Isabelle spoke choosing every word with effort

"First time was when I visited after six years of mage training," she spoke. Her arms uncrossed and her breathing steadied. "After that, it was anytime I returned."

"Until that night Hogger killed Jacob," said Lyria. Her words were full of pain. "That was the last night we spent together. At my home."

Isabelle turned away and tears began to dripped down her pale cheeks.

"He went out that night to look for me," Isabelle stammered. "I know it. I was supposed to be setting wards at his ranch that night… but I hadn’t seen Lyria in so long…"

She let out a little quiet sob in catharsis.

"He scoured the woods thinking I was taken. That’s when Hogger got him. Because of me," she said.

We sat there in silence for a time. Hogger had slain Isabelle’s childhood friend. No wonder she could never leave the Elywnn after that.

"You can’t blame yourself," said Buntaro. "Hundreds of decisions are made in any conflict, including the enemy’s decisions."

"My decision was love over duty," said Isabelle.

Grieving was upon Lyria’s face. It hurt her to hear these words.

"Isabelle, love is why we do our duties. Love is why we fight," I said. I came out from Buntaro’s wide arms and held her hands. I then took Lyria’s and placed them into Isabelle. "Let me show you what I learned in Northrend."

Moments later, the blue glow of mana illuminated the room from the pool of the Mana tide totem. Buntaro and I were upon each other, moaning and growling while we removed our clothes. Overpowering me after a struggle, my kolapi had me on my back and underneath his arms. I loved how we exchanged kisses together like that, already the tide bubbled as my breasts engorged and pressed against him. I looked to Lyria. She held Isabelle’s head in her arms, caressing her white hair. Isabelle’s eyes still glistened from tears, yet already she looked warmer. Lyria lifted Isabelle carefully up and began to untie the top of her clothes.

"Wait…" said Isabelle. She looked scared.

"For what?" said Lyria, unbuckling her own armor and casting it aside. She removed her top, and displayed her breasts towards Isabelle. "If you really mean you don’t need this, I’ll get dressed again."

I was riding Buntaro now. My hips writhed on top his cock. It was good, yet my heart fluttered in fear that what needed to begin would not. Oh Isabelle, do not be afraid. She gulped down, and leaned up towards Lyria, their lips touched, and Isabelle melted into Lyria’s embrace. Soon, she was undoing her mage’s robe as if it burned her body. Blue light of mana and the orange glow of the fire glowed on her porcelain skin. Lyria pressed close to her, and her free hand touched between Isabelle’s legs. Never had I heard such cries of relief and joy from them before.

Our sex imbued the tide totem. Its streams of mana gushed forth and flooded our small cave. Isabelle and Lyria asked to touch me as well, and touch me they did. Exploring me, their hands grew incessant and curious. Isabelle, growing reckless and bold after her orgasm, begged me to change partners. I was filled with pride at her courage, and grew even prouder when she climaxed with my kolapi. Lyria? Her lust for me knew no bounds either. Her lips tasted of the juices of her long missed lover. "Thank you, Yasmeen," she whispered. Then, kissing stimulated between my legs.

I had never seen Isabelle without clothes covering her shame. Though there, while all of us were nude and relaxed in that stone cave, Isabelle stood tall and near the fire we built. She recited a spell, and her eyes glowed into a solid yellow. Glyphs of magic rotated around her head as she moved her arms like one swimming through a fog.

"I see him," she said.

"Jondreas?" Lyria asked.

"Yes," she said. "I see where he is. I see what he wants. Oh we will have him."

The divination trance held her still for several minutes more. The glow in her eyes intensified, and her mouth curled into a feline smile. When it ended, the magic faded and her eyes returned to their pale blue. She was with us again.

"I know what we can do," she said. "I see… I see us capturing him. Here is what we must do."

It had been weird, uncomfortable, when Isabelle demanded that Buntaro and I remain in the cave for one more day. It made little sense to me, or to Buntaro. Both of us had nothing but Jondreas’s bloody head on a pike in our minds. Yet she insisted that we must not only stay, but must not leave the confines of the cave. All we could do was watch the sun move, as she had instructed us, while she and Lyria marched away.

Then our part came. Buntaro drew his dagger and wet it with his own blood. We marched through the woods together, leaving faint drops of his wound on rocks, on trees. We went through the thick brush until at last we arrived at a fallen tree before a boulder. Tsali yapped loud. We knew our quarry was near. Setting a frost trap was Buntaro’s first in ages. Then we continued along the mountain side.

A snap of a trap and lion’s pained roar broke the silence of the wood. A bullet whizzed past my horns, and I raised my shield. Notching an arrow, Buntaro leapt behind a tree. Another bullet crashed into its branches, sending splinters around.

"Can you see him, kolapi?" said Buntaro. Buntaro growled beside me.

"No," I said peering through the woods. "Wait…"

A flash of light, as unmistakable as a mirror in a desert sun, flickered near some brush.

"Yes I do," I pointed discretely.

Buntaro drew an arrow with an explosive at its head.

"Okay, this is going to be loud," he said.

"I won’t fear it."

Buntaro muttered an order to Tsali. He bounded off to the right, and I to the left. We charged towards Jondreas’s position. Several more shots whizzed past me, and other collided with my shield. Tsali growled as he dashed madly through the trees and brush. Then, a friendly arrow flew past my flank in a great red streak. I raised my shield as flame and sulfur exploded. Upon lowering my shield, I saw the singe bushes where Jondreas had been, he arose, in a soot covered sneer.

"Damn you!" I roared.

Jondreas flung a glass vial, and a stinking cloud of brown gas billowed out. My eyes began to tear in resistance, and dammit, I tried to charge through it anyway. A bullet struck my armor, penetrating through and wounding my shoulder. I fell back and Tsali ran towards me. His jaw gripped my collar and dragged insistently at me.

"Yes, yes! Fine," I protested as I inched my way back. Shootings continued over our heads. Buntaro fired more arrows in return.

Buntaro met me, covering his mouth against the fumes, and we moved around the cloud, towards a hill overlooking a field.

"She did say not to charge," coughed Buntaro.

"I know," I said. "I don’t care."

"We do our part, they do theirs," said Buntaro. "Come!"

We crawled on our bellies until we could safely over look the clearing. Jondreas was on the run. My kolapi, he had a clear shot. I had seen him make so many kills at such shorter distances. His eyes squinted down, for I knew too that he wanted this shot to be his.

Running fir the coverage of a grove, Jondreas didn’t see the trap. As he stepped, a large green glyph appear before his feet. A pillar of flame erupted from the ground, and Isabelle appeared from her hiding. Jondreas tumbled back and rolled down a hill side. Firings of frost streaked towards Jondreas. Still, he evaded most, until an arrow struck him in the calve.

Jondreas screamed in pain. From behind a stone, Rhombur revealed himself. He notched another arrow, and shot a flare skywards. Marshall Dugan galloped in, followed by the rest of the Goldshire militia. Jondreas raised his rifle to fire again, only to be struck in the chest by another of Rhombur’s arrows.

"Good shot, that one," said Buntaro.

Hearing him say that warmed my heart, as much as it excited me to see Rhombur act as brave -and as skilled- as he did.

With no escape, Jondreas dropped his weapon. Still, the militia regarded him with caution. Marshall Dugan dismounted and exchanged words with Jondreas. I could not hear them, though only knew that Dugan spoke with the dour dignity worthy of every Paladin before a cornered enemy. Isabelle though? She broke the calm with words harsh and spiteful. Marshall Dugan shook his head, and motioned for her to calm. Tugging her away, Lyria comforted Isabelle as best she could.

Jondreas said something else that made Isabelle shout at him anger. Dugan stood between Jondreas and a glaring Isabelle, wise enough not to turn his back on one like Jondreas. Sulking became Isabelle’s last resort.

"By the Naaru," I said. "The light’s justice will have its day in the stockades."

Buntaro grunted in disapproval.

"What?"

"Yasmeen…" he began. A roar of flame burst through the air. We looked, and witnessed Isabelle. Tendrils of fire burst from her hands, and immolated Jondreas as he screamed. Screaming never lasts long like that. My heart beat in shock, terror, and though I wished it were not so, satisfaction in what I witnessed. Dugan slammed his face into his gauntlet and then cried out in frustration. Yelling back, Isabelle’s words were loud enough for me to hear: "You said, ‘deal with him as you see fit’ marshall!"

Caught in his words, and tired of our chase, Dugan shook his head. He mounted his horse called to his knights and rode away.

Two days later, veiled in my silks, I once again prepared myself behind the stage curtain. The music broke through the night and clapping welcomed me in. Sauntering out to the stage, with a flow of silk behind me, I was lusted after by Lyria, Isabelle, and above all my Buntaro. My short dance of Booty Bay harlotry inspired the crowd to share a few coins, and I bowed for them. Many of them were militiamen, including my Rhombur. He looked healthy now, fully cured of the ghoul flux.

"Who threatens our village and lives?" I called to the crowd.

"No one!" chanted the militia.

"Who raids our fields, or assaults our merchants?"

"No one!" they chanted again. Lyria tossed me a singed pair of goggles.

"No one! Indeed!" I said, holding it up in the air. "Now let us celebrate all together."

Lyria and Isabelle cuddled close together. Already Lyria’s hands rubbed her lover’s body. Sharing my breasts with them delighted me and all. Stripping myself of clothes, spinning in a sensual dervish, made me wetter. That’s when I began the orcish chant of victory. Buntaro joined with me in a deep throated vowels. I egged on Lyria and Rhombur to follow along. From them, the rest of the militia followed. They knew not what it meant, no more than I did that first night so long ago. They need not know the words to know it was right.

I brought my Buntaro up to the stage, and he hefted my nakedness into the air to thrill chanting crowd. He brought out his cock and fucked me in a standing position before the humans. Orgasming had never been stronger here than with him. I wailed in victory, and then saw Lyria and Isabelle in their thorough of lust.

"Your turn, Lyria," I said crawling towards them.

"Huh?" she said taking her lips off Isabelle.

"This is the Koh’stagig," I said. "You two shared in the victory. Now share in the celebration."

Isabelle’s pale eyes glistened with want.

"You mean? You want us to…" she said.

"Shame is the last enemy to die," I encouraged, caressing her cheek.

"Yes. Yes you’re right," said Isabelle. She brought Lyria up to the stage and they were upon each other like a pair of wild foxes. I reclined with Buntaro, excited with what we saw. Lyria, always strong and confident, showed no difference in her sex. Bringing Isabelle to her back and getting her completely nude happened as fast as an ambush. Isabelle threw her hands over her head and accepted Lyria’s kisses on her lips, and the bites at her skin. When Lyira pushed fingers into Isabelle, the penetration was announced with a cry of passion. All the while the chant of victory continued. We were alive. We had done our duty. We had saved what matters in the world.

I spent my remaining days saying my good byes, and arranging for a cart to carry my few possessions. My clothes? Oh I knew I could not carry all of them. I shared some with Isabelle, who wore my silks with faint embers of sensuality growing within her. I would miss them all, and hoped to see them someday again. Buntaro and I took to our cart, with Tsali riding in the bed behind us.

While we finished a meal by the roadside, Tsali’s ears perked forward and chest puffed out. He sniffed the air and pointed with his nose and Buntaro peered towards the brush.

"Buntaro," I whispered, indicating upwards to a tree. There, crept Jondreas’s mountain lion, fur standing up high and ears flat.

"Well there he is," said Buntaro.

He watched the animal closely as he walked along the branches near us. Without any certainty, it simply crept back and forth in the trees. Buntaro readied his Kukri. I picked up a piece of the chicken we had been eating. Waving it in the air capture the lion’s attention. I tossed it away from us. The lion hopped between branches, then to the ground and devoured the hunk of meat.

"Okay let’s go," I said.

Buntaro chuckled.

"What?"

Buntaro sheafed his Kukri and ordered Tsali to stand down.

"Buntaro?"

"Just watch," he said.

As he stepped for the cart, the lion approached us. Ears up and fur down, it let out a quiet roar.

"Large cats?" said Buntaro. "They make no noise unless they want to."

The lion stepped closer towards the food, and towards me.

"He…" I began.

"She’s yours now," said Buntaro. "Give her a little more food. She’ll eat out of your hand this time."

Trembling, I offered a chunk of salted pork to the lion. She sniffed it, then consumed it. Her rough tongue grazed at my palm. The rough scraping felt somehow tender.

"What now?" I said.

Buntaro mounted up on the cart with Tsali. I took a seat beside him. The lion looked up at us all, then jumped up and sat down near me. Buntaro cracked the reins, and we went at last towards our new adventures in Booty Bay.

The End

Become a Patron!

Comments closed

The Loss and Lust of the Lightwarden: Part 04

Author’s Note: Wrath of the Lich King

This Story takes place just after the events of “Wrath of the Lich King” and on the alliance side. Please support more work like this because there are more.
Become a Patron!

Storm the Stormwind Stockades!

We marched, Giles, Soyora, and I, right up to the entrance of the stockades. We all dressed in the arms of Stormwind foot soldiers. There we produced one of Soyora’s clever forgeries to the guard there: a summons for an orc named Buntaro to appear before the courts of Stormwind. The guards held it, and looked at it in confusion.

"Did they forget our situation here?" he said. "We’re in no condition to retrieve anyone right now."

He gestured to the rows of wounded guards laying on bedrolls.

"The three of us will get him out," I said.

"You can’t be serious?"

"Duty calls!" said Soyora. "Will you obstruct us in our charge?"

"We’re not coming in after you," said the guard. "Those are our orders."

"You won’t need to," I said.

With that the guard opened the gates and into the prison halls we went. The rowdiness of prisoners, and the sounds of fighting echoed through the halls. No prisoners met us to start, but we drew our weapons and marched into the halls. For mere habit, I muttered a chant of battle I had so many times recited. It felt rote, empty, and no blessing of the Naaru came upon me. No aura glowed from my feet, and I could offer my comrades no magical protection. Yet my chant must’ve have been loud enough to hear. For a gang of humans exited their cells and blocked our path. They carried simple clubs and crude daggers. Some had even cruder bandages upon their bruised and bloodied bodies. We were confronted by their leader. He stood with courage, before his men. Respecting him did not mean I relaxed.

"Thought we made it clear, The Dreadspikes control this block of the stockades now," he said. "Guards aren’t welcome."

"I’ve fought walking abominations, blue dragons, and necromancers," I taunted. "How do you think the eight of you will match to me?"

Giles raised his sword ready to fight.

"Oh my," said their leader. "Petty girl of the watch got herself delusions of grandeur."

Before I could charge, Soyora held out her arm to stop me.

"We’re not here for you, Dreadspikes," she said. She pulled off her helmet, "Hell, I’m not even a real guard, laddies."

They all looked to her, measuring her accent. She pointed to the three masted ship tattoo on one of the prisoner’s bare chest.

"Oi you there," she said. "What’s the name of that frigate?"

"She was called the Wicked Seahorse," he said.

Soyora took a sharp inhale. Then looked at the prisoner in the eye.

"Terrible fate, that ship," she said in a near whisper.

"Aye," he said stone faced.

Soyora turned to the leader.

"Listen here for a moment: my friend here’s got rage as hot as a Tarnassis noonday, and she’s not lying about what she’s fought. I’ve seen it myself."

She hefted out a pair of potions, a medical kit, and a skin of wine.

"But we’re not here for the Dreadspikes," she said. "We’re not even here for Stormwind. So take a few gifts and leave us in peace, aye?"

She popped the cork of the wineskin and poured some into her mouth.

The leader looked to the bare chested pirate, who nodded.

"What is your business here then?" said their leader.

"Not your concern," I said.

The leader glared at me.

"Oh, did I say we’ll inevitably kill a few black rocks?" interjected Soyora.

The leader took the wine. Other members took the potions and healing kits. Motioning us deeper into the Stockades, they returned to their cells.

The Blackrock prisoners were not quite so open to diplomacy. As we approached their end of the stockades, a group of their brutes charged us. In truth, I relished the chance to wet my sword upon them. I took a hit to my back from one of their clubs. I spun around, swung my sword, and grazed his arm sending a streak of blood on the wall behind. The Blackrock stumbled and dropped his club. I gave him a solid kick in the chest.

"Duck!" cried Giles.

I dove down and a bolt of fire singed above my head. An imp, chattering down the hallway, conjured another bolt. Giles held his shield before him and charged forth. The imp sent a flamebolt that exploded onto Giles’s shield.

The Blackrock I tussled with stood up, and was dazed. He reached for his club. As soon as he turned his head, Soyora kicked him in the face, and he fell over unconscious. Soyora’s hair stuck to her skin underneath her helmet. Her sword was bloodied, and a dead Blackrock lay behind her. Another lay wounded before me. I saw in his face terror, and grief.

"You want to die here today?" I said with a sigh in Orcish.

"You speak?" he stammered with blood in his mouth. "How do you speak?"

"Thrall’s Orcs taught me," I said. I knelled down next to him. I reached out my hand to his wound. Frightened, he tried to push it away. Then I touched his wound, and healed it.

"The true horde always kills wounded enemies," he said.

"I am no Blackrock," I said, pointing to the humans’s side of the stockade.

"Run there and hide," I said. "But first, where is Thrall’s orc?"

Giles stepped in looking over the recently healed Blackock. He held an imp’s head in his hand.

"Third cell to the left," the orc said. "Master Sargok wishes to turn him."

"Run," I said.

The Blackrock stumbled up and retreated into the shadowy halls of the stockade.

Further down the hall way, more Black rocks shouted about the commotion. We hurried to the third cell door, opened the lock and I bust through.

"Buntaro?" I shouted.

"Who’s asking?" he said from behind me. I turned and saw him grimacing back at me, holding a quarterstaff. He look tired, hungry, but determined.

"Kolapi?" I said. I lifted up my helmet.

"Yasmeen?!" he exclaimed. He dropped his quarter staff and embraced me. His oily hands touched my face in disbelief that I could be there. I took hold of him, and kissed him deeply.

"What are you doing? Why are you here?" he said.

"We’re getting you out," I said. "Come on."

We dashed out of the cell. Giles held up the imp’s head before a red eyed orc warlock. The orc screamed curses and began a spell. Buntaro yelled an orcish curse, and then tossed a heavy stone towards the warlock, striking him dead in the chest. The spell caster stumbled back. Another orc flung a rock back at us from a sling. The stone went towards Buntaro, and then deflected away in the middle of the air and ricocheted to the stone wall. I gasped, then looked to my feet and saw the faint glow of a blue glyph. My aura had returned. The Blackrocks cried their word for ‘knight’ at me, and charged.

"Time to go!" cried Soyora. She tossed a stick of dynamite back at the Blackrocks, who fell back for cover. We ran the opposite way. In our wake, an explosion and smoke burst.

"Ha ha!" cheered Buntaro. "I told those Blackrock fanatics I’d never be one of them! Never!"

"That’s my Kolapi!"

"Yeah? Did you notice the warlock had a black eye? Gave him that," he said. "Didn’t like me too well after."

We ran down the halls. We reached the human side and heard the sound of sea shanties and dancing. Though more Blackrocks were on our tail. The humans let us pass, and then the confronted the Blackrocks. A brawl ensued behind us. Half drunk sailors engaged the Blackrocks in a fight the sounded like a party. We made it past the gate, and locked it for safety.

"Oh that was fantastic!" Buntaro said. "Yasmeen, your gods are still with you!"

"Uhh… maybe?" I said. My aura still hung in the air. I brushed Buntaro’s braided hair. He smiled back at me. "It’s a long story, Buntaro."

"Oi that it is, said Soyora. She held up a pair of shackles.

"Captain!" said Buntaro saluting.

"Hey mate," she said. "We’re going to sneak you past the actual guards now? Maybe best if you act the part of an orc meanie rather than be all lovey dovey with Yasmeen for a bit?"

"Oh right," said Buntaro. "You got it."

With Buntaro in chains, we walked him out of the stockade. We were surrounded by wary faced Stormwind regulars. Buntaro had on his war face, and exaggerated it.

"I like kittens and picking tulips!" he roared in orcish. The stockade soldiers stepped back from his war cry. I bit down laughter.

"You’re mother is a very nice lady!" he growled into the face of a recruit who held a quivering spear. I suppressed a giggle and jerked at Buntaro’s chains.

"Foul monster!" I stuttered. "Silence your tongue!"

Buntaro pulled against me as if an angry mule. He shouted again. The tired stockade soldiers took steps back in terror.

"Dabo! Zub-zub!" he howled. "It’s been such a great visit to this great city!"

I dragged him out at last, thankful that the Stockades doors shut, so that none could hear my snickering. Once we got out of earshot of any other guards, we approached a prison cart that Giles had prepared for us. Buntaro stopped dead in his tracks, and trembled at it.

"Kolapi," he said. "I do not wish to enter that."

"We must," I said. "It is part of the escape."

"But…"

"I will enter first," I said. I opened the cell door and sat inside. I motioned for Buntaro to follow. He winced, and then entered after me in a bravery I’d never seen in him. Soyora latched the bolts on us from the outside. Buntaro’s eyes darted around looking for escape.

"Kolapi," I removed my gauntlet and offered him my hand. "Be safe with me."

The horses galloped off and the cart bumped along the ground. I held my quivering Buntaro.

"Do you remember the song they used to sing in the Warsong Infirmary?" I began.

"Ahh.. Yes," he said.

I started the first line of the old orcish song. Buntaro joined with me, then he trembled no more.

Once we made it to old town, we hid in an alley. Soyora loosed the horses from their reins. She broke open the locks outside of the prisoner cart. Buntaro could not exit fast enough. Soyora handed us a key and directed us to the back entrance of one of our smuggler’s safe houses. Giles and Buntaro shook hands and we took a short respite from our adventure.

"You’re still keeping your station after all this then?" said Soyora.

"That’s the idea," said Giles.

"Giles, I don’t have words to thank you," I said.

"It was the right thing to do, Yasmeen," he said. He turned to Soyora. "Make it look good, eh?"

"Right!"

Soyora punched him in the face. She kicked him in the stomach, and scratched his armor with her blades. Panting, Giles raised his hands that he’d had enough. Soyora handed him a tiny vial.

"Once you sniff it, you’ll be out for five minutes. Ten max," she said. "Then tell the guards whatever you want about what happened here."

"So long and good night!" said Giles. "Until we meet again."

He sniffed the vial and fell unconscious to the floor of the alley. Soyora turned to the horses.

"They’ll block all ships until we’ve been searched," she said. "Then we’re off to Booty Bay. Bit of a job there, we have. We’ll be staying in port. Don’t be long though."

When we said our goodbyes and then Buntaro and I made it to the safe house. There, Tsali waited for us and leapt with joy up into his master’s arms. The three of us snuggled together, enjoying our short victory. We knew well that we could not leave the safe house for at least a day, and then would need to sneak out under the stars. Farley too, knew of our plans, and would allow me to house Buntaro.

Our safe house was little more than an abandoned warehouse and we had little more than floor mats to sleep on. Still though, I shed my armor in haste once we secured the door behind us.

"Yasmeen," said Buntaro. "I’ve missed you."

I dashed naked into his arms. The sweat and grime of the day’s battle slipped off our skin. Too long had it been since my Kolapi held me to him, and too long had it been since we touched our tongues to one another in passion. Far, far too long had it been since I was made so wet in the protection of Buntaro’s arms. I undid his ragged prisoner’s clothes, and Buntaro shoved me down upon the mat. He took his place on top of me, and I wrapped my legs around him.

He penetrated me, and I cried out for him.

"Yes.. I missed you too," he said looking at me.

Buntaro grunted and growled into my ear. His cock slipped in and out. He pleased me as if to put me into a spell, and kept me on the edge of my orgasm for so long. I clenched on his cock, my legs tightened around him. We climaxed together, in shouts and cries, uncaring for anything beyond our pleasure. The world would be ours again soon, as soon as we arrived at Booty Bay.

To be Concluded

Become a Patron!

Comments closed

The Loss and Lust of the Lightwarden: Part 03

Author’s Note: Wrath of the Lich King

This Story takes place just after the events of “Wrath of the Lich King” and on the alliance side. Please support more work like this because there are more.
Become a Patron!

Sex and Treachery in Nothrend

It took all my courage to begin sharing the tale with Giles, but I began to tell him more than I had told any traveler.

Before and during the Lich King’s war, I’d joined a crusading order known as the The Wyrmguard Centurions. Our proud number had been whittled down over the months throughout our time in Northrend. It was our last battle mission that destroyed us. We had a simple assignment in an empty snow covered wastelands called the Dragon Blight. It was there, in the cold roof of the world, that dragons went to die. On the north end of the waste, the undead scourge citadel of Naxxramas floated. A necromancer known as Kel’Thuzad ruled here, and raised the dead dragons into the army of the Lich King. We centurions were to find the bones of the great wryms, smash their skulls and their great wing bones, thus rendering them useless to the Lich King’s servants. This brought two enemies against us. First, the scourge hunted us. They hated all living, but especially those who frustrated their plans. Second, the great wyrms of the blue dragon flight. They saw us as unholy defilers of their graves. Our company could engage one adversary at any time.

One day our plans were frustrated. Claws crunching in the snow, the blue dragonkin bounded from an icy cave. There had been little more than a dozen, but a single dragonkin fights with the strength of five men. We defeated them, but knew going forth would invite more trouble. Thus, our company was forced to make a dangerous retreat. Hoping no scourge tracked our trail, we followed our own snow prints back.

Stitched together abominations, a horde of ghouls, and the necromancer commanding them answered our hopes and prayers. We had no choice but to engage them before they engaged us. Matched in number, we fought hard, and I exorcised the undead with my fellow paladins. Despite our efforts, we fought in the open snow, and neither side could gain an advantage.

Then both of us faced the wrath of the blue dragons. Flanked by drakes, a great wyrm flew above the field of battle, strafing us with their breath, and scattering both living and undead alike. Soon, it was clear that would be no victor but the dragon and his kin. But my company looked in terror as one of the dracoliches entered the sky.

The Wyrmheart Centurions fought with honor. I myself did not falter. Wounded and weak, I still pulverized the last necromancer in holy fury. I had slain him, but I knew that I was the last. Blood dripping into the snow, waiting to join the rest of the centurions in honorable death, I fell to the ground. My vision grew hazy. The battle field grew quiet. Ahead of me one of, the walking abominations stomped towards me. Praying, I awaited a clean demise.

A brilliant streak of violet light traversed the air. An arrow struck the abomination. It groaned and charged. The growl of a fierce wolf broke into the air and charged the monster. More arrows followed. Someone shouted in Orcish. I saw not what transpired. All I could see was a great blue blur. But for a moment, my eyes focus on one standing over me, an Orc. His face looked kind and rugged, and creased in sadness at my pain.

"You do yet live," he spoke in the language common to humans.

"I cannot move," I whispered back.

"Do not try. I am Buntaro and I can help you," he said, retrieving a potion from his belt. "Drink first."

I swallowed it down. The worst of my wounds sealed themselves, but oh it awoke so much agony from those that did not. Moaning, I drifted out of focus. Buntaro shouted for his allies, and he lifted me up from the snow. Surrendering, I slipped out of consciousness.

Next I remembered, my waking gaze was met with two decayed eye sockets. Yellow orbs of light glowed where eyes had long since melted away. The tight mummified skin of the face stretched tight to bone, and still this dead woman’s face tried her best to smile in kindness at me. I knew what she must be. She was one of the undead who had been freed of the Lich King’s influence. Her mind, it would still be human, which meant she could be good. All this I understood in my mind, but my heart knew the face like that which had murdered so many of my friends.

With a hoarse sound, she said something.

Another undead creature, this one looking like a man, peered over me. He prodded my face with his bony hands examining my eyes and throat. Resting his hand on my chest, he said something in an icy voice.

"He says, ‘breathe’," the woman said. She spoke the language of the alliance in a voice like a dusty attic.

I took a deep inhale, in part truly of fear, for I was too weak to fight. It hurt to breathe, there was no doubt bile in my lungs. Though I knew, these must be the forsaken of Arthas’s first invasion.

"The Draenei’s lungs are filled with puss," the man said to the nurse. His words came out slow, and with effort. He handed a vial to the woman. "Pour this into her mouth."

With that, he shuffled off. The woman looked to me again.

"I am Julie Applewood, a nurse here," she said. "When under my care, I swear you will come to no harm."

She inspected the glowing yellow vial and popped its cork.

"Please drink this," she said. "You have slept from your wounds for three days."

Not sure what else to do, and still half expecting to die, I swallowed the contents. The liquid swirled into my throat, then became like a hot vapor. It worked its way into my lungs, filling them, then I coughed, gagged. A cloud of white expelled from my mouth, dissipating in the air. Alive again, I took my first breath.

"Yasmeen. My name is Yasmeen," I said. "Where am I?"

"In Warsong hold on the Borean Tundra," she said. I had known this place. It was a great fortress of the Horde in Northrend, far from the human settlements.

"Am I a prisoner?"

"You are an injured an warrior, in my medical ward. The horde are your allies in this war. We would not treat you so," she said. "How much do you remember?"

I described the fateful battle, and my near death out on the Dragonblight. I begged Nurse Applewood to tell me if any others had survived. She said that Buntaro, my Orc rescuer, had found only me alive with his small band. Weere any others left alive, I surely knew they perished. Their souls needed one to recite the rite, and light the lantern, and guide them to the glory seat of the Naaru. Who would light them now but me? But where among the horde would I find Naaru’s faithful? I would have cried, if I had not been so weak.

"Arthur is the apothecary here," Nurse Applewood continued. "He knows little of Draenei physiology, but we worked our best."

"I thank you," I said.

"Rest now, stranger," said Nurse Applewood. "Buntaro will want to know that you live."

Buntaro came in some time later. He removed his helmet. Snow and ice and had scratched his face. His worg, Tsali, bounded behind him. The wolf sniffed me, and licked my face. My body ached, I could not move my legs without great pain. Still, I rolled over and rubbed Tsali’s head.

"Ahh, you look well," the orc said. "Strong enough to tear the ears off a kodo!"

With pain, I laughed.

"I feel more as if a kodo stomped on me," I replied. "I am called Yasmeen."

"Buntaro," he said, saluting with a strike to the chest.

"Why am I alive, Buntaro?" I asked.

Buntaro shrugged.

"Because we are allied in this conflict?" he said. "Because the Lich King is enemy to all that lives? Because I shuddered at the thought of you raised as a Death Knight?"

That should be reason enough.

"I owe so much to you," I said.

"You owe me nothing. There need be no reason at all," Buntaro added. "None except that you fought well, and that you suffered. Now, you will heal in time."

My mind drifted back to my last scattered memories of the battle.

"The others who fought with me? Are there others?"

Saddened, he shook his head.

"Our warriors found no others alive," he said. "We lit a pyre for their bodies. We know this is not your custom, but war demands dirty things."

Humans often burn or bury their dead. Draenei light sacred lanterns for those who pass. The Lich King raises our dead to fight for him. They had burned my comrades in the field like a massive pile of garbage, destroying their usefulness to our enemy. I knew this, yet it still made me sick. Passing into valiant glory to the Naaru, the Centurions deserved far better.

"I must," I choked through my grief. "Please, I must at least find my way back to the Alliance."

Only there could I find the priests and report the fate of the Centurions. Only then could I see the funeral rites observed.

"Oh Yasmeen," Buntaro said. "You have a spirit of ten warriors within you. You will live. Though now, you can barely walk."

I fell back into the cot surrendering to my weakness.

"I promise, you will be tended to," he said. "I’ll advise you of all that transpires. Until then, heal."

I spent many more days helpless on that cot. Bored, I spoke to the wounded gathered there. These wounded warriors passed the tedium with old songs. Soon, I learned the rudiments of their language when I joined them. Nurse Applewood, though terrifying to behold, showed a kindness of soul. Checking on us twice daily, she cleaned my wounds. When I had healed, well enough walk, Buntaro came to me once more. He smiled widely with excitement and joy.

"Yasmeen," he said puffing his chest. "Tonight, you are well? Yes? You are healthy?"

"I am," I said.

"Then you must come with me to the great hall tonight," he said. "Our warriors have slain Baron Rivendare!"

"What?" I jumped up from my bedside. "I thought it would be impossible!"

"Ha ha!" laughed Buntaro. "We have hammered at Naxxramas for weeks, winnowing out its defenders! Last night, we struck a crippling blow!"

"Buntaro, you spin stories!" I chided.

"I would not lie," he said. He threw on a hefty cloak over me. "See his head for yourself!"

I arrived in the great hall. Orange bonfires burned upon the open ground, sending smoke through the vents above. Trolls and Orcs reveled around the fires. And there were women here among the men. For the Draenei do not always join genders in celebration, and never would anyone except a harlot dance as lewdly as these women of the Orcs and Trolls do.

Never had I seen such freedom.

A column of warriors and their shaman marched around the hall. Upon a tall halberd was stuck the unmistakable frozen head of Baron Rivendare. I had seen this man. I had seen his unforgiving, fierce, sneer as he led the armies of the dead to battle. Now, I saw him as dead trophy. His empty eyes darted in opposite directions, and his bloodied jaw hung loose. The indignity of him upon the spike excited me. The orcs had slain a monster.

Buntaro invited me to a long table. We were served thick red drinks and the tough meat of the great bovine creatures of Northrend. The orcs, they spiced their food in ways I had not had. It was a hearty meal for a well deserved victory.

The orc women joined their men as equals. One of them sat in between two men and I sensed from their laughter and speaking that they were friends. The larger of the two men toasted at the table. I joined them. After which, this orc looked to me. I did not understand their language fully yet. I only heard "chun’puq" said several times, and more than once this was said while looking at me.

"What did he say, Buntaro?"

"He said… umm… ‘very lovely woman’," he sighed.

"Lovely woman?" I squinted my eyes in skepticism.

"Well, in truth, it’s one of those sayings that don’t translate well…"

"What did he call me, Buntaro?"

He gulped and replied in candor.

"He said ‘innocent wardling.’ It’s what we call warriors who have seen no battles."

My skin went hot with anger. I stood on my hooves and shoved my way before the large orc.

"Chun’puq?" I said pointing to myself, while glaring with all my offense. "Me. Chun’puq?!"

The large orc looked to me with no passion. He turned his eyes away from me and sipped his drink like a dainty human princess.

"Dabo. Chun’puq," he taunted.

He was a fool to turn his back to me.

I grabbed him under his arms, and hurled him to the ground from his chair. The woman and his other comrade shot up from their seats. The large orc jumped up from his back, and his fist struck me in the cheek.

"Chun’puq!" he roared. I charged him in anger and his companions attempted to intercede, but Buntaro spread his arms in front of them. Half the eyes of the halls were upon me and the large orc as we fought each other. He bruised my cheek with his fist. I bashed his forehead with my horn. He stumbled back shouting curses in pain, small drips of blood dripped from my horn and his wound.

He made for me again, then Buntaro intercept him. The two orcs exchanged impassioned words. The orc woman said something in a cuttingly sarcastic tone. The brute grumbled and wandered way. The woman looked to me and said nothing, but she inlined her head in respect towards me. She grabbed her other male comrade and went towards the dancers around the fires.

"What was all that?" I said to Buntaro.

"That’s Taluv," explained Buntaro. "He doesn’t think… ummm… ‘a kin to demons who stinks of humanity’ deserves to celebrate in our hall."

"He said that?"

"I told him all the living deserve to celebrate," Buntaro added. "And then Daedra over them asked him if it was flaccid or if it fell off completely this time."

I chuckled.

"Are orcs always so direct in their insults?"

"Only matters because Taluv has wanted to Koh’stagig with Daedra for the past five battles."

"What’s that?"

"Uh… I know the alliance chants prayers for the departed?" he said. "What do you Draenei do?"

"We recite the last rites and burn the spirit lantern so the dead may find their way to the Naaru’s bossum," I said. "What, did Taluv want to bury the dead with her or something?"

"Not really…" said Buntaro. "Orcs, you see, we were a nomadic people. We had little privacy. So, when warriors die, we have still celebrate their life…"

"Like the chant to the Naaru?"

"You know what? Easier to show you," said Buntaro.

Near one of the great fires, Daedra and her male danced together. Buntaro and I joined the semi circle of chanting, clapping, Horde surrounding them. I imitated the chant, not knowing what it was. I did not care, for Daedra and her male already undid their armor, their muscular scarred skin glistened with sweat against the light of the fire. Daedra danced as I had never seen a woman dance. Arms spread wide, her great hind grinding back and forth against her male. Her breasts shown free, welcoming the touch of the man behind her.

Daedra shouted something to the crowd. They cheered with it. Then she dropped her loin cloth completely, leaned forward, and her male penetrated her from behind. There was this incredible joy there, an excitement I’d not experienced in ages. Yet here, all of this orcs, had no doubt lost brothers, friends, and peers in the clashes with Lich King’s army. But what is they did? No chants or dreary songs. No, these Orcs found solace in the combat’s kinder sister, its counter part and near opposite. Instead of layers of armor, vulnerable flesh was displayed for all to see. Instead of angry strikes intended to kill, a tender touch was given to enliven. Instead of shouts of despair, came the cries of sexual bliss.

Oh I wanted this. Would they share this ritual with me?

I grabbed Buntaro by the arm and turned him towards me.

"Koh’stagig with me, Buntaro," I said.

"What?"

"You heard me. I was clear!"

Buntaro glanced around at his comrades, nervous and uncertain.

"You said the celebration belongs to all those who live!" I said. "Is it a woman? Is there one who would forbid you from this?"

"Well no," he said.

"Koh’stagig with me," I repeated. "I am alive! My companions are dead! This is what must be done."

Buntaro looked in sympathy, but then turned away.

"It might be.." he began.

I whipped my hand around to strike him. He caught it in a firm fist. With breath hastening, his eyes focused on me like a wild feral beast. Mine did too.

"Don’t make me fight you too," I said.

"Alright," he growled.

Buntaro hefted me over his shoulder, he brushed away the plates and bowls in a clatter, and then he dropped my back to a table, and tore at the cloth at my chest. He undid his garments, crawling on top of me. His mighty pectorals, brushed over my bare breasts. Then, I took the first kiss from him. Oh, this mighty Orc, brave and honorable, had my heart and my hips melting. I wrapped my hooves around his body, pressing my sex towards him, and getting wetter. Soon, the same chant broke up around us. Buntaro removed more and more of my clothes, bending me over, and swatting the great round cheeks of my hind. By the prophets, I did not care for verses of the Naaru. I cared not for what the demands of the Draenei upon me.

I cared for nothing but Buntaro. When he opened his loins at last, and drove his warm shaft inside me, I became enraptured and filled with joy. Buntaro celebrated life with me, and my wounded soul found its healing that night.

Over the coming weeks, my wounds healed fully. The damage to my armor could not be repaired without materials from the Exodar. My sacred hammer stayed strong enough, and I spent afternoons sparing with the Horde and learning more of the language common to them. It was then that I became acquainted with Captain Soyora. Her ship transported troops, metals, and food for Horde and Alliance alike. "War is good for business, lass. Peace is good for business too," she said when I asked how she managed to traverse both sides. I thought perhaps Soyora could find the rare quartz and minerals from the Exodar to repair my broken shoulder pads and grieves, but I sighed knowing that even if she could, no smith in Warsong Hold could work with it.

"I’m contracted for the Horde for the next few months anyway, lass," she shrugged. "I can check for it in Ratchett. Goblins can get their hands on anything. Say… after that I could transport you back to the Stormwind side. Sure they’d love to see a survivor of the great Wyrmhearts."

The offer upset me. It surprised me how much so, but the other side of the continent was far from Buntaro, Tsali, and revelries in the great hall. Furthermore, I had learned that the Horde spear-headed further incursions into Naxxramas, that filthy citadel that no doubt commanded the legions which slaughtered my compatriots.

"Soyora, can you get me anything? Something the Horde smiths can used to augment my arms?"

She smiled at me, knowing no doubt, of Buntaro.

"Yeah I think I can," she said. "Might have just the thing for you. What should I tell the Alliance about the Wyrmheart Centurions?"

I shrugged.

"Tell them nothing," I said. "They believe the Wyrmhearts are dead, and so they are."

The Horde Smith outfitted me with armor blessed by their Shamans. A contingent of Blood Elves had even enchanted my armor further. Soon Buntaro and their warriors judged I had learned enough of their language to join them in battle.

Oh what battles they were! We trudged through the snow, and ice, tracking the small bands of walking dead. We moved in small bands, and skirmished against hulking abominations, their necromancers, and their death knights. Not once did we show the death knights mercy. On the contrary, those traitors were our targets. I exorcised more than one myself, sending those perverse mockeries to their true deaths. One wandered alone and distant from support. The limp in her walk betrayed her wounds, but the glow of her sword showed she could be a threat. Our concealed team thought to capture the death knight, and Buntaro raised a special arrow designed to paralyze. I had nothing of it. Rather, I stepped out into the ice and challenged her to single combat.

Even Buntaro was aghast at my savagery. The wounded death knight fought well, and fought hard, but in the end, I bashed her armor in with my maul.

We found a missive on her body. It covered recent troop movements, and counted numbers of the dead at Naxxramas. Taking it to our superiors, they examined the information and debated over three days over what to do. On that fourth day, we had new orders. Naxxramas was in disarray, and had grown vulnerable. Therefore, we had a chance to destroy its usefulness to the Lich King.

It had been one of the largest operations I had ever been in. We fought through stinking halls, slaying mindless zombies and their semi-sentient masters. Battered, we even held our ground against a great Dracolich, the most menacing I’d ever seen. A third of our soldiers were slain or frozen at the end of the battle, but for all that cost we brought the skull of great necromancer Kel’Thuzad and his Dracolich to Warsong Hold.

Buntaro and I led the first celebration that night. Orcs, Trolls, and even the comparatively prudish Blood Elves chanted and clapped while a rubbed my bare skin to him. I unbuckled my lover’s scaled metal armor and dropped my own breastplate to the floor with a clunk. I rubbed his mighty chest, and let him kiss me deeply. Reaching down, my hand took hold of his hard cock, it throbbed with life.

I got to my knees before him, ripped apart the leather that held it from me. I licked his stiff member, from his sack up to the tip, teasing him. I pleased him slow, savoring the saltiness of his shaft. Saliva came off my lips, and mixed with the clear drops of fluid that dripped from his tip. The chants and the claps meshed with the sound of his moans.

Buntaro grabbed my horns, and held my face. He jabbed his cock into my mouth, and I gaped wide. I choked and gagged against my lovers cock, growing ever wetter myself. His thrusting had the thrill of combat to them, and the danger of his invasion of my throat heightened the pleasure. Once he yanked out, I panted for air and a stream of spittle stretched from my lips to his cock. Buntaro undid the rest of armor, as I did mine. He threw me to my back, and hefted my hips to the air.

Buntaro took my front hole first. Then once he sent my juices upon his man hood, he slipped himself into my back hole. That stretching! Never would I forget how good it felt, getting fucked by Buntaro there. My mind slipped into a dizzy haze there in the great hall. I cried out as if in battle, looking to the dead skull of the dracolich, with a bonfire roasting within it. Many lovers engaged each other around it. Even Soyora had found a handsome Blood Elf to make hers.

Our victories and our sex continued. Months later, a combined force of Alliance and Horde had pincered upon the Lich King’s lair of Ice Crown itself. Invading warriors had at last slain the Lich King and the armies prepared themselves for departures.

Alas, that is when I learned of the traitor.

One of Soyora’s sailors had grown sick from his food, and I grew suspicious. When Nurse Applewood tended to him, I sensed that she recognized his symptoms too well. I demanded she speak to me, and she refused to talk. Instead, she bid me to hide new of Henslow’s apothecary, and eavesdrop on their conversations. His words, though difficult to understand, were unmistakable. He had concocted a poison, which when released on rations, would cause a malaise upon the returning troops of the Alliance. Our poor sailor had been a test subject. All this, I would learn later, had been commanded in secret from the undead masters in Undercity.

Nurse Applewood left, and so did I. I returned less than hour later, with my warhammer in hand.

All this I shared with Giles. Soyora had confirmed much of the story. I trembled in doing so. For I knew not how he regarded me. I feared, in truth, that he perceive me as a derelict, a deserter, or worse a traitor as the Alliance of Northrend had so long ago. I had been naked with Giles, but never had I been so vulnerable.

"Oh, thousand hells," he moaned. "Yasmeen, I came to Stormwind for a few simple fights and an easy station. Do you know what you ask of me?"

"We ask you to risk much to help us," I said, "and to save a orc who you have no reason to care for."

"But you care for him deeply," said Giles. "Then, I must care for him too. Yasmeen, I cannot deny you, but you cannot stay with him here."

"They’ll be on the Hammerhead the night we rescue him," interjected Soyora.

Giles shook his head.

"The guard is doubled at the docks," he said. "They’re poised to lock down the whole harbor if even one prisoner gets out. But there could be another way…"

And so, began our plan to rescue Buntaro.

To Be Continued

Become a Patron!

Comments closed

The Loss and Lust of the Lightwarden: Part 02

Author’s Note: Wrath of the Lich King

This Story takes place just after the events of “Wrath of the Lich King” and on the alliance side. Please support more work like this because there are more.
Become a Patron!

A Lightwarden’s Secret

Weeks went by quietly in Goldshire. Merchants traveled through with their wares. Our blacksmith clanged hot iron into tools and weapons. Farmers threshed their fields and sent their wheat and barley to the great cities. New members of the guard replaced the old, some frustratingly immune to bribes. Gathering my silks from Silvermoon proved harder, and I sent messages to Booty Bay inquiring about possible shipments of enchanted cloth and other trinkets too hard to find on this side of the world. My wounds healed without a scar, militia men whose injuries had become septic came to me, and I cured them as discreetly as I could.

But I was drained. I was tired, and languid. An orc Shaman, her name was Daedra, called the feeling ‘the barren tree’, for she said that expending so much mana through combat left you like a solitary fruit tree, begging to be watered, so it might bear fruit again. The shamans depended on their people to replenish themselves, and so I too had studied their rituals.

That nervous archer? I learned he was called Rhombur. His grandfather had been a knight of the second war who raised the son and grandson alike on tales of fighting. After the battle, Rhombur grew curious of me, wondering where I learned to fight. I offered him a deal: hit three bull’s eyes out of twenty arrows and he could not only join me in a performance, but I would share with him exactly one story.

I did not think a young man with work on a farm would have much chance to dedicate to archery, but he persisted. He fulfilled his goal, and Lyria herself confirmed it.

So there, I danced before his fascinated, soft brown eyes, stripping myself of my silks while the men and women of Goldshire cheered on. Lyria had completely forgone her own breeches then and rubbed herself. Half the audience enjoyed watching her. Not letting her steal my performance, I dragged Rhombur up on stage. He hoisted me up in the air, my legs wrapped around his hips. He possessed near as much strength as the Orcs of Warsong hold. He turned me around outwards. I relished in my nakedness, baring my chest and arms for the masturbating crowd.

When Rhombur bent me over a barrel, my legs spread on instinct. He went down, running his tongue around my pussy. As he imbibed, so I became drunk with enjoyment. Rhombur removed his clothes. I found his tanned skin beautiful and stretched with muscle. He aimed his cock and collected his reward for his marksmanship. This young man had only recently seen real conflict. He fucked me with the passion as only one with something to prove does. Yes, I enjoyed allowing him to enter in my show, and yes, I knew I would fulfill my promise to him.

I took my young lover upstairs with me. There, I started a fire within my hearth and bid him to lie with me on the rugs before it. Curled next to me, with his hands rubbing my body, he asked for a story. I began like this: I supported regular soldiers in the Howling Fjord. It is cold, empty tundra south of nearly impassable mountains. We had been assigned to assess the threat of these half-giants known as Vykrul. Rhombur hardly believed such beings existed. We escorted a cleric, whose purpose had been to establish diplomatic ties. Vykrul though are wrathful and brutish. They hurled stones upon us. Were it not for the cleric’s quick shielding, he surely would’ve been crushed. I guided soldiers to safety, but we found ourselves pinned between an over snowed path to our east and half-giants to our west.

While our compatriots kept the Vykrul distracted with spawned elementals of fire, I guided four up a mountain side.

Then, my soldiers and I flanked the Vykrul. We slayed those who did not surrender and captured two. The alliance held them as prisoners for two weeks. Only then did the half-giants decide it was time to talk.

"Wouldn’t it have been better to fight your way through?" said Rhombur.

"Ah no," I said. "Our mission was against the Lich King. The half-giants? They might have been allies in better times."

"So what did you agree to?"

"We kept their prisoner’s hostage," I said. "Until the Vykrul agreed to allow us passage."

"That’s a small victory," said Rhombur. His meaty arms squeezed my chest.

"It is," I said. "And that is my story."

"Can I ask another question?" he said.

"You may," I said.

"Why do you not enlist again with Stormwind?" he said. "Why do you stay here? Is it only for joy of dancing? You could save lives."

Rhombur had never left Elwynn forest, had barely shed blood and had a thirst for the world beyond his village. I turned my face away from him.

"Yasmeen, I’m sorry I didn’t mean…"

"It is fine," I said. "Listen, for this is truth: when I returned to the alliance, they accused me of treachery and attempting to sabotage their rations. When I had made tremendous sacrifice to warn them of the true saboteur. I had a cure with me."

Remembering how I must have appeared to the Alliance when I returned from the Horde side, I shuddered at the memory. I arrived on a ship called the Hammerhead, known well to work for Horde and Alliance alike. My armor had been a collection of Exodar crystals patched with Orcish metal. Taurens had stitched my warm furs. I carried a precious, and malignant, journal from an undead alchemist. The crate of unmarked bottles no doubt invited suspicion.

"They would not listen and threw me into the brig. It wasn’t until a commander’s own son grew ill that they used the antidote I brought with me."

"Returned?"

By the prophets, I spoke too much. I nodded, with my lips tight.

"By the light, Yasmeen," he continued. "They treated you horribly. Did they bring you home in chains, like an animal?"

I shook my head.

"They released me. I could have taken a boat back to Stormwind. Instead though, I discovered a merchant vessel with a handsome captain. The seas are lonesome, and I cared not where I would go."

I looked back to Rhombur. His face displayed awe of me. He considered my action brave. I judged it one of despair.

"Rhombur, you wish to join the Stormwind guard? To fight for the Alliance?" I said. "Do you wish to see the Vykruls, or the beasts of the barrens, or even the great mushroom forests in Outland?"

"Yes."

"Then do not let my sad stories deter you," I said. "Be brave and seek your adventures."

I smiled. My young lover’s tongue thrust onto mine. He pressed so hard, and so deep. Amazing, it is, that such a small muscle can do so much. Slipping into a distracted bliss, I had to push him away lest I forget what else must be done. I retrieved a set of candles, four of them, each marked with runes from the shamans.

"Rhombur, help me light them," I said. "Then please, do not be disturbed with what I speak next."

"What are we doing?" he said. His eager arousal pleased me. To tease hadn’t been the idea, but it was fun.

"It is a simple ritual," I said. We lit the candles then I placed them on the ground. Whispering my accented orcish over them, I waved my hands. The magic ebbed in the air, and my recitation completed. In a glow, a small totem appeared in the center. It looked like a wooded stump, with its top carved into a bowl, filled with water as blue as the moon wells.

"By the light!" he said. Shamanic magic is nearly unknown in the Alliance lands, most certainly of all in villages like Goldshire.

"The Horde calls it a mana tide totem," I said. I dipped my hand into its pool and sprinkled some on my skin, and then onto Rhombur. "I need to energize, but first we must energize it."

After leading Rhombur into my bed, I fell to my back, and he rolled on top of me. Oh yes, he kissed me deep again, and pressed my hands above my head. Pinned there, I kicked my legs into the air. His cock rubbed up and down the slit of my pussy. His breath became heavier and deeper. He pushed into me, and we moaned together.

"Fuck me," I said.

Rhombur slammed his hips into me in explosive successions. His passion had a primal nature to it, and soon the tide totem bubbled. Next, I begged him for a new position, and Rhombur turned me over to my belly, penetrating me once again. The tide’s water flowed out to a single ethereal stream of mana, and it flowed into me. So invigorated, I could not hold back my orgasm. I came hard as Rhombur’s muscular arms leaned over me. He pulled out, panting, and I lay there to recover.

Rhomubr gazed at the small streams of mana. It flowed like a river towards me.

"It’s beautiful," he said.

"Isn’t it?" I said. I rolled him to his back, and took position above him. When my arms raised, the rivers flowed faster to me. He enjoyed the view, and I enjoyed the ride.

While I bid Rhombur not to share my tale, it was perhaps silly of me to expect silence in such a small village. The talk of "Vykruls" spread through Goldshire. Innkeeper Farley asked if such a thing was true. I sighed and shared it was.

"A good thing such beasts are so far north," said Farley. "my inn could not withstand such monsters."

"Goldshire is quiet," I agreed. It was why I was here. "Let us not take it for granted."

"Not in the least," agreed Farley.

He was right. We had no further trouble with Gnolls, yet Lyria’s militia trained hard. Rhombur’s dedication to his bow did not lapse either. Searching out new equipment, or inquiring about service to the Stormwind guard, some from our village traveled to Stormwind.

Then one day, someone came down after them. My long-lost friend captain Soyora trespassed into the Goldshire inn. No shame of my nudity do I have with her. Far too long had I known this independent sea captain and her crew. She held her dark brown hair back with a red ribbon. Her brown hands showed the callouses of years on the ocean. Winking, she took a sly sip of her ale. Damn her and those large eyes. What was she doing here?

"Soyora?" I said serving her her meal

"Oi there, Yasmeen," she said. "Been a few seasons, hasn’t it?"

"Many," I said.

Maybe it hadn’t been long enough. I bore Soyora no malice, well perhaps a little. Her ship, the Hammerhead, and its crew refused me passage back at the end of the Lich King’s war. Yes, the ship had transported Alliance soldiers and Horde warriors for months, but it was one Draenei Paladin that ignited the superstitions of sailors. Still, my brash zealotry had earned me such a reputation.

I learned of Soyora’s time since the war. Soyora and her crew had taken in a few veterans of both the Horde side and the Alliance side. Now, the Hammerhead had been retrofitted for combat as much as transport. They worked mercenary contracts in port towns, and escorted explorers in lands as harsh as the great Un’Goro crater.

"Never come this far inland usually," added Soyora. "Not unless I am looking for something or someone, quite specific."

I sighed.

"How did you find me, Soyora?"

"Sailors tell stories. We listen too," she said. "Heard this rumor of a gorgeous dancing Draenei in a tiny village. Then I heard reports of a skirmish in which a tavern maid healed half the wounded. Next, some other parochial comes up and insists that Vykruls are real."

Swigging down her drink, she patted my hand

"Only one person that could be, Yasmeen," she said. "Still, I had to see for myself."

"You got me, capitan," I said. "Now what did you come down here for?"

Soyora looked around for any prying ears.

"It’s Buntaro, lass," she said.

My heart palpitated. I took in a sharp breath. Anxious, and with a sudden focus, I looked to Soyora for any reassurance.

"After you left, we sailed the Hammerhead back to the horde side of Northrend," she said. "Dumb thing. Dangerous thing. But Buntaro? We caught up with him in that village outside the hold. He wasn’t exactly banished, you see, but there wasn’t exactly any going back either."

The deeds of a warrior’s Kolapi reflect on the warrior. Hanging my head, I recalled the chaos I caused.

"It was all quite political. Orcs didn’t appreciate what the Forsaken did, but undead didn’t like the murder," she said. "I mean, as far as it is possible to murder what’s dead."

"What happened to him?" I blurted.

"Come on outside?" said Soyora. Following her, I arrived at the animal stables. There, she opened a wolf pen and out came Tsali, fur of thick gray and black. The sad wolf looked to me, sniffed, and then his tail wagged and he licked my hand. I knelt down, petting the beautiful strong worg. He sniffed my face with affection.

"Buntaro worked with us," she said. "The crew loves him. Some Alliance bounty hunter pinched him in Stranglethorn not more than six weeks ago."

I froze stiff.

"Who?"

"Who what?"

"Who was it that captured my Kolapi?" I demanded.

"A Gilnean ranger. He’s called Jondreas, why?"

I shared with Soyora the long story of Jondreas’s visit through Goldshire, about his prisoner cage, and how he carried himself during the battle several weeks back. We both realized, right down to the timing, that Buntaro had been the unknown captive within Jondreas’s cart. My long lost Kolapi had been so close to me, only to see him carted off. Clenching my fist, I declared that I would have killed Jondreas myself, had I only known.

"Don’t be hard on yourself," said Soyora. "You couldn’t have known. And this Jondreas fellow? He’s sharp with the poisons and such. Likely had Buntaro sedated half that trip."

"Where is he now?"

"In the Stockades. He’s waiting a trial for something he maybe did for a client out in possibly Theremore."

"Your ship?" I asked.

"Stormwind doesn’t know the Hammerhead," she said. "She’s docked in the Harbor. We’re not leaving until we get him back."

After the defeat of the Lich King, my days in Nothrend were numbered. Warsong Hold, the home not of the human alliance, but the orcish horde, had been my home. Great stone walls kept great hall of the Orc’s safe. There, I reveled in my dented, stained, and dirty armor among Orcs, Trolls, and Hulking Tauren. The drums banged a mystical rhythm. The bony horns blared anthems. Bonfires within kept the large open hall warm. Skulls of our undead enemies and even a great dracolich hung as trophies to all we had accomplished. Orcs sang and beat their chest in a language I understood better. These people, so long had their people known conflict, diaspora, and violence that they held one great thing before and after legendary battles: A frenzied celebration of life.

One warrior took his partner, that Shaman Daedra, at her waist and held her high in the air. Chugging down a flagon, and discarding the dragon scale chest plate and the shirt beneath it, she was admired by all. Bare breasted, she showed herself to the hollers of the horde. Her mate took her down as if to wrestle against her. Wrestle they did, and this great warrior tore the remaining armor off his mate and then undid his own. He turned Daedra over to her knees, and penetrated her. Thrusting and bringing her to a guttural howling, he raised his great arms out wide.

Who would join next? My Buntaro cradled me. He was a orc, like many of them here. His skin a clear green against my Draenei pale blue. The metal of my breast plate, cold and heavy, offered me no protection from the lust I felt, and the lust I had shared so many times. I allowed my Buntaro to release the buckles and latches of that metal shell, and his rough hot hands caressed my torso. Lifting my face to him, I shared a vivacious and deep kiss. For months, I had been vulnerable among my horde hosts, and in those months Buntaro had been my guide, my comrade, and my lover.

We were alive. Others were not. So we celebrated in hedonism as chaotic and strenuous as battle itself.

But even as our victory had been assured, another conflict had arisen. Many night’s later, I stood over the ragged corpse of the treacherous, undead, apothecary Arthur Henslowe. My hammer still had the filth of his blackened blood upon it. Tears of wrath ran down my cheeks. Soyora, having seen it shook her head stunned at what I done.

"This will be the end of both of us here, Yasmeen," she had said.

"I do not care," I answered.

Moments later, the undead nurse Applewood came in followed by Buntaro and his wolf Tsali. The wolf sniffed the corpse and Buntaro, looked at me with sadness. We grieved together, not for what I had done, but that he could no longer protect me here. We knew I would be sent away. He held me close, weeping. We both knew that someday I would return to the Alliance. Nurse Applewood dug into Arthur Henslowe’s desk. She brought out his book of notes, and then a crate of vials of blue liquid.

"Always. There is an antidote," she coughed through her dry lungs.

"Thank you," I said. Part of me had cringed at her, still, despite all that she had done for me. Still, she was kind. She was good, no matter what her masters had demanded of her. "I will not forget you."

"Nor I you," she said.

"We must go, my Kolapi," said Buntaro. Kolapi. It meant both ‘primary lover’ and ‘peer in battle.’ So many words that the Alliance could not understand. "I must see you safe one last time."

Soyora gathered her crew that evening. I had little left I cared for. We made for the Hammerhead under the cover of night. With the antidotes and book we boarded. Her tired crew hoisted the sails and drifted across the still icy sea, heading east, towards the Alliance on the other side of Northrend. I looked back. Buntaro watched me until our boat disappeared over the horizon.

Captain Soyora and I knew there would be only one way to get this done. We had to sneak out Buntaro of the stockades, which means someone would have to sneak in first. We walked together into the city of Stormwind, stepping on its white granite stone streets and cross over its many canal bridges. Buildings crowded together here, sometimes reaching three or four narrow stories high. Gnomes and Dwarves were as comfortable here as they were in their own homes. The night elves, that distant race of tall elves from Kalimdor, also disembarked their ships in the city docks. These days? Even my kin, the Draenei had found places to call their home here. It is refreshing, I admit, to hear your own language among patrons of taverns and even bustle of the merchant quarter.

As a obvious choice, I signed up for the Stormwind guard. My first day began with an assessment of my skills. Armored up with wooden practice equipment, I challenged other recruits and even several veterans. My reputation, damn that reputation, preceded me. Several recruits underestimated the dancing harlot of Goldshire, and they paid the prices in bruises and embarrassment.

But I did not demonstrate for myself, or for even a rank in the Stormwind guard. My Kolapi languished in a cell inside the stockades, and I remembered that every time I stepped into the circle to spar.

Things got complicated when Giles entered the ring. With skills matched, our fight lasted longer than most. I yielded to him, if only to get his attention after our bout. The officers of the guard advised me they would give me the assignment soon. Giles invited me to the Pig and Whistle in one of the Stormwind’s older districts. There, Soyora joined us and we drank and ate.

"They stationed me in the stockades, at my request," said Giles. "Though now? They moved me out to night patrols."

"Stockades must’ve been crazy?" I said.

"Tame my first few weeks," he said. "The trick was keeping prisoners separate. Humans didn’t trust Orcs. Orcs didn’t trust each other. We had some of, oh what did they call themselves, ‘true horde’ in there."

"The Black Rock clan," I said.

"Yes them. They’re the worst," he said.

Black Rocks. I’d never encountered them, but only knew what they were. Buntaro shared stories of dragon worshiping fanatics, holed up in some mountain, who hated his people and the feelings were mutual. What could such beasts be like once caged?

"So did you keep the orcs separate? Once you learned who they were?"

Giles nodded.

"If they fought, we figured they must be on different sides," he said. "Now why are you so interested, Yasmeen?"

"She needs to get into the stockades," said Soyora.

Looking to Soyora, Giles squinted.

"She’s a friend, Giles," I said. "I wish to serve Stormwind. I want to be stationed in the stockades."

Giles crossed his arms incredulously. Soyora sighed. She was always better at bluffing than I was.

"Yasmeen, if you wanted a war or something, you’ll find one there," Giles said. "The prisoners have been rioting for the past week solid. Guards lost control."

"No!" I gasped. For once, I thought of my Buntaro as captured, yet safe. Now though, he might be the only horde orc surrounded by Black Rock warriors. Giles caught my fear. He glanced to Soyora, who stayed tight lipped and gave no explanation.

"Giles, we must go in there," I said. "I must pull someone out."

"A prisoner?" said Giles.

"Let’s say he needs to stand trial," said Soyora. "That’s a good reason isn’t it?"

"For me to charge into the stockades with you?" said Giles. "Yasmeen, I care for you. We’ve shared much together."

He uncrossed his arms and held his hands up.

"You ask much of me? Can I not at least get from you the truth?"

I took his hand and held it.

"Who in the stockades could possibly be so important, Yasmeen?"

To Be Continued

Become a Patron!

Comments closed

The Loss and Lust of the Lightwarden: Part 01

Author’s Note: Wrath of the Lich King

This Story takes place just after the events of “Wrath of the Lich King” and on the alliance side. Please enjoy and support more work like this.
Become a Patron!

A Draenei Defiled

I never went back to the Exodar. It beckoned me still too close to the crown of the world. The chill of Azuremyst isle offered me no comfort. By the Naaru, duty did not compel me either. I had given my duty and the light of the Naaru did not shine upon me when I shivered alone with only freezing blood to seal my wounds. No, I had explored the world I fought to save. I had gone south, across the sea, and across the sea again.

Now far inland, my hooves clopped along the cobblestone roads of Goldshire. I carried precious silken luxuries and a single leather pouch. Smugglers had taken them from Silvermoon to Stormwind where I retrieved them. These silks are for pleasure, and for love. Neither of which shall I be ashamed of. Yet, near my destination, I crossed the village training corral. Soldiers from the human city had been thin. Far too many had been sent to the north, and far too few had returned. Here then, Lyria Du Lac, dressed in her unblemished armor drew her wooden practice sword and incited the new recruits.

In a village this small, so little entertains me. Who, after all, entertains the entertainers? I wandered to the benches around the wooden fence. The first farmhand recruit charged like an unruly bull. He was large and believed his girth compensated for lack of skill. But straight charges are predictable. Lyria dodged and redirected his weight with her shield. He stumbled on her greaves and fell face first into the mud. Lyria turned and pulled him up. Her eyes caught mine. Would that I had my veil, but all villagers know the only Draenei here. Veils do not conceal horns.

The next challenger stood up. Tall. His hair a tussled black mess. Oh, and his eyes, bright blue, outlined with the dark circles that marked him as a veteran. This man placed down a ceramic urn as if it was his child on a bench behind him. Then he grabbed a wooden shield and practice sword and prowled around Lyria. Lyria lunged first. He blocked her then let out a bestial shout. They engaged each other. Grunts and sweat exuded from this challenger. He endured the firm whaps of wood on his exposed arms. Oh, I enjoyed seeing him fight.

This is my perversion. By the Naaru, this is what brings me shame.

The stranger dropped from a final blow. One he took intentionally, I could tell. For he fell too hard for Lyria’s indirect strike. So Lyria won the duel. She held up the stranger’s arm high, declaring praises of his ability to the peasant recruits. She dismissed her class, then made her way to me.

“Yasmeen,” she spoke my name with warmth. She brushed a sweaty lock of auburn hair aside, “Is the barmaid interested in joining my patrols?”

“Oh no. Never could I handle such training,” I stammered.

“You wouldn’t need it though would you?” she said.

“What?” I gasped.

Lyria’s face spread into a knowing smile. Her eyes saw right through me. Oh prophets, why did I not wear my veil?

“You’ve never been a good bluffer, and you come here and you don’t just watch. You judge. You inspect,” said Lyria. She dropped her gauntlet and her bare hand squeezed my shoulder. “And from what I’ve seen? You don’t have the body of a dainty tailor. You don’t develop an ass like yours on the farms either.”

I pushed her hand away.

“Draenei woman are not so forward,” I feigned offense. Lyria laughed subtly at the attempt.

“Well whatever it is, Yasmeen,” she said. “You’re no wandering bard. Let me know when you’re ready to spar.”

A thousand fel curses on my perversions. I excused myself into the relative sanctuary of the Goldshire Inn. There is a room there that is mine. All mine. I fluttered out the fresh Elven silks. The glossy shimmers of purple replaced the drab cotton. A curtain frame, also smuggled from Silvermoon, hung above my bed bare of any cloth. I added the translucent sheets. A heavy woolen top blanket completed my new bed chambers, perfect for my next man.

Tonight though, I would not forget my veil. My clothing trunks held an eclectic collection of outfits from the scarlet dress given to me by a pirate lord, to a leather bodice crafted for me in Darnassus, and the sari I found at a Gadgetzan tailor. Tonight though, I would try on my new Elven silks. It was a skirt that met with my knees and fit tightly around the roundness of ‘my ass’ as Lyria called it. It’s top, though modest, invited all to imagine the shape of my breasts. Perhaps though it had revealed too much of my shoulders? Alas, I cared not for what Lyria had said.

That night, I stepped down to the early evening crowd. Farley, my innkeeper and employer, beckoned me to him.

“You look stunning, Yasmeen,” he said. “We expect a show?”

“Yes,” I said. I tilted my head flirtatiously and curtsied in my skirt. Farley is a good man. Were it not always so complicated with employers, I would share his bed as I had that captain who took me to Ratchet.

“All right,” he said. He gestured to the bar where drinks lay. “Tables await.”

I took drinks to tables, watching for men who may be trouble, and for men who may have deep pockets. Women too, enjoy me. Lyria shared a round with two guardsmen. That same soldier, with his ceramic urn, sat quietly by the fire eating mutton with solemnity. There was no mistaking his boots. Naaru as my witness, they were made from felhide.

“Yasmeen?” came a woman’s voice. I turned and saw Isabelle, dressed in blue mageweave. Her blond hair had grown a stark white though her eyes still shown a bright azure- a side effect of her years as a frost mage. “Was our arrangement fulfilled by the third party?”

“Indeed,” I said. I offered her the leather pouch. Isabelle opened it and inspected the magical glittering dust within. “Our northern friends are satisfactory?”

“More than that,” exclaimed Isabelle. “More dust, and we can rout the gnoll raiders back to whichever holes they come from.”

Most mages do not tarry long in the villages of their birth, but Isabelle held a grudge. Hogger’s Gnoll raiders had slain a rancher she knew from childhood, and she vowed not to leave Goldshire again until the worst of them were driven from Elwynn forest.

“Don’t get caught,” I said.

“By who?” said Isabelle. Her face scrunched into dismay at what she said next. “Hardly a Stormwind footman who won’t turn his eye for a silver left!”

Her spirit was too familiar. People do what they need to live. I shook my head. When I turned I saw the soldier’s blue eyes upon me. I met his, and he did not look away. I wished to know him, and that required something special. In the kitchen, I ordered a tea prepared. I sprinkled in herbs of Sorrowmoss, Silversage, and the last of my Manathistle. I brought to him a piping hot kettle and two cups.

He looked over at the tray before him.

“I ordered no tea,” he said.

“Ah but it’s a special Draenei tea,” I said. “The Outland dust enters the lungs and absorbs into the blood.”

I poured him his first cup. Faint lights sparkled in its stream.

“We sip this upon returning from far expeditions,” I said. “It cleans the blood, and the soul.”

The soldier eyed the glass. Looking at the empty cup next to it.

“Drink it with me?” he said. His voice had lost its suspicion. Instead, it was a mere plea. I poured myself a cup and lifted my veil. We sipped the spicy brew together.

“My name is Giles,” said the soldier.

“I am called Yasmeen.”

“How did you know I had been to Outland?” He cradled his urn.

“The boots,” I said. “They are made from felhide. The cracks in them are red with the color of Outland’s soil.”

“You’ve been to Outland.”

I refused to look away from this one.

“It was another lifetime,” I began. “I fought.”

“Vanguard?”

“Alas no, I entered after the worst of it had been over.”

“It’s never over,” he said. His hand touched the urn one more time. I dared to ask.

“Who?”

“His name was Erwin,” he began. “We shared the same barracks at the Allerian Stronghold. You know it?”

“I do.”

“It’s a long story,” he said. “But when we discovered that he was born in Duskwood, and I born in Redridge, we promised each other that if one fell, the other would bring their ashes home.”

He looked at the urn with pain.

“How?” I asked.

“Illidan’s elves had barricaded themselves in some ruins. We thought we had the upper hand on them. But it was a feint,” he started. “Naga came from behind, and we had the bunker before us and serpents to our flanks.”

I ignored the barkeeper’s signal. Tables could wait.

“Our chance was to aim the siege equipment at the Elven position. It was desperate, and Erwin volunteered with me to operate the catapult. Our allies engaged the Naga. We took arrows and bolts from the Elves. But we succeeded. We launched burning pitch at the barricades, and the Elves had no escape.”

I knew too well what follows that. Black smoke billows in the air. Fire crackles and splatters as it burns fat, flesh, and oil together. The screaming is loud, but it ends quickly. It’s the smell that lingers upon you.

“We sent the Naga retreating,” said Giles, “but not before one hurled a spear through Erwin’s chest.”

I reached out and took his hand. Naaru bless the soldiers who come home.

“And you?” Giles said. “What happened for you to come all the way back here?”

Outland hadn’t been my last tour. Outland had been only where I began. Oh, I wished to tell him. I wished to tell him of the deeds of the Wyrmheart Centurions, but the Centurions are dead. Every last one, and I could not bear to tell him here, in a place with prying ears of those too curious of me.

“You’re not only a serving girl delivering contraband to mages in Goldshire, are you?” he said.

“You’re not only a nice soldier who yields in a fight, so a trainer keeps the respect of her students,” I said.

“Aren’t we both observant,” Giles said.

“Yes. And in truth I am more, and I wish you to see me,” I said.

“What?”

“I will perform soon,” I said. I bowed, displaying my breasts, “Please, take a place near the stage.”

I finished my tea.

The musicians set up on the stage. Dwarves beat their drums and blew into their fifes. I gave Giles an inviting look as I disappeared behind the stage’s curtain. I let him wait. I enjoy letting them wait. On queue I stepped out dressed fit for a harem. Tiny cymbals clanged off my fingers, and bells shimmied at my waist.

This first dance, I had learned from a troll.

The music energized me, and I energized the room. My finger cymbals clapped in time with the percussion and fife. My hips shook, to the left and right, then moved like waves for all to see. Yes, I turned in a circle. All the Goldshire inn admired my huge round cheeks, and my naughty tail flailing about in the inn’s candlelight. Giles, he saw me. I strutted on tables spinning and swinging a bare leg above him. 

I would leave little to the imagination before long. I discarded my finger cymbals at the end of the song and ended my dance in an elegant pose. The next song began, and I wiggled my fingers up the threads of my top. Releasing it, I bared by breasts for the crowd, craning my head back, a motion I’d seen so many times among the harlots of Booty Bay. Yet these motions I had made mine as I combined them with the erotic shake of the hips I’d seen among the trolls.

Lyria De Luc tossed more coins towards my stage. Oh yes, I loved to see her. Giles though? Yes, he tossed a few that way as well. But it was not until a shimmied out of my skirt completely, display my round hind quarters, shaking them towards his face that his coin purse opened completely.

“I want to give you more, stranger,” I whispered into his ear.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Watch,” I said.

I spun to the music once more, shaking my tail, and my chest towards many regulars. I taunted men with blown kisses. I winked at women as well. Lyria placed one leg up on her table and reached her hand into the fly of her breaches.

“All of you! Show yourselves to me!” I shouted.

My regulars obeyed. The Goldshire inn patrons tossed more coins, for it was my price for allowing them to please themselves. The men who watched me whipped out and stroked themselves in time with the music. Though not Giles. Giles kept his hands on his table, yet he could not hide the bulge at his pants. I rolled, and writhed for my audience. Then I kicked one leg in the air, exposing my inner sex. I touched myself, growing wetter with them, inspecting each of their erect cocks.

Which one would I beg to fuck me tonight? Right here? In front of all? A celebration of hedonism. For we are alive, and others are not. Where it any other night, I would take anyone. Or many. But tonight, I only wanted my strange soldier. I only wanted Giles.

“You are nervous,” I said as I danced on his lap.

“I am surprised,” he said to me.

“Have you not seen enough sadness and violence, soldier?” I purred. I reached down and touched the throbbing hardness of his dick.

“I…” 

“Let down your guard,” I began. “Be brave.”

He leaned back in his chair. I dove to his breaches. I tore open the laces of his fly and summoned out his meaty erection. I swirled my tongue around its tip. His sounds of pleasure were drowned out by the cheer of the crowd. Saliva dribbled from my mouth, for I pleased his dick with fast, brutal, bobs of my face. Pumping him up and down, I wondered if he would send his cum into my mouth. Yet, there was a tension with him. I pulled him, tasting the faint drips of pre-cum in my mouth, and looked to him.

“You could fuck me here,” I said. “Or I will fuck you in my chambers. But it is you I will fuck tonight, Giles.”

“Chambers,” he said.

I hastily gathered up my coins and my discarded silk. Some villagers cheered. Some sighed with abashed redness in their faces. Several men had orgasmed for me tonight, spilling their life seed into the inn floor. Lyria De Luc, drunken in her own self pleasure, waved me a reluctant goodbye while I led Giles upstairs.

We entered my room, and I shut the door. Giles took hold of my shoulders and pinned me to the wall. Oh Naaru, this is what I needed, his handsome face, inches before mine. I could taste his lust with every breath. His lips connected with mine, and I remembered the lust I had for him at the training pit. I became at peace with my perversions. Though more, I desired more from him than I had of other lovers.

“Giles,” I said. I placed my hand gently on his chest. “I wish for you to see me.”

“Is that why we’re here? Instead of downstairs at the tables?”

“Yes.” I guided him gently away and bade him to sit at the edge of the bed. I dug deep into one of my trunks and retrieved my sacred war hammer. I held it high and upright, showing its ovular head. On one side, shown the holy symbol of the Naaru. On the other, displayed the insignia of the Wrymheart Centurions. The clerics of the Exodar had blessed it, and it had seen many conflicts. It served as a weapon and symbol against the unholy and vile. Giles gazed at it. He knew what it was for certain.

I dropped it to the floorboards. Its weighty head landed with a callous thud. The handle had long lost its pommel. I had a blacksmith reshape its broken edges into a round tip. The smooth leather grip now served a new purpose. I dripped between my legs.

I squatted over my sacred hammer and glided its handle into my wet pussy. I rode it for my own pleasure.

“By the light, woman,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. I turned my nakedness around, showing my backside to him. I dared him to come near with a look over my shoulder. Giles tore off his shirt and then squatted behind me. His dick rubbed between my cheeks. I panted.

“So this is what you are,” he said. “You’re dirty.”

“Completely,” I panted.

He gave my breasts a savage squeeze. I continued to ride my hammer. Giles, wasted no time and reached his hand to the pearl above my gate. Oh yes, the sensation is exactly what I wanted. The subtle ridges of leather wrappings stimulated me within. The tip of my toy and Giles’s finger pressed against one another. It all brought me to a hedonistic delirium. I rode it faster and harder, whimpering in bliss until the joy brought me to climax. It is more divine than any sacred vigil, and more profound than all of Velen’s wisdom. It is a gush of insightful pleasure that all is right with the world and I am meant to celebrate it.

I heaved, dizzy with excitement. I slipped off my toy and rolled on the floor. I stumbled to stand and looked to Giles.

“I see you,” he said.

I shoved my hammer aside.

“Do you see what I want?” I said turning my hips towards him and slapping the cheeks. “I want you to fuck me. I want you to fuck me like you are killing something.”

Giles lunged at me. I threw my arms up, and he caught one of my wrists. My free hand hardened to a fist. I punched, and he absorbed the impact on his side. The blood pumped hard in my body as we grappled. His booted foot hooked around my hoof and pressed to my shin until I toppled. I grunted out as my knees hit the wood floor. My free hand flailed upwards. Giles caught it too. He had both my arms behind my back. His knee pinned my calves. He stretched me backwards, and I loved it.

“This is what you had in mind?”

I could not speak. So lost in my violent perversions that I enjoyed the sense of panic he gave me. I nodded only. Giles wrenched me up to my feet. He kept my arms tight behind me, handling me like an unruly prisoner and then shoved me onto the bed. In a moment of defiance, I leapt up at him.

“You won’t hold still!” He growled as he grappled me again. His arm wrapped tight around my torso. His other, slid behind me and unthreaded his breaches. His raw hot phallus rubbed my backside. “Now let’s finish what you started downstairs.”

Giles lifted me in the air and turned me upside down. My arms gripped his waist. My thighs hung on his shoulders. He fell back towards the wall, his thick cock slapping my face with each step. His tongue lavished my wetness. And I? I took his cock inside my jaw. I sucked him. I tasted him. Salty and warm it subdued me as my tenderness subdued him. Yet not for long. Giles thrust his hips deeper. His tip rammed towards the back of my throat, triggering drool. I gagged against it, and his pulses did not stop. Neither did the heavy pressure of his mouth against my sex.

Giles relented and dropped me to the bed.

“Turn over!” He commanded. I did so. I prepared myself on all fours for him. I presented myself, wondering which hole he would penetrate. He slapped my ass first. So hard that I squelched from the heavy thud of his hand. Then he shoved himself into my slick pussy. I opened for him, enveloping his girth, and moaning for it.

“Fuck me!” I cried.

“I’m going to fuck you,” said Giles. He glided in and out so slow it hurt. “I think you’ve had enough in your pussy today.”

Giles pulled out. He gripped my ass cheeks, spread them, and aimed for my back hole. Yes. Oh god, he would do it. His shaft, dripping with my juices, slid into my hole. I tensed against it. All my muscles became tight and rigid and then released in a bliss. Giles stuffed his way in and then fucked me with a savagery I’d not had since Northrend. It was so hard, and so wonderful, that I let out tears of cathartic joy. The sense of fear and panic had melted away. My excited heart kept pounding. Lust overtook me, and I shouted for him to put his cum inside me.

He grunted in his climax, and the spittles of his cream fired away within. He pulled out, and drops trickled with it.

Seldom do I trust someone so quickly that I share the whole night with them. Yet that night I rested my horns on the great chest of Giles. We whispered morning greetings to another and stayed warm beneath the covers.

“Yasmeen, I must ask you something,” he began.

“Yes?”

“The Wyrmheart Centurions? Even Outland heard of them,” he began. “We also heard they perished in Northrend.”

“This is truth.”

“But you didn’t die…”

“I might as well have,” I spoke. I straddled him and rubbed his torso with my hands. My breasts caught his eye. “This is my new life now. There are no more Centurions.”

I leaned down to him and we shared a morning kiss. Giles held my chest close to him and accepted me.

“I will keep your secret, Yasmeen,” he said. “One survivor to another.”

“Thank you.”

“And I ask one more thing?” he stammered. He became so vulnerable at one moment. “I must take Erwin’s ashes to Darkshire and memorialize him there. Will you come with me?”

“Yes,” I whispered. I reached down for his phallus and stroked it until it became hard. Giles sighed in satisfaction. “Shall we celebrate him now?”

The road to Duskwood remained dangerous for two lone travelers, and I had long since discarded or sold my armaments. Giles, ever gracious, purchased a shield and a long sword for me from the village blacksmith. We walked for a day, with little more than a mule for company. We sparred beside a campfire and then enjoyed sex loud enough for the gnolls of the woods to hear. Let them come. It is a depravity to love victorious bloodshed, but we would match them. Yet, no raiders or highwaymen intruded upon our trip, and arrived at the town Darkshire. It is indeed a dark place. Webs of spiders weaved through branches of trees. The feral Worgen howled in the distant night air. The taint of undeath wafted through the dark fog.

All of that chilled me not. What chilled me was the visit to the Chapel of Ser Albrecht. His statue gazed down at those in congregation, and its stone eyes judged me the impostor. Ser Albrecht the ever loyal, they called him. For he did not desert the field even when the battle was lost. Yet it was here, among the solemn procession and chants of the Church of Light, that Giles commemorated his fallen comrade. Villagers wept. Giles shared stories of Erwin’s heroism. Hugs and blessing were exchanged, and I spoke little beyond what politeness required.

We tarried in Darkshire, sharing our bodies once more and dining at the inn. I learned then of Giles’ plans, now that his duty to Erwin was over. He had decided to enter the city guard of Stormwind. “I know well how to fight,” he said. “But I tire. Stormwind is safer than the fields of Outland.” It was a decision I understood. Goldshire had become my haven.

That same evening we met another traveler. He had a bony talisman hanging from his neck. It was the kind the Trolls made in their jungles. He carried with him a breech-loading rifle, and with an eyeglass scope attached. A pair of goggles rested on his forehead. He took time polishing his rifle right there in the inn as if it were a sacred relic. He offered drinks for us, and we learned his name. Jondreas, a bounty hunter from Gilneas.

“Gilneas?” said Giles.

“Yes, my countrymen may live in protection, but castle walls eventually become a tomb,” he said. “Hence my many travels, and many quarries.”

Jondreas had traveled much as I had. He joined a band of treasure hunters in the Alterec Mountains. It was there he had tamed a mountain lion as his companion. He adventured with them for a time before realizing that the true treasures were in bounties. He was a hunter of criminals and miscreants now and shared a tale of bringing down an Alliance traitor in Kalimdor. I both feared and admired him. Bribes to skirt petty laws are the way of the world, but traitors deserve no quarter. That is beyond a simple lining of your purse. Nonetheless, zeal for one’s people may blind one’s fair judgment.

“Tell me, friends, you both appear to be the fighting type,” he said. “Would you perchance be heading north? Towards Stormwind?”

“Not much farther than Goldshire,” I said.

“Ah would you both like to earn some coin?” he said. “My latest quarry is shackled within my prison cart outside. He needs to be watched, and honestly he needs to be fed too.”

He chuckled as he sipped his tankard.

“Every time I feed him myself, he tries to bite my hand with his tusks. Doesn’t trust what I offer him either,” he added. “What say the two of you? Guard him and feed him? Only until Stormwind.”

Marching through Goldshire, my arms would give me away to all my friends and neighbors. I needed not the money either. I glanced to Giles, who understood me with a single look.

“A kind offer,” he said. “Though we wish to travel light for the next evenings.”

“But what then of my quarry escaping?” said Jondreas. “If you care about Goldshire, why not protect it?”

“You’re right sir,” I said. “But know that Goldshire’s patrols will often accept extra work when asked.”

“Really?” said Jondreas.

“This is truth,” I continued. “Just north of the river is a watchtower. I doubt not that you’ll find soldiers there eager to fatten their coin purses.”

“Is Elwynn forest so peaceful it bores those who patrol it?”

“Only gnolls,” I said. “One named Hogger leads them all, but the simple presence of watch towers prevent them from rallying.”

Jondreas nodded.

“You two are an honest pair,” he added. “Thank you for the advice.”

With that he ordered another round, and bid us good night.

Jondreas took the seat on top of his prisoner wagon the next morning. Its two horses galloped off, with the burden of Jondreas’s luggage on top and some prisoner hidden behind the tiny barred windows. Giles and I waited out a storm that lasted two days and then followed the road north back to Goldshire. We passed the southern guard tower. We found no guards, and it proved a warmer place to spend the night than on the open road. Further up the road, we saw a macabre body of a gnoll. Its fur had been mangled from numerous wounds. It was tied to a tree, and its paw pointed to Goldshire.

“Terrible,” sighed Giles. “As bad as ogres.”

“I wonder what he did that made them punish him so,” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Giles. “I’ve never known gnolls to act like this, and gnolls are a rough lot to start. Hogger must be one of the worst.”

“Should we cut it down?” I said.

We looked on at the flies gathering around the dead gnoll’s face. His body already bloating, and the tongue hanged out of its jaw.

“Yes,” said Giles.

We removed the fattened body, with great care. The bounds around it cut simply enough. We placed the body along the side of the road and covered it with dry leaves. I hoped the Gnolls would be satisfied, with whatever message they tried to send to each other or to travelers on this road. I hoped too that they would claim the body.

Back at Goldshire, Giles and I parted at last. He would continue to Stormwind. I kissed him farewell, and told him I would count him among my lovers, should he ever wish to visit.

Jondreas’s cart was parked on the road outside my inn. Four Stormwind guards stood at every corner. Jondreas had set up a small ballista on top, as if his prisoner might be a demi-dragon, ready to change shape and fly off. I sneaked into the inn, awkwardly concealing my shield and my sword as I did. I placed them safely in my room before the evening began.

Jondreas was there that night when I entertained. He proved a generous customer. He tossed an entire bundle of gold at my nakedness as I performed. It occurred to me I had never taken a Gilnean as a lover.

“Would you like to join in the show?” I asked while dancing before him.

“Ahh, oh would I,” he said. “Tonight I must be vigilant.”

“Will you come back this way after you deliver your quarry?”

“I may,” he said. “You’re everything a woman is supposed to be.”

I offered my breasts to him. He touched them with hunger. Dropping more coins, he bid me good night. I stood up to spin and shake once more.

“Release your cocks!” I cried to the crowd.

At the end of the night, their enthusiasm exhausted me. I took no man into my chambers. Instead, I pleasured myself with my sacred hammer once more, dreaming of Giles and other lovers of my past.

The sounds of yipping and yapping awoke me out of my slumber. I peered out my window. I saw the orange glow of torches in the distance. Gnolls. Gnolls had dared to come this close to the village. A flare fired into the sky. It illuminated the woods in a soft white glow. I could see the outlines of dozens of gnoll raiders. Shouts came from the village. A warning bell rung.

I struggled into my plain breeches and dug deep into my clothing for a scaled leather vest. Fel curses on the gnolls for forcing this upon me. I rushed downstairs. Isabelle saw me brandishing my shield and sword. It bewildered her.

“Yasmeen?” she said.

“Where are the guards?” I demanded.

“There were no guards posting tonight!” she said waving her arms. “They’re all holed up at the western tower!”

“What are they doing there?!”

“Marching here, one would hope,” said Isabelle.

She looked at me, my chest pounding and my arms ready. She paused in confusion at me.

“Yasmeen… you’re not planning on…” she said. “I’m summoning elementals. The rest of the civilians will gather in the square for safety.”

“I am no civilian tonight!”

I exited the building with Isabelle. By then, the gnolls were already firing arrows and sending ax wielding brutes towards the town’s militia. Jondreas’s trained mountain lion pounced on a stray gnoll, ripping apart the flesh of its neck in a frenzy. The bounty hunter himself was atop his cart, impassively loading a giant bolt into his artillery. His goggles covered his eyes and glowed yellow. He fired his bolt off into the woods. It landed and splashed into a lake of flame around the gnoll archers.

“What is he doing?” shouted Isabelle. She sent a water elemental rampaging through the forest towards the direction of the fire. With the arrows stopped, the militia men rallied to Lyria. Most carrying little more than spears or logging axes. Some wore armor, and a few had bows. I charged with them. One arrow grazed my shoulder from behind. I turned and saw a trembling face of a young militia archer. Ignoring his inexperience, I spun around and clobbered a gnoll in the face with my shield. The beast let out a yip and raised his war mace overhead. He swung downwards. I feinted and plunged my sword into his ribcage before he could recover. I shoved the body away and saw the large peasant recruit bleed from his thigh. Though a sword wielding gnoll would not relent. The large peasant fought furiously, but panted for loss of blood. I hollered a war cry and engaged the gnoll.

Another arrow struck me in the forearm. My bracer absorbed most of the blow, but the pain ached.

The gnoll leapt and kicked. Too much of his weight struck my shield, and I stumbled. The gnoll landed on his back. Seizing the moment, I drove my sword down on him, but he parried and rolled away. He sprung to his feet and snarled at me once more.

A friendly arrow struck him dead in his calves. He howled and screamed. I swung my sword upwards at his throat in a mercifully quick killing blow. I looked back and saluted that same nervous archer. Magical energy burst around me. Isabelle fired arcane missiles while her elementals bruised gnoll after gnoll. Jondreas used his cart as cover and fired with precision at each incoming raider.

Then I heard Lyria cry in pain.

To my right, a dead gnoll lay on top of Lyria. I rushed over and kicked it off. A dagger had pierced her armor and lodged itself in her torso. Blood already streamed, and Lyria looked pale.

“Stay alive,” I said. I took her by her arms and dragged her to relative safety behind the smithy. I undid the buckles of her arms and then prepared to loosen the dagger.

“This will hurt, Lyria,” I said. “You will live but it will hurt. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she whimpered.

I drew the dagger. Blood gushed from the wound. Lyria wailed in agony, and I removed her breastplate. I touched my hand to her wound, unsure if the power of the Naaru was even with me. Light glowed from my hands. Her torn flesh regenerated at my touch. The wound sealed, and the blood dissipated. Lyria’s screams of pain changed into a sigh.

“You are alive!” I said. “Does it hurt anymore?”

“Huh…” said Lyria with a tired smirk. “Anything to get your hands on me, Yasmeen.”

We arose together and turned to the melee outside. Regular foot soldiers from the western tower marched past us. The gnolls yapped into the night. Jondreas whistled for his lion to his side. He hefted his rifle, and the two of them chased after the disappearing invaders. Isabelle summoned a blizzard against the fires left by torches, and Jondreas’s contraptions.

The next morning we assessed the damage to our village. Two militia men had perished. Several more had been wounded. Let the prophets bear witness: I healed many that day of their injuries. Let it also be known that I refused any inquiries as to how. Marshall Dugan rode in from Stormwind that afternoon. While attending to injuries, I heard him in the inn’s basement, yelling at two of the guards. He demanded to know what they were doing guarding “some fool bounty hunter’s prisoner” instead of patrolling near the southern tower as they were expected.

Marshall Dugan faced anger himself later that day. The village had assembled in the town square where he spoke to them.

“Why were the guards on the west tower, Marshall?” yelled Isabelle.

“Madam, it is on me for dealing with insubordinate guards. I assure you, I will find the reason,” he said.

“I nearly lost an eye to those attacks!” shouted a militia member. “Naught for our inn’s healer! When will you return our priests to us?”

Fel curses, now they knew me as a healer.

“We have done everything in our power to bring the best veterans back from the front,” said Dugan. “Greater men than the lot that failed you, I swear it.”

The crowd rabbled. Marshall Dugan tried to placate them. I did not know how much longer I would tarry in Goldshire, yet I had grown to love this town. It had been so simple and safe, yet now it seemed no more protected than the tundra of Northrend. During this rabble, Jondreas walked towards the square. His lion had scrapes. His own leather had tears. Dirt covered his face. His favored rifle had grime where once had been polish.

In his free hand, he carried a gnoll’s head. Dugan stopped mid-sentence and stared.

“Hello?” Jondreas called out. “I heard that Marshall Dugan was here. Is that you?”

“I am,” he said. “And you are?”

Jondreas made his way through the crowd. He held the gnoll’s head aloft.

“I’m the hunter who killed Hogger,” he announced.

The crowd looked on in silence. Marshall Dugan squinted at the face and compared it to a wanted poster in the town square. He asked Jondreas further details, skeptical that this Gilnean stranger had killed the real thing.

“Here’s more proof,” said Jondreas. He pulled a medallion off his neck and tossed it to Dugan. “The mark of a gnoll chief. They don’t give that up willingly.”

Dugan looked at it and nodded.

“How did one man, alone, kill him?” said Dugan.

“A fortunate turn of events!” said Jondreas. “During the chaos last night, I saw an opportunity to chase him down. He was a clever gnoll, but not clever enough.”

I thought back to the nights before. The guards who had gathered at the western tower, who had abandoned patrols for days. I thought of Jondreas’s careful set up of defenses the night of the attack.

Giles said he’d never known gnolls to tie corpses to trees.

“You instigated it!” I cried. “You used Goldshire itself as bait to tempt Hogger out of hiding!”

“I only took good advice from a fellow traveler in Darkshire,” he said.

My skin crawled. Would that I had my hammer to hurl at him.

“Hogger is slain!” cried Jondreas to the villagers. “His strongest gnolls are dead or wounded! You good people will fear not for gnoll raiders again!”

Marshall Dugan glared. He summoned Jondreas forward. What was said between the two men, I know not. I only know that Dugan pointed towards the western tower, his face full of disgust. Jondreas seemed to accept. He walked through the crowd and mounted his cart and rode away.

“Goldshire militia?” said Marshall Dugan. “You are more loyal than the armored men who should have served you. I commend all of you.”

He watched Jondreas’s cart until he was sure it was beyond earshot.

“And if that Gilnean bounty hunting scum ever returns to your village, please deal with him as you see fit.”

With that, Marshall Dugan mounted his horse and rode off.

To be Continued

Become a Patron!

Comments closed