Aurion Ch. 03

They also built bridges, ropes, rope swings and zip-lines to travel from Marksmen's tree stands (tree perch with enough space to stand or sit camouflaged with Longbow or Crossbow) to bolt-thrower's nest (heavily camouflaged armored treehouse with firing slots and supplies: food, bows, crossbows, arrows, bolts, darts, javelins, spears, swords, axes and hammers and heavy weapons). This gave them hidden access to a treetop area of operation on the canopy of the forest as well as underground tunnels for both safe retreat, unexpected attacks and safe rooms, hospitals, kitchens, stables and training grounds. The area around their fort was very well protected and well hidden. The decoy fort naturally had many traps both inside and out of the camp.

Their base of operations was now prepared, it was time to begin a Guerrilla War in earnest. He said as much to his comrades around the fire.

"Lord Kandor had not only supplied us with wealth, food and weapons but, most importantly, information. And now that I have him infamous Blackmail Files, I control him and all those under his thumb. He has also proved quick useful as a source of information regarding the enemy. We will keep him around for now. Once he runs out of information or usefulness we can decide whether or not to execute or ransom him," explained Michael,"from here, we must defeat or unite the remaining Northern Lords before we can turn on the Demon Army besieging the Elven Forest in the west. We will be doing what we can to cut off their resupply and send long range attacks at their rear positions as well as intense phycological warfare. But our immediate focus is uniting the humans in the North."

"Where do we head out in the morning?" asked Kokochun

"We need a thorough scouting of the extended area out further around our position. After that, we shall be heading North to Winterhaven, Diana's home."

"Your home now too, you mean?" Kokochun teased.

"Winterhaven would be a perfect place from which to defend the North. Probably why the spot was picked in the first place. But you must be careful whom you trust," Amila advised, "I can make a special dormant toxin that a man takes when he pledged his allegiance or makes an oath to you and it is completely harmless as long as the guy doesn't break his oath. If he does, all of the blood in his body grows extremely thin and his immune system turns on his body and attacks in any and every way it can. Millions of White Blood Cells attack his own central nervous system and the unnaturally anti-coagulated blood is thinned to the point where the extremely high blood pressure from the toxin, fear, adrenaline and anticoagulant properties cause the hyper-thinned blood to bleed through internal barriers and start to emerge from all open orifices. The eyes, ears, nose, mouth and even the fingernail beds and genitals."

"Uh, that may be a little extreme but you might as well prepare some of that 'Oath Kill-Juice' or whatever it's called, since there's a good chance that it'll allow me to spare the lives of some defeated enemies that I would otherwise likely have to eliminate."

"No problem Michael", Amila playfully responded in a sing-song voice. "I'll make sure to have them prepared along with more of that 'Black Powder' that you showed me. Im so grateful that you gifted me with that formula and I promise never to share it with anyone unless you tell me to.

The amazing thing is how simple it is in it's most basic form: carbon, sulfur and saltpeter. While basic, that will give you a consistent and powerful explosive products that needs only flame to activate. The tighter packed and more strongly contained the powder is!"

"Thank you, dear," Michael responded before turning to the others, "Tomorrow we will have a better idea of what to expect in this area. Everyone best get some rest tonight, no way to know what tomorrow brings!" Michael responded

After that, he quickly hurried back to his tent, knowing Kokochun would already be waiting for him. As it turned out, he wasn't wrong. The two lovers had a single quickie consisting of him holding her up in mid air while using just his hands and arms to bounce her up and down on his giant rod as her perky breasts shook and bounced out of the leather bikini that failed to cover her upper half. Her lower half was stretched obscenely wide open as Michael's thickened cock was more than a quarter of the diameter of her tiny waist and he labia looked pushed to the max and his slow thrusts combined with the way he was holding her off the ground gave Kokochun the best sexual sensations of her entire life. As Michael sucked at her breasts, he never touched her tiny nipples but kept her on the edge before he changed his thrusts and clamped down on her little nubs she exploded with no warning and no control. As Michael continued to slide himself into her at that particular angle, she orgasmed continuously as the hugely thick shaft moved at an angle that rubbed her anus, slid along her clitoris and ended up grinding into her G-spot. In no time at all she had passed out cold.

:..:

"So, what's the plan?" asked Felix

"We get this information from the former lord Kandor while the men scout our current surroundings as well as the route ahead."

"And women. The men and women." Felix smiled.

"Of course. How inconsiderate of me." Michael said with mock chastisement, "hell, as far as I can tell, the women riding with us are at least as much man as the rest."

Felix just smiled in response. He had grown to see Michael as a friend as well as a lord and commander over the past weeks. There was just something so pure and trusting about the man, though it was obvious he was no fool.

As they held their conversation, the former lord Callen Kandor was sitting at the bottom of a pit, soiled in his own mess and desperately trying to keep himself away from the occasionally moving Dorian Vipers. There was no way for him to know that Michael milked the vipers for their venom and that each day he exchanged the current leashed snakes and replaced them with those who had just been killed that day. After all, the man was of little use to him dead. A healthy and robust man could just about survive a single bite to the extremities by a Dorian Viper but it was an excruciating process that often required amputation if the circumstances were right and proper treatment was not found.

Michael had ordered all of his men to collect any venomous creatures, fierce beasts and poisonous plants they saw on their matches and patrols. He made sure each patrol had nets made from triple braided hemp, sinew, twine, rawhide and steel thread. He also made sure they had non-barbed arrows covered in a water soluble resin made of highly concentrated extracts of Opium Papaver and Valerian root with young Atropa Belladona sprouts, dried and powdered antibiotic mold, rock salt dissolved in boiled raw honey, mint, highly watered down baby Steppe Cobra venom to be used as sedative darts. Lassos and 10 foot lances that had notches, hooks and loops to mount the lassos around their necks for greater leverage and reach, while the lances had the heads of giant Boar spears with double barbe-ended cross guards based under a long and thick but narrow leaf shaped spearhead equally suited to cutting as thrusting that was attached to an Black Mountain Ash Tree wood shaft with a sheet steel sleeve highly covering it, giving the appearance of a solid steel spear and strength just short of it but weight much less. He also issued smaller, tighter nets and burlap sacks along with a couple smaller burlap pieces meant to wrap up the mound of soil around the roots of poisonous plants.

He did this both to deny the deadly resources to others but to also use them to advantage. Exactly what, he wasn't sure. But the snakes did come in handy with tenderizing lord Kandor for interrogation. He had already been begging to spill his guts and rambling on for hours. Unknown to him, someone was recording every word and behavior through a small spy hole built into a tunnel adjacent to the pit.

:..:

The snakes were driving him crazy. He couldn't sleep and there was no food but an occasional piece of stain bread and raw meat. He had to compete with a multitude of rats for all of it. They had gone out and set traps all through camp as well as around the perimeter and nearby land. The resulting rats, mice and vermin were then thrown in with him to feed the snakes as well as himself.

The occasional stale bread was simply a formality as he couldn't live in thrice the amount they tossed down to him, forcing him to learn to hunt the rats and vermin for food. The fact that the snakes were on rawhide leashes helped some to calm his nerves and to herd around his prey. If he sat still enough, sooner or later, one would climb onto his body or within reach and he would snatch it and squeeze.

He tried so hard for the first three days to get a fire going of some kind but in the end he simply had had to eat the rat meat raw, gagging all the while.

Later that day, he noticed a rips being lowered the thirty feet down to his twenty by twenty foot pit (between the few rock formations and the snakes leashed around the edges the practical space is certainly limited) and his hope dared to rise that maybe he would be lifted out the this foul cesspool filled with his own waste. Maybe he had been ransomed and he would sleep in a soft bed tonight! Of course, only after a hot lavender bath with a few young slaves!

As it neared, he saw that it wasn't just a rope but also had a small package at the end, tied neatly. A quick shake of the rope and the package fell free as the rope retreated. He quickly scurried over and opened the butcher's paper wrapped package to find one of his favorite native foods! Thauk was a solid shredded beef and ground pork patty with oats, vegetables and cubes of sweetened cornbread, tightly pressed into squares and baked slowly in an underground charcoal pit while wrapped in a maple leaves, covered by mint paste and encased between stones with with river clay. However, this particular thauk had a little something extra added to it.

Amelia had boiled down a light concentrate of tears of the poppy with ground Cocoa leaf paste before adding it to the thauk. The low doses and stimulant properties of the Cocoa would help to hide the effects and therefore presence of the tears of the poppy in the food.

This pattern continued for over two weeks, each delicious thauk he ate had an increasing amount of opium and cocoa, which had him feeling unbelievably good some of the time (despite his situation) though his feces was starting to build up. In his narcotic induced euphoria he continued to unknowingly share information by taking to himself.

Then one day, after more than a month, the thauks stopped being lowered to him three times a day. He wondered what happened and cursed his luck for a whole day. By the second day, he was raving angry and by the third day he was whimpering and shivering while he begged. On the fifth day, he was elated to see another package being lowered down. He opened it and sure enough, it was a thauk! He quickly scarfed down the patty, attributing the different taste to his extreme hunger.

To his extreme surprise, another thauk was lowered down along with a wax sealed amphora of wine just after he finished licking the first from his front fingers. He relished the unexpected meal and started to feel great! He figured it was because of the end of his starvation and the first time he had drank wine since his capture.

After about two hours, he started to feel edgy and anxious. Before long he was feeling even worse than he had before he ate. The chills, the sweats, the paranoia and terror were all coming back harder than ever. He felt physically worse than he had in his entire life and his mind was frantic with panic and fear. It was at that moment he looked up and again saw the rope descending, eliciting mixed feelings in his breast.

After but a moments hesitation, he proceeded to open it, though he could tell it was shaped differently than a thauk. When the small purple and green snake was freed of the packing, he lunged forward and sank it's fangs into the very top of lord Kandor's nose, causing him to scream in enhanced terror and flail about. In his panic, he temporarily forgot of the other snakes lining the room and soon felt fangs sinking into his left leg as he there himself flat and rolled around.

The small, strange snake finally released it's hold on Kamdor's nose before slithering straight up the sheer wall with a capability that none of the other snakes exhibited. As far as the small snake was concerned, she had down her job and was now able to return to the warmth of her mistresses hair and shoulders. She had sensed the greed and corruption in the man and she didn't like it one bit, which made it far easier to bite his big fat nose! She usually didn't like biting anything that wasn't prey, even with the non-lethal of her two venom sacs. It released a non-lethal enzyme that paralyzed the extremities and head, inducing horrifying dreams in all intelligent mammals that made it a very effective biological defense system while her lethal venom did the exact opposite and affected only the heart and lungs with total paralysis.

Her mistress received her warmly. And, as usual, she had hidden a sugared grasshopper somewhere in her hair and she laughed as the eager young snake slithered around frantically in search of what she knew was there. She loved grasshoppers and when her mistress had shown her the delights of sugared grasshoppers in the city, she had been axed that anything could taste so good, so complex. And now they often played this game.

"I assume you served our lord well? He didn't want his prisoner killed but he does want him to be vulnerable to a soft touch and completely broken of his evil greed."

"I did, mistress. Although the man may prove to be greedy to the end. He is just smart enough to cause real trouble, despite his current predicament." The small purple and green snake responded telepathically in the method of all familiars and their masters.

:..:

Michael had finally completed reading the very thorough scouting report of the land around him for miles with systems in place to communicate information or troop movements.

After a month and a few bad drug withdrawals and venomous hallucinations, Lord Kandor was blubbering thanks as Michael ordered him fed an opium/cocoa thauk before being thoroughly bathed, twice, and dressed in fine silks as he was brought to Michael's warm and luxurious tent. Alone. Michael dimly regarded him through an unreadable but impossibly handsome face and Kandor found himself both scared and aroused by a man, for the first time. He told himself it was just the fact that he hadn't ejaculated in more than a month as Michael sat squarely behind his heavy oaken desk with maps, papers and drawings scattered all over.

"Sit." Michael commanded. "And before we start, know that I can tell when I hear a lie, no matter how skilled the deceiver. If you lie to me twice, you go back to the pit for another month. Naturally, you will try to test me by slipping a lie into the mix. It won't work. Now, tell me everything you know about the movements, numbers and composition of the demonic forces.0

"I had little knowledge of the Demon's directly." He whimpered.

"But you were the bank and member of the Raven Council. So tell me about the men-at-arms of the human lords, your fellow traitors to humanity. Tell me all you know about military capabilities and strategies. I grow impatient."

The terrified former lord spilled his guts about his fellow traitors and named them all, but used up his I've lie trying to leave out the leader that they elected as their 'Warden of the North'. Michael reminded him that another lie or half truth would result in a return to the pit.

After that he began to discuss troop strengths and positions, to the best of his knowledge. They spoke late into the night and Michael treated him with courtesy and even respect, which caught him off guard and kept him off balance. As Cal went to retire for the night, he couldn't help but ask Michael about it. His response was just as surprising.

"Despite my initial suspicions, you aren't an evil man. You are weak but that was only a problem because you thought yourself strong and treated all of those below you like objects instead of people. However, now I believe you are beginning to grasp just how small a fish you are, and the Sharks are here. I'm going to give you the opportunity to redeem yourself. And your going to take it because it is not yet too late for you to not only be redeemed but even become a hero in the war to come. Remembered as spoiled young lord who was harshly awoken to the realities of the world and rose to the occasion. And if a heroic desire is not enough to inspire you then know that the only way you will ever reclaim your land and title is to do your damnedest to wake up and become a real man," Michael said practically, "because the Demon's sure as hell wouldn't have let you keep your land. They are masters of treachery and oathbreaking. Why do you think they are sending their human forces out against us while keeping their Demon, Han and even Dark Orcs back. They set lord against lord, neighbor against neighbor, so they can create a giant vacancy that results from all the human lords killing each other. They mean to rule this land and this world, and they will not allow any human to keep a position of true authority. Eventually, you'll see that your defeat at my hands was closer to rescue than defeat. Think on it from an outsiders perspective tonight while you sleep. Goodnight."

As the night grew late, the former lord did just that.

:..:

The next morning, the first of the scouts returned bearing news as well as a small bundle containing a pair of Black Lion cubs, twin females that had been found alone and near death. The Xia riders had warned the pups and found a Doe who had apparently lost her young and was wandering listlessly and with near palpable depression. She never even noticed the riders who mercifully put her down and used her overflowing milk mixed with some warm blood to nourish the pups. Now that they were back at camp there were a few female hounds and several mares where lactating as well. Both cubs we're immediately drawn to Michael as they mewled and tried scrambled forwards him as one. He smiled and accepted both into his embrace as he listened to the much more grim report of the scouts.

"My Prince," the Xia rider excitedly began, "there is a significant force a little over two days match to our north. It appears that they were headed to Kandoris but the entire mounted arm of the force peeled off and are presently heading forwards our position. I don't believe they are aware of our exact position but there are undoubtedly locals who witnessed our passing and probably relayed our general direction. And there are a ton of horse tracks in the soft wet mud that lead to the forest. I believe they are the Knights of the former lord Kandor and their men-at-arms, at least those that were mounted and broke off in our direction. They numbered about two thousand but the main body of troops that kept moving toward Kandoris and was composed entirely of infantry appeared to be almost entirely Myssan mercenaries. Possibly some local levies but not nearly the number you would expect. They appeared to be about 6,000 in number. At least 5,000 were Myssan mercenaries with their dreaded long pikes. They were moving fast, despite being on foot, as they are known to."

Michael thanked the man and had barely handed the twin cubs off to a squealing Amila before another scout thundered up and dismounted with the standards Xia salute, "My Prince, there are many local peasants streaming in to what appears to be a refuge camp at the forest's edge. They flagged us down and announced their support for you and willingness to fight to defend their homes and family from the invaders. Apparently many have alreagdy lost daughters and wives to emboldened bandits or soldiers, Han, Orc and even Demons sating their lust and taking slaves. Should I return to them with a message?"