Bard's Tale 04 - Holly Wood

Once finished with her drink, she cleaned her cup, emptied the grounds, then worked on isometrics as she kept watch.

It was just after midnight when Tahna saw something out of the corner of her eye.

Instantly alert, she crouched down, doing her best to peer into the darkness. There was nothing for two full minutes. Then she saw another brief movement, a slightly darker black moving against the forested gloom.

She debated waking the others. It could just be a deer or another animal curious about the magic.

Tahna took another step, counting to ten, listening intently before taking another. Step by step she moved. Crossing the magical barrier.

She drew her sais and crept forward, more silent than a whisper, listening intently for a branch moving or a leaf rustling. Anything at all out of place.

From behind a tree a shadowed figure jumped out, pointing at her. "Hýpnos!"

Tahna blinked, struggling against the magical charm enfolding itself around her, cajoling her with the promise of peaceful sleep. Her disciplined mind easily shook it off, leaving her angry.

When she focused where she'd seen the figure, it had vanished. Before the monk could react, a hand from within the tree next to her reached out and grabbed her shoulder. "Hýpnos!"

This time, the darkness swallowed her up.

* * * * *

It was the grey light of the morning that woke Tia, causing her to bolt upright.

Her heart hammering, she looked around the tent. The warm spot against her back wasn't her husband, but rather the gently snoring bard. No Tahna, no husband.

She should have been relieved by Tahna long before dawn!

Rapidly putting on socks and boots, she scrambled for her backpack and clothes, Tia opened the flap and stepped outside. The campfire was out, and no sign of either of them.

She dispelled the circle of privacy, and immediately saw a body about five meters away, sprawled on the ground. Reaching back into the tent, she grabbed Mindal's leg and shook it. "Awake, Mindal! Awake! Possible injured!"

While Mindal struggled out of the tent, Tia rushed over.

Tahna!

Rolling her over, she checked her sister's vital signs, heart pounding with fear for her sister. Fingers to the monk's neck, she found a steady pulse. Alive!

Next came detect poison, which thankfully yielded a negative result. Then detect magic. Tahna's sais and bracers glowed, as the priestess expected. But a residual trace effect covered the monk's entire body. Adding a divination spell, she learned it was a charm-spell, cast by one of the fay.

Tia dispelled the faerie glamor keeping the monk asleep as Mindal hurried over, stuffing her shirt into her trousers. "Is she okay?"

"She's been spelled, but no apparent harm otherwise." She patted Tahna's cheek. "Tahna? Wake up! Tahna!"

"What? Oh. Ow. My head's pounding." The monk put her hand to the side of her temple.

As Tahna slowly sat up, Tia cast remove pain, and touched the spot. "Better?"

The monk exhaled gratefully. "Much. Thank you."

"What happened?" Mindal demanded. "Where's Reison?"

Alarmed, the monk scrambled to her feet, quickly explaining what she recalled.

Each of them called out for him several times, to no avail. Tahna looked around, found his booted steps in the dirt leading to a tree. The still-damp bark from where he had obviously urinated. No tracks moving away or returning to camp. Nothing.

Grimly, Tia ordered her sisters, "Make breakfast. I'm going to cast replay the past to see what happened after Tahna was taken out."

The monk cooked while the bard cleaned their bedding and rolled sleeping bags. Backpacks were retrieved from the tent. Reison's pack was still there. As was all of his clothing -- except for his boots.

As the sisters finished, they approached Tia, startled by the ghostly image of Reison standing up, wearing only his boots. Saw him yawn and sleepily walk outside the circle, calling out for Tahna.

"Over here," they heard a reply. Definitely female.

Reison walked over to the tree, held his half-erect cock, other hand braced on the bark. They watched his butt reflected in the dim light of the camp. Heard the hissing spray of him liberally dousing the tree. "What are you doing over there, Tahna?" they heard him ask.

"Man's impressive," Mindal murmured. "What was that, fifty seconds?"

"Fifty-three," Tahna corrected quietly.

"Hush!" Tia snapped.

In the ghostly replay of the spell's revelation, the dim light of the larger moon above their camp broke through the trees, brightly illuminating Reison. From his flank a small, nubile woman slipped out from behind a tree and approached him. Dressed in a gauzy toga. Slightly pointed ears.

Reison whirled, noticing the female visitor.

"You're not Tahna," he observed in High Elven.

"No. I'm better," she answered, her Elven words heavily accented. She stepped closer.

"Um, I'm naked and married." He looked around, taking a step back. "Tahna? Where are you?"

The fay-woman stepped back, put her hand on the tree next to her, then vanished. The next instant, she leaned out of the tree trunk next to the young half-elf, touching him on the shoulder.

"Hey! What--"

"Saginévo!" The Hellene word meaning to enthrall or to charm.

Reison froze, staring blankly.

The dryad exited the tree, taking his hand. He didn't resist. She reached down and fondled his cock, then dropped to her knees and licked it. It visibly pulsed. The dryad repeated tasting him, and Reison stiffened until he was fully erect.

Tahna and Mindal both growled.

The fay-woman jumped to her feet, giggling and clasping her hands. Speaking Hellene, she told him, "Forget everything and come with me, my handsome one. We are going to have so much fun together!" She stepped into the tree, and tugging on his hand, he stepped into the tree after her. And vanished.

The spell ended.

"Fuck," the bard muttered as she stood up. "He's been kidnapped by a dryad."

"That cunt has stolen our husband!" the monk snarled. "If she thinks she's going to keep him, she is sadly mistaken, and I will take great pleasure in teaching her the error of her ways."

Tia was angry as well. Then she looked at her sister. Beneath her sister's bluster, there was distress, too. "We'll get him back, Tahna."

"Well, come on! He disappeared into the tree. Let's get him out!" Angry, she kicked the tree.

Mindal shook her head. "Tia, you didn't detect any strong magic on this tree? Yeah. They're gone, Tahna."

"Gone? Explain that!"

Tia said, "Dryads have access to a lot of plant- and earth-based magic. One of those is the spell tree walk. It allows the dryad and whomever she touches to slip from tree to tree."

Walking over to her backpack, the priestess pulled off her nightgown and slipped on her indigo tunic, buttoning it up quickly. Rapidly slipped on her long skirt and belt.

"She's right," Mindal confirmed. "In an hour, she could be almost a score of kilometers away. She's had hours. We're on foot, and we don't know the direction she went. She could be days away from here."

A look of despair crossed the monk's face, and a tear escaped. "I won't let him disappear, too. I won't."

Comprehension appeared on the bard's face. Going to the monk, she put her arms around her. "We'll get him back, Tahna. We aren't giving up. It's just that finding him isn't going to be a simple task."

Tahna looked miserable. "She's going to have her way with him, isn't she."

"Yes," Tia confirmed, stuffing her nightgown into her backpack. "Not much we can do about it. The focus now is to figure out where they went."

"I will rip out every strand of her scurvy hair from her cursed head," the monk seethed. "I want her broken and bleeding at my feet!"

"We have to find him first," the priestess stated. "We eat breakfast, we break camp, I'll cast some spells, and we set off. Hopefully in the right direction."

"Can you do really do it, Tia?" Mindal asked. "We've no trail to follow. If Silmodan or Armand or Hapu were here, they could use magic to track him."

"Priest magic," Tia answered. "Maybe not as fast or as direct as a mage's spells, but I almost always get good results whenever I use divination. We will get our husband back."

At Tia's insistence, they quickly ate their meal. Using the spell break camp, the tent was expertly broken down and returned to its canvas cover. Tahna and Mindal divided Reison's backpack and gear among themselves, and Tia used a few castings of lighten load so they could travel faster.

When they were ready, the priestess said a prayer, then cast the spell divination and using her holy symbol as a direction guide, she asked it to point in the direction where Reison was located. West was the answer they received.

With Tia in the lead, the three women set off, determined to find and recover their husband.

Initially, they stopped hourly so that Tia could repeat the spell, to both help narrow the direction and to confirm it. To ease their passage through bracken and thicker undergrowth near the riverbank, she also cast pass without trace upon each of them, enabling them to move through such barriers without effort. To further assist their travel, Tia added easy march, allowing them to travel further between rest breaks.

Despite the sometimes very thick forest and remarkably rough terrain, the sisters made nearly twenty-five kilometers by the end of the day. Where the terrain was especially formidable, a wind walk spell allowed them a quick route past the nigh-impassable barrier.

As the third sun began to set, however, Tia called a halt.

"You have spells from the animal sphere," Mindal said. "You can give us the ability to see in the night. Come on, Tia. This is Reison we're talking about. Our husband."

"I, too, am ready to press on," Tahna urged.

Tia shook her head. "I'm tired. We could continue traveling, but I'm under half my spell strength. I've cast divination at least ten times today. I want to find him, but I don't want us to bypass them either. That means having to backtrack and it could be hours before we discover that error. I'm trying the best I can. But no night travel."

The bard nodded reluctantly. "Tia's right. We've been running all day. We can see somewhat to try and avoid running into things. Dead falls and the like. If we try it at night, we're asking for trouble. These aren't our stomping grounds. This is barely on the edge of the wood Elven territory. We could run smack-dab-in-the-middle of trouble, and one or more of us get hurt before we were even aware of things."

"All right," the monk grudgingly agreed.

"Besides," Tia added, "All of us need to eat. And I need to sleep and pray to restore my spells. Once we are close, I will use the spell commune with nature. It will allow me to find the dryad's lair. But it's a difficult and draining spell. It takes an hour to cast, and I will be tired out for several hours afterward. I can only cast it once a month, so I need to make sure we are close enough for the spell to work."

Tahna looked to the bard for more information about the dryad. "She won't hurt him, will she?"

Mindal shook her head. "No. She clearly took him for her lover."

"Why him, though?"

"Bad luck?" The bard shrugged. "Dryads are usually in wilder areas, with satyrs to help the dryads increase their grove. She could be trying to establish a new grove of her own. It's springtime, and maybe she just wanted some love."

"It's not love!" Tahna snapped. "She charmed him. Used her magic to enslave his mind. Controlling him. Raping him, Mindal!"

"She's a dryad," Mindal replied. "I hear what you're saying, Tahna. I'm angry she took him, too. When we find her, I will help kick her ass. But . . . I don't know. We can't exactly apply human laws to her. Dryads don't look at things like humans or even elves do. They have the bodies of human women, but they are often focused entirely on preserving or expanding the forest and on spreading fertility, especially their own. We won't know why she took him in particular until we find them and can ask her."

"I don't want to ask her anything," Tahna growled. "She stole him from us. We rescue him and we kill her."

"Yes, she's charmed him, but she's not really hurting him. I'd settle for giving her a punch in the nose and demanding that she swears never to touch him again."

"Forced sex is rape, Mindal. How do you think he's going to feel when the spell's broken and he remembers everything?"

"Awful, I expect. I've never thought too much about the male side of it. Our sex organs are inside our bodies. Not only do we have to deal with the pain and humiliation of being forced, there's the potential to become pregnant by your rapist. Men don't have to deal with that."

"They may brush it off," Tia said. "But they are more used to being in charge. For a lot of men, it's less about the sex act itself than it is about being helpless. Under the control of another. A lot of men are concerned with hierarchy and social rank, and how they will be viewed about being captive. Reison will be one of different ones. He is less concerned with rank and privilege and more with his sense of honor. He takes his loyalty to us very seriously. Remember, he did the bare minimum with the women at the temple because he was saving himself for us."

"You're right, Tia," Mindal replied. "To answer your question, Tahna, I don't know. Do our best to help him to understand we don't hold him to blame for what happened, that we love him. Help him know that the body responds to stimuli that the mind and heart would reject. A woman getting raped lubricates solely due to the thrusting. She can even orgasm, despite a heart filled with terror and revulsion. It doesn't diminish the humiliation, and unless the woman understands the difference, she may even feel self-loathing, believing by her own body betrayed her."

"How did you get so smart about this sort of thing?" Tia asked. "Nothing's happened to you, has it? Something you've hidden from us?"

"Uh, no. Thankfully." The bard blushed. "I guess I listened to my big sister more than I let on."

The priestess nodded as she smiled. "Imagine that."

"Well, my point is, maybe we treat him the same way we would treat a woman who was raped. Giving him love and patience. Giving him support. Let him have space when he needs it, but also encouraging him to talk, too. Not treating him like he was broken or different. Telling him it was not his fault. That's a biggie."

"It wasn't his fault," the monk avowed, wiping at her eyes. "We have to make him understand that! Because . . . it was mine."

Tia's head snapped around at that.

Exasperated, Mindal shook her head. "What? Are you crazy? How could you be to blame for him getting kidnapped?"

"I saw the signs someone was around. Instead of waking you, I checked it out on my own. I knew better, but . . . I don't know why I didn't alert anyone first. If I had raised the alarm, he wouldn't have been kidnapped." The monk sat on the ground, staring off into the brush, wiping at her eyes.

Mindal crouched down in front of Tahna. "Instead, she could have charmed all of us, and still taken him, and left us sitting there, helpless under the charm. Sitting around for days, not eating or drinking until the charm wore off. Or dying, if her power was strong enough to keep us under. Or becoming helpless food for monsters. No, Tahna, I prefer this outcome to the alternatives."

The bard was worried. Her sister was having an emotional meltdown. She had never seen her normally-calm-and-collected sister like this before. Tia had warned her about it, but actually seeing it was distressing. She looked to Tia for support.

The priestess nodded to the bard before addressing the monk. "Stop blaming yourself, Tahna. You getting spelled could have happened to anyone one of us. It is what it is. Besides, blame is not helping. We need to focus on finding Reison and dealing with the dryad. We are not giving up and we will get him back."

Tahna glared at her big sister, tears spilling from her anguished face. "Don't you get it, Tia? He's been charmed. He's under her complete control. That bitch has had him all day. Touching him. Getting him hard. Making him put his cock inside her scummy hole. Maybe . . . probably coming on him. Stealing his sperm! He's probably been inside her three or four times already--"

From the corner of her eye she spied the look on Mindal's face. Tahna aimed her anger at her little sister. "What? You know something! Okay, master of lore! Tell me what you know!"

Looking away, Mindal quietly answered, "She's a dryad, Tahna. Uh, you know, a fay creature? Remember what I said? Trees? Earth? Associated with fertility? Stories are they give the man a potion to drink. Dryads' milk. They can go at it all day, nonstop. Maybe even more times than what he was able to do with us with Tia's priest-magic helping."

Tahna squeezed her eyes shut, taking a long, shuddering breath. "Goddess."

"Stop it, Tahna. I'm as furious about this as you are!" Tia snapped. "We all want him back. This isn't about you, Tahna. Cry or scream if you need to, but then get your head out of your ass. We need your help. We need your focus. All three of us working together to get our husband back -- where he belongs. This is survivable. I'd rather this than him being tortured or killed and eaten. That would be a hundred times worse, and you know it!"

"He's my mate! I will rip out her black heart and stomp it into dust. And if she's harmed a single hair on his head, I will gouge out her eyes and rip off every single strand of hair on her head. And then I will kill her."

"And if she's pregnant? Will you still kill her, Tahna? Think about that. If she's pregnant, that child is part of him. Would you deliberately end his child? Would you? Could you?"

The monk fisted her hands, tears spilling freely, she cried out in frustration.

"You heard me, Tahna. No killing."

Tahna jumped to feet, glaring at her sister. "The punishment for rape--!"

"You heard me, Tahna!" Hands on her hips, the priestess glared back. "Use your head, Tahna. Would you have us drag her to a human court and put her on trial? And which court? We are on the edge of the wood Elven lands. They are the nearest civilized court. After what we saw during our last visit here, do you think they would give a whit for what happened? To them, the dryad may not be Elven, but she is faerie. We, however, are human trash. They might even give him back to her and ban us from attempting to remove him! Not that that would stop us, mind you, but still. You, Little Sister, need to get your emotions under control."

Tia stepped closer, her eyes flashing with her own anger. "There can be no punishment without a hearing first to determine guilt. That's canon law and civilized secular law. As a warrior monk that rule should be ingrained into your heart, Tahna Whisper Wind. You listen to me, and hear me good. I am High Priestess and First Wife. There will be no killing! End of discussion."

"So that's how it is? Ignore my feelings? You know what, Tia? Fuck you. Just . . . fuck you!" Furious, Tahna stormed off into the trees, crashing through the underbrush.

"Terrific," Mindal muttered. "Are we going to go after her? We can't let her wander off alone. She's quite tough, but she could get into trouble."

Tia sighed, suddenly feeling drained. "Shit. That could have gone a lot differently. No, Mindal. We'll set camp here. Don't worry. I won't let her be without some protection."

Quickly casting a protection circle, Tia then summoned two aerial servants.

The two wind servants bowed, their sibilant voices speaking in unison. "We come in Her name. What is your command, Priestess?"