Dragon Sweat: Scroll 4

THIS STORY IS INTENDED FOR ADULT READING ONLY

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Some mornings you wake up and think you've gone to heaven -- on a broomstick.

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As always, it was the dawn chorus of the birds in the trees behind the hut which woke Hal. Without having to open his eyes he knew that the very first colors of dawn were beginning to stain the blackness of the eastern wall through the chinks in the planks. Yet, even though he knew where he was, Hal's head was still full of the most incredible dream of any night of his life. A beautiful witch, a shape changing familiar, the same beautiful woman kneeling at his feet calling herself his slave -- and that was the least part of his imaginings! Gregory beaten down in a sorcerers' duel, the King's hands burnt off, Hal standing under the eyes of the collected nobility as Gregory's robe had fallen upon him! What fever must he have been in to have culled up such madness?

Indeed, it seemed he had not yet entirely broken through out of night fevers for his body seemed to be clad in some garment of impossible smoothness whilst underneath him was a bed so deep and soft that only a god or goddess lying on a cloud could ever have known its equal.

Hal's sleep glued eyelids suddenly broke open. Complete darkness still enveloped the interior of the hut. He stretched out a hand and felt around him. A pillow underneath his head almost as big as himself, a pillow of a softness and depth to match the bed he was resting in. His fingers touched a thin wooden post rising high above the bed, with whorls and twists cut into the surface.

He must be still dreaming, still far away in another world, for how else could he be waking up in a noble's canopied bed whilst still inside the dragon hut? Perhaps he could no longer tell the difference between real and false. But mad or bewitched, Hal knew he needed a piss with a desperation that made his groin ache with pain.

He didn't so much get out of the bed as slide over the side, like an otter slithering down a steep river bank, into the loose straw on his hands and knees. The stabbing ends of the stalks and the beaten earth beneath them were reminders of every other day he could remember since he'd begun sleeping in the hut -- reminders that at least something in his life was still the same. He stood up and shook his head in bewilderment. Whatever he was wearing, it felt as fine spun as a spider's web and was hanging like a monk's cowl around his rock hard cock. He moaned again -- he needed to break his locked flesh quickly before his bladder burst.

Something else was moving behind him in the shed, something between a shadow and a sinuous presence, something which padded more lightly than a stalking lynx over and around the piles of straw. Hal strained his arms to lift one of the sagging doors and swing it open. Josephine's head nudged against his back as the gap widened, and then she was brushing past him, her wings stretching out as soon as there was room enough. As the dragon launched herself into a sky littered with slowly fading stars Hal seized the bucket on the side of the well, dropped it down the shaft and quickly hauled it up again after hearing a splash below. The chill water inside the bucket he slopped over his prick, the sudden shock making him gasp and softening his stiffness. Within seconds he was standing against the hut, resting his forehead on the planks, sighing with relief as he let out a stream of sharp smelling piss.

Then he looked down and saw a blur of white patterns on the black material ruffed up around his wrists. A silky black gown with white markings on it? A bed inside the hut? Why couldn't his mind wake up with the rest of him and simply admit that he'd spend yesterday emptying shit pots, in just the same way as he was going to spend this day and all the other days of his life?

A drop of piss splashed back from the wall and landed in the deep scratches at the top of his right leg. Hal gasped at the burning sensation in his red raw flesh, cursing Morgana's familiar and its claws. Fully awakened now yet frozen with shock, Hal stood like a statute, his cock still held between his fingers, working through a chain of logic he couldn't break. He had the pain, so he must have the wound, so everything he remembered about that fucking big cat trying to claw off his balls must have happened. And if that had happened, then every other impossible thing he was remembering must also have happened. Either that or he completely barking mad, madder than a March hare.

Hal looked up at the mountain peaks looming clear and sharp against the dawn's advancing red banner. No, if madness it was, it was still lodged inside his head refusing to go away. Especially the madness that was Morgana le Fay. With sudden decision Hal pulled the robe up over his body, over his head. He walked back to the well, laid the robe gently on the surrounding wall, then dropped the bucket and hauled it up again, brimming to the top. Nearby was a crude table, made of trimmed branches split in half and lashed together with strips of leather.

Hal put the bucket down on the table, leaned forward, pushed his face deep into the icy water, letting it claw at his cheeks and eyes. Air bubbled out from his mouth, out of his nose. His body tingled from the shock. He stood up, eyes still closed, lifted up the bucket and sluiced half of the contents over his naked body, gasping and grunting as shivers spread out from his spine.

Hal reached inside the leather bag hanging from the side of the table and took out a scrap of soap and a rag. As he soaped himself he decided he wasn't mad after all -- so why was he suddenly smelling hot bacon and freshly baked bread?

He picked up a wooden mug hanging beside the bag and sluiced the last traces of lather from his skin, then began to rub himself dry with a piece of sheepskin. A gentle breeze curled cold fingers around his balls as he wiped them. The wind didn't bother Hal, but the aroma of freshly prepared food mixed in with the moving air continued to tease and puzzle him. Wherever it was coming from, the source was very close. Hal's eyes moved downwards, onto the washing table. Next to the bucket a square shape had appeared, square and white at the top. It was still too dark to see exactly what it was but there seemed to be a arch above the square shape. Hal touched the shape with gently exploring fingers -- wickerwork. A wickerwork basket with a carrying handle and a pure white cloth tucked over the appetite arousing contents of the basket. So who had carried it here?

"A good morning to you, Master."

Morgana! Standing with a few paces of him, yet still cloaked in the darkness so that he could only see her outline. As tall and wide as a Icelandic warrior and yet reminding Hal of a swan, somehow graceful even when not moving.

"Your dragon, Master. Does she dance every morning?"

Hal looked up, far up into the sky, where the rays of the sun were fanning out above the peaks. Alone in the shining heavens was a tiny shape, twisting and turning on silver wings set on a silver body. Morgana's word was well chosen. Josephine did seem to be dancing, although he'd never thought of that of it that way before.

"No, not every morning, though more often of late. But only in the last few months. She never did it before. She would flap her wings like a cock when the sun rose, but not fly. And 'tis only when she flies so high and so early that she takes that look of polished steel on her skin. I know not why, though I've tried to find out."

"Eat, Master, before your food cools. Unless you would have it served at a breakfast table in the castle by servants."

"No need for that."

No need at all for anything but the food -- he was ravenous. Hal's hand moved towards his robe to dress his nakedness, then checked itself. What might happen if he should accidentally soil it with grease? A robe woven with magic was clothing which might take revenge for such disrespectful treatment. So Hal stayed in his state of nature as he seized meat in one hand and bread in the other, one and the other hand raised alternatively to his mouth as he reveled in the quality of the food. Meat and the best of rich wheat ground bread! A whole basketful of it. The King himself wouldn't be eating any better.

Morgana suddenly laughed and Hal felt a shiver that owed nothing to damp skin stroked by a cold breeze. It was unlikely that Argud was eating anything at all this morning. And there was nothing at all about Morgana which promised anything good from any laugh of hers. He looked warily at her with shreds of bacon fat hanging from his lips.

"Well, Duke Merlin, there is much work to do before I can present you to foreign courts as a diplomat and a courtier. Especially in improving your table manners."

Hal felt his face crease in puzzlement until he could swallow the food in his crammed mouth and answer.

"I, a courtier? I think you speak in riddles to make mock of me. Though I know that King Argud named me a Duke so that I could go with Josephine to any place where she might find a mate. I believe he wanted me to be of some rank to negotiate with foreign nobles for stud rights for a male dragon, if there be such a thing in captivity anywhere."

"That is true, Master. You were to control the dragon and I was to control you. And when we had found a male dragon we were to bring back eggs enough to breed fighting dragons for Argud. Then he would defeat the Empire."

It was Hal's turn to laugh. "Yes, something of the same sort he said to me as you were fighting Gregory. Even with the portcullis between us I dared not tell him what I thought of his madness. Fight the Empire! As well try to knock down yonder castle with a straw. No, none of that madness for me. I seek no foreign courts, nor fancy ways."

"And what about Josephine?"

"Josephine?"

"Why do you think she is flying so high, and with such coloring? Is it not clear that's she's displaying herself thus every new day in the hope of finding a mate?"

"Oh."

Hal blinked and looked upwards again as Josephine begin a long spiral earthwards. Again, what the witch had set had put his mind along a new path, but seemingly a true one. If a dragon wanted to be seen by another dragon what better way than to fly high at the start of each day and cavort in the brightest of light in a blazing silver coat. If there was another dragon with forty leagues looking skywards. . . another dragon. A pang of regret closed around his heart.

"But there are no more dragons, I'm sure of it. There haven't been any dragons since the old legends were written."

"Perhaps. But you found one, Master. How did that come about?"

Hal hesitated. This was something he had never told anybody before, for it was not a story which any mere turd hauler could tell without being the butt of a thousand jests.

"I had a dream. About a great tree with red and white leaves. The red leaves were as bright as blood and the white leaves like fresh snow. Then I woke up, in the middle of the night and a gale of wind was blowing, so strongly I thought the roof would blow off my family's hut. And then I heard a faraway noise in the forest, a sound like a big tree being blown over."

The first beams from the climbing sun to find a gap through the mountain passes fell across Morgana's face. On her tresses of black hair, on her perfectly shaped high arching eyebrows, on dark lashes which somehow seemed to curve up at the corners in a way he'd never seen on any woman's face before. But most of all the beams fell on two golden sparks set deep between the dark lashes: eyes which reflected the sunlight like crystal shields. Eyes which saw everything but showed nothing. The words stuck in Hal's throat as he struggled to continue his account.

"Yes, Master? What then?"

"It -- it seemed strange, to dream of a falling tree and then to awake and hear one toppling over in the forest. I got up and went outside the hut. It was a full moon and the tree tops were bent over by the howling wind like reeds in a river's flood. I picked up a stick and laid it in the direction the wind was coming from. I thought the noise had been blown along by the wind so that would be the way to go to find the fallen tree. I didn't know why I wanted to find it. I went back to my bedding skins and back to sleep. I thought it wouldn't matter to me anymore in the morning. But somehow it did. I woke up early and it was so calm there wasn't a leaf fluttering. But I went in the direction the stick pointed."

"I walked a long way -- or at least, I walked for what seemed a long time. There were lots of bramble patches, rotten tree trunks to scramble over, a swampy area. I tried to use the sun to keep going in the right direction. I had a large sack of rags I tied to branches to mark my trail. I had a axe as well but I was frightened to use it to cut guiding cuts on the trees in case a bear or a pack of wolves heard the noise and came after me. I was getting very frightened at how far I'd gone into the forest and I'd almost run out of rags when I found the tree I'd heard fall."

Hal noticed that although Josephine was still circling downwards she was doing it over the castle, as though she wanted to make sure nothing unusual was happening there. The nothing, perhaps, being a crowd of nobles in full armor getting ready to make a dawn attack on the dragon hut. The dragon was clever, clever, and once again he wondered what had happened to the rest of her kind. Probably they had been hunted to extinction when some human had found the same secret of dragon sweat's power to arouse lust that Hal himself had discovered.

"And then you found the egg -- just one?"

Hal hastily summoned his wits back to answer Morgana's insistent questions.

"Yes, inside the earth that was in the middle of the tree's roots. Only one. I took it and came away. I was frightened and had much work to do in the castle, so I came back as soon as I'd picked up the egg. And I hid it away in a pile of dung where it would get warm. But I never thought anything would hatch from it."

"And yet you told nobody?"

This was no self professed slave talking, this was a master addressing to an inferior. A sorcerer talking to an apprentice, mayhap. But Hal had no interest at all in seeking a dispute with the witch in whatever role she wanted to act out. That would have been as sensible as jousting against an armored knight with a pea pole for a lance.

"I'm a shit carrier. I don't have anybody to talk to. And if I'd told anybody in my family about it they'd probably have boiled the egg and eaten whatever was inside it."

"But after the dragon hatched you showed the King where you'd found the egg?"

"Yes. I had to and the rags were still on the branches to show the way. Hundreds of men were sent into the forest and dug all around the tree but they found nothing."

"What about the leaves on it? Were they as you dreamed them?"

Hal shook his head: "No, they weren't red and white, just green. It was only an ordinary beech tree. A high one before it fell, but there was nothing different about it from all the other beech trees in the forest."

"Red and white, red and white," the witch repeated, apparently thinking the matter over.

The bar of light across Morgana's face had slipped further down. A nose, not snub, but nearer that description than any other, high cheek bones, a touch of gold in the lobe of close set ears, the gleam of the earrings matching that of the witch's eyes. Eyes that never seemed to blink.

Behind Morgana's brooding figure, Josephine had flown away from the castle walls, apparently getting ready to land outside the hut. No longer silver, now she was dressed in casual day wear of light green with traces of yellow along her flanks. Hal knew enough about the dragon to know she yearned for something, and now he could guess well enough what it was. How long had he himself stared helplessly at desirable girls who only laughed at him? How much worse for Josephine, with no other dragon at all for company, let alone to couple with?

It was a thought which matched the final illumination of the bottom part of Morgana's face. Small and pouting lips, a dimpled chin, full cheeks. Somehow she reminded Hal of a young maid sulking over some childish tiff. Which led to a further and worrying thought.

"Chelinde and Caelia: where are they?" Hal asked. "Are they all right?"

"Certainly, Master. They're with their mother. I sent them home because I could not risk you coupling with them now, as I'm sure you wish to do."

"Mmm."

Hal hadn't thought at all about settling back into that big soft warm bed with the soft warm bodies of the sisters on each side of him. But now the suggestion had been made -- wait, what had the witch just said?

"You can't risk me having a fuck?" Oh Odin, was he going to end up as frustrated as Josephine again?

"Not just yet. We have a powerful spell to cast today -- no, you have a powerful spell to cast. To strip Gregory of his powers and lock him out of this world."

The bread inside Hal's stomach seemed to be swelling, as if still in the oven, growing and pressing against the walls of his stomach.

"I can't do anything against Gregory -- I'm not a warlock. You may be stronger than he is but I'm nothing."

"Which is what you'll stay unless you take another adept's power. There is only so much magic in the world. None of it ever disappears, none of it ever appears. The only work to become a worker in magic is to take over the hoarded power of another magician. I can help you conquer Gregory but you must play the vital part in the ceremony."

Again, as often of late, Hal was completely baffled by the turn of events.

"What is it that you think I can do?"

"You must take over a spell I shall cast, make it your own, and then blow on it as if it were a burning twig until it has become a mighty fire. And there is your bellows waiting to be used."

Now there was another smile on Morgana's face, an even more twisted one than usual. She held her hand up, palm outward, and a flicker of sunlight seemed to turn in midair, as if hitting a mirror, falling directly onto Hal's groin. He stared down in horrified fear of seeing his most precious possession suffer the same awful fate as Argud's hands. But his cock was still there, and not only present but stirring as if it could draw energy from the sun like Josephine.

"Oh, Odin," Hal muttered.

He wasn't thinking about anything to do with girls, he was thinking about how much breakfast was left in the basket. Well, all right, just a quick thought about sharing that big bed in the shed with Caelia and Chelinde, a very, very quick thought, but that was all. He lifted his eyes, tried to pretend the rearing head and neck down there was nothing to do with him. But the warmth and the tingle coming from the witch's palm -- by all the gods and trolls, that wasn't pure innocent sunlight. It was like water laced with dragon sweat. Was that what the witch was doing, letting him know she had seen through his childish tricks?

Morgana lowered her hand, the ray of light faded away, but his cockstand was still up and sniffing the wind as keenly as before, as if hunting for the scent of a hot cunt.

"Master, do those scratches from Ymir's claws still pain you?"

"Yes."

"Then sit on the well wall and spread your legs so I can apply some salve."

Hal threw the damp sheepskin on top of the wall and perched his skinny buttocks on it. As the witch moved closer he stared at her face, and then at her long fingers as she lifted a tiny pot up into the light and touched the contents of the container with their tips. His hard cock stayed as firm as a scepter resting in a monarch's lap. Those long fingers and those lightly smeared fingertips pressed down gently between his balls and the top of his leg. At their touch the pain from the scratches faded away as if by magic -- well, yes, by magic. And Hal's manhood quivered with raging lust on his boy's body.