Dread Rising

"You know all the girls here then?" Draithan asked. He pulled Alys into his lap and settled her on his cock. Her asshole still red and loose from the fucking, she shivered with delight as he slid into her purse. Jaya stood naked beside Decius and watched with a smile.

"I do. This here is Charming," she said, caressing the long blonde hair of the whore Draithan had surrendered to Decius. "She is a recent acquisition from the Bountiful Coast, as is Alys, but she has adjusted well to her life in the palace. And that," she pointed to the girl in Cassio's arms, "is Azura. She was taken from a coastal village in the Ghostwood earlier this year."

"Enough talk," Decius interrupted. Draithan had already begun to fuck Alys and the sight of it made his cock hard. He knelt Charming and Jaya down on the couch, bent over its back to expose their sexes to him. The wet, pink orifices beckoned to him and he wasted little time in thrusting his cock inside.

His hips slapped against Charming's ass and he fell back into the familiar rhythm. Jaya knelt beside the girl, stroking her hair and kissing her soft red lips. The sight of the courtesan's big tits swinging beneath her caught in Decius' mind and he pulled his cock from the younger girl to thrust it into her companion.

He fucked vigorously, watching the ripples through her plump ass and the swinging of her breasts beneath her. Charming put a white arm around the courtesan's chest and kissed her shyly. Decius responded with a slap on her ass that elicited a squeal. She turned her pretty green eyes toward him and he felt about to come. His thrusting slow for a moment, though he did not withdraw from Jaya.

"Cassio," he barked, "bring your girl up here next to the others. "

The page obeyed and settled Azura onto the couch, bent over the back with her sex presented to his master. Cassio then put a knee on the couch himself, but Decius shook his head.

"I've enough holes to fuck, boy. Go around to the other side and get your cock sucked by this three-headed monster."

Cassio obeyed eagerly. He hurried to the far side of the couch and proudly presented his cock to the three women, who immediately set about pleasuring him with hands and mouths. Cassio's eyes rolled back in his head and his hands fell limply to his sides. Decius feared the young man was about to fall to the floor. But he kept fucking, switching his cock from Jaya to Azura, then back to Jaya and finally to Charming again before starting over again. All the while he could hear the powerful slaps of Draithan's hips behind him, along with the squeals of Alys as she went limp in his arms, overcome by the throes of orgasm.

Cassio came first out of the three of them. His whole body shuddered and he spurted his cum into Jaya's mouth. The veteran courtesan smiled up at him and licked his cock clean. She turned toward Decius and smiled, showing a mouth full of cum. Decius smiled back and fucked her harder. From the other couch came a heavy groan, and Draithan's fucking slowed. Decius turned to see Draithan stand up, the girl hanging from his shoulders with her feet in the air. Droplets of cum fell from her to the floor and the half-elf watched with pleasure. Then he slung the girl over his shoulder and stepped up to Decius' side.

"Well now isn't that a beautiful sight," he said, looking at the three backsides that Decius was fucking in turn. "This is what Torvuls is all about, my sorcerer friend." He leaned forward and gave Jaya's ass a hearty slap. The courtesan giggled in delight.

Decius himself was close to finishing, and yanked his cock out of Azura's purse. He came as he did, and the hot white seed fell across the backs of all three girls, some of it even landing on Cassio's bare chest. The page stifled an awkward laugh and Decius shrugged.

Ever eager to please, Jaya leaned forward to lick him clean and the other girls followed suit. Squeezing the last droplets from his cock, Decius stepped back from the couch. Alys hung over Draithan's shoulder, her breathing coming slower as she came down from climax. Decius brushed an appreciative hand through her golden ringlets and smiled.

"Now, perhaps you are ready to leave?" Draithan said and Decius nodded, his breathing short.

"Just give me a moment to collect my things," he replied. Cassio was already gathering their clothes and dressing himself, so Decius picked up his tunic from where it lay by the door and pulled it over his head. He knelt and strapped on his sandals, followed by his belt that hung his coin purse and personal supply of spice. He bid the girls farewell, Draithan set Alys down on a couch, and the three men departed.

In the luxuriously carpeted hall, they could see through open doors into other salons. In the salon next door, a gaggle of sailors were crowded around a bed in the center of the room upon which lay a couple in heat. The man was dark-skinned and powerfully built, his lover a slender olive-skinned girl with a flat chest. She ley on her back with her legs open so that all gathered there could see the man's cock diving deep inside her. Around the pair stood men stroking their cocks, though whether watching or waiting Decius did not know.

They passed by the room with only a short glance, but Cassio stopped to stare. Decius doubled back to grab his page by the arm and haul him along.

"There will be plenty of time later, come along," he chided.

They had to navigate a small orgy on the stairs, where five women, whether whores or waitresses he did not know, were bent over and fucked roughly by a filthy gang of pirates. The pirates paid them little mind as they passed and from their bloodshot eyes and ruddy faces, Decius could see that they were heavily drunk. As he pushed past them, one pirate threw back his head and came with a roar, his seed splashing across the chest of his whore and nearly falling onto Decius' robes. With a sneer of disgust, the sorcerer shoved past the naked girl and continued down the stairs.

The next floor of the Black Lotus was much the same, though were more closed doors that hid the sights behind them. Only the sounds of fucking and the cries of ecstasy betrayed what was happening. Decius wasted little time in descending to the first-floor common room.

A grand staircase connected the common room to the lowermost floor of private suites and salons. The common room's ceiling was painted in a garish scene of gods and heroes fucking, the walls covered in frescoes showing more of the same. Scattered about the common room were a mismatched assortment of tables and chairs, filled with patrons and whores alike. Girls danced naked on the tables as others plied the rows between the seats in search of customers. Some men grabbed the first whore they saw as they entered, while others seated themselves to play a discerning customer and still others merely sat themselves down to watch the show.

Draithan cut a path through the throngs with his mere presence. Whores and patrons alike stepped hurriedly out of his way and Decius and Cassio followed in his considerable wake. They exited the pleasure palace together into the famed Dolphin's Square. The bustling expanse of cobbled street was ringed on all sides by shops and entertainment venues, from gambling parlors to winerooms and salons. Decius pulled his coat tighter around him and huffed in annoyance, for the half-elf hung just off his elbow, smirking to himself.

"Very well," he grumbled, "lead on to your home."

"Right this way," Draithan replied smoothly, and started off across the square. The center was dominated by a great bronze fountain of leaping dolphins, around which were clustered peddlers, street entertainers, whores, and the ever-present sailors. Nearly avoiding being singed by an overeager firebreather, Decius forced a path through a knot of merchants blocking the end of the street, nearly upending a cart of tropical fruit.

As they passed the façade of a gambling parlor, an interior brawl spilled out into the street. Two dwarves hung round the neck of an enraged orc, who drove before him a human man with a battered face and broken hand. Draithan stopped his march to watch the brawlers careen across the street and disappear into an alley. The half-elf looked to Decius and laughed.

"Torvuls is chief of all the world's dens of vice and villainy, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

Decius could only smile. The city was a tenth the size of the Imperial City, yet packed twice as much color into itself. They wound through narrow streets and across a broad boulevard that crested Torvuls' Palace Hill. On either side of the boulevard stood grand palaces, the homes of merchant princes and pirate lords. Decius stopped at the gate to one such home, where two guardsmen in polished cuirasses saluted. The wrought iron gate crawled open driven by unseen hands but affording Decius a chance to study its engraved elven runes. They wrote out powerful spells of protection over the gate and the grounds beyond, some in forms Decius had only read about. He had always known that the elven kindred was strong in sorcery, but had never glimpsed as much up close.

The three of them passed through the gate in a beautifully manicured garden blooming with rare flowers, even in the late winter sun. Great oak trees loomed overhead, boughs forming a natural arbor over the approach to the main door of the mansion.

Draithan pushed open a door of carved eldenwood to enter a marble-floored foyer.

"Welcome to my humble abode," he proclaimed, waving a hand at the tapestried walls, the polished ebony table in the middle, and the red marble staircase climbing to the next floor. "Come through to my garden," he continued. "You can wait there while I summon my fellows."

He led them through a parlor lined with glass-fronted bookcases and then out onto a grand patio that overlooked a bathing pool and brilliantly colored flower garden.

"I'll have some things brought up for you. I must take my leave now, but enjoy yourselves in my palace until I return."

The half-elf disappeared back into the parlor, leaving Decius and Cassio alone on the brick patio.

"Master," Cassio started, drawing conspiratorially close. "Are you quite sure about this? We are quite far from home. If the dwarf wants you dead, the emperor's favor is not likely to save us in time."

"Fortune favors the bold, my dear boy," Decius replied. He seated himself on a cushioned lounge chair overlooking the bathing pool. "The Collegium grows desperate for new sources of spice, and the Guild's crackdown on smugglers grows tighter. They have planted their spies well, and cut our stocks to the bone."

"It is those same spies I am concerned about, master. What if this is another of their plots? The Guild is strong in Torvuls. If the half-elf knew you were coming here, then the Guild did, too."

"Why would they lure me to the half-elf's palace to kill me? It could have been done with poisoned wine in the Lotus or a knife in a crowded street. No, I judge the half-elf's intentions to be true. The strife between pirate lords is legendary, and the dwarf's alliance with the Guild has been a thorn in our side for too long. Replacing the queen's consort with our own man would be a major coup."

"Does it change enough? The queen will still enforce the spicers' charter."

"I read the reports before I set sail. Enforcing the charter has been Magnur's responsibility for ten years. The queen cares little for the monopoly, so long as the emperor's armadas are kept away. It is him we need to assuage, not anyone here. In order to assuage the emperor, we must deal with the Guild."

"And you think a bribe will suffice?"

"A bribe perhaps, but also some choice words to the emperor. He has surely noticed their rising wealth and avarice. I would bet that he will be happy to see them cut down to size."

"If there is anything the emperor hates more than seeing the Spicers' rise, it is seeing the Collegium rise."

"It is a narrow path we walk, I will grant you, but the emperor always seeks to play his rivals in the curia off one another for as long as we quarrel among each other, we leave him on his throne."

"But the Guild will strike back against us," Cassio complained. Decius could only shrug.

"Let them. With the allegiance of the pirate lords and a fresh supply of spice, we will put them in their place."

Three serving girls approached from the far side of the house, barefoot and bare-chested, wearing only strips of sheer silk between their legs suspended from golden girdles. Faces downcast, they offered crystal goblets of golden wine on a silver platter. Decius smiled as he picked up one such goblet, casting hungry looks toward the girls' naked breasts.

"Is there anything else you desire?" asked the foremost of them, a pale, slender girl with long red hair that fell to her waist in waves. Decius admired the girl's slim body and small breasts. She and her companions were each slender and pretty, with long hair that varied in color from red to blonde to dark brown. A perfect selection, he mused. But I have already enjoyed so many pleasures of the flesh today.

Yet the lounge chair beneath him was so comfortable, and Draithan had said to enjoy themselves...

Decius wrapped his hand through the girl's long red hair, pulling her head back to face the sky as he fucked her from below. Her mouth hung open, a low, rolling moan escaping it as he thrust his cock vigorously up between her legs, his other hand clutching at her small breasts.

Cassio lay on the lounge chair next to him, holding the blonde girl from behind as he fucked her. The brunette crouched to Decius' side, showering kisses on his chest and face as her redheaded companion rode his cock. Feeling the lust for her, he pulled her close by her red hair and latched onto her soft pink nipples with his mouth. The girl cooed softly, her delicate hands brushing his chest, then clutching at her brunette companion's hair. They kissed above him, barely noticed as he suckled and bit at her little nipples in his mouth. Decius slapped her ass with both hands and cried out in exultation.

The girl stared down the length of her aquiline nose at him, her face a mask of pleasure and her little breasts bouncing with each stroke of his cock. She shuddered, her nipples standing out in his mouth as he sucked on them. Decius clutched at her ass while, next to him, Cassio made the blonde girl squeal and shudder.

Decius felt the girl on his cock quiver with orgasm and could contain himself no longer. He came inside her, thrusting his cock up into her purse as deep as he could and soon felt the cum drip down the shaft of his cock.

The girl sat back up, her long hair flowing over her shoulder to obscure her naked nipple, and smiled down at Decius. He sank back on the lounge chair and smiled.

"Is this your every day in Torvuls?" he asked lazily. Beside him, Cassio finished on the girl's little breasts, milking his cock for every drop he could get.

"This is life in Master Draithan's palace," the girl replied with an envious look at her companion's cum-covered breasts. "He brings all kinds of men and women for us to fuck."

"Speaking of," the raven-haired girl sitting by Decius' side said, "here he comes again. I wonder if he has brought anyone for us."

Decius turned his head to see Draithan emerging from the palace. He was accompanied by a servant to whom he was giving instructions over his shoulder as he walked. Shortly before reaching the chairs, the servant nodded with finality and turned back toward the house.

"I trust you have enjoyed yourselves?" Draithan asked, smiling broadly as his eyes passed over the five of them. Decius nodded and gave the girl sitting on his cock a slap on her ass. "Good, because this little diversion has given me time to summon my fellows. Get dressed, they await us in the parlor."

Decius pushed the girl off his cock, though he allowed her and her raven-haired companion to suck it clean, then dressed himself.

"Cassio, stay here and entertain yourself with these lovely girls. I must attend to some business with our host." The page nodded eagerly and as Decius turned away, he slid himself across the gap between the chairs to lie in between all three naked girls.

"We are gathered in the grand salon," Draithan announced. "Follow me."

Draithan turned toward the house, but Decius caught him by the arm.

"Before we get into the wider discussion, I want to make my terms clear." Draithan nodded and gestured for him to proceed. "First, the Collegium needs a return to the previous supply levels, before the Jade Circle's collapse. And we cannot be robbed blind over it."

"I know many smugglers, but not that many. Once I have control over the city, it should prove easy to recruit more smugglers. It may take some time, but the spice will flow again. On this, you have my word."

"Very well. Additionally, I need something for myself, personally. I am after all taking a significant risk participating in your plot. If I am going to chance ending up face down in a Torvuls gutter, I must stand to gain something. So I demand a shipment of spice regularly delivered to me, personally. Perhaps twenty pounds will suffice."

Draithan's mouth crooked up at one end and he visibly equivocated. "Twenty pounds of spice is a lot for one man."

"That is my price. There is always use for the stuff."

"It comes at no inconsiderable cost to myself, not merely to procure but also to transport to you."

"Getting my head chopped off by the dwarf's thugs will prove pricey as well."

"Perhaps fifteen will do? There is only so much of the stuff after all, and the Collegium will be rife with it."

"Twenty. Not all my plans are shared with the Collegium."

"This is your price for participating?"

"This is my price for writing a glowing letter to the emperor."

"Very well then. Twenty pounds of spice delivered yearly. We will work out the details of it later. For now, there is a council waiting."

Draithan led him now into the depths of the house, which was even vaster and grander than the exterior and gardens had let on. They passed back through the foyer and then a long hall lined with mirrors until Draithan eventually threw open a pair of tall, carved eldenwood doors to admit Decius to a parlor. The room was carpeted in a black and white-striped hide and topped by a crystal chandelier. The floor beneath the animal skin rug was polished hardwood from the jungles of Zatalan and the stuffed chairs gleamed in the sunlight that streamed through a wall of windows.

The two of them were not alone in the room, for a convocation of pirate lords occupied the hardwood thrones, accompanied by their servants, guards, and of course their concubines. Draithan's own slave girls plied the room with drinks and exotic fruits, their naked bodies scrutinized by his voracious guests.

Draithan seated himself in a grand, high-backed chair carved with scenes from elven myths. He was flanked by two other elf-blooded men he pointed out to Decius by way of introduction. He pointed to a black-haired half-elf on his right, then to the fair-haired elf on the other side.

"This is Gilgabraith, my second, and Lomirran, my long-time companion at sea. Lomirran commands the Firebrand, while Gilgabraith commands the Veil of Spirits in my absence."

"Pleased to meet you," Decius said, though the two elderbloods spared Decius only a curt nod each in reply. He turned to survey the others gathered in the parlor. There was a tall, broad-shouldered orc, his bare chest scarred by blades and teeth. About his neck he wore an iron collar and a matching pair of bracers on his wrists.

Beside the orc sat a richly dressed man, his embroidered tunic flashing in the afternoon sun and his wrists jangling with gold and jewels each time he reached to claim a piece of fruit or glass of wine from the servants. His black-haired head was ringed in gem-studded silver, his olive-skinned whitened by face powder that gave him a dandyish appearance. But from the way he speared sliced fruit with his knife, Decius could tell the man was handy with a blade. The man showed little concern for the sorcerer, cheerfully plucking fruit from a tray as his servants chattered in his ear about numbers, cargoes, and the comings and goings of ships.