God Save the Queen

Kama embraced him all the tighter now, seeming as though she wanted to press every bit of her body against his own. "Darling," she whispered, "can't you remove this armor? It will only be in the way..."

Eagerly, Auric's hands seemed to spring to life of their own accord, undoing buckles and unfastening straps. He pulled his breastplate away from his chest without a second thought, and Kama wrapped herself around him once more. "Perfect," she whispered to him, her hand encircling his cock and her mouth everywhere on his chest, kissing and licking with that soft, flickering tongue as he prepared to cast his armor aside...

And then he saw her reflection, shining mirror-bright in the polished armor of his Istan-blessed breastplate.

She was no dusky beauty from the southern lands; indeed, she was not human at all. The shimmering green was not a dress, but her skin, glittering with hundreds of iridescent scales as she wrapped her snake-like body around his and began to squeeze. She had arms and hands, but what he'd imagined to be legs was merely a long, powerful tail that had encircled him over and over again. She smiled, and her reflection revealed needle-like fangs as she unhinged her jaw and tasted the air with a forked tongue, waiting for the moment when the air left his lungs once and for all so she could feed...

She noticed him staring at her reflection, and she reached out a scaly hand to tug his head back to face her own. Auric knew that once he looked into the depths of those hypnotic eyes once more, he would be lost. Instead, he closed his eyes and felt with his one free arm for where he had let his sword fall, unheeding in his trance.

"Oh, but my Lord," she whispered (and how had he not noticed the hiss in her voice?) "If you but open your eyes, your last moments will be naught but bliss." Her hand closed on his own, pulling him away from his sword with inhuman strength. "It will only hurt if you allow it to, gentle savior. There is no way to save yourself, so why not let me take you with sweet caresses instead of crushing agony?"

His hand fumbled, searching for something, anything. The coils tightened, pressing the breath from him, and it took all he had not to open his eyes out of sheer alarm. His fingers closed around metal--not his sword, but merely the necklace he had discarded. With a silent prayer to Istan, he grabbed the necklace and looped it around Kama's neck.

She merely chuckled. "The necklaces were but a ruse, My Lord," she said, her sibilant voice still as sweet as any lover's. "Just something to distract you and draw you close. They hold no power."

"But," Auric gasped out, "they might hold." And with that, he twisted the coils of metal tightly around his hand and pulled them taut against Kama's throat.

His luck held true that day--the necklace was, indeed, strong enough to hold together even as he pulled it tight against serpent-flesh. Suddenly, Kama realized that it was she who had to struggle for air, and she thrashed tightly in an effort to draw breath. Her struggles cracked ribs and crushed tender flesh, but Auric held on for all his worth. He'd timed his assault perfectly, waited until he heard Kama exhale before he pulled, and sure enough, she ran out of breath before he did.

He opened his eyes cautiously, sucking in deep lungfuls of air. It had been a near thing.

Grabbing his sword, he sliced Kama's head off with a single swift stroke. No sense in taking chances. Then, careful to watch only in the reflection of his armor, he dispatched the other snake-women one by one as they lay with their knights in a deadly embrace. The others helped him once they regained their senses, but three of his comrades would never rise again.

But there was no time to mourn, not now. There was only time to don their armor once more and continue the hunt.

*****

Glorianna wanted her freedom, she wanted a sword that she could stick into the traitor Yeandros' guts until his blood bubbled up from his mouth and spilled out onto the cold floor...but most of all, what she wanted right now was a bath.

She didn't get any of those things. No sooner had she even started to her feet than Yeandros gestured, and a whirlwind blew up out of thin air, catching her and spinning her even as it lifted her up off the floor. "Oh, but there is no time for you to catch your breath, My Queen, not here. There will be time enough for rest once you are broken to my will."

"Nuh...nuh..." She was trying to say, "Never," but every time she opened her mouth, it seemed like the wind sucked the air out of her lungs faster than her lips could form words. Before she could even finish the word, she was out of breath, and it was all Glorianna could do to take some breath back inside her. The room spun around her in a dizzying blur, one that even closing her eyes could not block out.

"There will be no end to it, Your Majesty," Yeandros said over the rush of wind. "Never an ending, not until you are mine. Kauroth has foreseen it, He has shown it to me. Your will is strong, but even the strongest rock wears away under the wind."

Glorianna tried to take in another breath, but the air came out quicker than she could take it in. Her vision faded to a gray blur as she panted for breath. At least, she consoled herself, she could never fall victim to Yeandros' hypnotic eyes like this. As it was, she barely even noticed him as he flashed past her with every revolution of her body within the heart of the whirlwind.

"How long do you think you can endure?" Yeandros asked. "An hour? Two hours? How long before your mind goes hazy with lack of air, your will fades under the endless spinning, and it becomes too hard to think, too easy just to accept? I guarantee you, Your Highness, we will find out. I look forward to finding out. I have waited my whole life to find out."

Glorianna wanted to tell him she could resist forever, but she had no breath to speak. She knew she would, though. Her mind was growing accustomed to the dizziness now. She felt like she could spin within this endless wind for all time, letting the breath of Kauroth caress her body, feeling it gently blow across her nipples, her belly, her...her...she had never known any name for it other than 'maidenhood', but she heard words whispering in the rush of the wind, telling her the peasants' crude terms for it, calling it her cunt, telling her of all the pleasures it was made for.

The voice of the wind seemed louder now than Yeandros' crude taunts, speaking within the wind instead of over it. It teased her with its quiet breath, tickling her breasts and blowing gently, oh so maddeningly gently onto her cunt (and how right that word seemed, how hot and needy and powerful just like the feelings building in it!) She bucked her hips, trying to catch more of the sensation, but there was nothing to press against, nothing but air blowing against her body as she floated weightless in the empty air.

And then, just as suddenly as it had blown up, the whirlwind subsided. Glorianna fell to the ground with a sharp smacking noise, utterly unable to keep her footing as the room swayed and danced in her vision. She lay there, clinging to the ground and panting for breath. Finally, she looked up at Yeandros. "Told you...wouldn't break..." she gasped out, watching him spin gently in her field of vision.

"Oh, you misunderstand," Yeandros said. "I didn't stop because I failed. I stopped because my glorious lord Kauroth has seen your weakness, and He has told me of it. Kauroth knows all, Your Majesty. He knows what will bind your soul to me forever...and truly, it is sweeter than I could have imagined."

He gestured, and several of the gargoyles detached themselves from the wall and skittered around her, grabbing her body. "Prepare her," Yeandros said, his voice quivering with dark pleasure.

*****

Auric's sword dripped with black blood now, as he and his men fought their way up the tower. The deaths of the serpent women seemed to act as a signal to the other creatures of the night. They fought purely in the realm of the physical, but their numbers were vast. The light of Bectan's staff revealed sunbanes, their hides dripping with the black ichor they smeared onto their bodies to protect themselves from even the false dawn the priest provided. It cast shadowmancers into sharp relief, even as they forced the darkness to crawl unnaturally into the light to battle Auric and his men. It showed Auric all manner of beasts he had never even imagined, things from so deep in the Shadowlands that they had never even made it into the stories that terrified him as a child.

It mattered not. They all died under Auric's Istan-blessed sword, and their weapons were turned away by his enchanted armor. He and his men put down what seemed like endless waves of monsters...but Auric was more worried when the hordes of enemies melted back into the shadows.

"On your guard, men," he whispered as they ascended the stairs. No enemy barred their path as they came to another broad landing. "I fear the worst may be yet to come."

"And right you are to fear, gentle knight." The voice whispered from the darkness, and yet Auric could swear the speaker stood right behind him. The woman's tones seemed to mock him, yet at the same time they promised some strange and dark pleasures beyond imagining. He shivered as though the room had turned cold. "Fear is the wisdom of your ancestors, distilled through generations of survival down into an arrow-sharp purpose. Fear tells you things that bravery does not know." Auric wheeled sharply, looking for the source of the voice, but it echoed strangely off the walls as though it came from all around them. "Fear tells you now that it is already too late to run...and it is right."

She dropped down from the ceiling like a stone, her fist lashing out at Bectan even as she fell. Her blow sent the old man sprawling across the polished floor, his staff sliding out of sight as the light it cast dimmed into shadow.

Even so, Auric could see her. She had pale skin, paler than alabaster, practically gleaming in the darkness. Her eyes glowed in the night-dark room, wine-red and seductive. But hers was a terrible beauty to behold. Her lithe, naked form promised death, but at the same time it made death sound like a sweet promise to Auric's soul. She gazed upon them and smiled, and Auric knew on seeing her fangs that doom was upon them all.

She swooped onto Farran first. Auric watched his fellow knight die as fear and desire combined to root him to the spot. She took Farran by the throat, knocked his sword from nerveless fingers, and sank her teeth into him with a moan of ecstasy that made Auric sway as though on the edge of a precipice. Vertigo held him in place; all he could do was watch as she suckled at Farran's neck like a babe at her mother's teat.

She let him fall to the floor after a few moments. Auric would remember the look of joy on the corpse's face for the rest of his life. "Come, now," she said. "I had thought the servants of Istan were made of sterner stuff. Where are the battle cries? Who will call me damned? Who will strike down this servant of evil?" Farran's blood flecked her lips and trickled down her chin as she spoke. "Oh, but I can see it in your eyes. You do not know whether to fight me, flee me, or beg for my fierce kisses. And so you stand. And so you wait."

She moved faster than the eye could possibly follow, crossing the distance to Leland before he could even blink. "You shall not wait long, I promise," she said just before she sank her fangs into Leland's throat.

Leland lasted slightly longer than Farran had. He struggled weakly in her grasp, his motions causing a jet of blood to spray across the floor as her fangs wiggled in the wounds she had made. But in the end, he too succumbed to the strange death-wish she had laid upon them all, meekly submitting to her will like a lamb trotting to the slaughter. As he fell, Auric could see that he had the same saint's smile in death that Farran had worn.

"Oh, but this is a feast for the ages!" she cried out. "It has been too long since I have tasted the blood of men. I have feared you for too long, Knights of Istan. You have grown weak since last I fought with thee. It is the vow of chastity, I suspect. The men who once drove me into the Shadowlands were not awed by woman's form, but you...I scent nothing but virgin blood here tonight. Your desire makes you weak." She dashed to Marcus, pressing her body against his and delighting in his shudder of bliss. "But you taste all the sweeter for it."

Even knowing the cause of his helplessness could not rouse Auric from it. His knees still quivered with desire as though made of water, even as he watched her drain Marcus dry. Even as his mind told him he would die if he submitted to her caresses, his body told him that such a death would be worth it for that final, eternal moment in her embrace.

"Perhaps I should ask for volunteers!" she said as she let Marcus' body fall to the floor to join that of his comrades. "Who wishes to be next? Who will be Verusha's next lover?" She swayed her hips from side to side and thrust out her breasts. Rivulets of blood dripped off her nipples, the legacy of three messy feasts. "Oh, worry not, eager men. You will all get your chance with me."

Osmark shamed them all, then, as he managed to thrust clumsily forward with his sword at Verusha's back. It was a foolish, doomed gesture, but it was more than Auric could manage. He even felt a momentary stirring of hope, watching Osmark find his will, but Verusha dodged the blow as though Osmark was moving underwater and dashed the sword from his hands. "Such a mighty weapon," she cooed, "and so eager to thrust it inside me! But your technique is lacking. Let Verusha take your innocence from you."

But Osmark was not granted the same sweet death as the others. Barely had she begun drinking his blood when Bectan's voice rang out in the darkness, wavery with pain but filled with determination. "No more, dark temptress. The blood you have tasted shall be your last." Verusha spun to face him, blood spraying out from Osmark's wounds onto her face and body.

"And what have we here?" she cried out. "A withered old raisin of a man? Are you so old, priest, that my body holds no charms for you? Or did I separate you from both your rods of might when I struck you?" She giggled, a laugh that seemed all the more wicked for its innocence. "Have you taken a vow beyond chastity when you entered the order?"

Bectan's voice seemed stronger now. "Do you think I fear you? Mine is the strength of Istan, demon. The light you fear is my nourishment."

Verusha dropped Osmark's corpse and swooped at Bectan, her face filled with fury. "There is no light here, mortal. These are the Shadowlands, where the dawn never comes, and your staff is far beyond your reach. This is my darkness, and I fear nothing here." She grasped him by the neck, pressing his head back, baring his throat to her teeth. "While you...you are my nourishment."

Bectan grabbed her wrist with his own hand. "My staff?" he croaked out. "You think I need my staff?" Her flesh sizzled and steamed where his hand grasped it, and she cried out in pain, but Bectan continued as if he had not heard it. "The light of Istan flows not from a staff. The light of Istan flows from Istan, and it flows where he directs it."

Auric could see Bectan now as clear as day. The old man's body radiated light from every pore, his back was straight and his voice thundered in the hall as he grabbed Verusha's face with his other hand. "For too long, you have scuttled in the dark, demoness. Your night has been too long already, and the dawn of judgment too long delayed." Verusha screamed and thrashed, but all her strength and speed seemed to have deserted her in the full light of Istan's power. "In the light, servant of evil, you can see what you truly are. Can your soul bear to see itself without the cloak of shadow to hide in?"

With a final, despairing scream, Verusha's body flared up in a burst of flame, then crumbled to ash. "I thought not," Bectan said. His body sagged slightly as he walked slowly across the room and picked up his staff.

It took a moment for Auric to find words. "You saved us all," he said at last. "We were doomed, but for your faith...I doubted thee, Bectan. Truly, I am sorry."

"Starry? No, you're probably just seeing spots from that bright light, my boy." Bectan patted him on the shoulder. "Now come on. We've got a queen to rescue."

*****

Glorianna twisted and struggled, but the iron frame held her at the wrists, the ankles and the waist. She tried to tell herself not to feel shame, but the gaping split of her legs exposed her sex in a way that she knew no queen before her ever had.

Yeandros looked upon her naked form with unconcealed lust. "Oh, Your Majesty, truly you were born for this! No woman has ever looked so lovely in chains as you. You wear them as if born to slavery."

"I was born to rule!" Glorianna shouted, glaring up at him with fury in her eyes. She'd never thought she had such pride within her. She'd always imagined herself to be a humble servant of Istan, playing her part in the great design of the Kingdom just like the lowest of peasants. But that illusion, at least, had been stripped from her forever by Yeandros' indignities. She realized that her resistance stemmed as much from the arrogance of a noble-born as it did from any love of Istan, and right now, at least, she accepted that if it meant thwarting Yeandros' desires. There would be time to confess to the priests when she was back in the Kingdom.

"But you are a slave, Your Highness," Yeandros said in oily, sinister tones. "Mighty Kauroth sensed it. He instructed me of the proper way to demonstrate it." Yeandros gestured, and flames sprung up from beneath the iron frame. Glorianna let out a brief shriek of terror, but the flames did not sear her flesh. They felt merely...warm.

"All this time," Yeandros said, "and I had thought that fear would bind you to me." He took out a handful of dry leaves and threw them into the flame. "I should have known better. You are no slave to fear, My Queen. You would never break if that was the only tool I used."

The leaves burned quickly, and the thick, heady scent of their smoke filled Glorianna's lungs. "But desire? That, Your Highness, you cannot control." Glorianna took another breath almost before she realized she had done so. Something about the smoke felt...nice. It smelled sweet as she breathed it in, a smell like...Glorianna was suddenly aware of a rush of desire between her thighs. She felt a trickle of moisture making its way from her cunt (and a tiny, whispering voice told her how good it was to think of it as her cunt) down her thighs. She knew that Yeandros must see it, but somehow, she no longer cared.

"Think on it, Your Highness. Think of the need, the ache between your legs." Glorianna bucked within the frame again, but this time, it was seeking some contact, something she could rub her suddenly burning cunt against to ease the need that seemed to consume her. "Istan never taught you of this, did he? He never spoke of the pleasures of touch, of the desire that grows within your body." The smoke stung Glorianna's eyes, and her vision swam as the smoke billowed and swirled around her. "Your body longs for those secret pleasures, Your Majesty. You cannot deny it, no matter how hard you try."

Glorianna did try, then. Her mind struggled to convince her body that she needed to resist these strange stirrings in her cunt, that if Yeandros wished her to give in to her desires like a bitch in heat, then that was exactly what she must not do. But she heard the voice again, whispering in the rush of the flame. It told her of the darkest rituals of Kauroth, of the decadent orgies where Kauroth's priestesses gave themselves over completely to the pleasures of the flesh. Visions swam before her eyes of men, ravishing her with their straining cocks (for so the voice called them) and pounding into her, as many as she desired.