Majutsu-shi no Chikara Ch. 15

"Look me in the eyes." Her voice brooked no argument, and Damon met her gaze. "Show me what I get that they don't."

He stared fiercely into her heavy-lidded eyes, watching the swirling storms of lust in those eyes as he opened his jaw wider to hold more of her breast in his mouth. Sucking inward, the tender flesh filled his mouth and he clamped firmly to it. Ginga winced and pulled harder with her heels against the rocking of his thrusting.

His cock gleefully complied, battering in and retreating; over and over. Reckless, heedless of anything outside that slippery, tight channel squeezing against him with each stroke. The tilt of her hips, causing new friction on the underside of his cock, and rapid undulating roll drove the sensation around, over the top and back again as he stabbed in and drew out as though starved of her.

She pulled at the side of his face, dragging his mouth up to her and freeing her breast from his grasp. Panting on each other's faces, they kissed and sparred their tongues as their vision swam with their lover's eyes. Ginga could feel the much slower, almost forgotten sensation of Damon's approaching climax. How his sack drew up and slapped less with each thrust, and his breathing grew more shallow... the thrusts more urgent, faster and uneven. Spearing her, she didn't even need to guide his hips anymore as his instincts angled him deeper and closer before slipping back and hitting harder and shallow from below.

"There." She moaned through his teeth on her lower lip.

He listened, though he didn't seem to comprehend. He kept angling for that spot, hammering into her and his cock striking perfectly within. Damon grunted, the first spasms of his climax causing his rhythm to stutter for several uneven strokes.

Ginga had just enough time to notice and think "what a shame" he didn't quite get her to orgasm before losing his own control. Then, the rampaging bison of climax erupted where his seed filled her, drowning out regret and smothering the mild annoyance with hot bliss deep in her belly. Damon's thrusts dragged to slow, deliberate pushing into Ginga's nethers. Pulling out reluctantly, then a residual spasm pushed him back in to spurt just a little more. Damon gasped for breath, having almost forgotten what it felt like to enjoy sex before his magical augmentation.

The juxtaposition of effort and ecstasy was not lost on him, as he sweated and luxuriated in the sensation of Ginga's pulsing quim still tight around his achingly pleased dick. He could almost hear Bhosti ruminating on the sweat of honest toil. Damon laughed, but Ginga was still too addled to comprehend it.

"What?" Abhilash had drawn her hand from the dwarf, who looked equal parts relieved and unfulfilled, and was now looking at Damon with a face full of orkish confusion.

"Nothing... just... 'an honest day's toil', Bhosti used to say..." Damon chuckled, breathing a little heavier. "It was funny, to me."

"I was worried it was me." Ginga gasped, wiping a hand over her face before giving Damon one last squeeze as his softening cock slipped out of her. "Oh, gods above..."

"I wouldn't dare." Damon chuckled, leaning over to kiss Ginga as she radiated with another -- though much smaller -- orgasm. "Did you want another one?"

"Yes and no." Ginga shook her head, taking deep draughts of air in effort to clear her head. "Unlike our host... or Abhilash... I don't fancy being drunk off your seed."

"No?" Abhilash raised an eyebrow at the female.

"I don't like the idea of... of only loving Damon for that." Ginga scowled up at the ceiling of the cabin. "I love the man. The cock is just a bonus."

"Bonus?"

"More, extra... something you got but weren't expecting." Damon offered helpfully, not near as winded as Ginga.

"Hmph." Abhilash snorted with approval. "Good bonus."

...

Mateja stood, wobbly in the knees and ankles as though she weren't standing on her own ship. As though her legs had turned traitor and were trying to break free of her control to scarper-off on their own mad adventure to parts unknown... what did she expect after being abed for two days, getting the sense fucked out of her by some magical sorcerer's cock? She felt thoroughly pillaged, plundered, and despoiled. Hungry enough to eat her own weight of boar, and drink half again as much of whatever she could find to wet her throat. Her head hurt, and her hands felt weak.

Everything from after that first round of mind-melting orgasms until mid-morning the day they arrived to the dock in Tsuro was a fugue of bliss and the smell of Damon's cock. It was everywhere. She could taste it, smell it, feel it touching her over and over again as if Damon hadn't already left the room after filling her so full of his juice she thought she'd drowned and died... until she woke alone in her bed, naked and covered in a sticky crust of dried sweat and drying semen.

Her arse ached and complained that everything was not moving the proper direction. Her guts still felt bloated and singed from the molten deluge that must have flooded her to the point of bursting... or at least overflowing... yet no river or lake of sticky, slimy resin was anywhere in sight. She wondered if it were mere illusion. The trace clots in her hair, on her face, beneath her fingernails, even a bit in her ear... it was no illusion. At least, none like she'd ever experienced before.

Shivering with a thrill of revulsion, Mateja realized she wanted to do it again... whatever it had been. The weakness in her hands was actually a peculiar, fidgeting twitch of unease; an eagerness that knew no quiet in her waking mind. The simmering hunger in her loins growling louder and louder in the pit of her cunt -- demanding more magical elixir.

"Have they gone?" She asked, expecting someone to be close by her cabin door. There was no answer. Flashing anger flooded her chest, but Mateja bit back the rebuke rising in her neck and struggled forward the three paces to her cabin door. Throwing a tunic over her shoulders, she opened the door.

Shambling up the stairs onto the deck, Mateja's eyes squinted against the much brighter light of mid-afternoon in Tsuro. Her cabin seemed so much darker, now that she stood under the glaring light of the sun.

"They've gone?" she asked.

"Aye, Cap'n. They've gone." Cordell spat over the side. "Good riddance, t' 'em."

"Did I pay them?"

"Seems so." Cordell shrugged. "They didn't say."

...

"Take this." Mateja pressed two gold sovereigns into Ginga's palm. "And get you all gone from my fucking ship."

"That's gold, Captain." Ginga's eyes goggled wide.

"One more round, then..." Damon nodded thoughtfully. "Alright... deal's a deal, Captain -- ye ken?"

...

"And you, Cord?" Mateja locked eyes with her first mate.

"Reckon." Cordell looked down at the thin black scar running around his forearm. "... I reckon I got 'nough coin t' drown this an' keep th' story fer later."

"Right. Good then." She nodded, forming each word with slowness borne of headache. "No more passengers... least not any wizards or the like."

"Aye, Cap'n." Cordell and a few other of her crew answered.

...

"Won't sell it." The armorer's chiseled, hairy jaws were peppered red and gray with plenty of pitting from years working the forge where flakes of hot steel occasionally struck the wielder of the hammer. "Not can't', mind... I won't sell you any spear or sword. First time you get attacked, aye, they'll mark you unseasoned. Once they get over their surprise, they'll cut you down -- fine fancy spear and all... no, I don't sell weapons for kaizoku to scavenge from fools."

"Gatari." Abhilash crossed her arms over her wrapped chest, eyeing down the hard-eyed human. "Dan gatari."

"I can spare a good sharp ax for chopping wood, or butchering meat." He sucked his teeth at that, squinting over Abhilash's shoulder at the hilt sticking up from her back. "I see you ken the right way to handle a spear, but these two?"

He shook his head. Damon and Ginga didn't bother to argue. They'd had the same argument twice already -- though this was the first merchant to give them less than a loud telling-off or threaten to call the guards (that last being what hastened them away from the previous weapon dealers).

"You ken how to ride a horse?" He raised a scorched eyebrow at them. "Lance and shield? Fire a bow from horseback?"

This time, even Abhilash shook her head with them.

"We're making a pilgrimage north, with a cart and ass." Ginga glumly pouted at him, trying to keep her sour mood from spoiling her resolve entirely. "We're not looking to play at being warriors -- we just..."

"Pilgrims?" His doubt was obvious as he looked them over. "No pilgrim takes arms on any road I know, except the water."

"Why on the water?" Damon sighed, having all but given up on the notion of collecting any additional weapons before fleeing Tsuro.

"Can't run on a ship -- and if they mean violence: you will fight and die or you will just die." Came the gruff, knowing response. "Most folk prefer the option of fighting and dying, or think they prefer it. I've not been caught by privateer or kaizoku, so I've not seen the truth of it."

"But pilgrims can run and hide, on the road." He continued, scratching at his face and looking past them at the passing foot traffic. "Suffer in silence, or beg mercy... alive is alive, and giving a bandit a choice weapon is a sure way to see the Other Side, well-meaning or no."

"What about just two of those treated staves?" Ginga pointed where one of the journeymen was fitting a spearhead to a man-length haft to make a short fighting-spear, a half-dozen stacked beside him on the floor. "Would you deign to part with two of those? They're certain to stand us better if we just clout an attacker, and serve a good walking prop."

Had they expected him to laugh in answer, they were not prepared for the sudden, violent, loudness of it -- like rocks crashing into deep kettles. He laughed so forcefully that he began coughing phlegm and his face turned an unhealthy hue of dark red.

"Aye, they would." He gasped, wiping his eyes with the back of his leather-and-cinder clad arm. "I might could see the sense in that... but those aren't just walking sticks."

"Magic sticks?" Abhilash frowned, her brow creasing and jaw thrusting upward, doubt painted plainly in her eyes.

"No... not the way you mean." The sooty armorer shook his head. "They're choice hybrid -- hornbeam, if you like, but part of Ser Majesty's Forest. You'll pass through it on the north coast road. Guarded well from poaching, too -- so put that thought aside."

"I wasn't..." Damon held up his hands, but Abhilash snorted and turned her head away.

"I can tell you that Ser Majesty has a druid tending that stretch of woodland." He nodded, though his eyes were still narrow with some suspicion. "What magic goes into the trees there to make this stock, I couldn't say... but I know they're worth twice their weight of iron. I'd not part with one for less than half a crown."

"That sounds almost magical." Damon scratched at the side of his face, prodding the obvious, hideous lines tangled on the left side of his face. "Could they really be worth so much?"

"Nearly." The armorer seemed to see Damon with fresh eyes as the young man turned to face him full-on.

A sharp intake of breath and a guttural prayer to one of the many saints of steelwork, the armorer averted his gaze deliberately before turning to look Damon in both eyes. He swallowed hard.

"Look, lad... whatever... did that to you... I hope you find your healing up north." He shook his head. "You have my pity, for true."

"Will you sell to us?" Damon blinked at him slowly, as though not certain he was awake or asleep.

"No sword nor axe nor spear, as I said." He was nodding, almost in time with Damon's slowly blinking gaze. "But I have good steel fighting knives and hatchets that'll keep you safe from any forest beast fool enough to cross the road -- more than that, you'll need a bowyer and rely on the arm of your sell-sword, there."

"Not sell sword." Abhilash growled, lowering her arms and flexing her claws angrily.

"He means mercenary..." Ginga hissed from the side. "Bodyguard... I'll explain later."

"Are they really worth so much?" Damon cast his eyes to the not-exactly magical staves neatly arranged beside the journeyman's feet.

"Well, it's more that they're cultivated for Ser Majesty, you ken?" The merchant turned back to business, and picked one of the staves up to begin demonstrating as he spoke. "It'll give, so... bends back true -- some steel won't temper half as well, just down the road... not that I'd name names."

He was obviously putting his show on for the traffic passing behind Damon as well as the scarred youth eyeing him critically.

"I'm assured by the Forest's minder -- the druid I mentioned in Ser Majesty's employ -- that these beautiful hafts will weather ten winters without rot, even if submerged in water. Used by Ser Majesty's Spears and foot soldiers, we manufacture ten score every year to keep the army and patrols armed without fail."

"So few?" Damon tried to pitch his voice up to be heard by the crowd swirling at his back. He knew a show when he saw it, and this was as much crowing for more business as it was to haggle the price up when they cut to the real business. "I should think Ser Majesty would want much more than that."

"Such is their strength, lad." Whether he acknowledged Damon's participation, the young man couldn't tell, for there had been so little pause between statements that Damon's question was nearly drowned. "Ser Majesty commissions only six and ten score of these beauties, every year, to keep the armory full, and much of that still gathers dust in the event of great need..."

"So you could spare to sell me two at a reasonable price?" Damon's voice was louder still, causing the red-and-gray-haired weapon merchant to stammer and gawp at him before laughing heartily, only stopping to step very close to him with a venomous whisper.

"Shrewd, lad, shrewd." He chuckled, twirling the staff and thunking the end against the floor of his shop with a loud rapport. "...You tell anyone I sold these for less than half a crown apiece, I'll have the barkers hunt you down and tell everyone you're a poxy bastard who lays with sheep."

Damon nodded, mouthing "two" before his hand passed over the merchant's, the play complete -- eyes and ears that may have noticed taking their own counsel for the moment. When the coin changed hands, the merchant gave a grim nod to answer Damon's palmed bid... before looking into his hand and his eyes went wide.

It was a subtle thing, the widening of his eyes and sucking of air through his teeth, but Damon was close to him, and the warm, friendly smile and thunderous, easy laugh shook through him as two staves were thrust into his grip.

"A steal, I say, I am robbed -- I should charge you and everyone here half a crown just for selling these and depriving Ser Majesty's armory one shining link of mail or belt knife less than she commissions!"

"You'd be right to, Ser." Damon admitted dumbly, watching the merchant guard his hands closely as he took the coin away to deposit it somewhere deeper in the shop behind some door or shutter that clattered and banged louder than the smithy hammers closer to the sweltering forge a dozen paces beyond the shop front.

When the merchant returned with what Damon hoped was the half-crown of the full gold coin paid, his smile was much diminished and his eyes shifted thoroughly over the moving crowd. Satisfied that most of the passersby were new or unknown to him, he pulled Damon close to him and pressed a cloth-wrapped bundle to the young man's stomach. Between them, the stink of sweat, cinder, and boiled leathers bunched up and stuck in Damon's nose as the armorer pitched his voice down only for Damon's ears.

"What're you playing at, lad?" His eyes searched Damon's face as the young man took the bundle clumsily under one arm, the material of his cloak hiding it and Ginga hefting one of the staves with an appreciative whistle of awe. "You paint those marks on for show, or are you really clueless?"

"I don't..."

"We're clueless." Ginga interrupted, stepping in and laying a hand solidly atop where the smith's heavy hand had gripped Damon's arm like an iron vise. "He didn't know... we don't know... what's wrong?"

Damon paled, not certain of what had gone wrong and dreading what Abhilash might be thinking of doing to correct the situation. The merchant's eyes swiftly took the three of them in, twice.

"Clueless doesn't explain the sell-sword." Her nodded toward Abhilash.

"It's a blood oath or some other northern ork nonsense..." Ginga shook her head vigorously. "We stopped trying to sort her out... we're stuck with her."

Damon fought the impulse to stare at Ginga, impressed by the speed and smoothness of her lie -- or was it only exaggeration? He scowled in thought, some of the pallor in his face fading to a regular hue. The merchant jerked his head, motioning them to follow him into a cramped office wedged between the shopfront and the ringing hammers in the smithy behind the shop.

"Quibble over half a crown and dump a sov... a full gold sovereign in my hand?" The merchant, incredulous, kept his voice lower as he searched their faces but he could see no true deception in any of them. "Damn me, I'd have sold you half my shop, if I knew you had that kind of coin."

Ginga and Damon looked between them, the question on both their lips.

"A crown's not a sovereign?" even though their voices were a whisper, the merchant hissed them to silence. Casting his eyes about, their host beckoned them deeper into the shop -- he whistled to the journeyman and jerked his head toward the shop front.

...

"So how much is a sovereign worth?" Damon frowned, trying to absorb what the shopkeeper and armorer was telling them.

"That's just it lad, I don't rightly know an exact... you're missing the point." The merchant squared his shoulders and leaned toward him. "A lad like you... you three ought not be trading in actual sovereign token." The merchant eyed Damon emphatically. "It's not done, lad. It's simply not done."

"So why he get paid two?" Abhilash jerked her chin toward Damon. "Dwarf pay him two for belly full of seed."

"Abhilash..." Ginga swore, covering her brow with both hands. "Now is not the time."

"I don't wanna know." The merchant agreed, waving both hands in front of him. "You're a hedge-wizard... or near enough... fine. That's more than enough to explain some commission... but you're clueless and damned lucky I'm... well, I'm not the most dishonest of folk... I like to think of myself as a good man and skilled tradesman."

"So it's worth several crown?"

"Most folk think they're the same coin, 'cause you don't often see sovereign token trading hands." Was the fervent, hushed explanation. "A ransom, a stipend... they're a promissory note from the minting sovereign. A crown can sit on any fool head -- but the sovereign has to carry its weight, see?"

"Heavy is the head..." Ginga began.

"Aye, that wears the crown." The merchant finished for her. "Most folk think they're the same, and what do they know? They never get a token, or they think it's a hero's medal, or a mark of office. Some fools even melt them down, destroying their value completely."

"Wait, so we have another one of these?" Ginga flushed, her breath coming quickly as her excitement couldn't choose joy or ill-ease as the cause.

"I can't take it in trade." The merchant shook his head. "But I can send a messenger up to the castle and pen you a letter of credit."