Queen Yavara Ch. 33

Day Sixteen

PRINCE MATTHEW DREUS

I surveyed the coastline, marking highpoints on my map where we could erect towers for the mirror relay. It was how my father communicated with Queen Tiadoa and Ambassador Wentz in the Highlands; a series of mirrors aimed at each other over great distances from great heights. There used to be a relay from Ardeni to Alkandra, but it had been destroyed centuries ago. I didn't imagine we'd ever have to rebuild it, even after Yavara had revealed her identity. Alkandra was a pipe dream, and it galled my father that Prestira Rasloraca had gotten roped into it. Her death was a tragedy, but it wasn't unexpected.

What was unexpected was the letter we'd received from Zander's ethereal owl two weeks ago. The Ten had been united, a Froktora had been elected, and a horde of nearly a hundred-thousand had been raised. Furthermore, the famed ranger Thomas Adarian had been mutilated into some kind of dark-elf monster and turned traitor to become the governess of Alkandra. Zander expected us to make contact with her (her for God's sake!) and set up an embassy. And that was all he wrote. No explanation, no clarification. With no means of replying to him, we had to decide whether or not to heed the letter. Ultimately, the phrase "a horde of nearly one-hundred-thousand" got Father's attention. We had used Yavara as a tool, thinking her easily disposable. I was to ensure that the sentiment didn't become mutual.

We rounded the bend, and there, at the mouth of the Alkandran Bay, was the city of beasts. I was impressed. Not by the city itself, for the castle and towers were rather short by my standards, and the single urban strip that made up its downtown would count for any one of a thousand streets in Ardeni. No, it was the speed of construction that had impressed me. I'd voyaged this bend not three months ago, and there had been nothing at the mouth of the bay but ruins. If my understanding of the timeline was correct, the castle had been built within a month, and everything thereafter had been built within a fortnight. It was industry on a mass scale, a full nation mobilized for a singular purpose. And it was a nation now, there was no doubt about it. After a thousand years of back and forth between the Highlands and the Lowlands, the Midlands had finally been claimed, and it was the Midlanders themselves who had claimed it.

The ruby gem on my mirror lit up, indicating that I had a call. I directed the navigator to sail us back to sea. Nautical mirror communication was dependent on how many ships were between the caller and the receiver. Every ship had a mirror on its masthead, and so a relay could be formed from ship to ship. In high-traffic areas like along the Lowland coast, all one had to do was sail out into the open water, and without the coastline obstructing the view, a chain would be formed to the port of Ardeni Dreus. I'd rounded the Alkandran Horn ten days ago, and so communication had been impossible with a mountain range between Ardeni and me. If our flotilla hadn't been slowed by the unwieldy trade barges, the whole process would've taken a quarter of the time, but alas, money took priority over politics. The blue gem on my mirror illuminated, and I palmed the glass.

A spindly man came into focus, a bored expression on his face as he methodically tapped the mirror.

"Brannon, to what do I owe the pleasure?" I asked.

The man practically leapt out of his chair when he heard my voice. He collected himself, and dawned his usually scowl. "Prince Mathew, we have been trying to contact you for ten days."

"And I rounded the Alkandran Horn exactly ten days ago. Did Father have you tapping that glass day and night?"

"We've been working in shifts." He sneered, then left without a word.

A minute later, King Albert Dreus's visage came into focus.

"Father," I said, "I am about to make contact. Why did you call?"

"There's been a development." He said, his face grave, "Ambassador Wentz is dead."

I paused. "Should I... turn the ship around then?"

"It wasn't one of Zander's agents who did it. Lord Ternias got sloppy and exposed Wentz, and Leveria disposed of him. There's no action we can take here; we got caught with our hand in the cookie jar."

"And Ambassador Straltaira? Is she dead?"

"No."

"So that proves that she's Leveria's agent."

"That's not what Lord Ternias thinks. He believes she works in the best interest of Queen Yavara."

"Straltaira was captured and tortured! How could she not be Leveria's agent?"

Father stroked his beard. "I've never seen Elena Straltaira, nor any of these so-called 'hybrids,' but from what I've heard, they're not to be trifled with. If Elena is operating with the autonomy Ternias proclaims, then that only proves it. You will need to be very careful with them, Mathew."

"I will be."

"I received a call from the dwarven trade emissary. News of Yavara's military reached his ears yesterday, and it spooked him. He won't be trading with us through the Midlands until he has a diplomat in Alkandra."

"Well, maybe we'll get lucky and the two armies will just massacre each other."

"Doubtful. We're going to have to keep hedging our bets, which means you'll have to make concessions. Good relations with Alkandra are immediately paramount. If Yavara's army prevails, the most powerful nation on Tenvalia will be right next door."

"And in case Yavara's army falls, we keep our support behind Ternias."

"Ternias is becoming unreliable."

"Then who do we hedge our bets with in Bentius?"

Father stroked his beard again. "Do you know what the current line of succession is for the Highland nobility? Tiadoa, Ternias, Straltaira."

"You can't possibly mean... they would never... what the hell would she even be? Queen? King? Both?!"

"Ternias tells me she's the darling of the court. A simple perception spell for public appearances would make her palatable to the masses. If Yavara loses this battle, then the Highlands will take control of the Midlands, and everything we've worked for will be for naught. In that scenario, we will throw our support and resources behind Elena, because she would never occupy the Midlands. It would sow discord in the Noble Court, and make them weak when they are strongest."

I ran my hand through my hair. "Does Yavara even know that Elena is alive?"

"Wentz told me Elena claimed to be in contact with her sovereign, but she was only parroting Leveria's lie to the court when she said that. Elena was never an ambassador; she was a prisoner. As far as we can tell, Yavara thinks Elena is dead. We should keep it that way for now."

"Why? Bringing her this information would put us well in her favor."

"If Yavara wins this battle, then we will need to throw our resources behind whoever makes the Highlands the strongest. With their faith shaken in Leveria, then Ternias would be our best choice. His ambitions would be unrealized, and he would be forced to kowtow to us to pressure Yavara from invading. But in this scenario, the cowards in the Noble Court will begin whispering of vassalage to avoid an invasion. That will make Elena Straltaira a very attractive candidate, and we cannot allow the Highlands to fall into Yavara's lap. If Yavara wins this battle, we will send our assassins to Bentius."

FALTIA

"Attention!" Came the clipped command of Colonel Dom Alkandra.

The unruly officer's quarters abruptly formed into smart lines that ran the length of the hall. I walked between them, my head held high, my boots clicking against the wood planks of the barrack floor. Eva herself had designed my uniform, with a leather crisscrossing top that held my full breasts high and jiggling on my chest, a leather skirt that hugged my ass like it was painted on, and thigh-high boots gave me the air of authority I required. With my body now covered it tattoos all the way to my chin, I looked like something out of a fascist porno mag. It was perfect.

"It has come to my attention that there has been gambling going on within the barracks." I said sternly, "I don't care what's legal in town, when you're on duty, my word is law! As officers of the watch, it your responsibility to ensure that the troops beneath your command follow my law. Captain?!" I turned on my heel, and stopped before Captain Getrok Kraklari. He stood almost two feet taller and was at least three times as heavy, but his lip quivered, and he didn't dare meet my eye.

"Ma'am, yes ma'am!" He sputtered through his tusks.

"Do you know anything about the poker games being played during night watch hours?" I asked, and placed my hand against his crotch.

"N-n-no ma'am!" He stammered. Oh, he was stirring beneath my palm.

I grinned up at him. "Are you sure, Captain?"

"Y-y-yes ma'am!"

I reached into his trousers, and pulled out his foot-long meat. He hadn't showered yet. Four hours of physical training after a night of sleeping in the hot officer's quarters had marinated his loins, and the miasma made my mouth water. My delicate fingers traced along his veins, brushing back and forth until he was rising unbidden, the shaft throbbing, the head pulsing and leaking. "Are you one-hundred-percent certain, Captain?" I whispered.

His eyes were becoming bloodshot, his lips were trembling. With a sputtering gasp, he finally confessed, "It was Major Roy Alkandra! He ran it!"

I wheeled on the guilty Major. "Is this true, Major?!"

"Ma'am, yes ma'am!" He yelled back, his voice pitched high in fear. Fear was not something I ever wanted to garner as a captain in the rangers, but it was an incredibly effective tool with orcs. Fear and desire were my training tools, and I'd used them to forge a small professional army in ten days. It was grueling, debasing work, and I'd never had more fun in my entire life.

"Major, you are to report for outreach duty immediately." I said, and the orc saluted smartly, and walked like a condemned man out of the quarters.

"The rest of you are dismissed. Go muster your companies." I said, holding Captain Getrok firmly in my grasp.

"Not me, ma'am?"

"No, Captain," I grinned, and dropped to my knees before him, "you're off duty."

EVA

The office of the Outreach Director was no longer the shed beside the castle, but an extravagant tent before the stadium. I'd procured some satin drapes and incense to give it the luxuriant appeal I desired, and it was decorated with all the niceties that Alkandran nobility should have, but none were quite so spectacular as Pet, or "Soraya," as the others called her. She was bound in opulent masochism with a dress of gold chain, her platinum choker high and tight on her throat, her bronze body inscribed with tattoos from heel to chin.

"I love you, you know." I said as I stroked her fine white hair.

"Yes Domina." She purred.

"I mean that I love you, Soraya."

She turned, her character melting away to display her magnificent smile. "And I love you, Eva, but you've been saying it for so long that it's lost its shock value."

"Apparently not for me." I mused, "I'm surprised every time the thought comes to mind. I never thought I'd be in love, and with so many, but you most of all."

She smiled coyly, and laid her head on my lap. "Eva, save the sweet-talk for the pillow. If you really love me, you'll treat me like I deserve."

I sniffled, "OK, you filthy cum-whore."

"Much better." She grinned, then turned around, and resumed her role as my dog. A moment later, one of Faltia's officers walked through the tent flap, and gave me a smart salute.

"Major Roy Alkandra reporting for outreach duty, ma'am!" He announced with a shaky voice.

"Already?" I chuckled, checking my timepiece, "It's a little early in the day for public humiliation, isn't it? Oh, who am I kidding? It's never too early. What was your offence, Major?"

"Gambling, ma'am."

"Ooo, that's Faltia's big no-no." I purred, assessing my newest victim, "When we were rangers, Captain Dafian -that's Commander Faltia to you— Captain Dafian would turn a blind eye to sex and drugs, but if he caught his soldiers gambling with each other, he'd come down hard. Pet, could you give the major an enema bag?"

"Ma'am?!" Major Roy asked, his voice tight with alarm.

I procured a sheet of paper from my desk. "Fighting will get you put in stockades and paddled, failure to comply will get you drawn and whipped, disobeying a direct order will get you the cross; these are the punishments Faltia and I agreed upon, but your commander left the punishment for gambling up to my discretion. She trusted my imagination with such things. Now," my lips curved into a wicked smile, "strip to your birthday suit, spread your cheeks, and bend over. We need to clean you out, Major; we wouldn't want to make a mess of the stage, now would we?"

ALEXA

A crowd had formed before the stage that fronted Eva's tent. I paused my work to watch the show. Eva had put the poor orc in stirrups, and was seeing just how far she could put her fist up his ass. He hollered and groaned, but it wasn't all bad for him. Soraya was there to suck his shamefully-aroused cock while the crowd jeered and cheered. I sighed, wishing I could join in the fun, and turned my attention back to the task at hand. The stadium was almost complete. Despite it being the largest structure by footprint in the city, it had been the easiest to build. It was a massive bowl dug out from the stone quarry, tiered back to accommodate half the two-hundred-thousand population at once. It practically created itself, seeing as how the trolls who mined it tiered it toward the center to create steps anyway. All we had to do was even-out the steps, add a box for the esteemed citizenry, and let Tim decorate the outside with statues of battle. The massive stones that were mined from it were then shaped and cut by the Ardeni masons, and sent to the construction crews downtown.

I looked out at the city. The progress we'd made was simply breathtaking. With a workforce of over five-thousand at my disposal, and the trolls who made cranes and hydraulic lifts unnecessary, we'd built all fifty towers along the main street, and were laying the foundations for a hundred more along two side streets. It was inevitable that the urban strip would begin to spread, and so with much persuasion on Kiera's part, we'd convinced Arbor to let us cut down a few square miles of the surrounding forest. The timber was not wasted. I'd zoned out plots for unorganized expansion between the shore and river, and the orcs had quickly taken to building commercial districts that sprawled out along makeshift roads for miles. All new development had to be downstream of the Knife River to avoid water contamination, and since the waste from the towers was emptied into gutters that ran into the watershed, it made that part of Alkandra rather stinky. We needed some kind of filtration system.

KIERA

"Gods, that smell is absolutely horrendous." Arbor said plainly as we walked along the river. One side of the Knife River was lush green fields, and the other was stone and timber urban sprawl that stretched for miles to the shoreline. It seemed like every time I blinked a new building was erected. The disparity in architecture between Alexa's carefully planned city center and the tribespeople's entropy-driven engineering was astounding. Over time, I imagined that Alexa would sequester sections of the shanty town for her own development to ease the transition, but for now, it looked like someone had shit rocks and wood next to a utopian metropolis.

"That's what I came to ask you about," I said, stopping by the brown river. "Is there something you can do about this?"

"I can plant algae that will consume the biodegradables, but it will need to be harvested down river or it will suck all the oxygen from the water." Arbor said, "The harvested algae can be used to feed the livestock; that way, we will not need to use cropland to feed them."

"Killing two birds with one stone; I like it."

Arbor blinked at me. "We are not killing birds, Kiera, we are harvesting... this is an expression, is it not? It means to complete two tasks with one solution."

"You catch on fast." I chuckled.

Arbor chuckled with me, then paused, and placed her hand over my belly. "Kiera, you are with child."

"About time. All the other herms already got knocked up. Is it Furia's?"

"It is."

"I figured. So, Eva and I will carry her babies, Alexa will carry mine, and Furia will carry Eva's. Is it a girl or a hermaphrodite?"

"Neither. It is a boy."

"A boy?!"

"It seems that when two hermaphrodites sire a male, it is a pure male." Arbor smiled at my belly, "The first dark-blooded male in history. This one will be trouble, Kiera."

Speaking of trouble children. I thought, watching Rose come bounding through the rows of crops with a smile on her face.

"Hi Kiera!" She said brightly, and pulled me into a hug. I hugged her back, making very certain that it stayed platonic under Arbor's scrutinizing gaze. She pulled back with a devious smile on her face, and held out a pipe, "I got something special for you today."

FURIA

Finding magistrates that I could trust had been a nightmare. Firstly, they had to be literate, and Soraya had scooped up all the literate orcs she could get her hands on. Secondly, they had to be unbiased, and an unbiased tribal orc was a fairytale. Thirdly, they had to be truthful, and while orcs were not liars, truth and fact were not always synonymous to them. So, I decided to settle on my fourth requirement, and that was that they be completely loyal to me. And out of the woodwork, came some very unexpected candidates.

The power-hungry matriarchs looked to infuse themselves with any positions of prominence, and so they gave me their daughters to be magistrates of Alkandra. I tried to impress upon them the commitment of the position; none of the magistrates could be in contact with the matriarchs, nor could they preside over cases involving their own tribes, or tribes of their enemies. Furthermore, all magistrates would have to live in the castle with me to ensure that their loyalties would not be tested, and they were not allowed to have families while under my tutelage. That nugget of information only made the matriarchs more eager to sign the contract. I suspected ulterior motives, and when I informed them that I could not impregnate their daughters, some of their gusto left them. Still, it was important for them to keep their families in positions of high standing, and so I was given thirty-nine she-orc bachelorettes from the ages of eighteen to twenty-three to live in my wing of the castle. What could go wrong?

When I opened the dormitory door the next day to find a massive brawl going on in the study lounge, I knew I had my work cut out for me. I would have to systematically break down their tribal identities, and instill a new identity, one of sisterhood for the cause of law. Though they hated each other, they respected and admired me nearly to the point of worship, which made instructing them an easy task. Inevitably, however, their womanly needs intersected my masculine desires, and my class of future magistrates deteriorated into my harem. And I had tried oh-so-hard to keep everything professional.

I soon found that sex was a very useful tool to indoctrinate the young women. The more I fucked them, the more my incubus seduction took hold of them, and the more receptive they became. My power fetish was thoroughly entrenched when I realized that my dick could literally change their brain chemistry. Perhaps it was unethical, but they didn't seem to mind. Pride was the first thing that needed to be stripped from them, for orc pride would be their undoing. The punishment for a corrupt magistrate was to be drawn and quartered in the arena, and I felt a responsibility akin to parentship over the she-orcs. So, I had to make them uncomfortable. As Eva taught me, there is no growth without pain, but since I wasn't a sadist like she, I went about breaking down my students differently.