Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 05

Thierann gasped as the woman took his cock with deliberate urgency into her mouth, drawing from him sighs and moans of pleasure when she twirled her tongue around his hooded glans while squeezing his balls -- but as he felt his pleasure reach its paroxysm, he heard a crack and his body recoiled against the wooden frame and a searing pain marked his chest. The Nekka Adzur stood before him, the long whip that had just graced his flesh dangling by her shapely hips. Her hair was lush and full but runic symbols, spread the width of her eyes, covered her face and flowed down between her firm breasts and to her hairless pussy. From her neck, the runes spread across her shoulders and down her arms.

"You're all Nekka Adzur," Thierann remarked. The one between his thighs stopped her ministrations and slid away from him, leaving his erection to pulse in the firelight.

"We are of the many," the Nekka Adzur holding the whip said, and Thierann heard the rattling of bones and the wet sounds of flesh becoming whole and three others stepped into the light.

"How many?"

"As many as need be, Thierann of Gul'Vadesh," the lead Nekka Adzur said, caressing his cheek and his cock with her whip. The Nekka Adzur that had been sucking his cock slithered back to his crotch like a snake, leaving a trail of wet flesh behind her and took his manhood back in her mouth -- this time however her tongue twirled around his shaft as spit dribbled from the corners of her mouth. When she took him between her lips, Thierann winced as he felt something cool and sharp like steel graze the top of his cock.

While the kneeling Nekka Adzur worked Thierann's cock, another climbed up the back of the "X" shaped rack where he was bound and moved down the front till her hairless pussy was presented to his mouth.

"Lick!" the whip bearing Nekka Adzur ordered as her whip left a burning welt on the skin of his thigh. Thierann resisted but the musky odor from the Nekka Adzur's pussy ate away at his reason and his tongue found her lips -- he bobbed his head as he swiped his tongue across the creature's sex, sending her juices dribbling down his chin and naked chest until the drops touched his cock. As the dangling Nekka Adzur shook under his ministrations, Thierann heard the menacing crack of the whip of the commanding Nekka Adzur as she laid lash upon lash onto her sister's flayed back. Thierann hesitated but when he did, the cries of pleasure from the Nekka Adzur he serviced became moans of agony as he saw droplets of blood and bits of flesh fly into the air from his vantage point between the thighs of his upside down partner. But even as the Nekka Adzur embracing him was whipped bloody, she still demanded his tongue and plied her lips to his cock, assisting the snakelike Nekka Adzur that was sucking him.

Closing his eyes, Thierann laid his tongue and lips on the Nekka Adzur's pussy and wiggled them left and right across her soft, hot flesh -- his actions made the creature's pussy quiver and her juices flowed down his chin while his saliva dribbled down her belly. As she moaned in bliss, Thierann could feel her tongue swirl across the shaft of his cock as the other Nekka Adzur bobbed her head on his manhood -- he could feel the combined spit of the two creatures wet his hairy crotch and drip off his heavy balls. Despite the unnatural nature of this encounter, Thierann could feel his cock twitch as the two descended avatars carried him towards his unrelenting climax. Far in his minds eye, Thierann envisioned Cyphelia Desjaines staring at him from her empty eye sockets before her body burst into a cloud of red mist. As the image dissipated, Thierann moaned and shook as he emptied his load of come into the mouth of the Nekka Adzur kneeling before him. The Nekka Adzur the he was licking climbed off the X frame that restrained him and he saw the one that swallowed his come slither into the shadows, her legs dragging behind her. As the post coital haze was about to overcome him, Thierann was pulled to full attention as the whip brandished by the lead Nekka Adzur tore a scarlet groove across his chest.

"You're not finished yet, old wizard," the lead Nekka Adzur hissed. She dropped the whip and reached out for Thierann's cock. He grunt and gasped as his manhood grew once again long and hard in her hand. He pulled and tugged at the leather binds that held him as he watched the Nekka Adzur -- eerie in her beauty -- climb onto the frame, gripping the pegs jutting from the side, and place her sex in line with his. She looked into his eyes, her probing orbs reaching out to his and he somehow understood the distress all the Nekka Adzur felt -- she squeezed her body to his and Thierann felt his painfully hard cock enter the being's pussy.

"You're truly alive," the Nekka Adzur whispered as she rocked her hips, making Thierann's cock slide in and out of her tight pussy. "We have not felt living warmth in so long."

Thierann wanted to deny the pleasure he felt as he was fucked by the Nekka Adzur, wanted to remain true to his desire for vengeance for Cyphelia's death, but as he sank into her cunt, exchanging heat with her and filling her, he felt a sorrow at how lonely she was. Though she would say she was of the many, he understood she was just one being with multiple samples.

"You're not a goddess," Thierann asked while being enraptured by the Nekka Adzur's motions. He found himself answering her motions with the meager thrusts his bounds allowed. "But your divine?"

"Yes ... we are agents to the gods and to humans."

"Did you kill her?"

"Don't ask me what you already know," Nekka Adzur answered. "Just fuck me ... please?"

After her plea, the frame supporting them turned to dust and Thierann fell backwards, the embodied weapon of the gods falling on him, writhing as she rotated her pelvis, driving his cock deeper around the inside of her cunt. Thierann instinctively reached up and cupped her rune covered breasts and pinched her nipples.

The Nekka Adzur moaned, a sound echoed by the other versions of herself that stayed in the shadows. Thierann slid his had down her sides and found her buttocks -- he squeezed them hard and pulled them apart to their limit. The Nekka Adzur cooed and offered a nipple to the old wizard -- he parted his lips and sucked hard on her flesh. As he sucked, a droplet of her breast milk found its way down his throat and when he swallowed it he gasped as his throat constricted, forcing him into a seizure and he thrust his rock hard cock deeper into the Nekka Adzur's pussy. She moaned as a the walls of her sex trembled and a flow of liquid dripped from her slit while she came.

As Thierann fought to breathe, his breath coming in short, raspy bursts, the Nekka Adzur slid of his pulsing cock and knelt beside him. He grasped at her arms and touched his throat but as he saw her, his eyes became strangely focused. He was reading the runes that covered her body; he read of the final moments of Cyphelia Desjaines life as she was dragged away by the bronze armored ceremonial guards that served the Seeded Council. He read a narrative of Cyphelia looking back at him as he confronted the mysterious Bailla'Tayne Jeva and the frightening power that possessed her. He read that the guards that flanked her suddenly were ordered to join other guards in trying to get frightened audience members to safety -- she was left in the presence of someone she trusted. He read that this new companion unsheathed a talon shaped blade held in a reverse grip -- the narrative trailed off before it described Cyphelia's murder. But the image of her eyeless, bloodied body was forever ingrained in his memory.

Thierann gasped for breath after he read the last words written on the body of the Nekka Adzur. He coughed but managed to spring to his feet and he grabbed her shoulders and said: "Where's the rest of it?"

The Nekka Adzur bowed her head and shook it. "There is no more. The Crone demanded you be distracted, Thierann -- and nothing is more distracting than the truth. Now you must pay the price for what you have learned."

The Nekka Adzur dropped to her hands and knees and Thierann of Gul'Vadesh, his cock still long and hard, moved behind her and slipped his cock into her wet pussy. He began to thrust his hips mechanically as he fucked her -- his emotions were wrapped up in the images that he had conjured while reading the narrative on the Nekka Adzur. He was oblivious that the other Nekka Adzur had left the shadows.

When Thierann's breathing began to quicken and the Nekka Adzur he was fucking moaned, the others surrounded them and their whips cracked. Every thrust, every moan, was punctuated by the contact of the whip upon flesh -- as Thierann and his Nekka Adzur lover thrust against each other, trying to summon enough bliss to override the stinging and burning and bleeding upon their flesh, the other Nekka Adzur began to recount the passages he had read on flesh. As blood ran down his skin and pooled around his knees, Thierann still drove his cock into the Nekka Adzur's pussy, driven by a need to empty his balls and end the torment of their songs and their whips. But he was weakening, and as blood left his body, so did it leave his softening cock. He concentrated all his energy into his cock even though his heart was faltering -- but a final whip lash struck the back of his thighs and brushed his bouncing scrotum. He jolted forward, away from the whip and it proved enough to make his cock pulsate and he flooded the Nekka Adzur with his come.

As blood loss and bliss precipitated Thierann's descent into unconsciousness, he saw a group of figures enter the chamber where he had found the Nekka Adzur. As his eyes closed, he was sure he caught a glimpse of a talon shaped dagger.

V

Beneath the singular sky-wraith that floated above the Ardent sea, its immense, kite like wings carrying its thin, tubular body on the violent air currents that wrestled in the upper atmosphere, the two vessels that raced across the waters were a small distraction in its millenia long life. Few knew of its existence for its presence was noted only by a pale veiling of the sun or the moons -- it had been born when the world of men had not yet cast their first spell. After it swallowed a flock of migrating sea birds, two of its four eyes gazed on the ships, and it wondered if the strange flying creatures that pulled one of them were food.

Khaln's thoughts veered in senseless circles as he steered the immense barge commandeered after the destruction of the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith for a fortnight, following the course laid before him by the concentrations of crimson light that pooled beneath his bare chest or along his arms -- he guided the chained Quieting Angels that dragged the barge to port or starboard until the waters grew calm, allowing some time to rest, eat and toilet himself until another storm arose. The path to the Isles of Seven Thunders was revealed only during the harshest tempest.

His thoughts then turned to The Matron Sonorous -- she had become his confidant and lover. He had shared with her his memories of the beloved man he had known as his father and the pain he felt after his brothers had fallen in battle to the Call of Skaelor. He recounted the complex web of resentment and love that existed between him and his mother, Preya -- he was a reminder of the crime she had suffered, but also of the position she might have held, had one of the knights who had taken her made her his wife. He also shared the crime of lust they had committed before he ultimately ended her life. But, what troubled him was the Matron's silence -- she had shared nothing of her life prior to when she was forcibly turned into a Matron by an unknown Dread Lord.

As though she felt Khaln's thoughts turning to her, the Matron Sonorous peeled back the hood that covered the smooth, exposed bone of her skull and she stared with nonexistent eyes through the harsh rain and growling storm that hovered above the barge like a waiting beast. Her sister Matrons were out there, just beyond the horizon -- they sailed on a speedy ship, a Dread Lord at the helm. How the Dread Lords must have festered at the thought that one of their kind was destroyed.

Khaln looked down at the Matron Sonorous and then over his shoulder, in the direction she stared. As the rain pelted his face, he imagined he could make out an advancing form silhouetted upon each lightning flash -- the Matron Sonorous had warned the Matrons he had released would likely join a Dread Lord and seek revenge for the destruction of the Dread Lord of Ax'Herith. During brief moments of respite, he had fallen to dreams where he spoke to the Dread Lord but the voice he heard was something much more ancient then the spirits of the Call of Skaelor. Perhaps even older than the Primal Dragon he was purportedly to awaken. The voice was both soothing and frightening -- like the first voice heard at birth or the last words spoken upon a last breath. Amidst their conversations, Khaln heard a depth of knowledge that would have riven the old Magii Dominii in awe; he learned that the contract that was his existence was negotiated every few thousand generations between the Void and the otherworldly gods. But the Arcane Ailment and the subsequent rise of the Call of Skaelor had been unforeseen elements in the coming negotiation. That such primal spirits as the Call existed, dormant, were a phantasm even unto the ancient voice.

During those dream weaved conversations, Khaln came to understand that the Pneuma Draconis had opened a direct connection between him and the Void itself. That, he did not confide to the Matron Sonorous.

Suddenly, as the storm's intensity increased and lightning linked the water and clouds with crackling ropes of light and thunder, the pools of red light beneath his skin faded, leaving Khaln to desperately pull as the makeshift harness he had assembled to be able to guide the obedient Quieting Angels. But the clouded abominations, acting as thought they sensed Khaln no longer generated his crimson hue, reared left and right, knocking the stone eyed warrior from his perch and sending him reeling backwards in free fall towards the deck of the barge.

As he rocked back, Khaln twisted and reached for one of the dangling chains that tethered the Quieting Angels to the barge -- his fingers wrapped around a chain link but the rain had made the steel slick even for his powerful grip but as though the storm had another plan, a bolt of lightning struck the chain. The air crackled and exploded as Khaln was sent flying backwards, the deafening sound of the outburst knocked him senseless before he landed on a pile of fabric used the cover the broken sections of the oblique buildings that covered the barge.

The Matron Sonorous pulled her hood over her smooth head and she rushed to where Khaln had fallen -- but even as she reached him and placed her graceful fingers on his cool skin, he was already grunting his discontent and regained his feet just as the deck of the mighty barge shook. They both looked up in stupor as the chains that held the Quieting Angels ignited in blue and green flames until reaching the clouds that of ash and sulfur that perpetually shrouded the winged abominations in silent turmoil. The clouds themselves burst into flames and the flocked Quieting Angels tried to fly apart as they were quickly devoured by blinding fireballs. Some of the chains snapped and the the few freed Quieting Angels tried to fly into the water in a vain attempt to smother the flames, but the unnatural fires burned underwater. The others that remained in flight attracted fierce lightning bursts that hastened their demise as their bones sizzled before shattering and those pieces shattered in turn until all but a fine dust was left and was carried away by the storm's harsh winds.

Khaln and the Matron Sonorous watched as the clouds then separated as though invisible hands pushed them aside -- a chorus of deafening thunder rocked the night as streamers of crackling lightning erupted from the edges of the clouds and struck the waters of the Ardent Sea until they boiled. The lightning formed the walls of a corridor that dwarfed the huge barge while the waters beneath its bow began to rush forward like a river running downhill. The Matron Sonorous was thrown towards the edge of the deck but Khaln caught her with his free hand, his other using the unsheathed sword Ax'Herith like an anchor in the deck as the barge listed to port and starboard while it rode the accelerating waters -- the Matron Sonorous shouted but even her eldritch voice was silenced by the echoing carol of thunder and the rushing water. But Khaln peered in the direction she pointed and he saw them: human like figures swimming in the wake of the barge, sometimes spilling from the crest of the wake and then flying over the expanse of the vessel with unnerving speed and grace.

The barge was dragged through the watery corridor for what felt like hours -- Khaln and the Matron Sonorous struggled to maintain a semblance of solid footing as they were tossed to and fro

until the ship came to a heart stopping halt. The pair was tossed forward but were saved by the railings that peppered the barge -- Khaln had lost sight of the strange, swimming escort that followed them but his eyes fell upon an equally disturbing sight: a mile wide circle of storm clouds surrounded the barge, but the waters were the barge floated were totally calm. He could look up and see stars and the twin moons, reflected perfectly in the still water.

The barge was trapped in a column of stillness as the orbiting circle of furious clouds doubled in ardor and violence. The Matron Sonorous glanced over the side of the vessel and saw the still waters split and tall, slender beings emerged from the deep abyss. Khaln saw the same beings appear in front of the barge and to its side; they stood upon the water as though it was frozen. The beings were taller than a man, with long, slender limbs colored either gray or blue. Their flesh seemed to glisten with an oily resin and fins were haphazardly spread across their limbs, trunk and head. Their eyes were inhumanly large with oval shaped pupils and their mouths stretched from ear to ear, if they had ears.

Khaln gripped the hilt of Ax'Herith when he noticed one of the sea beings advance towards the barge, its every step causing two ripples to form and dissipate. The being's limbs moved oddly, as though they were tentacles pretending to be segmented by oddly placed joints. When the creature reached the side of the barge, it lept effortlessly from the water and landed with nary a thud on the wooden deck -- Khaln stood before it, glaring at the uninvited intruder, noticing that its feet were comprised of coiled bands of stringy flesh.

"Greetings are offered to the porter of the Pneuma Draconis," the sea beast spoke, its jaws snapping together as it awkwardly formed words in a language foreign to its anatomy. "We the Sea Herders of Thlemeskelion, salute you."

"Thank you for the greetings," Khaln said calmly though his grip on the sword Ax'Herith tightened till his knuckles whitened. "Now kindly remove yourself from my barge and have your brethren stand down so we may be on our way," Khaln said coldly as he glanced the matron Sonorous.

"We give respect, but no," the Sea Herder said, bowing its head. "Dragons must never awaken."

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On the edge of the riotous storm that assailed the Ardent sea, a tall ship built from the bones of a giant shelled whale with sails cut from the sewn skin of the men and women who had offered their hearts to power Scything Souls crashed through the wind swept, undulating waves of the angry ocean. At its bow stood a stoic being who held the helm with a vise like grip. He wore a thick woolen cloak with a fur rimmed hood -- it hid a face that would have been considered handsome, with deep set brown eyes beneath a strong brow. His cheekbones were sharp and his nose long and fine, resting above a sensuous mouth and cleft chin. His skin had the tanned tone natural to the proud island dwellers of the southern archipelagos, and if he still went by his original name, he might have been a noble chieftain. But he had been cast as a Cardinal Watcher some thirty years before, and after the battle with sorcerer Taffen and the awakening of the first elements of the what would be become the Call of Skaelor, he now stood the Dread Lord of Oczeloth, Warden of the seas.