The Druid and the Igniad Ch. 03

"Cavorting with demons, are we?" The man's voice quipped. "I knew you were trouble, lass."

Lu dropped down from the standing stone and let her lithe frame of diamond bones absorb the shock of her landing. A flare of flames flowered up from her fire skirt, and suddenly she was bristling with fire, ready to fight.

"Zdazz lith," Labolas spoke with a snap of his fingers. At once, Lu could see the man, standing where she thought there was naught but air. She recognized the man. Broad-shouldered and strong, his red hair was greying. He wore a sword at the belt of his war kilt.

"Chief Gartham," Lu breathed. At once, all her flames snuffed out, leaving her bare except for her crystal protector and bra.

"A useful little magic trinket I picked up clearing a warlock out of an old fortress," Gartham said, holding up a small lens framed in brass. Gartham tucked it away into a pouch on his belt.

"I cannot smell the magic of those accursed relics," Labolas growled.

"My lord," Lu pleaded, "this is not what it seems."

"Aye, let me see..." Gartham stroked his peppery stubble, "...shall I believe a smoke-haired woman having secret meetings with demons in the middle of the night? Or shall I safely assume that you're up to no good and tell your young Archdruid what you've been hiding?"

"If you would just let me explain--"

"And if you were thinking about burning me to a crisp, remember that I am Chieftain over the whole Crown Spire Mountains."

"I would never--"

"My warriors would demand retribution, and take it by force if the druid tries to protect you."

Lu gave a desperate look to Labolas, and he met her gaze with a look that seemed to say: "I could annihilate him in a heartbeat." But Lu could not let it come to that. She looked down at the words still drawn in the dust. She needed time, and a strand of spider's silk.

"I just have one thing to say before you go," Lu said.

"Aye?" Gartham asked, resting one hand over the pommel of his sword.

"Nykkró valvinte, nykkró shálltenyte." She sang it, using her sweetest voice, like an offering of poetry. The charm spell was cast, and Gartham's expression softened.

"What's that mean?" He asked genuinely.

"It means 'beauty found, beauty unbound.' Don't you find beauty in me?" She began to saunter to the side, as if she were pacing, providing a different view of her body to the veteran warrior.

"Aye, and you find beauty in demons, it seems" Gartham remarked jokingly. Lu could feel her spell had hooked him, but he was resisting subconsciously. She knew she needed to reel him in more.

"I summoned this being for the purposes of pleasure. Nothing more. But even he has become quite boring, lately." She gave a sly wink to Labolas.

"Seems what they say about you nymph-types is true," Gartham smirked.

"It's true. We like the pleasures of the flesh. Especially sex." She caressed one of the standing stones as she passed it, looking for spider's webs, but she saw none.

"I have heard the stories," Gartham said, his hand shifting on the pommel of his sword. "Gern should know better than to trust the likes of you."

"My love for Gern is real," she asserted, making her way to the other side of the stones, scanning for spiderwebs. "But I do not hoard my love like some dragon, or a greedy chieftain, perhaps. Perhaps Chief Gartham would like to know how good the warmth of an igniad can be?"

"I see why Gern is so enamored with you! A good hump might provoke a challenge from him, and I'd love the opportunity. First, I'll send this demon back to the netherworld!" He briskly unsheathed his sword and started to advance on Labolas.

Labolas stood unmoved, but Lu leapt like a gazelle to come between them, and faced down the warrior, drilling her empathic link into him as her violet eyes met his green ones. She could feel the sharp edges of his will, simple and streamlined. His inner fire was strong, but she could feel his pride, which was the greatest source of his strength, and also his greatest weakness. She tried to think, though her mind was hazy as she felt the power of her own charm spell through her link with the warrior, and the exaggerated feelings within him because of it.

"I don't want him to go, yet," Lu asserted. "Besides, if you kill him, you will break the spell that controls him."

"I'm not afraid!" Gartham grinned.

"It will do nothing unless instructed. Catch me first, and you can fight the demon."

"You are bold! I have pollenated many flowers, but never have I tasted the waters of a nymph, nor the heat of an igniad. If Gern can have you, so shall I!" He sheathed his sword, and reached for her.

She leapt up on top of the nearest standing stone, twice the height of Gartham. Surely, she thought, no human could jump so high. She scanned the area for any hint of spiders.

"I'm from the Crown Spire Mountains, lass! You can't out-climb me!" He hugged the stone and shimmied up to the top. She sprang to the top of the next stone, then the next, scanning the bracken below for webs. Gartham jumped from stone to stone with the skill of a mountain goat, and kept up with Lu's pace. Round and round they went, Labolas waiting in the center, until Lu thought she saw a shimmer in the undergrowth, and dropped down.

Gartham leapt to the ground and rolled with a thud, then grabbed Lu's ankle as she tried to duck into the ferns.

"Gottcha!" He laughed, and dragged her towards him. She wiggled free, her oily skin slipping in his grasp. He lurched for her again, and grabbed her arm. She jumped over his head, pivoting on his grapple point, and tried to twist free of his grasp as she came back to her feet. She had worked up a sweat, and she was slippery, but Gartham was a skilled wrestler, and he pinned her up against a standing stone.

Her ruse had gone too far, she thought. She wished she had found some spider's silk, or that Labolas would do something helpful.

"I caught you," Gartham said smugly. "Can I fight the demon, now? Or shall we stay like this for a while?"

"Um, it would be unfair to ask you to exert yourself after our game. Why don't you have a rest?"

"No, my blood is pumping, now, Would you like to see what it's done to me?" Gartham kept one arm twined around her's, and fiddled with his kilt. "My cock feels like heaven, I'm told. A demon can't give you that! Now, let's see your petals."

She could smell his natural musk, and his calloused fingers grabbed her pelvic crystal. A spark snapped as the crystal protested his touch, and he withdrew his hand with a yowl.

"Have you teeth down there to bite me like that?" Gartham asked, the shine of his eyes fading. "Will you burn me? Is this a trick?" The tension of suspicion in his voice was rising.

"No, Chief Gartham...I just felt prickled with excitement."

"Then prepare yourself, for it is said that my lineage is descended from the gods themselves. You are about to feel the divine seed-giver of a future king." Gartham gripped Lu's crystal protector and pulled, but it would not be forced to part from what it protected. She jolted from his attempts to pry it off.

"You're hurting me!" Lu pleaded.

"Well you gone and glued it on, woman!" Gartham grunted.

Lu's ebony skin showed the sweat of her natural oil. Her heart pounded beneath her breast, yet she felt paralyzed. She would not be taken unwilling, nor would she betray Gern more than she already had. But she also could not harm Gartham, lest she risk losing everything.

Gartham licked two fingers, then touched the edges of Lu's crystal protector, as if he could seduce it to come away in his hand. She let out a shaky breath, and placed her hands against the warrior's broad shoulders, but she did not push him away. Unseen below them, cloaked in their deep moon shadows, Gartham felt a flush of heat coming from her semi-transparent crystal, like that from warm hearthstones.

"You're a furnace, girl," Gartham remarked huskily, and he looked into her eyes, fascinated by her face wreathed in the silky smoke of her hair. He found her more beautiful than anything he had ever seen, and he didn't know why, nor why he had not noticed until just then.

"Freya be praised," Gartham said, his head swimming in the charm magic that had taken hold of him. He didn't seem to even notice Labolas lurking nearby in the shadow of the stone.

<Do not lose your concentration>, Labolas' voice sounded in her head.

Lu silently asked Labolas what she should do.

<Build up your sexual energy and use it to power a spell,> he instructed. <You can kill him.>

Lu tried to communicate empathically that she didn't want to kill the warchief, or it would divide the alliance against Evalyn.

<You will have all the power you need,> Labolas voiced in her mind. <Annihilate him.>

"No..." Lu gasped, and she quivered in the fear and indecision that held her.

<Do not squander your power!> Labolas' voice strained in her mind. She could feel the frayed thought, and sensed something primal behind it. She felt an urge touch her from him, a rage as ancient as sex itself, and almost lost herself in its fury. <Destroy him!> Labolas growled in her mind, the cohesion of the thought almost unintelligible to her.

Lu felt something tickle her cheek, and out of the corner of her eye she saw one silver strand in Gartham's hair that was not like the others. He had a spiderweb caught on his head! She grabbed it along with all the hair she could fit in her hand, and pulled on it, yanking Gartham's head back.

"Mnaez," Lu cried out, her body suddenly quaking in released rage, her muscles clenching, "maaq qae xnael! Bindu esaeu rael!" She dripped oily sweat from her clenched buttock, her heart thundering as if she had run around the stones a hundred times.

Gartham gasped as an ensnaring power rushed into him like a thunderbolt from Lu's body, and it seemed to echo in his mind. Finally, he let Lu slip down to her feet as he released her.

She looked in Gartham's eyes, and tried to feel him though her empathic link. His face was frozen in a gentle expression of bliss and wonder, and he stared back into her eyes, silent and captivated. Lu made a quiet sound as she cleared her throat.

"Chief Gartham," she said, "don't tell anyone about what happened here, and help me get my mountain back."

"It shall be as you command, my queen."

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