The Druid and the Igniad Ch. 07

"Dia romha," Lu whispered, invoking the name of strength, "Protect my love with the Wind in the heart of a swan. Garanus gus a'leon!"

Immediately upon her final incantation to bring forth the spell's power, Gern felt a deep heat wash over his enveloped flesh, and the magic reached deep into him, summoning a glorious ecstasy that rushed out of his core and reverberated in his hard shaft. His seed burst from him, surging into Lu's mystical womb. The magic pouring into him intensified as he exploded in her, and he felt her cumming in his spirit, bequeathing him her essence as he gave her his.

As Lu came, she gyrated her rear against Gern. She squeezed his pulsing shaft, coaxing every rush of seed that he had to give. They teetered at the last vestiges of their climax, then gasped a breath of release together. Gern let his body ease down against her's, and she let her head hang over the edge of the table, a bit of drool hanging from her lip. She opened her eyes and adjusted from the timeless place she glimpsed during her orgasm.

"I love you, Lu," Gern said, his mouth brushing her shoulder.

"And I, you," Lu replied with certainty, and she pushed against the edge of the table, arching her back and lifting Gern with it. His weight felt like nothing, as if he were a sack of feathers. She had never felt so strong. Gern removed himself from on top of her and set his feet back down on the floor.

"I feel...amazing," Gern remarked, brushing his hair back.

"You are protected and empowered by strong magic." Lu turned on the table and sat up, crossing her legs. She could feel Gern's copious seed oozing out from her flushed cleft. She smiled at him, and pressed her middle finger over her slit, lovingly keeping his essence inside her. Gern smiled at her and leaned down to kiss her. She tilted her head and they shared a kiss that felt absolutely perfect. When the kiss was over, she took up her crystal cup and placed it securely over her sex.

"Let's finish this," Gern said, putting his kilt back on. "Together." He picked up the new pair of iron shoes he had made her to fit with her armor, and knelt before her, offering them to her feet. Lu pushed her feet into the leather padded foot-casings, then stood up, testing how they felt. They fit her well, for Gern had used a cast of her foot to shape the interlocking plates.

Gern dressed Lu in the armor, clasping the articulated pieces together with embossed leather and ornate buckles of brass. The armor was formed for function, but still bore sleek, ornamental embellishments of knotwork and embossed flame. Lu could sense the subtle tingle of magic from the affixed crystals through the iron, and she loved it. She liked the weight, the contour, the ease of movement, and the feeling of protection the armor instilled. She put on the open-faced helm, which had horizontal vents in the back to allow her hair of black smoke to breathe through it.

"What about you?" She asked. "Did you make none for yourself?"

"My faith in myself is armor that can never be broken," he replied, grabbing his fighting staff. Gern took her hand in his, and they left the smithy.

Lu and Gern met with Arkis at the top of the settlement gatehouse. In the glow of fiery torches standing on the battlements, warriors were crammed on the walls and on the streets below them. More than fifty tribes and clans from the Cobalt Islands to the Naledzar Crags had sent their best warriors to oppose the Witch Queen. They all gazed in awe at Lu's armored form.

"Archdruid Gern," Arkis addressed with a nod of his head. "Lu," he bowed his head to her.

"I forgive you for stealing from me, Arkis," Lu said. "You returned them to me in a time of great need. It is the closest I have been to my grove in many moons."

"I am...overjoyed to hear you say that," Arkis responded, tears welling in his eyes despite the seriousness in his tone. "Thank you."

"The forest is distressed," Gern said, watching birds fleeing across the horizon.

"They have cut down many trees," Arkis added.

"Then they will soon try to take the walls."

Just then, Chief Gartham came jogging up to them on the wall from the cliffs. Lu could sense the anger and jealousy bubble up in Gern beside her, and she nudged him with her iron-clad elbow. She gave him a knowing look, as if to say "not now." Gern composed himself.

Lu wished she knew how to release Gartham from her geas spell, especially since there was no longer any reason for him to keep her former secret. Labolas never taught her a spell that could free him, and that made sense, she thought, since he would use it to free himself, otherwise. Unless he did not want to be freed from the geas, she pondered. She was just being paranoid, she decided.

"Lady Lu," Garth said in reverent acknowledgement. "We have proved to our enemies that we can hold the mountainside. They will surely send the bulk of their forces to scale the walls. I am here to fight by your side...if you will have me."

"We will all fight side by side," Lu declared.

"At least we won't have to worry about arrows coming at us from behind our backs," Gern muttered.

"My clanspeople will hold the high ground," Garth affirmed. "It's what we are good at."

"We should not wait for Evalyn to chip us away," Lu said. "We need to face her with our full strength."

"Not yet," Gern reproached gently. "I agree that we need to strike, for we shall surely lose in a prolonged siege. But we must wait to launch our attack until after the first wave is sent against us. She will test our defenses, then we will counter."

"I concur," Arkis said. "It will be our best chance."

"Very well," Lu agreed.

They waited under the stars for the attack to come. They could see the shimmer of smoky air beyond the tree-line from the enemy's camps. The tension in the air was thick, and not even a murmur disturbed the warriors crouched against the battlements. Suddenly, a whisper in the wind reached Gern's ears, like the ruffle of feathers.

"Arrows!" Gern called out, and they took cover. Black arrows streaked down out of the night sky and clattered against the stone of the wall and the rock-girded buildings behind it. Warriors took shelter against the wall or under their shields. A warcry rang out as hundreds of black-tattooed men rushed out from the tree-line, carrying ladders in teams.

"Return fire!" Gern commanded, and his warrior worked in pairs, one shielding an archer who sent arrows flying past the ones coming at them. The ladders rose as the black-tattooed attackers hoisted them up against the wall, and with seemingly no care for their own lives, they climbed.

Lu conjured a stream of flames to assail the ascending warriors, but she recognized the glint of crystal about their necks, and they shrugged off the flames, unburnt. Pots of boiling oil were poured from the wall, but the climbers continued upward, despite being covered in bubbling pitch. Some reached the top, and began to fight for a foothold on the wall.

Lu's eyes flared with anger, but she focused her mind. The soldiers were protected from fire, but the ladders weren't, she realized. She invoked the secret words Labolas had taught her, and in that strange tongue, she told the wood to burn. She ran up and down the length of the wall, ignoring Gern's protective protest. She let her elemental power flow out of her hand, and a huge upward fan of flames incinerated the feathers off arrows in mid-flight. The iron-tipped missiles wobbled and spun out of control without their fletching, and they deflected clumsily off her armor. With gestures from her other hand and repeated invocations, she caused all the ladders to crumple in flames, and the warriors fell to the ground. The first wave that remained before the walls retreated, and the hail of arrows ceased as they regrouped.

"The first wave is over," Lu announced as she rejoined the others on the gatehouse. "Let's go."

Gern couldn't help but grin. The hope of victory grew brighter in his spirit, and he commanded that the gates be opened. As a team of muscled men lifted the heavy locking bar from the main gate, Lu stepped to the edge of the wall, overlooking the warriors gathered in the streets.

"Evalyn cannot take whatever she wants!" Lu announced, raising her voice. "She has betrayed the living earth and all its creatures with her heartless ambition, and she will cloven down the freedom in life unless we stop her! I will not shrink from her malevolence! Will you?"

A resounding "No" leapt from thousands.

Gaia, the Great Mother, does not command you to suffer for a single moment, but it is up to us to oppose the injustice she has wrought! Follow me, and we shall dethrone the tyrant bitch!"

The warriors stood tall and howled in ovation. Garth let out a hearty, gut-felt laugh, then said: "By the gods, I love this woman!"

"Form up!" Gern commanded. "Wedge, on me!"

They all jogged through the open gate, and the warriors locked together on Gern and Lu, who marched forward at the tip of a growing wedge formation, with Arkis and Garth guarding their flanks. Gern uttered a prayer and his skin toughened with the strength of oak, his blue tattoos glowing. They quickened their advance across the field as arrows came raining down from beyond the tree line. Lu sent forth her elemental energy from her open palm, and the arrows in the sky burst into flames and crumbled into burning charcoal dust that rained down like countless sparks from a spitting fire. She focused, and let her breath become red in her mind, condensing all the passions she could summon into the exhalation of her power. The fire from her hand grew, billowing out in great swaths of roiling flame.

"Desires deep," Lu chanted, "beauty unchained, I send my flame to make thou fain, full of lust and mad desire, see nothing but my bright fire!"

The firestorm tumbled through the air and twisted into shapes, and at once the flames became writhing semblances of Lu's own body, each turbid figure contorting in lustful expression. The formations of black-tattooed warriors could not help but gaze up at the fiery images, captivated by mind-consuming magic.

"Don't let the igniad charm you!" A skull-masked officer behind the formation called, "Flank them!"

Gern began to sing a chant as he charged, and the other druids of his tribe joined him as he serenaded the forest to aid them. Vines sprung forth from the ground and wrapped around the feet of the tree-killers, preventing them from maneuvering into flanking positions.

"Close ranks!" The enemy commander called frantically, but it was too late. Lu leapt forward like a gazelle and smashed her armored knee against the face of a warrior at the front of the formation. He toppled backward, and Lu kicked off the soldier behind him. She wove through the thicket of spears as she spring-boarded through the ranks with forceful bounds, denting helmets with her iron-clad feet. Gern and the rest of the wedge formation plowed through the dumbstruck soldiers, knocking them over and trampling them.

The wedge formation peeled open the battle front and they quickly dispatched the ensnared invaders. Lu commanded their own campfires to lash out like coiled serpents, striking her foes with minds of their own. The soldiers were magically warded from being harmed by fire, but the display was more than enough to distract them from acting in any coordinated fashion. She swept through them with flashing arcs of her armored arms and legs, pounding them to the ground with bone-crushing force.

"Fight to the death for your queen!" The skull-masked man cried, running toward Arkis, who had just run out of arrows.

Lu soared out of a whipping vortex of flame from one of the possessed campfires and grappled around the man's neck with her legs, knocking him to the ground and smashing the bump in his throat with her armored pubic mound. She pinned him with her crotch as she crouched over him.

"Where's Evalyn?" Lu interrogated, her voice rising like a stoked ember.

The skull-masked man choked and gasped for breath, his throat recovering from the blunt force of her arrival. Lu could see the small chain of a necklace, so she grabbed it with her free hand and stole it from him. A small crystal shard dangled from the chain, and she felt her connection with it, muted though it was. She squeezed his head between her iron-clad thighs, cracking his skull mask.

"You're not protected from fire without my crystals," Lu said in an eager tone, and she snapped a flame into existence between her fingers. "I'll roast your jewels in the palm of my hand until you tell me."

"She's in her castle!" The masked man gasped.

"What castle?!"

"On the mountain! Above the crystal forest!"

"Is my daughter there?"

"Yes! I beg of you, don't burn me!"

"Lu," Arkis addressed as he approached, "there has been enough killing beneath these trees for one night."

Lu huffed and released the man, standing up. Just then, Gern arrived with warriors in tow.

"Gern," Lu said, "these crystals ward the wearer from being burned."

"Every warrior, listen!" Gern called out. "Take the crystal amulets from the vanquished! Wear them and you will be protected from fire!" His command was repeated amongst the warriors as they combed through the woods, rounding up survivors.

"Evalyn isn't with this army," Lu informed Gern. "She's at my mountain with Awen."

"Then that is where we shall go."

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