The Maze Ch. 04: Centaurs

Furien's moans of pleasure were getting louder, her hands caressing her breasts to hasten the end, her hips squirming ever more impatiently. I intensified my tonguing of Dala's clitoris, and deepened the thrusting of my hand until I was almost punching into her. Her grip on my wrist was tight, but she was incredibly wet, her muffled cries music to my ears.

With a cry of pleasure, Furien climaxed, and sat convulsing in ecstasy atop a silent Dala until I wondered if Dala could breathe at all - and perhaps not, for she took a great gasp of air as Furien climbed off at long last. The lower half of Dala's face gleamed wetly, her mouth open as if wanting more, but instead she cried out in protest as Furien bent to suck fiercely on one nipple while squeezing and rubbing the other.

But I could feel she was close, could see it in the flush of her neck and chest, and now she was free to concentrate on her own pleasure. "Do it, slut," I said. "Do it, my beautiful witch. Say the name for us."

I returned my mouth to her clitoris, adoring it with my tongue as she writhed beneath me. Her tightening grip on my buried hand made movement increasingly difficult there, as she drew ever closer to her own moment of ecstacy.

Until with a great cry she climaxed too, and within that cry was a name that struck terror into the heart.

Suddenly there was no wind. No noise at all, save for Dala's ragged, gasping breath as she convulsed beneath us. The air around us was thick with dread, invisible forces gathering until with a scream the floorboards cracked beneath the bed and the shutters burst open to admit the cold night.

"Now, what?" Furien asked.

Dala laughed. "Now we wait," she murmured, and by the time I managed to close the shutters and dive back to the warmth of our shared bed, Dala was fast asleep and no amount of shaking could wake her.

*

We awoke at dawn to a great crashing and splintering of timbers, a distant noise that carried through the clear, winter air. I rushed to the window and threw open the shutters. The water in the harbour below, which had been smooth and reflective the evening before, was now in turmoil throughout, disturbed not by wind but by a monstrous writhing.

One of the two sailing ships was now nothing but wreckage, dotted here and there by sailors swimming desperately for the shore. The other... Great black tentacles, thicker than the masts of the ship, shot out of the turbulent water and coiled about the wooden vessel as the sailors threw themselves from the decks. Before my eyes, the ship was crushed and torn apart.

Screams filled the air around us as more and more people awoke to this peril. Our room had a view of part of the castle wall, and we could see the guards running about, pointing down at the harbour, some even firing flaming arrows that barely reached the water and would not have harmed the monster below.

Tentacles swarmed about the pier, obliterating fishing boats and snatching at everyone and everything they encountered. They divided along their length too, so that the dozen or so trunks that emerged from the water became hundreds of questing serpents slithering up through the narrow streets.

A great thud echoed across the city as a catapult fired from the castle wall and a flaming barrel of oil soared through the air, almost beautiful in flight. It smashed onto the water, spreading fire in a pool about it, coating even one of the huge tentacles in bright torment.

"That was a mistake," Dala said, breaking me from my horrified fascination.

"We did this," I whispered.

"And we will have done it for nothing if we don't use it now," she said. "Hurry and get dressed.

The tentacles retreated as barrels rained down on the harbour, but then a boulder the size of a small house was dredged up from the seabed and hurled at the castle, hammering against the wall that crumbled beneath the impact. More boulders followed, raining down onto the city or against the failing castle wall. Even as we finished readying ourselves, the inn shook and screamed as if it were being torn apart, but it was the building next to us that collapsed onto the street below, onto the crowd of guards and merchants that hurried away from the water, and now away from the castle too.

The castle gate was wide open when we reached it, servants streaming out to escape the barrage from the sea, guards hurrying in and out, wealthy families dressed in silk and silver fled on horseback.

It was chaos. It was the perfect distraction. No one cared about three brightly clothed women sneaking in towards danger. We made it even into the palace itself, a place of polished white marble floors and high columns, of intricately carved statues and astonishing paintings. It was like nothing I'd ever imagined. I was just a girl from the Farm, a wild woman of the woods. Being surrounded by such wealth and artistry was like walking into the domain of the gods.

Here at last we were challenged - by a solitary guard who was silenced by Furien's arrow before he could summon others. "This way," Furien urged, and hurried up a sweeping staircase to a pair of wooden doors carved with a scene of a much smaller Port Alba, the castle standing proud over the harbour below. Beyond the doors was the throne room, the throne itself commanding the attention of the room, its wooden frame inlaid with veins of gold and encrusted with gems.

No king sat on the throne. Indeed, the only inhabitant of the room was a centaur chained to a column, his expression one of bleak misery. The great mane of hair that all centaurs had was gone, cut off as a trophy by his captors, and they had done far worse too, judging by the crude bandages binding his equine groin.

"Galras!" Furien screamed and ran to him, catching him in a fierce embrace and bursting into tears.

"Ahh," Dala murmured. "I understand at last."

I took my knife and cut through the leather collar. "Furien?" Galras asked, pushing her away and staring at her in confusion. "Is that really you?" Before she could answer, his expression turned bitter again. "You should not have come. Go. Leave me a blade to defend myself, but go."

"No!" she hissed. "We came for you. We're getting you out of here. Dala will disguise you, as she has me, and this time tomorrow we will be home. Free!"

"No," he insisted, shoving her away. "They have castrated me. Gelded me like a horse. I will not shame our family by returning thus."

"Prince Galras," Dala said, joining us. "Do you see the medallion my mistress wears?" She pointed at me, and I touched my fingers to it in surprise. Again I had forgotten it was there at all. I could see recognition and curiosity spark in the prince's eyes as he studied it. "Yes," Dala continued. "She is a priestess of Minarwe, and Minarwe gave me three spells to aid your rescue."

"Listen to her, Galras," Furien said. "There is chaos in the city outside because Ketos has been summoned from the Abyss. For their treatment of you, the humans are paying a thousandfold. Let Dala help you, and then let us all go."

"Let me make you whole again," Dala said, and in her hand I saw the lock of hair the goddess had asked from the king.

Prince Galras nodded. "If you can indeed do that, I will go with you, and be forever in your debt."

"I certainly like that idea," Dala said, a smile dancing about her lips. To me she added, "I'll need the knife."

I left her to her witchcraft and instead walked over to the wall that stood opposite the throne. There hung a huge painting that was a map of the world. Port Alba was at the centre, with the mountains to the east and the ocean to the west. Beyond the mountains were forests and lakes, and at the very extreme was the Maze itself. I could see the roads that I had followed in my long journey from the edge of the world to its very heart.

I could see the land of the centaurs to the south, other lands too, all the way to the Great Waste with its stylistic depiction of a dragon. To the far north was a land of ice and frozen sea. But it was to the west that my eyes were drawn, for there, in the middle of the endless ocean, was an island.

"What is that place?" I asked Furien when she joined me.

"The last city of the ancients," she said, "though whether anything still survives of them I cannot say. But that, Mia, is the City of Atlantis."

For the first time since leaving the Farm, I knew exactly where I was going, even if I had no idea yet how to get there. Especially since the only two ships I had ever seen in my life were now nothing but splinters.

"Come," Furien said. "Dala is done, and we must go."

As if to highlight her words, a large section of the roof was torn apart by a boulder flung by the monster below. Timbers and slate tiles crashed down onto the marble floor in the middle of the throne room, and the four of us raced around the edges towards the door, Galras leaning on Dala for support.

Galras was transformed like his sister, human now and dressed in bright satin. Like Furien, he struggled to walk with only two legs, but in profound contrast to his earlier self, he was grinning brightly as if this were a grand adventure. Furien and I took over from Dala, supporting the prince between us as Dala led the way out through the deserted wreckage of the palace and castle.

No one attempted to stop us. They were too busy running for their lives to even notice us.

*

We stopped early in the afternoon, well outside the chaos of the city and surrounding villages. Though Galras had learned the use of his legs, we were all exhausted, and hungry too. Sheltered from view of the road, which had been busy all day and was busy still with people escaping south from the Port Alba, we sat and ate and enjoyed the bright sunshine. Furien and I cuddled up together, her good spirits infectious, and we lost ourselves in kisses.

Dala nestled up with Galras. "Just how grateful are you?" she asked, her fingers teasing their way up between his thighs. The transformation from his earlier self was amazing. His hair had grown swiftly and was now a proper centaur mane - but it wasn't his mane that interested Dala. The sharp tent in his trousers proved he was every bit a man again.

"Very," he said, pulling her close for a kiss, his hand gliding up under her skirt. "Also very confused," he said with a laugh. "I've never done it with a human before."

"Then let me take the lead," she murmured.

Furien and I were both too curious not to watch as Dala extracted the prince's huge, equine cock and bent to suck on it. I was reminded of the brutal fucking I had been given by the satyrs, their cocks similarly shaped but not of such prodigious length.

"She's insatiable," I said, more than a little in awe of Dala's appetite. Galras moaned with startled pleasure as Dala bobbed up and down, taking more of his shaft into her mouth and throat than seemed physically possible.

"Do all human women do this?" Furien asked.

"I have no idea. Few with such skill, I'm sure."

With a strangled cry and an expression of extreme effort, Prince Galras climaxed, his cock kicking and pulsing within the tight grip of Dala's throat. Not a single drop of cum escaped her lips, but as she pulled away at last to catch her breath, a last creamy strand of cum escaped the tip of his still hard cock.

"Well done!" I cried softly, applauding her performance and making her blush a little.

"Indeed," Furien said. "I think Galras will be doubly grateful now."

He shook his head. "Be glad you will never know the humiliation of having another man brandish your severed manhood as a trophy."

"Enough talking," Dala said, glowering meaningfully at me, and straddled the prince with her back to us. I watched for a moment as she bounced up and down gently, gradually taking more and more of him into her, and then Furien distracted me with kisses and I yielded happily to her hunger for me.

I had rescued a princess and Dala had rescued a prince, and we were being rewarded royally for our heroic deeds. As Furien lay between my wide-stretched legs and her lips discovered the core of my pleasure, Dala and I shared a look that promised many more such adventures.

But adventures could wait. "Yes, my love," I murmured as Furien's tongue swirled teasingly about my clitoris. "Like that. Just like that..."