War of the Races Ch. 38

Chapter 38- Seline's Solace

Shahad replied that she understood the plan. We exchanged caresses. A chitin knuckle across her cheek from me while she put a hand on my chest, and then we were off returning to the battlefield.

Streaking into the midst of dead or injured warriors as a group of thirty priestesses prayed over them, I abruptly came face to face with Ogrethanne Annolstad. She screamed in fright at the sight of an insectoid monster in front of her then composed herself and began to pray. This time it was a spell of smiting.

As soon as I came to a stop I started transforming into my arboreal-form. To Ogrethanne's credit, it didn't distract her from her spell casting. Her eyes grew large and round though as my body shrunk and my appearance changed back into my natural form once again before I changed again. My skin turned a darker-than-normal chestnut color with the darker striations and woodgrain. Spiky insectoid hair became long golden strands of hair before lifting into long stiff wheat stocks.

Together, Sequoia and Quebracho dressed me in scarlet Barkskin armor highlighted in colors of green, gray, brown, and gold. Then, just as Ogrethanne completed her spell of Holy Smite, Shahad intercepted her hands and pushed them up so that the spell shot harmlessly into the sky while Shahad thrust one chitin sword arm into Ogrethanne's belly and the other cut deep into her left thigh.

Ogrethanne gasped in shock and outrage but no words came from her lips as she crumpled to the ground. Her life's blood was spurting and running down her otherwise flawless thigh while the wound in her belly oozed blood at a seemingly slower pace. I knew, mostly from old movies in my previous life, that unless I healed Ogrethanne soon she would die within seconds.

As I completed my transformation, I propelled a massive cloud of pollen out of my wheatstock-like hair. It shot up and mushroomed an area some thirty yards in diameter and enthralled every priestess within its area of effect. One second there was mass panic, then the next thirty priestesses stopped what they were doing and stared at me with such unadulterated lust in their eyes that I found myself surprised even though I knew what to expect.

"Stop!" I commanded loudly.

The priestesses jumped in startled surprise but I didn't have time for them anymore. Ogrethanne was dying, her wounds were too severe for the healing effect of the pollen raining down constantly all around us to be of any help. Her big fearful eyes rolled in her head and her body went limp as her life started to ebb away. Grimacing at the twinge of guilt I felt for what I must do, I knelt and spread Ogrethanne's legs.

Whether it be common practice or not among the priestesses of Arachne, Orgethanne wore no undergarments. Shahad assisted me by using a sword arm to cut Ogrethanne's diaphanous habits from her body leaving her completely naked.

"Useless garments! Only get in the way of breeding," Shahad transmitted in disgust, "Are you going to make her a wife as well?"

"No," I replied.

"Then, are you going to save every woman I kill for you?" Shahad asked, her transmitting prim now and more than a little annoyed.

"I did not want this battle, so, yes, I will save as many as I can," I declared, then looked up at Shahad and added, "I am not taking her as a concubine. She is a priestess. She is no virgin to the ways of the 'Contribution for Power'. She knows this must be done to heal her. She will understand..."

"Will she?" Shahad asked poignantly, but then nodded and turned away. Somehow I could tell from her posture that her mood was grim, but then, she also seemed to put a bit more sway in her walk as she kept watch for attackers.

Turning my attention back to Ogrethanne, I noticed little things like how her slim alfari body was attractive in a small-breasted, sleekly curvy, seductive way. She wasn't as stunningly beautiful as her sister Rastof, but she was very close. Similar enough anyway that the family resemblance was definitive while not appearing to be twins. And then, like all Alfari, she was completely hairless except for her mane of platinum blonde with a pastel blue cast to her hair and eyebrows. As for the rest of her, her body was covered in short, fine, transparent body hair that stood on end as her flesh goosed.

She moaned as I pressed into her flesh with my thumb and bright red blood coursed down her inner thigh. Her heart was pumping her blood out of her body in a steady stream. She was going to be dead soon if I didn't act quickly. Gently, I slipped between the folds of her sex and pushed deep inside her womanly sheath. I had to be fast, so I concentrated on the way the meaty flesh of her legs felt in my hands. The way her bottom slapped against my body. The feeling of her wrapped around my maleness. I envisioned her alive, vibrant, and her plum-colored eyes twinkling as she willingly participated. I fell into what I was doing and let the sensations build my climax as fast as possible until at last I felt the burning in my groin that precipitated my burgeoning release, and then--

Ogrethanne gasped!

Every muscle in her body constricted. Her back arched until only her head touched the ground. She howled in ecstasy as my Healing Seed shot from my ejaculating prick and flooded her womb!

As I filled her womb, the magic spread throughout her body, healing her wounds instantly before leaving her limp and gasping for breath as I withdrew and stood.

Looking down at her imperiously, I commanded, "You will obey me now."

She could only nod. She was still shaken. Her mouth was partially open and her chest was still heaving as she caught her breath.

"Follow me," I said before calmly walking down the line of priestesses already under my control.

"Follow me!" I commanded again, this time to the other priestesses, "You are no longer to fight, or lend aid to my enemies."

With thirty priestesses in tow, I continued to seek out everyone I could find while Shahad acted as my bodyguard. If she was already engaged then I sent out Entangling Roots to ensnare the soldiers as they approached. Wherever my pollen fell, the priestesses fell under my sway and stopped their fighting, or healing. Once I felt like I had gathered all the priestesses that were still alive, I led them to Forelain and commanded them to wait there until the battle was over.

Aalyn, healed from her injuries, was standing with Thurdain and Illglan; all three of them looked shaken though Aalyn appeared to be the most resolute. They watched the ongoing battle with mixed expressions, mostly horror mixed with a little fear. The priestess sisters, however, began to stare at me more and more admiringly while Aalyn seemed to grow more reproachful. Approaching her, she blatantly glared at me like a one-eyed harbinger of death.

"Command a retreat," I growled, then thought better of my approach and tried in a more accommodating tone, "Please, before all your warriors are dead."

Looking out at the battleground Aalyn growled, "We are svartalf. Every one of us knew that we might die for our homeland."

Turning back to glare at me she continued with a sigh, "We have never been defeated."

Just then a group of soldiers disappeared as pillars of black Moonfire flashed out of the darkened sky. Another group of mostly female warriors sheltered behind their shields as a hail of Stone Bullets pushed them back only to have large stones plummet out of the clear blue sky. One female's head seemed to explode on impact. Another soldier's head was pummeled down into her body while her spine drove up into her brain. Both died instantly. When the stone struck arms and legs or body, arms and legs were broken or sheared off. If it hit their body the soldier was slammed to the ground broken and dying.

Aalyn saw it.

We all watched it.

I felt sick.

In muted resolve, Aalyn said, "Even if we are defeated, we are not afraid to fight and die for our Queen!"

"I never doubted your resolve," I replied, "But, we have to try and save as many as we can, don't we? Please, do not make us destroy you!"

I'm not sure when the army reached the base of the wall, it seemed like seconds and hours had passed all at the same time. Moonfire and Foxfire continued to rain down burning up the main body of warriors even as they threw rope lines and began climbing the wall. Hundreds of Stone Bullets thrown by Hlina and Orsa fell tens if not hundreds of soldiers at a time, but still, the svartalf charged forward.

"It doesn't matter what I want," Aalyn yelled, "We all must carry out our orders!"

I gave her a long withering glare then transformed again. Growing taller my body hardened once again into a savage hybrid-insectoid before transmitting in pheromones, conveying that I growled, "Then may the gods forgive us for what must be done."

Aalyn's eye widened as I transformed. Her mouth opened and worked as if she wanted to say something, but no words came out.

Turning away my wings were a blurring whir as I sped away. With Shahad by my side, we appeared to be two streaks, one gold, and one black. We weaved through the svartalf army and everywhere we went warriors died. I tried to remember that these very soldiers were here to kill my family, my friends, and my people. Villralfar and animals alike. It didn't make what I was doing feel any better, but it did help shore up my resolve.

Where Shahad went soldiers gasped and staggered as they were stabbed through major organs or slashed where arteries were easily accessible. Wherever I went they simply fell, cut into two pieces before they could even register they were injured. Some were beautiful young males and an equal number were female. Their faces were masks of shock and horror as they fell to the ground in two parts moments before death overtook them. I felt remorse for the men I killed but my stomach turned and I felt like vomiting when it was a woman's entrails that were suddenly spilling out of her body as she fell in two separate halves.

"You're not going to save these females," Shahad transmitted, her pheromones laden heavily with sarcasm.

"There is nothing I can do for them," I replied.

Shahad didn't reply but her pheromones transmitted something like chuckling.

Motion on the wall drew my attention. On the rampart stood Glenna. My mother. My wife. She stopped casting Moonfire and turned to look down the wall. The first Svartalf warriors were pulling themselves up and charging her.

A hundred feet away or more Orsa and Huxian stood back to back as they lobbed Lightning Bolts and Foxfire at soldiers on their side of the wall. Then, suddenly, Coella, Usagi, and Tsukino appeared with daggers, swords, and spears. Tampa was behind them, all six infants draped around her shoulders while her staff kept in constant spinning motion slapping weapons away and smacking hands, legs, and heads when available. Coella, Usagi, and Tsukino moved in a beautiful dance at blurring speeds as they dodged, bobbed, and weaved even as they were all pushed up the ramp until they were back to back with Orsa and Huxian leaving Glenna to defend herself.

"No!" I shrieked as I gathered more magic and accelerated to greater speeds.

----(!)----

From the very beginning of the battle, Glenna could feel her goddess with her. Seline was a warmth in her soul that kept her brimming with power. It was like music in her bones and muscles as she threw volleys of Moonfire one after another, always moving in tempo with the music in her heart.

She knew hundreds had fallen to her spells, and yet, there were still thousands more surging toward her like a great ocean swell breaking on the seashore. They were coming and she was fighting hard to not be swept away as they gained the wall and rushed her.

Reduced to killing them one at a time, she moved like a pitch-black kaleidoscope of heavenly bodies. She was a window, a portal, revealing the greater universe itself as she moved, as her hair had once done only a few minutes ago.

Minutes?

It felt like hours had passed since she started hurling Moonfire at the start of the battle.

New stars. New galaxies. New nebulae danced across her body as she fought. Across her arms. Her legs. Her breasts. Only beneath the underbust corset, made of the finest white silk and trimmed in silver was nothing of the universe seen. Below, attached to the corset by hooks, her chainmail skirt was divided down the front so that, as she moved, her lower body was fully exposed and so too was the universe.

Despite the revealing nature of her clothing, exposing her unnaturally gravid breasts and supernaturally appealing hips, buttocks, thighs, and sex, it did not limit the protection her clothing offered. Darts and miniature handheld crossbow bolts were stopped or deflected away from her body by the invisible Mage Armor her priestly habits were enchanted with as her hooves moved with a surefootedness she had never known before. Her softly sensual body radiated strength she had never felt, and at that moment, she could feel her goddess's thoughts as if Seline were more a part of her than ever before.

Seline loved a sensually curvesome body. To her, it was the epitome of femininity, but it was part of her deception as well. Her enemies thought her soft and weak, prone to bask in pleasures and cower when faced with armed conflict. Nothing was further from the truth. Seline was a warrior in spirit and body. Even if it was heavily hidden beneath a veil of seductive curves and unrivaled beauty.

Listening to the music of Seline's mental litany in her head and tempo of power flooding her body, Glenna twisted and twirled, swinging her greatsword, Moonfire, in both of her left hands while her long-handled maul, Seline's Justice, was in her right hands. With her tail as a counterbalance, she moved with whip-quick precision, twisting and striking with slashes or stabs, or with body pummeling, skull-cracking swings of her maul. She was a tornado of celestial rage and retribution. When a sword or spear managed to get past her assault it was deflected by her Bracers of Shielding that generated great circular shields of glowing white energy in the likeness of the face of the full moon.

The black-skinned soldiers attacked and were thrown back by her slashing greatsword or pummeled into the eternal embrace of death. But still, as the battle wore on and on and new svartalf faces replaced the slain, Glenna's strength steadily waned. She started taking damage in the form of slashes across her legs and arms. Light cuts at first, but then gouging cuts that ripped skin and muscle. Several slashes across her breasts exposed fatty tissue and mammary glands beneath, and blood loss was becoming a real concern.

Her priestly Habits of Seduction were cut and ripped to shreds. The chainmail skirt was torn from the clips fastening it to her corset, and thereafter she took slashes across her exposed buttocks, tail, and thighs.

Twenty svartalf warriors surrounded her and she was reduced to a tempest of twirling steel fully on the defensive. Tired as she was, she never saw the sword that stabbed deep into her right thigh. She staggered. It was time enough for another young female svartalf to thrust low below her corset. Glenna felt the blade cut through her belly just above her pubic bone. She felt pain radiate through her gut as it cut through the bladder, uterus, and intestines before scraping hard against her spine and pelvis before punching out of her lower back!

Stunned.

Gasping in pain.

Glenna had time to blink her eyes before a black-skinned male thrust his spear into her belly. He was followed by another female with a sword. A male with a wicked grin pierced her breast with a spear. Mammary gland and fat bulged out of a deep gash then the spear passed between her ribs, stabbed her heart and slashed her lung before punching out of her back. Another sword was rammed through her back, punctured her other lung, slid between her ribs, and cut its way out through her other breast.

----(!)----

Cuts and slashes decorated Hlina's dark brown skin. Orsa bled from many wounds but her fur was an armor unto itself. Bastet and Leandra fought with daggers or clawed hands and were lethal with both. Coella, Tsukino, and Usagi fought valiantly and took many wounds and killed every enemy that came within the range of their weapons, but the numbers were just too great. There were just too many enemies.

Huxian and Tampa fought in an ever-tightening circle with the babies between them when suddenly, a great reverberating "NO!" roared across the valley. For one single solitary minute, the fighting seemed to stop as everyone looked around and watched Glenna, pin-cushioned with swords and spears, stumbled as she coughed out a spray of blood that then dribbled down her chin before collapsing.

Hlina gasped as if struck in the stomach, and then Gaia's rage swept over her like a tidal wave. The wall of black rock and earth began to shake and rumble before suddenly shifting and moving as it lifted her into the air. In seconds her mostly naked body became the core of a giant, naked, twenty-foot-tall earthen golem replica of herself. Only, it wasn't her, it was Gaia. The large breasts and massively pregnant belly were the only distinctions between the goddess and her Oracle.

Turning to face Glenna's killers, Hlina stomped and most of the outer wall fell outward on top of the soldiers still climbing it. Orsa, Coella, Tsukino, and Usagi redoubled their attacks. Bastet and Leandra joined Huxian and Tampa but were steadily being pushed back. Burza and her daughter ripped and clawed at svartalf faces, or caught warriors by their shoulders and flew them to deadly heights before dropping them to their deaths. Shahad flew up to the top of the wall and sped to render aid to Huxian and Tampa.

Blind with rage, I cut a golden path through the svartalf soldiers within a single breath. Within two breaths, every soldier on the wall was dead, and by my third breath, I was gently lifting Glenna's head to my chest.

The Blessing of the Queen of Heaven was already fading from her body. It was what made her hair float. It was what made it glow as white as the moon. It was what made her skin as black as midnight and what made her body a portal to the universe. It was what made her eyes black orbs filled with stars. And it was what had made her skin glow moonlight white and her hair a portal to the universe before her swapping Seline's Solace for Seline's Wrath.

Tears rimmed Glenna's orbs as the darkness faded and for the first time in my life, I saw their true color. Glenna coughed, blood splattering on my chest and splattering on her bloody and torn breasts before dribbling down her chin and the side of her cheek.

"I'm--sorry," She whispered as if she were speaking to someone else, "not--strong enough."

"Shush," I purred warmly, "You were amazing!"

Glenna's eyes focused on mine as I transformed back into my alfari-form. I brushed a thumb across her cheek, wiping the tears away from her eyes. Smiling weakly she whispered, "What color--are my eyes? I've never seen them--you know."

"The most beautiful glacier blue I've ever seen," I choked through a sob as I started to pull out one of the spears impaling her.

Wincing in pain, she grabbed my hand and shook her head as she whimpered, "Stop. I won't survive it. Just-- I want these few seconds with you--"

"No," I cried, "Mom. Momma! Please! You can't die!"

"I am," She whispered weakly, "Virdy-- my son-- my-- love--"

I knew what she was trying to say but it didn't come. Her body went limp in my arms. The last of the magic that had transformed her body making her supernaturally seductive, giving her four arms, hooves, and tail dissipated. Her form regressed leaving her a slim, ivory-skinned, alfari female with a bust only a little larger than proportional for her slim build. Her hips were still broad but not as much so. Her thighs were still thick though slimmer. The extra arms, tail, and hooves disappeared back into her body as if they had never been. Her glowing moonlight white hair returned to a glossy jet black that was arrayed across the wall as if it had been arranged just so.