Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 02

Falling into the blackness, Khaln could only scream.

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The mighty steed Khaln had won from the dead Yarczian warlord Treczyius grazed from the tall grasses lining each side of the Cardinal road - it looked over at its rider. Khaln was wrapped in the thick tendril-like roots of a werewood - a changeling tree - while three strange dream eaters surrounded him. The were dressed in sheer white and blue garments and their curved hips and ample bosoms were enough to excite the most moral of men. The eyes of the dream eaters were inky black and their hair was comprised of wriggling snakes and tentacles. Their mouths opened wider than a normal woman's and they had unleashed their long tongues upon Khaln's prostrate flesh and they fed on his nightmares while other dream eaters arose from the darkness and left their captive meals for the repast Khaln represented.

VI

Where there were werewoods, dream eaters were always close. The two species existed in close harmony - werewoods would hold the prey and induce dreams and the dream eaters would devourer the nightly phantasm. Once the dream eaters had their fill, the werewoods would absorb the flesh of the now mad soul left in their grasp.

But neither werewoods or dream eaters had been seen in over two hundred years as they had been banished to the Shadow Realms by the Mages of Dar and the Blade Brides. But as the Magii Domini and their orders fell under the Arcane Ailment, the spells they had casted weakened and what was once banished was freed.

And they were hungry.

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She opened her eyes and shivered - she was still wrapped in the tendril roots of a werewood. But the dream eaters were gone. Her mind was her own again. She wriggled against the werewood and realized her flesh was still hers as well as her mind. She looked up at the stars and their configurations were not as she expected. She began to fight against the roots when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

Two dream eaters passed by her without so much as gazing at her and this struck her as very unusual - dream eaters would never leave a sane mind untouched. Unless there was a better meal awaiting them. After the dream eaters had passed, she began to work her head against the roots that held her and she managed to turn her it. She could see above the tall, golden grasses and noticed the Cardinal road as it cut a straight line through the field. It was significantly wider and more demolished than she remembered.

Then her mind turned to the battle she had participated in on these very fields - the Mages of Dar had assembled the Blade Brides and together they ventured beyond the crystalline gates of Dar'Achar to rid the land of the menace of werewoods and dream eaters. She had been the last to join the battle as she was an untested, new initiate. The Mages had casted a powerful exiling spell, but she had been caught on the wrong side of it and had been frozen in the Umbraland seemingly forever. She had remained locked in battle for her sanity as a dream eater wrapped her in werewood roots and placed her denture covered tongue to her forehead to feast on her dreams.

But the veil between the Umbraland and the living world had faded and, she feared, all manner of unearthly creatures roamed the land. She had to learn how long she had been incarcerated with the dream eaters.

With patience and effort, she began to work against the bark of the werewood - it slowly ceded to her effort and she finally managed to set her arm free after terrific coaxing. From that initial success, the werewood easily loosened and she fell gracefully to the ground. As she took a deep breath of air, she searched the bottom of the stagnant werewood until she found her quarry.

Two long, slender cutlasses and their golden, d-shaped hand guards. The blades were forged of lite and strong Zjiestian steel and while they were nearly weightless in her hands, they could slice a shadow off a rock.

Blades in hand, she walked with deliberation towards the assembled dream eaters.

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She found him bound between two werewoods with a dozen dream eaters applying their tongues to his head and other parts of his exposed flesh. The dream eaters salivated as the stranger's body was seized by obviously harrowing nightmares. Despite his suffering, she found the sight of this stranger captivating: he was tall with a well muscled upper body - his muscles were lean and obviously forged by work and, from the long sword she saw resting at his side, battle. His hair was black with pebble grey strands, as though they had been carved from stone.

As she stealthily neared the feasting dream eaters, her breath caught in her throat - beneath his bronzed skin, she saw that his veins glowed red with alternating pulses of light. It was an eery sight as the light grew ever brighter the longer the dream eaters fed on his nightmares. The werewoods had dug hooks into his back as they prepared the reap his flesh - blood trickled down to the ground, leaving faintly glowing, scarlet streams across the stranger's flesh.

Before she could strike, the stranger howled in his dream and tore an arm free from the binding tendrils of the werewood, oblivious to the pieces of bloodied flesh he left in his wake. He wrapped a large hand around the throat of the nearest dream eater and while the surreal beast tried to pull away, he rammed its head into the side of the werewood repeatedly till the creature's head was nothing than a mashed heap of greyish pulp.

That was when the recently freed Blade Bride struck - her cutlasses scythed through the two dream eaters closest to her when the others realized she was there. They broke from the stranger's struggling body and tore branches off nearby werewoods - in the hands of the dream eaters, the branches grew spikes or jagged tips to be used as cudgels or spears.

A dream eater swung at the Bride's head, but she ducked and her cutlass found the creature's legs, severing them above the knee - the Bride's momentum carried her behind the slouching dream eater and her second cutlass slashed through the dream eater's head, spraying the night with grey blood. Another dream eater thrust at the Bride - she crossed her cutlasses in a "V" formation, diverting the makeshift spear and aimed a high sidekick that struck the beast on the temple. The creature's neck snapped with a loud crack and the Bride finished it with a downward stroke that separated its head from its neck.

A hiss from behind caused the Bride to twist to the right and leap over the body of the two fallen dream eaters - the snakes that swirled amongst the tentacles on a dream eater's head spat venom toward the the awakened Blade Bride. With preternatural grace, the Bride flipped backwards like a leaf caught in the turbulent draft, evading the streams of acidic venom. From the exit of her last flip, the Blade Bride threw her cutlass like a spear, impaling the dream eater's face through its mouth. The Bride launched herself from a crouching position and rolled forward till she could cut upwards, eviscerating the injured dream eater until she could grasp her other cutlass and, once violently pulling the cutlasses from the beast, the Bride cut the dream eater to pieces.

Even as the Blade Bride shook off the dripping gore of the devastated dream eater, ten more amassed before her, each carrying a changeling weapon born of a torn werewood branch. But their attentions were quickly drawn away from the Blade Bride - the massive werewood splintered under the force of the stranger's bulging muscles as he broke through the tendrils that bound him.

The Blade Bride assumed a defensive posture, a cutlass held at waist level across her centre line while the other was held above her head, blade pointing towards the dream eaters. But she held her breath when she saw the stranger - patterns of red light glowed beneath his skin while fountains of scarlet brightness cut through the veil of his pupils.

Two dream eaters sprung into the air but the stranger's long hand-and-a-half sword cut through the torsos of the creatures, spraying the others with a shower of their greyish and black entrails. As they fell in bloodied heaps, the Blade Bride pressed forward, her swirling cutlasses reaching out and delivering a dismembering kiss to whatever dream eater stood in their way. The glowing stranger also struck, enclosing the growling dream eaters on two fronts. Where the Blade Bride was like a whirlwind of steel, the glowing stranger was a deliberate predator, each blow and evasion delivering the end of a dream eater and bringing him closer to the Blade Bride.

The number of dream eaters dwindled as more fell while others escaped back on their werewoods and returned to the shadows of the forest. But one remained - the snakes on its head grew long while the tentacles stretched upwards as they unravelled, its clawed suckers primed to strike.

The stranger was the closest and despite his somnambulant state, he struck at the dream eaters legs, kneeling and sweeping for the beast's knees. But the dream eater had seen the attack and its tentacles acted like springs and propulsed the dream eater skyward - as it rose, the great snakes it wore as hair spat a dripping cloud of venom that fell like a heavy fog to the ground. The stranger roared as he threw himself backward and away from the cloud that threatened to engulf him.

Meanwhile, the Blade Bride had latched onto a wayward tentacle and with the grace of a swallow, she lept from one tentacle to the next till she was within striking distance of the dream eater's head, but the beast twisted unexpectedly and the Blade Bride's cutlasses found empty space where they should have struck the dream eater's neck. The beast fared much better as a tentacle wrapped around the Blade Bride's neck and flung her towards the ground with the force of a falling star. Five strides from her point of impact, the stranger launched himself into the air, his legs full of unknown power and he caught her in mid fall - as his momentum shifted from his impact with the Blade Bride, he used it to spin and throw his long sword. It impaled the dream eater's head with sufficient force to send the beast reeling while he hit the ground, sandwiched between the unforgiving earth and weight of the Blade Bride that saddled him.

Ignoring his injuries, the stranger gently pushed the winded and disoriented Blade Bride aside and got to his feet, retrieving on of the Blade Bride's cutlasses at the passing. The dream eater hissed as the stranger with the glowing red patterns beneath his skin stalked it - the beast gargled and its skin ripped as its skewered head ripped itself off its body in a spray of grey blood. From the stump, a new set of tentacles and snakes grew until the head was covered in a wriggling, hissing bouquet.

The stranger spat on the ground and ran the thin blade against his palm - the dripping blood moved of its own volition and coated the blade a deep scarlet lacquer.

The Blade Bride had regained her breath just to gasp it away - the sight of her cutlass, awarded her through the blessed rite of the matrimony of steel, in the hands of another, was appallingly beautiful. She grabbed her other cutlass and watched as the stranger covered her blade with his own blood. She had been trained to recognize magic but this was unlike anything she had been taught - his blood made the cutlass glow red in the night and though he lacked the sensual grace of one trained in the first dance of steel, his bobs and weaves had the efficiency of instinct. And when her blade did cleave a tentacle or snake head, the grey blood did not stain the crimson steel.

The stranger had gripped a hissing snake head and when it spat its acidic venom, he pulled it to the left and yanked it hard, tearing it from beast's roving head. Tentacles wrapped around his arms and legs and tried to pry him away - he responded by drawing a figure eight above his head and the cutlass sliced the tentacles binding his arms, but he dropped the blades as the weight of the thick, severed limbs pried his sword arm back. He squirmed his arms from the tangle of dying, ethereal flesh of the dream eater's head tentacles, but the beast pressed its attack.

But even as the snakes on the dream eater's head struck at the stranger, he lunged for the hilt of his sword that stuck out from the relative centre of the beast,s head - one of the largest snakes from the dream eater's clutch was at his heels and when he managed to grab his sword, the snake found his shoulder and sank its fangs deep into his flesh, inundating his blood with vicious venom. But as the snake yanked him away, the stranger's grip on his sword was strong enough that the long, silver blade followed the stranger, cleaving the dream eater's head and leaving the beast a lifeless heap.

The stranger stood amidst the dead pile of flesh that was the dream eater - blood dripped freely from the holes left in his shoulder. The glowing patterns under his skin had dulled as the venom worked its way in his tissues. His body seized and he fell to his knees.

The Blade Bride rushed to the stranger's side - on her way she opened her hand and the cutlass he had used and dropped flew to her grasp.

As she reached him, his scarlet glow had faded and his eyes were open.

"Khaln ... my name is Khaln," he whispered before his eyes rolled back into his head and his consciousness fled him.

VII

The Blade Bride had pulled the strange man from the corpse of the dream eater and had stripped him of his clothing - she had not encountered a man like him in her time as a Bride or as her time as a girl in Dar'Achar. His body was a rich collection of coiled muscles and scars that covered his back - his skin had bronzed under the sun, but it still possessed a the pallor of the Northerners she had been told of. But her concern for his origins would have to wait as she assembled branches and kindling to make a fire. Sparks flew when she struck her cutlasses together and they ignited the pile of wood she had assembled.

She rolled him onto his stomach and examined the puncture wounds left in his shoulder after his scrape with the dream eater's snake - the outer edges of the wounds flared red and streams of venom could be seen flooding his veins beneath his skin, giving it an inkish countenance. But the necrosis she had so often encountered in the past was stalled by whatever rallied the light she had seen pool beneath his skin. She moved his head and rested it on her knees and placed her palms on his temples - closing her eyes, she expanded her perceptions as she had been trained and her fingers became tingly at what lied within him. In her mind's eye, she crossed the barriers of though and reason and delved into the chaos of his sleeping mind. At this level, she should have already have felt the inklings of his soul, but all she felt was parched darkness beyond the chaos. She pulled back before the encroaching darkness could overwhelm her - yet, deeper in the abyss of his empty soul, something was dormant.

She let him go just as a massive horse approach her and nudged the unconscious man with its snout and whinnied quizzically. She stood and gently approached the calm animal - she had rarely seen such a massive horse. She offered her hand and made soft cooing sounds and patted its massive neck until she could reach the saddle and found a blanket at the rear.

She undid the blanket from the saddle and spread it onto the ground - the horse tapped its hoof when she rolled the stranger onto the blanket. He was on his back and she contemplated him. He was the key to her finding out where - and when - she was. But she also knew the spell she was to cast was potentially dangerous for it called on her ability to bear life - she was suddenly hit with the memory of her dismissal from magehood in favour of the Blade Brides. It had been a devastating blow to her family as they had always fared well in the arcane academies of the Magii.

Her mana had simply not been deep enough to embody magic - but she would tax it now with the only spell she had mastered: the seeding spell, used to measure the might of a pair of mages.

She leaned back onto her knees and unbuckled the shoulder guards that adorned the top of her metal and leather bodice. She tossed it aside as well as the piece of cotton that protected her neck from chaffing under the guards. She then undid the laced bindings that graced the leather sides of her red and silver, armoured bodice. It fell to the ground with a hushed clang. She then reached behind her back with her toned and graceful arms and untucked the edge of the cotton wrapped she used to flatten her breasts and protect her skin - the fabric unravelled and her bosom became free to the night air. The cool air made her dark nipples stiffen. Goosebumps spread across her olive skin and her brown eyes focused on the stranger. His lean muscles caught the flickering glow of the fire and thick, flaccid manhood beckoned like a sleeping beast.

Increments of desire stirred deep within her loins.

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The Blade Bride had undid her armoured skirt and tossed it aside and removed her undergarments - she suddenly wished her amber hair had been long and flowing as when she was studying the magehood. It was cut short at the rear and sides; she reached between her legs and found a patch of equally short amber hair above her loins. From there, her fingers slid against the folds of her labia and she rubbed it gently, coaxing the engorgement of her sex.

Her arousal came quickly as her eyes roamed across the unconscious stranger's muscled chest and powerful looking thighs. The pleasure of men was deterred by the Blade Bride coda, but her native desire for them had never left - her desire was as necessary as his for the seeding spell to work. She reached to her smallish breast and tugged at her large, dark nipple while she slipped a finger into her slit. Her juices dripped past her knuckles as her body readied itself to receive the strangers cock.

Her wetness spread down her thighs as a familiar heat roamed across her limbs - she leaned over the stranger's lap and took his manhood in her hand. She held it straight. It was thick and hooded and she hoped the necrosis from the snake bites on his shoulder had not affected his nerves yet. She stroked it but his cock was slow to react. She closed her eyes and sighed before bringing her lips to touch the tip of the stranger's manhood. It was warm against her flesh, showing her that he had not succumbed to the venom, but the heartbeat she could feel was fast and laboured.

She had little time left.

She added stroking to her kisses before taking him limp cock into her mouth - she swirled her tongue around the tip as she moved her hand gently up and down his shaft. She sometimes kissed and licked the sides of his cock as her hand stroked downward. With her other hand she cupped his hairy balls, lightly juggling them while returning her tongue to the tip. It was then that she felt the first evidence of his hardening flesh. Within moments, the stranger had achieved an impressive length and girth and he filled her mouth to the point of gagging.

The Blade Bride pulled away from his stiffened manhood and listened as a the stranger made odd syllables in a language she had yet to understand. She touched her pussy and it was more wet than when she had first provoked it - she stroked the man's cock a few more times before regaining her feet and straddling him. She lowered herself until she could reach his cock and guide it till it parted her cunt lips. She hesitated for a moment, holding her breath till she had fully engulfed him and when his cock was fully sheathed within her, she felt a plenitude that she had long denied herself. She placed her hands on his muscled chest and began to gyrate her hips, allowing his manhood to press against every side of her pussy and igniting eruptions of pleasure that rippled across her flesh.