Quest for the Dragon Soul Pt. 03

"It took years of trial and error," Slodovor said as he slowly stood and walked around and surveyed Khaln with a critical eye. Khaln noticed the old man's limp and then the tremor in his wrinkled hands. Despite Slodovor's tall stature and broad shoulders, Khaln saw the frailness and the wariness of the old warrior.

"You weren't sure you'd see the success of your ceremony in your lifetime," Khaln said, following Slodovor with a stony gaze.

"All the Vanguard Draconis perished during the siege – all except me and their daughters. Past injuries prevented me from joining the battle, so I became the caretaker of the prophecy of the Pneuma Dracona and its brood. But now you're here – the living spark of magic that will rekindle the great Dragon!"

"A day will come when magic will die; the Void will forget and the Gods will cry; but from the womb of woman and the seed of man the spark will arise; and the fire will soon burn behind the dragon's eyes!" The old warrior and the daughters of the Vanguard recited the prophecy two more times with conviction and purpose while Khaln just watched them. He noticed that Ziel-Tan had not spoken and that she matched his gaze.

"You either don't believe in this so-called prophecy, or you do, but I turned out to be a disappointment," Khaln said as he approached Ziel-Tan. The one-eyed archer appraised him, hey lovely eye scanning him from head to toe.

"I'm reserving judgment," Ziel-Tan said as she recalled his hanging body from the ceiling. He had been stripped naked and she had been fascinated by his scars and the red pools of light beneath his skin. She had even envied Onia when he had manhandled her while escaping his chains.

"You're not one of the daughters of the order, are you?" Khaln realized.

Ziel-Tan parted her thick lips into a sly smile. "There were many prophecies spoken before the oracles were silenced."

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Khaln stared up at the high ceiling of the warehouse where the survivor of the Vanguard Draconis and their daughters housed themselves away from the spying gaze of the Call of Skaelor. They skittered across the ruin streets of the once beautiful city cloaked in the remnant garbs of Scything Souls. They had taken him in and fed him and revealed to him that even now, the identity of his father and his very purpose were a mystery despite what Slodovor Ven Tivar would have him believe. And Ziel-Tan – her words of oracles told him she had her own agenda. He was growing annoyed at being the subject of other's agendas.

Bailla'Tayne Jeva – Tayne – was different. She was from a time when the world was full of magic so she had not known the Arcane Ailment or the war with the Call of Skaelor. In their time together, he had not felt that she had any motive beyond surviving in this era. He smiled sadly at the thought that their separation – and her hopeful survival – was best for her. Staying too long with him tended to be hazardous to one's health. He hoped that the sight of the city she so loved was not devastating to her – he missed her accent.

But what he did not miss was the moving shadows that neared him – he was nude beneath the blankets and he felt a pair of hands slide beneath them and up his legs and another pair touch his shoulders and slide down his chest.

He tensed and with sudden, snake like swiftness, Khaln had trapped one intruder by locking his legs around their upper body and by pinning the other to his chest with his powerful arms. His prisoners squirmed and squealed but Khaln's hold was steadfast, all the while the general softness of skin he felt told him he clutched women.

"Khaln," a softly muffled voice emanated from the woman he held close to his chest. "Please, its Onia and Ziel-Tan."

"What the hell are you doing?" He demanded as he loosened his grip on the women – but despite his irritation at their presence, the veins just beneath his skin glowed with an eerie scarlet luminescence. Even his eyes glowed with a red hue.

Ziel-Tan moved so that she rested next to him while Onia slid from his leg lock and was perpendicular to him, her busty upper body resting on his thighs.

"I told you the oracles had spoken many prophecies," Ziel-Tan whispered in his ear as she kissed him. Beneath the red glow emanating from his body, Ziel-Tan's harsh, athletic form was softened and the flare of her hips he had noticed earlier was enhanced. But her bosom was almost flat but for her large aureole and long, hard nipples.

"I just want to fuck the first man who ever disarmed me," Onia whispered as she took his growing cock in her small, calloused hand. His manhood glowed like a enchanted root as it disappeared into Onia's velvety lipped mouth. Onia hummed as she consumed Khaln's hardening cock, her tongue swirling around the tip before sliding down the sides of the shaft, coating it with a thin layer of saliva.

While Onia lathered Khaln's cock, he had slid a knee between Ziel-Tan's legs until the top of his thigh found the moist warm spot of her pussy. Ziel-Tan kissed him deeply and gripped his long, stone gray hair while she started to grind her pussy against his muscled thigh.

"Ooohhh ..." Ziel-Tan moaned as her clit rubbed against the prickly hairs of Khaln's thigh – he reached across her body and grabbed a handful of her curvy ass. His middle finger found the crevice of her ass and then touched the coiled muscles of her sphincter. Ziel-Tan stiffened at that unexpected touch but Khaln felt her smile through her kiss – her tongue seemed to dig deeper into his mouth, an emulation of what might happen to her ass later on.

Onia had moved between his thighs and reached out to find Ziel-Tan's pussy, adding a few fingers to caress her companion's sex while Ziel-Tan leaked her juices across Khaln's thigh. Khaln closed his eyes as he felt his cock be encased by Onia's wanton mouth – she had added her hand to his shaft and expertly stroked it as she complemented her sucking. She took her fingers away from Ziel-Tan's sex and cupped Khaln's testicles, squeezing them firmly when her mouth reached the apex of her upward movement.

Khaln's breathing turned into gasps when Ziel-Tan pushed herself from his thigh and joined her lips to Onia's and honored his manhood with a ballet of swirling tongues and voracious kisses. Khaln allowed himself to succumb to the pleasure these women were giving him – such relentless exercises in passion were something he had long surrendered to the past since the final encounter with his mother. Even the times he had spent with Tayne were tinged with restraint. He raised himself off the floor and grabbed Onia's waist and pulled her lower half towards his mouth – she was resting across his body and she began to shift between kissing Ziel-Tan and kissing his stone hard cock.

"Beautiful," he whispered as Onia's meaty pussy lips were illuminated by the red glow of his skin.

"Pleeeeaaaase," Onia pleaded as she wiggled her hips. Khaln needed no further incentive and his mouth found the exotic warrior woman's pussy. He hugged her hips while his tongue explored the edges of her cunt lips, each moist contact made Onia squirm. When he teased her clit by twirling his tongue around its base, Onia trembled and sought to smother him with her sex.

Ziel-Tan relinquished Khaln's cock and reached between her legs to ensure that her pussy was sufficiently moist, taking the sample of her juice and covering his manhood. Onia sat back on her knees and watched as Ziel-Tan straddled Khaln's lap and squatted down until his cock slid into the velvety folds of her awaiting pussy. Ziel-Tan moaned as Khaln's thick cock spread her tight cunt, the exchange of warmth and lust made them both grunt like beasts. He made his beastly sounds as he suckled and licked Onia's pussy – she responded by grinding her sex against his chin while watching Ziel-Tan lean back from her squatting position. The one eyed archer placed her hands behind her back and supported herself on Khaln's knees while she rocked her pelvis – Khaln grunted as his cock was forced in a somewhat unnatural angle as it disappeared in an out of Ziel-Tan's moist pussy. Onia reached out and touched Ziel-Tan's clit, making the archer shiver and her pussy quiver around Khaln's manhood.

Khaln was bathed in the feeling of Ziel-Tan's tight pussy strangling his cock, the heat from her sex blazing through his shaft and seemingly making the flashes of light beneath his skin glow all the more intensely. He was beginning to feel that he might have found where he belonged: his life entwined with these women as the prepared for whatever destiny was ahead of him. He belonged.

"Ziel," Onia whispered huskily. "Let me have some of his cock." Ziel-Tan reluctantly dismounted Khaln's soaked erection and they all shifted position, Onia laid flat on her stomach and folder her legs at her knees and reached behind her back and spread the cheeks of her ass; Ziel-Tan lead Khaln to straddle Onia's ass and she then spat in her hand, using her saliva to add to the fluids she had left on his cock.

Khaln gazed down at Onia's puckered asshole and said, "This is new to me."

Ziel-Tan smiled before sucking on Khaln's middle-finger and then placing it on Onia's anus. Onia squealed when Khaln pressed slowly against the tightly wound up muscle – it opened ever slightly under his pressure. Ziel-Tan had reached into the shadows and retrieved a long rough, wooden phallus that she spat on to make it wet and slippery. Onia cooed when Ziel-Tan showed her the phallus just as Khaln had sank his entire finger into the warrior woman's ass.

"Yes," Onia hissed. "I want the two of you!"

Khaln gazed hungrily as Ziel-Tan slid close to Onia and teased her pussy by rubbing the slit with the tip of the phallus before slowly sliding it into Onia's quivering cave. Khaln had pulled his finger from Onia's sphincter and replaced it with the bulbous tip of his cock.

"Gnnnfff," Onia mumbled as she felt her ass split apart under the force of Khaln's entry – Ziel-Tan paused from teasing Onia's cunt and let a thick strand of saliva drip from her open mouth an onto the junction of his cock and Onia's anus.

Ziel-Tan went back to her original purpose and pushed the hard phallus into Onia's cunt while Khaln probed her ass more deeply with his manhood. Onia felt the sweet intrusion of his cock ignite the thousands of embers of reluctant pleasure that lined her ass – the dichotomy of bliss and discomfort rippled through her limbs and into the depths of her mind, shading her senses with orgasmic reveries. Khaln was intoxicated by the elegant sway of Onia's hips as he established a rhythm of sliding in and out of her ass – the tightness of her orifice felt like it was stripping the skin from his manhood, drowning him in a sense of bliss that rose as a natural evolution of the pleasure he felt fucking a woman's pussy.

Ziel-Tan matched Khaln's rhythm, the phallus she held now sliding easily between Onia's pussy lips and deep towards her womb. She also watched Khaln – his body was a disturbing sight of subdued pools of red light while the web of veins, just beneath his skin, glowed with scarlet brilliance as blood rushed to his every muscle while under the influence of his bliss. She reached between her thighs and found the folds of her pussy, slipping two fingers into sex as she longed for his cock to return to her cunt.

But as her eyes grew heavy with the intoxication of pleasure, Ziel-Tan was granted a form of revelation – her beautiful right eye saw a recognizable pattern draw itself in red across Khaln's skin. She saw waterways and the web of interconnecting byways that scattered across the continent. She also saw, in the scars littering his back from his battle with the dream eaters, the great eye of the eternal storm that devoured any who ventured deep into the western sea to find the Isles of Seven Thunders. He truly was the one she had been sent to find.

Khaln was blind to Ziel-Tan's realization as he was drunk on the feeling of his cock invading and occupying more and more space in Onia's ass. Onia was moaning as her body was racked by competing sources of orgasm – Khaln's balls slapped against Onia's buttocks as his pace quickened and his manhood began to pulse as his orgasm neared it eruption. Onia had reached between her thighs and was furiously rubbing her clit while Ziel-Tan was still staring at the markings on Khaln's flesh while mechanically pumping Onia's pussy to the point of ecstasy.

"Ahh YESS!" Onia screamed without reserve as her pussy gushed with its tangy fluids and her ass seemed to turn into a fiery flower that consumed her. Her sphincter contracted around Khaln's bulging manhood and its embrace pulled him beyond his point of restraint.

"DAMN YOU!" Khaln suddenly screamed as he extracted himself from Onia's tightening asshole just as his cock erupted – some of his seed remained in Onia's ass while the rest spurted from his cock and sprayed across Onia's back. Ziel-Tan released the phallus she used to pleasure Onia and found herself opening her mouth as Khaln stood above them, his cock glowing with utmost intensity and even his come raining upon them. His seed glowed like lava as it struck Ziel-Tan's breasts and face and she rubbed it across her skin, licking her fingers clean of the clingy remnants. Ziel-Tan the reached out and took Khaln's cock in her hand and shoved it down her throat so that what ever was left leaking of his come would go down her throat.

Once spent, Khaln fell back and rested on the cool floor of the warehouse. When his breathing steadied and his skin gradually stopped glowing red, he rested himself on his elbows – he could barely make out the silhouettes of his lovers until the warehouse was awash in the light of dozens of torches.

Slodovor Ven Tivar stood over a confused Khaln, flanked by the other warrior daughters of the Vanguard Draconis. Khaln saw that the aged warrior was dressed in a full mail shirt beneath a leather cuirass stitched with silver plates bearing the crest of the Vanguard Draconis – he held his sword and his buckler at the ready. The warrior women had all drawn their fighting axes and daggers.

"The revelation is complete," Slodovor said. "The path is clear. Onia?"

Khaln had already begun to return to his feet when Onia sprang from her seated position facing him – she had placed her palms on the ground and pushed while simultaneously kicking out with her legs. Still groggy from his orgasm, Khaln could do nothing as Onia's heel connected with the tip of his chin, knocking him backwards and he struck the ground unconscious.

"Ziel-Tan, Onia – prepare him for travel," Slodovor ordered. "Those of you who noted the marking on his skin, make a single chart. It has to be precise as there can only be one corridor across the Ardent sea and through the Ever Storm."

Ziel-Tan bit her lower lip and dressed while Onia did the same. Ziel-Tan would have to act soon if her mission was to be successful: she had to secret the pathfinder and keeper of the spark back the catacombs at Melit'Zay so the last living seeded wizard might save them all with the help of this wounded warrior.

As Onia threw a bucket of water on an unconscious Khaln as a mean of washing the scent of their love making away, Ziel-Tan secretly pitied him. What a burden it must be to be the fulcrum of so many prophetic forces.

VI

Bailla'Tayne Jeva strolled the dark streets of Videsh'Achar with confidence born of her faith renewed in her purpose and her goddess. She paused and looked to the night skies and at the two moons that kept a silent vigil – they knew that when she found Khaln and brought him back to the Hall of Steel, she would bed him again and again and her magic would grow more powerful and they would remake the world the way it was supposed to be: the way she remembered it. She imagined the rebuilt walls of the city, its crystal structures reborn and covered in even more intricate decors than she had ever dreamed of.

But even as she dreamed of renewed beauty, Bailla'Tayne Jeva turned a blind eye to the squalor and destruction the siege by the Call of Skaelor had created. In the alleys she passed, the tattered survivors fought for food and water or for shelter from the the forces of the Call that sometimes swept down and took them in the night.

But when Bailla'Tayne Jeva looked upon them, she saw people who were suffering a crisis of faith – a faith to be renewed when the will of Asteytis was fulfilled. The nightmare of the Call of Skaelor would be cast aside.

Those who saw her, however, did not see the powerful Blade Bride adorned in beautiful armor and a majestic helmet – they saw a madwoman covered in bits of flesh and rusted tin and bones. But the short spear she wielded as well as the short sword at her side, those were real and deadly enough.

Bailla'Tayne Jeva felt a sudden tug yank her to the West and she found herself looking out upon the shore below the cliffs that towered over the harbor where ships from every island kingdom docked in order to ply their wares at one time or another. Now, the large storage silos and warehouses stood like empty monuments to a dying past.

But one caught her eye – from its roof, Bailla'Tayne Jeva witnessed a convergence of layers of leylines. Those were the lines of ethereal forces that served as the foundations of magic, and she could only see them with this clarity when she was close to Khaln. And she had only seen such a level of leyline activity when she had fucked the warrior – her heart sank a bit at the thought of him being in another woman's embrace.

Yet, she managed to push jealousy aside and she threw herself towards the winding path down the cliffs that lead to the harbor – above her, a flight of Quieting Angels carrying Scything Souls circled her diligently.

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For the second time this same day, Khaln found himself bound in shackles and being dragged to an unknown location – but he soon understood he was being dragged to a ragged sailing ship with resting sails. Two of the daughters of the Vanguard carried him with little difficulty while he concentrated on his situation: his hands were shackled behind his back but he was covered in a dark cloak. The same cloaks that hid them from the Call of Skaelor: cloaks from the same fabric as the bodies of the Scything Souls. It would be easy to throw the cloak off and have the Quieting Angels fall upon them all but shackled the way he was, he would simply be replacing one gaoler for another.

Khaln had felt that he might have an ally – since Tayne's disappearance, the one eyed Qoazti archer Ziel-Tan had shown an interest in him less fanatical than that Slodovor and his followers. And even though she had participated in the threesome from earlier that night, the look he had seen in her eyes was more concern than insane lust.

Khaln raised his head slightly and gazed out from below the hood of his imposed cloak – Slodovor Ven Tivar had taken point of this little troop and he was flanked by Onia and another warrior woman. Two guided him and another two were likely behind him. Ziel-Tan closed their caravan, her bow better suited for a long range defense against anything before them or behind them.

As they closed on the docks, Khaln calculated his chances of throwing himself forward and rolling on the ground and back to his feet while being able to tackle Slodovor and with some luck the old soldier would draw his sword and buckler and Khaln might have a chance of grabbing the weapon, sending them both into the water.

But even as Khaln was gauging his chances, he heard a shriek from the rear – as he turned, Ziel-Tan was already knocking her second arrow as a haphazardly clad figure fell upon them.

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Bailla'Tayne Jeva was closing upon the group approaching the harbor when she saw a flare in the leylines surrounding one of the figures – it had to be Khaln. Fearing that the danger he was already in was about to take turn for the worse, Bailla'Tayne Jeva launched herself from the descending path and down the side of the cliff that towered above the harbor.