Terrible Company Ch. 13

"You're right," Katsa said, smiling widely. "We definitely need to bring Val too."

Ivy nodded sagely.

"Maybe you should wait here," Katsa continued. "Watch over Sleeping Beauty until we get back."

"Just let her come," Val said. "She always ends up being useful in some ridiculously circumspect manner."

"Plus, I made all these smoke bombs," Ivy said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a dozen small vials.

Katsa's eyes went wide. "Where did you get the materials for those?"

"From your set!" Ivy replied, tilting her head towards Katsa's alchemical pack.

"No-no-no-no-no-no," Katsa whined, as she scurried over to her bag and rifled through it. "No-no-no-no!"

"You didn't have enough of the Murden's Wort, so I had to improvise some of them with other ingredients."

The Arcanist feverishly flipped through her stores. "You used, like, everything!"

"Yeah," Ivy said. "I was surprised you had so little."

"That's because I actually carry this!" she shrieked, hefting her bag. "I have to manage my inventory very carefully!"

"Are you sure those even work?" Val said, staring dubiously at the vials.

"Yeah!" Ivy said excitedly. "Watch!"

"NO!"

***

Our heroes set out, quite boldly, after they'd cleared the air in the room and made sure the unconscious Mathilda would not die of asphyxiation or smoke inhalation. Katsa quickly came around to the idea of her smoke bombs, speaking glowingly of Ivy's choice to consume nearly all of their available materials for them and lauding the surety of Ivy's ability to employ them wisely. Ivy, bolstered by Katsa's support, felt quite vindicated in her executive decision, and awarded herself three gold stars.

Though the sun was still high in the afternoon sky, the frigid climate of Winternia forced the humans to stay quite bundled as they trekked through the city. Val technically had no need to be as draped as the others, in deep cowls and heavy cloaks, but doing so afforded her a few extra places to hide weapons. The wind had gotten worse over the course of the day, and although it didn't bar them from reaching their destination it did hinder their speed in doing so.

Val and Katsa argued over their purpose and goal, each trying to suggest plans that played to the others strengths in ways that put the other one in charge. Neither one really wanted to take control of the situation and the conversation frequently devolved into accusations of Attempted Inception, which had recently been outlawed in the Terrible Company bylaws by unanimous vote. Actual inceptions, ironically, were perfectly legal.

The more they argued, the more they both realized that returning to Winternia was something Ayen was firmly against in the first place, and by degrees they talked themselves around to feeling just in their quest to liberate their once and future party member. It was totally a fight, though, and the two bickered to such an extent that neither of them noticed when Ivy led them right back to the front gates of the castle and promptly asked the first guard she found if King Ayen could come out and play.

The trio were escorted inside after considerably less run-around (read: none) than they were expecting (read: lots), but the real surprise was what awaited them in the great hall. They were prepared to have him beg them to help him escape. They were even prepared for it to be subtle, and that the Queen might be present for it. Given the (literal) lengths Ayen had gone to distance himself from the royal court, they were prepared for any number of avenues by which Ayen might request, entreat, or plead for their assistance.

What they were not prepared for was for Ayen to be his normal self. Or for him to hit on them, each, constantly, even as the Queen hit on him.

Katsa and Val were largely silent through the whole affair, only answering when spoken to directly. They watched like hawks for signs of Ayen's disgruntlement at having been returned to his birthright. Only Ivy persisted, heroically, toward their original goal of saving Mathilda. Ayen was, as he had always been, callous and uncaring toward the plight of their healer, repeatedly pointing out the maiming of his hand as proof that she would not have done the same for him.

During the course of their ten-minute audience, the Queen was a curious mix of vigilant and coy. Whenever Ayen was seated beside her, her hands were on him in such a possessive and salacious manner that both Katsa and Val were uncomfortable staying any longer than was necessary. They practically dragged Ivy out after the third round of arguments failed to yield any softening in his stance to remain where he was.

***

"Empleh," Ivy mumbled to herself, as she stepped out of the bathroom. The towel around her torso clung in place by the barest of margins as she dried her hair. "Empleh."

"You didn't love it?"

"It was ok," Katsa said, shrugging. "I mean, it was definitely a worthy successor."

Val shook her head. "You're insane."

"Emp-LEH," Ivy said again, stressing the latter half.

"I mean, Jonah was pretty good, but he's no Mike."

"Mike?" Val scoffed. "You're going with Mike?"

"He had the best delivery. He had, like, such a natural manner, and it never looked like he was trying too hard."

"Yeah, but he's so smarmy!"

"Em-Pl-Eh." Ivy shook her head and moved on to drying off her legs.

"The new cast didn't have the same confidence level," Katsa said, sitting back on the second bed. "All the jokes were piled on top of one another, like they were desperate to get in as many as they could and prove that they're as great as the original."

"They were great. It was great! Especially Baron Vaughn."

"No way," Katsa laughed. "Kevin Murphy Tom Servo is best Tom Servo."

"I liked Josh Weinstein," Ivy said.

Katsa closed her eyes and paused. "Thank you, Ivy. I don't know how we'd have gotten to the bottom of this, the greatest moral dilemma of our time, without your contribution."

Ivy smiled and nodded happily to herself. It occurred to her almost daily that without the constant support and encouragement from her best friend Katsa, she would have a much harder time leading their rowdy cohort, and she thanked her lucky stars to have such a stalwart ally. "You're welcome!"

"Well what about Hampton Yount?"

"Oh," Katsa said, nodding. "Yeah. Yeah, Yount was great."

"Em-pleeeh," Ivy repeated.

"What are you muttering about?" the Arcanist asked brightly.

"My breasts are trying to communicate with me."

Val chortled. "Did they send you a mammogram?"

"No," Ivy said distractedly. "Em-pleh."

"C'mon," Val said, brushing her hand on Katsa's shoulder, but Katsa continued to stare in muted jealousy at the Bard's scarcely-covered cleavage. "Mammogram. You didn't think that was funny?"

Katsa merely grunted.

The big Orc shook her head. "Nobody gets my humor."

"Maybe it's 'Emple H'?"

The little blonde tilted her head. "How exactly did your breasts talk to you?"

Ivy removed her towel, cupped her pendulous breasts in her hands, and spread them. "It was written between them," she said, looking down. "Right there."

Katsa's right eye twitched furiously.

"E-M-P-L-E-H?" Val said, spelling them out. "That's 'help me' backwards."

Ivy gasped. "Do you think they're in trouble?"

"Not them," the Orc said, shaking her head. "Ayen."

"There's no way," Katsa stated definitively.

Ivy screwed her face in thought. "I mean, he did push a pen down into my cleavage, but he's always done that. Like literally every day." After a moment, she added, "Plus he wrote it backwards."

"Did you read it in a mirror?" Val asked, one eyebrow arched high.

Ivy nodded slowly as understanding dawned on her. "Yeah. Yeah."

"I knew it was weird that he didn't try to signal us at all."

"Could you please put those things away?" Katsa asked.

"His mother probably threatened him before we came in," Ivy said, scratching her chin with the tip of her nail.

Val's jaw dropped. "You mean, like, his Stepmother?"

"No no," Ivy said. "Birth mother and everything."

The big Orc made a sound in her throat that has no transliteral equivalent in English.

"Queen Lisbet was married to his father. Technically, she's the Regent right now."

"So she's... what? Attaching herself to him to stay in power?"

"Could you please put those things away?" Katsa repeated.

"I think so," Ivy said.

"That is..." Val's expression turned sickly, and she shook her head.

"Incest is extremely common among royal families," the Bard said knowingly. "They do it to keep their bloodlines pure."

"Yeah but..." The Orc groaned distastefully. "She changed his diapers."

"Judge not," Ivy said wisely, "lest ye be judged."

Val rolled her eyes. "Okay. So we're back where we started. We need to rescue him."

"There were a lot of guards," Ivy said slowly. "Where do we start?"

"Maybe by putting some fucking clothes on," Katsa screamed.

Ivy nodded, feeling truly blessed to have someone in her life who looked out for her as vigorously as Katsa did. "I will, my friend," she said, taking Katsa's hand in both of hers and squeezing. "I will."

Katsa stormed from the room in a huff. Val rolled her eyes again, and then put her index finger under Mathilda's nose to double check that the Dwarf was still breathing.

***

Without Ayen to lead them, the three-woman subset of Katsa, Ivy, and Val were markedly less effective at subterfuge, scurrying, or skulking. They were lucky to get over the outer wall undiscovered, and their ability to remain undetected pretty much ended there. Fortunately, before they'd left, Ivy had divided the contents of each of her smoke bombs in half after finding her original formula a bit overpowering.

Every time a guard found them Ivy squeaked and threw a smoke bomb, enshrouding the guard in billowing smoke and causing them to descend into a horrific coughing fit. In most places in the world, this would have been a curiosity that would have caused any other nearby guards, servants, or soldiers to investigate further, but in Winternia, coughing meant a cold. The royal palace of Winternia was a notoriously drafty edifice, and no one relished the idea of taking a day off to rest knowing they'd have to explain themselves to the Queen the following day. Whenever a smoke bomb went off, everyone else within earshot went running in the other direction for fear of germs.

Despite that unintended-but-positive side effect of her smoke bombs, Terrible Company continued to blunder into guard after guard, and they left a trail of bound-and-gagged sentries in their wake.

***

"Where are you getting all this rope?" Katsa hissed, as Val cinched the knots behind an unconscious guard.

"What do you mean, where? I brought it with me."

"You've tied up like thirty guards."

Val made a raspberry and frowned. "It was way less than thirty."

"That's not the point! It was a lot of guards!"

"Well I'm certainly not manifesting it out of thin air. That's your department."

Katsa scoffed. " 'Summon Rope' is the second most useless use for my skills."

"Smoke bomb!" Ivy cried, as she beaned a guard between the eyes when he came around a corner behind them.

"Is it absolutely necessary for you to say 'smoke bomb' every time you throw one of those?" Katsa asked sweetly.

"Not technically," Ivy answered, "but it's helping my rhythm."

Val slipped into the dark cloud and delivered a thunderous gut punch, leaving the guard crumpled and heaving. She re-emerged a few moments later, dragging the guard by his collar. "Do either of you know where we're going?"

"Yeah," Katsa said flippantly, "toward that receiving hall or wherever."

"They're not gonna be there." Val tossed the second guard next to the first, and set about untying the first one and then tying them together. "That's just for seeing guests. They have their own quarters. Hell, they might even have their own wing."

"Then I guess I don't know," Katsa snapped.

"I know where we're going," Ivy said, heroically taking charge.

"How." Katsa didn't even bother to phrase it like a question.

"Bard rule number 38; Always know your audience."

"That's not an answer."

"It is common practice," she continued, "for Bards to know the layout of several major royal castles. The aristocracy are often the only ones who can afford to patronize bards, so it's not uncommon for us to sneak onto royal grounds, set up in the garden outside the local lord, king, or queen's window, and serenade them as a way of getting their attention."

"And you know the royal castle of Winternia?" Val said, stupefied.

"Every Bard knows this castle."

"Why the hell didn't you—"

"Smoke bomb!"

Val and Katsa ducked out of the way just in time as Ivy threw another of her tiny vials right between them. Another guard fell into a coughing fit, and Val grumbled as she went into the cloud after him.

"It would be easier," Katsa wheezed, "and faster, if Val just did this herself."

"Oh let her go," Val said, reappearing moments later. "Can't you see how happy this makes her?"

After securing the three guards together, Val crept to the corner and peeked out. "That's gotta be it over there."

Ivy stepped up beside her and nodded, confirming for everyone that it was, in fact, the right place. The doors and hallways were adorned slightly differently, matching colors and patterns they'd seen earlier on the Queen's vestments. Katsa went first, awkwardly straddling the line between slinking and snarling. Although most of her stocks had been depleted to make all the awesome smoke bombs, she still had some literal tricks up her sleeve. Val followed close behind, dragging the most recent three bound guards along, and Ivy brought up the rear.

They thought it was odd that there was no one posted outside the Queen's rooms, and once they were inside the outer chamber they knew why. The sounds coming from the inner chambers were vulgar and depraved. Val shook her head and stayed behind to watch their backs while the two best friends moved forward to try to peek in through the keyholes.

The Queen herself sat astride one of her guards, riding him with her backside toward both the guard's torso and their vantage point. That guard's left thumb was fully plunged into her ripe, pale behind, and the Queen moaned loudly. Another guard stood next to her, grunting as she alternately stroked and sucked him off. Five more guards stood in wait, hands at the base of their shafts to keep themselves hard and ready to go.

Directly ahead of the Queen sat Ayen, strapped to a chair while a young woman knelt between his legs. Two more handmaidens lingered behind him, eyes wide and cheeks flush with anticipation, their youthful bodies were primed for their charge. Ayen's eyes were fixed on his mother, though his head was turned. At a groan between his legs, Ayen glanced down.

"Ah ah ah," the Queen sang. "Eyes on me, eonere."

With great reluctance, Ayen looked back up, and this time his face turned even farther to the side.

"That's it," she said, though it was not clear if her pleasure was due to her son's obedience or any physical stimulation. She leaned back, arching and putting herself on display for him as she rolled her hips up and back.

"Eonere is Elvish for son," Ivy whispered.

Katsa glared sideways for a moment before staring forward again.

"Well, beloved son, really, with kind of a possessive modulation. 'My beloved son', maybe. I think she's using more of an ancient interpreta—"

Katsa hissed, and Ivy quieted. It was good that she had, really, because then Ivy got to watch for just that much longer. Older Elvish women were her type, and the Queen hit quite a few other buttons for the Bard.

When she looked back, the Queen had gotten up. The guard she'd been riding had finished inside of her, judging by his cross-eyed countenance, and she'd moved to be standing over the girl between Ayen's legs while another guard came up and penetrated her from behind. It was hard and fast, and Ivy was thoroughly turned on. There were few things that rated higher for her than a good, hard fuck.

Every thrust, moan, and grunt happened right in Ayen's face, and try as he might, he was unable to hold off the talented tongue wrapped tightly around his shaft. He whined piteously as he came, and the more he squirmed, the more his mother moaned too.

"That's it," she groaned. "Give in, sholare. Doesn't it feel good?"

Ivy leaned over. "Sholare means—"

"I can guess," Katsa whispered harshly.

"Are you both touching yourselves right now?" Val asked incredulously, and Ivy was once again reminded of why Katsa was her best friend.

"How many more?" the Queen said, and four of the guards raised their hands with grim smiles.

"Ok," Katsa whispered, peeling herself away from the door. "They're gonna be going like that all night. We need a plan."

"Aren't we already doing 'Send in the Elf'?" Val chuckled.

The Arcanist shook her head. "There's too many of them. By the time one of them is spent, two more are ready to replace him."

"Plus," Ivy said, still with her eye to the keyhole, "if we just pull him out of there, Ayen goes right back to being a fugitive."

"Whoa," the big orc said slowly. "Whoa, I have an idea!"

***

"Bring him to me."

The Queen lounged on her lavish bed, an expanse of down and satin. Her eyes were large and ravenous, projecting confidence she held in herself, in her power, and in her body. At her command, two handmaidens crawled off of Ayen, one from his face and one from his middle. Ayen lay there, spent, in the middle of the room on a makeshift pallet of blankets and pillows, and when two of the guardsmen stepped forward to lift him, he had no strength in his legs. They carried him between them to the foot of the bed, and the Queen's unadorned coterie gathered behind.

"Now!" Katsa yelled.

Val broke open the double doors with a mighty kick, sending both flying apart with an irreparable bend to them. As soon as the path was clear, Katsa hurled a swirling purple vial past her, right into the center of the crowd where it struck one of the guards holding Ayen, and the center of the room erupted in smoke.

It felt like an eternity... No. It was an eternity as Ivy waited for the cloud to dissipate.

Ayen stumbled out of the hazy gray, coughing harshly. He looked down at his hands, and even though his respiratory system was in full revolt, his eyes betrayed the deep shock at what he saw. Val surged forward, surprising him again, and ran him through with a long dagger. He stared up at her, jaw slack, blood spilling over his lip, in complete disarray.

Even as Ayen fell to his knees, light fading from his gaze, Ayen stumbled out of the thinning fog further across the room. And then another. And then another. And as the air began to clear, many Ayen stared back at them and at each other. All of them nude. They grasped their chests, and they took hold of their cocks, and they gaped at each other. Ten of them, counting the one at Val's feet. All of them completely identical.

"And that is how you use Polymorph," Katsa cried, though no sooner were the words out of her mouth than her breath caught in the throat, because behind them all, in a clear void within the smoke, stood the Queen, her arms extended and her eyes full of malice. The little blonde's voice quivered, nearly breaking, as she hissed, "She's an Elementalist!"

Ivy had never seen an Elementalist. Only Elves were able to call upon the elements directly, as compared to the way Katsa and other Arcanists manipulated them with equations and secret words, and even among the Elves it was a rare talent. The Queen stood, rising above the heads of the many Ayen before her, and glared at them imperiously. It was truly an awe-inspiring sight.