The Song of Roland Ch. 13-14

Kelsea's eyes were like vaulting pinions of fire. She came at the creature at a run, her legs carrying her with preternatural speed across the ground. Roland, encumbered by the Harpy humping atop him, could only watch in awe as she seemed to bend time, moving at a speed he had thought impossible. She covered the distance between them in several strides, instead of a dozen. Her tail, whiplike, snapped upon the ground in a loud chorus as she strode up to the pair who continued to mate, unabated by the impending arrival of the creature in their midst.

The harpy looked up almost too late, her pleasured face scrunching deep into a more aggressive, avian look. Ignoring the near-insatiate Roland, the bird lifted herself to her feet and spun around, flapping herself backwards in an attempt to gain some distance from the enraged Succubus. She failed.

Kelsea reached forward, grabbing the blue beast's taloned leg with both hands. Like a strong man at a king's feast performance she turned hard on her heels, pinwheeling the hapless creature around in a wide, arcing circle. The Harpy managed to let out a surprised cry before she was flung bodily away towards the treeline, her prodigious rear bouncing across the ground like a skipping rock upon a pond's surface. The look on the Demon's face was black.

"Roland!" She shouted, "Get yourwhoringlegs off the ground!"

The red maned mercenary groaned, tilting his head up to stare in pain at the woman who had simultaneously saved him and doomed him. He looked down at himself, surveying the scratch marks, the shredded clothing, the large wet splotch across his crotch where the Harpy had dribbled both his and her sexual fluids across him. He was still erect, under the utterly intoxicating spell of the beast who had been so rudely flung away from him mere moments before. The only thing he was still wearing was his boots; his body felt like lead, his mind was mush. "Guhh..." He mumbled out, shifting his weight and half-consciously attempting to acquiesce to her demand.

The Harpy recovered first, pulling herself up off the ground, her vision narrowed tightly onto the creature standing with bent back and clenched fists over Roland, shouting invectives in an increasingly hysterical voice. Letting loose a loud screech, she leapt forward, her talons out in front as she crossed the distance between her and the interloper with the same sudden speed of her newfound enemy. Distracted by her own anger, Kelsea didn't see her approach till she was on her.

"Kraaah!" The Harpy screamed, slamming her heavier weight into the Succubus' body. Kelsea managed to move quickly enough to avoid getting eviscerated, but the creature's bulkier form slammed into her with the inertial force of a catapult's arm snapping forward. The Succubus was knocked flat to the ground, her stance going from standing upright to prone like Roland in the space of a second. Roland heard the heavy sucking of air, and realized she'd had the wind knocked out of her.

The Harpy planted its talons down onto the Succubus' shoulders, her rear toes digging down into Kelsea's chest as she flapped angrily above her. Triumphant, the creature began to pull at her, attempting to lift her up into the air to toss her over the side of the embankment. Kelsea's mouth opened and closed like a fish, her brain momentarily forgetting to breathe as she laid, stunned upon the ground. Roland's physical stupor disappeared in a flash, his adrenaline bursting forth across his brain as he saw the object of his obsession under threat. Naked, tired, and muddy, he rolled onto his stomach, pushing up with all his might to stand.

The Harpy cawed, her body lifting Kelsea's off the ground like a ragdoll as she began to gain altitude. Roland leapt forwards; had he the slightest bit of shame, the mercenary might have felt a pang of embarrassment at the prospect of such abject nudity on display, but his entire attention was focused on the girl at the mercy of the bird. It's back was to him, the creature's large bottom bouncing in the air, still trailing his sperm down the inside of her large thighs. Weaponless, he did the only thing he could think of: he tackled her, leaping into the small of her back with all his strength, forcing the creature to lose balance and slow her ascent.

The feathered bird squawked indignantly, her blue-fluff hair tossing to the side as she affixed him with a sideways glance. Momentarily thrown off balance, the creature refused to let go of her offending quarry, choosing instead to stop flapping and collapsing to the ground, dragging the Succubus' back across the muddy forest floor. She swept her large, winged arm behind her, casually backhanding Roland and sending him sprawling across the ground. Turning back to the purple-skinned Succubus, the Harpy bent at the knees and leaned down into her, screeching out a note of fury.

But Kelsea had finally gotten her wind back. Her red-rimmed eyes opened and focused, her brow pulling down into a deep scowl as she grimaced. Her arms reached up and grabbed at the Harpy's right leg, which had been digging into her skin with painful perforation, drawing blood. The creature cackled at this latest escape attempt, letting out a taunting call to watch the human helplessly struggle against her superior strength... but she was facing no mere human. Once Kelsea got a good grip with both hands upon the Harpy's leg, she began to flex, forcefully pulling the beast's claw free from her chest and lifting it, causing it to begin to lose balance.

The Harpy struggled, suddenly caught in a vice by the Succubus' fury. All thought of exultant jeering gone, the creature instead tried to pull away, inadvertently releasing Kelsea's other shoulder as it made a vain attempt to lift off from the ground. Kelsea clung to the thing's leg for dear life, her back lifting as the Harpy flapped harder and harder, using the whole of her might to try to peel the Succubus' grip off of her. By this point Roland had recovered, and he ran forward, out of breath but intent upon helping however he could. He leapt into the Harpy's stomach from the side, smashing into her and further knocking her off balance, forcing the creature to fall into a heap of feathers and flesh on the side of the ground. Her pure blue plumage became stained with mud and grit.

"Godsdamnyou!" Kelsea shouted, rolling to a crouch as she pounced atop the now struggling Harpy. The two began a ferocious struggle, Kelsea's smaller form bucking and shifting atop the bird woman's increasingly frantic attempts to throw the Succubus off of her. Roland got into the mix, leaping atop one of her long wings in a desperate attempt to hold her down to the ground... for what reason, he hadn't the foggiest clue, but having already been stripped naked, lusted after by a Harpy in heat, then "saved" by an enraged Succubus, he wasn't in the proper frame of mind to utilize basic logic.

Utilizing her astonishing lower body strength, the Harpy let out a strained cry, lifting her hips up over her head. Executing a reverse roll, she thrust her legs forward, pushing Kelsea off of her with her powerful thighs before peeling herself free from Roland's slick grip. In an instant she was airborne, taking off vertically with unsteady strokes till she was hovering ten feet off the ground. Staring down at her two tormentors, she let out a squalling shriek, her tufted feathers and dirtied form clearly displaying the effort of her attack. She looked as though she were about to dive down upon the both of them.

Whatever the bird creature's plans had been, they changed dramatically when the loudtwangof something snapped behind her. In a rush of reflexes, the Harpy twitched to the side, narrowly missing the arrowpoint that sailed past her face at a blinding clip. Twisting around in the air, she cawed as she turned to face this new intruder. Roland's gaze shifted down, to the standing pose of that blonde bastard, Carl Hale, his foot perched cockily atop the muddy lip of embankment. He was already nocking another arrow from his quiver, drawing back the bowstring and taking aim.

Realizing that her situation was rapidly becoming untenable, the creature opted for the animalistic response: flight over fight. She pulled her wings back, and dove downwards, swooping past Roland and Kelsea, who were forced to duck to avoid being bowled over. Using the momentum gathered from her descent, the Harpy turned her wings towards the forest, making a beeline for cover. Carl tracked her with his arrowtip, his green eyes squinting as his brow furrowed in concentration. He let fly again, and the Harpy just narrowly missed being struck yet again in the leg. Forced to overcorrect to avoid the shot, she turned, streaking out past the embankment, hanging like a marionette over the chasm of the canyon below.

Now out in open air, she sailed, turning with the thermals as she was buffeted by the cold, pulling wind. Roland shivered in his nakedness, fully aware of just how exposed he now was. He glanced over to Kelsea, whose eyes were fastened like a padlock to the image of the slowly receding form of the Harpy. Carl glanced over at his Mistress, his eyes questioning as to her orders now that the immediate danger had passed. Kelsea's face was stony. "Shoot it down." She said.

Roland, startled by the cold way she spoke, put a hand to her shoulder, turning her to him. "Kelsea don't, she's already-" But the Succubus roughly shook his grip off of her, lifting her arm to point accusingly at the Harpy's cruising flight path.

"Shoot it down!" She snarled. Carl nodded robotically.

The handsome archer drew back his arm, pulling the bowstring with the nocked arrow taut against his chest. He tracked the sailing creature, his task easier now that she was moving at an estimable rate and in a logical direction. Waiting till she turned her back to him so that she wouldn't see it in time, Carl aimed and fired, letting the arrow loose just as she swept back towards the mountainside, moving away from them up the High Road. His bowtwanged, the arrow firing forth like a bolt of lightning before disappearing as merely a dark line across the slate grey sky. Roland's eyes followed the projectile's trajectory, his eyes closing in disgust when he heard the pained cry of the Harpy echo across the canyon.

She twitched in the air when the arrow connected, lodging itself in the crook of her wing shoulder, just between the bow and the joint as it spread outwards. Her wing spasmed, stopping her forward progress and forcing the suddenly wounded creature into a sharp downward trajectory. She struggled to right herself, her uninjured wing flapping frenziedly to try to make up for the loss of wingpower and balance. The extra lift only made her begin to spin, corkscrewing down towards the earth below. Roland ran to the lip of the embankment, his body breaking out into a shudder that was not entirely due to the nip in the air. He watched, his mouth a flat line, as the hurt creature made her final, catastrophic descent.

The Harpy, clearly in anguish, forced her injured wing to open, attempting to right herself and glide down to a safe landing. Seeing now no other options, the creature turned, her spiralling fall forcing her to land at the only strip of open ground that was available: the High Road, ironically less than a few hundred feet from the cliffside camp that the three companions had made just a few minutes before. She disappeared from view as she passed beneath the embankment, but Roland heard the sickening crunch of something hit the ground, followed by a piteous cry that rose like a widow's wail.

Kelsea was at Roland's side, and Carl sidled up as well. Together, the three stared down at the empty, muddy road in silence, the high cairn of their encampment obscuring their vision of the Harpy's crash site. Kelsea's scowl tightened when she heard the continuing agonized cries. "Good work." She said, clearly addressing Carl. Her gaze didn't shift left at all to look at Roland as she spoke. "Now go down and finish it off. Wait for me to arrive, I want to watch."

Carl nodded, shouldering his bow and beginning the arduous climb down the embankment. Kelsea did not turn her head, instead obscuring her eyes with her trailing, silky hair. The mountain wind began to pick up, and Roland could feel goosebumps build like a cresting wave across the whole of his bare, shivering skin. The imminent danger of the moment over, he began to tremble in the alpine air. "Get some clothes." She said, her voice low and emotionless. "You'll freeze to death, otherwise."

"Kelsea-" He began.

She struck him. Hard, without holding back. Her Succubus' strength made it such a powerful slap that he was sent sprawling, his head snapping to the right as he crumpled roughly to the ground. Kelsea stood over him, her shoulders shaking as she clenched her fists. Her eyes were bright, burning pits that flashed like hellfire. "What thefuckis wrong with you, Roland?" She yelled, her voice on the edge of inhumanity. He didn't respond, his hand shakily rising to feel the mark on his cheek from where she'd hit him. Unwilling to let him respond, her foot cranked back and kicked him in the chest. Ironically, it hurt less, feeling more like a blast of impotent rage.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" She screamed, her voice coalescing with the howling gale to create an echoing, bellowing roar. "You fucked that?" She kicked him again, this time hitting his thigh. He felt a bruising pain build in the spot she struck. "You fuckedthat?!" She repeated, as if the accusation itself was enough to condemn him.

"I didn't-"

She picked him up by the armpits, lifting him like he was a doll in her grasp. "You didn'twhat, you poor excuse of a person? You petty,repulsivepile of-"

"I didn'tchooseto do it!" He bellowed back, his face reddening in anger as he felt his muscles tighten in the cold. Momentarily stunned, Kelsea released him, dropping Roland in a heap onto the ground. He sank to his knees, his legs shaking as the emotion of the moment overwhelmed him. He had to put his hands down like tentpoles to hold himself up, his head lowering as unintended tears built upon his face. "I didn't... she made me..." He whispered, feeling empty inside.

"So it's a 'she?' That's adorable." Kelsea spat, standing over him like a stormcloud. "You talk all this nonsense about letting 'poor little' Carl go, get my 'claws' out of him. Well whose claws were you holding on to, just now? Whose claws were you clinging to when thatthingwas swallowing your little, erect prick with her cooch, huh?"

Roland let out a heavy sigh, attempting to steady his breath. He barely noticed the wind anymore. "Kelsea," He said, trying his utmost to keep his voice level. "Look at my penis right now."

"Thelastthing in the world I want to see right now is-"

"Look!" He shouted, pointing down at his still rock-hard erection. "Even with your power, how often do you see something like this: still hard, when a man's freezing, when he's cold and tired and getting beat down into the dirt?" Kelsea's mouth closed. Her glaring eyes turned to look at the unnatural arousal of Roland's sex, despite the fact that it was a distant clarion call to his needs and wants. Roland tilted his head, displaying the blue lipstick marks that ran across his skin. His fingers swiped across his cheek, and he held out his fingertips to show her the woad coloration that came off of him like paint.

"You see this? This is an aphrodisiac. A powerful one. Harpies are monogendered, they hunt for mates like they hunt for prey." Roland wiped his hand across the ground, disgusted with himself. "How do you think they get willing subjects to impregnate them, huh? Do you think that they justwalkup to the first fool they see, caw and show their sodden cunts?"

"For you?" Kelsea said, coldly. "I'm sure that tactic would work."

The Succubus began to scramble down the hill, ignoring the pleading way Roland extended his hands out to reach for her. "Get to the fire and get warm." She said over her shoulder. "Or dont. Freeze to death. I couldn't care less, right now. Your bird paramour and I are going to have a chat, and we'llseeif you're as big a liar as you are a bastard."

Quaking, cold and not a little exhausted, Roland stood. He held his hands close to his biceps, across his chest in a minimal attempt to stave off the wracking shivers that coated his nude form. The tattered Mercenary moved slowly down the hill, following the brisk pace his otherworldly woman took as she carelessly careened down the embankment.I love you,Roland. Those words of hers echoed in his brain like the maddening call to fate that they were. Resolving not to simply let the matter be, Roland instead picked his way down the hillside, doing his best not to trip and fall as he took the quickest route he could in pursuit of the Succubus.

He made for the roadline, ignoring the allure of the fire and clothes for the sake of seeing what had become of his erstwhile lover the Harpy. He circled the bend of the road, where the edge clipped off the high cliff with a sudden, precipitous drop, and came upon a pitiable sight. The blue-feathered creature lay, splayed across the ground where she had impacted. There was a long stretch of flat, depressed mud tracing the line along the road where she had skidded across the ground. Her right arm, with the wide, pinioned wing was draped like a martyr's flat across the ground, her fingers extended and wingspan spread. He was amazed at just how wide they were, stretching nearly the length of a man. The other wing, however...

He grimaced as he gazed upon it, spotting the blotchy red of blood dripping from the afflicted quills. At the bony bend of the inner and outer wing, her shoulder-like bone had snapped, turning them unnaturally, like the hinge of a door swinging shut. The well-placed arrow shaft that Carl had fired remained lodged in the thing, and Roland could see that her human hand twitched and trembled in pain. Her legs were curled up to her chest, and he could see that the beast was softly crying.

Carl kneeled over her, his hand at his belt where a dagger sat sheathed, ready to be used upon command. Kelsea stood over him, her face expressionless as she stared at the Harpy's slowly shifting form. The thing made no effort to escape, her yellow eyes stared dully at the world around, registering but not acknowledging the beings in her midst. Roland felt a strange feeling well up in his chest, one that did not wholly have to do with the deep cold that now filled his bones.

"What are you going to do?" He asked, fighting to keep the quavering tone from his voice.

"We shall see." Kelsea said, her back to him. She stepped forward, taking a knee at Carl's side and pinching the Harpy's sharp, pointed chin between her fingers. The creature's eyes lifted to meet Kelsea's gaze, her voice letting loose a morose coo that nearly dissipated in the lengthening night air. "Why did you attack him?" She asked, as if the creature would reply to her. "Why did youfuckhim?"

"Kelsea, they don't understand-"

"Be quiet!" She snapped, turning back for an instant to flash her eyes menacingly at Roland. She turned back to face the broken woman. Her voice was low, sing-song in its sound and tonality. "Why did you attack him?" Roland felt the hair on his neck begin to stand on end as he sensed the sheer magnitude of Kelsea's encroaching questions. Despite the question not pertaining to him, Roland felt compelled to answer.

The Harpy halfheartedly struggled in Kelsea's grasp, her head instinctively trying to pull back from the purple-skinned woman's reach. It only made Roland's spurned lover more purposefully commanding. Kelsea grasped the blue-haired bird tightly by the face, her angular cheeks serving as handholds as the Succubus pressed herself tightly to her face, their noses all but touching. The Harpy let out a pained chirp, her eyes matching her captor's, becoming locked to the red-rimmed orbs that glared. "Tell me, little thing. Why did you do it?" The words curled around the creature's ears like wavy, black filaments in the air. The Harpy's eyelids drooped, her mouth parting gently to display her heavy breathing. The slow rise and fall of the creature's bounteous chest showed just how fatigued it was.