Yrba's Travels Pt. 09

"I've seen others do the same at her sight. She's quite the work, isn't she? And—," she fell silent for a moment, then her brow furrowed. "There's more to that. You knew her already, right? Dammit, what schemes have you hatched up this time, old man?"

"I'll give you the answers, in a moment. First, tell me, who's the perfect assassin?"

"The perf—," she began, and then she fell silent again. Someone who doesn't know that he is an assassin. A possessed. Someone whose mind is not his own. Or her own.

"Ah, I see now you're getting it. Me and a few others, we were not exactly happy with Lord Peter's rise to power. But he's not just a petty thug on a throne, he's a damn clever petty thug on a throne, whatever you might have heard about him. And he made it clear, pretty early on, that he'd not lose sleep over having people drop dead left and right with arrows in their backs if he noticed as much as a suspicious grin. And that he had given orders to make sure those arrows were fired should he come to harm. So we had to slip someone in that he — or his testamentary executors, as it was to be — would never bring into connection with us. It had to be someone whose attack would seem just like a single, crazy, ordinary act of violence or rage. A serf."

"Twenty years... before I even met you..."

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

"Yes, it's taken a little longer than we had originally planned. And in the end, she's been a dud. She was supposed to snap and mince him about the time she got nubile and he'd start chasing after her. Somehow that never happened, maybe because she's grown into a damn' big hunk of girl meat that most men are somehow reluctant to try, just because she never budded even a handful of breast. Don't know why I failed at that. I tried to make sure she'd turn out as curvy and hot as they come, but all she got were her father's muscles instead. Too bad you've not met her earlier on to fix that in time. You did a real number on her chest. Yes, you've always been good at that. Alas, you did it far too late."

The wizard looked right in Yrba's angry eyes.

"One more thing. I lied when you asked why she has grown again. It wasn't the food that triggered her growth sprint. When we created her, I knew she would grow far taller than any other woman. Couldn't have that. So I made sure her growth would be stunted. I never thought she'd live long enough for that spell to wear off, but she did."

"Anything else? Maybe tell me about something you accidentally forgot to mention for a change, instead of admitting to yet another lie-within-a-lie?" Yrba snarled.

His short laughter was little more than a humorless bark. "At least I can try to. Uh... yes, I think I never lied about that to you. See, you had an interesting choice of words, just a moment ago. What was it — hatched schemes, I think. Funny that you should mention hatching in conjunction with your girl toy. What did she tell you, that she was claimed as a serf to pay for her parent's debt? Yes, that's all she was ever told. And it's actually true. What she doesn't know is how her mother got pregnant with her in the first place."

He took a sip from his glass and pondered his next words, silently watching the reflections of the candles. After a deep breath, he continued with a smug grin.

"Her mother was a farm maid, nobody special. She was ... available, even eager to ... play her role, and expendable if things would have turned out wrong, and she had the right bodily properties. And the right perverted desires to start with. We could predict pretty well how the girl would turn out. As for her father, he, well ... let's just say he, uh, was a true rural force of nature. Getting them compatible and fitting his, ahem, quite sizable tool into her mother without her ripping apart was an interesting magical challenge. And while she enjoyed it thoroughly, I've burned through a month's worth of this shire's magical force just to make sure she survived. Barely, I might add. I'll leave it at that. It wasn't pretty. You never really wondered why Mirca's so tough and big and strong, yet so timid, and gets full of milk every evening ever since you hexed her those udders?" He smirked.

She stared at him, taken aback by the machinations the old mage so casually hinted at. Yrba couldn't utter a single word. Flashes from the night Berry had died played again before her eyes. Mirca had cracked and something else had surfaced, something that had turned her into a raging fury with two blood-dripping axes.

"She's not quite human. The world hasn't seen anything like her for thousands and thousands of years. You want to tell me you never figured that out either?" he added.

The glass dropped from Yrba's hand and shattered on the stone tiles.

"You sick fuck," she whispered. "Not a word. I don't believe a single word, do you hear me? What are you trying to tell me?" Her voice grew louder, and the veins on her neck swelled. "Do you think I'll believe that you of all magi managed to conjure up an ancient earth god to sire an offspring for you to use as a murderer for a lord you don't like, and plan that accurately a decade in advance? Delusions of grandeur much, old man?! Do you think I can't tell a poor beaten girl from a demigoddess? Not to mention that whenever we both looked, we never ever found any kind of gods in the first place?"

"Ah, that's the old heathen girl talking. How I've missed your skeptic ways. If only you were a little more fluent in the old tales. Don't need a god to sire a minotaur, you know? Oh, enough of that. You want to think she's not a tool but some kind of real woman, well, be my guest. Just because she speaks doesn't mean she's human."

He sighed. "Doesn't matter anymore, anyway. I've come to a, heh, let's call it a gentlemen's agreement with Peter years ago. He's gotten more ambitious over the years, and that wasn't to my disadvantage. And the title of royal mage comes with its own perks."

"He's no king!"

"He will be."

Ramec's face turned wooden.

"But for that to happen, I can't let someone with an old, deeply inbred grudge against him run around freely, don't you agree? Mirca and him, they might meet up by chance, and she might still snap, and then what good is a king ripped to pieces?"

"Thanks for spilling the beans on that, old man! Listen, you just keep away from us, and we'll keep well away from Peter and you."

The wizard rose from his chair and extended his arms to her, almost pleadingly.

"Yrba, I need your help. I need you, and I need your sweet bundle of milk, too. Think about it! She's seven feet of havoc, and you want to let her run around freely? Don't do that. Don't! Don't you walk out on me again. Don't you see? There's a lot to gain for the three of us! You still look gorgeous, girl, but you're not getting any younger. How long do you want to keep on traveling? Until you're old and wrinkly? Stay. Please! Join me, and you'll have it made! You won't have another day of worries!"

She backed away slowly, shaking her head.

"I'm not interested in sticking around these lands any more, and I sure as hell don't want any piece of you or your rotten schemes! Just leave us alo—"

Her voice descended into a gargle as Yrba's eyes closed and she slumped down on the table, only to slip down and drop heavily on the floor.

He shook his head. "I didn't ask for your help, old girl. I will have it. Yeah, maybe magical poison's got nothing on you. But I guess I was right about your own plain old herbs and berries."

~

"Mirca?"

She swiveled around and narrowed her eyes.

"'Mec?"

"There you are, big girl. I need your help."

"I haven't got time now. Yrba wants me to be packed up by sunset. You're not trying something funny, are you?"

He hesitated. "Something — funny?"

She leaned in from her seven feet and prodded his chest with her right forefinger. "Yes. If you try something funny, I'll run to Yrba and tell her. She told me to. So don't try something funny if you need my help."

He groaned and clapped his forehead.

"Headache?" she asked compassionately and cocked her head, raising her eyebrows.

Ramec sighed and rubbed his temples. "Yes, headache." Because of you, you oaf. "Mirca, could you help me sort those barrels in the next cellar before Yrba and you leave?"

"Huh. Sorting barrels. That's not funny, so I guess it's okay." She eyed the aged, bent, limping figure of the wizard. "Yeah, I guess someone like you might need a little help sorting barrels now and then." She lifted her index finger. "But none of the big ones, okay?"

A quarter of an hour later, she had moved a few dozen casks from one vault to another and piled them up again. Perspiration now glistened on her skin. She wiped her brow.

"Right, that's it. I could really use a little water now."

"Water? Don't tell me you're drinking water," he said indignantly.

"Of course," Mirca replied. "Why? What else?"

"Haven't you ever tried wine?"

"Wine? Lords drink wine. Rich people drink wine. I drink water."

"For shame! You've got to try it! There's nothing better than a barrel of wine if you've worked up a sweat and need a big gulp to quench your thirst." He smiled and knocked with his walking stick against one of the casks. "Just your luck, girl. Here, just take one of those and drink up."

"If you say so..."

She wrestled the spile from the barrel and grabbed and lifted it with both hands. Most of the first gulp streamed by the sides of her mouth and ran down in red rivulets over her skin.

A couple of minutes later she mumbled, "yesh, I fffink I cou'gedd oosched'o dat," and grinned sheepishly as she toppled over, laid spread-eagled on the floor and began to snore.

~

Chapter 47: The Deal With The Devil

~

Yrba blinked and had some trouble mending the cut thread of her memories. She was tied to a wooden plank — no, a pair of wooden planks, well-padded with something like wool or furs, and her arms and legs were stretched into an X shape and secured tightly with leather straps around her ankles and wrists. The room was dimly lit by a pair of floor chandeliers with small, flickering candles in it. Vague hints of daylight came from a ring of crenelations near the high ceiling.

After a few half-hearted tries, she gave up on trying to pull free. Nobody went to those lengths just to miraculously forget about the right knots at the last moment.

No use wasting strength, old girl. Keep yourself ready just in case a chance shows.

"I guess I know what you're thinking right now, kiddo. I'm not going to give you that chance."

"Ramec! I knew you were a sick fuck, but this here's a new low, even for you. Untie me, at once! You still owe me something!"

He smirked.

"No I won't. And what's that about owing you anything? I've given you a home when you washed up on the shore. I fed you all those years. I taught you the ways of magic. For all I care, you are my creation, and I'll do with you as I please! Besides, I've got to be cautious around you. You're still quite fast with a blade, aren't you? The last band of thugs I sent got butchered by a group of women."

"You hired those —," Yrba gasped, then she inhaled deeply and hollered, "Bastard! Berry's dead, and it's your fault!" The echo of her toppling voice rang hollowly through the cellars.

"My fault? Unlucky circumstances, maybe, but it's hardly my fault there was another muscle-bound whore prancing around that town, is it?"

"You'll pay," she hissed through gritted teeth. "You'll pay dearly for that!"

"Yrba, please. How ... trite. Oooh, you'll pay. Guess what? I already did. All the gold I've thrown at those low lives, all for naught. But that's all water under the bridge now. Once I learned that my little time bomb was still alive and sizzling, I had to make sure she'd never meet up with Lord Peter. Like I said, now I'm better off with him alive than with him dead."

~

He cut away her clothes with a small blade, one rag at a time. And Yrba held still — she was brimming with anger, but she wasn't stupid. Only her eyes' sparkling stare showed her barely contained rage.

"How dare you treat me like a piece of livestock!" she snarled through clenched teeth. He stopped and hesitated for a moment before he answered.

"Livestock?! Yrba, I'm offering you the chance to be queen! Is that nothing? We just need to make some adjustments to —"

"Queen? Ha! Your fine lord would rather see me hanged!"

"Oh, did you think —," and then he paused for a little chuckle.

"What's so damn funny, old man?" she hissed.

"I'm not talking about you and Lord Peter. Gods, no!" he sniggered into his beard. His head swiveled around, and he stared her right in the face. "I'm talking about you becoming a hive queen. All the breeding fun, none of that tedious politics. You better leave that squarely to us males."

He averted his eyes from her glare and let his gaze wander over her curvaceous body. His hand stroked the sensuously rounded, tiny mound of her womb.

"There's far too few of our kind around, Yrba. If only you'd have joined me then, instead of running. What is the fleeting inconvenience of a pregnancy compared to the duty we have to our race? Now you'll have to do double shifts to catch up. You think you're immune to magic? Tell me, then how come I see no stretchmarks? Oh yes, I've learned how and where you brew your masterpiece. Year after year after year you've spent months with a womb like a barrel, chock-full and sloshing. And yet now there's not a trace of that. Maybe magic just needs more time to work on our kind, but it gets to us in the end."

He pulled at her skin.

"So stretchable, with a shapely flat belly like yours? See how elastic you've become? Yes, you'll be able to hold what the others couldn't contain. How foolish of me, not seeing what was right before my eyes."

She narrowed her eyes.

"The — others?"

The room lit up as rays of sunlight came in through the embrasures high on the circular wall. Yrba blinked and turned her head, taking in the details of the cavern-like place. She knew Mec's lab, but this here was different. Yrba had never been to this room before, but the walls, the structure —

"We're under the tower! That's a damned secret lair under your tower!"

He nodded smugly.

"You always complained about the mess in my play lab. So do you like this one better?"

Yrba trembled in rising panic. This place meant business. The crossed beams she was strapped to stood near the center of the fifteen-yards circle. One single table by their side was filled with the neatly arranged tools of the magical trade — crystals, powders, elixirs, in tidy heaps on earthen dishes. A choice of knives, their sharp edges sparkling in the light from a couple of torches high up on the wall. A collection of saws, axes and ... Yrba narrowed her eyes. The dozen thin metallic sparks in a block of soft wood were needles, sorted by size. Spools of black threads.

Calm down, girl. There will be enough time to panic later — oh gods...

Her blood turned to ice, burning through her veins to her racing heartbeats. Along the walls, manacles hung from rings fixed in the heavy stones. They were not clean and tidy, and the stones of the floor beneath them were covered in brown crusts. Yrba's breathing came faster. She didn't need much imagination to put two and two together. And then she suddenly exhaled and stopped breathing altogether. Just at the edge of her vision was a pile of bones.

Neatly stacked, and sorted by shape and size, of course.

She gasped for air and reflexively turned her head when she saw, from the corner of her eyes, a hand moving in to her face. That gasp pulled something powdery deep into her lungs. Yrba coughed and wheezed until darkness claimed her once more.

~

The witch groaned. Her forehead wrinkled as she pressed her eyelids tighter. The yard-huge sphere of her womb rested heavy on her body, and her swollen, brimming breasts, their undersides straining from the pull of their milky load, dangled against her chin. She smacked and ran her pink tongue over her pouted lips. Of course it tasted like dried milk. And her legs were far higher than her shoulders again, and the rough wood of the caravan's floor pressed into her shoulders again. Yrba sighed without opening her eyes.

"Dammit," she muttered. "Yo, Mirca! Wake up and lend a hand? I've rolled from my bed and I can't get up with all that potion in my cauldron."

She tried to raise her legs. No dice. The blanket was tightly wrapped around her ankles.

"Mirca?!" she yelled. "Hey! You asleep? Haven't I told you to not let me drink so much from your tits? I'm all bloated again! Come here and milk me down!"

Yrba exhaled in frustration. Where was that girl?

"Mirca?"

A hand gently patted her rotund midriff and then hefted one of her melons. The nipple immediately turned into a tiny spout and sent thin jets spraying everywhere. Yrba sighed in relief.

"Oh thank you, dear, thank you. You better — pfuagh!" She spat as droplets ran down her breasts and dripped all over her face. "Hey! Where's your huge mouth when I need it?"

Mirca has bigger hands than that —

Yrba finally blinked and opened her eyes.

And screamed.

~

This time she struggled and writhed desperately against the strong leather straps that held her upside-down in the wooden X.

"You — prrrffz! — monster! What have you done? — Prrrlllb! — What have you put in my womb?!"

Ramec wiped his milk-drenched hands on a towel before he ran it over Yrba's dripping face and the discharged, sweat-and-cream glazed breasts, cleaning off the drops and rivulets.

"Oh will you relax, you hysterical cow. It's just water in there. Needed to have you nice and clean inside, and I was curious as to how sizable a batch you could accommodate. Judging by the gallons your womb so eagerly accepted, four or five in one breed cycle seems like a reasonable start."

He prodded Yrba's tumescent belly. "Later on, maybe rise that to six or seven per cycle once you settle for good into a more comfortable, blobby shape. Your pliable womb's not going to shrink back once you'll be popping out a fresh batch of little semi-immune, magic-wielding mongrel soldiers each week. They'll grow fast, too. I reckon come next year, we'll be ready to take on just about any army." He raised his hand. "Yes, yes, I know. Magic's got nothing on you. But a magically charged seed can maintain enough momentum to keep up its accelerated growth inside you. You're a perfect container for magical forces, after all. Magic goes in, no magic goes out. My, you'll have to stuff yourself with food just to keep the little hatchlings from sucking all life force from you. Good thing you brought your milk well along. She's perfect to feed you day and night. Your weird body seems to crave her milk."

The wizard nodded at Mirca's limp, unconscious body in the huge cage. "Just the right cow to feed them after they've left your nurturing womb, too. One teat for your mouth, one teat for my army." He turned back to Yrba, only to see her eyelids flutter close, her mind overwhelmed by horror. "Oh come on, don't pass out on me!"

~

The next time Yrba woke up, the room was dark and her womb was empty again. She squinted into the blackness. Sparkles of raw magic filled the room, slowly gyrating in a vortex that fed a hollow sphere of three or four yards around her and her former mentor. Ramec raised his head from the tome on the table and slammed it shut. Yrba jerked in surprise. Her other vision dimmed, and now the candles on the table lit barely more than the wizard's face. Their unsteady light cast menacing shadows from below on his face.