Chapter 4: Fear’s Chains

I blinked as Minx burst out of the tent she shared with Sophia, marching forward, her tiny body bristling. She was naked, her clothing thrown over her shoulder, her small breasts bouncing. I opened my mouth to say something, but I had no idea what to say. What was going on? It sounded like she was having a good time with Sophia. But now the halfling marched towards the dark woods in a huff.

I was on watch as we camped in the dark woods. For the last hour, I had to listen to everyone having fun in their tents while the trees creaked around us, the temperature dropping. I was glad for the fire’s warmth. The woods were dangerous. It was our second night in the woods and already we had three skirmishes with the foul creations of the Biomancer Vebrin who haunted these woods. In addition to his aberrations, other monsters also prowled the woods.

“Minx!” Sophia shouted, popping her head out of the tent.

“What did you do?” I asked my concubine. Sometimes she was a little too eager to have fun with another woman. I let her indulge herself too much.

“Trying to talk to her about Xera,” she answered.

“There’s a problem?”

Sophia shook her head. “My Queen, there is definitely something wrong between them. They’re in love and—”

I spun, my sword whisking out of its sheath as I stared into the woods. The hairs on my arms prickled, my eyes narrowing. I had heard something rustling out in the woods. Tall trees rose around us, the crimson light painting the barks, stretching out the shadows.

“What is it?” Sophia asked.

Brush rustled behind me. I whirled as something dark and furry burst out of the night and landed on Sophia’s tent. The wooden poles snapped. The canvas collapsed, knocking Sophia to the ground and pinning her. The thing growled, furs bristling, Sophia gasping, struggling to escape.

Anger surged through me as I stared at my concubine trapped beneath the beast in the ruin of our tent. I took a step towards the tent. Movement blurred to my right. My sword slashed, made contact with flesh, biting into bone. The furred body’s momentum hit me, claws scratching at my breastplate.

The werewolf died howling.

Minx

The moment I was into the dark woods, I knew this was a mistake. I was stuck with the party. Trapped. I would never make my way out of the woods to Thaville on my own. The woods were Xera’s domain. They were her home.

I leaned against a tree, the tears falling faster. I wished that damn redheaded elf never approached me. I could have stayed in Raratha thieving for Spray. I was bored and longing for more, but at least I didn’t hurt. Love sucked.

I loved my sister, Fox, and it hurt so bad when she was hung.

“Stupid heart,” I muttered, banging my head into the tree. How did this even happen? I was here to steal the sword from Angela and her friends, an amazing feat of thievery. And I somehow fell in love with Xera. I let myself care.

“Idiot!”

My head banged again.

The ground rustled. Something large moved in the darkness. My ears pricked as I straightened. It didn’t come from the camp. It wasn’t Sophia or Angela rushing after me. My hand shot to my clothing over my shoulder. I found my belt, yanking out a dagger and throwing it in one motion.

The shaggy form crashed to the ground at my feet, gurgling, my knife buried in its throat.

“Cernere’s black cunt,” I growled as Sophia screamed.

As I bent down to yank my dagger out, I heard a feminine voice speak off to my right.

Thrak

“Fuck my ass,” Faoril moaned as I rammed my cock deep into her tight, velvety bowels. My balls ached, the friction intense. She was so tight, her pussy impaled on Xera’s elf-cock.

The elf’s ears twitched, her green hair spread across the bedrolls as Faoril thrashed between us. My hands gripped my wife’s tits, kneading them hard. My fingers found her nipples, pinching them, making her bowels squeeze even harder on my dick, the velvety massage driving me to thrust even harder and harder.

I stretched her nipples. I loved how she gasped and quivered beneath me, her moans screaming out of her as she came. Her bowels spasmed about my dick. The friction growing intense. My cock throbbed.

“Gewin’s mighty cock,” I snarled, driving harder and harder.

“What’s that?” Xera gasped, her eyes widening, her body heaving. “Oh, no!”

“I’m cumming on your big dicks,” Faoril moaned. “That’s what’s happening. You’re flooding me with your seed, Xera”

“No, outside the tent!” the orgasming elf moaned through her pleasure. “We’re under attack!”

I grunted, my dick throbbing so hard. I was so close to cumming. But Sophia’s panicked screams ripped through the night. Beasts snarled and howled. Angela shouted out a warning. I growled, driving into Faoril’s ass a final time.

And bellowed in rage. “I was about to cum! Gods damn it!”

I ripped my cock from Faoril’s ass. My spasming wife shook her head, trying to regain her senses as Xera rolled my wife to the side. The elf’s cock softened. It wasn’t painfully hard like mine, close to its eruption, denied by whatever hoary beasts decided to attack us right now.

The rage seethed in me as I snagged my ax. The black tide threatening to drown me. Only know I could breathe in it. I could control it. Faoril’s magic had given me that gift down in the Labyrinth while we fought the Minotaur. I didn’t have to fear it any longer. I could use it. Channel it.

Embrace it.

I raged with a bellow and ripped out of the tent, stepping into the darkness.

And into the path of a furry, wolfish beast, eyes glowing in the firelight. The beast slammed into me, jaws biting into my shoulder. Blood welled hot as claws raked across my chest. The rage didn’t feel pain. The fury didn’t care about wounds.

It only wanted to kill or fuck, to satiate my most bestial desires.

So I let it kill.

The werewolf howled as I seized its neck. Thick muscles resisted my hand. But they weren’t enough. I snapped, laughing my dark pleasure as it went limp with a whimper. I heaved the body up in one hand, holding it as a promise to the other beasts tearing through our camp.

They would die.

Warlock Faoril

Xera darted out of the tent after Thrak. I shuddered, struggling to regain myself. I had cum so hard. Xera’s seed swam on my pussy. I seized it, shuddering as her sexual energy burst with the element of life. Of the five elements—earth, water, fire, air, life—elves were strongest to the latter, their cum best for using life magic.

Only life magic was the most subtle and most pernicious magic. The Biomancer Vebrin used life magic to make his monstrosities and Fireeyes had used life magic to create undead, to dominate the minds. And I had used it to let Thrak rage.

His bellows echoed as I stood on trembling legs and pushed out through the tent. Blood sheeted down his chest as he threw the body of a dead, furry wolf-thing into another. The corpse bowled over the living werewolf.

Knowledge flitted through my mind as I seized my magic. Werewolves were the daughters of Las, birthed out of his indiscriminate masturbation like so many other creatures from changelings to imps. They were all female, needing dual-sex males to mate with, taking them back to their dens. They would fuck the men until they died of exhaustion, the entire pack taking turns. They could shift from human women, looking of the same race and species as their father, but then could shift into hybrid creatures, shaggy, wolf-like beasts. They were one of a dozen lycanthropic species, and among the most violent.

And their pack poured out of the woods. Angela fought, her sword slicing, driving back from her shield lying beside the log. Sophia screamed, pinned beneath her tent as a werewolf tore at the canvas to get her. Xera only had her wooden dagger, dancing with grace as the beast came for her.

My husband whirled his ax, the nimble monsters dodging and yelping in fear.

Wind surged out of me, seizing the werewolf attacking Sophia and hauling the beast into the air. It thrashed impotently, howling her rage. Eyes fixed on me, glowing blue in the firelight. Saliva dripped from sharp teeth.

“Kill you, Mage,” it growled through bestial mouth.

I rolled my eyes and seized another two werewolves pressing on Angela. They yelped in shock.

“Thanks,” Angela shouted and dived for her shield.

Xandra

I clutched my air totem as I sat on Chaun’s mouth, wiggling my hips, griding on his licking tongue. The air elemental I puppeteered sucked on his cock with whirling air. I smiled, watching his cock wave back and forth, his precum whipped away. I was having so much fun playing with my elementals this way. I wondered if other shamans had.

Did Shaman Farsight, the eldest, summon air elementals to suck his cock? He had always leered at me, berating me for showing too much flesh, accusing me of tempting him with my nubile body. He was a widower, doomed to a life of celibacy.

At that moment, I realized that he lusted for me. I didn’t tempt him. He wanted to take me, to fuck me, and couldn’t. I was a sexy, young thing who wasn’t his wife. And since he couldn’t touch me, he took his anger out on me.

What a horrid old man.

“Oh, Chaun,” I panted. “Oh, I am a sexy avian.”

“Yes,” he groaned between licks.

Outside, Sophia screamed her head off.

“Oh, she’s really cumming,” I giggled, tracing my fingers along the sinuous line of the balsa wood. “Hear her?”

Chaun stopped licking. “Xandra, I don’t think that—”

Thrak bellowed. Something howled. My pleasure died in an instant. We were under attack.

I was off Chaun in an instant, pausing only to snag my pouch of totems and sling it over my shoulder, and burst out of the tent into the chilly night. I hardly felt it, my body hot from my orgasms and my heart pounding excitement. Furry beasts raced through camp. Three thrashed in the air, held up by Faoril’s magic. Thrak cut one down with a stroke of his ax.

He laughed, pounding his chest. “Come and feast on me if you dare!”

The orc raged, his swarthy body coated in blood. His cock thrust hard before him. I blushed for a moment, remembering that cock fucking me when he raged out of control at the oasis back in the desert.

“Werewolves,” Chaun shouted behind me, making me blink.

I shoved my hand into my pouch and pulled out the first totem I brushed. It was my new kapok totem, allowing me to control earth elementals. Holding a totem in each hand, I summoned servants. The earth burst at my feet, two bulky bodies made of dirt and rock standing before me, stone grinding on stone as they lumbered into the fight. Air elementals danced around the camp, whirling hard, sending gusting winds to drive back werewolves surging at Angela.

“Male!” a werewolf shouted nearby, her eyes fixed at me.

Chaun strummed his lyre behind me, his song bursting from his lips. No, the werewolf was staring past me at my husband with hungry eyes. I realized she was female and eyeing my man like she owned him. Two other werewolves answered her summons, licking their chops.

Anger surged through me. My earth elementals rumbled at the three werewolves.

Xerathalasia

I fought in the wake of Thrak. It was strange being near the orc while he raged. I had witnessed his ferocity unleashed before. The first time, in the tundra on the way to Murathi, happened when we were ambushed by orcs of a rival tribe. He had butchered them then turned his attention on Angela, breaking her arm as he battered at her shield. Only Faoril, stripping naked and using her body to awaken his lust, had stopped him from killing us all. Another time, in the Halani Desert, Xandra used her body to stop his rage.

But now he could control it. My skin itched, but I trusted Faoril’s magic. So I moved behind him, stabbing at the werewolves trying to hit him in the flank. They were quick, darting back and then snapping in. They fought like wolves, never hitting their prey from the front, but from the sides, circling, nipping, trying to weaken.

Wolves could pull down prey far larger and stronger than they were by working as a pack. And I had no doubts these werewolves could as well. But we had Faoril’s magic and Xandra’s elementals.

I slashed with my wooded dagger, forcing a werewolf back.

“The male is ours,” one snarled, snapping at me as I dodged back gracefully.

“Perhaps she is male. She has a cock,” another snarled.

“And tits.”

My dagger found flesh. The werewolf whimpered, retreating back. I whirled around, my ears twitching as the werewolves melted back into the darkness. But I had keen eyes. I could see as well beneath starlight as sunlight. The woods were dark, but I could penetrate their depths. The werewolves circled, prepared for another charge and—

Minx moved through the brush naked, a blood dagger in her hand. She wore her belt with her brace of knives and her pouch full of her alchemical bombs. She stalked like a hunter, circling the group with the skills I had taught her, closing in on her prey.

But what was she stalking? My ears twitched. I heard a woman speak, not the guttural voices of the werewolves growling through fanged muzzles, but a human with dulcet tones. There was someone else out in the woods.

Knave Angela

The werewolf crashed into my shield. I grunted, feet sliding, and thrust my sword past my defense. I felt the resistance of flesh. The werewolf yelped and leaped back, blood staining a brown-furred shoulder.

“Angela,” Sophia panted, running up to me, blood matting her shoulders.

“Are you well?” I asked as my naked concubine joined me, clutching her enchanted dagger in one hand, the blade glowing bright pink.

“I think so,” she said.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I am?” She groaned. “Slata’s hairy cunt, my back feels like you scratched it while cumming. Hard.”

She turned away from me, facing the camp. I could see long, scratches welling blood trickling down her back. I winced, but none appeared severe. “You’ll be fine,” I told her, setting my shield. “Stay by me.”

“Yes, my Queen,” she said.

The werewolves howled. The four held up in the air by Faoril’s magic, thrashing and clawing in a vain attempt to escape, suddenly dropped to the ground. They landed on all fours with dangers snarls. The nearest, gray furred with a white belly, leaped at me, crashing into my shield and knocking me back into Sophia.

“Faoril,” Sophia squeaked. “Why did you do that?”

Warlock Faoril

“Las’s putrid cum,” I gasped in absolute shock as my spell just ... unraveled.

The currents of air that I had wrapped the werewolves up in just dissipated back into the atmosphere like I had never controlled them. I had never seen anything like it in my life. I still had my magic. I could feel the energy in me, aware of the world around me. The ground would answer my power, the air swirl and gust, waters crash, and fire burn. I could even sink my magic into the werewolves themselves and seize control of them like I had poor Relaria.

I had never heard this was possible. It wasn’t an antimagic bomb detonating before me or an antimagic ring protecting the wolves. A force had attacked my magic. And I saw nothing. I felt nothing. It wasn’t magic that had done it, but another power. I had never heard any lore on werewolves claiming they had innate talents.

A growl snarled. The werewolf I yanked off Sophia lunged from the ruins of the tent right at me, eyes full of murderous rage. I sent out wind before me to seize the wolf. The air unraveled into a breeze that only ruffled the creature’s fur.

I shoved my magic into the earth. Stone answered, bursting out of the ground.

Only to crumble into soft dirt as my magic dissipated.

“Slata’s cunt,” I gasped as the werewolf burst through the stone, claws reaching for me. What was wrong with my magic?

Thrak’s ax swung. A silver-red blur slammed into the werewolf’s back, driving the creature’s body to the ground at my feet. It spasmed, cut in half by the blow. I stepped back, clutching at my naked breasts, struggling to breathe.

“Thanks,” I squeaked out.

Thrak grunted and bellowed, “That’s my woman! Try to touch her, and I will flay you alive and wear your bloody hide as my cloak!”

I took a deep breath, forcing myself to calm down. I had to think. What was causing my magic to fail?

Bebhinn the Twinborn Witch

The abjuration spirits danced through the camp with glee, happy to obey me and dispel Faoril’s magic. Every time her magic surged out to seize wind or shape earth, my spirits attacked it. The mage couldn’t see them. Only a witch could see the spirits that lived around us, and only a twinborn witch could ask for their help without binding them first.

They loved me.

“That it,” I said as I watched in the shadow of a tree. The werewolves were dying, but there were plenty of them. So long as I could keep their magic users from interfering, Thrak and Angela would be overwhelmed.

Though the orc worried me. He fought with brutal power I had not expected. Was he a berserker? Why would Angela travel with such a dangerous barbarian? His rage would turn on the group and kill them all.

But then I would just have to wait for the orc to tire himself out after he killed his companions. Then I could finish him off. I smiled. The bounty was mine.

A twig snapped.

I froze, snapping my head to the right and—

Minx charged in naked, a bloody dagger in hand. My heart fluttered in shock, beating ice through my veins. Where had she come from? I last saw her stalking out of the camp right for the werewolves. She should be torn to pieces.

Her dagger stabbed right for me, a fierce screech bursting from her lips.

Xerathalasia

“Spirits of evocation, defend me!” the strange woman shouted.

Minx screamed.

I caught a glimpse of her flying back and landing in a roll, smoke rising from her naked body. She came up in a crouch, her knife missing from her hand. Another woman stepped out from behind a tree, wearing a dark dress with colorful scares tied about her sleeves and waist. She somehow ripped a curved dagger from one scarf while faint shapes danced around her. They were almost imperceptible, like faint blurs across my vision.

Minx hand flicked. A throwing dagger arced through the air. One of the faint, wispy balls shot out, knocking the dagger from flight. Minx grit her teeth, drawing another dagger to fight with, crouched low as the woman advanced.

“Clever to try and flush me out,” the woman said over the roar of Thrak and the snarl of werewolves.

A ball shot forward and slammed into Minx’s chest. She didn’t even react. She couldn’t see them at all. She just gasped as light flared and she was thrown down onto her back, her dagger sent flying and embedding in a tree trunk. She lay coughing on the ground, stunned, helpless. The woman turned, ignoring Minx, believing her defeated.

I gripped my wooden dagger and darted on soundless feet for the woods. I had to help Minx. I would creep up on the woman and take her from behind. I left the camp and the fight behind, entering the dark, every step careful.

I was an elven hunter.

The woman turned her head, pointing at the fight. “Spirits of Abjuration, bind the shaman’s totems to the high branches.”

Rising from the ground came a half-dozen impracticable balls shooting off into the camp. She was a witch, controlling spirits. And with ease. Her hair was red, her face pale. A Tuathan twinborn witch here?

I hesitated. Did I go after the witch and kill her. Or did I go to Minx’s aid. She lay on the ground, quivering, smoke rising from her body. Pain knifed through my heart. A hollow ache ripped open my guts.

I headed for Minx and ignored the witch as she moved through the woods to watch the battle. The thief was in pain. I had to help her.

Chaun