The chamber door slammed shut in Elliot’s wake, casting a gust of air against his back. He stumbled forwards into a circular room lit at its centre by a crystal ball. The ball was about two spans wide, bracketed on the surface of a stone plinth. The pinkish glow emanating from within was like nothing he’d ever seen before. It illuminated the six wooden racks with their leather straps, and its light left no question of the intention of this deepest room in the Old Saint’s Dungeon. Elliot had expected more spikes.
The light also illuminated her. Elliot was rendered stock still at the sight of the woman silhouetted in the pink glow. Her silk dress highlighted the shape of her body, the jagged frame of the metal crown on her head. The warped beam of the staff in her hand. She was facing away, gazing into the cosmic light of the orb. But her laughter, deep and resonant, was meant for him.
“Welcome!” she said.
Demon Sorceress… This was the Demon Sorceress! Progeny of the lord who had almost brought the world to its knees! Elliot’s mouth went dry, and he looked urgently about the chamber for another exit. He found none. And the Sorceress hadn’t assembled guards or attendants either. She was perfectly comfortable being left alone with him. Given her reputation, that was no surprise at all. Elliot licked his lips.
“H-Hel-…”
The staff in her hand twitched, the smallest of motions, and Elliot was pulled off his feet. He yelped with fright as he was yanked through the air and dropped unceremoniously onto the closest torture rack. The impact cast the last of the breath from his lungs.
But the Sorceress continued to laugh, loud and manic. Her sadistic song echoed from the stone walls of the chamber and filled his ears. She raised her free hand and playfully waggled her fingers at him, and Elliot’s limbs were snagged by the animate thrashing of the leather straps of the rack. His arms were pulled taut to either side of his body, and his legs were held apart. The straps gripped tight, and Elliot’s instinctive wriggling only leashed him tighter.
“Oh, don’t struggle, dear!” cackled the Sorceress. “You are to be a part of something grand tonight! Grander than whatever humble upbringing you endured in the Accord of Regents, mark my words. Relax! Enjoy yourself!”
The Sorceress raised her arms and laughed. Elliot looked down his body at the demonic woman. Other than her glowing, red eyes, she didn’t look so inhuman. But not all kin of humanity were overtly ‘monstrous’. Perhaps the Sorceress was simply blending in with magic, and her true form was something far more sinister. Her villainous laughter certainly held an edge, suggesting at something more than human beneath the surface.
The clack of bootheels on the stone decorated her approach. The Sorceress stood by Elliot’s side and loomed over him. Her big, red eyes examined him as if he were a choice meat, and she hummed a tune as she began picking lint off his creased shirt.
“I-It’s nice to meet you,” Elliot croaked. “I’m… g-glad we have a chance to t-talk. My name is-…”
“Elliot of Layman, yes, I know.” She leaned one elbow on his chest, and Elliot could see her smile in the shape of her eyes. “Yudeka has been keeping me appraised of all your yapping these past days. But, certainly. Let us be civil. Nice to meet you, Elliot. I’m the Demon Sorceress.”
She giggled, and Elliot found his lips curving to match her grin. She was clearly enjoying herself, and that was charming. And even if she intended to eat him, or something, she was at least humouring his conversation.
“C-Can we talk about what you’re doing here?” Elliot tried. “You know there’s an armed force on its way as we speak? I want to avoid battle as much as possible, so if we-…”
“Yes, yes. Old news, Elliot. Your battalion is already at my doorstep.”
His stomach dropped. Had it really been a week already? Surely not!
“But don’t look so glum,” she continued. “If talk was your quest, then your friend Sam has been working very hard in that area.”
The Demon Sorceress sighed, resting her chin on the arm planted on Elliot’s chest. “She is a dogged one, isn’t she? I had truly thought a few nights of cold would deter her bureaucratic fervour, but no! She returns each morning with a plea for more! What a woman!”
Elliot’s smile grew. So, Sam was fighting the good fight still. That was good news.
“Alas, all for naught in the end,” said the Sorceress. “Her promises of treaties and agreements and… and what have you, it all falls apart in the wake of this armed intrusion. Diplomacy is only as strong as the vulnerability each side provides, she told me. And your side, I’m afraid to say, does not look so vulnerable with nigh a hundred strong at their backs.”
“Th-That’s just a precaution!” Elliot argued. “Layman has no intention of attacking your walls!”
Really, they shouldn’t have advanced so far forward, he thought. What was his father’s commander thinking, bringing spears so close to the enemy while a negotiation was going on?
The Sorceress’ finger was dancing across Elliot’s chest. “Layman? Why do you mention your home city’s garrison?”
He blinked, unsure how to respond. The Sorceress turned and raised her staff. She pointed it by his head. The air began to twist and bubble.
Elliot stared. He could smell something like sweet flame coming from the tear in reality.
“I believe Layman’s colours are green and gold, is that right?” asked the Sorceress. “Then who are these people? And why have they approached from the wrong direction?”
The circle of air melted away before Elliot’s eyes, and he gasped. The little portal showed him a view from the dungeon’s walls, the rolling hills around the old fort. And arrayed at the foot of the plateau, bathed in lamplight and the shine of the moon, were around ninety soldiers in uniform leathers, headed by a trio of men in shining armour and riding atop powerful horses. Each had a bannerman on foot in their shadow. None of those three banners belonged to Layman-upon-Waters.
The Sorceress was paying the portal no heed. Her eyes were on him. And Elliot shook his head.
“I… I don’t know,” he answered. “The red and blue on the left might be Argany? But I don’t recognise the other two.”
“Members of the Accord of Regents, perhaps?”
“Y-Yes, I suspect so.”
There was no way it could be anyone else. But the Accord had sanctioned him and Sam being here. Why would they go back on that agreement now?
Elliot tried to sharply sit up when he saw the familiar horse galloping down the hill from through the little portal. Sam looked magnificent, even riding clumsily bareback as she was. Her red hair streamed behind her like the burning tail of a comet, and Willow, for all the horse’s usual placidity, was making good progress over the rough stone. Though he couldn’t rise and go to her, Elliot felt a surge of confidence on seeing his partner’s dedication to the cause. She could do something about this. He knew she could.
The portal wasn’t drawing any sound, so neither Elliot nor the Sorceress could tell what was being said down in the lowlands. And eventually, with a snap of her fingers, the Sorceress dismissed the image and leaned up to her full height.
“Good for her,” she said. “Still stubbornly trying to forge for peace. There is much to admire in such a woman. But destiny awaits, and we must meet it, Elliot!”
Pushing off from his rack, the Sorceress strode to the glowing orb in the centre of the room, and Elliot looked down his body to follow her movements.
“It was ever my father’s pleasure to explain his plans to those is his captivity, just before he put them into action,” said the Sorceress, slapping one hand down on the crystal. “I never understood why, but in his memory, I shall do the same. Elliot, this is an attuned lifeforce resonance orb. It is an artefact of a long-gone age, and it has taken much of my life and career to acquire it. I have tied its influence to the device you are strapped to. Meaning, when I activate the incantation, it shall begin absorbing your vitality.”
She chuckled as she reached for him with the end of her staff. The Sorceress prodded his stomach with the wooden weapon, then demonstratively drew it up and over to the orb.
“We will then siphon that energy upwards through the obsidian core we installed in the dungeon infrastructure,” she continued, pointing to the ceiling with her staff, “and channel it into a glass lens my girls are now lifting up above the walls. The lens consumes the raw energy of your however-many years of life and then, at my signal, shoots it at yon besieging force of mortal soldiers. If you are still alive at that point, I promise you a good show!”
The Sorceress laughed loudly, but Elliot’s stomach was churning. He was a power source for a spell of cataclysmic devastation. It was hard not to feel guilty about that. Maybe if he’d not let himself get captured, the Sorceress wouldn’t be able to progress with this plot.
The Demon Sorceress sighed, then wiped an amused tear from her eye. “After that, I shall send my girls into the devastation to find the unfortunate souls not entirely excised from their mortal coil. They shall be brought here and strapped in, just as you are, and their remaining life shall be the fuel for further blasts of the weapon when the Accord sends help. And so on and so forth until there is nobody left to send against me. And then, my horde shall ride across this continent and take all in the name of darkness and chaos!”
Elliot tugged against his restraints. “Th-That’s… madness!”
“Yes! Darkness and chaos and madness!”
“You shouldn’t do this!”
“Oh, I think I should! Here, allow me to get underway!” She pressed her staff to the orb and began to chant. Her syllables were soft, deep and powerful in Elliot’s ears as if he was hearing them from underwater. The orb began to burn.
The lightning began in Elliot’s spine where he was pressed against the wood of the torture rack. Then it wriggled out along his arms and legs. It suffused his muscles and wreathed his bones in static. When it finally reached his brain, Elliot hissed as the ticklish power made pink light on his eyeballs and sparked along his teeth and over his tongue. The power filled him, and he drowned in it.
“Th-This isn’t… g-going to… work!” he managed through the pressure. “I told you… the soldiers are precautionary! What if… they never attack? What if they want to talk… j-just as Sam and I want to talk?”
The Sorceress stood between his legs. Her silhouette stretched over him. “Is that likely?” she asked.
“Yes! Yes, they want to talk! N-Nobody wants to fight!”
“Hm? Then why bring so many spears? Listen to me, Elliot.”
She stepped closer, and Elliot experienced a jolt of unhealthy fascination for the warmth of the Sorceress as she rested her hand on his thigh. If she leaned a little further forward, Elliot fancied he might be able to rub his cock against the swell of her breasts, if he humped upwards against his restraints hard enough. Was it the otherworldly energy making him think such lewd thoughts on the edge of death? He really was going mad…
“I have walked this earth for a long time,” said the Demon Sorceress. “I have seen the full span of a human’s life twice over, if not thrice. And allow me to educate you, since you have seen relatively little. Humans do not talk.”
Her hand gripped his leg tight, and Elliot gasped. To his shame, the noise was more than a little erotic.
“Humans fight!” she hissed. “Humans conquer! They subjugate! Even their own kind! My father knew this well. When he raised the armies of shadow to push back against the light and claim their rightful place on this continent, he knew that there was no hope in asking humans to discuss or debate. There was no sense in playing by their lopsided rules! To play the game the way humans wished was to invite desolation! Their rules take people like me and cage us! Enslave us! No… If we want humans to hear what we had to say, we have to make them listen. And this ancient weapon, when properly fed human souls, is very, very loud. I challenge them to block their ears and ignore it. In fact, I hope they do. That way, I can fire it again and again until they are all dead!”
Elliot stared into the burning carnelian of her eyes. He’d come prepared to face a dramatic, eccentric leader of monsters, thanks to Nadezha’s advice. But he hadn’t truly expected this hate. This caustic venom. Up until just a moment ago, he had expected the Demon Sorceress to lay waste to humanity simply because it was in her nature. Because she would find it amusing. He hadn’t ever considered that her wish to erase him and his kind from existence was in any way justified.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
The Sorceress scowled up his body, then shoved herself away. She stalked back to the orb and bathed in its incandescence.
“You have gone and spoiled my mood,” she hissed. “This is meant to be a day of celebration. Give everything you have to my dream, Elliot of Layman. Spill your soul into the light!”
Elliot tightened his hands into fists as the pressure in his muscles continued to mount. He slammed his eyes shut and willed his soul to stay in his body. But try as he might, the light of the orb was tugging him, pulling him closer. And it was not with force or anger, but with soft, alluring warmth. He wanted to let go. He wanted to surrender.
And his mind was filled with images of her. A young Sorceress, grieving her dad. Seeking revenge. Elliot wondered what she must have looked like, walking the earth as she said she had. She’d sought an ancient artefact, so perhaps she had been an adventurer. Or maybe a scholar, a trader. His mad, mad mind took the image of the Demon Sorceress, burning with righteous, arcane fury, and sought the girl behind the cosmic energy. The girl who’d gotten hungry and had to decide what to eat. The girl who’d befriended a green-skinned giant and a horde of little ones. She must have been lonely, even then.
If only Elliot had met her sooner.
“A-Ahh!” he moaned into the chamber. He bucked his hips against his restraints as the pressure of the orb filled him. “I…! I’m about to…!”
“Yes, yes!” cawed the Sorceress. “Give in! Fill the orb with your essence!”
“N-No, I mean… I think… I think I might…!”
Panting and sweating, writhing and twitching, Elliot opened his eyes. He met the darkly glowering gaze of the Demon Sorceress. And with a shout, he lost his grip.
“A-Ahhh!!”
Elliot wailed as he was assaulted by a powerful orgasm. A spurt of come splattered against the inside of his underclothes. After almost getting there with Yudeka in his cell, he had quite a bit stored up. And what a relief! Elliot lay back against his torture rack and sucked air into his lungs. The pressure had abated.
And the orb roared. The chamber was filled to the brim with dazzling, pink light. Enough to make him squint. Elliot’s ejected energy was sucked into the ball and transformed into a beautiful explosion of force. He sighed with satisfaction in the warm light.
“Wh-… What?” asked the Sorceress. Her red eyes were wide, uncomprehending. “What… did you just do? What did you do?!”
Her boots made sharp snaps on the stone as she approached him. The Sorceress snarled into his face.
“Did you just ejaculate into my magic orb?!”
“U-Uh huh,” said Elliot with a weak nod. “A-And just to warn you, I feel like I’m going to do it again.”
Already, the pressure was mounting. Elliot’s cock was a thick, messy pole straining against his breeches. The orb was hungry. It wanted more of him before it would power the weapon on the fort battlements. And Elliot, mad fool that he was, deeply desired to feed it.
But the Sorceress was aghast. “You cannot be serious!” she hissed.
* * *
Sam turned over her shoulder at the beacon of pink light on the dungeon walls. She clicked her teeth at the fiendish incandescence. The Sorceress was working some eldritch magic, and she didn’t like the look of it. She was running out of time.
She snapped her attention back to the three lords. It hadn’t taken years of study in High Tower to identify them, since men of this stature enjoyed show off their heraldry like common peacocks. Duke Bregon of Argany, of the Kingdom of Khetona, was the youngest, sitting on the left of the party. This was his land, truth be told. The blond lord had wide, blue eyes just on the near side of manic, and his thick lips were tight as if constantly holding back an unwise remark. On the right, the broad frame of Prince Yarrick of Sant Seratorio. His braided, black hair and dark eyes, his walnut skin, were all made rich by the orange light of the lantern attached to his saddle.
And central, the eldest, tallest and most imposing, the hawk-nosed Lord Renald. Brother to the King of the Marakene, he wore his lineage’s shock-white hair and thick jaw with all the cold, distant pride of a true nobleman. Sam had sat across from his brother last year and convinced him to take a trade deal that favoured the Accord of Regents, but that experience did not encourage her here. Everyone knew that it was Lord Renald who held the reins of his ancient kingdom, even if he didn’t wear the crown.
“Quite a sight,” the lord said now, nodding over Sam’s shoulder at the light display on the Sorceress’ walls. “Is that for our benefit? How kind of her to light the way for our soldiers.”
“I am telling you, Lord, there is no reason for battle!” Sam seethed. “My company has been negotiating successfully with the Demon Sorceress for days now! There has been true headway made. Headway which your people jeopardise by being here!”
“Is it not the right of the Accord to defend its lands from invaders?”
“My land, girl!” snapped Bregon, and the jolt of his body made his horse canter. “This is my family’s ancestral land! I will allow no Demon Sorceresses to work evil magic upon it!”
Sam met his roving eye with a cold glower. “Whatever the fervour of your wishes, the Accord is engaged in negotiations here, so all aggression must cease. That is the law.”
“We did not hear of any attempts at negotiation on our way here,” said Prince Yarrick with an easy shrug.
Renald nodded with funereal slowness. “Indeed. If the Accord of Regents was serious about opening dialogue with one of her enemies, I would have expected to hear of such a thing before arriving here. Instead, our local authority council was able to meet and plan a joint operation against the forces of the Demon Sorceress in full compliance with the laws of our union.”
“That does not mean-…!”
“And now that we are here, it appears this supposed diplomacy is being enacted by a sole agent? An apprentice, no less? You will forgive me, Lady Samantha, if we are just a touch sceptical of your claiming to have everything in hand.”
Sam gritted her teeth. “The Accord is working with the city state of Layman-upon-Waters, whose own forces will be here in just a matter of days! At which point, you will be welcome to join any aggressive action that Castellan Thaddeus-…”
“By which point, the Sorceress will have shored up her defences and escalated the cost of life in taking back St. Argan’s Fort. No, my lady. I fear we cannot wait.”
Renald’s slow shake of the head was suitably mournful, while still holding his head high enough to exacerbate the difference in their stances. Bregon, meanwhile, pushed his horse forward.
“Every moment she stands on Arganland, she is staining it with her monstrous corruption! We cannot dally!”
Sam took a moment in adjusting her seat on Willow’s back to consider her approach. She had failed to make that decisive first impact in negotiating with these three lords. They had come in their finery, riding warhorses and with an armed battalion at their backs. Whereas Sam’s leggings were on backwards, her hair was messy, and a boy’s semen was staining her thighs under her clothing. She could still feel Jayce’s heat in her pussy, still taste Sasha on her lips. It was infuriatingly distracting.
So, her trained, usual methods would not abide. She would need to try something else. And the only inspiration close at hand came from a woman standing tall on the fort battlements, wreathed in arcane flame and cackling into the night. When Bregon made to turn his mount and dismiss her, Sam reached out and grabbed the armoured plate on the horse’s flank. His rider shot a burning pair of eyes on Sam.
“Pray tell, what is your desired outcome from this engagement?” she asked.
“D-Desired outcome? The routing of the Demon Sorceress!”
“And then?”
Bregon spluttered out a furious laugh. “What happens then is no concern of yours, girl!”
“I ask simply because I have travelled these lands over the past week, and frankly, Duke, I am concerned. Not simply as a citizen of the Accord, but as its representative. I fear I cannot sanction your reclamation of these lands when there is no assurance they are to be well looked after.”
“Insolence!”
Bregon raised a hand, making to strike her, but Renald wisely manoeuvred in front and grabbed his armoured wrist.
“Do you know the fate of the village of Ailey, Duke?” Sam asked, letting a crooked, goading smile paint her lips, worthy of any Demon Sorceress. “I do, for I have walked her streets. And she was left wide open and vulnerable to an attack from the Sorceress. Much of her grain now lives inside the walls of the Old Saint’s Dungeon.”
“What is the point of this line of discourse?” sighed Yarrick.
“I propose that Argany has no right to these lands,” said Sam, “for Duke Bregon has not seen fit to maintain them. In fact, allow me to be bold in this.”
She pushed Willow forward, and the horse tolerated the proximity to Renald’s snorting steed admirably.
“This land is in better care under the aegis of the Demon Sorceress!” she said.
Bregon fumed. “Fucking… ginger rat!”
“We ask again, what is the point of all this, my lady?” said Renald, scowling down his nose at her.
Sam sat herself tall on Willow’s back. “There are articles in the Accord of Regents’ most ancient treaties specifically allowing for the redistribution of responsibility where it would benefit the land or people. These are how the first national lines of the Accord were drawn, you may recall. There is plenty of legislation I could use, from my position as a key ambassador of the Accord, to have this land legally passed into the care of the Demon Sorceress. And she has proven that she can care for it well, unlike you, Duke. All you have managed to do is scrounge some thirty bedraggled-looking men from their homes and thrust a spear into their hands. Do they even know who you are sending them against?”
A cold stare from Renald shut Bregon’s mouth, but only with great effort. A shame. Sam had been pleased by how much her goading had weathered away the man’s decorum. But Lord Renald was still very much in control.
“I have no doubt that your teachers have educated you well, my lady,” said the white-haired ruler. “I am sure you could manage such a feat, in time. You would know where to look, and you likely have a few eager ears who would support you, a pretty miss like you.”
Sam snarled. That was bold of him.
“But that will take time,” Renald continued. “And in that time, I am confident that our forces can retake St. Argan’s Fort. While you are filing reports and writing letters, I shall be laying the severed head of that monstrous crone before the Regents Council. And I fear, my lady, that your postulation that Argany cannot take care of itself will fall on deaf ears. After all, we killed the spawn of the demon that almost ended the world. What more convincing evidence is there?”
Bregon laughed. He drew his blade and raised it into the air. The pink light of the Sorceress’ spell reflected off the spotless blade and dazzled Sam.
But when she looked away, she saw Yarrick. The prince was chewing his lip, staring down at the pommel of his saddle. His dark eyes moved back and forth. Sam didn’t know enough of Sant Seratorio to recognise what in her words had resonated with him, but she was glad of it, whatever it was.
“Step aside now, Lady,” said Renald. He wasn’t looking at Sam either. The straight set of his shoulders told her that he was no longer listening to her.
She would have to act fast. Not with logic, not with her beloved bureaucracy. And not with bombast, the way of the Demon Sorceress. What did she have left?
With a shiver, Sam realised she could still lie.
“Very well, Lords,” she said, nudging Willow around in a circle as if to leave. “I see there is no more to discuss here. You have come committed to battle, and there is naught I can do to assuage you of that.”
Renald had paused his leaving. He glowered at Sam over one shoulder. It was curious that these words should arrest his attention so tightly. He suspected she was up to something.
Sam took his nerves and consumed them, made herself big with them. “As such, I am sure you have found a means of circumventing Article Sixteen of the Common Accord of Law, and I shall leave you to it.”
Bregon wasn’t listening. He’d ridden his steed half way down to the soldiers. He turned only when he noticed Renald wasn’t following. Renald’s eyes burned with blue flame. And still facing her, Yarrick was sweating.
“Article Sixteen?” he asked.
“Dispensation when targeting a civilian population with an act of war,” Renald answered. “Which is irrelevant in this case, Lady.”
“Is it?” asked Sam. “Is the Old Saint’s Dungeon not a civilian population?”
“St. Argan’s Fort is not, no.”
“Have you a scout’s report to back that up?”
“Behold the arcane light on the fort battlements, and tell me that is not some sort of magical weapon!” Renald spat.
Sam placed her free hand on her hip. “I believe my lord already identified that light as a beacon to welcome guests of the fort, not a weapon. Do you have any real evidence to support that this is a military outpost?”
Bregon surged into the conversation, his horse snorting. “You said they attacked Ailey!”
“Did I? I have no recollection of that,” said Sam with a crooked smile. “Perhaps you would like to visit the village that you tax so assiduously, Lord, and ask the people how harmed they were in this imagined attack. I think you will find the so-called ‘invaders’ did little more than trade for some food and clean up the streets.”
“You said!” Bregon snarled. “Y-You said!”
“Are they truly civilians, Lady?” asked Yarrick, licking his lips.
“No.” Renald’s mount stamped the earth. “They are monsters.”
“I was not aware such labels were mutually exclusive,” said Sam. “In fact, what is a monster? I don’t believe such is defined anywhere in our Accord legislation.”
“Lady…” Renald growled.
“The forces of the Demon Lord were not even described in the Treaty of All Lords,” she continued, thanking the Sorceress for this arrow for her quiver. “The Treaty describes proper action for human military action against a nebulous foe. It says nothing of the enemy, nor the people left behind following the battle. Which means, my lords, this Demon Sorceress is a unique entity, unconnected from the Demon Lord she claims as her father. And until she makes an aggressive move against us, there is no just cause for attacking her.”
“Her proclamation!” shouted Renald. “She declared war on all humanity! She said she would turn the world to ash!”
“Idle prose, nothing more,” said Sam with a shrug. “You know the proper channels for a declaration of war, Lord, and you know they have not been followed. By marching soldiers against the Old Saint’s Dungeon, you will be instigating an unlawful military action against an unarmed, civilian population. And this time, I believe I can have the proper reports in place by the time you are concluded with your slaughter. The Accord takes war crimes very seriously. Have you such resolve?”
Renald simmered. His hand was on his sheathed blade. And Sam stared him down. Yes, let him slay her. Let him silence her. It will mean nothing. She could feel the eyes of Jayce and Sasha on her back. They would get the word to Layman if the lords truly did away with decorum. A civil war might even be on the cards. What a legacy to leave behind!
“And if there is any doubt left, Lords, know this,” she said. She directed her words at Yarrick’s anxious eyes. “There is at least one civilian in the dungeon at present. A man named Elliot of Layman, an ambassador of the Accord. And he is, I have no doubt, enjoying the full hospitality of our dear friend the Demon Sorceress. He will not want to be interrupted.”
“I-I don’t know the name,” said Yarrick.
Sam smiled. “He’s Castellan Thaddeus’ son, if that helps.”
The Prince of Sant Seratorio turned his mount to face his fellows. “Perhaps it would be best to wait. Just until the Layman contingent arrives. Then we can ask the castellan for his input.”
Holding his sword at his side, Bregon was crestfallen. He stared back and forth between the two lords. And Renald, caught between them, let out a sigh. Instantly, the firm pressure of his muscles receded, and he smiled.
“Well played, Lady Samantha,” he said. “No wonder you curtailed my brother so effectively last year. As you wish, we shall withdraw from the field for now.”
Sam’s hands shook, but she tried not to let it show. “If my lords would be kind enough to raise the banner for parlay, I would appreciate it. Just to remind the Demon Sorceress that we will not be striking her walls today.”
“As you wish.”
Renald took off slowly down the slope. Bregon caught his heels like a disciplined hound, head hanging at his shoulders. And Yarrick bowed for her in his saddle.
“Truth be told, I had no wish to spill blood over this venture,” he said with a nervous smile. “My people are volunteers, good men and women. I have a responsibility to support my neighbours, but I’d not sacrifice a single one to that responsibility if I could help it.”
“Then we are all of one mind, Prince,” said Sam. “Thank you for your trust.”
With the three horsemen directing their troops, Sam turned about to face the dungeon once more. She set her eyes on the beam of light atop the walls, and she prayed.
“Don’t make me look like a fool, Elliot,” she whispered. “I have done my part. You had better do yours.”
* * *
“I-I don’t understand!” The Demon Sorceress had her nose pressed against the crystal orb. Her eyes were wide, drowning in the pink light. “This isn’t…! The formulas specifically said…!”
Pushing away, she stormed to the edge of the room and retrieved a wrapped satchel from beneath one of the racks. She pulled a heavy, ancient-looking tome from within and slammed it open on the wood. Elliot watched on, panting and moaning under his breath.
“Ars-Ex-Thiel,” she read, running her finger over the text. “The sigil for ‘life’… There’s no mistake! The orb should be drawing pure lifeforce!”
Then she stilled. A little gasp found its way to Elliot’s ears across the chamber.
“Life-force,” she whispered. “Life-essence. Could it really be so simple?”
Elliot let her work. Partly because there was little he could do about his situation, and partly because he was enjoying it. The light of the orb caressed his muscles down to the core. It stroked and kneaded his brain. It kissed his skin beneath his clothes. He was going to come again in no time.
“Well then, fine!” The Sorceress slammed her tome shut. “Fine! If that is what the orb is meant for, then so be it! Energy is energy! If I have to let it jerk you off to power my weapon… th-then…”
She turned and levelled her staff at him. “Then I’ll do it!” she bellowed. “I’ll jerk you off myself, even! Seyvir!”
Elliot gasped as a magical force sliced down the front of his breeches. When he humped his hips, his cock sprung forth from within the tatters. Thick and red, leaking pre-come.
“A-Ahh, thank you!” Elliot sighed. “That’s much better!”
“Now then…” The Sorceress prowled closer. Elliot licked his lips as she levelled her eyes at his swollen organ. “In the interest of efficiency, can we speed this along?”
The Sorceress raised her hand. Her fingers made slow, sensual curls in the air above his cock. She blew a disappointed breath through her lips which tickled his skin.
“It brings me shame to get this spell out of the vaults,” she said. “You shall be my first victim, Elliot. Do let me know if it hurts.”
She began to whisper, and Elliot’s world turned fuzzy. His head lolled, eyes struggling to focus on the black-garbed Sorceress standing over his thrusting cock. Her voice filled his head, sweet and thick as honey, and the shape of her body, hidden by her clothing and modestly curvaceous as it was, drove him wild.
“There now…” she sighed, and her voice echoed with a lovely, resonant chorus. “You must be so ready to blow your load, is that right? You must be so achingly, agonisingly aroused…”
“A-Ahh!” Elliot whimpered.
The Sorceress giggled. “Let the charm take you! Let your lust control you! Let thoughts of sex fill your simple, mortal mind!”
The spell made dizzying patterns on Elliot’s eyeballs. He recalled gentle touches from his own memory. He heard whispered words, desirous sighs. The shape of hips and breasts and eyes and lips and…
“Good!” giggled the Sorceress. “You are doing so well! Keep it up, Elliot!”
Then she leaned sharply over him. “Sam is lovely, isn’t she?” she teased. “A truly exquisite girl! I bet the two of you had some fun times together. Remember her! Remember how she made you feel!”
“N-Nnngh!” said Elliot.
If only… If only he’d been able to return to that night in the Castle storage cupboard five years ago. If only he and Sam could have come back together. Fun times indeed. They could have curled up as one in the warmth of the wagons. They could have held hands and snuck off to one of the spare rooms in the hostel. They could have kissed in the full moon beside the Ilvarith Forest…
His eyes drifted. Sam was far away, but the Demon Sorceress had her eldritch claws in him. She was humming down at the throbbing of Elliot’s cock, and her magic melted his mind. She was going to make him come.
The Sorceress’ eyes moved sharply back and forth between Elliot’s member and his eyes. She frowned. “What? What is that look for?”
Eyes rolling, Elliot gasped. “M-Make me come!”
“Hmm?” Her hand stilled. She glowered at him through the hole in her mask. “I thought you were thinking of young Sam. I could have sworn the two of you would be lovers. But you… you are thinking of me?”
“Y-Yes!”
“W-Well…” Her laughter was made jagged by fluster. It was very cute. “Well, if that is what it takes to get a deviant like you off, then I suppose needs must. I give you permission to think of me, Elliot.”
Her fingers dipped in the air, and Elliot aimed a mad thrust of his cock towards her hand. She pulled away before he could make contact, and she giggled.
“I have you in my care now, dear,” she crooned. Elliot could see spots of red on her skin below her eyes. “I-I am your villainous captor! Ooh, the things I could do to you! I could… I could ride you, would you like that?”
“Yes!!”
“Goodness, quite a reaction! Would you like me to climb atop you and ride you, Elliot?”
“Y-Yes! God, yes!”
“How very flattering…” Her spellcasting fingers lowered towards his cock. “It is well that you are attracted to my superior might. That suits my needs just fine. But for now… For now, I only need you to do one thing for me…”
She tapped his cock with a fingertip. “Release!”
Elliot cried out as the orgasm pulsed through him. Hot come burst forth from within and fountained down to his breeches. His shout shook the stone walls of the chamber.
And the Sorceress was cackling. She pulled her hand away before it could be stained, and she faced the brightly glowing orb with her arms held high. The glow had turned sharper, brighter and more intense as Elliot’s sex-energy filled it up.
“Yes! Good! Good!” she bellowed. “We are so close now! Just a couple more of those, and we will begin!”
Elliot panted for breath on his torture rack. In the wake of another climax, his mind was free to think for itself, if only briefly. The Sorceress’ lust charm and the orb’s influence would have him simple in a matter of moments. He had to make those moments count.
“It looks like th-this isn’t going the way you planned,” he said.
“Do not be so hard on yourself,” she crooned. “The end result is all that matters. I need energy, and you are providing it. I have entertained human men before, so do not think I am embarrassed to see you in this state. If you enjoy the sacrifice, then all the better, I suppose. Better that you don’t fight being fucked by the light.”
“I just mean that you got the spell wrong, despite all of your research.”
“Oh, pfft.” The Sorceress waved her hand at him. “A tiny semantic misstep. It’s hardly worth calling ‘wrong’ when everything else is going swimmingly.”
“But your expectations were mistaken,” Elliot persisted. Already, the pumping resonance of the crystal was making him hard. “And if you made this mistake about the orb… what else could you have gotten wrong?”
She turned, slow and deliberate and menacing. Her scowl was a sharp line over her red eyes. “Careful,” she growled. “Exactly what are you insinuating?”
“Maybe y-your expectations about people were wrong too.”
“You’re being belligerent.” She advanced, staff raised high. “Don’t spoil this lovely mood with your stubborn hope in the innate compassion of humanity, or whatever! I did not read about humans in a book, Elliot. I lived with them, among them. I saw the way they treat one another! I myself was betrayed by them over and over!”
Elliot took deep, calming breaths to push back the next orgasm. “I’m sorry that happened,” he said. “But as you said, you’ve been watching humans for a long time, longer than I’ve been alive.”
“So?”
“So, haven’t you seen the capacity for them to change even once?”
The Sorceress rolled her eyes. “An individual can change. A nation, or even a union of nations? You may as well ask the mountains to move.”
Elliot gritted his teeth. He was close, in both senses. He would have to be careful, just as she’d said. “But do you need to change the whole Accord all at once? Maybe an individual is all we need to make a difference for your people. Maybe…”
A bolt of sensual lightning arced through his spine. Elliot pushed through the whimper. “Maybe we start with one. Maybe we try to change the heart of one person for now. And then we see where that takes us.”
The Sorceress fumed. Elliot could see her hand shaking around her black staff. “You don’t understand!” she snarled. “The tighter you humans tie yourselves up in bureaucracy, the less you distinguish between one another! The more the greater mass of your species pulls you along!”
“B-But if you have hope-…”
“What hope does this look like to you?!”
With a whip of her staff, the Sorceress tore open that hole in reality once more, letting the view in from outside the dungeon. The dark mountains, the cold stone…
“What hope have I to make you understand me when you come at me with…? When you look…?”
The soldiers were gone, and so were the lords. Elliot stared at an empty field below the plateau. Off in the distance, the shapes of tents being set up. The banners of the allied nations had been arrayed at a distance. And in front of them, a wide, white flag, embroidered in gold. Even Elliot knew that one. It was a request for dialogue.
Sam had done it. She’d pulled the forces away!
“There, you see?” he said, trying not to sound smug. “They want to talk, just like I said. Just as Sam said. Nobody wants to fight today, Sorceress. Why don’t we let them talk? Why don’t we let them hear what you have to say?”
The Demon Sorceress stared into the portal. Elliot couldn’t see her eyes. But her body was stock still, shoulders tight and head bent forward. She may as well have been a statue.
As much as he would love to let her come to her own conclusions, Elliot could feel the orb making magic upon him.
“What do you think, Sorceress?” he asked again.
“It’s Delilah.”
Stepping away from her portal, the Sorceress approached. She leaned back against Elliot’s torture rack and hung her head. She reached up and took off her crown, then tugged her mask from her face. Short, black hair and fawn skin covered in looping, black tattoos. The Sorceress had round cheeks and full lips. Her red eyes were creased and laden with shadow.
“I’m so tired, Elliot,” she sighed. “I prepared for this war over decades, gathering the girls together and picking our location. I have reams upon reams of strategies and contingencies written up in my study. But it was all reliant on your side making the first move against us.”
She tipped back her head, and her smile was sad. “Looks like I don’t know what I’m doing after all.”
Elliot pushed down his orgasm with difficulty. Seeing her so open and vulnerable was too erotic for his charmed, frazzled mind to handle.
“Nobody does,” he groaned. “But we can work it out together.”
“You would show me what diplomacy is supposed to look like?”
“M-Maybe not me. But Sam could. She’s very good at it.”
The Sorceress, Delilah, chuckled. “I can tell. And she clearly has a little clout among her peers. I ought to invite her in.”
She reached up to her cheek and ran her palm across it. “But I am a little scared.”
“Th-That’s fine. I am too.”
Her smile was sweet when she turned it on him. Delilah reached up and stroked his hair, the doting touch of a mistress with her pet, and Elliot let out a jagged whimper of desire. And finally, the Sorceress’ eyes widened. She stared down at his cock.
“Ah. I should turn this off.”
“P-Please.”
With a wave of her staff, Delilah extinguished the light of the crystal orb. Elliot let out a desperate breath of hot air from his lungs. His body was wreathed in gentle lightning, but that was all. He wasn’t about to come. He was just very, very aroused.
Delilah loosened his straps and helped him up to a seat. She laughed as Elliot used shaking hands to try and redo his breeches around the pole of his cock.
“Sam’s not going to be happy if I greet her like this,” Elliot said.
“She strikes me as a girl with exacting standards,” agreed Delilah with a smile.
“Yes, exactly. She doesn’t suffer fools at all.”
“That must be difficult for you. Poor thing.”
Delilah’s tone was teasing, enough to provoke a thick throb up his shaft. Seeing this, she gifted him a little gasp.
Elliot hopped down to the stone, but Delilah didn’t move away. Their arms were now pressed together. The Sorceress reached back and propped up her staff against the rack, leaving both hands free.
“You do look as though you could use some help,” she said softly.
He met her eyes. Delilah was smiling with coy, shy lips.
“I have made a mess of you,” she said. “You shan’t be my good little diplomat all thick and distracted like this.”
Elliot coughed out a frazzled laugh. “It doesn’t help, in my experience.”
“You get into this sort of situation often in your line of work?”
“More often than I think is normal.”
“Ah. Well, then… If I am going to engage in some diplomacy now,” she whispered, “you had better show me what it looks like to you. And you will come away calm and ready to sue for peace on my behalf. It would benefit us both. Don’t you agree?”
When he took a lust-addled step towards her, Delilah giggled, pressing her hands against his chest. Elliot swam in the red ocean of her irises.
“What does diplomacy look like, Elliot of Layman?”
He thought of Ana on all fours between the trees of Ilvarith. He thought of the goblin Nadezha riding him in her study. Yudeka, lying back and inviting him in.
He leaning in and brushed her nose with his. “Let me show you.”
“Yes, show me,” said Delilah, hands tight on his arms. “I command it.”
He lifted. Delilah let out one of her signature cackles and she let herself be manoeuvred into a seat on the wooden torture rack. She looped her arms around his shoulders and parted her knees, letting him between them. Elliot brushed her lips with his.
“You really thought of me that last time you came?” whispered the Sorceress.
“Absolutely,” he replied. “I love women who boss me around.”
She squeezed him with her limbs and laughed into his neck. Elliot could feel the heat of her round cheeks.
“You would be awfully fun to keep around!” she said. “A-Ah, but wait.”
Before Elliot could handle her skirts over her knees, she pushed him away at his stomach. Her fingers danced around the painful pole of his erection. She whispered a charm under her breath, and his skin tingled.
“Just to clean you up a little,” she said. “As I said, I did make a mess of you.”
He looked down. The skin of his cock breathed freely. He could feel the silk of her dress powerfully, acutely, and it almost made him come. But he pushed the orgasm down. He was getting good at that.
“In that case,” he said, “Sorceress, may I begin?”
“You may,” she replied with a snap of her teeth. “Show me some hard fucking diplomacy!”
He kissed her. Delilah giggled into his mouth and tangled her fingers in his hair. Elliot used his own hands to yank up her skirt. When her knees were revealed, he slid his palms up her warm thighs and under the thicker fabric of an undershift. He gripped her bare waist, making her grunt with desire. And all the while, he was tasting her. His tongue painted her lips and teeth. She tasted of the spices used in the meals he’d been given by Yudeka. Delilah must have been eating the same meals as him.
Elliot’s cock plunged through the tangle of her pubic hair. Engorged as he was, even this was almost enough to push him over the edge. He pulled Delilah closer, and she angled back her hips to expose herself to him. Gripping his cock, Elliot stepped into her.
“O-Ooh! There he is!” Delilah ran her teeth across his cheek, then tongued his ear. “There he is…!”
Elliot began in earnest. Immediately, his primitive brain took over, and it was fortunate that she was wet enough to take his ramming with ease. Elliot began to plough the Demon Sorceress with desperate slaps of his body, and she cried into his ear with each deep penetration.
“So hard! So stubborn!” Delilah moaned. “Oohhh! So full of magic! Let it all out into me, Elliot! L-Let it out!”
Gripping her thighs tight, Elliot did as he was told. He fucked the Sorceress with lights sparking at the edge of his vision and muscles aching from his days of incarceration. But the arcane orb had done its work, and Delilah was so very, very lovely. He had no choice but to fuck.
He reached up and grabbed her breast, and Delilah let out a squeak of pleasure. When Elliot began tweaking her nipple through her clothing, she bucked against him, hands making claws in his hair and clothing.
“M-Magic!” she groaned. “Magic! It’s… It’s magic!”
She leaned away from him. Delilah lay back on the torture rack and gripped the edge near her head with both hands. He took her cue at once. Elliot put his hands on her waist and delved her deeply.
“A-Ahh! C-Come on! Enchant me!” she cried. “Come in me, Elliot! Give me everything you have!”
“D-D-…” Elliot grunted. “Oh, D-Delilah!”
Between desperate slaps of his body, Delilah’s eyes opened and met his. The crystal red of a new apple. The burning flame of the sun. Distant and unknowable, but warm! So warm… Delilah, the Demon Sorceress, smiled up at him.
“Release!” she whispered.
Elliot came. He pushed his hips between her legs and unloaded a painful orgasm into her womb. After coming twice from her powers already, he didn’t have much to offer her. Elliot loomed atop his partner, and she stroked his hair as she laughed, on and on and on.
“Good boy!” sang Delilah. “Oh, good boy!”
He began to pump again on instinct. His cock was wet, spent of its fuel. He was dizzy and hungry. But the orb had a little more hold over him yet. Or perhaps it was just that Elliot was a gentleman and wanted to ensure Delilah had fun.
Time was short. He’d have nothing left in a few short moments. So he pummelled her with thrusts. He pawed her breast in that way he knew she liked. He kept his eyes, big and fascinated on hers.
“G-Good boy,” she said again. “Good! S-Serving his mistress so… so very…”
She convulsed. Delilah sat up and held tight to his shoulders as she orgasmed around his cock. Her beautiful, red eyes were shut tight, and her teeth were gritted. And then, with a great gasp, she was done. Delilah lay back on the rack and sucked air into her lungs. All the while, she was laughing.
“So, that is diplomacy,” she giggled. “What fun. I think I shall enjoy giving it some more of my time…”
laymenstory
Ewan Stone 
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