Business and pleasure, Chapter 6.

"Okay." Kristoff sighed, his chair creaking ominously as he leaned back in it, his feet propped shamelessly up upon my writing-desk. The first few rays of dawn filtered through the window next to him. "Let's go over this again."

He steepled his fingers, watching me over them like a teacher addressing a troublesome student. I gave him a playful scowl and nestled deeper into the thick sheets piled up around me, filing one of my claws as he spoke. We were in my room at the Second Circle, and in the brief silence, I could hear the muffled thuds and moans of another girl getting a good working over in the next room. I wasn't long out of the bath, lying flopped out on my bed and clad in a thick dressing gown - not a particularly sexy garment, especially considering I was living and working out of what was to all intents and purposes a brothel - but even though Kristoff and I were purely talking business, I could tell that he was having to work very hard not to keep eying the slices of damp red skin on show.

"Not three days after the, shall we say, Werewolf Incident - ", I couldn't help but wince a little at that particular memory, which prompted a raised eyebrow from him in return - "You say you've found us more work. Work which will require us taking on some extra bodies, even though you don't actually know what that work fully entails, and don't want to tell me who's actually employing you."

The tone of his voice changed a little at the last. I looked up at him, a fleeting, hurt expression passing over my face at the unsaid implication there.

"You've never told me who your contracts are, either!" I said, tossing the nail file aside and sitting up, a sudden rush of indignant anger blooming through my chest. Kristoff and I hadn't known each other very long, in the grand scheme of things, but in those few months I felt we'd grown close - we trusted each other, or at least, I assumed as much.

He sighed again, giving me a tired smile. "Ree," Kristoff said, swinging his feet down from my desk and leaning towards me. "Ree, you never asked. That's your problem. You don't ask about these things. You just..." he trailed off and made a vague, helpless guesture with his hands. "...you just go with things. Some of us like a little more planning, you know? Make sure we're not going to be stabbed in the back or something."

I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off. "And I'm not saying I don't trust you. I'm saying that maybe we - " he touched his chest, then reached out to brush his fingers against my toes - "shouldn't be so quick to trust whoever's hiring you. If you won't tell me who it is, can you at least tell me why you want to keep it to yourself?"

And just like that, I felt the bright spark of anger fizzle out. Even if I wanted to stay angry at the human, he was right, damnit. I sagged back on the bed, flopping my head back into the soft pillows and chewing at my lip, guilty memories of the lavish party I'd been hired to attend already creeping back into my mind.

"It's not that I don't trust you. It's just..." I said, trying to decide how much I wanted to tell him. Kristoff certainly wasn't prudish when it came to be sex work - hell, he got me into it, so he'd be a bloody hypocrite of he was - but I'd let things get out of hand that night. I still had the money I'd earned, tucked up in a heavily locked box under the bed, along with the exquisite gold and silk outfit that had been made for me. From time to time, I'd taken the ornate assemblies of gold chains and deep violent skirts out and just stared at them, guiltily remembering how they'd made me feel - beautiful, desirable, and incredibly sexual - and how those feelings had led to me being bent over a table so a room full of Swyndel's high and mighty merchants and nobles could run a train on me. Logically, I knew, it hadn't been that bad - I hadn't been hurt or forced to do anything that part of me didn't want to do - but it hadn't been anything I'd planned. I'd lost control of myself and the situation, and my gut curdled at the memory.

But this was Kristoff - I knew him, I trusted him, and even if I didn't feel like sharing all the gristly details, it wasn't right to leave him so in the dark. I sighed. "You've heard of Taelil, right? Taelil Gherad?"

He nodded. "Yea, I know a couple of other adventuring parties who've worked for her. Doesn't pay as much as some of us'd like, but she's pretty reliable, from what I've heard. Why? She's the client, right?"

"Yea." I chewed my lip nervously, waiting for the question that I knew was about to come.

"How'd you get in contact with her?" Kristoff asked. Even though I knew he would say it, I still felt my heart sink a little. "Isn't she part of the nobility? I heard she did politics."

"Nobility, right." I said. "I was, uh, hired for an event. She was there, and we swapped details when I was done working."

I put just a little stress on the last word. Kristoff blinked as things clicked in his mind, and slowly, a dark frown passed over his face.

"Nothing...untoward happened to you, right?" He said. His words felt stiff and overly formal as if he was trying to talk around something that he didn't want to imagine head-on. "You're not normally, uh, shy about these sorts of things."

Flicking a rope of drying hair out of my eyes, I stood up from the bed and padded over to him, pulling my dressing gown around myself plonking myself down on the desk. After a slightly awkward moment, he tore his eyes away from the expanse of tight, crimson thigh the dress had shifted to expose and forced himself to look up, meeting my reassuring smile.

"Nothing you need to worry about." I said, curling my tail around his leg. "Really, you don't need to worry about me. Go find us a couple of chumps to catch the arrows that come our way, and I'll go find out who'll be shooting them at us. Deal?"

For a moment, I thought he was about to force the issue, but then his shoulders relaxed and he nodded. "Sure. But if I have to watch you tarting around again, you can consider this partnership terminated." He laughed, taking a playful swipe at the end of my tail to show he was joking. "Even if it is to save my ass."

---

Kristoff and I exchanged a few more pleasantries before he left, departing to trawl through the network of contacts he'd put together to find us a couple of extra bodies. Despite my casual bluster, the idea left me a little apprehensive - Kristoff and I normally worked by ourselves, and given our youth and relative lack of experience, on the occasions where we partnered up with other adventurers it was usually us being hired on by them, not the other way around.

Assuming neither Kristoff nor myself found anything objectionable in the task Taelil had for us, we planned to make a start today, so I dried my hair, ate a quick meal and dressed in a pair of hard-wearing leather breeches, a white shirt and a plain, dark jerkin. My armour was away being repaired - it had been shredded in the werewolf attack, and I'd had to spend most of my share of the money paying an armourer to fix it - so I made a quick checklist of everything I'd likely need, packed my travel bag, and set out for the Tiefling noblewoman's manor.

The streets were quiet as I left the Second Circle. It was that strange time just after dawn has broken where the last of the city's nightlife has crawled off into their beds - or back-alleys, or gutters, depending upon their social standing and level of inebriation - but the hustle and bustle of everyday life had yet to flood back into the winding avenues of the once-elvish city. Here and there, a few merchants and traders hoping to get an edge over their rivals by opening a few hours earlier were setting up their stalls, and the rich scent of breakfast cooking wafted enticingly from several open windows. I passed a pair of beggars, their ragged clothes and worn-down expressions standing in stark contrast to the pale stone and gleaming coloured crystal of the buildings around them and crossed one of the great bridges that spanned the river which had made Swyndel the prosperous trading hub that it was, and made my way towards the noble districts.

It wasn't hard to find them. Swydel's buildings grew progressively taller and grander as you moved towards the center of the city, growing from the low stone houses and rough shacks that had humanity had been forced to build on the arable land within the city walls as its numbers blossomed, to the circular two- or three-story buildings that made up the city's pleasure and commercial districts, and finally to the towering spires and minarets that had been claimed by the city's nobles, politicians, and its richest merchants. There, more signs of life could be found; the streets were still quiet, but servants and couriers bustled back and forth between the tall, ivory buildings, sweeping the streets, taking deliveries and running messages for their lords and masters. From the outside, most of the towers looked the same - glittering spires of marble and ivory, inlaid with gold and coloured stone in looping whorls - and twice I had to stop and ask for directions. A stressed, harried looking Orc woman eventually pointed me towards the right tower.

From the outside, it looked just like all the others, though perhaps not quite as grand or richly decorated. A pair of guards - both Tieflings, like myself, I noticed - nodded me through the main doors and led me into the entrance hall.

I'd only ever been inside one of Swyndel's towering manors before. Bel'anaroth's spire, the hulking, weirdly mis-shapen structure communally used by Swyndel's upper classes to throw lavish balls and parties, had been decorated like something out of a poor man's dream. Its floors had been covered in thick foreign carpets, its walls paneled with dark wood and decorated with hunting trophies, racks of decorative weapons and exquisite paintings. Taelil's abode, by comparison, could almost be thought of as spartan. It was by no means miserly, but lacked the Spire's dripping opulence; it was neat, clean, as if she had tried to maintain the naked simplicity of the original elven decor. But the thing that struck me most, was the servants. Like the guards, almost all of them were Tieflings. It was a strangely exciting sight - I'd been living in Swyndel for several months by this point, and in that time couldn't have met more than a dozen people like myself, including Taelil and her partner Marius. Bel'anaroth's Spire had made me feel small, awkward and out of place when I'd first entered it, but walking through Taelil's abode felt strangely like I was coming home after too many years away, and it wasn't long before I found myself grinning like a madwoman as I was led through the corridors.

The guards took me to a waiting room and departed, their tails slicing through the air behind them as the door closed. I shucked off my backpack and settled down on a low settee, sprawling my legs out and draping my long tail over the end and picking idly at the small bowls of fruit that had been left out, presumably for me while I waited for my hosts to rise and dress themselves. It was odd, thinking that just behind those doors dozens of other Tieflings were living and working, cloistered away from the rest of the city, probably without the bulk of Swyndel's populace knowing they existed. As exciting as finding such a wellspring of my people existing within the city was, in a way I couldn't help but feel it was a bit of a shame. I'd always felt that no matter what race they belonged to, in the end, people were just people. Tieflings still attracted more than their fair share of racial abuse, but cooping ourselves up away from the rest of the world wasn't going to change that.

The sound of the door opening dragged me from my thoughts. I quickly gulped down the sweet, green starfruit I'd been picking at and sat up, hastily wiping the fragrant juices away from my lips and attempting to look at least somewhat dignified.

A rich, warm laugh, like honey and liqueur, cut through the air, and I felt my insides starting to melt at the sound of it. Marius. Damnit. Taelil's husband was a first-generation Tiefling, descended directly from someone who had been marked by a seducer demon. He was, quite literally, built for sex, and even standing close for too long tended to leave most people debilitatingly aroused until they got used to him. His habit of wearing open-fronted robes that left his broad, hairless chest and powerfully muscled arms on show didn't exactly help either, and I had to bite down hard on my lip to quell the heat that bloomed up inside me at the sound of his voice.

"Marius." I swallowed hard and stood, extending a hand that only trembled a little bit at the sight of him. "It's good to see you."

The other Tiefling took my hand and kissed it, gazing suggestively at me all the while. "And you, Ireela. Always a pleasure." The tone of his voice made it quite clear what sort of pleasure he meant, but regardless of the signals my body was screaming at me, I felt that getting involved with the other Tiefling would be a very bad idea. He and Taelil had been the ones to pick me up after I'd lost control of myself at the sex party, and while Taelil had been entirely sympathetic, Marius had been...less so, talking about how beautiful it had been to watch my own seducer aspects coming to the fore. There was a fine line between decadance and depravity, and having met with him and Taelil on several occasions since, I was starting to feel that Marius didn't quite know the difference.

"Come." He said, leading me by the hand back through the door and into the corridors beyond. "I apologize for the delay, but Taelil wanted to make doubly sure her information was correct before sending you off."

"You, uh, know what the job's going to be?" I asked, glancing at him.

"Mmn. But I'll let my dear wife tell you herself. This is a..." Marius' expression flickered, a dark look passing behind his eyes for a moment. "A delicate, personal issue for her. I don't know if she plans on telling you everything, or just the technical details."

A kernel of worry starting to gnaw inside me at that. I liked Taelil. She was warm and kind, and while a lot of her politics went over my head, she used her position within Swyndel's nobility to help people. I had a lot of respect for the other woman, and I didn't like the unspoken implications behind Marius' words. I just nodded in reply, letting him guide me through the building, until he ushered me through the door and into their own, private rooms.

I blinked in surprise as I entered, turning my head one way and the other. Unlike the clean, minimalistic decor present throughout the tower, this room looked like a cross between a treasury vault and a junk heap. Racks mounting suits of mismatched armour stood next to shelves of broken pottery shards, ancient weapons were hung alongside clothing in styles most of which I didn't recognize. The tables were covered in maps and charts of all kinds, each of which was in turn covered in notes and passages scribed in Taelil's neat, cramped handwriting. The woman herself was sat over one of these maps, dressed in a cream gown and a long purple and gold cloak, her three tall, regal horns chased with silver thread. She turned and smiled warmly raising a hand in greeting as I stepped forwards.

"Ireela!" She said, putting down her quill and rising from her seat. "Wonderful. I'm so glad you're here. I'm sorry for the delay, but-"

"Marius said. It's fine." I replied. "How are you?"

"Frankly, I'm glad you're here. I know getting this job together's been a bit of a farce. A lot of others in your position would have called things off."

I grinned at her. "Hey, I said I'd do it, right? So I'll do it." Taelil touched me briefly on the arm, then returned to her seat and motioned for me to sit next to her. I found another chair buried under a small mountain of paper, cleared it and joined her. The map she'd been working at was a map of the Seven Cities, rendered in incredible detail - Swyndel, Galath, Barunzia, and all the other city-states that had once comprised the elven empire dominated, but it seemed like every little village, farmstead and mining community had been picked out, joined up by neat little roads and tracks. Even the most common routes taken by the darkwoods gypsy caravans, where Kristoff hailed from, had been picked out.

"I'll be blunt." Taelil started, drumming her fingers against the map. "Do you object to taking black contracts?"

'Black contract' was a term used to describe mercenary jobs that specifically called for an individual to be killed - or captured for someone who intended on killing them themselves. Neither Kristoff or myself were too fond of them unless there was a very good reason, and I mentioned as much to Taelil. Her tail flickered anxiously, but she nodded.

"There is." She tapped the map, tracing a line between Swyndel and Galath. "I have it on good authority that a group of individuals are traveling between Galath and our own city. These individuals are..." Taelil trailed off, her eyes glazing over for a moment, as if lost in memory. "...not good people. The best of them are common murderers fleeing the law. The worst are sadists and psychopaths of the worst kind."

Taelil shifted some papers aside and pulled out a pencil sketch of a haggard, weather-beaten man's face, with a crooked nose and a thick beard. It made me think of the woodcutters from my village; tough, rustic men with no great love for others. Taelil grimaced at the sight of it, then passed it to me.

"They gather under this man. Richter Barthius." Her voice became tight and strained, and I glanced up at her, feeling my guts curdle. I'm not stupid, and things were starting to click into place inside my head. "He's a slave trader. Takes these men and women in and allows them to work for him. They go from town to town, practicing their indulgences then leaving before the authorities can catch them. Once they've passed into another city's territory, they're safe. Crossing after them would be an act of war."

"If they've been doing this..." I shook my head. "I don't know, how long?"

"At least a decade."

"Why aren't the cities working together to stop them?"

Taelil sighed sadly. "If politics was that easy, there'd be no need for people like me. The cities can barely stop squabbling over territory long enough to formalize the trade routes we've all been running for years. Besides, some of them profit from Barthus' trade. My informants tell me that they're quietly tolerated in Galath and openly welcomed in Kalak-a-nor. Independent contractors haven't stepped in until now because they don't want to risk angering Kalak."

A painful silence fell as we both contemplated that. I'd always thought that these outlaw gangs, especially those who turn to that lifestyle by choice rather than circumstance, were virtual exiles from society; it hadn't occurred to me that they'd be tolerated, much less accepted, in some places.

"So, whats -" I stopped abruptly, my throat dry. Taelil waved to Marius - her own hand was shaking a little, I noticed - and had him bring us some wine. Once I'd steadied my nerves, I started again. "So, what's the job? Just find them and kill them?"

"Not quite." Taelil drained her glass as if it was brandy and poured herself another. "I want Barthus brought to me alive."

I reached out and patted her hand. She gave me a weary smile.

"You've probably guessed that we have history together." Taelil said. I nodded mutely. Part of me felt like I should be angry, but anger wouldn't come - I just felt sick and upset, both at what had happened to her and at the fact that no-one had stepped in to do something about this sooner. "I want to - to do the deed myself. Not for revenge, but for..."

"Closure?" I ventured.

"Something like that." Taelil tapped the map again. "One of my spies tells me that three days from now, they're going to make camp here, in a small forest clearing. Bring Barthius to me. I don't care what happens to the others."

It felt like I should have said something bold and heroic, or at least dramatic and memorable, but the churning feeling in my guts had yet to subside. I knew that, going into the adventuring business, I'd inevitably wind up fighting people - but I'd always imagined them as the cartoonish evildoers of story and legend, sneering villains who take prisoners but are inevitably thwarted by the heros just in the nick of time. The ugly reality of the situation settled upon me like a shroud.

"Okay." I said. "You can count on us. I've sent Kristoff to get us some help. How many of them should we expect?"

"About eight, but most of them aren't used to people fighting back." Taelil said. "I'll have one of my own women sent to join you. Her name's Cassanda Felwright. Not the friendliest of people, but effective."

She finished her second glass of wine and stood. She looked shaken, and frankly, I couldn't blame her. The idea of what the other Teifling had been through, even if she had spared me the details, had still left me reeling. In any other situation, I would have asked about pay, and made sure to demand some of it in advance - but all I could think about was getting some air, then getting started as soon as possible. I rose as well, taking the maps and the sketch of Barthius that Taelil passed to me.

"I'll have a caravan chartered to leave at mid-day, by Valarian's Gate. Cassandra will meet you there." Taelil said, as she walked me to the door. "And, Ireela-" she caught me by the arm, then, gently pulling me around to face her. Her tail lashed back and forth, and illuminated by the now-risen sun, the silver chasing on her horns made her look like she was wearing a crown. "Thank you. Great things will come from this, I promise."

And then the door closed, leaving me with those mysterious last words, and Marius who swiftly escorted me from the tower.

---

The air was cool and sweet outside the tower. Once Marius had shown me to the door and closed it again behind me, I sagged against the wall, my head rolling backwards and horns clicking softly against the pale stonework. Horrid images of what might have happened to the other woman swirled incessantly around in my head. At the party, she'd been one of the very few not to participate, and the strange dress she had worn kept her back completely covered. Had she been hiding the scars of whatever Barthius had done to her? I didn't know what was worse - knowing, or not knowing and imagining. I sucked in a deep breath, holding it until I felt my heart rate begin to slow, then let it out and stepped away from the tower.

What had happened, had happened. I couldn't change that. But I could stop anyone else suffering whatever Taelil had been through.

With that thought kept firmly in mind, I set off back into Swyndel's streets.

First port of call was Gulrug, the armourer. He was one of the best in the city, and like I said, getting him to repair my armour had cost most of the money I'd made from the werewolf job. Of course, given how skilled he was, he had something of a waiting list, but I'd managed to persuade him to move me to the top. Mostly by letting him move to my bottom. He was a square-jawed brute of a man, the greyish tone of his skin and slight elongation of his bottom teeth marking him out as having Orcish blood somewhere in his family, and he greeted me with a wide grin as I approached.

"Hah! My new favorite customer! Come in, come in. Your armour's ready." He barked out a laugh and ushered me into the shop, one of his wide, calloused hands wrapping itself around the tight globe of my buttock as we went.

The little front-shop was just like I remembered it. Small, cramped, and difficult to move due to the sheer number of armour stands displaying Gulrug's wears, yet he moved through it with a care and delicacy I wished he'd shown while fucking me over his anvil. I felt a pleasant little twinge of warmth at the memory. I still hadn't gone back to whoring myself out of the Second Circle - the memories of the night at the Spire still making me feel a little uncomfortable about the idea - but rolling down my trousers and letting the big halfbreed work my ass with his cock had put the fire back in me. I didn't feel any guilt or shame about it - I had something he wanted, he had something I needed, and we made a trade. Oddly enough, as he jerked me back and forth atop the anvil, more than anything else I remember how powerful it had made me feel - like I could do things, or get access to things, that other people couldn't, simply by offering myself up to the right person. It was a rush. As soon as we finished Taelil's job, I decided, I was going to get back to work.

"I hope you don't mind, but I made a few changes." Gulrug said, leading me over to the armour stand. "I sewed some bands of ivory in, here and here. Now, it ain't gonna be as good as metal, but it's light and shouldn't get in the way. 'Course," He gave my ass a sudden, sharp slap, making me yelp in surprise. "If you're gonna make me an offer like the last one, you can feel free to get it all banged up again whenever you like."

"Mmn. I'll keep that in mind." I laughed, wrapping my tail around his leg and stepping in against his chest. "You know I do work over at the Second Circle? Been taking some time off, but..." I let me fingers wander up and down his chest. "I think I'm ready to start up again, if you fancy giving me a call?"

"Maybe I'll do that." He chuckled. "Y'know, I got a friend who does weapons. You want me to-"

I cut him off and gave him my best sulty look. "Bring him as well." I purred. "I'll give you both a discount."

Mind spinning and body buzzing, I let Gulrug package up my armour, then virtually skipped out the door.

The rest of the morning was spent making final preparations for the trip. I picked up several days worth of dried food and water-skins, extra rope so we could bind Barthius for the return journey, and some extra medical supplies should the worst happen. A short stop at the Second Circle saw me pack up an extra change of clothes and collect my weapons, as well as receive a message Kristoff had left for me. Apparently, Taelil had couriered him a note, informing him of where and when we'd be meeting and setting out. He also mentioned he'd found two more mercenaries willing to join us.

With everything packed up and ready to go, I set out to meet them. The streets were packed, like a river flooded with people of all kinds, every one of them pushing and shouting and bartering madly. They were a riot of noise and scent and colour - gold changed hands, produce was brought forwards and examined, food was cooked and eaten, jugglers and musicians entertained the crowds, cries of anger and alarm when up when thieves or fraudsters were discovered. I hadn't lived in Swyndel very long, in the grand scheme of things, but I'd come to love the crowds that flooded the streets. There was something vital about them, something incredibly alive and energetic - a whole mass of peoples and culture blending together into one great organism. My red skin and sweeping horns attracted attention as I pushed my way through, but at the end of the day I was just one more part of that - people looked, and maybe the talked, but then they forgot and went on with their lives.

Valarian's Gate was one of the biggest trade routes into the city. Every day, hundreds of carts, caravans and trade animals went in and out, along with thousands of merchants, settlers, refugees, immigrants, even tourists. I had no idea how I was going to find Kristoff in the bedlam, but fortunately, I didn't have to. Being, as I said, bright red and having horns, tended to make me easy to spot.

"Ree!" I heard the human shout. "Oi, Ree! Over here!"

And there he was, standing next to a group of Kobolds arguing over the import taxes for the Vaevaian beetle carapaces they wanted to bring into the city. He was already wearing his metal breastplate, his dark hair hanging loose around his pale, narrow face as he waved at me. I called back a greeting and quickly made my way over to him.

"There you are." I panted. "Wasn't sure I'd find you in all this." I swept an arm out across the chaos, nearly backhanding a passing Orc. "We all set?"

"Yea." He nodded. "You're the last to arrive. Come on."

Kristoff began to lead me off into the press of bodies. Kristoff had been in Swyndel longer than me, but he always was more at home out in the wilds, and he worked he way through the crowds without a lot of grace or skill. I filled him in on the way, telling him Taelil's story and the details of what we were expected to do. Kristoff's expression was grim, as I knew it would be - he didn't know Taelil personally, but for him, the fact that something like this had happened was reason enough to act.

"So," I said, eager to change the subject. "Who're the others?"

"Taelil's girl, Cassandra?" Kristoff shook his head. "I'll...let you see yourself. Just don't stare her in the eye for too long, she really doesn't like that."

"You mean eyes, right?"

He ignored me and carried on. "The other two're weird, though. A Dragonborn and a Kobold. The two of 'em came together once they knew I was hiring."

For a moment I thought of the Dragonborn client I'd had back at the Second Circle, months ago, and his Kobold companion. It wasn't entirely surprising there'd be more, similar pairs in the city. The two species came from the same part of the world, after all.

"What're their names?" I said.

"Maundra and Krissilik. Maundra's the big one."

I stopped dead. Kristoff took another step, then realized I wasn't following and turned back.

"Ree? You okay?" He gave me a puzzled look. "You're going red. Redder."

I licked my lips and laughed nervously. "I, uh, I think I've already met them. We - I mean, I, did...business. They don't know I do merc work."

He raised his eyebrows. "Huh. Funny old world. You think it's gonna be a problem? It's a bit late to make new arrangements."

Well, would it be a problem? Maundra had barely said two words to me during the whole session. He, like most of his race, had been a mystery wrapped in an enigma with a cock the size of my forearm for good measure from the moment I first met him, and I hadn't the first idea what went on inside his slow, reptilian mind. Krissilik had been almost the polar opposite - a seething bundle of noise, energy, and good-natured egotism. I hadn't spoken with him for long before he'd been swept off by another of the working girls, but I got the feeling that he wouldn't care what I did in my spare time. Few Kobolds do. Having such short lifespans, most of them don't give a damn what happens so long as they enjoy themselves and leave people with good memories of them.

"Nah." I shrugged. "Should be fine."

We walked on for a little, the silence just creeping into the uncomfortable before Kristoff spoke again.

"So, uh. What was he like? I got the feeling Kobold guys weren't well suited for pairing up with us tall folk."

"It wasn't the Kobold." I muttered.

This time, it was Kristoff's turn to stop and goggle at me. "You had the Dragonbo-"

"Yup."

"But he must be - "

"Yup."

Kristoff held up his hands about a foot apart.

"Yup. At least."

"How did you - "

"Three cheers for fiendish ancestry? I guess?" I shrugged, an incredulous expression on my face. Kristoff snorted out a short laugh, then shook his head and we started walking again. Soon, the crowd parted, and I saw our ride. It wasn't much, just a small horse-drawn cart with some seats in the back, but it was the three people that were standing next to it that caught my attention. Maundra and Krissilik were exactly as I remembered them; the hulking, dark-scaled Dragonborn, clad in a thick set of monkish robes, glowering silently at everything around him as he slowly swung his blunt, wedge-shaped head back and forth. The Kobold was tawny-scaled and decorated with looping blue streaks of warpaint, wearing little more than a loincloth and some scraps of armour that fell well into the 'pointlessly ornate' end of the spectrum, with a longsword he would have needed two hands to use slung over his back. His narrow, crocodilian face immediately swung to look at me, and the twinkle in his eye and the sudden grin that appeared on his snout told me that any chance of getting away unremembered had been properly blown.

The final figure was a human woman - Cassandra, I assumed. She wasn't as tall as I was, but she was significantly older and more heavily muscled - not thick or heavily-set, but bound by the hard ropes of muscle that a long, physical life bestows. She was wearing a thick, padded jerkin and a long leather coat treated with some kind of pungent alchemical solution, and though she was mostly turned away from me, from what I could see of her face behind the plume of bright ginger hair, she looked pretty.  Then, she turned around.

The whole left side of Cassandra's face was gone. A mass of puckered, burned scar tissue spread across her face like mold, from her neck all the way up to her scalp, leaving her half-bald and missing an ear. The melted, fused flesh had twisted her mouth into a permanent sneer, and her nose was little more than a few scraps of gristle hanging over a hollow naval cavity. But the worst thing was her eye - her left eye was just a dark, gaping socket, staring blindly into space.

I stared. I didn't want to, I knew she must have hated it, but I stared. Her remaining eye was a bright, sharp blue, like a chip of ice, but it might as well have been nothing next to the yawning hole in her head next to it. It was impossible not to stare. Cassandra snorted - the noise was strange and whistling, and I watched in morbid fascination as the tiny bits of her nose twitched - and spat on the ground.

"Yea, yea. Get it out your system." Her voice came as a low rasp, like gravel.

I felt a sudden rush of guilt and tore my eyes away. "Shit, I'm sorry." I muttered.

"You and the last five fuckin' hundred people." Cassandra growled. "Get on the cart, Red. Time's wasting."

Kristoff gave me an I-told-you-so look. I sighed and slung my bag over the side, hefting myself up as we climbed aboard. Kristoff and I took one side, while Maundra hauled himself onto the other. There was a rather precarious moment as the cart groaned as he mounted, and for a moment I thought the whole thing was about to tip over, but he shifted his position - very slightly, very carefully, with a degree of precision one might not have expected from such a huge body - and the cart leveled out again. Krissilik, by comparison, weighed next to nothing, and perched jauntily on the Dragonborn's shoulder.

Finally, Cassandra hauled herself up, plonking down at the far end, facing away from us and letting her legs dangle off the back of the cart. One arm was wrapped protectively over a strangely-shaped cloth bundle. Before I could inquire too closely, the driver pulled the reigns of his horse, and we were off.

---

"Krissilik did not expect to see this one again. Not here-now, at least."

I grimaced. We'd been on the road for several hours, riding peacefully through the forests that surrounded Swyndel, and I'd been counting the seconds until either Krissilik or Maundra spoke up about our past association. I certainly wasn't ashamed of my work at the Circle, but not all of my clients are as accepting as they first appear - it wouldn't have been the first time a prostitute, even a respectful one like myself, would be greeted warmly by a regular customer while working only to be ignored or insulted by that same person if they met in any other situation. And that was without Cassandra's caustic attitude to deal with.

I smiled sweetly at the Kobold, trying to hide my discomfort. "No?" Truth told, I didn't exactly know what to say to him.

"Do not think Krissilik condemn-judges!" The Kobold chirped. He hopped down from Maundra's shoulder, the Dragonborn grunting a few words in his native tongue as Krissilik scampered up the rear of the cart, perching upon the board that separated us from the driver. He might have only been three and a half feet tall, but he never seemed to stop moving - or, talking. He pulled out a pipe and clamped it between his reptilian jaws, cramming it full of dreamweed and setting it alight. "No-no, not true! Quite opposite, in fact! Krissilik sees Ireela and thinks, see!"

He swept one of his skinny little arms out towards. "This, woman who understands what she wants, knows how to get it, how to get paid for it! Clever-smart, yes. No shame?" He gave an exaggerated, theatrical shrug. "Perhaps. But, who cares about shame? Not Krissilik. Life short, hard, cruel if you let it be. So, laugh, drink, fight, rut. Be merry! Take what you want! Spit in life's face!"

I hand to hold a hand in front of my mouth to stop myself from giggling madly. Krissilik punctured his speech with elaborate guestures and puffs of heady smoke from his pipe, waving his arms around and thrusting his narrow hips into the air. He settled down towards the end, though I had no idea whether he had run out of energy or the soporific effects of the dreamweed were taking hold.

"Ah, see, my clan-people have saying, yes? Translates poorly, but, hmm, how you say?" He clicked his tongue. "Live fast, die young, leave exceedingly handsome corpse."

He gave me a wink that I'm sure was supposed to be suggestive. Kristoff laughed and raised the bottle of water he was drinking from.

"I'll drink to that." He said.

---

The cart rolled on. Day turned into night and turned into day again. We ate sparingly from our supplies and took turns to keep watch, and while we passed signs that suggested goblins were in the area, we had the good fortune to miss them or they chose not to attack. To pass the time, we swapped stories - or at least, Kristoff, Krissilik and myself did. Maundra kept up his stoic silence, occasionally breaking it to grunt a comment or ask a short, direct question, but Cassandra kept entirely to herself at the back of the cart. On the rare occasions she spoke to us, she was wholly focused on our task - informing us if she'd spotted anything suspicious or calling someone's name when she retired from her turn at watch. Despite her surly attitude, I couldn't help but feel sorry for her, and when she finally pulled the cloth back from her package, I decided to try and make a fresh start.

Getting up from my seat, I walked over and carefully sat down beside her. The other woman didn't so much as acknowledge my presence, neither pulling away from me nor turning to share a greeting. Instead, she produced a number of oily rags and a set of fine metal tools from within her stinking coat and pulled her strange cargo into her lap.

"I've never seen anything like that before." I said. It was mostly just an olive-branch, a way of trying to start a conversation, but my words were tinged with genuine curiosity. It was a strange thing - I recognized something that might have been a boiler, and a number of long tubes and spouts like a church-organ that pointed forwards, and it was studded with little dials and valves. The whole thing had been rendered from some strange brassy metal.

"You wouldn't." Cassandra said. "Built it myself." After a moment, as if as an explanation, she grunted "I'm Varnian."

Varnia was a country across the sea. There were all kinds of legends about it - that the men there forged metal suits that turned them into gods, that they had stolen flight from the birds and given it to their own people, and dozens of other strange and esoteric tales. Most were based around things being invented, or created, or taken from something and bestowed upon something else.

"I've never been." I replied. Bland, as conversation went, but for the moment I just wanted to keep her talking and see if she'd warm up.

"I'm not surprised." She said. "Most don't. Varnia likes to keep to itself." Cassandra began to tinker with her strange creation, adjusting the dials and tapping the pipes, listening to the musical ringing noises with her remaining ear.

 "And it's a weapon, before you ask." Cassandra added. I started a little, caught by surprise at the little bit of information she had offered, but felt a little surge of happiness at her comment. It was one of the most open things she'd said since we met.

"It isn't like any weapon I've ever seen before." I said, leaning over for a better look. Some parts of it looked almost like a kettle, and I could see a long rubber tube connecting to a pair of heavy metal tanks that sloshed faintly as the cart rattled back and forth. "What does it do?"

She laughed, then, a strange, dry sound without a lot of humour in it. "This, Ireela, is Hell's Breath." Cassandra grasped it by a handle and trigger assembly at the back and lifted it into the air, pointing it out from her body as if it was a grotesquely oversized crossbow. "It's a steam cannon. Prototype. You know how hot boiling water gets, yea?"

I nodded. "This gets it hotter. See, the water gets pumped from the tanks into here-" she tapped a large, spherical chamber on the body of the weapon, then began to work a small handle situated behind it. A low, gurgling rumble began to build within the tanks, and the weapon trembled in her hands like a living thing. "Where it gets boiled into steam. Only these valves keep it under pressure. When I want to fire it, I pull this..."

She hefted the weapon and aimed it clearly away from us, then pulled the trigger. There was a terrible shriek, so loud that the birds in the passing trees took flight in panic, and the multitude of pipes blasted out a huge cloud of steam. I could feel the backwash of heat sitting next to her and winced.

"Anyone up close'll get their flesh blasted right off." Cassandra said, her mouth twisting into an ugly leer. "Anyone further back? Good fuckin' luck fighting with second degree burns all over them."

I took a look at the mutilated half of the woman's face and shuddered. For someone who - I assumed, at least - knew what that sort of injury felt like, Cassandra seemed to take a disturbing amount of pleasure from the idea. "We don't have anything like that here." I said quietly.

"Yea, well, you wouldn't. See, that's you Seven Cities-types problem." Cassandra set Hell's Breath back down beside her, the weapon still hissing and dripping ominously. "You found all this magical elven shit lying around that does everything for you, and you just stopped thinking. You don't have to work anythin' out for yourself. Back in Varnia, we had to build everything from scratch. Minds and muscles all together, right?"

I shrugged. I've never been terribly patriotic, but I felt like I had to say something to at least try and defend my homeland. "Well, we've always done well enough with what we have." I said. And yes, it sounded as lame to me then as it did to me now.

Cassandra snorted out a short, ugly laugh. "Fuckin' yokels." She said.

---

And time rolled on. Cassandra perked up a little from there on in; she still kept mostly to herself and offered little about her own experiences, but she began to interject more in our conversations. Most of her contributions were limited to snarky comments and vaguely insulting observations about our country, but I felt a little better now that she was participating with the rest of us.

Still, time ground on, and after three days of sitting on a cart staring at the same four other people, you start to run dry on things to talk about. As the hours crept by, one by one we fell silent, dozing quietly, losing ourselves in our imaginations, or silently contemplating what was waiting for us once we reached our destination. At one point, just after dawn on the third day I pulled out Barthius' picture and stared at it, long and hard.

"What did you do to her?" I muttered.

"He found her in the woods." My head whipped up, Cassandra's gravely voice taking me by surprise. I'd thought everyone else was asleep. The other woman sat facing away from me, staring into the ranks of dark trees as they passed us by. "You know yourself. Half-fiends ain't exactly welcome in a lot of the backwoods. Her parents got lynched, but she escaped. Ol' Barty found her wanderin' the forests, still trying to work out what to do with herself."

An eerie hiss, the sound of Cassandra breathing out through her nasal cavity, whistled in the silence. "She was his first. First person he grabbed and stashed in his fucking cart. I reckon he thought he was doin' her a favour when he did it, taking her in and keeping her safe, you know? Only it didn't stay like that."

My mouth went dry, and it took me several moments to respond. "What happened?" I asked, even though I dreaded the answer.

She laughed, once, without a trace of humour. "She musta been, what, about twenty-five? Somethin' like that. He got to thinking she was his wife. With all the fuckin' perks that come with it."

"Oh, gods." I breathed.

"Don't go passin' out yet, Red, it gets worse." Cassandra said. "See, Barty's parents weren't as mental as some of the people out here, but that just meant he didn't kill her for having horns. He thought he could just straight-up beat the evil outta her. Kept her locked up in her own little private cell, pretty little drain in the floor so he didn't even have to mop up the blood when he was finished workin' her over."

Her voice was thick with bitterness. "Now, I ain't no saint. First to admit it. I'll take a man or a woman apart if I'm paid to do it, but there ain't no place in the world for people like him."

I didn't reply. I just stared at the back of the other woman's head, willing and dreading her continuing. "There ain't even any great story about how she got rescued or escaped. He just got bored with her one day. Found another girl and decided, hey, this one ain't got any evil in her and I've damn near smashed the other one to bits without her horns falling off, so let's dump the old model and grab this one instead. Marius found her crawlin' on the road just outside Swyndel, and the rest is fuckin' history."

"And that's that. Whole story. The only reason I know's 'cause I ain't got the tact or the patience to deal with bullshit half-truths, so I up and demanded her tell me what the deal was before signin' on with her."

Then, finally, Cassandra turned to me, her one eye glinting in the darkness. "'Course, doubt she'll welcome you telling anyone what happened. Y'hear?"

I swallowed hard and nodded. My whole body felt cold and numb with horror. "Yea." I forced out. "I hear."

---

The rest of the ride, as you can imagine, wasn't a lot of fun.

I don't think Maundra or Krissilik noticed anything, but Kristoff certainly did, shooting worried looks at me all morning. I sat slumped in my seat, my tail hanging limply over the side while I picked at my food, wrestling with the feelings Cassandra had stirred up. It wasn't just the horror or pity I felt, but the anger had started to come at last. Until now, none of the jobs I'd done had been personal - I'd never had a reason to be angry at the creatures or the outlaws Kristoff and I had stalked. But now, I felt that anger building up inside me like a tight, black mass that strained against my ribs, and it frightened me. It frightened me because I'm a complete mutt of a Tiefling, with aspects from gods-only-know how many types of fiend, and going by what had happened when my seducer aspects came into dominance, the idea of what I might do if I manifested a rager aspect filled me with horror.

By the time our cart finally came to a halt around noon, I was desperate to get away from the others. They hadn't done anything wrong, and in a perverse way I was glad that Cassandra had quelled my imagination - even if the truth had been about as bad as it could get - but I needed some time by myself to calm down. When we finally sprung our attack on Barthius' caravan, I wanted to have a clear head - steaming forwards in a fury might be fine for someone like Kristoff, with his big axe and fancy armour, but I wouldn't stand a chance. As the others began pitching tends and digging a firepit, I walked up to Kristoff and gently brushed a hand against his arm.

"Kris," I said. "There's a river just down the hill." I jerked my thumb back over my shoulder. "I'm gonna go take a look, okay? I could do with some time to myself."

"Ree," he frowned, then reached out and ran a finger down my cheek. "You sure you're okay? You look like something spooked you bad."

"I'll be fine." I sighed. "Just...thinking about Taelil, right?"

Kristoff nodded. "Yea. Grim stuff, whatever happened to her. But hey, we're gonna get the people who did it, right? So that's something."

"Sure. But like I said, I'm just gonna..." I trailed off and motioned toward the river again. Kristoff gave me a reassuring smile and patted me on the shoulder, then turned away to help the others set up the camp while I departed.

The sun was warm on the back of my neck and I trecked downhill, the light made dappled by the leaves of the trees around me, and the air was filled with the scents and sounds of the forest. Birds and insects danced in the air as the ground evened out and the quiet bubbling of the river grew louder, until I could see it through the end of the treeline. It was wide and clear, sluicing slowly through the forest, its banks paved with stones worn smooth during the times where it had overflown its current course. I shook out my hair and stepped forwards, closing my eyes and luxuriating in the warmth of the sun and the sound of the river. My tail flicked eagerly back and forth and, without thinking about it, I began to undress.

First my armour came away, unbuckled and left to clunk against the smooth stones of the riverbank, then my shirt and jerkin. I grimaced and rolled my newly-bare shoulders back and forth, working out the tension that had gathered there after three days of being cooped up in the cart, then stretched and smiled as I felt my muscles starting to loosen up. With every garment shed, with every inch of naked, crimson skin I bared to the world, it felt like the stress, the horror and the growing black rage that had been seething inside my mind began to fade away more and more.

Kristoff was right, I thought, as I pulled off my boots and began rolling my trousers down my long legs. My tail flickered from side to side as they reached my ankles and I stepped out of them, standing naked before the river, letting the warm sunlight wash over my lithe muscles and the cool breeze tickle my small, pert breasts. He was always right. We had to concentrate on what we could do, not what we, or what anyone else, hadn't done. The alternative was madness.

I began to wade into the river, letting out a long sigh as the cool water swirled and bubbled around my ankles. My toes clenched into the soft silt and strings of clinging, slimy weeds clung briefly to my calves as I went deeper, my tail swishing back and forth behind me, cutting trails in the water that sent schools of tiny silver fish darting past my ankles. When I felt that I had gone far enough, I lowered myself down, letting out a little hiss as the riverwater flowed over the sensitive spot at the base of my tail, then flopped backwards so my head and shoulders lay on the riverbank, the rest of my slender, crimson body softly buffeted and caressed by the dashing current of the river.

"You know what I'm gonna do?" I murmured, lazily closing my eyes and letting myself drift off into a half-doze. "I'm gonna make a load of money. I'm gonna make all the money I can, and then I'm gonna have a bunch of guys build me a house right here. And then I'm gonna retire, and spend all day just lying in the river. Maybe...maybe charge people to come watch."

I let my mind wander, imagining myself as a famous, retired adventuress, sprawled out on the loose stones, tousled curls of hair clinging to my wet, glimmering body as fans and admirers from the world over crowded around for a glimpse. I saw my delicate fingers sliding the length of my body, briefly cupping one of by breasts before slipping between my legs, gently teasing the moist, sensitive folds apart for the audience. Servants would walk between the members of the crowd, quietly taking silent bids, before finally one of them would turn over an extortionate sum of money for the rare pleasure of being allowed to disrobe and walk down to join me on the beach and fuck me, then and there, in front of the greedy eyes of the others...

I could feel my legs sighing apart underwater, my hips rolling backwards to try and catch the current as it flowed over my slit. It seemed almost perverse - less than an hour ago I'd been a bag of angst and directionless anger, but now, I could feel the heat of my arousal starting to spread through my body, my nipples hardening into small, deep red pebbles under the merciless caress of the river. Well, I thought, if I wanted something to take my mind off things, I'd certainly got my wish. Besides, I'd spent the last three days cooped up on a little cart with barely enough time to go to the bathroom behind a tree at each rest-stop, let alone settle down and get myself off.

Opening my eyes, I took a quick glance around to make sure that none of the other four were lurking in the treeline, then pulled myself back out of the river. The stones were smooth and warm against my back and buttocks, the water bubbled cheerfully past my toes and the tip of my tail, and I could feel the rays of the sun beating softly against my tight, sensitive flesh. I played the fantasy back through my head, picturing the manor - small, but richly decorated, with a viewing platform packed with men and women eagerly straining against the rails. I ran a finger up the length of my slit, feeling the slicker fluids starting to gather there, then gently spread my lips to match my legs, imagining the appreciative cooing of the crowd, how they'd push in closer for the privilege of looking into my most intimate spot. Short, sharp breaths began to hiss past my fangs, my forked tongue flickering at the air as I cupped my breast, teasing the sensitive nipple between my finger and thumb, then slowly sank two fingers from my other hand into the hungry, wet heat between my legs.

I'd be one of the most powerful women in the land. Admired, desired, even a little feared. And once a year - just once, so as not to cheapen the occasion - I'd throw open the doors to my body and let anyone, anyone who thought they could afford the bidding, to come and show me how much I was worth. My mind wandered in circles, picturing what might happen. Would they be gentle, taking me like a lover, imagining themselves as my husband or partner? Would a foreign king beggar his nation to have me serve him like a harem girl Would an ex-rival throw everything he had at my feet for the chance to grab me my the horns and fuck me in the ass like a cheap whore in front of the whole world?

My body twitched and arched atop the warm stones, hot pulses of sensation blooming up from my aching pussy. I cursed and murmured under my breath, nursing myself towards the climax I could feel building inside me, letting my eyes flicker open to see -

- Kristoff, standing by the treeline, trying his hardest not to stare at me and not doing a very good job. For a moment, our eyes met, and I was sure he was about to bolt back for the camp.

I didn't want that. Another twinge of arousal flooded up from between my legs, my fantasies still fresh in my mind, and I felt the sudden, overwhelming urge to put a few of them into practice. I quickly pulled my hand out from between my wet folds and waved. "Kris!" I called. "Come and join me!"

He hesitated for a moment, then nodded and trecked over, a wary smile on his face, as if he wasn't sure what I had planned. Truth told, I didn't particularly know what I had planned either.

"So, uh," he started, sitting down next to me and looking very deliberately out at the river. "Feeling better, I take it?"

I playfully slapped his leg. "Oh, grow up, it's nothing you haven't seen before." I tutted.  He relaxed at that, as if he had been waiting for permission before turning his eyes back upon me. I followed the way he ran his gaze over my flushed, glistening body, the smooth lines of my legs and tail, the small curves of my hips and bust and the jagged spires of my horns. He'd seen me naked once before, on that very first time I'd sold myself, and he drank in the sight of my bare body like a parched man being offered water. The sunlight tingled on my breasts as I dried off, and beads of new wetness began to form on my lips as I luxuriated in his gaze.

"I suppose not," he said, shaking his head and turning back to the river. "I just didn't think I'd see it again for, uh, free."

Kristoff squirmed, and I could tell he was trying to hide the awkward lump that had formed in his trousers. I reached out to him and traced my fingertips down his bare arm, feeling the tight muscles under his pale skin, and let my other hand drift back down to dip once more into the aching heat of my slit. I wanted him - he knew I wanted him, and by the little looks he kept shooting me, full of guilt and greed, I knew he wanted me as well. I caught his gaze and gave him a sly grin, sinking the two fingers lodged in my dripping folds up to the knuckle, arching my back and letting out a deep, theatrical groan of lust as I tweaked and massaged my breast the the other hand.

"Ah, gods, you're killing me here, Ree." He muttered, but I felt a little spark of exhilaration as he unbuckled his armour and set it aside. "Look, if I ask you something, do you promise not to get mad?"

I frowned a little at that. "Sure, I guess. Is something wrong?"

Kristoff sighed. "This isn't the first time we've been out on the road together, and I hope it's not gonna be the last. We're away from other people, and at night we still end up..."

"Masturbating alone in our tents?" I cut in with a smirk. He flushed in embarrassment.

"Yea. So, if we got together now and then, how much would I - I mean, how would that work?"

I raised an eyebrow, then spoke slowly, sounding out the thought that was rattling around in my head. "You mean, would you have to pay me?"

Kristoff nodded. It was, in truth, something I'd thought about before, though I'd never mentioned it to him before. We were both young, frisky, and shared a mutual attraction, but I didn't want Kristoff to think of me as his glorified camp follower. I wasn't just a prostitute he brought along on his travels who also happened to be able to pick locks for him - he needed to respect me, and I'd always worried that hooking myself out to him on the road would change that.

"Well, I mean, we're friends, right?" I asked, and he nodded again. "So, how about this. You come see me at the Circle, that's business. You'll pay just like everyone else. But if we're out here, and things just happen..."

I let out a little gasp as I brushed a slick fingertip across my clit. "Look, are you gonna take your trousers off, or what?" I added.

"Yes ma'am." Kristoff laughed. There was a rustle of fabric and the sound of his buckle clacking against the stones, and I let out a low murmur as the round head of his cock sprung into view in the corner of my eye. His length bobbed up and down as he shuffled closer and I reached out, grinning at his sharp intake of breath as I wrapped my long, red fingers around the base of his shaft. I tugged gently, encouraging him to bring his cock within reach of my mouth, and I purred as his scent filled my nostrils. His cock twitched and throbbed in my soft grip, and before my delighted eyes, a fat bead of clear precome formed at the tip of his eager, quivering length.

"For me? Mmn." I slid my tongue out, scooping the bead of musky fluid up with the flickering, forked tip, and carrying it into my mouth with the delight of a gourmet. "Oh, Kris, you're too kind."

He groaned and thrust forwards in my palm, the fat head of his cock brushing needily against my lips. "You know the others could come looking for us, yea?" Kristoff grimaced as I jerked him, sliding my hand up and down his length, occasionally puckering my lips to lap at or kiss the head of his cock, as if I was sipping from it like a glass of wine. "Are you just gonna tease me, or what?"

I sighed, my eyes fluttering closed as I coaxed a particularly strong tremor from my slick, dripping slit. The sun beat down upon us with and the cool water of the river tickled my feet. One of Kristoff's hands wrapped around my horn, coaxing my head up towards the end of his prick, and I willingly let my mouth open so he could guide his head inside. I moaned in the back of my throat as my lips closed around his length and I reacquainted myself with his size and taste, suckling at him like a babe at the teat. It felt so very, very indulgent, like sinking into a hot bath at the end of a long day. I didn't need sex - simply laying out under the sun, wallowing in the hot pulses my wet, sensitive folds were rewarding me with and enjoying the feeling of a nicely-sized cock in my mouth. I didn't even have to make the effort of moving my head too much; Kristoff guided me with one hand upon my horn and teased my body with his other, tracing the shapes of my muscles up to tease the undersides of my breasts, the soft stimulations peaking in short, sharp bursts as he pinched and tweaked at my stiff nipples.

My tongue washed over his head and tickled the underside of his shaft with its delicate forks, filling my mouth with the taste of him as he slid in and out of my dark, puckered lips. His shaft shining with saliva under the midday sun, and as I let my eyes droop half-open, I found he had stripped his shirt off and greedily admired the slim, wiry masculinity of his chest. Beads of sweat trickled down his body, gathering in the divots and channels of his muscles, and part of me dearly wanted to trace them back up his torso with the tip of my tongue.

And all the while, my fingers kept working relentlessly away, teasing my folds apart and gliding over my entrance, thumbing my sensitive tailspot and rubbing in little circles over my clit, and - most deliciously of all - sinking into the desperate heat between my legs, feeling my passageway clench needily around them as I fingered myself.

I knew Kristoff was about to come when he cursed and let go of my horn, his back arching, his head slinging back with a flare of long, dark hair. A heartbeat later I felt him - the first pulse of seed splashing against the back of my throat as my own climax hit. My muffled sighs and moans finally took flight into a great cry as my body shuddered, a chorus of selfish pleasure flowing up from my core and into my limbs like the tide that bubbled around my feet. Kristoff's cock slipped from my mouth and, as he wrapped his fingers around my own and encouraged me to keep jerking him as I writhed in orgasm, I felt several more long, warm streaks of come spattering across my breasts and belly. I'd had partners with larger or stranger endowments than Kristoff since that first time he'd bought me, but I was reminded of how quickly he'd been ready to fuck me again even after reaching his first climax of the evening, and let out a low growl of pleasure at the memory. He might have been human, but as three days worth of pent-up seed dripped down my torso, it was a lovely reminder of his potency.

We both flopped down, Kristoff onto his ass and me on my back, as we caught our breath. I lazily brought my sopping fingers from my slit and gathered up one of the long strings of pearly come that had traced down my belly and gathered at my navel, then before the man's eyes, brought the slick mixture to my mouth and lapped it up. He laughed and shook his head in disbelief.

"We should be getting back." He said, his cock giving one last twitch, as if in farewell. "The others are going to be wondering where we are."

We wiped one another down, rubbing the sweat and - in my case - come from our bodies with rags dampened in the river, then dressed and trotted back up the hill. I felt like all the pent-up fear and rage had been purged from my body, as if I'd been washed clean and purified, though whether that was by the river or by fooling around with Kristoff, I didn't know. Still, one way or the other, I was glad, and Kristoff seemed a lot happier as well once he noticed the spring had crept back into my step.

By the time we reached the camp, it was truly worthy of the name - a ring of tents had been set up and a fire crackled cheerily away in the middle. By the look of the meat skewered above it and the scent of cooking that drifted through the air, someone had even caught some game. Three pairs - well, one single and two pairs - of eyes turned towards us, and by the expressions on Cassandra and Krissilik's face, there was very little doubt in my mind that they knew what had happened.

"Have fun?" Cassandra grunted, though she gave me a look that was halfway between a grin and a leer. Her twisted sneer of a mouth made it hard to tell. I started to gabble an excuse which she waved away. "Ah, it don't matter. I was like that as well at your age. We got plenty of time to kill anyway."

She turned away, rubbing her empty eye-socket with one of her knuckles. "Shortarse over there's done some scouting." The mutilated woman gestured to Krissilik, who cackled at the nickname. "Found where the bastards are gonna set up. Looks like they use this route quite a lot, they've got some supplies stashed there."

We walked over to where one of the maps had been spread out on the ground, pinned down with rocks to stop it blowing away. "It's a clearing, about half a mile off the road, with a disguised path for their caravan. You got an overhang here-" she tapped the map with a calloused finger "-giving them shelter as well. Nice little camping spot."

I nodded, scrutinizing the map. "If they scatter into the trees, we'll never find all of them." I said, shaking my head. "I know we just need Barthius, but even so, we'd have no way of knowing which trail to follow."

"Krissilik has thought this." The Kobold chirped. "Must surround camp, yes? Come from all angles. Pin in place, cut off escape. Krissilik think, packmates who move sneak-quiet go here and here- " He poked at the points furthest from the road - "and others come from front."

"Well, that'll be my job, then." I said. "I'm probably the quietest of us, but I can't hold back them all of they bolt."

Silently, Maundra raised one of his huge, shovel-like hands. Cassandra raised her eyebrow.

"No offense, scales, but you ain't what I'm picturing as sneaky." She rasped. Krissilik, as he so often did, spoke for the Dragonborn.

"Not-so!" He cackled, scurrying up onto Maundra's shoulder. "Clan-companion Maundra is monk, follower of Tzai-den way! Practice full-total body mastery-control. Slow, yes, but make no noise-sound unless he wants to. No twig break, no untimely sneeze!"

We all blinked at him for a moment. Maundra humbly bowed to us, then Kristoff shrugged.

"Well, it's good enough for me." He said. "I'm good at moving around in the woods, but never quite got the hang of doing it quietly. If any of them make a run for it, I'll try and chase them down."

Cassandra nodded. "Right. Red and Scales go round the back. Gank any guards they've got, an' cut them off if they try and bail. I'll take shortarse and..." she glowered at Kristoff "I ain't got a nickname for you yet, but you're coming with me anyway. We'll go in straight. No fancy tricks, just kill 'em."

"Sure thing, cyclops." Kristoff said. Cassandra snorted.

"Call me that again and I'll bash your fuckin' head in." She said. None of us could tell if she was joking or not.

---

Night fell, though for Jacob Flavian, the world was little more than a grey haze no matter what the time of day. Only when he put his little knives and drills to work on one of the dreamlike ghouls that shuffled around it did his reality shift into focus, with life and colour flooding back into the world as the beautiful crimson streaks marked something leaving it.

He knew, somewhere in the back of his broken mind, that this made him an exceedingly poor guard. Similarly, something distant told him that the people who had taken him in didn't particularly like him either, and they gave him this job because they didn't care to do it themselves. Not that it bothered him. Concepts of time and boredom had little meaning for Jacob. He had been given a task, and he would see it through until he was given another one, or until he had the chance to play.

So it was that, as he leaned against one of the many trees and stared into the darkness, he didn't notice that one of the thick, fleshy vines hanging from it was a slightly different colour to the others. Had he been born with a mind that wasn't cracked like an egg, he might have spotted that it looked red, albeit covered in dirt and mud to try and hide its colouration. He might even have instinctively thrown himself back when it reared like a serpent and shot towards his neck, rather than simply standing there with a faint frown upon his face.

As he was hauled into the air, his glazed, bleary eyes met a pair of gold-on-black ones, and a sudden pain knifed into his chest. As his blood bubbled up from the wound and dripped down onto the earth below, Jacob Flavian's one, final comfort was that his own death brought him a little of the colour and clarity he had bought with the lives of so many others beforehand.

---

Breath in.

Step.

Maundra stood in the darkness, his hulking body frozen like a statue. He waited until the wind spoke and the tree answered, the howl and rustle of their conversations masking the sound of his foot sinking into the loamy earth. His nostrils flared as he exhaled, then drew in another great breath, and stepped forwards once more.

His every motion was consciously planned and acted upon. Every breath, every blink, every little twitch of his powerful body was taken under his own conscious will. The world spoke to him and guided his actions, whispering when to move and when to stay still. Ever thus had it been for him; the world guided him and he guided the world in return. He and Krissilik had been on the verge of leaving Swyndel, but the wind and the rain blew in his face, and the wet earth sucked at his feet, until he had turned and silently plodded back to the city with his companion scurrying behind. And so it was that he had been guided back to the red one, who had led him in turn to this, a gathering of individuals who, through their cruel and selfish actions, brought chaos to the lives of those around them.

Maundra, like most of his people, felt little in the way of strong emotions. He had already killed one of these people - snapping his neck like a bundle of dry twigs - but he did not hate them. He would oppose them, though, and the fulcrum of the world would tip back into its rightful state.

---

"Does that thing have to make so much noise?" Kristoff hissed. His armour had been buckled back on and he held his great axe in his hands, and he moved through the undergrowth as quietly as he could. Even so, every snap and crack of twigs splintering underfoot, or every small animal set to scurrying by his movements, sounded horrifyingly loud in the darkness. He could see light coming from beyond the treeline, and the occasional snatch of muffled conversation drifted back to him on the wind, and their every sudden silence caused his hear to freeze.

Cassandra, by contrast, had no such compunctions. Her weapon hissed and spat and whistled, and the woman herself stomped forwards like a bull. She turned her mangled face towards him and nodded. "Needs to build up pressure if I'm gonna get more than one shot." Her voice was like a pair of great granite slabs grinding against one another, and Krissilik sniggered in the dark behind her.

"Krissilik thinks, funny steam-gun must make hiss-squeak-noise, but speak-noisy man may not. No point heaping problems upon problems, yes?"

Kristoff sighed and shook his head, but said nothing, and went back to picking his way through the darkness.

---

And there they were.

There were six of them. Four men and a woman sat around a fire, supping from bowls of thick stew and occasionally talking about themselves. A sixth - an older, matronly woman, who hummed and sang softly to herself - stirred the bubbling pot over the fire. The few words I caught made little sense, and the snatches that I managed to catch made it very clear that I was quite happy not knowing what she had used in her cooking. When the others spoke, they made oblique comments to cargo or merchandise, and I felt a chill running down my spine when they began talking about what districts of Swyndel would be ideal of restocking. Off to the side sat a great wooden caravan with a pair of hardy-looking horses lashed to it. It had no windows, and I felt my gut curdle at the sight of the heavy lock on the outside of the door.

I was perched up in one of the trees overlooking the camp, mud slathered over my face and tail to hide its natural redness. My knives - one of them still tacky with blood from the strange man with the empty eyes that I'd killed earlier - had been sheathed in favour of my bow. As soon as Krissilik, Cassandra and Kristoff made their move, the plan was for me to put as many arrows as I had time for into the slaver gang before the two sides met in combat, then drop down and, together with Maundra, close in on and grab Barthius.

My heart fluttered anxiously behind my chest, reminding me of how I'd felt during our last job - tired, strung out and afraid, perched in a tree and trying to hunt a werewolf with a poisoned arrow. But Kristoff and I had been outmatched and on the defensive then - this time, the advantage was ours. Of course, a nasty little part of myself whispered, if things went wrong here, the consequences would be even worse. All the werewolf would have done is kill you. I thought again about what had happened to Taelil and shuddered.

I could see Barthius below. He looked just like the pictures - earthy and rustic with weathered skin and a thick beard. He looked frighteningly normal, nothing like the deranged psychopath Cassandra had described him as. I still found it hard to believe that the villains of the world didn't swan around wearing big black cloaks or scary demon-masks. They were just people - broken, or cruel, but still just people.

A twitch of motion in the corner of my eye jolted me from my musings. At first I thought it was simply the wind twisting the branches of another tree across the clearing, until I caught a flash of brass - Cassandra's steam cannon. I peered into the darkness of the trees and eventually made out the shape of the other woman's head, slowly scanning back and forth. Finally, she saw me, and gave me the tiniest nod as I nocked an arrow and drew back.

To absolutely no-one's surprise, Krissilik moved first. The Kobold bellowed out a shill, warbling battle-cry and charged into the clearing like a bolt of sinewy lightning, waving his sword above his head and grinning like a lunatic at the prospect of battle. Kristoff and Cassandra came afterwards, Kristoff cursing and yelling for Krissikik not to charge off ahead, while Cassandra marched forwards, glowering at and fiddling with Hell's Breath as if the slavers weren't even there. Their reaction was immediate; Barthius and the other four who had been seated sprang up, spitting curses or crying out in surprise and scrabbling for weapons. The cook let out a shrill scream and fled behind the cart, onto to run straight into Maundra. The Dragonborn caught her by the throat in one massive hand and hefted her into the air as if she was a child, scrutinizing her with his hard, reptilian eyes.

"Rest now." He rumbled, then snapped her neck with a crack I could hear from my perch, and placed the body gently back upon the ground. Two of the slaves had drawn crossbows and quickly turned them on him; the bolts hissed through the air, one clattering harmlessly off his thick scales, the other embedding itself into the meat of his shoulder with a gristly thwack. Maundra barely moved. He looked down at the bolt that had struck him, and the small trickle of blackish-red blood oozing through the wound, then swept his blunt head towards the firers and began rumbling slowly towards them, even as they began winding back the strings for another shot. I brought my bow around to them and let fly, letting out a whoop of excitement as the arrow caught one in the throat. There was a bright squirt of blood and he collapsed into the dirt, gurgling and clawing at the haft of the arrow.

Barthius, meanwhile, had rallied the other three members of his gang. One, a hulking Orc armed with a warhammer easily as large as I was, was directed towards Maundra. The others formed up around him and moved to confront Krissilik and Kristoff, who were shooting frustrated looks at Cassandra. The other woman had dropped down onto on knee and was fiddling with her weapon, completely ignoring what was going on around her. I let fly another arrow, only to curse as it hissed past the other crossbowman's head and embedded itself in the wagon.

"Boss!" He cried. He looked barely any older than I was, a skinny youth with a few tufts of bad facial hair clining to his chin. His voice wavered as he struggled with the mechanism of his crossbow. "They got a shooter in the trees!"

"Then shoot back, idiot." Barthius said, pulling out a pair of hand-axes and moving to engage Kristoff. The youth's crossbow came up and my eyes widened in fear as I saw it pointed straight at me. I fumbled for another arrow, already knowing that I wouldn't have the time for another shot.

The click of the crossbow's trigger sounded horribly loud even above the clash of steel-on-steel as battle was joined between Kristoff and Barthius. Something smashed into my ribs, the force knocking me from the branch I was perched upon. I crashed into the trunk and fell from the tree with a shrill cry of pain, thudding into the ground with enough of an impact to rattle every bone in my body. Rolling onto my back, I groped blindly at the bolt, groaning as a twinge of pain crawled through my body with the effort. My fingers found the haft and traced it down to where it had struck my armour, but where I had dreaded finding the blood that would signify a mortal wound, my fingers touched nothing but the smooth leather and ivory. With a grimace, I tugged the bolt free and tossed it away, grinning madly at the realization that Gulrug's ivory plates had probably just saved my life.

Across the clearing, Maundra was battling the orc, swatting aside blows from a warhammer that would have smashed another man's arms to jelly. His arms worked like pendulums, swinging back and forth to catch and deflect the massive stone hammer-head, and while he made no move to attack, I could see the orc was getting more and more frustrated with every passing moment. The youth had abandoned his crossbow and drawn a short sword, running across the clearing to join the growing melee. I abandoned my bow, pulling out my knives and limping after him.

"Surrender-beg-plead now, woman, and mighty Krissilik may spare your life!" The Kobold's shriek cut the air as  he hammered at the slaver woman's defenses, battering at legs and midsection with wild blows from his sword. A virtual tide of insults, offers, and boasts fell from his snaggletoothed mouth as he slashed at her belly, only for the woman to twist and bring her shield into the path of his blade. She tall and blonde, with a coldly aristocratic face, and fought with a shield and a short spear, using the length of her weapon and her natural height advantage to keep the Kobold at a distance. She jabbed furiously at him whenever he rebounded from her defense, and his tawny skin was marked by more than one deep gash.

Kristoff and Barthius fought back and forth, each of them trading blows from their axes. Barthius was unarmoured and, I suspected, the lesser of the two warriors, but Kristoff was hampered by the fact that we needed to take our target in alive. He was forced to fight with the blunt surfaces of his weapon, using it more like a club than an axe, and the expression on his face told me all I needed to know about what he thought his chances were. The youth charged in, a look of fear and exhilaration on his face, only for Kristoff to neatly bring the killing edge of his weapon and and swing it at the boy's head. There was an ugly noise of cracking bone as the axe cleaved into his skull, taking the top of his head off like an egg. The youth's momentum took him a few steps further before he realized he was dead and keeled over, a slurry of pink-grey brains slopping out into the dirt.

Barthius took his chance and stepped in, swinging his axes towards Kristoff. He cried out in alarm and threw himself backwards, becoming tangled up in Krissilick as the icy woman forced the Kobold back step by step. She snarled and lashed out with her foot, kicking the Kobold in the chest and sending him flying several feet backwards.

"I hate Kobolds." She hissed, and took another step forwards.

And found herself staring down the whistling, multi-chambered barrel of Cassandra's steam cannon. "Yea, well, they probably don't like you much either, lady." She sneered, and pulled the trigger.

I saw, very clearly, the woman's eyes widen in shock, before Hell's Breath let out a terrifyingly loud whistle and blasted out an enormous cloud of red-hot steam. The woman shrieked in agony and stumbled backwards, her weapons clattering to the ground as she flapped her arms madly, trying to ward off an enemy she could neither block nor strike out at. Her screams went on and on for what felt like an eternity, eventually dribbling out into a piteous wail as the now-pinkish cloud dissipated and she collapsed to the ground in a barely recognizable heap of molten skin, scorched flesh and steam-polished bone. Somehow, hideously, she was still alive, moaning softly and twitching as the sickly-sweet stink of broiled flesh filled the air. Cassandra let out a horrid, hollow laugh and advanced, her heavy boots grinding what was left of the woman into the dirt and finally stamping out the last sparts of her life.

Kristoff picked himself up, and at a nod from Cassandra and myself, backed off to check on Krissilik. Barthius' eyes flickered back and forwards between Cassandra, her weapon, and me, though as he made eye contact with me for the first time, I saw a flash of some unnameable emotion passing behind his eyes. From behind us, the orc howled in frustration as one of his increasingly wild swings left his guard wide open. Maundra reached out and plucked the warhammer from his arms, spun it around, and brought it crashing into his opponents' ribcage in a crushing, downward arc. The orc collapsed soundlessly, his broad chest caved inwards and blood spurting from his mouth, and didn't rise.

"Alright, shithead." Cassandra rasped, the steaming barrel of Hell's Breath aimed squarely at Barthius's face. "You've see what this thing does. Drop your fuckin' weapons or you get the same as Blondie over there did."

For a moment, I genuinely thought he was going to run. But as Maundra crunched up to him, the gory warhammer still clutched in one hand, he spat on the ground and dropped his weapons.

"I have arrangements with the Prince of Kalak-a-nor." He said, eying each of us in turn. "No matter what happens to me, you will regret this day, I think."

Maundra stepped forwards, stared at him like a man might examine a bug under a magnifying glass for a moment, then smashed him unconscious with one blow.

We bound him with our ropes and ransacked the camp, claiming the weapons and armour that we could use, stripping the bodies of their money and valuables with the intent on sharing it out later. Krissilik, once he'd recovered from his boot to the chest, scampered around and cut the heads from each of the bodies - with the exception of the woman, who was too badly charred to be recognisable.

"These people, mn, criminals, yes?" He chattered, when I asked him what he was doing. "May have bounty-prices on their heads. Will bring-take back to city, have checked, may get lucky." He let out a series of excited clicks and whistles. "Will split-share rewards with clan-packmates, of course."

We left in high spirits, though there was one sobering moment as he hacked the lock off the wagon. Each wall was lined with restraints in such a way that the prisoners would have no privacy, but at the far end, there was a single walled off cell. Within, we found a drain stained the old blood in the floor, a ring where a prisoner might have been secured with their arms raised above their head, and below it, three scratch marks upon the wall where a trio of long, spiralling horns might have worn against the wood.

---

"Richter Barthius." I announced, my voice rich with satisfaction. "Murderer, slaver, and sadist. As you requested."

Barthius had been hog-tied and thrown in a barrow, carted through the streets so we could meet with Taelil outside the bounty offices. We'd been stopped more than a dozen times by guards asking why were were lugging a bound man through the streets, but each time, they waved us on with no little pleasure when they recognised who he was. More than one had been involved in cases directly relating to him, or one of the miscreants that had flocked to him, and by the time we reached the bounty offices word had spread and several of the guards were tipping their helmets to us as we passed.

There, Taelil and Marius took possession of him as the legal issues were handled, affirming that Barthius was who we said he was, that there was enough stored evidence of his crimes, and that contract we had taken was legitimate. When everything was settled, Marius hauled him up into the back of his and Taelil's coach, while his wife handed each of us a bulging sack of coins and saw us on our way.

I felt, at the time, so happy - so worthwhile and respected, like I'd finally made a small mark upon the world by doing some real good.

Of course, if I knew what Taelil had been planning all along, I would have shoved her under the first passing carriage then and there. But hey, that's hindsight, right?