A Daemon-Horn Blade

**************

AFTERWARDS, TEN YEARS LATER

Rowan and Boyle smiled as they sunned themselves after a brief swim and watched their wives and their children splash and play in the cool but refreshing waters of Lily Lake in Swanford. It was still early summer, and the shallow river waters had not yet warmed up very much, but they had been eager to leave Tellismere, and the requirements of duty, for a long summer of rest and relaxation.

Swanford, still essential as a trade transit town between Crystal Lake and the still rebuilding eastern settlements of the Duchy, was one of the first villages to be rebuilt and already it was growing to become nearly the size of a small town. Rowan was already itching to get back to his rebuilt smithy and beat some metal into submission, while Boyle was quite equally content to take long rides, groom their horses, and dote upon his adoring wife and children.

Already the Duchess had delivered three heirs to the Duchy, and a fourth was already now growing inside of her. Gwenda had already since bested her by bearing her fourth, and she also had another well on the way, soon to be born in Swanford, where the happy couples both spent their summers away from the court.

Rowan and Gwenda were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with their roles as living legends and fixtures of the court, and had laid down the law to their Duchess that immediately, if not sooner, they planned to spend more time raising their growing brood of children in the green grasses of Swanford, rather than at the cobblestones and whispering walls of Tellismere castle. If Rowan had his way, he would indeed now completely live here once again at his own village home, and never again leave it.

The duties of being the champion to the Duchess, indeed also quite the champion of the entire five duchies as well, made for a life of constant ceremony, and very, very little action. His sword had not been drawn in anger in over eight years now, that last time when dealing permanently with a rebellious baron incapable of seeing reason, and now Rowan doubted it would ever need to be drawn again, at least by him. And he couldn't be happier.

He was still reluctant to talk of his deeds, to passing traveling

gléamen

or foreign skalds who yearned to hear the stories directly from the source, or harder still to the veterans that had fought under his command, that traveled to pay their respects to their reluctant commander, and to revisit the old battlefields.

Just last fall and winter, a great series of memorials was held for each of the great battles of the war, the victories that Rowan had commanded, and the disastrous sieges where the towns and great cities had fallen one by one to the now already legendary boarman wizard, his dragon, and his mighty horde. The now fully grown man was often without words at what he should say, what heroic speech of remembrance he should give to the waiting veterans and citizens, eager to see and hear their hero once again. When suitable words failed him, he had Gwenda write him out a short speech that said all the right proper things and let the Duchess and her consort, the near equally famous Boyle, make the long political 'rah-rah' speeches.

He hardly recognized the old battlefields anymore, even after just ten years. He had willed himself to forget so much of those hard terrible days, that when he did see the old sights again and shake the hands of old friends and companions, the old fears and depression fell back hard upon him once more, and for a full month after their return to Tellismere he felt lost again in gloominess until the cheerfulness and love of his wife and his adoring young children restored him again to the present, and away from the horrors of the past.

*************

"You could have had it all you know." Boyle gently whispered to Rowan, who was lost once again in old thoughts as they lay resting upon the soft grass of the island. The same grass where a gay red and white striped pavilion had once stood, and nearly exactly where an old lover had met an untimely and terrible fate, changing everything in the lads' lives.

"I know." Rowan sadly replied. "After the battle, after I had slain the boarman wizard and led the advance of the Everdun heavy infantry into the center of the battlefield to crush the horde, all four Dukes were kneeling before me on that bloody miserably cold and wet field of slaughter, offering me their homage... to become their chosen king. I had done what generations of feuding lords had not; bring the entire Southern Duchies together for a single great cause, and under the sword of a single man. The crown was there, offered to me for my taking... and I said 'No'. Three times. The Foole couldn't believe it and he spent the next week trying to talk me into accepting it, and he nearly succeeded, but Gwenda told me that I'd be miserable within a year, and I'd start to lop off annoying noble heads right and left. She was right... and I was indeed right to decline in the first place. I don't have the patience that you have, and you're really the Duke now of the Duchy in all actuality, ruling in your wife's name! I'm happier remaining the silent menace behind the ducal throne, to ward off any thoughts of treason. The duchies are still all free and independent, and we are all still slowly rebuilding from this dreadful war."

"Aye, our children will still be rebuilding from this war too. Our cities and towns have too few remaining survivors and the rebuilding goes slowly. You remember how fast those chests of gold we took from the old Viscount's treasury were spent! More gold than Ayleth's miserly old father had ever dreamed about, and we spent it those first years like water. Even today, if it wasn't for the half of the rentals on those Corælyn estates that I share the revenues with the temple, we'd be broke and bankrupt long ago. Taxes won't pay for anything but a pitiful few guardsmen and repair work for decades still yet to come. I know our own barons are poor now as well and any further increase in taxes will only hurt the common people more. We're broke, and likely to stay that way for a very long time!"

"I know." Rowan agreed. "The Dukes each gave me vast estates on their lands that I hardly ever get the chance to visit, and each year my stewards collect big chests of silver... which are all immediately spent upon rebuilding and paying for guardsmen and women to protect and hold these lands. While I have every penny I could need for our own wants, the coins flow out of our hands like sand through our fingers. Gone far too fast and soon... and never quite enough for the needs our people have!"

"By the way," Boyle added, "I've noticed that you've reappointed Vainard Miller to be headsman again for the village. It seems that the war healed at least one old wound!"

"It did really. The village kept reappointing me to be their headsman, but since I'm so seldom here nowadays, I really needed a good local man to watch over things. We had our differences in the past, before the war, but now he's a wiser man and watches over our friends here with a calm, reasoned manner. The old grievances between us were buried by the war. He's even a godfather to our youngest girl, and dotes upon Gwenda and our children as if they had been Cedany's. Often, I think the old man believes that Gwenda is really his daughter by birth, and not just by adoption-oath. Besides, Ayleth made me the Earl for this entire region, all the way from Haldyne east to Silana and Elmcrygh. That leaves us little enough time spent here, even when you or Ayleth aren't sending either of us off to one of the other duchies on a diplomatic mission. You know that I'm not good at that sort of thing!"

"True, but the Lady Marchess Gwenda is. Besides, every single one of the Dukes still respects you, and you need to be regularly seen so that the younger generation of nobles knows of you and your deeds... and understands the importance of keeping the peace between us all. The sight of you with your sword is worth more than that dragon skull mounted in my great hall, or even a dozen of them! I know that I cannot hold you at the castle forever, but yet for some time still Ayleth needs you, and

I

need you. You are our strongest right arm, and maybe the only thing keeping our land, and perhaps even the other four duchies, in relative peace. Aldaria and Caestor both see the vulnerability in our weakness, and if not for your sword, either of them would have led their armies into the Duchies long ago. Still they spy on us for signs of further weakness! Our old friend Bryce commands the army well, but it is to you that every single soldier looks up to with honor and pride, and that our enemies fear!"

"I love this village, my oldest friend, and it pains me more every time I have to leave it to return to the city or go on one of your damned useless trips. Already the

Eorfleode

war is turning into ancient history, at least in the lands where their boots never trod, and whose cities and towns they never sacked! We're by far now the weakest of the duchies, and I can feel the contempt of the younger nobles in every land that I visit. The other duchies lost a lot of their armed men defending us, and now the widows and orphans and young women without consorts still much resent us. This feeling of resentfulness will only grow, I fear! As new Dukes come in the near future, I'm afraid we shall receive even less respect and help than we get now. Already they begrudge giving us even the few coins that they send for our reconstruction and recovery, and instead of sending us new settlers for our many empty land holdings that still lie barren, instead we now receive their malcontents and even the criminals from their jails. Desperate men already to take to the iron-road in numbers that our few guardsmen cannot suppress. I'd grab old Loren back from his happy homestead and give him woodsmen and riders to hunt these growing bands of bandits down, but like me, I know he just wants to till his lands in peace and raise his children. Every day I think about asking Gwenda to let us to return to Swanford to stay, but I know that she can't quite bear to leave Ayleth alone to the mercies of all the schemers back at the castle. In peace their love-bond has become even greater than it ever was, and they are much pained whenever they are even briefly parted!"

"That, but fortunately when the ladies share their bed together, us men can catch up on our rest and sleep, for the Duchess is still quite insatiable in her desires, and I'm not quite as young as I used to be! Gwenda has certainly not cooled a bit in her passions either!"

"True. Even heavy with child the two lovers are yet playing in the water with their fingers fast into the others bare pierced cunts, and I believe once they have taken their pleasure with us tonight in bed, it will be in their own arms that they will find final relief and comfort. No, indeed I could not yet bear to separate the two, and I will abide with you in court yet awhile further, my friend, although every moment spent with any of those pandering noblemen galls me and makes my sword hand itch!"

"Be of cheer my old friend, for it seems that our children are now being delivered to the care of their nannies, and from the way that our wives naked asses are swinging, I believe that they have amorous plans for us this fine afternoon, perhaps right here on this fine green grass on this good sunny day."

Indeed, soon side by side, the two sets of lovers made passionate love upon the soft grass, and together in each other arms, the couples found happiness and satisfaction. Rowan quite shed the last of his gloomy thoughts as his dear lover Gwenda impaled her heavily pregnant ass upon his rampant cock as she slid deeply and smoothly inside of him. When pregnant, as she often was, she preferred anal sex, as often did her lover and friend Ayleth, and together in rhythm as they rode their husbands' hard and thick cocks, they leaned together to kiss and fondle each other's engorged breasts, while their lovers smiled and laughed at each other, content with the world.