Quest for the Dragon Soul

The battle was lost even before it had started - and with it came the end of the war. Ordeyirgoss had been the last bastion of resistance against the forces of the Call of Skaelor - but even the most northern kingdom fell to the Call and its Quieting Angels and Scything Souls. The grip of the Call spread from Ordeyirgoss to the north to the Guravass isles to the south.

The Call of Skaelor allowed the survivors of the battle of Melzay to return to their homes and spread the story of the Call's victory to the commoners and their surviving noble masters. Above all, in the skies over the realms flew the Quieting Angels, sure to quiet any dissenting voices.

Khaln Dharrec sat at the reins of a wagon pulled by two mighty oxen, the leather straps heavy in his hands. Behind him rested the bodies of his father and older and younger brother. They had fallen during a scouting mission he had volunteered for but his father had asked him to hold back, fearing his size and sometimes feral blood lust would harm the mission.

"You were born for open battle," his father Yvrer would warn him. "I've seen you turn the tide to many a skirmish - but stealth is the talent needed now." So Khaln had watched his father and two brothers race into the night. And when the forces of the Call descended upon the last encampment of the Ordeyirgossien resistance - Khaln had lived up to his father's assurance. But the tide of battle was irrefutable and the Call was victorious. He was allowed to retrieve their bodies and wrapped them in resin soaked bandages and cover them with salt before returning home to his family's farm.

Khaln knew his return with the corpses of his siblings and father would spur a battle with his most tenacious enemy.

The mother who hated him.

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The path that cut through the countryside was a potted trail with rocks and jutting roots that made the wagon creak as the oxen pulled it forward with unerring determination. Khaln reached beneath his seat and felt the reassuring hilt of his sword - it had been hard to smuggle the weapon but he had managed to wedge it in a slot beneath the wagon's bench. His shield was tacked to the base of the spare wheel hidden beneath the wagon.

Khaln had reached for the sword when he saw the first plumes of smoke escaping the stone chimney that emerged from a dip behind a curve in the road. The sun was setting and the black smoke marred the beauty of the rosy sky - it reminded him of his mother's dark gaze.

As the front of the stone dwelling came fully into view, Khaln saw the abundant and serene greenery that he had almost forgotten as his mind had turned to blood and battle - cows grazed lazily, oblivious to the war that had reshaped the landscape while goats played and frolicked. The door to the dwelling opened and a striking figure of a woman stepped out to bathe in the sunlight that poured across the field.

Preya Dharrec was tall and possessed the natural grace and authority associated with a royal courtesan and not a commoner's wife. Her svelte form commanded attention even when draped in the drab brown linen of her field dress. Her long black hair was pulled back from her sharp features and held tightly by a string of gut while leaves from her favourite scented tree peppered her hair. But her enjoyment of the morning sun was broken by a shadowed silhouette and the creaking sound of wagon wheels jostling over rough terrain.

"Yvrer!" Preya cried as she waived and ran to meet the wagon.

"No," Khaln's voice rang as it shattered her hope and she froze while he rode the path out from the sun's shadow.

"Mother." He said flatly.

Preya's jaw tensed before she turned and marched past him to inspect the corpses of her husband and two beloved sons.

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"Two years at war and you are the one to come back?!" Preya demanded as she watched her son sit down at the meagre table she had often covered with bread and salted meats for her men. But even behind her anger she could see that Khaln was not how she had remembered him. He seem taller and certainly more muscled that when he foolheartedly followed his father and brothers in battle against the Call of Skaelor and their crusade against the Magii Domini, the Magedom.

"Even the Gods didn't want you?" she demanded while she slammed her fist on the table - she noted with flagrant satisfaction how Khaln's nostrils flared at the jab. Yet, the tears still formed at the corner of her grey eyes and trickled down her cheek.

"At least their bodies were honoured in the ways of Sil'hazat," she whispered, knowing Yvrer's desire to be met in death according to the rituals of his old god.

"It was parting token offered by the Call of Skaelor," Khaln said.

"You? You dressed them?"

Khaln stood - for the first time she could remember he towered over her. Preya stepped back at his sudden presence in her space. But he simply turned his wide back to her and walked towards the door.

"I did," Khaln said as he gazed at the barn where the bodies resided before the time of burial at sunset. "He told me he loved me but that I wasn't his. I was yours, but not his. You resented me because I was a reminder of how you were used and then thrown back to this common life."

Khaln stepped out as a wind lifted dust and it seemed to dance around him. "I will bury the bodies of my family in their ancestral land - then, you will never have to deal with me again."

Preya watched as Khaln walked to the barn and grabbed a pick shovel - over head, the sky grew dark as a flight of dark chagrin birds interrupted the sun's touch.

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When the sun dipped beyond the horizon, Khaln stabbed the soft earth with his spade and focused on the darkness beneath the ground. His arms and shoulders flexed tirelessly as he moved earth and rocks to excavate the funeral pits for his father and brothers. He could feel his mother's eyes burrow into him from the shadows of the dwelling he was raised in. But he let forgo his thoughts of her and his mind wandered. But it never went far.

After the battle of Melzay, the floating Quieting Angels and the black-clad Scything Souls parted and allowed the Matron Sonorous to step upon the field and address the defeated defenders of Ordeyirgoss.

"Heed the Call and take your dead," the Matron bellowed. Her voice had been like thunder over the rumbling of a volcano. "The mages are no more. But the Call will always protect and bless those who heed it. Tell your lords and masters who correctly remained home that the Call of Skaelor will soon collect its tribute - and tell them of the dead."

Her banded eyes looked down and found Khaln, spear in hand and surrounded by a dozen Scything Souls, while another dozen laid dead at his feet and he, mired in their blood and gore. A quieting Angel hovered over him and dropped the bloodied bodies of his father and siblings.

"Even the forsaken must heed the Call," the Matron said as she stared directly at him. Her slim figure was revealed as a sharp wind blew her loosely tied scarlet cloak and made it flutter about her pert breasts and slightly flared hips.

Khaln had dropped the spear and with effort, he hoisted his father's body over his shoulder and picked up his brothers' bodies and left the field. The Matron Sonorous spoke of the Call while his fellow survivors watched as he carried the bodies to a wagon. He then dressed the bodies for transport and even the Scything Souls gave him deference.

Now, as sweat glistened across his skin in rising moonlight while his muscles worked the shovel, Khaln prepared the fire pits where he would lay the bodies of his father and siblings and they would return to the bosom of the Sil'hazat. After the last morsel of dirt was moved, he filled the thigh deep pits with stones he had painted black.

"For the Abyss," Khaln said under his breath as he deposited his brothers in the far pits before laying his father to rest in the centre. He then sprinkled the bodies with kindling and scented parwa leaves before picking up the torch he had lit before beginning the dig.

"Father: Yvrer Dharrec. Brothers: Kieir and Ybon - I deliver you to the warmth of Sil'hazat. The Mother of Souls awaits you return while the Father of Flesh thanks you for what you have borrowed."

At the final word, Khaln touched the torch to each pit in turn - the fires spread slowly, allowing the parwa leaves to smoke and fill the night with a spicy scent. A few moments later, the resin in the funeral dressings ignited and the fire erupted a deep green. The flames licked the darkness, painting the ground and surroundings in greens and reds.

As Khaln watched the flames, the presence he had felt a few moments earlier finally spoke. "Those words were perfect."

Khaln turned and looked upon Preya. She was dressed in a wispy gown the colour of the flames that did little to hide her sensual charms - and it reminded him of how young his mother had been when she had had her children. She was barely in her 45th year yet she seemed half that age.

"It wasn't that I couldn't love you ..." Preya started as she felt Khaln's gaze devour her presence - her face was flushed from the amphora of wine that dangled by her bared thigh.

"No," Khaln said. "I just reminded you it was easier to love what you lost."

Preya glared at her son - but behind her anger was a sudden, drunken fascination about him. When Khaln had chased after his father, he had been an awkward and lanky boy. After two years and the harsh regiments of battles and training, his muscles had filled out and his once round face became lean and hardened like chiseled marble. His eyes were dark like hers, but his face carried traces of his true fathers. But most striking was his long hair: black with strands as grey as smoothed river stones

She suddenly shook her head and sighed. "Khaln - go inside. The basins are in the main hall."

"What are you talking about?"

"Just get inside. The last part of the ceremony is waiting."

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Khaln stood between two basins of hot water in the centre of a circle of burning, scented candles. Preya followed him and his ears were keen to the sound of any drawn steel and his body was poised for any strike. It ached at him to feel this level of ambivalence towards his mother.

"Rest easy, young man" she said as she notice the tense set of his jaw. "The rites of Sil'hazat demand that the speaker to the dead be cleansed."

Khaln's eyes met Preya's and they stood silently, each gathering the measure of the other.

"Remove your garment," Preya ordered. It came out as a hushed, slurred whisper.

Khaln dutifully but slowly removed his garments, untying the leather bindings that held his regalia in place. He pulled them off, making sure his every gesture was seen by the woman he called mother. He then stood naked before her, his flaccid cock and heavy balls and odd symbol of resistance. He stared firmly ahead, noticing how the fire pits still burned as Preya grabbed a cloth and dipped it in the basin to her left and she began to blot it against the skin in his neck and shoulder - the water seeped from the cloth and made the dust and dirt that crusted his skin trail towards the ground.

Preya was surprised by the gentleness of her touch as she dabbed water on Khaln neck before dipping the cloth in the opposite basin to rinse it and then back in the clean water of the first basin. "I haven't cleaned you in years," she said as her cloth was on his muscled chest. The water clung to the fine hairs that covered his skin. "You used to cry like a little brat."

"I don't cry anymore," Khaln said quietly. He felt an instinctive twitch as his cock resonated to Preya's closeness.

Preya felt the nudge against her thigh - she smiled. "And your not so little anymore." She reached down and cupped Khaln's hairy balls, shocked at her own brazen actions. "Are you an animal now that you would fuck your mother?"

He looked down at her, his eyes unfeeling and said: "What difference would it make? When was the last time either one of us considered you any kind of mother to me?"

Preya felt a smirk draw itself across her shadowed features. "A whore, then? Something to use up and cast aside?"

She fell to her knees, the flickering candles casting chaotic patterns across her flushed face. Khaln stepped back but she grabbed his thighs.

"Did the whores suck your luscious cock, Khaln? Did they tell you it was the biggest they'd ever seen and that it filled them so when you fucked them drunk?"

"Enough!" Khaln growled while grabbing Preya's wrists and yanking her harshly to her feet. He pushed her forward until her back was pinned against the wall and his massive form hid her completely from the dancing candle light. He lifted her arms above her head and her toes could barely touch the ground. His cock sneaked behind the flimsy fabric the covered her pussy and the exposed tip of his manhood brushed against the soft patch her dark pubic hair.

"Is this what you want, Preya?" Khaln demanded, using his mother's name for the first time he could remember. "You want me to use you like you were used in Videsh'Achar?"

Preya smiled as she heard the name of the city where she had met Khaln's blood fathers.

"Use me," she pleaded.

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From outside the stone and straw built house, the combination of grunts and moans and growls would have been enough to frighten any beast reckless enough to stray near the dwelling's walls. Inside, prying eyes would witness Khaln tearing savagely at the wispy, silky fabric of the ceremonial dress Preya had worn.

They had fallen to the floor - Khaln's cock had slipped between Preya's thighs while her wetness glistened in the candle light. They rolled around on the floor beyond the ring of candles, their lips crashing together and their tongues duelling as the aura of hate that had permeated their relationship was funnelled into some perverse expression of desire.

Preya straddled her son, her ass rubbing against his sky reaching cock while her firm breasts were crushed to his hard chest and her tongue dug deep into mouth; Khaln felt sweat drip from Preya's body and mix with his as he devoured her lips with kisses that would have drawn blood were his tongue a blade. She raked her long nails across his cheek and neck, nearly breaking his skin, until she found one of his nipples and twisted it hard.

Khaln hissed and flipped his position with unexpected swiftness - he landed atop Preya and began to lick and bite her neck until he found her earlobe. She still had his nipple between her fingers and twisted it violently when his teeth touched her earlobe and nibbled it.

"Aaaahhhh ..." Preya gasped as Khaln slapped her hand aside and pinned her arm to her side and returned his lips to hers and they kissed perilously. He then moved her arms above her head and held them there while he raised himself to his knees while leaning over her. He gazed in to Preya's eyes, the chaotic cascade of emotions they communicated were a mirror of his own. They grimaced at each other, their mouths more like hungry beasts then lovers.

Leaving her gaze, Khaln let his eyes roam over his mother's blindingly seductive beauty: small, firm breasts with taut nipples and flared hips and strong thighs beneath a small waist. Her stomach had the slightest paunch to attest to her age. His cock jerked at the thought of invading her pussy - but before he did that he lowered his mouth to her nipple and sucked. Goosebumps crawled her skin as Khaln's tongue twirled madly around her nipple like a growing tornado. He released her arms and found her other breast with his hand and he squeezed her pliable flesh and then he found her other nipple. He gave it an ungentle twist like Preya gave his.

"Oooohhhh," Preya moaned as his brutality made her pussy flush with her juices.

Khaln relented on Preya's breasts and reached between her thighs - he ran his fingers across her slit and coated them with her juices. He pushed her legs aside and she arched her back coyly as he made his way to her head. Fixating on her mouth, he covered his erect cock with the juices from her pussy.

"You wanted to be used," Khaln said. "Suck it."

Preya looked upon her son's manhood and touched it gently - it was stone, hard and warm, and though she had often feared the men that came with the appendage, she had also been fascinated by the silkiness and fragility of the cock, and by how readily men could offer it fearlessly. She brushed her lips across the tip of Khaln's unsheathed cock, its hood pulled back and it bulbous purple head exposed and her tongue snaked from her lips and circled it while she slowly pumped the shaft. She wished her tongue a constrictor so she could choke and devour him, but instead she took Khaln into her mouth and began to work her lips and tongue as he ordered. His cock soon found the back of her throat and she fought the urge to gag on it - both of her hands were working the shaft as saliva trickled down her chin. She cursed the gods for making her desire this union.

Khaln focused through his growing pleasure and observed his mother - Preya moved with patient haste as she caressed his cock from all angles with a combination of kisses and licks. But when her eyes met his, he recognized the odd combination of lust and loathing that took over his vision when he entered a battle.

"Hruunnggh," Khaln grunted as he felt a heat swell from his limbs and centre on his manhood. Gripped by a sudden, destructive lust, he grabbed the back of his mother's head and began to thrust violently into her mouth. He sought to have her taste the violence he felt when she discarded him.

Preya was gagging under the ferocity of Khaln's onslaught upon her throat, yet she could still feel the sudden jerks and twitches of his cock that presaged his coming orgasm. She would not honour him by taking his come in her mouth. When she sensed a slight wane in his pace, she seized her opportunity and grabbed his balls and gave them a firm yank. Khaln froze mid thrust and pulled his hand away from Preya's head.

Preya pushed Khaln until his cock was well out of her mouth before letting go of his balls and she continued moving forward, forcing him onto his back while saliva dripped from her lips and across his skin.

Khaln felt his muscles tense as Preya flowed up his body like a snake until her face was inches from his. Their mouths curled into mad snarls until she reached between their bodies and placed the tip of his cock just at the entrance of her cunt. It was then that their shared gaze became a challenge - who would be the one to take the final step. Khaln suddenly grabbed her wrists and pinned her arms behind her back and she fell on him while he thrust upward, spearing her pussy with his cock.

"Oh gods!" Preya exclaimed as she felt her cunt be split apart by Khaln manhood - the heat that came from his flesh as it merged with hers was scalding as his cock invaded her inch by inch.

Khaln felt Preya's face fall into the crook of his neck and her breathing accelerated as he moved his hips and his cock rapidly slid in and out of her pussy. Juices splattered his thighs as her pelvis began to respond to his upward motions - Preya bit the soft skin of Khaln's neck as she surrendered to the pleasure their fucking was triggering. After a few minutes, he released his grip on her wrists and his hands found her thighs and began to caress them and grip her ass. Preya replaced her bites with kisses and brought her fingers to his hair - she allowed her lips to find his and the meeting was one of tenderness.

Mother and son settled into a rhythmic ballet as they allowed their bodies to ebb and flow to the pleasure they gave each other - Preya sat up and rode Khaln's cock like she would a long lost lover's. He reached up and caressed the sides of her body until he reached her breasts and he squeezed them gently. She moaned as he stopped thrusting and she took over and bounced up and down his cock. When she was about to have him out of her, she lavished in the sudden fullness that swarmed her as she fell back onto his hardness. Khaln felt shivers whenever he was freed from the intense grasp of her cunt and was exposed to the cool night air - but the tremors were washed away when he was enveloped by Preya's fiery cunt.