The Blade the Spear the Demon Crown

Author's Note:

This is a "men's fantasy romance" written to be reminiscent of the old Sword & Sorcery stories of the 20th century. There is explicit sex, non-consensual sex, and graphic violence contained in this story. This is set in the "City of Scum" setting created by the Literotica author

StillStunned

, and I thank him for allowing me to play in his playground so to speak. While reference is made to characters, places, and events that have happened in other "City of Scum" stories, you do not have to have read those to be able to enjoy this story. In the spirit of the old grimdark S&S stories, this DOES NOT have a happy ending.

You have been warned.

Welcome to the temple we've got ghosts and shades.

Chapter 3

A flat wet tongue against his face woke him. Eiristos looked around the small room. Everything was as it had been the last few days. Lycos had his paws on the cot, tail wagging happily. He glanced down at Theophania laying naked beside him and felt a warmth that he had not in a long time. Scratching Lycos behind the ears, he let his thoughts wander. What was that dream? It had been in the house on the waterfront back in the city, but a better version of it. His brother was alive with his witch wife, and the house was filled with the sound of young children. Theophania was there, but in a normal dress, not her Widow gear. Little hands worked their way through Lycos' dark gray, almost black fur as the dire wolf, now full-sized, lay before a hearth. He shook his head, as if the motion would clear his thoughts.

She was his keeper. He was certain she would not hesitate to kill him if she felt he was betraying the contract to the Waterfront Widows. They had been here for a week now. They had only gone to the undertemple once more since that first day. Theophania then returned to the city to make a report and gather more supplies. Meanwhile, he stayed here with the wolf pup, studying the dueling spear and the blade. Both shimmered in and out of vision like the weapons were apparitions, ghosts themselves. He put his hand on the hilt of the sword, while the pup ate more dried ration meat. The blade felt and appeared solid in his hand, the spear now did the same in Theophania's as well. It seemed the more they held and used the weapons, the more the weapons responded. The metal was darker than normal steel but not quite the darkness of iron. He looked at the now matching runes on both weapons.

It had taken him three days to do the inscriptions, but they were now a perfect match. Another two days to get the runic inscriptions on his dagger and her throwing knife to match. He had copied the first two runes from the blade and the spear, which seemed simply to strengthen the weapon and add to its damage, and then added a rune his sister-in-law had taught him, to allow the blades to return to the hand after being thrown. In another day he would have a set of clothing enchanted for her, the same as his own. While he was no mage or witch, he had a gift for copying enchantments and getting them to work. However, it was an exhausting process.

He looked over at Theophania still asleep on the cot. An image of her heavy with child crossed his mind briefly, and he tried to dismiss the feeling of joy the thought brought him. She stirred, quietly reaching for him sitting on the side of the cot, before he saw her eyes open, and his wandering mind returned.

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

She opened her eyes, to see Eiristos sitting up on the cot beside her, still naked from the night before. The pup, Lycos, was busy chewing on some dried meat. She had been making love to Eiristos almost nightly as they took this break from the explorations. When she first saw the injured man limping his return to the city, she wanted to punish him, control him, make him pay for his failure to her Queen.

Looking at him now, healed, without the bandages, she was seeing him in a different light. He was confident, sure of himself, and proving more capable by the day. The anger, the desire to punish, was gone. He had not betrayed the queen. He had simply been injured, and grieving. During the three days she had traveled back to the city to give a report, she couldn't get the image of him out of her mind. No matter what, her thoughts kept returning to him. She had tried to humiliate him, to make him subservient to her, but he wasn't. Yet there was no malice, no anger in him for any of it.

"One more day, so I can finish the runes on your clothing." His voice was deep, with little inflection, but never harsh. She had seen how well the braies and tunic he wore helped him blend into shadows and darkness. Though it was mere clothing, it was easily as protective as the hardened leather she normally wore. That he was willing to take the time and copy the enchantment runes from his outfit to hers was a gift, and worth the extra delay.

While the Widow Queen had not been happy with the slow progress, or the fact she gave the spear Eiristos had found her blood, bonding it to her, a hundred silver coins and a bloodstone worth another seventy-five silver nobles were more than enough to offset the queen's disappointment. The queen had even graced her with the knowledge of what they were truly looking for: a lost iron crown, a relic of a demon lord that had been destroyed long ago.

She sat up, letting her hand caress Eiristos' strong back as she did so. "Just one more day, and then we return to our task?"

He nodded silently. She stood to put on her hose, chemise, and leathers while he returned to work on the tunic and braies she had brought back with her.

Tapping her hand against her thigh to get the pup's attention, she spoke, "Then I'll take Lycos and patrol the area again. Maybe we will have fresh meat for the pot tonight."

As she stepped away to leave the room, Eiristos grabbed her hand, pulling her into his arms. He said nothing as he kissed her deeply, but briefly, letting her go after just a moment and returning to his task of inscribing the runes on her clothing.

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

The entire temple had been grinding and shaking for hours. Lycos whimpered and howled from under the cot the entire time. In the morning they had planned to return to the tunnels and corridors of the undertemple. But there was no sleeping this night. Yet for all the noise, not a single stone had fallen. The waters outside the building were as still and calm as ever.

Eiristos reduced another ghost to ash with a swing of his blade, while Theophania dispatched one of her own with her now-enchanted dueling spear. The only change since their arrival was the sudden appearance of these scattered apparitions in the once-empty expanse of the ruined temple. Lycos let out a sharp bark, and Eiristos turned just in time to see one final specter rushing toward him. He swung again, and another ghost dissolved into a pile of fine ash.

"That appears to be the last." Theophania was barely breathing heavily despite their exertions. Her tunic and braies fit her like a hazy black second skin as she stood with her dueling spear in her hands, gradually becoming more solid to his sight, just as his own blade was.

"We should grab our gear and head below to see if we can find out what happened. I doubt it is anything in our favor."

He was ready to leave this place, to take Theophania to his home and try to just live his own life. But as long as the city was where he called home, he could not betray the Waterfront Widows. As much as he felt himself growing closer to Theophania, she was the First Blade of the Widows. That gang was her family as much if not more than any blood relation. He followed her back to the priests' quarters that they had made their temporary home in the ruin. Pausing as he reached the door, he could feel that the faint magic of his late sister-in-law's ward still held--no longer drowned out by the wave of magic he had felt during the hours of the temple's cacophonous shaking.

Quickly they checked their gear, making sure they carried no more than necessary, leaving the rest in the warded room. He led the way back to the stairs descending into the undertemple, able to see clearly in what little moon and starlight filtered in from outside. Lycos stayed beside him, padding silently across the stone floor. Theophania followed equally silently.

At the bottom of the stairs, the familiar long corridor was gone. Instead, there was a strong-looking iron door to the immediate left and a corridor going to the right before turning. The pale flickering light of witchlight crystals provided a dim illumination to the area.

"How in the hell? This is not what was here before."

He felt Theophania's hand on his shoulder and the warm fur of Lycos rubbing against his leg.

"No, it is not. We seem to have activated some great magic. But we will prevail and avenge your fallen family, as well."

He turned around to look at Theophania. There was a serious set to her brown eyes he could see in the dim light, even without his gloomseer sight.

"That's the first you've even mentioned that I lost my family when I was here before."

She retracted her hand and glanced down. "I should have considered that more, before now."

Lycos whined quietly as his nose crinkled. Eiristos sniffed the air and caught a faint sour scent that filled the corridor. He turned to the iron door but stopped just before it. Something about the floor didn't look quite right. He held up a hand, signaling Theophania to stop as he knelt to examine the stone of the floor. Tapping lightly, the sound of wood, not stone came to his ears. He pressed firmly and the wooden trap swung down, revealing an empty narrow pit, the dim flickering witchlight unable to reach the bottom. The trapdoor was not large, easy enough to step past, but enough to take someone unawares.

He stepped over the gap to examine the door. It was locked, but he detected no further traps or any auras of magic from it. Pulling the picks Theophania had provided him with from his belt pouch, he was rewarded quickly with the soft click of the lock being sprung. Immediately Lycos began growling and whining, sprinting back to the stairs they had just come down.

Theophania faded back into the shadows of the corridor, her spear at the ready. Eiristos hopped over the pit to do the same while drawing his blade. The sounds of growling and scratching came from the now unlocked door, slowly moving inwards as smoldering paws and muzzles peeked through the gap.

Two hound-like creatures wreathed in ash and flame emerged through the door. Hopping over the formerly hidden pit they proceeded down the corridor slowly sniffing the air. Lycos' whining and growling grew louder and captured the creatures' attention. Eiristos felt his blade turn cold in his hand as if it was trying to freeze the surrounding air. One of the hound-like creatures sniffed and turned its head towards him as it walked past, but at that moment Theophania's spear stuck deep into its smoldering ashen body. Flame and frost seemed to contend with each other and the beast dropped to the ground, its body crumbling into ash as the fires of whatever hell created it seemed to consume it.

Eiristos struck deep into the other creature, wounding it even as it snapped at Theophania catching her leg in its jaws before he could strike true. With a rapid flurry of sword and spear, the second beast was quickly dispatched. Eiristos pulled a bandage from his healers' kit and tied it around Theophania's bleeding and burned leg. Lycos came out to nuzzle and lick at the wound, trying to provide what care he could as well.

Stepping back over the pit, Eiristos entered the room the beasts had come out of. The dim light of flickering witchlight crystals left enough shadows that he almost missed an out-of-place tile in the geometric mosaic that covered the floor. A narrow wooden ledge ran around the side of the room. Taking a loose splinter of the wood, he wedged it under the tile as he examined the mechanism. He was able to follow some wires that were hidden in the pattern of the mosaic floor that led to what looked like a control panel of sorts. As he examined the panel, he heard the crack of the wood snapping. Turning, he saw a pillar of blades rise from a concealed opening in the floor and start to spin. Lycos yelped as the wolf pup jumped out of the way.

Going back to the panel, Eiristos saw what he needed to find, there in the center, a control rune. Drawing his dagger from his belt, he scratched through the rune deeply three times. The whirring sound of the spinning blades fell silent, and he sheathed his dagger--more mechanical than magical he had a long familiarity with similar types of traps.

Theophania stepped into the room and sat on the ledge. "How did you know how to disable that thing?"

Eiristos looked up from examining where the blade pillar had emerged. "Lucky guess based on similar traps I've encountered in the past. Give me a minute and then let me take another look at your leg."

He withdrew an iron chest from the pit where the blade pillar emerged. Setting it down, he drew out his picks again and set to work. He withdrew a small metal needle from the locking mechanism of the chest and sniffed it. "Poisoned." He tossed the needle into the pit in front of him and kept working at the chest's lock. After a long moment, the top of the chest sprung open, and he withdrew a handful of golden coins. "These don't look like royals but probably spend the same." He shoved the coins in a pouch and pulled two vials from the chest. He uncapped one and sniffed, before recapping it and throwing both in the satchel with his healer's kit.

He moved over to Theophania and removed the temporary bandage he had placed around the wound. Setting down his satchel and pack, he used some of the water from his water skin to clean the bitten and burned area. Withdrawing a jar of unguent from the satchel, he applied it to her wound before wrapping the bandage back around it.

"You have a surprisingly gentle touch with that." Theophania didn't move from where she sat on the ledge that went around the small room.

"My brother, Nicos, was good at getting himself injured." Eiristos looked down at the mosaic tiles as he answered. Theophania's hand brushed his cheek, drawing his attention back up to her.

"We will avenge their deaths."

Standing, she strode over to the wooden door on the far side of the small room. Lycos growled and ran back the way they came before she could touch it.

"Pup is going to get himself killed." Eiristos followed Lycos into the hallway and down the long corridor with the sour smell until the wolf stopped by the door at the very end of the corridor. He watched Lycos scratch at the door, as if the pup wanted inside the room. The door did not appear to be locked, and he put his weight against the thick wood. The door refused to budge. Theophania did the same, but the door was stuck fast. A little farther back, along the path he had taken while chasing the pup, there was another door.

Eiristos checked that door and found it locked, with a surprisingly complex lock. Lycos sat at his heels scratching the door while he worked. Finally, after a significant passage of time, the lock opened, and the door swung open into the room.

"Took you long enough, I thought you were supposed to be good at this," Theophania chided.

Lycos took off running, headed for a patch of mold in the north-east corner of the room. Eiristos looked around. Rusting iron spikes lined the north and south walls of the large room. On the west wall hung what looked to be a mirror. The mirror reflected their images, but beyond them it showed a smoldering wasteland, burning under a darkened sky, as if the glass were a window into some demonic world. Eiristos searched the room, finding two more locked doors, a mechanical spear launcher type trap, and, behind the mold Lycos was scratching at, a hidden door. The wolf pup knocked loose a floor tile to reveal a small chest with even more gold coins.

The next two rooms went roughly the same way. Lycos ran through the room, finding a particular door or spot on the wall that he scratched and barked at. Eiristos would search the room, undoing locks and checking for traps, while Theophania stood guard over them.

In the last room, there was a tapestry that depicted acts of bloodshed and torture. A few broken arrows lay scattered throughout the otherwise empty stone room, and a smell caught Eiristos' nose. This was what must have been attracting Lycos. It was not the smell of long abandoned dust, but clean, moist air from the surrounding swamp. The wolf pup went immediately to the tapestry and began barking, its tail wagging rapidly. Eiristos checked and sure enough behind it was a wooden door with badly rusted iron hinges. He could feel and smell the fresh outside air coming in around the sides of the door. Together he and Theophania forced the door open, hinges screaming in protest, to be rewarded with dim moonlight filtering through the trees of the surrounding swamp.

Lycos ran to a nearby pool of water and drank deeply.

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

Despite having taken so long with an unnecessarily complicated door, Eiristos was proving quite capable at his specialty of finding and disabling locks and traps. He stood before her in his hazy black clothing, long hair tied back with a leather thong, peering out into the swamp. This was not the broken bleeding man she had seen limping his way back into the city. The failure she had been sent to retrieve. While his hair and beard made his pale oval face look narrow and drawn, it was not unattractive. He was well-muscled but not overly so, and his stamina well... She was enjoying their physical interactions a great deal.

He might be more than a little reticent, but his interactions with the wolf pup showed there was some kindness in his heart. Most men were, well, she would rather kill most men than suffer their presence. Loud, overbearing buffoons who bragged needlessly and demanded everything from everyone. It was such men that had driven her to join the Widows to begin with.

Still, watching Eiristos go through the stone rooms using his expertise, and fighting with brutal efficiency, was doing something to her. An image of them laying together in bed in a small house in the city came to her mind.

"I said we appear to be about a day's travel north of the temple, because of having to go around all the water." His voice was deep and almost inflectionless as he spoke.

Returning her thoughts to the present, she replied, "Since we found an exit to the outside, perhaps we should move our things from the priests' quarters to the room we just left before we continue on. The priest's quarters doesn't have an exit if we need one."

Eiristos nodded. "I can probably get that blade trap by the door working again to help secure the room, but I can't replicate the witch's wards."

His gray-hazel eyes met hers, and she suppressed a shudder. His gloomseer vision made his glances unsettling. "Do you think we need the wards? The apparitions we've encountered don't seem to leave the rooms they're in."

He scratched his beard and looked over to the wolf pup now curled up in a ball by the pool of water it had been drinking from. "I'm more concerned about other things like those hell hounds."

"How do you know those were hell hounds?" She asked.

"They match the descriptions in the old stories. I'm sure your demon Widow Queen could confirm it if needed. But I'll set to work on resetting that trap if you want to bring down our things from upstairs."

She watched him bend down and scratch Lycos behind the ears before he turned and walked back through the door they had just exited. The wolf pup followed at his heels. She followed them back inside pulling the door closed behind her--bypassing Eiristos as he worked on the floor tile that had somehow been attached to hanging blades in the ceiling.