Disclaimer:
Everyone is over eighteen. If you are not deeply into fantasy pulp fiction, gender fluidity and pansexuality, you are in the wrong place.
BEHOLD! I, Thutmose-Neferkare, royal scribe, chief librarian and high priest of the divine Ra do bid thee welcome back for the tenth scroll in "The Saga of Tallia the Unwilling". Before I get to the translation, I think we all need to take a moment to thank Ra for the miracle we all witnessed last week!
Yes, of course I am talking about the big God-Snake eating the sun. Wow! I mean just wow. You read about these things in the sacred scrolls and perhaps you think, this has got to be some sort of complex metaphor. And then, bang! Sun eaten!
Honestly, it really makes you think. Imagine if the sun stayed gone. That would be bad. Bad really seems like an inadequate descriptor. I think we can safely say that would be... very bad. Maybe even very VERY bad. No, worse than that.
But anyways, Ra has defeated the big God-Snake and is now safely sailing the skies once more in his fiery sky boat. It seemed a bit touch and go there for a while, but now our divine lord and master is once more back on top. Anyways, let's get back to Tallia and her exciting doings. But never forget that last week, we almost lost the sun. I'm not entirely sure how good triumphed over evil, but I am certain it must have been something I, the most exalted Thutmose-Neferkare, did.
You're all welcome.
Chapter Ten: He Hammered Me So Hard
Tallia awoke before Mela once more. The sidhe was entangled in her goddess' arms. The Amazon gave her the gentlest kiss upon the cheek and then rose and quickly dressed. Mela stirred only briefly and then went back to sleep. They were sleeping together where they had made love last night, in the second story of a sidhe house in dead Gaelynglas. There was only one door and all the windows were bolted closed. This was a deliberate choice of course. Even though they had seen no evidence of life in this ruined metropolis, danger it seemed was always close at hand.
Danger -- that thought did give Tallia pause. Gods on high and in hell, what was she doing here? She had just days before struck up a relationship with her longtime companion Hilarius and here she was entangling herself in another the moment he was gone from her side. The quiet, temperamental, studious sorceress and the boisterous, indefatigable, gregarious rogue could not be more different. In many ways they were polar opposites. But here she was, confessing her love to each. Would Hi consider this a betrayal? Would the pair even be able to stand each other? Was she so desperate for affection that she would simply give her heart to anyone who crossed her path? What is wrong with you, Tallus?
She startled at that. No, not Tallus. She was Tallia now, however unwilling she might be.
Beyond the door, she could hear the priestess Liandra fetching water and coming up the stone steps into the only other chamber on this second floor. The sound of sloshing water made the Amazon acutely aware of a desperate need to piss. There were no proper garderobes or even chamber pots in this dead city, so they just went down to the nearby dock and used the lake, well away of course from where the trio drew drinking water. She passed the priestess who gave her a smile and a "good morning."
Tallia made her way down stairs. Out of habit, she grabbed her war spear and tucked her sidhe dagger in her belt. Tallia went nowhere in this ruined city without being armed. Her shield was upstairs. She would fetch that as soon as she finished relieving herself. She went out on the narrow stone dock out of the house's back door and quickly urinated. She turned around just in time to see a shadowy figure dart into the house.
A beast-man! They were under attack! Instinctively, the Amazon threw her spear at the shadow and charged. Her aim proved true and she put the war spear deep into the creature's back. She ran to him quickly and saw the hound-man still struggling even though pinned by the heavy spear.
"Ta-ya!" it cried in pain.
She silenced it by pulling out her spear, widening the already impressive wound. She had to get to her shield! She ran upstairs with all speed, bounding up three steps at a time.
"What's going on?" asked the priestess.
"Beast-men! Get under cover..." but the Amazon's words came too late. The priestess was standing next to an open window. But they had been closed! Clearly Liandra had opened one to get some air. A well-aimed arrow from a hawk-man sniper on the next roof sunk deep into Liandra's back. Tallia threw her sidhe knife with almost inhuman force at the creature and the startled sniper took the true-silver blade right in the forehead, nearly between the eyes. The damn knife did not come back, but the bird-man bow-man fell off the roof and splattered quite spectacularly on the cobbled street below.
Liandra fell as well, bleeding on the floor. Tallia yelled to Mela who was only now awakening. "Get her into the bed chamber! Barricade the door with that stone chest!" Tallia grabbed her shield and slammed the one open window shut, bolting it closed.
Tallia had no idea how many foes she faced. For all she knew, Arion had marched his whole damn army down here. But she did know this. Even if there were a million of them, they had to go up those narrow elven stairs one or maybe two at a time to get to the second story of this stone house. There was no hiding from these Sons of Arion so she didn't try. Instead she bellowed a leonine war cry that reverberated through the entire dead city of Gaelynglas and near shook the walls. "I'm here, you shit-eating dog fuckers! Tallia and death await you!"
The first group of takers to her challenge were a band of four beast-men that stormed in through the front door of the house. These four wolf-men, hunched and black-furred, snarled, eager for the kill. They sported an assortment of armaments -- a hand axe and a small metal shield, a spiked club and second similar shield, a long spear and a bow. The archer wolf, in way of greeting, sent a couple of arrows sailing into Tallia's shield.
Tallia was little concerned. At the top of the stairs, she had an abundance of cover. She crouched behind her shield and let the archer waste his arrows on her solid circle of bronze. The two shield wolves doubtless thought she would be distracted by the archery and charged up the stairs their shields side by side, eager to catch her off guard. They wasted their time and their lives.
As soon as they were half way up the stairs, Tallia lashed out with her spear, fast as a coiled cobra. Their small round shields were far too small to protect their entire torso and she caught the axe wolf squarely in his left shoulder. She pulled the point back, lacerating canine flesh and giving him a wide gash. The axe wolf howled in pain. Even as his brother was being pierced, the other pushed forward and slammed his spiked club into her shield. The sidhe-forged metal of the shield bounced its crude bronze spikes. The spear wolf gave support to his embattled brothers and tried to find an opening to jab her with his long weapon. Tallia gave him none.
The Amazon then pushed forward herself. She shoved her circle of bronze down the stairs with all of her strength. She was a battering ram filling the stair well with her unavoidable charge. She caught the wounded beast-man square on his shield. Its wounded shoulder no longer had the strength to hold against her advance and the wolf tumbled backward, yipping in agony at the impact. At the same moment, she shoved her spear into the throat of the wolf with the spiked club. She near decapitated that one. And then shoved the two dead or dying wolf-men down the stairs and into their spear toting brother. She was rewarded for her efforts with a mass of blood and tangled bodies at the bottom of the stairs, two of whom still squirmed.
The archer tried to rescue his brothers from this deadly tangle. He shot an arrow that came perilously close to Tallia's head. That arrow immediately made her miss her helm. She imbedded her spear deep into a tangled up wolf-man. She then picked up the hand axe and found it a well-balanced throwing weapon. She put it deep into the archer's chest. She recovered her spear, and was about to finish off the last of the wolf-men when the wounded bastard hissed at her.
"Rontus will avenge me!"
"What the fuck is a Rontus?" She didn't wait for the answer. Instead, she made sure all the fallen wolves were dead with several vicious thrusts and then backed up the stairs once more, retaking her deadly perch at the top of the rise.
"Who's next, fuckers?!" she roared.