The Song Of Roland Ch 16

Kelsea stared at the barbed tip of the arrow, her eyes never wavering from the nocked and waiting longbow she had seen Carl use to such great and deadly effect. She sat, frozen upon the snowy ground, bent over Roland as the man she'd become irrevocably connected to slowly bled from his wounds unabated. The injuries were nowhere near as serious as they'd been just a few minutes ago, but he was far from healed. A large hole remained like a gory eye socket on the left side of his stomach, and his comatose breath was shallow and ragged. His leather armor was ripped, his padded white undershirt a set of tatters stained with the crimson contours of his blood. Without taking her eyes off of the threatening projectile, Kelsea moved to stand.

Carl's arrow tip jerked upwards sharply, pointing like a finger as it indicated deadly intent. His movements were fast, tightly controlled. He looked like a coiled spring ready to snap. "

Ah,

ah ah!" He said, shaking his head. "None of that, little devil. I said step aside." His arm was drawn back, the bend of his elbow tremoring slightly from the effort of keeping the bowstring taut. Kelsea leaned back over RolanQd, keeping as much of him covered as she could so as not to give Carl an opening to shoot him. The tall, slender bowman gave her a smug grin. "You're a

lot

worse at taking direction than giving it."

"Carl," She said, her voice heavy. "Lower your bow."

"First second a' freedom, and already you're snappin' orders?" He shook his head ruefully, "Not a good way to start our 'real' relationship, eh? What's it worth to you?"

Everything

. She thought, casting a worried glance down at Roland's face. She couldn't help but be entranced by him, even as incapacitated as he was. She could feel him, like an essential limb disconnected from the rest of her body; his heartbeat was like a second pulse set next to her own. It was strained, but steady. His eyes were clenched and each breath lifted his thick, warm chest with air. His muscles' definition showed through the fabric of his clothing, glistening like an adonis with sweat. She wanted nothing more than to straddle him, milking the warm seed of life from his body as she slammed her hips against-

Kelsea shook her head, forcing herself to stay on task. The dark thoughts were an eternal companion, a constant distraction. No matter the place, nor the situation the carnal wishes and lustful wants entered her head like little whispers on the periphery. Even as she watched Carl she was fantasizing him nude, his erection bent like the bow in his hands. He was so different to Roland's physique: slim where Roland was large, soft of voice where Roland was a braying bass note. Lecherous images of her mounting Carl's manhood coalesced with the danger of the moment to create a confusing picture in her head. It all felt

wrong

to Kelsea; this wasn't supposed to be happening. "Please." She said, doing her absolute utmost to remain calm. The thought that the heartbeat beneath her might cease its function while they dithered made her want to scream. "Just put it down."

Carl's expression didn't change. "No." He said. "No, I don't think so." Kelsea's tail twitched in agitation.

The Harpy, standing a ways away near the edge of the cliffs, looked from Carl to Kelsea, a confused expression growing on her avian features. She let out an inquisitive chirp that neither of them paid any attention to. The air was cold, the open breeze of the uppermost peaks sailing down the high plateau and sending small crops of collected snow puffing into the air off the ground. Pine needles shifted and dropped to the frost-strewn earth like a rain of green mites. The forest was thick, deep wooded and unfriendly. They huddled in the shadows of tall, imposing black trees, standing amidst an open outcrop before the precipitous drop below to the High Road. Far on the other end of the small plateau, the tall peak of a coned mountain sat, regal and forlorn like a great, stony watchtower.

"You know," Carl said, allowing the arrow to relax, but keeping it pointed with his arm up at Roland laid out atop a rocky outcrop, ready to draw again at a moment's notice. "I've got to applaud your commitment to the part. You could've just broken him and be done with it, but instead you gained a loyal lapdog. A big, scary, ginger-faced fuckwit... but a useful one, hm?"

"He's not my lackey." She said evenly, "Nor are you. We're just traveling together."

Carl tossed his head about and laughed, his body shaking with genuine mirth. "Oh

Gods

, you're a funny one! All counterfeit smiles and empty statements." His smile was curling and sardonic. "What, did Roland start believing your schtick so much you fell out of practice? Who is this 'we' and where can I speak to them?

You're

traveling, and you've got three little minions all marching about; it just so happens that one of them woke up."

Kelsea rose to her feet, taking a deliberate step towards the beaming bowman in a direct line in front of Roland. In a flash the bow was towed back and released, the arrow smacking directly to Roland's left, burying itself in the snow. He didn't have a better shot, but the message was clear. Before Kelsea could so much as take another step he had another one of his diminishing supply nocked and ready to loose. "Next one's goin' in his skull... or your belly, depending on how fast you move." He said, his voice self confident and utterly unperturbed. "You can share a little kiss with him as you both bleed out on the ground from the same spot."

Kelsea stopped. A low, angry voice in her head snapped back.

Break his arm, smash his head. Make a hole in

him

! Show him what it feels like.

But she forced it with difficulty down inside her chest. She had to remind herself repeatedly of the cost of rash actions. Though her eyes burned Kelsea forced herself to stay still. Her hands were clenched into fists. There was a long silence. The Harpy turned to look cuttingly at Carl, her expression now of unamused dislike. She did not seem pleased that he had threatened Kelsea. The bird of prey flapped her wings in a dissuading gesture. One taloned foot rose, her voice warbling out a warning. Carl paid no heed.

"I'm actually intrigued: how long has that maudlin lunatic been following you, like a little lost yearling?" Carl's blonde eyebrow rose, "Just before our run in at Dornich? In the woods somewhere, mayhaps; you don't seem all that knowledgable about your own calamity, considering that blundering barbarian keeps explaining self-evident things to you. I'd wager he took a job too big, got himself snared somehow by your savory little twat. Probably fucked his brains out so well he lost what little sense he had."

"We met a few months ago." Kelsea said, deciding to be honest. "You're right: he was paid to hunt me. He chose to spare my life, instead."

Carl laughed again. "-And I suppose all it cost him was some clothes and a speck of sperm, eh?" It was eerie how his words seemed to mirror Roland's own when he'd first met her. Carl's chortle was blithe yet indifferent. "Truly, the stuff a' bards' ballads. And you just 'happened' to tag along afterwards, is it? Funny how that worked out. You've got a magic tongue there, talkin' your way out of so many problems. Makes me wonder where else that pretty mouth has been."

So many places.

She mused darkly, her mind thinking of Grevich. She held her hands out to Carl, opening them in an attempt to diffuse the situation. She wondered idly what his throat would feel like, curled around her clenching fingers. A second, ancillary thought pondered the same, should her fingers instead clench around his throbbing sex. Kelsea ignored them both. "I know what I am, but that's not what this is about. Roland's my companion, my..." She trailed off, unwilling to admit the weakness to the man pointing an arrow at Roland's face.

Carl finished it for her. "Your 'love.' And I'm the Mage-King of Arjal. What you've got there isn't 'love,' little devil, its obedience. The difference is razor thin for you, I know, but believe me when I tell you that there's nothing 'lovely' going on in this group. You jump off the cliffside to your left, and d'you know what happens?" There was a long silence. "Bluebird over there flies off, never to return.

I

climb down to the road, and never speak of this again to anyone. And Roland dies here, dreaming of a woman who never cared and never will about his pathetic excuse for a heart. The whole world keeps moving, and the binding of our 'party' comes apart like clay putty in water." His body was as taut as the bow clutched in his hands. "Don't lie to me about affection, like I'm still glamoured.

You're

what keeps us here."

"I don't want this to end in violence." Kelsea said, doing her level best to keep an even temper. "Just put down the bow, and-"

Carl's jaw dropped. "You don't want-" Kelsea couldn't tell if he was about to laugh or scream. The near-hysteria of his cackling made it sound like a little of both. "Yea

Gods

Succubus, are you really that deluded? Is your mind so filled with the thought of spunk that you don't even realize what you've been doing? You're a spineless tart, and no mistake!" He affixed her with a wide grin. "Do you know what it's like, to willfully shoot a friend? You think those were just warm bodies down there you roasted in their armor, like a ham in an oven? Those were men;

good

men. Dead men, now."

Kelsea's eyes widened. Carl continued. "How helpless must it feel, to have all illusion of choice taken from you? When every screaming signal in your head is telling you not to do something, but you do it anyway? How terrible a sensation, when the very

fiber

of your being is begging you not to do it, not to nock the arrow, loose the shot that kills someone whom you knew for years, and called 'brother?' Must be agonizing -

excruciating

; especially when it goes on for

weeks

." His smile bent and crooked uncertainly at the corners of his mouth, like a trembling beast's snarl. "But I wouldn't know much about that, would I?"

"You-" Kelsea said, attempting to maintain her composure. His words were like knife wounds to her psyche. "You and your men

started

this: attacking Roland in the tavern, trying to slay us back on the High Road."

Carl's laughter was high pitched and mocking, completely different from Roland's gruff guffaws of amusement... why did she keep mentally comparing the two? "You really don't know anything about this man, do you? He's burned down every bridge he's ever crossed, and dammed the river behind him too, for the spite of it. Seven men died because he wouldn't pay a bar tab."

The worst part of it was: even if it was true, Kelsea didn't care. She knew she

should

; by all rights the person she'd once been would have been horrified by what she'd done. It had come as just as much a surprise to herself as the men she'd slaughtered that she'd spat out death so callously. When her hand reached out and sent forth that blue balefire, she'd felt nothing: no guilt nor remorse, only a vague, detached wonder at the stench of burning meat and howling men. It was the first time she'd killed...

anything

, yet it was as dispassionate and mechanical as if she were pulling on clothes, or packing up camp. She could see them still: the melting faces of horrid pain as she cooked them alive with her magic, stepping amongst the incinerating pyres like she was lighting torches with a candle. All she remembered thinking in that moment was:

at least he's safe

.

The same motivation now led her to stare down Carl's lethal intransigence, her brow pulling tight as she felt that old, creeping hunger rise up from within her. The loss of fluid had done more than just limit her ability to mend her savior's wounds, it had sent her already overactive libido into conniptions. Even as worried as she was for Roland's safety, she could not get the

want

to leave her thoughts. She wanted to mate, to taste, to

fuck

every being around her: Carl, the Harpy, even the injured man lying unconscious behind her. Her nethers burned with a gaping emptiness, a need to be rutted, to be thrust against as her thighs clenched and her sex glistened. She wanted to cram the void of her insides with the nectar of life. The very lack of it was maddening.

Kelsea couldn't help but look at Carl like a feast to be devoured. She gazed, heedless, deep into his forest green orbs. She saw something there, reading the minute body movements and the trailing line of his eyes as he stared at her. Something had happened to her vision, after becoming a demon. She could...

see

people, the erotic aura they gave off. It wasn't on a visible spectrum, it was as if her skin could sense the rising heat of their own, the increase in heart rate from being around her. In a low way, she could sense when her quarry was horny. She knew how to use it, to bend it to her own needs so that their sexuality synced up with hers in totality.

Kelsea knew he wanted her, even still, in spite of all that had happened. Like a predator sizing its prey she watched him, instinctively noticing the small quiver of his spine, the slow pace of the red blush building microscopically on his face that signalled to her that this was a being who could be used, who could be manipulated, who could be

governed

.

"That doesn't matter any more." Kelsea said, making a last ditch effort to resolve the situation humanely. Her voice hardened like iron. "Put the bow down, Carl. There's no way you can shoot all of us, and I promise you: if you loose another arrow, you're going to regret it."

Carl shook his head with a lethargy bordering on indolence, "Whether I'm still breathing or not at the end of this really isn't a concern anymore, Succubus. I left my pride back in a prison cell in Dornich."

"If you wont do it for yourself," She said slowly, her voice drawing out every enunciation as she watched carefully for chinks in Carl's mental armor. She allowed her voice to deepen, her breath to sigh from her lips like a temptress' subtle invitation, "Then will you at least do it for... me?"

Carl's smile was wide and wicked. "Oh, you're a subtle one. Subtle like a Harpy's kiss."

Kelsea returned his smile, showing the barest hint of her perfect teeth between her stretching lips. She noticed the hesitant way his eyes flicked to focus on her upper lip, and she added a tiny, languid lick across the top of it. She started to walk towards him leisurely, her legs crisscrossing in front of each other as she made sultry strides towards him. She thrust her chest forward, displaying her breasts to him in her clothing like she was already nude. As she did, she mentally reached out, pulling at that tiny thread within his mind, where she still resided. "No, you're right: I'm not subtle at all." She said in response to him, her voice low, "But then, I don't have to be. Do I?"

His bow trained like lightning to her head, the arrow tip shuddering in its nocked position. "You take one more step, and-" He said.

"...And what?" Kelsea replied, stopping in her tracks and planting a hand against her hipbone. She stayed supremely conscious of covering the man lying behind her with her body, even as she turned her waist and adopted a seductive stance. She let the question hang in the air. "Do you think you're the

only

one who notices things, Carl?"

She watched him closely, her eyes catching that extended peek he gave for just an instant at her hips. His green eyes blinked back to their place, but Kelsea spotted the clandestine glance. So he liked her hips, did he? What other parts of her did he like? "I've noticed you." She said, taking another step forward. He didn't fire. "I've noticed the way you look at me. I learned just how much you wanted me, back at the cave. You were

so-

" Kelsea let out a heady moan that carried in the air an implicit, ecstatic joy that made Carl hesitate. "

fulfilling

."

Kelsea pulled harder at his mind, risking the danger of him noticing her overt influence. "If you were

really

going to shoot me, you'd have done it already. But, that's not your goal, is it?" She took another step, exaggerating the movement so that her hip bumped out. "You asked me to step aside, remember?" A hunger grew within her as she saw him visibly redden at her words. Paradoxically she felt stronger from her lack of fluid: her voice more passionate, her power more oppressive. "You want...

me

," She said, "alive." She added, giving him a mental out to justify it to himself.

"Get out of my head." Carl said, his face warping in anger. "...

please

."

"Why?" She asked, her voice rising to a level of innocence she no longer truly had within her. "Are you afraid I'll find something I don't like?" He didn't answer her, which told her everything she needed to know. Kelsea took another step, and he didn't release the arrow. She took another, and still the blonde bowman merely stood, his toned arm bulging and straining from the difficulty of keeping it tense. His elbow shook from the effort of it. She was mere feet from his presence.

"Maybe all this bluster about Roland is really just about you," She stepped within his personal space. "-and me." The arrow was mere inches from her face. Instead of moving it aside, Kelsea brazenly leaned her forehead upon the tip, watching the horrified look come to Carl's face as it drew the slightest point of blood from her scalp. A tiny trickle ran down her open expression, along the right side of the bridge of her nose, like a ruby teardrop. "Let go, Carl." She said, her voice gentle as a spring wind as she stared him directly in the eye. "Prove what you say: all you have to do is release the string, and we all break apart like clay putty. Right?"

"Gods

damn

you." He groaned.

"That's already happened." She replied, her hand reaching out to place itself at the wrist of his own holding the wood of the bow. She squeezed just slightly upon his skin, her warmth mixing with his to create something magmatic. "Won't you at least help me?"

The next few seconds passed like they were ages. Finally, with a frustrated grunt Carl pulled the arrow away from her face, releasing the tension and allowing the bow to return to a dormant state. Kelsea reached out, delicately peeling the weapon out of his hands and tossing it aside. His shoulders slumped, his body giving in as she stepped into his arms. "There..." She said, tilting her head up to look fondly upon him. He lowered his head down and kissed her, his physical form encircling hers in a fit of mad enthusiasm. She let him, taking his hands and planting them about her hips as she leaned hard into his thin form, before draping her own around the back of his neck. They tongued each other's lips fiercely before the Succubus pulled away, staring into his eyes. She let out a satisfied giggle.

"Isn't that better?"

She wrapped her left hand around his throat, picking him up bodily with her strength as Carl was lifted suddenly into the air by the shorter creature. His eyes widened as she closed his windpipe before he even had a chance to react, clenching hard with her perfect fingers around his skin. His hands, placed as they were against her hips were unable to reach her in time before she had him, twisting and struggling within her grasp as his eyes bugged out of his head. Kelsea stared at him for a long moment. The sharp, choking sounds and scrabbling, feeble fingers upon her hand provided a strange amusement to the horned demon as she observed his impotent struggles against her profane might. His toes turned and dug into the undergrowth beneath as he tried to regain his footing, but Kelsea merely lifted her arm higher. Her false smile turned into a dark scowl as she fought mightily against her own impulse to simply snap his neck and be done with it.