Terrible Company - Chapter 8 - Part 3

Chapter 8 - Part 3

"This is..." Katsa looked around at the dank cave. "...nice?"

"Thank you!" she replied happily. The little girl, who called herself Erkana, tended the cook fire. "Most of it was naturally carved out by the river, but I've done some work myself."

Val and Malthilda quirked eyebrows at each other out of the girl's field of view. Their savior looked like she would have struggled to move a pot full of water, let alone handle any sort of significant excavative work.

"Yeah, you can barely hear the road."

Although Erkana nodded enthusiastically in agreement, no such thing was technically true. Every cart and wagon sent vibrations down through the bedrock as it passed overhead.

The arcanist sat down on one of the rocks set, ostensibly as chairs, around the fire pit, and went about cleaning the embroidery on her sleeves and leggings with the tip of her fingernail.

Erkana smiled to herself as she added a bits of this and that to her pot. "In a couple hours, there will be the traditional Troll Siesta. That'll be the best time to head out."

Ivy's eyes went as wide as saucers. "Really?"

"That can't be a thing," Katsa half-laughed, but she glanced sideways at Mathilda all the same, looking, as the rest of them were, for some sign of confirmation.

"Ehh..." was all Mathilda had. Her memories of her father's comings and goings were too fuzzy to remember the exact time of either.

"After the traffic on the roads dies down, but before the real darkness sets in." She tilted her head slightly as she went on. "I'm sure that experienced adventurers like yourselves have hunted trolls way more crafty than this one."

"A fair few," Val said, stepping in while the Dwarf floundered. "It's definitely not our first troll."

"I can tell, " the girl said, nodding enthusiastically. "You all seem to have it together."

"We fell out of that net together," Katsa murmured out of the side of her mouth.

"Twice!" Ivy added enthusiastically.

Erkana nodded. "The halflings in town sent a few hired hands up into the mountains after that troll, but none of them really knew what they were getting into." She hummed quietly under her breath as she stirred the pot. "I'm sure you're all much better informed."

"Mathilda here comes from a long tradition of troll hunters," Ivy said brightly, clasping the dwarf on the shoulder.

"Ehh..." was all Mathilda had.

"That's good!" Erkana said. "That's really good! She's probably taught you all kinds of useful tricks... like how trolls have a keen sense of smell?"

"Ehh..."

"That's why most hunters smear shit all over their bodies." She doled out some of the contents one bowl at a time, and began handing them out to the others.

Katsa groaned. "Whose idea was it to take this job?"

"Mine!" Ivy said brightly.

"Why did I even ask?"

Val grinned. "To make us regret voting you out of power in the first place."

"I would do a much better job!" Katsa muttered.

Erkana held her flattened fingers over her mouth to hide a smile. "Did we hit on a sore subject."

"Some more sore than others," Ayen chuckled.

"I was far from the worst," Katsa fired back. "What about that poor p-"

"We said we'd nev'r speak'f i'!" Mathilda snarled. "An' besides, Ah never got us tossed 'n jail."

"It was a prop jail." Val shook her head. "It barely counts."

Ayen gasped, "How sad is it that Ivy's been the best?"

"Thank you!" Ivy said brightly.

" 'at's no' a compliment, Lass."

The bard laughed musically. "I'm pretty sure that being told you're the best at something is a compliment."

"This is like a dream come true," Erkana whispered under her breath.

Val turned and peered at the small girl. "What was that?"

"I said 'that... sounds like... a shot at you'."

"It w.. was it?"

"What?" Ayen squeaked, leaning back. "No!"

Val's eyes narrowed, and her expression hardened.

Ayen added, "It wasn't!!"

"It better not... have been... one?" Ivy gave the big Orc encouraging nod.

"No, if we're gonna blame anyone, it's you," Val said, jabbing her index finger at Mathilda.

"Me?!"

"It's your fault we're all stuck together!"

" 'ow is i' my faul'?!"

"He's your stupid God! Isn't this all his doing?"

"Watch yer tone, ye great brute."

"What are you talking about?" Ayen asked.

"Her fucking Liquor God has 'plans' for us," she said, miming quotes in the air.

"I'm not here because of some God," Ayen protested. "I'm my own man."

"Barely," the Dwarf snorted.

"I'm more man than you can handle, you petty little runt!"

"Fine!" Mathilda laughed, gesturing lazily. "Go then!"

"I will!" he fired back.

"So? Go!"

"I'm... trying..." Ayen blinked and looked around. "Why can't I get up?"

Ivy held up her index finger and swallowed. "Probably," she started, but then never quite finished. "Adeeej.... Awurrrrr..." A short string of unintelligible sounds filtered out of her, and the more she went on, the more her eyelids fell. Within seconds the bard was wobbling on her makeshift chair, and she slumped sideways into Mathilda.

"I love this part," Erkana said, smiling wide. "Where most of you can still understand what I'm saying."

"Whaaa?" Mathilda drawled. Her tongue felt enormous in her mouth; awkward, and ill-suited to forming sounds.

Katsa jammed her thumb into her temple and dug in hard. "What is happening right now?"

"She's the troll," Ayen whimpered.

"But shhhe's not sssseven feet tall!"

"Well what are the odds some other ne'erdowell captured us in the middle of a Troll hunt?"

"Ye saved us from tha' ne'!"

"I had to get you down here somehow, and you were all so willing!" She raised her own bowl to her nose, took a whiff, and then poured it back into the larger cauldron untouched. "And so gullible!"

Val tried to stand, but could only manage to roll forward onto one knee.

The others watched on in fear, seated in a half-circle.

Erkana slowly stood up, looking that much more sinister despite her girlish appearance.

"I have to say," she said, pointing to Katsa, "I'm surprised you're still awake. Humans are usually the first to drop."

"She's tougher than she looks," Val grunted, still trying to get to her feet.

"Well the proof," Erkana crooned, "is most definitely in the pudding."

"Fuck'n trolls," Mathilda grumbled, her eyebrows drawn down tight. The haze in her head was too strong to focus. Too strong to summon the will to commune with Rhogan. It was all she could do to keep her eyes open.

"Oh, and you. Mathilda, was it?" Erkana skipped around them, bouncing over the fallen Ivy, and stopped behind the dwarf. Mathilda twitched when the small girl laid hands on her shoulders. "If I'm picking up your accent right, you're from Dun'Merrit?"

"Aye?" the Healer said cautiously.

" 'A long line of troll hunters,' indeed! Their hunts are legendary! Did you ever go on one?" Mathilda shook her head. "I thought not. Was it your... mother that went?"

"My Da'," Mathilda snarled sleepily.

"Oooh, that's priceless!" Erkana slipped a leg around Mathilda's torso, and slid down into the dwarf's lap in one twirling motion. "They never killed a single Troll. Not one. Those 'hunts' were just an excuse to sneak off and have orgies." Her grin was ravenous as she stared at the healer. Soaking in every bit of her shocked, albeit muted, reaction. "I went to a few myself just to see what all the fuss was about. I might have fucked your father." The last, whispered just loud enough to be heard over the crackle of the small fire. She wrapped her legs around Mathilda's waist, and brushed a few errant, dark strands of hair back behind her ear. "Of course, there's really no way of knowing. It was just a sea of bodies and, truth be told, you all look alike to me."

Katsa grunted quietly as she hit the ground, still barely awake but unable to remain upright.

"Are you- are you-" Ayen bit down hard on his tongue, trying to focus on the pain. "Are you ssssure you're old enough to go- go to an adult party?"

The small, green-haired girl turned slowly, and grinned over her shoulder. "I suppose I had that coming. We all look alike to you too, huh?" She kept her gaze fixed on Ayen as she disentangled herself from the dwarf and made her way around the fire pit toward him. "I've been told I look very good for my age, but sometimes it does give the wrong impression." She hiked up on her dress as she straddled him, driving her groin into his and resting her arms around his shoulders. "It was in the food, you know."

"I mm-might have guessed," he said, blinking exaggeratedly.

"But all organic, I assure you."

"Well I would certainly hope sss-so. I wouldn't want any ttt-toxins in my poison."

Erkana laughed musically. "You're so silly. Why would I poison you all at once? I don't eat that much"

Ayen swallowed hard.

"No, I'm gonna want you fresh when the time comes. This was just a little something to get you all docile so I can restrain you. Do you know what the best part is?"

Ayen shook his head.

"It's the way it affects different races. Shorted lived races, like halflings and humans, they're out. Cold. For hours. Dwarves can usually stay awake, but it shuts them up." She looked back over her shoulder. "How're you doing over there?"

Mathilda merely glared.

"Right on schedule. Orcs, it depends on the size. This one's on the small side."

"Why don'chew come overere an' find out justow small-iam?"

"How precious is that?" she giggled, turning back to Ayen. "I mean, come on!"

Ayen swallowed hard. His throat had gone extremely dry in the last few seconds, and his vision blurred.

Erkana leaned in closer and laughed gleefully. "Do you feel that? If you were a full elf, you'd already have me pinned against the wall."

Ayen tried to swallow, but it was hard to get any of his body parts to do what he wanted them do. The way she was grinding into him was extremely distracting.

"To elves, it's a powerful aphrodesiac. To humans, it's a paralytic. But you, my little half-breed? It turns you into the best kind of sex toy." Her eyes flashed. "Awake and throbbingly hard, but... amenable. Quiet."

She put her feet down behind Ayen, and cradled him in her arms as she leaned forward until he came to rest in the soft dirt. She straddled him again, reached down for the hem of her well-worn dress, and drew it upward. Her breasts were small. Not the buds of a young girl, but merely small. She grabbed her dark nipples tightly, squeezing both between her fingers and thumbs as she rocked her hips back and forth. Grinding on him through his pants.

Ayen's eyebrows rose fractionally as his leggings grew increasingly damp.

She reached down, tucked her middle finger into her outer labia, and spread it just enough to give her index finger room to feather. She cooed in the still air, otherwise quiet but for the friction between them.

Her voice deepened slightly. No longer playing the part of the innocent. Her left hand came up from her breast to run through her hair, driving the wild green locks back from her face. Her two fingers split her lips wider, and she rolled her hips back. Erkana moaned louder as she moved, dragging the full length of her slit back and forth over his bulge. In one smooth motion, she rolled back onto the balls of her feet, and squatted. Her hands worked feverishly at the laced knot that held up Ayen's leggings, tugging and loosening.

Ayen mewled as she grabbed them and yanked them down to his thighs. His cock bounced up, freed of its restraint, like an eager pupil wanting to show off.

Erkana purred deep in her throat as she gazed at his considerable length, and the very edge of her lip turned up the tiniest bit. It was his eyes, however, that she stared at as she rolled forward onto her knees. She reached down between her thighs, splitting her lips with one hand while she grasped just below his head with the other. Her lids fluttered as she lowered herself onto him, slick wet folds molding and stretching around his flared head. Her breath came and left in short, halting bursts.

The rough sound of skin-on-cloth friction was replaced, now, and the only sounds audible over the fire were Erkana's ragged whimpers and the wet schlick of her cunt. Her thrusts came in waves; a few shallow followed by one that delved further. Minute by minute, she consumed him, taking more and more of his cock inside of her, and the further she pushed, the more emphatic her moaning became. The more unrestrained.

Her whining reached new heights, however, as she bore down to take the last few inches at once. She planted both hands on his abdomen, and winced as she settled against his thighs. Quiet panting, as she adjusted to the fullness inside. Slowly, ever so slowly, she worked her toes back underneath her feet, poised on the balls with her knees in the dirt. Her left shoulder rotated forward, as she planted her hand flat against his chest, while the right twisted back behind. Fingertips tracing over her slim hips, and down between her cheeks. Her tongue ran over the tips of her teeth as her middle finger wormed upwards and inwards.

A long, low growl of appreciation as she worked her own buttons. The pad of her fingertip, stroking her walls just so. The pace of her thrusts, just to her liking. Her partner, blessedly silent. Erkana rode him slowly, relishing in the feel of him. Absorbing the response of every nerve ending as he scratched those hardest-to-reach itches. Rode him slowly, as she worked the full length in and out of her drooling sex.

She looked back over her shoulder and squealed luxuriantly; both Val and Mathilda were staring hard. Their eyes transfixed on the spectacle of flesh sinking into flesh. Erkana's spine curled, thrusting her chest forward to reveal the show even further, and bounced a little faster. The other fingers and thumb of her right hand sank into her modest cheeks, squeezing as she stretched to reach just a little deeper with the middle finger.

Faster. Her skin flushed as she rolled, showing off her mastery of self. Each thrust started in her shoulders and traveled down her body in a wave.

Mathilda blushed fiercely too, finally realizing that her voyeurism had been noted.

Val continued to stare unaware.

Faster. Bouncing her slim rear up and down, and taking him in sharp thrusts.

Ayen's face was like stone but for the pebbling of sweat across his brow.

"Oh yes," Erkana moaned loudly. Her left hand slid up his chest in between thrusts, grasping at his chin and lips. Her middle and ring fingers sank into his mouth and grabbed for the back of his tongue. "Fuck yes. Oooh, I'm definitely keeping you for last." Her moaning became more emphatic, equaling the rhythmic slapping of hips against thighs when it wasn't drowning it out completely. Faster. Faster. Sweat poured off of her nose, and her chin. Off of her small, bouncing tits and hardened nipples. Ran in long streaks down her middle and thighs.

The rhythm was lost at the end in a fit of erratic, thunderous thrusts. Erkana impaled herself on his cock with furious effort and whined as she finished, spiraling up to the heights of her register. Her dark green hair, matted around her face. Stray strands clinging to her nose and chin.

"Oh," she panted, as she leaned over Ayen. "Oh, oh, oh." She bit down on her lip and gave a long, high pitched sigh. "Oh I needed that." She withdrew her hands from their various holes, and adjust herself. The left, planted in the dirt beside Ayen's head, while the right came up to slide her dirty middle finger right back over his tongue. "Thank you, half-breed. If you can keep this up, maybe I'll keep you even after I'm done with the oth-"

Erkana's throaty purring was cut off in a gargled squawk as a spear point bloomed out between her breasts. She stared down in shock, and twitched violently as two arrows pierced her back, taking her in the lung and heart. She slumped forward and off of him, and rolled a short distance past him in the dirt.

"Mine!" shouted an almost childlike voice. "Mine landed first!"

"Damnit!"

Two halflings, one carrying a spear and the second one a bow, strode into the firelight looking smug and defeated, respectively. "One gold piece, Broham. Pay up." The second halfling glumly rooted in his pocket while the first one fished a bottle from his hip and knelt down next to Val. "Have a sip."

More of the fluid dribbled down Val's chin than made it over her tongue. The effects were immediate, albeit slow.

"Here," grumbled the second halfling, as he tossed the gold coin through the air. The first one reached out and caught it smoothly as he lifted up Mathilda's chin and poured a little into her mouth as well. The second one grumbled quietly as he made his way toward Katsa.

"Looks like we got here just in time!" the first one laughed.

"Th," Val grunted, her chest heaving with effort. "Th..."

"Give it a minute," the second one said. "This stuff's pretty strong, but it's not magic."

"Th-thank you."

"Oh, it was nothing." dismissed the first halfling, as he tended to the still-unconscious Ivy.

"Aye," gasped Mathilda, as she stretched her tongue around in her mouth. "Seriously."

"No, it was really nothing. Like... nothing nothing."

"Ye saved our lives!"

"Maybe," the second halfling mused, "but that was really accidental more than anything else."

"Hunting trolls is really... is boring the right word?"

"We were trying to see if making a game out of it helped."

"Tedious maybe?"

"I bet him a gold piece that I could beat him down here in a foot race, do four cartwheels coming down the hillside out there, and get in the killshot."

"I fucking had you too." The two Halflings paused, having tended to the women, and looked at each other. Without a word, they broke into a quick best-of-three game of Rock/Paper/Scissors to see who had to go deal with the naked half elf. "Damnit!"

"It is just not your day," the first halfling said. The second one scowled and averted his eyes as he knelt down next to still-ragingly-erect Ayen, and poured a little onto his open mouth.

" 'ow did ye know she 'ad us 'ere?"

The second halfling scoffed. "Everyone knows where Erkana lives. She's, like, green, and she lives under a bridge."

"Yeah. Duh."

Katsa groaned as she writhed on the earthen floor, stirring.

Ivy continued to snore.

"Ah don' un'erstand. If ye knew she was 'ere, an' yer town wanted 'er dead..."

"I don't know, I mean..." The first halfling looked back at the second one and shrugged. "It's... not tedious..."

"It's adventurer's work," sneered the second one.

"That's it. It's like how cleaning isn't really that hard, but it's just way easier to pay someone else to do it if you can afford it."

"Yeah. This is like a half step up from servant work."

"Exactly!" the first halfling shouted. "Servant work! That's what I was searching for." The two of them came together and looked around, nodding. "Well, that killed an hour. What do you want to do now?"

"Did you hear about what Tayrie has? Six silver to fuck a grizzly."

The first one's eyebrows rose. "What in the- Why did you let me talk you into this?! I could be balls deep in a bear right now!"

The two of them scampered off, arguing spiritedly as they passed out of earshot, leaving the dazed and drugged members of Terrible Company to lick their wounds.

Val got up on both feet, huffing as she doubled in on herself. Hands planted on knees. "Should we even bother heading back to see if they'll still pay us?"

"Wha's the worst they can say? No?"

Val walked, on unsteady legs, and picked up the body. "She's seriously only like sixty pounds."

"Ah think this 's another one we jus' never talk abou' again." Mathilda grunted as she scooped Ivy up and dragged her a little closer to the fire.

"That happens an awful lot," Val said, shaking her head, as the dragged the body out toward the mouth of the cave.

Ayen coughed, still laying spread eagle just beyond the warmth of the fire. "Water," he croaked, wearily.

Continued in Chapter 9

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