Childhood Demons

So, back to the ruined village on the mountain where things get a little … well, the snow has a hard time staying clean at all, for one thing.

But before that, we’ll look in on the motor launch down at the coast, since you can’t expect a male and three females to sit there looking at each other with halos on, can you?

No you can’t, if I have to tell you. 0_o

*****

A little bay, not far from the village of Colla, Algeria

A’ishah stepped out into the main part of the lower part of the cabin down there below the deck. She’d had to use the head and also, she’d found the large pan of heated water that she’d been told of, so she’d quickly bathed as well.

Now, she looked around a little apprehensively. The cabin was dark and she could see no one and nothing. Clutching the towel to herself, she stepped out cautiously, more than a little nervous over the idea of tripping over something and most of all, she was nervous since she couldn’t see any of her friends.

Suddenly, she was seized and lifted up a little and she screamed. She still couldn’t see anything, but she knew that she was being whirled around and then she felt herself being lifted higher a little roughly and she screamed again. As she struggled to keep what little orientation she had left in the darkness, she heard a match being struck and across the cabin, a small flame flared to life.

The cabin seemed to move again as did the flame and then A’ishah shrieked and cried out to find that something had her by the ankle as well and it was pulling on her leg.

The Bedouin girl screamed again and again as the cabin was lit slowly by the lantern as it began to burn well and was adjusted. For just an instant, she saw the females, grinning and leering at her.

Then she hung upside down, screaming for all that she as worth.

The suddenness and the severe change in her position, coupled with the force of her cries caused a change inside of her which the strangeness of her upside down position didn’t help and in the middle of all of the heavy breathing around her and as she struggled and fought helplessly, a small sound escaped from the bottom of her – which was the top at that point.

There was sudden silence for a moment and it happened again.

Even upside-down, A’ishah’s eyes widened.

Then the moment was over and they all laughed, A’ishah laughing the loudest.

Håkan rolled his eyes, though he was chuckling as he eased A’ishah down onto the bed.

“I couldn’t help it! “she laughed and it turned into a squealing laugh after a second, “I’m sorry,” she gasped, trying to get her words out, “I tried really … hard that time, I swear it.”

“Throw her over the side,” Zhaeri laughed, “Any girl can make a better actress.”

“Can we try again?” A’ishah asked, “I’ll do better, Håkan. Just give me another chance. I didn’t know that I’d do that.” She began to laugh all over again. “It was an accident!”

“Always laughing,” Koåhn giggled as she pointed, “A’ishah likes too much.”

Håkan was smiling though he shook his head slowly, “Not much matches left.”

“She wriggles like an eel,” Zhaeri grinned, “do it anyway.”

The male nodded and he grabbed A’ishah’ ankle once more and then she was upside down again. “W-what are you going to do … to me?”

He didn’t answer, other than leer at her. He only lifted her higher and she grew a little fearful, since this wasn’t as the game was to go.

But Håkan didn’t care and he lifted her high enough so that the sole of her foot brushed the ceiling. She felt his hand against the small of her back as he pulled her closer to him.

His arms slowly wrapped around her and A’ishah eased her legs down slowly on either side of the male’s head, all the nervousness and uncertainty gone from her as his tongue told her how he really felt as he carried her folded in half over him to step to the bed and lay her down as he knelt on it.

She was just reaching for his thick shaft when she saw it recede into the distance a little bit before she could get it and there was a hand against her mound.

“You are not wet enough to play with him,” Zhaeri pronounced as Koåhn pulled A’ishah even more. A’ishah struggled for a moment and then Koåhn quickly lowered herself over the Bedouin’s face.

A’ishah struggled and fought, but it was no use and so she began to lick the wild one’s labia, reaching up to hold her hips and pull her down a little more. A’ishah had come to love the way that they were larger than her. She liked it whenever they pulled her around because really, they were being very gentle.

And something that she really loved was to press her face into these sweet, dark places and suck hungrily.

She felt Koåhn caressing her body softly while Zhaeri pulled her legs apart and began to do the same thing to A’ishah. The only difference was that she was being more … general about it and licked and drooled over everything from asshole to tea kettle and from one thigh to the other down there on A’ishah – who wondered at it a little.

After a time where Koåhn had her pleasure for a while, and A’ishah had taken hers twice, they moved and A’ishah hung in their grasp, one each holding her up by the wrists to carry her the short distance to where Håkan lay waiting for her.

She was placed carefully so that she sat on his large and very hard masculinity and the bottom of it pressed against her to make her moan. A’ishah’s eyes were wide by that point and Zhaeri whispered to her roughly. “Lean on him, my little love. Put your hands on his chest and rub yourself along him.

Listen to us, and you will come to know one way to please him, other than only looking at you so fondly.”

As they coached her, A’ishah began, doing her best to heed what they told her to do and before long, she and Håkan were smiling at each other as she worked her hips to glide back and forth while Koåhn looked on from where she had her head against her brother. A’ishah watched as her long tongue darted out to tease one or the other of them.

This was a little sad to her because she’d have wanted to lie enveloped in his arms as he fucked her bet she doubted if anything like that would ever happen. He felt amazing to her any time that he hugged her, but he dared not even sleep with her for fear of hurting her.

She still wanted him to fuck her and she still knew that he wouldn’t – because he couldn’t – for several reasons and all of them came down to his size and hers. But this way, she could at least pretend to be his third and smallest wife. This way, she could share something with him and it was enough because it would have to be. Besides, she liked it.

After her bucking orgasms … after his quiet bellow and the way that she watched so much of his seed fly out of him into Koåhn’s waiting mouth. Zhaeri lifted A’ishah, gasping and sweating, to carry her gently and lie her down in the other bed.

A’ishah looked up as Zhaeri eased herself down and she smiled, “You want me again?”

Zhaeri smiled down in reply, but she shook her head, “No. I want none of your brothel teachings now – though I have become such a willing learner.

Now, I want only to hold the one who has taken all of our hearts.”

She wrapped herself around A’ishah so that they were face to face, “I want to look at you,” she smiled as her hand lifted A’ishah’s leg.

She stopped abruptly at that moment and A’ishah looked at Zhaeri’s eyes, open as they were and yet seeing nothing – at least, nothing that was near to her for a long moment.

A’ishah grew concerned and was about to cry out in alarm, but then Zhaeri came back to herself and smiled even more. “I am sorry, my love. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I only felt something.”

“What was it?” A’ishah asked, her words coming out in a little moan the next instant as she felt Zhaeri’s fingers begin to work their magic on her sex.

“Kiss me for a little while,” the she-orc whispered, “and I’ll tell you a little tale for once.”

Two things that A’ishah loved about Zhaeri – aside from being in love with her and Koåhn, was the way that her fingers did what magical things that they did to her, and how she loved to kiss Zhaeri slowly and suck on her tusks as much as she wanted.

After a time, Zhaeri drew back and came at A’ishah from a different angle, so that she could lick the ear that she wanted to whisper into.

“Yasmikha, …” she sighed, “Yasmikha has met the man. I have seen him through her eyes as they spoke.”

“Big, blonde,?” A’ishah asked, licking Zhaeri’s cheek where she could.

She felt Zhaeri’s cheek move as she nodded once, “And beautiful – just as you both said. He is tall and a little mysterious as I saw him.”

She smiled and A’ishah felt it, so she did, wondering what had caused it.

“He is fearless,” Zhaeri sighed slowly as she let her fingers tell their own tale inside of A’ishah very slowly, promising the slow and long-lasting bliss that A’ishah loved so much from her alone, “Fearless he is and very, very strong.

A little shy as well, for he has never seen one like my sister before and from her, I can read her wondering thoughts and feel how much she likes him and – ”

“And what?” A’ishah moaned in a little voice, already feeling like a little leaf slipping downstream in a stream for how good it felt to her.

Zhaeri didn’t answer for a moment, but then she looked into A’ishah’s eyes, “More joy for all of us, I think. Yasmikha’s soldier friend has a … he has a tail.”

———

Djuradjura Mountains

There was a soft sound from the doorway as someone walked up in the snow and then they heard a deep gasp. When they looked, the large female was standing in the doorway looking back in surprise. She paused for a moment, seeing the others.

“There are many coming up the other pass,” she said, “Very unusual for them to move in numbers at night. You must be wanted badly by them. Who -?”

“Childhood friends,” Kari smiled as he walked to pick up his weapon, “I think it is a lucky man who can find the demons of his youth still alive and well after so long. This is Ahnyazh and Felldis. I … you never mentioned your name before.”

“Yasmikha,” she said cautiously as she looked at the others, “I didn’t say it since you did not give your name.”

“Kari,” he smiled as he stepped over, “Or will I now have to fight my way north alone?”

“No,” she shrugged, though after a second, she began to smile, “Bring your demon friends along. I would hope that they can fight. If we stand here for much longer, we will need whatever they can do.”

Ahnyazh passed Yasmikha a little closely and gave her an appraising look, “Very … nice,” she nodded with a little smile which the she-orc saw was genuine.

Felldis found that he had a little trouble holding the female’s gaze and she slid her hand over his backside as he passed.

“I need to learn where you find such friends, Kari,” she chuckled, “I admire your taste.”

“We saved him when he was very sick,” Felldis offered.

“He was promised to us,” Ahnyazh nodded, “in exchange.”

Kari looked back and she motioned for him to lead them, “It is nothing anymore,” she said in their speech, “Just something to toss at another female. I like her. Have you known her long?”

He shook his head, “We met only this evening.

And it is not nothing. I have never forgotten how we were given to each other, you were both promised to me by your mother as mine promised me to you. If we live through what comes, I think that we ought to all collect on the rest of our debts, if you still want to.”

“Old friend,” she smiled and he watched as it turned into a grin, “I ached only to hold you when we were small since it was all that we knew to do. Now you tempt me with a new ache.”

She chuckled, “Felldis always told me that you would tempt us only to see you if we ever met again. To think that I never believed him. …

I think now that you were right after all. Please take your wrappings from my wings. I feel that they wish to return and I wish to do what I must to keep you alive and with us.

Twenty years and yet you remember us. That is worth more to me than anything. The least that I can do is to believe in the male who was promised to us and want my wings returned to me so that I can help him again.”

When Kari looked at her back, he saw that his dressings were being pushed aside from within, and there were sprouts there peeking out and already growing. He was amazed, even though he had a fair feeling that he’d been correct all along. He looked back at Felldis for a moment and he saw a slavering leer on that face, now that Ahnyazh was getting better again.

“Please come back to me unharmed,” Kari said in a demonic whisper meant for only them as he worked, “I have lived thinking that you died in that house. To find you among the living and here with me … I … I still love you.”

Ahnyazh seized him and held on tightly as she waved her brother over, “Felldis, mark this night. Our Kari is returned to us.” The three shared a kiss a Yasmikha watched and then they stepped out into the night.

Outside the ruined door, Kari pulled off the last of the dressings and dropped them in the snow. Ahnyazh shook her head and bent forward a little as she frowned with some effort while she began to grunt softly with every strained breath. As Kari stared, her wings returned to her, growing before his very gaze until she spread them fully less than a minute later and leaned her head backward with a soft roar for how very good that it felt to her.

When she looked across to him, her eyes were brimming and she quickly brushed the tears away with her fingers, “I will always listen to you for this. I have kept my life and my wings because of you. Luck?”

She laughed, “Lucky are the ones who find their male alive and well and still believing in them after so long. Before one hair on your head is harmed, we will cover the hills with blood if we must.

Come, Brother,” she smiled over, “there is killing which needs doing. After everything that we have shared as children, I think it is long past time for us to breed with him.”

Felldis nodded with a suddenly happy laugh, “I want. … I want both!”

Yasmikha stared in wonder until Ahnyazh looked over with a pleased smile, “Which direction, lovely one? Show us the way to where we are to begin and … how many do we speak of here?”

Yasmikha pointed, “That way, perhaps a hundred and more. Some horses too. I would spare those, were I you. Not everyone here can fly and the snows down below on the other side are deep.”

The pair of demons took off then, leaving the echoes of their wild laughter behind them.

“What now? Kari asked, “There is not much more that I can get my comrades to do in their defense that we have not already done.”

“We take their weapons,” Yashmikha shrugged, “We will put the bullets to better use, I think. I doubt that their first thoughts when they awake will have any sense to them if they see me or the ones who fly. After that, I think that we ought to go and see if your friends need any help. We can always wake these three if we are losing and are chased back up here.”

He nodded and they walked softly over to where the men slept, taking their guns.

“Why do you smile so?” Kari asked as they began to walk in the other direction just as the faint sounds of gunfire came to them through the falling snow.

Yasmikha chuckled, “Your girlfriend there, she called me lovely. I need more friends like her. Will they be alright until we get there? I would hate for them to be harmed. And what was that business about her wings?”

Kari made a face as he shouldered the heavy machine gun as well as the rifles, “The wings were taken from her by a man, a mage or something like that who was hiding in that building. I think that he told the others that he would bring them a weapon in Ahnyazh by forcing her to kill us for their cause. I don’t mind their cause; I would just prefer not to die for being on the other side of it. I even admire what they are attempting.

From what I saw, he’d prepared well, so that when she was drawn through, she was in a circle which bound her. He had iron chains on her before she knew what was happening. They can be bound that way as well, but only for a time. Still, it hurts them. While she was like that, he cut her wings off crudely, being no swordsman. He was about to cut her tail off when I walked in.

Felldis forced his way through, but wasn’t able to do much beyond harassing the idiot. If he’d come through in the same place, he’d have been trapped too by the circle, but with no chains to bind him … Felldis might have been able to free Ahnyazh. I got there in the middle of it all.”

He looked over, “They can be bound – even imprisoned – but one who does that must live with the knowledge that they will repay the debt, somehow, someday, but with certainty. And they can travel in their pursuit of vengeance – even to the other side of human death, since it is not the same to them.

But for them to even be here is a little like breaking some laws of existence. I was of the mind that her wings might come back and I was right, I guess. I just didn’t know that with a little proof, her will could do the rest. I doubt now that there are any broken wings lying on the floor in that place.

And your cares are at least a little groundless. Her kind is very hard to harm at all, once they are here. It is very hard to kill them unless they are weakened. I knew them when we were children and they did save my life, along with the strength and efforts of our mothers.”

“And are you promised to them, as was said?” Yasmikha asked.

Kari nodded, “It was the bargain struck between two mothers then. I was very sick and they came through to help me until I was better. I got a little of their blood as they got mine, so by the time that I was fully grown, I was much stronger. The exchange caused them to have blue in their yellow eyes. Also, since we have never had the chance to fully explore it, we do not know how much they became akin to what I am and how close that I was brought to being what they are.

I do know that it obviously wasn’t a complete exchange or I’d have died. Their blood is poison to humans in anything but trace amounts.”

He sighed, “At least I’ve never felt the need to eat human flesh, so I’m a little thankful.

She nodded with a little smile, “I think that I know now how a human man can have a tail.”

He nodded, “I can hide it from others, but not ones like you who have the true sight. More than anything, I now want to join with them, out of long memories and desires which grew in us over time.”

She reached over and touched his hair near the front of his head, “You didn’t mention these little things.”

Kari shrugged, “I often forget them unless I’m trying to comb my hair.”

Yasmikha smiled, “They’re very small of course, but I like them. Seen in the right way, they give you a certain character, I think.”

He looked over with a soft smile, “I don’t think that any of this should dissuade you if you might still have an interest, Yasmikha. All that has changed is that for the first time in so long, I am back among the only others of my particular kind, for they were changed as well by it. They are demons and I am not, but to us, we are the same.”

“Oh, I’m not dissuaded,” she chuckled, “I seem to keep finding more things to like about you.”

It brought a wide smile to Kari’s face, “You just ought to allow the three of us a little time. We have been lost to each other for so long and to find them means that we need to be together to learn what we have or do not. You like Felldis too, yes?”

Yasmikha groaned quietly, “From my first look and it is strange to me. I have never liked ones that size before, but there is something to him – to them both, actually. It makes me want them in the strangest way. I think that I’d need to be a little careful not to break his back – but ohh Kari, how I want that male.

I see what he has plainly, as bare as they both are. I’d have never given a thought to something that … modest. And yet, I want what I saw so much.”

“Have you ever had a demon before?” Kari asked a little innocently.

“Not a male, no,” she admitted, “Not even a full female. Why?”

“Nothing,” he smiled.

It made him chuckle and after a moment, they were both laughing as they walked on in the darkness.

———

The main fight was really not anything which might fit the word. Mostly, the demons were blocking the way back down, killing anyone who thought to try to get past them to escape back down, since it was what they seemed to want to do at the first look they got.

Ahnyazh and Felldis made their approach known with their blood-chilling cries and laughter and before the men knew it, death had taken wings around them all. The demons did nothing once the ones in their hands were dead besides throw them off the ridge and look for the next. Faced with groups, they just waved in certain motions and the men were in agony for a moment before they exploded. By the time that the leaders decided to go ahead and not back, they’d lost over half of their number.

But they couldn’t move forward either. The men milled about, fearful of things that they couldn’t see in the dark and more than a few were killed by nothing more than the nervous gunfire of their frightened companions.

The way forward was blocked by Kari and Yasmikha in a very narrow draw, and there was no other way around them.

Four men on horseback decided to charge through in desperation, but the draw was too narrow and they lost speed from the jostling, since none of them wanted to be the last one through. The jostling got worse as the demons came from the rear without a sound and tore the last two men out of their saddles. The riderless horses forged ahead in terror and forced their way past the remaining riders.

The third man fell from his mount when he’d been shot off it by Kari. The last one rode on, falling off slowly from the shotgun blast that Yasmikha fired from beside him, less than five feet away after he’d tried unsuccessfully to ride her down. Kari and Yasmikha began to walk forward to the entrance of the draw and from there, Kari handed Yasmikha one of the rifles and they caused more attrition by shooting men from there.

After that, it was just walking through the killing zone, dispatching any who were still alive.

“Leave me to this woman’s work,” Yasmikha said, “See if you can find us at least five and maybe six good horses. And let one of them be a large one, if you please. I am not a little thing.”

“No,” Kari agreed with a grin, “It’s one of the many things that I am coming to admire about you, Yasmikha.”

She glared at him – in spite of his feigned angelic expression as she tried to determine if there had been an insult in it.

She found none and then she threw her head back and laughed in spite of herself.

“And what was that I heard about breeding?” she called as she turned back.

His chuckle echoed down the draw to her, “We met when Ahnyazh and I were six, Felldis was five. We couldn’t take our eyes off each other. We were children together, but we only got to actually be together to play a very few times and the rest, we had to content ourselves with looking through to the other plane at each other.

What do you think you would want with the ones who were promised to you long ago?”

Yasmikha shook her head so that he could see it, “Just tell me, Kari.

Does that mean that you’ll fuck them or not?”

“Until none of us can stand up,” he called back.

Yasmkha laughed to herself. She couldn’t believe how she felt, liking him so much after such a short time and in such a shitty place.

“Does that mean that I can have some too?” she called back and she listened as he laughed.

“Yes,” he shouted, “but not for the first hour. Ask them nicely if you can join in after that. They like you.”

——-

“Jesus and all of the saints in Heaven protect us,” one of the men exclaimed, “You want us to … go with these demons and this … whatever sort of bitch that she is?”

Kari nodded, “If they wanted to kill you Armando, they’d have done it last night. But they didn’t, did they?

No, they were off down the mountain with me, fighting to keep you alive while you were dreaming of big-titted tavern wenches. They kept more than a hundred off your stupid face and you didn’t even know.

Go for a walk down the draw if you don’t believe me. See the yards of red snow for yourself. There’s a meadow at the bottom just before it gets steep, and it’s got more than sixty corpses all over it. I think the rest went over the edge.”

He stepped back then, clearly annoyed now. He’d expected some trouble convincing them, but he would have liked a little more logic in what they said.

“Look, we’re all that’s left, us four, and we’re three hundred miles and more from Algiers – and that’s not even counting the miles just to get off this ball-breaking mountain. Even if you could get down alone, you wouldn’t make it very far. A few worn-out legionnaires in a land where we’re hated? What chance do you think we have?

And this one here kept us all alive even before the others came. She was the lion that Juan saw in the darkness out there, killing the ones who kept us hemmed in up here, so watch your stupid mouth.”

The Spaniard leaned forward, glancing nervously at his saviors, “We’ve known each other for a long time, Northman. You say that this girl has a boat? What kind of boat? How big? What drives it, the wind?”

“Eleven and a half meters,” Yasmikha said as she ran a stone over the edge of her axe blade, “Diesel engine. I have more than enough fuel to get us to Sardinia, Corsica, Italy, France, even Spain.”

“And you’d take us for nothing?” he asked and she nodded, “I offered to take Kari and these demons. He said that he wanted you three to have the same chance. I agreed. There are four others on that boat now as they wait for me, my brother and two sisters among them.”

She stopped speaking to look over at the other two men, seeing that they weren’t even paying attention. She ran her palm past their eyes, because they were staring at the naked demons, who in turn were looking out at the two wild goat carcasses that Yasmikha had dressed out and hung over the back of the two horses who’d carry them down. The men were not listening.

“I can’t help them if they’re not even listening to me,” she said, “They only stare.”

Kari spoke to his friends and they changed their appearance in an instant to resemble a pair of clothed middle-aged people, much like anyone and completely unremarkable. The two men jumped up crossing themselves and said that they wouldn’t go.

“Fine,” Kari sighed, “What of you, Juan? Will you come? I’ve been told that A’ishah waits there for you.”

The Spaniard looked up, “A’ishah? You mean the young whore? What do I care about her? She was just a fuck that I paid for a few times.”

Yasmikha leaned forward, her tusks in plain view as she thrust out her jaw, “You have one chance left, Spaniard. A’ishah is my friend. She likes you. She would want for you to get off this mountain to safety. You need me to get you to her and then go north. I am not going back to Algiers. You can even go your way once we get to the plains below if you don’t wish to see her.

Is there anything that I have said that you do not understand?”

He shook his head, “I understand. I do not want to go anywhere with her. I have three men to think of.”

Yasmikha crossed her arms as she looked at him, “Stay here then and think of men until you are all dead.”

Kari shook his head, “Two men is all that you have, Jaun. I’m leaving. All that I ask is that – if you do get back to Algiers, is that you tell them I was killed. But why won’t you come with me? These two are as good as dead to refuse. Don’t join them, Juan.”

Juan sat back and looked through his pockets for his cigarettes. Finding them, he drew one out and lit it with a match. “Northman, what do you know of these ones? How do you know that they won’t kill you for whatever reason they might have? To drink your blood maybe, I can’t say. They are demons. How do you know them?”

Kari shrugged, “I can’t say how they came to be here so that you would understand, but last night, there was a man who had been hiding in that building there since before we got here. He pulled this one out of where she was. He wanted to use her to kill us. This kind eats flesh of one kind or another.

But I know them, Juan. By purest chance, these two, I grew up with them. I’ve known them since we were children.”

The Spaniard nodded, “And in what hell pit was that? You’re finally really crazy. I’m not going with you.”

As they walked away, Juan ran out after them. “Don’t go, Northman. Those three will kill you.”

Kari kept walking, “Who’s crazy now? They didn’t even know each other before last night. Goodbye, Juan, and good luck.”

“Where are our guns?” Juan shouted.

“In the house behind you,” Kari said, “You just have to break down the door. I want a chance to get away before you start shooting the last three bullets and seal your fates.”

“Why so few rounds left?” Juan shouted.

Kari shrugged, “Our sea captain here used a few as did I to keep you safe. Sorry, but that was how it went.”

Juan fell silent. He didn’t think that they had even a chance with so few shots left. He heard a sigh and when he turned, he almost fell to his knees.

“Please come with us, Juan? We could be together again with no one to pay as I love you.”

He stared, his mouth open at the sight of A’ishah standing naked in the snow, “Please come. I’m so cold here. I need you to keep me warm. Please?”

Juan knew for certain that this was not the girl that he knew, and yet …

“A’ishah,” he whispered, “You can’t be here … not like that. You’ll catch your death.” He walked over to where she stood and took her into his arms. “I’ve got to go now,” he said, “I’ve got to get you off this mountain or you’ll freeze to death.”

When he blinked, he found himself in the arms of one of the demons, the male, who smiled softly.

“So she is more to you than just a fuck,” Yasmikha grinned, “Why not let your heart guide your actions? It’s a lot more honest than your brain, Juan.”

He shook his head, trying not to lose his bladder on the spot, “No. This foul fiend will drink my blood.”

He tried to pull away, but the demon took him by the face so that he couldn’t look anywhere else. “I can drink blood, but it is not what I want. I crave meat most of all. But I want to try to live on what you eat to see if I can. Come with us. We promise not to harm you.”

“But you’re … not A’ishah,” Juan stammered.

The demon shook his head, “No. I only used what I saw in you for that. Come with us, and you can see the one that you want. As much as I would like it, I’m sure that she would be happier than me to hold you while you fuck her again and again.”

Felldis smiled a little shyly, “What I would like … just for me … is that you teach me how you eat. I would try to learn to like it and if I could, then I would want you to teach me how to cook it for myself.

If A’ishah agrees to share you, then I would be happy to make love with you, the way that you wish for, but have never tried with more than two others in your life. Those times live on in your mind. I want to see myself in there as well. Could we?

Or must I turn into one of the boys from when you were all eighteen? That summer on the farm? Remember those times in the sun of the orchard? Those nights where the three of you fucked each other senseless in the barn?”

Juan started to pull hard to get away, shaking his head in horror.

“Those nights where you fucked each other after all of you had fucked the farmer’s daughter? You remember pretty Esma, don’t you? She was the one that you killed together because she was going to -”

“NO!” the Spaniard screamed, trying desperately to yank himself free from the grasp which held him so securely.

He found himself on his back where he’d landed, lying on the frozen, snow-covered ground alone.

He saw the demon step forward into his field of view, looking down at him, “Or is that getting a little too close to why you are here in the first place? They still want you for that murder there, don’t they, Juan?”

Felldis was beautiful, but his expression changed then, “Don’t you dare to call me a foul fiend. I am neither one.

You can put your holy words into your curses all that you want. It changes nothing. It buys you nothing. If I were you, carrying what sins that you do on my soul, I’d get myself to a church and spend the rest of my life in there, seeking atonement for the crimes that you’ve committed.”

He nudged the human’s face with the claws on his feet, “I’d have spoken all the rest of the things that you’ve done, but you’re not worth my breath.”

Yasmikha and Kari got onto their horses and turned away to ride off. The demons looked back and then took off, to land astride the horses behind the others.

They were two hundred yards down the slope, picking their way by the time that the men stood at the top and began shooting.

“I am losing faith with you and how you choose your friends,” Yasmikha said, “I like your childhood ones, make no mistake in my meaning. I just have no use for the ones who have guns.”

Ahnyazh said, “They are not shooting at us. The other two have shot Juan.”

Kari nodded, “Well there’s brilliance for you. No matter what he’s done, he was their only hope to get off this mountain alive.”

There was a ricochet off a nearby boulder and they flinched for a moment.

“NOW they are shooting at us, Ahnyzh said.

Kari looked at her and nodded sadly.

She spread her wings and seeing it, Felldis did the same and a moment later, they were climbing as they flew of out of sight around the mountainside. Yasmikha and Kari rode on.

The demons were back a little later, looking well-fed and bloody as they stood rubbing snow on their faces and chests to get clean. After that, they landed on the horses again. Yasmikha turned her head and looked at them, though she had trouble seeing Ahnyazh there behind her, “There is a girl on the boat. Her name is A’ishah.”

“The one that was spoken of,” Felldis said and she nodded, “Do not tell her what happened. She said that she did not love the Spaniard, but I think that she probably had some feeling for him at least. If she asks, do not tell her what was said or anything. Above all, do not say what he said of her. Tell her that you saw no one like that.”

They nodded and the group rode on in silence for a time.

Yasmikha looked across and saw Felldis sitting behind Kari with his eyes closed and a little smile on his face.

“Tell me friend,” she said quietly, “I know of how our large companion was saved. But I don’t understand what I’m looking at over there. Your brother looks to be in love – or do I see things wrongly here?”

Ahnyazh looked across for a moment as she held onto Yasmikha from behind, not being too sure about sitting on moving livestock. “You are right. We have loved each other for a long time, all of us. But we never had the chance to be together, other than a few times when we played as any children do. Our mother told us that he was for us. She said that we would be a little changed after what we did to keep his life inside him.

For a week, we were against him almost always. Humans cannot stand heat like that by themselves. If they have a fever high enough, their minds can be damaged, and they go into spasms where their bodies try to bend themselves in two backwards. But as we held him between us, his mind came to stay with ours. I remember having Kari and my brother inside of my head, and for a time, I was in Felldis’ mind too. We stayed like that for a long time.

So after that, we have always wanted to be together, but we couldn’t because we had to go back to our side, where he couldn’t follow. The others of us would have smelled his human blood and he’d have been taken in minutes.

All that we had was the ability to touch our hands together against the border between us. We could only come to visit him for short periods. All of us knew that one day, when we were older, we would have each other to love and breed with. Felldis and I have always only done so much because the third one of us was missing.”

Yasmikha thought about it, “So Kari likes males as well?”

She felt Ahnyazh shrug, “Others? I cannot say. But I know that he craves Felldis as Felldis aches for him, just as he craves me and always has from when we were little. If it had gone the way that it was supposed to, we’d all have been happy. Now, we need to learn of each other again, and this time it will be harder, for we are all of age and breeding together comes into it. We must have changed to each other at least a little.

But to answer you, yes. We are three who love each other. I will bear their spawn when it is time. I can tell that you like him.”

Yasmikha chuckled, “Do I hide it that well? I first saw him, and only in a few glimpses maybe a fortnight ago, many miles from here. From that, and meeting A’ishah, I learned that he would come here. So I came, wanting to meet him. I knew nothing of his attachments with you and your brother.

Yes I like him. I can’t recall ever knowing a human man that I liked much at all, so I am surprised at myself. Tell me something else; is what you have between you all that there can be? He told me not to be dissuaded after you left to begin the fight.”

“No,” Ahnyazh replied, wanting to find a way to perhaps be a little evasive until she had time to feel what Kari felt.

When it came to her mind, Yasmikha felt Ahnyazh nod to herself against her back, “He likes you. I can feel it. Felldis as well. I like you too, Yasmikha. I have never seen one of your kind, though I know of them. Why do you ask? Do you wish to bear his spawn too?”

Yasmikha’s eyes widened to hear that, “I uh …

Not just yet,” she said, “I might be a little slower to make up my mind about that.”

“Ahh,” Ahnyazh said, wanting to tease a little, “So you saw him and had to know more, yes?”

“Yes,” the she-orc nodded, “He is very good to look at – quite obviously – especially to a girl as … ”

“Beautiful?” Ahnyazh suggested.

The orc was flustered at that, “No – I mean, yes – I mean … that wasn’t what I meant. What I meant to say is that girls like me, the -”

“The lovely kind, yes, go on,” Ahnyazh prompted.

“No! That wasn’t what I was going to say,” Yasmikha said, a little frustrated, “Why do you keep trying to put words into my mouth?”

“I spoke no falsehoods,” the demon stated, sounding a little reserved and chastised, “You are those things. Do you not own a mirror?

Tell me when you have a moment. I would be happy to show you exactly the way that you look. I am what some call a shapeshifter – a deceiver. But that is only what I use to secure myself a meal sometimes. I could show you what others see in you, especially Kari, for I can see into his heart very clearly. I think you would be surprised at what he carries there for you.”

Yasmikha was surprised already.

Actually, she was a little astounded. “Really?”

“Oh yes,” the demon replied airily, “He has hopes where you are concerned. Is it alright for me to say that to you? He has never found a woman of just the right … size, who is so lovely to his eyes. A man like him can have hopes like that. Every woman that he has ever known was too small to him, save only one.

I should say it better. He likes small females very much. He only feels that he would need to treat them like the most delicate things, out of fear to harm them, the way that some humans enjoy having delicate treasures. But you and I both know that a male of his size also wants to breed with a female who can take what he gives … if the mood is on him.