Harlan decided to handle one of the rulers who failed to live up to his charter due to an unwillingness to change on his own rather than the marshall who was assigned to the city.
“King Fomoria to what do I-”
“Defenestration.”
“What?”
“The act of throwing one from a window.”
“I don’t know what you-”
“Did you think that my men wouldn’t find out what you are doing? That the faction against my charter which has slowed your adoption was being led by you the entire time?”
The man tried to flee and his knights stepped forward, but Harlan killed them with simple jabs that sent the mush which was once their heads flying across the room and caught up to him.
He tried to stab Harlan with a dagger, and so Harlan twisted his hand off before throwing him from the window.
When he saw that the man had survived the fall, Harlan picked up the throne and tossed it down.
“You.”
The advisor who had froze when the fighting started, if it could even be called a fight, was standing where the throne was; it was an execution; the blood of the knights was on her face.
“You are the new queen. My marshall will be watching you.”
“I can’t-”
“I only ask that you make a genuine effort, if you can accomplish that, then you may step down when a replacement is found.”
“But-”
Harlan gave the young woman a gentle smile and put his bloody hand on her shoulder.
“I believe in you.”
The woman only became more confused, but she bowed still, and Harlan left.
Back home, he found a letter for him, and by the number on it, this was the 5th attempt at sending it.
So Harlan went to Elk.
“Harlan! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
She ran up and hugged him.
He had to admit, it warmed his heart to see how well Elk and Ox had adapted to their life in the city, and how thankful she was for him.
“I got a letter, a Mother of Tochter is coming to-”
Her blood ran cold and she ran into her room to start panicking as she packed.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not going, I can’t, I’ll run, she’ll be angry with you if I stay.”
As she hesitated to pack a dress she bought but never took the time to wear because she spent so much of her days and nights working, she started to cry heavily.
Harlan put his hand on her’s.
“I’m not letting you go, and I’m not letting her take you.”
Elk buried her face, covered in snot and tears, in Harlan’s chest.
“You really are too emotional.”
“Elk’s are like this.”
“I was just wanting to ask if you had any insight on the Mother Lioness.”
Elk gulped.
“You are sure?”
“That is what the letter said. On the 10th month of the year on the 24 day, Mother Lioness shall visit the nation of Fomoria for peaceful communication. Why do they call her Lioness by the way? Since before-”
“I’ve never met a Mother, but they are the perfect culminations of the genes that make us. Lion was far from the best of us, I’m… I’m not the best of us…”
Harlan crouched down to eye level with her.
“Yet you had the heart to know right from wrong, that is worth something that can’t be quantified in simple strength.”
His words relit the fire in her heart.
“Mother Lioness is a military leader, the title of Mother is only for the best of a generation in both martial skills and intelligence. If she is coming here, it is either to fight, or because she wants your soulsmithing to bolster the armies of Tochter.”
“I will prepare for the former, and hope for the latter. Do you know anything else?”
Elk seemed embarrassed.
“No.”
“That’s fine. How have things been with Rekur?”
Harlan didn’t need to spend any more time with Elk, but she calmed his heart.
He hoped that Viviane could grow up into a fine young woman like her.
The thought of the daughter he didn’t have, the son he sent away, these things only grew more prominent in his mind as he spent time with her.
What started as a benefit for his mind quickly took a turn for the worse, and he looked for the right time to break away from her.
Harlan prepared his defenses, unfortunately not having time to finish his other project as a result, and eventually the day came, Mother Lioness had come.
She wore armor not unlike the Lions, but she wore a jacket with a fur collar and lacked the mane on her helmet, instead it had a crown like design with five spikes that flared like spearheads as they rose.
Her companions, who wore armors almost like the ones Harlan saw before on Lion’s team, but with gilding on the helmets, were asked to remain outside while Harlan met her alone in his office.
She bowed to him, showing deference, and he asked her to sit.
“King Fomoria, I would like to apologize for the actions of my daughters, Pride is an unfortunate part of the Lion soldiers.”
Harlan chuckled.
“Excuse me?”
“Pride is part of your Lions, a group of Lions is a Pride.”
“Oh? Yes, that is quite humorous.”
She started to lightly laugh, but then it grew in intensity for the course of a minute, until she had tears his her eyes.
“You don’t hear many jokes, do you?”
“No, war has a way of stamping that out.”
She unwrapped a sword, one of the ones which was given to Lion to bring back to Tochter.
“I come here to purchase more of these, along with armor, and whatever other weapons you may have.
And I would like to commission specific weapons and armor for my sisters.”
“I am honored that you would ask for such a thing. But I do have a condition.”
Harlan placed the charter between them.
Lioness was rather conflicted when she was done reading it.
“It would be painful if my daughters were to leave, but if your weapons can boost our power, then we can make up the difference. I will ask for at least the six months you outlined in this charter to implement this.”
“That is fine. In those six months, the weapons I supply will hopefully turn the tide more in your favor, and letting citizens of Tochter leave if they wish can be implemented then. Though, in all honesty, I don’t imagine it would be an issue for you anyway, since you are surrounded by enemies on all sides, and your daughters wouldn’t have a safe place to go unless they crossed all the way over to here.”
“How long will it take to make 600,000 swords, not unlike this one? And the same number for spears, bows, karambits, and hammers, then of course we’ll need the same number of armors for each line. Shields as well for my Oxen.”
“50,000 by the end of the week, I have been preparing for this since I got the letter. From then, I imagine I can produce another 50,000 every other week. But, the armor will naturally take more time, so I can only promise 10,000 of those per week for the foreseeable future. Here is a list of spells that are applicable for each piece of equipment, on the right is the total capacity for each item, and each spell is marked with a number. You can add as many spells as you like so long as you do not use more than the total capacity for an item, and I am willing to teach you how to add spells. I recommend leaving some extra space on each item, since I will not be teaching you how to remove the spells.”
“Perhaps I will need to stay here longer than expected.”
“If you would like to camp outside, I can provide an area for that. If you wish to stay in the city, you may choose any hotel or apartment that is not yet occupied, and I will cover the costs for it, or, you may stay in my home.”
“Hmm… for now, I believe we will find a hotel, not because-”
“I understand. I am not yet really an ally, so it is safer for you to not remain in my home.”
“Thank you. May I take this paper?”
“You may, and I assume you gave an amulet to each of your sisters then so you can decide on the spells along with them?”
“I have, and I will. Thank you for your time.”
Two days later, Lioness returned, but not just with her finalized list of spells and equipment.
“King Fomoria, I apologize if I am too forward, but… may we spar?”
“We may. Would you mind a small audience?”
“I’d rather this remain private, but, if you would like, then a few of your people may attend.”
Harlan brought Elk, Ox, Mercedes, D’if, and Larenzac, while Lioness brought her team.
They didn’t bother with training weapons, anything mundane would just fall apart after a few clashes.
Harlan had forged another one of his femur blades, but what he found was that if he made it under the effect of his sigil, the extra mass and sharpness just faded away.
But, because the blade was connected to him, if he pulled the sigil back in while he held the blade, the extra power would return to it.
He took a deep breath and started slowly, without his sigil.
Everyone could follow along for a while, but when Lioness started to push back and speed up, the two people turned into a blur.
Sparks started to fly, causing D’if to guard Mercedes, who was the only person that couldn’t even follow the blurs at all.
The two of them stopped for a moment, the edges of their weapons red hot.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Is that the best you can do?”
Her more formal demeanor began to fade.
“Mother Lioness, perhaps-”
Before her team could ask her to stop, she rushed at Harlan, who had to use his sigil to keep up to her; she was enjoying this.
The clanging began to grow so loud that Mercedes had to leave as the constant sound was like being inside of a factory.
Elk was the next to leave, she had lost the ability to follow anything at all over a minute ago, and she left with Ox at her back, stray slashes cut the air with enough might that the small ring the fight was taking place in was being destroyed.
Larenzac left too, and was going to bring D’if with him, but when he looked in his eyes, D’if was looking around at high speeds, he could still see what was actually happening, and the grin on his face only grew larger.
A month ago, Harlan would’ve given up after ten minutes, but by bringing in the techniques of the sects and what Xol taught him, he could enhance parts of his body with bits of imbibing without stressing the whole.
From the back of his shoulders he vented the heat generated by his sigil.
With his arms and legs he focused both the flexibility of water and the power of fire.
Xol taught him a method of advanced movement which involved a simple spell which could redirect momentum, letting him make quick feints and blocks without the pause that came from having to stop and start, each movement just went directly from one to the other.
If he could not beat Lioness through direct strength and experience, he would abuse everything he had learned to bridge that gap.
He skipped a dozen times in a row, trying to find any gap in her defenses, but she was quite literally born for combat, and he found some kinship in that.
With one more clash, her sword finally gave out, the white hot edge of it softened the metal to the point where his femur blade sliced through it.
Yet she knew that this would happen, and her sword turned dagger plunged into his heart while she sacrificed her fingers to block his next strike, slapping his blade aside.
Lioness pulled out her blade, the white hot cooling rapidly under the effects of Harlan’s black blood.
She tossed her helmet aside and kissed Harlan deeply, pushing him to the ground as she did.
“Let’s go to your room.”
Harlan was covered in sweat, and only now seemed to come out of a trance to notice how the sparring room was ruined, and the few remaining spectators were huddled together to just defend themselves.
He knew that this was a bad idea, that he barely knew her, but his mind was twisted up from Adina and Elk, and his body certainly wanted this.
Harlan’s room was left a mess.
He wasn’t sure which was more tiring, keeping up with her in bed, or in the ring.
Both of them breathed heavily.
“That was fun.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
She could barely stand.
“Which door is the bathroom?”
“Left.”
With her out of the room, he started to think about what he had done.
He disliked this sort of passionate lust-fueled sex, but at the same time, he was lonely, and there was no real harm that would come from it so long as she didn’t get pregnant; he got up from the bed so he could anxiously pace as he waited for her to return.
She came out and he looked her up and down again, everything had happened so quickly before that it was a blur in his mind.
Lioness had a beautiful and gentle face, shoulder length red hair, but her body betrayed that.
She was covered in muscles and scars from her training and genetic manipulation; the contrast between her and Mercedes was stark.
“I am going to ask you to stay, to make sure you don’t get pregnant.”
“I can no more have a child than a Mule may produce offspring. But, I wouldn’t mind spending a little more time here to assuage your fears.”
“Was it something that happened to you?”
“All daughters of Tochter are barren, perhaps a punishment from the gods for what we’ve done.”
“That would make some sense. I wonder if my Others can mate. I know that a soul may only be split once, any attempts to do this a second time would-”
She couldn’t help but laugh.
“You are aware of our creation, are you not?”
“Yes, you are grown in vats, artificial wombs, and you are only female.”
“Yet you seem unfazed by this.”
“I know what the flesh of almost every intelligent species I’ve encountered tastes like, I can take the forms of animals, other people, and my sword is made from a femur that I ripped from myself and then smithed.”
“And all of that is fascinating to me. And this, what is this?”
She pointed at a pair of black crystal skulls, but didn’t touch them for fear of what may happen; she very much wanted to touch them.
“Oh. I have a paradox twin of myself inside the veil, and we are communicating through Xol, a Lich, but I was developing a way for us to directly contact one another. I invented the process to get past the blocking of the crossroads by the veil. I call it a lifelink, but Xol called it a… let me see, ah, yes, a genetic quantum bridge.”
Harlan had the sense to not explain anything in detail that could be used against him, since while he couldn’t be sure, he believed she would gather any advantage she could.
The next night, she moved her team and herself into the guest rooms of Harlan’s home, but she retired to his room.
She slipped her armor off and into bed with him.
“Before anything else happens, I want to ask, why are you doing this?”
“What part?”
“Well the… sex.”
She sat up.
“If you’d like, we may continue this whenever I may be here, and I would have no issues with you having other women, but my attraction to you is purely physical.
So few people have the ability to fight me, and honestly, that got me… worked up, to say the least.”
“I don’t want that. I hope I don’t offend you if I ask you to please go to another room.”
“Very well. Would you know anyone who is more open to such a proposition and holds martial skill?”
“D’if, my spymaster. He isn’t on my level, but he hasn’t stagnated, and I’ve taught him what techniques I can.”
“I expect to be here for another week, perhaps I shall spar and see if he is worth sharing a bed with.”
She got up and put her armor back on, going across the hall to D’if’s room.
In the next week, Harlan found himself regretful over his moment of weakness, and afraid of what he would’ve done should Lioness found herself pregnant, but as she claimed, and as Elk backed up, the Vatborn could not naturally produce children, and they also didn’t suffer from periods.
Harlan thought that Elk didn’t need to explain that last part.
She started saying something else about wombs but the Harlan could feel how embarrassed she was, and though she seemed intent on explaining, he didn’t make her finish.
----------------------------------------
King Fomoria was called by his god, who had remained silent for months.
“My champion, it has been some time.”
“It has. Any answers?”
“It was a simple mistake, Time took issue with that which I have done.”
“And that is?”
“You shall work with an agent of mine, and you will follow her orders.”
“Can we talk?”
“Her or I?”
“You don’t need to explain anything, I just want to know if this is the path you intended for me?”
“You know that I cannot answer such a thing. But nothing which has happened is too far outside of what could be expected. Yet… his child, I did intend for something to come of that, and now such a thing may not be done with that one.”
“Leave Viviane alone, I won’t-”
“Should I wish to do, I shall, but I intend no harm towards it.”
Harlan felt ill; she wanted to remind him of his place.
“I may guide events towards what was already a possibility, yet I am rarely the entire force behind what is.
Go to my agent, and she will explain what needs to be done.”
He didn’t believe her, but there was no sense in arguing, it wasn’t like he could make her say anything she didn’t want to.
Harlan woke up and she was already in his room.
“It has been some time.”
She laughed and brushed her hair aside; his heart skipped a beat.
“Would I be too forward to ask you to dinner?”
“You are not such a catch that I’d leap at the chance to mate. But perhaps I may consider a meal someday.”
“I would enjoy that. Since we are working together, may I know your name?”
The woman tapped on her chin.
“Perhaps another time. But for now, why don’t you have breakfast, then we may go.”
Harlan gave her a plate of food, but she refused to eat in front of him, and when he reached towards her plate to move it for her, she tried, and failed, to stab him in the hand with her hooked dagger.
Harlan and the agent moved through a void gate of her creation.
Just from the time of day changing, Harlan knew he had to be inside the veil or somewhere otherwise far east of him.
“What are we doing?”
“Oh, just picking up a few things. I simply need you to protect me while I gather these items.”
They were not far from a town.
“And you should wear this.”
It was a black cloak that covered him down to his waist, with holes for his eyes and horns.
“I could just take a human form.”
“Why?”
“Because the Dague are not known in Ragne, so I’d stick out.”
“Oh, yes, then you may pretend to be what you aren’t.”
Harlan furrowed his brows at her odd way of phrasing the statement, but didn’t question it aloud.
It was early in the morning, at the time when the all nighters tucked in, and the early risers had not yet risen.
Naturally, Harlan got strange looks as he walked towards the city with a beautiful woman hand in hand with him; she was like a young girl pulling a giant dog on a leash.
The guards at the gate didn’t stop them after asking the simple questions of who they were and why they were there, but they only made it a few minutes before someone with a fresher mind took a second look at the pair.
“Excuse me, but what is that?”
“Just a friend?”
“May we remove the cloak? Golems aren’t allowed inside cities without proper permits.”
“Of course.”
Harlan pulled up on the hood to reveal his face.
“I am not a machine.”
The guards muttered to one another, questioning why Harlan had the hood on at all.
The agent put her hand near the karambit she kept hidden in her dress folds.
“Ah, excuse me, but, Ragne has no law that says who can and cannot enter a city, provided that they are not a known criminal or otherwise active threat. Even a Fomorian could enter a city and would be afforded the legal rights of any other citizen born in this nation.”
The guards didn’t really have a reason to hassle them, but Harlan was simply too odd to let roam around in their eyes.
The agent sighed, reaching once more for the blade, but Harlan instead then hit them both with electrical shocks, quickly dragging them into an alleyway.
She considered it handled, and continued to walk through the city.
“I don’t want to shed any blood if not needed, those guards were just doing their jobs.”
“People just doing their jobs have been behind many injustices.”
They didn’t speak much more as they made their way to a small alchemy shop.
The owner seemed to have just woken up, or perhaps he had been up the entire night prior.
“Hello. What can I help you with?”
She handed him a slip of paper.
“Ah, the special order, I have it all in a box in the back.”
The man went into the back room and Harlan heard him lock the door behind him.
The agent sniffed the air and tried to run outside, but the door had been locked, forcing Harlan to break it down for her.
“Oh, that is quite odd, I thought I was friendly with that man. Capture him.”
“You’re hurt, I-”
“Capture that man.”
Harlan put her down and took to the sky; he could see her licking her wounds as he flew away.
The man hadn’t made it far, and, so far as Harlan could see, he was just a man.
He descended from above, and the man’s hand turned to claws like short swords, slashing at him.
Harlan would know those anywhere, a Skinwalker.
Instead of a bolt of energy, Harlan used a wave of frost and rapidly cooled the man’s body down.
His metamorphic flesh began to chill and harden like clay.
Harlan knew better than to inject him with any sort of paralyzing agent, and instead bound him in stone taken from the street; he had authority as a champion, the array did nothing to stop him.
Harlan heaved the monster over his shoulder and went back to the site of the explosion, where the agent was in tears telling a story to the guards of her father being the one who ran the store.
They rushed to get more help and the moment she was out of sight, she fled down an ally, where Harlan caught up to her.
“You killed the man who ran that shop, didn’t you?”
It just snarled and tried to lash out at her, and she hissed back at him.
She had remained at an even, almost bored tone in his few short encounters with what he believed to be her real personality where she wasn’t trying to trick someone.
But as she held her karambit in her hand, she was shaking.
She started to cut away at the Skinwalker.
Her eyes showed fury, but she didn’t make a sound.
When the monster was dead, she didn’t shed any tears, nor did she seem overly upset despite her display.
“Well, I suppose we will need to go to another alchemist. I do wonder what set him off? Was it that I requested Skinwalker leather?”
They went to a town and got what she wanted, then it was back to Fomoria.
“Why did you bring me along?”
“Perhaps I wished to see the great King Fomoria which I am told of, or perhaps both of those alchemists had attempted to cheat me before with watered down ingredients and grass clippings in the herbs.
I will not be saying which is the truth.”
She pulled an amulet from a fold in her dress, each actually a spatial pocket.
“I will be busy for the next week, but after that, you may call me when you wish for dinner with me.”
“Alright, I will-”
She gave him a kiss on his cheek and tapped her amulet to his.
Then she moved to his couch and curled up with her blade in her hand.
Harlan stood there stunned for a time before he decided to finish testing his crystal skull communicators while the odd woman slept in his room.