The Dark Chronicles Ch. 08

Artur had sent on ahead his two swiftest men, to ride along the coast where the bogs and marshes spread long miles, and bade them light beacons if they saw sails. There, far off, glowed an orange light, a dull bounce from the base of the clouds.

"They come," said Artur, "with their long ships and high sails. We wait until they beach and camp, and we'll wake them from their sleep, slit their throats. No mercy, none."

He spoke to his men. "Eat and sleep now, be ready. They'll come with the dawn, I feel it."

He turned to Lilith. "Come, daughter of mine, we'll hide amongst them."

Artur and Lilith rode away from the camp, down a winding track towards the grey shingled beach. They rode slowly, Lilith's big grey stallion shoulder to shoulder with Artur's horse. The horses nickered and pranced, restless and tense like their riders. Both the king and his daughter, the man and the woman, scanned the path from side to side, their eyes sharp.

"There," said Artur, pointing. "There, it will suffice for hiding."

They rode off the path a small distance, and dismounted by a small copse. Beyond it, a muddy bog lay dark and thick; beyond that, a clear space of long grass and rushes edged a small stream running down to the beach. They led the two horses into the copse, where they were hidden from any watcher's sight. Artur lifted down their travelling packs, and Lilith set a long tether for the horses.

From their packs they each pulled wide brown cloaks the colour of earth, and they set about lacing reeds and grasses through the coarse weave, until each cloak, when laid on the ground, disappeared as if it was never there.

"'Tis good," said Artur. "The ground will crawl amongst them, and rise up with sharp knives."

"Tis better," replied Lilith, "for our bodies to be covered in mud, and their dogs sleep on until they die."

Artur looked upon his daughter and saw her face, and knew it ruthless and unforgiving, driven by the Goddess and her own fierce passion. An enemy of hers would suffer, with no forgiveness given.

"Come, Father, undress and crawl with me in muddy waters, and we be as rocks and stone and pass unseen on dark paths."

Lilith took her father's hand and placed it on her breast, over her heart.

"Feel it beat, Father, feel my heart beat, and know it's yours, my heart."

"Ah, Lilith, my love, my sweetest girl; kiss your father and show me."

They kissed, and it was a slow passion between them, burning from a thousand days and a thousand days before, searing their souls together like twisting smoke from a fire. As they undressed each other, their limbs twisted and coiled around the other's body like snakes caressing on a darkened path.

Standing naked under the high moon, Artur held his daughter's taut body hard against his chest, one hand holding the breast over her heart, the other cupping the mound of her sex, his own sex rigid against her spine, hot and hard.

Lilith arched her head back, offering her throat to his mouth, then turned and took his mouth with hers. Her kiss was deep and long, her tongue slow with his. With her hot left hand, her favoured hand, she reached between them and placed his thick heat against her belly, and pressed herself there.

"Ah, Father, I feel your burning love, all mine..."

And she slid down his body, her hands with fingers splayed wide, running down his back to the tight muscled cheeks of his ass. She gripped him, and pulled his body to hers, and lowered her mouth to his high standing prick. Lilith took her father the king into her mouth, looking up at him with her eyes drowsy closing, sucking him slowly as he stood on the ground of his country, his land.

Artur held his daughter's head gently in his hands, and she reached up between his legs and cradled his balls, high and tight in his pleasure. Lilith eased her mouth from his long cock, and smiled. "Slowly, Father, no rush; do it slowly." And with practised hands she pulled the high sac of his eggs down away from his body and slowed him, and made him rise again.

She did it like that three times, urging him up as he stood, until she knew his moment was coming. She released his cock from her mouth and stood, holding him tight against her belly once more, his flesh hot against hers, her long fingers down around his balls again. This time, when she kissed him, she didn't tug his balls down, but urged his seed up, urging him up, kissing him hard in her passion, stroking his long cock, up, faster and faster, her tongue deep in his mouth.

Lilith ground her firm, full breasts against his chest, swaying from side to side to rub her nipples against his flesh, arousing herself against her father's body. She stroked him fast, her palm wet from his early juice, bringing him up to his peak.

"Ah, my father, do you love me?"

And with her final stroke of his cock, Artur the king shot his seed in long spurts over Lilith's belly, her fingers squeezing and pulling the juice from his body, rubbing it up all over her breasts.

"Oh my father, mine, all mine."

And she lowered her head and licked it all from his skin, and all the time his fingers gently held Lilith's head.

After a long moment with Artur's cock losing its swell, he dropped to his knees and held his daughter close, her smiling lips still salty with the taste of his seed. They held each other's cheeks, and Lilith gazed steadily into his eyes. He didn't waver, there was no doubt his love for her was true.

"Come, Father, let us swim in this bog, and coat ourselves in water and mud, that dry on our skin and hide the smell of us from pestilent dogs. Then we go near to the beach in our cloaks, we hide and wait." She too was practical, accepting that their physical love for each other was an essential part of their relationship with the land and the high magick it took to defend it. Artur would say, "No matter," but Lilith knew everything mattered, every drop, every sigh.

Holding each other's hand, they entered into the bog which was warm from the day's high sun, and covered themselves in the mud, head to foot. Once covered, they returned to their little camp site and armed themselves with sharp knives, hung from simple belts about their waists. Other than light leather boots, also laced with grass, rushes and mud, they remained naked under the gillied cloaks. The mud dried on them like a second skin.

Lilith cast a silencing spell on the horses, "Hush now, be slow and unseen," before proceeding side by side with Artur down the track. Once near the beach, they ranged back and forth for a hundred heart beats, until they found an old fire site and knew where the infidels landed from their boats.

They separated, and took up places each side of the central fire site, about thirty yards apart. Falling to the ground and lying still, they became nothing more than jetsam thrown high on the beach at high tide, two flat shapes hidden upon the ground. Both looked out to sea, and they waited, silently.

Some time later Lilith heard the low sound of running water against the timber hull of a gliding boat, and the rattle of sail and rope against a mast. She looked out from under the edge of her cloak and saw three ships in a diagonal line astern, their wind filled sails bright under the moonlight. She uttered the low cry of a curlew disturbed at night, and from back on the land she heard a single answering call; and she knew Artur's men lay hidden.

"They come, father," she whispered. "We'll turn them back burning to the sea. Hush now, my beloved," and she tranced the nearby stones to make them slide like water, not grate like rock. An eerie silence fell upon the beach, broken only by the rattle of wind in the ships' sails as they closed upon the land.

The silence was broken by the grind of the first prow as it drove up onto the beach, with the other two following in quick succession. The ships' timbers groaned with their sudden stop, and there was a low thud as a supply barrel broke loose and rolled in the belly of one of the vessels. Someone cursed, and the next sound heard was the jump of men down onto the pebbled beach.

Artur and Lilith remained hidden and still, as the enemy set up their camp and lit fires in a row along the shore. The low sounds of commands and orders could be heard, together with the shuffling sound of feet as the invaders moved to and fro across the shore, bringing supplies up from their ships.

Slowly, another lull fell across the place as the small army settled, waiting for dawn before moving inland.

The king and his daughter remained hidden and silent, yet right in the centre of the main camp, quietly waiting.

Time passed, and from the east came the first flush of dawn, with a faint movement of air, low to the ground. A curlew called, and was echoed along the beach and in the dunes by more soft calls.

"Now," Artur the king whispered.

"Now," Lilith the king's daughter whispered too.

"Now, now, now," whispered the command through their hidden troops. "Now!"

Silently, Lilith and Artur shed their cloaks and rose to their feet like ghosts rising from the ground, their sharp knives in their hands. Their proud, naked bodies were dark shadows, covered in the cracking mud. Artur's strong muscled back and his broad shoulders rippled with strength, and Lilith's sensuous curves were tight with lithe muscle. They moved silently amongst the sleeping enemy, searching for where the invading captain lay, to wake him first before letting him sleep forever.

"There," whispered Lilith, pointing. A tent was rigged just beyond one of the fires lit on the beach. In front it, each leaning against a post, sat two guards, nodding at their duty, drowsy from the fire's heat.

Artur pointed to the right, nodding to Lilith, <i>yours.</i> He moved stealthily to the left and circled behind the post, tilting back the man's head as he did so. With one swift movement of his knife, he slit the man's throat and lay his body down. Lilith repeated the sinuous movement, and she too sliced her victim's throat from right to left and lay the second body down.

They entered the tent, side by side; then Artur knelt by the captain's head, his knife poised just above his throat. Lilith stood tall over the man's body, her feet on either side of his torso. She kicked him awake, and he startled, jerking his head up, his eyes widening in shock and slow understanding. Artur held the knife firm, and the tip of its blade drew blood.

"Look on the sex of a woman before you die, filth," whispered Lilith. "See a woman you'll never know, before you see your own heaven. Count yourself blessed that I grant you this, 'tis a special man that sees." And she stood above the captain as he died, her hand caressing her breast.

The rest of the slaughter was quick and efficient, Artur's men moving quickly to and fro on the beach. Artur saved the six youngest men, and commanded they be tied to the mast of one ship. The bodies of the dead invaders were placed aboard the other two ships in long rows between the benches. The dead ships' sails were set, and then the boats were torched alight and pushed out to sea. The wind caught their sails and eventually, so did the burning flame, blazing up high as the ships moved upon the slow rolling waves, out to the long northern sea.

Artur stood naked before the six tied men, with Lilith his daughter beside him.

"Look upon us, I, Artur king of this land, and Lilith my daughter. Look upon us, and take word back to your king, tell him who murdered you and set his bodies burning on the sea. A naked king and his daughter, and a small band of men, slaughtering your army in the night. You are not men, you are mice."

"And we'll do it again," said Lilith. "And again. Fear us, and remember what happened, this dawn."

And they set the sails on the ship, and sent the youngest men back to the sea as a warning.

Artur and Lilith stood side by side as the dawn broke and the sun rose in the east, their mud cracked skin traced with rivers of the invader's blood. They stood motionless, watching the high top of the mast disappear, their long shadows streaming behind them. Finally they turned and made their way up the beach to the slain commander's camp.

"Make food from their leavings, men, and we make way to Camlann before noon. The fastest man, message on."

Artur surveyed the beach and the spilled blood there, black on the shingle and rock. "I fear they will come again, these won't be the last. They'll want your body as vengeance, Lilith, even as they want my land."

"They can try, Father, they'll not have either, while I breathe."

"Come, Daughter, we find clean water and undo this stain."

They collected their gillie cloaks and made their way back to the copse where their horses stood. Lilith untethered them, laying her cheek against the pulse in their necks and feeling the throb of their lives. She remembered Nymue's words, <i>I thought I felt a big life walk behind me,</i> and knew that, like that fierce little woman before her, she was in her destiny's days.

She looked to the man beside her, her father, covered in the mud of his land and the blood of foreign men, and her own heart throbbed, and she felt a weight in her belly, heavy and low. She walked ahead of him along the track, knowing the sway of her hips would entice him, the proud tilt of her head arouse him, her long legs encourage him on.

With the rein of her horse in one hand, she reached back with her other hand, her favoured hand, and beckoned for him.

Walking behind, a distance behind, Artur's prick thickened and began to fill, and his blood was hot for her. The muddied sheath cracked and broke, and by the time they reached a water's edge, his cock was high and proud, his man's flesh rising from the clay.

Lilith turned to Artur and smiled. "Come, Father, let us find clear water."

She lead her father into a sheltered pond under willows dropping to the water's edge. The slow flow of the cool stream washed away the mud and the blood from their flesh, flowing away from them like smoke on a clear day. A curious trout came, scenting the blood, and Lilith caught it quick with her bare hands. She took it to the shore, and slid her knife through its belly and cleaned its guts in the water, its flesh a vibrant pink.

"I wonder what Nymue would make of that? " she laughed, "Those guts flowing away in water."

"She favoured birds, I think. According to Maer Maerlyn, so I've heard."

"Ah, dear Maerlyn, whose hands first touched me. What is it, Father, between Maerlyn and my mother? You see it, surely, just as you see me?"

"My Gayne, my sister? My sister, your mother? Maerlyn?" Artur looked upon his daughter, standing by him in the water. "It is the land, it seems, that demands close blood, witchery and magick. I don't dwell on it, for it seems I can't command it. And I can't say no."

He looked at her, and his eyes softened. "I can't say no."

Lilith looked right back at him, her father, and smiled. "Father, you're dirt with mud and guts still, let me clean you proper." She took him by the hand. "Come deeper, let me drown you in deep water, where the fishes dance and swim."

They went where the pool was deeper, and washed each other clean. Lilith scrubbed the mud from his flesh and washed his body all over, and he did the same for her, his big hands gentle on her flesh. Once cleansed, she wrapped her legs around his waist in the water and clung to him, feeling the flesh of his cock soft against her core, for the water was cold and he was shrunk.

"You're small, Father, don't I tease you enough?"

"Your breasts are tight hard, Lilith, I think you tease yourself."

"It's just the water, it's oh so cold!" Lilith's eyes sparkled as she played with him, kissing him on the mouth and tasting his lips, like hers.

The sun rose higher, sparkling on the water's surface, and dragon-flies scattered and dropped. They played in the water, stretching their bodies to ease the ache of the long night away, and slowly, their arousal came back upon them. They came out from the water and lay on a soft blanket, soaking up the heat from the sun on their bodies as they lay quiet, facing each other.

Lilith pressed the golden brown of her breasts and belly against him, and Artur was paler, for he did not ride naked like she did, high on her horse. He gazed into her blue eyes, blue like his, like the wide sky, and traced the soft curve of her cheek. "Ah Lilith, my love, what us, king and daughter? What us?"

"Don't think it, Father, not now. Set aside kingdoms, set aside stone. Am I not enough for you here, after the battle is won?"

She took his long cock in her hands, and shifted her body just so. She raised one leg around his hip, and made him slip inside her, all the while holding his face in her hands. "Ahh, sweet Father, all mine."

And there by the water under the heating sun, Artur loved her, his passionate daughter, held close.

© Electricblue66 2018