Wallace

With only a thin sheet of canvas between myself and the open sky, it was hard to miss the tide rolling through, and I woke to the sound of crashing waves. The sheer mass of water was even enough to shake the truck, and I put out a hand to stop my axe from rattling around.

Nestled against my shoulder, Val hardly stirred.

"Come on, Val," I whispered softly, "Time to get up."

"Mmmm... No," she murmured sleepily, "Too comfy."

"Val, we're laying on unvarnished wood in the back of a glorified wagon. There's a great big bed with silk sheets waiting for us back at The Maiden."

"No. You're laying on an unfinished wagon in the back or whatever," she mumbled, "I couldn't be comfier."

I patted her on the bottom, "Are you going to make me bribe you to get anything done?"

Val perked up a little, "Depends on what you bribe me with."

I slipped out from under her as gently as I could, ignoring her growls of protest, and left her in the bedroll.

"Well, you won't be getting anything till we're back in Caniforma," I teased, "The longer we hang around, the easier we make it for some men on fast horses to catch up with us."

Val curled up in the bedding and pulled it tighter, "I'll get up in a bit," she lied.

It took most of an hour, but Val eventually joined me in the cab. She took her now-familiar place under my arm, and I was struck by how normal she seemed. If you ignored the fact she was purple and had hair longer than she was tall, Val seemed like any other young woman groggy with sleep, trying to stay awake during an early morning car ride.

My idle musings about being followed by horsemen were borne out when I arrived at the rest-stop halfway between Caniforma and Pelignos. Val had gotten up by that point, so I went around to the back to take down the canvas so I could see out the back of the truck. Simon had fitted the thing with mirrors, but it wasn't quite the same as opening the back door to take a look myself.

I'd just finished folding up the canvas and was contemplating whether or not to take down the frame when I caught movement to the south.

Nearer to the field of spikes than Crater Farm, they'd made good time, and if I weren't careful, might be able to catch us just as we reached the next rest-stop.

Though our pace had been far from leisurely, I constantly worried about breaking one of the wheels. They were little more than wooden wagon wheels, just made wider, and I knew how fragile they could be. Even a broken spoke could cripple us, and Simon had not provided us with any spares. I suspected that the six-wheeled contraption could get by on four, but even the time taken to change it would present a risk.

We did have a couple of significant advantages, though. While the horses were better on the rough ground between rest stops, I knew they must have been running those things hard.

In principle, a rider could make it between cities in a single day. It was occasionally done to carry messages. Even then, they typically passed them in a pony-express style arrangement with riders handling only a single leg.

So while I knew a confrontation was likely, I also knew those riders would be run ragged by the time they caught us and short of equipment. Carrying only a letter and a little water was challenging enough on such runs. A sword was pushing it, and armour out of the question.

The ground had just begun to slope upwards towards the final rest stop when they drew near enough for me to make out their features in the mirror.

Two dozen sprites surrounded a pair of fey, and in hindsight, that should have set the alarm bells ringing.

I might not have done a ton of horseback riding, there being a distinct lack of horses large enough, but I knew it wasn't all sitting on your ass. Horseback riding was work, hard work, and here were two fey enduring it without complaint.

But I was cocky. Hell, when I looked back to the path ahead, I could see several goblin couples coming down the hill towards us. Val had mentioned they wouldn't take kindly to the fey's aggression so close to their territory, and it seemed she was right.

So when I saw ahead that the goblin riders were opening a path for us as they readied crossbows and matchlocks and saw behind that the horses bearing our pursuers were flagging as they began to climb the hill, I figured we were home free. If it came to it, maybe I'd have to fight off a couple of exhausted sprites, hardly a big deal.

The sudden wave of exhaustion was the first sign something had gone very wrong. It became difficult to hold onto the steering wheel, and as a crushing pain began to spread across my chest, my fingers and toes began to go numb.

I could see my hands going pale right before my eyes, and my breathing became short, laboured. Finally, my vision began to swim, and though I could hear Val saying something, I couldn't make out the words.

It was as if she were speaking, shouting at me while I was underwater.

I came to in the footwell of the cab. I'd fallen across Val and then rolled forwards off the seat when she'd snagged a finger around the parking brake and jerked the lever into position. A good thing she had, as my unconscious body had been spread across the pedals.

My hands were still numb, and my vision blurred as I struggled to get off the pedals. I ended up kneeling in front of the passenger seat, and my clumsy arms found Val and hugged her tight.

My breathing was ragged, and Val's soothing words as she gently stroked my hair did little to calm it.

I had the benefit of an education that was at least two millennia improved over that of the fey chasing us.

I'd developed a genuinely unique enchantment that, if widespread, would revolutionize food storage and heating across this planet.

I'd found a modern building and not only made it my home but had restored electrical power, bringing to the darkness a light so complete that only the sun rivalled it.

I'm a half-ton slab of pure muscle, built on a frame that combines the best qualities of tungsten and high-strength steel, and my training with weapons is surpassed only by those knights who were raised learning to wield sword and shield.

And none of it mattered. None of it stopped those fey from reaching into my chest to stop my heart.

I'd just been out for a drive. Aware, in an academic sense, that some idiots on horseback had it in for me. And then reality came to kick me right between the legs.

I'd lived, but only because the goblins had driven the fey back far enough for the spell to fail. Even that had been an accident. They'd no way of knowing that inside the contraption rumbling towards them was a man dying.

I'd been mere heartbeats from death.

How was I even supposed to defend against that? And why the hell hadn't I recognized the risk sooner? I knew telekinesis was possible. Why the hell shouldn't it work on the human body then?

Oh, because in Dungeons & Dragons, that would be a different spell, requiring a Fortitude save? This wasn't a damn game, and there was no referee to make sure that everything was fair. To make sure that the players only faced challenges that matched their abilities.

I shuddered, and one of the zippers on Val's suit scratched my cheek. I drew back and fumbled my way into the seat beside her.

"Wally?" Val urged, and it sounded like this wasn't the first time she'd called my name.

"Just drive," I rasped, "Get us the hell away from those fey before they kill me again."

It was almost funny when we arrived at The Blushing Maiden, and Irony presented me with the silks she'd measured me for. Yeah, they'd keep me from getting stabbed. Hell, I could probably enchant it to stop bullets. And now that hardly seemed to matter.

Neither Val nor I had said a word, but Irony was nothing if not perceptive.

Her excited smile faded as she looked between the two of us, replaced with fear and confusion, "Val, what happened?"

"I- I don't know, Wally, what happened back there?"

"Those two fey were casters. One of them stopped my heart."

"How?" Irony exclaimed.

"Body and Movement mana," I shrugged.

"But you stopped him," Irony concluded, daring to hope.

I shook my head, "There wasn't much I could do by the time I realized what was happening. I got lucky. They got chased off by some goblins."

"Irony, we're safe here, right?"

Irony was quick to nod in agreement, "The guards won't let them get so much as a glimpse of either of you."

They hadn't seen me in the truck, either.

But I let that thought go unspoken. There was little any of us could do, and I could only hope it would be enough.

"Lord Wallace-" Irony began.

"Please, just Wallace."

"Wallace," she asked gently, "I hope you'll eat something?"

I nodded slowly, "Yeah, I'd appreciate it, thanks."

The encounter with the fey spellcasters had left me feeling nauseous. Whether that was a symptom of what they'd done to me or a consequence of having my mortality shoved in my face, the fact was we'd skipped breakfast. It wasn't good for me to go too long without food. Nearly every calorie I ate went right into building or maintaining muscle, meaning I had little in the way of reserves to draw upon, and the last thing I wanted was to be left feeling weak after an encounter like that.

The meal Irony had brought up for us, all of us, wasn't too rich. As much as I'd liked the steak the last time we were here, it was probably a bit much for me at the moment.

We talked as we ate, and Irony dominated the conversation. Her desire for scraps of astronomical knowledge was insatiable, and I fed it with bits and pieces about multiple star systems and black holes.

Irony brought a healer in to check over the wounds obtained fighting off the attempted kidnapping, and found no faults with the work done by Vivian's people. It would be a while before I was back at a hundred percent, but at least the wounds were closed, and I'd not need to worry about infection. All the same, I received yet another tin of salve and instructions to use it twice a day.

I retired to our private room once the healer was done with their ministrations. Val seemed about to burst at the seams. In fairness, we'd hardly spoken in the truck, and Irony had kept the lunch conversation away from such matters, and I knew there was much left unsaid. But Val did not press the issue. She seemed to understand that I needed time to think.

I was still thinking, hours later, as the light outside the window faded to orange and then to blue as the sun set and The Father took its place in the sky.

There was a hesitant tap at the door. It opened a crack, and a violet eye peeked through.

"Hey, Val."

She took that as the invitation it was and came to stand beside my chair. She still wore her flight suit, but some of her hair had come out from under the collar, and she held her enchanted tome against her chest with both arms. Val considered my book with a frown, which I'd been using as a scratchpad, and looked about.

"Wally, do you mind if we get a little more light in here? The rest of us have a little trouble in the dark.

I gave an absent reply, reached across the table, turned on the lamp, and an orange glow crept into the room.

The light did not seem to add to her comprehension, and she regarded me with raised eyebrows, "Mind sharing your clever plan?"

I shook my head, "I haven't got a clever plan, Val. I've come up with plenty of ways to kill people with magic. Turns out it's really easy to do once you're in the right frame of mind to figure it out. I thought figuring out avenues of attack would also suggest ways to defend, but I've got nothing."

"Please, I know you, Wally," Val insisted, "You've always got something."

I shook my head again, "Sure, I can stop another spellcaster from screwing around with Body Movement spells. But to do it, I need to fix in place whatever they're trying to affect, match their Body Movement spell with one of my own," I threw up my hands, "But that's not going to work if they pull another stunt like this morning."

Val grimaced and bowed her head. After a moment, she set her tome on the table, resting a hand lightly on the cover.

"You recall how my sister is having the Parabuteo communication book delivered? Well, I thought it would be best if we had a response prepared. Temerity will undoubtedly expect a reply to the offer of service she made, and the girls have been helping me draft one."

I rubbed my eyes, "I'm sorry," I sighed, "There's so much to do, and here I am sulk-"

Val gave my bicep a fierce backhand, "You're not sulking!" she scolded, "This is hardly the first time I've seen someone have a brush with death and go through the process of dealing with it."

She reached up and patted my cheek gently and then turned to the book, flipping through pages.

"It's just a draft," she cautioned, "But I think it captures the essence of what we want to say."

She turned to the correct page, and I turned bright red.

I leaned back in my chair and covered my face with my hands.

"Why can't you be normal?" I laughed.

"A picture is worth a thousand words," she giggled.

I took my hands away from my face and dared to look.

Val had put some work into this piece, rendering it in fine detail and making use of all the colours at her disposal.

Temerity was gagged and bound in the corner, a look of pure fury on her face while I took Val roughly from behind.

"Please tell me you haven't-"

Val pulled herself up to straddle my lap and laid her hands on my shoulders, "Don't worry, I didn't show the girls," she assured me.

Valentine bit her lip, grinning, and slid her hands up to my hair, where she clenched her delicate fingers. Val pressed her body against mine and pulled me into a deep kiss, and I felt the tip of her tongue gently probing. Val held it long enough that she left me gasping for breath when she finished.

"You want to talk about it?" she smirked.

"Wha?"

She pulled me back into a kiss, and I heard the zip at the front of her suit being pulled down. When she pulled away, I was left breathless once again, and she had the suit down around her waist.

"Couldn't you try to sense incoming spells and set up an enchantment to react to them?" Val asked absently as she slid her hands up under my shirt and began lifting it over my head.

"Uhh..." I stammered, "I'm getting mixed signals here."

Val drew a line of kisses up my chest as she pulled the shirt over my head that followed the line of my neck up to my ear. She threw the shirt aside and reached down to take hold of my belt.

"Some people like to talk about what happened," she replied matter-of-factly, as she began to undo it, "You seem like that sort. Myself, I prefer base indulgences. I thought we could compromise and do both."

"A-Ah... Val, you are an absolute freak."

Val grinned, "This must be working, you seem better already. But you had better hurry up. I'm going to be very disappointed with myself in a minute if you can still speak in complete sentences."

My belt slapped against the floor, and Val began to squirm around in my lap as she struggled out of the flight suit.

"It's a good idea," I replied, "But all I can do with it right now is send a warning. So far, the best I've got when dealing with Movement magic is to freeze the thing in place."

"Couldn't you anticipate what they're doing and apply an opposing force?"

The flight suit joined the growing pile of clothes on the floor around the chair.

"I can react, probably pretty quick?" I frowned, "But not anticipate. And they'd do more damage every time they changed how they're applying the force. My biggest worry is they could take advantage of that. They'd know their spell was being resisted, and if they suddenly changed the direction, I could find myself empowering their spell for a moment before I compensated."

Val put her hands on her thighs and slowly slid them upwards across her body. The motion lifted her shift, and she grinned, watching me watch her tease me.

Val's voice became husky, "Why couldn't you? I don't know what your world's stories are like, but there are few uses more common for magic than telling the future in what I've read. And you need only see a moment forward in time."

"Maybe- um-" I faltered for a moment, thought escaping me as Val's fingers glided up her chest, leaving her bare, "I don't even know what the spell would be. Sense Body? Would that let me see into the future? It almost seems like a different word. Sense Time maybe."

Val locked her eyes on mine, and she had a slight pout to her lips as she combed out her hair, pulling the shift free of her floor-length locks.

"I don't suppose there's any reason there couldn't be more words to discover," she mused, "Though I admit, I have no idea what manner of material would contain Time mana."

Val shook out her hair, and the shift slid to the ground. She drew her hand across her falling tresses, like someone plucking harp strings or pulling a curtain, and her hair fell across her chest in a mockery of modesty.

"That's- Wow, I hadn't even thought of that. I mean, it's not like you can even get all the mana types we know about out of the publicly known materials. Who's to say-"

Val cupped my chin in her hand and jerked my head back down to look at her. I'd begun to ponder, and realized that I had been looking thoughtfully up at the ceiling. She wrapped her arm around my neck and pulled herself up to kiss me while her other hand freed me of what was left of my clothes.

I straightened as I felt her gentle fingers on me, and she lowered herself excruciatingly slowly as she guided me in. Val's lips parted and sighed against me, but her lips didn't leave mine.

Valentine ran her fingers through my hair, unwilling to break the kiss as she slid down, urging me to follow her. The size difference meant it wasn't the most comfortable position, but I could not get enough of the lewd little noises she was making as she struggled to hold the kiss.

I sometimes wondered if it was all for my benefit. The sounds she made, the way she squirmed, but I knew Val well enough by now. She didn't need to pretend, and nothing was held back, with no consideration for shame or decency.

Val whimpered as she struggled to get all the way down, but without her amulet, her face was starting to flush dark purple, and her strength was fading. She pulled away from the kiss, fumbling to find my hands, and I let Valentine guide me to her waist.

"Please," she pleaded.

I took the hint and was rewarded with an explosive cry of pleasure when I wrapped my hands around her waist and began to take things at my own pace.

It didn't take long for Val's cries to turn into a high, gasping moan. Her whole body flushed purple, and this time she didn't even bother to try holding back as she lost control of her pheromone glands.

I thought for a moment that she was going to pass out right then and there, but she held on and planted both hands against my chest to steady herself as she struggled to stay awake for me.

She was still awake afterwards when I took her to the bath and got both of us cleaned up, though she could hardly find the energy to lift her arms.

Honestly, I was stunned that she'd been able to keep herself from fainting. Though I shouldn't have been. Knowing Val, this was exactly how I should have expected her to work on her endurance.

She yawned and nestled against me in the bed, her relaxation so complete that she seemed to be liquid, puddled in the crook of my arm.

"We'll figure it out, Wally," she insisted tiredly, "I'm not letting anyone take you away."