Futanari Legends: The Frozen Queen (Book 2: Astrid) (2 page)

Perhaps the bones of a giant rib cage?

At the end of the valley on the far side laid a giant pillar of steam and fire. It rose high in the sky before being torn apart by mountain winds.

An arrow screamed between the two of us with an oddly high-pitched whine, and Brenna turned, seeing a group of bandit archers take position on the bridge we just darted over.

All six archers were in a perfect position to kill. One of the archers paused a moment, a female bandit. She could have killed us, but the bandit sat there fumbling with her arrows in either inexperience or hesitation. She looked up at us in another odd moment, and then went back to almost delaying to fire at us again.

Not everything in war can be so easily explained. Drop it, and move on to the next moment of sheer panic and confusion.

“Where do we go?” Chloe screamed as she limped backwards, and looked back at the approaching crowds of bandits. “Why won’t they stop?”

“Apparently,” I said, as I wrapped my arm around her and shielded her from the next two arrows that missed us and sailed high over the waterfall, “they want you more than I expected.”

I pulled her behind a low stone pillar’s base, which shielded us from the next three arrows that sliced through the air. “Either your father’s bounty has went up on you, or a thousand gold is not worth this much trouble.

You aren’t royalty, are you?”

“What do we do?” She cried as the tears flowed from her cheeks. “If I surrender, maybe they will keep you alive-”

Her non-answer gave me pause. Something wasn’t right.

“Unfortunately for you, not happening,” I said, as I peered around the edge of the pillar’s base. The rest of the bandits charged up the same path we took, winded but they gathered enough men to rush us. The archers did a good job as they kept us pinned down with ten paces of nothing to each side and a thousand foot drop behind us.

The arrows hit the statue protecting us like hailstones.

I looked into the cold sky above and let out a long sigh.

Life. So this is where it ends for me.

For us.

Did the gods care? Did the she-male goddess Gundir care about her daughters? Did Father Othin and Elf-Mother Albia ever realize the union of their blood would produce a race of women who looked like sweet womenfolk, but had the raging passions and cocks of men? Was my birth cursed under bad stars or a blood moon?

Is my destiny this moment, stuck with a fair maiden on the edge of a waterfall and moments ahead of a closing and unfair death?

Unfair?

My sense of entitlement never surprises me.

I leaned over the cliff, and judged the lake far, far below. I leaned so far I had to rest my hand on the lip of the cliff, the grit pressing into my bare palm, and the height dizzying and magnificent at the same time.

Aegir, goddess of the sea and storms, I call for your blessings. Oh gods, we are high up. Sharp rock after rock punctuated the drop, if we did not jump out far and fast enough, we would end up as a red splotch somewhere below. Two paces of room was not enough, so we would need the room to run.

Oh yes, I was thinking about the impossible. That which should not be done. It was more like jumping to our deaths to rob the bandits of victory, so there was a fair bit of spite to my thoughts.

I looked at the lip and tested the stone.

Solid.

If I could plant my foot here, I could kick us out another seven paces. Maybe that would be enough distance. Arrows slammed into the stone around us, and I heard the bandits bark order to each other in rapid fire-

-Imperial fashion. “Hold ranks, lock shields, short swords at the ready…”

“Take the girl and kill anyone else!”

Imperial Legionaries?

Dressed as bandits?

I looked back at Chloe, the Mayor’s daughter with a thousand gold bounty upon her head, in tears and rubbing her sore ankle. She has secrets as well. She noticed my gaze, her sad eyes searching for a way out of this mess through me.

Oh, I shall give you a way out, but all is not as it seems, is it? There is no reason for an Imperial Legion to be running around the mountains chasing a mayor’s daughter unless they either wanted to kill me, and I have been in hiding for Goddess knows how long. Or she is not whom she appears to be.

But dressed as bandits?

By the gods something is not right with someone’s head today. Not mine.

Well, maybe mine.

I’m thinking about jumping to my death.

Another arrow impacted the stone with the oddest sound as it hung in the air spinning before it careened over the cliff behind us. I swear when it hit it sounded like something strange, such as a word or warning.

No?

Did it just say no?

A message from the gods, perhaps?

I was hearing things. I have been without food and water so long I was hallucinating. I heard the bandits form up, and begin to charge us. The sounds of boots on stones echoed in a mad rush towards us. In moments this would be over, and I have time for maybe one last look or just go now.

One last look.

I peered over the cliff, and looked for one last reprieve, maybe a cliff near enough we could drop onto, but nothing appeared. A thousand jagged boulders gnarled away from the cliff like sharp fangs, ready to chew us up as we fell.

A flash of blue caught my eye.

Past this stone, then that, between those two, and maybe if the winds were right-

Yes.

There
was
a way.

I rushed back, picked Chloe up in my arms as she screamed, and held her tight.

The ‘Imperial’ bandits rushed us, and two drew close enough for me to hear the clink of their armor and footsteps of their boots on the dusty stone.

I looked into Chloe’s eyes as I spun away from the men, as I carried her to the last few steps before nothingness.

“Trust me,” I said, staring into her eyes.

She kissed me as we took the last step into open space.

It was a great kiss.

Maybe my last?

Oh well.

My foot, I needed to plant my foot before we fell away.

I only managed to get my toes on the lip, and I shoved, as I realized being without food and the long run has weakened me. Both of us. She is so heavy when I am so weak. My body is so tired.

It didn’t feel like enough.

Below us spun a world without end, and around us a beautiful vista. And the sound of the wind built in my ears as the ledge above us and our pursuers sailed away.

Still, it had to be enough. It must be. What’s done is done. Our lives perhaps?

I shoved us away from the edge of the cliff as hard as I could, and I felt my toes nearly break under the pressure before they released and we fell. My leg ached at the force needed, and I prayed that it was enough.

Beside us, the waterfall roared as Chloe screamed and I didn’t hear a thing. We plunged through the clouds of mist in a free-fall. As we fell it felt like the sweet release of death, as the end waited somewhere far down below.

We fell faster.

And faster.

My heart sank as I realized we may have not be as far from the cliff as I had hoped.

And we fell even faster.

Chapter 2:

Moment

When I hear the bandit’s scream I know I am dead.

My body is frozen by fear, and when a warrior screams it is meant to shock you, to send you in a state of fear, and to make you freeze so you are that much more of an easier target.

Of which, yes, I am.

The fact I had sent my closest companion away on a secret mission makes no difference. The fact I am some distance away from my horse makes no matter. The fact I am Astrid of Magetower, Forth Circle mage of the Inner Circle and Mage’s Council makes no matter.

I feel my body freeze, as intended, and for all intents and purposes I am a dead cock-cursed woman to this world and ready for my afterlife. My looks, my blond locks, my high cheekbones and large breasts make no difference to this moment at all.

But there may be a slight problem with that scenario since my mind is still very much active, and my senses are quite aware as well.

In this mist-filled forest upon a grand mountainside, I hear the horse, the clank of his armor, and the general direction from which this threat approaches. Turning my head, I can see the bandit with the blood-curdling expression chiseled onto his face, his battered and dirty armor, and the warhorse upon which he rides.

Now, my body is still frozen, and really only my head pitifully works to any extent since it would be pure irony to watch the last fleeting moments of my life as this bastard raises his axe and prepares it for one final sweep right towards my neck.

I am sure he hopes to sever my spine with the filthy weapon and let my bloodied head roll away like some ball of sport for him and his friends to kick around.

So here I am, heartbeats from my death, and yet I am not afraid. I am not the suicidal type, no, but I know how things work well enough to know that despite my body freezing up and not moving a hair that this man will regret charging a Fourth Circle mage.

But before I die, let me tell you how magic works.

Let’s say you want something to happen, right, and doesn’t everybody have a dream they wish were true this instant? This can be anything from levitating yourself up to a ledge to a fireball as hot as the sun, with magic it doesn’t really matter what you are doing, only what you want to happen.

Get gold, cock, and pussy out of your mind for a moment, will you? Thank you, if you pay attention I shall cover those topics later.

Now, imagine this effect as an unfolded rectangular sheet of paper, like your blast of lightning or for your hand to bend steel. This is what you want, and you have to find a way to get to this place, or again, that sheet of paper.

Did I mention there was some folding involved? Okay, you are going to need to think backwards here and fold that sheet of paper up to the smallest piece you can manage. This is usually a triangle shape if you are doing it right, and the smaller you can make it, the stronger the final power will be.

So now you have your final magic power, and that particular way you fold magic to get to the point right before you unleash hell upon the world. Simple, right? You can imagine the next step is to unfold that back to your original square sheet of paper to a point where you have something looking like the same sheet of paper, and that is where you begin, right?

Well, no.

That unfolded piece of paper is just the ending point, and it can’t be the beginning because you are just saying an apple equals an apple or a blizzard equals a blizzard. If the beginning is the ending, you can’t say you have done anything magical at all.

The hardest part is getting that apple to be a blizzard.

Let’s go back to the triangle, the point at which you have folded space and time to the maximum your mind can fathom folding reality, and those unfolding steps needed to make the impossible possible. Where do you start?

For every effect, there is a special way of folding a shape which may not resemble a piece of paper at all, it may be a three-dimensional shape you are folding flat, or a circle, or a shape without a defined description or geometry - but it is out there and it does have a shape that can be drawn, sculpted, or seen in some way. You will be folding one shape of any dimension or size and ending up with that square piece of paper you wish to introduce into the realm of reality. You may start out folding a triangle and end up with a square.

Now, if I haven’t messed up your mind enough, let me tell you that the way you fold this shape matters, and the way you fold it into the smallest point in space will often not be the same way you unfold it, nor may the folding and unfolding process make any sense at all. You may fold it in half one way, and have to unfold this shape in a completely opposite and impossible way to get your circle into your square.

If you don’t think you can manage that, then magic isn’t for you. It’s a belief in the impossible conversion of the inert into energy, the static into the active, and stillness into motion or back again.

A horse could be running at full speed and I could imagine a state at which that very horse is standing still in the next blink of an eye, with no harm to either the animal or the rider. It just is what it is, and this could be ‘the possible.’

Now, the challenge is, on the fly and in the moment, to imagine what it will take in the blink of an eye to get that horse standing still with no harm to either the animal or the rider, and the starting shape from which you begin. You must also know how the impossible and seemingly nonsensical folds shall work in either way, from the beginning to the most powerful midpoint and all the way to the desired state.

And you must know that in the instant before you are trampled and killed by such an animal, and of course, its rider, who may be trying to kill you.

If you can’t do that, either you shall be dead and none of this discussion may matter, or practical and applied magic may not be for you.

Did I mention you can cheat a little? Let’s say you don’t want the rider to stop, like the bandit horse rider barreling down upon me now with his axe raised high. If I weren’t mistaken, his mind is locked upon the image of his axe slicing my head off and him riding on his merry way through the forest beyond.