Dan the Adventurer, page 16
part #2 of Gold Girls and Glory Series
“Thanks,” Holly said. “We sanded and cleaned everything and replaced anything that looked damaged. I had hoped to test it today, but when I opened the valve, the frame cracked, and steam rushed out.”
“I'm blown away with your progress,” he said. “Seriously. This is amazing.” He bent over and kissed her.
The kiss started slowly, but they kept going. Their tongues got involved, and Dan’s hands slid up her tight body.
“I miss you,” he said. “I miss this.” They hadn’t fooled around at all since she’d begun ovulating.
Holly’s purple eyes gleamed. “I miss it, too.”
He leaned over and started kissing her again. She responded, kissing him passionately. Her hand slid under his shirt and up his abs to his chest.
Then she gave him a push and stepped back, laughing. “Enough of that.”
Dan grinned and took a step toward her. “Come on. We're just getting warmed up.”
Holly blocked him and shook her head. “I can't.”
“Why?”
“You know why,” she said. “I'm fertile right now. And don’t start listing alternative forms of entertainment. I don’t trust myself not to lose control. Next thing you know, we’re having sex, and—”
“I know you aren’t ready for kids,” Dan said, squeezing her shapely breast. “I wouldn’t let you lose control.”
Holly laughed. “If I don’t trust myself, that goes double for you. Besides, we don’t have time. You’re late to an appointment.”
“Huh? What appointment?”
“You've been working too hard lately,” she said.
Dan shrugged his shoulders. “Everybody has.”
“But you're working harder than everybody,” she said, “and I don't want you to burn out.”
He laughed. “Don't worry about me.”
Holly raised one eyebrow. “Oh yeah? When did you last eat?”
Dan had to think for a second. “It's been a while,” he confessed. “Yesterday. Lunch, I guess.”
Which explains why, he thought, I feel a little buzzed from a single goblet of wine.
“You are taking a break,” Holly said.
“I don't have time for a break.”
“You are taking a break,” she repeated, her voice stern. “I demand it. It will be good for you. And you’ll love it. Trust me.”
Dan narrowed his eyes. “I know that smile, Holly. That’s your mischievous smile. What are you up to?”
“You are getting a massage.”
He frowned. “That’s ridiculous. I’m not getting a massage. I have work to do.”
“Yes, you do. And it’s work that only you can do. Who's going to lift all of those heavy rocks if you get hurt?”
“I'm not going to get hurt.”
“I've already scheduled the massage. It will increase blood flow to all of your overworked muscles. You’ll be able to work even harder.”
Dan laughed. “So, you're really just trying to get more work out of me?”
“Guilty as charged,” Holly laughed. “But seriously, you're going to love it.”
Holly had been getting daily massages from the red elves, and every night, she told Dan how great they were. Apparently, massage was one of the pleasure arts that the red elves had mastered after giving up warfare and fire.
“I'll give it a shot,” he said. “But then I'm heading right back to work.”
Following her directions, he left the tower, crossed the courtyard, and wound through the settlement to a small building in the far back corner.
Thelia greeted him at the door, her gold-flecked eyes glowing with obvious excitement. “Master, I'm so happy to see you.”
“Thanks,” Dan said. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure that this was such a great idea.
The thin, silky material of Thelia’s short yellow gown clung to her curves and did nothing to hide her hard nipples.
“Come, Master,” she chimed, and her little hand wrapped around his thumb. She led him past a gurgling fountain and opened a door. A sweet, floral aroma, like the very essence of femininity, wafted out of the room.
Five additional red elf women waited inside, wearing silky gowns and sultry expressions.
“You know what?” he said, stopping in the doorway. “This is a bad idea. I have too much work to do. But thanks, really.”
“Master, please,” Thelia said, squeezing his thumb. “We're all so excited to give you pleasure.”
That's exactly what I'm afraid of, Dan thought, but he said, “And it's really nice of you. But I can't. I have walls to build.”
“Please allow us to give you at least a short massage, Master,” one of the girls said. “Otherwise, Lady Holly will be cross.”
“Please, Master?” the others pleaded.
“All right,” Dan said, knowing that Holly would give him shit if he walked out, “but just a quick one.”
The red elves giggled with delight as they surrounded him and started taking off his clothes.
He stepped away from them. “What are you doing?”
“Undressing you, Master,” one of the elves said.
“We don't want to massage you through your clothing,” Thelia said. “Please, Master, let us do our job.”
“I don't know,” he said. “It feels kind of weird, you know?”
The girls laughed.
“Here, Master,” Thelia said, handing him a towel. “We will turn our backs while you undress, and you can wrap yourself in the towel.”
“All right,” Dan said.
The red elves turned away, and he started stripping.
“Hey,” he said, “no peeking.”
They giggled.
“Oh, Master,” one of the girls said, “you have nothing to be shy about.”
It wasn’t that he was shy. Old-world Dan would’ve been, but Dan the Barbarian thought nothing about standing naked before a woman. In fact, he was proud of his body. Bedding two beautiful women on a regular basis did wonders for one’s self-esteem.
But there was something dangerous about the red elves, something almost sinister about their sexuality. Not that he thought that they would hurt him or anything. Quite the opposite. It just felt like if he wasn’t super careful, they’d trick him into an orgy or something.
And he knew that he was vulnerable now. After weeks of non-stop sex, he hadn’t gotten laid in several days. If these red elves possessed some kind of sex magic seduction power…
Thelia led him to a table covered in plush fur and told him to lie down on his stomach.
He started to follow directions but paused when he noticed something strange. “What's that hole?”
A hole went through the fur and the table itself. It was positioned where his hips would rest.
The girls giggled harder than ever.
“We will massage all of you,” one of them said. “Above and below.”
“Yes,” another added. “We’ll play a fun game. It’s called ‘guess the mouth.’ You try to guess whose mouth is—”
“Um, that’s all right,” he said, backing away.
“But Master,” one of the girls said, “we are eager to please you, and we are talented in the pleasure arts.”
“I believe it,” Dan said.
“Don’t you find us attractive?” one of them pouted.
“That’s not it at all,” he said. “You’re attractive. Very attractive. But I’m married.”
The girls laughed. “We aren’t making love, Master,” one of the girls said. “We’re just massaging you.”
“Sorry,” Dan said. “I can’t do that.” They were hot as Hades, and beneath his towel, he was hard as steel, but he would never stray from his women.
Thelia touched his arm lightly. “We will not play the mouth game, Master,” she said. “And we will leave your towel on.”
“All right,” Dan said grudgingly and lay down on the table.
The girls cheered, and a dozen small hands started smoothing oil over his back and shoulders, arms and legs.
“I have to admit,” he said, letting his eyes close. “It feels good to lie down.”
He had been pushing hard day after day, working outside from before first light till after dark, and then working indoors late into the night. He’d been averaging two hours of sleep per night.
The girls stopped rubbing, and he heard the soft whisper of fabric on flesh.
He opened his eyes.
The girls had removed their silky gowns, revealing the shapely hips, tiny waists, and large round breasts of red perfection.
Dan laughed nervously. “Whoa. Could you put your clothes back on, please?”
“But Master,” Thelia said, trailing her fingertips up his back. “You must feel our skin on your skin.”
Without permission, his manhood hardened again like the traitor it was.
Good thing I’m wearing a towel, he thought, or I’d be jutting through the hole. Not that they would mind!
The red elves shimmied back and forth, making their naked bodies move in very interesting ways.
“Yeah,” he said, “I need you to put your clothes back on. I'm serious.”
The girls made a show of pouting as they slipped back into their skimpy gowns.
Then they went to work on him. They added more oil, and a light, fruity aroma filled the air. The oil warmed his flesh beneath their working hands.
Holly had been right. They were amazing.
They surrounded him, massaging his neck and shoulders and back, his legs and feet, his tired arms and sore hands.
Occasionally, a hand crept under his towel, rubbing up his hamstrings toward his ass, but he growled at them to back off.
They laughed but obeyed, devious yet submissive, every last one of them a lovable pain in the ass.
He started to relax. The girls rubbed and kneaded, pressed and stroked, making his muscles sigh. All stiffness and pain disappeared, and a pleasant warmth hummed over his body. He was starting to wonder if there was some type of magic involved when the door to the room opened.
Dan lifted up and grunted with surprise when he saw Holly enter the room wearing one of the yellow silk gowns.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought you were working on the gun.”
Holly gave him a mischievous smile. “That's what I'm about to do.”
“Huh?”
“Ladies,” Holly said, walking to the table, “I don't care what my husband told you. Strip. Your master deserves the best massage possible. He needs to feel your bodies as you rub him.”
Dan started to protest, but Holly pressed a finger to his lips. “Take off his towel,” she commanded, and the grinning elves, already naked again, unwrapped his towel and pulled it away.
His manhood jutted through the hole in the table and hung in midair.
Holly gave him a wicked smile and removed her own gown. Then she and the girls started rubbing oil over their bodies. Soon, he was surrounded by seven wet and glistening, achingly beautiful, completely naked females.
“Okay girls,” Holly said, “massage your master.”
Someone pressed his head gently back down on the table and started massaging the scalp. Girls leaned close, rubbing their firm, oily bodies against him. He could feel their hair tickle across his bare skin, feel their naked breasts pressing into him and rubbing up his body, and hear and feel their warm, impassioned breath in his ears.
It was dizzying, almost maddening. Part of him wanted it to stop; part of him hoped that it never would.
“Now,” Holly said, leaning close, “see if you can guess whose mouth this is.” And then she disappeared under the table.
“Wait,” Dan laughed nervously, both excited and nervous. Sure, there was something to be said for being surrounded by seven incredibly beautiful, naked women, but it was kind of awkward, too. Especially if—
“Oh,” he groaned as Holly's warm, wet mouth closed over him and went to work.
26
To Arms!
Dan placed the last stone atop the rebuilt wall, and the elves cheered.
“Good job, team,” he said. “Let’s shim that up, slap some mud on it, and move on down the line.” He nodded across the fortress toward the last remaining section of crumbled wall.
The elves cheered again and got to work.
Amazing, he thought.
Not long ago, the crew would have begged for a break. But they crackled with excitement as they mortared the final stone into place, topping out the section.
After just three weeks, his crew of male red elves had gone from a bunch of delicate slackers to a team of jazzed-up workhorses. Their hands were calloused, their muscles were noticeably more toned, and their red eyes were more focused, more awake. Their gestures, facial expressions, and conversations had all become more masculine, as if hard work had somehow triggered latent testosterone.
Under Ula’s direction, the elves had also learned to fight. They weren’t exactly warriors yet, but they could swing swords, thrust and throw spears, and fire bows accurately at fifteen yards.
Were they ready to go head-to-head with Roderick’s Raiders?
No. Not by a long shot.
But as long as their defenses were prepared, these three hundred elves should be able to repel the twenty to thirty raiders likely to come their way.
Especially if Holly fixed the Fist of Fury. She and her crew had pulled it to pieces yet again and were scavenging parts from other guns. She was cautiously optimistic.
Despite all of this progress, however, as Dan looked out over the wall, he could see only work, work, and more work.
Yes, they had rebuilt all but one section of crumbled wall, but they needed to build scaffolding to defend those sections. Ideally, they would gather additional stones and distribute them around the walkway to drop on attackers.
He had also begun to wonder if it might be possible to tap into the main steam pipe and spray boiling water down on the enemy. Holly said the idea might work. As usual, they just needed to find the time.
The brush crew had cleared the meadow from the front gate to the forest, but they still had plenty to clear at the sides and back of the fortress, where their defenses would be weaker.
So much to do. It was all he did, all he thought about, from the moment he woke until the moment he fell asleep.
Or almost the only thing.
Nadia.
She and Lily were still out there somewhere, scouting the forest, warning other communities, and gathering reconnaissance.
He missed Nadia and hated that they had parted on bad terms. He wanted to patch things up and get back to the way things were. Waiting for her return drove him crazy.
In that sense, he was thankful for having so much work. It was certainly a distraction.
He had always been able to lose himself in a project and work his ass off. The tough part was knowing when to stop. And with this fortress, there was no good place to stop. He could spend the rest of his life improving the defenses of Fire Ridge and still leave things unfinished.
Soon, however, he would step aside and hand the reins to the red elves. A lot of work remained unfinished, but Dan and the girls had business in the crevasse.
He and his team would finish rebuilding the inner wall in two or three days. Then he and the girls would say farewell to Fire Ridge and head back to the crevasse. That would give the elves at least two weeks to prepare for the raiding party, which would be expecting to massacre a village of weaklings cowering behind crumbled walls.
Would Dan worry about the red elves?
Of course. He’d come to care about these people, and honestly, it would be hard to leave them to their own devices.
But he also knew that he and the girls had done good work here. By Crom, they’d given the red elves a chance to add more scenes to their historical tapestry.
That felt good. Damned good.
He climbed down the ladder, picked up the sledge and rock hammer, and told his crew to gather the mixing trough, shim buckets, and remaining tools.
They were halfway across the fortress when a sentry called down with an excited voice. “Master! People coming!”
“What?” Dan said, dropping the tools. “How many?”
“I don’t know, Master. A lot of people! Forty or fifty! They have horses and wagons and—”
The elf’s words were drowned out by the pounding of Dan’s boots as he charged up the stairs that led to the walkway atop the fortress’s front wall.
Had Roderick’s Raiders come early? And with double the expected force? If so, how could Fire Ridge stand against forty or fifty hardened warriors?
Halfway up the stairs, he slammed to a stop and bellowed across the courtyard, “To arms! Battle stations, everyone! Bows and arrows!”
All across the fortress, elves squawked with dismay, dropped what they were doing, and started rushing around. He heard Ula shouting directions, and his heart surged with affection for the brave warrior woman and for the frightened elves, who, despite their terror, charged up the stairs, bows in hand.
Heart pounding, he topped the stairs. They would fight, by Crom!
Then, leaning against the battlement, he laughed, realizing that this had been a false alarm.
Forty-some gnomes trudged across the meadow, carting with them what looked like everything they owned, including a herd of goats, a dozen stout ponies loaded with wares, and four wagons atop which teetered mountains of tarped-over cargo.
Not raiders.
Allies.
For a brief second, he was excited to see most of the gnomes were armed. But then he realized they were carrying tools, not weapons.
These weren’t warriors. They were farmers.
Men, women, and children.
Refugees.
Mouths to feed.
Great.
Elves clambered onto the walls, bows in hand, shouting as they distributed spears.
This was more than a false alarm, he realized then. It was also a valuable drill.
A quick glance revealed mixed results. Elves lined the walls, but they were shouting over one another. A quarter of the forces remained on the ground, held up by bottlenecks on the stairs.
Meanwhile, other stairs stood wide open, the walls above them sparsely populated or completely empty. There also seemed to be a lot of confusion around spear distribution. Looking down, he noticed children flocking around those waiting for the stairs to clear.
