Swift-spear.
"Need help!" Gube announced, staring down at the old warrior who cautiously peered at the two taller beauties standing before him.
One, so impossibly indescribable as to be nothing short of a miracle itself, the otherâfetching in a more, well, potentially obtainable way⦠Delectable but approachable⦠possible⦠Unlike the dark lady's fey priestess, who might rip one's pride and joy away if they got too close.
The thought wasn't even a joke! Swift-spear had heard the storiesâ¦
"Can't have other spear," Swift-spear grunted, not liking his odds if he had to force the issue, but willing to roll the bones rather than be emasculated and left weaponless. For a man like himself, if he didn't have a tool of war worth his time, then he'd rather just go find a cliff with a sufficiently far drop.
"No! Not spear, need skill! Need training."
Swift-spear blinked at the expectant priestess, surprised that his expertise was being so openly sought out.
Rare was it that goblins had the presence of mind or motivation to improve themselves⦠And while he'd had pupils before, they had been more responsibility pushed upon him by his chieftain than anything approaching what was happening nowâ¦
Nonetheless, he considered the pair of women. They were both a good deal taller than himself⦠changed by their goddess to be something more than goblin⦠that much was clear. But, still less than Hob.
The priestess herself was enchanting without question, but, at the same time, he couldn't help but feel there was more to her than met the eye.
She was frightfully clever⦠having won nearly the entire clan, or what remained of it, to her lady's banner in such a way that saw most of their kin now looking to her for guidance rather than the late chieftain's son.
A building tension between herself and Strong-arm was manifesting from the awkward situation, and it only seemed to be growing by the hourâ¦
And Swift-spear had no illusions over who would win that contest when it was inevitably pushed...
The young, growing Hob was potent and strong, it was true, probably stronger than Gube⦠yet, perhaps not by a considerable enough margin, regardless of how the woman appeared.
He could still vividly remember how she'd held the cowardly sentry standing watch with him upon a single leg, the other not appearing to so much as struggle in the least with that weightâ¦
In fact, to him, it had seemed as though her concern hadn't at all arisen from a sense of being overburdened or strained, but more that she'd simply been surprised by her own capabilitiesâ¦
The old warrior hadn't gotten to his age with the skill of arms alone⦠no, to reach the truly venerable as he and the shaman had, one had to be as wily and crafty as they could be.
Pound for pound, Strong-arm might take the bout, but Gube had that all-too-clear sparkle of intelligence in her gaze that he'd learned to take notice of over the years.
Strong-arm wasn't a fool, but against that dreadful glint of cunning behind the priestess's spiraling gaze, Swift-spear rather suspected he'd be hedging his bets with her rather than the son of his old friend.
Aâsad reality, but so was the way with such thingsâ¦
Great men rose and fell with the ever-shifting ebb and flow of history⦠Grun-bad the Wise, having reigned prosperously over his many years on the throne before, inevitably, another had risen to greater heights around himâ¦
Now, they were but a shade of their former glory⦠and the great chieftain's only surviving son was proving to be anything but his sire's equal.
Talented with the blade he kept at his waist, it was true, but also quite married to the weapon, which was a fault in and of itself... Not to mention, he was far too prone to brash action when a calm mind was needed or, paradoxically, inaction when opportunities arose that might bear fruit if only they'd been seizedâ¦
He was a poor leader... There just wasn't any better way to say it...
But such things mattered little to an old warrior who desired naught beyond spending his remaining days in the warmth of day.
For all the man's dreams of glory and greatness, it could have been fate or a kind of dark comedy that another god should arise, a rare occurrence in and of itself, to manifest within the great forest and, more still, within the once great tribe of the hob's father, now shattered and scattered as it was, only for the entities to overlook Strong-arm not once, but twiceâ¦
And to grant so much power!
Sure, Rell didn't seem to hold a candle to Gube herself, but⦠compared to the others within the cave? Young Rell would likely shape up to be an outlier as she aged, another elite warrior, such as Strong-arm himself, or even Swift-spearâ¦
Surely, had he been granted such a form in his earliest days⦠Well, he could only wonder after what he could have become! Yet, the old warrior had never been one for dwelling on the past⦠and, at the moment, the future had come and sought him out of its own accord.
Yes, he likely had a plethora of knowledge to share with the younglings before him⦠the opportunity to pass on his know-how to the next up-and-coming generations to succeed those already taking over for his ownâ¦
Yet, Swift-spear was oldâ¦
He still had the embers of youth burning within him, but the body just wasn't what it used to be⦠the pitfalls of surviving as long as he had taken their toll on himâ¦
Growing wiser, it was true, but with the passage of years, his body had shrunk, and his hair became white... Balls drooping to the point he sometimes had to wrap them up just so they didn't get caught on twigs!
Besides, what was the point of sharing what he knew? Couldn't the girl's dark mistress grant her anything he could offer? It just didn't seem worth his time. Worth the taxing effort to gather the energy and dust off his creaking bonesâ¦
Eventually, he shrugged. Not because he didn't want to get in the way of a looming conflict of succession, not because he was taking sides. But rather, that he couldn't be bothered by the pairâ¦
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Truly, they had little he could possibly wantâ¦
For her part, Gube frowned as he looked away with disinterest, gaze scanning the treeline as it so often did as of late, before the priestess growled, a touch of frustration entering her voice.
"Gube need training. How to track, how to use spear better, how to fight like you! Rell needs too. Worse thanâmhrrmm... flailing worm!" She added, looking somewhat exasperatedly towards a sheepish Rell who peered down towards her toes.
"Probably right," Swift-spear agreed. Not really seeing the need to get involved either way. "Still, no help. Too old, too tired. Go figure out yourself. Learn as I did. Practice."
"Not good enough," Gube hissed, looming toward the old veteran with her sizable stature. "Need help."
"Eh, find someone else."
"No, you."
Swift-spear just shook his head, refusing to be intimidated by the encroaching and dangerous seductress who still was, as of yet, nude.
"Fine." The woman huffed, crossing her arms and switching gears. "Could ask goddess to make you."
"Think would bother?" The old warrior retorted, having learned long ago that gods rarely listened to those who followed them and, even then, weren't prone to answering demands made of their lofty sort; it just wasn't how they operated.
"Don't know. Willing to find out. Figure fifty-fifty⦠Though, if dark lady won't fuck you in the ass, Gube will."
That made Swift-spear pause, his confidence suddenly waning with the blatant threat.
Sure, a fight was one thingâbut, if such a thing came to pass and the priestess pinned him, a rather depressing outcome with equally depressing odds against his own victory⦠then⦠yeah... that wouldn't be very pleasant...
Glancing down, Swift-spear eyed the soft, hairless, and rounded mounds of the priestess's alluring sex, wondering how exactly she figured she'd pull it off in the first place. Her supposed goddess was one thing. He'd seen how she had ravaged Gube and, to a much lesser extent, Rell. He definitely didn't want to go out with a tentacle up his arse, but⦠again, the goddess likely wouldn't bother⦠probably.
Noticing where his gaze was lingering, Gube snorted, rolling her bright-pink eyes as she regained the old warrior's attention, cocking her hip suggestively as she leaned in with a sultry air about her tone. "Will find big stick. Lots of nubs and bark. Won't be enjoyable."
Ah! So that was how she planned to do itâ¦
Creative!
If also genuinely concerningâ¦
"Might manage to kill you if try," He offered, not willing to simply roll over and take such an eventuality with his pants down.
"Might⦠but doubt."
The tension in the air thickened as Swift-spear readied himself for a coming attack, shifting his weight without yet giving the game away as he maintained the illusion of aloof indifference.
All the while, the young priestess seemed to consider her options.
He was skilled. She was fast.
At a certain point, raw power did, in fact, supersede skill. It was just a reality of life, and why old soldiers did not dominate the battlefield amidst so many young and more reckless fools.
Heck, skill in battle was half about knowing which fights to run for the hills from! Yet, Swift-Spear refused to break.
If it was his time, then he'd show the girl's goddess that he would not be so easy a hurdle to overcome.
Old age had made him one hell of a cantankerous bastard.
"Fine. Then what want in exchange?"
Blinking, the veteran hesitated, slightly caught off guard. He'd been expecting diplomacy to long since have failed as it would have from the very start with most goblins that roamed the forests⦠though, Gube wasn't necessarily the average gob, now was she?
Come to think of it, neither was he, nor Rell for that matter...
Of the dozens of goblins left in the clan, here, standing together, were three of the only five that were worth a damn by his estimation, and even then, two of them had justâsprung up out of nowhere over the past two days!
Sure, Gube had been a passable fighter before, with perhaps a little more cunning than those around, but she'd yet been too young to really grow wise. Though now, the girl potentially could be the greatest among them, the other, by his estimation of her demure appearance, the leastâ¦
Yet, that did beg the question of what Swift-spear, if anything, might actually want of the two.
Sure, with Gube looking the way she did, he could beâcoaxed into a few of the moreâcardiovascular-intensive experiences he'd partaken in with many partners in his younger daysâ¦
Though he suspected such things weren't exactly on the table. Gube seemed to belong to one and only one being in her life now, and that was her supposed dark ladyâ¦
An entity that she spoke of with a fanatic's devotion that bordered on obsessive affection. He'd seen the likes of it before⦠even experienced it to a degree himself once, long ago, when he'd had the fortune of capturing one of the fairer races that walked the world.
A beast-kin with rabbit-like attributes that he'd had the pleasure of ravishing for years in his personal hovel, back when Swift-spear was a name that invoked fear in the hearts of those yet old enough to still remember his prime.
The woman had been so delectable⦠So smooth where goblins were crusted and wrinkled⦠so lovely as to make him see how truly abhorrent and ghastly his own kind wasâ¦
Back then, that girl had seemed the epitome of beauty itself, a treasure to be hoarded and kept hidden away, worth more than any sum of pretty stones or shiny coins could ever be valued.
He'd lost her when his captive had managed something sharp enough to slit her own throat⦠but, Swift-spear still remembered those days as though they were the best he'd ever lived⦠and, possibly, they even wereâ¦
He peered at Gube. The priestess so enchanting as to make the fading memory of his bunny girl so dim by comparison. Even Rell made those cloudy days upon the edge of recollection seem less than he'd always thought they wereâ¦
And, perhaps there was more truth to the whole matter, to begin with⦠perhaps, the two blessed by the clan's new patron were more than that woman had really been so many years agoâ¦
He licked his lips. Eyeing the tantalizing curve and appreciative definition of muscle across the priestess's silky flesh⦠her body hard in all the places he could admire as a warrior, but thick and full with just the right amount of irresistible plumpness that commanded the eye to stareâ¦
Those subtly jiggling, powerful, and mouthwateringly sculpted thighs gave him daydreams that had enraptured him these past few morningsâ¦
And that was nothing to say of the woman's high and thickly tight rearâ¦
He felt his loins pulsing to fully engorged thickness with the mere musing thought that the priestess might indulge an old warrior in his last true enjoyable romp in the bushâ¦
Surely, his time and tutelage were worth the opportunity to find out just how tight and steamy the goddess had made her chosen champion within her mystifying depthsâ¦
"Pfft! Only in dream, old man." The priestess barked, laughing as she looked upon Swift-spear with open contempt. Clearly, reading the direction his thoughts were leading. "Thoughâ¦" She continued a moment later, somewhat thoughtfully, as she turned to eye the younger woman behind her. "Rell like Swift-spear, yes? You have Rell! Most girls dream of big, strong warrior to mate with!"
Swift-spear perked at the priestess's words, surprised and, even a touch too eager, glancing somewhat more excitedly than he should have to see a deeply blushing Rell still staring at her feet.
"See? Gube not interested, but Rell looking to take advantage of new ass!" The priestess grinned as she reached back and slapped the other girl's buttocks, earning a small and excited squeal from the woman who just did things for Swift-spear as his throat swallowed with a bob. "Ah! But training first! Sex after," the priestess purred, smiling brightly as she did so.
"Sex before," he countered, glaring at Gube, who only grinned wider at him⦠Her knowing and confident expression was filled with pompous confidence.
Swift-spear for all the world while meeting her gazeâsuddenly felt as though he'd just been completely snared within an unforeseen trap carefully laid for him by the devious woman's clever mindâ¦
"I think not," Gube reiterated, grinning from ear to ear. "Wouldn't want Swift-spear to die from overexcited and bad heart before first lessons!"