A Lonely Knight – Part 1

Rotting as it was, Sir Sylas managed to find some sort of comfort in the old dilapidated fortress’s overgrown shadow. Against the midnight wind his campfire danced not unlike the harlots one might meet in a brothel, sending embers into the air and painting formless black beasts on the ruined walls. It had been nearly a month since the young knight had departed from Lescatie, with nary even a single human sighted within all the leagues he’d left behind him.

Unless of course he considered those poor souls he had met during his perilous trek through the surrounding swamps. Druella’s campaigning had done little good for the holy kingdom’s countryside, but within this murky hellhole the debaucheries only got worse.

He had seen men and women both hanging high up in the tree tops, caught by the lascivious embrace of tentacles. Lewd expressions of ecstasy were plastered on each of their faces whilst those writhing masses of slimy appendages pleasured them all. A few mamono had been snared as well, though most likely they were willing participants.

A lot of these people are armored, Sylas had taken note back then, or at least were. Heavy plate tended to get in the way of rape. There had also been swords laying uselessly on the ground, joined by a bunch of breaking or broken shields all bearing the recognizable sigil of The Order. Perhaps they were some failed expeditionary force…

Initially he had wanted to help his fellow brothers and sisters in arms, but after a couple of close calls, and his claymore being whisked away to leave him with only a small dagger, he got the idea that if a whole band of soldiers couldn’t take on a single one of these monsters, what good could a lone knight do all by himself? His horse had even spooked during his attempts at engagement, running off riderless into the bog and taking all of his rations and supplies along with it.

“I’ll find him come morning,” Sir Sylas said aloud, craving for any other kind of voice aside from the distant moans of his fallen comrades. Hopefully he’ll be here when I wake. While the roads had always proved lonesome, the young knight had grown accustomed to depending heavily on his steed. It was a cowardly courser he’d named Craven, but it always managed to find its own way back to its master after a scare.

Sighing, Sylas shut his weary eyes. He curled up into a ball while still laden with steel and the rest of the gear he had on hand. Draped over him was a ragged cloak, serving as threadbare protection from the elements. Beyond the light of his lowly little safe zone the lustful cries of that dreadful orgy from before could still be made out quite clearly.

A little later a dream overtook him.

He was a whole year younger, still a squire yet to earn his ‘Sir’. Beneath him the lad felt the hard packed dirt of The Academy’s training grounds, a hot summer sun burning above. Suddenly a halberd nearly took Sylas’s head clean off. Skilfully he parried it harmlessly to the side.

“Impressive!” Mersé Dascaros was before him, strong and stunning, wielding the polearm with but a single hand. She took another swing at her entranced dance partner, who made a rather flashy spectacle of pirouetting out of the way.

All around the two and arranged in an uneven circle were other trainees, watching the demonstration with unwavering eyes, yet most pairs were locked onto their female instructor. Some of them though couldn’t hold in a chuckle or a cheer at seeing the circus act that was Sylas with a sword. However he got cocky from noting the approval of his peers and tried to recreate his showy motions, only to earn a swift strike at his legs with the blunt bladeless end of Mersé’s weapon.

“Would it hurt you to learn a little bit of modesty?” The womanly warrior stood over her defeated opponent. A few streams of sweat made their way down her soft accentuated cheeks, and her harsh breaths were visible beneath the moon’s pale light. She held out a lovely hand, “Let’s head out to the tavern, and drinks are on me this time.”

By the time they had arrived everybody else was already well wasted. For the most part many of the patrons could be recognized from that morning’s practice, currently now drowning out their exhaustion in heavy liquors to merrily make their way into drunkenness. Meanwhile the bartender, a bearded dwarf of a man, cried curses and demanded for someone to pay their tab.

“Oi! Two schnappses!” Mersé called out heartily after a serving girl who passed by as they entered. She was momentarily groped by some red faced ruffian though seemingly wasn’t distracted enough to not hear the order.

Sylas made certain to follow Mersé as closely as he could. He didn’t do well in crowds, and did even worse when they were as lively as tonight’s was. “There’s nowhere to sit!” it took a shout just to be heard.

“Then how about we try the back?”

Such a suggestion was innocent enough, however the wink and the smile Mersé followed it up with hinted at something much more. Without meaning to Sylas blushed. Perhaps she took that as a sign of acceptance, for the next thing he knew his hand was grabbed by hers and he was being pulled fast towards an inconspicuous looking door.

The people surrounding them seemed to fade away into obscurity. Maybe they were never there in the first place.

Within moments of the two entering the room, some storage closet by the looks of it, their clothes disappeared as well, all but confirming Sylas’s suspicions. “You’ve been waiting for this all day, haven’t you?” Mersé teased with her bare and beautiful body completely exposed. She had a rather athletic build, yet still her breasts were sizeable and soft, with only the slightest hint of abs, and a rear end that was both firm and alluring. There were scars dotting her in various places of course, completely natural considering her line of work, along with that patch she always wore over her lost right eye. Though that did naught to spoil her charm.

No wonder she was everyone’s favorite commanding officer.

“As always I shall take the lead,” Mersé sang as she straddled Sylas, with the opening of her bright pink flesh just touching his tip. Already she was sopping wet. “Unless of course my green boy has finally started to learn from my private lessons?” She pinched his cheek, like how one might to a child.

Somewhat agitated, and not wanting to be taken so lightly, Sylas quickly reversed the roles. He tackled her onto a sack of grain before forcefully entering her slit with the entirety of his length. Mersé squealed in delight as he began slamming away at full strength, polluting the air with lewdly moist sounds.

“Yes! That’s the spot!” She moaned so loudly that the entire establishment might’ve heard her. That is if a world even existed beyond these four walls. “More! More! MORE!” Mindlessly Mersé’s hips bucked by themselves, wild and unrelenting, looking nothing like the usual level-headed girl she was.

Time blurred as minutes, hours, even days passed within an instant. Sylas’s vigorous lovemaking though was one of the few things that remained consistent. His thrusts were at an easy to follow, albeit quick, rhythm. Mersé’s hot pillowy thighs also provided him with good leverage. Yet eventually his endurance was nearing its end, as he could feel his seed begin to build up at his base.

“I’m gonna cum!” Mersé, wailed, clearly closer to the edge, “E-El… El! If you do me like that, you’re gonna make me cum!”

Sylas had to wince. El, he repeated to himself, El…I am not El.

Mersé’s face began to melt away like the wax of a dying candle. The rest of her followed suit, arms and legs and all. But Sylas just humped away, even as his love’s mucky remains slipped past fingers that were not his. No…No…No…He leaned in for a kiss, thinking for a foolish moment that it might fix her.

When it didn’t the lad tried to pull her into an embrace, only for his arms to slip through her and split the girl in two. The top half of her severed off of her waist before sloshing down onto the floor in a liquidy heap. What was probably her torso oozed off of Sylas’s forearms.

“I am not El,” he said it out loud this time. Mersé bubbled out a response, but Sylas couldn’t tell what she was trying to say before all that was left of her was a puddle. He collapsed onto his ass then, alone, naked, and trapped in a room that grew ever smaller. He wasn’t sure where the door had gone. I am not El…I am not El…I am not El…

Craven was still missing when he awoke. There was no one for Sylas to hold save for himself. It was cold but thankfully his cloak had decided it was best to stay, although his fire had died maybe an hour earlier. The moon could be made out ever so slightly past dark looming clouds. Dawn was a long way off.

The young knight found himself laid out on his back, all damp from a mixture of his own sweat and the wet air of the swamp. He had a hard on pressing against his undergarments, hurting like it was about to burst.

Sylas blamed that, along with his night terrors, on demonic energy. I feel it, this whole place is absolutely teeming with it. Far off it was evident the tentacles had yet to slow the pace of their play.

Halfheartedly he decided it was in his best interest to find more firewood. But as he got up a drop of rain found Sylas’s face. More eventually followed until a whole storm blew in over his head, with bright streaks of lightening crashing down every now and again.

Luckily there was shelter aplenty in the war torn holdfast he had decided to encamp himself in. Yet somehow the decaying stonework and decrepit gargoyles hanging about didn’t help to make it any more inviting.

Not minding it too much however, Sylas figured spending a few hours in what was definitely a haunted abandoned castle might prove better than dying of hypothermia.

He had slept in a massive center courtyard. It was likely where this place’s garrison practiced their swordplay ages past. A short jog later, with his hood shielding his head, he found himself under a big arched doorway.

The doors themselves had been blown clear off their hinges. Hopefully whatever had done that was far gone by now.

Further inside was what looked to be the keep’s main hall, but from there it became practically pitch black; Sylas didn’t risk another step. It was still pretty dank, uncomfortably so. But in spite of that, it was safe for him to assume that there wouldn’t be any other spots close by to find better rest. And if there were, finding them would be a pain. Especially while he couldn’t even make out his own hand at an arm’s length away.

Laying down at the entrance, Sylas tried to drift away once more. But a sharp pain lingered in his loins, reminding him how erect he still was.

Sighing he turned around to squat and prop the top of his head against the wall. As if entranced by a fog he undid the buckles to his belt, removing his chainmail leggings and the trousers underneath. He firmly grasped his manhood before starting to steadily stroke himself.

Sylas shut his eyes, thinking of Mersé.

Unable to stop himself he moaned her name out into the darkness. His imagination ran wild with impossibilities, and with his free hand he ruffled his unkempt hair; just like she had done so long ago for a single sweet second. He remembered telling her about wanting it cut. But she had dared to say he looked good with messy hair, even cute. Almost like a puppy.

The memory made Sylas’s jerks all the harder. He fell to his knees and was panting like some creature in heat. But now as he held nothing back, Mersé’s name escaped his mouth in maddened cries.

Eventually he was able to bring himself to climax, spewing his essence every which way to stain all it touched. “Mersé,” he mumbled out feebly for one last time.

In the afterglow immediately came a shameful moment of cruel clarity. How disgusting, the young knight spat, deciding in his head that that’s how Mersé herself would react should she ever come to know what he had just finished doing.

After cleaning himself on the ends of his cloak and refastening his apparel, Sylas sat down on the small set of stairs leading up into the entryway. It was still raining outside but only the toe tips of his boots were getting wet in the position he was in. He sighed before hanging his head to brood over unpleasant thoughts.

El, he recalled the name of the man he had lost her to, though could I have ever said she was mine in the first place? Mersé had never truly flirted with him, and perhaps all the affection she showed him that he had assumed was romantic was in the end more motherly than anything else. You’re not El. Those words from a lifetime ago still stung him in the present.

“El,” he tensed up just hearing himself say it. Sylas came to hate that name. Should he ever have a child in the future he would sooner kill it in its swaddling clothes than curse his kid with such a dreadful name. Even the letter that name sounded like always came off his tongue unyieldingly bitter, especially any words terrible enough to be spelled with it. Life…Laughter…Love…

Unfortunately Sylas’s own name had an ‘L’ in it, and he blamed his parents for damning him so.

He then tried to imagine El’s face, and mayhaps it was for the better that he couldn’t. But he did have a slightly vague idea of how he looked. Short black hair, fair skin, with a boyish face lacking any sign of scruff, and eyes that were either blue or green or hazel. Anyone that even slightly resembled this unclear mug he established would get a silent blaspheme out of him.

Mersé.

Strangely thoughts of her always had a knack of calming Sylas. Despite her being the other side of the coin that broke his heart, never could he bring himself to be angry with her. She had vented to him once, and sure she was more than a little bit tipsy at the time, but it had to count for something.

Her mother had abused her profusely, which led to her having need of that eye patch. She’d always brag to others that it was some dragon that clawed it off, but somehow concluded that Sylas deserved the truth. She hated being a woman, feeling the expectations and societal pressures to conform constantly at her throat. It was why she had joined the military, to try and become something she saw as the polar opposite of a woman. A soldier.

It has to be her, no one else, Sylas mused on the day he’d realized he had fallen for her. He was a virgin, still was, and never got the chance to plant a kiss on anyone. Of course he didn’t consider himself much of a puritan, but to him Mersé was the only girl he would ever be willing to share his first times with. If only she felt the same.

Feeling solemn, the young knight took out his dagger to twiddle with by the pointy end on the tip of a finger. He realized his sight had finally adjusted to his surroundings as the markings fancifully etched on its handle were clear enough to be readable. Dascaros.

Something inside him violently urged for him to toss the aged birthday gift away into the rain. But he thought better of it.

Maybe if I’m lucky some mamono will sweep me off my feet, Sylas japed, bringing out an unsmiling laugh from his lips. No, only Mersé, she’ll be all I will ever desire. I’d sooner gut myself than get paired with a random inhuman freak.

The notion of a monster girl jumping out at him though did give Sylas some cause for alarm. He hadn’t exactly been silent during his session of self-love, and oddly he could no longer hear what had once been the constant ambience of sex in the distance. Of course that could just be because of the storm. Another flash before another deafening clap drove home that if something was gonna sneak up on him he wouldn’t detect it coming. Doubly so with such a thick blackness blanketing all sides.

Sylas then deigned he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep tonight. Partially because he didn’t want to get raped, and another part of him wasn’t all that keen on seeing what else his subconscious might surprise him with should he even try to doze off.

With his tiny blade at the ready he kept watch over the wide yard he’d come from, even if he could barely make out several feet in front of him. He imagined his campfire was doubtless underneath its own little lake by now. Graciously though it appeared like morning was a lot closer than he had originally thought, as the faintest of all lights climbed up over mountains many miles away on the horizon.

But he had to squint just to focus properly on it, and with most of Sylas’s attention on the fine promise of a new day, he failed to sense the tentacles come up from behind to wrap around his neck and enter both of his ears.

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