thing. I’m surprised you want to jump into something like that so fast.”
“In a less desperate situation we might be more cautious,” Avilla
admitted. “But the way things are going, I don’t think we have the luxury of
being indecisive. Besides, it’s been a very eventful three days. We’ve already
seen most of the important things. You’re a bold leader of men with more than
enough power to protect us, yet you’re not ashamed to ask a woman for advice.
You’re considerate to a fault, but you don’t allow others to take advantage of
you.”
“You fuck like a god,” Cerise put in cheerily.
Avilla smiled slyly. “Oh, yes. We aren’t going to find a better man. But
Daniel, we can offer as much as we ask. A coven-bond can include almost any
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vow, and once taken it becomes unbreakable. Do you wish us to never desire
another man? To always hunger for your touch? To submit to your guidance in
all things? Ask anything you like of us, Daniel. You may be surprised at how
far we’re willing to go, and how little we ask in return.”
Her beautiful face was inches from mine, her firm breasts brushing
against my chest, and the memory of what the three of us had done just last
night threatened to overwhelm me. It was so tempting to simply say yes, to
whatever this vision of loveliness might ask of me.
But I’d been married long enough to know better than to make major
decisions in this kind of situation. Amanda had done the same thing, offering a
blow job out of the blue and pausing in the middle of it to propose vacation
plans or a new car or whatever else she might want at the moment.
So instead I hugged Avilla against my chest, and sighed.
“I’ll think about it,” I told her. “I’ll want to know a lot more about what’s
involved in a coven-bond and how they work.”
“Of course,” she agreed.
“If there are unbreakable vows involved I want us to think very carefully
about what to include,” I went on. “Something that sounds fine at first glance
could easily end up making us all miserable twenty years from now.”
“I’ve got a bunch of notes we can look over,” Cerise agreed. “I’ve been
trying to work out ideas for years.”
“Thank you, Daniel,” Avilla breathed. “Don’t worry, we’ll find a way to
make this work.”
Then she kissed me, and the time for conversation was over.
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Chapter 8
In the cold light of day, I was sure there had to be a catch.
Seriously, two beautiful young women volunteering to share a guy? Let
alone the thing with the maids, and all the ‘please tell us what to do’ vibes I
was getting from them.
It was too good to be true. They wanted something from me, and they
were trying to dazzle and distract me to keep me from noticing the catch until it
was too late. It was the only explanation that made sense.
Unfortunately, my own ignorance made it impossible to guess what the
truth was. Maybe this ‘coven bond’ ritual was actually going to turn out to be a
mind control spell, or some kind of sacrifice. Maybe they had a way to steal
my magic if I consented. There were a thousand possibilities.
Or maybe they were just desperately scared, and were trying to make
sure I didn’t abandon them. That was the kicker. Just because they were trying
to manipulate me didn’t meant it was for nefarious purposes. Hell, they might
even like me as much as I did them, in which case it would be damned stupid
to throw this away just because I couldn’t let go of my suspicions.
So I resolved to keep my eyes open, learn fast, and play along until I
figured things out. At this point that was really all I could do.
At least I finally had some time to prepare. I’d sandbagged more than a
little on my construction time estimate, but I still needed to spend most of each
day working on the wall. I wanted to make sure the Baron would have no
excuse to interrupt my work or short me on my payment, and besides I was a
little nervous that the giants would make a move before I was finished. The
town had been attacked several times by goblins, trolls and other lesser
threats, so it was only a matter of time.
The first day I spent part of the morning making the rounds of the
injured who’d been under my care, speeding along their healing and making
sure they’d all make a full recovery. They were happy enough about that, and
more than a few of them made inquiries about whether I was hiring. Not having
time to organize that myself, I sent most of them to see Avilla.
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She’d been shocked when I told her I was putting her in charge of
organizing the group I wanted, but she was happy enough when I explained my
reasoning.
“We can’t afford to take a bunch of extra people, and I figure this is
like setting up a minor noble’s household. I’ve got no idea what we actually
need in the way of domestic staff, but I’m sure you can handle that side of it.
We’re also going to need laborers to move supplies around, teamsters to drive
whatever I come up with for transport, probably a blacksmith and some other
craftsmen to support the troops and keep all our gear in order. Keep the group
as small as you can, but I expect we’ll end up with a dozen soldiers and at
least that many support staff.”
“More, if we want to be self-sufficient,” she replied, already
considering the problem. “What about families? The best craftsmen will
mostly be married, won’t they?”
“Probably. We’ll take them, of course. But try to keep the total number
of people down, especially children. Travel is going to be dangerous no matter
how well we prepare, and I’d rather not have a bunch of little kids in the line
of fire.”
I spent an hour enchanting warmth cloaks for Cerise to sell, and
confirmed in the process that I was getting faster at it. It was a pretty simple
enchantment, and practice made a big difference. The last cloak took me barely
ten minutes to make, and I was actually optimistic about improving on that
time. With any luck I’d be able to equip my whole group with them before it
was time to leave.
Unfortunately working on the wall didn’t get any easier. My limit there
was more a matter of power than skill, at least when it came to conjuring up
thousands of cubic feet of earth and stone. The second tower went up a bit
faster than the first, but the fact that I wasn’t bothering to do anything fancy
with the interior was a lot of that. I put on exterior doors of stone, but the
inside was just five identical floors of one big room each.
Things got more complicated when I got to the road I’d noticed running
parallel to the river. Obviously that called for a gatehouse, but how was I
going to make a gate out of stone? Mechanical engineering wasn’t my
specialty, and it would be awful easy to end up making the gates so heavy
they’d be impossible to move.
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Putting in the foundation for a pair of towers with a gatehouse between
them was easy enough, but I was still mulling over the gate problem when I
heard Beri’s voice call down from the top of the wall.
“Master Black? Are you down there?”
“I’m here!” I called. “Wait where you are, I’ll be right up.”
I carefully levitated myself up the face of the wall, and found Beri