The Tournament (13 page)

"Greetings, friend," said the King, gesturing at Ruby. "Morrow welcomes you."

Again the eldest of the group took a seat next at the King's left. The youngest, soft-lipped and richly dressed, joined Ruby on the pallet. He lay her on her back, climbed on top, and fit the head of his long, skinny cock into her cunt. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and began to fuck her.

The elder ambassador spoke of a rebellion in his country. He needed military support from the King's seasoned army.
 

But the young dignitary fucking Ruby spilled his seed after only a few thrusts. He tried to pretend that he was still hard, thrusting his soft cock at her, his ass bouncing, but the Herald blew his trumpet and the young ambassador went still, his cheeks pink with shame.

"Are you satisfied with your audience?" asked the King.

The senior ambassador stood. "We are satisfied," he agreed, giving his young compatriot a look of utter contempt as he pulled his cock from Ruby's cunt.
 

Ruby was rushed away again as the elder dignitary led his group out of the hall.
 

A third ambassador put Ruby on her knees and fucked her while the head of his delegation spoke to the King about a joint expedition into uncharted oceans. This ambassador caressed Ruby's breasts and hips and stomach as he penetrated her, fucking her with gusto. It was clear from the beginning that he wouldn't last long, and the King agreed to the elder ambassador's proposal quickly.

By the smug smile on the elder dignitary's face, Ruby thought that the need for haste had worked in his favor.
 

A fourth ambassador had her ride him, lying beneath her with his eyes shut tight and his hands curled into fists, his lips pursed into a tight white seam. Ruby clenched her cunt around his cock in tight little throbs that made him moan like a rusty bellows.

"Are you satisfied with your audience?" asked the King.

The ambassador at the King's side, witness to this display, couldn't even reply. He smacked the young man on the pallet over the head and and dragged him out of the audience chamber by the ear, the young man's cock still hard and glistening with Ruby's oils.

The Herald had nobody else to announce.

"No petitioners?" asked the King.

"Not today," snickered War, provoking a wave of laughter.

"The dragons request an audience," said Zov, speaking from somewhere within the hall.

The sound of his voice went straight to Ruby's gut. She felt cold and queasy.

"The dragons have come to ask Morrow for a favor?" asked the King.
 

Zov approached the throne. "We are always in need," said the dragon, still wearing the guise of a handsome young man with skin the color of dried blood.

"That's close enough," said the King sharply. "I have not invited you."

Zov glanced at Ruby and licked his lips. "If you let me take this one, we will renegotiate the Treaty."
 

The King hesitated. His hands closed into fists.
 

"You want to forbid couplings between dragons and your aspirants," said Zov. "Do you not?"
 

"It is essential," said the King. "But you have already made it clear that the dragons will not agree to it."
 

"I got a daughter off of this redhair," said Zov. "She is strong and healthy. The girl could make me another, and two children is good tribute. I will take her, and you will protect your Tournament."
 

Ruby bowed her head. She represented the Tournament, and the Tournament required a sacrifice. Her duty was clear, and terrible.
 

"No," said the King. "I will not
give
you one of my citizens."

"She will not refuse me," said Zov. He cupped her breast with his hot, dry hand. "The treaty allows me to take her now, as she is. I don't have to offer you anything."

"Pierce her with that
thing
you call a cock," said the King, "and you will die."
 

"What more do you want?" Zov asked. "Name it."
 

The silence that followed this offer was profound.

"We want the dragons to supply us with soldiers," called out the Minister of War. "You live off the fat of the land; you ought to help defend it."
 

"If you want dragons to die for you, you must help us to make more dragons," said Zov. "That is our position. That has always been our position."
 

"We will not assist in your murders," spat the King.

"Perhaps our differences are irreconcilable," said Zov. "Very well. I can find another aspirant, just as agreeable and at less cost to myself."
 

Silently, her heart breaking, Ruby reached for Zov's trousers. She loosened the drawstring waist and pulled the fabric low to reveal his cock, an iron-dark club of flesh covered in sharp, reddish spikes of bone. Looking at it, knowing what it had done to her, made her want to scream. To flee, to run and run until Zov could never catch her, never touch her again.

But she had a purpose. The purpose was greater than her fear of pain. So she reached out and wrapped the palm of her hand tight around the dragon's penis. The bone spikes pierced her flesh and her blood wet his cock. Blood squeezed out around the edges of her palm to drip on his thigh, onto the polished marble floor.

Zov watched her. "It takes more than blood to birth a dragon, little redhair," he said.
 

Ruby released his cock and shifted her grip, squeezing again a little closer to the tip. She made the blood flow freely, and caressed the hard spiked head of his cock with a bloody thumb.

Zov sniffed the air, suddenly alert. His eyes turned to slits. The Throne Room vanished, and Ruby found herself once again sitting in the grass of a beautiful spring meadow.
 

Birdsong filled the air. A cool breeze cut the sun's heat. Nearby, a beautiful woman with purplish skin and mahogany hair crooned at a tiny, reddish baby dragon.
 

"My daughter," said Zov. He dropped to his knees, and Ruby massaged his cock. The spikes made meat of her hand. Her palm looked like it had flayed, and then gnawed by rats. The pain was terrible, and yet she made herself squeeze him again and again. She hoped he would come before her muscles ceased to obey her commands, before she had to ruin her other hand.
 

"How is this possible?" asked Zov. "What have you done?"
 

"There is sex in my blood," said Ruby, tears falling freely. "Sex and magic."

"A child will grow from this," said Zov. He moved her bloody paw to cup the head of his cock. "The seed must taste the blood, or it will not quicken."
 

He spilled boiling acid onto her palm. Ruby screamed in agony as it bit into raw muscle, sobbing as his cum dribbled onto the soil.

"Is that all?"

"For now," said Zov. He transported them back to the Throne Room, which had dissolved into chaos.
 

Guards had poured into the room, their weapons drawn and raised. The King stood, trying to shout over the noise. Onlookers screamed when Ruby and Zov reappeared, and a brace of soldiers quickly surrounded the dragon.

Zov did not seem alarmed.
 

The doctor ran to her, checking her cunt for bleeding before he took hold of her arm and enveloped her ravaged hand in the warm tingle of his magic.

"You fool," said the doctor, his voice shaking. "You little fool."
 

"I am satisfied," said Zov to the King. "You may draft a new Treaty, using the terms you have already proposed, and the dragons will ratify it."
 

The King sighed. "Morrow appreciates your concessions," he said to the dragon, and "the ambassador is free to leave," to his soldiers.
 

The doctor enveloped her hands in a sort of magical bandage, invisible and painless. Like his gloves, and the King's sheaths. The pain faded to a dull throb, timed to her heartbeat. Ruby used her uninjured hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
 

"What do you see, brother?" asked the King.

"Nothing I can't fix," said the doctor.

"Take the aspirant to your examination room," said the King. "She has done her country a great service. We ask no more of her."
 

The doctor lifted her in his arms and carried her out of the throne room.
 

"My legs are fine," said Ruby, once they'd reached the corridor.

"Do not speak to me," said the doctor. "Not one word."

Ruby fell silent.

"You could have died," he said.

"I expected to," said Ruby.
 

The doctor paused, holding her still in the hallway, his gaze focused on some distant point. He took a deep breath. "How dare you."
 

"It was the right thing to do," said Ruby.
 

"No." He carried her through a doorway and set her down on a cushioned chair. "No." The doctor looked away, breathing hard.
 

"I saved the Tournament," said Ruby. The room was spacious, full of instruments and cabinets, scrupulously clean. The model from which his Pavilion tent had been copied. "And I saved the King from making a decision that would have shamed him."
 

"Nobody asked you," snapped the doctor.
 

"Nobody had asked me
yet
," Ruby corrected. "It wouldn't have taken long."
 

The doctor bowed his head.
 

Her hand heated as he worked his magic, and then the odd gloves turned opaque.
 

"Perhaps you have come to expect miracles," said the doctor, standing up and washing his hands in a bowl of water. "You make choices, I pay for them."
 

"Do you begrudge the price?" Ruby asked.
 

"Yes," said the doctor. "I do."

"Then I have abused your generosity," said Ruby, standing up. She was naked, and had no robe to cover herself with. "It will not happen again."
 

She turned to go.
 

"I found you," said the doctor to her back. "In the green spring grass, after the dragon ravaged you. I carried you back, close enough to death as makes no difference. I saw what he did to you, all of it, because
I
healed you. And then I watched you leave with him again, knowing I could do nothing but wait for him to return with your corpse."
 

Ruby bowed her head. She felt such love that she could not speak.
 

"Too high a price," he said. "Go rest, Ruby. Your hand will heal."
 

Ruby returned to her tent. The Steward visited with a sapphire bead, her seventh, and after him the King came to thank her. His praise told Ruby what she had already guessed—if she had not volunteered to service the dragon, she would have been asked, and then pressured.
 

But she could not blame them for wanting what she had wanted, or for valuing her life at the same price she had.

It took weeks for her hand to heal, but the convalescence was not hard. The doctor saw her every day, monitoring her progress and applying fresh surges of magic. The hand only pained her when she forgot the injury, and tried to grab or hold something with it—then she would almost collapse from the agony.
 

She was called back to Court soon after the doctor removed his magical bandage to reveal pink, unblemished skin. The skin was tender, her muscles clumsy, but she was whole and getting better. Once again Lily, Coral, and Milkweed bathed and dressed her. She donned a new robe, green this time, and entered when the Herald called for her by name.

"Come, sit with me," said the King, rising to his feet and holding out his hand.

When Ruby would have sat on the chair to his left, the King checked her. He invited her to sit on his couch, and she looked out at a hundred-odd faces as she took her place at his side, hip to hip with a man who had never before deigned to acknowledge her in public.
 

"You have done the country a great service," said the King, pushing her down so she lay flat on her back, "and now I offer you my favor."
 

Ruby trembled with desire and fear.
 

A murmur of admiration rose up from the audience as the King removed his clothing. He was beautiful, perfect, his cock standing erect and ready.
 

And unsheathed.
 

The King parted her legs and pulled her hips past the edge of the couch. He unbelted her robe and opened it, revealing her nakedness, and then dragged a finger through the folds of her cunt.

"You see how wet she is?" said the King, displaying his finger to the Court. "You see how she drips?"

The men howled. The women moaned, their voices tight with need and envy.
 

"This aspirant has passed seven Trials," said the King. "She has been used hard, and she has suffered. But her cunt is hot and hungry."

"Praise Morrow," shouted a voice in the audience, and the rest took up the call and repeated it: "Praise Morrow!"

"Here is our wealth and our power, our sword and our crown," said the King. "In our Tournament, in every citizen who enters. Honor women who wear the beads, as I honor Ruby, who earned her sapphire in blood and pain."
 

The King knelt before her.
 

Ruby began to pant. Her heart raced. She was so torn between want and dread that she froze, lying like a statue while the King positioned the flared head of his cock at the entrance to her cunt and nudged into the tight little hole.
 

Ruby whimpered. Even that small noise echoed through the room, as other women who watched the King's bare ass moaned and cried out.

"Look," said the King, his eyes on her. "Lift your head up and see."
 

Ruby looked past the King into his Court, where the fine ladies had torn away their clothes to bare their breasts and cunts. The men, surrounded by such heat, rubbed their cocks through their trousers and gathered in knots around the keening women.