Four out of twenty men had died bravely defending the caravan from the evil spawn of Samleos. Three guards and one wagon driver. Their names were Ansbert, Moritz, Havener, and Jost. Their bravery and defiance in the face of certain death would be memorialized in the Temple of the Nine. Prayers would be made to the gods so that the Holy Host would know and remember the four as worthy and loyal followers who stood against the demonic threat of Samleos’ corruption to the very last breath.
Eir would be sure to offer her own prayers after she delivered the deceased men’s names to her patron goddess, Lyssandria. The honor the men had displayed in their last moments were the kinds of deeds Valtar, the All Father, would likely recognize and cause him to open the gates of his hallowed halls to their souls. Then again, they had possessed great courage in battle to fight as bravely as they did, therefore Charos could offer a place in his raucous longhouse to the men as well. The war god was fond of those who died in combat. However, Lyssandria was unlikely to set a place at her table for these men no matter how much Eir prayed for their souls, not unless they had been devout followers of the goddess of beauty their whole lives. Battles and brave deaths were not within the goddess’ domain. Beauty, the arts, and love were.
Beauty was not often found on the battlefield, Eir reflected. More often it could be found in a song, or a dance. Beauty could be found in a flower, a painting, or the skilled craftsmanship of an artisan of any kind. Eir found beauty daily in the mirror at her bedside in the temple. Or any other reflection she looked into for that matter.
Eir made no vain boast when she acknowledged her own good looks. She was without doubt a creature of surpassing loveliness, recognized not just by mortal eyes but by the goddess herself. Why else would her primary class be Beloved Cleric of Lyssandria? The goddess of beauty herself had claimed her as her own, embracing Eir not just as one of her clerics, but as a Beloved Cleric, a special existence favored above others. So it was, when Eir said she knew she was beautiful, she meant it with not a feather’s weight of egotism.
The battlefield was no place for a beloved of Lyssandria. Eir could and did use her magic to heal the sick and wounded; she did so happily. She saw it as a great honor to be able to bless those who were injured with the grace of her goddess. But the healing she did had heretofore always been far away from the fields of war. She was only in demon infested Weigrun at all because her older cousin Vraekae had thought it best for her to be closer to a true warzone so that her magic could be put to constant use. Eir was, admittedly, young and inexperienced. She had the self-awareness to know she was untutored in the ways of the world. Healing soldiers and mercenaries fresh from the fight against Samleos and his foul spawn was good experience, she could not deny, but Eir had never thought she would be put outside the safety of city walls and her comfortable temple. Why would she be? She was no combat healer. Her skills were best put to use in the temple, where she could remain out of harm’s way.
Yet here she was, unlikely as it had seemed even a day ago, riding a horse amidst a squad of battle-hardened guards. The sun was dipping below the horizon and they were still far outside the city walls, surrounded by hills that could hide any number of demons within their shadows.
How had she come to be here?
Eir looked ahead to where a titan of a woman was pulling a wagon by her own strength, unassisted. She could see her gorgeous face in profile, her beautiful eyes, her soft lips, her flawless and lily-white skin glistening in the light of the setting sun. Her powerful, lithe, shapely body took each step with confident ease despite dragging what had to be thousands of pounds of weight behind her. She was the rare beauty on the battlefield, singularly unique. Yet, when Eir looked past her, there were two more identical to the first pulling wagons of their own. Just as beautiful, just as powerful, just as perfect.
A shiver went through the priestess. That was why she had come to be here.
Nephilim.
When High Priest Gerhardt had told Eir and the three other priests dedicated to Lyssandria at Far Felsen’s temple of the three Nephilim and the need of a healer to stand watch over them, Eir had jumped at the opportunity to be near them. She had begged and pleaded for the honor. She was youngest, the other priests had more experience and higher levels and were in practical terms of greater use. But Eir was a beloved of Lyssandria. Who better than her she reasoned, a special chosen of the goddess, to serve the last of Lyssandria’s Lost Children? It seemed to her it was fate that she should be in Weigrun now.
She would need to make an offering to Destarious for favoring her with this chance encounter.
The giant sisters were utterly captivating to Eir. She wanted to be near them, wanted to serve them, to be of use and value to them. Their happiness and safety were paramount. She would do anything to ease their burdens and bring them grace. She would do anything they asked her to if only they would look at her the way they looked at that tall human—
Eir cut the improper idea off before it began. She was a noble born, a daughter of an elven house of high standing in the emperor’s court. More importantly, she was wed to the temple, a dedicated priest. She would not pine like a schoolgirl after Jay, Dys, or Syd as though she were some, well, some sort of wanton harlot, Lyssandria excuse her crass thoughts. She had to comport herself with the grace, dignity, and decorum her position and upbringing demanded.
But did Aila really need to keep all three of the blessed Nephilim to herself? Surely, she could spare one of the sisters for her to personally attend to in whatever way they so desired—
No, that was a bad thought. She was here to serve Lyssandria’s Children, not her own entirely inappropriate and unwelcome desires. She couldn’t act like the therion archer had earlier. That was a crudeness no priestess should or would submit themselves to.
Oh, she’d seen the way the—the lewd woman had raised her shirt to expose her bare bosom to Dys, tempting the sacred, goddess blessed Nephilim with her body. They had just met minutes before, in the middle of battle no less, and the therion was presenting herself to Dys like some, some common prostitute! How could she dare to do so?
Could she dare to do so? Eir had only just met Dys that day as well but surely they’d known each other longer than the therion had known her and Dys had not seemed at all put off by the archer’s brazen temptation. Her beautiful eyes had been drawn to the wicked woman in a way they had not been drawn to Eir…
She had to stop. She was letting her mind wander in directions she had never gone before. She couldn’t behave like the therion. Eir didn’t have that kind of brazenness in her—lewdness, improper lewdness in her. She couldn’t be like the archer.
Eir glanced up from her introspective thoughts, gaze searching and eventually finding the therion woman. She was sitting on top of the wagon closest to where Eir rode in the line of horses on the side of the wagon train. The dark of the summer night washed out the color but Eir could still see the archer perfectly well with her elven eyes.
She was a beauty, in a wild, feral sort of way. Eir imagined Lyssandria would welcome the therion as a follower, though she guessed Villthyrial would favor a savage wanderer more easily, what with how crass and lowly the woman acted.
The therion’s slitted eyes turned on Eir abruptly, perhaps sensing she was being watched. She met the priestess’ gaze head on, a sharp-toothed grin splitting her face.
Eir looked away, ashamed of the direction her thoughts had been going. She was glad of her dark red skin since it hid the blush she was sure would otherwise be visible on her cheeks.
Keeping her head straight and her eyes pointed forward, Eir behaved herself by reciting holy passages for the rest of the ride back to Felsen so that her mind would stop wandering into such dangerous and unbecoming territory. She lost her place a few times when her gaze was inadvertently drawn to the exquisitely attractive bodies of the Nephilim, their lean muscles sliding sensually under pale skin as they toiled selflessly for the sake of strangers like the true goddess-graced saints that they were, but Eir put in a valiant effort to not think those thoughts and focus on her scriptures.
No more demons assaulted the caravan before they made their way to the safety of the city walls. Eir felt both immense relief at finally being back within sight of safety, but also a tinge of regret. Soon, the expedition would be over and she and the Nephilim would go their separate ways. That Eir would be parted from the beautiful avatars of Lyssandria’s benevolent power put an ache in her heart she’d never felt before.
There was tomorrow, though, wasn’t there? Surely the three sisters would want to leave the city to do the gods’ good work and rid the surrounding hills of more vile demons on the next day. Eir could already tell in their brief time together that they were the passionately aggressive sort who took their days in great striding leaps, not in slow, meek steps.
Not like her…
“Do you think we can still make it to the bathhouse at this time?”
Eir perked up, ears twitching, overhearing one of the sisters talking to the tall woman, Aila. The caravan had drawn up against the city gates, coming to a stop as the guard escort called out to the gate guards and sorted out reopening the gates that had been shut at sundown. Eir had unconsciously directed her horse a little closer to the wagons the Nephilim had graciously been pulling so that none of the wagons had to be left behind with the loss of several aurochs.
“It should be open for another couple of hours at least,” Aila told the sister she was walking next to. Eir thought she was Jay, but with the shuffle of activity she’d lost track of which triplet was which. It was so much harder to tell the giants apart when they weren’t carrying their weapons.
“Probably better that we’re going there late,” Aila continued. “Should be less people around. Might have the whole bath to ourselves.”
“Can’t wait,” the might-be-Jay said, giving the redhead a grin and a look that made Eir’s heart flutter even though it wasn’t directed at her.
A bathhouse. There was only one such place operational in the city, so Eir knew exactly which they were talking about. She’d visited the modest facility a few times herself. The Far Felsen Bathhouse wasn’t much when compared to the large hot springs and saunas of the capital, but it did have a decently large main hot pool to soak in, a far better prospect than a brass tub for women the size of Nephilim to strip down and relax—
Oh. Oh.
The day had been a long, hard, strenuous adventure for Eir. She’d worked up quite the sweat. Maybe a trip to the bathhouse was in order? She’d have to stop by the temple first to report back to the high priest about how the day had gone but she could summarize much of the day quickly enough and then give Gerhardt the more heroic details later in a written account. She’d need to collect a change of robes, anyway. Then she could visit the bathhouse to cleanse herself and relax her aching muscles from the long day’s ride.
And if the three Nephilim sisters happened to be there and she just so happened to be exposed to their nude forms and her nude form was exposed to them in an entirely appropriate environment and then perhaps one or more of them allowed her to appreciate their beauty a little more closely, well, then that was just another bit of luck Eir would have to make an offering to Destarious for.
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