Binding of pleasure chapter 38

Chapter 38: Intruders

Two weeks had passed since Sir Simon had started his lessons. During these two weeks, Emily had progressed tremendously. While she had not been defenseless before, now with Simon's help, she had progressed in spellcraft enough to stand toe to toe with her sister.

The four of them were again sitting in Corantin's office. Simon was currently teaching Emily her first advanced tier earth spell. Meanwhile, Corantin and Vallerie were reading grimoires Simon had brought to learn new spells of their own elements.

Corantin was struggling to grasp the intricacies of the spell he was trying to learn, windwhisper. It was not the first time Corantin learnt an advanced spell, his levitation was one he grasped very young, yet this one was proving to present a major challenge. Corantin had started to learn this spell last week. After two days, he had managed to embed his voice inside the air he was manipulating. Unfortunately, so far, he had been unable to confine it. It meant for now everyone between his target and him, as well as anyone near them could hear what his message was. Worse, he had made no progress on solving this issue, he did not even have a clue on what he was doing wrong.

After yet another failure, he left the room to decompress. He headed outside. As he took a comfortable position to rest, a soldier barged into the courtyard.

"Reinforcements... we need reinforcements. There's a bunch of bandits attacking the city!" shouted the soldier as he tried to catch his breath.

When Corantin heard that he decided to go help routing off the bandits. While he did not think his soldiers would have any trouble repelling them. If mages had been spotted, they would have come to him first. But it would serve as a short and easy distraction.

The lord went back to his office. Once there, he told the girls about the attack and to prepare to head out.

"Let me join you," said Simon after the girls left to get ready for battle.

"No, Ser, you don't need to bother. It's only some bandits. And from what I gathered they don't have a mage with them. The soldiers just needed more numbers. It'll be a quick weeding," stopped Corantin.

"Fine, kid, but remember to never underestimate your enemy because that's when someone can get the upper hand on you."

A few minutes later, the three of them had geared up and were running toward the city centre where the bandits were attacking.

When the trio reached the fighting, Emily was the first one to jump into the fray. Her fist enveloped in a stone gauntlet; she punched a first bandit on the jaw breaking his neck. She then used her momentum to smash a second one's face. Meanwhile, Vallerie and their master also joined the melee. Immediately, they swung their sword at nearby bandits. They all refused to use spells. These small fries did not justify it, and they all wanted to avoid damaging the town while unweeding it.

A bandit lacking self-preservation tried to attack Corantin right after seeing him cut down his ally. Fortunately for him, the lord needed someone alive. Therefore, instead of killing him, the lord simply gave him an injury that ensure he would stay alive while removing him from the fight.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Vallerie's companions. After she had surrendered to her masochistic tendencies and submitted to him, he had released them. But rather than leave the two of them had chosen to join his troops. He had no idea if they did it because of loyalty to Vallerie or if it was because they idolized her. Corantin could not stop thinking it was the latter and they had some sort of cucked fetish.

With three powerful mages joining the combat, the bandits stood no chance, and soon after, all of them lay dead on the ground. Corantin went back to the man he had left injured.

Corantin stepped on the man wound and asked, "Where's your boss?"

"As if I would tell you... argh," he answered before being interrupted by Corantin twisting his boot on the open wound.

"Just think for a second. I made sure this wound won't kill you. On top of that I could heal you just enough to keep barely alive for hours, while my men search for your boss. Save yourself the pain," muttered Corantin, his voice filled with dread.

To make his point clearer Corantin twisted his boot again, drawing another pained scream for the wounded man.

"Our new boss is hiding in a blue house we took over near the west entrance. He's hiding until he can ambush this place's lord," said the man once he stopped panting from the pain.

"New boss?" asked Corantin intrigued.

"Yeah, strange guy... argh! He just showed up one day. Killed our old boss in one swing and led us here saying he had a grudge with the local lord. Said it would be easy loot. That was bloody lie."

"Thank you for your cooperation," said Corantin as he swung his wind blade ending the man's life.

"Me? Who is this guy? Whatever he's a dead man walking. Let's go, girls we have a bandit boss to slay."

***

They easily found the blue house. After all, it was not a common colour in the region. They approached stealthily, ensuring the bandits inside would not see them advance towards the house.

Vallerie's minions had joined in the attack, fueling Corantin suspicions they were idolizing her beyond reason.

They all gathered next to the door. With a powerful punch, Emily broke the door, and everyone barged inside before the bandits could block the entrance.

Despite lacking magical skills, the minions, Corantin had yet to learn their names, rushed inside the house fearlessly. They did not hesitate to kill any bandits who crossed their paths with powerful swords swings. Nonetheless, rapidly their combined score was dwarfed by the one the three mages of the group tallied.

When most of the bandits in this first room had been subdued Corantin and the girls moved to the next one, leaving the soldiers to handle the clean up.

In the second room, the lord quickly identified the leader. He did not look like a bandit at all, donning way better clothes.

"So, you're the guy that's has business with me. Although I don't even know who you are," said Corantin.

"Ah!"

Without removing his eyes from the enemies, Corantin paid attention to the woman who had screamed behind him.

"Master, his name is Lucas. He was working for duke Berestine. He was the swordmaster and the captain of his troops. Among others, he taught me how to use a sword," said Vallerie still under shock.

"Really? Then why are you here, Lucas?" asked Corantin.

"Vengeance of course," growled the swordmaster.

"Vengeance, vengeance for whom?"

"The duke, of course!" spitted the swordmaster.

"The duke? We killed him two weeks ago. How the hell did you find us so fast?"

"Simple you idiot. When you killed him, a spell activated placing a tracker on you. Then I only needed to reach the tracker, to find you and deliver punishment," recited Lucas.

"Now, I have a question for the squalaks that hide behind you. You girls don't think I didn't recognize you. If you have any honor, you will stop helping the murderer of the man who gave you so much."

"Shut up, I would never betray master."

"Shut up, after what he did to Emily, he deserved death a thousand times," screamed Vallerie.

"'What he did to Emily...' oh you mean having her being part of the feasts. Why are you so mad about that? She was so delicious and I'm sure she enjoyed it."

"Enjoy it... delicious? Don't tell me you took part in those? All the torment left her broken and she couldn't even tell me because she was so scared!" Vallerie screamed in another outburst.

"Then I take it you won't join me? So be it. Kill them!"

The bandits surrounding Lucas that had stayed put so far rushed to the trio. The girls ran to intercept the charging men. Meanwhile, Corantin used that opportunity to run to the swordmaster.

Before entering a range their weapons could clash, Corantin unleashed multiple wind blades on the man. He responded in kind, with blades of water concealing ice spikes.

A water mage huh. No problem, thanks to Vallerie I have plenty of experience fighting them.

Corantin contorted to avoid the spells, using wind magic to deflect the ones he could not evade.

During that exchange, they had closed the distance. Corantin unleashed a flurry of blows on his opponent. Yet, his opponent matched him blow for blow, stopping every slashes. Nonetheless, it did not mean his opponent was dominating the duel, Corantin relentless offense was preventing him from mustering any sort of effective attacks of his own. The meager slashes he sent to the younger man were easily stopped.

During this exchange of blows, wind and water swirled all around the two men, occasionally hitting one of the bandits surrounding them. Still just like their blades, their magic was equal, and neither could score a decisive blow or gain any sort of advantage.

Minutes later, the two combatants were still struck in a stalemate, yet Lucas as the older man was tiring faster and at this pace, he would soon fall to Corantin youthful energy. To further complicate things, the girls had finished mowing down his underlings.

Seeing his defeat about to happen, Lucas used his trump card. He created a massive fireball inside the house. Emily, Vallerie, and Corantin were taken aback by the water mage using a powerful fire spell, doubly so when the fireball created multiple fires throughout the room. Lucas then used wind magic to control the fumes and cover his escape.

The trio looked around for the house habitants but found no one. Therefore, they exited the house in a hurry before they suffocated.

Unfortunately, Lucas now was long gone. They would have to track the swordmaster all over again because all of them agreed the man would come again stronger.

______________________________________

Hi everyone as July rolls around I'm happy to announce that I should be done with the writing of the first volume by the end of the month with only chapter 49 and 50 left to write.

Unfortunately, this will mean I will be going on an undefinite hiatus after chapter 50 because between full time work and a different project looming around I won't have time to write beyond some basic planning for a couple of months. Still I hope I'll be able to show the first chapter of volume 2 before the end of the year.

This also means my side project novel is pretty dead as I haven't wrote in over a month and only have two complete chapters.

Finally, it seems pretty much certain that I will not launch a discord server from the complete lack of interest on both my part and your part.