Fighting Them There

###Fighting Them There: Chapter Twenty-One###

###Fighting Them There: Chapter Twenty-One###

Balancing the demands of the Queen's Council and the Tree Speakers was annoying and difficult. But they at least restricted their conflicts to the realms of politics and intrigue. The Khagans of the orcs led their hordes and clans into conflicts that were much more direct and literal. While they agreed to put their differences aside at Camp Acheron to fight monsters, back on their world there were wars all the time. It was a lot like Earth in that way. And that was why the orcs had sent four delegations. And that was also why the delegates had to be under constant monitor by armed guards. The guards were there to protect the delegates, but realistically the only thing they needed protection from was the other delegates. First Lieutenant Cortes found it exhausting.

"Just so we're all on the same page," she addressed the four orcs collectively, hoping that she could avoid accusations of favoritism by doing so, "do you all know why you're here?"

There were murmurs, mutters, and growls from all the delegates. Eventually, one of them saw fit to answer her directly. "We've seen the report," the man with the broken tusk begrudgingly replied, "it is difficult to believe, but you must believe it to have sent so much... speculation. The new gold tier hunter is obviously important." He was Captain Groaz, and he represented a series of islands and coastal city states that were loosely confederated. They collected ad hoc tariffs from those trading in their waters, which was considered piracy by some of the other Khaganates. It was the kind of provocation that led to Khagans asking for Earth warships, a completely impractical idea given the size and weight limits of interplanetary travel. Given the tense diplomatic situation, it was surprising to see the other delegates rotate their wrists in reluctant agreement.

"Commander," a balding orc mused, whatever mixture of black and brown hair that had once graced his head was in full retreat, with the rear guard left in a pond water of grays. He obviously had not bothered to learn how Lieutenant Cortes' rank fit in with Space Force hierarchy, and used a generic acknowledgment that she had a rank of some kind, "is it true that the only orc who was sent on this great mission was brass tier, and afemale?It seems that despite the importance of this mission, you haven't enlisted our best warriors." He represented an empire whose Khagan exacted fealty from many clans and regional warlords across a vast swathe of territory. That empire had been a largely theoretical concern before the rail network had started going up, but it had been one of the most powerful polities on that planet for Lieutenant Cortes' entire life. Not a delegate that she wanted to hear such an accusatory tone from.

She looked at her pad and moved some tabs around before answering. "Ulzhari is the slayer with the second highest damage output in her crop, and she has thehighestteam ratings of any slayer in her crop. Her teammates consistently rate her very highly and her objective outputs have been phenomenal." It had the benefit of being true, but the orcs didn't seem especially convinced.

A dismissive hand gesture was made. "Regardless of whether Ulzhari of the Iron Claws performed adequately in the mission to acquire the monster defector," the man wore golden tusk caps, a mark of wealth and privilege that had mostly been driven out of fashion in recent generations, "this Hunter Mitchell is gold tier, maybe even white. He will lead a quest into the black gates, and you cannot think that we would be fooled into thinking he would take a brass tier female as our world's contribution. No, we've seen the translation of his class, we can see that he could be giving his seals to men. His pack must be optimized, and he must begin training the strongest warriors to join him." The Space Force anthropologists told her that tusk caps used to imply that an orc was wealthy enough that they didn't need to tear their own meat. By that logic, the increasing number of orcs who ate commercial food ensured that many lower class orcscouldwear tusk caps if they wanted to, and thus the implications of status were fading.

"Thagmozar?" She was pretty sure she'd pronounced his name correctly, though the temptation to call him Thagomizer instead was intense. A thagomizer was the name for tail-spike weaponry on those monsters who had them, and confusing his name with one might be a diplomatic incident of some kind. His expression indicated that she hadn't blundered. "Hunter Mitchell is the only member of the Alliance who can translate the words of the Tartarian. He isn't going on any quests until that project is complete." Orcs stood up. It seemed her pronouncement was not well received.

Hubbub, tumult, and furor. First Lieutenant Cortes hated dealing with orcish politics.

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Fiona dropped her robe, revealing the Vietnamese American's creamy flesh, and also the bandages that still protected the area above her left breast. Displayed against her nakedness, it was unavoidably noticeable how close her injury had been to vital blood vessels and even the heart. She was beautiful, but the reminder of her mortality diverted Max's attentions away from his attraction to her and toward sympathy. He looked at her shoulder with a worried frown.

She saw his expression and had to swallow the urge to apologize. She had upset him, and she did not want to make her master sad. It was a ridiculous urge, of course, and one which she shook off quickly. Obviously she was not at fault, and on further consideration his concern for her was even something she could take comfort from.

"We almost lost you," Max murmured, his view filled with evidence of Fiona's injury, "if that blow had struck a few centimeters lower..."

"Ithinkmy durability would have kicked in if it had." Fiona wasn't certain, but that is how it would normally work. The more damaging an injury would be, the more of a hunter's durability was converted to prevent it. A trulydeadlyinjury was usually blocked entirely, however much durability that happened to use. She couldn't be certain in that instance, because she'd taken a hit from a Tartarian with a rune and skills of their own. The lasting damage she'd suffered was already more than she would have expected from such a blow, and the truth was that she simply did not know whether her durability would have saved her from an attack that had landed near her heart. Max's face betrayed his dubiousness, and Fiona felt the need to justify herself. "It's a dangerous job, Max. We all know that."

Max sighed. She was correct, the job was dangerous. The monsters were trying to kill them, and the fact that they succeeded sometimes was to be expected. Being injured was not surprising, and Max shouldn't make it weird. Even if it was his women who had been injured that time. Turning to Sophie, he noticed that her robe was still on. "Sophie, you're still covering yourself." The blond Valkyrie looked frightened, in a way she never did when going blade to claw against massive monsters. There was a trepidation in her stance, laying bare her insecurities about her injured flesh. "Stop it, Sophie. You know you're still beautiful to me." She may haveknownthat to be the case, but it wasn't clear that shebelievedit. He saw her indecision, and placed a reassuring hand on hers. "Sophie, strip."

The Valkyrie shivered and whimpered as shame wrestled with desire. The battle was intense, but ultimately there could only be one victor. "Yes... yes,Master." Her decision made, Sophie divested herself of the robe and shuddered with arousal. Wound dressing pads were bandaged all over her body, and parts were stained yellow where her wounds had wept into the gauze.

Seeing her so afflicted caused feelings of guilt to well up in him. He knew it was an irrational thing, but he felt responsible for Sophie just as he felt responsible for Fiona. "You're so beautiful." He said it with conviction, the loveliness of his girlfriend not derailed in his mind by the weeping sores covered with absorbent dressings. Her eyes moistened with disbelief and he reiterated his position. "Even when you have wounds that are hideous,youare gorgeous." Fragile as she was, he didn't pull her into his arms. He wanted to, but he held back his hands, leaning forward to plant a kiss on her lips. "I know that I can't be rough with either of you right now, but there are still things we can do." His gaze fell upon Sophie and Fiona in turn.

"We could... pleasure you with our mouths?" The blond said it like a question, as if she could scarcely imagine that he would allow them to do so.

Fiona bobbed her head in agreement. "Oh yes, Master Max. We can definitely do that."

It turned out to be a little more difficult than it had been in their imaginations, as Sophie had a tender area on her right knee and could not comfortable kneel on the floor. They retired to the bed and the two human women lay on their sides, faces at the level of his crotch. His blond Valkyrie was on his right so that the Night Caller wouldn't have to put weight on her injured side. Sophie leaned in to kiss his erection from the side, and Fiona did not allow herself to fall too far behind and kissed his cock on the other side. He saw the tops of two heads, one blond and one with silky black hair, and he felt two sets of lips taking increasing interest in his shaft. "Mmmmm..." He couldn't even tell which of his slaves had moaned out her enthusiasm so wantonly, but it didn't really matter. As they kissed and licked up and down his pole, their excitement palpably increased. His own erection palpably increased as well, becoming angrily engorged. Shlup. Shlup. First Fiona and then Sophie began giving long licks to his length, allowing them to steal glances at his expression. Satisfaction and arousal must have been plastered all over his face, because they took encouragement and redoubled their efforts to slurp and lavish attentions on his dick.

"Such beautiful women," he mused to their obvious delight, "such beautifulslaves." He added, and they moaned in response. He petted their heads, one with each hand, and they luxuriated in the attention. "Make me cum, Slaves. Make me cum on your faces." They loved following their master's orders, and they were only too happy to follow commands that would allow them to have Max's Essence. Sophie's hand firmly gripped the base of his shaft. Fiona's hand lovingly cradled his balls. They licked. They kissed. They sucked. Max erupted. White globs fountained from his head, and even with Sophie angulating his joystick one way and another, only a fraction went onto the women's faces. Some of it went all the way to Sophie's hand, but most of it ended up leaving Max's cock as a slimy poker.

Seeing what a mess she'd made, Sophie began wiping Max's dick against her face. Then she wiped it against Fiona's face, and the Night Caller rubbed herself all over the semen covered cock. In a way it was like painting, but more than anything the scene reminded Max of a cat rubbing its face against a human's hand or leg when petting was desired. He figured the comparison was apt when he stroked the backs of their heads and they both practically purred. Pressing their heads together, the two women obediently began licking each other's faces, savoring the taste and basking in the feeling of having acquired their master's Essence. "Mmmph." Fiona mmphed as the Valkyrie's lips locked onto hers in a deep and grateful kiss.

Smiling at his women, Max rubbed them gently and possessively on the backs of their necks. "Where's Ulzhari? She loves serving me this way." His brow furrowed. "Don't tell meshethinks she isn't pretty enough while she's injured!" He blurted out incredulity, prompted only by the fact that he'd been having just such a surreal disagreement with his own girlfriend.

Fiona shook her head, her face glistening in the light. "No, she wanted to be here, but she had to meet some big noise orcs from her home world." As excuses for not showing up went, he had to admit that it was pretty good.

Accepting the reason for Ulzhari's absence, Max turned to the other occupant of the room. "OK Quirky," he said warmly, "you can touch your pussy now."

Naked and frustrated in the corner, Kwrtzl's nictitating membranes made her eyes go white. "{Thank you, Master.}" Her breath quickened and her tail twitched in anticipation.

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Gormag the Tree Speaker was nominally at the same level as Ulzhari, both had classes well attested in the brass tier. Neither were hunters who would be expected to receive any high glories. No one would write a ballad about their victories or their defeats. They were regular hunters, to the extent that such a category existed, and they were going to fight the monsters over there and come back proud if they came back at all. Gormag was never going to be a clan head or have a clan head in his harem, but if he survived he'd be a very well placed bachelor indeed. He could well imagine women both wealthy and beautiful jockeying for a space in his harem based on his military accomplishments alone. If he found something to do in civilian life with his class' wood magic, his future looked very bright indeed.

Ulzhari, by any sane assessment, should be on a similar carriage. She had the single most common class: Berserker. She wasn't even the only Berserker in their crop, and had been ranked after Khorog in the muster. Hers was a destiny of rote heroism followed by an easy ticket into a harem of moderate prestige. At least, that's what it was before she joined the party with Max and Sophie. Since then, she'd started looking like a Sandport stage singer. Her hair colors were merged to form even stripes like a steppe weasel, and the colors of her skin patches were evened out to form well defined areas whose boundaries could be seen from across the room or right up close. Strangest of all, her breasts had become absolutely tremendous in size. All together, Ulzhari was probably someone who would receive invitations to the most prestigious harems. She was stilljusta Berserker, but her striking looks and strange tales would open doors to harem matches a brass tier hunter would normally never be able to even aspire to.

And yet, despite the fact that Ulzhari had achieved an appearance appropriate to legend, shewasjust brass tier. In terms of what she was capable of in the war against the monsters, she was replaceable. She'd described herself as a vuhshahk piece once, while she was crushing him at the game. She was impressively good at vuhshahk, the statement merely her acknowledgment of her own limited significance as a warrior. They shared similar assessments of themselves, a simple draught of realism that every hunter had to drink once they realized that their own rune wasn't gold or even iron.

So it was that Gormag was deeply confused and concerned that of all the orcs at Camp Acheron, it was Ulzhari and himself that had been called to give recitation. Not just to give recitation to some random elder, but to give recitation to envoys from some of the most powerful empires and alliances in the world. Some of them weren't even from Camp Acheron's tributary. Captain Groaz was representing one of the factions of the Embargo War, a conflict that Gormag didn't even have opinions about, because it was so far away from the mountainous lands he called home. The hunters from over there didn't even go to Camp Acheron, they went to Camp Abaddon whentheirrunes matured.

Gormag stepped into the meeting room without confidence. The Berserker he was with was still on injured reserve, and she seemed much calmer about the meeting than he did. Four tables. Twelve orcish men wearing finery that was sumptuous and archaic. Twelve human guardians armed with the ridiculously powerful handheld weaponry that Earth produced. It was a tense scene, and one which the Tree Speaker desperately wanted to have no part of whatsoever. He had used his wicker grasp to temporarily bind five hooded cobras and frost giants, concentrating on his magic while a monster twice his height struggled to free itself and smash his head in. Doing that had been stressful, but his nerves had held because he trusted the other hunters to slay their foes before his magical basketry fell apart. He found his nerves crumbling before anyone had even spoken, because he had absolutely no belief that anyone was on his side. Superficially, he was in the presence of more of his own people than he had been since coming to Camp Acheron; but the truth was that while they might have the same blood and tusks as he did, they werenothis people. The four groups of orcs looked like they were as likely to draw blades on each other as they would be to unite against any common foe.

Before he'd found a way to have the walls or furniture swallow him whole, they called on him for his recitation. They wanted to know all about his mission with Hunter Mitchell. It was an absurd situation. Ulzhari trained with him regularly, and Gormag had only been part of a party with the man for a few days of training and a single mission. It simply didn't make anysenseto have him give his recitation before the Berserker gave hers.

Internally he fumed, but he pushed it all down. The last thing he needed was for those human guardians to think he was a threat to the very important guests. If that happened, it might literally be his last thing. He found himself describing what Hunter Mitchell had done for Thelenia and Rosalita as best he could. Max Mitchell's abilities could literally only provide support to women in the party, and so Hunter Tucker, Hunter Smith, and of course Gormag himself had gotten nothing directly from him. The amount of mana he'd gotten out of Rosalita with his motivating strikes had been impressive, and of course the party benefited from the Thunder Mage's impressive offensive display, but Gormag hadn't felt any of the seals or gotten any mana because he hadn't been an appropriate recipient for either by virtue of being male. Thelenia and Rosalita had not felt that the body changes of the magic were worth the improvements to their combat ability, but he thought Rosalita's damage output in their mission really would be worth any cost he could imagine.

What followed was something Gormag found deeply surreal. One of the highborn orcs began grilling him about whether it would have been useful if Hunter Mitchell's powers had been expanded to work on men. A part of him wanted to respond with deep sarcasm. After all, his own powers would be quite a bit better if he could make his wicker baskets pierce the flesh of his enemies with thorns of steel or diamond. And really, why stop there? Why not have his constructs electrified or on fire while they were at it? Every class had limitations, even if it was just that however much physical strength was increased, it by definition was not increased by more than that. It was such an obvious truth that Gormag was having difficulty entertaining the hypothetical. But yes, he conceded, Max Mitchell's abilities would be even better if they applied to men in addition to women.

When he was finally allowed to sit down, Ulzhari was asked a lot of insulting questions. They asked her if they thought shedeservedto be in a position that a world defending hero might be expected to be in. They asked her if it made sense for a woman of brass tier to participate in missions that were vital to the war effort, when obviously an iron or silver tiered man could go through the gate instead. They asked her whether it made more sense to prioritize strength or beauty when fighting the most powerful monsters the Nemesis Worlds had to offer. She seemed much calmer about it than Gormag would have been, much calmer than he would expect a Berserker to be in any situation.