Knights of the Holy Mother – 5

You’re beginning to understand how August feels with minotaur stereotypes. At first, you thought he was complaining for no reason. Why whine about all the people who came to you in Haven for some rough sex? Easy DESIRE, good cocksleeves, there’s no problem.

In Prillia, it’s more obvious. The dwarves of the Silver Fist were antsy at first, and after the battle, they opened up some. The Lunar Knights are shaping to be the same, making all kinds of dumb assumptions.

You are December, and you’re sick of defending your choice of weapon.

What does it matter if minotaurs use battleaxes and warhammers? At the speed you’re going, everything cuts the same. Tongs fixed up a saber, which Saturday insisted on calling a katana, and you’re a big fan of it.

“So you see, a light, single-edged blade works best for me because I prefer to use my speed to my advantage.” You’re showing off your sword to a couple Lunar Knights, who nod along to your explanation.

The three of you are on the foredeck of the Lunar Knights airship. Since Vanilla and Saturday found the scrolls, the Lunar Knights offered to give your order and the Silver Fists a lift on the Moonlit Sword. You’re headed to an expert on the infernal language, a respected member of their sister order, the Solar Knights.

With you guys, the Silver Fist, and the Lunar Knights, there must be over two hundred knights on this airship. Not counting the four hundred squires and three hundred crew members.

That’s a lot of knights.

For such a huge ship, there’s not a lot of privacy. You’ve only been able to jack off once, and it freaked the engineers out when they tried to find where the ‘mana-dense goo’ leak came from.

“I see the merit.” The man looks you up and down. Mostly up, he’s not the least interested in your greatest ‘weapon’. “Considering how much it would cost to outfit a…man of your size, and how little armor your compatriots wear, one can see why your Order prioritizes speed and precision.”

That’s a nice way to call you guys broke bitches.

“The only exception to your Order’s tendency for light armor is that short creature in full plate.” Another knight adds. “What manner of being is she?”

You shrug. Halloween still hasn’t figured out how to hide her horns. Or she’s stubbornly refusing to. The backstory everyone agreed on is that you guys found her, outfitted her, and set her loose on your enemies like an attack dog. She’s enjoying some time in the brig after a curious Lunar Knight tried to take her helmet off.

The codpiece and all it protected were never found.

Thankfully, Bjorn spoke up for her. Plus, several people attested to hearing her warn the knight several times to stop pushing it. The Lunar Knight was mortified, but not nearly as much as you’d think.

“Airship spotted!” A squire yells down from the crow’s nest. “It’s flying the colors of Solaria!”

The airship is white hulled with gold accents, and you frown as get closer. It’s smaller than you expected. Not even a fifth the size of the Moonlit Sword, it hovers near the grungy marshlands that mark the Bloodsucker territory.

You don’t know much about the Solar Knights. They form the Knights of the Principality with the Lunar Knights, so they’re mostly funded by Prillian taxes. And Prillians are more favorable to Celeste than her mysterious sister, Solaria, which shows in the difference between the two airships.

The leaders of the three knight organizations make their way to the front as the name of the Solar Knight’s vessel comes into view.

“The Golden Redemption.” The Blade of this group of Lunar Knights, Cynthia Darkstorm, reads. “That’s Goldheart’s ship. He should be able to decipher the scrolls.”

How? Infernal is supposed to be a language that makes mortals who look at it feel like their eyes are getting burnt out by a blowtorch. You and your siblings can see it fine, but it doesn’t help to read the damn script.

Now that you think about it, it’s weird that everyone in Avalon speaks and writes in Quinn’s English.

Eh, whatever.

The bell on the white ship rings, the people on deck scrambling around, putting on their white armor to look presentable. They line up in rows by the doors to the cabins just in time for someone to rush out.

“Our fellow compatriots, praise Solaria and her divine graAAAAAAAAGH!” He screams when the sunlight touches him, then bursts into flames.

The people on your ship look on in mute horror and surprise as the man rolls around on deck, screaming in agony. His people rush over and cover him in a fire blanket, clearly used to this.

“Sir, you forgot your SPF 5000!”

“I did not forget! I simply wished to experience Mistress Solaria’s purifying embrace!” The man gets up and a squire rushes to his side with a parasol.

“Blade Goldheart.” Darkstorm bows respectfully. “We need your help deciphering some plans we found.”

“Anything to help my brothers in arms!” Goldheart returns the bow enthusiastically, the squire careful to cover him with the parasol. He heals from the third degree burns faster than even demons, showing his fangs in a dazzling smile. His robust physique, chiseled jawline, and sharp green eyes make you trot in place excitedly.

A vampire paladin?

“Can I come aboard?” He purrs.

A sexy vampire paladin?

“You can cum inside whenever, man.” You find yourself saying.

The mortals around you shake their heads and Darkstorm groans. You’ve done something wrong, and all because you’ve got a bad case of blue balls. Goldheart raises an eyebrow and looks you over.

“I haven’t seen a minotaur in over a century. Do they not have vampires where you come from, ser?” He jumps onboard, his skin sizzling for a brief moment as he jumps between shadows. “Then it is good that I am the first vampire you meet. Squires! Prepare me a bloodbag for me to imbibe as I assist our fellow knights!”

He pats you on the bicep and addresses Darkstorm. “Let us look over these nefarious plans. And I insist this fine ‘taur be with us, so that he may understand the dangers a bloodsucker like myself can pose.”

Darkstorm is uncomfortable, but she sighs and motions for you to follow. You end up in a dark room with Bjorn, Saturday, Darkstorm, and the sexy, sexy vampire.

Goldheart lounges in a chair, posing as if for a centerfold picture. There’s more DESIRE roiling behind his casual façade than you’ve felt from any mortal before, enough that it must be affecting him subconsciously.

He keeps posing. You're expecting him to strike that one pose and yell out "KONO DIO DA!" but it never happens.

Instead, he explains bloodsuckers for you as he reads over the documents.

Bloodsuckers come in several varieties, mostly classified by bloodline and purity. The weakest are the thralls, those bitten by bloodsuckers and given a single drop of their blood. Those can still be cured.

If they are given more than a drop, they become wights. Wights are physically stronger and may have minor transformative abilities. Claws, toxins, the works. They’re weakened by sunlight, though.

But if a victim’s blood is mostly replaced by a vampire’s ‘donation’, they become a full vampire, with all the powers that go with it. While certain bloodlines have unique abilities, the more powers a vampire has, the more restrictions there tends to be.

Like needing permission to enter property.

“These are indeed troubling.” Goldheart puts the papers down. “These outline strategies and written directions for their attacks. They’re focusing their attentions on villages in the elven and northern bloodsucker territories. Their units of measurement are strange…who measures time in stabs? Aside from that, they’re incredibly accurate.”

“Is there any sign of an objective?” Darkstorm crosses her arms.

“Aside from gathering sacrifices to summon more of their kind, to feed into this cycle of carnage?” The vampire flips his blond hair back majestically and switches poses. “The instructions imply that there is a plan in the works but insists that these demons ‘have fun’. The only clue is that if things get too dicey, they’re to escape into the ‘tunnels beneath the crying mountain’.”

Bjorn tenses. You’d wonder what that’s about, if there wasn’t a commotion behind the doors. Two knights in golden armor push a monstrous creature into the room by the bidents binding its arms. Its thick, scaled hide is marred with burns and its huge jaw is clearly missing some teeth. It growls at everyone as it enters the room, but the spears spark with energy and it falls quiet.

A demon.

“Your bloodbag, Blade Goldheart.”

“Wonderful!” He poses and licks his lips, the twisted DESIRE growing inside him. “Demon blood is so…rich.”

“Foolish mortal, I am Balagrphalin—!” The demon tries to intimidate Goldheart, but the vampire rushes over and rips out its plated throat.

The Solar knight slurps up the demon’s vital essence, occasionally breaking off a limb to suck the marrow from its bones. Goldheart tears through the demon like a one-man swarm of piranhas at speeds you have difficulty following, switching between cackling evilly and moaning lustfully as he devours the demon.

In seconds, there’s nothing left of the demon but a pile of broken bones and a smudge of black on Goldheart’s lip. Bjorn is paralyzed in fear. Darkstorm looks away in disgust.

You and Saturday are scaroused. You don’t think either of you could have killed the demon that easily. Vampires are a whole different breed.

His dilated slit-pupils focus on you, and he takes a step forwards. The knights put themselves between you and cross their spears, waving bracelets heavy with talismans in his face. He hisses and backs away, taking a few deep breaths as he calms down.

“Apologies.” He’s back to normal, if posing dramatically every few seconds is normal. “You will find that I have better control of my blood madness than other vampires. My devotion to Solaria helps me.”

He picks up another scroll flicks an eyeball chunk off it. He puts on the monocle and reads through the ancient text.

“This is a guide for conducting efficient warfare, written by a certain ‘Master Sun’.” The vampire tosses the scroll to Darkstorm. “It is unlikely to provide what I have already deduced. Based on their movements and the timing, the demon forces will attack Glowshroom town before the sun has set.”

He swoops his white cape around and marches for the door.

“We must go, post-haAAAAAAAYYYYYEEE!” He opens the door and catches the sun’s glare directly in the face.

As the ships set the course and Goldheart is slathered in layers of sunscreen, the Knights of the Holy Mother meet in a quiet cabin. Well, some of you. Not the squires, who have been explicitly told to wait outside and to not have sex while the demon-devouring vampire is on board. The goblins were a bit confused about your innuendo warnings, but your younger siblings got the gist.

Goldheart is dangerous. And sexy.

<He was hot, believe it!> Saturday explains telepathically. <Before he burst into flames, too. But he can tear us apart and suck on our spines for dessert, so don’t excite his DESIRE.>

<…not even a little?> Halloween asks. <Maybe we can regenerate—>

<No, Halloween.> Saturday is rarely this firm.

“He was faster than me.” You rumble. “Probably stronger than you.”

Halloween bristles and pouts. March rolls her eyes, her tail nonchalantly running up and down Emancipation’s back.

“You have nothing to worry about from me…or Emancipation.”

“I am a bit curious—urp!” March pulls him into her embrace, a blush dusting her cheeks as she drools on his head.

“Emancipation will stay far away from the vampire.”

“Then there’s the translating monocle and the scrolls.” You make shadow constructs to show them what the monocle looks like. <If we can decipher Infernal and reverse-engineer the enchantment…>

<And we can capture a Niflheim demon.> Halloween licks her lips. <Sounds fuckin’ awesome.>

You shake your head. Considering how many demons are running around and how much time they’ve had to summon more troops, the coming battle will be a difficult one.

The Holy Knights seemed like serious business. You thought as much when they first came to Hacksonville and ‘recruited’ you. Within a week, they hired a big load of enchanters, arcanomechanists, metalworkers, and mages. And there’s the constant ads on the radio, the Holy Knight action figures, Holy Knights comic series…

You are April, and you realize the Holy Knights are super serious business.

They piled you onto the train with all the people they hired, though they made sure you had your own car. Then, the stone-faced elf lady sat at the front of the car and stared you all down. All the way to the monastery.

Kinda awkward for a ride. Everyone else shuffled uncomfortably under her steely gaze, though her emotional state was completely neutral.

You guys got off the train at some elven city full of art nouveau buildings of vaulted stone held together by massive trees. It had a complicated name with apostrophes, which you immediately forget the name of. It looked like a big city, but the people moved about leisurely, like they had all the time in the world. Even the walls around the city had that same relaxed atmosphere, a series of twisting roots and brambles sprouting fruits and berries. Everywhere you looked, there were elves playing on harps and feeding each other grapes.

Not in a sexy way. More like if clean hippies told themselves ‘let’s live slowly and elegantly with nature’. You waved to a cute guy, feeling a thrill when he smiled your way.

They're definitely very attractive.

You didn’t stay there long. The knights marched the lot of you to their ‘temple’, which looked more like a fort than anything else. Massive walls lined with glowing mithril, watchtowers with ballista and magic cannons, and a huge moat. The doors creaked open and everyone found themselves in a large open area, where people moved with more hurriedly.

The workers split off from the knights and squires once you pass the first wall, joining the hubbub of people moving crates, fixing weapons, and just doing stuff. You guys climbed a hill and passed another set of thick walls, where you were immediately surrounded by enough holy energy to make your skin prickle.

The elf boss lady went off to do something, leaving you and the other squires with three knights.

The more approachable one introduces herself as Knight Ayda, and her fellows as Knight Saria and Knight Lock.

“We will choose who among you we will personally teach. You will spend your mornings studying holy texts, and your afternoons training.” Ayda lines out their expectations. “You now represent the Holy Knights, and we expect you to act with grace, decorum, and respect towards your superiors. You may call us Lady or Lord until you reach knighthood.”

Not happening. There is only one Lord/Lady.

Plus, even if she’s smiling, you don’t like Ayda’s haughtiness. You hope she doesn’t pick you…Lock seems okay, if boring. Saria is the one Silverbrood has under her thumb, so she’d probably be the best option.

“As the most senior among us, I get first choice.” Ayda beams. “I pick…April of Hacksonville.”

Fuck.

Well, you hafta play the part. You bow deeply.

“Thank you for the opportunity, Sir Ayda.”

Mounting disapproval radiates from the knight, even if she maintains a serene expression. She’s a lot like Monday.

“Squire April, I thought I said you could call me ‘Lady’ Ayda.”

There’s only one way to manage people like Monday: appeal to a higher power.

“Apologies, Sir Ayda.” You bow even deeper. “But there is only one I can call Lord. It is in His name that we hafta protect the weak from monsters, undead, and demons.”

Ayda calms down. She can’t put you down for being too devout. What a great canned response!

The rest of the squires get chosen by the knights, and soon enough, they lead you to your rooms. You share a dorm with the female squires. A long hallway separates you from the showers.

Which is a problem. You may look like a girl, talk like a girl, walk like a girl…but the schmeat swinging between your legs is anything but ‘girly’. The next few days are some of the most stressful in your entire life.

At first, you join the girls in the shared showers. You keep a towel around yourself, but that doesn’t help when the girls wash each other. You gotta shrink away like a blushing virgin to hide your cock.

You!

After a few days of that, you switch to taking your showers later at night. Less people.

That’s not even close to the worst of it. It’s the constant barrage of holiness that makes it difficult to bear. The mornings of the first week are spent reading and repeating mantras from a variety of holy texts. Just touching them burns your skin, reading them hurts your eyes, and after a full morning of talking, your tongue is so sore you’d think you fellated a buncha flaming rods. Most of them are in a language nobody understands, anyways!

Regenerating from your growing collection of burns is taking more DESIRE than you thought. Halfway through the week, you start wearing gloves ‘to not damage the holy texts’, which helps with the strain. You realized pretty quickly that some of the stories are super familiar. A lot of the stories Lady Quinn told on the pirate ship referenced them. She tried to say the main guy's name once, but her tongue exploded, so everyone just calls him 'J-Dawg'.

Anyways, that's how you ended up surprising the knights with how much you knew about J-Dawg. Now you have the reputation of a die-hard faithful among the squires. Thank goodness holy texts are super rare, otherwise you'd be in a heap of trouble.

Like, that story about the giant fish eating that dude? That had to be made up, right?

The only good part of the week is training. You learn a lot by sparring with other squires, and you improve by leaps and bounds when Ayda trains her squires every so often. She teaches really obvious things in retrospect, but you've been winging it the whole time. You finish for the day and swing by the cafeteria for a quick dinner, the last one before the weekend.

‘Dinner’ being some mush that you try to eat. The other squires seem to have just as hard a time as you. Once more, you wish the weekend would come sooner. You can go into the nearby city, find somebody to break the ECS, and feed off of them instead of eating this foul meal.

You find an isolated spot so nobody notices how little you actually eat, discretely catapulting the brown-gray paste into the nearby trashcan. You’ve been keeping an eye on everybody from your corner.

The few knights who come to the cafeteria bring their own food and sit with their squires, loudly telling them about their adventures. You’ve yet to see Ayda join her trainees, so it seems like these knights are the exception.

The Holy Knights are an even mix of humans, dwarves, and elves, though there are centaurs that most everyone seems to respect. The squires themselves organize into cliques, either based on their knight or where they came from. Some, like Lusha, flit between larger groups and eagerly join in conversations. You’ve spent the last few mealtimes listening in, absorbing information.

Most of the elves and humans are from cities in the elven territory, and their gossip is more boring than anything else. Aside from the occasional monster attack, nothing really happens there. The few centaurs from the plains you’ve eavesdropped on don’t talk about it. They instead focus on battle strategies and specific techniques, which range from galloping archery to proper hoof care.

You listen intently to that last bit; your minotaur siblings are in for a surprise next time you offer them a massage. Maybe you can get August in the mood!

The squires from the dwarven range are more interesting. There’s a barely restrained tension going on in their groups. They discuss various dwarven factions, the grudges they have between each other, and roaming bandit attacks. Also about something called squatball? They even drop ‘greenskin’ with the hard ‘g’ a few times.

Which is probably why you’ve only seen, like, two goblins among the workers the knights hired.

Someone sits next to you. You nearly jumped out of your skirt, you didn’t sense her coming!

It’s Zellah.

If you’ve got a reputation for a devoted goody two-shoes, she’s got one as a training maniac. She wakes up at dawn to jog in the courtyard, lifts weights while reading notes, stretches before going to bed…and she’s merciless in spars.

You trained with her, once. You’re a little bit stronger than her, but she’s knocked you back using sword skill alone. You’d blame your spear if they hadn’t given you training weapons. All in all, she’s determined to be the best for some reason.

“I noticed you sit alone.” She says.

Because you’d constantly be dropping perverted hints if you were with others.

“I prefer to take my meals in quiet contemplation.” You really don’t. This place is awful, you hope the elf pussy in the nearby city is worth this.

“Understandable.” She holds her gaze on you, then looks over the rest of the cafeteria. “This place is…different than I was expecting. I thought it would be more serious training.”

Of course she would. She’s not even very muscular, Friday looks more defined than her. Zillah makes you seem more feminine in comparison, even after all the exercise. She’s got that meathead mentality. You’re tempted to brush her off, but you’re an extrovert at heart.

“You want it to be harder?” Chill, April!

“It can stand to be harsher. But I was thinking more about how they care more about appearances than results.”

She points to the chart at the front of the cafeteria. It’s a list of the knight orders with stats next to them. Monsters slain, demons vanquished, incidents resolved, people saved…the Holy Knights are at the top of the charts in every category. After a few moments, the letters on the chart shift around, and the chart changes to the stats for each of the Holy Order’s temples. The letters shift around again to rank each knight's performance, then the squires.

“Encouraging competition is smart.” You avoid thinking about the ‘demons vanquished’ stat ticking up. “No wonder the Holy Knights are the best.”

“That’s just it.” Zellah whispers. “They inflate the numbers. When the Holy Order built one of their churches in Hacksonville, they added the entire population to the ‘people saved’ stat. And don’t even get me started on how they don’t measure by year instead of over the course of the Order’s history.”

That could explain why they’re several million ahead of the other knight orders. The Holy Knights are the oldest knight organization in Prillia, so the others have got to constantly play catch up. The other orders are either offshoots or inspired by the Holy Knights, with the Solar and Lunar Knights forming the Knights of the Principality as the reigning Empyreans' personal forces.

“If you doubt the Holy Knights so much, why join them?”

“I need to know magic to join the Arcanoknights, and the Knights of the Principality only recruit from special schools.” She shrugs. “The Holy Knights have the prestige I need to accomplish my goal.”

She squeezes her fist, resolve and anger building inside her.

“Which is...?”

“My sensei was one of those who disappeared a while ago. I intend to find them and make whoever was behind their disappearance pay.”

Before you can ask for more information, a hush falls over the room. In walks an elf in thick nun habits, flanked by two armored knights. They’ve got symbols on their pauldrons marking them as Blades.

The conversations die out as the woman takes a plate of food and quietly eats. Even from five tables away, her presence irritates your flesh. It feels like you spent an entire night with a cactus.

“A Saintess candidate.” Zellah whispers. “That’s a problem.”

“Why?” Aside from the obvious ‘getting bombarded with her burning aura’, of course.

“They only come out of seclusion if the Masters of the Order think we’ll need a lot of holy power soon. So an undead horde or demonic incursion.” She returns to her food. “Most of the time, it’s a false alarm.”

The Saintess candidate eats the gross gunk serenely, the picture of grace. She’s really pretty. Too bad she's brimming with so much holiness, you’d explode if you fucked her.

A bit of the food hangs on her chin, and you wonder how she’d look after blowing you. You cross your legs to hide your erection.

Then again, if she eats here regularly, you could try some exposure therapy. Get a bit closer to her each time and try to increase your resistance to holy energy.

And her resistance to your charm—Stop, stop, stop.

You’re clearly very horny. You should find a way out, ASAP. Good thing you can start the weekend early.

You wish Zellah a good weekend and toss out the food you’ve been pushing around on the tray, then leave the inner sanctum. You’re in a bit of a hurry to pass the outer wall, only taking a spear and a change of clothes before jogging to the gate. Only you run into someone and knock them over.

“Oh, sorry.” You help him up.

“No problem, ma’am!” You sense something…familiar. He’s radiating with a blessing, one that doesn’t feel nearly as uncomfortable as the other holy magics. “I was a bit distracted with a project my boss gave me and—”

“Hey! What are you doing?!” A dwarf with messy black hair rushes over. “Stupid girl! Squires may need a good thumping, but our mechanics aren’t your training dummies!” She turns on the goblin. “And you! Can’t you be careful, you oaf?! Stupid goblin! Idiot!”

She’s laying obscenities on the guy, but he just nods and smiles. He’s not even upset at either of you. Probably because the goblin knows the dwarf doesn’t mean it. She’s red in the face, hiding her worry with foul language. You don't even need to be an empath, it's clear from how she's gently holding the goblin to look for bruises or scrapes. She finishes with a huff, and gestures ‘I’ll be watching you’.

“Don’t get troubled by Sprocket.” The goblin dusts himself off. “She’s prickly but means well.”

Tsun, tsun.

“Thanks for not holding it against me.” You have suspicions, so you introduce yourself. “I’m April. A new squire under Sir Ayda.”

“Nice to meet you!” He shakes your hand. “The name’s Spark. Grounded Spark.”