Lesbia Chronicles: Over Witch's Knee Read online

  THE LESBIA CHRONICLES

  OVER WITCH'S KNEE

  By Ther Renard

  PUBLISHED BY SAPPHOS BRATS

  Copyright 2011-2013 Ther Renard

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Visit Sappho's Brats online:

  http://sapphosbrats.com

  This book is dedicated to all the readers who have followed Atrocious, Ayla, Kira and the rest of the cast of Lesbia through their adventures on Sappho's Brats. Special mentions must go to Sparrow, the bard, Mil, the artist, and DD, the enthusiastic. My most sincere thanks go to everyone who has supported me throughout this two year long journey in the creation of these ladies and their world. It's been one of the most rewarding writing experiences of my life thus far.

  - Loki 'Ther' Renard

  Chapter One

  More mud than woman, Atrocious Lex tramped along a rain soaked road. Her ragged fur boots glugged into the mire every few steps, soaking in just as much water as they repelled. Loose braids escaped their twine ties and slapped about her face, leaving pink trails across her cheeks. Her nose was red from the chill of the wind, her lips chapped from the elemental lashing.

  Atrocious liked the outdoors, but she did not particularly care for the way it was trickling into every crevice and seeping into her socks. A more seasoned, better funded traveler might have worn impermeable over-clothes, but Atrocious did not have those kind of resources.

  A solitary, sodden figure, she was a perfect target for all the evils of the wilds. She knew her path was far from safe, but with the wind whistling in her ears and the cold cramping her toes, she could barely muster the energy to care.

  "HALT!"

  The officious tones of an Imperial guard rang out from what seemed like half a mile away. Atrocious stopped in her tracks, feeling herself sinking slowly into the muddy mess little by little. She squinted through the rain, wondering if it was too late to backtrack and avoid the altercation about to take place.

  "NO. COME HERE AND HALT."

  Taking one deliberate step backwards, Atrocious disobeyed the order. There was still a chance of getting away.

  "I SAID, HALT!"

  The soprano note of frustration in the otherwise boomed command denoted the soldier as female. The revelation did not make Atrocious feel any better about anything.

  Atrocious came to another halt. This one was slightly less muddy, though it hardly mattered now that she was covered in the stuff up to her knees anyway. She watched as the guard maneuvered her black mare carefully around the mire, the horse taking the raised edges of the road with a careful, almost prissy, gait.

  The pair came to a stop not three feet from Atrocious and the soldier glared down her nose. She was a handsome enough woman, a northerner with a long straight nose, jutting chin and ice blue eyes rimmed by pale lashes.

  “What is your name, peasant?"

  "Atrocious, if it pleases you."

  The nose wrinkled in a sneer. “What kind of a name is Atrocious?”

  “A pretty one, if my mother was to be believed.” Atrocious procured her very best charming smile.

  “Your mother was a fool. A blind fool,” the guard sneered cruelly.

  It was a mistake to cast aspersions on Atrocious' mother. The woman might not have been educated - she might not have known her alphabet from her elbow, but she had been an honest and loving mother right up until the moment the plague ate her alive. In response to the insult, Atrocious snarled, lifting the corner of her lip in an expression of toothy fury.

  The guard guffawed at the impotent display of anger. “Move along, peasant, or I'll take you in.”

  Atrocious moved along at a quick pace, eager to escape the attentions of the Imperial. Her haste was her undoing. Somewhere in the boggy mud was a stone. Her foot met with the stone quite unexpectedly and an entirely unfortunate chain of events was set in motion. Atrocious' body continued its forward motion, but her foot stayed still. She plunged face first into the mud.

  The first thing audible to her clogged ears when she lifted her head was the guard's uproarious laughter. Atrocious was forced to shove her anger and frustration down and stand with as much dignity as she could muster, which was not a lot by that point. Having fallen was no small matter, the next town was a long way off and she would be covered in sludge until she got there.

  "You laugh like a jackal," she muttered under her breath.

  The laughter abated quickly. The guard wheeled her horse around, blocking Atrocious' path.

  "What did you say, peasant?"

  The Imperial removed one of her booted feet from the stirrup and poked it towards Atrocious' chest. Atrocious stood her ground as the boot made contact with her mud covered vest, ignoring the strongly implied physical threat as she glared into the guard's face. Her patience, which had always been limited, was running dangerously low.

  With the guard's boot planted above her heart and the maternal slur still ringing in her ears, Atrocious made a rash split-second decision. She grasped the limb that had been so generously offered to her and yanked and twisted roughly, putting her entire body into the movement. The sudden momentum caught the guard by surprise and caused her to tumble from the horse with a clattering sound not unlike that of a drawer of cutlery being emptied out. The grin on Atrocious' face as her tormentor slammed heavily into the mud with an impact that sent a crown of dark fetid water splashing around her prone body could not have been wider.

  "I will cleave you in twain!"

  The guard spluttered the threat through a face full of muck, but before she could rouse herself under the weight of mail and sword, Atrocious had sprung up and into the saddle. It was a risky move, if the horse were particularly loyal or well trained, it might refuse to work for her. Fortunately the mare sprang forward with just the lightest application of heel and Atrocious was hurtling down the road at a grand speed before the unfortunate guard had extricated herself from the mire.

  Traveling by horse was a great deal more comfortable than traveling by foot had been. The mare was fast and eager to run, a well bred animal. Atrocious was a fairly decent judge of horse flesh, having spent many happy months as a child working as a stable-hand for the local lord. That was before she'd discovered that work was for fools. You could toil on and on as much as you liked and maybe even save up enough to buy a pretty dress or a new basket for taking goods to grandma's hovel, but you were still a peasant at the end of the day. Atrocious did not like being a peasant. The hours were terrible and the food was worse. She had therefore quite logically decided to take another path and become a thief. The animal thundering along beneath her represented the pinnacle of her thieving career up to that point as she traveled west, a beam of pride firmly affixed to her incongruously cherubic face.

  The horse did not just allow her to escape the soldier, it soon allowed her to escape the thick rain clouds too. Atrocious sped across the countryside, her dirty blond locks streaming behind her in the wind she and her mount made. Out from the rain and into the sunshine she went, drying with every thundering hoof beat. When she had first mounted the beast, she had done so only with the intention of making a quick escape, but with every powerful stride, the mare was endearing herself to Atrocious more and more.

  "Maybe I'll keep you!" She shouted over the sound of the thundering hoof-beats. The mare's excited whinny and rapidly twitching ears were enough to convince Atrocious that the mare was in agreement with her plan.

  Keeping the horse meant doing two things, naming it, for everything needed a name, and removing the quarter sheet proudly emblazoned with the Imperial seal. That was something of a dead giveaway, something likely to get her thrown into a dungeon.

  At the first available
opportunity, Atrocious rode the mare off the main road and up into a wooded glen. There she dismounted and began stripping the horse of her shiny trappings, including saddle and bridle. Every piece of leather on the animal seemed to have been stamped with the Imperial symbol.

  "I'm surprised they didn't stamp you... oh bugger." Atrocious removed the quarter sheet from the back of the mare and saw the Imperial brand marked clear as day, emblazoned on the horse's hindquarters. "Bastards burned your ass," she sighed.

  After pondering the problem for some time, Atrocious determined the only way to successfully camouflage her new mount was going to be to find a new saddle, bridle and quarter blanket. Such a thing was much more easily said than done in the middle of the woods. At the bare minimum she was going to need a blanket to cover the Imperial mark. Such an item might be purloined at one of the farmsteads or small villages that dotted the landscape.

  "Let's go find you something less fancy," Atrocious said to the mare. She took hold of the base of the mare's mane and launched herself into the air with a mighty leap. The idea was to leap onto the horse's back, but it failed rather abruptly when her momentum took her right over the mare and dumped her on the other side of the horse.

  A more skittish animal might have taken considerable offense to being vaulted over, but the mare was entirely unconcerned by the impromptu display of reckless and unsuccessful gymnastics. She was more interested in grazing on the delicate blades of grass which grew plentiful in the glade.

  "Oi, I could have been hurt," Atrocious complained. She stood up and gave the horse a reproving nudge in the ribs. The mare replied with a snort of indifference and continued feeding.

  Leaving the mare grazing in the clearing, Atrocious set out through the woods. There were a few light trails here and there where hardened earth could be seen scuffed through the grass. They were suggestive of humans having passed that way before. She was hoping to come across a home in the forest, something isolated and unguarded. There were too many eyes in a village, it was almost impossible to get away with stealing something without someone noticing you doing it. She'd learned that the hard way at Scroth's Hollow - a village of ten houses, a general trader, a chapel and an apothecary. It was there that she'd been caught trying to steal a few vitality potions and been subjected to a sound thrashing in the square at the merciless hands of the apothecary herself.

  Her rear seemed to sting with fresh pain when she remembered the way the rod had cracked down across her thinned leather britches. The village had turned out in full force to watch the punishment too, so she'd been forced to endure her discipline in front of thirty people. Some had looked on with grim approval, others had been far more vociferous in their support of her punishment.

  A thrashing was better than being turned over to the guard and tossed into jail, but only slightly. By the time the apothecary had done belaboring her bottom, Atrocious had been unable to sit for days. Sleep had only come after a hefty dose of dream weed. She wasn't going to risk being caught out like that again, that was for sure.

  She crept through the undergrowth, keeping an eye and an ear out for any aggressive beasts or bandits. The Imperials were not the most dangerous things in the countryside by a long way. Plenty of travelers met grizzly ends long before their time at the hands of those who made their way in the world by killing anyone who crossed their path.

  Creeping and sneaking, she soon spied precisely what she had hoped to see. A simple shack sitting in a small clearing. It was made of old unseasoned wood and the planks had twisted and warped over the years. With great caution, she approached the edge of the clearing, her senses entirely focused on trying to determine whether or not the occupant was home. A rhythmic creaking sound alerted her to the fact that something was going on in the house. She couldn't work out what it was from a distance, so she sneaked up to the window and peeked inside.

  The sight that met her made her exhale her held breath in one long woosh. She was staring at a large, lush, bare bottom. The owner of the delightful rear was kneeling on the bed as if presenting herself to be taken. There was nobody else in the house that Atrocious could see. The occupant appeared to be entirely alone and entirely lost in pleasuring herself. Atrocious' jaw dropped as the woman reached back, teasing the furry lips of her most intimate areas with an eager touch.

  Completely enthralled, Atrocious watched, her eyes devouring the sight of the curvaceous beauty. She could not see the woman's face, for it was buried in a pillow, but she could see golden hair trailing down between shoulder-blades, and the curve of an ample breast. As Atrocious stood there, the woman began penetrating herself, sliding a tentative finger into the pink parting.

  "Oh boy," Atrocious whispered to herself. She should have retreated into the forest and waited until the woman left. She should have given the lady her privacy. Instead she stayed by the window, slipped a hand down the front of her britches and teased herself in time with the unnamed woman who was performing for her so unwittingly.

  As the blonde neared her climax, Atrocious took greater cover. She could no longer see the frantically thrusting fingers in the slick slit, but she could hear the woman's cries of unbridled pleasure. They spurred on her own efforts and it was with no great difficulty that she reached her peak in time with the lusty wench.

  Basking in the afterglow of the pleasant interlude, Atrocious was sitting on the ground with a silly grin on her face when the door of the little cottage opened.

  "Who are you?"

  The inquiry was Atrocious' first indication that she'd been caught. She dragged her fingers out from her pants quickly, though not quickly enough. The blonde, who turned out to be a rather attractive middle-aged woman with more than a little elf about her features, evidenced in the high cheekbones and large slanted green eyes, saw what Atrocious had been doing immediately.

  "Spy!”

  It was an accusation, but not an angry one. The woman was smiling though she spoke chidingly, a sexy little smile establishing itself on her thin lips. Atrocious felt fresh stirring in her nether regions as the lady came forward and offered a hand. She took the proffered appendage and allowed the woman to draw her up from the ground. Standing in front of her, it became clear that her elf-blood had bestowed superior height. Atrocious was forced to take a step back to avoid craning her neck.

  "I am Ayla," the part-elf said. "Who are you?"

  "I am Atrocious.”

  "A suitable name indeed," Ayla said, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

  It was all going rather well, much better than Atrocious had anticipated. Usually these sorts of encounters lead to being chased about the woods with a broom if you were lucky - or a sword if you weren't.

  "Would you like to come inside?"

  Ayla extended the invitation quite graciously. A little whisper of common sense tried to tell Atrocious that it was not a good idea to go into the homes of people you'd just watched masturbate, but the more powerful force of her arousal won and she found herself following the tall half-elf into the cottage.

  The door closed behind her the moment she stepped through it, perhaps blown by a breeze or, more likely shut by magical means. Elves were well known witches and the half elf, half human who was now smiling at Atrocious with a slightly disturbing intensity probably had some magical powers. Listening to her intuition a little too late in the piece, Atrocious took a step back and tried the door handle. It refused to budge. Panic welled up in Atrocious as Ayla came towards her. This was the part where she was turned into toast, or sold for soap, or perhaps battered for biscuits...

  "Do come and sit down," Ayla said.

  There was not much choice to be had in the matter. Before Atrocious could reply, Ayla had taken her by the arm and pushed her down quite firmly into a rickety wooden chair. With the tall woman looming over her, Atrocious was certain that she was in trouble. She just didn't know what kind.

  Chapter Two

  Ayla looked down at her captive with a smirk that lacked a certain amount of warmth
. As silence stretched out, she put her hands on her hips. "Are you in the habit of spying on people?"

  "Sometimes?"

  Atrocious answered the question with a question as her eyes darted around the room. She was looking for a way out, but Ayla was blocking her way fairly effectively. She briefly considered fighting her way out of the cottage, but Atrocious was not given to outright aggression in most instances, and certainly not against beautiful ladies she'd recently seen in compromising situations. There was also the magic to consider. And the fact that Ayla was bigger than she was.

  "Someone should teach you a lesson," Ayla purred, reaching out towards Atrocious with her fingers splayed. "A lesson in when to look and when not to look."

  "Listen, I..." Atrocious began to apologize, but before she could finish the sentence her vision went black. She uttered a shriek of fear, afraid that Ayla might have killed her and that she was looking into the void of her own non-existence. A hand on her knee and a voice that was quickly becoming familiar reassured her that she was still alive.

  "Calm down."

  "Calm down?" Atrocious pawed at her eyes, trying to pry away whatever was preventing her from seeing. "I'm blind!"

  An amused chuckle floated to her as the hand patted her knee. "It's just a spell. It will wear off after a time."

  Atrocious could hear a smile in the woman's voice. It did not make her feel any better about her situation. She took a deep breath. She was clearly dealing with a mad witch. She was going to have to play along until she got her sight back, then run like hell.

  "Now, what shall we do to teach you a lesson?" Ayla asked. "You're filthy you know. What have you been up to?" It was a rhetorical question hardly requiring an answer. The mud certainly didn't seem to dissuade Ayla as she slowly slid her hand from Atrocious' knee to her inner thigh.