(I don't think I'm gonna write a chapter this long again. Enjoy!)

The Witch of Grimfall Barrow

(gory combat, strangle)

The girl swayed from the end of a rope on the branch of the ancient oak tree in the middle of the village.

She could not have been older than fifteen, by Enyara’s estimation. Her willowy blonde hair swayed with her body, pale and discolored from the cold, and urine still glistened wetly on the inside of her thigh.

“You two ought to be hanging up there with her,” said the old village matron beside them. She had a face like shriveled grapes and the voice to match but her eyes gleamed with an intelligence that none could doubt.

The proposition both frightened and aroused Enyara. She shot a quick glance at the dead teenage thief, bit down on her bottom lip. “My life was threatened. I defended myself.”

“Yes, that much is clear,” retorted Anya. She had her arms folded and a look of complete unamusement.

Enyara’s eyes darted between the archer and the matron. Fat snowflakes drifted down from an early dawn sky, silent, like shadows and her breath misted in the cold morning air. “Is it my fault she wanted to kill me?”

“She was a good priestess.” The matron flexed her fingers and spat into the snow. “Laneth was well within her rights to pursue a blood feud against you. Since you killed her and she has no family to avenge her, you are absolved of your debt...”

Enyara breathed a sigh of relief.

“...to her but not to me.”

Enyara’s face fell. “You can’t just find another priestess?”

“Just tell us how we can repay you,” interjected Anya. She pinched the shieldmaiden in the side as she stepped up to the matron. “We’ll do whatever is required.”

The old woman’s gaze flickered between the two of them, like a cat before two mice. She worked her shrewd mouth into a half-frown and spat. “East of here is an old barrow. Grimfall Barrow. Recently, a witch by the name of Sana has taken up residence in the barrow. She has herself a little cult that kidnaps people from our village and sacrifices them to some dark god. We know this because one of her captives escaped and ran back here.”

“Why has no one done something about it,” asked Enyara.

The matron narrowed her eyes, lips curled in a sour frown, as if she’d just caught a whiff of something foul. “Hard to do anything when your warriors went off to die,” she grumbled. “I heard that you slew a dozen of ours yourself. A witch and her little followers should be light work for you.”

Enyara made a mental note to never come this far south in Scotia again. She chewed anxiously on her bottom lip, glanced at the swaying corpse and the matron. “Ok,” she said, after a brief silence. “We’ll help with your witch problem.”

The old woman offered a smile that was not at all warm. “Good. I knew you’d see reason.” She turned on her heel and stalked off in the direction of a small cabin. “Bring back her body as proof and consider your debt forgiven.”

She watched the matron disappear into her cabin. A thin column of smoke drifted out of the chimney to join the other smoke trails of the mud huts and cabins of the village beyond.

Anya glared at her, trying and failing not to laugh. “We get out of this alive, I’m taking you somewhere you can’t cause trouble.” She pokes Enyara in the ribs. “Come on, heretic. We’ve got a witch to hunt.”

Enyara flinched away from the finger, her cheeks hot from blushing. She checked the sword at her hip and the shield on her back and trailed off after her dark haired companion.

* * *

The narrow, wooded path leading into Grimfall Barrow was guarded by a tall woman with a shaved head and a snake tattoo running down the length of her spine. She was stark naked, tanned, wielding a wooden club in her hands. Her back was turned, her attention on some unseen thing.

“Easiest shot I’ll make all day,” remarked Anya, as she shifted through the bushes. She had replaced her midriff with a leather, sleeveless vest and a pair of loose skin-colored breeches. She fingered the feather on the arrow shaft resting against the string of her longbow.

Enyara glanced down at her leather brigandine and her well-worn travel boots. Goosebumps rose along with the freckles of her exposed knee. Had she not fought with a shield, she suspected she would have lost her legs long ago. She scooter beside Anya to a more comfortable position in the bush. The low light of the early morning made sight a touch difficult but her eyes were good enough to see the naked ass before her. “Well, take it then. The sooner we get this done, the better.”

“Relax, ‘yara.” She pulled the arrow back taut on the bowstring and lined up the cultist in her sights. Enyara could not help but notice the way her back arched as she aimed the shot, the way her fingers closed around the end of the arrow and her eye closed to sight the target. It was art in motion.

The arrow snapped forward with a twang. She watched it sail through the air and sink into the cultist’s neck. The naked woman tensed, dropped her club and her hands flew up to clutch the arrowhead sticking out of her throat. Even from the bushes, Enyara heard the quiet gurgles of guzzled blood. She was no doubt trying to call to her comrades in the barrow but they would not hear the soft gasps of a ruined throat. The cultist fell to her knees, hands still at her neck, blood seeping down her chest. The snake tattoo was slick with perspiration from her desperate struggle and her naked body glistened in the low light of dawn.

“Go,” said Anya. “Bring her back here before anyone comes to investigate.”

Enyara crept out of the bushes and along the path to the dying cultist. Coming upon her, she wrapped her arms under the woman’s breasts and dragged her back to their position. The cultist’s head lolled back to look at Enyara, her eyes wide with pain and panic, frantic gurgles bubbling up from her punctured throat. The shieldmaiden felt a shock of arousal at the sight and despite herself, capped a feel of the victim’s breast. The tender flesh yielded in her hand, the nipple stiffened under her thumb. The cultist shuddered, reached for Enyara’s hand in a brief touch before going slack in her grip. Her eyes, grey, unfocused and her mouth relaxed, as did her bladder, spraying a yellow stream down the path and her thigh.

Enyara deposited the fresh corpse beside Anya. Rustled bushes and leaking urine filled the silence.

“I don’t usually go for buzzed hair,” Anya remarked. “But she’s hot.”

The archer flipped over the dead cultist and caressed the snake tattoo that ran along her spine. “Nothing I’ve ever seen before. Have you?”

Enyara shrugged. “Maybe it’s the symbol of their little cult.”

“Possibly.”

The corpse twitched, muscles in the arms and legs tending as the last vestiges of life left the body. There was nothing left for the cultist to tell them so they ventured on along the path. A wide curve along a stretch of thick pines led them to a thicket, on the other side of which was a path leading up to a set of ancient stone steps. The entrance to the barrow was a black iron slab, covered by a runed archway, illuminated by twin torches. Two cultists stood guard on either side of the slab, both naked, brandishing large wooden clubs. Their heads were shaved as the others had been and they bore the same snake tattoos, one on the arm and the other slithering between plump breasts.

“I’ll take these two,” Enyara said, unsheathing her sword. The blade rasped out of the scabbard, pale silver in the morning light. “Cover me, yea?”

“I’ve got your back.” Anya flipped another arrow out of her quiver and rested it against the bowstring as she snuck through the bushes. “Go on.”

Enyara slung her shield over her shoulder and stepped noisily through the thicket. The two guards snapped to attention as she emerged from the bush, stalking forward with clubs in hand. She crept forward, slow and deliberate, eyes on them over the rim of her shield. The cultist on her left made the first move, with a swift lunge and an overhead strike. Enyara bounced the blow off the boss of her shield, pivoted her right leg forward and thrust her sword through the attacker’s neck. The steel punched through flesh with the ease of a hot knife through butter and the edge of her blade came away slick with blood. The cultist clutched her split throat with wide eyes and wet, crimson hands. She fell over, gurgling, and collapsed against the crumbled stone steps.

The remaining guard, of the snake between her breasts, had circled around Enyara. She has just enough time to bring her shield around and up to catch the club before it smacked into the back of her head. The shock of the blow reverberated up her arm. Through gritted teeth, she pushed back against her enemy’s hold and swiped low with an underhanded slash. The cultist screeched as she fell down on the severed stump of her leg. Blood spurted violently onto scant snow and crushed pine needles. Enyara drew back her red-slick blade and thrust forward between the cultist’s breasts. Her sword met resistance as it punched through to the heart but she pushed forward on the pommel, buried her steel almost to the hilt before she wrenched it out.

Snake-breasts stared up at her with wide, bloodshot eyes. Feeble hands clutched at the sword in her chest, as if to pull it out but she was lost to pained gurgles, coughing up gobs of blood and trembling weakly on the ground. Enyara wrenched the sword out amidst a red spray and left the cultist to die in agony.

Anya stepped out of the bushes moments later, arrow still on the bowstring. "You didn't need me at all." She glanced at the bodies and whistled in appreciation. "Handy work."

Enyara shrugged. "No trouble." She stepped over the corpse of the snake-arm cultist, sprawled against the steps, and examined the black slab. "These runes have to be at least centuries old."

The archer fell in step beside her. "A scholar, eh?" She touched the runework with delicate fingers. "Aye. I'd say this barrow has been here awhile."

The shieldmaiden felt along the slab, found a groove in the metal. "Help me lift this."

Together, they pulled the slab away from the entrance where the stench of centuries-old decay rushed up to meet them. Enyara's nostrils flared and she sneezed.

"You alright, warrior? Wouldn't want you dropping dead at a few old bones."

The redhead sniffled and stepped into the barrow. The first room was a burial chamber in which an ancient coffin laid, of the same black iron as the slab. The runework on the coffin was inlaid with faded gold and the husks of long-dead flowers lay scattered across and below it.

"There are usually treasure hoards in barrows like these," Anya remarked. "Maybe we'll get lucky."

Enyara surveyed the room. There were no other visible entrances among the moss-covered, crumbling stones. She glimpsed no slabs or doorways to other rooms. Most barrows were small like Grimfall, consisting of only a main chamber and perhaps a side room or two for the entourage. Her eyes sought a hidden entrance, a clue to the other chambers that she knew to be within.

"You feel that?" Anya stepped closer to the coffin, perched down beside it. "A draft. Coming from under the coffin."

Enyara joined her beside the iron sarcophagus and felt a cool gust of air. She caressed the bottom of the coffin, found a groove and pushed. The iron groaned against the stone but gave way to reveal a trap door. "Nice work."

The archer smirked. "What would you do without me?"

She opened the wooden door and peered down into the hole. A makeshift ladder had been erected into a tunneled out rock, leading further down into the barrow. She glimpsed torchlight and flickering shadows on the other end. "I'll climb down first."

Enyara turned and descended down the ladder. She found herself in a stony, torch-lit corridor that led into an adjacent chamber. There was a woman, ginger-haired, dressed in a low-cut robe. She was bent over a book and bottles of potions at a candle-lit table. There was a knife in a crude leather sheath, strapped to her slender, freckled thigh. Enyara drew her sword and crept forward on silent steps. She felt rather than heard Anya drop down the ladder behind her.

The ginger-haired cultist was whispering over the book, running her hands over the potions. Enyara looped an arm around her neck, hand clamped over her mouth and ran her through with her sword. The blade burst out of the cultist's chest and the shieldmaiden felt her vocal cords humming against her hand as the the girl screamed into her palm. Enyara reached down and deftly drew the knife out of the cultist's thigh holster. She slashed the girl's throat with a flick of her wrist and shoved her to the ground.

"Never took you for a sneaky type," said Anya. "She was a pretty one. We could have had fun with her."

"I'm prettier." She glanced down at the writhing cultist. The girl's green eyes bulged in terror, her hands grasping at a bleeding throat. Beneath the hem of the robe, she glimpsed a hairless pink pussy, glistening not with urine but some clear, slick wetness.

"That you are," purred Anya. "Let's move on. I don't think that was our witch."

Enyara led the way into an adjacent chamber with a bed and a bookshelf. The room beside it held two other robe-clad cultists, one blonde and the other brunette. The blonde was sleeping under a fur bedroll, the brunette bent over a mortar and pestle. She gasped when she saw Enyara step through the room but she was too slow. The shieldmaiden closed the distance between them with a lunge and brought her sword up in a diagonal slash. The cultist froze, stock-still and shivering, her eyes fixed in panic, her expression transfixed in shock. The upper half of her torso sloughed off her body, like slime, and collapsed to the ground. Ropey intestines and viscera, pink and blood, dangled from the split belly, oozing out into the stone. The legs ,deprived of a torso, wobbled and collapsed into a piss-stained heap.

The commotion had woken the blonde cultist from her slumber. She stirred and unwrapped her creamy legs from the fur pile. Anya was on her then, a knife out and a hand gripping her by the ponytail. Her eyes snapped open, her mouth opened to scream but the knife punched through her throat. The scream turned to a gurgle as Anya wrenched the knife out. The archer held the blonde head up by the ponytail, watched the frantic light in her blue eyes flicker and fade as they went blank. Her jaw slackened, her tongue, dripping saliva, drooped out of her thin lips and her legs spread beneath Anya. A thin yellow stream stained the bedroll in a dark pool under her.

"What a waste," said Anya, letting the blonde head drop to the ground.

Enyara glanced at the twitching corpse, the thin robe clinging to the slender, sweat-drenched body. "These look like priestesses. We must be getting close."

"For once, you're trying to kill them."

The shieldmaiden cracked a smile and pressed on. They emerged from the living quarters into a narrow corridor at the end of which sat a door of bloodied iron. There were crimson handprints on the door and an ominous chanting coming from the other side. Enyara took a breath, glanced at her dark-haired companion. "Ready?"

Anya nocked an arrow into her bowstring." Ready."

Enyara pushed open the door and stepped through.

It was a sacrificial chamber that she entered, dominated by an altar dripping with gore. A snake was carved into the side of the stone slab, its fangs sharp, its eyes red and malevolent. Around the altar were a dozen naked cultists, bearing the same shaved heads and serpent tattoos as the guards outside, bowing before a woman that stood above the altar. She was as pale as death, with hair black like a raven's wings, and voluptuous curves that could entice even the most phlegmatic of observers. She was naked, save for the skull-shaped pauldrons on her shoulders and a thin strip of purple silk that covered her cunt. In her hand, she held a staff of gnarled wood, with a human skull at the top. A feverish green light suffused her, smoky tendrils wrapped around her as she chanted at the floating corpse in front of her.

"That's not a witch," hissed Anya. "That's a necromancer."

"Arise, great chieftain," cried Sana the necromancer. "Arise and join my army. Arise and greet your new mistress!"

The corpse, formerly a blonde woman, rose up from the altar, suspended in telekinetic animation. The sickly green light entered into her body through the mouth and enveloped her in its grip. Enyara stepped forward, blood-slick blade in hand. "Halt, foul sorceress! Your evil ends now."

Sana's eyes snapped toward the shieldmaiden. "Intruder! Minions, slaughter her and bring me her corpse. I shall raise her for my army as well!"

The naked cultists rose in unison and fell on her with snarls and wooden clubs. She raised her shield to meet each blow and parried with her sword the strikes she could not. She slashed and stabbed at whoever approached, like a cornered wolf, and her blade became slick with the renewed kiss of blood. Although she had wounded a few, there was more to accost her. One cultist leapt toward her with an overhead swipe. She sidestepped, narrowly missing the blow, and slash sideways. The shaved head tumbled off naked shoulders and rolled across the ground, the corpse crumbling moments later. Another cultist, bare-handed, grabbed hold of her shield. Enyara raised her sword and slashed downward, severing both arms with one clean swipe. Blood sprayed from the stumps of the arm onto her shield and the cultist fell back, screaming in agony.

Two down, five to go. The remaining cultists were more careful, seeing their two comrades fall so easily to the lone warrior. Enyara lunged forward to the nearest, catching her club on the edge of her shield and stabbing her through the gut. She wrenched at the bloodied sword, parried a blow from the next cultist and slashed at her face. The pained scream pierced the ritual chamber as the cultist stumbled back, clutching her bloodied face.

Enyara fell into a killing rhythm. She hacked off the legs of one cultist and ran the blade through her neck. The second-to-last cultist tried to swipe her legs from under her but she jumped over the low blow and followed up with a vertical slash that sent the shaved head sailing through the air.

The last cultist saw what fate had befallen her sisters and dropped her club. She fell to her knees, hands clasped and looked up at the approaching shieldmaiden with frantic, panicked eyes. "Please," she pleaded. "Spare me! Please! I beg you!"

Enyara thrust her blade through the cultist's heart. The woman gasped, shock colored her features and her face twisted in pained betrayal. "W-why?"

Enyara twisted the blade. An agonized cry escaped her lips and tears streamed down the corners of those grey eyes. The cultist pissed herself from pain and panic. Enyara pressed a boot against her breast and wrenched her sword out. The cultist fell to the ground, coughing and choking on her own blood.

The shieldmaiden looked around at the slaughter. She felt the heat of adrenaline and her mouth watered as she glanced at the bodies of the fallen. She looked to the necromancer, Sana, who was too enraptured in her ritual to notice the dead.

"Yes! Yes! Enter your new vessel, chieftain! Arise as my champion! This I command - urk!"

Enyara cocked an eyebrow. A pair of slim, pale hands had wrapped around Sana's throat and the fingers pressed deep into the soft flesh of her neck. Sana dropped her staff and scrambled to pry the fingers from her neck. Where once she had been confident, panic colored her features, her eyes wide with fear and her voluptuous curves tense with the struggle. The necromancer was turned around and forced on her back on the altar. A slim, dark-haired woman loomed over her, smiling with murderous glee, a sadistic glint in her eyes.

Sana clawed frantically at Anya's face and arms, trying and failing to shove her off. The necromancer's supple breasts heaved with the effort, her body bucked underneath the archer and the first strangled croaks escaped her mouth.

Anya tossed her legs over the witch and straddled her. The archer nestled her lithe body against the curves of her victim, began to ride her, grinding on Sana's thigh. A moan pierced the chamber and Anya threw her head back as she bucked against the necromancer.

Enyara dropped her sword and her shield and slipped a hand between her legs. As Anya rode her victim and moaned, the shieldmaiden fingered herself. Her breath hitched, her breasts heaved and her nipples stiffened against the inside of her brigandine. She sank to her knees in bliss, barely able to keep an eye on Anya anymore, lost in the throes of her pleasure. As her companion cried out, so did she, cumming all over her fingers in a sticky and sweet nectar.

Once recovered, she stumbled over to Anya and sat beside her against the altar. Sana's legs dangled over the side between them, urine trickling down the plump leg to splash on the stone. The archer took Enyara's hand and slipped freckled fingers into her mouth. "Mmm...you taste like dessert." She looked down at the damp spot in her breeches. "And these are ruined."

Enyara fell over laughing. "By the all-mother, what a battle." She patted the dead necromancer's leg beside her. "We should get back to the matron, yea?"

"I'll carry her." Anya hopped to her feet and hoisted the witch over her shoulders. She looked at the bodies strewn across the chamber floor and let out a low whistle. "Damn. Remind me never to anger you."

They stepped over the corpses, laughing and joking, on their way out of the barrow.

* * *

"Gods above, what a sight."

The village matron stood before the oak tree, gazing up at the swaying necromancer with a smug smile. The corpse of the teenage thief had company now. "She was raising the dead, you say?"

Enyara nodded. "She was trying to summon the dead chieftain of Grimfall Barrow into a new body." The redhead crossed her arms, with a self-satisfied smirk. "Naturally we put an end to it."

"I'd say you did." The old woman turned on her with a withering gaze. "You may killed many of our warriors but you also save our village. Consider your debt paid." She fished in her pocket and withdrew a fat leather pouch. "I suppose you've earned this as well."

Enyara took the pouch, hefted it in her hand. "Glad to be of help."

"Yes, I'm sure." The matron offered one last glance at the hanged witch and departed. "Best of luck to you in your journeys."

Enyara turned to Anya with a wide grin. "We came out of that well, eh?"

The archer flashed her a devilish smile. "We did. Let's go celebrate, hero." She looped an arm around the redhead's shoulder and began walking with her. "I need a drink."