The Salacious Scitalis preview
A preview for my first full-on smut short story involving a unlucky (or lucky, whichever you prefer) knight and the beast he was sent to slay, which is not exactly who he thought it was.
Sir Gareth rode his horse through the brackish muck of the swamp, the sun's setting casting a golden glow across the land. Silver armor covered his body and face, a sword sheathed at his hip. The mud slowed his progress, but he pushed through regardless. Fire occasionally blasted from pits in the swamp's surface, as if the swamp was connected to Hell itself. He was determined to slay the scitalis. It had been stealing livestock for many days now, and the lord of the land had had enough. And so, Gareth was assigned to end the great serpent's reign of thievery once and for all.
At last, he reached his destination: A huge cavern, jutting from the swamp's surface like a rocky blemish. Lighting a makeshift torch using a stick and the swamp fire, he made his way into the cave. He looked around, noticing the tunnel that led deeper into the cavern. But as he began his walk through it, he slipped on the wet floor, losing his footing and bashing his head on a rock. Even with the helmet, his head rattled about violently. His vision blurred as he lay on the stony ground, seeing three or four clawed hands reach out to him. Then… blackout.
Gareth awoke some time later, drops of water falling onto his now exposed face, revealing white skin and a small brown goatee and hair to match. He rose to his feet wearily, clutching his head as a dull throbbing pain pulsed through it. It was then that he realized where he was, seeing the bones of cattle, sheep, and chickens picked clean of their flesh in a neat pile at one end of the vast cave he was in, moonlight pouring in through holes in the ceiling. He drew his sword and spun in a slow circle, trying his best not to be surprised by the scitalis who made this cave home An unexpected sound echoed throughout the cave, seeming to come from everywhere: Laughter. Confident, cold, and amused laughter.
“So that's how you thank me for helping you?" said a low feminine voice, dripping with honey as the words snaked into Gareth's ears. He looked around the dark confines of the cave, searching for the source of that seductive voice.
“What do you mean 'helping me?'" asked Gareth with a mixture of anger and fear in his voice.
“I couldn't just leave a handsome man like you just lying there on my porch." came the voice from nowhere and everywhere. Gareth blushed at the compliment as he heard the scraping sound of scales against stone. Into a beam of moonlight slithered what resembled a man-sized cobra, with black scales and red stripes on a serpentine body over sixty feet long. But things were quite different from the waist up. While still looking very much like a cobra, it had arms and clawed five-fingered hands resting on wide hips below a slim waist. From the chest jutted a pair of large, naked, and scaly breasts, at which Gareth tried not to linger his gaze on. A hood lay folded against her head and neck. Two dark blue eyes with slitted pupils looked the human up and down as a forked tongue flicked in and out of a serpentine snout. A rather scary-looking grin slid across her face.
“Oh yes," she said. “You'll do."