Fifty Shades of Sleeping Beauty (2 page)

“No! No!” Magnus cried out, his face red and the swelling lump in his tights betraying how hard it was to keep control of
himself. “That’s not why we’re here.”

“Isn’t it?” one of the knights burst out.

“Isn’t it?” echoed Isis, pouting so beautifully that another couple of knights let out groans.

“N-no, it isn’t,” Magnus gasped. “I-I... we are... we’re here...” Struggling to master himself, at last he firmly but not discourteously pushed Serena away and adopted another
heroic  pose, though it was a matter of conjecture as to whether his sizable erection enhanced or detracted from his posture. “We are here on the matter of the utmost urgency, one which affects the very future of Nysa itself.”

Bellatrix let out a huge sigh, her shoulders drooping as she stopped the spinning jenny. She frowned as she caught herself on a needle, the sharp prick drawing out a drop of blood that shone bright and red on her fingertip. “
Mmm, tasty,” she said quietly as she sucked it up. Standing, she slinked forward to the group of knights, causing a few more of them to groan – Bellatrix mentally noted them as worthy of future attentions – and at last she came to a halt beside her other two sisters just before Prince Magnus.

“I suppose you want us to sort out this situation with Emperor
Osiman,” she said, reaching out with one long, pointed finger, the nail painted as brightly as her own blood, and poking Magnus squarely in the chest.

“Oh, I’d forgotten about him,” said Isis innocently. At this, Bellatrix rolled her eyes upwards for a second.

“Ah, yes, Osiman the Mighty,” Serena pitched in. “I guess we were going to have to do
something
about him sooner or later.”

“You know about him?
About the invasion?” Magnus was astonished.

“For pity’s sake,” groaned Bellatrix. “We’re
witches
. Of course we bloody know about him.”

“And you can help us?”

Serena reached out and stroked Magnus’s cheek softly. “Sweetest boy, why on earth wouldn’t we? After all, Nysa’s our home. We can’t have anyone coming in and ravaging the place.”

“Not without a bit of ravaging of us first,” Isis giggled. “They say he’s awfully big, you know, down there.”

“Not too bright up top, though,” Bellatrix observed.

Isis wrinkled her nose up at this. “Well, that’s not so bad, I suppose. I mean, it’s not like we’re going to be talking much, is it?”

Magnus was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable. “Emperor Osiman is a fearsome man. They say he is a bear in battle, as fearsome and as savage as a boar, with a face scarred by the many battles he has fought.” He was stopped in mid-flow by Serena who clutched his arm.

“Oh, love, please stop! You’ll make me all wet if you keep going like that, and I’ve only just put this dress on!”

Isis continued to look thoughtful. “I suppose it would be fun to try out a bit of rough,” she observed.

Bellatrix’s
smile was thin and hard. “And let’s see who comes out on top when he has to deal with the three of us,” she said quietly.

“Do you think he’s really as big as they say he is?” Isis asked.

“We better bring along more of that magic unguent of yours, Bellatrix,” Serena observed. “I mean, you can never be too careful.”

“We’ll bring enough to drown his whole fucking army if we have to,” Bellatrix replied, her smile spreading.

Magnus, still straining in his pants, looked from sister to sister, hope rising on his face. “You mean... you can help?” he asked at last.

“You try and bloody stop us, dear,” Serena said, slipping her arm through his and leading him back to his horse. “Now, be a good boy and escort us with these lovely knights of yours to this invading emperor. We’ll see how much of a man he really is.”

The journey to the southern borders of Nysa was long and arduous. It would have been even longer (if somewhat less arduous) if the three witches and the escorting knights had had their way. Prince Magnus, however, was determined that they reach their destination as quickly as possible.

“By the gods!” he muttered through gritted teeth when Isis slipped from her horse, a frisky pale palfrey, to stop by a river. “We have to keep moving!” As he spoke, he was all too aware of the painful sensation in his groin as he watched Isis, her white dress clinging to her body.

“But why?” Isis asked with a smile. “It’s such a lovely day. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to go for a quick swim. Who knows? That might lead to something else.” She dipped her bare foot into the water, and Magnus couldn’t take his eyes away from the way her foot arched as her toes broke the surface of the river.

“We... must... keep... moving...”

It was too late, however. Without warning Isis dived into the water and broke through its clear currents a few yards from the shore. Magnus thought he was going to burst.

“She might have a point,” one of his knights observed. “It is getting hot under all this
armour.”

“And we’d certainly like to see what you keep beneath all that leather,” Serena observed saucily.

“Serena! Isis!” It was Bellatrix who spoke now. “You’re going to cause our lovely Prince to have a seizure if you carry on this way. Come on. We’ll have plenty of time to fool around once we’ve dealt with this invading emperor.”

“What, once you mean he’s finished invading us?” Isis called out from the river, making Serena laugh and even Bellatrix smile. Nonetheless, with a sigh she began to emerge from the river and return to her horse. If her dress had clung to her before, now it was like a second skin, transparent and hiding nothing of her body beneath it. Her nipples were stiff from the cool water and strands of wet hair were wrapped about her slender neck. Behind him Magnus heard one of the knights fall off his horse, turning the air blue with his curses and pleas.

The rest of the journey passed without incident and at last the twenty knights, Prince Magnus and the three sisters came to the brow of a hill which marked the southernmost point of Nysa. As they cleared the rise, even the three witches gasped in astonishment at what they saw.

Spread out before them was the mightiest host that any of them had ever seen
assembled. It completely filled the valley, a swarm of men and tents numbering into the tens of thousands, with soldiers and camp followers going about their business as the afternoon sun was slowly descending in the west. Magnus’s heart quailed in his chest.

“It’s... it’s impossible,” he whispered.

Serena placed a kindly hand upon his. “Now, now,” she said softly. “I must admit, there are rather a lot of them, but nothing’s as bad as it first appears.”

Magnus, however, didn’t hear her words.  “What was I thinking? There’s no way we can oppose this many men! My mother was right. Nysa is doomed.”

“That’s enough of that!” snapped Bellatrix. “Where’s this brave prince we’ve all been hearing about? We seem to have left him somewhere along the way and picked up this milksop of a man instead.”

Magnus blushed at this, but he could hear his men muttering behind him, clearly sharing his opinion of the scene before them.

“Tsk!” Bellatrix told them sharply. “You should all be ashamed of yourselves. If we’re not afraid to go down there, then you shouldn’t be either.”

“But there are so many of them!” gasped one soldier in despair.

“Yes, but they’re only
men
,” Isis replied with a gleam in her eyes. “Isn’t that true, sisters?”

“It is indeed,” Serena agreed. “And they haven’t met
us
before.”

And so it was that the three sisters went ahead, gaily riding down the hill towards the camp as though on their way to a summer fair.
Ashamed of his own cowardice, Magnus spurred his horse on to follow them, with the rest of his men reluctantly behind him. As they came clearer to the first of the tents, so some guards, dark Southerners with metal helmets and scale armour, came forward, pointing long, sharp pikes towards the three women.

“Oh dear,” Serena said calmly. “You should be careful with that. It would be terrible if someone got hurt.”

Seeing the witches, the guards seemed to forget Magnus and his knights and lowered their weapons. One said something in a foreign tongue to his companion who laughed and nudged another. Soon all the guards were coming up to the women’s horses, their pikes forgotten.

“Oh, you are naughty!” Magnus heard Isis say. Though he couldn’t understand a word that was said, the three sisters seemed to have no problem comprehending the guards and laughed and joked with them without a care in the world. Soon all of them were being escorted through the camp and yet, despite all the leers and winks directed their way, some magic seemed to protect them from being harmed or even touched.

“What do you think?” Serena asked her sisters, gesturing towards a large, brocaded tent, brighter and more richly decorated than the others.

“If I was an Emperor, that’s where I’d reside,” Bellatrix offered.

“Let’s hope he’s as big as they say he is,” said Isis quietly to no-one in particular.

A crowd had gathered around them now as they dismounted, but as they made their way towards the tent a small, bald man, his skin even darker than that of the soldiers, shot through the open flap. “Halt!” he shouted, speaking in a language that even Magnus and his men could comprehend, though with a foreign accent. “No-one approaches the divine residence of Emperor
Osiman the Mighty, Ruler of Heaven and Earth, without his express permission.”

“What a shame,” Bellatrix said caustically. “I didn’t
realise we needed an appointment, and we had such gifts to give your lovely Emperor.”

Unlike the soldiers, the emissary, short and squat with dark skin and dressed in rich silk robes, viewed the three sisters with suspicion. “Probably a eunuch,” Serena whispered to Magnus. “They do that down south.”

“What do you mean? What gifts?” he asked.

“We came here to give the Emperor what he truly desires,” Bellatrix replied.

The man snorted at this. “And what is it that our Emperor, may his name be revered forever, desires?”

“Why, I thought that was obvious.
Nysa.”

“What?” the emissary cried in astonishment.

“What?” repeated Magnus, instinctively reaching for his sword. “Is this treachery?” He could hear his men also reaching for their weapons and the mood of the crowd was in danger of turning ugly. Once more Serena placed a hand on his and gave him a warning look. “Wait,” she whispered.

“Yes, Nysa, for I and my two sisters are Nysa, and we are what your emperor desires.”

At this, a sly, suspicious look crossed the emissary’s face. “We’ve all heard of the whores of Nysa,” he said and spat on the ground.

“How rude,” commented
Isis.

“I’m sure you have,” Bellatrix told him, maintaining her calm. “However, before we leave, perhaps you should let your Emperor decide for himself.”

For a few moments the emissary stared balefully at Bellatrix and her two sisters, ignoring Prince Magnus and his knights. After all, what were twenty men against the armed thousands of an empire? At the same time, all the Nysans were aware of grumblings among the soldiers - a general discontent that seemed directed against the emissary. He, too, recognised the signs and, with a curse in the direction of the witches, went back inside the tent.

Seconds later, he emerged from the flap where he had entered, but whereas he had gone in vertically now he flew out almost horizontally, crashing onto the grass before the witches and their escort with a squeak. Magnus opened his mouth to say something but closed it immediately when he saw what was following the emissary.

All the stories that the Nysans had heard about Osiman the Mighty, Emperor of Heaven and Earth, did not prepare them for the giant of the man who stood before them now. Magnus was a tall man, broad-shouldered and a brawny youth, the finest son of Nysa, but he was a boy compared to the giant who stood before them.

Osiman
must have been seven feet in stature, his skin dark and kissed by the hot sun of the south, with each of his arms as thick as the legs of a horse on which the knights sat, and his back as wide as that of an ox. He was dressed in full armour which he wore despite the heat, no doubt disdaining the pleasant climate of Nysa compared to the scorching furnace of his home. His face probably was handsome once, but criss-crossed now by a hundred scars, his eyes blazing orbs that seemed to burn with a black fire. Seeing him, Magnus felt even more afraid than when he’d seen the entire host of Osiman’s army. From the noises they made, it was clear his knights felt the same fear.

The witches reacted somewhat differently.

“Well, hello,” said Serena, lifting her hand from Magnus’s arm and touching her hair with a girlish giggle. “What have we here?”

“I don’t care if it’s a stereotype, but I bet he’s even
bigger
down there than in the stories,” Isis breathed lustily.

Bellatrix simply licked her lips.

Osiman surveyed them scornfully. Even though they were on horseback he seemed to look down on them, his large nose hooked and a golden ring in his ear. “What do you have that I could possibly want?” he sneered at them, speaking perfect Nysan.

Immediately, the three witches slipped from their horses and approached the gigantic emperor slowly, bowing down and then dropping to their knees so that they could prostrate themselves before him.

“Mighty Emperor,” said Bellatrix. “We come with offerings of all that you desire.”

Osiman
laughed at this, a harsh sound. “What I have, I shall take. This worm here,” as he spoke, he kicked the emissary in his backside, causing the man to whelp with fear, “tells me you bring me Nysa.”

“Indeed we do, oh mighty, big, gorgeous one,” blurted out Isis, lifting her head to stare at him. With a sense of shock and, he suddenly
realised, jealousy, Magnus realised that she was trying to stare up the skirts of the emperor’s armour.

“Nysa is
mine already,” he mocked the three women.

“Not yet, it isn’t,” Bellatrix said, also lifting her head and now standing up. Although she was a tall woman, she was completely dwarfed by
Osiman, and yet the proud way she held her head demonstrated she was not cowed at all by his presence. If anything, she seemed exhilarated. “Before you take Nysa, you have to take us – for we are Nysa!”

“
Pah!” Osiman spat on the ground at her feet. “Nysa cannot stand against me, and when it is mine I shall fuck its whores any way I wish.” So saying, he reached out with a huge slab of a hand to grab Bellatrix.

To the surprise of everyone there, the dark-haired witch spun to one side and, grabbing hold of
Osiman’s smallest finger, yanked it backwards, dragging it behind his back and causing him to cry out in pain. Around them, a hundred soldiers suddenly drew their swords and Magnus began to sweat with fear.

“Not so fast, my lad. You may be a big fellow, but even the largest man is only as strong as his weakest parts – and I haven’t got my hands on those, not yet.”

As she spoke, Serena and Isis leaped to their feet and rushed him, Serena pressing her index finger to his throat and Isis reaching beneath the skirt that she had been eyeing up so appreciatively only minutes earlier. “Wow!” she gasped. “That
is
big!”

“Isis!” hissed Serena. “Concentrate!”

At this, to the surprise of everyone else, Osiman began to laugh. “And what do you plan to do if I throw you to my men to be slaughtered like dogs?” he asked.

“Before you can lift a finger – and remember, I’m holding onto your finger – you won’t take another breath. But,” and now Bellatrix to Magnus’s astonishment released
Osiman’s hand, just as Isis and Serena took a step back, “give us what
we
want and by the gods we’ll make sure you get what you desire.”

Osiman
had pulled back his hand and was rubbing his finger, yet a broad smile was on his face. “And what is it that you want?”

“We want to surrender to the Emperor,” Bellatrix said, and the look in her eye and flush of her cheek told Magnus that she wasn’t lying. If he thought he was jealous before, this was nothing to the pang that stabbed through his chest now.

“We want to submit,” Serena added, her own eyes glittering.

“We want to be
invaded
,” Isis cried. Even though her dress wasn’t wet now, her nipples were like the tips of two arrowheads beneath the flimsy fabric.

“Very well,”
Osiman said, stepping backwards and lifting the flap to his tent. “Let us go inside and discuss the terms of this... surrender.”

As they entered the tent, the emissary pulled himself to his feet and glowered at Magnus and his knights before snarling something in his native tongue. Without warning a hundred guards raised their swords. Magnus gulped.