Anthology Short Story: Sweetwood (1/3) (Patreon)

I've got something a little different for you guys today. I wrote most of this yesterday, so it's much more recent than the stuff you usually read from me. It's going to be a short story (I'm aiming for 10k-13k words) for the Dukes of Harem Anthology.

The morning air was crisp over the Valadel Barony. The lord and his men were still asleep, as were most of the serfs who lived in the village around the small keep the local lord ruled from.

One lone figured opened the thin door of woven reads to his humble hut and eyed the keep warily. He was a young man, clad in the simple rags of a serf, woven from twine so rough they could have been used as a fishing net.

Darting from the shadow of one hut to another, he quickly left the watchful eye of the keep and the surrounding village behind. The barley in the nearby fields was tall enough to hide him, and he took a well-traveled path through and around them into the lord’s woods behind the keep. He’d walked this path many times, and he knew from experience it was undetectable.

He slipped from the fields to the forest, dancing over patches of leaves so he left no footprints to mark his passage. The ancient looming trees overhead let little light slip through their cracks, and the underbrush beneath their trunks was scant enough that there walking through the forest became a pleasant morning stroll.

But he couldn’t let his guard down too much, for this forest was filled with terrible and ancient magical things even the lord and his men would fear meeting. Dryads, elves, and fairies all lurked in these fay woods.

There was a clearing up ahead. Lightning had stuck a tree last summer and started enough of a fire to burn a grove out of the old growth before the spirits of the wood came and extinguished the blaze.

The young man saw the burnt and blackened skeleton of that tree now, and before it was the tired and restless form of one of the very forest spirits he’d been so wary of.

She took the form of a wild woman, nubile and naked, as she lounged over a bed of leaves and mushrooms. Her ears were pointed and her hair was green at the tips but turned red closer to its roots, matching the changing color of the leaves in the surrounding forest. Her skin was pink and human-like around her face and core, but towards her arms and legs it turned an ever deeper shade of green.

This was the very spirit he had come to meet. So at his approach, her eyes lit up.

“Edmund...” The dryad said the young man’s name as she struggled to stand.

“I’m here, Sweetwood.” Edmund said in reply. “Don’t stand, I’ve got you.”

Edmund had given Sweetwood her name because of the tree she’d come from. The burnt out husk in the center of the grove had been a Sweetwood tree. In the summer, Edmund and his mother used to tap these for sweet nectar.

But Baron Rommel valued the tree’s lumber more than its nectar, and he cut every one of them he could find down so he could build more bows, axes, and warships. So it had been a long time since Edmund had last tasted the delightful nectar. He hadn’t expected to ever taste it again until he met Sweetwood.

“The rot is spreading.” Sweetwood gestured to her burned and battered tree. “I think... I think my tree is dying, Edmund.”

Edmund ran his hand against the trunk of the broken tree. “If you hadn’t been so badly damaged by that lightning strike, the Baron might have taken your trunk in the spring. You’ve survived this long. Don’t give up on me now!”

He laid the dryad back on the ground, patting the loamy moss beneath her and kneeling so she could rest against his chest.

“There will be plenty of straw in another week, and I could smuggle some manure from the stables again.” Edmund suggested.

“You did that before, Edmund.” Sweetwood said. “But it didn’t save my tree then. It won’t save me now.”

“You can’t just give up.” Edmund insisted. “Didn’t you say you wanted to be a mother one day? How you wanted a field full of saplings waiting for you?”

Sweetwood was silent for a long moment. “I’m sorry, Edmund. I’ve held on so long already...”

Edmund rushed forward, wrapping his hands around Sweetwood’s. “What about your fairy friends? You said you spoke with them again? Did they say anything?”

“Mhm...” Sweetwood nodded. “But we can’t. You can’t. Too dangerous.”

Edmund grabbed the dryad by the shoulders, hands quivering as his fingers brushed her skin. “If there is something that can help you, I want to know what it is.”

Sweetwood sighed. “The fairies have a... dance. A spell, as you call it. Or perhaps a ritual. Something that will transfer my spirit from my tree to somewhere else.”

“Then I’ll go looking for another Sweetwood tree.” Edmund said. “The baron can’t have cut all of them down That should be the easiest, right?”

“No.” Sweetwood shook her head sadly. “I need something precious. And it has to be something I can touch. Someone I can bond with like a stem finding pollen.”

“Or a woman and a man...” Edmund muttered, understanding what Sweetwood was getting to. “You mean me, don’t you? You want to use my body instead of your tree.” Edmund had to admit, he wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea. Sweetwood’s humanoid form was beautiful to behold, and her touch sent fire coursing through him. It had taken a supreme effort of will to hold himself back from doing anything more, and even that was only possible because of all the dark stories he’d heard of the fay back in his village.

Sweetwood shook her head. “It’s too dangerous. I am magic. The bonding could kill you.”

“I... see...” Edmund said, and much of his growing excitement at the thought of this bonding with Sweetwood fizzled out. Fay had never pretended to be anything other than the dangerous mystical creature that she was, but ever since that first day he’d never felt frightened or threatened in her presence. But by the sound of this ritual, she might be the death of him after all, just like the stories said.

“You can’t.” Sweetwood said sadly. “One day, you will come here, and I will be dull and lifeless. Like a rock, or a stick.” Her eyes darted up to Edmund’s. “Please, take my trunk and carve a walking stick, so I can walk with you beyond the forest and see how you live.”

Edmund felt his heart go hollow. “Enough of that talk. We’ll... figure something out.”

In his heart, Edmund felt a knot form.

Sweetwood had been his closest companion since they’d first met, and he’d shared everything with her. He felt for her more than he felt for any human girl back in the village. But he’d seen her make plants grow and change with her magic. She’d sent a jungle cat scampering away with a wave of her hand. That had been real magic, and it terrified him. He knew how much Baron Rommel feared magic, and Edmund was just a serf, not a lord of the land.

Sweetwood nodded, pressing her cheek against Edmund’s side. The wind flipped through her hair, and Edmund ran his fingers up her bare stomach. He had some thinking to do.

***

Edmund was back in the baron’s barley fields by the time the gates to the keep opened up and the lord’s overseers put the serfs to work. Edmund was among those serfs toiling in the fields, and he felt the sting of the whip on his shoulders once or twice when he slowed his pace while his mind wandered back to Sweetwood.

She’d always talked about adventure. Sweetwood had been jealous of the fact that he could come and go from her tree as he pleased, free to wander both her forest and the world beyond. She thought his days were filled with adventure and new discoveries.

“We need ten more men hauling logs off the drying racks. You there, follow.” An overseer commanded.

Was this the life Edmund wanted to show her? One where he worked his hands until they bled each day and slept in a straw and reed shack? That he toiled while the baron’s overseer loomed over him, waiting and watching?

The overseer brought Edmund over to a rack of trees. They were the sweetwood trees felled in the spring. It was a bit too soon to split them into beams, but it looked like the Baron wanted the wood now.

Edmund and a team of other serfs hauled the tree trunks down so the craftsmen could work with them on the ground. He wondered if any of these trees had contained dryads who weren’t old enough to manifest a humanoid body before they’d been cut down. He shivered at the thought of touching their cold lifeless remains, and he wondered what it would be like to find Sweetwood one day as a dead and cold piece of wood.

“Please, sir, I need to run and fetch some water. The sun is bright today and my throat is parched.” An old man begged the overseer. Edmund knew his name was Terric, and he’d been good to Edmund years ago. He showed him how to thresh wheat when he was young, after his parents passed from the fever. After getting kicked in the back by one of the baron’s warhorses, the man seemed to have aged twenty years. The hard work of a serf’s life under Baron Rommel’s overseers wasn’t doing him any favors, either.

“You’ll get your water when the work is done. Move.” The overseer commanded. His open fist struck Terric across the jaw, and the old man stumbled backwards before collapsing onto the ground.

Edmund looked up, shaking himself from his thoughts. “He is tired and needs to rest. We all are.”

The overseer glared at Edmund. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you staring off into space. Baron Rommel lets you eat your fill each night and build huts on his land within the protection of his keep. And for that, all you need to do is tend his fields and guard his herds. Do you think serfs living out in tiny wilderness hamlets are so lucky? They must hide when every scampering thing in the forest makes a noise! You can hold your heads high knowing you’re under the baron’s protection.”

“Perhaps I’d prefer to protect myself.” Edmond said.

The overseer snorted. “You’d die a miserable death. Gored by some wild beast, slaughtered by some a neighboring lord, or cursed by some wicked fay!”

“I’m willing to take that chance.” Edmund said as he walked off in the forest’s direction.

The overseer shouted and hollered behind him, but Edmond ignored the words, thinking only of Sweetwood whispering in his ear.

***

“You’re back?” Sweetwood said, struggling to sit up from her mossy bed. “Did I sleep through the day again?”

“No, Sweetwood.” Edmond said in a hushed whisper. “Call your fairies. Let’s do your ritual.”

“But Edmund! You could die! You can’t.” Sweetwood asked, a voice full of disbelief.

“I’d rather die than go back to living the way I did before I met you.” Edmund said. “We’re doing this, Sweetwood. The risk is mine to take.”

Sweetwood swung her arms up around Edmund’s shoulder and pulled herself close. Edmund felt the bare skin of her back and the gentle rhythm of her breathing, slow and steady.

Sweetwood closed her eyes and furrowed her brows, losing herself in great concentration. A stem shot out of the burned husk of a tree, and on that stem a small flower bloomed. The flower became a fruit, plump and as big as Edmund’s palm.

When Sweetwood opened her eyes again, she plucked the fruit and held it in her hands like it was as precious as her very being. The moment the fruit was plucked, the wood of her tree blackened and the few remaining leaves lost their color, as though all the remaining life had been drawn from it.

“Eat this.” Sweetwood instructed. “While it’s fresh, please. I can’t make another.”

Edmund took the fruit and bit into it. He expected something like an apple, but what he tasted was far sweeter. It burst in his mouth, gushing delicious fluids like blueberries and honey. It was like nothing he’d ever tasted before. In moments, Edmund had devoured the whole thing, and he licked his red-stained fingers. He was sorry he hadn’t had more time to savor it.

“Now what?” Edmund asked.

“Two must become one.” Sweetwood said. Edmund thought he heard chanting begin behind him, echoing through the forest.

Her lips pressed and against Edmund’s, and Edmund remembered she tasted every bit as sweet as the fruit he just ate.

Edmund held the kiss, filling it with passion. His heart beat for this woman, this creature, this... whatever Sweetwood was, he knew he cared for her. He’d come to these woods each morning, scurrying away from that pathetic excuse for a life he’d known back in the village.

What a fool he’d been. He should have given that all up long ago. Then he could have spent every day of the last year with this dryad beauty in his arms.

He broke the kiss long enough to tear his shirt off his body. He tossed it aside with no more care than a shovelful of dirt. The rest of his clothes followed soon after. The moment he was free, he felt his body press against Sweetwood once again. Her bare flesh met his, and the two of them became closer than ever.

Sweetwood’s skin was cool to the touch. It was as soft as a feather at first caress, but Edmund knew that was an illusion. Beneath her silken exterior was a form as tough as strong wood.

“Sew your seed in me, Edmund.” Sweetwood mewled. “My body is a fertile valley, awaiting your plow!”

She spread her legs, revealing the wet dampness hidden in the cleft between her thighs. Edmund needed no further prompting.

Be one. Be one. Be one.

Voices echoed through the forest, though Edmund couldn’t hear them with his ears. Nor did they sound like any language he understood. It was like their meaning was being transferred to him through Sweetwood. Before, such voices in this mystic forest would have frightened him, but with Sweetwood in his arms he knew no fear.

“Do you hear them?” Sweetwood asked. “Those are my fairy friends. They came to help.”

Edmund heard the chiming of bell-like voices, light and airy as a summer’s breeze. Warm currents of something flowed around him, twisting and twirling wherever his skin met Sweetwood’s.

The sight of the panting and eager beauty before him quickly brought Edmund to full mast, and he took his manhood in one hand and guided it to Sweetwood’s waiting slit. He pressed the head of his cock against her opening and inserted it.

Her wet womanhood accepted his cock like a sheath, taking in the sword it had been made for. Edmund felt her walls clench around him, gripping his head and shaft. He pushed inward, slow and steady, as he penetrated her. Edmund felt resistance midway through, but just before he came to a complete stop, he broke through and found himself pressed to the hilt against Sweetwood’s groin.

He leaned down, locked together with the beautiful dryad. They were linked now as close as any two living beings could be linked. Their bodies were one, and as Edmund met her lips with his own, he felt their minds turn to one as well.

Be one. Be one. Be one.

The chanting continued, and the words echoed through Edmund’s heart, soul, and very being.

He and Sweetwood were united in lust and passion. He felt her breasts pressed against his chest. Her pert nipples poked invitingly against Edmund, and he ran his fingers across their sensitive tips as he kneaded her breasts in the palm of his hands.

Sweetwood let out a long purring moan at his caress, and Edmund grinned as he saw her eyes roll up and her lower lip clenched between her teeth as she struggled to quiet herself.

His kisses trailed down the side of her neck as his hands ran up and down her side. Edmund explored every part of the dryad’s mystically flawless form with his body as his own hips thrust into her with ever increasing speed.

“I feel you!” Sweetwood moaned. “The two of us... are as one. The tree to my spirit. The roots to my leaves.”

Be one. Be one. Be one.

“You’re mine, Sweetwood.” Edmund promised. “And I’m yours.”

The fervor and intensity of their passion continued to increase with each passing moment. Edmund’s sense of being warped and twisted until he could hardly remember what it had felt like before this process began. He felt a tremendous pressure building up in his loins and filling his spirit.

Finally, the last barrier between the two of them broke. Edmund exploded in a fountain of masculine fluids, pouring inside Sweetwood and filling her womb with inky seed.

At the same time, something about Sweetwood shifted and tremored. Edmund felt pressure inside his skin, like he was a pig’s bladder been blown full of air until it was almost ready to pop. Sweetwood grew hazy, like she was fading from the world outside and passing into him.

Pain ran through Edmund’s body, unlike any pain he had ever known. He felt as though his very soul was being torn to pieces as Sweetwood was grafted onto it. Edmund felt like he was about to die.

But he still felt Sweetwood’s warm grip on his body, and he embraced the feeling over the pain. He used it as his anchor to shut out the agony in his spirit. He had to pull himself back together. He needed to fit the broken pieces back into place.

Edmund imagined himself like a torn cloth. His mind was the stitches, and with those stitches he could pull the broken pieces back together again. The world around him fell away, save for Sweetwood’s fading form in his arms. He needed to concentrate. To focus and make this work. If it didn’t, he was certain he would die just as Sweetwood warned him.

“You’re doing it, Edmund.” Sweetwood said. “Let me help you.”

At her words, Sweetwood’s mind surged forward to touch Edmund’s own. Where Edmund’s mind was the stitches, Sweetwood’s was the cloth. She reached outward, finding Edmund’s attempts to hold the two of them together. She made the cloth grow like living plants, weaving and mending from broken pieces into one cohesive whole.

Soon, the cloth Edmund envisioned in his mind was whole. It was battered and dirty, but the strands stopped fraying and the cloth was unbroken. When Edmund realized they’d done it, all the strength left his body. Only his will to live had kept him awake against a wave of wariness weighting upon him like a mountain on his shoulders.

Not a moment later, he passed blissfully into sleep.

Note:

There will be two more parts to this story.