Elyse stared at me, slack-jawed, but there was something else in her gaze too: arousal, if I wasn’t mistaken. Of course, it wasn’t the first time she had given me a look that suggested her honey pot was dripping wet, but that had always been a more raw, animalistic kind of lust, a horniness that she seemed a little embarrassed about and tried to hide. This, though, was something else. Was this genuine affection?
“I didn’t know you could speak like—” she began.
“Like a pompous, holier-than-thou paladin? You may forget sometimes, Elyse, that I’m a nobleman’s son, and a well-educated one at that. Now, are you going to let me strap you to the harpy?”
Whatever I had done with my pompous paladin impression had worked. Elyse’s attitude seemed to have changed completely.
“Well,” she said, “I suppose if the success of the entire battle depends on me doing this, it would be selfish of me not to do it.”
“Excellent.” I flashed her a smile that suggested that I would give her a special reward in private. “I knew you’d come through. Drok, come here and help me cut up some saddles.”
“Drok like to cut things!” he said gleefully.
Drok and I busied ourselves with cutting up a few saddles and other items. After about an hour, we managed to put together a solid harness that would strap Elyse to the front of the harpy’s torso. It left her arms and legs hanging free, and her head, of course, so she at least had the ability to move around while being flown.
“Think of yourself as a pioneer,” I said to Elyse as we were strapping her in. “You’re about to do what no human being has ever done: fly.”
Despite her initial misgivings, it was clear that at least a part of her was excited about being able to fly.
“That’s true,” she said. “And ever since I was a little girl, I’ve dreamed of being able to fly.” Her wistful smile turned into a frown when she found herself needing to lean forward so that the harpy’s drooping tits weren’t resting on her forehead. “I suppose it could be worse,” she said with an exasperated sigh.
I took a few moments to draw a rough sketch of Rollar’s formations in the dirt at Elyse’s feet.
“When you get within sight of Rollar’s camp, use the moonlight to transform. For my corpse explosions to be most effective, I’m going to need you to target the soldiers who are in the center of each of these defensive groupings: here, here, here and here. You’ll need to fly in a wide arc around the front end of the camp, in a sort of U shape.”
“How will I control the creature?” Elyse asked, perplexed.
“I’ll handle the harpy’s flight path with my mind.” I returned her attention to the dirt drawing. “This is the first section you’ll hit, then around here, then here, and then here. By the time you get to the last one, my corpse explosions should already have started. Just make sure your torrents of holy fire are accurate. You have to take down those soldiers fast. Head shots are what you’re going for, okay?”
“I’ll be able to do that. I’ve become rather accurate with my blasts of holy fire.”
“Excellent. Well, once you’ve taken out those troops, it’ll be a free for all, and you can shoot whoever you want. You’ll have a bird’s eye view of the battlefield, so keep your eye on what’s happening below and try to be strategic with your blasts.”
“Of course.”
“You ready?”
“Well, there is one thing I’d like before I take off. Could I ask you about it in private, though?”
“I guess you could.” I turned around and looked at the others. “You guys heard what she said. Go sharpen your weapons or something.”
The others left—albeit with Isu and Rami shooting some obviously jealous glances at Elyse—and Elyse and I were alone. Well, except for the 12-foot-tall zombie harpy she was strapped to, whose huge blue tits were pretty much draped over Elyse’s shoulders.
“So,” I asked her, “what is it that you wanted to ask me for?”
“Well, what I’m about to do is rather risky. I mean, I will be high up in the air. While, I do trust your, uh, engineering abilities with this contraption—”
“The baby-bag, you mean.”
“Vance!” she exclaimed. “Don’t call it that, please! This whole thing is unsettling enough as it is.”
“Okay, okay, the ‘contraption’ then. It’s totally safe. Like I said, I’ll be controlling the harpy. You won’t have to worry about anything except getting your shots on target.”
“It’s just that if something goes wrong, the risk isn’t just injury. From that height, it’s death.”
“Nothing will go wrong,” I assured her.
“I’m not afraid to die,” she said. “The only thing I’m afraid of, really, is dying with regrets. And that’s what I wanted to ask you before I go. You see, I’ve never had a real kiss before. And I’d feel terrible if I were to die without having experienced one.”
“A gorgeous girl like you has never been kissed?” I asked. “I understand your hangups about sex, since you’re a cleric, but even kissing? That’s not forbidden by the Church of Light.”
Elyse blushed in the half-light. “You’re right, it isn’t. But I always wanted to wait for the right man. I really wanted it to be something special, with someone special.”
I could tell that it had taken a fair bit of courage for Elyse to admit this. While I wanted to make a wisecrack about her first kiss involving being strapped into a barbarian “baby-bag” with
