He slowly tried to lift himself up off the ground but failed under his own weight. Helen’s eyes grew excited, and she clapped her hands together, looking from him to me and back again. It was obvious she wanted the honor of ending him, and it would not have been very nice of me to refuse her that pleasure.
“Go on,” I said, nodding in his direction.
She jumped up and took a knife from her belt. “Servant! Spear!” She snapped her fingers, and a servant brought her Artession’s spear. She smiled at me excitedly, like a teenage girl about to get a picture with her favorite boy band member, and strutted over to the struggling mockery of a man.
“Ugh . . . Helen,” he groaned in pain, peering up as her shadow stretched over him.
“No, no,” she hushed him, bending close. “Do not speak. Only listen. You, Ajax the Lesser, are the embodiment of everything I so deeply despise in the Greeks. You, boy, are the perfect argument against why they should no longer continue to draw breath. I could not explain my distaste for their wretched kind any more clearly than to simply point to you as an example of what they are to me. Do you understand?”
He only groaned in response. She raised her voice and stood, saying, “The man who just bested you is Troy Weston. He is a true champion. You were a fool to think you could challenge him and walk away. He swatted you down like the annoying insect you are, and he will do the same to the Greeks.” She stooped down and began tearing at him with her blades while she spoke.
He screamed a deafening, high-pitched wail.
“It is you, Ajax the Lesser, who is the whoreson! You will leave your shade on the Dardanian plain, gone and forgotten in a matter of days.”
I watched her work, worried at first that she was creating a poor image for herself, but then I heard the renewed cheers of the crowd egging her on. I had to remember that I was in a different time and place. Their values were not the same as mine.
She was really going to town on the kid, shredding him to ribbons. It reminded me of how she disemboweled the Thirians in our first combat encounter. I wasn’t turned on then like I was now, seeing her hack away at Little Ajax like a proud lioness.
She sailed home her coup de grace, stabbing him through the eye with Artession’s spear, straight through to the unforgiving ground.
In the heat of the moment, all I could think about was piercing her with my spear later that night.
30
I did not wait for her invitation that night. The moment we were alone in my room at the palace, after all the fanfare died down and the crowds had dispersed, I threw her to the bed and lay siege like never before.
“Helen, that was fucking hot.” She was bent over with me steering her from behind. Her buttocks formed a nice round curve at the end of her spine as she arched forward, graciously accepting my reward after the day’s hard work. “I know it’s wrong on so many levels . . . but watching you go to work on that little punk was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Period.” I gripped the sides of her hips and continued driving home.
“Thank you, Troy,” she said between gasps. “Your praise is the highest honor to me.” She paused to take another string of deep breaths. “Please, do with me as you will. I only wish to please you.” She meant it, and my mind went blank for a moment at the reality beneath me. She was alive, dangerous, giving, and real. There was no game in here. Only pleasure, aimed my way, and she meant every fucking word of it.
We rocked back and forth on the mattress, her yelping now and again as I plunged to new depths. She grabbed a fistful of sheets in her hands to brace herself against my reentry. I smacked her backside to get my point across, and she moaned with pleasure.
“Did you like it when I told him—when I told everyone—how mighty you are?” she breathed.
“Oh yeah . . .” Pump. “That was a nice touch.” Pump.
“Not that . . . oh . . . you need anyone to . . . oh . . . speak for you . . . oh.” She braced herself again as I picked up speed. “Your—Oh!—actions speak—Oh!—for themselves.” She bent lower and buried her face in the covers. I could still hear her muffled yelps as I plowed her fields.
I tried not to dwell on it, but the encounter was reminding me of my time with Cressida. I had never quite seen Helen so submissive. A lot of the things she was doing in response to my actions echoed the mannerisms of the other girl. I thought it might be likely that I would experience this behavior from other women many times over in the coming weeks now that I was becoming such a local hero. I hoped Helen would not mind, but we would cross that bridge when we got to it.
“Imagine that puny excuse for a man,” she said between gasps as she lifted her head back up. “Sitting over there”—she pointed to the vanity table and continued—“watching us. Longing for me as he was in life. Longing to be you, surely as he was before I ended him.”
I felt a little guilty thinking about it, but I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit she was turning me on more and more with every word.
“He was not fit—Oh!—to face you in—Oh!—combat as he did.” She reached a hand back and caressed my stomach with the tips of her fingers.
I gripped her harder.
“He deserved nothing more than to die on the battlefield like all the other faceless boys with something to prove.” She turned to look at me with her wide eyes.
I met her stare and kept up my pace, Helen lurching forward with every thrust, her hair swaying at her side.
I took her over to the vanity set and bent her against the table, this time fondling her breasts. We watched ourselves in the mirror. She forced a dirty smile between thrusts and reached a hand back to brush against my cheek. I reached up from her chest with one hand and gently curled my fingers around her throat, a playful gesture of dominance. She received it well, leaning her head back with my minimal coercion and offering her lips for a kiss. My other hand continued to cup her breast. Though we stood, I had her at an angle where she was almost sitting on me. From the corner of my eye, I watched our reflection in the mirror. It was amazing, like nothing I had ever seen, her curved figure willfully submitting to the demands of mine.
I thought to take things a step further, so I pulled back and moved her over to the wall. Her chest pressed against it like she was wearing a corset tied too tight. Her lower back arched out to accept everything I was willing to throw at her. She placed her hands against the stone and grunted while I pushed. I ran my nose along her neck, soaking in her sweet cinnamon aroma, and then trying to taste it on my tongue.
She gasped and looked to the chair at our side, saying, “Imagine—ah—that boy—ah!”
I covered her mouth with my hand. “Stop talking about him. He’s nothing anymore. Understand?” I moved my hand from over her lips but kept a hold on her face, my thumb on one cheek and my remaining fingers on the other.
Her lips slightly scrunched together at the sides, she answered, “Yes, Troy.”
I kept going, and she began scratching at the wall and then slamming her palm into it. I let off her just enough for me to reach up and wrap an arm around her chest. I moved my other hand down between her legs and started to fondle her. She stomped on the floor. I could see a faint hint of our reflections dancing beneath us in the marble as fluids began to drip out into a small puddle.
She moaned, reaching back to pull my hair. I went full throttle until she was done and persisted for a while after, kissing her until I reached my climax. I took her back to the bed, and the two of us plopped down, sweaty and spent after a long, hard day. We drifted off in a tangle of limbs, gone to the world for a few blissful hours.
I awoke to the sound of horns blaring. Helen stirred at my side.
“What is it?” she mumbled. “Are we under attack?”
“Might be.” I jumped to my feet. “I’ll go check it out.”
I was ready in a flash, spear on my back and sword at my side. In my haste, I decided to leave my shield behind.
It was still night, probably early morning. I heard shouts from the w
all, so I made my way there to see what all the fuss was about, grogginess tugging at me as I went. It seemed that I arrived right on time. In the dim light of torches carried by men on the ground, I saw three figures descending the side of the wall. At a quick glance, I noticed that two such attempts had already been foiled, as there were two bodies crumpled on the dirt, each beneath a chaotic mess of rope. It seemed that the guards atop the wall had cut the lines loose before the intruders could make it safely down.
Huh, I mused. So, Priam called it after all. They are cheating.
The remaining three had almost touched down when I showed up on the scene. One, dangling a few yards above, suddenly found himself on the ground as his thread was hacked in two. He took a second to get his bearings, surprised to still be on his feet after a ten-foot drop, and took off running deeper into the town.
I didn’t know what his plan was after being spotted by over two dozen enemy eyes, but I didn’t intend to let him get any further. He sped right by me, close enough for me to reach out and scoop him up by the neck with one arm. He yelped and choked as I squeezed him between my bicep and forearm, applying more pressure than needed simply because I was a little miffed at being woken in the middle of the night.
I channeled my inner 1990s action hero and applied torque to his head, using as much of my hands’ strength as the motion allowed. It rolled with ease, well past his spine’s physical limitations. I heard a deafening crunch in response to the force, far more satisfying a sound than I could ever manage by popping my knuckles. He dropped where he stood, and I took off for the next guy coming my way.
I rammed into him like a bull, forcing him off his path. He flew to the ground, and I wasted no time in stomping over and making short work of him, just like I had with his buddy mere moments ago. Snap!
I stopped to have a moment of appreciation for my prosthetics. They were strong before, but now, my hands allowed me to end these guys almost effortlessly. I wondered where the cutoff to their power was. Every time I thought I had them figured out, I pushed them to new heights and found the bar raised.
The last one cleared past me entirely while I was distracted. Obviously, that frustrated me a little more because the sleep was already starting to wear off, and I really wasn’t in the mood to run around the city playing tag with some random guy I had only just met.
“Come here,” I growled, lunging for him from behind.
I struck home and brought him down with an arm around his head. It happened pretty fast, but I was fairly certain he was dead before we got to the ground.
“Whew,” I breathed, and shouted to anyone who could hear, “Three for three!”
The Trojans howled with applause, and I helped them disarm the downed foes. We de-handed them as well, using our swords to saw away at their wrists. I wasn’t in the mood for the climb, but I kind of felt obligated at that point, so I went with them to the top of the wall. We strung up their swords and severed appendages, then we hung them high for the rest of our enemies to see. Several of the guys patted me on the back when it was all said and done. I had yet another item on my list of feats for them to brag about. Life was getting better all the time.
Helen awoke when I got back to the room. Still naked from earlier, she climbed out of the covers and met me by the desk. She used the bowl of water to wash the blood off my hands as I told her what happened. I chuckled at a bit of morbid humor, amused at how none of the blood was from the fight itself, but instead from what the men and I did with the bodies afterward.
“Something amuses you?” she asked, rubbing my palms with the rag.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just dumb stuff.”
When she finished, she led me back to bed and wrapped herself around me, and she was more comfortable than any blanket money could buy.
I felt her deep breaths against my neck, and she whispered, “You are more than I imagined, Troy Weston. I am so delighted to have met you.” We drifted back to sleep, undisturbed until the sun rose the next morning.
31
The next morning, we met Priam and Hecuba in the main hall and discussed our plans moving forward. They decided that the competition was off, and there would be no final match since the Greeks clearly could not stick to their end of the deal. No mention was made of how, only two days prior, Priam practically admitted his plan to keep Helen safe even if the city had lost the competition.
The King assigned me a small platoon of sixteen men to accompany me wherever I saw fit. Things were going to get a lot more fun with capable soldiers under my command.
The King’s gift didn’t come a moment too soon. Before our breakfast was finished, we got wind of another attack on the city. First the horns blared, and then a messenger burst through the palace doors.
“Lords, the enemy has attempted a surprise attack on the east wall!”
Apparently, a large force from the Greek camp had been sitting outside the gates for that last couple hours as a distraction, while a smaller group snuck over to the other end of the city. There were a few guards posted on the eastern side, but they were expertly dealt with by several well-aimed and well-timed arrows. It was assumed that the Greeks had constructed some makeshift ladders of their own on that side of the wall out of sight of the men and stowed them away until the right moment.
My men were already in the palace with us when we heard the news, and we were all out the door in an instant, Helen included.
There were around thirty of them, all charging into town as a loose cluster. I stopped one in his tracks with my spear and swiped at another with my blade, using such force that his feet flew out from under him. My men took that as their cue to engage, and did so with applaudable efficiency. I could see this crew wasn’t just a group of throwaways and acknowledged what that meant: the King and Queen were beginning to show faith in my abilities.
The fight went down without a hitch, finished before it had really begun. My team suffered little more than a few minor scrapes and bruises. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. Helen even got a few kills in—her first fight since we found the city, unless you counted the giveaway from the previous morning.
Refreshments were brought to us while the boys heaped the remains into a nice tall pile. I cut a slice from an apple using the clean side of my sword and fed it to Helen. She snatched it from my fingers, playfully grinning, still teeming with energy from the fight.
“You did very well just now,” I said with a laugh at her feral behavior. “What a woman you are.” I scratched under her chin playfully, and she beamed at the shared joke, then nipped at my hand, smiling with a newfound confidence.
“You performed amazingly, as always, my darling,” she sang before tearing a bite from the apple I had cut into. “I cannot wait to see our next battle.”
We did not have to wait long. Helen and I talked strategy with the royal couple while the servants were preparing dinner. We were interrupted by another messenger who told us of a second attack along the southern side of the wall. I rounded up my men, and we started toward the commotion, only to discover it had already been dealt with.
Less than ten enemy troops cleared the wall and were shot down before they reached cover. It was apparently an attack made out of desperation. I was confused about why the Greeks would waste troops like that, knowing any damage they might have caused would not be worth the loss to their side.
One of my men reasoned that perhaps this group was acting independently of the head of operations. It was a common practice for many generals in the surrounding nations to kill their own troops if they survived a failed strategy. The Greeks were notorious for this. My man suggested that maybe this small team was part of the larger attack we squashed earlier, and that, for whatever reason, they did not follow the rest of their brothers over the wall during the first raid. He thought it likely they preferred to die “in battle” now rather than return to their superiors and face the shame of defeat and a high probability of death.
We returned to the palace to continue
talking strategy with the King and Queen. I could tell that something had been eating at the Queen all day, but only after the second attack did she come out and say it.
“It is clear that they will not relent as long as Helen remains within the confines of the city,” she said solemnly, leaning forward and bracing herself against the edge of the table. “And even if we were to dismiss her at this point in the conflict, they would likely seek to punish us further.”
Her attitude confused me. I believed that what she said was probably true, but I did not understand why it worried her so much all of a sudden. This was the first time she spoke of giving up, in a sense.
“My dear,” Priam said, clearly as confused as I was, “are you suggesting we leave Helen to the wolves after all we have done to protect her so far? After all brave Troy, our rising star, has done in her name? If nothing else, think of the effect it will have on the men. If the Greeks decide to continue their siege, our men will not have any will to fight.”
“Forget these talks of morale,” she spat. “There are many other factors to consider. Yes, it is true that our young hero here has done a great deal for the girl, and for us, in this effort, but I do not believe his actions outweigh the likely possibility that the city will fall if we allow the siege to continue.” She took a few breaths. “I know the enemy’s attempts so far have been laughable, but they have thousands of men camped over that hill. Even if we do defend against them, we will suffer substantial losses in the process, and they will return in greater numbers to finish what they started.”
“Then what, pray, do you suggest we do?” His Majesty asked her, looking over at Helen and I, presumably trying to gauge our reactions to what was being said.
“I do not want to do it, but I do not think it would be sufficient to leave her to them. The Greeks want to make an example of her. Perhaps we go ahead and do it in their honor. Maybe they will see our actions as a gesture of good faith and leave us be.”
Gears of Troy: A Scifi Fantasy Harem Page 17