But then you'd be naked! his mind cried out in horror.
Oh, great! Logan retorted. It's wonderful to know that I'm so knowledgeable when it comes to the human body!
Still arguing with himself, Logan rounded some boulders and walked across the grass. A few large stones lay strewn about the knoll, probably dislodged from the quake but looking rather decorative in the grassy area. He gave the area a quick scan and convinced himself he was well hidden from anyone in the mountain range. Hurriedly, he stripped off his remaining clothes and threw them over the rocks to Cyrene. In a feeble attempt to get his mind off his state, the young man unsheathed his sword and practiced swinging the blade. After a while, he became relaxed, and the cool, fresh air of the Hills stimulated every portion of his body. A gentle breeze tickled the hairs on his legs, and an oddly natural feeling crept upon Logan, quite the opposite of that disturbing buzz of disagreement.
Logan slipped the talisman over his head and sat down, sighing as the aches eased in his muscles.
"Matthew," CyTene called to him.
Logan perked up. "What?"
"The water's collecting into a perfect pond," the blonde told him. "If you want to wash yourself, you can just jump in." Then she added, "I won't look."
Logan set his dagger, staff, sword, and the Jewel down beside the talisman. A vital, refreshing feeling flowed through his muscles, and he stood up proudly. "No, that's all right." Then he added, "You can look."
Logan was only slightly surprised when he rounded the rocks and found Cyrene already in the stone-shaped pond. The spring, he saw, was flowing into the crater formed by the Jewel's double discharge, and, like Cyrene had told him, it created the perfect pond. Eagerly, he joined her in the warm liquid while she watched him advance, blue eyes twinkling.
With a whoop, Logan splashed into the water, submerging and shaking his head free of any remaining dirt in his hair. He surfaced directly in front of Cyrene, and the crystal-clear waters were like a shimmering gown on her beautiful frame.
She was eyeing him in a like fashion.
Cyrene kicked through the pond, nosing up to the young man. Her blue eyes were locked on his as she halted an inch away from his face. "How much?" she asked.
Logan wiped water from his face. "Huh?" he exclaimed. "How much what?"
Deep blue eyes trailed up Logan's body. "Money," said the blonde with a smirk. "How much money?"
Logan couldn't stop the grin that spread across his face. She was using his exact lines herself! "What do you take me for?" Logan questioned, softly. "A chomprat?"
Cyrene blinked, striking Logan with a face full of water. "Oh, you!" she scolded.
Logan failed to duck the liquid and sent a wave of his own at Cyrene. The girl's blonde hair darkened as the clear water flooded over her. She jumped backwards, half-out of the water.
Logan's eyes locked on her upper torso as it crested the surface, droplets of water running down her bare chest.
The pond seemed to get warmer, and Logan wished the water wasn't so clear.
Cyrene swam around him, and soft, wet arms draped around his neck. Her cheek pressed up against his own, and the feel of flesh on flesh made every nerve in Logan's body spark to life.
"I can never thank you enough," she whispered into his ear. "You saved my life."
Logan lost the use of his tongue as Cyrene pressed up against him, her firm breasts flattening against his back. A long fingernail traced down Logan's neck to his shoulder, applying just enough pressure to leave a faint red line. Then she was gone, and Logan spun around as she stepped out of the water, brushing back her wet hair. The lowering sun gleamed off the liquid that trickled down her slim curves, and she extended a hand. Together, the two went to the grassy knoll, their wet clothes drying upon the rocks around them. Logan's eyes were transfixed on Cyrene's shapely backside as she led him to the hillock, grasping tightly to his hand. When she turned, her lips met his and her hands roamed across his wet body eagerly. Motions as fluid as water brought them down onto the grass, and the raging beasts of Logan's desires broke out of their cages.
An almost godly amount of restraint halted him.
Cyrene looked at him. "What is it?"
"I-I don't…" Logan stuttered. "What if you get pregnant?"
The blonde threw back her head and laughed. "Matthew," she giggled, "we're not wed in Agellic's eyes-we can't bear any children."
The young man raised his eyebrows in question.
"At the ceremony, the priest weaves the spell of bonding between the man and the woman," Cyrene explained. "It is that spell that makes the woman fertile. Before that spell is cast, women can't bear children. It's physically impossible." Her deep blue eyes were aglow with amusement. "Your world isn't like that?"
Logan shook his head in dumbed fascination. "No, it isn't-but I wish it was." Then he asked, "And you can't get pregnant until after you're married?"
"It's that way for every woman on this world," the blonde declared. "And this is one unwed woman who is extremely grateful to you for saving her life."
Their lips fused once more, and all the soreness was gone from Logan's muscles. His questing hands moved down Cyrene's body, traveling across her sleek hips and firm thighs. Desire overpowered him and his actions became faster, his fingers wanting to be everywhere at once on the gorgeous creature below him. Cyrene's own fingers ran through his black hair, her shapely hips undulating beneath him in her own hunger. Invisible tongues of fire remained everywhere Cyrene touched him, and the girl gasped as Logan's hands explored her beauty. Her shapely legs parted invitingly, and Logan paused a moment, drinking in every detail about the voluptuous blonde sprawled beneath him. Yearningly, Cyrene's fingers closed in about his manhood and directed him toward her moist orifice. Slowly, teas-ingly, his loins aflame, Logan slid into her, gasping for breath.
The fire built as the two gave in to their desires, arms entwined about one another as the rhythm of their hips quickened. Passion Logan thought he was incapable of experiencing burned within his body, and the ecstasy increased as he glided back and then pushed deeper. Cyrene's fingernails raked across his back, her breathing the heavy panting of a wild animal. The fervor heightened until the two shared an explosive release, and their grips slowly eased. Logan withdrew reluctantly from Cyrene's tightness, an arm about her waist. The blonde kissed him once, silently, and sighed as she lay back onto the blanket of grass.
Logan's passion gradually diminished and weariness set in. The harsh days of riding, the narrow escapes from the upheaval, all descended upon the young man until even his sexual drive was quenched.
Holding the slender blonde to him, Logan felt sleep challenge him, and he succumbed.
A gargling rasp pulled Logan out of his deep sleep, and he raised his head with a weary groan. Cyrene still lay beside him, beautiful in sleep, her bare breasts rising and falling as she breathed. The urges of the night before refilled his mind as he stared at the blonde's luscious frame highlighted by the midmorning rays of the sun. Suddenly, the hideous death rattle sounded again, and Logan snapped up and around.
Immediately, the young man looked to find any red and silver, thinking what he saw was a dream, and yet, nothing even glinted with the familiar colors. Pulling himself into a sitting position, Logan stared at the line of figures blocking the knoll. Cyrene stirred beside him and also saw the row of forms confronting them.
Reakmor Farkarrez took a step toward them, his severed flesh rasping as air passed through his windpipe. "How quaint," he mocked, his voice distorted by his slit throat. "Matthew Logan has found a slut."
Instant fury boiled away the fear and wonderment, and Logan made a threatening move. He realized, then, that he was naked and unarmed, his sword, staff, and dagger lying off to one side beside the talisman and Jewel.
"You…!" Cyrene gasped, sitting rigid. "You're dead!"
Farkarrez grinned, and the effect was hideous: His mouth and slit throat gave his lean features two smiles. "Oh, yes, I am," he answered,
"and so are all my men." He marched arrogantly toward the couple, glaring down at them with eyes unable to reflect emotion. "And soon, so shall you."
•10• Capture
Logan made a frantic dive for his weapons. His fingers were inches away from his sword when a cold hand clamped around his wrist and held him back. He glanced up to see the skeletal thief smiling down at him, its bony hand locked around his in a grotesque embrace. Although he strained against the skeleton's grasp, the young man could not break free. The creature had no muscles, and yet was denying him his blade.
Farkarrez took another confident step forward. "It is hopeless," he gargled. "You now belong to us."
Cyrene rose into a crouch, her blue eyes flaming angrily. "You bastard," she seethed. "I killed you once-I'll kill you again."
The dead Reakmor smiled down at her with his chipped teeth. "You'll find that quite difficult to do, my dear,'' he stated, "since you yourself realized I am already dead." His pale, yellowish hand stroked Cyrene's blonde hair. "But it is good to know you are as fiery as ever."
In rage and revulsion, Cyrene went to jerk her head away when dead fingers suddenly snared her hair. She let out a startled gasp as Farkarrez pulled her to him, holding her by her yellow mane. "I suggest you give in," the Reakmor advised Logan, "or I shall do to her what she did to me."
The sight of Farkarrez's living corpse holding Cyrene prisoner sapped the rebellion from Logan. The girl appeared so helpless, so beautiful, so fragile; Logan could not imagine bringing harm to her.
Drained of his defiance, Logan pulled away from his weapons.
Farkarrez grinned, stroking Cyrene's bare shoulder with his free hand. "Good," he rasped. He turned his deadened eyes on the blonde, and Logan thought he saw lust flare in those emotionless pupils. "It is a pity," the Reakmor sighed with his hideous death rattle. "You are as attractive as I suspected." His green-yellow hand cupped a naked breast. "How unfortunate that, in this state, I may not enjoy you properly. But I shall find a way."
The cold, bloodless fingers on her chest sent a million icicles of terror and disgust through the blonde as she tried to rip her hair out of the dead Reakmor's grip. Roughly, he snapped her head back, bringing tears to her deep blue eyes.
"Do not struggle," he growled, and his severed flesh flapped obscenely, "or I may become very upset with you."
Logan yanked his wrist away from the skeleton grinning over him and pointed an angry finger at Farkarrez. "You leave her alone, goddamn it!" he commanded.
The eyebrows above the dead eyes arched upward. "Is that a nice thing to say?" the Reakmor mocked. "You certainly haven't been leaving her alone."
Cyrene furiously rammed her slim elbow into Farkarrez's groin. The Reakmor was slightly unsteadied by the blow, but his grip on her remained firm.
He smiled down at her with his double mouths. "You weren't paying attention," he smirked. "Things like that don't affect me any longer."
Turning away from Cyrene's ineffectual attack, Logan scanned the animated cadavers surrounding them. There were over fifteen enclosing them in a half-circle, a cliff at Logan's back. Many of the corpses looked like soldiers Logan and his companions had run into. Yes, he even recognized the crossbowman Moknay had killed in Barthol's chamber. The dagger wound in his face was marred with green, black, and yellow flesh.
The skeletal thief gathered together Logan's and Cyrene's supplies and clothing and carried them away. With a violent shove, Farkarrez threw Cyrene toward Logan and stalked back to his men. He ordered his soldiers to guard the hillock, and the half-circle of cadavers moved closer. Then the sadist leader faced his captives.
"We're going to wait now," he told them, mockingly. "Very soon my scout will reach Vaugen, and the Imperator himself will soon be on his way here. Until he gets here, I suppose we'll just have to find some way to amuse ourselves."
There was a twisting in his stomach as Logan watched the Reakmor's grin widen.
Like a living piece of shadow, Moknay glided out of the darkness and into the midmorning sky, his grey eyes as grim as death. He kept his cape wrapped about him, concealing his strap of daggers as he skated through the cobblestone streets of Gelvanimore. Cautiously, he scanned the area about him before ducking into a building. His steel-grey eyes glistened in the torchlight and locked on the massive form flirting with a barmaid.
Moknay's boot connected with Thromar's rump and got his attention.
Thromar blinked. "Oh, it's you," he said. "What is it? Have you found the thief?"
"Have I found the thief?" the Murderer repeated. "What about you? 'Taverns are excellent places to learn information' and 'I'll just talk to wanderers stopping in for a drink. Maybe they'll know something.' Have you found the thief?"
The huge fighter stroked his reddish brown beard. "After extensive prying and espying, I can rightfully say-no." His beady eyes flickered. "What about you?"
The Murderer's dark figure seemed to flow into a chair. "Yes," he replied, "in a sense. I ran into someone coming from Frelars and he saw a horrible glare in the Hills yesterday. Ran like a Demon to get here before the sky crashed down upon him. It sounds like our thief."
Thromar scratched his head. "The thief we're chasing glares?" he wondered.
Moknay threw up his arms. "No, but the Jewel does, you thistlebrain! That must have been the Jewel flaring up again."
The fighter nodded. "So the thief was hiding in the Hills, but that's the way friend-Logan went. Do you think he'll see it?"
"I would think so," responded Moknay. "The man I talked to was at least a league from the Hills and he still saw the flare-up."
"So I suppose I'll have to leave this wonderful little information center?" queried Thromar.
"We told Logan we'd meet him in Prifrane in a week, and that gives us less than two days to get there. I just hope he's recovered the Jewel."
"I think that should be the least of your worries, Murderer," Thromar suddenly declared, spearing the air as he pointed to the tavern doorway.
Moknay pivoted to see the squad of uniformed men entering the bar. There were well over ten of the Guards now inside, and Agellic knew how many outside!
The lead Guardsman stepped forward, his eyes aglow with triumph. "Moknay the Murderer and Thromar the Rebel, you are hereby under arrest by order of His Ultimate Paramount, King Mediyan, for assisting an Outsider dangerous to Sparrill and her Ruler. If you resist, you shall be slain."
A quartet of archers flanked the lead Guard; Moknay and Thromar moved.
The arrows flew.
A shambling corpse pulled the unclothed couple apart and dragged Cyrene over to one side. The smell of the animated dead was unbearable, and the one that had just taken the blonde looked like someone had crushed its skull with a heavy wooden club. Logan swiftly turned to Druid Launce's staff guarded by the undead Reakthi and knew how some of them had been slain.
"We're going to play a little game," Farkarrez rasped, his emotionless eyes roving up and down Cyrene's naked body, "just to pass the time along."
"You whoreson," Cyrene snarled, squirming in the corpse's grasp. "I swear I'll see you dead."
The Reakmor sighed, and Logan's stomach churned as the release of air came from his slit throat. "I grow tired of explaining," he gargled. "I am…"
Cyrene's struggles increased. "You have to breathe, don't you?" she shouted. "I'll rip your lungs from your maggot-filled chest!"
Farkarrez leaned back on the grass, smirking. "Oh, that may cause problems, but I'm sure I'll manage. The only reason air passes through me at all is so that I may think and speak for myself." He waved a hand. "Only spellcasters know the secrets of our bodies, and breathing is necessary for the nurturing component of the air to reach my mind and to also activate a special portion of my throat so that I may make sounds recognizable to you. That is the only reason I breathe. My men, on the other hand, can neither speak nor think for themselves. That is because Groathit did not feel it necessary for them to do so."
Hideous! L
ogan's mind screamed. There was a certain aspect of physiology to Groathit's magic! How, then, was Farkarrez's brain kept alive with no blood? That was probably where the real magic came in.
A second cadaver shuffled up to Cyrene, and Logan froze. The Reakthi had no sword arm, and the young man remembered the soldier who had given him his own wound upon his left arm. In a blind rage, Logan had wheeled about and severed the man's arm from his shoulder. Thank God only Farkarrez could think, or else a number of the shuffling corpses would seek revenge on the young man.
The one-armed Reakthi handed Cyrene her dagger and ambled off. The corpse holding her let go and also lurched off to one side. The sun gleamed off the girl's hair and flesh as she stood there, legs spread slightly as she stanced herself for battle. Her blue eyes hungrily peered at the blade she held tightly in her hand.
Farkarrez withdrew a bundle and unwrapped a number of daggers. Once again Logan thought he saw emotion flicker in those dead eyes as the Reakmor glanced up at the nude blonde stanced before him.
"I think you'll find this game quite entertaining," he rasped, picking up one of his daggers. "You see, what you did just before you slit my throat was something I've never seen anyone do before, and Reakmor Farkarrez never makes the same mistake twice. So, as a bit of education for both of us, we'll just have to see where your weaknesses are in that little dagger-deflecting trick of yours."
Apprehension grew as Logan watched the Reakmor's blade glint in the sunlight. Cyrene's deep blue eyes were flashing from side to side, attempting to formulate an escape plan. They had given her back her dagger, and, by Brolark, she was going to use it!
The mountain air shrieked as Farkarrez's dagger hurled out at the blonde. Still looking for a route to freedom, Cyrene knocked the whizzing blade aside. Logan smirked in sympathetic triumph, but Farkarrez readied another dagger. Cyrene easily batted the second weapon away as well.
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