by Regina Watts
“I was sat on one as a girl a couple of times,” said Odile. “Fewer times than I was invited to the surface, even…but I don’t really know how to ride, no.”
“I can ride a spider,” Indra offered, loosening her hair from the long plait that held it.
“He didn’t ask if you can ride a spider, Indra,” the terser of the two rogues said. “He asked about horses.”
Blanching quite adorably, Indra scoffed. “Well! It’s a similar principle, I’m sure.”
We would see about that…for now, I tugged open the tie of the leather purse at my hip and considered the coins within. There would be enough for a suit of armor in there, with some negotiation, maybe. But for a suit of armor and the rooms? The horses? New equipment for Branwen, for whom the plunder from the bandits proved inadequate?
I was not quite sure how we would manage it. There was no doubt that, one way or another, Weltyr would allocate his riches to help us acquire what we needed, no matter how different what we truly needed was from what we thought we needed…but the murkiness of our monetary future kept my busy mind all the busier while I put my gold away at the knock upon the door.
Lively, I should not have been surprised, appeared about twenty years older than her husband and was certainly a great deal more pleasing to my eye. She glanced shyly about the room, a towel over her shoulder and a washbasin in her hands. All the while, she smiled, the expression cutting early wrinkles into her tan features with the kind of pretty effect such mirthful lines often had on a woman who took care of herself. “Hello, hello—my goodness, it’s a crowd in here!”
“We’ll separate ourselves out into reasonable groups soon enough, ma’am,” I told her, thanking her for the basin she set upon the nightstand. While Valeria hurried to make immediate use of it for her hands and face, Lively set her towel down with a wave of her hand.
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all. You’ve no neighbors on this side, so if you’re going to be chatting at this hour, it’s best to do it here.”
“You’re both too kind to see to us so well,” I told her, meriting another wave of a hand she then reflexively wiped upon her apron.
“Happy to do it, happy to do it. It’s not often we get elves of any sort coming ‘round!”
Not wanting to risk more annoyance of any kind from Branwen, I stayed on the point. “Would you do me a favor, Madame”—Lively glowed at the appellation, but not near as much as she did when I placed a casual hand upon her shoulder and gestured with the other toward the window—“and point me toward the smithy where Rigan works?”
“Of course! You’re going there right now? Cor, you lot look so tired! I’m surprised you were even awake to answer me knock, I was ready to leave the washbin at the door for you.”
“As the temple priests used to tell me, there’ll be time to rest when I’m dead.”
Lively laughed in sympathy, patting my hand, as charmed by me as her husband was by my companions. “Sure enough, my mother used to say that, too. We’ll be lucky if we even get the chance to rest then, so far as I can see it! All right, come on…let me show you where Rigan’s at. Erdwud’s so terrible with directions…”
Bless her, Lively was much clearer than her husband had been, and far less brimming with nosy curiosity about just what our business together was. All number of questions had been bubbling under the man’s mustache, but if Lively was curious about anything, it was durrow fashion. “Aren’t you cold in that short little dress, love?”
Valeria looked down at herself with a shake of her head. “No,” she said, studying the dark legs left bare by the golden party dress she had not had a chance to change out of since our escape from El’ryh. “It doesn’t bother me any—if anything, it’s quite warm up here compared to my home.”
“Well, you just let me know if you need something to go about in. I might have an old dress that’ll fit you, if you don’t mind a moth hole or two…”
Yes—clothes for Valeria, now there was another cost to consider. Finding myself biting back a sigh, I thanked the innkeeper’s wife for her directions and said to my comrades, “I’m going to speak with that smith and see if he’ll be willing to work with me on a new set of armor.”
This may well have been the only combination of words that could have gotten Odile to sit up just then. “A whole new set! Are you mad? I thought you wanted—that we were going to catch up with your friends,” she corrected with a glance at Lively.
How grateful I was for that kind woman! She made Odile helpless to stop me when I said, “Yes, which is why I’ve got to get him started on my commission now…but if you ladies are going to learn horseback riding, well, the soonest we’ll be able to leave here is a couple of days from now. I won’t have you breaking your backs because we were in a rush to leave…”
A fine thing coming from me just then! I may not have been in a rush to leave Soot, but I was certainly in a rush to leave that inn. The outdoors called to me. After my time in the Nightlands, to go without a roof or any cover at all over my head seemed like a blessing beyond compare. I stepped outside, Strife once more on my hip, and took a breath of the heavenly mountain air that I had not truly appreciated before my near-death experiences and my long journey through the dark.
All around me, Soot teemed with life, the village square through which I passed populating with artisans eager to sell their fruits and vegetables. I stopped off for a handful of blueberries and, after even my short period of slavery, the use of money was its own delight. It made me remember what it was like to be a young boy getting his first experiences of the world—that was how fresh I felt beneath that cloudy sky.
Strange to think this town had, only a few days before, played unknowing host to Hildolfr and Grimalkin! It was bold of them to take the Scepter through Skythorn to bring it to Rhineland, if Erdwud’s information was accurate. The city traffic was tightly monitored and guards had been known to search through the bags of untrustworthy looking individuals. Would boldness protect them from scrutiny? I somehow doubted it…but then again, as bold as Hildolfr was, I should have known better. That boldness had lost him his eye in the fashion of my god. Appropriately, like Weltyr himself, Hildolfr’s decisions were often surprising to me.
As Erdwud had promised, the rhythmic clatter of Rigan’s anvil reached my ears before I ever saw his home and the outdoor forge where he worked beneath little more than a roof to protect him from rainfall. A raven croaked throatily, laughing at my discovery. My mind filled with visions of Nibel, the berich dwarf whose form Al-listux had adopted to assassinate Valeria. Here, however, as I rounded the corner and saw over the waist-high fence to the man working within, I found myself faced with a human almost Hildolfr’s age.
“Hail, Rigan, Smith of Soot.” The hammering ceased. Rigan turned to see who addressed him, a pair of hard eyes the blue of clear water fixing me to the spot. “Erdwurd and his wife, Lively, sent me out your way today.”
“Don’t recognize you. What’s it you want?”
“I was wondering if it would be possible to talk to you about a suit of plate mail. It may seem out of my price range to look on me now”—I laughed down at myself, dirty yet from the journey to the surface—“but I can negotiate, and at any rate we have a few things yet to sell from the Nightlands.”
“Nightlands?” Muttering in an old man sort of way that reminded me of a certain Temple bookkeeper, Rigan turned upon his seat once he had set his hammer down completely. Peering at me through those somehow surprisingly bright eyes, he asked, “You wouldn’t be Rorke Burningsoul, would you?”
Shocked, I looked about as though in anticipation of an ambush. The town’s only discernible noise was clearly little more than the bubbling daily mirth from the market.
“I am,” I told him cautiously, regarding him straight on and trying to discern if he were perhaps some disguised monster along the lines of the spirit-thieves. “Were you told to expect me?”
“Sure I was. You don’t need t’worry about paying me nothing
more, your friend covered the cost up-front…but it’s not quite half done yet. You’ll need to wait another week if you want the full suit.”
I looked at him a moment, trying to discern his meaning. Annoyed, the old man snapped, “What’s that stare for, boy?”
“Oh, uh—it’s nothing, nothing at all. Only…I’m a bit confused.”
“You look it.” With a wave of his hand, the old man hobbled back around on his stool and picked up the hammer again. Without another word on the matter, he went back to work and left me standing there.
I found I could not move. My mind reeled with strange thoughts. I knew already which friend had paid for a bespoke suit of armor tailored to my needs, yet all the same I still felt the need to confirm.
“When you say—”
The beleaguered old craftsman slammed his hammer down and looked at me, nearly cross-eyed with annoyance to have his morning so interrupted. I smiled meekly, wishing all people would succumb to my charms as easily as Lively.
“When you say ‘friend,’” I continued, nonplussed, keeping my tone as simple and pleasant as I could, “I don’t suppose he gave you his name, did he?”
“Tall fellow,” Rigan said. “One eye. I’m no good with names. I only remember yours because he told me to swear I’d remember it.”
I nodded, thanked him, and left in an uncanny daze.
DEEPENING BONDS
SOMEHOW, IT WAS unsurprising that Hildolfr had done such a thing for me. He had a strong sense of honor and might have felt obligated to restore the armor lost in the spirit-thief den. Moreover, he might have felt it unfair for us to stand at odds when I had nothing more to my name than Strife, however much a boon the blade was.
Yet that only begged more questions. How was it, for instance, that Hildolfr would have known I was still alive? How would he have known I would escape the Nightlands and come through Soot? Unless my geography was off, Soot was quite a ways south from Klexus. This elfin region of towering trees and wild forests was where we met Branwen and Grimalkin, and where we entered the Nightlands together. Hildolfr would have had to return there to collect his boarded horse.
Therefore, it seemed to me that in order to arrive at Soot and commission this set of armor for me, he would have had to make a specific detour for it. There were faster highways between Klexus and Skythorn: I confirmed it in a map in the registrar’s office on my way back to the inn. It seemed to me almost that Hildolfr had known by some occult means that I would arrive where and when I arrived, yet I could not account for this. To the best of my knowledge the ranger had no such magic. Certainly nothing like Gungdrygia and her thieving of my time.
Another mystery! Ah, Gundrygia. Just the thought of that name made my blood burn with desire. Yet this unfulfilled lust was very nearly welcome. Otherwise, my mind was too at odds with itself: too bogged down with its countless unanswered questions. Hildolfr, Gundrygia, the hateful hivemind of the spirit-thieves…and, of course, the most pressing and disturbing matter. The old man through the portal, whose face resembled mine.
How tired I was! My body was drained by the journey, my mind was drained by questions; yet still I could not rest. First I took to the town bathhouses, quiet that early in the day. Then I made south, to the Dardrie Ranch. The family was very kind when it came to the matter of loaning out their horses to a total stranger, although the deposit was quite a sum and practically emptied the leather pouch at my hip.
No matter. The most important tasks seen to, I returned to the inn, ate an early lunch in the corner of the tavern, then climbed the stairs to rest my aching body.
This also proved somewhat challenging at the outset. I had a decision to make—Indra and Odile, or Branwen and Valeria? I paused by the first door. By the density of Odile’s snores, it would have been as fatal to wake her as to wake any dragon taking a well-earned, post-rampage rest.
In the other room, then. I eased softly into where Branwen and Valeria slept, or pretended to amid a whirl of thoughts as strange as mine.
The women slept in a fashion that was the polar opposite of how Indra and Odile always seemed to intertwine when at rest. Their backs to one another, Valeria and Branwen each slept on her own edge of the mattress. I did not take this as a general sign of mistrust in one another so much as an unfamiliarity, but I have to admit I thought it something of a shame I didn’t walk into the room to find them already embraced in sleep as lovers. A man can dream that things should run so smoothly, anyway!
Just inside the room, I undressed and found as I did that Branwen, facing the door, peered sleepily at me. “Did you get our horses?”
“Yes, Branwen,” I whispered, coming into the bed and forcing her to wiggle nearer Valeria. Thanks to the small mattress, their bodies pressed together and the dark elf stirred in her hefty sleep. “I got our horses.”
“’Zah,” she murmured, her eyes closing. That smooth elfin brow of hers furrowed, though, as I slid an arm around her and she got a whiff of my skin. “You’re clean!”
“Never would I have expected you to find that objectionable, Branwen.”
“Where did you get clean! Of course it’s objectionable, I’m blind with jealousy.”
“Well…lucky for you, I like a dirty girl.”
Valeria’s laugh revealed her to be awake. She rolled over to see us, telling Branwen, “You’d ought to tell him to sleep on the floor, Branwen. It’s the only way for a man to learn when his impudence is getting him into trouble. I’ve been close to making him do it once or twice, myself.”
Pouting in a way that was maddeningly sexy even in my physically exhausted state, Branwen said to Valeria, “I can’t. In fact, it’s just the opposite…I promised him I’d respect his leadership, and yours.”
My fingers ran through the high elf’s golden hair and trailed down her neck while she shivered. “She’s lucky she wasn’t made a slave in El’ryh, or a servant to the misshapen.”
“Yes, very lucky.” Valeria was fast in these games of seduction and slid her arm around Branwen’s waist, the elf gasping to be touched by the nude dark elf. “A high elf in particular would prove quite valuable for all number of purposes…and you might even come to enjoy those purposes of your own volition, after a time of servitude.”
Moaning, glancing over to feel me against her back and rear, Branwen bit her lip and rolled her soft blue eyes toward Valeria. The dark elf’s hand shifted lower beneath the blanket, caressing down her pale sister’s stomach and along a slowly moving thigh.
“This all feels so embarrassing,” the high elf whimpered, gasping as Valeria’s exploring hand softly delivered more deliberate pleasure. Red-faced, Branwen moaned, her eyes darting sometimes shyly my direction.
“Nothing is embarrassing about ecstasy,” said Valeria, watching her face, then glancing at me as I leaned down to kiss Branwen’s throat and sweeten the tones of her gasps. “Pleasure is a sacred experience from Roserpine. Our birthright, and part of why we are on Urde instead of floating about in the Wyrd beyond space and time with other non-corporeal entities. Have you ever made love with a woman, Branwen?”
Her cheeks and lips and throat rosier than ever I’d seen on her, Branwen shook her head. With the briefest glance at me, Valeria drew the high elf into her dark arms and lowered her mouth for a sensual kiss. Then another, and another. Branwen gasped beneath the ministrations of Valeria’s hidden hand, their tongues mingling in secretive pink shimmers between their shifting lips. Eventually, the high elf’s shocked hand lifted to the durrow’s breast and carefully caressed, her eyelids fluttering with pleasure.
I had seen Valeria with quite a number of women during my time with her in El’ryh, but suffice it to say nothing had been so sweet to my eyes as the vision unfurling before me in that little inn of Soot. The two women whom I loved, their limbs contrasting in more ways than simply color. Both were well-shaped and feminine in all the best ways, but Branwen had a layer of muscle that Valeria’s indolent lifestyle as the Materna did not necessarily permit. The w
omen moaned together amid a tangle of caresses. Soon, much as Valeria’s fingers worked beneath the blanket that slipped slowly farther down, so too did Branwen’s hand go searching for a more efficient way to stimulate her companion’s nerves. Valeria gasped, nuzzling against Branwen’s ear and whispering something there at a volume so soft only an elf could have heard it.
Whatever it was, Branwen laughed and kissed her.
How my head and body swam, drunk with more desire than exhaustion! Yet I did not wish to interrupt the scene, this moment of Branwen’s experimentation. The novelty certainly seemed to have an impact on her: between the softness of Valeria’s feminine caress and the invigorating effects of my observation, Branwen reached a surprisingly fast climax and seemed as though to nearly wince with the power of it. Certainly her leg twitched up, holding Valeria’s wrist there, and her eyes fluttered along with the contortions of her brow.
“Oh yes,” she gasped, “oh yes, oh yes, oh, Valeria—”
“Would you mind if I rode him first?” Brushing her damp lips over Branwen’s pink mouth, Valeria smiled as she murmured, “I’ve wished to use him for quite some time…but it was more important to me in the bandit den that he go put himself to use on you.”
Shocked, Branwen searched her face and asked, “Why?”
Valeria didn’t look like she understood the question. Knowing how loose the mores of the durrow could be in matters of jealousy, she probably didn’t.
“You surface beings really are very repressed,” Valeria said with an aristocratic titter, nuzzling Branwen before pressing her body into my arm. “Here, Paladin…hold her while I ride you, help me pleasure her before she takes her turn.”
Though I was no longer Valeria’s slave, there were some commands a man didn’t mind taking. My arm sliding around Branwen, I caught her jaw in my other hand and drew her honeysuckle mouth to mine. Her sweet, breathless moans only sharpened as Valeria drew the sheet away from me to reveal how excited I had been by the exhibition beside me. With an admiring groan, the durrow leaned her head down and ran her tongue along my throbbing length.