by Джеффри Лорд
Blade was already stripping off his tunic. Sanaya knelt to help him unlace his boots. Her breasts did not sag, but quivered and flowed into new and enticing shapes as she knelt.
Blade kicked off his boots and threw his tunic into a corner of the hut. Before he could do anything else the queen crawled forward on her knees and threw her arms around his waist. Her hair and her lips both brushed lightly, tantalizingly, exquisitely against Blade's skin. He bent slightly and buried his hands in Sanaya's long hair, stroking her temples and the back of her neck as he did so. She nuzzled him harder and moved her lips down his body, to the waist of his trousers.
Then swiftly her hands were at work, unbuckling his belt and unlacing the thongs of the trousers. She pushed the trousers down to his knees and ripped off the breechclout he wore under them. Blade's aroused and erect maleness greeted her. In turn, she greeted it, her mouth opening wide to take it in, then closing to wrap it in warm, supple lips.
Blade fought back a groan as the warmth and the wetness and the skilled, subtle movements surrounded him. The first moment told him that Sanaya was an unmatched expert at fellatio. The next moment told him that she was determined to match her skill against his endurance, to try driving him to the edge and right over it if she could. He made up his mind that he would use all his own skill and strength to hold back, until Sanaya gave up the struggle and admitted defeat.
So Richard Blade and Sanaya Queen of Draad fought their duel in the dim, damp, chill but in the forests of Gleor. Sanaya worked her mouth up and down, closed her lips and opened them, licked with her long supple tongue, blew little puffs of air, brought her hands up to stroke and caress what her mouth could not reach. After a while Blade could no longer separate the places where Sanaya was touching him from the places where she wasn't. All his senses seemed focused in his groin, that groin was turning into a white-hot pool, and every nerve in his body seemed to vibrate in time to Sanaya's stroking and sucking.
Yet somehow Blade's mind mastered the body that Sanaya was torturing so exquisitely. Somehow he shut away what Sanaya was doing to him in one corner of his awareness. Somehow he held on, until Sanaya's lips began to twist more in a grimace of frustration than anything else. Somehow he held on, until he noticed that Sanaya herself was beginning to sigh and twist from side to side. Her efforts to work Blade up to the point of an erotic explosion were working nearly as well on her.
Blade let Sanaya's mouth take him in once more, deeper than ever, then clamped his hands in her hair again. He held her face against his groin for a moment, then slowly pulled her head back until her eyes were raised to meet his. They did not speak. Blade's throat was too dry and his breath was coming too fast for him to have found words. Sanaya was in much the same shape.
Sanaya nodded, clamped both arms around Blade's waist again, and pulled herself to her feet. Blade pulled his trousers off. Sanaya ripped the small triangle of linen from her body. The hair nestling between her thighs formed a perfect dark triangle, already glistening. She put both hands on Blade's shoulders, and let his hands on her hips draw her hard against him.
They stood pressed hard together for a moment. Blade felt that sweat had already made Sanaya's skin as slick as his own. He could feel the hard solid points of her nipples pressed against his chest as Sanaya's quick breathing thrust her breasts forward.
Then Sanaya let herself sag backward, still holding onto Blade's shoulders with a viselike grip. He had to bend forward to let her keep his grip upon him. She sagged and he bent until she lay back against the floor and he lay down on top of her. She twisted herself into position, raised her legs, bent them double, then clamped one hand in his hair and the other on the back of his neck as he entered her.
In that position she could take him in even more deeply than Blade could have expected. Once again there was warmth and wetness all around him, moving around him, taking him in and sending flames soaring up in his groin. This time he knew he would not be able to last, but it didn't matter now because neither would Sanaya. The duel was over. What they were doing now was more of a duet.
He sensed that the queen felt the same way. At each of Blade's thrusts she would twist and heave herself against him, pressing hard. Less often she would groan, her mouth now open and slack. There was not much tenderness between Blade and Sanaya as they joined. But there was a great deal of passion, and both sensed that passion was rising steadily higher and higher, like water in a well.
It overflowed first in the queen. She gave a terrible cry, as though she were being impaled on something much sharper and more deadly than Blade's erection. The cry seemed loud enough to shake the flimsy but down on the heads of the couple inside.
Sanaya cried out again, even louder. Her nails dug into Blade's back just below the shoulders and her legs flailed wildly in the air. He could feel her feet slamming against his hips and buttocks as he in turn slammed himself against her writhing body. Her arms locked about him tightly enough to make him gasp, and he felt an explosion of liquid warmth deep inside her and around him.
Somehow Blade came through Sanaya's climax and kept on thrusting. Now, though, he felt himself rising steadily toward his own peak, and he did not hold himself back. He swept upward, feeling like a bird borne upward by the wind. He swept upward toward his peak, and reached it.
Again a terrible cry filled the hut. Blade pressed downward, burying his face between Sanaya's breasts, clamping his hands tightly on her hips. He felt like sinking into her, dissolving away in the hot release of desire. He clung to her and she clung to him for a long moment. In that single moment there was almost tenderness.
Blade raised himself on his hands and kissed each of Sanaya's swollen nipples. Then he looked into her face, its frame of hair damp and straggly with sweat and matted with leaves from the floor. The queen's eyes were closed and her nostrils were wide as her starved lungs tried desperately to suck in air. But her lips were moving, repeating a pattern as she murmured the same words over and over again.
Blade listened. At first he heard only a meaningless noise. Then gradually the noise sorted itself into words he could understand.
Over and over again, Sanaya was murmuring, «King Blade, King Blade, King Blade, King Blade, King Blade.»
King Blade! He had come to her out of desire, but also in the hope of finding out what games she might be playing. Desire was satisfied-Blade could not imagine feeling it again for hours, perhaps days. Now he had learned what he needed to know.
So he was «King Blade» to Sanaya, was he? So she wanted to see him beside her on the throne of Draad, and Embor and Neena cast down?
So what would she say and do when she found that he would not help her?
Chapter 20
It was well on into the afternoon when Blade left the hut. He and Sanaya drank beer from a jug and ate dried meat from a leather bag. Then somehow they found the strength to join again. By the time they were done, the queen was falling asleep.
Blade rose, put on his clothes, and peered through a crack in the wall out into the clearing. He could see the telltale movements of the watching guards among the trees. He could safely leave the queen to their care, and make his way back to the workshop.
Blade said nothing and kept his hands carefully in view until he was well out of sight of the clearing and the hut. He was mildly relieved to be able to get that far without a spear or an arrow in his back. The queen had no doubt given orders against harming him. But there was always somebody who didn't get the word, or who was too quick on the draw.
Once he was out of sight of the clearing, Blade settled down to his steady, mile-eating stride. His memory of the path guided him swiftly through the forest, where the mist now hung and coiled thicker than ever.
The clouds were as heavy in the evening as they had been in the morning, and the fight went fast. It was almost totally dark by the time Blade reached the main path up to the workshop. By the time he saw the hearth glow from inside the walls, night had fallen on the forest and the mountai
ns.
Three of the mountain hunters were sitting by the gate as Blade approached. They stood up and raised their spears as they saw him, then stepped aside as they recognized him. A moment later Blade heard footsteps behind the gate, and it was pulled open from inside. Blade entered, to meet Kulo.
The young man embraced Blade in his joy at his master's safe return, then shut the gate behind them. Blade could see that Kulo was excited about something more. He followed the young man into the workshop, and waited while Kulo took something long and wrapped in peza leaves from a bench.
«Look at it, Master Prince. I saw the drawings you made, and they started me thinking. I thought until I knew what we needed, and then I made it. Look at it, and see if my hands have made what we need.»
Blade untied the peza leaves, let them fall to the floor, and examined what he held in his hands. It was a six-foot length of threebo. At one end was one of the natural partitions between the sections. Looking closely, Blade saw that a small hole had been drilled or punched in the partition.
Sticking out of the other end of the stalk was the wooden knob of something that looked like a plunger.
«Draw it out, Master Prince, and then push it in,» said Kulo.
Blade hefted the odd weapon. It was heavier than it should have been.
«What did you put-?»
«Oh, Master Prince, I would not be so foolish as to use the new sleeping water. No, there is nothing in it but water from the spring.»
So Kulo had indeed guessed what the workshop and its affairs were all about. Not surprising. If Kulo had the wit to work up an effective sprayer for the sleeping water from Blade's rough sketches, he had the wit to do a great many other things as well.
Blade pointed the sprayer away from them, drew the plunger out to its full length, then pushed it in with all his strength. There was no sound of leakage-Kulo had done his work well. Instead there was a sharp hiss, and a thin spray of water, almost mist-fine, shot out of the other end of the threebo. It lengthened as Blade drove in the plunger, until it reached out twenty feet or more.
Too late Blade saw what was about to happen. He swung the sprayer to one side, but not before the jetting mist of water fell on the red-hot coals of the forge. Steam exploded upward with a thunderous hiss and crackle, and live coals shot out of the hearth like meteors and fell to the floor. Kulo practically fell over his own feet, dashing to get a bucket of water to douse them. By the time he'd finished, the steam and smoke in the room were nearly as thick as the mist outside.
When Kulo finished cleaning up, Blade was waiting for him, hand outstretched. The young man hesitated, then took the hand, and Blade slapped him on the shoulder.
«Well done, Kulo. We don't know for certain how strong the stolofs are, of course. So we may need to make the sprayers bigger and stronger, to hold more water. Otherwise I think you've done most of the work. King Embor will hear of this, and I don't doubt that you will be hearing from him when he does.»
A day spent rather badly was ending well, even triumphantly, and Blade felt surprisingly at peace with the world.
Blade did not allow himself to enjoy that feeling very long. There was far too much still to be done.
The method for distilling a stronger sleeping water was already worked out. Kulo's design would do for a sprayer. These made a good beginning, but that was all.
There weren't enough sprayers and water at the moment even for a good test, let alone a battle or a war against Trawn. Gallons of water and a dozen sprayers would be needed for the test alone. Dozens of barrels of the water and hundreds of sprayers would be needed for serious fighting, and so would hundreds of men trained in the tactics of using them. These tactics would be dangerous and they would require great speed and skill. Blade had no doubts about the courage of the warriors of Draad. But could they learn the speed and skill?
Blade realized that soon he would have more jobs than he could handle. He was already Director of Research and Development. Before long he would have to become Minister of War Production, and then Director of Training for His Majesty King Embor's Armed Forces! He had told J several times over that he was a field man, with little gift for administration. Yet here he was, up to his neck in just exactly that, and things were going to get much worse before they got any better!
For the time being, Blade decided that he would stick with the men and the equipment he had. In a few weeks he could produce everything that would be needed for a full-scale test, and then he could show off what he'd done.
There was also Queen Sanaya. Blade was sure he would be getting more invitations to come out into the forest and make love to her. If that was as far as matters went, well and good. Sooner or later, though, Sanaya would have more in mind than her own pleasures.
At least there was little chance of her finding out what he was doing here in the workshop. If Sanaya's guards wandered too close too often, the mountain hunters would know what to do about them, and do it without asking permission of Blade or anyone else. No, the secret was safe enough for the moment, even if Blade himself might not be.
So Blade went back to work with reasonable peace of mind.
He put in longer hours than ever over the next week. Again an invitation came from Queen Sanaya, and again Blade was led through the forests and over the hills to her hut. Again they met in what was almost more a battle than lovemaking, and again Blade was home in time for a night's sleep. This time Sanaya said nothing about «King Blade,» or anything else revealing. Blade had no intention of asking too many leading questions, either.
A second week, a third, a fourth passed in the same way. The sleeping water was steadily accumulating, in large pots and small leather bottles. Kulo had made a dozen of the sprayers himself and was now teaching the other three assistants to make them. Soon there would be more than enough for any test.
Blade found himself still getting tired and still losing weight. It was not surprising. Six days of each week he worked eighteen hours a day. On the seventh day he tramped across the hills to couple with Queen Sanaya in her hut. Blade was as tough and indestructible as any human being could be, but he was still human.
The fifth week came, and went by without any invitations from Sanaya. Blade decided that the time was at hand for the test, and sent one of the assistants down the mountains to carry that message. He also sent an escort of six of the mountain hunters with the messenger. There were rumors of scouting parties and raiders from Trawn farther than ever before, with stolofs and even the rare riding meytans. It was unlikely the raiders would push this far, but Blade was taking no chances.
The day after the messenger left, Kulo came running in to announce that three warriors of the king's guard were approaching. Blade washed himself hastily, pulled on some respectable clothes, and went out to greet them.
«Blade,» said the leader. «King Embor approaches. With him are the queen and Princess Neena, also various clan chiefs and their guards.»
«I am greatly honored-«began Blade politely. The leader cut him off with a gesture.
«Hear us. They come to see what you have done with what you have been given, for the greatness of Draad. They must be satisfied that you have done well, or it will go ill with you.»
Blade nodded, but he did not like the leader's words or his tone. Something was badly wrong-he was under suspicion. It was hard to even tell what was wrong. He had given Queen Sanaya no reason that he knew to tell lies. Unless she had, this royal visit made no sense.
Damn! Blade did not like being pitchforked into dangerous situations where he didn't even know which way to look for the danger. There was only one thing to do: try to look in all directions at once.
Chapter 21
The royal party arrived shortly after breakfast the next morning. There were at least a hundred people in it, but Blade had eyes for only four: King Embor, Queen Sanaya, Princess Neena, and the High Kaireen.
Clean and well dressed, Blade advanced down the path toward Embor. Kulo walked behind him and the
other three assistants followed Kulo. Blade carried a bottle of the sleeping water, and Kulo carried a sprayer.
King Embor halted the party as Blade approached. Then he motioned for the warriors on the flanks to close in around Blade and his assistants. Blade had the uncomfortable feeling that they were watching for him to make some suspicious move.
The king bore himself with even more dignity than usual, standing so straight that he seemed to tower even over Blade. Queen Sanaya was smiling, but the expression on Neena's face was unmistakable. Anger, suspicion, fear-and jealousy-all fought each other for control. Blade tried to meet her eyes, but she turned her face away from him, until her father noticed what she was doing and glared at her. Slowly Neena looked back toward Blade and stared at him defiantly.
Then the king spoke. «Prince Blade, you have had much time to work upon what you promised to make for us. Have you done what you promised?»
The king's tone was almost completely expressionless, which was more of a surprise to Blade than outright hostility. He decided that whatever was going on here wasn't going to fit into any category.
«That is for you to judge, my Lord King,» he replied. «I have worked hard and done my best. Kulo here has also worked well, and I pray you will see fit to reward him.» Regardless of what happened to himself, Blade was determined to see that Kulo got credit for what he'd done. The young man deserved it.
«I have come to judge your work, Blade,» said the king. The same neutral voice. «What you have done will be properly tested, and soon.» He turned away from Blade and raised his voice to a commanding shout.