The Valkyrie (Raxillene's Rogues Book 2)

by Max Keith

  Nisette merely smiled, low and mean. “We shall see, New Bitch. But I don’t gouge eyes,” she shrugged. They’d all heard horns in the wood, and the horses were stamping impatiently. “I’ll just slit your belly.”

  Alorin said nothing; it was all arranged in her mind. Tonight she’d find Lord Whitemar’s tent. She’d seduce him with no effort at all, and once she’d taken his seed the second time, she’d take his life. She’d watch him, choking, gasp out his last underneath her, and then just before the end she’d stoop low and give him the usual message: Her Highness the Princess Raxillene says hello, and reminds you she never forgets a slight. And then she’d get off his lifeless cock, slink over to the horse lines, and melt into the night.

  What he’d done to so anger the Princess was unknown, but there could be no doubt it had to do with her undying ambition to take the throne. Everything did. She had a mad, moldering father and a fiercely ambitious brother with no better qualification for the throne than the penis between his legs; she was the elder child, but in the Realm that mattered less than being a son. So her brother was Regent and she was… well, nothing. Nothing but a malevolent plotter in her Tower down by the Border, sending Alorin and her friends around the Realm on whatever schemes she dreamed up with her many secret correspondents.

  One of whom, at some point, had probably been Lord Whitemar. And now he had to die, for no reason that Alorin could imagine. But, provided the Princess paid her well, there was no need for any other reason.

  Meanwhile, Pixie was waiting. The party mounted up and continued its progress through the Priests’ Wood. Already, just a day and a half into this dissolute, vapid hunt, and Alorin was well used to the round of small villages, sandy paths, and baying hounds. She was reminded again why she hated the rich. There was one more grievance presented, just past noon outside a little village even rougher than Annalene’s Raughn, held aloft by a determined-looking woman with a small baby in her arms. She glared darkly at Sir Hobb.

  So the magnificent golden-bearded man in front, who turned out to be Lord Gurgen (one of Clerent’s wealthier cousins and vassals, lord of this part of the Wood), had gone through the same performance he’d gone through with Annalene before, and the black-clad Count had rolled his eyes at the indifferent Hobb, and they’d all gotten moving again. Sir Hobb seemed to have gone on a spree in this part of the Wood, probably about eleven months ago judging by the look of the baby and Annalene’s story. Tatlock took the grievance and stamped it, the woman with the babe glared venomously at everyone in the party, and the procession ground on a few more miles.

  The clearing that night looked much like the clearing the night before, the food this time enriched by a wild boar who’d found the pointy part of Master Hosmer’s spear. Lord Gurgen, meanwhile, had given an initial response to the young woman’s grievance by courteously requisitioning her family’s garden, so there were fresh carrots and lettuce as well.

  There was much applause, particularly among the followers, when Lord Gurgen rose and announced in his loud, resonant voice that they’d start back for the Castle tomorrow. “For the Count’s business awaits,” he cried nasally, “and life cannot all be fun and games.” The followers looked on in sullen irony, the whores in particular. “Our thanks, good people, for such a splendid hunt!”

  “Fuck off,” muttered Lurika, who’d lent him her hole last night. Master Lucken, she’d reported, had performed far better than Gurgen in their three-way. “I’ll need a weekend off after so much ‘fun and games.’ Truth, I’m surprised any of these gentlemen can even get it up any longer.”

  “You’re right there,” Karalene whispered back, “and not just the gentlemen. Josten the groom couldn’t cum last night.”

  “Never!”

  “Yes indeed,” she giggled. “He could produce his usual nice pole, but when the time came, nothing came out of it!” She covered her mouth. “Can you imagine?”

  “Excuse me, ladies,” Alorin called loftily as she creaked to her feet. “I’m off to the latrine. Does anyone need anything from the wagons?”

  “No thanks,” Lurika said after a pause. The others just looked at her with dull mistrust. Alorin merely shrugged; no harm done, for she wasn’t going to the wagons, still less to the latrines. She had a horse to saddle and a blade to sharpen; her plan was the usual Lammorel technique for times like this. It would be her antler-knife, at a hand’s breadth from hilt to point long enough to take a man if inserted into an eye, at an angle, and then pushed straight through the brain. She’d do it from above, just after he came, as his hands tightened around her ass and she felt him release inside her. The technique had the added benefit of being virtually bloodless, as long as the head was not allowed to flop sideways. So, with any luck, nobody would realize he was dead until he slept late the next morning.

  They did sometimes thrash a bit, and groan as the knife went in. If silence had been needed, she’d have taken him in the throat; here, though, nobody would notice another strangled, hushed growl by night. And then she’d climb off and disappear.

  The sidesaddle would slow her down, so Alorin went ahead and stole a normal one from the grooms. She laid it beside Pixie’s nodding head, then whispered her plan to the horse; no way would the beast understand it all, but it made the valkyrie feel better. “We go tonight, girl,” she whispered, patting the animal’s cheek. “When I come back, it’s saddle time. Rest up.” Pixie gave her shoulder a brief nip, then Alorin tucked her antler-knife, freshly whisked across her sharpening stone, into her ankle sheath and headed back for her rendezvous with her victim.

  * * *

  The fires were low before Alorin’s arrangements were all made. She heard furtive movements as the followers played dice in their little huddles, snapping sounds as the hounds picked at the remains of the huntsmen’s dinner, and the soft smacks and shivered cries of sex in the tents. She heard the sounds of the forest, soft around her, and felt at home as she always had in the woods by night. “Evening, boys,” she greeted the apprentices, hunched around their fire with a skin of brandy. “If you pool your coin together, I can give you a dance when I’m done with Lord Whitemar.”

  A mutter floated back at her, and no more. Yes, high time she left; she’d not meant to make enemies among the followers, but under the circumstances it had probably been inevitable, especially given Jesseney’s attitude. Still, she needed to keep her spirits up; the judgment of three sullen apprentices with gaping assholes, at least one of whom was known to be impartial to women, meant less than nothing to her. She approached the tent exhilarated, knowing she was about to earn her pay and expecting the usual feeling of power that thrilled her whenever she came face to face with a victim at killing time.

  She flipped the tent open and stepped through, her silks billowing out around her.

  To be greeted by the extraordinary sight of Nisette, legs spread in her full glory. Alorin had always figured the redhead was the only whore in the party with any real beauty, and now she knew she’d been right; the woman was naked and sweating in the candleflame, every part of her body in high and glittering relief, and it was magnificent.

  Tight young skin glowed soft and flawless as she moved, the muscles firm and supple beneath. Her face was lovely and fresh and freckled and sneering in the grips of ecstasy, her mane of carrot-colored hair swinging, high breasts shuddering in the rhythm of her surging legs; Alorin watched, mesmerized, as the shadows moved across the hollows atop the insides of her thighs, right beside a shaven pussy now clasped with exquisite control around the plunging, veiny cock of Count Clerent, Lord of Whitemar. She was fucking him turned backward, her ass presented for his eyes and hands, facing his feet as she rose and fell along his thick penis.

  “Ah! She comes.” The voice was Whitemar’s, clear and strong and with a hint of humor at the double entendre. Nisette, not bothering to pause as she rode, guffawed. Her eyes, opening on Alorin, narrowed spitefully.

  “It’s clear you’re not talking about me, m’lord,” she hissed
, low and powerful. “Not yet. You’d best keep fucking me once you’re done with that.” She tossed her sharp little chin contemptuously in Alorin’s direction, then raised her head high to glare at her. “You mind, New Bitch? Some of us are busy tonight.”

  “Calm yourself, Nisette,” Lord Whitemar said mildly, tapping at her ass in a leisurely way. The red whore halted at once in mid-stroke, halfway up his dick; their juices coated his shaft, glistening bright in the light of a brand-new candle. She remained there, poised in frozen passionate motion, her thighs taut and rippling as they held her over him. “You need something from me, Lyria?”

  Alorin, already poised for trouble, relaxed very slightly into a battle stance. “Why, my lord!” she exclaimed slowly, letting her eyes rove over their sweat-slick bodies before she met his. “I had thought you and I had an engagement this night. I trust she’s warmed you up for me,” she added, and there was danger in her voice for those to hear it. “Or were you interested in settling for her used-up cunt over mine?”

  “You stinking fucking hag,” Nisette snarled, spitting, but the Count smacked her ass again.

  “Silence.” The command was neither loud nor forceful, but the ginger held her tongue at once with a rigid, furious effort. Alorin’s mind flew. Something was very wrong here. Desperately, she wondered whether she should let him shoot his load into Nisette, and then kill them both. She realized she might have to do just that. The icy blue eyes stared into her. “I enjoyed our time together last evening very much,” he began conversationally, his voice quite calm. “I would have loved to fuck you again this evening, but — alas! — I cannot.”

  “M’lord jests.” Instinctively, Alorin began to take a small step back with her right foot, the fighting stance more pronounced. “Can I ask what m’lord means by that?”

  “Only this, ‘Mistress Lyria,’” he sneered, imbuing the name with a twist of menace. “I find myself curious about you. Where you come from. Why you came here. Who that little village wench was that you brought with you. Why,” he finished, his voice harsh, “you murmur out prayers from Lammorel when you cum.”

  She took a breath and held it. Lying occurred to her, but this man was not a fool. “M’lord is perceptive,” she said evenly.

  “I am.” He tapped once more on Nisette’s hip, and like a clockwork toy she began to fuck him again, slowly and with her mouth blessedly closed, the slithering noise of their mating the only sound. She cocked a curious smirk at Alorin. “So I asked myself,” he went on, settling himself back onto his pillow, “just why a woman of Lammorel would be traveling alone, finding me… here. Away from my guards, my castle. And then,” he continued, his voice rising, “I recall that women from Lammorel, traveling alone in the Realm, are not famous as whores.” He reached calmly around to play with Nisette’s clit. “Why do women from Lammorel travel alone in the Realm, Nisette?”

  Her eyes went wide, her cheeks reddening as his finger moved. “They’re assassins, m’lord.” She giggled.

  “Are they?” He feigned confusion. “Gods, my dear, but I think you’re correct.” He stared once more, bleakly, at Alorin. “Assassins.”

  The valkyrie drew herself up. “Not always, m’lord.”

  “Oh, surely not,” he agreed amiably, now nudging his dick just slightly more insistently into the girl. She began to sway her hips, lazy and sexy. “Some are, no doubt, traders. Or travelers. Maybe priestesses. Possibly,” he finished with a light chuckle, “even whores.” He let the silence stretch. “But not this one, I think. I think this one is very dangerous, my dear. Very dangerous indeed.”

  Alorin was utterly relaxed now, fully ready to explode into violence. The red girl would need to die first, obviously. The valkyrie would take some bruises and scratches as she went for his balls, so temptingly displayed beneath Nisette’s scarlet cunt, but there was no doubt the girl would get in the way of more important slashes as she flailed. Alorin was good with her knife, but mistaken cuts were unavoidable when castrating a man who was inserted in a woman. She’d done it once before, and the result had been bloody; it had been difficult to keep the knife out of the vessels of the girl’s leg, and she could see no way to avoid it now either.

  So no, the whore might as well die at once. Alorin paused as the Count opened his mouth once more. “But I ask myself,” he said in wonder, “just why an assassin might want my blood…” He snapped his fingers then, and settled his hand companionably back onto Nisette’s rolling hips. “Of course. Are you, perchance, acquainted with her Highness, the Princess Raxillene?”

  Alorin tried to control her face, to keep it neutral, but no matter; whether or not she succeeded with her expression, he clearly knew all he needed to know already. “Of course you are. She and I had been writing letters, you see. Rather important, even incriminating letters, now in danger of being sent to her brother…” He smiled, slow and devious. “That must be it.”

  Nisette was getting there, Alorin could see, but the Count did not appear to be. “My lord,” she began, wondering whether she could use Nisette’s ecstasy as a distraction. But then she looked into his eyes, and knew she could not.

  “Enough. I grow tired of this interview.” He did not raise his voice. “Take her, Hobb.”

  The knight grappled Alorin from behind with embarrassing ease, his power just too great for her. She’d not even heard him enter. “Fuck!” she grunted, straining as the hulking man with the green tree on his tunic wrapped bearlike arms around her. She heard him laugh brutally into her ear, his tongue lashing at her face.

  “Oh, we are,” Nisette giggled, and then she began to bounce more quickly. “May we finish now, m’lord? Or are you going to waste more time on this bitch?”

  “A moment, my lovely.” The Count still had that smile dancing across his lips as the apprentices rushed in with arming swords. “Take her into the woods, Hobb. Beat her, rape her, kill her, and bury her; in that order or some other, I care not.”

  Options flooded through Alorin’s mind, each studied, analyzed, and rejected. She could take Sir Hobb without difficulty, and perhaps one or two of the apprentices, but she’d die in this tent under the gloating eyes of Nisette if she tried. And she’d not be able to do the job properly, either; they’d all die with full balls, and with her unable to pay the balance to the gods. She could lash out at the Count instead, and perhaps she’d kill him before they took her, but unless he spewed into Nisette very, very quickly, he’d die unseeded. And then so would she and, again, the gods would have their vengeance on her.

  Or she could submit, and see where all this led.

  Lord Whitemar had been foolish to tell his knight to kill her in the woods. Now, she knew she’d have nothing to lose out there in the night, other than her life. Which was forfeit anyway. So, really, there was no decision for her to make now. She bowed her head and slumped into the odious arms of Sir Hobb, sighing as she felt his hand close over her breast, his cock prodding her through his trousers from behind. “There’s a good whore,” came his grating whisper into her ear, the saliva spotting her cheek. “Make this easy, and I can make this quick for you. And maybe even a little pleasant before you go…” She couldn’t hold in a slight squeal as his fingernails dug into the flesh of her tit, and he chuckled. “Well, pleasant for me, anyway. By your leave, m’lord?”

  “Go enjoy yourself, Sir Hobb.” Alorin watched as Lord Whitemar arched his back, bucking a whooping Nisette into the air. “I’ll do likewise. Okay, you little slut. You may finish now.” And thus, it was to the giggled strains of a breathless Nisette that Alorin was dragged from the tent, Sir Hobb groping her freely as he threw her over his shoulder and bulled out of the tent. She heard the ginger-headed whore’s screams rise and rise, mounting to a crescendo of gasping whimpers.

  She was faking it, of course.

  “Go back to fucking each other,” he told the apprentices, booting the nearest one back toward the fire. “I’ve got a feisty bitch to break tonight. I’ll have one of you again tomorrow.”

/>   “Sir.” The lads backed off, Alorin watching them upside-down from where her face swung near Sir Hobb’s meaty thigh.

  And then she was off, Sir Hobb’s shoulder digging into her midsection with her legs hugged tightly to his chest. He walked with a purposeful stride, his choppy gait jouncing her tits straight out of her chemise and up to her chin. For sheer stability she grasped onto his hips, and she thought she heard a grunt of approval. “There we go. Lyria, was it?”

  “Fuck you.”

  He shrugged powerfully into her ribs. “Whatever. It’s not your real name, anyway. I meant what I said, Lyria. You’re going to die tonight, but as I’m sure you know there’s dying…” here he lowered his voice to an ominous hiss, “and there’s dying.”

  “I’ve been threatened before.” She thought quickly. They were heading past Sir Hobb’s tent. “By better men, too.”

  “No doubt.” He shrugged again, jarring her. “But not by bigger. I suppose the other wenches told you I’m the biggest one here?”

  “They might have said something about that.” It was important to Alorin that he not hear her voice waver, but that was difficult with such a purposeful stride. His arm across her thighs felt like a ship’s cable.

  “Want to hear how badly this can go for you, woman?” He wasn’t going to pay attention to whatever she said, so she merely kept thinking. “This one time, a bitch was fighting me. Know what I did? I sat my balls on her chest and watched while my apprentice cut off her arms and legs with an axe.” He laughed, an odd gurgling noise. “She stopped kicking after that.”

  “No doubt.” She’d heard stories like that before, and never believed them. Cutting off arms and legs in cold blood was brutal work; she’d done it a time or two, and hadn't felt like sex afterward. “I should be surprised you needed your apprentice to do it for you, but I’m not.” Briefly she thought of biting his ass, but she knew her teeth wouldn’t even get through the leather breeches. He’d probably like it, anyway. “Any other tales?” She hoped he’d continue past the wagons to the horse lines; Pixie wouldn’t like seeing her mistress carried. She wasn’t a trained war horse, but she was no idiot either.