Too Many Bad Days (Raxillene's Rogues Book 3)

by Max Keith

  “One hopes the gods take him sooner rather than later, then.” Drinn shook his head and sighed, dreading the enforced celibacy ahead. “I thank you, sir.”

  And so they left, once more in the dark of night, with some beans and sausage to ease their travel. They found themselves with plenty of room to pack the extra food; Uncle Bann’s silence had cost them all but five gold mergansers, though there was still plenty of silver in the bag. “A good man, your uncle,” Franx told Chiara agreeably as they simply walked through the east gate; facing the mountains, it was left unguarded. “And you’ve shown your worth now as well, Chiara.”

  “Any other relatives scattered about?” Drinn asked hopefully. He was wearing the Imperial helmet, but they all knew their story would not possibly work now; the arrival of Akker Mim and his squad would have spread, by now, through the entire garrison. Every Legionary in the Central Rump would be looking soon for a mage, a warrior, and a maid.

  Chiara was studying her aunt’s map. “We go ten miles, or near enough. Up a path to the spring, where there seems to be some sort of temple? Then south, following a mountain path to…”

  There was a silence, the road beneath them dwindling very quickly to a mere track. “To?” Franx felt there was more coming, but he was wrong. The girl merely shrugged.

  “To the edge of the map. I don’t feel my Aunt Sharna ever really got much farther.” She sighed. “She was a woodcutter’s daughter. Getting to marry a townsman with a brewery was certainly the best thing that could have happened to her.”

  Drinn said nothing. His mind was on those villages, where he hoped he could produce enough silver to get a woman, law be damned.

  * * *

  The temple, of course, was guarded. “Must we kill them?” Chiara was not worried about her conscience; she just wanted to avoid notice. Her uncle’s talk of snake pits had chilled her.

  “We must,” the mage whispered as Drinn grimly stripped off his heavier gear. “If we merely tied them up or hit them over the head, word would spread.”

  “We must kill them,” Drinn agreed, “and then hide the corpses.” He was not looking forward to that; three leagues at night in the mountains had left his eagerness for secret murder at its lowest ebb. “Swords, or spells?”

  “Swords,” the mage decided, “but spells can help. I’ll blind them, you kill them, and I’ll help. Sound good?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can I do anything?” Chiara did not sound frightened, just curious.

  The warrior shrugged, the prospect of a fight at least discouraging his lusts. Franx smiled at her. “If we are killed, you should run. If not, just follow us.” The Mages’ College discouraged using spells to attack people, but Poildrin Franx did not give a shit for their discouragement.

  “They’re probably asleep, anyway,” Drinn mused, drawing his sword. Even if they were awake, he was expecting nothing drastic; a water-temple in the middle of the Tangled Mountains is not the place where anyone places their very best troops.

  And so it proved.

  The blinding-spell, cast at the doorway to the little temple, very likely worked, but all the guards’ eyes were closed anyway. Drinn had two of them killed and the third nearly so before the fourth stirred; just the fifth, a scarred blinking bastard in a state of terminal fear, managed to get to his feet, only to be stricken right back down by Franx’ shortsword. To the watching Chiara, the whole thing was brutally efficient and very smelly, the mingled odors of too much blood and the fear-loosened bowels of the fifth guard permeating the little room as she watched, wide-eyed, from the arched door. The only damage to the three of them was a blunted edge where the warrior’s sword had struck the floor after passing through the third guard’s abdomen. He stood frowning, thumbing the blade as the first and fourth guards expired with wet, noisy rasps at his feet.

  “There’s a latrine behind the temple,” Franx observed, following his nose. “We can drag them there and leave them under the shitpile.” He kicked viciously at the fourth guard, who was taking too long. “We need to get moving, regardless.”

  Eager to help, Chiara was tugging at the legs of the first dead man. “Wait, girl,” Drinn said, laying his bloody hand on her arm. “Should we take their tunics, you think? These guys are 4th Legion; folk might think we’re just a mountain patrol, out to… well, I guess to arrest wood poachers?” He shrugged.

  “That’s a thought,” the mage replied, rubbing his chin. “Chiara,” he called softly, “feel like becoming a man?” The last guard was a small man; his clothes could just fit her. “We can jam your hair into the helmet. It won’t work close up, but past perhaps ten feet everyone will assume you’re just a really short Legionary.”

  “Better boots for her, too,” Drinn mused.

  “Do I get a sword?” was all the girl wanted to know, and so it was decided. The fourth guard was still wheezing weakly as he and his fellows were stripped, their clothes and gear piled to be sorted; only one of the tunics was too bloody for use, as Drinn had been in a hurry by the time he reached the third man.

  “Not bad,” the warrior noted, studying one of the swords; his was better, but he tested the edge and held the hilt out to Chiara. “M’lady?”

  “Thanks!” She was grinning broadly. The weight of it dragged her arm down, though, so the mage intercepted her wrist.

  “I’ll swap with you,” he offered, and she found his shortsword much handier. They left their new clothes off until they’d finished with the corpses, then threw some of their own stuff from their packs into the shit. “We’ll do well not to be caught with any of our clothing or our usual gear,” he pointed out. “The mergansers will be bad enough.” The guards had yielded just three pieces of silver and a few brass pennies.

  “What… uhh…” Chiara looked uncomfortable. “I’ve got, um, clothing that I will probably need as we go…” She looked down at her chest. “These can get uncomfortable while walking.”

  Drinn gulped; the fight was over, the lust was back, and talking about tits in the middle of the night was not what he needed to do. “I’ll go keep watch,” he offered vaguely; the mage was always better at dealing with situations of this sort. He shuddered; the moon was high and bright this evening, and at one point he’d been hauling one of the corpses toward the latrine with Chiara. She’d had the feet, him the head, and she’d taken off her cloak after the first man she’d hauled. With the new dress being thinner than the old, plus the chill of the night, her breasts had at last been on bountiful and obvious display.

  Stop, he raged at himself. Just stop. Their lives were at extreme risk up here, even worse in the plains below. There was scant hope they’d ever make it home, and yet here he was, taking copious note of the chest endowments of his paid traveling companion; it was too much. The Imperial army breeches were tight against his thighs, far less comfortable than his looser trousers; he peered down below, squinting in the night to make sure the tunic would cover his crotch decently, in the likely event she caught him with a hard cock.

  He took the old helmet, the one from the Wynsse guard with the 12th Legion badge, and filled it from the spring to wash the worst of the bloody drag-marks out of the grass. As he often did at times like this, he shuddered slightly; it was not difficult, he’d found, to kill men. But when he saw what became of the bodies, there were times it was hard not to see himself in their place. And butchered blind in the night, only to be thrown into a gasping muck of his own shit, was not the way Drinn of Fiveoaks wanted to make an end.

  He turned to see Chiara gazing at him from the doorway, her charms strapped down somewhere beneath a dead man’s tunic, and he realized dimly that she hadn’t seen him kill before. Hell, she likely hadn’t seen too many sights like that anywhere, by anyone; normal violence after a night at a pub is not like slaughtering five men in their sleep. And in a temple, no less. He stared back hard. “This is what we do, Chiara,” he told her bluntly. “You’re along with us now, whether you like it or not; your cousin and his friend the mage
has seen to that.” He sighed and put the old helmet down after prying off the badge. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I brought you.”

  She just blinked, and he saw in her face the horror of a spirited girl’s life in Much Ormold. “I’m not.” She tugged at her breeches, adjusted the unfamiliar shortsword, and stalked off to repack her gear.

  Four

  They’d been on the twisting southward path for days before a hesitant Drinn, his face uncharacteristically thoughtful, sidled up for a low-voiced consultation with Franx. “This route is all very well,” he began, “but it’s not going to take us to the Claring Pass. At some point, we’ll need to come back out of the hills to climb the Pass.” He paused. “And you’ve been that way, yes?”

  “Yes.” The Princess’ work seldom took them over the mountains, but he’d crossed the Claring twice before on other journeys. “Lots of Imperials there,” he said casually.

  “Lots. And you see what I’m driving at,” Drinn replied sullenly. That pass was the only spot for hundreds of miles where the Empire and the Realm touched, and neither side had any shortage of soldiers to put there. “Even if we elude the Imperials, our own side won’t know we’re coming. We stand an excellent chance of being killed by our own men. We are, after all, dressed like enemies.”

  “Indeed.” The mage seemed calm. “Unless someone who knows us just happens to show up.” He waited for Drinn to see the point, then sighed when he didn’t. “I’m sending the owl over the mountains tonight. The Princess will send up whomever she can to get us some help; she might even come herself.” Drinn nodded, brightening. “You know how much she likes me. I reckon they can stage an attack as a feint while we sneak past the Imperials in all the confusion, then we’ll just march across once we see whomever she sends.”

  “Ah.”

  “Indeed.” He shrugged. “I know it’s not very manly to beg for rescue, but when it’s this easy? Why not?” He was rolling numbers around in his head. “We’ll be another two weeks on the road, perhaps. The owl should reach the Tower in, oh, four days? Five? Regardless, whomever the Princess sends out will have at least a week to get to the garrison at the Claring.” He squinted, making sure the math made sense, then grunted. “Should be child’s play. Once they arrive they can send back the owl to let us know the plan, and then we’re all set.”

  That night, the owl left its silhouette against the full moon.

  * * *

  The rain that started shortly before dawn lasted almost a week nearly without pause, and very quickly they decided they’d need to abandon night marches. The rocks and stones everywhere were already treacherous enough, and none of them needed a twisted ankle. So they trudged up and down the bleak mountain paths, passing occasionally through poor villages stinking of pinewood and dung. The people would peer senselessly out into the dripping daylight, mostly women and children with the men managing the woodcutting or the village’s little herds. In the center of each settlement was a tall pole, smooth and straight, with a tattered banner at the top.

  “That’s the Emperor’s Pole,” Chiara explained, barely able to avoid laughing. “It’s what the Capital tells us to call it, but it’s impossible to say it with a straight face.”

  Franx made the attempt. “Emperor’s Pole.” He did not laugh, but Chiara did, the sound rich and joyful on the thin air. Drinn felt his dick stir, but that was not anything new at all. He sighed.

  “See the joke? Like it’s his imperial cock?” She tittered, shaking her head, and so they marched on up the next ridge and, at great length, at last on a day of sunlight, the three of them began their descent into a long, deep valley, its sides rich and green, with a loud young river carving its way through the bottom.

  This was the River Lyddon, flowing down out of the mountains to water the plains near Langmyre before it spurted out into the Sea beside the Red Castle, where the Rumps had their government under the Emperor. Once they got down Drinn and Franx decided to take an afternoon of rest, both because they’d been making excellent progress and because they couldn’t figure out how to cross dry. So Franx went upstream, Chiara went down, and Drinn followed a deer-trail with his bow.

  And somehow it all worked out, the girl finding a rocky ford at around the same time Drinn appeared with a small buck over his shoulder. The resulting fire, their first in over a week, cheered them all.

  At last, pushed by a much better-natured Poildrin than usual, Chiara came clean about her affliction. “Come now,” he prodded. “We know of your trick with the cheese. Might as well confess.”

  She blushed prettily, but then tossed her hair back and arched an eyebrow. “Of course I faked it,” she said at last, sipping at some of the brandy the warrior had brought. “I’m no mage, but neither am I so stupid as to fuck a poxy dick.” She shrugged. “I’ll wager half the women in both the Ormolds were faking the pox the next night after your dirty army arrived. Who wants to be raped by a pack of Royals?”

  Drinn poked at the fire and ventured a small tease of his own. “It just seems a waste of good cheese, is all.”

  She fixed him with her dark eyes. “You can still eat it, if you wish.” She and Franx sniggered at that, while Drinn blushed and looked away. “It’s nice, though, to have the truth out at last. I was running out, and frankly it’s not comfortable in there.”

  “Wouldn’t imagine so.” Franx took his turn with the brandy.

  “Besides,” she went on, “remember that we thought you were going to win, and enslave us.” She pulled with her teeth at a sliver of venison. “Everyone knows the only way men get sex in the Realm is to use slaves.”

  “No!” Drinn was offended. “Not true!”

  “No?” Chiara looked at him sidelong. “Why keep slaves, if not to fuck them?”

  “Well, it’s just not true,” the warrior insisted, distressed. “I can confidently say I’ve never fucked a slave, not once.”

  “No?” Franx took on a faraway look. “I have. Some of them are very, very good.”

  “See?” Chiara smacked Drinn’s leg, quite unaware of the effect this had on him. “Sex slaves. Shit, I must be smarter than I thought,” she mused, plucking at more stringy meat. “Instead of getting sold to some man from the Realm, I’m getting paid by two. Such a clever girl am I!” She giggled, the brandy flushing her face, and sighed through another bite. “The deer is delicious,” she thanked Drinn.

  Franx leaned back against his bedroll and watched the fire die. “So, if not a sex slave,” the mage mused, “what is it you’d like to become, Chiara?”

  She paused. “I think,” she confided, a bit embarrassed, “that I’d like to be a singer.” She nodded. “Or a whelk-gatherer, but I suppose that dream died when you ruined my boots.”

  “You’re welcome.” Drinn smiled shyly.

  “No, a singer. By the roadside, or in a shrine, or in the opera. You have opera in the Realm, do you not?”

  “Of course.” Franx drained the last of the liquor. “Alas, though, only slaves perform there.” It took many seconds for Chiara to figure out he was joking, at which point she threw a rib at his head.

  “Well then. If it’s a slave I’d be anyway,” she finished boldly, staring at the warrior, “I’d prefer the sex.” Drinn colored, then sucked hastily at the brandy.

  * * *

  The mists wound around the rocks and bushes when Drinn roused himself out of his bedroll the next morning, his head vaguely aching. Around him the wet grass seemed almost impossibly green, especially against the grey sky above. With difficulty the warrior slid from his damp blankets and took stock.

  He woke, as always these days, with a solid, trembling erection. He sighed as he realized he’d need to just give in soon and cum into his hand, a prospect that left him melancholy as he stretched, got up, and performed his normal morning ritual of standing around, waiting for his prick to deflate. A little to one side, his feet pointing down the hill, lay Franx fast asleep; his had been the middle watch, giving way to the girl.

  Wh
o was noplace to be seen.

  He did notice her pack, neatly trussed beside the grass she’d flattened into the shape of her lithe body. Slowly Drinn’s senses settled into some kind of order. He soon drooped enough for his morning piss so, feeling cranky and repressed, he started down the valley to round the corner away from the campsite.

  Soft splashing greeted him as he approached the boulder that marked the bend, and the warrior furrowed his brow as he bent to peer around the great black rock. It was at about that moment that all thoughts of piss fled far, far away, for his stressed cock suddenly had something else to cope with.

  No telling why Chiara had chosen to bathe so close to the campsite, but she certainly had.

  Drinn gaped for several long seconds before he convinced himself he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. Long, wet hair, the pale expanse of a finely-knit female back, the soft and graceful swell of her naked hips, the soothing motions of bare arms in the water; these things all assaulted his senses. Chiara was facing away from him, downstream, the chattering water eddying against her ass as its top half stuck out of the water, drawing his eyes as surely as any magnet. He’d not seen such a richness of female flesh in weeks, and his hard-fought erection returned immediately with a vehemence that quite took his breath in an involuntary gasp.

  She heard him.

  The past few weeks on the road had, as they’d all known would happen, made a mockery of privacy. She’d spent the first few days scuttling fastidiously away to piss, but the rain of the past week had swept away any sort of modesty; it had been just three days before that, exhausted and uncaring, Chiara had merely stepped from the path, turned her back to them, kicked a little pit into the turf, and squatted to do her business, trusting them not to look.