by David Hair
Love is not necessary.
She could feel unbearable liquid heat and heaviness between her thighs, right at the core of her, the empty part that wanted to be filled again. She remembered their one time, and how frighteningly complete it had made her, to feel him inside her. She’d tried to pretend it wasn’t there, when oh, but it was …
Love mightn’t be necessary, but I need this …
Trembling slightly, she shook herself free of her blanket and crawled towards him. He sucked in his breath, as if scared to exhale the moment away. He just lay there, passive, but not entirely so, because she could see the shape of his erection beneath the blanket. She pulled the fabric away and laid her head on his belly. The stiff member lay against his groin, staring at her one-eyed, and she reached out and gently touched it.
He groaned.
She stroked a finger from root to tip, and he tried not to move, though she could feel him vibrating like an overstrung bow. She gripped his shaft, feeling it thick and heavy in her grasp, and began to massage it. At last his hands moved, stroking her shoulders, combing through her hair. His stomach muscles quivered beneath her head. She moved slowly and tentatively, listening to the rhythms of his body, trying to determine what worked. Tentatively she slid down him a little, then opened her mouth and enclosed him, first licking, then sucking him until his whole body stiffened. It pleased her to administer this torment, so she kept doing it, making him twitch and writhe, felt herself become wetter as she did so, scenting the damp heat that filled her nostrils.
When it became too much to wait, she swung herself astride him and started rocking her hips, sliding her cleft along the underside of his shaft, something she’d spied a married couple of the caravan doing one night when they thought they were alone. The sensation of it made her catch her breath.
She looked down at him, feeling all the longing and all the conflicted emotions resolving. She’d been alone with him too long not to feel this, not to do this. It didn’t mean forgiveness. It was just lust. It meant nothing.
He gripped her hips, holding her in just the right place. The contact shivered right through her. She’d been playing with him so far, but now it was about them together. She spread herself a little more, reached down and pulled the head of him to her opening, groaned at the teasing almost-penetration, then gasped as he slid inside, filling her completely. Her arms and hips almost gave way, but she forced herself upright.
His face swam before her, disbelief and studied concentration on his face.
She looked down at him apologetically, whispered, ‘That’s as far as my experience goes.’
He gave a slight smile. ‘I can help. Continue to do this.’ He pushed her up slightly so she had to tilt her hips, and as he let her down again she found the rhythm, grinding her pleasure bud against him while enjoying the length of him inside her. For a moment his eyes closed in bliss, then he opened them again and gazed into hers. ‘Rub against me; take as long as you like.’
It was different from what she’d expected, more intimate and sweaty and human than her imagination, with more grunting and itchy, uncomfortable bits than other girls had reported. It felt like Zaqri was not doing much, then he would move, a subtle lift of his hips that made his stomach muscles tense and ripple appealingly, then he was moving more and more, until it was him doing all the work, pushing up and into her as she collapsed onto his chest, the sensations in her loins too intense to focus. She held onto him, moaning, as her body climaxed, the sensation sustained by his final vigorous expending of himself inside her.
She buried her head in his nape and shook. I’m sorry, Mother, but I couldn’t resist him any longer.
He reached for her face, but she turned it away. ‘No kisses,’ she said, breathing heavily.
He frowned at that, but let her pull herself from him and drape his blanket over them both. Mater Luna stared down at her. Rimoni legend had it that the two largest craters were her eyes. They seemed very focused that night, looking right at her.
‘Why now?’ His voice was low and content. His arm came around her shoulders, cradling her.
‘Why not?’ She put on a rational voice. ‘It’s distracting, to have this thing between us and not deal with it.’
‘So I am not forgiven, then?’
‘No.’
They fell silent, just staring up at the moon as she floated overhead. She’d never felt comfortable before beneath the open night sky, except during Darkmoon when Luna hid her face. The moon always looked too massive to float above. It always felt like it was about to fall. But tonight she felt safe.
‘So you were a virgin until me,’ he remarked eventually.
‘Only just. My father kept coming between me and whichever boy I fancied – sometimes only just in time.’
‘It must have been hard for you both.’
‘I was a trial.’ She took a swig of water from her bottle. ‘But he was no saint. He never took a wife, but he seldom slept alone. All the widows used to compete for his attention.’ She sighed at the memory. ‘Rimoni widows are allowed to court the single men. They have more freedom than anyone else in the caravan. I always wanted to be one of them when I was young – they had the most fun.’
‘There is no joy in losing your wife or husband.’
‘I know that now.’ She twisted her head so that she could see his face. ‘How long were you married to Ghila?’
‘Twenty-three years.’
‘Sol et Lune, that’s older than I am!’
‘Like the magi, those of us with strong gnosis live longer.’
‘You must miss her.’
‘I do. But life continues. If we don’t move with it, we atrophy and die.’ He looked at her meaningfully. ‘Life is full of perils, especially this life. I believe in seizing the moment, not in looking back.’
‘You don’t sound like a real Rimoni when you say that. We are always looking back to when we ruled Yuros.’
He chuckled dryly. ‘I know. In my home village we used to spend all our spare time and money on restoring old monuments and artefacts from the Rimoni Empire – villas, mosaics, columns and temples. Families went without meals so that some old idol could be recovered.’
‘The Rondians spend all their money on churches and palaces.’
‘I certainly wasn’t saying they are better than us.’ He ran fingers through her hair. ‘You are very beautiful, Cymbellea. A classic Rimoni, with a chin and nose like the statues we dug from the ground.’
‘Like a horse, you mean.’
He laughed. ‘Not a bit. I am not attracted to horses at all.’
‘Just lionesses?’ she asked archly.
‘Ha! I do not mate in animal form. It sheds a layer of humanity I do not wish to lose.’
‘I suppose … I wouldn’t know.’
He shifted abruptly, rolled over and onto her in one movement that stole her breath, his face silhouetted against the moon. ‘I think we will find enough pleasure in these bodies to satisfy us.’
She looked up at him, suddenly a little bit afraid. She’d not intended to allow him to initiate anything, but now she found she wanted him again. Tentatively she spread herself, lifting her hips to meet him, all the while careful to avert her mouth from his.
The night passed in a series of long and intense bouts of climbing desire and convulsive release.
*
They followed the Rondian column north, the trail so clear they didn’t need to keep it in sight. Cym had lost all track of time, but Zaqri, studying the stars, told her it was Augeite, under a waning moon: eight months since Alaron and Ramita had vanished; four since the Noose. They’d lost the trail of the Scytale long ago, and sometimes it felt like she only went on because she didn’t know what she would do if they stopped.
However, the riddle of the eleventh rider drew them on still. Though not a prisoner, he was always under the eye of the Inquisitors, as if he were their prized guest. Zaqri was still certain that he was Dokken, but he couldn’t say who, as they ne
ver saw him without his hood. At night they coupled until exhaustion took them down into dreamless sleep. Mated. There was no kissing, though she often wanted to. She didn’t bleed during the week she should have. They had rukked throughout the week of her fertility without too much thought for the consequences. She didn’t tell him, instead slicing her own skin so that she smelled of blood and praying to Mater Luna for guidance. She didn’t think he suspected.
When the column arrived at its destination, the mystery deepened. They watched from a hillside, then used a little gnosis to scry closer. There were fences of wood and wire to pen people – many people, perhaps ten thousand of them. A full maniple of legionaries was camped there, though it was clearly run by the Inquisition. The Dhassan and Keshi refugees they’d been following weren’t housed in tents, but simply penned on the open ground. Some were conscripted into the crude open-air kitchens; many more were given shovels to dig latrine trenches. Every day work gangs left for the hills, their escorts returning at dusk without the labourers. Every morning a few more dead were carted from the camp and buried in the grounds outside. These shallow graves drew the jackals and wild dogs, who prowled the fringes of the camp.
‘Slavers,’ Zaqri continued to maintain. ‘They’re awaiting windships to transport the prisoners to Southpoint.’
They glimpsed the eleventh rider from time to time, sitting alone, hooded and motionless, always watched, but only loosely. He moved awkwardly, in a lumbering fashion that reminded Cym of a drunk, or a very old man. Intriguingly, his skin colour was of Yuros. It was too far away to read his aura, and with Inquisitors right beside him, scrying was far too great a risk.
‘He’s one of us,’ Zaqri predicted. ‘Not our pack, but one of us. But why would they hold him?’ He turned to Cym, his eyes intent. ‘I say we must free him.’
30
Downstream
Master-General Kaltus Korion
Kaltus Korion, greatest descendant of the line of Evarius, is renowned as the general who brought Leroi Robler to heel in the Noros Revolt. He conducted a ruthless campaign in the latter year of the Revolt, which resulted in the surrender of the Noroman legions. What is often overlooked is that though he vastly outnumbered Robler, still he conducted a war of attrition. Was this prudence, or did he fear to risk his reputation against the master?
The Glorious Revolution,
MAGNUS GRAYNE, 909–910, 915
Ardijah, Emirate of Khotri, on the continent of Antiopia
Shaban (Augeite) 929
14th month of the Moontide
Ramon watched with interest as Lanna Jureigh cradled a Khotri man’s broken arm. They were surrounded by men from almost every known land on two continents. Coming to Ardijah was the right move, he thought. Better even than I’d hoped.
Ardijah, a border town on a well-used trade route, attracted people from far and wide. As well as the local Khotri there were Dhassans and Keshi, tattooed men and women from Gatioch, many Lakh and even a few gaunt, fierce Lokistani. This incredibly diverse place had its own hybrid patois, with words from innumerable languages, so adding a motley collection of legionaries from half a dozen different legions made it a strange brew indeed. At times it boiled over in conflict, but for the most part there was a strange harmony, as if they recognised that foreignness was a condition they all suffered. They were all, in their own way, strangers.
The army kept the rankers busy on work detail, trying to repair the buildings and walls damaged during the seizure of the city. As the locals wanted the Dokken gone as much as the legionaries, and they also wished their city to be defensible against the Keshi on the north bank, everyone pitched in, the calipha’s men and the legionaries working in unison. Some of the repairs required a variety of expertise, from locals as well as the legion engineers, so cooperation had become essential.
But it was acts like this that had really sealed the bond, Ramon thought as he watched Lanna repairing another broken arm. The minor miracle of a gnostic healing was a big thing to the Ahmedhassans: not just a demonstration that the locals were valued, but also that the gnosis could be used for good. Other uses of the gnosis had helped further that notion: Earth-magi had been deployed to help the rebuilding, Water-magi were purifying the wells, and there were dozens of other tasks where a show of useful solidarity and well-placed gnosis might win hearts and minds.
The crowd cheered and patted each other’s backs as the Khotri worker stood shakily and displayed the arm that had been shattered by falling masonry an hour before. A lifetime as a one-armed cripple had averted by the ‘afreet magic’. The dazed patient kissed Lanna’s hand fervently, though she tried to stop him.
‘Please, it’s not so hard,’ she said tiredly. ‘Be more careful, yes?’ She looked up at Ramon and gave an exhausted but pleased smile. She’d had marriage proposals by the hundred in the last week, and been gifted so much food she could have fed a maniple.
He gave her a thumbs-up gesture and returned to the square where the accident had happened. Pilus Lukaz was overseeing lines of legionaries and locals as they passed chunks of rubble from a fallen bakery towards a half-built bastion wall. The giant front-rankers towering over the local tradesmen earned admiring calls as they humped the stone to the new site, but some of the Khotri were just as big and it looked like a friendly rivalry was developing.
It hadn’t all been plain sailing, of course. There had inevitably been brawls, drunkenness, stones thrown, fist-fights, bottle-fights, knife-fights, coin stolen – in fact, every infraction of the rules he could imagine. They’d even had to hang two rankers for murdering a local behind a tavern to ensure that there’d be no riots. The calipha had been astounded that they would sacrifice two of their own, and some of the legion officers had been downright rebellious, but the reward was this priceless harmony. He was almost regretting that they had to leave.
He found the people he sought atop a tower overlooking the river, near the northern causeway. The four of them – Jelaska, Severine, Baltus and Kip – were sipping wine or ale and looking out at Salim’s army massed on the riverbank four hundred yards away. Their cooking fires were streaming smoke into the sky beneath a searing sun.
‘I’ve calculated that we need to move within the month if we’re going to reach our lines in time for the big retreat to the Bridge next year,’ Ramon told the group. The Lost Legions – as the men had taken to calling themselves – had been inside Ardijah for almost six weeks now and it was already Augeite. ‘I’ve got it arranged. We just need Seth’s assent and then we can go.’
‘I agree,’ Jelaska responded, ‘but will Seth? Don’t you think he’s becoming a little comfortable here?’
They all knew what she meant: Korion was spending all his time with the sultan – or Salim’s imposter, whichever he was. Whenever anyone walked in on them they’d be usually reciting poetry, or singing, or plucking a strangely strung lute they’d been given by Calipha Amiza.
‘Then let’s bring Latif with us,’ Baltus said. ‘Clearly his presence is keeping the Keshi from outright assault, so hanging on to him would be sensible.’
‘What do they see in each other?’ Severine asked, cradling her alarmingly distended belly and nibbling grapes. ‘I mean, Korion is dull as dishwater and the Noorie is … well, he’s just a Noorie.’
Ramon glanced at her with mildly irritated fondness. That Sevvie could be blind to the colour of his skin but completely scathing of even a hint of colour in anyone else was entirely to do with her upbringing, he’d decided after considerable soul-searching. It made it only marginally less distasteful. ‘Latif’s rather charming,’ he said, ‘but you’re right about Korion. Poetry and music, Sol et Lune!’
‘You’re a peasant, Ramon,’ Baltus laughed. ‘Poetry is the soul of civilisation.’
‘Life is a song,’ Kip observed, drawing surprised looks from everyone. He coloured slightly. ‘That is an old Schlessen saying. My people are very fond of music.’
‘They hit sticks and rocks together,’ Baltus whi
spered conspiratorially. ‘It’s very rhythmic.’
‘I’ll hit your head with a rock and see how you like it,’ Kip growled.
‘Anyway,’ Ramon interjected, trying to bring the discussion back on course, ‘my point is, we need to move, but Korion is ensconced here – and the truth is, he’s way too cosy with Latif, almost to the point of fraternisation.’
Jelaska sniffed. ‘He says he’s getting the imposter off-guard so that he can learn more. Clever, possibly.’
‘Korion isn’t that clever,’ Ramon said. ‘I just think that he likes him.’
They all mused on that. ‘I suppose Noories are just people in the end,’ Severine commented doubtfully.
‘Do you think so? What about Silacians?’ Ramon enquired acerbically. ‘Anyway, the rankers are talking,’ he added. ‘Not that half of them haven’t got a Khotri woman by now – our baggage train will probably have doubled in size when we leave.’ He’d taken the decision to pay the troops while they were in Ardijah, not just to restore morale, but also to ensure that they could enjoy the respite the town had provided without resorting to plundering it. Of course, giving the soldiers money had done more than that: it had transformed the twin keeps of Ardijah into a hotbed of gambling houses, whorehouses and opium dens almost overnight as the soldiers did what soldiers always do when they have cash in hand and no one to fight. The calipha’s treasurer was a happy man.
During this period of respite, the waters of the floodplain had receded, leaving a treacherous maze of sinkholes and quicksand, and alligators had been spotted moving back into the area in ever-increasing numbers. Despite this, Ramon feared that soon, an assault on the northern island from all sides would soon be practical.