by Faith Eden
'You think the river is our best chance?' Savatch asked.
'It's our only chance,' Alanna interjected. 'I've been over the ground with Jekka and she's right. For about half a mile this trail is out of sight of everything and everybody, but to get clear from that section on horseback would take too long and also mean riding right through the thick of hundreds of soldiers.'
'Whereas the river,' Jekka said, 'swings away in a loop, here.' She emphasised the curve in her original line. 'The ground on the inside of the bend is also very marshy, impossible to ride over, so that puts a very useful natural obstacle between us and almost all the potential pursuers.
'About here,' she said, scraping at the earth again, 'about two miles before the river reaches Erisroth, is a trail leading almost directly due south for about a mile, at which point it enters some woodland and then splits into three.'
'Forcing any eventual pursuers to do the same,' Alanna said. 'The ground is very hard and horses aren't leaving any tracks at the moment, plus we can cover our trail for the first part.'
'In any case,' Jekka grinned, 'by that time we should have a head start of a few miles, as the two nearest practical crossing points on the river are fords here and here, both of which will require them to make detours. By the time they reach these woods, they'll have had to cover maybe six miles, all hard ridden, so their mounts will be pretty exhausted.
'Our horses will still have galloped two or three miles from where we leave the river,' she said, 'but a mile further along we'll have fresh mounts waiting. If we keep changing between the two sets of horses, they'll stay fresher for longer and we should be able to outrun any pursuit.'
'The only time we're likely to come close enough for any direct confrontation is back here.' Alanna leaned across and pointed to the river line. 'This is where the river passes close to that second Vorsan encampment, just before we reach the bend.'
'We have to assume that the alarm will have been raised by this time,' Jekka said. 'The Vorsans have sentries posted on every piece of high ground in the entire area, so someone is bound to see us when we first take Corinna. By the time we reach the camp they'll be alerted, but they won't be expecting the little surprise I'm cooking up for them.'
'The bottle of oil you showed us?' Savatch suggested.
Jekka smiled again. 'Not just one,' she said. 'By tomorrow the old man in Erisroth should have distilled sufficient oil spirit for at least ten, and we were able to buy that many glass flagons, which should break even easier, especially as the ground along the river bank could be a little soft.'
'But to throw these things as you described,' Savatch said, 'we would have to bring the boat in too close, surely? They'll have bows and spears and we'll be well within their range.'
'We'd be within bow range even if we kept to the far bank,' Jekka said, 'which is why there will be two boats. One with you, Corinna, Alanna and two of the men, the other with me and the rest of the men. Allowing that we need to have two men with each group of horses, that'll be five of us altogether.
'We'll go first and swing in towards whatever's on the bank waiting. Then, while we deliver our gifts, you'll come past behind us. With luck there should be a wall of smoke by this time. The old fellow was able to supply me with all the sulphur I needed and the leaves are commonly available hereabouts. I've had a quantity drying for the past few days.'
'The foul-smelling sack hanging in the trees over there?' Savatch said. He eased himself into a new position, stretching his right leg before him. 'Are you sure this will work, Jekka?' he asked, his right hand going unconsciously to the scar on his neck. Jekka raised her eyebrows and made a small moue with her lips.
'No,' she said, 'but it's the best I can do. Everything will be ready by tomorrow evening, after which we just have to wait until our black friend down there decides to take Corinna along the right path.'
'Which could be days yet,' Savatch complained.
Jekka regarded him steadily. 'I don't think so,' she said. 'That path is by far the quieter of the two and much better suited to the sort of training exercises he seems to favour.'
'They tell me you are now fully trained,' Fulgrim jeered, standing in front of Dorothea, his arms folded across his chest. Dorothea remained silent, the bit filling her mouth leaving her little other option apart from intelligible grunts. 'And your name is now Gol, I understand. I must say, these harnesses really do improve a woman's posture.'
He reached towards Dorothea's breasts and she willed herself not to flinch at his touch, determined not to give him that satisfaction. Besides, she reasoned, there was little more he could do to her that her handler had not done already. At first she had been relieved that her groom had been a Karliean, rather than one of the dusky Colrasians, but she quickly discovered there was little difference between them, apart from a few shades of brown.
The young Karliean - she did not know his name, but privately thought of him as 'Bastard' - had learned his trade well from the darker men and did not spare Dorothea the whip whenever he thought she was not trying hard enough. He also made it very clear that he was not prepared to make any concessions to the fact that she was several years older than the other novices, and assured her that she would either match their performances, or else suffer the consequences.
It had come as a great relief when Bastard finally told her that her training period was over, and even the news that Fulgrim had decided to take her as his personal mare did not totally dampen her lifted spirits. She could, after all, have been simply shipped off to the gods alone knew what fate, and some of the tales she had heard of what eastern masters inflicted upon their female slaves were enough to turn blood to ice.
The other alternative, that of being used as a working beast, was equally horrendous, for the girls she had seen in that role - usually the plainer ones, or those with heavier figures - received little respite from dawn till dusk. Fulgrim would doubtless treat her harshly, but at least she would find time to rest whenever he stopped to confer with his officers.
'I see they haven't bothered to lock your rings,' he said, as he led Dorothea towards the waiting trap. 'I assume that means you've been getting plenty of use, as I stipulated. Soon you'll have forgotten what it felt like to curl up with one of your little doxies. A good diet of cock is what you need.'
He backed her between the shafts and began fastening the connecting clips, fumbling slightly with the unfamiliar equipment.
'I wish now I hadn't ordered all you hair shaved off,' he said, stepping back at last. 'You would look far more striking with a proper mane, but then it'll grow back in time, as will my own. I see they've started shaving the sides and leaving the strip through the centre.' He reached out and ran a hand over the tufty re-growth, grinning all the while. 'It will go well with your face and this white blaze.'
He was referring to the white stripe down the centre of Dorothea's face, the only part of her that was not coloured dark brown with the long-lasting stain. They had not shown her what she now looked like, but she could well imagine, having seen enough of her fellow sufferers.
He walked back around in front of her and folded his arms once again, all the while grinning sadistically and chuckling.
'Let's see how well trained you actually are, shall we?' he said at last. 'Show me how you display yourself for your master.' Obediently, Dorothea shuffled her heavy feet apart and thrust her belly forward. Fulgrim made a low noise in the back of his throat and his hand went fleetingly to his groin, but he quickly regained his self-control.
'Hooves together, Gol,' he snapped. 'Your cunt will keep for later, I'm sure. We're going to have plenty of time for that, you and I. Not to mention you and half my army!'
'We start right away,' Attak'u announced, walking alongside the shafts and vaulting easily into his seat. 'Good trot over the hill roads and then we have rest for nice fuck, eh? Good filly deserves good fuck.'
He shook out the reins and barked a command in his own tongue that Corinna had come to recognise, as she
now recognised many of his curious sounding words. Obediently she leaned forward, raised her right leg and began to pull. Seconds later, Flix the pony girl was trotting smartly along the sun-baked mud track, bells at her breasts jingling as they bounced up and down to the rhythm of her stride.
The young soldier, whose name was Ceth, seemed very edgy, and Jekka guessed he had almost certainly never seen any real action. She had spent some time deciding which of the Illean troops to take with her, and finally decided that the least experienced of them would be the wisest choice, as they would probably be confronted with no more than two or three men, none of whom were likely to be Vorsans, and Jekka had more than enough faith in her own ability to deal with that.
Alanna, on the other hand, would need hardened fighters with her, as she would quite possibly be called upon to fight a delaying action against any early pursuers, and these would more than likely include trained soldiers from the nearest encampment. With luck, they would all be well on their way towards the waiting boats before the hue and cry started, but there was always the chance that they would be spotted sooner.
'You know what to do, don't you?' she asked quietly. They were crouching in the middle of a thicket, less than half a bow shot from the trail along which she had watched the black handler drive Corinna the previous afternoon. It had been a temptation to try to take him out then, but there had been other vehicles up and down the track at regular intervals and two groups of Vorsans drilling within easy hailing distance.
Instead, Jekka had crept through the undergrowth and watched in silence as the fellow halted his sweating charge, jumped down, unhitched her from between the shafts and then mounted her from behind, violently humping until her moans and gasps grew to a ferocious climax. Shaking her head, Jekka had not waited to see if the performance would be repeated, quietly slipping away and making her roundabout way back to their own encampment.
On the way she had almost stumbled over two sleeping Vorsan troops, deep in the woods. By the time she left them again, she had ensured they would never wake again and nor would they, their corpses hidden under a pile of leaves and branches, be found without a properly organised search. Hopefully their officer would assume they had wandered off somewhere and drunk themselves insensible and, by next day, when someone started wondering why they had not yet returned, it would be too late to matter.
Meanwhile, she had two tabards with Vorsan crests emblazoned on them, one of which Ceth now wore over his jerkin. The other had been given to one of the soldiers with the change of horses, in order to alleviate the suspicions of any casual passers by who might be in that area.
'The black fellow is mine,' Jekka said. She lifted her crossbow slightly to emphasise the instruction. Ceth looked down at his own weapon and nodded. 'Once I've dealt with him, you cut the girl free and lead her back along the trail I've just shown you. If anyone gets in your way, shoot and shoot to kill, understand?'
'Yes, lady,' Ceth replied. 'I understand. I'm a pretty good shot with this, you know.'
'I don't doubt it,' Jekka said, 'but I don't suppose you've ever killed anyone with it yet, have you? Don't worry, though,' she continued. 'We shouldn't run into any trouble and I'll be right behind you, just as soon as I've made sure that no one has got past Alanna's people.
'You'll have to keep a firm hold on the girl while you're running, as she won't have any arms to help her balance, right? There won't be time to free them, either, so don't even bother trying. As soon as you've cut her free from the traces, you run and keep on running. If you have to you pick her up, put her over your shoulder and carry her.'
'I'll not let you down, lady,' Ceth asserted, his young features set like granite. 'I'll die before I let anyone take her, my oath on it.'
'You'll be no good to any of us if you're dead,' Jekka said, 'so don't even think about it. Just get her to the boat in one piece - and yourself, too. There'll be plenty of time for heroics later, I'm sure.'
Corinna was beginning to understand what was meant by the expression 'champing at the bit', for the position of the sun told her it was already near to midday and still Attak'u had not returned for her. His continued absence was worrying, for their daily routine had become established for several days past, and the appearance of the gross Karliean male with him early that morning was in some sinister way to do with this interruption.
From Attak'u's subservient attitude, Corinna had guessed that the obese man was an important figure in the pony farm set-up, but quite what role he played she had no real idea. She was, however, grateful that she did not have the daily task of pulling his trap, for he was easily twice her own trainer's weight.
As the hours crawled by she began to get an uneasy feeling that perhaps that was it after all, that the grotesque fellow had decided to exercise his seniority and claim Corinna for his own use. The prospect made her shudder, and made her consider Attak'u in a totally different light.
She shook her head, setting her bell earrings jangling. They were finally getting to her, she realised, this regime dehumanising her to the point where she was almost ready to feel grateful to a man like the black Colrasian, a man who whipped her, drove her to exhaustion and then used her like a mindless animal.
Garassotta and its sumptuously furnished chambers, its soft carpets and heavy draperies, all seemed so far away now, dim memories of a world that once had been, but was no more. Now Corinna's world was this cramped stall, a floor strewn with straw, the heavy harness and bridle, and the boots that forced her to trot and prance on tiptoe, a show pony with no control over anything save her most base bodily functions and needs.
The sound of heavy boots on the gravelled earth outside brought Corinna out of her reverie and she looked up, astonished at how much she was looking forward to seeing the canine features of Attak'u again, and to be taken outside and hitched up to that damned little buggy.
Ceth had heard stories concerning the Yslander women: his father and two uncles and their father before them had all served long in the army of Illeum, and even soldiers who had not actually witnessed the prowess of the tall blonde women told their tales as if they had, embellishing fact with fiction, flavouring liberally with fantasy and stirring until the whole became legend. However, nothing the young trooper had been told quite prepared him for the actuality.
Crouching in the bushes, he watched with thumping heart as the girl came into view around the bend in the trail, the little buggy lurching along behind her, driver sitting upright, flicking his whip across her shoulders. He tensed, waiting for Jekka to make the first move and then, when the pony girl and her driver were but fifty paces from them, from the opposite direction a part of four mounted Vorsans appeared.
Ceth relaxed again, convinced that Jekka would make no move in the face of such immediate odds.
But he could not have been more wrong.
With a blood-curdling yell the redheaded amazon leapt out into the centre of the track, firing on the run and sending the first Vorsan lurching out of his saddle, a crossbow bolt embedded precisely between his eyes.
The effect of this was that his horse reared up and the other horses, already startled by Jekka's shrill scream, shied likewise, one unwary rider thrown headlong. Before the remaining two had time to comprehend what was happening, let alone bring their spooked mounts back under control, Jekka had reloaded and fired again. At the same moment Ceth saw the black robed blonde figure of Alanna emerge from the undergrowth behind the Vorsans, and the last mounted man hit the ground a second or so later.
Leaving the one remaining live Vorsan, who had clearly been stunned by his fall, Jekka wheeled around and started running towards the pony girl and buggy. The black driver had reined her to a halt and was frantically trying to get her to turn, but the girl appeared to be transfixed and, though his whip rose and fell in a flurry of blows, she simply refused to move.
Seeing this, the man leapt to the ground, desperate to save his own skin, but Jekka, with a calmness that Ceth could only watch open-mouthe
d, dropped to one knee and raised the crossbow, which she had somehow contrived to reload on the run. Her aim was unerring, the bolt hitting the fleeing figure in the back of his neck and bursting through the front of his voice box in a shower of blood and gristle, travelling another twenty paces before it clattered to the ground, spent.
The man himself ran on for another three or four strides, his hands clawing upwards towards the gaping wound in his throat and then fell, silently, pink froth welling from between his lips, his eyes already glazing over in death.
'Go!' Jekka shouted, turning to Ceth, who had finally managed to get his legs moving. 'Cut the girl free and get her into the woods. Go on! I'll be right behind you.' She swung back again, to where the stunned Vorsan soldier was now finally staggering back to his feet, raising her right arm as she ran towards him. Ceth did not hear the twang of the hidden bow, but as he started towards the unmoving pony girl, he saw the man drop sideways, again clutching at his throat.
The flight through the woods and along the narrow back trail seemed to go on forever. The girl, as Jekka had warned, needed to be steadied at every step of the way, her arms pinioned to her sides in some sort of leather sleeve arrangements. Her feet, Ceth saw, were encased in oddly shaped boots, yet surprisingly these did not appear to hamper her progress.
Jekka quickly caught them up, her crossbow once again loaded and she ran on ahead, urging Ceth to get his charge moving quicker still.
'There were another six Vorsans just behind those four,' she cried, looking anxiously from left to right, eyes scanning the trees for any sign of movement. 'Alanna and her lads took care of most of them, but at least one got away. He was wounded but he was still in the saddle, so he'll be raising seven sorts of shit by now!'