The Bridle Path Page 3

  'If the scale is accurate,' she said, 'then it crosses yonder peaks some four or five leagues to the south of this trail, yet I see no pass marked here, nor do I see one in reality.'

  'Because there is no pass,' Alanna explained. 'The river, when it is a river, flows through a system of underground caverns. For most of the year, however, it is frozen, both before it goes underground and again when it emerges on this side. You may have noticed that the level of the ice we have crossed is far below the banks that contain it.

  'Beneath the mountains themselves, there will be no level at all, neither water nor ice. Just a dry bed, along which we can ride with ease.' She raised her right arm and pointed ahead and a little to the right. 'When we next encounter the ice river, we simply follow its course.'

  'And when we come out on the other side, what then? We could spend a lifetime riding this wilderness in search of our quarry.'

  'We could,' Alanna said, 'but there will be no need. Our quarry knows of this route, too. It is how they are able to ride and raid and flee back to safety without the Illeum patrols ever catching up with them, for the soldiers naturally patrol the borders by the southern trails.'

  'But if the authorities in Illeum now know the truth, why not just move their patrols north and look here instead?'

  'That would be far too simple for politicians,' Alanna laughed. 'Yet I can see their reasoning. Illeum soldiers moving deep into the Snow Kingdoms would be a breach of the treaties and these bandits would quickly use that to their advantage. Besides, once they have made use of the underground pass, they have a choice of many miles of border where they might cross. It would require three or four regiments of soldiers to have any chance of catching them.

  'Which is why we are here, my dear Jekka. Two women, even Yslandic warrior women, can slip into the interior unnoticed, take care of this leader fellow and his chief cohorts and slip out again. And if we are detected and caught, then Illeum will deny all knowledge of us, naturally.'

  'Naturally,' Jekka echoed, but her eyes twinkled humorously. 'Two renegade bitches out to steal themselves a few krones, eh?' She rolled the map, slid it back into its cylinder and returned it to Alanna. 'Well,' she said, pulling on her mittens once more, 'at least now I know where it is we're supposed to be going.'

  'It doesn't usually bother you,' Alanna said. 'Only what we have to do once we get there.'

  'Precisely,' Jekka said, 'so let's get there as quickly as possible. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can come back. Damned snow,' she muttered, spurring her horse forward again.

  Agana M'gnaz regarded the figure of Fulgrim, the former Lord Fulgrim of the Vorsan States, and smiled the same grim smile of satisfaction and distaste that she had smiled every one of the previous three hundred and seventy-eight days since he had been given into her charge.

  The fact that they had once been nominally allies - given that her mistress, Lady Dorothea, had been part of Fulgrim's original clandestine allegiance with Lord Willum, the Protector's stepbrother - no longer mattered to Agana. She had seen the horrors that this beast had inflicted, not only upon his captives, but eventually upon Dorothea and Agana too, and Agana had used the ensuing year to extract a horrific revenge.

  Never again would Fulgrim fill an unsuspecting and reluctant womb with his seed, for Agana had long since removed his testicles. He could still achieve an erection, given sufficient stimulus, but there was little to drive where once there had been an insatiable lust, and such stimuli as he now received were calculated to arouse other sensations indeed.

  Agana kept him in the dungeons almost without respite, allowing him exercise in the fresh air only once every ten days or so. In the meantime, collared, hobbled, nipples pierced and ringed like those of a common slave girl, his world was one of perpetual darkness, broken only by the lamplight that signified the return of Agana to exact her regular daily tribute. And the scars on his back, buttocks, thighs and shoulders bore testament to her methods of ensuring his compliance.

  Today she had brought with her four of Dorothea's house slaves - two near emasculated pageboys and two maids, all clad in the identical pastel toga shifts and ornate sandals that were the household uniform preferred by Dorothea, and all with their faces and nails painted and powdered as their mistress decreed. Nearly all the prettified boys, like Fulgrim, no longer had testicles, but they, unlike the prisoner, were frequently encouraged to enjoy and exploit the natural urges that still beset them.

  The maids needed even less urging, despite the ever ready supply of male members that would not risk an unwanted swollen belly before the year was out, for Agana, at Dorothea's behest, saw to it that there was always a great spirit of competition between the household girls.

  On this particular morning, those slaves considered by Agana to have performed all their duties the most satisfactorily were to be given the reward that the black amazon had been offering for many months now. Fulgrim, the once mighty and spiteful warlord, now a quivering, pale-skinned slave with shaven head and heavy chains, would be made to perform a service for each of the four slaves in turn.

  Usually, Agana forced him to employ mouth - lips and tongue - bringing each of her charges to orgasm in turn, though occasionally a more spirited girl would seek permission to bring him to a state whereby she might mount him. So successful had Agana's tactics been that she was even now considering the possibilities of extending these rituals, wondering how much encouragement from her whip would be needed in order for him to satisfy every one of Dorothea's thirty plus house girls, whilst perhaps in turn being used by each of the twenty house boys, most of whom now needed no second bidding, regardless of the orifice on offer or the sex of its owner.

  However, on this occasion the black overseer had a new twist to introduce, for one of the female slaves she had brought with her was not chosen for the quality of her work, but rather for a perceived lack of total effort. And so she was to be punished, and in a way that Agana hoped would add even further to Fulgrim's frustration and misery. First, though, she decided to proceed with the usual round of spoils - she might not be able to use these stupid creatures to drain Fulgrim's balls, but she could certainly see to it that they drained much of whatever stamina was left to him...

  Lady Dorothea of Varragol lay back among the thick pillows, stretching languidly, one hand idly tousling the curly head that was buried between her open thighs.

  'Ah, Moxie my sweet,' she cooed, 'your little tongue grows more cunning by the day, I swear it. Oh!' She shivered, her fingers knotting into the buxom little maid's tresses. 'You little vixen,' she laughed, relaxing again, 'I should spank that rosy bottom for you.'

  Moxie's face suddenly appeared above the thick bush of pubic hair. She was flushed, but her eyes sparkled and her full lips were curled into a smile. 'Does my rosy bottom displease my mistress that much?' she quipped.

  Dorothea smiled back at her. 'Come up here, my little peach,' she said, patting the pillows beside her. 'Come let me suckle on those beautiful teats, for I would sleep now and those big bubbies are such a comfort.'

  Moxie wriggled up the bed, her heavy breasts swaying as she moved, and Dorothea could hardly wait to take them in her hands. Already the nipples were wet with milk, the daily medication she received from Dorothea's personal physician ensuring the impressive melons lactated permanently. It made them tender to the touch and sometimes painful, but Moxie's comfort was secondary in her mistress's scheme of things. As long as there was a constant supply of the sweet nourishment, Dorothea was content and, so long as Dorothea was content, Moxie was happy.

  The young maid, in reality a slave, sold to Dorothea by her innkeeper father, was well aware of the alternative lives available to the majority of young women. Even her former life, serving in her father's rundown tavern, had been nothing compared to the deprivations suffered by such as field workers, brothel slaves and worse. The castle palace at Varragol was a haven in comparison.

  At least, she reflected, as Dorothea took her right nipple into
her mouth and began suckling on it, it was a haven to those who remained in the mistress's favour. For some here, their existence could scarcely have been worse had they already been consigned to the seven halls of infinite purgatory.

  Three centuries earlier, the first castle of Garassotta had been built as a bastion against the barbarous hordes that had then spread west and south from the lands known as the Snow Kingdoms, coming via an area of Illeum's northern neighbour, Sorabund, where mountains, thick forest and treacherous marshland meant a sparse population and an easy route for raiders.

  The original keep and its eastern wall was now largely a ruin, but generations of the castle's owners had added the fortified palace, a formidable outer curtain, complete with high watchtowers and a deep moat fed by underground springs, little of which had been of any real relevance since long before Corinna's birth, for her father, Lord Lundt and his father before him, both hereditary Protectors of Illeum, had mounted punitive expeditions deep into the interior of the Snow Kingdoms, inflicting terrible casualties among the warrior tribes there.

  Finally, the mountain chieftains had begged an armistice and the then young Lundt had personally negotiated a peace that had lasted now for more than a quarter of a century. By its terms, the hunter warriors of the eight known Kingdoms had received favoured trading status for the beautiful and often rare pelts that were now used in the making of the exquisite winter robes of all the noble and wealthy in Illeum, and few people under the age of thirty could now recall the last real trouble in the border regions.

  A few renegade minor chieftains still ventured through the passes during the months of spring and summer, but these were merely minor sorties. The small castle garrison, together with whichever regiment was garrisoned in the nearby army town, were more than a match for the ill-equipped and under strength marauders, their regular patrols assuring that only a handful of sheep and cattle were ever taken, the raiding parties so anxious to avoid any direct confrontation that they kept well away from even the remote farmstead buildings. As a result, the only human casualty in two and a half decades had been an elderly shepherd, and rumour had it that his death had actually been caused when he tumbled into a ravine in the middle of the night, the cracked and empty wine flagon found near his broken body suggesting that he might well have become lost and fallen even if he had not been fleeing from the raiders who had decimated his then untended flock.

  The Stewardship of Garassotta had therefore come to be seen as little more than a sinecure, a fact that had not escaped Lord Lundt's stepbrother, Willum, when the title had been bestowed upon him. His already twisted mind had seen this posting as a final humiliation and he had thus been more than ready when the scheming Vorsan noble, Fulgrim, had suggested that together they might oust Lord Lundt and install Willum in his stead.

  Their initial scheme had involved the abduction of Corinna, though she remained unclear as to the part she had ultimately been expected to play in their overall strategy. The Lady Dorothea of Varragol, another distant relative, had also been involved originally. But she, too, had been betrayed by the infamous plotters and suffered so greatly herself at Fulgrim's hand that Corinna and Savatch had not sought further retribution after the death of Willum and the eventual overthrow and capture of Fulgrim.

  Lord Lundt, ignorant of Savatch's initial culpability in Corinna's kidnapping, had agreed to accept Dorothea's fresh oath of allegiance, realising that stories of strife among the ruling family would not benefit the security and continued stability of the state. The truth, he decided, should be available only to those with whom it could be trusted, and so a complex story had been constructed to explain away both Corinna's temporary disappearance, Willum's death, and the madness of Willum's wife, Benita, whose mind had actually snapped under the torture inflicted upon her by her vicious husband.

  Corinna's then new husband, Prince Lazlo Haas of the small coastal kingdom of Haafland, had guessed there was more than was being publicly admitted, for the changes her experiences had wrought in the once innocent Corinna were all too obvious, and the appointment of Savatch as her personal captain had confirmed the suspicions that formed in even his wine-addled head. His marriage to Lord Lundt's daughter had been one of political expediency, and Corinna viewed him with disgust and contempt from the beginning.

  If Lazlo had ever harboured thoughts that his new bride might one day become more disposed towards him, the arrival of Savatch quickly dispelled them and, never one to put up much of a fight in any cause, he had bowed to the inevitable. Although nominally still married to Corinna, he accepted Lundt's offer of a generous pension and returned to his homeland under the pretext of pressures of state business and, with his own father now aging and consumptive, it was unlikely he would ever return.

  In the male dominated society and politics of Illeum women, once out of sight, were generally quickly out of mind, and Lord Lundt was rapidly persuaded by his daughter that the castle at Garassotta was sufficiently beyond the immediate eyesight of the court at Illeum City to provide a sanctuary for her and her new love. The idea that a woman - a girl, moreover - should be appointed to the Stewardship of Garassotta was initially met with some misgivings. But when the story was put about that the young Lady Corinna had become ill with the tubular disease and that the clear fresh air in that north eastern outpost had been prescribed by her physicians, resistance quickly subsided.

  Besides, as Lundt was quick to point out, Garassotta had remained untroubled for so long that her title meant little, if anything, and the inner circle of advisers and officials, aware that something had gone awry in her marriage to the heir of one of Illeum's oldest allies, could not fail to concede that she would be better off as far away from the glare of big city life as possible.

  The year since she had come to Garassotta had been pleasant enough, Corinna had to admit. But now, as she sat in her high tower bedroom, looking out over the rolling treetops towards the nearer peaks of the Bund ranges, she knew that she had expected more from her life here.

  True, as nominal head of this small province and a good week's journey from the capital city, she was no longer quite so subject to the rigorous protocols that governed the palace and court life. She could ride, hunt, fish and move among what there was of the local population with a refreshing freedom, but...

  But there had to be more, and even her life with Savatch was no more than a parody, a pale copy of those weeks in which a combination of he and his whip had stirred the demons within her.

  'Damnation to all men!' she cried, pounding the stone window-sill with her fist. The wind about the tower sucked her voice out through the open window, where it dissipated and died among raucous cries of the flock of ravens that were circling the battlements just above. 'And damn you, too, my Lord Savatch,' she muttered, turning back into the room.

  Moving slowly, Corinna crossed to the large ornate bed that dominated the semi-circular chamber and knelt beside it, reaching underneath until her fingers closed on the handle of the low chest. With an effort, she managed to slide the heavy timbered box out into the open and then reached beneath the mattress for the small key she kept hidden there. A moment later, the lock turned with a well-oiled click and she lifted the lid, laying it back against the bed.

  The leather of the slave hood was as supple as the day it had first been crafted, the metal hooks and buckles gleaming from the regular polishing they received. Gently, Corinna lifted the soft hide in her hands, raising it to her nose and inhaling the warm aroma of the hide, remembering that first time she had worn it and the terror of the darkness and silence it had enforced as Savatch's wagon rattled and bumped out of the gates of Illeum City, one more naked slave girl in the back arousing no more than the expected carnal interest among the unsuspecting sentries.

  Reverently, Corinna laid the hood on the edge of the bed and reached down again to scoop up the wide slave belt with its attached cuffs. She had worn this, too, for that fateful journey, and had retrieved it, together with the hood and the a
nkle fetters, from Savatch's saddlebags before they had finally left Dorothea's castle mansion. He had seen her take the items, but said nothing, yet they had remained in the chest ever since their arrival at Garassotta, despite their regular private charades in the meantime.

  'Maybe now,' Corinna whispered to the empty room. 'Maybe now is the time.' She fingered the ankle cuffs, staring past them to the simple slave sandals that were the final contents of the chest, and a curious smile began to spread across her delicate features.

  Pecon sat just within the circle of firelight, well away from the wagon, playing idly with the small pile of coins that lay on the chamois spread between his feet. He had separated them into piles: fifteen gold krones, six piles each of ten silver telts, and a large handful of copper and bronze pennies, a total value of just over twenty krones.

  Inside the wagon lay four bundles of silks and three casks of spirits; together with the four handcrafted swords he had acquired from the smithy in Falstrad, they represented another ten krones, and with the girl likely to fetch at least two krones more, if and when he decided to sell her on, he could be well satisfied with his year's labours.

  Chasing runaway slaves had long since ceased to offer any real satisfaction, but at least it had proved a lucrative employment since Pecon had resigned from the Vorsan Guard corps and provided him with what was now a sizeable stake for his next venture. Between here and his intended destination there would be more slaves, no doubt, but whether he decided to track them or buy them depended upon the individuals.

  The girl, Demila, was a perfect specimen for the latter purpose. Tallish, young, muscled thighs and buttocks, with the potential for even better development given the appropriate training. Another eight or ten similar girls would ensure Pecon a warm welcome when he eventually found the trader from Erisvaal, whom he had met up with in Illeum City the previous summer. Ten like Demila, plus Pecon's own singular talents and the extra money he could offer, would be worth a half share in the fellow's enterprise, of that Pecon had no doubt.