Bridled Lust Page 5

  ‘Swing those hips, whore,’ Fulgrim chuckled, flicking firmly at each buttock in turn. Hands still held helplessly at her sides, Dorothea started to sway her hips from side to side with each little leap, feeling totally ridiculous, yet only too well aware of the effect her display was having on the doomed soldier. In Helma’s small grip, his organ now looked more massive than ever, the flesh stretched thin and shiny, blue veins clearly visible beneath, the purple knob seemingly on the point of bursting, yet still Fulgrim was not satisfied.

  ‘Faster, you lazy cunt!’ he roared, laying three savage cuts across Dorothea’s buttocks with such venom that she all but toppled off balance. She squealed through the gagging bit and had to move forward in order not to fall headlong, bringing her closer still to the hapless Bendick, her flashing hoof boots now mere inches from the crouching maid in front of him.

  ‘That’s it!’ Fulgrim bellowed in triumph. ‘Now mount her, you bastards! Quickly now, let’s have her cunt plugged and give the bastard a real send off!’ At this, before Dorothea had time to realise what was happening, three of the execution squad leapt forward. The first grasped Helma by the hair and hauled her clear, while the other two seized Dorothea from either side, lifting her clear of the ground and carrying her forward, one hand each gripping a thigh, opening her legs and lowering her so that the waiting erection impaled her as they lowered her again.

  Immediately, Bendick threw one arm about her, as with the other he seized her right breast, kneading it viciously and then gripping the engorged nipple between finger and thumb. A small cry forced its way past her bit and she stared straight into his eyes, which shone dark and damp behind the hood mask, from behind which now also came a series of muffled grunts.

  In her elevated boots, Dorothea was easily able to reach the ground and still retain enough height in which to raise and lower herself. Biting hard into the bit, she proceeded to do so now, while Bendick continued to hold her close and, to her amazement, she realised he was responding, thrusting up and down as far as the neck collar permitted, in time with her own efforts.

  It could not last long and nor did it. Despite his gag and mask, the doomed man let out a high-pitched screech of release and, as his body began to buck, Dorothea felt the hot spray of his seed shooting up into her. At the same time, from behind his shoulder, she saw the one remaining soldier from the execution party. His arm rose, swung and the hammer arced towards its target; the blunted spike was driven forward, through Bendick’s neck and out again, the tip of it appearing through the hole at the front of the collar.

  He was dead even before his orgasm finished, a slow trickle of blood beginning to ooze down his now lifeless chest and Dorothea fell backwards, to be caught by two pairs of waiting arms as his immediately deflating phallus slipped from her dripping sex.

  ‘Keep your fool head down!’ Jekka’s whispered command scythed through the still night air and Ceth immediately flattened himself into the grass. ‘The moon will make us stand out like boils on a bald man’s head, if it suddenly comes out from behind those clouds,’ she added.

  ‘Sorry, madam.’ The young Illean trooper raised his eyes to her, his voice sounding shaky. ‘It’s just that I’ve never really done anything like this before,’ he added lamely, and Jekka chuckled in the near darkness.

  ‘Spend all your nights in a nice warm guardhouse at Garassotta, I expect,’ she said. ‘Well, this is what real fighting is all about and we’ve hardly yet started. Just remember, this ground is so damned flat and there’s very little cover - that’s why they’ve screened their campfires over there, see?’ She pointed towards the myriad tiny flickering lights that spread across the ground amongst the spattering of scraggy trees a few hundred yards ahead of them.

  ‘They’re also keeping very quiet, for an army encampment, especially. This is difficult country in which to remain concealed and their commanders evidently appreciate that.’

  ‘They’re trying to maintain an element of surprise, then?’ Ceth said.

  Jekka nodded. ‘Clever boy,’ she chuckled. ‘You learn quickly, but let’s hope it’s quickly enough. Now, use your eyes instead of your mouth and tell me what you see.’

  ‘Not that much, except for the campfires,’ Ceth admitted. ‘Are you sure that’s what they are? They don’t look very big to me, not big enough for proper fires, anyway.’

  ‘As I said,’ Jekka replied, ‘they’ve almost certainly placed canvas or sacking screens around them, to stop the light from shining out too far. Of course, it’s impossible to block out their light altogether, so what we’re seeing is just the little bit that’s escaping.

  ‘It’s not perfect,’ she continued, ‘but imagine how much light that many fires would give out without the screens. They’d be visible as far as the eye can see and it would be obvious to anyone what they were looking at.’

  ‘If I were their commander,’ Ceth suggested, ‘I’d have pickets posted way out from the main camp, to alert me if anyone did stumble across them.’

  ‘So would I,’ Jekka agreed, ‘and I expect there are pickets both south and north, covering the obvious approaches. They may well have sentries roaming to the western side, too, but we’ve approached from the east and not far behind us is a lot of very swampy land. Any travellers still on the road at this time of night would avoid that area like a plague, believe me.’

  ‘So, what are we going to do now?’ Ceth asked. ‘Do we just lie here and watch still?’

  ‘For the moment, yes,’ Jekka confirmed. ‘I want to get some idea of just how many they are. Things back at Erisroth were a tad confusing, don’t forget, and we may well not have been seeing anything like their full strength there anyway.’

  ‘Well, apart from those fires, I can’t see anything anyway,’ Ceth said, and Jekka chuckled again.

  ‘You’re not an Yslander,’ she said.

  In the darkness the young man’s eyes blinked. ‘You mean Yslanders can see in the dark?’ he asked, clearly awed.

  Jekka sighed. ‘Only gods and demons see in the dark,’ she said, ‘but in a few minutes from now, those clouds up there will have moved over and the moon will show us all we need to see. Just as long as they don’t see us, we’ll be able to lie here and count numbers.’

  ‘We’re not going any closer tonight, then?’ Ceth sounded nervous, but not afraid.

  ‘No,’ Jekka said, ‘not tonight. No cover and we have no idea how they are disposed over there. No, we watch and we count and we also listen. Sound carries easily across flat ground when there is little wind, so who knows what we may learn from careless lips, eh?’

  To her relief, when they finally reached the shallow hollow to the east of the main encampment, Halit turned Corinna around and unclipped her bit, drawing it from between her lips and tossing it down onto the coarse grass.

  ‘Feel better, little pony?’ he asked, grinning so that his teeth showed white in the moonlight.

  Gratefully, Corinna nodded. ‘Yes, master,’ she said, swallowing two or three times and then wiping her mouth on the back of her right mitt. ‘Tell me, master,’ she asked, ‘why do you make us wear the bit throughout the night time, too?’

  ‘Noise, little one,’ Halit answered. He stretched out an arm and swung it around in a gesture that included the horizon on all sides. ‘Hundreds of chattering little bitches, even if they were chattering quietly, that makes for a lot of noise and noise travels a long way at night, especially in these parts.’

  ‘I don’t understand why that would worry you, master,’ Corinna persisted. A glimmer of hope had sprung up at his disclosure; perhaps there were friendly forces in the area after all, although where they might have come from she had no idea.

  ‘The night has ears,’ Halit said, ‘and the ears may not all be that friendly. The Lord Fulgrim would prefer that news of our progress did not precede us if at all possible. By day we can send out scouts against unexpected eyes, but by
night we can hope for no such protection and so we make as little noise as possible, and you fine little fillies must continue to remain gagged against any chance of giving our camp away.’

  ‘Then perhaps you should gag me again, master.’ It was an outrageous gamble, for Corinna’s jaws were aching badly enough to appreciate even a few more minutes of relief from the dreadful bit, but she sensed that in Halit there was just the chance of cultivating a sympathetic friend, if not an outright ally. The fellow seemed to find this funny, however, and to her relief Corinna saw that he had seen the point of her joke.

  ‘A noisy little filly when mated, are you?’ he chuckled. He stepped closer to her and reached out to stroke her breasts. ‘Well, little Flix, soon we shall see about that and mayhap I can find a better way of quieting your noise than a piece of metal covered in leather.’

  ‘Fulgrim may be a murdering madman in some respects,’ Savatch observed, dryly, ‘but he’s not insane when it comes to political and military matters.’

  ‘So you keep saying,’ Alanna replied, brushing her pale hair away from her face and leaning back against the canvas side of the wagon. ‘But we still don’t really know for sure what he’s up to, do we? At this point, we are simply surmising.’

  ‘Everything points to us be right,’ Savatch persisted. ‘There could be no other reason for his having assembled so many troops in and around Erisroth and they are now moving north, which fits exactly with an attack on Garassotta.’

  ‘Unless he intends to continue north into the Snow Kingdoms, or even to go around and move into Sorabund. If the Vorsans could occupy Sorabund, that would impose a threat on Illeum’s northern borders, without actually invading Illean territory, which would be a blatant act of war.’

  ‘Everything about Fulgrim is blatant,’ Savatch said. ‘And everything is right for him at this moment. Illeum’s main army, for what it is worth, is mostly concentrated in the south, protecting the borders of Tamarinia and to an extent, Karli, through which any Vorsan army would normally be expected to attack. The borders in the north and northeast, even as far south as Varragol itself, have always had the protection of nature herself; mountains, forests and swamps, through which it would be difficult for an army to advance.

  ‘The few roads through are then protected by strongholds, such as Castle Garassotta, impregnable to attack and easily defended by a relatively small garrison.’

  ‘But Varragol is also such a stronghold,’ Alanna reminded him, ‘and he has already captured and then abandoned that. Why move north on Garassotta when he already had his route secured?’

  ‘Because Varragol is far enough south for the main army to move and blockade it. It’s not a true frontier stronghold in the same sense as Garassotta. Look at the map in my satchel. For Lundt to effect a siege of Garassotta and confront Fulgrim’s forces, he would have to move many men away from the south, weakening the defensive lines there.

  ‘Besides, Garassotta can be strengthened more easily from outside Illeum. A Vorsan fleet could land reinforcements in Sorabund, move them east and then follow the Sorabis river south to the castle. Sorabund has virtually no army worth speaking of and many of the factions there would gladly throw in their lot with Fulgrim, in exchange for the promise of a slice of Illean coastal territory.

  ‘I tell you, Alanna, I’m certain that’s what the bastard plans. It’s exactly what I’d do, if I were in his boots. Besides, with Corinna as a bargaining tool he can afford to forget about Varragol when he knows Garassotta will surrender to save her.’

  ‘If the girl really is Corinna,’ Alanna said. ‘We don’t even know the girl Jekka saw was her, or merely someone resembling her.’

  ‘I know it has to be Corinna!’ Savatch snapped back. ‘You heard what the physician’s daughter said and those lads from the village. Pecon was taking her east to Erisroth, so it has to be more than just coincidence.

  ‘Besides,’ he added, his tone more reasonable suddenly, ‘it doesn’t really matter if it’s her or not, does it? If the girl she saw looks enough like Corinna to fool Jekka, then she’ll fool those oafs at Garassotta for sure and, whether she is Corinna, if she’s not Corinna, if Fulgrim realises it’s her, or whether he’s fooled into thinking she’s just a convenient double, the end result will be the same.

  ‘Garassotta will fall to Fulgrim and there will be a war that Illeum probably cannot win. The Vorsan alliance will hold the power and the world we know will be there’s to rule.’

  ‘And what if we cannot get this girl - Corinna or otherwise - away from Fulgrim?’ Alanna said carefully. ‘What will you do then, my noble lord? Have you considered the alternatives?’

  ‘I have, yes.’ Savatch closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath. ‘If we cannot rescue Corinna - or her double, if indeed that’s who she is - then I must get to Garassotta before Fulgrim and make sure the garrison stands fast.’

  ‘Even knowing that it could mean death for Corinna?’

  ‘Yes.’ Savatch nodded slowly. ‘Even knowing it means death for the woman who has come to mean everything to me. It is what she would want, I am sure.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alanna agreed, her voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Yes, I believe she would. Besides,’ she added, closing her own eyes, ‘she may not even be Corinna. Keep that thought firmly in your head as well, my friend.’

  Both contestants were quickly freed and given swords. Rolf made a great show of examining his weapon, swinging it to and fro, first in one hand, then in the other, and then again with two hands, cutting and thrusting at an imaginary opponent. Opal, meanwhile, simply held her blade up to the light of one of the lamps, peered along its length and then placed the point of it in the mud between her feet, resting both hands on the hilt and closing her eyes. Demila saw her lips moving slightly and guessed that she was offering either a prayer or a blessing.

  To the hooded slave, still huddled in her corner, the contest looked as if it would be very short run and, despite what her master, Pecon, had said about the Yslandic women, she could not believe that the frail looking blonde could really be expected to defeat the muscular young man standing opposite her. The warrior women were reputed to be great fighters and ruthless assassins, but Opal looked far too young to have gained sufficient of their legendary skills.

  Having seen the two Yslanders that Pecon had bought the snow land bandit from, Demila could easily make a comparison. Both had seemed much taller, more developed, more mature, whereas Opal, despite her own height, still had the childlike aura of innocence. Demila closed her eyes and offered up her own silent prayer, hoping that Rolf would not actually kill her, even though that would mean the girl facing a lifetime of slavery.

  Perhaps, Demila thought, Opal would be as lucky in time as she herself now was and find a master as handsome and fine as Pecon...

  Preoccupied with these thoughts, it came as a surprise to Demila to see that several of the men now cradled loaded crossbows in their laps and for a moment her heart lurched. Did Farridan intend to renege on his word? Would the eventual victor of the contest then be simply shot in cold blood? Pecon, however, appeared totally unworried by the sight of the deadly weapons and this at least gave her renewed confidence.

  ‘If I shout to you to fall back,’ he said, addressing himself to Opal and Rolf, ‘you will do so on the instant, otherwise you may find yourself with a bolt through your heart. I will not do so, however, in order to spare the life or influence the outcome of this fight, merely if I see foul play.’

  ‘Foul play?’ Rolf echoed, mockingly. ‘Surely sir, all is fair in war?’

  ‘Nearly enough, yes,’ Pecon agreed, ‘just so long as there is no outside interference.’ He half turned and looked meaningfully at Farridan, who returned him a sly grin. ‘Now then, take stance and await my word.’

  With a swagger, Rolf strolled a few paces and then turned, sword raised before him in his two hands. Opal, without looking at him
, glided to a position facing him, the two separated by perhaps four paces. She held her own blade in her right hand, the weapon looking far too heavy and cumbersome for one so slightly built. Pecon looked from one to the other, raised his hand and then let it fall.

  ‘Fight!’ he cried, and instantly Rolf lunged forward, slashing left and right, his sword hissing through the air, but that was all the edge found, for Opal was suddenly not there, her movements so swift that Demila hardly believed she had seen someone make them. At almost the same instant, her blade swung and Rolf was fortunate to parry the blow as he staggered sideways. From the watching villagers came a concerted ‘aahh!’ of approval.

  ‘Slippery little snake, I see!’ Rolf gasped, regaining his balance quickly and turning square on to Opal once more. She made no reply, but stood motionless, like a pale statue, waiting for him to make the next move.

  This time he feinted to swing and then changed his stroke to a forward thrust, but Opal simply turned this aside, stepped past him and delivered a flat bladed swat across his naked buttocks. The village men roared with laughter as Rolf was sent hurtling off balance, but Demila could not understand why the Yslandic girl had chosen not to deliver the blow with the sharp edge instead. It would not have been a fatal blow, but it would certainly have disabled her opponent and made him a very easy target afterwards.

  However, within another minute or so, Demila understood - Opal was simply playing with her opponent, teasing him, turning him, making him look foolish. He was clearly an experienced and brave fighter, but, contrary to the obvious first appearances, he was no match for her speed, agility and anticipation. He hacked, swung and thrust, but not once did his blade come even close to her unprotected body.