Eric nodded and I walked to where I saw Zurkin polishing his spear blade.
“You late, Northerner.”
“I had business to attend to.”
“Just don’t be late for fight.” He chucked a spear at me and I caught it. “Late one to fight, late one to block, late one to cut: always lose.”
“Don’t worry, speed is not something the Black Orc will have over me.”
Zurkin leered at me and nodded toward the wall. “Who that?”
I glanced over to Eric who was standing under the shade of one of the courtyard walls observing us. “Just some new captive. Some boy who got caught for pickpocketing. Felt sorry for him so I figured I’d give him some advice, make sure he doesn’t get killed, at least until they throw him in the rin—”
Before I could finish Zurkin was thrusting his spear at me and we began training.
The sun passed noon and we set our spears upright and leaned into them. Sweat was glistening on my brow. “You getting better,” Zurkin said. “But still must learn to attack and block at same time.
“Rothan?” I heard Eric say, and suddenly noticed he had walked up to us.
“What did I tell you?”
“It’s just that I thought of something. You’re fighting the Black Orc, and everyone says it’s enormous, the size of an Elephantis, but you’re practicing against someone even smaller than you.”
“Boy, you should be seen, not heard, didn’t I tell you that?”
“He speaks true, Northerner,” Zurkin said. “Advantage always to know your enemy.”
I thought of that as I gripped my spear tight.
We finished eating at the dining hall, where I stayed silent and made sure Eric did as well. “Come,” I said and Eric followed me out of the noisy banquet. We hurried down one of the stone hallways.
“You’re allowed women and feasting,” Eric said in a hushed tone. “I can see why some men choose to be gladiators.”
“I am not one of them.” We passed by a guard, who I nodded to. “It’s true, those of us who survive and entertain well are given more favor as we prove ourselves. We’re given gold, jewels, weapons, titles, women, feasts, but none of that is true freedom, not for one who grew up running and hunting in the white fields of snow and the green fields of summer.”
We reached a hall that was open to the sky, its walls some twenty feet tall. Its surface was rough, and was either older than much of the coliseum, or newer, perhaps a hasty reconstruction of some kind. “Look up there,” I said. “Do you see that crack?”
“Aye, I do.”
“I’m going to hoist you up, and you’re going to peer through it, and tell me what you see.” I clasped my hands. He stepped on them and I lifted. He balanced on my shoulders.
“I don’t need to peer through this tiny crack.” He seemed quite the adept climber as he found grips to steady himself and climbed to the very top of the wall and peered over.
“That’s the training grounds for visiting ringmasters,” I said. “Do you see the beast I’ll be facing on the morrow?” Moments passed, and he leapt down.
“Well, did you see it?”
“Aye.”
“What is it like? How tall does it stand?”
“Its arms are the size of pine trunks, and if it stands on its toes it can peer over this wall.”
We were in my own training courtyard once more.
“This is quite ridiculous. Rothan, you sure this is of any use?” Timor said. He and Zurkin were pointing spears at me while Eric held a spear straight up into the air as tall as he could. On its blade was a melon he had impaled on it.
“Of course it’s of use,” Eric said. “You two are the Orc’s arms, and this is the eye that Rothan has to aim at.”
“Why not,” I said. “If I survive perhaps Eric will be known as Eric the Clever instead of Eric the Young.”
“Or you’ll be known as Rothan the Fool,” Timor said, “but fair enough.” The pair began thrusting spears at me while I did my best to parry and look for an opening to aim at the melon atop the spear. The spear blades jabbed me a few times and I had to retreat. The three did their best to stay close to one another, as the creature would be one whole. I took scrape after scrape of the dulled spears, but nothing that would have been mortal had they been truly sharp. Finally, I saw an opening for a split moment and I thrust my own spear and pierced the fruit, its juice oozing on my own spear blade.
“You got it!” Eric said.
I chuckled in amusement. Zurkin smiled broadly, but Timor still looked doubtful.
“If I do die tomorrow, Timor, what’s a last jape between friends?” I shook his hand, and we parted.
“Everything is prepared,” One Eye said as he and Eric stood at my chamber entrance. “We leave as soon as your fighting is done.”
“We’ll watch you fight!” Eric said. “We’re going to watch the whole thing, Rothan. I know you’re going to have that Orc’s head. I know it.”
“Enough, Eric.” One Eye looked back to me, and held his hand out. “For Wolf Rein.”
We clasped forearms. “For Wolf Rein.”
The guard opened my door then closed it again. I watched them go through the iron grates of the door. Two silhouettes fading into the shadows. Something inside me wanted to call out, to bid them a goodnight, a farewell, an embrace, but I found it strange. I would be seeing them on the morrow and the journey home.
I shut the inner door to my chamber to give myself some privacy.
My eyes roamed over the tapestries on my wall. One was of the known world, the continents of Skald, Dumos, Partha all painted in red against a sea blue—they looked like blood stains of the gods. I could trace my entire life with just a finger. Wolf Rein was just a dot. The battle of Hofgrail, where I lost my brother and was captured, was not even on the map. The campaign into the Midlands, where I fought for the enemy like a slave, were marked victories on the map by its imperial author.
I reclined in bed, wondering if the gods really dwelled in our destinies, if they traced our lives on parchment as I just had. I began to drift, weary of these thoughts.
The outer door screeched as its iron hinges swung open. Then there was a loud banging on the wooden inner door and the guard shouting.
“Northerner, your woman, here to see you!”
I lurched up. “Send her in!” I wiped sleep from my eyes. “Bellabel,” I said as I watched her beautifully curved form dash across the room in the torchlight. She was practically a walking treasure chest with how her metal adornments jangled. She leapt into my bed and thrust her arms around me, burying her face in my breast. “Bell.” She did not speak for some time, and I only held her. I felt her shuddering. “Why do you cry?”
“Why did you do it?” she asked, sobbing. “Why did you agree to fight the monster just for me?”
“Who told you such a thing?”
“You think I don’t know? The women from the pleasure chambers speak. That’s all they do.”
It was no use trying to hide it. “I did it… because… because you are warm, and warm things are rare in the north.”
“This is no jape. You truly agreed to all this? You staked your life for it?”
“Aye, it’s true. I agreed to slay the creature. And I did it to win your freedom.”
“But Rothan, what if…”
I grabbed her by the arms and sat her upright, looking into her eyes. “You think I will fail? You doubt me?”
She looked back into my eyes. “No, it’s just that…”
“Then dry your tears.” I ran my thumb on her cheeks and did just that. “There is nothing to fear. I will have the creature’s head tomorrow. I have survived volleys of arrows, armies clashing, disease and famine, arcane lightning, countless duels—what’s one ugly creature to stop me?”
“We really are leaving then?” A smile suddenly broke on her face, and her eyes danced with the reflecting light of the torches. They were honey colored with flecks of gold that reminded me of the desert
lands she came from. “You really will take me to the snowy fields you grew up in?”
“If that is what you want. What I am winning tomorrow, is my freedom… and yours. And that means you can come with me... or return to your homeland. Freedom is choice.”
“My homeland… is not my home. I have no father or mother, no kin. There are only slavers and rich men who would have me for sport. I want to go where you go, you who are risking your life for just a concubine.” She ran her hands on my bare chest.
“You are not just a concubine.” She reclined against me again, relaxed. I recalled how frightened, how beautiful she had looked that night when she was presented before the crowds in the coliseum. Her skin practically glowed in the sunlight, her face that of a woman in the flower of her youth. That sight of beauty surrounded by lusting shouts, had twisted my heart—but it truth, it had straightened it. “You know Bellabel, I have not told you this, but before you came to this city, I japed with the other gladiators, about who would win the concubine from Sarathea, about what we would do to her, and what japes we would shout as we ravaged her. They were japes, but now I realize, I was slowly becoming a man who would do more than jape about such things, and it shames me.”
“You live in a city where all beings are things, and all things have a price. Death and sold flesh are around you every day. The years here must take their toll. As they say in Sarathea, the sun turns everything white.”
I smiled and caressed her reed of a waist, her delicate hands, her glowing cheek. “Your hands, your entire body is always warm, like a living flame. It will be good. A northern home is always cold. You warm me in many ways, Bellabel, and I will make sure that your life is bright and good.”
“Rothan… you have opened your heart and so... I should open it too. I should tell you something... about myself.”
“And what is that?”
“I…” She sat up but as her hand searched for something to hold to, she accidentally knocked the candle over off the wooden stand. It fell right onto the bed. “Oh no!” She quickly picked up the candle and slapped the bed sheets to put out the hint of fire on them. I laughed silently. The room was half as bright now and the bedsheets singed.
“Good thing we won’t be using these much longer.”
She still seemed concerned. “This must be a sign from Akaraxis, lord of fire. But what could it mean?”
“It means you knocked over a candle.” I laughed and wrapped my arm around her tiny thing of a waist. “You look for signs too much. Now go on, tell me what you were going to say.”
Her eyes stirred with thought. My face this close to hers, I saw how much her eyes sparkled, how her lips glistened, how her long lashes swept up from her eyes. In those eyes I saw a fire of passion, of deep thought as she spoke.
“Rothan, I will give you warmth every night, I want to go with you, not just because it will mean leaving this awful place, but because I want to be yours, always. I want to serve you always. I want to warm you always. Do not cast me aside.”
“In truth,” I said, “I once did think of you as only a concubine, only a passing pleasure in this wretched place. But now, now—” I could not finish my words as I felt the urge to embrace her overwhelm me. I pulled her to me, one hand on her waist the other running through her thick locks, and I kissed her. I kissed her hungrily and she kissed me delicately. Our lips caressed for a time. Her tongue massaged mine.
She ran her lips on my neck, her hair grazing me slowly as she moved down my collarbone and chest. Then she began unfastening my belt as she kissed my stomach. My every garment came off, exposing my pale flesh to the candlelight. I felt her hand wrap around my masted manhood, her fingers soft and supple.
“You please me every night,” I said, leaning into her. “I want tonight to be about your pleasure. I want to pleasure you the way you pleasure me.” My mouth roamed hungrily over her neck, brushing against the coolness of the jewels on her choker, then feeling the rough texture of the beadwork on her brassiere contrast with the smooth warmth of her flesh. I parted her skirt, the silk fabric a sharp contrast on my hard, calloused hands. As I slid her panties from her hips, I saw her mound and the faint tuft of dark amber hair above it. Her eyes were fixed on me with a smouldering curiosity. Reaching under both her legs, I raised them and guided her to lie down on the bed.
My body completely enveloped her as I laid on top of her much smaller frame. My hands massaged her breasts through her beaded brassiere, then slid the beaded garment off, exposing her tits that were so perfectly cupped in my palms. As my mouth roamed on them, the fleshy mounds swayed, always returning to their plump forms as I jostled them with my hungry tongue. They tasted of something like cinnamon, honey and salt. There was an aching delight in her voice as she moaned under her breath. My lips tugged at her nipples, and they hardened, so that they felt like long beads in my mouth. Her breathing became ragged as I flicked my tongue. She was running her hand through my long hair as she enjoyed herself. My hand found her sex and I began sliding my fingers in and out of her wetness. My palm felt the tickling scratch of her mound’s tuft. She shuddered when my fingers found the small fleshy button at the top of her slit and began brushing it side to side.
I knew I was not nearly as good at these gentler aspects of love making as she was, but I tried to give her the slow, escalating caresses she gave me.
I saw her eyes were closed, her face a smile of pleasure.
“Rothan, you used to be such a brute at love making—” Her words were interrupted by a gasp. “You are learning quite—mmhhh—quite well.”
“I have had a good teacher.” My fingers were thickly wet with her folds’ liquid. “But I seem to recall that you rather like when I am a brute too.”
“I do—oh I love it when you are.” Her hips began stroking at me, like a cat asking to be played with. “I want that now. Ravage me, my master.” Her voice ached. Her fingers raked the back of my neck through my hair. “Fuck me. Fuck me hard.”
She was reclining back, running one hand along her slim belly, the other playing with her breasts. My manhood was rock hard as I looked down at her. “Good. I am much better at that.”
Moving her body was as easy as moving a cat’s. I grabbed her hips, turned her over and pulled her up to her knees so that her shining backside was facing me. “Rothan, you beast!” she said with a little squeal of delight.
I spread her legs just how I liked them then slid the head of my cock along her tight wetness. Her sex’s lips brushing against the tip of my manhood made it tense all the more, and I worked it inside her, spreading her foldings open inch by inch as I went. The high curve of her ass began arching still higher as I leaned into her, our movements as if a slow moving dance. She was tight as a bowstring, and seemed to pull me in, enveloping my shaft in achingly sweet sensation.
“Ohhhh… by all the gods,” she sighed as I began grinding my hips into hers, thrusting forcefully then gently sliding back. On our first nights together, I had been careful as I felt I was splitting her apart with how large I was compared to her, but after many a night of practice I knew she would somehow spread for me as I worked her insides. My cock continued sliding back and forth along the wet grooves of her sex, the sensation a sweet warmth that was sucking me into her. She tensed her lean but well defined hip muscles to take my strength.
“Now I can truly have you,” I muttered. I began pounding her then, plunging inside her to the base of my cock. Her hair danced like snakes on her tanned back as she trembled under my force. The sound of the gold ornaments that remained on her body was like a rainshower. Her high pitched moans were hurried, frantic. Faster and faster, harder and harder I went and her gasps of pleasure grew with my thrusting. I reached a feverish concentration as I pumped. Her ass cheeks were silky smooth, moist, round as perfectly sculpted copper gourds, and felt as the world’s greatest delight in my hands as they bounced against my hips’ flesh. Fp-Fp-Fp, was the sound we made, the love god clapping as the saying went. It merged with th
e sound of all the coins and beadwork on her garments jangling furiously, so that we made a frantic music together that sounded like a shower of coins all around us.
“Rothan! Ah! Just like that.” She looked back at me for a moment, her face contorted with pleasure. Her thick lashes half closed over her sultry eyes only added to the rush of exhilaration that was spreading to my entire body like a drug. I couldn’t resist her beauty. I reached toward her, brushed her hair back so I could go on gazing at her half turned face. I leaned my torso over her so I could nibble on her ear. “Just like….” she didn’t finish her words as her shoulders came down to meet the bed, and her hands reached back to spread her cheeks so I could plunge at a better angle. With every thrust I could feel the head of cock brushing against the harder flesh of her womb—her canal was pulsing, muscles clenching and unclenching on my engorged cock as it tried to squeeze every drop of pleasure and seed from me. My fingers dug into the firm flesh of her hips, and I clasped her tight. I leaned forward, pumping my cock into her again and again. Her ecstatic moans shuddered through her body. “Ohhhh! Mmmm! Yes! Rothan! Rothan!” Her voice always became so high pitched in the throes of passion. I went on with ecstatic thrusting. A sweet ache began to build all throughout my body. I breathed deep to hold off my cumming for I was not filled of enjoying her beauty just yet. I worked her in a steady fever of delight. Her hips jostled rhythmically as I slammed into them.
I felt her inner muscles contract around my cock as if grasping for its seed. Her eyes clamped shut, her mouth gaped open yet she made no sound, nor even moved for a fleeting moment. Then she let out a trembling scream as her orgasm rushed over her shuddering body like a river bursting through a breaking dam. My cock quirked as her canal squeezed, but I did not cumm, only let my hips bounce in short, quick thrusts to let her enjoy her climax. She caught a piece of the sheets in her mouth and squeezed to contain some of the tremors that were running through her. Her hips’ thrashing began to slow.
Wolf Blade: A Sword and Sorcery Fantasy Harem Page 3
