by E M White
“Vadric, I’ve needed this. You.” She reached for his hand.
Vadric paused. “Zacharius?”
Sarina squeezed his hand and shook her head. “I’m not worried. Yet.” Her eyes darted to the flap of her tent.
He said, “You’ve been overworked, I was afraid tonight wouldn’t…”
“We’ve all been overworked, Vadric. The army needs to move faster. Whoever this Magnus Sinn is, he won’t wait for us.”
Vadric’s voice was low but lighthearted. “Some things. We need to make time for some things.”
“Well spoken, Captain.”
Nobody would ever say the huge half-man had a way with words. But he did have a way with soldiers. And he knew how to get things done. Sarina liked that in a man. A lot.
She sat up in her bed, already naked for him. She saw him look as her breasts swayed. His face grew taut as he took her in, gazing at her body, gazing at her eyes, darkened around the edges with black kohl, just like she did before battle. A small space appeared between his lips, around the two tusks that rose from his broad, powerful lower jaw.
She nodded to the flap he’d come from, that led into her command tent. “Akimi sleeping?”
Vadric smiled and chuckled. “She sleeps? In bed, though. A pile of your correspondence keeps her company.”
Sarina dragged her fingertips up Vadric’s long, thick, dark-skinned arm. “Akimi’s used to me by now.”
She felt the rise and fall along the bunches of muscle, along all his crooks and curves. She knew she was sending shivers to places all over his vast body, even where she wasn’t touching. She knew it because she was feeling them too. Sarina’s breaths shortened when he shuddered—almost imperceptibly. But she knew his body.
With his yellow piercing eyes, he followed her fingers until he couldn’t see, as they curled around the back of his wide neck, then up the back of his head to his tightly wrapped top-knot. He let out a long, deep breath, a rumble of pleasure and anticipation almost too low for her human ears to hear. She saw there was a lot of tension in the big man. There was a lot of tension in her too. Times were full of physical labor and heavy thoughts of battle to come.
He crouched at the side of her bed, ready to pounce, his huge muscles shifting and tensing in turn.
“Are you going to give me what I need?” She brought her wandering fingers to his pointed ear, sensitive on a beast such as even him.
He groaned at her touch. “There is nothing I desire more,” his yellow eyes rolled, vertical pupils dilating and swimming about, “than to please my princess.”
She took his dense, strong hand, almost twice the size of her own, and placed it upon her, in the middle of her chest. “Then do it.”
The heat from his dark skin filled the tent like a furnace.
Or it could have been coming from her.
They did have this effect on each other.
Sarina pulled her hair back over her shoulders, sat up on her wide haunches. She let Vadric see her. Completely. From the mound of auburn hair down below to her soft round breasts swaying in the candlelight to her wet, thick lower lip that she’d begun to suck into her mouth.
Vadric leaned toward her as his eyes danced up and down her tender body. She could practically see him trying not to grunt—the most savage side of his heritage trying to burn through his fragile, tenuous restraint. She fucking loved it.
She put her hands on the bed, on either side of her hips. She leaned back as he moved forward. Smiling. Chest surging with faster and shallower breaths. She spread her thighs as he advanced. She exposed herself to him. The air of the tent felt like a gentle touch. A warm ache down there began to grow, to crawl along her limbs.
He kissed the side of her neck. His hard, sharp tusks pressed carefully against her delicate skin. His hot breath cascaded down her body.
Her hips began rocking against the furs beneath her.
Usually, Sarina didn’t like to be controlled. Once, when she was nine, three noblemen from a tribe she and her father were visiting had tried to control her. All at the same time.
Unfortunately for them, father had given Sarina her mother’s bodkin. One of those men didn’t come out of that room alive. The other two died the next day with crossbow bolts in their eyes, barbarian justice dispensed from her father’s own champion.
Once a thing happens like that, it’s always there in the back of a woman’s mind. Always. How far back, it just depends on the day.
So giving herself like this, with no defense, with no reservation, to a massive man whose strength and savagery was frightening…she knew she was beginning to love him, knew she was giving herself more to him than just her body. The first twenty times they fucked, Sarina and Vadric, she’d remained guarded. But now…
She wrapped her arms about his shoulders. And pressed her soft breasts into him.
And still, he came down. The bed creaked. He pressed upon her.
She ran a tongue along the rim of his pointed ear, gasping at his weight. She massaged the dense muscles down his back. Her arms could barely reach around him, barely reach to the top of his trousers to slide her fingers in.
His hips pushed against her naked body.
Making love with Vadric was a unique experience. It was a delight, a deep fulfillment. The combination of his two bloodlines she could get from no one else.
They paused to kiss, mouth to mouth, softly and slowly. More of their hot breath spilled between them. She craved the touch of his tusks about her cheeks. Even these two beings, with their dominate passions, needed to take the time to be tender. They deserved it.
She felt his hands slide under her.
She saw he was grinning when he flipped her over.
She let out a loud gasp. The first of many.
His large hands groped her back, rubbed the sides of her shoulders. Powerful fingers drew a line down her spine.
She tucked her arms under her chest. She was completely defenseless now. And the pleasure down below was beginning to swarm all about her.
Helpless. For the right man. It was just how she liked it.
Vadric pulled up her hips. Sarina gasped again. Louder this time.
Ready now to really get his blood pumping, she said over her shoulder, “Imagine what my father will think…” She began settling into position, chest down, bottom up, completely defenseless, “A third commission, won and done…”
He slowly kissed the wide curves of her hips that spread before him. He said, “And for you, a more experienced army to take you farther and farther in the ranks of the council…”
She began, unconsciously, to rotate her hips in front of him. “I will take you with me, Vadric, however high.”
His tongue came out, and he ran it along her tender skin directly around her softest parts. He said between licks, “All of Auzurix will be consumed with gossip of us…of the beautiful barbarian princess…who dominates the battlefield…”
Half her face was pressed into the soft, black furs of her bed. “Of the exceptional captain of her second company…” Sarina whimpered. She slid a fingertip across her lips, into her mouth, and sucked.
“And we will have earned it…all…” With that, he took that wide ass in both his huge hands, spread it wider, exposing her wet, aching pussy before his tense face. He groaned at the sight. “Fucking gorgeous.”
Then, he dove in.
Sarina yelped and shuddered. Repeatedly.
His tongue was so soft, the pressure so strong. Two tusks rubbing her inner thighs…
The candlelight flickered and swayed about them, dancing along the tent walls, glinting off her stowed armor and her sword perched above, off the ebony feathers of her raven headdress. And the incense, sweet and mild, melded with the warm scent of her floating up into the air.
The drums of battle began thundering in her head. The bronze horns trumpeted with peals of glory throughout her being.
Poor Akimi.
She really could have used the sleep tonight.
Arrival At Tias
By the third day into their northward march toward Tias, the Korinth Mountains, separating the Sacred Empire from the Savage Reaches, had dropped far behind them. Even the high-flying scavengers, who knew the meaning of a marching army and stayed abreast, could no longer see those dignified peaks.
Late in the days, the rowdy two-headed bats would join Sarina and her army. Witchdoctors from both companies would hoot at the campfires. They argued over the portents of the bats’ patterns, whether they meant glory and victory at the walls of Tias—or slaughter and defeat. And the soldiers, who knew not that the witchdoctors were nothing but talk, would take sides, resorting to blows as the nights grew on.
During the days, Sarina kept her eyes to the horizon. The long and low hills, browned in the summer heat, relieved none of her agitations.
How far out was Magnus’ army from Tias? Two day’s march?
What types of terrain would they scale when these two powers collided?
So much depended on the speed of his army, not only the rapid march she demanded of her own.
Above all, where was Zacharius with this intelligence?
Why hadn’t he sent word?
Worst-case scenarios plagued her heart beyond their usual toll.
Is he alive?
Dead?
Had he ridden too close to Magnus Sinn’s own outriders?
Onäs Grimblade rode alongside her as they passed the first farms, the poorest of them, still a league out from Tias. “I’m unused to seeing such worry upon your face, Highness,” the gray elf said, tucking his reins under a thigh.
Tenants came to the road. They gawked at the army of barbarians come to save them—but just as likely to raid them, to plunder their crops, to empty their storehouses. They leaned on the fences. They made no attempt to greet the passing men-at-arms nor their long tail of wagons.
“See these farmers,” Sarina pointed out some.
Onäs followed her finger. “Aye, m’lady. Where is everyone?”
“Do they look relieved to see us?”
“Not in the least.”
She returned her gaze back to the dark rise of land before them, the ever-winding road. “They’re expecting an Imperial legion, Onäs. Not us.”
Still no sight of Zacharius.
She added, “What do they know, that we don’t?”
Big Markus trotted alongside, breaking formation to join them up front. “Nothing more than rumors, Your Highness. Magnus leaves very few survivors.”
Markus and Onäs nodded respectful salutations to each other.
Sarina failed to imagine a reply for Markus. She fell silent, a sour taste in the back of her mouth.
Again, she watched the rutted road far ahead for signs of her mage and his twin acolytes.
A little later, Markus called, “Stockades ahead!” though Sarina had already seen them crest the distant hills. He said, “Here’s hoping this mayor is friendlier than the last.”
Markus and Onäs heeled their mounts and trotted ahead, just the two of them, to reach the gates long before Sarina put herself within range of the bowmen lining haphazardly now along the parapets.
It was easier than advising her to slow down.
Maps.
They weren’t the first things she took to when she earned her command, but Markus made a point of showing Sarina the necessity of them early on in her new position of leadership.
There was so much life—and death—in maps. If used properly.
A good commander, he’d drilled into her, was never far from a good map.
She thought she was showing him up when, it was over a year ago, she’d argued, “Then the best commanders should memorize their maps and keep their hands free for swinging their sword.”
Markus grinned at her enthusiasm. “Young lady, you can’t remember what I taught you yesterday. Try remembering a map, Princess, and in the haze of battle you’ll send a whole company down a ravine where you thought there was a hillock, and the lot of them’ll eat fire arrows until the last one curses your name as he dies.” Markus got quite a laugh from the image.
Tias’ foreman of the garrison, nothing Imperial about any of them, rolled out his maps, two of them, a half-century difference in age. Sarina compared these to her own, which Akimi had produced without needing to be asked.
They were on the north end of the village, facing the rising breeze that now came every evening, atop the thin, feeble palisades.
The foreman and two of his lackeys, armored in leather and fur, leaned over the maps curiously, cautiously, like they were inspecting ancient, arcane spells they could know nothing about.
She kept her eyes on the faded documents. “You’ve reinforced the gates?”
The foreman began nodding with excessive enthusiasm. “Been at it, day before last.”
“Any closer to being done?”
The guard stopped nodding. He glanced nervously at Markus, then Onäs. His brow became pinched in fear. Like everyone else scurrying about the Tias. Preparing for an invading army that would inevitably come to their gates.
Sarina didn’t wait for an excuse. “Captain Markus, rally a unit of engineers to support the locals. Check the ramparts for defects, please. Plow these trenches deeper.”
Markus reacted with the urgency she required. He stomped off to locate his sergeants.
“Sir, have your bowmen laid out markers? Do they know the road?” Her finger was tracing the lines on the map, not around the village but far out beyond the surrounding hills, far out where the dark clouds were already gathering, whipping up the horizon. That’s where her mind was. Thinking again of Zacharius.
“Markers, ma’am?” Again, the foreman of the garrison looked to the faces of others for answers.
Onäs squared off with him. Sarina didn’t need to see her champion’s expression but heard the resentment in his voice when he said, “She’s a princess, man. Here to save your souls. Act accordingly.”
“It’s fine, Onäs. They’re doing their best.”
Sarina knew their best was far from adequate. If they had four days until the approaching enemy came over the hills, if they had three, they had a lot of work to do.
Reworking the progress of untrained locals was another part of a commander’s lot that no one had told her about growing up.
She’d hoped to help Tias prepare for a siege. But there’d be no siege here.
If Magnus Sinn reached this stockade, he’d merely step over it, almost literally, trailing a torch behind him, just as easily burning it all to the ground as he passed.
She grabbed her hair and forced a leather tie around it. Again with the wind.
Always coming with twilight. Then the rain.
This sort of thing, Sarina imagined, fueled the fancy of those same witchdoctors in her army. They’d receive a well-deserved beating from Vadric, who was tonight in charge of the bivouac, for dallying instead of making their camp, half a league west of the village, to chant their counterfeit prophecies.
A yelp came from atop the gate. Everyone turned.
Then, “Riiiiders!” The man practically shrieked the word.
Sarina leaned over the parapet to see better in the fading light.
There were two of them. Only Uthril knew how they got so close without anyone raising the alarm.
The foreman beat the gate crew to it, overdoing it, “Who’s there! State your business!”
Sarina saw the faces of the two youngsters as they looked up. She knew their long red hair well. It was the twins.
But no Zacharius.
She could barely get the words out. “What news?” she asked. “Where’s your master?”
One reined his steed closer to the wooden wall, his face raised, his wide-set eyes peering upward.
“We don’t know, your Highness.”
Sarina felt every muscle in her body tense. The vellum map in her hands paid the price. She turned to the gate steps. She’d throttle the twins half to
death, despite their immense popularity, for allowing anything to happen to Zacharius.
“Your Highness!” The other redhead called out, stopping Sarina before she could descend the steps and break their necks.
“Our master sends us with a message! Says he’s riding on to Glat, farther down the road.”
She’d seen Glat on the maps, a town far beyond the protection of the Empire, far beyond their commission to protect Tias. “Riding on?” she said through her teeth. “What do you mean riding on?”
“That’s where Magnus Sinn is warring. As we speak, Your Highness. Flames higher than the hills.”
“We’ve seen them!”
This was not the good news she’d expected.
“What’s the point of that?”
She heard her own apprehension, trying to sound firm but failing.
The twins looked at each other blankly, like Sarina had lost her wits.
One said simply, as they both stared up to her, struggling to keep their horses still, “Why, to get a closer look. Of course.”
Zacharius, White Witch
10
Zacharius Encounters Magnus Sinn
When Zacharius was still four hundred paces from Magnus Sinn’s camp, he killed the first two karnogs of his life.
Not a bad job either.
The karnogs had sat in darkness, far from bustle and light of the others, silently and motionless. Their large eyes were unfailingly directed outward, toward the extensive plains shrouded in darkness, toward the southern lowlands and, after that, the undulating hills. They represented part of the outer guard.
So steadfast was their gaze to their fronts that they failed to make out Zacharius’ silent sprint over the sparse grass, attacking their flank.
He didn’t allow himself time to feel fear.
Two blades. One in each hand. Stygian robes tied about his limbs. A Hush Spell on his lips beginning from thirty paces, despite his labored breaths. Six paces out from the closest karnog, he leaped, knees extended before him in case, Shia forbid, his blades missed their mark.
