I had no idea I could run so fast. Despite the exertion from fighting several men, I moved like a cheetah. Okay, maybe not quite that fast, but at least a lion—a lion hopped up on something and with a bloodlust for its prey. The would-be lady killer didn't see me coming. I leaped to clear the last five feet and caught him with my sword arm around his neck and head, knocking him down and spinning him around, as I tumbled next to him. We both got up at the same time, but he looked worse for the tackle.
We faced off without a word, each of us letting our swords do the talking. As we stood a few feet from one another, both of us no doubt about to make a move, an arrow flew between us—a little closer to me. I glanced up the hill and saw Monica gesture a panicked apology. I shook my head at her and left it at that, needing to focus on the sword coming at me.
His swing lacked speed, and by the looks of it, power too. If he could've killed me—magically somehow—with the expression on his face, the look of utter malice, I'd have dropped dead on the spot. Thankfully, we kept to steel. I parried his first and second attack. My turn played out much more decisively. He had his sword up in the right place, at the right time, at the correct angle. His arm lacked the strength to deal with what I'd put into my blade—going after the women stirred my barbarian instincts to a whole new level. His arm and blade gave way as my sword hacked into the spot where his neck met his shoulder. A second later, a lifeless heap of flesh collapsed before me.
Tara and Monica each yelled something in turn, but my breathing and the thumping swell of my blood still boiling drowned the details of their words. I stood in a wide stance, taking the moment to come back to my normal senses.
A loud bray sounded behind, back down the slope. I looked back. One of the men I thought had died was crawling toward Pudding. With his sword in hand, the flat of its blade patting the dirt as he moved closer, he'd almost reached her.
Bastard!
There's no way I can make it down there in time, I thought. I glanced back to Tara and Monica and pointed to Pudding at the same time, hoping one of the women could hit the man with an arrow. Tara took a shot, but missed.
The man stood and raised his sword to strike Pudding in the neck.
I took a few quick steps to get better footing and a little closer, then I hurled my sword down at the man. It spun furiously, but somehow it flew true. I'd given it everything I had—my strength and focus. Pudding had to be saved.
My sword hit him blade first, the kind of thing that only happens in movies. Alara's magic in me? Luck? I had no idea, but I'd saved Pudding. The sword knocked him back several feet and pinned him propped up at an angle like he was sitting in a recliner. Dead tired.
I held my throwing arm out for a moment and stared at what I'd done. Then I dropped it and let out a sigh of relief. Pudding looked at me and reared back on her hind legs, flittering her front ones in the air as she neighed. She dropped back to all fours and stared at me for a few seconds before jutting her head upward as she snorted.
"You're welcome, girl," I said quietly.
"Den!"
I turned around. Tara was running down the slope to me. Monica was coming down too, but at a walk. Tara evidently had dropped her bow. She had her arms wide. I waited for her embrace.
Chapter 13
Ms. Thompson dropped the scrying ball over her shoulder, stepping forward to move clear of the scattering lavender debris as the ball smashed on the stone floor behind her. Pieces crunched under her thigh-high black boots with her last few steps to the oak reading stand against the wall.
She nudged one of the forty floating candles closer to shine more light on the pages of the book on the stand. It sat opened two-thirds of the way through the magical text. Running her finger below the strange black characters, she whispered their meanings. She knew it held the key to getting what she needed from Den, but the old man hadn't taught her enough yet for her to make full sense of it.
A knock sounded on the door. "My love?" the old man said, his voice muffled by the thick wood.
She held up a finger without raising her eyes from the page, which she continued to read.
The man knocked again, and she glanced at her finger and realized he wasn't in the room to see her signal to wait. She waved her hand and the door opened.
The old man came into the room, looking first at the floor. He gathered the sides of his long gray robes in his hands and raised the bottom of it to keep it from touching the pieces of the second broken scrying ball. "I'm getting tired of keeping that Balinite man around. Why did you have to bring him here?"
"Hmm?" She paid the old man no attention aside from quickly noting out of the corner of her eye what he was doing, despite her response.
"I'd feed him to one of the pets, but I don't want more of his people coming around. I'll have to get rid of him one of these days. I should have chosen a different spot to conjure my tower…though the old foundations here did work out nicely."
"You said you transported it from across the sea, using a traveling fire circle, or portal, I guess."
"Yes. So?"
"That's not actually conjuring, from what I've been reading."
"Oh, fine. You know what I meant. You spend too much time in those books."
"Uh, huh." She continued to examine the writing in the book.
Turning his eyes to her, he opened his mouth to speak again, but she raised her index finger once more.
She glanced over and saw him close his mouth, waiting for her to finish reading the last passage on the page.
She raised her eyes from the page, but didn't face him.
"You know that only works if you've…been with the person before."
She put her palm over the text and smiled. "What did you want?
The man glided his hand down his beard, smoothing a few errant parts, then he corrected his slouch. "I've come to see if you would like something to eat." He grinned. "I've conjured up quite a feast downstairs." He raised the heels of his boots slightly a few times in sync with his rising eyebrows. "What do you say?"
She grabbed one of the candles from the air and walked over to him. His chin drew back a little and a faint crease appeared on his forehead. Holding the lit candle beside his face, she smiled. "My love." She glanced at the candle, then looked into his squinting eyes. "I would love something."
He relaxed his brow. "Good. I'll-"
"I would love for your men to have done their job," she said, raising her voice.
"I'm sorry, my love. They were mercenaries." He looked away to the ground. "Just not very good ones, evidently."
"Aah!" She turned away and set the candle back in the air.
"You know I would do anything to make you happy, my love."
She tapped the toe of her right boot against the stone floor for a moment.
"My love?" he said.
She stilled her foot and spun around to face him. "You would, wouldn't you?" She eased her hip out a little to one side and pushed her shoulders inward, squeezing her breasts and accentuating her cleavage—somehow making it seem unintentional.
She watched his eyes drift to her breasts, then he darted them back up to her face. He nodded and his eyes drifted again.
She closed the space between their two bodies and draped her arms around his neck. Leaning in, she moved her mouth to his ear until her lips touched his skin. "I need you," she said. She felt his body quiver and she saw the lower part of the front of his robe move toward her. She giggled, softly breathing out against his ear. "I need you…to teach me the rest of that book over there. If I can't get him by force, I'll lure him through enchantment. Will it do that?"
"If you're not in his presence, then only if you have such a bond with the vessel."
She smiled. "Good. Then you will help me."
"It's difficult, at best. Many things could go wrong."
"It will work. I need it to. The way we've been doing it before is not enough."
"But you're drawing from them already. Look at what you've been
able to accomplish with that and my instruction."
She knew he was trying to dissuade her. He'd been less interested in sharing his knowledge with her recently, since she had distanced herself from him, instead spending most of her time holed up in the room practicing what he'd taught her or trying to learn more on her own.
"If I give you what you want, will you give me what I want?"
He gulped audibly, then nodded with his mouth hanging open.
She drew back from him slowly, tracing her fingers across his cheeks then down his chest until her hands lifted away from him. She crossed her legs and pivoted like a slow-motion runway model, before slinking over to the heavy oak book stand against the wall. She stopped a couple feet short of reaching it, then she looked back at him. "Time to teach me, then." She leaned over toward the book stand, putting a hand on each side of it. Bent ninety degrees at her waist, she sunk her stomach and pushed her ass upward. "Well?" She smiled. "I'm ready for my lesson."
Chapter 14
After the encounter with Ruja's men, or whoever they were working for, we traveled the rest of the day without incident and made camp once more. We enjoyed a larger fire and a hearty meal, sitting in a half circle around the comforting flames, using large stones, a log, or just the dirt as our seats. Tara and Monica each shot a rabbit once we had settled on a spot for our camp. We used the arrows to hold the meat above the flames, after we'd skinned the rabbits. Nithia made several patties formed from herbs and berries she'd gathered. I couldn't identify everything in them, but I trusted her foraging knowledge. Besides, they, and especially the rabbits, were a nice change from what we'd been eating.
We ate and talked, mostly about the fight with the six men on horseback. Tara went on at length to NIthia, Alara, and Victoria about how heroic I was in battle. I didn't interrupt her. But when she'd stroked my ego sufficiently, I pointed out how much help she and Monica had been with their bows.
"I'm sorry I couldn't help," Alara said. She looked ashamed.
I rubbed her thigh. "Don't worry about it."
The night air was warm. She and Nithia had removed their pants and shirts, in favor of the loin skirts and Savage Land bikini tops they were more accustomed to wearing—saving the finer panties and tops they'd shown me in Pertlass for special occasions, I assumed.
She smiled half-heartedly. "It's just that I didn't have the energy to summon my magic."
"We can't be the Energizer Bunny all the time," I said, eyeing her full breasts, which had been too long hidden from me—at least in public. Playboy Bunny, maybe…in your case.
I realized she had no idea about the battery commercial I referenced, but she evidently got what I meant.
She sighed. "You're right."
I noticed her body relax as she gazed at me and smiled. In that moment, I marveled at her beauty, as if seeing her again for the first time.
"So," Monica said, how exactly does that work?"
Huh? For a moment, I thought she'd responded to my thoughts about Alara, then I came to my senses.
"What do you mean?" Alara asked.
Monica scooted a little closer. "The magic."
Alara glanced around to everyone and saw each of them staring at her. She looked surprised.
"What?" Tara said. "You have to admit, it's pretty interesting." She rubbed her palms together and grinned. "I'd love to blast somebody."
Alara scowled at her.
"Well," Tara turned her palms up and shrugged, then leaned back. "It would be handy. That's all.
After several seconds of silence, Monica said, "She has a point." Everyone laughed, including Alara and me.
"Okay," Alara said. She stood and stepped over to the large rock behind her, where she'd leaned her staff. I paid close attention as she bent over. She picked up the silver rod and brought it back. She sat and held it horizontally in front of her. "This belonged to my mother, Sefina, and before her the priestess Arastna. She glanced at me and then to Nithia. "And when I die, it will belong to the next Priestess of Carnera."
I noticed Nithia looked troubled at Alara's words. "How many have there been?" I asked, but then I felt like an ass for glossing over Alara's mention of her eventual demise. I opened my mouth to say something else to put some distance on my mistake, but I came up short.
She smiled at me. I got the sense she knew I felt bad for skipping the part where I was supposed to say, 'May that day never come' or something like that. Oh, that would've been good. I didn't get to say it in time, though.
Alara gazed at the staff as she glided two fingers across the middle of the rod, passing over some markings I hadn't noticed before. "One hundred twenty-seven," she said.
"Wow," Victoria said. "That's a lot."
The markings were some sort of writing—runes or the language of the Order. I didn't know. Unlike the sign at Cormac's tavern, I couldn't read them. They made me think of Tolkien's Quenya. Yeah, nerd showing. I took a linguistics class which used the Lord of the Rings as the main text. We studied the embedded traces of supposed historical changes in the words, since Tolkien made the elven languages legit like that.
I noticed the firelight reflecting off the inscribed area of her staff. The writing appeared to glow. Then I realized the glow wasn't the campfire's reflection.
Oh, shit. I must've had the Lord of the Rings, and the Hobbit, on my mind still. I couldn't help but think of the Dark Ring. I remembered Thautus Kurg, who I had managed to put out of my head for most of our trip. I could feel my body tense as I pictured myself fighting him—the Dark Lord. Fuck.
"You okay, Den?" Nithia touched my hand.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry." I pointed to the glowing inscription on her staff. "Just reminded me of something."
"Let me guess," Monica said. "That Hobbit movie." I caught her rolling her eyes. I don't think she bothered to hide it.
I decided to ignore her.
Alara turned the staff to hold it vertically, placing the base against the ground. "The staff of Carnera is a channel for the will of the gods."
"Really?" Victoria said sarcastically.
"Could you tell us about your gods?" Monica said. I got the sense she wanted to defuse the tension Victoria's comment injected.
Alara bowed her head slightly to Monica. "Thank you for your interest, but I'm sorry. I can not. Knowledge of the gods is only permitted to those in the Order of Carnera."
"Well, that's stupid," Victoria said.
Alara stared at her, but somehow refrained from glaring.
I was sure Victoria had pissed her off. She even made me a little annoyed. I glanced back and forth at the two of them, probably holding my breath.
Honestly, it seemed strange to me too. I remembered when I played D&D back in the day, Tom, who played a cleric named Ulrich Luminos, used every chance he could to wax on about how his god, Lumonia—yeah, I thought it was a stupid name too—was a total badass and would back us up if we blindly charged into battle, or sometimes he'd say Lumonia forbid us to do whatever our party had to do to complete the goal of the module. Come to think of it, I hated Lumonia most of the time.
Alara smiled at last. "I know this is all different from your world." She looked around to imply she was talking about all of Galderia. "But this…" She lifted the staff a few inches off the ground and the large white gem fixed at the top by bands of silver glowed. "This is not to be taken lightly."
I felt the hair on my arms rise, like someone had rubbed a balloon against my arm and built up a static charge.
"Alara." Tara's eyes widened and she slowly drew her hand up, pointing at Alara's face.
I leaned forward a little to see what she was seeing. "Oh. Uh. Hey." Alara's eyes were white, glowing like the inscription on her staff. I patted her thigh. "Alara. Your eyes."
She ignored me for a second, then tipped her head down a little, looking toward the ground. "I'm sorry." She put her staff down on the ground. "I don't know what…"
She stood up and looked at Victoria.
"It's o
kay," Victoria said to her. "That was rude of me."
"I felt something…strange," Alara said.
She stood there for a few seconds. It was awkward for all of us. At least, I know it was for me. I was pretty sure nobody else had seen her shoot light from her eyes like I had once when we were in bed at Cormac's inn, but them glowing was weird enough, I think.
"I'm going to get some air," she said as she turned and walked off. I stood up to go with her, but she waved her arm at me. "No," she said. "I just need a minute."
I watched her walked away. She stopped about forty feet from our campfire and looked up at the stars.
"How was I supposed to know that would set her off?" Victoria said.
I turned around to face her and the others. "I don't think it's just what you said."
Tara nodded toward Alara. "You should go talk to her."
I glanced at Alara. She had her hands on her hips, still facing away from us. "She said no."
"Do you want me to go?" Tara asked.
Nithia stood up. "No." She looked at me. "You should go talk to her."
"Yeah?"
She nodded. "Yes."
I decided to take her advice. Relationships weren't my strong suit—meaning, figuring out what a woman wanted of me gave me a headache. I could already feel one coming on. "Okay."
Nithia smiled. "She needs you. Clearly, there's something else going on."
Right. Clearly. I have no idea what that is, but…
"Sorry again," Victoria said as I stepped out of our campfire circle.
I walked over and stood beside her. She glanced at me and then looked away and started walking. I stood, not knowing if she was brushing me off. After a few steps, she paused, still looking away. "Well," she said. "Come on."
I hurried over to join her again, and the two of us walked a little farther.
"Something's wrong, Den."
I'm not much of a guesser.
"Did you…" She stopped and faced me. "Did you feel anything when you looked at the inscription on my staff?"
Swing and Thrust: A Harem Fantasy (Sword and Sorority Book 2) Page 9
