I walked into the room, and it looked clear, but we were cautious. Approaching the other end, we saw double doors open and leading to another hallway, about ten feet wide. Ten feet was a fairly standard measurement in underground construction, and if something was about that size, you could pretty much assume ten feet, or a multiple of that. Some halls would be half that or five feet like the stairs down to this point had been.
When we were still about ten feet from the doors, I threw another torch into the darkness beyond.
Harmony yelled, “There. It’s there!”
Shaheen was beside us in a second, lighting jars and handing them to Harmony.
I saw what Harmony pointed out now, and said, “Harmony, be calm. Throw the first one just behind it and then the next in front. Trap it between.”
Harmony threw exactly where I told her to. Her first jar struck at the rear edge of the creature and lit up the area behind it. It immediately rushed in our direction, and Harmony’s second throw hit it at the front and the jar burst into flame. The thing was trapped between the flaming oil, and on fire itself at both ends. It was just a little smaller than the width of the hallway. I directed Harmony to put another jar in the center but stopped her before she did. I told her that we would let it burn naturally. I threw another torch as far down the hallway as I could and asked Harmony to stay and watch and count how long it took for the fire to burn out.
I left Harmony at the doors and returned to see what the other girls were finding. Apparently, there were two single doors in each side wall of the main room here, spaced about five feet from each end, and ten feet apart. These probably led to small rooms, or one could lead to another passage.
Shaheen went to the first door and said, “Well, are we ready?”
I said quickly, “No! Shaheen, step back!”
Shaheen did as I said and stepped away from the door. I stepped forward and called her to join me.
I said, “Feel the door first. Is there any vibration? Any heat?” and I felt the door and had her do the same. We agreed that neither of us felt anything.
I said, “Now listen,” and I pressed my ear to the door. When I didn’t hear anything, I knocked and then listened very closely. Still not hearing anything, I knocked very loudly and listened again. Still nothing.
Shaheen said, “Ronin, we lost the element of surprise. If anything is there, it knows we are here.”
I said, “Shaheen, if something is there, it knew about us already. It saw our torch light beneath the door. And now it lost its ability to surprise us. We know that we won’t burst into a room full of fire. The door would have been warm. We don’t expect to rush into a room filled with a pool of water. The echo would have been different. When I knocked, we didn’t hear the sound of something rushing into hiding. If we had, we would know for certain that something was there. We still assume that there is, but the other way, we would have known. We didn’t startle a small creature. When I knocked loudly, we showed that we were ready to attack and had no fear of discovery. We won’t always do things that way, but this time we did. And the next few times at least. Now, Dawn and Val, get your bows.”
I went and positioned the two girls, each against the far wall, and about five feet to each side of the door.
I whispered, “When we open the door, something may rush out, or even shoot at us. But you are to the side, and unless it takes time to aim, it won’t fire directly at you. The two of you will be able to take the second shot and kill it. Count to two. The first count will be its shot, the second count will be yours. The first shot will go nowhere, but yours will hit something. After your shot, both of you run from the door. If something follows you out, it will die at the doorway. If more than one, shoot them as they come into this room.”
Shaheen and I stood beside the door, and on my signal, I threw the door open. And in that instant, nothing happened. One: no shot from the room. Two: no shot from my archers. Three: no surge of enemies. Four: I peeked into the room and withdrew quickly. Five: I stepped quickly into the empty room.
I said, “Empty. All clear. Now the next. But first, Shaheen, take an unlit torch and cut a wedge at the end. Check the other doors like we did this one. I’ll do this one, you do the other. If you find nothing, pin the door closed with your wedge.”
We did as I said, and then I positioned us for the same tactic for opening the second door. Again nothing. And nothing for the third or fourth door either.
I said, “Check the rooms, but be very careful. All three of you together. Remember what Shaheen said about traps and chests. Shaheen, check for hidden doors and be careful of any holes in the walls that might indicate traps of any kind or arrow holes from the other side of the wall.”
I went to check on Harmony.
She said, “The fire is almost out. The creature is dead. All burned up. Ronin go into those rooms without a torch and shut the door behind you. Check for light coming in from any crevices.”
I agreed that it was a brilliant idea and went and checked for lights, showing the other girls what we were doing at each step. We didn’t find anything. But we did find a bed in one room, and several chests of various sizes. All of the chests were open and empty. Supposedly, the Kobolds had cleaned them out and brought us the contents when they left. We assumed that the bed had been used by Delilah for the few nights that she had lived here as the Kobold Queen.
We chose the room on the left of the stairs, at that end of the room, as our first storehouse and the girls quickly stowed our supplies in the various chests. One for jars of oil, one for torches, one for extra food. One for extra medicines and bandages. Val kept a small supply of medicinals with her, in a small bag at her hip.
I was busy for a little while, and Shaheen asked if she could take Harmony’s place at the double doors as watchman for a while. I agreed and continued to arrange the heavier chests where we wanted them. It didn’t take long.
The fire was well out, and the torch at the other end of the hall, past the double doors was showing signs that it would go out soon. The torches in the main room had been moved from the floor where I had thrown them into holders on the walls. It was time to move on. No one wanted any food yet, but I insisted on everyone taking some water to drink.
We decided on new supplies, checked our weapons again, and left everything else in the storage room.
At the far end of the room, in the hall where the mold had been set on fire, I tested the floor for slickness from the oil, but it had all burned and the floor was clean, except for the ash from the creature. It was about 30 feet from the doors to the torch on the floor. We moved at a cautious pace, and lit torches every 20 feet along the way.
We found two more doors in the hall, and these opened inward, not outward into the hallway. We couldn’t pin them closed from this side. We had no choice but to open them. We used basically the same strategy as before and found both of them empty. Each of the two new rooms was about 20 feet across, and based on the rags and trash that we found, my guess was that these had been the living quarters for many of the Kobolds. I reasoned that if there were anything of value in them that the monsters would have brought it out to us, and after verifying that there were air vents in the ceiling, I had the girls dowse the rooms in oil and we set fire to them. We closed the doors and moved on.
I hoped that by torching the trash in the rooms that we would clean out the place and kill any insects or rodents that might be living there, as well as get rid of the smell of the Kobolds and their remaining rags and bedding.
Finally, we made it to the far end of the hall. Another set of double doors were set into the wall, standing open toward us. On the other side of the doors was another room.
I told the girls that we would stop here for the day. We would close the doors and pin them with wedges from our side, and then store what we could and leave for the day. We had accomplished our stated goals for this excursion and would stop here. The creature was dead, and we had a safe place for our provisions. Going farth
er would be on a different day after we had made a new plan. I thought for a moment that Shaheen was about to protest, but before she spoke, she looked suddenly at Harmony and then kept silent. I smiled at her and said that we had done well for our first real expedition. Shaheen wasn’t used to having and executing a plan at all. She seemed very troubled by it.
We secured the doors as best we could and then started back. We extinguished the torches along the wall as we went. When we reached the main room, we closed the doors at this end and pinned them shut as well. We took the sack with our lunch from the food chest, extinguished more torches, and made our way back up the stairs, putting out the lights as we climbed.
Outside, I climbed farther up the hill and spotted what I was looking for.
I said, “See that smoke? That’s where at least one of the air vents is. Under that pile of rocks. Who wants to go for a swim and have some lunch?”
Chapter 18 - Pushing Ahead
As we walked down the hills and through the orchard toward the pools, we were all subdued and quiet. No one said anything until we came to our swimming hole.
We set the lunch down and I smiled and started to undress. No one else moved.
I said, “Don’t you want to swim? Or at least take some clothes off?”
The girls started stripping out of their clothes, but Shaheen just stood there. I was naked now and went to stand in front of her.
I said, “Shaheen, are you OK? Don’t you want to swim?”
She said, “I don’t know what I want. Do you want me to swim?”
I said, “Don’t you want to take off your clothes and eat some lunch?”
She said, “If you want me to,” but still she didn’t move.
I said, “Do you want me to help you?”
She said, “I think so. If you want to. What are we doing here?”
I said, “Shaheen, we’re going swimming. Sweetie, sit down for a minute.”
The others had noticed that Shaheen was having some kind of trouble and had gathered around to see what was happening. I helped Shaheen sit down, and sat in front of her, holding her hands. The others sat beside us. Suddenly Shaheen shook her head and stood back up. The rest of us followed. What was she going through?
She said, “I’ll swim. We should swim. Ronin help me. With my clothes. You dressed me, so, I can’t take these clothes off until you undress me.”
I unlaced Shaheen’s vest. Dawn stood beside me and took the vest and folded it and set it aside while I pulled off Shaheen’s gloves. As each piece of her clothing was removed, Dawn took it from me. Val and Harmony just stood with us as support for what was happening inside Shaheen as I undressed her. Next, I removed her belt and her boots. Then the leather skirt. Then the crotchless leather pants. And finally, the soft blouse. When Shaheen was naked like the rest of us, she still didn’t move or speak, so I led her down to the water by the hand and she followed me into the pool. Val assured me that it would be safe now; that the water would be cleansed of the poisons that we had washed from Shaheen’s legs the day before.
Shaheen was still dazed for some reason. Like a woman in a dream state. When we were in deep enough water, standing up to our necks in the pool, I pulled the tall elf woman into my arms facing me and held her with her head against my shoulder. I put one arm around her back and the other around her waist, and she put her arms around my neck and let me hold her body closely against mine. I started to say something, to tell her how loved she was, but I stopped myself and stayed quiet, just holding her. If possible, it would be my embrace that spoke to her, not my voice.
After several minutes of silence, Shaheen relaxed more and more, seeming to melt into me as time went on. She kissed my neck and sighed heavily in some kind of deep release. And then I felt her remove one hand from my neck and slide it down my body until she had her hand gently surrounding my penis where it pressed stiffly against her hip. She moaned very quietly at the feel of it as she wrapped her fingers around the shaft and felt its length. Moving her upper body as little as possible, she spread her legs and put them around my waist as she positioned me at her vagina and slid me slowly inside. She took a deep breath as I entered her, and she exhaled in satisfaction as I filled her. And I in turn grunted very quietly at the feel of her sex engulfing my manhood for the first time in this way.
Until now, Shaheen and I had hardly touched each other. At first, she had told me not to touch her at all. We had hugged each other a few times, and since she was always undressed, I had felt her body against mine during those times, and it had been intimate emotionally, but never at all sexual, except for the time that she brought me to orgasm with her hand. She had made a very few comments about her desire, but she had always moved on to different subjects very quickly, even saying that she was afraid to approach me or for me to approach her sexually. She had been concerned about the fact that it had been two centuries since she had been at all sexual, and she was even afraid that her body would be too tight and out of practice to be able to have intercourse comfortably. Apparently, that wasn’t an issue now.
Shaheen’s vagina swallowed my penis and held me firmly. I placed my hands under her buttocks to support her in the water and she held me around the neck with both arms. If anyone glanced at us, they would think that she was sleeping in my arms and nothing more. We stood very still, not causing any telltale ripples in the water at all. But down below, Shaheen was using the few inches of muscle between her thighs actively enough. She squeezed me and relaxed over and over, tightening, pulling, pushing a fraction of an inch only, sucking at me, and somehow at times pressing as if to expel me from her, but immediately pulling me deep within her wetness again. I had never experienced anything like it.
She breathed against my ear but stayed very still for the most part. And I held her. Shaheen and I had stayed so far from sexual intimacies that I had not even touched her breasts with my hands. I had admired them from afar, and I had felt them briefly against my chest, but I hadn’t had my hands on them yet. Oh, I had felt them this morning as I dressed her, but that wasn’t lovemaking. They were pressed against my chest again now, but still not anywhere that I could get my hands on them. And I couldn’t really feel them much on my chest. All of my sensations of Shaheen’s love were focused in my penis, and her face against my neck. She certainly had an effect on me, making love to me so silently, hardly moving at all, and keeping me rock hard and on the edge of bursting forth in orgasm as she played with me below the water’s surface.
She whispered, “Lover, I am yours and always will be. I have never loved like this. You are my first and only love. My first and only true husband. I believe you and trust you. Do you want to claim me finally? To climax inside me? If you want me, I will be yours. I have been for days but claim me if you want to.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant about claiming her exactly. I had declared my love and commitment several times. And she had said that she was mine already, several times over the past few days. But apparently, she needed something else as a final act of commitment.
I whispered, “Shaheen, are you mine?”
She nodded against my neck and said, “Yes, My Lord. I am yours.”
I said, “Then take my seed and be mine forever!”
She spasmed and increased her pulsating movements on my stiffness. She had orgasmed several times as we held each other, but this was a bit more than the others, and I joined her in mutual release, spraying the inside of her tunnel with my climax.
I said, “There. Now I am part of you. I am your husband.”
She whispered, “My Prince and my Master. I love you.”
We held each other for another few minutes and then she slipped away from me and stood on her own feet in the neck deep water. I took her hand and we walked back to the grassy bank and lay down on our backs in the afternoon sun. The other three girls ran up out of the water to join us. Val lay down beside me and Dawn and Harmony sat facing us.
Dawn said, “Shaheen, is everything OK? We were wo
rried.”
Harmony gasped suddenly and exclaimed, “Oh my goodness! Oh, for goodness sake! She’s been fucking! Look!” and Harmony pointed at Shaheen where she lay with her legs slightly parted.
Shaheen raised up on her elbows quickly and put her legs together.
Harmony grabbed Shaheen’s knees and pulled them apart before Shaheen could react and said, “No, look, she’s still quivering. Look at her pussy. It’s wide open. She’s been fucking. Isn’t she beautiful? Shaheen, stop struggling! You are naked now, don’t deny it. Open your legs!”
Shaheen hesitated and then gave in to Harmony and spread her knees wide.
Harmony said, “Good. Don’t ever hide from us ever again. It comes naturally to the rest of us because we had nothing to hide. And neither do you. Don’t do that!”
Shaheen said, “OK. No more hiding. You’re right. I am naked now. Yes. I am. Yes, I am naked. Go ahead. Yes. Look if you want to. I’m ready. I’m naked. Go ahead.”
Harmony said, “Good. But look, she’s totally open and she’s totally fucked. Did you guys see it? Did you know?”
And then, without warning, Harmony pushed two fingers into Shaheen’s vagina. Shaheen cried out in panic and surprise, but Harmony ignored her and simply pulled them out and stuck them in her mouth.
She said, “Yep. I can taste him.”
And then to Shaheen, who was staring at her as if terrified, she said, “What? What’s the matter? Shaheen, you act like you’re embarrassed to be with us. We’re all his wives, not just you. What’s wrong? Haven’t you ever been with other mates before? Oh, did you only have you and your partner before? So, you never did normal sexual things like we do?”
Shaheen was dumbfounded and silent.
The Heart of the Falcon: The Guardian Maidens Book 3 Page 17
