Nykia shrugged. “There was no way for you to know. It’s all right.”
“No, it isn’t, not really, but ain’t much I can do about it now.”
Nykia smiled up at him. “We can still run away to a castle and have babies.”
Gorias leaned back and put his arm around her. “Yeah, there is that.”
She snuggled in close to him. “Why are you here in Transalpina?”
“Passing through from Albion, but your grandmother wanted to see me.” Her body frame reminded him of another, about five foot four, slender and taut.
“Do tell?”
“She wanted me to find you.”
Nestling in closer to him, she mumbled, “Mission accomplished.”
“Pretty sure she wants you home from these folks.” Eyes closed, Gorias recalled the girl she reminded him of and tried not to call her by his old neighbor girl’s name.
“I haven’t been home for years. I’d say this is my home amongst these pirates. They stole me from the Prytens years ago.”
“With your mistress dead, where’s the harm in going home and being an heir to the throne of Transalpina?”
She looked up at him and made a vinegary face.
Gorias nodded. “Oh, I know it’s a prissy-assed life, but you’d never want for anything.”
“I know. They’ll want me to marry some perfumed prick-nose and pump out heirs like a brood sow.”
“Still, not a terrible life, is it?”
“You never saw fit to settle down.”
“I’m not royalty.”
“We both know that isn’t true.”
Gorias squeezed her tight and then stood. “That’s pretty thin, honey. Yeah, my crazy mother was a distant part of the royal line of some country and fit to breed with the aristocracy of any land, but my father was a rough chieftain.”
“A king in his own right, no?”
“He sure was, but it didn’t go to his head. Just a chief, but he conducted himself well, almost like the royals.”
“Weird combination. How did that happen?”
“Troopers escorting my mother were overrun by savages. These savages were enemies of my father, a savage guy himself, and he was set to raid them anyhow. The princess, my mother, just happened to be there and fall into his care. Well, one thing led to another and here I am.” He got up, walked away from her and said to the sea, “Not always a good thing, for she was missing a few cogs upstairs.” He slapped his head. “Probably all of that royal bloodline inbreeding, really. They say they are so high and mighty, yet screw their relatives like the baser folks in the sticks.”
“You’ll have to tell me that story, but I want to show you something.” Nykia coaxed him toward the rear raised sections of the vessel.
Gorias looked around, seeing the pirates tending the ship and trying to maneuver it better. He followed her through the small cabin door and let it close behind him.
Nykia turned up the oil lanterns. He saw a sparse quarters, a small table for meals, a couple chairs, and a huge hammock large enough to hold two huddled in close. Nykia took hold of the small set of chested drawers and pulled it away from the wall. She pulled out a series of pasteboards, each one had images sketched and painted on them.
“You still sketch me?”
“Looks like you, doesn’t it?”
Gorias smiled. “Fighting dragons always.”
“Of course. I like it when you smile.”
“I’ve killed more men than dragons, but make the race extinct and they never let ya forget.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “I’m honored. You hid these from her?”
She pulled out a strongbox and climbed atop it. Face to face, she slipped her arms about his neck and said, “I’m yours. I always have been. Nykia loves Gorias.”
They kissed deep. Gorias couldn’t help but think of Alena’s kisses, much different than Nykia. Alena tasted of sweet mints, top-end wine with a taste of whiskey. Nykia tasted of smoke from a pipe bowl and stale beer. Granted, Nykia was a more petite woman than the guard for the Queen, and with proper training would’ve been a gracious feminine girl instead of a rough, tattooed fighter. Her body so reminded him of his first sexual encounter, Jenna, back home, over 700 years ago.
She pulled back, her hands in his mane of hair. Her bottom lip trembled and tears rolled down her cheeks. Nykia’s tough façade dropped like the tie that kept her breasts snug under her tunic.
Gorias had to struggle in the tight quarters to undo his armor. Nykia gave him help. With no bed or durable table, Gorias adapted, like he always did, and gave it to her standing. Her arms, stronger than he thought, controlled the action of her hips, as she gripped him in a headlock and lowered her lithe body onto his waiting self. His hands held her backside and gently worked his way into her.
She’s not Jenna, he told himself, even if she feels like her little box.
He so wanted to have a more passionate encounter, to do more fantastic things with the little princess, but she didn’t complain as he entered her slowly, a bit at a time. Her nails dug into his scalp so much Gorias figured he’d find blood dried in his hair in time.
Her mouth open, but no breath exiting, she gaped into his eyes. Her bare legs slithered around him, shaking. Nykia gasped, her breath escaping all at once. She gushed down his member, that she hadn’t even taken in all the way, and the warm fluid ran down his legs.
Gorias smiled. He wondered if he got that one from her on just being there in the flesh for the first time alone. A braggart could choose such a moment for smugness or domination, but Gorias understood a more proper way.
“Take your time, sweetheart. As long as you want.”
She lofted herself up so that he slid from her, but she reached down with her right hand and gripped him. Holding his shaft, she worked the head of him on herself, slow at first then furious in the slickness. Nykia shook again, glaring into his eyes.
“I just can’t believe this is happening,” she groaned and came again. Arms again gripping his head, Gorias let her get her breath before he entered her. Once more, she stared into his eyes. “Inside me, you hear? I want you inside me. Every bit of it.” Her almost haggard look started to break into a joyous smile. “Take what is yours, Gorias La Gaul.”
And he did.
Eyes closed, he heard a distant voice, one he’d forgotten almost, cry out, “Jenna loves Gorias.”
His father told him a man seldom forgets his first woman or his last. He smiled as he took Nykia, hoping the gods didn’t mess with his head in this fact, making this one here, possibly his last, so like his first.
CHAPTER VIII
Betrayals
Before they cast off, the Admiral treated Alena with more grace and pomp than she deserved. She knew it and every sailor knew it, but they kept up the charade like they cared. Certainly, being the only woman on this vessel, the Bahamut, did make Alena start a little, but she shrugged it off, understanding destiny lurked behind every corner. She’d been taught to face that and be ready for what came next. Alena didn’t sense death or doom, not exactly. This was the navy of my own land, she reasoned. What do I have to fear?
She walked the deck before the shore couplings were released, scanning over the docks, watching the troopers from Thynnes’ army depart and Orsen lag behind. It didn’t shock her that Orsen Riva stayed in the city proper and didn’t go back to where Thynnes pitched camp.
Alena also noted Admiral Rosman over by the open gate of the Bahamut, near to embracing a trio of sailors, who nodded at every other word he spoke. They stood back, saluted and exited the ship just before the other sailors pulled in the planks.
Alena secured her wrap about herself, eyes searching the sea from the opposite side of the huge vessel. The wrap felt heavy, concealing the belt of Gorias in its inner pockets. She pondered the complement of sailors it took to run such a massive craft and how many shifts they must run in to accomplish that goal. Never afeared of sea travel, Alena’s stomach turned a little as the great ship
shifted, the wind pulling the sails and the mechanism of the giant paddles in the rears churning.
“Would you like to see the paddles and how they work?” The Admiral asked as he stepped up toward her, arms folded across his chest.
Thinking his stance rather aristocratic for a man of the sea, Alena said, “I can walk to the back, but I’d rather stay above deck if it’s fine with you.”
He bowed his head low and then brought his face up to meet hers. “You’re my guest. It will be as you say.” Rosman then walked beside her to the rear of the vessel, extolling the wonders of the new technology that turned the turbines of the paddles. A new invention, he celebrated, but her mind remained elsewhere. Indeed, the paddles looked beautiful churning and their speed increased slowly, angled by the sails and pushed by the paddles.
“Impressive,” she approved. “I’ve seen this at a distance. Are your other ships so equipped?”
“Only a few,” he confessed, hands going behind his back. “In time we’ll have the fleet refitted. The vessels further out have been signaled here and there. We will catch up to the pirates in time.”
Alena wondered how the pirates ever got in to the Keep with such forces meandering in the sea. Granted, they couldn’t be everywhere at once, but she always smelled a rat.
The Admiral offered, “You may recline in my supper cabin, if you so like. It is near the back and above deck. There’s a lock on the door and a showering device, also new to this world, in the closet. You won’t be disturbed. The cook will have prepared a cold plate for me by now, so if you are hungry…”
“I am a mite,” she confessed. “It’s been an exhausting night.” She thought of how it started out, her riding Gorias like a stallion, and ended here, with her trying to keep her boots steady on a giant naval vessel.
*****
The Captain of the great vessel watched Alena disappear into the Admiral’s chamber. He soothed back his bald head with his right hand, straightened up his gait and then approached his leader. After exchanging salutes, the men turned their backs and looked toward the rising sun.
“Something on your mind, Captain Jrabesak?”
Still facing the sun, Jrabesak replied, “Awfully cordial, sir, to that woman.”
Rosman smiled. “I prefer to clean a cunt before I fuck it, Jrabesak.”
“Very good, sir.” Jrabesak wiped his brow with a cloth, folded it neatly and jammed it into an open section of his belt. “Sir, you know we have eyes all over the land.”
Still wearing a distant look, Rosman replied, “Do these eyes somewhere have an observation, Jrabesak?”
“A runner from Qesot arrived just as we took on supplies. He has reported an attempt on the life of Queen Garnet.”
“Gracious,” Rosman replied, his comportment mildly amused. “Only an attempt?”
“Affirmative. The assassins were halted by the Queen’s choice guards.”
“Siblings of that freak we took on board?”
“Yes, sir.”
“They are supposed to be excellent warriors for women.”
“The attempt wasn’t in the tower.”
Rosman turned his head at last, his face showing serene bafflement. “That means Garnet is on the move.”
“Yes, sir. The Queen made an example of the assassins, a horrible fate, the runner heard.”
“No wonder bliss fills our land,” Rosman conceded with sarcasm. “There are so many first-rate examples to follow, we should suffer no rationale to step out of line.”
*****
General Thynnes slept in a large tent surrounded by the tiny tents of his troopers. His own private quarters in the capitol sat amongst the regular army barracks, too. His reasoning always was that he felt safer surrounded by his soldiers, even when bivouacked in the field. If he’d slept in his usual quarters back in the city or in the village near the sea, the men who came for him would’ve never got near to the aged General, even in the morning’s light. It also helped they wore the garb of the Transalpinan Navy. However, two men, each barely five feet in height, slipped under opposite ends of the fifteen by fifteen-foot tent, brandished a dagger in each hand and went fast for the General’s bed mat.
If Thynnes had been lying in it, he’d be dead. Thynnes, though, was on his knees in the northwest corner of his tent, kneeling in prayer. The darkness was broken only a little by the flaps rustling as the men entered. The old man held the idol of the god Dagon in his right hand. The idol, made of stone, carefully carved by the artisans of Nineveh where Dagon was freely worshipped, was hardly the size of his hand. He gripped the idol as the men stabbed with four daggers, knowing immediately that they were mistaken in their quest.
Thynnes got up slower than he liked, but fast enough to reach out with his left and grab one of the assassins by their head wrap. Through the wrap started to come loose, the would-be killer fell back from his haunches and lay on the ground before the General. Right hand raised high, the force of a hundred years of military experience and 300 pounds backed up the idol of Dagon, sending it through the forehead of the assassin and four inches into his brains. Thynnes felt the dent and the wetness of the brains, but pulled out fast, knowing the other would-be killer wouldn’t be caught so easily.
The virgin daylight slipped in through the main flap and Thynnes roared as he charged, but then stopped in the middle of the tent. He felt the air break as the assassin swung blindly at where he figured the old warrior charged. Once the blades passed, Thynnes kept going, throwing a shoulder into the small man, sending them both out into the daylight.
The assassin fell to his buttocks and his head snapped to the turf between the General’s tent and the next one. Thynnes, on his all fours atop the small man, prepared to draw his idol up and strike, but as he did, he smelt something. In a fraction of time, that smell of fish and salt made Thynnes drop and roll. A third assassin’s daggers swung past the General and buried themselves in the belly of his comrade. The stabbed assassin screamed. The third man froze, stunned at the happening.
From his knees, Thynnes changed hands with the idol, swiped, and brained the new arrival just above the right ear. Dagon worked magic again, but the idol never broke bone. The third assassin fell over his fellow and then twisted to the ground, grabbing his head, leaving his knives in the other man’s belly.
Thynnes stood tall over them. “Piss-poor work, ya little shits.” He stomped his bare foot into the area where the gut-stabbed man gripped at the handles of the blades. Thynne’s foot drove the blades deeper, through to the ground under the assassin. He then awkwardly stumbled and fell on the man he wounded. “Who are you pukes?” Thynnes saw the men in the tents starting to rouse. “You all? Bring the instruments of torture. And kick the guards of the camp in the balls, would you?”
Colonel Schou glared at the last assassin as two soldiers bound the man’s hands.
Thynnes said, “You know who this is?”
The Colonel looked the struggling man over and then at the man dying, fluid welling out of his belly. “Their hair is too long for professional assassins or the military. You think so, Corporal Travin?”
Travin added, “But not the navy. They let them get hair out in the sea. Never knew why.” They all looked at the corporal and he stood at attention, saluting. “Uh, Sir!”
Thynnes waved him off. “So, these are the Admiral’s little seamen?”
The soldiers laughed as Thynnes got on his knee beside the bound up assassin. “Now why the hell would he want me dead?”
Schou said tritely, “We have not been getting much information from torture, sir.”
Thynnes stood up and raged, “We gotta get lucky sooner or later.” He pointed at the sailor. “You know you’re as good as dead, punk, but it can take a long time to die.”
Thynnes used the toe of his right boot when nudging the corpses, which now bubbled black fluid. “What in the hell is that?”
The Colonel stepped forward, leaned down a little and then exchanged looks with each of the officers
around.
Thynnes admitted, “Yeah, I don’t know. Any of you have any stellar ideas?”
One of the regiment Captains said, “They aren’t human.”
“Brilliant,” Thynnes grunted.
The last living one gaped at his fellow assassin, shocked.
Thynnes reached out to Schou and pulled the Colonel’s personal dagger free from the holster. He spoke to the assassin, saying, “A greener man may not have seen that, kid. I know people. They are all bastards, but I know fear and honest confusion.” Thynnes looked at the two Captains. “Hold him down.” When the two knelt to make sure they held the assassin’s arms in place, Thynnes blew on the blade and watched it fog up. He turned to young Corporal Travin. “Here. Cut him.”
“Sir?” The corporal took the knife and knelt, but his words only asked the question of where.
“On the forearm.”
Travin seized the assassin’s wrist and a struggle ensued. With two men on him, the assassin squealed as the corporal slit his arm open. A black, inky fluid rushed out of his skin.
The two Captains released him and Travin jumped back.
Thynnes folded his arms over his chest and then rubbed his bearded chin. “Hmm. Look at him. He doesn’t understand it either.”
The assassin’s eyes grew wide at the wound. He started to scream.
“Wrap him up,” Thynnes ordered. “He’s losing it. Must be a bitch to realize you’re not human.”
Travin asked, “Sir, what is he, um, what are they all?”
Thynnes looked at his officers and they again watched each other with empty eyes.
A Major offered, “Sir, perhaps they are Vardogers, you know, the tales of those who can exist in two places at once.”
Schou scoffed. “My granny told stories about a Fetch that doubles for people.”
One of the enlisted men said, “It’s a doppelganger, not a man at all.”
Thynnes cleared his throat loud and all talking ceased. “Where is Ellis?”
The men exchanged more uneasy glances and then their ranks parted. In the open gap stood a soldier barely five feet tall, and so slight, one would mistake him for a pre-pubescent child. His hair so orange it glowed in the lantern and moonlight, Ellis stepped forward and remained at attention. On his hip, he tried to hide his bugle.
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