by Mind Guest
moved briskly along. Fallan had laid down the parameters of my new
role, and the character he had drawn wouldn't have cared if all of the
wine had ended up on the floor. The two men watched me approach, Fallan
annoyed but the house guard grinning, and I toyed briefly with the idea
of seeing how well the two of them would look wearing the wine. It
seemed like a dandy idea to me just an accident, of course but I
suddenly became aware of the fact that my mind guest didn't agree.
Somehow, the Bellna presence had picked up the thought I'd been toying
with and had nearly gone into shock over it, then had begun pouring out
flash after flash of nearly pure panic. Her attention was focused more
on the house guard than on Fallan, and I was reluctantly forced to
agree with her conviction that he would not find having wine spilled
all over him at all amusing. As soon as I decided against the accident
Bellna's panic calmed a good deal, proving that she was picking up my
intentions. I would have enjoyed looking a little further into the new
development, but Fallan and the guard were stepping forward and
reaching for the goblets.
"Clumsy, as you said, yet commendably swift," the guard remarked, still
grinning as he sipped at the wine he'd taken from me. "A wench clearly
trainable by one who is willing to spend the time. Does the Princess
mean to pass the darkness with us?"
"No," Fallan answered after taking a good swallow from his own goblet.
"We depart as soon as her meal is done."
"A pity," the house guard murmured, half his face hidden behind his
goblet as he drank. Only his eyes remained visible, and the look in
them sent a shudder through Bellna, which she helpfully passed on to me. I didn't much care for the house guard either, but Bellna seemed
really afraid of him. I faded back as the two men began discussing
employment opportunities available to mercenaries in Narella, and was
rewarded with Bellna's sigh of relief. She would have enjoyed staying
near Fallan, but with the house guard there, she was happier being a
good distance away.
The thought of distance brought back my previous thoughts of separating
myself from Fallan and his game, which was still a point well worth
considering. I stood to one side of the big kitchen watching the three
peasant girls hurrying back and forth with wine and food for Fallan and
his men, wondering if the damage had already been done. At that point I
couldn't very well go back to the first inn we'd stopped at, but the
present inn would do just as well if I could have access to it without
Fallan and his group being there. I wasn't worried about the innkeeper
believing my story-there was a great deal of difference between peasant
and princess on that world, and a few minutes of conversation with the
man would prove everything I said. No; the biggest problem was the
question of which of us Clero's men would find and zero in on, me or
the coach and the redhead. I was more than well aware of the fact that
Damyon's project would be a success whichever way the choice went, but
being that practical was beyond me just then. If Clero's men attacked
the coach the redhead and the other three girls would die, right along
with Fallan and any of his men who tried to stop them. I was the only
one who knew how well mounted that attack was sure to be, but I
couldn't tell anyone, least of all Fallan. Making a fuss at the inn was
the only chance I had of drawing the heat away from the others and back
to someone who had a chance of surviving it; letting it go on the easy
way was something I couldn't live with.
As soon as all the men were served, my three ex-servants began putting
together their own meal. I'd been drifting aimlessly around the edges
of the kitchen, passing every doorway in it and trying to decide which
of them led outside. Two of them did without a doubt, but Fallan's eyes
had been on me the whole time I'd been near them, showing he didn't
intend to be caught asleep at the switch. I could have beat out Fallan
in any footrace ever proposed, but our little to-do in the tent a short
while earlier had shown me I would need overland travel mode to do a
real job of it. Overland travel mode lets an agent draw on his or her
entire bodily resources, which makes it very draining even when used
for only a short while. During that short while, however, speed and
endurance are improved by a minimum factor of five, which makes for one
hell of a spectacular show. I could put on that show in the middle of a
forest, with no one but insects, birds, and animals watching, but not
in the close environs of that inn. Near the inn I'd have to use normal
speed, and Fallan had shown me just how fast he could be. If I didn't
want to take the chance of being run down I'd have to find another way
out of that kitchen, one that would keep Fallan unsuspicious until I
had a good enough lead. It took two circuits of the kitchen and five
minutes' worth of should-I-shouldn't-I, but I finally settled on the
doorway the slaves had been using.
A doorway was just what it was, doorless and dim and undoubtedly the
access to an attached storeroom. Most storerooms had doors leading to
the outside, but even if they didn't they usually had windows. Fallan
had ignored me when I'd passed that doorway, which made it a good bet
even if I had to loosen a couple of boards in the wall at the back.
When I neared it the third time, no one in the room was looking my way,
not even the three slaves, which made it definitely the time to go. I
took two more steps, then slipped through into the dimness. Wooden crates, kegs, and sacks almost filled the room, leaving no more
than a couple of narrow aisles with which to reach the back. I slipped
through the congestion to the second aisle, the one farthest from the
doorway, and headed back to see what there was to see. There were large
stacks of firewood, sacks of vegetables, boxes of salted meat, cases of
wine, kegs of ale, stands of goblets, racks of bone plate but no doors
or windows. I worked my way all the way back, using the glow of two
small lamps on the wall to keep from tripping and killing myself, but
it was a waste of time. No doors, no windows, and heavy wooden logs for
walls rather than kickable slats. The semi-darkness wasn't even a cool
darkness, and when I saw three piles of ragged bedding below three
metal rings set into the walls, I pitied the slaves. In full summer
that storage room would be an oven, in winter a true refrigerator, but
that was where they were probably chained very night. If I could have
broken out and left the way open for them I would have done it, but
breaking out of a room like that was beyond the resources then at my
command. I moved the top of my blouse down a little against the
closeness, then turned to retrace my steps out of that dead end.
"An excellent beginning," he said in a very soft voice as I stopped
short with a gasp. "I will be pleased to assist with the removal of the
entire bodice, therefore you need concern yourself no further. The
pleasure will be
entirely mine."
"You may not touch me!" I said in an overshrill voice, that and the
heavy fear turning my heartbeat into a thud all through the courtesy of
Bellna. The man was the dark-haired house guard, of course, and it was
clear that not everyone had been looking the other way when I'd entered
the storeroom.
"May I not?" he grinned, moving forward slowly and making me back away.
"There are many things one may not do, yet are they done over and
again. The Princess, I understand, would pout and protest if her
favored wench were to be put beneath a man, yet such protest would not
occur if she was unaware of the doing. You will give me service on your
back, pretty wench, and afterward say nothing of that service, else
shall those who count themselves friend to me see that you are taken
from your place and sold as a slave. Do you understand?"
"No," I moaned, trembling with Bellna's terror and nearly out of
control. There was no need to look around for a way out because there
was none; the only way out lay past the man who continued to advance on
me.. I also continued backing, shaking my head numbly, and then I
struck the wall. The contact seemed to be the final shock, and my mouth
flew open, ready to release the scream of abject terror in my throat,
yet the mercenary before me was prepared. As quickly as my mouth
opened, so quickly was a cloth thrust in, and then was I taken by the
arms and lowered to the filthy rags piled upon the floor.
"Silence is best when engaged in an activity of this sort," he
chuckled, lowering himself to one knee above me. "Your moans of
pleasure will be lost to me I know, yet one must make sacrifices in
such instances. My, my, what have we here?"
His hands had gone into the top of my bodice, and the touch of them
upon my breasts was an even greater spur to my terror. He was clearly
the sort I had been warned of, the sort who would take my use without
leave merely because he thought me a peasant. I reached for the cloth
to pull it from my mouth, yet he took my wrists and held them in one
large, merciless hand.
"Ah, no, my pretty, you must recall the need for silence," he
whispered, grinning well at the fear he was able to see in my eyes..
"Far better that we seek what other treasures lie beneath this cloth." His free hand touched my leg, rose upon it beneath the thin skirt, and
then I was back again, Bellna gibbering in fear in her favorite corner.
Her panic was still racing through me, sapping my strength and reason,
and her relinquishment of control was almost too late. The house guard
slid his hand onto my thigh, making my head ring with Bellna's screams,
and I just couldn't help myself. I had to do something to make him let
me go, even if it blew my role straight out of existence. The bastard
had my wrists pinned, but that still left me free to raise both legs
and kick him in his face and chest. He released my wrists as he went
over sideways at the blow, cursing in surprise as he hit the dirty
floor. I scrambled to my feet and pulled the wad of cloth out of my
mouth, intending to go over him before he could recover, but the man
was no lily with a glass jaw. He pulled himself to his feet almost as
fast as I had done, blocking me in with his body again, wiping his
mouth with the back of his hand.
"So, you would strike at me when my attention was elsewhere, eh, slut?"
he snarled, well beyond finding the situation as amusing as he had.
"Let us see what you may do with my eyes full upon you - and my hands,
as well!"
He came for me then with those hands outstretched, ready to close the
distance between us in three or four fast steps. Never in my life had I
had trouble making decisions, but right then I didn't know what the
hell to do! If I stopped him - which I could do very easily - there
would be no accusations of hitting him when he wasn't looking. He'd
know a better fighter had settled his hash, and on that planet fifteenyear-
old girls just didn't do that to trained mercenaries. I had enough
control back from Bellna to just stand there and let him do whatever he
pleased, but playing patsy was almost guaranteed to do more than
protect my role. As mad as he was it would also probably get me good
and knocked around, possibly to the point of broken bones. I know I'm
better than most, but instant healing isn't among my store of talents.
Even a bad sprain would likely mean the game for me with Clero's men,
but if I put the clown away Clero's men could hear about it and know
something was wrong. Whatever I did would turn out to be the wrong
move, and as he closed with me I still couldn't decide which way to go.
The first slap told me which way I wanted to go, but an open hand isn't
a fist, and I've lived through a lot worse. I stumbled sideways with
the force of the blow, gasping involuntarily at the ache in my teeth
and the pain in my head and shoulder as they hit the wall. The room
swung around for a crazy minute, dark shadows and smudges of light
mixing together in a swirl, and then there was a ripping sound as the
house guard's hands came together on my blouse then pulled violently
apart. The spinning of the room stopped when a big hand closed hard on
my breast, deliberately hard, making me grunt with the pain. I was
pulled close to the guard's now-sweating body, his pleasure at hurting
me almost thick enough to feel, Bellna's hysterical screaming tearing
at the inside of my head. I fought no harder than Bellna would have to
get myself free, but holding back was getting more and more difficult
to do. The man pulled my head back by the hair and forced his lips onto
mine, smothering the scream he expected when his squeezing fingers
closed on the nipple of the breast he held. The fear raced through me,
as did my rage, exploding then coalescing, when -
"Get of a scrofulous muck slave!" came a snarl, and the guard was
pulled away from me so suddenly that I dropped to the slave rags on the
floor. It was Fallan who had pulled the slob off me, and I sat and
panted in an effort to reestablish control while the big mercenary did
what I'd almost been unable to keep from doing. He'd pulled the guard around to face him, blocked a wild roundhouse aimed at his head, then
threw one of his own into the guard's middle. The guard grunted at the
strength of the blow, doubled over, then went to one knee with his arms
wrapped around himself. I expected Fallan to finish him off, but he
turned to me instead, which was a mistake. Fallan took no more than a
single step before the guard came up with one that started at the
floor, trying to unman his opponent with the blow. It would have done a
lot of damage if it had landed, but he didn't know how fast Fallan
could move when he wanted to. Fallan jumped back as the house guard
brought himself up from the floor with the missed foul, but the
mercenary captain had had to move too fast to keep his guard up. The
other man was able to shoot a fast, hard left right into his middle,
harder than the one he'd taken.
The fact that I was starting to get to
my feet showed me that I'd
underestimated Fallan as badly as the house guard had. We both expected
to see him fold from the punch he'd taken, but it didn't happen. He
grunted to show that the try wasn't everyone's imagination, then came
back with one of those measured throws from two feet behind him, right
into the house guard's face. The solid, meaty "thwak" sent the house
guard straight back and down, to land unconscious even as his hand was
starting to reach for his sword. I had time to stare down for a brief
moment at the motionless form at my feet and wonder why he hadn't drawn
his sword to begin with, and then Fallan was gently turning me to face
him.
"How badly are you hurt?" he asked at once, carefully brushing my hair
back so that he could look at my face. "How many times were you
struck?"
I tried to answer him, to tell him that I wasn't hurt, but the Bellna
presence had been through too much as well as having just been saved by
her idol. I began shuddering with reaction as if I were the one feeling
it, and Fallan quickly wrapped his arms around me and held me to him.
It was a strange sensation, being held by him like that, feeling
Bellna's delirious joy overlapping her narrow-escape hysterics and
realizing that he'd saved me as well as her. Truthfully he'd saved me
twice, once from the possibility of being badly hurt by the house
guard, and once from defending myself against the attack and thereby
blowing my role. Bellna was terribly aware of his broad chest against
my cheek, his powerful arms holding me gently, and when I raised my
head and looked up into his face, I could feel how desperately she
wanted him to kiss me. I felt exactly the same, couldn't help but feel
exactly the same, but at the same time I didn't want his kiss. None of
that assignment was over with, not really, and I couldn't afford to
want to kiss him. As if he were reading the thoughts of the Bellna
mind, Fallan's head began to lower to mine, to take a small part of the
victory winnings he'd earned, and that was when I pushed out of his
arms.
"I am not hurt badly at all, Captain," I said with a good deal of
tremor left in my voice. "You have my thanks, and will surely have the
thanks of my father and my husband-to-be. It would not be presumptuous
