It was art. The next minutes were the hiss of her breath through her nose, her head rising and falling, wet heat engulfing me, first just enclosing my cockhead, then wrapping my shaft completely and deeply. Backing off and doing it again. At first, I lay back, just living the amazing sensation, feeling that familiar pressure building inside me, thrumming in my balls, pulling gasps from my mouth, making my body tense and shudder. But I didn’t want to cum so soon. I had plans, even when her teeth playfully dragged across the top of my shaft. She winked, then went back to work, her mouth alive with motion.
It was her turn, too.
I drew her legs close to me, parted them, and then parted her innermost secret with my tongue, matching the pace of her mouth with my tongue’s darting motion, each lick bringing her closer to where I stood on the edge of losing control.
It could only go on so long. I buried my mouth and nose as far as I could inside her, licking the soft, slick folds; she suddenly tensed up, moaned deep in her throat in a way that vibrated around my length, then quivered and shook as her climax broke free. At once, my hips thrust themselves up and I groaned, powerless to stop myself under the skilled touch of her mouth. She swallowed fast, over and over, missing nothing as her throat moved in a mirror image of my own thrusts.
Gasping, she pulled off me and turned around, wiping her mouth.
“That was . . .” she started, but I pulled her on top of me.
“Was? How about is? I ain’t done yet.” My grin was wicked; hers was challenging.
I’d barely softened, and stiffened back to full hardness again at her warmth. Reaching down, she put me inside her with a rough insistence, grinding down until our bodies touched in more than one place, the tight echoes of her orgasm fading with each push of my hips.
“Oh—yes. Yes.” She bit her lip, lifted her hips, then lowered them, riding me. She came almost right away, gasping as an orgasm shuddered through her body. Each stroke was a soft, wet slap of skin on skin.
“Come for me, Reyna,” I said into her ear. It was part order, part wish, and in seconds, it was reality as I felt her clamp down on me, leaning her head back with every tendon in her body gone rigid from a pleasure so primal it nearly hurt.
I teetered on the very brink of an orgasm, a fantastic place to be. When it finally let go, I couldn’t hold back a cry at the stars as I erupted, proving once again that sex is always better the second time.
A few more strokes, then she went still and just lay on me, gasping, a thin sheen of sweat on her body. Battle wounds, hard won and slick with our mingled scents. I stroked her hair and stared up at the Sisters, shining like jewels in a deep, purple sky.
Eventually, we began to shiver. We cleaned ourselves up—it took some of our water to do it right—pulled our underwear back on, and settled in our bedrolls. I felt sleep nibbling at the corners of my wakefulness and let my eyes drift closed.
“Cus?”
“Yeah?”
But Reyna said nothing else. I looked at her and saw her eyes closed, her breathing regular, a faint smile on her face.
Flint appeared, looked us over, and then, apparently satisfied we were still safe, padded back into the night. Watching her vanish into the gloom was the second to last thing I remember. The last was looking back up at the Sisters. I’d ended my lovemaking to Kai exactly this way. The thought made me smile as I drifted off.
Parts of this life were tolerable.
9
We saw the first sign of trouble the next morning, while the sun was still low in the east. As I stood, stretched, and headed off to relieve myself, I took in the sunrise, crimson and glorious.
And not quite right. Through a gap in the trees, I caught something on the eastern horizon. A smudge, like a grubby fingerprint. My tech was able to resolve it a bit more. It was either a dust cloud, or smoke. Maybe some of both. In any case, it spoke of something—probably many somethings: men, animals, a mix—on the move. I couldn’t make out more, so I hurried back and woke Reyna.
She gave me a sleepy smirk. “Again? You’re insatiable.”
“Yeah, I am, but right now we don’t have time.”
Her eyes flew open and she sat up, reaching for her boots.
We headed east until about midmorning, when we finally reached a high point of land I knew. It was a solitary hill, its sloped sides forested with poplar elm, but pretty much bare on top. I’d always thought it would be an excellent place to build a small settlement; from it, you could see for a long way in every direction. The trouble, of course, would be water. It would be a laborious haul to get it here, and then you’d have to drag it up to the top. Still, it made the perfect vantage, and that was what we needed right now.
Just shy of the top, we stopped, then crouched and eased our way to the very crest. From there, we could see out to a far eastern horizon, one lost in mist and haze. The smoke we’d seen was closer, but I could just make out a line of trees that stretched north and south, between there and this hill. It was another river, a big one, and deep even in glory season. It would definitely hold the Osterway forces up; they’d either have to build rafts to cross, or else detour a long way to the south to find a ford.
“We’ve got time,” I said. “A fair bit of it, but it will run out.”
“So what do we do in the meantime?” Reyna asked.
“Head back to Watermanse. We’ve done what we came out here to do.”
“I know I did,” Reyna said, but her eyes didn’t leave the distant smoke.
Flint led us back down the hill, and we started back for Watermanse, moving fast.
“Okay,” Reyna said, “that is something you definitely don’t see every day.”
I nodded. We’d returned to the ruins where we’d taken our break the previous day, the ones beside the ford we had to cross to get back to Watermanse. There were more than just some wandering blackhorn in the area now, though. In the meadow between the ford and the ruins, we saw a wagon, but it sat canted at an angle, clearly suffering from a broken wheel or axle. A couple of people stood looking at it and talking; I got the sense that they hoped that, if they stared at the broken cart long enough, it might just fix itself.
But that wasn’t what prompted Reyna’s comment. What did was the dozen or so massive figures standing near the wagon. And I mean massive, as in, almost twice the height of a normal man. They were hugely muscular, too, but tended to be flabby. It looked like they were hitched to the cart—all of them. Such draught power was vast overkill, unless the cart was carrying some amazing weight—which might, I thought, explain why it was broken.
“They’re ogres, right?” Reyna asked.
“They are, yeah.” I glanced at Flint. Abhumans like ogres made her uneasy, often causing her to growl and shy away. I was never sure why, I just assumed it had something to with her past before we’d met. Ordinarily, I’d just try to avoid them. But being this far east, and otherwise alone, I seriously doubted they had anything to do with Osterway. And the sudden presence of fifteen ogres, total, that I could see, was too good an opportunity just to pass up.
“Flint,” I said, getting her toothy attention. “We’re going to go talk to these people, okay? You can hang back if you want.”
She gave me a leer, then shook her head vigorously, the same way she did when she was trying to shed water. I’d long ago learned that meant, “I’m good, don’t worry.” Reyna watched the little interaction, but just smiled and said nothing.
We started forward, Flint close with us this time. I saw her sniffing the air, though; she was suspicious. So was I. This might not be Osterway, but it could be something just as bad in its own way—or worse. Still, my tech didn’t reveal anything we hadn’t already seen, so by the time we got close, I was pretty confident that what we saw here was what we were going to get.
Flint stopped short and just hovered among the ruins, keeping an eye out. I took one last look around then nodded at Reyna, and we walked into the meadow. Right away, one of the ogres let out a low groan, l
ike an especially loud blackhorn in heat. Another echoed it, then they all started in, filling the air with a racket that would have drowned out gunshots. The two people by the wagon turned at the first bellow; I saw one of them had a bow and had knocked an arrow, but hadn’t drawn it.
Still, I held my hands apart in a peaceful gesture, and Reyna did likewise. The man with the bow—I could see it was a man, now, though awfully pale and gaunt—lowered the bow but kept it handy. His companion, a sturdy woman with her hair severely tied back, stepped forward and shouted something. All of the ogres went quiet at once, leaving a ringing silence in the air.
“Hello there,” I said, walking around one of the ogres who’d sidestepped as far as its harness would allow. “My name’s Custis. This is Reyna. We’re down from Watermanse.”
“Long way from there,” the man said, his eyes narrowed, but the woman shot him a glare.
“Gurdon, shut up,” she said to him, then turned back. “He thinks everyone we meet is out to get us.”
“Everyone is,” Gurdon muttered back.
I smiled. “Well, he’s not entirely wrong. It’s too often true that people you meet out here are out to get you.”
The woman scowled. “So, you out to get us?”
I laughed. “Me and Reyna, against you and your fifteen friends here? Don’t think so.”
“You and Reyna . . . and your big dog over there.” Her scowl deepened. “Anyone else lurking out there you forgot to mention?”
“Flint doesn’t care for ogres. And no, no one else. Just us . . . uh, lady? I gather that’s Gurdon, but I didn’t catch your name.”
“That’s ‘cause I didn’t give it,” she shot back, but her scowl eased a notch. “I’m Lanni.”
“Well, Lanni, Gurdon, we’re pleased to meet you.” I crossed my arms. “What I’m not so pleased about is that you are right, you’re not entirely safe out here. There’s trouble coming—”
“From out east,” Gurdon said. “Yeah, heard rumors from two different groups of traders. Saw some smoke out that way late yesterday, too.”
“You’re coming from the east,” Lanni said.
I gave her a you got me look and nodded. “We are. And now we’re heading back to Watermanse, to help them get ready to deal with the trouble that’s coming.”
“So you know what it is?”
“Osterway. They’re coming this way in force, looking for Hightec.”
“Well, this just gets better and better,” Lanni said. “We’re scrappers. Scavenging old Hightec is what we do.”
“Guess that means they aren’t going to just ignore us,” Gurdon put in.
“Well,” Reyna said, “you do have your ogres. That’d make me think twice about causing trouble for you.”
Lanni waved a dismissive hand at them. “Eh, they’re as dumb as trees. Sure, poke ‘em, and they’ll poke you back—and by poke you back, I mean rip off your head. But you can’t really organize them to do much more than pull a wagon.”
“And even then,” Gurdon said, just rolling his eyes to finish his thought.
I pointed at their wagon, which clearly had a broken wheel spoke. “Speaking of wagons, yours seems wounded.”
Gurdon finally put his bow back under the wagon’s seat. “Yeah, got stuck in this mud. Couldn’t get our fifteen dummies to stop fast enough to prevent the wheel from twisting. Lucky we broke only one spoke.”
“Why are all fifteen pulling?” Reyna asked. “That seems like a lot of power for one wagon to begin with.”
“Because,” Lanni said, “the best way to keep ogres in line is to have ‘em all do the same thing. They ain’t that different than blackhorn. Herd mentality. Fifteen pull, they all go together, in the same direction. If we only had, say, two pulling—and you’re right, that’d probably be more than enough—we’d have thirteen wanting to wander off in thirteen different directions.”
I nodded. “Makes sense.”
“Trouble now,” Gurdon said, “is we gotta unhitch one of them, get it to lift the way so we can get the wheel off and replace the spoke, but we also gotta stop the rest from wanting to get involved, yeah? That’ll end up with no wagon, just a pile of broken wood.”
“Better off using something for a lever,” Lanni went on, “but taking the wheel off takes two of us, so we gotta figure out how to keep the wagon levered up. See how this is getting really complicated?”
I glanced at Reyna, then shucked my pack. “Tell you what—I’ll lift your wagon up so you can fix your wheel. In return, you can tell me where you’re off to.”
Lanni gave Gurdon a look. “You’re gonna pick up our wagon,” she said. “Okay, but we’re gonna have to find a log or something for a lever, first.”
I grabbed the wagon just in front of the broken wheel, braced myself, and lifted. The wheel came out of the mud with a wet slurp and hung there, dripping muck and water. “Okay,” I said, “go ahead and block something underneath this, and then you can fix your wheel.”
For a long moment Lanni and Gurdon stared at me, then at one another, then at Reyna, who just smiled and shrugged.
Lanni finally said, “Okay, then. Gurdon, go grab them pieces of concrete over there and let’s block up the wagon like the man says!”
The wheel didn’t take long to fix, but I came to appreciate what Lanni and Gurdon had said about the ogres. Aside from me being able to just bodily lift their wagon, the biggest help Reyna and I turned out to offer was letting the two attend to their ogres, who seemed to get bored easily just standing around and either started bellowing—starting up the whole chorus—or trying to wander off until yanked short by their harnesses.
They really were dumb as trees. But that didn’t matter. I had an idea how to make use of them. What it required, though, was Lanni and Gurdon coming back with us to Watermanse.
As they organized themselves to get moving again, I asked, “So where are you coming from, anyway?”
“Long way south of here,” Gurdon said. “We don’t usually come this far north. But we heard there’s been some new Hightec discovered in some ruins up this way, so figured we’d do some prospecting.” He gestured back at the ruin buildings nearby. “That’s why we stopped here, in fact. Saw these ruins, decided to poke around. Didn’t find nothing, also didn’t notice that our wheel had sunk while we’d been off investigating.”
“You didn’t notice it, you mean,” Lanni said, scowling again.
Gurdon scowled right back. “Oh, so you did, but you didn’t say nothing about it.”
“Not my job to notice things like that.”
“Ain’t mine either!”
Reyna shook her head. “You two have been together a long time, haven’t you?”
“Feels like forever,” Gurdon said, but I couldn’t help noticing the twinkle in his eye when he looked at her.
Before they could start up again, I asked, “Okay, so where are you going now?”
“Not entirely sure,” Lanni said. “Was gonna keep heading north, do some more scavenging and trading, then head south again before the snow comes.” She looked at Gurdon, who just shrugged. “But with this thing, this Osterway invasion or whatever it is, we’re not so sure. Might just head back south.”
“You’re only a day out from Watermanse,” I said. “How about coming back there with us? Lots of trading you can do there. And, being totally honest here, you can help the town out. Your fifteen friends here would be a powerful help with defense.”
Lanni frowned. “Seems like a lot of risk, without the same amount of reward.”
Reyna spoke up. “What Cus is trying not to tell you is that your way back south might already be dangerous. Ain’t that right, Cus?”
I glanced at her and saw the look on her face; she was trying to come up with any way to get these two to help out Watermanse. The irony was that, whether she knew it or not, she was actually right. The way south would be dangerous.
“Tell you what,” I said to Lanni and Gurdon, “let’s take a look and see what we can
see from the next high ground. That’d be that ridge up there, just north of us.” I pointed at the crestline from which Reyna and I had first spied this ford the day before. “I thought I saw a spyglass amongst the stuff in your wagon. That’d give a really good view from up there.”
Lanni still looked doubtful, but Gurdon shrugged. “We basically got nothing out of this trip up north here so far. Why not?”
Lanni gave him a hard look but finally shrugged back. They clambered into the wagon and gestured for us to join them.
I thanked them but shook my head. “Reyna might want to, but Flint never will. She’s not a riding in a wagon pulled by a bunch of ogres sort. We’ll walk. Don’t worry, we’ll keep up.”
Flint, who’d been hanging back the whole time, barked once.
Lanni said, “Yeah, I can’t imagine you having trouble keeping up.”
Gurdon looked at me. “You’re a Legacy, aren’t you?”
Before I could answer, Lanni said, “You think, Gurdon? What gave it away? The way he picked up this wagon without breaking a sweat?”
The wagon rattled across the ford, which took a while, because they wisely took it slow. Once across, they picked up the pace, but it was still no more than a brisk walk. I gestured for Reyna to ride, but she stayed on foot with me and Flint.
“Flint’s not the only doesn’t like riding in a wagon kinda girl around here,” she said.
We reached the crest and stopped. Gurdon dug out their spyglass and offered it over. I scanned back to the east and south, then offered it back.
Legacy Page 9
