Another figure came out from the hoof’s quarters.
Sluggard.
The vintner’s dormitory sat beside her solar, but thrust farther out, making her vantage above and behind the nomad’s left shoulder. He simply stood for a while, though something in the set of his shoulders bespoke discomfort. The small, circular steps, the deep, weary breaths, all the signs of one beset by sleeplessness. Fetch waited and watched, wondering if he would go back inside with her vigilance unnoticed.
When he paced away from the building, stretching one shoulder gingerly as he turned, his eyes came up. Seeing her, he stopped. Fetching cocked her head back toward the bedchamber and, without waiting to see his response, went back inside.
The door opened below, followed by Sluggard’s measured bootfalls sounding on the stairs. He walked slowly into the room. Fetch lit the lamp. He was bare-chested save for a bandage that wrapped from his right shoulder to beneath his left arm. Bruising from Little Orphan Girl’s tusk crept from beneath the linen and stood out upon his jaw.
“Pain keeping you awake?” she asked.
“A bit,” Sluggard admitted. “Mostly, I am tired of lying in a cot.”
Fetching nodded with understanding. Retrieving a bottle, she poured him a healthy measure of wine. There was no more cause to save it.
Sluggard nearly jumped at the proffered cup. “Oh! You are a savior.”
He downed the contents in two long swallows and groaned with appreciation when Fetch immediately refilled his cup. “None for you?”
She shook her head. “Long ride ahead.”
“But not for me,” Sluggard realized aloud, grinning before sipping his wine. “Is that why you invited me up? To tell me I will no longer be riding with the hoof.”
Fetch cocked a dubious eye at his bandages. “Can you?”
“Given enough of this,” Sluggard replied, holding up and swirling the wine, “I can do anything.”
“Well, that’s about the last of it. So…”
“That’s unfortunate.”
Crossing the room, Sluggard passed Fetching and approached the bed, straddling a corner at the foot and sitting without the barest hint of hesitance.
“How are your injuries?” Fetch asked.
The gritter blew out a sighing breath, reaching up to gently touch his bandaged shoulder and chest. “My yoke bone is broken. So that hurts. The tusk only split me a little just beneath that. Nothing a few stitches and a one-eyed halfling could not mend.” Sluggard’s cheek bulged as he probed the inside of his mouth with his tongue. “Lost a damn tooth. Probably the worst of it really since that won’t come back. Luckily, it wasn’t in the front. Women don’t favor gap-toothed smiles.”
“You’ll get a scar out of it,” Fetch pointed out. “On the chest, too. Hisparthan blue-bloods will flood their skirts over that.”
“We can hope.”
Sluggard’s cup was again empty. Fetch handed over the bottle.
“Are you certain you won’t partake?” he asked. “I’m likely to have finished this by the time you change your mind.”
“I’m certain.”
Shrugging, Sluggard set the cup between his feet and pulled straight from the bottle. He sucked his teeth after swallowing and looked up at her. “Well, if you won’t drink, at least sit.”
Fetch stayed where she was. “What will you do now? Go back to the cities? Start your whoring? Whore.”
“So you are ousting me. Not even being given a chance to slow you down tomorrow. Let me hook Palla to one of the wagons. He’ll take to the yoke better than any of your barbarians. You know I can damn well drive a team.”
Hells, no. Don’t be sensible.
Unable to outright deny his reasoning, and not wanting to agree, Fetch laughed and hung her head. “Palla. That’s why you are not coming tomorrow.”
“What? My hog?”
“Named after the great troubadour from Galiza,” she repeated, mocking his voice. “Hells, I did not know what a gritter was until you, but you must be the king of them all. Hoof riders don’t talk like that. They don’t know shit like that.”
“Fine! I will change his name to Cunt Fart and fit right in.” The wine and his own jest caused Sluggard to chuckle. It was a childish sound, though a charming one. It was also infectious.
“You will never fit in,” Fetch told him, her own voice quivering with laughter. “Scars. Missing teeth. Awful names. It’s not a life for you.” She took a breath, grew serious. “Sluggard, you could be useful tomorrow, for months even, all the hells know we could use another good rider, but soon—if we survive—I would have to offer you a place within the hoof. You can’t accept, not if you want to be a whore—”
“A cortejo.”
“And if you refuse the brotherhood you will have to leave. Better that you go now and live long enough to return to Hispartha.”
Sluggard regarded the floor for a moment. When he looked up, the laughter was gone from his face, replaced by an earnestness that Fetch had never seen. And did not care for.
“What if I don’t refuse?” he asked. “What if I stay, earn my place, and become a True—”
Fetch took a step forward, halving the distance between them. “No. You should be balls deep in noblewomen and neck deep in their coin. So. How much?”
Sluggard looked confused.
Going to the chest against the wall, Fetch withdrew a bag of coins, just a fraction of Oats’s winnings, yet still heavy in her hand. With a flick of her wrist she tossed the bag at Sluggard. He was taken aback, but managed to catch it, wincing slightly at the sudden motion.
“I want to pay you. I want you to please me. And then I want you to go.”
Sluggard dangled the bag in his fingers, carefully aimed, and dropped it into the cup between his feet. The size prevented it from sinking into the vessel. Instead it perched atop, an offering upon a pedestal.
Tossing the empty bottle aside, Sluggard met her eyes. “Come over here.”
Another step brought Fetch the rest of the way, standing between his knees.
Sluggard seized her, quick and hard, one arm wrapping beneath her buttocks and pulling her body into his. Her thighs pressed into his torso, hips against his chest. The pressure must have been causing him pain, but he did not show it, his free hand unlacing her breeches in three deft jerks. Fetching threw her tunic off and Sluggard’s mouth dove for the exposed flesh of her stomach. Embracing the short, twisted locks of his hair, Fetch kept his questing lips imprisoned, delighting in the shivers it solicited up her back. His arm released her just long enough for both hands to tug her breeches down. Her boots were still on, allowing her to be stripped only to the knees, but she was too engrossed to bother kicking her way free. Sluggard’s hands grabbed her rump, strong fingers kneading the flesh, lifting the cheeks. They moved to her hip bones, pulling a bit more forward as his head went lower. His face pressed in, the angle awkward, but his tongue found its way. Fetch moaned as he worked her. The tangle around her calves prevented her legs from spreading further, limiting Sluggard’s access, but it hardly mattered. A year’s worth of pent-up frustration came shuddering out, guided by the nomad’s tongue.
Sluggard pulled away when she was done. Fetching’s knees went a bit weak and she eased down to straddle one of his legs, grinding a bit into the hard muscle of his thigh to reap the last few tingling pulses. Placing a hand on his chest, she pushed him back until he was propped by his elbows upon the bed. She giggled a bit when her skill at unlacing breeches proved less efficient than his, but soon she had him free. His cock was engorged to the point of heavy, but not yet rigid.
Fetch looked up at him with exaggerated reproach. “Shouldn’t a whore be able to keep his thrum loaded at all times?”
Sluggard defended himself with three confident words. “Pain. Wine. Intimidation.”
Fetching laugh
ed, and stood up, making little stepping motions until she was out of her boots and breeches. Leaning down over Sluggard, she allowed her breasts to hang until they just touched him, sliding them down his chest and stomach. His cod jumped when it traveled between, jumped again when she took him in her mouth. That banished all impediments.
Releasing him, she crawled up his body. They both caught their breath when her hips lowered and he slid inside.
“You better not loose quick as I did,” she warned in a whisper.
He grinned up at her. “No chance.”
Fetching rode him, testing his bravado. Sluggard not only endured the long, slow strokes, he added to their efficacy, his hands guiding and caressing until, at last, pulling her down atop him. Holding her close by the nape of the neck and the small of the back, he thrust up into her with flawless speed until she again reached release. Rolling upon the bed, Fetch wound up on her back, Sluggard still firmly entrenched. Grabbing her behind the knees, he pushed until her thighs pressed into her breasts and her hips rose off the tangled bedding. He shifted both their entwined bodies effortlessly, until he was squatting upon the balls of his feet. He began to thrust once more, his legs drawing him out only to relax and send him plummeting back in, the depth of his invasion harrowing and exquisite. An intense, blissful pressure built. Fetch gave herself over to it, but then a familiar urge settled into her loins. She reached and made a clumsy attempt to ease Sluggard’s exertions, hands fumbling across the iron-wrought muscles of his abdomen, but he pressed on.
Through her gasps and moans she managed a near-panicked entreaty. “Feels like I’m going to p—”
At that moment, Sluggard pulled himself out. Fetch felt his middle two fingers slide inside. Cupping his hand, Sluggard began making a rapid, forward pulling motion. Mouth agape, but unable to voice her bliss, Fetch felt a torrent escape, heard the flow sloshing in the nomad’s palm. She went blind, eyes forced shut with a primal ecstasy, felt her legs spasm.
She regained senses to the sound of her own panting, punctuated by little moans. Her bedchamber ceiling was difficult to focus upon.
“What the fff—” She could hardly form words. “What…in fuck. Was that?”
Sluggard’s pleased, only slightly breathless, voice answered from somewhere to the right.
“Have you never gushed before?”
Fetch could not stop smiling. “Oooooooh, fuuuuuuuck.”
“Well…suffice to say that is the reason I am going to be a very rich whore.”
They both laughed for a long while, and when Fetch recovered, coupled again. The candles burned out and she fell asleep, too sated to take up the worry over the morning.
She stirred when Sluggard’s hand touched her face, growing annoyed when it lingered. Her eyes snapped open when the hand clamped over her mouth. A bulky shadow leaned over her, the narrow chill of a blade upon her throat.
“Hope you have some spirit left for me.” Knob’s hateful voice leaked into her ear.
TWENTY-FIVE
FETCH’S MIND RACED. She willed herself not to lash out, to fight, burying every instinct.
Knob had her head pushed deep into the bed. His hand smelled of hog, saddle leather, and soot. Both his grip and the knife were steady. He was calm, ready to kill, but not eager. Murder was on his mind, not yet in his hand, unless she forced it.
“Make a noise,” came the threat, “fight me, and we open your plaything from throat to cod.”
Keeping his hand upon her mouth, Knob turned her head, directed her gaze. In the starlight from the balcony, Fetch saw Sluggard, naked, held against the wall by a huge mongrel, a blade to his throat. His eyes gleamed, wide and furious and afraid.
The Orc Stains were inside Winsome!
How? Didn’t matter. The question was how to survive.
Knob lifted his chin at the other thrice, soliciting the brute to stomp lightly on the floor. Five more hulking forms drifted into the room. They were equipped for a night raid, wearing only breeches, lest a gleam upon the metal studs of their brigands betray their skullduggery. To that same end, they were armed only with knives. Fetch did not hear them come up the stairs, so their feet must have been bare. Their flesh was smeared with soot, darkening their already ash-colored skin. Hells, they had climbed the walls, snuck past the sentries. The alarm would have been raised had they slit any throats, left gaps in the watch.
Outside, Winsome slept on, unaware of the vicious intent that had just skulked into Fetch’s dreams.
The urge to fight intensified as the newcomers placed themselves at the corners of the bed, the fifth helping to secure Sluggard. A new impulse rose. Panic. It was harder to force down, but for Sluggard’s life and her own, Fetch managed to remain still while her wrists and ankles were seized.
Now she could move only her eyes.
Her limbs were pinned, each held fast by an unyielding strength. Fucking thrice-bloods!
So, two at the wall, one on each limb, and Knob. Seven foes in her small chamber.
Fuck.
Slowly, the meaty palm peeled away from her lips, hovering close. Knob was perched on the bed to Fetch’s right, between her and the balcony, his bald head and brutal shoulders etched in pale light.
Fetch risked a hissing warning. “Ride away, Knob. Take your boys and ride away.”
A laugh responded, quiet and wet. “Oh, no. I swallowed your threat. I’m here now to see that you swallow mine.”
Knob shifted, fumbling with his other hand. She could not see what he was doing, but could easily guess.
“I will swallow the entire fucking thing,” Fetch vowed. “But it won’t be attached to your body.”
“Thought you understood?”
Cupping her chin roughly, Knob snatched her head around again. The Stain with the knife began to slice down Sluggard’s chest while the other held him still, hand smothering his cries of pain. The thrice paused after cutting a hand’s length. The wound was deep.
“Behave,” Knob instructed, squeezing her face. He let go, straightening. One knee upon the bed, he brandished his erection, fist entwining in her hair. “I feel teeth and he dies.”
“Strange threat,” Fetch replied, calm as stone. “You’ll lose a cock. Taking nothing but a drifting gritter from me. Since you are determined to end up a eunuch. Go on. Give me the chance.” She put laughter in her voice and opened her mouth wide.
Knob paused, but his response still held amusement. “You sorely tempt me to wager, girl. But I don’t have to. Flip her.”
Fetch waited for the chance to free herself, for a slackening in her captors’ hold. It never came. They crossed her feet first, forcing her spine and pelvis to twist to their limit. Only then did they manipulate her arms, the mongrels at her wrists swapping which they held. Facedown now, Fetch felt the bed sink as Knob placed himself between her legs. He pawed at her buttocks, spreading them open, his thumb lingering as it brushed her anus.
“Mouth and ass,” Fetch taunted, craning her head. “I always figured you were backy.” She looked at the thrice holding her right arm. “You’re welcome, Stain. He won’t be buggering you tonight.”
The mongrel struck, a downward backhand to the cheek. He was fast, his hand away from her wrist for only a moment.
It was all she needed.
Twisting her arm, she broke his one-handed grip just as his blow sent lights crackling in her skull.
“Fucking hold her!” Knob growled, his weight descending upon her back.
Fetch’s free hand scrambled, but was immediately recaptured.
Knob’s hot breath poured into her ear, sounding pleased. “I warned you. Gut him.”
The sound of the door opening on the lower level froze the room.
“Chief!” A familiar voice called up the stairs just ahead of hurrying footfalls. “We got a fire at the—”
Knob lurche
d off the bed, moving for the door.
“MEAD! WARN THE HOOF!”
But Fetch’s cry only brought him rushing into the room.
The drawn sword in Mead’s hand caused the bedchamber to erupt, smoke in a hornet’s nest. Knob was nearest, his large frame barreling at the smaller Bastard, causing him to slash out. The stroke was hurried, confused, half-blind. Knob jumped back, avoiding the cut, but the Stains at the foot of the bed reacted instinctually to their chief’s peril, going to his aid.
Fetch found her legs free.
She tucked her knees up, gathered her legs beneath, planted her feet into the bed, and jumped backward. The distracted Stains holding her wrists were hauled off-balance, the one on her right letting go completely. The other stumbled but held firm, causing her to swing at the end of his grip, wrenching her shoulder. She tumbled to the floor, between the bed and the balcony opening. A foot smashed into her ribs, choking her lungs with emptiness and pain. The thrice, still holding her arm high, kicked her again. When the third kick came, she pushed off the floor with her free arm, trapping the oncoming leg with both of her own, wrapping it up. Twisting with every sinew, she dragged the thrice to the ground and stomped his fruits.
Finally, she was free.
With a jerk she snapped the knee of the howling thrice’s pinned leg, snatched the dagger from his belt, rolled to a crouch, and sent it whirling across the room into the gut of Sluggard’s blade-drawn captor. He crumpled, freeing Sluggard enough to grapple with the other.
The thrice who lost hold of Fetching came diving across the bed, tackling her and driving them both out onto the balcony. Fetch’s head smacked the railing. This time there were no lights, just a blackness, threatening to engulf. The Stain’s thick fingers were around her throat. Skull-cracked and befuddled, windpipe collapsing, Fetch felt her world darkening, shrinking to nothing but the face of the brute killing her. The same brute that had struck her, twice let her break loose. He was angry, senseless, lusting to end her with his bare hands.
The True Bastards Page 33
