Captive (15 page)

Sulitea made to urge her camel towards the sea but Aisla held her back, recognising the vessel as a Vendjomois trader, whose crew would see them only in terms of their value on the slave block. Instead they turned north, keeping close to the sea but beyond the vision of the ship until it at last vanished into the haze.

Sparse vegetation began to appear, salt grass and lichens, growing along streamlets running down from the mountains. These became more frequent as a larger mountain bulked to their right, with a scatter of lesser peaks and foothills between it and the sea. Miniature sequacia became visible in the valleys, then cork, and as the sun began to redden with the approach of dusk its light struck a square structure on the summit of an exposed spur.

They made for it, the first man made building they had seen since the Aprinian guard post. It proved no more than a hut, a square structure of heavy stone blocks with a roof of crude slabs. Far down the slope, where the mountain met the sea, a cluster of huts stood around a pier with small, stone walled fields to either side, struck red by the light of the falling sun.

‘Shall we go down?’ Aisla asked. ‘It might be wiser to stay here.’

‘Perhaps,’ Sulitea answered.

They exchanged glances, Aisla sure that Sulitea was thinking the same as her. However friendly the villagers there was bound to be some sort of social order, and with it authority. They would be unlikely to be able to sleep together, let alone enjoy each other’s sex.

‘They might be hostile,’ she mused, ‘and after dark we would have no chance to run. Let us go down in the morning.’

‘A wise choice,’ Sulitea agreed. ‘This hut must provide shelter for the night.’

They tethered the lead camel to a dead tree, took rugs and went inside. The interior was stark, with a great block of stone at the centre and nothing else. Aisla spread the camel rugs onto it and propped her axe against the back wall before turning to Sulitea with her pulse already beginning to pick up speed.

Sulitea looked at her, dim in the faint light, her big, pale eyes wide. They came together, kissing and stroking, as equals, the way it always began. Only as their pleasure rose and the hut grew gradually dimmer did inhibitions begin to truly slip, Sulitea beginning to take the passive role. With Aisla mounted on top, Sulitea asked first for her breasts to be slapped, then her face. Aisla obliged, feeling the joy of power as Sulitea squirmed beneath her and the sound of the slaps rang out, each followed by a little, breathless cry. With Sulitea’s face and breasts slapped to a blushing red, she began to squirm her belly beneath Aisla’s bottom.

‘Little slut,’ Aisla said and gave Sulitea a hard smack across her face.

‘Again,’ Sulitea groaned. ‘Treat me like Polia used to, slap me, punish me, make me beg and crawl on my belly. Slap my tuppenny.’

‘Spread then, wide open.’

‘No, I want it kneeling. I want you to smack my bottom as well, like you spanked Babalyn and I, nude and grovelling. Spank me, Aisla, spank me like the slut I am.’

Aisla dismounted, allowing Sulitea to turn and push up her bottom, thighs wide to offer her sex. The spanking began, firm slaps to Sulitea’s bottom, first on the crests, then to the crease, making the cheeks flare and show off the tight bud of her anus. Soon Sulitea’s bottom was as red as her face. Aisla turned her attention to Sulitea’s sex, smacking the plump lips to make Sulitea cry out and pant.

With Sulitea’s vagina a wet, dark hole, Aisla caught up the axe and pushed the tail in, feeling the wet mouth stretch to accommodate the metal bulb, then close a little on the thick, wooded shaft. Sulitea groaned as Aisla began to fuck her, working the axe shaft slowly in and out. Transferring the axe to her left hand, she began to spank once more, slapping at Sulitea’s spread bottom with her fingertips to bring pink marks to the skin. Sulitea sighed, reached back, and began to masturbate.

‘I enjoy this,’ Aisla told her, ‘think, Sulitea Mund, High Demoiselle, nude on her knees for a spanking. Listen to your bells ring, Sulitea, the bells in your nipples and your belly and your wet tuppenny. Feel my axe in your hole and the burning where I’ve slapped you, me, just a maid.’

‘Keep on, ‘Sulitea begged, her fingers working hard in her sex.

‘No,’ Aisla answered. ‘You are a greedy slut and a spoilt brat, demanding all the attention, even if it is for your own humiliation. Would Polia have indulged you like this? No. She’d have smacked your face and your fat titties and your fatter bottom, but then she’d have made you kiss her ring and lick her sex, which is what I’m going to do, Sulitea Mund, I’m going to make you lick my bottom hole clean…’

Sulitea screamed in ecstasy, coming so abruptly that it took Aisla by surprise. Jamming the axe deep up Sulitea, Aisla finished the spanking with a salvo of hard slaps, at once excited and angry, delighting in her command of the haughty girl yet also feeling that it was she who was truly being used.

As soon as Sulitea’s orgasm had run its course, Aisla rolled her and climbed on top, posing her bottom over her friend’s face. Sulitea gave a resigned groan. Squatting down, Aisla spread her cheeks to present Sulitea with a close-up view of her anus. She relaxed, letting the little hole pout, then held her pose, drawing out the exquisite moment when her lover knew that she was going to have to kiss a bottom ring but had yet to make the final surrender. Sulitea gave a groan of mingled bliss and misery and a savage delight welled up in Aisla.

‘Kiss it,’ Aisla demanded and immediately Sulitea’s soft lips brushed her anus, then again and a gentle tongue tip began to explore her sensitive anal crevices. She let go of her bottom and felt the cheeks slap into Sulitea’s face, then lowered herself a little, settling some of her weight onto her lover’s face to complete the queening. Sulitea began to lick more firmly and to probe the little hole, darting her tongue in and out.

‘Good girl,’ Aisla sighed, ‘that’s right, lick me clean, clean my bottom ring you little slut, good and deep, and I’ll frig in you face. Yes, like that, oh yes.’

Sulitea’s tongue had burrowed deep into her anus. Aisla, with her orgasm already building in her head, relaxed completely, triumph and an ecstatic dominance building in her head as Sulitea gave a muffled sob. Aisla came, laughing even as she did so and squirming her naked bottom in Sulitea’s face, her anus gaping wide.

Aisla awoke to the sound of a bell at some distance. Sulitea’s body was warm against her, one leg and a buttock cold were the rug had shifted. As she turned her flesh came into contact with the stone of the slab, which was colder still. She shivered and tugged the rug close to her chin. Again the bell sounded and she forced herself up onto one elbow. For a moment she listened, but no more sound came. Beside her Sulitea’s back was showing, with a tumble of blonde curls at the nape of her neck and the gentle groove over her spine leading down towards her bottom. Aisla smiled to herself, thinking of the night before.

‘Cuddle me, Aisla, I’m cold,’ Sulitea demanded sleepily.

Aisla’s smile grew broader and she reached down to stroke her lover’s hair. Sulitea shifted, the rug falling clear of her full breasts. A familiar warmth stirred in Aisla and she reached out, taking a plump globe in each hand. Sulitea purred as Aisla began to fondle her, pushing out her chest in response. A noise sounded from behind them and Aisla quickly dropped Sulitea’s breasts, turning to find the door swinging open. Sulitea tried to cover herself but too late, and Aisla found her mouth twitching into an embarrassed smile as a small, bearded man came into the hut.

His eyes met hers, showing shock, then anger, then an insensate hatred as he screamed and hurled himself forward, brandishing a long hammer. Aisla ducked and rolled from the block as the hammer crashed to the stone where she had been and Sulitea screamed. The man cursed and swung the hammer up, calling out in fury as others pressed in behind him with angry exclamations as they saw the girls.

Aisla jumped back, clutching for the axe. Her hand found the shaft and she jerked it up, catching the man’s second hammer blow. For a moment the hammer head jammed and Aisla twisted, wrenching it from the man’s grasp. She stepped away, lifting a hand, only to hear Sulitea scream as another, bigger man caught her by the hair. He lifted his hammer but she caught it, struggling to hold him away. Aisla brought the axe around, catching the smaller man as he reached for the hammer and shearing his head from his shoulders. Letting the air lift the blade she whirled, catching Sulitea’s attacker in the side. A third man stood in the doorway, hesitant with his hammer half raised, then running as Aisla darted the bloodstained axe towards him.

Two quick steps took Aisla through to the door. She ducked, swept the axe out in a short arc and jumped out into the cold sunshine. Beneath her the mountainside stretched down, with the man running and hopping at full tilt across the coarse grass and scree towards the distant village, yelling as he went. She turned, only to find the dead tree standing vacant. Beyond, scattered across the saddle of the mountain, were the camels.

Screaming for Sulitea to follow, she ran towards the nearest of the beasts, which was placidly chewing the cud a good quarter league across the slope. Behind her Sulitea called out in panic and Aisla paused, finding her friend staggering beneath the weight of the things they brought into the hut. Below them men were pouring from the village in a hysterical mob, waving mattocks and sickles and screaming threats and curses. Aisla ran for the camel, ignoring Sulitea’s entreaties, mounted it and managed to get it on its feet with curses and kicks to its flanks.

It responded sluggishly, still chewing as it began to amble back towards where Sulitea was struggling over the rocky ground. Ignoring the distant threats and demands to stop, Aisla swung Sulitea up over the camel’s neck and dug her heels in, abandoning the other beasts. The mob came after, howling with a demented fury that redoubled when they reached the hut. By then Aisla and Sulitea were high on the slopes, hearing the threats and curses only as distant noise on the wind. They rode on, determined to outdistance all possible pursuit, not stopping until they had reached a sheltered gulch of stunted olive, cork and grey sequacia.

‘They are madmen, feroces!’ Sulitea declared as she dismounted.

‘Did we offend somehow?’ Aisla queried

‘We did nothing!’ Sulitea answered. ‘True, they saw my titties. We might have expect them to demand their cocks attended to. Even if they had ravished us on the spot I would understand them, but to attack like that!’

‘They cannot be human!’ Aisla agreed.

Sulitea took a swallow from a water-skin and began to dress, Aisla doing the same and finding her sense of panic dying as she performed the familiar actions. Pride replaced it at the speed and effectiveness of her actions, and she imagined her father beaming happily and patting her on the head, then providing advice how she could have improved her technique.

‘Do you suppose they had any rank?’ she asked as Sulitea’s head appeared from the neck hole of the burnouse.

‘Perhaps,’ Sulitea answered. ‘Some sort of guard maybe, to carry hammers on the open mountain. I shall list them as warriors for you, and declined to mention the age or size of the first.’

‘Thank you,’ Aisla replied.

‘Which makes four warriors, although Kroth, I suspect was something more. I had heard the name in councils, Prince Ythor referred to him as a hero.’

‘A hero?’ Aisla queried. ‘How, when yet alive?’

‘The Prince was making a dark joke, perhaps,’ Sulitea answered, ‘and an ironic one, as Kroth slew him. Anyway, both are heros now, with Kroth’s name on your escutcheon. Cut down by a girl! In the feast hall they must be laughing!’

There was pride in Sulitea’s voice, and Aisla found herself smiling and blushing. She began to check the saddle bags as Sulitea took another swallow of water. Her choice of camel had been lucky, with a full water skin at either side and a bag of valuables including the inlaid clasps they had taken from Prince Ythor and Kroth.

‘We have water for perhaps three days,’ she told Sulitea. ‘No food, but there are olives and perhaps other fruit.’

‘What if we meet more madmen?’ Sulitea asked.

‘We must do our best to avoid them. What else can we do?’

Sulitea shrugged but made no answer. Aisla began to pick olives, browsing as she went. They were tough and sour, but plentiful, and she managed to fill a bag made by cutting the hem of her burnouse with the axe and tearing a piece free. Returning to Sulitea, they munched olives together, each thinking her private thoughts.

‘What we need,’ Sulitea mused after some time, ‘is some of that elixir you had at Kavas-Arion.’

‘I have none,’ Aisla answered, ‘and besides, even if we could obtain the ingredients it is foolish to tamper with the concerns of witches. Who knows what the consequences might be?’

‘Nonsense,’ Sulitea answered. ‘I have read of these things in the library at Thieron. It is all a matter of process. In general there is a primary ingredient, others being included to balance its effect. Still others are included simply for flavour, and neutral substances may be included to confuse the ignorant. There are also activants, which serve as catalysts to otherwise neutral mixtures. What was in yours?’

‘The sperm of an enraged troll, black mandrake, chevrotain milk, cherry juice, leather, chewed separately,’ Aisla recited.

‘In what proportions?’

‘Talithea did not say.’

‘Hmm, the troll sperm is evidently the primary, the leather acting as activant. The cherry juice is clearly a flavouring, no more. The mandrake I suspect is a mere blind, a substance of esoteric significance to evoke foreboding among the unlettered. Likewise the chevrotain milk…’

‘This is not so,’ Aisla interrupted. ‘Chevrotain milk has potency. Its use is one of the secrets of my vocation.’

‘How so?’

‘I should not say.’

What? Here, by the Red Parch, pursued by the deranged?’

‘This is to the side, but as you are not maiden I might say. Chevrotain milk is given to high-born girls from puberty. It calms your lust. Elethrine always hated it.’