The Sword and the Sorcerer (9 page)

“I can feel the silken purse between your legs, sweetmeat!”

He spoke huskily, brutishly.

“You’re going to squirm on the end of my lance whether you like it or not!”

As if to seal her fate, Alana saw two more Klaws wander into the alley. They marched to within twenty feet of them and vociferously praised the tender parts of the quarry their comrade had caught. “On with the show, Rouke!” one of them yelled to the guard that held her. “But I want a piece of the pie when you’re done too!” the other one exclaimed.

To the three guards’ surprise, Alana suddenly stopped struggling and began to wantonly grind her lower torso up against the man called Rouke. Now her legs pumped and squirmed as if they were impatient to wrap around him. She blew hot breaths on his hairy neck and into his ear. He loosened his grip on her and pulled his head back to better study her face.

Alana smiled lasciviously up at him. “You’re a
real
man,” she cooed, “aren’t you, pudding?”

He relaxed his hold some more, puffing up with pride in his sexual powers. “You will soon see for yourself, harlot.”

“Go to it, man,” one of the guards exhorted. “Can’t you see she’s dying for it!”

Slowly Alana worked one of her silky legs between his until she felt his throbbing manhood rest on her thigh.

He began running his coarse hands over the ripening curves of her body, her thigh against his shaft inflaming his lust.

“I’ll mount you as you’ve never been, bitch!”

“With what!” Alana shouted into his face, at the same time ramming her knee into his genitals.

He bellowed like a bull in pain, stumbling to the wall and repeatedly hammering a clenched fist against his abdomen while he nursed his crotch with the other hand.

The other two guards rushed Alana, threw her against the wall and held her there, each man grabbing one of her arms.

Rouke swayed in front of her, still rubbing the bruised member underneath his short tunic. His face was an ugly mix of pain, anger and lust. He slapped Alana viciously across the face. She bit her lips to prevent their seeing how much the slap had hurt.

“You slut! You’ll pay for hurting me!”

He grabbed hold of the blouse under her cape and ripped it open, exposing Alana’s heaving breasts, which were as round and full as they were upright and rosily nippled.

The men’s eyes devoured her beautiful breasts. “My mouth waters for a suck of those melons!” one of the guards moaned.

“We’ll each have our fill!” Rouke shouted. “Throw her on the ground. Her time has come!”

“Nooo!” Alana screamed, preferring to die than have these coarse brutes soil her with their abominable seed.

Rouke kneeled in front of her and forced her legs wide open while the other two guards pinned her arms to the ground. She struggled frenziedly to close her legs but Rouke wedged his body between them. He threw up her long skirt, exposing her creamy flat belly and triangle of pubic hair. “Ahhhh,” he growled. “The bearded rose! Let’s see if there’s any honey behind those pretty petals!”

Alana screamed, writhed and struggled desperately to free herself but to no avail. Her limbs were bolted to the cobbles by the three men. To her horror she saw Rouke unsheath his dagger, the long blade catching sparks of moonlight. With his other hand, he unflapped the cockpiece on his tights and let spring forth his huge, savage-looking member.

Alana averted the sight of it by clamping her eyes shut, whimpering with knowledge of what was to come. Was the ultimate moment she had deliciously fantasized ever since the day she crossed the line from girl to woman going to happen on her back in a dirty, foul-smelling alley, beneath the weight of a swinish Cromwell soldier? Mercy, oh Lord! Mercy!

Rouke began stroking the inside of her thighs with the sharp edge of his dagger, reveling in the terror screwing up her pretty features. “When one dagger won’t do—the other will.”

He dropped the knife on the cobbles, used one hand to keep her thighs spread and with his other hand steered the purplish head of his shaft to the threshold of her womanhood.

She screamed again and again, ripping the night’s silence to shreds.

“I like to hear my women scream!”

His two cohorts laughed at the girl’s misery and urged Rouke to enter, so that they too could partake of her lavish body.

Just before he parted her lips with two fingers a brusque noise from behind distracted him and he looked over his shoulder.

Standing no more than ten feet behind the soldiers was a young giant of a man, smacking away on a huge bone of meat, a glitter of mischief in his startlingly blue eyes. The hand holding the thighbone was covered with some kind of a steel brace.

Rouke saw that the interruption had opened the girls eyes and she too stared, as they all did, at this outrageously handsome dog who dared interrupt his pleasure, only her look was fraught with shame to be seen naked and sprawled this way.

Rouke assumed he was just a wanderer off the street intrigued by the wench’s screams. “Leave, pig, or die!”

The intruder didn’t budge. In fact he seemed resolute to stay.

“You call
me
pig?” Talon asked with amused disdain, adding, “Sir Pig.”

Rouke began to stuff his shrinking member back into his cockpiece and started to rise. “Why, you dirty rotten—”

He never finished his sentence because Talon slammed the huge thighbone he had been munching on into Rouke’s face, sending him reeling unconscious to the cobbles. One of the other men went for his sword but Talon bludgeoned him unconscious too before he got off his knees. Panicky, the third guard managed to get to his feet, but in his eagerness to flee he forgot they were locked into a dead end and he ran right into the wall, head hung low, knocking himself out.

Talon roared with laughter at this bit of stupidity, even while appraising the lovely girl’s face and bare breasts.

Still shaken and dazed from the ordeal, Alana started to push herself up from the cobbles but fell down again. She was weaker than she thought. The tall, broad-shouldered stranger offered her a hand and she took it. With one gentle, firm pull he lifted her to her feet but continued to clasp her hand. Energy from an inexhaustable supply seemed to pour from him through his hand and into her, reviving her.

“I owe you my life, sir.”

He shrugged as if he had been doing this sort of thing all of his life and still did not let go of her hand.

“You’re all right now,” he reassured her. “Stop shaking. You’re safe, I say.”

She caught him gazing with too much appreciation at her breasts and she suddenly remembered she was naked from the waist up. She tore her hand from his clasp and covered her breasts with both hands, flushed with embarrassment.

Talon wanted to reassure her that he meant her no harm and moved to comfort her in his arms. But she recoiled and hissed at him.

“Stay away!”

He stopped and shrugged his massive shoulders once more. There was no point in remaining. She was safe now. And probably anxious to escape to some lover she lived with in one of these squalid stone hovels. He would have liked immensely to taste one of those tempting strawberries that peeked out between her fingers but that obviously wasn’t meant to be. He nodded a goodbye, turned on his heels and took long strides walking out of the alley. He had more important things on his mind than wenching anyway—regardless how incredibly appetizing that particular wench happened to be.

Alana watched the gorgeous young warrior fade out of the alley, dumbfounded. Never had she beheld so comely a man. The long grey, flowing cloak he wore could not hide from her his thickly muscled body, nor the way his massive chest tapered down to slim hips. And the raw animal magnetism that had passed through his hand when he held her had made her nipples harden, as immodest as that might be. Surely a man who looked the way he did and who carried himself with such courtly self-assurance could not be an ordinary commoner. Even though no one was there to witness it, she blushed. Nevertheless she had been ungracious towards him. He had saved her life and instead of at least a kiss, she had given him a hiss. Should she run after him and apologize? But then he might misconstrue her intentions. What to do?

The clink and stamp of passing Klaws in an adjacent street made her decision for her. She swept her torn cloak off the cobbles, covered her nakedness, and went running after him.

When she finally reached his side he didn’t drop a beat in his brisk walk, and he did not give her so much as a glance. “Wait!” she implored in hushed tones. But he kept plowing ahead. “Please, sir! I’ve no one else to ask for help. And you’ve been so kind!”

He finally stopped and gazed deep into her face. The intensity of his blue eyes sent shivers through her whole being.

“What do you want?”

“Not here . . . on the street. Cromwell’s assassins are everywhere. Follow me—please! My name is Alana,” she said, running ahead and assuming he would follow her.

Talon stood transfixed to the spot, trying to regain his composure, which had been shattered under the impact of what she had said.
Alana?
My God—could that sensuous feast of a girl running over the cobbles like a gazelle be
the
Alana? The erotic nymph of so many of his youthful nocturnal fantasies? Phelan’s little girl and his first love? There was only one way to find out. He ran after her, his long muscular legs bringing him quickly up to her.

NINE

o light leaked through the cracks in the shutters or the wooden door. To all appearances the tavern was closed for the night and the inkeeper asleep inside. But Alana knew Craccus was awake and waiting for her. By now news of the raid and her escape must have reached Craccus. And he would rightly assume she would seek refuge in his place.

As Alana used the coded knock on the tavern door she recalled that the last time she heard the code was when Mikah had used it earlier in the day, and she felt a stab of sadness.

“What’s wrong?” the handsome barbarian at her side gently asked, while they waited for the innkeeper to open the door.

“Nothing.”

He was puzzling in many ways. For one thing ever since he caught up with her in the street he had a look that conveyed he knew something about her that she didn’t. Then there were the extremes in his behavior. He wore the rough cloak, shepherd’s boots and chain mail of a barbarian. And he had the ferocity and strength to match that image, as the way he coped with her attackers demonstrated. Yet he could be gentle and he had the demeanor and aristocratic features of a nobleman. Yes, he was a puzzle.

Craccus, cagey by nature and with the features of a buzzard, opened the door and eyed the towering stranger at her side with suspicion.

“He’s all right,” Alana assured him.

Craccus let them in and closed the door. Before they went any further Craccus stepped in front of her, ill tidings all over his face. They were in a darkly lit hallway. Deeper into the tavern torches and candles on long wooden tables flickered in the main room. Except for two drunken rebels drinking tankards of ale at one of the tables, the room was empty. Alana noticed the young giant gazing longingly at the kegs of ale, grog and wine over a small bar.

“Cromwell’s dogs have been raiding and murdering our people,” Craccus spoke, his voice raspy and full of distrust. “Kalipa says your brother was captured by Cromwell himself.”

Alana knew that much and was glad to hear he was at least alive. “Do you know what Cromwell intends to do with him?”

Craccus couldn’t look into the girl’s sweet face when he spoke again. “Alas, he plans to execute Mikah at the Royal Feast tomorrow.”

“Oh God, no!”

Talon acted as if he had not heard. Better to appear detached from their cause and to remain anonymous until he knew for certain who were the villains and who were the good men in their rebellious dealings. He had already heard enough to conclude that Cromwell’s spies had infiltrated the rebels’ ranks.

“What food have you here?”

Craccus reacted to Talon’s question as if he had been slapped in the face with a fish. “You speak of food at a time like this?”

Alana scrutinized Talon’s face. He couldn’t be
that
callous to her feelings, not after having saved her life. She decided he was playing some kind of a game for an as yet unknown reason.

She tried to calm Craccus by kissing him on the cheek. “Pay no attention, Craccus. We must get the word out. There is to be no attack tomorrow.
No
attack. Understand?”

Craccus nodded, tossed the arrogant stranger with blazing blue eyes his most hostile visage and led them both down the hallway to a table. He shuffled away to fetch them wine.

Alana and Talon sat opposite each other on long log benches. The warm glow of an oil lamp on the table wove alternating light and shadows on their faces. But even in the dim illumination Alana could discern how sun-baked was Talon, and that his square-cut raven black hair framed his sharp features in a most enhancing manner. She guessed him to be about the same age as her brother, twenty-five or so.

Craccus reappeared and set down a flagon of wine, several drinking jacks and a bowl of dates. Talon grimaced at the fare.