The Barrow (55 page)

She had barely started to try getting her mind to start working again when a hand closed on her shoulder. She whirled around with a gasp, her face flushed beet red, and found herself face to face with Stjepan, his piercing gaze pinning her feet to the floor and her flustered tongue to the roof of her mouth.

She couldn't break his gaze, but she was vaguely aware that Erim and Sir Theodras stood behind him, looking at her and then scanning their surroundings with wary glances.

“My Lady Annwyn,” said Stjepan in a quiet voice. “What are you doing?”

It took Annwyn several moments to answer, her breath catching in her throat. “I . . . I . . . I have never been in a place like this before,” she finally gasped out.

“This is no place for a Lady,” he said. “For your own safety, you should leave at once.”

Annwyn seemed like she was about to say something, but his sternness was like a wall and she faltered at it. She nodded and drew her cloak and hood tightly around her. Erim took the lead to escort Annwyn back through the warren of stalls, with Sir Theodras tight behind her, one hand on his sword hilt.

Stjepan stood still and watched them leave, his eyes narrowing.
And that wasn't really an answer, my Lady Annwyn
, he thought. He waited until they had disappeared from sight.

Then he sighed and walked into the back room.

Gilgwyr and the venerable Woat nodded to him as he entered, and Stjepan leaned casually against the wall by the door and crossed his arms.

The man fucking the woman glanced toward Stjepan, and a flash of recognition snaked across his face. He grinned malevolently in greeting, and paused in his brutal thrusting, holding himself deep within the woman and grinding his hips into her pelvis. She gasped and moaned as he moved, then she made a sharp cry of displeasure as he slid out of her completely. His long, thickly veined erection bobbed in the air, shining with their juices, as he placed one hand in between her shoulder blades and forced the masked woman's face and chest down onto the cloak-covered bale, making her arch her upraised ass high into the air. Not breaking eye contact with Stjepan, he slowly stroked the length of his cock once, then twice with his free hand. He shifted himself above the woman's arched body, still pinning her down with one hand, and holding his long tool by the base he wetly slapped it against the woman's exposed pubes several times before he slid his length back into her to the hilt.

The big man started to fuck her in earnest. Soon he was grunting loudly with the effort, his face red and contorted, his veins popping and muscles straining, his hips almost a blur. He looked like he was trying to break her. The sounds of their wet flesh smacking together almost drowned out the masked woman's cries and moans of pleasure. She clawed at the velvet cloak for purchase as she thrust back against him, and there was a slight undercurrent of fear in her passion.

Stjepan glanced at the knight; he remained frozen, his expression unreadable behind the lowered visor, but Stjepan didn't see any noticeable tension in the way the knight held himself. Stjepan turned back to watch the scene impassively.

There was no question the big brute was a sure cocksman, if unsubtle. Stjepan idly wondered what it would be like to be on the receiving end of that particular member, so forcefully delivered, and guessed that it would not be to every body's liking. But the woman in question was enjoying herself, her body shivering in climax after climax as the big brute worked his rage and wonder on her.
She's a rare breed
, thought Stjepan. They were both clearly relishing having an audience, moving their bodies to most display themselves to their rapt onlookers, their poses and cries exaggerated for effect.

Soon the man and woman were finishing their act loudly and lustily, the big man's thrusts growing slower and more haphazard and then he was holding himself against her and moaning and grimacing. The watching men cheered as they decoupled, with several of the men who had their cocks out stroking themselves to a finish, their seed jetting out to spill on the straw and rushes scattered about the floor. The masked woman rolled over onto her back and luxuriated on the cloak-covered bale, her legs rubbing together as she traced her fingers over her shuddering flesh. The big man walked a circle of triumph around her prone body, joking and joshing with his mates, his still-swollen cock swaying in front of him, dripping their combined juices.

After a few moments the woman slowly stood and stretched her long limbs. Stjepan stopped leaning against the wall and straightened, dropping his arms nonchalantly to his sides as the knight tossed a bag of coins to the big man, who caught it with a grin. The masked woman lifted her red velvet cloak from the hay bale, shook it, and slid it imperiously over her shoulders and around her body to cover her glistening bare skin. She drew the hood over her head and mask as she and the knight started to leave.

“Black-Heart,” she said in greeting as she passed him, but she did not appear to look at him.

“Countess,” he said, as he gave a short bow, and the Countess and her knight disappeared out the door. If the knight looked at Stjepan or was even aware of his presence, he gave no outward sign from beneath his lowered visor, and Stjepan studiously ignored him in favor of turning his narrowed gaze on the big naked man standing in the center of a celebratory gang of miscreants.

“Black-Heart! You piece of shit!” cried out the man in question. He had a nasty grin on his face, but his words carried no real element of humor in them. He was counting out some coins into the elder Woat's hand.

Stjepan turned to Gilgwyr. “Godewyn Red-Hand and his band of butchers are the best you can do?” he asked.

The men in the room giggled and cackled as Gilgwyr shrugged apologetically. “Considering where we're going, our options are quite limited, perhaps as limited here as back in Therapoli,” said Gilgwyr.

“If you're really headed into the Bale Mole, your best bet would be to crew up with some of the Tirian lords or the huntsmen out of the Gyrdiff temple, or some Watchtower knights looking for scalps,” said the elder Woat. Stjepan knew the Woat to be Gelber, one of the clan's chief patriarchs. “But they don't crew for money or swag, only for cause. This is the best crew in the house right now, Black-Heart, and maybe the best crew west of the Eridbrae. Except our own lads, that is, but we ain't stupid enough to tread into Azharad's old realm,” he added with a wolfish smile. A few of the other men in the room started to grumble at that, suddenly realizing that he was, in fact, insulting them.

“No, I wouldn't imagine you would be, Gelber Woat,” said Stjepan with a deferential nod to the elder Woat. “But Moran Gower's got a better crew than this, as does Dürace Lambadras, as does Gause Three-Penny. No offense, gentlemen,” he added to hard looks and too-casual shrugs from the other men in the room, who seemingly did not appreciate the general drift of the conversation.

“Aye, but Moran's been run out of the Barrens into the Uthed Wold to hide with his brother Sayle. Sir Talley Ghent and Sir Cole Orenge came up out of Fort Schallis and Earl Geller came out of Hartford, and they almost had him at Dunnerden, but he managed to slip across the river,” said Gelber Woat. “The Lamb would do it just for the lark, but he and his crew wintered up in the Highlands the last I heard, and they're not likely back before the Festival of Ascensium at the earliest. And we just got word that Three-Penny went into the Devil's Tower with his crew a couple of weeks ago and hasn't been seen since.”

“We can't wait for the Lamb to come back. This is the best we can do, Stjepan,” said Gilgwyr patiently.

Stjepan frowned at that last bit of news from the elder Woat.
Gause has always been a practical and smart man. He must have had his reasons to enter the Devil's Tower, though I can't imagine what they would have been
, thought Stjepan. “And what about Red Tomm Hardee and his men?” Stjepan asked.

“He's sworn to the straight and narrow and staying on his farm at Holbrass,” said Gelber Woat. “Lord Duram and Earl Geller put it to him that if he didn't mend his ways they'd all do to him what they did to Moran Gower, and drive him into the woods with
his
brother, and hunt them both down.”

“Is Black Jack still alive and playing the outlaw, then?” asked Stjepan with surprise.

“Aye,
fae
-kissed Black Jack Hardee is still hiding up in the Kestle March, and has been there the longest of them,” said the Woat. “He's practically one of the Tirian lords by now, and he's the best of the lot, but it could take you days just to find him.”

And that would put us in close amongst the Azharites and their fellows, and with only the smallest of errors we'd be handing them the map
, thought Stjepan.

“Stjepan,” said Gilgwyr. “This is the best we can do.”

Godewyn Red-Hand, as indeed the big man was called, had still not bothered to put any clothes on, but had stood there naked, his flanks heaving as though he'd run a few miles, his cock slowly deflating to swing long and limp between his muscular thighs as he had listened to the others talk. “Damn straight that we're the best you can do,” he finally interjected with a low growl and a sneer. “Fuck the Gowers, fuck the Lamb, and fuck even the Hardees. My crew's as good as theirs, and better than any you'd try to get out of Newgate, and we ain't on the run, we're walking the West King's Road with our heads held high. And maybe
some
might not think it a smart play, but we got the balls to walk out into the Bale Mole.” He gave himself a slow shake for emphasis, grinning at Stjepan with daggers in his eyes. “Absolutely fucking right, if the price is right, even if the company ain't. Past differences aside, I say, when there's money to be made. Business before pleasure, and all that.”

“There's no pleasure here for you, Red-Hand,” said Stjepan coldly.

“We'll see, we'll see, pleasure is where you fucking find it,” Godewyn said. “Good to see you, too, Athairi. Now, let's talk about this little trip of yours, and about our pay and our shares.” He tossed the bag of coins into the air and caught it with a hearty, self-satisfied laugh as his cock dripped onto the floor.

Stjepan pursed his lips in a half-smile, half-grimace.
This trip is about to get interesting
, he thought.

The Dawn Maiden came and went her way, announcing the coming of the 24th day of Emperium and taking the rain clouds with her, and the sun was high in the sky before any of the guests staying in the King's Hall stirred. Long days of rough travel, nights of fitful sleep on hard ground under tents and stars, and the shock and trauma of their sudden departure from Therapoli had culminated in bone-weary exhaustion for many of them, and soft pillows and full bellies of food and wine had offered an irresistible invitation to long, deep sleep.

Leigh might have been the only one of them to resist that call; but then, he never even entered the King's Hall, but instead remained overnight in the back of a wagon surrounded by hay bales, silently observing the comings and goings of the Inn's yards from beneath his hooded cowl. The Inn had grown quietest in the darkest hour right before the dawn, but even then he could hear a handful of drunken voices still raised in song from within the great hall, and the sounds of vigorous sex coming from an open window somewhere to his left. He wasn't really listening to anything outside his own head, however; he registered and catalogued the sounds and sights around him, but his attention was focused intently on a scratching and wriggling that seemed to be coming from right inside his own left ear, as though something very small, perhaps an insect or a spirit, was pressed up against his ear drum and trying to scratch its way through so that it could write its message directly into his brain.
Yes, yes
, he thought.
I know, I know: drown them all, they do not love me, they hate me, they deserve death, they deserve death
.

By mid-morning many groggy travelers had finally appeared from their lodgings to resume the road, and several wagon trains had already come and gone. Woats flittered in and out of the King's Hall, bearing food and water and other sundries, and then eventually Sir Helgi and Sir Holgar were the first to emerge from amongst its guests, blinking in surprise at the bright spring sun. They eventually wandered off into the great hall, and then reemerged after a time with Stjepan and Gilgwyr and a few Woats. The group toured some of the stable yards, and there was some pointing and negotiating and some coin changing hands, and slowly a lot more Woats were summoned and set to new tasks. The coach was brought out and swung around in front of the King's Hall, and two wagons were brought up behind it. Bales of hay, bags of oat, barrels of water and wine, crates and jugs, bed rolls, blankets, furs, tents, coils of rope, shovels and picks and all manner of tools were added to the wagons, even spare wheels and wooden planks and poles. Draft horses and burros were selected and either yoked to pull the wagons or tied to their rears to follow.