This Battle Lord's Quest (17 page)

“You didn’t send a search party to find me, did
you?” Paas asked. Aggee noticed the slight smile that remained on the warrior woman’s
face, as if the dressing down was amusing to her.

“No,” Dahyan confessed. “I knew it would be a waste
of manpower. But I’m still pissed at you. Did you find anything else besides
this stranger?”

Paas laughed out loud. “Isn’t she enough of a
find?”

A wave of dizziness swept over her, forcing Aggee
to sit and lower her head to her knees to keep from passing out. A pair of
hands grabbed her good arm and helped her back onto her feet.

No more was said as the two women half-carried,
half-dragged her to wherever they were wanting to take her. It didn’t matter.
Aggee passed out before they got there.

Chapter
Twenty-One

Dreams

The water was warm, and the suds were plenty.
Strong hands stroked her back, more to tease her than to wipe away the grime. She
laughed as occasional fingers reached around to lightly pinch a nipple.

“You’re not doing a very good job of helping.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

The hands dove back into her hair to massage the
soap over her scalp. She closed her eyes, a smile on her lips, as she reveled
in his ministrations. But it wasn’t too long before the hands strayed again
from their duty to cup and playfully jiggle her breasts.

A kiss was placed on her wet shoulder. “Scoot back.
I want you to sit in my lap.” His whisper was deep, promising her further
pleasure.

She laughed. “I cannot, sir, for you have a rather
large pole in the way.”

A chuckle sounded next to her ear. “Then sit on my
pole, dear lady.”

She grabbed the sides of the tub and drew her feet
underneath herself to lift up. His hands circled her waist to guide her back
against him. Slowly, he lowered her over him as his thickness pressed into her.
Carefully, she raised up a bit before taking him inside her a little more. Up,
then further down, gradually working his erection within her, until her inner
walls wrapped completely around him.

Teasingly, she felt him slightly vibrate the heavy
muscle. The quivering against her sensitive nerves made her laugh.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“I’m hungry for you,” he corrected her. Suddenly,
he grabbed her hands. Before she could react, he halfway rose out of the tub,
pushing her forward, and braced her fingers over the opposite rim. The new
position left her half-kneeling, half-crouching, with him looming over her.

The water sloshed, caressing her skin. His teeth
lovingly nipped her shoulder.

“This is how I’ve dreamed of you all day,” he
murmured into her ear. At the same time, he lifted his hips, withdrawing
slightly, then pressed back into her wanting body.

In and out, building up his speed, he made love to
her as water splashed out of the tub and spread over the already sodden floor.

* * *

“I’m not hurting you, am I?”

Aggee gasped and opened her eyes. A blurred face
hovered above hers, interspersed with moments of light.

“Liam?”

“Who is Liam?”

She blinked several times to clear her vision,
until a weathered face came into focus. It was a kindly, elderly face, framed
with scraggly white hair and eyebrows. An odd-looking cross marked his wrinkled
forehead. The man reared up, and she could see he also wore a white beard and
moustache.

“I see you’re finally awake. Did the pain draw you
out of your sleep?”

“Who are you?”

“I am Bric. I am the practitioner for the Lanta
tribe.” He tapped the symbol below his hairline. “See?”

Aggee quickly scanned the area where she was
resting. It was clear she was inside someone’s house, although it looked vastly
different from any home she remembered. For one thing, the walls were solid
rock.

Bric moved his attention to one side. Behind him, a
window let in a bright shaft of sunlight. It caught her directly in the face,
and she lifted a hand to shield her eyes. Thankfully, the man returned to his
former spot, where his body blocked the glare.

“Now that you’re awake, tell me how you feel.” He
carefully lifted her head and brought a wooden mug to her lips. “Drink this.
You’re dehydrated. Slowly. Don’t take big gulps, or else you’ll throw it up.
There. Just sip it. Good. Better?”

She smiled as he lowered her onto whatever
bolstered her head. “Yes. Thank you.” She licked her upper lip. Whatever he had
given her had a harsh tang that he had tried to cover with apple juice. The
juice didn’t completely hide the bad taste, but at least it made the medicine
easier to swallow.

The elderly man pointed to her ear. “That’s a nasty
wound you have there. Paas tells me you can’t remember much of your past. I
don’t doubt it. I was removing the bandage so I could examine it when you
awoke. You were moaning. I thought the pain brought you out.”

He was loving her. Filling her. Making her crazy
with need as he drilled into her body. Sending her pleasure spiraling upward.

“I don’t know,” Aggee struggled to say. The dream
or memory, or whatever it was she’d recalled was making her body react, and she
shifted her hips in a vain attempt to ease the growing heat between her legs.

He gestured toward her arm. “Then, what I’m about
to do might. My dear, there’s no delicate way to put it, but you stink. That
hide is starting to go rancid. When did you have your accident?”

“Two...three days ago, I think. How long have I
been out?”

“A little more than an hour,” a voice on the
opposite side of the room replied.

Aggee turned her head to see Paas standing in the
corner.

“I’ll go tell everyone you’re awake,” the warrior
woman announced, and left.

Aggee heard the sound of metal on metal, and looked
back to see Bric attempting to cut off the coon hide strip with an
unusually-shaped, double-bladed, double-handled knife.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what? Oh, you mean these? They’re scissors.
Haven’t you ever seen a pair of scissors?”

“No.”

“What do you use to cut things?”

“A knife.”

Bric grunted in response and continued to fight the
hard, unyielding hide. “I think your idea may be the right one, this time,” he
finally confessed after the scissors refused to slice through. Putting down the
blades, he reached behind her head to grab something. It was her dagger, still
inside its sheath. Drawing out the weapon, he gave it a good hard stare, then
held it up where she could see it.

“Did you make this?”

“No. Ca—” The name suddenly escaped her. However,
this time, her struggle to recall the name did not trigger any pain. She
breathed deeply. “Someone made it for me.”

“Do you know what kind of dagger this is?” Bric
continued.

“No.”

“It’s called a Ballock, and it’s as finely crafted
a piece as I’ve ever seen. I would love to see what else your bladesmith has
created. The edge is honed to perfection, and I’m betting it’ll slice through
this hide like it was butter on a hot day.”

To prove his point, the man began sawing away on
the stiff skin. The dagger parted it within seconds. Bric cut through the
makeshift sling twice more, then removed the pieces to reveal her bandaged arm.
He delicately removed the thin strips she’d tied to keep the splint in place,
and once those were gone, he reached for the piece of wood on top of her arm.

“I need to check the injury. I will take the utmost
care not to jostle or displace the bone. We also need to clean it, which will
hurt like a son of a bitch, before I re-wrap it.”

Aggee gave a silent nod, and the practitioner
peeled away the tree limb. When the wood tried to adhere to her skin, he
reached for a rag sitting in the pan of water on the floor next to him and
squeezed a few drops over the splint to loosen its hold. Eventually, the stick
came off. Bric lightly wiped away the water and peered at the limb. His brows
knitted, and he gave her a stern look.

“How long ago did you say you broke your arm? Three
days?”

“Yes.”

“Impossible.”

He placed his fingers on her skin, and with a deft
touch, felt for the break. Aggee pointed to the location. “It was there.”

The man shook his head. “Couldn’t be. There’s no
swelling, no sign of bruising. Perhaps you only fractured the smaller bone.”

“It was a complete break. Both of them,” she
argued, pointing also to her shoulder. “And I dislocated this.”

He wasn’t so gentle when he prodded the joint. “How
did you get it re-aligned?”

“I rammed it against a tree. Look, I’m not lying
about the bones. I had to reset them, too, and I nearly passed out.”

“Maybe the pain made you believe you’d broken them,
young lady. If you had truly fractured both the larger and smaller bones in the
same general area of your arm, you would be showing massive swelling and
discoloration by now. It would take weeks before your arm would start to look
this normal again, not days.”

Aggee made a face. “Do you people always call
others ‘young lady’?”

Bric snorted. “If the age and gender fits, why
not?” He took a deep breath, letting it exit through his nostrils. “I’m going
to put a temporary binding on that arm. But before I do, you’re going to bathe.
Like I said earlier, you stink, and I’m of the age where I can say that without
remorse or embarrassment. Once you’re clean, I’ll rewrap your arm and head, and
give you something to help you sleep.”

“Thank you.”

Getting out of his chair, the man gave her a smile.
“Is that everything I need to look at? Or do you have another injury?”

“No. That’s all.”

“Thank Stephen. All right. Let me know when you’re
ready for me to finish. In the meantime, I’ll see if Dahyan snuck off with any
of that apple pie from dinner.”

The elderly man left the room, leaving her to
wonder if she could also ask for a slice. One of the few things she could
remember was that it had been a long time since she’d enjoyed hot apple pie.

Chapter
Twenty-Two

Decision

The sound of people talking woke her from a
dreamless sleep. The voices were coming from another room. She recognized Dahyan,
Paas, and Bric, which left one that was unfamiliar.

Rolling onto her side, Aggee sat up on the edge of
the bed and waited for the fog in her head to clear out before getting to her
feet. It was dark, and little moonlight filtered through the window, but she
caught sight of the tree limbs’ shadows swaying against the far wall. The
medicine Bric had administered worked well. Her head no longer ached, and she
wasn’t threatened with dizziness when she stood. Someone had dressed her in a
knee-length, dark blue nightgown of some very thin, nearly diaphanous material
that flowed about her body. Moving slowly, she stopped in the doorway and
listened.

“I don’t care if you believe she could become an
ally,” Dahyan argued in a low voice. “She’s an unknown, and she carries a
weapon. My orders stand. She will be kept under guard until she proves herself
differently.”

“How can she prove herself when you’ve removed her
dagger?” Paas asked, her voice equally soft.

Aggee glanced behind her. Her weapons belt was gone
from where it had been hanging earlier.

“That’s not what worries me,” Bric spoke up. “She’s
not just from an unknown tribe. She’s not even human.”

Several gasps answered him.

“What are you talking about?” a different voice
demanded.

“That blue color in her hair? That’s her real hair.
It’s not a shading that’s been added. The black part is not her true shade.
Didn’t you notice her woman’s parts when she bathed?”

“I wasn’t paying that close attention,” Paas
remarked with a degree of sarcasm. “I was too busy making sure she didn’t pass
out and drown.”

“Her eyebrows and lashes are blue. Even the hairs
on her arms and legs are blue,” the man continued.

“What are you implying?” Paas almost hissed. “That,
because she’s different, she’s our enemy?”

“You did say you found her in the fallen heavens,”
the other voice commented. This time it sounded faintly feminine.

“Yes, I did. So what? She was injured, and badly, I
might add,” Paas defended herself. “I came close to attacking her several
times, but I never saw anything warlike or evil in anything she did. Honestly?
I saw a lot of myself in her. I watched how she moved, trying to survive, and
in the end, I wondered if I could have managed as well with a broken arm and my
brains nearly bashed out of my skull.” Her tongue and tone were sharp.

“But you know how dangerous the fallen heavens can
be,” Dahyan insisted.

“Aggee is not one of those monstrous animals,
Mother.”

A shiver went through her. Dahyan was Paas’ mother?
It explained a lot, including their joyful reunion.

“I wish you’d stop calling her that,” the other
voice mentioned with disdain. “It gives me the willies.”

“Sorry, Aggee,” Paas replied gently. “I was telling
her about my family, and...well, it seemed to ring a bell with her. Besides, I
couldn’t keep calling her ‘hey, you’.”

The odd voice is the real Aggee.
The sister who helped the father with his
blade-making business.

“Then what do you suggest I do?” Dahyan questioned.
“Allow her to roam freely around the village?”

“As long as she is accompanied, why not?” Paas
replied. “Tell her the protection is for her own good, in case she should grow
dizzy and fall again.”

“Do you think someone’s looking for her?” a brand
new voice appeared. A male voice, deep and resonant. “You all are so busy
nitpicking over little details, I think you’ve completely overlooked the big
picture.”

“What’s that?” Paas asked.

“No one wanders about alone. No one. Which means
something must have happened to separate her from the rest of her kind. We know
what occurred. She was attacked by a coon, but do you honestly believe she
initially went after it on her own?” There was a derisive snort. “Whatever
tribe she belongs to must be frantic by now. There could be others already
searching for her.”

“The cavern entrance is safe,” Paas assured him. “Unless
they know exactly where to go, and what to look for, they’ll never find it. If
anything, the cave facing is covered with more brambles than ever before.”

“She is taken,” Bric announced.

There was silence. Paas finally spoke.

“Are you sure?”

“She wears a band of metal on her hand. In ancient
cultures, it was a symbol exchanged between betrotheds. And she has borne a
child. The scar on her lower belly is evidence to that fact.”

“Are you certain it’s not a battle wound?” Paas
asked.

There was no answer, giving Aggee the impression
that the young woman must have been answered or silenced with a look. She
lifted her hand to stare at the silverish ring on her third finger. She had
noticed it before, but at the time it had held no significance.

She was taken? She’d been betrothed?

She touched her abdomen.

I have a child?

“If her mate is alive, he’s certainly looking for
her. Even if he doesn’t find the cavern entrance, there are still other ways he
could descend from the fallen heavens.”

“Then we must maintain vigilance,” Dahyan announced
and gave a deep sigh. “With the last of the late harvest in, we must increase
our sentry posts. It was difficult enough to watch out for tribes approaching
us from across the lake. Now it appears we must also watch our backs.”

“You have to stop assuming she’s from a warlike
tribe!” Paas argued.

“I
always
have to assume the worse!”
Dahyah’s voice rose, and a couple of people quickly hushed her. She continued
in a whisper Aggee had to strain to hear. “I must assume the worse. It is my
job to protect this village! You don’t know these people, Paas. You haven’t
been involved in as many battles as I have. These strangers could approach us
with friendly faces, and then cut off ours head the moment we turn away!”

“Don’t forget, she’s from the fallen heavens,” the
real Aggee noted.

“I don’t agree with you, although I understand what
you’re saying. But I sense no evilness in her. If anything, I feel a sort of
kinship with her. There were times when I watched her that I thought I was
seeing myself, struggling to survive. Only when I was absolutely positive she
would not harm me that I decided to approach her. That, and because I knew she
would not live much longer if I didn’t at least offer my help.”

“Okay. So we keep a close eye on her,” the male
voice commented. “But what if her mate is dead? Maybe he perished while
battling the coon. What if no one back at their tribe realizes what happened?
Or they think she died along with him? What if no one shows up to claim her?
What happens to her? Will she get to stay, or will you order her to go? How
long were you planning on keeping her under watch?”

“I don’t know,” Dahyan admitted. “I guess,
eventually, if she proves herself, we could allow her to become one of us. Of
course, that would ultimately be the counsel’s decision.”

“And how do you determine that’s she’s worthy?”
asked Paas. “How many hoops will you make her jump through, and how many times
will you force her to jump, before that decision is made?”

A loud blat suddenly came from outside. Almost
immediately, the strange male voice yelled, “Enemy!” There was the sound of
many people running from the room, and in the distance Aggee could hear
screams.

She hurried into the adjoining room to find it
empty, the door leading outside left ajar. Exiting the house, she glanced
around to see people, armed with weapons and carrying lit torches, racing
toward the north. One young man dashed by, and she yelled at him.

“Who is attacking?”

“The Hassee!” he screamed at her, and kept running.

Without pausing to reconsider, she took off to
follow him.