Days of High Adventure (10 page)

“You have a lovely body, Amira,” Salatis murmured when the kiss finally ended.

“I do?” A tremble ran through her.
“I’m not… standards are different where I’m from, I guess. I haven’t heard that before coming here.”

“Are you sure it is a matter of standards?” Salatis asked. “I somehow think that you have hidden yourself away rather than face rejection. I see it in the way you sit and the way you stand. You are unsure if you want to be desired.”

“Yeah, well… where I come from, that can be a sticky thing. Sometimes people only see what’s on the outside and they don’t care about who you really are.”

Cool, electrifying fingers traced across her shoulders, then along her collarbones. “You have never enjoyed
your body, have you?”

“No. No one has ever...ever wanted to be with me.”

“Then they were fools,” came the soft whisper against her ear. “Everyone in this temple would gladly lie with you.”

“I
really look that good?” Amanda asked.

“
As you say, there is so much more than appearances. There is the mind. There is spirit. You are a stranger in these lands, yet you walk with both humility and courage.” A heavy, nervous but delicious feeling filled Amanda through her center. “So many with less gifts than yours find love. Pleasure. Have you never searched?”

“I’ve always felt...” The words trailed away. She wasn’t ugly. She knew she hadn’t been ugly, or fat. She knew that. There was something else. “Shy.”

She could feel Salatis grin against her neck. “You will learn to remedy that here.”

Amanda whimpered. “This place...you...” The grin turned to a kiss. Amanda leaned into it, wanting more, wanting to return it, but still afraid. “This place makes me
shy. More than ever.”

“There is no need to feel shy here. No one knows who you are. No one need ever know you were here.”

It was as if Salatis had spoken some sort of magic words. Amanda’s fears diminished, leaving only hunger and need. She reached up to touch the other woman’s shoulder, then her neck. Salatis turned her face toward Amanda’s, letting her take a little bit of initiative to make her cooperation in this real. The priestess received her kiss, letting Amanda invade her mouth with her tongue. She came forward, sliding one knee up along Amanda’s thigh to rest on the bed.

Amanda tugged gently on Salatis. The whole world beyond this woman and this bed faded away. She felt the other woman’s hands deftly slip free the knot that tied Amanda’s sarong together. Every moment excited her more, yet robbed the strength from her limbs. Salatis seemed to know it; she guided Amanda back, letting her lay on the bed while she moved in over her.

Pleasure rushed through her as Salatis slipped her hands under the loose sarong to explore Amanda’s breasts. They’d always been sensitive, but never like this. Amanda moaned as Salatis gently squeezed and caressed. Her partner’s lips came down to hers again, kissing her while those hands continued to show Amanda just how arousing a woman’s hands upon her breasts could be.

Salatis then kissed her way down Amanda’s chin and neck, slipping her knees down further on the bed. Amanda wondered, excitedly, just how far down her partner would go. The sudden lick of that tongue across one nipple as the other was gently pinched destroyed any thought beyond her need for more and more.

“You will let me teach you?” asked Salatis.

“Yes,” Amanda breathed heavily. “Hell, yes.”

“You will trust me with this?”

“Yes,” nodded Amanda.

A gentle, skilled hand slid up Amanda’s leg under her sarong. As she gasped, Salatis reached with her other hand for a small bell near the bed. Amanda opened her mouth to protest, but Salatis just smiled and silenced her guest with an escalation of her intimate touch.

T
he beaded curtain parted. “Yes, mistress?” a girl’s voice asked. Amanda glanced up to see two lovely young women, both her age, standing in her room. They smiled pleasantly but otherwise seemed utterly unbothered by the lusty scene before them.

“
Ladina. Nishan. You will tend to our guest’s comfort for as long as she remains here,” Salatis said. Amanda breathed hard as the two women both nodded, smiling as if this was good news. “Nishan, please take her belongings to my chambers. She will sleep there with me until she wishes to leave us. Ladina, please aid me.”

Amanda gasped once more as the one called
Ladina turned and knelt beside the bed with a sweet smile. Nishan moved into the room, collecting Amanda’s belongings. Before she could object, though, Salatis had the knot of her sarong loosened and the fabric parted. Gentle hands and affectionate lips prevented her from making any objections.

The last coherent thought she had for a long time was the hope that the voice in the water was right about Eric, and that he
would be fine… wherever he might be.

***

The ambush went
off perfectly.

Eric had his doubts at first. His doubts grew as they lay in wait for two days for the riders who would bring the regular payment in gold to a camp full of guards now dead and eaten. Not wanting to irritate Fallon, though, he held his tongue and followed her plan. When their quarry arrived at the river’s edge, rearing up on their horses to call to the ferryman from where he sat on the shore fishing just off from the road, they had complete surprise.

Eric sprang from dry brush just off the road. He slashed his sword wide across the side of the lead rider, then continued on to get in a surprise stab at the rider behind him.

Fallon came at the two columns of riders from behind, spear in one hand, sword in the other.
The one on her right let out a low, surprised yelp as she embedded the spear in his stomach. His partner turned to draw his sword from its sheath, but the move left him open to a nasty sword stroke that cut him open just above his hip. Before he recovered, Fallon released her spear and followed up with a two-handed swing of her sword that ended any threat her chosen target might have presented.

With that, the
ten-against-two fight promptly became six against two. The odds in the riders’ favor diminished further when the priest of Set at the center of the column lost control of his panicked horse and found himself crashing into his closest bodyguard.

Javelins thrown by two of the remaining riders flew past Eric, while another wheeled his horse around to charge.
Eric faked left, then spun right just as the horse passed, and caught the rider across the spine with a high swing that bit through his hardened leather armor. He turned back to the others to see one turn to run while the other fell, clutching at a dagger that had appeared in his throat. Fallon was beside Eric then, snatching up a javelin and rushing in pursuit of the fleeing rider as his horse sped away. Her throw was spot on; the rider fell with the javelin impaling him through the center of his chest, dying even before he hit the ground.

Recovering quickly, the priest’s bodyguard loyally put up a stiff fight. He and Eric circled one another in several exchanges before Eric’s superior strength won out. A blow to the bodyguard’s skull ended the battle.

Jerking his blade free, Eric saw the priest cut down by a sword stroke through the belly. Fallon looked back at him, glancing with a frown at the horse of the rider he’d killed. “Why didn’t you take down the horse?” she asked curtly.

“What?” Eric blinked. It still shocked him how casual she could be about all this. Men were still bleeding out and already she was critiquing his tactics.

“The horse,” Fallon said, pointing at the now wandering creature with her sword. “Leaping across the path of a charging horse is a risk. You could have swung low, chopped at its legs. The rider would’ve been thrown.”

Eric let out an ex
asperated breath. “What did that horse ever do to me?”

Fallon looked at him like he was insane, but laughed. “You are a strange one, Eric.”

He walked forward, plodding along with adrenaline still coursing through him. “Hey, I don’t feel good about any of this. You know that,” he scowled. He looked on as Fallon tore a scarf adorned with runes and snakes from the dying priest to wipe the blood from her sword. “Where I’m from, this is robbery and murder.”

“Aye,” Fallon nodded, grinning madly, “that’s what it is.”

Her casual attitude drove him mad. “You understand this isn’t okay where I’m from? You don’t just jump people on the road and kill them. This isn’t normal.”

“No? Not normal?” Fallon asked, still bearing something of a grin as she squinted at him in the sunlight. “Shall we talk about normalcy?”

The barbarian reached down to grab at the priest’s robe, forcing him into a sitting position. He clutched at his gaping stomach wound, whimpering in pain. “Tell us, priest,” Fallon hissed into the man’s ear, “how many times you’ve laid some frightened girl out on an altar to your god and cut her heart out more slowly than I opened up your gut?”

Half-mad with pain, the priest growled through gritted teeth. “Set demands sacrifice! Set will rise once more!”

“Sacrifice. Yes. Where I come from, you can only
sacrifice
something that
belongs to you
. Would you care to be sacrificed to your god? I could take care of that right now.”

The priest’s only reply was spat out across Fallon’s face. She half-smiled up at Eric again
as she wiped away the stain. “That is normal for these men,” she said. “Virgin sacrifices to dark gods are glorious deeds to these ‘civilized’ folk.” With that, she shoved the man’s face down into the dirt, standing straight once more. The barbarian clapped Eric on the shoulder as she walked past. “Save your compassion for those who understand such a thing,” she suggested.

The
barbarian strode over to the man sitting on the shore. “Ferryman,” she said, “we’ll take our leave of you very shortly.” She reached down to pull up his cloak, allowing her to cut the ropes that had him tied in his seated position. “We will give you a small share of our loot for your troubles. If you’re smart, you’ll take that and a horse or two and move your family far from here immediately.”

The ferryman scowled at Fallon as he rubbed his hands, letting his empty fishing pole fall away. “You are too kind,
Northerner,” he grumbled.

“Indeed,” she replied with a chipper grin. With that, she returned to Eric’s side, helping him gather the horses to search their packs.

“I’m sorry,” Eric said finally. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

Fallon shrugged. “You aren’t used to battle, or hard living. I think I can find it in me to forgive you.” She tossed him a serious look. “A warrior must be able to decide quickly when to fight and kill, and to do so without regret. But I would not think much of one who could kill lightly, regardless of how fast.”

Reaching into the saddlebag of the priest’s horse, Fallon recovered her high spirits. She pulled out a large, heavy sack that tinkled with the sound of coins. “We’ll feel better after we’ve had a few drinks in a city of snakes.”

***

It was three full days before Amanda could seriously focus on magic again. In that time, she’d hardly worn a stitch of clothing, nor had she been alone. She enjoyed Salatis many times, and Ladina and Nishan, individually and together. There were others as well, of both sexes. Amanda was bathed, massaged and adored at every turn like a treasured guest.

She learned to give pleasure as well as receive. Salatis took sensual delight in teaching Amanda to bring a woman to arousal and ecstasy. Seduction became not only an experience, but an education.

As Salatis had promised, no one asked her who she was. Only the priestess and Amanda’s two “attendants” (to whom Amanda frequently attended in turn) had any clue of her arcane practices. To others within the temple, she was simply Amira, a beautiful young woman new to the ways of sexuality.

Returning to her studies required no small amount of willpower. Salatis could not always be around; she had a temple to run and a faith to represent among the powers of the city.
Ladina and Nishan were constant presences, though, and further lovely company was only a spoken whim away. Yet as much as she wanted to throw away the world outside and remain in the temple forever, there was too much else at stake.

She spent
the whole day practicing, finding her power and control had grown despite her lengthy distraction. Salatis resided in wide, spacious chambers. As long as Amanda did nothing that left a lasting mess, her hostess had no concern about sorcery in her chambers. That meant no flames or acid, of course, but not every spell in Amanda’s growing repertoire was so destructive to an environment.

Nishan reclined on Salatis’s bed while
Ladina sat nearby on a velvet couch, both of them watching in amazement and glee as their companion worked her wonders. Against an old, tattered tapestry brought in for just this purpose, Amanda hurled bolt after bolt of golden magical force. A small goblet of water floated around Amanda in circles as she worked, under her control the whole time.

“Why the water, Amira?” Nishan asked. “What is the point to it?”