Innocent (25 page)

Still dazed, but with the goblin musk clearing in the fresh draft blowing through the chamber, she looked around her. Babalyn sat to her side, naked, plastered with filth, eyes unfocussed, mouth hanging open with goblin come still running from one side. Other girls were beyond, two, both stark naked. Red hair was visible in the dim light, blonde curls, white skin, all encrusted with dirt. A new waft of air caught her, fresh and clean, and she struggled to find her voice.

‘Sulitea, Mistress?' she asked. ‘Aeisla?'

The mop of filthy red hair turned. Aeisla's face appeared, the eyes blank, then slowly filling with recognition. Her mouth came open, but no sound came out, then a hoarse croak. Cianna forced herself to move, shaking Babalyn's leg, then crawling across it. Aeisla reached out, their hands met, clasping tight together. Cianna came close, hugging Aeisla to her in a brief, passionate embrace, then Sulitea, whose eyes were shut. A muffled thud sounded along the passage, the hole expanding suddenly as new earth collapsed into the passage. Again voices sounded, now clear.

‘It's a burrow all right. I can smell them.'

‘The right one, do you think?'

‘Must be. There'll be a maze under half the hill. The problem is where the girls are hidden. There'll be a lot of digging yet.'

‘A thousand standard buys all the digging it takes.'

Cianna's memory came rushing back at the words, Ulourdos, dead on the floor, flight, Julac, the long journey through the hills, the ape, being chased, and finally the goblin burrow.

‘Men?' Aeisla asked groggily. ‘Oh father…'

‘Men who mean to kill me,' Cianna babbled. ‘Quiet, please! Babalyn, wake up! Sulitea, Mistress, it's me, Cianna. Can you see me?'

‘Babalyn?' Aeisla asked. ‘Babalyn N'Jukolana? Why is she here?'

‘She was with me,' Cianna answered, ‘as a slave. Mistress, Sulitea, wake up!'

Sulitea's mouth had come open, her tongue lolling out. Babalyn whimpered. Cianna shook Sulitea, whose eyes came slowly open, blinked, and slowly filled with recognition and awareness.

‘Cianna?' she said. ‘You too? Why is it light?'

‘The goblins have gone deep down,' Cianna said quickly. ‘Men are digging out the burrow, bad men.'

Sulitea shook her head, reached up to wipe dirt from her face. Aeisla had risen to a crouch, Babalyn turning towards them, looking on without apparent comprehension. A fresh clod fell in the passage, some twenty paces away. A boot appeared, kicking loose a clump of earth and grass roots. Cianna looked frantically around, to find that their chamber ended in a narrow vent, too narrow for her.

‘I killed a man, an important man,' Cianna said quickly. ‘These here, they mean to take me, Babalyn too, for death. Can you summon, Mistress?'

Slowly, Sulitea pulled herself into a kneeling position. Again she shook her head, then raised one hand and drew in a deep breath. Aeisla took a water bag from where it lay on the floor, pressing it to Sulitea's lips. Sulitea drank, sat back on her haunches. Returning the skin, she began to take deep breaths, then to move her hands in slow, precise motions. More earth fell from the passage ceiling and Cianna felt her heart jump. Sulitea stopped, gasping.

‘I can't,' she panted. ‘The air, the musk. I'm too dizzy.'

‘Try, please, Mistress!' Cianna urged.

‘It's not possible,' Sulitea sighed. ‘I just can't. I can barely think at all.'

‘What will they do, these men?' Aeisla asked, glancing to the hole, now a long slit of brilliant sunlight in the passage roof. ‘Kill us?'

‘No,' Cianna answered. ‘They mean to execute me in Kea, a great city, Babalyn also. You they will make a slave.'

‘Then we go out,' Aeisla said. ‘Be defiant. Mock them, fight, anything to draw their attention from Sulitea.'

‘They have bows,' Cianna said, ‘nets, spears.'

‘Then do nothing until Sulitea emerges. Sulitea, feign exhaustion.'

Cianna nodded, fighting down the bubble of fear in her throat. Slowly she began to crawl down the passage, Aeisla following. At the opening she clutched for her necklace, muttered a prayer and stood, blinking in the light. Men stood back, exclaiming in surprise. As her vision cleared she found one with a crossbow trained on her. Another was pointing a tube that looked uncomfortably like a miniature bombard, a third had his sword drawn, standing close to the trench at the bottom of which she stood. Two more, with spades, stood in the actual trench. Beyond was Glaucum, laid out in the grass.

‘Out,' he ordered, ‘and no tricks.'

Slowly, Cianna crawled up the slope of the trench, pulling herself to the lip on clumps of grass. The man with the sword moved back, keeping it levelled at her chest. His face was familiar, like that of Ulourdos but firmer, harder. Realising that it was Nairgren himself, she backed carefully away.

‘Hands behind your back,' he ordered. ‘Raigos, tie her. Gag her.'

The bowman came close as she put her hands behind her back.

‘Another!' one of the diggers called out.

Nairgren took a step back, turning, but never taking his eyes from Cianna. Aeisla climbed from the trench, the gun moving to cover her. Standing her full height, the top of Nairgren's head barely reached her chin.

‘A giant!' Raigos said.

‘Tie her like the other,' Nairgren ordered. ‘Aqual, up.'

One of the diggers scrambled from the pit, moving to tie Aeisla's hands. Cianna watched as her own were lashed off, seeing Aeisla clealy for the first time, the tall, slim figure, long legs sheaved in muscle, high, proud breasts, broad shoulders, firm, tight bottom, belly rounded out in the first stages of pregnancy. Cianna gasped in horror, her mouth falling open.

‘Where is the Aprinian?' Nairgren demanded.

‘Here,' Babalyn sighed, standing up in the trench.

‘Up,' Nairgren ordered as Raigos pulled the thong on Cianna's wrists tight. ‘Tie her, Telak.'

The man with the gun put it down, reaching to pull Babalyn from the trench. Meekly, she put her hands behind her back, allowing them to be tied.

‘One more, stranger still,' the digger still in the trench announced, ‘white skinned, with hair like an elf's.'

Sulitea began to climb from the hole, dragging herself, only to fall back. The digger took hold of her, pulling her to the lip, where she collapsed in the grass.

‘Tie her,' Nairgren ordered. ‘They are not to be trusted, these savages.'

Cianna ran, instantly, wrenching herself free of Raigos' grip as he attempted to fit a gag to her. She saw Aeisla kick out, and Aqual go down, clutching his side in pain. Nairgren moved, pushing his sword point to Aeisla's neck, but Cianna was already free, bounding through the grass in great leaps.

Glaucum gave voice behind her. Male laughter rang out. She tried to look back, stumbled, tripped, going down hard, struggling to her knees, only for Glaucum to crash into her. She went down, kneeling, the breath knocked from her body. He was on her back, panting, his cock probing for her hole, sliding between her buttocks, probing again, to find not her vagina, but her anus, still slick with goblin sperm and her own juice. Frantically she bucked her bottom, trying to get his cock to the proper hole. It was too late. Used to wriggling girls, he stuck to the hole he'd found, pressing, streetching out her slimy ring, bursting it. She gasped as her rectum was invaded, the full, fat length of Glaucum's cock jammed inside her with three firm pushes.

He began to bugger her, his balls slapping her empty sex, his hairy belly rubbing on her upturned bottom. The men were laughing, and as they came close they realised what had happened.

‘He's in her arsehole!' one called. ‘Raigos, look, Glaucum has put it up her arsehole. He's buggering her!'

‘I've seen plenty get it in the cunt,' Raigos answered, ‘but never up the arse. Will you look at him pump though!'

‘And the way his balls slap her cunt,' the first man said. ‘A standard says she comes before he's done his load.'

Cianna felt a stab of shame at his words, knowing he was likely to win his bet. Glaucum's heavy ball sack was smacking over and over on her sex as he buggered her, the coarse hairs tickling her clitoris. She could do nothing to stop it either, her body pressed hard down by his weight, her hands tight in the small of her back, beneath his belly. She was helpless, and as his cock moved in her rectum his knot was swelling, straining out her anal ring. The feeling was impossible to resist, even with the leering men watching and making remarks on her obscene sodomy.

‘I'll not take that,' Raigos said. ‘Fat Jelkrael says he is trained to take half-an-hour in their cunts, never less. How can she not come?'

‘She will regret running, come or not!' the first laughed. ‘Ho, Aqual, come and watch. Glaucum has his cock up her arse!'

Cianna shut her eyes, trying to block out their voices, and the feelings in her own sex. It was impossible, each slap on her clitoris brining her closer, and closer still. Nor was that all, with the knot swollen to full size in her anus and the big cock moving in fast, hard jerks in her rectum, putting her in a breathless ecstasy over which she had no control whatever. She was panting, then whimpering, and at last screaming out in an unbearable mixture of shame and ecstasy as her orgasm hit her, peak after peak, with each slap of the meaty, rough scrotum on her spread tuppenny.

The men called out in delight to see her come, clapping and slapping at their legs. Glaucum took no notice, humping away up her bottom, faster and faster, his cock squelching in her slimy cavity, the knot filling her anus to bursting point as she gasped out her passion into the grass. Her body was collapsing slowly lower, onto the ground, jammed down by his weight and the thrusts of his cock in her rectum. Dizzy, drool running from her open mouth, juice from her gaping sex, Cianna let it happen, jolt after jolt of orgasm running through her as she was buggered. Glaucum began to come, pumping hot sperm into her gut to make it swell, but never stopping, never even slowing, and again a climax hit her.

Faintly, she heard Raigos laugh as Glaucum gave a wriggle to push himself yet deeper up her bottom. She felt her anus close on the shaft, beyond the knot, and knew that the fat cock was well and truly trapped up her bottom. Galucum was going to bugger her, for his full half-hour, with the men watching and laughing on how often she came, on how badly she degraded herself.

‘I wonder if he can bugger all four?' Aqual said, provoking laughter from his companions.

Raigos answered, his tone jocular, changing suddenly to alarm, and to a scream of unreasoning terror. Instantly Glaucum was scrambling off her back, his knot popping from her ring to make scream in sudden pain. She went over as he leapt free, sperm spurting from her well buggered anus. Glaucum fled, whimpering, down the slope. Cianna looked up, back towards the girls.

Above her, not thirty paces away, a hideous apparition hung in the air, writhing tentacles with a grotesque, half-human face at the centre, the eyes burning scarlet orbs, the mouth a black hole, ringed with needle teeth. Raigos had run, Aqual too, and the other digger. Telak stood, lifting his gun, which roared out, spitting flame, to tear one great tentacle from the demon's body. The head began to turn, slowly towards Telak, the maw widening. Telak dropped the gun and fled.

Nairgren stood alone, screaming at his men to come back. His sword was clutched in both hands, his face white as he backed from the demon. Sulitea called out a word and the demon struck down, enveloping Nairgren, who screamed, hacking desperately with the sword, babbling in insane terror as the tentacles wrapped around him. The sword flew from his hand, full into the demon's face. The tentacles jerked, shivering, loosening for an instant. Nairgren broke loose, and fled, his screams mixing with those of Babalyn, who was cowering terrified in the grass, also the open laughter of Aeisla and Sulitea. Cianna rose, weak kneed as she stood, to walk back to the others. Ignoring the demon, she went to Babalyn, taking her gently around the shoulders.

The four girls sat in a wide pool, bathing themselves in cool stream water. It had been their first desire, once Babalyn had been brought out of her hysteria and persuaded that the demon was no threat to her. By then the five men and the dog had long vanished into the distant trees.

After collecting the men's equipment, they had begun to search for a suitable bathing place. Sulitea talked all the while, explaining how she had landed the demon on the night they became separated, only to be swarmed over by goblins and dragged down, overcome by musk. Like, Aeisla, she was pregnant, her belly rounding out, which Cianna found it hard to keep her eyes away from.

Finding the little gully between two sharp tors, they chose a pool and plunged into the water to rinse the accumulated filth from their bodies and hair. Five times Cianna washed out her hair, then sat on a rock below the surface to douche herself and clean her bottom.

‘What of you, Cianna, Babalyn?' Sulitea asked.

Cianna nodded to Babalyn, who began to speak, telling her own story, and Cianna's, to the point of seeking shelter in the goblin burrow. Sulitea and Aeisla listened attentively, slapping their hands on the water surface in recognition of Cianna's wrestling achievements, and at Babalyn's description of the death of Ulourdos.

‘Fine,' Aeisla stated. ‘You should be proud.'

Cianna shrugged, smiling and blushing at the praise.

‘How long did all this take?' Sulitea asked. ‘I truly do not know much time has passed?'

‘Over three months,' Cianna told her.

‘Three months! It seems like hours, or years, I don't know. Three months, wasted!'

‘Not so,' Cianna said. ‘I have your knowledge, or most of it. There are three ingredients for the black powder. The first is nitre, a substance gained from dung. The second is brimstone, a yellow powder found in the vents of volcanoes. The third is simply charcoal.'