Slave of Sarma

Chapter Seven

Pelops played his part well. He lay so inert and lifeless that Blade wondered - had the little man chosen that moment to depart life?

The girl, her full breasts jouncing beneath the metal plates, did not so much as glance at the red-fringed marsh. She reined up beside the limp body of Pelops and stared down at it for a moment. She raised a graceful hand to push golden hair away from her eyes. She leaned down for a closer look. But she did not dismount.

Blade cursed silently. Get off the horse. Get down! He willed her to dismount. Otherwise it would be very chancy. He could not wait too long.

She slid sideways on the horse and reached with a long white leg, poked at Pelops with a tentative toe. Blade fretted. And got ready to do what he did not want to do, or even think he could do - run down the horse.

She was not going to dismount. Blade could not afford to let the horse get a start. He had no choice. He pushed himself from the reeds with a great bound, attaining full speed in three strides and running as silently as he could.

Blade gained a precious few seconds as the girl stared at him in shocked surprise - this naked brawny giant! Her eyes widened, her scarlet mouth was a frightened O, she gave one small scream of terror. Then she reined the horse around and dug her heels into it with a shout of command. The beast leaped away.

Blade had momentum. If he was to catch her at all it must be in the first few seconds. He put everything he had into it, oblivious of the jagged shingle ripping his bare feet.

He came even with her and grabbed one of her legs. She slashed him across the face with her crop, screaming now in fear and anger. His fingers slipped from the smooth flesh and she hit him again with the crop. The horse was getting into full stride. Blade grabbed again for her leg. She raised it and kicked him in the face. Blade stumbled, recovered, and put his last strength into clutching at the reins. He tugged. The reins broke.

She was cursing and whipping him now, her lovely face a mask of fury. Blade ignored the blows. He had a grip on the full mane of the horse and was running along with it stride for stride. But the horse was picking up speed.

Blade made a desperation move. He had never bulldogged a steer in his life, but he had seen it done, and if a man could bulldog a steer he should be able to handle a horse. All he could do was try.

He leaped into the air, throwing himself up and halfway across the long arched neck of the horse. He reached around and caught his left wrist in his right hand - he had killed men with such a headlock - and he applied pressure at the same time his heels dug into the shingle. Blade gave it all he had in a single gut wrenching twist of his great arms and shoulders. The neck of the beast came around. It stumbled. Blade hung on and twisted, his eyes popping, streaming sweat, his muscles knotting and roiling beneath the sleek swart hide. The horse went crashing down.

The girl went sailing over the animal's head. She landed hard and lay stunned, twitching a little. Blade ran to her. She lay on her back, arms and legs outflung, her eyes closed and breathing shallowly. A strap had broken and one perfect breast hung free of its protecting plate. It was her left breast. Blade knelt and put his ear against the velvet flesh, felt the nipple stir in automatic reaction to his touch, listened to her heart action. It was strong. He picked up a limp blue-veined wrist. Pulse good, too. She would be all right.

He spun around at a sound behind him. Pelops, crossing himself again and again with the T sign, stared from Blade to the girl and back at Blade. His expression was a mingle of admiration, panic, hope, and abject terror. He was trembling and near tears again.

Blade stood up. "She will be all right, little man. Only stunned and the wind knocked from her." He pointed. "Get that horse on its feet and get ready to move. We must not linger here."

The animal was still stretched on the shingle. It quivered in spasmodic little movements and could not raise its head.

Pelops said, "The horse is dying, sire. You have broken its neck."

Blade cursed, then shrugged his shoulders. "Then we shall have to do without it. That is bad luck, but it cannot be helped." He pointed down at the unconscious girl. "Keep an eye on her while I find a rock and kill the horse. I cannot leave it suffering like this."

Pelops took a step back and made the sign of the T. "I - I cannot do that, sire. Do not ask it. She is Zeena, Princess of Sarma. I taught her as a child. I can do nothing against her person. Or against her word. If she commands me I must obey. So I beg you do not charge me to do this thing."

For a moment Blade stared at the little man, arms akimbo, trying to keep his anger in leash. His impulse was to cuff the man to his knees. He restrained it. At last he shrugged.

"So I must do everything, then? So be it. But you make matters difficult, Pelops. A thing we will speak of later."

He searched until he found the riding crop. It was made of plaited leather thongs. Blade speedily unraveled the thongs and used them to bind the girl's ankles and wrists. Pelops looked on in horror and moaned and made the T sign.

Blade was in a hurry now. He kept scanning the beach to right and left. It was still empty. He found a good sized boulder and approached the horse. One glance told him that Pelops was right - the beast's head was twisted at an odd angle and its legs kept trembling and threshing on the shingle. "Sorry, old fellow."

Blade raised the boulder high and brought it down on the animal's skull. It died instantly.

When he got back to the girl she had regained consciousness. She did not struggle against her bonds as Blade approached, but watched him with a mixture of cold hatred and curiosity. Pelops stood by in silence, wringing his hands and making the sign of the T. The girl ignored him.

Blade stared down at her. For the first time he was acutely aware of his nakedness. Her eyes, wide and a cool gentian violet, deep pools the color of the nearby sea, roamed over every inch of Blade's body. They missed nothing, those eyes, and their stare gave Blade an uneasy feeling.

She forced Blade to speak first. He smiled, using his charm consciously, if a great naked brute could be said to possess charm, and said: "Do not be afraid, Princess Zeena. I am not going to harm you. I had need of your horse, but the poor beast is dead. And I have even more need of you. But you will not be harmed and as soon as I can I will let you go."

The violet eyes probed his. "Who are you? How are you called? And how do you dare lay a hand on a Princess of Sarma?"

Blade made a little bow, contriving for the moment to cover his genitals with his hands. "I am called Blade. Richard Blade. I am not in Sarma of my own will - but that I will explain later. I dare hold you prisoner because I must. That also I will explain when there is time. Now we must leave this place."

She flashed small white teeth at him. "How came you by my name?"

Blade indicated Pelops. "This little man. He claims he is a teacher - he even claims that he taught you as a child. This is true?"

The violet eyes slanted at Pelops. Her laugh was cruel. "He speaks true. I remember him now. Of all my tutors he could talk the longest and say the least. Until now I had only that against him." Her eyes narrowed. "But now he shall share your fate when I am set free."

Pelops cringed, made the T sign, and dabbed at tears in his eyes.

Blade laughed harshly. "We will see about that, Princess. In the meantime you will be our guest for a little while."

He bent over her. One lovely taut breast was still showing. Blade lifted it back into the breastplate and secured the strap. She spat in his face. He cuffed her lightly with the back of his hand. Pelops moaned aloud.

The girl lay quietly, staring up at Blade with wonderment and disbelief in her violet eyes. It was, he knew, the first time she had been struck. It had been no blow at all, merely a token warning, yet the effect was as if he had bashed her solidly. Their glances locked and held and Blade thought he recognized another element, a spark, a bare beginning and recognition of something other than hate or anger or resentment. He had seen that look in women's eyes before now. He would exploit it if he could.

Blade, unspeaking, picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. She was silent. He nodded brusquely at Pelops. "Back into the marsh, little one. You lead. Stay under cover and get us into those hills yonder as soon as possible." Blade nodded toward the sere mountains on the horizon. "And use those scholar's brains of yours - we must have clothes and food and weapons. Consider it an equation and let me know when you have the answer."

Pelops stopped trembling long enough to point at the dead horse. "They will find that. And our tracks lead into the marsh. They will be after us."

Blade, adjusting the bound girl on his shoulder, cradled his chin in a great fist. "You are right. But how soon? When does that slave patrol come back to the fort?"

"Tomorrow, sire. Unless the - the Princess is missed sooner."

Blade grinned, "We will take that chance, then. Forward, little teacher."

For hours they toiled through the swamp. Insects pestered them and small animals scuttled away at their approach and several times they saw snakes. The brown hills appeared to draw away as they approached. The smell of the Purple Sea vanished, the stink of brackish water replaced it, and it began to grow dark.

As the light faded they came to a spreading lake of black water in which thorn trees grew closer together. At this malign and forbidding sight, Blade called a halt. They would have to wade the lake - Pelops said this was possible - and Blade did not want to chance it at night. He found a fairly dry spot where two giant rocks arched together to form a partial cave, and dropped the Princess without ceremony. With intent. That which he had glimpsed in her eyes was still there and Blade meant to use it. For what advantage he could. A tenuous advantage, to be sure, and not to be trusted, but for the moment it was much better than nothing.

The Princess Zeena said, "I am bound too tightly. I hurt. Will you loose me, Blade?"

The big man smiled. "Can I trust you, Princess? You will not try to run away?"

The violet eyes met his gravely. "I will not run away. You have my word for it. Where could I run? We have come far and I am as lost as you may be."

He had intended to free her anyway. Free her and watch her closely to see what she would do. His plan, after all, depended on her attitude. He could have misread her eyes. A woman's eyes have been known to lie.

As he began to unknot the thongs around her ankles she added, very softly so that Pelops could not hear, "I do not think I want to run away, Blade. I am most curious about you. I see now that you spoke the truth and will not harm me, and I want to know about you. I have never seen such a man as you before - I did not know any such man existed - and I have many questions. And - " she glanced at the darkening swamp, "I would be afraid to venture there alone. There may be dangerous beasts and foul things that come out at night. No, Blade, I will not run away."

He left her chafing her wrists and ankles. He set about making the best camp he could. It was not much, yet better than he had expected. Pelops, much to Blade's surprise, fumbled about the lake edge until he found some sharp flints. The largest flint he used as a knife and dug the punk out of a fallen log; he managed to start a fire with smaller flints, and then set about gathering brush that was dry enough to burn, albeit very smokily. He found slender saplings and bent and tied them with reeds to form a crude lean-to over the cavern rocks.

The Princess Zeena watched all this in silence. Blade, pleased, slapped the little man on the shoulder. "You do well, Pelops. You also amaze me. I take back some of my churlish thoughts about you. But I don't suppose that even you can find us anything to eat? If I starve much longer my stomach will stop complaining and disappear."

Pelops smiled shyly. He had lost some of his fear and awe of the Princess, seeing her carried like a sack of grain on Blade's shoulder. And, a much more efficient leveler, watching her beg to be allowed to squat and make water within their view. Since Blade would not let her get out of his sight.

Blade, watching this with a secret smile, had known something of what little Pelops was thinking. A woman may be a Princess, she may be lovely and desirable and aloof, untouchable and out of sight, yet when she squats to piss or shit something happens. The gloss wears thin.

Zeena herself, though she complained at first, appeared to have immediately forgotten the incident.

Now Pelops, new confidence in his tone, said, "I will try to find us food, sire. I have heard of a lake called Patmos Tarn; most people fear it, but it is said to contain strange shelled fish that come out at night. It may be that I can find us food."

He nodded toward the lean-to, where the Princess Zeena sat and slapped at insects. "You trust her not to escape, sire?"

Blade grinned. "I trust no man. Nor woman. Go search for food, little man, and leave the Princess to me."

In more ways than one, Blade thought as he went back to the lean-to. If the initial part of his plan worked he would have made an ally and so increased his chances of survival in Sarma. He would also have a woman on his hands. Blade had no false modesty about his sexual prowess. Yet he wanted help, an ally and a friend, not an encumbrance. He shrugged his big shoulders and laughed at himself. There were worse fates.

Blade fed the fire with some of the drier brush. It crackled and sparked. The Princess Zeena watched him with cautious eyes. Blade sat staring at the fire in silence. He now had, as he had not had at first, total recall of Home Dimension. Where on his other trips into Dimension X his memory had been fogged - on his first trip to Alb it had been very bad - now it was clear and sharp. Credit Lord Leighton for that.

What were Lord L and J doing at the moment? Blade's lips creased in a wry smile. That was easy. J was worrying himself to the edge of a nervous breakdown; Lord L was working like a beaver and was happier than more normal, and less talented, men.

Blade, lost in his thoughts, firmed his mouth into a hard line. The stable near Salisbury was gone, total destruction, and only a few parts of bodies had been found. He recalled the strange shrapnel falling about him as he lay in the hedge. They would never bother him or MI6A again. As for his twin, the double, the pseudo Blade, that would have to wait until -

Soft fingers touched his biceps. She had moved close without a sound. Her fingers continued to stroke his great sleek muscles. She leaned to peer up into his eyes.

"Who are you, Blade? What are you? Why do you affect me so strangely?"

He put an arm about her and pulled her gently against his chest. He was no longer conscious of his nakedness. He knew now that what he had been thinking of as a necessary task was going to be a pleasure. Still necessary, still something that must be done if he could do it, but a pleasure. He began to lie, fluently and softly with the skill attained by three trips into the unknown.

He cradled her as gently as he might hold a child. He stroked her long golden hair and ran his fingers lightly down her spine. She shivered in his embrace.

"In my country," said Blade, "in the far land from which I come, and of which I will tell you when the time is right, we have a sign between men and woman. A sign of trust and faith, of friendship and love. Do you in Sarma have such a sign?"

Zeena nodded. Without hesitation she grasped his half limp penis in a firm hand. "We have such a sign," she murmured. "This is the sign. A woman touches a man so, and the man touches the woman so. It is the sign of all the things you mentioned. This is so in your land?"

Blade, being the man he was, handled it well enough. Her touch had made him instantly tumescent, ready for love, yet he only leaned down to kiss her.

"Not exactly," he explained. "This is what I meant. We do the other, as you do now, but we do this first. It is called kissing. Come, Zeena. Try it. If you do not like it you will not have to do it again."

She held fast to his penis. At first she shied away, pulled back, tried to disengage her lips. Blade persisted gently, holding her, pressing his mouth on hers until she began to respond. Her mouth was soft and warm and moist. Very gradually, at his skillful urging, it opened and he felt her teeth and the tip of her tongue. She began to breathe faster, the air sobbing through her nostrils. She pressed the cold metal of her breastplates against his chest. At last, reluctantly, she released her grip on him. Her arms crept up and around his brawny neck. He held the kiss for a long, long time and then put her gently away from him. He smiled down into the gentian eyes.

"Kissing," he said softly. "That is called kissing. Do you like it?"

She nodded. "It is very strange. I have never done it, or heard of it before, but I like it." Her red mouth crinkled in a smile. "But I like our way, too. I would not like to give it up. Can we not have both?"

Blade smiled and told her yes - they could certainly have both. They heard Pelops coming back and she moved away from Blade and put a finger to her lips.

"When he sleeps," she whispered. Blade was relieved to find the idea of privacy was not unknown in Sarma.

Pelops flung three large turtles on the ground near the fire.

These were his strange shelled fish. But how to get to the edible meat? The flint knives were not equal to the iron-hard shells. Blade solved that by simply tearing the shells off with his hands. They ate well enough of turtle steaks roasted on the ends of sharpened sticks.

Zeena retired into the brush for a few minutes. Blade let her go. He did not think she would run away now.

Pelops regarded the big man over the fire. His gaze wavered, then came back to face Blade's stare. He was clearly trying to muster his courage. Blade waited.

"The Princess Zeena - " Pelops began.

Blade nodded encouragement. "Yes, Pelops? What of her?"

Pelops swallowed hard. "She is a Princess, Blade. Daughter of Pphira serving her time as a cadet with the slave patrols so that she may one day learn to govern. All royal women must do this - learn the arts of war and administration, of justice, from the time they are little girls. I myself taught the Princess the art of eloquent speech by reciting day after day the famous speeches of past Queens."

Blade yawned. "You were well chosen for the task, Pelops. But what has this to do with me? And I warn you - no lectures! I am in no mood for them."

"Nor I," said Pelops. "I am a coward, as you know, and much too frightened for lectures. But I must warn you - commoners are forbidden by law to marry royalty. The penalty for so doing is a terrible one - the commoner is hurled alive into the flaming jaws of Bek-Tor."

Pelops made a hasty sign of the T and muttered something that Blade did not catch. He gulped hard and said, "I saw you. I came quietly with the shelled fish at first. When I saw what you were doing I made noise."

Blade regarded him with amusement. "You are a brave little man, Pelops. And you are also something of a fool - I have no thought of marrying Zeena. Why do you think of this?"

"But I saw," exclaimed Pelops. "I saw you touching each other. That is marriage, Blade, and it is forbidden between you."

Blade sighed. He got it now. Sex and marriage were one and the same thing to Pelops and, by extension, in all of Sarma.

He stood up, stretched tremendously, yawned, and patted Pelops on the head. "Don't worry about it, my small friend.

Go to bed. And sleep - do not pry. Think of the future - your own future. What you do not see you cannot be witness to. You understand me?"

Pelops stroked the baby fuzz on his skull. "I understand, sire. You command. I obey. But never forget that I warned you."

"You warned me," Blade said curtly. "Goodnight."

Pelops was already snoring in a corner of the lean-to when Zeena came back. She was dripping from a bath in the lake and she had found twigs and pinned her mass of golden hair high on her head. Blade tossed more brush on the fire and in the sudden flame-flare he examined her with lust and some lurking tenderness. The latter, he thought wryly, he must keep under control. Zeena was yet an unknown quality.

She came closer to him. Blade could smell the clean woman flesh. And something else - the faint musk odor of a woman aroused.

"Oh, Blade," she whispered. "I want you."

She removed her breast plates and dropped them with a little clatter. The full white rounds, pink-brown tipped, blue veined and swollen now with her excitement, trembled like living marble as she moved to him. They spread and flattened against his chest as he took her in his arms. She put her mouth near to his. "Kiss, Blade."

They kissed, standing, for a long time. She was a fast learner and presently drew his tongue into her mouth. She began to manipulate him. Blade kissed and sucked her breasts and' let his hands roam over her body, the small waist, hard firm nates, the long legs, and back.

But when at last he took her to the ground, gently, and tried to take command she would have none of it. She squirmed agilely, with surprising strength, and rolled atop him.

"You do not know," she whispered. "In Sarma it is done so - I am a woman. You are only a man. You must obey me in these things, Blade."

For the moment he humored her. He was aroused and having trouble with his breathing and wanted only to get on with it. Yet she delayed.

Blade lay supine, waiting, his enormous lingam a tower up-thrust. Zeena regarded it, her violet eyes narrowed. She touched it and bent swiftly to kiss, then retreated and made the sign of the T. She stared at the dark sky, then down at earth and scratched a symbol in the dirt. She began to mutter, a prayer or litany of sorts, most of which Blade could decipher although she slurred words and spoke softly.

"I offer myself, Bek-Tor! Two bodied God, God of two, God of good and evil, of sky and earth. I immolate. I marry. I shed my virgin blood and so stain this man with it that never can it be washed clean."

Blade blinked. Virgin? He had not counted on this.

Zeena came to stand wide legged over Blade. She stared down at him with eyes slightly glazed now. Slowly she began to lower herself. Lower - lower -

Blade ached, wanted, desired, demanded. His fingers arched and clawed at the earth. At the moment he was more stallion than man, more beast than human, and knew it and did not care. A sound came out of him that he had never heard before.

Lower. Zeena reached down and found him and guided him to that sinking pink orifice. Flesh touched. Blade fought back the urge to lurch upward and penetrate her. Do it her way. For now.

She raised both hands to the sky. Blade put his hands on her breasts.

Zeena cried out, shrill and sharp, "I marry, Bek-Tor. I marry!"

She let her weight fall on Blade. She pushed down with all her might. Her face twisted in agony and ecstasy and she screamed once. Blade felt the warm stain of blood as it trickled down his thighs.

As his senses fled, as he began to thrust into her, as the slick maddening friction began slowly to build, Blade had a last clear thought.

He was sure as hell married. Married in Sarma, to a Princess of the Royal Blood. What might come of it?