Champions Of The Gods

Chapter Seven

Blade awoke in darkness. He did not wake in silence. Softly, but unmistakably, a key was turning in the lock of the chamber door. Blade was instantly alert, but he lay motionless.

The faint metallic clicking continued. Whoever was trying to get in was obviously having a little trouble with the lock. For Jormin's guards or the doctor, the door always slipped open easily. Who else could be interested in entering the chamber, and at this time of night? Could Mirdon have decided to strike back at Jormin by striking down Blade? That would mean a deadly feud with the Consecrated; was Mirdon desperate enough for that?

More clicking, then a sharp, familiar clink as the bolt sprang clear. More metallic sounds-a key being withdrawn. Then Blade saw movement in the darkness as the chamber door opened.

The door opened slowly and silently. Whoever was pushing it hoped to sneak up on a sleeping Blade. At any time in any Dimension, that was something more easily hoped for than done. Blade continued to lie still, making his breathing regular and lowering his eyelids until he could just barely see.

Suddenly the door swung wide, with a faint creak of hinges. Blade saw clearly out into the chamber beyond. Pale moonlight and a dying torch showed that it was empty. The light also silhouetted a small figure standing motionless in the doorway. Blade caught a suggestion of long hair flowing down over square shoulders.

The figure moved forward, shutting the door behind it, then stood still once more. Blade's ears picked up the faint rustle of fabric sliding over skin, the even fainter whisper of clothes landing on the floor. A moment of silence, then bare feet started across the floor toward him.

Blade was no longer tense. He saw that it was Arllona walking across the chamber toward him. Arllona, completely nude. Blade continued to lie still and watch admiringly as Arllona materialized out of the darkness.

Her body was full and abundant. But there was no excess to any of it, no flabbiness, no softness. Her magnificent breasts quivered gently, delicately, with each step. Her nipples were large, dark, perfectly centered. Her waist was surprisingly slim, so trim and neat that her breasts looked almost out of proportion. Her hips flared out widely, so that her gracefully curved legs looked almost too short. Her thighs cradled a perfect triangle of dark hair that seemed almost too bushy. Everything about this woman was «almost» out of proportion. Nothing really was, when you looked more closely. Somehow it all arranged itself in harmony, and the result was a robust, earthy beauty. Blade found his breath quickening in anticipation. As Arllona moved still closer, he saw that anticipation-or something-must be working in her too. Her lips were slightly parted, and her nipples had risen to firm points.

Arllona stopped a yard from Blade's sleeping pad and looked down at him. He could hear her breath coming faster, hear her swallow. She squatted down and reached out one hand. A long, sure finger traced a line from Blade's shoulder, down across his massive chest and flat, muscular belly, and stopped at the edge of the quilt. Gently, with thumb and forefinger, she drew the quilt back from Blade. Her other hand descended lightly, almost floating down, into Blade's groin.

That was the moment Blade chose to sit up.

Arllona went completely rigid with surprise and terror. Her eyes and mouth widened. She looked as if she were going to either faint or jump up and dash for the door.

Then she did try to jump up and out of reach. She also tried to scream. Blade's hands were too quick for her. One closed over her mouth, the other dropped on one bare shoulder, pushing her back down into a sitting position. He kept both hands in place until he felt Arllona's taut lips and tense muscles relaxing under them.

As Blade took his hands away, Arllona made a gurgling noise deep in her throat and sagged forward against him. He felt the solid ripe masses of her breasts against his skin. Her nipples were still solidly, boldly erect. If Arllona had been frightened, her fright was certainly passing away, and desire was still working strongly in her.

Blade raised both hands now, running them over Arllona's shoulders and down her back. With firm but gentle fingers he traced the line of her spine down to the cleft in her buttocks. He felt her arms going around him and her fingers doing the same gentle tracing on his skin. Desire began to bubble up rapidly in him too.

Suddenly the chamber seemed very warm. Blade kicked the quilt clear off the sleeping pad onto the floor. Arllona arched backward, stretching herself out on her back on the pad. As she drew back from Blade her fingers worked down between his legs. They did not linger there. Blade was fully aroused and fully ready without any more help from Arllona.

Arllona was ready too, Blade realized. Where she had found the desire that was making her whole body quiver, he didn't know or care. For now all he needed to do was meet and match her desire with his own.

Blade raised himself on his massive arms and hovered over Arllona. At first he teased her, holding himself high above her, only brushing the triangle of damp dark hair with his jutting erection. It took only a little of this before Arllona was murmuring incoherently deep in her throat, pleading to Blade to let her welcome him as he wanted to. A moment later Blade did what they now both so desperately wanted.

Inside Arllona was already hot, already wet. Together, she and Blade experienced the kind of snug, perfect fit the gods of love send to only one couple in a thousand. Nothing could have improved what Blade felt as he entered the woman under him. There is no improvement on perfection.

The feeling was mutual. Once again Arllona seemed ready to scream. This time she clamped her own teeth firmly on her lower lip to stifle the sound, biting down until drops of blood showed. She took Blade into her in a silence broken only by a deep groan.

The silence didn't last. Two passions blazing so strongly could never have met in silence. Blade gasped as he felt Arllona thrusting her hips upward. She kept on arching her back and her hips until her buttocks were completely clear of the mat. Her breathing came faster and faster, harder and harder, until it seemed a continuous roar in Blade's ear. Nothing could bother him or distract him now as he plunged into the woman under him. He had reached a point where the prison tower could have burst into flames or the Raufi come swarming over the walls into the city without his noticing. He had reached a point where the center of the world was where he and Arllona were joined together.

Arllona's teeth clamped down on her lip again, to stifle a third scream. Her hands clamped tightly, clawing and pulling at Blade's hair. He didn't feel that pain. He felt nothing except the fierce spasms deep inside Arllona's body, the explosion that told him she had reached her climax.

Blade had not. He knew that the end for him was still far off. He kept moving as Arllona sagged down on the mat, every inch of her skin shimmering with sweat, her eyes closed and her damp hair tangled around her head. It was a moment before she realized that Blade was still strong, still deep within her, still thrusting. Then a broad grin spread across her face.

Arllona's legs rose, clamping tightly around Blade's waist. He found himself clamped as tightly outside as inside. Arllona-warm and solid and wet-was all around him, against him, drawing him in, holding him, imprisoning him in a new prison even more escape-proof than this tower.

The feeling heightened every one of the thousand sensations in Blade. It drove him onward, and the rhythm of his hips mounted steadily. Arllona's hips began to grind against him again, thrusting upward, twisting him from side to side in a totally maddening way.

The sensations and the madness could not go on forever. They were too strong, stronger even than Blade.

He felt the fire rise in his groin, flicker, pulse, then burst out. A long groan tore its way out of Blade. His whole body jerked and twisted and thrashed desperately at the overpowering sensation of pouring himself into Arllona. For a moment it seemed that all the strength was going out of him along with the hot jetting.

Then Arllona reached her second climax. Blade could not have collapsed on top of the woman if he'd wanted to. She was moving too furiously in the grip of her own sensations. Her mouth was open, and if she had been able to scream at that moment nothing and nobody could have prevented her. But her throat was dry and nothing came out except a long fading hiss. Then her eyes rolled up in her head and she went limp, totally unconscious.

The sweat dripped off Blade and painful knots formed in the muscles of his arms. But he did not move until he felt Arllona beginning to stir under him and saw her eyes flicker open. Then he rolled off her, pulled the quilt over both of them, and put his arms around her. They lay like that for quite a while, until Blade felt he had enough breath back to speak, if not to move.

«You are here, Arllona. How and why?» He deliberately kept his tone and words harsh. He didn't want the woman to get any idea that the wild lovemaking had softened his temper or loosened his tongue.

The startled look on Arllona's face told Blade she must have been expecting just about that. She was silent for a moment. Then:

«There are no guards in the chamber outside. I have a key, one that I had made secretly for myself. I came here, hoping that we would do-exactly what we did.» Blade saw a faint smile on her face in the darkness.

He reached out and lifted her chin until her eyes had to meet his. She tried to twist her head out of his grip, but he gently tightened his fingers. «Arllona, you do not have to risk entering this chamber to have a man. Mirdon said as much, the day I came here.»

Arllona's face twisted with genuine anger. «Mirdon is a great warrior and a great mouth too. He does not know how I live. The Keeper of the Prison may not be a woman, but he is not much of a man. So why should I not-?»

«You still aren't telling the truth. Even if the Keeper was drooling and impotent, there are many men outside this chamber. There is only one inside it. Why did you come to the one-to me? Tell the truth this time, or I am going to tie you up and keep you here until morning comes and the guards return.» He closed one hand around her left wrist to emphasize his words. «It was not wise of you to come here unarmed and then lie to me.»

Arllona shivered in unmistakably genuine fear. «No, please, not-don't tell the guards. They will send me to the Mouth of the Gods with you if you do. I don't want to die that way! I don't!» She was biting her lip again, this time to keep from bursting into tears.

«Why should I care if you die in the flames or not? Don't tell me that this night should be enough, either. You'd be wasting your breath.»

Arllona was silent for a long moment. Blade could hear her breathing returning slowly to normal, as she apparently reached a decision.

«I came because I can help you escape,» she said at last.

Blade's expression and voice did not change. «How? Do you know the way out of this prison? If you do not, you know nothing I do not, and there is no reason I should trust you.»

«I know the way as far down as the roof garden,» she said firmly.

«But that is guarded,» said Blade. He was testing her now.

«Not as well as it once was,» said the woman. «I know there are only two guards there at night. That is still too many for me. I could not fight them. But they will not stand against a warrior of the Raufi.»

«And then?»

«You mean, when you have slain the guards?»

«Yes.»

«The garden is no more than the height of fifteen tall men above the ground. One side drops straight down the inner wall, into the Gardens of Stam. There are strong vines in the roof garden. Again, I could not cut them and make a rope of them, or climb down that rope without help. But a warrior of the Raufi-«

«You seem very ready to praise the warriors of the Raufi, for a woman of Kano.» Arllona was silent, but Blade saw something-surprise? alarm? — unmistakably flicker briefly in her eyes. His hands clamped on her jaw and wrist again. This time he did not hold back his strength. He wanted to frighten her, tear out of her the truth she still hadn't told.

«Tell me-why this praise for the Raufi? You are an agent of Dahrad Bin Saffar, aren't you? Tell me, then-why should I not tell Dahrad what a clumsy agent you are? I cannot imagine that he rewards foolish spies.»

For a moment Blade thought he was going to have to knock Arllona unconscious to keep her from having hysterics. She writhed and heaved and struggled, trying to bite the hand he clamped over her mouth and pull free of the arm locked around her waist. She whimpered and gasped and moaned. Blade did not relax until she lay silent and still in his arms.

«Please,» she murmured at last. «Please. Do not tell anyone. If Dahrad does not stake me out in the desert, the Jade Masters will do something even worse. I don't want to die. I don't!»

Blade reflected that she was certainly in the wrong profession if she was that afraid to die. Spying was a risky business in any Dimension. «You have my word that I will do everything I can to keep you alive, if you tell me the truth. Start with the Jade Masters.»

It took quite a while to finally get the truth out of Arllona. She was no longer trying to conceal anything, but she was too sick with fright and worry to be very coherent.

The Jade Masters might be citizens of Kano, but they did not really care much who ruled it. What they wanted was the assurance that their lives, families, mines, and profits would stay intact through the worst the Raufi could do to the city. So the Council of the Jade Masters was secretly negotiating with Dahrad Bin Saffar.

«What are they promising?»

Apparently Arllona was telling the truth when she said she didn't know exactly. She was only a courtesan, once the mistress of one of the Council. By having her arrested on a minor charge, the Council had placed her in the prison. There she was to spy out the prison and spy on the Keeper. The Keeper came from an old and much-honored family, knew many secrets, and talked freely when in his cups or in his bed. There was very little that Arllona didn't know about making an old man talk freely, and very little of what he'd said over the past few months that she'd forgotten.

Now she had to get out of the prison, and soon. She had to get at least as far as the Gardens of Stam, where the Jade Masters had a hidden rendezvous for their spies. Until Blade appeared, she hadn't been able to even imagine how to make her escape.

«I have been in the roof garden. I know the way down there, and I tell the truth about the vines and the wall. I must have your help. Otherwise-«She shrugged helplessly.

Blade suspected that Arllona was actually a good deal less helpless than she pretended to be. But even if she was planning to lead him into a trap, it would take a strong trap to hold him if it caught him with a sword in his hand. Certainly he could not hope for any better chance to get out of this prison.

If worse came to worst, he would at least have a chance to take a few Kanoans with him, rather than to sizzle helplessly on that blasted cart! Also, the escape or death of his prize sacrifice would make the Second Consecrated Jormin very unhappy indeed. It was good to think about annoying that arrogant bastard!

«Why are you smiling so, brother?» Arllona asked.

Blade swiftly improvised an answer. «I was remembering how you came to me and what you had in mind.»

Arllona laughed nervously. Blade suspected that in daylight he would have seen her blushing. «That was very foolish of me. I–I wanted a real man, not that old-! But you are a Raufi. I was fortunate that you wanted me.»

«Why?»

«Well, you know, so many of you are great lovers of boys or other men. They will not lie with a woman except one they consider fit to bear their sons.»

Blade's smile widened. «Well, you have seen that I do not think that way.»

«Truly, you do-«The rest of her words vanished in a whimper of delighted surprise as Blade's arms went around her and his lips pressed down on hers. Warmth and desire rose in him again, and as he tightened his grip he could feel it rising in her too.