Empire Of Blood

Chapter 6

Blade sipped from his cup of hot, spiced wine, found that he'd emptied it, and held it out to the girl. She took it, refilled it from a large jar near the mouth of the tent, and handed it back. Blade took another swallow of the steaming liquid, feeling it warm him all the way down, and looked at the girl for about the tenth time. She now wore a blue linen shift belted around her slim waist with a gilded silk cord. She was just as pleasant to look at the tenth time as she'd been the first.

Blade sat facing the mouth of the tent. He wore a pair of leather trousers, a woolen tunic, and a leather belt, all borrowed from Dzhai. Their former owner had no use for them at the moment. He lay in another tent, his shattered elbow and cracked ribs wrapped in bandages, the rest of him wrapped in blankets, filled with drugged wine and sleeping peacefully.

Duke Boros had apologized for not being able to produce better clothing for Blade. «I hope we shall be able to find garb more fitting to your rank before you come into the presence of His Magnificence. But for the moment, only Dzhai among those whose clothes would fit you has any to spare.»

Blade sipped more wine. «What is there about the Steppemen that makes them so hated and makes you so sure that I am not one of them?»

«As for what makes them hated, Blade,» said Tulu, «need you, who have survived one of their attacks, ask this? What they did to you and your men once, they have done a thousand times in the borderlands of the Empire. They have done it to soldiers, both by open attack and by treacherous ambush. They have done it even more often to farms and villages and towns. They slay all the men and enslave the women and children. Only the bravest will now live within two days' ride of the Steppes. There would be fewer still if it were not for His Magnificence Kul-Nam's iron will.»

«How is this?» said Blade.

«He has caused the abandoned farms to be resettled. The new settlers must hold on to the death against the Steppemen. Otherwise their lives are forfeit to the Emperor. The women and children are impaled or flogged to death. After watching this, the men are either burned at the stake or thrown into pits of snakes.»

Blade nodded politely. Kul-Nam's determination to keep his borders secure was impressive. His methods were another matter.

«One can understand why your Emperor's reputation has traveled even as far as England,» Blade said finally. «Indeed his will is one of iron.»

«It is,» said the duke. «Yet even iron has only so much strength. The army of Saram is strong, and when it can meet the Steppemen man against man and horse against horse, they must flee or perish. But this seldom happens. They choose their time and place and seldom fight unless they can bring against us numbers so great that we must flee or die. The soldiers of His Magnificence will not flee, for he is harsh with cowards. So they die. Each year our soldiers grow fewer, each year the Steppemen grow more numerous. We know they dream of a year when they will ride across our border in all their strength and sweep our army aside like the tides of the sea. We fear that year is not far off, for all that His Magnificence and his soldiers can do.»

So the Empire of Saram seemed to be facing the attacks of a horde of nomadic barbarians. Blade was not quite ready to call the Empire itself «civilized»-not with their Emperor's rather bloodthirsty taste in punishments. Yet certainly they were facing a notoriously unpleasant sort of enemy. A horde of horsemen could be as elusive, painful, and sometimes deadly as a swarm of wasps.

«I can understand why they are not welcome in Saram,» said Blade. The duke laughed shortly, and even his son managed a thin smile. «I am glad you decided that I was not one of them. Matters might have become difficult, for as you have seen, I would not have been easy to kill.»

The duke laughed again. «No, indeed. There would have been a battle worthy of quite a number of poems, if by some chance anyone had lived to write them. In fact, we had some hopes that you might not be a Steppeman when you first appeared. Not one in a thousand of them is as large as you are. Nine out of ten have their legs bowed like the crescent of the moon from a life spent on horseback, while yours are as straight as pine trees and as tough as seasoned wood.

«Yet we could not be sure, so I ordered the fight. If you perished, it would be a quicker death than you would receive at other hands than ours. If you lived, you would be no Steppeman, and your fate a matter for His Magnificence.»

«You are certainly no Steppeman,» said Tulu briskly. «They are mighty warriors on horseback, but far less dangerous on foot. They have no such arts of fighting with their hands and feet as you have. Nor do they ever show mercy to a foe. I saw how you were fighting, Blade. Am I not right in saying that you were trying to spare both Tzimon and Dzhai?»

Blade grinned. «I was. They had done me no harm. If I could keep them from doing me any without killing them, why shouldn't I do it?»

The duke shook his head, his face blank. He seemed to find either Blade's words or Blade's philosophy totally incomprehensible. Blade wasn't surprised. If the Emperor Kul-Nam's bloodthirstiness was normal for the Empire, mercy would be something seldom mentioned and even more seldom shown. The idea of someone casually refusing to kill a couple of men who were doing their best to kill him would be hard to grasp.

To help the duke over his embarrassment, Blade went on swiftly. «I wish I had been able to do better. I'm afraid that Dzhai has lost the use of one arm for life. He and Tzimon were too good. I had to move too fast or they would certainly have killed me. I hope someone will be able to take care of Dzhai now that he can no longer fight.»

Tulu stared at Blade. «You wish-help for Dzhai?» He shook his head, as bewildered as his father.

«Of course,» said Blade. «It was not his fault that he was defeated. I am a stranger with no money and no certainty that I will be able to live here in Saram. Otherwise I myself would offer him a place in my service. The world is full of jobs that a strong man who works hard can do with only one hand.»

«That-that is the way in England?» said Tulu. He was not quite able to keep his voice steady.

Blade was tempted to say «Of course»-as unpleasantly as possible. It was fairly obvious that in the Empire slaves no longer able to do their jobs were killed, discarded like worn-out furniture or a broken sword.

Instead, he said only, «Yes, that is the way of the men of England.»

«It is-it is not our way, although one hears of it in the Five Sea Kingdoms,» the duke said quietly. «But I will thank you for it. It is good to know that Tzimon will fight again in my service. As for Dzhai-«He hesitated.

Blade broke in. «As for Dzhai, I have said that I cannot myself be sure of doing anything for him. I am a stranger, and you say the laws of Saram are harsh toward strangers. But is it permitted to do one favor for a stranger?»

The duke nodded.

«Then I ask you to find Dzhai a post where he can continue to serve you as loyally as he has served you until now. That is the greatest favor you could grant me.»

«It is also the strangest favor I have ever heard anyone ask,» said the duke, his face slowly brightening into a smile. «It does you much honor, though. In any case, it will not be the only favor we grant you. Our laws are harsh, true, but not that harsh. You will sleep apart from us, in a tent of your own, and will be guarded day and night. Otherwise you shall eat as we eat, drink as we drink, and receive all else that the laws and customs of hospitality demand of us for a guest who has proven himself honorable.» The duke and Tulu bowed.

The tent they erected for Blade was small and low. Its leather was pierced with holes through which the wind whistled angrily. The furs they spread on the ground for him were dirty and musty smelling. Blade insisted on holding them briefly in the smoke of the campfire to drive out the odors and any vermin that might be infesting them. Then he threw the furs down on the floor of the tent and lay down on top of them. Through the holes in the tent he could see his two guards taking up their positions. Blade rolled himself up snugly in the threadbare blankets.

He had not quite drifted off to sleep when he became aware that someone was trying to get into the tent. The front flap was jerking steadily, as if someone were fumbling at the cords. Blade lay still and waited. Whoever or whatever it was, the guards were paying no attention. A quick look through the holes on either side showed their booted feet and trousered legs exactly where they'd been before. Blade doubted if Duke Boros and his son were planning open, crude treachery, but he was quite sure he would have been happier with a weapon more formidable than his knife.

The jerking suddenly stopped. The tent flap swung open and a small figure appeared silhouetted against the glow of the fire. Blade shifted his grip on the knife for a throw but something made him hesitate. Then the figure moved forward, to take on a definite shape and recognizable features. It was the girl who'd danced and served the wine.

She went down on her hands and knees and crawled closer. Her small, neatly molded face seemed to be lit up by a joyful, almost ecstatic grin that bared two rows of perfect teeth. Even her eyes seemed to be part of the grin.

She still wore the blue robe belted around her, but the linen had grown heavy in the night dampness. It clung to her slender body, molding her graceful curves, and flowed down off her, rippling as she moved toward Blade.

As the girl's head came level with his feet, Blade sat up, keeping his hand on the knife but keeping it well out of sight under the blanket. The girl jumped, but seemingly more in delight than in fear. Her grin widened.

«Ah, Prince Blade,» she said. Her voice was low, with a slight sing-song intonation but nonetheless extremely clear. «Ah, Prince Blade,» she repeated. «You wake and welcome me.»

«I wake,» Blade corrected her. «As for welcoming you-we shall see.» He decided to be blunt. «Are you part of the duke's hospitality to a stranger?»

«Oh yes, it is so that I am,» said the girl, controlling a giggle. Then her smile faded and she spoke very softly and earnestly, with none of the sing-song quality in her voice now.

«Yes, I was to come to your tent. The duke thinks I come only because I know it is my duty as a slave girl. He does not know that I also come out of gratitude.» She hesitated. «He must not know it, either. I would be punished terribly for it if he knew.»

«Then why do you tell me?» said Blade. «Do I need to know it?»

«Yes,» said the girl bluntly. «You are a stranger in the Empire. Most strangers who come to Saram die, some very soon, some later. Some of those who die, die because they have no friends. It is against the laws of the Empire to be a friend to a stranger. But you have two friends now. You must know this. It may save you.»

That depended very much on who the friends were, even if the girl was telling the truth. «Who are these friends?»

«I am one. I am Haleen, a slave girl in the house of the Dukes of Kudai as my mother and my mother's mother were before me. I have come to you because I am your friend, and because I want to tell you that I am.»

Blade nodded. «I thank you for your friendship. But you said I have two friends. Who is the other?»

Haleen fell silent for a moment, apparently listening for sounds from outside the tent. Then she went on, her voice barely above a whisper. «The other is Dzhai, the fighting man whose arm you crippled and whose life you asked be saved. Saving him made both of us your friends. Dzhai is my brother, son of the same father by another woman. His mother was a free woman and his father was not known to those who had charge of such matters, so he was born free. If anyone else knew this secret, he would be enslaved or slain at once. I trust you to keep silent. You have already saved him once, so I do not think you will say anything now that would slay him.»

«I understand,» said Blade. «The secret will go no farther.»

«Do you swear it by whatever you hold most sacred?»

«I do so swear it. I swear by my honor as a Prince of England that the secret will never pass my lips and will die with me.»

«May the Three Mothers bless you and give you a long life,» said Haleen. She leaned forward and impulsively threw her arms around him, kissing him on both cheeks, on the eyelids, and finally on the lips-along, warm, and lingering kiss. Blade found himself feeling warmer than the kiss alone could make him, and in places where Haleen was not kissing him or even touching him. The girl's happiness was turning itself into desire, and that desire was passing on to him and into hum and finding a response in him.

He ran his own hands up and down her back, his fingers dancing along her spine and his palms cupping her firm buttocks, covered only by the robe. She kissed him again on the lips, even more warmly than before, and pressed against him so hard that he could feel her small, firm breasts through both robe and blanket.

Blade wriggled out from under his blanket, gently pushing Haleen away as she dove for his groin. He was excited enough for the moment. He sat up and Haleen sat up also, facing him. She raised her arms over her head as he reached out and unknotted the golden cord around her waist. The robe fell open and patterns of light and shadow played across the fine skin and the delicately molded breasts within. Blade took the sleeves of the robe and drew it off over Haleen's head, very slowly, tantalizing both of them.

He threw the robe aside, and in the next moment she was lunging forward to crush herself warmly against him and then on top of him as he went over backward onto the furs. He had only a moment's glimpse of dark nipples risen into solid points, a perfect dark triangle between her thighs already sparkling with moisture, trim waist and flat belly, finely molded legs, all her beauty. Then he could see nothing, only feel all the warmth and all the curves as she moved up and down on top of him.

Her hands and lips danced up and down his body, leaping wildly from his throat to his thighs, lingering at the tip, the sides, the base of his monstrously swollen manhood, working their way back up again and then down once more.

Eventually there was nothing more that she could give him or take from him without his entering her. There was neither stranger nor slave girl now in the tent as she raised herself and then came down as Blade came up to meet her. There was nothing except two people, driven together by desire, driven to being as much animal as human.

The groans and the gasps were certainly animal. So were the writhings, the twistings, the heavings as Haleen pressed down and Blade pressed upward. So was the musk of passion that filled the tent, overpowering the smell of furs and leather and wood smoke. It seemed to Blade that the girl above him was even losing the shape of a human being. He was locked with a spirit, a spirit made tangible, exquisite flesh, but whose shape changed at every moment.

Suddenly Haleen's whole body jerked, bowing backward from the waist as violently as a whipcrack, bending so far backward that her head sank down between Blade's feet and her hair stroked his ankles with a thousand tiny brushes. Blade's blurred vision could clearly see her mouth clamped tightly shut and beads of blood creeping out along her lips as she held back her cries. He could clearly see the muscles of her pelvis and flat belly writhing and twisting as her climax charged them with an explosive life of their own.

Then Blade's own climax came, and he had to fight back his own mindless roars as he found release, hold himself down to keep from writhing about and flattening both the girl above him and the tent around him. He shuddered and went on shuddering, spurting steadily upward into her until it seemed that he would never stop, that all the moisture and all the life would drain out of his body into hers and he would fall back beneath her a lifeless corpse. His vision blurred again, and he only felt Haleen toppling forward to sprawl on top of him. Then for a long moment neither of them felt or saw anything at all, even each other.

Eventually Blade realized that they were both lying naked on top of the furs and the blankets, and that it was cold in the tent. He saw that Haleen was sound asleep, her breathing regular and the grin back on her face. Without waking her, he rolled away and stretched her out, then lay down beside her and pulled the blankets over both of them. Haleen's gentle breathing was the last thing Blade heard as he also drifted off to sleep.