The Temples Of Ayocan

Chapter 11

Blade tried frantically to wriggle out of the bushes, ignoring the extra stabs he received from the thorns. But the branches and vines held him as tightly as the tentacles of an octopus. After a moment he relaxed. If the person standing there watching him wanted to put a spear through him, there wasn't much he was going to be able to do about it. His axe had been torn from his belt when he hit the bushes, and he could not get at his sword.

Blade had just realized that the onlooker was unarmed, when the person threw back his head and laughed merrily. No-her head. It was a full, rich woman's voice, no mistaking that. Blade had to admit that perhaps his predicament was amusing to somebody else, but not to him. He muttered a string of curses under his breath. Then he started all over again on his efforts to untangle himself from the thorny hedge.

This time he was able to get a hand on the hilt of his sword, draw it, and lay into the branches. He would have given a good deal for a steel machete, but even the cold-worked bronze sword was better than bare hands. Bit by bit the branches and vines fell away from around him. After what seemed like hours, he finally staggered out of the hedge. His head was swimming from fatigue and loss of blood, but he managed to retrieve his axe. Then he very nearly fell flat on his face at the woman's feet. She laughed again, the laughter fading off into a giggle. Blade looked down at himself, and realized that he was for all practical purposes naked from his sandals up. The thorn-studded branches had ripped his shorts to bloody rags. He felt like swearing again, but this time kept silent. He had the sensation that the woman was sizing him up, and that it would be wisest to submit quietly to her examination. He stood there in silence, trying to keep his face expressionless and his hand away from his sword. He tried with less success to ignore the insects that continued to swarm around him.

Finally the woman appeared to have completed her examination, and laughed again. «Who or what pursued you, my friend? You came leaping over the walls as though starving wolves were after you.»

Blade was not sure how much he should tell this woman. She was obviously of high rank, to be wandering freely in the Queen's Summer Palace. There were a fair number among the ruling class in Gonsara sympathetic to the cult of Ayocan. On the other hand, there were many who hated it as thoroughly as the average Gonsaran. Which was this woman? He saw her gaze harden, as she saw him hesitating.

«Well?»

«I was fleeing from Holy Warriors of the cult of the bat-god Ayocan. In some way I had incurred the enmity of the cult.»

The woman's eyes widened, and her jaw set hard. There was anger in her, but anger at what? Him or the cult? Blade found it hard not to hold his breath.

Then to his relief the woman herself let out an oath. «Damn them! Thambral swore he would never let Holy Warriors into Gonsara. They must have slipped them in secretly. Do you know how they came to have Holy Warriors to pursue you?»

«I can tell you, my lady,» said Blade shortly. Relief that the woman was at least for the moment on his side made him abrupt. «But I would rather not do it here. It is a rather public place. The men who pursued me may still be outside, and they have spears. If-«

But he did not need to explain any more. The woman nodded and pointed toward the looming bulk of the palace. «You will indeed tell me.» Now her voice was that of one accustomed to being obeyed. — «But you need not do it here.» Without a further word she turned her back on Blade, ignoring his drawn sword, and strode away through the trees. She moved so fast that in his battered state he had to push himself to keep up with her.

She led him to a door on the ground floor of the palace, a small but heavy brass-bound door half-screened by tall bushes and short trees. It opened on a narrow staircase with a ceiling so low that Blade had to bend his neck to keep from bumping his head on the plastered stone. At the top of the stairs another door opened into a small, dimly lit antechamber. Pointed archways led from it into several other rooms. The woman motioned to a carved chest with cushions on top of it that stood in one corner.

«Sit there my friend. I think you had best have your wounds treated before you speak further. I do not think a surgeon is needed, though. I will summon the servants.»

Blade looked a question at her, and she shook her head. «They will neither learn anything nor tell anything. They are deaf mutes.» She turned aside, and pulled a cord hanging by the door.

The maidservants must have been within sight of whatever indicator the cord had moved. They scurried in through the door within moments. The woman's hands flickered in a complex series of gestures; the maidservants bowed and vanished as silently as they had come. After a longer interval they were back with a bucket of hot scented water and armloads of clean cloths. Some of these they soaked in the water and then used to sponge Blade clear. Whatever made the water smell also made it sting more than usual. The smart and pain of Blade's thorn wounds and spear slashes began to fade as the maidservants worked them over with the wet cloths.

The rest of the cloths they tore into strips and tied around the larger wounds, particularly the ones in Blade's thigh and hand. Then they vanished again, this time to return with a large silver jug and two jeweled cups. Both jug and cups were marked with the ox-sign of the royal house of Gonsara.

Blade sniffed at the fumes rising from the cups. The woman smiled at him again. She had sat watching the servant girls minister to him with an almost expressionless face. Almost. There were hints of curiosity in her expression, curiosity about more than Blade's tales of the cult of Ayocan.

«It will do you no harm,» said the woman. «Indeed, it will do you much good. Do you think I would do you harm now, before you and I had talked of the cult of Ayocan?» There was a slight hesitation in that last sentence, and Blade had a weary suspicion what that hesitation concealed. Another highborn woman who wanted to have her fling before discussing urgent business. He looked at the woman, unsmiling, and saw her own smile fade as she saw the expression on his face. «Do you doubt my word?» she said, and there was unmistakably an edge in her voice.

Being stubborn with this woman would obviously do no good. Blade shook his head, slowly and reluctantly, then picked up his cup and sipped from it. The woman also picked up her cup, but drained it in a series of long gulps. Then she leaned back in her chair, sighing contentedly and licking her red lips. But her eyes did not leave Blade's face. There was nothing for him to do but to drain his own cup also.

For a short time Blade's only sensation was one of relief that he did not promptly fall on the floor and writhe in agony as poison burned out his insides. But he was still not sure that drinking the cup had been the wisest thing to do. He kept his eyes fixed on the woman, watching for some signs of triumph or anticipation on her face.

Before he saw any such signs, he felt signs of something else in his own body. Unmistakably, though perhaps embarrassingly, he was developing an erection. Stark naked as he was, there was no way of concealing it. There must have been a powerful aphrodisiac in the hot wine. And the woman had drunk that same wine. Would she soon be feeling the same sensations that were now beginning to flood through Blade? Trying to ignore his own increasing arousal, he kept watching her closely.

As he looked at her, he realized that she was younger than he had believed at first. Perhaps unconsciously, he had associated her height-only a couple of inches shorter than himself-and her poise with middle age or more. But all the skin he could see was firm and unlined, even the telltale skin of the neck. There were only the faintest lines about the corners of the wide dark eyes, and not a single strand of hair that wasn't jet black. Small sapphire earrings sparkled on each of her ears, and a sapphire bracelet glittered on one wrist. Definitely this was a woman of high rank, to dress so, wear such jewels, and have such chambers within the palace.

As time passed, it became obvious that the woman was also becoming aroused from the aphrodisiac. Her breath was coming faster, and so deeply that Blade could hear it from halfway across the room. A pale pink tongue kept creeping out and moistening half-parted red lips. The wide, dark eyes did not leave Blade, but they did roam up and down his body. Occasionally those eyes lingered on Blade's massive erection. It was not painful, but neither did it show any signs of going down at all.

Then suddenly the woman stood up with a wriggle of her hips, and came toward Blade. With a single fluidly graceful motion, she knelt before him. Blade saw that her eyes were now almost glazed with a rutting passion.

With that expression on her face, Blade expected the woman to fling herself on him, to impale herself on his swollen organ. But she did not. Instead she bent her head forward on its slender neck, her red lips wrinkling in hungry anticipation. A quick dart of her head, and those lips closed around Blade's erection. They held it for a moment without moving, then began a slow, steady, rhythmic motion.

If this woman ranked high in Gonsara, she also ranked high among the experts at fellatio Blade had met. He discovered this soon enough. She would work away, building him steadily, with a deadly sureness, toward climax. And then, without a word or a motion from Blade, she would sense when he was approaching the final lass of control. In that moment her lips would cease their movements for a moment. Blade would feel the pulsing and the pressure within him fade. But only for a moment. Soon she would start again, and they would repeat the whole sequence.

How often they repeated it, Blade didn't know. After two or three times, it seem ludicrous to keep count. After four of five, it became impossible. The work of those moist, mobile red lips around his organ, added to the stimulus of the drug, had Blade half-mad. He kept his eyes on the woman with a grim intentness. It was as if his eyes could strip off the gold-embroidered bodice and the shimmering red pantaloons, the jeweled sandals and bracelets, and reveal what lay beneath. Blade had a vague impression that the curves concealed by the woman's clothing were more subtle than usual. But they were definitely there, definitely female. Blade did not really have much attention to spare for anything except those lips that were engulfing him.

In time they stopped. Blade had become so nearly addicted to them that in that moment he felt an almost anguished disappointment. But then the woman rose to her feet and placed both hands on the jeweled silver clasp of her pantaloons.

«Yes, my friend, you shall have what more you want. And you shall give me what more I want, what I want and need.» There was a thin smile on her face, but her deep voice was deepened still further and shaken by barely controlled passion. In those moments when she had been steadily piling up Blade's passion, she had also been building up her own.

Her fingers moved swiftly, and with a faint click the clasp of her pantaloons slipped open. They began to sag and slide, drifting down past her waist, revealing a broad-flat stomach. They kept on sliding, and the beginning of a gentle outward curve of hips came into view. Then the woman grinned and spread her legs apart, stopping the descent of the pantaloons. She must have been watching Blade's eyes, because her grin broadened.

«Indeed, my friend, such disappointment. You are ready.» Her hands moved again, this time up to the clasp that fastened her embroidered bodice in place. With another click that clasp also gave, and the bodice sagged open. More gentle curves came into view, the upper slopes of the woman's firm breasts. But this time the clothing did not stop moving. Slowly the bodice slipped down. Then suddenly she shrugged her shoulders and it slipped off completely and fell to the floor. Small rock-hard breasts sprang free, with smaller dark nipples standing up, engorged and firmed, into small jutting points.

The sight was too much for Blade's last fragments of self-restraint. He took two quick steps forward, and his arms went around the woman. His hands met at the small of her back and swiftly moved down under the waistband of her pantaloons. He clasped the satiny but firm buttocks. Involuntarily the woman gasped and her hips wiggled and jerked. The pantaloons slid the rest of the way down to the floor, landing in a heap about her feet. Blade could not see the dark hair that he knew must be covering her pubic mound. But he could feel it curling around his own engorged phallus as he pulled the woman hard against him.

As he did so, she gave a little leap, and came down on Blade's rigidity. It slid easily up into her already soaking interior. Her head went back and her eyes rolled up as her mouth opened to let out a moan of delight. For a moment she moaned so loud that Blade thought she was already reaching climax. The idea very nearly pushed him over the edge, and he almost groaned with the effort not to release then and there.

After a moment the strain faded once again, and it was no longer an effort to keep a steady rhythm inside the woman. She grew wetter and wetter as Blade stroked away, moaning at each thrust. He felt her weight grow heavier and heavier on him and against him. She was losing the ability to stand by herself as more and more of her became centered around Blade's massive maleness thrusting steadily up into her. Blade found her pushing down on him harder and harder, as though she could not bear to have him withdraw from her even the least bit.

Eventually, inevitably, she reached her first climax, and her body shook like a tree in a high wind. All her weight came on Blade, and they both nearly fell to the floor. Her mouth opened and became slack, and moans and whimperings like those of a dying animal came out of it.

Blade very nearly reached his own climax while the woman was in the middle of hers. The jerkings and twistings of her body, both inside and outside, managed to stimulate him still more. But the woman's climax faded away seconds before it triggered off Blade's.

As she became momentarily helpless, Blade summoned up his last bits of strength and lifted the woman up and carried her into the bedroom. For those seconds he was no longer inside her, and she whimpered at the unwelcome sensation. Then he swung her onto the bed and lowered her onto the light padding. She whimpered again. Before she could whimper a third time, he was atop her and back inside her, and his thrusts were coming in a mounting rhythm again.

This time Blade did not try to pace himself or hold back or wait for the woman. He was past self-restraint and past good bedroom manners. He was past anything except releasing the raw passion that was once again building up in him.

It built up quickly now, and the release also came quickly. The woman's second spasm came with Blade's. For a very long moment there were only two maddened animals thrashing about on the bed, uttering animals' moans and cries, without the smallest piece of reason left between them.

The moment of release and madness passed for both of them. Blade mustered up enough strength to roll off the woman instead of sagging down on her and flattening her into the mattress. But that was the last strength he could muster up for quite a while. The frantic bout of sex on top of the fight, the run, and the leap across the moat had thoroughly drained him.

Eventually his fogged vision cleared and his breathing slowed to something like normal. He felt enough strength returning to raise himself on one elbow and look down at the woman sprawled on the bed beside him. Her mouth was still sagging open, but life and reason were returning to her eyes also. Finally her mouth closed, she raised a hand to push tangled and sweat-soaked hair back from her eyes. Then once again her face broke in that oddly appealing grin.

«Perhaps I should say, 'Well done,' as I often say to a warrior who has distinguished himself,» she said. «But perhaps other words are needed for this. There are any number of warriors in Gonsara strong in other parts of their bodies. But your strength extends farther than theirs, into one place more than theirs. Yes, you deserve something special.»

This seemed to require some comment from Blade. «Perhaps. But that is at your discretion-my lady.»

«It is indeed at my discretion,» said the woman with a grin. «I am Queen Jaskina of Gonsara.»