Warriors Of Latan

Chapter 16

«More beer?» said Eye of Crystal.

Blade held up his empty wooden cup and contemplated it by the light of the fire in his hut. Good. He saw only one cup. It was too early in the evening for him to be so drunk that he was seeing two cups, particularly since he'd only been drinking beer.

However, he was in a mood to celebrate. «Do you have anything stronger?»

«Stronger? How?»

«More-more of what there is in beer to make you-«

«Piss a lot?»

Blade laughed. «That wasn't quite what I had in mind. «He tried to explain alcohol, then wine and distilled beverages. Unlike the Rutari, the Uchendi apparently hadn't invented distilling.

«There is winter ale,» said Eye of Crystal dubiously. «It is stronger than summer ale, in the way that you talk about. Are you stronger than it?»

«I am stronger than anything men can make to drink,» said Blade with mock bravado. Except some really Godawful cheap Turkish raki he and a friend and fellow agent (now dead) had drunk once, to celebrate a minor victory. Come to think of it, he still wasn't quite sure the stuff hadn't been poisoned. Probably not by the Russians, though-more likely by the brothel-keeper they'd put out of business in the process of uncovering the Russian listening post.

«You are sure?» Crystal's gaze started by focusing on the bridge of Blade's nose. She wasn't entirely sober either. Then the gaze wandered downward, past Blade's chin, over his chest and stomach, and down a little farther. There it stopped.

Blade poured himself some more beer from the jug and raised the cup in salute. «I'm very sure.»

As Blade drank, some of the beer slopped over the rim of the cup and fell onto his bare chest. Eye of Crystal knelt beside him, bent over his chest, and began licking the beer off Blade's skin. Her tongue darted in and out, lapping up the beer and wetting her full lips. They were very red lips, although the Uchendi used no cosmetics except the warriors' war paint.

That flickering tongue and its warm caresses on his skin were slowly hypnotizing Blade with pleasure. He hardly cared. Then the sensations of Crystal's tongue gave way to another one, stronger and more familiar. She was bending so low that her full breasts were pressing against his chest.

Blade felt small but firmly erect nipples and the lovely give of breasts changing shape under pressure. Crystal was also feeling it. Her eyes were closed, and one hand was now creeping down Blade's stomach.

Crystal unhooked Blade's loinguard and pushed it aside. She held Blade's manhood, warm fingers teasing as skillfully as the tongue. Blade groaned happily-

«Strong enough, yes,» she murmured.

Blade would have been almost past saying anything, but fortunately no words were needed. Eye of Crystal pulled away from Blade just long enough to untie the drawstring of her leather skirt, her only garment. It slid down over her well-rounded hips. As it reached the floor she stepped aside, too eager to move gracefully. She nearly fell, and Blade had to reach up and balance her as she lowered herself into place.

Blade savored the moment of entry. He always had, from the first time he'd ever had a woman. There were lots of other pleasures in sex, of course, but this was certainly one of the biggest and best. From the way Crystal closed her eyes and let her mouth sag open, Blade suspected she felt the same.

In fact, this was the best Blade had ever felt. He couldn't put his finger on exactly why. So he put all his fingers on Crystal's breasts. They were skilled fingers, as quite a few women had told him. So did Crystal, although she didn't use words. She kept her eyes closed and moaned quietly, then not so quietly.

Blade tried to keep quiet for a while. He was just about to lose the fight when he realized what was happening to make this sex different from all the other times.

He and Crystal were in telepathic contact. Only slightly, less than he'd ever had with Cheeky, but now that he knew what to look for, he recognized the odd feeling in his mind. Odder than usual, because he had the sense of both entering and being entered, of being both himself and Crystal.

He gasped, partly in triumph, partly because he couldn't stay quiet any more. Then he realized something else. Crystal was close to her climax. Either she hadn't had a man in a long time or the telepathic link was increasing her pleasure.

It wasn't doing so badly for Blade, either. He knew that his own control was slipping-slipping, the devil! It was just about gone, he was on the edge, he was going over-

He stopped. Or rather, he was stopped. Crystal was not only in his mind, but she was passing through his mind into his body. Into one particular part of his body.

She was holding back his climax until she reached her own.

It made sense. Blade knew that, with the small part of his mind that still held the power of reason. A very small part, by now. When it came to analytical thought, being on the verge of climax was almost as distracting as being in the middle of it.

He also wasn't sure he liked the sensation. Physically, it was marvelous. It was agony, but it was also delicious, and he wouldn't have minded it's going on for hours.

But this amount of control by the woman? For all Blade knew, the women were supposed to crack the whip in sex among the Uchendi. He had just enough old-fashioned male vanity to resent her control. He also had the sense to suppress his resentment because Crystal was reading his thoughts. She would detect any hostility.

Then she might retaliate. Blade doubted that his manhood was the only part of his body she could control while they were linked telepathically. Her father could certainly do more, and only sheer luck had saved Blade from harming the Guardian in their meeting. He wouldn't have the kind of control he needed to do that again, not this time, not with Crystal all around him, warm and tight and sliding furiously up and down, her pubic hair tickling him, swaying forward until her breasts brushed his chest, farther forward until she could bite his shoulder, her arms tightening around him until she was plastered against him. His control was going but so was hers…

Blade didn't groan. He howled like a madman as his hips bucked and thrashed and pounded himself into Crystal. The woman clung frantically to him as her pelvis took on a life of its own, as if he was a log she had to ride through foaming rapids.

At last she screamed, a scream muffled in Blade's chest and her own hair. She screamed again, then the scream turned into happy sobbing.

At last Crystal was silent and Blade caught his breath. She lay on top of him, still snugly fitted to him, and giggled.

«I caught you by surprise, with the Voice. Didn't I, Blade?»

«You did.»

«You say the Voice is not unknown among the English, just not lawful or much taught?»

«Yes. All the English women I knew who had the Voice were unlawful for me to bed. So I never had the Voice with a woman at the same time I was in her.» He grinned. «Next time I'll know what I'm doing.»

She laughed out loud. «You mean, this was your first time with a woman. You-ouch!» He pinched her admirably firm and rounded buttocks.

«No, it was not my first time bedding a woman. Nor will it be my last time bedding you.»

«I certainly hope not!»

It wasn't.

Blade and Eye of Crystal took to each other with enthusiasm, tenderness, and laughter. Blade would have enjoyed her company even without the sex, or the sex without the telepathy. Having everything made it just that much better.

Crystal taught Blade a few things about telepathy in sex. He discovered that he could arouse her by simply projecting the image of her writhing in climax. She promptly returned the favor. They found that if she brought him to climax by fellatio while they were in contact, she would also climax, nine times out of ten.

They discovered a lot of other things, which Blade knew he would have to report to Lord Leighton when he got back home. They would make interesting reading, and not entirely because of their value for the study of telepathy. For the first time Blade didn't like the idea of talking about his sex life in Dimension X as frankly as the Project required. He'd be revealing things he'd never thought were there to be revealed!

However, that didn't alter the fact that he was learning a lot about telepathy while he was having fun! If having Crystal's every little response written down in Lord Leighton's files helped give the Project controlled telepathy-well, they'd just have to be written down. This was all the more important, now that Cheeky was almost certainly gone for good.

Once he and Crystal became lovers, Blade found that he didn't think about Cheeky for days at a time, and when he did he didn't miss him as much as before. He wondered how much Crystal knew about Cheeky, and whether she was doing anything to affect his memory. Whether or not it was deliberate, he was grateful for the healing she was giving him.

Because he was so grateful, and for other reasons as well, Blade could never quite bring himself to explain to Crystal how soon he might have to leave her. She seemed to sense it anyway, and was remarkably cheerful about the prospect.

«We are good as we are, Blade. If we tried to be different, we might not be as good. My father says you are a man who has traveled far, and my Voice tells me the same. You would not wish to stop traveling, and if I asked you to you would be angry. Nor would I care to have as husband a man who might spend so much time away from my bed-Blade, have I hurt you?»

«No.» How to explain about Zoe, who'd left him for just about that reason, with the Official Secrets Act buggering up things even worse? He'd thought that memory and its pain were dead and buried, until the Guardian's probe of his memories showed him otherwise.

Eye of Crystal wasn't worried about being loved and left, but her father worried for her. Or at least Kyarta told Blade that, as nearly as he could understand. The Guardian's wife was handsome and charming and by no means stupid. But she kept changing the subject on a whim, and she never used two words when five would do half as well.

«He thinks you ought to be named Distant Eagle,» Kyarta said. «But that would be using an old name too soon after the man who brought it honor died."' She spent the next ten minutes telling him about the dead warrior Distant Eagle, before remembering that his name had really been Gray Eagle.

«He fears I will travel on and leave Crystal grieving?» Blade finally asked.

«Oh, yes,» she said. Another twenty minutes went by as Kyarta related tales of all the young women among the Uchendi who'd been loved and left during the last ten years, talking as if she'd known each one personally.

Blade felt his blood pressure rising, but kept his temper. He didn't want to annoy the woman. Like her husband, she would be a dangerous enemy, and she was telling him a lot of things about the Uchendi that just might be useful. He also suspected that she was a much better listener than she seemed, and would remember any slips of his tongue.

Finally, Kyarta ran down enough to say, «But I do not worry about Eye of Crystal. She knows what she's doing with you. She is strong.» And that was that.

Of course Eye of Crystal was strong, Blade realized. After all, she'd reached the age of twenty living with this woman without going out of her mind. He wondered sometimes how the Guardian put up with her.

The Guardian would not bother Blade or his daughter as long as his wife insisted they be left alone. And River Over Stones was not going to go against the blessing the Guardian had given Blade. At least not in public, and so far he'd found no chance to do anything in private.

The rest of the warriors of the Uchendi seemed to be waiting to make up their minds about Blade. Or perhaps they were waiting for someone to help them decide? Blade suspected it was the latter. The warriors of the Uchendi were an independent-minded lot, but in some matters they followed their leaders.

Who was the key leader in this case? It didn't take Blade long to know it was Winter Owl.

The Guardian's brother-in-law was the most famous living warrior of the Uchendi, one of the dozen greatest the tribe had ever known. He hadn't said anything against Blade, but he hadn't said anything much for him either. As long as he held his tongue, the warriors would keep an open mind on the subject of Blade of the English.

All very well, as far as it went. An open mind meant safety for Blade, but it didn't help the Uchendi. The Rutari might declare war any day; certainly they would make more raids. Blade knew he could help, if they let him, by giving the Uchendi weapons and teaching them to use them to overcome the shpugas. Without those hairy menaces, the Rutari would be no match for the plainsmen.

He'd need Winter Owl's support for any such new weapons, though. Without it, none of the warriors would listen to him. Even worse, Winter Owl might see Blade as a menace to his authority and influence. Then he would speak out against Blade, even in the face of the Guardian's blessing. Blade might have to leave the Uchendi for his own safety, and they would have to face their enemies with their two leaders quarreling.

An ugly picture, it seemed to Blade. And easily avoided, if he could just win over Winter Owl.

But how?