Robert Adams - The Death of a Legend

Firm with purpose, Bili strove mightily to master these demands of his flesh, to reaffirm that iron self-discipline with which he always had ordered his life, only to find his oft-vaunted self-control leaking away like so much water from a sundered pot; and when his tentatively probing mindspeak found the surface of Rahksahnah’s consciousness seething with equal passion, he gave up the struggle, tightened his strong arms about her body and covered her mouth with his own. That first kiss lengthened, deepened, as tongue found seeking, maddening tongue in a flurry of impassioned activity. Still crushing her firm, pliant warmth hard against his own body with his left arm, her hardening nipples branding desire deep within him, he stroked his callused right palm down the length of her back to cup one flat buttock—tenderly, at the first, then harder, his fingers digging into the elastic flesh as his passions mounted.

Somewhere, in the far recesses of her mind, Rahksahnah knew that she should feel guilt for so quickly forsaking even the memory of Meeree, the love and the years they had shared, but never once in all those years had Meeree’s touch, Meeree’s kiss, aroused her one half so much as did the touches, the kisses, the mere close proximity of the huge and different and now-dear lowlander man, this Bili of Morguhn.

“Perhaps,” she thought without thinking, really, her connciousness fully involved in the unbearable pleasure that the massive man was inflicting upon her more than willing flesh, “perhaps it is the Lady’s doing; perhaps She has willed that my mind cast out memories of the past, of the old ways of the Hold, that I may more easily accept this man I have chosen as a true equal, in all ways. If this be true, I pray that She do the like for poor, suffering Meeree, that she may soon find real happiness with her bearded man, Gy, and forget the old, dead ways. And I must ask my Bili why this one man has a bushy beard when none of the others, save the Ahrmehnee, do…”

And then even that last stronghold of coherent thought was submerged, drowned in the relentless tide of passion sweeping through every fiber of her being. Rahksahnah surrendered to it, utterly and without pause, let it carry her, unresisting, to the inevitable heights of bliss.

Neither Rahksahnah nor Bili had any way of knowing that Meeree, full-armed, stood in the darkened hallway just beyond the door, having chosen the first watch of the night as her lot, leaving the other three watches to Bili’s Freefighter bodyguards.

For all the thickness of the stone walls and the stout, iron-bound portal, Meeree’s keen ears still could clearly hear the sounds of lovemaking emanating from the chamber she guarded—the sighs, the gasps, the moans, the wet-slithering-slapping sounds. When the mattress ropes and the bedframe commenced a rhythmic squeaking-creaking, Meeree’s even white teeth met in the flesh of her lower lip.

So hard did her hands grip the spear haft and the hilt of her sheathed saber that her two arms trembled and ached with the strain. But that pain was no more noticed than was the sharper one from her tooth-torn lip; the only pain that she could truly feel was from deep within her, and it would, she knew, never be assuaged until… unless the brahbehrnuh again became hers, body and soul, as before, as was right and proper and ordained. But, no, it no longer was ordained by Her, the Silver Goddess.

Through the dense fabric of the oaken door came the high-pitched, breathless cry of ultimate pleasure, rising above the deep-throated—and, to Meeree, hideous—love groan of the man, to be followed by gasps and pantings and low murmurs.

Letting go the spear with her right hand to let the left take over its support, Meeree dug furiously under her shirt and breastplate until she found that for which she sought. Her sinewy fingers, hardened by long years of gripping hilt and haft, easily snapped the fine silver chain. Then she withdrew her hand to cast both chain and crescent pendant forcefully down the pitch-black hallway to tinkle first against the wall stones, then clank onto the hardwood floor. Alone, there in the full-darkness, where none could see, Meeree did that which she had not done since early childhood. She swallowed the sobs, but allowed the tears of frustration and rage and loss to flow freely down her callused cheeks, to drip from her chin.

The watcher outside heard no further sounds from the bedchamber, for Bili and Rahksahnah, their passions temporarily slaked, were communicating by mindspeak. “What think you, love?” asked Bili. “Should I… we… do that which Prince Byruhn wants us to do? Should we help him to drive these Oaniks from out his lands, then, for all we now know, get ourselves embroiled in his war with these invaders from the north? It is not a decision to be made lightly or by me alone, as I told Lord Byruhn earlier. You and your force, the Ahrmehnee, the Freefighters and my Confederation nobles all must have a part in the choice, are they to lay their lives on the line at the behest of me and the prince.”

“These Ganiks, Bili, have long been a sore menace to us and to the Ahrmehnee, so I feel certain that both of the headmen and all of their warriors will want to take a part in their extirpation or expulsion from lands so near to their own. As for the Moon Maidens, they will go where I lead… and I go wherever you go. “But most of the war band is Freefighters, my Bili. What think you they will choose to do?”

Bili shrugged his broad shoulders. They’ll do whatever I and their officers tell them to do. Rahksahnah. They’re all professional soldiers, and one fight is as much as another to them; they fight for loot, not glory, and they’ll freely follow any strong captain who has a name for victories, as do I.

“Now, the Confederation noblemen are something entirely different. They all have homes and lands to go back to and so have little reason to seek out a fight that really is none of their affair. They were with me in the Ahrmehnee lands only by reason of the orders of him who is overlord of us all—the High Lord Milo of Moral.

“Here and now, I cannot say that I speak for the High Lord, and I truly have no idea just what he would either do or advise doing in this situation. For all his reiterated longings for peace within and along his borders, this Byruhn could be lying in his teeth, and an internally secure New Kumbuhluhn could pose a serious threat to the Ahrmehnee Stahn and to the Confederation lands, beyond. Nor does his house, from what he has told us, have any reason to love our Confederation, the Kindred or the Ehleenee.

“I would like to know him better and to know much more of his aspirations and goals, but I think he has told and had us told all he intends for us to know until and unless we swear our oaths and our swords to his service.”

Immediately the prince had given the diners leave to depart the hall of Sandee’s Cot, Master Elmuh and the other Kleesahk had made for the tarn-side tower. After he had seen to the wounded, rebandaged where necessary and reinforced the mental instructions for the knitting of bones and muscles and flesh, he clouded out pain from their consciousnesses that they might sink easily into restful, healing sleep throughout the coming night. Then he and his two Kleesahk assistants returned to the ground level of the towering keep.

Soon, all ten of the huge humanoids were stretched out on their low beds and, draped in quilted coverlets of gigantic proportions, seemingly asleep. But the appearance was deceiving. No one of them slept, not yet, for they all had had their instructions from the prince, passed on to them by Pah-Elmuh.

Therefore, the powerful minds of the ten Kleesahk were meshed, as they all lay supine, first willing all true-men and true-women within the upper levels of the tower to sleep a deep sleep, then implanting within all those human minds the thoughts and beliefs that were necessary to prepare them for the coming day. While Bili and Rahksahnah lay abed, while Meeree wept in the darkness, while the faithful Kleesahk joined minds to weave their invisible web of what some there would have called wizardry, the prince and old Sir Steev sat closeted together within a small, secure office just off the great hall of Sandee’s Cot. An ewer of brandied wine sat between them on the small, sturdy table, and a brass goblet was before each of them. The two men’s pipes and the thick tallow taper had combined to thicken the atmosphere in the windowless room, but neither seemed to notice.