Hilda and Kana: Treasure of the Bandit Queen - Part 3

Part 3

Come the morning Hilda, Isha and I rose and got ready to leave. Hilda paid her whore and kicked him out. Honestly, he was lucky it was by the door and not through the window. We paid the auberge proprietrix for hot water to wash, and I enjoyed the pleasure of running a damp cloth over Isha's lean, powerful body. It was the body of a dancer, all lithe strength and agility. The tattoos set off her skin perfectly. I followed one line from her left eye to her left ankle. She shivered at my touch.

We left after breakfast, loaded up our cart and headed off down the rough dirt road.

"Where too now?" asked Hilda as she stared at the land ahead. As she spoke she shifted in her seat, trying to get comfortable. She'd taken quite the pounding the night before.

"We'll need somewhere large to sell all this," I said. "The gold alone would bankrupt anything smaller than a city."

"True. Gods' Rest's not too far."

"Never a fan of Gods' Rest. How about Brin?"

"Bit further."

"But more coin counters."

"True. Plenty of city-shit in Brin."

Of course I had my own reasons for going to Brin. There, we could deposit a large chunk of our money in a counting house against future need. Hilda would complain, of course, but I felt I could talk her around. It would be good to have a stable reserve. Perhaps we could even broach the topic of investments. I'd heard good things of the emerging spice trade with furthest Erkwesh.

We rode on, headed now towards Brin, that great city build where the Too-Fast River met the Amethyst Sea. Brin might be civilised but to get there we had to pass through a hilly and wild land. Unseen animals moved among the trees and through the undergrowth. Howls, cries, hoots and screams rolled out from places unseen. Despite all that, the road remained clear and safe. Travel was easy enough.

We didn't reach a village that night so camped by the road. Hilda set to making camp while I talked with Isha.

"You said you could fight?" I asked.

Isha nodded, eyes dark in the fading light. "I have some training, Mistress. With the knife."

"Let's see." I retrieved a fairly blunt knife from our supplies and passed it too her. She held it like she knew the balance of such weapons. I picked up my sabre and shield and stood ready. "Show me what you know."

She nodded submissively, then attacked. Like a dark shadow she streaked forward and struck. I took the blow on my shield and knocked her back. The clang echoed out across the empty night.

"Good," I said with a laugh.

Emotionless she attacked again. The knife sliced through the air and again I knocked it and her aside. She spun, a dancer of shadows, and struck a third time. This time I sidestepped, turning as I did to keep my shield ready. For a moment she looked like she would duck under my guard and strike up, but she hesitated. Instead she darted forward in a poorly telegraphed thrust. I knocked the blow aside with barely any effort.

She darted back and spun. I kept my eyes on her, but in the dying light and heavy shadows of the trees I missed her slip from the cloak. It fell to the ground, lifeless, and she sprung from the left. Her knife glittered like a lion's fang and her naked body showed everything, from the small swells of her breasts, to her tight stomach and beautiful cunt. I retreated and blocked. The chain on her ankle clinked ever so slightly.

Our practise continued like that, attack followed by defence, a strange mix of skillful and poor. Sometimes she struck with talent, others like a rank beginner. The hesitation seem to strike most hard just when she looked set to make a particularly good move. I'd seen similar before - old warriors on the training fields hurt by the sword and never quite recovered - but similar wasn't identical and I didn't see how Isha's hesitancy could be from that source.

"Keep the knife," I said when our practise ended. I panted happily at a good workout. "And here." I fished out a whetstone and set it aside for her.

Isha nodded her acquiescence but stayed where she was. She breathed heavily and a slight sweat made her whole body glow. Hilda has set a small fire, which burned brightly in the new night. The light made Isha's body dance with its own flames.

"Do you expect me to need it, Mistress?" She held the knife differently, now, like it was a living viper.

"I hope not but life is uncertain," I said.

We again made love that night. She moaned and writhed under me and I coaxed her small, powerful body to the heights of pleasure. After, she returned the favour.

Come dawn, we returned to the road. Our cart rumbled on through the rolling countryside. Around midday, I moved carefully to the front of the cart and sat next to Hilda.

"What do you think of Isha?" I said in a low voice.

Hilda threw a look over her shoulder towards where Isha sat at the back of the cart, sharpening her knife with almost meditative focus.

"A good fuck from the sounds of things. Pretty too. Probably bring in a lot."

Tension gripped my guts. "Perhaps we shouldn't sell her." Hilda gave me an inquiring eye and I rushed on. "She'll be useful, very useful. She's beautiful and you know how men and women can be about that. Distracting guards. Getting into places. And she'll be loyal too. She's trained by the slaver wizards. As long as we're alive, she'll never betray us. Having someone that loyal in our line of work is priceless."

Hilda let out a puff of breath. "If you've fallen for the whore, just say so. I've seen you look at her."

"She's not a whore," I said, far too fast. I took a moment to centre myself. "She's a slave. Prostitutes are unclean, ritually I mean. It soils the soul to have sex with them. Isha's not a prostitute. She's a slave."

"She's a slave worth a lot of money," said Hilda but the words lacked argument.

"We have the gold," I said. "That is worth a lot of money too."

"Fine." Hilda let out a puff of breath and shook her head. "Keep your plaything. She'll probably come in useful, if for nothing else than as a bed warmer."

I climbed to the back of the cart and settled next to Isha. I through an arm around her and pulled her close. She smiled at me and I smiled right back.

Two days passed like that - gentle travel, good company, nightly training sessions and hot passionate sex. Even Hilda played her part, mixing up the occasional healing salve after Isha and my training left one of us bruised or bloody.

Under a bright moon I kissed down Isha's naked body. Sweet smoke filled the air. The flickering light of the fire danced along her flawless skin and the black of her tattoos coiled around her like liquid shadows. She was naked, and the beautiful curve of her throat was bare to me. I kissed it hard and nipped with my teeth.

She moaned and groaned and arched her body towards the sky. Her ankle chain sung out like a tiny bell. I pressed her shoulders to earth with my callused hands and kissed my way down. The smoke and her sweat spiced her skin. I laid a trail of kisses between her small breasts, over her taught stomach, across her plump mons and to her sex. It radiated heat. The lips where small and shy but her clit was very, very hard.

I took her clit in my mouth and worried it between my lips.

"Mistress, please!" she gasped but broke off as a quiver ran through her flesh. "I should-" Another quiver. "I should be pleasuring you!"

The wolf smiled at the lamb. I pulled up. "It pleasures me to pleasure you." She was mine now and I intended to show it.

I went back to eating out her cunt, and a tasty cunt it was. Her smell and flavour were intoxicating, like spiced wine. Well, not really but something in the flavour brought those memories to mind. As I worked, I took her hips in my hands and kneaded her tight ass. Taught flesh and muscle shifted under my fingers. I slipped down, until I had a proper grip to lift her slightly off the ground, the better to give her pleasure.

On impulse, I slipped my thumbs into her soft yielding ass. A shudder streaked through her body and a guttural sound tore out her throat. Part of it was shock but part was something much more primal.

"Like that do you?" I said. I kept one thumb in place and started fingering her cunt with my other hand. That was the side show, though. I dropped my lips from her cunt to her asshole and licked her ass hard, forcing her supple flesh to move beneath me.

She started moaning and twitching. Her thighs came up and crushed against my ears. I kept on licking and finger-banging. She didn't even taste half bad, and how she managed that one, I have no idea. Being clean when you're a temple prostitute is one thing. Those whores can wash every day, coat themselves in scented oils and waters, and have body slaves see to their every need. But we were on the road, in the middle of the wilderness. Some bitches have all the luck.

She just about exploded. A flush ran the length of her body, her cunt tried to crush my fingers and her thighs tried her best to crush me, though without much success. Isha's were a dancer's legs, never a warriors. All around the shadows in the trees shifted and moved. It was like they danced at her climax and of course they did. I just didn't know the significance until later.

After she calmed down, we moved into something a bit more mutually pleasurable and tribbed for a while. We scissored our legs and I ground my hairless cunt against hers, until we both boiled over with pleasure again. After that, things got a little wild. The details aren't important but let's just say, Hilda was a lot less willing to heal the wounds of our love making than our fighting practice.

And so it went for two more days, but on the third day, things were different.

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The cart slowly rolled down a worn decline, leading from a raised plateau into a wide river valley filled with leafy green trees. Hilda napped in the back of the cart and I'd let Isha take the reins. She claimed some experience with horses and certainly seemed to keep them in hand.

And that's when everything went wrong.

Isha started and glanced to her left, eyes wide. I looked too and saw a huge black shape lunge up from the undergrowth. It was a frightful shade of living shadow, full of fearful depths.

The horses panicked and bolted forward. Isha yanked back on the reins hard but the leather broke on the right rein and the horses careened left. I made a desperate grab for the flailing end but it flew away. Hilda jerked awake but by then it was too late.

The cart crashed off the road, destroyed a patch of tall ferns, careened over a slight ledge and smashed into a great tree. The impact threw me off my seat and onto the ground. I hit dirt, rolled and came to rest face up. For long dumb seconds I stared up, up at the sky, leaves and the immense grey hive which sat cradled in the branches. The ringing in my ears became buzzing. Yellow and red taker wasps boiled forth. They were inch and a half long flying parasites, which burrow into your brain and take control.

"Run!" I shouted.

I clambered to my feet and snatched up my sabre from the ground. My shield was nowhere in sight. The first wasp shot at me like a ballista bolt and I sliced it out of the air. But more were coming, a swarm I couldn't hope to fight.

Animals emerged from the shadows of the forest - wolves, foxes, rabbits and stranger shapes still hidden in deep shadow. Each bore a head wound caked with dark red blood. Slaves to the wasps.

"Help!" shouted Isha. My heart beat fast. I vaulted up the side of the cart. Isha lay there, the gold chest trapping her foot.

A wasp flew at her and she cut at it with her knife. It ducked back out of range but shot forwards again almost at once. I jumped into the way and smashed it aside. It slammed into the tree with a chitinous crunch and fell to the ground, either stunned or dead; it didn't matter.

I reached down and yanked the gold chest up. Isha slipped her foot out and grabbed the other side. "We must flee, Mistress!" she shouted and started running back towards the road.

I'd not originally planned to take the chest but didn't have time to argue. The chest carried between us, we ran. Hilda guarded the way to safety, her great sword barely able to keep the wasps back. A wolf roared and leapt at her back. She turned just in time, sword rising to near take the beast's head off. It hit the ground, tumbled and then the wasp started to crawl free, an obscene birth heralded by bloody brains.

We passed her at full sprint and she joined us, already panting. Desperate we scrambled up a low ledge and through a thick crop of ferns. The road was just ahead. The wall of ferns exploded behind us and a pair of taker wasps burst through.

Hilda spun and hit the lead full force. It exploded mid-air, insectoid innards going in all directions. Isha threw her knife and speared the second through the thorax. A fox leapt from the left, teeth bared to show bloody purple gums. I kicked it as hard as I could and it rolled away in a bowl of fur and fang.

In the few seconds this bought us, we reached the road. The level surface provided good footing and we put it to best use. We dashed down the hill as fast as we could. Blood beat in my ears and my limbs burnt with the invigorating fire of combat. Finally the buzz of the hive vanished behind us and no strange animals moved in the undergrowth. We'd escaped.

Hilda let out an exhausted huff of breath and dropped to the ground, back flat against the hard packed earth of the road. Isha and I dropped the chest and she sat down too, legs crossed.

"What now, Mistress?" she said, eyes wide with what I read as fear.

"We've lost the cart, the horses, two chests and all of our supplies," I said and sank down too, sitting on the chest.

"Bergin's Wart," said Hilda without looking up.

"What?" I asked.

"You burn Bergin's Wart too drive away taker wasps."

"Do you have any?"

Hilda darkly laughed. "Yeah. In my pack on the cart. Doesn't even grow around here."

Oh.

"Are there other plants you could use?" asked Isha.

"Maybe," said Hilda. "Fuckers can't stand Bergin's Wart but they don't like Red Spot Fungus or White Moss either. And they grow around here. The smoke will make them sluggish but they won't run like they would from Bergin's Wart."

"Think you can find some?" I asked.

Hilda pushed herself upright. "I'll try my best."

Continued in Part 4

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