Maiden Page 18

  ‘Singled you out?’ Drathor asked. ‘What fool’s talk is this? You are slaves, like the others, and Omilla is the overseer. Do as she says, and be quick about it. Omilla, be quick, you have disturbed me with your yelping, so you had better have these girls ready.’

  ‘Yes master, immediately master,’ Omilla stammered as she got to her feet, the girls having moved back at Drathor’s words.

  ‘Slaves?’ Elethrine managed. ‘But…’

  ‘Slaves,’ Drathor answered,’ and you had best realise it. Had you not been my bed companion I would have you whipped just for speaking to me.’

  ‘Do master,’ Omilla put in spitefully, ‘they are in need of correction.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Drathor spat, ‘for now they are needed to serve. Now hasten. Oh, and leave those ridiculous undergarments you wear on, they will provide amusement.’

  He left, leaving Omilla and the girls. Elethrine, stunned by the revelation that she held no special place among the corsairs, could find nothing to say and meekly took her dress off when ordered. Stripped to her drawers, with Aisla naked and Talithea in just torn pantalettes, she followed Omilla to the great hall, where the feast had already begun.

  Men lined the long table, each with a trencher of coarse bread in front of him, a knife and a drinking vessel of glass or horn. There was no order whatever to the meal, drink skins mingling with platters of meat, fruit and pastries along the entire length of the table. Various girls poured and served, but were more often being groped or kissed by the corsairs.

  Omilla stopped by the door and put her back against the first of the pillars that supported the roof. The annoyance had faded from her plump face, to be replaced by a look of self-satisfied superiority. Elethrine guessed that when their punishment came it would be long, hard and undoubtedly humiliating. In the mean-time she could do nothing, and so copied Aisla in taking up a skin of drink and helping to keep the corsair’s vessels filled.

  At the head of the table Irqual was seated in a great chair of carved black wood. His trophies were ranged behind him, the blue and gold carpet among them. Elethrine glanced at it longingly, but could think of no way of securing it with some forty armed men in the room. Irqual, as usual, was boasting of his exploits, his voice a roar above the general clamour of the hall.

  …death flew from his fingertips,’ he was saying, ‘like the sparks of a fire, only blue. The man to my left fell, then him to my right, their clothes burning. The death-seer was still some thirty paces away, maybe forty, and his hand was raised. His eyes looked into mine, red in black, the eyes of a demon. He knew he had me, indeed, he was laughing with delight. Then my axe took him in the midriff and his expression changed fast enough. Thrown from fifty paces it was, yet with enough force to hurl him back between the pillars of his palace. He cast no more spells after that, but as he lay dying he made a final prophecy. Looking right at me, and showing no pain whatever, he spoke that I would never be slain by the hand of man.’

  Irqual paused to drain the contents of his flagon down his throat, then his voice once more roared out, the note of superstition quite gone from it.

  ‘But I say he was a fake and could no more see the manner of men’s deaths than I. It takes no death-seer to know that no man will strike me down, for their exists no man capable of the feat!’

  His boast was greeted with a roar of drunken laughter and a great deal of clashing of cups and banging of knife hilts on the table. Elethrine looked away with a shudder of distaste. In Mund boasting was considered vulgar and feats of arms were only ever related by witnesses, and then in the form of ritual sagas.

  The evening progressed as it had begun, with the corsairs becoming increasingly drunk and their attentions to the serving girls increasingly lewd. Twice she and Talithea were made to show off the way their drawers and pantalettes split to allow access to their bottoms, which display the corsairs found as amusing as the girls found it humiliating. Another girl was mounted on the floor, the other men taking little notice as their companion fucked her. Increasingly Elethrine found hands groping her bottom or breasts each time she bent to serve, Drathor’s right over her having apparently ended with their arrival.

  At first she was sure that the night would end with her being ravished on the floor, yet as one man after another slipped into a drunken stupor, it began to look as if her maidenhead would survive one more night. Finally a man lapsed into unconsciousness while actually pawing her bottom. She looked around to find that only two corsairs remained sensible, Drathor, who had a skin of mead upended over his mouth and was clearly on the way out, and Irqual himself, who was still roaring boasts and threats despite his lack of audience.

  Otherwise only the serving girls remained upright, and not all of them. Two were slumped over men, one with her breasts still smeared with the sauce her partner had poured over them, while a third was propped against a wall, looking dazed as she sipped at a cup of wine abandoned by one of the corsairs. The remaining three stood quietly together by the door, with Omilla the plump overseer seated beside them.

  Irqual stopped shouting, becoming aware that there were only girls left to boast to. His eyes moved slowly from side to side, passing over the group by the door, resting for a moment on Aisla and then focusing on Elethrine.

  ‘Ho girl,’ he suddenly boomed, ‘Drathor is like to be insensible, so I will bed you tonight as well as your flame haired friend, perhaps the elven halfling as well. Come.’

  Elethrine stepped forward, her pulse increasing at the thought of finally losing her precious maidenhead. She knew from Aisla that Irqual was not one to allow himself to be manipulated or teased but would simply mount her and take her up her tuppenny without preamble. Every chance of honour seemed lost, yet just possibly she might be able to persuade him to take her as an equal and not as a slave.

  ‘Have you ever seen a man such as I?’ he demanded, flexing the massive muscles of his neck and arms as she approached.

  ‘You are a great warrior,’ Elethrine answered, trying not to tremble, ‘and it is no dishonour to be ravished by you. Yet the protocol of Korismund demands that afterwards you take me to wife.’

  ‘Wife!?’ Irqual bellowed. ‘Wife!? Ho, Drathor, have you ever heard the like? The little slave wench wants to be my wife! Irqual takes no wife, little one, but he has many girl slaves, and each trembles with desire at the memory of her master’s touch.’

  ‘You would be a Baron Consort,’ Elethrine said.

  ‘Ha!’ Irqual laughed, a sound of both disbelief and dismissal. ‘But enough talk. Kneel, slave wench and split those absurd drawers that I may have better access to your doubtless well juiced cunt. Wife!’

  ‘I will resist,’ Elethrine said quietly.

  ‘Resist!?’ Irqual roared, then let out a great booming laugh. ‘Resist! Resist then, it will add sport to our coupling and perhaps I will beat your pretty bottom to teach you respect before I have you. Then I warrant you’ll be eager enough. Resistance! Ha! You could not even lift my axe!’

  ‘I can lift the arms of Uroth, Aisla’s father, who stands a full head taller than you,’ Elethrine said proudly, ‘and he is also a greater warrior.’

  ‘What!?’ Irqual roared. ‘No such man exists! Go on then, try it, the effort will bring the blood to your veins and enervate you for the bedchamber.’

  Elethrine reached out for the massive, sweat stained shaft, gripping it with both hands. Finding the centre of balance, she bunched her muscles. Irqual’s face broke into an amused grin as she lifted the axe from the table. Slowly she raised it, to the level of her chin and then above her head, her arms straining at its weight. Irqual laughed at the sight, a great gust of mirth with his mouth wide and his head thrown back.. Elethrine muttered a quick prayer to her father and brought the axe down directly onto Irqual’s unshielded head.

  Irqual’s laughter broke off on the instant, to be replaced by total silence which in turn gave way to a roar of fury as what had happened penetrated Drathor’s drink addled wits. Elethrine turned
to find him half risen to his feet with his double handed sword already in his hands. Aisla was in front of him, backing away with a trencher knife clasped in her fist. Drathor roared again and brought the sword around in a vicious arc. Aisla ducked and then came up as the sword passed her head, driving the knife up under Drathor’s ribs at a low angle. For an instant his face registered horrified disbelief at the fate that had overtaken him and then he crashed backwards across the table.

  Two strands of copper-gold hair fluttered down through the uncertain torch-light.

  Elethrine looked up. Omilla had vanished. The other serving girls were frozen in place, starring in horror at the corpses of their masters.

  ‘The carpet!’ Elethrine called, ‘Quick, Omilla will have gone for the ship guards!’

  Talithea and Aisla were already moving towards the great roll of blue and gold carpet that was propped among the spoils of the corsair’s raids. Praying that Irqual’s boasts had not been idle, Elethrine grabbed a knife and slit the cord that held the carpet. It sprang open, Aisla grappling it immediately and starting to drag it towards the door. Talithea joined her as Elethrine began to load her arms with food from the table, grabbing whatever seemed easiest to carry.

  ‘Hurry!’ Talithea called from the door.

  ‘I’m coming!’ Elethrine answered, clutching at a full goat’s skin and starting to lurch towards the door under her burden.

  Outside Talithea and Aisla had the carpet unrolled on the ground. The syllable that was supposed to activate it stood out clear in the middle, and X and an I woven in ornate letters. Somewhere in the night Omilla was screaming for help.

  ‘We need more!’ she gasped as she dropped her burden on the carpet.

  ‘No time! Look!’ Talithea answered, her voice filled with panic.

  Elethrine glanced around. Down the slope the torches of the harbour illuminated the dock and four armed men, running. The nearest was no more than thirty paces away, his sword clasped ready in his hand.

  ‘Xy!’ she screamed as she leapt onto the carpet.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘Zee!’ Talithea tried frantically, still with no effect.

  ‘X I!’ Elethrine yelled as Aisla turned to face the man, her tiny blood stained knife held in defiance of his sword.

  Instantly the carpet was weightless, and rising on the slight breeze. The nearest man yelled, leaping forward and lashing out. The sword slashed the edge of the carpet, passing through so cleanly that he lost his balance. Aisla slashed at his head, missed and then they were out of reach, rising on the breeze.

  The carpet rose, sailing high above the dock and the Black Joke, then out over the bay and between the grim black forts on the promontories. Drifting without control, they passed no more than fifty paces from one fort, Elethrine expecting the black mouths of the bombards to belch fire and death at any instant. Nothing happened and finally she felt able to expel her breath.

  The carpet rode on the wind, gathering speed as it climbed. For a long while the girls said nothing, but looked back towards the lights of Morin and the figures outside the longhouse. The great moon illuminated the black cliffs, hanging like a pale, faint lamp over the scene, its lesser companion emerging slowly from one side as the girls gazed out in shock. Only when Morin had dwindled to a jagged black shadow on the moonlit sea did Elethrine regain her wits.

  ‘Aisla,’ Elethrine said quietly, ‘You do your family honour. I shall stand witness to that blow.’

  ‘And I to yours,’ Talithea said, her voice quavering as she turned a final glance to the distant lights of the Black Joke.

  Chapter Nine - Trollop

  For days the carpet drifted. With no knowledge of how to control it the girls could only wait and submit themselves to the wind. Their general direction, at least, was north, which pleased them as according to the map it meant that they would eventually reach the Glass Coast or even Mund itself. They had quickly discovered that dangling heavy objects over the side of the carpet caused it to descend, yet while they flew over sea the exercise was pointless. Instead they retained a comfortable height and prayed that the favourable wind would hold.

  The shock of the events on the Black Joke and Morin wore off gradually, to be replaced by satisfaction at their escape and a deeper bond between them for having shared the experience. The initial excitement of flight also wore off, to be replaced by boredom, and they took to discussing their experiences, and most specifically their sexual encounters. This was aided by Elethrine’s hastily snatched selection of supplies, which included mead, wine and ale but not a drop of water.

  Feeling tipsy, safe and very far removed indeed from the strictures and protocols of Mund, they became increasingly honest about their feelings and increasingly excited. Elethrine even admitted that being handspanked across Omilla’s knee had left her wanting to climax, which had left both the other girls in giggles.

  ‘And when I spanked you?’ Talithea asked.

  Elethrine blushed and admitted that once Talithea had spanked her firmly she would have been more than willing to obey any orders that further her abasement.

  ‘Even to kiss Aisla’s bottom ring, as I intended?’ Talithea said softly.

  Elethrine nodded, then continued, emboldened by drink and arousal.

  ‘For perfection, perhaps,’ she said, ‘I would need to be naked and held tight around my waist. Then you could spank me and I am sure I would soon be ready to do whatever I was told.’

  Talithea giggled and moved forward, beckoning to Elethrine.

  ‘Come Aisla,’ she said, turning a bright, mischievous smile to the maid, ‘let us see if your mistress would like to put her lips to your bottom ring. Off with your drawers, Pommette.’

  Elethrine complied, her desire rising quickly as she stripped and got into position - kneeling while Talithea took her tight around the waist. Her bottom was stuck well out, and as the Princess planted the first, gentle smack across her cheeks she sighed and called Talithea’s pet name softly and eagerly.

  Her bottom warmed quickly as Talithea’s smacks became firmer and more purposeful. Being spanked nude was getting to her sense of shame, as she had know it would, yet now the shame was part of a build up of delicious sensations that were gradually making her want to take her self imposed debasement further.

  ‘I’m ready,’ she sighed when she could no longer resist the delicious indignity of kissing her maid’s anus.

  Aisla giggled and moved round, presenting her trim, naked bottom to her mistress’s face. Elethrine hesitated, her gaze locked on the tightly puckered spot of Aisla’s bottom ring. For an instant, as her bottom bounced under Talithea continued smacks, she wondered is she could really do it, and then suddenly she was, her lips pouting out to plant a wet kiss directly on the tiny hole in front of her. Aisla groaned and spread her thighs, immersing Elethrine’s face deep between her buttocks.

  ‘Lick it you little slut,’ Talithea said as she turned her attention to turning the backs of Elethrine’s thigh the same colour as her already throbbing bottom.

  Elethrine sighed and began to probe Aisla’s bottom ring with her tongue. She was in absolute ecstasy, nude, her head spinning with drink; Talithea had spanked her bottom and thighs and she was giving Aisla a token of utter submission - the licking of her anus.

  ‘You’re a naughty girl Pommette,’ Talithea giggled as she tightened her grip and began to smack harder, again on Elethrine’s bottom. ‘How does it feel to be handspanked in the nude? How does it feel to know you’re going to come while I smack your little buns? You know I can see your bottom ring, perhaps you’d like something in it while I punish you?’

  Elethrine nodded and then went back to licking Aisla’s bottom clean, revelling in the feel of her tongue in the maid’s ring and the thought that her own would shortly be penetrated.

  ‘A cherry then,’ Talithea said, pausing in her spanking.

  Elethrine felt something round and soft press against her anus, which opened to admit it.

  ‘
Pop, up it goes,’ Talithea giggled. ‘Now, how about this nice fat plum?’

  Sticking her bottom out for the insertion, Elethrine giggled and pulled her head back, only to have Aisla take her by the hair and once more stuff her face against her bottom. A new wave of submissive bliss went through Elethrine as she once more began to lick Aisla’s bottom and her anus began to stretch to accommodate the plum. Half-way in the plum burst, squashing juice out to run down Elethrine’s warm tuppenny. Talithea burst into giggles and once more started to spank her playmate’s chubby bottom.

  Elethrine felt her climax coming as the plum juice ran down over her fingers. Her mouth was full of the taste of Aisla’s bottom and tuppenny, her own bottom hot and throbbing under Talithea’s punishing slaps. She was nude, her buttocks were red from beating and a cherry had been pushed into her hole. Her tongue was up her maid’s bottom and her face was being held hard in-between the girl’s bare bum-cheeks. She felt her muscles tense as another hard slap caught the fattest part of her bottom. Suddenly she desperately needed her bottom filled and reached back, scrabbling for the fruit bowl even as she started to come. Talithea responded, changing hands to spank with her left. Elethrine felt something press against her anus, something even bigger than Drathor’s cock.

  ‘Take it Pommette, come on it,’ Talithea moaned. ‘It’s a little apple - just for your name.’

  Elethrine relaxed her anus and felt it fill, stretching impossibly wide and then closing abruptly and starting to pulse as the apple Talithea had chosen was forced up her bottom. It felt huge in her rectum, and heavy, producing a delightful weight in her bowels as her climax hit her.

  She began to buck her hips, lapping frantically at Aisla’s proffered bottom. Dizzy with pleasure she felt the apple start to squeeze out of her bottom, stretching the ring as wide as it would go.

  ‘Naughty, dirty, slut,’ Talithea breathed, smacking Elethrine’s bottom furiously as her victim’s buttocks clenched and then opened once more.