Our story began here.
The Reconciled
When Erin awoke it took her a moment to work out where she was. It had been the slow hard pressure of the ground under her that had first driven her from slumber, but it took a moment for her memory to catch-up. Next came the dry burn of boiled sandpaper at either end of her being. Her dust-filled mouth could be eased by working her jaw, but the unrelenting sore ache in every nook of her bottom only got worse with wakefulness.
Then she remembered with a groan. War is hell she thought bitterly; magical war is hell all over my arse. Utilising the corners of her thumbs she rubbed sleep from her eyes and staggered to her feet. It was worse than she thought and every muscle in her body screamed for mercy.
The previous night she had lain prone face down on the floor bawling like a kid and wishing she had never heard of Pandorian and all its evil ways. Now she would have almost traded another spanking for a soft bed and decided that witch had not devised a worse torture than sleeping on the hard floor of a Timbre barn. Then with half her mind on the location of the nearest latrine she immediately revised that thought as million birch twigs flared in her bottom. The bandy-legged stagger to the back door of the barn shredded the very last of her dignity
Tabitha had slept like the forgiven and yawned herself gently awake. She always felt clean and refreshed after a good spanking and the previous evening had certainly qualified as that. Only Dniester ministrations could have purged her soul better. Nevertheless her bottom felt like two hot coals in a finger tender parchment sack.
Shyly she looked around the barn and saw that most of the others were rousing too. She guessed they had seen it all before.
“How are you today?” Meredith asked.
“I’m alright ma’am,” Tabitha said meekly.
“They tell me you were a hunter before you went to school,” Meredith said conversationally.
Tabitha nodded.
“Take this,” Meredith extended her arm with something in her hand. “It is a witch knife. The others already have one, but you weren’t supposed to be here.” It might have been a reproach but the elder was smiling at her.
Tabitha sat up and immediately regretted it. Rolling onto all fours she chomped down on her lower lip and took a moment. Meredith couldn’t help grin at her.
“No hard feelings I trust?” Meredith asked cheerfully.
“No ma’am,” Tabitha said emphatically as she arched her back and thrust her bare bottom back and forth to waggle it like a dog, “I’m sorry to have put you to so much trouble.”
Then she looked at the knife in the elder witches hand and took it.
“What does it do?” Tabitha asked as she eyed the knife.
“Here take it,” Meredith pressed her. “It is just a knife really, more of a symbol than anything, rather like a mage’s staff. We use it to cut offerings of nature’s bounty and for certain spells.”
“It is made of stone isn’t it?” Tabitha said examining it.
“Yours is,” Meredith told her, “It’s special and I have a hunch you will suit it.”
Tabitha nodded.
“Eat and wash quickly, we must be away,” Meredith told her.
*
Katrin had been walking all night. Nor had she been alone. For on every track and lane that led to Timon people had pressed against her, mile after mile of them. So many in fact that the roadway had been churned to nothing by a million footsteps or more and at times she had had to walk on the verge lest she sink ankle deep in mud.
Ahead and behind for as far as she could see was a glowing snake of a thousand torches that danced about her and lit the way. Although here and there small groups had dropped out of line and had gathered around fires at the roadside.
Katrin hoped that these delays were only on account of the night, but she couldn’t help but suspect that some had merely dropped where they had fallen and would never rise again. She shuddered at the thought, more determined than ever to press on.
Every once in a while the lines of people would thin out as the going got easier so that she was able to make good time. But then a knot in the crowds would form as some delay was encountered and Katrin had been overcome by dread. Is this where I will die, she wondered? But always after minute-stretched moments the obstruction would ease and she would again make some progress.
It was after one such occurrence that she finally crested a hill and saw Timon for the first time. The city was far bigger than she remembered, although she had only been there once and it was unconscionable that it could fall to any foe.
“Keep left people, keep moving,” said an authoritative voice.
There were soldiers now, calm and cheerful like city watchmen marshalling a festival crowd. It gave a semblance of order and offered with conviction a sense that all was not lost. Katrin could have wept.
She could see that most people obeyed and filed on down the main road that led to the city. But every once in a while a soldier would pull a young man from the slow moving queue and murmur in his ear. Most would nod.
It took a moment for Katrin to work out the why of it. Then she made out another line snake away to the right, a smaller line of all men making for a hill on which stood some banners.
Her eyes scanned the coloured pennants and poles of glory for anything she recognised, wondering why there were so many noble standards standing there against the last of the night sky picked out by the firelight. Then she saw them, the hundred-hundred lights of camp fires, the allied army massed in vale beyond, thousands of them amid a city of tents and corals of horses.
*
The side of the hill was eroded where hundreds of feet had made their way to the top. Fear thought that the ripped away turf that revealed the bare rocky earth under it had probably been there before the army had made its camp, but the most recent visitors certainly hadn’t helped. In any case the raised fissure gave him somewhere to sit and watch the sunrise, perhaps his last respite before the coming day.
“Are you Dr Arlon Fear?” said a weary voice a little to his left.
No one called him Arlon or referred to that name; no one here anyway and to hear it startled him. The speaker was old by his voice, but in the pre-dawn he was little more than an outline, although he gave the impression of nobility from the bearing. The man was certainly wearing copious amounts of armour from the metallic clatter he made.
“Who is it?” Fear asked getting to his feet, thinking perhaps that it was a messenger. But the more he thought about it, the more he knew a regular messenger would not have used his given name.
It crossed the mages mind that the man was an assassin and he slipped into the patterns warily ready for a counterstrike.
“You are the Magus Fear?” the man asked again.
Fear could now make the man out. He was in his advanced middle age, although apart from some battle scars he was in good shape. Nevertheless the man had a tired gaunt look about him as if he had seen much fighting. Then Fear noted the broach and the golden braid that adorned the warrior’s right shoulder, a general then, Fear thought, a commander of horse from the style of sword and the horse head medallion he wore.
It took the magus only a moment longer to identify the man he had never met, but of whom he had heard so much about.
“I am Fear,” he said.
The general before him returned an appraising look and all but looked the mage up and down with something that might have been disdain.
“I am Sir Mark De Lacy, Katrin’s father,” Mark said formally.
“First Commander of the Timber Horse I hear, Katrin is very proud,” Fear told the man, his voice firm but gentle.
“You are my daughter’s…” Mark paused; he had guessed from Katrin’s letters that the man was more than just her master and teacher, “…close friend and tutor,” he finished carefully. Some words could not be recalled.
“I am, and more I hope,” Fear said warmly, “So we meet at last.”
“I should…” Mark sighed, “Oh to hell with it, my daughter is her own woman and the proprieties be buggered, in war a friend of a friend is…”
Fear extended his hand so that it hung between them like a promise or a threat.
Mark eyed it cautiously.
“After this war and Katrin has completed her studies… I would ask for her hand,” Fear said, his arm still extended.
Sir Mark nodded and then without committing himself to this news he took Fear’s hand and shook it firmly.
“And how is my daughter?” Mark asked.
“I left her…” Fear was about to add in Pandoria when he saw another figure approaching.
He was tired and it had been too long, he cursed inwardly, but he could swear… Sir Mark, disgruntled by the fellow’s rudeness swung around to see where the Magus was looking.
“Good gracious,” Sir Mark exclaimed.
“Katrin,” Fear barked anxiously, “What in the name of the gods are you doing here?”
“That is what I want to know,” Sir Mark bellowed.
“Hello Daddy,” Katrin said meekly.
But her eyes were on Fear.
Until that moment the Black Magus had not known that in his heart had believed he would never see her again and it was as if all space and time was suddenly compressed into that moment. But Katrin was no stranger to that fatalism, with a woman’s intuition she had feared that truth since he had tried to sail without her.
But it was Sir Mark who broke the tension. In a reunion as violent as it was sudden he strode forward and seized his daughter into his bear-like arms totally heedless of the tears that leaked into his eyes.
“Katrin,” his voice strained and he made as if to crush the life from his only child.
Then as suddenly as it began he stepped back as Katrin dashed forward in to the embrace of the dark mage who had usurped his place in his little one’s heart.
“I thought, I thought, oh…” Katrin sighed over and over.
Sir Mark studied the dark man who held her with new eyes. He had the look of a tiger tenaciously guarding his prey and the old warrior thought of his late wife and then of Delia Cane and Downley.
Finally the embrace ended with a kiss and Katrin stepped back with a broad grin.
“I left you safely in Pandoria,” Fear growled, “What are you doing here?”
“That, young lady, is what I would like to know,” Sir Mark said gruffly, “Is this how you care for my daughter Sir?”
Fear bristled, but he had no recourse against the man’s anger. “What are you doing here?” he exclaimed, taking up the theme, his anger too now rising.
“I… I wanted to see you… to be with you…” Katrin said childishly as she tried and failed to meet Fear’s eyes. There was more, but there were no words. Everything she was or could be was here and not in Pandoria.
“I ought to tan your backside raw right here in front of everyone,” Sir Mark bellowed.
Katrin’s face went puce and she hastily looked around and saw that even some way off there were young soldiers looking their way now.
“With rods of blackthorn dipped in pepper oil,” Fear promised.
Katrin gulped. Her father’s spanking threat was as hollow as it was embarrassing, but her new master’s words held truth.
“Spank her by all means Sir,” Fear said sharply, “But when this battle’s done I will not spare my arm a jot on that account.”
Sir Mark snorted in amusement.
“I think perhaps my daughter is better left to you,” he chuckled. “I trust you will not fail me twice.”
“Oh no Sir,” Fear growled.
“Then I have things that need my attention and will leave you to it,” Mark chuckled again, “I am glad to have met you. Fare thee well in the coming hostilities.”
Fear turned then and took Sir Mark’s hand.
“And you Sir, and you,” he said as the two men shook.
Then the general was gone.
“As for you, I make no idle threats, as soon as I get a minute…” Fear scolded Katrin.
Her father gone she flew at him and kissed him to silence and made to hold him until all the stars went out.
*
By the time they reached Fear’s tent Katrin was naked and he but a pair of breeks from being so. They had shamelessly embraced and stripped all but their intimate clothing all the way down the hill, drawing envious gazes from leering soldiers and cheerful comrades-in-arms.
Now with Katrin’s full round bottom cupped in his hands, Fear considered spanking her on account, but his passion was rising and would brook no delay.
Turning her about he bent her double on the small enough support of his travel cot and entered her without preamble from behind.
“Ah,” she gasped, “My love, oh… ah, my love.”
He grunted, rutting her like a beast devouring mutton at a feast and pressing into her with a groan. In moments that lasted years they came together and tumbled forward carelessly onto the narrow bed. Slick and naked it took an age for him to gain a breath and they both clung to each other in open-mouthed wonder and laboured for air.
“I want, I want, I want…” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said in a thick voice that tailed off to a groan as she flicked his chest with her tongue before going lower.
“Take me everywhere,” she spoke as a sigh.
“But I’m not…” but then he found he was as she took him her mouth.
Unseemly and undignified sucking noises ensued as she drew the pout of her lips down over his engorged member again and again. Never had he been so big and he had to doubt that it could possibly fit all the way to… then with him still ensconced in his mouth she drew him in and kissed him towards the base above his ball sack. The world spun away from him all a fuzz, as like a lemon-salt oyster she tasted him on her tongue as she went back for more.
*
The second time that she tasted him he pulled her up, or tried to, for she was voracious.
“Let me…” he whispered huskily.
She shushed him and with a final lick to lubricate his staff she swung about and offered him her rear. Then seizing her hips and careless of her intent he pushed his plum-sized head at her narrow opening and gently eased himself passed her gate.
“Harder, don’t… ooh…” she groaned and he leaned into her taking her deeply.
“I should spank you,” he hissed in her ear.
“Do what you want with me,” she groaned.
This time it took longer. Much longer and the relentless fullness of him seemed to fill her all the way to her eyes as she pushed back hungrily. But finally she felt something like a flexing fist and hot seed flooded her innards as she clawed at her sex.
All this and more came to pass over and over as the grey dawn went from dark to pale.
To be continued.
