A Biker Fantasy Ch. 03

Wolf took point again, although she stayed a lot closer now, and she acted like she knew where we were headed, so I was content to follow her lead. For certain she was no ordinary wolf.

We soon came into sight of a large fortified keep with curtain walls surrounding a central tower.

I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was Merinel's stronghold. The keep was situated atop a sheer cliff with a single trail leading up to it that was clearly visible along it's entire length by anyone in the keep who bothered to look down even casually. I mentally marked that route as last choice and stood there a few yards back in the trees studying the layout. The keep was backed by more sheer cliffs rising up a good thousand feet before starting to slope more gently toward the top of the mountain, and on top of the peak of the mountain was another, smaller stone tower. Undoubtedly that would be a lookout post that commanded a view of the entire valley.

Before I had come to this world, I would never have considered scaling the cliff even in broad daylight much less at night. But I had been adapted to this world, and my night vision was nearly as good as the natives of this realm. And I had lost my beer belly long ago. I figured that we stood a decent chance of making it to the keep walls unseen. As to what we would do once we got there, I had absolutely no idea. No doubt I would think of something when we got there. Or Jessie would figure something out. No matter, we had a few hours to kill before dark, so I took Jessie and wolf and retreated a little further back into the trees.

I spread a blanket on the ground in a small clearing and Jessie and I lay down side by side to rest and talk. We had a lot of catching up to do.

Wolf lay down near us for a while, then got up and silently eased off into the forest.

Jessie and I talked for a long time, and then we wriggled out of our clothes. The odds were that one or both of us wouldn't survive until dawn, so we wanted to make love while we had the chance.

Our first coupling was fast and urgent, no finesse at all, just naked lust. Later bouts were slower, gentler and much more satisfying.

Jessie seemed determined to have as much of my seed in her belly as she could draw out of me. I wondered if she was trying for pregnancy or if she had another motive, but I was too busy trying to bury as much of myself in her as I could. I had missed my beloved wife while on my journey, and even the interludes with Malla had been unsatisfying in comparison to the real thing.

At long last, we just lay together, holding each other and relishing the feel of skin on skin, conserving our energies for the long night ahead.

Around dusk Wolf came back acting very pleased with herself.

Jessie and I dressed and equipped ourselves from my pack. Wolf obviously wanted us to follow her, so we did. She led us to the base of the cliff where she wriggled between a clump of bushes and the rock wall.

Jessie and I followed her to a cave mouth that was screened by the bushes. No one would be able to see the opening from the other side of the bushes. The opening was small enough that Jessie and I had to go on our hands and knees for a while, then the cave opened out enough for us to stand upright without bumping our heads

The floor of the cave was relatively smooth, and when I made a makeshift torch and lit it, I could see that the cave sloped upwards and vanished around a corner a few yards further on.

Jessie stayed close as I followed wolf deeper into the cave.

The roof of the cave stayed far enough up that we could continue to walk upright, and the walls were easily far enough apart for us to walk side by side in comfort.

As we walked, I rechecked my equipment. Several hundred feet of rope in a coil slung over one shoulder, my longbow and quiver of a dozen arrows, my bowie knife and the .45, and a half-dozen pouches containing odds and ends.

Jessie was equipped much the same.

Neither of us spoke. We didn't have to.

The cave wound around, sometimes to the left and sometimes to the right, and always trending upward at about a 20-degree angle.

It took is almost 6 hours to reach the far end of the cave. We emerged from the cave behind another clump of bushes that grew between the cliff face and the keep's curtain wall.

I extinguished the torch before exiting the cave and then had to let my eyes adjust to the lower light level. Jessie was already standing there, screened by the bushes as she studied the wall of the keep. Wolf had vanished again.

Atop the wall we could see sentries posted about 30 yards apart. I probably shouldn't have been surprised to see that the sentries were those centaur-apes, but I hadn't expected them for some reason.

Simply picking off the sentries with our longbows was out of the question. Those monsters weren't easy to kill, and there were too many to kill without at least one giving the alarm.

I decided to wait for dawn, I had the feeling that the sentries would be a little more lax then.

Jessie and I retreated back into the cave and rested, sitting together there in the dark, our backs against the cave wall and our sides touching.

"What do we do now?" she whispered.

"Unless Merinel's a total idiot, she has a back way out of her fortress, just in case she has to escape. That's going to be our way in." I whispered back.

It was almost time to leave the cave and start our hunt for the keeps back door when Wolf showed up again. We had followed her this far, I thought, might as well continue to do so.

Wolf led us out of the cave and over about 50 feet to a spot on the wall that looked to me like every other part of the wall around it. Jessie started running her hands over the surface of the wall where Wolf indicated until something went 'click' and a small part of the wall slid noiselessly inward, and then sideways.

We wasted no time in slipping inside. The door closed behind us, leaving us in total darkness.

Jessie eased forward, her hand outstretched to touch the wall beside her, and her other hand out in front of her to keep her from bumping her nose on anything.

I kept one hand on my bowie knife and the other on Jessie's shoulder as we moved. Wolf brought up the rear.

The passage led us to another concealed door, and from there it was a short stroll to an unguarded door that led into the keep proper.

We went through the door and found ourselves in a darkened hallway.

A few yards in Jessie found a thick drapery and stopped. She peeked around it and found herself looking into a wide, well-lit hallway with doors piercing the walls at irregular intervals and stone columns in niches every dozen yards or so. It was deserted. She let me look, and then we moved on out into the light.

I looked around and Wolf was gone again.

Jessie looked at me quizzically. I shrugged and pointed left. We went that way.

We met no one in the hallway, although we could hear the noises as people moved about the keep's morning routine.

I noticed a small alcove behind a pillar and pulled Jessie into it A small slit in the back of the alcove looked out over the keep's main hall. There were a few humans and a couple of the centaur-apes going about various tasks.

As we looked, I saw Wolf casually stroll up to one of the humans. She changed.

She seemed to blur a little, then her body stretched up and out until she solidified again into a lovely woman who bore a striking resemblance to Jessie.

Jessie was trembling against my side. I slipped an arm around her and gestured for silence with my other hand. I wanted to hear what Wolf/Merinel was saying.

"Captain, I have led my sister and her world walker mate into the keep. Find them and capture them, but they are not to be harmed yet." She said.

The captain bowed. "It shall be as you wish my lady."

"The other prisoners?" Merinel asked.

"They are secure in the cells below." Replied the captain. "The man and the catkin females killed 4 guards and injured a dozen more before they could be securely chained. Their equipment is in your rooms as you instructed."

"And that hunter who nearly killed me?" Merinel demanded.

"He is down in the interrogation cell unharmed." Said the captain. "I thought that you would prefer to conduct his questioning yourself."

I thought about taking out my .45 and shooting her right then, but regretfully decided not to take the chance. I would only get one shot, and the angle was wrong for precise shooting. Anything less than an instant kill and Jessie and I would be fried.

We waited there until Merinel had resumed wolf form and left. Once she was gone, I took Jessie's hand as we left the alcove and hurried down the hallway at a fast walk. Activity picked up around us as the captain organized the search for us. Without knowing the layout of the keep all we could do was to keep moving and hope that we would find out way to our friends before the guards found us.

There came a roar of fury and sudden screams from the outer courtyard. All of a sudden there were people and creatures running everywhere. A good many ran straight past us without giving us a second glance. I wasn't sure what was going on, but Jessie had a small smile on her face as we broke into a run.

I found a staircase heading downward and we took it. The stairs ended in a guard-room with tables, benches and a half dozen startled looking humans just now rising to see what the commotion was all about.

Jessie reacted faster than I did, drawing her .45 and opening fire. I drew my own pistol, but by then the guards were all down and Jessie was headed for a ring of keys that was visible on the belt of one of the downed guards.

The cells holding Marcus and the catkin girls were just a few doors down and it didn't take long for us to free them. All three were bruised and battered but able to function.

I gave Marcus my bowie knife and Jessie had long slim daggers for Chenna and Varra. I looked into the other cells as we passed them and opened any of the cells that held live occupants. If nothing else, they would add to the confusion upstairs.

In a cell down at the very end of the short hallway I found a man strapped to a table with various instruments of torture laid out neatly on tables and stands next to him.

"This must be the hunter Merinel spoke of," Jessie hissed in my ear. I nodded and opened the cell door.

I had to use a hammer and chisel to break the metal bands that held the man to the table, but we soon had him free.

"I don't know who you are," he said as he took the short handled sledgehammer from me. "But you have my eternal gratitude."

"Introductions can wait," I said. "For now let's concentrate of getting out of here and finding Merinel."

The man nodded and we left the cellblock and headed back up the stairs. The hunter stopped long enough to loot a sword belt and sword from one of the dead guards. The other prisoners had likewise armed themselves and then swarmed up the stairs looking for either an escape or someone to slay.

Marcus and Chenna took the lead of our group and we went upstairs far more cautiously than the mob of released prisoners had.

Upstairs the scene was one of total chaos. People were running back and forth in a panic. I caught enough of what they were screaming about to figure out that the commotion outside was caused by a very pissed off dragon rampaging about in the courtyard.

We were almost at the main doors of the keep when Merinel appeared in front of us in a flash of light. She glared at us and gestured. We dropped our weapons as they suddenly glowed red hot and stood there as she strode forward.

Merinel sneered at us. "Did you really think that you could come into my own home and defeat me?"

I folded my arms and looked back at her levelly. "Well, that was the plan, and as you can see, here you are in front of us now."

She gave a silvery laugh. " And yet you are unarmed and helpless. I could kill you all right now."

"There are 6 of us and you are alone," I said. "Surely one of us would live long enough to get to you."

I was stalling for time. The hunter had slipped off to the side, partially concealed by the smoke coming into the room from outside and partially by the way the rest of us had spread out to confront Merinel. I noticed that he still held his hammer. The metal head was glowing red-hot, but the wooden handle was evidently still cool enough for him to carry it.

I kept her talking and focused on me. The more time the hunter had to get set, the better chance he had to get to her. I braced myself to rush Merinel when the Hunter attacked, and knew that the others were just waiting their chance as well.

There was a sudden BOOM as something hit the doors of the keep. Something very large and heavy.

Merinel reflexively glanced that way and the hunter made his move. He came forward in a silent gliding rush, his hammer already swinging up and back for the one blow that he would get.

Merinel's head snapped back around to us and her eyes just had time to widen as the hunter struck.

Sorceress she might be, and powerful enough to slay from miles away, but 10 pounds of red-hot iron embedded in her brain through a shattered skull made all of that meaningless.

Merinel made a gurgling noise as she dropped limply to the floor, her limbs jerking and twitching involuntarily.

The stink of cooking meat and singed hair combined with other stinks as she voided herself.

Then it was over. Merinel was dead.

Marcus moved to stand next to the body of his sister for a moment, then he stood and sighed. "We'll take her body home as proof that she's dead." He said wearily. "And she'll be buried in the family crypt."

Jessie buried her face against my shoulder and wept.

The hunter stooped and worked the hammer free from Merinel's shattered skull, then cast it aside. "Now I can rest easier," he said.

We invited the hunter to accompany us back to the city but he declined with a shake of his head and a weary smile. "My thanks," he said. "But I just want to go home and try to put my life back together."

By the time we managed to get outside, all of the guards were either dead or had managed to escape out of the keep. Skyfire was pacing back and forth in the narrow space between the curtain wall and the keep itself looking for someone else to flame or chomp.

"Greetings Brother Dragon," I called up to him.

The big dragon bent his neck to peer down at us. "Is the sorceress dead?" he rumbled.

"She is," Marcus nodded to the body in his arms. "Might we prevail upon you to return us to our home?"

Several days later I was relaxing back in the rooms that I shared with Jessie and our catkin mistresses, enjoying a hot bath when Malla came into the room. She was wearing the shorts and halter top that Jessie, Varra and Chenna favored. "I wanted to thank you again for the kindness that you have shown me," she said. "But what happens now?"

"Now, we take it easy until the next crisis pops up," I told her with a crooked grin. "In the meantime, why don't you join me here in the bath?"

"I mean where do I go from here?" she asked as she began slipping out of her clothing. "I have no family or home since the fire."

"You can live here with us," Jessie said from behind her as she started to undress herself. "You will always be welcome in our home. You are family now."

Malla's eyes filled with tears. "Thank you my lady," she managed to say.

Then both women were in the tub with me, crying on each other's shoulders. I just sat back and let them get over their crying jag.

Ranal poked his head into the room. "Bill, Jules wants to see you as soon as we can get there."

I sighed and started to push myself up and out of the tub. "Ranal, your buddy Jules has the lousiest sense of timing..."

But to tell the truth, I was actually looking forward to whatever the king had in store for me next. After all, it couldn't be as bad as the quest to stop Merinel.

Could it?