Dawning of an Age Ch. 03

"You are Kradd the Bone Man, a coward who kills ancient old women rather than pay them what they are owed, and you are dead."

The Bone Man laughed, a throaty, wet boom that started in his chest and roared outward, filling the farm with it's noise. Lila picked herself up off the ground behind him, her eyes widening as she realized that the angry, bloody monster that had burst into the clearing and pulled the men's attention away from her was. Tears sprang to her eyes as meaning of what I had said and the blood that covered me sank in. She caught my gaze, her wet eyes shining, and I saw in them sadness, sympathy, and a hardness that I recognized and loved. She nodded once, a deliberate motion of understanding, anger, and finality that gave me her blessing and her love.

The Bone Man charged, Baba's axe spinning above his head, a fancy, difficult thing to do that would distract most men and leave them vulnerable without ever realizing it.

Baba had made sure that I was not most men.

I waited until he drew within three paces of me and the axe stopped spinning, coming around in a fast, shining, deadly arc. My feet planted, my legs bent, and I pushed off, driving myself under the swing of his axe, Jedza's song cresting again as she sensed blood and sought its flavor.

Her length slipped upward as my head went past under the Bone Man's arm, her blade touching the front of his shoulder and biting, sinking in, following me around, following the shape of his joint, biting to the bone, severing muscle and tendon.

Kradd howled with pain, his arm falling useless at his side, the axe clutched in numbing fingers. He switched hands, his left coming around to awkwardly grasp the haft as he turned, trying to bring the axe to bear to defend himself.

I never gave him the chance.

Jedza flicked out, her blade taking him in the hamstring, dropping him to a knee. She flashed again, and his left hand fell to the earth, the axe gripped in its fingers, the stump weeping the Bone Man's blood into the snow.

The look of shock was frozen on his face when I let the momentum of Jedza's last strike carry her around in a circle and build, her speed growing as she arced through the air and keened her gleeful bloodlust. She bit through his neck with ease, parting the muscle and fat and vertebrae with ease, taking the Bone Man's head from his shoulders and sending it spinning into the snow.

"If any of you wish to challenge me, do it now. If not, leave," I growled.

The Bone Man's men stood in shock, watching the last of Kradd's blood gush into the earth. I stood before them, clad only in doeskin trousers, my heavy boots, and Kradd's blood, my eyes hard and full of wrath. Steam rose from my sweating form, the hot blood adding to the cloud even as it dripped from Jedza's point to stain the snow.

Not one of them stepped forward. Instead they looked to each other, came to a silent decision, and ran.

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Nearly a thousand miles away from Lila's little farm was a scene rather different in a thousand small ways and a hundred very big ones. A young woman, sweet and kind and beautiful sat at her window, looked out over her father's kingdom and sighed, the beauty and majesty of its vined and ancient towers, the bright sun and shining, crystalline lake peeking between the spires lost on her that day.

Her gaze drifted from tower to tower, ancient glass and impossible lengths of forged steel glinted out from between unknowable tons of vines gone brown with the winter cold and dusted white with snow. Most had smaller spires atop them, red and white paint faded to near invisibility with rust and time. Some were taller than others, and the shapes were as varied as the imaginations of the men who had built them in the time before.

She peered out, eyes unfocused, from the tallest of them all, a stepped, black tower of dizzying and frightening height, her chambers just below her father's own. More than a hundred levels stretched down below her, reaching all the way to the ground, most intact, but some fallen in, leaving great, gaping chambers within the palace.

Her father's court lay in one of these great chambers, the wires and steel girding that had twisted and bent inward when the floors had collapsed repurposed to hold the banners and great bolts of cloth that were used to represent her father, his nobles, and his armies. A great throne lay in the rear of the chamber, where her father sat as he heard the problems of his people or hosted visiting delegates or one of the many balls that were held to celebrate any number of things in the kingdom.

Her mind drifted over the palace and beyond, stretching out into the world. She knew the palace well, and had explored every inch of it as a child. It held no mystery for her.

She longed to go out beyond the great city, to see the rest of the world. She wanted to see the world with her own eyes, to experience the wonder of open, free space. Her entire life had been lived among the towers and buildings of Checa, and she had grown bored of it in just 18 short years. There was nothing new to see in the city.

Her name was Catherine, and she had decided that the life of a princess was entirely too dull for her taste. The closest she ever came to anything exciting and new was when her father allowed her to go down to the docks and greet the visiting merchant ships, to see the wares that they unloaded and watch the sailors from far away cities move about the ship before disappearing into the crowd to drink or eat or visit the brothels that the Watch allowed to operate on the water's edge.

Catherine hated every second of living in court. There was no place for impropriety or speaking freely. Every moment was about diplomacy and politics. It was exhausting.

For her, most of court life consisted of smiling at people whose names she couldn't remember and listening to gossip about them that she soon forgot. She heard stories of ladies whose husbands were fucking their servants, lords whose wives were fucking their soldiers, and couldn't remember a bit of it. There would come a time, she supposed, when such information might be useful to her, but it would be many years and the stories she heard now would surely be stale and useless by then.

There were some rumors that held her interest, though. Whispers came that she was to be married soon, and that was a subject that held her fascination and trepidation. The trouble was that as soon as she showed any interest in it at all, the whispers would stop and she would find out no more.

From what she had been able to gather, she was to be matched with the son of her father's seneschal, a fine, strong young man who had proven himself to be a stunning swordsman, marked to rise through the ranks of the Watch, fully expected to someday be Lord Commander, and most likely one day take his father's place as seneschal.

His name was Eric, and she knew nothing about him save what tales went round of his prowess, the expectations of his future, and that he was quite handsome. She could do much worse, she supposed.

Still, she didn't appreciate being traded off. At the very least her father could've consulted her before beginning to make the arrangements. She would have appreciated some sort of courtship, a chance to sit and have an actual conversation with the man.

She left the window, the chill from the huge, ancient, plated glass becoming more than she wanted, and crossed her bedchamber to the small, plush, deep couch set by her fireplace. The warmth of the fire made her sigh, comfortable and lovely after the cold by the window. Cold or not, she longed to go out, away from her father's tower, the city.

Catherine wanted to feel cold, to know what it was like to travel all day without heat or a roof over her head. She toyed idly with her long, dark brown hair, twisting its shiny, loose waves around her finger as her mind wandered, her deep green eyes focused on a far away place. It was, technically, her father's fault that she wanted to see the world. He was the one who had been giving her books her whole life, letting her read of the time before, the stories of airplanes, science, cars. He let her read the histories of the time since, how men had fought bitter, bloody wars to claim lands for themselves, how the city had raged under a terrible time of chaos until her grandfather had united it under his own rule.

She knew so much of the history of the city, of her father's kingdom. A hundred books had been written about it, penned meticulously by scribes and traded for or bought, every one, by her father's courtly scholars. Hell, some of the books had actually been written by some of her father's scholars.

But there was so little written about the lands beyond the city, the wild places where the roads had cracked and overgrown and been lost to time. She knew next to nothing about the world just twenty miles outside the city, and nothing at all about the world a hundred miles away. There were stories, of course. Fantastical tales of wondrous creatures and wild, unruly men roving the lands and ravaging anything they found. Stories of magic run amok, flowing across the land and scouring it clean, leaving behind nothing but a sense of overwhelming power.

She doubted the more fantastical parts of those stories, but thought that some part of them had to be true. Surely the world held some adventure to be had, some wonderful quest that she could undertake. Even a trip over land to anywhere other than the great city would be enough to satisfy her.

A knock at her door startled her from her thoughts and made her jump.

"Come in," she called, her voice clear and strong.

The ancient, heavy steel door groaned as it opened and Ness came bounding around it, full of energy. Her best friend in the world and daughter of one of the lords that her father considered indispensable enough to keep in the tower permanently, Ness was exactly the opposite of Catherine when it came to court.

She loved every second of the gossip and subterfuge, listening to whispers, remembering everything she heard, passing it all along to different people. She reveled in it, fed off of it and fed it in return. Catherine's father had once said that if there was a secret in the tower, Ness would know it. He was probably right.

"What are you doing, all cooped up in here?" Ness asked. She flitted across the room, the hem of her emerald green dress whispering across the carpet, her dainty feet just peeking out from beneath them with each step. Her straight raven hair was plaited into a neat, pretty braid than reached to the center of her back, covering her spine where the cutout back of the dress did not. It was cut low in the front, the tops of her pert breasts pushing up and creating a valley between them, where a simple gold medallion lay on the creamy white flesh. Her warm brown eyes squinted at Catherine, a small smile playing across her full red lips.

"Thinking about the world," Catherine replied, rather absent-mindedly.

"Imagining running off to some faraway land full of adventure and wild creatures and strong, sweaty barbarian men who wear nothing but doeskin and a fierce, sexy scowl?" Ness laughed, a comely, throaty thing that always made Catherine smile.

"No! You awful woman, I was not imagining muscly, naked barbarian men."

"But you are now," Ness teased, lifting Catherine's feet and nestling herself into the warm, comfortable couch. Were it not for the different colors of their clothing they would've looked like a two-headed girl, their legs lost in a sea of fabric, entangled comfortably with each other, their heads propped up so they could look at each other as they talked.

"I shouldn't say I was only thinking about the world," Catherine said quietly. "I suppose I was thinking about Eric as well."

"Of course you were," Ness said. "Everyone says you'll be married off to him soon. Your father is just waiting for him to get a bit more experience in the Watch before he assigns him to the tower anyway."

"I don't know how I feel about being married to someone I've never even met."

"Of course you don't," Ness snorted. "None of us really knows how to feel about that idea. But, we don't get much say, and I have faith that my father will select someone who is worthy of me."

She said the last with a bright, teasing smile, and Catherine couldn't help but laugh.

"I just hope he doesn't expect me to sit and be silent and never have an opinion on anything like all the women in the books father has in the library," Catherine mused. "I think I'd rather jump from the top of the tower than be married to a man who wants a living set piece."

"Oh, I'm sure he'll want you to open your mouth from time to time," Ness retorted. "Maybe not so that anything can come out of it, though." Catherine laughed, an honest, clear sound that mingled with Ness's own deeper laugh.

"Does everything come back to cocks with you?" Catherine asked.

"Not everything," Ness said with a wink. "But you have to admit you've wondered about Eric's... parts."

"I admit no such thing," said Catherine, feigning an aloof tone. "Never once have I wondered about it's length or thickness, or what it would feel like."

"Or taste like, you lying bitch," snorted Ness.

"Why are you so obsessed with the taste of a man?" asked Catherine.

"Well," Ness drew out the word, letting it hang in the air, her eyes scanning the ceiling high overhead, pretending to inspect the ancient, crumbling wires hidden by great bolt of woven cloth before letting them fall and meet Catherine's gaze. "I'm curious! I want to know what a man feels like in my mouth, what it tastes like."

She leaned forward as she spoke, her voice husky, her eyes half closed. Ness's hand came to her throat, trailing down to her chest, brushing the tops of her breasts. Catherine knew that look, and her nipples tightened under her dress, heat blossoming between her legs. Her thoughts of adventure spurred her on, and she leaned forward, her voice low, her hands finding Ness's ankles, trailing her fingers under the dress, up her friend's slender calves.

"I suppose I've wondered the same," she whispered. "And it could be some time before I find out. But in the mean time, maybe a more familiar taste could bide us both?"

"I think I like this wilder side, Princess," groaned Ness as her thighs became visible, Catherine's fingers pushing the hem higher, tracing lightly along the skin until she gripped her friend's hips, the soft brown curls between her legs coming into view.

She kept pushing, dragging the dress higher, Ness arching her back to allow it to slide upward, over her breasts. She took hold of it in her own hands and pulled, hauling the heavy dress over her head and dropping it on the floor beside the couch. Ness lay before Catherine completely nude save the slender gold chain that lay against her breast, drawing Catherine's eye to the full, creamy flesh.

Ness's nipples stood out, proud and hard, a deep, luscious pink against her pale skin. Catherine ran her fingers upward, sliding them up her friend's sides, her hands coming to her high, soft breasts, feeling Ness's nipples against her palms. Ness sighed, her legs falling open, leaving herself completely exposed to her friend.

Catherine leaned further forward, her hands traveling to Ness's neck, cupping her face in her hands. The princess brought her lips to Ness's, kissing her dearest friend deeply, their tongues playing against each other, caressing one another softly.

Catherine nipped at her friend's lips, gently biting them, teasing and promising more. Her lips trailed along Ness's jaw, kissing her where her neck began, tasting the sweet perfume Ness had dabbed there that morning. Her tongue flicked out, finding Ness's ear lobe, her fingers trailing down from her friend's face to her chest. Ness moaned, reaching out and grasping great handfuls of Catherine's dress, pulling and gathering the fabric, raising the hem, dragging it up as quickly as she could.

Catherine broke away from her friend, taking over and pulling her dress over her head quickly, her soft brown curls dropping from her dress and flowing down, nearly covering her perky, small breasts. Her tiny, round nipples were hard as diamonds, flushed pink, and she dropped back down, her lips finding Ness's, hungrily tasting her mouth, dragging her hard nipples lightly across her friend's breasts.

Slowly, teasingly, Catherine kissed and licked and bit her way down Ness's body, capturing her nipples between her teeth, flicking her tongue across their tips, kissing her chest, her stomach. She worked slowly downward, licking along the sides of Ness's incredible heat. Catherine felt her own sex begin to overflow, teasing her friend having worked her into a state of arousal more acute than any she could remember. She fought the urge to touch herself, waiting, teasing herself even as she teased Ness.

"Stop fucking around and lick me," Ness begged.

Catherine smiled, her lips brushing against her friend's cunt. She flicked her tongue out, sending a shock up Ness's body as it touched her hard clit. Catherine drew her tongue through her friend's pussy, parting her lips, tasting and feeling her incredible wetness, the sweet flavor of her sex causing her eyes to flutter closed and a deep moan to push from her lungs.

Ness hissed as Catherine's tongue found her clit and circled it, dragging lightly and deliciously against her most sensitive parts. Her hips rolled, pressing her cunt against the princess's face, her hands finding Catherine's long, wavy hair and grabbing hold. She felt delicate fingers brush against her lips, soft and gentle caresses that teased her and drove her to new heights.

Catherine slipped her fingers inside Ness, curling them upward, teasing the walls of her friend's cunt. Ness cried out, her voice strained and happy, driving herself onto Catherine's fingers, desperate for release. The princess sucked gently on Ness's clit as she rolled her tongue over it, her free hand stroking down the back of her friend's thigh, gathering some of her flowing wetness on her longest finger before sliding it firmly into her tight, flexing ass.

Ness screamed, the surprise of the invading digit pushing her over the edge, her orgasm crashing into her and washing through her. Her cunt boiled, pushing her wetness onto Catherine's face, roiling against her fingers even as her ass squeezed the finger within over and over, pulsing and sucking at it's length. Her breasts heaved as her back arched, her legs curling around, her feet pulling and pushing into Catherine's back, urging her mouth closer, her fingers deeper.

Catherine withdrew her fingers slowly, savoring the feel of Ness as her sex slowly let go. Her tongue lazily circled, tasting the juices, reveling in every desperate twitch of her friend's beautiful, sensitive body. Catherine's own sex was overflowing, her thighs wet with her excitement. She needed her friend's mouth as desperately as she had ever needed anything.

"Lick me," she growled, climbing the raven haired girl's body, straddling her gasping lips. Ness's eyes snapped open, barely focusing, and her arms wrapped Catherine's thighs, her mouth latching onto the dripping sex of the princess.

Her tongue delved deep, pushing into her, the flow of her wetness filling Ness's mouth. Catherine groaned, slowly rolling her hips, sensuously angling her cunt to feel Ness's tongue in every way. One hand came to her breast, grasping her nipple, twisting and pulling gently as the other traveled back, sliding over her firm ass. Her fingers found her sweet, pink little hole and she brought them back to her mouth, sucking them, bathing them, before returning them and pushing her two middle fingers deep into her own ass.

Her body had been keyed for this since she had pushed her friend back into the couch, and her orgasm didn't take long. Her thighs flexed as she ground her clit against Ness's tongue, her mouth falling open as Ness's hand joined her own and her friend pushed two fingers deep into her quivering wetness.