In Her Argent Embrace

You don't have far to go, but you grit your teeth, desperately trying to hold on until Leuna reaches her peak of pleasure as well. Luckily, you don't have long to wait. Her humping becomes feverish and she starts crying out with short, sharp, desperate panting gasps. Then her body starts to shudder and she gives out a strangled cry, muffled by her bitten lip.

The shuddering of her exquisite body against yours does the trick. You let yourself go and you come, every ounce of strength transmuted into divine pleasure as you feel your hardness spasming between the two of you.

Leuna collapses on top of you, her breasts flattening against your neck and shoulders. You're completely covered by her warm body, the weight of her on top of you somehow making the ebbing waves of pleasure all the more delicious.

The thought of what a waste it is to come inside your underclothes rather than inside her keeps running through your head. But you're glad you were able to make her climax as well, at least.

You hear Leuna murmur something, but it's too hard to make it out, since her voice is muffled by your pillow. The sound that soon follows it is unmistakeable, though.

Snoring. The loud snoring of someone who's plunged straight down into drunken sleep.

You try and squirm yourself out from under her, but she's too heavy. You finally give up and make do with finding a spot where you at least you can breathe freely.

-

You wake to find that Leuna is no longer on top of you. She's nowhere to be seen. Alarmed, you leap out of bed, throw your clothes on and go looking for her. It's well past dawn, daylight pouring in through every window.

Kalbasa spots you as you run down the stairs. "She's outside getting her gear ready," she tells you. There's a lewd grin on her lips. "She was blushing like a schoolgirl when she came downstairs earlier. Did you have anything to do with that?"

You mutter something intelligible as you feel your face growing hot again. You step past her out into the cold, mist-laden air and hop your way to the stables.

Leuna is there, just as Kalbasa said. She's just finished packing a saddlebag and is checking how it's sitting on her horse's back when she hears you and turns.

"Oh, you're awake."

She doesn't seem to want to meet your eyes. You apologise to her for sleeping in.

"It's my fault," she says. "I saw you sleeping there and you looked so peaceful I didn't want to wake you."

With the words a deep blush settles onto her face. She glances at you then, and when she sees you share her embarrassment a shy smile appears on her lips.

"You should go and get your things ready," she says.

"But I don't have anything," you reply.

The knight shakes her head. "Kalbasa left you some new clothes in the room, so you won't need to wear that silly thing I made for you anymore." She looks across at you. "She's a very kind woman, isn't she?"

You agree.

An awkward silence settles over the two of you then, and so you tell Leuna you'll go get ready and hurry back to the inn.

Like Leuna said, there's stuff waiting for you in the corner of the room. In your haste you hadn't noticed it. You take up the clothes and stare at them. You're not thrilled with the thought to having to part with the tunic you're wearing. It's thick with Leuna's scent and as you smell it you heart skips a beat.

Regretfully you strip it off, put on the new clothes and hurry down the stairs. Leuna is there at the front door, thanking Kalbasa profusely.

The round woman shakes her head. "It was a pleasure having such a well-bred young woman patronise my little watering hole," she says. "Especially one who's such a good shot with the crossbow." She glances at you and her smile takes on a conspiratorial look. "Just promise me that you'll keep this guy out of trouble. As you can see, he's not that great at looking after himself. He needs a strong woman to protect him."

You start to protest, but you really don't have anything you can say in your defence. Your silence just makes Kalbasa laugh and even Leuna can't hide an amused smile.

You say your goodbyes and then you're on the road again. Leuna's horse is rested and champs at the bit, eager to continue the journey. The saddlebags behind your legs are full. Kalbasa has been more than generous in her provisioning and you resolve to make sure she's well compensated for all of the help she's shown you.

For a long while you ride in silence. The new clothes make you itch and you again regret having to change out of the tunic that served you so well. Missing Leuna's scent, you lean forward, hugging her to you. The smell of her, the feeling of her toned waist against your forearms sends you straight back to last night, when her delightful weight was covering you. You sigh and can't resist resting your head against her back.

Leuna stiffens. "Please," she says. "You're holding on too tight."

Her voice is as tense as her body is and so you stop squeezing her and lift your head from her back.

"Thank you," she says.

After that you ride in silence along the coastal road. The sea has come into sight and you want to mention it, but the silence has become so heavy between you that you have no idea how to bring it up. Instead you just stare out across the white-tufted breakers scouring the long crescent of grey beach in the distance and wonder what has happened between the two of you.

She must be regretting last night, you decide. Well, she is a virgin, after all. Doing something like that is a pretty big deal. And your first time doing stuff like that can be awkward. The way she kissed you clumsily, the eager, hungry way she took her pleasure from you. Maybe she's a bit ashamed of how strongly she felt.

But you know you're deluding yourself. The answer is obvious, and painful.

She just regrets doing it with you.

You feel a dark weight press down on your heart as you go over everything Leuna has said to you since then. The more you think about it, the more it seems the only explanation.

Even with her body next to yours, she feels like she's a thousand leagues away.

You berate yourself for not having dealt with the situation better. Of course she wouldn't do anything with you unless she was drunk. When was the last time a woman slipped herself into your bed and started kissing you and squeezing your butt?

As you wrestle with such thoughts the coastal road curves inland to avoid a series of impassable rocky promontories, bringing it close along the border of the same badlands it skirted earlier. The scent of stone and dust replaces the fresh salty air of the ocean and soon craggy outcrops and narrow ravines become the only landscape.

You feel the silence of the place all the more heavy because of the silence between you and Leuna. You want more than anything else to squeeze yourself close to her, to feel safe, but now you're just alone again and the loneliness is far worse than it ever was before.

The horse stumbles. Leuna reins him in and then turns to you.

"The road seems really rough from here. We'll have to walk, I think."

You nod. She leaps off the horse and takes your hand. The feeling of her hand in yours is tormenting, now. You remember how she ran her fingers across your chest, how adorably shy they were despite her drunken eagerness.

You glance at her as she helps you down off the horse. She's not really looking at you.

So that's how it is.

You drop her hand and she takes the reins and leads her horse. You bring up the rear.

As you walk, Leuna leads the horse around the worst of the fallen scree and you look up at the ridges on either side of you. The defile is becoming narrower. There's little or no vegetation. Somehow, the bleakness is appropriate. It looks just like you feel right now: empty, windswept.

You smile bitterly. The situation is making you think like an angsty poet. It's not a good look for you, you decide.

To your left, rocks slide down the slope of the ravine to clatter onto its stony floor. Probably just some animal. The stone here is brittle and the slightest touch makes it sheer off.

The track turns around an outcropping of stone and suddenly Leuna stops. You come up beside her.

There's been a huge rock-fall. The track is completely blocked by great slabs of stone that have collapsed from the ridges almost meeting above your head.

A single rock clatters down from above. Leuna moves closer to you, bringing her arm against your chest.

A flicker. A whispering hiss and something skitters and snaps on the rock in front of you.

It's a crossbow bolt.

Leuna picks you up bodily and throws you onto the horse and then leaps on behind you. Her arms circle around you as she grips the reins and a heartbeat later the horse turns and breaks into a gallop.

Then the air is alive with hissing.

As the horse negotiates the uneven ground, Leuna leans down over you, covering you with her body. There's hissing and snapping as quarrel after quarrel glances off her armour.

The horse gallops headlong back through the ravine. There must be crossbowmen stationed all the way along as the bolts don't let up. You're rocked back and forth as the horse tries to keep its feet on the scree-covered floor, but Leuna keeps you held tightly to her. She guides the horse through the maze of rocks and broken stone, where a single wrong hoof-fall means a broken leg for the horse and death for the two of you.

There's more hissing. A bolt glances off Leuna's shoulder, the broken head landing on the horse's mane in front of you.

You throw it off. It's barbed.

You can see the end of the ravine in sight. Near it there are horsemen milling around. It takes them a long while to notice you; you're appearance seems to have caught them totally off-guard.

Leuna twists the reins and the horse goes climbing up the gentler slope of the start of the ravine. The horsemen waiting for you don't seem to have expected this either. Foam sprays from the horse's mouth and it whinnies in terror as its hooves send dust and rock flying, then it breaches the top of the ridge and starts half-sliding, half-galloping down the other side.

Farther along the ridge the way you came you see a number of men in leather armour on foot carrying crossbows. There's shouting and a frenzy of activity as they kneel and fire.

Leuna jerks the reins and the horse skids sideways. Hissing bolts strike her armour. If she hadn't turned they probably would have all ended up in you.

Leuna spurs the horse to get you out of range as you're enveloped in a seemingly endless rain of bolts. The hissing is incessant, and then Leuna screams and the reins on your left fall slack.

You turn in panic to see a quarrel sticking out of her shoulder. It's a lucky shot, striking her at the point where her cuirass is tied to her bracer. There's blood everywhere, her arm lying limply at her side.

You cry out her name but she just shakes her head and hisses at you to keep your head down as she pushes you flatter against the horse's neck.

"Take the other rein!" she cries.

You do as she says. The hissing continues for a short while and then it stops. But you can still hear the rumbling of hoof-falls behind you.

"It's Lazgarri," says Leuna. "Damn. Walked into that ambush like a clueless acolyte." She slaps the reins and you do the same. She grimaces with the pain of her exertion. "We've one chance. The badlands."

You're about to protest, but you know she's right. There's no way you'll outrun the others with no-doubt fresh horses waiting for you along the coastal road. In the badlands at least you have a chance.

A stray shot skitters on the rocks just ahead of you.

At least the sand-drakes don't have crossbows, you decide.

With her you pull the horse to the right and press out across the broken stony and sandy landscape. You gallop for what feels like an eternity, but soon the sound of the hoof-falls fall away behind you. There's the half-hearted thrum of a crossbow being fired, but the quarrel doesn't make it anywhere near you.

Leuna, as soon as it seems safe, lets go of the rein and slumps over you. Her face is a rictus of pain as she clutches the end of the quarrel with her good hand.

Of course. The quarrel is barbed. Every jolt of the horse, every move of her arm is lacerating the wound. She must be in agony, and yet she managed to bear it until you were safe.

You grab hold of the reins and lead the horse at a walk down a hundred little gullies and tracks. It's a maze, and even if Lazgarri and his men wanted to keep pursuing you, there's no way they'd be able to find you. Not even the best tracker can track across stone.

Over your shoulder you ask Leuna if she's okay. It's a stupid question.

"Yes," she says, through agony-gritted teeth. "Not poisoned, at least. Stuck in the muscle. Lucky shot."

You glance down at the saddlebags, remembering that you saw Leuna pack some medical supplies from Kalbasa in them. You rein in the horse and dismount.

You have Leuna lie down across the horse's back, holding the bolt steady while you lead the horse as slowly as you can. You soon find a rocky outcropping with a cave beneath it. It's nothing like the beautiful little grotto you stayed in in the forest, but right now it looks like paradise. You tie the horse up against the trunk of a straggling tree next to a steep slope and help Leuna down off its back. She's heavy, especially in her armour, but pulling her across onto the slope at the same height as the horse's back minimises the pain and damage you cause.

With her leaning against you, you take her under the overhanging.

"Help me take off my armour," says Leuna in a hiss. She's obviously in even more pain now. You do as she says, following her instructions. Removing armour is no easy business but you manage to do it, even with fumbling fingers.

Now out of danger, you feel your nerves catching up with you. You start shivering uncontrollably.

Leuna. Without her protecting you with her body, you would have been slain for sure. It would be your body that was pierced by those cruel bolts rather than hers.

Having stripped her of her armour you stand there, staring at the bolt sticking out of her. You can clearly see now that it's pierced her between her armpit and her left breast. There's so much blood, some of it already dry and caked on her caramel-brown skin.

Leuna looks up at you. "You're going to have to cut the tunic off me. The blood is sticking it to the wound."

You blink at her, but then you realise the sense of her order. Clearly she can't do it herself. Taking a knife from the saddlebag of equipment Kalbasa left you, you cut the tunic from her shoulder and begin to peel it off. It's stuck with some blood, and so you use some water to help. Leuna grimaces at the stinging cold of it and at the rawness of the wound.

Peeled back, her left arm and shoulder are bare. Her breasts are bound with a cotton wrapping which has been partly torn by the entry of the bolt. It, too, is caked thick with blood.

"That will need to go too," she says, manages a weak smile.

You do as she says. Your hands are trembling as you touch her, half worried that you'll hurt her, half ashamed of how the touch of her bare skin makes you feel. You cut through the layers of cotton and strip it back, baring her breast in the process. She's just as busty as you expected.

You respectfully keep your eyes averted and apply some more water to the now-clear wound. You move to put down the knife, but Leuna stops you with her able hand.

"Just one more thing needs to be cut," she says.

You look at her in confusion, but as she smiles at you wanly you realise what she's talking about. The bolt. Sticking between the muscles of her arm and shoulder, there's no way she can remove it herself. And the barbs mean it will need to be cut out.

And you're the only one that can do it.

You pick up the knife, your hand shaking. It was hard enough cutting her out of her clothes, and now she expects you to cut into her body as well? But you have to. You've seen what happens to wounds where a foreign body has remained in the body to fester and poison the blood.

At the thought, your hand starts shaking even more. Leuna takes hold of it with her good hand, but even that movement makes her wince. She struggles to smile as she says, "Hey. If you keep shaking like that, you're likely to cut my arm off."

Her touch calms you. You feel hot with shame that in her time of need you're behaving like this, so you grit your teeth and get to work.

-

By the end of it, your hands are red with her blood, but on the scrap of bandage before you is the barbed head of the bolt: you managed to get it out.

Leuna looks up at you as she spits the stick from her mouth and pushes a wad of bandages up against the freely-bleeding wound.

"You did a great job," she whispers. "I barely felt anything."

You look across at her wanly smiling face and you wonder how one person can have so much strength. You want to throw your arms around her and hug her, but your hands are wet with her blood, and she's wounded...

...and then there's that distance between you since last night.

Leuna notices the confusion on your face and she sighs.

"Can you help me with bandaging this up?"

You nod. There's no time to be mooning around. You quickly wash your hands, douse her wound with water, apply some medicinal herbs to help fight infection and then bind it with fresh bandages.

At last you're done. Leuna touches your hand with her good one and holds it against her chest. Her skin feels cool for some reason, possibly from the blood loss.

"Your hands," she whispers. "They're not just pretty, are they? They're healing hands as well."

She lays back, still clutching your hand in hers. You sit down beside her and help her to get comfortable.

"I'm going to pass out for a little while," she says. "Don't go anywhere, okay?"

You tell her there's no way you'll ever leave her side. The words come out so heartfelt that you groan inwardly at your how pathetic you must sound... but Leuna is grinning at you.

"My, my. Is that a proposal?" She closes her eyes. "You know, if you weren't a merchant, I think you'd make an excellent squire. But a knight can't have a squire of the opposite sex. We always used to joke about it in the Academy. That we'd find some cute boy and make him our squire so we could boss him around. But it's impossible... impossible..."

Her hand goes limp in yours and she slips away into unconsciousness.

-

You sit there with her for a long time, until it starts to get dark. With nightfall comes the sort of deep chill that can only be felt in the desert after the heat of the day bleeds out into the sky, leaving the landscape so cold that it's as if the rock has transformed to ice, especially under the light of the recently risen moon. But with your enemies looking for you to light a fire would be tantamount to suicide.

Leuna shivers even despite the layers of bedding you've laid on top of her. You're worried it might be shock, and so you strip off the outer layers of your own clothing and add them to the pile.

It doesn't seem to help, and you start to shiver yourself.

Stupid. There's only one thing you can do.

You slip in beside her under the layers of blankets, on her right side so that you won't accidentally touch her wound during the night. You squeeze up flush against her, giving her the gift of your own body heat.

After a while he stops shivering and she murmurs and turns her head.

Her eyes open and she smiles weakly at you. Under the moonlight, her pale face seems like it's been carved from marble.

"My warm little squire," she murmurs, then falls back asleep.

You breathe a sigh of relief. So it wasn't shock, just the cold.

As you look at her face, you notice a trail of silver slip down one cheek.