Krond and Cyrilla Ch. 03

Cyrilla slipped her feet into a pair of simple leather sandals, a gift from Shivani, took a deep breath and exhaled, then began descending the ladder. She kept the vial of her perfume tucked into one palm, climbing down with two fingers, slowly. Bastigar was below, muttering and gesturing to himself, waiting for his makeshift weapon to return.

"It's been two hours, you idiot! The feast has already begun!" Bastigar hissed into Cyrilla's face. "You have the scarab. Good. At least the old whore remembered that much."

This time, she didn't shrink away. She kept her eyes down but said flatly, "You wanted me ready, master. I am ready."

Bastigar leaned forward suspiciously, his gaze boring holes into Cyrilla's face, breath hot and rank in her nose. He remained like this long enough for Cyrilla's resolve to falter, her nose to wrinkle in disgust. She turned her head away, shoulders slumping.

"Your body may be new, slave, but never forget who still owns it. I do. Now... walk." Bastigar stabbed a finger back into the darkness of the tunnel.

They walked in cold silence until they returned to the room full of doors. Bastigar closed and locked the door behind them, scowling at Cyrilla. He drew forth his ring of keys again, and swung around before Cyrilla could see which one he selected. He chose another door and worked the lock, swinging it open.

"This tunnel leads to a secret passage that accesses parts of the castle. It narrows out quite a bit behind the inner walls; I hope I didn't make your tits too big." Bastigar barked a short laugh without looking at Cyrilla, then headed into the tunnel.

Cyrilla looked at her chest, then snorted quietly. Bastigar's own belly jutted further than her bosom did. She would have to be careful in the tunnel, though, the walls were rough stone, and could easily tear the delicate fabric of her indigo silks. She moved swiftly after Bastigar and his ring of torchlight.

The tunnel ran straight for a long stretch, then began a series of sharp, seemingly random turns, as if the path was burrowing itself through the ground like a worm, wheedling its way through the castle's subterranean defenses. They passed numerous branches in the tunnel, all of which Bastigar stalked past with the confidence of someone who was intimately familiar with the maze they were in. Cyrilla realized her chances of navigating this maze on her own were pitifully low. At some point a steep, narrow stairway presented itself, and they began to climb. Cyrilla could see what seemed like a ceiling in the flickering darkness ahead of Bastigar, and when they got closer, she heard faint music. Drums, a lute perhaps, and muffled singing. Cyrilla had never been to a party before.

Bastigar stopped at the top of the stairs and whispered, "Keep your mouth shut until I say you can open it again." He began moving ahead, much slower this time. Cyrilla followed, gathering the hem of her silk dress to keep from tripping.

They rounded a corner, and Bastigar waved a hand over his torch, and it guttered out silently. The narrow passageway went almost completely dark; the only light came from a series of pinholes in the passage ahead. They were spyholes, Cyrilla realized. She ducked slightly to see through one of them, and caught a brief glimpse of a bed and writhing bodies, before Bastigar's fingers closed on her shoulder like the pincers of a scorpion. She nearly cried out in pain but stopped herself, seeing his shadowed face glaring at her with barely concealed rage.

"We're nearly there, you simpleton, don't fuck it up now!" he hissed. He kept his hand clamped on her shoulder and practically dragged her the rest of the way, stopping by a dark rectangle of wall outlined by a thin seam of dim light.

"This door will let you into a pantry behind the Great Hall. Exit to the left, and through the screen is the hall. The champions have all been invited, including the beast Krond, and the fool King has had 20 kegs of wine ordered for tonight alone. Do you know what to do, or do I have to spell it out for you?"

Cyrilla nervously said, "I have to seduce him... somehow."

"Common filth like him do not take much convincing. They'll fuck a goat if they have no better option."

Cyrilla nodded, but wasn't convinced. Cyril had, at times, confusing urges, but a goat? Was that true? Would men fuck anything they could? She didn't think so.

"What are you waiting for? I've given you a whore's body, now get in there and use it."

Cyrilla took a shallow, ragged breath. Her heart was pounding, and her palms were slick with fear. She touched the scarab hanging between her silk-covered breasts.

Bastigar leaned closer and uttered, "And remember, I'll be watching. There are spyholes in the Great Hall, and while Krond's talisman may protect him from my powers, you... you are not so well protected."

It was true. Cyrilla wasn't familiar with the castle; Bastigar was. Where could she run? Who could she trust but him? If she tried to hide, would Bastigar be watching her through a hole? Gods, would he be watching when she tried to slice the throat of Krond? It was no use even thinking of it. She furrowed her brow, and gathered her courage. In her sweaty hand was the vial of perfume; Shivani had given her instructions for its use. Just a few drops, not too much. She pulled the stopper and used her fingertip to dab the scent behind her ears. Between her breasts. Finally, she slid her hand through the layers of her silk dress and marked herself between her legs, upon her warm, hairless mound.

Bastigar watched with a malicious grin. As the scent bloomed in the cramped passageway, his face twisted slightly, a twitch of madness entering his eyes. He inhaled deeply and tilted his head sideways, examining the small, delicate, silk-draped woman before him. He approached Cyrilla from behind and wrapped a hand around her throat, and pulled her head back until his mouth was in her long, black hair, close to her left ear. Cyrilla flinched in surprise, and dropped the vial. It broke on the stone floor with a tiny snap.

"This scent... the whore made it? It's... do what I command. My pet. My slave. Kill him and come back to me, and..." Bastigar inhaled again. "Perhaps I'll have this body of yours after all. I wasn't... but... gods! You smell of sex!"

He pressed his body against Cyrilla's and groped one breast with his free hand. Cyrilla could feel his erection pressing into her lower back, hot and throbbing. She was terrified, confused. The perfume from the broken vial filled the passageway with its exotic, intoxicating aroma.

"Master, if you do that... won't... the spell be made permanent? If you... finished? Inside me?" Cyrilla whispered breathlessly.

Bastigar growled, then shoved her forward. "You don't trust me? You don't think I could stop? That I couldn't pull out of your quivering hole and loose my seed outside of you? Spray it all over your whore face?" He was taunting her now, his face cruel and red.

Cyrilla nearly froze in terror, imagining being used by the old wizard this way. She didn't want that. Didn't want anything like it. She would die before she let it happen. This realization struck her like a hot brand, searing the decision into her mind.

"My duty, master. I-I will go now." She pushed on the secret door, and it swung slowly but easily on a hidden spring-hinge. She squinted in the light of the pantry, and emerged between twin shelves, piled with earthenware pots. The door swung closed behind her.

In the tunnel, Bastigar fell to his knees above the tiny, broken vial of perfume. He closed his eyes and inhaled the powerful scent of roses, musk and woman. He lifted his robes above his knees and, full of self-loathing and shame, gripped his still-rigid cock and began masturbating in the darkness of the passage.

--

Cyrilla smoothed her indigo dress and arranged herself as best she knew how, then walked out of the pantry and turned left, as she was instructed. Before her was an iron screen, done in a vine pattern, and through this she could make out the shape of a large table and empty chairs. The sound of the music was nearly overpowering now, a chorus of male voices singing along. A serving girl ran past her in a blur, carrying a platter of cut fruit, not noticing her at all.

She stood near the screen and pressed her face to it, scanning the Hall through the metal. It was huge; no room in the Bloodbrick Tower was so expansive, no ceiling as high. Wooden chandeliers lined with candles hung from the pitched roof. A raised dais on the far end held a band of musicians, playing an up-tempo drinking song, drunken men shouting at them from below. Two long rows of tables bordered each side, littered with cups and slumped-over bodies. The smell of seared meat and spilt wine pervaded the room.

Cyrilla had never seen Krond before; she didn't know who or what to look for. What did a barbarian look like? Ugly, bad teeth, maybe horns growing from his head? She walked to the side where the screen opened to the Hall, and took a few steps inside. Her mind was nearly blank, overwhelmed by the scene and her mission and her desperate confusion.

A man, with a long brown moustache dripping with wine, looked up from where he was crumpled against the table. Seeing Cyrilla, his eyes widened, and he quickly, shakily stood up. He was wearing a simple black leather tunic, his belt missing. He managed a sloppy bow.

"My lady! It's my honour to... my pleasure to..." he slurred at her.

"I'm looking for Krond," she quickly replied, not wanting to engage anyone in conversation. Not here, not now. She wanted to get it over with quickly, so it didn't feel any more real that it had to.

"Krond?! You're looking for Krond?" His back stiffened and he looked her up and down, with obvious lust in his eyes. He spread his arms open. "What do you need him for? I'm right here. You've found me!"

"I-I'm sorry. I just need to find..."

"Krond. I know. But what's a good Zarthian girl like you want with heathen scum? Huh? You wanna fuck him? You think he's gonna be better than me? Because he's a big mountain man? Fuck you. Fucking sluts, all of you!" The man took a step towards Cyrilla and pointed a finger in her face.

"No, you d-don't understand..." Cyrilla stammered.

"Slut! Fuck you! I could take you right here! You'd love it, wouldn't you?" He grabbed Cyrilla's wrist and pulled, hard. Cyrilla winced in pain and stumbled forward.

"LET HER GO!" came a deep, booming voice from the right of them, near the king's table. Cyrilla and the moustachioed man both looked at the same time, and there was Krond. It must be him. He was reclining on the steps before the king's table, several silk pillows cushioning his back, his elbows resting on the top step.

He slowly stood up, rising to his full height. He was head and shoulders above Cyrilla, and a good handspan taller than the man accosting her. He was light, his skin the colour of parchment, and he wore the fur of animals on his boots, his tunic. Muscles rippled in his legs, his bare shoulders wide and scarred. Around his neck was a knotted leather talisman in the shape of some animal she did not recognize. His face seemed made of stone, chiselled into a placid mask of confidence and authority. Long, golden hair fell around his face. His eyes were as blue as the sea, and unlike any others in the kingdom of Zarth. Those eyes were focused on Cyrilla's accoster with restrained menace.

"Let her go."

"Or what, barbarian?"

Krond slowly approached the pair until he loomed over them. Cyrilla could feel the man's hand begin to tremble. What happened next was a blur: the man spat in Cyrilla's face and wrenched her wrist, Krond gripped his forearm and dug his fingers into it, the man shouted, and Krond drove a fist into his sternum. The man fell, gasping for air, and tumbled into a table, knocking over several wine cups. A small chorus of drunken voices complained. Cyrilla didn't see who they were, couldn't make sense of what was happening around her. Her wrist throbbed with pain; she looked down and saw two short tears in her skin, beaded with blood. The drunken man's nails had cut her.

"You are hurt. I can help," Krond said matter-of-factly. He held out his hand, and gestured for hers.

"No. Um. No, it's ok. I..." Cyrilla closed her mouth. She had to kill this man, this giant.

"Look at me." He pointed to his eyes and Cyrilla looked up into them. He held her gaze, and said, "Trust me. I will help. Come."

Cyrilla opened her mouth to speak, to protest, but could find no words while she was lost in his blue eyes. She looked at him blankly until he gestured for her to follow him, which she did. He led her towards the front of the room, stepping through groups of drunken men, who whistled and hollered at them both.

"He found another one!" "Hail Krond! Splitter of legs, slayer of cunts!"

Krond ignored them and made for the large wooden doors exiting the Great Hall. Once they were outside in a wide hallway lit by numerous sconces, he closed the doors behind them, muting the noise of the Hall.

"I do not speak your tongue well. I am sorry. I have... help? A thing... for that. Your arm." Krond clasped one hand around his wrist to demonstrate. A bandage she guessed. "Things are not clean. In there. I have clean things."

She followed him down the hall, still amazed by the size of this man, and his strange kindness. He led her to an ornate door, and entered first.

"Come in this room. They give me this. It is all very... soft? Is that the word?"

Cyrilla stepped inside and saw he was right. As Bastigar had told her, the room was fit for a prince. A silk-draped four-post bed stood against one wall, across from a fireplace, quietly crackling. The walls were painted in a fresco depicting horses leaping over waves. Stained glass lanterns filled the room with tinted light: red and yellow with splashes of blue. There was a pile of lavish cushions scattered close to the fireplace, and the bed was draped with silk sheets and more cushions. Cyrilla had never seen such luxury.

Krond took a leather satchel down from a rung on the wall, and stuck one massive hand inside, rummaging for something.

"Sit down." He pointed with his head towards the cushions on the floor near the fire. Cyrilla did as she was told.

He kneeled beside her, and produced a small, round container made of carved bone. He opened it and stuck a finger inside, scooping out a dollop of some clear, gelatinous substance.

"It is the... inside of a tree. From my land. It makes pain go away. Please." He opened his other hand.

She looked at him for a moment, then placed her hand in his. He held it firmly, his hand warm, and applied the medicine to her wounds. She hissed as the jelly stung initially, but then relaxed as it produced a cooling sensation that numbed the pain.

He still held her hand, his fingers thick and strong, his palms hard from use. She looked from her wrist back to his face, which watched her with quiet accomplishment, a small smile on his lips.

"It works, yes?"

"My name is... Cyrilla."

"I am..."

"Krond. I know. I've heard about your... exploits."

Krond's smile twisted slightly. He looked embarrassed for the briefest of moments.

"Krond, why did you hurt him? You broke a Kingsguard's legs. Why?" Cyrilla had to ask, had to understand why all of this had begun. She felt the weight of the scarab hanging from her neck, the weight of her mission.

Krond slumped down across from her. He kept his eyes down, thinking for a long moment, before sighing.

"I came to hurt the man. The black helmet came to my lands, when we were still free people. He killed my people. Took our women. Even children. Now we serve your King. We are good servants. We are trusted. But I did not forget the face of that one. I spoke to the mountains and made vows to bring his pain back to him."

Cyrilla took this all in. Krond was no savage after all; he was just a man who survived while people he had loved suffered and died. A man who wanted justice for his people. A man who wanted...

"Revenge," she said quietly.

"Yes, that word. Revenge."

"And you... had it?"

"No. No... Cyrilla. When I hurt the legs, he cries. Like a child. Like children of my people. I hear the bones. I think of the sound. The feeling is not good in my heart. I should not have come. Revenge is not good. It is poison."

Cyrilla's heart pumped panic through her body. She couldn't kill this man. He wasn't a monster; he didn't deserve to die. He was good. And what was she? A weapon of yet more revenge? An endless cycle of blood and pain spun around in her mind. Her heart ached in sorrow. For all of it.

"No more revenge, then." She touched his arm.

He looked at her small, soft hand on his arm, then into her face. "You are beautiful. I will kiss you, if you let me?"

Cyrilla's kohl-traced eyes widened in surprise. Her red lips parted wordlessly. Her mind raced with thoughts of Cyril's life in the Bloodbrick Tower, the cruel dominance of Bastigar, the beatings, the scars. She was sent to kill Krond. But he was kind to her, more kind than any man had ever been to Cyril. So kind, so gentle, so quietly powerful.

She surprised herself, blurting out, "Y-yes!"

Krond reached for her face and leaned in. He held her jaw and gently pulled Cyrilla's mouth to his. Their lips met there, on the floor in the castle of Zarth, and met again. His touch was firm and insistent, hers was yielding and tentative. Her heart pounded and her thoughts were lost upon a rising crest of tender pleasures. She had no idea what she was doing, where she was going, but Krond guided her at every step, and she trusted him implicitly, leaning into his kisses now, hands searching.

Their lips parted and their mouths grew hungry for each other, tongues dancing shyly at first, then with more passion. Krond's arms encircled her, one hand on her lower back, and drew her close, pressing her body to his. She felt his heat, his heart beating as her soft breasts were pushed up against his muscular chest. She could feel her sex come alive between her legs, hot and wet. Against her pelvis, she felt his cock stiffening in its loincloth, swelling against the fabric, pulsing with fiery blood.

Krond pulled his mouth from hers, and spun her around on the cushions. He pulled her close again, kissing her neck and whispering, "You smell... very good, Cyrilla."

His arms wrapped around her again, and his hands went to the leather girdle around her waist. His fingers expertly untied the knots, let the girdle fall, and parted the folded silk covering her naked body. His hands tenderly explored her, grazing her hips, tracing her ribcage as she arched back into him. They cupped her breasts, brushed her nipples, as Krond's bulging loincloth gently pressed between her soft bottom. Cyrilla was lost in the sensation of it, pushing back into his hardening loins, inhaling and exhaling in short gasps.

Krond moved away to let the silk dress fall to the floor, and when he did, he stopped. Cyrilla looked over her shoulder.

"Krond... why?"

"Your back. Scars. Someone has hit you?"

"It happened when I was young. It doesn't hurt anymore." She caught her breath.

"In my lands, it is said those who suffer great pain are filled with great power. We believe magic comes to these people."

"I don't have any magic. I don't..."

"I see power in you, Cyrilla."

He rose to his feet, threw off his tunic and began untying his loincloth. Cyrilla turned and watched from her knees. Her mind was clearing, and was deeply confused. What was she doing? Why did she feel this way?

Krond's loincloth dropped to the floor, and his erection sprang forward, bobbing in the warm air. It was large and thick, so much larger than Cyril's slim member was, just a twig to this man's trunk. It pulsed with blood, and the head was wet with precum. Two heavy balls hung below. A mass of wild pubic hair sat at the base, trailing up his firm torso to his belly, all of it cut deep with muscularity. He smiled down at Cyrilla, and held out his hand for her.