Six Rings and a Pendant

* * *

I woke with a start the next morning as a watery sun pierced through that small, high window and pried at my eyelids. I heard birds, never far away in the Dale, and I smelled the familiar morning scents of dung, woodsmoke, dirty clothes and stale thatch... but something was different.

I was not sure where I was.

"Good morning, most noble paladin," came a sibilant voice from the darkness underneath the window. I sat up abruptly, still in my clothes from last night. "I see you... partook." He gestured toward the big basket the silent woman had brought in last night, now just a scatter of eggshells and a crust of bread. I belched, tasting cheese.

"Um. Father." The priest was almost invisible by the wall behind the low fire, wreathed as he was in smoky shadow. I yawned and glanced down at my body, expecting to see a cock glazed with Nellie's dried juices and a pair of shrunken, emptied balls... but no.

All I saw were my leggings.

When had I eaten? And why had I put my clothes back on? I glanced across the little temple at where my companion still lay in her dress, snoring loudly with her face toward the wall. I probed my body internally, wondering why I didn't feel more... spent? I yawned again and glanced up at the window: low sun. Still early. I cleared my throat. "I thank you for your hospitality, priest"

"Khadir." He stirred. "My name is Khadir. I know yours is not Osber and hers is not Lady Jessa of Smallbridge, but I don't care very much what your real name is." He followed my gaze toward Nellie. "Nor hers. She wants to see the Sea, no?"

"She does," I breathed. How did he know this?

"This vale will take her there. She need only follow the River." He glanced at my leather clothes. "Do not lie to the guards at the Gwerderoch toll gate. They will know you're a paladin. Avoid claiming you're a miller or a tailor or whatever." He reflected, glancing down at his knee. "The woman you bring with you? She will need to concentrate. They have a mage there who is very good at reading people, and the local Lord pays a bounty for fugitive slaves."

My throat went dry. Was it that obvious? "I'll get her through."

"I think you might," he nodded after a long pause, "but overconfidence is a problem. Regardless. Galtin's port is two long days' ride from there, but you should see the shining waters of Kelthala's Wound on the morning of the second day." He hesitated. "I have nothing more to tell you, Osber of Gribble, other than to ask Kelthala to bless your journey." He smiled slightly. "I'd ask Aersus, but he likes to play with travelers, not protect them."

I hung my head, aware of what he'd say even before I brought it up. "Let me pay you something, priest," I began, "a penny, at least, for your hospitality..."

He was holding up his hands at the third word. "It was not my hospitality, paladin, but Aersus.' And the food came from the peasants of the manor."

I nodded, grasping at a way out as I pulled a whole penny from my pouch. "Then give them this, please. Or use it for their well-being. I'm sure they have little enough."

He hesitated, glancing down at the silver circle in my palm, then nodded as he picked it up. "Your will be done," he sighed.

* * *

We rode out into late-morning sunshine, the locals glaring dully up at us, and it's a fair question as to whether they paid more attention to my sword or to Nellie's gold. She wore the full panoply of Lady Manda's splendid, pilfered strongbox, now worn openly so far from home. I admired the way she rode, straight-backed despite her aching hips (which I'd stretched even more the night before), her face set in a mask of hauteur she'd learned from a lifetime of watching her betters.

I took care to ride behind her, as if I was a servant, and it was easy to avoid speaking to her. I had a great deal to think about, regarding our dear "Lady Jessa." Yesterday, she'd still been a fugitive slave, a thief with which I'd shared a warming friendship and an awkward sexual encounter. But now I knew I was traveling with an actual sorceress, and one who had taken my cock in a most transcendent way.

Or... had she? I still couldn't remember anything after we'd cum, and there was the evidence that we'd woken up apart, and her clothed. Had it all been a dream of some sort, I wondered?

We used a wooded path up on the sides of the Dale, thinking it would be best to avoid the Road, but I knew it wouldn't really matter: toward the end of the afternoon the path bent us farther and more certainly downward toward a smoky smudge on the far side of the River, the mark of the drab location of Westertown with its stench spreading far and wide. "Tanning," she coughed, her nose wrinkled in disgust.

"Men need leather," I shrugged, gnawing on an apple. Khadir had sent us on our way with enough provisions to reach Galtin's Port, at worst, and I reckoned I could get more food once I arrived there. "Leather needs tanning."

"And roads," she pointed out, standing painfully in the stirrups to gaze ahead, "need tolls." She nodded ahead. "I can see the gate."

"Fuck." In the cool, pleasant breezes of the autumn afternoon, I'd forgotten Khadir's warning about the toll. I frowned now, remembering. "You feel up to fooling a mage?" I asked her unhappily.

"How the fuck would I know? Have I ever met a mage?" She glared crossly back. She'd been annoyed with me ever since midday, when I'd gotten impatient as she'd taken too long trying to mount.

"The people at the toll gate are said to have a mage," I pointed out, ignoring her. "He appears to be good at detecting lies. So..."

"So?" She curled her lips in a contemptuous grin. "Am I supposed to become Nellie the slave girl once more? Should I toss Lady Manda's rings at him and give us both up?"

"Just don't lie any more than you must," I sighed. I had no idea how this would go, and I was almost too tired to care. In the end, I had a fast horse and a good sword, so I knew I might have to just ride the guards down. "I've dodged tolls before. It can be done, but it's a little harrowing... look, if I grab your reins, spur my horse, and take off? Just hold on tight with your legs and bend down low along the horse's neck, okay?"

Her glare went crafty. "You know I can hold on tight with my legs, paladin," she purred. My throat went dry, once again doubting that last night had been a dream, but I held my tongue as I thought about how mortifying it would be to have to ask her. Um, pardon, Nellie, but did we fuck last night?

No. A thousand times, no.

"Just be nice," I ended, feeling lame, the toll gate now slipping into view as the sun fell before us. At the bottom of a short slope stood a stout pair of squat towers at either side of the road beside tall fences, running off north to the hills and south to the Whitelinen, with no break but for a stoutly-built gate straddling the road. A faint wisp of smoke curled from the tower on the left, and it amused me to see nobody on the gate but a woman, sitting with her back to the other tower. As soon as she caught sight of us, she sprang to her feet and awaited us with her arms crossed beneath her tits. "Hello!" I shouted with a smile, my hands raised. "We come in peace!"

"Yeah." Her voice, faint with distance, sounded like she'd seen it and heard it all before. "Whatever. Dismount. Leave your weapons in the road and then come on up and we'll have a chat." I squinted at her through the early-evening road dust, and saw a gorgeous woman with a short sword.

Drawn.

"Of course." I nodded over at my companion, who at least looked nervous as she let gravity pull her off her horse into an undignified, staggering shape in the dust. I dropped my sword and dagger into the road, then offered Nellie my arm as we moved forward. "I am Osber of Gribble," I called loudly, "escorting Lady Jessa, daughter of the Thane of Smallbridge-in-the-Stews." I paused. "The Upper Stews."

"I am called Thansy the Wroth," she barked back, "and she'd never been on a horse before last Monday." She glared at Nellie as though she had a mind to kill her or kiss her; it was difficult to tell which.

"Nobles in our part of the Marches ride in carriages," I lied quickly. "Indeed, good Thansy, we started our journey in just such a carriage, but it bogged down crossing the River."

"Yeah? How far away?"

"Um. Near the fork leading to the Prossfields," I guessed wildly, hoping I sounded credible.

"Nice," she spat, "so if I was to take a ride out there this week, I could expect to see a carriage junking up the riverbed?"

"Certainly not." Thansy and I both glanced sharply at Nellie, for the voice coming from her was, in every way, the bold scimitar swipe of a woman used to getting her way. "My father's carriage has gold rails, ivory inlay, and silver trace-chains. We left the rest of my guard there to salvage it and protect it from brigands," she finished, eyeing Thansy as though she suspected the toll-guard of being just such a brigand.

Which Thansy confirmed. "Well, no shit," she shrugged, "why else do you think I'd have gone out there?" She smiled without warmth. "The toll is two pence per horse, plus one more for the two of you."

"Three silver pennies," I nodded, smiling as I reached for my pouch.

"No, idiot," she chuckled, "because there's the bribe on top of that. An extra penny each for myself and my fellow guards." She smirked. "Lots of escaped slaves roaming around, and it's a simple matter for us to turn suspects over to His Lordship for a bit of bounty. This way, it's cheaper all around."

I scowled, but she was right: this was the way the world worked. "Fellow guards?" I made a show of glancing around. "The ones who are not here, I suppose?" I laughed as I said it, hoping she wouldn't take offense and disembowel me."

Instead, she simply shrugged. "No. They're here. They're fucking in the tower yonder." She nodded at the tower with the smoke wafting out. "I'm sure they'll be done soon enough, but I won't let you through until he talks to you."

That would be the mage, I thought to myself. "We're in haste, I should add," Nellie told her flatly.

"No, m'lady, you're not," the valkyrie replied, her voice a slap. "I told you. It won't take long. They never do, the two of them. They fuck like weasels, and as quickly. Just relax and enjoy the view," she suggested coarsely, jerking her head behind to where the tannery-smoke stained the sky.

"Delightful," I nodded, my heart sinking slightly. I was pretty sure I could take this valkyrie, if she'd let me get to my sword, but if she did have two companions... Dickhead, I imagined, could jump the gate, but I had no faith that Nellie's beast could follow me over. Still... I yawned elaborately. "We'll go wait by the horses."

"No you won't." The woman had the insolence of a petty person given that tiny inch of power that would turn her into a tyrant. "Your blade is back there. Look, paladin, if it turns out I'm going to have to kill you? I'm hardly going to let you anywhere near your sword first." She leaned back against the gate, smiling. "Just wait a bit."

So? We waited a bit, affecting patience, until a few more minutes passed and the door to the near tower creaked open. I was not surprised to see another woman at the door, younger and slimmer than this Thansy, with a tall man behind her tying up his robe. "Wow!" the woman smiled, "visitors!" She moved with the lazy feline prowl of the freshly-fucked woman, or maybe that was just her natural state. A well-worn razorwhip hung at her belt. "Late afternoon, autumn, and we've got travelers on the road," she mused, reaching languorously back to pull up her hair. "Well met, I suppose."

"My companions," Thansy nodded, "the recipients of your other two silvers. That's Molley of the Lash, and her current cock of choice is Fewnick the Alchemist." The man had stopped short, I noticed, and now looked with interest at Nellie. "Fewn, this is some minor Thaneling from somewhere in the Stews. Passing through."

"Yeah." He eyed us both; he seemed a lot less interested in me than in Nellie. "Tell me," he began, smiling, "does your noble father know you're a sorceress?"

I began thinking about the little blade I kept hidden inside my belt... until Nellie opened her mouth, still with that same sense of superiority.

"Of course he does, dolt!" she snapped. "It's why he's sending me to Galtin's Port, to study. If you and your unwashed band will let us through, that is." Thansy was looking at Nellie with new interest now, her sword pointing up. The girl with the whip, meanwhile, leaned casually against the gate... with that carefully cultivated air of readiness.

The same one I had.

We were aware, I think, that something was passing between the alchemist and the slave, something unspoken but powerful, sizzling the air deep down somewhere below the range of hearing before, with a slight smile, the mage laughed shortly. "Let them through, Thansy," he sighed, "and I won't take an extra penny from them. I think they'll need it."

"Why?" It came out more sharply than I'd intended, and I saw the two women by the gate straighten slightly, but the mage merely shrugged.

"Let's just say that I imagine the two of you might be in for some interesting times ahead." He nodded politely at Nellie. "You may pass through, Lady Jessa of Smallbridge, you and your particularly fine jewelry. Go in peace."

"I thank you, Master Fewnick," Nellie muttered gravely back to him, starting back toward the horses. "Pay the man, churl," she growled to me as she passed, leaving me to trade a cynical glance with Thansy the Wroth. She didn't seem to like me much.

But she took my money, all the same. Plus her penny, and Molley's.

* * *

The shadows were quite long when we halted under the shade of a big ridge that blocked the valley before us. The Whitelinen turned south here in a long, even curve that skirted the hills and swept onward to its mouth at Galtin's, but a path led up the hill and it didn't look too bad. "We'll rest down here," I suggested, "then cross the ridge in the morning."

"Fine by me." That sabre-chop voice of hers, the voice of a thane's daughter, was gone now. She was just a weary girl in a squeaky saddle, yearning for a night's rest. I heard her yawn behind me. "I could sleep right here on the fucking horse."

I laughed, relieved, for by the time we crossed this hill we would be out of Whitelinen Dale, almost out of the Marches entirely. The world ahead waited, a new start for me, free of the wars and petty service of morons like Lord Berken, and I wanted it. Craved it. Needed it.

Freedom. No responsibilities, no obligations. No Wendy, nor her whelp. And I was just beginning to congratulate myself when Nellie fell off her horse in a squawking pile of legs and petticoats. So, with a sigh, I started looking around for a dry dip in the ground. And firewood, of course; we'd need a fire.

No obligations, indeed.

In the early morning, as the sun rose behind us and we rode slowly up the slope, the possibilities seemed bright and endless once more. Especially once we crested the ridge, the fogs of the Lower Dale off to our left, until we gazed far, far ahead and saw the new sun glittering faintly off the waves of Kelthala's Wound.

"You've gotten me here, paladin." The voice was soft at my side, her eyes heavy. Neither of us had gotten much sleep the night before; this time, I knew I wasn't dreaming when I thought of the clasp of her sweet tight pussy on my cock. She was going to be leaking my seed onto her saddle until midday, at the earliest; I'd been quite keen on her under the blanket, as the fire died. Her face was peaceful now, rosy in the glow through her hair. "The Sea."

I waited, saying nothing, patting Dickhead's neck. From here, I could see the deeper-greyed tinge of misty, foggy distance that told me where my destination lay: Galtin's Port, still a long day's ride ahead of me, its smokes pluming the sky like a giant's version of Westertown. The path led on before me, well-marked, down toward a coastal village where it joined the main Road once more.

My future.

But Nellie was already turning her horse aside, onto a broader, older, harder track leading off north atop the ridge. "This way, I think," she nodded, smiling. "So long, Pewick," she nodded, smiling. "Good luck in the big city, hmm? Don't plunge your cock into too many of the wrong kind of holes, right?" I watched, low in my saddle, as she turned back and started off on her own road.

Her future.

The wind stirred off the land behind me, lifting Dickhead's mane as we stood there, pondering what lay ahead: Galtin's Port, on my left? Or Nellie's wilder, more mysterious haven, on my right?

I thought about it for a long minute until, with the sea sparkling more strongly ahead of me, I turned Dickhead and started off.

* * *

Thank you for reading! It's fun to write about Leinyere. I and the rest of the writers appreciate your time.