Tamsin Beech Ch. 04: Birmingham

Swallowing back bile, Tamsin raised the crossbow a second time with shaking hands, "D-don't come any c-closer ..."

The figure lowered a weapon, what looked like an AK12 and stepped nearer, "Relax Miss Beech. It's me. You're safe now."

Leonid. Tamsin felt sick. But she kept the crossbow aimed at the centre of the Russian's chest, "Wh-what happened?"

"Squad of six men. I disposed of five, and ..." he kicked the pilot's body at his feet, "it looks like the sixth is down to you."

Tamsin wished someone would just provide a straight answer. Could they actually trust Leonid Denisovich? "H-how did they find us?"

Leonid stooped and placed his weapon on the ground, "Could I ask you to lower the crossbow? It's making me nervous."

Tamsin thumbed stinging tears from her eyes. She dimly heard movement somewhere behind her and guessed it must be her parents and Craster emerging from cover, "Volk's men have just ambushed us miles from anywhere. I'll ask again ... how the fuck did they find us? How the fuck do we know we can trust you?"

Leonid stared at her as the sickly brown smoke billowing around them thinned somewhat, "You don't."

In a stubbly, scorched field beside the road, sat one of Volk's Kamov Ka-31 helicopters.

"Alright Denisovich! Get down on the ground. MOVE IT!" Ross stormed past Tamsin, Kalashnikov levelled at Leonid. Immediately the Russian did as he was told.

"H-how did they find us Ross?" Merida asked. The handgun hung loosely by her side. She'd had no intention of using it even for self defence.

"I don't know Meri," Ross growled, "maybe the APC had a tracker. I don't know, but I bet this fucker had something to do with it. CRASTER! Keep an eye on this cunt while I check over the chopper. If he so much as farts, shoot him."

Merida placed a hand on Tamsin's shoulder, "You okay?"

Tamsin nodded, trying to control the tremors coursing through her body. She'd killed a man. Admittedly one of the enemy, but supposing the pilot had had a wife and a family somewhere? With one twitch of her finger she'd ended all that. Destroyed all their hopes and dreams.

"Cummon Tamz. Let's help your dad. We'll talk about this later."

Merida and Tamsin passed the rest of the bodies as they walked the hundred yards to the Coalition helicopter. Using the smoke as cover, Leonid had picked them off one by one. They guessed the helicopter had overtaken their position sometime in the day, landed there and the troops had just lain in wait for them to come along.

After a quick search, the helicopter provided them with a medical kit, freeze dried rations, rope and ammunition for Tamsin's Grach. Ross also discovered a flare gun.

"Can't we leave the helicopter here and show the resistance where to find it?" Merida asked.

Ross sucked his breath in through clenched teeth, "Nice idea. But since Tamz just shot the pilot we don't have anyone that can fly the damn thing. And I don't want Volk using it against us."

"Fair point," Merida nodded. She and Tamsin watched from a safe distance as Ross fired a flare into the helicopter's crew compartment. It took a few seconds for the spitting incandescent flame to ignite the canvas seats and plastic fittings. Then all at once ...

WHOOMPF!

The helicopter exploded in an orange fireball sending shards of scorched metal spinning high into the night sky. After tightly securing Leonid Denisovich's wrists behind his back, they set out once again.

One thing that troubled Tamsin when they returned to where Craster was watching over Leonid was that after seeing how efficiently the Russian had disposed of the Coalition squad, why hadn't he simply overpowered the nervous youth and made his escape?

PART THREE: NOVAYA NADEZHDA

As the sun rose, they found themselves descending a rough, boulder strewn path through clouds of billowing brown smoke. They covered their faces as best they could to avoid inhaling too much of the noxious air. What they could see of the landscape around them had changed utterly. From dead fields, skeletal trees and ruined buildings to a scene of such utter devastation that Tamsin and the others were rendered speechless, unable to find the words to describe what they were seeing. Only Ross seemed unaffected.

The land had been scoured clean, ripped apart, gouged into jagged edged crevasses and canyons that plummeted hundreds of feet down into the blackened depths of the earth. It was into the widest and deepest of these that Ross was leading them.

Twisted, melted steelwork - all that remained of tall buildings teetered on the precipices and creaked as they swayed above them in the wind. Huge fires still burned unchecked around them, turning the air a sickly greyish brown. Nothing lived.

Birmingham ...

"Fuck," whispered Tamsin.

"Yeah, fuck," coughed Craster, "they finally managed to improve the place."

. . .

A couple of miles further on, the smoke thinned. The five of them took a few minutes to rest and get their breath back as they emerged, remarkably, into weak sunlight.

"Where are we?" asked Tamsin. An enormous tarnished bronze sculpture of a bull lay incongruously half buried in the ground close by. She peered around nervously as she caught sight of movement on the scree slopes to either side. They were being watched.

Ross looked around, at the black, jagged cliffs towering a thousand feet above them, "Our best guess puts us somewhere near what was once New Street railway station. Slap bang in the centre of Birmingham. Though when they first moved in here their GPS was unreliable to say the least."

"So where are we?" Merida persisted.

Much to the Russian's relief, Ross untied Leonid's wrists, "You won't be going anywhere. There are snipers positioned on these cliffs. If they hadn't recognised me we'd all be dead by now. This ... ladies and gentlemen, is Novaya Nadezhda."

Tamsin was incredulous, "You've given it a Russian name? Why?"

"Irony," Ross smiled, "I'm sure our friend here will translate ... if you ask him nicely."

"Novaya Nadezhda," said Leonid quietly, "... new hope."

. . .

As they proceeded forward and ever deeper into the Novaya Nadezhda canyon, Tamsin noticed dwellings carved into the exposed bedrock around them. Makeshift shelters built from pieces of vehicle, even the nose section of an airliner repurposed as a house. Terraces had been cut into the cliffs to provide flat areas of ground to grow crops. Moss, ferns and wild flowers sprouted from even the tiniest little nook and cranny. And everywhere, there were people ...

Young men and women carrying automatic weapons as well as bows, swords and axes. Older people digging, repairing and building. And children running errands, playing and gazing wide eyed at the newcomers as they passed through their midst.

"I can't believe all this is here," Merida laughed.

Several people called out greetings to Ross, watching them curiously as he led them through the canyon's narrow bottom.

Ross smirked, "I've been wanting to show you this for so long Meri. Everyone thought nothing could survive under the smoke. But the fact is the fires are only at the eastern end of the canyon. Underground coal deposits that'll burn for decades. At this end we have clean air and access to fresh water. There are natural caves and tunnels going back for miles. The Coalition have absolutely no idea we're here."

"How many's 'we'?" Merida asked. She slipped an arm through her husband's then called to Myrtle, who'd trotted off to make friends with a group of small children.

"Four hundred give or take," Ross explained, "around a quarter of those are fighters, drivers, explosives experts, what have you. The rest are their families or else refugees. We turn no-one away. The resistance have operatives in most of northern England but this ... Novaya Nadezhda, is the heart of what we've built."

Leonid gazed around, making no attempt to conceal his awe and admiration.

"The bare bones have been here since just after Thanatos. Some locals set up camp to escape the harsh winters up on the surface," Ross continued, "the first resistance moved in soon after the Coalition arrived. This is my second time here. I escaped Scunthorpe a couple of years back, found my way here ... then offered to be recaptured so I could be the eyes and ears at the steelworks."

"Wasn't that risky dad?" Tamsin asked, "the Coalition could've shot you."

High above, a jagged blue strip of sky seemed to glow brightly in contrast to the grey black monochrome of the bedrock surrounding them.

Ross laughed, "Foremen as good as me are hard to come by. I knew I'd be okay."

Merida punched him playfully in the shoulder, "You haven't changed."

"That's why you still love me," Ross wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, "cummon, there's someone I want you to meet. But first I know a place where we can get cleaned up ... and then we can decide what to do with Major Denisovich here."

. . .

Half an hour later, Tamsin groaned with pleasure as she lay back in a steaming hot bath. A railway carriage that had miraculously fallen intact all the way down into the canyon from the city, had been repurposed as a bath house. Water was pumped through pipework running close to the subterranean fires meaning that by the time it reached the taps it was scalding hot.

Eight full size bath tubs had replaced the carriage's seating, each one separated by a thick privacy curtain.

"I'll find you some decent clothes," Merida had told her and left to explore the sights and sounds of Novaya Nadezhda with Ross and Leonid.

Tamsin listened to Craster washing himself in the next tub. Her clothes had been filthy and stiff with dried mud. Even the sequined dress she'd worn underneath was worn through in places after days on the road.

"Your parents seem like good people," Craster called, "I'm surprised they trusted us here alone together though."

Tamsin didn't think her mother had realised they were the only ones in the bathhouse when she'd bunched up Craster's uniform with her own clothing and left with it.

"They trust me," Tamsin replied, smiling, "though ... I'm not sure about you."

"Do you think that's why Volk had a bee up his ass about men coming near you? That this Kim Napp Gylan guy ... expects a virgin?"

Tamsin thought for a moment, "If you're suggesting I should rush into having sex just to put the guy off, you can forget it. If you'd asked me weeks ago I would've said yes. But the more time I've had to think about it ... the more I want my first time to be perfect."

"How'd you mean?"

Tamsin tied her thick red curls back in a loose bun, "In a proper bed. With as much time as we need ..."

Craster cleared his throat, "Uh, we? You mean, like ... us?"

"Who else is there?"

"I just thought ... I've seen you looking at the Russian, and I reckoned that ..."

Tamsin laughed, slopping water over the side of the stained tub, "Leonid? Are you joking? He was going to kill us just a few days ago!"

"I'm ... willing to wait."

Tamsin smiled to herself. Men could be so easily controlled. Since leaving Atherstone, she'd re-evaluated Craster's potential as a protector and realised that now they'd reached the safe haven of Novaya Nadezhda, she no longer needed one. The resistance and her parents would do everything in their power to prevent her falling into Volk's clutches. For if she did, the alliance between Zakhvatchikov and Kim Napp Gylan would become real.

But that realisation and her sensibilities didn't stop her having some fun ...

"Craster, can you soap my back please?" she called.

"Wh-what? Aren't you naked?"

"Of course I'm naked."

"Um ... I'm naked too."

"I don't care," Tamsin insisted, getting impatient, "come here and soap my back."

Wearing nothing but a thin layer of soap suds that slid down her smooth curves, Tamsin smiled up at Craster as he poked his head through the gap in her curtain. The bath water steamed, coating the train carriage windows with condensation.

The youth, with a towel wrapped around his waist, drew the curtain closed behind him. He stared down at her in mute appreciation, seeing her naked for the first time. Her unruly red hair with its natural curls piled on top of her head leaving her slim shoulders bare and her blue green eyes twinkling as she handed him a wet washcloth.

"You'll have to sit up," he suggested.

Tamsin sat up, her pale breasts lifting out of the water as she did so. Craster watched soap suds trickle down their firm upper slopes and drip from her rosy pink nipples into the hot bath water.

Tamsin realised where his eyes were focused, "Ahem. Back?"

Craster blushed as he realised he was getting hard, the towel tenting out in front of him. He dropped the flannel into the bath and instead lathered up his hands with the soap - a strong smelling grainy concoction made from seaweed.

Tamsin had been away from Lindisfarne for just days but had desperately missed the indulgence of relaxing in a steaming hot tub. The castle staff had taken extremely good care of her. With shaking hands, Craster massaged soap into her shoulders, pressing lightly with his thumbs at the base of her neck to loosen the muscles there.

"Mmm, that's nice," she sighed, leaning into his hands.

Craster studied her neck as he worked, the soft downy red hair that he guessed might tickle his lips, the pale skin marred with just a smattering of freckles and tiny moles. To his inexperienced eyes, Tamsin Beech was perfection. Her imperfections what made her perfect.

Craster's hands circled around to Tamsin's throat, sliding lower with each movement, fingertips caressing her collarbones and the upper reaches of her chest. He felt himself growing harder as he breathed in the scent of soap on her skin.

Tamsin gently pushed his hands away, "That's not my back."

"I just thought ... we could carry on where we left off. I missed you ..."

Tamsin sank back down into the bath and cupped her soapy breasts, "Did you miss me, or just these?"

Craster sat on the edge of the tub, turned sideways so Tamsin wouldn't see his erection, "I missed all of you."

"Before I jump into bed with you Craster," Tamsin began, "I need to know more about you. You told me nothing about yourself on Lindisfarne. I need answers," staring up at him, Tamsin stroked her breasts, fingertips sliding over the soft flesh, slippery and flushed pink by the heat of the water, nails grazing her aureolae, "or you don't get to play with these ..."

Craster smiled and slowly shook his head, "That ... isn't fair."

"I'm just wondering about you is all. Tell me about yourself," Tamsin gently tweaked her nipples, making them swell, firm and proud. Despite what she'd said, she was actually finding sitting there naked in the bath with a man watching her to be extremely arousing.

Craster too found the sight of Tamsin's breasts half obscured by soap suds unbelievably erotic. He wondered if she'd be horny enough to bring herself off in front of him. As if reading his mind, her hands slid lower, caressing her ribcage as she watched him. What was she thinking?

"Well?"

"There's really nothing to tell," Craster insisted.

Tamsin frowned, a crease appearing between her eyebrows.

"If the Coalition did something horrible to your family, I won't press. But one day I want you to tell me, okay?" Tamsin's tiny hand circled her belly, fingernails stirring the soapy bubbles there, dabbling in the minute puddle that filled her navel, as she kneaded her breast with the other.

Craster sat there watching openly, devouring the sight of her and committing every moment to memory.

"Okay?"

"Wh ...? Yes," Craster promised, "one day I'll tell you," he shifted his weight to take the pressure off his cock, chafing painfully against the towel. Tamsin lifted a leg and stroked a hand down the inside of her thigh, the circling movement of her hand almost hypnotic. Up and down. From her knee down to the hidden delights beneath the soapy water. Up and down ...

"Enjoying the show?" smirked Tamsin.

Craster swallowed hard, but said nothing.

"I need to cum," Tamsin admitted. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, letting out a barely audible moan of contentment, fingertips teasing her mound and the top of her slit, just visible beneath the water's surface.

Any fear of the girl's parents returning and finding them together evaporated as Craster gazed down at the beautiful redhead pleasuring herself. He could stand it no longer. His hand strayed to his crotch and loosened the towel as Tamsin's hand slid between her thighs, "Watch me," she whispered.

Craster watched, as Tamsin squirmed in the bath, kneading her breast and delving between her thighs. He could see nothing of what her fingertips were doing under the water but guessed from the movement of her wrist and arm, that she was rubbing her clitoris and every so often sliding one or two soapy fingers up inside herself. She raised the hand to her other breast and circled her engorged nipple, anointing it with a mixture of soap suds and vaginal juices. Tamsin then sucked her fingertips, making a display of tasting herself as she studied him with a dreamy look from half open eyes, "Mmm ... get your cock out. Let me see you."

Craster did as he was told, slipping the towel off as Tamsin stretched, splashing water across the train carriage's floor, smiling at him as his cock sprang obscenely to attention, the foreskin peeling back of its own accord revealing the glistening red glans. He leaned closer as she returned to her ministrations, hips now rocking to and fro, lifting out of the water as she thrust her pelvis towards the ceiling, pressing her fingers into her folds.

He stood up and stroked himself as he watched her hungrily, drinking in the sight of her. Smearing his body's own lubricant around the tip of his hot, bloated cock, hand sliding to and fro, balls throbbing as he imagined fucking her.

"Cum on me," Tamsin whispered. She bit her bottom lip, her breath coming in short, panting gasps. Frowning with concentration, she closed her eyes as she climbed towards her orgasm, soapy wavelets slapping against the sides of the bathtub.

She lifted her feet out of the water, opening her pale legs wide as she placed her toes on the sides of the tub, "Ohh, ohh, cum on me ..."

With Tamsin's legs lifted up, her chest sat beneath the water. Her hands both scrabbled rythmically between her thighs, eager and desperate, one rubbing the swollen pink pearl of her clit frantically, the other doing who knew what? Penetrating her lovely juicy vagina, teasing her asshole?

Craster wanked himself faster at the thought of it, feeling the familiar tingling starting up deep inside his groin. He'd never admit to having fantasised about this every night he'd slept on the bare stone floor outside her room. The reality was a thousand times better.

"Uhh ..." Tamsin squealed and jerked, her body rigid as her breath came in short ragged whimpers. Craster's own orgasm came seconds later. He staggered against the side of the tub as a jet of hot semen splattered across Tamsin's face and neck.

She jumped back in surprise laughing, then turned towards him letting his hot cream splash her face and throat, spray the roof of her mouth and tongue. Slow white trickles crept down the skin of her breasts into the bath water, as Craster's cock continued to throb and jerk for long seconds, forcing out spurt after spurt.

Then, when at last it was still, he slumped to his knees on the wet floor, resting his forehead against the stained enamel of the bath tub, breathless.

"You dirty sod, I'll have to wash my hair now," accused Tamsin, picking cum out of her red curls. White strings and dribbling blobs of Craster's semen painted her features. She licked her fingertips and began slowly to massage it into her breasts. But whether she could taste herself or him on her fingers Craster could only guess.