He did not taste human and that excited her. As she curled her tongue against the roof of his mouth he slid his hand against her sex. Ash opened her legs wider. Her tongue stiffened. Hot pulses passed along her belly. One finger found a sweet spot and rubbed it softly but insistently. She could hear the wetness swish against his hand. Grabbing him firmly she arched her hips toward him. The finger moved faster, its pressure increasing. With her free hand he squeezed her buttocks, his fingertips jamming into the point where they met. Ash gasped. All she wanted him to do was not stop. The finger was creating delicious friction deep beneath her skin. Suddenly the tension broke and her legs and hips started jerking. Heat pulsed down her thighs and up through her belly and she lost control of herself, grasping at his ribs and pushing against his hand. She did not breathe until it stopped.
Afterward he pulled himself on top of her and pressed his hard sex against her own. As he broke the fine membrane of skin that protected her body and entered her, he murmured, "Ish'I xalla tannan"
I know the value of that which I take.
Outside the tent the wind began to rattle the birches.
NINETEEN Hunting Prey
Raif reached the city on the edge of the abyss just as the sleet started. Smoke from the cave fires blew in his face. He could not say the familiar scent of burning sedge and willow canes made him glad to be back. He had a strong desire to set down his kit, rest, and not enter, but it was already too late for that.
"Twelve Kill on the ledge!" came the cry from a watcher on the high wind-carved cliff above him. Raif acknowledged the man with an open hand, yet did not look up. Already he could hear the call being relayed across the ledgerock, echoing from cave to cave and ledge to ledge, moving up cane ladders and rock-cut stairs, along tunnels and stone galleries before finally plunging down into the Rift.
"Kill. Kill. Kill" Raif heard. His name reduced to a single word.
The children came out first. Skinny and clothed in fine silks and brocades gone to rags, they kept their distance and stared at him with big eyes as if they ha|jreason to be afraid. One older boy bounced a stone in his cupped fist, his tight little mouth twitching. Raif looked him in the eyes, looked long, and the boy caught the stone, closed his fist, and dropped his hand against his side.
The Maimed Men and their women came out next and they were not a lovely sight. Dressed in dyed leather shirts and tunics, animal skins with the heads still attached, armored cloaks, spiked helms, rat-fur hoods, scaled breastplates, steel gauntlets, burned dresses, boned bodices, goat fleece collars and kilts and all manner of straps, belts, packs and chains, they did their name proud. Every one of them was lacking; a missing eye or arm, a clubfoot, a deformed spine, a cleft Palate, a claw hand, a wine-stained face, absent flesh, extra flesh. Things not present at birth and others taken away later. Raif became aware of his own missing flesh — the tip of his little finger, cut off at the knuckle-and wondered if he would ever lose enough of himself to feel at home here. He had a brief hut intensely strong desire to run, turn and flee back to the eanyonlands and Badlands-places were the land was the only thing that was wasted. The cragsman Addle Gunn's words came back to him. "None of us are whole" He had not been speaking about flesh.
Raif walked steadily through the growing crowd, matching gazes only when he had to, when freed with the choice of meeting a challenge or backing down. Beneath the ledge of green rimrock, the Rift was trembling. The vast fissure in the earth was as dark and wet as a fresh wound and it gave off the same metallic odor. Last time he was here he remembered watching birds in flight below him, kitty hawks and swallows and turkey vultures. Today the Rift was full of nothing. It was the deepest hole in the earth and no man alive had ever returned from it. Its bottom could not be seen or known. On the clearest day with the sun directly overhead there was a point beyond which the eye could not see. Raif Sevrance had looked down on such a day, his gaze tracking the cracked and uneven cliffwall, past layers of ironstone, sandstone, limestone, hermit shale, granite, green marble, pyritc slate and schist, past the dark recesses of undercut caves, steam vents, and well heads before finally coming to rest at the point where the darkness rolled and swirled like hot tar finding its level. Raif found it hard to watch and soon looked away. It struck him that it was a moat defending a fastness: a layer that could not be penetrated without sanction.
His shoulders jerked in a single, deep shiver. His clothes were wet and he was sick of traveling. For the past two days he had done nothing but walk. Within the hard shell of his leather boots his feet were wrapped in rags and dried grass. His left ankle was still badly swollen, and a blister on the heel oozed watery blood into the makeshift padding. He knew better than to show this, not here in the city of Maimed Men, and walked without limp or stiffness, keeping his back straight and his hand close to hilt of his bent sword.
Light was beginning to rail as he approached the center of the rim-rock, A firepiie had been stacked and primed, and the crowd began to gather around it. Raif sported the dark and unfriendly fece of Linden Moodie, the Rift brother who had led the mid on Black Hole. The gar-rote scar circling his neck was partially covered by a silver and black wool mantle. Raif met Moodie a gaze, confirming to himself that he was not mistaken. Linden Moodie had deliberately worn his spoils from the raid on Blackhail's silver mine. I dare you, his brown eyes challenged, to show a reaction to the colors of your once and deserted clan.
Raif did not know what expression was showing on his face, only that it did not change when raced with Moodie. He breathed deeply and allowed only surface thoughts to work upon his brain. He had not expected much coming here. No surprises so far.
"Raif! Over here!"
Tracking the sound of his name, Raif spied the big, powerful form of Stillborn wending his way through a group of Maimed Women. The Rift brother was dressed in a sleeveless buckskin tunic trimmed with rabbit fur. His bare forearms were wrapped in matching bullhorns. Breaking free from the crowd, he brought Raif to a halt by standing in front of him and enveloping him in a giant, smothering bear hug.
"I told the Mole you killed that Hailsman on your way out 'cause he challenged you for the gold," Stillborn murmured insistently in Raif's ear while he gripped him. "And that you told me you were off to take care of a spot of personal business and that you'd be back within a month."
The two men separated, but Stillborn caught Raif's forearms in his fists and held Raif at arm's length while he inspected him. The Maimed Man's hazel eyes were knowing. The puckered flesh that ran along his face and down his neck quivered with strong emotion. "Know two things before this dance starts," he said, his voice low and husky. "One: I am glad you are back. And two: I am your man."