“It seems clear that you are the victor according to our agreement,” the barbarian said to Dallan, his voice as even and calm as his mind. “As you were the one who found her, you were the one to ease her distress. I would know, however, whether the easing was given with or without her consent.”
“What man would find it necessary to take his memabra by force?” Dallan came back in a very bland way, for some reason amused. “As the woman wears my bands, it is to be expected that she would give herself freely to me.”
“Of course,” the barbarian answered, a good deal of his calm having turned to stiffness. “And now it would perhaps be best if we continued on our way. This delay has cost us a good deal of time. ”
Dallan gave immediate and solemn agreement, then put his arm about me to move us both after the barbarian, who had turned and stalked away. After a minute a large chunk of meat was thrust into my hand, and I glanced over at Dallan to see that he had taken something to eat as well. Things seemed to be coming at me in a very disjointed fashion right then, mainly because of the way my mind kept replaying the last exchange between the two men. It was clear I hadn’t done as good a job of escaping from them as I had thought, since neither one had had any difficulty finding me once they took the proper direction. It was appalling to think that I couldn’t avoid recapture even in the darkness of the inside of a mountain but that wasn’t the only thing bothering me. The barbarian had demanded an answer to a question from Dallan, and hadn’t even noticed that the answer he’d gotten wasn’t an answer at all. Dallan had stated a couple of generalities, and Tammad had stalked off into the darkness with a matching black mood forming in his mind. If I didn’t know better I would have sworn he was jealous, but that was idiotic. I’d been given to enough men by him to know that there was no jealousy in him, at least as far as I was concerned. That was why I couldn’t understand the stiffness he had developed, most especially after the way he had tortured me. I chewed at the meat chunk Dallan had given me and thought about that for a while, then pushed the entire question away from me. If the barbarian was upset at the thought of my giving myself to Dallan, for whatever reason, I couldn’t be happier. If it wouldn’t have been unfair to Dallan, I would have thrown myself all over him just to see the barbarian suffer even more. It was probably an ego thing with Tammad, that any woman would have the incredibly bad taste to prefer another man to him, and he surely deserved whatever suffering he did. It was scarcely likely to last beyond the time other women became available, so I hoped the suffering he did was good and painful.
When we reached the place I had left the men, we found the next downgrade and just kept going. Hour after hour passed, filled with descending and searching and more descending, the pain of scrapes and stumbles and sharp rock underfoot, the pressure of no rest stops being allowed, and the boredom of constant, faintly shining darkness. Dallan had given me more than the single meat chunk when we’d first started but a lot of time had passed and I was hungry all over again. The barbarian had taken over the lead of our expedition and acted as though he intended going on forever, and that was the one thing that had kept one going. I’d sooner drop in my tracks than ask anything of him, even if I did it through Dallan. I’d either go on as long as he did or collapse from exhaustion, whichever came first. I put a hand to my aching back, wishing I could rub my feet just for a minute, then swallowed a gasp when my elbow scraped against the rock wall we were walking near. Collapsing seemed a lot more likely than continuing on to wherever the end might be, and I really didn’t want to think about it.
Thanks to Dallan, I didn’t have to walk on forever or collapse. He was the one who finally called a halt, saying that the narrow, twisting corridor of rock we were in would do as a place to stop and sleep.
“This place will allow us to be sure that we have not lost our proper direction,” he said, looking up at the sheer, glowing walls all around us. “An open gallery would scarcely serve the same purpose.”
“Yes, let us by all means see a purpose served,” the barbarian muttered, finding a lot less interest in the walls. “I will take the furs that are mine to the far side of this fold, and you may remain here with yours. How long do you mean to sleep’?”
“Until we awaken refreshed,” Dallan answered with a shade too much pleasantness. “Do you feel it necessary that we stand watches?”
“No,” the barbarian answered, taking the sleeping furs bundle from me so abruptly that I was startled. “I will sleep lightly against any intrusion, therefore will you be free to enjoy your sleep. I wish you pleasure in your dreams.”
He threw the bundle back to me without the two furs he had taken, nodded to Dallan, then took his surliness around the comer of stone flaring out into the trail. Dallan chuckled softly as he stood next to me watching Tammad disappear, then he gestured toward the inside of the fold on our side.
“Spread our furs beside the wall, memabra,” he directed, speaking as softly as he had chuckled. “Our meal will be considerably more pleasant with that one elsewhere, and after we have eaten we may sleep.”
The thought of being able to sit down in comfort helped me get the furs out of the bundle in record time, but there wasn’t room enough next to the wall for more than one set. Because of that I began spreading Dallan’s furs on the outside of the curve, just beyond the pocket near the wall, thinking he would prefer having me on the inside, where he could keep an eye on me. I should have known that I was only partially right, but exhaustion tends to make me forget the realities of life.
“Do not be foolish, wenda,” he chided with inner amusement when he saw what I was doing. “You may double the furs, for there is room enough for both of us in there.”
To prove the point he picked up the fur I’d put outside and threw it on top of the first, picked me up and tossed me into the pocket, then removed his swordbelt and climbed in after me, pinning me down in the fur. With him on top of me there was plenty of room for both of us, but it wasn’t a position likely to get me a good night’s sleep. I squirmed around trying to get loose, got a chuckle and a kiss for my efforts, then was allowed to sit up next to Dallan while he got the food out.
I suppose if I hadn’t been so tired I wouldn’t have gotten silly, but Dallan was in the mood to be silly and I caught it from him. He refused to let us each eat our own meals, instead insisting that we feed each other, but that wasn’t all. He sat me in his lap for the exchange and began tickling me, enough so that I just had to tickle him back. He had very little trouble finding ticklish spots on me, but I had to search all over before I found my target. I did as much giggling as I did chewing and swallowing, and as soon as the food and water was down Dallan took a cover fur and draped it over me, insisting that I felt too much like a block of ice for him to enjoy touching me as much as he should. I was cold from the hours of walking through the chill of the darkness, but somehow Dallan wasn’t. His body was as warm and alive as it had been in the heat of sunlight, and when he put his arms around me under the fur I couldn’t help snuggling up to his chest. I was tired enough to have my eyelids begin drooping immediately, and much too tired to struggle when his hands pushed my skirt back to get it out of his way. I suppose I should have known better than to be surprised when he got an almost immediate reaction, but I’d been sure my exhaustion would be able to set up a barrier my conscious decision couldn’t. Exhausted or not, his demanding hand worked me too deeply to ignore, forcing me into writhing around in his lap, sending me further into the fuzziness of near-sleep rather than drawing me away from it. His lips took mine for a long, breathless time, a time I moved through with growing need, and then he whispered that I had to remove the covering I wore. I fought in a sightless dream to take it off without losing the fur covering me, and when I finally succeeded and moved back to his chest, found that his haddin was gone as well. His deep excitement was a lure I couldn’t refuse, and before I knew it I had straddled him and captured his desire with mine, drawing surprise from his mind and a moan of pleasure from his throat. I rode him like a novice on a runaway seetar, bouncing madly and unable to stop, but he was no novice when it came to knowing his own capacity. When the pressure became too great he threw me to my back, then followed me down to direct the rest of our pleasure. I whined and complained and tried to force him to let me go back to where I directed, and got rolled over onto my side and smacked hard on the bottom a few times for my trouble. I was too far gone to know he was right, but my sleepiness found the tiny punishment enough to be intimidating. I sniffled as he held me to him and kissed me, and immediately thereafter lost myself completely to his deep stroking. There was no hurry involved that time, and I have no idea how long it was before he let me sleep.