Chapter 3B

Renna closed the door gently on the slumbering Templar. She felt naked without her armor and sword at her side, only a long dagger decorated her slender belt of silver links. "Only three times, and you must sleep?" she asked in a whisper, grinning. "Perhaps I should not have drunk so deeply of you that last time."

She could barely silence the little giggle that tried to escape her. All men fed her needs, though some willingly, some less so. She regarded herself in a mirror at the end of the hall. The innkeeper was not wealthy enough for a mirror in each room, so one large one had to make do for all tenants. Her hands moved over her dress, Islander cut, with a low cleavage and knee-length hem. She liked the feel of the cotton against her flesh, it was soft without sliding so sinfully as silk did.

Renna often forgot herself in silks, growing so excited by the material's sultry touch alone that if she were with a man she barely remembered to take a bit of him as payment for the pleasures she provided. The cotton felt good, but not quite that good.

Rondall was full of heretics and in this place she could feed to her heart's content, only doing service to the One. She smiled as she gazed down the stairs at the crowded common room, then let her hair fall over her shoulders. By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, she looked ten years younger, barely a girl of sixteen, with rich chestnut hair. She had seen the girl earlier, whose likeness she wore now. She was a pretty girl, and very innocent looking. These heretics would not be able to resist the draw of her pretty oval face and the unknowing, but eager, expression.

True to her suspicions, she was soon regarding a young man, obviously fresh from the farmsteads outside the city, and scrubbed pink. No doubt scrubbed by his own mother's hand just prior to his journey into the big city.

She noted his tapping another young man and they both followed with their eyes as she crossed the common room, giving them a last glance before going out the door. Before taking ten steps outside, they were on the street behind her.

Renna feigned a bit of fear and ducked into the nearest alley, shuffling her feet but not moving terribly fast. They followed, murmuring to one another, and picking up their pace.

She was not sure if these young men would be aggressive, yet she hoped to make them so. Stopping with a suddenness, seeming as if she had finally realized her error, she turned. "Please don't hurt me, I'll do whatever you want," she said, in a frightened flutter.

The two needed little more goading than that. The first young man, a good-looking lad walked up to her and touched her bare arm. "We won't hurt you," he said. "I think you'll enjoy it as much as we do."

The other young man chuckled deeply, a sinister sound that seemed very out of place opposite the innocent farmboy face.

Renna forced herself to swallow, as if in fear, and put what she hoped was a forced smile into place, though it might seem predatory to the wary. These lads had some alcohol in them, though, and they were far from wary. "Just don't hurt me, I have no money, but I'll do what you want."

He pulled her toward him, though not forcefully. The young heretic was not confident of what he was doing and she decided to make him at least earn the prize he was about to claim.

With a quick tug, she tried to pull away, managing to dislodge one of his hands, the other tightened on her upper arm and she started bolting for the alley mouth. The other youngling, the one who had chuckled, did not seem as hesitant, and slapped her, backhanded.

This wrenched her remaining arm loose from the first boy and she slumped to the wall. "Please, I'm sorry, I won't try to run," she said. She tasted the blood in her mouth from the quick backhanding. Farmboy or no, he had a strong arm and she found herself not needing to feign timidity.

With shaking hands, she unbuttoned her blouse. "Let me do it," she said, "please." The forceful one had been reaching for her buttons but pulled back to watch her strip by the dim light that managed to penetrate this far into the alley.

Even before the blouse was off her, she felt four hands groping her breasts and shoulders, their calloused palms scratching and gripping too forcefully, with the eagerness of both inexperience and some measure of fear at what they were doing. These men were not experienced rapists.

Renna stood, eyes downcast and untied her skirt, letting it fall to the ground, wearing now only a thin cotton slip. Both they young men's eyes were drawn to her bare legs now and she turned her eyes up slowly and hesitantly. The eagerness in their eyes disgusted her, even as she took pleasure from knowing she was causing it to be there. Then the rough hands were on her again, pushing down the loose slip and groping her butt and pubic mound. Fingers pushed into her front and back and she whimpered as if pained.

All she could hear now was the excited, rapid breathing of the two young men and their frantic groping at their own clothes. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to not take an active role in the act. She was supposedly being raped, after all.

She felt herself lifted and laid upon some rough, burlap-covered surface, some crates, maybe. Decent of them, to at least spread the burlap for her.

If they were not experienced, they seemed a bit creative. With some scuffling and moving of her about like a sack of potatoes, she was put into a position on her side where both had access to her. The gentler lad pushed his prick into her cunt, and she wondered if he noted how moist and slick it was, considering she was supposed to be frightened, not aroused. He seemed to take little notice, ramming himself to the hilt in her and grunting with pleasure. The other lad, the one with more spine and less reserve, spit on his prick, a long strand of slick bile, then shoved it, with equal force, into her ass.

Renna did not have to fake a pained expression, the lad was well endowed and was holding little back. She would bleed a bit from this rough use to her backside. While the two thrust into her, grunting and grinning at one another, she made pitiable whimpering noises, but began to mix begrudged moans among them. The two were quite enthusiastic, if lacking in style or skill.

She slowly gave herself over to enjoying the lusty penetration of the men and even encouraging them with her hands. She put one on each man's backside, pulling them into her with more force. The crueler one chuckled again, bending to bite her neck, thinking he was in control of this event.

Renna began to focus her mind, reaching out and touching the spirits of these two young men even as they took pleasure in her body. The hesitant lad, she would spare, but would still punish for his trespass. The cruel one, the one so casually using her anus for his pleasure, and who had slapped her down, he would feed her well.

The boy in her cunt came, spending himself. It was beyond his imaginings though, and pleasure and pain tore through him as he kept climaxing and spending. She wondered if the other man would note the lad's oddly overwhelming orgasm, but he seemed oblivious, concentrating on the pleasure he felt. All for the better.

He began to grunt more earnestly and she coaxed him while still the first boy cried out in the odd mix of sensations. She even screamed in pleasure, not as he thought from his actions, instead her pleasure was originating more deeply, from the place where she fed.

The young man in her backside spent and she cried out again.

The first youth collapsed atop her, panting shallowly and covered in a sheen of cool sweat. He was unconscious, and would stay that way for some days. He would awaken to find himself with some newly-gray hairs and a fear of taking a woman that he may or may not be able to explain. She had merely sipped a tithe of him, maybe seven years of his young life.

The other man, the cruel one, with the heart blacker than the first, she had no such restraint for. As she felt his semen fill her bowels, she pulled with her mind, touching the place in him where his life pulsed. She did not stop.

It did not take long for his grunts of ecstasy to turn into whimpers of agony and fear. He could not force his body to stop thrusting into her, nor prevent himself from continually spending. She owned him now, and would consume him.

Not that she could truly use so much energy, far from it. She had to bleed it off, letting it flow into the air about her in a shower of arcing lightning. His eyes widened as he saw this, even in his pain. "One save me!" he cried out between moans.

"Too late for that, heretic," she hissed. She could see his skin growing tight over his bones and his eyes sinking into his skull, like a man starving in mere seconds. She held the energy he had just fed into her and felt it course through her body, curling up and caressing her with pleasure.

Great was her joy at feeling his soul tear free of his body even as the last of his seed went into her and she cooed, like a child with a new kitten. He gasped a hoarse, dry rattle, then collapsed, falling back and pulling from her.

Slowly, she rose, hesitantly, humming quietly to herself. She used her mind to lift the soundly sleeping youth onto the rough boxes they had thrown her upon and let him lay there. The corpse, a dried, wasted husk, she kicked aside, ribs crumbling like plaster and the skull tumbling from a withered neck.

She dressed, still humming, buttoning her blouse and looking toward the street. If it would not be an utter waste of livestock, she could feed more this night, in this generous larder of heretics. However, she could consume her fill again another night, when she was ready.

Her own appearance, tall and dark and regal, was back in place before she strode from the alley, smiling at those around her who were stumbling out of the inn and smiling at her and gauging her with appraising eyes.

Renna toyed with the idea of just bedding a man or two, there were some handsome men among the crowd. The very idea of letting a heretic take her and not charging a fee for it made her shudder. She had to give herself a stiff reminder that she was among the forsaken folk, and not to enjoy her part in exacting the One's vengeance too much.

That was the twist of it, was it not? Should it not be a joy enacting the will of the One? As one, doubly chosen by the One, could she not do nearly any act, and it be, by his Grand Design, enforcing his will?

Still, she thought, much still needs doing, and I must rest some time, despite the deep draft I drank this night.

She rebuffed a man attempting to engage her in talk at the bar as she sipped a glass of wine before returning to her room, though again the temptation was there to take up the whim with him. Slipping into bed beside Pharen, still sleeping soundly from the very shallow sip she had taken even from him.

Perhaps I will stop drinking from Pharen, for now at least, while among such a rich source of more, she thought.

It seemed interminable.

From one dignitary to another, Harlen felt as if he were being bounced around the room. In truth, he stayed stationary while others moved away and approached. Had he yet spoken to everyone here? He felt sure that he had already spoken to this man before him, an embassy from Shield Island, and therefore a puppet of Costa Roja, if the rumors be true.

Hyandai and Wendy were both equally as accosted as he, though they, at least, occasionally gained the respite of the dance floor. Almost any man present would be eager to dance with an elven maiden, if the man danced at all, and Hyandai found her hand passed from one to another as they kept her on the floor for long stretches, until the Orchestra took a pause.

Wendy, like Harlen, found an ever-moving conversation, equally divided among men of a military bearing and socialites, who sought to discover exactly where she fit, in the scheme of things. Some of the conversations seemed to hold her interest, others she seemed doomed to endure, like an odious chore in the middens.

Harlen looked up from the Shield Islander, who had been born in Costa Roja, and spoke with the distinct Rojando accent, and yet denied any connection between his lands and the Costa, and scanned for Hyandai. Wendy he could see across the room, cornered by three Windy Islander rangers wearing officer sashes.

Hyandai, however, was not to be seen. This worried him until he crossed gazes with the tiny Niliwander ambassador, who pointed at the bank of wide double doors that let out onto the veranda. The ambassador walked over and said, "She is well, I saw her speaking with a young man a few minutes ago."

A moment's thought went into pursuing her into the less crowded air outside, when the Vilderean merchant representatives approached again. No doubt they sought to clear up some minor point they had thought of while scheming with their heads together.

He turned to feign conversation with the Niliwander, but he was gone.

"I am amazed at how huge this party is," said Hyandai to the young man, who had said he was Kristoff, a visiting nobleman from the Southern Realms. His father was a baron or some such, and he was seeing the world prior to entering service to the king's armies.

"Which king?" asked Hyandai, blinking.

Kristoff stared blankly at her. "The only true king, milady Hyandai," he said. "Ludwig."

"Ah," said Hyandai, nodding and smiling. "I see."

She pointedly avoided pointing out that, currently, two men claimed the crown of the Southern Realms. Ludwig and Gerhard, and both had, almost exactly, the same foundation for their claim.

The resulting civil unrest caused by this had yet to flash over to open warfare, as both sides continued to negotiate. However, it was obvious neither would abdicate to the other, despite promises of high office and privileges being given to the one who flinched first.

It may not yet be open warfare, but both sides were girding for it, and there had probably been more deaths by creeping shadows and from hidden knives than occurred in many wars, especially amongst the nobles.

Kristoff seemed slightly out of sorts about her question, as if her allegiance had an obvious and deserving party. However, she was spared the necessity of trying to smooth over this by the appearance of a strikingly handsome man, wearing the tunic of the rangers beside the tall, blond Southron.

"Milady Hyandai, I apologize for not seeking you out earlier, but I had pressing duty," he said, bowing low, elven fashion, with one leg forward and pressing his upper body to that leg. She echoed the bow, smiling.

"As I knew not who would be here, I cannot be offended," she said.

"Everyone knows it is the honor and right of the guests of highest place to be the most fashionably late," he retorted, smiling. "I have other reasons to wish to meet with you, though, milady, I am Tanverus Drusus."

Hyandai stared for a long moment, her mouth open slightly. All expression had drained from her features. "You were so young," she said, reaching out a hand to touch fingertips to the stubble on his chin. "Only a small child."

Drusus grinned at her. "Even you have grown in those years, lady," he said. "You looked to be a girl of twelve then, only smaller."

She returned the grin. "You look like the drawings Emogen showed me of Verus," said Hyandai. "When he was first made an officer."

Her gaze lowered to the silver baldric across his chest, upon which a ceremonial saber hung. She giggled, almost like a younger girl. "As are you, I see, as well."

The longer she looked at him, the more he looked like the man she had known twenty years before. The warrior and hero of the Windy Isles, Tanverus Crusus. Known to most as simply Verus. He had, in less than ten days, put an end to a war that had raged for years, and given the Windy Isles many long years of peace.