In time they stopped. Blade had become so nearly addicted to them that in that moment he felt an almost anguished disappointment. But then the woman rose to her feet and placed both hands on the jeweled silver clasp of her pantaloons.

«Yes, my friend, you shall have what more you want. And you shall give me what more I want, what I want and need.» There was a thin smile on her face, but her deep voice was deepened still further and shaken by barely controlled passion. In those moments when she had been steadily piling up Blade's passion, she had also been building up her own.

Her fingers moved swiftly, and with a faint click the clasp of her pantaloons slipped open. They began to sag and slide, drifting down past her waist, revealing a broad-flat stomach. They kept on sliding, and the beginning of a gentle outward curve of hips came into view. Then the woman grinned and spread her legs apart, stopping the descent of the pantaloons. She must have been watching Blade's eyes, because her grin broadened.

«Indeed, my friend, such disappointment. You are ready.» Her hands moved again, this time up to the clasp that fastened her embroidered bodice in place. With another click that clasp also gave, and the bodice sagged open. More gentle curves came into view, the upper slopes of the woman's firm breasts. But this time the clothing did not stop moving. Slowly the bodice slipped down. Then suddenly she shrugged her shoulders and it slipped off completely and fell to the floor. Small rock-hard breasts sprang free, with smaller dark nipples standing up, engorged and firmed, into small jutting points.

The sight was too much for Blade's last fragments of self-restraint. He took two quick steps forward, and his arms went around the woman. His hands met at the small of her back and swiftly moved down under the waistband of her pantaloons. He clasped the satiny but firm buttocks. Involuntarily the woman gasped and her hips wiggled and jerked. The pantaloons slid the rest of the way down to the floor, landing in a heap about her feet. Blade could not see the dark hair that he knew must be covering her pubic mound. But he could feel it curling around his own engorged phallus as he pulled the woman hard against him.

As he did so, she gave a little leap, and came down on Blade's rigidity. It slid easily up into her already soaking interior. Her head went back and her eyes rolled up as her mouth opened to let out a moan of delight. For a moment she moaned so loud that Blade thought she was already reaching climax. The idea very nearly pushed him over the edge, and he almost groaned with the effort not to release then and there.

After a moment the strain faded once again, and it was no longer an effort to keep a steady rhythm inside the woman. She grew wetter and wetter as Blade stroked away, moaning at each thrust. He felt her weight grow heavier and heavier on him and against him. She was losing the ability to stand by herself as more and more of her became centered around Blade's massive maleness thrusting steadily up into her. Blade found her pushing down on him harder and harder, as though she could not bear to have him withdraw from her even the least bit.

Eventually, inevitably, she reached her first climax, and her body shook like a tree in a high wind. All her weight came on Blade, and they both nearly fell to the floor. Her mouth opened and became slack, and moans and whimperings like those of a dying animal came out of it.

Blade very nearly reached his own climax while the woman was in the middle of hers. The jerkings and twistings of her body, both inside and outside, managed to stimulate him still more. But the woman's climax faded away seconds before it triggered off Blade's.

As she became momentarily helpless, Blade summoned up his last bits of strength and lifted the woman up and carried her into the bedroom. For those seconds he was no longer inside her, and she whimpered at the unwelcome sensation. Then he swung her onto the bed and lowered her onto the light padding. She whimpered again. Before she could whimper a third time, he was atop her and back inside her, and his thrusts were coming in a mounting rhythm again.

This time Blade did not try to pace himself or hold back or wait for the woman. He was past self-restraint and past good bedroom manners. He was past anything except releasing the raw passion that was once again building up in him.

It built up quickly now, and the release also came quickly. The woman's second spasm came with Blade's. For a very long moment there were only two maddened animals thrashing about on the bed, uttering animals' moans and cries, without the smallest piece of reason left between them.

The moment of release and madness passed for both of them. Blade mustered up enough strength to roll off the woman instead of sagging down on her and flattening her into the mattress. But that was the last strength he could muster up for quite a while. The frantic bout of sex on top of the fight, the run, and the leap across the moat had thoroughly drained him.

Eventually his fogged vision cleared and his breathing slowed to something like normal. He felt enough strength returning to raise himself on one elbow and look down at the woman sprawled on the bed beside him. Her mouth was still sagging open, but life and reason were returning to her eyes also. Finally her mouth closed, she raised a hand to push tangled and sweat-soaked hair back from her eyes. Then once again her face broke in that oddly appealing grin.

«Perhaps I should say, 'Well done,' as I often say to a warrior who has distinguished himself,» she said. «But perhaps other words are needed for this. There are any number of warriors in Gonsara strong in other parts of their bodies. But your strength extends farther than theirs, into one place more than theirs. Yes, you deserve something special.»

This seemed to require some comment from Blade. «Perhaps. But that is at your discretion-my lady.»

«It is indeed at my discretion,» said the woman with a grin. «I am Queen Jaskina of Gonsara.»

Chapter 18

This remark also seemed to require some response from Blade. He could not very easily bow while lying on a bed. Nor could he quite see the need to be courtly and formal to the queen under the circumstances. He contented himself with a deferential nod and a murmured, «I am honored.»

She patted him intimately. «As was I, my friend. And now perhaps you will tell me your name. We have not, after all, been properly introduced.» The grin was back on her face as she said that.

Blade held yet another mental debate with himself over what to tell her. If she was telling the truth about being Queen of Gonsara, it was beyond possibility for her to be an ally of the cult of Ayocan. If she was lying-well, he would face that when and if he had to.

«I am a warrior from a distant people, the English. My name is Richard Blade. I did indeed make an enemy of the cult of Ayocan. But that was in Chiribu, where I came across the mountains from my part of the world into yours. Now I serve King Hurakun of Chiribu.»

Without leaving out any of the crucial details, Blade told Jaskina of what he had done and what he was supposed to do. The queen listened in silence, her eyes fixed on Blade's face, and her lips drawn tight over her even white teeth. All during Blade's tale there was not the slightest trace of the ready grin in her face. And she only spoke once, after Blade mentioned killing Pterin.

«I wonder-do you think he knew who was killing him?

«I have wondered about that myself. I rather doubt it.»

«That is too bad. It would have made his death just that much harder. And the priests of Ayocan one and all deserve a hard death. Now perhaps we can see that they get it.»

We.