«It may not be good for you to be here,» said Blade. He hesitated. «The Sky People may come, and if they do ….»

«Yes, yes,» Loya said briskly, waving one hand to dismiss the matter. «Fudan has told me everything. I came anyway. Blade, there is nothing that can frighten me away from he who is to be my husband.»

«You seem to have tracked me down at last. Well then, huntress, come and claim your prey.» He stood up and held out both arms to her. Loya seemed to float into them without her feet touching the ground.

For some time Blade had wondered how Loya's long-limbed, finely muscled body would feel in his arms. Now he knew. She filled him with soaring excitement and at the same time tenderness. He was more to Loya than she could ever be to him, and nothing could be done about that in the long run. In the time they would have together, though, he would do anything possible to avoid hurting her or disappointing her.

Loya was tall enough so that he did not have to bend far to kiss her. He started on her forehead, brushed his lips down over both eyes and across the high-bridged nose, then brought his mouth against hers. He started gently but quickly sensed her demanding more and began to give it. Her tongue crept out between the even white teeth and he met it with his own. He felt a warm, deeply sensual welcome in that meeting of their tongues.

He would happily have let the kissing go on forever, but as his lips and Loya's met his hands were moving up and down her back and her hands were stroking the insides of his thighs. His hands slipped inside her trousers and drew her up against him, so that the swollen manhood under his loinguard was pressing upward between her thighs. Her hands crept upward across the broad chest, fingering the layers of muscle and the ridged scars. Then they darted down to yank aside the loinguard and suddenly close on the exposed flesh. Blade jerked as if he'd received an electric shock and stifled a gasp.

He could feel Loya's breath coming quickly now, her chest rising and falling, driving the solid curves of her breasts and the still more solid points of her nipples against him. He could feel her beginning to shiver, as if she were standing in a cold wind. He could feel that it was time for both of them.

It was agony to step apart even for a moment, but it was a short-lived agony and it made coming together again all the sweeter. Blade tore off his loinguard as Loya unlaced her trousers and pushed them down her long legs. She stepped forward, a perfect triangle of blue-black hair cradled between her thighs, rising on her toes as she came. Blade bent at the knees, so that they were perfectly positioned. Loya sank down, he rose up, and as he did he slid upward into the eagerly waiting warmth inside her.

Neither Loya nor Blade could have stayed apart a second longer. It would have made no difference to him if she'd weighed four hundred pounds-he still could have lifted her like a feather pillow, with the strength given by the overpowering desire in him.

He had no need to move, only to support Loya while she rose and fell and twisted as though all her limbs were suddenly made of elastic. She followed no pattern or rhythm, followed nothing except her own desire. Yet somehow what her desire demanded was exactly what would also perfectly satisfy Blade. It seemed to him that in the joining of their bodies they had also joined their minds, so they had only one consciousness between them.

Suddenly Loya seemed to spring upward, her arms locking hard around Blade's neck and her legs around his waist. All the breath went out of him under the pressure of those muscular limbs. A moment later all the breath went out of Loya as well, in a series of convulsive gasps. Her body arched forward and back, her head twisted from side to side and battered itself against Blade's shoulder. Then before she could be still it was Blade's back that arched like a tightly-drawn bow, and his arms and legs that gripped Loya as though his life would cease the moment he let her go. He did not gasp, for there was no breath left in his body. He stood until his body had found all its release and the room began to swim around him from the lack of oxygen. Slowly he sank to the floor, without releasing Loya, and her head sank forward onto his chest with a last moment of grace. Then they had no strength left to keep them from sprawling on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs and damp hair.

The strength to look at each other swiftly returned. The strength to sit up, laugh, talk, eat dried fish and seaweed from Loya's pack came a little later. It was hours before they found the strength or the desire to join again. The first loving had drained both of them so that for a time they were unable to even conceive of desire, let alone feel it.

That was something rare for Blade, and it meant that Loya was something equally rare among women. That was no surprise. He'd suspected it since they first met. Now that he could be certain, he could also hope that uniting the Hauri and the Kargoi might not be so difficult-if he had the time.

Chapter 23

Kayarna Kameda, Queen of Tor, sat on a blanket spread on the landward face of a sand dune a day's ride north of Tordas. She was naked, her long legs stretched out in front of her and her arms crossed over her full breasts. The breasts and the flesh of her arms and legs were all tanned and admirably firm for a woman of forty-two, although the waist showed the thickening inevitable after bearing three children.

Without the three children, though, she would not have felt free to spend the remaining years of her life pleasing herself as she chose. Kayarna Deda had always been known as one who understood her duties and gave them the attention they deserved.

A man stood on the crest of the sand dune above her, looking out over the fog-shrouded sea. He also was naked, and Kayarna had to admit she preferred him that way. Duskas Mon had just enough brains to command a troop of the Royal Guards. His real talents lay in other directions, and Kayarna would keep him busy in those directions as long as he could do his duty. She would not give him anything else, no matter how often he lost his temper. She could always coax him back to her bed, and if some day she could not-well, there were other strong young guardsmen in plenty who could fill his place. She would not risk giving Duskas more than he deserved. Jealousy among the captains and nobles over the advancement of royal favorites had cost more than one ruler of Tor throne and life.

She heard splashes and the squealing voices of young women on the far side of the dune. Kayarna sighed. The four serving maids who'd accompanied her and Duskas out here were bathing in the sea. No doubt one of the little fools had stepped on a stingray and would have to be carried back to the palace. The next time she came out here ….

Then the squeals turned into unmistakable screams of terror. Kayarna snatched up her sword from the corner of the blanket, sprang to her feet, and rushed up to the crest of the sand dune without bothering to dress. As she reached the crest Duskas shouted, «Get down, Glorious One!» and shoved her so hard that she fell to her knees. She started to flare angrily at this disrespect, then got a good look at what was coming out of the sea and fell silent.

A ship's boat lay in the shallows, while fifteen men climbed out of it and waded toward the beach. Each one wore a long robelike garment of chain mail and a metal helmet with long sharp horns jutting out on either side. Each carried a sword or an axe at his belt, and three of them carried long metal tubes with some sort of sculptured decorations at the end they held. Farther offshore, half visible in the fog, Kayarna saw two large ships, with more boats coming ashore from them.