Part 16 (2/2)
Karbree smote his breastplate with a ringing clang. ”On my honour as a member of the Gnomish Council-I, Karbree the Worm, swear that you will be unharmed if you cooperate! Pilot the three of us to Bardelask speedily, get us past the Tanu marine patrol at Roniah and through the four stretches of rapids, and we will set you free in your own boat when we arrive safe at our destination.”
The baggage was all stowed and dwarf troopers stood ready at the bow and stern lines, Karbree smiled, held out a hand to the skipper, and said, ”Let me carry your anchor into the wheelhouse.”
The woman chewed her lower lip. ”Well ... ”
”Such a well-kept craft,” Skathe said. ”She must be very fast.
How long will it take for us to make the trip, dear?”
”I can get you to Bardy-Town inside of twenty-six hours. Less if this puke blows away and I can shoot the rapids at speed.”
”Wonderful,” said the ogress. ”Let's be off.”
”All right, it's a deal.” The skipper marched up the gangplank with Karbree solicitously bearing the anchor, and a few minutes later they were on their way.
In the calm stretch of water below Roniah, when deepening night and the fog transformed the pla.s.s-roofed boat into a gently rocking womb, Tony dozed again and it seemed that the terrible creature who held him in thrall was not a Firvulag she-warrior at all, but his own Howler bride, Rowane.
”I didn't want to leave you,” he mumbled. ”It's just that I'm not too strong these days. If only they hadn't robbed me of my silver torc, it would have been all right. Forgive me for going away. Forgive me ... ”
She said, ”But you didn't go, darling Tonee. You're right here with me. You don't have to be afraid. Just love me the way you used to do.”
”I can't, without the torc. That's the trouble.” But Rowane-or was it the scarlet-haired houri?-was tantalizingly insistent, and he was trying to remember a danger, and pus.h.i.+ng at her, and thras.h.i.+ng about on some couch that was much too narrow, and when his sleep-drugged eyes opened and he finally saw-”
”Aaugh!” he screamed, and threw a wild punch. He fell off the slippery leather couch and landed flat on his face. Fortunately, the deck of the pneumatic craft was quite resilient.
”Everything all right back there?” came the amused voice of Karbree from the forward cabin.
”No!” said Skathe. ”Mind your own business, Worm.”
The houri lifted Tony and sat him back on the couch. The only light was a greenish glow from some redundant instrumentation in the stern. This had the unfortunate effect of turning the succubus's hair from scarlet to muddy grey. Cuddling up to him, she began to kiss the angle of his jaw and stroke his spine.
He flinched. ”Please don't. I'd like my clothes back.”
Her fingernails nipped his earlobe. The kisses skittered down his chest like light-footed insects.
”I'd like something else!”
But he was s.h.i.+vering and pulled away. ”You have a lot to learn about human men. You really can't make me, you know.
I have to be in the mood. Which at this moment I most emphatically am not.”
”Are you frightened, poor baby? There's no need to be. After our little experiment, I promise to let you go. Just ... cooperate a little! Our people have always been very prejudiced against alliances with you humans. But lately there have been rumours-from the Howler women at Nionel who took human mates-that you were something special.”
In spite of himself, Tony felt a prideful chauvinistic stirring.
”There's a certain allure,” he ventured primly, ”in novelty.”
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