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Chapter 5 –
She tried to stir there in the back of the wagon bouncing in and out of ruts, willing her hair to lift. Her hair hung limply down in the heat, soaked with sweat and the semen of soldiers who had pulled out of her mouth to spend themselves over her.
The soldiers in their lust to rape her had not taken time at all to throw even a rag over Avedra as they finished with her. She did think that it made not so much difference anymore; her entire body was now tanned from the increasing time she had spent outside and naked. But it would have been nice to at least have a sip of lukewarm water. Dried cum coated her tongue and lips, her chin; she had no recollection of the number of soldiers who had taken turns in the back of the open wagon.
Edern followed the wagon on horseback. He drank from a wineskin himself but soaked in her sexual humiliation. The alchemist had suggested that she be tied in the back of the wagon on her knees spread, arms tight in the small of her back, a tight rope around her neck to a ring in the wagon bed. Avedra's pleasing ass was meant to be thrust up, inviting her fucking. And the soldiers had not refused.
"Alchemist!" the guard captain called back over his shoulder as he pulled out of Avedra's anus, "this one is a right fine bitch! How about you leave her with us while you voyage? We will make it worth your while!"
Edern shook his head good-naturedly. What you don't understand, you dolt, he thought to himself, is that she is not some simple slut of a whore for merely soldiers' use. Her humiliation at your hands serves a much higher purpose.
Edern rode up beside the wagon as the captain slid out the back and onto his own horse. The alchemist stared down at her covered with cum and sweat and dust. Yes, he thought, you will indeed serve a higher purpose.
Avedra sensed through the lust that covered her including her own soaking juices and past the aching muscles (she wondered if her knees would ever be the same again) a cooling breeze. The breeze curled over the edge of the wagon and toyed with her thighs. It carried the scent of salt, and she looked up at the alchemist with a question.
"Please, water…I need some…water. Please…I smell…the breeze…what?"
"Ah, so you live, slut…excellent! Yes, we are almost at port, although I'm surprised that you can smell the tide over your own lust. You have served the Goddess well this day."
Avedra couldn't hold her head up and stared at the same rough boards she had stared at for hours. The port. He meant that they were at the sea, the place where they were to set sail, the place that had excited her so much with its mystery. And all she could do was sag in her bonds.
She glanced up over the edge of the wagon sideboards. Buildings with more than one story, buildings like she had never seen before, hoofs and the wheels now clattering over cobblestones…she must now be in the port itself. She wondered at the soldiers leaving her naked and bound in the back; would not the townspeople think something was amiss?
Edern noticed some of the townspeople glancing idly in the back of the wagon at the naked apprentice and then hurrying along. Bound feminine nudity wasn't all that common, but they might be thinking her a criminal escorted by the king's army. They certainly were not going to question armed men wearing the king's colors.
The wagon stopped with a great deal of shouting.
Avedra could hear a metal gate grind open. The wagon rumbled through into a courtyard, and the gate closed.
"Welcome to the Inn of the Red Seahorse, my lords!" a boisterous female voice boomed out. "The food and women are hot, and the ale runs a flood!"
Avedra's eyes burned from the smoke. The Inn of the Red Seahorse was known for the blood red meat of strange sea animals smoked on iron grills over smoky fires but not for the ventilation of the smoke. The king's guard settled in for a raucous night before depositing Edern and herself ship side in time for the morning tide.
The innkeeper, a tall blonde woman whose name she didn't hear, seemed more an instigator of drunken wrestling amongst the patrons than anything else. The noise was deafening.
Edern had tried to bring Avedra bound and nude into the inn.
"Ho, there, you! And just what do you think you're about?"
"I wouldn't suggest that you try telling me what to do. I am an agent of the king," Edern snarled.
The innkeeper grabbed Edern's robes under his chin and thrust him back up against the side of the wagon.
"I don't care if you whore your ass to the king himself," she snarled in return. "I won't have you bringing your naked bitch into my inn. I have enough problems with drunken soldiers and sailors and the like. And if you decide to cross me, you won't ever get out of this port alive."
Edern's eyes grew big. I will remember her, he thought. She won't be expecting me to return, but I will. Oh, I will.
Avedra went off to the stables under the watchful gaze of a soldier to clean herself as best she could with a horse brush and a bucket of cold well water. And only then did the innkeeper allow her through the door clothed in the simple short dress of a country girl.
She knelt behind Edern in the dim light, unwilling to be seen, content to bite at a scrap of meat now and again that Edern held in his fingertips. The smoke became even more bitter; she cried.
Somewhere in the middle of the night she woke up from dozing at Edern's side. The fire had died down as well as the tumult. Soldiers had wandered off or even collapsed as they sat, the victims of sea-going ale and the occasional female charm. Townspeople had wandered out the door and maybe to home.
A shadowy high-pitched squeal of a voice came from across the table. Odd, Avedra thought, that she couldn't tell if the voice was male or female.
"Your bitch apprentice is awake, Master Alchemist."
"It's not important. Tell me again about the nushadir . "
The whiny voice trailed off a bit and started again. "…troubles and pitfalls, that is the journey. The key, the key… nushadir is the key. Fire Mountain is where, on the east side of the Valley of the Gryphon's Moon…the ground bubbles beneath the feet , and you'll thank the Goddess if she stayed with you!"
"Not so loud. I don't trust anybody with anything, not even you."
"The girl…you keep her close…so close…she must be…special."
"Shut up, I tell you."
Avedra nodded off again, the voices misting into a dream.