The Chosen and the Marked

[After defeating all the bandits, Lyn and Lily continue westward. She and her colleagues stop for the night at a ruined fortress. The Ganelon bandits are in a rage after their brethren fell to Lyn’s swords. They race in pursuit of the two lovers and their companions. Their angry footsteps sound closer and closer…]

Chapter Four
In Occupation’s Shadow

Wil approached the old, run down, stone fortress. The ivy crawled up the walls and through the cracks in the hundreds of years old brick. He grinned, an arm around Florina. “Ah, this should suffice!” he exclaimed, making a grand sweep of his free arm to show the fortress. “Tonight’s bed!”

Sain laughed with disgust. “This mildewy old fortress? Is this the best we can do?” he asked of him, dismounting from his horse to approach Wil. “Come, Wil. Surely, you jest!”

Florina shook her head in denial. “The bandits keep everything in turmoil around here. No one has time worry about travelers,” Florina explained, then looked around our group: to me and Lyn, one arm around each other; and Kent on horseback. “And there are rather a lot of us,” she pointed out, giving a tug on her Pegasus towards the old fortress.

“This’ll do just fine, Sain,” Lyn stated. “Who wants to be stuck inside, anyway?” she asked cheekily. “I prefer a place where I can feel the wind blow,” she added.

I shrugged with one arm. “As long as I’m at Lyn’s side, I’ll be fine,” I pointed out.

“Sain, both you and I are to remain awake. We will alternate the watch,” Kent told his partner.

“Ah, alas…” Sain commented.

I paused and disengaged from Lyn, my eyes closed. I leaned my head towards the building. I walked slowly towards it, drawing my blade. I got to the entrance and quickly melted the lock away with a bit of fire. “Who’s there?” I asked the seemingly empty room.

“Your pardon, milady…” a voice from the shadows said to me, her voice scared and nervous. I lowered my weapon and relaxed a bit to show I’m not a threat to her. “I… forgive my intrusion… My name’s Natalie. I’m from a village not far from here…” she explained then cried out in pain, clutching her leg.

I took a quick few steps to you. “Are you okay? Your leg…” I commented with a small gesture. Lyn had entered in behind me, sheathing her sword. The rest of our group filed in and set up camp within the walls, Sain and Kent at the front doors.

“It’s fine, don’t worry. It’s from a childhood sickness, Puolyo…” She explained; I knew the sickness from where I was from. “I can’t travel far on it, but it doesn’t trouble me much,” she told us.

“What are you doing here all by yourself?” Lyn asked, worriedly.

“I’m looking for my husband…I heard he was in the area,” Natalie said. “He said he was going to raise money to have my leg mended. He left the village and hasn’t returned,” she explained, limping over to the fallen timber support to use as a bench. Lyn and I helped her along and to sit down.

“He’s a kindhearted man, but I think he might be involved in something dangerous. I got so worried…” she reached down the front of her dress and pulled out a scrap of parchment. “Here’s a sketch of him,” she told us, showing us the near perfect rendition of a thirty-year-old man with stubble and semi-long hair for a man. “It’s a poor likeness at best, but… his name is Dorcas. Do you know of him?” Natalie asked us.

I shook my head and Lyn replied. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe I’ve seen or heard of him,” she told the distraught woman.

“I see… If you do meet him, please give him a message. Tell him that Natalie is looking for him,”

“We will tell him, we promise,” I replied.

****

“Ganelon!” Wil bellowed, letting fly an arrow over the wall and down the hillside, catching one of them in the chest.

“Lady Lyndis, Lady Lillian!” Kent exclaimed, causing us to rush over to him. “Outside the fortress! Bandits!” He told us.

Sain sighed and scanned the horizon of rushing bandits, jumping up onto his stead, Ilona. Kent mounted his stead, Lexis, and they both drew their swords. “Persistent bunch, aren’t they? Shall we go out and face them?” Sain asked.

I shook my head, drawing my sword, Lyn doing the same. “No… Natalie cannot move well, and that would put her in danger. Let them come to us. We’ll fight here, within these walls,” I stated.

Kent and Sain rode to the front gate, waiting in partial cover. Florina took to the skies on Kayla, her mount. Together they scanned the area for the number of enemies.

“Rest easy, Natalie. No one will harm you!” Lyn told her.

“Listen, everyone!” I called out. “Fight with caution, it is getting dark!”

Lyn nudged me. “Love, I’ll take the eastern…look past the broken wall, is that who I think it is?” she asked me.

“He does look exactly like the drawing Natalie showed us,” I said to her. “We’ll go tell him his wife is here,”

We rushed off to him and unluckily for me right as he threw his axe, I stopped. It caught me in shoulder and I hit the ground hard. I stood up with Lyn’s help and removed the hand axe from my body. “You!” I bellowed at him. “Tell me, are you Dorcas?”

“…How do you know my name?” he asked, bewildered. I handed him back his axe, using my healing touch to cure my wound. I felt my legs go shaky and Lyn hold me up. That spell takes most of my strength away for a short while.

“Natalie told us,” Lyn replied, talking for me; an action I was grateful for. I loved her a lot for what she did for and to me. “What are you doing with these rogues?” she asked him.

“I need money…” Dorcas replied bluntly as we beckoned him inside, towards Natalie.

“That may be, but… joining up with mercenaries?” Lyn asked him. I could feel my strength recovering already.

“It’s the only way to earn gold in these parts,” he explained. “I’ll do anything… even this,”

“For gold? Anything? Would you hurt your wife?” I asked him a bit harshly. “Natalie is here! We’re protecting her within this fortress. To her, that’s where we’re taking you!”

He stopped suddenly, his axe hitting the ground, falling from his hand. “What!? Natalie’s… she’s here?”

“She was so worried that she came looking for you. Think, Dorcas!” Lyn said to him. “Would your actions please your wife?”

Dorcas looked away and picked up his axe again, looking back to all the fighting going on. “…You’re right,”

“Well?” Lyn asked.

“I understand. I can’t do this. I’m done with these bandits. Here and now, and I would repay your kindness to Natalie by helping you out against them,” Dorcas said.

“Well, let’s do this,” I said simply.

****

Lyn and I slew the second to last bandit simultaneously, our swords plunging into him. Dorcas stood up by the entrance, helping the wounded Sain back into the fortress. We turned our eyes back on the leader, a determined look on both of our faces. “Ready to give up?” We asked him in unison.

He let out a cry of frustration and lifted his axe to his shoulder. “How? Why are they so tough?” I sliced him through his clothes and drew blood on his chest, which poured down quickly. The blow wasn’t fatal, but it hurt a lot.

“Because we’re devoted to our cause,” I replied to him. He swung at us, but we dodged easily. Both blades came up quickly and caught him through the stomach and chest, coming out the other side.

He coughed up a lot of blood and groaned in pain at our lethal blows. “This isn’t… Not me…” he said, going limp. We rolled his body off our blades and headed back to the fortress.

****

“The enemy’s fled…” Lyn told me while cleaning her blade off. I opted to do so out in the grass outside. The sight of blood on my blade made me sick to my stomach. It was part of my aversion to killing. She, being so perceptive, noticed my uneasy look and beckoned me closer as she sheathed her blade.

I came closer only to be met with her lips. “I hate it, too… she told me. All the killing…” she said softly, kissing me again. “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to…” she kissed me again. Her words putting my mind at ease while her lips putting my body on fire. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed deeply, needing the feel of each other together.

Her hand traveled down my shoulder and cupped my chest, massaging it gently. I groaned against her lips but that only spurred her on. The Lorcan warrior slipped her hand up under my tunic and put her hand on my bare breast. I whimpered as her fingers toyed with my hardening nipple.

Lyn didn’t seem content to stay there as we kissed, her hand leaving my breast and going lower, to under my leather skirt. I gasped the moment she pushed aside my undergarments and her fingers caressed the skin there. She took my moment of pause to slip her tongue into my mouth, which I accepted readily.

We kissed, our tongues dueling. She casually pushed a finger into me, which my core greedily accepted. Lyn established a fast yet strong pace of pumping in and out of me, which spawned a fast yet strong building of pressure in my abdomen. I gasped again and moaned softly; the sound was lost in my lover’s mouth.

The pressure built to a maximum and I let out a silent moan into her mouth, my muscles clutching her finger tightly.

I came. Lyn made me come on her finger. I smiled at the thought and kissed her deeply. “I love you,” I told her. She pulled away her messy hand and licked it clean, clearly pleased by the taste.

Lyn fixed my displaced clothing and smiled back at me. “I love you, too,”

****

“Our village is close,” Dorcas said. “I’ll take Natalie home and return tomorrow, since I agreed to fight for you,”

“You did?” Lyn asked, confused.

“Yes, I spoke with Lily and I’ve been invited to join your group,” he explained. Lyn looked at me curiously.

“I would of told you, but we were a bit distracted,” a told her, a faint blush in my cheeks.

“Oh, yes. That we were,” she replied; a faint blush in her cheeks, too. “But we’re going to Lycia…”

“I have to go somewhere to earn money,” Dorcas said, “Lycia is better than here. Plus, you helped my wife, I owe you,”

****

“Things have finally calmed down…” I said to Kent.

“We shall take turns keeping watch, rest easily, Lady Lillian,” he told me.

“You sure?” I asked him.

“Sleep well, you and Lady Lyndis,” he said with a knowing smirk.

I gaped at him. “Smutty mind!” I declared, storming off to where Lyn was.