Conan said, ‘We couldn’t risk you killing all the women. We wanted three at least for our pleasure, and Grania especially to keep for a special death. You would have taken their heads in three blows.’
Niall plucked a charred roast of beef from the embers, brushed off the ash and ate hungrily. ‘Where’s Fergus?’ he asked through mouthfuls, and Conan nodded to a dark side of the house.
There was a tangle of white limbs there and after a moment Niall realised he was staring at Fergus’ thrusting body, lying between the kicking legs of one of the women; his lips, pressed hard and mercilessly on her own, were stopping her cries; her arms were securely tied above her head, at the base of the wall.
‘The others?’ asked Niall, and this time his gaze was directed to the opposite side of the house.
In the dimness, sitting upright but tied and helpless, glowering at him, were the other two women. One of them, a red-haired, dark-eyed woman, her jawline strong and proud, her lips full and glistening, her whole bearing angry and sexual, this one was surely Grania herself.
Blood trickled from bite wounds on her neck and shoulders. There were red weals on her jutting breasts, and scratch marks on the insides and outsides of her ample thighs. She had been the first to know the lust of both these fiana.
Niall cast the half-eaten roast back on to the fire. He knew that Conan would expect him to finalise the rape, before they slit the woman open in their particularly nasty way.
This made him nervous.
After a while Fergus had spent his energy and interest in the woman warrior and came back to the fire, his thick member slapping against his legs until he had drawn on his leather breech-clout.
He was breathing heavily, and grinning with enormous satisfaction. ‘My stomach muscles are killing me,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘If it wasn’t for that I’d go round again.’
‘Pig!’ spat Grania from the corner, and Fergus laughed. He winked at Niall. ‘She’s as strong as a cow,’ he said, ‘and has teeth in it, I’m sure. But she actually moaned with pleasure after the first hour, so there’s a woman in there somewhere.’
‘Good,’ said Niall, still staring at the fire. Vague memories, not his own, painted a picture of a woman, open to his lust and thrust, and welcoming his dripping body with every fibre of her flesh and blood. He could sense the coolness of air on his back, and the way her hands moved from his shoulders to the rigid flesh of his rump, and under him to tease and caress him as he entered her. But none of these memories were his own, and the bodily experience that he needed before he could take Grania and the others was lacking.
And he felt ashamed to admit it to Fergus.
Remembering the standing stone, he found an excuse to hide his embarrassment. He asked if they had found it.
Conan shook his head. ‘It’s here. But these bitches have buried it somewhere, tired of its unprompted pronouncements. They don’t seem inclined to tell us where it can be found.’
When Niall expressed worry, Fergus slapped him on the knee, then reached up and patted his breech-clout, grinning. ‘What’s the hurry, boy? Your snow sword isn’t the only weapon you possess that needs some blooding.’
Nervously clutching the bull amulet around his neck, Niall glanced at the two women again; Grania was staring at him thoughtfully. The other girl, her breasts and stomach scarred with their heritage of war, stared beyond him at the third surviving member of their band. This third girl lay flat out, legs still apart, her breath ragged and deep. Niall almost hated to think what Fergus had done with her, but he suspected that no metal blade had found its way into her body: he just knew what he was doing, that was all.
‘Niall? What holds you up, boy?’
Fergus’ gaze was intent and interested. Niall met that gaze, only looking away when Grania snickered from her bondage in the corner. The war queen said, ‘The baby still smells his mother’s womb. Leave him alone. He has years to go before he is ready for a woman.’
Fergus jumped quickly to his feet and walked to where Grania squirmed away from him; grasping her by her thick red hair he dragged her back to the fire, ignoring her cries of pain. Throwing her near to where Niall crouched by the fire he jerked her upright on her knees so that the boy was close enough to kiss her.
‘Look at this Niall; look at this body. Take it from me, who knew his first woman at the age of ten, nearly fifteen years ago! Take it from me you’ll not see many women as plump and ripe and fit as this one. Look,’ he reached down and cupped Grania’s fat right breast in his hand, squeezed it so the orange nipple stood an inch out from the mound of flesh. ‘You’ll not find much bigger or firmer than that, friend Niall. Take it, enjoy it while you still may. Look!’ He jerked the woman round by the leather strips that bound her arms tight behind her so that her round, tanned haunches faced him, the dark cleft between them an invitation to Niall’s sexual senses that he had never before experienced. ‘Get in there, Niall,’ growled Fergus, slapping him heavily round the head, father-like but friendly. ‘By morning this beauty’s paps will hang from a headless corpse, and her head will ride proud and red-haired on the end of my great broad-bladed war spear.’
He finalised the woman’s indignity by flinging her at Niall. The fiana caught her body and swung it across his shoulder, after briefly meeting the impassive, searching gaze of the war queen.
‘If it’s privacy you want, young first-timer,’ said Fergus, ‘take her to the stabling hut next to the house.’
Niall climbed to his feet, bearing the woman’s weight easily. She hung limply over his shoulder, her tied hands across her back resting against his cheek. Fergus slapped her buttocks and winked at the Connachtman. ‘Don’t come back with her unless she has to walk on all fours.’
Conan chuckled, eyed the scarred woman in the corner hungrily. ‘In the name of the Dagda get on with screwing the cow. All this talk is getting me aroused again and I haven’t the energy for it.’
Carrying the strangely placid woman out of the house, Niall found the low-roofed, straw-filled stabling hut, and flung Grania on to the floor. She lay there, quiet, staring up at him; her only movement was to shift slightly and make her arms more comfortable beneath her.
Niall took off his breech-clout, glad to do so since his excitement made the garment uncomfortable to wear. Grania stared at him, and at his loins, and smiled … her smile was encouraging.
Suddenly sensing the prowling, scowling Bear in his head … suddenly sensing the watchful eyes of a northman called Swiftaxe … suddenly remembering his quest, the desperate need to shake this god, Odin, from possession of his life, Niall dropped to his knees between the parted legs of the war queen.
‘Tell me where the standing stone is buried! Tell me!’
‘Release me first.’ Her voice was deep and strong, almost a whisper, a far more sensual voice than he remembered from the skirmish in Connacht. The sound of it, the richness of the tone, excited Niall in more ways than he realised was possible. He stared at her moist lips, the perfect white teeth that were shown to him as Grania smiled … a perfect smile.
Her breasts rose and fell as she breathed, and Niall found himself reaching out with both hands and kneading and feeling them, touching the crinkly skin of the woman’s nipples, longing to put his lips to the jutting fingers of orange-brown flesh. Beneath his touch Grania’s body shuddered and lifted; her eyes half closed, and a soft moan escaped her lips, cut off abruptly, so that only Niall’s intense awareness of the woman enabled him to detect the spasm of pleasure.
‘You’ve never known a woman, have you?’ she said, and Niall, hating himself, shook his head.
The Bear laughed and he silently cursed it.
Grania merely smiled, not a mocking smile, but a smile of encouragement. ‘Touch me again,’ she said, and Niall reached out, conscious of his nearness to the final expression of lust, and cupped and squeezed her breasts. ‘Kiss them.’
He kissed them, ran his lips from swelling slopes to jutting nipples, bit and probed with hi
s tongue, felt the way they gave and swelled, as if reacting to his every move. Beneath his mouth Grania twisted and writhed, a growing ecstasy that added to his own desire.
‘Free my hands,’ she said, ‘so I can caress you.’
‘I daren’t,’ said Niall, rising up and staring at the woman’s spreadeagled body, slick with sweat, dark between her legs where brown hair concealed the entrance to her body, a tight, thick triangle that he was urgent to touch, to penetrate. ‘I daren’t.’
‘Never mind. Kiss me again, kiss my lips … quickly …’
He lay out upon her, the swollen staff of his manhood stretched between them, hurting with his weight pressing it into the bone of her hips. His lips touched hers, then pressed against them more fiercely, moving against the wetness of her mouth, answering the darting explorations of her tongue with probings of his own. Their mouths opened wide and he explored her teeth and her tongue, and all the time he was conscious of her warm body beneath him, the hard swellings of breasts, and the gentle slope of her belly across which he lay. He slipped between her legs which slowly slid along his own; her feet (cold, so cold compared to the rest of her body) slipping inside his knees, pinning him to her, drawing him closer to her loins.
‘Unfree my hands. I’ll guide you into me …’
‘I daren’t,’ he said again, reluctant to spare the time for speech, pushing his mouth back against hers, not letting her twist her head away again to speak.
With his own fingers he tried to find the hole in her, but his member buckled and twisted against her groin, and she winced with the pain of it.
‘Untie me,’ she gasped, her eyes screwed tight shut. Panicking, Niall almost obeyed, so urgent was he to join with the woman.
‘I daren’t!’ he said, angry, terrified, torn between doing as she said and obeying his instinct which told him her request was part of a trick to gain her freedom.
‘If I tell you where the speaking stone is buried,’ she said, leaning up as best she could to kiss him, to lick his lips, and bite his lip in a way that made him start with pain, but enjoy the pain and try and bite her back … ‘If I tell you where the stone is, will you release me then?’
‘No,’ said Niall. ‘Fergus would kill me … and that means I would kill Fergus, because there is no man alive who can beat me at mortal combat.’
‘If I can help you enter me,’ said Grania, kissing him again, staring straight into his eyes in a way that made him surge with love, ‘there will be no man alive who can better you at love; for all your shyness, Niall, you are a powerful and sexual young man.’ She seemed to think for a second, then said, ‘Whatever happens, whatever you come to believe in days ahead, believe that, Niall, believe that. Unite me, I beg you!’
She hissed this last and such was her hypnotic power that Niall’s hand strayed to the small dirk that was tucked into the leather thongs of his belt, lying close by. But he stopped himself, and shook his head.
‘I promise you this,’ he said, almost unable to think because of the pressure and the pain in his groin, and the thick, throbbing stalk of flesh that lay so redundantly between them. ‘If you tell me where the stone is buried I shall insist that Fergus spares your life. I promise that, with all my heart.’
‘Oh Niall,’ she gasped. ‘Would you? Would you? Will he spare my life? Will he listen to you?’
Niall nodded, brought the bull pendant up to his lips and kissed it. ‘I swear on this precious stone that your life will be spared.’
‘I agree,’ she whispered. ‘The stone is buried quite shallowly on the western slope of the mound, facing the setting sun. It is just outside the palisade, several feet down.’
‘Thank you for that,’ said Niall.
‘Oh sweet Danu, oh Morrigan and Mucha, this man keeps talking …’ her eyes were closed, her body arching and thrusting against him, ‘and his massive, beautiful member lies outside me. Guide him, goddesses all, guide him, to love me …’
Almost screaming his desire, almost lost in the intensity of his passion, Niall again thrust at the woman’s body, but his clumsiness and his inexperience brought him hard against her, unable to find the angle or the aperture.
‘Cut my bonds,’ she gasped, eyes still closed. ‘For Danu’s sake, quickly, quickly, or I shall achieve release without you. Quickly!’
And this time he obeyed, pulling her over, still held tight against him, still kissing her face, still rammed hard between her legs, and cut through the three leather straps that held her arms.
As he tried to roll back on to her, waiting for the touch of her fingers on him, helping him into her sweet, soft fleshed body, he felt his head spin, and an intense and incredible pain in his groin …
Agony!
He tried to scream, but a fleshy palm pressed against his mouth.
He tried to move but a shocking, paralysing pain in his genitals rooted him to the straw, and gradually he realised that she had kneed him with all her strength, and was now on top of him.
Grania’s face was a mask of triumph, an evil, ferocious grin stretched across it, her eyes wide with the anticipation of revenge in the form of Niall’s head hacked slowly from his torso. She held his knife. With two swift blows from her hand she numbed his arms, then she kneed him expertly in the thighs and his legs went dead. He lay helpless beneath her, while she reached down and pressed the cutting edge of the blade against the base of his stiff and aching member; her thumb closed round the other side, and pressed, so that the metal cut into his skin. To add embarrassment to agony he spilled his seed across his belly. He wanted to both cry and scream, but her hand still held him dumb.
She grinned as she started to cut his manhood from him. Then she stopped.
Her eyes stared deeply into his, and her gaze flickered occasionally to his lips, still concealed beneath her hand. She was unsure.
At last she said, ‘I can’t do this. I don’t know why, but I can’t. I ought to mutilate you where you lay, but … I can’t. Let me just say that I shall spare your sex and your life, Niall. Despite the warrior that I am, at heart I am a woman, and I enjoy men, and certain men, and certain loves and lusts, and that joy does not ashame me. Shyness is a quality that I find becomes a man, and you are the shyest most sincere man who has ever nearly become my lover. For all that I needed your naïvety, Niall, I enjoyed your touch, and your innocence, and the feel of you, and I wish we could have finished what you so desire. Perhaps one day we shall. For the moment, though, I feel that Eriu has seen the last of me. I flee to the east, where my sword-skill will earn me power and fortune. Take care of yourself, young warrior, and never be beguiled again.’
And with that she struck him on the temple and knocked him dizzy, though he remained conscious enough to feel the way she ripped the pendant from around his neck, and then to watch as her body blocked the entrance to the stable for a moment, and then vanished into the night.
Later he found the strength to cry out, and Fergus ran to him, and discovered what had happened.
For a while the two men crouched together in the tiny, unused stable, staring at each other. In both their minds was the thought of combat, fought in the river near to the mound. But Fergus did not really desire to fight in close combat with Niall, and Niall had no such desires to take the life of this man who had brought him so near to so many dreams.
‘In future …’ said Fergus.
‘I shall be more careful,’ said Niall.
The Bear laughed. Niall swore, and when Fergus looked questioningly, he explained that the spectre that haunted him was intolerant of his naïvety.
‘Their horses were all killed in the fight,’ said Fergus, ‘And our own are still safe, I noticed that when I came in answer to your cry. On foot she cannot pass more than a mile beyond the river before dawn. I shall soon catch her.’
‘You alone?’
‘I should have killed her when I could,’ said Fergus. ‘But I shall not make the same mistake again.’
And then came Conan’s agonised cry
, and both Niall and Fergus raced into the house.
The third woman warrior, she whom Fergus had been riding when Niall had regained consciousness, and who was less strongly tied than she should have been, this woman had finally recovered from her exhaustion and had attacked Conan.
The brave and youthful warrior lay across the fire, half his head caved in where a stone axe had been used to expert effect. The weapon, a relic of some farmer’s primitive armoury left here, perhaps, when the warrior women had taken over, glistened red in the woman’s grip.
Fergus dragged Conan from the fire, brushed the flames from his hair and chest, and then drew his sword as the woman attacked him. He threw her aside, and wrenched the stone axe from her hand. In two swift motions he severed her head, flinging the trophy on to the fire. The corpse he dragged outside and opened up so that the carrion eaters of the dawn might feed their fill.
Then he went back inside to where Niall was gently applying some watery oil to the terrible burns on Conan’s body.
The warrior was still alive, and after a while he looked up and smiled. A thin stream of spittle ran from the corner of his mouth, and his eyes closed.
‘Bring him outside,’ said Fergus, glancing at the woman still tied in the corner as he addressed Niall.
‘Kill me,’ said the woman, realising that Fergus had something nasty in mind. ‘I have given you nothing but the trouble that one warrior gives another. Kill me honourably.’
Fergus, dark and looking tired and old, snapped again: ‘Get him outside. I’m going to burn this house to the ground.’
As Niall dragged the half-skulled warrior outside he heard again the woman’s impassioned plea for an honourable death.
Laying Conan down on the cold ground, staring up at the bright stars, Niall rose and went to walk back inside the house.
Fergus barred his way. ‘Burn the house,’ he said, and when Niall hesitated he grew angry. ‘Burn it!’
‘The fire is inside,’ said Niall, and stood while Fergus fetched a brand from the fire, then closed the door. Niall, the flaming wood held tightly in his hand, ran around the house and set light to the thatch, and the wooden and muddy walls. The house blazed, a tremendous beacon that could probably be seen from the four main provinces, and could certainly be seen from the fifth.