Scarlet Sands
by Ric Bern
Breathless Press
Calgary, Alberta
www.breathlesspress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Scarlett Sands
Copyright© 2011 Ric Bern
Published by Breathless Press at Smashwords
ISBN: 978-1-77101-036-8
Cover Artist: Victoria Miller
Editor: Jackie Moore
All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
electronically or in print without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations
embodied in reviews.
Breathless Press
www.breathlesspress.com
Scarlet Sands
by Ric Bern
Chapter One
Noricum, c. 200 A.D.
Mist wafted from the destrier’s snout as it mounted the escarpment. Thick hooves fell on a trail that was little more than a shelf of rock that jutted jaggedly from the face of a barren ridge. Forced outward by unseen pressure churning within the earth, the path cut to and fro in a series of switchbacks. The ebony equine moved slowly, skittish to be steered into so precipitous a situation. Only Ulf’s firm hand and guidance calmed it by powerfully guiding its movements. The barbarian masterfully tugged at the reins and nudged with his knees and heels, urging the hulking horse to the top of the cliff. Asmin, seated in front of Ulf, leaned hard against him and closed her eyes tightly. Gripping the tack in one hand, his other arm held her tight in the saddle and firm to his body. She held his ropy forearm for purchase as they pressed ever upward.
Pebbles scraped against the sedimentary shelf beneath the horse’s weight and tumbled over the sheer face as the horse struggled with the last steep ledge. Asmin let out a stifled shudder and a whisper to Ishtar. Ulf’s lips brushed the top of her head.
“Omen is a good mount,” he said, a hint of mirth in his voice. That pleased Asmin, and she snuggled back into his chest, wriggling her rear against his groin. Omen. She liked that name. She could not recall Papaios ever naming the destrier. Somehow Asmin could tell that it enjoyed the new moniker as well as its new master.
The forest closed in around them as they left the windy heights. Ferns grew high and broad, dripping with dew. Lichens and moss overtook stumps so entirely that one was barely sure that a tree had ever grown there at all. High-spiraling conifers and shady deciduous trees made a canopy so dense that light could barely penetrate. Asmin could not imagine how Ulf knew where he was going, but he seemed to be guiding Omen along a path. The perpetual twilight and slow, rocking motion of the walking horse made her sleepy.
The night before Ulf had packed the saddlebags with the furs he had been tanning since he first left the city. Now the leather satchels bulged with his bounty. He wore his customary breechclout and had his bow strapped across his back; however, he had made some additions to his attire, thanks to his most recent opponents. Around his neck he wore the heavy silver chain of Braxus. This was a sign of wealth and a warrior’s prestige in his homeland, a point he gladly made to Asmin as he donned the trophy shortly after felling his foe. Resting in its sheath, mounted to the saddle, was the curved tulwar of Papaios. Ulf had also added a full sheaf of arrows just before they left.
“They will see us,” she said softly, almost indifferently, her tone belying the inner tumult that knotted her belly. She did not open her eyes.
Ulf rode on without responding. They had argued at length about the matter when he had announced they were going to go to the city. Even as he prepared his weapons, she had pleaded with him to reconsider.
“They will see us. I will be taken back into slavery,” she continued, “and you will be executed for desertion.”
Still he was silent. Dead leaves and twigs crunched under Omen’s gigantic weight.
She turned her head to press her tender cheek against his taut chest. “Tell me they won’t.”
“They won’t.” His words were plain, but the way he bit off the end let Asmin know he was clamping down and hiding his fear.
“You have to tell me why they won’t to make it true,” she said.
“We have to go.” The sweet scent of rotting leaves carried on cool wind steeled him. “You have no clothes. You sit before me swaddled in a blanket of furs. Winter is fast closing and living in the wild requires stiffer stuff than the slave silks you’re accustomed to. I must outfit you. You know this.”
“Then you risk all only for me. I’ll not be the cause of your death.”
“No, you will not,” he replied. She noted the firmness in his voice. “You speak of me like I am a fool, like a child out to get my slaying done over a first kiss.”
“I just...”
“I know what I am,” he spoke over her, raising his tone. “I’ve ranged in my warren for more than a few seasons. I know what I am, and I know who I am. I know what life is in the wild. I know what a cold, pitiless winter is. Alone and in a cave I have lasted through the long dark, every pass clogged with snow. It’s made me a hard man, a better man.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t brave or hardy,” she said, twisting in the saddle to face him. The arm encircling her waist loosened. She held her furs close about her neck and looked up to him with pleading eyes. “I just would rather be left off than to see you harmed over me.”
“You listen,” he said, his emerald orbs gazing into her. He let go of the reins and cupped her cheeks with both hands. “Now that I have you, I’d face a legion of trolls and ice giants to keep you. You are mine. And I aim to keep you in comfort, not to merely survive a winter like I have in the past. These furs will get us the supplies we need, and then we can stay away from anyone who would bother us for a long while.”
Ulf leaned in and tasted her lips, then kissed away the twinkling tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. He stroked his thumbs down her cheeks as she pressed into his gruff palm. Asmin melted under his touch, and she shuddered, nuzzling into him, wanting to be as close as possible.
“But they will be looking for us,” she pleaded softly.
“Aye, they will,” he said, “but it is a big city, with many traders and many travelers. If we are quiet and go about our business without drawing attention to ourselves, we can do this and be gone without anyone being the wiser.”
Asmin looked on him for a time and then nodded. All she could think of was how he had boasted to Javad to tell everyone that it was he who had killed Braxus. Didn’t he remember? Doesn’t he know that they will be looking for him? But maybe he was right. The city was huge, and perhaps they could get lost amid the mob. Perhaps it was the necessity of the thing that made him confident; she did not know, but she was certainly scared.
Asmin turned around and leaned into Ulf, who resumed the reins. Omen had stopped to munch on a fern as they had talked. The trio resumed the trail in silence. Ulf guided their mount so that his hooves would not leave sucking indentations in the muddy ground. Rather, he directed Omen over loamy earth that would soften his footfalls and leave little spoor.
The languid, steady movement of the ride forced Asmin’s sex to constantly rub against the saddle. Between her pussy and the hardened leather was the buttery hide of the fur blanket she held wrapped around her like a cloak. Ulf knew his trade well, she noted as she chanced to grind a little into the natural lining. Her sheath became moist, and she wriggled again, the rising and falling motion arousing her to no end. It didn’t help at all that Ulf’s cock had been at least half-hard and digging into her all day. He had been in a semi-turgid state since they had roused that morning.
The night before, they had argued much more vociferously than they had on the trail, but the subject had been the same. For the first night since she had stumbled into his warren, they had not had sex. Asmin feared the worst: that her argument to release her and free him of her burden had found a home in his heart. She was so used to his aggressively passionate lovemaking that she had felt abandoned when he did not touch her. They had slept apart for the greater part of the night, but when she woke she found that he had pulled her into his embrace. Elated, she slid her hand down his body and tugged at his root, hoping to make love in the morning light, yet he refused her advances and went about preparing for their journey.
Frustrated, fearful, and confused, her arousal now overwhelmed her. The constant contact with Ulf fanned the fire within her. She leaned heavily into his body. It was like reclining against the base of a tree in the shade. Asmin turned her head, pressed her cheek to his bare chest, and inhaled deeply of his scent. She ground a bit harder into the saddle and delighted in Ulf’s musk just as Omen mounted a hill. The clean scent of the forest mixed with his sweat was intoxicating, and her pussy lips swelled.
Ulf loosed the reins, and Omen stopped under a blue spruce to nibble at long, grainy grasses. The barbarian then cupped Asmin’s chin in his work-hardened hand and tilted her face up to kiss her. Bending his head, he angled his lips over hers and devoured her. She emitted an involuntary moan and squirmed in the saddle and snaked her arms around his sinewy neck. This motion caused her blanket to fall away and expose her body to the cool air of the woods. Her nipples stiffened immediately, and her skin began to crawl with goose pimples.
Ulf drew her warm, pink tongue into his mouth voraciously. Asmin, twisted in the saddle as she was, struggled to breathe as he vented his pent-up sexual frustration on her. He gripped her teardrop-shaped bosom in either hand, closing his fingers over them as a falcon gripping prey in its talons. He hefted their weight and rolled them painfully, throating a possessive growl. Ulf stroked his thumbs over her stiff, pink nubbins, making wide circles from the outside in, sure to drag his fingernail across every sensitive bump and ridge before strumming across the tip.
Ulf’s cock was straining against his breechclout, and it pressed demandingly against Asmin’s backside. In a quick movement he pulled the fur cloak from her and laid it across the saddlebags behind him. She inhaled sharply at her sudden, abject nudity and moved her palms to cover her naked flesh. Ulf breathed into her ear and eased his hands to her supple sides. Asmin curled her toes as his leathery fingers ran from her thighs to her breasts and back, callouses scrapping her satiny skin as every one of her curves was explored.
“There is no one to see,” he said. “Only us.”
He kissed her shoulder, exhaling through his nostrils to bathe her flesh in warm air. As he did this, he caressed her body. Gruff knuckles and sandpapery skin scratched over her belly and up and down her flanks as he nibbled at the elegant tendon on the side of her neck. He cupped and pawed at her breasts, teasing and tugging at her erect nipples. Hefting them, he squeezed them together, a grunt of approval escaping his throat. Asmin responded to his ministrations by grinding her hips into the saddle as well as wiggling back to tease his lewdly throbbing prick.
“You say that you wish me no trouble,” he whispered into her ear, “but that is not yours to decide. I have joined my fortune to yours. If you face danger, I face it first. Your trouble is my trouble. To say otherwise is a knife into my heart. Am I so unimportant to you that I would be cast aside over your danger? Do you think me a coward? Do you think I do not love you? Have I not shown you a dozen times?”
Asmin choked back a sob as tears gathered on her lashes. “No, I think none of those things. I love you, Ulf.”
Ulf held her face and supped of her. He slipped his hand down to her pussy and rubbed a wide circle with the tips of three fingers over her glistening, pink petals. Nectar flowed from her and dampened the saddle. He sucked on her small tongue, his bristly stubble scratching her chin. As he nuzzled his nose to hers, he dipped into her sex and strummed his thick thumb over her clit. Asmin jerked a bit at this invasion, and he had to wrap his finely sculpted arm around her waist once more to keep her from falling.
Ulf’s digits slid and searched deep inside of her sheath, and Asmin clamped down on his knuckles, enjoying how they dragged across her clit as they moved in and out of her. He reached up with his other hand and pawed at her breast, giving a throaty purr of satisfaction at the weight of it in his palm.
“I’d sooner die fighting to keep you mine than to live life without you,” he whispered. His fingers stirred deep within her as he spoke.
Asmin shuddered at these words and clenched her belly. Her chest and cheeks warmed as she bathed him with a flow of honey from her molten core. Ulf removed his hand and pressed her forward so that she leaned against Omen’s neck. Her breasts swayed on either side of his shaggy mane as Ulf tugged his vein-covered cock free from his breechclout and stroked its length in his fist. Asmin could feel her sex gaping at him, needing to be filled. She laced her fingers into the destrier’s hair and readied herself.
Again his digits attacked her sopping cunt, and she stifled a yell. Her inner juices trickled down his creased palm as well as her inner thighs. He gathered some of this musky moisture and smeared it across her crinkle, toying with her sensitive bud while digging deeper within her sheath. Asmin humped back into his hand, gripping Omen’s mane for leverage. She looked over her shoulder at him. He withdrew his sticky paw and stroked his dick with it, coating his manhood in her honey.
Ulf pressed into her pussy with an even thrust, nestling into her with a low, satisfied groan. His palms rolled and swatted her generous ass as his cock swelled in her. Asmin mewed and wriggled back on his prick as his broad hands fell on her flesh, causing it to jiggle. He continued to caress her ass, to touch her between her shoulder blades, to tease the curves at her sides, to swat her flanks and grip her thighs for purchase as he thrust into her. Asmin rotated her hips and clenched her around his cock, meeting his easy rhythm.
She reached up and stroked Omen between his ears and wondered what he must be thinking. Asmin curled her lips in an effortless smile as all the tension and hurt feelings of the night before melted away in the forest. She would have been satisfied to screw her barbarian on that spot forever. Pressing back and screwing with him came as natural as breathing. Her life in the harems of the east seemed so distant and foreign now, and yet she had only been with Ulf for a matter of days. Ulf had said he had joined his fortune with hers. That had made the back of her neck feel all warm and fuzzy in a way she didn’t know was possible. She had had many cocks in her time, but she had never been loved. Never had she felt like anything more than property. Asmin ground back against his prick and squeezed her pussy as tight as she could then tossed her hair over her shoulder so she could look on him.
As her gaze met his, he stood tall in the stirrups. He reached up and took her hair in one hand and swatted her ass with the other. Spanking her sharply and tugging her tresses until her scalp burned, he bucked into her. She felt her flesh blush pink with his handprints, a feeling that delighted her, to bear his marks on her skin. His balls slapped wetly against her as his body tensed. He pounded against her shaking ass and forced her ever higher up Omen’s neck. She wrapped her arms tight around the horse as she was assaulted by his scooping thrusts, which threatened to dislodge her.
He slid his raspy hands up her back and gripped her shoulders, leaned his heavily muscled frame against her soft back, and stiffened. Jets of hot cum erupted from his sac, up his cock, and into her womb. Over and again he pulsed, his prick swelling in her as she too was overcome with orgasm. Her belly clenched as she milked his straining cock for all of his seed. Spunk flowed from his dick and embedded in her enflamed pussy, mixing with her nectar. After long moments his taut ass stopped flexing, and he had drained his essence into her.
“We are one, you and I,” he whispered.
Chapter Two
Marcus trod down the shadowed corridors of the mayor’s palace ill at ease. He had been relieved of his retinue of lictors upon arrival, per Cassius’s orders, and was to appear alone before his majesty. Or so he was told by the sentry. Marcus could not recall such a title being used by a city mayor in the past, yet this was no official to be bothered with precedent. The shadows of columns became a blur as each stride became more purposeful. Anger stirred in the praetor’s belly. His mandate came from the capital, and he would be damned if he would be bullied by a provincial legate.
Marcus rounded the last corner and mounted the three steps leading to the court with a bounding stride. The Nubian mercenaries hired by the mayor as both palace and personal bodyguards dared not challenge the praetor, uncrossing their African spears as he glared at them. Their ebony shields and leather skirts were an abomination to those who served in crimson and steel.
The scent of wine and sweat invaded his nostrils along with the burning of pungent incense that smoldered in a vain attempt to mask the odor. Spread before him were rugs of exotic animal hides from the farthest reaches of the empire. Sprawled about them on silken cushions were naked slave girls from countries just as far-flung. Here a black-skinned beauty lounged on a zebra hide, and there a dusky-skinned lovely reclined on the dark-maned head of an Atlas lion. All of the mayor’s fawning attendants were present: the quick-witted poet who knew a thousand riddles, the dwarf who tumbled and performed magic tricks, the strong man who postured for the giggling ladies, as well as myriad aristocrats who whiled away the day in the pursuit of frivolity and pleasure.
At the center of the activity was Cassius. He sat on a gilded throne mounted on a dais with a tawny-haired Gallic girl at his feet. Draped in a sheer verdant frock, she fawned at his ham hock of a calf with her slender palms and batted her lashes at him, nudging his knee with her cheek. Cassius looked down on her lascivious affection, his many jowls creased. His frog-like lips curled in a sneering grin, perspiration beading on his brow and upper lip. He reached down and caressed her face with his fat fingers, each bearing sparkling rings. The slattern pressed into his touch, eagerly attempting to show loyalty to her corpulent master.