The Tuchuk Flame of Lydius

On the other side of the market he saw the other two of his crew, Hannibar and Phillip, he'd brought along to watch his back. With hand-signals he gestured for them to intercept the rarii closing in on Carlos. With reinforcements on the way to his second-mate, Black Ox looked around to see what was at hand to increase his and his men odds of leaving the auction compound alive and Free. His dark gaze feel upon three men chained together close to the auction block, their heads shaven with the distinctive two hort wide stripe which ran from hairline to the nape of the neck that Panther-girls put upon their male captives, those they choose to rape and enslave. Each of the slaves had a heavy iron ko-lar hammered around his neck.

Black Ox stepped before them. "If I free you, will you fight?"

The middle man answered for all three. "From here to the walls of the Cities of Dust and back again, Slaver."

"Aye," Black Ox smiled. "I'll take those three," he growled at the seller. "Fifty coppers for the lot of 'em."

"A silver tarn," the slaver countered, having sized up the captain's somewhat dire straits.

"Thief," Black Ox growled.

"No, Brother," he shrugged, matter-of-factly. "Merely a Slaver. Like you."

"Aye." He pressed the silver into the outstretched palm. "I'll be needing three swords."

A sorrowful expression came into the slaver's face. "I'm loyal to my Home stone, Brother. I can't aid in any unlawful activity."

Black Ox's temper had reached its end. His scimitar hissed through the air, flashing in the noon-day Sun and stopping a fraction of a hort from the man's throat. "As far as trouble, I just want to get out of this stinking market in one piece. You've made my purse considerably lighter, in the last ehn. If only out of professional courtesy, I expect you owe me three pieces of fighting steel."

"Your argument is persausive," the man said. He ordered his helpers to bring swords as he, himself, unlocked the manacles of the men Black Ox had paid for.

He turned to the slave girl. "Climb onto my back, legs around my waist, arms around my neck. Hang on, if you lose your grip and fall off I'll leave you where you land. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Master. I won't fall off."

"Good girl," he gave her a quick, hard kiss on the lips. "Hop on."

The kiss was as stunning in its impact on the girl as had been the strokes from her Master's whip. She felt a bit light-headed as she climbed on the broad back of her new Master.

The former slaves' hands had been freed, and gladius pressed into their palms, but the iron around their necks would take too long to unbend, it'd have to wait until later. "Fight well and there's gold in this as well as your freedom," Black Ox growled. "Fight poorly and die."

That said, Black Ox lept off the auction block, swinging his great scimitar, forcing the erstwise bidders to hurriedly scramble and dive out of his path. The slavegirl ducked her head and clung on with desperate strength. Her sexual excitement only more aroused by the desperate situation.

Across the compound the three shipmates, Carlos, Phillip, and Hannibar had not only fended off the six warriors but had dispatched four of them. The downed rarii twitched in the dust of the compound, their tunics drenched a deeper shade of scarlet by the blood flowing from their mortal wounds. The remaining two stood their ground but it was clear to all who stood witness that they were outmatched.

It was not that the Lydius warriors were unskilled. Consider, the Black Slavers were at sea for all but a handful of weeks out of the year. When they weren't violently boarding merchantmen low in the water with cargo they were performing boarding drills, or actually raiding coastal villages and towns. What all of this meant was that the League men got in a lot of swordwork on a regular basis. They were well-practiced and fierce fighters who knew what they were about. They city guard got most of their irregular practice fighting citiizens drunk on paga.

The last two rarii went down in a flurry of flashing steel, their purple blood slowly seeping into the gorund.

Black Ox meanwhle led his company of freed slaves through the crowd, growling and shoving the bakers, peasants, and shopkeepers out of their way as they beelined toward the market's main-gate.

Somewhere beyond the high fence of the slave market an alarm bar began to sound, which meant the city guard would be arriving soon. Finally reaching the open gate, the captain saw that people outside in the street had stopped and begun to mill into a curious crowd. Inside, the bidders had begun to push toward the exit, piling up behind Black Ox's group.

Way past time to leave, he thought. He turned and swept his scimitar before him, making the stampeding slave-buyers retreat.

"League men," he shouted. "To me!"

Within a couple of ihn his three shipmates joined him, their swords dripping red blood and clots of gore.

The group emerged onto the street, which was even dustier than the slaver's compound, the gathering mob stared him and his crew. The braver souls in the crowd stepped forward, swords drawn.

"Make way," the captain shouted. "You face men of the League of Black Slavers. You face the sword of Black Ox."

At the revelation that the big man before them was the infamous Black Ox, the dominant predator of the Thassa's worst depradators, the mob quelled and fell back. However, standing head and shoulders over most of them before him, Black Ox could see a phalanx of crimson tunics running double-time toward his position. He counted at least two dozen of the city-guard. Black Ox knew the wharf and their ship, their only safety, lay two streets over.

"Let's go," he growled, scimitar held high, the girl clutched on his back. "Stay together, we make for the pier and our ship." He roared, an inarticulate expression of savage rage and ran forward, into the press of the milling crowd which rapidly divided to give the beserker and his men passage.

On the captain's back, the girl still trembling from her unreleased passion, felt the strong body of her Master moving beneath her hands, arms, thighs. Her red hair trailed back behind her, waving in a breeze generated by Black Ox's rapid pregress down the street. She laughed, out of pure exhileration, she laughed.

The girl didn't know what her future might bring, but one thing was sure, she was pounding straight toward it at double-speed. #

Black Ox and crewmen, with the pack of snarling Lydius rarii fast on their heels, ran down an alley cluttered with small stalls belonging to craftsmen who catered to the needs of sailors and their ships. They reached the mouth of the alley and then they were in the open spaces of the wharf. The sea lapped at the piers.

"Get to the ship," Black Ox growled out the order at Carlos. "Relay to the First-Mate to slip her moorings and to disembark on the instant."

"But the rarii, Captain."

"I'll deal with the cursed rarii. Get to the ship, all of you." "Aye, aye, Captain."

Carlos had served under the First-Captain for over eight years, he knew better than to argue with Black Ox. He led his crewmates and the iron ko-lar'd freed slaves down the wharf, while Black Ox looked around him for a way to slow down, if not completely stop the yelling band of rarii stomping toward him. As he turned left and right, he realized the girl was still on his back. He growled, angered at himself for not sending her along with the men to the ship.

"Down, girl," he said, flexing his knees so that she could slip from his back to the stone. "Stay out of the way."

"Yes, Master." The girl's blue eyes sparkled as she looked at him.

Since the onset of his adolescent, Black Ox had been on wharfs. He'd worked the docks, in a warehouse, before being recruited shipboard. He knew there were certain things always to be found on any viable waterfront, piles and bales of trade goods, she-urt prostitutes, wood for ship-repair, along with pitch, paint, and varnishes. And the thing about pitch, paint, and varnish was they caught fire easily and burned very hot.

He shoved the girl toward a pile of pressed panther furs bales then grabbed up a roll of sail-cloth, unwinding it from the lip of the wharf to the wall of a warehouse. He then picked up a keg of ship's varnish from a stack of a dozen or so placed alongside a fortified warehouse. He smashed the wooden melons all asunder against the sail-cloth covering the wharf stones. The varnish splashed and spread across the cloth and stones. He picked up another, dashing it and its contents on the ground, picked up another and smashed it, moving from the warehouse wall to the lip of the wharf stone where it hung over the water. Pleased with his work, he reached into his belt-wallet for his firemaker.

A seaman moved from behind the stack of tarped and roped fur bales. With Black Ox's back turned, the captain couldn't see the man sneaking up behind him. But the girl saw. The sailor's steathy movements had immediately drawn her attention.

Since her forced submission to her brother, all those years ago back on the Plains, all she'd known were incompetent Masters and she wasn't about to lose the only one who'd really, actually, deeply touched her. The man who had awakened her dormant high heat, sent her lava passion erupting from its red-hot magma chamber.

"Master," she cried out.

She was instantly silenced by the meaty hand of the seaman slapping her across the face, sending her sliding against the stone of the wharf. But Black Ox had heard the warning. He ducked as he turned to face the intruder. Barely avoiding a sword thrust and dropping the firemaker. He flicked a glance to the girl. Although the sailor had every right to discipline the slave for interfering in the business of the Free, the captain didn't like the way she looked, stunned, laying seemingly lifeless on the stones. He didn't like that at all.

He drew his scimitar and crouched as he moved around the interloper, his mind screaming at him that he didn't have time to indulge a sword-fight, the rarii were nearly upon him. He could clearly hear the slapping of their sandal leather against the unyielding stone. But he didn't actually have a choice. The attacker's sword swooshed through the air, a bare hort from his ear. He stopped thinking and began fighting.

He knelt on one knee, his scimitar swept the air before him, describing a semi-circle before the edge of the broad blade sliced into the seaman's shins, quite literally cutting his legs from under him. His scream was an undiluted exhalation of pain. Black Ox brought his curved sword up two-handed, then brought it slicing down, beheading his opponent, the severed jugular jetted, adding blood to the slaver's varnished splattered tunic.

The girl recovered, pushing up on her hands and shaking her head to clear it. She saw the gang of warriors nearly on her Master. And she saw his firemaker on the stone near her feet. "Master," she cried, again. And threw it to him.

Black Ox grinned as he caught the instrument and ripped off his tunic, the smell of varnish harsh on the fabric. He activated the firemaker and lit the combustible material before hurling it into the flammable liquid spread out across the sail-cloth.

Flames leapt up immediately, providing a fiery wall between him and the yelling rarii, who skidded to a halt before the blaze. Two could not stop and momentum carried them into the conflagaration. One man died screaming in the flames. The other emerged on fire, from his crisping sandals to his burning hair. He ran blindly off a pier and splashed sizzling and smoking into the green sea.

With the wall of fire and greasy gray smoke between him and his pursuers, Black Ox had some renewed hope of escape. Then a scowl crossed his handsome face. More warriors were pouring onto the wharf from a connecting street. Still, he reckoned he just had a chance of making it to the ship before them, or right as the rarii got there.

But what of the girl? He asked himself.

Certainly she was nothing more than a piece of property, albeit a relatively expensive piece. Still, he was a wealthy man and could well afford the monetary loss. However, there was something about her, above and beyond her intense slave-heat. And, she had saved his life after all, by screaming a warning and throwing him the firemaker. His mind made up, Black Ox scooped her up as he ran past and tossed girl sixteen over his broad shoulder. The kajira's fiery mane flailed wildly as Black Ox sprinted down the wharf, his teeth clenched with the effort of beating the rarii to the ship. Sweat flew off his face as he exerted himself full out, racing down the huge square stones of the wharf.

It seemed a bit counter-intuitive that his only remaining avenue of escape lay in running full-out toward a snarling company of city-guardsmen determined to capture, torture, and impale him. Yet there he was sprinting toward the crimson-tunic, sword-waving gang of rarii. He reached the merchant vessal that he and his crew had captured at sea and repainted, the better to slip into Lydius unnoticed. The ruse had worked, until the slave-market visit. He saw the roundship had slipped her moorings, the gangplank pulled back, sail unfurling. Crewmen at the railing looked over the side down at him.

"Catch her," he shouted. And with a great heave, he tossed the red-haired girl up into the air. She reached her stomach-flipping apex and descended to be caught by two sailors, whose enthusiastic hands roamed her petite form as they lowered her to the deck.

The gang of rarii were within knife-throwing range. Black Ox backed up a few steps, discarding his sword then unhooking and uncoiling his whip. He ran toward the end of the wharf, the big muscles of his powerful thighs bulging within his leathers as he brought up his knees. Just at the edge of the wharf he leaped into empty space, his long arms stretched. The slashing sword of a rarius nicked the heel of his right boot as he left the ground.

Every gleaming muscle straining, Black Ox flung himself toward the ship as it pulled away from its dock. His body was deeply bowed as he flew. In mid-air, he drew back his left arm and snapped it forward, sending the lashes of the kurt slashing outward.

It was a close thing.

To onlookers, it seemed as he would miss the ship's railing and fall, to splash into the sea below. But he made it, although just barely, thanks to the five tails of the cat which caught the wood of the railing, wrapping twice around.

His body swung against the timber of the ship and Black Ox absorbed the shock with his meaty shoulder and the side of his hip. The impact was severe enough to stun him, briefly. But the thud of a thrown knife biting into the wood a fraction of a hort from the tip of his nose brought him to his senses. He began to climb hand over hand up the whip, his blunt fingers scrabbled at the railing before digging at the wood. His right hand slipped. But not his left. His First Mate, Ahne, standing close to the stern-castle railing, reached out to grab the captain by the left wrist. Black Ox was quickly dragged over the railing and onto the deck of the roundship. He came up grinning.

"My thanks, First Mate," he huffed from the exertion, and retrieved his whip. "Now, if you please, dip oars. And once clear of this charming little harbor head due north, establish and maintain a pasang distance between us and the shore."

"Aye, Captain."

Black Ox then strode to the bow of the ship, inwardly pleased that his gait was steady, where Carlos stood with three vials, one each of oil, salt, and wine.

"Ta-Sardar-Gor," intoned the captian, his deep voice spreading out over the sea as he spoke the traditional prayer for a good sailing. "Ta-Thassa."

The ship-master then took the wyne from Carlos and poured in over the side, into the waters. Then the oil was upended next, and finally salt was sprinkled into the sea.

The disembarkment ritual done, Black Ox turned to the three men he had freed from the slave-mart.

"First-mate."

"Aye, Captain."

"Strike the ko-lars from these men, see that they get food and wyne, and rest. Then work them into the oar rotatiton."

"Aye, aye, Captain."

The men thanked their benefactor. Black Ox nodded and returned astern, looking back at the dwindling wharf. The fire had already spread. It'd set one ship aflame and threatened three more. A cache of pitch buckets had ignited, producing oily black smoke which billowed up and cast a gray and offensive smelling pall over the piers. The growing conflagaration added to the stifling heat of the day. He nodded in satisfaction. The fire should serve to stall any pursuit for the few crucial ehns it'd take to get the roundship clear of Lydius and beating north over the waves.

Rarii stood at the end of the roundship's vacated pier, livid, hopping mad. Black Ox smiled broadly and gave them a friendly wave of his arm, which elicited shouts of colorful if inaccurate speculation on his mother's heritage and sexual habits. Black Ox grinned all the more and pumped his fist, the universal gesture of success.

"Aye. And thine mother as well," he shouted back.

The berserk rarii screamed back in impotent rage.

His ship and crew safe, for the moment, Black Ox turned his attention to the kajira who stood close by shivering in sick excitement. She was naked but for the common shipping ko-lar about her throat. Sunlight graced her pale and flawless skin, making her seem luminous. Her eyes were wide with uncertainty, the top row of her even white teeth bit into the plumpness of her bottom lip. The sea-breeze caught her hair and set the long dramatic tresses dancing about her head.

Black Ox caught her by her slender freckled shoulders, turning her, inspecting her for injury. Her body showed only minor abrasions where her right hip and elbow had slid across the wharf stones. A pink spot bloomed on her cheek where the sailor had slapped her.

"A fine piece of chain-meat," the captain grunted.

The girl blushed and lowered her head, but a smile tugged the corners of her sensuous mouth, encouraging her dimples. The captain was quite fond of dimples, be they in a girl's cheeks, the small of her back, or at her knees.

"Carlos," called out Black Ox.

"Aye, Captain."

"Get me a ko-lar from stores. And an unworn ta-teera."

"Right away, Captain."

"Bring them to my cabin. And have someone pry that knife from the hull. I wish to keep it, as a reminder of how transitory life can be."

Carlos laughed. "Aye, aye, Sir."

"Come girl," Black Ox said. And he lead her around the deck to the stern castle's door, then into his small cabin.

"Nadu," he barked, after shutting the door.

The girl immediately melted to her knees, spreading her firm yet fleshy thighs, presenting her bushy cunt for his viewing.

Black Ox let his gaze move over the sa-fora again, still amazed that such a treasure could turn up at a low-grade slaver mart in such an unrefined town like Lydius. He held the pommel of the whip down before the girl's pretty face, so that the bulbous silver cap was before her mouth.

"Kiss it, slut."

Girl sixteen imediately pursed her lips and pressured a passionate kiss to the whip.

"Enough."

Her mouth retreated as she moved her rump back against her heels.

What is your name, girl?"

"If it pleases Ubar, this girl has no name, but that which you might choose to grace her with."

"I'm of the League of Black Slavers, girl. The League has no ubar. You will continue to address me as Master."

"Aye, Master."

"Aye," Black Ox echoed. "Your flaming hair bespeaks your fiery slave-heat. In that light, I name you after a female of barbarian legend, Pele, spirit-woman of fire.

"Pele, aye, Master." And the girl dimpled again, happy to no longer be nameless, a wretched falarina with only a number. "Thank you for my name, Master."