Sorcha's Revolt
CHAPTER EIGHT - RUMOURS

By morning, a new rumour was circulating among the revolutionaries. Many refused to believe it, but Sorcha knew it for the truth when she heard that the Darian army had been sighted with the dawn, marching towards Silveneir. Sorcha and DeSilva, on their own way to the city, had seen the Darians marching through the range of mountains known as the Baltu Road. Their route and their numbers had slowed the march, but Sorcha's almost forgotten fear that the Darians were on their way to Silveneir had now been realised.

Why the Darians were marching Sorcha already knew, and she paid no heed to the conjecture of the revolutionaries who had been so long concerned with matters in the Foreign Quarter that they had no real idea of events in the wider world. Daricia had collapsed into civil war and the Kraag had invaded Kellia. Following a battle at Narillion, which stood on the borders of both nations, the Loyalist Darian army had triumphed. Inspired to further conquest, they had turned east towards Silveneir.

But one detail of the rumour sent Sorcha running to DeSilva; the description of a Kellion man among the Darians, who sported Kraagish fangs and carried no weapons even in battle. "Monte, they're saying that your uncle is with the Darian army..."

"Well we knew that." DeSilva put his hands on Sorcha's shoulders in an attempt to calm her. They stood in the corridor outside their room, where she had found him just about to head to the bar.

"I didn't actually believe it," Sorcha said. "It doesn't make sense, why would he side with them?"

"He's still the Darian queen's bodyguard," DeSilva reminded her. "Where should we expect him to be?"

"Monte, there's more reason to be scared of him than of the whole Darian army! You father's bad enough, but if Noth Kalidor comes here..."

DeSilva winced, realising what she meant. "Damn. They'll kill each other. Whatever happens with the Darians won't matter, my father and my uncle will wreck the city on their own." "We have to stop them?"

DeSilva burst out laughing. “Good one, how do you propose I do that?"

"Stantine Fenn could do it." She grabbed at his shirt as he tried to back away.

"Oh no, you always get upset when I call him, and I told you already, there's too many people here, Fenn would flatten everyone!"

"You could stop the whole battle them, wipe out both armies, I saw what you did at Loth Kavnor! You could do it again, you could stop the fighting before it even starts. What the hell else is magic good for if it can't stop a battle?" "I'm not the only wizard in town, Sorcha! There's the Warmistress, for a start, not to mention the Darian Warmaster, they'll be blasting it out with thunderbolts from the minute the fighting starts. Then there's my father to consider..."

The suggestion that DeKellia, already terrifying enough, might wield some sorcerous power equal to the demon Stantine Fenn almost stopped Sorcha's heart with dread. "He's not a wizard..."

"Oh, don't you believe it! Just you wait, he's not just any mass-murderer, you know!"

Sorcha realised suddenly that DeSilva was no less terrified than she was; he bore up better, hiding his fear with sarcasm, but he was pale and his eyes gleamed hyper-alertly.

"Oh, Monte..." Sorcha caught hold of him and buried her face in his chest, and her sudden need for comfort awoke, as she had hoped, deeper wells of strength in DeSilva. It was a harem-trick, instinctively employed, to affirm a man's courage with a display of feminine vulnerability.

"Monte, listen, the Darians..."

"I'll protect you."

"I know." She looked up into his eyes, grey like his mother's, with the determination and danger of his father but lacking the feral gleam that so terrified her. "But you have to know what you're protecting me from. I love you, Monte..." "I love you too."

"I know, just listen! In the harem, Monte, it was Darians who trained me, everything I know in bed..."

He pulled away from her sharply. "I don't want to hear about it. You want me to whistle up Fenn and kill them all? If it comes to it, sure. I'll kill any man who touches you, Darian, Kellion or anyone else. I'm the son of the greatest swordsman alive. The men I can't kill are numbered on one hand and three of them are my own family." He pulled her close again and kissed her fiercely. "I'll protect you. But I don't want to hear about the damn harem anymore." He walked away, leaving Sorcha alone in the corridor.

Distress rose up within her and she turned at once to go back into their room. Then she stopped, fought down tears and went instead to main bar, where she ordered a drink. Sabra was there with DeKellia were there, among other revolutionaries. Sorcha sat at the bar with her drink in front of her untasted, staring into the glass and trying not to cry.

After a few minutes, Sabra came over to her.

"You alright?" There was little affection and much bitterness in her voice.

"Not really." Sorcha did not look up at her sister.

"Huh. Trouble in paradise? Good." Sabra turned on her heel and walked away. A moment later, Sorcha heard DeKellia make a soft remark to Sabra and her louder response, "What? I talked to her, didn't I?" DeKellia said something else, pitched too low for Sorcha to hear, and Sabra replied, "Oh, alright!"

Then she was back at Sorcha's side, pulling up a stool to sit down. She said nothing until she had ordered a fresh drink, then half turned to study Sorcha with ill-concealed distaste and only a thin veneer of concern. "What happened?"

"I just argued with Monte."

"What about? Didn't have sex with someone else by accident, maybe?"

"No, of course not!"

Sabra shrugged. "How am I to know? Perhaps you got the wrong room and didn't realise until morning."

"Will you stop it? Sabra, please..."

"What? You took your own sister's man, that's about as low as it gets."

"It wasn't like that! And anyway, you didn't even want him."

"What would you know about it?" Sabra demanded, slamming her glass down on the bar. "You have no idea, we spent almost a year fighting side by side, all the while you were getting tattooed and working on your suntan in the frikking harem!"

"You have no idea," Sorcha shot back, her tears turning to anger. "Shall I tell you about it? Which version would you like, the horror story about whips and chains or the one where I just fell flat on my back and gave myself to a queue of Darians? Or would you like the truth?"

Sabra turned on her stool to glare across the bar, not looking at Sorcha. "I don't want to hear any of it."

"Would you prefer I'd killed myself?"

There was a long pause while Sabra contemplated her drink. "No. No, Sorcha I wouldn't prefer that." She glanced up briefly. "That's something, I suppose."

"I'm glad you survived too, Sabra."

"Hmph."

"And I'm sorry, about Taban, I mean..."

Sabra went rigid, their fragile rapport shattered in an instant. Stiffly, she finished her drink and stood up. "It's too early for this. I've only been drinking an hour." "Sabra..."

"Leave it. I'm sure this isn't the last talk we'll have."

As Sabra walked away, Sorcha felt mildly better. She finished her own drink and went back upstairs, where she found DeSilva waiting in their room.

He was sitting on the bed, looking dejected, but he jumped up as soon as Sorcha came in.

"I saw you talking to Sabra, I didn't want to interrupt..."

"It went alright. At least we talked. I'm worried about her though, Monte, she's drinking far too much."

"She did just lose her boyfriend," DeSilva said, without much sympathy. "Plus there's my father's influence, you know how he loves his whiskey. Not to mention his drugs."

"Oh, Monte..."

He put his arms around her. "I'm sure Sabra draws the line with the liquor, I mean, I've not seen her smoking anything. And anyway, she's got to fit in; Kellion men drink, if she's to hold a place with them, then she has to keep up." "There's more to it than that and you know it. Monte, I don't think I've seen her sober once since we arrived."

"No, neither have I. That's partly why I've not tried talking to her."

"She said we'd talk again." Sorcha moved away from DeSilva and went to the bed. "Help me here, let's move it back. Putting it against Sabra's wall was cruel."

"Yes, but you were adamant. What was I supposed to do?"

"Oh, I don't know. Given me a spanking and told me not to be so mean?"

Together they hauled the bed back around to its original position on the opposite side of the room.

"Sure," DeSilva said, "I'll just add beating my woman to my list of vices."

"Not a beating." Sorcha looked up at him with a coy smile. "I used to enjoy a good spanking, in the harem..."

DeSilva groaned. "See, that's why I don't want to do it; how do I know you're not thinking of someone else?"

"Oh come off it!" Sorcha slapped him on the arm, then sat down on the bed in a theatrical sulk.

"Don't start getting jealous on me, Monte, I know you've had other lovers too. You've slept with my sister, for Iaran's sake!"

"Only once," DeSilva muttered. "Well alright, twice, but the second time really doesn't count, it hardly even happened..."

"Wait, she said you were on the road for a whole year, but you're telling me that you and she... only twice?"

DeSilva sat on the bed beside her and took out his pipe. "Well, she's not like you in that regard. Not in any regard, really. You look alike, that's about all. Even if things had been reversed, if she's wound up in the harem and you'd been on the road with me, I don't think she'd have become... well..."

"A sex-crazed bimbo? No, probably not. I can't explain it, Monte, it was both exactly like and yet completely different to whatever you're thinking. Do you want to hear about it?"

He put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her to his side, toking on his pipe at the same time. "Alright, but no bedroom details."

"There were whips," Sorcha said. "And chains. The very first day, they tied each of us to mast for a whipping. But there was sunbathing too, and drugs, and lots of girls all gossiping and eating sweets. It was both, Monte. If you did as you were told, life was very easy. There were games and drinking, some of it was a lot of fun. I'd never had so much fun in my life, actually; you have no idea what it's like being raised in a religious family, the harem was such a relief! There was no guilt, Monte, no rubbish about an all-seeing goddess judging your every thought."

"What if you didn't do as you were told?"

"Well, then you got tied up, blindfolded and used as a sex-object anyway. That's what they'd have done to Sabra. I didn't let it happen to me." She looked up at DeSilva, gauging his reaction. "I took the easy path, if you want to think of it like that. There was one girl who didn't. I think she went mad in the end; when they finally let her out, she took over the harem. They gave her a whip and let her get on with it, she was an absolute terror to the rest of us. It wasn't all about force, Monte, that's what I'm trying to say. People think that their personality is inherent to who they are, but it's not; who you are is made up of everything around you just as much as it's made of where you've been and what you've done. In Silveneir, I was a Silvan warrior, but in the harem..."

"You became a harem girl."

"Very simply, yes. I did try to go back, Monte; I honestly thought that the nunnery was the best place for me, that I could get better somehow, but once I actually saw the place..."

He gave her shoulders another squeeze. "Glad I rescued you?"

"Yes." Sorcha hugged him back, then looked up at him again. "I don't want to go back, Monte. I don't want to be a warrior, I never really did. I just never had any other option; all Silvan women are warriors." "You're saying you like being a sex-crazed bimbo?"

"Oh, you pig!" Sorcha grinned even as she said it, taking a playful slap at him.

He caught her wrists and wrestled her to the bed, pinning her beneath him.

"Monte, it's not even noon!"

DeSilva's hands roved her body, then began unfastening her harem-top to get at her breasts.

"Better than at night, at least now we can make some noise."

"No we can't, everyone's awake, they'll all hear us downstairs!"

"Hah, you wake 'em all up every night anyway."

"Well I'm not screaming my head off right now, no matter what you do to me!"

"Oh yes you are. I recall you mentioned something about a spanking..."

"Monte, no, get off!" Sorcha giggled and struggled, but DeSilva hauled her across his knee and held her in place. There he paused, his hand raised to strike but hesitating.

"Well?" Sorcha demanded. "What are you waiting for?"

"I've... never actually spanked a woman before."

"I didn't think you had, doofus. Look, it's easy, you just start sort of medium hard and build up. You'll know if you're doing it right, I assure you."

Still he hesitated. "I still can't help thinking... sorry, I can't help thinking about some other bloke who did this to you."

"Do you think that when we're making love?"

"No, but this is different somehow."

Sorcha squirmed halfway around to look up at him. "Would it help if I said my first spanking was from a woman? One of the other girls in the harem, when they tied me to the mast."

DeSilva thought about it; Sorcha bit her lip to restrain a laugh at the odd smile that crept across his face.

"Yeah, actually that does help."

He slapped her hard on the buttocks and Sorcha yelped appreciatively. "Ow, harder!"

"In fact," DeSilva punctuated his thoughts with another resounding slap, "I think you can tell me all about the women you've slept with."

"Oh you bastard! Ow! Yes, like that! And no, I won't... hey!"

She kicked and squirmed more urgently when he parted her harem skirts off her hips, baring a ripe target area. Sorcha screamed, giggled, and swore at him in one breath at the first impact of his hand with bared flesh. "Ow! Not that hard, you... aah! Alright, alright..."

"Haroum, you're actually enjoying this, aren't you?" He spanked her again, eliciting another yelp.

"Yes! Ah... It'll only get better, you have no idea what you're missing... oh, yes, like that..." "Tell me about the mast."

"That was Kelisa. Fethne tried first, but she was no good at it. Kelisa knew exactly how to do it right, she'd do this thing where she'd tickle the whip up between your legs and give it this little twist exactly at the moment she'd spank you with her hand..."

"Tickle like this?"

Sorcha gasped and had to bite her lip as DeSilva slipped his hand between her legs.

"Ah, yes, oh, like that..." she swallowed a scream when DeSilva spanked her again suddenly. "Oh, that's it, you're getting it now, don't stop..."

"You know, Sabra will seriously try and kill me if she catches us doing this."

"Oh, she can piss off! I hope the next bloke she fancies ties her to a bed and beats her with a riding crop, what she needs is a damn good..." her words faded into yelps and squeals as DeSilva increased the force and tempo of her punishment. Sorcha's world dissolved into sensation, stinging impacts and a warm tingling that spread through the lower half of her body. She began to lose herself, drifting, hearing her own yelps as if from far away.

She barely noticed when DeSilva leant forward close across her back and fastened a love bite on the spot on her throat. Consciousness vanished with an ecstatic shudder, and Sorcha floated in warm darkness until she was awoken by an orgasmic rush of sensation.

She jerked awake, only to find herself tied hand and foot to the bed, with DeSilva grinning down at her. As soon as she met his eyes, he began to thrust rhythmically into her. Sorcha cried out and surrendered to sensation, undulating back against him, bracing herself against her bonds.

Their shared urgency reached a crescendo and shuddered into exhaustion, DeSilva utterly relaxed and unmoving, his face buried in Sorcha's breasts.

After a while, he began to kiss and nuzzle her again, but soon rolled to her side reached for his pipe. Sorcha lay as she was, hands still bound above her head, studying him through half-closed eyes while he smoked. "Were you planning to untie me?" Sorcha asked.

"Not anytime soon," DeSilva smiled. "I'm not done with you yet. Just getting my breath back."

Done smoking, he hopped off the bed and quickly got dressed. Sorcha lay quiet until DeSilva went to the door.

"Going somewhere?"

"Just downstairs a minute. I've got nothing to do all day except you. We're going to need supplies. Stay right there a minute."

He slipped out the door and Sorcha was alone. The last she heard of him was the key turning in the lock. It was a small relief to know that no one might walk in on her while she was bound spread-eagled on the bed. Sorcha wriggled herself more comfortable against the pillows and waited, impatience growing while the seconds ticked into minutes.

She could not move, and she dared not call out. She tested her bonds, but she had taught DeSilva well how to tie her and the cords were inescapably secure, without any danger of cutting off her circulation. He could in fact leave her safely for hours, naked and helpless, waiting for him.

She took to biting her lip, trying to keep her whole body from squirming in futile efforts at relief from the growing heat in her loins.

Had she been bound solely by the wrists, she might have rolled over and achieved some release in grinding her pelvis on the mattress, but with her ankles bound apart to the foot of the bed, she could not attempt even that.

She began to quiver uncontrollably, all sense of time vanished, almost whimpering in gathering urgency for DeSilva's return. In the harem, she had been trained by subtle methods to react sensually to restraint; she was almost blind with desire by the time DeSilva finally returned.

He unlocked the door and came in carefully, balancing a try on one arm that was laden with plates of cold food and two bottles of wine, with two wineglasses held precariously in the fingers of one hand. He kicked the door to behind him, put the tray and the glasses down on the bedside table, then went back and locked the door from the inside.

Sorcha was too enraged with lust to even speak; she writhed in her bonds in a display of pleading desire, her whole body blushing so that the colours of her tattoos stood out abnormally bright.

DeSilva laughed and covered his eyes with one hand. "Well I didn't expect it to work quite that well; I had a whole second round of foreplay worked out."

Approaching the bed, he took one of the lighted candles from the bedside table and held it a few feet above her. Sorcha's perceptions slowed as he tilted the candle; she saw the drop of hot wax fall, cooling in its descent, to splash on the naked skin of her sternum. A flash of sensation, an ecstatic heat focussed in a single spot, seared her awareness.

She cried out, writhing and arching her back, subsiding only to gasp and writhe again when DeSilva let a second drop fall a few inches from the first.

With experimental care, he let a third droplet of hot wax fall directly on her hard nipple. Sorcha whimpered, taking a tight grip of the bedstead with both hands and shivering from head to foot.

DeSilva put the candle aside and took from the tray a glass of water.

"Here, you'll love this."

Sorcha tried to focus through the stupor of lust fogging her senses. DeSilva held the glass of water in one hand, and with the other pressed the ruby of his magic ring against it. Sorcha had seen the ring placed near heat or in a fire, when it blazed up and conjured the image of a dancing girl wreathed in silks of flame. This time, the ring burned with a cold light, the ruby glowing almost blue.

As she watched, the water in the glass frosted and froze. DeSilva took the ring away and toasted Sorcha with a swig of ice water.

"I've been practising that," he said, with a grin. "Don't ask me how it works, I'll only have to make up something wizardly and metaphysical. I think you'd much rather find out why I did the trick right now."

"Oh no..." Sorcha struggled in earnest when DeSilva plucked a chunk of ice from the glass and dandled it over her. The first droplet to touch her skin elicited a yelp, which became a gasp when DeSilva slid the ice cube the length of her body. With his other hand, he retrieved the candle and brought it back position over her, the ice still pressed against her skin.

"Ready for this?"

Sorcha's eyelids fluttered as she tried to focus on him, almost delirious with sensual stimulation.

DeSilva chuckled and let both hot wax and ice water fall in droplets simultaneously on her naked body. The confusion of focussed pin-pricks of intense heat and cold overwhelmed her senses and she could only gasp and writhe helplessly. She was so lost in sensation that she did not notice the maddening rain had ceased until she felt DeSilva's hands settle firmly on her hips a few seconds before he thrust strongly into her.

Sorcha screamed and abandoned all vestige of self-awareness, cast adrift on an inner storm that had gathered beyond endurance in the hour and more she had lain bound at DeSilva's pleasure.

DeSilva kissed her and time returned, the tide of ecstasy receding until she lay sated but exhausted, gasping for breath and slick with sweat. DeSilva withdrew and slumped down beside her, grinning but stupefied by sex.

He kissed her again, then passed out beside her. Sorcha had not the energy to wake him, too tired and muzzy herself to care that she was still bound and foot. Sleep descended and she let her head loll close to DeSilva's, gently restrained from any other movement.

She awoke to the brush of his lips on hers, his voice soft in her ear. Stirring, she found her had untied her while she slept. As she sat up, he put a plate of food in front of her: cold cuts, bread, cheese, and an apple.

They sat naked on the bed to eat, DeSilva pouring wine while Sorcha picked at her food. She did not finish half of it but put the plate aside and leaned towards DeSilva again. He returned her kiss, then put his wine glass down and drew her down with him to the mattress again.

"What time is it?" Sorcha asked.

"Sunset. We've wasted the whole day in bed."

"Oh." Sorcha applied herself back to his kiss and they made love again, slowly this time, languid without the violent urgency of before. A sudden crash of breaking glass and splintering wood somewhere nearby froze both of them in motion. "That came from Sabra's room!" DeSilva pulled out of Sorcha and lurched off the bed, scrabbling for his clothes. Even as he was pulling on his boots, something heavy crashed again so hard that the wall between their room and Sabra's shook.