Live to Ride
Authors note:
This story is set two years after the events described in the story 'Prisoner of War', it takes place at the same time as 'Hunter.Hunted'
Prologue:
The human kingdoms of the south have prevailed against the invasion from the north.
The great coalition of Giants, Dire Wolves, Orc's, and Goblins was smashed by the valiant troops of the Eastern, Western and Middle realms in a series of battles.
None of it would have happened except for the bravery and tenacity of one lone warrior. Alice, a prisoner of war, who had escaped her captors and carried a message of warning to King Tonar of the Middle Realm. In turn, he laid plans with his fellow monarchs, King Patric to the east and Queen Bea to the west.
The decimated enemy fled northwards to their villages and strongholds to the north, fleeing back to the mountains from which they had come.
That should have been an end to the war. Alice was feted and rewarded and rightly acknowledged for her bravery. However, she like many subjects of the realms, had suffered greatly at the hands of the enemy. A return to the status quo was not sufficient and could not hope to quench the fires of revenge that burned in the breasts of so many.
There were other reasons why the conflict would continue. Many who had dwelt in the borderlands and had been taken prisoner during the conflict still remained unaccounted for. Friends and relatives, mothers, wives, husbands and sons all sought word of their loved ones. Failing that, they sought an accounting with those who stole them from their lives.
Many merchants, those who dealt in lumber, stone and precious minerals were also eager for troops to continue on to the Northlands. They believed that riches were to be made from the natural resources in the mountains and perhaps beyond them too. Lands that no human had yet set foot on.
There was one more reason. Something known to just a few, those who had heard Alice's tale directly from her lips. There was an herb, seemingly one that grew only in the North. To all accounts, one known to Giant kind alone, although this was speculation. This herb allowed the person who consumed it to ignore all pain. A useful drug. However, it also increased physical pleasure and lust a hundred-fold, and this was an item worth far more than its weight in gold. The discoverer of such an herb would be wealthy beyond imagination.
Alice, though questioned thoroughly, could give no description of the herb, having always received it through food and water. Other slaves rescued in the aftermath of the battle were also ignorant of the herb. The bodies of the slain giants on the battlefields also yielded no clues.
And so, bands of men and women, some in groups as large as a hundred, some just a lone warrior or hunter, set out from the Southern Kingdoms. They sought vengeance and money, cutting a path of blood for others to follow, a slowly creeping wave of humanity as the borderlands shifted ever northward.
Chapter 1:
Margo the Terramancer, Mistress of the arcane and skilled manipulator of earth magic rubbed her aching ass cheek as the wagon rumbled over a particularly rocky stretch of ground.
The merchant guild had hired her to assess the lands to the north of the Eastern Kingdoms. While many sought the mountains for riches, these merchants had decided to bypass the mountain range using ships. The idea was for Margo's expedition to chart the land beyond the mountain, identify mineral deposits (her speciality) and to identify prime sites for settlers seeking good arable land.
The expedition, two merchant ships in total, had sailed up along the coast for over two weeks before a navigable natural harbour had been found. Once the ships had unloaded their occupants, the captains were to wait in place for a month to allow for a preliminary reconnaissance to be completed.
Margo and two of her adepts occupied one horse drawn wagon, a simple but sturdy vehicle which had been fitted with a thin wooden screen and a canopy roof to allow the occupants some privacy. Three more wagons completed the train, filled with supplies and also transporting the two cartographers who were tasked with mapping the terrain. For security, a mercenary company of cavalry had been retained. All of them were former military and the hundred strong troop had a reputation for reliability and efficiency.
The magician winced once more as the wagon lurched again. Since the expedition had set out from the ships three days ago the land had remained flat, featureless and disappointingly free of any deposits that might encourage a mining enterprise. Also, the steppe, while covered in grass, had thin soil that would tax any farmer seeking to grow crops. It seemed like, for the moment at least, the guild would be disappointed by her findings.
As Margo readjusted her cushion on the hard wooden bench of the wagon, her generous body seeking a more comfortable position, she reflected that there had only been one upside so far to the trip. She peered out through the crack between two of the wooden screens to look at the young, handsome mercenary sergeant she had taken to her bed the last two nights. The young man seemed to sense her gaze, his face splitting in a grin as he regarded the wagon rumbling along to his left.
He had proved to be skilled, energetic and gifted with stamina. The thirty-year-old blonde mage had found her rounded soft flesh being pounded vigorously from first watch until just after the third watch had begun each night. As much as she had enjoyed the sex, she decided that tonight she would forgo the pleasure and instead, avail of a proper night's sleep instead. The rampant sex and the bone crunching passage of the wagon had exhausted her.
She was sure the young man had been greeted as a hero by his comrades as he returned to their campfires after each night's debauchery. Margo knew that her pale milky white bosom, all but spilling out of her low-cut gown, had been ogled by every man travelling with her. There wasn't a person in the camp who hadn't envied the young sergeant's good fortune. Well, there was one figure who no doubt had a frown on their features as Margo's cries of passion had sounded out from her tent, the commander of the cavalry troop.
As if her thoughts had conjured up a physical presence, Margo espied a lean rider trotting down the line of screening cavalry, the muted sounds of barked orders reaching the Mage's ears faintly. The commander rode his steed with a natural grace that would have identified them to Margo even before she could make out their face. Caryll, the mercenary company's leader, was something of a living legend. At least that was the opinion of the Sergeant she'd had rutting between her thighs. He and his comrades regarded their commander with something bordering on hero worship.
Caryll was a fierce woman with decades of experience behind her. She must have been forty years old but her lean body retained the fitness of a woman half her age. When she was twelve, freshly orphaned by a sickness that had swept her village, she'd apprenticed herself as a groom with a local militia. By sixteen she had already begun making a name for herself as a light cavalry scout for the same militia. A mercenary captain, forward thinking when it came to mixed gender in his troop, had poached her for his own company. By eighteen she was a sub commander in the same company, by twenty-two she had formed her own band.
The next eighteen years Caryll and her men had fought in virtually every battle and skirmish of note in the three kingdoms. On most occasions she had been on the winning side, and for those times when she had lost, her company had emerged virtually unscathed and with the respect of allies and foes both. In short, Caryll was a brilliant unit commander with experience, skill and a well-trained and competent company around her. Margo couldn't stand her. The feeling was mutual.
That said, the beautiful magician felt far better having someone like that as her bodyguard than she would ever admit.
An hour passed and the column slowed to a halt under the noon sun. A small number of low campfires were quickly erected while the majority of troopers tended to their mounts. Margo opened the screen door at the back of her wagon and stepped outside followed by her two adepts. She winced at the ache in her muscles, she spread her arms out wide in a long stretch. The sight of her magnificent bosom arced in this way caused one trooper to burn his hand as he fed fuel into a fire, his gaze locked onto her milky white flesh. Margo gave a small feral smile of pleasure at the sound of his pained whoop as the low fire singed his hand.
Margo paced slowly around the wagon, enjoying the feeling of walking after the confinement of the rude carriage she had suffered in these last days. After a short while one her Adepts presented her with a strong mug of coffee and some hard travel bread that had been warmed into something approaching softness beside one of the fires. Grimacing at the blandness of the fare, Margo forced herself to chew daintily at the ration, washing it down with the coffee afterwards.
She had just finished handing back the empty mug when she spotted Caryll striding towards her, the tall warrior looked somehow less ferocious minus her horse, though the slight bow-legged stride still spoke of hours a day in the saddle. Behind her trotted a nervous looking cartographer. She wore leather armour, preferring it to the heavier though safer mail or plate armour. Under one arm she carried her helmet, the shoulder length black hair on her head was plastered tight to her skull from the heat of the day. Caryll was what men would refer to as a handsome woman. Her wiry body and sharp face were a shade harsh for anyone to label her as beautiful. Her prominent curved nose beneath dark eyes, almost black in colour, had helped earn her the soubriquet 'Battle Hawk'.
