A Strange Meeting in Barzal Pass
Arrows hissed overhead to splinter against the cold gray stones that loomed over his furious escape. He spurred his horse hard, crouching low in the saddle and cursing his luck. A patrol, this far out from the City, and one willing to chase him this deep into Barzal Pass? He knew he should have left an offering to Ulbaz, the Laughing God of Good Fortune, before he'd tried to rob the Blue Prince's palace!
He glanced back over his shoulder and scowled. There were still six of them, sparks flashing from the hooves of their fresh horses as he drove his own tired beast forward. They had powerful bows of horn and quivers full of arrows, and they knew that their lives were forfeit unless they captured the thief. He put his head down and urged his animal on, the whole time feeling a crawling, itching sensation in the small of his back, expecting at any moment to feel the bite of an arrow.
His horse scrambled around a corner, hooves clattering against the narrow granite gash in the great mountains as they crested the Pass. The night sky bloomed suddenly overhead, stars bright and hard and merciless against the blackness. He gave a hoarse shout of triumph. They'd reached the Maze, a part of the Pass where the road zig-zagged sharply around the recalcitrant boulders and debris left behind when the gods raised the mountains.
The Maze was his only chance - behind him he heard the shouts of the guards and the thundering rhythm of their horses, just out of sight beyond the curve in the road. He reined his horse hard, ignoring its whiny of complaint as it lurched suddenly to the left. They swung around a boulder and he stood tall in the saddle. Bows twanged in the dark, but the boulder was between him and his pursuers and they were shooting blind. He leapt off the animal and gripped the rough stone. He hung there, briefly, and then aimed a kick at his horse and, freed of its burden, it bolted into the dark. As he scrambled up the surface of the rock, he heard a shout; the guards had seen the dark shape of his fleeing beast, and they were surging after it.
He clung to the top of the boulder, splayed across its surface, watching his animal vanish into the boulder field of the Maze, followed shortly thereafter by the guards. He grinned hard and then, half climbing and half scrambling, he dropped from the rock and landed in a crouch on the far side of the boulder. He listened, but the sound of horses had vanished into the distance, and he heard only the night wind and his own breathing. He turned and, still grinning, began walking.
For most others, the situation would have been bleak - horseless, in the mountains, at night, with the guards of the Blue Prince both before and behind him. But for Aznar of Korth, it was all the chance he needed.
He was tall, well over six feet, and powerfully muscled - his limbs corded and hard-edged, his shoulders broad and his waist and loins lean. His square-cut mane of black hair blew in the wind, and the powerful set of his jaw and the glint of his black, smoldering eyes told of both the implacable will and the fiery recklessness that drove him. He wore a pair of leather breeches and a simple cotton shirt, and hanging from his belt was a broad-bladed sword sheathed in simple leather. He had no other gear - he had thrown everything else expect his weapon aside in his mad dash from the Palace into the mountains. But what would have been a death sentence to lesser men was of little concern to Aznar. He knew these mountains well, and though it would be lean travelling, he knew he could reach the valley four peaks away where a friendly hill tribe was spending the early spring.
In fact, he smiled, they were very friendly. He recollected their voluptuous matriarch, tall and full-figured, as well as the velvet mouths and silken thighs of the young warriors whom Aznar had helped usher into manhood. He felt his cock hardening at the memories, and he gripped its girthy heaviness beneath his leather breeches. He had already forgotten his failure at the Blue Prince's, and was looking forward to future conquests. He squeezed his cock and growled at the pleasure he felt.
Doubtless, his erotic remembrances were why he didn't notice the strange, robed man standing in his way. Aznar blinked, and his hand flashed off his cock and towards his sword.
The strange man was thin and willowy, wrapped in a voluminous black cloak. His long flowing hair shone silver in the starlight, the wild locks kept in order by a band of gold on his broad, smooth forehead. His eyes seemed to glow of their own accord, and a smile quirked his wide mouth.
"Where did you come from?" barked Aznar. The man shook his head.
"I watched your escape in the Glass of Seeing," he said. His voice was songlike and dreamy, but his eyes sparkled with dangerous mirth. "It was a skillful ruse, the trick with the boulder. And now I see that the clever man is something else also!" The thin man laughed. "You escaped death but a few moments ago, but already you fondle yourself, seeking the indolent satisfaction of self-pleasure? Are you that bold, or merely horny?"
