The wagons pulled into a fortified stockade with a well defended castle hewn out of a granite mountain. I didn't see it but I overheard the Captain of the Guard describing it for the Queen. She was the first one settled in a secure tower and she made sure I was brought with her. Her maid Nellie and Steen met us in the open courtyard. He assigned four men to carry the stretcher with me on it up the spiral flight of stairs to the Queen’s bower. The windows were barred, I did not see them but one of the men mentioned it to Vialle and she told me. Made sicker by the constant motion of the running cart animals, I lay nearly comatose until a man’s hands deposited me on a bed and tried to remove the coverings on me. I fought. Feebly, but viciously until Vialle eased me with her voice.
Once settled in, she dosed me with something for pain and nausea before seeing to her own needs. The fire was going briskly, food was making its way into the room and someone tried to feed me. “Leave him be, Nellie,” Vialle said. “If he will eat, it will only be a few bites. Perhaps toast and tea. He suffered terrible motion sickness and nearly threw up his insides. Some peppermint and chamomile tea would do him a world of good.”
A younger, lighter voice agreed. “I will see to it, My Lady.”
“A wreath of flowers on his grave, Proclaim his glory to the world,” I said and the lady asked me what I’d said.
When I spoke again, she said, “Raven, I can’t understand you. Speak slowly, clearly.”
“Brothers in death we are,” I sighed and tried to sit up. Since I was on my belly, it necessitated rolling over and I made it all the way onto my right side. Several hands eased me down and I whined I wanted to get up, go for a walk and pee. It took only one of them to force me back into a prone position. “It’s the pit of hell,” I complained bitterly. “Too hot. Charge the place with a bucket of snowballs.”
“Raven, go to sleep. You need to rest. Nellie, can you ask the resident healer for a sleeping draught? He’s fighting too much to get any rest.”
A girl’s voice, clear and sweet. “They’re treating the wounded, My Lady but I can go ask for something from the apothecary.”
“Damn you, Galyon. I must rise to fight the dragon!” I cried. “Yonder lies the Lighthouse, its beams shine throughout the world!”
“Raven, quiet,” the green lady cursed me and held my chin in a grip an iron man could not break. “Nellie, go before his words condemn us all.”
“Yes, Mistress.” Her footsteps were pitter-pats or rain on the roof, hoof beats down the bridge of memories. I cried and fingers dug at the bedding piled under me. I was afraid and couldn’t remember why. Tossed my head, tried to turn over and listened to scraps of conversations.
The Fifth Cohort met Julian’s force head on and only pushed them back when the Gray Lord joined the battle. His spells sent the navies backwards in a rout.
Random’s cavalry is fast approaching. Golden Circle Treaty signers have sent a legion each but won’t reach the front for three more days.
“The Master comes!
“Steen, hold him so I can pour this down his throat. Easy, I don’t want him to choke.”
Warm, spicy stuff. The mead of life served by a Viking maid and Odin’s right had. I swallowed and a gentle fire started in my belly. “Is it soup yet?” I asked. “Can you hear me now? Peter Pan hates Captain Hook. WHOA, that was some good shit you dropped on me, Perry.”
I let my head drop and giggled as the drug induced euphoria took over. A figure leaned over mine and kissed me on the lips, I smelled bayberry and cologne, ashes and male sweat. Gagged and turned my head away from the feel of soft velvet, leather and the hilt of a sword. “Murphy?” I reached out a hand expecting to feel cool stone flesh and instead, felt rock hard muscles and sweaty clothes.
“How are you, my sweet pet?” The Master stroked my back, his fingers digging into the sores and causing the pain to reach beyond the hold of the pain killers.
“Your Majesty, how does he fare?” He let his finger reach my buttocks and in the sudden quiet, the lady slapped his hand away.
“Not one hair on his head shall you touch while I have anything to say, My Lord Webster,” Vialle spat. “I may be blind but I am not helpless. Besides, he has been puking all afternoon and is delirious.”
“Vialle,” he started.
“Queen Vialle or your Majesty,” she returned haughtily and I saw her glowing as if lit by fire from within. I thought she was priming to use some sort of magic. Dragged my wits together enough so that I could converse rationally and reasonably clear. “It’s alright, Vialle. He can’t hurt me any more than he already has done. What do you want, Father of Lies?”
“To see you, my beautiful slave.”
“You see me. See what your love has done to me,” I retorted. “I don’t need any more of your so-called devotion.” Vialle hissed and the hand on my hip felt odd, as if the skin morphed to a leathery texture. My eyes wavered and I could swear his form changed to a different man, shorter, broader with a decided resemblance to my father. I blinked and the Master returned, he pressed his hands on my deepest wounds, enjoying my muffled intake of pain.
“Steen, see to it that Corbel is moved to my room,” he ordered and Vialle attacked him, fists and teeth, spitting curses and spells that he countered with a laugh.
“Vialle,” I managed. “Stop. I will go with him. There’s no need to put yourself into danger because of me. I belong to the Master, my body and mind are his to do as he sees fit.”
“Raven?” she whispered in shock.
I smiled sadly. “Corbel, my Queen. Corbel, the Blackbird.”
Steen and two of his guards picked me up and nearly dropped me as their hands encountered the bloody mess that was my back. Webster ignored their protests and took me from them, carrying me as if I were a child, his arms tucked under my butt and shoulders. I could not bear to look into his eyes, they gleamed with triumph as he walked effortlessly to his chambers.
Kicking open the double doors of a master suite, he ordered servants to bring a meal for two and the finest brandy in the place before he set me down on the high backed four poster bed carved with nymphs and unicorns. He put me on my back, knowing it caused me greater pain, went to the fireplace and poked at the logs making sparks jump out onto the steel firescreen. “I know you came from a shadow world called earth, Corbel,” he said. “From the years 2013, 14.”
I attempted to find a comfortable spot where the pain and the heat did not bother me. When he turned back to approach me, his eyes lingered on my chest and the bulge in my groin. I cupped my dick and he took my hand away.
“I once thought to make you like Steen,” he smiled. “But in my selfish subconscious, I always knew this day would happen. Fuck Amber, Random, Corwin and Merlin. And fuck you, I shall.”
I tried to lie quietly and endure but the first touch of his bare flesh on mine sent me into a frenzy where I fought him despite my intentions.
“Scream, my Blackbird,” He held the nape of my neck as he pushed me deeper into the mattress. “Scream out your anger and pain, it but makes me harder and come more.” He shouted and his seed spilled out, ran down my legs until I thought I would drown in it.
“You’re so tight and dry, my love. I find you quite enchanting, your blood makes me wild with lust.” He rode me all night and the blood from his assault stained the mattress, his hands and his belly as if he were painted red by Mars, the god of war. By then, I no longer had the breath to complain, he fucked a piece of meat, not a man or even a boy.
“Corbel,” he called, wrapping a robe around his bloodstained form. He poured a snifter of some fine liquor, flipped me over and raised me up by leaning me against his own body. “Corbel, drink.” He put the crystal goblet to my lips and the scent of fine Amberian brandy assailed my nose, slid down my scream coarsened throat to puddle in my belly like liquid fire. “Corbel, do you hear me?”
I blinked slowly. “Master, I was going to escape you.”
“I know, Corbel. You were going to trump out with the Queen and Steen.”
“Yes, Master,” I said dully. “Master, will you keep me as your whore?”
“Forever and always,” he answered.
“You will not let me die?”
“Alas, I cannot. The spell I placed on you has no reversal, Blackbird. It has changed your blood and your organs. I could even cut off your head and you would recover from that. There is no escape for you.”
“Not fire, Master?”
“Not fire, cremation, dismemberment, explosion or any other death, Corbel. Once you walked the Pattern, you bound the spell to your very soul and now, I hold that power taken from you. One day, Corbel, you will love me and that day, I will give you what you want freely.”
“Master, I would sleep now with your permission,” I begged humbly. He gave me more brandy and then dipped his finger in the ruby liquid wiping it on my opened lashes. It burned with a sharp, eager sting and he licked at it, blood and liquor mixing in a bouquet he found to be intoxicating. He slept, his arms wrapped around me, his legs pinioning me so that even if I could or wanted to, I could not move. He slept the sleep of the just while I wished for the sleep of death.