The Valkyrie (Raxillene's Rogues Book 2)

  The Valkyrie

  Raxillene's Rogues: Book Two

  Max Keith

  Uruk Press

  Uruk Press

  Great Britain

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  © Max Keith 2017

  All rights reserved.

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Cover by Arthur Asa.

  Also from Max Keith

  Raxillene's Rogues

  "A Man Needs A Whore, So..." in Sex & Sorcery 3

  Everybody Loves A Bard

  The Valkyrie

  From Biggest Blade Books

  Gym Wife

  Fool Me One

  Open Wide

  IOU

  Frenemies

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  "On The Religious Practices Of The Free People Of Lammorel" by Mag. P. Franx, ShM

  One

  She knew, as she rode away, that she should not have moved on to the third foe.

  She’d realized that at the time, but she’d had a difficult decision to make. To move on was to score an easy kill, the right way, cleanly and with no real risk of injury to herself or of offense to the gods. To remain with the second foe would have meant a certain slash to her left calf; painful, but not deadly. What had swayed her, though, had been the possibility of a following stab from the third foe, aimed at her liver. And that, Alorin Kaye would not tolerate.

  It seemed important to her important that she keep telling herself that, that she did not abandon the second foe because she feared the certain slash; she abandoned him because she feared the uncertain stab.

  Besides, at that point there was still hope that she could dispose of the third foe quickly enough that she could return to the second before he bled out. With her experience, it would be the work of but two seconds to take his seed and let him die soulless, as the gods intended. It was a gamble between her speed with the third foe and the damage she’d already done to the second; if his blood were thick enough, there might yet be breath in him after she’d dispatched his friend.

  But his blood was thin, or she’d wounded him too deeply, for by the time she’d finished the third, quick slashes below and then above, it was too late. Alorin moved toward the second man snakelike, striking for his balls with her antler-knife; she was halfway through the cut when she realized he’d already passed, and in that instant it was her own life at risk against the will of the gods.

  The soul of a man lived in his seed; that was what the Free Fighters of Lammorel had always believed. While he lived he had seed, and when he died he had no use for it. If he died, then, with full balls… She grimaced as she rode away. The gods got pissed, she knew, when men died that way; they rejected the man and they took hideous revenge on his killer, and that wasn’t the kind of thing that made Alorin comfortable; she didn’t like to fuck with the gods.

  That third man had died with full balls. And his spirit now roamed senseless and vicious through the night of the Borderlands, haunting Alorin, clinging to her like a bad smell until she could atone. The way of it, as her mother and her auntie and her sisters had taught her, was simple enough: a Free Fighter knew how the thing should be done. You never, ever killed a man until you’d gotten his balls empty, thought there were a few ways to go about that. Where possible, you killed them after they’d spent themselves: into a woman or a man, ass or cunt, mouth or hand, on the ground; wherever. The gods didn’t care, so neither did Alorin Kaye.

  There were other times, though, when battle came, and blades flashed and clashed, and it was impossible, even for a woman of such beauty as Alorin, to simply stop the opponent, get him to throw his blade on the ground, fuck him, and then resume the fight. The women of Lammorel, then, had a dozen or more strikes, maneuvers, and slashes they knew how to use, strikes that would leave a man gelded and free to deal with the gods as they’d intended, and leave their killers free to get on with their day. And, in that way, a responsible and respectable young lady of Lammorel never let a foe die with seed still in his body.

  She grimaced. Nearly ten years a warrior of the Free Peoples, and here she was in some godsforsaken forest leaving fucking highwaymen to die unseeded.

  She’d straightened slowly, breathing hard and deep, glaring around at what she’d wrought. The third man lay very dead, his blood still running from the twin stumps of his cock and his neck; a textbook killing, that. Mother would have been proud to see it. Off to the side her first foe was still alive, keening horribly, doubled over on his side with his intestines twined among his fingers like noodles on a fork. She’d reacted to that one instinctively, the castration first, leaving him safely seeded and ready for a clean death, but he was probably in pain too great to appreciate her effort. She’d found that a man always knows he’s been gelded unless the pain is greater elsewhere. And, from the looks of things, he wasn’t even aware of his crushed scrotum, lying a few feet away with her bootprint squarely across it.

  That second foe, though. The unseeded foe.

  She’d squatted slowly on her heels, unnerved. This had happened to her before, but not in many years, and never like this. She had failed the second man and insulted her gods. She had allowed him to die with his soul still within him, and for that she would need to pay.

  Her payment would start at once, with the first foe. For she could not now kill a man until she’d repaid the gods for the second man’s seed. And that meant she had to leave the first one to die, slowly and in exquisite pain. His haunting wails of agony, the shrieks ringing through the wood as she rode away, would be the screams of her shame; and that would be her first payment, though it was the cut man who would foot the bill. He’d take nearly an hour to die, she knew, and all of it in pain more dire than he deserved, no matter what he’d done.

  Her second payment, of course, would be the Debt the one with the capital D, the one she owed the gods. And as always she would pay it in the natural way. Her pride demanded that much; she was a Free Fighter of Lammorel, and the Kaye family held to the Old Ways.

  Once, she reflected, her cousin Junessa had been in a similar state. Alorin well remembered the tale: four dead, soulless men, one dead man with intact balls, a sixth man alive and in agony. Junessa’s fate had been different from Alorin’s, though, for her live one still had his seed; she’d been able to try to repay her debt immediately. It was a gruesome story.

  “I went to the live man, knowing I would need to accept his seed into my body,” she’d said, her grave voice making the story even more tense than it needed to be. They’d all been sitting around Grandmother’s hearth a couple of Yules ago, swapping the usual family stories.

  “I’d taken him with two arrows to the lung and another to the gut; he was going to die, but I hoped he could survive until I could take him into me.

  “He tried to kick me as I knelt to him, but I was in haste; all I could think of was the dead man with the whole balls. I removed his leg at the knee, such that he could not kick me again, and I took his cock into my hand. It was whole and unblooded.”

  “Your fault,” her mother, Auntie Hirr, had snapped. “This is why we do the seed-cut first, idiot.”

  “I had a bow,” Junessa said simply, as if that explained everything. She didn’t even use the man’s five friends as an excuse; at that hearth, five men were nothing. She went on. “Whole and unblooded, I say, though unfortunately not hard. They say you can break a man’s spine and get him hard, but either they lie or I did it wrong; I broke his back three times, with n
o effect on his cock. He definitely stopped squirming, though.

  “By now he was passing quickly, so I did what I must: I thought of what Lady Marlen did when she battled Groff, in the Legends. I pierced his balls with my antler-knife, then stooped to suck him empty into my mouth.”

  “Eww,” her sister grimaced. Junessa sighed.

  “It was, indeed, disgusting, cousin. I could only unseed him by groveling on my belly in the dust, and me with that new linen fighting kilt that Auntie Klara got me for my birthday.”

  “She got me one, too,” Alorin had put in. “Good quality.”

  “As I say, disgusting; my kilt was covered with dirt and blood when I finished drawing his seed into my mouth. It was all blood.”

  They’d all gasped at that. “Not semen?” Auntie Hirr asked skeptically.

  “No, and I asked a mage about that later,” Junessa explained. “He told me the white fluid comes from somewhere else.”

  “Not the balls?”

  “Apparently not. But the Legends assure us that is where the seed truly lives, so that was what I took into my body.” She’d shuddered. “I vomited it later, though. It was quite a lot of blood.” She’d added that the man had not survived the encounter, and she’d been able to go afterward and end the sufferings of his friend with a quick slice to the neck.

  “The vomiting was no more than you deserved for affronting the gods. You did right in a difficult situation, daughter,” Hirr had admitted, but Alorin sighed now, thinking of the clearing with her three victims; she understood she could not follow the Lady Marlen’s legend now. Her live man was gelded, already soulless; he had nothing more to give up. And so he must die horribly. She could not kill until she’d taken a man’s soul, so he’d need to die in a welter of his own blood and filth, his screams following her as she slowly rode away.

  And so began her quest. Not her true quest, on which she had been sent: to accomplish the death of the Lord Whitemar, whom her employer the Princess needed slain. She could not do that now, not until she had repaid the gods by taking another man’s seed. Only then would the gods balance the souls in the universe; until they did, her responsibility lay heavy.

  Before she left, she made sure to look carefully at the second foe, for the Old Ways demanded that she mate not just with any man, but with a man who resembled the one she’d killed. Other, lesser Free Families might accept just any man’s seed, for the sake of haste; still others might offer coin for a man, or might even simply take one unwilling. But that was not her way; the women of her family paid the Seed-Debt in the natural way, and they never paid coin to redeem it.

  Not that she should ever need to, of course; a prime Free Woman warrior in her twenty-sixth year, it would disgrace her if she could not take any seed she chose. If perhaps she was shorter than most men, and even many women, she knew she was very fair to look at; she was careful when fighting to avoid facial scars, so she still had the heart-shaped Kaye face, the strong nose, the grey eyes. Her neck was long and powerful, honed like the rest of her frame by years with weighted training swords, clubs, and axes; beneath that moved a lithe, loose-limbed body, slender and muscled, with fine high breasts that she loathed, as they got in the way of the bowstring. Like many of the Free Women, she’d chosen to be made barren; else, she’d not have stayed a fighter. Her sisters had stopped being fighters and instead become mothers in their twenty-fourth years, but Alorin was more like Junessa. Barren women could accept much seed without thought, making them better fighters, and she had often done so during her time.

  And so she would now be seeking a certain type of man, for the second foe had been tall, finely knit, with that cragginess of face that bespoke years of hard living, yet with a certain air that said there’d been better blood in his family long past. Strong, solid legs, a broad chest, muscles beneath his leather armor that stood out like bumps on a King’s Road; his hair had been dark, his remaining eye a piercing blue. The first eye he’d lost, smeared across her blade. He’d had a long, thick cock as well, and in the end that had been Alorin’s undoing; she’d been delayed in getting to his heavy balls because she’d had to waste time steering around his member after she cut away his pants, and he had expired around the time she’d first touched his flesh. For, just as she’d set her antler knife into the filthy skin of his scrotum, she had heard his breath rattle and felt his body convulse, and then go still.

  She had to admit it: the Seed-Debt was always easier to pay when the unseeded man is attractive.

  So she had her goal, and she’d have to delay Lord Whitemar’s murder until she could find such a man. Come what may; it might be days or years, but she swore the gods would have their balance even though her employer would grow angry.

  Two

  Ten days, she’d quoted. Ten days, she’d told Princess Raxillene, to find, stalk, and kill his lordship, ensuring (of course) that she first drained his seed. When she’d killed men before, she’d used various methods; most Free Fighters have their preferred techniques, but Alorin always tried to use whatever means the situation seemed to demand. She had an employer who preferred discretion.

  With women, of course, it was easier; a Free Fighter can kill a woman whenever needed. As the Legends say, no seed, no soul. So Alorin usually just dispatched the ladies with a knife to the chin.

  A man at an inn way back in Holling, before she’d left the Road, had told her the Whitemars spent this time of year hunting at their fortress in the Priests’ Wood, and that his lordship would most certainly be there. Of course, that same innkeep’s direction had led her to the three thieves who had gotten her into this dilemma; they had paid with their lives for the innkeep’s words, and she still had to pay her own price.

  Fucking strange world.

  As if to match her spirits, there were storm-clouds gathering ahead as she rode. Even her horse was pissed, feeding off the mood of her mistress, but then Pixie always had been a clever animal. The two of them plunged on into the teeth of the afternoon wind, their minds occupied with thoughts as dark as the thunderheads above, the woods thinning out around them as they splashed through a little brook.

  She was already craving a roof and a hot meal tonight. She knew that was a sign of weakness, and hated it in herself; Alorin Kaye was usually happiest on the ground, under a rough wool blanket, with nothing but a rockface for shelter. But she couldn’t help it; the memory of the dying man’s screams had her sullen and bitter, her thoughts thick. On top of that, she was just coming off her monthly curse, and that always peeved her.

  The issue, of course, was that the Princess always required discretion. And here, that meant riding through the woods at the base of the mountains, with nothing in her way but meadows, streams, cutthroats, and the occasional woodsman’s cottage. Obviously there was nothing stopping her from finding a likely-looking cottage, slaughtering the occupants, and passing a comfortable night in their beds while the bodies cooled… or, wait. Nothing stopping her, that is, but her gods-damned Seed-Debt. That, and whatever conscience she still possessed; the Princess would not have approved of that kind of behavior, either, so there was that.

  Still, she was almost angry enough.

  But she’d need to stop anyway, now, everywhere she could as she passed toward the Southlands. Where there were people there were men, and where there were men, there were cocks. Hopefully thick ones, attached to tall dark men like the thief her sword had betrayed. So she had no real choice when a simple, neat little house loomed on a hilltop clearing. Pixie snorted, craving something other than autumn grasses at the foot of the mountains and, sighing, Alorin dismounted at the stout little gate in the log wall around the home. Just as the rain began to come spitting down, she crossed a stableyard busy with chickens and approached a thick wooden door with a complicated knotted rope lock.

  Taking care to keep her hands up and spread, the valkyrie stopped at the base of the simple porch she found. “Hello?” There were three broad windows, all shuttered, and for an instant Alorin dared to hope
the place was unoccupied. “Anyone here?”

  A moment’s silence, then an angry growl from within. “Who needs to know?”

  She cocked her head; the voice sounded pissed, but not dangerous. “A traveller from the Borderlands, bound for the Priest’s Wood,” she called, her voice clear and fearless. “I seek food and a roof, and I’ve got silver to pay.”

  A grumble from within, and then some hushed voices. When the rope lock came untied, the door cracked open to show a large, bearded face. “A traveller.” He scanned his yard, taking good notice of Pixie. “You’re far from the road, traveller.”

  “Perhaps I’m lost.” She kept her voice carefully bland.

  “Perhaps.” Satisfied that Alorin was not the vanguard of some awful invading horde, the man at last pulled the door further open. His thick legs were bare beneath a long woolen tunic, and he was breathing hard. “Silver, huh? I’m in the middle of something. You’ll wait a few moments, and then I’ll return.” He made to close the door, then thought of something else. “And I’ll thank your horse not to shit in my gateway, too.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Alorin replied dryly, and then the door snapped shut, the rope went taut, and she was left kicking her heels into the turf while the raindrops began, with spiteful laziness, to drift down. She sighed again as she wondered what the woodcutter was doing in there, and then went back to the palisade to deliver his dire warning to the horse.

  “No shitting in the gateway, Pixie.” The big grey just stared back mournfully through her liquid eyes. No doubt, she’d need a rubdown and some shelter tonight. The rain was beginning to pick up now, and Alorin pulled her dark cloak more tightly around herself.

  It was some minutes before the door opened again, the big bearded man once more peering out suspiciously. “Come!” he shouted across the little yard, and she thought he looked a lot happier than he had before. “Bed and board are five silver mergansers, plus two roights,” he called again as she came closer, and then he frowned as he saw the valkyrie stop, cold and dark, in the rain.