Menys found herself drifting off to sleep, lulled by the rhythmic rocking of the cart as it rumbled along the road. She’d wriggled and ground herself into a comfortable hollow among the grain sacks. She was surprised to find herself warm, comfortable, and at least for now, in no danger. Her philosophy had, for some time, been that unless she was in immediate danger, then she would probably be alright. She'd cultivated pragmatism to a fine art. So, she went to sleep, and didn't worry about the fact that she was trussed up in the back of a grain-cart and bound for Nol-knew-where. She'd deal with things one at a time, when they arose. 

Her dreams disturbed her, however. If she closed her eyes and allowed herself to drowse, she would dream of Tea-Master Louen. Hot dreams, lustful dreams.

He was naked, lying on a bed of crumpled linen and soft pillows, one hand idly stroking his erect cock as he watched her. He smiled, slowly, lazily, and beckoned her over. She undressed inch by inch, teasing him. She knew her body aroused him, with all her lush curves and big, bouncing breasts; his eyes lingered on them, full of lascivious appreciation. She smiled provocatively and flicked her tongue over her upper lip. His lips parted, his eyes bright, two rose-red spots on his cheeks as he pumped his fist up and down his cock. Faster now, his breaths rapid and shallow. His cock strained in his fist, the head was deep crimson and slick with his juices as it jutted from his tightly-curled fingers. She swayed toward him, working her own nipples between thumb and forefinger and teasing them erect. His eyes locked on them, two delicate rose-buds ripe for his mouth. She put her hands on the bed, leaning over him, her eyes on his rock-hard penis, her tits swaying as she moved slowly up his body...

A pothole jolted her out of the fantasy, and she cursed it. The place between her legs felt damp and swollen. She shifted onto her front and clamped her legs together, grinding herself against the sack. The coarse fabric offered just the right stimulation for her poor aching twat and she was determined to use it to its full potential. She began to grind her clit against it and tried to imagine that she rode Tea-Master Louen's lovely big cock, the hessian grazing her nipples with a deliciously stimulating harshness. 

She was just about to come when the cloth covering her was whipped away, and a woman’s coarse laughter broke her lust.

‘Oh, will you look at that! What the fuck did you feed her, Rhas? Firethorn?’

A rough, feminine hand shoved at Menys. ‘Time enough for that later, slut, if you’ve a mind. Got plenty of men with fat purses and fat cocks willing to part with a coin or to for that lush arse. You can get a gold coin for every hole you get filled. Come on then, get out! Let’s have a look at you! Rhas, take that fucking sack off her head, let the poor girl breathe!’

Menys scrambled to sit upright, undignified and ungainly in her sack and wrist-ties, certain she was treating the woman and whoever Rhas was to more than an eyeful. Surely they could smell the scent of arousal on her. It seemed to permeate the air, familiar and so natural to her after several weeks in the brothel, and yet somehow strange and shameful.

Someone cut the ties around her wrists and pulled off her hood, and she stared straight into large hazel eyes in a handsome face. She presumed this to be Rhas. He wore impossibly-long hair in a thick red braid down his back, the end tucked up into his belt. His garb was rough; a patchwork of green and brown and grey, here and there a flash of dark copper. He looked as though he could have melted into the trees and never be seen again.

He grinned at her and pulled her down from the wagon. He looked at the woman, who was staring at Menys in disbelief.

'What is this?' she demanded.

His smile faded. ‘We didn’t have time…’

‘This is the best you could do? This lice-riddled scamp?’

'Half the town was on fire by the time we left, and crawling with blue-coat bastards!' He made an impatient gesture, clearly upset his efforts weren't appreciated. 'What would you have had me do? I grabbed the closest woman I could get my hands on.'

Rosa clamped her hands to her ample hips and glowered fiercely. 'If I'd wanted some over-fed urchin who likes frigging grain sacks, you stupid man, I'd have plucked one from the Karoni farms! I wanted class, beauty, experience! How else am I to compete with Karoni whore-mongers? You wait til Haniven hears about your incompetence!'

'You can't snap your fingers at Han and expect him to punish me,' Rhas growled. 'He curses your name in his sleep, did you know that?'

'Yes - with his hands around his cock and balls!'

Menys rolled her eyes skyward and listened to the two argue. The woman, who was called Rosa, was a tall, handsome sort, with long, lean legs, round hips and arse, big pert tits, and a head full of silken russet curls. In short, a beauty, if a rustic one. Her eyes were a soft grey and curved slightly upwards, giving her a striking allure that Menys envied. 

She cut Rhas short mid-protest and looked at Menys. ‘Well, let's see what I can make of this rapscallion, since you've brought her. Can you clean, imp? Cook? Sew? Bake? Make beds? Tend wounds? Tend ills?’

‘I…’

‘You don’t look as if you can. Rhas, what a sorry little rat you’ve brought me! What possessed you?’

he huffed, rolling his eyes dramatically. ‘Like I said, we didn’t have time to go interviewing every likely…’

‘Well, she’ll have to do. I can train her I suppose, though I really don’t have time for that; I was hoping you’d bring me something that I could make some use of right away! Where did you find her, the gutter?’

Rhas shrugged, and flashed Menys another grin. ‘Pretty much!’

‘It wasn’t exactly a gutter…’ Menys began, feeling ashamed of this big woman’s scorn. She hadn’t minded so much being dirty in House Willow – it was an advantage in several ways – but here, under the greenwood tree, she felt like the lousy imp Rosa had called her.

But if I let her clean me up, The Queen will find me! I can't let that happen!

‘I’m a murderer,’ she lied. ‘I…uh…was in the middle of uh...fleeing the city when this man caught me and bundled me up. If you’ll just let me be on my way…’

‘A murderer!’ Rosa threw back her head, her bountiful curls bouncing with laughter. ‘Oh, really! You wait 'til you meet the den of thieves, murderers, and swindlers I’ve got here! Come on, let’s get you fed and watered and sluiced off in the spring. You stink like a fucking bordello. Rhas better not have laid his greasy fingers on you or by Nol I’ll chop them all off!’

‘Hey,’ Rhas protested. 

Rosa fetched him a cuff alongside the head, and led Menys through a thick wooden door, iron clad and almost a foot thick. It seemed to be set into the side of a rocky ravine, choked over with thorns and brambles and trailing ivy: if one didn’t know where to look for it, one would miss it altogether.

‘It’s bespelled as well as physically armoured,’ Rosa explained, as she shut the door behind them and took a torch from a sconce in the wall. ‘Louen keeps the wards charged for us. He usually comes every full moon – you’ll meet him in a few days’ time. This way, and watch your step – the floor’s uneven in places.’

‘The floor isn’t there in places,’ Rhas corrected her, and laughed, low and soft. He touched Menys’ shoulder. ‘Don’t worry: I know where those places are. I won’t let you fall.’

Louen? Menys felt her heart speed up. Tea-Master Louen is...he's the leader of these people?

Tea-Master Louen?!

She couldn't believe it. He was refined, cultured, pristine and polite. She couldn't imagine him leading such a band of motley criminals like Rhas and Rosa seemed to be. 

Not that he was their leader now. She wondered if she should tell them. But then they might want to know how she knew him. She decided that was information she'd be prudent sitting on for no, at least until she'd got the measure of these people and discovered what they wanted from her. 

'Going to stand there all day and gawp, imp?' Rosa prodded her in the spine with a sharp fingernail. 'Follow Rhas!'

Menys kept her mouth shut. Tarnbreck Gorge was the subject of several horror stories that credulous and stupid girls at the brothel had enjoyed reciting on dark, stormy nights, if they were lucky enough not to be otherwise engaged. Louen had encouraged them. And privately told Menys it was all a lot of nonsense and she could listen to it or not, it didn’t concern him, but what it did do was bore him, so she’d better not make him listen.

And there were no such things as ghosts, according to him.

She knew he didn’t believe a word his lying mouth said. He believed in more than just ghosts. And she also knew that ghosts were real – and that there were worse things.

Like that vampire that tore up three men and drenched the courtyard with their blood.

She stumbled, and snatched at Rhas' arm. His chuckle echoed through the darkness ahead. Menys shivered. From the sounds of that echo, they were in a cavern, and a big one.

He increased the light from his mage light. ‘Better?’

‘B-better,’ she stammered.

Rosa snorted. ‘The silly cow will be useless by the time we get her up the Eyrie if you carry on like that, you scoundrel! Give us a proper light, will you?’

Rhas obeyed, grumbling, and flooded the darkness with a light so bright it almost blinded them. Menys flung her arm across her eyes, exclaiming. Rosa swore at him and vowed to stripe his arse raw for him once they got where they were going.

Menys saw that the path wound along the side of an enormous cavern; she could hear the soft burble of an underground brook below, and above them the ceiling vaulted like the roof of a cathedral. Stalactites glittered pale green in the ghostly mage-light, and to her horror she fancied she glimpsed a colony of bats. She shivered. She hated bats. And she hated the idea that before Rhas had lit the cave with the intensity of a thousand suns, she’d been one false step from ending her life impaled on a stalagmite. There was a cluster of them below and they looked as vicious as a bundle of spears. She reached out and twisted her fist into a fold of Rhas’ cloak.

He tutted softly. ‘You think we let anyone fall here?’

‘Anyone we don’t want to fall,’ clarified Rosa. She jabbed a finger downward. Menys peered cautiously over. Rhas obligingly concentrated a sliver of light so she could see what Rosa had indicated.

She tightened her hold on Rhas, and pressed herself against the wall. There were too many bones down there to count. She'd spied at least three rib-cages, and five or six skulls, in the brief flare of light Rhas had directed there. ‘How many have you let…die…?’

‘Probably…ten or so, maybe twelve,’ said Rosa. ‘Not many actually find this place. If they do, and we’re not expecting them, there’s a nice little spot down there where their flesh can quietly rot and not bother anyone. If we don't make use of them in our cooking pots.'

‘That’s horrible!’

‘Not really. They’d only do the same to us. And sometimes times are hard. It's hard to find enough food in the middle of a harsh winter. Needs must, girl: we can't always afford to be picky. Anyway, how come you're so high and mighty, imp?'

'I'm not. I just believe that eating people is wrong.'

'If they're sneaking in here, imp, they're sneaking in to kill us, which is wrong. We're making sure we don't waste good meat.'

Menys considered that, inching along behind Rhas and still clutching his cloak, despite his irritation. ‘But maybe they’re just travellers looking for shelter,’ she hazarded.

Rhas snorted. ‘Nobody travels here looking for shelter. They travel here looking for the Queen’s bounty. We’re pretty dedicated to not letting them collect it. Watch your step here…oh, for fuck’s sake! Will you stop it!’

Menys, who'd been clutching Rhas' cloak tighter and tighter,  found herself swept up and over a broad, solid shoulder and her mouth, after a few shrieks of outrage and fear, clamped up tight.