Forin moved alongside Karis. ‘Perhaps we should continue our conversation somewhere private?’ he offered.
‘Why not?’ she told him. Forin took a candle from the table and led her through to the rear of the tavern and up a flight of rickety steps. There was a narrow corridor leading to three doors. Forin opened the first and stepped aside for Karis to enter. The room was small, gloomy and cold. There were no chairs, only a roughly crafted double bed with a thin mattress. Using the flickering candle, Forin lit a lantern which hung on a hook above the bed, then
moved to the small hearth where a fire had been laid; this he also lit. ‘It will be warm soon enough,’ he said.
She squatted down beside him, watching the firelight reflected in his green eyes. He was not a handsome man, she thought, but he had a quality that transcended good looks. Is it his strength, his size? she wondered. In the firelight he looked somehow larger, more impressive. Primal, perhaps? ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked her.
‘I was wondering what you looked like naked.’ she said.
‘Wonder for a little longer,’ he told her, with a broad smile. ‘The room’s not warm enough yet.’
‘Then tell me of the Daroth, for I need to find a weakness.’
Forin sat back. ‘There are none that I recall. You already know they do not like the cold, nor high places where the air is thin. They will not cross water if they can avoid it. But these things will not help us in Corduin. We are in low-lying land, the weather is clement in the spring, and there is no moat.’
‘Even so, I believe there is something else.’
‘Wishful thinking, perhaps?’
‘I do not believe so. It is something I have seen, and yet not recognized. Something that is perhaps too obvious.’
‘I am afraid you have lost me there.’
‘Tell me a simple story of how they live.’
‘You saw the city. They cluster together in domed dwellings. They cannot sit as we do, for their spines are thicker and less supple. They procreate without touching, the female laying an egg which the male fertilizes. There is no obvious difference between male and female. Both are equally strong, and – as we have observed – equally ugly. There are no children as such; the young emerge from their pods and grow within days to full-size adults, sharing the
memories of whichever parent has died – if that is the term – beside the pod. They eat flesh, and require great amounts of salt.’ He paused. ‘Is this helping you?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. The heat in the small room was growing, and Forin peeled off his shirt; his upper body bore many scars. As he rose and stripped off his leggings, Karis pushed the thoughts of the Daroth from her mind.
His love-making was exactly what she needed – crude and powerful, animalistic and passionate – and Karis felt her body echoing his need. His arms slid under her shoulders, pulling her hard against him; his body smelt of wood-smoke and sweat. It was not unpleasant, as she had feared. As her body tensed and moved in rhythm with the man upon her, her mind relaxed, as if she was floating free of the carnal. In this curiously detached state her body drew strength from the massive figure above her, while the problems that haunted her faded from her consciousness. She was free. Nothing else existed. The world had shrunk to a grimy, firelit room above a noisy tavern. There were no problems to solve, no logistics to calculate, no plans to study. And she did not even need to consider the pleasure of the man, for he, she knew, was oblivious to her as an individual. It was the only true freedom Karis ever knew.
Her legs locked about his hips, her nails raking his back, Karis found herself rising towards orgasm, which, when it came, sent her body into an almost painful series of spasms. Her head sank back onto the pillow and she closed her eyes, enjoying the small aftershocks that rippled through her system. Forin rolled from her and lay back with a sigh. For a long moment neither of them spoke, then Forin rose from the bed and moved to the fire. Karis watched him dress. ‘I’ll get us both a drink,’ he said, and left the room.