Belly of the Beast by Warren Thomas (story books for 5 year olds txt) 📕

encourage her,” Quinn cried, staring incredulously at the grinning Vikon couple.

            “No one needs to encourage me, my beloved bondmate,” Raven said softly, surprising everyone in its sincerity. “You could have just left me back on that Godsforsaken battlefield, Quinn. But you didn’t. You saved my life, and I’ll love you forever for that.”

            Quinn looked shocked, while Tane decided not to mention it was actually Sergeant Gareth that carried her to safety. Though, if one considered the near battle outside the city walls when the zombies caught up with them, another man might have left her behind. Quinn had saved her that time.

            “Get a better lock,” Raven said and tossed the open lock up to Quinn as she returned to her bunk.

            They all just gawked. No one had noticed her removing it. Tane was astounded. Did she know some magic spell? It happened too fast for anyone to see.

            “Sweet Mother preserve!” Quinn gasped.

            Joelle’s laughter rang out, so infectious it even brought a smile to Quinn’s face after a moment, though he fought to hide it. But when Raven turned her attention to cleaning and honing her knife and daggers, everyone else followed suit.

            The survivors of the battle had been given the night off to recuperate. The zombies seemed content to wait until morning as well. As for himself, Tane was looking forward to a bath, a hot meal, and a little time in a nearby tavern. Not necessarily in that order.

            Tane meticulously cleaned every speck of blood, rust, and grime off his sword and knife, noting with a bit of pride that not one nick desecrated Bearclaw’s edge. Then he disassembled Bearclaw’s wood and leather scabbard, cleaning the moat water, blood, and slime out of the sheepskin lining. After his weapons were taken care of, he turned his attention to his other gear. After he picked up another pair of boots, trousers, and tunic from supply, he headed for the garrison bathhouse with Joelle and Armin.

            The bathhouse was a subterranean facility, beneath and fully as large as the parade field. Hot, moist air burst out the door as they entered, driving out the chill that had settled into Tane’s bones even before they fully descended the stairs. There were already hundreds of battle-weary soldiers enjoying the bath, leaving little room to move about. To Tane’s surprise and delight, there were civilians present eager to clean and mend his clothes while he bathed – for a price. He had planned to throw them away, instead of taking on the chore of cleaning out all the blood and sewing up the cuts and tears.

            “This sure beats our old open air facility,” Joelle said as she happily stripped off her battle-tattered, blood-gory tunic and trousers. “It’s getting too cold to bathe outside.”

            Tane quickly stripped out of his equally gory clothes, handing them over to a young man to clean, along with the requested two crowns copper fee. It was expensive, but Armin said so was food and lodgings during a siege. The city’s inhabitants were all probably fighting just as hard to survive in the city as Tane and the soldiers were on the battlefield and city walls.

            The facility wasn’t a proper bathhouse since it only had a single bathing pool and no dedicated steam room, though the whole facility was steaming hot. Ideally, bathers would enter a steam room to apply cleaning unguents and scrape off the sweat and grime of a day’s hard labors. Once their pores ceased excreting dirt, then they would rinse off in a hot pool. That was followed by a quick plunge in a cold water pool that, if Tane understood the concept, closed the pores to keep out dirt. The whole affair should ‘properly’ take an hour or two, and was considered the high point of the day by many city folks, especially Jarlanders and Amazons.

            “Why is the water that color?” Tane said, hesitating at the pool’s edge.

            The men and women were almost shoulder to shoulder in the waist deep water, some laughing, joking, or flirting, others scrubbing vigorously or gingerly examining puckered wounds. But instead of clean, clear water, they stood and bathed in milky looking water.

            “It’s the bar soap the army issues instead of more expensive cleaning oils,” Armin said as he eased into the water, then helped his wife in. “I suppose it doesn’t look ideal for bathing, but better than nothing.”

            “It’ll get the worst of the filth off our bodies,” Joelle said, looking amused at Tane’s hesitancy. “Don’t worry; if any drowning vermin find you, I have spells to get rid of them.”

            “Vermin?” Tane said, backing away a step. “What kind of vermin? Lice? Ticks?”

            “Worse! Tyrians!” Raven cried from behind him.

            Suddenly a pair of slender arms wrapped around his waist. He felt warm, soft breasts pressed against his back and then a playful bite at the base of his neck. He was lifted off the floor and she jumped into the pool. People laughed or shouted angrily at being splashed, but mostly they laughed. Tane thrashed helplessly in the water, held fast by a gleefully laughing Raven.

            “Don’t laugh!” Joelle called in mock horror. “The lad’s being attacked by a love-starved Tyrian! Blessed Maag, he doesn’t stand a chance!”

            Tane, realizing he was only making a fool of himself, stopped thrashing about and allowed his feet to sink to the bottom. Once grounded, he was able to stand erect and steal away Raven’s leverage. So she hopped onto his back, wrapping arms and legs around him – and bit him playfully just below the ear.

            “Raven! Please!” Tane cried, shocked and confused.

            He was frozen in place. He felt her breasts pressed into his back, just below the shoulders. And more alarming, her pubic mound was pressed against him as well. He’d never been with a woman. His hands began to tremble as he mind spun out and left him disconcerted.

            “I could teach