Torturous Alliance

DESCRIPTION
Return to the Northern Kingdom, where naked slave girls are chained for your pleasure…if you can avoid getting stabbed in the back. Black Templar Bruno Cromwell is back, and he never seems to run out of dragons to slay or fair maidens to ravish. Meanwhile, in the south, Dragon Slayer Seamus must contend with a fire breathing monster…if he can avoid being distracted by the sweet slave flesh of his naked wizardess…

EXCERPT
A beam of sunlight pierced through the early morning fog, striking the red tresses of a most unusual woman marching up the Bishop Vanya Road. As her tresses sparkled like jewels in the harsh midday sun, she shouldered her two handed sword and loosened her cloak.

“By the gods, it's hot!” she said to the sky and the road and the scraggly trees, because it seemed she was alone on that dirty stretch of road, more of a bandit infested series of potholes.

Sabia was the youngest of thirteen children. Her father had been a great hunter before arthritis stole his power and speed, but left his cunning. Fortunately, his twelve sons and solitary daughter more than provided for their extended family. The Tresea Clan, the Harvesters, roamed the icy tundras and frozen wastes and learned to fight by battling off bandits, monsters, and white bears who could outrun you, outswim you, and outfight you if you were on your own.

By the time she was ten Sabia could track, kill, and skin one of the white bears. Her family fed well on the smoked meat, drank deeply of the rich bearfat, and wrapped themselves in pelts so soft they seemed made of the soft white clouds themselves.

Then the Templars had come, and enforced their rules on the Tresea Clan and other White Northerners. Sabia lost her family during the violent revolts and now sold her sword to the highest bidder.

Since she'd come to the South, Sabia learned the climate was much warmer than her own. Thus, she'd taken to wearing only a light ring mail jerkin and kept her long, muscular but still feminine legs bare. A pair of sturdy boots kept her toes safe from stones and snakes, and she still wore the headband with her clan's sigil proudly on her forehead, which also served to keep her beautiful hair out of her pale green eyes.

Sabia had taken coin this day to carry a message to one Oblittero the Adequate, a wizard of some repute. Stories say her had a coach pulled by terrible Hell Ponies which could spit fire and run on the very air.

They also say he believed his face was too beautiful to be seen by the world, and kept it sealed behind an iron mask. His appetite for gold was said to be second only to his appetite for women.

Sabia wasn't worried. She knew she was beautiful, but also knew that she could cut a man in two before he could blink. Sabia had fought wizards before, and as long as you didn't let them get you downrange you had a fair shot of victory. The fact that she was expected also served to put her at ease.

She stopped next to a tree bent like an old beggar and took a deep pull on her waterskin. Her pale flesh was glazed with sweat, and her freckles were swallowed by a red flush from the heat. There, in the meadow behind the tree, lay the crumbling tower said to be the wizard's hideaway.

“Oh, please,” she said with a sigh as a pair of skeletons staggered up, clumsily gripping rusted swords. With a twist, she unsheathed her sword and cut one of the skeletons in two with a smooth motion…