"Kick out your bloody legs you silly bitch!" he called to her, "follow me, like this," and he sailed close by her so that she could see his action.
"Don't leave meeeeeeeeee!" she screamed, her voice echoing across the water in a shriek that had the fleeing footman picking up his rheumatic knees like a teenager as he ran helter-skelter for the woods.
Eventually, the countess mastered a rudimentary dog paddle and by dint of furious effort managed to follow Vulkan to the shore where he awaited her, lying on a large expanse of smooth sandstone.
For reasons best known to herself the countess did not go back to the relative sanctuary of the coach, but chose instead to lay down beside Vulkan on the smooth stone.
After a while, the prince levered himself up on to his elbow and looked down at her. He had to admit she was a 'cut above' he mused, as he trailed his finger tip over the bridge of her perfect nose, stroking the fine dusting of freckles she normally kept hidden with powder. He could not imagine another woman who would not have been reduced to a snivelling wreck by now.
Her delicate pink nipples had been turned almost blue by the cold and stood up like a pair of rivets from the mass of goose bumps covering every square inch of her flesh. He ran his palm over the plethora of cinnamon coloured stripes the flogging with the sword belt had left across her silken skin. Watching the tiny expressions of pain flit across her face as his fingers re-awaked the flayed nerve ending. He bent low to suck on her nipples, drawing them into his hot mouth, making her moan and arch her back as he worried the oversensitive nubbins with his rough, mobile tongue.
Predictably, his voracious sexual appetite began to rekindle itself and she demurred not one jot when he rolled her over onto her belly and pushed her knees forward so that the soft, wide pillows of her buttocks were exposed to him. Almost lovingly, he parted her whip-stung cheeks to expose the delicate pink bud of her anus. Sweeping his tongue over the hypersensitive tissue, swirling it around and around, penetrating the forbidden ring of pleasure, spearing her until she thrust back at him, uttering shameless grunts of pleasure and eventually, obscene entreaties for him to bugger her with his massive tool.
The satyr prince hardly needed another invitation. He slipped his hand under her damp crotch and raised her hips still further, shuffling forward on his knees he offered up the massive head of his cock to the saliva slicked anus. At the same time, he wrapped his forearm around her waist, pinning her nervous, fluttering belly to him. For even though, on one level she craved the act, on another she feared the brutal pain that would inevitably ensue from the invasion of such a monster and without suitable restraints to hand he knew he would needed to steady her.
The countess closed her eyelids tightly. Pushing her arms forward, she braced her palms against the coarse stone, easing herself backward until she felt the tip of the red-hot bell-end begin to enter her. But the satyr could wait not a second longer for his pleasure and with a great booming cry he thrust his hips forward, impaling her as the massive tool shrugged aside the trifling ring of muscle and filled up her bowels. The countess flung back her head and howled up into the night sky, her blue eyes popping with indescribable agony as he began to saw back and forth.
She had been sodomised on many occasions of course and almost always at her own behest, but never had she thought to accommodate such a monster. Just as she believed the pain could not possibly get any greater, Vulkan's first orgasm burst upon him, making his shaft swell to even larger proportions. His thrusting became deeper and more aggressive so that she was sure that he would butcher her innards and leave her to bleed to death on the hard stone.
But then he was ejaculating into her, in a great, raging torrent that jetted into her with such force that it seemed she could feel his lava flow all the way into her belly. She felt the excess fluids escaping from her to run down the silk of her inner thighs and his motion was suddenly easier within her as the all-enveloping emollient was spread throughout her pulsating guts by his vigorous pumping.
Cautiously at first, the countess began to truly enjoy the fucking of her arse as the pain gradually subsided to be replaced by the familiar pleasure. She rolled her hips upward to their fullest extent, pushing back with her arms, locking her elbows as he thudded into her. Her breathing became harsh and guttural as she grunted at each of his monumental thrusts.
However, there was something else she realised as they rutted hotly together; his copious fluids had ignited a slow, burning deep within her core. A burning that could only to be assuaged by yet another of his incredibly deep thrusts. And so, as the delicious minutes passed, the wanton countess was inexorably drawn down into the concupiscent, addictive miasma fuelled by the satyr's enchanted semen.
An hour before dawn, Vulkan led the exhausted countess back to the carriage. She had already began to succumb to the blood ague; shivering and sweating at one and the same time and would, he knew, shortly be falling into that strange state of violent delirium that Malpurgo had warned him about. Vulkan allowed her to pull a long chemise over her well-used body and discretely prepared the bindings he would need when she entered the worst of the delirium.
Stepping outside again the prince scanned the edge of the woods and easily picked out the short, fat shape of Henrik hiding amongst the bushes. He cupped his hands around his mouth he yelled.
"Get back here now we're leaving!"
When Henrik failed to move Vulkan shouted again, this time injecting a great deal more menace into his tone.
"If you make me come all the way over there to get you I won't like it!"
With obvious reluctance, the footman finally emerged from the bushes and began to trudge disconsolately back to the carriage. The rotund figure looking around him all the while, as if wishing a troop of the king's heavy cavalry might arrive out of nowhere and put an end to his nightmare.
By the time the sun rose the countess had indeed fallen into an agitated, trance-like state, within which, she tossed and turned with remarkable violence against the heavy restraints Vulkan had contrived.
Amusingly, she began to call out all manner of vulgar suggestions and lewd oaths. So much so that the giggling Vulkan had little option but to gag her and confine her in one of the small luggage bins at the rear of the coach. For once, the neurotic Henrik made no complaint, as they were now entering the more heavily populated outer environs of Dashane and were encountering more and more folk along the road. Doubtless, he saw the wisdom of concealing the countess' febrile state from the general populace, not to mention the king's constables.
By morning, they were within sight of the city walls. The countess had finally slipped into the expected coma and so Vulkan was able to arrange her more decently within coach's saloon ready for their arrival at the keep.
From his eerie, the Captain of the Barbican observed the Countess Jessica's coach arriving with only a single, strange knight in attendance and immediately sent for the seneschal. The dour Maximilian duly arrived in short order at the head of half a dozen knights, all of whom appeared eager for some swordplay, by the way they strutted about fingering their sword hilts. Although, all contrived to maintain a respectful distance from the powerful knight in full battle armour mounted atop the snorting, stamping warhorse.
The seneschal looked briefly into the carriage at his apparently sleeping spouse before signalling the grooms to take the coach through to their private apartments.
He sized up Vulkan before calling him politely, if firmly to account.
"What fate has befallen my wife and what has become of the escort I sent for her?" Count Maximilian demanded.
"Your Grace, I happened across your coach at the border two days ago. The escort had already been slaughtered by a band of outlaws and the countess…" here Vulkan paused for delicacy's sake, secretly enjoying the look of pained embarrassment that suddenly clouded the seneschal's surly face as he looked quickly around at the inquisitive faces of the listening knights.
"Dismissed!" the seneschal growled at the curious throng and waited until only Vulkan and the quivering Henrik remained within earshot before nodding for him to continue with his account.
"Although heavily outnumbered, I attacked immediately and managed, by God's Grace, to slay the criminals, including the vile devil who was in the process of ill-using your wife," again Vulkan chortled inside at the seneschal's obvious discomfort, "however," and here Vulkan dropped his voice to a mere whisper, "I fear the uncouth brute had already pressed himself most grievously upon the countess' virtue, Your Grace."
The seneschal considered for a long time, his lips pursing in and out, before turning his attention to the pallid footman.
"And why are you still alive, sirrah?" he ground out between his big square teeth, apparently anxious to find someone to blame for the debacle.
"Sadly, Henrik here was the only other survivor of the attack," Vulkan interceded smoothly, before the petrified footman could blurt out the wrong thing, "and even though pierced with a bodkin through his shoulder and struck on the head by a mace, he continued to bravely defend his mistress until I was able to get to him and dispatch the last of the attackers."
The seneschal stared back and forth between the two, taking Henrik's catatonic expression as confirmation of Vulkan's story. In the absence of any contrary information, he was honour bound to accept the knight's statement. Sensing the seneschal's reluctant acceptance, Vulkan allowed himself some small congratulations. The explanation had been entirely plausible and in any case, very near to the truth. By praising Henrik so highly, Vulkan had effectively bound the footman to the far greater lie, that of his mistress' enravishment by Vulkan himself.
"Well, all will become clear when the countess recovers her wits," the seneschal stated somewhat gracelessly, "in the meanwhile, you would do us all honour by accepting the hospitality of the keep, I expect the King will want to hear all about at the Knight's Court this evening."
A short while later Prince Vulkan was shown to a set of chambers within one of the many towers that housed the innumerable nobles and their households. After so many days on horse back the prince was grateful for the opportunity to bathe in hot water and immediately thereafter fell into the soft bed.
He was awoken in the early evening by a footman who brought a summons to attend the throne room. Vulkan dressed in the fresh garments that had been laid out for him and was relieved to see that the dress tabards fashionable in Dashane fell to just below the knee, so that his unpredictable organ might remain suitably covered.
Vulkan was eventually ushered into the king's presence, where he joined a short line of folk waiting to be called to the foot of the dais. Whilst he waited his turn, Vulkan took the time to survey the gathering of knights who were seated on two long, crescent shaped benches arranged on either side and slightly forward of, the dais upon which Leopold sat in the larger of three grand thrones, the other two, usually occupied by his wife and daughter, Vulkan surmised, were empty. The seneschal, Maximilian, stood beside the king and seemed to be acting in the role of Master of Ceremonies, organising the calling up and dismissal of those who had come to seek the king's favour.
Evidently, the knights were there to offer their advice, either that, or they were the frigging bouncers snorted Vulkan to himself derisively. When he sat on Leo's throne, he promised himself, those benches would be the first pieces of crap to go in the moat.
Vulkan looked around, noting sourly that the were no women present at all! Apparently, the Knight's Court was a male only talking shop – how unutterably fucking tedious he thought – another custom to be ditched. Nonetheless, the prince had to agree that the keep itself and indeed, all of the surrounding land he had glimpsed from his chamber windows were most impressive. The granite keep seemed to rise like a small mountain over an area of at least ten acres; a truly monumental undertaking and obviously the result of many generations of effort and far superior to his father's ramshackle holding.
The prince was jerked out of his reverie by the sound of his name being called and adopting the most scrupulous punctilio, he strode forward and gave Leopold his deepest bow.
The king listened intently, his quick grey eyes drinking in every detail of the man before him as the seneschal whispered in his ear. Explaining a sanitised version of the rescue of the countess no doubt, thought Vulkan although, he doubted very much that Max would tell Leo that his wife had been well shafted by a no account border reaver.
"Prince Vulkan," said the king at last, "I hear that we have much to thank you for. Not least that you have restored the precious Countess Jessica to us, but also that you have slain the cowardly dogs who attacked her party, we are indeed most grateful."
Vulkan bowed deep once more and injected a healthy dose of pomposity into his voice.
"It was no more than my duty and my honour demanded, Majesty."
The king nodded graciously and a fraction of a moment later the bouncers all nodded too.
"Perhaps there is boon I may offer you by way of thanks," the king suggested expansively.
Vulkan considered his reply carefully. At the same time staring across at the glowering seneschal, who, by the increasingly suffused state of his complexion, must have visited his wife and seen the unholy state of her. Clearly, he wanted to move on to the next order of business with all speed. Vulkan decided that he had already been fortunate enough to secure rooms in the seneschal's tower and been granted an audience with the king, all within hours of arriving. Best not to push it he told himself.
"I require no special thanks other than those gracious words Your Majesty has already spoken," he replied.
The king nodded once. The matter was closed.