At last, some action

Had it been able to, Callum’s penis would have screamed at him when he **** himself to break away from Zoriah, who turned to face him and to show him how precious little of her curvy form that her robe and sheer nightgown combo concealed.

“I’ll be back,” Callum promised, wisely deciding on getting out of there before her appearance would have him change his mind.

“Good,” All the anger had been drained from Zoriah’s voice, being replaced by a sultry seductiveness that also played on her expressive face.

With a curt nod and one final longing look at the madam’s deeply impressive rack, Callum exited her room and was halfway to the back door before it dawned on him that he’d left his cloak in a heap on her bedroom floor. Since going back to get it would not give off the heroic impression that he was going for, he pushed on without it. It wasn’t like the night air could compete with the frigidity of a northern winter.

Stepping out onto the street, Callum stopped and considered his options. His task completed, he could head back to Baram’s tower. However, something didn’t sit right about him with how this Vargo made a living. To Callum, the best way to handle someone making a living out of threatening defenceless women and selling poor sods into slavery was to kill him.

The combination of doing the right thing and being rewarded for it by Zoriah led Callum to make his decision and he headed off in the direction that the cart had disappeared, setting a brisk pace that quickly turned into a run as he endeavoured to catch it before it had reached the gang’s lair.

The few people still out and about were mostly beggars and the odd lowly robber, with neither category seeing any point in drawing the attention of the hugely muscular, near-naked that came charging past them.

After crossing two out of the five bridges, Callum could see the cart up ahead and kept going, closing the distance to about twenty yards before finally stopping and catching his breath.

“Vargo!” Callum cried out, as soon as his breath allowed him to. The reaction of the trio of hooded figures was to stop, bringing the cart to a halt along with them. Then they all turned around.

“Who the fuck are you?!” The central of the three figures asked.

“You Vargo?” Replying to the question with another one, Callum struggled to slow down his pulse and get himself ready for battle.

“Yes, what’s it to you?” The same figure replied, pulling back its hood to reveal a face that was mostly beard and eyebrows.

“I’ve come to kill you,” Callum announced and pulled his sword.

“Nagel, shoot this idiot!” Scoffing, Vargo nodded towards the man standing at the back of the cart.

“Right, boss!” The man answered and raised the crossbow he’d was wielding.

Callum heard the string snap and the bolt be release, and managed to dive out of the way as the latter flew past him.

“Gods be damned, do I have to do everything myself?” Still sounding more annoyed than threatened, Vargo pulled his sword, “Come on, Rokan.”

Along with the third member of the trio, who had pulled out a heavy war club, Vargo advanced on Callum, who stood his ground. They both came rushing towards him, but Callum could see Vargo ease back on the pace as if he wanted the other man to reach him first.

As soon as he was within range, Rokan lunged into a wield swing with his club that Callum easily avoided, the young highlander bending his back and spearing forwards with his own sword, stabbing it into the hapless thug’s stomach and using his considerable strength to drive it upwards until its tip came against the other man’s ribcage from the inside.

The bad news were that as Vargo reached him, Callum’s sword was lodged hard inside Rokan. Deciding it was better to let go than to stand there and let Vargo cut him down, Callum release his hold of his sword handle and dodged the wild sweep with his sword that Vargo threw his way.

More wild sweeps followed as Vargo proved himself to be a man with little knowledge of how to use a sword, although he was certainly enthusiastic. After avoiding the first six swings and thrusts of Vargo’s sword, Callum at last found the opportunity to pull his dirk from its sheath.

“Stand still, you bastard!” When Vargo tried to hit him for the seventh time, Callum was ready for it. Catching Vargo’s right wrist with his left hand, he stepped in closer and stabbed the bandit in the stomach. With his blood pumping, Callum stabbed Vargo several times more, working his chest and stomach over with his large knife until he felt the bandit go limp and his sword fall from his grasp.

“Fucker!” Unfortunately, Vargo falling to the ground and setting about bleeding to **** gave Nagel the chance to take a second shot at Callum, who saw him aim his crossbow very carefully at him.

“Die, you little shit...” It wasn’t a very accurate description of Callum, and it would be the last thing Nagel would ever say, as a knife was suddenly thrown into his throat from the side.

While Nagel dropped his crossbow and toppled over the side of the cart to smack head-first into the street, Ilyria appeared from the mouth of another alleyway. Rather than say anything to him, she merely smiled, sighed and shock her head before disappearing back into the shadows, leaving Callum to wonder how long she’d been watching him.

The sound of voices as people awoken by the sound of the short and violent fight started to ask each other what was going on made Callum step into action again. The first thing he did was to sheath his dirk and pick up the nearest sword, which happened to be Vargo’s and which looked and felt much too nice to be the weapon of some two-bit bandit.

Next, Callum approached the ox cart and looked inside it at the slavers’ wouldbe victim.