Blade stood by the railing, watching the waves develop whitecaps as the breeze freshened, watching the light fade from the sky-for at least an hour. He could hear ropes creaking and blocks banging overhead in the rigging, the occasional calls of the lookout in the crow's nest, and the more frequent calls of the men at the tiller aft.

Eventually the breeze became chill enough and strong enough to get through Blade's borrowed sailor's jacket and trousers. He decided to go below, to his cabin in the aftercastle. Mistress had accommodations for a good two dozen passengers, but there were never very many going from Nurn to Talgar. These days, with the war apparently becoming hotter than usual, there were hardly any.

The passenger quarters were pitch-dark, lit only by strong-smelling fish-oil lamps flickering in horn lanterns.

The passageway between the cabins was filled with moving shadows and the creaking of the ship's timbers as the boat moved to the sea. Blade stalked catfooted along the passageway to the door of his cabin, then stopped suddenly and bent his ear to the latch hole. He listened for a moment, then slowly straightened up and drew the long sailor's dagger Captain Foyn had given him. Unmistakably, there was someone inside his room.

As carefully as a watchmaker working on a fine watch, Blade lifted the latch. Then he stepped back to the far side of the passageway, pivoted on one leg, and drove the other foot crashing against the thin wooden door. It flew open with a crash and split halfway from top to bottom. Before it had stopped swinging, Blade leaped through the opening, dagger held low for the upward stab of a trained knife-fighter. Then he stopped suddenly as the intruder sat up in the bed..

His visitor was Svera.

Blade did not sheath his dagger, but he did relax slightly. «What are you doing here?» Another look gave him a good idea. She had wrapped the blankets around her, but her bare freckled white shoulders gleamed faintly in the dim light that crept in through the cracks in the door.

Svera replied with a question of her own. «Why do I need any reason to be here at all?»

Blade was not put off. «Because I do not like unexpected visitors at night.»

«Not even women?» She let the blankets slip down her shoulders a few more inches. More skin came into view, the upper swell of her breasts, and the cleft between them.

«That depends.»

«Depends on what?» She held the blankets steady.

«On why they are in my cabin.»

«Oh.» Svera seemed surprised. «Don't you know?» She raised both arms, and the blankets dropped away. As Blade had suspected, she was wearing nothing under the blankets. As he had also suspected, her breasts were magnificent. They jutted out in massive, freckled white roundness, their tips rosy pink with no visible nipples. Svera raised her arms higher, and her breasts lifted also. They didn't really need any help.

Blade felt a sudden heat and hardening in his groin. He was within seconds of stripping off his own clothes and leaping into the bed, to get his hands on those breasts and everything else about Svera. But as he watched her face, he saw something he didn't like in her eyes. Once more she was trying to size him up, to judge his reactions. There was something more than simple desire that had brought Svera to his bed.

From long practice, Blade easily kept all hint of his suspicions off his face. Instead he carefully laid the dagger down on the small table that folded out of the wall, well out of Svera's reach-or his own. Then he began to take off his own clothes. Svera watched him intently, the watchful-cat look never leaving her face. But she could not keep her eyes and mouth from opening in amazement and perhaps in fear or delight as well-when Blade stood revealed, fully naked and fully erect.

She reached out tentatively and patted Blade in the obvious place. He looked down at her, still keeping his own face impassive. He hoped she wouldn't grab hold too soon or too hard. His endurance was formidable, but now he not only wanted to last but to keep or at least seem calm and cold while doing it. That wasn't his favorite way of making love. But he knew it was the best way of finding out what lay behind the expression in those widening blue eyes.

He took the two steps to the bed and bent down, his arms going around her. This nearly led to disaster. As he reached down, she reached up. Her weight suddenly on him pulled him off his feet. He sprawled on top of her, feeling her warm breasts against his chest, but also hearing the bed creak and groan as though it were about to collapse. Blade had to bite his lip to keep from breaking out laughing. Svera didn't even try. Her mouth opened wide, revealing even white teeth, and she shook and quivered all over with merriment.

Before she had stopped laughing, Blade had hold of her again, pulling her whole long, solid-fleshed body against himself. Any doubt about maintaining his own arousal vanished in that moment. The sight and feel of Svera's body would have aroused the stone statue of a celibate saint.

And Blade was doing the same for Svera. Her blue eyes were still wide open and aimed at Blade. But he couldn't see anything behind them now, except a fast-growing glaze of desire. She whimpered, deep in her richly fleshed throat, as Blade stroked along the side of her throat and the lines of her jaw. Her lips parted under his, and her tongue crept out, thrusting first tentatively, then fiercely into his mouth. Her hands began to move, roaming up and down his back from shoulder blades to buttocks, stroking the small of his back, tugging at his close-cropped hair. Thank God she was too aroused to notice the expression on his face! Any detachment he might have tried to keep was fast going, if not already long gone.

His own hands drifted down over the massive breasts, so large he could hardly cup one in both hands. Their tips had sprouted nipples now, small but solid as jewels. He dipped his lips to each one and took it in like taking the cherry off the top of a sundae. Svera's arms tightened around Blade until he wondered if something was going to break and his face was pushed into the solid breast flesh until he could barely breathe. Just as his vision was starting to fade from lack of air, his hands found the thick bunch of damp hair between Svera's legs. He burrowed with one finger and squeezed with others. Inside she was not just damp, but already slick and ready. Very ready. She gasped and stiffened as she felt the touch, and Blade was able to pull his head from those magnificent, suffocating breasts.

Why wait any longer? Blade raised himself above Svera's quivering body and thrust his smoldering member deep into her in a single motion. It nearly took fire in that moment, as Svera seemed to suck it in. After a moment the madness faded. Blade began setting a steady, mounting rhythm. There was much more he needed and wanted to do to Svera.

Using everything he had ever done or thought of doing to keep going, he thrust deep and fast. Then twisting as he felt Svera reaching her first climax, he slowed while she heaved and trembled, then began again. Two, three, four, five successive times he managed to go through the cycle, biting his lip, doing everything possible to delay or distract himself. Svera began to whimper, and the glaze of passion in her eyes gave way to a glaze of satiation.

Eventually Blade's endurance cracked. It had to. In the last moment before control vanished, he raised himself high, then thrust more deeply in than he could have imagined Svera would take. She was all around him as he shook and heaved and gasped and quivered from head to foot under the shock of his sudden fierce release. His own climax triggered her last, so she had one more turn to heave and shake. By a great effort, Blade kept himself balanced on his sweat-dripping arms until Svera lay still under him. By an almost equally terrific effort, he raised himself on those arms until he could withdraw, roll to one side, and collapse beside the girl. But then he did collapse, and neither his mind nor his body could have done anything more for quite a while, for any reason or in any cause.