Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Raster stood over Gwennet and shook his head in disgust.  "You could at
least act like you want to do this."

   Donning a meek smile, Gwennet, apprentice footpad to Raster, said,
"Sorry, boss." She was lying flat upon her back.  A guard lay atop her,
where Raster had delivered him to slumber land with a well-placed little
sack of lead pellets.  She grunted as she levered the deadweight off of
herself, he was still breathing, for which she was glad.  Had he been dead,
she would have pushed the body off with more speed, no doubt, but then
Gwennet would have run until she found open water.

   Raster was leaning on a nearby wall as she stood.  "Look, girl, you're
too damn skinny to be a whore, and too nice to kill people for money." He
smoothed his oiled black hair with one hand.  "I don't know if this will
work out, you know?"

   The young girl's eyes brimmed with tears.  "Please, Raster, give me
another chance," she pleaded, "I'll do better." She touched his forearm
with her slender hand.

   The old thief snorted.  "You said that yesterday, Gwen.  I just don't
think you've got what it takes to be a second-storey man." He looked at her
levelly, fixing her gray eyes with his own blue eyes.  "Why don't you find
a nice, hard-working lad and settle down?  You know, have a few babies, and
live a long, healthy, safe life?"

   The tears began to fall, and Raster felt his heart twist, as if in a
vice.  He had raised Gwennet, or Gwen, as he called her, since her mom died
from a crazy who had hired her for one night's tumble.  He had avenged her
mother, stabbing the freak in an alley three nights later.  It had not made
the little girl's life any easier, but at least Raster could look her in
the eye afterward.

   Raster had provided for her well enough; she had always eaten at least
one meal a day, and had a roof that only leaked a little over her head at
night.  She was a bright girl, he knew that by the fact that she had
managed to stay alive in the Swarm, the worst part of Vilders.  Gwen was
quick, too.  He had seen that several times when colleagues of his, who had
a penchant for younger flesh, had failed to catch her.  So far as Raster
knew, she was a virgin.

   He knew she had taken a couple of suitors.  Other than catching one of
them in her room one night with her mouth on his pole, he'd not seen
anything to show she was otherwise active.  He approved of that; an
unwanted pregnancy would doom her quick.  She could not even opt for the
nice, hard-working lad escape.

   The memory of chasing that young suitor friend of hers out of the house
and down a few streets of the Swarm brought back pleasant memories of Gwen.
How she had smiled at his bad jokes and how she covered him when he came
home and passed out, even taking off his boots in those instances.  She was
a good girl.

   "Perhaps it's my own fault, Gwen," said Raster.  "I shouldn't have
pushed you into this trade.  You're too blasted nice."

   "What am I to do then?" asked the young woman whom he loved like his own
get.  Not that he would ever have any of his own, not since that brawl
where his eggs got smashed by a drunken Coghlander.  His stick still
worked, but he was as sterile as a healer's privy.

   He put his long, slender arm over her narrow shoulders.  "I'm serious
about finding a good young man.  You're pretty enough, if a touch on the
skinny side.  Some young apprentice smith or tanner or maybe jeweler would
be happy to take you home to meet his momma."

   She giggled at him.  "Yeah, I can see it now: `Hello mother, this is my
new fiancee from the Swarm, Gwennet'." Gwen made a sour face and wiped her
tear-streaked cheeks.

   "Now dearie, you don't have to go and tell them you're from there," said
Raster, waving in the direction of their home, even as they started making
their way toward it.

   They were crossing a street several blocks away when a guardsman of the
watch walked up to them, swinging his baton by its thong.  "You two,
what're you up to at this hour?" he asked, his expression already accusing,
convicting, and sentencing them.

   Without the slightest pause or hesitancy, Gwennet turned to him, her
voice slurred and her eyes unfocused.  "Well, constable, I've just had a
good fucking from my good man here, and we're going to go home and he's
going to fuck me a bit more." She grabbed Raster's groin.  "He's hung like
a damn mule, and I can't get enough of his great, whopping cock."

   The guard chuckled.  "I see," he said, looking at the two of them.  "Be
careful, miss, else someone else may take a liking to you."

   She turned up her lips in a brilliant smile.  "Like I'd be bothered by
that, either, especially a big, stud of a man in uniform," she slurred. 
Then to be sure he would not try to take her up on that offer she burped
and covered her mouth.  She turned away and fell into the corner of a
nearby house, heaving her shoulders and making extremely disgusting sounds.

   The guard patted Raster's shoulder, "Hope she don't hurl on you in bed,
friend," said the guard, chuckling, and then moving on down the street.

   "Good work, lass," said Raster when the guard had turned a corner a ways
off.

   Gwen stood from the corner and smiled at him.  "See?  I am a good
thief."

   They started toward their home again.  "That crotch grab was a good
touch," said Raster.  "Surprised even me with that."

   She giggled at him.  "You getting stiff surprised me, old man, I thought
you said your days of that were past."

   He shrugged.  "If someone plays with my piece like that, it's liable to
rise up to see what's about, you know?  And don't get no ideas, you're
still a skinny little waif."

   "I know," said Gwen, "I can't even interest an old pervert." Her face
turned down toward the drizzle-slicked cobbles.

   Raster sighed.  "Gwen, that's not what I meant.  Had I not raised you,
I'd probably be laying my stick to you right now, if you'd have me." His
surprisingly honest eyes turned to her.  "It'd be like pounding my own
daughter."

   She giggled, and then turned a sidelong glance at him.  "I know a few
girls who've bedded their own dads.  Or, at least, their own dads bedded
them."

   Raster grunted.  "Yeah, and those men deserve a dagger between their
ribs if it gets found out." He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. 
"I'll never touch you like that, I'll cut the damn thing off first.  You're
too precious to me as a daughter to be my woman."

   The smile she gave him made his heart swell with pride.  When she smiled
like that, all teeth and generous lips, she was lovely, and it honored him
to have raised a woman who could make her face so lovely with a simple
smile.

   They were entering the Swarm now, and both began watching warily about
them.  Interestingly, those who have the least to steal are often the first
picked off in the Swarm, like Raster and Gwen.

   However, Raster had enough local reputation that most folk left him be,
and by association, Gwennet.

   They were passing the House of the Blue Door, a brothel.  One of the
girls who worked there hung her head out and called to Gwennet.  "Gwen,
when are you going to come work here, dearie?  I've made two marks tonight,
already."

   Raster turned to the whore and said, "And how many men have shoved their
pricks into you for those two big marks?"

   The whore, a girl named Amerisa, grinned at him.  "Only seven, unless
you're wanting to pay for a ride?"

   Gwennet bowed up, which was singularly unimpressive given her rather
minuscule bustline, and said, "If he wants a piece of tail.  I'll give him
my virgin hole before I let him pay some whore a plug tenthmark for a
tumble.  He has to but ask me."

   Amerisa laughed at her.  "And do you wonder why he's not taken you to
bed yet?" she said.  "All these years with you right there in the same
little shack, and he's yet to poke you even once?"

   The younger woman clenched her fists, making her knuckles glow in the
flickering lamplight of the street.

   The whore was having fun now.  "You're so damn ugly, even though you'd
give him a tight, unused cunt to poke, he'd rather pay me a quarter mark to
let me mouth him." She flipped her long brown hair teasingly.  "Ask him, he
knows." Amerisa turned and went back into the brothel.

   Gwennet was crying again.  "Is that true?" she asked through her tears.
"You've paid her, knowing you could have me?"

   "Dammit, Gwen, I've explained that, just five minutes ago," said Raster.
"I only don't touch you because it's not natural to want your own
daughter."

   Her eyes grew cold.  "Probably helps a bit that I'm uglier than a
homemade bar of soap."

   Raster had this fight with her before.  "What, you want me to fuck you?"
he asked.  "Right, then, hike your skirt and grab your ankles."

   Gwennet grinned broadly and turned her backside toward him, beginning to
lift her skirt.

   "Stop that dammit," he said, "I can't even scare you anymore." He
grabbed her elbow and dragged her, still giggling at him, down the street,
mumbling as he went.

   - - - - - - - - -

   Gwennet was alone in the little house come morning.  He had probably
gone off to fence his loot from last night, a couple of silver
candleholders and three balanced throwing blades.

   She looked through the pantry and found only a half a loaf of bread and
a wheel of cheese so moldy she had to cut almost a third of it away to eat
it.  Washing that down with cheap wine, as if anyone with half a brain
would drink water in the Swarm, she got ready to face the day.

   Today would be low tide, and she might be able to find some salvage in
the mud flats of the bay.  She would have to compete with other scroungers,
but she might get lucky today and find something worth a half mark. 
Usually, eight hours of slogging in the mud only netted one mud, but she
was pretty lucky so far.

   She grabbed her long-tined rake and headed to the flats.  No sooner had
she begun to scrape on the surface, and a few inches down, when a young man
approached her.  He was Tomasio, one of the boys from the Swarm.

   "Well, Gwennet, fancy finding you here," said Tomasio, grinning.

   Gwen turned a hard eye to him.  "Come, now, Tomasio, does this look at
all like a place to try to romance a girl?  Even as fancy as you talk and
all, I really just can't get into the mood."

   Tomasio shrugged.  "I just have to follow my heart."

   The young woman leaned upon her rake, resting a moment.  She looked at
her bare legs below where she had tied her skirt at her thigh, and at the
mud, which covered her to her knees.  Her shoes were tied about her neck.
One did not leave anything sitting about in the Swarm that they expected to
see again.  The mud was cold and squished between her toes.  "More likely,
following your hard on."

   The youth, he really was quite handsome, grew somewhat
perturbed-looking. "You shouldn't be so picky, girl.  It's likely to be the
last offer you get from a man with all his teeth or even fingers."

   Several other nearby muckrakers looked at them, some of the lads smiling
at the little drama.  Gwennet grinned at him.  "Any man I would have only
has to have his tongue, not his teeth, and needs but one finger to take
care of my needs.  I've spoken to other girls regarding your finger there,
little man, and unless they're lying grossly, either tongue or finger would
please me more."

   Tomasio's eyes grew wide and he bowed up, standing straight.  One of his
large hands curled into an equally large fist.  "You smart-ass little
cunt," he said, his teeth gritting.  "I should teach you some damn
manners."

   Gwen had pushed too hard, and knew it now.  Tomasio was popular with the
other lads; they would never sell him out, even if he killed her.

   Before she could think more of it she was blinking at a lamp hanging
over her, swaying hypnotically.  A hollow wooden creak sounded from
somewhere.  She was on a ship, and her jaw and cheek hurt mightily.  She
raised her hand to her cheek and touched it, then pulled her hand away from
the pain, wincing, which also hurt it further.

   "Be careful of that, young woman, it is terribly bruised, as is most of
you." Come to think of it, she did note that she hurt all over, with her
jaw just being the worst of it.  Tomasio had worked her over good.  To top
it off, he had stripped her, apparently, for she felt no clothes on her.

   She gingerly lifted her head from the pillow upon which it rested and
looked down.  She was covered at least, by a white sheet, very white.

   Sun poured in through a largish window on one side of the little room
and struck the sheet, causing it to gleam.  Now that she was looking about,
she looked toward where the voice had come, still trying to place the
crisply accented Ghantian.

   The man's face that regarded her was beautiful.  His sharp features were
slender and slightly sloped, even his great silver eyes, and then she
flicked her gaze to his long, slender, pointed ears.  "You, you're an elf,"
she stammered.

   The young man looked down at himself then back toward her with his eyes
wide and a broad smile.  "So I am.  I am grateful that my heritage is
cleared up."

   She giggled, a function that hurt somewhat, but still was fun to do. 
"Sorry, I suppose you do know."

   The young elf stood up and said.  "I am called Gevathen.  I am the
ship's healer for the Golden Hawk." One foot moved forward and he lowered
his upper body gracefully to rest against the outstretched thigh, his hands
crossed over his chest.

   She looked about herself.  "I thought I was aboard a ship.  My name is
Gwennet."

   "A lovely name." Gevathen smiled at her.  Her heart throbbed in her
chest at his lovely smile, and it forced her to smile in return.  Gwen felt
her cheeks burning red with the kindly spoken words.

   Her face flickered through emotion, and then settled upon concern.  "How
did I get here?"

   "Whoever left you in the mud for dead did not realize you were still
going to float from those sacks of air under your arms you had." He lifted
the pair of leather sacks that she had meant to fill with goods when she
had found them.  "A poorly planned murder, if you ask me."

   She smiled weakly.  "I'm glad of that."

   "As am I," he said firmly.  "I have never met a human in person before,
you are the first I have spoken to." He stroked his silver-white hair,
bound in a ponytail.  The movement reminded her of Raster.

   "One save me," she gasped, trying to sit up.  "I have to be getting
home, Raster will wonder about me.  I've been gone since just after dawn."

   The elf moved like quicksilver, pushing her down into the mattress
beneath her with a gentle hand.  "I do not believe you know the extent of
what befell you."

   Gwen turned her gray eyes to him.  "What do you mean?"

   "I mean," replied the elven healer, "you have been unconscious for five
days, we feared you would die of swelling of the mind."

   She touched her head.  Several large lumps greeted her fingers.  "Still,
he'll be worried, I must go home, at the soonest.  Not that I'm not
grateful for your help."

   Gevathen's eyes glittered in the waning light.  "Again, I fear you do
not know the extent of your situation.  I brought you aboard against the
wishes of the captain, and he bade me that he would keep his schedule
despite you." He shrugged.  "We are no longer in the Bay of Vilders."

   "No longer in the bay?" asked Gwen.  "Then where are we?"

   Gevathen smiled at her.  "I am no navigator, but I would guess somewhere
between Costa Roja and the Crystern Chain."

   The young woman blinked a moment, trying to wrap her mind about his
words.  "Crystern Chain?  Isn't that a death trap?"

   The elf smirked.  "For others, perhaps, but we are aboard one of the
finest ships on the seas, and everyone knows to fear trimarans for a
reason. We move to resupply one of the Starre Island ships, which has
become damaged, with some needed smithed components." He moved to a cabinet
and dug out a large clay jar.  "Of all their good qualities, our cousins,
the Starre Islanders are horrible smiths." He sat the jar on a little table
next to her bed.  "I need to ointment your bruises, you nearly lost some
patches of skin to the damage, and they still need help."

   Her fingers gripped the edge of the sheet to her chest.  "What?" said
Gwennet.  "Pull down my sheet?  But I'm naked under here."

   A look of amusement came to the elf's beautiful, slim features.  "Milady
Gwennet, I have been tending you for five days.  I had my fill of fondling
you two days ago, sorry you missed the fun."

   She grinned at this quick-tongued elf.  "I guess you would have, being
as there is little of me to fondle." She released the sheet and let him
pull it down to her calves.  She lifted her own head and looked down. 
There were ugly purple and blue bruises over most of her body.  "What the
hell did he do, charge admission to kick me once I was down?"

   "Seems a good guess, in my opinion," said Gevathen, eyeing the bruises.
He began lathing large globs of some blue-green ointment onto the larger
bruises, and rubbing it in with fingers that were quick, nimble, and
gentle. Even when he rubbed over one breast, it felt less erotic than
businesslike.  "Apparently, you were laying on your back and that is mostly
unhurt.  I propose that the gentleman who struck you knocked you out
completely, then he proceeded to kick you, thinking you were feigning
unconsciousness."

   "Sounds like Tomasio," murmured Gwennet.  "That bastard."

   The young elf moved to the door.  "I will return with some broth for you
in a moment."

   When he did return, he was carrying a bowl of some warm broth, which
made her stomach rumble, so subtly spiced as it was.  He then produced a
bottle and pulled the cork out.  "I managed to sneak you a bit of wine, but
only one half cup."

   After the warm broth and the wine, she was groggy and soon nearing
sleep. Her eyes closed, she lay and listened to the gulls outside her
window.  She heard two elven voices speaking outside the door to her tiny
room, the healer and another, sterner voice, but equally beautiful.  It was
almost as if she were hearing each sing a line of a song, back and forth. A
few moments later the healer came back into the room.  "That amount of Oil
of Forgetful Slumber should keep you resting, my lovely human, until we are
well away from Starre Island." She wished to open her eyes to show him that
the potion had not worked, but she could not, it worked enough to keep her
still, at the least.

   Soon after, she slept.  When the sun came up again, she heard Gevathen
enter her room; she still could not open her eyes.  "Still resting?  Good,"
he said, "I really did not wish to do this, but the captain insists." He
sighed deeply.  "I hope you do not remember what I had to do, I would be
heartbroken if you were to be wroth with me." He pulled down her sheet
again and she screamed inside for him to stop.  But once again, he simply
treated her bruises with the ointment, neither lingering too long in any
one place, nor moving to anywhere a bruise did not lead him.

   With another sigh, he lifted the sheet.  "How I long to touch your body
with hands other than those of a healer," he murmured.  He then lifted her
head and gave her a sip of more wine; she felt it numb her throat, but not
badly.  She was becoming resistant to this particular potion, it seemed. 
As he walked to the door he said, "But not until you have given me leave."

   The door clicked shut and she turned her head, spitting out the wine. 
She was able to move now.  She wondered if, perhaps, the elves were
mistaken about the efficacy of the Oil of Forgetful Slumber.  In pain, she
lifted her body from the bed and sat up.  How long had she been asleep
earlier?  The bruises seemed noticeably less terrible, and she was able to
touch them with only mild pain.

   She found her clothes, mended, and cleaned, in the cabinet, next to the
clay jar.  After she donned them, she moved to the door and turned the
brass handle.  The door opened a crack and she peered out.  The corridor
before her was long and narrow; her door was about midway down the
passage's length.  No one moved in the corridor.

   Gwennet moved into the hallway and turned left, proceeding down it as
quietly as she could.  Elves were said to have keener hearing than humans
possessed.

   A staircase sat to her right, moving upward and downward.  Taking the
stairs up two at a time, she came to a door.  Opening it, she looked out
over a flat deck that was long and broad.  Standing not five paces from her
was an elf, but not like Gevathen.  This elf was tall, taller, by far than
her, and built as broadly as a man.  He had dark skin, the color of dark
beer.  His long, black hair reached midway down his back, and he had
tattoos down one arm and leg, a pattern that repeated and reminded her of a
sea serpant.  He was speaking with another elf, one of the types she knew,
fair skinned with blonde hair.

   The taller elf had his back mostly to her, but she could see enough of
his face to see large, sloped, silver eyes.  She decided that he must be a
Starre Island Elf.  She almost gasped with the realization.  No one she
knew ever claimed to have even seen a Starre Island Elf, personally.

   The ship was standing still she realized, and looked over the two elves
toward the nose of the ship.  A small town lay there, looking almost like a
single large, sprawling building with many courtyards.  Over her head,
great sails lay furled, mounted to masts reaching two hundreds of feet into
the sky.  She peered through the crack up at them and shook her head in
awe. She had seen the elven vessels out in the bay, but never up close,
they could not dock in Vilders' shallow port.  She had not imagined how
great they truly were.

   Somewhere on the ship, a horn blew, and Gwennet feared she was
discovered.  However, the elves on the ship began to run about the deck,
including the dark-skinned one, who ran for the right side, heading toward
where another, similar ship lay moored.  Within a minute the ship was
moving again, using her clever sails to back up out of the slip they were
parked in.  She moved from her position behind the door to a large stack of
barrels and crates lashed to the deck nearby.  She hoped no one had seen
her in the furor of activity on the ship.

   Elven voices called out from about the deck and in the rigging.  She had
not thought of the keen-eyed elves in the rigging, but she seemed to have
not been noticed.  Crawling under a flap of oilcloth, she hid as best she
could.

   The crew seemed highly agitated, and she soon saw why.  As the ship
slowly came about, she saw a looming, dark shape.  She had heard sailors
talk of the vessel looming at the mouth of the elven bay.  A warbarge of
the Black Theocracy.  As vast as the elven ship was, the barge would be
larger, she was sure, she heard the smallest of them were four hundreds of
feet long.  Turning about, she saw the other ship still moored.

   Gwennet hoped that they would try to escape the barge, but it seemed
quite the opposite, they were moving to engage the heretic's vessel.

   As this realization dawned upon her, she felt a hand grip her shoulder,
and a smooth, cultured elven voice said, "Please do not move.  I do not
wish to hurt you."

   She did as he said, freezing like a statue.  She moved, however, when he
goaded her by pulling upon her shoulder.  She was led up an exterior set of
stairs and onto another large, flat deck that seemed to cover the whole
rear third of the vessel.  Overhead now, great expanses of sailcloth
bellied in the winds, and the ship felt like it was sliding on ice.

   Across this deck he walked her then up another set of stairs to where he
found some elves clustered about a massive wheel, so large, it extended
below the deck, with only about four feet protruding above the deck, maybe
a quarter of the overall radius.

   "You simply refuse to stay asleep, human," said an elf wearing a silver
sash with blue trim.  "It matters little now, the enemy has figured out our
plight and we may not survive this day." The pretty, but stern little man
pointed toward the barge.  If both ships were operational, we might win,
but they came in here seeking a wounded warship, but instead find a hale
and hearty merchantman.  I fear we will be no match, lest we can ram her
solidly." Apparently, this was the captain.  The healer came jogging up a
moment later.

   "There you are," he said, accusingly, "I was worried ill over your
disappearance."

   She nodded.  "I'm ever so sorry your drugging of me was less effective
than you had planned."

   Gevathen shook his head.  "It was not to hurt you, please understand
that." He wrung his hands.  "It was simply to keep you from alarming the
Starre Islanders, they cannot abide non-elves being even moored to their
island."

   "You could have told me," said Gwennet, looking back at the elf with
hard eyes.

   "Yes, Gwennet, I could have said, `Pardon me, miss, but I have to knock
you out for another day'." The elf's eyes grew rather amused.  "I am
certain that you would have simply said, of course."

   The captain interjected, "It is pointless now, we are no longer docked
on Starre Island, so the issue is moot." With those words, he effectively
silenced the argument.  "Someone give the lass a blade, for she will have
to fight, too, I fear." One of the elven crewmen nearby handed her a small
sword, hilt first.  She took it from him.  It was light as air and very,
very sharp.  "The hyandai of my mother, use it well," said the female elf.
Her eyes glittered silver as she handed it over.

   They were moving over the water with great speed now, this was what
trimarans did best, Gwen knew, they were the fastest things on the water.
The captain screamed out something in elven and a huge sail bellied up from
the deck, rising like it was trying to take the ship into the sky.  It was
massive, and lead the ship and it was dyed vivid colors, red, and blue, and
yellow, and green.  The ship surged forward with such force that she had to
stumble to keep her footing.  She could hear the hiss of the water under
the ship now, and the barge was growing rapidly.

   It's dark shape looming before them, the barge turned broadsides to
them. Spears rained toward the elven vessel, most of them missing, but some
striking the great, colorful sail and rending it terribly.  The large elven
ship had momentum now, and losing the spinnaker would hardly slow her.

   On the topmost deck of the barge, a green glow formed, it pulsed once,
and a ball of sickly green energy washed outward, like spherical ripples on
a pond.  It rolled over the elven ship.  Around her, elves fell to the
deck. Those in the rigging fell, many into the waters, some onto the deck
with sickening sounds of breaking bones.  Even those did not cry out.  She
looked about herself in horror at the fallen elves; all of them lay about,
some face down, others, including the captain and Gevathen, lying face up.
The elven ship was veering off course, turning toward the rear of the huge
barge before them.  The wheel turned lazily to the right, spinning of its
own accord.

   The captain sighed out his breath.  "Wheel," he said in little more than
a whisper.  "Ram ship."

   On the battle barge, the jubilation began.  The Templar in command, an
experienced lord in the service of the One smiled.  "Very good, they are
down and we will capture this prize intact.  Your plan worked well,
sorcerer."

   The shaven-skulled man beside him grinned and nodded.  "My command," he
said, his voice was raspy and hoarse from the incantation he had just
finished to knock out the entire crew in one swoop.  His ten assistants lay
on the deck of the barge, two dead.  It was a costly ritual, but was well
worth the results.

   "Yes, yes, Gamduhr, your command," said the Templar, eager to have the
creepy little man off his ship.  "Prepare to give chase, it seems they will
miss us, as you predicted."

   "I told you elven ships pull to the direction more to the wind," the
little bald sorcerer said.

   "Prepare to fire grappling harpoons!" screamed the Templar.  About them,
ballistae turned toward the elven ship, waiting for her to come within
grappling range.

   Gwennet grabbed the wheel and began spinning it rapidly back to the
left. She was stronger than most elves and it turned easily.  The Golden
Hawk was a slow maneuvering beast and at first she did not respond to the
change in her rudder and braking spines.

   "Ballast," said the captain, in that breathy whisper.  His eyes
flickered toward two levers, one right of the wheel and the other left. 
They lingered on the one on the right.

   She ran to the one on the right, pulling it.  The right side of the ship
rose in the water as tons of sand and gravel spilled from ballast bins in
the underside of the hull.  She sprinted back to the wheel, holding it hard
left.

   "What the hell?" asked the Templar, when in a sudden motion, the elven
ship banked sharply.  Just as she came into grappling range, she turned
toward them with a speed he had never seen a trimaran turn.  The ship was
still doing nearly thirty knots when the left outrigger cut the rear
quarter of the barge off cleanly.  The sorcerer, as well, was in that
razor-edged path and the Templar watched him be bisected by the leading,
steel edge of the sponson.

   With the death of the one who had ensorcled them, the elves quickly
regained their feet.  The Golden Hawk was brought about and slowed.  The
barge was sinking.  Smaller Starre Island boats were coming forth to deal
with the survivors and recovering the elves that had fallen into the water.
Within an hour, they were underway again, the trimaran slicing water toward
Vilders.

   Back in her bed, Gwennet was being ministered by Gevathen.  "You really
should not have gotten up yet," he said, in a soft voice.  "But we are all
glad you did."

   She smiled up at him.  "Did the captain mean what he said about reward?"

   Gevathen nodded.  "If there is anything upon this ship you desire, it is
yours."

   A slight blush came to her cheeks as she pulled the sheet aside.  "My
first wish, then, is for you to touch me in a way other than a healer
would, you beautiful man."

   The elf blinked at her nude body, then swallowed hard.  "I do not think.
...  "

   "You said anything on the ship," said Gwennet firmly.

   A smile came to the elf's perfect lips.  "Indeed, I did," agreed
Gevathen.  He leaned forward and kissed her.  Her skinny arms went about
his neck and she pulled him down onto her.  He did not resist.

   His fingers moved down her body.  Despite their coolness, they made her
warm wherever they touched her.  They moved with near infinite softness
over her flesh, like a feather.  Her nipples stiffened under one finger,
and her stomach quivered as the finger moved past it.  When his slender
hand moved between her legs, she felt something she never imagined.

   She had touched herself before, but compared to this elven man's hand,
her own was like rubbing a brick on your skin.  Silk would feel coarse next
to the smoothness that brushed her entrance and clitoris.  The finger moved
rapidly over her like that, and soon she writhed upon the bed in climax,
her spine arching upward, and her voice letting loose with joy.  Gevathen
looked down at her.  "You humans have powerful releases, as well, I see,"
he said.

   Gwennet watched as he stripped off his clothes; he stood before her,
slim, though muscled, and nude.  His organ protruded forward, proof that
she was not the only one looking forward to this.  To lose one's virginity
to an elf was an accomplishment that few Ghantian women could claim.

   "Won't being with you as my first ruin me for humans?" she asked as he
moved toward her and knelt beside the bed.

   He grinned.  "Possibly, though if it does, I suppose I will have to take
over all maintenance in that area, no?" He rose again and moved to lie atop
her, but she reached out a hand and stroked his stiff rod first.

   "I wish to see it," she said, "I've only held one and the lad was so
eager for me to mouth it, I barely got to look at it."

   Gevathen sat upon the edge of the bed and let her look to her heart's
content.  She stroked the skin, and pushed the delicate foreskin back from
the head at the end of the slim shaft.  Nowhere was a hair to be seen.  He
was smooth as a baby's backside, as they say.  Her fingers gripped with
some force and he groaned.  "You are very strong, careful," he said.

   Gwennet smiled and moved her head forward and over the end of the organ.
Soon she had his whole length within.  His slender fingers knotted into her
brown hair and he pulled her toward him.  His moans were amazingly
feminine, and his touch, though he was being somewhat forceful with his
thrusts, was very gentle.

   She smiled up at him as he twitched his body.  Then she felt her mouth
fill with his seed.  It tasted of cinnamon, and she widened her eyes at
that, for she had pleased one man with her mouth once and it did not taste
that way.  Eagerly, she swallowed it and moaned in pleasure as she did so.
Releasing him from her lips, she smiled up at him again.  "You taste
delicious," she said.

   The elf stroked her hair.  "Does that mean you will do that again
sometime?" he asked.

   She nodded and he sighed.  "But first, you have yet to finish my
request."

   Gevathen nodded and closed his eyes.  A moment later his organ, already
flaccid, rose again, stiffing into a straight rod again.  With many kisses
and gentle touches, he laid atop her.

   Gwennet was so excited; he had no problem at all entering her.  Elves,
in general were not overly endowed, and human women could accommodate them
with ease.  There was a brief twinge of pain, but less than a second of it
was followed by many minutes of pleasure, then again by many more as
Gevathen focused himself inward and rose again.  Throughout the night,
their bodies twined and she was thoroughly loved as dawn came upon the
ship, even as she arched her back in climax herself.  Sinking back onto the
bed, she cuddled the slim elf atop her.  She was taller by two inches and
probably outmassed him by a stone.  Somehow, though, she was confident that
some big man could not have pleased her any more.

   She realized with a start he was asleep and let him rest, he was not
heavy, and he was warm.  She stroked his back and neck and let him lie,
still within her welcoming body.

   - - - - - - - - -

   Epilogue Raster was very afraid.  The guards had dragged him from his
home and they had brought him to the docks.  One of the punishments that
the city-state could hand out, even to petty thieves, was export to the
Crystern Islands, to fight in the unending wars there.  Had a guard
recognized him?  Especially the one he had knocked out two weeks ago.

   He was standing upon the dock.  It was the long pier, the only one with
a deep channel to the bay.  As he watched in awe, an elven trimaran, with a
huge hawk on her nose, painted in gold slid into the moorage.  It loomed
over this warf district, throwing the docks into shadow of her great hull.
The masts rose into the sky like the spires of a cathedral.  Elves moved
about the deck and in the rigging, swarming down to the gangplank, which
was extending.  Hundreds of folk were upon the dock, and Raster even
recognized a punk from the Swarm standing nearby, with a pair of guards
near him.  Tomasio was his name, and Raster supposed he would be joining
him on the little one-way trip to the Crystern Chain.

   The elves were resplendent in brightly colored uniforms, not like the
grays they normally wore in port.  They had formed into two rows down the
wide gangplank and a goodly ways up the dock, nearly to Raster's own
position.  He wondered idly what bigwig was aboard the ship for such a
reception.

   He saw an elven princess walking down the gangplank with an elf at her
side, dressed as the others, in the bright white and green uniforms.  As
they moved down the twin rows of elves, each turned inward and drew out a
long, glittering saber.  They formed an archway of razor-sharp steel over
the couple's heads and it was quite the show.  The crowd ooh'd and aah'd as
they moved onto the dock and turned toward the shore.

   About halfway down the long rows of men, Raster's eyes betrayed him, for
the elven princess he saw looked like Gwennet.  He blinked a few times, and
then rubbed them.  It was her.  She was looking dead at him, and the smile
he cherished so much was affixed to her face as if molded in steel.  A few
more steps and he could stand it no longer, he ran toward her.  None moved
to stop him and Gwennet broke from the elf at her side and ran to Raster.

   They embraced under a glittering cloud of blades and the elves about
them said many beautiful words and a few even sang.  Raster grinned at her
and pulled back to stand at arms' length from her.  "Look at you, an elven
princess and all." He eyed the long braid down her right cheek.  It had
many strands of silver-white hair within it.  The elf that she had been
walking with walked up and stood beside her, beaming at the pretty girl in
the blue silken gown.

   Raster looked at him, and noted the braid with brown hairs intermingled,
Gwennet's color.

   The elf bowed.  "I am called Gevathen, I am the ship's healer for the
Golden Hawk." His blue eyes glittered as he looked up at Raster.  "My
betrothed bids me inform you I am a good, hard-working lad."

   Raster laughed and embraced the alarmed-looking elf in a bear hug. 
"Good lad," said the old rogue.  "Good lad."

   The elves all turned as one, and the captain of the ship, obvious by his
golden sash, walked forward and presented a small chest into Raster's
hands. "Her reward for saving the Golden Hawk, sir.  She is a credit to her
family and to Vilders."

   Then the captain turned to Tomasio.  "Sir, if we ever hear of you even
looking at Gwennet of Clan Leventhan, or speaking to her, you will have
this entire crew to deal with.  Is that understood?  I suggest you find a
new city in which to live, one that does not do business with elves." He
spun sharply on his heel, and walked back toward the Golden Hawk.

   The guards released Tomasio and he fled the docks with haste, a few of
his buddies moving with equal speed.

   The trio spoke for long moments, but Gevathen had to reboard the ship
and said he would return in a month, to stay a long while.  Gwennet gave
him a crushing hug and long kiss to see him on his way.

   As Raster walked down the dock, his arms growing slightly sore from the
surprising weight of the small chest, he looked at Gwennet.  "Nicely done,
girl, stealing an elf's heart is no mean feat," he said, eyeing her
trothplait again.