Krissy Xiong
"How'd we get in mum?" Phoebe hissed. Speaking out loud in the silence seemed wrong somehow. But she guessed that if anyone still lived in either the fort or Ardersier village, they'd have already been spotted long before. The thought of being in some stranger's gun or crossbow sights made her shudder.
"Looks like a sally port there," Jessamy pointed.
"Sally port?" asked Phoebe. A heavily fortified side door led into the fort beneath what had once been a huge gun emplacement.
"Side door. So they don't have to keep opening the main gates. It looks locked up tight. Solid oak door, portcullis ... we aren't getting in that way without some serious ordnance."
"Can we climb it?"
Jessamy peered up the sheer wall to one of the ornate cone topped turrets high above, "Pfft ... maybe. I should've thought of that. We'll have to go back to the Kerrera II and get rope and something to use as a grapple. But in the meantime ... let's try the front door."
With a last longing look back at the relative safety of Kerrera II anchored just offshore, Phoebe turned to follow her mother along the base of the fort's south wall.
. . .
Far to the south, the Orcadian trawler Girl Flora had steamed past Carnoustie on Scotland's east coast. Then under Leonid Denisovich's control steered westward past the jagged crater that had once been Dundee and the tangled wreckage of the Tay Bridge into the debris choked mouth of the Tay river itself. The oily water flowed sluggishly around the boat, faded plastic containers and rotting logs clunking softly against their patched hull.
"What the fuck is McTavish doing down there?" the Russian asked Tamsin, "it stinks."
Tamsin glanced at the open hatch down to the trawler's fish hold, then wafted a hand in front of her nose, "He's boiling something up. Those plants he was collecting when we went ashore in Caithness?"
Leonid nodded, "The Isatis Tinctoria you mean?"
Tamsin tilted her head and stared at him quizzically, "How the hell do you know that? You're not a closet botanist as well are you? Part of your Spetsnaz training I wasn't aware of best free big booty pics ?"
Leonid smirked as he guided the boat around some unidentifiable wreckage, "Also called woad. Which ... is also the name of a blue dye produced from boiling the leaves. I did some research on Reekies after the ... situation in Berwick."
Tamsin nodded as realisation dawned, "Blue woad. I get it. McTavish wants us to disguise ourselves before we go into Edinburgh."
Leonid nodded, "It'd be stupid if we got hacked to pieces by the Reekies before we've even had chance to say hello."
Tamsin snaked an arm around her lover's waist and leaned against him. Her dislocated knee was still healing and it felt good to take the weight off it for even a few seconds, "You honestly think this will work?"
"Honestly?" Leonid raised an eyebrow, "pfft ... not a chance."
"But we've got you," Tamsin grinned, "the Reekie whisperer. They owe you, remember? And McTavish'll vouch for us."
"Ya vse yeshche dumayu," Leonid muttered under his breath, "chto eto glupyy plan."
"Stupid plan or not, it's the only one we have hot my free cams"
"Your Russian is improving. I need to be careful what I say," Leonid frowned, "ya polagayu, chto minet ne imeyet voprosa?
Tamsin laughed and punched his shoulder, "Wash your mouth out."
Leonid kissed the top of her head, "I was hoping you might have to."
. . .
Beyond a deserted stone gatehouse, a wide moat ran across the front of Fort George inside the outer wall. Once dry, it now sat choked with weeds, gnarled trees, knee deep mud and all manner of debris - a midden. The one wooden bridge leading across to the fort's inner gate lay in splintered ruins at the bottom of the moat. Jessamy huffed, her blonde dreadlocks shielding her expression as she surveyed the obstacle in their path, "Deliberately demolished. I don't like this. We'll have to climb down, get across, then use what's left of the bridge to get up the other side. We'll be exposed all the way ..."
TAKATAK!
A measured burst of gunfire ricocheted off the brickwork close by, as across the moat a head and shoulders appeared behind the ramparts, "DON'T COME ANY CLOSER!"
A man's voice. Jessamy clutched her daughter's wrist as Phoebe automatically reached for one of her handguns, "Pheebs, no. Let me deal with this."
Phoebe shot her mother a surprised look. But Jessamy stayed in the open, dangerously exposed, keeping her hands raised well away from her holstered handguns, knives and crossbow, "GOOD MORNING," she called cheerily across the rubbish filled moat.
Jessamy suspected that if he really wanted, the man could take them both out with one prolonged burst from whatever automatic weapon he was armed with. With a full magazine it didn't really matter if you were a crap shot, "You can relax ..." she continued, "because we're not here to rob you or kill you. We just want information. The Coalition ... apparently used to have a holding facility ... for prisoners here? D'you know anything about that?"
Straggly grey hair whipped around the man's face as he peered over the wall at them. Prematurely grey? Or just old? It was impossible to make out any details at such distance.
"They ... pulled out a couple o' years back," he answered after a few seconds, "it's MY place now."
Quavery and unsure, it was the cautious voice of old age - a rarity since Thanatos. Without decent food and proper medical care very few lived past sixty any more. Jessamy took a cautious step forward towards the very edge of the drop-off, motioning to Phoebe to stay put, "All of it?"
"Aye. Now fuck off back tae where ye came from. I've nothin' for ye."
But Jessamy wasn't about to be dissuaded so easily, "I'm looking for someone. Would you mind if we came in to look around? We'll leave our weapons outside."
"NO," snarled the man, "fuck off, and leave me alone."
Despite the bravado, there was no disguising the fear in the man's voice. Armed strangers coming ashore from a boat right on his doorstep? They could be absolutely anyone. Not for the first time Jessamy cursed herself for having a fierce looking tattoo covering half her face. It had had the desired effect when she'd been a bounty hunter, helping to instill fear into the hearts of those she hunted, but now did nothing to win the trust of innocent civilians.
"IS IT ... JUST YOU?" Phoebe piped up, "YE'RE HERE ENTIRELY ON YER OWN?"
"Aye, what of it?" replied the man after some hesitation. Was it Jessamy's imagination or had the man's voice taken a slightly lighter tone in response to Phoebe's accent? He might be more trusting of a fellow Scot, "never had much use for company. To be honest ... I've always preferred dogs to people."
"Dogs?" Jessamy frowned, seeking desperately for any way to engage the man in a conversation.
"Aye. I lived in Ardersier over there," the man took one hand off his ancient Kalashnikov for a moment to indicate the nearby village, "used to breed champion Border Collies for years ... until that fuckin' asteroid shite buggered it all up."
The pride in the man's voice was unmistakable. Phoebe snatched at it like a drowning man would a low hanging branch, "And wh-where are your dogs now?" she asked. Jessamy often wondered how her daughter had picked up Hamnavoe's accent and not her own. But what did it matter if it worked to their advantage?
"Dead," the man spat, "eaten for food. Bunch of crazies came through eleven or twelve years ago ... killed them all. Except one. My favourite bitch. Got spooked by the gunshots ... and made a run for it."
A tiny worm of realisation, of possibility, began to wriggle through Jessamy's subconscious, searching for a way out into the light, "Made a run for it?"
"Aye, west towards Inverness," the man seemed to relax a little, gazing out towards the Moray Firth and the Black Isle beyond as he remembered, "such a bonny lass."
"What was her name?" shouted Phoebe.
"Don't see what fuckin' difference it makes," muttered the old man.
"I'm only askin'," Phoebe answered.
The old man huffed, "Princess of Chanonry was her pedigree name. Her pet name ... was Eilidh. Never saw her again."
Jessamy's eyes narrowed, a grin pulling at the corners of her mouth, "Eilidh. Border Collie you say?"
"Aye," the old man's demeanour abruptly switched back to surly and suspicious, "now if ye've finished wastin' ma fuckin' time I've got better things to dae," he began to turn away.
"Black and white with freckles down one leg ... and a droopy left ear?" Phoebe quickly asked.
The man faced them again slowly. Both women could imagine his eyebrows raised and a look of surprise, "Aye ... how'd you ken?"
Jessamy allowed herself a smile, "Around about that time I was passing through Inverness with my husband Angus. We adopted a stray collie with a wounded foot. Wondered where the fuck she'd come from."
"Ye're ... kiddin' me," the old man lowered his Kalashnikov and stared out across the moat at them.
"No sir," Jessamy laughed, "my husband named her Myrtle after his granny and ... well to cut a long story short ... that dog saved our lives more than once ... and lived a long and happy life with my niece."
"She's ... dead?" the man shook his head in disbelief.
Jessamy slowly nodded.
"Damn it ... heh, Myrtle eh?" there was silence for a few moments as the man considered, then, "look ... ye seem like decent people. Walk 'round to the sally port. I'll let ye in. I've no food to spare ... but I want to hear all about her. Though no funny business eh?"
Jessamy nodded, "You have my word, sir. No funny business."
. . .
Options for landing the Girl Flora close to Perth were limited. The banks of the River Tay had long ago been devastated by either floodwater from upriver or a tsunami sweeping in from the North Sea. It was impossible to tell which. Tamsin eventually spotted the remains of a stone quay poking out of the mud and debris of collapsed warehouses, with a few much smaller boats already moored alongside, so Leonid Denisovich cautiously steered the trawler in towards it.
What had once been the M90 motorway would take them south to the Firth of Forth. But with the entire Coalition fleet anchored there, getting anywhere Edinburgh by sea would be suicide. Once their plan was in progress, the others on board the Kerrera II would have to make a massive detour before rendezvousing with them in Northumberland.
McTavish came clambering up the steep ladder from the fish hold as Leonid leapt across onto the quay to attach mooring ropes. His eyes darted around the wheelhouse, quickly taking in their situation, but he said nothing. Tamsin couldn't help but notice the plastic paint kettle in his hand, filled almost to the brim with some dark liquid, "Is that what I think it is?"
"Ye go into Edinburgh as ye are, we'll be attacked," McTavish had a way of barely moving his lips and jaw when he spoke, so it seemed his low and gutteral voice was actually coming from elsewhere. In the years she'd known their scout, Tamsin still knew virtually nothing about him, other than the fact Leonid Denisovich had once saved his clan from extermination.
Under the matted hair and grime, and the swirling blue clan markings covering every inch of exposed skin it was impossible to even tell how old McTavish might be. Or how he might have looked in a more civilised time before Thanatos had so irrevocably changed everything.
"It's too late to start out now," Tamsin observed, "but if we get a good night's sleep we can set out in the morning. Edinburgh's what ... twenty five miles south?"
McTavish inclined his head slightly, the only indication he agreed with either the plan or Tamsin's estimate of the distance, "Strip."
Tamsin cocked her head on one side, not sure if she'd heard him right. She shifted the weight from her damaged knee, "Come again?"
McTavish sighed with exasperation and set the paint kettle down, "Take off your clothes."
Help, cried a small voice in the back of her mind. She'd known McTavish for years, and trusted him. Surely he wasn't going to be stupid enough to try anything with Leonid just a few yards away outside?
The Reekie dipped a filthy finger into the paint kettle and lifted it for Tamsin to see. Inky blue dye ran down his hand, "Now's as good a time as any."
Tamsin then realised what he was up to, "Can't we just put it on ourselves?"
"I'd ken the difference. So will others best bbw porn tube
Tamsin nodded. She shrugged off her patched goretex jacket and draped it over the back of the skipper's chair, eyeing McTavish for any subtle hint that this might be his idea of a joke. But as far as she knew, the Reekie didn't have a sense of humour. She unwrapped her woollen scarf from her neck, then unlaced her softshell - the zip having long since perished. Next came her t-shirts, both threadbare pre-Thanatos garments that may have once been dyed bright colours but were now both the same nondescript dirt hue of many others' clothing.
Tamsin calmly watched the Reekie's eyes for any reaction as she lifted her sports bra off over her head. But he simply watched, silent and dispassionate. Most of his own people went around in a state of undress, so catching a glimpse of her bare tits was hardly going to affect him as it might any other man, she reasoned. Nevertheless, a shiver of something indefinable ran through her as she uncovered herself.
Pride - in the way her body looked? Defiance - as she cast her inhibitions aside and boldly challenged McTavish to watch her undress? Arousal -
"Boat's all secure. I'll take a quick ..." Leonid stopped dead in the wheelhouse door and stared, "am I ... interrupting something?"
Refusing to feel embarrassed by her semi nakedness, Tamsin knelt to unlace her boots, wincing as she put pressure on her knee, "Don't just stand there like a lemon. Get your kit off."
McTavish lifted the paint kettle by way of explanation.
"Oh right," said Leonid, staring unashamedly at Tamsin, "I thought this was some weird initiation thing."
McTavish raised an eyebrow.
"Uh ... w-we're doing this now are we? I thought we could at least wait until we were closer to Edinburgh," Leonid shifted uncomfortably.
"Reekies will ha' scouts on the road south," McTavish explained, "we need to be ready sooner."
"Vy pravy," Leonid muttered and began undressing.
Tamsin awkwardly tugged off her boots, having to twist sideways with her upper arm still bandaged, then rolled her two pairs of thick socks down. Merida had knitted them for her the previous winter at Novaya Nadezhda. Thinking of her mother automatically made her wonder how her Aunt Jessamy and the others were faring at Fort George. Hopefully in a few days time they'd know.
She straightened and began wriggling her canvas trousers down over her hips. Then paused. McTavish and more noticeably Leonid hadn't moved and were simply watching her, "What?"
Leonid shrugged, "I was just enjoying the show. We sleep together but I hardly ever get to see you naked in daylight."
Tamsin turned to McTavish, "And what's your excuse?"
In response the Reekie unclipped his leather baldric, then the belt and pin securing his kilt before letting the entire ensemble fall to the deck. He couldn't expect her to strip if he wasn't prepared to do the same. Tamsin couldn't help staring. It was impossible to tell McTavish's age by looking at his face but equally so from looking at his body. Blue swirls of finger applied woad curled and wound around toned muscle and taut sinew, applied and reapplied over years so that the scarred skin itself had become permanently stained. The Reekie carried not one ounce of excess fat.
Tamsin's subconscious betrayed her and forced her eyes to glance down for just a split second. It was enough to remind her of how well endowed her scout was. Even flaccid, still an impressive cock - tinged faintly blue from the woad. Feeling the heat rising into her cheeks, she quickly turned her back and stripped out of trousers, thermal bottoms, knee support and panties.
"What now?" she turned to face the two men, reaching up to tie her red hair back out of the way. Then belatedly realised what effect the movement had on her breasts - lifting them so they appeared fuller. Leonid's eyes widened and he stumbled sideways with one leg half out of his trousers. Men didn't really need much encouragement.
Ignoring the Russian for the moment, McTavish stepped forward and without hesitation smoothed a double line of the warm blue woad across her nose and cheek, curving under Tamsin's ear to sweep down her neck. Like warpaint. The unexpected contact made her shiver, her breath catching as she realised the Reekie was now in such close proximity they were almost touching.
"Wh-what do the markings all mean?" Tamsin asked.
"This ... marks you as comin' from the west o' the city," McTavish answered quietly, "ceann an iar a 'bhaile. Haymarket, like me."
She frowned, "What was that other bit again?"
"Ceann an iar a 'bhaile," McTavish's fingers continued their passage downward, sweeping with a feather soft touch along Tamsin's collar bones, around her shoulders and upper arms, "to outsiders ... we speak like animals. Beathaichean. Just ... grunts and growls."
She shivered as McTavish moved around behind her, dipping into the paint kettle and daubing blue spirals down her spine and up the sides of her ribcage, his touch electrifying, "But you don't, I take it?"
These were the same hands that had killed Reivers and Coalition soldiers alike in some of the most horrible ways imaginable, now tenderly coaxing a most unexpected desire from deep down within her.
"When we're hunting. The language we speak in Edinburgh now is a form of Gaelic," as McTavish's fingers teased and glided their way down across her buttocks, Tamsin realised her nipples had hardened into taut little buds, "as it used to be all across Scotland."
"So we better keep our mouths shut or we'll give ourselves away to your blue friends," Leonid neatly folded the last of his clothes and stood watching, arms folded smugly. There weren't many who could get away with disrespecting Reekies. Leonid was one of a very select few.
"If only," McTavish muttered so quietly that only Tamsin could hear.
Had the Reekie just made a joke? She grinned nervously, partly wishing this embarrassing ordeal could be over, but partly yearning for more intimate contact. What the fuck was wrong with her? She was completely nude and vulnerable in front of two men - two very dear friends and allies, and unbelievably she was getting turned on.
"Most of us ... live in the castle," McTavish continued as he knelt to decorate the backs of her legs, "it ... was the only high ground when the volcano erupted. Groups from different parts o' the city ... stayed together in different areas. Formed clans if ye like. Cinnidhean."
As the Reekie stood to move back around to her front, Tamsin felt something brush the back of her thigh. Something warm and firm. She wondered if McTavish's keen sense of smell had been able to detect her arousal when he'd been crouched so near. And if it had affected him. In all the years she'd known him, Tamsin had never seen him go anywhere near a woman. But she guessed that apart from other Reekies, few would want him to.
"This won't fool your friends at all will it?" interrupted Leonid bluntly.
"No," McTavish answered as he applied woad to Tamsin's thighs, "not fer long. But it should make them think before puttin' a fuckin' arrow through yer head."
Tamsin breathed in, presenting her chest for McTavish's attention as he stood and moved close. With his back to Leonid, the Reekie began to draw spirals around the silken skin of her breasts. Starting at the inner point of each collar bone, his woad smeared fingertips of both hands circled in ever decreasing circles, each tighter and closer. Surely he could see how engorged her nipples were?