Taru & the Raider

         The wind woman howled and screamed outside the tiny cottage.  The storm had raged for days without end, shaking the walls and trying to find a way inside her home.  Taru lay under a pile of furs shivering in her bed.  The fire had gone out long ago but she was too sick to get up and relight it.  The fever had come back yet again - her body alternately burned like fire and shook with icy cold - leaving her weak as a just-born calf.  Her belly was empty and she burned with thirst.  If she didn't regain her strength soon she was going to die in her bed.

         Amidst the howling of the wind she suddenly became aware of another sound - something was outside her door.  Suddenly there was a pounding weight against the door and it flew open with a crash, letting the screaming wind into the room.  A large, shaggy figure in the door, and for a moment Taru's fevered brain thought it was a bear coming in.  Then the door slammed shut and a snow-encrusted raider stood staring at her in the dim light.

         They stared at each other for a moment in silence, each wondering what the other would do.  Taru caughed weakly and collapsed against the pillows.  The raider, seeing that she was no threat, clomped into the room like he owned the place.  He found the pantry easily and stuffed a big chunk of smoked meat into his mouth first thing.  The room was freezing so the wildman set about building a fire and set the frozen water kettle to thaw over the flames and went back to stuffing his face in the pantry.  When the kettle began to steam gently he dipped out a cupful of warm water and brought it to the bed where Taru continued to cough.  He supported her head and held the cup to her lips while she drank eagerly, then tucked the rabbit fur blanket and bear skin back under her chin.

         Taru watched helplessly while the crude brute pawed through her carefully-gathered stores, stuffing whatever he could find of value into his pack.  She tried to protest when he discovered her small horde of silver trinkets, but he just growled menacingly at her and she gave up arguing.  She was only mildly curious when he started pulling things out of her pantry - ginger root, onion, garlic, dried berries and meat.  The unlikely chef diced his ingredients finely and dumped them together with some water into a cooking pot, stirring the mess with a marrow bone he had found.  He dropped the bone into the soup and Taru wondered how he could eat such an eye-watering concoction, but soon lost interest as weakness dragged her into restless sleep.

         She was wakened roughly when the raider tossed back her blankets and heaved her upright in the bed.  She could hear the storm still raging outside, but the cabin was now warm and full of good smells.  The young girl pulled the blankets back over her lap, wondering what her guest had in mind.  He came back from the fireplace with a steaming bowl of something and handed it to her with a grunt.  Taru looked down at the mess and began to cough and wheeze, her eyes watering at the pungent aroma of garlic and ginger root.  She tried to give the bowl back to the man but he took up the spoon and proceded to force-feed her the mess.  It was bitter and stringy and nearly seared her mouth, but she was starving and dimly understood that he was trying to heal her in his own clumsy way.  Gagging and coughing between bites, she forced herself to eat the entire bowl of slop.  The outlander brought her more water to drink, then smoored the fire for the night.  He returned to the bedside and stood looking at her for a moment in silence.  Taru wasn't sure what he wanted of her; she barely had enough strength to keep her eyes open, but felt better with the bowlful of crude stew in her belly.

         The brute grunted again and began to take off his ragged clothes.  He climbed naked under the furs and wrapped his hairy self around her small, fevered body.  The girl tried weakly to get away from his embrace but he casually slapped her, knocking her half-senseless.  He had no trouble forcing his knee between her fever-weak legs, rolling himself on top of her slim form.  There was no attempt at foreplay - she could neither appreciate it nor stop him.  He poked about her opening clumsily a bit before hitting the right spot and setting to work with no regard for the young woman he was using.  Taru closed her eyes and tried not to think or feel.  He finished quickly and fell almost immediately to sleep, snoring loudly.  Taru, trapped in his strong arms and unable to get away, soon succumbed to exhausted sleep.

         In the morning Taru woke against his morning hard-on.  He used her roughly again before building up the fire and preparing a simple breakfast of leftover stew, salted meat and pine needle tea.  The young huntress was feeling somewhat better and was able to sit at the table for the first time in days to eat.  After breakfast the outlander checked the weather, which had calmed sometime in the night.  He seemed pleased about this and hurriedly packed the last bits of plunder he had found into his pack.

         Before leaving the raider picked up the helpless maiden and laid her face-down on the edge of the tall bed.  He peeled down his trousers enough to expose his eager cock and plunged deep into her cleft with a predatory growl.  His powerful hands viced her narrow hips with enough force to leave bruises as he bucked his hips savagely, forcing small sounds from his victim with each thrust.  One calloused hand worked down under her hips and she gasped in shock as his fingers drove her mercilessly to orgasm again and again.  He was crazed with rut-lust, close to his own climax when he planted his teeth in the flesh of her shoulder and bit her hard enough to draw blood.  Taru screamed and bucked her hips, trying to throw her assailant off, but he held on and rode her harder and faster, bringing them both screaming to climax.  The nameless savage collapsed repleted on top of her, half-suffocating her while he caught his own breath.

         After what seemed like an eternity the raider rose to his feet, patting her bare behind casually while he pulled up his trousers one-handed.  Fully dressed in his mismatched bits of clothes and armor he shouldered his pack and stepped out the door into the weak morning sun without a backward glance.

         Taru made it to her shaky feet and staggered outside to vomit the entire contents of her stomach into the snow.  The raider had already disappeared into the wilderness.  She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, then went back inside and dipped out warm water to wash with.  After her bath she stripped the soiled furs off the bed, dragging them outside to burn and replacing them with fresh ones from her storage shed.  Some clean clothes, a bite of bread and honey and a roaring fire in the hearth helped her to begin to feel human again.

         That evening as she sat by the fire sharpening her weapons Taru thought about the raider.  In a day or two she should have her strength back enough to go out looking for him.  She wanted her stuff back, and his weapons, too.  Hopefully it didn't snow again before she found his body, she wasn't sure how far he might have gotten before the poisonous mushrooms she had slipped into the stew stopped him....