Rowans hammer her first.., p.1
Rowan's Hammer (Her First Knight, #3), page 1
Rowan's Hammer
Her First Knight, Volume 3
Ash Gray
Published by Ash Gray, 2022.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
ROWAN'S HAMMER
First edition. September 23, 2022.
Copyright © 2022 Ash Gray.
ISBN: 979-8215213018
Written by Ash Gray.
Also by Ash Gray
A Time of Darkness
Time's Arrow
The Infinite Athenaeum
Fallen Stars
Fragile Hearts
Broken Minds
Digital Heartbeats
Electric Souls
Metal Bones
Her First Knight
The Knight of the Wild
Sparrow Song
Rowan's Hammer
The Dragon of Almara
Sanctuary
The Flower of Adwean
The Halls of Erinyel
The Daughter of Light
The Tomb of Azmon (Coming Soon)
Dawn of the New Age (Coming Soon)
Knights of Passion
The Queen's Lust
Handfasting the Warrior Queen
The Revenge of Raven's Cross
The Light of Lythara
Taming the Wolf Knight
The Mermaids of Menosea
The Fairy Queen of Elwenhal
The Dragon of Edhen
Essential Selene
Hearth and Home
Ona of Ozmora
The Amulet of Tizra
The Bandit Queen of Crystal Falls
The Council of Eldor
The Sword of Avara
Wicked Things in the Wilds
Tales from Vallinwir
The Assassin's Kiss
The Fairy Ring
The Main Course
Tales of the Blood Moon Coven
Bloodlust
The Hidden Memory
Whispered Names
Morbid Fascination
Bending to Her Will
The Chronicles of Omicron
The Thieves of Nottica
The Watchtower of Rustoria
The Last Queen of Qorlec
Project Mothership
The Harvest
The Suns of Anarchy
The Light-year Lion
Moon Fire
Exiled Stars
Zora's Stone
The Last Scion
Devotion (Coming Soon)
The Legend of Kiva
The Starlight Stair
Standalone
Qorth
Fall Apart World
Unicorn Blood
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Ash Gray
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
More From Ash Gray
Sign up for Ash Gray's Mailing List
Further Reading: The Dragon of Almara
Also By Ash Gray
About the Author
Chapter 1
The inn they stayed at in Hargendon was called Hilvara’s Knickers, a cheeky nod to the goddess of coin and her local temple. With the blizzard raging over the town, many travelers had been stranded at the inn, and the downstairs tavern was overcrowded with laughing men and giggling women, bearded merchants, and even some bandits and ruffians. Many of the men were drunk and lustful and wouldn’t have hesitated to accost any young maiden their eye fell upon. For this reason, Liadan warned Ava that she and Lysa should never venture downstairs into the tavern alone.
Lysa agreed with Liadan’s warnings, but Ava was desperately tired of being a good girl, doing what she was told, and living in fear. She had been a good girl for her father for twenty-two years, and what had it gotten her? Loneliness, isolation, and now banishment and exile. She wanted to have fun for once in her life, she wanted to live!
And so, the next time Rowan took night watch, Ava waited until the other knights were sleeping, and when Rowan announced that she was slipping off yet again to gamble, Ava insisted that she go with the Black Lioness. The princess was annoyed when Lysa awoke and scolded her, and not wanting them to be caught by their respective lovers, Rowan closed her large hand over Lysa’s indignant mouth and dragged the little handmaiden downstairs with them.
Downstairs, the tavern was as rowdy as ever. There were so many people in the room, the crowds were almost a blur of different hair colors and tunics. Serving wenches with trays of tankards hurried back and forth, blushing angrily when their backsides were groped by drunken men. A band played on a small stage, and some of the people were hopping and dancing, as nearby, a fire roared on the great hearth.
Lysa wiggled free of Rowan’s big hand, prying it off her mouth and glaring. “Don’t you ever manhandle me like that again!” she shrilled.
Rowan only shrugged. “You were threatening to reveal my deeds!”
“You mean your misdeeds,” said Lysa reprovingly.
Rowan made a face. “As if I needed Saoirse to close her legs to me because of your loose tongue.”
Lysa huffed and folded her arms. “You would deserve to be caught! Gambling behind her back – it's horrid!”
“Tuh. You sound like Saoirse. I shall do as I wish with my coin,” said Rowan irritably, her eyes scanning the crowds.
“It is soon to be Saoirse’s coin as well,” Lysa pointed out.
“Soon to be,” Rowan pointedly repeated. “It isn’t her coin yet.”
Lysa rolled her eyes. “We shall have one drink and then return upstairs, my princess,” she said to Ava. “It is too dangerous here!”
Ava wasn’t listening but was blushing pink as she watched a pretty blonde peasant girl dancing on a table, the top of her dress pulled down and her big breasts standing bare and free. They were magnificent breasts, wonderfully plump and large, the pink nipples hard. Ava had never before quite seen a woman with breasts as large as her own. She felt her clitoris start to pump in her smallclothes.
“Would you like to dance naked on a table?” Rowan teased Ava, having noticed her staring.
Ava blushed brighter but answered with a smile, “Perhaps.”
“Then take heed of what shall happen to you if you dare,” said Rowan, nodding at the dancing peasant girl.
As Ava watched, the dancing peasant girl shook her shoulders so that her big breasts wobbled, and the men hooted and threw coins at her feet. But – to Ava’s amazement – so did some of the women!
A towering, burly female peasant—with ripping muscles, rolled up sleeves, and dirty blonde hair—stood up, grabbed the dancing girl by her narrow waist (the dancing girl giggled in delight), and lifted her down from the table and into her arms, so that she was hugging the girl’s waist. The peasant girl squealed when the burly woman buried her face in one of her great breasts and sucked with passion. The men cheered and threw more coins (“Disgusting,” Rowan muttered), and the burly peasant sucked on, frowning as the peasant woman’s great breast rose against her face. The peasant woman, meanwhile, was gasping with pleasure, her cheeks slowly turning brighter and brighter as she was suckled.
Ava heard Lysa’s gasp, felt Lysa tugging her arm, but could not look away from what was happening. To her amazement, the burly peasant set the peasant girl on her feet and yanked on her dress, ripping it, so that it tumbled away. The peasant girl shrieked and covered her breasts – She was now standing there in nothing but her smallclothes. The burly woman grabbed the peasant woman by the waist again, sat her hard on the table (her big breasts bounced), and crammed a hand down the front of her smallclothes, fingering her roughly. As the men cheered and tossed coins, the peasant girl’s expression softened, and her head fell back as she screamed softly in bafflement and delight. The burly woman stared at her with narrowed eyes as she continued fingering her in front of everyone, hard and deep.
“Why is it disgusting?” wondered Ava, finally turning her eyes away to look at Rowan.
Rowan was sneering as she watched the peasant girl get slammed to the table by the burly woman and her smallclothes ripped away. The peasant girl’s legs were then lifted in the air and spread, and the burly woman buried her face between her thighs. The peasant girl screamed breathlessly. The men roared approval.
Rowan looked around at Ava with mild surprise, almost as if she’d forgotten the princess was there. She waved a disgusted hand at the hooting men. “This inn used to be for women alone. The men have invaded here. They come to watch us make love, as if we were their entertainment. The lechers. They can never let us have our places.” She turned her bitter eyes away, her gaze alighting on a distant table, where a group of women in leather armor sat. “There are my card friends – or foes, I suppose,” Rowan said with a smile. “I shall join them. The two of you stay out of trouble – if I am not at all naïve in thinking that possible.” And with that, Rowan made her way to the table, pushing through the laughing crowds.
Rowan’s departure was so abrupt, Ava felt a jolt of shock to realize that she was now completely on her own – completely free to do as she pleased! What should she do first? Dance before the stage? Dance on a table? Perhaps get drunk? The first and last time she was drunk, her father had punished her, and she had never been allowed to drink so heavily again. It suddenly occurred to her that, for the first time in her life, she could do whatever she wished without being confined to a tower.
“Don’t do anything rash, my princess,” Lysa begged, as if she had read Ava’s mind.
Ava made an irritated noise and ignored Lysa, instead grabbing the handmaiden’s arm with a gleeful expression. “Oh, Lysa!” she squealed. “Stop scolding and let us make merry! Haven’t you ever wanted to make merry?”
“No,” Lysa said at once.
Ava looked around. Every last table in the place was occupied and so overcrowded that people were sitting in each other’s laps for lack of chairs. “Let’s get a drink at the bar,” she said, pulling a weary Lysa after her by the arm.
The middle-aged, dark-haired woman who owned the bar was called Grainne. She was a short, slender woman with dark eyes and a long, boney nose, and like Rowan, she didn’t seem too pleased with her male customers. She polished a tankard with her apron as she eyed the men bitterly, but when Ava and Lysa sat on stools at the bar, she smiled.
“What will it be, ladies?” Grainne asked.
“Two pints of ale!” Ava said happily.
“A whole pint?!” Lysa scolded. “You’ll be drunk for sure!”
“Oh, Lysa, calm down,” sighed Ava.
Grainne smiled and served up the pints, setting them on the counter. Ava fished in her cloak for Liadan’s coin purse, which she had been careful to slip from the knight’s saddle bags before coming down to the tavern. She felt a little guilty, but Liadan had already said many times that everything she owned now belonged to Ava. Ava felt rather as if they were married and enjoyed pretending as if they were.
“That’s a lot of gold for a commoner,” said a gruff voice.
Ava glanced around and noticed a man sitting at the bar beside her, peering at her from behind strings of dirty red hair. He was young and fit, handsome and unshaven. He looked quite rough, like a bandit, for he was wearing dark leathers that were tattered, and a dagger hilt poked from his boot. Ava didn’t like the way his blue eyes leered at her. She quickly tucked Liadan’s coin purse away and could feel his eyes raking her body. It disgusted her and she held down a shiver, trying not to look afraid.
“My lady is a noblewoman of a great house,” said Lysa at once, “so you had best leave her be, if you know what’s good for you—”
“Shut up, whore,” sneered the man, though his leering eyes were fixed on Ava. “I’m talking to your ‘lady,’ not you.”
Ava scowled. “Don’t you dare speak to Lysa that way!”
The red-haired man only smiled nastily. He was hunched over his tankard, his forearms on the counter either side of it. He said not a word.
Determined to appear unafraid and unbothered, Ava primly lifted her tankard to her lips and took a drink. But she could still feel the man watching her, leering at her body. She irritably slammed the tankard down. “What do you want?” she demanded.
“You on my dick,” the man said.
Lysa gasped.
“You shut your filthy mouth!” Ava cried, appalled.
The man’s face darkened. “You’ll sit on my dick and like it, bitch,” he said in a low voice, so that Grainne couldn’t hear as she stood nearby, “or I’ll slit your throat and take that gold. You ain’t some noblewoman. You’re a whore! Look at you, all dressed up fancy! Except your gown is torn, ain’t it? And you’ve got no proper escort. Was that big red bitch you came in with your pimp or a customer? Is that her coin yer spending?”
Ava felt her cheeks growing bright with anger. She opened her mouth to snap a retort and gasped when the man grabbed her wrist, pulling her around to face him. She struggled to get free and pried at his fingers, but his hand was like iron on her arm. His other hand reached for her front laces.
“Be still now,” snarled the man. “I just wanna see the goods before I pay – or are you too high-class a whore for the likes of me?”
“Let her go!” shouted Lysa, leaping from her stool. She grabbed her tankard of ale and tossed it in the man’s face. The man, instead of releasing Ava, lifted his other hand and backslapped Lysa to the floor. Lysa fell with a cry.
“You coward!” Ava yelled, tears in her eyes, still struggling to get free. “You coward that you would strike a woman!”
“I get it now,” said the man, reaching for Ava’s laces again. “You’re too good for me, that’s what it is! You only serve the knights! Well, you’ll serve me tonight, if you know what's good for you—”
“Let go!” Ava screamed. She was struggling hard now to get away, but the man was holding tight to her wrist, and now his other hand yanked on her laces, and one of her breasts popped free. His eyes went round with delight, and the other men in the tavern hooted and cheered. Ava sobbed: everyone was watching their struggle now. Her cheeks burned with humiliation.
Across the room, Rowan had risen grimly from her chair and was reaching back for her hammer, which was sheathed on her back. Relief washed over Ava: Rowan would come and bash the man’s brains from his skull, and then no one in the tavern would ever dare accost her like this again! She looked at the man and laughed through her tears when she saw the fear in his eyes as he realized Rowan was with Ava.
“Didn’t you see her come in with me?” Ava mocked.
The man sneered, but as if he was determined to get what he wanted before he died, he reached for Ava’s exposed breast and squeezed it. Ava gasped angrily and twisted to escape his hand, and her heart beat fast with anger when the man’s eyes laughed at her, as if to say he had succeeded in violating her regardless and there was nothing – nothing—she could do. It shocked Ava when the desire to cut the man’s head off suddenly overwhelmed her, so much that she shuddered with rage.
“Nice,” the man whispered as Rowan pushed her way through the crowded tables. “Nice and firm, and fat for a skinny whore. You would have been worth the—”
Ava flinched and screamed as blood splattered her face: a sword had blossomed in the man’s chest, dripping with his blood. The blade was glowing with golden fire. The man’s eyes went wide as blood slipped dark over his bottom lip, and fire licked from his eyes and nostrils, consuming him from the inside.
Ava looked past the man and saw Liadan standing there in full armor, her face cold of emotion, her red hair tousled from her haste to reach the tavern. There was a golden fire burning in her eyes. With tight lips, she ripped the blazing sword free (the man sputtered blood) and brought it whistling around in a swift arc. The man’s head sprang off and bounced away across the floor, filling the tavern with screams as it trailed blood. The man’s body sat on the stool a moment, squirting blood from the neck, tittering on the spot, then suddenly collapsing away to fully reveal Liadan.
There was silence, and the only sound in the room was the thump of the man’s severed head as it went rolling along. One serving wench scrambled to clear the head’s path and nearly dropped her tray. Then Liadan lifted her voice and said to the room at large, “Any man who remains in this place shall likewise lose his head!”
Another pause, silence, and then the sound of scraping chairs and thumping boots as several men launched to their feet, grabbed their drunken friends, and hurried from the inn. Some glanced back in terror at Liadan, others just ran out as fast as they could, shoving others aside to get away.
Rowan had reached them at last and she was grinning. “Nice work,” she said cheerfully to Liadan, who nodded without emotion. Then Rowan knelt beside Lysa and gently woke her. Lysa moaned and sat up with Rowan’s careful help. There was a purple bruise forming on Lysa’s face where she’d been struck and another on her elbow from her hard fall to the floor.
“Nice work indeed,” said Grainne with great approval. She slid a few coins across the counter toward Liadan. “Take your coin back. If you can keep the men from coming back, I’ll pay you double that, and all drinks are on the house.”
“Our thanks, my lady,” said Rowan cheerfully and winked. Her arm was around Lysa, who was moaning in pain. Rowan carefully gathered Lysa in her arms and stood. Lysa curled against Rowan like a child, and Ava thought it was a direct reversal of the way they had entered the tavern only minutes before, with Rowan basically holding Lysa hostage as she struggled, one big hand over Lysa’s mouth. Now Lysa was cradled almost lovingly in Rowan’s arms, and Ava was surprised when Rowan even kissed her hair.
