"Help!" There it was again, closer now, the voice of a young female in great distress. Skyler had followed her cries through the deep forest. He knew she was near.

He stepped out of the trees and into the knee-high grass of a misty glade. He wore rugged Japanese commoner's garb, loose-fitting black breeches and a faded gray tunic. The boy's long black hair was tied in a ponytail, bouncing a little with each step he took.

Across the glade, a large fully armored man had a slim young girl half his size bound to a tree. She was tragically young, fourteen or fifteen at most. He clutched and ripped at her clothes, and all but her thin silk shift lay in tatters on the ground. Several yards behind them stood a big black warhorse, a snorting, hard-stepping beast of bad temperament. It observed the assault curiously, as if waiting its turn.

Skyler drew Wang, his samurai sword. A metallic rasp cut through the glade. The man, his captive, and the horse jerked their heads in the boy's direction.

"Help!" the girl pleaded to Skyler.

The man ignored the girl as if she no longer existed. Like a jungle predator leaving its kill momentarily to defend it from a scavenger, he knelt and grabbed his weapon from the ground, a long pike. He then mounted his horse, and man and beast came toward Skyler. The horseman wore a full suit of shogun armor, complete with a masked helm and jagged shoulder plates. The thick oak shaft of his pike had hundreds of grooves and notches along its length from the deflected blows of prior battles.

The warrior paused twenty paces from the boy and leveled the pike at him. Then, like a medieval jouster, he charged.

Skyler dodged to the left, rolling through the high grass, rising with morning dew gleaming on his back. The rider began to turn his horse for another charge, but the boy sprinted at him, bounding lithely, agile as a gazelle. He leapt at the man, holding his sword high and bringing down in a sharp arc as he descended. The warrior lifted his pike against the incoming steel and swatted the boy aside with a fluid stroke. Skyler landed on his feet and staggered away, holding his sword before him, gritting his teeth.

The warrior charged again, but this time Skyler charged too. He ran at the horse's front legs and sliced its knee joints with Wang, springing to the side before the beast could trample him. The horse let out a screeching, braying protest and crumpled to the ground. The rider flew out of his saddle and rolled through the grass, armor clamoring.

The horse thrashed, screaming, trying to stand. It was an awful sound. Ignoring the animal, the warrior quickly got to his feet, pike in hand. He had somehow managed to hold on to it during the fall.

The seven foot long pike had a tremendous reach advantage over the boy's samurai sword, and the warrior made wise use of it. He swiped at Skyler with broad, sweeping arcs, keeping his distance. The boy sprang about, ducking, weaving, throwing himself out of the way of the hissing pike. The warrior only had to land one blow to end the boy. Contrarily, Skyler not only had to get in close, but find away to penetrate that heavy armor.

The boy evaded in every manner he knew, twisting and flinging his thin body in creative and painful fashion, rolling like a circus tumbler, ponytail whipping his neck, sword held before his face as a last line of defense in case the pike managed to catch him. As all this transpired, the horse finally managed to stand. It hobbled away into the forest. Neither of the combatants even glanced at it.

Fortunately, the weight of the man's large weapon and heavy armor took their toll, and he finally began to show signs of tiring after thirty-something strikes. Skyler ducked to let an attack sail over his head, then immediately darted at the warrior while the man struggled to reverse the pike's momentum. It worked. He brought Wang's cutting edge down on the man's hand. An armored glove protected the warrior from losing the hand, but the force of the blow loosened his fingers sufficiently to cause him to drop the pike.

Knowing he couldn't allow the warrior to retrieve the weapon, Skyler instantly unleashed a flurry of steel, striking at the man's face, trying to stab an eye, smash an ear, or bludgeon the helm from his head. The warrior countered with furiously flying hands, warding off the blows with armored forearms and gloves. Nonetheless, Skyler had him weaponless, in full defensive posture, and the tide of battle turned.

Suddenly the warrior threw a fist into the onslaught of steel and caught Skyler in the eye. The blow opened a cut above his right eyebrow, snapping the boy's head back with the force of a cracking whip. He hit the ground hard, his head swimming, blood pouring from his forehead. A voice in Skyler's mind, some ingrained battle intelligence, screamed that the warrior would use this opportunity to retrieve his pike and skewer him. So, despite the weeping red gash on his face and his cloudy vision, he lurched back to his feet immediately upon hitting the ground. Indeed, the warrior had grasped the pike and begun to lift it. Skyler leapt high and came down on the pike's shaft with both feet, forcing it back into the grass. With the same momentum he thrust his samurai sword into the shadowy nook between the top of the warrior's breastplate and the bottom of his helm. He felt the tip of the sword sink into yielding flesh. The warrior emitted a bubbly gagging sound and the boy knew he had struck the throat. A forcible, hair-thin tendril of blood jetted from the wound, striking Skyler on the cheek strong enough to sting. Skyler twisted the blade, then ripped it back out with a sound of moist suction. The warrior collapsed into the tall grass, clutching his throat, choking to death.

The boy turned his attention to the scarcely clad girl tied to the tree. Approaching through the fog, he finally got a good look at her. She had large heavy breasts and curvy hips for one so young, but the rest of her figure was as slim as a blade. The thin scrap of clothing that remained accentuated all her curves, barely stretching down to her hips. One of the shift's shoulder straps hung loose, torn by the brute warrior, exposing a tempting boon of smooth pale cleavage. Skyler looked at her with a naked savage lust, blood staining the whole right side of his face and dripping from his sword into the wet grass.

The girl's eyes were wide, her mouth agape with awe and admiration and gratitude. Her chest heaved with elated breaths, sensing her pending freedom from her bindings and the monster that had captured her. Yet, there was caution behind her eyes, as if she wasn't sure she could trust Skyler any more than the brute who had dragged her out here in the first place.

"You saved me," she exhaled, breathily. "You're my hero."

"No," he replied.

Skyler continued to study her, his gaze passing from the tips of her bare feet all the way up to the disheveled locks of her fine dark hair, stopping at all the good spots in between to enjoy the view.

The girl's expression of joy slowly faded to one of worry.

Skyler closed in on her, circling around to her backside. He didn't untie her. Still holding his sword, he pressed himself against her back, clamped one hand tightly to her ample bottom, and pressed his face into the supple curve of her neck and shoulder. He kissed and sucked and took taste of her downy flesh.

The girl stomped her feet and tried to squirm away in outrage. "Untie me, you bastard! Get your hands off me!"

She only resisted for a few moments, however. There was something about Skyler that the girl found overwhelming, be it his primal urge or his boyish good looks or the way he touched her. Soon she was arching her back and wriggling herself harder against him, enjoying the molestation as much as he. She continued to whisper, "Stop " stop " stop," but she prayed he wouldn't.

At last Skyler drew back. A streak of blood now stained the girl's creamy white clavicle. She stood there, woozy, swaying, grasping the tree just to keep herself upright.

Finally he slashed the rope binding her to the tree. She backed away on shaky legs and teetered on the verge of collapse, but then Skyler was there, and she fell into his arms. With one arm he cradled her, the other still clutching his blood-streaked sword. The girl lifted her hand and brushed at the streaks of blood on Skyler's cheek, the severed cuff of rope still circling her wrist.

"Be gentle with me," she sighed.

Without responding he cupped the back of her head and pulled her lips to his, unapologetic for the blood that smeared onto her soft cheeks.

The kiss awoke in Skyler a deep carnal hunger. He stuck his samurai sword into the ground, freeing both his hands to hold the girl. Then he plunged his face between her breasts. Her eyes rolled as she threw back her head and moaned, fingers slipping into his hair to unfasten his ponytail. Skyler's long pretty shiny black hair fell to his shoulders.

Meanwhile, his hand found the fabric of her shift and yanked, tearing the silk so her breasts spilled free. She shuddered.

He lowered the girl into the grass beneath the tree. With his sword jutting up from the ground next to him, he crawled on top of her and had his way.

He was not gentle.

The girl's cries once again filled this misty glade, but now they were cries of pleasure.