Seeds of Retribution (closed for PieTaster)

[TheQueenofCups]

Finding a moment to herself, Queen Zora stood up on the parapets, high enough that the cooler breezes began to flutter and play with the long tails of her dress. Securing herself on the precariously carved stone, she took a taste of the air and then another, letting her eyes seek as far as they may. Were she to be discovered, there would be screaming, cursing, terror from the servants, ordering her to get down. They would tell their heartless gods she had gone mad to climb so high, whisper their whispers and cackle together in their not so secret tongue at became of a childless woman. And, Queen or no, the past two years had taught her they would grab her by her wrists and take her back inside.

The torches that lit the walls of the fortress smoked and glowed against the dark purple of the dusk, the vast expanse of the landscape spread so far that its structure became as a evening sun. A star dripped low from the sky like a knot of honey spilled on the village that surrounds. She stood, barefoot, atop the sole source of light and heat for hundreds of miles. Behind her, the sound of water surging and crashing against a stubbornly sharp shard of gray rock. Stretches of dark forest became indistinct clouds in her view. For the first time in a hundred moons or more, she did not feel tired. She felt, perhaps, exultant.

The fortress Amenja existed not because the land was fair, the water fresh, that there were fruit trees and forest that followed the deep cuts of river or for any other reason than because there was no further to go. What brought Amenja into being was exhaustion, emptiness, her ancestor who ran to the end of the world and who stopped there and cried no more. And others followed, chased by the same starving wolves, others who began to believe they could raise walls that could keep men such as her husband from what they had built.

And then, her husband came to Amenja, and broke it and stole its daughters for his own. Now, as with so many things, Zora had discovered, he had no sense of what to do with its gifts.

Within, the torches began to light as well, and she heard her name in a shriek from deep within the stone below her. She would not be dragged in. She leapt down to the stone and sauntered to her pillowed seat at the head of the banquet table.

Her wheat-colored hair was worn in a long loose braid that wound over her shoulders and ended in her lap. The plaits held much smaller braids within, some knotted with slate blue bird feathers, pieces of ivory-colored bead and abalone shell. The lighter fabric wrapped around her waist that she'd used so often to cover the fullness of her breasts, to avoid the endless attention to her body, stayed wrapped against her hips.

She had paid for it long enough. Let them see her as a woman, as Queen of Amenja.

In a few short moments, a harp began to plink an intricate melody against a drum beat, servants, advisors, and the small retinue that remained filled the seats at the table and the nightly ritual of feasting began.

After cups of wine had been filled and refilled, Zora turned to a man who entered the room who had drawn no attention to himself, save a slight limp in his step.

“Falke! Come, come, sit by me.” She announced with a rare smile and the cool blue stone of her eyes alight with drink or...something more.

 

[PieTaster]

The oncoming night refreshed the air from the day's swelter. It was good to be up and about again even if he wasn't at fullest strength, feeling doubly better than the day and each day before was energy enough to return the color to his cheeks. The bolt through the right thigh was just flesh, but the infection that followed had sacked Falke considerably. Szargo had him watched over night and day as he sweat with fever and lost weight ever since he had been carried back to Amenja from the frontier of Calorra. Even as he clearly began to recover, the shaman insisted on full sheltered rest in the sanctuary.

Although as one of Gorun's chief military commanders, always aware of the importance of symbolic appearance before the rank and file, Falke preferred less adornments for occasions more personal. This did not mean however, the one should not take care with his appearance. He had shaved himself proper, revealing the distinctly deep nick in the right side of his jawline. The other prominent scar from battle was the thin clean gap cut through the far corner of his left brow. Despite the recent cropping of his ash blonde hair, the thick waves refused to stay matted, assuming their own coiffed shape. His eyes were light brown and bright with presence. A simple linen tunic fit amply about his lithe build, the loose front lacing widening the neck and partially exposing the swath of his dark gold chest hair. His braies were also of flax linen but as the tunic was uncolored, the leggings were dyed a rich umber. Rejoicing in the earth under his feet once again, Falke would go barefoot. He would not be the only one. Still, such rituals did require some concession to formality, and so the iron brace finely smithed and tooled with his insignia and rank, clasped to his left forearm.

Acknowledging the guards' hail, he passed through the gate and into the fortress, and crossed the courtyard, the servants pausing their to-and-fro to offer respectful bows. Falke bid them at ease with a wave and entered the house. The dirt gave way to stone and the dusk to the flicker of torchlight as he traversed the hall, the knot left in his thigh causing his unbalanced step. The drums grew louder as he approached, and soon the angelic tones of the harp. A final pair of guards bid him entry to the banquet and he presented himself. Certainly short of six span in height, his stature was not at all imposing, but his adroit poise always transcended.

"Falke! Come, come, sit by me."

"As you wish," he cocked an eyebrow and grinned casually as he approached, offering the Queen a subtle bow before claiming the goblet placed and raising it to toast the table in welcome. Zora's warmth struck him exquisitely and filled his chest. He drank and sat himself.

"The will of the Gods to have you return to our side," offered Brannar to his right.

"Such embellishments," Falke began to dismiss. "But I should never reject grace," he added as he engaged all the faces at the table, his gaze finally falling upon the Queen for a distinct moment before turning to the gathering once more. "And deep gratitude to all for your prayers," he nodded.

Falke found Zora in warm and pleasant spirits as he had never before. It was good to see. She deserved such vibrance. He'd known her as a strong woman since he had first laid eyes upon her. Even in her darkest during the first months following Gorun's claiming of her, he had seen it in her. He considered her a tremendous asset to their house, their people and their ways. This night, she was bold as well, exposing the flesh of her midriff and containing her ample bosom in only the swath of her wrap. The colors alighted to her, the robin's egg blue and coral pink of her decoration, immersing themselves irresistibly in the intricacies of her plaits, themselves only a shade darker than her complexion. More than that, her energy was enveloping him. It was obvious to his keen sense.

"Now that we are all accounted for," said Rogalo as he rose at the far end of the table. He waved for the musicians to pause. "I'm sure that by now you've all heard the news," he began. He had trimmed his beard neatly since the last time that Falke had seen him and rubbed it with tobacco to give it some color in his aging, yet the top of his head still refused to grow new hair. His wolf skin draped across his rotund body from his right shoulder, and his grey chest hair did not match his dyed beard. "The dispatch that arrived this morning from the frontier has informed us that Gorun is on his return to Amenja and estimated to be a fortnight behind the riders."

"To Gorun the Conqueror. The Vengeance of the Valley People!" Branner toasted their allegiance.

"Here, here."

"Here, here."

 

[TheQueenofCups]

Zora raised the dark metal of her goblet alongside the others, though she did not speak the words. Instead, the thought was piercing. She had a fortnight.

Once the advisors and kinsmen fell in quickly to shout praise to Gorun, they began to carve into the roasted boar, now central on the table, with their knives. Small dishes of fragrant sauces, some sweet with fruit, some oily and bitter, appeared and were shared around the table. Flat breads, bowls of a softened and mashed grain, fermented and strangely tangy, followed. Amenja was situated well, those that would follow the slope down into the grotto below the high hills found fish plentiful and easy to catch. A plate of charred and hot skewered swordfish was passed and quickly emptied. Finally, baskets of ripe lahodne fruit were left on the table by servants that quickly disappeared back into the hallways, out of sight. Each a golden yellow sphere that, at a bite, released both a sweet juice, and a slightly more tart, fleshy interior.

It was an impressive feast by any account, though Zora knew some of the handmaids would speak later to her of the smaller size of the boar.

Exhausted of watching herself be watched, she turned her glance to husband's closest advisor seated to her right.

Falke had been with Gorun since the beginning, though she did not recall seeing him within fortress' walls in the short hours before she was taken. There was much of that night that was no longer clear to her. Later, when she stumbled out of Gorun's tent in the forefields, dazed, her maiden's blood blotted in cruel streaks down her thighs, she saw only Falke's profile, then the back of his head, running towards something in the woods, drawing an arrow to his bow.

He did his share that night somewhere in Amenja, she was sure. Zora did not want to hold the memory a moment longer. Not now, perhaps not ever. His eyes were bright, youthful, despite his years.

“I see that Szargo and the healers have done well with you. You do not look so...pale as when you arrived.” As he replied, she let herself look him over a little bit longer and more closely, let her eyes wander as they wished. He was not entirely himself yet after taking such devastating wounds, but even so, she could not deny, he was an attractive man. This was the first time she had found a Cizinec desirable. His hands were a pleasing size, a lahodne could fill each one of his palms. She found herself amused by her appraisal.

“Are you pleased to have your King return to you so soon, my queen?” Her reverie broken by a rather shrill and coy feminine voice. She looked up to see Foersa, one of the few wives granted a seat at the feast, calling out to her from the other end of the table. She was thin, bird-like bones poking out all over, save for the sun-kissed swell at her center she patted reflexively. She was a water bearer who carried water into the broken fortress rather than sitting as one of Zora's handmaids. Her displeasure at this was as known as the color of the sky.

Zora offered, diplomatically, while licking lightly at a bit of sweet sauce on her index finger. “I am always pleased to hear the war bands return safely.”
“And you shall be back at his side. As a wife should be.” Foersa pronounced this as much towards the open air as those seated around her.
“Under his belly, more like.” Foersa's husband Morro elbowed Brannar, leading nearly the whole room to bray with laughter.

Zora nodded agreeably at both sentiments, allowing no disgust to rise above the still waters of her face. Foersa shook a topknot of brown and graying hair pulled taut to her scalp at the Queen's new form of impassivity, sneered and returned to gnawing at her fish, unable to hide her souring expression.

The queen attempted to listen to what she could of the men's discussion, to hear if the war band had been more successful in their hunt this time. If she could recognize anywhere they had been. Falke seemed more than willing to ask questions of Rogalo and the others after so much time away with the Healers. He served his King loyally and his counsel, if taken, was taken first amongst this crowd of wretches. He lead the war bands, though she realized she hardly knew him well. Her relief at Gorun's departure had always included him, too. She couldn't recall the last time she had seen him without Gorun in the room, and then, he'd ignored her.

Tonight, Falke seemed separate from his people for the first time in her mind. He wasn't like Eitrin, who had found a servant girl and pulled her onto his seat at the table to paw at her breasts between noisy slurps and bites. Rogalo waved his questions off until morning, more interested in his plate and telling stories of the wars of the gods. She knew these people well enough now. It would be only nonsense until morning.

She only had a fortnight and she needed...

Zora slid her right hand below the table and in a subtle movement laid it lightly atop Falke's uninjured thigh. Her face betrayed no particular change of emotion as she did so. Instead, she reached for her nearly empty goblet with her left and gestured with it for a servant to bring her more wine. Just as she felt Falke's muscles freeze, as the moment had passed well beyond the point where any man could mistake her lingering touch for mere accident, a servant refilled the glass and stepped back towards the wall without noticing. She pressed her palm down firmly, indelibly, against his flesh and raised it above the table to grasp the goblet and drink deeply.

The room began to be lively, more lively than she could recall it without Gorun to goad the table into it. Meanwhile, the warrior's attention now seemed wholly hers. As the mood shifted from chatter to unbridled laughter and shouting, she leaned in, letting her bare shoulder touch against the linen covering his. She whispered, with a zeal on her tongue, “There is a place in the woods, near where they're met by the fore fields....the stone gully? Do you know it?”

At his startled nod, her whisper lowered as the music became louder, the drum beat more prominent, hypnotic. “Please your queen and meet me there. Before the moon falls.” Zora rose from the table, hearing the muddled chorus hailing her name from the wine-addled lips of her conquerors, and strode from the room.

 

[PieTaster]

The praise for Gorun was genuine. His reign of violence had brought much power to his inner circle and they were cozy in it, even as the common folk largely trembled in fear. This was the sanctum with all of its luxuries. No one was about to disrupt Gorun's momentum, but Falke knew that it couldn't last and suspected that a couple of others felt the same. Gorun was tallying an ever growing list of enemies, particularly the bordering civilizations over the hills across the plains, with established settlements and organized and well armed militiae which they had been brashly antagonizing in recent years. Gorun's undoing would likely come from there before any internal power struggle. However, Falke did not doubt that someone at the table could stab his back if the flow of riches were to slow. The warlord-turned-self-proclaimed-King knew that he held their loyalty by the booty of the raids, so the campaigns had to continue, which conveniently suited his cold bloodlust. However, keeping such momentum was requiring Gorun to stretch himself and his resources dangerously farther and farther each time.

Falke was no saint himself, but he did see things differently, being a part of the Council of Tribes (as it was loosely and eupemistically referred to) was infinitely preferable to the common drudgery. He had gained a much stronger hand in shaping his own destiny and was loathe to ever give it back. Furthermore, it was a conquer-or-be-conquered world. He may not have approved of all of Gorun's crude tactics, but he knew that it would be a matter of time before the Calorrans or the Drynns marched forth into the valleys to impose their ways. There would still be bloodshed, only less (he'd observed and envied the efficiency of their ranks), but the tribes of the valleys would have the lands that they lived off of staked and divided and would be herded into settlements with anonymous foreign Gods thrust upon them.

The music resumed and the feast commenced, maids and servants bringing in each course in turn. Juicy slabs of pork were skewered upon the points of knives and plucked away by the clench of indulgent teeth. Flakes of fish meat seared in their own tangy oils were washed down with copious amounts of wine.

The melons were perfectly ripened, He took one in his grasp, his fingers curled up to its circumference. It gave at his clench, just firm enough to retain its shape without bruising upon release, it's weighty bulk reminding him of Ranita, the protegée healer with the long raven hair and widow's peak that Szargo had charged with the task of keeping him from roaming about as his strength began to return. She had taken tender care of him. Two days previously he could see the affection in her eyes as he lay receiving her anointments. His hand reached up under her hareskins to grope the fleshy sphere of her breast that dangled and swayed heavily. It's shape was like the melon, but not nearly so firm. Soon she was astride of him and his hands slid down her back to her hips, grasping a behind that flared out like the bell of an onion, as slowly and deeply she took him. Falke was feeling much better.

"I see that Szargo and the healers have done well with you."

"As am I," he smirked. His tone was clever but his sentiment was genuine.

"Are you pleased to have your King return to you so soon, my queen?" Foersa posed, her words benign but her tone pointed. Falke had known that when he had fallen at Shadmar in the foothills, the intention was to press on to Torvalya and its temple on the edge of the great plain. The timeline of their return, as told by the riders, was consistent with this, and indeed, as Falke inquired into the details of the news, Rogalo quickly confirmed the town's ransacking and a large plunder of furs, arms, ale, grain, gemstones and gilt icons before dismissing the subject to return to his goblet.

"I am always pleased to hear the war bands return safely."

Falke admired the cool grace with which Zora restrained herself, although he knew too well the contempt that the two women had held for each other was mutual. Foersa's subversiveness had achieved its aim, provoking snickering barbs from around the table as she haughtily rubbed her Queen's nose into her own inability to conceive. Foersa was carrying her fourth (or was it fifth?) beneath the drape of her flowing turquoise skirting. Her pregnancy was covered but she was topless, proudly displaying the darkness of her nipples upon her round breasts, adorned only by the thick golden and jewelled pendant suspended from her shoulders. Falke thought the group's cowardice most telling, as all would have held their tongues in the presence of their Bandit King or have it cut out or worse. Foersa in particular was trouble. She had ambitions, perhaps more than anyone else in the room. Indeed, on the advice of himself and of Rogalo, Gorun would not allow her at the table in his presence, but with the King out in the hunt for more spoils, Morro brought his wife along, or more accurately, she invited herself at her husband's side.

The Queen's soft delicate touch upon his thigh did take Falke by surprise, although his only giveaway would have been the hair on his legs arms and back standing on end and anyone who may have been keen enough to notice something so subtle was either too drunk or distracted by drunken antics. Falke himself was rather tight as well, having not partaken in some weeks. The ferment had hit him fairly hard, just as he could feel the wine in Zora's touch as her fingers became less delicate and more indulgent.

"The stone gully? Do you know it?" she whispered huskily as all attention was distracted by Eitrin's fondling of his maiden - one of Taynar's (the wife of Dax and the only other spouse present that evening) at the far end of the table next to Rogalo. The maid's linens were up, exposing her small pert chest as chiseled grey Eitrin groped and released to watch the young flesh jiggle itself back into shape. Her wrist was obscured below the edge of the table but the flexing of the muscles in her upper arm told what it was up to in his lap. The stone gully - of course Falke knew it.

"Please your Queen and meet me there. Before the moon falls."

No translation was needed. The only question was what would come first, the meeting or the pleasing. Falke did not plan on disappointing her on either count. Zora excused herself, her full chest shifting loosely and tantalizingly beneath her trailing bandeau.

He finished his wine and then another while dishes and utensils were shoved aside to make room for Eitrin, far too drunk to remain reserved, to place his maid upon the table and part her thighs. Taynar did nothing. It was not her to protest - she was one who knew her place too well for her own good - although the maid was certainly willing.

Time needed to pass. Falke could not leave the festivities in conjunction with Gorun's wife and he knew that she understood this. To be seen together in clandestine conditions would be fatal. Not only would it bring the wrath of Gorun, but the other viziers would suspect political treachery and act accordingly. He did wonder how she would evade her handlers who ultimately were under the King's employ and were fully aware of her unruly history though, and he was not aware of any secret passages in and out of the fortress. The possibilities of her guile intrigued him greatly.

Eventually, Falke chose an appropriately arbitrary moment to rise from the table. The dignitaries bid him farewell as he bowed, save for Eitrin who was still too busy rutting Taynar's maiden for a second go round.

The two sentries saluted as he approached his own large personal tent, a moderately sized yurt. He acknowledged and entered. Although he had barely been home recently, as he had been kept in the sanctuary, the servants had maintained everything in order. The brace with his Falcon insignia would not be needed. He removed it and placed it into his chest. With the sun long gone, the night had grown cooler. He slipped on a pair of moccasins and strapped the moleskins around his ankles. Then he took his cloak of bear and draped it about him. A gourd shaped cork-topped bottle in his palm, he reemerged and with a nod to his guard, set out eastward, the opposite direction of stone gully.

Dimming pit fires cracked and popped. A conversation could be heard here, subdued laughter there, but otherwise the camp was quiet and dark. It wasn't long before he was alone in the wood and was able to circle back around, following the rush of the river as it hurtled itself towards the falls. When he reached the bank, he followed it upstream into the meadow and checked the sky. The half-moon was high, it's silver glow brightening the sparse wisps of cloud and hinted the silhouettes of the black terrain ahead. The river itself was pitch, gurgling along invisibly beside him as his leather soles bent the grass beneath.

It wasn't long before he reached the stone gully, a place for lovers seeking privacy, yet ironically this popularity made it less private. Falke stepped carefully across the stones, worn smooth and round by the creek that ran dry every summer after the spring runoff. Footprints were impossible to leave behind so long as the feet were reasonably clean. Already, he heard the voices of another couple, whispering in the darkness a few yards below as the river swished by in the distance. He made his way up the side of the gully, moonlight caressing only the pertinent stones and shapes, leaving the rest black. Falke peered about in the dark for her form, ears alert for a signal.

 

[TheQueenofCups]

Back in her chamber, Zora looked down briefly into a flat, still trough of collected rainwater illuminated by a thin sliver of moonlight. The noise of the feast still continuing off in the distance, the queen attempted to clear the fuzz of wine and her own madness from her mind.

Reflecting up at her she saw the brazenness of her cleavage, the same view she had been giving Falke but a few moments ago, but she did not turn her gaze away. Reaching instead, she pinched the thickening nub of her left nipple, pulling hard enough to make her break her stare. Hard enough to turn the pale pink dark in the dim light. She pulled the bandeau down entirely, admiring each breast for a moment in turn. The ache in her body, centered at the meeting of her thighs was so sharp, so severe, she wanted to cry out. Only the habit of fear kept her silent. She looked back into the water, and saw herself, eyes wide, wanton, bare as a conqueror's woman.

With a frown, she pulled the small cropped cloth back up, re-knotting its tie so that it covered and supported more than before. Zora splashed the water until the image distorted, standing back.

A fortnight.

She knelt down again, lower, crouching on the balls of her feet, to move the decorative stone that sat beneath the bowl of water. She shifted it and grabbed a dark, woven pouch, then patted the earth and replaced the stone. To her eye, it looked little different than before. In a chest nearby, she pulled another long linen cloak, patched inelegantly by some serving girl who'd never been taught how to mend. Hanging it over her arms, she slipped quickly out of her chamber and to the adjacent room, knocking three times at the door.

The handmaid Elzet, one of the twenty or so women who remained in Amenja of her people, accepted the pouch instantly and nodded in wordless understanding. She moved past Zora and Zora entered the handmaid's chamber at the same time. She stole a torch from the wall, drew up a particualr stone from the floor, and let herself drop down to find the handholds that would carry her down into the secret tunnels that would lead her out into the forest with no one the wiser. Knowledge of the secret pathways had been held by her father, and frustratingly her brother whose carelessness allowed her to learn of their existence. Rather than punish her, he'd sworn her to a secrecy and lied to Karel and said he'd beat them both. That had been as much of a legacy as she had been able to secure before her husband had slain them with his own blade.

It was some time passed in waiting once the carved tunnel rose to the surface, lit by a few spare torches, longer than she'd anticipated, when she saw Falke's eyes searching the horizon. She stepped out, seemingly, from beyond the trunk of one of the ancient trees, a glow surrounding her from the dying torch in her hands. Before he could speak, she walked towards him and covered his lips with a single extended finger. She gestured towards a shadow in a large, shoulder-shaped outcropping. She curled her finger so that he would follow.

“You know nothing of this. So I can assume he knows nothing of this.” What was invisible in the darkness, and nearly so in the day, was an entrance to a small alcove in the stone. Passing through a tight tunnel in its northeastern corner of that alcove, he followed her into a small cave. Zora walked the perimeter of the smoothly carved space, lighting the charred tips of four or five other torches before setting the smoldering one she carried in the empty recess near the entrance. Inside, newly alight, the untouched shrine of a god who had once looked over all of Amenja and its prosperity – now, Zora believed that god dead or gone. Either way, she felt no sense of piety. Not to the conquering gods or those that fell. It was a hidden space, useful, a secret she was more than willing to share for what it might give her in return.

One arch of Falke's eyebrow in disbelief, in confusion at where they found themselves and she brushed off her doubt and willed away the ache, stepping as she spoke, closer and closer to him. He set the wine jug he carried next to an idol, a hooded being with outstretched hands.

By way of explanation, she began, softly. “They believe I come to worship. They wish me to be the last taste of the world Gorun destroyed. On nights I wish privacy, I tell them I will commune with the old gods, and I give them a blessing. In return, they are loyal and distract the guards with that blessing.”

She stepped in, within his reach, and then took slow and deliberate steps around him as he stood, watching her, watching everything around him with a warrior's caution. She let her fingertips play over his muscled shoulders, until with a blinding quickness, he grabbed her by her waist and pulled her into his embrace.

Zora found herself almost instantly capitulating to Falke's warm touch. How quickly his fingers found her bare flesh, his lips to press against her neck. It would be so easy just to...let him take her. Taken. A flutter of jagged memories, of being entered, used for rough purpose, barely having a moment to want or despair of it before Gorun satisfied himself inside her and meandered off to find a throat to cut.

Falke's callused fingertips parted the gathered fabric of her skirt, and reaching down, began tracing over her slit. She grabbed his wrist, not totally devoid of physical strength, and pulled his hand from her. His surprise let her stepped away from him, but her expression in reply was both regal and carnal. “I did not ask you here to...fuck me...I asked you here to see if you would come. It amuses me. Your obedience. No woman in all of Amenja would deny you, save me. You know as well as I that if Gorun knew you were here with me, he would gut you like the boar for the next feast. And there is no name for what he would do to me. Knowing this...you came as I asked.”

She smiled, darkly. “I would not be so foolish as to call it loyalty. But if you want more than this...” Zora leaned back, the cloak falling open to her sides, with her hands flat atop the altar, all the while glancing at his distracting bulge that clothing did little to hide, “you will hear my next request.”

 

[PieTaster]

The orange ember of torchlight caught his eye. Was she mad? She approached and stepped forward warily, not so much of her but of the surroundings. Her finger shushed his lips, as if he were to speak in such stealthy circumstances, then led him up the stones and around a slab of sorts.

"You know nothing of this. So I can assume he knows nothing of this."

Her torch illuminated a hollow in the rocks, but soon Falke realized that this was not merely the cozy destination that she had chosen for them. There was a gap behind, quite narrow, that he had to shimmy his body sideways to enter and follow her as she slipped out of sight. The gap zagged one way and then the other. Once through, he stood up straight and his eyes took in his surroundings with no small amount of wonder.

"Fascinating," he remarked quietly and genuinely. The locals had kept this hidden all this time. He speculated that to keep a secret like this, not even all of the locals knew about it themselves, and realized that even the entrance had been engineered to keep the internal light from escaping. The Queen paced a sultry circuit of the cave, passing before its smoothed walls and lighting its torches. His eyes took in the etchings and mounted idols, the one deity in particular occupying the far end as the focal point of worship. The ancient craftsmanship was fine and reverent indeed.

"They believe I come to worship. They wish me to be the last taste of the world Gorun destroyed. On nights I wish privacy, I tell them I will commune with the old Gods, and I give them a blessing. In return, they are loyal and distract the guards with that blessing."

Surely additional methods were also used, he contemplated silently. Zora closed in, but then resisted him.

"I did not ask you here to ... fuck me. I asked you here to see if you would come. It amuses me. Your obedience. No woman in all of Amenja would deny you, save me."

Despite this, he knew that fucking her was part of what she wanted. He could see the want in her eyes. Her mocking of his ego was posturing. He let her have that as he leaned back casually against the wall, folding his arms across his chest, genuinely intent on listening. She had something substantial to propose, something important for the both of them. Perhaps she wanted him to kill Gorun, instill himself as the new King at her side, although he would not go along with that. It would upset many things, throwing the council into unrest and making everyone's lives most uneasy. He nodded subtly for her to continue and with a devious smirk she obliged.

"I would not be so foolish as to call it loyalty. But if you want more than this, you will hear my next request."

Falke had never seen her nearly so assertive. It pleased him to see Zora apparently grabbing her own life by the scruff after all the bowing and crawling that she'd been dragged through by her husband. He only hoped that whatever scheme she had in mind was not for the daft. He would not let the lavish body that she was tantalizing him with cloud his judgment of whatever she was about to proffer or intend to involve him in.

"You know that I will hear it," he assured.

 

[TheQueenofCups]

Zora swallowed for a moment and tilted her head, finding that she had been given a floor to speak that it had been years since she had been free to occupy. Strange to find it here, like this, with a Conqueror. The art surrounding her, carved birds, carved lambs, even the etched storm clouds cut into the stone of the walls seemed to pulse a gentle heat.

There was but a fortnight.

Her voice began clearly, brightly, as she spoke a thought she had been burnishing for some time, picking up a nervous energy. “A well. There must be a well in Amenja. There were plans long ago to dig a well in the inner ring. Only days before...I will show you where...barracks cover it now. But it will grow this city. The Water Bearers will not be willing to walk this distance to draw water from the river forever. If war comes to Amenja - as it will, we will be cut off and to be reliant on rain is no security. It must be done."

She took a breath, composed herself, having shared more words at once in the last moment than she could recall in years.

"But Gorun will not listen to a woman, not even his own. Not even his...blessed vessel.” She frowned in distaste at all parts of that phrase, a red blade behind her eyes whenever she heard it.

When Gorun had discovered her, when she rushed in to discover her father and brother in the main hall, bloodied at his feet, he had called her such. Even now, he called her that. But this, too, would end. Two years later, there was more than talk brewing. With no child in her womb, she had need of allies among the people and more still among the Council. Even the venomous Foersa felt free to openly insult her now, but Zora had long wondered if she could be of use in calming the other wives. A well would silence her only significant complaint.

“Does this surprise you? You keep his counsel. Until you fell, men said you were his shadow. He must see the sense in this if it comes from your lips. Swear you will see it built...then, perhaps...we can make further arrangements.” She let her hands trace over her sides and down her hips. She moved up on light footfall towards him. A silence. She patted the braid hanging down over her shoulder and stood up straight to face Falke and his folded arms, though there was a tremble in her gaze, as wind might flicker a flame.

 

[PieTaster]

A well. There must be a well in Amenja."

Falke had already agreed with the initiative. So did Rogalo, but Gorun was loathe to commit resources to the undertaking. It was something that might anchor him. All of these settlements were. He was defiantly nomadic and only relented the formation of the war camps at strategic locations, but of course wherever armies camp, commerce convenes, such as it had at Taulos, creating sprawling streets of tents and shacks down the hillside from the once-sacred-plateau-turned-lookout, obliviously mocking their bandit King's steadfast and ancient ideals. Falke knew that a well was essential for fortification against attack, just as was replacing the timbered sections of the walls with stone. Amenja was a sturdy fort but was easily siegeable. In fact, it was how Gorun had taken it in the first place, although his initial impatient plan was to burn one of the walls, until Rogalo suggested otherwise and Falke had added his persuasion.

Zora's reasonings showed that she was at least as smart as he had figured her for, likely more. She already knew what had made sense, even foreseeing an attack from an enemy that she had never herself spied, but Gorun simply could not fathom that the fort would fall, or even if it did that he couldn't swiftly reclaim it. The man just did not believe in defeat or loss. He refused to perceive that if the Calorrans in particular became so annoyed with his raids, they would easily arrive in regimented numbers with calculated plans to crush him out with one swift blow, and then from Amenja, could establish a base from which to march into all the northern valleys and expand their empire as the payoff. It was the very reason that the Council insisted on keeping the passes watched by the camps.

"Swear you will see it built ... then, perhaps ... we can make further arrangements."

She was close now as Falke subtly cocked an eyebrow while he endeavored to decipher her far from subtle body language. Was this really her gambit: if he dug her a hole, she'd let him plum her depths? If she wanted to talk business they could dispense with the sultry enticements. There had to be more to this for Zora to dangle her body before him like a carrot on the end of a stick. Still, he admired how she cared for her home and her people, and how determined she seemed to be to put her care into action. Gorun had no idea just what an asset that he had.

"I cannot swear to to what is ultimately Gorun's will, but there are many sympathetic ears for this on the council," he explained. His expression softened as he took her braid in hand, fine golden strands shimmering orange in the torch light, the weight of it slacking from his palm as his thumb delicately traced the plait and the blue feather so entwined. "How lucky for this bird to be chosen to adorn such grace," he contemplated. Then he raised his eyes to hers. "And what if I fail to deliver your well?"

 

[TheQueenofCups]

"And what if I fail to deliver your well?"
Zora clicked her tongue, trying to read Falke in this moment. The Council was less a will than a mouth. Chatter had a power, but he was right that in the end, Gorun was Gorun. He did just exactly as he liked and the world bent before him. Falke was so different, even were she able to ignore his gentle compliments, she'd think so. She felt the intelligence she'd wondered about in passing, idly, looking down and into her. A life, a hungry life, shone back at her in his eyes. She measured her words. “Were it not to be, it would be a disappointment.”

Outside, a wind had begun to pick up, she could feel it on her already sensitive skin. There was a sharp, unkind whistling passing over the opening of the stone entrance that, even muted by the distance, made its way back into the shrine. Zora glanced behind her, towards the sound, out of habit, then, relaxed. She did not wish to leave.

She stroked the muscled flesh of his bicep, fingertips passing lightly, delicately, over his skin. Zora tilted her head again to the side, broke their shared gaze as she considered her words. When she begins again, it is on a soft, slow sigh. “Still, I have learned how to endure disappointment. If he cannot be persuaded by you, or the others...then...I find another way. If given time, I would dig it myself...but my time was already borrowed, yes?”

Feeling now that the heat in the room was theirs, was shared. Was it concern in his eyes? She stepped back, gently taking her braid from his hands. Zora had no calling for dancing, yet she found herself skittish like a deer in a hunter's sights.

As the wind sang an ever more vicious refrain behind her, the Queen spoke fervently. “Let us not deny that Gorun wants to run free and the people will follow him, and where they go, as it has always done, death will follow. They will not stay for me, they hate me because I do not answer the prophecy he proclaimed when he conquered this fortress: I have not borne him a child. He hates me for this, too, though he forgets it long enough for him to whimper between my legs. Soon, soon enough, he will kill his vessel and be shed of this place. Find some giddy whore to bed out on the hillside. But all of the secrets of this place, its defenses, its true power, will die with me. Unless, by some chance...” The cloak began to slip from her shoulders as the words flew from her. There was nothing studied this time about the bare flesh of the neckline she exposed. Zora moved to pull it back up, but stopped. Instead, she let her hand settle over the soft, smooth, flat expanse of her belly. She'd never spoken a word of that aloud to anyone.

She traced the scars on his face in her mind, judging and rejudging his expression, wondering in every glance if she had she gone too far. If he might bring her by her hair for judgment upon his return. “I do not know you, Falke, but I believe you would do what was necessary to give your people a better fate than to follow Gorun into the plains, forced to feed again off of blood and dust...do you recoil from me?”

 

[PieTaster]

"Were it not to be, it would be a disappointment."

He supposed that it would. When the breeze wisped through, Falke's eyes scanned the walls. There had to be another opening to let the heavens out through the other side, yet he could not spot it. When Zora turned behind her his eyes followed the target of hers, curious as to whether she might give away the possible outlet, but her gaze did not linger long before she came back to him.

"If given time, I would dig it myself ... but my time was already borrowed, yes?"

Her touch was warm with a forlorn fondness. It soothed him and coaxed him at the same time. Then she let go. She was determined, yet indecisive as her vulnerable eyes searched his gaze.

"They will not stay for me, they hate me because I do not answer the prophecy he proclaimed when he conquered this fortress: I have not borne him a child ... Soon, soon enough, he will kill his vessel and be shed of this place."

So that was it. She feared Gorun. How displeased he may have been with her only she would know. Even if some of her handmaids had fallen privy, word would have spread and he'd heard none. Perhaps it was only Zora's own growing dread. That would be significant enough. Their problem was likely Gorun's. Falke had known him to take many maidens as spoils of his triumphs, nearly all against their will, and often the warpath would return them to the same places, the same circles of tents weeks and months later, and he'd never seen one of Gorun's passions prove fruitful - unlike a handful of his own.

"But all of the secrets of this place, its defenses, its true power, will die with me. Unless, by some chance ..."

Zora's emotions ran her tongue now. There was so much within her that she wished to confide, yet she was still gauging his trust. She was more powerful than he even thought. Subtly, her garment slid open, exposing once more that gaussy bandeau, lackadaisically containing her loving breast.

"I do not know you, Falke, but I believe you would do what was necessary to give your people a better fate than to follow Gorun into the plains, forced to feed again off of blood and dust ... do you recoil from me?"

She knew him well enough. Zora stood disarmed before him, her wounded eyes pleading whether she knew it or not. The palm to her belly said more than anything. In her inebriated sentimental weakness he could take her fully, advance and claim her, ransacking her surrendered frontier, but there were other ways to stake a banner that were less tragic. He took her by the elbows and gently drew her close.

"You are a true Queen," he said softly. "Not merely in name." Then her cloak fell from her shoulders and fell to the floor as Falke wrapped his arms under it and about her to press her against him. His hand cradled her head, resting her cheek to his shoulder as the inhale of her bosom expanded into him. She would have had her fill of savage rutting in her marriage - and perhaps she would still get it from him - but if she could not handle simple affection long overdue she would have been damaged indeed.

 

[TheQueenofCups]

Zora had never entertained romantic notions. In the days before, she had been pledged to the son of a friend of her father's. Another who had helped to extend the building of Amenja, Boian, had been an old man when his son, Mayefin, was born. He died not long after, peacefully and in his bed. Her father, she had been told, had seen that Mayefin was looked after and joined the home of the fortress' healers. Four years later, it was to honor Boian that her father determined she would wed his son.

She had known him well. Well enough not to fight the match. He disliked her brother, shared with her his worry over what Karel would make of himself as a leader. Mayefin had seemed eager enough for their wedding night, had begun to pay her the appropriate attentions. The wedding would occur when the seasons turned cold and she had, in her way, begun to soften to the idea of serving a husband such as him.

She had not seen his body on the pyres, but she had passed the indignity of being made Gorun's wife, and there was no reason to hope.

Here, now, as she sought that survival for herself, there was something in way Falke embraced her that made her think of Mayefin, or perhaps the wife she might have been. She might have been many things in the world before. But never a queen as she was now. Zora closed her eyes, shifting her focus to the feeling both the sureness in Falke's grip and how free she was to leave it. There was some instant, tangible relief flooding her with the knowledge that he would comply with her request, this foolish idea that had left her sleepless these three nights hence. He would get her with child. This thought began to swim in a heady pool in her mind. Desire. There was nothing now, but to trust.

Held tightly against him, warm under his cloak as hers fell away, she let her body discover the warrior. After a few moments of stillness, Zora gathered the bandeau's edge and pulled it up, letting her bare tits spill forward. Unlike most of the Cizinec wives, whose dugs resembled cow-like udders weathered by sun and the demands of their hungry broods, Zora's breasts were firm, full, and high on her chest as a maiden's, if outsized for her frame. Until now only Gorun and her servants had seen her this way. The slightly golden hue of her skin grew paler there, though it darkened and turned rosy near each nipple.

They swayed and bounced into place as soon as they were no longer bound by constraints of the fabric, and she let his hands go where they liked. She kissed along his jaw, the light bristles and scruff on his cheek rough against her lips, feeling a hot, gnawing urgency between her legs. She began pulling at the clasp on his heavy cloak. Behind them was a flat enough altar, nearer still were some rocks that might hold both of their weight for a time. Zora looked at Falke, into his eyes, saw the discipline he still maintained even as she felt his hands on her hips, and thought how little she would mind the floor.

 

[PieTaster]

She savored his embrace for more than a moment in the tranquility and the deep blaze of the small torches, and he let her indulge. When she was ready, Zora leaned back to bare her breasts, full substantial and alert as they settled themselves into their glorious form. His fingers slid beneath the waist of her bottoms, following the curve of her hips, taking the soft garment down until they passed her thighs and the fabric could fall on its own.

Zora closed in again to taste his skin, her lips planting and caressing along his jaw, past the sharp indent halfway along and up his cheek. As the Queen loosened his cloak, Falke took it from his shoulders, deftly tossed it round and wrapped it sweetly about hers, fur side inwards. Then he grasped her firmly with his hands at her ribs, carefully lifted her feet just from the floor, stepped her back to the altar and sat her upon its edge. Falke drank in the desire in her eyes that the evening's imbibing had liberated from the conscience of her discretion.

His palms had little distance to cover and they glided over her skin to cup her heavy tits and slowly knead beneath the bear skin cloak. Pressing his mouth to hers, he felt their smoldering coals burst alight and he lifted the cloak from her body and unfurled its length out across the altar behind her.

 

[TheQueenofCups]

Zora peeled off the tight strap of pale fabric over her head as Falke squeezed and groped her chest. The cool air in the shrine would occasionally break through the aura of heat that surrounded them. She felt her nipples hardening into long, stiff nubs, this, just one of a dozen sensations working over and through her that she'd only half-understood could be a part of mating. For Gorun, she would have already been on her knees, felt his pitiful thrusts, the negligible result to which she had become entirely numb.

Now, completely nude and unbound, she let her arms reach up towards Falke's shoulders. She kissed him again, letting her eager tongue find his first this time. Her eyelids felt weighted with lust and the effects of the strong Cizinec wine, and she leaned back on the cloak, letting her hands knot into the soft fur support her. The long coil of her adorned braid snaked over her shoulder and down her side.

Letting Falke watch her as he made no swift move to shed the rest of his clothing, she moved herself backwards, drawing her knees up and her feet to perch on the carved decoration of the altar. Each shift and movement followed by a buoyant jostling of her chest. She let her knees move left and right, covering and uncovering impatiently, the honey-colored tuft of hair, and increasingly pink and gleaming flesh between her legs. Catching her knee, he held her right leg open and gave her quim three quick, sharp pats with the flat of his hand, not for pain, just enough to redirect her attention. She gasped slightly and spread herself open wide, letting her eyes focus even in the poor light on Falke's face as she began to slide two of her slight, delicate fingers over and around her sex. She sought to ease the tightness she felt inside, but found little reprieve.

Her expression, she knew, was wanton, desperate. Her demeanor less a queen than a whore. But it didn't matter, so long as he gave her his seed. All of it. If she could please them both as he gave it, all the better.

 

[PieTaster]

Falke tugged at her nipples, stiff with lust and as long as one of his knuckles, while she removed the last of her garments and tossed it aside. She embraced him. He met her kiss and their tongues indulged into each other's mouths. Then they delved deeper until they finally needed air. Zora's breasts parted and splayed, yet still maintained much of their roundness as she leaned back, her nipples rigidly pointing at angles to the ceiling as she gazed up at him with lust.

As she lifted her thighs and parted them, Falke's hand trailed sensuously down her tummy, over her navel and through her pelt to give her a soft rapping before tugging at the lace of his braies. They dropped and he tugged down his unders. His cock sprung out at the ready from under the hem of his tunic, its shiny pink glans protruding from the thick roll of foreskin flushed maroon with the heat of his desire. He then pulled the tunic up over his head and away, showing himself, rooted in a golden bramble a shade darker than her own, bowed distinctly upwards and perhaps a rather modest hand-and-a-half long.

Falke's physique was thin. His undressing showed the stark reality of what his illness had taken (more than a stone from his stature), leaving his limbs and abdomen defined but lean - too lean for riding and battle. The ridges of his core and ribs were clear even in the dull torchlight. He grasped his shaft and directed it at Zora's entrance, caressing his tip along the length of her labia twice, spreading the moisture before slipping up over her clitoris and into her bush to meet her fingers. Pressed up against her, he rocked gently on his feet, slowly rubbing the underside of his erection over her clit and mons twice, three times. Then on the fourth stroke he nestled his glans into her entrance. It slipped up past her nub and over her mound again. Then the fifth nestled once more, buried and ultimately began to sink in, enveloping him with wet. Falke leaned forward and eased himself in until he was fully sheathed within her loving warmth.

"Hrmmmm," he growled softly as he coiled his arms firmly under her knees and around her thighs, and shifted her abruptly to perfect the alignment of their union. What he lacked in phallic girth he made up for in stones and his heavy sac dangled and rested cozily against her buttocks. Then he bent himself subtly at the waist, just enough to sharpen the angle of her thighs to her body so that his pelvis could press to her mound.

He took a moment to step out of his pants and kick them aside. Then drawing his hips back, he relaxed and let gravity rehilt him. Repeating this motion, Falke began to stroke into her as he gazed down assuredly from between her raised thighs, her knees near his shoulders, as each impact subtly pattered her flesh and gently wobbled her breasts, his scrotum swinging gently against her.

How silly it was that such intimacy was considered high treason. The Queen deserved more than what she had, far more, and he would not disappoint her. Still, there were considerations of prudence that they ought not to lose sight of in the midst of their passion.

"As much as it would be a shame to rush," he noted, "dawdling is danger." His chest drew in bigger breaths now as he quickened his pace. "You know when your return is ... mhh ... expected. If you wish me to hurry ... rmhh ... my Queen, I shall of course heed." The clap of flesh deepened as he struck her thighs with a weightier thrust. "Otherwise I shall ... hrm ... love you to the fullest, my dear."

 

[TheQueenofCups]

Zora moaned, feeling the hot tip of his cock press up against her walls as it reached some point of pleasure inside her that was entirely unexplored. She closed her eyes despite herself as the noise of her own voice circled around her.

He was entirely different. She'd had time enough to ready her body, to give this as much as she took it and she found the act itself create its own desire. Their bare skin, the heat surging where they joined, the wet thwack of his sac against her arse, each pound bringing pleasure and freedom. It was as dizzying as drink to understand for herself the thrill the handmaids giggled over as they braided her hair.

He was not wrong, however. She might be gone from her chamber well into the evening, she had done so before without incident. However, now that the servants knew when Gorun was returning, they would make preparations, including their usual attempts to rein her in. If they were caught, before they finished...

“Yes...no, I don't wish it, but for now...we must take care.” She rose up on her elbows and bucked her hips upward as Falke's shaft pushed down into her, accelerating his already urgent pace. A few more thrusts and her right hand reached forward to stroke her heated, aching clit as his pelvis ground against her until this, too, became too much to bear.

He leaned down still further for another fevered kiss as he rocked between her legs. She stroked the side of his face, let her hands slide over his shoulders, down his gaunt and diminished form, seeing the vigor both stolen from him and what powers yet remained to him. She looked up at him with a dazed gentleness in contrast with the frenzied motion below her hips, as her cunt milked and pulled at him each time he withdrew.

Accepting her desire for haste, she felt Falke's hands grip at her sides, hold her steady as they fucked. An almost panicked sense of pleasure started to overtake her, as though she had decided to jump from High Hill without seeing the water below. It would be more than enough to satisfy her as if she were she a simple maid in a field being bed by a needful warrior, but he was going to make her pregnant. Save her blood. Zora wondered if she was losing her mind, suddenly aware of a place of heat and light and sound that she was plummeting towards. Was this cumming? She'd never done it before.

Falke re-gripped and pulled her up again towards him, the angle letting the weight of her breasts fall back towards her throat and absorb the rippling force of each thrust. Her moans were louder now, fighting with the winds crying wildly outside the cave. Through her teeth, she hissed, “Fill me!”

 

[PieTaster]

"Yes ... no, I don't wish it, but for now ... we must take care."

It was a shame how Zora had reined herself in from her abandon, stilling her gracefully wild moans, no matter how understandable in the situation, but then she took a new tack, lifting her hips to meet his in reckless collisions. Then she pleasured herself with her own hand. Impatience was not the right word for it. Exuberance was what it was, and hers was overflowing. Falke took the cue to put her back into balance so that she could relax.

Bending himself down over her body, he kissed her, deeply slowly and thoroughly, caressing each crevice in her mouth with his tongue. Her fingertips returned her affections, pure sweet and relaxed, giving his skin soft tingles, and as the kiss broke he could see the want in her wet eyes while the tips of their noses grazed.

He took her firmly in his hands, pinning her in place as he drove into her, each impact jolting her bones, flopping her breasts and forcing a small huff of breath from her lungs.

"Mff ... mnff ... mmf ..." he grunted as he fucked her. Then he pulled back and lifted her hips from the altar to drill into her, jostling her body until her ecstasy fountained from her pussy, soaking a patch of the bear skin and running down his thighs.

"Fill me!"

With a grip of her thighs, he gave her an abrupt shove forward on the bear skin, enough for him to climb a knee onto the altar and then the other. He slid his hands up her chest, catching her nipples in the webbing of his fingers as his cock penetrated her with long languid strokes. He kissed her again.

Then Falke lifted himself and took her by the hips, rolling them up and off the altar. In this position he wedged himself straight down inside her, his tip aimed at her womb. He
raised Zora's head from the the altar as well, and passed her braid beneath her neck. He wrapped it over and passed it beneath again, coiling the thick gold strand twice about her throat. Holding it by its end, he tugged it just snug as he dropped his hips crashing down to impale her in the press again and again and again, with a distinct fleshy smack each time. Falke watched the expression of her beautiful face and wondered if he'd ever had someone so exceptional.

He fought the urge until the dull ache in his loins turned glorious and his scrotum released the wave. With a shuddering subtle moan, the vigorous twitch of his cock burst with his hot pearly seed, bolts of semen filling her as she had commanded.

Falke let go of her braid, releasing the tension on her throat, and slowly he began to collapse. First, their hips eased back down, and then his chest upon hers, and he kissed her softly on the cheek as he embraced her and his lungs drew in recovering breaths.

 

[TheQueenofCups]

Zora felt the pressure on her throat release, her body soon flat again against the cloak-covered altar with Falke on top of her, inside her. She was not thinking, any attempt to understand or categorize her experience turned to a fine mist, as she panted and shuddered through the last gasps of a second orgasm.

An utter demolished version of herself, Zora's delicate fingertips first reached and touched the alabaster of her uncovered throat, slid down over the ornamented braid, feeling how wildly askew and loosely bound it was now. She breathed in and out, limb by limb, regaining control of her breath and herself, too exhausted to do anything more but primly accept the kiss he gave her cheek.

Finally, Zora quietly rolled and shifted to the side, letting Falke's subsiding erection slip from her saturated pussy. She rolled back on her back and held still for a moment. She did not know precisely how his seed would began to grow inside her. Did it happen when he made her...when she...left her own body? Maybe that was what it took, a man who could make her feel. Would it yet happen if she was overflowing, her inner walls awash with it? All she knew was she could not lay still in this shrine tonight.

She stood up and put both feet back, unsteadily, on the stone floor. She pulled the skirt back up and straightened it over her hips, feeling two urgently streaking trails of slick run down her inner thighs.

She looked down at Falke, the map of scars and taut muscle laid out before her on the cloak. What some endlessly starving part of herself wanted most in the world now was to climb back on top of him, encourage his cock to turn back to stone and ride it as the men settle on their steeds, straddled until they were so exhausted they'd risk falling off. Even now there was an echo inside her. But there were Conqueror eyes and she'd already ignored them for too long. If Gorun were ever to hear so much as a whisper that she had fucked another man, his trusted...it wasn't a game.

She bent down and picked up the bandeau, letting the cloth band cover both of her breasts again, she made a few quick motions behind her back and tied its edges tightly, holding them in place. She reached again and found her own cloak, steeling herself for the winds outside. Zora let the hood cover her bedraggled braid.

“You were....do not forget the well.” She realized there was a tremble in her throat. She coughed and almost began again before thinking better of it, turning instead towards a darker corner of the shrine opposite their entrance and slipping out of sight.

 

[PieTaster]

She slid out from under him. Falke rolled aside to allow her, then lay his arm across her body. They shared a moment of serenity until the Queen cut it short, getting to her feet before she wanted to. He watched her dress rather hastily and thought what a shame it was that they could not linger, although the look in her eyes as she regarded him there echoed the same feelings. They understood each other. As she leaned down to retrieve her sash, her breasts hung marvelously, round and wobbling before she straightened up and covered them. Finally, she donned her cloak and lifted the hood.

"You were ... do not forget the well."

Zora had more to say, yet held her tongue not without regret. Then she turned, head bowed, and slipped out behind the shrine, leaving Falke alone on the bear skin in the amber flickers of the torchlight.

The wind whistled outside and the breeze slipped through the cave to follow her footsteps down the tunnel. Obviously it led back to the fortress, but perhaps it could have been a network of tunnels. Falke was fascinated by this discovery. Still, it was not the time to explore such things. He would come back to it. He scanned the ceiling. There had to be vents for the torch smoke. He spotted them, angled into the archwork. The masonry was ancient and finely crafted. Falke rose from the altar and approached Zora's place of exit, the black gap behind the unknown deity. The breeze passed over his balls and licked her slickness from his member, as it rushed into the tunnel. Falke wasn't certain that he could fit through the opening himself. Perhaps it was designed for women only, but then if Zora had squeezed her tits through then it should be large enough for a man as slender as he.

It was a matter for another day, even if that day was as soon as possible. He dressed himself and picked the pink feather from the bear skin before draping the cloak over his shoulders. Then he shimmied out the way that he'd come into the fouling weather to retire to his tent.

The night's wicked winds blew themselves out by morning and the next afternoon was hot and sunny once more. Falke found Rogalo in the fortress' yard and the two strolled.

"I can't help but wonder what this fort would do for water should it come under siege," he breached the subject.

"Ah, It would quickly run dry, my friend," Rogalo smirked.

"Would it not be wise to remedy that?"

"Perhaps," Rogalo contemplated. "But you are preaching to the converted. We took this fortress with ease and someone else could take it from us the same." Rogalo paused to regard the parapets. "We've been through this before, you remember. Gorun is loathe to settle. He prefers to roam. Perhaps if these walls were of stone they would be worth holding."

"But you are still in favor of a well within these walls," Falke prompted him.

"Of course," said Rogalo heartily. "If indeed there is water beneath us."

"Why wouldn't there be?"

"No one has found any," said Rogalo. "And atop this rise, it would likely be a deep hole."

"We haven't looked," Falke countered. "Have we asked the locals? They would know."

 

[TheQueenofCups]

After three restless, anxious nights, Zora had made her way back through the tunnels undetected. She had fallen asleep swiftly and dreamed of nothing she could immediately recall. She rose later than usual, her stomach growling. She bathed herself clean, and let the four servants comb through the waves of her hair. Zora touched her bare throat as they chattered around her, irritating her with words in their Cizinec tongue she had yet to learn and felt it impossible to ask their meanings. They sounded, with no way to be sure, like they were describing their men. The youngest woman pressed her full belly into Zora's back and shoulders as she fussed aggressively over blonde lengths, pulling out tangles with no remorse.

After a particularly sharp yank, Zora bid them leave her with a shout. They scurried out of the room whispering and muttering with more of those words yet to be deciphered, though she had a much clearer idea of the conversation this time.

Alone, at least on this side of the chamber wall, she dressed in the style of her own people. The softly dyed robe reached below her knees, but cinched with a tie at the center, leaving the top to settle down on her shoulders. Her breasts were still obviously on view, but it hid more than a Conqueror would see their women wear. Zora mused to herself that she would not keep it on for long. She pulled the long waves atop her hair back from her scalp, binding a loose topknot there. Her soft and gleaming hair cascaded over her shoulders, framing her cleavage.

She had told herself three nights ago that it would be too risky to allow herself to flagrantly lay with another man, that for her life alone, she would venture only once and hope that was enough to give catch in her womb.

But the ache that rolled through her like a constant, lapping tide, made it very clear. She was being a fool. She needed Falke between her legs again, and soon. For practical reasons, he would be well enough in a few weeks time to travel with the warlord. Gorun would want that. There were few others here who shared her light coloring, who could hide the truth the babe would no doubt show.

Besides, now the idea of fucking him now had the memory attached. She knew what Falke could give her and she had no interest in receiving some broken, flaccid version of that from some blond servant boy who didn't have sense enough of gold to be bribed nor sense enough of body to keep the story to himself. No, she would not deny herself every possible chance to spill his seed in her before Gorun's return.

So determined, Zora sauntered out of the chambers and towards the kitchen fires and the shared plaza where the smell of roasting meat was wafting towards her, calling her to breakfast.

She gathered two of the soft, pillowy breads cooked alongside the boar meat and wrapped them together. She took another and slathered it with honey, then settled at the edge the stone terrace, breathing in the slowly warming fresh air, let the breezes toy with her loose hair. After some time, she rose and walked to the edge of the elevated stone platform, outside the waving linens that tented and gave cover to the tables. Here, she saw Falke speaking with Rogalo, who, even at a distance, sported a pair of bloodshot eyes from last night's feast.

She held her hands together, one palm gently atop the other and moved towards them. Her expression mild, neutral were a man not to know better. That a sharp, bright twinge ran from her clit and up to the top of her head from merely a glance at Falke's slender, muscled body would not be betrayed on her face. As she approached, their conversation became clear. The well. She was pleased he'd spared no time in asking. His willingness to serve was...

"We haven't looked," Falke countered. "Have we asked the locals? They would know."

She offered, lightly, as if it were already half-forgotten. “They spoke of it once. There was a magician, then. All of them had been convinced, though. They were going to clear the earth and dig for water. There.” She pointed off towards an unremarkable flat of land within Amenja's arms, her voice belying none of the earnest demand she'd expressed last night. “I know of nothing more than that.”

As Rogalo turned to squint in that direction, Zora slid her hand behind Falke until it was firmly perched on his backside. She gave his taut arse a firm squeeze, letting her lips curl into something like a smile. It required every scrap of her will to save her from a far more obvious show of her desire. When the Councillor turned back, her palms were as before, together in front of her.

“You will tell me when you hit water, yes? The Waterbearers will be glad to hear such news.”

She let their eyes stay locked together, as Rogalo began to trundle forward to inspect the site in question, waving Falke to join him. Zora glanced about quickly, her own gaze alighting on a small tent in the courtyard, open and for the moment, unoccupied. She lifted her hands in a gesture to note their parting. She nodded towards the tent, and let her tongue play lightly over her teeth, wordless, but he seemed to understand her perfectly. For now, she made her way towards the right and down the terrace steps.

 

[PieTaster]

"They spoke of it once. There was a magician, then. All of them had been convinced, though. They were going to clear the earth and dig for water. There."

"Zora, my Queen," greeted Rogalo, and in turn the two men bowed at her presence. The gilded Queen indicated the area of divination in the yard. She was a soft stunning breeze in her light robes. Her sash accented the slenderness of her waist above the glorious curves of her child-bearing hips that as yet had not birthed. As well, the subtle sway of her loose heavy breasts beneath the golden sheen of her draped locks had not nursed.

Rogalo stepped forth to regard the location, leaving Falke and the Queen alone together for the briefest of moments. When Zora seized the opportunity to grope him, Falke steeled at her foolishness. He was disappointed in her, as he had thought her much wiser than to succumb to such hazardous whims. He had expected much more disciplined from her. As Rogalo re-engaged them, Falke forced himself not to react while he could sense his lover's giddiness beneath her own skin at his side.

"You will tell me when you hit water, yes? The Waterbearers will be glad to hear such news," she said, her tone almost mischievous.

"Heh, it is not so simple," Rogalo chuckled with a sarcastic warmth at her naive exuberance, as if placating a child. "It would require the blessing of your dear King."

"Or his indifference," Falke offered, almost shrugging.

"That, I suppose," Rogalo agreed as he stroked his beard. "But even that would be a difficult procurement," he contemplated.

"You mentioned a wizard," Falke turned his glance to Zora.

"A magician," Rogalo corrected.

"A magician."

"A magician indeed," echoed Rogalo. "Perhaps I'll leave it with you, Falke," he said. "Find such a wizard and put together a plan," he dismissed with a wave of his hand. "In the meantime, I am due at the smithy to review the new stock of blades. When Gorun returns, he will expect them ready." Then with a gentle bow, he excused himself.

Falke was left with Zora and the lust clearly in her eyes as they drifted past him to the empty tent and back to his. It would have been so easy to reciprocate but he would not dare cave in to the Queen's desires. Zora's beauty radiated and shimmered in the summer sun and her body beckoned him with her intense need to procreate. His loins thought it a terrible shame to not oblige, but his senses held firm. He would not follow her into that tent in broad daylight in view of the servants criss-crossing the yard. Even if their intentions were not the least bit carnal, the possible suspicion alone was deadly.

"Don't be foolish," he said quietly as she descended the steps in her leisurely and sultry pace, attempting to lead him. He stood his ground on the terrace. "Another hour, another place," he said. It was not a mere suggestion. There simply was no reason to openly taunt fate when the same could be accomplished with far less risk. Falke hadn't survived the battlefield this long without such calculation. If he could offer such tactical wisdom to Gorun, he could certainly do the same for his Queen. "Whatever is in that tent is not your wizard. Why not start by telling me where to find him?"

 

[TheQueenofCups]

Zora turned, tilted her head, not hearing footsteps behind her. She looked up to see Falke holding his position behind her. A stern, disapproving look on his aquiline features, one meant, as she'd seen so many times before, to bring her to heel. He did not trust her. It was not unreasonable, though it amused her to think he believed her so ravenous and driven mad by his cock, that she'd bare herself behind a thin wall of cloth in the hopes of being filled again once more.

That after a single night, she was so mindlessly driven by her pleasures now that she'd settle to her knees here and now, part her lips to suck his cock clean as meat from a bone at the feasting table.

No, perhaps soon enough her body would bring her to the edge of madness, but she was still a Queen.

She would be watched, but passing through a series of tents, of side steps and dodges into the open columns and long galleries of the arms of Amenja, had left her feeling she dispensed with most of them. The queen had learned how to escape in small ways where she could not escape far enough for it to ever matte. Falke did not, or would not follow. The feeling of tightness between her legs increased until she closed her eyes to the sharp pain, drawing them open again as it slowly began to subside. She found that central point of composure along with fragments of memory – the magician had not been long in her company, though his father had saved him from a beast as he traveled across the flatlands. Pulled him from a wolf's bloody maw with a well-aimed, well-timed arrow. He had returned with him to Amenja and a promise to serve him with all of his strange powers. She remembered his shock of red hair, red but pale as though sun and water had stolen the bright and blood of it away.

“The magician? He's dead, surely. Flooded out of here on the same river of blood that took all the men of my kind. Or at least...not of yours.” She moved back up the stairs, back under the tent, lightly, slowly, steadily. She scanned around, saw faces eating, moving, beginning work, but no eyes immediately interested in her for standing and conversing.

She stepped one length closer, spoke with an even more intentional quiet. “Of course, I could hardly be certain of that. I did not see him dead, distracted that day as I was, I suppose, but were any man to have survived, it would have been Naescius.”

“He served my father. Made predictions by the stars, healed grave wounds, gave good counsel, though in the end, he did not tell my father of you Cizinecs, if he saw them in his dreams. Perhaps he saw Gorun and ran. It would not surprise me if it had been so.” She stepped further, back to the edge of the terrace, looked up into the blue of the sky ahead of her.

“We did speak a few times. He told me once where his people lived. Cold and wet and far away, he said. A man would cross water for many days to reach it.” Zora imagined as she spoke, the magician by the fire telling tales as the fire turned a strange, brief blue to match the sky she'd set her sights upon this morning..

“But there was a trading village he spoke of often. They would tend his wounds there, pay him well for his fortunes, he liked the look of some woman there. It is deep in the woods well past the lake where our river feeds.” She shook her head. 'It was never for me to leave Amenja, but I remember his description of it., hidden in the trees, green, but the light found it. He had hoped my father would send him and Mayef...he would send men to trade with them. If he lived, you might find him there. If he lived, it would benefit Amenja. If he lived, he is a betrayer.”

“Perhaps the villagers too are dead. Perhaps Gorun is there now.” She turned to him, feeling the air again move over her, flutter the light tendrils that framed of her face. “Perhaps not. Ten days to the northeast, so long as you follow closely to the river, from there...the way is guarded, one stranger or two might be let in. More than that and I do not believe you shall find them.”

Zora collected herself. She had no great purpose these days. She might re-read the few salvaged books. Let her fingers resolve the ache in her cunt until he saw the sense of it. She could find the village, were she to take the journey, but this notion was laughable.

Her expression became less distant, but still alert.

“I would not see you go there unless I am certain the timing...is wise. You might dig, regardless. Once the water flows, the harm will have already been done for Gorun. And he will take the blessing while we do the work. But I will leave it in your hands.”

 

[PieTaster]

Falke listened intently as she told the story of the mage, embellished with the local history involving her family interwoven with her people, even quick to include a dig at her conquerors. Zora would make a good bard, a loresinger among other things, he thought. He had gleaned the name that she had dropped - Naescius - but soon realized that it was pointless. By her own instruction, the magician would prove far too difficult to track down, if he was even still alive. Perhaps for something more divine than simply divining he would be worth the effort of ten days travel, the resentment of his coming and then ten days return, but to simply find a spot to dig for water they could procure someone else who could do just as well.

Another name was also mentioned in her testimony and it was not unnoticed when she paused upon it, unable to complete its utterance. Instead, Zora continued on to the last known directions to this magician, but Falke did not allow them to register, to clutter his brain with unnecessary details. If he wished to revisit the topic in the future, he would know enough to ask her again.

"I'm sure Szargo could find water beneath this fortress," said Falke. "In fact, I would even be surprised if he wasn't privy to the very location that we speak of." The Queen seemed distant now, as if resigned to his rebuffing. There was something forlorn about her, an emptiness which did not surprise him. Certainly she had been forcibly bound to her oppressor - a bully of a conqueror and no doubt a tyrant of a husband. Such arrangement would have been wholly content for Gorun and hardly ideal for her, yet Gorun still demanded more. Her situation was not enviable in the least and Falke admired her fortitude, her ability to continue to care about her people, her own happiness, anything beyond her own preservation. Falke leaned in closer and spoke softly. "And just how many more tunnels burrow under our feet?" he asked. "If we were to dig, we would not wish to expose one."

The thickness of her golden locks refused all but the slightest of agitation from the breeze as the bright sunshine formed a corona about her. While she contemplated her response he interrupted her thoughts to deliberately catch her off balance, inquiring as to the most emotional point in her telling.

"And who is this Mayef ...?"

 

[TheQueenofCups]

Zora returned her gaze to the far open plains that surrounded them. There was a moment of quiet that swelled and burst.

“Who he was matters not.” She felt her voice waver as she answered despite every intention to the contrary. A fist formed she knew she must quickly release. Falke's nearness was complicated, bringing her a raw desire co-mingling with an anger and a sadness that was too dangerous to feel again. A lover she had never bedded would mean nothing to Falke, his memory would be but a piece in this game she had found herself playing. Her naivete might be her end, as easily as her empty womb. She couldn't allow that.

Her voice as much a whisper as his, but crisp, certain. “He is returned to the earth now, passed from any good or any harm you or I might cause him. We linger too long here. I have said there were secrets in this place, but much of it was kept from me. What a Cizinec knows or does not know of what they have taken is hardly for me to say. Find it as you will. Do with it what you like.”

She nodded, catching his eyes but once before bowing again, formally, stiffly, and turning on her heels to walk back down the flowing stairwell and moving toward the tent. She emerged, to any following eyes a few moments later, carrying a basket at her elbow. Zora did not walk back to the stone arms, moving instead back towards the woods, idly passing behind a gesticulating Brannar and a few bewildered soldiers. A serving girl bounded up behind her with an ungainly and eager gait as though she was relieved at having finally discovered her the Queen's whereabouts. Zora did not cast her away as she bent to pluck some bright flowered she recognized from the fields and deposited it in the basket, now firmly gripped by the girl. They continued walking this way, stopping now and again to gather as Zora saw fit.

This had not been her plan, of course, but she had been running low on the Blessing. And there would be reason enough to have more.

 

[PieTaster]

"Who he was matters not. He is returned to the Earth now, passed from any good or any harm you or I might cause him."

The topic was not up for discussion. Falke was not about to push the matter, although he he could tell that it brought her emotional turmoil from her past. Many things seemed to be buried beneath her skin, wrapped tightly in the depths of the suppressed vibrancy of her heart.

"We linger too long here. I have said there were secrets in this place, but much of it was kept from me. What a Cizinec knows or does not know of what they have taken is hardly for me to say. Find it as you will. Do with it what you like."

Her sarcasm stung, yet he admired her wit, her strength. Since her earlier brazen fondlings, sense had found her and she left his company for the deeds of her day. As the Queen made off with her basket and disappeared with her lady-in-wait, Falke did likewise (basketless and ladyless of course), though his own deeds had sprung from new inspiration.

"Szargo, my good man," he said as he encroached upon the shaman's tent. "A word?"

"Eh?" scratched the healer. "If it takes not much time." Szargo's tent was filled with cabinets stacked with bottles or tomes and scrolls or other instruments, and a small fire in a pit in the middle always kept a pot of water near a boil. He was as much a scholar as a healer. He was a small man of about forty years with a full head of dark hair beginning to lose its color and a goatee extending several inches below his chin to graze the well-worn folds of the cowl of his plum tunic.

"I would think not," Falke presumed.

"Well then?" Szargo gestured as he puttered amongst a shelf of bottles while referring to an open text.

"Some time not long in past, someone here divined a well within the fortress walls," said Falke. "Or so I've come to hear."

"Indeed," said the shaman without diverting his attention from a smattering of pebbles upon one of his tables. He selected three with care, turned and dropped them into the semi-boiling water. "And you want to know where to dig."

"As you say, indeed."

"I was not privy to the exact location," he explained as he went back to his text. "I was a foreigner around here - a welcome friendly foreigner, but a foreigner nonetheless, you see? Certain things were kept within certain circles." He straightened up and gave Falke his full gaze. "But in general area, the spot was no secret and I could certainly find it."

"Good news."

"Would the King permit one to dig?"

"To dig or not is yet to be decided," explained Falke, "but to know the spot - or any spot within the walls would aid the final decision."

"Yes, I suppose," the shaman exhaled. "How soon?"

"The sooner the better."

"Tomorrow, then?"

The meal that night was much less festive as no news from the front had warranted such a gathering. Only Falke Branner and Dax attended. None of the wives showed and the Queen took her portions in her room as she often did. Of course, he did have some news for her. In the meantime there were tunnels to explore and the moment that the sun dipped below the black treeline, he set forth for the stone gully and the altar in the cave.

Shimmying inside, it was pitch but Falke reached out to find the table where he had taken the Queen the previous night. Laying out his torch, he flinted it, the sparks white in the blackness until the ember took and the room flickered in a dull orange. Approaching the figure on the far wall which concealed the tunnel, he saw it to be of a female. The face was stately and reserved with smooth features and hair in fine braids stood up to trail through a tall painted crown. Large ambers fit her corneas. A moon crescent medallion, the silver tarnished to black, rested atop her sternum but otherwise she was topless. Her right nipple was a pert cone protruding out from her full round dangling breast. The other was in the mouth of an infant cradled in her left arm. Her right arm rested upon a gravid belly. She sat before him face-to-face, with thighs together in modesty of her remaining nakedness.

Peering behind her, the gap was too narrow for Falke to fit. He leaned in close with the torch and saw what looked like a wheel sticking out from her spine. Reaching in, he gripped cold steel and tried to turn. At first it would not budge, but with more force it reluctantly obliged and Falke saw the gap widen. He put the torch into the closest wall holder to use both hands and with considerable effort, he was able to nudge the heavy life-sized stone idol forward enough to allow him passage. With torch in hand, he squeezed through.

The walls were unfinished but the floor was quite smooth. Falke had to bow his head and there was enough room for two people to pass with reasonable comfort but not much more. It immediately bent left. Falke could not easily tell directions underground but he surmised that it was doubling back towards the fortress. Dusty underfoot, it was otherwise quite clean, with very few cobwebs. There were footprints, undoubtedly one of the sets belonging to Zora from the night before. Falke wondered if anyone else had been using the passage lately, or perhaps could be using it at that moment. He was careful not to make noise and heard none. Every couple of dozen strides, there was a step up. After what must have been a half-verst, there was a fork. Both directions seemed the same, unfinished tunnelling just as the way that he'd come. By his torchlight he knelt down and examined the prints in the grey dust. All of the prints seemed smaller - the feet of women. Looking back at his own, no other marks in the dirt compared. The freshest trail went to the left and he took that as Zora's route and followed. There were several more steps up over what seemed another half-verst and by Falke's reckoning that the fortress was about a verst from the gully, he began to anticipate a destination.

He would not be disappointed. Soon the passage made a sharp right turn. Two green painted snaked with rubies for eyes coiled around torch holders on either side wall. The gold-fanged mouths hung open poised to strike intruders if they were not of stone. The scene did give Falke a sudden start, but quickly regaining composure, he looked past them to a ladder at the end of the passage. He inspected the area keenly before issuing his left foot forward in a test step. The ground was solid. Nothing moved. Then he begged his pardon of the serpent guardians and stepped between. Looking up the ladder he saw the bottom of a stone. He grabbed hold of the wooden ladder. It creaked. It was quite old and the wood had long gone grey and withered. He decided not to chance the ladder nor the stone as it could have easily been rigged for an intruder like himself, although Zora had not given him such warning and surely she would have anticipated him to explore once the shrine had been revealed to him. He decided to go back to the fork and explore the other passage. He had nothing but time after all.

 

[TheQueenofCups]

Zora's hands, purpled now on the palms and up the edges of her fingers, returned to her side. In front of her, a small stone mortar filled with the succulent petals of sveta, now ground down to a rich, darkly-hued paste. She had added wine, honey, the flakes of a particular fish that gathered below High Hill, cured in salt and moonlight, and a single drop of a clear liquid from an aged bottle. She spread the mixture out a stone slab. In the morning, it would turn to powder and be ready for use.

Her marked and dyed fingertips tingled intensely as she contemplated the power in the gifts Naescius had left behind, albeit with no true instruction save her own fumbling to teach her.

It was dark enough in his old quarters, carved out like so much else had been below the foundations of Amenja. He had more components than she would dare investigate, but the concoction, invented from snippets of story from servant and Magician alike, had proven demonstrably effective. Her mind was caught in such reverie that Zora would have forgotten the servant girl Yana sleeping in the corner entirely, had the rolling purr of a snore not began to break through her peace.

She'd missed the call to dinner and as she'd told them she would eat alone, this meant Yana had gone without on her behalf as well. Zora felt a bit sorry for that. Zora knelt beside her, gathering the hem of her skirt to cover her hand before rousing her.

“Go back quietly now. Rumi will give you bread.” The girl with cropped dark hair, too youthful yet to be of much notice, was obedient to a fault and quiet enough on her feet. She also no longer feared the path to this strange chamber, though she'd drooped to the floor rather than lay on the bed in the corner. “Wait.” She handed the sleepy-eyed girl, gingerly, the remainder of the vial of honey. “For your bread. Now.” Zora put her finger to her lips lightly and Yana nodded, accepting the honey with a crooked smile. She'd already turned and made her way from the room as Zora stood back up, felt the tingle begin on her lips.

Zora knew she should be heading back as well. She was tired, but her mind was not. A little alchemy and her mind began to dance, dance upon the reagents and untold mysteries that remained of Naescius.

Indeed, there was a small, low bed where he must have once slept. It was set against the wall, near enough to be warmed by the fire that crackled away, and Zora sat upon it, watching the flames. Yana's presence would reassure the others. She needn't rush now. She shouldn't.

She curled her feet up underneath her, settled, let the blue and black that danced within the flame clear her thoughts. Some indeterminate amount of time slipped from her when she felt her chin shudder for a moment on her palm as her elbow wobbled as she realized sleep was about to sneak upon her, too. Zora rose up, gathered the water cask to douse the fireplace's flames, when a muted noise caught her attention. She froze in place.