Noble Creatures

The heavy wooden doors of the inner cloister boomed as a ram struck them, and their brass hinges rattled in the stone frame. Laramis sat gripping the arms of her throne, which sprang from a high stone dais at the back of the room. She was a vision: masses of beautiful black ringlets fell about her porcelain face and shoulder, spilling down her strong, ivory back. Her wide eyes shone like clear jade in the sun, stunning and hard, rimmed with thick black lashes; and her plump, red lips were compressed tightly. Nude as she was, save a blazing forest-green cloak clasped at the neck with a thin silver chain, every definition and detail of her magnificent body stood out as she sat tensely, stiffening with each blow of the ram.

Her servants, massive and pale mute-euniks, scrambled about, piling the heavy things they could find before the door. A dozen of her guardians- more massive pale mutes but clad in shining silver mail and armed with large, curving scimitars, their shaved heads wrapped in white turbans- filed rank in the center of the hall, creating a protective shield between her and the splintering door. A lean, chiseled youth wearing an ivory white skirt and bandana on his shaven head rushed to Laramis' side, dropped to his knee to raise an ornately jeweled dagger on a satin pillow with his head bowed.

Please, oh sweet holiness," he pleaded. "Release yourself, quickly! These barbarians will defile you...they have no respect for your immaculate soul! Oh, my benevolent lady, please!"

The look in Laramis's eyes was not one of defeat as she lifted the shining blade in her slender, soft hand.

"Begone, Sergius. You have served the True Lady well and your place at her side in the here-after is already assured. Fear not my tribulations of the flesh, as you fear not your own."

"But, my lady..."

She silenced him with a look, and he backed away down the steps of the dais, bowing low as he went. She uncrossed her long, shapely legs and stood, slim shoulders back, large, soft breasts forward, each crowned with a perky nipple hardened by adrenaline. From behind the throne, with the swift and thoughtless efficiency of savage loyalty, came a stalky jungle cat- Parule, her most loyal defender, twice the size of the largest man, his fur the deep purple of storm clouds. He circled her once as she took two steps to the edge of the dais, rubbing his wide head fondly on her tiny body, and crouched on her left, yellow eyes transfixed on the splintering door. A bass-filled grumble rose in his wide chest and Laramis smiled, placing her small hand on the powerful, corded muscles of his neck.

"We will die, here, Parule, for noble creatures such as you and I cannot be tamed."

The cat's only response was a twitch of one of his small ears in her direction, but she knew he understood. Suddenly, with a great crack and clatter, the doors fell off their hinges and collapsed. Pushing through came a throng of armed invaders, with black-metal swords and armour already dripping blood. They were broad shouldered, strong legged men, with dirty, sun bleached blond or red hair under their small metal caps and on their unshaven faces.

From high on her dais, Laramis screamed with rage as she watched the first through the door slash down her fleeing servants with thick blades and daggers. She barked a sharp order and her warriors marched in, great pearly thews whirling their huge scimitars in wide arcs of death. The two forces met with a clash of steel, and at first it seemed that her men had the advantage, cutting the invaders down and pushing them back to the door; but the smaller men kept coming, and one by one the white-skinned warriors fell in sprays of red, till only six remained. Swinging their scimitars with both hands, tongueless mouths agape in silent cries of divine bloodlust, they fell back to encircle the oval stairs of the dais.

Laramis took a step back, wave-bladed dagger held high. She felt many villainous eyes on her. One of the white guardians fell, clawing at the man who slew him, a great bloody gash across his chest. Another man, as tall as her euniks but leaner and more predatory, leapt through the opening and up the steps. His face was wide, its bones thick and hard. His eyes were the deepest blue Laramis had ever seen and for a moment she was trapped by them. Just as he reached for her, though, he disappeared in a flash of snarling purple. Parule and the man crashed down the stairs in a mass of twisting and kicking, scratching and stabbing and biting muscle, knocking aside the men who came behind them. The last of her guardians fell in silent duty, and though he tore out many a throat, Parule lay in a skewered heap on the flagstones, unmoving.

The hall swarmed with mercenaries, and they piled in on top of each other around the edges of the dais, all cat-calling and leering, their eyes gleaming with dangerous intent. Laramis gripped her dirk with white knuckles, crawled back onto her throne and wrapped the cloak about her, suddenly and for the first time in her life self-conscious. Her pale skin flushed red and her lips curled into an insulted sneer.

"Dogs!" she cried. "You dare defile the palace of the True Lady? Do you think the Gods take such travesty lightly?"

Her words were lost in the laughter of a hundred men. One swaggered up the steps and knelt before the cowering Priestess with a mocking bow. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but all that escaped was a gurgle as Laramis drove the dirk with both hands deep into his exposed throat and twisted it. The mercenary collapsed before her, blood pouring from his severed arteries and down the stone steps. Silence filled the hall for a long, breathless moment as she scowled down upon the invaders, and then they poured in upon her. She screamed as they grabbed at her limbs, her hair. Her cloak was torn away, silver chain clasp exploding into a hundred sparkling pieces.

A loud, angry voice rose above the others. "To me! Bring her to me! Now!"

Laramis was dragged down the steps and thrown to her knees. The first man who had breached the dais had somehow escaped Parule with his life, though blood seeped from a great slash of the cat's paw across his chest and from under his cap. His eyes burned like points of blue fire and he strode forward and stood before Laramis, who glared up hatefully at him. For more than a minute they inspected each other.

"Search the rest of the Palace, take only valuable prisoners," he said finally, breaking focus first and mounting the dais.

"And her, m'Lord?" asked one of the men, biting his lip and eyeing Laramis' disheveled yet perfect body hungrily.

The man on the dais sat himself in Laramis' throne, one leg lazily slung over a beautifully carved arm of it.

"Tie her up soundly. Take her to my tent. Any man who touches her dies."

Laramis was lifted easily off her knees and carried away, squirming and screaming, through the throngs of jeering men. The man on the stone throne watched her go intently, a smile on his thin lips.

"Take her pet, too. It'll make a nice rug."

Sinfune opened the flap to his tent and stared in a moment's pleasant surprise at the delicious, nude creature lashed to the tent's main pole. It had been over a day since he had ordered her taken there and so much had happened since then, he'd forgotten. She was still naked, and asleep, head lolling on her ample breasts. All that held her up, he noticed, was her bonds, and if it wasn't for her heaving chest and belly, one might have thought her dead. Sinfune frowned at the thought and strolled into the tent. He threw a map he carried onto a table littered with charts, and pulled off his heavy, dirty gloves and boots. His black-mail shirt, still crusted in dried blood, hit the silk carpeted floor with a loud crunch that roused her. He smiled over his strong, round shoulder as he unbuckled his scabbard and threw it beside a great pile of red and black pillows of varying shapes. Lamaris pulled herself upright, shook her tangled hair from her eyes and licked her cracked, dry lips.

"Are you hungry?" he asked her, gingerly readjusting the bloodstained bandages that criss-crossed his broad, square chest. She silently squirmed under his inspection. "There is no need to go hungry. I am not a cruel man."

At this she balked bitterly. "Not a cruel man? You're a demon, an abomination of nature. I am the High Priestess of the True Lady, the immaculate daughter of the Great Matriarch, the reincarnation of the All Mother herself!"

Sinfune listened to all this with a patient smile and a roll of his ocean-deep eyes. "So, 'your Highness', are you hungry?"

Lamaris felt suddenly foolish, like a child, and her soft, round face burned crimson. Sinfune called out and a page popped his young head into the tent, apparently undisturbed by the scene; he was ordered to fetch food and he disappeared as quickly as he had come. Sinfune seated himself on a pillow by the low table and sat studying the charts and maps, puffing at the long nozzle of a pipe he lit with thin tinder sticks ignited in an oil lamp.

The pale blue smoke he exhaled was flowery and thick, curling around the roof of the tent in long tendrils. Lamaris coughed and winced, her throat and tongue painfully parched. He paid no heed, and after a few moments the page returned with a silver platter laden with grapes, mandarins, sliced apple, lamb chunks, a large clay pitcher brimming with black wine, and two finely crafted crystal glasses that sparkled like points of a sun in the dim light. Lamaris could not help but gulp hungrily at the sight. Sinfune pointed to the table and the page laid the platter there atop the maps, and left with a low bow. Sinfune tossed a plump grape his mouth, crushed it between his hard white teeth, ignoring Lamaris' starved eyes on his every move.

"So, tell me," he said between bites, "why did you not flee? Surely the retreating Sangriou warned you we had broken through the south border?"

Suddenly aware of her slavering, Lamaris righted herself, holding her chin high.

"The politics of mortals are beneath those who follow the True Path. I sent all but the most loyal away, but the Palace of the True Lady is a sacred house of the Matriarch; I would not abandon it."

Sinfune nodded slowly, wiped his wide mouth with the back of his hand as he looked her nubile body up and down. With the quickness of a cat he was on his feet, sharp, blood-stained dagger in his hand. He eased close to Lamaris and his nostrils flared as he inhaled her; she squirmed to move away, skin crawling as she sensed some frightening intent. Gently, with such delicate precision that he did not breach her skin in the slightest, Sinfune ran the sharp edge of the blade through the top of the soft black strip of hair that curled between her frozen legs. Her head flung round, eyes sparkling with a strange concoction of desperate, trapped fear and reverent hate. He drank their attention in, sliding the blade-edge up her soft, flat belly. He circled her small, shallow belly-button with its point, his teeth grinding behind his grimacing lips. His expression as he gazed into her gem-stone eyes was confusing to her- almost pained. A warm shiver, as perplexing as his expression, ran down her spine, sent her skin from crawling to tingling.

"Slay me," she hissed in a quivering whisper. "If you defile my body you commit the greatest of sacrilege; locusts will devour your eyes and maggots will invest your manhood".

His face hardened, suddenly, again the remorseless mask she remembered from the Palace, and he stepped past her. She felt the cold of steel against her swollen wrists, and with a jerk she was suddenly free. She cried out in pain and collapsed to all fours, only now realizing how painfully numb her arms and legs were; her thick tangled hair fell to the floor.

"Are the delicacies of mortals also beneath you?" asked Sinfune.

Laramis cast him another dazed and baleful glance but still scrambled to the table on sore limbs and began stuffing her small cheeks with fruits, spurning the lamb as was her people's custom, despite her hunger. Sinfune smiled and poured the syrupy wine into the small glasses while she ate, placing one on the table near her. He strolled to the pile of pillows and, without spilling his drink, flopped onto them with easy grace. He watched Laramis devour half the platter, the glass of nectar he poured for her and two more, her untrusting eyes flashing his way between bites and gulps. After awhile, her movements became slow and her eyelids drooped heavily.

"If you are tired, sleep, 'your Highness'," said Sinfune. He had placed his glass untouched on the floor next to his sword and lay propped on an elbow. His constant, unyielding attention annoyed her and she started to rise.

"I warn you, attempt no familiarity! I will broach no..."

But she could not continue, for her head suddenly swam. Tingling warmth coursed through her veins and she reeled drunkenly, aware she had been drugged in the last moments before falling unconscious. She collapsed on to the table with a low moan, the remaining contents of the platter spilling before her with a crash. Sinfune watched as she squirmed, her soft, pale skin burning crimson as the erotic-dream inducing lotus in the wine took effect.

Within a few moments she lay relatively still, soft, full bosom and cheek pressed hard on the table, arms splayed to her side; her impeccably round bottom was propped in the air provocatively. He slid across the floor, stretching lazily as he came, and propped himself with chin on fist on the table next to her. As he brushed the dark hair from her face his hand looked like a giant's against her tiny cheek, and he noticed how young she was. Her features were fresh, uncreased and soft.

Since birth she had ruled her cult as the physical incarnation of their icy bitch-goddess. The air of an untouchable God-Queen she projected disguised her true age well, but now, as he gazed upon her slumbering form, he guessed her for eighteen or nineteen. He traced a line with his fingers across her forehead, down her cheek, and across her reddening lips; her skin burned fiercely and a pleasured whimper sighed from her parting, strawberry lips as they opened and kissed his rough fingertips.

Sinfune held his breath as her diminutive pink tongue, shining with saliva, lapped them gently, and he slid one into her mouth. The soft, wet warmth that surrounded it set his blood afire. He felt her tongue unconsciously, instinctively massaging it, and he snatched it back with a sharp gasp. He traced the wet finger down her spine slowly, relishing the light touch of her skin, and continued down the line of her prostrate and spread ass. His finger circled her tight, pink anus gently before sliding down across the soft, velveteen lips between her fine ivory legs. He shuddered to find them leaking sticky fluid already; the lotus was carrying her away on erotic dreams the likes of which she had never experienced, and a part of him ached to be there with her. Sinfune stood and unclasped his breeches, to stand proud and erect and shining bronze in the lamplight. He had the lean, muscular, scarred body that can only be created through a life of battle, and his manhood jutted forth from between his powerful legs, thick and muscular and erect as the rest of him. He moved behind Lamaris and dropped to his knees, crouching down to eye-level with her rump. He ran his heavy hands up the back of her thighs, over the cheeks of her bum, pushing them apart, his fingers leaving white streaks in her blushing skin. Her pink gash opened slightly and a small drop of clear sticky fluid slid out and down the plump lips. Sinfune leaned in and lapped it up, running the tip of his tongue bottom to top along her slit. The sweet perfume of her filled his nose, his mouth, his lungs, his blood. With an animal growl he gripped her ass-cheeks firmly, used his thumbs to spread her pussy lips and dove in. Driving his tongue deep into her as best he could, he licked clean the walls of her soft, tight insides. She moaned and called out a word in a language foreign to Sinfune and he pulled away, licking his lips.

His teeth chattered in anticipation as he eased the crown of his thick cock towards her, watching the secure fold of her puss stretch to envelope it. Pleasure prickled through Sinfunes body as he slowly, slowly, ever so slowly inched his way deeper into her. She cried out and gripped the edges of the table as the last inch of him sank into her, and her buttocks locked firmly into his hips. Still wondering what wild, godly visions of eroticism she was dreaming, Sinfune slowly and smoothly pumped himself into her.

A mixture of gushing juices and blood coated his cock; he clawed her back, and ran his hands through her dark hair. The muscles of her tight hole contracted and massaged and he instinctively quickened his pace, her soft red bum bouncing enticingly. He wrapped his powerfully muscled arms around her thin body, gripped her full tits in his hands and lifted her limp form up to him, still ramming into her from behind.

With a shuddering holler and a gush of sticky fluid, her pussy crushed his thrusting cock. No longer able to restrain himself, Sinfune exploded deep inside her, pumping rope after thick rope of semen inside before collapsing, gasping, on top of her. He lay for a moment, eyes closed, forehead pressed between her shoulder blades, breathing her in with gusty breaths. Then, face resuming its cool impassivity, he extracted himself from her belly. Instantly, wads of jizzm overflowed from her still contracting cunt.

Sinfune called out and again the page boy entered, head down.

"Clean her up, get her some suitable garb," he said, picking another grape up off the floor and popping it into his mouth as he put his breeches back on. The page left and returned with a large, deep bowl of clean water and a cloth. He cleared and cleaned the table, gently moved Lamaris to the pile of pillows. Sinfune resumed the study of his maps and his pipe while the young boy carefully, ritually washed her body.

*******

Kalikairn Odel Moonlen, known as Kali O'Moon to her few lucky intimates, sighed as she breathed the cooling evening air of Odenzia. She leaned over the west-facing balcony of her high, gold-domed, ivory tower, her massive golden breasts crushed against the banister beneath her. Below sprawled the rest of the Palace with its lower, golden-domed roofs, all surrounded by high stone walls; beyond these lay the sun-bleached clay houses of the peasant-folk.

The setting sun blazed fiery orange in its final minutes of glory, and her copper hair, flowing down her shoulders from two high buns at the back of her head, blazed molten in the sunlight. She played with it fondly with one hand, held the ends of it up in the waning light and examined them with mischievous red-gold eyes. She cast a bored look at the door to the lavishly furnished room behind her and sighed again.

The life of a concubine could be rather dull when her Lord was away. Five long months she had doddled about the palace: dabbled in scenic oil painting, haggled over the price of fine clothing with merchants, and given decorum and manners lessons to many of the young ladies in court. She could not help but worry, though, that one day, he might not return.

But even as she had the thought there was a heavy thud at the brass studded wooden door, and a deep voice called out her name.

"Kali!"

Her blood-red lips parted in a smile and her eyes sparkled as she fought back the bubbling excitement within.

"Come in," she called out over a shapely shoulder, her voice soft and musical.

The door pushed open, and there he was: her lord, tall, broad, bronzed and shining in the gold in-laid armour and deep brass helm. His ceremonial sword, hilt sparkling with a hundred gems, hung at his side. His wide, thick-boned face, though grim and scarred, held an untraceable softness in it; his heavily muscled body bulged between the plates of armour. Oh, Sinfune, she thought, aching to rush across the room and leap into his arms yet forcing herself not to even look at him, how I've missed you. "My apologies for the late hour," he said, quickly and efficiently unbuckling his armour and tossing it carelessly on the purple silk sheets of Kali's bed.