Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 21

He doggedly ran on, occasionally checking Bree's stamina. A Tight Initiate would have the legs, but only a bit of the breathing power that came with an Iron upgrade. He was fairly certain, from her eyes and hair, that she hadn't taken a Facial for her optional upgrade. Still, surveying his own breathing and comparing it to hers, he knew he would be no match for her in any race.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Zhair'lo saw one of the other boys stumble and fall.

Sergeant Yung was on him instantly, yanking him up by his belt and shoving him on.

"Up you go, Renzi," Sergeant Yung ordered.

There was no hint of mercy in his voice, only wry condescension. This sort of thing, his tone of voice suggested, was what he expected of the idiots he was forced to train.

Zhair'lo couldn't decide what to call this odd grouping of soldiers and recruits. The lead element certainly qualified as some sort of formation, but the haphazard bunch in the middle ruined any sense of dignity that might have been accorded by any passing townspeople. In behind came Sergeant Yung and the others, taking the role of something between a shepherd and a whip-cracking Carter.

'A herd,' he thought. 'We're a herd. There's no other word for it.'

Sheep or dogs, whatever they were, they ran. Renzi certainly dogged on, and very soon Kit started to stumble.

"Not much farther," Sergeant Yung would remind them occasionally.

None of the boys ever responded to this encouragement - if indeed it was meant to be encouraging.

Somewhere around what Zhair'lo estimated to be the end of the fourth kilometre, Bree decided to speak with him again. He noticed that, while her breathing wasn't what he would call "laboured", there was an abruptness to her speech that hadn't been there before.

"You're holding up well."

"Master Lyric ... makes us run."

"We expect a lot less-" she jerked her head to the boys behind them. "-from you lot."

'You lot', in this case, meant 'men in general'.

"Most jobs don't need running," Zhair'lo defended. "Temple probably ... wouldn't want it anyway."

Bree jerked her head very suddenly toward him, revealing how flushed her face was.

"What? Why not?"

"Same reason most ... can't learn weapons, I guess."

She flipped her head away from him to concentrate on the path ahead and wouldn't say another word.

Zhair'lo wondered if he'd said something rude, though he couldn't imagine what. Didn't every man recruited to join the Fighters or the Hunters have to pass the same test he'd been through? He couldn't see how it could be otherwise. There was no way it was big a secret, what with the fact there were Virgins and Initiates involved in administering the test.

So what was with Bree? A sidelong glance only told him that her face was flushed. Was she finally running out of energy?

It was several more minutes before he began to make out a dim light ahead.

"Is that it?" he asked.

"The palisade," Bree replied nervously without looking at him. "Must be."

The word didn't mean anything to Zhair'lo, but the herd began to slow as they came into a clearing in front of a solid wall of vertical logs, each log sharpened to a spike at its skyward tip. Torches lit the top of the wall, which extended some fifty metres to the left and right. A well worn path led up to a gate made of wooden slabs and it was to this gate that the men at the head of the column led the herd.

"Who goes there?" came a male voice, shouting from above the gate.

From behind Zhair'lo, a voice boomed out.

"Yung, returning with new recruits."

"Sergeant Yung," the gate guard called back down. "Laconis. Ether. T'rok."

Passwords, Zhair'lo realized. From the way they were yelling the nonsense words out for all to hear, they must be good for one use only.

"Porell. Retch. Varides."

The moment the last word was out of Sergeant Yung's mouth, a heavy thud could be heard and the gates began to open.

Zhair'lo spared one last look to his side to check on Bree. Her face, more clearly visible with all the torchlight coming from the walls of what must be 'the palisade', was definitely flushed. He couldn't believe that this little run had somehow worn her out, but the look on her face seemed very suddenly desperate.

The gates creaked to a stop after they had opened just wide enough to admit them three abreast. The herd began moving forward again and, while the other recruits lagged behind, Zhair'lo and Bree followed the lead element in, his left arm brushing against her right as they squeezed through. There was a sharp inhalation from her and she moved away from him, her eyes focused straight ahead.

Now inside the wooden walls of the palisade, Zhair'lo took a moment to look around. It wasn't as big on the inside as he might have guessed. The outer walls were higher than most of the buildings on the inside, so he could make out the general shape of the place as a square about a hundred metres aside. Were they disposing of triangles altogether out here, or was it more that this was a place run by Form, which preferred a different shape?

Regardless of philosophies, the inside of the fort had a much more temporary and makeshift feeling than anything he had seen in either the town of Gern or the small bits of the Temple he'd been allowed to see. Hundreds of torches lit the area so well he could see almost everything was made of wood, including the ramparts that ran along most of the outer walls.

The buildings on the inside, though a few had corner columns of stone, were mostly wooden and utilitarian in nature. Although there was a clear path from the wooden gate through which they had entered to a similar gate in the opposite wall, it was clear that the internal structures were built whenever and wherever they were needed.

There was an archery range to his right, with targets set up at 25 and 50 metres. Further on, there was a small stable that might hold half a dozen horses.

On the left were more conventional buildings that had the look of either being smiths or kitchens, based on the multiple stone chimneys rising out of each building.

While Zhair'lo was trying to guess at the functions of the various structures, he failed to notice the breakup of the herd until he found Sergeant Yung standing in front of him.

"Recruits! Follow me!"

It was then that Zhair'lo noticed how beat the other boys were. A groan of complaint rose from three male throats. Bree, red faced as she was, made no such complaint, but pursed her lips and shook her head as if she knew what was coming.

"There'll be none of that," Sergeant Yung warned them in a dangerous voice. "You're mine now and this Barracks is no place for whining. Consider that your first, last and only warning."

Without another word, he trotted off to the left, in a narrow alley between two of the chimney laden buildings that Zhair'lo had tried to identify earlier. The odours emanating from the structures easily filled up his lungs in the narrow space. At least one of them, he now knew, had to be a kitchen. He was glad not to be hungry.

Beyond the alleyway, they passed into an open space with a number of squat wooden structures of various sizes arrayed around it. It was to the smallest of these that Sergeant Yung led them.

Pushing the door open while remaining standing outside it, he waved them in.

"Eight beds. Eight recruits. The candles are lit. In you go."

Zhair'lo stopped completely. Even the slight amount of fear he'd built up around Sergeant Yung failed to propel him any distance.

Women and men ... sleeping in the same room?

"In. You. Go."

This was directed not just at Zhair'lo, but at the group as a whole, who were all standing with stunned looks on their faces. The darkening of Sergeant Yung's voice put a spike of adrenaline into Zhair'lo's chest and he found himself jerking forward, just behind Bree, moving to go through the doorway.

Bree, as it happened, was held up at the doorway and pulled aside, Sergeant Yung's hand on her shoulder, as the other seven passed in.

The interior was as simple as it could be. The floor was wooden, reminding him rather heartlessly of the halls where Form dispensed its justice. There were four small beds on each side of the room, with just enough space between them for a tall, narrow wardrobe. At the far end of the room, which was not very far at all, there was a long desk that ran the length of the wall. The pair of candles that burned on this desk were the only light sources in the room.

Zhair'lo having been the first into the room, he found himself pushed toward the farthest bed as the others came in. Imagining that he might be living here for a while, he sat down on the bed in the right hand corner. The wardrobe, just past the bed, was open and empty, so he hung his backpack on the hook at its back.

Behind him, the door slammed shut. Thinking it might be Sergeant Yung with more orders, Zhair'lo stood up immediately.

It was only Bree though, with an unreadable expression on her face, staring at him and him alone through the flickering candlelight.

He raised his eyebrows in lieu of asking the obvious question. It just wasn't worth wasting breath at this point.

If either of them had been looking around the room, they'd have realized that all eyes were on Bree. Clearly, she had something to tell them and, equally clearly, they knew it.

"We're not to sleep until the candles burn down," she said, never taking her eyes from Zhair'lo's.

It was dark-haired Kit who spoke up.

"So what do we do?"

"We cycle," she said, walking across the room, ignoring everyone else in it.

The girls reacted to this, turning to stare at the boys. For their part, the boys merely looked confused.

Bree, her cheeks still flushed red, came to stand before Zhair'lo. Her expression softened and her eyes fell to his chest for a moment. When her eyes came back up, they were wide and she spoke in a whisper.

"This is what I wanted anyway. Since we started running."

He clued in quickly what that mean, based on how close she was standing and the look in her eyes. But "since we started running"? That, Zhair'lo decided, was a pretty deceptive way of stating it.

'You didn't warm up to me that quickly,' he thought.

He had a brief moment in which to consider when the first signs of arousal might have shown up, but she was already on him, forcing him back on the bed that he had taken for his own.. Mouths mashed together awkwardly as sweaty bodies collided. Her midriff was bare and her top was tiny. Once she'd pushed his shirt out of the way, they were skin to skin over most of their upper bodies.

"Here?" he asked, his voice somewhat muffled, as he nodded his head at the others in the room.

Zhair'lo knew what the rules were. He'd had them not from any teaching he'd been given, but out of Talla's mind. Service was done in privacy: one woman Serving one man. There was a derogatory term that Talla knew for what was happening now, but because he'd never heard the word spoken, it was only a concept in Zhair'lo's brain. Whatever the word was, it was coloured in Talla's mind very much like the slur "monogamy".

Bree pulled her mouth away from his, letting their foreheads touch as she gasped for breath. She shrugged and closed her eyes for a moment.

"It's different here," she whispered. "I'm just following orders."

Purpose seized her, and she opened her legs to straddle him so that her skirt spread over his hips. He felt the smoothness of her underwear sliding against the mild erection he was building. She ground against him while they kissed. It was a sloppier kiss than he was used to. They were both exhausted and it was taking its toll out of their technique.

"I want to be the first to mesh," she declared.

So prodded, Zhair'lo glanced to his left at the other pairs and immediately turned his gaze back to Bree. He decided that he really had no desire to watch other people fucking. It was a curious thing. He'd seen other men naked when they went swimming or bathing and that had never bothered him. But while hundreds of women might watch an Upgrade, men were never permitted. In fact, his link to Talla made him one of the few men in Gern who had any such images in his head at all.

Zhair'lo was not, therefore, quite comfortable with the idea of seeing another man's erection, nor with seeing other people having sex. Fortunately for this strange distaste, none of the other guys were out of their shorts yet.

On the other hand, Bree was not going to be delayed for something as trivial as Zhair'lo's semi-flaccidity. She dismounted and made quick work of the laces on his shorts. There was no facade of patience here. Her head went down and the entirety of his semi-erect penis found a warm haven inside her mouth. There were no facial upgrades; no fancy tongue motions. To make up for this, Bree was desperately eager and set a head bobbing pace that left her light-coloured hair flailing behind her.

Zhair'lo worried for a moment that his body might have run out of blood. Could that happen? Had too much of his vital fluid been used up in all that running? Would he now be unable to fuck the poor girl in front of him who so badly wanted to Serve?

But he needn't have feared. He was a healthy eighteen year old who had only had sex once this evening, and that had been hours ago. Bree's ministrations soon proved successful and she was forced to back off her complete inhalation of his member.

"Good," she said, stroking it with her hand.

"You?"

"Dripping the whole time we were running," she said. "Look."

She then flung her panties, which she'd somehow removed while sucking on his cock, at his face. He lifted it with his right hand and held it in front of his eyes. As evidence of her arousal, the candlelight shining through the translucent wet spot in the crotch was convincing. While he examined her clothing, she was mounting him. Without further ceremony, she lined herself up with his erection and slid him inward.

...

Bree was a runner.

She absolutely loved running.

If she had somewhere to go, she ran.

If they were supposed to walk, she showed up late so she had to run to catch up.

Bree always took the long way around.

She was running even when she was fucking - because that was what she did; she didn't "Serve". She fucked. She preferred to think of it that way.

Having sex with Bree was like running.

And not just running, but running when you're already exhausted from running.

When the pounding in the calves makes your legs threaten to seize up. When your sides hurt. When your heart and lungs are burning.

That's when Bree felt her best.

And that's how Bree liked her sex.

This was her world, running with the Fighters, and she had a good, strong man to run alongside her.

More than just her world.

This was her heaven.

...

The mesh shuddered.

Zhair'lo had never felt a thing like that before. Meshes didn't do that. They were just supposed to build up until orgasm was reached, but this one had unmistakeably -

...

There it was again.

The only time he'd ever felt troubled in a mesh was the time he and Talla had accidentally had sex at the same time, but with other people.

This was not at like that.

If Bree was aware of it, she paid it no heed. She had her hands on his shoulders now, holding him down and using his upper body as an anchor to torque against his lower body. Whatever else might have been lost to exhaustion, this was an effective technique. He hardened inside her, even as the mesh shuddered for a third time.

"Everyone's in," she whispered.

Against his better judgement, he risked a glance to his left. In two of the beds across the room, and one in the far corner on his side, the girls had indeed mounted the boys, just as Bree was riding him. All were naked, top to bottom, except Bree, who was only now stripping off her top.

Zhair'lo was surprised that it didn't bother him too much to see the other men, although it might have been different if their erections hadn't been thoroughly buried and out of sight.

Bree touched his cheek to turn his face back to her.

"It's okay," she said. "They're all in now."

With so much blood in his erection, it was only then Zhair'lo made the connection. The shuddering he had felt - that had been the other meshes engaging?

"We can feel them?"

Bree's eyes widened even as her vagina clamped tight around the base of his penis.

"You felt that?"

"The mesh ... shivered."

Her nostrils flared, in anger or excitement or arousal he couldn't say.

A moment later, however, she fell forward and sunk her teeth into his neck, causing him to shout in alarm. Her skirt, the only piece of clothing in the room that was still attached to a human body, was flung aside.

"My ass," she hissed a plea through her teeth.

"What?"

"Spank me," she said. "Please!"

A chill ran through him, at least as bad as the trembling of the mesh.

"Come on!"

Could he do this? Had Talla really excised the demons that had haunted him when she'd made him take her bent over that camp table? How important were Bree's needs?

She bit him again, much harder this time. The pain was palpable. She might be drawing blood.

Without thinking, he reached around behind her and lashed out with his right hand to swat her cheek. Through the mesh, a rewarding wave of pain of pleasure came from her body into his.

Bree moved her mouth down toward his shoulder and sunk her teeth in again. If she was changing spots, that was nothing to Zhair'lo. He let loose with another strike to the exact same spot on her flesh and was rewarded with a tightening around his cock.

Her head rose then, pulling her teeth away from his skin, and he saw that the muscles in her neck were taut with tension.

"Again," she whispered through clenched teeth. "One more."

Her entire body, from her monumentally powerful legs to the muscles in her face, was completely locked up in a rictus of pain and pleasure unbearably mixed together.

One more, she wanted?

He cracked his palm once more on her taut rear. That wave of pain was enough to send them both over the edge.

It was an odd feeling, as his erection tried to pulse inside a tunnel that remained so tight. He was sure that Bree was having an orgasm, but it seemed to be the case that no part of her was twitching in time with the pulses that fired semen into her depths. Instead, she merely clenched him in a death grip, which was actually making it difficult for him to ejaculate.

Then he felt the shuddering again.

It was as if his orgasm, and her orgasm, were echoing back to them from far away.

'It's the others,' she whispered into his mind, 'we pushed them over the edge.'

'They feel us?'

'We feel them,' she answered noncommittally.

...

And then it was broken.

Bree, the runner, had finished her race.

"I hope we have enough time," she panted, "to come back around again. That was the best."

Bewildered, Zhair'lo could only stare at her as she pulled herself off his spent member. He'd run into loads of different women and his experience had so far indicated that there about as many sexual fetishes as they were human beings. Bree was yet another: a girl who wanted to fuck competitively, who viewed it a sort of sport.

She winked at him as she stood, forcing a crick out of her neck, and grabbing her discarded clothing before turning to walk down the length of the small room.

Zhair'lo watched her go, gorgeous muscles trembling all the way up her legs to the red spot he'd made in pleasuring her with those three strikes. He'd survived that at least, and hadn't even hyperventilated.

Reaching the bed at the front of the room, Bree evicted its female occupant, a girl whose features Zhair'lo couldn't make out in the candlelight. Not completely recovered from sex, the girl in question wobbled to her feet and went across to one of the other beds.