Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 27

"Madra Zen," the Sorceress whispered as she closed her eyes.

"Has the Temple of Gern ever fallen?" Maksa asked.

Her eyes still closed, Pussy shook her head.

"What Temple fell most recently?" Maksa asked. "I need one that's near here."

"We would have to check records," Pussy opened her eyes very slowly. "But I believe it was Beshenna, although it was quickly restored."

"How long ago?"

"Nearly two centuries."

"I'll need to requisition some records from them."

"You shall have it," the Sorceress stood more firmly now. "You shall have all you need for this purpose."

-===================-

After six hours in the sun, going over spear fighting basics and then practising maintaining a phalanx, Talla and her fellow Virgins and Initiates stumbled out of Form to make their laborious way across the Goddess's Domain.

The mood, as she and V'shika joined up with Tina, was on a downward spiral.

Talla had felt so clever, not just to have divined the presence of the Synergist room's secret vent, but to have found the gods damned thing. And her cleverness had fallen to pieces, like a sweet smelling coffee turning bitter when it hit her taste buds.

"We're done," V'shika sighed, her bare shoulders slumped as she slouched along on Talla's left.

"It's not that bad," Tina gave a suspicious glare across Talla's body from the right. "Yesterday you were a lot happier."

"I was too optimistic," V'shika shrugged. "Do you have any ideas now?"

"Talla will think of something," Tina said hopefully. "You will, won't you?"

Talla tried not to roll her eyes, but failed at that, too. Scrubbing her hair with fingers still dusty from the training in Form, she took a long time to think before responding.

"We need to be clever," she said. "And I'm all out of clever right now."

"To be clever," Tina pointed out, "we need to know things. We don't know enough yet, so we learn."

The other girls failed to respond to this in any way at all.

"Think about this," Tina demanded. "You two have only been part of the Temple for, what, a few months now? You've barely learned anything and you already hit on one weak spot, right?"

Talla acknowledged this with a sarcastic grin while V'shika kept her eyes down.

"So we learn more," Tina insisted, her voice lowering to a determined whisper. "Read all the books you can. Study all the history you can. We'll read about Temples that have fallen and see what weaknesses they have - who exploited those weaknesses and how."

There was tic in Talla's chin, then, although she didn't meet Tina's eyes.

"A daunting task you've set," Talla whispered weakly.

But Tina saw the ice slowly returning to her friend's eyes.

"Spoken like my Mistress," she replied.

-===================-

On any other day, the predictability of being Served by Del would drive Zhair'lo nuts. Today, though, when his arms were killing him and his brain knew Del had a simple programme for being on top, he contented himself with the pairing.

All eight of them had stumbled into their quarters exhausted after a day of sword training. It spoke well for the harshness of the first day that the five kilometre patrol to the nearest way station, followed by the obligatory return march, had been the relaxing part of the day. Zhair'lo wasn't sure he could do a pushup at this point, never mind manage a proper hip thrust from such a position.

Zhair'lo entertained the idea that, since the girls all had at least one Iron upgrade, they could probably withstand being collapsed upon. A quick look around the room told him that none of them wanted to risk it.

Regardless of their exhaustion, at least one round in bed was required. No one had given them such an order, but habit died hard.

Del leaned her face over his, step thirty-seven or so of the girl-on-top program, so they could kiss. Her arms had no more strength than his at this point, so she braced herself on her elbows to keep from smashing their faces together.

A tingle ran through the mesh as their tongues met. While Zhair'lo found it pleasant, it was ecstasy for Del with her single Facial upgrade.

"Curious choice," he said, when she pulled away to bat her eyelashes at him.

"What's that?"

"Facial."

Del shrugged. "You take what you can get sometimes."

Then she kissed him again, much more gently, as if to make a show of what her talents delivered.

"It's only a drag for you," she said, "if you're really into spanking."

"Not really my thing," Zhair'lo cast his eyes aside.

"Bree and Tara are Tight," Del said. "I'm sure you give them what they need."

"And to you what you need."

He wasn't so weak that he couldn't put his hands to the back of her neck and pull her down so he could reach her ears with his lips. Sucking gently on her ear lobes, he felt her throat vibrate in response. Deep inside her, muscles tightened around his erection.

This, then, was the right spot for Del.

Zhair'lo let his tongue poke out from between his lips. Playfully, as if tickled, Del tried to pull away, but he held her as he traced a line around the edge of her ear.

She cooed loudly in return, a sharp contrast to harsher grunts around the room. When Zhair'lo began to nibble on her ears, Del started giggling uncontrollably. For a breathless heartbeat, he wavered uncertainly upon his course of action, but he felt her vagina suddenly clamp down on him and she let out a screech of joy.

As she came, and the orgasm echoed through him, he bit down on the ear that she pushed into his waiting teeth. He didn't relent, chewing continuously on her flesh as he expelled himself inside her.

When she collapsed on his chest, a laugh came from the next bed.

"What the hell was that, Del?" Bree intruded.

"Nothing," Del's buried her red face in Zhair'lo neck. She added, in a whisper, "That was new."

"Yes."

Zhair'lo went to sleep well assured that he had made some small contribution to Standard Way of Doing Things that Del would probably someday make into one of those books the women were always reading.

-===================-

Later in the night, long after the Recruits had passed out, Saren lay in the bunk provided to him by the soldiers of Gern, pondering his future in the comfort of beige pillows and neatly folded off-white blankets.

It hadn't been clear, at first, that he merited a future. While they hadn't gone to the trouble of killing him, they hadn't enlightened him regarding his fate either. All day long, soldiers had been coming in pairs - one of each gender - to remove his tribemates from their shared cell. The cold, logical part of his brain judged it unlikely they were being put to death as Gern had demonstrated its abilities in that regard and yet had refrained from killing anyone other than Chet.

No, they were doing something to the men, one at a time, and they would eventually come for him. Knowing he couldn't affect his circumstances, he waited, trapped inside this stone building with its heavy, wooden door locked from the outside.

But neither could he sleep and so he stared at the sand coloured ceiling, watching the light of a lone candle flickering away in the night.

Consequently Saren experienced both joy and fear when, shortly after the bell had chimed eleven times, he heard the heavy latch being removed from the outside of the door.

The heavy oak slid smoothly past its stone casement with barely a creak and a woman clothed in ornate orange robes slipped into the room.

When Saren propped himself up on his elbows, he realized that these Temple women forced him to reevaluate the way he thought of half the human race.

Even if the woman had been standing still, she still exuded obvious, external qualities he would have noticed from a hundred metres away. She sported muscles that hadn't been built from hanging laundry, hefting a frying pan or any of the standard female duties. Aside from that, her blonde hair shimmered in the candlelight, a level of gloss that would never show on a woman unless she was as clean as these city women tended to be.

But if he only observed her standing in one place, he knew he wouldn't get even half the story. From the moment she stepped into the room, Saren felt her confidence in the length of her stride and the width of her stance.

Briefly, he sensed a sneer in the way she turned her chin up to look down at him. An instinct twitched inside Saren and made his stomach lurch with fear. In a flash of insight, an image of Chet filtered into his mind, their old leader with his penchant for leering down at everyone in a style of condescension he seemed to own. Saren realized in a moment of honesty that this woman, in her loose and scant orange clothing, merely held her head level, as no woman in his experience ever had. Doing so, however, exceeded his experience with women by so much it had triggered thoughts of old Chet.

"Your name is Saren," her voice flowed out of her in a gentle sigh.

He watched her eyes, trying to see through them to the person behind. In those hazel circles with their wide darkness-dilated pupils, there brewed a thick potion of sympathy, kindness and an emotion that looked much like duty. She sat on the bunk next to him, the panels of orange fabric that made up her clothing split to bare her thighs, leaving her a place to rest her clasped hands. In the candlelight, her skin was a tanned bronze.

"Who are you?" Saren sat up to face her.

"My name is Valtoza," her voice breathed patience. "You must have questions?"

"I suppose," he scratched his temple thoughtfully, "I want to know what you plan for me."

"You are not worried about your fellows?"

"Not particularly," Saren grimaced. "Though I wonder if you've seen Berel."

"Berel and Merelda are both in our care. You were friends?"

Saren wondered what sort of game all this entailed: a woman coming in here, mostly naked, and playing with him like this.

"Yes," Saren said. "Almost like brothers. We were planning on leaving that lot."

He jerked his head dismissively toward the door, the assumed general direction of his fellow tribesmen.

"But you did not?" her voice contained no hint of judgement.

"He wouldn't leave without his sister," Saren's lip twisted in frustration. "And then the whole thing fell apart and Chet -"

"Chet is dead," Valtoza cut across him swiftly. "We don't put up with that sort of thing. Not in general, and especially we don't tolerate men who beat on pregnant women."

"Yeah, I was there."

"Indeed," she inclined her head and her expression softened once more.

"So where are they?"

"Berel is resting," Valtoza leaned forward earnestly, her shimmering blonde hair bringing with it an intoxicating bouquet of fruit scents. "When he awakens, he will find a place in Gern. Merelda and Willow are also doing just fine. We expect her foot to heal in time."

Saren felt dizzy for a moment and twitched his head to clear his mind.

"Willow?"

"Her baby."

"Ah."

They paused for a moment, looking into each others' eyes.

"And will you find a place for me in your city?"

"I expect so, yes," she nodded serenely. "There is a place for every man and every woman."

"That sounds like a phrase you use often."

"That everyone has a place?" she asked. "Yes. It is an Axiom. Do you not have such sayings where you come from?"

"Not so much," Saren shook his head. "Chet was more of a 'do such-and-such or I'll kill you' kind of leader."

"Ah. How sad," she blinked slowly at him and let her expression drift from sadness to a faint smile.

"So you're here to do what?" he turned his head a bit to the side to peer at Valtoza. "You want to figure out what I'm good at so I can work for you?"

She shook her head and the smile playing across her lips strengthened.

"I am here to ... Serve you ... to share a bed? How do your people say it?"

Saren started at that.

Next, he coughed politely to cover for it.

"You have been with a woman before, in that way?"

"I ... no ... I have no wife," he tried to hold on to his composure. "Won't your husband be angry?"

Valtoza's smile, as breathtaking as the rest of her, nearly spilled into laughter.

"There are no husbands and wives here. No one owns anyone."

"And if I put a child in you?"

"That will not happen," her voice became stern and knowing. "Women have children when they want to and only then."

"Some magic?" Saren twitched suspiciously.

"Something like that," she assured him.

"So ...?"

"I think," she eyed him curiously and her expression softened, "that you are separate from the others."

"What gave me away?"

"Your attitude, your diction and your relations," Valtoza twisted her lips. "In that order."

"I've never really managed to stay in one place," Saren admitted. "I don't get along well with most of the people I run across."

"Yet they accept you rather than drive you out or kill you."

"I'm useful," Saren tilted his head and twitched one eyebrow.

"I'm sure we'll find out later," Valtoza brushed all conversation aside with a wave of her hand. She moved to sit in the scant space beside him on his bunk. "Perhaps you should lie on your back. I will try to be gentle."

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words issued forth. Instead, Valtoza's hand touched his shoulder and firmly pushed him backwards. Saren couldn't be sure if he gave way so easily because of her strength or his shock.

"It's better this way," she began unlacing the beige shorts the soldiers had given him. "There will be no bad habits to unlearn."

"You're actually going to -"

"Yes," she said. "It is our way, as you will see."

She reached around behind her neck to undo a clasp. Layers of orange cloth, individually nearly transparent but opaque in combination, slid gently over her flesh, falling in a pool around her waist as they slowly revealed her breasts.

Saren let out a gasp. In his life, he'd seen many breasts, mainly as a consequence of the low quality garments available to his tribemates. It meant little to him to catch such a glance through threadbare cloth or cleavage displayed by a low-hanging shirt. Valtoza, however, had a fine, hard body, and though her breasts were not the largest he had ever seen, they were smooth, held high by her chest muscles, and tipped with a fine pair of sharp, pink nipples planted in a wide, unblemished areola.

"Huh," he repeated, gulping.

Her fingers traced gentle lines over his plain white underwear, stroking the erection that was coming unbidden.

"It is good you are not shy," she said.

"Neither are you," he pointed out.

"No one here is shy about such things."

"You don't say."

She stroked him a while longer, first with one fingertip, then two.

"You should touch me, too," Valtoza pitched her voice strangely, in a way that delivered instruction without conveying insult. Zhair'lo would have recognized the tone instantly as one used by the Temple's teachers, but Saren had never met women who knew how to give directions.

Carefully, unsure of any of the rules or mysteries that went between men and women, he extended one hand to touch her bare waist. Her skin was smooth around her stomach and touching it sent a chill up his arm.

Valtoza smiled in a way that let him know both her appreciation for his touch and her desire for greater boldness. Her hand, busy between his legs, now surrounded his erection with thumb and forefinger, still moving gently along its length.

Saren slid his hand up from her waist to touch her ribs and from there to press gently at the outermost swell of her breasts. When Valtoza blinked slowly and murmured in response, Saren took it as permission to slide his hand over her breast, his palm gently touching her nipple, which stiffened as she shivered.

"You understand very well," she said softly, tightening her grip.

"Do I? Maybe by accident," he continued making soft circles over nipple.

"There is wisdom in using the smallest amount of force necessary."

That, Saren decided, was probably one of the Axioms she'd spoken of earlier. It ought to be, at least.

Impatience seemed to overcome Valtoza as Saren noticed that her face had reddened. She slid his underwear down his legs and set his erection free. With an enthusiastic smile, she slid down the length of the bunk to sit beside his knees. It took her breasts out of range of his hands, but allowed her to lean over his erection and look at it closely.

At least that's what Saren thought she was doing, right up until her tongue snaked out of her mouth and traced a meandering route from the base of his shaft of to the tip.

He let out another gasp and felt his penis twitch, lifting itself away from his stomach to lightly tap Valtoza on the chin.

"Ah," she said in wary surprise. "We'd better get that inside quickly."

Valtoza stood up beside the bunk suddenly, the flowing orange sheets of fabric that had covered her chest slid further down, overlapping with the pieces of cloth covering her lower body. There was only one other clasp to undo and the whole ensemble floated down, drifting gently around her body like a collection of auburn maple keys spinning about their stem.

Saren didn't have any breath left with which to gasp, but merely stared dumbfounded at the nude woman before him, the neat patch of blonde hair between her legs matching exactly with the hair on her head. He'd caught glances of women down there, too, but none had ever been as clean and smooth as what he saw then. A part of him was glad he'd never taken a wife.

In a moment, she had straddled him.

"I believe you are ready," she breathed, her small breasts swinging lightly before his eyes.

"I believe that, too," he choked out.

"Good."

Saren had no idea what to expect in this regard. The anatomy of a man aroused he well understood, for he could satisfy his own body. As to what transpired between men and women, he had only a vague idea of structure and angles, for he had joined and left many tribes and not everyone cared for privacy.

So when Valtoza pushed herself down and he felt her wet lips part around his erection, he shivered in anticipation. She engulfed him, hot and wet, and full of ridges both hard and soft along the tunnel into her belly.

Then a tingling hit him in a way which he could not adequately describe.

It started between his legs, travelled up his spine and started to work inside his head.

Emphatically, he knew he was not experiencing an orgasm. He knew this because he'd given himself such in his times of need and there was none of the spasmodic jerking, nor the feeling of sudden relief.

This was something other.

He felt himself go away and come back, even as he remained aware of the gyration of Valtoza's hips and the sensations of her insides twisting and squeezing at his erection.

Insides his head, she pushed his thoughts around. He could feel himself ... changing, or maybe ... being changed. Valtoza was a rake and a hoe, toiling at the garden in his mind. There was no pain, as of the grinding of digging, but he was conscious of the gentle touch of a weed pulled, a furrow ploughed and a seed planted. Still, a part of his mind resisted, rejecting the change. But he could no more resist it than soil could resist a plough pulled by a dozen oxen.

Valtoza carried out alterations, and Saren felt it, but only for a moment.

Then his thoughts were occluded, his vision went white, and he knew nothing for a long, long time.

-===================-

The next day, while Saren slept, the Recruits ran.

Zhair'lo thought a day of mere running would be a relief , so the amount of pain sore arms caused while running double patrols surprised him.

The following day was consumed by further sword training, slashing and stabbing at wooden dummies again. If he tried hard enough, Zhair'lo could imagine that his increasing strength made the second day easier.