Witch Bone and the Mongol Queen Ch. 02

"No, my khan, we shall only lose a horde of old imbeciles who have been shaming the legacy of the Great Khan for some twenty years or more," the Kara-Khitan girl replied. Her voice was hard and alien, like the drone of a wasp in the air.

The rich man swore again. "What the fuck do you know about war, girl? Make yourself useful before those damn Chinese find us. Get me a new horse. I broke my ankle when my last one was shot out from under me."

"Those who show their backs upon a field of slaughter make the best moving targets, or so I have been told."

"Shut your mouth before I have these men shut it for you!"

The tall girl dropped the point of her stick to the earth and stared at the others soberly.

"You give commands as if you still sat in your mother's ger, Une-Calada Khan. If it weren't for imbeciles like you we might have destroyed Lady Linshui today."

"Yanhan!" roared the khan from the ground, his narrow face crimsoning, "I will not listen to this insolent female! I'll have you flayed alive, are you listening to me?"

"O, I am listening, Une-Calada. I listened when you shouted down the Parliament of the Steppes in our council of war," snarled the girl, her eyes glittering dangerously. "I listened when you called Odval of the Choros a 'know-nothing woman' because she urged the Parliament to allow her to lead the main assault with her tribe. I listened when you had the ear of that fool of a Grand Vizier from Persia, Ubaid al-Jayyani, so that in the end he commanded you to lead the charge that ruined us all. Now you -- who turned coward quicker than anyone else when you saw what your stupidity had done to the army of the Great Khan -- now you order me to hold my tongue?"

"Yes, you Kara-Khitan bitch!" screamed the man, convulsed with fury and pain. "You shall pay for this!"

"O, I'll pay," said the young girl, feeling blood-red rage roil up from behind her eyes. "You have heaped insults upon my people ever since we joined this regiment. I am not afraid to die, provided I get to settle our score first."

The nearest Mongolian bodyguard stepped forward, drawing his sword and reaching out toward the girl's arm. Before he could stretch his fingers, however, the girl's bamboo flickered in her hand and stabbed into his wrist. The swordsman shouted in surprise, felt a white-hot pain against his suddenly broken wrist and dropped his sword. The bamboo flickered upward, followed by another stab, this time into the man's right eye. The bodyguard screamed as he covered his gouged-out eyeball with his one good hand.

The girl's movement might have been as simple as a dance step but for some reason the second swordsman could not block nor even avoid her bamboo either. The other five bodyguards took a collective step backwards. One of them yanked out his sword and attempted to thrust it toward the girl's beautiful face. As the sword tip leaped up and forward a loud swoosh, indicating the power behind the thrust, filled the air.

The girl did not even move, save a single flick of the wrist. This time she stabbed at the man's shoulder, crushing the bone. The jab was so fast that although it started after the initial thrust, it arrived well before the sword reached its target. The bodyguard cried out in pain as well and felt all his strength flee out of his arm. Then the girl's wrist flashed again and the bamboo buried itself into his eye socket. The man fell to the ground, rolling about. Fatima saw that, even though the Kara-Khitan moved too fast to be seen clearly, her techniques were clearly derived from some sort of fighting skill.

"Yavj boovu saa!" The lame lord, clutching his leg, cried out. "There is only one girl and four men! Why don't you kill her?"

"Even if the odds were forty against one it would not be enough for you to stop me," their young opponent replied.

The girl's left hand lifted slightly and the bamboo thrust toward yet another swordsman's eye. Three swords were quickly drawn, naked steel all, and the men sped toward her. The girl moved nimbly, deflecting all three, then she counterattacked. Soon all her assailants were half-blind and smitten, laying groveling in the dirt.

"Novsh min!" The khan bellowed, paling, trying to scramble up on his knees and reach for his sword. But even as he did so, the Kara-Khitan girl struck and the man's scream was cut short in a ghastly crunch as the bamboo came down upon his skull, cracking it neatly like an egg.

"Cheers, my friend, cheers!"

At the sound of a stranger moving out from her hiding place the bamboo wielding girl wheeled about, pointing the tip of her stick forward like a spear. For a tense moment the two women eyed each other; the younger warrior standing above her fallen victims, some alive, some dead, and the older Borjigin sitting upon her saddle like a stone carving.

"I am a Borjigin and a follower of baatuun," Fatima explained, using the ancient Mongolian term for a band of heroes. "I am no vassal of the Chinese Emperor. My arrows are in their quiver. I have need of a woman who is both wise and deadly. I represent someone who can offer you anything you might desire."

"I desire only bloody vengeance upon the skull of Lady Linshui," murmured the girl.

The dark eyes of the Borjigin glittered. She had the quick sensation of slipping her hands around the strange girl's hips, one hand fondling her breasts through her deel while the other slipped between her legs. Fatima wondered if the girl was a virgin. Probably not, few warriors ever are, but one never knew in this day and age. Fatima loved making virgins cum. She could see herself kissing the girl's neck, sucking and nibbling her round jawline. A wet moment of desire washed over Fatima and she blinked.

"Then come with me, darling girl. My lady is the sworn enemy of that Taoist sorceress."

"Tell me, who is your lady?" asked the Kara-Khitan suspiciously.

"She is called the Mad One," answered Fatima with a smile. "Turakina the Divooneh, the granddaughter of Genghis Khan, Khatun of all the Borjigins."

"So ... you speak on behalf of our queen?" the girl asked, her suspicion changing to astonishment. "What brings you out to this empty wasteland?"

"Just because Genghis Khan's sons were all syphilitic eunuchs and parasites upon the empire does not mean his daughters sat around being meek and mild. Will you come and serve your Khatun in our people's time of need, my friend?"

The Kara-Khitan turned her head in the direction of the distant screaming which told her that the slaughter of prisoners was still going on. She despised the killing of those who honorably surrendered, only to find even that had turned against them. She stood still for an instant; a small bronze statue and even the wind appeared unable to touch her. What was she feeling? Excitement? Bemusement? Indifference? Fatima had no way of knowing. Then the other relaxed her grip on her stick and looked at the Borjigin.

"I will go with you," she said. That was all.

Fatima grinned with pleasure, leaning forward she gave Saru'sinul-tu, for that was who it was, the reins of the captured Mongolian horse. The Kara-Khitan swung into the saddle and glanced inquiringly at Fatima. What was that look? Certainly not desire, not the way Fatima was feeling right now, but ... it might have been something else. Some thing ..? the Borjigin motioned with her helmeted head, then trotted away down the slope. The two women cantered swiftly into the gathering dusk, leaving behind them the ruins of the battle of Qaraqata, fought on the plains of Xi Xia. The battle would rage for another two days and nights and end with Qaidu Khan and his daughter, Khutulun, coming to a stand-still with the army of Lady Linshui. But the Borjigin woman and the Kara-Khitan girl would not know of those events, not yet, at any rate.

They camped only once on their trek across the Gobi, for the desert is a sweltering place, even at night in February.

Mongolian male and female warriors wore similar items of clothing: bulky trousers; a large tunic jacket called a deel secured by a few buttons over their right breast; leather-bound boots that came up to the knees. Underneath all this they wore a twisted thong of cotton that left very little to the imagination. These two particular women came from a long line of female warriors. It was said that when Genghis Khan's beloved first wife, Borte, rode into battle against hostile Arabian raiders while six months pregnant she exposed her breasts and round belly and beat her chest with her bow and arrows, so frightening the Muslims that they surrendered without spilling any blood.

That night, La noche del pecado, as the Spanish would say, the two women sat together around a small fire, naked save for their twisted thongs of cotton between their legs. The Kara-Khitan had consented to let Fatima undo her long braided hair and was combing the oil of sweet nuts through it, to prevent lice. Lice might be an issue for some but the Borjigin had solved the problem herself by simply shaving her head uncharacteristically bald. Let the Chinese be obsessed over tiny, bound feet; for a Mongol all female beauty and erotic symbolism rested upon a woman's visible face. Broad foreheads were especially fetishized by smearing yellow powder across them, making anyone as beautiful as Lady Ot, the goddess of the fire and the moon.

"Ah, my daughter has perfect, beautiful hair," Fatima said, sitting behind the girl and running her shell and ivory comb through the thick mane.

"My mother, do not tease me, everyone can see my hair is dirty and ratty."

This talk was, as they say, ritual. Older women in the tribe were, naturally, pleased to extol the beauty of their younger female offspring, while the girls in turn would praise the wisdom of their mothers and grandmothers. Sitting in their gers, large yurt-like tents the nomads carried with them, it did not matter if the mothers and daughters were blood kin or not, everyone who lived on the steppes and followed the path of the stars was related, in one way or another. Every girl was her tribe's daughter, every woman their mother.

Fatima took a handful of the girl's thick hair and brought it up to her nose. Borjigins did not enjoy perfumes, as a rule. The natural musk and odor of the body was the best aphrodisiac. The Kara-Khitan smelled slightly of nut oil, but mainly of eighteen years of hard living. Fire and blood could be found in her scent, horse and desert and slaughter -- all the things that made life worth living.

"My daughter has many perfect, fascinating scars," marveled Fatima, her hands running over the old sword cuts and ancient wounds inflicted from a dozen different battles that adorned the girl's arms and thighs. It was obvious the girl did not mind the exploration, for she simply sighed a little louder at the touch and shifted her wide ass in the hot sand.

"My daughter has perfect, hard nipples," Fatima purred in her ear, reaching around and cupping the small breasts in the calloused palms of her hands.

"Ma -- my -- my mother -- O! uhhh ..."

The girl panted, her eyes partly closed, her mouth open, her tongue hanging down as she felt her flesh pinched, the juice of exhilaration stirring deep between her legs. The older woman pulled on her nipples, large and soft and brown. They stood out hard in the hot night air, waiting eagerly for fingers or lips to suckle on them, to tease them, to stir them alive. Already the twisted thong of cotton pressing in-between her shaggy cunt lips was soaked.

"My daughter is such a hairy girl," Fatima said huskily, her fingers slipping down between the splayed-open legs. It was a forest jungle that she entered; a dark triangle overflowing the cottony creases of her thong. The girl's clit was long and quite erect. Fatima pulled the fabric to one side and held the clit gently between her thumb and forefinger, starting to move her fingers in a slow, lazy figure-8.

The Kara-Khitan hissed, her fingers digging into the sand.

Fatima's tongue traced a brutal half-moon a Chinese scimitar had once carved into the girl's left shoulder blade. Sweat built up between them; girl-cum ran down their thighs. Somewhere in the endless stars overhead the young woman, leaning back, thought she saw a pair of celestial eyes looking down on them. It sent shivers down her spine but she couldn't tell if it was the intoxication of being watched or finger-fucked that made her head swim just so at that particular moment.

Fatima pressed the girl forward, bending her over, getting her onto her hands and knees, presenting her gushing cunt to to the stars and moon. She rubbed her tongue around the girl's lower lips, bathing her own mouth in cum, teasing her. The Kara-Khitan turned her head to one side, stared up at the heavens. She was sure she saw the eyes now, yes. They were watching. The whole damn world was watching her cum.

"My daughter ... tastes ... so ... nice," murmured the Borjigin from deep within the quaggy marshlands of the girl's pubes. Saru'sinul-tu cried out, her muscular thighs pinning the older woman's head like a wrestler, clamping her lips onto her clit, cumming for all that she was worth.

They slept that night in each others' arms and by the time the sun was sinking below the western hills on the next night they stood on a crest of a rise overlooking a desert city, studying its spires and minarets covered in turquoise, that iconic blue-green stone. Fatima drew in her reins and sat motionless for a moment, sighing deeply as she drank in the familiar sight. As metropolises went, it certainly could not compete with mighty Beijing, in China, but she would take it over the Persian city of Khorasam or Nishapur in Iran. It was a nomad's city and that meant hard-won pleasure.

"Karakorum," Fatima announced.

"We have traveled far, my mother," answered her young companion. Fatima smiled.

Saru'sinul-tu eyed her guide. Even after sex the Borjigin's attire was remained filthy, her expression remained exhausted; her eyes, though, continued to sparkle. The Kara-Khitan regarded the view, voicelessly; recalling the days and nights of ceaseless riding as they passed across the Gobi. She had followed Fatima, unquestioningly, even before their peccadillo on the plains. They passed over vindictive mountains and bypassed enemy patrols they happened upon in the eyeless wilderness. They passed around hills where the hot southern wind blew, that led them into wastelands of steppes. Saru'sinul-tu's memories of the time were of the cantering of hoofs, orgasms, sun. Saru'sinul-tu marveled at the remote distance that had led them to the oasis of blue spires that marked their journey's end. Vast was the empire of the female regent, the woman called Turakina the Divooneh.

The two riders traveled down into the plain and worked their way between the lines of caravans and ox herders, whose drivers and shepherds shouted unceasingly, all bound for the Great Cobalt Gate. These were merchants ready to sell spices, silks and jewels: the merchandise of India and China, of Persia and Europe.

"All the world rides the road to Karakorum," said Fatima, nodding.

They passed through the wide turquoise-inlaid gate and rode through the winding streets, past clay-built apartments and bazaars thronged with the people of a thousand tribes and a hundred races. The Kara-Khitan saw figures from the mysterious reaches of the north; the stocky Yakuts with the rolling gait of a lifetime spent in the saddle; Cathayans in robes of silk; round-faced Kipchak soldiers. She saw turbaned Arabs, lean Syrians, hawk-faced Indians, languid Persians, swaggering Afghans.

Saru'sinul-tu's wonder grew as they turned into a wide gateway, guarded by terracotta camels. There they gave their horses to Muslim grooms, walked along a winding path lined with ancient green palms. The Kara-Khitan, looking between the trunks, saw fountains jetting arches of water against the endless blue sky. At last they came to the royal palace, gleaming white and gold in the noonday sun. They passed between columns of marble, entering the inner-chambers with walls decorated in delicate reliefs by Persian and Armenian artistry.

In a blue-domed room that looked out through stone windows upon a long line of broad, shaded, garden paths the two women stopped. There muscular attendants took their weapons and led them between a double row of mute eunuchs in snow-tiger loincloths, half-men who held two-handed scimitars between their beefy thighs. At the far end of the room Fatima knelt before a figure seated on a plush divan. Saru'sinul-tu, however, stood silently erect.

The Kara-Khitan looked closely at the woman on the divan; was this, then, the all-powerful Toregene? She beheld a woman in the prime of life, with a wide sweep of hair pinned under a conical hat crowed with a fanciful knot. As with almost all Borjigin women, her deel could hardly conceal her colossus breasts. She did not sit cross-legged as was the habit for Muslims, nor with one leg tucked under the other as was the way of other Mongol tribes. There was power in every line of her being. Her crisp black hair was untouched with gray despite the stress of attempting to unify her people. There was something wolfish in her appearance, thought the girl, that suggested the soul of the everlasting nomad.

"Speak, my darling Fatima," the khatun commanded in a low voice. "Vultures have flown westward, but we have yet to hear any reports and what took place at the front."

"My lady, we rode before the slaughter had even finished," answered the older warrior. "That news shall travel slowly on the caravan roads. What I shall tell you is that a great battle has been fought in the foothills of the land of our enemies; that Lady Linshui has broken the army of the Une-Calada."

"I thought as much. The man was a fool. Tell me, Fatima, who stands beside you?" asked Turakina, resting her chin on her palm and fixing her deep eyes upon Saru'sinul-tu.

"A warrior of the Kara-Khitan clan who escaped the slaughter," answered Fatima. "She alone found Une-Calada and his rabble and extracted justice for his outrage against the Great Khan's person."

"A curious tale, indeed. Why did you bring her to me?"

"It was my thought that she would aid you, my lady, when the time is right."

"What are you called, Kara-Khitan?" asked the khatun. "What is your title?"

"I am Saru'sinul-tu," answered the girl. "I come from the east of the Gobi, where the last of the Kara-Khitans have made their khanate. I have no title, neither in my own land nor in the army that I once followed."

"Why do you come to see me?"

"Lady Fatima told me that you could offer me anything I might desire."

"And what is it that you desire the most?"

"Vengeance."

"Against whom?"

"Lady Linshui, the demon vassal and general of the Emperor of China, the one whose enemies have named her the Witch Bone."

Turakina let her chin sink down upon her massive breasts for a moment and in the silence Saru'sinul-tu heard the silvery tinkle of a fountain in the courtyard and the musical voice of a Persian poet singing on a morin khuur, a curious two-stringed lute.

Finally the Borjigin queen lifted her head.

"Sit down with Lady Fatima upon this divan close at my left hand," said she. "Tell me about your life and then I will instruct you in how to destroy a demon."

"My Khatun," Saru'sinul-tu began, bowing to the Mongol queen. "I am no story teller but I shall sing to you a poem my mother taught me on the eve that I left home. I hope this small thing pleases."

The Kara Khitan bent a little, as if to draw in air to her lungs. Fatima smiled and licked her lips, she had yet to wash the taste of the girl's cunt from them, a taste more intoxicating than airag, the fermented mare's milk the Mongol habitually guzzled down in large quantities.