Ravencrag was not even close to what Lora had thought it would be. She had heard stories of a luxurious and gleaming palace that would burn the unrighteous if they dared to touch it and warrior women that wore armor forged by anjels with walls that dwarfed even the mountains themselves.
In reality it was a sprawling city-like structure surrounded by a stone wall that connected to the cliffs behind it. They entered through a gate that was even unguarded and the moat outside of the wall was filled with the contents of slop buckets and privies that made her nose wrinkle.
Women of all shapes and sizes worked within the wall. She saw that some sewed, some cooked and most just went about their daily lives. She saw no great warriors, no weapons that could smite evil or anything all that different from a regular town, except that there were no men.
"This is Ravencrag?" Asked Lora.
"I know she is not much to look at now, but the Citadel is near the back of the city, which is going to be far more impressive than anything you have seen in your entire life." Said Kelli with a grin. "Half the reason I am a jangler is to see the look on first timer's faces."
At this Lora brightened.
"Word of this doesn't get around much, but the Citadel simply is too small to hold all the sisters anymore. The city was created so that we can take on more recruits and to feed, clothe and train them."
"What happens if the demons attack?" Asked Lora "There wasn't even a guard at the gate."
"The city is deemed expendable in an attack." Kelli's jaw clenched at this. "It is actually a defensive measure beyond the wall as well."
"What do you mean? I think I could climb that wall and sneak in if I wanted to." Said Lora.
"Well, demons are not ones for subtlety or stealth, so a sneak attack is not really a concern. Demons are creatures of impulses, they have to be whipped into line by their masters to even accomplish the simplest tasks." Said Kelli. "Simply put, they would be too distracted raping and pillaging to even think about the Citadel before we had our army here to crush them."
"So all of this, all of these women are just here to be raped in case of a demon attack? That is awful!" Lora said, looking around.
"No, that is only the most dire of their roles. They help to support all of the warriors, soldiers and officers so that they can defend the world. Many of them are like you." Kelli said, pointing to Lora. " people who have lost everything and have nowhere else to go."
They walked the winding streets in silence. The city was not that crowded, but was constructed as if it were a megalopolis like Siluntar or Theopolis. Lora began to see the defensive measures that Kelli had been talking about, hidden in the very construction of the city and buildings.
The winding streets prevented anyone from reaching the Citadel (which she hadn't seen yet) from a direct route. The tops of the buildings had slots for archers to snipe from and spears were everywhere as decorations so that in case of an attack, no woman was unarmed for long.
"This place is more than a rape pit isn't it? The city is designed with no direct route to the center and there are fortifications everywhere." Said Lora.
"Very good, every woman in this city is trained to kill demons. The demons may be intent on penetrating us, but I can guarantee that a true Valkyrie will take down five times her number in demons before they get to her."
Lora saw a gleaming white edifice rise out of the morass of the city, it had a red roof and was not the fortress that Lora had been told about.
"Is that the citadel over there?" Asked Lora.
"No, that is just the Women's House." Said Kelli with a smile. "Although we let everyone who is not a Valkyrie think it is. That way the demons have a false target to attack."
"What is the Women's House?" Asked Lora. "I have never heard such a thing."
"Why do you pester me with questions? The entire journey you are so silent you are almost bad company and now that you are here you want to learn everything in the first hour."
"I didn't know what I didn't know, so I thought I would wait and see what everything was like."
"Well that is actually a horrible way to learn about the world. If you are going to be asking questions you need to be asking them constantly. The reason a Valkyrie is worth five demons is that she is learned, she knows to plan and strike swiftly. She lays traps and ambushes and she does all this by constantly finding out what she doesn't know so that one day when her life depends on having a knowledge she can use it to kill demons." said Kelli.
Lora was silent for a moment.
"You still haven't answered my question."
"Very good Lora. You are perceptive and I think that will take you far in Ravencrag." Kelli thought for a moment while Lora waited for her answer. "You must know by now that men have needs that only a woman can satisfy."
"Woman's hands work too. I have had a load of semen spurted on my face enough times to know that too."
"Right, sometimes you are so normal that I forget what you have come from. But the opposite is true as well. Women have needs that the rest of the world thinks can only be met by a man and as you can see, there are no men here." Said Kelli.
"You mean there are women in that place that have, um, male equipment?" Said Lora shocked and more than a little curious.
Kelli started laughing so loud that a passing woman in armor frowned, probably because she wasn't in on the joke. Or maybe because she thought it was about her.
Lora pouted until Kelli had finished laughing.
"I have never actually heard it put that way, but it is not what you think. The ladies of the House only have the female parts, but they have apparatus and machines that can simulate the male parts. Fingers work as well."
At this Lora blushed and began to feel the heat of desire stir in her body. She had long ago figured out what fingers were good for and had secretly pleasured herself in the dormitory of the brothel many times, fantasizing about a farm hand that had worked on her family's land before she was taken away.
"Lovers meet there too. It keeps things from getting out of hand in all the rest of the city. Women meeting and fucking all over the place is no good because then no work gets done. And what if half of the city is fucking each other during an alert or an attack?" Said Kelli. "Having the House ensures that we all have a place to go when it is appropriate to do so."
"Are many of the women here, um..." Began Lora, but she faltered.
"You mean how many of us are into tits and pussy?" Laughed Kelli. "I really do think everyone tries it at least once. Some more than others. I prefer to think of a woman's sexuality as a moving target that changes with the phases of the moon. On the Goddess day I am sure that everyone visits the House at least once for the orgy."
Lora coughed and blushed even more as Kelli watched bemusedly.
"There is an orgy to celebrate the Goddess?" Said Lora incredulously when she had recovered a bit.
"Can you think of a better way to honor the giver of life than in the most carnal way possible?"
"We just used to dance around in short skirts and put flowers on everything." Said Lora. "We also paint gourds and bake cakes to celebrate Her sweet bounty."
"Well, outside the city it is not so appropriate to have an orgy, so the people make do with watching you young girls prance around and shake your assets for the men to pleasure themselves to later on." Kelli grinned as Lora seemed lost in thought. "You didn't thought it was weird that the young boys never pranced around for the women?"
"I guess not. I never thought the Goddess being so... perverted." Said Lora, her mind busy comprehending the new way she could see the world.
Kelli frowned.
"It is only perverted if you let yourself be tied to the ways outside of Ravencrag. Where women are cheap and men cheaper to use them." She spat at the ground. "The Goddess has given us something beautiful and those old men in Theopolis are so bitter they can't get any that they make everyone feel sinful for the gift of our Goddess."
They walked in silence for a few minutes. The girl had a lot to think about, mostly sexual love. It was something that she had never experienced nor hoped for while a girl nor in the brothel. She had fantasies of a gallant knight coming to get his dick wet but taking pity on both sisters and whisking them away. It was ridiculous, but it helped to get her off after scrubbing the cum from her face for the next man.
Lora began to wonder if the Citadel was even real, or if it was if they were ever going to get there. It seemed like they had walked through the gates hours ago. Just when Lora felt as if she should say something to Kelli, the jangler stopped at the top of a set of stairs.
When Lora reached her, what she saw took her breath away. It was then that she realized that the cliffs that bordered the town
were
the Citadel. They were carved with doorways and paths that wound through the entire cliff face. Paintings of Furies, warriors and anjels decorated the smooth surface at the bottoms of the cliffs, worn down by what must have been generations of stone workers.
Lora craned her neck back and saw that the windows and doorways stretched impossibly high above her head. She saw women warriors all over the place in their gleaming armor that accentuated each woman's breasts and curves. Clearly each woman had her armor made and maintained specifically for her. Lora had never seen such a wondrous thing in all her life.
"Everyone is speechless their first time Lora." Grinned Kelli.
"How do we get up, there are no doors near the bottom and that smooth stone there won't allow us to climb up."
"Look closer." was all Kelli would say.
Lora squinted and strained her eyes, hoping to see what was happening at the wall. She saw the little figures of people and was astonished at the scale of the Citadel. That was when she saw little baskets being lowered all over the the side of the citadel. She saw the little figures of people being hoisted up in the baskets and stopping at the lowest levels of the citadel to drop them off.
