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.
