Childhood Demons Ch. 05

Zhaeri hadn't ever thought of it this way before, but she could see it, knowing that A'ishah was right. Her way was all subtlety and even the occasional bits of sleight of hand when she worked her spells on A'ishah.

She still loved the way that she could hold the girl hanging from her as she held her from behind and toyed with her charms while A'ishah hung trapped in her arms, bucking slowly and yet crying out at the end almost as softly as a baby. So soft, that sound, and yet it said so much. So gentle, the way that it came out of her little lover as she felt that little backside touch up against her from the slow writhing motions that she made.

Either way, it was the same. No matter which of them had A'ishah, it always ended with her helpless and shuddering, mewling out her love so plaintively up to a point. Right there, her noises diverged, depending on which of them was having her as she'd said. With her, it was so soft that you had to almost listen for it.

With Koåhn, it was dramatic for the way that you could see A'ishah with her head thrown forward or back and her mouth wide open, lips drawn back, teeth in plain view, screaming with all that she had in her love.

So different – and yet it always said the same thing.

No matter how it was done or by whom, it always ended with A'ishah completely spent, shaking and weeping with emotion. You only had to see it once, no matter who was taking her and you wanted to weep in joy with her. Håkan could crush boulders if there was any weakness in the rock, yet as much as he loved to watch A'ishah being loved, he'd usually be sitting with warm tears running just to see it.

"In many ways, you have become our little darling," Zhaeri murmured, leaning her head down to rub her chin against A'ishah's head, "No matter what we do to you when we make love to you, it is not either of us who most often holds you gently afterward. Have you noticed this?

It is most always the other pair who take you into their arms then while you get your strength back. We let them, Koåhn and I, because it is plain to see that they need it then, just as you do."

She looked ahead again into the distance, "But that - as warm and wet as it makes me only to hear – is not what I meant earlier. I have been talking with Yasmikha again and a good thing that it happened too. There are two surprises coming with her and the blonde one.

I am sure that I'll hear all that I need to hear soon enough, but that one does not come alone with my sister. There are a pair of ... others along on that trip down the mountain."

She wouldn't say much more to A'ishah, not knowing if what she'd been told had been correct, but she did say that there would be likely three more to them and not only one.

She'd been making for a place in the higher foothills that she'd caught a glimpse of the other day. There were already plenty of slopes around them and given that it was warm near the flatter land at the bottom and cold up above, there was a fair bit of mixing of the air and it yielded two things – or sets of circumstances where they were.

There were pockets of fog where there was already patches of snow on the ground, and there were places where the wind blew and the fog couldn't gather. One took your visibility away and the other could take your breath with it's icy cold air.

Zhaeri wanted neither one particularly. She was looking for a spot which she'd gotten only a glimpse of, a place where horses might be sheltered for a night and also ... in that place – at the back of it – she'd sensed a flare of warmth from the earth, where the heat came not far from the surface. She knew that it would be a little warm there and it might offer a place for a weary group of travelers to spend a night before moving on to the coast in the morning.

Her attention was drawn to a thin figure out there up ahead a little way, what looked to be a large boy – or a smallish young man naked in the snow but for a pair of crude boots made of fur wrapped over his feet and tied with bits of hemp rope. He had a sort of bracelet on each wrist and one ankle was shackled, the chain stretching off out of sight.

He jumped up and down to try to get their attention and though he had little between his legs with which to draw a female's eyes, what was there was small and tight against him in the cold so that it hardly moved at all from his jumping and it drew A'ishah's attention anyway for the pitiful way that it jiggled as he danced.

A'ishah stared, "Look at that poor boy. Who would do that to anyone out here? Ride over there, Zhaeri. We have to try to free him."

The she-orc wasn't looking at him anymore as she shook her head. A'ishah looked up, feeling the motion and she wondered what had possessed her. She seemed to be looking everywhere but at the boy.

"Please – ride to him," Aishah pleaded, "He is freezing alive and just wearing that metal on him must make it all the colder. We must help him. Ride over there – "

Seeing that Zhaeri had other ideas, A'ishah was trying to squirm her way into getting one leg over the neck of the horse so that she could jump down. But she felt herself being held fast by Zhaeri, who still didn't look at the boy, though she leaned her head down just a little.

"You will stay here," she hissed sharply in a way that brooked no argument.

"This is a trap – and he is the bait."

She reined back the horse and as they stopped, Zhaeri became aware of a motion off to the side among some boulders.

There was a sharp cracking sound from beside them as a boulder began to move as though a giant hand was trying to pull it free from the earth's grasp and after a moment, the boulder flew away from them with a buzzing whoosh to crash against a man who had just stood up to level a rifle at them.

He disappeared from sight, crushed by the boulder which flew on, showing the wet reddish spot on one side of it as it tumbled through the air.

A second man jumped up from a rise of ground almost next to them and he was pointing a rifle as well.

Zhaeri weaved her right arm like she was hanging onto a chain with a great weight attached to it with the effort plain on her face as she heaved that weight around. The man looked to the side and prepared to jump away as the boulder now came hurtling back in his direction.

The speeding rock – easily a yard across - hit the embankment low and skipped off upward and then man grinned as he stood up and raised his rifle quickly.

But it ended as the boulder came straight down to land on him and stop.

There was silence for a moment then as the sounds which the boulder had made echoed from the hills in front of them and died away. The naked boy standing in the snow made no sound, his mouth hanging open.

"Zh-Zhaeri?" A'ishah whispered.

But Zhaeri sat holding her head with one hand, looking down at nothing.

A'ishah looked at the poor cold boy out there and she began to try again, "Zhae-"

"Hush!" the she-orc hissed at her and the Bedouin fell silent.

"Let me have a moment to feel ..." Zhaeri whispered, "His mind out there ... he wants to tell us ... warn us ... but he dares not speak."

After another moment, she looked up and to the left. There was a puff of smoke and then they heard the crack of a bullet passing very close by, followed by the boom of the shot. Zhaeri growled something low in her throat and threw her right hand forward in an overhand motion in that direction.

The sky, overcast evenly all day over them now held distinct and dark clouds scudding closer rapidly, hovering under the overcast and out of them three bright flashes came hurtling, snarling as they went, crackling, surging as they joined ... to bang down and strike the shooter. They carried on, snapping into several forks, which rippled across the small, bowl-shaped depression to strike two others before the bolt finally found it's way into the earth, leaving snow flying up wherever it found it's way down.

A'ishah winced at the brightness of the flash and the noise, but she saw it at the first man fell in several pieces. The others were lying motionless in the disturbed snow. All of them were smoking slightly and the hills rang with the crack of the thunder.

Zhaeri urged the horse forward and as they came on slowly, the boy tried to run away in the opposite direction, clearly in terror of them.

When he'd reached the end of his tether, A'ishah slid down and walked to him with a blanket. Zhaeri got down and walked off to the side where she took the chain in her hands and pulled it as though she was trying to get it to part.

It didn't part, not right away, though the single link that she focused on gave up after it glowed hotly for a moment. She hung on to the chain and pressed it into the snow beside the broken link to cool it before she let it go.

A'ishah was astounded when the boy ran off as fast as he could, trying to get as much distance between himself and them as possible.

"Let him go," Zhaeri said, "I think that he has nowhere to go and so he will come back after a time. We are not here to save naked young men – though I see that the idea pleases you," she smiled. "We must get to that dark line there in the rocks up ahead. I think there is room there to get the horses inside and then I will need to try to find my sister. Your bare boyfriend there will have to fend for himself until his brain tells him that his little bottom is about to freeze."

"What if he keeps on and gets lost?" A'ishah asked.

"He won't," the orc smiled, "There are those of my kind – females, you understand – who hold to the belief that males of all kinds are stupid. It has not been my own experience unless they were of our own kind, though my brother is brighter than any ten of those ones. The few human men that I have seen, most of them are not – most of the time, at least. That one will only follow after a time. It is the only choice that he really has.

Now go and take the rifles from those dead ones if you can. Leave any that look broken or in poor shape. And if you think that you have the stomach for it, my love, search them as you can for bullets as well."

They got back on the horse and rode forward and in a little while, A'ishah saw that it was as Zhaeri had said, there was a place in between a pair of large standing stones. From the front, it only looked like a dark line, but if you walked between them, the rest opened to your view and you were in a cave which was covered above for most of it's depth, and at the back, it was much warmer.

They got the horses settled as best they could after the struggle to get them inside in the first place and A'ishah tried to get a fire lit, seeing that the place had been a temporary home to many at one time or another. There was lots of dried wood lying around in rough piles. She was talking to herself as she worked, for Zhaeri had left her, going on foot to look for a likely path upward, hopefully the same one that her sister had walked upward on.

It took a little time, since the place was a bit damp and that had carried over to the wood, so A'ishah had to work at it, moving things around a little and waiting until eventually, she had it right and the little blaze began well. She warmed herself for a little while and muttered her own opinion over the intelligence - or lack thereof – displayed by naked young men in snowfields, since her thoughts kept returning to one thing.

The little bastard had run off with her blanket.

She looked around and by the light of the fire, she saw the source of the gentle gurgling that had come to her ears in the quiet – she just hadn't had the light to see with before. There was a steaming pool there. She looked up and saw that there was steam sliding along the ceiling over to a wide fissure where it went upwards, still inside the mountain. She smiled then, thinking that it was nice. She didn't need the humidity, but she did like the warmth.

In a little while, she found that their assailants must have used this place. She found bundles of clothing and a few bags of coins and some jewellery. That was when she heard the smallest gasp from a dark corner and when she looked, she saw a smallish figure, not much different in size to her move a little, trying to draw back into the darkness even more, but having run out with the cavern wall being already there.

A'ishah grew concerned, having neither anything to use as a weapon or Zhaeri to protect her. She picked up one of the rifles and ran to the little fire and drew out a stick which blazed brightly at the end. Armed with that, she stepped farther into the darkness near the back and held the burning stick high.

There was a girl there, chained and she began to weep and beg not to be harmed. It took a little trial and error, but A'ishah found that she could converse with her, once she'd gotten her a little calmed. Listening to her, A'ishah looked where she'd been told and came up with a set of old metal keys, very simple in design, but she found that one of them fit the shackles on the girl.

When she'd freed the prisoner, she learned a little and they exchanged names. Zahra, as the one was called, promised eternal gratitude if she was not to be A'ishah's prisoner. She stared then as A'ishah laughed and told her that she was lower than Zahra appeared to be, having been a slave, so she didn't want to hear about anything of the sort where that sort of thing was concerned.

She led Zahra to the warm water and told her to bathe so that she might feel better and A'ishah would see what sort of clothes she could find lying around. Zahra nodded, still looking as though she was in disbelief at being freed and they talked. During that time, A'ishah learned much.

Eventually, she drifted toward the opening and looked out. As she did, she saw him again, dipping down to hide behind a rise in the snow some yards out.

This time, A'ishah didn't do a thing. She just stood there, leaning against one of the pillars with her arms crossed as she watched.

He popped up again and seeing her looking at him, he dropped down out of sight once more. But his face showed again an instant later, a little nearer this time. A'ishah stared at him a little, still wondering about him and how his misfortune had happened.

She could tell herself many things about him stealing her blanket. She knew that it wasn't really anything like that. She'd been a little scared herself at what Zhaeri had done. Who wouldn't be? She lived with the girl and it had been a shock to see all of that.

As he came nearer, clearly still worried, though he must have seen Zhaeri walk off, he tried to speak to A'ishah and a couple of things became a little clear to her.

There wasn't a lot of depth to his voice, but she liked to hear it, as nervous as he clearly was, and ... he was beautiful – very beautiful for a male, with a straight nose and thin, obviously carefully-plucked eyebrows over almond-shaped eyes and a very pleasant-looking, rather feminine mouth in a male face and oddly enough, it all suited him.

He didn't look so ... effeminate as he perhaps appeared otherworldly, in much the same way as his sister did without the influence of clothing to sway the observer's thoughts. They both had absurdly long hair, dark brown, so dark that it appeared black and it did to A'ishah, but that was here. In the glare of noonday sunlight, the brown could be seen.

As it was here, it looked black and what could be seen at the front of his head was long enough to get in the way sometimes – long enough to be pushed behind an ear. But the rest ... it was in a long thick braid at the back of his head and it hung down so that it brushed his bottom when he walked. Here was another difference between the siblings, for Zahra's hair was just as long, but she braided it into three at the back, though the braids were thinner in diameter.

It didn't matter in any case. When they walked, their hips moved in motions evocative of two-legged panthers; not quick and yet not slow ... but they drew the eye then, their hair gliding across their golden buttocks. One might call the effect distracting to watch. It all depended upon the observer and his or her state of mind.

Some might call it a little maddening.

Eventually, just as Zhaeri had said, his need for a little warmth overcame whatever else he had going on inside of him and he came closer, still trying to talk to her, trying to see into the cave around her and looking very worried about something.

Finally, A'ishah just told him to calm himself. "I have found Zahra, so stop worrying over your sister and come inside."

He looked relieved, though still nervous.

"What is your name?" she asked, "Just give me one that I might have something to call you by."

"Kasim," he mumbled, but she smiled, "I am A'ishah and you are frozen. Come."

A'ishah held out her hand and taking his in it, she pulled him inside with him dragging the chain still there on his ankle and stood him before the fire. He looked so apprehensive then, wanting to feel the heat, but being a little shy at the same time. She walked off and came back with the keys and one of them fit to open the shackle with – the last one, of course.

"Oh, open the blanket, at least," A'ishah chuckled, "I have already seen all of your charms, so there is no point to hiding now. Surely I deserve a little thrill for what I have done for you."

He looked like he wanted to – but ...

Zahra ran up to him and hugged him, so concerned at how cold he was. A'ishah stepped up to him and took the blanket from him slowly, talking to him all the while and telling him as best she could that he'd get warmer more quickly without it in here. Then, as she pretended to look for something in her pack, she looked back and saw that he stood trying to get warm and that it would take a little while even still. She walked back toward him and when he noticed it, he tried to hide himself with the blanket again and she let him because she was shocked. Before he'd noticed her coming back, she'd seen what she was certain was dried semen on his backside.

He'd covered that part of himself well enough, but she stepped around in front of him and reached down before he'd realized what she was trying to do. He almost jumped back at her touch, but she had her hand on his shoulder as she reached in and felt the tip of his penis for a moment. Her thumb slipped just inside of his foreskin and when she drew it back, she looked at what was on her thumb and another part of his mystery fell away and left her feeling a little sorry for him again.

A'ishah had lived in a brothel. She knew that males – even though they might not have enjoyed what was done to them, often ejaculated from it anyway. From his face, he looked shamed that she knew, so she wanted him to know that it caused her to feel for him, but she found no way to say it easily, so she said nothing about that part of it.

The next little while was spent with her telling him that she'd once been the same and if he'd allow it, she'd do what she could to help him. That took an even longer time, but eventually, the pair stood naked together in the warm water as she bathed him, surprising him for the way that she drew his foreskin back to wash him even there. Zahra stood nearby, talking to Kasim and telling him to allow A'ishah to help. At that, he finally began to talk more and try harder to make himself understood.

She heard a lot of their story and they got to hear hers. She told them of the nature of the strange girl that Kasim had seen her with and they stepped out of the hot pool together, much more comfortable with each other and all of them a little pleased that A'ishah had washed and clean off the traces of how he'd been used before she and Zhaeri had gotten there. She had him standing with his feet apart as she'd found something to use.