The Sighs of the Priestess Ch. 07

"I promised this to you last night when I put the gifts on you, Yanna, But if you need to hear it, then I promise this to you again." He reached forward to touch her hair for a moment. "I will always love you."

She'd felt her soft and gentle orgasm come to her again as he softly stroked her sides and flanks.

"You should let yourself go soon, my love," she said, "Do not hold back on my account. I think that I want to feel it when you let go, if I can. I want to know that I please you."

He leaned down for a moment and she felt his kiss against her ribs, "I spent inside you a little while ago, my Yanna, but I will stop soon, and I am always pleased by you."

She was surprised again, "But you made no sign of it, Illya. Was it good for you?"

His hands stroked her shoulders as he sighed to her, "Yes, of course. It is not always done with a lot of thrashing, Beauty. This was to show you how I feel, and that may be said in a whisper just as loudly, no? It was not so much for me as I tried to make you happier, though I still let my seed go as I went slowly. This was so that you might feel better and know that I love you so."

He smirked, "I could shout it, but your pretty ears are close by, so I whispered it and when it came time to let go, I did it without stopping. It had little to do with it, but you wept a little then and I almost wept as well, for you looked so happy. There was no need to stop and tell you that my seed was coming. That was the least important part of it to me."

"Ah," she purred, "thank you for the lesson. When we can, I want to try to show you my own quiet love." She smiled over her shoulder at him, "I do not know yet how I will do it, but I want this with you now."

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Early the next morning, several riders were seen to approach the city and the archers of the guard stood ready to engage them. But the riders came slowly, and that was out of nothing more that the fact that one of them was very unfamiliar with being on horseback. They stopped and staked their horses on a green patch and then approached nearer on foot. There were five of them and they lined themselves up, three men and two women.

Lugalbanda had chosen from among his ranks the ones who could be counted on to deliver the long shots that he wanted to send his message with today. Anat stood next to him, the proud captain of the female fighters who made up his wife's personal guard. Anat was prouder still whenever she could stand beside him in a fight of any sort.

To the right of Anat the fiery-maned Fox and the blonde-haired Wolf from the frozen north-lands far away stood holding their bows as well. He'd begun as a beaten and frightened boy. Fox had claimed him as a prize and had then immediately offered her heart. Under her guidance, he'd become a fierce warrior approaching Lugalbanda himself in size and strength. Like many peoples, the Martu loved legends. The bond between this pair was one of the most popular ones around the evening fires.

To Lugalbanda's left stood a tall and lean young man whose story was often asked for around the fires late at night now for it was known what he and his wild love had done for each other to come to the Ba'al's host. He was the newest of them to come to the bow, but he had a natural ability to make some amazing shots with the war bow that had been gifted to him when he'd needed it.

The sharper-eyed among the city guard noticed that there was a lot of good-natured banter and smiles passed between them.

Without their champion bowman, the city arrows fell far short, but they were noticed and the five began to answer in the still morning air. Men began to fall on the wall and before long, none of the guard stood in plain sight.

"This is too much," an older archer grumbled, "you young pups cannot reach that far and the two women among them can reach here to take our eyes out just as the men can!"

"Well if you do not like it," one of the younger ones groused right back at him, "then stand up and nail one of those pretty asses to show us how it may be done."

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"The sport grows harder now," Lugalbanda smiled. "Now we must pick and choose our marks. If you look carefully, you might see the ones who look out from the towers or hide behind the rooftops and peek. Try for these now, Illya."

He looked at the city wall. "Wait, see that one just standing up there? Shoot that one."

Caught by his own words, the archer drew back his bow, settling his sight picture on the woman with the long flaming red hair since she wore lighter armor than the others. He failed to notice that all five of them were aiming back at him now. He released his shot just as the red-haired one did and made to get behind cover quickly. It was too late even as he had the thought and he fell among his own unit with four arrows in him just before the arrow of his target flitted past where he's stood a moment earlier.

The five walked back to their horses and approached the gates, but then stopped and stood ready.

Far behind them on the plain, a single rider appeared to ride toward the city, but soon the single rider became three, and the three became nine. These stopped not far outside the city wall and a tenth stopped to stand with the archers. As soon as the city archers began to stand up, they began to die.

The nine riders raised their hands to the gates and the great hinges let go. Nisi-ini-su raised her hands then from where she stood with her husband and the gates blew inward with a groaning crash.

The nine riders turned and slowly rode to the next gate, and then the next, casting fire to leave the gates burning. No matter what was attempted, the fires burned, maintained by one dead rider until the wood was burned through quickly. The riders assembled outside the main gates again and sat waiting in silence.

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While the archers traded arrows, Yanna sat with the pair of fighters and asked for their advice. "I seek to know about two things from you if you would tell of them," she said. "Please, tell me about how I might make some sort of evening meal for Illya. I know that he would likely eat anything that I could present to him, but everything that I might have learned from my mother related to what could be made in a fine home. It is very different from how food is made here and from the little that I can see, I will need to know this way more than the other."

She shrugged, "We have nothing, he and I. He cannot live on nothing, no matter what he says to me. I can hunt for us easily as long as there is game, but I cannot drag a dead thing to him and say 'here is your dinner', can I?"

"That is easier than you might think," Smyrna said, "for it is the same thing, but everything is made more simply. You need to think that you might only have two pots and a fire pit. It can be done easily and goes much quicker. You cut everything thinner so that it cooks faster and you can eat sooner. We can show you. What is the other thing?"

"Loving a man" she said, "I know that I please him, but I want to be better at it." She looked down a little out of shame and for the admission of what was really bothering her. "I am so far from what I was and what a man should make love with. It may happen one day that I lose him to a ... real woman. I do not want the cause to be that I was not enough for him in our bed."

Daggat put her hand on Yanna's shoulder, "From the sounds that we all hear coming from your tent in the night, Yanna, neither of you will lose interest for a long while. If it happens, it will likely not even be over that, my friend, but I know what you mean to say. Look here," she said, "you tell me if I am wrong. Do you love him? Do you want and even need him to love you?" Yanna nodded and whispered, "Yes."

"Well the first thing that you really should think about is that he feels just like that about you," Daggat said. "He looks fair to any woman's eye, well, to most, anyway. I have seen women looking at him here in the camp. But Yanna, I can say this because I have seen that it is so -- he has no eyes for them, "she grinned, "not the way that he looks when he sees you. Have you woken in the night and wondered where he is for just one moment, and then found that he is as close to you as he can get?"

Yanna smiled shyly with a nod. "Yes. It happened just that way. I woke and wondered and was about to panic." She chuckled a little, remembering, "and then I found him with his head against my breast asleep and I was still in his arms. I felt like a fool, but I was happy then."

"I will tell you a little secret about many people in general, and many more men in particular, "Daggat smiled. "Most people, even when deeply in love, do not wish for the one that they love to be that close as they sleep. It is not something that can be helped and is only natural."

"Think a moment here, Yanna. The nights here are cool but they are not cold yet. He has no need to be that close because he desires to be warm. And yet," she pointed, "you found him close against you even so -- you -- a lovely girl who is covered in fur and has his heart. He must have been sweating, but he still needed to be that close to you. I think that it should tell you something about him. You are not the only one who is needing here. He needs you, Yanna. Ask him if you like. I think that he is such an honest one, and so open. I am sure that he would tell you much the same thing if he knows of it, so do not fear for this."

"Now, about loving a man ..."

They spent the rest of the morning talking and laughing. Yanna learned much.

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A bound and hooded man tried to sit up as he bounced in the back of a cart. He heard a voice telling him to lie still, but he was afraid and kept trying until a kick in the ribs convinced him to listen. When the cart stopped, he was pushed to his feet and the hood was removed. He stood blinking in the sunshine next to another man similarly bound. With a shock, the first man recognized the king.

A muscular warrior approached them and sat down on a boulder to begin to speak to the king.

"Mighty Hadanish," he said, offering a slightly mocking little bow as he sat, "I am General Lugalbanda. I took Uruk from you and now I take Khamazi as well. The city gates have been ruined so that any who wish to leave may go before I continue this. I might offer my scorn over how you were found last night -- without a goddess to be seen anywhere, but I am more interested in a certain sorcerer. Please tell me now of this Urgirinuna."

"He is a mighty wizard," the king said, seething with outrage, "He will come and free me so that I may watch as he brings the agony of your death to you."

The warrior smirked. "While you might have something to gain by spinning your hopeful lies to your subjects, I am not one who is impressed by your tales. Perhaps you need to be shown a simple truth here."

When the king was placed back on his feet, he felt his lips swelling and tasted his own blood in his mouth as his tongue explored the new space in his smile.

"We begin again," the warrior said without malice. He nodded, "So, then this sorcerer, this Urgirinuna, he works for you?"

"Yes," the man said haughtily, "he will burn your skin from you and he will --" He fell silent when Lugalbanda raised his hand.

"Half a moment, Hadanish," the general interrupted, "I try to understand this here, and I am too stupid and slow to do much of that while you threaten me. It mixes up my slow thoughts. If he works for you, then what does he receive from the bargain? I know something about sorcerers, and they hold themselves apart. None of them work for nothing and the ones who are really good set themselves a high price. What does Urgirinuna get for his service to you?"

"I gave him a fine home in the middle of the finest part of the city for his work. I gave him much."

"Ah," the general nodded again, "and did you visit him in this fine home? Did you allow him to catch young women for his work? He must need many to get the power that he wants."

The king shrugged, wondering what this fool was getting at. "I allowed him to take certain ones, yes, but they were only ones which ran the streets with the rats late at night. They are nothing but trouble for the guard."

"Sumerian?" the general suggested, "Were they all Sumerian women?"

The king shook his head, "No, of course not. The beggars among the people were not what he wanted, he told me. He wanted only the lowest of the streets, the race of witches and whores -"

The old man stopped suddenly when the general reached out and seized his jaw. "Have a care how you talk, old fool," he said coldly. "Look around you. You and I are the only Sumerians in this place and my heart is with these ones here. You stand now surrounded by Martu, and I am a priest of their cult. If you try to threaten me again, I may turn you into something," he ended with a joke.

He leaned back and pretended to think for a moment. "If you had concerns for the safety of your city, I think that you would have wanted to have words with the sorcerer, and your palace has too many ears, I think. All palaces do. So then you would have come to the wizard's home to speak in private to hear the assurances that you would need. Well, I can say that your trust in him was as misplaced as your boasts about the goddess Ianna. Both have forsaken you. This goddess will do nothing but watch the fall of Khamazi and the wizard is not here. But I know a few things, Hadanish. One of the things that I know is that the merchant here next to you is also of the people that you call the lowest, but in his case, there is truth to it, I think."

"You were the king of this place. As such, you are responsible for what was done there. This mage caused women to be captured and raped by your city guards and then he turned them into poor creatures for everyone's enjoyment but their own. I have found some who say that you visited there on occasion, so do not think to lie to me that you knew nothing of this. You were there, and so you must have walked directly past the poor women to get into the doorway. One look and anyone might guess that there is more than an animal to one of these creatures, and you have said that the mage had told you why he wanted only girls of one background."

He turned around, and a slender hooded figure nodded, "He was there. Four times, I saw him come."

The figure stepped forward to stand in front of the merchant and pulled back her hood before taking off the cloak and handing it to the leader of the assassins. She looked at the men for a moment and they saw the lines of her tears there on her dark feline face. It was clear to them in an instant that she was more than a human woman and yet at the same time, her feminine beauty could not be denied as she stood before them naked but for the jewelery that she wore, indicating that she was a married woman.

"This is what was done to me by that mage. I was caught on the street, raped by the guards and given to the wizard. Why, Father? There was money paid to you wasn't there? Why was I given over?"

"Why do you call me father?" the man asked, "I do not know you."

"Then what has happened to your wife, my mother, since you do not know me. Have you forgotten my name as well?"

He denied it all vehemently, but several of the ones there saw the lie in his face.

"I can help, I think," a woman said as she approached.

"Look, Father," Yanna said, "while you were busy with your gold, a new High Priestess has risen. See her hair, Father. She is Martu, her blood is pure Martu. And she has the same hair that I have. Did the wizard tell you that I am not your own blood? Did he tell you that my mother took a lover who was not Martu?"

She saw the answer in his eyes and slapped him. Her claws left long bloody lines across his face. "I hope it is true," she said, "if you believed the lies that were told to you and killed my mother and gave me over to have this done to me because of it. I wish that I had never known you. You would have been happier for it, surely."

"You are an idiot. Why do you think that he wanted me? The wizard wants only Martu girls for their power. If I was not pure Martu, he could not have done this to me. He knew what I was before he even spoke to you." She stepped close to the man and spit in his face. "My blood and my dark hair were the reasons that he wanted me. Even if what he told you was truth, why did I deserve this? What could I have done for you to cast me into that cage?"

The Priestess held up her hand to the merchant. "There is no lie that you can tell now," she said, "Tell it all to me -- everything that was said, everything that you did, and begin with what happened to the mother of Yanna."

He tried to lie regardless, but told everything once he learned that to try to lie only caused him pain. His mind was tortured every time that he attempted to say a lie. When it was over, he was on his knees, begging for mercy and an end to the torment. Yanna asked the Priestess for her opinion.

"It looks to me as if your father is a very greedy man and holds warm thoughts only for the gold in his purse. From what was said, he would have wanted to be rid of his obligations long ago. I will have a search made of the mud flats which he spoke of. Perhaps we can find a grave."

"Do not trouble yourself, my priestess," the cat said, "There is no grave and I am certain that her body is not there. I know why the place was chosen, but thank you for the thought."

Nisi-ini-su looked at her husband.

I agree," he said after a moment's thought, "and in any case, a man does not just decide things such as this -- in this way. I can see a low and thoughtless man just leaving without a word. I cannot see how the thought that one's daughter might not be one's blood changes anything of what was between the two for the love between a father and a daughter counts in this as well. And even if it was otherwise, the child had no choice in it. Why must the child be shunned or harmed?"

He looked to Yanna who shrugged, "I have never been as pretty to him as a bag of gold. My mother was close to me. My father had little time between his shop and the tavern."

The warrior looked down, "I still cannot see how the words of a mage and the offer of gold can cause a man to agree to this."

The priestess turned to the man and held up her hand again, "Tell me your thoughts of the young people of the town. Tell me what you think that they do every night in the street."

His twisted answers shocked them slightly and caused Illya turn away for a moment with clenched fists. He'd told himself that he would remain impassive, but to hear this ...

"Well since I lived there, and I am one of these corrupt and worthless young people that he talks of," Illya said with a smirk as he turned back, "I can say that I had little time for the things that he thinks are done in the night. We are all too busy trying to stay alive and warm at night for much of what he says. But I can tell you that there are those on the streets to be avoided. They are all Sumerian. The ones who beat helpless people to death or kill each other in drunkenness are not Martu. We learn early to avoid friendships with Sumerians in the alleyways and the taverns. One might have a Sumerian friend, but there are far more who hate us than like us, and if the city guard comes into it, well, I know that the jails here hold no Martu for more than a day. If they are not released by an order, or gotten out by any magical means, they are killed. It happens every day."

"Is it enough for you, Yanna?" Lugalbanda asked.

When she nodded, he said, "Then I give the judgment of these men over to you. I need the body of the king to show to the king who I do this for. Other than a piece which may be recognized by some, you may do as you will."