Kitara: A Tale of Leinyere

Finding his horse, he rode past a place of bawds and paused. "No, you must not tarry for your love waits." The thought of Jahane was a balm on his heart, if it did nothing for his libido. She suffered, and so would he. Chaste he would remain until he found her again.

***

The Journey south had been slow, but not terribly so. Weeks had passed and Jahane saw no one but her captors. Mahmoud steered them away from the typical paths of trade, from watering hole to watering hole, avoiding any who might take word back of her location. Jahane sighed at the realization, but she couldn't fault the man. He seemed a wise enough leader, certainly wise enough to avoid detection and that was something. He was altogether too loud, too quick to laugh, and too hairy for her taste. His poetry was fair, she admitted, and she had lost herself in his recounting of the founding of his tribe, but she told herself that was because there was precious little else to do but stare longingly out into the desert.

At least here, there were rocks to climb. She had loved climbing as a child, until her parents decided she was of an age where it was unseemly "to go about as a boy, climbing trees and buildings like a thief." At the past few wells, there had been rocky outcroppings and she had satisfied herself with climbing them. This well was a positive wonder. Far enough south, the late spring was not the burning almost-summer of the northern desert. Here, in a protected circle of rock, there were flowers and trees, drinking deep of the well. The winds from the East that normally would have robbed the air totally of its moisture were absent, and so plants easily took root. The group had stayed an extra day here, and she took the opportunity to find an animal path up the side where she might look down at the party below. About halfway up, she sat next to a bush with fat, ripe, purple berries.

The berries looked waxy, not totally appetizing and so she left them be for a moment. Instead, she rested her back against the cool stone of the rock wall. She heard someone approaching up the path but thought nothing of it. Turning she reached for one of the berries, thinking to sample it after all when her hand was met by a slap, swift as an adder strike.

"Don't touch that you idiot girl" Noreah's voice cracked like a whip, but when Jahane looked up the woman's eyes were wide with worry. Noreah knelt immediately "did you get any of it on your hands?" panic in her voice.

"No... no what is it?"

"It is death. The berries have a toxin in them so virulent that even touching them... your hand will burn like fire and then will be forever numb wherever they touched it. Assassins harvest it, but even they use gloves which they remove and burn immediately after." The older woman took her hands, turning them over as if she didn't believe the girl hadn't touched the fruit. "Eating it, from all accounts, causes your whole being to feel as If it is on fire, then there is a great numbness, then you cannot breathe and your heart stops"

"Gods above is everything trying to kill us here?" Jahane sighed. For weeks she had been admonished, "don't drink the bluish water it is poison" or "how many times must we teach you to check your boots for scorpions before you put them on?" It seemed to her that the desert itself was the least dangerous thing about.

"Near enough. You must be careful here, Jahane. It will be better in the south. Along the mountains. It is dry there but... there is some green. The animal life is friendly enough..."

"Everything is better in the south, you will see!" Jahane boomed out, in fair imitation of Mahmoud, arms akimbo and her generous chest thrust forward. The impression was close enough that Noreah laughed in spite of herself. "Is my lord and love such a joke to you?"

"I should keep that impression quiet, lest he spank me for it on our wedding night" Jahane grinned over at Noreah, forgetting for a moment to hate her. "Obviously now he can't as I'm a guest, but when I'm his to do with as he pleases, he may remember"

"I think you'll find he invents reasons to smack that round ass of yours" Noreah replied, "God knows were you my wife, I would"

"A shame you're not a man then. You could abscond with me, and two men would chase us."

Noreah got a strange look on her face and patted the girl's arm "enough of that" She smiled and stood "come, I'll make you something to eat."

"Is it more chickpeas? Do we eat anything but lamb and dried chickpeas?"

"Not on the hoof we don't." Noreah smiled "but if you're extra good I'll add some paprika to the chickpeas"

When the pair settled at the base of the path, Noreah called a minor spirit, and it blazed without fuel beneath a pan, in which she sizzled rendered lamb fat and set about making falafel in it. Jahane watched, in awe "how do you do that?"

"Call a spirit? Did your mother never teach you?"

"No, no spirits would come. The oasis is large enough to be a place for Marid, and the Marid never come when called. They are too proud."

"And too powerful by far.... Well..."

And so, for the rest of the afternoon, the two women huddled together as Noreah patiently attempted to teach the girl the necessary recitations to bring the spirits, and the girl failed utterly at them. Where another might have despaired, however, Jahane's teacher was kind and patient. "You are our guest, and as much as I want to throttle you for not pronouncing anything properly I cannot" the woman joked, but her warm tone and friendly smile made it apparent that she was laughing with, and not at the girl.

***

"Fuck me you limp wristed catamite" came the growl from beneath Mahmoud as he grabbed his wife's hips and entered her forcefully from behind. He moaned, imprisoned in her flesh, his teeth finding her neck and biting. "Fuck me like you're a man" she growled "Fuck me like I'm that beautiful boy Faisal" she teased, mocking.

"I'll stick this cock in your mouth, woman" he laughed as he started to move, fucking her with short hard strokes. Her toned body moved back, meeting each in measured time, understanding his rhythms instinctively "A Rawi is supposed to mouth the words of her Sha'ir, not spill nonsense and mixed metaphors into the night air for passing genies" he lifted a hand and brought it down hard on her bottom, the slap ringing through the desert night. The pair had slipped up to the top of the ridge, finally able to be alone.

"Fucking stick it in my mouth then, if you're man enough and think I won't bite it off"

"You love it too much"

"You have me there" she moaned and slid her body along his, taking him in deep with every thrust. She shifted, angling herself so the fat head of his cock slid across her spot deliciously with every meeting of their bodies "Though if it wasn't for your magnificent cock, I'd have left you long ago"

"And here I thought it was the purity of my soul that made you love me" he wrapped a fist in her hair, tugging her back to make her arch as he pounded into her, slaking a week's worth of lust in a frantic coupling.

"Your words ever will make me love you but love is just as sweet from afar. It is lust that requires proximity... so shut up and fuck me"

Mahmoud pulled his wife's hair back hard, making her arch as much as she could even as his hips pounded cock home into her. Her moans mingled with his, reaching a crescendo that echoed across the desert as he spilled into her and she trembled beneath him.

Some moments later, huddled in blankets against the cold of the winter's night, he asked "so what do you think?"

"I think she is amazing. She is lovely, not like porcelain but lovely and alive. She is witty, funny, sweet and kind. She is everything someone would want in a wife. Virtuous. Clever. Eager to please..."

"Are you jealous?"

"Of COURSE, I am jealous." Noreah retorted, more forcefully perhaps than she intended, and she repeated more softly "of course I am"

"My love, when we were ten years old, and you were standing defiant before that pack of boys by the fountain...with your unruly shock of black hair and your face set in grim determination... I knew it would always be you."

"I didn't say I was jealous of her Mahmoud" his wife teased, reaching back for him and stroking him slowly to life again.

He sighed as he entered her, gently this time, his hand sliding around to drag a finger across her clit "I suppose that you didn't, at that" he rocked into her, and as their breath picked up, he kissed the back of her neck. "It will always be you."

***

Faisal gritted his teeth and choked down another cup of the terrible coffee at the trade post. He had sat near a month now, wasted a month of precious time on this fool's errand, and yet the words of the witch were true. They had to be true, such was the compact. He had met many bitter women in that month, but none of them seemed to wield that bitterness as a weapon to wound. Most women of the desert had a sullen long-suffering silent bitterness that he just felt they quietly punished their husbands with. If he was wrong about that, well he'd met enough women that might have been his quarry to fill a small town with.

As he was about to rest for the night a woman entered. A westerner by her clothing, men's trousers and shirt covering the bright gossamer glint of mithril beneath. She was tall, over 6 foot if he was right in his estimate, and curling out from the scarf that obscured her features was a whisp of blonde hair and a pointed ear. Her eyes were the blue of the sky. An Elf. At her side was a sword, well made by the look of it. Emblazoned on the scabbard was a single rune, though he like the other desert dwellers could not read. The Sha'ir were a testimony to the power of the memorized and spoken word. Writing was a soft wetlander crutch. Poems and tales not worth remembering were not worth writing, and so what was the point of writing?

"I need a guide, to the east. Someone familiar with the land who can assist if I must leave the main roads" Her Qurayshi was excellent, if clipped and slightly accented. The men of the trading post leered "your hips are too narrow and your tits are too small. Come back when you're a real woman" one spat. The others laughed, and one said "She's woman enough for a few minutes"

A moment later she was upon him, smashing his nose with an elbow, then driving a thumb into his eye. A blur of motion as men leapt to their feet and she whipped her blade from its scabbard. Faisal thought, for a moment, he could hear a moan at the unsheathing. Even in the smoky haze of the trading post, it gleamed. Men thought better of their courage and left their compatriot, who begged for his life. Her blade slammed into her scabbard, and she looked around. Faisal alone sat watching her.

"What is the name of your blade, madam?" he asked.

"What?" she, taken aback.

"A blade so fine has a name, surely. What is its name?"

She said a word, an elven hors d'oeuvres flavored primarily with burnt almond. While he hadn't travelled extensively, he knew it. He sighed in response "then your path is mine, lady." The Jann had been more literal than he could have imagined.

"If you believe our paths are intertwined, boy, then I cannot take you. Whatever fool's errand you are on abandon it. My way is only sorrow."

"Sorrow or glory. Sorrow and glory. Does it matter where your path leads? I am already on it."

He stood, strapping on his own scimitar and looking her over. She regarded him with eyes as pale as a robin's egg. She adjusted her scarf "it is your life, however short and however bleak you choose to make it is I suppose your business." She responded, brusque. He felt though, in speaking, she had lifted a weight off her shoulders. She straightened, prouder in leaving than she was in entering. Like she could see the end of the road.

Jogging out, he asked "What is it, lady, that you seek to save me from?"

She turned "When the end is near, Kitara sends another. Another to wield the sword of bitterness, and drink from its cup. One way or another my journey ends soon." She sighed and set about tending to her horses, which were watering at the nearby spring. "It is not too late for you. If you avoid taking up the sword it will not lengthen my journey. Some other fool will chance by to take it up." She looked over at him "you seem a well-mannered young man. Go, settle down with some dusky hued girl and pump out children, as you humans are wont to do."

"That is just the reason I need the blade, when you come to the end of your road" he replied, not having known it but sure of it as soon as he spoke the words "For she is captured by another. Kitara sent you to answer my prayers"

"Kitara sent me to damn your soul, as I am damned. I have quested this last decade for my vengeance. I have naught to show for it but weariness and ruin."

"And yet, she sends you a sign that your journey ends soon"

"It may end in my death, and If I die without taking my vengeance upon my quarry, I will burn in her halls in the afterlife, tormented ever by my failure and her disappointment."

Faisal paused. He felt a weight settle on him, a hand of terrible destiny on his shoulder. He saw two roads, one heading south where he might join his father and brother, reclaim his sheep and marry another... but he saw too a road to the east. A road this paladin of vengeance had set down. "What shall I call you, lady"

"I have been chosen, and you may call me Chosen. Someday... you will be the chosen and I will be someone else."

He nodded, finding it fair "I shall lead us on then, Chosen. To the east and what might be found there."

Their journey was soon interrupted though, as men came thundering down the road, headed towards them. He recognized the surly lot, the men from the trading post gone and gotten friends. She turned to him; expression cool. "If any slip past me, you must tend to them. I will handle all between us and the East." And with that, the blade sprang free and it sang a terrible song, a wail of longing and terror that sent a shiver through him. Suddenly she was upon the band of men, and where her arm swung that awful blade hewed flesh and bone alike, shearing through man and horse and leaving ruin in its wake. None could stand before her, blades shattered under the force of her blows, which made Faisal start in his saddle. She was a willowy slip of a maid, and she should not be able to wreak such havoc.

With every swing, the keening of the awful blade grew louder as if it thirsted for death and could never be slaked. She was awash in blood, as was her horse. One of the men he thought dead rose and ambled towards her, picking up a discarded dagger with his left and only hand. Faisal sprung to action, riding him down and cutting his throat with a quick slash of his own blade.

The woman wheeled, noting his work "I thank you, Sir. The Bitter Blade will lay low all who are between me and my quarry, but even I do not have eyes in the back of my head."

"We should collect their..." he trailed off as she spurred her horse along the road "or not" he grumbled, "waste not want not, perhaps they haven't heard that in the Elven lands."

***

When the journey came at last to the mountains of the south, Jahane gasped. Nestled in a valley where they arrived everything was coated in a brilliant green, Grasses and trees lined the mountainsides, and small farms filled the valley floor "I thought your people all nomads" she asked Mahmoud, who grinned "by and large, yes. I found... and founded this community. The farms are not enough to sustain us and the animals during the hard winter months, and so some of my people stay and tend to the goats, feeding them fodder we grow in the valley... the rest of us make the circuit. We sell wool to the Elves in exchange for goods. We take those goods to Qasin, and make an even better price. With that money, we buy food and water enough for the band and we make our way around the desert. All the while, our competitors try to understand how our sheep who make that journey have such delicate wool."

"And they do not. It is some sheep in this valley"

"Something like that, clever girl"

"Do you not suspect I will tell?"

"Tell who? It has been two months"

Jahane glared at Mahmoud's back as he rode ahead, and Noreah put a hand on her arm "peace, girl. He does not mean to taunt you. In his mind, he'd have freed you by now. He considers it a foregone conclusion."

Truth be told, the girl could not help but feel his confidence was not misplaced. Noreah could see the despair in her eyes and gently took her hand "come. We will put you in a little house and we can practice summoning a fire spirit. It gets quite cold in the mountains and you'll want a fire."

Jahane brightened at the thought of something to do. Two months as a guest had worn on her. The long days of inactivity, enforced by the rudeness of working for her keep and the clucking tongues of the old women when she tried. She had nothing to think about besides her situation, and so practicing the magic of minor spirits was a good diversion. She was not talented at it, but she could manage the weakest of them with some effort. Here, without the need for travel, she hoped to achieve a basic competency. "Well, I can't say no to learning from the mistress" She laughed brightly, and was pleased to see the smile break across Noreah's sometimes severe face.

"I don't know about all that, but I will also teach you to kill a sheep if you like. We feast tonight."

Jahane shifted uncomfortably in the saddle "I thought your people did not kill animals" she was intensely curious about her captor's wife, but was straining at the bounds of guest courtesy by asking personal questions.

Noreah looked her in the eye "I have the surest hand. The animal suffers more when others do it." She shrugged "the lamb will die, if I kill it or not. The best result is that I send it swiftly and mercifully to its death. Then I purify myself while others eat, and I eat only the offal. In fact, all summer when I am here...I do not eat the meat at all. I do not have to in order to sustain myself and so I do not."

Jahane nodded "If you would teach me, then perhaps someone else would be as deft a hand, and it would spare you." She looked down at her hands "I may not always be a guest." The admission took much out of her. She had less than a moon left before she'd be married to Mahmoud, and there was no realistic hope that her love would save her in that time.

"He may come yet, your dashing Faisal" Noreah reached for the girl and took her hand.

"Would you prefer that?" Jahane asked quietly, not quite looking at Noreah. "You've already given him sons. He should be thankful for what he has."

"He is. Taking you... was not entirely his idea. Were it up to him he'd have me and only me. His cousin is the only rival though to lead the Nahasz. Mahmoud must have the respect of the men if he is to take the tribe after the passing of his father. He did not even pick you."

Jahane raised an eyebrow at that, and Noreah looked uneasy. The older woman paused "I picked you" and let the girl's hand go. "I had no idea... about Faisal. I knew about Selim. I knew you would be unhappy in your fate either way. I knew you were beautiful. I had seen you at the oasis, playing with the children. Keeping them in line, teaching them not to waste the water when they carried it home." She looked away "I am sorry. I thought... perhaps we might... make you happy here in time. It weighs on me."

The younger woman nodded, not letting her turmoil rise to her face. Noreah had been friendly, and she'd needed that. Now she knew her separation from Faisal was at her hand. It was a bitter pill to swallow. She sat quietly on her nag as they made their way into the green valley "well still." She sighed "you better show me how to do this thing."