The Last Lagharis Pt. 06

He knelt before her, cutting his extraordinary height down to size. "I am here to serve you, and to deliver a message and a plea. I have heard of your order to attack the runaway camp, and I wish to intercede."

Misha smelled the spicy scent of body oil and realized that she was wrong about him having a tan. His skin looked darker because he had been oiled up. That meant he was here to seduce her. She approved of the effort. "Well, Gavriil, now that I see you, I remember that it's been some time since I had a good back massage." She shed her coat, lay down on her gathered blankets and stretched out on her stomach. "Help me to relax, and I will hear you."

He did not hesitate. He did not rush into it either. He laid his fingertips on her bare skin, getting her used to the warm, feather-light touch.

Instantly, Misha felt relaxed. Gavriil was cool and calm as always, and that coolness transmitted through his fingertips. Under his hands, everything felt more manageable. More secure.

Once she was warmed up, he placed his palms on her bare back and molded her, shaped her into a more comfortable form. She stretched out like a cat and let him.

"I understand," he said, "that under your leadership, your clan grew from almost nothing. This gives you great pride, yes?"

"Yes," she purred. She knew he was only trying to stoke her pride, and she did not mind.

"It gives me pride too, to be part of it. We are honorable. Always, we've been clean. And these runaways, the Tumbleweed women, they are just like us." Misha was not surprised to hear that from him. She knew his past. His first experience of war had been as a child, when he and his family fled a marauding army. In response to a disaster like that, most men would've hardened their hearts, but Gavriil had softened his. He felt the preciousness of every human life. He felt it so keenly that he refused to pick up a weapon, instead taking a role as camp doctor.

With a lazy hand, Misha motioned him to stop massaging her. She sat up, drunk with how good it felt to relax, and she took off her boots. She motioned him to kneel, and without a word he understood what she wanted. He sank to his knees in front of her, took up her right foot and bathed it with a warm cloth that was close at hand in a pot. Once her foot was clean, he kissed it.

Misha leaned her head back. If his fingertips had felt nice, then his lips felt heavenly. They brushed the top of her foot, traveled down the side and finally kissed her soul.

"You see?" he said, between kisses. "To take from the runaways, to destroy them, it would be like destroying ourselves."

Misha allowed herself a second longer to enjoy his kissing, then she answered him. "Do you know what I was before I was a warlord?" She did not look at him for a response. "I was a goatherd. And my brother, a farmer. We scratched what crops we could from the mountain slopes and slaughtered animals to eat. The priestesses spat at us for eating meat, but the soil there is so poor, we had no choice."

Gavriil slid away her trousers to expose her bare legs, and his tongue traced a warm streak up her calf. Although she wasn't done, Misha couldn't help but pause and shudder with pleasure.

Then she went on, "I have gained so much. The sole reason I descended from the mountain was that our brother died, and my sister and I had no one to marry off for a dowry. No hope of gold that we might spend to marry husbands of our own. When I made my descent, it was my highest ambition to come back with two men. One for me, and one for my sister." She glanced down at the oiled, muscled titan of a man who worshipped her feet. "But I have grown so much. The Lagharis are legends. Our proper place is on a battlefield, conquering. Our ancestresses would have wept to see the poverty my siblings and I shared, and which my sister still suffers through, in spite the invitation I sent to her to join me. I will never go back to that."

Gavriil's effort stalled. He looked up at her with plain horror. He ran his tongue up her leg, but it was a limp, insincere effort, and it gave Misha no pleasure. So she took control. She put a hand on his head to get his attention. With her other hand, she patted the blankets next to her. "On your back, man."

Even though he looked crestfallen, he obeyed. He set down her leg and rose to his feet to take a few steps forward, only to sink to his knees again. He could have simply crawled, but he chose to look more dignified. Misha liked that. She also liked watching his ass flex as he twisted onto his back.

After Gavriil had so expertly stoked her desire, Misha was not patient. She whipped off the last of her clothing, threw a leg over him insinuated her hands under his split coat. A moment ago, she had planned to strip him completely, but now she found that she liked the velvety texture of his coat on the backs of her hands. She found his belt, worked it open and pulled his covering down.

Now she reached into her pot and fished out a sheepgut sleeve. Then she took up Gavriil's cock in her left hand. She did not tease and cradle it, but only gripped it and stroked its full height. The sleeve touched his tip and unrolled over his shaft, and in an instant, his cock was sheathed, infertile and ready for lovemaking.

She sat on his lap, pressing his cock against his stomach, feeling its firmness against the lips of her pussy. Then she raised herself a little, stood up his cock with one hand and mounted it. "Oh, yes!" she barked.

Even now, as she claimed this choice man for the hundredth time, she did not lose control. As she rode him, she looked down at him, at his vast, delicious body. "Look at me now!" she said. "I am the leader of my own clan. I rule hundreds of warriors. I can take you any time I like. I can take any man! Mine for the taking!" She gave a yelp of pleasure and slowed her pace a little. Her bucking, which had been a little too fast to be enjoyable, slowed to a smooth, easy rhythm. She could feel his cock more subtly now, pressing and rubbing her walls deliciously. "But I won't stop at this. I will outdo my ancestresses. Let the gods be my witness--I will become queen by my own hand."

"Misha, please," said Gavriil. "You are risking everything by doing this! All the power and glory..." he said those last few words with a distinct discomfort. "Every time you go to war, you are risking it all!"

She planted her hands on his chest, and the breath went wheezing out of him. "Yes. I am!" she said. "Just like a true Laghari!" She kept him pinned for a moment, then released him and reached down to her own sex. She began stroking herself.

"Please don't do it," was all Gavriil could say, and she ignored him. With his cock squeezed between her walls and the crackling delight she felt in her clitoris, she could barely feel anything else. She heard him grunt and then climax. She allowed it take hold of him, to push his seed against the cover over his cock while she stroked herself. And then she came down from her height. She released Gavriil's cock and eased herself down next to him. With an arm over his chest, she held him tight.

Gavriil was silent for a while. Then he whispered to her, "If you back away from this, I'll be yours. I will marry you and go home with you. I will be a good husband. It is what you wanted when you came down from the mountain, yes?"

Misha looked at him, at the desperate earnestness in his eyes. She propped herself on her arms and chuckled. "But my dear Gavriil, you are already mine!" And she kissed him and mounted him again.

Misha was glad they were doing this. She was in the mood for an easy victory, a high note on which to end the campaign season. The Tumbleweed village was not far now. 'Let them spot us,' she thought. It would do them no good. Their village had plenty of thieves, murderers and she-whores, but how many warriors? Even Enkhtuya had been silent about her tribe's ability to make war, which was the same as admitting that they had none.

They came within bowshot, and the mounted archers fired. Misha followed them but loosed no arrows of her own. She flattered herself to think she was a good markswoman, but from horseback her aim was hopeless. Her only role was as leader and tactician. She would contribute nothing to this battle except its outcome.

The warriors of the Tumbleweed Tribe had prepared surprisingly well. Slanted wooden barriers shielded from arrows, and they popped out and fired. Uselessly, of course--there weren't enough of them to mass a good volley--but this was a better effort than she'd expected.

Misha heard howling and the clopping of hooves. Too many hooves to be her own force, and for that matter, the din came from behind her. Turning her head, she saw black-hooded riders behind her and to her left. They brandished scimitars and spears, and the ones in back took potshots with bows. Before Misha could react, they crashed into her warriors, taking them from behind, meeting barely any resistance.

"Form a circle!" It was all Misha could think to do, attacked from both sides on flat terrain.

It was already too late for that. The black-cloaks pressed their advantage and split Misha's raiders, scattered them. A few braves clustered together, but they would have done better to flee. They kept moving and shot their bows, and one of them glanced at Misha, a begging look on her face as if to say, 'What now?'

Misha did not know what to do. As her mind scrambled for an answer, she felt a terrible weight crush into the back of her left leg. It startled her so badly that she lost her balance, her horse spooked and she tumbled wailing to the ground.

Now the rout began. Her warriors fled in a panic, some of them having the presence of mind to turn at the waist and fire back. Many others did not shoot. Many others did not even pay attention to where they were going and were intercepted and brought down like Misha.

It wrenched at her to watch her warriors abandon her. All the trust and unity she'd built up had been shattered by loss. Danger had reduced her warriors to scared animals, and scared animals had no loyalty. Misha tried again to get up, to load her crossbow, but she found that her leg was so stiff that she couldn't, so she sat, unable to move, and watched as the black-cloaks overtook her.

They did not kill her. Instead, they wrestled her to her feet--she yelped in pain--and muscled her to a little pit with the rest of the defeated. One by one, surrendered warriors were pulled from the pit and clapped into chains. Yangchen was next to her, the novice nun who'd run away from her mountain cloister to join Misha's company. So was Boshay, the drunk girl who Misha and her gang had pulled from the gutter and cleaned up. Boshay had always said that the company was the best thing that ever happened to her. She probably didn't feel that way now. And past her, Zigsa, the husband and fellow warrior of Tara, clenched his right hand and bit back moans of pain. Misha wondered where Tara was.

The pit was surrounded by a circle of warriors who kept in the prisoners with aimed spears and hissed threats. But Misha could see past their legs, and she saw a woman she recognized, Mother Enkhtuya. And she saw her shaking hands with one of the black-cloaked men.

"Of course," Misha hissed. Enkhtuya had gone to the leader of the black-cloaks and made him the same offer she'd made Misha. And Misha had failed to predict it, and she'd brought her warriors into a trap.

Misha felt misery. It was not just the frustration of loss, or even the despair she'd felt in her early days after coming down from the mountain. She felt a great, hideous weight on her shoulders, the weight of knowing this was her fault. She had contributed nothing to this battle except its dismal outcome. Earlier, it had thrilled her, the idea of risking everything. But now it hit home that her loss was her company's loss too. She had promised to keep her warriors safe from this.

The pain in Misha's leg dulled, allowing her thoughts to expand. It occurred to her that, if she had been in the conqueror's place instead of her own, she would have loved all of this. She would have delighted in victory and gloated over the captives. She would have seen Zigsa and offered to pay his captor to be the first one to ravish him. But now that she was on the losing side, it all seemed gross. Obscene. She wondered how many people her clan had put in this position.

"Misha?"

That was Chaaru's voice. For a moment, Misha was delighted, then she turned to see Chaaru weighed down by shackles and a steel collar, and her heart fell again. She wished Jalil could be there to comfort her, but he wasn't. Chaaru was alone.

"Misha, what's the plan now?"

Chaaru still trusted her. Her eyes held nothing but pure, patient faith. Misha couldn't bring herself to betray that trust--more than she already had, at least. So she started thinking. "These collars have locks, but I see no keys. It would take a locksmith to remove them."

"Or a lockpick!"

"We will have to wait until there is some place to hide. And there's nowhere to hide here. And you'll need help, and money to buy that help. We would have to rob our captors. Then, when the time is right, we will slip you away, and I will distract them so you can make good."

"Wait, no, how are you getting out?"

Misha shrugged. "Later."

A few years ago, Misha would've gotten away with that lie. But Chaaru caught it. Her eyes widened, and her jaw fell. "Misha... don't you want to get out?"

"I deserve this, Chaaru. I deserve it because all of this is my fault."

Chaaru opened her mouth to argue, tempered herself and looked at the ground. "Oh. Well... I'm here for you. Whatever you need me to do."

Yangchen tapped Chaaru's shoulder to warn her of something, and she and Chaaru both skittered away to the far side of the pit. Misha felt gloved hands seize her by shoulder and yank her out of the pit, where she was brought to a pile of steel rings. It was her turn to be collared.

Mother Enkhtuya was just beyond the pile, pretending not to notice Misha. "You fulfilled your promise," she said to the black-cloaked leader. "These slaves are yours. Now leave with them, and never prey on my women again. If you don't, then the next time we are attacked, we will send for you again."

The black-cloak looked over his shoulder at Misha and grinned. "Not likely the raiders'll be such fine flesh as this."

The headwoman looked at Misha and smirked coldly. "Indeed. You've reaped a rich harvest."

* * *

On the night after a day's march, the black-cloaks had stopped and built a roaring fire, and now they wallowed in their new wealth. Drink was everywhere. Brawls were everywhere. And female flesh was everywhere.

The slave women had been ordered into a line that ran through the camp. In the middle, where it was closer to the fire, the women sweated, and the ones on the ends rubbed their arms or clasped themselves, their skin pricked with goosebumps.

Some of the women hadn't been kept waiting long. One, a stocky western woman with blond hair, was on her hands and knees in the middle of camp, already stripped bare, while a strapping young black-hood knelt behind her, slapping his thighs into her rump. The man was not especially burly, but he thrust into her with such wild strength, the other women envied the blond one's endurance. She moved with him, trying to lighten the load, and she huffed and panted like an athlete. Sweat was flung from the tip of her nose. Her nipples swung to the movement of her whole body.

Elsewhere, a tall, thin, prim-looking black girl knelt at the feet of the chief raider, her wrists joined smartly behind her with a ribbon. Her head eased back and forth, her lips and her tongue running over the wettened skin of the chief's cock.

The first few men were already close to climax, and now the bulk of the men moved to follow their example. They prowled along the line of girls and took their favorites, sometimes fighting over the prettiest. And the women waited. Most were on their knees, but not all. One was tied to stake, her punishment for trying to escape. Another had a rope tied between her jaws, silencing her. No one seemed to know why. One buxom woman had been ordered to stand, because the men liked the way her long, limp black hair spilled over her breasts. One sly-looking man stalked up to her, put his hands on her and began kneading her chest. He brought his grinning mouth to hers, and she closed her eyes and accepted his kiss.

Near the end of the line, in the cold and dark, Misha Laghari knelt mutely, waiting to be used.

To be continued.