The Warrior Queen

Since they had only one child, Breena's father had taught her many of the things he would have taught a son. Of course, this teaching was always done in the privacy of their small home. Girls in Uvil did not use weapons or tools other than the sewing needle and a knife with which to prepare meals. Breena knew the ways of the short sword and dagger just as well as those of the thimble and needle, though she'd not had occasion to test her knowledge of weapons.

High in her tree, Breena felt for the sword at her belt and for the dagger in its sheath hanging by a leather cord between her full breasts. Almadee was her closest friend, and as the soldiers tied the naked girl to a saddle, Breena vowed to avenge her father and to free Almadee. How she would do this, she did not know, but her mother had taught her if she thought things out, she would always find an answer. Breena remained in the tree, thinking, until after night fell over the sleeping village. After tying herself to the trunk with the belt of her short sword, she fell asleep cradled between the sturdy boughs. Her dreams were a nightmare of soldiers, blood, and young girls being abused by the Queen.

Breena stayed in her tree the next morning. She knew the men of the town would bury her father on the hillside, and she wished to know the location of his grave. Someday in the future, she would visit and thank him for giving his life to spare her an almost certain fate. Today, she would silently thank him and hope his spirit would hear.

Her mother cried as the men lowered her father into the grave, but stood silently as they covered his body with the dark black earth of the hillside. Once they had tamped the extra soil into a low, rounded mound, one by one, the men patted Breene's mother on the arm and walked back to the village. Her mother stayed a while longer, then placed a single flower on the mound. Breena watched her mother walk back to the village and then scanned the area for any other people who might be in the hills. Finding none, she climbed down from the tree.

The night had not been cold, but Breena knew the chill of autumn was on its way. She would need shelter from the cold and a hidden place for a fire if she were to survive. Since Chandolay was to the south, Brenna walked north. The growl from her stomach reminded her of the need for food. She also needed different clothing. Her thin dress had torn in her climb down from the tree, and as she walked, one slender, naked thigh was exposed to her hip with every step.

All that day and through the next few, Breena walked north. She found edible roots and fruits along the way, and drank water from each stream and river along her path. Her nights were spent in trees. There were wolves in this territory as well as wild pigs that were not very picky about what they ate, or so the old ones of Uvil had related in their stories. Breena dared not use the flint and steel her father had pressed into her hand just before he told her to run. A fire would have kept animals away, but someone might see the fire and come to investigate. High in a tree, she was safe from the hunters of the night as well as from any people who might be in the area. In the morning, her high perch allowed her to look far in all directions to make sure that no one else was nearby.

She saw no other people, but this did not greatly surprise her. North of Uvil lay the Wild Lands, territory not yet settled and therefore unknown to most. Only a few traders ventured there as a short way between cities and villages in settled areas, and they stayed on the routes other traders had followed over the decades. Breena did not know the trade routes, but would have avoided them even if she had. No woman would be alone in the Wild Lands without good reason, and that reason could only be that she was hiding from someone. She could never be safe after she met a trader. At best, he would let her go on her way but spread the tale of a lone woman in the Wild Lands which would find its way to the Queen and King. At worst -- she shuddered at the thought -- traders were not the most trustworthy of people, and often boasted to the men of a village of their trickery where women were concerned.

On the sixth day of her travels, Brenna stopped beside a small stream for a drink. The water was nearly as cold as the winter icicles that clung to the eaves of her old home in Uvil, and tasted slightly of something other than water. Thinking such a small stream would have to originate close by, curiosity caused Brenna to follow it.

The stream meandered from a huge, dense thicket of trees and underbrush growing from the hillside. Breena took the easy way through the almost dark forest, the stream itself, and after a few minutes, saw sunlight beaming through the trees. She emerged from the dense vegetation into a large clearing around a pond. Just to her left a stone cliff jutted from the earth, and at the bottom was an opening. Breena made her way across the narrow strip of thick grass to the opening. A small stream of water ran from the far side of the opening into the pond to feed the stream up which she had traveled. Breena peered inside, then scanned around the entrance. She saw no tracks of animals and reasoned this was probably not the den of a wolf or fox. Breena stepped inside the opening and waited for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light.

The cavern went back as far as Breena could see, and even there, except for the ceiling, she saw only blackness and not rock. The ceiling was high enough for a tall man to stand with his hands over his head, and had a natural slope up toward the entrance. Brenna could see both sides of the cavern as well as the crack in the stone from which the stream of water issued.

There were no signs of any people having been there, no footprints on the dry soil of the cavern floor, no remnants of a fire, nor anything else. Had the entrance to the cavern been in the open, Breena reasoned, someone or something would have discovered it. She had heard traders speak of crude drawings on the walls of other caverns they used on the trail, and of fire pits inside them. Since there were none of these here, Breena felt that the cavern was unknown to anyone. It would be a good place to stay.

That afternoon, Breena used her short sword as an axe to chop some small branches for firewood. As the darkness stole the daylight, Breena lit a fire near the cavern entrance and then walked back down the stream into the open country. She could not see flames from any angle, nor the flickering glow that would betray their presence. The smoke emerged from high in the trees and was only a faint trace that could have been just the mist of evening. No one would know a fire was burning in the cavern. Breena gorged herself on roasted roots from the reeds growing on one side of the pond. She fell asleep on the soft earth next to the fire.

Breena awoke the next morning to the songs of birds in the trees around her sanctuary in the rock. Her first thought was to relieve herself, and she walked outside the cavern entrance to an opening in the trees on the opposite side of the pond. As she approached the opening, she saw a deer spring away and through the trees. Breena followed the faint path she found where the deer had entered the forest.

The trail wound around trees and rocks, often disappearing almost entirely, the only indication of its presence a tuft of deer hair here and there. After following the trail for many steps, Breena saw the grass of the open countryside again. Cautiously, she ventured toward the clear opening between two huge trees. There was nothing in sight except the deer bounding away. Breena walked a short distance from the trees, then turned around and looked for the trail. Had she been further away, she would not have found it even though she knew where it was. Breena entered the woods again and walked back to the cavern along the deer trail. She paused near the clearing to relieve herself, and then went back to the cavern.

After stirring the coals of her fire to life again, Breena added small sticks, then larger ones until the fire lit the inside of the cavern again. She put more roots by the fire to roast while she thought of her plans now that she had shelter.

Water was not a concern, and Breena was becoming accustomed to the taste. Food was the next issue. The roots roasting by the fire were filling, but lacking in flavor. Meat would have added that flavor, and was the next challenge Breena decided to attempt.

Her father had caught rabbits for food and to keep them from his crops, and had shown Breena how to make snares. He used the threads from torn clothing to spin a thin cord which he tied in a noose and hung from low branches of shrubs. Breena had only her dress, so she carefully un-wove some of the material from the bottom. The dress, which had covered her from hip to ankle when new, now came only to her knees, but she had enough threads to make several cords. After spinning them on her thigh as her father had done, Breena tied each one into a noose, and then searched the edge of the clearing for signs of rabbits passing from the grass into the safety of the underbrush.

It didn't take long for her to set six snares. Breena had only to wait, and while waiting, detected the odors emanating from her dress and body. At home, she would have washed herself and her dress. It was only in spring and fall that men and women washed themselves all over, but women washed the hair and lips between their thighs, and the hair in their armpits every month after their moon-bleed.

Breena had no cloths with which to wash, nor any of her mother's soap, but she'd seen a plant along the bank of the pond she recognized. Her mother called it soap weed, and had once shown Breena how it could be rubbed into a kind of lather. Breena walked to the place where she'd seen the plants, pulled a handful, and crushed the roots between two rocks. After stripping off her tattered dress, she waded into the cool water of the pond, took a deep breath, and quickly lowered her body beneath the surface.

She emerged again a few seconds later, gasping at the chill of the pond, but feeling refreshed. After pulling the dripping mane of golden hair from her face, Breena rubbed some of the crushed roots between her hands and then onto her blonde tresses. It felt good to rub her scalp, and she did so until the lather was spread from her head to the ends of the shining strands.

Breena rubbed more soap weed lather over her face, then her across her smooth shoulders, and then into the soft hair under her arms. The soap weed had a fresh scent, rather like new mown hay, she thought, and she liked it. Breena's small hands stroked over her full breasts, and she shuddered when her fingertips brushed the nipples stiffened by the cool water.

Breena moved to shallower water and worked the soap weed lather over her flat belly and then into the blonde curls between her thighs. As her fingers slipped between the long, soft lips of her sex, Breena gasped, then moved her fingertips up and down slowly. Before, she was washing herself. Now, Breena was pleasuring herself as her mother had said all women do from time to time.

This was not the first time Breena's body had responded to her own touch. Often at night, when her parents had thought her asleep, they joined as man and wife. Breena laid in her bed with closed eyes and listened to the quiet little moans her mother made as her father stroked his manhood in and out of the opening between her thighs. Breena's fingers would find her entrance and move in as far as the narrowing of her maidenhead and then back out, over and over, and she had to stifle the moans that seemed to come to her lips of their own accord. Breena's other hand would caress her nipples or find their way down to the stiff nub at the top of her soft lips and stroke it.

Her mother would often cry out softly at the end, and Breena would hear their bed creak as her father pumped out his seed. Breena longed to open her mouth and let the same cry of pleasure slip from between her lips as her body convulsed in release, but she dared not. Instead, she kept quiet as the waves swept her from her toes to her breasts and back down.

Here, in the solitude of her sanctuary, Breena felt no such need to be quiet. When her fingertips found the stiff nub and rubbed it gently, she moaned. When her fingertips brushed her left nipple and then gently squeezed it, Breena jerked her hips into her stroking hand, and gasped. Breena's finger probed inside her sex up to the guardian of her virginity, stroked in and out several times, and then found the little button that now throbbed in excitement. After a few more light strokes over the tip and around the sides, Breena cried out, her hips rocked rapidly back and forth, and she nearly collapsed into the pond.

Breena slowly rubbed her sex for a few moments, then moved back to deeper water and submerged herself to rid her body of the soap weed lather. After a quick check for lather and another submersion, Breena wrung the water from her hair and walked back to the cavern. The warmth of the fire felt nice after the cool water of the pond, and Breena stood beside it and soaked in the heat.

Once her body was dry except for her hair, Breena took her dress to the pond, used more soap weed to wash it, then brought it back to the fire. By pushing two sticks into the floor of the cavern, Breena hung the dress up to dry, and then went to check her snares. Two of them held rabbits that Breena quickly skinned and hung over her fire with more sticks. That night, Breena dined on rabbit and the roots that she'd left to roast. By the time the stars appeared in the opening in the trees, Breena was fast asleep in her clean dress.

[]

Almadee sat in the saddle of the horse as the column made their way back to Mydar and the palace. She had heard some of the horrors of the Queen's special bedchamber and knew of the treatment that awaited her. She looked at the Queen, then quickly turned her head. The Queen was looking at her and smiling.

"Do not fear, my lovely maiden. You may learn to enjoy what I enjoy. Some of my charges have done so."

Almadee could not imagine any woman learning to enjoy being bound to a table and having her body tortured by whipping, nor could she imagine any pleasure could be experienced from the tying of cords around her nipples. Surely, such pain would only cause her to lose her mind. Yes, that must be what the Queen meant, that the women she tortured became insane. She would kill herself before allowing her mind to float away like feathers on the wind.

"Besides, you will learn that I can give you great pleasure as well as pain, and that you can be taught to give me the same pleasure. We women know so well what men seem incapable of understanding. Did your mother not teach you as much?"

"She taught me that coupling should be between a man and a woman, and that love would bring me enough pleasure."

"Then your mother did not teach you everything about coupling. A man cares only about planting his seed. It matters not if the planting bed is well prepared, only that his seed takes root. Little do men know that their seed would sprout more easily if the woman was excited to the same state. Since your mother did not teach you this, it will fall to me, and you will be all the better for my teaching."

The sun was low on the horizon when the column rode through the gates of Mynar. Almadee was lifted from the saddle and taken into the palace. There, two older women guided her to a small room with a bed, a small table, and one chair. They unbound her wrists and then left. Almadee heard the bolt of the door sliding home.

Moments later, a younger woman, this one in the garb of some sort of priestess entered the chamber. Over one arm, she carried clothing. Over the other was a finely woven basket of straw.

"I am Panuli, of the Order of Lule. I will prepare you to meet with the Queen. When you visit her chamber, do not resist, for that will only mean harsher treatment for you. Instead, endure what you must, and learn to enjoy the pleasures of what the Queen will teach you. Now, follow me and do not attempt to escape. There is no exit from the palace without guards."

Panuli led Almadee through the door, down a short hall, and into another room. In this room was a large stone trough similar to the wooden troughs her father had used to water the farm animals, but much larger.

"Get into the basin, Almadee. You will find the water to be hot, so enter it slowly."

Almadee had never before immersed her body except in a stream or pond when a very young girl. Her spring and fall bath was done with cloths from a small bucket. As she eased her naked body down into the water, the heat prickled at her skin and caused tingles to race up her spine. When she at last sat on the bottom of the trough, the water reached almost to her chin, and her entire body was enveloped in the tingling heat.

Panuli withdrew a bar of soap from the basket and walked to the basin. She pushed gently on Almadee's head.

"Wet your hair that I may wash the dust of travel from it."

Almadee slipped down the incline on which her back rested until the water closed over her head, and then pushed herself back up. She felt Panuli's hands rubbing over her scalp. The scent of spring flowers wafted to her nose.

"This is the Queen's favorite scent. She will enjoy it on your skin and hair."

Almadee relaxed as Panuli's fingers gently worked the sweet smelling soap into her scalp and then down the long red tresses of her hair.

"Such pretty hair, and the color of leaves in autumn suits you well, I think. The Queen tells me a woman with red hair is more apt to enjoy her pleasures. I know she does have a fondness for such a shade. Now, rinse your hair."

Almadee again submerged herself and felt Panuli working the lather from her hair. When the woman gently pulled at her arm, Almeede pushed her body up again. Panuli gently pulled the hair from her face and smiled.

"There. Now for the rest of you. Stand up."

Panuli's hands were soft and gentle as she stroked them over Almadee's body. The soapy lather on Panuli's hands let her breasts slip from the woman's hands when she gently squeezed them. When Panuli's fingertips were left with only Almadee's nipples to squeeze Almadee felt a tingle deep in her belly. Panuli noticed.

"The tightening in your belly tells me you are not new to the feeling. You have caused this feeling yourself, have you not?"

Almadee didn't answer.

"No matter. All women do. Now, spread your legs. The queen will wish to have this scent there also."

Panuli worked the soap lather into the dark red triangle of curls between Almadee's thighs. Almadee flinched when Panuli's fingertip felt for the lips amongst the curls and then slipped between them.

"Do not be afraid. I do nothing you yourself have not done, though I shall not give you enough rubbing to cause you to reach your end. I shall leave that to the Queen. I only need to know your guardian is still on duty, and that it is not yet your moon time. Yes, the portal gate is still closed and the only flow is that of a woman ripe for the breeding. Rinse yourself, Almadee."

When Almadee stepped from the bath, Panuli wrapped her in a towel large enough to be a blanket and gently rubbed her skin dry. She then used a smaller towel to dry Almadee's hair somewhat. After producing a comb of tortoise shell from her basket, Panuli began combing Almadee's hair, carefully removing each tangle and then continuing to comb the long, red tresses until they were dry. She stepped back and smiled.

"Now, you are fit for my Queen. Please take some advice from one who knows of the Queen's tastes. If you resist her, she will cause you pain for that gives her pleasure. That pleasure is not that which she truly seeks. The sooner you relent and give her that which she desires, the sooner the pain will become pleasure."