While the Gods Slumber Pt. 06

Zhura moaned softly as Amina kneaded her sore calf muscles. She, in turn, massaged palm oil into Kaj's thigh, digging her fingers into and around thick sinews. The oil was scented, with a woody, sweet aroma that helped to relax her after a day on the trail. She kept an eye on her friend's flaccid cock, lying on his other leg.

Kaj had already climaxed twice tonight - once in Amina's cunt and once in Zhura's mouth. Zhura was hopeful that with coaxing, she might bring him to life a third time. These mutual massages were rejuvenating after the day's hike - for Zhura in more ways than one.

The van had steadily climbed since it left Mibega, leaving the steamy forest Zhura knew behind after the first day. By the third day, the air in the rocky highlands was drier, making the palm oil especially soothing.

Amina began to nibble on the undersides of Zhura's knees, a fluttering sensation that the herb-witch had discovered she loved. She stroked Kaj's shaft hopefully, admiring how his oiled foreskin gleamed in the dim light.

Kaj craned his neck, looking around the dark campsite. The three friends had spread their mats on the edge, near one of warding stones the priest had imbedded in a ring around the camp. Most of the other fires were down to ash and the site purred with snores. But there were still a few spearmen and porters on sentry duty. There could be nosy onlookers.

It wasn't that sex was unusual in the camp. There were five other women in the van - all of them wives to spearmen, drovers or porters - some of whom also hired out their affections. But Zhura, Kaj and Amina had been a focus of attention ever since she had effortlessly bested three warriors in the practice yard back in the town.

"It is queer, don't you think?" Kaj asked in a low voice. "San waived our fee when he saw how well you could fight. Yet he doesn't ask you to help stand guard. He doesn't pay you like the spearmen. Why does he want us along?"

"The men may not gossip much," Amina said, raising her head from Zhura's leg, "but the women do. There has been banditry in these hills. The van master probably wants as many fighters as he can get to come along, especially for no wage."

The market-woman's daughter ran delightful, tingling fingers up the back of Zhura's thick thighs to the curve of her ass. "We need the sanju back," she urged.

"You just want to get rutted again," Zhura quipped.

"What about the warding stones?" asked Kaj.

"Our friend can remain just outside them," Zhura said. "We'd have to go summon Miliki'tiki outside the stones."

Kaj nodded. "I'll stay here, in case anyone asks where you've gone." He glanced down at his twitching, but still soft member. "I'm not sure I can be of much help," he quipped.

Zhura lovingly kissed his soft cock goodbye. She and Amina, both naked, grabbed the stone and a mat and picked their way carefully in the starlight, away past the wards and from the camp.

They found a grassy swath out of earshot and threw down the mat. Amina held Zhura and began to kiss her lightly.

"When we were girls," she said, as their lips brushed, "did you ever think that we could end up in such an adventure?"

"Never," Zhura said. "But there were many times I believed you would be my only friend for life." Her fingers ran up the smooth skin of Amina's side, her thumbs tweaking the woman's nipples. They slowly sank down on the mat until they were kneeling together, trading kisses and caresses.

Amina pressed Zhura down on her back, as they continued to kiss. They humped against each other. Amina kissed her way down her friend's body, loving every bit of it with soft pecks of her lips. Zhura's skin tingled with excitement. She guessed that this was Amina's first time alone with a woman. But if her friend lacked experience, she made up for it in ardor.

Zhura felt herself sinking into a pool of bliss as Amina tongued the sensitive button at the top of Zhura's slit. Amina's fingertips played along Zhura's inner thighs.

"You're driving me mad," Zhura gasped, placing her hand on Amina's head. Her fingers sunk into the tight, soft curls of her friend's hair, trying to hold her where she needed to be.

"Am I?" Amina asked. She lifted Zhura's legs, giving her slit swift licks and then pushing Zhura's ass upwards until Amina was sitting on her knees and Zhura's butt resting upon her lap. Zhura, rolled back that way, felt as helpless and exposed as ever. Amina began to play with her cunt, deft fingers spreading, prodding, rubbing, until Zhura was trembling with lust.

Amina pressed Zhura further up on the back of her shoulders, her ass resting against Amina's midriff as the merchant's daughter knelt. She plunged three fingers into Amina's sopping cunt, making soft sloshing noises.

"Please," Zhura said. "Make me come!" She took Amina fingers and guided them to her secret inner spot, the one Ntoza had shown her that fateful morning.

"There," Zhura gasped. "Yes, there. Yes..."

Amina began to rub, first slowly, and then with increasing fervor.

"Yes," Zhura begged, feeling the flood building behind the dam, watching her feet jerk in the air on either side of her face.

"Yes!" Zhura exploded in a forceful orgasm. Her juices fountained in the air, splashing across her neck and face in three spurting jets. Zhura's ears rang with the power of her climax, and she shuddered, nearly falling from her awkward position.

As she gradually regained her senses, Zhura felt Amina's fingers sliding easily into her cunt. Then she felt something much more massive opening her up. Amina gripped the summoning stone, dipping it almost straight down, hugging Zhura's inner walls and plunging deeper and deeper into Zhura's core.

"I like this position," Amina giggled. "It's best for feeding your hungry cunt."

Zhura felt like she was being impaled by the giant, ceramic cock. She loved it. Almost at once she began to come again, sucked into an endless orgasm that seemed renewed with every stroke of the stone. It delved so deep she imagined it hit the entrance to her womb. Dimly, she saw an oily cloud that seemed to sweat from the phallus. Then she convulsed once more and tumbled to her side into the grass.

"Sanju mate," Miliki'tiki said.

Zhura looked up. The demon's masked face stared down at her, only a hands-breadth away. It smelled of charcoal.

"Sanju mate," the demon insisted. Its huge cock bobbed eagerly from the bristling juncture of its legs.

"Sanju mate," Amina cooed back. She was already on all fours on the mat, her inviting ass and glistening slit turned towards Zhura and the demon.

The demon rushed towards her, grasping Amina's hips like a prize. By the time Zhura could rise shakily to her feet, the demon had sunk its cock halfway into Amina's eager cunt.

Zhura watched as they began to rut. Amina groaned with each thrust, rocking her hips back to meet it. The demon's four-fingered talons gripped Zhura's friend carefully, seeming not to even scratch Amina's skin. Zhura studied the creature in fascination as it rutted, idly playing with her own dripping slit.

After several minutes, she came around to stand in front of the couple, watching the sanju demon's girlish dugs flop each time it slammed its sex into Amina. Zhura knelt in front of her friend, touching lips that hung open in ecstasy as Amina was pounded. She swirled her finger in Amina's drooling mouth, letting her taste it. Then she bent and kissed her friend.

"I want to see you," Zhura whispered wickedly, "in the same position I was."

Amina nodded and pulled reluctantly away from the demon. Its cock slipped from her with a wet sound. She lay back on the mat and rolled her feet over her head, until Zhura caught them and held them down, bending Amina almost double.

The sanju demon hopped to her gaping, inviting cunt, and plunged in until its cock hit bottom. Amina let out a whoosh of air like her breath had been stolen from her.

Zhura made sure Amina was balanced and began to play with her stiff nipples, watching her friend shudder through an orgasm as the demon rutted her. It panted, pounded her harder and harder. Amina's cries became loud enough that Zhura bent to muffle them with kisses. She felt Amina's body rocking through their embrace, almost as if Zhura herself was being rutted.

Finally, the demon plunged deeply within Amina's cunt, unloading what must have been a torrent of spend. When it backed away from a sprawling Amina, Zhura eagerly took its place. She lapped up her dazed friend's messy slit and then slurped and tongued her thoroughly, feeling her own body thrum with power as Amina climaxed once more.

Once Amina had somewhat recovered, Zhura helped her up. They turned to the demon. Its cock had already regrown to half its length.

"By the sacred ancestors," Amina swore weakly, though she could barely stand.

"Sanju mate," it said.

"No." Zhura said. "Sanju mate later."

As they carried the mat back towards the camp, the demon balked. "Sanju not pass," it said, looking at the warding stones.

Zhura nodded. "Stay outside the stones. Guard us from there. When we start moving, guard ahead of us." She pointed up the trail the way the van would be traveling.

"Do you understand? Sanju... scout. Don't allow any human but us to see you. Warn me if we are in danger."

The demon stared at her, its mask concealing any expression of resistance or recognition. "Sanju... scout," it agreed. Its skin rippled, and in seconds, it vanished from sight.

Amina swore again softly as they stumbled back to the camp.

**

The next day, the van crawled, ever up, into the hills, crossing grassy plateaus, rock strewn slopes, and acacia-dotted shrubland. With ten laden buffalo, several goats, and thirty porters with their heads and backs piled high with baskets, sacks and casks, there were many stops. Zhura and her companions walked near the end of the train, where she kept a careful eye on the surrounding terrain, watching for sign from Miliki'tiki.

At midday, the van stopped to water the animals. While Amina and Kaj rested, Zhura wandered towards a tree, the likes of which she had never seen before. It had a massive, smooth trunk; large enough that several men could stand beside each other within. All of its boughs and leaves gathered in a pitifully small crown at the tree's summit.

"Legend says demon princes coveted the baobab so much that they planted the treetop in the earth so that men could not look upon it," a voice said behind her in Sung.

She turned to see the spearman with white paint that she had fought in Mibega.

"And yet," he said with a wave towards the tree. "Here we are, looking upon it."

"You are from the forest valley?" Zhura asked brightly.

"Indeed," he said. "My name is Ngo." He was of average height for a man, well muscled and dark, with an easy smile. He wore a cloak over a skirted breechclout and carried his shield with a brace of light spears.

"I noticed that you and your companions speak Sung when you are together," he said. "and I want to meet the woman who knocked me on my ass."

"I'm certain you won't let me surprise you again," Zhura said, politely. "Ngofama? Sangoma?"

"I'm from Sangoma, yes."

Zhura noted his face paint, recalling the significance. A single, talon shape marked his forehead and each cheek, with a fourth streak that descended from the bottom of his lip. "You are a chief's son," she said.

"I am." Ngo produced a mango and knife from his pouch, raising his eyebrow in invitation. They sat on a small mound together while he deftly peeled the reddish rind from the fruit.

"Why would a chief's son be out here guarding skins and kola nuts?" Zhura asked.

"I am a second chief's son. I came here to earn my name, perhaps make a new one," Ngo said. "Ranthaman San is a respected van master, agent to a powerful house in Ikanje. There is opportunity to be found with him," he said, tossing the fruit's pit into the grass.

"And risk. There are bandits in these hills?" she accepted half the mango from the spearman.

Ngo held his half to his mouth, gouging a bite of the yellow flesh from it. "Yes," he said. "And not simple attacks. Two whole vans have been lost of late, completely gone."

Zhura paused in mid-bite. "By the sacred ancestors! That doesn't sound like an opportunity."

Ngo nodded. "San is smart, though. He sends scouts out ahead and is increasing night sentries as we get further into the hills. Everyone in the van can fight if needed, not just the spearmen. What band of thieves can defeat forty strong men," he grinned, "and one strong woman?"

They ate the juicy fruit in silence for a time, Zhura savoring the comfort of the familiar. Ngo's light heart was reminiscent of Kaj, and he was pleasing to look upon. She felt a hungry stir within her, and imagined opening his breechclout right there.

"You've traveled this route before?" she asked.

Ngo shook his head. "I've only gone from Mibega to Morore."

"You've seen Morore? What is it like?"

He held out his hands a span, then widened it. "Like Mibega, but bigger. Stinkier," he said. They both laughed.

The drum sounded for the van to move again. Ngo rose.

"Thank you for the mango, my friend. I am an herb-witch. Anything you need, please come to me. I would like to hear more about Morore sometime."

"An herb-witch? Then you have stories to tell as well."

Zhura watched him trot back to the van. She finished her mango, wiping her face with her hands, as she wondered how the baobab came to be.

"Sanju?" she called. Zhura looked about for a flicker of movement.

Seeing nothing, she dropped her last bit of rind. She licked her fingers and rejoined the group.

There was so much Zhura didn't know about the Sanju demon. Why did it seem attuned to her? Was it because she was the one who rutted with the summoning stone? Or was there another reason?

The van continued across a plain of stunted brown grass and acacias, heading towards a ravine that passed through hills resembling broken black teeth.

How long would Miliki'tiki follow her, if she did not send it back where it came from? And where did it come from? Was it content with her, or did it yearn to be returned home?

For all Zhura knew, the sanju demon had already left her, and it wandered the hills looking for humans to mate with. But then... most humans were in settlements warded by stones, and wore protective charms.

Maybe that is what keeps it with me. Sex is what the demon wants, isn't it?

Zhura resolved to find Miliki'tiki, and get answers.

The sun began to fall behind as the van snaked through the ravine. The sloped flanks of the pass hid crevices steeped in shadow and chill. A dry gully ran alongside the trail, at the deepest point in the canyon. Stunted evergreens and aloe plants clung to the rocky hillsides. At the top of the ravine, a half-collapsed farmhouse - built from dust-colored stone and baked mud - seemed to balance on the edge.

Kaj had been chatting with a porter. He came to walk alongside Zhura and Amina. "The village of Kichinka lies at the end of the ravine," he said. "The porters say we can sleep in the village tonight, and get fresh stew and beer. After tonight, it is a descent until we reach the Ikanje border posts."

Ancestral stones topped the slopes of the ravine, an obelisk rising on either edge of the canyon. Beyond those, the canyon grew shallower and wider, until Kichinka came into view. Zhura glanced back once more, searching for Miliki'tiki, before passing beyond the wards.

Kichinka was a haphazard sprawl of mud-brick houses that ran down a broad slope on the east side of a ridge. A few larger buildings loomed over the others - squat, windowless towers that looked like granaries. Goats wandered about, picking at clumps of grass. The land grew more level and greener to the north, where millet fields and orchards dominated.

The front of the van had begun to drift into a dusty plaza in the center of the village, where a handful of villagers already bustled around welcoming cookfires.

One of Ranthaman San's factors, a beardless young man in a headdress and flowing robes, paced to the back of the van, directing everyone to pass through the plaza and camp in a fallow field on the eastern edge of the village before the revelry.

"Why are the villagers being so generous to us?" Zhura asked.

"These trading vans are essential for isolated villages in the hills," the young factor said. "They will sell us as much as they can before we depart in the morning."

As they entered the plaza, the savory aroma of the stew entranced them.

"Ah," Amina said, inhaling deeply. "For one night, we will enjoy something other than the brown water these porters call soup."

The villagers had pounded millet into pasty lumps of dough, much as the people of Boma did yams, to dip in stew. Seeing the dough in dozens of bowls, along with the rich smell of fatty meat and vegetables, made Zhura long for home.

"It seems the stew will be all for us," Kaj added, surveying the mostly quiet village as they passed into the fields. "There are more goats in Kichinka than men, I think."

Zhura picked out a spot on the eastern edge of the camp, close to stands of sour apple and date palm trees, where they lay their heavier gear. It was nearing dusk, and most of the travelers were heading back to the plaza for food and drink. The perfect time to slip away.

"I must find our sanju friend," Zhura said.

"I'll go with you," Amina said. "I could use a good rutting tonight, once my belly is full." She glanced at Kaj and hastily added, "a good rutting or two."

Kaj flashed his lover a hurt look.

Zhura threw her arm around Kaj's slim neck in affection. "Don't worry, adopted brother. We will make them jealous, you'll see."

Careful no one was watching, they stole in amongst the fruit trees. "The warding stones must be somewhere through here," Zhura said, scanning the trees.

"Sanju mate?" Miliki'tiki appeared in front of them.

Amina nearly jumped. "How did you-"

"How did you pass the warding stones?" Zhura demanded of the demon.

"Stones missing," the demon pointed behind him in the direction they had been heading. "Men wait."

"Show us," Zhura said.

They crept through the trees until they spotted them. At least four men lazed in the grass, armed with axes, bows and shields.

"Not many bandits," Amina whispered.

"There could be more," said Kaj.

"Worse," Zhura said. She couldn't see the gap in the warding stones, but ancestral stones were too scrupulously maintained for this to be an accident. "There are demons with them," she guessed.

The three friends raced back towards the plaza, picking up all of their weapons on the way. Miliki'tiki vanished from sight before they reached the others.

Most of the travelers milled about the Kichinka plaza in twos and threes. Some were already sprawled under empty market stalls, eating and drinking. Zhura spotted Ngo before she could find Ranthaman San. The Sung spearman was carrying a bowl of stew with another of the warriors.

"Zhura!" he waved, grinning. "No need to run, there is plenty!"

"We are being ambushed!" she shouted. "Where is Ranthaman San?"

"I am here," San said, turning from where he stood talking with a village elder. "What is wrong?"

"There is a gap in the wards," Zhura said "and a group of armed men waiting near it."

"Those men only guard the gap," the old man interjected. "Until we can have the stones replaced."

"Why did you not tell us?" San pressed. "We carry stones with us."

"He is lying," Amina said.

"There!" Kaj pointed, spotting a young village boy who ran from the square in the direction of the orchards.

"Where is Tabo?" San asked his young trader assistant.