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Wait our son is marrying WHOMST

Darvon stared at the gleaming armor the men at his door wore. He knew Bloodguards when he saw them; his own son had been one for many years now. Foicatch’s letter had indicated that the Queen had agreed to spare a few Bloodguards to escort them to the Keep and back, but he had not expected six of them, or a carriage. A wagon maybe, but not a carriage.

“Who in the Pits is it that the boy wants to get hitched to?” He said this aloud.

“Commander Foicatch instructed us not to tell.” The young man who said this must have been about his son’s age. “He said he wants it to be a surprise.” A pause. “Though he did say that we could tell you that it was a lady of some status.”

Minella had been hurriedly setting some last-minute things to rights around the house and gently bossing the boys about as they hauled out the trunks and got them loaded into the carriage. She came up behind Darvon and hooked a thumb into the back of his belt, an affectionate little gesture she’d done a thousand times in their years together. “He’s a charming lad, Darv. You know that. And just as handsome as his father, and brave, and a hero.” She beamed at him; she’d been wildly anticipating this trip since they’d gotten Foicatch’s letter. “Is it such a thing to imagine that he caught the eye of one of the ladies at court?”

“Ah, I suppose not.” Darvon smiled back at her. “He does look right dashing in that armor.” He tilted a head at the Bloodguards standing arrow-straight around the door, waiting as            got the trunks strapped down.

“Commander Foicatch is a fine man. He’s well trusted by the Queen.” The young Bloodguard sergeant looked like he wanted to say more, but didn’t.

Minella beamed even more brightly.

              Stellas city itself looked little different from any other city Darvon had ever seen. The one difference was the great bulk of the Keep, looming above the city as the land sloped upwards to the wall of enormous ancient trees that marked the beginning of the Greatwood.

The streets of Stellas city were in good repair, but the carriage still jolted and swayed as the wheels bounced over cobblestones. Darvon was grateful for the deep padding of the carriage seats.

People shuffled aside when they saw the carriage coming, calling cheerfully to the armored Bloodguards accompanying it. Minella was staring raptly up at the keep, looming larger and larger as they drew near the base of the rise that led up to the great fortress.

“Do you think we’ll see her?” She touched her throat nervously, for about the fifteenth time. The silver necklace Darvon had saved up for and given her for their thirtieth anniversary  glinted at her throat; she’d spent half the night before polishing it.

Darvon knew what she meant, but played obtuse. He raised his eyebrows at her. “That’s what we’ve come a hundred miles for, my dear.”

Minella shoved at his shoulder, but there was a hint of a smile on her face. “Not Foicatch’s lady, you lump. Her.”

“I expect the Queen has better things to do.” Darvon caught her hand when she went to smooth her skirts for the twentieth time. “And even if we did, you look lovely.”

That earned him a smile, one that crinkled the corners of her eyes. She left off fussing with her dress and necklace and hair and squeezed his hand in return. “Flatterer. I’d like to see her, even in passing.”

Darvon smiled back. “It would be something to tell the grandchildren, wouldn’t it?”

The carriage rattled up to the gates of the Keep not half an hour later. Darvon had seen the manor of the Viscount of Nem more than once; he’d made the man’s banquet table custom. But he still marveled at the sheer scale of the Keep; the Viscount’s manor house was little larger than the gatehouse of the Keep.

There were people on the Keep grounds, stablehands and gardeners and swineherds and Bloodguards and delivery wagons of grain and vegetables, bustling about with the sort of focused chaos that seemed to be common to any great household. All the people paused to stare keenly at the carriage as they passed, though.

The driver pulled them up at the base of the wide stairs leading up to the massive double doors of the Keep proper. Two Bloodguards were standing at rigid attention before the doors; they saluted with their spears when their brothers and sisters pulled up with the carriage and dismounted.

One of their Bloodguard retinue opened the carriage door, and politely offered Minella a hand to help her down. She took it, a little hesitantly; she was no more used to such things than Darvon was.

“We sent corporal Jena ahead to tell Commander Foicatch that you were arriving.” The Bloodguard squinted up at the gates of the Keep as Darvon stretched and cracked joints stiff from sitting in a carriage so long. “He should be here any…ah.” The last word was spoken as one of the great doors was heaved open a crack and Foicatch bolted down the wide, shallow stairs three at a time, grinning ear to ear.

There were a few minutes of delighted embraces and greetings and Minella critically examining her son to make sure he was eating well.

“You’re looking well.” Darvon examined his son critically. “Fallen’s balls, boy. It’s been what, seven years?”

“Eight.” Minella frowned up at Foicatch. “And nothing but letters telling us about how much danger you’re walking into.”

Foicatch dipped his head slightly, not making eye contact. “Sorry, mum. But…”

“Ahhh, I know.” She sighed, then smiled again. “Bloodguard. But you’re here now, and safe, and you must introduce us to this lady you want to wed.” She eyed the carriage, where several footmen had appeared and were unloading their baggage. “She must be something, for you to have convinced the Queen to let you send all this.” She gave him a look out of the corner of her eyes as they climbed the steps to the Keep doors. “Will I have to start calling you ‘lord’, now?”

Foicatch cleared his throat and stared straight ahead. Darvon narrowed his eyes; Foicatch was a Bloodguard. He could keep things to himself if needed. Still, Darvon was his father. He’d raised the boy, and he could still read his son like a book.

Foicatch was nervous. His boy was usually self-assured to the point of being foolhardy; Darvon could count on one had the number of times he’d seen his lad like this. “No.” Foicatch strode through the great doors and kept going, seeming not to notice the magnificence of the great entry hall. Minella stared, her lips parted. Darvon slowed and felt himself gawping like…well, like a carpenter standing in the Keep of the Kings and Queens of the Northern Lands.

Foicatch seemed to realize that he’d lost them, and slowed to a stop, waiting.

“Lady.” Minella’s voice was soft as she stared up at the starred, vaulted ceiling far above them.

Foicatch glanced up too, and a little of the nervousness faded. The corner of his lips twitched up, and he moved back to stand next to his parents.

“I remember the first time I walked through those doors I had to scrape my jaw off the floor.” A little half-grin. “I suppose you stop noticing after a while.”

Darvon looked at his son…his tall, broad-shouldered warrior son, his son with his Bloodguard mark just visible above the collar of his tunic, his son who spoke with Queens…and felt a fierce surge of pride that nearly choked him.

“Come on.” Alongside the gleaming, polished Bloodguards standing vigilant on either side of the great doors bearing the crest of the Stellas family…Darvon supposed they must lead to the throne room…he felt very much like the common-born carpenter he was. Foicatch had had many years to become accustomed to such grand surroundings, but Darvon could feel the full weight of a thousand years of Stellas royalty pressing in around him. “It’s about time that we met your mystery woman. We rode all this way for it, after all.”

“Yes.” The nervousness was back; Foicatch’s left hand twitched, as if reaching for a sword hilt on his hip that wasn’t there. “She said she’d be up in the library. Come on.”

He led the way into the sprawling labyrinth of hallways and stairways that was the Keep, navigating with the ease of someone who’d walked these halls a thousand times. Minella was fidgeting with her necklace and smoothing her skirts again by the time Foicatch led them up to a heavy oak door that was propped open, showing a room fully as large as the entry hall.

The room was lined with row after row of shelves, every one of them loaded down with scrolls and books. Darvon had never seen so many books together in one place before; he attempted to calculate the worth of the contents of this room, which made his head spin. He found himself nervously smoothing his clothes.

Foicatch led them past the shelves. At nearly the back of the room, there was another door, smaller than the big oak library door. Even as Foicatch raised a hand to knock, the door opened a crack and a woman slipped out.

She was stunningly lovely; golden hair, wide green eyes, and a heart shaped face with the sweetest little curve of a smile Darvon had ever seen on a woman. She was of high birth; no one else would be wearing a gown like that. Pale gold silk, nearly the same color as her hair, with trim of pale blue.

Her eyes lit up when she saw Foicatch, who immediately bowed. “My lady Sina.”

Darvon’s heart stuttered and skipped a beat. The Queen’s sister? The former Queen? A Seer, of the line of the First King? Ah, son, you didn’t…

He nearly fell into a bow, gasping out “M’lady” in a choked sort of voice.

“Hello, Foicatch.” The lady Sina looked past the Bloodguard, to Minella and Darvon. “These are your parents, then?” She smiled at them, sweet and lovely, and gestured for them to rise. “Your son is a fine man. He served me well when I held the throne, and continues to serve my sister faithfully.” She shot Foicatch a sly side glance at that. Foicatch stifled a cough.

“You flatter an old man, m’lady.” Darvon just managed this; Minella seemed to have completely lost the power of speech.

“I only speak the truth. Anyway, I should be off; you’ve traveled a long ways, and I’m taking your time. I’m sure she’s eager to meet you.” The lady Sina smiled one last time and swept off.

Darvon sagged. Minella put a hand to her chest, and finally remembered how to speak. “Lord of the pits, boy! I thought for a second…” She started chuckling to herself. “I saw a Queen after all!”

“Ah.” Foicatch seemed about to say something. His left hand twitched again, seeking a sword hilt that wasn’t there, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Nervous, Darvon thought again. Who is this woman? “Well, I suppose…”

“Foicatch.” This voice was from the other side of the door, and then quite suddenly the door was pulled open. Another woman was standing in the doorway, eyeing Foicatch with a sort of exasperated amusement. “Are you fidgeting? Bring them in and let them sit down, already; I’ve been waiting to meet them for ages.”

She was tall, with dark hair caught back at the nape of her neck, high cheekbones, and eyes of a clear, cool icy blue.

Darvon forgot how to breathe. His pulse pounded harsh in his ears as he noticed other things, like how the muscles of her forearms rippled when she moved, how she was built strong in the shoulders like a woman who spent hours with a sword in her hands, how her hands were scarred in the way of any dedicated warrior, and…and…

…Lord of dust and bones…

And the great ruby signet ring on the middle finger of her right hand, carved with the eight-pointed crest of the Stellas line.

He dropped to his knees almost without thinking about it. “Your majesty.” He gasped. “Your majesty.”

“Ah.” Foicatch shifted his weight again. “Yes. Mother. Father. Allow me to introduce Systlin Stellas, Queen of the Northern Lands, Lady of the Eastern Reaches, Blood of the first king. Mitraka of the southern deserts, sword-sister and lover of the Queen of the Sands, Mistress of Knives, and, well, the woman I brought you here to meet.”

Systlin…the Queen…shot him a look.

“Sorry. Queen of the Eastern Reaches, until such time as she re-conquers the rest of the north, assuming we don’t all get killed doing it.”

The Queen looked mollified. She looked down at them…Lord of the pits, the Queen was standing in front of him, sharing familiar looks with his son.

Foicatch, what in the pits have you done? And how have you done it?

“Please.” Her voice was…downright gentle. He’d heard the stories, and had in his imagination given her a loud, harsh voice, something suitable for yelling over battlefields. In real life, she spoke in a pleasant low alto. “I don’t say this to many people, but you needn’t bow like that.”

[systlinsideblog]

LoIaI excerpt; Foicatch is just Like This

“Are you bedding her?” Robard leaned forward, his balled fists planted on the table. He glared down at Foicatch, scowling and dark-faced. The Lord of the Broken Coast was a big man, broad and muscular and reputedly a skilled swordsman. He was used to being able to intimidate people; Foicatch could see it in every line of his body.

  Foicatch finished chewing and swallowed. He pushed his chair back, leaned back, and planted his boots on the table, crossing his arms. He met the Coast Lord’s eyes, calm and unimpressed. “This is the Bloodguard’s mess, my lord, but if you want mutton stew there’s still plenty. Pull up a chair.”

High Commander Elias rose from his place down the table. Several other Bloodguards rose as well; Elias grabbed a corporal by the elbow and muttered something urgently in his ear. The man saluted and took off like a shot.

If Robard noticed his suddenly hyper vigilant audience, he didn’t show it. His personal guards, on the other hand, drew closer together, throwing nervous looks at the Bloodguards surrounding them. The Bloodguards stared back. One of the sergeants cracked his knuckles idly; Robard’s guards drew a little closer still.

“My lord.” High Commander Elias’ voice was mild. “With all due respect, Commander Foicatch is not yours to command or chastise, and it is not your place to question our Queen.” He bowed, the smallest inclination of his head that could still be considered polite. “I would be happy to escort you back to your quarters and arrange an audience with Queen Systlin, should you wish to speak of these matters with her.”

Robard’s face went a still darker purple. Foicatch remembered the man parading all four of his sons around in front of an uninterested Queen Sina, and arguments with the lady Melvra in her study. “You’ll do no such thing. Bloodguard or not, this man is a peasant’s son, and I’m the Lord of the Broken Coast. I’ll speak to him however I see fit. You’re nothing but a bunch of common guardsmen with a reputation too big for them. I can command ten thousand men at arms. I fought alongside King Teurmech in the war, and I’ve the right to question a man who’s threatening to ruin his daughter’s reputation.” He turned back to Foicatch, stabbing a finger in his direction. “I’ve heard the rumors. Answer me straight, Bloodguard. Are you bedding the Queen?”

Foicatch allowed himself half a smile. “I’m fairly certain that, technically, at least half the time she’s the one bedding me.”

Down the table, Bard and Hewe snorted into their stew. High Commander Elias shot them a murderous look. Lord Robard sputtered.

  “How dare…” He could barely articulate his rage; his hand was shaking as he shook that finger at Foicatch. “You’re a common soldier. How dare…”

  “She started it.” Foicatch watched with more than a little satisfaction as the Coast Lord’s eyes bugged out at that. “And I’d hardly say common. I’m a very good guardsman, if your lordship pleases.”

  More sniggering. Lord Robard’s hand dropped to his belt knife, and for a moment Foicatch thought he was going to draw it on him. He tensed, ready to move if he had to, but the Coast Lord just clenched his fist around the hilt of the knife and glared.

“Commander.” Elias’ voice was sharp. “Stop antagonizing the honorable lord.”

“Yes, High Commander.” Foicatch didn’t break eye contact with Lord Robard. “Sorry, High Commander.”

  Robard’s grip on his dagger relaxed slightly. “Thank you, High Commander.” He seemed slightly mollified by this. “I trust that you’ll see to it that your man remembers his position.”

High Commander Elias crossed his arms, eying the Lord of the Broken Coast thoughtfully. “I will make sure to speak with him about his habit of talking back to visiting nobility, my lord.”

“You’ll order him to break off this affair.” That finger stabbed through the air at Elias now. Elias, who’d spent decades sharing a bunkroom and bed with a woman who was vastly more terrifying than Robard could ever hope to be, looked even less perturbed than Foicatch. “I will not see the daughter of my friend throw away her reputation for a tumble with a peasant…”

  “It is not my place.” Elias’ voice was cool. “To interfere in the Queen’s affairs. I guard her person and protect her from harm. I do not give her counsel unless she requests that I do so.”

  “You should be protecting her person from that carpenter’s brat!”

  It was about then, as Lord Robard was yelling in High Commander Elias’ face and reaching for his belt knife again, that the mess door slammed open for the second time in ten minutes. Systlin stalked through, wearing hunting leathers and with a wooden training sword still stuck through her belt, hair falling out of her braid. The messenger must have found her in the middle of practice; there was irritation plain in every line of her face. The young corporal Elias had sent running hurried in behind her.

“What in the name of the Lord of the Pits is going on?” She practically snarled the words. “Robard! I really do hope you’re not about to draw that, because if you do, I’m giving Elias full permission to break your damn arm.”

Elias grinned unpleasantly. “Thank you, my Queen.”

  Lord Robard let go of his belt knife and dipped into a hasty bow. “My Queen! I was protecting your well being and good name, if you must know. I’ve heard…disturbing rumors, and he,” The finger moved to jab at Foicatch again. “Is practically boasting of how he’s managed to…to…debauch you.” He scowled at Foicatch; Foicatch smiled back, making sure to show as many teeth as possible. “My lady, I knew your father, and counted him a friend. I will not allow your good name to be dragged into the gutter…”

Systlin’s face had gone stony. Her eyes narrowed, and her chin lifted. Every Bloodguard in the room recognized the warning signs and winced. Robard didn’t, and kept going. “…by a girlish infatuation with a common peasant. My lady, he has nothing. His father…”

 “Is a carpenter.” Systlin’s voice was deadly quiet. “His mother is a shopkeep’s daughter. He is a Bloodguard…one who has distinguished himself as a man of loyalty, skill, and bravery. And none of that gives you any right, my lord, to order about any member of my Bloodguard.” She stared him down, eyes cold. “I suppose you’d rather I took one of your sons to bed, would you? My sister’s told me how you pushed to marry one of them off to her while I was gone. It doesn’t matter, does it, if you doom one of your boys to a life with a madwoman, so long as your grandchild gets the throne.”

Robard puffed up indignantly and opened his mouth. Systlin overrode him, raising her voice to drown out whatever it was that he was about to say. “Well, send your sons to court. If any of them are a better man than Commander Foicatch, perhaps I’ll give them a second glance. But,” She stressed the word. “I’ve ridden and fought alongside some good men, and I’ve yet to see his better.”

“He’s a commoner.” Robard bit this out at last. “Your majesty…”

“I will bed,” Systlin’s voice had gone very cold. “Whoever I damn well feel like, my Lord. And while I appreciate your concern for my reputation, I am reasonably certain that ‘keeper of a Bloodguard lover’ will not make people forget all of the other and well earned titles that go with my name.”

  Robard stared at her, seething. Systlin stared back, unblinking. Foicatch just watched, grinning.

“I don’t know what I expected.” Robard looked away at last. “Your father was unreasonable in these matters as well. It killed him in the end, your Majesty. I would not forget that, was I you.”

 “I haven’t.” Systlin rested a hand on the hilt of her wooden sword. “But I am not my father, Lord. My father, for example, believed you when you said that the reason you only sent five thousand men instead of ten thousand was because it was the height of harvest season.” Her eyes narrowed again. “And he believed that the trade ships lost off your coast were lost to pirates.”

Foicatch saw the flicker that passed over Robard’s face at that. He knew Systlin did too, for all it was gone nearly as soon as it was there. “Your Majesty.” Robard’s voice was a low growl. “I have ever been a staunch ally of the Stellas line, and if I were a monarch new to my throne, about to march to war, I would think more carefully before I speak such words.”

  “Would you.” Systlin’s voice was flat. “And you’ve been a staunch ally only so far as it was convenient for you. Am I to believe that you’ll refuse to raise your banners for me?” A snort. “If I call, Robard, they’ll come, whether you order it or not. I don’t know if you’ve spoken to the people in your lands recently, but my people have. And things have changed, my lord. They speak my name before yours now, when asked who they follow.” She grinned, that challenging, confident flash of teeth that Foicatch had become very fond of. “I’d think more carefully, Lord, before you speak such words.”

Robard’s face was priceless. Rage and doubt and a hint of fear. He stared at her for a moment before he found his voice. “My men are loyal.” His voice was subdued as he said it, though, and Foicatch knew that the lord had heard at least some of the stories about her, was at least somewhat familiar with her reputation amongst the common folk. “But I would be careful, your majesty. Your father was very certain that he could win, as well.”

“My father was a good and gentle and overall a foolish man who thought that people could generally be relied upon to act for the general good rather than their own selfish interests.” Systlin’s voice hadn’t softened. “I am not my father. I am none of those things, and have been thoroughly disillusioned of any thoughts towards the last. Go and ask the Queen of the Sands if I know how to fight and win a war. Now, my lord, allow one of my Bloodguard to escort you back to your quarters. I will expect your men in the numbers and at the time discussed, and can I trust that you will remember your place and not find yourself meddling in my personal affairs again?”

Robard stared at her, and then abruptly swept into a short, choppy bow. “Of course, my Queen.”

Systlin nodded at the nearest Bloodguard. The man stepped smartly up and dipped his head. “If you would follow me, my lord?”

“Of course.” Robard stared at Systlin again. “If I have the Queen’s permission?”

She inclined her head. Robard stalked off, following the Bloodguard, his extremely relieved personal guard trailing behind.

All of the Bloodguards let out a collective sigh of relief and returned to their dinner. Systlin planted her fists on her hips and stared at Foicatch. He gave her the most innocent look he possibly could in response.

“Were you?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’m sorry, my Queen?”

“Boasting.”

“My exact words, my Queen, and only after he asked, were she started it.” Foicatch shot a look to either side, taking in the Bloodguards packed into the mess hall, all of whom were carefully pretending not to hear or see a thing. “And I don’t think that I surprised anyone here by saying it. And I also think that everyone here knows very well that I have neither become negligent in my duties or received any preferential treatment when it comes to pay, shifts, or duties due to any relationship I may have with you.”

High Commander Elias sighed and massaged his temple, but there was a tiny smile tugging at the edge of his lips. Foicatch, who’d been familiar with Elias and High Commander Stellead’s arrangement for a long time, knew that the man could see his own terrifying lover in the Queen, more than a little.

One side of Systlin’s lips curled upwards in that little half-smile that always indicated amusement. “True enough, I suppose.” She turned to leave, paused, and turned back. “Though…High Commander?”

Elias snapped to attention. “My Queen?”

“Considering the fact that, thanks to the Commander, I may have to put up with one or more of Robard’s brats hanging around and trying to charm me in between trying to tumble the kitchen girls, I think a week of extra duty would be appropriate.”

Foicatch groaned. Systlin smiled sweetly, and Elias grinned. “Of course, my Queen.”

[systlinsideblog]

Part 10

It had once, Sabra knew, been a paiga tavern. It was still a tavern, but there were no more nude women dancing, no more chained women in alcoves for a man to grab and fuck after he drank his paiga. The curtains were gone; likely ripped down and carried off to make clothes by some of the slaves freed from this place. The chains were gone. The rings where once a woman could be tethered had been hacked free, and were now likely lying in the scrap heaps, waiting to be melted with coke and charcoal into steel.

“It seems fitting,” the Ubara Sana had said mildly to the council, “That we make chains into armor and weapons. Plus, no sense in wasting good iron.”

The tavern still sold paiga, and food, but only that. The slave quarters in back had been turned upside down; the women had been freed. Cages and chains had gone also to the scrap heaps. The flimsy nothing of slave garments were heaped in a corner, abandoned. The cloth merchants, Sabra knew, were doing a roaring trade. At least those who’d so far survived the Courts of Judgement, anyway.

The Ubara Sana had the wealth of the vaults of Turia in her hands now, and she had said that she would pay, from her own hand, for the cloth for each and every former slave in Turia to clothe themselves as they desired. She had sent people into the enormous vaults of Turia and brought out fabrics stored within, and had laid them at the disposal of the freed slaves of Turia, to use as they wished.

Sabra’s purse was heavy. The Ubara had given orders to Shayla, who’d commandeered every able  member of the Caste of Accountants who had not found themselves answering for crimes in one of the courts. The lot had set to work with a fury. The vast treasures of Turia had been divided into quarters; a quarter had been divided evenly between the warriors who had taken the city. A quarter had been divided evenly between the wagons of the Wagon People, each share going to the head of a family or wagon. A quarter was being divided among the freed slaves of Turia. The final quarter the Ubara had claimed for her own.

Each wealthy merchant, in addition, had been forced to pay a quarter of their wealth into the fund for the freed slaves of the city. The merchants were not happy. Sabra did not think the Ubara cared, and she knew full well that the merchants would make their wealth back in a few seasons.

Given the size of the vaults of Turia, the payout from them alone, Shayla had calculated, would be enough to set each freed slave up comfortably for life. There were fewer warriors; Sabra was now, it turned out, a wealthy woman.

Many of the warriors had given over parts of their own shares to go with the money for the newly freed women. The Ubara herself was paying for clothes, which for any of the newly freed women was a great expense to face when your chains had been newly struck off.

Sabra had sent half of hers to the share for the newly freed. Even so, she was wealthy now. She could have walked away now, and gone where she liked. Taken her wagon and bosk and money and weapons and lived well. If she wished to do so, she knew the Ubara would do nothing except try and press more into her hands and wish her well.

She did not intend to leave.

She had visited the baths, and cleaned her armor. Her spear was back in the Ubara’s mansion, in her quarters, but her sword and quiva were with her. Her injuries from the battle were healing well. A physician had offered to re-set her nose, so that it would not heal with an unsightly bend to it, but she’d refused.

“I will keep it,” she said. “I took it in the taking of Turia, at the Ubara’s side. It is a badge of honor.”

The physician had shrugged and moved on to the next woman.

The Ubara Sana was well; not even the venom of the osk had been able to kill her. That story as well as the others were running like wildfire all through the city, and to her astonishment Sabra quickly realized that the warriors who’d taken the city were being held in awe almost as great as the woman who’d led them.

It made her mission from the Ubara easier.

She paid for tea, and soup, and bread. She was wearing her armor; her hair was braided, and her sword was on her hip. The tavern was filled with former slaves. They were clothed now, in an assortment of styles. Freed slaves had reclaimed their former castes and all right such came with; many were dressed in caste-colors. Some wore robes, as a freewoman might. Some had copied the trousers and tunic that had become popular among the warriors, who’d patterned theirs off of the clothes the Ubara Sana favored, which she said were normal for her world. There were men as well; not every man in the city was a slaver, after all. There were a great many who held faithful to their Companions and never wished to own a slave; more than many men on Gor would have realized. They were staring as well.

There were even a few freewomen who’d never known chains in the place, mostly of the lower castes. Sabra had found that her best results came in the establishments like this, which served those of the lower castes.

She could feel eyes on her. Her armor and sword and healing injuries marked her clearly as one of the Ubara’s warriors. She could hear murmurs as she chose a table and sat, and studied the people in the tavern.

She thought, as her food was brought out, that she had once been very like them. Before she’d been stolen and made a slave, before she’d been sold and stolen again by the Tuchuks, before she’d seen a strange woman and been fascinated by the idea of a woman who carried a sword and walked amongst men unafraid.

She was not much like them now. She’d fought, and killed, and knew in her heart that she would never be subject to chains again. She’d throw herself on her own blade first.

She ate slowly, and waited.

It was a girl wearing robes in the colors of the caste of Brewers who first approached. Sabra noted that her ears had holes; she’d been a slave, then. Their Ubara still did not quite seem to comprehend the meaning of pierced ears on Gor; she still wore the rings in her own ear that she said indicated her status as bonded to certain lovers. But Sabra knew.

“You can sit.” She said, and nudged a chair out with the toe of her boot.

The girl did. She stared for a long moment. Sabra ate her soup.

“You were with her.” It wasn’t a question.

“At her side.” Sabra said, matter of fact. “Quite literally. I am of her personal guard. I rode at her side in the front.”

A gasp ran around the room, and muffled exclamations.

“You killed men, then?”

“I did. Many of them.” Sabra leaned forward. “Do you want to know a secret?”

The girl leaned forward, thrilled.

“Men die easily. They’re not nearly so strong as they pretend.” Sabra sat back, and drank her tea. “The Ubara taught us that, the first night she came. I was a slave in the camp of the Tuchuks.”

Another gasp. It was assumed by most slaves that being a slave to the Wagon People was particularly harsh. They were not really wrong.

“Where did she come from? Earth?”

“No. She says somewhere else. She appeared.” Sabra shrugged and waved her hand. “And walked into the camp as if she did not fear anything. They were angry, of course, but it didn’t matter. She killed them that night; nearly all of them. We burned them on pyres for days.” She took another spoonful of soup. “I was the first she freed.”

Another gasp. “Truly?”

“Ask any of the other warriors or the Ubara herself. I spoke to her; my master was angry and moved to beat me. She killed him, and struck off my collar.” Sabra touched her throat. “I’ve not worn another, and I shall never wear one again. The others were free by that next morning, but I was the first of them all. And then she put a spear in my hands and taught me how to fight.” She smiled.

“How long did it take? To learn?” There were other women drifting closer now. The girl of the Brewer’s Caste had bright eyes, and Sabra knew she would come to the rally call.

“Longer than I hoped!” Sabra laughed. “It has been a year and a half since she struck off my collar, but she has let those of us she deemed good enough fight in skirmishes and small battles since a year ago. She told me that I’m a fast learner.” She smiled again, in pride. “That’s why I got to ride at the front, next to her; I’m one of the best with a spear.”

She wondered if she’d looked like that to the Ubara, at first; all wide fascinated eyes. She probably had, she realized, and realized with a start that the girl was looking at her with as much awe as she’d once stared at Systlin with.

“I could teach you, if you want.” She said. “The Ubara Sana takes all who want to learn. She’s told us that she will organize lessons at a large scale, if needed. There’s many of us now who can help teach.”

“What if we do not want to join her army?” One of the older freewomen, who was listening intently but with narrow eyes.

Sabra shrugged. “Then don’t. You can still learn. All of us who fight for her do it because we choose. I am free to leave whenever I please.” She hefted her heavy purse and dropped it on the table with the heavy sound of gold; people stared, and there was avarice there in many cases. “She gave me a share from the vaults of Turia with her own hands; this is only a little of it. I could leave her army and live here, in the city of my birth, as a wealthy woman all the rest of my days from it, should I wish. I will not.” She returned the purse to her belt. “I will continue to ride with her. We will stay here a time, to train and plan. The tribes will go out again with the bosk, under the leadership of under-Ubaras so that the plains here are not eaten bare. But much of the army will stay, and when she goes north we will go with her, and burn every whip in our path.”

“You are Turian?” another woman exclaimed.

“I was born to the caste of the Weavers here in Turia.” Sabra spread her arms. “But I cannot claim Turia as my home any longer. I will go with the Ubara Sana, and help make her the Great Ubara, and her home stone shall be the home stone of all of Gor. And we will burn every whip, every slave couch, and melt every slave chain we find.” She smiled, because in her heart she knew that at least five of the women staring in such fascination at her would, indeed, come and ask for teaching at arms. “If you wish, come to the palace of the Ubara, or to any guard post. We will have things arranged; the Ubara Sana has already set up a council to oversee training of new warriors.”

  The first attempt came two days later, while Systlin was taking her breakfast.

As she ate her toast and sliced fruit and cheese, she heard distantly a commotion, sounding as if it came from the front doors of the Ubara’s mansion. Curious, she abandoned her food and ambled in that direction, Foicatch behind her, bringing his plate.

Several scribes and servants seemed frazzled and anxious. Her guards seemed nervous.

At the front gates, she found the door locked and barred. Several of her personal guard were standing, tense and alert, spears drawn and aimed at the windows as if expecting them to be smashed in.

From outside, she heard an outraged yell. “I wear the dagger! You must not impede me in my mission. Come forth, then, and cross your blade with a member of the Black Caste!”

“Get the Uba…” One of her guards was hissing, even as she turned around. She spotted Systlin, and stopped. “Ubara!”

Systlin finished her tea. Foicatch shot her an amused sidelong look and started on another piece of toast.

“He wasn’t joking.” He said around bread and jam.

“Fucking incompetents.” Systlin muttered under her breath. “They think this is assassination?”

Her guards, seeing the utter unconcern, were relaxing marginally.

“This will draw,” came the voice from outside the thick barred doors, indignant. “The wrath of the Black Caste!”

“Is there a guildhouse or something in Turia?” Systlin asked, with interest.

“In most cities, Ubara.” One of the guards said. “They do not claim a Home Stone, but there are guild halls set up in most cities, that they may be approached and hired.”

“Hmm.” Systlin stole a slice of sar fruit off of Foicatch’s plate.

“You must respect the wearing of the dagger!”

“How long will he keep at that?” Systlin wondered aloud.

“Guards normally do not interfere, Ubara.” Her guard shrugged helplessly. “Unless they are personal guards, and we thought it best not to battle one of the Black Caste hand to hand.”

“Smart.” She sighed and rolled her neck, twisted to pop her back. Rolled her shoulders and laced her fingers together, extending her arms out, palms away from herself, to limber up. She had Ice and her dagger with her, of course; even at home, she kept them close at hand. “Well, it would be a shame to deny him. He is wearing the dagger, after all.”

Her voice on the last sentence dripped sarcasm.

Her guards grinned tightly, and began working at the great bar across the doors.

“If I could trouble you,” Systlin said to another of her guards. “Could you carry a message to that tailor who altered my robes and made me those extra pants and tunics? Tell him I shall be requiring clothing of dark gray…not black, dark gray, dark browns are also acceptable. Soft linen, with leather pads at elbows and knees and shins. Half gloves of thin but strong leather. Pockets that close, sewn into sleeve and waistband. Tell him to have it finished by tonight, and I will pay double, and that includes for all the extra apprentices and help he must call in. I should also like to speak with an apothecary.”

“Of course, Ubara Sana.”

“Lovely.” She bent over, touching her forehead to her knees briefly, stretching out her legs. “Oh. And I shall require a good brace of knives, a grapple hook and rope, and I think a bottle of ink.”

“Of course, Ubara Sana.” The guard said, somewhat confused. “Ink?”

“And a fine paintbrush. That ought to do it. I can find everything else I might need myself.”

“Of course, Ubara Sana.”

Foicatch finished his toast. “Ink? Really?”

“I aim to humiliate them.” She said. Drew Ice and her dagger, and slid her feet into a ready stance as the doors were opened.

The man of the Black Caste was, indeed, dressed all in black. Black from head to toe, including the black dagger drawn below his eye. Systlin heaved a sigh, and wondered how these idiots could call themselves ‘Assassins’.

He stared at her. His eyes were flat and cold, but that was the only thing she recognized as anything that might mark the man as kin to the Shadow Hands.

“Let me guess.” She said. “You’re wearing that stupid face paint for Systlin Stellas.”

He scowled. Systlin had been scowled at by far worse. She mentally gave it a solid six out of ten.

“I wear the dagger for Systlin Stellas.” He confirmed. His own weapons…a pair of long daggers, somewhat longer than her own dagger but shorter than Ice…slid out of leather sheathes. They looked very sharp.

“Yes, well. Let’s get on with it, you interrupted my breakfast.” She raised a hand and beckoned with a crook of one finger.

He scowled more fiercely at the flippant tone. She rated that one a six and a half. “I am of the Black Caste, woman. An Assassin, trained by the Black Caste. You do not know what that means.”

“Oh,” she said, and grinned. “One of us certainly does not know what the word ‘assassin’ means.”

And with that, she was moving. Darting forward; even as he moved to meet that attack she dove into the deceptive shoulder roll that she’d learned long ago, on the tumbling mats of the Iron Mountain. Came up out of it darting to the side, unpredictable, irregular. He was good; he lunged as well, fast, footwork excellent, tracking her movements even as deceptive as they were.

She feinted in. He turned her attacks, but she hadn’t really been trying to strike him. He came forward with a dizzyingly quick series of slashes and jabs; she gave him credit; the Black Caste did teach well how to fight, at least. She parried and gave ground, leapt back, and made as if to roll again, leaping forward and tucking in.

He flashed to intercept with those long blades. With some effort, she twisted abruptly to the side, sliding aside of his attack. Got a foot solid underneath herself, and drove up and forwards with all the force in her strong legs and wiry body.

Her shoulder took him in the knees. Her momentum, mass, and strength drove her straight through, easily taking him off his feet even as she regained hers. A soft sound of pain and disbelief as he hit the tiles; he managed to take most of the impact with a roll of his own, keeping the wind from being knocked clean out of him.  

He almost managed to roll away from the savage kick to the elbow, a testament to his training. She felt it connect even so, and he made another soft hiss, but the bone didn’t crunch like she’d been hoping. She grinned.

“Oh, at last.” She said, as he circled more carefully. “Someone who can almost fight.”

He didn’t say anything, his eyes narrowed at her. He came in, but much more carefully. She played off the ends of his attacks; saw half a dozen openings that she didn’t take because they were too obvious, and waited for some brilliant strategy, some great hidden move that he’d been hiding.

It didn’t come. He was truly simply a fighter…a good one, to be sure, but simply a fighter who wore black and painted his face, which was growing more and more furious as they fought. She was methodically giving distance, making him chase her, and leading him in circles around the entrance hall. But when no clever redeeming strategy came forward, she sighed and chose to end it.

A parry, a step, a sidestep. A twist, a slide, a feint….

…and as their faces passed as they maneuvered, she spat full in his eyes. It was well aimed.

He flinched, blinked, and in that moment she dropped under his guard and drove her dagger up under his ribs, the point piercing his heart.

He made a soft sound almost like surprise as his grip on his knives went slack. She could see flat shock in his eyes.

She pulled back, blood hot on her hand. She watched him crumple dispassionately, and crouched to clean her dagger on his shirt.

He hadn’t even been expecting the dirty trick. The Master of Knives had been a bastard and she’d enjoyed killing him, but she also respected many things about him. One had been his great approval of fighting dirty whenever possible. Quite frankly, Stellead had ingrained the habit into her niece as well, and it was only further confirmation to Systlin that all was indeed fair in a fight.

“Pathetic.” She said under her breath, disgusted.

Her guards were cheering. She supposed this was another tale for her legend; how the Ubara Sana opened the front door to an assassin and killed a member of the Black Caste in her front entry hall before finishing her morning toast.

There was something else she’d showed a rare gift for, early on, and had honed in her later campaigns. She eyed the corpse of the assassin on the floor, with his stupid painted message to the world on his face, and smiled tightly to herself.

It was time to send a message, starting with the caste headquarters of the Black Caste in Turia.

She’d always been quite good a psychological warfare.

[systlinsideblog]

Part 9

I had heard, of course, that Saphrar the merchant had perhaps managed what fifteen thousand fighting men had not. It shamed me, but then at this point I was becoming used to shame. I felt admiration, in truth, for the guile of the merchant, who had perhaps managed by stealth and cunning what no force of arms could.

Poison is thought of as dishonorable, on Gor. Even the Assassin’s Caste scorns it. It is thought of as a weapon of cowards and women.

And yet, perhaps, it had accomplished what no fighting man could, and killed the she-sleen. I hoped it had.

There was a creeping, shameful part of myself that knew that a part of this hope was from jealousy. I was becoming more accustomed to realizing what certain of those thoughts and impulses were, and a part of them were from the part of me that remembered Foicatch, naked in the lamplight, body sheened in sweat and laughing at me as I panicked and tried to wash the shameful taste of him out of my mouth, even as I wanted more of it.

He was hers. I knew this. I was, at best, a momentary diversion. It amused him, I knew, to watch me struggle with myself. I still hated the part of myself that wanted him, but want him I did.

If she died, I had no illusions that he would turn to me. But there was that small hateful base part of me that hoped.

Of course, if she was dead she would also not be able to bring ruin upon any of the other proud cities of Gor. Though…as I looked around at the warriors she’d created, that I had helped train, I wondered suddenly if it would, in the end, make a difference.

It hit me like a bucket of cold water that I had, perhaps, in my actions helped bring about the fall of the Gorean culture that had accepted me and made a fighting man of a feckless professor. I had, reluctantly, taught some of them how to properly hold a spear. I had done it with a sword to my neck, but I had done it nonetheless, because I had not wished to die.

Shame swept through me again. I had thought myself a fighting man in true, and yet I had, fearing death, put death in the hands of these women. I had watched them fly into battle, and they had not shrunk from death. They had faced it and embraced it with a cry of challenge on their lips. They had embodied the code of the Warrior Caste far more than I had. And while that terrible she-beast had brought down the gates of Turia, though she’d won an advantage over the Turian forces through breaking their spears, the fighting had been done by sweat and blood and steel, as it always has, and the victory had come from the same.

The sweat and blood and courage and skill of women. This was what had, at last, brought proud Turia, the jewel of the South, to its knees.

The world tilted under my feet. I dropped my head into my hands, and wondered, for the first time in a long time, if perhaps the Gorean ways I had adopted so eagerly were, in the end, truly as monstrous and cowardly as I’d so venomously been told of late.

I was mulling this over, all in all a sad and confused and pathetic little heap of a man, when the camp around me began coming alive with shouts of delight and celebration. I knew before I heard the words that the Ubara Sana had lived.

It occurred to me as I listened to the sounds of celebration and joy outside my wagon that the Priest Kings might soon find others worshipped as gods on Gor. I wondered how long it would take before temples with an image of an armed and armored she-sleen appeared. I wondered how the Priest-Kings would react. Perhaps they would kill her at last. One could only hope.

I ignored the celebrations and activity outside; I was still feeling sorry for myself. Eventually, though, the she-sleen, as usual, refused to let me be. I think she takes pleasure in tormenting me.

One of the women appeared at my wagon. She threw the flap back, and eyed me with clear distaste. “Get up.” She said. “And come with me. The Ubara-Sana is addressing the highborn families and caste-leaders of Turia. After, she wishes to question you about Turia’s trade with the north, and the lay and powers of the north.”

Of course; she wished to use the time here to plan for her further conquests. It was wise; I had to admit. The woman had clearly commanded forces in truth before. The business on the plain before the gates of Turia had been neatly managed. I glowered at the impassive armored woman waiting for me, but did not resist. The she-sleen held the whole of the southern prairies now in truth; any direction I fled, even if I stole the fastest kaiila, I would have to cover hundreds of miles to be free of her influence. Without a tarn to fly, I would never make it, and I knew it. She had hunting sleen given my scent daily.

In the great Throne Room of Turia, I found myself quite underdressed. The highest born, wealthiest, and most powerful free men and women of the city were gathered, packed in quite closely. The she-sleen was seated in the Ubar’s throne, quite composed, as if she had not days ago been bitten with Osk venom. The osk is a feared and nasty little viper, and its bite is nearly always fatal. But still, there she sat, wearing stately robes of darkest blue and with a ruby glinting like blood in her hair. She looked almost lovely, until one noted that her sword and long knife were still at hand, belted at her hips.

I wondered what it would take to kill her in truth. I was beginning to doubt it could be done.

She was just finishing some sort of speech, I gathered. The men in the room looked subdued, unhappy. The women…and I realized with a jolt that not all were veiled…looked more than a little pleased.

How fast did she work, that already free women had put aside their Robes of Concealment?

As we entered, people were beginning to leave. I glared up at the thrones, wondering exactly how she had survived the venom.

Foicatch was clad in the robes of a wealthy, important, and rich man, also in dark blue. They set off the brown of his skin, the black of his hair, and the green of his eyes. They bared the tattoo he’d said was the mark of his skill as a smith, as well as several scars that showed he was a fighting man. My mouth dried at the sight of him.

The she sleen saw us coming. “Ah,” she said. “Thank you, Myra. Take him to the study. I’ll be along in…” She glanced back at Foicatch, and I saw his eyes glitter. Her lips twitched in a smile. “…Some time. We’ve some matters to attend to, regarding this throne. You’d best not let anyone in for a bit.”

 Foicatch was on his knees even as the doors of the vast throne hall clicked shut, fumbling with the skirts of her robes. She arched her hips and rucked the silk up accommodatingly, heat flaring in her belly. There was no spice as potent as death defied to whet one’s carnal appetites, she found, and she’d done it twice in a week.

He paused, infuriatingly, even as his beard scratched pleasantly at the skin of her inner thighs. He rested a chin on her thigh, and shot her a look that was all concern and affection and definitely not liquid lust, which was what she wanted right now.

“You’re feeling up to this?” He asked, quietly. “If you’re still weak, we don’t have…”

She made a noise of frustration, sank a hand into his hair, and steered his face bodily into position. “You promised me a proper cunt-licking.” She reminded him. “If we survived. Follow through, King Consort.”

She felt him grin. Hesitation gone, he slid his arms under her thighs. She draped her legs over those broad shoulders and leaned back in anticipation. The throne of Turia was not, perhaps, the most comfortable place for this, but the thrill was undeniable.

His mouth was hot, and his tongue very skilled; they’d been together decades, and he knew her very well. He went right for the vigorous hard laps of his tongue that he knew she liked, punctuated by very careful use of his teeth. Her thighs clenched involuntarily as her back arched, and she said “Ahhhh!” in satisfaction and pleasure. He didn’t seem to mind, though she let off after a moment, remembering that he did need to breathe.

He drew back, kissing her thigh, and grinned up at her, and there was that wild note in his eyes she’d wanted. His pupils were dilated wide in desire, and he nipped at an old scar on her leg, not entirely gently.

“We need to do this while we’re still hot from battle and covered in blood,” he said. “But you do look good on a newly conquered throne.”

She tugged on his hair again. Obediently, he dove back in with a will. She buried both hands in his hair and ground her hips against him shamelessly.

“Queen.” Foicatch panted against her leg, as he came up for breath. “Lady, but you’re magnificent…” He had a hand under his own robes now, and was stroking himself off with steady, measured movements. “I could watch you bring a million cities to heel.”

“Bedding a Breaker.” She managed. Her voice had gone husky. “Is terribly foolish. You dance with fire, my love.”

A shrug. “If I die, I die a happy man.” His tongue found her pearl of pleasure again, and she just wrapped her legs around his head and admired the sight of him and the adrenaline of death defied and cities conquered, of battle and the pleasure of terrifying dreadful men, and forgot anything else.

He knew her very well. It didn’t take him much longer to send her over the edge into that white-hot burst of oblivion, pleasure running hot along every nerve. As she was enjoying the aftershocks, he pressed his forehead against her thigh again and groaned, shuddering for a long moment. She watched as he wiped his hand off on the hem of his own robes, heedless of the fine silk.

“So,” She raised an eyebrow. “Good as you hoped?”

“Better.” He stood, took a loose-limbed step over to the smaller throne, and collapsed sideways into it, legs hooked over one arm. “Be better still right after battle.”

“I’ll try to not get poisoned next time.”

“Good.”

 It was some time before at last the she-sleen and Foicatch arrived in the private office of the Ubar of Turia. She’d quite obviously claimed it as her own. Scribes ran in and out constantly, and several of her personal guard glowered skeptically at me.

I sat on one of the cushions before the low table that served as a desk and waited, still stewing silently on my failures. At last, the self-proclaimed Ubara Sana appeared, her mate at her side. She settled herself cross-legged behind the low table…it rankled at my sensibilities still…and Foicatch leaned against the wall. She looked through several stacks of paperwork and reports, keenly, as tea was brought. Signed several papers and sent them off. Briskly sorted papers into a few piles, all the while not sparing me a glance.

I scowled at her. She paid me no more attention than one might an ant.

At last she pushed the paperwork aside and deigned to look to me, sipping her tea thoughtfully. I stared back, fully aware that I was still entirely in her power, and that unless I was ready to embrace death I was going to be forced to help her yet again.

Shamefully, I realized that I still was not willing to die.

“I’ve set aside half of what I have personally claimed from Turia’s vaults,” she said at last. “As a fund for Turia itself, to continue to maintain public infrastructure and pay public employees. That fund is very large, and if no taxes were taken in it would maintain all those needs for years. And I take it that Turia is not the wealthiest city of Gor?”

I glowered, but answered. “No.”

A shake of her head that seemed disappointed. “You rely on caste goodwill to support those who you do not allow to work or who cannot, when the vaults of your cities are stacked with mountains of coin?” Another shake of her head, and she drew over still another piece of paper, dipped a pen, and began writing. “Coin is only useful for what it can buy. It does no one any good hoarded in vaults.”

“You were quick enough to claim a share,” I said spitefully.

“Of course I was. I’ve an army to pay and feed and equip, and it’s going to grow significantly even here. We’ve already had hundreds approach us wishing to learn skill at arms. Not all will join my forces, of course, but many will. War is an expensive business. I’d think you would understand that, warrior.” The last word was said with such a cutting bite that I flinched.

“Of course,” She signed the paper and pulled another towards her. “there will be taxes taken in. And I’ve had to close some rather glaring loopholes in the tax codes, quite frankly. Merchants seem to have quite favorably arranged things for their benefit over the years. Some of the richest were paying practically no tax at all. But that has been remedied.” She signed the second paper, and set it aside.

Those cold eyes fixed on me again. “Your Assassin’s Caste. What do you know of it?”

“They’re immensely skilled at arms.” I said at once. It would truly be a delight if one of the Black Caste drove a dagger into her. “Their training is long and brutal, and teaches them callousness and heartlessness both. Many do not survive the training.”

She nodded at that. “I must admit.” She said. “I find it curious that you, one not of the Black Caste, would know so much of it.”

“They make no secret of it.” I shrugged. “The profession is not illegal.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Indeed. In my experience, most places frown on a profession that involves poison landing in their wine.”

“No Assassin would stoop to poison.” I scoffed at the notion, but caught myself. After all, I could still see the angry red swelling at her wrist, though it was wrapped in clean linen bandages. It was a potent reminder that poison had nearly accomplished what no force of arms had managed. “Poison is a coward’s weapon, a woman’s weapon.”

Her other eyebrow joined the first. I had the distinct impression that she did not quite believe me. “So. Your assassins walk the streets openly, and scorn poison.”

“No city guard would interfere with one of the Black Caste who wore on his face the sign that he had taken gold to slay someone.” I confirmed.

She stared. Very slowly, set down the pen, and steepled her fingers, resting her elbows on the table and her chin on her fingers. “Pardon me?”

“The dagger.” I touched my own face. “Drawn here. With the black robes, the sign that one of the Black Caste has taken coin and is tracking a mark.”

She stared at me for a long moment. And then, to my horror, began laughing. Hysterically, as if someone had told her the funniest joke she had ever heard before in her life. I stared as she put her head on her folded arms on the table, shaking with laughter.

I have never before seen someone respond so to stories of the Assassin’s Caste.

“I don’t understand.” I said.

She raised her head, wiping away tears of mirth. “You PROCLAIM when you’ve taken a contract! You tell EVERYONE! You wear a sign that you’ve been sent to stick a dagger in someone!” She dissolved into laughter again.

“Now you’ve done it.” Foicatch said, amused. “You’ve professionally offended her.”

“I don’t…”

“You spurn poison! What sort of hired killer…” She dissolved into helpless chortles again.

I remembered then her saying, once, that she’d trained with the hired killers of her own world. “I suppose,” I said glumly. “That you will say that the killers of your own world are more skilled.”

“The Shadow Hands would eat your Assassin’s Caste for lunch.” She chuckled this as if it were delightful. “Fucking…broadcasting that you’re there to kill a bastard. I can’t even…”

“How else would it be known that passage must be granted?” I demanded, somewhat heated.

“It isn’t, you tit.” She sat up, still wiping tears away. “Every measure is taken to kill a Shadow Hand instantly if their identity is discovered, in fact. Or was, until I took them apart. Half the damn job is getting to your target without being found out. Once you get near enough, then you kill them however you can. You want the fucker dead. There’s no room for honor in it. You’re already taking money to murder someone; there’s no illusions of honor. It’s about gold, and gold alone. I need to introduce myself to these idiots. Professionally.”

Foicatch shook his head. “I hadn’t realized you’d so taken their lessons to heart.”

“The Master of Knives was a bastard but he wasn’t wrong about some things. I can respect how he conducted business, even if I did cut his throat.”

“Fair enough, I suppose.”

“It’s been a minute since I really had to dust off the skills.” She looked thoughtful now. “I’ve kept them in fighting shape, but been a bit since I really had to use them. It would be a nice challenge.”

“Challenge?” I said, feeling horribly as if I knew.

“Oh. Kill a few of them. Preferably their masters.” She shrugged. “In true Shadow Hand style. In and out, never seen, no one saw or heard shit, leave a knife jammed through their eye and the symbol drawn next to them, and certainly no one ever saw me ride into town with my intent written on my face like an overdramatic fucking teenager.”

[systlinsideblog]

Part 8

The mansion of Saphrar of Turia was, in fact, very beautiful. It was also built like a fortress; the merchant was, it seemed, very paranoid in addition to being very rich. Quietly, Systlin approved, but right now it was an annoyance.

“We think we’ve picked off most of his archers,” one of the women said as Systlin arrived. Systlin looked the compound over, narrow eyed. There were bodies draped over a few of the crenelations around the enclosing wall, arrows sticking from them. “But we’ve not siege equipment strong enough to break open the gates.”

“Of course.” Systlin cracked her knuckles and rolled her neck again; fighting for the day, then, was not quite through. She eyed the gates; they were smaller, of course, than the gates of the city.

For good measure, she took out the whole front wall. A few hidden archers did fall screaming with the dust and gravel of the broken wall. As the dust cleared, she spotted the front door of the mansion proper and Broke that as well. A group of horrified mercenaries in the front garden watched the wall crumble, and then quite meekly laid their weapons down and knelt, raising their hands in surrender.

“Finally.” Systlin said. “Some people with a little sense. Bind them, and take them to the Ubara’s mansion.” A pause. “And after this, someone ought to show me to the Ubara’s mansion. I could use a bath, I think.”

That drew a laugh from the warriors around her. She drew her weapons, and led the women into the house.

They were met by some delighted slave girls; when they spotted Systlin they cried out in joy, and one rushed forward and took her by the hand.

“This way!” She tugged. “This way, Mistress! Our master is hiding, but I know where he is!”

Systlin followed. Followed through a hall, down some stairs, down more, her warriors close behind. House slaves parted before them, and some women peeled off to remove their collars and chains. A delighted murmur followed them down to the cellars.

They found Saphrar of Turia hiding in a hidden cubbyhole under a flagstone that moved on a cunning little mechanism. He cringed when Systlin pulled it open; she made a disgusted noised, bent down, grabbed him by the collar of his robe, and hauled him out through mean strength.

“And how well did that work for you?” She said shortly. “Hiding like a rat, behind hired swords?”

Even as she spoke, he twisted, and snapped. Even as she pulled away, his teeth sank into the back of her wrist. She buried her knee in his gut and he let loose, wheezing, but grinning through a mouthful of her blood.

“Well!” He croaked. “Quite well! Because where all of the warriors of the city failed, where the Wagon people failed, I’ve succeeded! Enjoy, she-sleen!”

“Fuck.” Systlin muttered. “Shit.” She slammed an arm out even as her warriors lunged forward. “ALIVE. Keep him alive.”

“So I can give you the antidote?” Saphrar crowed, gleeful. He had, Systlin saw, two false teeth shaped like fangs, gleaming gold. “I won’t! You can torture and kill me, I won’t!”

Systlin licked the blood welling from the marks his hidden fangs had left. There, a bitter note. She rolled it over her tongue as she’d been taught in the Iron Mountain so long ago, opening her mouth slightly to smell as well. Faint subtle scents and tastes, the combinations of them…

“Fuck,” she said again, picking notes out.

“Ubara!” Her warriors had Saphrar by the throat, and Dina was clutching at Systlin’s arm, frantic. “Osk venom! Some merchants use it, fangs like that are popular…a physician! Get a physician! Get the Ubar!

Several women left at a dead sprint.

Systlin gently but insistently shook Dina’s hand off, and she went for her belt pouch. Saphrar was still cackling, even through the arm around his neck.

“Fifteen thousand of the warrior caste, dead!” He said, gleeful. “A whole High Caste gone, failed, and a lowly merchant kills the beast!” He dissolved into more laughter.

“Ubara! If it spreads…”

“It already is.” She could feel the pain beginning as she fished a tiny packet, neatly wrapped in waxed rag paper and tied with thread, out of her pouch. She carefully undid the thread, and opened it to reveal a white powder. She licked the tip of a finger, dipped it into the powder, and then licked the powder off and made a terrible face as she pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth; the stuff was terribly bitter as it dissolved through the thin tissues of the mouth. She re-wrapped the powder, and handed the packet to Dina.

“Ubara?” Dina’s voice was near panic.

“That packet,” Systlin said, deliberately calm. “Is my life, Dina. Give it to no one else. Do you understand? No one. This is my life, in this packet, and I’m trusting it to you.”

“I…” A hard swallow. “Yes, Ubara, but…”

“I am a Queen…you call it Ubara here, but I am a Queen on my own world as well, and have enemies. I trained with assassins before that. Listen, no, listen. In the Iron Mountain I have trained to tolerate many poisons and venoms better than most, and that should help, but I am going to be very sick very shortly. I know, I think, what this Osk venom is, or at least what makes it deadly. That,” a nod at the packet, “will counteract the effects enough to keep me alive while it runs its course. I will not be able to give it to myself. If my breathing looks like it is near stopping, give me as much as I just took, no more. What will stick to a single wetted fingertip. Too much will kill me. I do not need to swallow. Place it under my tongue, rub it on my gums, inside my nose. Do you understand?”

Dina was white. All her women were white. But Dina nodded, once, her lips thin and trembling and terror written all over her face.

“Good.” Systlin took a deep breath; sure enough, it was more difficult than it had been minutes ago. “And keep him alive.” She nodded at Saphrar. “I want to see his face when I don’t die.” A beat. “If I do die, give him to Foicatch.”

“Ubara.” Dina’s voice was thin. “Yes.”

“Good.” Systlin said, and then swayed, and quickly sat heavily down on a crate. She could feel the cold sweat breaking out; she doubted that most of her warrior women had seen her sweat before. She was, after all, a fire witch, and the hottest of days was no bother to her.

It was good, though. The symptoms were telling her that she’d been right, and even as her breathing grew more labored she felt the tingling rush of the compounds distilled into the rescue powder hit. Breathing eased slightly. The dizziness did not. There was a roaring in her ears, and vision blurred. She pitched to the side, and hands caught her.

The room swam. Things were happening around her very rapidly; she could hear them, but picking out meaning would have taken too much concentration. Her fingers were tingling, and her wrist was burning. Her breaths came hard and labored, but she kept breathing.

A familiar face, a familiar voice. Foicatch, sounding near panic. She tried to raise a hand to his face, but her limbs weren’t responding. She was lifted onto something…a stretcher?...and moved.

Time passing. Movement; she was being carried somewhere. Nausea, and her vision was just a blur of colors. Movement stopped; she was laid on something soft. Time passing. Hands on her, a prick of pain in her arm, more time passing. Her breaths started to rasp and struggle, and she wondered…but there! The bitterness of the rescue powder in her mouth, and soon breathing eased again. Not by too much, but enough for her to keep forcing air in and out. People speaking, hurried and frantic. Someone else, calmer. She felt hands easing away armor and boots and weapons. She wanted to protest, but hadn’t the strength.

A warm, wet cloth. Someone was cleaning away mud and blood. She knew the hands. Foicatch. Someone else. A woman? Of course a woman…

Sura hadn’t wanted her to go to the Iron Mountain. Systlin, with her father’s murder hanging before her eyes, had disregarded Sura’s advice for the first time, and gone anyway. The Master of Knives had welcomed her, tried to bend her to his will like he’d bent others. His gift for pushing at minds was rare, and terrible, as terrible as Breaking in its own way. She’d managed to shunt aside his power with her own, undoing it before it could bend her to him. She’d pretended that it had taken, and he’d set her to train.

What a prize, she’d heard him say once. A Breaker, at my feet. What a Hand I shall make of you. The world will tremble.

She remembered his blood on her hands, after she’d slit his throat at last. You took the contract for my father, she’d told him, as he bled out on the floor. You sent your Hand. That’s why I came, to kill his killers…

The bitterness of rescue powder in her mouth, again. Her face was numb, and her hands still tingled. Her head was pounding like a drum.

Snake venom in vials, lined up. Tasting each, carefully, picking out what snake it was from by taste and scent alone and reciting how it killed. She’d drunk snake wine before, but tasting the pure venom was another thing entirely…

Bitterness in her mouth. Voices. Her hand was in someone else’s; she would have known Foicatch if she were dead. His voice, worried. She was lying on something soft.

She’d been good at it, though. It had interested her. She’d memorized them, and the plant poisons, and the mineral. She’d memorized which of the little packets they all carried for emergencies could help the body fight each…

Bitter in her mouth. She blinked, slow, and thought that things might be a little more in focus. Her breaths were still coming harsh and difficult, but she tried to move her hands and her fingers twitched. She would have smiled, were her face not still numb.

The weeks of terrible sickness, as each of the poisons was administered in turn, in gradually increasing doses. They each were expected to endure a lethal dose of each poison in time. She’d passed that test, as the others, but she remembered little of it. Just pain, sickness, heaving though her stomach was empty. A headache like her head was pressed in a vice, that had lasted days.

Bitter in her mouth. She could feel her hands again, and this time another dose didn’t come, because her breath, instead of stuttering and slowing, came stronger. Her vision cleared, slowly, and her headache receded. She lay there, eyes closed, concentrating on her breath, until at last she did not have to fight for it any longer. It took what felt like hours.

She opened her eyes.

She was in an enormous bedroom, on a bed. She was nearly naked under the blankets, save for a light wrap robe someone had found. She was clean. Her hair had been combed and washed and re-braided. Ice and her knife and her armor sat next to her; they’d been cleaned as well.

Foicatch was sitting next to her, slumped back in exhaustion in a chair. He’d at least consented to remove his armor; he was wearing a long tunic that was too tight across his shoulders, and had at least scrubbed a wet cloth over his body and through his hair. Dina sat on the floor before the fire, distractedly cleaning her already spotless knife. As Systlin moved, Foicatch’s eyes shot open, and he sat up. The relief in his eyes was almost painful.

“Thank the Lady’s mercy.” He said, quietly and with feeling, and kissed the back of her hand. “You scared me.”

“When we see Sura next,” Systlin said, her voice still raspy from a dry throat. “I’m going to tell her that I was right about going through the training and not just dragging the whole bloody mountain down on his head. How long…”

A watery sort of chuckle. “Oh, she’ll hate it. Two days. Rumors are running wild, but everything’s under control.”

Dina approached warily, and very carefully set the tightly wrapped packet of powder on the bed beside her.

“She wouldn’t give it up even to me.” Foicatch said.

“She was right not to. If you gave me a dose the size of your fingertip, it would have been enough to kill me. Dina’s got smaller hands.” She hauled herself up into a sitting position. Her wrist still hurt, and was still red and swollen, but the worst of it was past.

“You told me it was your life.” Dina whispered.

“It was.” Systlin took it carefully, and set it on top of her neatly piled gear. “I owe you my life, Dina of Turia. If there is anything in my power to give, it’s yours.”

Dina trembled a little, and Systlin realized that she was crying silently. She realized suddenly what it must have been for Dina, for all of her people here, to see her fall. To see hope itself lying like death on a bed, struggling for each breath. To feel the prospect of chains looming again…

No. She’d taught them enough. Even without her now, she did not think any of the slaves she’d freed would ever be forced into them again. She’d started enough; it might take long, without her, but she’d planted the seeds. She saw suddenly, in a dizzying rush, warriors from the plains spreading out, bringing low the fighting men and freeing the slaves from one city-state after another, a steady march clear across Gor, and all done through sweat and courage and blood alone.

Centuries, it might take. But it would have happened, even had she died in this bed.

Though, as she thought on it, she wondered what would happen, should her body expire. And then she realized, quite suddenly, that she’d thought of them as her people.

You already know the answer there, sister. The whisper in her mind was familiar by now. You cannot kill a goddess of death with poison.

“Ubara sana,” Dina said quietly. “There is nothing I would ask that you have not already given me. You owe me nothing; you already gave me back my life.”

“The offer stands.” Systlin said. “If ever there is something in my power to give you, say the word and it is yours.”

Dina gave her a look that was half frightened, half wondering, and quite suddenly she leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth. Systlin froze in surprise, and Dina pulled back as if burned, nearly cringing in a way she’d not done in more than a year.

“I’m sorry!” She gasped, and there were more tears streaming down her face now. Systlin stared, almost bemused; that she hadn’t seen it before was astounding, really. “I’m sorry! Ubar…”

Foicatch was also staring in a rather bemused way. “Well,” he said. “It’s not like I can fault you in your tastes.”

“Dina?” Systlin’s throat was as dry as sand already, and still sore, and it sounded like a croak more than a voice. “I…sorry, water…”

Foicatch picked a cup up from the table beside the bed. A gesture, and water appeared as he pulled moisture out of the air. It trickled into the cup, and she drank greedily.

“You should have said something.” She said at last, handing the wooden cup back. Foicatch filled it again.

Dina was still looking faintly terrified, as if she’d overstepped somehow. “I…but…” she gestured weakly at Foicatch.

“You’d not be the first woman in her bed.” Foicatch shrugged, handing the cup back to Systlin and watching as she drained it as well. “I’ve had other men and women in mine as well.”

“He’s terrible taste in men.” Systlin narrowed her eyes. “Downright awful. That miserable little Cabot man? Really?”

“He’s attractive. And it’s been amusing to watch him panic over things.” He filled the cup a third time. “Sucks a mean cock, once he finally works past all the nonsense about shame and his manliness, but then goes maudlin and sulks for a week. Still, a fun enough diversion.”

“Sounds dreadful. This is what I mean. Awful taste in men.”

“I don’t…” Dina looked slightly faint. “I don’t understand.”

Foicatch shrugged. “Few people do, to be fair.”

“What it means, is that this,” Systlin caught Dina’s hand and pulled her back. She watched the other woman’s lovely face slowly go from confusion to hope to disbelief as she kissed the inside of one of Dina’s wrists. “Will not anger him. The fact that he takes other lovers now and then does not anger me. Though,” She sat up too fast, and her head was spinning again. She grimaced and lay back again. “It may have to wait.”

“Ubara sana,” Dina said, even more faintly. “I think that I can wait.”

“Good.” Systlin took a breath, and hauled herself upright again. Her head spun still; she gritted her teeth and rode it out, and the lingering nausea. “For now, I need clothes.”

“Ubara!”

“I need to be seen.” Systlin said simply, and got her feet under her. Foicatch offered an arm; she leaned on it. “I’m all right, Dina. I’m a tough bitch to kill.”

“I…”

The door opened then, and a woman in green robes swept in. She had olive skin and very black hair, braided and pinned up in a coil on top of her head. She carried a case, and when she saw Systlin on her feet her face lightened from its cool professionalism.

“Oh, excellent.” She said. “You’re back with us.”

“This is Zephra.” Foicatch said. “A physician. She’s been checking on you. Dina?”

“Of course.” Dina hurried out.

“You really shouldn’t be on your feet.” The woman said, severely. Systlin was reminded instantly of Myssa, the royal True Healer and Physik. “Though I suppose you must be seen as soon as possible. Sit for a moment.”

Systlin did. It never did any good to argue with physicians or healers. Zephra laid a hand on her forehead, checked her pulse, listened to her breathing, and at last made a sound of approval. She drew a stylus and pad out of her bag, and began making notes.

“You’ll live.” She said. “That powder of yours is ingenious; I managed to get a tiny bit from your devoted guard to analyze. It is, in truth, very similar to what I would have given you, and I did not wish to cause an interaction with what you had already taken, so I thought it best to leave your girl to it. If it had truly come to it, I did have an apparatus ready to breathe for you.” She nodded to the corner; Systlin looked, and saw a great cylinder of glass and copper and leather. “But you did not react so strongly to the Osk venom as most would. I am glad to see you recovering.” She examined Systlin thoughtfully, tapping the stylus against her lips. “You’ve survived other things that you should not have, judging from your scars.”

Systlin touched the scar under her right breast with a wince. A spear had transfixed her there once, long ago, piercing clean through. “True enough.”

“The physicians of your world are skilled indeed, if they can mend such injuries.” Zephra said bluntly. “I could not do it. Neither could a doctor of Earth.”

“True-healers.” Foicatch said. “They can repair flesh with a touch, as I can command water and Systlin can command fire and Break.”

Zephra’s eyebrows rose. “That,” she said softly. “Would be a gift worth having.”

“It’s rare. Those who have it are held in high regard.”

“I was lucky.” Systlin touched the scar again. “It was a spear. I should have died there, but there was a True-Healer nearby. I got very lucky.”

Foicatch’s hand tightened on her shoulder for a moment.

“Well.” Zephra hummed quietly. “I suspect that this will only add to the growing legends that are being spread around. Before you arrived at the city, we had heard that you were a terrible spirit who ate the flesh of men.” A spark of humor in her dark eyes.

Systlin made a face. “Only half true.”

A laugh. “I have never seen,” she said. “Men so frightened as they are now. Not all of them, of course; there are good ones to be found.” She tapped her stylus against her lips again. “It does my heart good.” The smile turned bitter. “If you’ll have my service, Ubara, I would give it, wherever you go.”

Foicatch and Systlin both looked at her oddly.

“Ah, yes. You likely do not know…I am a free woman, of a high caste. I was able to study, and am able to ply my trade. Most free women are not allowed such, did you know? A free woman of the metalworker caste does not work at the forge; a woman of the scribe caste may be illiterate.” The smile grew more bitter still. “Our options are to inherit wealth to live well, or to Companion a man of means and bear his children. I was lucky, Ubara Sana, in that I showed aptitude as a physician and was accepted into the caste. Even still, I was not allowed to do the work I studied and trained for. Not until I had Companioned a man of the physician caste and borne him two children.”

Systlin stared. Foicatch said, flatly, “What.”

“My daughters,” Zaphra continued, “Are dear to me. But I did not renew my Companionship with their father, and had I a choice I would not have taken their father to bed or borne them. I wished only to work as I had trained to do. I am what is called ‘frigid’ by the men of Gor; I have never felt desire for anyone. Unlike what many suppose, this is not an affliction. Many people are born thus, and forced to conceal it. My male colleagues scoff at the idea, and insist that it is an aberration that could be remedied by a proper man, and perhaps some slave chains.” She put her stylus and pad away, businesslike. “As if the only ones born thus are women. Free women of Gor are not free, not truly, even if a collar is never set on us. I think that with you that may change, and my daughters may taste freedom in truth. It is at the least a better chance than any we’ve had before.”

“Ah.” Systlin tested her balance again; it was better. She gently eased off of leaning on Foicatch, even as Dina reappeared with robes. “I see.”

“I thought you might, given what I had heard of you from your women.”

“If you wish it, I accept your offer.” Systlin let Dina help her shrug into the robes. The other woman also wrapped Systlin’s braid around her head like a crown and deftly pinned it into place.

“I am honored, Ubara sana.” Zaphra inclined her head.

“Right.” Systlin took up her sword belt, and buckled it into place over her silken robes. “Dina, where are the warriors?”

“Many are in the camp. More have taken over the guard houses. Many have bedded down on the lower floors of this mansion.” Dina looked at her. “They’re taking turns here, because not all of us could fit in the Ubara’s mansion. Your honor guard stays, of course, but the rest have set up rotating shifts, so that they could all guard you for a time.”

Systlin blinked, and felt her throat tighten and heat in her eyes. “Have they.”

“I’ve told you many times.” Foicatch said, softly. “You’ve never had any idea what it’s like, from the outside.”

“You are the Whip-Burner.” Dina said, as if it were simple and obvious. “The Chain-Striker. They’ve been burning slave couches in bonfires for two days, in your name. The courts have already been set up, and the judging has already begun. Those sentenced to die are being burnt on the couches they chained us to.”

Systlin closed her eyes, and that other power she did not like to think of or acknowledge stirred. And for a moment she could taste it on the air, like honeyed wine. Justice.

For a moment, just a moment, she could feel rather than hear twenty thousand mentions of her name, and it ran through her like ice and fire at once.

“Good.” She managed. “Well done.”

“The next time you wonder why any of us,” Systlin knew Foicatch was not talking about the people of Gor, but of their true home. “Are willing to follow you to the death, I’m reminding you of this.”

“Smug prick,” she muttered, because the last time she’d said that aloud and he’d looked at her funny and told her that she’d earned it, she’d laughed.

“Yes.” He agreed easily. “Now, here.”

He opened the drawer on the bedside table, and drew out a golden hairpin. At the top glimmered a red stone. Systlin took it, and looked; it was a star ruby, larger than her thumbnail. She looked up at him, stunned, and he smiled.

“There’s a great deal of wealth in the vaults of the Ubara of Turia.” He said. “Aside from that in the chests of the Ubara Sana of the plains. I set a few people to combing through with orders as to what to find.”

He took it back and slid it into place in her hair, so that the ruby gleamed just above the center of her forehead. “It might not be the Fallen’s Blood, but I thought it fitting.”

“I take it back. You’re not a prick.”

“Still smug?”

“Yes, but I like that about you.” She touched the stone to make sure it was secure. “Come now. People need to know I’m not dead.”

[systlinsideblog]

Part 7

The fall of the great walled city of Turia came on a day shimmering with heat, but with storm clouds building on the horizion, looming heavy as they built into great mounds over the prairies. The air smelled of the promise of rain; that was good, Systlin thought. A good heavy rain later would wash the blood off the streets.

Turia’s towers glittered white in the sun. The walls were high and proud and in excellent repair; the warriors manning the top of it were said to be skilled. Everyone she’d spoken to had told her the same; Turia was home to a million and a half people. Turia was the jewel of the prairies, the Ar of the South. Turia was home to marvelous markets and one could find any luxury one wished there. The people of Turia were grand and wealthy and proud, and though they loved luxury their fighting men were excellent.

Its walls were high and thick. Its wells were deep and never ran dry. There were food stores to outlast the greatest of sieges. The nine gates were thick and strong and guarded zealously; while attackers died at the walls, the people of Turia would relax in their bath houses and dine on delicacies and laugh.

Turia was splendid. Turia was rich. Turia had been sieged many times, but never once had Turia fallen.

Systlin rolled her neck and shoulders, cracking any tension out.

She remembered Myr. Turia reminded her strongly of it. Myr too had been rich, and strong, and undefeated. Myr as well had thought itself safe behind tall, thick walls and strong gates, guarded by skilled fighters. Myr as well had laughed at the army camped on the plains before it. The walls of Myr had famously been bound in Power, power laid so deeply and thickly by generation after generation of Myrish earth witches that there had been more power than stone to the walls. Breakers before her, born to the desert, had tested those walls. Breakers before her had exhausted themselves against them and failed and died.

She had tried herself against them anyway. She had not failed. There was a hundred foot gap in the walls of Myr now, named for her. “The Mitraka’s Gate,” they called it. The legend of how she’d brought down the famously unbreakable walls of Myr had spread north to the Skyfire reaches and south to Sielauk before she’d even left the deserts.

Turia’s walls were not as high or thick as Myr’s, and they were not spelled for protection. Against a Breaker of the least power they’d be useless, and Systlin was the strongest Breaker ever to live. She eyed the warriors on top of them, still out of bowshot, and for a moment felt a flash of pity for them.

It was gone quickly. She wondered how many of those proud men had women chained to their beds. A million and a half people, but that number did not, she knew, count slaves. Counting slaves, it was said that the number was at least twice that, and likely higher.

Foicatch was watching her. He had not been at Myr when it fell, but he had been there since. He’d ridden through the Mitraka’s Gate. He knew, of course, that she was remembering.

“Been a bit,” He said at last, as they waited for Myr to send out its famous tharlarion cavalry, and honestly though she found herself growing fond of the kaiila the Wagon Peoples rode and could admit that the vicious reptilian tharlarion were impressive, she wished she had a good, normal horse. “Since we had a real battle before us.”

“Hmmm.” She agreed. The last time, indeed, they’d been fighting a mad god and his creatures. She’d killed a god, in that battle. Killed one god and threatened another. “Do try not to die. I’d hate to have to find a new royal consort.”

A snort. “I’ve no intention of dying today. I want to see you on the throne of that city.” A pause. “I’ve always had rather a fantasy, actually, of you on the throne of freshly conquered city, and me on my knees…”

Oh. Well. That did sound interesting. She gave him an appraising look. “Have you? You could have said something.”

“Well. It’s always been so busy when we’re breaching a stronghold, and things were all happening so fast at the time. You were so intent; I wasn’t sure you’d take it well.” A shrug. “Early days of us and all. By the time I knew better, you had the North in line again, and when we fought the Fallen One there weren’t many strongholds to breach or thrones to make use of.”

That was fair. “I’m going to hold you to that.” She said thoughtfully, even as the great gates ground slowly open and ranks of fighting men on those two-legged sharp-toothed reptilian beasts began to file out. She eyed the gleaming lances they carried disapprovingly; those were, of course, going to be the first thing she did away with once things got going.

Using her power in pitched battles was risky; she did not like doing it to kill. Not more than needed. But shattering some lances was no issue at all.

He grinned, that familiar and beloved flash of white teeth against that dark beard. “Oh, excellent.” He shot the enemy cavalry a look, and then looked back at her and raised an eyebrow. She nodded once. He leaned over, and she leaned to meet him; they exchanged a kiss, brief but sweet, and he peeled his kaiila away and headed to take command of the left flank.

She looked back over the prairie. There were several thousand riders now, forming ranks. A few men wearing particularly gleaming armor with extra gold leaf seemed to be conferring in a huddle; she waited.

“Ubara?” Dina said softly, from her side. “Ubara, should we…” There was nervousness in her voice.

“Not yet.” Systlin was the veteran of many battles of this scale; Myr was much larger than Turia, and that had been only the first city she’d taken. Dina was not. Even in a seasoned warrior, nerves before battle were normal, but Dina had taken up a spear only a year and a half past. She’d fought and killed, but the other tribes and towns and cities they’d taken were nothing on the scale of Turia. “They’ll send someone to talk, like all the others have. I’ll either kill him or send him back, like all the other times. I’ll break their lances; that will be the signal to charge.”

She looked to her side. Dina’s face was drawn tight. Systlin remembered that Dina, before slave chains, had once been a free woman, and had been born in Turia.

“You have a father, don’t you?” Systlin said, more softly.

“I do.” She whispered. “He never took a slave. He loved my mother, a Free Companion, and never took a slave; he has mourned her since her death. He is of the baker’s caste, as was my mother. He makes sweet rolls and gives them to children, and the best bread and pastries. I do not brag; he was famous in the city, and rich women and men came to buy from us. He and my brothers and I worked hard and were proud of our work.” She paused a moment. “I do not know if my brothers have taken slaves. And if they have…” Another, longer pause, and she looked away. “If they have, I will not beg mercy for them, but I will mourn what they might have been had their minds not been poisoned.”

Systlin thought of her own brother, dead so young. Of laughing and competing and playing with him, of the friendly fighting between close siblings. Of his smile and his laugh, and his sharp wit. She wondered, if her place and Dina’s had been switched, if she could have watched him killed for slaving and rape.

She probably could have. She knew it in the deepest place in her heart, where she worried sometimes at her own coldness. She probably would have done it with her own hands, at that. She’d executed her uncle and aunt with her own hands, in that battle to bring the warring lords tearing the North to bloody scraps to heel. But she was a famously hard and coldhearted bitch when it came to matters of justice, as any noble in the North of Ellinon would tell. “The Iron Bitch”, she knew they called her behind her back. “The Iron Bitch with the frozen heart.”

She’d have done it, yes. But she’d have mourned intensely after, for what might have been.

Dina was loyal and dear to her, a good friend. But if her brothers were rapists and slavers, Systlin knew that even if Dina begged, she would not grant mercy unless the offended girls asked it. It ran counter to everything in her to do so.

Goddess of Justice. The Lady’s voice whispered in her head.

Fuck off, she thought in return. I’ve shit to do.

“We can hope,” she said. “That they take after your father. And we’re not here to loot; if your father is in his shop and not with the fighting men, he’s quite safe.”

That seemed to ease Dina slightly. The woman was still used to the Gorean idea of war, where taking a city meant sacking it utterly, looting and burning and slaving. No army under Systlin’s command would ever fight so, though. She’d kill the soldiers responsible with her bare hands.

“Baker’s caste,” Dina said. “Do not fight, not unless they must. They will not be on the walls. Those on the walls and on the field here are warrior caste.”

Systlin would have to investigate this caste system more thoroughly. She did not like the idea on principle, but it seemed a force of social stability that most Goreans were very attached to. From what she’d gathered there were provisions for moving through castes if one wished. However, she’d heard that some, such as weavers and spinners, were considered ‘low caste’.

Systlin had attempted such tasks before; her mother was fond of spinning and weaving, though she was Queen Mother and needed never touch a spindle if she didn’t wish. After fifteen minutes spent at it, Systlin had come to the conclusion that the work that went into cloth was absurdly complicated and skilled, and had never touched a spindle since. She did, however, have a reputation for never haggling when it came to buying cloth or paying her seamstresses.

Low caste her arse. The idea of any of the most essential tasks…potters, farmers, fishermen, herders…being lower than any others raised her hackles. Perhaps the idea of low or high caste could go…

Across the grassland, a small party of men, led by one of the men in gleaming gold-chased armor began to ride towards them. Systlin put aside other concerns and nodded once to Dina, who nodded back and went to lead the right flank.

Her kaiila could sense that battle was coming, and shifted under her, tossing her head in eagerness. Systlin held her steady, and waited.

They headed, of course, for Foicatch. Systlin sighed and rolled her eyes, and nudged her kaiila forward. The creature sprang forward in that long, loping predator stride, and she headed them off in moments. They glared at her, all hostile intent. She regarded them in what was probably a dismissive manner, but so far as she was concerned these men were already dead. They were nothing that she had not seen on this world already, in the smaller towns that lay outside Turia. She’d killed a thousand like them since coming here.

“You know full well that I lead this army.” She said bluntly. “You’ve heard the stories.” She sighed. “It makes me curious…”

“Stories of trickery and nonsense about sorcery.” The man with the glittering armor said loftily. “A few villages might fall to some unnatural woman, but this is Turia. We will not be afraid of a tribe of women who think themselves the equals of men.”

“…As I was saying,” Systlin raised her voice slightly. “It makes me curious as to the full degree which you, meaning men on this world, are capable of deluding yourselves. I’ve been halfway through conquering towns and tribes and the men would still be telling me that I couldn’t hope to carry through, because I was but a woman.” She shook her head. “Almost sad, really. I’ve an army of  twenty five thousand camped before your gates. I know you have heard the stories of how I’ve conquered cities across the prairies and brought all the tribes of the Wagon People under my rule. I am Ubara-Sana of the plains, by my own hand, and I’ve crushed every force sent against me. And yet here you are, still claiming the same old tired thing.”

She looked him in the eyes. “This is the part where, if you are smart, you will confer with your people and you will open the gates, lay down your arms, and have a chance to survive this.”

He scoffed. Entirely predictably. “This is Turia, woman. The plainsfolk may not have been able to humble you, but Turia will. We’ve ten thousand cavalry, and that is not counting the fighting men on foot. You and your slave girls with swords can batter yourselves to ribbons against us, and we’ll put collars on those of you not killed.” A slow, lewd smile, because apparently he felt he hadn’t dug his own grave deep enough. “Maybe I’ll put mine on you, woman, and teach you to obey a master’s word.”

“Well.” Systlin shrugged. “I did give you a chance.”

She’d learned knife throwing from Stellead, but the Arms Master of the Bloodguard had been dubious of its effectiveness and the instruction had only been basic. It was at the Iron Mountain, under the tutelage of the master assassins of the Master of Knives, that she’d learned how to properly throw a knife.

She’d killed the Master of Knives, of course. He’d taken the contract on her father, and sent out one of his Shadow Hands to kill a king. She’d killed the Brother of Shadow who’d wielded the knife, as well, and many others besides. The Iron Mountain stood empty now, the bones of those she’d killed gathering dust in the halls.

Her knife took the golden-armored warrior through the eye. He looked quite shocked as he slid from the saddle and fell. His men started in rage, and went for their lances.

Systlin smiled at them. Her power rose, a cold sweep through her bones, tingling under her skin. She raised her hand, and flicked her fingers negligently at them, mostly for show.

Their lances shattered into splinters. So did at least five thousand other lances of the leading ranks of the famed thalarion cavalry of Turia.

A great confused sound went up, and thalarion shied at the strange scent of Power in the air, sharp as ozone. And as fighting men scrambled for their secondary weapons, Systlin’s forces charged.

Ice took the first man before her just under the chin. She didn’t quite behead him as her coal-black kaiila shot past, but slashed the big artery on his neck open. Blood pumped, and the sound he made as he fell was a terrible gurgle.

She wheeled her mount and ducked the frantic sweep of a sword. The riders were startled, off balance, and that was death when facing a warrior of her caliber. Her kaiila darted in and took the throat of one of the slower High Thalarions, tearing it open. The beast went down, and its rider with it. Systlin kneed the sides of her kaiila and it leapt; the final warrior managed to parry her first blow, a slicing cut at his neck.

She twisted her wrist, reversed the grip on Ice’s hilt with a little twist and clever movement of her fingers that Stellead had made her practice ten thousand times, and drove it into his chest under his ribs. Drew it back with a sharp jerk as she wheeled her kaiila again, and flipped it back around in her hand. She did not have to think about the motion; she had not missed the catch on the twist since she had been a child training under Arms Master Stellead.

Then her kaiila was running, and she pushed it hard for a few paces until she regained her place leading the center. Lances glittered to either side of her, and she felt a fierce pride in the women she’d trained.

She eyed the gates of Turia, behind the regrouping lines of thalarion cavalry. Arrows arched from behind, as her mounted archers began picking off the front ranks of the Turian forces as they came into range.

Arrows returned, from on top of the walls, and one bounced off of her wraithen-scale armor. She lashed out with her power, still simmering under her skin, and five hundred bows shattered. Cries of dismay went up a second time.

She eyed the great gates of Turia, even as her kaiila gathered itself to leap and the first of her lance-fighters neared the front lines of the Turian cavalry. She eyed them for a half a second before she hit the front lines of the Turians, and she Broke them.

The great gates of Turia, and fifty feet of the wall to either side, crumbled into splinters and sand. There was a great cry of horror and dismay from the city, and cries of “UBARA! UBARA!” from her own warriors, delighted.

And then her front line was smashing into the Turian cavalry, and there was no more time for thought.

The Turians were skilled, but they were off balance, had lost the advantage of their long lances, and had not truly been expecting a proper fight. Systlin and her best lancers hit them like a hammer, and pierced deep into the ranks before the Turians quite knew it was happening. The Turians were down to swords now, and only a few of the rear ranks still had lances. Systlin’s riders had long lances with reach, and their kaiila were faster and more nimble than the high thalarion the Turians rode.

And, of course, they had her.

Systlin was no stranger to mounted combat. She’d ridden with the tribes of the desert at Sura’s side for years, and was as deft a hand at mounted combat as any Rider. She’d never have been accepted, otherwise.

It felt, she had to admit, as she turned a sword aside with Ice and flicked the sword around, down, and up, taking off the man’s sword hand at the wrist, very good to be at it again. The man screamed, but she was past him. A lance glanced off of her armor, and she wheeled her kaiila. The beast snapped, catching a leg, and tore the man off of his mount. His thalarion turned and went for her mount, but her kaiila shook its head and was leaping away before it could do any damage.

Systlin fought with all the skill and speed and cunning she had. She fought viciously, the whole time willing that her army would not fail now, would not quail because this battle was larger and closer-fought than any before. She willed it, imagining that she could throw wide her arms and take under her shadow all of her proud free mounted warriors, and through sheer will alone keep them fighting.

And she did what she had always done, in battle. She led on the front line, and fought like nothing the Turians had ever seen before. Men rose before her and men fell; she was past Power now, and killed with pure hard-won skill and naked steel. She cut faces, necks, torsos, limbs. Ice’s blue-tinged blade was purple with blood, and blood spattered her all over. She killed, and killed, with all the skill of those long hours of training and decades more of fighting for her life. She fought, and killed, her blood sang with it.

You were never made for peace. The Lady’s words. It was true; she knew it was true. She loved battle, though she knew it spoke of her basically coldhearted and vicious nature that she did. She was a warrior born and trained and blooded, and she was at home on the killing field.

She’d fought three wars, leading from the front. She’d won each, and the sight of her at the forefront of her warriors, in her element, bloody and screaming and bringing death with her, was absolute horror to the men of Gor.

The sight that horrified the men of Turia stiffened the spines of her warriors, and to the endless horror of the men of Turia, the former slave girls, now screaming warriors with lances and swords, cut into them with a fury they’d never seen.

With her at their front, her mounted warriors smashed the Turian lines apart, just as the left flank led by Foicatch drove hard at the gap left at the rear, pushing the cavalry of Turia away from the broken gates and cutting them off from retreat into the city. Foicatch himself set himself in the middle of the smashed gate, and Systlin caught glimpses of him engaged in fierce close fighting now and then as foot soldiers pressed forward from the city to try and relieve the cavalry she was driving like a herd of sheep across the prairies before Turia.

But the fighting men of Turia were skilled, and proud, and they began to regroup. Men were shouting orders, and the remaining lances managed to form up defensive lines. The fighting grew vicious, even after Systlin Broke more lances, and their advance ground to a crawl. Their armies were nearly matched; Systlin’s warrior women had better armor and better reach, but the Turian fighting men had more experience, and it began to show as they got their feet under them. Systlin’s troops fought like mad wildcats, and she was so proud; they were still winning forward, inch by inch, but she was not about to spend more lives than she had to.

The Turians began to press back, and her advance ground to a halt. Systlin smiled, because she heard the galloping of the kaiila, and knew.

Dina’s mounted archers swept past, and the women turned on their kaiilas with those short but powerful recurve bows of wood and bosk horn. Strings slid from thumb rings, and three thousand arrows hammered home through that light leather armor that the men of this world favored. The kaiilas wheeled, and the women turned again, as they’d practiced a thousand times, sitting backwards on their mounts. Strings sang again, and arrows flew as thick as rain.

Turians died. Systlin yelled and plunged forward again, and to shouts of “UBARA! UBARA! WHIP-BURNER! CHAIN-STRIKER!” her warriors followed.

The Turians had nowhere to retreat from Dina’s archers, except back onto the lances of Systlin’s mounted spear-women. No rescue came from Turia; Foicatch was stacking the bodies of fighting men four deep in the ruin of the shattered gates.

The fighting outside the city drug out a big longer; it took time to slaughter ten thousand cavalry and their mounts. But caught between Dina’s wheeling mounted archers and their storm of arrows and the lances of Systlin’s cavalry and Systlin’s own sword, they were cut to bits.

It was then that Systlin regrouped her lancers and led them to the shattered gates, where the foot soldiers of Turia were approaching more cautiously than before. The shattered gates themselves were a charnel house; fighting men and women both lay dead alongside wounded and dead and shrieking kaiila, and blood was red over the stones of the road and the rubble of the gates and walls. Foicatch and his warriors held, and the fighting men of Turia seemed reluctant to approach within reach of Foicatch’s sword.

They parted to let Systlin through, and her lancers flowed around to guard the sides of the ranks of warriors.

Systlin joined Foicatch at the front lines. She must look a terrible sight; she was head to toe blood and mud, the colors of her wraithen armor dulled under the coating. Foicatch’s own set of wraithen scale armor was similarly filthy. There was a cut high on his temple, a glancing blow that was not serious but bleeding freely. Even as she joined him she felt a trickle of Power as he flicked droplets of blood away from his eyes.

A lull in the fighting; the soldiers of Turia drew back, appalled at the sight. Foicatch eyed her, gaze flicking head to toe to check her for injuries. She gave him a slight reassuring shake of her head, doing the same to him. The cut on his temple seemed to be the worst of it. She turned to eye the soldiers before them.

“Your cavalry,” Systlin informed the fighting men before them. “Are dead. My throat slitters are making short work of any survivors this very moment. You did not hear the offer I made before, I think, so I will make it one more time. Lay your weapons down now, and you may find mercy. I will not give you another chance.”

Not one fighting man moved, save for the one who yelled in defiance, pulled a knife from his boot, and hurled it at her head.

It was a good throw, she thought, as she twisted her head to the side even as his hand swept up with the blade. It was a good throw. Had she not been taught by Stellead and the Shadow Hands of the Iron Mountain, it might have struck home. As it was, it simply scraped her cheekbone in passing; a shallow cut that would heal quickly and cleanly.

Answer enough, she supposed. Foicatch was already moving, and fell on the knife-thrower with a single-minded viciousness that was poetry to see. Systlin was moving almost as quickly, and that was where the battle in the city began.

It was nasty work. Street by street, driving the fighting men before them. Many of the freed slaves in Systlin’s forces had been from Turia, and as planned they now took the lead. As Systlin had suspected, their knowledge of the city was invaluable; meeting places and baths where warriors gathered were found out. Attacks from small alleys were anticipated. Cobbles went slick with blood. A nasty dagger opened a long cut into Systlin’s left forearm, and some of the slick blood under their boots and the kaiila’s paws was her own. She bound it with a strip torn from her own shirt, cinching the knot tight with her teeth, and pressed on.

Turia was a city of millions; it took hours to work their way through, even with the size of her army. It was late afternoon when at last she realized that any warriors found out were fleeing rather than fighting, and being quickly ridden down by archers. Systlin stopped, at last, sitting high on her kaiila, and knew that she was Ubara of Turia, and by extension all of the plains in truth, by right of conquest.

Dina was staying close now, guiding them through the streets. She saw the same realization dawn on Dina’s face; Foicatch was already smiling that grim satisfied smile she remembered well.

“Take me to the throne of Turia.” Systlin said, and Dina did.

The first drops of the storm hit the bloody dust and thunder growled low when the reached the great palace of Turia. It was in a vast central building, half law chambers and half a throne hall. It was all in the same white stone that the city seemed to favor, with a great dome over the hall where the Thrones of Turia sat. They were very fine; there was, Systlin was sure, wood somewhere under the silver and inlaid semiprecious stones, but it was difficult to make out. She left footprints of blood and mud across the spotless tiled floors.

She’d made instructions clear before the first spear was lifted; her warriors knew what to do. One part of being a leader, her father had said long ago. Is finding competent people that you trust, and then trusting them to do their jobs without your having to hang over their shoulder.

He’d been right. Her people were competent, and she did trust them. So while she waited for her warriors to ferret out the various guild and caste leaders and other important persons, Systlin ascended the nine steps to the dais…it was gorgeously carpeted, and inlaid with ivory and gold…and sat herself down in the larger throne, the throne of the Ubar of Turia.

Foicatch eyed her. There was an answering warm pulse that went down her spine and pooled insistently between her legs; there was nothing like battle to get the blood up. But…She raised her eyebrows back at him. “Not yet.” She said, somewhat reluctantly, and motioned with her chin at the smaller throne, the throne where traditionally the Ubara sat. “Not quite yet. It’s not properly conquered until I explain things to the important people, is it?”

“I suppose not.” But his eyes were lingering on her lips, and slid down over the length of her legs and the curve of her hip even so. She could feel the heat of it, and dearly wished to answer it.

But it was about at that point that people…some of them bedraggled, some begging and pleading, some silent and apparently numbly shocked into silence, all led by her fierce and triumphant warrior women, began to file into the great throne chamber. All were drenched; Systlin could hear rain rattling against the roof now, and thunder rumbling quite often.

They stared. Systlin knew what she must look like. She sat, and waited. Her shoulder ached; she’d been slammed into a wall at one point, and probably had a spectacular bruise. Her arm where she’d been cut stung. Her muscles burned from exertion; she’d been fighting on and off for hours. The cut on her cheek had scabbed, and pulled when she moved or spoke.

None of it mattered. Victory was pounding in her veins along the adrenaline. Even now, she knew, her warriors were removing chains from slaves; she could taste it on the air, and it was as sweet as honeyed wine.  

Goddess of justice and war.

She ignored the voice of the Lady whispering.

Dina was conferring with the other women native to Turia. They looked fearsome; all were armored and armed and bloody. Most of the blood, to Systlin’s immense pride, was not their own. They had wounds, true, but most were not serious, and every warrior will earn scars. They were standing and moving and speaking with a new edge of confidence that had not been there even this morning, and Systlin knew why.

Stories would be told of this, she knew. Stories would be told, and the warriors who’d fought with her to take Turia would be legend in their own right. And they knew it as well; had proved something to themselves that could never be taken away.

Yes, these warrior women would say, years from now. Yes, of course I know of the Fall of Turia. I was there. I fought at the Ubara’s side. There would be looks then, as awed as any Systlin herself had ever received, and she knew in her bones how the legends would be told in decades to come.

Dina of Turia, who led the Ubara’s archers and broke the Turian cavalry with the Ubara.

Sabra of Turia, the first of all who had her chains struck off, who rode with her lance at the Ubara’s side, in her honor guard, and who fought so fiercely that none could stand before her. Never in the battle for the city did she leave the Ubara’s side, and she walked through blood ankle-deep that day.

Hula of Turia, Doreen of Turia, Hireena of the Tuchuks. Tamra of Ar…

The list went on and on, and pride was a bright warmth in her chest.

Dina said something to Sabra, who nodded and turned to cross the hall and climb the steps. Systlin remembered that first day; Sabra clutching, terrified, at her sleeve. There was little trace of the frightened and beaten slave girl now; Sabra was one of her best with a spear, and she wore thick bosk-hide armor sewn with metal plates. Her arms and shoulders were strong, and her blonde hair braided tightly back. There was blood and mud crusted in it, and a vicious bruise showing around one eye. Her nose had been broken at some point, and hastily reset,. The dried blood from it was still on her chin. She was smiling a smile of victory.

“Ubara sana.” She said. “The guild leaders, councilors, and other important leaders of the city are assembled.”

“Thank you, Sabra.” Systlin smiled back, just as fierce. “And well fought. Fierce as a she-panther.”

The grin widened. “Thank you, Ubara-sana!”

“I told you,” Systlin said, still smiling. “You doubted me, but here you stand. When I secure the treasury, you are to take as much as you can carry, as a mark of my esteem. I name you now to my personal guard, for as long as you desire the post, but you must promise to tell me if you ever wish to leave. You were the first to have her chains thrown off, and I’ve no wish to ever bind you with others.”

Sabra blinked rapidly, and Systlin realized that she was blinking back tears. “I will, Ubara sana.” She said. “But I do not think that day will come.”

“Well. If it does, let me know. And I’ve another duty for you; you were the first to take up weapons, even before Dina. If you will, once things settle more in a few days, go among the women of Turia and tell them your story. And if any of them wish it, bring them to me, and help me train them as warriors, as you trained yourself.”

A light like fever lit in Sabra’s eyes. “Ubara sana,” she whispered. “You honor me, and I will do this.”

“You won your honor yourself, with your own hands and by your own actions.” Systlin said. “I merely handed you the tools to do so. Bring them all forward, then.”

Foicatch, she realized, was staring at her with an intensity that was scorching.

“You will never have any idea,” he breathed, very quietly, as her warriors herded the frightened rich and powerful of the city to the base of the raised dais the thrones sat upon, “the effect you have on people. What it’s like to see, from the outside.”

“Hush.” She murmured back, just as softly. “You’re biased.”

“I am. But I’m also right. Every woman in your forces would have followed you to the death this morning, but after this they’d follow you past it as well.”

“Hmm.” She allowed, but it was a pleased sound. “I try only to be what they deserve.”

“Yes.” He said. “Yes, and that’s why.”

She eyed the small crowd at the foot of the dais. They were frightened and soaked from the storm, bedraggled and sullen.

“Foicatch, darling.” She said. “Our guests appear to be soaked. Could you give them a hand?”

He made an agreeable sound and lifted a hand. She tasted Power on the back of her tounge, ozone and burnt cinnamon.

There were gasps and screams as the water streamed and spiraled off of the huddled leaders of Turia. Foicatch pulled it into a hovering globe above his hand, and then rather negligently flicked it aside. It splashed to the tiles, leaving the people in the crowd quite dry.

Dina clicked her tounge against her teeth. “Are you all sorcerers, on your world?” A year and a half of following Systlin, one of the strongest fire witches and the strongest Breaker ever to live, had rubbed the novelty off of seeing Power worked.

“Not all of us.” Systlin lifted a shoulder. “But a good many.”

“My mother’s a stronger water witch than me,” Foicatch said absently. “I’ve only half her gift.”

“Wait until you see him really angry,” Systlin said. “And see him tear the water from a man’s blood.”

“I have.” That was Hireena, herding the Turians forward. Her voice was low, and she looked at Foicatch with deep respect. “At the gates, as we fought.”

“Did you?” She said, with interest. Systlin had seen it done before. It had been….compelling. Hmmmm.

Later. Later. More important things first.

“Turia.” She said, her voice clear. “I greet you.”

Furious, frightened faces looked up at her. Mutters went around. Systlin remembered well what she’d been told.

“I greet you,” she said. “As Ubara Sana of the plains, won by my own hand. But of course, you are Turian, and the power in Turia lies with the merchants.”

“It is so.” One veiled woman said. She was looking up curiously; her robes were of exquisitely fine silks, and embroidered with gold. Pearls hung from the edges of her sleeves, and crystal beads glittered across her gown.

“That,” said Systlin. “May change. I understand, of course, that you’ve already well established trade routes, and I’ve no wish to interfere with them. But I am Ubara Sana now, and the old laws will change. You may have heard that, on the plains, slave chains have been outlawed, and all slaves freed. It is true, and as of this moment by my decree every slave in Turia is freed.”

There was a roar of arguments and shouting and disapproving noises.

“…cannot simply…”

“…My business is slaves! How am I to…”

“…an outrage!...”

Systlin waited them out, patient. As she did, another of the Turian women jogged in through the great door; the rain had washed away most of the mud and blood, but she was limping, a strip of cloth bound around one thigh. She murmured something to Dina, who nodded once and took the nine steps up to the dais two at a time.

“There is a problem.” Dina said. “Saphrar, a wealthy merchant, one of the leaders of the Merchant’s Caste in the city. He’s a fortified compound, and has walled himself up with his mercenary forces.”

“Tell everyone to pull back.” Systlin said at once. “Keep an eye on the compound; let no one escape. After I finish here, I’ll come and tend to his gates myself.”

Dina smiled thinly, and went back down, murmured this to the other woman. The other woman grinned like a wolf, and hurried out, swift despite her wounded leg.

“Have you all finished?” Systlin raised her voice above the crowd.

“I will contract with the Guild of Assassins for this!” A man with thick dark hair and wearing gold and white robes said furiously. He had a hand raised and was shaking a finger at the sky. “I’ll have your head in my vault. I swear it on the Priest-Kings! “

“I take it that you deal in slaves,” Systlin said dryly.

“I do! It is an honorable trade, and I have been dealing in slave meat for…”

Systlin nodded at Dina, who moved quickly. Her knife gleamed, and the man’s throat opened ear to ear. A gurgle, and a red rush of blood, and utter shocked silence.

“Slavery,” Systlin said mildly. “Is one of the greatest crimes, and slavers are condemned to death. Those who procure and deal in slaves for their own wealth are doubly damned. Throw his body to the kaiila; they must be hungry after the fight. What was his name?”

Silence.

“I asked,” Systlin said, voice going cold. “For his name. I expect an answer.”

Another moment of silence dragged out, and then…“Kazrak.” The veiled woman who’d spoken before said. “Kazrak of the Merchant Caste. His mansion is next to mine, and his warehouse is in the low streets, near the slave market.”

“Did he have a Free Companion, any children?”

“Both.”

“Then half of his estate shall go to them, and they shall maintain their home. The other half of his assets are forfeit, and will be redistributed between his slaves, who are now free.” Systlin raised an eyebrow. “Might I have your name?”

“Aphris.” Said the woman. “Of the Merchant Caste. I deal in silks and wine, not people.” She shot a somewhat vicious look at the dead Kazrak, as he was dragged off, leaving a smear of red on the tiles. “And he was cruel, and it does my heart good to see justice done him. I take it then that we, the free women of Turia, are not to be put in slave chains?”

“Bloody pits, no.” Systlin said, repulsed.

“I did not think so.” Aphris said, cool and collected, a point of calm in the angry and terrified crowd. “But many freewomen feared the worst. It is, after all, how war has been done on Gor for a very long time. You can understand the worry.”

It was a reasonable worry, Systlin supposed. “Of course. But have no fear, no hand will be raised against you. You are free, and will remain free. Aside from that, by my laws it will be punishable by death if anyone, from anywhere, ever attempted to enslave you, and I would hunt that man down and kill him for daring to put chains on one of my subjects.”

There were many free women in the crowd, and at the words there was sort of a sigh that ran through them, and a sense of some great tension lifted. The men looked startled. Systlin gestured, taking in the concealing robes all of the free women wore.

“It is no longer required,” she continued. “That you wear full Robes of Concealment in public. A free woman may dress as she likes and go where she likes. If you feel more comfortable in your robes, of course, then you are welcome to wear them, but it is not required. If you choose to set them aside and experience difficulty from anyone, you may make a formal complaint and the matter will be dealt with. I will make people and resources available to deal with such matters.”

A murmur. More looks of outrage from the men.

“Many,” Aphris said. “Will welcome this. But for myself, Ubara, I think I will choose to wear the robes, at least for some time longer.”

“Of course.” Systlin inclined her head. “And I am afraid, of course, that Turia will be judged.”

“Judged?” One man snapped. “Like you judged Kazrak?”

“Yes. Precisely how I judged Kazrak.” Systlin smiled unpleasantly. “There are three great crimes; the murder of an innocent who has done no harm, the rape of another, and enslaving another. The penalty for all three is death.”

Silence. Dead, horrified silence. And then,

“You cannot mean,” another man said, carefully. “That every man who held a slave will be killed.”

“No.” Systlin shook her head. Sighs of relief, but she continued. “Because some slaves, for whatever reason, beg mercy for those who held them. It will be up to any slaves you hold what your fate is. But,” and she grinned again, more horribly. “If a single slave you’ve held and raped chooses death for you, I will put a knife in her hand and hold you down myself for the sentence.”

“What.”

“You cannot mean…”

“Not all…”

“All.” Systlin said, merciless. “Every man in Turia. If a freewoman held male slaves…I’m told it happens…then her life is forfeit as well. I will not abide it. Have no fear; I will establish many courts to see to it. It will take us months to work through the city, but it will be done. And those of you who are guilty, I will hang your bones from the white walls as a warning.”

“You,” Said one man, who had until then been silent, staring angry daggers at her from the front of the crowd. His robes, she noted, were the finest in the room, and edged in purple. “Are mad.”

“Not the first time I’ve been called that.” Systlin said easily. She looked him over, matching up features with descriptions. “Phanius Turmus, I presume?”

“Ubar of Turia.” He confirmed, chin high. “You are defiling my throne, woman.”

“You were.” She shook her head. “But you lost. You’re simply Phanius now, and you’ll be judged with the rest.”

“I think that perhaps I shall contract with the Assassin’s Caste for your head.” He didn’t flinch or break eye contact. “Your head would look well in my vaults, I agree with Kazrak.”

“Oh, please do. I ought to make their acquaintance. It’s been some time since I trained with the assassins of my own world, and tore their master’s throat out with my knife. So yes please, do. It would be an exciting challenge.”

Foicatch sighed resignedly. “Really, love?”

Phanius was giving her a stare of pure and utter horror. “What are you?” He almost whispered. “What terrible hell did you crawl from, to plague us? Have you no respect for those of high caste?”

“My mother would be terribly offended by calling her a ‘terrible hell’.” She made steady eye contact with each person in her horrified and enraptured audience. “The terrible hell is her sister, who taught me to fight. And no. Every caste. From low to high. All will be judged the same. If any have offended in these ways, I will see justice done upon them. No one is exempt.”

“You’ll kill thousands!” One man cried. “Tens of thousands!”

“Oh,” Systlin said, cold as steel in winter. “Hundreds of thousands, I expect.”

“You cannot…”

“Poor choice of words.” Foicatch sighed again. “I could have warned you; there’s no better way to get her to do something than to tell her, earnestly, that she can’t.”

Systlin stood, and let Power rise. Not the terrible cold of Breaking, but her other gift, hot and furious and wild. Fire bloomed around her for a moment, and was gone too quickly to set fire to her clothes. But it had the desired effect. Silence fell. Horrified silence.

“I am not bargaining with you.” She said softly. “I am not suggesting. I am not your old Ubar. I stand here by right of conquest. I breached your walls and killed my way to this throne, and I am going to kill a great deal many more before I am through. The merchants and caste-masters are not ruling Turia any longer; I am.”

She moved a step down, drawing closer to them. “To put this in terms you understand, which I gathered from women you had kidnapped from a world not yours and forced into slavery; you had best get used to this new way, or you will die. I am telling you how things now are. You can flee the city, if you wish, but I will not stop here and I will find you. Be it when I take Ar, or Ko-Ro-Ba, or any other city, I will come. I am going to end slavery on this world, and I fully expect to do it at the point of a sword. I am Ubara Sana of the plains. I rule this city now. These are the great crimes that will be punished, and how they will be punished. This matter is not open for negotiation. If you dislike these words, you are free to take them up with any of the twenty thousand of my soldiers in your city. They’ll be thrilled to discuss them, I am sure.” She descended another step. “Until the courts are established and judging begins, no one is to leave the city. I control the entirety of the plains and other bands of my warriors have seized trade routes. I have the wealth of Turia at my disposal; you will not go hungry. And now, you are free to return to your homes; I have things yet to do tonight. One of you has decided to fight tooth and nail; I’m off to crack him out of his nutshell. Dismissed.”

She swept past, not looking back, and felt their eyes on her back as she went.

[systlinsideblog]

Part 6

There was a terrible disorientation, darkness, pressure, and then he was lying facedown on something soft. He flinched as a familiar weight thunked against the back of his thighs; his shield. His sword was still in hand; he was gripping it tightly, out of pure instinct.

Somewhere above him was movement, and the sound of a sword being half drawn, and then a gasp. He recognized the distinctive traits of all three; and decided to simply lie there a bit yet. He had a raging headache suddenly, and there was no danger he could think of that could possibly get through his wife to harm him.

“Foicatch!?” She sounded shocked. There was a soft thump as Ice hit the soft rugs beneath them, and then hands on him, on the back of his shoulders and on his cheek. “Beloved?”

“Fuck.” He said into the carpets. With some effort, he pulled himself up to his knees and took a look around, instinctively taking in his surroundings and the lay of the land.

A tent of some sort, on a wooden platform. A wagon, most likely, judging from the slight give and sway. A large camp, from the noises outside. The tent was rich; gold and jewels glittered in lamplight, and the pallet he was on was of rich, soft carpets and furs. He did not recognize any of it, but was again not surprised. Gods played games with his wife’s life, and wherever she was he knew in his bones that she’d soon rise to the top.

Quite suddenly, arms were around his neck, and Systlin was clinging to him in a bone-creaking embrace. He started, surprised; she was normally a reserved woman, but now she was acting as if she’d not seen him in weeks.

“Sys.” He said weakly. “Sys. Darling. What…”

“Is Senna all right?” She pulled back and stared at him, her eyes bright, desperate. “Is she all right?”

“Of course she is. You saw her half an hour ago.” Foicatch rubbed at his aching temples. “What the fuck was that?”

Her whole body seemed to relax, almost slumping with abject relief, and she pulled back a little, but left one hand on his knee. “For me,” she said. “It’s been three months.”

He blinked a couple of times. “What.”

“Three months.”

“How…”

“The Lady.” When he’d been a boy, he’d never dreamed that he’d ever hear someone make such a matter of fact sort of statement about the Lady, Mother of All. Let alone that he would be married to that person, and that such a statement would make utter sense. “We’re on a world called Gor.” A slight pause. “’Catch, love, you’ve no clue how happy I am to have you here. This place is a shithole.”

“It can’t be that bad.” He waved a hand around at the tent. “This seems nice.”

“I had to kill three thousand men to unfuck this one tribe.” She said bluntly. “And it’s still not really done; that was just lancing the boil. ’Catch, the men of this world are slavers. All of them, from what I can tell, or at least most. They keep women as sex toys.”

Foicatch stared at her for a solid minute or so, appalled.

“What.” He finally managed.

It took her half an hour to fill him in on the details. By the end, his headache was fading, but a second one was threatening on his heels. He’d gotten to his feet some time back, and he was incandescently furious and pacing the tent. (The Ubara’s tent. He felt a flash of pride, at that. Of course she was Ubara; queen by her own hand within a day. He’d expect nothing less of her, and marveled, again, that such a woman as her had chosen him.)

He stopped his pacing long enough to touch her face, to brush her plait back. “You said you killed three thousand that first night.”

“Yes.” She said. The word was a flat statement of fact.

“You must have used your power.”

“Yes.” Again, a statement of fact.

“Are you all right?” He asked it softly. She never admitted to anyone else save Sura the cost of her gift for Breaking, the strain it caused when used too much. But he knew, because she trusted him.

“I am.” She covered his hand with hers. “I told you once; it gets easier to restrain it, with practice. And I’ve had a lot of practice. And the women…” She looked off, at the tent flap. “They’re remarkable. All they’ve been through, and survived. Many are brilliant, and funny, and kind, and fierce. They’ve not let me stew alone.”

He nodded, relieved. Do not let her be alone, Sura had told him once. Sura, bright, brilliant Sura, who’d realized before anyone else living what Systlin was, that there’d come a Breaker strong enough to break even her curse to her will.

They stood there for a moment. She stepped into his arms, and leaned against his chest. He looped his arms around her waist, and let her take comfort as long as she needed it.

At last, he said “So you’ve been gone months, but it’s been but moments at home.”

“Thank the gods.” Systlin’s voice was muffled by his chest. “I’ve been so, so worried, about you and Senna.”

“It’s reasonable then to assume that however long we take here, little or no time will have passed at home.”

“Thank the gods.” She said again, fervent.

“Well.” He said. “We might as well make a proper job of it then. Why don’t you show me around, Ubara?”

   He was a very tall man, broad and muscular and strong, a fighting man in true. He wore a sword and shield with the air of a man long accustomed to their use. His eyes were green, and sharp. His hair fell to his shoulders, caught back in a leather tie. His beard was braided into a short plait bound in silver.

This is a proper man, I thought, but then to my horror I saw the glint of silver in his ear.

A man….a man, a fighting man! Had allowed his ear to be pierced! It was shameful, beyond shameful.

The she-sleen emerged from the wagon behind him. She said something, and he turned to listen. I realized that the ring in his ear was a twin to the silver one she wore, and in a flash realized that this was her mate, the one she’d claimed to be bonded to.

He laughed at something she said, and she grinned at him.

 I thought that I had seen the she-sleen fight, that day she had slain Kamchak, Ubar of the Tuchuks.

I had not. Not truly. I had realized, of course, that she had been toying with him, toying with a Tuchuk, known as the fiercest and cleverest of warriors. But I had not known, not really, what she was.

I stared as she sparred the man…her husband, it still was a thing of horror to think of bedding such a woman, but if there was a man to master such a woman then I could believe it of this man.

He was magnificent. It was hot; he had stripped to his waist, baring a marvelously formed body to the sun. There were scars here and there, showing that he was a fighting man and had won many battles. His eyes were fierce and keen, and he wielded that metal shield and his sword as easily and lightly as if they were wooden toys, muscles rippling under taut bronze skin. He was fast, as fast as a snake, and his footwork was superb. Any city would have been honored to have a fighting man such as he in their ranks; I am man enough to admit that in battle he could have bested me, and it would have been no shame to lose to such a superb warrior.

But then there was her.

He was magnificent, the pinnacle of what a fighting man strives to be. And out of the three bouts I saw them fight, he lost two.

He was fast. But she was like the speed of a falcon bound into the body of a woman, and made the swordplay look almost as a dance. She would, I thought, have been magnificent in dancing silks.

She flowed like water around strikes. She was, quite nimbly, never where a strike seemed to go, and used her blades with the precision of a physician excising a tumor. Her stamina seemed boundless; indeed, even under the heat of the sun she was not even sweating.

The first match ended after what seemed an impossibly long time to hold out against either of those displays of masterful swordsmanship, with his sword at her breast. My heart soared; surely, I thought, now he would put her in her place, teach her what it meant that he was a man, and she but a female…

But it did not happen. She laughed, and he grinned, a brilliant flash of white teeth.

“See what I mean?” She said, and rolled her shoulders, stepping back. “I’ve needed this. There’s no one here who can really test me, and I’ve been getting sloppy.”

The comment stung; she’d faced the whole of the Tuchuk, and me, a warrior of Ko-Ro-Ba!

He snorted. “The Lady should have brought Stellead here if that was what you needed; a training dummy and someone to teach.”

“Hm.” She gave him a look out of the corner of her eye that shocked me; it was playful, and warm, and very unlike the coldness she usually showed. I wondered if there was a slave under that armor after all, but then of course that could not be; no self respecting man would let a woman who was his slave on the couches and in the furs carry on so in public. “No, I think I’m glad. You are much better looking.”

“Well.” He smiled again. “With all due respect to your lovely and very terrifying aunt, I must agree.”

There were more like her? The thought was horrific. But then they crossed swords again, and I could only watch.

She won that second bout, and the third. At the end of the third, they were staring at each other with a particular heat in their eyes that I knew well; I have seen lust, in many forms.

I was shocked again when she grasped the end of the short plait of his beard, pulled his head down with no great gentleness, and kissed him as thoroughly and passionately as a slave girl might.

I had thought that she must be frigid, in denial of her own womanhood, wishing to be a man and putting from her head all thought of licentiousness and lust. And yet here I saw her, dusty from the training ring, her sword still in her hand, still as unyielding as steel, her movements and body language all sureness and authority, and kissing like a passion slave.

It was shocking, as well; she was demanding of him, not begging, and instead of silks she was attired entirely unflatteringly in leather and wool. And yet somehow the magnificent warrior seemed as enthusiastic about this embrace as a Gorean man with a pleasure slave at his mercy.

She pulled back, but did not let go of his beard or break eye contact. “My tent, I think.” Her voice was all anticipation. “You can leave the boots on.”

“Only if you leave the sword belt on.” He took her hand, and they were gone.

A wagon is not really the most sound-proof of dwellings. Out of some terrible fascination, I drifted towards the wagon of the Ubara.

The noises were loud, and enthusiastic. They lasted quite some time. At times, it sounded as if a pitched battle was taking place within the wagon. It was, indeed, some hour and a half before the she-sleen emerged at last from the wagon. She looked quite pleased with herself. Her hair had been freshly plaited, and she was wearing new clothing. She headed off again towards the training fields, humming some tuneless little song to herself.

Foicatch exited the wagon some time later. He looked the way that a man only does after he has been well and thoroughly pleased. He had put on a tunic, but it was not laced up the front, and his magnificent musculature was still visible through the thin cloth anyways. He was eating a sar fruit. There were imprints of small, even teeth several places on his neck, I saw, and scratch marks down one forearm. He seemed equally pleased with himself.

He saw me staring, and gave me a wide grin. It was quite a smug grin.

“Jealous?” He laughed quietly, drew another sar fruit from his belt pouch, and tossed it my way; I caught it on reflex. “Can’t say I blame you. She’s magnificent, isn’t she?” He looked off in the direction of the practice rings, his expression fond.

“I would think,” I said. “That in going to bed with such a creature, you would risk death should you be found wanting.”

“Oh.” His grin grew wider. “Well, that’s gotten around already? It’s true, actually. She does kill lovers she finds unsatisfying.”

“Foicatch!” A sharp voice, as the she-sleen appeared again, and shook her head at her mate. “You are terrible.”

“Likes to nail the skulls up in the bedroom, just for motivation to any new ones.”

“Foicatch!”

“What? I’m only adding to your legend.”

She rolled her eyes, and gave him a look that was both fond and exasperated. “Terrible.” She vanished back into the wagon. “The council will be here soon to discuss strategy for gathering resources on the migration route. There’s many small towns and cities along the way, and I don’t intend to leave a single whip unburnt in our path.”

“And before you ask,” Foicatch said, as she vanished. “Yes, we’ve been married for thirty years.” A self satisfied grin. “Take from that what you will.”

I stared at him.

“What? Shut your mouth before a bird nests in there, man.”

“You…” I struggled for words. “But you are…you’re a red-blooded fighting man!”

A slight shrug. “Last time I checked, yes.” He finished the fruit.

“And you let your woman be…that?”

“Ah.” His expression shifted in a moment, going dark. “Right.” He gave me a disgusted sort of look. “To begin, there’s nothing on this world or any other that could make Systlin be anything but whatever she wishes to be; she’s herself, and that is why I love her.” The frown deepened. “Just because you lot on this world can only handle women fawning at your feet and fearing for their lives if they say one word against you, doesn’t mean we’re all such cowards on all worlds.”

That struck me deeply. I am many things, but a coward I have never been! I am a fighting man of Ko-Ro-Ba! I am a fighting man of Gor, where the strong rule!

“I am no coward!” I hissed, and had taken a step towards him before I knew it.

“Mmm.” He sounded unconvinced, and was entirely unconcerned at my anger. “Right. That’s why you keep women in chains.” He straightened a bit. I am a tall man, but he was taller, and I had to look up to stare angrily at him. Quite suddenly, in a flash, I wondered if this was how a slave girl felt, before a warrior such as myself, having to tilt her head back to look up at him. “Just because none of you can get a woman without buying her like a horse, chaining her to your bed, and beating her into submission…On my world, such a man would be ridiculed at the least and most pathetic of men.” A pause. “Well, and then executed. But also ridiculed.”

I stared. I had never heard it put so. “They are just women. They deserve no better”

I saw the blow coming, and moved to avoid it, but he was terribly quick and I was still recovering my full fitness since my broken leg. The strike across the face was sudden and sharp, and to my humiliation I realized that I had not been struck with a closed fist, as befitted a warrior, but backhanded like I was a misbehaving slave.

“Did that hurt?” His voice was low, and I realized that he was terribly angry. “Would you like it, to spend your life cringing, waiting for that at any moment because you did not stand correctly? It is braver, I think, to survive such a life than to be the monster who holds the other end of the chain. You are a coward, Tarl Cabot, and every man on this world is a coward if he thinks as you do. If you are afraid of women holding any role but your slaves, that is your failing, not that of men of other worlds.”

He spat in the dust at my feet. “Systlin said the men of this world were awful.” A shake of his head. “I didn’t realize how very much she was right. Go. Get away from this wagon. If I see you again today I might have to throttle you to death.” He turned, and ducked once more into the tent.

[systlinsideblog]

Part 5

Systlin slept. 

She always dreamed in vivid detail; scents, sounds, touch. Often, the dream felt quite real, until of course she woke. 

This dream was warm. The warmth of the feather bed, of the blankets. The pleasant warmth from the summer breeze blowing through the open window. The warmth, most of all, of Foicatch. 

She rested her cheek against the solid warmth of his chest, eyes closed. The beat of his heart, the tickle of the hairs on his chest against her nose, the smell of his skin, were all as vivid as reality. 

He smelled faintly of smoke; he'd been in the forge, then. He didn't need to, of course. Hadn't, for a long time. A Bloodguard earned quite enough to  hire a smith for whatever they might need, and a King Consort had the royal smith at his disposal.

But Foicatch, before any of that, had been the son of a master carpenter, and a smith's apprentice. He wore the tattoo on his arm that proclaimed his journeyman status proudly, even after two years spent in a city guard, a decade and more in the Bloodguard, and another twenty years as King Consort. 

He rather liked rubbing it in the faces of some of the high lords and high ladies, to be quite honest. A smith was an honored craftsman. And he liked the forge. He liked watching the colors of the flames, the smell of hot metal and smoke, the steam from the quench tank. He liked the sound of the hammer and the feel of it in his hand. And so, quite often, the King Consort of the Northern Lands, the father of the heir to the Throne of the North, would go down to the royal smithy and serve as assistant to the master smith of Stellas Keep. 

He joked sometimes that he was still working for his master-craft tattoo. It was, Systlin knew, not entirely a joke. 

She pressed her cheek against the solid warmth of him. His hand was moving, fingertips stroking her spine from nape of neck to small of back and back up.

His fingers were rough, both from a sword and from the forge hammer. Systlin liked that about them, and how strong they were. 

The sensation of his heartbeat under her cheek, the lingering glow of pleasure shared, and the fingers stroking her back were glorious. She hummed in pleasure, and felt him chuckle softly. 

"Little cat." He said, teasingly. "You're purring."

"Mmm." She kept her eyes closed. She was the Queen Regnant of the North, had fought two wars, held the high lords in check mainly through fear of her and had earned the love of the common folk by shedding blood and sweat for them. She was a Breaker, the first in centuries, and rumored to be the most powerful yet to live. She held that power, and herself, on a tight leash.

 But here, in the bedroom she shared with her husband, it all melted away for a little while. 

She wondered, yet again, if he knew just how much he was the center of sanity that kept her moored and grounded. She had told him, of course, but still. 

Foicatch shifted. She made a sound of protest, and he tweaked the gold ring in her ear playfully. She sat up reluctantly, eyeing the matching bond-ring in his ear and contemplating tugging back. 

"I have something for you." His voice was soft. 

She raised an eyebrow. He rolled to the side; she appreciated the shift of his muscles under his skin as he did so. He was a wonderfully built man. 

"Here." He took something from the bed-table, and turned back to her. "I made this today." 

'This' was a small round piece of iron. It was beautifully made, twisted threads of wire in a complicated interlinked pattern of knots. In the center was engraved the eight-pointed star of her family. It was strung on a chain, and clearly meant to be worn as a pendant. 

"You made it?" She put it on happily. 

"I purified the steel from ore myself. And quenched it in water mixed with a drop of my own blood. I burned three of my hairs, three of yours, and three of Serra's on it, for the forge spirits." He ducked his head a little, as if embarrassed. "They'll protect you, if you wear it." 

It was an old ritual, Systlin knew. Hairs from her head, his, and their child, offered to the forge-spirits for protection. His own blood in the quench-tank, to keep away rust and wear. 

"I know you don't need it." He was saying, still seeming embarrassed. "But..."

She kissed him. Hard and at length. 

"Thank you." She told him, when they finally came up for air. He smiled, his face lighting up like the sun, and kissed her again....

Systlin woke. 

The furs next to her were empty, of course. On her breast, the iron of the pendant Foicatch had made her long ago was as cold as ice. 

The loneliness hit her like a brick, but there wasn't time to dwell on it. 

From outside the wagon there was a cry of alarm. 

She was on her feet and had her weapons in hand before it faded. There were sounds of a struggle from outside, and she was moving, barefoot and wearing her sleeping tunic, reactions honed by decades of experience engaged instantly. 

It was coming from the rear of the wagon. The wood that made the wagon was sturdy, but it was roofed in canvas. Even as she leapt towards the sound of the commotion, a knife blade was stabbed through the canvas to slice a way into her wagon. 

The wood of the wagon was sturdy. 

That did not matter, to a Breaker, in the slightest. 

The rear wall of the wagon fractured violently into a million splinters as she Broke it; she closed her eyes and raised an arm to protect them as she dove through the cloud of them. 

She went low out of sheer instinct. Dove through the splinters, hit the ground outside in a shoulder roll and was back on her feet in an instant. Spun, taking in the scene before her. 

A woman was on the ground, her throat slit. Another was crying the alarm, pointing to the wagon. A man was struggling to regain his feet as splinters rained down around him; he must, she surmised, have been climbing the back wall of her wagon. A knife lay beside him. 

A second man was stumbling backwards, caught off guard by the explosion of splinters. He was armed with a quiva and a lance. 

He saw her, and his eyes widened. 

The cold light clarity of battle was setting in already. Systlin bared her teeth in a horrible parody of a smile, and lunged. 

She was faster than him. She was better trained than him. She had the element of surprise. 

It was a credit to his own skills that he managed to regain his footing and twist out of the way of the sword strike that would have gutted him. It was even more to his credit that he managed to parry the dagger strike that would have torn his throat open. 

He did not dodge the knee kick. Systlin slammed her heel into his kneecap, and felt the crunch as bone gave way. He fell as the leg gave out, and lashed out savagely at her with his lance. 

He was very fast. She was faster. Ice  snapped down to parry the lance, and she sank her dagger to the hilt in his neck, just above the collarbone. 

Then she was past him, and advancing on the stunned man struggling to find his breath again. He'd fallen a good eight feet from the top of her wagon, and the wind had been knocked out of him. He was bleeding in a dozen places, from where splinters had driven into flesh. 

He saw her coming, and reached for the knife. She smiled at him, baring her teeth in the sheer bloody delight of battle, and stepped on the weapon, kicking it away. 

"I was wondering," she told him, even as her guards finally arrived with weapons drawn. "how long it would take you bastards." 

 An hour later, the bound prisoner had been carted away. The corpse had been disposed of, and Systlin was back to bed. 

They'd both been men granted freedom for apparent good behavior. To be honest, she'd known that some of them were acting, and had expected this. 

It had been some time since she'd had assassins try to kill her in the night. It was rather refreshing, actually. Her aunt had always maintained that regular practice was needed to keep skills sharp. 

The chill had faded from her pendant. She held it, for a long moment, imagining for a moment that she could still smell him, could still feel his touch. 

She reached up and touched the rings in her ear...two of them, one a gold ring set with a ruby, the second silver, and set with sapphire. Foicatch wore a matching sapphire bond-ring. Sura wore a matching ring of ruby. 

How long had she been here? Four weeks now? 

Systlin Stellas, Queen of the Northern Lands, was not given to tears. But even so, as she lay in her bed alone, she felt wetness on her cheeks. 

 Come morning, when she had the prisoner dragged before her as she held court in the open space before her wagon, she had composed herself again. 

The man who'd tried to kill her was not the only prisoner present. She'd had the men who'd not yet been freed dragged before her too, and set where they could watch. They were silent, and stoic. Systlin had come to expect that of them. 

Despite this, of course, she noted with some pleasure that the presence of the severed head of her would-be assassin spiked on a lance set in the ground did seem to draw their eyes. 

She smiled pleasantly at them. She'd learned years ago that it unnerved people when she did this. 

"I am honestly surprised," she said. "That it took you this long."

The bound prisoner spat at her feet. She ignored this. 

"I would like to publicly recognize," she continued, "Dina of Turia, who was clever enough both to recognize that an attempt would likely be made, and to think of setting guards at the rear of my wagon as well as the front."

Dina smiled brilliantly at the praise, and brought her lance to her forehead in salute. Her smile faltered, though; Systlin knew that she'd insisted on arranging for the death-rites of the slain guardswoman personally. 

"I am sorry, Ubara." She said. "That your guards failed to stop them." 

Systlin shook her head. "You cannot expect to best trained warriors after a month of practice. I have said as much. But they saw the men, and warned me, and it was clever of you to deduce where such an attack might be made."

That got another smile. "I have lived among Tuchuks." She said. "I've learned how they think."

"Now, of course, we deal with you." Systlin stood, and drew her sword. The prisoner met her eyes, defiant. 

"Go on, sleen." He said. "You are no Ubara." 

"Ah. Of course. Because I have not killed your former Ubar." She smiled at his shock, and in the gathered prisoners there were many suddenly wide eyes. "What? You think that I've not spoken to people? You think that the other women didn't tell me? What kind of fool do you take me for?"

Shock, from many of the men. But from the women, mocking laughter. 

"It is a situation easily remedied." She smiled at him, and then planted her feet and cut, swift and hard, pivoting from the hips. 

Ice cut through muscle and bone quite easily. The head hit the ground with a thump and rolled. Systlin ignored the body as it fell, and pointed towards the prisoners with the bloodied blade of Ice. 

"You," she said, still smiling. "Kamchak, is it? Ubar of the Tuchuks?"

The man met her eyes steadily. She saw anger there, but no fear. He was, if nothing else, brave. 

"A lesson I learned long ago." She told him. "Is that a queen with no people who follow her is no queen at all. And you, former Ubar, have barely a handful of men loyal to you. I have six thousand loyal to me. So who, here, is Ubara?" 

He spat. 

"But I am willing," she continued, "to do this properly. It will be a pleasure, even." She nodded to her guards. "Remove his chains, and give him weapons. If he wants his position back, he can fight me for it." 

There was a roar from the gathered women, and Systlin smiled as Kamchak's eyes narrowed, and he bared his teeth right back at her. 

 We had known, of course. It had been whispered about camp, and the men who had managed to convince the women to free them had consulted Kamchak many times in the previous days. It had been done quietly, of course; Tuchuks are clever.

On the night that the attack was to occur, we of course heard the commotion, as the wagon we were chained to was not far distant from that claimed by Systlin. Adjacent to it, in fact, as I seemed to be of special interest to her and she apparently wished to keep me under close scrutiny. 

I had asked for Kamchak to at least be chained near me. The request had been granted. We sat practically on, indeed, the flat space of grass before the great wagon that she used as her court. 

We heard, quite quickly, that it had failed. Systlin sent out messengers immediately, and spent an hour before her wagon in plain view of any and all who wished to  see that she lived. 

She was wearing a brief silk tunic, as she had no doubt been startled from sleep. Her legs were strong; far too strong for Gorean tastes, but still shapely. The image was somewhat marred by the blood that had dripped down her thigh as she carried the head of her slain enemy to the lance fixed in the turf for this purpose. 

The second man who'd attempted the attack was dragged to the grass before her, chained hand and foot and hand to foot, and tied down to lances sunk deeply into the turf. 

The women, I noted, did not cringe so any longer when shouted at by an angry warrior. His cries of rage were ignored. 

I noticed, for the first time, how well formed were the muscles of the women. I supposed that the hard work at camp and the running after the kaiila of their masters had always left the girls in excellent physical form. Had the last month of their play at weapons truely wrought such a change, though?

Or had the girls always been so fit, and I had simply not seen them drag a grown warrior by his hair before?

Systlin sat there holding court, clad in red silk and the blood of a slain warrior, a man who'd been sent to kill her bound before her, the firelight casting flickering shadow and light over the scene, seated on the furs and pillows as if they were a throne of gold and rubies. 

She met my eyes once, in the shadows, and her smile was a terrible thing to behold.  

For the first time since the she-demon had arrived, I understood how such a creature could be called a queen. 

It's said on Gor that a woman who enjoys the touch of silk is a slave at heart. I wondered if the man who had first said it had ever seen a woman wearing silk and the blood of a slain enemy. I found myself, for the first time in a great while, doubting the phrase. 

Come morning, of course, we were dragged to court. And there, of course, Systlin killed the warrior who'd attempted to kill her before all the Tuchuk. I had supposed as much would happen, once I had heard of the failure of the attack. 

I had not supposed that she would call out Kamchak, or agree to fight him. 

Kamchak, of course, accepted. 

As the corpse of the executed warrior was removed from the circle, I realized that I had never yet seen the she-sleen truly fight. 

"Be careful," I said to Kamchak. 

He nodded, once. She was only a woman, of course, and he was proud...but I saw him narrow his eyes at her, thoughtful, as his chains were removed. 

He was sly, the Ubar of the Tuchuks. I knew this. 

"It is unfair." He said, as his ankle chains were unlocked. "You wear armor, and I am nearly naked." 

Systlin smiled, just a twitch of her lips, and removed the red larl-hide cloak, and her leather vest. The glittering shirt of strange scales was brilliant in the sun. I could see no two scales of precisely the same shade. 

She bent at the waist and wriggled out of the armor, leaving her in just the padded shirt that went under the armor. She unsheathed her dagger and spun it around the back of her hand, quicker than the eye could follow, the hilt sliding neatly back into her hand as the spin finished. 

"There." She said. "Choose whatever weapons you please." 

Kamchak observed her, eyes narrow, for some time. Then at last, he spoke. "Lance," he said, "And quiva." 

Systlin nodded, and weapons were brought. 

"You have the sun at your back," Kamchak observed. "So that it will shine in my eyes." 

"Yes." She answered him calmly, matter of fact. She made no offer to change the situation. 

"That is wise. I would do the same."

She inclined her head perhaps an inch in acknowledgement. 

"If I defeat you, I will simply kill you." He informed her. "You are too dangerous to make a slave, witch." 

She smiled at that, showing teeth. 

"I suppose if I seized one of these women as hostage, you would simply overpower me with sorcery." He stretched, and weighed quiva and lance in his hands. 

"Of course." 

Kamchak approached her, cautious. Systlin waited, and I saw her shift her weight slightly. She was balanced on the balls of her feet, I saw, her legs spread slightly in a way that would give her stable footing and allow her to move any direction at the slightest notice. 

"Tarl Cabot," Kamchak said, and I started. "It would be a terrible thing, should this witch slay me, and no one else know that which you seek is currently within my own wagon, and has often served me as throne." 

I started; the gray, leathery thing that I had supposed was a bundle of old leather, and which Kamchak often sat upon? 

Of course, it was like a Tuchuk, to hide such a treasure in the most clever of ways...

There was a ring of metal on metal, and I was torn from such thoughts. Kamchak had hurled a quiva, as he had at me once upon a time. And as I had, Systlin had apparently seen the throw coming, though it was so quick as to be missed upon blinking. She had moved, just as quickly, and the ringing had been her sword meeting the quiva in mid-air, and parrying it to the side. 

I had seen her before in bits and flashes in the battle that terrible night, and later executing bound prisoners. Her form with a blade, I had thought, was good. 

I had been wrong before. Her form with a blade was excellent, and beyond excellent. 

It struck me, as she nimbly dodged a striking lance and the slashing blow of a second quiva, Kamchak bringing it up and around in a hidden strike close on the heels of his lunge with the lance, that she would have compared favorably with the best of the warriors of Ko-ro-ba. 

As she danced in, light and nimble, and drove him back on his heels with a vicious, lightning quick series of strikes, it occurred to me that she was likely quicker on her feet than even I. 

The sword and dagger at once was not a common combination on Gor, but the she-sleen used them to devastating effect. One may parry while the other attacks, and attack may follow attack without the slightest moment of respite. Equally, both may be used to turn aside blows given in return, though this relies upon the warrior being quick and nimble and possessed of excellent timing.

Systlin was all three. She was quick, marvelously quick. She was nimble, her footing flawless. Her timing was precise and deadly.

Within the first exchange, she had opened a deep bleeding slash into Kamchak's arm with that dagger, and as he fought to hold those biting blades off the sword slipped around and opened a cut into his thigh. 

Kamchak's lance gave him reach, and he was quick on his feet as well. As she pivoted neatly around his lance and cut for his neck with a vicious flat slice of her sword, he threw himself to the side unexpectedly and hurled his quiva, at nearly point blank range. 

She saw, and with a degree of control over her body and momentum that I had thought nearly impossible checked her momentum and changed direction, but still the quiva opened a cut across the front of her thigh. 

Both warriors fell back, eyeing one another. Kamchak was serious, deadly so. Systlin was grinning, and I have seen that grin before on the battlefield. 

Only warriors who truly delight in the fight smile so. 

As we watched, the she-sleen lowered her hand, dipped two fingers into the blood flowing from her wound, and drew them across her cheek, smearing scarlet like war-paint across her skin. 

"U-BAR-A!" There was chanting from the massed Tuchuk. A few, though, including the other still-imprisoned warriors, were crying "U-BAR!"

"You are good." Kamchak admitted. 

Systlin simply grinned, and began circling. If the pain of her wound was troubling her, she did not reveal it. 

Twice more they clashed, and twice more the she-sleen opened up wounds on Kamchak and then retreated to resume her circling. Kamchak did not manage to wound her a second time in these clashes. 

I realized to my horror, as she closed the third time and hooked a blow of the lance out of the air as neatly as one could please, simply to rotate around and drive her elbow viciously into the back of Kamchak's skull, that she was toying with him. 

Kamchak knew as well, as she retreated to resume that relentless circling again. The blow had dazed him for a moment, and she could have slain him on the spot, but she only pricked him yet again with that dagger, opening a slash across the back of his shoulder to join the half-dozen others he was bleeding from. 

"Sleen." He panted. 

"I prefer" she said, still smiling that cold and vicious smile, "to be called 'Queen'."

And with that, she moved in again. 

Kamchak was a great warrior, and a canny one. Kamchak fought well. Kamchak fought with a skill that would have been credit to any warrior of Ko-ro-ba. Kamchak fought with skill and speed and guile. But no man can stand forever when bleeding from a dozen wounds.

Kamchak fought well. Kamchak fought bravely. And Kamchak died, a warrior of the Tuchuk, without begging or crying out in pain, when the she-sleen tired of the game. 

She did not quite behead him. When his guard dropped, dragged down by exhaustion and blood loss, she cut again with that strange sword and opened his throat clear back to the bones of his spine. 

Kamchak, Ubar of the Tuchuk, fell. I did not look away as his life bled out across the grass; I owed him that much. 

Systlin turned to us as Kamchak fell, fierce and furious. 

"There lies your Ubar." She cried this out, and I knew at once that she was used to speaking so that her voice would carry over battlefields. "Now we will have done with this! Is there anyone else among you who would challenge me? Because now is the time! If you wish to avenge your men, if you wish to claim the Ubar title...now is the fucking time! Because the next time I have to get out of bed to an assassination attempt, I am going to slow roast the balls of anyone involved and feed them to you." 

Silence. 

"Then." She hissed. "Who is the fucking Ubara here?"

I could say nothing, and I was not the only one to look away.

“That’s what I fucking thought.”

 Three days later

“Fuck.” Systlin dug her fingertips into her temples. She could feel a headache coming on, and it was only midmorning. “Fuck. What is wrong with this place?”

Dina gave an apologetic sort of shrug. “I cannot answer that for you, Ubara. But the Tuchuk had been preparing for the Love Games for some time, and it is considered the event of events on the plains. We could simply move the bosk on and skip it, though it will be noted.”

Systlin gritted her teeth. Her new warriors were not well trained enough to put up against those who had been trained, as she had, since they were old enough to hold swords. They were eager, she knew, but simply not yet ready for such a fight. It would be a slaughter, and she would not have it.

“Abominable fucking tradition.” She muttered. “What will happen to the Turian women placed at the stakes if we simply do not show?”

Her advisors glanced at each other and shrugged. “I do not know, Ubara.” Said Shayla, a fiercely intelligent woman. She had a keen mind for numbers and a genius for organization, and Systlin had promptly snapped her up to assist with logistics. Her former and very deceased master had kept her in a length of nearly transparent silk that barely counted as a scarf; now she wore a long bosk-wool skirt and a conservatively cut tunic, and her hair was braided and pinned up in a coil. “But I am not Turian.”

“It would be counted as a win for the Turian champions.” Dina said. “And they will be free to go. But the Tuchuk will be marked as cowards, and runners will be sent to investigate.”

“Ah.” Systlin relaxed a bit. “Well. That’s no problem. I don’t care what they think of us for now, and a few runners are easily disposed of. We simply do not go, then, and we will come back and deal with Turia when the warriors are ready.”

“The Turians,” interjected Mettna, a Tuchuk Free Woman. She also had a keen mind for logistics, and was the matriarch of a large extended family with many ties throughout the Tuchuk. Gorean laws or not, she ruled her family uncontested, and her word was law among them. Even her teenaged sons and nephews bowed their heads when she fixed them with a flinty stare. “Will consider the women the Tuchuk would have placed at the stakes theirs by default, and they will come looking for them.” A dark look; her youngest daughter Hireena had been among those intended for the stakes. “They take pleasure in breaking us to the collar and chain.”

Systlin’s hand tightened reflexively on her dagger. “If they come looking,” She said. “I’ll make drinking bowls of their skulls, and send the rest of them back to Turia.”

“Good.” A nod. “I simply wanted you to know, Ubara.”

“And it is appreciated.” Systlin tilted her head at Dina. “It would be good practice for the warriors. Fighting for real with your life on the line is much different than doing it in practice. I know that you are impatient, Dina, but I didn’t learn in a month either.”

Dina nodded. “When DO you think…” she trailed off.

“A year, perhaps.” Systlin shrugged. “It depends on how hard you train, and how many chances there are to raid and test yourself in small skirmishes. You’ve all thrown yourselves in heart and soul, and are progressing remarkably. Keep training, and you’ll be flaying slave masters sooner than you think.”

Dina looked mollified at that.

“So it is decided then. We continue to move over the grazing grounds, bide our time, gather our strength, train, and ignore this abomination called “Love Games.” Systlin nodded to each of them. “Ah, Shayla. I had meant to ask…you had located the stocks of that stuff you call the ‘releaser?’ And the stuff you call ‘sip-root?’”

“We have, Ubara. One or two of the women have requested the releaser. I gave it to them. I hope that was not…”

“Not at all. Such things are entirely up to the individual. Continue to distribute it to any who ask, and notify me if stocks run low. I am not adverse to raiding for more supplies of any sort, should they be needed. How many men remain living?”

“Thirty two of adult years. Many more nearing adulthood, though many of them have been…difficult. There will be problems there, Ubara.”

“I know. But those will be dealt with as they come. Children have not owned slaves or raped women yet, and I’ll not punish them for their upbringing. There’s hope of teaching them better yet.” She tapped her fingers against her thigh thoughtfully. “Your siproot, quite honestly, rather reminds me of stoneseed, from my own world.”

“And Silphium.” The woman named Elizabeth put in abruptly. “From mine. The Romans…an empire, some two thousand years ago…used it so much that it was harvested to extinction, but it was apparently quite effective.” She worried at her lower lip with her teeth. “I wonder…if this siproot was grown on Earth…there’s so many who don’t have access to birth control yet. It’s a hardy plant. It could change so many lives for the better.”

Systlin raised an eyebrow. “Indeed. Stoneseed is considered a basic stock necessity for any civilized place on Ellinon, as siproot seems to be here. What is done then on Earth, to prevent unwanted children?”

“Well.” A helpless sort of shrug. “We’ve pills that work well, and barrier devices, but…well, in some places there’s not much, and while we’ve plants too many are toxic or don’t work well. So, in those places there’s just…nothing.”

Systlin hissed through her teeth in disapproval. “It’s a worthy thought, then. But before we can figure out how to return you to your own world, we must set this one to rights.” She rose, as did the other women in the wagon. “Thank you all. We will speak again later.”

Outside the wagon, she found her kailla, mounted, and went for a ride around the perimeter of the camp. She’d taken to doing so regularly; an early and hard lesson had been that people need to see their leaders.

Her father had ignored this fact. He’d died for it, with her brother, and the northern lands had dissolved into war for a decade.

After her circuit of the camp, she went to the field where the fighters were training. A few of the freed men had offered to help teach, and were so far proving helpful. Systlin had been dubious; the women of this place were so conditioned to expect nothing but brutality at a man’s hands that she’d wondered if it wouldn’t cause more harm than good. However, it seemed, after some tentative starts, to be helping both sides. The women were faster losing their ingrained flinching cringe when a man moved towards them, and the men, she knew, had been stunned by how quickly the women took to training. She’d heard them speaking to the still chained men about it, and arguing. She’d seen them as well cuff and get into yelling matches with a few of the sullenly furious teenaged boys who were nearing manhood, and had found their expected power ripped away in a moment.

The man named Carl Tabot was there too. He was still chained, foot to foot, and was simply allowed to correct errors when he saw them. She’d contemplated killing him; she was certain, in her bones, that he was guilty of the same atrocities of most of the other men. But she’d no proof, and the man was a skilled warrior; she’d only broken his leg rather than killed him for that, and because she’d noted the first time he spoke that he was not of these wagon people.

He spotted her, and glowered. She was more than certain that he’d happily stick a knife through her throat in her sleep if he thought he could get by with it. She smiled at him in return, the sharp, worrying flash of teeth that was famed and feared across the sands and the northern lands. He flinched, and glowered at her.

Fuck, but she would have given anything to have Foicatch there. The ingrained misogyny of this world ran deep, and she knew that words from a man would be more seriously taken than her words, however thoroughly she demonstrated that she was, in fact, the new superior power on this planet.

Actually, the idea was quite amusing. The men of this place had made it quite obvious what they thought of being ‘true men’, and that men not like them were ‘weak’ and ‘unmanned’. Foicatch, all six feet three inches and two hundred fifty granite-hewn, deadly warrior-trained pounds of him, could hardly ever be called either. But, like most real men, Foicatch was quite secure in himself and felt little need to loudly proclaim it for everyone to hear. He was, really, far more even-tempered and easygoing than she. He’d be mostly bemused by the arrogant, angry posturing and bellowing and rage of the men of this shithole.

Until he was not. It took a great deal to rouse Foicatch’s ire, but once roused it was terrible.

Systlin entertained the thought of one of the sullen, angry Tuchuk boys being dangled from one of ‘Catch’s hands, her beloved bellowing at the little shit, and smiled again in private amusement.

[systlinsideblog]

Part 4

I still lived. 

I was, I thought, greatly in the minority. The woman Systlin had judged warrior after warrior, and warrior after warrior had met his end at a quiva's blade. 

A great many of the sentences were carried out by the hands of the freed slave girls of the warriors. The number of these astounded me, as did the ferocity with which many of the girls fell upon their masters. 

It is a Gorean saying that a woman cannot be free until she has been a slave. It is said that a woman wishes to be conquered, that she cannot respect any man save for the man who can reduce her to nothing. 

The girls fell upon their masters with a fury I have rarely seen, and blood flowed until the grass was slick and red with it. 

A few girls did not take up the quiva. These men, once sentence of death was passed, the she-sleen on the Ubar's robe killed herself. Her face was untroubled by this, unworried, and there was even a hint of vicious pleasure in those cold eyes as she swung the sword to remove their heads.

Those warriors who had taken Free Companions and who had children, the she-sleen ordered all material goods be split equally between the  Free Companions, the children, and the freed slave girls. There were many sour faces among the Tuchuk women at that, but to my shock many more who accepted it without question. 

When night neared, scarce three dozen warriors of the Tuchuk still lived, myself included. It was us and only us who had not admitted to owning slaves, and who had no slaves to call out our names. 

A very few men..two or three, in all...had been spared by the request of their slave girls. These men were whipped, and the she-sleen commanded ash be rubbed into the whip wounds. 

"I would have them remember." She had said, eyes cold and face passionless, even as the warriors held back cries of pain. "I want them to remember their crimes, and to remember me." 

Those of us who had survived the slaughter had been unchained and taken to wagons, and allowed to eat and rest. 

"So." Kamchak had survived the culling, and his face was set and cold. "We are free, then?"

"You are not slaves." Systlin had smiled a little, a cold smile that did not reach her eyes. "But if you seek to flee, or to move against me...well." 

Behind her, I could see women chaining hunting sleen outside the wagons. Each was given clothing to smell; I noticed with a start a discarded tunic of my own among the items. The sleen began to pull and hiss, eyes bright. 

"Say, rather, that you are prisoners for the time." Systlin continued. "I've much to do, and I've no time to be worrying about one of you burying a knife in my back in my sleep." Another humorless smile. "I'm not fool enough to think that all...or any...of you are paragons of virtue. I'll get the truth in time."

Kamchak spat. "You," he informed her, "Are the most disagreeable and wrenched wench I've ever had the misfortune to meet. There will come a day, where you meet a man to bring you to heel." A smile. "I wish to be there to see it."

I felt my heart sink; they were unwise words, but then Kamchak was Tuchuk. 

To my surprise, the woman Systlin threw back her head and laughed, as if at a wonderful joke. 

"Ahhh!" She wiped tears from her eyes at last, as I stared, stunned. "When I find my way home, I will tell Foicatch that." Another laugh. "A woman isn't brought to heel. We can choose to be a partner, or to bide our time and pretend until the time is right, but brought to heel? HA! You saw that, I think, today." Another terrible grin. "I saw your faces, when the women turned on your warriors. You did not expect that, did you?"

"Foicatch?" Kamchak, ever keen, inquired. 

"My husband." Systlin said this lightly, easily. "Father of my daughter."

"Good god, you are married?" The words were out of me before I could think better of them. I tried to imagine what bedding such a woman would be like, and thought to myself that it would be much like the risk taken by the male of the praying mantis of Earth; what sort of man would marry such a creature?

"Yes. Goodnight." She shut the wagon behind her. 

There was a moment of silence. Then, Kamchak spoke. 

"It is probably a bad time, Tarl Cabot," he said. "To mention that Kutaituchuk was not the Ubar of the Tuchuks." 

"What?"

 It was surprising, Systlin thought, how many of the Tuchuk women had been willing...eager, even...to take up weapons and stand guard at her wagon. 

Not to her. No. On Ellinon, the children of the Lady would have found the ideas of the men of this 'Gor' incomprehensible, unlawful, hearsay, and downright suicidal. But to many of the women of Gor themselves, Systlin thought, the sheer thrill that came when picking up a blade or spear was new. 

She tried to picture what would have happened had Stellead found herself in this shithole of a world. Death, absolutely; her aunt had little talent in any form of Power, but she had won her place as Arms Master of Stellas Keep and as a Commander of the Bloodguard through sweat and skill. 

Even now, Systlin could only best her aunt blade to blade perhaps two matches out of three. 

If anyone...man, woman, even the gods themselves...had tried to bring Stellead to heel, she'd spit in their eye and disembowel them. 

Systlin smiled to herself. It was a stubbornness and force of will that she herself shared, and that her aunt, mother, and father had always fostered. 

The women did not know quite how to hold a spear, of course. Systlin had tried to gently insist that she didn't need an armed guard, more because she knew full well that they'd not yet be up to a fight than because she believed that. But they had insisted, and in the end she had simply advised them to stick to knives for the time being. 

The rugs and cushions and furs in the wagon were quite comfortable, and she was quite tired, but sleep was elusive. 

All of this...the rugs and furs, the sound of animals outside, the sound of low voices from the camp, the smell of dried dung fires...it was too similar to her time with the Rabi, with Sura, before Sura had become Queen of the Sands, when she'd simply been the leader of her clan. 

Sura's laugh, bright as a bell, and the taste of pomegranate wine. The light of the brazier catching glints of copper and red off of Sura's black hair, which gleamed almost blue in sunlight. 

The rugs beside her were cold, and she suddenly felt very alone. 

Her throne would be empty. She'd held the North together through sheer grit, guile, charisma, and the edge of a sword, and beaten it back into working shape after the War of the Crown had nearly destroyed it. 

Her daughter was only a girl. Foicatch, dear Foicatch, would do his best, she knew, but he was at heart a soldier, not a monarch. 

Her sister would step in, at least. 'Sina was capable. But she didn't have the fear and respect of the lords of the realm and the love of the common folk the way Systlin did. 

"Why am I here?" She whispered this in the dark, at the roof of the wagon. 

No one answered. 

"I have my own place. People who will miss me." She scowled at the dark, and anger rose hot and furious. "Responsibilities! I've not got time for...this!" She waved a hand randomly, indicating everything about this strange place. 

No one answered. But Systlin had met gods in her time, and she knew that if they cared to, they could hear. 

"Send me back!" She hissed this at the darkness, not sure who she was angry with. "Have I not done enough? Send me home! I do not want this!"

Nothing. 

Exhaustion, at last, won out, and she slept. 

She was, in her dreams, not surprised at her visitor. 

The Lady's face could never be seen. The most that could be gathered was an impression of poise, of stately calm. It was impossible even to place what color Her hair was, or her skin, though the hair floated around her like a cloud and she was nude. 

"You?" In her dream Systlin could still feel her anger, though it was a hollow ghost of what she'd felt while awake. 

Me. It wasn't a spoken word; it was felt. 

"I should have known at once." Systlin growled. "Have I not done enough? Can I have no peace?"

A laugh, chiming and musical, but which shook the very bones. You were never made for peace. 

And that was true. Systlin knew it, felt the truth of it in her soul. It was impossible to deny it, not before the Lady. 

She felt an answering whisper in her soul, as the slumbering power of what had once been the Lord of Night and Void, the God of Endings, the Fallen One, God of Conflict, Lord of Justice and retribution, stirred within her. 

Sister. The word was pointed, and almost mocking. Who denies still that you are. 

"I saved my world. It needs me; you know that damned well. I don't want to be a god."

Want. This word was definitely mocking. There is no want, sister. There is 'must'. My brother failed his duty, and corrupted it. You hold it now. In time, you will realize. Goddess of War, Goddess of Justice, Goddess of Protection, Goddess of Night, Goddess of Death, Goddess of Endings and rebirth. I do your duties for now, sister...but not forever. 

Systlin clenched her fists, and pointedly ignored this. "My people need me, damn you."

They are safe. 

Systlin closed her eyes. "You'll not send me back until I finish here." It wasn't a question. 

You could send yourself back whenever you wished, if you accepted your new place.

Systlin glared.

Another smile. So stubborn. No, I will not. Good luck, sister.

She woke. 

Within her, the power of the god she'd killed stirred again, and was once more silent. 

It was morning. She could see the sunlight under the door, and could hear the cheerful bustle of camp outside. 

"Gods damn it all to the pits." She muttered.

 The hardest thing about training the women of the Tuchuk in combat, Systlin soon found, was ingrained survival habits. 

Her aunt, in the long-ago days when Systlin had been a lanky youth still growing into her arms and legs and new to a training sword, had always said that the hardest thing about training older students was fixing ingrained and detrimental habits. 

Stellead had been referring to habits picked up from lesser arms masters...letting your shield drop, footwork that was less than flawless. Systlin wondered how her aunt would have dealt with this, as she interrupted a woman to correct her form and the former slave cringed and dropped at her feet, begging forgiveness. 

"I am sorry!" The woman was almost tearful. Systlin had been angry since she came to this cursed place, and she felt that knot of red rage flare. "I am sorry, I forgot..."

"It's all right." Systlin squatted, propping her elbows on her thighs. "Hush. It's all right. Here now." She offered her hand, and the girl hesitantly took it. Systlin stood, drawing the girl back to her feet, and then bent, picked up the dropped wooden sword, and offered it back hilt first. The girl took it. 

"Do you know," Systlin said, keeping her voice light and conversational, "how long it took me to become good with a sword?"

The woman blinked. "I...no, Ubara." 

"I started training at thirteen." Systlin smiled fondly in memory. "I first killed a wraithen at nineteen. I first killed men in battle at twenty five. that was two and a half decades and three wars ago." She tossed her own wooden sword in the air; it spun precisely one turn before she caught it again by the hilt. "Training takes time, and practice. You will make mistakes. I will never fault you for them; you simply correct them and keep training." 

The girl nodded slowly. Systlin had given the same speech to many girls over the last three weeks, but the habits learned to survive the men of this Pit of a planet went deep. It would be slow going yet; she knew that. 

"Fifty?" The question was unexpected. 

"Hm?"

"You are fifty?"

"Close enough, yes."

"Your world then has brews of youth as well?" The girl seemed curious. 

Systlin blinked. "I...no. But we're descended from the Lady, the goddess and mother of all. We live long." She considered the woman before her; she appeared to be perhaps in her late twenties. "How old are you?" 

"Oh. Sixty, I think? My masters have given me the brews of youth three times." 

The yawning pit of cold fury in Systlin's soul howled. 

"How many years of that," Systlin kept her voice carefully level. "Were you kept as property?"

"Since I was...oh, sixteen?"

The world went abruptly white before her eyes. The yawning spectre of the power she'd pulled from the soul of a slain god roared; goddess of justice, goddess of protection....

Fury, she was furious, and for a moment she knew, knew that it would be so, so easy, to rise on the wind and come down on the people who had done this. To become a storm, a furious reckoning, to scour this world clean in a night...

...No. No no NO. I will not. I have to teach them. They must take it themselves, for all I might lead them. Or it will all be for nothing...

By the time she fought it down and came back to herself she was on her knees, clutching the trampled grass with white knuckles. Sweat was soaking her, as it never did even if she fought all day. Her breath was coming short and sharp. 

"Ubara!" The voices were panicked, and she realized dimly that there were at least a dozen women around her, patting at her cheeks, offering water. 

She looked up, and saw worry, and fear, and as the god-soul inside her stirred, she saw more. She saw desperation, and so, so much pain, oceans of pain, seas of injustice, rivers of innocent blood spilled. 

And as the women of the Tuchuk looked at her, worried, she saw deep in their eyes hope. 

"Ubara?" It was  Sabra , the brave girl, who'd taken quite well to a spear. "Ubara?"

"I'm all right." She wasn't, not quite; her voice sounded rough to her own ears. "I'm all right. Keep practicing."

The hovered until she got to her feet, but once it was determined that the Ubara was not about to die, they slowly went back to their drills. 

Systlin moved a bit away, absently climbed the nearest wagon, and sat cross legged, looking out over the makeshift training grounds without really seeing. 

She'd always been a protector. Since they'd been children, and her sister's dreams had driven little 'Sina to cry and scream in her sleep. Since her father had nurtured that, and taught her that a Queen's people were her children, that her sacred duty was to protect and serve them. 

Since she'd torn the North back from the hands of the greedy and the corrupt, who'd sought to carve it apart for power and profit. 

Since she'd faced a god, putting her own body and soul between her people and the Fallen Lord himself. 

Since she'd faced a second goddess, and demanded the Lady return her daughter from beyond death. 

It was who she was, in the end. She knew it in her bones, even as she looked down at these strange people in this strange world, and felt it, that what she must do. 

"Pitting hells." She muttered this softly, and somewhere felt the Lady smile. 

 For some weeks now, the routine had been much the same; Kamchak and I, and the other men, were kept chained and carefully watched. Some men, after a measure of time should they demonstrate a contrite enough demeanor, had their chains removed and were allowed to move about the camp; they did so, casting their eyes aside from those of us who were still chained. 

I watched one man brush a bosk one evening, and oil its hooves. A slave girl should do such work, and he was clumsy at it. A girl was watching, wearing the leather trousers that had become fashionable among the women. Her hair, which was very long, was braided up and pinned in a coil on the top of her head; it was unflattering, I thought. She corrected him, and showed him how it was done properly, and he meekly listened. She smiled at him, and I thought that in silks and with hair loose she must have been quite a beauty. He smiled back, a bit tentatively. 

I snorted in disdain. There are always men that are so, those that are more akin to women than true men. 

She heard, and turned on me. There was a fierceness in her eyes. 

"See." She pointed at me, mocking. "He thinks himself better than you, Sarthak. He thinks himself too good for work about the camp, thinks it should be done only by women in chains." She laughed, and spit in my direction. "And yet he is still a prisoner in chains, while you are a free man. So who, then, is the better man?"

Sarthak grinned at me. He wore no scars, and scant weeks ago he had likely been unregarded utterly by the Tuchuk. 

"You speak true words, Lena." He agreed, and turned his back on me. She gave another laugh, and she turned back to their task. I realized with some surprise that the looks Lena was favoring the unscarred young man with were warm. 

"Disgraceful." Kamchak was chained to the other axle of the wagon, and he too was regarding the young man with distaste. "Have they made a slave of you already, boy?"

"He's a free man." Lena didn't look around. "All free men and women of able body must do their share of work. You shall too, should you ever be trusted and set free." 

Kamchak spat again, and leaned his head back against the wagon wheel. 

"It was a sad day," said the Ubar of the Tuchuk, "That that she-sleen came to the Tuchuk, Tarl Cabot." 

"Yes." I agreed. I wondered still how many she had slain in that night, through sorcery. The pyres had burned for two days and nights. 

We watched the girl teach the young man to grease the axles of the wagon. We had little else to do. 

As the evening meal was brought, we were finally given some surprise to rouse us from the deadly tedium that had marked the weeks. 

The she-sleen had a cloak now, made of red larl-hide. She wore it pinned at a jaunty angle, thrown back over one shoulder. She was wearing a leather vest over her strange scale armor today. She regarded us for a moment, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword. I'd examined that weapon many times now, and I still could not place the make of it; it was no Gorean style I knew of, and the silver-blue of the blade was unlike any alloy I knew on Earth. It was somewhat shorter than most blades I had seen, perhaps thirty-six inches in all in total length. A great polished amethyst was set into the pommel, the most darkly violet stone I'd ever seen. 

It was viciously sharp. I knew this. 

"You." She said to me. The word was said in Gorean; she was learning quickly, it seemed, for all her strange magic did seem to translate for her. "You'll come with me." She nodded at the girl following her...I recognized her, I realized, it was the girl Dina I had seen around camp before, the slave reputed to be the best at the running game...and Dina brought out a ring of keys. 

Dina's hair was braided, as was Systlin's. Dina wore leather trousers, as did Systlin. Dina wore a quiva, as  Systlin wore her long dagger, and had stood and rested her hand on the hilt of the quiva in conscious imitation of the strange woman. 

It seemed to be a fashion, I noted, that many of the freed slave girls and even many of the Tuchuk women had taken up. 

I said nothing.  It had not been a request, of course, and I had little choice. My leg was healing, but I was far from my top form.

My chains were let loose. I stood, with some difficulty, and Dina's help. She was, I noticed with some surprise, quite strong. There were muscles through her shoulders that I'd never before seen so developed on any Gorean woman, and her hands were tough. 

I knew that well; my own hands were callused thus from the hilt of sword and the haft of lance. It was surprising that a slave girl had developed such in such a short time. 

I was led to the great wagon that Systlin had claimed as her own; the wagon that I knew, now, was not the true wagon of the Ubar of the Tuchuks. 

Inside, a meal of roast bosk had been laid ready for us. Systlin sat cross legged on the cushions; the maleness of the gesture still grated at my sensibilities. Seeing it preformed by one who might look quite well kneeling in silks was wrong, quite wrong. Dina helped me, somewhat ungracefully and with some pain, to sit. 

Systlin did not touch the food at once. She was watching me, and the gaze was keen and direct. I said nothing, but examined her in return. 

I am an observant man. It is one of my strengths. But I could gather little from her, save that which I had already deduced; she was strongly built, for a woman, all solid wiry muscle. Her hands were tough, those of a swordsman. Her gaze was intelligent, and I could not place her origin; the bone structure and shape of her eyes was subtly foreign, but not of any place I knew. She could have been beautiful, perhaps, were she arrayed instead in silk. She never, I noted, let her weapons stray far from her hand. 

She was used, I thought, to fighting. Used even to being attacked in the most secure of surroundings. She had said before that many men had tried to kill her; what sort of creature was this that sat before me?

"You're wondering why I brought you here." She broke the silence. Her tone was crisp, and it was not a question.

I said nothing. 

"The answer is because you are not of these people. I know that the Wagon Peoples usually slay outsiders. That means you are unusual, and I'm wagering it means you're quite skilled at arms." She examined me again, much as I'd examined her, and I saw her noting the callus of my hands. "Your accent is not like that of these people, as well. They say you are Koroban, wherever the fuck that is. I've heard that you have, apparently, traveled."

I said nothing. 

"That makes you potentially useful." She informed me of this without a hint of emotion. "I know very little of this world, and while I'm learning, I suspect that you know more than most."

I had heard her say such things before. I am quite well acquainted with such matters, of course, being once of Earth. "Of this world?" I said at last. 

"Of this world." A horrible humorless smile. "You know full well I'm not from here. This whole place is a nightmare and a travesty. You're lucky my aunt Stellead is not here; she’s less merciful than I. She'd have castrated the lot of your slavers and rapists, slow roasted the genitals, and fed them back to you a bite at a time. And to be honest, I did consider that." 

I could not help but cringe at the thought. 

"From what I have gathered," she continued, "No part of this world is not at the mercy of monsters who hold humans as livestock and use them as they please. It's that, I think, that I've been brought here to end. And you, Tarl Cabot, are going to give me information as I do it." 

The shock of her words was immediate. "Sent? The priest-kings...."

The wave of a hand, dismissive. "I've heard of them. No. Gods, no. I don't care a whit for them. If they interfere I'll deal with them. No, it's a power higher than them that's sent me." 

I blinked at her in shock. The priest-kings are feared and worshiped as gods on Gor, with reason. They are advanced beyond any human designs, and are exceptionally powerful. Yet I saw not a trace of fear in her. 

"They are very powerful," I said. "And your powers may bring their wrath yet." I hoped it, of course. They can burn a man to ashes on a whim.

A laugh. Another cold, humorless laugh. "Maybe." She said. "But I've slain gods before. What are a few more? No. You are going to give me information, Tarl Cabot, on this world. And then I am going to conquer it. Every last damned corner of it."

I stared at her in horror, and she simply smiled in return.

[systlinsideblog]

Part 3

The Great Crimes are as follows;

There are three Great Crimes, for which the punishment is death.

The first of the Great Crimes when, in cold blood, a person murders another who has offered no offence. The punishment for murder shall be death, the sentence to be carried out by the loved ones of the murdered or by one they give the right to in their stead.

The second of the Great Crimes is rape. The punishment for rape of another shall be death, the sentence to be carried out by the victim or by one the victim gives the right to in their stead.

The third of the Great Crimes is to enslave another, and hold them in bondage. The punishment for holding another in slavery shall be death…

-The New Laws, or The Change in the Laws of Gor, The Great Ubara Systlin Stellas, on the new laws of the land, speech given in the Throne Room of Turia, 0 AGU. Chiseled on a pillar before the Law Rooms of Ar in its entirety

 Kutaituchik, the Ubar of the Tuchuks, was dead. 

It had been a very brutal and confusing few hours. The strange woman had refused to show courtesy or deference. She had made no apology for killing Tuchuk warriors. She had not relinquished the slave girl clinging tight to her side, the one whose master she had killed when he moved to chastise his slave.

She had stood before the Ubar of the Tuchuks like a queen before her court, and had demanded. 

I pulled at the slave collar around my throat, and found it quite secure. 

I have seen many things in my day. Many horrors, and many wonders. But I have never before in all my days seen a horror like the one that the woman Systlin had brought to the wagons of the Tuchuk. 

I looked to the wagons of the Ubar. There was light within them, bosk-dung fires in braziers. The woman Systlin had claimed it for her own, and gathered all the haruspexes and soothsayers to confer with them. 

My leg throbbed. It had been set and bound skillfully, but the bone would take some weeks to knit. Until then, I could scarce walk, hobbling with the aid of a cane. 

The woman had not even touched me to break it.

Sorceress, I thought. I had not believed in such things, and would have attributed such powers only to the Priest-Kings. But I had seen it now, with my own eyes, the terrible power that woman held, the power to shatter bone and steel with will alone. 

The corpses of some of the Tuchuks who had risen in rage against her after she had slain their Ubar were still lying where they had fallen. I tried not to look at them, but found my eyes drawn. 

Shapeless things they were, only scarce resembling men. The bones, I gathered, were nothing more any longer but needle-like splinters. Those splinters had driven through flesh and vital organs, and once-proud warriors lay where they had fallen, shapeless piles of bloody meat. 

I had been fortunate that it was only my leg that had been broken. 

I shivered. My leg throbbed. And I wondered, what terrible force had set a terror like this woman loose upon Gor.

 The water was cold. 

Systlin hated cold baths. Cold in general, really. But it was, in this situation, useful. 

Her Power screamed and fought inside her, eager to be used again, and she wanted to. Oh, but she wanted to, and that was the danger of it. The cold water was a good distraction. 

She didn't know how many men she'd killed. Some with sword. More, many more, with her power for Breaking. And it had been good, it had been so good, to stand there untouchable and terrible, hearing their screams and seeing their terror, to walk among them like a terrible, unstoppable, untouchable goddess, tearing down everything in her path...

She shivered, and ducked under the surface of the stream. 

It was always...hard, after, and she'd let herself go further than usual this time, in her rage. She always felt brittle after, hollow, the desire to kill and kill until nothing remained clawing to be let out again. She'd be short now with people, she knew, and snappish. Easily irritated, even over trivial matters. Once you started to kill with the Breaking gift, it was so very easy to continue.

Breaking was a terrible gift. The seduction of the sheer power it gave, the delight in using it, were as dangerously addictive as poppy milk. 

To look upon a Breaker is to look upon a madman. She remembered hearing that as a child, reading it in books. 

Under the water, sounds were muffled. But she still heard the sound of footsteps on the stream bank, muted and distorted. She came out of the water in a rush, her hand landing on Ice's hilt, and the sword was half drawn before she realized that the intruder was the girl she'd rescued from being beaten. 

The girl cringed back, falling to her knees and prostrating herself in what was clearly ingrained habit. "Mast...mistress! I am sorry! I did not mean..."

A little of the brittle anger ebbed out of her. Systlin sheathed her sword. "It's all right. I've spent too much of my life with people trying to kill me, is all. You did nothing wrong." She stepped out of the stream, wringing out her hair and shivering in the chilly air. 

The girl looked up at her, eyes wide. It was...unnerving. Systlin was used to people bowing, but bowing and the groveling the girl was doing were two different things entirely. "I have not displeased you, mistress?"

Oh, tits. 

"No. And you needn't call me that." Systlin pulled her trousers back on, and the quilted silk gambeson that went under her scale armor. "My Lady' will work quite well. I'm not your mistress. You're a free woman. I've no interest in owning anyone." 

"My lady?"

"Please stand up." Irritation flared, but Systlin tamped it down hard; it was a bleed-over from the cold joy of destroying, nothing more. It was not her, and she would not acknowledge it. She reached a hand out. After a moment, the girl took it hesitantly, and Systlin pulled her to her feet. "There. That's much better." 

The girl blinked at her, eyes still wide, and Systlin saw a hint of awe there. 

The girl had, she noticed, fashioned herself rough trousers of hide, patterned much like Systlin's own. 

"What's your name?" She asked. 

"I am Sabra." The girl was still staring, eyes moving up and down as she took everything in. "You...you are very strong. I have never seen...I did not know a woman could swing a sword like a man." 

Systlin tugged her armor over her head and hopped a bit until it settled into place. "Swords don't weigh that much. Anyone can swing a sword with practice. The strength to do it well will come with time and training." 

Sabra's head came up a little at that. "Anyone?" There was a thin thread of timid hope in her voice.

Systlin smiled. "Yes. Anyone. You included. Would you like to learn?"

There was a long pause, and then a long, slow, genuine smile from the former slave.

“I….think so, Mi…my lady.”

“Well. Then you shall. You’re a free woman, and free women do as they like.”

“Free.” The woman echoed, as if the word wasn’t real. “Free.”

“Unless of course you wish to go elsewhere.” Systlin shrugged as they walked. “Have you a family anywhere? A home you were taken from?”

“I…a long time ago, I did. If I wished…”

“I would give you gold, supplies, anything you needed, and take you there, and wish you well.”

The look the other woman gave her was naked astonishment, and something like awe. For a moment she looked wistful, but then… “No. If I returned home, I could quickly be made a slave again.” She touched her upper thigh; Systlin had noted that many of the freed slaves bore brands of various types there. “I am branded as a slave; any man could take me and sell me or keep me and be within the law.”

Systlin saw red for an instant. “Then you will stay.” She ground out. “Until we pay a visit to your former home, and teach them the error of such ways.”

“Thank you, my lady.” Sabra breathed. “You would…you would do this? Free other places as you’ve freed us in this camp?”

“If the men of this world insist on being awful,” Systlin growled. “I will do as I must. Slavery is among the greatest crimes, and rape another. I will not abide either.”

“You were sent.” Sabra breathed. “I begged the Mother for aid, though I was beaten for worshiping false gods. Other women also begged the old gods for aid, I know it. We begged for mercy and help and here you are.”

For mercy.

Systlin tilted her head back and stared at the sky. There were three moons here, which seemed to fly across the sky quite rapidly. She picked out the largest nearly by instinct, and glared.

Mercy. Lady’s mercy. Fucking pits. Now it made sense.

Gods. Gods and their machinations. She scowled.

Well. At least she knew how she’d ended up in this shithole.

  Morning brought no greater comfort. 

The slave collar around my neck had been forged for a woman, and though it was the Turian style on me it was too tight, and bit into my flesh. I could breathe, but it was uncomfortable

Between the throbbing of my leg, the pinch of the collar, and the chill of the night, I got but little sleep. Inside the wagon, under warm furs, slept slave girls. Their collars had been removed, and many of the surviving Tuchuk men wore them as did I, bound wrist and ankle and neck. 

I wondered what had become of Kamchak. I had not seen him since the furor had begun outside the Ubar's wagon. 

My wrists were securely chained behind me. Bells jangled with my every move. The ground was hard, and cold. I wondered, for the first time, how slave girls could sleep this way. 

The night passed in interminable slowness and misery. There was movement, among the wagons, and the sound of men's angry voices and chiming bells from other poor souls so humiliatingly bound as myself. There were the voices of women, hushed, and often with a tone of disbelief. 

I heard women laughing. There was rather more of it than I was accustomed to. 

Twice slave girls had come to see me. They seemed to find the sight of a warrior in slave chains novel. 

"You must let me free," I had said, my voice stern and commanding. "You are slaves; you must obey." 

They had giggled, ignoring my words, and left. They were, I noted, no longer attired properly; their hair was bound back in plaits, and they wore leather blouses and had fashioned trousers, hastily made but quite obviously patterned after those of the vicious she-sleen that had brought this ruin and humiliation down upon us. 

At dawn food was brought, dried bosk-meat. I was fed, given water, and then left alone again. 

The chain that connected the rings on my wrists and ankles and neck was quite securely linked to the axle of the wagon. I had tried to loosen it with some vigor the day before, without luck. 

Some time passed. I pulled at my chains, for all the good it would do me; my leg was quite broken, and I could not flee even should I get loose. 

As dawn broke, the scent of charring meat reached me, and south of the camp I saw great plumes of smoke begin to rise. 

I had smelled enough corpses burn to know that the dead of the slaughter the night before were being burnt. 

As the sun rose towards mid-morning, I was approached. 

The she-sleen had chosen herself a fine black kaiila. She rode well; I could see that she was not quite used to the sleen, as she rode as one would an ordinary horse. But she sat well, and when she dismounted it was gracefully and with ease. 

She had shed her leather tunic. Instead, glittering in the sun, was armor formed from what looked like scales, each perhaps two inches long and half as wide. They were of many different colors, each iridescent and gleaming brilliantly in the sun. 

She looked me over. I met her eyes steadily; I was a warrior of Ko-Ro-Ba, and I would not be cowed before a woman. 

"Hm." She made a noncommittal noise at last. "You are not of these people."

I said nothing.

"No matter." She shrugged, and turned. A group of slave-girls were following her. All were collarless and had plaited their hair, and wore clothing of various types; some skirts, some trousers. All wore blouses or vests of leather or cloth that sadly covered their charms. "Take him." 

"Am I to be a slave, then?" I glowered at her. 

She turned her head to look at me again. It occurred to me again that had she been less mannish and muscular, she could have been a beauty. 

"I've no interest in keeping anyone as property." She said. "You are to be judged." 

"By what authority?" A girl wearing the long skirt and leather vest of a Tuchuk woman moved to loose me from the wagon. Her hair was plaited. I remembered, not two days ago, seeing her dancing in pleasure silks and bells for her master around his fire. 

I thought of breaking loose and overpowering the girl. But the woman Systlin was still watching me, and I saw her, as the girl chose a key and unlocked my chain from the wagon, curl her hand around the hilt of the long dagger on her belt. 

I am ashamed to admit, but it stayed me. I had seen flashes of the woman fighting, and though it pain me I would be forced to compare her favorably with the greatest warriors of Ko-Ro-Ba. In my current state, I had no chance. My hope for flight lay in my recovering and stealing a fleet kaiila, I knew. So, as the chain was loosed, I gave no resistance. 

"Mine." The she-sleen's voice was crisp. "Can you walk?"

Pride demanded no less of me. I am a warrior of Ko-Ro-Ba. By leaning on the cart, I managed to get to my feet. 

"Help him." She told the girl who held my chain. The girl nodded.

She did not say what would happen to me if I resisted. She did not need to. 

I was taken to the tent of the Ubar. Before it was piled many fine carpets, and cushions of silk and leather. On top of it all was spread a worn gray robe; it was this, I supposed, this simple garment that was the grey robe of the Ubar. 

There were other men, chained as I was, chained to the palatal wagon of the Ubar of the Tuchuks. I tried to estimate their number; a hundred and a half, perhaps two. 

This was all that remained of the proud warrior men of the Tuchuk. 

I am no stranger to death. But upon seeing this, and realizing the full scale of the disaster which had befallen the Tuchuk, I must admit that I felt a flicker of fear. 

What terrible creature was this woman, to slay three thousand strong men in a night? 

The she-sleen walked past the men chained to the wagon. Her back was straight, and her stride purposeful. 

I could not help but notice that, despite her too-strong build, she had what appeared to be marvelously shapely hindquarters. 

She did not hesitate for even a moment; she went directly to the gray robe, the throne of the Ubar, and seated herself upon it with all the air of one born to it. 

I heard a groan rise from the captive men, myself included. She sat cross-legged, a man’s stance, not a woman’s proper kneeling stance. Women who sit so are often ridiculed as wishing to be men, but everything about this woman was unnatural and wrong.

One man started up, and my heart leapt; it was Kamchak! 

His arm was splinted, as was a leg, much like mine, and his eye was black and swollen. He spit in the direction of the she-sleen on the throne of the Ubar, and cursed her. 

"You! Sleen! You say you wish to judge us? What right have you?"

Her head turned, very slowly, to regard him. Then she smiled, and turned back to look out at the gathered crowd. 

Around the throne of the Ubar of the Tuchuks, women thronged. Tuchuk women, some grim-faced and some smiling. Slave girls, by the hundreds. Many wore trousers. Most had braided their hair. 

Mothers were holding their children. Babies fussed, and were soothed. Some of the older boys looked angry. Some of the girl-children cried too. The elder of the girls, however, were smiling. 

There were many more smiling women than scowling women in the gathered crowd. 

"Tuchuk," said the she-sleen, voice unconcerned and even. "Who is Ubara here?"

The roar of voices was near-deafening. "SYS-TAL-IN!" The women, freewomen and slave girls alike, screamed it. Only a few of the dour Tuchuk free women refrained. "SYS-TAL-IN! SYS-TAL-IN!" 

Systlin looked back at Kamchak, and her smile was an unpleasant thing. 

"There you have it." Her voice, again, was mild, deceptively so.

"You cannot..."

"I did." Her voice rose above Kamchaks'. "By your own laws, it seems, might makes right. The strong triumph, am I wrong?" Her eyes glittered. "It appears, warrior, that I am stronger than you, for I sit here on comfortable rugs and you are defeated and chained to a wagon."

"You used sorcery!"

"Yes." She agreed easily. "Though your warriors were easy enough to defeat without it." A horrible grin. "But yes. I used sorcery, and however I did it one woman, alone, brought every one of your great warriors to their knees. The pyres for those I killed burn still. And now, you will be silent, until it is your turn to be judged." 

"WE HAVE COMMITTED NO CRIMES!" Kamchack's outraged roar drew cries of approval from the other shamefully chained warriors. 

Systlin's mouth...it was a full mouth, and could have been pretty, were it smiling...compressed into a thin line. She nodded to one of the girls standing near the throne of the Ubar, in a grotesque imitation of the honor guard of an Ubar. 

"Gag him," she said simply. 

To my astonishment and horror, the girl moved promptly to do so, with a cheerful and almost gleeful demeanor. 

Kamchak surged to his feet as best he could as the girl approached with a strip of leather; several of the bound warriors gave cries of encouragement. Systlin's head snapped around, fast as a striking sleen, and she was on her feet in a moment and at the girl's side in a moment more, that vicious sword of hers drawn. 

The tip of that blade was pressed close against Kamchak's groin, and the she-sleen kept smiling, even as he drew a breath, naturally alarmed by the sharp steel near his male parts. 

"Sleen." Kamchak hissed this, proud even in chains. "You cannot always be there, woman. Your unnatural sorcery cannot protect you forever."

Systlin laughed. A little huff of a chuckle, even as the slave girl bound the gag around Kamchak's mouth and head with every sign of enjoyment, which disturbed me. 

"I have had," Systlin said, "Far better men than you try to kill me." A wide grin, with all of her teeth bared. "Now be quiet, and wait your turn." 

She returned to the seat of the Ubar. 

"Bring forth the first prisoner," she commanded. 

It was done. A warrior was dragged, bound hands and feet so that he could not even stand, before the grotesque display, and forced up on his knees. He spit at the she-sleen on the Ubar's seat; she did not turn a hair at this. 

"Your name." She asked. 

"Sleen!"

"Your name." The same patient tone. 

Silence. 

She sighed, lifted her eyes. "Can anyone tell me the name of this man?"

"Braltak." A woman's voice. I did not see who spoke. 

"Braltak. Have you, Braltak, in your life, held women or men as property?"

Silence. Braltak looked down his nose at her, and spit again. 

"He has." The same voice. Female. There was a quaver to it now. 

Braltak spun, as best he could. "Kala!" His voice was furious. "Kala, be silent!"

"Come forward, if you would." The she-sleen's voice speaking to me and the warrior had been curt, cold, commanding. But to the girl Kala, it was softer, and gentler.

Timidly, looking always at Braltek, a girl stepped through to stand before the self-proclaimed Ubara. 

She was a lovely girl. Turian, I was certain, with golden hair and eyes as green as summer grass. Her figure was delicate and trim, though it was difficult to tell through the long leather skirt and baggy blouse she wore. 

"Your name is Kala?" Again, the softer, gentler voice, encouraging. 

"Yes, Ubara." The girl was still glancing nervously at Braltek. "And...before you freed us...I was his slave." 

The idea was hard to swallow, at first; every slave in the Tuchuk camp, free!

But she had, I had to admit, the right. She sleen she may be, but she had defeated the warriors, by sorcery or not. She had taken their slaves for her own, and had done with them as she liked. 

I did not like it, but it was fact. 

"He kept you as property." Systlin's voice was hard; her eyes were back on Braltek. "Did he, Kala, ever place hands on you against your will? Did he ever force you to pleasure him?"

"She is a slave! That is her purpose!" Braltek roared. 

"Ah. I have my answer." Systlin nodded her head, once. "By the law of my lands, such a crime carries the penalty of death. As the victim, you have the right to seek mercy. Do you desire mercy for this man?"

Kala's lovely green eyes fixed on Braltek. 

"You are mine, Kala." Braltek's voice went lower. "You are mine. I am your master, you know it."

The lovely girl turned back to the she-sleen on the robe of the Ubar. 

"I do not." Her voice was almost inaudible, but then she spoke again, more strongly. "I do not! I do not seek mercy for him!"

My mouth hung open. 

Kala was slave. A slave loves her master. It is what they are trained for. 

"I do not seek mercy for him!" Kala's voice rose, almost a scream. 

"Then I, Systlin Stellas, Queen of the Northern Lands and Ubara of the Tuchuk, proclaim this man Braltek guilty of the crimes of rape and slaving, and sentence him to die." The she-sleen stood, graceful, and picked up a quiva from among the rugs she had sat upon. She flipped the blade, catching it easily by the tip without looking, the motion smooth, automatic, and practiced. She offered the hilt over to the girl. "It is your right, as offended party, to carry out the sentence yourself, if you so wish." 

To my incredible shock, the girl Kala reached out a hand, almost tentatively, and took the hilt of the quiva. 

She could not do it, of course. She was a slave, and a slave belongs to her master, utterly. 

The slender fingers tightened on the hilt. She did not seem to know how to hold the quiva properly, holding it as if she were about to slice bosk meat for the spit. 

Her eyes turned to Braltek, and in them burned something like hate. 

No. She was slave! A slave serves her master!

"Kala." Braltek's voice sounded suddenly uncertain. "Kala, I have treated you well, better than most would..."

Kala screamed then, high and furious and long,  and flew at him. The quiva rose and fell. 

She was inexpert with the weapon. The blade hit Braltek's shoulder, and slid down, slicing a long cut into his arm. Blood flowed, and Braltek yelled in shock. 

The quiva rose and fell again. Again, again, again the girl struck, inexpert, but the wounds adding up one by one until Braltek lay in a pool of red-stained grass. 

Kala dropped the quiva, and fell to her knees. She was sobbing, great wracking sobs that shook her small frame. 

The she-sleen came down from her throne, went down to her knees beside the girl, and placed a hand on her shoulder. 

"It is all right." Her voice was soft, and Kala leaned into her blindly, as a child might seek comfort from its mother. "He cannot hurt you again." 

Some other girls came forward then; Kala was taken away with much patting of hair and comforting. 

The she-sleen returned to her throne of rugs, sitting down once more. She smiled then, as if nothing had happened. 

I, and the men chained as I, were silent. The shock had not yet sunk in. 

"Had he a wife, or any children?" Systlin asked. 

No one responded. 

"Then it is my order that all the worldly possessions of Braltek now go to Kala. They are hers, to do with as she will. Bring forward the next prisoner." The she-sleen commanded. 

[systlinsideblog]

Part 2

The Lady walked, unseen and unheard, through the grass. 

She looked out from the eyes of animals, felt through the grass, through the soil. She was, after all, a goddess of soil and fertility and life, and all life was her domain. 

She followed her child, as Systlin walked. 

It was cruel, sometimes, the uses to which she must put her chosen champion. The Lady regretted it, on occasion. But it was necessary, and her champion had the fortitude and skill to accept such hard tasks, to stand her ground though the whole world be against her. Her champion had the power to change worlds.

There was much on this world that needed changing. The cries of pain had reached the Lady, though she was not the native goddess of these people. 

But the gods here were silent. The Lady was, among other things, a goddess of mercy, and she’d not been able to bear it.

Justice was what was needed, but there was none of it to be found in this place. Justice was not one of the Lady’s domains. But there was one for whom it was, even if that one still railed against what she’d become when she’d taken the soul of a slain mad god into herself.

She watched, as her champion killed, and though it was not her domain she could taste the justice of it. She’d brought justice and protection to a world with none, and granted mercy to the millions who cried for it. It was honey in her mouth.

A breaker, to break a whole world. The Lady thought, and smiled.

 The leader of these...people...would not been pleased with her. She knew this, because she would not be pleased with anyone who came before her in her court and challenged her as she planned to challenge him. She would probably have had them seized, had they tried such a thing, and likely killed. 

But then, Systlin was fully ready to burn this entire camp down, and quite honestly the only reason she hadn't yet was because there were helpless innocents in among the monsters who called themselves men. 

Every step she took led her past women collared like dogs. Some wore nothing but bells, and Systlin was no fool; she guessed the purpose of such things. Some were chained to wagons. The ones allowed clothing wore little of it. To a one, the women gave way to men. On some of them, Systlin could see whip wheals and healed scars from beatings. 

Her power curled within her, and oh but the lure of it was a powerful thing, as her blood ran hot and the red rage misted her vision. 

But that was a dangerous path, and for now she kept her power under tight rein. 

The women she passed looked at her with something like wonder; they had never seen, she supposed, a woman armed like she. 

One woman, a chained girl wearing little but scraps of leather, had in fascination reached out to touch the hilt of Ice. Systlin paused to let her, and smiled. 

"Warrior caste?" The girl's voice was wondering. "But..."

"Women," Systlin said, her voice gentle. "Make excellent fighters. It was a woman who trained me." 

The girl smiled, and then all at once a man angrily grabbed for the back of the collar around the girl's neck, and moved to cuff her. The girl yelped and cowered, apologizing, begging forgiveness, and it was enough. 

Ice was in her hand without conscious thought as she moved, and then she was standing over the cowering woman, legs planted, the point of her sword at the man's throat. The Power-bound blade, sharp as a razor, drew a drop of blood where it dug into skin. 

"If you touch her." Systlin's voice was a snarl. "I will kill you." 

She let, at last, the tiniest curl of her curse rise. It came cold and eager, and she reached out, feeling, feeling the million tiny flaws  in everything around her, in her bones, in the bones of those around her, in the girl's collar...

"How dare you!" The man was furious. "She is mine! I will do with her as I like, I am her master!" 

Systlin pushed, a thin little thread of Power, delicate as a needle. 

The girl's collar cracked with a sound of over-stressed metal, and fell from her neck in two halves. 

"She," Systlin hissed, "Is a woman, and a person, and not to be owned. What the bloody fuck is wrong with you people?"

"She is a woman!" The man hissed right back at her, heedless of the sword at his throat. "Her place is as a sla..."

It was the last thing he said. Systlin ran Ice through his throat, out the back of his neck. The sudden gurgle as his windpipe was severed was as sweet as music. 

There was a roar of outrage, and she felt rather than saw the lance shoved for her back. She bent away, and it went past. She whipped her sword around, getting her back to the wagon, and looked down the length of ice-blue steel at the snarling faces of hundreds of furious warriors.

“Eighteen.” She said, coldly. “Whoever wants to be nineteen, step forward first.”

“Give me one reason, woman.” Kamchak was deadly serious. “Why I should not order you slain where you stand.”

“Because you said that you would take me to this Kutaituchik.” Systlin shrugged one shoulder. “And go on and do it. I would be delighted to kill some more of you.”

“You’re mad.”

“I fear that I am the only sane one present.”

“I should kill you.”

Systlin’s patience snapped. She called again on her curse, and with a terrible cracking of wood fifty lances snapped in a moment, dissolving into splinters in their owner’s hands. There was a cry of astonishment and…ah, yes, there it was…fear.

Several warriors…didn’t quite step back, but leaned back a bit, and looked uneasy.

“Try.” She said, very softly. “Please try. I’ll make a soup bowl of your skull.”

Kamchak regarded her for a long moment. “So you are a sorceress.”

“The next thing I break will be you, and the twenty men closest to you, unless you take me to this man as you promised.”

There was a long, tense moment, and finally Kamchak turned and jerked his chin at her to follow. Systlin did, warily. She did not tamp her power down and lock it away; she kept it to hand, a constant itch under her skin, a temptation to crack the femur of the man ahead of her just to hear him scream.

She did not. She’d long ago mastered her power, as perhaps no other Breaker had. She ruled it, not the other way around. She felt the temptation, but discarded it, and kept the terrible boon of her power close at hand.

She would need it. She knew it in her bones already. The sun was dipping towards evening. She’d been a warrior for decades. She was a warrior, a conqueror, a queen who’d fought two wars against people and one against a god. She’d won all three.

She knew, in her bones, that tonight she’d be spilling blood. A lot of it.

The girl rushed to stay near her, trembling. Systlin let her; the poor thing was terrified, traumatized, and clinging to perhaps the one thing that had ever offered her a helping hand. She had never been particularly good at comfort, but she tried; she patted the woman on the shoulder, somewhat awkwardly. The girl flinched, but then looked at her with wide frightened eyes.

“It’s all right.” Systlin tried to keep her voice gentle, for all murder was singing under her skin and gleefully anticipating a slaughter. “It’s all right. To touch you again, they’d have to go over my dead body.”

This seemed small comfort to the woman. “They’ll like that.” She said, in a very small voice.

“They won’t. I can and will kill every man in this camp if I must.”

A wide-eyed look. “No one can do that. No one but a god.”

“And I killed a god once.” Systlin shrugged. “Men die easier.”

The look she got was skeptical, but the girl clearly remembered the shattered lances. The trembling faded perhaps a little.

She was led to an open area before a wagon of exceptional size and make. Jewels and gold glinted and glittered everywhere. Systlin waited as men ducked into the wagon and hurried conversation were had. She waited as rugs and cushions were brought out, and finally with ceremony an old gray robe was spread over them. She waited as an older man was escorted with great deference from the wagon. He assumed the seat, still chewing a string of some substance. Systlin noted the somewhat sleepy detatchment in his eyes.

The lines of his face were familiar. She looked from him to Kamchak, and back. Kamchak was just turning, and took up a position very close to the older man.

Ahhh. She remembered the deference shown Kamchak by the other warriors, and noted how they looked to him even now. Ahhh. I see.

The old man… Kutaituchik …looked her up and down. She looked back, with all the self-assurance she had, which was enough to break an army against.

“I am told,” The old man said at last. “That you killed eighteen of my warriors.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because they offered me insult and implied that they would put me in chains and enslave me.”

“You are a woman, are you not?” The old man said mildly.

The rage boiled again, and Systlin forced it from red hot into ice. “Slavery is abomination.” She said sharply. “It is among the greatest crimes, to hold another person in bondage. Those who would break another person to their will are monsters, and killing them cleanly is too good for them. Enslaving another for the purpose of sex is beyond abomination, for rape is another of the greatest of crimes. To even suggest such a thing is vile, and I sincerely wonder what in the name of all the gods and spirits is wrong with the men of this camp.”

A short laugh. “Ahhh. Another sent by the Priest-Kings then, new to Gor?”

Gor. The name of this world, then? And Priest-Kings; gods of some sort? “I am not from this place, no, and thank the Lady’s mercy for that.”

“You’ll find,” said Kutaituchik, “That the ways of Gor are different. You may as well get used to them, woman; you’ll find that the Tuchuk are quite fair masters, all in all. As you are new, I shall not have you killed. The male kin of those you have slain will draw lots, and the winner may put his collar on you and claim your sword as recompense. If he is charitable, he will loan you to the other men seeking recompense.”

There was a general murmur of approval from the surrounding men. Systlin felt the itch under her skin grow more insistent. The girl clinging to her side sobbed. “I told you,” she said. “I told you!”

“I have a counter offer.” Systlin said. She was drawing up power now, and readying it, because she knew with absolute certainty that she was nearing the point where it would turn to blood. She looked Kutaituchik dead in the eyes. “You acknowledge me as your new chieftain and acknowledge my word as the new law. You remove the collars from every slave in this camp. You renounce your crimes, and abase yourself for forgiveness before those you have wronged. You pay recompense and escort every newly freed woman wherever she wishes to be taken, and leave her there with funds and supplies enough to piece a life back together.”

She smiled horribly, a smile that held no mirth. “Since you are new to this new law, I will not kill you for your crimes.”

There was utter silence. And then a great roar of laughter all about.

“Kamchak.” Kutaituchik said. “Kill her.”

Kamchak nodded, and the men who’d been creeping up behind her moved. Systlin had been tracking them for some time; she’d felt the disturbances in the air and the patches of too-silent space behind her. They intended, she guessed, to strike her without warning. It was wise. It was what she would have done to kill a sorceress, were she without power.

Systlin reached into that yawning pit of coldly eager power within her, and she broke the men trying to kill her. Bones shattered into splinters. It was utterly soundless, save for the sudden screams of agony as men collapsed into piles of bloody meat.

It was easy. It was terribly easy. Her blood sang with the last agonized gurgling screams.

“Good effort.” She said, and she could not keep the smile from her face. “You should have taken my offer. Now I extend you my second; you submit to me, here and now, and I make your death painless.”

“Kill her!” The words were roared in utter furious rage. “Tuchuks! KILL HER!” A thousand voices roared, and a forest of lances rose.

Systlin drew her sword, and her dagger, and smiled, and in that smile was ruin. And as the first warriors rushed forward, she began to kill.

[systlinsideblog]

PART 1

There have been many Ubaras in the history of Gor. Indeed, even today there are many, who rule this city or that land, sometimes alone and sometimes alongside mates. Our own beloved Ubara of Turia is well known as a fair and just lady, and a great patron of the sciences.

But forever when the words “The Great Ubara” are uttered, there will be no doubt as to who they refer to. She came from nowhere, and in her hands she brought power, and it was that very night that the beginning of the time of the Great Burning of the Whips commenced…

-Sansha, scholar of the Tower of Tyra, history division, 537 AGU (After the Great Ubara.) Excerpt from her work “The Great Ubara; the coming of Systlin, the Warrior, Lady of Swords, Lady of Burning Whips, and the ending of the slave culture of Gor.”

   It hurt, the...whatever it had been. One moment, and she had been preparing herself to ride out to hunt wraithen with her Bloodguard, and then there had been the scent of rising Power, sharp as the air before lightning, and the world had gone dark. 

When her senses returned, she had a splendid monster of a headache, and she could see nothing but tall bronzed grass. Her cheek was pressed against the ground, and every joint hurt. 

She blinked, blearily, and the grass came into slightly sharper focus. She was lying prone in a field, that much was clear. 

Systlin made an effort to push herself upright. Her arms trembled and gave out, and she got a mouthful of dirt and grass for her efforts. 

"Pitting hells." She spat dust and tried again, this time managing to rise to her knees. 

The grass rippled in the breeze, empty and endless. She spat more dirt and wiped her mouth on a sleeve. 

Something was niggling at the back of her mind, sending little alarm bells up. Wrong Wrong Wrong Wrong!!!

"Of bloody course something's wrong." She muttered this to herself. "Bloody fuck am I?"

The grass whispered in the breeze, rippling like a sea. She did not know this plain. 

She had walked and ridden through every land in the North, had ridden the southern deserts, had walked the walled gardens of Myr. 

She did not know this plain. 

Her hands dropped to her belt on instinct. The hilts of Ice and her dagger were comfortingly solid. 

Something's wrong something's wrong. 

She got to her feet. The motion was easier than it should have been. She paused, and bounced on her toes a few times, testing. 

Systlin Stellas had spent the majority of her life training her body into a supremely tempered tool. She knew herself well. And she knew, immediately, that her weight was wrong. Wherever she was, the pull of gravity was less than what she had been accustomed to for the last fifty years. 

"Pitting hells."

On the horizon, dust clouds were rising. She shaded her eyes to see, and could pick out dark moving figures, coming her way.

If Systlin had been in any doubt as to the wrongness of this place, the riders approaching her removed it. The riders were men, that was clear enough. But the creatures they were riding, while they resembled horses, very much were not. 

If horses had paws and claws like great cats, eyes set forward in their head, and fangs like a wolf, then perhaps they would look like the creatures the men were riding. 

I am going to flay whoever did this to me alive. 

She held her ground as the riders approached. Their beasts had caught her scent; that was clear enough. 

Perhaps fifteen feet from her, the men pulled their beasts up. They began to circle her, curious. Systlin tracked them, listening to the pad of those great paws in the grass. 

Finally one of the men spoke, and Systlin blinked. Because the words he was saying...the words themselves meant nothing. Systlin had been well educated as a child; she spoke eastern and western Northron fluently, and even the dialect from the Skyfire Reaches. She spoke Rabi almost as well, the less formal clan dialect as well as the formal, stuffy Myran form. (Sura claimed she still had a Northron accent, even after all these years, but also claimed to be fond of the 'exotic' way it made her sound. Systlin, therefore, had never tried too hard to lose it.)

She spoke Siulekean passably well. All in all, Systlin could make herself understood no matter where on Ellinon she found herself. 

And yet, these words were strange. And still, though they meant nothing to her ears, she felt a flicker of Power, and in the back of her mind she heard the words in her own native Northron. 

"Wench!" The taller of the two men, riding a mount of a handsome bay, was looking her up and down in a way that raised her hackles. "Look here! A wench who thinks herself of warrior caste!"

They both laughed. 

"I don't think it." Thirty years on the throne and fifty of dealing with the curse of her Power had given Systlin self control of tempered steel. She kept her voice mild. "I know it." 

She spoke the words in Northron. But the same little tingle of Power rose, and she saw the faces of the men register surprise. She grinned then, showing her teeth. 

"I want," she said, with all the command that an upbringing as a Crown Princess, commanding men and women in war, and thirty years on the throne had given her. "To see a witch." 

They looked at her for a heartbeat, and then as one both men threw their heads back and laughed as if what she had just said was the most wonderful joke. 

"A wench commands!" The man on the gray cackled. "You'll hold your tongue, wench, when spoken to. You are our prize, now." He grinned at her, leering. 

"No." Systlin said, voice level. "I will not, and am not. And if you call me 'wench' again, I will cut your tongue out of your head and make you wear it as a necklace." 

More laughter. "She's fire! I may keep her, Sathak, and break her to my collar. She looks strong; she could do much work in my wagon."

Steel whispered against wood and leather. Systlin shifted into a stance as easily as she breathed, sword and dagger drawn. 

"Wench!" The rider on the gray again. "Put those down; they are men's things. You are our captive now, and you will submit or die."

Systlin didn't move. But she grinned, showing her teeth again. 

They circled, closer and closer. Systlin waited. 

The hindquarters of the gray bunched. By the time it had sprung, Systlin was moving. 

They were nearly as fast as wraithen. Nearly, but not quite; the spring was much the same as the kind a wraithen would use to ambush prey. Systlin dropped low, and Ice swept up. The resistance of flesh, and then she was rolling back to her feet in a low crouch as the horse-creature went down in a screaming pile, its back legs tangling in its own spilled guts. 

A roar of rage from the second man, even as the one on the dying gray screamed in pain as his beast landed on his legs. The second rider roared in rage again, and his arm drew back and snapped forward. 

Systlin didn't bother to avoid the lance; it struck her in the shoulder, smarting slightly; it would probably bruise, but she didn't care. It glanced off of the wraithen scale armor hidden beneath her leather jerkin, and spun to the ground. 

"I told you." Systlin hissed this through her teeth. 

The man drew out a bola, and began to twirl it. Systlin narrowed her eyes, and despite her lingering headache reached inward. 

A flicker of blue, and the leather of the bola burst into flame. The rider screamed again, but it was too late; fed by Systlin's will, the flames spread from the weapon to his clothing even as the bola crumbled to ash. In but a moment, he was a pillar of flame, screaming piteously as flesh melted and hair burned, until at last rider and beast alike were engulfed. 

It did not take long for the witch-fire to eat flesh and bone to ash. Systlin banished the flames then. 

Her head throbbed. She should not have called on her Power so much so quickly, but she'd been angry. 

There was still moaning coming from under the downed, slain beast. She made her way over. 

The rider of the gray's legs were trapped. He was struggling desperately and fruitlessly to free himself, and when he saw her coming he spat a long string of vicious curses at her. 

Systlin ignored these as she stood over him and cleaned the blood from Ice. Sheathed it. She did not sheathe her dagger. 

"SLEEN! Whore! Witch! Misbegotten sleen spawn!"

"I am one of those." Systlin agreed. She crouched over him, near his head. "And I made a promise to you." She raised her knife, and smiled. "You should not have called me 'wench."

 Systlin had, rather than string the man's tongue on a thong, simply set it on his chest. He would likely bleed out or suffocate on his own blood; she didn't really care. 

She cleaned her dagger on the flank of the dead beast as he moaned and gurgled, trying to breathe through the blood in his mouth. 

She squinted, looking at the distant horizon in the direction the riders had come from. 

There was a cloud of dust there, some miles away. She had seen such clouds before, during her time with Sura's riders; it was the sort of dust cloud that came from many animals moving together. 

She began to walk towards the dust. 

It was a long walk. But then, Systlin ran ten miles every morning before she ate breakfast; she was well used to long marches. The lesser effort required to walk in this lower gravity meant that six miles felt like far less. 

She wished, all the same, that she had Siatch with her. A proper horse, not those fanged monsters. 

At last, on the horizon she saw the slow shifting of a great heard of creatures; as she drew closer she could make out what appeared to be wagons. 

Riders on those strange horse-things were circling back and forth and milling around. Some appeared to be playing. Her sharp ears caught the distant sound of laughter. 

As she drew nearer, several of the riders apparently spotted her; the peeled off from the camp and headed towards her at speed. Systlin kept walking, doing a mental count. 

Ten thousand. Perhaps more. She squinted at the wagons, spreading across the plains as far as she could see. 

She kept walking, unhurried, unworried, even as the riders closed. Ice and her dagger were a comforting weight on her belt. 

She smiled to herself suddenly, remembering Sura's consternation when she'd announced her intention to go to the Iron Mountain and the sabbashin. 

"It is suicide!" Sura had said, fearful. "No one comes back from there, beloved, with their mind their own. The Master of Knives takes them, and makes them his creatures, body and soul. I could not bear that for you." 

"Sura." She had smoothed Sura's hair. "You forget what I am." 

Breaker. 

She'd brought down the Iron Mountain. She'd Broken the walls of Myr. She had the power, she knew, to level this whole bloody camp if she so chose. She could feel it curling in her blood, cold and eager, a promise of sheer glorious ecstatic destruction. 

She kept walking, even as the riders on those strange beasts closed on her, lances ready. 

 Kamchak and I were conversing over a midday meal of bosk liver and cheese when the furor at the edge of the camp began. The girl Elizabeth, sulking in the corner of the wagon, looked up at once. There was the sound of a kaiila screaming in pain, voices shouting, and there! The ring of steel.

Kamchak and I were on our feet and running in but a moment, but I was puzzled; the Tuchuks were unruly, it was true, and small skirmishes often broke out, but these were usually settled in ritual combat fought on foot, not with kaiila. This left a raid, and who would ever be foolish enough to raid the main tribe of the Tuchuks? Such was certain death.

Yet, even as we ran along with many other men, there was another pained scream from an injured kaiila, and a cry of pain from a man. The smell of charred flesh drifted on the air, and a plume of smoke. There was a great confusion of shouting, and I could not make out any single voice in the furor.

We came around the corner of a wagon. Now I could see down the wide grassy lane that ran down the middle of the camp, to the source of all the furor. I expected to see a war band, or even a whole attacking tribe.

I did not expect what I did see, which was a woman.

She was standing over the corpses of three kaiila and at the least count seven riders. She held a sword in her right hand, and a long dagger in her left. Her legs were spread, planted into a fighting man's stance. I noted that she stood with excellent balance. 

Her hair was dark, and her eyes quite blue. The hair was pulled back into a plait down her back, and the eyes were cold. There was a fey light in them, and I noticed to my great unease that the corpses of two of the slain riders at her feet were gently smoking. 

She was splashed and spattered with blood, and did not seem to notice this or care. 

She wore a leather tunic, and trousers of wool. Her boots were leather, and fit close to the calves; I noted, that the shape of calf and thigh was sturdy, muscular. Her forearms were lean, wiry, corded with more muscle than I had before seen on a woman. 

The slaves and Tuchuk riders and dour Tuchuk women were silent. To my abject shock, though the Tuchuk warriors greatly outnumbered her and stood with weapons drawn, they were hanging back. 

As I looked past her, I saw at least three more dead kaiila and more corpses of warriors further from camp. 

The woman spoke. In the oddest way, though the sounds she made were gibberish to my ears, understanding came nonetheless. 

"I said." Her voice was cold, and commanding. "That I want to speak to someone of power. And for the fifth time, I am no captive, or slave, and the first hand to get near my ass is forfeit." She jerked her chin at the corpses near her feet, as if to emphasize her point. "And if you keep insisting on doing things the hard way, I will be quite happy to kill every bloody man in this bloody shithole and burn this camp down around your ears, I swear on  the Lady's name. I have had a very bad day, and it would honestly be a pleasure. But if you can help me to get home, we'll forget this whole unpleasant day ever happened."

It occurred to me that she was attractive, if far too muscular for Gorean tastes. 

"Who is this wench!" Cried Kamchak, "Who thinks herself a warrior?"

The blue eyes of the woman darted to him, cold and furious. She should have, were she sane, been terrified at the looming mass of Tuchuk warriors, fierce and scarred, that were gathering before her. Each was gripping his lance, but the caution of their brothers had spread and they hung back to a man and looked to Kamchak.

She did not look frightened. She looked angry, but the anger was wrong. I am used to the anger of women; it burns hot and passionate and rules them. This look, though, was one of cold and measured anger, restrained and absolute.

"The last man to call me that," her voice was low, and despite her sex the hairs on my neck and arms stood up in warning, "Drowned in his own blood after I tore his tongue out. What is wrong with you people?"

"Kamchak," said another of the Tuchuks nearby, his voice low in warning. "She is but a woman, but she has killed fifteen of our warriors, and thirteen trained kaiila. She is a sorceress." He pointed to the smoking corpses of riders. "She can summon fire from air, and fights like nothing I have seen. We should fetch Kutaituchik." 

Kamchak looked back up at the woman, eyes narrow. She met his gaze, fearless, chin up and eyes narrow. 

"What are you called, sorceress?" Kamchak asked. 

"Systlin Stellas." Her voice was still cold. 

"Very well. We will take her to Kutaituchik. Sheathe your weapons, woman, and follow me." 

She eyed the gathered warriors, and then spun her sword. It was a neat little motion, well practiced. I knew it; I used a similar motion to flick blood from the blade of my sword before I sheathed it. This was, indeed, precisely what she now did, but the speed of it was startling.

The long knife and sword slid away into sheaths of rich leather of impeccable quality. The fittings of each were gold. I saw more than a few Tuchuk warriors eyeing them greedily, and thought that the warrior who claimed them would strut them about for a very long time.

“What I said holds.” She said, coolly. “Any hand laid on me, I take off at the wrist.”

Kamchak laughed. “You’ve fire, woman, I’ll grant you. Almost enough to make me think it would be worth the effort of collaring you.”

“If you’re so keen to die,” She said, her voice colder still. “Go on and try.”

He laughed again, but his eyes were narrow. “Fifteen warriors?” He asked.

Systlin raised her eyebrows.

“Hadrak says that you killed fifteen warriors of the Tuchuk.”

“He’s mistaken.” Systlin’s voice was still level.

“Ah!” A look of victory in Kamchak’s eyes.

“I killed seventeen.” A slight pause. “I am assuming those outriders on the bay and the gray were of your tribe?”

Hadrak hissed in fury. “Oman and Hadar!”

“Yes, I thought so.”

“Oman was my brother! Kamchak…”

“I said we would take her to Kutaituchik.” Kamchak said. “And that is what we will do. No doubt Kutaituhcik will see your case, but she may be given to the brothers or kinsman of any of the others she has slain to be punished as well.”

“Will I?” Systlin sounded almost amused, and I realized that she was of course quite mad.

“Of course you will. This way.”

“Yes.” Her voice dripped scorn. “Of course I will.” But she followed, and around her closed the ranks of the Tuchuk warriors at her back. She was now quite trapped; even the greatest of warriors could not hope to fight free of the main camp of the Tuchuks; they boasted three thousand warriors of great strength and skill.

I wondered if she would be collared, or simply killed. She was attractive, if too strongly built, but a master could monitor activity and diet to remedy such things. She was, no doubt, fiery and strong-willed, but such women, it is said, make the greatest and most passionate slaves once broken.

Ah, well. The only way to find out was to follow, and so I did.