Tales of
Erogenia
Based
on the online comic created by J.E. Draft.
Episode 2: Journey to
Jinqua
Chapter
1: The
Zenaria struggled to escape
her bonds, but Cron had taken no chances with her this
time. The silken cords that bound
her wrists to the bed frame could not be loosened and her body arched, driving
upward as he thrust into her.
“Aaahh! Aahhh!” she screamed
as her body shuddered with the strength of her
passion. She wrapped her long
powerful legs around him and strained to pull him deeper within
her.
“Oh,
by the Goddess,” she cried as her loins contracted yet again,
her womb reaching for the seed of her
lover. She collapsed backward,
her body heaving from exertion; so exhausted she could hardly
move.
“Did that satisfy you,
princess?” Cron panted, as he rolled to the side of the small cot and
softly kissed her nipple.
“Almost,” Zenaria
answered. “I think you can
untie me now.”
“You’re sure?”
Cron teased as he moved to pull the slipknot that would release her
bonds. “My back is still
sore from the last time we forgot.”
“Poor baby,” Zenaria
said, her fingers stroking several half-healed scratches that decorated his
back. “Would you like me
to lick them better?”
“Perhaps later,”
Cron said, pulling out of her arms and stretching to his full
six-foot-six. He was magnificently
muscled and she could not help admiring his impressive
physique. He was the pick of
the Snow Leopard tribe and almost a match for her in sexual
endurance.
Zenaria rolled off the cot
in a single smooth motion and moved to stand beside him, her unbound ebon
tresses falling to the curve of her
backside. Cron placed a hand
in the small of her back and then moved it slightly lower to the rounded
contour of her right buttock. She
made no move to stop him. Any
woman in the tribe would have willingly changed places with her, but her
gaze went through the open window and to the snow-capped mountains that loomed
over the stockade of the Snow Leopard
tribe. Dawn was breaking over
them and the high peaks shimmered in the early morning
light.
She had once crossed those
mountains. And it was not so
long ago. But now it almost seemed
like a dream. In the eighteen
months since her return she had given birth to her daughter and raised her
to a healthy toddling infant who had seen a full turn of the
seasons. As was the custom among
her people the child would now be raised by the tribe, her birth mother having
only a nominal role in her upbringing.
She took the arm of the
warrior at her side. She was
nearly as tall as he, and almost as well-muscled, albeit with an obvious
femininity that turned male heads wherever she
went. She was tall and curvaceous,
with the large rounded breasts typical of her
race. Certainly no one would
mistake her for a man. But she
was also the foremost warrior of her tribe, as several would be challengers
had learned to their regret. Even
Cron did not dare challenge her. He
had decided to bed her instead and they had been lovers for almost a
moon.
Zenaria should have been
happy, but she was not. Each
time her eyes went to the mountains something twisted near her heart and
she found herself thinking of another lover; one who was much shorter than
Cron, with deep yellow-gold skin and dark, mysterious
eyes. “One day,” she
thought. “One
day…”
“Oh,” Cron said,
interrupting her thoughts.
“There is something I was supposed to tell
you. The queen summoned you to
meet with her.”
“You tell me this
now?” Zenaria exclaimed.
“After rutting with me all
night?”
“She told me I could
take my time delivering the message,” Cron grinned, flashing perfect
white teeth.
“You wolverine,”
Zenaria laughed, giving his arm a playful
slap. “I had best get
going. She’ll wonder what
happened to me.”
“Oh I doubt that,”
Cron said. “I think everyone
in the village knows what happened to
you. You are not especially quiet
when you are in the throes of
passion.”
Zenaria
coloured. Blushing was a reaction
she had never been able to eliminate in spite of her culture’s very
liberal attitudes toward sex.
“Very poetically spoken,” Zenaria
observed. “I suppose I have
time for a quick bath before I present myself.”
“I’ll go with
you,” Cron said. “After
last night I need to cool off.”
The “bath” consisted
of splash in the frigid waters of a deep pool where the waters of a stream
known appropriately as the Icewater plunged over a steep
cliff. It would have chilled
most people to the bone, but Zenaria had swum in the nipple-numbing pool
since she was a child and she and Cron spent a good hour splashing about
in it before making their way to the
shore. They were not
alone. Many members of the Snow
Leopard tribe made a point of bathing in the Icewater each day and no one
paid them any particular attention other than to give them appraising looks
as they emerged dripping from the pool.
Zenaria dressed, and using
a pool of quiet water caught in a rock pool as a mirror combed out her hair
and then formed it into the long thick braid that distinguished the Snow
Leopard warrior. Then she dressed
in her simple warrior’s garb - doeskin boots, buckskin trousers, and
a doeskin jerkin. Around her
neck she hung her necklace of lion-spider fangs, a souvenir of her first
adventure. Then she slipped into
the harness holding her four foot sword, and with its hilt jutting over her
left shoulder, headed toward the stockade and her queen.
Cron did not
follow. Instead he split off
from her to collect his bow. Much
of the food of the Snow Leopard tribe came from hunting and when he was not
enticing some willing female into his bed he usually spent his time in the
woods.
She did not
hurry. If her mother really wanted
her she would have sent a more formal messenger than
Cron. However, her long legs
soon had her through the gates of the stockade and moving to the royal
quarters. After what Zenaria
had seen in her travels, calling the three story wood and stone building
where Queen Cirilia held court a palace would be a bit of an
overstatement. It was not even
the size of the Guildhall in the small Kivalian border town of
Queen Cirilia didn’t
have to work very hard to attract them.
Still in her early thirties, and tall and athletic, with wondrous
dark hair that flowed down to her hips, she radiated both strength and beauty,
an unbeatable combination in Erogenian
society.
As Zenaria entered the throne
room she rose to greet her daughter, setting down the deerskin leggings she
had been working on. Sitting
next to her was Zenaria’s thirteen-year-old half sister, Shalandra,
who grinned at her knowingly as she
entered.
Zenaria blushed
again. Would Cron have to gag
her as well as bind her wrists?
She was saved from further
embarrassment by her mother.
“Have you broken fast yet, daughter?”
“No yet, mother,”
Zenaria answered, lowering herself to the stool
offered by her mother. Like almost
everything else in the room, the furniture was simple, consisting of a few
sawn board tables and matching hardwood
stools. Even the twin thrones
set against the back wall of the hall were of plain construction although
each were carved from the trunk of a single massive
oak.
“Then we will breakfast
together,” Cirilia said. She
motioned to the single attendant in the room, a young girl of about ten years
who regarded Zenaria with large blue
eyes. “Bring us tea,”
she said, referring to the bitter tea brewed from the roots of a local plant,
“and whatever else is available.”
The girl almost stumbled
as she left the room, her eyes never leaving
Zenaria. It was something Zenaria
expected by now, although she was not comfortable with
it. Two years ago she had left
her tribe in disgrace and then returned wearing shining black leather armour
the likes of which no one had ever seen; a necklace of the lion-spider fangs;
and three months pregnant. She
also wore an number of honour scars and had stories
of strange people, stranger animals, and cultures no one had even dreamed
existed. It was small wonder
that she was regarded with a mixture of fear and
awe.
Soon, Zenaria hoped, her
notoriety would die down, but in the meantime she would just have to live
with it.
The tea arrived, along a
plate of cheeses, a loaf of hot bread, and a few
wildberries picked from the
forest. While they ate Cirilia
talked. “You are now free
of your daughter; it is time for you to assume a greater role in the life
of the tribe.”
Zenaria had been expecting
this. As
Cirilia’s oldest daughter she would eventually
take over the leadership of the tribe provided no one more suitable could
be found. It was not something
she was adverse to. She had already
assumed a partial role in training some of the younger warriors in combat
and had led a few hunting expeditions.
She wondered, however, just what her mother had in
mind.
Cirilia
continued. “I have been
thinking over your account of your
adventures. For many decades
the Tribe of the Snow Leopard has been isolated from the rest of the world
and it is time for us to improve our relations with those outside our
margins.”
Zenaria nodded her
understanding. One of the lessons
she had learned during the last year was when to speak and when to hold her
piece. She knew her mother would
get to the point eventually.
“I have decided in light of the fact that you have traveled to
lands far beyond anything that any of us imagined that you shall be our first
ambassador. I am especially
interested in having you travel to the lands of the
Sandakar and establish relations with the society
of assassins you spoke of.”
Zenaria’s heart skipped
a beat. She gave her mother a
sharp look. Cirilia returned
her astonished stare with a smile.
“I would be a poor mother,” she said,
“if I did not notice the way my oldest daughter
has looked to the mountains each day since her
return. It is now the second
month of summer. The Ice Gates
should be open. You will leave
tomorrow and take Shalandra with you.”
“Shalandra?” Zenaria
asked.
“Your sister saw you
in a dream. You were riding with
her on a strange humped beast across a treeless waste and she was with
you. It is a sign from the gods
and should not be ignored.”
Zenaria bowed her
head. Although still a novice
in the priesthood of the Snow Leopard, it was known that Shalandra had the
gift of precognition. And although
her skills in this regard were still undeveloped she was known to be startlingly
accurate. If Shalandra had seen
Zenaria and her crossing the desert on a camel then it was almost certainly
something that was going to occur.
Zenaria rose from her seat
and going to one knee bowed her head, glad that her mother had seen fit to
believe in Shalandra’s gift.
“I will do as you ask, my queen.”