by Huskyteer
Diata rose, and the male’s eyes watched her. He had been hurriedly doused with water and scrubbed clean for this audience. He was clad only in a ragged loincloth and heavy shackles about his wrists and ankles. A redness ringed his eyes, perhaps signaling the onset of some disease. Yet in spite of his condition, there was no fear in his golden eyes. Anger perhaps, even defiance, but no fear.
The ghost of a frown passed over Diata’s lips. “Please remind our guest, Kiya, that he is in the presence of his betters.”
“Kneel, dog.” Kiya barked out the order and kicked the back of the male’s legs. The young lion sank down to his knees. He shivered and a grimace of pain crossed his face. But he did not cry out. He simply continued to study Diata.
Diata let a single claw scratch under the male’s chin. He shivered again. “Do you have a name, cub?”
No answer. Diata smiled and licked her teeth. The strong ones were always so much more fun to break.
“Hmm… Then I shall call you Farinoor…”
The male stiffened at this. Farinoor. Little Cub. The mocking name hit a nerve. Perhaps the taunt had been used against him before. It would be used against him again. She stroked the male’s left cheek.
“Have you nothing to say to me, Farinoor?”
“Only two things…Lady…”
Diata exchanged glances with Kiya. The male’s voice was soft, but pleasing to the ear. Perhaps a little hoarse due to his condition, but that only added to its charm. Diata liked her males panting. She could not decide whether the terms of respect had been given grudgingly or ironically.
“And they are…”
“The first is that you are indeed as beautiful as they say.”
Diata blinked, and then began to laugh. “Young males in chains say the most charming things, don’t they, Kiya.” Kiya only grunted in response. Jealousy, perhaps. “And what else do you have to say, my Farinoor?”
The male stared into Diata’s eyes. She did not like that look. Those golden eyes were not cowed by her presence. A fire burned in them that she did not control. She would have to make sure that changed by the end of the evening. Break the male, one way or the other. Either option was equally pleasurable.
“The second is that your time has reached its end. You will die, and your name will be forgotten.”
Diata’s claws raked down the side of the male’s face, leaving five trails of blood. The male did not even flinch. She quirked one ear in surprise. Oh, she was going to have fun breaking this one. Diata turned to Kiya. What would the male say in response to this?
“Run to my commanders and tell them to find the remnants of this Estraal’s Pride. They are to hunt them down and kill them all, from the pridemother to the last cub.”
The male stiffened. Diata bit her lips to keep from smiling. She only hoped the little cub did not cave in too easily.
“You don’t approve, my Farinoor? But what could a powerless prisoner such as yourself possibly offer me that might persuade me to spare his people?” She trailed a clawed fingertip up his cheekbone and around the curve of his ear. She could heart his heart pound, smell his blood. “Whatever could a young, virile male such as yourself give to me?”
The insides of the male’s ears turned a bright red and he looked to the ground. It was all Diata could do to keep from laughing. She rested her palm against the blood flowing down from the male’s cheek.
“Say it, Farinoor. Say it, and I might honor your request…”
The male looked up. Diata could not read the expression in his eyes. “Spare my people, Great Lady Diata, and I give myself freely…to your pleasure…”
“There now. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Diata turned to Kiya. “Leave us.”
Kiya cocked her head curiously, then looked down pointedly at the chains on the male. Diata laughed.
“Farinoor has promised himself to me of his own free will. No harm will come to me. But if it will make you feel better, Kiya, you can stand outside and listen. You might even learn something.”
The Breastless frowned but said nothing further. Kiya exited the tent, leaving Diata alone with the male. She licked her lips and began to circle the lion slowly, appraising him. He did not react to the scrutiny, and Diata had not expected him to. She had yet to decide whether it was because he was exceptionally brave, or exceptionally stupid.
“You’ve heard stories of me, my Farinoor,” Diata said when she had completed the circuit. It was a statement of fact, not a question. “What have you heard?”
The male looked into Diata’s eyes but said nothing. Diata shook her head and ran her clawtips over the wounds on the male’s cheek.
“Come now. Remember our bargain. I am a strict mistress, but I can be generous as well.”
Diata closed her eyes, hummed softly under her breath. She felt her palm grow warm. She ran it up and down the male’s cheek. When she opened her eyes again, the male’s wounds were gone. Not even a scar. Every soft fur back in place.
For the first time there was a hint of fear in the male’s face. Many of the more primitive prides distrusted magic entirely. The witch-queens had given them good reason to fear it. Diata found it amusing to see such superstitions at work.
“Nothing to say, my Farinoor?”
The male licked his lips. “It is said that you like your…partners to be whole before you take your pleasure from them…”
Diata threw back her head and laughed. Mostly because the idiot was right. It was so much more enjoyable to break down a strong foe than push someone weak and cowering in fear over the edge.
Diata stepped back a few paces from the male. She opened her robe. It fell to the ground with a silken whisper. That got a reaction from the male as well.
“You have already said that I am beautiful. Am I not desirable too, my Farinoor?”
Diata slowly ran her paws over her body. Golden eyes followed every movement. The male swallowed and nodded.
“The correct answer is, ‘Yes, mistress.’”
“Yes, Lady Diata… Your form is desirable…” A husky purr entered the male’s voice. Diata noted well that he did not answer as instructed, but continued.
“I have never disappointed a lover.” Though their screams mingled pain with pleasure. “Do you not want me, my Farinoor?”
A pause. The male’s tail flicked behind him. He looked at the ground and mumbled something.
Diata smiled, walked up to the male. She rubbed her cheek against his, blew on the artery that ran up his neck. “What was that, my Farinoor?” She reached down and undid the ties to the male’s loincloth. “I did not hear your answer…”
Diata again could not read the look in the male’s eyes. “Yes, mistress. I want you…”
What the young male lacked in skill as a lover, he more than made up for in enthusiasm. They both fell asleep shortly before dawn. Diata woke some time later and stretched luxuriously on the cushions. These were the true pleasures in life. To crush your enemies into the mud. To sleep in late. To wake up with a naked, not quite tame male beside you.
Diata studied the young lion in the light that streamed in around the tent poles. In spite of the chains he still wore, Farinoor was…regal. The lines of his body were more than handsome. They were noble. Some of her followers murmured that Diata should take a consort. With a little more training, she could do far worse than this creature…
Diata frowned. What delirium was this? She was starting to sound sentimental. It was only a male. Pretty, but useful only to scratch a certain itch and then to be discarded when she saw fit. She could not develop feelings for any mere male. She could not afford to do so.
Perhaps she could wait a few days. She had heard stories of the…ardor of the males from these primitive prides. It could be quite fun to see if they were true… No. Best to end it now, before she ran the risk of becoming too attached.
“I might even spare what’s left of your pride. For a season or two…”
Diata rolled the still-sleeping male onto his b
ack. Claws flashed. Ten streaks of red appeared on the white fur of the male’s chest. Diata straddled his waist, ran her palms up and down his chest. She shivered. His blood was strong. Thick. Fierce. Her magic hungered for more.
She tore into the wounds on the male’s chest until the blood dripped down her arms. It was not enough. She smeared his blood over her body, which drank it in. There was power here, power unlike anything she had tasted before. She moaned as her system fed.
Diata rubbed herself against his body. She lapped the blood from his wounds. It was not enough. She felt like she was on fire. That her very marrow, the core of her being was aflame. She needed more of his blood to quench the fire, and the more she drank, the more the fire raged.
She panted on top of him. And only then did she see that his eyes were open. Watching her. A wry smile on his handsome, cubbish face.
“What did you… What are…No…”
His laugh was bitter, without mirth. “That is part of it, yes. I have the taint of magic in my blood.”
Male magic was an abomination, not like female magic. It was uncontrollable. Wild. She could feel the strange power inside her. A whirlwind of fire. But that was not all.
“The shamaness of our pride is one of the few that has not given in to the sickness of you witches. She told me what I am, and also how I might use it to destroy you.”
Farinoor embraced Diata with his shackled arms, pulled her to his bloody chest. She could not keep her body from drinking in his blood.
“As long as you can take in the blood of your victims, almost nothing can destroy you. Your healing magic draws life from their blood. But if the blood is poisoned…”
Diata’s eyes grew wide. She struggled in the male’s grasp. Her body was drunk on the liquid fire it was taking in. The fire within grew stronger. Diata screamed in pain.
“Our shamaness took the pus festering in a male your army had maimed. My brother. She poisoned my blood with its foulness. And now your blood is poisoned too.”
Diata snarled. The fire within was burning its way out. She wanted to claw off her own skin to get at the flames. Perhaps then she could extinguish them. Even physical fire would be a relief compared to the pain. No. She needed to think. Blood would quench the flames. Oceans and oceans of blood.
“I was afraid that when you healed my cheek, you might have taken the poison from me. But that would have required that you give of yourself, without bargaining for anything in return. The great Diata? Heal a mere male? A little cub? Never.”
The male smiled. “Your blood is tainted now. Nothing can ever purify it. You may perhaps prolong your life by draining new victims. But the poison will win. You will die. The Veldt will be rid of you.”
Diata screamed in hatred and pain. The burning! She clawed at Farinoor, ripping off chunks of fur and skin. The more his blood flowed, the more the fire raged. His laughter rang in her ears, even when he no longer had a throat. He wore that thrice-damned smile on his face until he died.
The fire in her blood did not die. It raged hotter with each pulse of her heart. Farinoor was wrong. He had to be. She was one of the greatest magic-users in the land, destined to rule the entire Veldt. She would not be defeated by a cub from a pride no one had heard of.
“Kiya! I need you!”
The Breastless came into the tent in a run, drawn dagger in one paw, wiping sleep from her eyes with the other. Diata was on her in an instant. At another time, she might have been amused by the look on Kiya’s face as her mistress slit her throat with her claws. But the burning blotted out all other considerations. Blood geysered from the Breastless’s veins. Diata bathed in it, the red liquid quenching the fire for a moment. Yet the more blood her flesh drank in the more the flames within her rose.
She had to purify her blood. She threw open the flap of her tent. Most of her army still lay abed. Five thousand vessels of blood. She could wash the fire from her body. She would douse the fire. She always came back stronger, and she would do so again. Even if she had to drain her entire army to do it.
* * * *
The stories from the age of the witch-queens relate how one of the strongest of their number, a blood-witch, went mad one morning. By dawn of the next day, she had slaughtered her army and bathed in its blood. And when there was no one left to kill, she made a pyre and immolated herself. Her fall was the beginning of the end of the witch-queens’ reign of terror.
As the years passed, her name was forgotten completely. But in Estraal’s Pride, they still remember the young male, called by a nickname the pride gave him in his cubhood, Farinoor. They sing of his bravery and the sacrifice he made to this very day.
MONSTERS, by Ryan Campbell
The Garage reeked of grease and blood. It was larger than Rakin had expected, the size of three dining halls put together, and the stone Walls, bare except for paintings of the ancestors and the sacred words, echoed the ring of hammers and the grind of ratchets. Rovers in various states of assembly were scattered about the open pit, some of them with their steel paneling stripped away to have dents and tears hammered out, their blackened engines bared to the air like skulls. Engineers bent over frames, spun lathes, or hunkered in fountains of welding sparks, their eyes and ears focused intently on their work.
Rakin wrinkled his nose at the stench, his tail dipping to brush uncertainly between his calves. He looked down at the crumpled scrap of paper clutched in his paw. “Hello?” he called out.
From around the corner of a nearly reconstructed rover, a jackal poked his head, goggles over his eyes. “Ah! Hello!” He stood up and came around the rover, wiping black grease off of his paws onto coveralls that had no doubt fit him once, but now were stretched around a sizable girth. “Sorry, boy. I didn’t see you over there. So you’re our new apprentice, eh?” He spoke loudly over the din of the Garage, and held out a paw still stained with black oil.
“Yes, sir.” Rakin proffered the piece of paper. The jackal blinked at it, swore, and then pushed his grease-smeared goggles to his forehead and peered again.
“Rakin, eh? My name’s Khaal. I know your father.”
“Yes, sir. You had dinner with our family two rains ago, sir.”
“Did I? Well. Never mind that sir nonsense now.” Khaal gave him an amiable grin. “You’re apprentice now, not some pup anymore. Says here you got top marks in engineering. Was the Garage your first pick?”
Rakin looked down at his paws. He and all his friends had put ranger at the top of their career requests, but his brother, Haytham, had found his sheet and teased him until he’d changed it. Haytham had been selected as a gunner when he’d finished school three years ago. Now he sat in an assigned turret atop the Wall and picked off the shrikes when they flew too close to the City, or when they went after the rovers on patrol, if they were close enough to target through the scopes. Haytham might not be a ranger, but shrikes sometimes dived at the walls, even plucked away gunners unlucky or careless enough to fall asleep. Ever since Haytham had gotten the job, he’d become insufferable, walking with a swagger, boasting about how they could all be dead if he wasn’t up there looking out for them. When he saw Rakin’s request sheet, he had laughed out loud. Only the bravest and quickest and strongest of the jackal got to be rangers, he’d said. Haytham could outshoot and outspar Rakin any time he liked. If he hadn’t been selected, why would they take Rakin? They’d laugh at his request. Think he didn’t know his own skills. It would be better, he had said, in a reasonable tone, to mark what he was actually good at, that brainy stuff, and get his first pick. So Rakin had put engineer down, and felt miserable about it. He liked fixing things, sure, but nobody was going to look up to a wrench jockey.
“Well?” Khaal asked him. “Spit it out.”
“Yes, sir. I mean, yes, it was.” It was mostly true, anyway.
His new mentor gave him a dubious stare. “You don’t look too excited.” Khaal paused, and when he got no response to that, added, “You put down ranger, didn’t you?”
�
��No,” Rakin protested, but Khaal just shook his head and chuckled.
“Yeah, you did. Half the apprentices that walk through that door over there put down ranger.” He lifted his voice and called out, “We got any rangers in here, boys?” From across the Garage, several shockingly profane shouts answered him. He chuckled. “The shine wears off a little once some thick-skulled cannon jockey’s brought in a rover with a snapped axle for the third time in a week and it’s your job to fix it.”
“Thick-skulled cannon jockey?” Rakin repeated in amazement. The words were practically blasphemy.
“Sure,” Khaal said. “I mean, don’t misunderstand me. We’re all grateful for them putting their asses outside the Walls to keep the nasty monsters scared away, but you think you get picked for that job because of your brains? You just drive and shoot, nothing else to it. Take away their guns and their rovers, and what are they? Bailwif droppings.”
“They risk their lives!” Rakin barely kept himself from shouting the words. He could not understand what would make Khaal speak this way. Was he a dissident?
The older jackal nodded at that, a weariness settling over his face. “Aye, they risk their lives. And they die. Sooner or later something gets them out there on the dunes. And it doesn’t matter, because there’s always another one of you pups eager to step into his place and make a name for himself.” He rubbed at his chin, and then turned and beckoned with his paw. “Come on over here.”
Rakin followed him across the garage. The air was growing heavy with the midday heat, but the stone floor was still cool under his paws, though gritty with dirt and grime, and metal burs that pricked at his pads. Khaal stopped by the rover he’d been working on when Rakin entered, and set one paw against its fender, leaning against it. “What can you tell me about this?” He patted it once.
Rakin shrugged. “Easy. It’s a rebuilt Snakecrusher. Um, the second model. Weighs about twelve hundred kilo, can hit a hundred thirty in fifteen seconds. Front-mounted with an engine-powered JR9 assault cannon that—”
