Sea God of the Sands: Book One of the Firebird’s Daughter Series (Firebird's Daughter 1)

by Kyrja

  The four silent men dutifully surrounding her could have been there for the simple task of removing Jonath’s body – his beautiful body that still looked as though he merely slept, lost in the sweetest of dreams. But she knew they weren’t She could feel the sinister intent, the malice, rolling off their High Priest as he stepped through the rude doorway cut through the stone walls. He alone was dressed in anything more than a hip wrap, the blue and silver vestments of his office looking garish in the dim light afforded by the candles in the room. Candles which only a short time earlier had given off a sweet glow as she had gazed lovingly into Jonath’s astonished eyes as he’d thrust himself so deeply and deliciously inside of her time and time again.

  “Don’t fight us, S’ray,” the High Priest warned, his beady eyes making him look like one of the filthy rats she’d seen down at the docks. “We will have our due.” Although older than the other men in the room, he was just as handsome as the others, just as well-toned, and probably even further gone in his lack of sanity. His voice was raising with each word he spoke, as if yelling at her would somehow justify his decision to defile her. She knew what was coming, what purpose these men served. And once again, she wished for the ability to kill their vile goddess Amphedia with her own hands.

  “For centuries our people have served Goddess. Centuries!” he emphasized, even pointing a finger of fury in her direction. “That she might cast her nets for the promised savior upon the sands is unacceptable. She has promised. And now we claim our due.”

  Drena reached for the blade Jonath had placed so carefully next to the blankets they’d used to lay on, convinced she was about to be raped. Whether or not she would be alive before these men, these Merlarns, did so was the only question in her mind. She knew the havah weed would slow them down, dulling their reflexes; if she could kill the High Priest before they grabbed her, they would be confused. Unaccustomed to thinking for themselves through long years of behavior modification designed to keep them alive, and therefore useful as breeding stock, they were less likely to be able to figure out what to do for themselves if robbed of their leader. Perhaps even long enough for her to escape. Leaving Jonath’s body behind, his water left to rot inside of his flesh, instead of mingling with hers was a bitter blow, but the child they’d created within her womb would have to be enough. She was, by no means, certain she would be able to kill the man, but if she didn’t try, her life was surely forfeit. There was no way she was going to let them rape her while she still drew breath – no matter that the air was so heavily laced with water and the stench of the sea with all its strange, foul-smelling creatures. She wanted to scream at the unfairness of Jonath having had to die for nothing, but knew she would have plenty of time to do so once she got back to the desert where she belonged. If she could just live through the next few minutes.

  Her hand snaked out of its own accord, her eyes never leaving those of the High Priest, her body responding to the muscle memory of thousands of drills honed to perfection over the course of her life. She remembered to breathe smoothly as she pushed off from the hard surface of the stones, knowing her lungs and the muscles of her body would require the added oxygen as adrenaline poured itself from the recesses of her body, washing her with warmth and strength. A small corner of her mind noted the difference of launching herself from a hard surface instead of the accustomed softer surface of sand in which she’d performed most of her training, surprised at the small boost of counter-shock it afforded her. In the tiny moment of time it took her to stand fully upright, blade poised in her hand, she had already shifted the angle of her body and began to run towards the priest standing in the doorway.

  A welcome feeling of detachment seemed to descend on her as she felt the individual muscles of each of her feet responding to her unconscious, automatic demands, propelling her towards her target. Good, she thought, just like in practice. Anger distracts. Focus on the target. She noted none of the other men had seemed to move yet, and the priest’s face wore a ridiculous look of contentment. He’d opened his eyes in startlement, his lips separating as if to voice protest to her actions, but had quickly composed his features less than a heartbeat later, fastening his tiny dark eyes directly on her own. Did he want to die? The thought fleeting rose up inside of her, but Drena dismissed it ruthlessly. His will was unimportant in this case. He’d chosen to violate the goddess by coming into the room with the four other Merlarns. Jonath was the one who’d been selected by Amphedia to father the water people’s precious savior. Thus had the priest chosen death at her hands.

  Drena felt the indifference she’d been trained to shield herself with shred as she ran and decided she would welcome the anger, use it to make herself invulnerable to fear. She would not allow this water-fattened High priest of a Puj’hom to take her life, nor that of the newly forming child within her. Nor would she allow him and his insane herd of Merlarns to sow their seed inside of her. She would die before she would allow them to rape her. Jonath would not die in vain!

  Suddenly, the weight of the knife in her hand was gone. She’d had her hand wrapped firmly about the hilt, shifting it as she ran towards the priest, ensuring the sharpened edge was face up so as to provide a quick entry and then a forceful pull upwards. She knew she was only going to get one chance, and given the priest’s muscular bulk, a single stab wouldn’t necessarily provide enough impact to move him out of her way. She was going to have to pull the blade upwards to slice him open. But now the knife was gone. Was that the reason for the smirk on his face? He’d used magic to make it disappear? No matter; she was committed. If she couldn’t kill him with the blade, she would just have to use her hands. A tiny part of her mind screamed at her, wanting to know how she planned to kill him with her hands when she’d already been uncertain she’d be able to do so with a knife. But it was too late to heed the voice of reason. She was fighting for her life and that of the child her cherished Jonath had helped to make within her.

  “Chared! Hold her!” the priest yelled, even as Drena charged into the man, her fists seeking out the vulnerable parts of his anatomy, the skin of her naked body feeling every connection between them, repulsed at the slick oil she felt. She’d only managed to hit the man five or six times, once in the mouth and twice with both of her fists to his ears, before she felt other hands grasp her shoulders firmly. She was spun around and hugged closely to the chest of the other man, both of her arms held captive against her sides. With her face pressed firmly into the man’s chest, Drena thought she might vomit from the smell of the suffocating havah weed and the thick, gel-like feel of the anointing oil against her face. She was surprised to discover the oil wasn’t as smooth as she’d imagined it would be. There were tiny grains of sand, or maybe gravel, mixed into the substance the priests had rubbed over their bodies. Odd, Drena thought to herself, since the men had all looked as though their skin was smooth a moment ago.

  Why do I care about that? she thought, then wondered what she was thinking about in the first place. Skin. Oh yes. The man’s skin. Ah! The realization she’d inadvertently given her enemies a weapon to use against her by allowing the man to press her against him roused her anger. What an idiot! What a piss-poor excuse for a warrior she’d turned out to be; Khadras would laugh himself sick at her ineptness. The oil the mad priests were covered with was drugged! Of course! Drena tried to focus, tried to bring herself back from the non-place the herbs were carrying her off to. Stupid that she felt so dizzy so fast. No wonder the Puj’hom only used the havah weed for special occasions. Unless there was something else in the anointing oil that was making her feel so disconnected? She felt her mind slip further down the dark, yawning hole of oblivion waiting to swallow her, feeling the black sides of the tunnel cushioning her, inviting her to relax into their softness. Beckoning her to surrender her will. She wasn’t even sure whether her eyes were open or not, whether the man who’d plucked her so easily off the High Priest was holding her up, or if she’d already fallen.

  Wait! She could fee
l her mind poking her, vying for her attention. Much like the flies that pestered her when the Campania wandered too near the edges of the desert, scenting the blood of the camels and their livestock, there was something about the man who’d grabbed her. She didn’t want to care; wanted to just slide down into the melting pot of nothingness. She’d already lost. These men – these priests (the supposedly sacred title evoked a burble of derision from her stupor- laced consciousness) – would do with her whatever they wanted to. She was too detached from her mind to be able to summon up the anger to live, to fight back. To kill them all with her own hands. They and their kind had already killed Jonath, and now they would take her life too. She was helpless to stop them. Her arms and legs no longer belonged to her, she couldn’t even feel the weight of her body. Was she standing? Were her eyes opened?

  Think! Damn you – think! The urge came from some untapped reserve, some hidden niche that had yet refused to surrender to the overwhelming allure of the drug’s invitation to oblivion.

  Chared! That was it! Chared! That was her brother’s name! By the Gods! she swore. Then, out of purposeful spite and in defiance of her sworn patron Goddess, Amphedia – who had so blithely and obviously abandoned her to these petty priests - By Sov! By Lumas!

  Neither beseeching gods nor cursing them, though, seemed to make any difference. No righteous, heroic effort by the God and Goddess of her youth was forthcoming, nor was the Sea Goddess offering her aid. Well, Drena reflected, that wasn’t quite true. She felt a burble of laughter spilling out of her lips, but was unable to tell whether she had actually laughed out loud or not. Reality and fantasy were meshing in a most-alarming and disorienting fashion, and she wasn’t even quite sure what was so funny anymore. Oh yes, Amphedia. She was, indeed, offering her aid – just to the wrong side! And why was she doing such a stupid thing anyway? It just didn’t make any sense! If the damned, supposedly-all-powerful Goddess of mighty storms wanted her to be impregnated by one of the Merlarns, then she wouldn’t have needed to involved Jonath. The camel cunt of a goddess could have just let her be led into the Temple of Life, like every other woman who had ever been made to offer her body to the defiler and let her be raped according to ritual and tradition. She didn’t have to kill Jonath!

  Drena felt dizzy, disoriented. Her eyes kept closing no matter how hard she tried to keep them open. Then she felt her gorge rise as she realized she could feel the thickness of Chared’s erection through the thin material of his hip wrap where he held her pinned against him. No! She was going to be raped by her brother? How much more sickening could this nightmare get? In some dark recess of her mind, she heard the evil Sea Goddess chuckling, laughing at her nativity. How much better suited to the task of savior would a child be if born of a brother and sister who both possessed the ability to call water unto them? She renewed her efforts to free herself from Chared’s grip, using his hold on her arms as leverage to raise both her feet to kick at his knees, then aimed higher, intent on making sure he would be physically unable to father a child on her or anyone else in the near future.

  At least, that’s what she thought she did; what she specifically remembered doing. But when she opened her eyes – when had she closed them? – she was laying on the blankets beside Jonath. Beside Jonath’s body. He was still. As still as a stone. And just as dead. Wake up! she wanted to scream. Can’t you see I need you? But he was dead. The price of the agreement to keep her safe. When Amphedia had revealed how much she needed Drena to be alive and well in order to save the Tuq’deb, her first instinct had been to throw herself off a cliff, to thrust a sword deep into her own bowels, to even drown herself if need be. If the Sea Goddess wanted her alive, then she wanted to be dead. Very, very, utterly, completely, dead. With no chance of ever being resurrected.

  It was her body that was needed to produce Amphidea’s heir, her body which would become the vessel of life for her people. Without Drena’s cooperation, all the people she knew would die. All the world would become a desert. She had been bred for a very special purpose. Like the prize sow she’d always sworn she would never become. Exactly what she had always feared.

  And this was how the Goddess of Storms kept her breeding sow safe? By letting her herd of filthy Merlarns rape her? Drena laughed aloud then, and let herself scream. What did it matter now? She screamed with the rage she felt deep inside of her, letting loose an undulating cry of righteous fury. But the sound didn’t carry within the thick, musty-smelling walls of this dark, sickening place as it did in the clean, honest air of the desert, and she felt her anger dwindle quickly to despair. She could feel the hands of the Merlarns on her arms and legs, pinning her to the unforgiving stone of the floor where she’d lain with Jonath. How could Amphedia let this happen to her? How could Jonath have been so blind? He gave his life so she might live, so their people would live, and it was nothing more than a trick! The Sea Goddess only wanted him out of the way, so he wouldn’t be there beside her, to fight by her side against the priests in the abomination they were going to force on her.

  “S’ray!” she heard a man’s voice interrupting her thoughts, felt his hand slapping her face sharply. “You must witness this,” his voice insisted, slapping her a little harder. Her first instinct was to grab his hand, twist his wrist and force him to his knees, but even as the muscles of her arm bunched in automatic reaction, she felt the grip holding her firm. And remembered.

  So, she hadn’t been dreaming after all. She had been drugged. And now she was going to be fucked by a line of Puj’hom priests, one after the other, in the hope of having their stupid savior be of their seed. And they didn’t even have the decency to let her stay unconscious while they did it. Goat dung! Filthy, worthless camel shit! That’s all they were! Them and their deceitful, dried-up cunt of a goddess!

  “Drena!” she yelled, then spat at the man, knowing even as she did, he wasn’t worth the moisture it had cost her to form the saliva. “I am not S’ray!” she screamed at the High Priest. “Your precious goddess made sure of that. I took back my desert name as she demanded - after Jonath spilled his seed inside of me. Don’t you get it? How can you be so stupid? I am already pregnant with your damned savior!”

  “If you say another word, I will have you gagged,” he replied calmly, as he knelt down between her legs. Drena could see he held a small bowl in his hands. Now what was he doing? If it was going to get any worse than it already was, she didn’t want to know about it. The only satisfaction she was going to get out of any of this was the fact she’d split the idiot’s lip when she’d hit him. She hoped he had a headache too. One that would kill him. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back, letting the muscles of her arms and legs go limp. Let them get it over with then. Nothing they did to her would matter. She’d had Jonath for the whole of her life and had loved him as he had loved her. The child was already growing inside of her. There was nothing they could do to change any of it. All she had to do was survive this one day, and then she could return to the desert where she belonged. She opened her mouth, then, determined to have one last word before they gagged and raped her.

  “When you’re finished, Merlarn,” she invested all her loathing for the man and his goddess into that one word as if it was the most-profane thing she could ever say, “I will have revenge.”

  As she expected, the priest produced two pieces of cloth; one he balled up and stuffed into her mouth past her clenched teeth by the simple act of pinching her nostrils closed, then punching her in stomach. She’d had no choice but to open her mouth to breathe. After that, winding the other piece of cloth around her head to keep the ball of material in her mouth secure was an easy task. What she hadn’t expected, though, was before he had so unkindly stuffed the material into her mouth, he had taken a fingerful of whatever was in the bowl he’d held in his hands and wiped it all over her gums and teeth, even braving the possibility of getting his finger bitten off by managing to wipe some on her tongue. It wasn’t exactly a paste nor a gel, but was thicker than liq
uid. And it had a strange taste, as if it must be made of seaweed of some kind. It reminded her of the smell of the sea. And then it had turned her mouth hot, making her eyes water. It must have had some kind of spice in it she’d never tasted before, although something in it reminded her of some sweet peppers she’d had when she’d been traveling through the mountains on her journey to the sea. And there were tiny seeds in the creamy goo that brought to mind the pebbly granules she’d seen on Chared’s skin when she’d had her face pressed into his chest.

  Drena watched through eyes stinging with the tears the spices produced as the High Priest leaned back on his heels, still between her knees. She realized, sprawled naked between the men like she was, that she had one more reason to be thankful for her training as a warrior among her Campania. She had long ago lost concern for any modesty or embarrassment since the men and women of the warrior sect so often trained without their clothing. She had, in fact, so enjoyed flowing through her forms and exercises nude, she’d been punished by being required to wear extra layers of material on more than one occasion, so as to remind her that she was more likely to encounter the need to fight while she was clothed, than when she wasn’t. If only her teachers could see her now, they might be sorry for having made her wear so much clothing, she mused, desperately seeking some distraction from what the men were doing to her body. Still, she had to admit, even when she’d been training nude, she’d rarely had her genitalia exposed in quite this way.