Rebels of Vulvar (Vulvarian Saga Book 2)

by J. K. Spenser

  Time slowly passed as I waited impatiently to learn both the fate of Emer and for the news of Idril I longed to hear. The tension in my belly felt as if there was a great spring inside me, winding ever tighter. The larger Vulvarian moon passed from the sky, plunging the night into complete darkness. The smaller moon it seemed was in its new moon phase as it had never appeared.

  After many hours, the darkness lightened. While no one in the camp was stirring, I knew it would not be long before the first faint lights of dawn appeared. I had passed almost the entire night in the thicket. I stood up, feeling cold and stiff. I had to make a foray into the camp to search for Emer, though I didn’t know where the officer had taken her. I intended to wait until I saw the warriors on watch pass again, and then I would sprint to the camp perimeter.

  After a few minutes, two warriors met and passed each other, moving in opposite directions. I was about to leave my place of concealment when my eyes picked up movement from inside the camp. A dark, lithe figure sprinted from the camp toward my hidden position. Surely it was Emer, I thought. But I drew my katana as a precaution.

  “It’s me, Emer,” Emer whispered when she was within a few meters of the thicket. She passed through the bushes and almost collided with me. Then she sank to her knees on the ground, breathing hard. I knelt beside her.

  “What happened?” I said.

  Emer held up a hand, telling me to give her a moment to catch her breath. Finally, she spoke.

  “Did you see the officer accost me when I was speaking with the group of warriors?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “At first, I thought she had found you out and was arresting you. But then she walked away without taking your arms, and it appeared you followed her voluntarily.”

  “I did,” Emer said. “The officer was organizing the night watch for the commander’s headquarters. When she saw I was an archer, she selected me for the watch. I tried telling her I was with the scouts and needed to return to my unit. But she insisted I obey her order. So I went with her. There was no choice.”

  “I was about to come looking for you,” I said.

  “I knew you would come looking before dawn,” Emer said. “That’s why I abandoned my post and came back just now.”

  “Do you learn anything about Idril?” I said.

  “Let’s get the baacaases and move away from the camp, and then I’ll share all my news,” Emer said. “The officer of the watch will soon discover my absence from my post. We must leave now.”

  My patience was exhausted. I thought to argue. But with the appearance of the first faint lights of the coming dawn, I realized Emer was right. We walked silently back to the copse where we had left the baacaases.

  After leading the animals a short distance, we mounted and rode away to the east to avoid recrossing the ridge line to the north. We didn’t stop until the sun had risen, and we had covered several legas and reached a stream. I pulled up at the creek, unable to wait a moment longer for news of the woman I loved.

  “Let’s stop here and water the baacaases,” I said. “You can share what you learned in the camp while we rest them.”

  Emer looked at me with reluctance in her eyes. But she dismounted when I did. We loosened the saddle girths on our mounts and loosed them to water and graze. Then I stood looking at Emer in earnest expectation.

  “Idril is no more,” Emer said simply. “She has taken the journey.”

  The Vulvarians believed that after death, a soul went on a journey to a place they simply called the Nethersphere. A servant of the Goddess Queens first led them to the River Lethe, which formed the boundary between the living and the dead. There, a ferryman transported the person across the river. After crossing the river, the deceased walked on to a place called the Acheron Fields. There they forget all memories of their former life. Then, at a fork in the road, three immortal judges decided where to send souls. Good people, they sent onward to Phegeus, a comfortable place where the sun always shone, and souls reaped the rewards of living upright lives. But those the judges deemed worthy of punishment, they sent to Herodotus. In Herodotus, people who had upset the Goddess Queens during their lifetimes suffered terrible, eternal punishments. Herodotus was believed a dark place, imagined by Vulvarians to be as far below the surface of Vulvar as Vulvar is from the sky. Sometimes, when the judges could not decide, they sent souls back to the Acheron Fields, where they wandered aimlessly for eternity.

  I was dumbstruck by Emer’s announcement. “No,” I said. “That cannot be. Whoever told you that was wrong. We must go back to the camp and speak to others.”

  Emer tenderly laid her hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry, Tobias,” she said sadly. “They posted me on watch near the headquarters of Nalia, the Thivan commander. Three different warriors there told me the same story. During a battle, a rebel cast a spear that impaled Idril. At first, the field surgeon believed she would recover. But apparently, the spear tip had pierced a vital organ. The surgeon could not stop the internal bleeding. Idril succumbed to the wound four days later.”

  “I won’t believe them until I see the body,” I said.

  “There is no body to view, Tobias,” Emer said. “Idril’s last order to Nalia was that the Thivans were to burn her body and scatter the ashes after the Vulvarian custom of warriors. I’m sorry, Tobias. It was the will of the Goddess Queens.”

  “Do not your Goddess Queens hold all the power of life and death over the people of this miserable, barbaric world?” I said. “I must go to them. I will strike a bargain with them—offer them my life in exchange for Idril’s.”

  “Tobias, be sensible,” Emer said. “Souls do not return from beyond the River Lethe.”

  “Then I shall die to be with Idril,” I said. “I’ve tired of life.”

  “If you met Idril in the Nethersphere, you would not know each other,” Emer said calmly. “Those who enter the Acheron Fields forget all memories of their former lives.”

  “Do not lecture me about death, Emer!” I cried. “You wretched Vulvarians worship your evil, heartless absentee divinities who offer nothing but death and misery. All your teachers taught you about the Nethersphere are lies meant to give you people a little comfort during your useless lives!”

  Emer looked as if I’d struck her. She removed her hands from me and walked away. She sat down on the grass beside the stream and cast small stones into the clear water. I grew exceedingly angry. I had wished to lash out at someone. It wasn’t Emer’s fault. Unfortunately, she had been the only ready target for my rage. I sank to the ground in depression, hugging my knees to my chest. I was powerless to stop the tears that welled unbidden in my eyes and ran down my cheeks.

  After about an hour had passed, I stood up and walked to Emer’s side.

  “You’re certain what you told me is true?” I said.

  Emer merely nodded, her gaze transfixed on the brook.

  I sat down beside her.

  “Then, I must find the Goddess Queens,” I said. “I will have words with them. They returned me to this inhospitable planet only to inflict more suffering on me. I will have my vengeance on them.”

  “That’s foolish talk,” Emer whispered. “None have seen the faces of the Goddess Queens and lived. If you seek them, you will die.”

  “Then I will die,” I said. “But not before I have my reckoning with those cruel, thoughtless beings.”

  20

  Vengeance Plan

  Immobilized by grief, I refused to travel further. Emer and I spent the entire day and evening beside the stream. I refused the food she offered. After she had eaten her rations, she rolled up in her warrior’s cloak and slept. I sat beside the dying fire consuming the entire flask of scrog I had foraged from the dead rebel. Sometime before dawn, I had fallen into a drunken sleep. I awakened, feeling cold, hungover, and stiff yet determined to make the start of my ill-conceived campaign against the hated Goddess Queens.

  Again I refused food. Emer ate her breakfast, and we saddled the baacaases.
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br />   “Do you wish to hear the rest of the news from the camp?” Emer said.

  I said nothing. Emer gave me her report anyway.

  “It is as you believed,” Emer said. “Our army has reduced the rebel forces to a handful of small, scattered, disorganized bands. The battle you observed from the ridge crest was the defeat of the last large cohort of insurgents. Our army marched yesterday to retake Nisa. They will meet and join the warriors from the cities of Raue and Jesa outside the city walls. Nalia and her allies believe that Cooke left only a small garrison at Nisa to hold the city, which they believe will fall quickly before our combined forces.”

  “That’s good news for you, Emer,” I said, mounting my baacaas. “It seems you can safely return to your city.”

  “I intend to,” Emer said, climbing into her saddle. “My life might be useless, as you said, but I won’t forfeit it by accompanying you on yet another of your foolish quests.”

  I nodded. “Then, be well, Emer,” I said. “I must start north. I have an urgent appointment awaiting at Mount Voln.”

  I turned my baacaas away. Emer spurred her mount around mine and pulled up, blocking my way.

  “I will not try to dissuade you from following your insane plan,” Emer said. “There is no reasoning with one who has given his mind over to madness. But Mount Voln is a good two-thousand legas from here. At least accompany me to Nisa, where you can get provisions for your journey. You will find no shops or markets where you are bound.”

  Emer was right. My grief-stricken mind had not even considered provisions.

  “Very well,” I said. “Your point is well taken.”

  “Yes, it is,” Emer smirked. “Shall we ride for Nisa?”

  “In a moment,” I said. “First, please accept my apologies. Your life is far from useless, Emer. You have well served me since the day we met. I had no right to speak as I did to a friend. Please forgive me.”

  Emer regarded me silently for a moment. “Apologies accepted,” she said finally. “It’s forgiven and forgotten. I know your heart is heavy with grief and that you spoke in anger.”

  “Thank you, my friend,” I said. “But, I still refuse to believe the Vulvarian Nethersphere fables.”

  Emer laughed good-naturedly. “Are they so much less believable than the afterlife fables of your home planet, Tobias Hart?”

  I laughed with her. “I suppose not,” I said. “Let us ride.”

  * * *

  Near the seventh hour, we rode into the yard of Haela’s farm. We found the farm abandoned and assumed Haela had not yet returned from Thiva. After we ate the last of our dried meat and bread, I cached my bow and sword inside the barn. Given the recent slave rebellion, both Emer and I agreed it would not be wise for me to enter Nisa with my weapons. Inside the farmhouse, Emer found a steel slave collar, a length of chain, and the tunic of a farm slave manufactured from coarse cloth.

  “I believe it would be wise for you to pose as my personal slave when we enter the city,” Emer said.

  “You’re to be my mistress now?” I laughed.

  “Why not?” Emer smirked. “Isn’t hard labor as a slave the only conceivable use for you worthless, beastly males?”

  I laughed. “I had a master once when I came to this planet the first time,” I said, “who found delight in services I rendered that were not exactly hard labor.”

  “Hmm, did she?” Emer said coyly. “How can you be so sure she delighted in your services?”

  “Perhaps her moans and the way her body writhed gave it away,” I smirked, pulling off the torn, soiled tunic I’d worn since we’d left the cell in Thiva.

  I reached for the clean tunic, but Emer snatched it from me. After tossing it away, she dropped her sword belt and removed the scarlet tunic of the Thivan warriors she wore. She stood naked before me, as I was.

  “Perhaps you should demonstrate for me the services you performed for your former mistress, Tobias Hart,” Emer said with a grin. “Allow your new mistress to see for myself whether they delight.”

  I found Emer both beautiful and desirable, but my heart was heavy. Idril and my grief still consumed my thoughts. I turned away.

  “Emer, I cannot,” I mumbled.

  I felt Emer’s arms encircle me from behind and felt her warm flesh pressed against my backside.

  “Tobias, does it not please you to look upon me?” Emer sobbed. “I know how much you loved Idril. But does not life go on for the living?”

  I felt her wet tears on my neck. “Of course, I find you desirable,” I said. “But it’s too soon. My emotions are in turmoil. You deserve so much more than I can offer you right now, dear Emer.”

  Emer released me. When I turned, the tunic she had picked up and thrown struck me in the face. I put it on while she dressed.

  “Are you angry with me?” I asked.

  “No,” Emer said. Then she grinned widely. “Perhaps your emotions are in turmoil now, but your body betrayed you. It desires me.”

  I could not argue the point as I realized my manhood had responded predictably to the touch of Emer’s silky, warm flesh.

  “Maybe you can show me your delightful skills another time, Tobias Hart,” Emer said as she affixed the slave collar about my neck. “Let us be on our way to the city, slave.”

  “Yes, mistress,” I said with a smile.

  21

  An Unexpected Welcome

  Nisa, once beleaguered by the rebel slaves, but now dauntless was a grim and sobering sight. Every fifty yards along the top of the city walls, executioners had affixed impaling posts with needle-sharp points. There was a body of a naked male impaled on each post. On Vulvar, they used impalement for only one crime. It was the crime Vulvarians considered the worst of all, a male copulating with a female. It didn’t matter if a Vulvarian female consented to the copulation. Whenever the authorities discovered copulation had occurred, the justice authorities always impaled the male. Their view was that copulation between males and females was not only a crime against the dignity of females but a crime against nature.

  As we approached the city gates, I saw female warriors in blue-tunics had replaced the rebel warriors in yellow-tunics I had observed on my first visit to Nisa. Hard eyes behind the Y-shaped crossbars of their helmets followed me as Emer and I rode to the gates. Emer held one end of the silver chain she had attached to the slave collar around my neck as we neared the city.

  “Who is this male?” a warrior asked Emer.

  “He is my slave?” Emer answered.

  “Did he take part in the rebellion?” the warrior asked.

  “No, some friends in Thiva held him in custody for me until the army ended the rebellion,” Emer said. “I retrieved him there before traveling home.”

  “Home?” the warrior said. “I see you are wearing the tunic of a Thivan warrior.”

  “I am Emer of Nisa, a Nisan warrior,” Emer said. “I pledged my sword to Thiva while the rebels controlled this city.”

  “I see,” the warrior said. “Do you have a bill of sale for the slave?”

  “No,” Emer said. “Not with me. I’ve owned this slave for several years. Is the word of a sister warrior insufficient for you?”

  “By order of the Anax, we must immediately take all slaves entering the city to the Hall of Government for examination,” the warrior said.

  “You mean to say you intend to take my property from me?” Emer said acidly. “By what authority?”

  “It’s by order of Sola, Anax of Nisa,” the warrior said. “After the justice authorities examine your slave, if everything is in order, they will return your property to you.”

  I had a sinking feeling in my belly. Neither of us had expected such a reception. Suddenly someone put hands on me and pulled me from the saddle. The slave collar dug painfully into my neck before Emer released her grip on the silver chain. I fell unceremoniously to the dirt beside the baacaas.

  Emer leapt from her saddle, her hand on the grip of her rakir.

  “How dare you s
o rudely abuse my property, she-Telarion,” Emer said to the warrior who had pulled me from the saddle.

  An officer appeared at the gate. I struggled to my feet. The officer walked over to my baacaas. She ran her hand over the brand on the hip of the beast and then turned to Emer.

  “Warrior, I’m told you are of Nisa,” the officer said. “How is it you and this slave ride into our city on a fine pair of baacaases that appear to be the property of the Thivan cavalry?”

  “A Thivan commander lent me these animals,” Emer said. “So I could return to my city. I will return them to Thiva now that I have no further use of them.”

  The officer must have read the defiance in Emer’s eyes. She signaled to her warriors. Three spears dropped to threaten Emer’s breast.

  “Perhaps you stole these beasts,” the officer said.

  “I stole nothing,” Emer said.

  “You too may plead your case before the Anax,” the officer said. “Surrender your weapons.”

  Resistance would have been futile. A large group of Nisan warriors had encircled us. Emer angrily removed the bow from her shoulder and her sword belt. She threw them to the ground with disdain at the feet of the officer.

  “Shackle the slave,” the officer said. A warrior hurried over and shackled my wrists behind my back.

  “As a warrior, have I your word that you will accompany us peaceably to the Hall of Government?” the officer said to Emer.

  “Yes,” Emer said.

  “Shackles will not be necessary for her,” the officer said to her warriors.