Sharon was not sure how long she slept. It was a deep sleep almost bordering on coma. Brell and Gebbali joined her in the tiny chamber, the runaway packed in between the two rescued breeders. The chamber was barely big enough for the communal bed they shared. Also, they were still naked and chained, but at least they were safe, clean, and relatively comfortable. A welcoming party of three younger women had doused, scrubbed, towelled and brushed them into some semblance of order before they were led off down a winding tunnel to this little chamber. Sometimes Sharon dreamed, but she did not remember any of it upon awakening, which was usually just long enough to sip water from an earthenware ewer she found on a shelf set into a recess in the wall and then drift back to sleep. Once, she briefly roused herself when she realized someone had entered the close dark confines of the little room, but she recognized the swift fluidity of the tall, shadowy figure as Lady-Blood come to check on them. Two other times she got up to relieve herself into the truncated little cone-like projection low down on the wall across from the bed. Beyond that, she slept harder than she ever had in her life, grateful that she was somewhere safe enough to let her recover her strength.
"Awaken, my darling!" Lady-Blood said with a laugh, jostling Sharon's shoulder in a friendly way. Sharon's head came up in a daze. She looked around the small chamber and realized she was the only one still sleeping in the bed that dominated what little room there was in the sleeping space. Sharon was confused for a moment - - where was she? This wasn't her bed. Had she slept over at Jim's? Then her hand drifted down to the pillowy heaviness of her breasts, and the massively swollen belly just beyond them, and she remembered. The Goddess. Her pregnancy, magically implanted with twins, thanks to that Goddess. Her capture and transition to Orion. The raid on the dorm where she was being kept by her new "owners." The trip into the wastelands with Lady-Blood and, finally, a chance to rest.
"Are we under attack?" Sharon said it with a certain bleak humor. She didn't really think they were, but with everything else that had gone wrong lately it wouldn't surprise her. Her optimism at the start of her escape into the wilds with Lady-Blood had been worn down by the rigors of the trip and the news that, while she was now safe and free, another enclave of freewomen had been utterly destroyed. Sleep hadphysically rested her, but she was still emotionally drained.
"Not yet, but one can always hope," Lady-Blood replied with too-cheerful sarcasm. She continued more seriously, "Holytree is a long way off. Gebbali's former master was Friar Gormann, a brother in the retinue of Lord-Stone. Lord-Stone and Lord-Hunter are not friendly, and Burrowedfree is too close to Hunter's territory for Stone to risk a raid, even if he knew where to look. Besides, if Stone's men thought the Twisted Wood gave them hell, wait until they get to the Alkali Lakes!"
"So you aren't worried they might attack here the way they did at Holytree?" Sharon was a little surprised Lady-Blood didn't seem more concerned, but it was also strangely reassuring. If Blood wasn't scared they she would make sure she wasn't scared either.
"Not really. Burrowedfree has good protections in place. Moving doors and temporary tunnels, and then once you find your way - - you were so tired you probably don't remember this part - - the truthsayers at the door detect falsehood and treachery, so it is almost impossible for turntails and traitors to bring us down from within," Lady-Blood looked deep into Sharon's eyes as she spoke, trying to reassure her.
"Why are you telling me all this?" Sharon shrugged and held up her hands in a gesture of confusion. She distractedly noted she was still chained and wondered why, "I mean, I could be one of those traitors you were talking about."
"No," Lady-Blood gave a single negative turn of her head, pointing upward with one finger in a way that reminded Sharon of her law professor correcting some student's mistake in the middle of his lecture, "You earth girls are natural allies for us. You come from a place where the ways of Orion and the Brotherhood are not only strange, but wrong! Each of you has a power granted by the Goddess. The children you carry will also be powerful and help us expand our numbers. Plus the Brotherhood has not had any of you long enough to break and subordinate you. I would take one new girl like you over any five like Brell or Gebbali."
"But they were born here," Sharon protested, mostly so her rescuer would better explain her choice. Also, it was a bad habit of Sharon's, being too nice and speaking better of the other applicants for a position than she did of herself, "They know the geopgraphy at least a little. They speak the language. Blend in."
"It is easier to strengthen the spine of an unbent back than it is to strengthen one you had to straighten up first," Lady-Blood's tone made Sharon understand that she was using some kind of well known bit of wisdom akin to "a rolling stone gathers no moss" or "if you want something done right, do it yourself." Lady-Blood took Sharon's hand in a courtly way and helped her to stand up from the bed, "I can teach you our language. As for our ways - - it has been hard to maintain tradition in the face of Brotherhood oppression. As freewomen we invent our culture anew each day."
"Where are we going?" Sharon noted Lady-Blood still held her hand, but did not mind. Her feet and muscles were still achy from the long trek across the waste, so she welcomed a supporting hand. A thought occurred to the earth woman ans she smiled up at the red-haired amazon, "Will you get these chains off me soon?"
"We are going to do that now - - but first there is the interview and the compact," Blood produced a brush from her utility bag and showed it to Sharon, "I thought you might want to fix youself up a little. We bathed you yesterday after getting here, but you were dead on your feet."
Sharon gratefully accepted the brush and immediately ran it through her hair, glad for a chance to rein in a rampant case of bedhead. They paused near the door so Sharon could spend a little time on it. Noting that Lady-Blood had also washed up herself then changed into a new vest and leather leggings, Sharon did the best job she could without a mirror handy.
"Interview? With who?" Sharon looked about for something to tie her hair back with and Blood qucikly accommidated her by producing a small bit of string from the never ending supply of oddments in the bag at her hip. "Thanks - - and what do you mean compact?"
"Did I not use the right word?" Lady-Blood looked thoughtful, her sun-bleached eyebrows creased together. Sharon was surprised. Blood spoke English so well it was the first time she seemed uncertain what word to use. The amazon tilted her head and offered, "An oath of loyalty to Burrowed Free? A contract?"
Sharon decided it must be some ritual formality, but also considered it likely to be serious to the Orions. Some primitive cultures took verbal oaths and contracts very seriously. "I think I understand. Who administers the oath? The same person from the interview? The leader here?"
Lady-Blood explained as she accepted the brush back from Sharon, returning it to her bag as the earth woman finished tying her hair, "Burrowedfree is ruled by a council; the Majora, Midwife, Guardswoman, and Warwoman. If there is a tie on any issue the Directrix of the Diggers, a woman just below the Council, casts the tie-breaking vote."
Lady-Blood opened the doorway and led her pregnant companion down the winding tunnel beyond the little room. There was a kind of bio-luminescent fungus growing along the roof and sometimes walls of the tunnel, providing surprisingly good illumination. They followed the tunnel, Blood finding her way by memory without consulting any maps nor signs upon the walls. Each branch or turn they took brought them into bigger, wider, and older tunnels, but still things were mostly silent. Twice Sharon saw someone up ahead only for them to take another branch or duck into a doorway before they got very close. The only time someone actually passed them in the tunnel, a slender, older woman - - older than MInya, which meant the oldest woman she had seen on Orion thus far, she had averted her eyes and pulled her long blue cloak more tightly about herself as Lady-Blood and Sharon sidled by her in the still narrow tunnel.
"Where is everyone" Sharon asked. "Why is it so quiet? You said hundreds of women lived down here."
"These are private areas reserved for Council functions, little mother," Lady-Blood squeezed Sharon's hand and swung it up to point at the next turn they would take, "Normally you would wait on an interview and then be inducted and uncollared during a mass cladding ceremony, but you are an honored guest here. The Council does not wish to make a spectacle of you."
"I'm the one who is honored, but why? From what the Brotherhood let slip dozens of women, maybe even as many as a hundred, were captured. What makes me so special?
"Our mission was to target Lord-Hunter's primary breeding dorm and capture his finest stock," Lady-Blood favored her companion with an affectionate smile, "That includes you, little mother! You have a potent power."
"I appreciate the vote of confidence," Sharon smiled up at her new friend, "Let's hope the council feels the same way."
"I am sure they will," Lady-Blood stopped outside a circular portal closed by two heavy valve-like doors. The doors were of a thick orange-tinted wood akin to oak, their surfaces carved with, to Sharon's sensibilities, crudely rendered bas reliefs of women, singly or in groups, engaged in various activities; fleeing across the wasteland, digging down into the earth with sticks, worshipping a fertility idol. She knocked twice lightly.
"Come," a single word spoken in a melodious tone by an older woman.
Blood pressed on one of the many carven women and released a secret catch which opened the door. It swung inward and Lady-Blood waved Sharon in first with a courtly half-bow and a sweep of her muscular arm. Sharon entered the chamber with as measured a stride as she could manage with her belly in the way. It was hard to be dignified when stark naked and big as a house. The chamber was cozy and not so large as she had expected. Apparently, space was at a premium for this undergorund community even in regard to their High Council. One of the hovering glow-globes like those she saw in the breeding dorm, minus the weird security gem satellite, lit the chamber. There was a small diamond shaped table within, but only three women were seated at the four sides. Lady-Blood gestured to each of them in turn, giving their name and title.
"Majora Syrreen Longwalker, Elected Speaker for Burrowedfree, has held the gavel at this council for seventeen summers," Blood nodded toward the blackhaired matron in a long purple dress and protected by an equally long leather apron. Sharon noticed each of the stools about the council table was a different color. The majora's was blue.
"Midwife Judith sh'Ambala, head of our medical section," the tiny wizened form indicated could just barely be identified by form and dress as a woman. The midwife was almost a living twig covered in loose skin and countless wrinkles. Her eyes were bright and merry, her seat at the table the same dark brown as her robe. The Earth name threw Sharon off. She wondered how old the ancient crone really was. Could she be from Earth?
"Guardswoman Nelleth Redhand, formerly of Burntblack Island, head of security," Lady-Blood indicated her with a respectful half-bow and the guardswoman replied with a solemn nod of acknowledgment. Then the guardswoman turned to Sharon and lifted a hand in greeting. That was when Sharon realized this Nelleth was like Beastlord, a demonborn. Her hand was abnormally large and clawed, a scaled, lumpen horror that spread nearly up to her right elbow, the skin an angry, blistered-lobster red. Unsurprisingly, her seat at the diamond table was red.
Lady-Blood turned back to Sharon, a solemn expression set upon her mobile lips, "Sharon of Earth, you are hereby called before the High Council of Burrowedfree to interview for sanctuary. The council will now ask what they will of you. Stand and deliver your answer."
"But the fourth chair - - who is - - ," Sharon trailed off as Lady-Blood left her side, understanding welling up inside her. As she watched, Lady-Blood took her place upon the white stool.
"I am Dezza, she who is called Lady-Blood, Warwoman of Burrowedfree and chief recruiter," Lady-Blood offered a quick, tiny smile to Sharon, who was glad for the briefest flicker of reassurance, "This council wishes to know why you seek sanctuary. Please, state your case."
Sun Sep 06 16:07:39 2015
4 comments Last updated: Sun Sep 6 21:13:01 2015