by E. A. James
She followed the others outside and shut the door. Margila found herself utterly alone for the first time since long before the lottery. Blessed silence filled the chamber, and the sunlight streaming through the windows made her eyelids drift closed.
This place was far nicer and far more comforting than she ever would have dreamed. Tanak didn’t do it justice when he told her how rich and wonderful it was. She could stand at those windows and gaze out for the rest of her life and never get tired of it.
The steaming bath water sent out tendrils to tempt her, and she meandered over to the tub. She slipped off her shift and let it fall to the ground. That was the last vestige of her old life. She would ask for a fire later to burn it.
She stepped into the hot water and let it swallow her up to the neck. She lay back in the tub, and the gorgeous view still lay before her eyes. The green of the grass and the blue of the sky married perfectly with the golden sunshine. Her eyes drifted closed, and she fell asleep.
CHAPTER NINE
Margila didn’t wake up until the water got cold. She got out of the tub and dried herself off with the towel Katya left for her. She’d just wrapped it around her naked body when Katya and Praila returned. “Goodness! You must have been exhausted. We thought you would never wake up.”
“Did you see me asleep?”
“We checked on you more than once, but we didn’t want to disturb you. Come over here and we’ll get you dressed. Someone is waiting for you.”
“Who is it?”
“Get dressed, and you’ll find out.”
Somehow, they put that magnificent gown on her. She couldn’t figure out how they did it. Katya was right. Learning how to put it on and take it off would take some doing.
They combed her hair and twisted it up on top of her head like their own. Margila smoothed down the brocade skirts. She didn’t recognize herself.
The women pushed her toward the door, and she found Tanak waiting for her out in the passage. He wore the same fancy clothes, with brocade trousers and doublet, and his hair hung wet and freshly combed around his shoulders. “There you are. Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, thank you. Are you?”
He took her hand. “You don’t know how relieved I am to get you back here alive. I was really worried.”
“How did the meeting go with your father?”
“Everyone is on high alert. We expect the Axis to attack at any moment.”
“Is there anything I can do to help.”
He inclined his head toward the far end of the passage. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
He led her all the way back to the spiral staircase and all the way back up to the courtyard between the spires. They crossed the courtyard to another spire, where Tanak started up another spiral staircase winding into the sky.
Margila caught sight of the countryside outside the windows. The spires she thought were so high fell away, and she looked down on them from above.
At the top of the spire, Tanak opened a door into a gigantic chamber. The roof split in two and the clear sky showed between the two halves. A massive black shape stuck its pointed nose up through the gap. It looked like one of those guns the soldiers pointed at her, only ten times the size.
Tanak guided her up another block of steps to the base of this thing. He pointed to a small tube. “Take a look inside there.”
She bent her eye to the hole and peered inside. What she beheld took her breath away, but she had no idea what she was looking at. Small lights hovered on a black background. They moved together in a slow, mysterious dance. “What does it mean?”
“The large light you see is the sun shining in the sky. The smaller light is the moon, and that big shadow you see across the bottom of the screen is the planet Phomentina.”
Margila yanked her eye away from the hole. “That’s impossible.”
“This is one of the machines I told you about. It’s used to look far out into space, above the sky, to see what the sun and the moon and the stars are doing.”
“What good does that do? Knowing what the sun and moon and stars are doing won’t keep you warm in the winter.”
“I brought you here to show you this. You couldn’t understand what I’m about to tell you if you didn’t see it for yourself. If you watch carefully, you’ll see the planet moving around the sun. That’s what makes the sun rise in the east and set in the west.”
“That’s ridiculous. Everyone knows the sun goes around the planet. We can see it moving with our own eyes.”
He shook his head. “We can see other planets moving around the sun, too. Phomentina moves in a circle around the sun. We call that circle an orbit. All the planets have them, but Phomentina’s orbit is decaying, falling apart. Every year, Phomentina moves closer to the sun. One of these years, the sun will suck the planet into itself, and the planet will cease to exist.”
Margila stared at him. “Do all the Raveniss know this?”
“This is the main reason we take maidens from the villages. We want to build up our population before we leave for another world.”
“Do the villagers know? Do they know they’re all going to die soon?”
He put his head on one side. “You tell me. Do the villagers know?”
Margila cast her mind back to her days before the sacrifice. Her father’s conversation with Major Bloodkist came rushing back. “They know—at least, some of them do.”
“What did you hear or see that makes you think they know?”
“The day before the lottery, I overheard my father talking to the Axis Joint Commander. The Major said something about finding the perfect destination. He wanted my father to postpone the lottery until the Axis Joint Command could bring in the fleet to fight the Raveniss. Councilor Dunroy was there, but I don’t think anyone else in the village knows.”
Tanak nodded. “There you have it.”
“My father said he couldn’t understand why the Axis didn’t evacuate the village and leave you to die. He thinks Major Bloodkist won’t be satisfied with anything short of full-scale slaughter. He thinks the Axis and Major Bloodkist are out to annihilate the Raveniss for the fun of it, to show off their firepower.”
“So that’s the kind of man leading this campaign?”
Margila looked down at the floor. “I’m afraid so.”
“That’s nothing we didn’t already suspect. Anyway, now you know. We’ll take a few more maidens from the village over the next couple of years. Then we’ll leave this planet.”
“How will you leave?”
“We have special ships ready to take everyone. We have everything we need except a few more females.”
“How do you know the village will continue the sacrifice? Now that they have the Axis fleet to back them up, they don’t have to do it. They know you won’t retaliate by attacking the village.”
“They won’t stop the sacrifice. They’ve been doing it for generations. They won’t stop now.” He took her hand. “Come on. We’ll go back down.”
Margila said nothing on the way down. A thousand things crowded her thoughts. He led her all the way back to the bedchamber before she realized where she was.
Someone had taken the bathtub away, and her shift had disappeared. She sat down on the stuffed chair by the window in relief. She didn’t have to deal with the shift or even look at it again. It vanished out of her life.
She noticed Tanak rummaging around on the other side of the room. She got up and went over to him. “What are you doing?”
He showed her a small device that fit into the palm of his hand. “I’m priming my weapon. All the Raveniss are preparing for the Axis assault.”
“What makes you think there will be an assault?”
“My father sent fliers down to the village. They just got back a little while ago. More and more Axis vessels and soldiers have set up on the Common. They’re getting ready for something. Since your Major Bloodkist wants to wipe us out to the last man before evacuating the villa
ge, we can only assume they’re planning to attack us.”
“Can you give me a weapon? I want to do something. I don’t know if the women among your people are allowed to fight, but.....”
“Everyone will fight. Anyone who wants a weapon will get one. You’ll have to learn how to use it, though.”
“Can you show me how to use it? I can learn if you just show me.”
“I’ll show you tomorrow. For now, you better just relax and get used to being here. You look very nice in that gown, by the way.”
“It’s a lot nicer than that shift. That thing belongs in the manure pile.”
He pulled her closer. “You looked just as beautiful in that shift as you do in this gown. You’ll always be beautiful to me.”
She blushed. “Thank you. You look very dashing in that suit, too.”
He circled her with his arms and kissed her. “The best thing about that shift was that I could smell you straight through it.”
Her eyes shot to his face, and the color mounted to her cheeks.
He murmured into her ear. “I could smell the honey oozing out of you. I could hear your heart pounding when your legs rubbed against each other. I could taste your sweet nectar on my tongue.”
Her nipples stood to attention under her stiff bodice, and her skin tingled with unrequited passion. Even now, his words brought a gush from between her legs. The fury of their first love-making flooded over her. She wanted him all over again.
He hitched his hands under her armpits and lifted her up to meet his kiss. She put her arms around his neck and followed his head down her neck. He mouthed her collarbone, and his kisses left a trail of glowing embers plunging down into her cleavage.
Margila threw back her head and gasped in delight. If only she could free her breasts from their restraint and fling them into his mouth, she would die of happiness. She didn’t have to struggle, though, before his hands moved along her ribs and found the heaving mound of her breast. He stroked her nipples through the rigid stays of the bodice until she couldn’t stand it anymore.
All of a sudden, he went wild with madness. He clawed her bodice down, and her breasts sprang free into his waiting hands. He fell on them with his teeth and brought moans of excitement to her lips.
Margila grabbed at his clothes, but she couldn’t figure out how to get them off or even open. She couldn’t do anything to him, anyway, with his hands all over her. He scooped up her ample buttocks with both hands and crushed her against him. He poked his growing bulge into her soft vulva until she moaned and writhed in wanton desire.
He lifted her higher and pulled her legs around his waist. She fought her dress to get her legs free until her bare skin lay exposed to his ravaging hands. He stumbled back under her weight. His legs hit the bed, but he didn’t fall back on it.
He pushed himself upright and staggered across the room. He slammed Margila’s back against the stone wall, and she cried out in surprise. The next thing she knew, his naked manhood touched her sweet tissues.
She caught her breath and froze, but he burned with unquenchable fire. He tore at her dress until he got it out of his way. He cradled her bare buttocks and pried her flesh apart to make way for his hard rod.
He found the moist cleft waiting for him. Margila sucked in air to rise higher, but gravity dragged her down on top of it. He jammed his hips between her legs and let her sink down on his powerful cock.
A cry of naked lust ripped from her throat as he penetrated to her molten core. He wasted no time in setting up a steady rhythm. He dowsed to the quick with his rigid tool and touched the deepest spots along her channel.
She bounced on his upthrusts with rising cries. His hips slapped against her thighs when he buried his shaft in her brimming hole, and his pubic bone bumped her clitoris to the heights of sensitivity.
He slammed her back on the hard stone, and his weight crushed the air out of her lungs. She yelped and squeaked in insatiable delight. Every stroke of his member brought her higher than she could tolerate until she exploded in his hands. His hot injection sent her rocketing into the darkness of space, where sweat and their primal elixir melded them into one.
CHAPTER TEN
The next morning bright and early, Tanak took Margila to the Armory. He passed a few murmured words with the Master at Arms, who stood back and let them enter without interference.
Tanak opened the door and ushered Margila inside. She beheld racks and racks of weapons not unlike the blasters the Axis soldiers carried. Thousands of these weapons lined the walls. “What are these?”
“They’re weapons. You said you wanted one. This is our armory.”
“I thought you would give me a small one, like the one you carry.”
“You can have one of them, too, but they won’t help you fight the Axis. When the alarm sounds, everyone will line up outside that door. The Master at Arms will issue every man, woman, and child one of these. They’re called phase rifles.”
Margila swallowed hard. “Then what will happen?”
“On your way out, you’ll meet my father. He will assign everyone into one of three factions. My brothers and I will lead the factions, so I would be surprised if he didn’t assign you to my faction. We’ll be together, so you don’t have to worry about that. Each of these factions will defend a different area of the city. My older brother Ralo, Praila’s husband, will take the upper battlements. My younger Waru will take the fields.”
“Where will your faction be?”
“We will take the inner passages. We’ll spread our numbers through the entire city, just in case the Axis forces breach our defenses and find their way inside.”
“How likely do you think that is to happen?”
“Who knows? An advanced squad of fighters in dragon form will patrol our southern boundary. They’ll engage the Axis forces first and try to drive them back. With any luck, they’ll never reach the citadel. Even if they defeat those dragons, we have massive cannons all along the battlements. Specially trained gunners will man them and destroy as many of the sky vessels as they can. That way, fewer soldiers will be able to land on the citadel itself.”
Margila shuddered. “It sounds dangerous.”
“It’s beyond dangerous. It’s desperate.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do? Can’t we leave now, before they attack? Don’t we have enough people so we don’t have to stay behind?”
He shook his head. “We don’t have enough people to keep our population going long term, and we won’t have a source of new blood the way we do now with the village. Besides, if we left the planet now, we would have to fight the whole Axis fleet out in space. The ships we have prepared to leave this planet aren’t made for that, and we’re too few to defeat them. They would destroy us, one by one, and there would be nothing left.”
“There must be something we can do. I can’t stand the idea of rolling over and dying, now that I’ve come so far.”
“There is something you can do.” He unclipped a rifle from the rack and placed it in her hands. “You can learn how to use this.”
She stared at the hunk of gleaming metal in her hands. She’d never even seen a gun before he took her from the mountain, and now she had to learn how to use it in the most desperate possible circumstance. She braced herself. “All right. Tell me what to do.”
He took her out of the Armory to a big room surrounded by solid stone walls. Not a single window opened out into the sunshine. A series of lights in the ceiling lit the place. A low table stood at one end of the room, and Tanak went over to it. “Put your weapon down here.”
His entire manner changed, and his voice took on the hard, crisp edge of command. She obeyed. She was his soldier now, and he was in charge. He showed her every part of the weapon. Then he showed her how to open it and put the ammunition inside and charge it. “Now pick it up. No, not like that.”
He took it out of her hands and swept it up to his shoulder. “Jam this part in hard against your shoulder. This hand here
should hold it in tight so it doesn’t move. Keep this hand here, but don’t move your finger to the firing mechanism until you know what you want to shoot. Believe me, when you push that button, you will wish you had a tighter hold on it.”
He put it down again. Then he put something in her ears so she couldn’t hear. He picked up the weapon and locked it into his shoulder with a powerful grip. He pointed the weapon to the far end of the room, where a bright red square appeared against the wall. Funny, she hadn’t noticed that before. Then he pressed the firing mechanism.