Island of the Amazons

• Chapter 14 in the Chronicles of the DragonRider

The sea below them was amethyst-blue, with schools of flying fish frolicking in the waves. An archipelago of small, jungle-covered islands dotted the sea, each bordered by sandy beaches where palms swayed relaxingly. A beautiful sight, even from the height they were flying at, dancing through the clear, blue skies on night-black wings. And on top of that, Anitra was enjoying their conversation even more than usually. Most of the time, Blake was the one who educated her, with the wisdom and knowledge that comes from being over a hundred years old - but this time, they'd hit on one of the very few subjects that SHE knew more about!

So basically, there are two completely different groups known as The Amazons? Blake asked, somewhat bemused.That's the long and short of it, yeah,_she replied. The discussion had started when Blake commented that she must know a lot about these Amazons they were flying to visit, since her mother had been one. No such luck, though. _My mother was a member of the Amazon Guild - an adventuring-guild that specializes in teaching females to be fierce warriors, she had explained. They named themselves after the ORIGINAL Amazons - a race of demi-humans. Those are the ones we'll be gate-crashing.

So, what DO we know about THESE Amazons? Blake questioned. A bit, she replied. They look almost exactly like humans, except for being a couple of heads taller, and extremely muscular. Most sages think they're related to the giants somehow. But of course, the main distinguishing trait of them is that nobody's ever seen a male of their species. It is because of that, and because of them being deadly warriors, that the Amazon Guild named itself after them. She's heard most of that from her mother, when SHE had explained the somewhat-confusing difference between the two kinds of Amazons.

Huh. No males. How the heck does that work? Blakes question was obvious, but it was a good question nonetheless. Nobody really knows. Various sages and adventurers have various theories. Some say that they DO have men, they just keep them secluded at their camps and villages - if the women are all warriors, it somewhat makes sense that the men would all be domestic servants, more or less. Others think that they kidnap men for breeding-purposes from nearby human tribes and adventuring-parties... it's known that they sometimes take prisoners, but the rest is sheer hyperbole.

Blake chuckled at that. Ah yes. I can see how THAT idea might take root amongst adventurers. I take it there's a good reason why nobody's ever checked one of their villages to try and confirm the first-mentioned theory? Anitra sighed. Yep, and it's probably exactly what you're thinking: These Amazons are anything but friendly. They're violent, bloodthirsty, and xenophobic. Nobody's ever managed to open any kind of dialogue with them, much less trade or exchange of information. They simply attack anyone they come across, and they're really quite good at attacking things. There's really nothing down here - just a bunch of inhospitable jungles, with no noteable resources to desire, so nobody's really in a hurry to risk their lives trying to find out, even after Cassius revealed the location of their hidden island to everyone. A few large adventuring-parties HAVE ventured into those jungles, and successfully defeated a number of Amazon war-parties, but by the time they reached any kind of settlement, it would inevitably be abandoned. The Amazons simply melt into their jungles when they so desire.

_ _

Blake mirrored her sigh. All very interesting, but the bottom line is that we can't expect a warm welcome, eh?_Anitra shrugged. _Very true. But there's SOME good news - nobody's ever seen an Amazon use any kind of magic. It's known that Giants are incapable of wielding magic, and if they're really related, that means that Amazons most likely can't either. So, no enchanted weapons, which means that they can't touch you. No matter how bloody-minded they may be, a fire-breathing beast they can't scratch the hide of should get them negotiating, don't you think? I mean, hey, we managed to convince an Orcish Horde to pack up and leave...

_ _

They shared a telepathic grin, and flew in silence for a while, both enjoying the scenery. Blake was flying progressively lower, so that they could take in the details better. The heat rising from the tropical sea ensured a steady updraft, so even flying this low required no significant exertion. But, in the end, they had a purpose beyond admiring the scenery, and they both knew it. After a few playful attempts to snatch flying fish out of the air above the wavetops, Blake rose higher into the air with a small sigh, giving them both a better view of the archipelago.

So, where exactly is this island supposed to be? Blake asked, while Anitra - trying to answer it - pulled a map out of one of the saddlebags. Usually, she wouldn't have dared handle documents while in flight, but Blake was still more 'hovering' than 'flying', so there was little in the way of wind. She still kept a tight hold on it as she inspected the drawing, comparing it to landmarks and island-shapes she could see. From the position of the sun, she judged the compass-directions, and soon, she was able to pinpoint the approximate location. There. The big one next to the volcanic island. That's the place.

A flick of Blake's wings, and they were sailing through the clouds towards it. It was one of the bigger islands in the area - somewhat hilly, but no real mountains. An irregular coast with many inlets and - she knew from the map - countless dangerous reefs. There were few safe harbors for even a small ship, and even then, you could only approach or leave by high tide. The Amazons themselves, however, seemed capable of steering their small war-canoes through the reefs with ease, to raid tribes of humans and demi-humans on nearby islands - as well as the occasional merchant-ship that got too close, if rumors were to be believed.

Soon, they were flying high above the island, two pairs of eagle-sharp eyes searching the greenery. Sure enough, Anitra could see what appeared to be villages, dotted here and there in small clearings, but she couldn't make out much more than that. Blake - who she knew had even better sight - was slowly floating downwards while informing her of what he could tell from this height. Looks primitive, all right. Simple huts made from woven branches. Animal-pens made from same. Large oxen, or maybe some sort of water-buffalo, I can never tell the difference. Lots of dogs running around too. And no men, just as expected. Weird. Oh, and I think there's some sort of altar in one of the larger villages. Don't see anything like that in any of the others, though.

Pondering this, Anitra ventured a thought. Central location for worship? Some sort of 'capital' for them? If so, that's probably where we wanna go. Blake shrugged mentally. Could be. Either way, it's definitely one of the biggest villages in the area, so it's as good a place as any to start. I think there's a smallish clearing within walking-distance of the place - let's put down there, and plan our next move.

The clearing they landed in was only barely large enough for Blake to put down safely - his wingtips brushed lightly against the large leaves of the surrounding trees as he touched down. Both he and Anitra quickly cast their sharp eyes around to see if any monsters or Amazons were waiting in the wings to greet them, but it seemed that was not the case - the jungle-predators, monstrous and mundane alike, had smelled and heard the approaching dragon, and none of them were interested in tangling with him.

With customary agility, Anitra jumped off of Blake's back, landing with catlike grace, then stretching to work out the kinks in her neck and legs from the long flight. Blake watched it with a smile, then sniffed the air and suddenly blinked. "...something smells good." His eyes whirled as he drew in a deep breath, trying to pinpoint the source of the enticing scent. Detecting a stronger scent in one direction, he took a few steps in the direction of a large, reddish-colored bush, his tongue flicking out to taste the air in an almost snakelike fashion. Anitra watched with bemusement. She'd never seen Blake act like this before... but she had to admit, there WAS a strange scent in the air. Was it coming from that bush?

It was indeed. In these mostly-unexplored and highly isolated jungles, there grew many plants whose nature and properties had gone so far unrecorded by any sages or wizards - like this one. The natives, however, called it 'Dragonweed'. They'd seen dragons land near those odd bushes every now and then, and observed the effect it had on them. If a foreign herbalist had been there to see it, he would have compared its effect with catnip - an unusual herb which has a euphoric effect on felines. But only a few of the dragons who roosted nearby were aware of the existence of the herb, and they mostly chose not to speak too loudly of it - either from shame, or because they were afraid that other, stronger dragons might hog it all. Or perhaps because of the likelihood that, should the existence of the herb become general knowledge, some unscrupulous adventurers might use it as a weapon against dragonkind...

All Blake knew, however, was that the smell of the bush was making him feel very good - and increasingly aroused. Anitra, having some dragon-blood in her, was also affected, though less-so than him. But when Blake, with an absent-minded look in his eye, rubbed his head against the red bush, pollen whirled into the air, and the sheer concentration overwhelmed her resistance. Both of them reflexively took a deep breath, then sneezed several times and started giggling. Soon, Blake was rolling around on the floor like a playful hatchling, rubbing his head against the bush repeatedly, and rolling his eyes while laughing loudly. Anitra was not late in following suit, laughing 'till tears ran from her eyes.

Soon, their cavorting in the tall grass of the clearing took on a more erotic bend, however. Blake was feeling a strong surge in his loins, his huge dick already out of its sheath and waving in the air. The pollen that landed on the slippery surface of it seemed to send tiny sparks of pleasure through his spine. Anitra, likewise, had pussy-juice running down the inside of her thighs, and literally started drooling at the sight of Blake's erect cock. No words passed between them - none were necessary. She simply stripped off her armor and jumped astride him, taking another deep breath of the pollen before pushing her sopping-wet cunt down over his girth.

She rolled her eyes as she felt the familiar pleasure of stretching and heat be multiplied by the herb's influence, and started panting like a dog in heat - which, of course, only served to draw more of the euphoric pollen into her lungs. She had her first orgasm before she was halfway down his cock, bucking in pleasure, tongue lolling. Blake, too, was enjoying the tight vise of her pussy more than ever before, and with some impatience, he bucked his hips to get her to continue - a request she wasn't late in acceding to.

They bucked and cavorted together for hours. Both had numerous orgasms - Anitra easily outdistanced Blake by sheer numbers, but he wasn't that far behind. After the first four or five cumloads - neither one of them was all that careful about keeping count - her womb was so widely distended from the sheer quantity that she looked around 7 months pregnant. That didn't slow them down, though - Blake's cock merely found purchase in her asshole instead, and soon she was riding it just as hard as before. As his thick, hot sperm blasted into that hole, her inhuman metabolism would set to work on it, absorbing and digesting it.

Still, that digestion had limits. By the time Blake finally started to lose steam - hours later - her stomach was painfully stretched as well. Even though some of the cum had leaked out of her pussy in the meantime, she nonetheless looked a solid 9 months pregnant by now - with twins. Or possibly triplets. Still, when she felt Blake soften inside her ass, she gave a regretful moan and slid backwards off of it, awkwardly clutching her unwieldy stomach, and started eagerly licking the semi-stiff shaft - partially in the hopes of resuscitating it for one more go, and partially because it was covered in a thick layer of gooey cum. Through that thick, salty taste, the fact that it was fresh out of spending over an hour in her ass wasn't detectable - not that it would've bothered her much if it had been.

Even as she carefully cleaned off every square inch of the huge cock, however, it refused to rise for a repeat performance. Thoughtfully, she moved further down, caressing his large, heavy testicles with her tongue - they were covered in the smallest and thinnest scales on his body, thin enough that he could feel her gentle ministrations through them, eliciting a moan from the half-asleep dragon. His cock twitched a couple of times, but still failed to rise. Anitra licked her lips. She needed more. Glancing down, she remembered, not so long ago, a Cerberus who had shown her a previously-unexplored sexual variant, and apparently enjoyed it quite a bit. Worth a shot.

Crabbing further backwards on Blake's body, she leaned forwards - squeezing her cum-filled belly against his tail, causing a small waterfall of cum to escape from both of her orifices - and started licking Blake's tail-hole. The taste wasn't COMPLETELY unpleasant - there was a strong, musky odor about it that she even enjoyed a bit. But the important part was that, as he felt her tongue snake its way into his most private spot, Blake's body tightened, nearly snapping him out of his half-asleep reverie. His cock, too, tightened, leaping up only to settle down again as each pulse of blood flowed into and out of it.

Encouraged by this sight, Anitra redoubled her efforts, letting her tongue caress the edges of the hole - one of the few places on his body that wasn't covered in scale, but rather a taut, black hide - before plunging into the warmth again. While even this insistent ministration wasn't enough to fully awaken Blake - he was well and truly knackered - the gentle caress of her tongue across the edges of his prostate gland was enough to elicit a purely physical reaction. Slowly, haltingly, and clearly with a great deal of difficulty, his cock rose to... if not FULL hardness, then at least something approximating it. With a delighted squeal, Anitra abandoned his asshole and crawled, as fast as she could, up his body to cradle the huge instrument of pleasure against her bosoms, kissing it a few times before staggering to her feet and pointing it at her pussy. Enough of his cum had leaked out by now that there should be room for another load, she reasoned.

Sure enough, it fit - barely. Thick sperm, squeezed by the internal pressure, bubbled out around the edges of her pussy as the large member intruded on the cum-packed orifice. With such plentiful lubrication, she managed to ride the thick cock to a decent speed in spite of her awkwardly-bouncing cum-filled belly - good thing, since Blake's semi-comatose state preventing him from lending a hand, or even moving. Every time she thrust her groin downwards, burying his shaft all the way into her distended womb, more thick jizz would squirt out around the edges to stick to Blake's recently spit-cleaned balls, which were even then trying their damndest to work up just ONE more load of cum for the insatiable woman on top of them...

Her heavy boobs bouncing off of her stretched-out belly at every thrust, she managed to ride her way to 3 more orgasms before they finally managed to get it together. The load that was sprayed into her already-full pussy was rather half-hearted, and probably the smallest one he'd ever delivered, but she was well beyond caring, not that she was able to tell considering how much of the goo was already inside her. She did, however, care that the cock inside her rapidly shrunk and began to withdraw as soon as the last drop had been squeezed out.

Pushed beyond endurance, the overworked shaft didn't even bother with the in-between 'semi-stiffie' state, and more or less collapsed back into Blake's sheathe before Anitra could even move her cum-filled bulk off of it. The withdrawal left a large puddle of cum caked around the opening of the sheathe, which Anitra wasted no time attacking with her tongue as soon as she'd managed to change her position enough. She then proceeded to clean his balls off again, and when that failed to elicit as much as a twitch from the cock-tip peaking out of the sheath, she once more moved her mouth to his asshole, digging inside to let the tip of her tongue tickle his prostate gland.

While Anitra had developed into something of a nymphomaniac over the months she'd spent with Blake - even moreso when her scaly lover was involved - her current state was well beyond her normal level of adventurous horniness. To say that she was still under the influence of the Dragonweed was several miles short of the full truth. At first, the euphoric pollen had been the whole cause, but that changed when Blake fired his first load into her ass, triggering the Quickening...

A 'dragon-powered' Quickening did not lend Anitra any special abilities or boosts - rather, it just enhanced her existing draconian strengths, restored her energy, and accelerated her natural healing while rapidly metabolizing any poisons or drugs found in her body. And therein laid the problem. This time, when the Quickening kicked in, it found her lungs filled with drugged pollen and attempted to eliminate the effect by metabolizing it. However, the peculiar properties of the plant - the same ones that allowed it to affect dragons in the first place, despite them normally being immune to poisons and drugs - rendered this impossible.

As a result, her inhuman physiology's attempt to rid her of the drug's effects only served to rapidly spread it throughout her entire body, hugely magnifying its euphoric and aphrodisiac effects. Worse, since it was working with a HUGE supply of draconic cum, the Quickening was able to provide her with a nigh-inexhaustible supply of energy. So while Blake had eventually just collapsed from exhaustion and sensory overload, Anitra - who was by now much more heavily affected by the herb than he had been - was still wide awake and desperate for more stimulation.

So desperate, in fact, that it took nearly half an hour before she gave up on bringing Blake's huge schlong back for one more round. In that time, she'd run her tongue repeatedly around his soft, rubbery cockhead - the only part of his dick she could reach while it was sheathed - as well as his smooth, scale-covered balls... most of the time, however, had been spent with her entire tongue buried inside his asshole, hoping that this tactic would pay off a second time. (And besides, she's cleaned it so thoroughly by now that it didn't taste like much of anything anymore.)

Finally, however, she was forced to admit that she wouldn't get any more rides out of her beloved Blake. He was snoring loudly by now, sleeping like a log for the second time in his life, and no amount of stimulation of cajoling from her could wake him up. She looked around the clearing with a haunted look in her eyes. Maybe she could find a nicely-sized tree-branch that would do the trick? But no, the plants around her were all either too colossal or too spindly to be any good. She licked her lips nervously, feeling protesting jolts of emptiness radiate up from her pussy and ass. She needed SOMETHING to fill them! And FAST!

She took a half-step away from the sleeping dragon, then looked guiltily behind her. He looked so helpless like that... but there wasn't really anything in this jungle that could harm him, was there? No predators large enough to threaten him, and the natives lacked the magic to fashion any kind of weapon capable of penetrating his scales. He'd be fine. With a grimace, she tore her eyes away from him, and ran into the jungle. Once she got away from his immediate presence, maybe she could find some nice, large jungle-animals she could seduce. She'd screwed enough animals in the past that she felt fairly confident that she'd be able to get one to mate with her if she tried...

In her lust-addled hurry, she didn't even realize that her armor, sword and equipment were still lying in a pile next to Blake.

For half an hour, she dashed through the jungle at increasing speed. Now that she was finally burning energy at a decent pace, her Quickened metabolism kicked back into overdrive, and started rapidly digesting the cum still caught inside her - causing her awkward belly to shrink, and thus making running easier. However, her sharp eyes found nothing worth fucking in the thick jungle - small rodents and birds were the only non-vegetative life she saw. If her mind had been a bit more clear, she would realize that Blake's scent still clung to her like a thick blanket, scarring away everything in a large radius that didn't consider itself too small to be worth the attention of one of the world's biggest predators - and the way she crashed through the jungle with no thought for stealth didn't help either. On the other hand, if her mind had been clear, she wouldn't have been running around out there in the first place.

However, there was one creature in the jungle that didn't let itself be intimidated by a predatory scent or a lot of noise - namely, the native Amazons. By the time she ran across a hunting-party of the heavily-muscled, primitively-clad demi-humans, her body had shrunk nearly back to its normal proportions, with only a slight rounding of her belly still showing. She was still, however, quite naked, and both her face and groin was covered in cakes of dried cum.

Both she and the Amazons stopped in their respective tracks. She'd just leaped across an obstructing bush to see a group of muscular, scantily-clad women walking on an animal-trail, and her eyes quickly scanned them in search of something that might satisfy the insistent itch in her loins. But they were clearly all women - their proportions ranged from 'generous' to 'overgenerous', with nothing less than a D-cup in sight. If only there had been a man with them of similar proportions. Maybe she could convince one of them to fist her? In her drug-addled mind, that seemed a splendid idea indeed. She'd tried to fist herself several times during her run, but the angles involved prevented her from getting her arm far enough up inside either hole to be any kind of satisfying.

The Amazons, meanwhile, had just watched a buck-naked, large-breasted, pale-skinned, dark-haired girl with what looked like dried semen stuck to large parts of her body, stumble out on the path right in front of them. Eyes widened, blinked, and were rubbed as the women tried to figure out if it was real, or some sort of mirage. When the girl remained solid, and started approaching them, a different sort of reaction occurred...

To her delight, Anitra noticed a definite movement in the loincloths of several of the Amazons. Why hadn't this occurred to her? She'd once had a dick herself, after all. It wasn't that far-fetched that some of these women might have 'em too. And this certainly explained why there didn't seem to be any Amazon MEN around. Judging from the fact that only about half of the Amazons were now starting towards her with lust burning in their eyes, it was simply a matter of their genders being 'Female' and 'Shemale' rather than the traditional.

What was revealed when the loincloths were hastily pulled aside made her eyes go large and her mouth water. Each of the Amazonian shemales was packing a meatwhistle MORE than proportional to their oversized bodies. They weren't as big as Blake, of course, but the larger ones amongst them could be fairly described as 'horsecocks'. And judging from the looks on their faces and the way they were reaching out to grab her, she wouldn't have a hard time convincing them to put 'em to good use.

When the first one - tall, tanned, muscular and red-haired (which seemed to be common amongst them) - reached out to grab her around the waist, Anitra was already set to leap into action - literally. Gripping the amazon's arms and using them as leverage, she swung her lower body forwards and upwards, launching herself briefly into the air before her hands found purchase on the giant woman's shoulders. This was mostly for control, though - she felt no need to slow her fall as she steered her sopping-wet and badly-neglected pussy directly down towards the rock-hard she-cock below.

Inertia and gravity did the work for her on the first thrust, burying the entirety of the thick shaft inside of her to the root. The cockhead easily intruded upon her womb, which hadn't entirely closed its gates after the repeated poundings it had endured from Blake earlier, and the combined sensations of the friction, the impact and the pleasant fullness made her cum on the spot, moaning loudly as she threw her head back. Before she'd even fully recovered from that orgasm, however, her legs wrapped around the amazon's muscular waist, providing her with the leverage she needed to start riding the clearly-baffled warrior-woman towards another orgasm. She could hear the other amazons talking excitedly around her, but did not understand their language. It didn't matter to her, though. She could hear the excitement and lust in their voices, smell it in the air, and see it written plain on their faces.

"That's a first..." the hunting-party's captain said, scratching her head. She was female, which meant that she still had most of her mental faculties intact. The 'shemale' members of the hunting-party was all gathered around the naked woman, cocks out and erect, ready for action. Of course, the amazons didn't use that word for them. "The dykes all seem pretty excited, eh?" Her second-in-command snickered, then absently licked her lips while rubbing her pussy through her loincloth. Most of the officers in the Amazonian forces were female, since they were generally regarded as being more level-headed and controlled - the dykes had a tendency to let their desires override good sense, and SOMEBODY had to make sure that they didn't start raping the enemy's women before the battle was even over.

The captain rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Where did she come from? She literally leaped right into Zanithepe's arms, and now she's clinging to her like a burr. Slaves usually need quite a bit of conditioning before they'll do that." Her second-in-command tore her eyes away from the unfolding display briefly and with some difficulty - one of the other dykes had applied some basic spit-lubrication to her cock and approached the mystery-girl from behind, so now she was riding TWO huge dicks with obvious relish. "She must've escaped from one of the other villages. She's been previously decorated." The captain squinted, and then nodded as she noticed the golden glimmer around the nipples of the girl's wildly-bouncing tits.

"Fair enough... but why would such a well-conditioned rape-slave run away - only to throw herself into the arms of the first hunting-party she comes across? Also, even the most well-trained slaves usually wince a bit when they have to take two cocks. This one's obviously enjoying it." For the first time, her adjutant seemed to actually manage to pull her attention away from the unfolding orgy, as she tried to come up with a satisfying answer. Then, suddenly, she snapped her fingers and grinned. "I get it! I just remembered... I heard a rumor a while back that the Shaman of Xychekos Village was doing some experiments into herbal aphrodisiacs. I'd ALSO heard that she wasn't having much luck... but from the looks of things, that's changed."

The captain lifted her eyebrows. "Ahh... you may be on to something there. I heard those rumors too, didn't pay much attention to 'em. Every now and then, some Shaman gets a new bright idea for an aphrodisiac, and usually, all they manage to do is get a few slaves killed. Guess someone was bound to hit paydirt eventually, though. Presumably, it takes a while to kick in, though - so if this girl was one of the test-subject, then managed to get loose and do a runner shortly after getting a dose, well... it might be a bit far out, but I can't think of anything else that would make even a smidgeon of sense." The captain and her second nodded and grinned at each other, satisfied that they'd solved a most perplexing problem.

Then, throwing another glance at the unfolding orgy, which was fast turning into a disjointed collection of sweaty bodies mashed together on top of a spreading pool of cum, the captain grinned nastily. "Send one of the faster girls running back to the village - let 'em know what we found. They'll want to have a welcoming-committee ready when we get her back there, I'm sure. I doubt we'll be able to go anywhere 'till all the dykes have gotten their rocks off, but I need to stay here and make sure things don't get TOO much out of hand. She's a valuable test-subject, so it'd be a shame if she wound up crushed under a pile of horny dykes, I think."

Anitra, meanwhile, was ecstatic. The world had turned into a huge mass of hard cocks and dripping cum, all around her, not to mention inside her, and for the moment, she couldn't imagine ever wanting it any other way. Every time a dick blasted its load inside one of her holes and started to soften, it would be swiftly replaced by another. Some of the smaller ones even came in two at a time - stretching both her pussy and ass wide enough that it would normally have been quite painful to her. Today, however, with every drop of her blood suffused with an aphrodisiac drug, all she knew was that there was twice as much hot, hard meat beating into her as normal, and that was a good thing.

Her mouth, of course, did not go neglected either - to the horny amazons, her throat was just another hole to be violated, and the more agile amongst them weren't late in climbing on top of their fellows to maneuver their cocks into her eagerly-open mouth. Half the time, she was looking straight up at a slime-covered dick, as wide around as her wrists and dripping with her own saliva - the other half, she was breathing through her nose while said nose was nestled squarely between a large pair of hairy testicles that smelled strongly of stale sweat, while gazing directly into a poorly-cleaned asshole. Clearly, the amazons weren't terribly big on personal hygiene, but the fact that most of the dicks that were unceremoniously forced down her throat tasted like old sweat and poorly-tanned animal hides didn't concern her any - nor did the ones that were still warm from having been buried inside her own ass seconds prior.

For hours, the Amazonian dykes raped her in shifts, violating every part of her body they could reach, but bit by bit, they started peeling off. While virile, the amazons had their limits, and after each of them had unloaded three or four large blasts of cum into or onto her, most of them were too tired to continue. When only one particularly potent dyke remained, the captain finally stepped in. It was already starting to get dark, and the hunting-party needed to get back to the village before the night-hunters came out of their dens. The straggler seemed annoyed at first, until the captain told her how they'd transport the girl.

Anitra could have easily broken the primitive leather straps they used to bind her with, even if she HADN'T been riding a seemingly endless Quickening at the time, but she saw no reason to. The straps were bending her arms backwards over the shoulder of a muscular amazon, keeping her suspended with her back against the shemale's muscular chest, and her head lodged between the large, surprisingly-soft boobs. And, while her legs were similarly bent back and attached to the amazon's belt, her entire weight nonetheless rested on the still-hard cock that was currently embedded inside her ass to the root. Which was why Anitra saw no reason to break her bonds. She was right where she wanted to be, after all.

As the amazons ran back towards their village, still strong despite their exhaustion (though the females, who had NOT participated in the games, clearly WERE in somewhat better shape), Anitra found herself bouncing up and down with every step of her captor, the she-cock repeatedly rammed deep into her ass - which was, by now, worn a bit raw since the repeated and rough use had managed to outpace even her accelerated healing - by the force of gravity. She relished every step, and only wished that there was something in her pussy as well. Said orifice was, however, taking advantage of its current vacancy to expel the gallons of Amazonian spunk that had accumulated in it, leaving a sticky white trail behind as the amazon ran.

When they reached their destination, they found that pretty much the entire village had turned out to welcome them home - not unexpectedly. The walls - made from roughly-hewn logs sharpened at the top, ensuring that not even the most ambitious of the local predators would want to sneak inside for a snack - were lined with leering amazons, their eyes hungrily taking in the curves of the captive's bouncing body, and the gates were blocked solid with warriors and other interested parties, including the village chief. The hunting-party's captain breathed a sigh of relief at THAT sight. She'd been worried that they'd get mobbed by horny dykes the moment they arrived, but under the watchful eye of the chief, the mob melted aside to let them enter.

Inside, she was unsurprised to see numerous couples cavorting with each other, having clearly been unable to restrain their lust after hearing the news. Several female amazons were being railed violently against the inside of the city walls, against the fences of the animal-pens, and against the walls of the huts - and judging by the sounds heard from the direction of the slave-pens, many had also sought relief there.

But now, the main course had arrived, and judging by the feverish way that the mystery girl's eyes panned across the surrounding mob - and the highly-visible bulges in their loincloths - whatever aphrodisiac she'd been dosed with was still fully in effect. Even as the chief loudly reminded the crowd NOT to break the new slave, the girl was cut loose from Zalethera's chest and lifted off of her still-hard cock - that dyke had a truly INCREDIBLE constitution, the captain reflected. Eagerly, the mob surged around the girl, and around the village, couples peeled away from their personal entertainment as news reached them of the arrival, and wandered towards the main square to check out the new and exciting toy that had fallen into their collective laps.

Anitra wasn't in any condition to count at the moment, and hadn't been for a while. If she had, she would've noted that the hunting-party she'd run into earlier had consisted of 28 individuals, 15 of whom were shemales and had participated in the orgy. The village, on the other hand, being the largest in the region and the de-facto capital of the Amazonians, had a total population pushing 1000. Of those, around 100 were either too young to be interested in sex yet, or too old to perform. Half of the remainder were females. That left 450 horny dykes, and since the Amazonians had no concept of monogamy or homosexuality (the vast majority of them were, in fact, bisexual - much to the dismay of any men who were captured by them), all of them wanted to try out the new slave-slut. The sheer number of sweaty bodies and hard cocks clustered around her was making her dizzy.

The orgy lasted throughout the night. By the light of a hundred torches, Anitra was passed roughly from group to group, her pussy, ass, and mouth repeatedly violated with unwavering roughness. As the harsh treatment gradually forced her lower orifices to stretch further, having two cocks in each became the rule rather than the exception - the amazons were used to having to share slaves, and were quite adept at pulling off the necessary acrobatics and bodily contortions to pull it off.

Her mouth also received constant and varied attention. As before, she spent most of her time with a throbbing cock driving into her throat, but it wasn't long before some of the amazons started getting creative. Frequently, a pair of large, sweat-covered balls were shoved into her face, and she dutifully cleaned them, too caught up in her repeated orgasms to think of refusing. The smell of sweat both stale and fresh was all around her, and in her addled mind, she started equaling it with sex - thus, she was only too eager to lap it up.

Seeing her enthusiasm at this task, another amazon decided to see what else her mouth was good for and - with a firm grip on her head - proceeded to empty her bladder into Anitra's panting mouth, quickly drowning her tongue with the acrid taste of piss. She swallowed without a second thought, vaguely remembering doing so before with Blake... and maybe others? She couldn't clearly remember, but she was pretty sure that taste was connected to sex in some way, so it was all good. She barely heard the jeering and raucous laughter that this reaction sparked in the surrounding amazons, and even if she'd been paying attention, that fact that she didn't speak their language would've prevented her from understanding the names they were now calling her.

The result was much the same, however. The intentions of those who queued to use her head rapidly shifted, with a swiftly-rising percentage seeking to use her mouth as a toilet rather than a fuck-hole. Dozens of bladderfulls of hot piss poured down her throat to mix with the large deposit of cum in her stomach - some of the amazons liked to shove their semi-hard cocks all the way down her throat before opening up, nearly pouring the contents of their bladders directly in there. Most of them seemed to prefer to piss into her mouth instead, though, just for the entertainment-value of watching her swallow it. With the way she was being jostled by however many dykes were lined up at her lower end at the time, however, quite a bit of the smelly liquid wound up splattered across her face, hair and chest instead, but none of the amazons particularly cared, and Anitra was too far gone in her lust-induced trance to even notice.

As the night dragged on, the pace and composition of the orgy gradually shifted as the crowd thinned out. Not everybody came back for seconds, either because the novelty had worn off by then, or because they didn't fancy the wait. Fewer yet stuck around after emptying their balls twice (and, in most cases, their bladders once) ensuring shorter waits for those who DID stick around. With sexual exhaustion gradually becoming a factor, each cock that thundered into one of her holes lasted significantly longer than before, allowing her stomach - which had been swelling towards the same 6-months-pregnant size she had been burdened with earlier - to shrink again as her metabolism caught up with the cum-deposits. It was working harder than ever by now, maintaining her body at peak strength despite the enormous amount of exercise she'd put it through, as well as mounting hunger and thirst - you can only draw so much nutrition and fluid from cum and piss, after all.

As more and more dykes retreated having had their fill, however, some of the female Amazons started to gather. Pretty soon, Anitra was spending as much time with a juicy, well-tanned pussy shoved in her face as she did sucking on equally-tanned dicks. Considering that the female amazons weren't much more particular about personal hygiene than the shemale ones, neither the scent nor the taste of them were particularly pleasant, but considering what her tongue had been through so far, and the fact that most of her pussy-spelunkings ended with yet another load of hot piss splattering into her throat, it wasn't something she particularly noticed. Enough said, all of the female amazons left her with a significantly cleaner cunt than they had come with.

The females, however, didn't stop there - now and then, one of her lower orifices would be left cock-less for a while, leaving them to gape open like a landed fish, edges red and raw from repeated wear. On those occasions, one of the females would step in, and a large, heavily-muscled arm would be forced into the aching hole as far as it would go. One particularly finely-built (by Amazonian standards) young woman even managed to get her arm so far up inside Anitra's pussy that her slim hand penetrated her badly-worn uterus. Though she had long-since stopped counting, Anitra was fairly certain that she came at least half a dozen times from the way the girl wriggled her fingers around inside the highly-sensitive and heavily-stretched chamber.

Eventually, however, the night gave way to dawn. By then, Anitra had been getting fucked for 18 solid hours with barely a break between, but there was more yet to come. Those amazons that had withdrawn from the orgy early - and, as a result, gotten a solid night's sleep - were now drifting back to the plaza where the last of the night-ravens were getting ready to turn in after a long night of rape. The plaza itself had practically turned into a mudhole, with gallons upon gallons of spilled cum, piss and pussy-juice mixing with the dusty ground to create a sticky slime. None of the participants paid particular attention to the declining conditions of the geography, however.

Nearby, however, someone WAS concerned about the declining situation. In restrained tones, the village chief was discussing the problem at hand with the same captain who had brought the nymphomaniac slave into the village. "I had expected her to collapse from exhaustion HOURS ago - whatever that shaman cooked up must be strong stuff." The captain nodded. "She hasn't gotten anything to eat or drink since we found her, either. I guess she IS getting quite a lot of fluids, but still. Strong stuff indeed. Hopefully, if we return her to Xychekos, we'll be able to trade our way to some goods for our own slaves."

The chief made a face. "Maybe so, but we've got a more immediate problem. Half our warriors just spent most of the night screwing up a storm - they'll be either asleep or exhausted for the rest of the day. Now, the OTHER half is heading in the same direction. I'd planned to drag her away from them when she passed out, using our need to keep her intact as an excuse." The captain blinked, when winced. "I hadn't thought of that. Guess that's why you're the chief, and I'm just a captain. Right. Big picture. At this rate, the better part of our warriors and hunters will be left exhausted, leaving us nearly defenseless if we get raided by another village, or foreign adventurers, or even a particularly large pack of predators. On the other hand, if we drag her away from them while she's still enthusiastically participating, we'll have a minor riot on our hands..."

The chief rubbed her chin and sighed... then, suddenly, a nasty smile spread across her lips. "...unless we give them something else. Something that'll entertain them WITHOUT draining all their energy. Like, say, a show?" The chief's eyes widened, then she returned the smile. "Ah, yes... that would bring down two birds with one stone, even. The oxen have been in heat for the last week, and this would give them a chance to work out their frustrations without damaging any more of the cows. I'll go get the shaman..."

Anitra didn't understand why the pleasure had suddenly stopped. One moment, she'd had two cocks up her pussy while a thickly-muscled arm pumped into her ass, the next all her holes were achingly empty as she was carried through the village by a pair of female amazons. Her eyes swiveled in her head, looking for a new source of pleasure, to put out the rapidly-growing fire in her loins. Then she realized that they were dragging her towards the animal-pens, and a smile spread across her cum-stained lips. She understood that perfectly. Nothing to worry about. Her needs would soon be met.

Rather than throw her into the pen, however, the amazons stuffed her halfway through the fence itself - a primitive construction made from two rough-hewn beams. She easily fitted through, and with her rear end inside the enclosure while her chest and head still hung outside, another amazon attacked the paddock with a stack of rough beams and some rope. With surprising speed - indicating that she'd tried it before - she attached several new beams that effectively turned that part of the fence into an improvised pillory, tightly pinching her lower chest and upper arms into place. A broad beam covered in untanned furs was also attached to the fence above her.

Then, an ageing amazon approached her, dressed in mismatched furs that had several hide-bags strapped to them in various places. From one of those bags, she grabbed a handful of fresh herbs, crushed them between her fingers, and poured the resulting juice over Anitra's ass, with most of it dribbling down the crack to also coat her pussy. Another handful of herbs - these ones dried - were crushed into a fine powder, mixed with the old woman's spit, and then smeared across Anitra's face as she impatiently fidgeted, waiting for the fucking to begin again.

As the old woman retreated again, never having said a word, the crowd began to gather around the paddock, eager for the show to begin, their eyes taking in the naked, tied-down girl, the dozens of rutting oxen snorting in the paddock, and the pack of village dogs that was assembling in front of her, sniffing the air and whining.

Meanwhile, the chief observed the whole thing and smiled again. Like the captain had said, this really was a nice two-for-one deal. The village needed to maintain a large quantity of war-oxen for their cavalry's use, but only the bulls were aggressive enough to make suitable war-steeds. The resulting gender imbalance in the herds invariably caused trouble when the rutting began. Pressing slave-girls into service as temporary cows was nothing new, but always came with a host of problems. Most of the girls had a hard time handling the bulls' heavyweight members, and considering the violent temper that had been carefully bred into the oxen, many of those girls were rendered temporarily or permanently useless due to the resulting tearing - probably not a problem for this girl, though, considering the number of double-barreled penetrations she'd handled so far.

And, of course, all but the most well-conditioned slaves tended to resist when pressed into service as bull-sperm containers. They'd thrash and struggle against their bonds, making as much noise as they could through the gags, often spooking the bulls away in spite of the shaman's cow-in-heat scented perfumes. On the flip-side, those amazons who'd gone to the trouble of carefully training and conditioning a slave to accept anything and obey any order, no matter how painful and humiliating, were less than happy to have their pet occupied with cow-duties for several weeks each year. Again, not a problem here. Heck, this girl was so eager, they could dispense with gags altogether and add an extra billing to the show by dousing her face with bitch-in-heat scent. No real purpose in that, but it made the whole thing more fun to watch. And when the dogs got tired, well, some helpful soul had already put up a sign next to the pillory reading 'Public Toilet'...

Anitra lifted her rear into the air and wriggled it invitingly, hoping to draw the attention of the bulls she could hear stomping around inside the pen. She could smell them, too. Their scent was strong and extremely male. She could sense their rutting in it, and she had no trouble relating to it. If they could just get over their confusion about how little she looked like a cow and get going, both they and she would soon have that problem solved, however.

Finally, one of the larger oxen stomped over to her, snorting and throwing his huge head around as his flared nostrils picked up the scent of the shaman's herbal mix. His dim mind wasn't that hard to convince - his eyesight was blurry at best, so if his nose told him that the thing in front of him was a cow in heat, he was willing to take it on faith that it was so. The paddock creaked under his weight as he jumped forwards, in spite of the freshly-added reinforcements, but it held - barely. His large member, already fully unsheathed and ready for action, stabbed the air a few times before Anitra managed to get her ass into the right place. The bull felt a moist heat against his cockhead, and with a mighty snort, he threw himself forwards, impaling her with all his muscular weight.

The hot shaft tore into her tender ass without mercy, aided by the gooey lubrication of a hundred Amazonian cumloads, burying itself to the root in a single, swift movement. It wasn't much longer than most of the amazons had been, but its shape was more tapered, and at the root - which was currently stretching her sphincter wide open - it was nearly as broad as Blake's enormous member. Of course, without Blake's presence to bolster her strength, a stretch of that magnitude was enormously painful - her flesh was pushed far enough to re-open an old tear in her sphincter, adding a flow of blood to the lubrication.

But Anitra had long had trouble telling pain from pleasure when in the throes of an intense mating, and in her present state, that distinction had long been nonexistent. In truth, her ass had been afire with agony for hours, as the endless rough treatment she'd received had worn much of the tissue down to bare nerves, while the continuous stretching produced numerous small tears in her lower intestine, which were then doused with salty cum to intensify the pain. But in her present state of mind, the endless screams of those tormented nerves registered only as pleasure, pushing her towards yet another orgasm... and she wanted more.

Thus, as the bull ripped her ass apart with his enormous strength, weight and girth, she moaned and screamed in pleasure, steeling her legs to push her rear end towards him, begging him to go faster and harder. The laughs and jeers of her audience was a distant and unimportant background-noise. Her loud exclamations of lust were soon blocked, however, as a large dog - who more closely resembled a short-haired wolf than any breed she knew of - walked up to her head and mounted it, placing his large paws heavily on her shoulders as he thrust his bright-red, fully-erect penis towards her mouth.

Eagerly, she swallowed it to the very root, letting his partially-swollen knot pass her teeth as the juice-dripping head disappeared down her throat. Feeling the hot, wet tightness around his member, the dog yelped delightedly, his front paws scratching at her exposed back as he thrust harder. His knot swelled rapidly to the size of an orange, locking itself into place behind her teeth, and filling her mouth completely with hot, pulsing meat. She knew that she could unhinge her jaw to get it out - she had to do that whenever she gave Blake a blowjob, after all - but that would defeat the purpose. With his canine cock now safely tied to her head, he could thrust in earnest, fucking her face and throat with every bit of bestial brutality at his disposal, while she breathed deeply of his musky scent, her nose buried deep inside the unwashed fur around his groin. She could vaguely smell the dried juices of a bitch in it - clearly, this dog had gotten action elsewhere not too long ago - and as she convulsed in pleasure, a hot animal cock deeply embedded in both ends of her body, she sincerely hoped that she was pleasuring him at least as well as his previous partner had.

Her eagerly-sucking mouth - with the tongue continuously caressing the underside of the swollen knot - brought him to a climax before the bull behind her reached his, despite starting later. Ironically, it was due to the abundant lubrication coating the inside of her ass - between the thick layer or sticky cum and the constant trickle of blood, the bull wasn't getting a lot of friction out of the ride, despite the general tightness. Nonetheless, when he unleashed his load several minutes later, moooing loudly in the process, the dog was still there - the tie, after all, took a while to go down. When the knot finally popped out of her mouth with a wet 'plot' - by which point a second bull had taken the place of the first - several impatient dogs was already tightly clustered around her head, eager to be the next in line.

She didn't even bother closing her mouth, leaving it open as a waiting invitation for the next hot, red cock, while two large beasts growled and snapped at each other in front of her, reminding each other of the pecking-order. This was as much out of eagerness to have her raw throat pounded by yet another hard meat-stick as soon as possible, as out of sheer pleasure. The second bull had been steered into her pussy, which had gotten to feeling PAINFULLY empty while the first rode her ass, and the way his huge shaft ground against every sensitive spot within her was making her see stars. She barely even noticed when the pressure his girth placed on her bladder caused her to spring a leak, splattering piss all over her thighs, where it only served to dissolve some of the drying cum caked there. The eagle-eyed amazons, who were watching the entire tableau with delight, DID notice, and their jeers - which she'd long-since started ignoring as mere background-noise - redoubled.

Soon after, she had another swollen knot filling her mouth, and another canine cock stabbing down her throat. The bull behind her was screwing her with all his massive weight and strength, making both her body and the improvised pillory shudder with every thrust. The smell of sex was thick in the area, causing the surrounding animals to flare their nostrils as their arousal mounted. The remaining bulls were swiftly abandoning their initial reticence and stomping impatiently around the one who was currently mating with her, as eager for their turn to come as the dogs were.

The hours dragged on. The bulls in the paddock were gradually sated, and only a couple of them came back for seconds - but they were only a small part of the amazon's herd, and as they tired, Amazonian handlers replaced them with fresh batches, who - breathing deeply of the pheromone-laden air - wasted no time in joining the festivities. The dogs were less numerous, however, and after something like 4 hours, she'd satisfied them all, several dozen loads of doggy-cum filling her stomach. One of them had even added a bladderfull of piss to that, when he found himself tied to her mouth for longer than he had anticipated - quite a faux-pas amongst dogs, but Anitra was far beyond caring, and had barely noticed the hot liquid streaming directly down her throat.

As the dogs drifted away, however, the audience drifted in. Few of the amazons had bothered to stand around watching the entire time, and had instead popped up to watch for a bit, then drifted off to get some actual work done. With her head freed up, however, most of the drifting passed by there, and like the previous night, she found a seemingly-endless succession of meaty cocks and juicy cunts shoved in her face, invariably followed by a stream of hot piss. Most stayed long enough to get off as well, of course, though never longer than that - there was always at least a couple of others waiting in line behind 'em.

But nothing lasts forever. By early afternoon, Anitra was finally running out of steam. She'd been in a state of constant Quickening for over 24 hours, and in that time, had put her body through a neverending cavalcade of torments. She was, by then, mostly done servicing the Amazonian war-oxen, and the job had left its mark - both of her rear orifices were hanging wide open, dripping cum mixed with blood. Normally, all the cum she'd absorbed from both muscular amazons and muscular oxen would've inspired her with enormous strength, to the point of causing her body and muscles to physically grow to more... Amazonian proportions. But due to the terrible wear and tear she'd been put through, all the energy of the quickening was focused simply on keeping her alive, processing the gallons of piss she'd drunk, and preventing the sheer exhaustion from causing permanent damage. Thus, there wasn't even enough 'juice' left to keep her regeneration running at full tilt. And, at long last, not even enough to keep her up and conscious.

As one last Amazonian dyke stepped away from her face, her balls and bladder emptied, Anitra felt a heavy fog descend on her mind as her vision grew dark around the edges. Then, as the bull that was currently mounting her unleashed his load into her womb and stepped down, her head dropped and her mouth closed (for the first time in hours) while her legs lost their strength causing her body to collapse in the cum-and-piss mixed mud.

An officer who had been assigned to watch over the performance - not a bad assignment, as she'd reflected repeatedly while enjoying the display - noticed immediately, and remembering the village chief's express orders, she wasted no time in moving in. The few remaining oxen that were still waiting in line were shooed away by their handlers - they'd have to sate their lust with some actual cows, or some less-enthusiastic slavegirls - either way, it wasn't her problem. The amazons waiting in line to use the 'public toilet' were similarly shooed, and grumbled nearly as much, but obeyed.

Soon afterwards, the girl had been freed from the temporary pillory and - after a quick bath in a trough which failed to make her even stir - was carried to the slave-huts, where a cage had been made ready just for her. She was clearly valuable merchandise, after all, and had managed to escape captivity at least once before, so they'd take no chances - most of the slave-cages was made from easily-worked bamboo, but for this one, they'd be using the Ironwood cage - even an Amazon couldn't break that stuff. The officer had already checked that the girl's breathing and heartbeat remained steady despite her ordeal, and reported to the delighted chief that they'd have an intact bargaining-chip for obtaining whatever wonderdrug had enabled that slavegirl to provide them with such an enjoyable couple of days.

Anitra slept for nearly 20 hours, while the residual energy of the rapidly-disappearing Quickening took advantage of her inactivity to repair the huge amount of damage she'd sustained. Her pussy and asshole was knitted back together, the wounds - both internal and external - rapidly scabbing over and healing even as the widely-stretched muscles regained their flexibility and contracted back to their normal size. Raw skin was restored to strength, toxins lingering from the urinal-service were purged, and finally the last bit of magical energy was used to restore some of her natural reserves of energy, which she'd burned through during the day-long orgy.

By the time she finally woke up, every shred of the Quickening was long-gone, and she felt absolutely horrible. While healed, her muscles still remembered the torment they'd been put through the day before, and now that she was finally in a mind to hear them, they protested loudly. Her throat felt like a desert - a burning desert with a lot of pointy skeletons lying around - and her stomach was grumbling so loudly that she was afraid it would spontaneously devour itself.

She barely had time to try and get her bearings before the smell of food and water dragged her over to a pair of bowls in a corner. The water in the first was lukewarm, and the stew in the second was thin and filled with lumps of undercooked meat, but that didn't stop her from rapidly downing the contents of them both with great relish. With her throat and stomach thus temporarily mollified, that left her to do several agonizing stretches in an attempt to get her body working again, while simultaneously trying to figure out where she was, how she got here, and just what the hell had happened.

Her last clear memory was landing in a jungle clearing with Blake... after that, everything was a fast-moving blur, but she was pretty certain she'd had a whole lot of sex along the way. A persistent, burning ache emanating from her groin paid further evidence to that. Amazons. Yes, she definitely remembered amazons. She'd apparently been captured by them somewhere along the way, and now she was in a cage. What had happened to Blake? She quickly glanced down. Her nipple-rings were still there, so the telepathic bond should be intact, unless he was out of range.

Continuing her stretching, trying to get the last few thousand knots out of her screaming muscles, she concentrated on their bond and cast her thoughts out to her beloved Blake. The answer was almost immediate. Ah! You are finally awake! In both senses of the word, even. Am I ever glad to hear from you again... Relieved to hear his voice, even if it was only inside her head, she conveyed to him her present situation and asked, dreading the answer, if he knew what had happened to her. More or less, yes. It seems we had a run-in with some sort of herb I've never heard of before. Got us both drugged out of our heads. For some reason, it affected you more - and much longer. I remember us having a rather nice bit of fun in that clearing, then things got dark... and I woke up several hours later, quite alone, with your equipment lying in a pile next to me.

She wasn't sure if she should be frustrated or relieved at that last bit. At least she knew where her equipment WAS, now, but it clearly wasn't anywhere within easy reach. But there were still a lot of unanswered questions, and she urged him to continue. Well, obviously, I was worried... his voice left no doubt as to the veracity of that statement, but then became playful. ...that is, until I tracked you through our telepathic connection, and found out why you weren't answering my mental calls. Your mind was busy getting screwed out of you. It's been two days since we landed in that clearing, my dear, and you've spent the better part of that time having sex.

Anitra groaned. She'd had a feeling it was that. Somehow, the fact that Blake had been watching her simultaneously aroused and annoyed her. And you didn't think it would be a good idea to nip down here and help me? She said, a bit peevishly, acting on the second impulse. No, my dear, quite frankly I didn't. You were clearly still drugged out of your head, completely nympho. If I'd flown to your rescue, you'd just have tried to mount me - in the middle of a villageful of angry amazons. And that could have ended badly. So I decided to just watch and wait, figuring that you'd have to burn through that drug eventually - and you did. Though it took a lot longer than I'd have expected. But in the end, you collapsed from exhaustion, and now you're awake and sane after a 20-hour nap. Only question is... what's out next move? I can hop down there and have you out of that hut within 10 seconds...

She took a deep breath, and nodded. While she was still a bit annoyed, she could see that he'd done the smartest thing he could, and she quickly sent him a thought to reassure him that she wasn't really angry. Then she refocused her mind on her physical surroundings, and looked around for an answer to his last question. She was in a fairly large but primitive hut, made from bricks of dried mud and a roof made from some sort of reeds, caked with more mud and tied to wooden beams. The floor was made from stamped mud. Indeed, mud seemed to be a thoroughgoing theme in Amazonian architecture.

This particular hut, however, had had most of its inner walls reinforced with cross-checked bamboo, ensuring that none of the people locked inside would try to dig their way through the muddy walls. Several large cages lined the circumference of the hut, each sealed off from the central walkway by bamboo bars - except for a couple of smaller cages, like hers, which was instead made from some sort of wood, which a few experimental tugs revealed to be extremely hard. So, she was in 'solitary', apparently.

With an assessing eye, she glanced across the residents of the other cages. A motley crew indeed - the majority were humans, but there were smatterings of demi-human races, including a few orcs and - in one of the other 'special' cages - a harried-looking elf. The majority of all involved were women - well, she wasn't quite sure about the orcs - but there were quite a few men too, including the elf. Well, maybe. She wasn't actually that sure about him, either - elves were like that. Either way, they all had one thing in common - that hopeless, downcast look you would see in a thoroughly-broken slave of any race or species. She knew it only too well from her recent 'homecomming'. Still, some of them seemed to still have enough of a spark of life in them to regard her with some curiosity...

Wait on the rescue, my dear. I think I'll see if I can get any information out of my prison-mates. I'll let you know when - and if - I need help. Blake sent her a mental nod in reply, and she could almost feel him watching the village intensely. She knew that, even without her prompting, he'd swoop down the moment he saw anything that would be likely to threaten her life.

Sitting down with her back to a neighboring bamboo-cage, she casually leaned against the steel-hard bars of her own cell and turned her head to regard her peers out the corner of her eye. The cage in question seemed to contain, exclusively, human women. All of them were naked, save for a few occasional shreds of fabric - presumably, the amazons saw no reason to keep their slaves clothed, considering the tropical weather - and most of them bore visible signs of abuse. She'd been through enough orgies to recognize the signs - dried cum caked on their faces and leaking from their nether holes. Some bore whip-marks as well, and several were 'decorated' with crude piercings on their nipples and genitals.

Most of them were ignoring her, and everything else for that matter, in favor of simply sitting in their cage, staring into space without seeing anything, resting after whatever ordeals they'd been through, and gathering energy to survive whichever came next. Some had basically rolled themselves into a ball and were sobbing quietly into their knees - those were, presumably, the 'new girls', not yet tormented to the point of losing all feeling. But a couple were different. One girl was leaning on the bamboo bars, her back turned to Anitra, but regarding her over her shoulder with a spark of curiosity in her eyes. She was generously built, pale-skinned but covered in freckles, with bright red hair. Looked like a regular 'farm-girl', if she was any judge, but what would someone like that be doing all the way out here?

"Hey..." Anitra spoke quietly, without actually whispering. "You understand my language?" The girl's eyes narrowed, and then flickered towards the rough-hewn hardwood door of the hut, before nodding. "I understand you. But we shouldn't talk. The masters don't like it when we talk. Most of them don't understand our language, after all." Anitra perked up at the word 'most'. "So some of them do?" she asked eagerly, still carefully keeping her voice low. The freckled girl opened her mouth, then closed it again with a nervous glance towards the door. Anitra sighed.

"Look, I'll level with you. I've got friends waiting outside. They'll come to rescue me soon. Help me out a bit, and maybe they'll rescue you too, okay?" The girl's eyes widened, and she looked around nervously. The other slaves, however, didn't react. Most of them seemed not to have heard, and the rest were studiously acting like they hadn't. "You're bluffing!" She hissed through clenched teeth. "There are HUNDREDS of Amazonian warriors out there, well-fortified and well-trained. You'd need an ARMY to get through them." Anitra just shrugged and grinned. "Maybe I HAVE an army. But look at it this way - you've got little to lose and much to gain. Isn't that worth a gamble, even at low odds?" The freckled girl grunted and leaned back against the bars for a few seconds, then nodded.

"Fine. My name's Tiffany. What do you want to know? I can answer some of your questions, MAYBE, but don't ask me to do anything more risky than that..." Anitra grinned, and gave her a little wave through the bars. "Anitra. You said that some of the amazons understand Common?" The girl returned the wave with a nervous half-smile, as if she was suppressing a feeling of renewed hope in an otherwise hopeless situation. "Yeah. The slave-masters all know it, so they can order us around. They only bother teaching their own language to those who are hand-picked as 'personal' slaves for the bigwigs. But the village chief speaks it too, as does several of the officers. I think the chief used to be a slave-master before she became a chief. Before my time, though. Either way, it was her idea that the officers should learn Common so they can understand what foreigners are shouting to each other in the heat of battle and act accordingly. Some of us were pressed into service helping with the lessons."

Anitra nodded. Better and better. From the sounds of it, she'd be able to negotiate directly with the village chief once she called in Blake. That, alone, would serve her purposes, but since this girl seemed to well-informed, she might as well see if she could get any other useful knowledge out of this little chat. "All right. Tell me... isn't there an altar or a temple of some kind in this village? I saw this place from a distance, before I got caught, and it looked like there was something like that..." Tiffany threw a shocked glance at her, and shuddered visibly. "Yeah, there's an altar, all right. They have a ceremony there every year, where they sacrifice some animals. And some slaves. I dunno anything else about it. Any slave that goes there, doesn't come back." The girl's face was pale under the freckles, and she drew a deep, shuddering breath. Anitra raised a curious eyebrow.

It didn't seem like she'd get any other useful information out of this girl, but she was starting to get curious. "You alright?" she asked, almost in spite of herself. The girl nodded. "I'm better than most of the people here. Which is why we're talking. This place is... bad, though. My brother wound up on that altar last year." "I'm sorry about that..." Anitra replied automatically. "But even after that, you're this... together? You must be made of some stern stuff." Briefly, darkly, she reflected on her captivity in Commoragh, the Dark City of the Drow, some time ago. She'd lost herself within days, driven out of her mind by pain and humiliation, and only brought out of her reverie by the cleansing power of the Quickening. This girl had been here for, from the sound of it, at least a year - and had lost a family-member along the way. Yet, she was still sane enough to talk, and willing to hope for release.

She was snapped out of those dark memories when Tiffany gave a harsh little laugh. "Hah. You can put it that way, I suppose. But it's more like... I'm used to it. WAS used to it, even before they caught us." Her curiosity piqued even more, Anitra gave her a sidelong glance. "You want to tell me about it, Tiffany? I can be a pretty good listener if I put my mind to it." The girl looked back at her in surprise, then leaned back against the bars again. "Sure, why not? Maybe it'll pass the time while we wait for your 'rescue-squad' to arrive..."

Tiffany told her about how she'd grown up on an isolated farm together with her father and older brother. Their mother had died in childbirth, and on some level, their father had blamed the young Tiffany for the death of his wife. As far back as she could remember, he'd treated her harshly, and she'd been put to work on the farm as soon as she was able to walk. By the time she was ten, however, her father found... a different use for her than manual labor. He declared that, since she was responsible for the death of his wife, she'd have to take over all of her late mother's responsibilities.

That night, she lost her virginity, painfully. Her father was well-hung, and had barely been able to fit his swollen shaft in her underdeveloped sheathe - but, having spent her entire life being told that she was responsible for the death of her mother, she was hellbent on making up for it. So she did her best to please her father, smiling at him through the tears. It continued that way for years, and their nightly sessions grew progressively less painful as she grew up, until she started to genuinely enjoy them.

It wasn't much later that she caught her brother - 15 years old, by then - having sex with one of the farm's pigs. He was just a boy, confused by his blooming sexuality, unable to understand it, and with nobody to talk to. And so, she'd offered herself to him. After all, their father seemed to enjoy using her body, and she cared about her older brother - he'd always been kind to her. The only one who was.

Thus, while she spent her nights in her father's bed, she'd always find some time, every day, to help her brother ease his aching testes, usually in the privacy of the hayloft. It was there, quite by accident, that they discovered anal sex. Her pussy, which had spent years growing accustomed to her father's impressive girth, had a hard time clamping down on her brother's teenage cock, and when a botched stroke saw his shaft - glistening with her juices - enter her lower hole instead, he found a much tighter and more pleasurable orifice to use. It had hurt her a bit, of course, but she was used to that, and her brother seemed to enjoy it a lot more that way. From then on, her pussy had belonged to her father, and her ass to her brother.

It had continued like that for several more years, and as her body rapidly developed into womanhood, both of her lover's lust for her grew. No longer satisfied with the nights they shared, her father took to bending her over whatever table, fence or barrel was handy when he caught her alone, to swiftly empty his balls in her pussy - which, by now, seemed to fit his cock like a glove. She was no longer allowed to wear underwear, or pants. Her brother didn't mind. Fueled by the creativity of youth, he came up with many more 'games' they could play together, and their daily sessions grew increasingly dirty as they 'invented' more things they could do to each other's bodies. While Tiffany didn't know the words for it, Anitra gathered - from her lurid descriptions - that ass-to-mouth and rimjobs had been involved, at the very least. Presumably, after discovering that anal sex felt good, it had been natural for them to experiment with other approaches to anal pleasure.

This carried on until, finally, their father caught them in the act. He went berserk, claiming that she was 'little more than a sow in heat' for opening her body to her brother. Then he'd dragged her down to the pigsty and tied her down in a compromising position, leaving her there until the next day. Several boars took advantage of her helpless body - the smell of sex still thick on her from when she had been pleasuring her brother - and by the next morning, when her father finally relented and returned for her, her womb was visibly swollen with pig-cum. Their pencil-thin, corkscrew-headed cocks had, invariably, left a sticky cork of thick sludge behind when they withdrew, sealing her uterus to prevent their hot cum from escaping. Her father's only reaction to her sad state was to snort and say, "I knew you were a sow."

From then on, she didn't get to do much work around the farm. Her brother was left with their combined workload as punishment, and meanwhile, she spent the better part of her time tied up in some paddock or other. Her father would repeatedly rail her - usually in both holes, since he'd now figured out that worked too, thanks to catching her doing anal with her brother - and then leave her tied-up in one of the animal-enclosures until next time he felt like using her. Soon, nearly every male animal in the farm had had a go at her - boars, rams, dogs, donkeys... and, yes, even the full-sized horses, who threatened to tear her apart with their sheer size and violence. Fortunately, by then, she was fully-grown, and she'd managed to accommodate them - albeit barely.

After the first time with the horses, her pussy had been left hanging wide open for several hours afterwards, prompting her father to declare it 'useless' and ram his hard cock up her ass instead, while shoving his gnarled fist into her badly-strained pussy to massage himself from within. The pain was terrible, but as always, she didn't complain - for all she knew, she deserved it. Nobody had ever been around to tell her otherwise.

This went on for over a year. In that time, she didn't sleep in a bed, and only set foot inside the house to prepare meals for her family. If she'd been 'behaving' - that is, doing her best to act as if she enjoyed her father's cruel treatment of her body - she'd be allowed to eat what she'd prepared, albeit from a bowl on the floor, next to the dogs. If not, she'd be thrown back outside to eat from the troughs alongside the other animals.

But finally, something changed. Her brother, who was by now grown into a young man, had - amongst his other duties - been sent on occasional trips to the nearest town on their ox-cart to sell the farm's surplus production and buy various necessities from the town's shops. Eventually, after one such trip, he snuck out at night to find his sister in the donkey's enclosure, currently being mounted by one of them. The donkeys were her least favorite animal to be locked up with - while not quite as hung as the horses, and thus less painful to be raped by, they were endlessly horny and would often avail themselves to her holes for the entire duration of her stay - meanwhile, the horses usually just fucked her once or twice and then ignored her.

But that night, her brother told her - in hushed tones, barely audible over the squishy sounds emerging from where her body and the donkey's equine cock collided - that he'd talked to various people in the town, and concluded that their father was insane - that she wasn't really to blame for their mother's death, and that his treatment of her wasn't normal - and, in fact, was criminal. After the shock of this message had worn off, her first question was, "What do we do?"

Neither one of them had the courage to report their father to the constable. But they now knew that things couldn't continue the way it had. Then, however, her brother revealed another gem - in the town's tavern, he'd overheard travelers from a nearby seaport talking about an impending colonial expedition. A wealthy sponsor had put together a crew to sail to some highly fertile lands down south, there to establish a new human city in the wilderness. And they still needed more people, particularly with farming-experience.

A decision was made, that night, that they would run away together - to join that colonial expedition and make a new life for themselves far, far away, where their insane father couldn't reach them. And the very next night, they carried it out - leaving their home behind with only some rudimentary tools and the clothes on their backs, stashed in the back of the ox-cart. The last thing they heard was their father, awakened by the sounds of the cart, screaming on the doorstep.

They'd sold the cart in the town, and used the gold to pay their passage to the seaport, where they found it surprisingly easy to get accepted into the colony-crew. They'd pretended to be a young couple, rather than brother and sister, so that people would not question their closeness... they'd taken advantage of their brand-new freedom to renew the relationship their father had stopped a year ago. The next few months was the happiest in their lives, as they idled away their days, first in the seaport and then on the ship, enjoying each other's company and dreaming of the life they'd have in the new lands.

...but then, one night, that dream had come crashing down, as the convoy of colony-ships were raided by an Amazonian war-party, which had snuck up on them with a swarm of silent war-canoes. Many soldiers were onboard the ships, but they had been preparing for setting up defenses and guarding a town, and the shipboard fight caught most of them by surprise. The strength and agility of the amazons made them as lethal on the ships as on solid ground, and the defenders were soon swarmed over. The amazons seized control of the ships, and forced the captains to beach them on the nearby jungle-island, after which all the survivors were marched back to the villages to become slaves.

She was, indeed, luckier than most of those colonists, she reflected darkly. Most of them had been unprepared for their new existence as slaves of labor and pleasure. But for her, none of it was new. Even the massive proportions of the amazon's she-cocks didn't faze someone who'd previously spent her nights pleasuring donkeys and horses. And she knew how to act, how to keep her head down and avoid attention. Her brother had suffered... rather more, but his farming-experience soon saw him reassigned to working on the Amazonian farms and beast-pens. It was hard work, but he greatly preferred it to the 'duties' he'd had before then. And at least they'd had each other - even though they were in different cages, and rarely dared speak aloud, they could still gaze into each other's eyes and give one another hope.

That is, until last year, when her brother had been picked as one of the sacrifices for the ceremony. He'd been dragged to the altar and never came back. "But I'm still in better shape than the others here..." she said quietly, while a tear rolled down her cheek. "Losing a brother is rough, but it was still but a single tragedy. Everything else this place has thrown at me - from hard labor to repeated rape - is things I've been growing accustomed to since before I can remember. Not so for the rest of them. This place has broken them. Sometimes I wish I could join them. It seems an easier existence, in some ways."

Anitra grimaced as the story drew to a finish. She was equal parts aroused by the sordid tale, and depressed by the endless tragedy of this poor girl's life. She'd grown up with hard labor, rape and emotional torment, enjoyed freedom for a few delirious months, and then gone right back to hard labor, rape and emotional torment again. With a sigh, she sent a short summation of her discoveries to Blake, and informed him that she'd promised to rescue one of the slaves in return for the information. So be careful when you jump in to help me. She warned him. Don't make me a liar.

You're sounding unusually human all of a sudden. He replied, somewhat grumpily. Why should a dragon care for the fate of some random slavegirl? Bah. But fine, if you say so, I guess we can give her a lift back to civilization once we've recovered the tablet-piece. She mentally shrugged at him, then changed the subject as they planned out the jailbreak. Then, with a grunt, she jumped to her feet, causing Tiffany to glance up in surprise - she'd been sitting in morose silence, starring down at the ground, ever since she finished her story. Anitra grinned down at her. "All right, the wait's over. Rescue's incoming right now. Try not to panic. There's some things I need to do here before we leave, but I'll come pick you up before we take off, so don't worry."

Tiffany blinked in surprise, and then her eyes widened as she heard screams, shouts and cursing outside, along with some very loud roaring and the crackling of fire. Clearly, she'd never REALLY believed this strange new girl's promises of impending rescue. 'till now, at least. A minute later, Blake's huge claws tore through the back wall of the prison-hut, shredding the ironwood-reinforced wall of Anitra's cell. Even the dead-eyed slaves could not ignore that, and screams of surprise and panic filled the hut.

Nimbly, Anitra jumped over the rubble and out into the noontime sunlight, where she found her beloved Blake grinning down at her as he dropped her sword and armor at her feet. Giving him a quick kiss on the nose to reaffirm their bond, she then rapidly pulled on her equipment, while keeping a sharp ear out for the confused sounds of shouting Amazonian warriors. She still didn't understand the words, but she recognized the gruff shouts of an officer trying to restore order to a panicked unit, regardless of language. Most likely, they were taking advantage of the fact that the attacking dragon was ripping into the slave-hut instead of them to try and organize a defense.

It would avail them not. A minute later, Anitra was aloft on Blake's broad back, fully armed and armored. Spears and arrows flew at them as they hovered over the city, but few of them hit, and none of them could penetrate Blake's thick scales. A few well-placed gouts of fire soon scattered whatever organization remained down there, as they set course for a large hut overlooking the central plaza - it would have been obvious that it was the Chieftain's hut, even if said Chieftain hadn't currently been standing on the front steps of it, crying out orders to her officers.

Her shouts became silent when Blake landed in front of her, sending her hastily-assembled honor-guard flying with a sweep of his muscular tail. The tall woman sneered up at Blake, seemingly determined not to die running, and pulled out a bright steel sword which had most likely been taken from the body of a fallen adventurer - or maybe even one of the soldiers onboard Tiffany's ship. But if she wanted to go down fighting, Anitra was going to have to disappoint her. Jumping to her feet on top of Blake's saddle, she nimbly ran up his neck and took a flying leap off of his head, unsheathing her sword and bringing it down in a crushing overhead blow.

The amazon chieftain instinctively brought up her own sword to block the blow, but the mundane steel had no chance against the starforged blade, especially with so much inertia behind it. The steel shattered like glass, showering the chieftain with razor-sharp shards even as BlackFire's tip passed an inch in front of her face - and directly between her boobs, which would have met a sad fate if Anitra's aim had not been so unerring.

Stumbling back in shock, the chieftain dropped the now-useless hilt of her sword as she recognized the girl in front of her. That lusty slavegirl that had so thoroughly entertained the entire village the day before, was now jumping off a dragon's back, wielding weapons and armor better than any she'd ever seen, even on the most well-equipped adventurers. It seemed unbelievable, even impossible, and her mouth opened and closed repeatedly without a sound coming out as she searched for a proper word to express it - finding none.

Anitra sneered at her. "Stop that, you look like a landed fish. Pull yourself together. I know you understand my language. And if you say the right things, you might still be able to save your life - and your village." The tall amazon blinked a few times, then swallowed and nodded. "Yes, I understand. We will talk. I will tell my warriors to stop." She gave another loud shout, causing the poorly-organized - but quite numerous - force of amazons assembling in the plaza behind them to stop in their tracks. A death-like silence fell over the city as everybody waited to see what would happen next.

"There. Now we can talk. What do you want, stranger?" The chieftain still seemed on edge, but with the initial shock worn off, her leadership experience had won through, and she seemed completely focused on the task at hand. Anitra smiled. Always nice to deal with someone who could keep their head on straight in a crisis. This tall woman somehow reminded her of the orcish chieftain she'd dealt with during her recent visit to Caristad, if somewhat prettier.

"I'm searching for an artifact - a very old one. I believe it to be in the hands of your people. It resembles a fragment of an old clay tablet, but it is protected by highly potent magics, and is nearly indestructible. Sound familiar?" The amazon's eyes widened for a moment, then she sighed and sat down, cross-legged, in front of Anitra, taking a deep breath. "Yes. I know the thing you speak of. It is a great treasure of our people, and this village, passed down from the great Queen Sheba herself."

Anitra raised an eyebrow. "A QUEEN left it? That's a new one..." The amazon grunted and scratched her hair. "Yes. She was something new, even then. Before Queen Sheba, we were all just small tribes, always at war, always killing each other. And she was no different, just another chieftain wanting for blood and conquest. Until one of our warbands caught a human adventurer and brought him back. For some reason, she took a liking to him, and made him her personal slave. That was when she started to change."

The chieftain leaned back and stared into the skies for a moment before continuing. "She started to make different decisions. Not for war or conquest, but for peace and prosperity. She united the clans. She taught us farming, and tamed the first oxen. Showed us that we could talk instead of fighting. All the time, that slave was by her side. Then, one day, he disappeared. Nobody knows how. But he left behind that thing you said - a piece of a tablet, inscribed in symbols we do not understand. The queen grieved for weeks, and declared the fragment a holy treasure to be stored in our sacred shrine forevermore."

The amazon's piercing brown eyes refocused as her glare returned to Anitra. "This was her city. Once the capital of a united land. After Sheba died, her kingdom fell apart. But we never forgot the lessons she taught us. We still fight, for pride or wealth or revenge, but we also trade, and talk. We work together sometimes, against outsiders. Together we can do what we could not alone. Queen Sheba was the best of us. Ever since I became Chief, I have tried to be like her." Her eyes narrowed. "And now you come here, to take away the only artifact she left us."

Anitra grimaced and strengthened her grip on her sword. Well, it was too much to hope for that they'd just hand it over. Didn't matter. The chieftain had already told her what she needed to know - the tablet was in the shrine, and that wasn't hard to find. Maybe she'd have to massacre the entire village to get to it, but she was both willing and able to do so. The chieftain noticed the tension, then took another deep breath and shook her head. "Calm yourself. Sheba was wise. She valued the lives of her people. She would not want me to sacrifice all of my warriors in a hopeless battle against a dragon just to protect the keepsake of her lost lover." Getting to her feet, the tall chieftain walked past Anitra and Blake, past the assembled Amazonian warriors who were quietly murmuring on the main plaza, to the shrine that rose above the village atop a set of granite steps - the only stonework around.

An old woman stood at the top of the steps, dressed in a raggedy patchwork of furs and hides. Anitra vaguely remembered having seen her before. The discussion between this shamanic priest and the chieftain was quite loud and animate, and Anitra did not need to understand their language to figure out what the argument was about. Priests rarely took kindly to having their sacred treasures taken away from them. Finally, however, the chieftain won through, shouting something straight into the shaman's wrinkled face while pointing towards Blake's imposing figure. The old woman sneered, barked something back, and then stood aside. Throwing a dark look towards Anitra and Blake, she sat down on the steps of her shrine and shook her head sadly.

"Huh. Their priests actually understand logic? Maybe these amazons are smarter than I thought..." Blake grunted, having watched the unfolding conflict. "In a similar situation, most priests in the 'civilized' lands would have insisted that the entire city should be sacrificed rather than risk offending their 'merciful' gods." Anitra snorted and nodded, remembering the old firebrand of a preacher she'd sometimes heard crying the 'good word' on the marketplace of Caristad. Most of those good words had centered around how everyone but him were horrible sinful people who would be struck down by the gods unless they came to church, and preferably made some generous donations while they were there. Idly, she wondered how well his fanaticism had stood up to an onrushing orcish horde. Probably not so well.

Soon, the chieftain emerged from the small shrine, holding an unimportant-seeming piece of dried clay in one hand. Anitra thanked the Fates that she hadn't been forced to raze the entire village and then search the rubble for the tablet - considering the fact that pretty much the entire city was MADE from clay, it would have been rather like searching for a needle in a stack of needles. Some of the warriors assembled in the plaza below made some angry-sounding jeers at the sight, but a quick bellow from the chieftain silenced them. There wasn't really that many of them in the first place, and the vast majority showed relief on their faces as the prospect of having to fight a dragon armed with bronze-tipped spears quickly became less likely.

With a conflicted expression on her face, the Amazonian chieftain approached Anitra, and deposited the tablet-fragment in her hand. A smile spread across the dragonrider's face as she felt the weight of it. Only 2 more to go. They were so close now that she could almost taste it... "There. You have what you came for. Now you will leave peacefully, yes?" The amazon's voice was carefully controlled. Anitra glanced up at her and shrugged. "More or less. I just need to go pick something up from that slave-hut where you were holding me earlier, and I'll be on my way." The chieftain's eyes narrowed again, then she grunted and looked away. "Fine. But be careful not to harm the slaves. Many warriors have died today, and many homes were destroyed. They will be needed." She glanced darkly at a couple of smoking ruins that had been clay huts until Blake's fiery breath devastated them during his grand entrance.

Anitra just gave her a lopsided smile and leaped onto Blake's back. "No worries. Thanks for the fragment." Then, after she'd stuffed it into the saddlebag with the rest of them, they took off in a short leap across the plaza and the pens, to land in front of the slave-hut. It was unguarded for the moment - every able-bodied amazon had assembled in the village square, after all - and it wasn't as if it would've mattered if a few slave-masters were hanging around there, anyway.

Jumping out of the saddle again, she quickly unsheathed her sword and cut her way through the rough-hewn door, pausing only afterwards to briefly wonder whether it had even been locked. Inside, nothing had changed. The majority of the slaves barely seemed to register her grand entrance, but Tiffany jumped to her feet, a wild hope in her eyes. "You came back! You really did! I thought for sure you'd left me behind..." Anitra shrugged. "I told you I'd come back for you, didn't I? I may not be the nicest person in the world, but I DO keep my promises." With another sweep of her sword, the bamboo bars of Tiffany's slave-pen shattered, allowing the buck-naked girl to tenderly step out, trying to avoid scratching her pale skin on the razor-sharp fragments left behind.

The red-haired girl glanced back over her shoulder, into the cage she'd just left. A few of the other slaves were looking at the hole and the armored woman outside of it with something resembling hope in their eyes. "What about the rest of them?" she asked. Anitra just shook her head. "I don't have room for all of them on my ride. I could break down the walls of this prison easily enough, but where are they gonna go? Even if they had the spirit to try and escape, they'd never survive in the jungle. At best, they'd wind up getting captured by amazons from a different village. Frankly, I'm surprised the amazons bother to keep 'em caged at all." Tiffany sighed, but nodded. "You're right. Just... let's get out of this place." Anitra grinned at her. "That's the plan. C'mon, I'll introduce you to our ride outta here..."

Tiffany was understandably startled by coming face-to-face with a large, black dragon, but considering the alternatives, she quickly accepted Anitra's assurance that she wouldn't be eaten. Then, with a glance at the girl's generously-proportioned and quite naked body, she pulled a folded-together fur coat out of one of the saddlebags. "It may seem a bit much in this heat... but trust me, it gets cold fast when we pick up altitude. Also, it's the only clothes I've got handy." And it was lucky that she had even that, she reflected. It was quite a while ago that she'd bought it, and more than once she'd considered discarding it - it did, after all, take up quite a bit of space, even neatly folded.

Tiffany pulled the rich fur-coat on with an expression of wonder on her face, and Anitra realized that this was probably the first time in years she'd worn any kind of clothes - and that before that, she'd worn only the simple clothes of a poor farmer. If she'd even SEEN a fur-coat before, it would have been worn by some wealthy noblewoman in the harbor-town where she'd enjoyed her brief respite of freedom. Going from being a bare-skinned slave to riding a dragon dressed in such impossibly rich garments would be quite the mind-boggling leap.

But they didn't have time for her to be boggled, and with Blake offering an arm as a step, and Anitra pulling her along, they managed to get the girl into place at the back of the large saddle. As Anitra took her own place, she felt Tiffany's freckle-covered breasts press against her back through the fur, and licked her lips - then immediately bit her teeth and shook her head to clear it. Fun though a little lesbian tryst would be, it wasn't what this poor girl needed right now. And she was fairly sure that she'd gotten plenty of pussy the day before anyway, even if she couldn't quite remember it clearly.

Her resolution remained strong even as the girl clung to her back, shivering like a leaf as Blake's powerful wings bore them aloft. Soon, they were surrounded by the infinite blue skies once more, and beneath them, the sea stretched on in all direction, dotted by emerald islands like the one they'd just left. _Fine, we rescued your friend... and I have to admit, she's kinda' cute. But what do we do with her now?_Blake's telepathic communication had lost some of the edge it had had when she first informed him of her intent to rescue the girl - apparently, a cute, freckled face went a long way towards making you more than 'just another slave' in the eyes of a dragon.

Anitra considered the question. The girl didn't really have a 'home' to return to. She briefly toyed with the notion of having the girl guide her back to her father's farm, and then cutting down the old man down to leave the farm in his daughter's hands. But she'd never be able to run a farm on her own. Then, an idea occurred to her. Set course for Caristad, my dear. They're likely getting started on the reconstruction already, and could use another set of hands. Lots of girls there who'll be able to empathize with her enslavement, too. And if she tells them that I rescued her, well, that should make them treat her nice - hopefully, they haven't forgotten how I rescued their entire city.

Blake nodded mentally. Makes sense. And where do we go from there? Still a couple more fragments to find, after all... Anitra searched her memory - she'd read the papers she'd gotten from Lezard Valeth so many times by now that she had most of the general stuff memorized, particularly now that there was only two locations left to remember.Mirage City is probably the closest. At least that'll give us a chance to enjoy SOME sort of civilization for a change._Blake snorted. _Us? You mean 'me'. Most 'civilized' cities aren't too welcoming about dragons in their airspace._She grinned and patted him on the neck. _Oh, don't be such a grouch. I'll buy you something nice when I'm there! I hear they have quite a slave-market, for one thing...

The End

Anitra's next adventure will take her beyond the desert in Chapter 15 of the DragonRider Chronicles: Mirage City - stay tuned!