~Subject: HORSEWOMEN # 9
~From: an438434@anon.penet.fi (Umbra)
~Date: Sat, 20 Jan 1996 21:02:43 UTC
~Newsgroups: alt.sex.bondage,alt.sex.femdom
NOTE: this story is for adults only.  As will be evident,

   all characters and settings and all action are entirely fictitious. 
===========================================

   THE HORSEWOMEN a Love Story by Jeanne de Stein

   Nine parts posted separately.  This is # 9 (this chapter in two parts
due to re-mailer limitations) Parts posted one every weekend to this group.

   8.  FINALE AND CODA (second part)

   The storm broke without warning.  Most of the women were out of camp,
hunting together.  One of the scouts---it was Ipparki---galloped in,
screaming at the top of her voice that the Red Sisters were on the rampage,
and approaching.  An infernal noise broke out, women ran in all directions
and the males tried to make themselves invisible.  The women had scarcely
time to arm themselves, find their horses and form up before a ragged line
of yelling riders appeared over the crest of the nearest ridge, waving
lances.

   They were too many.  Atossa screamed a command---for in battle all would
instinctively follow and obey her---arrows flew and two or three gaps
appeared in the line of the raiders.  But still too many remained, and
there was clearly nothing to do except to roll with the punch.  The
defenders swung out on the flanks, and the two battle lines dissolved in a
series of individual duels.  Fallou stood as transfixed.  Then he saw one
of the attackers and Aryana coming toward him with a noise like thunder,
screeching and exchanging blows with lance-butt and club.  The sight tore
him out of his trance, and he dived under a cart.  The horses flashed past
but something big hit the ground with a thud.  He raised his head
cautiously.

   It was the red woman.  She was quite and unmistakably dead, her temple
crushed by a blow of Aryana's club.  She was on her back, her unseeing eyes
looking into the sun.  She was a sight: her head was shaved, and it, like
most of her completely naked body, was painted with red in strange
patterns. She was not tattooed.  Her chin had fallen, making her look
amazed---at her own sudden demise, perhaps?---and Fallou could see that her
teeth were filed.  In the distance, the screaming, the neighing of
terrified horses and the sound of hoofs died away.

   Fallou looked around.  The only living thing to be seen was the dead
woman's horse.  It must have been trained to remain with its rider, he
thought, for its normal behaviour would surely have been to follow the
other galloping animals.  It was a nice roan mare, with simple tack, but a
fine spotted fur was strapped across her back and a bow in its case and a
full quiver hung by her side, with a large water-skin opposite.  The only
thing on the dead woman's body was a knife, the sheath hanging by a thong
around her neck.

   Without thinking, Fallou walked up to the horse.  She shied a little at
first, then she calmed down and let him catch its single rein and tie it to
a cartwheel.  There was still nobody near.  Fallou looked at the dead woman
again and tried to remember what he had heard about her kind and their
habits.  They were not nice.  They kept female slaves, not males: captured
males were tortured to death and then eaten.

   Once, when Atossa had tied him on his back, which she still did
occasionally, she had wanted to spin out the foreplay, and she had told him
horror-stories about these terrible women.  They used to crush the
testicles of their captives, like this.  Atossa had demonstrated the method
with two flat cloth-beating sticks tied together at one end.  She had not
squeezed hard, just a little, and he had not been seriously alarmed,
knowing Atossa and her ways.  He felt completely safe with her, apart from
the likelihood that she would inflict pain on him, and that he accepted as
a matter of course.  But the thought of what these strange women did had
been terrifying; he knew that for a male, this was the ultimate pain, and
that it would be intensified by the horror of knowing that he was being
emasculated.  He did not want this to happen to him.

   He looked at the horse.  Something within him made a decision.  He must
save himself.  In a sudden hurry, he rushed into Atossa's empty tent and
found a bag of pemmican.  He returned, took the dead woman's knife, mounted
the horse and trotted away, scanning the horizon suspiciously.  Still
without thinking, at least consciously, he chose a direction that would
take him to the coast.

   He rode with many pauses, keeping a sharp lookout and avoiding high
ground.  He did not want to meet these she-devils again.  He saw nobody. 
But as he rode, he became conscious of his rings and his neck-iron and the
dangling chain again, in a new way; he had of course not been on horseback
since he left En-Tor's repulsive entourage.  The experience made him think
of his life among the horsewomen, and of the women themselves.  That time
had been a part of his life, and he had belonged among them.

   What had become of them?  Aryana had killed the woman whose horse he was
now riding, but what had happened to Atossa and Sarissa?  Were they dead on
the ground, or wounded, or even worse, captives?  And the rest of
them---the sturdy and merry Ariti, Ginesse who had been good to him and who
was bound to him by a common, unique memory, Silini with her hopes and
ambitions, the frank and erect Halanna, Atossa's daughter ...  he even
caught himself hoping that Niki was safe and sound.  She was a terrible
brat, probably utterly rotten, and still he recoiled from the thought of
her body limp and dead in the grass, mangled by hooves, smeared with blood.
Would she ever make her Passage?  Would she ever go to Tarrati?

   He tried to think of his home instead, the white city by the sea, the
dark and cool house where he had been born in one of the high-ceilinged
dark-panelled rooms.  Wryly, he thought that he was back were it all began,
as if more than a year of his life had simply vanished.  He was on his way
again.  But then he felt the rings anew, and his mind returned, against his
will, to the women he knew and had lived with, and been used by, and feared
and loved, and his sorrow and his feeling of loss were unreasonable,
perhaps, but he could not drive them away.  In a sense, he would never be
free again.

   He found a water-hole, watered the horse and drank his fill, in spite of
the evil taste of the bitter water.  He had to save his own supply as long
as possible.  Then he rode on slowly until the sun sank below the horizon
like a red hot iron ball and both the sky and the grasslands turned purple
in the gathering dusk.  At last he paused and let his steed graze.

   He did not light a fire, but he chewed some pemmican.  It grew darker,
but he was finding his night-eyes and he could see a little.  There was a
rock outcrop close by; perhaps he should find out if anybody was bold
enough use fire this night?  He climbed it with great caution; it would not
do to break a leg.

   His heart stopped.  Some distance away---it was difficult to judge how
far---a fire burned on the top of a hill.  Whose fire?  He weighed the
situation for a long time, but without conscious thought.  Then he climbed
down, armed himself with the bow and the quiver and started a long,
stealthy approach, leading the horse.  After half an hour or so, he felt it
getting wind of something, and did not dare bring it along further for fear
that it might betray him by a sudden whinnying.  The people around the fire
might well be deadly enemies.  He tied the horse and continued alone,
worrying about sentinels, but found none.

   He had arrived at the foot of the hill.  Horses moved in the dark, but
made no sound.  He could see but one human being, though there must be
several around the fire.  She had been tied to the broken trunk of a dead
tree.  Was she one of the Red Sisters?  Then her captors would be his own
horsewomen.  Should he then steal away and try to keep his new-won freedom?
Or was she one of his own ...  Very cautiously, he crept forward on all
fours.  Somebody rose in front of him, near the fire, a black silhouette,
impossible to identify.  The captive woman started to sing, and he
recognised words, words of hate and defiance.  So she was a woman of his
own Sisterhood.  His hair stood on end, and he recognised her.  It was
Atossa.

   He must save her.  Forgetful of his resolve to regain his freedom, he
continued his advance, crawling on his belly so as not to catch the light
of the fire.  He hoped to the Nether Gods that his rings would not snag. 
In front of him, the song rose to a savage crescendo.  He raised his head:
the enemy woman was standing in front of Atossa.  With one hand, she
grasped one nipple and pulled, with the other she plunged a narrow, shining
object into and through her aureole, piercing it.  He shivered with the
memory, but Atossa did not scream, nor did her song of defiance falter. 
The enemy woman pierced the other breast.  Fallou was now so close that he
could see that there were two other women around the fire; both sat up now,
their eyes fixed on Atossa.  A little closer ...  it was an unfamiliar bow,
and he was out of practice.  And then his hand touched human skin, and a
woman gasped and whispered: who's there?  and he recognised Sarissa's
voice. He bade her to keep silent and got his knife out; he could feel that
she had been brutally tied with rawhide straps, crisscrossing her body,
digging deep into her flesh.  Her arms were bound behind her back; he freed
them, handed her the knife and took store of the scene in front of him.

   Nobody had taken alarm.  The standing woman returned to the fire, but
her eyes were blinded by the light and she did not see what had happened.
She bent down, took a firebrand and returned to Atossa.  He must act.  He
rose on one knee, drew the bow and shot her in the back.  He heard the
sound of the arrow hitting and she toppled, coughing.  Atossa fell suddenly
silent.

   Where were the other two enemy women?  One of them sprang to her feet,
screaming with rage, a bow in her hands and looking for her unseen
adversary.  He loosed two arrows in quick succession and she froze, dropped
her weapon and fell to her knees, then down on all fours before rolling
over on the ground.  A sound and a movement to one side caught his
attention: the third woman was rushing him, a knife in her hand.  There was
time for one arrow only, and she ducked and was over him.  He got one knee
up, blocked her knife-arm and managed to get a hold on her wrist.  But her
other hand caught his throat, and he could not remove it.  She was strong,
and she thought of death only.  She grew dim in front of his eyes and he
thought, Kakou; and then she collapsed all of a sudden on top of him, blood
gushing from her mouth.  He pushed her away.  Sarissa stood over them,
knife in hand, and the blade was red to the hilt.
He was weak with the shock, and his legs failed him, though he was
repeating the name Atossa, Atossa, over and over.  But Sarissa cut Atossa
loose, put her on the ground and reached out to remove the two skewers from
her breasts.  Atossa shook her head and said hoarsely, don't.  They will
bleed to much---let the wounds heal.  Sarissa hesitated, but obeyed. 
Instead, she pulled out a little box, and she treated the wounds with
salve, just as Atossa had done that time ages ago, under the shady tree

where her horse grazed.

   Atossa made no sound.  Fallou managed to rise and he stumbled over to
her.  Sarissa was peering attentively into the night.

   There was nobody there.  She checked that their foes were safely dead,
then she collected two bows and a supply of arrows, knives, cloaks,
water-skins and a lance.  There was dried meat too, but Sarissa would not
touch it.  She told Fallou to stand guard and disappeared in the dark,
returning with two horses; Fallou had told her that he had a mount of his
own.  They managed to get Atossa up on a horse, wrapped in the cloak of one
of the dead enemies, and departed at a cautious walk, Fallou collecting his
animal on the way.  The place was decidedly unhealthy.  They left the fire
burning so as not to alarm someone who might be watching from afar.

   They rode in silence for several hours, the horses stumbling
occasionally in the gloom.  The moon rose and improved the visibility, but
did scarcely increase the danger; it was not possible to see very far. 
With the moon nearly overhead, they found a deep little canyon with fresh
grass and low trees, and a sound of running water.  Here they should camp
for the rest of the night, said Sarissa, breaking her silence for the first
time.  Atossa nodded agreement but seemed content to leave the decision to
her lover.  She seemed dazed by her close escape.

   They made no fire, but rested very close to each other, rolled up in
their cloaks.  Hesitantly, they began to sort out the events of the day. 
What were the losses?  Nobody was certain.  Ariti and Silini had got away,
it seemed, and maybe Ginesse.  Lykomaki was definitely dead: she had been
seen going down in a swarm of enemies, her head bashed in while she was
knifing one of them between her ribs, and leaving one other dead on the
ground.  Hakki had fled, doubled over the back of her horse and with an
arrow in her shoulder, but nobody knew if she was dead or alive.  The fight
had continued after Sarissa had been struck down with the shaft of a lance
and Atossa had stayed to protect her, and they had been taken captive after
killing one adversary and wounding another badly.  What had become of the
others?

   Nobody knew, but the attackers seemed to have had their hands full.  And
the males?  They might well be both dead and eaten.  Fallou felt sick;
little Mikrou and the frank and guiltless Ippou deserved to live.  It
occurred to him that each human being is an endless source of
possibilities, of future choices, deeds, words and songs, and that the loss
of a life, even that of a slave, makes the world of men poorer---and the
world of women, too.

   Silence fell again.  It was late in the night.  Sarissa told Fallou to
sleep by Atossa and keep her warm; she would stand guard over them herself.
Fallou made her promise to wake him up after a couple of hours so that he
might relieve her.  The last thing he saw was Sarissa's black shape against
the stars.

   The moon was going down when he took the last watch of the night. 
Nothing disturbing had happened.  After a while, the sun rose; the horses
shook themselves and began to graze.  Sarissa opened her eyes, stretched
and scrambled up to the rim of the canyon in order to check the
surroundings.

   Fallou followed her with his eyes, then he brought out the pemmican.  He
found Atossa looking at him, gave her to eat and assured her that this was
no cannibal abomination, but her own make.  She grinned at him and ate; he
was relieved to find her in such good shape.  When she sat up, the coarse
red cloak fell away and Fallou could see the outrage that had been
committed on her breasts.  She followed his gaze and said: 'So now I am
pierced too.  Do you think I would look as good in rings as you do?' He did
not know what to make of the expression on her face.

   Later in the morning, they moved up to a little hillock above the rim of
the canyon.  There were some large boulders there, and two or three low
bushes, so that they could keep a lookout without being seen.  Both Sarissa
and Atossa agreed that they should not travel before nightfall.  They would
then try to return to the camp in a roundabout way, if the enemies were
gone, see what other sisters had got away and try to pick up the pieces. 
Perhaps the Sisterhood could recover from the blow.  If not, they would
call on the friendship and the oaths of the Scithi Sisterhood further to
the south and join them; later on, they might be able to establish
themselves as an independent sisterhood again.

   Then they both looked at Fallou.  Atossa made a false start, shook her
head and said: 'Fallou, you saved us.  It would not be right to deny you
your freedom.  Go your own way, and may the Guardian Ladies watch over you.
But remember us, and do not forget that I loved you.' And her savage face
contorted, and she was silent.

   She had torn the lid off a sealed jar.  Fallou was in a mental turmoil;
all his emotions and his thoughts of the previous day and night flashed
past in a jumble.  Then they suddenly arranged themselves in the important
and the unimportant, without his conscious help, and he stuttered and was
incoherent, but managed to put over his conviction: He would not willingly
abandon them.  He loved them.  He wished to share the danger with them,
serve them and adore them.  The two women listened without gainsaying him.
Then Atossa said: 'But Fallou, you know that you cannot be our slave any
more.  I would be happy to keep you, and I would regard you as a friend and
lover, and so would Sarissa too, I am sure.  But you also know that any
male amongst us horsewomen must be treated as a slave, whoever he may be.
Would you accept that, even if you knew of our love of you?  Would you
accept being walked on a leash after my horse?  Would you accept to cook
and clean and gather food, and to serve the other women when they want you?
I know that you like Ariti and Silini and Ginesse-- may the Ladies have
saved them---but the old women, and those that think that you are just a
contemptible man-slave?  Would you do that?' And he answered, yes, yes, and
yes.  He would not shame them by behaving in a manner improper to a slave.
He just wanted to continue to belong to them.

   The women were silent for a while.  Then Sarissa said, we may not be
able to return.  There may be too many of the abominable women around. 
Then we may not even be able to get to the Scithi camp, and we will die.

   Fallou followed a sudden impulse.  Then they should follow him to the
sea, and his city.  He was of a highly regarded and prosperous family;
Atossa and Sarissa would be his guests, and he would continue to love and
honour them.  Atossa laughed, but not contemptuously.  Were horsewomen not
regarded as she-savages by his people?  Would they be tolerated as anything
but his, Fallou's, slaves?  He insisted that whatever others thought of
them, he would continue to love them; he did scarcely notice that Atossa
had extended her hand and taken a grip on his member, and that it
responded. Yes, said she, but would he not be obliged to treat them the way
slave women were treated?

   Now it was Sarissa's turn to laugh.  That would serve them right!  The
boot would be on the other foot!  They would have to obey him, or else...
Atossa joined in the argument, a curious glint in her eye.  Horsewomen were
an obstinate breed.  He would probably have to chain them, and give them a
good whipping now and then, to make them behave.  Yes, he would whip them,
and then he would perhaps fetter them on his bed, by their wrists and
ankles the way they had done with him, and use them.  Maybe that would be a
good thing.  Perhaps they needed chastising.  And now that Atossa had been
pierced, she should of course wear rings, too.  And what should be done to
Sarissa?  Rings and a chain, like Ippou's?  (And may the Ladies have saved
him, too.)

   They fell silent and watched him.  Suddenly, he became aware of Atossa's
caress and of his own erection.  Atossa opened her cloak and rolled over on
her back without releasing him.  She parted her legs.  He should use her
right now, and she would find out what it was like to be a slave woman and
a concubine.  That might help her to make her decision.  Now, what was he
waiting for?  He would please support himself on his elbows, so as not to
press down on her lacerated breasts, but she would have loved to feel his
full weight.  After all, they had not fattened him unduly, had they?  Yes,
now she felt that being his slave would be an acceptable fate.  He was no
wimp but a man a woman could be proud to belong to, and to serve.  She
would probably be a difficult slave to manage, and need lots of caning and
whipping, but he knew that she could take that.  And Sarissa was just the
same.  But he would let them remain together, and make love often to each
other, would he not?

   He swore that he would be the most considerate, though stern,
slave-owner of all time.  In a peculiar enclosure out of time, and space,
he worked in and out of her body, gazing down on her grotesque, beautiful
face, and he knew that she was serious.  They would not be parted.  They
belonged to each other, utterly and for ever.  Whatever path lay before
them, they would ride it together.  

THE END 
