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Rayadés only wanted to go back to Al'Anfa.


A huge, free port city in the far south on the east side of the continent, it had never been a safe place to live in by any measure, especially not for a slave-whore like her. But she had always liked it better than Thorwal, even though she was free here. The sailors in the south needed whores like their ships needed sails while the Thorwlash looked down upon the profession, never quite understanding it.


Though a slave, her life had been much better in Al'Anfa.


She had been born into slavery, owned by a man who owned a brothel, and had to take customers from a very young age. To please the men who believed in the twelve gods, she had been named for goddess Rahya, of lust and love, patron saint of whores and anyone who loved to make love. In many a place, especially where the Praios church's pious grip was not that tight, Rahya temples were whorehouses in their own right, but Rayadés, a slave, had never been fortunate enough to serve there.


An oily-eyed hulk of a Novadi had paid a hefty sum to consummate her maidenhead at far too young an age and left her barren, further raising her worth to the brothel when it became clear. It was either him, or one of the others afterwards, but no one had ever hurt her as much as he. In any case, she survived, even after her master had already written her off and refused any further treatment for her bleeding. And it had all turned out right in the end, or at least as right as a slave in Al'Anfa could hope for.


To her luck, she had grown beautiful, and after her body started to mature, her price rose and rose until she was unaffordable to the simple, smelling, drunk sailors and mates, and the brothel even started to advertise her as the goddess Rahya herself. Rich, fat merchant captains bathed in sweet oils and perfumes bedded her then. They paid good coin to her owner and she was allowed sweet baths, good food, the finest garb and even some jewellery. She was spared beatings and whippings too and could even afford to decline a customer if he was drunk and overly aggressive or demanded too queer things to do with her body. Some men were beasts, she had learned.


Then, one day, a rich merchant captain had bought her for his cabin and Rayadés became Augusto Calamares' property. A most successful trader of spices, he had been fat and hung with so much gold and jewels that she feared the weight of him would smother her. But he had never meant to use her the way the gods intended for men to use women, not even the other parts men had enjoyed before the cruel Novadi had deflowered her. Augusto never touched any of those parts.


He meant to sail through the Golden Bay, the Sylla Straights, the Bay of the Alemites, around Cape Brabak, all the way up to through the Askan Sea and past the Cyclops Isles to the Horasian city of Kuslik where the merchant wanted to sell his hold and load perfumes, oils, wine, ambergris and steel to sell back in Al'Anfa. His ship was a mighty, Horasian carrack, accompanied by two cogs with hulls full to bursting, and four dromons, rowed by slaves, with sell-swords to fend off dangers.


But Al'Anfa was always listening, and so, word of the fortune at sea reached some mighty corsair's ears. The attack ended with the pirate fleet destroyed but also three dromons lost and burning. Not wanting to attract any more unwanted attention, Rayadés' new master decided against seeking replacement in Hôt-Alem, Khefu or Brabak, for these smaller towns were even more notorious for their criminality. It served them well, for they were able to get all the way into Horasian waters without another attack, though a mighty storm claimed the last Dromon and a Cog in the Askan Sea.


The fighting ships had been hired, not owned, by Augusto, and so he got around having to pay the sell-swords the second half of their fee which compensated for the loss of the Cog with the insurance on top as profit. Rayadés learned these things from her owner, for he had no one else to talk to. His wife was somewhere on land, with children that barely knew him and so he shared all that troubled him in great detail with her during their lavish dinners. He was always most forthcoming to her, and almost cared for her like a husband, even though she was his property.


But after the dinners, there was no sleeping with him like man and wife. After the table was cleared and all ears and eyes were without, he would undress and don queer leather strings and metal rings that made him look like an animal. Rayadés had to stand tall and call him a little, dirty pig and other things while he crawled on all fourths, oinked and rubbed his fat body on her legs, kissed her feet and grunted with pleasure when she was beating him with lashes, switches and sticks.


Somehow, he found that more pleasurable than anything else in the world. Insecure, she had tried to please him with her mouth once, but he had only smiled, shaken his head and turned to sleep. It was all terribly confusing, but other than the absurd tasks she had to perform at night she was treated well enough over their months long voyage.


Then the Thorwalsh had come.


Their swift and terrible longships had meant to raid the proud but backwards people of the Cyclops Isles who lived off the splendour their lands had once possessed hundreds or thousands of years ago and had deteriorated to be a destination where wealthy Horasians liked to send their children to let them see what life was like in the antique, fallen empires of old.


Rayadés had hidden in Augusto's cabin and cried as the fearsome, bearded men and screaming women came over the railing and started butchering people. She didn't remember how many gods she had prayed to before the bloody axe smashed down her door. Two meters tall Bjorn Olafsson had stepped forward, buried his axe in her owner's skull and started to take her on the table.


She would have let herself be taken freely, she was used to that. But Bjorn Olafsson insisted on smashing her face to a pulp with his fists first, before putting it in her.


A woman, Hjalga Juttasdottir, had put an end to it only long enough to ask if she was a slave.


And then they had freed her. Oh, how they went on about it. Freedom was everything, slavery was evil, but that didn't stop them from making slaves of their own. They called them thralls but Rayadés never saw the difference other than that a thrall's children were born free where a slave's were not. Since she had been a slave, they insisted that she had to be free now, however.


Nonetheless they took her with them, on their cold and windy longships, up to their cold and windy north. Rayadés hated the Thorwalsh. They looked down on her and insisted she be grateful to them at the same time, cheerful even, because she was free now and that was supposed to be so fantastic. Their women belittled her especially. When a man wanted to have a shield-maiden, she'd fight him, beat him. If he overpowered her, they'd mate. If she overpowered him, they'd most often mate too unless she wasn't in the mood. They could fight and brawl over everything, including what names their children should carry. Violence was a part of their everyday interactions.


Bjorn had left Rayadés' face bruised and scared but he had her a number of times more. She gave herself to him, and he provided a certain degree of protection in return. The other women wouldn't please the men with their mouths either, finding it demeaning. They hated Rayadés for it, while Bjorn laughed and shared stories about it with the other men.


In any case, she had been seasick for most of the voyage and had even hoped to die in one of the many storms. After catching a cold and fever by the wetness and cold, Bjorn lost interest as well. When they docked in Thorwal half a year ago they had kicked her off the ship with absolutely nothing but the clothes on her back.


Rayadés would have starved if she had not gone back to whoring all on her own. Thorwalsh almost never frequented her. Paying for a woman's body was beneath them. It had to be conquered by force, either against hers or her protector's. So, she was back to servicing sailors of the ships and river galleys that came here to trade, which weren't nearly as many as in Al'Anfa.


Most of these men were Garethians and Andergastians, but also some from farther places. The whores of Thorwal mirrored that. Some Garethian, Andergastian or Nostrian women had settled here to try their luck. Some Horasian women had been taken from their homes and simply been released here, as had others from further south, some of whom had been slaves before and 'freed' as Rayadés had. The competition was tough, especially as of late when the stoneoak trade had started to die down on account of war and turmoil in the neighbouring kingdoms.


She did not have any friends here. Most common people despised her because she was a whore, or because she was a foreigner or because of her darker skin. Everyone here was a white-skinned northerner, except for two of the whores but they hated Rayadés because she was fishing in their pond of sailors who preferred exotic women.


The food was the worst. There was no wine that she could afford, only mead and the occasional bitter ale. The fish were not large and fat as they were in Al'Anfa but small, scrawny things, as were the crabs and shrimp. The mussels were black on the outside and bitter on the inside and no one here had probably ever even heard of oysters other than on one of their raiding voyages south.


Meat was too expensive for her on most days, only sometimes she could eat a little pork or the horribly salty mutton stew. Thorwal was not a barren land but agriculture was left mostly to thralls and not very developed. There was half-decent bread and a few vegetables to be had, but barely any fruit, not like in Al'Anfa where there had always been fruit-platters to nibble from after she had made her rise to the wealthier part of the brothel. Even the apples were sour here, though the pears were sweet but so mealy that she found them hard to enjoy too.


She hated this place and had wished nothing more than to return south. Such a voyage was costly however. Too costly. And after Bjorn's fists had left her face, Rayadés was apparently not pretty enough any more to become a captain's cabin girl on beauty alone. The foreign captains that landed here did not have near the wealth of those in the south too and most were very superstitious about women on board as well.


She had been able to save up a few coppers and a single silver coin, not nearly enough and she was already living on her savings to eat because of the lack of customers. And as it seemed, her hatred of the place had been justified. Maybe she should have tried to go over land, she thought. Perhaps she could have whored herself down the road, to some nicer place. But it was too late for that now.


When the colossal, young, beautiful girl had trampled into the city, everyone had started to run. Perhaps it was Rahya, Rayadés thought, come to smite this place for it's lack of appreciation for her profession. But then she had seen the titanic girl crush one of her rivals flat into the road and known that this was probably something else.


Rayadés lived in a shed by the harbour but she had been in the smugglers quarter to try and fuck a few coppers out of those who had drunk themselves through the night. When the girl had come and passed over the eastern gate, she had picked up her feet like all the others and foolishly tried to get out. There had been no way out however, and she was simply too small to elbow through the larger and burlier Thorwalers.


Rayadés had been lucky, ducking into a house just before the giant feet had flattened everyone who still tried their way out the east gate. It could only be described as bloody carnage, the fleeing masses getting trampled and stomped into the ground. When she had peered outside, she saw burst and broken bodies, blood, guts, brains everywhere. Her only thought was to get away then.


When the behemoth had passed again, trampling people down the road, she wanted to make for the winter-harbour, trying to get on a boat there and make out to sea.


She had been stupid, not thinking much other than pray and hope not to get crushed. It made sense though, such a large being couldn't possibly be able to swim. They wouldn't let her on a boat however. It was everyone for themselves except or those who tried to flee as a family or group of companions and the Thorwalsh were so much larger and stronger than Rayadés that they pushed her aside like a child.


After that, she hid in a kontor, as did many others who were forced to remain on land. She sat in the dark, hoping, praying. The Thorwalsh prayed to Swafnir. It remained to be seen if their god would come and help them. She found him an odd choice for a sea-god though. Most people believed that it was Efferd who watched over the sea and rivers and streams and it was he who shovelled the water back up after it fell over the edge of the world.


Maraskans believed in their queer twin gods Rur and Gror. To them, the world was a discus, being thrown from one to the other in eternity. That didn't make much sense. The Novadi believed in Rashtullah, with his ninety nine commandments and ninety nine other names. He seemed a good god so long as one really followed him. Any fermented drink was forbidden to them and if a man looked a woman in the eye, he had to marry her.


The Novadi that had taken Rayadés maidenhead had followed that commandment as well, however, and it did not do her much good at all. He had simply stared to the floor before turning her to face the wall and done his will upon her whilst she wept and cried in pain.


Then there were those who believed in the one god without a particular name. They were shunned, hunted and killed for heretics in the north were Praios reigned with an iron fist, but the free cities of the south were more diverse and so many of his followers gathered there. There were even demon worshippers and those who did service to ghosts, spirits and all kinds of other religions too.


The Mohr believed in spirits of large cats like tigers and the like, but when Rayadés ever saw one of their kind they were a slave ninety nine times out of a hundred. There had been a girl at the brothel in Al'anfa, a beauty with ebony dark skin, full lips and almost black eyes. One customer had taken a particular liking to her and liked to see her be touched, caressed and kissed by another girl to get his blood in motion.


Rayadés had liked the girl too, though it was often her job to touch her. Her name was Te-Hao-O-Tawera but the brothel advertised her as the 'the savage beauty'. Her tribe of seafaring Mohr had been caught by slavers but her beauty had saved her from the brutality of the plantations. They had talked often and Rayadés wondered what may have become of her.


She was probably still there, she guessed, leading the best live Rayadés had ever known. Sure, they were slaves and their work was to sleep with men, wash, and do it again, but they satisfied both customers and their owners and had their needs taken care of in return. Being free meant taking care of one's own needs, providing for oneself. Rayadés would have been willing to trade her freedom for the live she had lost any moment of the day. Even in charge of one's own endeavours, every person was but a slave to circumstance and that turned out much better for some people than others.


She realized that her life was flashing before her eyes. Some men said, that this often happened before one was dying. A jewelled corsair captain with a broad muscled chest and gold-tooth smile had told her that, after she had pleasured him so enthusiastically with her mouth that the man grabbed his heart and amicably swore he was dying. Men of the south could often be very charming, not like here.


Rayadés did not want to die. She listened. It had gotten a little quieter outside, the crashing and screaming died down.


On her way outside, she saw silver coins stacked on a table. Perhaps someone had been counting them when the monstrous girl had attacked, she thought, and now they just sat there, abandoned and forgotten. She gathered her skirt and shoved them in the pocket she created. It was heavy. Her heart fluttered. Maybe it would be enough to buy passage south. Now she needed only to survive the terrible giantess.


What did she want anyway, Rayadés thought. Was there a reason why she was destroying this city or did she do it out of pure malice? She was talking, the whole city had heard it. She was taunting them before killing them but if she could talk maybe there was a way to reason with her. Maybe she just hated Thorwalsh like Rayadés did. Her words did not indicate that and she seemed to kill everyone indiscriminately.


Rayadés could not see her any more and had almost thought the air was clear, that she had gone. But no, she hadn't, there she was coming directly towards them in the winter-harbour. Rayadés felt her bladders let go and ran back inside the kontor, silver coins clinging as they fell to the ground.

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