New Estra, Three Hundred Years BeforeThaelen woke late into the morning when the attendants returned. They took him and Meguitte into a chamber where the walls were tiled in a manner that reminded him of the temple of Concordia’s rooms. A sunken bath heated by a hypocaustum system added to that impression. He averted his eyes as they were undressed, although when the attendants exclaimed over Meguitte, he glanced over to see what had caused their tone of amazement.They were reacting to the scars on her back, and she crossed her arms over her chest, flushing as she hurried to enter the water.His tattoo caused the same astonishment, this time combined with delight, with them tracing the runes on his skin. He realized that they could read what his skin said, and pointed to the runes with his fingers, exchanging his sounds for theirs.As he entered the water and submitted to them scrubbing him, he considered the differences. “I think I am beginning to understand some of the variance in
New Estra, Three Hundred Years Before“Do you know nothing of your history?” Wilhelma despaired.“None this far back,” Thaelen told her with sympathy.“None of the elders survived then?” She gripped the arms of the chair, her distress clear. “Geiva? Thrurgrivor? No?” She pressed her lips together, controlling her grief. “I am…” She shook her head slowly, unable to continue.Despite her grief, Wilhelma took care with her words, speaking slowly. There were some pronunciation differences, Thaelen thought, around the vowels, the rolled “r” and her “th” was softer, more of a “ff” than amongst the Concordian. His Concordian, he amended, struggling to make the mental transition.“I’m sorry,” Thaelen murmured, empathetic to her sorrow. She spoke the names as if she knew the people, which would make her ancient if they were amongst Thaelen’s ancestors. He recalled the bowels of the stronghold, the temples, and secret places. “Beneath the strongholds, there have always been chambers and tunnels
New Estra, Three Hundred Years BeforeMeguitte paused, one hand braced against a tree-trunk. “Do you hear that?”Happy laughter and splashing told them that they were getting near to their destination. They approached the riverbank, looking down the gentle slope to where a group of women had found a rocky spot where the water was shallower. In their shifts, they beat clothing against the rocks to clean it, whilst others spread already washed items out over the bushes. The wet fabric clung to their bodies, hiding little, and Thaelen averted his eyes, feeling his cheeks heat.He should have taken Wilhelma or one of the other priests and priestesses that had offered, he thought. It had been too long since he’d had the comfort of losing himself into pleasure. Combined with the sudden thirst for human blood that surged after his time on animal blood alone, he was very tempted by the women below.The young human women would not appreciate his attention, however, he told himself. On their ow
New Estra, Three Hundred Years BeforeThaelen took his turn at the oars, finding enjoyment in the simple physical exercise, the rhythm of the movement, the run of water over the wood to his hands, the splash as the oar descended, and the prick of sweat between his shoulder blades as he labored against the flow of the river. It recalled to him the days of his youth and the raids on the coast of Alden and Etrait.His cartographers debated small changes in the river’s shape, and whether the changes were permanent or as a result of tide, whilst chickens watched from within the woven reed cages and a goat complained from the back of the boat.Sigrid rode in the prow, looking forwards, her parasol all but hiding her from sight. She searched the riverbank intently, missing nothing on either side.“She dreamed of it,” Meguitte said quietly. She sat in the middle of the seat, between him and another vampire rowing. She kept her voice low, however, because behind them was Thaelen’s new blood sl
New Estra, Three Hundred Years BeforeThe other priest and priestess melted out of the shadows, the dappled moonlight licking across their skin as they crossed to them. Wihelma held Thaelen’s eyes. “We would,” she said softly. “Very much.”“Hmph,” Thaelen’s lips quirked in an amused smirk. He had been sought out and seduced into the trees, he realized, for this reason. “It has been many centuries since I have availed myself of the priests and priestesses of the temple,” he confessed. “And I suspect that tonight I am the priest.”Wilhelma laughed, her eyes meeting those of the vampires to either side. “That is so. This is Oliev and Brygen,” she introduced the two vampires. “They are high priest and priestess, a mated pair.”“Greetings,” Thaelen inclined his head to them.“They have been trying to convince me to be third for centuries,” Wilhelma added with indulgent amusement.“She is our third, she just likes to make us work for it,” Olieve stroked her hand up Wilhema’s arm, lifting he
New Estra, Three Hundred Years BeforeThey were quick studies Thaelen thought, his fingers digging into the undergrowth as he braced a hand against Brygen’s thrusts, the shy vampire working hard against him, each thrust grinding Thaelen into Olieve. Her c-nt was so slick with seed and cum that Thaelen could feel the seep of it down his balls and inner thighs.Even with Brygen’s c-ck against his prostate he was not sure that he could come again. He had lost track of how many times he had. He had not realized how badly he needed the guilt free release, the act of giving sacrifice to the goddess under the moonlight even if he was not entirely sure in his heart that he still believed in her. There was a comfort in the ritual, in the mindless rutting of it, in the sweat, cum and blood on his tongue.There was a freedom in being able to seek his own release without the sex having complicated implications. It had been what he had sought in taking on Larin as his new blood slave, but even tha
New Estra, Two Hundred and Ninety Years Before“Do you smell that?” Cieran paused and sucked in a breath through his nose.Thaelen paused, frowning, and inhaled suspiciously. After spending the past ten years off and on wandering the land with his cartographers, he’d learned that not all smells that Cieran remarked upon were good ones and many were produced by the digestive system of the human body.No one liked to walk behind Cieran.Both sides of the land and the mountains were all thoroughly mapped out, containing geographic landmarks, as well as marked with areas that would do well for settlers – from inland water sources, herds of deer that they’d encountered, where the land appeared very fertile, to the Karifa towns both abandoned and occupied.The riverbank in which they’d discovered fist sized chunks of gold (several of which weighed down the backpacks of the cartographers) was marked on Thaelen’s own personal copy of the map and none-other, and the four men had agreed that th
New Estra, Two Hundred and Ninety Years BeforeA road had been carved into the trees, though road was a generous term for it. Truthfully it was where the ground cover had been trampled away underfoot by cattle being driven into the trees, and two lines worn into that by the passage of wagons. Trees had been chopped down to make way for the road, and the side was littered with the debris.“Most colonists head into the trees,” Harry told Thaelen conversationally. “The grass plains are a tough place to live. There are only a few places with ground water that the farmers can access, and in the dry season, with the lightning storms, that grass goes up like gunpowder, so the farmers need to clear a large around their homesteads fast and be able to pump that water from their wells quickly enough to create a firebreak. Even that’s not enough sometimes. Two families were burnt away the season before I arrived, and that’s put a lot of people off settling there.”“So, most take to the trees, fol