Leilani of the Isthala
By EB, e_beelzebub@yahoo.com
A warrior woman confronts the chief of the Hawk Clan.

The Clan Chief Kavanur reclined on his ivory throne as the guards dragged 
the prisoner before him. Solemn and expressionless, the Council of the 
Hawk Clan flanked Kavanur, bearing guttering torches that provided the 
only illumination in the gloomy throne room. Oukin, Kavanur's right-hand 
and heir, stood a step below the throne, holding the executioner's blade 
at the ready.

"So this is the one who has been causing us such trouble," smiled 
Kavanur. He reached out a hand and Oukin presented him the blade.

The prisoner raised her head and shook her auburn hair back. She was 
beautiful in the coarse way of the Isthala savages, with sun-darkened 
skin and broad, high cheekbones. She glared back at him with darkly 
flashing eyes. Many years had Kavanur ruled the Hawk Clan, by strength of 
arm and wisdom tested on the battlefield. Deep within his proud, stony 
face, his eyes burned with an insuperable will that had mastered the 
onset of time itself. Yet gazing upon his fearsome visage, she showed not 
a trace of the terrified despair he was accustomed to seeing in prisoners 
brought before his throne for judgment.

"I have heard talk among you savages," he sneered the word 
contemptuously, hoping to wrest back an advantage he felt himself to have 
lost under her proud and fearless gaze. "They say you are an avenging 
spirit, sent by your witch goddess to drive us back from your lands."

He smirked then, rose from the throne and descended to her, a towering 
lord among men. He touched the tip of the executioner's blade to her 
collarbone and sliced down. The drawstring severed, her prisoner's garb 
fell away and she stood naked before him. He saw now that there might 
indeed be some truth to the reports that had filtered back from the 
Isthala front. For there could be no mistake: hers was a warrior's body, 
forged in the unrelenting fires of battle. Gazing upon her nakedness, he 
saw her now for what she was: not an imprisoned savage, but a weapon 
deadly as any sword, pointed straight at the heart of the Hawk Clan. The 
lust for battle rose in his veins then, for he too was a warrior born, 
and it had been many years since he had tested himself in those 
remorseless flames.

A warrior's body, yes: and also a woman's body, war-forged muscles 
accentuating supple curves of hip and thigh. A bead of blood drawn by the 
executioner's blade ran down between the generous swell of her breasts. 
Kavanur felt a baser desire stirring in his veins in unison with his 
battle lust. How meager his concubines seemed now that he was confronted 
by this barbarian warrior woman.

"I am no spirit," she spat back. A note of irony sounded through her 
thickly accented words. She had marked well his appraising glance, and 
returned it with knowing, mocking eyes. "I am Leilani, a warrior of the 
Isthala, and I am a match for a hundred of you bird men."

At that an angry murmuring rose among the gathered Hawk Clan Council, but 
Kavanur scarcely heard, for the blood-lust shook through him like a 
storm. He tried to quell his inner tumult. She had slain too many of his 
kinsmen, there was a debt of blood to be paid.  Raising a hand for 
silence, he feigned amused contempt. He fooled his clansmen but he did 
not fool her. "Bold words for a condemned savage." He forced himself to 
laugh. "Now speak your last, I'll let no further insolence befoul my 
throne room."

She spat on the ground before him. "So kill me. Another daughter of the 
Earth Mother will rise in my place, and another after her. Your lifeblood 
will fall on Isthala earth and your soul will fall to the Earth Mother's 
realm. I will wait for you there, and when it is you dragged before me in 
prisoner's chains, I will show you no more mercy than you have shown my 
people." She shook free easily from her guards. She raised her hands 
above her head in a gesture of defiance, and the torchlight glinted from 
her chains, throwing her magnificent body into pools of flickering 
shadow. "So stick me with your toy sword, bird king," she taunted, "I 
know your heart's true desire."

The singing in Kavanur's blood rose to a deafening roar. He would not 
tolerate this mockery in his own throne room. Conflicting emotions 
battled for mastery as he choked back his fury: anger at her blasphemy, 
but also lust, and pride stung by her too-piercing taunts. And above all, 
the need to reassert his power here in his throne room, before his 
council. The Chief of the Hawk Clan ascended to power by force and 
maintained it by force. He must now remind his kinsmen why only he was 
fit to rule the clan. 

"A Trial by Might!" he roared, hurling the executioner's blade back 
cartwheeling to embed itself in the throne. The Council cheered their 
approval. He cast off his cloak and robes and stood before her naked and 
unarmed as she was, a marble colossus animated by rage. Even as he 
reached for her chains, tearing them loose with a single wrench, even as 
he exulted in the battle to come, he realized that she had already drawn 
first blood: she had knocked him off guard and roused him to berserk rage 
here in the seat of his power.

As a berserker throws himself into battle, so the chief fell upon the 
insolent savage. Leilani dropped into a warrior's crouch, deftly weaved 
to one side then another as she backed away, lashing out immense, 
spinning kicks to his sides and midriff. But the chief felt the blows 
only as joyous spurs to his blood-lust. He anticipated each of her steps, 
drawing closer with every feint until she was within grasp. Like an 
avalanche he tumbled over her, enveloping her in a great bear hug. He 
lifted her off the ground, felt her naked body sliding luxuriously up his 
broad chest. He felt his passion rise proudly in response and locked his 
arms tight, crushing her close.

She was elusive as a snake, slipping about in his grasp and searching out 
vulnerabilities. Here a probing strike worked surely into a collarbone, 
sending a dull numbness across his shoulder. And here a sudden jab to the 
armpit sent a sudden jolt of venomous agony down his arm. And here - she 
had squirmed from his vice grip and stood before him, free again.

No sound echoed in the throne room save bare feet padding across cobbled 
floor and the gasped breaths of the fatigued combatants. Kavanur lurched 
toward her and felt the vaguest intimation of alarm. His reflexes were 
not responding with their customary sharpness. With every step, his sides 
shot through with tenderness from her axe-blow kicks. The blood roar was 
dying in his ears, replaced by a cold, measured appraisal. He continued 
his approach and she dropped with catlike grace - he could not help but 
admire the beauty of her movements, even as her leg swept under him and 
he crashed downward.

She fell on him while he was still unbalanced, and now it was she who 
attacked with berserk ferocity, raining fists and elbows through his 
upraised arms, her face a mask of awe-inspiring, primal rage. He felt the 
skin of his face split open, tasted blood. Stinging, tiny blows, but too 
many found their mark. He waited with the patience of the veteran 
warrior, timed his single precise blow to her jaw, and grabbed her wrists 
as she slumped forward, dazed.

They lay that way for some time, stunned and exhausted. Then Leilani 
stirred as though in a trance, brushed her lips over his lips, down his 
neck, tasted their mingled blood on his skin, smelt the animal scent of 
their exertions. The chief strained mightily beneath her, a continent of 
rock and muscle. She was lost in a reverie: so the Earth Mother must have 
savored the battle when first she tested her might against the Sky God.

Kavanur felt her concentration waver. Sensing his opportunity, he levered 
a leg under her, kicked her up and away with a final explosion of power 
that sent her hurtling overhead and crashing prone to the cobbled ground. 
He dragged himself on top of her, rolled her onto her back and pinned her 
beneath his tremendous bulk. Rivulets of blood and sweat fell salt-sweet 
to her lips.

She had tested him as no other had, fought him to a stalemate. But now he 
held her fast, fists grasping wrists and knees pinioning legs, his body 
rigid, unmoving save for deep, exhausted gasps. She saw now beyond lust, 
beyond conquest, there was reverence in his eyes.

"Share my throne with me," he said hoarsely. "Be my Queen."

She strained to free herself but his grasp was the grasp of death: 
inescapable. He was certain now that the battle was over. "Pledge 
yourself to my throne, bow before my crown, or choose death."

"Bird king on a toy throne," she snarled back, defiant to the last. "You 
cannot understand the ways of the Isthala. You know only conquest." Then, 
in a gentler, almost regretful tone, "My throne is the Earth Mother below 
and my crown is the Sky God above. I will never submit to your rule."

Rage, and a kind of grief, contorted Kavanur's face. The one woman who 
could match him in love and on the field of battle had spurned him. "So 
die then," he bellowed, and held both her wrists down with one great 
fist, raising the other to dash the life from her.

As his fist crashed down she tried despairingly to twist from under him. 
Her leg thrust hard up against his manhood, engorged in his moment of 
triumph. He gasped then at the sudden pang of pleasure, as silken calf 
skidded slick down his shaft. But his ecstasy had thrown off his aim and 
his battle weary limbs failed him at the last. She wrenched an arm free 
of his grasp, bent it to a point and jerked up to meet his deathblow. His 
full weight bore down onto her as she whipped up with every sinew in her 
coiled torso. His throat crashed into the point of her elbow and she felt 
something crush within it. His hand roared past her ear and smashed 
harmlessly into the ground. He lay stunned on top of her, his head over 
her shoulder. His breath came in wheezing rasps. And now she, too, was 
certain that the battle was over.

She rolled him onto his side, lifted a leg over his waist, and locked her 
ankles around him. The muscles in her thighs flexed with a tremendous, 
resolute strength, and a great shudder ran through the doomed chief's 
body. He worked his arms between her legs and flexed helplessly: she was 
too strong. He beat against her legs, and clawed at her breasts that rose 
now in a calm, deep rhythm as she sapped the last will to fight from him. 
Even now, understanding with a warrior's instinct that he stood on the 
threshold of his defeat, even now, he could not help but mark the 
flawless sweep of the legs that conquered him, the soft swell of her 
breasts, rising and falling, unmoved by his increasingly desperate 
flailing. His manhood swelled under the weight of that intolerable 
pressure, that intolerable, majestic beauty.

She saw his erection rise: a fitting tribute, conquered submitting to 
conqueror. She felt his hands dragging desperate across her breasts, her 
belly, her legs, as the caress of an urgent lover. The battle was won, 
there was no further need for acrimony between them. She reached a hand 
up to brush a lock from his cheek, trailed it down his massive, heaving 
torso, still struggling mightily against the inevitable. She let her hand 
drop further down between his legs to his manhood, traced her fingers up 
and down. He had fought as a true warrior, and he would die as a true 
warrior must, bested by a superior foe, fighting to the last breathe. She 
gripped his broad shaft with a strength to rival her legs' death-hold, 
and pumped up and down. She saw dread, lust, fury and humiliation play 
across his face as he shuddered under the pleasure that had betrayed him. 
He had been a worthy foe.

"Hawk Chief," she murmured gently in her own tongue, the language of the 
Isthala, "I know now that you are no mere bird king, but a warrior true 
and proud. I will grant you the holiest death of the Isthala. You will be 
borne with all honor into the realm of the Earth Mother."

The words meant nothing to Kavanur but the finality of her tone made his 
heart quake with desperate terror. He understood only that the 
intolerable pressure around his waist eased, and she rolled him onto his 
back. He tore into her again, the horror of impending doom lending a 
newfound, desperate strength to his leaden arms. His blows rained up onto 
her and many found their mark. But she was implacable now, lowering 
herself over him, twining her legs around his and immobilizing him. 
Lowering herself down, unthinkably, absurdly, to his sex. And, absurdly, 
he felt himself respond: fully engorged, he let out a hoarse cry as he 
thrust up to meet her body and she impaled herself on him. Her arms made 
their way inexorably through the storm of blows he aimed at her face and 
breasts. One forearm pressed over his ruined throat, one hand caressed 
his face with firm gentle strokes, tracing arcane symbols on his 
forehead, his cheeks. He heard her murmur again in her savage language, 
words he could not understand. He understood only that he was caught up 
in the final rites of some barbaric, inescapable death ritual.

He thrashed with redoubled effort but only served to bring himself into 
more violent union with her. His breath hissed thinly through his 
constricted throat, his arms and body grew heavy, and his mind was fogged 
by excruciating waves of intermingled pleasure and pain as she rose and 
fell, rose and fell over him.

At last his arms fell inert to the ground, splayed wide: a lover's 
embrace he was too exhausted to consummate. His breath dropped to a hiss, 
and she rose slowly one last time, drawing out his final exquisite agony 
to an eternity. She lowered her mouth to his, drew his last breath from 
him and he shivered like a bowstring pulled taut. She felt him convulse 
inside her, and lowered herself one final time down his shaft. He 
shuddered in perfect ecstasy, his seed gushing again and again as he 
arched his body up, plunging deep and crushing his throat against her 
arm. He let out an oddly peaceful sigh and subsided to the earth, 
utterly spent. The great, the almighty Kavanur, Chief of the Hawk Clan, 
lay conquered and lifeless beneath Leilani of the Isthala.

She dismounted her vanquished foe and rose to her feet before the throne 
where scant hours before she had been dragged as a prisoner. She stood 
before the throne, the invincible warrior woman, a vision of 
unconquerable beauty clad only in the blood of battle. The Council of the 
Hawk Clan sank as one on trembling knees before her, overwhelmed by the 
power of the savage, erotic dance of death they had witnessed. Oukin 
alone found his voice: "Our Queen, Chief of the Hawk Clan," he hailed 
her. "By the law of Trial By Might you rule us."

Leilani let out a harsh laugh. Their chief had won her respect but they 
were still puny raiders who had dared to desecrate the hallowed grounds 
of the Earth Mother. Let them squabble over their toy throne, she had no 
use for it. And yet... Kavanur had given her a deeper understanding of 
the men of the Hawk Clan. They were no match for the warrior women of 
Isthala but their chief, at least, was a true warrior at heart. Perhaps 
they could be made to understand the ways of the Earth Mother. And if 
not, well... so be it.

She cast an appraising eye over Oukin. He was decades younger than 
Kavanur, and would never achieve the dead chief's titanic stature. But 
something in the poised way he held himself suggested possibilities. He 
would be a great warrior some day. "Very well," she said, and pointed at 
Oukin. "You I claim as spoils of my victory. To the rest, I leave you to 
fight each other for your throne. But mark this and tell it to your 
kinsmen: I have conquered your greatest and taken his seed by force. I 
have enslaved his heir. Think twice before turning your eyes to the 
Isthala again. The next time the Isthala come to your throne you will not 
be shown such mercy as I have shown you this day."

And with that, she swept Oukin up over her shoulder and strode from the 
throne room, leaping up onto the chief's own steed and galloping back 
east to the plains of the Isthala.