The Dawn of the Raven Omnibus 1: Episodes 1-5 (3 page)

Luckily, Raveena was far from the bars of the cell as the
assistant laid down the plate and cup just outside of them.  Instead, the
warrior maiden still sat silent, caught up in her own thoughts, facing away
from her at the far end of the cage.  Kiella backed away, and took one last
moment to soak in the warrior’s incredible beauty, and then announced the
arrival of her food.  She lowered her head and waited patiently as the warrior
came to eat.   As Raveena took her first bites, she looked the assistant up and
down, sizing her up.  She then adopted a contemptuous air, and addressed her
with a sneer.

“Are you
meant to guard me?  You don’t look like much of a soldier.” 

Kiella fumbled for her words.

“No . . .
No, I’m not a soldier.  I’m just an assistant . . .  to the captain.  I brought
you food, and drink.”

Raveena stared her down, and the young assistant quivered in
her sandals.  Kiella’s spirit withered beneath the weight of Raveena’s gaze.  Her
feelings of arousal disappeared.  Fear riveted her entire being.  Raveena sized
her up.  No, this one clearly wasn’t a soldier, Raveena thought to herself. 
She was unarmed, petite in stature, and her form and features were soft and
feminine.  She was young, barely a woman, no older than twenty. 

Kiella summoned her courage, and then addressed the warrior
maiden.

“There are
plenty of soldiers stationed just outside.  You cannot escape, I assure you.” 
Though still scared, Kiella refused to show it, and gained confidence as she
continued.  “I am merely here as a kindness from Captain Vol.  If it is true,
what you say, that you are here to warn us of the Gekken, then it is
regrettable that we are forced to take these necessary precautions and keep you
as a prisoner.  The captain recognizes this, and wants me to make your stay
here as comfortable as possible.”

“Comfortable?” 
Raveena looked at her tiny cell, with a rock floor, rusty old bars, and
littered with the remnants of previous captives who likely perished within its
small confines.  “If this is your peoples’ idea of comfort, of how you treat
your guests, then you truly are the heartless savages my people think you to
be.”

“We’re the
savages?”  Kiella felt herself fill with outrage, and surprised herself with
her willingness to talk back to the warrior.   “Your people are the savage
ones.  The cold, hard killers.  You celebrate war like it is a deity.  And you,
you especially; your blood thirst is legendary.  I have heard tales . . . 
stories of the things you have done on the battlefield.  They go beyond war. 
Your cruelty is legendary.”

“Cruelty?” 
Raveena grew incensed.  “Have you ever even been on a battlefield?  What do you
know of cruelty there?  Is not all cruelty on a field of battle?”

Kiella refused to back down. 

“I have seen
enough.  I accompany the captain at every engagement.”

“Oh, so you
are a spectator.”  The beautiful warrior maiden sat back and smiled, with thick
condescension.  “You know nothing of battle then, if you have never fought.”

“It’s true,
I am not a warrior.  I have never been trained to fight.  My training is in all
manners of support: I know how to tend wounds, horses, mend armor and sharpen
blades.  I have apprenticed under blacksmiths, nurses, and apothecaries.  I
have never fought, but I have cleaned plenty of wounds.  I have rounded up the
bodies of the dead.  I have been bathed in the blood of the wounded as I try to
stitch them back together, or as I try to comfort them in their dying breaths. 
No, I have not killed or butchered countless others like you, but I know the
horrors of war.  I know much more of battle than you think.”

The warrior paused.  Her tone and her expression both
softened.  She fed on the lamb and drank of the mead.  Then, she continued.

“Then be
ready to tend to the dead and the wounded tomorrow.  There will be plenty.” 
She paused to eat and drink a bit more, then continued.  “Your captain, how
good is he?  How good are his men?”

“The best in
the realm.”  Kiella smiled with pride in her captain.

“Then
perhaps they will put up a better fight than I suspect.  But you should hope
that the Gekken are long-gone.  If not, your captain will be butchered, and you
and me as well.”

“Oh, I doubt
that” answered the assistant.  “The captain has faced terrible odds in battle. 
I have seen him and his men outmatched three to one, and still walk away with
nary a scratch.  He is the best there is.”

“Even if
that were true, that was against men.  He has never faced the Gekken.”  Raveena
continued to eat and drink.  She finished and put the plate and the cup next to
the edge of the cage, then backed away from the edge so Kiella could approach. 
As Kiella picked them up, she looked back up at the warrior and spoke.

“Are the
Gekken to be feared so much more than men?  We have fought your kind now for
decades.  The Gekken are so much greater than your own warriors?  Are they not
just savages?  What does that say about your own people, if the Gekken are of
such a greater threat?”

The warrior maiden’s gaze grew somber. 

“What is
your name?”

“I’m
Kiella.”  The assistant felt uncomfortable telling the cruelest, coldest killer
in the realm her name, but would have felt even more uncomfortable lying to
her.

“Well
Kiella, you don’t understand.”  The beauty’s face showed something new,
something that Kiella did not expect, and could not be sure of.  Yet, she
believed it was fear.  Raveena continued.  “Your people may have grown arrogant
and downplayed the might of the Gekken over the past few centuries.  My people,
however, remembered.  It has been passed down carefully from generation to
generation, a warning that an evil that once came close to destroying us all
still lurks beyond the mountains.  Each generation has prepared for this day,
hoping it would never come, but knowing that it could.  I have betrayed my own
people, I now realize, by coming here first.  I thought it was in the best
interest of the entire realm.   I thought it was imperative that the Gate of
Ardien hold.  But now, as we sit here wasting time, the Gekken may be about to
attack, and my people will have no warning.  Together, maybe we stood a chance,
but if the Gekken wipe through your people and then catch my people unaware . .
.”

“Wipe out my
people?”  Kiella was incensed by how little credit Raveena gave the warriors of
Ragan.  “The Gekken are savages!  They are unsophisticated!  So they have armor
and brandish weapons now, they are no match for us!”

“You are
wrong!”  Raveena seethed.  “What do you know of the Gekken?  Nothing, it sounds
like.  Do you know the shortest Gekken stands a foot taller than any man?  One
Gekken is equal to at least three men in strength?  They are faster, more agile
than humans, and a Gekken can crush a grown man’s skull in his bare hand. 
Their skin is ashen grey, and they smell like a corpse.”

“Oh, I think
you are mistaken.”  Kiella felt she had found a clear hole in Raveena’s story. 
The gorgeous warrior maiden might have been trying to do her best to scare her,
thought Kiella, but her facts weren’t even correct.   “I have been told that
their skin is dark.”

“No.  Their
skin appears that way because they paint themselves in the blood of their
victims.”  Raveena’s dark eyes seemed to reflect even more of the flickering
flames from the lanterns suddenly.  Her brow lowered.  “They also feed on their
victims’ flesh.  Your people have forgotten the might of this foe.  They will
soon be reminded.  The only way our ancestors defeated them was because the
Gekken weren’t organized, they lacked technology, they lacked strategy.  The
Gekken I saw displayed all of these.  If we do not take this threat seriously,
if we do not begin preparing immediately, both of our kingdoms, and all of the
realm, will fall in their wake.”

Raveena turned to the wall.  Kiella started to speak again,
but then thought better of it.  She soaked in the warrior maiden’s incredible
beauty for one last moment, savoring each perfect curve, and then left.  She
went to tend to the captain’s horse, his armor, his weapons, and his supplies
and rations to be sure all was in order for the next day’s affairs.  Then, with
only a few hours left before sunrise, she finally retired to her own, squalid
cot in the corner of the stable to try and catch what little sleep she could. 
As she lay there, she couldn’t help but remember Raveena’s beautiful form.  As
her mind reimagined her gorgeous breasts, and the curves of her incredible, perfect
ass, Kiella’s hand found its way down between her legs.  First, it rubbed the
inside of her thighs.  Then, she reached up and rubbed her own breasts, rubbing
her fingertips over her nipples.  Eventually, her hand found its way down to
her pussy, and she began to rub that spot: that sweet, wonderful spot that made
all of her other cares slip away.  Eventually, her sweet imaginings gave way to
true dreams of sleep.

When Kiella awoke at daybreak, she was hardly rested at all. 
It felt like she hadn’t slept for more than a moment, but though her entire
body begged her for more sleep, she forced herself up and to her duty.  She
tied back her long blonde locks and fed the horses, checked their hoofs, and
then saddled the captain’s steed.  She only had enough time for a few bites of
her breakfast, and then it was time to meet the captain in his chambers and
take care of any last minute orders.  As always, she was tasked with bringing
the captain his breakfast.  As she approached, he turned and lifted his bed
clothes, exposing his cock.  She set down his plate before him and then, as she
did every morning, Kiella got on her knees and took hold of his manhood,
rubbing it and kissing it.  It instantly grew, especially once she began
caressing his balls with her other hand, and kissing and licking its tip.  She
had pleasing him down now so well that she could just let her mind wander and
think of other things while she sucked his cock exactly as he liked it.  She
didn’t even notice the musty smell, as he seldom washed.  As she brought him
closer to cumming, his hand took hold of the back of her head and pushed her
mouth down further on his cock.  She tuned out his moans and gasps as she went
over the rest of her chores for before they were to leave in her mind.  Yet, as
she felt him get close, she focused again.  She had heard many women complain
about the taste of a man’s seed, but that was actually the part of this chore
that Kiella liked the most.  Kiella loved the feeling of a man cumming in her
mouth.  She loved the warmth of the semen.  She loved its thickness.  She loved
a belly full of warm cum.  And so, as she brought him to climax, she gave it
her full attention.  She rubbed his testicles with one hand and stroked his
cock with the other, as she flicked her tongue over and around the tip and
sucked with her warm, soft lips and brought him to climax.  She savored each
warm spurt from his cock.  Once he’d finished, she swallowed it down happily. 
This was fortuitous, as the captain would always immediately force her mouth
open to make sure that she had indeed swallowed, or else she would have been in
terrible trouble. 

Once she had finished her daily chore of bringing his
breakfast and summoning and swallowing his seed, the most difficult task Kiella
still had before her was overseeing the procurement of a cage suitable for
transporting the beautiful Typhorian captive on a wagon.  Being a captain’s aid
was a fantastic position, one of the best a member of her class could hope for,
and, overall, the captain was actually much kinder to her than many of her
previous masters.  A blacksmith she had apprenticed under had beaten her and
raped her regularly, often implementing tools from his trade in the process. 
Yet, though he treated her much better by comparison, serving the captain was
still very hard work.  By the time the soldiers were all gathered and ready,
and the preparations had been completed, Kiella was exhausted, and yet the day
was only just about to begin.

As the soldiers marched forward towards the Raganean Forest, Kiella
marched in the rear, alongside the cage, and occasionally stole glances at
Raveena.  She wanted to revel in her incredible beauty again, but her fear of
what lay before them was too great for her to really enjoy it.  Throughout the
entire march, the warrior maiden sat at the bottom of the cage facing behind
them, and seemed dead set against making eye contact with anyone.  Clearly, she
was not in the mood for conversation.  The thought occurred to Kiella that
perhaps she should watch her carefully.  Perhaps, if this were a trap, Raveena
was watching for her own people, looking for the right moment to signal them. 
Of course, it would make perfect sense: lead the soldiers into a situation
where her people had them surrounded and then, when the time came, signal them
to cut off their escape route . . .  Raveena’s attempt at scaring Kiella had
been quite compelling the night before, however, so even as she found herself
fearful of a Typhorian ambush, Kiella was still conflicted as to whether that
was a better or worse scenario than if they were really to come face to face
with the Gekken.

The army paused for a short break by a stream, ostensibly for
the soldiers and horses to hydrate themselves, but also as it was a good time,
felt Captain Vol, to check with the beautiful captive to ensure that their
course was correct, and to get more specific directions now that they were
nearing the destination she had described the night before.  He also wanted to
speak to the warrior to try and feel her out, because it still seemed more
likely than not that there were no Gekken, and that this was indeed all a
carefully laid out plot.  The captain had debriefed his men thoroughly; they
were ready for anything, so he was confident, regardless of whom they may face,
that they would fight well and be victorious, but he still disliked uncertainty
heading into battle.  If he could pick up any information from Raveena, it
could be most helpful.  He approached her cage from the rear.  He gave Kiella a
pat on the back and asked her quietly for a report on the captive.  Then, he
faced the beauty and stood resolute, waiting for her to acknowledge his
presence.  Again, as with the night before, when no formalities were
forthcoming, he cleared his throat to get her attention and got straight to
business.