Chapter 1

The huge gates of Wadi-Halaf closed behind me with with a thud. The sound of the crossbar being slid into place leaves me in no doubt that I will not be allowed to return inside until morning. The gates of the old fortress are never opened for anyone between dusk and dawn and I only just made it outside before dusk. I know other, secret, ways to get inside Wadi-Halaf, but I would only use those as a last resort. Anyway, I have no intention of returning, at least, not until my urgent mission is completed. A mission which, according to my mother, could take a few hours or a few days depending on the whims of people I have never met and whom I inherently distrust.

The gate captain took a lot of persuading to allow me to leave without an escort. The document I carry was not sufficient on its own for him to grant me passage. It was only when I reminded the captain that less than 24 hours ago, my half-sister and I had neutralised eight of the former warlord’s guards while my father and his men completed a more-or-less bloodless coup. The city has a new warlord and I have been granted my freedom. I’ve never heard of a slave girl being granted her freedom before, and I’m about to test the validity of the document I carry.

The streets at night are unsafe for a woman travelling alone but my mother warned that delaying my mission until morning could be disastrous. I draw comfort from the iron slave collar which is still locked around my neck. The collar which acts as a warning to others not to take liberties with me without my owner’s permission. I look around me and count my good fortune. The events of the last few days have left the streets empty of lurkers. I don’t know whether that’s because the citizens are hiding in fear, or if they are quietly celebrating the change of ruler. Power struggles between ruling lords rarely provide any benefit for the ordinary citizen and certainly not for a slave.

I head in the opposite direction to the familiar route leading downhill to the large water cistern in the town square. For most of my 20 years I’ve trodden that route to fetch water when Wadi-Halaf’s own spring runs low. Water carrying is backbreaking work which many slave owners only demand of disobedient slaves as a punishment. At Wadi-Halaf it is a task demanded of all young female slaves during the dry season. At least the work has made me strong and fit, unlike the pampered bed warmers who are bought and sold for high prices in the city’s slave markets.

My destination isn’t far and I’m relieved to find the door to the temple is still open despite the late hour. While slaves are not forbidden to enter a temple, few rarely do so. According to ancient dogma, slaves are unworthy of a priest’s attention as both their body and soul belong to their owner. Undeterred I enter a temple for the first time in my life. There are only few people inside and I easily identify the priest by his luxurious robes. He promptly marches towards me with a scowl on his face. This isn’t starting well.

“If you must enter the house of God then cover your body,” growls the priest.

In my haste to leave Wadi-Halaf, I hadn’t considered my appearance. As is customary for slaves, I have spent my entire life without clothing beyond sandals and a small loin cloth which I’m permitted to wear when I’m outside the harem. The small copper rings through my nipples and the one through my clit are decorations I rarely notice in everyday life. As for the iron collar around my neck, it is merely a symbol of my lowly social status and nothing for me to be ashamed about. Here, though, I suddenly feel out of place and this priest is making me uncomfortable.

“You wear the collar of Wadi-Halaf,” says the priest when he finally tears his eyes away from my tits and reads the symbols engraved on my collar. “Has your master sent you here? Is the new warlord in need of spiritual guidance? The services of the temple are always at the disposal of the warlord.”

The priest’s sudden willingness to be helpful takes me by surprise. I had been worried that my mission would be fraught with obstacles but now it seems it may be much easier than I expected. The priest hands me a long scarf which I put behind my neck and allow the ends to dangle over my breasts. To my mind the scarf only emphasises the size of my ample and well formed breasts, but the priest seems satisfied that I’m now adequately attired to be inside his temple.

“The warlord, my master, wishes for this document to be entered into the temple records so that its contents are witnessed by the eyes of God,” I say, reciting the words my mother told me to say.

“Certainly,” replies the priest, taking the rolled parchment from my hand. He waits while I produce the silver coin from the hidden pocket in my loincloth to pay the fee charged by the temple for recording documents. “How is the new warlord? As I said, the temple is only too willing to serve his spiritual needs”.

“The warlord is resting after his exertions. I will convey your message at the appropriate time on my return, sahib,” I reply politely, unsure of the correct form of address to a temple priest. Not that he would have noticed if I had called him a donkey. His eyes are once again ogling my tits. Instinctively, and like any well trained slave girl, I quietly move so that he can get a better view of the objects of his desire.

I refrain from adding that the warlord is currently unconscious after a bout of heavy drinking and will probably wake in the morning with a thumping headache which will sour his mood for a week. And that will be the precursor to an even worse rage when he discovers that in his drunken merriment he had commanded that his concubines’ sons and daughters be freed from the bonds of slavery. As the only child of his favourite slave concubine, I was first in line to receive my manumission document from my father’s seneschal. Testing my new and unexpected freedom, and at the urging of my mother, I promptly left Wadi-Halaf and headed here.

I know my father and his ways. As soon as he sobers up, he will retract his orders to free his offspring and our brief moment of freedom will be lost forever. I also realise that my manumission document can easily be taken from me and destroyed. Even if my father doesn’t retract his order, my continued freedom will always rest on a single piece of parchment, and the willingness of others to respect what is says. The slave tattoo on the back of my right shoulder is a far more convincing symbol of my social status than any written words. Unless, that is, those words are entered into temple records and are therefore deemed to be witnessed by God.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not fooling myself into believing that my actions will protect my freedom forever. The orders of a city warlord hold little weight outside of the city walls. But it might give pious people like my father cause to reconsider any action that might deprive me of my freedom. A delay which might provide me with enough time to make an escape. After seeing what happened to my cousin Zoe, I have no intention of parting with my freedom without a fight.

The priest returns a short while later and returns my manumission parchment, now bearing a temple seal denoting that it has been entered into temple records.

“The contents of this document are most unusual. I presume you are the Rachael who is being freed from slavery. I should warn you that even with the temple seal added, there is no certainty that this document will be respected by those outside of the warlord’s domain. I suggest you remove all the trappings of your slavery and keep your tattoo well hidden until you can have the symbols of freedom added to your tattoo. But don’t try to have the tattoo removed as it is a certain death sentence for you and anyone who helps you if you are caught doing so.”

Although the priests words are well meaning, they merely confirm what I already know. The ease with which I have completed this mission now leaves me with the dilemma of what to do until morning. Wandering the streets until daylight is asking for trouble, and crawling through one of the ancient and crumbling secret tunnels into Wadi-Halaf isn’t a lot safer.

“Is there anywhere nearby that I might find a bed for the night, sahib?” I ask.

“Do you have money?” asks the priest. I reply in the negative. “Hmm. Well you are welcome to a bed in my apartment.”

The priest’s tiny apartment is at the back of the temple near to what appear to be store rooms and a small well. The apartment has only one bed and I’m not some naïve virgin who believes that one of us will be sleeping on the floor. I regard this as my first awakening to the difference between a free woman and a slave. Had I not been granted my freedom, then the priest wouldn’t dare try to bed me without first obtaining my owner’s permission.

At the invitation of the priest I sit on the bed while he changes out of his expensive robe and into something more comfortable. He clearly wants to fuck me but seems hesitant do so straight away. I hope he doesn’t intend to waste time trying to seduce me. I’m no stranger to sex and if fucking him is the price of a bed for the night, then I have no problem with that.

“What do you know of the recent coup?” asks the priest. “Some say it was bloodless and the former warlord surrendered without a fight. I find that hard to believe given his reputation and the number of guards he employed.”

I could lie and claim to know nothing about the coup, but satisfying the priest’s curiosity might benefit my father’s tenuous hold on power, for which my father might show some gratitude. Besides, the priest obviously believes that I know something or he wouldn’t waste his time asking me such a question.

“Lord Mustafa’s guards were caught with their pants down and were quickly overpowered,” I reply. “As far as I know, there were no fatalities and only a few minor injuries. Lord Mustafa was asleep and awoke to find himself locked in chains.”

My reply is a ridiculously short summary of what actually occurred. Nor does it reveal my own role in the hastily planned sequence of events which resulted in my father becoming the city warlord. For the curious, I shall relate what happened in more detail.

As much as my father disliked Lord Mustafa, I doubt he had initially intended to seize power. Lord Mustafa had commanded the presence of my father and all his offspring at a private celebration to commemorate the fifth year of Lord Mustafa’s rule as warlord. My father interpreted our inclusion in the invitation as a bad omen since Mustafa had a reputation for amusing himself by abusing slaves in his dungeon. Unfortunately, it was an invitation my father couldn’t refuse.

We arrived at Lord Mustafa’s compound with the two unarmed guards my father was permitted to include in our group. As we feared, my siblings and I were to be the main source of the evening’s entertainment. Lord Mustafa even boasted that the equipment in his dungeon was going to be extensively used and that we were powerless to stop what was about to happen.

Seemingly resigned to the fate of his offspring, my father offered the services of my half-sister, Mia, and I to entertain the warlord’s guards. Doing so saved us from the excesses of the dungeon, but servicing eight lusty men is a no trivial task. However, this was all part of my father’s cunning scheme and I felt proud that he thought us equal to the task.

I should add at this point that I’m well trained in the art of satisfying a man in any of my three holes. Initially my training involved simply observing my father, who would regularly walk into the harem and fuck one of his concubines senseless regardless of who else was there. He didn’t notice that I was paying close attention. When I grew older, my mother took charge of my training, teaching me how to deep throat a man’s cock, and through the use of increasingly larger butt plugs, I could now take a cock up my arse without difficulty.

While Mia and I were getting gang banged, activities in the dungeon were centred on the my two half-brothers having their cocks tormented and my other half-sister, Jacinta, having her pussy sucked dry by the warlord. Which was unfortunate for Lord Mustafa since Jacinta is well versed in the use of potions and the like. On my father’s orders, she had secreted a dose of sleeping potion in her pussy which the warlord was happily ingesting as teased her clit. He was out cold inside a quarter of an hour and locked in chains a few moments later. His house staff were quickly rounded up and they joined Mustafa’s slaves who were already locked in the dungeon’s cells.

Rescue for Mia and I came when my father and his two guards sneaked into the guardroom and overpowered the guards while their attention was focussed on fucking us. Mia was the only casualty of the evening with a badly abused throat and arse for which her mother must accept a lot of the blame for not training her.

The priest seems satisfied with my brief answer however, and he’s clearly ready to move onto tonight’s main event.

By now the priest has removed most of his clothes. His erect cock is straining in his pants and he is practically drooling at the sight of my body. Although I have been repeatedly taught to mask my inner feelings and treat sex the same way as any other chore, I admit that I like it when my body is the object of someone’s lust. The priest has me tie back my unruly tangle of hair with piece of string and he instructs me to kneel on the bed facing him with my hands on my head. I dutifully comply. And yet he still delays taking any action, despite my obvious and genuine willingness to satisfy his lust. Years of training hold me back from taking the initiative and I wait patiently for him to summon the courage to proceed.