Chapter 11

The noisy festivities that had continued through the day were well over when Glade eventually returned to her tepee. The village was now silent apart from the muffled snores of the Reindeer Herders asleep in the chill open air and the occasional howl or bark from distant nocturnal beasts. Ivory stirred as Glade rustled about. Her bleary eyes fixed on her lover. Glade was weary but her fatigue was quite different from that which had overwhelmed her apprentice.

"Have you... ?" asked Ivory. She struggled to find the words to describe the duty for which the shaman had volunteered to substitute.

Glade nodded. "It was more exertion than I've had for many years," she confessed with a smile, "but I'm feeling fine. No need to fret." She pulled off her furs and nestled naked under the bedsheets next to her young lover. "You needn't be concerned about the stench of male sex on my body. I took the precaution of washing before I entered the tent."

Ivory smiled. It was an anxiety she'd not been aware of but somehow the knowledge that she needn't be so reminded of her sexual torment comforted her. She enveloped an arm round Glade's shoulders and kissed her tenderly on the lips.

"Thank you," she whispered as she gazed lovingly into the shaman's large brown eyes.

Glade could see that Ivory was no more enthusiastic than she on the sexual congress that normally accompanied their being in bed together, so she asked: "Do you want to know what happened on the days after the slave rebellion?"

Ivory nodded. Glade's life story fascinated her. The world beyond the mammoth steppes was so alien. Even the notion of a climate warm enough that people didn't need to wear clothes, together with the titillating insight that many chose not to do so, was intriguing enough.

"It took only a day or so for the new regime in what had been the Knights' village to take shape," Glade continued. "The emancipated slaves settled in clusters of huts near each other according to the tribes to which they once belonged. My tribe and Mimosa's were the ones most heavily represented, presumably because ours were the tribes most recently enslaved. It saddened me that there were so many whose tribe was represented by so few survivors. Some of the dispossessed chose to associate with our tribe, whilst others gathered together as a tribe of orphans. All the few surviving Knights chose to shelter with the Forest People. One virtue that distinguishes my tribe of which I'm proud is our total lack of race hatred."

"So what happened to the tribes of the orphans?" Ivory wondered.

"They were very nearly extinct. The Knights' policy of conquest and enslavement had the result that few of those from the many tribes that once roamed the savannah now lived in sufficient numbers for their tribe to survive. The Knights had been like a wild fire in the forest that burns up everything in its path."

The two most populous tribes were also the ones most unlike each other. Glade's tribe of Forest People was egalitarian and easygoing. Mimosa's tribe of Mountain Warriors was hierarchical and disciplined. Glade's people were pacifist and gentle, which was definitely not true of the Mountain Warriors. Glade's tribe knew nothing of clothes, whilst within hours of the village's liberation the Mountain Warriors were adorning themselves with the pelt of slaughtered animals. These were the first clothes that Glade had ever seen, though unlike those in the frozen north they were decorative adornments not used for keeping the Mountain Warriors warm and certainly not for reasons of modesty. Unlike the furs worn by Ivory's tribe, the animal skins were flamboyantly arranged such that the bosom and genitals were always on display. It was as necessary a part of the Mountain Warriors' culture as it was of the Knights' to flaunt testimony of their sexuality.

The Forest People had much time to make up after the years of servitude they'd suffered. Unlike the Mountain Warriors who found their release in violence and the wilful desecration of the religious icons the Knights had held so dear, Glade's tribe found consolation in sharing one another's bodies. And also with whomsoever else they were sheltering with. Not everyone from the other tribes appreciated this. Some soon made their excuses and settled in huts where they weren't surrounded by the ceaseless carnal recreation that was so natural to the Forest People.

"You lot are as bad as the fucking Knights!" complained one woman as she left the hut to live in one settled by people of a dark brown, curly-haired race. "All you ever do is fuck each other!"

Nonetheless, Glade was no more disposed to moderate her behaviour than anyone else from her tribe. The most natural thing in the world was to fuck. In common with her fellow Forest People she did so publicly and with as many people as were willing.

Her first and most treasured fuck was with Tree Shrew, while being cheered on by Macaque and, rather less enthusiastically, Dignity who clung tremulously to her lover. Tree Shrew had only experienced sex with men during his years of slavery, but he much preferred to fuck rather than to be fucked. Tree Shrew and Glade were vigorous and insatiable lovers who paused only to recuperate before they resumed their coupling. Glade's cunt had known so little pleasure during her years of service to Lady Demure. It had been her mistress whose welcoming fleshy lips had most often enjoyed the internal penetration of fist and fingers. She never reciprocated and neither Quagga nor Mimosa was inclined to offer her vagina much more than the most hesitant attention. Now she was being fucked by a man's cock and, what's more, where she most enjoyed it. This was a treat Glade couldn't get enough of.

Naturally enough, there were other bodies than just Tree Shrew's for Glade to savour. There was Tapir who in his years in the Knights' service had acquired a taste for anal intercourse, but this was a pleasure Glade allowed him for only a brief moment. There was Pangolin whose greatest pleasure was to lick and chew Glade's clitoris in the hope she might ejaculate on his face, which she didn't always have the spirit to do. There was Macaque who, with the nervous but willing assistance of Dignity and the rather bolder Fern, smothered Glade with passionate kisses and licked her vagina clean, while she was also being fucked by Tree Shrew. There were so many combinations and configurations to enjoy after the years of the Knights' unimaginative lovemaking.

As Glade chewed at the growing stubble about Dignity's crotch, she was reminded of Demure whose vagina was the one with which she'd been most intimate for so long. Despite her joy at no longer being a slave, she was surprised to discover that she was yearning once more for those pink inner lips and that hard clitoris.

"After all the suffering you'd endured?" remarked Ivory with astonishment.

"Despite all my years of experience, amongst so many different tribes and with so many men and women," said Glade, "the passions of the flesh and the avenues it has taken me remain the greatest of all mysteries. As much as I recognised that Lady Demure regarded me more as a plaything than a lover, I'd come to feel affection towards her. She had, after all, been the person, male or female, with whom I'd most often made love in all those years."

The way in which the village was now organised wasn't at all to Glade's liking. When she watched the Mountain Warriors preen and stride about, she wondered how long they would remain tolerant of those in their midst whose way of life was so very different.

"They're as bad as the Knights," remarked Macaque bitterly when a Mountain Warrior had been chased away after he'd unsuccessfully demanded that Dignity be surrendered to what he believed were her just deserts. "It seems we've deposed one set of tyrants only for them to be replaced by another lot that's just the same."

Glade understood Macaque's sentiment. After all, her lover was in real risk. Furthermore, there were also physical similarities given that the Mountain Warriors' skin was as black as that of the Knights. Skin colour varied amongst the enslaved tribes in the Knights' village. There were as many with black or very dark skin as there were those with the brown skin of the Forest People, but the comparison with the Knights was unavoidable. Glade also had to admit that her tribe was too pacifist—meek even—to have taken up arms against their oppressors. The rebellion could only have succeeded if it was led by a tribe with a culture as violent as that of their captors. It was part of the Knights' tragedy that amongst the last tribes they'd subjugated should be one whose rebellion was most likely to succeed.

The Forest People also lacked the Mountain Warriors' practical understanding of social organisation. It was inconceivable for one Forest Person to take prominence over another. This made them even less able to stand firm against the Mountain Warriors' demands. Indeed, when the Mountain Warriors did want to speak to a representative of the Forest People they were frustrated to not find anyone who would volunteer for the role.

"I don't fucking care!" said Lady Mimosa, as she was now styled. "One of you will speak for your tribe and it is of no concern to me who it is."

Glade, Tree Shrew, Fern and a handful of other Forest People stood by the shrine to Rock Baboon that had become an unofficial meeting point for the two tribes. Ahead of them stood an equal number of Mountain Warriors, together with women from other tribes who'd chosen to shelter with them and were now treated more as servants to their new masters than as their equals. Lady Mimosa wore a leopard skin fastened about her shoulders, a necklace of pebbles cascaded over her full bosom, and leather bracelets adorned her arms and legs. Her crotch and nipples were uncovered, whilst the stubble of hair on her head was hidden beneath an overbearing headpiece of bird-feathers. The hair on her head and crotch was short and stubbly. No one, not even the surviving Knights, were shaving any more. This was a custom that had died along with the Knights' gods and their sacred icons.

Glade's people were confused by Lady Mimosa's demands. They addressed each other in the same tongue, about the only legacy left intact of the Knights' culture, but there was still a gulf of understanding between them.

"Well, it'll have to be you," said Mimosa who addressed Glade by the word in the Knights' vocabulary that most nearly approximated to her name. "You were my companion during my years of thraldom to the vile and perverse black bitch. I shall forever honour the bond that grew between us. It is this bond alone and the value I attach to it that has protected those who shelter with you."

It was obvious that Lady Mimosa was referring to the handful of Knights sheltering in the Forest People's huts and who never dared to venture outside for the very real fear of being slaughtered by the Mountain Warriors.

"Although it is an honour to be considered spokeswoman for my tribe," said Glade diplomatically, knowing how unseemly it would be in her tribe to seek such preferment, "I shall do so only as your friend, not as one more senior than my fellows."

"Have it your own way," said Lady Mimosa. She almost spat out her contempt for the Forest People's alien ways. "It really is of no concern to me how you naked brown tree-lovers organise yourselves."

"What is it you want to say, my friend?" asked Glade. She was careful not to address Mimosa with an honorific that would antagonise her people's egalitarian customs.

"It is intolerable to me and my people that you should shelter devils in our midst," said Lady Mimosa, while her court nodded in unanimous agreement. "There is only one fate worthy for such scum and that is death. We are prepared to permit them a short and merciful death, but they cannot remain alive. If you do not surrender to us the devils in your care, then we shall have no choice but to seize them from you. Should any one of you resist us, we shall kill whoever dares come between the devil and our ancestors' rightful revenge. We shall give you just one day to come to a decision. If you fail to decide rightly then we shall take action. There will be no further debate. There is nothing that you can say that will deflect us from exacting moral retribution."