This is adult material. If you're under the age of consent, leave. If you're afraid reading poorly-written descriptions of sexual behavior might scar your mind, don't blame me. I'm not paying your shrink bills. You're here because you want to be. Do not republish this material without my permission. I Married an Amazon by Enkidu Chapter 3 (no sex, light exhib) The day was indeed hot, but luckily the rising wind broke up any stuffiness and the growing cloud cover prevented sunburn. Low glacial hills formed most of the terrain. Off in the distance before us a darker band which might have been mountains shadowed the horizon through the heavy, hazy air. We moved casually until Sitalit grew impatient and once more took the lead, picking out invisible paths which nonetheless proved the fastest routes around rough terrain. Once again her superb physical fitness outstripped my rather less so. My chest soon burned with the strain. "How far do we have to go?" I finally thought to ask. "Three days to the summer village... well, for us. Maybe four with you?" She half-turned, nimbly sidestepping a mass of brambles, and took stock of my sweating, panting form critically. "... Maybe five." "Five? Days? Five days!?" I stumbled and stopped, almost collapsing in anticipation. "But I can't... I mean I've never..." "Never what?" she prodded curiously, motioning for me to keep up with her. "Never walked that far!" "But you don't even know how far it is. I was just guessing." "It doesn't matter. Five days or three or even one. As long as we've already walked today is the longest I've walked in my life." Maybe that was a slight exaggeration. I'd been hiking during day-trips on a couple of occasions, with a pack no less. Then again, I hadn't been racing to keep up with any stilt-legged goddesses, and our other activities were leaving me rather drained as well, in more ways than one. Cutely biting her lip, the deity in question seemed to consider my statement, looking from me to our surroundings to a random spot on the horizon. She finally seemed to make up her mind. Stretching and puffing out her chest (incidentally sticking her round firm breasts out into the wind without the slightest trace of self-consciousness) she brought her fingers to her lips and let out three ear-splitting whistles. Twenty seconds or so later, something which might have been whistling floated back on the wind. "They'll wait for us. Come on, we can rest." She grabbed my hand and half-pulled me up a hill to the shade of a tree so we could sit down. I awoke. My head was lying on a slightly yielding surface and a heavy musk permeated the air. I couldn't remember going to sleep. For a couple of seconds I wondered why I was outside and not in my bedroom, until the previous night's happenings cascaded back through my consciousness. A rush of rage twisted my stomach. Her! She had kidnapped me, raped me, was dragging me through the brush with one shoe, ruined my life, the bitch. I wanted to strangle her, smack her, punch the air out of her. A powerfully-muscled palm with long knowing fingers caressed my stubble. I looked up past a flat, taut stomach and flushed breasts to Sitalit's sharp green eyes intent on me, and found I'd been sleeping in her lap. Teeth biting a moistened lip and the fingers of her other hand lifting her breast away from her chest by a stiff nipple, it was her pussy perfuming the air just a couple fingers' breadth from my nose. I wanted to fuck her. Something which might've been distant whistling interrupted any such thoughts. "We can't rest anymore. Get up" I was jolted upright by the other hand clenching onto my buttock. Her shining eyes traced my motions as I stretched my limbs a bit. The wind had quickened slightly and the clouds darkened but it couldn't have been even an hour since we'd stopped. As I bent to lift my shirt out of the grass Sitalit's calf lazily shifted to block my hand. "That's still mine" she intoned in a lilting half-giggle. "Go on ahead. I'll catch up soon. Head up that hill" she motioned with her chin. Her hands were busy, one still lazily massaging her breasts while the other had slipped its fingertips under her loincloth to graze up and down her thigh, ever closer to the source of the smell of arousal which had greeted me on awakening. With a curious glance back at her I wandered off vaguely in the direction she'd pointed out. After a few hundred paces curiosity got the best of me, making me glance back. She was still sitting back against the tree, both hands buried between her contorted thighs. She tensed, then slumped back. Moments later, she brushed her hair back out of her eyes and motioned me away, grinning widely. As I turned one hand dipped back down between her legs. I continued walking, shaking my head a bit in amazement. Amazement that I could have such an effect on her, and more that she didn't even bother hiding it, didn't feel the need to conceal her desire as leverage to manipulate me by. Even more, I realized, she could've woken me up instead of letting me rest. Guided by confused, anxious but now somewhat happier thoughts, I barely noticed when I gained the tree line dividing the hill's top. A somewhat urgent, rapid-fire whistling broke out a short distance ahead. A look back at Sitalit for interpretation revealed her speeding up her paces with a quick motion of her outstretched palm for me to keep going. She passed me a few minutes later, rustling along as though the waist-high grass offered no more resistance than air. "Go faster. Follow the tree line downhill. Go." "Why?" "Something's wrong." "What's wrong?" "I don't know. Go." Wordlessly, we pushed forward. No more whistling sounded, and Sitalit made no more attempts to communicate with the others, or so I'd thought. She dipped in and out of the forest as I marched along its edge, at one point stopping to pat a conifer thoughtfully and turn her gaze critically over the grasslands. "Get inside the trees. Stay out of sight" she hissed, handed me my shirt and dove ahead again. Low to the ground, I finally noticed, the tree had been scored with a small scratch on its forest-facing side. I did as she asked without question. Something about her urgency was rubbing off on me. Slower going than before. Though the lack of grass was welcome, the underbrush made for an even less forgiving medium and a mess of twigs and fallen branches constantly altered my path and did a number on my half-shoed right foot. For her part, my guide dashed to and fro checking for more signs and at one point even pulling herself up to the lowest branches of a tree to scout the grasses beyond, only to slide back down huffing and shaking her head in frustration. Before long, we were both panting, my legs were wobbling uncontrollably and I felt as if my lungs would jump out of me screaming in agony. My head was spinning. A hand grabbed mine, drew my attention to a curved line pointing downward, scratched into the bark of a young birch. "Come on. They're waiting for us up ahead. You're doing good. Little more. Come on." One arm over her shoulder, she mostly dragged me onward. Soon after I collapsed onto a grassy patch between the trees. Cryptic comments barely registered through my blood roaring in my eardrums. "What is it?" "Snakes in the grass." Silence fell. Footsteps came and went. Gradually, I became aware I was lying on an overhang by a stream. I lowered a hand into the cool water and brought it up, dripping it languorously over my burning face and parched lips. "How far?" "Two lengths. Maybe less." My severe thirst finally overcame me. I raised myself painfully on one elbow, cupped a hand and spooned water into my mouth for what seemed like minutes without pausing. It was cold and clear and nothing more than hydrogen and oxygen, cloud-piss flowing over silty soil and pebbles, and would've put Evian to shame anyday. "Shit." "I told you to hurry, girl!" The sharp tone finally broke me out of my adulation for the divine gift of flowing water. What was her name again? Lakshanit. The scary one. My new mother-in law. "We did! He was only tired after he ran." "And this? You hadn't managed it by this morning!" A finger poked a sore spot I didn't know I had on my shoulder, drawing my attention. Neat rows of purple marks outlined the shape of Sitalit's dentition on my skin. "Oh, oh, leave her be, nothing to do about it now but keep going, leave it" another voice cut in. I turned to look on the scene. Carina, the black woman, was holding up her palm to placate Lakshanit towering over a suddenly sheepish Sitalit, head bowed, fidgeting while tying a thick leather belt around her waist, still sweating and trembling after our mad dash to catch up. I couldn't deal with this. I lay back and closed my eyes, ignoring their continued low muttering. My foot hurt. A snapping branch caught my attention. Toward the forest's edge, a gigantic knotted poplar towered over the surrounding foliage. Down its trunk, shifting her weight over and under the endless tangle of branches, clambered a lithe, skinny, ropey form I slowly realized must be Atmafit. My breath caught at the speed of her descent, unable to even see her gripping and releasing her hand and footholds. Three meters off the ground she grabbed a two-handed hold of the lowest branch, lowered and extended her sinewy form straight down to its fullest to point her toes at the ground and in half a second had dropped into a sure crouch on the soft black forest dirt. I closed my hanging jaw with an audible snap. "They turned North" she announced. "They know it's us" Carina intoned thoughtfully. "Cutting us off. Badgers would've turned South or West by now." "They don't know we're not Swallows. Or Squirrels." Sitalit offered. "We can turn West, make it to Taxtawa's camp by tomorrow mid-day." "With him in tow?" Her mother nodded toward me disparagingly "And didn't you hear? Damn snakes snuck up on us like they always do. Won't make it to nightfall." "Rain'll help" Carina cut in. "Keep on our way for now, break off after it starts. Hope for a thick one." Lakshanit paused a moment, chin in hand, finally nodded. Carina and Atmafit immediately strode off, pausing only to refill their water-skins and grab some satchels and long, slender objects laid near a tree before disappearing into the underbrush. I sighed, knowing this little rest stop was over. My legs felt like jelly. "He can't walk." Lakshanit stared down at me critically, her stern face barely visible past the twin grandeur of her chest. She didn't seem to care that from my prone posture I could see a hint of curls in the dark up her loincloth. "I can carry him" Sitalit ventured without much confidence, still staring down. Though in a much better state than me, the exertion was beginning to show on her as well. "No you can't." Her mother snorted. "But you'll do it anyway, later. Go. I'll take him for now." Then, at me, while Sitalitpicked up the last of the bundles and walked off after the others: "How long do you need? To catch your breath?" "Half an hour at least." "Half a what?" "An hour. Errr, minutes? Several thousand seconds? Water clocks? Sundials? Anything ring a bell?" She cocked her head quizzically at all this. "How much of the sun's flight before you can walk?" She waved a finger upwards. "Errr, one-twentieth maybe?" Blank stare. "You know, one over twenty? Half of one tenth?" Finally a glimmer of understanding passed over her face and she nodded. "Cal it a span. Alright. I can do that. You'll be a stag yet if I have my way. Head in the clouds or not, my overgrown fawn of a daughter will get her man." She raised her arms and stretched out, muscles twining in anticipation up and down her immense limbs. Turning and squatting before me, she patted her wide waist invitingly. "Grab on. Be ready to walk later." Unsure what she was inviting me to do first, I latched on to her neck and wrapped my legs around her midsection. Without another word she rose and we were off. It was one of the eeriest experiences of an utterly bewildering day, being lugged on her naked back like a toddler getting a piggyback ride. Astoundingly smooth. She didn't so much walk or trot as simply... move. Her legs and feet swapped fallen trunks for rocks and planted themselves seamlessly into dirt and leaves, each seemingly finding its next step independently as her trunk merely shifted gradually along above them, inerrantly balanced and sure as an avalanche. Gradually I began to hear the others' breathing as we caught up and glimpse their figures dashing along beside us. Her tangled hair reeked of sweat and oil and rotting leaves. I found myself inhaling it with a deep fascination. From her trunk lightly bowed to support me, her bodybuilder's arms darted ahead to bend interposing foliage out of our path. Every so often one hand would move to rearrange my legs when they began to slide off the ample saddle of her pelvis or my hands when they drew too closely around her neck, impeding her breathing. Unfortunately as she lowered my forearms they would come into contact with the upper slopes of her breasts, which would prompt me again to raise them too high which would repeat the whole story. After a few repetitions of this I allowed one hand (it was Righty, he's always getting me in this sort of trouble) to wander down curiously over the swell of her boob. Immediately she crouched down and shrugged me off. "If you're rested enough to grab at my teats you're rested enough to walk. Go." However, much of her anger seemed to have dissipated into a triumphant grin. She was right anyway. I followed them on foot, trying to imitate the women's sure gait, trying to see where they planted their feet. A chillier wind blew through the trees and a low rumble somewhere to the left announced the rain they'd predicted. I wondered how but filed it with the rest of the almost magical, inexplicable abilities these primitives displayed here, in their element. Almost without warning, we broke through some bushes into the open. The others looked to Lakshanit questioningly. She, in turn, looked to her youngest daughter again sliding down out of a tree, visibly more tired than before. "They went `round the wood. They gained a bit, but not much. Didn't bother trailing us." Carina clucked her tongue at this. "They know they've got us. It's their grass North from now on." "No they don't. Skip the linden copse and the willows. Make for the old wood directly before dark." Their heads all stared at me questioningly. I stared back dumbly. Sitalit pointed off in the distance. Yet another dark band adorned yet another line of hills in the interminable repetition of the gradually rising terrain. I groaned and almost collapsed in exasperation. "Well" I conceded "I can make it, but what's chasing us?" At this they stared at each other and for the first time seemed too intimidated to meet my gaze. "Best you don't know. Come on." Sitalit mumbled cryptically and we set off again northwards through the grass. The next couple of hours were a blur. I looked behind us a couple of times but could spot nothing, either threatening or benign. The wind grew even chillier as the thunder approached. My imagination ran wild with what might be pursuing us, from snakes to honest-to-goodness dragons. What? I had no idea what this world might hold. Even fantasy tropes seemed possible. Maybe it was a pride of lions, or a pack of wolves, or hordes of rampaging cannibals with bones through their noses. If nothing else, the fear of becoming long pig drove me on long enough to let myself fall once again in yet another forest. Getting carried, getting exhausted, forests, plains, it was all blurring together. My vision swam. My nose and mouth tasted like pennies. This time, no matter how long I waited, I could not catch my breath but lay gasping in desperation. I'd pushed myself as hard as I could, past limits I hadn't even known I had. I was done. A few raindrops filtering through the trees onto my sweat-slimy face woke me. I'd passed out again. Atmafit was yet again dropping wearily out of a tree nearby. With a low, careful voice she signaled us to move. "They're here. They've split up." "First good news." Lakshanit handed her something. Something very long and sharp. One of the objects they'd been passing back and forth before. A wooden spear. An even larger, monstrous duplicate of it rested in the crook of Lakshanit's powerful arm, over three meters in length and tipped with a sharp blade. A freaking pike. Atmafit stood anxiously nearby, fiddling with the string of a long graceful bow slung over her shoulder. She handed a matching one to Carina. They picked up quivers full of arrows and all three moved uphill. It struck me suddenly they'd had these weapons all along but had not threatened me with them... had not even let me see them. Then I remembered Sitalit and the knife back in the wood where I awoke. She hadn't wanted to scare me. She marched up before me now, extending her hand. She'd changed. Fatigue showed in her face, but more than that a stolid determination that clashed with her youthful, delicate features. She had no bow and no spear. A long knife, almost a sword, hung in a leather sheath around her waist in addition to the smaller one. Across her back rested a very long quiver of... arrows? Something longer. Thicker wooden shafts protruded from it, lightly feathered. "Stay with me." Something pleading had snuck into her voice. Her green eyes were wide and watery. "Alright." "Please? Stay with me." She repeated. I could only nod. She pulled me upright and gave me a quick hug. For a little bit she pulled me after her. I stumbled, again and again. She paused and hoisted me over her free shoulder like a carcass, straining a bit and shuddering with the renewed effort. "Those are my darts." She panted, meaning the wooden projectiles next to me on her back. "They call me the dart. Ever since last year" she continued more to herself than to me. "When I beat the swallows over the mountain. 'Cause I use darts. And I'm fast." She set off at a trot. "'Cause I'm fast." And she was fast. She tore uphill, over fallen logs and boulders, scattering clusters of leaves and pine needles. Her feet and forearms showed angry red scratches which hadn't been there that morning. For that matter, I realized, so did my arms and neck. Who knew. A guttural yelp ahead of us brought her to a halt. I raised my head just in time to see Carina, feet planted in a defensive posture. Rushing toward her was a sleek, muscular, black-skinned female form I didn't recognize. The new woman raised her spear as she ran. As she drew back her arm to strike, Lakshanit's heavier form suddenly burst from behind a tree and angled a vicious two-fisted slam onto the other's head. The attacker went down like a rock. Wordlessly, abandoning her there, we ran again. The whole event had taken under ten seconds. The dripping rain finally broke out into a chilling, suffocating downpour and our pace slowed. Sitalit knelt and tipped me aside. More running. Water flowed over their bare, sleek backs and down my shirt. At one point I tried to say something but Sitalit raised her finger to her lips in warning. In single file, we followed Lakshanit's form through the rain, turning at seemingly random points, scrabbling and being hoisted over boulders. For a while I thought we'd lost our pursuers. Our leader, paused, signaled us to stop and all four women turned, weapons at the ready. Past caring, I sat back against a muddy embankment. A snapping branch before long brought my four... captors? saviors? to attention. "Come out!" Lakshanit barked. "Which one of you is it?" "All of us." Answered a voice from behind a tree trunk. "Semenan then? Is that you? No it's not, not all of you. You split up. Dangba's back there with a sore head. Lucky I didn't break her neck, way she came at us. Other two're like to be to the east and west by now, chasing deer that didn't turn to run like you thought we would, squinting their eyes out to find tracks in runny mud. How many more? One more hanging at the edge so we don't double back? Won't be more than five of you. Don't you dare cry out for them, now, or my girls'll give you something to cry about." Atmafit had indeed quietly flanked the speaking tree and was crouching expectantly, arrow notched. On the other side, Sitalit was fingering a short, light javelin between her fingers and pacing calmly into the opposite position. The unknown voice mocked: "Who, little Atmafit? Why she wouldn't hurt her old friend Semei, would she?" "Try me!" The young archer yelped back, her voice cracking a bit with the tension, gulping nervously. Nonetheless, I wouldn't have wanted to be in the other woman's shoes at this moment. A tween girl with her finger on the trigger? Heavens save us. Evidently this Semenan arrived at the same conclusion. "Alright then. Let's talk. Coming out now." Lakshanit motioned for her daughters to lower their weapons and leaned on her monstrous spear as a figure emerged from behind the tree. As "short" as Carina around two meters, her complexion was dark but not African. South-Asian perhaps, given her dainty facial features and heavy eyebrows. Dark eyes, dark lips. A gigantic mane of pitch-black hair trailed behind her, tied into a loose braid hanging wetly with rainwater down to her waist. She tossed a simple wood spear onto the forest floor as a peaceful overture but kept the knife around her waist. Like the others, she was dressed in only a loincloth, her small, elongated bare breasts tipped with wide dark areolae dripping with trickles of rain. Some kind of bracelet adorned her forearm. "Badgers won't like this. Crossing was in their forest." "Badgers hunt in our woods and we hunt in theirs. We understand each other." "Haha!" The other woman threw her head back in somewhat exaggerated clear laughter. "Like to be there when you explain that to them. Your problem though, not mine. Way I see it, we could've gotten there just as easy as you did. Still not properly claimed so we might just take what's ours." "Nothing's yours!" Sitalit growled venomously. "Oh, oh now" the newcomer inclined her head from daughter to mother. "Here I thought you'd be claiming a new one in place of the one you tossed away. You giving a prize to your little fawn now are you?" "I'm of age! Have been two winters running now!" Protested Sitalit. Lakshanit raised her hand for silence. Shrill whistling interspersed the raindrops, somewhere far away. "Pay no mind to her hissing. She's just talking out time hoping the others'll wander back this way. Enough of that. We settle this now and you call your fellows off, Semenan, or we put an arrow through your leg and take our chances running. You hold up our claim and name your reward." For the first time, the other woman turned her gaze on me. "Seeing as how we might've gotten him, I think it's only fair we get some extra hospitality." "That's how it goes sometimes." Lakshanit shrugged. "But it's my girl you do the talking to, not me. She was chosen." The dark-skinned woman turned grudgingly to Sitalit. "Only four of us on this hunt. Next moon around this time, we come by your summer village when the Stingrays come through with the salt. Big happy celebration. We each get a night. All four of us And that's outside of hospitality." She forced herself into a toothy fake smile. Sitalit bunched her fists angrily and gritted her teeth, staring from me to her mother. The rain was beginning to abate. More whistling sounded, this time from the other side, somewhat closer. "Alright..." "And!" The other continued "Since I'm the one doing the talking, I want an extra night for myself. Harvest day at the leaf clan's village, if you're going, or midwinter feast if you're coming down. Bring him with you. This is again outside hospitality. It's what you owe me." A shit-eating grin spread across her dark lips, which she licked significantly in my direction. Through my crushing fatigue and confusion, I finally realized they were bartering for my balls. "What, that's what this was all about? All of this? There was no danger? You ran me ragged this whole day until I can't stand just to decide which one of you gets to keep me captive?" "You're not captive" Sitalit pouted "I've claimed you." "What's the diff-" "Not yet you haven't, anyway." The dusky stranger grumbled but was silenced by Lakshanit inclining her spear threateningly. "Yes or no, Semenan. We agree to your terms. Do you abide by my daughter's claim or do we fight?" The other looked around for a long moment. No allies burst forth to her aid. "Yes, alright." She stepped forward. Sitalit slipped her javelin back into the quiver on her back and stretched out her hand. They gripped each other's forearm and that was that. I'd been bought and sold without so much as a word in edgewise. Semenan turned and looked me up and down appraisingly, nodded fiddling with her bracelet, which upon closer inspection was a dried up snakeskin. "What if I want to go with her instead, not you?" I asked Sitalit. "Not how it's done." She shook her head violently, sending rainwater splashing all around, glancing at my eyes then quickly away. A little hurt by the suggestion, maybe? I searched around for moral support. Not a single sympathetic look. Lakshanit eyed me sternly. The other two ignored me, finding some rocks to sit on to relax. Semenan just winked at me. "You'll get your chance. If your little doe ain't learned her way around a man by then, I'll give you a good going over, don't you worry." With that, she brought her fingers to her lips and whistled out a complicated signal. We all sat down, some in defeat, some in relief, yet others in victory. It took some time for the others to trickle in. By then it was dark and coming down off the adrenaline rush I was drifting off to sleep again. Words were exchanged and the snake clan departed. Sitalit patted my arm to rouse me. "Come on. We're sleeping here tonight. Let's find a dry place." We ambled uphill until finding a large bed of moss and grass which had been spared the worst of the rain by some heavier foliage. Someone handed me some nuts and dried strips of meat I wolfed down without tasting. Blankets were produced, roughly woven woolen affairs. We slept. I'd love to say I had energy for more, but that was it. We finally slept.