Preface

 

Zenab was the haughty Queen of Osibidia. A role she had wrangled to fulfil upon her Father's death.

Osibidia was the principal of the five towns that made up the Protectorate. Her Father had ceded its independence to the Talasians when he saw the threat that the mighty Riff alliance that surrounded the area posed.

Osibidia held a very important strategic position, being pivotal between the large Riff alliance to its East and the start of the Talasian Provinces to its West. As such, it would have been a target for both had it retained its independence.

Now Queen Zenab depended greatly on the might of the Talasian forces to defend her from the Riffs now that a bitter war had broken out between the pair.

However, it was a role that the Talasians were destined not to fulfil, when the renegade Riff Sheik Farouk Doq attacked the town and took it almost without a fight.

Zenab was captured, humiliated and tortured before her own people and taken in chains to Farouk Doq's town of Rebak for punishment.

Fate took a hand however, and eventually and unwittingly, Zenab became the pawn that ended freeing the town of Osibidia from Riff rule and returning it to the Talasians.

Zenab was not destined to regain her throne however. Markish, the Talasian captain took the town and sent instructions for the brutal governor Kelos to take over the rule and restore full Talasian order.

Osibidia had changed from a Protectorate of Talasia to a subjugated and occupied domain and Kelos, the so called tyrant of Beglus, was just the man to instil and maintain that subjugation.

Markish had Zenab sent to a remote town from which she could be transported to a life of desperate and vicious servitude aboard a Talasian war galley, hauling an oar under the lash for the Talasian war effort.

 

Chapter 1. Meeting at the oasis

 

The long, bedraggled coffle of sweating slaves trudged on in the heat and the dust of the Great stone desert. Chained in a line, they followed the camels and the dust kicked up by the plodding beasts caught in Zenab's dry throat and in her eyes.

Every day had been the same for weeks; heat, merciless Sun, dust and endless walking. They slept as they walked and they walked in their sleep, a tortuous trek that seemed to have no end. The savage slap of the ruthless overseers' canes and hide whips across back and buttocks ensured Zenab and the others maintained the pace as they struggled and trudged relentlessly on. Wet with sweat and stinking from abuse and the hot, unwashed conditions, Zenab felt like she was a lifetime away from her beloved town of Osibidia and her hard won Queen-ship.

Now along the road, thorny desert shrubs and the odd, twisted Acacia tree and Palm appeared, as the desert's relentless grip began to ease as they neared the coast at Oor and the last refuge before it, the oasis of Oor.

At last, amidst the dust and the heat haze the oasis emerged, glittering and beautiful shining as it did under the cerulean blue, cloudless sky. So much so in fact, it made Zenab gasp. Her throat was dry and her mouth parched. She like all the slaves in line needed water more than anything in the entire world and before them a scant mile away was a crystal blue oasis that sparkled in the harsh desert sun like a jewel inviting them to drink and drink and drink.

At last the sweating, road grimed line reached the oasis shore and were herded in line facing the water.

"Fill the water sacks and drink your fill!" called the lead overseer. "Men and beasts first, keep that offal off the water. Any slave making for the side gets this!" and he waved the heavy, hide cane he wielded. A weapon he enjoyed using with relentless savagery when he did use it.

Zenab all but groaned as she watched with all the others as first the men drank and then the camels took their place, moaning and roaring like angry old men.

"Are they going to let us drink?" sounded one of the slaves to Zenab, pleading in her voice.

"I'm not about to risk a hiding from him to find out," Zenab hissed quietly in reply.

All the overseers herding them carried whips or canes of twisted hide or wood and all the girls had been driven mercilessly since leaving the remote little lock-up that was situated in the bedraggled, rundown little hamlet that was huddled in a corner of the Great stone desert. It was used as a transport stop before taking slaves out across the desert and on to their desperate servitude and that was where Zenab and the miserable troupe she was with were destined for. The slave port of Oor and galley slavery for life.

That was five weeks away and Osibidia three weeks beyond that. Zenab had been driven first to the hamlet and incarcerated there for a month whilst the coffle she was part of drew wearily into the town and she and the others in the gaol were attached to it and driven on.

Osibidia was eight weeks away at least and seemed even more to Zenab when she thought of it and looked about her and saw just strange, morose faces as miserable and pitiful as she was sure her own was and the hard, stern, merciless sneers of the drivers and overseers, always too keen to use their whips and canes.

They all stood and watched the men drink and wade into the water and then they watched the camels drink their fill slowly and deeply.

As the slaves waited for their turn to drink Zenab noticed one of the men alert the head overseer and point to a man in a nearby group.

The two men acknowledged each other and the head overseer got up and went to speak to the man and beckoned him over. Now Zenab could hear them speaking and it was clear both men knew each other well enough.

"Well what have you got with you today, the usual ramshackle assortment I suppose," said the newcomer. He was a large man, tall and even fat, with a big brown, untidy beard and enveloped in a huge, dark, burnoose.

"No no!" urged the head driver. "I even have a Queen here," he assured the large man. The man merely gave a light chuckle as another of the drivers kicked the girls into a straight line and cajoled them to stand still and erect, an action that they were most reluctant to fulfil given their long day of walking.

Zenab listened and realised that the head overseer appeared to be attempting to sell some or all of the girls on, an entirely illegal action, but of course there was nothing she would be able to do about it. It was obviously something he did regularly and seemingly to this man and perhaps others he met here too.

The big man walked the line and smirked under his untidy beard.

"They don't look like Queens to me!" the large man barked.

"See here then!" babbled the overseer and made a beeline for Zenab. The big man ambled over and Zenab dropped her gaze. The large man regarded Zenab and then raised her chin with the wooden stock of his curled whip of braided bull's hide. Zenab felt the hard unyielding leather on her soft skin.

Beneath the dishevelment of weeks of desert hardship there was undeniable beauty here, for he gazed on a woman of some twenty five years of age. The dark brown, almond shaped eyes seemed to hide a deep secret they were so expressive. Her complexion was honey hued and the suggestion of a mixed Riff Talasian ancestry would have sold well in any slave market of either race. The body was full and strong and much of it was on show for the grimy, white, cropped leg sarouel pants hung on her flared hips and the all but non-existent yellow choli struggled to contain the full, heavy breasts. Her strong, well weighted body was beaded with sweat and it was one that could satisfy any man that was clear.

The large man regarded her for a while and then tugged off her head wrap to release her thick, dark hair dishevelled and dry from the fierce desert heat, but full and strong.

"Hmm, she's sweet enough and would sell well I'd happily wager," growled the large burnoose clad figure. Zenab turned her head from the whip that raised it and dropped her gaze again. The man continued to regard her coldly. He grabbed her arm and looked at the two brands that showed boldly on the top.

"Seems odd to brand a Queen," he remarked dryly. The overseer was ready with an answer.

"She's highborn!" he replied in an upbeat tone and grabbed the arm to point at the individual marks as if Zenab were a thing or object and not involved in the communication at all. "Her Father would have insisted in both army training and a convent imposed discipline; this one has had both."

With a flash of movement, he stripped off her scanty choli and it released its burden with the merest tug so that her heavy breasts fell free and waved slightly as they were set loose. Zenab did not flinch at all, allowing this man, potential master and owner of her, look at what he was purchasing. He grasped one of the heavy, hanging orbs and squeezed running his thumb over the large, dark nipple and then gave a smug nod of approval.

"Is she cut?" He asked and without pausing for a reply he thrust his hand down the front of the loose, low slung, baggy pants and fingered amongst Zenab's coarse bush hairs. The erstwhile Queen barely moved, merely grimacing slightly as the fingers probed her and a slight strain of her body to remain bolt upright.

"Naturally, no self-respecting Father would attempt to betroth his chosen without her being sliced. I'd wager her intended was even invited to witness the proceedings. With such people they often are. No this highborn breed will do more than dance, she will no doubt have been trained to drain her master, you see," he said confidently.

The man removed his hand and ran his fingers under his hawk like nose to savour Zenab's hot odour and his nostrils flared like a stallion facing a mare.

"She smells like a camel trader," the large man sneered.

"She's trekked the desert for days and look at her man...what do you think she did during those days she was confined in the lockup of that lonely, woebegone town? They juiced her good and proper, wouldn't you?" the trader quickly returned.

"So are you a Queen?" the big man asked. Zenab dared to raise her gaze; it was almost unknown for a prospective buyer to address the slave directly.

"I may well have been once, but it is what I am now that is of import surely master," was all she offered.

"That is not an answer, you talk in riddles slave. Perhaps I should buy you and rack the story from that pulchritudinous body of yours. What would you say to that dog?"

"It would not be the first time I had suffered a racking master," was all she offered enigmatically. The man stood as if offended for a second or two and then barked a laugh.

"Ha! What a Queen; perhaps a few dozen lashes would set her chattering and watching the whipcord dancing across her back and shredding her shoulders would make fine entertainment and allow us to fully appreciate her singing voice, for she has a deep, husky tone that appeals to me," grinned the slaver. "I'll buy this one and my whip man can practice his art on her. It would be a shame and a waste of a fine back to lay it over an oar," he added.

He went along the line prodding and testing the odd slave as she caught his eye. He weighed their breasts in his hand, ran his hand over their smooth bellies or thrust his hand down their trousers to see if they were cut or receptive and moist, something he seemed keen to do by sniffing his fingers as a gauge after testing them.

At length he returned with the head overseer who looked hopeful.

"I'll buy the four, one of them being this one" announced the large slaver and he poked Zenab with his whip. "What's the deal?"

"Fine, for the four I want..." and he paused, almost wheedling before offering. "One thousand minerla" the overseer said finally. The large man mused a while.

"Hmm, two hundred and fifty each," he trifled.

"And you know that each one is worth almost ten times that on the open market" the overseer said. It was no more than the truth. Each one would have raised at least seventeen hundred a piece.

"But I will need an extra fifty to pay the quay master" added the dealer.

"So you want me to pay your bribes now too," he grumbled. Clearly this was something the overseer did regularly and then paid the quay master to fill in the manifest as if all the slaves sent to servitude were duly delivered. It was an easy way to earn good money and it was obvious the overseer knew what he was doing.

At long last the overseers stepped back cracking their whips and barking their commands over the heads of the slaves to hurry, they were allowed to enter the oasis and take their fill. Some of the whips bit at the bare backs and shoulders of a few of the slaves, but Zenab ran with the others and they all entered the water in a flurry of splashing and flashing legs. Then Zenab fell flat on her face in it, loving the cool feel, luxuriating in its soft embrace. She pushed her face to the surface and drank and oh the ecstasy, the bliss. How the cool water cut through her raging thirst and bathed her dry mouth and throat. The water was so cool and so sweet after the lukewarm, rancid bilge they had been drinking, tainted as it was by the skin bags used to carry it.

When the bulk of her thirst had been assuaged, Zenab took her chance to try and wash away some of the grime and dust from the long, hot desert trek. She pulled her loose low slung sarouel pants down to her knees to clean her grubby clothes as best she could and try to rid the loose pants of her raw, rank odour.

The water was above her waist so that she could retain some of her dignity and the girls chained next to her cleaned themselves and drank as she did.

She paused momentarily to run her fingertips over her buttocks and felt clearly the 'X' in a circle that had been pressed into her backside not once but four times by Farouk Doq's brands man. They were ignominious marks intended to shame her and Zenab hated anyone seeing them.

They were now just raised, white scars, but clear enough for anyone to see if her buttocks were bared and that had happened more times than she cared to remember. Caning and often rape were the lot of the slave that she now was.

Zenab also used the water as best she could to clean and wipe her stale, unwashed gash that was still tainted from the repeated attentions she had received at the hands of the gaolers in the stinking, sweltering lockup prior to her desert trek out to Oor.

The sickening memories of her cruel abuse emerged to haunt her again as she saw the next man set about riding her whilst the last newly relieved sidled away and the next took his place in the line waiting for his sex adventure to be vacated so that he could take his place.

Gaoler after gaoler took his pleasure and his time as she was subjected to long, almost languid, but all too brutally vicious rapes.

Zenab grimaced with revulsion as the nauseating image flashed again in her mind and she worked to try and ensure every vestige of semen was washed from between her legs.

She pulled off her hair wrap and washed it and her dark mane of hair and took time to clean the grit and grime from the brief choli that struggled all day to contain her full, ripe breasts.

Finally the coffle was brought from their cooling dip in the water; Zenab was pleased to see that the slavers had elected to make camp there for the evening. It was still only afternoon so the thought of halting early was a welcome respite from the usual endless trekking that was normally their routine but Zenab and the three other slaves selected were not destined to stay with the others.

Instead they were taken still in their chains to join the large man's caravan and from there they were taken the last few miles to port Oor where the slaver had a galley awaiting him to complete his journey home.