Jarmsheela the Magnificent had been dead for over 1,500 years. It was believed by some that Jarmsheela was not truly dead. Magic users of all disciplines believed that the mage was only suspended in stasis awaiting the Last Day when the Elder Gods he had served in life would return to do battle with the New Gods who now ruled the cosmos. On that day, Jarmsheela would rise to take his place at their side in the Final Battle.
Buried with the Jarmsheela, it was said, was a fabulous collection of magical weapons and artifacts. Collected from the far corners of the world by the mage, they would be needed by his Masters if they were to prevail in that final battle. At some point in their lives, every mage who had lived after Jarmsheela turned his or her attention to the task of obtaining the great mage's fabulous hoard, but none had ever managed to penetrate the tomb's magical defenses.
The Amazon warrior, Tamara drew her desert robes tightly about her, trying in vain to keep out the blowing sand that found its way into her clothing and itched horribly. At the urging of the court magician Nona, Tamara had been ordered by the Queen to undertake the journey to the dead city of Cyr. Nona had coveted Jarmsheela's treasures for more than a millennium and now was convinced that her plan would obtain the fabled horde. The ancient witch frightened Tamara. In her far travels Tamara had seen more than her share of magical horrors and wonders: creatures out of legend; castles suspended in mid air and the dead summoned back to life. Some of what passed as magic was mere trickery, but far too much of it was real. Tamara preferred honest steel and combat between equals.
Tamara's nerves were on edge. She hadn't seen another human being in the two weeks since leaving the Northwestern caravan route. She had traveled in a silence broken only by the wind and the protestations of her camels. Now she had entered the city of the dead.
Once one of the farthest outposts of civilization, Cyr had died over two decades ago after its wells went foul and the plague that followed killed all who had remained. The streets were littered with the bones of the dead, half buried by drifting sand. Here and there lay sun-dried mummies, bits of clothing still clinging to shriveled flesh. No stranger to death in all its forms, Tamara felt a chill despite the desert heat as bleached bones crunched beneath the camel's feet. She gave a prayer of thanks to Tanit upon finally reaching the graveyard; where at least the dead were out of sight.
Jarmsheela's tomb was curiously plain. Its small size indicated that the actual burial chamber lay underground. Tamara touched the metal door. Like the stone of the tomb, it was untouched by time or the erosion of desert sand unlike the sad ruins that surrounded it. Her fingers tingled when they made contact with the door; sealed by magic and no doubt booby-trapped. Nona had prepared her for that.
Tamara removed a coin-sized disk from her shoulder pouch. It was heavier than even pure gold and made of a hard, lusterless gray metal she could not identify. Following Nona's instructions, Tamara placed it upon the ground close to the door and spoke the word the mage had taught her. Activated, the metal disk began to glow and hum. As Nona had said it would, the disc burned, consuming itself and the mana; the force behind all magic; in the area. The glow became painfully bright and the hum grew louder and higher pitched, escalating into the shriek of a tortured soul. Tamara turned away from the light and clamped her hands over her tortured ears, vainly trying to protect them. The noise grew louder still, resonating through her bones. She staggered away from the tomb, the white light rivaling that of the sun, visible even through her tightly closed eyelids. Terrified Tamara ran, eyes still closed and finally, least she run into something, threw herself face down in the sand. Then there was silence.
The Amazon spat out sand and rose to face the tomb once more. The stone was eroded and crumbling in places; tomb now looked like the thousand-year old ruin it was. The door had fallen to the ground rusted and pitted, hinges destroyed by a millennium kept at bay by Jarmsheela's magic. Nona's coin was gone, consumed without a trace along with Jarmsheela's magic.
Again, Tamara drew magical items from her pouch. She mixed a foul smelling liquid from three vials and drank the horrible stuff in one gulp as she had been told to do. She gagged and retched, but kept it down. She stripped off her desert robes and put on a thin leather tunic and a pair of doeskin boots. She would carry nothing else into the tomb except the shoulder pouch and the sword Nona had given her.
Tamara drew the sword from its sheath and examined it once again. The blade had been forged from a bar of meteor iron alloyed with silver and earthly steel, then charged with spells. The resulting metal was hammer-welded; folded and refolded thousands of times into the strong but flexible blade she now held. Magic or not, it was a formidable weapon. The Amazon hefted the blade and performed a few practice lunges and parries to get the feel of the weapon as well as warm up muscles too long inactive from riding in a camel saddle.
The daylight seemed to be slowly growing brighter, hurting her eyes. Nona's potion was beginning to work. Tamara dashed into the tomb. She knew that in a few moments she would be able to see in total darkness; to remain outside in sunlight would destroy her vision forever. The stairs before her led down into the earth, a right-hand turn cut off the remaining light just as Tamara's magic induced infra-vision reached full effect. She slowed down, moving cautiously down, observing signs of damage from Nona's magic destroying device everywhere.
Murals were fading with age; tapestries rotted; here and there stone crumbled and shattered; the fortunes of a thousand kings lay all about her, now in ruins. The bodies of several homunculi, Jarmsheela's shock troops, smoldered on the floor, the misshapen creatures artificial lives ended along with the magic. Tamara still had to watch out for mechanical traps, though most of them were probably destroyed by the passage of time. It was saddening to see such beauty gone to ruin because of Nona's desire, she thought, but it was too late for regrets now.
Before her was the door to Jarmsheela's burial chamber. This door was intact, protected by magic greater than Nona's. Perhaps if the coin had been larger it could have consumed even the magic here. Nothing about the floor and walls suggested hidden trapdoors or ports from which darts could fire or poison gas could flow. There was no hidden track on which the ceiling could descend and crush her. A mosaic depicting Jarmsheela holding the world in one hand, a thunderbolt in the other, covered the door itself. A modest man Tamara chuckled. She spent an hour examining every inch of the door. At last she decided there was no trap there. It was closed by a simple mechanism and turned easily aside on a pivot despite its great weight. She entered the chamber.
Tamara's eyes widened at the sight of Jarmsheela's treasure. The legends did not exaggerate. The treasures she had seen in the upper level were mere baubles compared to what lay before her. Everywhere she looked was heaped wealth beyond comprehension. The walls were lined with racks of magical weapons and devices. Chests of gold and gems were everywhere. Life-sized gold and silver images of the Elder Gods and fantastic creatures stood in niches carved into the walls. No human could spend what was gathered here in a thousand, thousand lifetimes. The greediest miser would have his wildest dreams sated here. None of this mattered. She was to bring back only the amulet that contained Jarmsheela's power.
Caravans from Yr Dakaan would come later to remove the gold and jewels. Ignoring the treasure, Tamara approached the object of her quest. Jarmsheela's sarcophagus was made of the clearest glass and stood upright in the center of the room so that the mage appeared to stand facing Tamara. He was clad in priceless robes of silk and cloth of gold. Several rings covered each finger and he wore a large amulet on a golden chain; the object Nona had sent Tamara for. Tamara stared in awe at the mage. Dead over a millennium, Jarmsheela's flesh was perfectly preserved and ruddy, there was a faint smile on his lips as if he shared some joke with eternity.
It seemed to the Amazon as if the mage had merely fallen asleep. Jarmsheela had died a fairly young man Tamara observed to her surprise. He was tall and handsome, his hair and neatly trimmed full beard were thick and glossy black without a strand of gray. Most mages came into their full power only in the last years of their long lives, yet Jarmsheela had accumulated all his treasure and performed the feats which had preserved his name before turning 40.
Tamara was suddenly afraid. Getting this far had been much too easy. Could there be one final trap? What if Jarmsheela only slept? It was far too late to turn coward now, she told herself. She had never failed any task given her. She raised the sword over her head, hesitated with one last moment of doubt, then slashed downward with all her strength and struck the sarcophagus.
Sombelene had started to wake when the door to the burial chamber was unlocked. She had opened her eyes in time to see the human woman enter. She could only wait impatiently as her body slowly transmuted back into flesh from the gold it had been made to resemble. The human had looked directly at her, thinking she was one of the statues that filled the niches of the burial chamber. Sombelene smiled at the fool's mistake. She was her Master's most trusted servant and she had never failed him.
To Sombelene's surprise, the human ignored the vast treasure, giving it only a casual glance. The woman walked directly to her Master's body, examining the sarcophagus. It was taking agonizingly long for her body to regain full mobility, Sombelene fretted. She watched in horror as the human raised the sword and struck the sarcophagus.
The impact of magic steel against charmed glass reverberated up Tamara's arm, causing her to drop the blade in shock. Her palms and wrists hurt like hell. She danced in place shaking her hands and cursing Nona yet again. The glass had not even been scratched-so much for Nona's magic, Tamara thought. The faint smile on Jarmsheela's dead face seemed to mock her. Tamara examined the sarcophagus more closely. There had to be a seam indicating a lid, perhaps she had overlooked it, but there seemed to be none. It was as if the glass had been cast around Jarmsheela's body, which of course was impossible she thought.
Sombelene was at last free to move. She slipped silently from her niche, unheard by the human who was too intent on her desecration to be aware of Sombelene's presence. As soon as the human was dead she would have to wake Jarmsheela. Even to her limited ability to sense magic, Sombelene could feel the damage that had been done to the tomb's magical defenses. She crept closer to the human.
Something, a reflection on the glass sarcophagus or the slightest of sounds, caused Tamara to turn and behold death approaching in the form of something out of fable. The creature had the head, arms and torso of an incredibly beautiful woman. Below her waist the swelling of her hips began and ended in the body of a great constricting serpent over 30 feet long with bronze colored scales and a mottled pattern of gold edged in silver. Perhaps she had been an Egyptian temple dancer before Jarmsheela worked his evil arts on her. Her human part's complexion was the deep brown of that race and she wore the heavy eye makeup and braided hair that could be seen on tomb paintings of entertainers from Jarmsheela's time. She rose to nearly twice Tamara's height, swaying gently, the rest of her serpent body forming a nest of coils. The Amazon's heart pounded with fear and dread as the creature smiled to reveal fangs dripping venom. Tamara felt ice form in her stomach as she remembered that she had dropped her sword and a quick glance told her that it lay exactly between her and the snake-woman.
"Do you have gods, human?" The snake-woman asked, her voice a sensual contralto. "Pray to them now while you have time...and breath."
Tamara backed away from the creature, her eyes flickering between the beautiful face and the mass of coils sliding towards her. Her back touched the wall behind her. A rack of weapons lay a good ten paces in the direction the Amazon was slowly moving. How fast was the creature? It knew how to speak Tamara's language, which did not exist at the time of Jarmsheela's death; therefore it was not merely a beast.
"What are you?" Tamara asked, her voice quavering slightly.
"What am I?" The creature asked, a mocking smile on her face. "I am Sombelene,servant of Jarmsheela. There is no escape from this room human. The door re-locked when you entered and only my Master can open it from here." Sombelene slowly closed the distance between them.
Tamara guessed that she was only five or six paces from the weapon rack. She kept her eyes fixed on those of the snake-woman, hoping to distract the creature.
"You are obviously a victim of Jarmsheela's magic," Tamara said. "Legend is full of tales of the horrors Jarmsheela inflicted on humanity with his black arts. Help me destroy him and regain your humanity." Sombelene hissed, the sound of an angry serpent, only much louder. Her face was a mask of rage.
"Stupid cow!" Sombelene spat. "This is the form my Master bestowed upon me as a sign of his love. I volunteered to guard his body until the Last Day and stand at his right hand during the Final Battle."
Sombelene's tail suddenly slashed out to block Tamara from reaching the weapon rack. The Amazon lunged in the opposite direction, rolling across the marble floor in an attempt to reach her dropped sword. Just as her hand touched the hilt, Sombelene's fingers closed on Tamara's wrist and she was yanked to her feet in one smooth motion by the immensely strong creature. Sombelene rose higher, dragging Tamara up till her feet no longer touched the floor. She dangled ten feet from the floor, held by her wrist, the sword still clutched uselessly in her right hand. In desperation Tamara tried to grab it with her left hand. Serpent-fast, Sombelene grabbed that wrist too.
"I would have killed you with a bite," Sombelene began. "My venom is quick and merciful. But now, I will crush the life from you as slowly as I can."
"No!" shouted Tamara and kicked Sombelene squarely in the stomach with all her strength. The snake-woman shrugged off the blow and began to lower the woman...into the waiting mass of coils she had formed beneath her. Tamara drew up her legs and kicked wildly trying in vain to keep Sombelene from winding her serpent body around her. She may as well have kicked iron for all the good it did. The snake-woman's lower body was nearly the thickness of Tamara's waist. Three coils quickly enfolded her legs and waist.
"I will make you beg for death," said Sombelene. "But you will have that release only when I tire of watching you struggle."
Slowly, Sombelene began to wrap yet another coil around the woman. Tamara felt the serpent body slide up her back and wind its way around her front. Arms still held in the steely grip of the snake woman, she could only watch as the coil began winding around her chest. Tamara was wreathed in snake flesh to just below her breasts, held so tightly she could barely squirm. Sombelene listened to the woman's labored breathing, tightening her coils just a bit. If she desired she could kill her in moments. The serpent-woman released Tamara's left arm and took the sword from her right hand, tossing it aside. She smiled as she formed yet a fifth coil and let it slide lazily around the woman's chest. Sombelene began the slow process of crushing her, tightening her coils slightly with each of the woman's exhalations.
Tamara gazed upon Sombelene's beautiful face. There could be no escape now, only death. The snake-woman tightened her coils until it was impossible for the Amazon to take a full breath, only shallow pants. She was like a mouse being played with by a cat.
"Sombelene...p-p-please..." Sombelene tightened until Tamara felt her ribs caving in, driving the air from her lungs. She gasped in agony, her ribs threatened to snap under the unrelenting pressure, then slumped forward almost unconscious. "K-kill me...end it...now!"
"Do not beg, Amazon. I wish to play with you a little longer." Sombelene taunted, punctuating each statement with a vicious squeeze. "It was forbidden for you to be here, yet, you came, not just to steal, but to destroy! Look at what you have done! You and your feeble tricks have endangered my Master!"
Tamara held her breath, straining against the steely muscles that sought to squeeze the last air from her burning lungs. It was hopeless, to struggle further would only amuse Sombelene; the creature would have her life anyway after tormenting her until she was too weak to struggle. Tamara decided to deny her that pleasure. She screamed, exhaling her last breath, feeling the massive coils tighten breaking all her ribs at once. She felt her heart, so compressed within her crushed ribcage that it had no room to beat, thud to a stop. Darkness quickly took her.
A few moments or an eternity of nothingness passed and Tamara woke to a world of pain. Each breath she took was agony; for a moment she thought she was still in the grip of the snake-woman. Then, the pain ended. She was not only alive, but healed also. Tamara hung suspended by her wrists, feet several inches from the floor. Although she clearly felt the metal bands that encircled her wrists, she could see nothing holding her. Magic. In front of her sat Jarmsheela, alive, upon a massive throne carved from a single piece of jade. Lounging at his feet, her serpent body draped across his lap and shoulders was Sombelene.
"In a way, I am glad you interrupted my sleep." said Jarmsheela to the Amazon, absently stroking Sombelene's hair. "At the time of my "death", I felt that it would take at least three millennia for any mage to overcome the magic protecting my tomb; by that time, the Last Days would be upon us. I never dreamed that it would be possible to forge the mana-comsuming reagent this soon. My congratulations to your skill magic-user." He gave a half-bow to Tamara.
"She is no magic-user my love," hissed Sombelene. "She is nothing but a thief." Clearly the snake-woman was not happy to see Tamara alive, and awaited only her Master's word to remedy that fact.
"Is she?" Jarmsheela said, raising an eyebrow. He gestured at Tamara. Her hands started to glow. The mage laughed in wonder. "You are right dearest! I mistook the lingering emanations from the reagent for power. She is but a mundane! Foolish child, who put you up to this?"
"Nona, arch mage of the Amazon nation of Yr Dakaan." Tamara spat defiantly. The court-mage had hinted that she and Jarmsheela were contemporaries. It was said that Nona and Jarmsheela were contemporaries; perhaps her name carried some weight with the mage.
Jarmsheela started to laugh, slapping the arms of his throne as he doubled over helplessly. At last he recovered, wiping tears from his eyes.
"Is that bitter old cunt still alive?" He managed to gasp, greatly amused by something only he knew. He saw Tamara staring at him in puzzlement.
"Nona was a student of mine," said Jarmsheela. "I was so smitten by her beauty and her skills in bed that it took me 100 years to discern that she would never amount to anything more than a second-rate court mage. I was forced to dismiss her. Gods...I never dreamed her so vain that she'd squander her power on a life prolonging spell!" Even Tamara had to laugh inwardly at Jarmsheela's description of Nona. She managed to keep her face a stoic mask.
"Why did you bring me back to life?" The Amazon asked. "Your creature killed me...I felt myself die."
"To find out what you knew...now, alas, I find that you know nothing of magic, or the power you wielded here." Jarmsheela said. He stood, freeing himself from Sombelene's coils and began to undo the fastenings of his garment. "This has been a valuable lesson to me. I underestimated minor mages like Nona as she did me. The amulet you sought is but a trivial bauble. My power resides in my body, which is why I sought to preserve it for the service of the Elder Gods on the Last Day. Jarmsheela was naked beneath the robe, which he tossed casually onto the throne.
His body was as muscular and well defined as an athlete's. Tamara's eyes grew wide as she saw that his penis was at least twice as long as that of the most well-endowed man she had ever seen and nearly as big around as her wrist. The mage stood, and approached Tamara. Sombelene followed at his side. At that moment Tamara realized that she was naked. Jarmsheela looked her over as if she were on display at a slave market and then ran his hands down her nude body. Tamara flinched at his touch and tried to kick the mage, but her ankles were imprisoned in invisible fetters too.
"Whatever shall I do with you," Jarmsheela mused. The mage let his hands linger on Tamara's breasts, he was going to rape her Tamara realized, steeling herself for the assault to come, determined she would not give him the pleasure of struggling or crying out as he brutalized her. "She is quite pretty, is she not, Sombelene?" The snake-woman rolled her eyes in disgust and turned her back to her Master.
"If you like scarecrows." She said cattily. "I can do things for you that... that piece of carrion could only dream of!" Jarmsheela grinned, eyes glittering with mirth. The mage turned to his creation and embraced her.
"You are jealous of the human, my pet?" He chuckled.
"Do not touch me! Play with the toy you have chained up there. It is obvious that you fear me." She hissed a warning as he caressed her, but Jarmsheela persisted, kissing the back of her neck. In a move too swift for Tamara to follow, Sombelene grabbed her Master and threw him to the floor. She used a loop of her body to hold him down, her hands pinning his shoulders. Without warning she sank her fangs in his throat, Tamara saw the snake-woman's jaw working, pumping the mage full of venom. She pulled back to watch it work, a trickle of blood ran from the twin punctures in Jarmsheela's neck.
The mage writhed and moaned as Sombelene struggled to hold him on the floor. To Tamara's amazement, he was not dying. Jarmsheela's monstrous cock was growing, becoming erect, throbbing with his pulsebeat. Sombelene's venom was an aphrodisiac to the mage!
"Can she do this for you, my Master?" Sombelene murmured, running her hands over his body. The snake-woman looked up at Tamara, a smirk of triumph on her face.
Jarmsheela pulled Sombelene to him and kissed the snake-woman passionately, cupping and squeezing her full breasts. Sombelene moaned, then slid down to grasp the mage's stiff cock in both hands, stroking it gently. She bent down and began to lick the head of it with her forked tongue then forced her mouth over the engorged flesh, forcing more and more of it down her throat until she had swallowed him whole. Jarmsheela groaned in ecstasy and Sombelene began to coil her body around him, attempting to hold him helpless as she tormented him with her mouth. Jarmsheela grasped the snake-woman's head, trying mightily to free his cock from Sombelene's grasp, muscles bulging as he struggled against her inhuman strength. Slowly, inch-by-inch he was able to pull free of her serpentine kiss. Sombelene shifted her coils, trying to pin his arms and return to her prize. Tamara watched in amazement as the two wrestled on the floor. What in the names of the Seven Hells was going on? Then she remembered that the mage was a Zorian, and Zorian males believed that no real man should lie passively while a woman sucked him off. A real man, the Zorians believed, should fuck a woman's throat just like he would her cunt. The mage and Sombelene were engaged in a bizarre dominance game - to the death, it seemed.
Jarmsheela was totally wrapped in glistening coils as Sombelene sought to immobilize him. The mage laughed and shrugged off the coils encircling his arms, his magical strength a match for hers. He pinned her shoulders to the floor, breathing hard with the exertion.
"You won't deny...me what I have dreamed of...for a thousand years!" he grunted. Sombelene wrapped her tail around his neck and pulled him backwards, away from her. She whipped two coils around his middle and began to squeeze. Jarmsheela tried to get his fingers between his body and the massive coils but Sombelene held him too tightly. Sombelene grinned in triumph, slowly winding another coil around his chest.
"You tire, old man!" Sombelene panted, a savage grin on her face. "I will drink your seed while you lie there like a woman!"
She tightened her coils and Jarmsheela let out his breath with a groan. He reached out his hand, spoke a word of power, the hand was surrounded by a glow. Sombelene hissed and tried to pin his hand, but the mage easily held her at bay. The glowing hand touched Sombelene below the waist where a woman's sex would be and the scales parted to reveal a very human looking cunt, already wet with the excitement of their game. Jarmsheela slipped his middle finger into her, sliding it slowly in and out. Sombelene hissed with pleasure. The mage grinned as Sombelene slowly drew her coils tighter.
"Is...that the...best you can do tiny worm?" he teased. "Your cunt is tighter than your coils!" Jarmsheela slipped his forefinger and third finger in, rubbing her clit with his thumb.
"You will die...before you have...me!" Sombelene cried, tightening her coils as her human torso writhed and bucked under the mage's fingering.
"Why...do..I not...believe...it?" Jarmsheela gasped, twisting Sombelene onto her back, straddling her body and plunging his cock into her dripping cunt.
Sombelene moaned in ecstasy and pain as her Master drove his inhuman member to the hilt in her, brutally driving it home. To the serpent-woman, it felt as if the very bones of her pelvis were being driven apart. Jarmsheela pumped in and out of her distended pussy, using the weight of her own 30-foot serpent-body to pin her helplessly beneath him. Sombelene screamed in ecstasy as the thrusting of the mage's monstrous organ tortured her clitoris. She felt every ridge and vein as the immense shaft slid in and out of her, stretching her cunt to its limits. Sombelene drew her coils even tighter around Jarmsheela, hearing him groan feebly as she squeezed the last breath out of him.
Jarmsheela knew that their game had reached a critical point. Sombelene would not release him until she reached climax. As a matter of pride, the mage would not use his magic to save himself. He must satisfy her or die. His lungs burned, his vision darkened and blurred. Desperately he tried to draw air into lungs kept from expanding by bands of steel-like muscle.
Tamara saw that Jarmsheela could no longer breathe, sweat poured off of him, the veins in his forehead and neck standing out and throbbing with oxygen starvation; yet he still pounded into the snake-woman with the fury of a madman as Sombelene tightened her hold on him even more. She was killing him! Sombelene's cries of passion echoed through the tomb as she approached orgasm. Jarmsheela's face was a hideous, reddened mask of agony and lust, mouth opened in a silent scream for air and release...
Sombelene felt her womb contract around her Master's immense cock; spasms of pleasure shot from her clitoris outward in wave after wave, up and down her spine and along every nerve ending as she came. A heartbeat later, Jarmsheela felt the first gout after gout of semen burst forth from his cock; felt Sombelene relax her coils; felt life-giving air flood into his lungs. The mage collapsed onto her sated body, as the last of his seed gushed into the snake-woman's cunt. The two embraced and kissed as they lay together, Jarmsheela caressing the gleaming body of his creation as she writhed lazily about him, totally sated.
Finally the mage remembered Tamara. He smiled as he decided what to do with her and what to do about Nona. After all, the Amazon's court mage was over 1,000 years old, and longevity spells sometimes failed.
What a miserable trip it had been Tamara thought as the camel plodded its way across the monotonous landscape. Her body itching from the sand that found its way into her robes no matter how tightly she pulled them about her. Tamara plucked the unused magic disc Nona had given her from her belt pouch. It had all been for nothing.
She had located the tomb of Jarmsheela and found it a ruin, plundered by some magic user or some supernatural enemy of the mage-probably at the time of the fall of Cyr. Tamara had used the disc in the off chance that the ruins were an illusion to guard Jarmsheela's real tomb, but the disc remained whole, as there was no mana present in the area for it to consume. Using the potion that bestowed infra-vision, she had gone inside and seen nothing but faded murals and the scraps of long rotted tapestries. The remains of a shattered glass sarcophagus littered the floor of the burial chamber. There was no trace of Jarmsheela's body or his fabled treasure.
What had happened no longer mattered to Tamara. Let Nona and her fellow mages argue and ponder the mystery. In the end, what real good did they do with their conjuring and seeing? All that mattered in this world was accomplished with the blood of men and women and with steel.
Tamara rode on. Her next adventure awaited her.
The Junglerot Kid