Forgotten Lore

By Carly Corday

A pale virgin of unearthly beauty.

A sultry, ambitious young marauder.

Analeita and Namhotek.

An ancient love story....

Before the mystic Celts of yore, even before the pharaohs, there lived a nubile priestess of such beauty, that her tribe chose to honor her as their finest sacrifice to the brutal masculine deity they worshipped.

Analeita's terrible fate is canceled during a raid by invaders from a superior culture. His fortunes assured by her beauty, her handsome captor sets himself an objective: to keep a virgin intact, through thick and thin, vouchsafing her worth to his decadent king.

And what a dilemma that is when this exotic, blonde creature, this erotic oddity he has captured, falls in love with him. Namhotek has no plans for rape, but a thousand alternate delights in each other's bodies are possible. He doesn't discount a single one.

Analeita's sexuality blooms during the perilous sojourn that begins with her abduction. Though primitive, she is not the formless clay to please a depraved, laconic king. Namhotek is her obsession. Her lover, companion, protector but, still, a crass mercenary committed to an evil course - Namhotek is sworn to trade Analeita for a fortune.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 2, 2002
• ISBN: 9781469703039

Carly Corday

Carly Corday lives in the southern United States and has published nine romances. Forgotten Lore, her first of three sojourns into romantic erotica, is set in an imaginary pre-historic period based on "pop archeology," or the theory that civilization is much, much older than we know.

Book preview

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

About the Author

Dedicated with love to the one and only Puff. And to Chiquito, who got forgotten by the growler. Special gratitude to David O. Dyer, Sr., superman and genius—along with his lovely lady editor for all her work. Most of all it’s time to thank a young friend, Cody W., whose enthusiasm years ago still makes me smile.

CHAPTER 1  

Priestess

Furnished only with a stone bench on which to lie, the temple chamber ensured the Chosen One an austere night without comfort or distractions. Yet, instead of yearning for the glimmer of dawn in the arched window high above, she dreaded the night’s end, wanting these sleepless hours—her final night on earth—to last forever. Today, she would lead her people to the autumn feast among the giant stones, and at nightfall ascend alone into the sky, in the embrace of a god.

Analeita would decline this unique honor if escape were possible. She was young, untried, and life was sweet. The Feast of Sai was an occasion for unbridled worship but, in autumns past, total sacrifice had never been required. With the routine commitment of a new virgin to lifelong service in the Temple of Sai, a Chosen elder priestess did sacrifice herself on the altar among the stones, not in death, but only to be ravished by ten young chosen men. This, a spectacle enjoyed by all—not least the ravished priestess and ritual ten who served her—followed the burnt offering of a stallion from stock bred for the purpose. The Druidan folk then gorged on food, wine, and reveled with one another in order to please Sai, the Ram god, ensuring prosperity.

Unforgivably, Analeita suffered the same lowly thoughts as one condemned to death as punishment; innocent, unheeded by cruel judges thirsting for her blood. The autumn revel was ageless custom. But her role as Chosen elder priestess would be different. No man, let alone ten, would mount her on the altar. And a spirited stallion, this year, would be spared…

Reposed along the cold bench, she endeavored to rejoice the way she should. At last, she thought, gazing at the window: an end to the endless night. Already her chamber filled with lively voices, a small contingent of people bringing ceremony. The day had come.

The High Priest of Sai wore only the ram’s head mask. Four temple handmaidens entered with him, and lovely red-haired Dalua, the eldest. With a shiver of doom Analeita arose.

Four sets of feminine hands parted the robe that signified her old life. It settled in a pool of white about her feet. Light, from torches braced beside the doorway, flickered on her skin casting wild shadows, as air moved within the chamber. Analeita was the envy of her sisters; but the handmaidens seemed far from grudging, as they giggled like young girls before a wedding.

Stern Dalua braided the Chosen One’s hair, coiled it, and placed upon her head the metal headdress, taking pains to render her enticing to a god, glittering, twice as beautiful as she naturally was. Next Analeita was fitted with the ritual girdle. Made from silvery cords, encircling her waist, her hips, a cord drawn taut between her thighs—it fit uncomfortably and, of course, provided no warmth. Analeita set her feet further apart. With his big-knuckled hand, Sai’s High Priest parted her intimate folds, centering the middle cord within. Discomfort, from then on, began to feel different.

She stared into the face of the priest who, in moments, would don a headdress of genuine ram’s horns, brilliant blue robes, and ornaments of heavy gold. He was fifty winters old, the yellow hair of his youth a hoary mane, gone winter-white. Her nostrils opened, contracted. He smelled unlike the temple women. At the blurred edge of her vision, his tool stood erect.

His fingers skimmed between her breasts. Lie upon the bench, daughter of your people.

Needlessly assisted by many hands, Analeita obeyed.

My lust is strong this day, exulted the priest, coming astride the narrow bench as if to mount her.

It was a ritualistic mockery, to be encouraged on this day of feasting, when all would be invited to lust for Analeita. A handmaiden provided a bowl of oil and glistening blue ochre. Applying his finger to the task, the priest embellished Analeita’s deep-pink lips, the matching areolas of her breasts, the small slash of her navel. Her nipples erected as the fingertip slipped around, but never on them, pierced as they were, in the tender flesh at the base, especially for this day, and adorned with thin gold rings.

Forced by what she faced into a strange ecstasy, Analeita envisioned herself as if from above. Large, rounded breasts, blue-tipped and beringed, stood as if honed out of palest, polished stone, swelling up from a slender torso, accentuating a flat belly and flared hips. Womanly thighs met at a soft, alluring groin which, in only a moment, all of her people would openly regard.

With oily blue paint, the priest stained the mouth of her vulva, spreading the plump, sensitive folds. He moved the tight silver cord in order to slightly, carefully penetrate her virgin opening. Half-closing her eyes, Analeita experienced a dizzying blend of trepidation and arousal. Tonight, her brazen image still large in their minds, her people would revel, and tomorrow forget the priestess Analeita had ever lived. No future mention of her name would be permitted. No one had spoken out against her unusual fate, nor would they ever. The Feast of Sai ushered in cruel winters, harsh blizzards that claimed lives, and safeguarded against spring flood, drought, sickness, still births, withering crops, even defeat in battle.

The priest bared his teeth in a faint smile, satisfied that her mood befitted the revel over which she would—if briefly—preside. She had belonged five winters of her young life to the Ram who, on this day, claimed her utterly. Mortals could desire, but not invade her. This supplicant’s flesh would never know the leavings of men.

He ceased his caress of her, withdrew his fingertip when her breathing quickened to urgent, whispered moans. This was the purpose of the ritual girdle: passionate urgency would decrease her suffering. An object of rejoicing, embodying ancestors and descendants, Analeita would comprehend her people’s eagerness by feeling it too, and welcome the coming night as they did. At the last, a potion would complete her transformation from trembling mortal to voluptuous bride of Sai.

She is flawless. As desirable as expected, murmured the priest to Dalua and the others. We’ve chosen well. Already, Sai is pleased with her.

Gathered near, the maidens fell silent. One dropped her gaze as if in shame.

Dalua licked her lips slowly. You are magnificent, Analeita. Rise now. Our folk await you.

Wait, intoned the priest, his human eyes agleam behind the golden mask.

Analeita remained in place, ankles pressed together solemnly, arms submissive at her sides—pinned by the priest’s ongoing stare. His mask, carved wood overlaid with bright, rubbed gold, provided long slits for his eyes. Its open mouth, from the angle at which she saw it, appeared to leer with hatred. He…looked very like the god, she thought, unable to see his face, only a virile body below the features of a ram.

Only his familiar white mane, the gentian-blue of his gaze, kept her less than awed as, stretching wide his arms the priest let his shaggy head roll back, arching his spine in a way that thrust his groin at the supine, chosen virgin, bringing gasps from the surrounding women.

His thickened manhood reared upon her belly as if he would spend—yet in his reverence for her, the priest did not. To relieve his lust before the revel, at the supplicant’s expense, would be sacrilege. Release would come among the giant stones on the swift conclusion of her life. He gripped the angry tip between his hands, his head and hair falling forward.

Her green eyes as glazed as the shining mask, Dalua buckled as if she had swooned.

Now he clasped Analeita’s hands, raising her to stand before him. He took from Dalua’s white, slender hands the symbolic phallus of the Ram.

Not strictly ornamental, it jutted from his fist, as long and thick as his own manhood, but made of smooth, ungiving wood. Below its graphically carved head, a cord was tied. The priest presented it to Analeita’s lips. Dutifully she welcomed it, by primly kissing it.

There was a fatal piety in the act. The close gathering shared fleeting looks of sorrow as the priest knelt between her feet.

He pressed the phallus slightly forward into Analeita’s body, inserting only the head, and knotted the cord to her girdle, fixing the staff in place…sending urgent waves deeper into her loins. Analeita moved her hips unwittingly, arousal pooling outward darkly.

The priest caressed her thighs and rose to his feet. His phallus remained tall, the scrotum full, a tribute to his own devotion to the Ram.

Our perfect daughter makes us more proud than we deserve. His voice broke with emotion on the utterance.

Agreeing, Dalua solemnly commended Analeita as the most luxurious gift her people had ever, through the ages, had to give. Her beauty, the extreme sacrifice she made—the way she looked, ornamented and prepared for The Giving—would have the revelers grateful in their awe.

Analeita blushed. My life here has prepared me. I am…ready.

Dalua kissed her brow as the High Priest departed the chamber. Analeita was escorted out as well, into the temple proper, where she knelt in supplication to the golden image of Sai, his maleness poised in the vestibule of her never-to-be-savored womanhood. The wooden probe was not the instrument of her death, or of her bridal pleasure, but only a symbol, a vow. Death itself would be expertly clean and quick, as it had always been for the stallion. Death would be drunkenly desired, mercifully unfelt, and followed by a thrust which she would never know…unalive, no longer virgin…exalted for too brief a time to measure, joined to Sai by means of willing annihilation, fouled by his brutal lance, to the sounds of mortal revelry, Given—

No escape, she realized in full. This day had truly come! Would nothing occur to allay her fate? A violent storm from the sea? An enemy attack from the north? Some errant turn of events outside the temple? A pitying friend to intercede? A disapproving sign from the Ram himself?

Would no one raise a voice against this, after all?

She took refuge in remembrance of her mother’s countenance, and then thrust the image angrily away. Today her mother was proud. Were it her own daughter facing this, Analeita knew, she would not speak out against it, but accept it with pride.

She was a cow in her lowly fear of this. To hope intercession might come, in one form or another, was unworthy. Foolhardy. A mistake.

The cord between her thighs rubbed, creating darts of disturbing excitation, further dimming her wits however she moved. Her heartbeat became thunder as her breathing quickened. She stared up at the beaten-gold sculpture of a man’s powerful body seated on a throne, its fierce ram’s head and massive horns. Sai’s lap was eternally in shadow, but she understood what lay within that darkness. Her eyes narrowed moistly.

Dalua broke the trance, drawing Analeita to her feet. It is time, Chosen One.

Terror rocked Analeita, expelling an animal wail of fright from her throat.

Daughter, do not fail us. Lift up your head. Dalua clasped her quivering chin. Open your eyes.

Analeita opened them wide, staring at the Ram with loathing.

Hurried through the stark temple, under a shadowy vault where startled doves fluttered, she found herself before the tall double-doors. Once they opened it would begin. She was the First of the Given, in a blood rite that had never before been carried out, and need not be repeated for an age to come, if Sai was satisfied enough with her. But for Analeita…between the parting of those doors and the fall of night…this was all the time she had, and might as well have been the blinking of an eye. In truth, that would be preferable—for the coming hours, unlike the final night she’d spent, would not be her own.

Brawny kinsmen of the Old Chieftain opened the double-doors from without. Moving soberly to the front, the High Priest emerged first, confronting the teeming crowd gathered for the occasion. Every woman, child and man, of only one Druidan tribe in the wintry north land, these were Analeita’s folk. At sight of his nakedness the vast throng cheered. Gaiety prevailed as blue robes of state, brought by pretty temple maids, were twined about his body, and veiled young girls fixed sandals to his well-washed feet.

Young men in the throng accepted disappointment on this feast day, for no ten of them would be chosen to take part in ‘sacrificing’ the elder priestess. Only one would have a role this year, but each had hope of being The One.

Seeing the priest in both the mask and headdress of horns—the former marking the yearly revel—the Old Chief ’s prime, virile sons led a spate of louder cheers. They faced the crowd to puff their chests and strut like roosters, turning cheers to bawdy laughter. All four had pierced eyebrows, nostrils, ear rims and lobes, today sporting golden rings and studs that flashed, exhibiting their rank as noble heirs.

Nordin, the youngest, spread his feet and bared his superb manhood. To the sound of women’s shrieks and men’s obscene calls, he swayed his hips slapping the heavy hardness back and forth on his upper thighs.

You’d best save that, Nordin! shouted a fat young wife with wild, unbraided hair, as she eyed its purple condition. A rod as stiff as that ought to be for me this night! Other, prettier wives shoved her, adding to the riotous mood now barely held in check.

Ahhh…here is the ewe! screamed one.

As the Chosen One came forth, Nordin met her eyes. His gaze traveled in full appraisal of her and his slack, foolish smile became a smoldering one. A half-helmet of engraved silver framed her innocent face, myriad flat strips of raw gold hanging from it to her shoulders. Delicately woven cables, glinting of silver, enwrapped her hips and waist. Four spots of blue accentuated her astonishing nudity…and a blue, vertical slash. She was perfect this way! Such a destiny. A gift for a brutal, whoring god, who cared for her immeasurably, jealously, yet cared nothing, for the deity was masculine and supreme.

The phallic knob of the Ram divided her pubic fleece, placing her inner flesh on display, revealing that the girdle’s center cord slid up and down, also back and forth, with each careful step she took.

That turned the hard desire in Nordin’s belly to a knot of near-pain. She appeared in all ways sensually roused, moist-eyed, flushed, open-lipped and short of breath, a woman aching to be taken. Stamped on her expression was a second, even more alluring one: mortal dread. Yet she experienced the mysteries of arousal. Ringed in blue and pierced with gold, her nipples were impressively engorged.

Recalling that Nordin had once loved her, Analeita met his stare.

It was unseemly of her. After a moment, he became uncomfortable enough that his smile grew defiant. He began to dance, not as before but sinuously, rocking his hips to emulate an animal in rut.

Her glance lowering to his tool, Analeita noted intricate gold rings piercing the foreskin, crowning the dark, protruding head. She’d never known Nordin to be so fanciful, and wondered if his wife were privy to this adorned version of her husband’s fertile staff.

Just when her piercing stare became a source of enjoyment for him, Nordin succeeded, inadvertently, in causing her to look away and move forward. Jostling crowds parted, Druid folk of every age and status gaping, awed, as the Gift passed, anticipation at a fever pitch. Ribald cheers resumed, gaiety ruling the cold autumn morn.

The half-grown girl committed this day to new-priestesshood went unnoticed, although the day was hers as well as Analeita’s. She crossed her thin arms and sneered. The Chosen One was no better than an animal bred for the knife! A gaudy spectacle, she had the people at her feet for just one day. Draped in scarlet, scrubbed and scented, the nubile maiden found herself jostled to the rear, rabidly sulking as the doomed elder priestess stole the day.

Analeita followed the winding path created by parting crowds, through the town, taking the road into the hills.

Nordin danced backward in front of her, his swollen stem now festively wrapped in linen, tied with a leather thong, long and stiff and unrelieved. He grinned and reached for her.

The High Priest rewarded him with lashed knuckles, using a limber switch brought along for that purpose. In this respect, the feast was following convention. Nordin howled in pain, but reached again, and this time the switch cut, drawing proud red blood. He wiped the cut with his finger, used it to paint Analeita’s oval cheek. Angrily, she averted her face from the storm of anticipation brewing in his light gray eyes.

Analeita wondered what amusement Nordin could find in this. He seemed determined to wring what he could from her before tonight; as if he hadn’t had his chance five years ago and spurned her for another. Perhaps it displeased him that she had nearly forgotten. Did he want her to know that he had not? She faced him with a look of misery that made him smile. Cruelty was a poor reminder that they’d been in love. Yet on the last day of her life, it was the reminder he chose.

Other young men danced in imitation of the Chief ’s son, striving to caress the lovely Gift no mortal could invade. All received blows from the switch, howled and ducked away. Jovially upbraiding them, the women received not shamed looks, but rude caresses meant for Analeita.

Protecting her in earnest now, the High Priest drove back her admirers with fervor, lashing their heads and faces. He was able after that to drop behind, freeing the Chosen One to lead a less disorderly procession to the distant circle of stones. Soon enough, the revelers would begin to save their strength for the coming night. The priest took his place among forty virgins clad in white, some of them old, a few of them yet children.

Analeita’s glorious headdress clinked with her steps, chimes that mingled with the floating strains of a pipe and the percussion of the ritual drum. The barely-inserted phallus pressed her, making her breath come through her lips as if walking might drive it deeper.

She almost stopped, striving to collect her wits and react to what seemed an emergency. She turned to Dalua in surprise. Do you feel the ground—?

The priestess nodded, moving up beside her, staring at the ground in awe. Analeita persisted in feeling gross alarm—threatening to come undone, when she must maintain a pure, unthinking ecstasy during the long walk to the stones, through the setting of the sun, the ascent of the moon. To the last.

A moment passed, then she stopped fully in her tracks.

Dalua nearly bumped into her back. What ails you now, Chosen One?

The…the earth…is trembling.

"Why, of course. Sai is pleased."

"Are you certain? Mightn’t he be displeased?"

Dalua giggled, wanting to bray a laugh. She felt it too: a vibration in the ground that seemed to be increasing!

"How could Sai be displeased, today? Do you suppose he hasn’t seen you as we all have? Earth trembling indeed! It is the Ram’s godlike eagerness for his sumptuous gift." Abashed at the purpose of the delay, but more excited than ever by the occasion, she pressed the Chosen One forward.

Analeita squared her shoulders. The vibration in the ground seemed, to her, not godlike but mundane. She’d had an instant impression of what it was. Hoof beats. A hundred horses, approaching from the precise direction of the sunrise. Near the sea.

Inundated by sensation, she laughed into the wind. Pulsating beneath mortal feet…how else would a god’s intense hunger manifest, than like the thunder of four-hundred hooves converging with the rising sun?

She raised her face to the sky, her spine arched, her breasts lifted to the Ram’s celestial gaze, his exceeding lechery—grateful that doubt had passed, leaving her exalted! Her fate was cause not for despair, but exultation, from daybreak until her mortal life ended on a flat stone worn smooth by wind and rain, rendered slick by winter ice and countless snows, lashed by the elements since time began.

In collusion with acceptance, pressure within her loins grew to a throb. Ofttimes it nearly shattered before subsiding, only to resume. Thin, hollow bliss spasmed in her, finally, driving her own anticipation of nightfall to a fever pitch. Heat like that suffered by creatures needing to mate became more significant than continuing to draw breath…the urge to sprawl on the ground, thrust the phallus in,anything to satisfy it.

Once the procession of folk had left the shelter of the town behind, the autumn cold began to bite. Morning mist shrouding the hills rendered them darkly green, unearthly. It was the edge of winter, the tribe warmly attired for the day-long walk. The Chosen One’s suffering for the god had begun. She alone was naked, even her pale feet.

It helped to think only of discomfort. Analeita had fasted since dawn yesterday, but felt no hunger now. What use was food to her? In truth, what use was warmth or comfort?

Those at the forefront of the procession reached the lowest hills at midday.

Black clouds amassed, blanketing the countryside in gloom. Stunned, Analeita realized rain would spoil an aspect of the feast: the obliteration of her remains by fire. While her people flung themselves into the revels, she would be ignored, left to lie unclothed, sodden, cold and dead. Not the bride of Sai borne swiftly from their midst. A carcass.

Shouldn’t Sai have cleared the skies, in order to ensure her absolute removal? Her dignity was his. Was Sai not her bridegroom, he that desired her lewdly exhibited flesh this day, her unlived life—revered her body, and would claim it utterly?

Rain proves the Ram is far from pleased.

Analeita tried to smother this new fear as gathering clouds, limned in pulses of ugly light, promised a deluge of indecent rain. Could it be she was unbeautiful, unacceptable after all?

Most taxing to her self-esteem was the earth itself. Beneath her numbed feet, the ground no longer shook. Did that, and the lowering sky, bode ill for all? She prayed not, thinking of the greatness of the occasion, her people’s pride in her, their soaring expectations. Neighboring tribes offered no such ultimate Gift to Sai, yet would benefit the same. By so magnanimous a token, the Old Chieftain would prevail above all others for an age to come.

She hung her head. The feast had gone awry. Two omens now proved it. Please, she beseeched the god she had served since she was fifteen winters old, permit me this high honor, bestowed on me by the folk I love. Do not have them think I served you ill.

Do not, she moved her lips to plead, leave me on the altar, obscenely dead, forgotten in the revels. Give us fire. Delay the rain long enough—

Dalua whispered at her back, Head high, Chosen One. I know the fears you have.

Do you, sister?

It is a ruthless lover who awaits you. Sai observes the rich fullness of your submission, and excites himself inflicting worse. He relishes you in this fashion. He is enjoying his bride even as his first, only thrust prepares for her.

But Dalua, I fear—

You fear rain. Dalua touched her, reassuring. "It would be indecent after how well you had served. But think…the sky darkened only to replace the fearsome shaking of the ground. This is Sai’s reminder of what hardship he can wreak. A threat against you, leveled like a spear, noticed by all. See, it has not begun to rain. It will not."

Consoled as if by a true mother, the shivering daughter of her people found her tenth burst of strength since setting out. Analeita prayed this burst would last, because she feared it was, out of a goodly store of womanly strength, the last she had.

Committed to her course, the Chosen One continued her wearying trek into the dark hills, under the swollen sky, followed by all of her Druidan folk.

CHAPTER 2  

Marauder

Lying belly-down against a steep knoll, Namhotek watched the long parade of villagers. Many-hundred filed across the hilltops, steadily nearing his hiding place. Every man, child, and woman…he knew, for he had seen the deserted town. He realized the procession would pass close to him, but felt certain of remaining unseen. Obviously, they weren’t expecting trouble on this festive day.

The blackened sky roiled as if the silent village to the south had already been torched; a village he knew hadn’t even yet been sacked. Billowing smoke from an entire burning town would appear less fearsome than that churning sky…

Tossing moist, windblown hair from his eyes, he fixed upon the apparent queen of the procession. Naked she was, her head flashing silver-and-gold in the overcast. Faint, throbbing music followed her like an eerie scent. Within the billowy black trousers he wore, deep in his groin, heat was building. That was not his fault and served mainly to annoy him. His scalp tingled with expectancy, and this was the instinct he would heed; not the swelling of his cock. Both physical responses, neither of them under his control, seemed importantly connected, stirred solely by the vision she presented from afar.

The young marauder could account for the tingling in his scalp, but not the fire in his loins. Was he no better than his