Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

"HERE IT IS." Dementa handed Israfel a map of the Bonelands a bit into the morning of the next day.

Before her camp of Deathlies could wake up, the Junker queen had eased herself off from the tangle of Rafel and the girls, so that when the first of her lieutenants was pulling the flap of her tent to dip in, she was just about dressed regally in her merchant silk, white as magnolia sprig.

Presently, outside, Rafel could hear the revving of carriage engines and motor tricycles as the NURs prepared to thunder out for another hot day of roaming the Badlands for unsuspecting travelers. The sun was high, and in the distance the dunes were just beginning to vanish in the heat. In just an hour, the cold of the night had vaporized.

The entire terrain of Helladeep was lit in golden and brown color.

Brrruuuummmmm!

The vehicular all-terrain bikes of the Deathlies raged as the [Novice Survivors] pressed down hard on the accelerators before releasing. They raged off into the morning, their machines leaving fury noises and trails of dust and bluefire smoke that ascended up into the empty blue sky.

Only a few—mostly old folk and kids remained in the camp. The sound of the Deathlies driving crazily off in the desert still echoed like drumrolls in the heart of the canyon even after they were a good mile away into the furious roads.

Ravenna shut the open flap of Dementa's tent by the exit where she had stood to watch the NURs drive away and turned back to the small clave, where Rafel and Dementa, Corazón and Aya were standing roundabout a high table. Dementa was closest to Rafel. Under her flourished nails was the map, spread out on the table surface.

It was antique, probably stolen also.

Ravenna walked over to them and fingered a plum from the wicker basket over the adjacent couch to her mouth; she chewed quietly. They had long since said their good mornings.

Rafel was saying, "is this a comprehensive copy?"

Dementa ran a hand over the black and blue lines on the paper, denoting large stretches of mountain and wilderness. "Yes," she told him, "maps are just about as valued as the crown of the Capitol over here. This, is the only copy of three others."

"Why is this?" Cora jumped in, and Dementa said to her.

"Our camps exist because of the units and loot we get off the highway. And we are formidable in quick getaways when need be because we alone know the ways beyond the open roads. Secrets beneath known travel... Like Moletown and Silk roads for smuggling. Therefore—"

"You hijacked all other maps so you're the only ones with the knowledge of the desert." Ravenna finished for her, grabbing another plum.

Dementa nodded. "That's exactly right. The only other maps out there archaic. As you can see," she pointed to a tridentate division on the map, "here, and here... they belong to the other Skullriders. Zaftig and Grone. I control this territory." Her fine fingers passed over the notation of Helladeep on the map, extending outward from the deepening Rafel understood as the great Canyon to a split than ended by a brook.

Dementa said, "from there, it's Grone's territory. As you can see, he controls a larger piece of the Badlands. His loot is mostly rare metals and [Druid Ores]. Mine is silk and merchants gold, obviously."

"None of which you pay for." Cora stood with arms crossed.

"Obviously." Dementa intoned, and gave her a pointed look. Of all the girls, she was the hard one to impress. In Cora's head, Dementa wasn't getting off easy because she got Rafel in her head. Women had come and gone, and she had watched it all. Cora wasn't easing shit.

Rafel sensed a growing tension and asked.

"What's here?"

He pointed to a central spot in the tri-nation desert.

"Good eye." Dementa complimented and placed her hand next to Rafel's. "This is neutral ground.

"The temple of the Vestals," she added.

"Vestals?"

"Like virgins?"

"Like priestesses?" Aya and Ravenna both fired.

"Our Holy Ones." Dementa cemented. She didn't laugh when she went on, "we don't joke with them. But to answer your questions, yes... They are virgins and priestesses. Virgin priestesses. All our acrimony ends there. The Wilderwitch can seek sanctuary in it. And the Vestal is the one thing in the Badlands held sacred. Even Grone doesn't fuck around with them. We don't rob there either."

"Hmm." Rafel droned under a whisper.

Cora unfolded her arms and extended both outwards indifferently. "Does this neutral ground have a name?"

"It's a seat, darling," said Dementa. "The Seat of Séltand."

She had no misgivings Cora liked her. She moved her hazel gaze back to Rafel. "No Skullrider starts shit up there."

The tent went quiet for several moments, the byzantine interior looking rather Arabian in the piercing sunlight. An idle hourglass spoofed away. Three minutes later, Rafel came out of his reverie.

"It sounds like a good place to begin a rebellion. If the Vestals are so revered, claiming the Seat of Sétland to our cause will be hitting it big, taking a major piece of the Badlands off the board."

"A wonderful idea, Lord Master." Aya spoke out for the first time. Despite being possibly the strongest of the harem, she was the most introverted.

Rafel scoured the cartography, reading expertly from the location of Helladeep and the canyon to the Seat. "It's ten miles of riding. A half day's journey. If we start out now, we can be there by dusk."
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"That is if she lets us leave." Cora raised brows at Dementa.

The Junker queen grinned and gave an impassive chuckle. She waved a dismissive hand, drawing light to her silverly robes.

"Please, he's been inside me!"

"Is that a yes," came Cora's voice.

"As much as I want him here in Helladeep, you have to experience the Badlands to win it. And Israfel seems the kind of soul no bitch can control." Her smile deepened, before going serious. Her brown eyes went darker on Rafel's. "—but hey, come back to me. I found you first. And I'm not about to lose you after fifty one lifetimes. Got it?"

Rafel nodded.

"Good. Your ride and company are out front. Make hay while the sun shines."

Ten minutes later, Dementa, Skullrider of the 2nd Triumvirate camp was waving the caravan of six vehicle carts into the horizon. She had given her four visitors her own personal guard as escorts to see them safely to [Central Core] and Séltand. The last thing she saw was Israfel's roman shock of hair burning red in the distance before they vanished into the dunes.

Meanwhile, in the moving caravan, Israfel sat under a great, skin umbrella atop a camel; the hump of the beast granted necessary relief of the saddle as the animal logged on.

"Fuck this heat." Cora ranted from the camel just beside his.

Rafel wanted to reach out with a hand. Losing Rosamunde and Brunhilda had brought him closer to the girls. 'I would [Shadowscape] us all there if I knew the place visually,' he reasoned in his mind.

His camel stopped to muzzle a patch of dry grass in the sands before continuing on.

Their caravan was slow—a trail of horses, burly escorts of Dementa's personal guard, and a desert Guide behind. And the heat was terrible. The Guide: a bronze man fond of picking his moustache, was eager for conversation and told them about gossip popular in the Bonelands. Rafel and the girls only listened to pass the time and sort of forget the mortifying heat dampening their bodies—and even areas unspeakable.

"All these was part of the Cold Sea." The Guide did say, passing a hand reverentially all around them, but Ravenna couldn't imagine this stifling vulture country anything but; the birds literally shit on your head from above.

Thank fuck for the umbrellas, you know. It served not to combat just the sun.

The Guide went on aptly: ". . .until damned Visha went and fucked Phorcys' bride, Ceto. The great primordial sea god withdrew from here. The water and seasons left with him. These lands have been barren ever since."

"Nice tale." Cora sighed sarcastically.

"Ain't Visha your god?" Ravenna fanned herself.

"He not mine." The Guide charged, his Bonelands accent spilling in his ire. "We all suffer harsh suns because he couldn't keep it in his pants."

Rafel smiled backward at the tanned stick of a man. He knew what the Guide wasn't saying—and he didn't even have to read his mind: "Fuck Visha. Fuck Ceto. Fuck the gods!" He was pretty sure the melanin in the man's skin wasn't from birth, rather the high, penetrating noon. Maybe not melanin then.

The Guide began singing. Only he did. For eight solid hours. Dusk hit, and Rafel didn't even know it slugged atop his camel, until the Guide suddenly screamed.

"There it is!" He pointed. "BEHOLD! The Seat of Sétland!"

Rafel raised his amber pupils with Ravenna, Naamah and Cora as one.

The Seat of Sétland was a castle of ivory. White in the sands, as the wings of Ravenna's fucking mum.