------------- No Bones About It

As third princess of the Leopard Clan of the Okalosian Barbarians, it fell to Rahlva to be a shadow on the wall. Her older sisters had gone off to war against the Doalkites twice and returned with great honor. But by the time she was old enough to hold a blade, she was denied the right to be a warrior. How she longed to break out of her courtly duties and take up the call to arms, but her mother would not hear it. Despite the fact she was of noble blood, she was little more than a slave in her own home. Her comeliness however had not gone unnoticed, as she soon became a device for her mother's political ambitions. She was given to every diplomat and noblewoman of the other eleven clans who came to their mountain top palace, until she gained the reputation of being the Queen's palace whore.

But fate would conspire to free Rahlva from her torment and shame. In time, a dark skinned foreigner came to her mother's court, an elf from a far away land to the south. Whispers in the court said she was from Awalawa, but few believed any humanoid could survive in that accursed land. Rahlva was given to her for a night's pleasure, an offering from the Queen. But the foreigner had little interest in her sexual favors. They talked into the night and Rahlva discovered the elf woman was indeed from the saurian infested lands of Awalawa. They also discovered they had a great deal in common, for the woman was no diplomat, but a rebel, fighting against her own Queen, looking for allies in her struggle. She had already determined that Rahlva's mother could not be trusted, but she had to play out the diplomat to the end, or find herself a prisoner of the Amazon Queen's displeasure. The two cooked up a scheme and sprung it on Rahlva's mother the next morning. The Zeugani envoy would accept an alliance with the Leopard Clan for the price of a slave to slake her lusts, Rahlva. The two left that afternoon, their deception unrevealed.

Months later, Rahlva strolled through a darkened hall, her new adamant blades at her side, her arms tight with muscle and a warrior's training. She had learned a great deal from the Zeugani Executioner, had survived countless encounters with dinosaurs, and had learned the real reason to fight, for freedom and for the innocent. She had all but forgotten her sisters and her mother. That was another life. Now, she was dedicated to the destruction of the undead hordes of the Zeugani Necromancers. She knew that this had been the life she had been destined to live, no bones about it.

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