LORDOSIS (BOOK 1) (COMPLETE)

LORDOSIS Prologue

They were coming! It was so exciting... and for a city like ours being chosen for a visit was an honour so great that stories would be told and songs would be written to last the ages.

"Get everything ready," the head of the house ordered. "They have been sighted not far. I want it perfect!"

Everyone screamed with excitement and jumped around. The harem was a mass of women and although my father did not partake of them all we all lived here to protect our virtue and learn the lessons we would need to please our suitor once one was found who was brave enough to take on the challenge to win himself a bride.

I thought it was silly for a city so low on men to force them to take challenges that many lost their lives too. Surely with the other cities falling and ours being rich with potential wives we should be preparing for the day when the walls would be breeched and our city raped and pillaged. My fathers main guard and closest friend thought the same and had taught me to defend myself since I was a old enough to hold a knife. We then moved onto swords, whips, hand to hand but the one I was considered master of was the bow and arrow. From my very first lesson, I hit every shot as easy as breathing. It was my gift.

My other gift was dance. I could hypnotise an entire room with my rhythmic movements and many a man had lost his life trying to win my hand in a challenge after watching me dance. I did not know these men and thought them reckless to be risking their lives for me. My challenge was always the hardest as my father kept order in this city. He was the authority. The majesty.

To me he was a fat, grumpy man who was more interested in eating than making sons. My own mother had died giving birth to me and had it not been for his own illness at the time he would have ordered me drown as the city had enough daughters and it didn't need any without mothers to raise them.

He ignored me for most of my life and I only found out that he was my father when I had my first bleed. I was worried he would come for me and do what he did with the others to make sons. It was then I was told he would not as I was the result of him doing that to another woman and I should stay quiet and out of the way for should he see me I could be banished beyond the walls.

No one wanted to go there. It had no food, water and should you travel in the day your skin would blister till it boiled on your bones. Night time was the best time to travel and as the darkness fell around me I rushed with the others to prepare for our guests.