Chapter 15: The Atalanta Cult

After breaking our fast, this time with Chief Silvermoon and all of his wives, we said our goodbyes and got ready to leave. It wasn't exactly a tearful goodbye but after everything that had happened we seemed to at least have a certain respect for each other.

When everything was said and done Alisha used her Homeward miracle on Anna to transport us all back to her... our... villa. Gods that would take some getting used to. So much so that Alisha had deliberately used the miracle on Anna to make sure we wouldn't end up back at the Plucked Cockatrice by accident.

Once back Yume and Alisha rushed to check on our mystic fruit trees before we headed to the royal palace.

As I had gotten used to, what followed was an ordeal of pure tedium as we first had to wait for an audience with the Queen before Anna had to go over everything she'd managed to negotiate in excruciating detail. I did notice that Queen Emilia seemed particularly impressed with Anna's results, considering how little she'd have to give the Wood Elves in exchange for their cooperation.

Finally, when Anna and her mom were done discussing the negotiations, the Queen told us: “Last night the messenger from the Atalanta cult arrived at the palace, so you may leave once you have your affairs in the capital in order. I wish you the best of luck.”

“Thank you, your majesty," Anna said for all of us and we were allowed to leave.

**

“So, who is this Atalanta and why does she have a cult?" Yume asked once we left the throne room.

I looked around and saw that Alisha and Selene seemed equally curious, so I explained for all their benefit: “Atalanta was a Chosen One of the goddess Artemis. Like Albrecht she was one of the truly good ones. She ended up earning the title of Great Hero for herself, just like him, but where Albrecht was content to live out his life in peace Atalanta leveraged the influence she gained on her travels for political gain, becoming the sole ruler of the Easternmost city of the empire. It used to be called Thebes, but these days it's just 'the cult's city'. After her death they started worshiping her like a demigod and they made up a set of religious laws loosely based on Atalanta's own life and her ideals.”

“So, what are those ideals?" Yume asked.

I smiled. “First and foremost, the eradication of Dark Lords and Outsiders. You may have noticed that we basically never get any quests that take us too far east, right?”

Yume's eyes widened. “They're that diligent?”

“Mostly," I said. “They have an odd rivalry with the Spartans in the Southeast and between both of their groups no Dark Lord in the east survives for long.”

“Alright, so they're just a group of militant pseudo-Chosen Ones?" Selene asked.

“Kind of," I said. “Atalanta's story is a little weird. During her time as an adventurer she refused to lay with men, only laying with women and even that rarely, technically preserving her virginity for years. Only when she laid down her bow did she give up her virginity. And Athena's bush did she make up for lost time. I believe at the height of her fame she had nine wives and twelve husbands.”

“Eight wives and thirteen husbands," Anna corrected. “One of her 'wives' was actually a very pretty elven man. He was the last of her lovers to die of old age, obviously, and it happened just a few decades ago. Mother attended his funeral as a child.”

“Huh," I said. I hadn't known that. “Well, anyway. Her cult believes that women should only lay with men after they're done with their heroic deeds, if that.”

“They're missing out," Alisha said.

“Yeah, they don't quite practice what they preach," I said. “The Spartans in the Southeast are all about being strong and manly and their ideal woman is a meek housewife... or so they say. In truth they have many strong women in their ranks and there is a great deal of, ahem, cultural exchange between them and the cult. Mostly they're just a society led by women that prides itself on culling Dark Lords and Outsider cultists. Oh, and they're all really good with their bows.”

“Oh, that's right," Alisha said. “I remember when we sold cockatrice feathers to someone because the Atalanta cults use them as fletching for their bows.”

“Exactly," I said. “In fact, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to sell a bunch of the Tiphereth wings for a tidy sum once we're there.”

“To be honest, a society led by women doesn't sound too different from what we have," Selene said. “Our ruler is the queen. The king is just the man she decided to marry.”

“Believe me, it's different," I said. “In the Trismegistian kingdom the firstborn inherits the title, regardless of gender. Anna's mom just happened to be the first in line to the throne. In the cult the firstborn daughter inherits no matter how many sons came before her. Some families without daughters will even adopt before they allow a son to inherit.”

“Weird," Alisha said.

“How is it where you're from?" Selene asked Yume.

“Back there the very idea of a woman inheriting her parents' titles would be laughable," Yume said.

“Charming," I said, my voice indicating that I found it anything but.

“Say what you will about my family, but at least I think we handle succession rather fairly," Anna said.

“I've yet to find a reason to say anything bad about your mother's rule," I said.

But before we could get any deeper into the merits of Queen Emilia's rule we had reached the main hall of the palace where a tall, tanned woman was waiting for us. Her clothing was technically acceptable for a royal messenger. Technically. It was the same uniform normal female court messengers wore, except the top had its sleeves cut off and in place of a skirt she wore thin pants that emphasized more than hid her toned calves. This was not a diplomat. This was a warrior who had deigned to act as a diplomat.

And she was currently sneering at Anna's court dress.

“You the princess?" the woman asked, her tone gruff.

“That's me," Anna said, clearly not too happy with the woman's behavior. “Are you ready to depart?”

“Since I came here, princess," the woman said and somehow she made 'princess' sound like an insult rather than a title. “Let's get on with it then.”

I could feel Alisha trembling in anger next to me but before she could say anything the woman added:

“And take care of that beast-kin, for fuck's sake, she looks desperate enough to hump someone's leg.”

Actually I thought Yume was doing rather better than yesterday. I mean yeah, we'd worn her out and yeah, Alisha had very deliberately not cast her healing miracle on the fox woman to make the soreness go away and of course both of her holes were currently plugged with some of Anna's toys, but aside from the deep red flush and the heavy breathing she looked mostly normal.

“We will once we reach your territory," I promised the woman.

She smirked as she looked me up and down. “You better, or I will.”

Yume responded to that suggestion by letting out a low, rumbling growl from deep within her chest.

The lady held her hands up. “Kidding, kidding! I'm not into poaching.” She paused, then added quietly: “Much.”

Alisha nodded and started to cast her miracle. A warm orange glow surrounded us and when it subsided we were no longer in the royal palace's entrance hall but instead in front of a building that, while nowhere near as impressive as the royal palace, was still a fairly imposing building, with a very, very long staircase leading up to a massive gate and high spires that made it look like a small castle. Clearly this building was the city hall of the city formerly known as Thebes.

The Homeward miracle sent people directly to the building they called home, so that would mean the woman actually lived in the ruler's residence.

“You're the cult leader's wife, aren't you?" I asked, looking between her and the building she called home.

“One of them, yeah," she admitted. “Name's Cora, by the way.”

I only just bit back a snort. I knew a little of the liturgical language of the followers of the Olympians and so I knew that her name meant 'maiden'. A blushing maiden this woman was clearly not.

“Then I'd ask you to lead the way," Anna said.

“Sure thing, princess," Cora said, with that same sarcastic emphasis on the title and started walking up the stairs.

As we followed her up the truly prodigious stairway I took the time to look around. As I had said, the Atalanta cult did its best to root out any Dark Lords found in the vicinity so I'd never had reason to visit the place. The farthest east I'd ever been had been Aphrodite's Orchard.

The place looked... dry. There was a river running through the city and the riverbanks were green enough but the farther away you got from it the drier the area became. It made sense given that even farther east the Great Desert began but it still felt uncomfortably hot and dry. The area outside the walls was a sort of steppe, full of herd animals trying to scrounge up the least dry grasses they could find, and inside the walls it was abundantly clear that real estate near the river was reserved for the rich. The richer houses were made out of solid stone while the poorer districts were comprised of single story dwellings made of clay.

And yes, the fact that I could see that much of the surrounding area was indicative of just how ludicrously high those stairs went. To be fair, the city hall was also built on top of a hill but it wasn't that big a hill.

What I hadn't expected was what the stairs would do to Yume. With every step she let out a gasp or a moan and by the time we reached the top she was a panting, sweaty mess.

“Can we get a room or something?" I asked Cora, indicating Yume with my eyes.

“Of course," she said. “Not like we expected whatever negotiations you came here for to be over in a day, so there's already a room prepared for you.”

“Thanks," I said.

I was about to ask if anyone would volunteer to take care of Yume when Alisha said:

“I'll play with her. I want to be on the other end of those toys for once.”

“Have fun," I said.

Cora raised an eyebrow at that but then just said: “I'll bring the elf and the beast-kin to your room. Just go straight ahead and you'll find the audience chamber.”

“Thanks," I said as the three of them veered off down a corridor to the left.

“She didn't seem that bad," Selene said quietly.

“Can't say I agree," Anna muttered.

“I don't think the court dress is winning you any favors here," I told the princess. “I fear it makes you look weak to them.”

“It's protocol," Anna countered. “Trust me, I would love to be out of this thing, but I at least have to try and keep up appearances.”

I shrugged. “It's your decision, I'm just giving you earnest advice.”

“I know," she said. “Depending on the way they treat me today I might actually take that advice tomorrow.”

I didn't say that by that time the damage would already be done, but only because we had already reached the door to the audience chamber.

Two Amazonians stood guard in front of it, clad in armor and wielding spears, which they held crossed in front of the large double doors.

“Are you the Trismegistian princess we were told to expect?" the woman on the right asked, her tone a little too neutral.

“Indeed," Anna said.

The two spears parted. “Please go right in then, Lady Electra is expecting you.” They made no move to open the door for her which struck me as rather rude, especially since they clearly thought Anna was too weak to do it on her own.

Anna clearly noticed it, too, because she narrowed her eyes, walked past them, put her hands on the double doors, and shoved ever-so-slightly harder than she had to in order to get the door open. The double doors flew open and smashed into the walls before Anna walked into the audience chamber and Selene and I hurried to catch up with her.

The chamber was decorated in much the same way Chief Silvermoon's had been, but built on a much larger scale and therefore much less cramped.

As we entered we immediately caught sight of this Lady Electra, who was sitting behind a great big Desk. It wasn't made of wood – wood was too expensive in these parts to waste on something like this – but instead it was made of stone. It wasn't quite a solid slab, though, since there was enough space for one's legs underneath, but the Desk still deserved capitalization. It was probably a good thing this audience chamber was located on the ground floor because the Desk would have likely broken through the floorboards if it had been placed on a higher floor.

But the woman behind the Desk was equally impressive. Cora had already looked like a formidable warrior but compared to Electra she almost seemed like the blushing maiden her name implied. As she saw us coming she stood up and I could instantly tell Electra was a tall woman, six foot four, probably, barely shorter than me. She was bronzed and muscular, though not too much so as she still had decidedly womanly curves, most of which were on display thanks to her outfit, which consisted of an almost scandalously short skirt that barely covered the top third of her thighs and a top that barely covered anything more than her breasts. The woman had a damn six-pack underneath an impressive chest and it looked kind of sexy on her. Even Selene only had toned abs, not this nearly Spartan physique that Electra sported. The woman's face was surprisingly feminine, though it held that same sneer Cora had had when she'd looked at Anna's dress. Her black hair reached down to her shoulders and was quite glossy and well cared for.

“Welcome, princess," Electra said, that same mocking emphasis in her tone. Her voice was strong and a bit husky. “I am Electra, the leader of this humble cult. What did the crown wish to discuss?”

We followed Anna to the Desk and I pulled out a chair for her and waited for her to sit before I did.

“The crown wishes to inquire whether the Atalanta cult still stands by its old oaths.” Well, now at least I was convinced that this was a diplomatic formula.

Electra's expression became a little more serious and a little less mocking. “Which oath in particular did you wish to discuss, princess?”

“The defense of the realm against the forces from Outside," Anna replied.

“Death to the Outer Gods and all their spawn," Electra replied, the smile coming back out to play.

“Wonderful," Anna said. “Recent events have made the queen decide to take a more... proactive role in protecting the realm against the Outsiders and their cultists.”

“And you wish our assistance in that, I suppose," Electra finished. She opened her mouth to say more but right then the door opened and Cora entered the audience chamber, walked past us, slid into the chair next to Electra, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Hello love," Electra said, much more tenderly than anything she'd said to us thus far.

“Hello love," Cora replied easily, then turned to us. “The elf and the beast-kin have settled into their room. Do you need a second room or is one enough?”

The implication behind the question was clear and Anna replied: “One room will be fine. They are my lovers and confidants.”

Cora raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Electra meanwhile seemed a little confused. “Elf? Beast-kin?" she asked.

Cora explained: “They arrived with two others, an elven priestess and a beast-kin...” She looked up at us. “What class is the cute fox?”

I used to call Yume a witch or magician, but that wasn't quite true anymore, was it? “A spellblade," I replied. It seemed fitting enough. She was a mage who also wielded a blade, after all, though her magic was much stronger than that of the average spellblade.

“That little beast-kin is a spellblade?" she asked. “Well, whatever, if it works for her.”

“Let's save that for later," Electra said. “We were discussing the eradication of Outsiders.” Cora sat up straighter at the news and Electra continued: “You said recent events made the queen reevaluate her stance. What recent events were those? I admit I'm not overly concerned with what goes on in the rest of the kingdom.”

Anna nodded, glad to be back on track. “A cult of the Black Goat recently tried to overrun the capital with its foul spawn.”

Electra's eyes widened. “My condolences," she said. “How many died?”

“None," Anna said. “They were stopped before they could put their plan into action.”

I rolled my eyes as I saw the way Electra received this information so I volunteered. “What her highness failed to mention in her humility was that she herself was instrumental in stopping these cultists. As were all of us.”

Electra's eyebrows raised. “Is that so?”

Anna turned around to give me a dirty look for just a moment but then relaxed when she felt Selene's hand on her shoulder. “As you can imagine, this threat convinced the queen that more needed to be done to protect the realm. Which is why I am here right now. Not to ask for assistance but to establish a way for us to assist each other.”

“So you say," Electra said, “but for the last couple centuries the cult has done a damn fine job keeping the Outsiders at bay without any help.”

“So thought we, until we were made painfully aware of how vulnerable our realm truly was," Anna countered.

Electra chuckled. “That's a very cute way of saying you weren't as competent as you were confident, princess.”

Anna grit her teeth so hard I could hear the creaking.

“So, how exactly did you stop this cult?" Cora asked when Anna stayed quiet. “Did you run around hiring mercenaries to do the tough job for you? Can't imagine you getting that pretty dress of yours dirty.”

Anna started shaking with rage.

“Are you seriously going to let her talk to you like that?" I asked, not bothering to keep my voice down.

“What's she gonna do about it?" Cora asked, her tone openly mocking now. “Send the royal guard at us? Oops, she can't, since she just admitted that they have their hands full already.”

Anna took a deep breath from right next to me, then looked up and locked gazes with Electra. “Rein your subordinate in or I will make her eat those words.”

“I'd love to see you try," Electra said.

“That sounds like a challenge, princess," Cora said.

“You bet it is," Anna growled.

“We don't accept stand-ins or champions," Electra warned. “Challenges in this city happen between the people involved, not their surrogates.”

“I wouldn't have it any other way," Anna said. “So, how do duels work in this godsforsaken place?”

Cora smirked. “First an archery competition, then a race, and finally a duel. Best two out of three. What are we wagering?”

“If I win you give me some gods damned respect," Anna growled. “What do you...”

Cora interrupted her, pointing at Selene. “If I win I get to turn the pretty paladin inside-out for a whole night.”

Electra raised an eye at her wife's choice but didn't comment on it.

I, meanwhile, had just about had it. “Are you fucking kid--" I began but Selene barked:

“Done.”

We all stared at her.

“Don't just beat her, Anna," the paladin said. “Humiliate her.”

**

I couldn't help but feel like we were a bad influence on Anna. How else could we explain that she'd ended up having to fight two duels over the span of three weeks?

Either way, after Anna and Cora had agreed to the terms we had been dragged out of the building, mercifully not down all those stairs, but instead we'd been led out the other side, into a huge courtyard behind the main building. It was a typical gymnasium, a long track looping around in an oval, with an archery range and a grassy field in the middle of it.

There'd been a few small cabins where people could get changed as Cora demonstrated when she walked into one and then came out dressed much the same as her wife Electra, or in other words, wearing much less. The outfit was honestly perfect for a workout in that it didn't consist of much cloth that could be soaked in sweat while exposing all her muscles. Cora wasn't quite as muscular as Electra, but she still looked like she could overpower an orc.

Anna, meanwhile, changed into her adventuring clothes, practically chomping at the bit to be out of the court dress.

Cora, who had been sneering the whole way to the courtyard, looked considerably less confident when she saw Anna's tight-fitting adventuring clothes that made it clear that she had muscle on her and wasn't a wilting flower.

“You need a bow, princess?" Cora asked as she grabbed one of her own from a weapons rack.

“I've got my own," Anna said, then pulled her ornamental longbow from her bag of holding. It was a work of art but the ornaments didn't mean it was for show. It was, in fact, a very high quality weapon, to the point that even for a princess it was a valuable artifact. “So, what are the rules?”

“Six shots, the closer to the center you hit and the farther away the target is, the more points it scores. If both parties draw, we keep firing until the tie is broken.”

“Very well," Anna said. “You can start if you want.”

“Don't mind if I do," Cora said, gave Selene a lecherous glance, and then started aiming at the targets down range. They were fifty, seventy-five and a hundred yards away and each target had ten concentric circles, black and white alternating. Those distances were trivial to Anna, though. I'd seen her make pinpoint accurate shots at over twice that distance.

Cora began by aiming at the closest target and immediately scored a bullseye, then another. Then she switched to the middle target and produced two more perfect hits. Finally she fired at the farthest target. The first one landed just off center, in the fist ring around the center, while the next did land in the center. Five perfect hits and an almost perfect. Not bad at all.

She gave Anna a smirk but the princess just regarded her opponent impassively, then immediately took aim at the farthest target and put three arrows through the center, faster than Cora had fired two arrows.

Anna spared Cora a glance and then quickly loosed the other three, also hitting the center of the farthest target.

A perfect score and all of them in the farthest target. The last two arrows had actually ended up splitting previous arrows because the center of the farthest target had been so crowded.

Cora seemed stunned. Clearly she hadn't been expecting Anna to keep up with her, much less beat her.

“Do you need a moment or can we go for the run?" Anna asked and now it was Cora's turn to grit her teeth.

“Three rounds," the Amazon said as the two of them got into position.

Electra counted them off and they shot forward.

It quickly became clear that Anna had her beat even more handily here than during the archery contest. By the time Cora finished her first lap Anna was already more than halfway through her second.

But then, when Anna reached the finish line on the third lap, she stopped a yard away from it, created a little stool of sapphire right next to the line, sat down on it, and waited for Cora to catch up.

“Are you..." the Amazon huffed as she saw Anna waiting for her, “fucking... kidding me?”

“You think I'd beat you twice already and lose the chance to humiliate you in a proper duel?" Anna asked. “I can only take so much before I start hitting back. Now get over that finish line so we can reach round three with a draw.”

Cora was breathing like a bellows for a few more seconds before she started chuckling. “Well, fuck me for underestimating you. I think I like you after all, princess.”