The year is 2063. The devastating Third World War in 2010 wiped out much of the world's population. The descendants of the war's survivors live in a savage, lawless world.

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

"Keep those chains quiet, girl, or I'll stake you out in the sun and leave you for the vultures!"

Angel took up the slack on the metal links which led from her fettered wrists and neck to the girl in front of her and tried to stop them rattling as she moved. She doubted that the guard who had spoken to her would carry out his threat: nubile young slave girls fetched good prices, whereas there was no profit in selling a corpse. However, he might easily whip her and she knew from life-long experience that the whip hurt. She could see lash marks on the bare bottom of the girl in front of her and had no wish to carry similar welts herself.

Angel was a slave, the result of one of the uncountable rapes of her mother, herself a slave. Since the number of men who had enjoyed her mother's helpless body was legion, Angel had no idea who her father was, nor did she care: she had her mother and that was that.

As soon as she was old enough to be useful, she had been put to work. It was a hard life, but she knew no other. They watched her grow, watched her chest expand and curves develop, watched her become a lovely young woman and they began to use her for their sport. Angel quickly became experienced in the ways of men, soon learning to part her legs with the minimum of fuss and ignore the hands which slipped up her ragged shift. She found herself unmoved by what they did to her, but was wise enough never to show it, for she did not want to be beaten, at least not more often than she could avoid.

Naked, as she so often found herself, Angel was certainly a wonderful sight to behold. Her ginger blonde hair was soft, flowing and sensuous, just brushing her flawless bare shoulders. Her big wide eyes suited her name, because they gave her an innocent, beguiling look, aided by the little girl smile which often played on her lips. Her round young breasts sat up perkily on her chest, the nipples seeming to stick out invitingly. Below the slim waist and flat stomach - which came from never having been pampered - and at the junction of the long, sensual legs, her delta was covered by a thin layer of downy fair hair, its very softness inviting invasion. Angel meant no such invitation, but she had long accepted such use of her as a fact of life. With a naturally positive outlook, she found life bearable.

Because she was lovely, she was popular with her masters. So too was her mother Carol, still beautiful herself: often, Angel and her mother had lain side by side naked in the dirt at a rape party and it had been a toss-up which of them had been the more in demand. Carol had jet black hair, so Angel's locks were evidently inherited from her unknown father, but there were other family resemblances, not the least of which was the fine figure: Carol could still turn a man's eye.

But when the crops failed and they needed money to buy food, the settlement leaders had to sell Angel to the traders who regularly passed by. Before then, of course, the men had all taken one last bite at the luscious cherry. Angel had been fucked silly. Now she was traipsing across the desert, naked and chained. They'd stripped her for the fat merchant to inspect before he bought her and he hadn't bothered to re-clothe her afterwards. This was the first time she had left the village in her life, but otherwise nothing had changed: she was still a slave; in her experience one master was very much like another. She expected nothing else: her only hope, or daydream, for the future was that she might be bought by a handsome young man who would fall in love with her and treat her like a pampered slave rather than be rough with her. It was unrealistic to aspire to anything more than that. Running away, even if it were possible, was hopeless, for like most slaves she was branded, the now traditional letter S burnt deep into her youthful flesh on the inside front of her right thigh. They had done that whilst she was still a little girl; she had dreaded the pain on the day it was done, but not the branding itself, for her mother carried the same brand and Angel had always known that one day she would too. She was thus born a slave, branded a slave and expected to die a slave: Angel was now seventeen, old enough to no longer believe in miracles.

She had been saying a tearful goodbye to her mother, doubting that she would ever see her again, when the news came that Carol, too, had been bought by the merchant. Now Angel trudged along, third in a line of eight naked females, guarded by four swordsmen on horseback and the slimy fat trader who had already had his repulsive way with her and most of her fellow slave girls. Frequently she glanced to the back of the line, concerned that her mother, nearly twenty years older than herself and as naked as her daughter, might be struggling to keep the pace, but years of slavery had toughened Carol: she was managing.

One of the horsemen had been scouting ahead. Now he returned to report to the trader. "Company's coming. Small wagon, drawn by four girls. Man and a woman, plus two guards."

The guards drew closer to the fat trader's horse as the other caravan neared. He looked the strangers over. The man was very handsome, with piercing blue eyes full of life and a devilish smile playing on the corners of his lips. He looked as if he could well handle the sword he carried. The woman was even better looking, flawless skin and a superb figure well set off by her tunic and tight trousers, her hair covered up by a scarf. The trader was amused to see a large sword hanging from her hip. Women couldn't use swords in his experience and although she looked fit, this blade was probably too heavy for her anyway. A dagger was a woman's weapon. Their two guards looked capable and the trader was glad that his own four guards outnumbered their two plus the man: guards were expensive, but worth it.

He cast a professional eye over the four slave girls, all naked, harnessed to the wagon by chains leading from their manacled wrists to the horizontal bars they were pushing. They were dripping with sweat from their labours in the considerable Australian heat and covered in dust, but they were very good-looking, nevertheless. The lead pair were undoubtedly sisters, probably not much more than a year different in their ages: the green eyes, short, curly dark hair, the slightly upturned noses and the fresh good looks were a mirror image of each other. Sisters sold as a pair often fetched a better price than selling them separately; so did mother and daughter combinations, which was why he had bought the mother of the ginger-blonde beauty: her price had been low and her figure excellent for her age. He halted his caravan: an exchange of information with other travellers was often useful.

Both sets of guards dismounted, cautious but grateful for a chance to stretch legs. The man and woman got down and approached. The trader's guards stayed alert, but everything seemed all right.

Until the man spoke.

"I suggest," he said in a clear, confident voice with a hint of mockery, "that you save yourselves some trouble and surrender now."

Immediately the trader's guards drew their swords, as did the other side, the woman included. "We outnumber you," the fat trader said, although he himself carried no weapon. That was what you employed guards for. "Go your way and be damned."

The man smiled, a dazzling smile. "I don't think much of your arithmetic," he said, as he and the woman started towards the trader. Two of the guards immediately challenged them. There was a fast, furious clash of swords. The trader was astonished to see the woman wielding her sword not only as if it was as light as a feather, but also as an expert. The man, too, was clearly an adept swordsman, and after a brief onslaught the trader's two guards lay dead in twin pools of blood.

The man and woman now turned to face the remaining guards. It didn't look as if they would even need to use the two men who backed them up. "I think the odds favour us now," the woman said easily and reached up to pull her scarf off. Cascades of curly copper-blonde hair, reaching a third of the way down her back, tumbled from beneath the scarf. The effect on the opposition was stunning.

"Goldenhair," breathed the trader, horrified.

There was a brief moment of silence. Then one of the trader's remaining guards yelled, "it's the Tigers! Run for it!" He and his fellow turned, scrambled up onto their horses and frantically raced off, ignoring their employer's desperate commands to stand and fight. His own beast was built to take his prodigious weight rather than for speed and so he was left alone, quaking with fear. The man and the woman watched the fleeing guards with cavalier laughter.

Angel stared, unbelieving. Up to now she had watched the brief fight with indifference: if the intruders won, it seemed the girls would simply exchange one master for another. But could these people really be the mythical Tigers, the raiders who went around freeing slaves and fighting tyrants? Of course she had heard the legends of the handsome devil they called the Lion and his stunningly beautiful woman whose hair shone like the sun itself, earning her the name Goldenhair; how she could wield a sword as well as any man and even without it defeat a man in hand to hand combat. Their band of outlaws was called The Tigers, they carried out the most audacious and brilliant raids. Her masters had claimed that they were just stories, which somebody had started telling a year or so ago as a cruel joke. Angel could believe that and yet, for the first time in her life, the tiniest flicker of hope stirred in her trim, bare young belly.

The fat trader asked fearfully, "are you indeed the Tigers?"

The man bowed. "The Lion and the Pussycat" - he indicated the lovely copper-blonde woman at his side, who smiled dazzlingly - "at your service." One of his men was already at the merchant's side, searching for the keys to the slaves' chains. Finding it, he began to unlock the disbelieving coffle of girls. Another man unlocked the chains of the four girls pushing the Tigers' wagon, although even after being freed from their fetters the girls remained at their stations.

The trader asked shakily, "what are you going to do with me?"

"It depends how you've treated the girls," replied the Lion easily. "If you've not been too harsh on them, we'll just strip you naked and send you on your way. Otherwise ..."