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This story is fantasy fiction set in a fantasy world depicting extreme
and very graphic torture. It is intended for mature adults not offended
by such material and the author does not endorse or excsue violence of any
kind.
Chapter 1 - From the Dead
The thumping of boots and the clanking of metal echoed eerily in the rough,
winding corridors. No light had graced their descent except for the wavering
flames of their own torches, and the triumphant pace of the first steps had
become more and more hesitant the farther down they went, as shapes hiding in
the dark receded just out of torchlight range.
Even the blond mane standing as tall as the rest among the helms no longer
shook in defiance every few steps, resisting the two burly warriors dragging
their captive along. The ominous silence of the underground complex had
silenced even Kayleen, Warrior Queen of Tarnis, a feat none had pulled before;
her bright blue eyes seeking in the darkness the reason for the sudden turn of
the events which brought her here.
Now that the group had slowed, she could walk as fast as the rest in spite of
the short chain linking her fettered ankles, which had hobbled her ordinarily
spirited pace much as fear had hobbled the warriors during the ambush. Fear of
her, of her prowess, of the legendary Warrior Queen who had struck down the
evil tyranny of Zhorun the Necromancer; even at odds of twenty to one, even
after catching her on a hunting trip, after she dispatched the boldest three
none of them would come near her and she almost put them to flight. Almost.
One of them, more enterprising than the others, hit her solidly on the temple
with a sling bullet, dazing her long enough for the others to gather their
courage and swarm her. Once subdued, they manacled her with strong iron cuffs
and pushed a wooden tack in her mouth to prevent her from calling for help,
wasting no time in marching her to their destination ... these passages, under
the ruins of Zhorun's former castle. Leaving her legs free to walk soon proved
a bad choice, as at her first chance she brought one down with a savage kick
to the knee and sought to escape, but there were too many of them.
After the episode, her captors decided to take no more chances and bound her
cuffed hands behind her back, tying them to a rope tightened around her waist,
binding her arms to a staff brought up under her shoulders and encasing her
soft hunting boots in iron cuffs connected with a short chain, to prevent her
from running effectively. Since this also prevented her from walking quickly
enough for their intents, they had to took turns into goading and carrying her
by the staff under her shoulders, while the strong woman spared no effort to
make their lives harder. Until now.
The corridors were over, and their steps now sounded like they were in a sort
of large underground hall, with imposing pillars rising up in the darkness to
a ceiling beyond the dwindling light of the torches. A dripping sound could be
faintly heard in the distance, but no other noise could be heard beyond those
of their own making. One of them addressed the leader, whispering for no good
reason: "This must be the place. I say we leave her here and leave now."
The leader, a large man still smarting from the vicious punch Kayleen had
managed to land on his eye during her recapture, shook his head and whispered
back, "No, we're supposed to bring her before the Master himself. If this
wildcat escapes after we depart ..." and left the rest unspoken as his voice
trailed off. To Kayleen's ears, that made no sense: the Master was how Zhorun
was addressed by his subjects, but the necromancer had met his end on her
sword sixteen months ago, freeing Tarnis and vaulting her on the throne.
"Exactly," whispered a voice in the darkness, a screech like glass on
cobblestone. Everybody jumped, and Kayleen softly muttered into the tack, "No
... it cannot be. You are dead." realization hitting her as all pieces of the
puzzle fell into place. The elusive deer leading her away from the others, the
warriors whose colors she could not recognize, and the hideout under the ruins
of the accursed castle: she should have known better. The ambush had been
prepared to take her, alive, before Zhorun.
While Kayleen's mind realized the truth, the leader had recovered and barked
to his men, "Very well, bring her forth ..." as he wanted to make a good
impression when delivering the Warrior Queen before his Master. His last word
sputtered in blood as Kayleen's sudden head butt hit him full force under the
chin, sending him sprawling on the floor before turning in a determined rush
for the corridor. But even the mighty Warrior Queen could not defeat a dozen
warriors while in chains, so she never got there, although subduing her proved
taxing for the warriors being humiliated before their Master.
"I see our Queen does not wish to be our guest," said the screeching voice as
its bearer drew nearer, yet somehow distant, as if coming from dark depths
beyond the word light by the sun. "It's a pity. We've prepared her stay for
months, even since our last encounter."
As the voice entered the range of the torches, the warriors holding them
almost let them fall, as the small caped possessor of the voice was a vision
from Hell, a walking corpse smelling of rot and decay barely held together by
heavy black robes torn open at the left shoulder, where a ghastly sword wound
almost reached to the midsection.
"Your smell did not improve ..." spat the struggling woman, which was being
held by three warriors while the leader was still unable to get up, but her
voice trailed off losing the remaining of the stinging comment because
Zhorun's condition became obvious to her as much as to his henchmen, as those
men inured to the worst crimes caught themselves muttering prayers from their
lost childhoods.
"I should thank you and your ministrations for that, o gracious Queen." said
the voice coming from the empty space between a worm infested nose and a limp
jaw bone, in a visage from the grave where two reddish points of light shone
at the bottom of empty eye sockets. His rotting hand, which had been clutching
a staff, extended towards her slowly and the voice said, "Yet, more pressing
matters require your and my attention before I can show the full extent of my
gratitude for that. Remove the tack and bring her along."
With that, he turned and started slowly limping into the darkness of the hall,
but the warriors holding Kayleen hesitated until the leader materially pushed
them forward, just as the robed corpse was leaving the torchlight area. After a
while he spoke again, "You carried yourselves well, today. They haven't even
started to search for her yet. When they will, they'll find tracks aplenty ...
leading all over the kingdom. If, as loyal subjects are wont to do, they'll
leave none untried, your warriors will end up spread very thin. Too thin to
resist my forces, I wager."
As Kayleen drew her breath, about to reply that the few followers he could
still muster would be no match for her warriors, the robed figure started down
yet another flight of stairs, and the leader ordered, "Lift her and carry her
down. No tricks on those stairs." much to the chagrin of the woman who had
been planning exactly that. The voice spoke again, "Yes, the might of our
Warrior Queen is indeed renowned. A shining example on the battlefield ...
unless she's missing." at which one of the warriors coming down mumbled, "It
was not just her. It was also that redhead bitch, the sorceress."
The memories of that day fluttered in Kayleen's mind for a moment, the day
when the people rose against the tyrant and his henchmen, but her attention
was almost fully devoted to her predicament, as this area was unmistakably a
prison, with dark cells and, as she realized when her heart missed a beat upon
entering, a torture chamber.
The chamber was a large, vaulted hall divided in sections by thick pillars and
lit by torches and braziers large and small. Three occupants had been
obviously waiting for their arrival and drew nearer: a burly man of pale
complexion wearing a leather apron, a wry Easterner with slanted eyes and thin
dropping mustache and an olive skinned, fat old man wearing a large collection
of shiny jewelry. The withered hand rose to encompass them in a mocking
introduction, "My Queen, let me introduce you to the advisers I carefully
selected for the matter to be soon addressed between you and me. On your left
is Hadhar, from a secluded oasis in the Southern Desert, from which he brought
many of his specialties. The other here is Chang, from the Far East, a guest
of highly refined tastes and exquisite finesse. And of course there is Grod,
who has been in my service long enough that his name should be well known to
you already."
The cold fingers of fear crawled up Kayleen's spine, as the loathed name of
Grod was indeed known by its sinister fame to her, and the other two were
probably the same or worse. One of the warriors behind her commented to a
comrade, "It's going to be hell for the bitch now!" and her heart sank as she
contemplated the gruesome fate which her prowess could not avoid. Of course,
Zhorun was bent on taking a slow and painful revenge on her and had concocted
this elaborate plan to satiate his hatred.
"Indeed," chuckled the voice, while the old man grinned and Grod wandered off
in the chamber, "But there is a matter is of more pressing concern. While
during our last encounter it was your sword that presented me this gift I
still bear, and our valiant warrior correctly reminded us of how troublesome
Shandra the Sorceress proved, I am now informed that there was a third meddler
involved, one Lyreen, a devoted Priestess."
"He knows of Lyral," raced Kayleen's mind, "although he got the name wrong, at
least." This was something the Warrior Queen had not anticipated, because the
role of young, devoted Lyral had indeed been instrumental in Zhorun's defeat,
but mostly because her powers of healing had allowed Kayleen instant respite
from her wounds after each fight. Unlike herself and Shandra, although the
latter only so far as her magic would last, Lyral would not be able to put up
much of a fight. There had to be something about Lyral and her powers which
was of utmost importance to Zhorun.
The walking corpse staggered nearer, his foul stench now unmistakable as if
aroused, and spoke in her face, "I want the Priestess. She lives at a shrine,
I am positive, and you must give the exact location to me, so that she can be
brought in my power." The prospect of vulnerable, innocent Lyral in the hands
of the Necromancer would have been enough to draw her sword even before, when
she was but a wandering warrior. The Priestesses were rather secretive,
however, so he would be hard pressed to locate her with only the wrong name
to go by. So loathsome was the creature before her that her fears turned into
resolution on the spot and she sneered "Go find her yourself, wretch."
"I did not expect you to cooperate, of course. Grod, you may proceed." hissed
the robed figure, taking a few steps back. Grod spoke for the first time, with
a low, raucous voice which startled Kayleen, addressing the assembled warriors
and not the leader, "Bring her here. Her restraints need some work." This did
not fare well with the latter, who had took care of restraining the captive to
his liking after her first attempt, so he felt like scoring a point and
smirked "Be careful with her. She's a wildcat."
When she was dragged to where Grod stood, the Warrior Queen noticed that Grod
did not want to take chances with her: hanging from a beam overhead he had
lowered a solid hemp rope, which despite her struggles he adeptly arranged
around her neck, looping it tightly three or four times and then pulling it up
until she was forced to stand on the tips of her boots. He then positioned
himself before her and waited.
The attitude of the assembled warriors, meanwhile, was changing. She was no
longer a dangerous opponent, or a valuable captive; her stares now longed on
her body, which the restraints and the hunting outfit did not conceal fully.
Her panting and small, halting steps were turning her into an object of lust.
She had only one man in her life, her would-be husband whose grisly death at
the hands of Zhorun's henchmen set things in motion many months ago, but she
was no stranger to lustful stares; now, however, she was not in the position
to choose.
As her eyes wandered on the leering warriors, Grod suddenly hit her hard in
her stomach. Her reflexes allowed her to harden her muscles and even roll with
the blow somewhat, but Grod was a strong man and her position severely
restricted her air supply, so she gurgled and would have doubled over had she
not been restrained. Grod kneeled and started removing her leg irons and the
soft hunting boots, replacing them with heavy, tight ankle cuffs which he then
connected together with a short chain, while his captive struggled to catch
her breath as each leg was lifted in turn, leaving her gasping for air.
Satisfied with his work, Grod rose and circled behind the struggling Warrior
Queen, who was now discovering that the soft boots had been the only thing
allowing her to reach the floor and was trying to extend her long, slender legs
to gain that half inch which made the difference between breathing and
choking. Thus, she was no obstacle as Grod removed the restraints tying her
arms behind her back and placed another pair of cuffs on her wrists, pulling
her arms up above her head. "She's turning blue." commented the leader.
Grod knew his stuff, however, so he stood and waited, removing the rope from
the neck only when it suited him. Onlookers were then treated to the sight of
the strong, athletic figure of Kayleen hanging barefooted by her wrists,
panting heavily as she recovered her breath. The robed figure mocked, "A sight
to behold, Grod. Aren't you going to reveal more of the delectable charms she
is endowed with to our faithful followers ?"
"I am, Master. In a short time." rumbled the large man. As Kayleen's sight
cleared, she saw Grod pick up a long, heavy bullwhip, weighting it for a while
before cracking it twice to test it. The first crack startled her, but at the
second the Warrior Queen closed her eyes and sighed within, "It begins now.
I will not falter. These wretches will not get anything from me."
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