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Chapter 10 - Machinations and Retaliations
The wizard once known as Zhorun listened without comment to the report from
his henchman about the capture of the Priestess, Lyral. When he left, however,
the circumstances troubled him. She was just a girl, and no warrior, yet when
the animated corpses lunged at her, it took her but an invocation to bathe
both in eerie white light which turned them to ashes. If he had not sent a
warband including living henchmen, the capture would have failed.
The tomes he had discovered on the subject of undeath, the origin of his great
triumph over the limitations of mortal flesh, hinted at the power of the Faith
over creatures from beyond the grave, so no further confirmation was required.
This meant he was at risk in her presence, at least until her maidenhood was
taken, as this was known to rob Priestesses of their powers.
This was a major setback. He counted on raising a host from the grave to fight
the armed forces still serving the Warrior Queen, but the Priestesses would
thwart this. If he started killing or abducting them, the rest would hide or
find protection exactly with those armed forces. Besides, sooner or later
someone such as the Sorceress, Shandra, would start drawing connections, and
he felt not confident enough to forgo secrecy yet.
His best option was to scrutinize her power and develop a spell to counter or
thwart it, although this would take time. He would raise corpses and study
their destruction at her hands, of course, but another thought hatched and
grew in him. Her powers had a common root, this was true for all forms of
power, and this root had to be in healing, because it was the effect other
forms of power, such as Zhorun's own wizardry, found hardest to replicate.
This was the core of her power, and this he would study by turning his three
torturers loose on her friend, the Warrior Queen. Something stirred within him
at the prospect of the delicious torments they could visit on her, once freed
from the need to preserve her life. They would still have to exercise some
care, as even a Priestess was helpless if the victim was already dead, but
they would be free to try most anything else.
Recalling the recent sessions, however, he concluded that the Southerner would
become a problem under the new circumstances. It was probably better to stick
to the notion of questioning both prisoners about the Sorceress, although this
was secondary now, and prohibit any activity which could endanger the
Priestess' maidenhood. He wrote down his orders and had them delivered,
impatient to proceed.
He silently entered the torture chamber, the lack of light not an obstacle for
a corpse whose eyes were long gone, and moved near the table where she was
still restrained. His henchmen had opposed his order to keep her under duress
even between sessions, as moments of respite were necessary to keep the victim
from dying or going insane, but her suffering was ecstasy to him and he would
partake of the nectar of her agony to the last drop.
The splendid woman lay in her restraints, sleeping in spite of the droplets of
water dripping on her forehead. Chang had explained that the water torture was
not really painful, it just played on the dread of the victim, and the ordeals
the woman had been through had left her on the brink of collapsing, so once
the effect of the drugs faded her body jumped at the chance of recovery in
spite of any dread her mind might harbor.
Her resilience and endurance were such, that she might even recover by
herself, although not to the point of regaining her former beauty. As his
netherworldly gaze wandered on her bandaged form, he heard footsteps and
receded into darkness to avoid the light of a torch borne by the Easterner.
The man operated a tap on the water torture device and let a flow of water
splash on her forehead, until she awoke sputtering. Her eyes closed as her
movements rekindled the pain from all over her horrendously marked body, the
extent of the damage partly revealed by torchlight in spite of the bandages.
Although most wounds and burns were in passable conditions, there were so many
of them that the others stood out. Some wounds oozed serum, some burns had
blistered, her breasts were swollen and her nipples were two sickly
protrusions of throbbing flesh, two flowers of crimson on her bandaged chest.
The bandages in her pelvic area were encrusted in dried blood. She sobbed in
pain and dread, grateful that her restraints did not allow her to see more.
"You kicked to kill me. Now you pay." said the Easterner. Kayleen's mind was
not at her best, but she gathered that this was not her ordinary questioning,
this was something personal. Her reflections were brushed away when intense
pain shot from her left hand, as the man had removed the bandage and was
rubbing rock salt on the bleeding nail bed of her middle finger. Her screams
rose in the poorly lit chamber and lost themselves in the darkness, to the
secret delight of the hiding Zhorun.
His hands crimson of her blood, he rubbed salt on her fingers and toes, one by
one, mercilessly, uninterruptedly, and then moved to her other wounds, even
reopening a few. She screamed and writhed in renewed agony, scratching her
face against the restraints still holding her head immobilized.
He circled his hands, crimson with her blood, until he saw in her gaze the
dread for the wounds he had not assaulted yet, and uncovered her nipples
before squeezing them between his salt covered fingers. As he twisted them,
her howl of agony rose on par with the loudest ever uttered in the dreadful
chamber, and more followed as he slowly tormented her flesh.
Tightly restrained, Kayleen could do almost nothing but scream in vain, her
existence again a nightmare of blazing pain targeting the femininity she used
to treasure intimately. Her tormentor protracted her agony, but without drugs
she soon found some respite.
She was reawakened by more cold water, and saw his bloody hands descend
between her legs one hair split before white hot pain blazed from her love
button, as salt burnt the raw flesh. She howled to high heaven again, but
nobody listened except the spawn of the grave hiding in the darkness, and her
subsequent howls found a delighted listener in the corpse of the former
wizard, who decided that this deviation from his orders could be tolerated.
She passed out twice under the unrelenting torment before the Easterner
decided that she had been punished enough, and left her sobbing and crying in
the darkness. She slowly drifted again into fitful sleep, another attempt from
her exhausted body to obtain some respite.
Zhorun stayed for hours, anticipating the events that would unfold upon the
arrival of the Priestess, then hid again as more steps approached and the old
Southerner's voice resonated in the chamber, "Wake up, Whore Queen! It's time
to play." To follow words with action, he grabbed her nipples and pulled up,
awakening her to a world of hurt as she screamed in despair.
Her eyes darted from under her head restraints to a sack he had put on the
marble table. His gaze followed hers, and he smiled cruelly, "Yes, I brought
stuff. Nettles, spiders, pliers ... I hope I've not forgotten anything." Tears
came to her eyes as he pulled out a jug containing one of the hairy spiders,
whose memory still haunted her mind.
He straddled her trembling body, disrobing and putting a leather sheath on his
erect member, savoring her wail of despair, and lingered on the entrance to
her love channel, the leather rubbing painfully on her wounded flesh as she
gasped and sobbed, then pushed in viciously with a snarl.
Her position and restraints were not meant for what he was doing, so he could
not penetrate her fully, but each thrust crushed viciously onto her vulva,
wrenching a scream of desperate pain as her wounds reopened and the remaining
grains of sand rasped her innards again. After coming at last, he leaned on
her sobbing chest for a while, savoring his own variant of paradise while his
victim sobbed in the hell he had imprisoned her into.
Another gate of this hell opened for her when he tore her bandages, fetched
some nettles and started rubbing them on her breasts, her screams losing
themselves in the darkness when he brushed the raw flesh of a nipple. His gaze
was fixed on her suffering mounds, following every tremor, every twitch,
protracting her cries and sobs until his lust aroused again.
He straddled her head and fetched two jugs, each with a hairy spider
scrambling inside, and waited to address her until her teary eyes widened at
the sight, "I'm afraid I forgot my tweezers. If I drop these on your tits,
picking them up will be rather difficult, considering how much they appreciate
raw meat. But if you make this old man happy with your mouth, I mean really
happy, not with the gag and stuff, he will be too tired to go on."
Kayleen could not prevent herself from staring at the hairy horrors inside the
jugs, gripped by utter terror at the thought of the unspeakable agonies they
would visit on her wounded flesh. But something inside her still refused to
submit, no longer strong enough for defiance, but not weak enough to concede
defeat. So she just kept sobbing, until disbelief replaced anticipation on the
swarthy visage of her tormentor and he growled, "Stubborn to the very last,
Your Haughtiness ? Let's see what happens if I rip your tits off."
He put the jugs aside, furious because he had planned to drop the spiders on
her breasts, after she caved in, and enjoy her fear while she discovered that
the spiders were not actually interested in human flesh, his little game
ruined by her stubbornness. His hand raced reached for the pliers, but another
hand, large and strong, closed on his wrist and pinned him to the table.
"Our orders are to let her rest." whispered Grod, his grip unflinching under
the hateful gaze of the old man. The two faced each other for a while, then
the Southerner, red with anger under his dark complexion, picked up his sack
and left without a word. Grod also left after a while.
Unseen, Zhorun waited silently, his mind now focused on the imminent arrival
of the new prisoner. He had given strict orders about how she ought to be
treated, but he wanted to be able to act personally if need be.
After less than an hour, he heard them approach, the three of them carrying a
single torch, as ordered. The Priestess was ... minute, or at least looked
minute besides Grod, as she was actually as tall as Chang. She wore flowing
white robes, and looked young and frail.
The three stopped early enough to keep the bandaged body of the Warrior Queen
outside the area lit by the single torch, and then forced the prisoner to
kneel. She was blindfolded and wore the wizard gag, a clamp on the tongue
which distorted pronunciation enough to make spell casting impossible but did
not preclude speech.
Under Grod's gaze, the Southerner started ripping off her white dress, the
only noise in the room coming from the torn cloth. He could not see her face,
but could see her lithe, slender body, the creamy skin and perfect shape now
revealed to all onlookers. The old man whispered something and his hands
manhandled her repeatedly, until Grod cleared his throat just as Zhorun was
considering incinerating the old fool on the spot.
When she was stripped naked, Chang placed cuffs on her ankles and wrists,
narrow and light cuffs quite unlike the heavy irons used for the Warrior
Queen. The trembling, pale body looked too frail for even a single session in
the torture chamber. When her elbows were cuffed together, a wail escaped the
gagged mouth and she shook the auburn head a few times.
When the Southerner pulled her wrists and ankles towards each other, bending
her in a hogtie, she cried in dismay, causing the Southerner to comment, "We
are going to have soooo much fun with you, girl." Once done, he sat enjoying
her contortions until she stopped, sobbing softly.
Zhorun waited until the three left, bringing the torches along and plunging
the chamber in utter darkness, then moved silently closer. Lyral wailed in
despair a few times, then fell silent as another moan echoed in the chamber.
"Help! Please help. Is anybody here ?" cried the young priestess through her
gag, her words distorted but understandable. She rolled on her side, yowling
at what she considered pain.
On the marble table, a voice she thought she recognized echoed in Kayleen's
mind, a safe haven in the rolling waves of pain. The voice called again, and
her own hoarse voice called out, "Lyral! Lyral, for heaven's sake, I'm here."
Lyral's voice trembled, "Kayleen ? Kayleen, is it you ? Answer me, please.
Keep talking." The gag made protracted talk fatiguing, and she assumed Kayleen
also wore one. Dread mounted in her at the thought that Kayleen might have
been here since her disappearance, and concern tinged her distorted voice.
"Kayleen, I'm blindfolded. Are you all right ? If you cannot move keep
talking, I'll find you." she offered. It turned out to be easier said than
done, because Kayleen spoke sparingly, her voice echoing in the chamber, and
wriggling on the cold stone floor in a hogtie was arduous and painful, but the
young priestess managed to come near the table where Kayleen lay, following a
long torturous trail punctuated by gasps and yowls.
On the table, Kayleen was shedding bitter tears as the world crumbled around
her. She had somehow betrayed her friend, unintentionally revealing her hiding
place, and now Lyral was another prisoner in the same hell she inhabited. Yet,
her first words had been a desperate call to be healed and freed from the
agonizing pain coursing through her body. The once proud Warrior Queen felt
unworthy of addressing her former friend, and yet craved her healing touch,
guilt and despair heavy on her chest as she answered her calls.
The table looked insurmountable for Lyral's hogtie, and she was panting from
the exertion and aching all over the body, so she stopped for a pause and
attempted to get a grasp the situation.
"Kayleen, how long have you been here ? Since your disappearance ?"
"Yes, almost. Days." whispered Kayleen, stifling a cry as pain rose again from
between her legs.
"Are you all right, Kayleen ? Your voice sounds awful." said Lyral in garbled
words, full of concern at the smell of blood.
"Yours is not much better, either." coughed Kayleen, a feeble attempt at some
humor to avoid facing the inevitable.
"Kayleen, please! There's blood on this table. What did they do to you ?" said
Lyral, her concern palpable in her words in spite of the gag. She tried to get
up, but failed and rolled on the floor with a yowl. Kayleen kept still.
"Please, Kayleen, you must tell me. I can help you. Are you wounded ?" these
were the words which she used to say when she came to her tent after a battle,
to heal the wounds she had honorably sustained in a fair fight.
"A little." answered Kayleen, using the same words she used then, but the
bitterness of her tone did not escape her friend.
"Angels of heaven, if you're admitting it ..." she said, leaving the rest of
the sentence unspoken, and doubled her efforts to get up, but fell on the
floor again, hard. She attempted to stifle her sobs, but failed.
"Sorry, Kayleen, but of the two of us the gymnast has always been you. I
cannot reach the table. My wrists are cuffed to the ankles and I cannot do
much more than wriggle about blindfolded."
Small as it was, this chance to be of help tore through the pall of guilt that
hung on Kayleen's chest, "Try to circle the table and feel for some torn
bandages, they would be near my left foot. If you put your back against the
leg of the table and hang onto the bandages with your teeth, you should be
able to get up on your knees."
Lyral was nowhere near the physical fitness of her friend, but she was young
and dedicated, and after many painful failures managed to pull herself up,
leaning against the table and gasping at the pain in her knees. The smell of
blood and sweat was intense, and she also recognized the sickly smell of
wounded flesh. Her nose, probing blindly, touched Kayleen's bloodied nail bed
and jerked as her friend screamed briefly before stifling her pain.
"Kayleen, you're wounded! I can smell it, your foot is wounded." she said,
almost falling back on the floor. She had somewhat expected it, and she
dreaded that her friend was hiding the worst, but she was not prepared to face
it. She knew what to do, but in order to heal her she had to touch her, and
there was no way her hands could reach her friend.
"I would heal you, Kayleen, but I cannot reach you with my hands. I'll try an
older technique, but I've not used it since I was a novice. Please be still."
she said, attempting to bring her lips to touch Kayleen's flesh. This form of
healing had always reminded her of a mother kissing a scratch on a child's
knee, but for significant wounds wasted much of the healing potential.
Lyral touched her friend's flesh, and noted with concern that it was hot and
dry, and the concern deepened when Kayleen flinched in her restraints as her
lips brushed an angry burn. Lyral concentrated, her lips barely touching the
skin as she gathered her power, and then let it flow to Kayleen, a warm
soothing glow barely visible in the darkness.
But the act of healing was not one-way, as the healer absorbed unto himself a
fraction of the woe of the healed, and the old technique was not the best for
sheltering the healer. Although no physical damage carried over, Lyral was not
ready for the depths of agony coursing through Lyral's wracked body, and broke
contact with an anguished cry, falling to the floor, while Kayleen wailed in
despair as her too briefly suspended agony resumed.
"Kayleen! Oh, Kayleen, what horrors have you been through ?" sobbed Lyral,
still shaking and panting. Overwhelmed, her horror took the shape of a
pressing urge to know, the irrational need to put words around the unspeakable
agonies she had a glimpse of, a urge she would later regret after
understanding how much answering weighed on her friend.
"Tell me, Kayleen, please. I felt it. The burns, dislocations ..." she pressed
on, her own voice trembling, "Tell me, please. They tortured you."
"Yes." whispered Kayleen, "They've been torturing me for days." Hearing those
words spoken aloud in her own voice hurt, but the worst was yet to come.
"They ... they raped you." said Lyral, her voice trembling. "They burned you
there. They did ... things." she sobbed.
"Yes." whispered Kayleen again, wishing she wouldn't.
Lyral sobbed by herself for a while, then fell silent. After a long while,
Kayleen called, "Lyral ?"
"Are they going to torture me, too ?" she asked quietly. Kayleen felt a stab
to the heart as her worst fears were spoken out loud, and could not bring
herself to answer.
"Then I've better heal you before they rape me," said Lyral flatly, wriggling
towards the table. Another stab went through Kayleen's heart at the words of
the friend she had betrayed, but she said nothing. Getting up a second time
turned out to be as difficult as before, but at last Lyral managed it and
neared her lips to Kayleen's foot again. She was ready this time, and
sustained the onslaught with but a tear under her blindfold.
The warm feeling of healing, of Lyral's healing, suffused Kayleen's body and
soothed the dull pain, reaching every recess of her body and regenerating
tissues and skin. Her moan of relief rose to a cry as her nails grew back, her
wounds closed, even dislodging the sand rasping her womb, and her body was
restored to its former glory.
Lyral, exhausted by the effort, barely managed to keep from falling down
again, but whispered with a smile, "You sound better now." Herself again, the
Warrior Queen rattled her restraints in vain, but managed to touch her friend
briefly and say, "I already owed you much, but this goes beyond everything you
ever did for me. Whatever I can manage to keep you from harm, I hereby vow to
pursue at any cost."
"Well, just thanks was enough, but thanks." said Lyral, then managed to lower
herself on the floor with little harm done. She was exhausted by the effort,
and felt like sleeping for a week, but she still had questions.
"Who is behind this ? When you disappeared, we considered kidnapping but ruled
it out because we could not think of anyone with the motives and the means to
perpetrate that."
"Be careful, Lyral. There is Zhorun behind all this, he used his magic to
cheat death, and he might be using his magic to listen. Watch your words."
"He did what ?"
"I don't know the proper term, but he's like a walking corpse, rotten and yet
animated. He can see even if his eyes have been eaten by grave worms, and he
can speak even if he no longer has a tongue. Some of his former associates
flocked to him, and he can raise the dead to do his bidding."
Lyral lay still for a long time, then said, "I dispatched two such creatures
before the warriors captured me. Zhorun was a powerful wizard in life, and he
must have located some ancient text which escaped the cleansing of the land
from these abominations. Undead. Unable to rest in their graves and full of
hatred for the living, and the worst were the wizards who chose this fate of
their own will, to cheat old age, or defeat."
"You'll see for yourself. He's always present at my interr ... torture."
"He's probably exacting his revenge, and enjoying it. I remember reading that
the undead had this insatiable impulse to cause the living to suffer. In past
times, a bitter war was fought against them, and my kind played no little part
in their ultimate defeat and the eradication of the foul knowledge concerning
how they could be spawned. Not thoroughly enough, apparently."
"He hinted at armies he would use to conquer the kingdom ... how many corpses
could he raise from their graves ?"
"I don't know, but he has not started yet. Your disappearance caused quite a
stir, but such an army would not go unnoticed. So he wants the kingdom for
himself, and he wants to take his revenge on you, and he'll let me know why he
had me kidnapped sooner rather than later ..."
Suddenly, Kayleen heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and knowing what
this meant whispered intensely, "They're coming. Lyral. Do not let them find
you beside me, and don't tell them anything, don't speak a word. No matter
what they do to me ... or to you. Heaven knows I wish I could spare you this,
but you'll have to be strong."
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