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Chapter 23 - Betrayed
Kayleen hung from her wrists, sobbing bitterly in the unlit torture chamber
under the ruins of Zhorun's former castle. The tight cuffs almost crushed them
and badly chafed her skin, and a thumbscrew had been put on her crushed thumbs
causing them to shoot waves of pain down her trembling arms.
Steel rods fastened at the cuff crushing the ankle, at the iron band under
the knee and at the one at the thigh prevented her from bending her legs, and
sustained four wooden boards arranged in a pantograph. She was forced to keep
her legs spread as much as she could, because closing them caused the device
to push a wooden pole deeper up her ravaged rectum, but the weights hung to
her crushed toes made the effort excruciating.
Occasionally, unseen insects bit her blood encrusted nipples or clitoris,
causing her to jerk and scream from the pain in the thumbs or from the pole
rasping her bowels. The Southerner seemed to have an endless provision of jars
full of black, ugly flies, not unlike horseflies but able to find their mark
in the unlit torture chamber, although apparently they did not last long. Just
enough to torment her, as if the repeated spreading and folding of her aching
legs or the the uninterrupted agony in her joints were not enough.
In the darkness, the silent and motionless husk of the former wizard savored
every gasp, every rasping sigh, every bitter sob, every helpless call for the
gentle touch of a friend. He had longed for this even during the fight with
the Priestesses, and his patience with any interference had grown short.
Before leaving after the day's session, Grod had offered his opinion, as he
had been used to when Zhorun was still a living wizard.
"Shouldn't we end this, Master ? If the Sorceress managed to slip here, any
information the Queen may have had on her whereabouts is likely to be of
little use by now. Instead of questioning her, we should question those
Priestesses you brought along after the battle, as you originally ordered."
"I don't want her insolence rewarded! She defied me, and must suffer until she
submits completely, ready to answer all my demands. I wish she could be
questioned day and night, without interruption."
"This cannot be done, Master. The human body is frail, and without rest she
would soon slide into insensitiveness, no matter what we feed her, and then
escape into death. Inflicting pain is easy, keeping the victim alive less so.
Executioners usually favor using a progression of new torments, because this
engenders dread about what comes next; on occasion, it is effective to repeat
a torture which the victim is known to fear. You never want to push the victim
into being so numb as to be unable to prefer surrender over enduring further
torture. Unless you know some magic I ignore, Master"
Zhorun considered the exchange again. He did not want her to be numbed at all,
quite the opposite. The potions would not address exhaustion before actual
injuries, such as dislocations, so she would have to be restored to full
health every now an then, in the morning just before beginning a new session.
This would also offset the chance that she might develop some lung disease as
a consequence of being left to shiver for hours after being drenched with
freezing cold water. Maybe some spellbook recorded a way to address specific
symptoms. He was no longer in the position to research magic specifically
affecting the living, with whom he now shared very little.
Another pleading sob returned his attention to the prisoner. His netherwordly
gaze lingered on her breasts, on every laceration of the firm flesh, on the
blood encrusted nipples and then slithered down her heaving ribcage and the
wounded belly until, piercing the darkness which was no match for his own, it
reached the shredded tatters of her femininity and the torn rim distended
around the wooden wedge just as her thighs tired, causing the wedge to slide
up and her body to jerk while a harsh gasp escaped her lips.
Kayleen hung in a cocoon of dull agony, occasionally starting as sharp pain
rose from her wounded orifice when her thighs failed, sobbing from the toll of
the last session and trembling more at the prospect of facing another, alone,
than from the chilling water drenching her. She vaguely remembered proudly
facing torture in the first days, vague phantoms of courage and dignity she
longed for but could no longer grasp firmly. Only pain and terror remained.
For the rest of the night, she vainly sought respite from the pain of the
tight irons constricting her wrists and ankles, or grinding her thumbs and
toes. The dents in the iron band at her waist hurt whenever she tried to take
a deep breath, and the dull ache of her breasts constricted at the base by the
serrated iron ring never stopped. She remembered the concern for her wrists
the first night of her imprisonment, and almost laughed as her face brushed
her swollen left shoulder, the skin hot to the touch above a pulsating mass of
agony which surged to a scream whenever she twitched even slightly.
When the torches shone again on the grisly instruments of the chamber, a wail
escaped her torn lips, causing something to stir in Zhorun's mummified corpse
as if the contemplation of her forthcoming agonies could replace sensations he
could no longer enjoy in his present condition.
The Easterner lowered Kayleen on the floor, after making sure her collar was
well tightened, and led her to a wooden rail she recognized with a sob, from
the dents and splinters if nothing else. This time, the Easterner did not need
Grod's help in forcing her to straddle it, and when he lifted her ankles off
the floor to fasten them at the end of the rail, causing her full weight to
bear on the splintered edge, a scream left her mouth.
Her arms were easily cuffed behind her neck, and her nipples bled again as
hooks were driven through them and fastened to a chain from the ceiling,
distending her breasts into quivering cones of harsh torment. She was given a
potion after releasing the collar, and the temporary soothing of her wounds
only rekindled her fears as to what lay ahead.
The Easterner produced a whip, whose last two or three feet gleamed in
torchlight as they consisted of metal wire, and Kayleen's eyes widened when he
dragged the wire in some substance which he subsequently set ablaze, as if the
demons of hell had risen to provide him with a whip worthy of them. Her mouth
was about to form inarticulate words of abject terror when with a single fluid
flexing of muscles he flashed the flaming whip across her buttocks.
She writhed in pain as the wire slashed the flesh, leaving a bleeding cut with
drops of burning goo scattered along the edges. The first howl of desperate
agony was followed by more screams as the fire kept burning around the wound,
causing her to jerk spasmodically and grind her slit over the splintered edge
of the hellish rail. A second lash fell across her distended breasts, leaving
another deep cut and more drops of burning agony as she shook and buckled in
howling torment, rocking the rail back and forth.
A thin red strip slashed her soles as he flexed the whip again, while the
drops still burned on her buttocks, causing her to twist and buckle from the
burning agony and wrenching a scream as the splinters drew blood inside her
torn cunt lips. The tip of the whip landed again on her mons, just where she
touched the wood, tracing a deep cut which caused her to jerk and arch in mad
agony as the wire had cut near the folds of her clitoris and now the burning
pain had been brought near her femininity again.
Pausing only when the goo needed to be replenished or rekindled, he kept up
her hellish whipping without consideration for the blood oozing from the deep
cuts striping her already wounded body, and repeatedly slashing the soles of
her feet in order to cause her to jerk her loins forward, grinding them over
and over the blood-soaked rail while the splinters broke inside her wounds.
She was doused several time with cold, salt water, reviving her and adding to
the agony of her crotch as she writhed from its harsh bite.
As the edges of the cuts in her soles burned mercilessly, causing her legs to
twitch uninterruptedly, Kayleen's teary eyes lost sight of her surroundings
while her head rocked left and right when pain stabbed her crotch over and
over. The stench of her own flesh being slowly roasted reached her nostrils
well after the searing agony of the burnt flesh had shook her into frenzies of
howling torment, and her eyes sought in the dark corners of the vault above
her the face she had come to rely upon as her bulwark against pain.
Her screams mixed with inarticulate pleads of help when the whip lashed her
breasts, tracing a cut so painful that for a moment she thought her nipples
had been sliced off. She madly hoped Lyral's hand would emerge from the
darkness and wipe out the flaming liquid on the edges of the wound, only to
find herself screaming as it burned mercilessly in spite of her mad attempts
to shake it away. Her howls rose in pitch as the liquid seeped inside the
wound cutting her areolas, its edges being slowly burned raw while she jerked
spasmodically on the rail trashing her slit.
For a moment, she looked at herself with the eyes of the proud Warrior Queen
of once, just after the sharp agony of a splinter in her bleeding clitoris had
wrenched a torturous scream from her already sore throat. When Lyral had been
with her, at least she had faced each day of ordeals with her body in full
health, but now her endurance was being eroded by having only her worst wounds
healed. Maybe, she thought, she would not scream in desperate agony if the
splinters which found the cuts in the rim of her vagina had met her flesh
unblemished. Maybe she would stand the agony of the rail if the horrid cut at
the top of her vagina had not been sawed open as she howled from the repeated
burning of her tender soles, instead of howling dementedly as the splinters
entered the sides of the gash she deepened jerk after jerk.
When he undid her restrains, she curled on the floor, sobbing pitifully and
trying to cover her bleeding crotch which still sent stabs of agony through
her trembling body. She drank from the jug offered to her as if in a dream. Of
all things, maybe having wrists and elbows cuffed together and pulled behind
her back was among the few which could still reach her, at least judging by
her desperate scream as her wrists were pulled up and the spectre of further
torment of her dislocated joints reared its head.
She was raised off the floor in twitching agony, and paid little attention to
the platform being slid under her feet because two swarthy hands grabbed the
iron rings constricting her thighs and the Southerner pulled her loins up from
behind, nudging with his member her sphincter before penetrating her. A harsh
gasp shook her dangling form, followed by a half mouthed plea which his grunt
of sadistic pleasure all but covered. He kept violating her while short,
bitter screams surged from her mouth on cue with his violent thrusts, then let
her go once sated only to savor her howl as the feet rested on the platform,
which brimmed with tiny steel spikes.
She soon found that she could either let the spikes rake her wounded and
blistered soles, or hang with her full weight on her dislocated shoulder
joints. Screaming and gasping, she switched between the two, partly of her own
accord and partly writhing under the flaming lash again, which slashed her
belly or the rear of her thighs when she tried to rest on her feet for long,
forcing her to face the surge of agony in the shoulders while the edges of her
wounds burned slowly, leaving angry red blisters of hellish pain.
As the whip cut repeatedly across her ribcage, leaving bleeding gashes which
showed the white of bone in places, her howls rose steadily in pitch, while
her fingers contracted spasmodically and even her broken thumbs trembled when
agony howled from her mouth as her taut skin was slowly burned and her jerks
rattled the chains lifting her off the platform, whose spikes were deep red
with blood and the occasional bits of skin raked off her soles.
He repeatedly thwarted her attempts to spare her bleeding soles, slashing the
front of her thighs whenever her legs pulled her feet up. As there was about a
feet of chain between her ankles, he often managed to lash the insides of her
thigh and even her crotch, which still bled profusely and occasionally fumed
as drops burned slowly where the whip had cut a new wound while she writhed in
mad torment, rattling her chains and spasmodically buckling while her feet
darted back and forth over the spikes.
She was allowed a brief pause when the jug was emptied down her throat, but
the flaming whip soon cut her buttocks again, and when she arched forward as
much as her twisted arms allowed, it slashed across her breasts just as a
scream surged from her lungs. The flaming wire cut across both breasts, biting
the left one deeply and causing her to turn under the blow, pulling on her
dislocated shoulders while a second scream fought to rise above the first.
Her eyes locked between tears on the deep crimson cut on her once perfect
breast, unable to avert from the edges and the droplets burning lazily whose
pain registered just moments after that from her ass cheeks. As her head
jerked in agony, the image of the edges slowly blistering grew in her mind
alongside the pain, which a third lash on her other breast increased manifold.
As the flaming whip alternated between her buttocks and breasts, although on
occasion her tormentor moved to her legs so that she would pull them up in
writhing agony, the image of her own blistering flesh filled her mind, to the
point of imagining gentle fingers whose soothing touch she madly craved
lingering almost within reach and yet eluding contact while she buckled madly
to be touched. Howls surged from her mouth without interruption, whistling
past the foam which bubbled at the corners of her mouth as her breasts and
buttocks bled lazily and fumed from the burning liquid.
As her torture was protracted, her wounds became so horrid that were it not
for the atrocious pain she would have been chilled by the sight, as the cuts
left bleeding tatters of flesh hanging off her deformed buttocks and breasts,
especially since lashes had begun seeking her nipples slicing the top of her
delectable mounds repeatedly while she howled in demented agony from the
uninterrupted burning torment of the liquid seeping in the wounds and burning
the edges, where the skin curled and blistered slowly.
As the platform was removed, leaving her suspended inches from the floor, the
Easterner neared with a potion, which she quaffed spasmodically in spite of
the ever present pain in her shoulders, trembling as the soothing relief of
healing diffused in her body, redressing the cuts in her breast and buttocks.
A bitter sob ended her bliss when a male member nudged her sphincter, and she
recognized the growl mere moments before the Southerner violated her ass
again, rattling her chains as her body shook under his thrusts while she cried
and screamed in bitter despair.
His lust quickly spent, the Southerner receded, smiling at the impassible
Easterner whose face did not completely hide a trace of disgust. In spite of
her agonies, the notion of how her own ordeal weighed on her tormentors had
flashed through Kayleen's mind. As she was lowered on the floor, she felt in
the Easterner's touch a weariness which had not been there at the beginning,
as if her endurance of such ghastly torments had moved something within him,
even discounting his cold hatred after she had almost snapped his neck.
Her thoughts returned to a present of abject pain as he fastened her ankles to
chains and pulled her off the floor, spreading her taut legs wider and wider
until pain surged in her hip joints and rattled her chest in short, hissing
screams. She realized in despair that even if the weariness was real, it just
meant that he wanted to be done with her quickly and would devise something to
break her will once for all. As his eyes coldly inspected her body, she saw no
mercy therein and found none in the blistering pain lashing her labia when the
flaming whip cut into them, sending her twitching in screaming pain.
The whip cut repeatedly her tender places, reopening the blood encrusted
wounds which had been healed only partially and leaving droplets of flaming
agony which smoldered along the edges while she twitched and buckled howling
in fits of demented agony which rattled her chains as she convulsed in mid
air, wracking her hip joints into hellish flashes of blazing pain.
Her arms were still twisted out of their sockets, fastened to a ring in the
floor, but it was her hip joints which quickly became the linchpin of her
anguish, because each lash forced her legs to contract, bringing her bones to
scrape against each other inside the joint, visibly teetering under the sunken
flesh while tendons and muscles strained repeatedly as new gashes were cut in
her flesh and blistered slowly, inflicting hellish agonies on the screaming
husk of the poor girl that had been a proud warrior.
Her tormentor's main target in that position could only be her crotch, but on
occasion he brought the whip to bite her breasts or her buttocks again, so as
to allow her tender places the bit of recovery that would allow her torment to
be protracted later. He took special care, in places such as her thighs, to
avoid major blood vessels, because the flaming wire cut deeply and would
probably cause excessive blood loss. The burning liquid, however, charred the
edges of shallow cuts as well as it did with deeper ones, as her desperate
screams repeatedly testified. Her only respite was the jug, although he poured
cold, salt water on her now and then.
When the whip returned to her slit, the agony of the burning liquid was
repeatedly wrought on the wounds in the rim of her vagina, and soon he took to
lashing repeatedly the horrid cut that opened in her vulva, as if to tear it
open lash after lash until it reached her clitoris, which had been already
slashed across twice causing her howls to echo under the vaults of the chamber
as she convulsed from the hellish agony radiating from the tender femininity
which had become the vehicle of her anguish.
As she buckled madly in howling torment, she could not help but gaze between
bitter tears as the wound splitting her sex inched down lash after lash from
the rim of her vagina, ripped wider and wider by each lash while droplets of
liquid lingered on the edges and seeped at the tip, adhering to the flesh
curling and charring from the uninterrupted heat. When not clenched in the
grip of horrid agony, her eyes bulged in terror as they watched blood mix with
the burning liquid, only to fill with tears just as her body snapped in a howl
of deranged pain when another lash cut into the wound again.
When the cut reached her shredded clitoris, her screams found heights they had
not touched even when the liquid had burned her urethra. Her jerks were so
spasmodic that the head of her hip bones bulged and sank under the muscles
straining at her hip joints, and blood spurted from the tatters of her
femininity as the flaming wire cut repeatedly the tender flesh. Even while
howling uninterruptedly in frenzied fits of raging anguish, inarticulate calls
for her friend's help lingered on her foaming mouth, only to be wiped away as
long, desperate screams of agony wracked her like a rag doll.
Lost in a nightmare of pain, she somehow caught herself sputtering while
avidly quaffing the potion being offered to her lips, even if it only soothed
the pain in her crotch from inhuman agony to the harsh pain of blistered flesh
along the edges of no longer bleeding wounds. Her tongue tried to chase the
last drops of soothing liquid as pain still wracked her body, but no more was
forthcoming and the hand holding the liquid was swarthy and gnarled.
While she was still trying to recover from mind numbing agony, the Southerner
freed his member from under his white robe, violently distended her torn labia
with both hands and penetrated her, drooling as she screamed in rage and then
panting heavily as his repeated thrusts wracked her into more bitter screams
as the wounds just healed were torn open again.
Once sated, the Southerner set about laboriously encasing her in a gibbet, a
woman-shaped contraption of metal bands which fit her almost like the suit of
armor she used to wear in battle, although it pinned her arms along her sides
and pushed her thighs uncomfortably apart at the crotch and tight together at
the knee. The gibbet accommodated the iron restraints she had been wearing for
some days but tormented her as if she had worn her former restraints for
months, latching onto the serrated bands at the base of her breasts and the
crushing cuffs at her ankles and wrists.
He lowered four thin chains from the ceiling, winding two under her crotch and
two under her armpits, sliding them through rings obviously purposely built
in the device. When he pulled the chains, her head jerked in a scream as pain
exploded in her dislocated joints when the chains pulled on the articulated
frame, tearing her arms and hips sideways out of their sockets. Unable to
afford the slightest movement, she could only shake her head in screaming pain
as her joints teetered and grated under her own weight.
Her anguish continued as the arm holding the chains was rotated, causing her
to rock back and forth in mounting agony until the movement left her dangling
over a pit in the floor. As her oscillations diminished, the torment of her
joints receded somewhat, enough to allow her to notice that he was fastening
folds of steel mesh to holes in the frame caging her.
It reminded her of chain mail, although more sparse and, as she noticed while
writhing from the pain in her joints, brimming with tiny hooks. An armor it
was not, nor was it a dress, but she incongruously thought that it was the
first time she was being dressed instead of stripped - before a shiver crept
in her thoughts as she caught the squeaking of rats from below her feet.
After encasing her from the neck down in folds of barbed mesh, leaving only
her feet exposed, the Southerner lowered her slowly into the pit, his gaze
savoring how despair and terror overcame pain on her face.
A scream of harsh pain contorted the same face as she found out that the rats
were hungry. Her tormentor's gaze lingered on her body writhing inside the
metal frame, watching as her supple legs twitched spasmodically, straining
against the unyielding metal frame.
She kept screaming as the hungry rats bit her trapped feet, and her feet only,
avoiding the barbed mesh. She almost failed to notice the pain from the
scratches caused by the barbs, because the agony of the bites to her feet was
excruciating. The rats were small, but bit with ravenous hunger, ripping off
morsels of bleeding flesh while her constricted body was wracked by demented
howls of searing pain, even when he pulled her up to let her suffer the full
measure of pain from each bite before slowly lowering her back.
This torment continued between harrowing screams until the bites mauling her
twitching feet grew from dozens to so many that bone gleamed white in places,
at which he kept her above water and started wrapping her feet in barbed mesh
taken from her quivering legs, laughing as harsh screams shook her.
To her horror, he lowered her thus, with her supple legs exposed, except for
the steel bands, to the ravenous bites. The pitiful begging that was bubbling
in her mouth almost forced its way beyond the last tatters of her resolve, but
was washed away by a bellow of pure agony as new bites found their mark.
If the torment of her feet had been harrowing, the agonies of the assault on
her legs amply surpassed it. He kept it up far longer, pulling her up and
alternating splashes of icy water with generous sips from the jug to prevent
her from slipping into obliviousness, never allowing the pain to subside while
keeping a sharp eye on the ever growing number of bites which marred her
flesh, in some places to the bone. He had even left the mesh over the places
where blood vessels ran just below the skin.
As if this was not enough, the barbed mesh raked the ugly wounds in her feet
at her slightest movement, wrenching harsh screams from her sore mouth after
the fits of howling torment caused by a bite or the stabs of white hot agony
from her dislocated joints.
Just as she was about to be dropped in the pit again Zhorun, who had been
watching intently, suddenly snapped into a flurry of waving hands which
resulted in a halo of shadows gathering around him, a spell of protection
woven just as a disembodied feminine face took shape from the wisps of smoke
put forth by torches and braziers.
"I bow before thee, Master Zhorun," said Shandra's likeness in wisps of smoke.
"From a safe distance, I gather", answered the corpse.
"Discretion is the better part of valor, Master. The life of those versed in
the Art is not to be squandered", she replied.
"Sorcerers say that life is the Art. Wizards have always known that it's the
other way around, that the Art is life, and I am proof", whispered Zhorun.
"I acknowledge the limitation of my ways. That's because I lay before thy
scrutiny my petition for apprenticeship," said the female face.
"You want to become ... my apprentice ?", shrieked Zhorun's grating voice.
"Indeed, and not without consideration. I bear no illusions about what I will
have to do before gaining thy trust, nor about how sleepless and populated by
phantoms of guilt my nights will be, but ..."
"... but the Art at my command is worth the price."
"As you might remember, I have been seeking it on my own for some time. I come
to be taught, Master" said the face, using the words apprentices had been
using for centuries when seeking the teachings of their betters.
"And teaching you'll receive. What will you bring ?" whispered the corpse, not
even attempting to conceal the chilling glee in his netherwordly voice.
"Dedication, diligence, and ... obedience," said Shandra's voice, picking one
of the most common answers allowed by tradition.
"Shandra ... is it you ? What are doing ?" whispered Kayleen's hoarse voice,
from pits of anguish which had taken time to climb.
"Something beyond your comprehension, Kayleen. I was told she is being
questioned about my whereabouts, Master. I venture to say this is no longer
necessary, is it ?" said the face, the voice tinged by anxiety.
"It is a poor apprentice which demands to know his Master's motives even
before being tested. Besides, you took something from me"
"I'll return the prisoner, if this is your wish. I respectfully observe that
what may have been necessary no longer is, Master. You won"
"Shandra, don't. He'll kill you" croaked Kayleen, coughing blood.
"Shandra the Sorceress, I shall devise a test for thy apprenticeship. Should
thou show dedication, diligence and obedience in passing it, I shall accept
thee as my apprentice, and as such thou shalt be regarded until no further
teaching thou would gather," answered Zhorun in acceptance.
"I'll be there before sunset," said the face in the smoke as it faded and
dissolved while Kayleen cried bitterly between gasps, too lost in her anguish
to fully comprehend what had been said and not ready to accept that the friend
she had endured so many days of horrid agonies for ... had betrayed them all.
"Continue her interrogation, Hadrad. The whereabouts of my new apprentice are
still of utmost interest to me," whispered Zhorun.
A gleeful smile erased concern from the Southerner's old face as he dropped
Kayleen in the pit again, ready to savor the howls and twitches which started
rattling the gibbet while he drank the intoxicating elixir of her agony after
fearing that it would be denied to him by the sudden twist of events.
He was very proud of this torment he had devised, originally intended for
executions but where adept use of the barbed mesh allowed the pain to be
parceled and restricted to selected parts of the body, although it made
availing himself of female victims extremely impractical. If the rats were
hungry enough, they fought with each other as much as they bit the exposed
flesh, protracting the torment. It took experience to realize how the bite
wounds, apparently harrowing, were actually rather shallow. The sight of her
head jerking in a bitter scream as a rat bit the front of her leg, gnawing the
bone, was also an experience he would remember fondly.
It was time to move to more delectable places of the body, so he pulled her
out and wrapped her legs in barbed mesh, watching her scream as the folds
removed from her hands and arms wrought their raking agony on her horribly
mauled legs, turning red as blood seeped through. Her continued screaming made
pouring the contents of a potion down her throat difficult, although she
desperately craved every drop, and the liquid curtailed her profuse bleeding,
leaving her at the mercy of the barbs.
The brief respite allowed Kayleen's mind to return to the conversation she had
just witnessed, clinging at Shandra's attempt to have Zhorun dismiss her
torture as no longer needed. A sparkle of hope warmed her, because now her
plight was known, and a rescue would being staged. Shandra had probably hoped
to buy some time, a smart move from a woman prone to act directly.
The sharp pain of a bite on her middle finger interrupted her thoughts,
bringing her back into this antechamber of hell from which Shandra's newfound
astuteness had failed to deliver her. The thought of withstanding this and any
subsequent ordeal to help the Sorceress had crossed her mind, but her former
words of bravery paled before the screams escaping her mouth now. The torment
wrought on her fingers was the worst, with the sharp teeth shredding flesh and
scraping bone in spite of her twitching attempts to fend them off, and he
repeatedly lowered her just enough to let the rats gnaw at them.
She found herself sipping from the jug, chewing words between harsh screams
as if to say that she would not beg for mercy. Her mind returned in horror at
the first days of her ordeal, when the words she uttered in her agony had led
Lyral's capture. Somehow her help, or guilt at how she had suffered because
of those words, had prevented this from happening thereafter, until now.
Slowly, a shudder crept over her as barbs which hurt like knives raked the
wounds in her arms while her buttocks were stripped of mesh.
The subsequent agony of flesh was on par with the agonies of bone visited on
her thus far, and her voice rose to heights of delirious agony which even her
tormentor would rank as the most delicious he had witnessed. Bite after bite,
with frequent pauses which only offered a lesser degree of anguish, ugly raw
wounds slowly shredded her buttocks, mostly shallow but some deep where
already bitten flesh was available for the appetite of the rats.
She was bleeding so profusely that when he finally started wrapping folds
above her shredded buttocks she expected a potion, but none was forthcoming
and her tormentor was now removing mesh from her trembling thighs. At the
thought of of her thighs suffering what had been visited on her buttocks,
words rushed from her mouth in panic.
"No, please! Mercy! Enough, please!"
"Tell us where the Sorceress hides, girl" said Grod, almost with relief.
But Kayleen's gaze, wandering on the floor between a veil of tears, discovered
a rag which had once been white, forgotten for days: the remnants of Lyral's
white robe, stripped upon being brought to this place of agony because of a
weakness Kayleen could not suppress.
"Well ?", asked Grod, incredulous.
"She did it again, Grod. She probably thinks she's so smarter than us all, you
know, pretending to talk like this," said the Southerner.
"Indeed. Continue, Hadrad", whispered the wizard menacingly.
A wail surged from Kayleen's mouth as she was lowered in the pit, and pain
replaced again dread and exhaustion in her voice as the rats in the water got
at the tender flesh of her thighs, wracking her twitching body in brief
frenzies of harrowing torment which the Southerner engendered by pulling her
above water up to the knees, leaving the rodents swim near her legs which the
barbs still tormented, causing them to twitch and bleed maddening the rats
into a ravenous gluttony which the mesh defied - until she was lowered again.
When the mauling of her thighs reached a point where little skin had been
spared, leaving bleeding bite wounds where raw flesh pulsated as her muscles
twitched spasmodically, he brought a potion to her lips, watching intently
its effects while she drank it in desperate gurgles. As he had hoped, the
healing magic first addressed blood loss, bringing the edges of cuts to close
and a crust to form where the flesh had been bitten away.
Wishing he could cause her nails and pubic hair to grow back without healing
the rest of her wounds first, he stopped her potion intake as soon as he saw
that her legs were no longer shredded to the point of being of imminent danger
to her life, smiling at the thought of how they hurt.
The harrowing torture was repeated with her back, from which the mesh was
removed only partially, because exposing a large area would allow many rats to
bite her at the same time. Confident in how the potion had renewed her
endurance, he protracted her agony in the water longer than with her thighs,
watching her face contort in pain as the rats bit her left kidney area, right
ribcage and left shoulder blade in a frenzy of ravenous torment.
In the brief moments where her anguish did not include the laceration of flesh
by sharp incisors, her gaze wandered in search of the rag which had been
Lyral's dress. She wished she could find in the rag some of her lost resolve
again, but however much she craved it, the continued bites in her back, whose
other half had been exposed after the first had been thoroughly mauled, always
jerked her gaze up while her mouth distended in howls of agonizing torment.
Such was the pain of the barbed mesh in her back that it took her time to
realize in horror that it was being taken from her breasts. As he clamped her
nipples, the corners of her tormentor's leering smile curved up when that
terror showed on her face, and his eyes sought hers to drink that most
exalting wine through them.
"She's at it again, Master. I can see it in her eyes," said the Southerner,
moments before she started to beg.
"Ignore her pleads, my esteemed guest. Continue with the rigor her insolence
warrants," hissed Zhorun while Kayleen's mouth opened to utter words which
turned to a scream when she was dropped in the pit again.
The Southerner made sure she could never utter those pleads, keeping her at
bite range except for brief instants of little respite between atrocious
stretches of relentless mauling as morsels were torn from her breasts while
she howled in fits of demented agony. To protract the torment, he had left
the mesh on about half of each breast and changed it frequently so that the
barbs raked fresh wounds while the rest of the breast was repeatedly bitten.
To prevent her nipples from being ripped from her chest, he had clamped them,
but the rats still chewed the nubs of flesh as he had undoubtedly planned and
her mouth almost dislocated as she screamed from the excruciating pain, the
tendons of her neck straining while bloody foam bubbled at the corners of her
mouth while the rats crowded around her half immersed mounds, chewing bleeding
gashes in them which caused her to convulse in mad pain.
She was lowered in the pit over and over, each time leaving her to the rats
enough for her to progress from a couple of exhausted screams to terrified
howls of hellish agony as more rats joined in, after which she was partially
pulled up and left to rattle the gibbet in desperate pain until those rats
which hung on fell down when opening their mouths to bite again, while the
rest circled in the water, unable to climb because of the barbed mesh.
She was given a few sips from the potion, barely enough for the worst wounds
to stop bleeding, and then lowered in the pit again, leaving her breasts just
above water so rats had to jump to bite and would hang onto her ripped flesh,
jerking while she rattled the gibbet in convulsed agony. Each time the cruel
game was repeated, it took more of the potion to address the horrid wounds.
When he gave her a dose of syrupy liquid instead of potion she wailed in mad
despair, guessing at what would come next mere moments before he started
removing the mesh which had scratched the tender parts between the legs but
also preserved them from the rats. Terror shook her scream when he clamped her
clitoris, elongating it between the iron jaws to make it a more tempting
morsel for the ravenous rodents. He also inserted curved steel bars in her
ass and inside her vagina, stretching them both painfully.
When she was lowered in water, the mounting agony of her mauled flesh writhing
under the merciless raking of the barbed mesh wracked her body and surged in
fits of bitter screaming, which became gut-wrenching howls when her crotch
reached water level and the rats crowded on the exposed flesh.
The first bite was on her labia, followed by a second on the clitoris, and
by others, but the exposed area was small and the rats fought between them so
that instead of a frenzied assault her torture was protracted in long streaks
of atrocious agony interspersed by brief moments of respite brought by a sip of
the potion, administered when the bleeding from the ghastly wounds became
excessive. Each bite was a flash a devastating agony which kept flaring until
the rodent managed to actually tear the morsel off, after gnawing the flesh
being ripped back and forth as she twitched and jerked in fits of spasmodic
torment and howling agony.
As the torture continued, a rat who could not get to chew the flesh whose
blood slipped underwater and found her sphincter, distended open by the curved
bars to facilitate entry. A new agony shook her as the rat chewed its way in,
shaking her in bleeding frenzies of a torment which did not stop when she was
pulled up and which the potion soothed only temporarily.
After over a dozen sips from the potion, he pulled the three bars in her
vagina wider before dropping her in the pit again and listening to her pitiful
screams, smiling when pitched howls told him that the rats had finally found
the prize he wanted them to find. He kept her at their mercy, watching her
face contort in desperate howls of atrocious pain, foaming at the mouth and
shaking her head mindlessly between convulsed twitches of harrowing torment.
The horrid torment continued, alternating frenzies of atrocious agony with the
protracted anguish of dislocated joins and wounds raked through by her
convulsed jerks, until even full gulps of potion could no longer address the
extent of her wounds. After a glance at Grod, he rotated the arm holding the
gibbet and lowered her on the floor.
Grod brought another potion to her lips, letting her consume it slowly and
inspecting the bleeding bite wounds under the barbed mesh, making sure the
worst were receding in spite of her gasping cries. It took him a while to
extricate the quivering Kayleen from the gibbet, and he was about to give her
another potion when Zhorun spoke.
"Later, Grod. Her interrogation is not over yet,"
For a moment, it looked like Grod was about to say something. Instead, he
tightened the collar around her neck and dragged her to a corner she
recognized with a gasp, where the wooden wedge on whose bloodstained tip her
weight had rested for hours stood on a trestle. He fastened the chains hanging
from the pulleys to her elbow and knee bands, and as her weight rested on her
dislocated joints she screamed when he pulled her off the floor, bringing back
to her mind hazy memories of similar agonies. The ever present ache from the
studs in the iron restraints and the crushing grip at her ankles and wrists
made the recollections seem tame in comparison.
He lowered her on the point, letting it distend her sphincter before fastening
chains to her wrists and ankles, pulling her arms up behind her back and her
feet up at chin height so that the wedge entered her bowels at the slightest
squirm, rasping on the partially healed bite wounds inside.
Tears had never left her eyes, because the pain from the bites tormented her
still in spite of the healing, compounding the ache from her restraints, but
they flowed between sobs of bitter despair when she saw him encase her mauled
legs, covered in blood encrusted bites showing bone in places, between supple
wooden planks studded with tiny spikes. Even before he started to screw the
planks closer together, constricting her legs between, she started screaming
and buckling when the spikes raked her partially healed bite wounds, tracing
bleeding cuts through encrusted blood and ripping through raw flesh below.
As he tightened the planks, the spikes not only dug deeper but also shifted
within her twitching muscles, causing her to quiver and twist in screaming
torment, increasing the tearing of her sphincter as her weight shifted on the
merciless wooden tip. Her buckles caused the wood to bend and turn, causing
the points to jitter agonizingly out of seat tearing bleeding gashes through
raw, mauled flesh while harsh screams wracked her heaving chest.
He let her scream herself hoarse, occasionally adjusting the planks while she
buckled in uninterrupted pain, seeking respite from the wedge in her bowels
by pulling on the chains, twitching as her dislocated joins trembled from hot
blazes of agony as this put the strain of her weight on them, grinding the rim
of her nether orifice on the wedge as the bands bent and the spikes lacerated
the raw flesh of her mauled legs. Each torment wrought different pitches of
agony from her voice, from bitter gasps as pain flared in her joints to long,
teetering howls as her legs twitched between the planks.
With glacial slowness, he started encasing her arms in spiked planks, first
the forearms and then the upper arms. As this new pain sent the upper part of
her body jerking, the wedge in her rectum found previously untouched flesh to
torment as her sphincter was steadily being stretched and she could not stop
herself form quivering in trembling pain. Besides, her nostrils had caught
the whiff of iron being heated, and the fear of agonies which she knew from
repeated experience rose behind her pitiful screams, a fear which a sip from
the jug fanned as the syrupy liquid brought her drug induced strength.
While she twitched on the wedge, staining it with the blood trickling from her
bowels and the torn rim of her sphincter, he neared a brazier and picked up a
pair of small iron pliers, to confirm that the flattened heads were red hot.
With an impenetrable expression worthy of the Easterner standing nearby, he
used a pair of wooden pliers to grab the lacerated edges of a deep bite in her
right breast and sear them together with the red hot pliers.
A gut-wrenching scream burst from Kayleen's mouth, wracking her chest as it
convulsed around her breast pinned in the grip of the pliers while the rest of
her body buckled and twitched, rekindling the pain in her dislocated joints
and the raking of her mauled limbs by the spiked planks shifting in new
positions while her muscles tensed as she arched in agony.
After the briefest respite, he did the same to another nasty bite wound in the
underside of her other breast, pinching the encrusted edges between the red
hot jaws while she howled in mad pain, rattling the trestle onto which the
wedge tormenting her bowels rested. Between tears of anguish, she shook at the
thought of how many bite wounds marked her breasts alone.
The wounds he was tormenting had mostly been healed by the potion, but only to
the point of stopping bleeding with a crust of dried blood and serum, as if
the potion could only achieve in short order what natural body recovery would
take weeks if allowed to continue in spite of blood loss. Even the touch of
the wooden pliers pinching the flesh around each bite wound into a fold was
agonizing, but the searing pain as the red hot iron peeled the crust and
singed the raw flesh beneath before the two edges were forced one against the
other was excruciating to the point of wracking her into fits of howling pain.
After about a dozen cuts in her breasts, he moved to her feet. Although she
thought no pain could be worse than the red hot pliers grip on her lacerated
breasts, when the jaws closed on the throbbing flesh of her mauled soles her
legs betrayed her, jerking madly from the pain and wracking untold pain onto
her hip joints and, as a consequence, mercilessly scraping her distended
rectum as she twitched on the wedge point her weight rested upon.
She screamed madly when he pulled on the chains, lifting her off the blood
stained tip of the wedge and letting her gulp some potion, stuttering as she
hung in mid air with her swollen joints ablaze in hellish torment and the
spiked planks raking her wounded limbs. Without ever lowering her on the
floor, he undid enough of her restraints to twirl her in mid air, letting her
scream from the harsh pain in her shoulder joints as he hacked at the wood
until it brimmed with dents and splinters, which he then smeared with a thick
oily paste using gloves to protect his hands.
In spite of her exhaustion and anguish, in spite of the agony each jerk
brought onto her shoulder joints, she tried to oppose him when he started
guiding her descent so that she would be penetrated by the wedge. The strength
that once had been her pride could not be exerted through dislocated limbs
however, and she only managed to have her love channel scraped by dents and
slivers as the hot pepper in the paste burned skin and raw flesh. Her eyes
caught the Southerner smiling lewdly at her twitching crotch.
He brought the jug to her lips again and then just let her there, sobbing in
misery and occasionally screaming in anguish, slowly sliding down the wedge
which the paste made slippery but which was rasping and scraping her innards
causing her to twist and buckle, unable to prevent herself from wracking her
joints into further agony and the spiked planks from raking her limbs.
"Leave her like this, Grod. I have guests to attend to, but I'll be back as
soon as possible", whispered Zhorun all of a sudden.
Kayleen, lost in her anguish, took time to realize what was going on, but the
three executioners had their ideas.
"I hope we'll have a new subject. I would not mind a redhead, as long as she
is not off limits like the other girl" said the Southerner.
"Don't be silly. She would shrivel your cock and boil your balls before you
got within ten feet. Sorcery is raw magic at its worst," smirked Grod.
"Fire woman dangerous. Rip tongue and cut fingers before," said the Easterner,
visibly surprising Grod with his knowledge of how to contain a magic user.
"If Master won, I go home," he added, hesitantly.
"Myself, as long as I get paid, would not mind staying a bit more", commented
the Southerner, walking around Kayleen's twitching, screaming form, enjoying
the fear his sole presence engendered in the girl, causing her to torment
herself in the effort to follow his movements with eyes wide with fear.
"There's no hurry, Whore Queen. Grod's turn is not over yet, so we'll have to
wait until tomorrow to have you in my care again".
Conversation petered out, and the Southerner kept walking around Kayleen's
buckling form, as if he had something in mind. Kayleen kept alternating harsh
sobs and pitched screams, so overwhelmed by the accumulated pain of the ordeals
inflicted in the last days that she barely retained her sanity. In spite of
the repeated use of potions, blood still oozed from dozens of bite wounds all
over her body, her joints were both swollen and sunken, the dislocated heads
of her bones bulging in awkward misalignment while ligaments and muscles
trembled uncontrollably and the each movement raked the agony of the spikes
in the planks wound around her limbs through new tracts of mauled flesh.
"What ... demented horror is this ?", stammered a new voice, a rich female
voice from the door. Dressed in red and crowned by a mass of fiery red hair,
Shandra the Sorceress stood on the entrance to the torture chamber, her mouth
gaping in a face paler than usual.
"A place where defiance is given its due, my foul-mouthed apprentice,"
screeched Zhorun behind her.
After the frail wizard came two female figures carrying a third by arms and
legs, which Zhorun indicated with his bony finger.
"Grod, pick up our returning guest from the care of her former sisters,"
As Grod neared, the two turned their heads towards him, revealing cadaverous
faces devoid of any sign of life. He stopped, feigning a moment of pondering
but actually unnerved by the servants his master was showing a new propension
for, and uncertain about what to say.
"These two are dead, and pretty much cut up I might add," he whistled.
"I took the time to question them using the techniques I have learned from the
three of you, but lacking your vast experience I overdid it. However, they can
be still put to some use", replied Zhorun, while Shandra's green eyes widened.
"This is the young Priestess ... Lyral, unless I'm mistaken. Is she fair game
this time ?" asked the Southerner, licking his lips.
"Lyral, ... please! Lyral help me, it hurts"; croaked Kayleen's voice, rising
above the harsh sobs of her anguish.
"Her maidenhood must be preserved just like before, my esteemed guest"
"And the redhead here ?", added the swarthy old man, but his lewd smile froze
on his face as Shandra's green eyes flared at him and her hands rose, magic
surging with her fury. Only Zhorun's quick command saved him.
"Hold thy power, apprentice!"
"I heed thy command, Master," said the Sorceress with visible effort.
"You'll have to treat my apprentice with the respect she's due, my esteemed
guest. I will not always be around to stay her wrath," chuckled the corpse.
Meanwhile, Grod had returned with a full set of irons, very similar to those
already worn by Lyral, and a wizard gag. The young girl remained motionless
while her clothes were removed and the restraints applied, and Grod guessed
that she was under some spell of paralyzing which would wear out with time.
"My chief executioner, Grod, should be known to you by fame," continued
Zhorun, speaking between the pauses in Kayleen's bitter screams. "Together
with our guest from the South, Hadrad, and the worthy gentleman from the East,
Chang, they have been questioning our self-appointed Queen."
"Their grisly work is no longer necessary, Master. Even if what she knows had
still value, thy victory is certain by the might of thy magic alone. I saw it
with my own eyes, against the Priestesses," quipped Shandra.
"My power has become great indeed, apprentice, but I'm not done with our
self-appointed Queen just yet. I'll exact her complete submission, from the
full details about her armed forces to her public resignation of the usurped
crown in favor of its legitimate bearer," answered Zhorun.
"Shandra, w .. what are you doing ?" asked Kayleen's hoarse, sobbing voice.
"The magic thou shalt be taught straddles the border between life and death,
and embraces what the living flee in horror from. Tasting what lies on this
border shalt be thy test, my apprentice. If thy obedience, diligence and
dedication in using thy magic to bring about the usurper's submission will
prove thy worthiness, taught thou shalt be then." he continued.
At a gesture from his master, Grod dragged Lyral's limp body into a corner and
returned to heating the pliers in a brazier. Kayleen's eyes widened in fear as
her nostrils caught the horribly familiar smell.
"Shandra! Please, stop them, it hurts ... I can't take any more," she said.
After a quick glance at the sorceresses deathly pale face, Grod reached for
Kayleen's left breast and closed the red hot jaws along the bleeding gash of
a bite wound, turning her harsh sobs into a demented howl as pain radiated
from her breast and shook her whole body, renewing the agony in her joints and
raking new cuts in her constricted, twitching limbs.
The face of the sorceress turned if possible even paler while Kayleen's
pitiful howls continued as her breasts were repeatedly savaged by the red hot
pliers, wincing at the sight of the strong body convulsing in agony on the
cradle whose tip stretched her labia and scraped her insides, as testified by
the blood mixed with the hot paste which had made them purple and swollen.
When he moved to her buttocks, her voice was already hoarse in spite of a long
sip from the jug, and the subsequent screams wrenched from her did not help
the situation. When the jaws seared the bleeding edges of a bite wound in the
tender flesh of her ass cheeks, her efforts to escape the scorching agony only
pushed the tip deeper inside her, causing her labia to slide down and scoop
more of the burning paste, swelling along with her anguish.
He returned to her front, grabbing her left nipple between the red hot jaws
and twisting it while waves of unspeakable agony wracked her convulsing body
as the jaws scorched the lacerations in the tender flesh left by the bites
which only the iron clamps had prevented from ripping the nubs of flesh off
her chest. Now the heat scorched the mutilated flesh in repeated twists of
inhuman torment, wrenching howls of bitter anguish from her torn mouth.
After bringing the jug to her lips again, he grabbed the edges of a nasty bite
in her ribcage and seared them together, watching her contort in screaming
pain while the head of her dislocated thin bones bulged at her hips as her
convulsions had driven the wedge up inside her vagina enough to bulge inside
her and tear wounds in the rim of her vagina.
Slowly, meticulously keeping the pliers red hot, he took to grabbing the edges
of bite wounds in her chest and belly and pulling them together and down, so
that she impaled her further on the wooden wedge and the agony from the
scraped innards and the burning paste mounted on par with the howling pain
from the red hot jaws themselves. Where the wounds had been healed only in
part, the jaws shredded the encrusted blood and singed raw flesh, pulling
pitched howls of demented agony from her foaming mouth.
Since her thighs had been tightly encased between spiked planks, the wedge had
entered her vagina obliquely, distending the cleft at its top and then tearing
it slowly open, ripping through tissue which had been subjected to the horrid
laceration before and never fully healed since. Now it was wide enough to
push her shin bones sideways and bathe her clamped clitoris in the burning
paste, causing her to wail and scream dementedly as the agony was overwhelming
even when the red hot jaws let her alone.
She sputtered when the jug was brought to her lips again, trashing her head in
agony and craving the soothing of even a drop of healing potion, then gurgled
in horrid torment when the jaws pulled on a bite wound under her left breast,
her jerks strong enough to rattle the chains holding her wrists up behind her
back. After witnessing over a dozen times the grabbing of the tender flesh
under her friend's firm breasts, Shandra seemed on the point of speaking up,
then her gaze wandered in the room and she bit her lip.
Kayleen's raucous voice surged past the foam in her mouth finding new pitches
of howling torment when the red hot jaws closed on her clitoris, still clamped
from her ordeal in the rat pit, crushing it against the wood while the paste
bubbled under the heat and the tender flesh curled and charred between howls
of uninterrupted agony. She drank avidly from the jug when she was offered it,
out of her mind with pain, and returned to screaming when the red hot jaws
closed again on the purplish piece of clamped flesh.
As Grod alternated the red hot pliers between Kayleen's nipples and clitoris,
pulling and twisting to protract her howling frenzies of mad agony, Shandra
repeatedly brought her hands against her own nipples, wincing, apparently on
the verge of puking at least twice. But even as Kayleen's screams became
horrid wheezing howls of demented torment, as the repeated crushing between
jaws of red hot iron had left little but blistered tatters of raw flesh, she
was obviously trying her best to keep her sickly pale face impassible.
She failed when, after repeated pulling and twisting, the clamp fell from
Kayleen's left nipple, revealing a scorched tatter of purplish raw flesh onto
which the clamp no longer held. Shandra's shriek could barely be heard under
the uninterrupted howls surging from Kayleen's mouth, but Zhorun noticed it
and gestured to Grod to continue.
Kayleen's screaming agony continued, her body convulsing in mad pain on the
wedge and wracking bitter agonies in her dislocated joints while the red hot
pliers seared the edges of more bite wounds in her breasts, but she was
visibly nearing the point where further pain would be of little effectiveness.
Grod wrenched the last drops of howling torment from her twitching body by
grabbing her swollen labia between the red hot jaws, pushing the lower jaw
inside the wood before crushing the flesh between red hot iron and splintering
charred wood, but after a while even thus crushing her shredded clitoris only
obtained pitiful wheezing screams of mindless anguish.
"The interrogation can be suspended," said Zhorun, "Let my apprentice see how
such pauses should not be construed as a reward for defiance, since I have no
endeavors for her today. We'll begin again tomorrow morning."
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