Captive (28 page)

‘My advice is this. Master among the torturers is Isteth, a slight, thin man easily identified by the mix of white in his beard and that his cloak is black rather than trimmed with black. His skill exceeds the others by ten factors. If the trolls have left you with any strength whatever, attempt to kill him. Should you succeed, you will save yourself a great deal of pain, while the crowd will approve the act. Should you fail…’

The blare of a horn broke into his conversation and he stood with a sigh.

‘There,’ he continued, ‘the time is on us, and instead of spending your last moments in miserable introspection you have enjoyed an enlightening discussion, as have I. Now, the arena awaits, and remember, the pleasure of the crowd is everything.’

Aisla waited as her chains were unclipped. The light grew abruptly brighter as some unseen door came open, and for the first time she caught the roar of the crowd. Her knees weakened at the sound, but already Buthor was tugging on her leash. Resignedly she followed him from the dungeon, up the narrow stair, along the broad corridor and out at a gate, into the blinding sunlight of the Zihai arena.

A great roar went up at the sight of her as she stood blinking in the light. Her vision cleared, revealing the broad, sand strewn surface of the arena, the high walls that surrounded it and above that the crowd, seated and standing, tier after tier, an array of thousands of heads and the dazzling colours of clothes and flags. A frame had been erected to one side, a thing like a gibbet, complete with rope but no noose.

‘I have never seen it so festive,’ Buthor remarked, ‘nor so full. You should be proud. Come now, we must pay our compliments to the king. Grovel down and beg for mercy and forgiveness, who knows, he may cut short your torture by an hour or more.’

He walked ahead, directly towards a podium at the far side of the arena. Aisla followed before her collar caught at her neck, walking across the hot sand, no longer indifferent to her nudity but acutely conscious of it, with perhaps ten thousand eyes fixed on her naked body. The knot in her stomach had grown until it seemed to fill her entire abdomen and she could feel the start of tears in her eyes.

With a muttered prayer to her father she tilted her chin up, trying to think not of what was coming but of how she should react. Her parents, she knew, would expect defiance, Elethrine likewise. Talithea’s council would have been different, an attempt to strangle Buthor with the chain and force them to cut her down before they had a chance to enjoy their entertainment. She gave Buthor’s neck a glance, looking down at the thick mass of muscle and fat, only to find herself unable to attack the single person who had shown her any sympathy in Zihai.

They were approaching the podium, a section raised above the other tiers with a number of fine carved seats set around a throne. On the throne was Mogath himself. Sulitea knelt at the feet of the king, her neck encircled by a golden collar, otherwise naked. The chain from her collar lay in the king’s lap, held lightly in his hand, while beside her was a pile of weapons, among which Aisla recognised Prince Ythor’s sword and the birdswing axe.

The High-Priest, Ghirais, stood behind the King, ceremonial hammer in one hand, the other resting on the throne. Prince Agrath sat to his father’s side, with others who Aisla did not recognise seated according to their rank. Every one was looking at her, their expression varying from the pure hatred of Ghirais to simple lust among the younger men. Of the few women present most showed carefully blank expressions, Sulitea alone displaying sympathy as she gave Aisla a brief, regretful smile. Buthor stopped and performed a sweeping bow, then a series of lesser ones, each directed to a specific person.

‘Your exalted glory, Mogath, King of the Hai,’ he announced, ‘Prince Agrath, Honoured Divine Ghirais, nobles and ladies of Hai. I bring before you the vile harlot and murderess known as Aisla, blasphemer, liar, witch, renegade and more besides, to be put to death to your most elegant design.’

Mogath gave an almost imperceptible nod. Aisla lifted her eyes and found herself fighting the urge to prostrate herself and grovel in the dirt. Ghirais was staring full at her, his black eyes burning into hers, forcing her to his will. With effort she held her gaze, praying over and over to Uroth and wishing he was there. His voice seemed to come to her and she sucked her cheeks in and spat on the ground.

Ghirais’ face went black, the King’s also as cries of outrage sounded from all sides and a great, deep murmur from the crowd. Buthor pulled her quickly back, retreating in a series of unctuous bows with her chain grasped firmly in his fist.

‘Are you mad?’ he hissed as they moved out of earshot. ‘Do you want to die by ten thousand incisions? They will make your torture last the day, the night and the next day beyond!’

Aisla shrugged, trying to tell herself that whatever happened her gesture was worth the cost. Within hours she would be in the feast halls of heroines, so long as she tried to fight her persecutors. Once, there, the more pluck she showed before her death the higher would be her place. As they reached the gibbet it again occurred to her to attack Buthor, only for the idea to be put aside at the sight of the thick leather cuffs that dangled from the end of the rope.

‘Hands behind you back,’ Buthor instructed.

She obeyed, and allowed her wrists to be fixed into the straps. Buthor stepped to the main part of the gibbet and hauled on a rope, forcing Aisla’s hands up behind. She gave a yelp as she was pulled up onto her tiptoes, realising at once that the position was designed as much to put her body in a ridiculous posture as to leave her helpless. In was effective in both ways. Her arms already hurt, while she could do nothing to protect her body save swing herself in circles and kick her legs, both thoroughly undignified motions. It also left her breasts dangling down and her bottom the highest part of her body, while she could feel the warm, dry air on both her tuppenny and her anus, and so knew that both were showing.

Buthor fixed the rope off on a cleat, pulled his whip from his belt and gave it an experimental crack. The crowd gave a peel of laughter and sporadic clapping for the way he had positioned her. He responded with an all inclusive bow, then flicked the lash of the whip out to show its length. Aisla felt the knot in her stomach tighten still more. The whip was a huge thing, a long snake of oiled and braided leather, black and glistening, with a triple snake’s tongue at the end. It would have been excessive for a wain camel.

She braced herself, unsure whether to obey Buthor and kick and writhe and scream or to attempt to hold herself back for the sake of pride. He had stood back, behind her, and was giving a demonstration of his skill with the whip, twirling and cracking the lash to make her muscles jump involuntarily with each snap. The crowd cheered and clapped, to which he responded with a final bow before whirling the whip up and bringing the lash down full across Aisla’s naked bottom. She screamed as it hit, all thoughts of restraint blown aside in her pain, kicking and opening her legs as the crowd roared with laughter.

Buthor whirled the lash high once more, bringing it down across her buttocks with an ear-splitting crack. Aisla screamed and jerked, feeling the flaming line spring up on her bottom, then another, a fourth and a fifth as he laid into her mercilessly with the whip, the last catching the rear of her sex lips. She kicked out in her pain, lost her balance and for a moment hung by her hands with her legs splayed wide to show her sex to the crowd. A great burst of laughter rang out at the sight, then more as she fought for balance with a display of kicking legs and wobbling buttocks every bit as ludicrous and obscene as the King could have wished. Buthor joined in the laughter, waited until the exact moment she had regained her poise and then struck again, spending her instantly into another sequence of absurd postures.

At last she managed to balance herself, expecting Buthor to strike, only for him to step away and bow to the crowd. Clapping rang out and she struggled to regain her composure in the lull, wondering if it was over. She could feel all six of the swollen, burning whip marks that decorated her bottom, and if her juice was running freely down the insides of her thighs, then the pain was still very real. Buthor turned again and she realised it was not over. He flicked the whip high and brought it down with a vicious crack. Aisla winced and screamed instinctively, only to realise that the blow had been no more than a touch, painful, but nothing like the first blows, with the whip cracked a hair’s breadth from her skin. Twice more he struck, using the same technique, and each time she screamed and danced her legs, her response real if exaggerated. Buthor stopped and came to her front, pulling her hair back with a hard tug to force her head up.

‘You are doing well,’ he whispered through clenched lips, his face set in an expression that made it appear her was taunting her. ‘That gyration when I caught your cunt was truly admirable, the crowd loved it. There will not be much more but I need to put in a few good ones, I trust you can endure the pain?’

Aisla nodded numbly. The worst pain was now in the joints of her arms, with her burning bottom feeling huge and swollen, but also intensely in need of a cock. Buthor gave a knowing nod.

‘Let you bladder go if you can,’ he went on. ‘It will amuse the crowd and making the pain less when the trolls fuck you. If you do I shall remit three, no six whip strokes.’

Aisla said nothing. From the pressure in her belly she knew it would be possible to wet herself, yet doing so would be more degrading still. Then Buthor had whirled the whip up and brought it down again, a full powered smack across the fattest part of her unprotected bottom. All thoughts of holding back were lost, the shame of peeing insignificant beside another six of the agonising whip strokes. With her face screwed up in misery she tensed her bladder, screamed and jumped as another whip stroke hit her, then let it all go.

Agonising shame hit her as the pee squirted from her tuppenny, spraying backwards onto the sand in full view of most of the huge crowd. An explosion of laughter greeted the sight, and claps and whistles Looking back between her legs she could see it, a long stream of yellow arcing out behind her to splash on the ground. Buthor cracked the whip down across her upper thighs, breaking the stream of pee into a shower of droplets. She screamed and jumped in response, kicking her legs and loosing her balance to send the pee stream into a wild spray that splashed her burning bottom and pattered on her legs. Again he struck, across her bottom, spattering pee from the wet skin, then stopped, leaving the crowd to enjoy the sight of her stream dying back to a trickle down one leg, then nothing, leaving a substantial pool behind her in evidence of her disgrace.

Buthor took another bow to the acclamations of the crowd, but rather than go back to work on Aisla’s crimson, whip smacked bottom, he went to her wrists and began to undo the knot. She waited, grimacing at the pain as he pulled her arms up, then sighing with relief as the knot gave, leaving her wrists in the cuffs but her arms blissfully free. It was done, and although her bottom felt huge, swollen and a blatant object of both lust and amusement, she also felt a certain pride.

She swung her arms, grimacing as the circulation returned, then, on sudden impulse, raised them to the crowd and made a low, deliberately mocking bow. Laughter rang out once more and a number of cheers, also betting calls, while the royal podium stayed silent. Buthor stepped up to her and took her wrists, linking the straps in front of her belly before he once more approached the King, made a profound salute and bowed deeply as a new hush fell over the arena.

‘I trust the whipping pleased, exalted,’ he announced, ‘and now I present my colleague Ulor, beast-master to the arena, to conduct the second part of this just and amusing punishment.’

The largest of the gates in the arena walls opened at his words and Ulor stepped out, his scar showing livid pink in the sunlight. Buthor hurried to join him, throwing Aisla a last glance that mixed pity with lust. She turned at a grinding noise and saw that a wheeled cage was being propelled to the great door, filling it exactly. Within movement could be seen, an indistinct scurrying in the dimness.

Her heart jumped as a huge, green penis was thrust suddenly between the bars, then another as Ulor pulled at a catch and the cage front swung open. Aisla said a prayer to her mother as the goblins surged out, only to stop short as she caught their scent. Her knees went weak and seemed to part of their own accord. Her well whipped bottom seemed to swell out behind her, a fat, wobbling thing to be stuck out and mounted, her tuppenny a gaping, sodden hole to be filled.

Even before they reached her she was on her knees. A moment later a fat, green cock was in her mouth and she was sucking eagerly. Another mounted her and her vagina filled, bloating with goblin’s cock as long, spatulate fingers grasped her buttocks. Others grabbed her breasts, her arms, her hair, rubbing their turgid cocks on any part of her they could get at. Her knees gave way, sliding apart as she was buried in a mound of heaving flesh, every one of them working her body for their pleasure.

The one in her mouth came, his sperm erupting down her throat to make her gag. He pulled out and squeezed a thick gobbet of come onto her nose, only for another to push him aside and thrust an erection at her face. She took it, her resistance vanished in the haze of their musk, her desire only to be used in every hole and crevice, over and over. All sensible thought vanished in a haze of musk, cocks and sperm as others began to come, up her vagina, over her buttocks and back, in her hair. Hardly aware of what was happening, she let herself be turned and spread, one leg held high to get at her tuppenny and bottom simultaneously. Fat, rubbery cock heads probed at her, sliding into her vagina and straining in the ring of her anus. Her bottom hole burst, admitting the cock into the already slimy embrace of her back passage until it was all in and two sets of fat balls were squeezed together between her opened thighs. Fingers gripped her breasts and flopped them around another cock, while with both linked hands she jerked at another among her tormentors.