"One way or the other, you are going to give me everything that I want."
Galena knelt on a table, her wrists and ankles cuffed and chained to bolts at its edges. Her back, neck, and thighs gleamed with sweat.
Kneeling on the floor beside the table was Haley, naked but for her slave collar and a heavy cuff that chained her ankle to a metal ring set in the floorboards. She bowed her head to me, holding up a tray with whips and vials of liquid.
I picked a whip of the tray and tugged at its leather flails.
Galena turned her head to the side and glanced back at me, her purple eyes filled with anger - and apprehension.
"You will not get away with this!" her words were like ice after a storm. "They will find you, and they will cut you to pieces!"
"No, they won't," I reached down and stroked her red hair. It was soft as feathers. I imagined how it would feel between my legs. "They are not looking for you, lovely Galena. If they were, my people would've told me by now. You do not matter to them. I can do whatever I want to you, and they will never know." I leaned forward and whispered into her ear, "and they will never care."
She turned and gave me a glare.
"What are your people doing with dark-haired slave girls?"
She said nothing.
"Where are you taking them? Are they going to Aymund? What is so important to you about Aymund?"
She looked straight ahead, eyes focusing at a point beyond the wall.
"Why are you sending worshipers there? What happens to them?"
Silence.
She cried out and bucked against her chains as I struck her across her back. She gasped and was thrown forward as I struck her a second time.
"You will answer!"
"How dare you strike me like some common slave girl!"
I struck her again.
"I will whip you like a slave," I raised my arm back and struck her again, "and much worse, until you tell me what I would know! Tell me," I grabbed her hair and yanked her head back, "what happens to the dark-haired slaves?"
"I will tell you nothing!"
"Look at this woman," I grabbed her head and forced her to turn and look at Haley. "She is bigger than you, stronger. You see this?"
She gritted her teeth and tried to jerk her head free, her eyes on Haley.
"She is from a miserable place of unending ice; she tried to drown herself rather than wear chains. Now, look at her."
Haley smiled.
I snapped my fingers.
The Siberian blonde put down the tray and crawled forward on her hands and knees, opening her mouth to suck my fingers.
"I say again; you will tell me everything I want to know, the only thing you can decide is the state you are in once I am done with you."
"I will die before I tell you our secrets, heathen trickster!" She spat. "Do your worst!"
I had not spoken false words with my promise that I would make her give me everything; my problem is that breaking her would take days. I only had hours.
It crossed my mind to use more drastic measures. However, it was one thing to take apart a captured prize and rebuild her as an eager, servile slave. It was quite another, though, to become a torturer.
I stepped out on the balcony and closed the door behind me.
The sun was starting to set; Juskar would be just leaving with the caravan by now. The mud buildings of Ebugal began to turn red, and the shadows between them started to lengthen.
My room faced the back of the inn. Below me were the stables, a large shed with partitions for livestock. In one, a truck-sized cart lizard rested, settling down in the hay and farting loud as a trumpet. Bales of hay had been stacked outside the barn, alongside a wooden trough. Dark water gleamed at the bottom of it.
I watched as two Shemite slave girls gossiped and giggled, all they wore were cords tied around their slim waists and iron collars at their throats. One girl held the other by her hand. They stopped and stared at each other. The first girl pushed a lock of hair out of the second girl's face.
The balcony door opened, and Haley crawled out on her hands and knees. The chain went taut at her ankle.
"I do not have the time I need," I said, watching the two Shemites. "If she has information that can help Juskar or help me get back Naya, I need to know it now."
Down below, the Shemite girls looked this way and that to see if anyone was watching (but not upwards), then started kissing. Such secret liaisons were common. Most masters encouraged sex between their females, but largely to use it transference. Slaves who fancied each other would be kept apart for days on end, that brought together, chained and oiled in their masters' bed, a draft of beer forced down their throats. The master then enjoys his females and repeats the cycle. By the fourth or fifth time, the slaves are as adoring of him as they are of each other.
"It is not time that you need, master," said Haley, kneeling. "I have seen how she looks at you."
"That is not enough. It will still take me days."
"Master," she stroked my foot, "she doesn't just want your cock in her mouth. She wants your leash at her throat. But she is a free, Hyperborean woman."
"Where is this going?" I regarded her.
"In her mind, the man who she will kneel for is not one who will pause. He is a savage, one she would never dare defy. Like the Mazgar."
"How did you know he was here?"
"Slaves talk of such men. Every female in this building knows of his passing. We worship men like you, to keep us safe from men like him. The Purple-Eye is arrogant and stubborn, but she wants you to break her how she feels she should be broken. Without mercy."
I left the balcony and reentered the room.
Galena looked back at me, a taunting smile on her lips. It faded, and her eyes became wide as I approached her.
"Oh!" She cried out as I forced the side of her head down against the table. "Get off me!"
One by one, I unshackled her limbs. I kept her head down against the table as if daring her to move.
She did not.
I tied a rope around her throat. She choked as I pulled it tight, it bit into her flesh. I then shoved her off the table and to the floor. She yelped and sprawled across it, rolling onto her back and staring up at me.
I pulled the rope at her throat, taut, and opened the door, and left the room.
"Wait!" I heard scrambling behind me. "Please, wait!"
I tugged on the rope: she choked and stumbled behind me. I did not slow down.
I led my slave out back and to the stable in this way, with her gasping and clutching at the rope with both hands.
The two Shemite girls (one with her back against the pole and the other pressed up against her) stopped and jumped back, startled. They quickly dropped to their hands and knees; foreheads pressed to the dirt.
"No!" Galena slipped in the mud as I dragged her. "what are you doing?!"
I entered the stable. In the vacant stall beside the cart lizard was a long, heavy, iron chain the same as the one that creature wore around its neck. The links were large: each the size of my palm. The collar at the end of the chain was in the open position. It had been polished smooth by the necks of the huge creatures it had been used to secure.
I shoved Galena into the stall. She stood on the hay-strewn floor, tall and slender. Shafts of red, setting sun catching her long, red hair.
I picked up the beast collar, shoved it around her waist, and clamped it shut.
The weight of it almost brought her to her knees. It fit snug around her, resting over her hips. She clutched at the heavy chain, bending at the knees and groaning.
In the next stall, the cart lizard watched with a half-open, yellow eye; it's shovel-like jaws grinding hey into a slurry. Hanging from a post facing it was a wicker basket filled with thick, heavy, leather whips. Some had iron barbs attached to their ends. Others small slats of wood. I picked out one of these beast whips.
"No!" She shook her head, eyes wide, "no!" she raised up her hand, "Master, please!"
“Slave!”
Master, please.
Master.
It is powerful the first time a beautiful woman, fighting you with all she has, suddenly calls you ‘master.’ It means it was she who had given up, as unable to read failure in your eyes, as you'd been to read it in hers. Every girl I've broken, I thought would beat me. But every time, it is they who break first. The collar around their throats, their nakedness, the sting of the whip – she comes to be convinced her position is futile. She breaks from within – before you break.
At the moment she calls you 'master,' she accepts she'll let you put your dick in her. She accepts she's going to be branded by you. She accepts her bed will be a cage or pit floor – except when it is your bed. And she also accepts that she'll get whipped if she resists you on any of these points.
Now she's not a person; now she's a dog. Kick her. She's yours now.
I drew back the heavy whip and struck her. The whip end struck against her legs and arms, she shrieked and dropped to her knees. I drew the whip back and struck her again. Galena screeched and tried to tuck herself into a ball.
In total, I gave her five lashes of the beast whip. Only afterward did I realize how lucky I'd been that I hadn't wounded or maimed my female. Then I walked over to the quivering girl.
She looked up at me, tears streaming and red marks on her body. I let the flails of the whip coil on the floor before her. Sniffing, unbidden, she put her lips to the whip and kissed it.
Behind me, I heard sounds of amazement and clapping. It was the two Shemite slaves; they were kneeling at the stable entrance.
"It is well done, Master!" Said one, who had a supermodel’s cheekbones.
"You have broken in a free woman," said the second one; her breasts seemed to jiggle even as she knelt still.
I felt Galena’s lips on my foot; they were soft, her kisses timid. Slave girls will kiss the whip that has just beaten them, to show submission. Like many of the behaviors of a submissive young female, stripped naked and put on her back, it is a primal, subconsciously motivated behavior, like how a woman may touch her hair in shyness when with a potential partner.
I got down on top of her.
"Arh!" She gasped as I took hold of her hands and spread her arms apart, planting them against the ground. I shoved her legs apart with my knees and pulled down my pants.
"Master!" Pressed against the ground, she turned her head back to look at me. "I-
I put her neck in a chokehold and pressed her face to the ground.
She cried out as I entered her. My caulk slipped right in – her vagina was warm (almost hot!) and dripping wet. She moaned out loud as I began thrusting. I pushed hard with each stroke, trying to sink my penis in deeper each time.
Her hand scrabbled at the ground, and her legs jerked. The moans became squeals, and she tried to move her body in sync with mine.
I pinned her in place and choked her.
Her cries became shorter and higher pitched. I bit her neck; her sweat tasted her fear and lust.
She squealed as she orgasmed, and I came at the same moment. I held her still while I pumped semen into her. We lay quietly in the barn, the only sound the ceaseless chewing of the lizard.
I rose. She got to her knees and started licking my penis and testicles clean, cupping them in her hands.
I looked down at her and stroked her hair. She looked up at me, beaming.
“It is a wonderful thing that has happened to you,” I said. “You have been reborn.”
“Yes, Master!”
I spat in her face, the saliva landing on her cheek. Her tongue darted out and licked it away, her eyes never leaving mine.
“Now, you will tell me everything.”
***
"What is in Aymund? What is your people's interest in that place?"
I sat on the bed while Galena knelt on the floor before me. I had fitted a slender, iron collar around her throat, and I had leashed a chain to it. She knelt with her legs apart, her palms on her knees. Her eyes kept going to a large bowl of black cherries beside me.
"The Verses of Rakka, Master," she shook her hair back. "The Demon Charmer."
I stood and pressed the handle of the whip under her chin and forced her head back. I got behind her, her back and shoulders pressed against my legs.
"Who is Rakka the Demon Charmer?" I picked out a cherry.
“He was the ancient Lord of the Runa people, and the ruler of Aymund."
"Good Slave," I popped the cherry into her mouth. Her lips were soft around my fingers, her tongue snaked out to stroke their tips. "Who are the Runa people?"
"My people are the Runa," she replied, purple eyes looking up at me. "All these lands were ours, and Aymund was where our wizard kings ruled from. Then the barbarian Darfuri came from the West," her eyes narrowed, and she turned her head to regard Ashtala, kneeling chained and naked by the wall with the other slaves.
“They destroyed our great temples and palaces, killed our men and children, and put our women in cages. The Runa fled to the south. There, it was the Mi-Go who gave us sanctuary. And so, the Runa did not become extinct."
Aymund is a city of buried ruins. What do you want with these ‘verses?’"
Her eyes became wide. “The verses are key to great power! And there are many other relics buried beneath the sands there; heirlooms of great power that my people must reclaim!"
I tossed a cherry at her mouth. It missed and rolled on the floor. She bent forward and ate it off the floor, black-red juice dripping down her chin. She looked up at me and smiled.
"So it is a book that your people seek, above all else?"
"No, Master," She sat up, and her breasts jiggled. "Rakka wrote his verses on the walls of caves, in deep vaults, and in the darkened under-sewers of Aymund. The city itself was his spellbook! The Servants seek to uncover all these secret places. Therein they shall rediscover Rakka's wisdom, and the Runa people will rise again, to take back these lands from the Darfuri!"
I spat on the floor between my feet. She looked up at me, and I stared back, not saying a word. She crawled forward, put her head down, and licked the saliva off the floor.
When she raised her head, I held her face between my hands. She looked at me with her large, purple eyes.
"And what do the Mi-Go get out of this?"
"The Mi-Go are our gods and our protectors. They would see us restored. It is they who have supported and blessed us, and sent us back into these lands to spread their faith to the heathens!"
"What about the worshipers who get sent there? Why don't we hear from them again?"
"The ruins are dangerous, Master,” she kissed my hand. “Many of the Faithful must give their lives that we may reclaim our great city. It is a price gladly paid."
"I'll bet. And the Mi-Go get to see these - these verses?"
"We are grateful to them; we share with them all that we learn."
"And these dangerous ruins, are there any Mi-Go working these sites? Or just these local converts?"
"The Mi-Go do not dig!" she laughed; it was a deep and unnatural sound, not like a human's. It sent a chill up my spine. "Entering the Crypts and dark places of the ruined city is a most holy labor those Faithful give themselves to completely."
“It’s dangerous, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Most of them die.”
"How surprising. Just one thing then; what happens to the dark-haired slaves?"
"They are sent to Aymund as well, Master," She started pulling open my belt with her teeth.
"But what happens to them there?" I caught her by her hair.
"I - I do not know. I have never been to Aymund."
"Never? I find that hard to believe."
"I do not lie to you, Master!" Her eyes became wide, and she gripped my leg. "I am-I was-but an acolyte priestess. I am not initiated in the greater secrets of the Mi-Go, and I had not served long enough for the honor of being sent to Aymund."
I undid my belt. She squealed and started pulling my pants down.
"Do not worry," I tightened my grip in her hair, "you will see Aymund soon."
She took my penis into her mouth and began rocking her head. When I came, I made her spit it into the bowl and mix it with the cherries using her tongue. I then fed it to her and the other slaves as their evening meal.