We returned to the grounds by midday.
These were several acres of land by the river we had borrowed from the Devonian jungle. Each day, it tried taking it it back. Each day we drove it off a little further, praising ourselves and claiming victory over something that had never lost a war.
I was on a dirt path leading to it, out of the jungle. The rains had turned into a stretch of clayey, red mud. Belled Pet stepped through it, the mud sucking at her heels. A leech as large as my hand flopped out of the undergrowth after her; I crushed it with my boot and left it thrashing in a puddle.
We cleared the last of the jungle ferns and stepped into cleared land. Stretching out on either side of us were paddy fields; crammed into them in thick, priceless, grey-green squares was marsh rice. Thatched, wattle-and-daub farmhouses dotted the land, some in tight, insular clusters. Fences enclosed stables and slave pens. Black smoke rose from outdoor cooking fires, the sound of a metal being hammered carried over the fields.
Working the fields were naked slave girls. Two Armanean blondes lifted a fishing net together, small fish wriggling and thrashing in it. One girl tossed the small fry back into the drowned field. The other picked out the fat ones and dropped them into a basket.
I passed a small group of girls with clear, South Asian ancestry. They giggled in a song-song language from the tropical forest continent of Hatadur as they squatted among the rice and pulled out weeds. In Hatadur, human cities had fought insect mega colonies for dominance. The Event shifted the balance of power - in favor of the hives. It wasn’t just hunger driving people from the cities there. One of the Hataduri girls looked up as I passed - her dark hair in a long, swishing ponytail pulled through a copper ring. Her large, brown eyes stared in surprise, and the group became silent, heads down.
Further along, a farmer drove a plough. Four girls were yoked; tall, dark-haired, Shemites by their Middle-Eastern skin tones. Their wrists were chained to the cross beam, wooden slats locked around their necks like a set of stocks. They had red and black snake tattoos on their legs and backs - the mark of the god Set. They grunted as they pushed, feet slipping in the mud. The farmer lashed one across the back, and she jerked and cried out. He smiled and waved; I waved back. Then, he whipped the girl again.
“Thank you, Master,” said Belled Pet.
“For what, Slave?”
“For not punishing me for running away.”
I passed a farm where a row of wooden posts had been mounted. Blonde and brunette slave girls stood against them on tiptoe, arms raised, wrists in chained shackles. A farmer walked up and down their line, studying their backs. He carried a training whip: a dangerous tool of long, black, hard leather, coiled like a snake. He stopped at a pale blonde, stepped back, and lashed her across the back. The slave cried out and was thrown against the post. The farmer drew his whip back and struck her again across the backs of her thighs. She screamed and begged him to stop. His next stroke was across her buttocks. His technique was excellent - motions made with economy. Sensitive regions struck. The spine and tendons avoided. He knew exactly how to whip a girl.
He noticed me passing and stopped to turn and bow, smiling.
I bowed back - it worked better I’d found than trying to stop acts of deference to me.
“Senach! Why are you whipping these beauties?” I asked.
“They were too slow at the plough, Lightning Shield.”
Lightning Shield. There was a story there, too…
“She’s good meat,” he pointed to Belled Pet.
She looked away. Even in silence, a slave girl says plenty. To look away is defiant. Only looking down is submission.
“She is. She ran away.”
“Ha! Foolish girl. Shall I thrash her for you?”
Belled Pet shrank back, eyes wide.
“No, but thank you for the offer.”
He nodded and turned back to his slaves. As I passed, I heard the blonde cry out again.
“Thank you, Master,” said Belled Pet.
“For what?”
“For not giving me to him, to punish.”
“He is not interested in punishing you,” I replied, looking back over my shoulder. Senach had grabbed the blonde’s head and yanked it back, making her look at him. He then spat right in her face. “He is training that one.”
“She will do anything he commands, Master.”
“Look how beautiful she is,” I stopped and turned back to gesture. Belled Pet turned and look, her leash chain swinging. “How tall she is. The breasts. The slender legs. He wants to bring her to Collar Joy. He wants her to adore him.”
The whip struck again.
“She will never adore him, Master.”
“You are just eighteen: you know nothing of these things.”
Collar Joy is an idea from Hatadur, where decadent masters elevated the breaking, training, and enjoyment of slave girls into a high and respected art form. The mass migration of the Event had spread it, and masses of kneeling, bound, refugee girls invited its practice.
‘Collar Joy’ begins with a little, careful torture. Subject her to harsh but random punishments. She becomes anxious and soon realizes she can’t predict what upsets you. She decides pleasing you as best she can, is her best strategy (and it is). Reward this in bed: let her sleep beside you. Feed her honey. Praise her beauty. The next day, be warm and gentle. If she makes a mistake, kiss her on the head and carry on. But, the very next day, go back to torturing her.
By the third round of this cycle, she will squeal to suck your cock, fling her legs apart to invite it, and howl so loud the other slaves will wake in their cages. You have trained her to actively degrade herself to please you: by her choice, she explores submissive sex.
Here is where the Collar Joy starts. Most Hyperborean girls are sexually submissive. In being made to submit, they act in their true nature. Suddenly, the slave sees that she wants to be your slave. She then can’t imagine how she lived before, and starts to worship you.
That’s Collar Joy.
***
I cleared the fields and reached the river.
The Black River was immense - its other bank just beyond the horizon. When we still had the sun, at dawn and dusk, you could make out the shadows of the old, stone, pylon ruins that rose over the other bank - Dura’s sister town from a far, bygone age.
A wide, dirt path had been cut along the edge. Trees and ferns rose over it its other side, dropping lianas and leaves over it. I stopped for a sip from my waterskin, and Belled Pet knelt in front of a blue flower, marveling at it.
“No,” I kicked the flower away. It skidded off the path and into the black water of the river. The waves carried it away.
She gave me a quick glare and looked down.
Tall reeds poked out of the water, along the path. From them came the chitter of insects and birds and the odd plop! of a fish at the surface. A caterpillar long as my forearm worked its way up a reed, its grey body lined with finger-length spines. Buzzing around it were two cat-sized dragonflies, waiting for an opening. Underneath a lily pad that could take a man’s weight, an armored fish large as a shark stared up at us.
Further up, the path widened and branched to link one and two-story wooden buildings and beehive-shaped mud huts painted white. People - mostly men - went about them. I saw an old woman sitting under a cloth awning, bales of twine-tied dried fish laid out in front of her. She smoked a long pipe while a man picked out a melon and held up three fingers. She gave a dirty look, and he held up four fingers. A horse walked past me, its rider a bald man with a whip at one side and a club at the other. Walking after him were eight naked slave girls, one girl’s throat chained to the next, their wrists in heavy cuffs. A pair of Shemite traders sat outside a bar, playing cards. Small heaps of bronze and silver coins were on the table. Mugs of strong tea beside them steamed, quite forgotten.
“Master, what is this place?” asked Belled Pet. “Have we reached Dura?”
“No, but Dura is a short boat ride away. This land is mine.”
She looked about.
“Which land, Master?”
“All of it.”
Shopkeepers noticed me and waved. I smiled and waved back. Three offered me breakfast and a blacksmith asked if Belled Pet needed branding. I gently declined them all and continued on my way.
“These masters all work for you?” asked Belled Pet.
“No, they work for themselves. There are many things people look for when they come to a place like this. I only trade in one. These merchants help me by being here, that’s why I invited them. We all help each other.”
“They are Dura’s burghers, then?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I’m impressed you know of them. No, they are not; but they would make much better ones than the burghers we have.”
I came to a large shed with no walls - just a wooden roof supported by six thick, wooden pillars, twelve feet tall. Hanging in rows from the roof were sets of chains - four, neatly spaced rows of ten chains sets altogether. Hanging from the chains were naked slave girls.
Most hung from wrist cuffs, limp feet just inches from the ground, their heads hanging. A man stood against one, gripping her thighs as he rammed her slap!-slap!-slap! The brunette slave moaned and threw her head back, eyes shut tight, her feet locked around the man’s waist. All around her, girls slept, undisturbed.
Some slaves were suspended by their ankles, long hair hanging down, waving with any movement. One cried out and swung on her chain as a man slapped her and laughed, then slapped her again. When he tired of that, he gripped her by her head as he pressed his penis into her mouth.
Other girls hung in more elaborate layouts - wrists and ankles splayed out, hogtied in irons, or crammed into ball-shaped cages. Even at this early hour, men went from girl to girl, turning them this way and that, checking their throat prices. Two men with coin boxes kept an eye out, ready to step in and collect.
The shed was one of six, separated by brick pathways. At the intersections were cooking grills and beer stands. Some sailors with Mongol-ancestry features and wearing white furs sat in a circle, drinking. They were Zidonese: one knocked a mug over, beer spilling across the floor. A blonde slave with a rag around her waist came rushing over with another mug; she knelt and offered it, head down. The sailor took it without a word.
Then the little blonde removed her rag and began mopping up the spilled beer. She yelped as the sailor grabbed her by her hair and forced her head down, forehead to the floor. He poured his new beer over her head and beckoned a second slave for another. Then, he made the blonde drink the beer off the floor.
“What is this place?” Belled Pet looked about in horror.
The sailors turned and stared at her, the sound of her bell calling out. They did not stop staring. She looked away and tried to step behind me.
“You are in the Meat Chains,” I said. I waved to the coin box men and they smiled and started walking over. “No girl costs more than five bronze to use. At night, you cannot get through here without pushing.”
She looked across at the other sheds, jaw dropping.
“How many girls are here?”
“Two hundred. Today, two hundred and one.”
The coin box men came, and we exchanged bows.
“Greetings, Burgher Gerard!” said the older one, a balding man with a salt and pepper beard. “It is good to see you at the Meat Chains. Shall I fetch the tally scribe? I think he is at the Master’s Inn.”
“No need. How many did we sell last night?”
“Nineteen girls. Four from our shed, alone.”
“Excellent work! Here,” I tugged on Belled Pet’s chain, and she staggered forward. “A replacement.”
“Master!” her eyes were wide with horror. “Please, no!”
The man seized her by her arms. One took her leash chain. The other yanked her hair back, making her stare up at the roof. The Zidonese sailors laughed and nodded.
“Raise her belly price to six.”
“She will not sell then,” said the older slaver. They dragged her under a set of unused chains.
“No. I think she should sell at the Master’s Inn or the Garden. But, drop her throat price to one bronze. Let any and every man use her.”
“Yes -- but she is worth much more than that.”
“Oh, certainly. But, I brought her here for punishment. Hang her by her feet, will you? She asks a lot of questions. Let the guests give her the one answer she most needs. And keep the bell on her - I want everyone to come to see what the noise is about.”
“Master! Please-”
The slavers gagged her with a rag, tying it tight behind her head. I watched as they removed her leash but kept her wrists in cuffs, then cuffed her ankles and hung her from the roof. They adjusted the height with practiced ease.
As I left, the Zidonese sailors got up and walked over to her. Behind me, I soon heard the sound of her bell bouncing back and forth.