Betrayal's Hands

Finished with their bath, Makan led Darleth out of the room, a goblet of wine in his hand and silk robes covering their bodies. He let another serving girl lead them down a passage and into a small room with a bed and a table set with two chairs. A dresser was nearby as well as a small closet. Chained to the bed was the naked slave from the northlands, Captain Annalyse Promus, now simply a slave with no name.

"She was the leader of a band of savages from the north... can you believe it, a woman in charge?" Makan said, laughing incredulously. "How we have been unable to finish them off this long amazes me if they are organized thusly."

Darleth nodded thoughtfully. "Perhaps our warriors are loath to strike a woman, since they know the truth of their inferior nature. The soldiers on the front are, after all, mere commoners."

Makan chuckled. "That must be it, the simpletons do not realize that a woman is like a hound or a horse, they need a firm hand to guide them and when they are of no more use, well..."

Darleth nodded, smiling for the first time, "Indeed, there is that. But I find they can have a great many uses beyond mere entertainment. Their political power behind the scenes is impressive, my friend."

Makan shook his head and waved his hand. "Bah, cackling hens is all they are. Men rule the country and the home. I regret only that I have no son to pass my lands to, just a daughter. But she will serve you well, she has been groomed her entire young life for it."

Darleth smiled. "I have no doubt, My Lord Baron. I look forward to the day when our forces can be allied so strongly."

"Now then, back to this savage. She cried out both when I took her and when all of my men had their way with her. She's quite the whore, let me assure you!"

Baron Darleth turned his gaze back upon the woman chained to the bed, her look varying between sullen and openly hostile. "She seems to have some bitterness still within her. It appears you have not driven her spirit from her yet."

"Indeed, I have not. I find it to be a great sport, breaking this one. This is why I chose to have you aid me this day, if you will."

Darleth nodded, "Fine sport indeed." The man was lying, he had little or no interest in the slave bitch, but his grander plans required that he play along with Makan, for now at least. An accident later, after he had married Lady T'leren, and things would be different. Until then...

"Spread your legs, my pretty, and make ready to feel the righteousness of Aradmathian nobility!" Makan said, grabbing cruelly onto the slave's thigh and pinching it between his fingers.

Anna fought, as she always did, but the two of them easily overpowered her, bound as she was. Makan fell upon her first, abusing her as brutally as his short and chubby manhood would allow. She had laughed at him openly at first, which only drew his ire and his fists. She had learned not to respect him, as he had hoped, but instead to hide her disdain and loathing. Which she only managed to do most of the time.

Darleth was next, testing and teasing her. The teasing was not aimed at her pleasure either, for it involved the suspense of not knowing exactly when or how badly he was going to hurt her. Darleth mostly held himself back, content to slap, pinch, twist, scratch, and sometimes pierce her flesh. Makan felt no such compulsions, he would rut away in a more animalistic manner. Finally, Darleth had taken her, true, but it had seemed to her it was not for his pleasure. She had despaired he would ever finish until he had leaned down and bitten her left breast, drawing blood in the process. She had screamed in pain, and that had taken him over the edge. She shuddered again, remembering the look in his eyes when he had climbed from her body. He had enjoyed her pain, far too much, and little else about the rape.

Makan had not noticed his cohort's need to cause pain, he was too busy enjoying the fact that her spirit was being broken. Anna groaned in pain as she attempted to shift herself on the bed. She was truly beginning to feel that very soon she would be broken, in both body and spirit. For a moment she gave into self pity.

Anna turned her face to the wall, not wanting to watch as the two men dressed and left her room. Each time one of them laughed, it made her flinch, and she hated herself for her cowardice, hated them for forcing it upon her. Eventually, they had tired of their sport, and now they left the room, still laughing to themselves. Only when she heard the key turn in the lock and the footsteps recede down the hall did she look up. Tears filled her eyes, one of which was already swelling shut from a particularly hard blow. Glancing down at herself, Anna winced. Come the morning, she would be a patchwork of bruises. Blood had run from her nose down the side of her face, drying and tightening the skin underneath.

"Oh Shar, I wish I could hope that you knew I lived. I would give nearly anything, if I had it, to see you and father again," Anna whispered after the door had shut. She stared vacantly at the ceiling, fighting the rising tide of despair within her.

Closing her eyes against the tears, she waited for the servants to appear, she expected that they would come to bathe her, as the Baron had let it be known he would return. That thought nearly broke her, she struggled to keep herself under control. She would not let them see her cry. It was all she had left, this resistance.

*****

T'leren nis Makan managed to maintain her composure as she walked through the large house and up the long stairs. Once in the relative privacy of her chamber, however, she gave in to her self pity. Sitting on the edge of her large bed, she sobbed brokenly into her hands. The idea of marrying and being forced to submit to Baron Darleth terrified her. When the tremors and sobbing subsided, she started to wonder if there was any way, short of disappearing, that she could avoid this union. For long moments all types of scenarios flashed through her mind.

"I'll do it!" she whispered. Moving to her wardrobe, she rifled through her clothes, pulling out her most worn brown work dress. Quickly dressing in it, she braided her hair into a severe knot and tied a scarf over it. Satisfied, she put all of her coins into a small bag which she tucked into the waistband of her dress. Casting a last look around the room, she cracked the door open. Not seeing anyone in the hall, she sneaked out of her room and took the servant's stairs to the rear door of the house. In the waning light of the day, T'leren said goodbye to her life and headed on the quickest route to the East gate of the city. She did not know that as she was leaving the city through the east gate, she passed one of the many groups of infiltrators bent on rescuing Annalyse.

Chapter 4

T'leren strode down the road away from the city. She had never before felt this feeling, this freedom. The day was bright, the sky clear and blue with a faint wind that cooled her skin, and the world lay before her with its multitude of choices.

An hour later, she decided that she was a fool, sitting on a rock at the side of the dusty road to remove her shoe. A blister had formed on her heel and her legs ached.

"I don't believe the cobbler meant these shoes to take this punishment." She spoke aloud, no one being around to hear her. Staring morosely at her shoe, she tried to decide what to do. Finally, she came to her conclusion, slipping off her other shoe, and tying them together by the ribbon laces. Slinging them over her shoulder she stepped back onto the road. With the dust already coating her toes, she set off again.

It still seemed to be such a wonderful thing, this freedom of action and purpose. As she contemplated her new world a village came into view. Villages this close to the city were all fairly large and in good repair, and each boasted an inn to house travelers who came from far away and wished to spare the expense of city Inns. T'leren entered the outskirts of the village, drawing the occasional odd look from the villagers for being a well dressed single female alone.

Entering the dim common room of the inn, T'leren moved to the bar. She quickly drew the attention of the grim looking innkeeper from where he was stocking several freshly cleaned cups behind the bar.

"I would like a meal and a room for the night," she said, enunciating clearly and respectfully. After all, she was in his world now, even though by all rights she was of far higher station than he.

The barkeep studied her for a minute, a scar on his cheek that ran over across his jaw twitching a little, then shook his head. "No rooms available, miss," he said.

T'leren felt her lower lip tremble. She took a deep breath and calmed it. Behind the man stood a pegboard with several room keys on it. She looked at the keys and then back at him. He shrugged, "Them's all reserved, sorry to say."

T'leren nodded. For a long and precarious moment she considered letting slip who she was, then she would see how fast a room might be made available. Her mouth opened and she spoke, "I see, how far is it to the next town?"

"A day's ride or so, if you head to the west. North outta here will put you half a day or so of walking to Halburg, a right decent little farming town," he said, clearly relieved that she was going to make no issue of it.

T'leren thanked him and walked out of the inn, slipping her shoes back off when she was back on the road. Her blister had split open and was bleeding by now, but even with a limp that cut into her pace, she hope to make Halburg on or before nightfall.

*****

A small group of men and women gathered in the shadows of a tanner's workshop. Among them were Corillius and four others. He looked into the darkened face of each person, judging how their time in Duth Darek had changed them. They were on the edge of the markets, where the slaves were held.

Slavery was a forbidden practice among the Free Peoples of Nordlamar, and the squalor that many of Aradmathian slaves were kept in was unfit for pigs destined for slaughter. Each wore a visage that promised no mercy for any who came in their way.

"I've bribed a few locals for information, and tortured a few others for more," Corillius said, his voice low but meaningful. "Our people are being held in the barn over there, behind the public cages and the stage. They are being fattened up before being sold, as well as being disciplined to make them better slaves."

The squad leaders muttered oaths at this, and Corillius nodded in agreement with their anger. One woman even spit in contempt.

"There are six doors to it: two on our end, the eastern one; a large one for wagons on the south; one on the north; and another two on the western face. We have five groups. Everybody will take a smaller door and once inside, Veera, take your squad to the south and secure that door and try to find a wagon in case some of our people are injured," Corillius said.

"On the way out we'll need a distraction, so Arrik, your squad is to open the other slave cages and set them loose. If we're on a wagon then as many as possible will ride upon it, but if need be every one of us will run alongside to defend it so our countrymen can be returned."

Arrik nodded, the red stubble growing back on his cheeks from the flowing red beard he had been forced to shave to come on the mission.

"Captain," Veera said, looking at the other squad leaders as if to be sure of what she said before it was uttered. "What if we can't get them out?"

Corillius nodded thoughtfully. He had considered the possibility, but in hopes of it not ever reaching that stage he had given it as little thought as possible. "We kill them if they can't fight beside us, and not a one of us to be taken alive. Kill your own warriors if you must, understood?"

Everyone nodded, sobered by the thought that, after coming so far, some farther than they had ever journeyed in their lives, they might die unknown and abandoned. But still, to a Nordlamar citizen, freedom was worth more than life.

"Good, then let's be off. They have a bell that tolls on the hour, by my reckoning we should be in place by the next toll. Go on the last bell."

With not even whispered words of good luck they were gone, sneaking back through the darkness to their squads to relay the orders and to move into position. Corillius nodded in recognition of their skills and attitude. He was proud of them; how well they had come together so quickly. He moved back to his own squad and they moved towards the northernmost door on the east side of the barn.

The bell struck four times and they were rushing the door. The lock was a simple latch that gave with a kick, smashing the door open and startling a pair of sleeping guards awake from a nearby table. Before they could do much more than figure out they were under attack the Nordlamar warriors were moving down a hallway and wiping their blood from their blades.

Elsewhere the other squads met with similar success. So deep within the heart of the Kingdom the guards were lazy and soft. Security was something that protected a fat man's purse from pickpockets, not from attack by a band of highly trained enemy soldiers. In fifteen minutes every Aradmathian guardsman was put to the sword and the building was theirs without any alarm being raised.

The captive Nordlamarians could scarcely believe what was happening to them: they were being freed. They were all hale and hearty, with a few recovering injuries here and there but nothing to stop them from being fully mobile and able to wield a weapon. Corillius looked them over long and hard, looking for Annalyse, but finally had to admit defeat.

"Where is your captain?" He asked them once he had gotten them settled down somewhat.

"That bastard Makan took her," a man said. "They took her to a brothel or something," another woman said.

Corillius' eyes widened and his fists clenched in rage. Anna was a maiden! To be raped and tortured like this was unforgivable! Moreover, she was his cousin. "Where is she?" he asked.

The one that had spoken before shook his head in dismay. "We all love her, captain, and there's not a one of us that wouldn't lay down our lives for her. When that bastard raped her before us all, then let his men have their way with her, we'd any of us have traded places with her in a minute."

Corillius shook his head and glanced away, tears or rage and agony at hearing the news coming to his eyes. "How could this happen?" he wondered aloud.

"She fought back, Sir," another said. "Young Valus had his head put on a block and she spoke out, telling them to leave him alone. When they couldn't shut her up, they beat her and still she spoke out. Finally she'd nothing left but insults for Makan, trying to draw his anger to her instead of the others. She even told him that if he didn't kill every one of us then one of us or someone else would hunt his family down and kill them one by one and save him for the last."

Corillius almost chuckled at the vow. It sounded like something his cousin would say. She was given to speaking her mind and giving in to her temper. "What happened next?" He asked.

"The whore-son killed them and then, right there in Valus' blood, he stripped her naked and had his way with her," she continued, fresh tears running down her face at the memory.

"And you've no idea where she's at now?" Corillius persisted, staring at them all.

"I just heard that Makan had her taken to a private brothel. One of the guards was joking about it," the man from earlier again spoke.

Corillius nodded. "Thank you. Grab what spare weapons you can and clothing as well, then follow my warriors out of here. They'll get you out of the city in small groups, and you'll meet up again in a day or so. If not, my warriors know what to do, but if you find yourself separated head to the north, northwest, and do anything you can to get back home."

"Captain, you're not coming with us?" Veera asked, looking at him.

"I hope to meet you," he said. "But I'll not leave without Annalyse. She's a symbol to the army and the people."

"But Sir, you don't know where she is," Veera persisted.

"I'll find her. Nobody gets left behind, and nobody makes a slave or a whore of a Nordlandiir!"

"Captain, we'll come with you!" Three of the former captives stepped forward, then the rest followed suit.

It made Corillius' chest swell with pride to see the loyalty his cousin had instilled in her warriors. He shook his head and said, "No, we've too many people, I stand a better chance by myself, plus with Annalyse at my side nothing will stop us, you all know what a fighter she is!"

There was some chuckling and cheering, though muted to avoid alerting any passing Aradmathians. The would-be slaves were broken up into small groups and plans were made. By the time the fifth and final toll came from the bell, the building was deserted save for the rats and the corpses.

*****

Makan stood over his latest slave, grinning viciously. A whip hung from his hand and red welts, some bleeding slightly, crossed her body. She had tried to cover herself from his first blows, but that had infuriated him. With the help of some stone faced servants she had been tied to the bed so he could whip her freely.

Now he dropped the whip and stared at her. Tears ran down her cheeks and she lay panting and sobbing on the bed. Her body was covered in sweat and red lines. Makan loved the feeling of power that breaking in a slave gave him, and this one in particular was the best he had ever had.

"Enough foreplay, I think you're ready for me now," he growled at her.

He took off his robe and let it fall to the ground. He untied her legs and nodded appreciatively when they lay trembling on the bed. He slipped up between her legs and grabbed her feet, pulling her legs upwards and displaying her obscenely to him.

"Don't worry, my pretty, this time I'm going to teach you a new way to serve me," he said, watching her closely for a reaction.

Annalyse could handle the pain. It hurt badly, and it made her body betray her and tremble, but her mind could cope with it. Pain was life. It reminded her that she was still alive and that so long as she remained alive so to was there hope. She might one day avenge herself against the son of a bitch that raped her day after day; she might yet see her sister and father and her people again; she might one day return with the armies of Nordlamar and crush the Kingdom.

But the realization of what was about to happen to her struck a chord of terror in her. She felt him brushing against her, seeking her opening and she writhed on the bed, trying to break free. Her body was weak, undernourished and abused as it was. He laughed, enjoying the fight.

Anna's mouth opened and a tortured moan came out when she felt him hit home. He forced himself into her sending a tearing sensation through her bowels. She felt the sudden wetness and knew that something really had torn, for her blood was serving as the only lubricant that would be provided where he was. She shuddered and tried to fight again, but her body was finished.

Makan laughed again as she collapsed under him. She glared at him, tears streaming from her eyes, and then they began to close. He rutted against her, filling her repeatedly. His perverse excitement spared her life, for he was unable to last very long. He grunted and, after a final vindictive thrust into her bowels, he pulled free of her.

"Look at me, slave!" He ordered, slapping her on the face roughly.

The slave opened her eyes and he looked into them, chucking happily. He was somewhat disappointed though, for his sport was over. Her eyes possessed a dull glaze that he had seen in some soldiers who had spent to much time fighting. A thousand yard stare, they called it. She was done, her will was broken. He had broken her at last.