Caught in Darkness Ch. 04

He stood wary. All around him were the curious stares and hateful glares of the Zecarin nobility under the rule of Her, The Majestic. They wore thin silks of purple, red, and white. Some of the males walked around shirtless and wore swords in their waist sashes. The heat in the room was formidable as ducts in the floor piped in hot air from natural thermal springs and lava beds. The floor and pillars were tiled brownish-pink marble. A reddish light glowed from sconces on the far wall and a chandelier above.

"This is the creature that freed the traitor." The Majestic said loudly to all gathered as she made her way through the dozen gathered. "See how he grovels now!" She whirled on him and that chain flew from around her torso and struck him across the chest. It left a red slash that bleed, but he did not flinch. I must let her dominate me, or else they will not respect her. Mule thought. He stared at the floor and didn't look up to any of them. To make eye contact would show that he hadn't been broken yet. And his plan rested on that.

"He was abandoned by the female he came here to free." She laughed haughtily. "Now he is just another slave." The thin metal chain flew again at him. The razor edges worked into the metal length of it tore through his flesh. His thighs, his arms, and his cheek soon bore the marks of her weapon. That last cut to his face made him drop to his knees, but he fought back the pain and breathed forcefully. It struck his back a dozen times more, then his shoulders as he dropped to his hands and knees. She whipped him with that razor chain again and again, each strike leaving a fresh mark. Mule collapsed to the ground and balled up, panting and bleeding from a hundred small wounds. Any normal man would have lost consciousness from the pain perhaps, so he feigned it as best he could as he went limp to the ground.

Strong arms grabbed him and hauled him up. Behind them faded the laughs and sneers of the gathered under-elves. He was tossed in a corner and left as the crowd drew their attention to the next spectacle. One of the soldiers in red mail came in dragging the elf maiden by her hair. They had cut her long blond hair down to short little curls, just enough to get a handful of. She seemed unhurt, but did little to resist the horrible treatment. They tossed her onto the spot spattered with Mule's blood. As she rose to her knees her hands went slick with his red blood and a look of horror shone from her eyes.

"That is the human's blood." The Majestic said in the common language of the surface. "I made him bleed. For his crimes." She glided over the stone tiled floor to the elf lady and stood before her with her chin held high. There was no blood on her white silk dress, nor on her, but her chain was coated with it. "I will make you bleed for yours too, but not so simply as I did with him." Slim dark fingers reached down and lifted the maiden's chin, their eyes met, but the girl stared blankly back with a broken stare.

"Wake him!" She shouted gleefully. A soldier in the red mail of the elite smirked as he went to one of the heat vents near the floor and pulled a spear from it. The steel tip glowed with a faint reddish hue in the air. The Zecair soldier walked casually towards the prone man and waved the heated weapon over his body.

"Smoke the animal!" came a nobleman's voice that jeered the soldier on. The warrior wrinkled his nose in disgust and touched the flat of the tip to Mule's rump. The skin sizzled for a few seconds before its desired effect sent the human rolling away screaming. The soldier followed, prodding the man, herding him towards the center of the hall and the elf lady. Mule stood and clutched his arms, steeling himself from the pain. The crowd egged him on with insults, calling him an animal and a walking piece of meat in the Zecair language. He understood their taunts, but ignored them as if it was just noise. When he stood next to the bedraggled elf, the crowd grew quiet. The Majestic had cleaned her chain and had just finished wrapping it back around her body. She looked up at Mule with a cruel smile.

"She is dead." The Majestic said calmly. "She will be soon. Give her one last pleasure." Those same words had been spoken in a cell when he was brought before another broken, battered corpse of a captive. He had killed that one, rather than humiliate her further at the wishes of The Majestic. With so many elite soldiers in this room, and the lords and ladies that commanded them, he doubted he could be so brazen as to disobey this time and live. The Majestic knew how to play the game, and she had him cornered.

The hot spear prodded him in the back with a soft hiss. He scowled as he moved towards the elf maiden. She had grown more pathetic looking in their time apart. They took away her hair, shredded her clothes to mere wisps of thread that barely covered her waist, and beaten and bleed her countless times by the scars on her milky skin. This wasn't what he wanted. The Majestic had ruined her for him. And now there was no reason for The Majestic to keep her.

Mule pulled his loin cloth aside, and pulled out his cock. It was sweaty, and smelled of his musk from the heat in the room. With one hand he grabbed the elf woman by the hair and pulled her head back. Her mouth instinctively opened and that's when he thrust his cock inside it. She didn't resist him, her eyes were a blank stare, and neither did she take any part in it. Mule was left to do the work himself.

The act was well received by the spectators and they shouted their rude comments to cheer him on. Mule rocked his hips back and forth sliding his cock in and out of her unresponsive lips. Before long his member was fully erect and throbbing. He pulled it out of her mouth and tossed her head aside. The elf crumbled to the ground on her sides.

"Take her! Now!" The Majestic shouted. Her fingers lazily played with the chain that crossed between her breasts, each digit seemed almost to dare caressing her own mounds.

"I only take a mate in conquest." He said in the common tongue. "This one is spoiled!" Even though she had sent him to Boil to learn their language, she had spoken to him in the common tongue, and so he chose to keep his fluency a secret for now. "What good am I in service if I do not earn my rewards?"

"It seems my pet animal doesn't like the feel of her." The Majestic laughed in Zecairin. Some of the onlookers laughed as well, and some just looked on with distaste. The Majestic sighed and stretched as she walked away nonchalantly. "This was the price you required for your service... this... thing." She sneered at the prone girl with an upturned chin. Her venomous glare mellowed as it moved to him, there was something there he could not recognize in the way she looked at him. But it was only for a moment, before that malicious gleam took it over. "You serve me now. Take your pet from my sight." She waved her hand up at him dismissively and turned her back. The elite guards in red came to flank him, and one was holding that red hot spear.

Mule dared not argue. In a way, she paid him what he requested, and in a way she had cheated him out of it. The elf lady wasn't lucid. If she had a mind left it was a base, feral thing acting only on instinct. Her consciousness had retreated into the safety of its own self. Mule picked up her body and slung her over his shoulder. Her light frame was easy to manage. The soldiers turned and pointed with their spears in the direction for him to go.

The Majestic laughed haughtily at his back as he left. Her voice echoed in his head even after they had left the hall.

The tunnels all looked the same to him as they walked. His body ached, and his mind was fighting back the hundreds of pain sensations from the cuts all over his body. Each step opened or reopened this cut or that one. One of the guards even made a rude comment about the trail of blood droplets he was leaving behind. But he wasn't concerned about himself, or the guards, it was the incoherent person on his shoulder that occupied his mind. This outcome wasn't what he had expected. Continuing with the charade was pointless now unless there was some way he could revive her. It was too much to hope for that The Majestic would give her up so easily, but to give her up at all in such a state was a sour deal. He cursed himself for not expecting this.

He was taken to what could be called a holding room. The guards rolled the door open and the smell that greeted them was horrendous. There were many other slaves inside but very little else but mats and scraps of clothing thrown into heaps. Some of the creatures were chained, some were wandering freely. And they all reeked. The whole room smelled of refuse, waste, and blood. He was roughly shoved inside as the door was closed behind him. There was no light here. He closed his eyes against the blackness and walked forward. In his mind he remembered the way the surroundings looked in that brief moment before the door shut.

Mule navigated his way blindly to the wall nearby, to a spot that was vacant enough for him to set her down. Gently she was rolled onto her side and her legs folded before her. Then he listened. None of the other creatures seemed to pay him any mind. No one was approaching, and no one was shouting in his direction. It would seem there was some rest to be found here. So that was what he did. His bruised, bloody and battered body curled up around her on the floor. He slid his arm under her head to give her some comfort as he laid his own on the hard stone. For a brief moment he thought back to the last prison he shared with her -- a decent bed, no other smelly occupants, and privacy. It was a bit of a dreamy fantasy compared to this one. Mule let loose a chuckle, and cursed his mind for thinking so small for a fantasy. Instead he pictured a feathered mattress, thick blankets, a roaring fire in the hearth... Then his smile faded. He couldn't remember what they felt like, it had been too long.

A soft squeeze on his arm woke him from his dream of feathered beds. Her fingers had found their way to his arm and were squeezing his bicep lightly in regular intervals. Then he could smell it. One of the other inhabitants of this holding cell was near, and was giving off a rancid fecal order. Yet it kept its presence silent enough Mule couldn't tell where it was yet.

Her fingers started to move. Slowly one slim finger was tracing a shape on his arm. A symbol. A Letter. A message.

Feign. It said. It was the command to pretend in her language. He understood it. But for a brief moment wondered if she knew he could speak her language along with the trade language.

Watched. Another word was slowly traced on his skin by her fingertip. She was speaking to him! His mind ignored the fact that she was now cognizant, and was preoccupied with the presence around them. Despite his acute senses, it was all being overwhelmed by the horrible smell. It forced him to breath through his mouth and forsake the nose. It distracted him from focusing on even the faintest of shuffles, the slightest of grunts, anything that would give him a pinpoint to their visitor. So preoccupied was he with trying to avert their intruded he hadn't noticed her subtle movements.

The elf lady's free hand had found his, and pulled it up to her chest. She guided it to her own bare breast and squeezed herself through him. He surrendered to her control, confused and baffled by this display. She moved his palm around over her mound, rolling her nipple around underneath his grasp. The pleasure of it made her draw in short breaths, as she arched her head backwards to nestle against his face. Theirs was now a lover's embrace, one wrapped around the other and given to her control.

She massaged her breast with a hunger. Her brief gasps turned to suppressed whimpers. His hand was just caught between them. Nevertheless his manhood couldn't help by respond vigorously to the wanton display. Yet something held him back, he wasn't sure how to respond to this, and part of him just didn't want to risk it. So the choice was made for him. Eager for more, the lady in his arms moved his hand between her legs, up underneath the wisp of clothing around her waist. There he found her warm, wet, and wanting. Her hand guided him in, but her fingers quickly took control over his. She moved them around in quick intricate motions that seemed just random hunger. Until it made a sign he recognized. One it had made before -- Feign.

Her lustful display was another clever method to give them privacy to communicate. She was writing whole sentences on her clit with his own finger. Mule had been too distracted by his own arousal and half her message had already gone by before he caught on.

You made promise. She spelled, then moaned loudly in ecstasy. Why? Twice commanded to take me. Twice refused. Why?

By the time she had finished spelling that out, her breath was deep and heavy. If her past performances were any telltale, she wouldn't last much longer under these manipulations. His hand was already wet with her juices, and his own sex was straining, throbbing against her thigh waiting for its own turn.

Mule pressed his lips to her the back of her neck and suckled loudly. Inside, the tip of his tongue wrote a single word on her skin in the same fashion she had done with him. RESCUE.

She screamed as her body spasmed in wet carnal release.