Mantua - A Man's World Ch. 06

The names, characters, places and events in this story are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. All characters are over the age of 18. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Thank for reading and I hope you liked this tale. Please do leave a comment as I read all of them and take them all onboard.

***

Mantua - A Man's World Ch. 06.

As the day rapidly drew to a close, Jason Colfax became more and more annoyed. Where was that woman? What had she got up to? By the time night fell and the evening meal was being served by the Inn's wenches and she still had not returned he was angry as well as upset. Whether or not she was supposed to be his senior officer, he had decided that she was going back over his knee for another severe public spanking and then she would be scrubbing out the latrine trench. And on this world, in this society, she would have to do as she was told.

It was after the meal when the Inn's overweight manager showed up with a scruffy young man in tow.

"Excuse me, Colfax; this youth says it's urgent that he speaks with you. Is that alright?" he said.

Colfax nodded. "Of course. What is it?"

The young man pulled off his cap. His clothes were dirty and torn. "Sire, are you the mentor of that woman who spoke out at the Procurator's banquet recently?"

Colfax remembered that embarrassing incident too well. It had given him the reputation of a man who could not control his harem. Not that he had a harem as yet! Although the spanking he had given Skyann had clawed back some credibility.

"Yes, she belongs to me. What's happened? Has there been an accident?"

"No, sire, she's been kidnapped by pirates!"

Everyone gasped with shock and several of the girls screamed out loud. Skyann wasn't popular with them but the women were frightened on her behalf. Quickly, the young man explained he'd been walking through the dockside minding his own business -- Colfax rather suspected he'd been on the lookout for something to steal -- when he saw a woman getting bundled up and taken away to a sinister catamaran with a black lateen sail. He recognized her from a shift working as a temporary pot-boy at the Procurator's feast the other day.

"Take me to where you saw her and I'll make it worth your while," Colfax said, handing the lad a small silver coin. He ran up to his room, grabbed his cloak and sword and the rest of his property and hurried back down. Within minutes, they were hurrying down to the docks.

"Where's the pirate ship?" asked Colfax. But the pier the lad pointed to was empty.

However, there was a black sail disappearing over the skyline. Was that it? Was that the ship that had captured Skyann? He had to make an instant decision. Nearby was another ship that seemed to be getting ready to sail as men were hauling on ropes and lowering a large, square sail. Among all the triangular-sailed catamarans and outriggers in the port this ship was unusual having only a single hull with high prows fore and aft which had been carved into fantastical shapes. Shields were slung over the sides. By the gangplank, a group of men stood on the quayside loading barrels and sacks on board. Like the ship itself, these men stood out as being taller than the usual among Port Janus. They were mostly bare-chested and their skins were a lighter apricot with tawny-brown hair, rather than black, worn in a single long braid. Most of them were heavily bearded as well. As Colfax got closer he also saw that many of them wore hammer amulets and carried heavy seax knives in their belts.

"Who's in charge here? I need a ship?" Colfax asked the men.

A large man stepped forwards. He was maybe an inch taller than Colfax himself and powerfully built. Abstract tattoos covered his scarred arms and torso.

"I am Wighere, son of Sebald, son of Norveld of Ifield. I give you greetings, stranger. But our longship is not for hire."

"I am called Jason Colfax of New New Hampshire. I think that ship has captured my woman and I want her back. I can give you money if we follow it."

Wighere grinned. "Then it looks like Thunor the Thunder god has put us on the same course, Jason Colfax of New New Hampshire. Those pirates have stolen our Earl's daughter, Fraena, and her maids. We are going to fight them and kill them all to get her back. You have the look of a warrior; you are welcome to come with us."

Colfax thanked the lad, paid him off, and then crossed the narrow plank onto the longship. The crew, a rough looking lot, looked up but carried on with casting off and making ready to get underway. Soon, they unshipped oars, took up their places on rowing benches and rowed out of the harbor and into open seas. As soon as they were beyond the breakwaters, the wind filled the sail and the ship forged ahead, cleaving the darkening waves as it did so.

Colfax was no sailor and knew he would get underfoot so he stood out of the way towards the stern letting Wighere's crew get on with it. It seemed like chaos to him but he figured these men knew what they were doing. The ship settled down and the steersman by the tiller kept a straight course with the water hissing and foaming past the sides.

Later, Wighere came over and stood by him. The ship's captain was one of the few men he had seen on this world who was both taller and heavier than himself. His beard was divided into two braids and his hair swept back like a wave.

"Those pirates took your woman? You must want her back very much rather than just replacing her with another," he said.

"She is very special to me," Colfax admitted. As he said those words, he realized how true they were. Although Skyann was really annoying at times and had a lot to learn about life and her place on Mantua, she was special to him and he would be devastated if anything bad happened to her. And if those pirates hurt her -- then he would not rest until they were all dead. No mercy. But if -- no, when -- he got her back; that woman was still going over his lap for another good, hard spanking whether she liked it or not.

"They took our Earl's daughter. She was to join the Proconsul's harem in Janus City itself," Wighere said. "She was a gift meant to ease conflict between our peoples so we must rescue her otherwise we can never return to our northern homeland without dishonoring ourselves and our forefathers."

Colfax looked out at the dark seas and the cloudy night sky. Through the murk, he could just see the distant illuminations of Port Janus receding to their stern.

"How do you know where you're going? You could be heading in totally the wrong direction," he said with a worried tone.

"Praenur here has a lodestone so we don't need the sun's rays to guide us. Also, we suspect we know where they are heading," Wighere said.

"And where's that?"

"The Pillars of Tiamat. A set of sea stacks where the foul priests of Tiamat make sacrifice to their goddess," replied Wighere, touching his amulet as he spoke.

"Can we beat them to it?"

"Oh yes," grinned Wighere, "If Thunor the Thunderer allows, we will beat them."

They talked some more about what was happening but as there was nothing Colfax could do at this moment, he found a sheltered spot beside some barrels, rolled himself into his cloak, and got as much rest as he could.

He was wakened early in the morning as daylight hit his eyes. Despite his cloak, he was damp with dew and chill. One of the men passed him a hunk of rye bread and mug of mead. Making his way to the fore prow, he could just make out that black sail low on the horizon. He breathed a sigh of relief. They were still on the right tack.

They followed the pirate ship for the rest of that day and the next, even through a sudden squall of rain, making their way in a generally north-westerly direction. Wighere was now convinced that they were heading for the Pillars of Tiamat. Once they saw a school of purple-scaled armored fish swimming close to the surface.

"Fall in now and you'd last less than a minute," Wighere said with a grin.

But later on it was Colfax who was leaning out over the prow who spotted something unusual in the water. He peered at it, no more than a tiny, darker blob in the sea, shading his eyes from the sun before pointing it out to Wighere.

"Lower the sail! Oars out and back water! Quick lads!" Wighere shouted and immediately his crew jumped to it.

When Colfax saw what it was, he immediately stripped off his clothes and dived naked into the sea. The cold took his breath away and he allowed himself a moment to recover and float before striking out for the object. It was a woman floating on her back, the water lapping over her body. He reached her and as he did so, she feebly raised an arm. She was alive but in a very weak condition. Her lips were chapped and salt-encrusted. Colfax threw an arm over her, supporting her head.

"It's alright, you're safe now," he told her.

Meanwhile, Wighere brought the longship alongside, leaving the swimmers in the lee of the ship, threw down a rope ladder and many strong arms helped them aboard. Colfax wrapped her in his cloak and asked that she be given water and brandy as she was shivering uncontrollably. The woman looked up gratefully.

Colfax saw that she was a plumper young woman in her mid-twenties with a pretty face with a spray of freckles over her nose and cheeks, lively brown eyes and messy, tousled hair. Her breasts were heavier, falling down over her chest but with larger, darker brown nipples and areolas. Before she had covered herself with his cloak, he'd noticed stretch marks on her belly and thought she'd maybe given birth in the past.

He sat by her. "What is your name?" he asked.

"Livia," she said.

"What happened? And is my woman Skyann on that pirate ship?"

Haltingly at first and with frequent sobs of fear from the trauma she had endured as well as relief that she was saved, Livia explained that the women had been kidnapped in order to be sacrificed to Tiamat, the Nine-headed Sea-Dragon. Wighere scowled when he heard confirmation that Fraena, the Earl's daughter, was also on board.

At the end, Livia looked up into Colfax's eyes and then down at his penis. "Mentor, you saved my life and I can't ever thank you enough. If you have space, can I join your harem?"

Colfax thought for a moment. Then he smiled. "Of course." He knelt by Livia's side and hugged her close and kissed her chapped lips. The crew cheered and laughed.

Eventually, they broke apart and Colfax went to speak with Wighere.

"Now that we know where those pirates are heading, do we need to follow them to the Pillars of Tiamat or can we get there before them?" He explained his plan to the chief.

"My ship can outrun any pirate garbage-scow or I am not a true son of Sebald."

"Then fly like the wind, my friend, fly!" cried Colfax.

The sail lowered, the longship veered slightly away from the pirates sail and flew across the sea, the white water hissing along the sides, leaving a long wake behind.

"Land-ho!" the lookout up at the mast-top cried out, startling Colfax from his comforting of Livia.

At length, Colfax made out a group of sea stacks. They towered up above the waves with waves lashing their bases. Sea foam swirled about in a crash of water. There was a central rock-pillar towering above a rough circle of smaller stacks. The rocks were black basalt and as they sailed closer, they saw that the rocks had been graven with bas-relief carvings, now heavily eroded by wind and rain, for which Colfax was glad as the figures depicted were horrible. They seemed to depict both the Nine-headed Sea-Dragon herself and an even worse deity with an octopoid head, narrow bat-like wings and vicious talons.

Wighere pointed to the central sea stack. A wide ledge stood out from the stack about twenty to thirty feet above the waves.

"There," Wighere called out above the sounds of the waves crashing against the rocks' bases. "If the reports are right, that's where their captives are offered up for sacrifice."

Colfax watched as the sailors used a complicated way of trimming the sail and backing oars that mystified him until they were in the shelter of the larger, central pinnacle of basalt. Looking up from his point of view on the deck it looked like an almost impossible task that he had set himself. Waiting until the longship was fairly still, he plucked up all his courage and sprang up onto a narrow shelf of rock and immediately, the longship pulled away from the dangerous shoals surrounding the stack.

"Come when I whistle," he shouted down at Wighere.

The man nodded assent.

The longship rowed out of sight behind another shorter but wider sea stack.

Colfax looked up at the main ridge and slowly, using every available finger and toe hold climbed up to it. The rock was eroded by millennia of wave action so it didn't look too difficult a climb, he thought, although the lower parts were slimy with algae. Then, as if the gods were warning him, his fingers slipped away as a hold crumbled and he nearly fell. His heart shot into his mouth and his other hand and toes gripped the rock even more tightly until he felt secure and his heart had stopped racing. Only then did he carefully raise himself up until he was able to swing his body up onto the main shelf of stone. He breathed a sigh of relief but saw that he didn't have time to waste as the pirate ship was now entering the outer circle of sea stacks, the ship looking quite small against the towering rock spires.

Not wanting to be seen at this stage, Colfax looked about and was relieved to see several large black boulders at the rear of the ledge. Thanking his good fortune, he ducked behind them and peered out between cracks and prepared to wait for what was to come next.

***

Skyann and the other girls clung to each other and looked about with fearful eyes as they felt the ship slow to a stop and then heard an anchor chain rattling down fore and aft. There was shouting up on deck and then the hatch was flung open. A man with several teeth missing and a deep scar down his face leered down at them.

"Let's be 'avin' you, ladies. Time to say goodbye and get your souls ready to meet Tiamat herself," he called. With that, he lowered a ladder.

The women shuddered away except for the haughty ice-maiden, Fraena.

"Let us show this pirate scum and foul priests of Tiamat what true women are made of," Fraena said.

With her head held high and showing no outward trace of fear, she crossed the hold and ascended the ladder. Her two maids followed after. Skyann climbed up next and once again stood on the deck. She blinked in the light and saw that the priests of Tiamat were standing next to a huge gong stand which had been erected on deck. A priest stepped forward and painted a rune on her bare belly. She shivered, partly with the chill air against her naked skin and partly because the symbol seemed evil in a way she could not describe.

"Tiamat will know her own," he intoned.

She also saw that the ship was moored next to a great spike of black rock towering out of the sea and that another narrow wooden ladder led up to a shelf cut out of the rock. Once all the women were out of the hold and daubed with a rune, the priest pointed to the ladder.

"Up you go and await the coming of Tiamat herself," he said.

Again, heads held high, the three taller women climbed the ladder, their breasts and rumps swaying delightfully as they did so but Skyann was in no mood to appreciate their beauty now. Where was Colfax? Was she really going to die here, unknown, in the middle of nowhere on this isolated lost world? But she wasn't going to give these evil men the pleasure of seeing her cry or begging for mercy. Instead, like the previous three, she stepped onto the ladder and climbed up herself with some difficulty as her wrists were still bound before her.

The next girl sobbed and begged but to no avail as the pirates forced her onto the ladder and jabbed at her with the points of javelins until she climbed. Skyann had reached the shelf and one of the maids helped her over the lip before the last woman started up. The poor girl was sobbing and flung herself onto her knees before the pirate chief and even over the wind and the crash of the waves; Skyann heard her beseeching to be spared. The pirates hauled her to her feet and dragged her over to the ladder. As they did so, her bladder let go and she wet herself, her urine leaking down her legs and onto the deck planks. Again, the pirates prodded her upwards with their spears.

Once the last woman was up on the ledge, the ladder was pulled down and the pirate ship cast off until it stood off about a hundred yards. Skyann hugged the terrified woman tightly in her arms, trying to sooth her and provide what comfort she could. Then one of the priests took a mallet and struck the gong. A cracked note sounded over the circle of water between the outer stacks, their rock faces amplifying the sound. Again and again the priest swung the mallet and the horrible, dissonant note rang out again and again.

The girl shuddered and tried to bury herself between Skyann's breasts.

"It'll be alright," Skyann said. But she did not believe that anymore.

The priest swung again and again, the bongs echoing over the water. Then she heard screaming from the other women and to Skyann's utter horror, the water between the stacks boiled upwards. She could not believe what she was seeing yet she could not doubt her eyes either but for a moment she wondered whether she was going insane. And a moment after, she wished she were going mad. Instead, she clutched the terrified woman's face to her breast, keeping her from seeing.

A mass of tentacles surged up out of the sea. At first a few, then dozens and then seemingly hundreds until there seemed no room for any more. But still they came. That's impossible, her mind told her but her eyes were seeing it. The tentacles were a vile iridescent green and some were thick as tree trunks while others seemed as slender as a finger. Then came the ultimate horror as appearing out of the center of the tentacles came a circular red maw as wide a cavern ringed with a triple row of needle-sharp fangs. A stench like rotting fish emanated from the foul creature and Skyann almost vomited with fear and revulsion.

"We're all going to die," one of the women cried out with horror as she sank to her knees. The tentacles now writhed through the air towards the women cowering on the shelf. And all the time that vile gong-beat echoed out over their screams and the surging seas. The young woman in Skyann's arms fainted away and Skyann thought that was the best and wished she could find obliviousness before the tentacles reached her. But it was not to be.

The tentacles reached the ledge and Skyann herself cried out, any traces of calm gone in an instant, as she felt something heavy and cool wrap around her calf. She cried out with fear. The tentacle was a hideous iridescent green with a purple tip. Its suckers opened and closed in eager anticipation. It then threw a second coil around her calf. Desperately, Skyann tried to pull her leg free from its embrace but she was held fast. To her touch, the tentacle felt gristly and cool and coated with slime but unholy warmth pulsed off it beneath its rind.

With absolute horror she felt a second and third tendril coil around her other calf, wrapping themselves rapidly round and round. Then two more twined themselves around her middle, squeezing her body tightly. She urgently tried to pull those off her waist but then others caught her arms, the tentacles swathing them, spiraling around them, pulling her arms away from her body, holding them fast in their clasp. She was now trapped by this creature, whatever it was. Staring out over the waters she saw several more of these vile green tendrils writhing towards her still-struggling form. She looked around and saw that most of the other women were equally ensnared.