This story is fantasy fiction set in a fantasy world depicting extreme

and very graphic torture. It is intended for mature adults not offended

by such material and the author does not endorse or excsue violence of any

kind.

Chapter 1 - From the Dead

The thumping of boots and the clanking of metal echoed eerily in the rough,

winding corridors. No light had graced their descent except for the wavering

flames of their own torches, and the triumphant pace of the first steps had

become more and more hesitant the farther down they went, as shapes hiding in

the dark receded just out of torchlight range.

Even the blond mane standing as tall as the rest among the helms no longer

shook in defiance every few steps, resisting the two burly warriors dragging

their captive along. The ominous silence of the underground complex had

silenced even Kayleen, Warrior Queen of Tarnis, a feat none had pulled before;

her bright blue eyes seeking in the darkness the reason for the sudden turn of

the events which brought her here.

Now that the group had slowed, she could walk as fast as the rest in spite of

the short chain linking her fettered ankles, which had hobbled her ordinarily

spirited pace much as fear had hobbled the warriors during the ambush. Fear of

her, of her prowess, of the legendary Warrior Queen who had struck down the

evil tyranny of Zhorun the Necromancer; even at odds of twenty to one, even

after catching her on a hunting trip, after she dispatched the boldest three

none of them would come near her and she almost put them to flight. Almost.

One of them, more enterprising than the others, hit her solidly on the temple

with a sling bullet, dazing her long enough for the others to gather their

courage and swarm her. Once subdued, they manacled her with strong iron cuffs

and pushed a wooden tack in her mouth to prevent her from calling for help,

wasting no time in marching her to their destination ... these passages, under

the ruins of Zhorun's former castle. Leaving her legs free to walk soon proved

a bad choice, as at her first chance she brought one down with a savage kick

to the knee and sought to escape, but there were too many of them.

After the episode, her captors decided to take no more chances and bound her

cuffed hands behind her back, tying them to a rope tightened around her waist,

binding her arms to a staff brought up under her shoulders and encasing her

soft hunting boots in iron cuffs connected with a short chain, to prevent her

from running effectively. Since this also prevented her from walking quickly

enough for their intents, they had to took turns into goading and carrying her

by the staff under her shoulders, while the strong woman spared no effort to

make their lives harder. Until now.

The corridors were over, and their steps now sounded like they were in a sort

of large underground hall, with imposing pillars rising up in the darkness to

a ceiling beyond the dwindling light of the torches. A dripping sound could be

faintly heard in the distance, but no other noise could be heard beyond those

of their own making. One of them addressed the leader, whispering for no good

reason: "This must be the place. I say we leave her here and leave now."

The leader, a large man still smarting from the vicious punch Kayleen had

managed to land on his eye during her recapture, shook his head and whispered

back, "No, we're supposed to bring her before the Master himself. If this

wildcat escapes after we depart ..." and left the rest unspoken as his voice

trailed off. To Kayleen's ears, that made no sense: the Master was how Zhorun

was addressed by his subjects, but the necromancer had met his end on her

sword sixteen months ago, freeing Tarnis and vaulting her on the throne.

"Exactly," whispered a voice in the darkness, a screech like glass on

cobblestone. Everybody jumped, and Kayleen softly muttered into the tack, "No

... it cannot be. You are dead." realization hitting her as all pieces of the

puzzle fell into place. The elusive deer leading her away from the others, the

warriors whose colors she could not recognize, and the hideout under the ruins

of the accursed castle: she should have known better. The ambush had been

prepared to take her, alive, before Zhorun.

While Kayleen's mind realized the truth, the leader had recovered and barked

to his men, "Very well, bring her forth ..." as he wanted to make a good

impression when delivering the Warrior Queen before his Master. His last word

sputtered in blood as Kayleen's sudden head butt hit him full force under the

chin, sending him sprawling on the floor before turning in a determined rush

for the corridor. But even the mighty Warrior Queen could not defeat a dozen

warriors while in chains, so she never got there, although subduing her proved

taxing for the warriors being humiliated before their Master.

"I see our Queen does not wish to be our guest," said the screeching voice as

its bearer drew nearer, yet somehow distant, as if coming from dark depths

beyond the word light by the sun. "It's a pity. We've prepared her stay for

months, even since our last encounter."

As the voice entered the range of the torches, the warriors holding them

almost let them fall, as the small caped possessor of the voice was a vision

from Hell, a walking corpse smelling of rot and decay barely held together by

heavy black robes torn open at the left shoulder, where a ghastly sword wound

almost reached to the midsection.

"Your smell did not improve ..." spat the struggling woman, which was being

held by three warriors while the leader was still unable to get up, but her

voice trailed off losing the remaining of the stinging comment because

Zhorun's condition became obvious to her as much as to his henchmen, as those

men inured to the worst crimes caught themselves muttering prayers from their

lost childhoods.

"I should thank you and your ministrations for that, o gracious Queen." said

the voice coming from the empty space between a worm infested nose and a limp

jaw bone, in a visage from the grave where two reddish points of light shone

at the bottom of empty eye sockets. His rotting hand, which had been clutching

a staff, extended towards her slowly and the voice said, "Yet, more pressing

matters require your and my attention before I can show the full extent of my

gratitude for that. Remove the tack and bring her along."

With that, he turned and started slowly limping into the darkness of the hall,

but the warriors holding Kayleen hesitated until the leader materially pushed

them forward, just as the robed corpse was leaving the torchlight area. After a

while he spoke again, "You carried yourselves well, today. They haven't even

started to search for her yet. When they will, they'll find tracks aplenty ...

leading all over the kingdom. If, as loyal subjects are wont to do, they'll

leave none untried, your warriors will end up spread very thin. Too thin to

resist my forces, I wager."

As Kayleen drew her breath, about to reply that the few followers he could

still muster would be no match for her warriors, the robed figure started down

yet another flight of stairs, and the leader ordered, "Lift her and carry her

down. No tricks on those stairs." much to the chagrin of the woman who had

been planning exactly that. The voice spoke again, "Yes, the might of our

Warrior Queen is indeed renowned. A shining example on the battlefield ...

unless she's missing." at which one of the warriors coming down mumbled, "It

was not just her. It was also that redhead bitch, the sorceress."

The memories of that day fluttered in Kayleen's mind for a moment, the day

when the people rose against the tyrant and his henchmen, but her attention

was almost fully devoted to her predicament, as this area was unmistakably a

prison, with dark cells and, as she realized when her heart missed a beat upon

entering, a torture chamber.  

The chamber was a large, vaulted hall divided in sections by thick pillars and

lit by torches and braziers large and small. Three occupants had been

obviously waiting for their arrival and drew nearer: a burly man of pale

complexion wearing a leather apron, a wry Easterner with slanted eyes and thin

dropping mustache and an olive skinned, fat old man wearing a large collection

of shiny jewelry. The withered hand rose to encompass them in a mocking

introduction, "My Queen, let me introduce you to the advisers I carefully

selected for the matter to be soon addressed between you and me. On your left

is Hadhar, from a secluded oasis in the Southern Desert, from which he brought

many of his specialties. The other here is Chang, from the Far East, a guest

of highly refined tastes and exquisite finesse. And of course there is Grod,

who has been in my service long enough that his name should be well known to

you already."

The cold fingers of fear crawled up Kayleen's spine, as the loathed name of

Grod was indeed known by its sinister fame to her, and the other two were

probably the same or worse. One of the warriors behind her commented to a

comrade, "It's going to be hell for the bitch now!" and her heart sank as she

contemplated the gruesome fate which her prowess could not avoid. Of course,

Zhorun was bent on taking a slow and painful revenge on her and had concocted

this elaborate plan to satiate his hatred.

"Indeed," chuckled the voice, while the old man grinned and Grod wandered off

in the chamber, "But there is a matter is of more pressing concern. While

during our last encounter it was your sword that presented me this gift I

still bear, and our valiant warrior correctly reminded us of how troublesome

Shandra the Sorceress proved, I am now informed that there was a third meddler

involved, one Lyreen, a devoted Priestess."

"He knows of Lyral," raced Kayleen's mind, "although he got the name wrong, at

least." This was something the Warrior Queen had not anticipated, because the

role of young, devoted Lyral had indeed been instrumental in Zhorun's defeat,

but mostly because her powers of healing had allowed Kayleen instant respite

from her wounds after each fight. Unlike herself and Shandra, although the

latter only so far as her magic would last, Lyral would not be able to put up

much of a fight. There had to be something about Lyral and her powers which

was of utmost importance to Zhorun.

The walking corpse staggered nearer, his foul stench now unmistakable as if

aroused, and spoke in her face, "I want the Priestess. She lives at a shrine,

I am positive, and you must give the exact location to me, so that she can be

brought in my power." The prospect of vulnerable, innocent Lyral in the hands

of the Necromancer would have been enough to draw her sword even before, when

she was but a wandering warrior. The Priestesses were rather secretive,

however, so he would be hard pressed to locate her with only the wrong name

to go by. So loathsome was the creature before her that her fears turned into

resolution on the spot and she sneered "Go find her yourself, wretch."

"I did not expect you to cooperate, of course. Grod, you may proceed." hissed

the robed figure, taking a few steps back. Grod spoke for the first time, with

a low, raucous voice which startled Kayleen, addressing the assembled warriors

and not the leader, "Bring her here. Her restraints need some work." This did

not fare well with the latter, who had took care of restraining the captive to

his liking after her first attempt, so he felt like scoring a point and

smirked "Be careful with her. She's a wildcat."

When she was dragged to where Grod stood, the Warrior Queen noticed that Grod

did not want to take chances with her: hanging from a beam overhead he had

lowered a solid hemp rope, which despite her struggles he adeptly arranged

around her neck, looping it tightly three or four times and then pulling it up

until she was forced to stand on the tips of her boots. He then positioned

himself before her and waited.

The attitude of the assembled warriors, meanwhile, was changing. She was no

longer a dangerous opponent, or a valuable captive; her stares now longed on

her body, which the restraints and the hunting outfit did not conceal fully.

Her panting and small, halting steps were turning her into an object of lust.

She had only one man in her life, her would-be husband whose grisly death at

the hands of Zhorun's henchmen set things in motion many months ago, but she

was no stranger to lustful stares; now, however, she was not in the position

to choose.

As her eyes wandered on the leering warriors, Grod suddenly hit her hard in

her stomach. Her reflexes allowed her to harden her muscles and even roll with

the blow somewhat, but Grod was a strong man and her position severely

restricted her air supply, so she gurgled and would have doubled over had she

not been restrained. Grod kneeled and started removing her leg irons and the

soft hunting boots, replacing them with heavy, tight ankle cuffs which he then

connected together with a short chain, while his captive struggled to catch

her breath as each leg was lifted in turn, leaving her gasping for air.

Satisfied with his work, Grod rose and circled behind the struggling Warrior

Queen, who was now discovering that the soft boots had been the only thing

allowing her to reach the floor and was trying to extend her long, slender legs

to gain that half inch which made the difference between breathing and

choking. Thus, she was no obstacle as Grod removed the restraints tying her

arms behind her back and placed another pair of cuffs on her wrists, pulling

her arms up above her head. "She's turning blue." commented the leader.

Grod knew his stuff, however, so he stood and waited, removing the rope from

the neck only when it suited him. Onlookers were then treated to the sight of

the strong, athletic figure of Kayleen hanging barefooted by her wrists,

panting heavily as she recovered her breath. The robed figure mocked, "A sight

to behold, Grod. Aren't you going to reveal more of the delectable charms she

is endowed with to our faithful followers ?"

"I am, Master. In a short time." rumbled the large man. As Kayleen's sight

cleared, she saw Grod pick up a long, heavy bullwhip, weighting it for a while

before cracking it twice to test it. The first crack startled her, but at the

second the Warrior Queen closed her eyes and sighed within, "It begins now.

I will not falter. These wretches will not get anything from me."

Chapter 2 - The Matter at Hand

Hanging by her wrists, the Warrior Queen awaited her fate. She still wore hen

hunting outfit, although torn here and there during her capture, but her bare

feet dangled above the floor. She had closed her eyes, waiting for the whip,

but when the crack came nothing happened. As she opened her eyes in surprise,

she took in his wicked grin no sooner than the heavy whip found its mark on

her left thigh, slashing her breeches. She stifled a scream which was as much

of pain as of enraged surprise, as her legs pulled up in reflex. She was no

stranger to pain, she had been wounded in combat before, but now her sword

could exact no retribution, and no opponent would be defeated.

The grin on Grod's face subsided, as his little game was met with only partial

success. He had not taken well to the two newcomers in his dungeon, as if he

were not up to the task, so he was determined to break her. Since she was no

ordinary woman, he had chosen not to strip her to follow up with a light

whipping for warming her up to the benefit of the others. His first strike

with the heavy, long whip had torn a wide gash in her breeches, but the welt

on the shapely thigh was not bleeding. Her hunting outfit would stem some of

the bite of the heavy bullwhip. At first.

Another three strikes, in quick succession, landed on Kayleen's back. She kind

of screamed, a halting, spiteful scream. The next strike landed on her right

calf, on bare skin, drawing blood as she hissed. Grod hit her again a few

times, pausing in between, then circled around and landed the next blow on her

taut stomach, followed immediately by another at the front of her thigh and by

a third which landed on her left breast. She cried for real this time, and the

onlookers salivated at the sight of the voluptuous body writhing under the

whip, whose lashes were shredding her outfit to tatters.

This Warrior Queen showed all signs of being proud and stubborn, not likely to

yield so easily. He pressed on, lashing her nice legs again and then moving to

the arms stretched above her head, which proved a difficult target as the whip

would wrap around instead of slicing the fabric open. Changing his mind, he

targeted with a smile first one and then the other tempting breast, and was

rewarded when the shirt revealed a nipple as she cried behind clenched teeth.

With each lash, Kayleen felt her resolve waning. She could not dodge the whip,

she could not fight back, all she could do was writhe and scream. Grod did not

strike at regular intervals, but paused often to let the pain sink in before

renewing it. Just as she thought that, he launched a barrage of strikes in

rapid succession, raining one after another all over her body as she gasped in

pain. Her outfit now shredded, the Warrior Queen hung before her nemesis and

his cohorts, who now ogled the magnificent body revealed by the lash.

The whip slashed again at her leg, drawing all eyes to the slender, athletic

limbs rising up as a moan left Kayleen's throat, followed by another higher in

pitch as the strong leather licked her exposed buttocks, where only tatters of

her breeches remained. The eyes stayed on her full, muscular buns contracting

under yet another painful sting of the vicious bullwhip, only to follow it as

it bit her side and immediately thereafter her caved stomach, as she turned

around under the force of the blow. The lashes climbed up her athletic body,

now mostly naked, up to her clenching fists, and then moved down again trough

her stretched, long arms, where the muscles flexed on each blow, to the round,

proud breasts now undergoing another barrage of strikes among her drawn out,

muffled shrieks, and finally to the front of thighs again.

After another strike which removed the last tatter of leather from her left

tit, Grod let one of his pauses draw out and finally put the whip aside,

moving to the chains stringing the Warrior Queen up. She was lowered to the

floor, gulping and battered but still attempting to disguise her relief as

her chafing wrists found some respite. A bucket of cold water was dumped on

her limp body, followed by another, and she took long, avid draughts from a

jug brought to her mouth.

Her respite lasted just long enough to let her believe that it was over, then

the wretched shell of a wizard came along and asked, "Is there anything you

wish to share with us, now?" followed by a gleeful "I thought so," as his

inquiry met only silence.

Grod bound her wrists behind her back and then pulled her up by her ankles,

suspending her upside down. "No, not again!" she muttered, catching herself

just before letting it out aloud for the enjoyment of those sick bastards.

The sick bastards, meanwhile, were enjoying the sight of her luscious body in

inverted suspension. Kayleen was a tall, athletic blonde whose fair skin, in

spite of a healthy life in the open air, had tanned only slightly, just enough

to show what modesty had kept from the sun. Most of her body, except for the

arms, bore only tatters of her hunting outfit and was crisscrossed by welts,

some bleeding; removing the rest would have taken but a swat of the hand, but

Grod had other plans. Her position exposed, among other places, the soft

underside of her firm breasts, and Grod made a point to himself to remove the

shreds of her shirt still clinging there, striking first one and then the

other as her head bent backward in a silent cry of anguish.

The whip uncoiled with a crack and bit her left arm, bound behind her, and

then found its mark on the right arm, targeting the remains of the sleeves.

But soon the tip returned to other parts, more tender, such as the crease

between her buttocks and the soft flesh between bun and thigh. Strike after

strike, Grod attempted to extort from her a real scream, but only managed to

obtain muffled cries, hisses and gasps. This bothered him, and his blows

became more vicious, with longer pauses to let the pain linger before renewing

it in a different position. Nobody was keeping count, but the blows rained on

the writhing Warrior Queen slowly and deliberately, one after another, causing

her to twist and bend at the waist, shaking her head in anguish. Her tits were

now marked by a number of bleeding slashes, her nipples on fire, and no trace

of cloth remained on the martyrized undersides.

Screaming and vainly fighting tears, Kayleen clung to her dedication as the

urge to give up first entered her mind. Grod was targeting her thighs now,

where some remnants of her breeches still clung. She almost blanked when the

whip bit behind the knee, and again when it lashed below her belly, near her

private parts, Her eyes met those of her tormentor, and she knew what fear he

had read in hers, because the hellish whip landed between her legs, causing

her to scream aloud for the first time. "We hear her sing, at last. It took

entirely too much time!" said the Southerner derisively.

If Grod heard the remark, he reacted by landing another and yet another blow

on the insides of her thighs. He wanted her to collapse, now. He aimed two

quick blows at her nipples before putting all his strength in a blow at the

remnants of cloth covering her sex, a difficult strike since she was

desperately clenching her thighs. His efforts were rewarded by another shriek,

but the next only resulted in a gasp and the next after that in a wailing moan.

After a few more lashes at her calves, he dropped the whip and lowered his

victim, her body glistening with perspiration, only to immediately drag her

away, followed by the assembled onlookers. He placed her supple body on a

narrow bench, face down, tying her wrists on one end and her ankles to

another, pulling the chains taut and tightening iron rings at her knees and

waist. Her full breasts, dangling on each side of the bench, were bound at the

base with a thin cord, causing them to bulge out. Her body shriveled as she

was again doused with icy water. He half expected the woman to beg him to

stop, and Kayleen for a moment was about to do so, but then she sighed and

lowered her face between her outstretched arms.

Grinning, Grod lashed the exposed soles of her feet, hitting both with a

single strike and then following on with four more strikes, one after another,

her head rising again in a mute scream. Just a short pause, and then the lash

kissed her buttocks, once, twice. His next strike lingered as he aimed it with

care, landing the tip on her anus and wrenching a shrill cry of despair from

her lips.  He timed the subsequent strikes to her soles carefully, and then

moved to the back of her thighs, with ample pauses and putting less strength

on each blow as the skin was already torn and bleeding.

Kayleen lay on the bench, no longer a Warrior Queen, just a pain wracked

bundle of flesh and sinews. Her mind flashed with the image of young Lyral

on that same bench, screaming, but then she realized these were her own

screams, as Grod had targeted her delectable left tit, and then followed on by

wrapping the whip around her body to land the tip on the right one. Satisfied

by the results, he aimed more blows at the dangling globes, the whole body of

his victim writhing in vain to move off the path of the lash.

After a few more lashes on her back, the burly executioner dropped the whip

again and inspected his victim. She was panting heavily, soaked in

perspiration and her body was crisscrossed by welts and bleeding stripes, but

she was strong and could withstand more. She was untied from the bench and

dragged to a sloping ladder, where she was tied feet over head, spreadeagled

over the rungs and chained at the waist. As she came to, the first thing she

saw was the wicked grin on Grod's face as he uncoiled the whip and let his

glare linger on her vulva, which clenched thighs could no longer shield.

She wished she had Lyral's faith, for only faith could allow her to withstand

was about to come, but her efforts to remember a prayer, any prayer, were cut

short by a savage blow to her left breast, followed by an oblique strike to

her mound. She cried once, at the top of her lungs. Another strike landed on

there, sending wisps of blonde hair fluttering about. After a pause, the tip

licked at her labia, as she shook her head in anguish, biting her lips

savagely, and the next tore the folds of skin where they joined. Her cry this

time was loud enough for everyone, and lasted into the subsequent pause as he

drew near, removed the chain from her waist and doused her with cold water.

Walking away, he let her follow his stare to her nipples, hardening in spite

of the horror coming on her face, and turned and landed a vicious strike on

the right nipple, then waited for her wailing to stop before aiming at the

other. Her waist now free, her desperate attempt to writhe away from the lash

resulted in a number of strikes landing off mark, until Grod started playing

games with her and letting blows crack within a hair of their target, only to

be followed by the real strike as she relaxed.

Pain was plain on her face, and Grod thought she could be broken now. He

targeted his next strike to slash her labia, once, then twice, and then

paused, hoping to catch her eyes and show her where the next would land. She

trashed her head on the ladder, however, so he cracked at the empty air and

then aimed his strike at her love bud and let his ears confirm that he had

found his mark. He paused before striking there again, to let the pain sink

in, and then lashed her sculpted breasts a few times, in quick succession.

Kaylee on the ladder was in agony. No wound had ever been so painful, so

humiliating, no blow had been so unrelenting, nothing had ever hurt her soft

femininity inside her warrior shell. "Heaven, make them stop. Please, make

them stop!" she cried to herself, before shrieking at the top of her lungs as

Grod hit her clitoris yet again. And again. And save for a few strikes at her

breasts, he landed lash after lash in that exact place, until she fainted.

She came to under the sting of cold water again, and as her sight cleared her

eyes found Grod among the onlookers. She had a taste of honey in the mouth,

but she was in stocks, her ankles pulled up at face height and cuffed to a

post, tightly enough to force the leg horizontal, and her wrists cuffed half a

foot above. Since her backside was off the floor by a foot or more, all her

weight hung on her sore wrists and ankles, forcing her to stretch her arms and

bend her knees for some relief. On her side was the small Easterner, and upon

a gesture from him, Grod spoke mockingly "Welcome back, o gracious Queen. Our

friend Chang is not very comfortable with our tongue, but I guess he wants to

ask you if you feel like talking before he proceeds."

Her whole body throbbed in pain, and fear gripped her mind, but she found the

strength to keep silent somewhere between those words, "Warrior Queen". Chang

pulled, from a collection of ornate boxes, a thin, clear cord and started

tying it around her left thumb. The cord went through a small bronze handle,

whose function Chang soon revealed as he he twisted it between thumb and

forefinger to tighten the cord, at which point Kayleen discovered that the

cord had evenly spaced knots that dug painfully in the flesh. The pain was

mild at first, hardly comparable to the whip, but as circulation was

constricted she started to moan, at which point the man tightened it again,

until she hissed, and then dragged the cord forcefully around the full

circumference of her thumb, letting it slide in the furrow dug as it tightened

into the flesh and drawing a shriek of pain from her sore throat.

The man produced another cord, and repeated the procedure on her left

forefinger. She was gasping with pain, and she cried in anguish as he started

placing a third cord on her middle finger. He had not bothered to remove the

others, so even when he did not exert force, pain wracked her fingers as the

knots bit relentlessly her flesh.

After tightening yet another cord on her ring finger, he raised his hands,

first extending ten fingers and then folding four; six more to go. Defied by

her silence, he finished with her left pinky, moved to her right hand, and

after a brief respite her cries resonated in the hall again.

Time passed, with the pain in her constricted fingers increasing instead of

subsiding, but at last Chang moved to her left hand and twisted her thumb cord

backwards, at which Kayleen screamed again as the blood found its way again in

the now purplish flesh. As before, he did the same to each finger in turn, but

at the pinky he stopped and stared into her expecting eyes before reaching for

the thumb cord and tightening it again, wrenching a shrill "Noooo" from her

hoarse throat which rose into a screech as he pulled on it again.

After repeating this procedure a few times, he finally freed her fingers for

real, produced more cords, and grabbed her left foot. Horrified, she tried to

pull and twist her leg to escape his hand, but to no avail. She could not hold

a screech at his first pull, nor at each subsequent pull, as if the toes were

more susceptible to this torture. Her tormentor, on the other hand, proceeded

to alternate between left and right foot, as if to let the other recover.

Once more he tightened each cord around the respective toe, but this time he

took care to align all handles just the same, and then tied each to a cord

looped around the toe and affixed to a single hand sized handle, which he

grabbed. As fear silenced Kayleen's anguished sobbing, he pulled on the

handle, causing all cords at the same time to slide almost full circle in the

furrow dug around the base of each toe, the knots dragging over the

constricted flesh. Droplets of blood spilled on the floor, and the Warrior

Queen wailed yet again as pain rose from her foot through her writhing body.

Chang did the same on her right foot, and then moved to the left again,

reversing the sense of rotation to grind into already damaged tissue. Kayleen

screamed at each pull, shaking in pain under the thin man's attentions while

the other two gaped at her suffering body bending and twisting in pain, her

glistening breasts heaving and panting and her blonde mane shaking.

After yet another pull, in fact, Chang started freeing her toes from the

dreadful cord, and subsequently freed her from the stocks. She lay on the

floor for a moment of respite, bringing her fingers to her mouth as if to ease

the pain. The woman looked too tall for the wry Easterner to handle, but he

grabbed her hair and dragged her to a decorated bench, where she was chained

face up, arms over her head, her fabulous body taut.

With practiced swiftness, the Easterner looped a thick hemp rope around her

slender waist, constricting it and pushing the knots along its length into her

wounded flesh, drawing a hiss from behind her lips which turned into a moan as

he started to tighten the rope twisting its handle. Another two coils of rope

were similarly wrapped around her ribcage, one just above and one just below

her sculpted breasts, painfully marked by the whip but still proud and firm.

More rope was looped and tightened around her legs, thighs and arms, digging

in her limbs as the Easterner looped it across the coil in order to tighten

it fully before twisting the handles and sending the knots into her. The

ropes around her ribcage and waist constricted her breathing, lending to her

stifled cries a tone of anguish as she gasped for air.

After more tightening, her silent tormentor rose, grabbed the handle of the

rope clinching her waist, put a boot in her stomach and pulled with all his

strength, dragging the rough rope three quarters of a circle around her waist

and digging an agonizing trail of chafed skin in her once perfect midsection.

Unable to scream at the top of her lungs, she choked as pain deluged her.

Her only respite soon became the time it took the wry Easterner to circle

around the bench as he alternated the left and right side, and the ropes

started getting red with blood. Her body attempted to escape the pain, but as

her muscles contracted and flexed in vain, seared by the ropes constricting

her arms and legs and stabbed by knots digging in her flesh, she could not

help herself as her aching limbs started burning with pain of her own making.

Devious as it was, this torture in the eyes of the old man from the Southern

Desert lacked visual appeal, so he commented "You could do us a favor and put

up some kind of show for our benefit, you know". In spite of her pain, Kayleen

noticed a cold sideways glance on her tormentor's face at this comment, but no

good came to her from this as he stopped her trashing, produced two loops

of knotted silken cords and tied them around her nipples.

Her heart sank as she fought for breath, envisioning yet another assault on

her femininity, which had never been specifically targeted before all this.

The cords were tied to a chain, distorting her firm breasts into cones of taut

flesh which he then proceeded to bind with a single knotted cord drawn behind

her neck, reaching to her left breast, and circling it in a counterclockwise

spiral, down to her muscular chest where it snug under her bondage, while the

other extremity was similarly wrapped around her right breast.

The thin man pulled viciously on the left handle of the cord, savagely

tightening the spiral around her left tit, the knots digging gashes as they

chafed skin, and she gasped and choked under the assault on her mauled breast.

He made a short pause before letting go, then braced placing a boot on her

muscular chest and pulled again, wrenching another strangled scream, before

circling the bench to similarly shear her right breast. After a number of

pulls, he paused to add more cords to her bondage, in order to prevent the

ropes from dislodging as he pulled repeatedly at them, and pulled up her bound

nipples some more, to make the spirals wrap around her breasts just right

before the next of many round of pulls and cries which were to follow.

When the ropes binding her were finally unwound, causing gasps of pain as

blood rushed back into the offended limbs and large swaths of skin chafed to

bleeding were revealed on Kayleen's still beautiful body, she was doused in

cold water on the floor and made to drink the same stuff again. Any trace of

good intent she could find in her tormentor's ministrations, however,

shriveled as her legs were doubled over and chained ankle to thigh, her arms

cuffed behind her back in a reversed prayer position which strained her

shoulders but pushed out her chafed breasts to the delight of the onlookers

and she was hung by her splayed knees, the head two feet off the floor.

The Easterner produced a thin, bristling rope whose knots looked like lumps

of boar hair, proceeded to wrap it around the base of each breast, and then

coiled more ropes across her chest, flattening her tits onto her sculpted

ribs. Twisting the handles at the end of the each rope, he would tighten the

one at the base of her globes, making them bulge, and then the one flattening

them against her chest, basking in her anguished wails and strangled gasps.

Unlike on the bench, Kayleen's pain found no respite when her tormentor busied

himself otherwise, as her position forced her to lift her constricted chest to

breathe, and relative freedom of movement made her trash in her bonds, chafing

her pain wracked orbs against the knots biting her flesh. The silent Easterner

produced more ropes, which he bound around her waist and at the base of each

thigh, and then another bristling cord which he wound over her shoulders,

under her breast bondage in spite of her cries, and then through her crotch,

soon followed by a similarly arranged rope, the two squeezing her poor love

button outwards as they sunk savagely into her vulva.

He then pulled her nipples through her breast bondage as she writhed in pain,

looped more knotted cord around each, did the same to her outstretched bud

and then tied the three together, shortening the loop to force her to bend

her head up towards her belly to reduce the searing pain. He allowed her to

writhe in her new position for a while, until her aching back gave and her

head lowered, tightening the cords around her nipples and clitoris and jerking

her head back up with an anguished cry as she understood her predicament.

He wound two more bristling ropes across her crotch, rubbing her cunt lips

into the pair already searing her love bud, so Kayleen's writhing body would

find no respite, her aching back unable to keep her bent up to spare her

nipples and her ravaged love button the bite of the knots. As she oscillated

between one painful position and the other, her tormentor bid his time, while

the others savored the sight of the suffering Warrior Queen. He knew she would

pass out eventually, even hanging upside down, so he positioned himself behind

her back, and twisting its handle tightened her crotch rope, which pulled her

backwards and made her efforts to spare her feminine charms harder and harder.

When her crying and writhing started to weaken, he talked to her for the first

time, asking "You talk ?" as she once more failed to raise her head enough. In

spite of the maddening pain, however, the Warrior Queen's lips proffered no

word, so he moved behind her again and pulled the handle up with both hands,

which rushed the bristling crotch ropes through her labia and rubbed them

violently against her tender parts, the knots mauling her as she howled.

"You talk ?" he asked once more before pulling the ropes downward, reversing

their action and bringing renewed pain met by a scream of despair. No answer

was forthcoming, so he pulled up again, and then immediately down, and

repeated the questioning and pulling until she passed out after a seemingly

unending nightmare of gasping, forsaken screams.

When the acrid smell of salts brought her back, she found herself hanging

spread-eagled between two posts, her chafing wrists but one of the voices in

the concerto of pain which ravaged her body. Judging from the intent gaze of

the old Southerner, however, neither the welts on her strong arms, nor the

chafed skin on her muscular chest, the angry whip marks on her generous, firm

breasts, the stings peppering her sculpted abdomen, the gashes dug by the

knots between her thighs, nor the crisscrossing of red stripes on her slender

thighs and legs, nothing had diminished its beauty.

"Please, no more" she begged, but only to herself, since at some level she

knew that they were exactly after that. She had to find somewhere the will to

defy them, lest they gathered from her mouth the whereabouts of poor Lyral and

brought her to suffer the same horrors she was being subjected to. Or was

about to be subjected to, she reminded to herself as the swarthy old man

brought forth a large case containing leaves and branches, some fresh and some

dried, which he dug into only after putting on thick leather gloves.

With raptured eagerness, his hand brought a shrub draped in dark green leaves

against her calf, watching her gasp as the leaves stung fiercely and repeating

the application until tears filled her eyes. "They are called stinging nettles

for a reason, my dear." spoke the Southerner before drawing the shrub against

the back of her thigh, still enjoying her hisses and cries, which turned into

stifled screams when he grabbed the shrub with both hands and started sawing

back and forth at the soft flesh between her upper thighs and her ass cheeks.

He then kneeled and proceeded to wipe the sole of her left foot with the same

back and forth motion, her head shaking as the skin burned under the sting and

the welts from Grod's bullwhipping made their presence painfully known again.

She had learned to avoid stinging nettles as a nuisance when she was but a

child, but now in the hands of the old man they had turned into yet another

instrument of torture. Her right foot was now trashing under their sting, and

then the assault moved to her legs, as what little resolve she had mustered in

her brief respite waned, and her attempts to preserve some dignity instead of

crying at the top of her lungs declined one cry at a time.

He moved behind her back and mocked "Now it gets better!" and draped a

bundle of shrub across her taut stomach, her fears coming true when he started

sawing it back and forth, but also up and down, as she writhed and cried

attempting to twist herself away from the burning embrace of the stinging

nettles. Her twisting turned to frantic buckling as his hands rose and the

bundle was draped across her chest, the leaves brushing her sculpted breasts

and rekindling the pain of all the abuses they had been subjected to so far.

Maybe the Warrior Queen could have understood that it was her own trashing

that ground the leaves into her ample bosom, but Kayleen had nothing on her

mind but the fire on her ravaged skin and the occasional burst of agony as her

nipples brushed against the hellish leaves. She was given some respite, as her

tormentor circled her and fetched fresh shrubs, but soon pain returned as her

buttocks were treated to the burning kiss of the nettles and soared when he

moved his attentions to the inside of her thighs, alternating left and right

and bringing the shrubs inch by inch nearer to her crotch.

With a glee, the old man draped a single leaf over her vulva, and kept rubbing

until her gasps turned to shrieks, then opened her lips and slid a small shrub

in between, dragging it back and forth leisurely. Her hoarse screams aroused

the old man, who kneeled and forcefully inserted two entire shrubs between her

parted lips, drawing them back and forth as pain shot up her body sending

her cries to lose themselves in the vaults of the chamber.

When she was lowered to the floor, Kayleen was but a whimpering girl in her

twenties, curled in a ball and vainly attempting to soothe her feminine parts

with her hands, a sight bound to inspire mercy in all but her tormentor. She

was dragged to a post to be tied again, her arms bent over the top beam,

cuffed at the elbows with her wrists behind her neck, her legs doubled under

her thighs and painfully bent outwards and up to cuff the ankles wide at the

low beam, her midsection pushed forward by a wooden wedge against her kidneys,

a position which put her weight on her shoulder and thigh joints.

The dusky old man then busied himself with a bristling collection of brushes,

rollers and hand scrubs, and following her gaze said "Looking for nettles, my

pretty ? We have nettles here." showing her a roller draped with the green

leaves, although interspersed with tiny thorns. He applied the roller to the

sole of her left foot, lightly at first, and then more forcefully, turning her

gasps into stifled cries again. The Warrior Queen could still manage the

strength to keep the whereabouts of Lyral from her tormentors, but her pride

had withered under the ordeal she was being subjected to.

The Southerner had a variety of rollers, from two hands wide to the equivalent

of just two fingers across, and switched from one to the other as he ravaged

her body prickling the smarting skin and paying special attention to the

objects of his ongoing arousal. He used a doughnut shaped roller in the crease

under her buttocks, dragging it back and forth under her as she shrieked at

the assault on skin which had been somewhat spared so far. Nor could she

stifle her screams as he moved to her abused breasts, one roller in each hand,

the thorns prickling at the smarting skin as he pushed the rollers into her

firm globes time and again.

Although her arms were not spared, it was against her legs and thighs that her

tormentor concentrated his attentions, turning them an angry red as he

repeatedly rubbed them with the hellish rollers. "Anything to say, before the

real treat begins ?" asked the leering old man, not even awaiting her answer

before rubbing her private parts once with one roller, then with other, each

time drawing a howl of pain which turned into a gasping screech as he fetched

a smaller roller and rubbed it viciously into her ravaged slit.

Kayleen was about to pass out again, desperately seeking some respite, but the

old man thought she could be broken now and so decided against a pause. He

fetched another instrument of pain, a hand scrub fashioned after a cupped

glove and bristling with stitched leaves. "If you sang so well for a stinging

brush, you'll sing like a nightingale for the stinging tree which begat

these." he said, bringing the scrub against her left breast and brushing it

vigorously, as if to clean it. She heaved, screamed and bucked, the ache in

her kidneys all but forgotten as her left tit was overwhelmed by pain. Her

tormentor pressed on, moving to her right tit and then alternating between

them, but soon her cries waned into moans and she was untied from the post.

To prevent her from fainting, she was suspended by her left ankle, the right

ankle tied to her left wrist and the left wrist behind her neck to a collar,

bending her back and exposing her sore, but still appealing, breasts and her

vulva to whatever he had in store for her. "We were almost done, my pretty,

but now we'll have to start over again." purred the Southerner, his words

betraying his irritation. True to his words, he picked up his rollers again

and rubbed them forcefully against her thighs, her buttocks and her taut

abdomen, renewing her pain as her skin suffered the kiss of the nettles again,

but soon he targeted the tempting undersides of her full breasts and the

inside of her slit, bringing a narrow roller against her love button with

eager viciousness as she screamed in despair.

As he put the rollers aside, dread filled Kayleen's eyes as her agonized tits

reminded her of the hand scrub, but worse was to come as he picked up a

different implement, a brush not unlike those used to clean bottles, except

for the menacing size and the stiff boar bristles circling its length. He had

seen her fear, and asked "Now, girl, want to tell us something ?" taking the

time to make abundantly clear where the brush would be inserted otherwise.

Despair and fear numbed Kayleen's mind, the thought of being violated by the

hideous implement of punishment most fearful of all, yet she still clinged to

some of her former self, enough to know that she did not want to surrender her

friend's whereabouts to these monsters. She attempted to steel her resolve,

gritting her teeth, but when her tormentor drove the brush down into her ass

a strangled scream escaped nonetheless, followed by more as he twisted and

dragged the brush as if actually cleaning something.

The brush was extracted, the bristles chafing at the rosette of her anus on

their way out but not bloodied, and then inserted again, and the old man did

his worst to break her using the hellish brush, adding nettle leaves which the

brush ground into her innards as she howled and cried pitifully. The brush was

then discarded for a larger one, which she eyed in horror as her mouth wanted

to beg, but only silence could be heard until her anguished cry broke it as he

forcefully inserted the brush down her slit, the stiff bristles rasping

against her womb, and then twisted it left and right, at length, before

extracting it with deliberate, excruciating slowness.

He pushed the brush down her love channel again, and then two more times,

adding nettle leaves to increase her pain, and finally stuffed her canal with

nettle leaves before driving it down one last time, the unyielding bristles

pushing the leaves into her as she cried out her misery. His hands now free,

he wrapped a stinging tree leaf around her left nipple and started rubbing it

with a straight brush, its short, stiff bristles grinding the thousands of

invisible needles covering the leaf into her abused flesh.

Her screams now resonated in the chamber, her resolve broken by the protracted

ordeal, and as her tormentor moved to the right nipple, the shell of the

former wizards known as Zhorun closed in, to savor her degradation and enjoy

her defeat. "Now tell us of the Priestess!" he hissed. If anyone else had

asked, she might have, just to stop the pain before the robed Southerner

targeted her poor love bud, but the Warrior Queen found the strength to spit

on the walking corpse's rotting visage before her mouth opened in a scream

when her tormentor started scrubbing a stinging tree leaf into her clitoris.

With the intent of breaking her before Zhorun, the swarthy Southerner insisted

with his scrubbing, her cries rising hoarse as he replaced the leaf with a

fresh one or twisted the brush in her womb. He replaced the leaf twice, each

time scrubbing her into maddening pain, then grabbed the brush and pulled it

half the way out before driving it back in, twisting it left and right.

"Now you talk" he added, his nervous tone betraying his dismay at her

stubbornness. With his thumb, he pulled out her love button, while his other

hand fetched shards of stinging tree leaves and stuffed them around her love

bud and under the hood, so when he released it they stuck in the fold and

seared her feminine flesh while she howled and screamed, unable to find

respite from the pain. Her torture continued uninterrupted, her voice rising

to heart rending screeches when her tormentor rubbed a hand scrub over her

breasts or twisted the brush in her slit, until her voice lost strength and

waned to a gasping, exhausted wail.

Chapter 3 - Of Things Past

In the darkness below the ruins of Zhorun's castle, Kayleen hung by her wrists,

her chained feet dangling a foot over the floor. The ache in her arms, bearing

the full weight of her bruised yet shapely body, kept increasing alongside the

fiery pain in her torn wrists, and the iron band clenched at her waist made

her breathe in short, halted gasps and added its weight to her misery.

As anguish and hopelessness hung over her, something stirred in her mind. A

distant feeling, a warm presence she instantly recognized; Lyral was attempting

to extend her consciousness to touch hers. She had used the same power in the

past, to let Kayleen home on her quickly; this was of no use to her now, but it

brought a rush of hope, and waved the curtains of despair away as the Warrior

Queen rose her head again.

If Lyral was attempting to call her, the search was underway. They would find

traces or her capture, come to her rescue, and thwart Zhorun's plans. He had

hinted at "forces" at his disposal, but an army could not be hidden, so these

forces had to be of magical nature, and Zhorun's insistence on finding Lyral

meant that he knew the Priestess had the power to oppose them, although Kayleen

was not versed enough in magic to tell how.

She had to buy time for her friends, which sent her keen tactical mind back

into full gear. First, as long as she could hold out, the situation would not

change for the worse. Second, they had not left here like this to recover, so

they probably meant to weaken her resolve through exhaustion and lack of sleep,

and she had to avoid that if she was to hold out for some time. She also had to

think about what would come next; for example, she had to do something about

her wrists sooner rather than later, if she wanted to wield a sword ever again.

Her hands grabbed the chains above her wrist cuffs, easing the pull on her

bleeding wrists, a stopgap measure which nonetheless brought a relief which

almost made her cry. The hands would tire, of course. Her ankles were linked by

a short chain, so she could use her legs to some extent, but she saw no way to

remove the accursed waist band constricting her breathing. She could spin her

hanging body left and right, and using her legs she could spin it enough to

twist the chains she hung from onto each other. She then raised her long legs,

first to her chest and then above her head, her lungs burning and her heart

pounding as the waist band bit her muscles; she lost count of how many times

she had to give up, recover her breath and try again, but at last she managed

to pull herself up above her trembling arms, swivel her legs and rest on the

chains crossing below her.

Her position was precarious and uncomfortable, but at least her wrists were no

longer in pain, "Although I am now exhausted." she smiled to herself. She was

so tired that she actually managed a number of brief, fitful naps, always at

risk of losing the little balance she could muster, the throbbing pain from

the welts, bruises and chafed skin receding gradually.

Then she heard them coming; it was probably well past dawn, but she wished

they had stayed asleep. She lowered herself into suspension again, and closed

her eyes, as if to avert the ordeal to come. It was just Zhorun and the three

tormentors, this time.

The corpulent Southerner addressed her with mock joviality, "Good morning, o

Queen! Hope you had a nice night of rest, because we've got a full day ahead

of us. Unless you wish to tell us something, that is, but I really hope not."

Undeterred by her silence he brought her down, and she let herself collapse in

a heap, allowing him to drag her to the inclined ladder and tie her to it,

face up, her arms over the head and her feet a few inches off the floor.

To her disgust, the old fart had fondled her in earnest during all this, and

his member, bulging below his flowing robes, rubbed intently into her flesh

more than once. She shuddered when his hands grabbed her calves and then slid

up her thighs, his thumbs digging briefly into her sex, still smarting from

his former attentions before climbing up to her full, proud breasts and

sinking into the firm flesh. He turned to the robed figure and asked, "What

about bringing Her Haughtiness down one notch before proceeding, Master ?"

She clenched her teeth as cold gripped her stomach. For no sound reason, she

had thought she would be spared rape. The old man could have been three times

her age, and yet this. "By all means do, my esteemed guest," hissed the

limping figure, drawing closer. The swarthy man turned to her and gripped her

tits savagely, placing himself over her and then pulling up his flowing robes

to free his hardening member. As her gaze wandered away in despair, she

noticed Grod contemptuously muttering something to the Easterner, and a plan

started forming in her mind. Not one second too soon, as his throbbing manhood

entered her with unexpected force a split second later.

Kayleen had not been with a man since the death of his Walder, and still

longed for his strong yet tender embrace, but there was none of that in what

she was being subjected to, his rutting member trashing her insides in a

frenzy devoid of any love. She grit her teeth to quench any sound escaping

from her mouth, attempting to relax and ease the pain while the man panted,

grunted and pushed relentlessly. Imagination tricked her into hearing the

squirt inside her womb, making her almost retch, but she had managed to keep

herself immobile under his assault. It was now or never.

"Are you done already ?" she uttered, loud enough for all to hear, then added

"You must have wet yourself," as his disbelief turned into deep anger and a

red undertone grew under his swarthy visage. He slapped her hard, a backhanded

slap intended to draw blood; she expected more to follow, but he stopped in

mid gesture, composed himself and left, only to come back minutes later

pushing a trolley where a multitude of glass and ceramic jars lay scattered.

With a deft gesture, he selected a pair of tweezers, among many of differing

sizes, which once inserted inside a tiny jar produced an angrily buzzing,

yellow striped wasp, which he brought against the inner thigh of the bound

Warrior Queen. The angry insect stung her almost immediately, eliciting a brief

gasp. "She finds you irritating," snickered the aged man, and stuck the wasp

against her thigh again, and then again, a couple of times in quick succession.

Her gasps grew louder, but she could stand wasp stings.

The look in his eyes, however, told her that he knew that, and had more in

store. He replaced the wasp in its jar, only to produce a black, furry spider

about one inches across, musing "Maybe this one will like you better." After

savoring the fear in her eyes, he brought it against the soft flesh of her

underbelly. Her leg jerked as she cried at the stinging bite, and twitched as

the vicious pedipalps bit her again and again.

With a raptured expression, the old man dragged the angry spider down along

her leg, savoring each gasp and shriek, and then lingered under the left foot,

counting "One, two, three, ..." as each bite drew another scream. He then

picked up another spider, which bit her with unspent viciousness under the

right foot, and then his hands rose up her legs, slowly accompanied by her

hoarse cries as both spiders bit her mercilessly, nearing her crotch.

A cold fear gripped Kayleen at the thought of the spiders biting her down

there, and she bucked and twisted as his hands closed in, the bites landing in

her thighs, her plans now forgotten. But his hands reached there again, and

again she turned in her bonds to receive the assault anywhere but there. More

assaults followed, exhausting her to the point that she took a good while to

notice that he was no longer actually attempting to get her bitten, he was

just pretending to and enjoying the show.

With a gasping sigh, she let her taut muscles relax, praying between her lips

to gods whose beacon of hope brought no light there. "The show is not over,"

whispered the old Southerner, switching back to a wasp again. His skill with

the tweezers was amazing, and he seldom happened to squeeze one of his hand

picked specimens. She was almost relieved to see the spider go, but her relief

was short lived as he placed it behind one knee, and the soft flesh there

smarted under the sting. Replacing that wasp with a fresh pair, he snug one

under each foot, letting them take on their wrath on her soles as she tried to

stifle her cries.

The swarthy tormentor then procured another yellow striped wasp and brought it

against the tender flesh between her first and second toe, basking in her

surprised shriek and swiftly proceeding to repeat the operation between the

other toes in spite of her vain attempts to avoid his ministrations. After

declaiming "Not all feminine flesh was created equal," he brought a fresh

wasp against her left armpit, and then did the same on her right. Her attempts

at hiding her pain and fear were failing quickly; he was clearly targeting the

soft spots of the female body, and sting after sting reached the crease

between buttock and thigh, the ass cheeks, the navel, the flesh between the

fingers of each hand, the armpits and the lower belly.

Her fears came soon true as he brought a fresh wasp against the underside of

her right breast, wrenching a shriek from behind gritting teeth, and proceeded

to sting her proud mammary in tightening circles which betrayed his ultimate

target, trying to elicit from her a crescendo of screams as she writhed under

each sting in a vain attempt to escape the next. Another wasp was finally

let loose onto her nipple, but her screams were now hoarse and choked, as her

endurance was at the limit. Yet he proceeded to treat her other tit like the

first, each sting drawing less and less response, before suspending the

torment and freeing her from the ladder.

With help from Grod, the Southerner tied her ankle cuffs to chains winding

through pulleys which were then used to lift her off the floor, pulling her

basin up and splaying her legs wide, parallel to the floor, before cuffing her

elbows and her wrists together behind her and affixing both to a post hanging

from the ceiling, bending her in an arch which exposed her crotch and pushed

her full breasts forward and down.

She awakened while the old man was almost done rubbing a sort of jelly on the

wasp stings, but soon she shrieked in renewed pain as another yellow wasp was

brought against her labia, while his thumb started rubbing her love bud into a

more exposed position. This new position allowed her much less movement than

on the ladder, so the swarthy Southerner was able to place sting after sting

on her vulva, while she could only cry and shake her head. Her tormentor bid

his time, as she trembled in pain and fear, before delivering the dreaded

sting to her now throbbing clitoris, and paused intently before delivering the

next, and the others which followed among her anguished cries.

After finally returning his instrument to a jar, her tormentor uncovered with

a flourish a set of clear jugs, crawling with half-inch reddish ants. "Now we

introduce you to some new friends," he chuckled, drawing out one with a pair

of tweezers and letting her examine it up close before bringing it suddenly

against her nasal septum, which the mandibles promptly pinched as she gasped

in surprise and pain. The gasp turned into a shriek as the ant bent upwards to

sting her, just above the upper lip.

The swarthy man waited until the ant stung her again, then procured another

ant and let her mandibles sink into her left breast, followed by another on

her right breast, awaiting the unavoidable shriek before placing yet another

in her navel. The ants were clinching their mandibles tight on her flesh and

twisting them as they bent to sting, a sharp pain but no equal to the jolt

delivered each time they stung at random around the place they clung to. As

she hung there screaming, her tormentor clinched more ants to the front of her

thighs, her soles, her arms, her belly, one scream one ant, until she guessed

and stifled her cries in desperation, as if this could make him stop.

In spite of the dozens of ants hanging off her body, the Warrior Queen managed

to hold her wailing for a while, until her sensitive breast was stung again,

eliciting a strangled cry at which her tormentor promptly attached another ant

to her left nipple, already swollen from the wasp stings. Grinning as the

expected screech of agony allowed him to continue his game, he immediately

placed another on the right nipple. A howl of pain and despair left Kayleen's

mouth, but he bid is time until the next shriek, then hung one ant on each her

cunt lips, soon followed by one on the fold covering her love button.

Her cries of anguish turned into a screech of maddened pain as one of the ants

hanging off her vulva bent and stung her now exposed clitoris, and her

wailing turned to a howl as he hung yet another ant on the violated piece of

feminine flesh. She was now convulsing, which made the task of hanging two

more ants to her nipples considerably harder; her tormentor then leisurely

kneeled below her, to savor her body spasming in pain at each sting.

Finally, the old Southerner rose again and started pulling the ants off, each

one causing another screech as he turned and twisted to dislodge the fierce

jaws. He inspected with satisfaction the discolored spots where her body had

been assaulted by the yellow wasps, forming small turgid blisters which were

treated with more jelly. With help from Grod her slender body was lowered to

the floor and then suspended by her right ankle and left wrist, bending her

body backwards to tie the left ankle to her right wrist. A jug was brought to

her lips, the contents of which revived Kayleen from pain induced stupor

enough to let her eyes focus on the eight legged horror which the leering

Southerner held a few inches from her left breast.

Her mouth had just started forming a silent "No" when he brought it against

her tit, resulting in a convulsed twitch followed by a halted cry of anguish.

Spider bites were immediately and vastly more painful than wasp stings, whose

effect however mounted over time. "These were not done yet," he said turning

to the others, as he used one after another biting spider to savage her arms,

thighs and buttocks. He then paused, holding one near her panting chest until

she recognized it and attempted in vain to twist in mid air to get away.

Laughing softly, the robed executioner started chasing her as she turned and

twisted in mid air to avoid the twitching pedipalps, scoring a few bites on

her belly but reserving most for her panting breasts, in a dance of pain

punctuated by her desperate sobs and shrieks. As he moved his attentions to

her feminine parts, changing spiders again, she was allowed some pause between

each bite as her twists turned into twitches and her screams into gurgles, but

he spared her nothing, whispering "I am not done yet" whenever the spider bit

into her love bud and her world exploded in a howl of pain and despair.

As if even the malevolent deities which overlooked this place could feel

mercy, her suffering was finally suspended and the old man again treated her

wasp stings with the same cold jelly he had used before, which caused them to

soften and recede. At the back of her mind, she noticed that he was doing

nothing for the ant stings covering her battered body, but at the forefront

she was attempting to collect the tatters of her pride, dreading what was to

come as her morning resolve was now lost in a haze of pain and humiliation.

Apparently, her three tormentors had decided to take turns, because it was the

Easterner who stepped in and, with help from Grod, dragged her to a wooden

tank, where she was tied face down with iron bands at her waist and neck on a

wooden bench, while her ankles were cuffed to her wrists and her elbows were

also cuffed together, straining her shoulders. The Easterner tilted the bench,

and her head was plunged in the freezing cold water.

The cold actually revived her at first, clearing up her mind, but soon panic

overwhelmed her as her burning lungs screamed for air. When the bench was

tilted back, her gasping for fresh air turned into a shrill cry as the switch

wielded by the silent Easterner landed across her stung feet with a whistle.

The second stroke hit her under her toes, but the third gouged her right

breast in the pink areola just above the nipple, on a spider bite.

The imperturbable Easterner lambasted her tit again, hitting on an ant bite,

then as her chest rose in a vain attempt to stem his strikes switched to her

feet, leaving angry red stripes but drawing no blood. As the quick strikes

made her pant, the bench was tilted plunging her headlong into the tank again,

the impact with the cold water jarring enough to warrant a shriek which

bubbled in the water. She was kept under much longer, until lack of hair

caused her to trash in her bonds and gurgle, but when the bench was tilted

back and her mouth reached for air the switch landed on her feet, forcing her

to expel precious air in a cry instead of drawing it in, and then the bench

was tilted back immediately, her lungs unable to replenish her air supply.

The Warrior Queen's mind raced while her throat burned, in a stupor induced by

the lack of air, returning to ordeals of the previous day. Details flashed in

her memory, details which she could not pay attention to as they occurred but

were now within her grasp ... and disappeared when her head cleared the water

and the switch stroke her thigh, on a spider bite just under the buttock,

shooting pain through her heaving body which screamed for immediate attention.

The bench was plunged in the ice cold water again, denying her the fresh air

she desperately longed for, bubbles rising to the surface as she half drowned.

The bench was raised again, her blonde mane drenched in water flailing about

as the tendons on her neck almost burst in her efforts to keep the head above

the water and draw in some fresh air in spite of the savage strikes of the

switch at the stings over her exposed breasts. She could not scream and

breathe at the same time, and this was what made this torture so devious.

Her breathing over time turned to a wheeze, and as her head was kept

underwater her body was wracked by choking spasms, water drowning her

piecemeal as her only chance to expel it was through screams. Her feet were

now crisscrossed by purple bruises, and the her tormentor had taken to

switching her swollen nipples instead. The cycle of drowning and lambasting

repeated itself while her mind span in circles, chasing a detail which

eluded her as each whistle heralded another wave of pain.

The bench was tilted again, and her head went under once more, water filling

her tired mouth still open from her latest scream, and burning in her throat

desperately gasping for air. When the bench rose, her pale face contorted in a

mask of pain as the switch hit her trashed nipple again, forcing her to scream

and splutter in spite of all her efforts.

Her tormentor put her down immediately and selected a meaner switch, which he

used on her soles after raising the bench, tearing the bruised skin, the

resulting spasm of her wracked body helping her cough out some water from her

bursting lungs. He alternated the new switch with the old when striking her

nipples, then after a number of strikes he dropped the old and used the new

one on her nipples also. Kayleen's lungs were on fire, her body bluish and

shivering, her shoulders ached because of her vain efforts to raise her head

off the tank, her nipples were purplish and swollen and yet the wry Easterner

tilted the bench again, and kept her under.

When she came to, she was hanging upside down from a rod snug under her cuffed

knees, her elbows shackled together behind her and her wrists chained to her

ankles, bending her backward. A smaller tank opened below her, apparently just

the mouth of a deep pit in the floor. Her eyes went to her tormentor's hands,

which no longer held a humble switch, but grasped a four feet, wicked cane.

With a sudden clanking, her aching body was dropped head first into the pit,

impacting the water with surprising force, and she was unprepared she found

herself gasping for air again. She started choking, although in this position

water did not flood her mouth, and at length she was finally pulled up, her

dread of the wicked cane not materializing as she was allowed to breathe

unmolested and even take a deep breath before being dunked again.

While she held her breath, an atrocious pain shot through her when the cane

smacked against her right tit, forcing her to scream in bubbles and expel her

precious air, letting water in. The cane then stroked the front of her left

thigh, with similar effect, and then struck full force across her ribcage,

just under her breasts, savaging the ant-bitten flesh there and forcing her to

waste her last gasps in a scream while water filled her nostrils. In spite of

her buckling and trashing, she was pulled up only after half a dozen strikes

later, her eyes injected with blood and water spurting from her mouth.

"Next time longer," stammered the Easterner, although the Warrior Queen was

apparently not paying much attention. He let her gather some breath, but then

dunked her again and slashed the cane across her taut stomach, preventing her

from holding her breath, and then on the soles of her feet, drawing blood but

concentrating on the bubbles in the water, gauging the time for each strike at

her arms and then counting those on her lower back and buttocks, her body

contorting and buckling deliciously but unable to bring her head above water.

Only he could bring her fresh air again, which he did only after caning first

her left and then her right breast, targeting the ant stings in their exposed

lower halves because the nipples had taken a real beating before and he wanted

to save them for later. She was now expelling water in sobbing gasps, and he

attempted to gauge her resolve, dismayed to notice that not only there was

still fight in her, but she had somehow recovered.

He cut her respite short and dropped her in the water again, submerging her to

her ribcage, and started caning the front of her thighs. Kayleen's mind was

drowning in a watery mayhem of pain as her exhausted lungs desperately

attempted to draw in air and water filled them instead. The cane had moved to

her ass cheeks, and then visited her feet again, her screams lost in bubbles

as she dropped any pretense of stifling them.

He raised her, but her hope was immediately shattered as he just caned her now

exposed breasts without giving her the fresh air she agonized for, at least

not before half a dozen strikes at the stings on her generously proportioned

globes. Unlike the switch, the cane tore the skin, and she was now bleeding

from a number of welts, many of which across her still proud breasts.

She was dunked again and again, each time prolonging her dunking for one or

two additional strikes of the cane, the ache in her knees steadily increasing

as they bore her weight without interruption, her flesh turning pale and then

blue as air deprivation took her toll, yet reddening under the cane and the

drops of blood from her torn skin. The brunt of the assault landed on her feet

and her cramping abdomen, her muscles on fire in the effort to breathe.

Strangely enough, she did not pass out, so when she was finally lowered from

her position, gasping for air, the Warrior Queen recovered some semblance of

resolve as she caught a comment from Grod, "Impressive. Her endurance and

willpower are unmatched in my experience." Her mind cleared somewhat, and as

they wrapped iron bands around her torso, the detail which had been haunting

her became obvious: they were doing their best not to kill her. It was not

just keeping her alive until she talked; as they cuffed her arms along her

sides, she vaguely recollected her wounds being treated last night, as if

after a combat, to prevent festering. They fed her food, liquid food, maybe

honey and herbs. There was some ulterior motive behind Zhorun's actions.

Her mind returned to her current predicament as she was pulled by chains

cuffed at her ankles and brought over the accursed pit again. Her torso was

tightly encased in iron bands connected by rods all around her, her arms tied

along her sides, meaning she was essentially unable to move or bend from her

waist up to her neck. Her legs, on the other hand, were half spread, not

painfully but enough for a caning of her private parts. She sighed. At the

end, her tormentors ended up always targeting the same spots.

She was not surprised when her head was lowered into the cold water again, and

did not protest when no cane landed on her body. As time passed by, however,

the almost familiar burning in her lungs appeared and mounted, with no other

torture forthcoming, "Just dunk me to exhaustion ?" she mused to herself. As

her air supply dwindled, she could not help but kick with her legs, hoping

they would notice and raise her, but nothing happened. In panic, by chance,

she found out that pushing her legs wider she could raise herself up, so she

put all her strength in her legs and opened them wider, managing to pull

herself up enough to take a breath.

As she replenished her air supply, her muscles started to ache under the

strain, and she had to let herself under again. She held her breath as long as

possible, then repeated her feat, her thigh muscles flexing like steel cords

as they lifted her to breathe again. She could imagine the sick bastards

leering at the show, above, but for now that was all they would gain from her.

Her mind examined her options, as a shorter time underwater would mean less

strain but more frequent exertions, when pain exploded in her crotch and her

legs gave, dropping her into the water as her breath turned into a scream.

She held the little breath she had, dreading the cane she could not see, but

as time passed her lungs screamed for air and she had to push against her

ankle cuffs against, raising herself up again to draw an anxious breath which

turned into a strangled cry when the cane landed on the tender flesh of her

left thigh, dropping her in the water, again and far too soon for her burning

lungs. She was soon forced to pull herself up again, but this time her unseen

tormentor bid his time. She strenuously pushed against the chains, breathing in

short gasps as fear gripped her, but nothing happened until she let herself

down into the water.

A split second thereafter, as her thighs burned because of the prolonged

effort, the cane landed on her crotch, her air supply bubbling away in a

silent underwater scream, immediately followed by a strike on her left thigh

and another on her right as she twisted her pelvis attempting to get away from

the swings she could not see coming. Her tormentor was lambasting the very

muscles she used to lift herself off the water, although on occasion he landed

a few blows elsewhere.

Pain wracked her when she had to pull herself up again, and even when the cane

landed on her breasts her thighs turned from ache to agony, as their strained

muscles had to bear her weight again. Her stay underwater was becoming shorter

and shorter, but still she found the strength to lift herself up each time,

only to meet the cane. Blood dripped from her torn skin, pooling between her

legs and flowing down her caged chest, but the real pain was in her agonizing

thigh muscles and the dwindling air supply in her lungs.  When she was finally

released, unable to lift herself up again, her lower half was a canvas of

bloody welts, an accursed testimony to the endurance of her fit body.

She welcomed her release from the bands around her chest, until her eyes

focused on the hairy forearm unlocking them and traced it up Grod's determined

countenance. Fear gripped her as he brought her under a a waist band hanging

off a chain from above, clinched it around her, cuffed her wrists and ankles

to rings set in the floor, then pulled on the other end of the chain until her

slender limbs cleared the ground, suspending her spreadeagled in mid air, face

up. Her eyes left the ceiling to follow him around and bulged as he fetched a

table where dozens of pliers of mixed sizes and shapes were neatly arranged.

He took a midsized pair and without much ado seized her left nipple, already

ravaged by stings, switch and cane, keeping his grip until her hiss turned to

a gasping cry and then to a veritable howl, which he unflinchingly protracted

before releasing her punished flesh. The Warrior Queen would later find her

observations confirmed in the fact that the jaws were sheathed in wood, but at

the moment Kayleen could only sob in despair at the ordeal lying ahead of her.

He selected another, larger pair and sank it in her forearm, twisting and

pulling at her marked flesh as her head shook in agony, and then repeated his

assault all over her arms, her fists clenching as her muscles were torn by the

wooden bite. Dread overwhelmed her again when he moved between her legs, as

the pliers bit into her calves and then assailed her thighs, the muscles still

burning from her exertions twisted and knotted under the unyielding jaws.

She yowled in pain as he selected a small yet massive pair and grabbed her

toe, tightening his grip almost to the point of crushing it only to release it

and move to her next toe, then the next, slowly turning toe after toe to

molten rods of searing pain. Her ass cheeks were not spared, as a pair of wide

pliers bit into their firm flesh repeatedly as she bucked in a vain attempt to

escape the wooden tormentors. She was already hoarse, and the pliers could be

applied for extended periods with little actual damage, so Grod worked almost

without interruption, hurting her even in places she had forgotten about.

Of course he also tormented her in places she was painfully aware of, such as

her battered private parts, letting his grip linger on as she screamed herself

hoarse and pain numbed her mind. Kayleen twisted in her restraints as the

pliers grabbed her left labia again, but his muscular hands twisted in the

opposite direction forcing her to turn around, always a step behind as he

reversed his twist without releasing her mauled flesh.

She found a little respite when he switched to a set of large pliers which he

applied under the base of her left breast, cupping it before the grip

tightened and her firm tit bulged, squeezed agonizingly by the relentless jaws

of the hellish instrument. He subsequently applied it to her other tit, slowly

turning it left and right, and then with a pair in each hand returned to her

other breast and applied them both, twisting back and forth in opposite

directions as she howled and gasped, bereft a mercy which would not come.

The relentless torture continued without interruption as he switched from one

breast to another, then Kayleen was given some respite as he moved between her

legs with a pair of pliers in each hand, each with a short handle and wide

jaws made to crush a woman's nether lips. He literally lifted her higher up by

pulling on her lips, letting her fall back painfully, repeatedly, but in spite

of the devastating pain she neither fainted nor failed her friend.

When her torturer lowered her on the floor she just lied on her back, still

spreadeagled, whimpering and moaning, but she was dragged to the post where

the Southerner had ravaged her with his rollers but yesterday, and she was

tied in the same fashion, arms above the post and legs painfully bent outwards

at the knee, her pelvis pushed forward by a wooden wedge. The eyes of her

tormentor locked into hers, and he slowly showed her a pair of pincers, pliers

whose narrow wooden head had untapped depths of pain in store for her. He knew

that showing the victim what would befall her next could be very effective.

As she shook her head, he moved behind her and pinched the flesh between her

middle and ring finger, pain shooting from the crushed wasp sting sending her

head banging against the post as drool burst from her mouth in a yowl of

despair at the never-ending inventiveness of her assembled tormentors. Instead

of pinching between her fingers again, he moved immediately to her front and

closed the pincers on the fold over her love bud, twisting it as she gasped

and screamed her lungs out, then pinched her left nipple as bile gurgled in

her mouth, already beyond screaming as the pincer heads savaged the flesh

which had been stung, bitten and caned without mercy all over the day.

Yet he moved the pincers back to her love bud, and then to her other nipple,

and repeated the pattern a few times over before moving to her foot and

pinching the flesh between her toes, the renewed pain no respite for her

screaming throat but intended to prevent her from being overwhelmed. With a

pair of ordinary pliers in the right hand and the pincers in the left, he

moved back to her vulva, grabbing and pulling with the pliers to close the

pincers on the distended flesh where the discolored stings and spider bites

could be easily seen.

Kayleen's eyes were clenched shut, her beautiful face contorted in an

uninterrupted scream which no longer resonated in the chamber but gurgled in

her throat, her head shaking and the blonde mane drenched in sweat and drool.

Grod pulled savagely at her love button with a pair of pliers, pulling it out

from under its hood, and pinched it, the heads closing over a sting. She had

to be broken now, now that her voice rose again from the depth of the hell he

was subjecting her to, and even the robed Zhorun closed in as his unyielding

grip brought her to new heights of agony and each twist elicited a howl which

should have cracked the chamber open.

Even her incredible endurance had to end at some point, yet Grod was acutely

aware that she was not yielding yet. He did not fancy killing his Master's

prize before his eyes without obtaining what was wanted from her, and the girl

had already taken an unbelievable amount of punishment, although damage had

been limited as much as possible. Yet the pliers, among all methods, were the

least likely to kill her, although a heart attack was always possible.

He released her bud and grabbed the left nipple, again pulling at it and then

pinching it where a sting could be seen, listening to her screams and howls as

he twisted his hellish instruments, alert to any telltale of collapse. Kayleen

would have welcomed a heart attack, but her strong, fit body was enduring the

punishment better than even her tormentor could fathom, a quality which she

had been proud of in the past, but was now proving her undoing.

Grod, stymied at the lack of progress, switched to her inner thighs, then her

armpits, attempting a change of pace, but when no progress resulted returned

his ministrations to her nipples and bud. No woman could withstand the torment

of her feminine charms forever, so he concentrated on them to the exclusion of

everything else. His victim, however, was sliding into oblivion, cold water

notwithstanding, and his unrelenting pulling and twisting was no longer being

felt in full. He called her, breaking a long tradition of keeping absolutely

silent while inflicting torment in order to increase the victim's sense of

isolation and helplessness, but to no avail.

Kayleen was released from the post against Grod's better judgment, delirious

and barely conscious, her mind probably unhinged by the unrelenting pain. The

empty eye sockets under Zhorun's cape studied her silently, but Grod could not

fathom what was in his Master's mind as he brought the tall girl to iron

stocks hanging from the ceiling, locking wrists and ankles to the stocks, face

down, her back bent backwards, her legs open for more torture. Repeated

application of smelling salts brought her back to consciousness with a sob.

"Tell us what we want, and be done with it," said Grod, almost moved to mercy

at her suffering. Or so she thought, as no human being could be unmoved before

her ordeal. She drank from a jug brought to her mouth. Still shaking from pain

and despair, she uttered "Lyral ..." before catching herself and lowering her

head, sobbing and coughing. Another pair of pliers was brought under her eyes

then; their wooden jaws had been rasped and hacked raw.

A soft "No" left her lips, then another, sobbing "No" died in a whisper as the

girl hanging in pain closed her eyes. Maybe, if she had begged, Grod would

have spared her this. The question became moot as the pliers closed around her

midsection, gnawing at her punished flesh with wooden jaws which rasped and

splintered on each twist and pull. She had her voice again, and she let it be

heard, her wail lasting well beyond the bite of the bloodstained pliers and

blending into the shriek which followed the assault on her forearm, the first

in a sequence apparently meant to leave no spot of her arms untouched.

Buckling and twitching in her suspension, Kayleen withstood the subsequent

mauling of her bent legs, the chain rattling whenever she jerked in pain and

screamed her lungs out, her attempts to clench her thighs easily foiled as

their inside became his next target; his expert hand avoided the places where

blood vessels could be cut, but nothing else was spared.

The raw jaws of the pliers could tear the skin and draw blood, although deep

wounds were not a possibility, so Grod started alternating their use with the

use of the pincers as he did not want her to bleed into unconsciousness. He

targeted her back, the pincers lifting a fold of flesh which the pliers would

then maul repeatedly, and then carried through her taut buttocks, although

they were somewhat difficult to reach.

As her buckling receded, he pinched her love bud and squeezed her left tit at

the same time, lest she slid away from his ministrations, then moved to the

right tit while keeping the pincers closed on her feminine flesh, alert to

changes in her hoarse screaming which had to occur sooner or later.

But his victim was defying him, even as he used rasped pliers on both her

nipples, hanging his full weight to them and scouring her nipples as her

breasts distended into twin cones of searing pain, even as he repeated the

feat again and again, even as he repeated it on her labia and subsequently

alternated nipple and labia, even as he put all his weight under the pliers

scouring her clitoris and jerked repeatedly, lying under her battered body now

marked all over by bloody bruises of his own doing, her tears dripping into

his face as her heart rending howls echoed fitfully in the chamber.

His determination shaken, the torturer carried on his grisly task as if in a

dream, fetching pincers and pliers, targeting other areas of her body, going

through the motions of a script he no longer belonged to. Her pain subsided,

her physical limits again close at hand, her wailing turning to spent moans as

she wandered into unconsciousness, but somehow, before darkness swept over

her, Kayleen could sense, from his very hands, that doubt was creeping into

her tormentor.

Chapter 4 - Of Things Present

Kayleen cried bitterly unto the darkness of the chamber deep below the ruins

of Zhorun's castle, as her precarious balance shifted and the coarse ropes

chafed her. Some wound tightly around her forearms, bringing her elbows

impossibly close together. Her legs were also tightly tied together from ankle

to knee, a tight rope wound around her waist, and her body was encased in a

pattern of crisscrossing ropes which seemed to serve no purpose.

More rope coiled around her generously proportioned and now bulging breasts,

and four more ropes had been savagely tightened across her crotch, her love

bud protruding between the inner two and her nether lips trapped alongside.

Her kidneys rested on a stout wedge, raising her midsection and anchoring the

ropes binding her so that she could not roll away.

Rest would not come easy in her torturous position, but she was exhausted

after her ordeal, so the Warrior Queen had time to ponder her recollections.

They had cleaned her, as she had soiled herself during the torture, treated

her wounds, fed her, but then left her like this. "It makes no sense." she

thought, "Why feed me if I am to be broken through exhaustion ?"

She woke up, after slipping into unconsciousness, because of something above

her lip. An itch at first, turning into a rash where the first ant had stung

her. She started writhing in panic, and in a matter of minutes it was all over

her body. She could not see them, but the skin was blistering where the ants

had stung her, and where the coarse rope ground into them, the blisters hurt

fiercely. The purpose of the crisscrossed ropes now revealed, she wailed in

despair, a drawn out "Nooo" which was soon punctuated by gasps and cries as

she was no longer able to keep still and her love bud started feeling the

consequences, the harbinger of what would happen when the stings on her

feminine parts started blistering under the bite of the knots.

The footsteps arrived well after that. As nobody had been present, she had

felt no compunction in screaming her lungs out, and now it was too late to

recover the tatters of her pride, the sane corner of her mind dreading the

forthcoming torture session, fearing this would be the one where she would

betray her friends, her subjects, anything to stop the pain.

Grod removed the cords, with some difficulty because of her uninterrupted

twitching, allowing her to relax her arms and legs, then picked her up and

laid her on a table where she cuffed her ankles, one by one, to a roller and

then her wrists, still one by one, to another. She was doused with cold water,

and woke up, still itching fiercely because of the blisters but free from the

ropes, on a massive, ominous rack.

In a corner of her mind, Kayleen remembered what she had sensed last evening

and sought his eyes, but the burly executioner now wore a mask of cold

determination and immediately started cranking the rack, skipping his habit of

showing the victim what would befall her. The device soon caught up all slack

in her body, and she felt the cuffs tighten around her ankles and wrists, but

no real pain. She saw the leering man from the South salivating at her taut

body, still a feast for the eyes from the magnificent legs, her slender

thighs, her taut midriff, her sculpted ribs, to the proud, full breasts which

had regained their delectable shape.

Before cranking the device again, Grod shifted gear, each turn of the crank

now the equivalent of a inch. It was inch by inch, then, that she started to

feel the tug of the machine, and a few cranks brought dread in her as her body

started to protest. The executioner shifted gear again, and then cranked some

more, until pain shot through her body from her shoulder and hip joints and

her scream rose under the vaults of the torture chamber.

The torturer locked the device and inspected her, suddenly aware that he had

been negligent; two or three cranks at this setting would have broken her

spine. He had to suppress his gnawing urge to be done with the matter, and get

back his former self. Never before had a prisoner wrought doubt into his

determination, never had a prisoner failed to break under his ministrations.

He reversed the device, her cry of relief heavy on him, and shifted gears

again, at a setting which allowed minute adjustments. He brought the device

back to normal and started cranking, letting his eyes wander on her shapely

form as it elongated under the tug of the rack.

The moment of respite was too brief for the Warrior Queen to achieve anything

but gathering the shreds of her resolve, and soon the rack started delivering

its due. The unrelenting chafing on her wrists and ankles deepened, and the

tug at her arms increased to a dull ache. A few more cranks turned the ache

into searing pain, her legs also on fire, her ribcage sunken as her spine

distended. The old Southerner enjoyed the sight of her stretched body

immensely, feasting on the leaning muscles stretching like cords of flesh

inside her taut arms and thighs.

His disgusting gaze incensed the Warrior Queen, bringing her to stifle the

scream about to escape from her lips as more cranks added to her agony. There

was blood on her wrists and ankles now, and she breathed in short gasps as the

stretching took its toll on her diaphragm, but an insane determination grew

inside to her not let that pig enjoy her screams any longer. She hissed and

bit her lip, cursing under her breath, a new blazing in her joints telling her

that the rack had been cranked again.

Her tormentor noticed her new resolve, and reversed the device, loosening it

one notch in the hope of surprising her with the unexpected pain of release,

but she jerked her head against the table and kept her cries behind clenched

teeth. The release lasted mere moments, then the rack was cranked back one

notch, followed by another, and a renewed fire rose from her hip joints and

elbows, rising above the gnawing pain along her spine and even the agony at

her wrists and ankles. The rack was briefly reversed again, and then cranked

two more notches as her jaw set strenuously to stifle her anguished scream.

Now that she fought him, Grod was finding his old self again. He released her

again, two notches this time, in order to build up dread when he would later

crank her two notches again. Her body was drenched in sweat, her breasts

heaved fitfully under the exertion, her ankles and wrists had been chafed raw,

but she did not scream any more. One more notch, and then he inspected her as

she trembled under the incredible pain and tension, to make sure she could

take what he had in store for her. He shifted gear before reversing the device

once, releasing a whole inch of agonizing elongation with a single crank.

Her body snapped like a rag doll, her limbs jerking, her face contorted in

agony and the beginning of a shriek rose from her throat, trailing off as she

found the will to silence it. He inspected her again, his hands testing for

sprains and dislocations, and then one at a time replaced her cuffs with

padded, wider cuffs made for the rack. The old man from the South sneered

"Moved, Grod ? Luxury cuffs for your Whore Queen, no less." compelling him to

retort "If I leave these on, I might as well let her slit her wrists. You can

put them back later on your turn, if you like them better."

During this brief respite, the Warrior Queen remembered how she had conceived

a plan, last morning, to put the divisions between her tormentors to her

advantage. She clinged to that nugget of hope as the rack was cranked up again

and ache mounted in her joints, her wrists and ankles still tearing but no

longer bleeding. After a brief pause for shifting gear, Grod cranked her notch

after notch up to where she had been before the pause, occasionally reversing

the rack to add the pain of release to her misery. He then fetched a pair of

tweezers, moved besides her body, and plucked a blonde hair from her mound.

Her gasp of surprise was about to turn into a scream as her thigh muscles

reacted by attempting to contract in spite of the pull of the rack, but she

caught herself and stifled it, her fists clenching spasmodically. He plucked

another, then a couple more before cranking the device another notch. Her

stretched body glistened with perspiration, and the tweezers pulled a curl,

her voice rasping in a strangled breath as she twitched in spite of herself.

He released her one notch and fetched a leather harness, consisting of a pair

of straps which wrapped around her body from shoulders to groin. Winding them

under her back was agonizing, each pull reverberating in her bones and

wrenching a stifled cry from her laboring lungs, but the straps would absorb

some of the tug of the rack, preserving her spine at the expense of her hip

and shoulder joints. A property which she could testify to when the rack was

cranked again, and her joints howled as if shot through by needles of fire.

The straps tightened around each side of the vulva, and he considered

squeezing one of the many angry blisters there, but he liked his technique

better so he just pulled at more pubic hair with the tweezers. She was

released one notch and then cranked up two, each time the pain increasing even

as she thought that it could not get worse, and then the tweezers pulled at

her pubic hair again. And again, a few hairs at a time but unrelentingly. Her

pain was now uninterrupted and she was beyond herself, clinging to a single

simple thought in a gulf of searing white agony, "I will not scream."

She failed when the rack was again released a full inch, as release wrought

havoc on her inhumanly stretched muscles and ligaments, the snap reverberating

through her innermost being as a shrill cry rose from her fatigued lungs, her

will not up to the task of suppressing it. Then dread engulfed her when she

heard the device being cranked again and the tension returned, her mouth

forming a begging "No" which in a supreme effort she managed to turn silent,

but only up to when a curl of hair was wrenched from her pubis.

With devilish patience, her torturer plucked her blonde bush curl by curl,

releasing and cranking back the rack now and again, keeping her on the edge of

agonies beyond human endurance. Enough of her resolve was still with her to

turn gut-wrenching cries into hissing gasps, but she occasionally vented her

anguish in fitful, inarticulated screams. Half of her mound had been plucked

raw when Grod suspended the torture, to allow her pounding heart to recover.

On her bed of agony, Kayleen wished his fingers never got away from her throat

in astonishment at the speed of her recovery, but they did, and soon the rack

was cranked again and fire shot through her limbs, blotting out the chafing

from the leather straps and even the fire at her ankles and wrists. Again the

accursed tweezers wrenched a curl of pubic hair from her mound, her hips still

attempting to buckle in spite of the agonies wrought by each attempt. Her

flesh, under the sheen of perspiration, was hot to the touch and her stretched

muscles bulged below the taut skin.

The calloused hands of her tormentor closed on her left leg, the fingers

searching for her tendons. She incongruously thought of when she had her

muscles massaged after exercise, but realization hit her on a wave of pain and

she screamed, her resolve shattered by the blazing agony from her limb, the

fiendish massage straining her muscles instead of soothing them. The old man

from the South had moved beside her, transfixed as her magnificent body

writhed in spite of the unbearable tension, drops of his drool landing on her

contorted visage as he could not help but close his hands on her breasts.

The old fart was shooed away by Grod, who had to extend over her in order to

grip her right forearm, but when she realized their nature those drops burned

into her to the point of letting her forget the hellish agonies she was

undergoing and recover at least some of her determination. Not enough,

however, to still her cry as Grod strained her flexor muscle. "I cannot stand

any more of this." she said to herself, but Grod gripped her right thigh and

started digging hard fingers in the muscles bulging on its inside, agony

following their trail until he managed to strain them also. He did the same to

her left arm, turning her powerful biceps into a bundle of blazing pain.

When the tweezers pulled a hair from her mound again, a hitherto unmatched

hell descended on her, as the slightest attempt at moving under the

unrelenting pull of the rack went though at least two opposing strained

muscles. Unbelievably, the pain increased as he plucked hair after hair, at a

rate which would protract her suffering beyond the boundaries of sanity, and

subsided only when he at last stopped.

Her eyes shut in misery, Kayleen heard him close by and barely stifled a jerk

of surprise as his gloved hand started rubbing a cold, oily ointment onto her

hot skin, starting under her ribcage and extending to her torso. There was

nothing soothing in the creepy substance, and when the first savage cramp rose

in her ribs she wailed in despair at this new cruelty.

Her throat could no longer contain her agony, and she screamed and screamed as

his fingers dug hard in her chest, pulling and twisting until she howled to

high heaven as first one and then another pectoral muscle was strained. The

ointment was causing spasmodic cramps in her chest, every breath a torment as

if all her ribs had been broken at once. And he plucked another hair.

In spite of the unrelenting pain she still attempted, in vain, to hide her

terror and cling to some of her former dignity. Grod released the device two

notches, wrenched a curl of blonde hair from her half raw mound, then cranked

it back one notch and plucked her pubic hair again. She had to be brought back

notch by notch, or she would risk permanent damage.

"Not yet." a cold voice commanded. It had been his Master for a long time, but

Grod hesitated before releasing the device one notch and cranking it once and

then twice. Impossible as it was, her screams rose higher, and she kept

screaming as he again released the rack one notch and then cranked it twice,

alert to the popping sound of some joint dislocating. It didn't happen, but he

would not risk another notch, and kept wrenching curl after curl from her

mound, not releasing her until it was plucked raw.

She was released from the rack one notch at a time, and when she was finally

free the old Southerner had her brought to a pillory, since she was unable to

walk on her own. She was put on her knees, the cuffs at her wrists and ankles

were locked onto the device and an iron band was savagely tightened around her

waist and pulled up with a chain from the ceiling, exposing her firm buttocks

to the lewd gaze of the old Southerner.

He placed on the pillory, under her stomach, a case containing a collection of

what she took some time to recognize as ... cucumbers, as if expecting her to

be afraid of them. The incongruity of the situation was such that she giggled,

and then laughed aloud, although briefly because of the rib cramps.

"She's not impressed, Hadrad." mocked Grod, and the swarthy Southerner fully

understood the insult to his virility. He eyed his victim and seemed at a loss

about what do to next, then sat behind her and picked a smallish cucumber from

the case, her upside down face puzzled as he showed it to her. "We start

small." he said, and pushed it into her exposed anus.

She cried in protest and dismay at this violation, but soon pain tinged her

voice as her sphincter was painfully distended. Her tormentor started to twist

the implement left and right within her, then rose and pulled it out, only to

push it back a heartbeat later, sending a wave of pain through her loins.

"Wet already. She likes it." mockingly proclaimed the old pig, his fingers

probing her private parts. "It's not true!" she protested in her mind,

speechless at his lewdness and furiously looking for a way to denounce his

falsehood. "To whom ?" it occurred to her, her cheeks burning in humiliation

at her degradation at the hands of this scum.

He thrust the implement into her ass again, exerting his full force, and

started pumping the intruder into her steadily, her broken voice wailing on

each push as her ass was being ravaged. He stopped when the cucumber had lost

most of its shape and consistency, her voice trailing into sobs of despair,

but quickly procured another and violated her ass again, over and over,

without interruption, until his arm tired and he sat panting behind her.

"You should like this one better." said her robed tormentor after recovering,

pushing a larger specimen into her vagina, savoring her outraged gasp before

twisting it and pulling it out. "But it does not belong there." he chuckled,

and brought it against the rosette of her anus. Her eyes widened in fear at

the girth of the implement, and then shut in pain as it tore through her by

force, its knobs and ridges searing her sphincter.

Pulling it out entailed substantial twisting and exertion, and each attempt to

push it back in met with the same resistance met on the first, so he could not

pump her with this one like he had with the previous. With an evil grin, he

started smearing it with something whose smell Kayleen could not pinpoint, and

on the next assault the implement slid in with a sickly sound.

"You already forgot Grod's ointment, my dear ?" cackled the old pig's voice,

and horror froze her face as she recognized the smell. "It works best if the

muscles are exerting, so let's put them to work," he said, pumping the

implement back and forth with sadistic glee as she cried in pain and fear, his

ear ready for the howl of despair which rose at the first savage cramp from

muscles which rarely cramped over the course of a lifetime. His lustful glee

bore the promise of many others, and he fulfilled it in earnest.

She regained consciousness on the stone floor, moments before being dragged to

a post consisting of a cross beam atop a pole. Her elbows were cuffed behind

her and tied to the post, the beam nested under her shoulders and her wrists

cuffed to the base of the post, while her legs were doubled under her thighs

with the ankles cuffed to iron bands encasing the thighs at the hip. An iron

band was clinched around her waist.

Her position would have been uncomfortable under ordinary circumstances, but

was almost unbearable for her racked body, as it put most of her weight on her

strained pectoral muscles, bringing her to tears in a few minutes. This was

not enough for her swarthy tormentor, however, who fetched from his case a

bundle of dried, one inch thick stalks, twisted clockwise over themselves into

a grotesque hybrid of a male member and a corkscrew.

The fat pig drooled as she twisted in her restraints, attempting to prevent

him from penetrating her with the hideous implement, and when she screamed as

it entered her, the swarthy Southerner bent back his head and joined his cry

of triumph to her agonized howls. The device had thicker stalks at the bottom,

and they were coarsely wound, so to penetrate her he twisted it left and

right, its ridges and grooves alternating in tearing at the ring of her

vagina, and pushed it upwards, deeper into her, impaling for a torturous

moment the full weight of her body on the ever widening bundle.

He kept pushing up and deeper, screwing the horrendous device into her with

each push, until a blood-curling howl told him that the head had reached the

cervix, at which he paused before pulling it down with full force. The grooves

rushed out of her stretched cunt with sickly popping sounds, inaudible among

the fitful, horrified screams of his victim. He paused until her cries turned

to sobs, and then pushed up again, savoring her cry of despair.

He kept pushing, pausing in between to twist it in earnest, until her cervix

was hit again, but instead of pulling it out he pushed it up, her scream

echoing under the vaults of the torture chamber. Each time he pushed it up, he

pushed it against her cervix one more time, counting aloud. Visibly aroused by

her suffering, he started licking her breasts as he pushed up and biting a

nipple each time he pushed down.

Disgust and loathing did not, unlike in the recent past, give back to Kayleen

some vestige of her former resolve. She was starting to slide, her pride

shattered, her will collapsing. Words came to her mouth, incoherent words

which immediately turned to screams, and even the muscles made to deliver a

child started to tear in places, blood trickling on her trembling thighs.

"Now for some medicine." he cackled, pulling the bundle completely out and

fisting her with his own gloved hand, smearing the cold ointment causing

muscle cramps on her cunt walls and lips. The ointment was only effective on

muscles undergoing exertion, so her torture resumed and the implement was

quickly thrust up deep into her, then yanked down in a single, uninterrupted

pull punctuated by Kayleen's desperate, spasmodic screams.

The repeated exertion after some time achieved the intended effect, and her

love channel was wracked by the first in a series of savage cramps which added

their misery to her ravishment at the hands of the grotesque implement,

shooting through her loins as her tormentor had taken into pushing it up with

savage knee thrusts and pulling it down by leaning on it with his full body

weight. Her wracked body jerked and buckled, the rekindled torments of the

rack in her limbs a quibble before the relentless tearing at her cramped

vaginal muscles, spasmodically clenching and distending as the grooves and

ridges of the hellish bundle rushed up and down as she screamed her lungs out.

Denied the blessing of unconsciousness, her torment continued until it became

apparent that its effectiveness was dwindling, and only then she was given

some respite, fed the usual syrupy liquid and freed from the post. Bitterness

engulfed her at the thought of her morning resolutions, because at present she

was not even able to walk by herself, and despair descended upon her as her

tormentor cuffed her wrists to an iron bar hanging from the ceiling and pulled

her ankles up to cuff them to the same bar, the limbs immediately aching as

the lewd position pulled at her racked muscles.

"It is not right to let an old man do all the work for you." leered her

tormentor, pressing the head of a dried cucumber onto her sphincter. A number

of grooves had been carved into its girth, and the resulting ridges had been

wickedly crenelated. As he pushed it, her sphincter distended on encountering

each ridge until the crenelations dug their way trough the stretched muscle,

which sent her gasping even as his push was almost gentle, and then contracted

onto the subsequent groove. Her dread found immediate confirmation when he

smeared on it some of the accursed ointment, which would soon make the

squeezing as painful as childbirth.

When the device was in place at last, he circled her and started tightening a

knotted cord around her left breast, followed by another around the right

breast. More rope was wrapped around her chest to connect the tight breast

cords to each other. He then moved between her legs and produced another dried

cucumber, carved like the one in her ass but frightening in girth and length,

to the point of wrenching a whispered "No" from her lips for the first time

after days of relentless torture.

Enjoying himself immensely, the lewd Southerner pushed the horrid implement

into her vagina, forcefully, enjoying her inarticulate pleas, hoping that she

would not break just now. When it was over, Kayleen hung from the iron bar,

sobbing and crying softly, afraid of looking at her torturer who was tying a

rope from the device tormenting her ass to a ring in a vertical wooden board

about two feet from her groin, and subsequently did the same with the one in

her womb. The Southerner then circled her and wound the loose ends of the

cords encircling her breasts around an overhead pulley.

"Now you do the work." he said, pulling her by the cords around her breasts

and swinging her forcefully away from the post, until the cords running to the

implements in her orifices were pulled taut, yanking both of them almost half

the way out, drawing a shrill cry as the muscles ringing both were torn

through by the onrushing grooves and ridges.

As her tormentor let his end of the breast cords loose, her momentum inverted

and she swung groin first into the post, impaling both dried implements into

her passages with a sickly thud. A spasmodic scream surged from her throat and

turned into despair, as he was already pulling at her breast cords again.

The relentless tearing of the hellish implement soon sent cramps wracking

through her body again, and the stretched muscles strained, first her

sphincter and then her cunt, her screams desperate enough to crack open the

walls of the torture chamber. Her innards were bleeding, droplets scattering

on each thud against the wooden post, her cervix swollen within her.

She hung there, mad with pain, a helpless young woman at the mercy of a

sadistic pig, her name forgotten, her pride lost, but still at the heart of

her soul willing to stand between a fate like hers and her innocent friend.

"I won't!" she gurgled, "I won't betray her." A cramp savaged her insides, and

she howled, "You heard me, monsters ?" the last word a snarling cry as her

cervix was pummeled again. "I won't betray her!" she cried as her vagina was

torn through, sputtering "I'll see you rot in Hell" as her tormentor pulled at

her with all his weight, and she passed out.

She woke up on a bench, face down, as the silent Easterner was cuffing her

right ankle to an iron bar crossing the head of the bench, her legs painfully

spread in a T position and secured to the bar by the ankle cuffs and by iron

bands at knee and hip height. Her torso was tied to the bench with iron bands

at the waist and the neck, and her arms were painfully bent upwards above her

head, the wrists tied to a bar hanging from a chain in the ceiling. Her body

ached as the strenuous position rekindled the pain of the rack.

Once finished, the Easterner busied himself with something she could not see

but which made itself felt soon enough as her left ass cheek was stung by a

dozen of tiny pricking needles, of the kind used in the Far East for tattoos.

Kayleen could not see that, but he was using a seal where the tiny needles had

been firmly lodged, and tapped onto it to prickle the skin, the needles not

long enough to actually pierce it.

Tattoo masters did this, testing various needle lengths because not all skins

were the same thickness, and unbeknownst to her he was looking for the perfect

needle length. The pain was mild, far milder than anything she had experienced

in this chamber, and the Warrior Queen made good of the respite allowed to

her. The Southerner pig apparently got so carried away that he no longer

paused except when she passed out before his eyes, so this breather was a

godsend for her. Her hopes also rekindled, because this was going to be the

last session of the day, she just had to pull through.

Meanwhile the wry Easterner was done with his preliminaries, and fetched the

first actual instrument of torture, not a quarter inch in diameter but a full

inch, and bristling with the finest needles, so fine that they would bend if

they were longer. Dread awoke in her as he placed the seal on her left

shoulder blade, followed by searing pain as he drove the needles into her skin

with a vicious slap from a hefty wooden paddle.

She screamed in surprise and pain, her confidence dented, and while still

deliberating within herself whether she wanted to let the bastards enjoy her

screams, another slap landed on her back, followed by another, her skin on

fire from the prickling of the countless needles.

Her jaw set when he moved the seal onto the side of her dangling left breast,

as she visualized the lewd Southerner enjoying the show, but when the slap

came the pain was so excruciating that it took all her will to stifle the

scream, and the next, and the next still, as her tormentor seemed to favor

three strikes in quick succession in the same area before moving on.

Her dangling breasts proved a cumbersome target, although Kayleen could not

tell that as he seared them over and over, so he moved to her back in earnest.

The flat, muscled canvas of her back lay in wait of an artist of pain, and he

tried his level best to be up to the task. He moved his seal from place to

place following intricate symmetries, her voice denying him her song but her

muscles flexing in a living sculpture of pain under the rhythm of his slaps,

her panting torso heaving and twisting as her skin was punished exquisitely

with unmatched intensity.

The uninterrupted pain was already chafing at Kayleen's resolve, but when he

moved to her firm ass despair visited her again, because the taut skin of the

ass cheeks felt as if on fire as the slaps drove the needles almost, but not

quite, through. He slapped her in rhythm with her belabored breathing, without

respite or mercy, her restrained body unable to move away.

And the full measure of how a taut skin was more sensitive to this fiendish

torture visited her when he started applying it to her legs, first a slap here

and a slap there, then following a veritable path of agony along one and then

the other, her strangled cries growing more audible on each slap, as the

wanderings of the seal came closer and closer to her groin.

She managed to hold her howl as the seal was slapped into the soft flesh below

the vulva, the first time, and hissed spasmodically at the second slap, but it

took all her will not to burst as the third seared her viciously. The seal was

then moved onto her feminine parts, and when the slap came she writhed and

gritted her teeth as the pain shot up her restrained body, barely managing to

quench the wails of despair arising from her.

The Easterner then suspended her torture and partly freed her from the post,

moving her with Grod's help to another, where she was tied with her back to a

sloping bench with iron bands at the neck, under her breasts and at the waist,

her legs still painfully spread along the iron bar. Her wrists, cuffed above

her head, chafed under the weight of her body, because her groin dangled off

the low end of the bench.

Her tormentor tied a cord around each nipple and tied them behind her neck,

shortening them savagely until her breasts were distorted into conical

receptacles of stretched agony, the soft undersides taut enough for proper

application of the seal. Kayleen could only clench her teeth as she understood

what lay ahead, her voice rising in a shrill cry when the first slap brought

fire to the tender skin and the others kindled it again and again.

Now that he had a proper setup, the wry Easterner heaped unrelenting torment

on her breasts, raining slap after slap on each, pausing in between and timing

his assaults on her panting cries. Her position forced her to take in the full

horror of what had been visited on her body, as she could see the bullwhip

welts, the chafed mark of the ropes, the bluish bruises of the cane, the

blistered ant stings ... and she was spared the sight of the torn, bleeding

muscles ringing her orifices. The seal left round, reddish marks like coins of

fire, her breasts a money-changer's drawer by now and her voice hoarse from

her efforts to deny her tormentors the audible confirmation of her defeat.

Looking into her eyes, the wry Easterner moved again to her legs, her position

allowing him to reach the front of her thighs and the slaps causing them to

pull at her strained muscles in a vain attempt to clench them before the

horrors visited on her. He alternated the slaps on her thighs with slaps on

her ribcage, abdomen and belly, and soon Kayleen realized with dread that he

was circling around her vulva, closer and closer. She shut her eyes too late,

but he bid his time, and when the seal came to her vulva the front of her body

was covered in reddish round marks.

When he discarded the seal she thought that it was over, but then he produced

another, a strip which could fold around and trap her labia, the slap searing

the captured flesh on both sides as she howled in pain, her short lived will

broken by the relentless torture, sobbing through the other slaps until she

managed to regain some resolve in time for the assault on her love button.

Her clitoris was too small a target, however, so the Easterner fetched a small

seal, a third of an inch wide, mounted on the top of a short handle. He lay

the seal on her love bud and hammered it down with the paddle, her teeth

almost cracking in a desperate effort to stifle a howl of pure agony, the

first of three she frantically hoped, only to see the hammering shatter them

as he continued uninterrupted, looking into her eyes before each strike, both

well aware of what was at stake, at least until blackness clouded her mind as

her screams subsided into gurgling wails.

The silent Easterner stopped his hammering and untied her while she was still

on the brink of unconsciousness, cuffing her arms behind her back in a reverse

prayer position and suspending her upside down from the iron bar which still

spread her legs achingly wide.

She still clung to some of her will, but fear was cold in her stomach as he

fetched a seal mounted on a wooden handle, like a carving knife with no blade

attached. He pressed the seal on her ribcage and forcefully raked the seal

against her skin, digging a fiery trail of prickling agony in her tormented

flesh and wrenching a stifled, desperate cry from her torn throat.

Her position allowed him to visit the raking agony almost everywhere over her

martyrized body, and he explored places which could not be reached with the

slaps such as the crease between her ass cheeks, her armpits, the soles of her

feet and the back of the knees, but he concentrated on the breasts and nipples

as if on cue from the leering Southerner, raking them over and over, droplets

of blood oozing from her distended flesh as the skin was prickled once and

again in the same place, in a crisscrossing pattern of woe punctuated by her

dreadful gasps and desperate hisses.

The proper target for raking, however, were her distended legs, so he moved to

the left leg and pressed his devious instruments on the calf, drawing it in a

single, prolonged stroke up to the iron band at the knee, her gasp turning

into a gurgle as her skin was on fire. He experimented with a few variations,

such as spiraling around the bound limb rather than raking in a single

straight stroke, and then moved to the other leg, her face set in a mask of

agony and despair while her cries mounted behind clenched teeth.

The fear of what would come next swell within Kayleen's mind as he moved off

her legs, and to her horror she realized words, incoherent words she had no

control on, escaped her mouth under her panting breath, "Lyral," she babbled,

"Help!" which she actually cried aloud when her labia was raked, "Shrine" and

"Please" when her torn vaginal muscle was raked over and over, as if rinsing

it in white hot pain, her will stifling an anguished "Mercy" as he raked her

love button, multiple times, the pink feminine flesh turning red raw.

If her tormentor had heard anything, he paid no heed when "Enough!" barely

escaped her lips, as he fetched another instrument, a pair of wooden scissors

whose blades had been set with the same needles found on the seals, but which

would drive them with unrelenting force well beyond what the seals provided.

Her tormentor raked her left thigh, her coughing turning into a hiss, and then

closed the scissors on a fold of her flesh in the same position on the right

thigh, her mouth snapping open in a uncontainable howl of agony.

He repeated the alternate application of rake and scissors, driving home his

argument of pain onto her twitching body, scanning her eyes for a plea or a

confession, at which Kayleen shut them tight among tears, her ultimate attempt

at holding out against the inevitable. Unmoved, he started applying rake and

scissors over her body, circling in a tightening pattern around her feminine

parts, dread mounting in her as her mind frantically compared the agony of the

scissors against the raking and shrank before the realization that the

application of the scissors on her clitoris would break her resolve, and

condemn her friend to the same hell she was going through.

The imperturbable Easterner dropped the rake and fetched another pair of

scissors, assaulting her cunt lips and the torn muscles ringing her orifices,

her screams now rising one after the other and interspersed with babbling he

did not care about, confident that her will would snap soon. He listened at

her breathing and slowed down his grisly handiwork, then paused to fetch and

apply smelling salts as he did not want her to pass out just now. He wanted

her to break, so he recovered the scissors and descended on her feminine

flesh, tearing and drawing blood, unrelentingly ravaging her while she howled

to high heaven, but only to be stymied as he understood the words escaping her

mouth between agonizing cries, "I'll never betray her!"

Chapter 5 - A Plan Hatches

Kayleen yowled as her feet slid again on the greased bronze ball and pain shot

from her thumbs down her aching arms. She hung in the dark torture chamber,

the balls of her chained feet seeking the four-inch bronze sphere on which she

could not manage a steady grip, as the thumbs locked in screws high above her

head bore the entire weight of her aching, suspended body.

Droplets of blood fell on her face as another slip ground the screws into her

blood encrusted thumbs, her manacled wrists preventing her from grasping at

the chain rising above into the unlit emptiness. Her waist was again clinched

in the accursed iron band intended to constrict her breathing, which it did.

The Warrior Queen pondered her fate, baffled by the behavior of her captors,

desperately searching for an opening. They were not actually attempting sleep

deprivation, as she was allowed any fitful naps her wracked body managed to

slip into; they were not attempting to break her by exhaustion, as they fed

her after, and sometimes even in the middle of, each session.

She cracked a smile at the thought of the liquid food, mostly honey and some

herbal preparations whose effects she could not discern; apparently, they did

not want their brand new torture chamber messed up too much. Pain suddenly

gripped her thumbs as she slipped and had to regain her precarious footing, a

daunting task for her racked muscles. They were not attempting to break her in

a single surge, always allowing some respite in the course of each session.

And they had grown complacent about that, no longer keeping her fully tied as

they switched turns and sometimes even as they changed from one torment to

another. Her body was still strong, although at present every single muscle

ached terribly, but they were no fighters, and surprise would be on her side.

Zhorun's presence was an unknown, as she had no idea of how his present nature

had affected him, yet wizards made poor close range combatants.

Time was not on her side, however, as her strength would not endure forever

and she could not fathom when they would start to really damage her. She was

less worried about fighting three against one; she could take out the first by

surprise, preferably the old fart or the puny Easterner. Grod would be a tough

opponent in her condition. She had to rest somehow, if she was to snatch the

chance of freeing herself when fate offered her one, but as the screws bit

into her thumbs again she was reminded of the the difficulties involved.

When the Warrior Queen heard the dreaded footsteps, after a night devoid of

any rest or respite, she cursed because exhaustion made her plan essentially

unfeasible and she would have had to withstand another day of whatever horrors

they had prepared for her. She considered pretending to be on the verge of

breaking, but she loathed the thought and it would be of no use today.

The three brought torches, whose light shone on her taut body, causing the

swarthy Southerner to wet his mouth in anticipation. Kayleen was freed from

the thumbscrews and her arms were bent behind her back in a reverse prayer

position, her legs were doubled under her with the ankle cuffs tied to bands

tightened on her thighs at the hip, and the band around her waist was used to

lift her off the floor, her face up, her back bent backwards and her generous

breasts full and firm on her ample chest.

Already excited, the Southerner freed his member from his flowing robes and

thrust it into her on the spot, forcing her tight love channel open again,

rasping at its dry walls and enjoying every second of the pain and disgust she

tried to stifle in her voice but could not hide from her face. He pumped her

raw with brief, rutting thrusts, rocking her body back and forth.

"First things first." he declaimed, then fetched a tray and affixed a steel

staff, over four feet long, to the chain holding her weight, followed by

another crossing the first in the middle. The staves were strong but thin and

had dozens of tiny hooks underneath. He added another, shorter staff crossing

the other in the middle, parallel to her midsection. Although Kayleen had no

doubt about the general intent behind the contraption, she could not help but

wonder how it was supposed to hurt her.

Her doubts were soon washed away as he produced a thin steel chain ending in a

bronze clamp, which he brought against her left breast, pinching a fold of

firm flesh with his right hand, onto which he snapped the clamp which he then

hung to a hook, making sure the fine chain was taut. The clamp was painful,

although not nearly as painful as most of what she had been subjected to in

this chamber, but dread mounted over her as she counted the hooks above.

The next was placed inside her thigh, near the knee, and forced her to buckle

to the right because the chain was too short. The one after that closed on the

soft flesh under her right breast, and the short chain again forced her to

raise her shoulders as a gasp escaped her lips. Her fiendish tormentor used

clamps whose chain had different lengths, so as he added more her weight still

pulled only at those added last and she had to twist and turn for his delight.

After over twenty clamps, the last biting the tender flesh of her underbelly,

he contemplated his handiwork and then casually leaned on her thighs, drawing

a spiteful hiss as she grimaced to stand the pain. He kept leaning, his grin

widening, until the clamp snapped and she jerked with a strangled scream when

another was pulled suddenly. He rose, and waited until her panting subsided,

then, locking his gaze into hers, moved between her legs.

Fear and humiliation turned into burning hatred as he violated her again, the

clamps pulling and tearing whenever he pushed and coming off with audible

snaps, as she desperately tried to deny him at least the satisfaction of

hearing her scream, with limited results. Her marked flesh grew new bruises as

each clamp was yanked under his lust, although most often than not little

actual damage occurred, and he ran out of clamps some time before climaxing.

"We'll have to try again with more, my dear. I am no longer the man of my

youth but apparently you rekindled some flame here." he said panting while she

sobbed softly. He recovered his clamps and started over, reaching under her to

clamp some more under her back and her ass cheeks, but leaving most for her

inner thighs and breasts. He then pulled at her left nipple and clamped it,

allowing some slack as her jaw set among tears, then pinched the other.

He then moved beside her and pulled her blonde mane downward, yanking a clamp

and then another as he said in her ear "Dance for me, Whore Queen, until I am

ready for you again." And dance she did, in spite of herself, as he pulled at

her hair or sent her spinning, the clamps snapping in quick succession as she

wound around the chain holding her waist and then back, her body convulsing in

a vain attempt to lessen the pain and her stifled, fitful cries arousing him

until he violated her again in a frenzy of snapping clamps.

As the Warrior Queen was lowered to the floor, only seething hate allowed her

to notice that she was being allowed a moment of respite just as exhaustion

was creeping over her. She was however not freed this time, as the chain was

moved from her belly to her back, suspending her face down above the stone

floor, her torso slightly leaning forward and her still doubled legs finding

no comfortable position.

Her sweating tormentor fetched from his accursed tray a clasp of a different

kind, the bronze jaws at least twice as wide but wickedly jagged and with a

single ring in place of the fine chain. Leisurely, he closed the jaws on a

fold of flesh along her sculpted abdomen, apparently unconcerned when she

barely flinched. He added a few more and then pulled her head up by her

disheveled hair, so that she could not see the lead weight that he attached to

the first clasp and hoping to savor her visage contorting under pain.

He was not disappointed, although screams would have been welcome, so he sent

her spinning. Unlike before, the clasps would not go off but simply keep

pulling, rising as she spun around, falling as she slowed down and then rising

again as she spun in the opposite direction. He would have liked to close his

eyes and gauge the progress of her by her screams, but she still defied him.

He hung a few clasps to her labia, sending her for another spin, to no avail.

Well, he was not running out of clasps. He hung one to each breast, then more

to her inner lips and inside her thigh, each time sending her spinning. He

savagely clasped her love bud and her nipples, savoring the yowls as she spun.

When he felt ready, he moved behind her, freed his member from the robes and

put his hands on her ass cheeks, the thumbs digging on each side of the

rosette of her anus. A muted "No" formed on her mouth as she realized what was

going to happen. His member pushed into her, slowly at first, forcing her

sphincter, then he pumped deeper, and the weights hanging off the clasps

danced under her, her body twitching under the pain, her throat hoarse in the

effort to hold her mounting anguish, and her mind seething at the humiliation.

He was not done with humiliations, however. He moved before her and pinched

her nose, so that she had to open her mouth to receive the hollow gag meant

for her final abuse. But Kayleen guessed the intent and finding strength in

desperation managed to thwart all attempts at gagging her, so he left.

When he came back, he wore gloves and carried a handful of stinging tree

leaves. Dread filled her eyes as he folded a leaf into a clasp, turning to

agony as he closed it on her left nipple, but she managed to hold the cries

she had not held when first exposed to the hellish leaves; the same fate

befell her other nipple, her cunt lips and her love bud, yet she did not give.

Instead of weights, he snapped the clamps on the clasp rings, so that he could

gather the chains in his left hand, then held the gag before her mouth and

said "When you've had enough, take it." He jerked at the chains and the clasps

ground the leaves into her tender parts, a scream of agonized suffering

escaping her lips in spite of her vain efforts to contain it. He jerked again,

and kept jerking, until her screams turned to gurgles, but she seemed bent on

defying him. Incensed, he kept yanking at the clasps until he managed to gag

her exhausted mouth by force. He could have waited until she recovered, but

lust overcame cruelty and he throat fucked his victim into unconsciousness.

When she came to, she was lying face down on the floor, still gagged, her arms

now cuffed behind her neck to an iron collar and her legs opened painfully

wide by a ten feet iron bar resting behind the small of her back, to which

ankle cuffs and thigh bands had been clinched. Above her, a matching iron bar

hung from a chain, with the now familiar hooks he used to hang his clamps to.

But he was not using clamps with time, he was using the same clasps whose

wickedly jagged jaws could chafe her skin raw when pulled.

Kayleen could not help but despair at the thought of more torture at the hands

of this pig, but she was not allowed time for more because as soon as he had

enough clasps on her to hold her weight, he lifted her off the floor by the

clasps running the whole length of her distended legs. Her shaken resolve

shattered at the sudden pain and she screamed in earnest through the gag.

Only when he was done adding more clasps all over her body, with chains of

different lengths, did he clasp her breasts in earnest, lust coursing through

his hands as he tightened the clasps on her firm tit flesh, enjoying her cries

and gasps. But he had saved his worst for last.

He opened her cunt lips wide and clinched a pair of clasps on each, pulling

them to distend the lips further as she shrieked, then followed on with

another pair of clasps, and then another, a wheel of clasps deforming her cunt

lips which he completed by clasping her love button and pulling at it savagely

until it was distended enough to clasp it once more at the base.

When her cries subsided he moved behind her back, hissing "Now your tongue

makes an old man hard again." grabbed a handle in each hand and pulled her up

by the clamps on her breasts, forcing her to arch her back and bringing her

gagged mouth at the height of his flaccid member. A howl rose from her throat,

the clasps chafing her breasts raw, but she defied him and however he jerked

the clamps, she still denied him this humiliation of her.

Her refusal incensed him to the point of leaving on the spot. Unbeknownst to

the others, he had in his room the means to serve the bitch right. When he

returned, his member was already bulging and his erection became prodigious

when he savagely pulled her up again. Kayleen's eyes were wide with horror as

he pushed into her throat in a frenzied rut.

The savage violation lasted much longer than before, his wild thrusts snapping

a number of clasps from her chafed breasts, but did not exhaust him. After a

brief pause he moved between her legs, pulled her up by the clasps on her

breasts again and savagely penetrated her ass as humiliation and pain shot

through her forlorn screams, each thrust snapping some clasp holding her

weight until she fell on the floor, her legs chafed all over.

His drug-induced lust still not sated, he put a leather sheath on his bulging

member, rubbed it with stinging tree leaves drawing a strangled "No" from his

victim's ravaged throat, and viciously fucked her on the floor, pulling her

groin onto his erect member by the clasps on her nether lips, and after those

snapped off, by those on her love bud.

Whatever merciful entity made her pass out again did a half-hearted job,

because she awoke in pain on the cold stone floor, sobbing, gazing at the

Easterner who eyed her coldly. She was dragged to a rail bench and her wrists

and ankles cuffed to the ends, while an iron band was clinched at her waist.

She was pulled taut, but the bench was not intended to rack her.

The man moved to the head of the bench, took her left middle finger and

encased it in some metal contraption, which she could not see but whose cold

touch she felt and soon turned into pressure as he operated the device, slowly

bending her finger backwards, the ever increasing pain shooting through her

hand even when he just sat idle and increasing when he tightened it. He did

the same on her other hand, tightening one and then the other until she

thought that he would snap her fingers.

Her tormentor instead stopped just short of that, and simply moved to the next

finger on each hand, visiting each in turn with excruciating slowness as sweat

glistened over her body, her generous breasts heaving under the effort and her

jaw clenched in the effort to withstand the unrelenting pain.

Her toes soon underwent the same treatment, the ligaments stretched near

breaking point toe by toe and the unrelenting pain compounding that from her

ailing fingers. He surveyed her writhing form, the head shaking and the teeth

clenched to fight back the screams, and bid his time before moving by her arms

and encasing her right elbow in another iron contraption.

The Warrior Queen was able to see enough of the latter device to guess at its

functioning: iron bands encasing the elbows and a vise bending it backwards,

tearing at the ligaments of the upper and fore arm. Her guesses found

immediate confirmation as the pain from her bent elbow joined that from her

fingers and toes. The deviousness of this torture was that the pain never

decreased, each device unrelentingly tormenting a different joint but not

causing shock or permanent damage. Yet.

After her elbows, he encased both her knees in a similar contraption, bending

her leg inwards at the knee in spite of the muscles flexing under her

glistening skin, the unrelenting pain heavy on her breathing and her face

contorted in the effort to resist the mounting agonies inflicted upon her.

Another iron device was tightened around her shoulders, pushing her shoulder

blades up behind her back, her arms on the way to dislocating as the device

pulled them down. But the worst device was placed at her hips, pulling up and

apart her thigh bones out of their sockets. Her once fine stretched body was

now contorted at odd angles in the iron devices encasing her, the

uninterrupted pain now worsened because new agonies shot through her shoulder

joints whenever her chest heaved against the shoulder device.

As time passed, her endurance was sorely tested because the pain from her bent

joints and stretched ligaments never subsided. Her tormentor bid his time, and

then applied a second vise on her left hand, encasing her pinky and bending it

almost to the point of tearing the ligament. Her eyes were clenched shut, but

he rapped on her chest three times with his knuckles, her surprise such that

she almost let her mounting screams escape the tightened lips. Soon she

understood that each rap was another finger bent, the pain blazing in her

hands and the promise of more in his quiet rapping as he moved to the toes.

Just as she thought that there was nothing more to bend in her ailing body, he

fetched a thin steel switch and rapped it on her heaving breasts, slashing the

nipples, wrenching a yowl of pain through her clenched teeth as her torso

moved in reaction. The switch landed next in the palm of her left hand, and

agony shot up her arm as her muscles contracted, tearing at the distended

ligaments. After a long pause, the switch landed on her nipples again, her

shoulders a world of hurt as the jerk of her chest moved her shoulder blades.

The Easterner rapped at her crotch, through the crease between her thighs

caused by the bending of her hips, and she cried behind gritting teeth as her

buckling caused her hip joints to creak in blazing agony. He started circling

her, leisurely, rapping her exposed flesh now and then to bring renewed pain

to her bent joints and distended ligaments, until her endurance waned.

After being painfully released from the vises and the bench, Kayleen's sore

body fell on the cold floor, curling in a silently sobbing ball in a vain

attempt to escape the pain. The Easterner tied her to a post, her arms pulled

straight above her head along the sides of the post by iron bands at the

shoulders and elbows, and her thighs spread outwards, encased at the hip and

knee by iron bands. She drank from the jug brought to her lips as iron bands

were clenched above and below her breasts and at the waist.

Although the cuffs had not been removed from her wrists, she was restrained by

twin studded iron plates, encasing her palms and extended fingers like tight

metal gloves. The Easterner gauged her condition in a single cold glance, and

then turned a crank, twisting her wrists outwards.

Her elbows could rotate to compensate the torsion of her wrists, but her

shoulders much less so, and soon the twist applied to her palms reached a

point which was too much for her elbows, and pain mounted at her wrists,

elbows and shoulders as he increased the pull on her palms, inch by inch,

hoping to see defeat dawn on her pain-wracked expression.

As his gaze only met furiously clenched teeth, he bid his time and then moved

to her feet. They also were encased in studded iron bands, veritable sandals

of torment, which he rotated outwards, bending her legs at the ankle and the

knee, the position immediately painful because the knee could give only a

little and her thighs were already splayed. Sweat covered her skin again,

muffled cries punctuating her belabored breathing whenever he twisted her

restraints some more.

The silent Easterner sat behind her, studying her twitches and moans as the

unrelenting torment of her bent limbs wracked her strong frame, the pain never

decreasing and dread building up as she could not see what the origin of her

suffering had in store. He paused until, according to his experience, the

victim started hoping that no new torment would be added, and then turned a

crank pushing a wedge behind her shoulder blades, sending new pain blazing

through her shoulder joints and constricting her heaving chest.

Breathing turned into an exercise in agony for Kayleen, as attempting a deep

breath tore at her shoulder joints, and she dreaded the silent tormentor

behind her back, certain that he would draw her through this hell only to take

her into another. When he did, this occurred through another wedge, pushing

her buttocks away from the post and tearing at her hip joints, as if to wrench

them out of place inch by inch, and the anguished screams she denied her

tormentor raged within her, escaping only as gasps and hisses.

As yet another crank was turned, her knees protested as her twisted legs were

also rotated outwards, her pain-wracked hip joints reaching new pinnacles of

searing white agony as the relentless pain of her predicament was compounded

by a rotation which was allowed for only a small angle even in a normal

position. Pure, unadulterated terror descended over her as she discerned among

her barely stifled screams a sickening creaking from her joints as pain

reached new heights, screaming to herself "A cripple! I am going to be

crippled forever!" over and over until she screamed for real when the steel

switch suddenly savaged her exposed breasts.

In spite of the searing pain, nothing was broken as time passed except her

resolve, as the regular application of the switch sent waves of agony through

her body when the muscles contracted, vainly attempting to pull against the

iron devices bending her body. Once more, however, the Easterner noted that he

could break her defiance, but her will would persist until she passed out.

Kayleen woke up hanging upside down, her torso tied to a vertical post with

waist, neck and chest iron bands, her legs pulled wide along twin iron rails,

which already included the iron devices to bend and twist hip, knee and ankle,

although still unwound. Her arms were also pulled along a single horizontal

rail extending from the bottom of the sturdy wooden post.

The Easterner picked up a smallish device, waiting until her gaze focused on

it, then proceeded to apply it to her left toe, bending it again, intent on

rekindling the hell she just left. As before, her elbows and knees were

encased and viciously bent near breaking point, her fingers and toes purplish

at the relentless tearing of her ligaments, her throat sore and her jaw aching

from the effort of containing her screams again.

Once her fingers were in pain, the rail at the bottom of the post was rotated

downward, twisting her shoulder joints, her gasps and hisses the harbingers of

more to come, sweat returning on her twitching body as unrelenting pain

consumed her resolve and gnawed at her determination.

Again the wicked steel switch landed on her exposed flesh, causing her muscles

to contract in reaction and bringing fresh pain as they flexed in vain against

the stretched ligaments. But the purpose of her position soon became apparent

as her leg rails were rotated slightly, one counterclockwise and the other

clockwise, twisting her martyrized hip joints and pulling at her sore muscles.

The Easterner eyed her coldly, then started winding the devices along each leg

until they renewed their compounded agonies, and then cranked first one and

then the other rail into rotating her distended legs, choreographing a dance

of pain in mid air, a dance whose music was her broken voice wailing and

shrieking as her thigh muscles were strained one after another.

The pain in her groin rose and waved as her thighs were distended, twisted,

pulled and torn, her muscles burning and the ligaments pulled near breaking

point as her tormentor unrelentingly wound his hideous device. Her crotch was

pushed forward as both thighs were bent backwards, closer and closer to

tearing them out of their sockets, her voice rising in a howling scream when

the steel switch savagely slashed her crotch and her thighs spasmodically

attempted to pull close, spraining under the effort.

Her tormentor sent her left thigh along a downward arch, while sending her

right thigh upward, causing her pelvis to buckle and twist in a rag doll dance

of pain as her limbs were forced to come full circle and start back, slowly,

agonizingly, the unrelenting pain waxing and waning in each joint, wrenching a

fitful scream from her unwilling mouth whenever agony mounted in both at the

same time.

Time and again she screamed in fear as the pain rose to unbearable levels,

expecting the cracking of bone or the popping sound of dislocation, but her

tormentor bid his time, and exercised her limbs in his ballet of agony while

his victim howled and nonsense words like "Please" and "Mercy" escaped from

her parched lips. "Now you talk." he answered, and resumed his rapping of her

exposed flesh, slowly increasing the strength of each strike and their

frequency, her uninterrupted lambasting inaudible as her fitful cries mingled

with anguished calls to Lyral, the friend for whose sake she was undergoing

this, and whose name last escaped her lips as she lost consciousness.

The shock of cold water brought her back lying on the floor, and Grod brought

a jug to her lips, allowing her to drink at length. Her ankle cuffs had been

supplemented with narrow iron bands along the entire length of her legs and

thighs, and Grod was proceeding to bind her arms behind her in the same

fashion. With dread she realized that the bands were studded on the inside,

not to the point of piercing the skin however, and that the studs had a screw

mount which allowed each to be pushed further down.

Grod paid no heed to a number of bands still on the floor besides her, but

dragged her into a corner where chains hung from pulleys in the ceiling and

lifted her up by tying chains at her knee and elbow bands, her shoulders again

hurting horribly as they bore part of her weight. But her eyes widened in

horror when he brought under her a wooden upwards wedge, positioned it under

her buttocks and lowered her onto it.

Part of her weight moved onto the point, the discomfort soon turning to a dull

ache, and while she squirmed in search of some respite Grod tightened the

remaining studded bands on her torso, constricting her chest and waist so that

her breathing became immediately uncomfortable. More chains were fastened to

the cuffs at her ankles and wrists, her torso and her legs, so that at the end

she hung in a web of chains. The pain she dreaded came when he loosened the

chains bearing her weight, which rested entirely on the wedge point below her,

in the soft spot between the sphincter and the opening of the vagina.

The point radiated pain up her body, and she could not help but twitch in a

vain attempt to find a less excruciating position, which caused the studs in

her restraints to grind the flesh, each jerk bringing about more pain from the

wedge tormenting her. Grod adjusted the chains holding her in position so that

she would not rock off the point and bid his time, scrutinizing her contorting

face as she grimaced and hissed in uninterrupted torment.

Time passed, and yet the Warrior Queen endured the excruciating torment, each

breath bringing new sufferings as her chest pressed into the studs

constricting it, each jerk a new blaze of pain from below, droplets of blood

on her skin where the chafing from the studs had turned the skin raw. Grod

tightened the studs one by one, a mute menace of further pain to come, but

then loosened some of the chains and slowly pulled others, excruciatingly

drawing her on the point until it entered her sphincter.

After a strangled cry of dread and outrage, her suffering actually subsided,

as her weight was no longer concentrating on the tip, but a whip soon cracked

on her thigh with the full force of Grod's powerful arm, her clenched teeth

fighting a scream of anguish at this new development.

Grod had picked a short, nasty whip of twisted sinew, which could be wielded

in the confined space of the corner, and now lashed her exposed flesh all

over, apparently at random but actually looking for the most effective spots.

Whenever her body jerked under the whip, the wedge point entered her rectum

some more, impossible to dislodge, and soon the pain from her distended

sphincter and the chafing from the gyrations on the wooden tormentor added to

the suffering from the merciless lashes.

Well aware of the developments, Grod concentrated his lashing on the spots

which would push the wedge deeper, targeting her lower back, the underside of

her thighs and the exposed soles of her feet. Her glistening body flexed and

contracted under the assault, her panting often turning into hisses and gasps

as she still held out, determined not to scream for their pleasure.

There was to be no pause to this torment as long as she looked to be taking

the full measure of it, so Grod again loosened some chains and pulled at

others, dragging her body over the tip again until it rested again where it

was before, her twitching body experiencing again its bite but with the added

torment of the accursed lash.

He fetched a pair of raw wooden pliers, waited until her teary gaze focused on

them, and then moved besides her to close them on her left nipple. He could

hear the gritting of her teeth as he started pulling at the nipple, as if to

tear it off from the breast which was flattened against her chest by the

studded iron bands.

Since he had to work in a restricted space, it took him many excruciating

attempts to pull her full breast through the bands by the nipple, her jerks

and twists as the raw wood chafed her sensitive piece of feminine flesh

bringing untold suffering from the diabolical unyielding point. And she also

endured the same on her other breast, before her conditions caused Grod to

allow her a pause, as she was no longer feeling what was being done to her.

Cold water revived her brutally and the suffering resumed, her now exposed

swollen breasts a suitable target for the whip, since in her new position the

most effective strikes where those which forced her to distend her limbs,

increasing the pressure where the point dug into her flesh.

The twisted whip took to her thighs, as upon each lash her legs distended and

a new lance of white hot pain surged from the hellish wedge, and crisscrossed

them where the flesh was free from the bite of the studded bands. Grod bid his

time between each lash, allowing the pain to sink in and the grinding from the

point to do its work, but still she would not scream in spite of the agony

evident on her beautiful face.

He fetched another whip, a short whip which he wet thoroughly and then coated

in wet sand, and with this whip in the right and the pliers in the left moved

to her and closed the pliers on her left nipple, pulling it up to slash the

underside of her left breast. An agonized scream burst behind her clenched

teeth, her face distorted in the effort to contain it, and he lashed her again

to see if he could wrench it from her. After many lashes it became apparent

that she was still defying him, so he bid his time, perusing the effects of

the point on the mask of suffering distorting her face.

He moved the pliers to her other nipple and pulled it savagely up, pausing

before lashing the quivering flesh and listening for her panting voice to

burst into despair, but she still endured and the pain had not broken her will

yet. He operated the chains positioning her again, dragging her soft flesh

over the point with excruciating slowness until it dug through the lower rim

of her vagina end entered it with a sickly thud. To his disappointment, she

managed to hold even this howl behind her clenched teeth, tears flowing from

the eyes as she shook her head incessantly.

To drive the wedge deeper, her torturer slowly modified her position, lowering

the legs and raising her elbows, then fetched the twisted whip again and aimed

at her armpits, her chest rotating under the lash and the wedge grinding

deeper into her. He alternated strikes behind the knee to strikes on the outer

side of each breast, forcing her to undulate and chafe her cunt walls on the

wooden wedge, wails of agony echoing behind her folded lips.

He picked up another pair of pincers, with long thin iron jaws this time, and

inserted them forcefully between her clenched thighs, his dreadful probing

causing her to twitch and turn on the wedge even more frantically than before,

her screams a mounting wave behind the last vestiges of her determination as

droplets of blood stained the wooden wedge.

The jaws finally pinched what he was probing for, her agony bursting in a

scream of anguish as they bit on her love bud, her efforts to escape their

grip driving the wedge deeper and deeper, the torn muscles at the entrance of

her vagina bleeding again as the wedge distended them whenever her pelvis

jerked around, spasmodically searching for relief.

He returned to the wooden pliers and pulled down her left breast by the

nipple, whipping it occasionally but putting as much of his weight onto it to

driver her further down the wedge, then repeated the operation with her right

breast. Not satisfied yet, he kneeled below her suspended body, brought the

right arm wielding the pliers up on her left side and pulled at the nipple

with his full weight, jerking repeatedly, each pull lowering her onto the

wedge until her cries rose into a howl when the point hit her cervix.

A new nightmare began for Kayleen, the whip landing alternately on her left

and right sole, forcing her to rotate the pelvis and savage her innards up to

the cervix on each strike, blood dripping from inside her as her screams first

rose higher and higher and then trailed off, her endurance spent, her will

broken again. Instead of pausing, her tormentor repositioned her so that the

point dug at her urethra, the new pain searing through her while her bloodied

innards got some respite.

As even this new torment lost its bite, her obviously exhausted body not

allowing her to fully experience the torment, he wound new chains around her

pelvis and dragged her weight over the point, helping himself with the iron

pincers, until the full weight of her tormented body rested on her pinched

love button. As the unwinding of chains brought the full weight home, her

cries turned to howls and then rose higher, as cold water was poured on her to

prevent her from passing out.

The whip landed on her right breast, the underside of her thighs, the soles of

her feet; any strike ground her soft piece of feminine flesh mercilessly onto

the wooden tip. Small as it was, the arrangement of chains precluded her from

dislodging herself, although she tried whenever she had some respite between

lashes, causing more agonies on each failed attempt.

Grod produced a jug, heated by burning oil, with a thin dispensing beak, and

tipped it onto her left breast. The scalding water landed above her nipple and

flowed down her body, a few droplets which caused her to jerk more than once,

as the steaming rivulet followed its fiery trail, each movement bringing more

searing pain to her love bud.

The device actually prevented the water from reaching boiling temperature, and

the contents were released in droplets, but Grod spared no part of her body,

each drop a scream as she could not help but jerk herself onto new agonies

from her impaled love bud. Angry patches of reddened skin soon appeared on the

soles of her feet, her arms, her legs, while her spasmodic contortions rattled

the trestle on which the wedge rested, as if she was attempting to break it.

Fixing the trestle brought her some respite at least from the scalding water,

but then Grod started dripping water between her thighs, the water flowing

onto the soft flesh enclosed by the studded bands, and then placed the jug

under her navel and let the water flow, an angry red trail soon forming on her

skin while her screams turned hoarse.

Grod considered, then said "Talk, girl. We haven't even started to harm you

for real, and you're already delirious. You can't hold out much longer."

Behind a haze of pain, Kayleen thought that there was compassion behind his

voice, and warmed at the thought of telling them what they wanted to know and

end this nightmare. She wished for a desperately long instant that she could

talk, but what escaped her parched lips was just "I won't." at which her

torturer resumed liberally dripping scalding water on her contorting body as

the tip of the wedge savaged her love bud, forever and forever until no amount

of cold water could bring her back to consciousness.

Chapter 6 - A Tiger by The Tail

The Warrior Queen lay spreadeagled on her back, cuffed at the ankles and

wrists to iron rings set in the stone floor. Pain from her ordeals still

lingered in her limbs, even if they were not being pulled, but her tormentors

obviously deemed that she had not suffered enough, because honey had been

smeared on the sensitive parts of her body and she had been left as the sole

food for an unknown number of biting insects, horseflies she would guess.

In spite of the bites, however, once she regained some sense the Warrior Queen

recognized that this was her first chance to rest her battered body, and tried

hard to ignore the occasional bite, with mixed success. She managed to

actually sleep, in fitful naps, and felt somewhat reinvigorated when heavy

footsteps approached. She had been aware of her exceptional stamina and

endurance before, and at the back of her mind was proud of how she endured the

torments, but she would not last without rest.

She had no illusions about the state of her body, however; she was covered

with wounds, welts and bruises, encrusted blood and a number of mild burns;

most of her muscles, including some which never would under ordinary

circumstances, were strained; her joints ached and her ligaments had been

almost torn; her private parts had bled profusely, and would probably become

infected unless treated in short order.

She allowed herself to gasp audibly when a fly bit her, as she planned to look

as weak and vulnerable as possible and wrench her chance at freeing herself

today, before another day of tortures left her forever unable to even try. She

would have tried yesterday, but for her racked body.

Their torches shed some light on the sinister devices in the torture chamber

and she noticed that it was just her three tormentors and the ever present

husk of Zhorun. She recollected smelling his presence during the days of her

ordeal, as he used to come closer when she was at the peak of her agonies. The

location of Lyral was apparently of such importance to him that he could

devote his entire day to witnessing her torture - maybe he no longer slept ?

When the Easterner freed her wrists, she feigned relief, hoping the man would

not notice her tension. He did not; when both her ankles were free, she sprang

up and kicked him savagely under the chin, sending him sprawling on the floor.

As she had hoped, everybody was frozen in surprise at this sudden turn of the

events, the Southerner gaping at her in disbelief. She longed for a weapon,

but none was within immediate reach and time was her only advantage, so she

rushed Grod, hoping to bring down the strongly built executioner before he had

time to assess the situation. Her wounded feet would not let her move with her

once proverbial quickness, but she managed to push her fist into his plexus

before he could dodge her. She had discarded a kick to the groin because he

wore a leather apron.

He half turned however, and her fist landed on his ribs, probably crushing one

or two, but she had missed her chance to take him out. The robed corpse behind

waved his hands and cold tendrils of magic appeared around her limbs, while

the Southerner turned and ran screaming for his life. Grod attempted a low

punch, but she dodged him easily, and landed a crushing blow on his nose,

although not strong enough to drive the cartilage up into the brain as she

used to be capable of.

Grod fell to his knees, blood spurting from his nose, and the Warrior Queen

moved a step toward the frail corpse under the black robe, hampered but not

held by the tendrils. Hate burned white in her eyes, and with a mighty effort

she tore the tendrils asunder.

The tendrils had bought the wizard the time for a more involved spell,

however, and six armored guards appeared around him, creatures of foul magic

brought from beyond the grave only in the direst of emergencies. "Seize her."

he hissed, furious now that he no longer feared for his wretched existence.

And seize her they did, at last, but only after losing two of their numbers in

the fight against a bare handed young woman. The Easterner woke cursing, as

the kick meant to snap his neck had merely strained it, while the Southerner

hid behind a rack until Zhorun's voice called him, "Come here, Hadrad. She's

no longer a threat." Grod was promptly dismissed so that he could be treated.

Zhorun moved limply near her, saying "Still defiant, still fighting. But your

little stunt failed. You won't be given a chance to try again, and I'll gladly

let my servants take their revenge on you with more tortures. Unless you have

something to tell me, that is."

She stood still, stymied at her failure but exalted by the fear she had for a

moment guessed under the black robes. So they had more tortures for her ?

"Bring them on." she spat, "You'll never put your clutches on Lyral, wretch."

Without a word, Zhorun receded. When Grod joined them again, his nose and ribs

visibly bandaged, he spoke to his three servants, "You have been careless, and

you paid for it. Make sure this does not happen again, and proceed with her

interrogation until she provides the information I want."

Grod produced an iron collar with a screw on its front and tied it around her

neck. Turning the screw tightened the collar and crushed the windpipe, so her

breathing was first restricted and then obstructed, her face turning pale

until the screw was turned back. "This will keep her spirits in check from now

on." he growled, his voice distorted by the nose bandage.

The Easterner tightened the collar some more before moving her to a wooden

trestle, bending her arms over an horizontal beam and cuffing them behind the

neck, and took similar precautions when doubling her legs outwards and cuffing

her ankles to another beam, where her lower back rested. Only when an iron

band was closed around her waist did he loosen the device, her belabored

breathing heaving her tantalizingly exposed breasts.

The silent torturer fetched a wooden thumbscrew and tightened it around her

left thumb, until she gasped, then did the same to her right thumb. There was

no counting, no mercy, as finger after finger was tightened in a screw while

the Warrior Queen agonized silently on the trestle, pain already gnawing at

her but her resolve emboldened by the obvious discomfort of his neck.

Each of her torturers had his pet peeves, and as she expected he proceeded

with her toes, tightening them almost to the point of breaking them in the

wooden vises. He then lambasted toes and fingers alike with a wooden cane,

wrenching but a gasp from her but bringing tears to her eyes already.

The next two screws he tightened around her nipples, watching her eyes shut

tight in pain and her clenched teeth suppress a scream, and then caned them at

length as she writhed on the trestle. He rummaged in his tray until he found

two screws about three fingers wide which he tightened on her outer labia,

pulling them apart with cords winding around her body and crossing behind her

neck to reach her nipple screws, which he pulled shorter and shorter until her

back arched, the cane landing between her legs and on her distended breasts

equally as she bravely stifled screams of utter agony, fighting dread at the

thought that he was torturing her harder than before.

The wry Easterner fetched a larger wooden vise and trapped her left foot in

it, tightening it savagely with his ear to the device, careful not to break

the bone. Her strong body glistened with sweat as she fought the mounting

pain, her thigh muscles flexing in a vain attempt to escape the world of hurt

rising from her constricted foot. When he did the same to her other foot, her

buckling exposed the pink softness below her raw mound, the Southerner

drooling at the thought of the delights he would soon enjoy.

Her forearms were next encased in vises, three wooden vises connected by an

iron rail, and the one in the middle tightened in the opposite direction, his

fingers probing as she writhed in deep suffering while her forearms were being

bent near breaking point. The wood bit deep in her flesh, cutting into the

muscles and digging creases of compressed flesh in her slender forearms.

He started caning her again, on the undersides of her distended breasts, each

twist and squirm sending more pain through her forearms, and then moved to her

side and encased her left leg and thigh in vises, connected by three iron

bars, one lying above the angle between leg and thigh, one below, and one snug

between the two and her knee. Again the middle vise tightened in the opposite

direction with respect to the other two, the longer bones of leg and thigh

visibly bent as the wooden vises dug in the firm flesh and hurt horribly as

she still attempted to stifle her cries, her blonde mane shaking frantically.

After caning the exposed flesh on the insides of her thigh, he pulled on the

iron bar under her knee, bringing it above the beam where her ankle was

cuffed, savagely tearing at her hip joint and bending her knee, her face a

mask of agony but her screams still muted behind clenched teeth. He then moved

to her right side, and leisurely applied a similar contraption.

Her nipples and cunt lips had turned purplish from the uninterrupted

compression, but he ignored her eyes widening in horror and pulled at them

with pincers, distending them until he could tighten another vise on each.

Another large vise was placed high up her abdomen, just below the ribcage, and

when it was closed her panting turned to wheezing as she could no longer take

deep breathes without hurting herself.

In this position she was caned at length, her tormentor tightening vises here

and there leisurely as she attempted to concentrate on matters distanced from

her predicament, but could only think about the searing pain from the

unyielding vises. He finally added vises to her inner lips and her love

button, and tightened them one turn at a time, her beautiful face contorted in

a muted scream of hellish agony which he prolonged intently.

When she passed out, her restraints were removed with great care, and then she

was revived and made to drink from a jug. The syrup tasted different, and her

tormentor said coldly "Longer pain." She felt her mind clear, but the collar

was tightened on her windpipe as she was being tied upside down, her back to a

pole, her ankles cuffed up at the top and her arms pulled along an iron rail

which was soon cranked to horizontal position, her arms painfully rotating in

their sockets as a consequence. An iron band was tightened at her waist.

A different vise encased her toes, built from four ridged rods inserted

between the toes and two pressure bars connected by paired screws, which when

tightened crushed the toes onto the ridged rods. The first agony of her

renewed ordeal shot down her leg, her head jerking as this was much worse than

even five screws on the same foot. A similar device was applied to her right

hand, and then her right foot and left hand followed, as she pressed the chin

on her chest in spasmodic agony and a suppressed cry hummed behind her tight

lips.

When she saw what he had fetched, her heart sank. The inside of the vises he

was tightening around her legs had been rasped and hacked, and would chafe and

wound her skin horribly when tightened. Her fears found immediate confirmation

as the vises around her legs started to hurt and bleed in places, cutting into

her distended muscles on each turn of the screws. To add to her misery, he

caned her feet in order to cause her legs to twitch and vises to chafe into

her already wounded flesh.

Similar vises were tightened around her ribcage, above and below the breasts,

and then her arms were similarly encircled by raw bracelets of wooden agony,

the cane landing on her breasts to force her to grind herself onto the rasping

wood more and more. Her thighs were not spared, either.

A wail of anguish almost escaped her lips when the raw teeth of a vise closed

on her left breast, cutting at the base into the soft underside. He tightened

it some and then applied the other, connecting them with a cord to prevent

them from sliding off as the actual tightening began. The pain soon brought

her on the verge of passing out, but dread mounted in her as no respite came

while the pain in her bulging and distorted tits kept increasing.

More vises where applied to her cunt lips, the blood already dripping from her

breasts was soon joined by blood from her nether regions, the raw wood

tightened mercilessly, and from her love bud, constricted almost to the point

of bursting in the rasping grip of another wooden horror, a scream at the top

of the lungs mounting behind her shaken resolve as droplets of blood descended

her body like rivulets of pain, eroding her determination.

Two more vises were tightened savagely on her purplish nipples, and the cane

was brought on her soles, palms and underbelly, her delightful body writhing

and grinding the vises into the wounded flesh. Her tormentor alternated

turning a vise to lashing out with the cane, at leisure, making sure she was

given no respite from the unyielding pain. She would soon lose her defiance

again, and her screams would delight the ears of the onlookers much as the

writhing of her delectable body delighted the eyes.

Kayleen lost track of time, pain shooting into her from all over her body but

not bringing about the release she desperately yearned for, now undeniably

late in coming as her resolve was being consumed by the blazing fire from her

nipples and clitoris, the vulnerable pieces of feminine flesh her tormentors

invariably targeted again and again.

Only after an excruciatingly long time was she given some respite, and only

because tightening a vise or caning a nipple produced a less pronounced

reaction, hinting at a deeper exhaustion which had not been overcome by the

drugs fed to her. Again, much care was exercised in freeing her and tying her

arms behind a beam placed under her shoulders, bent at the elbow in a

painfully unnatural position. Her ankles were cuffed together, and a

thumbscrew tightened together the big toes of her feet.

When her tormentor lowered the chain above her, she wished for a moment that

she could scream her anguish and dread, because a wide breast press of rasped

wood hung from the chain, and she knew instantly the fate that would soon

befall her breasts.

The vise was tightened across both breasts and tied into place with cords, and

then the chain was pulled, forcing her on tiptoes to reduce the strain on her

tortured globes. The thumbscrew actually allowed only her big toes to bear the

weight of the body, and soon blood encrusted it as it bit in their flesh under

her waddling weight.

Other vises where tightened at the base of her nipples, and a large one

encased her thighs one against the other, pushing the hips outwards, each step

now a jerk reverberating through her hip joints. The cane landed on her

buttocks, the strikes pushing her around on her big thumbs in a circle which

soon became a bloody trail, her breast purplish and swollen, occasionally

seared by the accursed cane.

He reached in the crease between her thighs and tightened a vise on her love

bud again, then added vises on the tip of her nipples and connected the two

with cords wound behind her back, which he shortened until her feminine flesh

looked on the verge of being wrenched away, the breasts distorted by the

concomitant compression from the press and pull from the nipples. And the

exposed undersides a soft target which the cane soon visited.

After adding vises around the ribcage, he selected a longer, thicker cane,

which Kayleen felt she had been subjected to before, and lashed at the soft

flesh behind her thighs. The recognition of the cane used when he was dunking

her was immediately swamped under a wave of pain, caused by the full weight of

her body bearing on her breasts as the strike from the cane had caused her

legs to pull close in reflex.

He started playing with her like a puppeteer, a strike on her striped ass

cheeks for a step forward, a strike on her belly for a step backward, a strike

behind her calves or thighs for an agonizing instant of white hot pain hanging

from her breasts while the legs grasped frantically for the floor. Lashing her

left arm caused her to painfully turn to the left, lashing her right arm

turned her to the right. Her toes left a trail of blood on the floor.

He moved besides her and tightened the screws, one by one, then grabbed her

left breast with pliers and pulled, twisting as if to wrench it from her body,

bile burning her throat as the scream to top all screams raged at her weakened

will, but actually just enough to add a vise around it and tighten it as she

hissed and shook her head. He no longer seemed to care about breaking her, his

cold eyes only intent on causing her as much pain as possible.

He resumed his puppet play, the extra vises adding new agonies to the endless

hurt which wracked her when her thumbs left the ground, and pulled her around

in circles and counter circles, her toes occasionally skidding over her own

sweat and blood before painfully regaining what little balance she could

muster. No blessed release reached her, nothing took her even momentarily away

from her ordeal; her torment was suspended only when the cane would no longer

get her moving.

The old Southerner stepped in as Grod was looking after her wounds, real

bleeding wounds, although the skin had been chafed but not deeply cut and no

major vessels had been damaged. She noticed a new callousness in Grod's touch,

but her gaze locked onto the preparations of the Southerner who was visibly

aroused at the thought of what he was about to visit on the delectable body of

this Northern goddess.

He was busying himself with a pole, mounted on a sturdy four beamed rest, on

top of which rested a wooden cone, about one inch at the rounded top and

tapering to ten or twelve inches at the base. The pole could be adjusted in

height, but what filled her with dread was near the bottom, a short spreader

bar with cuffs at the ends and a middle ring loosely encircling the pole.

She could barely breathe because of the collar, but she turned from Grod's

grasp when the old Southerner came to her, attempting a reaction which was

stifled immediately as she was still cuffed at the ankles and wrists, and

still cuffed she was brought to the pole and seated on it, the dull tip

nudging at her sphincter, her arms bent behind her neck but chained to a

savagely tight iron band at her waist and her legs distended along the pole

and cuffed to the bar, the balls of her feet on a pile of wooden slabs.

The Southerner, grinning, shortened the chain between her cuffs and the waist

band, bending her backwards and pushing out her full, firm breasts, his gaze

transfixed as they heaved while she breathed hard because of the collar,

which was finally loosened. But her respite was short lived, because he also

removed some slabs from under her feet, which dangled in mid air unable to

reach the pole. The pressure on her anus became immediately painful as the

rounded point pushed in, until she desperately clenched her thighs.

"Now, my dear butterfly, we've got you just where we wanted." he leered, and

brought forward a round glass jug encased in a decorated wooden and ivory

framework, its lower half heated by a sizable oil burner. Four hoses departed

from the the top, each ending in a bronze crocodile head, a valve. Each hose

hailed from a separate compartment, two apparently empty and two where leaves

of sorts were being heated.

"Some misguided fool removed your gag." he said. "The gag makes you more

willing to sing for us, among other things." he added, paying no heed to her

baleful stare. As disgust mounted within her, he brought a hose near her

nipple and opened the valve, a surge of hot air caressing her poor feminine

flesh. She jerked away with a gasp, the pain to the nipple compounded by a

stab from below her as her thighs had allowed the cone to enter her some more.

He contemplated her feet, now a few inches above the ground but frantically

searching for a rest, and savored her thighs clenching in fear as he brought

the crocodile head between her legs. The bronze head breathed on her vulva,

forcing her to open her thighs, writhe and buckle, rocking the pole as her

delicate skin turned pink. How she managed not to scream, she couldn't tell.

"Obstinate silence again." he muttered, then tightened the collar and pinched

her nose, but it took him many attempts nevertheless to push into her mouth a

strong steel gag, the extremities bending around her mouth like spider legs on

her scratched cheeks. When he moved the hose at her other breast and unleashed

it, however, he was rewarded by a steadily increasing wail of torment as the

hot air assaulted her nipple.

He emptied a jug down her mouth, the bitter taste of the drug mixed with the

honey as she coughed it up. The hose was brought behind her back and turned

loose on her ass cheeks, so he could solace himself with her screams and wails

as he slowly moved its head in broad circles, first left then right, grinding

the cone into her orifice with each gyration of her shapely buttocks and each

strangled cry from her sore throat.

Kayleen caught herself blabbering between screams, but the pain was beyond her

and the searing whiff of the hose gave her no respite, although he alternated

between the two hoses not burning leaves as they apparently took some time to

recharge between uses. The cone had distended her sphincter and reopened the

wounds from her previous ordeals.

Her nemesis was playing with her misery, and enjoying it immensely. Sometimes

he would target her thighs or groin, forcing her to lose her grip and impale

herself more on the hellish wooden tormentor, sometimes he would martyrize a

breast, forcing her to rotate her body to avert the fiery breath and once more

grind the cone into her savaged innards, but now and then he would place it

just under her private parts, so that to spare them she had to push herself up

at any cost with short sitting jumps, the cone jarring into her as she landed

on her torn sphincter after each.

Aroused by her writhing but still shapely body, he disrobed and penetrated her

in a rutting upwards surge, her outraged cry music to his ears, each thrust

pushing her up a bit and ravaging her distended asshole thereafter. Once

satisfied, he pushed a bronze crocodile into her vagina as her gagged mouth

babbled "No, No!" and opened it half way, the scalding whisper soon turning

her twitching body into a frantically screaming puppet of pain.

Her eyes opened wide in horror and disbelief when respite only came as he

penetrated her again, the sore walls of her love channel blazing at the

intrusion, her throat howling to high heaven as she was subjected to his

abject lust. Although his rut was soon over, her suffering was not, as his

game was now to keep a hose blowing on the same piece of flesh in spite of her

buckling and twitching, and her long wails of hopeless anguish turned into

howls of agony when the breath lingered on her clitoris or nipple.

She could not tell whether he finally tired of his games or her body robbed

him of further delights by withdrawing from further pain, but at last she was

lifted from the bloodstained cone, and let face down on the stone floor, still

savagely restrained. The jug was emptied through her gag, and a soothing

ointment was rubbed on her burns.

She had found respite but not mercy, however, because the Southerner pulled

her head up by her blonde hair and pushed his member through her gag, her cry

dying off in a gurgle as he had his way with her again. He then pulled her up

and positioned her vagina on top of the cone, guiding it as it entered her

while her sobs turned into wails and then a cry as her muscles were stretched

by the already bloodstained intruder and the wooden surface chafed the

blistered insides of her love channel.

She still stood on her feet, her back arched and the face staring into the

ceiling as her arms were still pulled down to the waist band, but her nemesis

grasped her leg and doubled it under the thigh, cuffing the ankle to an iron

band at the hip. Her body shifted and oscillated forwards, in search of

balance, and found it by swinging the thighs backwards and the chest forwards,

her whole weight on the wooden cone pushing upwards through her now vertical

love channel.

A rising howl of agony erupted from her gagged mouth as the cone entered her

with sober swiftness, visibly distending the muscles at the entrance of the

vagina, old wounds reddening again, until she savagely clenched her thighs and

managed to stop its progression.

His eyes engorged themselves on her generously proportioned breasts heaving

between her sobs, and as if in a dream he brought a hose to each and opened

the bronze valves, chasing her breasts as she buckled and twisted, impaling

herself further down the wooden cone.

The dull tip of the cone already pressed on her cervix, and the pain from the

chafed, blistering walls was enough to prevent her from finding respite

however she tried to move, so he just stood there and watched. Her blonde mane

undulated as she jerked her head, the eyes shut tight in a face beautiful even

in her agony, the tendons of the neck taut under the iron collar, the

delightful mounds of her breasts proud and firm, pink and angry red in places,

heaving as her ribcage fought for air, and the strong, slender thigh clenching

the wooden member in an obscene parody of the love act ... his gaze drank it

all up, the exhilarant wine of suffering sweet on his eyes and the symphony of

her screams delightful to his ears.

In her sobs and wails, Kayleen pronounced words at random, some sweet to the

ears such as "Mercy", others nonsensical such as "walkway". Leisurely, he

pulled at one of the hoses he had disregarded so far and applied it to her

left breast, laughing as she jerked in surprise at the soothing effect of the

herbal fumes. When he let hot hair blow on the soothed skin, however, her

screams soon resumed, at which he applied the soothing smoke again. Each time

she screamed longer and louder, as the soothing fumes actually allowed the hot

air to linger on the skin without damaging it.

He moved to the soles of her feet, and alternated the hoses on each, her

screeches interrupted only by tearful sobbing and exploding in anguished howls

whenever he lingered some more. He started teasing her, soothing places he did

not subsequently torment, to see her squirm in the vain attempt to escape the

fiery breath of the crocodile heads. Her legs and thighs were not spared, but

he found a special delight in the screams wrenched from her mouth when he

applied the torment to her armpits.

As always, he saved the best for the last. He moved before her and played with

her abdomen and front thighs somewhat, unable to meet the gaze of her teary

eyes as he would have liked to do, and then brought the soothing hose to her

left nipple and the fiery hose to the her right nipple. He chased them, as she

ground herself on the cone in spasmodic jerks to avoid the unrelenting pain in

her burnt nipples, and exchanged the hoses over and over again, keeping an eye

on the angry red pieces of feminine flesh which the three of them had agreed

to torment without causing permanent damage.

The soothing fumes worked well, but he would have liked to bristle and char

the delectable appendages all by himself now, resenting the obligation to

share the exquisite pleasure with the others. She was blabbering again, she

would in all likelihood break soon.

And then an evil thought struck his mind, and he whispered a cruel lie, "Talk

now, girl. Tell the old wizard what he wants to know. He promised that you

would be the prize for whoever broke you, and I want you for my pleasures

only." He saw his words had found his mark when her teary eyes bulged in

horror: she would not break just now, and he would be allowed to continue at

his game unimpeded. He had not thought out all the consequences, however.

He brought both heads blowing on her crotch, the fiery blow following the

soothing blow an inch behind, and followed the torn line of muscle at the

entrance of her vagina before nudging them under the fold above her clitoris,

her maddened screams all he wanted to hear from her as he slowly twisted the

two hoses so that he could keep them on without undue damage.

The cone had entered her to the point of visibly distending her lower belly,

and blood percolated down in tiny drops, yet she still yanked herself around

whenever the twin breaths licked at her, and he resumed his game of forcing

her to grind herself on the wooden tormentor. He played it onto her crotch and

inner thighs until she no longer reacted.

They still kept her restrained, but Kayleen was delirious and could not even

stand, much less fight. She was physically drained, yet neither exhaustion nor

unrelenting pain had allowed her the respite of unconsciousness. The thought

of refusing the jug occurred to her, although her parched throat craved it,

because they were adding some drug for prolonging her suffering.

Grod dragged her to a rack, grimacing when he lifted her. "I must have broken

his ribs," she thought. He had tightened the collar, and cuffed her wrists

and ankles with wide, padded cuffs before releasing it again. She shivered at

the thought of being stretched on the rack again, the pain in her muscles

almost rekindling at the thought in spite of the burns all over her body and

the agony from her torn passages.

He poured another jug down her gag, before she could resolve herself to refuse

it, and then started summarily treating her wounded orifices. She could not

tell why, but a "Thanks" came to her lips, and their gazes locked. She saw his

eyes harden when more pain shot from his ribs.

This rack was rather elaborate, consisting of a main bench and four

outstretched arms for the limbs, with a separate, complex winch at the end of

each. Each arm could be repositioned using a pair of cranks. She was currently

bound spreadeagled, the rack arms forming an X, and he tightened studded iron

bands at her hips, shoulders and waist, immobilizing her torso.

With steel in his eyes, Grod then moved between her legs and disrobed. Her

wail was half dread, half despair, as something within her soul shattered with

his first thrust. Her sore parts were ravaged again, with cold determination

and merciless strength, her wails and sobs falling on deaf ears as he pressed

on, the Southerner snickering at them in a corner.

Once done, he moved to the left upper arm and rotated it, twisting her arm in

the socket. He repeated the operation with the other arm, lowering them below

chest level, pushing her shoulder blades together and her martyrized breasts

proudly upwards. The muscles strained on the previous session hurt anew, and

others which had been spared flexed, her position not painful yet but her

future bleak in the hands of a connoisseur in the human body.

Pain arrived soon, when he cranked the rollers at the end of each arm and

pulled her arms, pulling the wrist against the bands at shoulder height and

stretching the twisted elbow and the arm out of its socket. He alternated the

left and right arm, the pain unlike the unyielding pull of her previous

racking but a white hot flash from the elbow, wrist and shoulder while muscle

and even ligaments were torn and released as her screams resounded in the vast

emptiness of the torture chamber.

What she could not see was that each roller had a device which reversed the

pull for a brief moment, so her limbs were steadily pulled, suddenly released

and then yanked back into traction. When her limbs were pulled taut and pain

burnt in her shoulder joints, he started whipping her breasts.

Her screams rose to new heights as each strike left a crimson stripe on her

firm flesh, the pain compounding the agony from her racked limbs as she pulled

on them in the vain attempt to escape the whip. Unlike before, now the torture

could be kept up, and at length her breasts turned into globes of crimson pain

while her arms hurt as if they were about to be torn from her body.

Putting the whip aside, he inspected her arms and fetched ominous iron clamps

which he proceeded to tighten on the tendons and muscles, either on sight or

after inspecting her arm with expert fingers, turning the screws until they

bit hard in the taut flesh.

He then poured on her arms cold water in quantity, and once this treatment

had knotted them cranked the rollers, her cold muscles cramping under the pull

and prevented from extending by the unyielding bit of the clamps. Each sudden

yanking of the hellish device wrenched another scream from her, and to her

disbelief he brought the whip down on her striped tits again, alternating a

crank on the roller and a lash at the opposing tit, drawing blood as the welts

crossed each other again and again.

When he moved to her legs, dread mounted in her and she started spouting words

at random, interspersed by cries as he cranked the lower arms of the rack to

spread her legs wider and down, twisting them at the hip joints and again

pulling not only at muscles which had been already strained on the flat rack,

but also at ligaments sorely tested by Chang's ministrations.

Grod worked intently, apparently neither moved nor thrilled when she started

to scream again as he cranked the rollers, distending her legs and sending

pain through her ankles, knees and hips. The cross rack was designed to pull

at the limbs without endangering the spine, and it was achieving just that,

the legs pulled against the unyielding iron band at each hip. The stretching

made the leg and thigh muscles exquisitely prominent, and tightening screws

on them was a much quicker affair.

He bid his time with the cold water, however, so much that she started to cry

again as cramps bit her muscles even without further pulling. When he deemed

her ready, he cranked the rollers in earnest however, her howls rising up the

vaults in bloodcurdling crescendo as he started whipping her crotch.

As with her breasts, each strike brought double pain from the muscles she

pulled by her jerks and twitches, and no respite came as she kept suffering

without interruption under the unrelenting torture. He would crank one leg,

whip at her striped groin, crank the other, and whip her again. Occasionally

the whip found its mark on her inner thighs, but its main target was always

her battered feminine parts.

He cranked her legs again, her hoarse screams still resounding in the chamber,

and then he tightened her collar, moved between her legs again, wore a leather

condom and penetrated her forcefully again, tearing at her ravaged channel and

bringing new agonies in her strained joints each time he pushed into her.

Blood from the spasming ring of muscles torn by the cone mixed with blood from

her whipped privates, and pain from her stretched limbs mixed with the brutal

humiliation of rape. Her fitful screams and sobs lasted her entire violation

and much more, as in pain and misery she twitched of her own accord in the

horrid embrace of the cross rack.

As the impassive Grod prepared the rest of her ordeal, the Southerner's gaze

feasted on her agony, enjoying the spasmodic jerks of the chest and pelvis

tearing at her stretched limbs. She was essentially racking herself, each

movement causing such pain that she could not help but jerk in response, thus

causing herself more pain in an exquisitely vicious circle. The Easterner also

appeared to appreciate the technique.

Grod encased her upper left arm in an iron contraption, did the same for her

upper right arm, and placed similar devices at her hips. Apparently their

operation depended on the rollers at the end of the cross rack arms, but it

was hard to tell their purpose. He then fetched a pair of large, wooden pliers

with the jaws rasped raw and closed it on her left breast, putting a boot on

the rack to pull and twist at it as if to tear it from her chest. Screaming

at the top her lungs she rotated her chest in response, pulling with all her

strength against the arm socket which would not follow.

Nobody could hear the sound, drowned by her demented screams, but all watched

as the flesh at the socket bulged and then sank as she dislocated her own arm,

and then started when the device sprang and reduced it on the fly, triggered

by the sudden drop in resistance effected by the dislocation. White hot waves

of pain rose from arm and breast, her screams uninterruptedly tearing at the

very stones of the chamber, the still impassive Grod waiting until her pain

subsided to rekindle it by moving to her other breast.

Again her screams burst through the gag, punctuated by bloodcurdling howls and

neither decreasing nor diminishing as she slowly dislocated her own arm again

and had the dislocation reduced by the device. Then he closed the pliers

around her left labia, and pulled savagely until her left hip joint underwent

the same dreadful fate, and repeated the gruesome operation her right thigh.

Kayleen floated on a searing wave of relentless agony which rose and fell

but never receded, still screaming uninterruptedly into her gag in spite of

her parched, hoarse throat, wishing she would die instead of suffering any

further. But even as the thought that they could do no worse to her crossed

her mind, she knew it was not over, because the jaws of Grod's pliers closed

on her left breast again.

Still unable to find respite, Kayleen found unending agonies on the cross rack

as each limb was slowly dislocated again, her right arm actually not reducing

correctly and requiring manual intervention from Grod before re-seating

properly. Her maddened screams had echoed in the chamber without interruption

for at least an hour, and no respite was given to her, neither from her

torture nor from her own body. Her other tortures had been suspended when the

pain was no longer being felt, but even the twisted mercy of ultimate cruelty

was denied to her as the pain of dislocation resurfaced fresh each time on her

devastated visage. Her voice waned to a wheeze, consumed in screaming for an

unmerciful audience, but her body still twitched in horrendous pain, racking

itself on the gruesome cross rack, as her repeatedly dislocated limbs radiated

agony into her once athletic frame.

After this nightmare went on for a duration she could not comprehend, Grod

repositioned the rack and fucked her again, slowly and deliberately, the final

humiliation before she was at last released.

Chapter 7 - The Slippery Slope

Kayleen's pitiful moans echoed in the darkness of the chamber under the ruins

of Zhorun's former castle. Nobody had removed the gag this time, but the ache

in the jaw and the scratches on the cheeks were not the reason of her anguish.

She lay spreadeagled, face up, on a bed of marble wedges. Each was actually a

tetrahedron, and as such behaved as a caltrop, a tip always pointing upward no

matter how you moved it. The tips and edges were not actually sharp, just

enough to make lying on them as uncomfortable as possible without drawing

blood. She had tried to push some away, but the chains at her wrists and

ankles only allowed her to move sideways, and the wedges were all linked

together so she was unable to sweep a place to rest her wounded body.

Her failed stunt had brought upon her the unbridled wrath of her tormentors,

leaving her burnt, bleeding, broken, and defeated. She could not even deny

them her screams now, as the gag deprived her of the easiest method, and she

would have had to possess superhuman will to utter no sound under the

atrocities perpetrated upon her. The Warrior Queen pondered her bleak future,

her only hope now lay in being found before she broke under the torture.

As she thought of that, she heard with horror the approaching footsteps. "No!

It's too early! Not already!" she sobbed through her gag. The drug she had

been fed had allowed them to prolong the last session horrendously, so her

respite had been shortened accordingly.

When their torches lit the chamber, it was the old Southerner who came to her

first. She closed her eyes, expecting the worst, and was soon confirmed in her

fears when he violated her on the spot, the wedges digging painfully into her

as he thrust his rutting member inside her. "The first screams of the

morning." he cackled, his hands on her hips as he came at last.

His subsequent preparations took a long time, then she was made to stand and

brought to a sturdy wooden grating, the beams crossing about half a foot

apace, where thorny vines and branches from some unknown tree had been

interwoven. As her wrists were cuffed to the upper corners of the frame, a

shrill cry rose through her gag when her nipples brushed against the leaves.

"Whore Queen, meet the original stinging tree." mocked her tormentor as her

ankles were spread and tied to the lower corners of the frame. He then moved

behind her and put his hands on her ass cheeks, pushing them up with his

thumbs and distending them as his member nudged her asshole. He paused, as if

to listen, then pushed in, crushing her into thorns and leaves alike.

As he had to avoid contact with the leaves himself, he mostly pushed upwards,

enjoying the recoil as she fell back down after each thrust, and as a result

her legs and lower half were comparatively spared, as was her face since she

bent her neck in agony and despair. But her front and breasts were brushed

repeatedly against the leaves and the thorny vines, gathering bleeding cuts

and angry red rashes until he was finally done.

But Kayleen's ordeal was not, and he produced a bundle of vines and branches

which his gloved hands tied to the frame just under her vulva, forcing her to

bend at the waist to get her pelvic area away from the protrusion. He then

moved behind her and fetched a strange whip, with three tails, each half an

inch wide, and covered in short, coarse bristles.

He lashed her thighs, the tails leaving angry red marks as a wail of agony

rose through her gagged mouth. In spite of the lashes, her legs and body

pushed back as much as she could to avoid contact with the grotesque

protrusion, and her tormentor thus enjoyed the enviable sight of her strong

frame writhing under the lash, the slender legs taut and the ass thrust back,

pushing her delightful buttocks toward the whip.

The soles of her feet were beyond reach, but her arms proved intriguing

because she turned when he lashed one, exposing the opposite breast and

brushing the other against thorns and leaves. In order to wind the tips around

her torso and lash the breasts with full force, he had to change his position

after each lash, so he soon started panting from the exertion.

Out of breath, but still burning with lust, he targeted her muscular back,

each lash wrenching a shrill scream from her restrained body. As he moved

towards the buttocks, it became harder and harder for Kayleen to keep her

distance from the protruding bundle, and fresh screams arose in mounting

anguish whenever it brushed against her.

Her tormentor started a new game, meant to push her onto the bundle at whip

point. He lashed her sides, the tails wrapping around to slap on her lower

front, until her position was just right, and then put all his lust behind a

vicious upward blow to the underside of her ass. As the blow landed she

actually pushed herself forwards, as he had hoped, but moved past the bundle,

which brushed her on the left side.

"Be nice to the stinging tree." he mocked as he tried again, hoping that she

would understand and oppose him. He was disappointed, as her buckling became

frantic whenever a lash pushed her against the protrusion, her thighs and

front angry red as not all misses had been complete. Exhausted at last,

covered in red rashes from calf to wrist, she was forced by hand against the

bundle and screamed pitifully through the gag, defeated and writhing.

Her tormentor pressed on for some time, lashing her with quick strokes meant

to prevent her from disentangling from the excruciating bundle whose thorns

and leaves were raking her groin. After some time, she was cautiously untied

and made to drink from the jug, then retied in the opposite position, her back

to the frame and her front to her tormentor, arching to avoid contact between

her striped back and the frame, offering her full breasts and spread thighs to

the whip.

The old Southerner almost purred at the sight, savoring each thorn cut and

angry rash before raising his arm and slashing her soft underbelly, the three

tails leaving angry trails on her irritated skin. She howled at the top of her

lungs, discovering how the blisters prickled mercilessly the rashes from the

stinging tree.

On stung skin, striking with full force was actually less painful, because the

bristles were less effective. Her tormentor started swinging the whip upwards,

the tails landing lazily between her spread thighs and leaving angry red marks

as her screams rose in unison with the whip.

He insisted on whipping her crotch until the area was brimming with angry red

spots, some bristles actually sticking in the skin, and then moved to her

legs, her supple, long legs now fully distended in the effort to keep her back

from the thorns and stinging leaves. No longer panting, he actually whipped

them with force and at length, her cries quieter but tinged with despair.

He targeted her belly next, again striking with reduced force to let the

blisters burn the stung skin, savoring each howl escaping from the spidery gag

as he watched her suffering face. He lowered his aim, striking her mons,

irritated at Grod for plucking it raw because he would have liked to do so

with the bristled whip now, so he struck her repeatedly until her anguished

screams soothed him somewhat.

His gaze feasted on the body being offered to him, from the long, slender arms

to the ample chest, the full, firm breasts heaving as she cried under the

whip, the sculpted ribcage, the muscular abdomen, the ample pelvis, the long,

supple thighs. He whipped each as he enjoyed it, savoring her screams and her

spasmodic buckling.

Kayleen's was drowning in a nightmare of burning agony, the stung skin hurting

terribly when the bristles caressed it, her strained muscles protesting her

stretched position, her violated anus throbbing in pain. She already craved

the merciful embrace of unconsciousness, although dread told her that she

would be denied it from now on.

The whip landed across her breasts, with force, and her tormentor dragged the

bristled tails over the stung flesh. This was a strike he had practiced at

length, and he repeated it, enjoying the bleeding welts and the red swathes of

irritated skin as each brought a new cry from her. For a while, he closed his

eyes, betting with himself that he could aim with the sole help of her

screams, but then he reopened them to enjoy the sight again.

When his victim's front was a crisscrossed mesh of welts and stripes, he

sheathed his member in leather and closed on her, pushing her whipped back

against the thorns and stinging leaves and enjoying her struggling twitches as

his member entered her forcefully, his gloved hands fastened on her hips to

guide this renewed violation.

Instead of thrusting into her, he wanted her to buckle and twitch him to

climax, so he tightened her collar and clutched at some branches behind her to

bring them to her front, wrapping her chest in burning agony as her breathing

was obstructed and her vagina muscles tightened deliciously on his erect

member. Her frantic contortions took a long time to sate him, so much that he

considered wiser to loosen her collar twice to prevent her from asphyxiating.

He left her twitching on the frame, her eyes shut tight, so when she was

untied and saw what he had prepared for her, she gasped in fear. A low

trestle, brimming with thorns and stinging leaves, where she would lie face

down, her front agonizing on the hellish surface.  He carefully cuffed each

ankle to an iron band in the thigh, cuffed elbows and wrists behind her back,

then lifted her and landed her belly down on the frame, ignoring the cry of

agony wrenched from her gagged mouth, from her crushed breasts to her mons.

Her thighs were spread painfully wide, and an iron band was tightened around

her waist so that she could not roll off the torturous frame.

He grabbed her head by the hair and thrust his member into her gagged mouth,

while his other arm whipped her vulva. Her gagged screams made him hard, and

he whipped her again, and again, intoxicated with sadistic pleasure at her

humiliation and despair. She gurgled when he came in her mouth, still madly

screaming from the stinging leaves, her only hope being that he had not fed

her the jug this time, so maybe she would be given some respite soon.

He pulled off her mouth, but her ordeal was far from over. He pulled leaves

and thorns up over her crotch, rubbing them forcefully with both gloved hands,

until he managed to tie some around her waist band, then started whipping the

soles of her feet. Each welt on the soft flesh caused her to twist and buckle,

further grinding the thorns and leaves into her wounded groin.

He then fetched a pair of clasps, pulled her up by her hair until her breasts

cleared the frame, clasped both her nipples and pulling at them kept her

bending backwards, whipping the stung undersides of her breasts, each strike a

new howl when the bristles brushed the irritated flesh. Her agonized face

aroused him again, and he thrust his member into her gag, pulling at one

nipple and then another until her screaming mouth sated him.

Fetching the whip again, he rained vicious strikes on her buttocks and her

inner thighs, then pulled her up by the nipples again, the sight a favorite of

his, and whipped her slowly, as if waiting for something. Kayleen screamed and

screamed, the pain overcoming her dread at what he was waiting for, but

instead of further humiliation she was subjected to a prolonged whipping of

her feminine parts, the bristled tails striking through the leaves and thorns

until he effectively removed the latter by force of whip.

Fetching more clasps, he used them to spread her labia and pulling them with

one hand forced her to bend her pelvis towards him, her cries turning to

bloodcurdling howls when the whip started landing on her now exposed innards

and resonating under the vaults of the chamber for a long time, her writhing

body a toy under his whip.

Kayleen craved in vain some respite, even the briefest, but she was spared

nothing, her tormentor in his lust alternating between pulling her up by her

nipples or pulling her crotch off the frame, the whip landing mercilessly on

abundantly wounded skin, the welts bleeding as they crossed each other.

He wanted to violate her again, but no arousal occurred, and using the drug

again would be risky, so he kept up whipping her, although her sensitivity was

obviously waning, and raged on her bleeding crotch until he had to stop and

catch his breath. Spent and unhappy, he whipped her breasts a few more times

and then finally gestured to the Easterner.

She was cautiously untied, and she drank avidly from the jug, her thirst and

exhaustion stronger than the realization that the syrup included something

which prevented her from passing out under the torments. The Easterner brought

her to a sturdy wooden seat and immobilized her on it, cuffing her ankles and

wrists but also tightening iron bands on her limbs and torso.

Her toes were also immobilized between wooden planks, and a knobbed iron rod

was placed under them. Kayleen, unable to enjoy her respite, watched in dread

his preparations until his intent became clear, as a large stone brick was

dropped on her left foot, its ridged underside crushing on her delicate foot.

She cried aloud through her gag, and she cried again when her other foot was

next, but horror rose to her face when she saw that he held a lead weight

above a brick, turning to agony when the weight was dropped in place. Each

time a weight was dropped pain shot through a foot, the knobs digging

painfully under the toes, but the pauses only brought dull, uninterrupted ache

as the weight crushed flesh and bone.

Slowly, the weight was increased to the point of the ache turning to pain,

with blood trickling from under her toes because of the knobs, and the rate at

which weight was increased slowed to a crawl. Her agony was rekindled when the

iron rods were twisted, the knobs mauling the soft flesh under her toes.

As she screamed under the unrelenting weight, the Easterner moved to her

hands, immobilized her fingers between planks, fitting not one but three rods

under them, and then dropped a brick on each hand, with the visible intent to

start another progression like the one which had brought her feet in their

present condition. Kayleen in spite of herself sought his gaze, defeated to

the point of begging and on the verge of breaking, but his cold stare spoke of

a painful revenge to be exacted first.

When he was done, her strong body shook the chair, bolted on the floor, and

her sweat soaked mane oscillated left and right in rhythm with her sobs and

cries. Dread and anguish echoed in her scream when he snug knobbed rods under

her thighs and then placed a slab on them, the ridges biting the welts from

her recent whipping and the weights soon exacting new screams from the

writhing young woman, which turned to howls when the rods were turned and the

knobs raked the flesh, digging painfully and sometimes drawing blood.

More weights were added on her forearms, and then her tormentor alternated

long pauses of unrelenting crushing agony to sudden twists of a rod here and

there, the pain radiating from the offended flesh forcing her to twitch and

renewing the agony from the crushing weight on her limbs.

After a nightmarish stretch of torment, he made it worse, placing a wooden

plank on her chest, shaped to fit the ribcage under the breasts and sustain

them. Her own generous but firm breasts flattened only partially when they

were made to lean on the plank, but when the ridged underside of the brick was

dropped, crushing them on the plank and the knotted rod forced under them, her

howl rose fully to the vaults of the chamber and resonated fully in the ears

of the onlookers.

Slowly and deliberately, weights were dropped on her crushed breasts, turning

the rod a half turn on each drop, alternating weight and twist in a litany of

screams and howls during which she often started babbling random words cut

short by a vicious twisting of the rods.

Her tormentor seemed to never run out of weights, although he now used lighter

weights intended to compound the pain, not break the bone, and dropping a

weight on some crushed part of her body, twisting a rod and then pausing while

the pressure unrelentingly dished out its measure of pain became the horizons

of her nightmare of suffering, her hoarse throat screaming in the gag until at

last her body no longer reacted to a twisted rod.

She was cautiously freed, her limbs and breasts covered with nasty, bluish

bruises which Grod treated exchanging a look with the imperturbable Easterner,

as if reminding him of their agreement. She was made to kneel on the ridges of

an upturned stone slab, placing half a dozen knobbed rods on the back of her

legs before forcing her to sit on her heels and cuffing her hands on a beam

behind her back, her arms leaning on the beam at the expense of her shoulders

which were put under strain again. The beam rested on sturdy legs which also

sustained a plank fitting under her breasts, and Kayleen followed the dreadful

preparations with teary eyes, losing herself what little rest they allowed.

The Easterner placed more rods under the full length of her stretched arms,

and then renewed the nightmare of dropped weights and twisted rods, brick by

brick, her tears mixing with sweat on her twitching, sumptuous body as he

coldly tormented her bruised limbs. Droplets of blood stained the wooden beam

where the knobs dug in the flesh, chafing the skin and reopening her welts.

After a agonizing hiatus, he distended her breasts on the plank, threading a

knotted rope around the base and through holes in the wood, and pulled her

nipples enough to tie another loop of rope around each distorted mammary, as

her face contorted in pain and shrieks for the full length of the agonizing

transformation of her proud breasts in distended cones of constricted pain.

When a ridged slab was dropped on her tormented breasts, she screamed to the

top of her lungs, unaware that something worse was in store for her. The next

weight was a wedge, placed between her chest and the slab, its weight stabbing

down as if to cut off her breasts from the chest. As the tendons on her neck

almost broke under the tension from her anguished howls, another slab was

placed on her thighs.

Her eyes bulged as the heavy slab compressed her doubled legs, the knobs

between thigh and leg digging in both and shooting white hot pain through her

as he twisted one and then the other, each twist reverberating through her

whole body as she tried to pull her breasts free and move her arms. As more

weights were added, bruises she could not see, but each wrenching a new scream

from her sore throat, appeared on her arms, thighs and breasts.

Kayleen's misery sank to new depths when the cane landed on her soles, the

thin red welt bleeding as more strikes followed, each causing a spasm which

brought fresh pain from her limbs and her trapped breasts. Each pitiful howl

wailed off as her chest was unable to expand and contract freely, the very act

of screaming tearing her breasts from the unyielding stone maws.

As weights were slowly added over her thighs, twisting a knobbed rod required

the use of a handle, the act unleashing a sequel of gasps and shrieks as the

wry Easterner protracted it, her head trashing madly each time he turned one

as the knobs bit the flesh of leg and thigh and each jerk in reaction brought

new pain from her arms and breasts.

Her tormentor's cold stare proved he was perfectly aware of the nightmare her

formerly voluptuous mammaries were suffering, and Kayleen screamed when he

fetched a weight and lingered over them. He dropped the weight when her scream

waned, and when her subsequent thrashing and screams subsided caned her soles

to rekindle them again, her breasts dripping blood where the ridged slab had

chafed open the crisscrossed marks from her recent whipping.

After more weights, as she thought that her breasts would be crushed to pulp,

he slashed her left nipple with the cane, a lance of white hot pain searing

through her up to her screaming throat, followed by another as he caned her

other nipple. Slowly, methodically, pausing to let her deepen her torment by

thrashing in response to each strike, he alternated between her nipples until

her response to each strike waned to a whimper.

When she was freed, her body and especially her breasts were a mess of bluish

bruises and bleeding welts, which Grod treated with little apparent success as

she drank from the jug again, her thirst her own undoing. As they brought her

to a trestle and started cuffing her ankles, she vainly tried to cover her

whipped private parts with her bloodied hands, dreadfully aware of what the

spread thighs would bring.

After securing her painfully spread legs to a beam with iron bands, her

torturer cuffed her wrists behind her and pulled them through a ring in the

floor, bending her arms back in their sockets, wrenching from her a cry of

anguished pain. Her breasts leaned upturned on a wooden plank, ready to

receive the dreadful weights on their soft undersides.

The Easterner first placed slabs over her spread legs and thighs, each bearing

the accursed knobbed rods right on the underside. When enough weight was added

to cause Kayleen to cry, turning these rods revealed new heights of agony to

the tormented young woman, because the full weight of the slab rested on the

knob during its entire rotation, chafing a nasty bruise in the wounded skin

which would bleed raw in a few rotations.

More slabs were placed over her arms, her screaming now devoid of interruption

as the weight on the legs tore at her hip sockets compounding the pain along

the full length of her lower limbs. She shrieked in dread when a slab was

placed on the underside of her breasts, the knobs digging in her flesh as more

weight was quickly brought to bear on her once proud mammaries.

Her left foot was caned again, sending pain through her leg and wrenching a

new cry of anguish as her restrained leg attempted to twitch away in response,

shifting dozens of knobs in their seats within her flesh. He then moved to her

right foot, and leisurely alternated between them, each strike bringing a new

scream as a tormented limb twitched in vain.

Words erupted between screams from her sore mouth as the unrelenting torment

was protracted, most of which the Easterner could not understand except for a

hoarse "Please! I was just trying to escape." at which his gaze hardened. He

fetched another slab, one he was ordinarily reluctant to use as its original

designer died in an asylum for the insane. This slab needed a rack mount for

sliding, which he set up around her groin, and the wedge was to be placed

inside the feminine parts of the victim.

The dread for his preparations managed what will could no longer accomplish,

for her screams of pain subsided while she stared at the wedge being mounted

and then lowered inside her, her tormentor's fingers separating the lips as

the wide tip entered her, its cold ridged surface soothing at first until

weight was applied. The wedge lodged its point in the upper recesses of her

vulva, so when weight was added instead of penetrating her love channel it

weighed upon the urethra, parting her lips and sliding down until its descent

was stopped at the joining of the lips, the tip crushing her clitoris as she

screamed like a demented animal.

Her tormentor twisted the rods on the slopes of the wedge after adding enough

weight to drive two knobs on top of her love button, each turn of the handle

wrenching a gurgling howl of unbridled agony on par with the worst resonated

during her suffering in this chamber of horrors. As if to draw a comparison,

he caned her protruding nipples, alternating caning and twisting as her body

shook in her restraints and blood flowed in rivulets down her mons.

When she was freed, Grod examined her at length, skipping the cautionary

tightening of her collar as she was obviously no threat, and treated her with

more thoroughness than usual. But his gaze was still hard as steel when she

looked between tears, and he dragged her to a chair brimming with spikes, her

moan of pleading unheeded as she was cuffed on the seat.

As her thighs weighed on the chair a scream erupted from her lips, as she felt

what her eyes would later confirm: instead of iron spikes the chair had

slender wooden wedges whose point had been hacked raw. Instead of piercing the

flesh, the wedges drove wooden splinters in her bruises and welts, a more

diabolical pain for much less actual damage.

Her collar was pulled against the back of the seat, driving the splintered

points in her wounded back. Kayleen gasped and screamed again, as the jerk

from the stabs in her back had unseated the points under her thighs, shifting

them inside her wounded flesh. Her screams continued as she sought to still

herself under the unrelenting torment.

A wedged plank was placed on her legs and tightened, driving the points into

her wounds on the front and back of her supple legs and launching her on a new

journey into agony as she jerked and twisted in her seat of pain, screaming

and sobbing as splinters entered her wounds here and there. Her heart sank

when she managed to still herself enough to open her teary eyes and notice the

brazier, where sinister instruments were being heated.

Her torment was renewed again and again when wedged planks were tightened on

each forearm, her tormentor intent on protracting her agonies and oblivious to

the pleading in her eyes. More meaningless words escaped her mouth between

sobs and screams, and on cue from Zhorun her gag was removed. In spite of the

haze and exhaustion, this stirred something inside her mind, an urgency to

keep from her tormentors something she no longer remembered clearly.

A wave of agony drowned any such thoughts when a wedged plank was tightened on

her thighs, her wounds bleeding anew as splinters seared their way into them

causing her body to twist and buckle in response, unleashing a sequel of jerks

and twitches punctuated by agonized howls and gasping shrieks that Grod

protracted by tightening the plank one bolt at a time.

Grod waited until her sight cleared to show her what was in store for her, a

pair of rollers covered with wooden wedges which he placed above and below her

wounded breasts. Her gaze pleaded, her distended mouth silently uttered

"Please" and "No" more than once, but her tormentor tightened the rollers onto

her breasts, her screams rising in pitch on each turn, and then cranked them.

Pain hitherto unimagined exploded in her mind as the rotation pushed the

wedges into her wounded flesh, the rollers tearing at her distended mammaries

as if to tear them off her chest. Her arms strained in their restraints to set

themselves free, wrenching the wedges inside her wounds, her legs stiffened in

the effort to lift her off the chair, and her torso twitched griding the

points in her wounded flesh. Her howls and screams resonated in the room over

and over, subsiding only as her voice dropped to panting sobs.

Another crank at the rollers renewed her screams and her agony, the hellish

seat now a seat of uninterrupted torment which Grod could unleash at leisure.

Her tormentor unleashed agony on her breasts slowly and deliberately, pausing

to listen to the words she uttered when her screams subsided, and cranking the

rollers when she caught herself and stopped. Kayleen was too mad with pain to

tell if he at last stopped because she had unwillingly told them what they

were after, or because she no longer reacted in full to the torture.

She was doused with cold water, which washed away the blood under Grod's

attentive gaze, and attempted to refuse drinking from the jug offered to her,

but failed as he pinched her nose and forced her to drink most of it. The

rollers were removed, replaced by a wedged plank which flattened the agonized

mounds on her chest renewing her screams of despair as her unspoken question

was painfully answered.

The heat near her left upper arm caused her to open her eyes just in time to

see in horror a heated, narrow copper strip about to be pressed onto a

bleeding welt from her recent whipping. For an instant, time stopped in

Kayleen's mind, then the pain from her seared flesh rose up to her throat and

escaped in a wail of agony, fed in fits and gasps by her hurt skin, as her

inevitable twitching in response again caused the points to renew the torment

of her back and limbs.

The searing pain bit her again and again, as the narrow strip was placed in

different places along the welt, each time bringing new agonies to her whole

body. With little pause, the tool was placed on another bleeding wound on her

right upper arm, and then on others, her screams uninterrupted as the smell of

her burnt flesh rose to her nostrils.

The smell awakened something in her tormented mind, something she could not

focus on and which escaped her as each searing kiss from the strip sent her

into new depths of agony. He stopped to remove the wedged planks from her

forearms, and the instant of respite was enough to let her remember: before

she could meet Kayleen, she used to have cuts cauterized with hot iron. The

pattern of his actions was unmistakable, he was cauterizing her wounds to

staunch the bleeding.

The heat kissing her forearm reminded her that he was also sending her to a

hell of searing pain, as no soothing ointment was being applied to lessen her

pain or prevent scars. A deep horror rose in her as she thought of her bruised

body, the sight of her formerly likable femininity forever replaced by a mess

of scars and burns. There was no mercy in her tormentor's ministrations, only

the grim achievement of the foul purpose of his master.

As if in confirmation, he removed the planks from her lower limbs and started

cauterizing the welts which crisscrossed them, the mounting pain reaching new

heights as he proceeded with swift efficiency without allowing her to recover

after each burn. Her howls and screams rose accordingly, in spite of her sore

throat and weak attempts at being brave as she used to be after battle.

No battle had ever prepared her to the pain which blazed through her when he

removed her breast plank and used the heated strip to cauterize her wounded

breasts, her chilling shrieks and anguished howls not deterring him from

repeatedly dragging the searing copper instrument over her bruised skin

following the line of each cut, sparing the nipples which had not been cut.

Her tormentor had to heat the copper strip over and over before completing the

cauterizing of the wounds of her breasts, leaving her hoarse and delirious

with pain but still fully conscious, enough to resume her screaming when he

moved to the wounds on her ribcage and abdomen. Nothing except the tightest

restraints could have kept her still as her wounds were cruelly cauterized,

and the back of her body had been painfully ground by her movements on the

wooden wedges for the whole duration of the unmerciful procedure.

Her screams rose to high heaven when he cauterized some wounds between her

thighs and on her mons and vulva, but in spite of the spread thighs the area

was not easily accessible as she was seated in the chair, and in the haze of

maddening pain she realized she was being freed to rectify that.

She was made to kneel on a post, cuffing her ankles to the platform and her

neck and wrists to an horizontal beam. An ointment was also applied to her

burns, but it brought no relief from the dull pain that she knew would mount

in the following hours.

Her kneeling position allowed Grod to start cauterizing the nasty welts under

the soles of her feet, each bringing a fresh scream from her sore throat and

shame in the little corner of her tormented mind where the pride of the former

Warrior Queen still lived as she compared the show she was offering to her

tormentors with her former bravery.

Her screams continued as he started on her legs, the slender legs stiffening

each time the heated copper rubbed her wounded flesh. In a corner of her mind,

the thought that Grod was safeguarding her from the worst crept up, because

she had been cut in the legs before and remembered a worse pain. Or maybe it

was just that an improvised hot iron had been used, but she thought that the

tool was as narrow as possible, to leave smaller burns.

She screamed again, a quieter scream this time, as the memories of her former

bravery put her to shame. Yet the sheer number of wounds yet to be cauterized

would make even the bravest warrior wince, because her recent whipping had

been but the last straw in days of unrelenting torment. She gasped repeatedly

as the heated copper strip was dragged over her ass cheeks, wound after wound,

reminding her of the beatings they had been subjected to.

Over time, her screams and shrieks subsided to gasps and sobs, and she thought

that maybe he would take this as an indication that she was again entering a

state where further torture would be pointless. He was almost done with her

crisscrossed back, and moved to her inner thighs.

The soft flesh of the thigh hissed as he the heated copper instrument was

dragged over the wounded areas, a hiss she matched by suppressing a scream.

She had never been wounded there, nor in her feminine parts, where too many

wounds to consider still bled and would have to be cauterized. Dread returned

her sole companion as the thought of the copper burning her intimate flesh

over and over crept on her, and turned to agony when it materialized.

She screamed at the top of her lungs when the copper strip followed the curve

of her left cunt lip, and screamed again trashing in her restraints when it

poked the spots along the rim of her sphincter which had been torn. Grod added

ropes to her restraints to prevent her from jerking, and using a pair of

tweezers opened her labia and brought the heated instrument inside.

A howl rose from her as he cauterized her wounded inner lips, and another when

she cauterized the torn fold of her clitoris. She gasped and shrieked when the

places where her vagina had been torn were also burned, one by one, wisps of

steam rising as the heat encountered what little moisture remained. She had

lost count of how much her tormentors had targeted her private parts, and Grod

slowly reminded her in earnest.

Chapter 8 - Under the Heel

Kayleen's whimpering and sobbing echoed in the vast chamber. She stood astride

a wooden rail, her slightly spread ankles cuffed to rings in the floor to

prevent her from closing them, her arms bent behind her back in a reverse

prayer position. The rail was high enough that she had to stand on the balls

of her feet, otherwise her entire body weight rested on the wooden edge of the

wedge shaped rail, grinding into her martyrized feminine parts.

Her supple legs, however, were no longer the coiled springs that she had

danced upon across many a battlefield; they had been turned to worn bundles of

dull ache and throbbing pain by the unrelenting assaults on her muscles,

ligaments and joints. Her groin was a smattering of angry burns and encrusted

blood from multiple wounds; some bled again, reopened by the cruel edge, but

the blood on the rail also trickled from her ravaged innards.

She had been wounded in the past, even badly cut, and her body had proved its

exceptional ability to recover more than once, but the uninterrupted torments

and the lack of rest had finally taken its toll. Her whole body was on fire

from the burns sustained during the unmerciful cauterization of her wounds by

hot copper. She would never be her former self again, even if by a miracle

Lyral would use her healing powers to mend her wounds, as she used to.

The Warrior Queen owed her life to the young priestess, who had placed her

powers at her disposal in the struggle to overthrow Zhorun in spite of her

order's disapproval. She would still lay down her life to shield her from any

harm, and in fact was doing just that, one torment at a time, but she dreaded

the day when her will would break.

Zhorun had ordered her gag removed, apparently interested in clearly listening

to words that she was not aware of uttering at the height of her torments, and

she knew what this would mean on the long run. Word by word, the wizard would

piece together the information he needed, her will unable to prevent herself

from caving in to her tormentors in a foolish attempt to end the pain. Or

maybe it was just that whatever she said, they paused to listen.

She jerked and sobbed at the footsteps, whimpering "They cannot be already

here. Please." Kayleen sought within herself the resolve to deny her

tormentors the pleasure of hearing her scream, but she had to bend her head as

she found only dread and despair.

The fact that Grod was first no longer meant anything to either of them, and

the burly executioner tightened the collar before moving behind her back,

freeing her arms and cuffing her at the elbows and wrists. He freed her left

leg, brought it over the rail and then cuffed her ankles to a short chain,

forcing her to walk in wobbling steps up to a dangling chain.

A knot formed in her stomach when the chain was tied to her wrists and pulled

up, her arms painfully bending in their sockets and her shoulder blades pushed

against each other as she had to stand on her tiptoes, her arms already in

pain and a low moan on her parched lips. As her tormentor bid his time, the

pain in her arm sockets, which had already been dislocated more than once on

the cross rack, mounted unrelentingly, and her moan rose to a fitful cry.

With a pull, Grod lifted her off the floor, her feet kicking in mid air in a

vain attempt to ease the traction on her shoulder joints. Needles of fire shot

through her strained muscles and she screamed, over and over, as the agony

raced through her already martyrized limbs.

Kayleen sobbed and screamed, already out of her mind with pain, but all Grod

did for a long time was watch her suffer. Then he moved besides her and yanked

the short chain connecting her ankle cuffs, releasing it immediately as her

screams rose to new heights. He then pulled it sideways, so that upon release

her stretched body started swinging.

New screams rose in rhythm with the swinging, as her twisted arms were pulled

upon at both ends of each swing. The sheen of perspiration already covered her

marked body, but her delightful silhouette still offered a lustful sight as

she swung back and forth in pain.

When he moved to yank the chain again, she screamed "Pl.." but bit savagely

on the "..ease" remembering how he had burned and raped her. There would be no

mercy, there had never been any. She started swinging again, tears mixing

with sweat on her contorted face as new screams escaped her lips.

After dozens of swings, Grod caught her left foot, tied a cord around the toe

and then hung a hefty lead weight on it. She attempted to kick him, but each

movement brought new agonies into her shoulders and she failed. When he let

the weight fall, a howl erupted from her lips, followed by gasping cries as

the pull added to the misery of her shoulders and rekindled the agonies of

racking in the strained muscles of her legs.

After listening to her cries at length, he moved to her other foot, tied a

cord around her big toe and moved the weight, avoiding a reckless kick which

wrenched a new scream as she oscillated in vain. Just hanging by her wrists

was agony for Kayleen, but each time he moved the weight to the other foot her

once strong body contorted and jerked in a vain attempt to relieve the

suffering in her arms and shoulders, bringing fresh screams to her lips.

When he left, she had been hanging long enough to hope that it would be over,

that the next tormentor would take his turn, but he was soon back, with the

bullwhip in hand. Her mind went back to the first day of her ordeal, when he

had whipped her naked with the long, heavy whip, trembling at the thought of

the havoc it would wreak now on her agonizing body.

Her fears materialized when the whip slashed across her calves, leaving a thin

bloody stripe which blazed in her mind like a white hot flame, her shrill cry

followed by a gasp and an agonized scream as the movement of her legs in

response to the lash sent the weight swinging, a pendulum of pain off her toe

whose pulls reverberated through her whole body up to her suffering shoulders,

each wrenching a new scream from her parched throat.

Long pauses followed each subsequent lash, during which the weight was allowed

to spend its momentum on her stretched body as hoarse screams punctuated each

swing, except when he lashed out at her breasts, tracing bloody stripes on the

firm flesh for no apparent purpose.

As the stripes accumulated on her body, she was lowered just enough to allow

the bleeding wounds to be summarily treated; she tried to turn her head to

avoid drinking from the jug, but his strong hands pinched her nose and she was

forced to quaff the contents again.

When he pulled her up again, he did not stop a few inches off the floor as

before, but pulled her a dozen feet in the air. The dull pain in her shoulders

was the same, but the reason was soon clear as the chain was suddenly released

and immediately pulled, her full weight yanking at her tormented shoulders in

a searing flame of renewed agony.

The longer the fall, the harder she was pulled when it was stopped, the risk

of dislocation very real when the fall was prolonged. She cried in despair

when she was pulled all the way up again, the harbinger of more suffering to

come, a cry she would utter again and again as he reiterated the devastating

drops, interspersed with further lashing of her breasts.

With blood dripping from her chest, she was raised again and dropped a short

distance. As an anguished cry erupted from her lips, she was immediately

dropped again, and she couldn't even catch her breath for a scream before the

chain was loosened and refastened again, the start of a staggered descent to

hell which rattled her savaged joints uninterruptedly until she stopped a few

inches off the floor, her wheezing screams mounting into a single howl as the

accumulated agony found its release.

If hell had stairs, she was descending them ramp by ramp. Few words has

escaped her lips among the screams, but as she was hoisted up again a few did,

bringing Zhorun closer. She was let down again, a rag doll bouncing down a

trail of pain, and again her whispered words brought her the briefest of

pauses. As much as her weakened will attempted to suppress them, the maddened

animal within her had found in them a way to find some respite.

On the next hoist she managed to stifle most of them, but this did not help

her as she was jarred to the bone on the subsequent staggered descent,

screaming in hoarse despair as the pain blanked her mind again without

bringing the craven respite of unconsciousness. Her arms had turned to fiery

bundles of molten agony, her elbows she could no longer feel, her shoulders

felt like pierced by thousands of white hot needles.

She screamed when the whip landed on her breasts, for no apparent reason, just

before she was hoisted up again. A word, maybe two, escaped between her sobs

before her subsequent descent drowned them in fitful screams. She lost count

of how many times this was repeated, her teary eyes mostly closed to shut off

the horrific sight of her bleeding chest and swollen shoulders, the latter

probably already dislocated beyond repair.

When he hung the weight to her left toe, Kayleen knew that if they were not

already, they would soon be. Unbelievable as it was, her next descent brought

new agonies, the sharper pain lasting longer as the weight swung below her and

then recurring on each swing of the weight below her. She screamed herself

hoarse, her vocal cords burning but not lost yet, a perverse joke of fate

considering that speechlessness might bring her the respite she craved.

No such luck befell her, however, as the occasional whipping of the breasts

punctuated the repeated hoisting and staggered dropping, a rag doll jerking

down the stairs of hell. Hoarse screams turned to wheezing howls, but like her

vocal cords her will endured without breaking.

When the lash savaged her tits and she barely jerked, she was lowered and

treated, including being force fed again, so at last she understood why he did

that. But this brought only a brief respite, because he fetched two ominous

iron vices and tightened them onto her shoulders, the jaws digging in the torn

muscles around the joint, and then tied each with chain to the opposing ankle,

pulling her legs up behind her and shortening the chain until she was

painfully bent, shivering from dread, exhaustion and pain.

She was hoisted up and dropped again, each stop along the way causing her legs

to pull on the vices and wreak havoc on her strained shoulder muscles,

pinching and twisting them as they were yanked under her own weight. It was

like Grod's hands straining her thigh muscles on the rack, but with inhuman

speed and unrelenting cruelty.

The pain did not subside after the final yank, the vices searing her with

white hot agony, and this told her that her shoulders had been dislocated and

she was hanging by her ligaments. She sank to new depths of horror when, in

spite of that, she was hoisted up again. She knew enough anatomy to tell that

she was now a cripple, and as her ligaments and subsequently her muscles tore

under the repeated yanking of her own weight, she would die an agonizing death

or survive as a freak.

He looked at Grod, attempting to look him in the eyes, but she found only

steely determination there. She was hoisted up, the pain much worse than

before and hearing her ligaments tear in spite of her desperate screams, and

she was about to shout "Enough!" but she lacked the breath and was dropped

again, a veritable hell blazing through her shoulders on her howling descent

into maddened agony.

She was spent, and as Grod came close opened her parched lips to speak, but he

just inspected the vices and forcibly reduced first one and then the next

shoulder into their sockets, helped by the adeptly positioned vices whose real

purpose was thus revealed, ignoring her cries and the horror on her face as he

moved back to the chain and hoisted her up again.

The subsequent descent was again a dive into unquenched agony, and the cycle

of hoisting and dropping repeated a few times before her shoulders dislocated

again. She was beyond herself, unable to think coherently, unable to react,

unable to tell them what they wanted to know, When he reduced her dislocated

shoulders once again, her scream rose momentarily, then wailed to a wheeze.

When he hoisted her again, her worn voice only managed a wheezing moan of

utter despair, her shoulders already hurting as if about to dislocate under

her own weight. When her fitful descent lent her screams new wind, the pain

returned to unbearable levels but somehow her shoulders held out. The whip

found her breasts again, but she barely whimpered, and Grod let her down on

the floor in a sobbing heap.

He knelt beside her, sensing her shoulders, and whispered, "You won't last

much longer, girl. Trust me, you've held out longer than anyone else in my

experience, but you're about to break. Talk while you can."

Her shoulders, her breasts, her private parts still smarting from a night on

the wooden rail, all screamed at her to talk, but something in her still

clung to her former pride and her dedication. She was not ready to give up

her frail friend, her people and everything she valued to a wizard returned

from the grave.

"You don't understand, my friend. She likes it." uttered the Southerner, eager

to get started. Grod rose and left, leaving her to the swarthy old man. He

offered her the jug, and the taste was different today, bitter and yet

reinvigorating. He did not free her wrists, but cuffed her ankles to rings set

in the stone floor, spreading her legs wide, then studied the cranks at length

before hoisting her up again, her screams resuming although her body now

sloped towards the floor instead of hanging vertically. Her tormentor verified

to his satisfaction that a staggered descent still wrenched a sequel of

screams from the helpless victim, then positioned between her legs.

His hands closed on her ass cheeks and spread them, her mouth forming a mute

"No" before he thrust into her, and his pushes rekindled the pain in her

shoulders as she swung from her arms in rhythm with his rutting lust, crying

and sobbing in pain and humiliation.

Once sated, he fetched a tray where many legged things wriggled in small

jugs, and showed her, saying "I have a number of old and new friends to keep

you company, until this old man gets ready to pull a stunt again." She closed

her teary eyes, wishing the critters would go away, but opened them again when

the sting of a wasp on her nipple made her cry in surprise.

"You knew that." he said matter of factly. With consummate ability he fetched

a spider like the one he had already used on her and brought it against her

other nipple, and savored the stiffening of her body in a hoarse scream as she

was bitten.

"That was better," he commented, "but this one is better still." he added

triumphantly as he fetched a writhing legged horror four inches long and

touched it to her left breast, until the irritated critter sank its mandibles

into her flesh, wrenching from her a hoarse scream which rose as she twitched

and buckled, rattling the chain holding her tortured arms.

He opened his robe to expose his member and positioned before her, saying "Now

we play a game, Whore Queen. If you swallow this gag here," at which he

produced the spidery steel gag Zhorun had wanted removed, "to help it fit, I

will have to put aside our legged friend there." he added, dangling the

centipede before her horrified eyes.

She shook her head in refusal, but the movement soon turned into a spasm of

agony as the creature was brought to bite her other breast, her howl on par

of the previous and the harbinger of others to come, as he brought the hellish

jaws to bear onto her belly, armpits and back, from her shoulder blades down.

They rose higher when he moved to her breasts again.

In spite of what was about to happen, she shook her head in refusal when he

brought the jaws onto her nipple, and then almost snapped her neck when the

bite seared through her jerking body as the jaws closed on the delicate flesh.

Frustrated, he fetched a fresh specimen and brought it to bite her other

nipple, shaking the gag at her as she convulsed in pain. Her head still

shaking, she managed to thwart his attempts to force the gag down her throat,

but at the price of hellish bites on her nipples, which were swelling from the

venom of so many bites.

"I'll make you beg for it, bitch." he snared, and moved between her legs

again, aroused by her screams, and violated her in a fit of lustful rage,

savaging her wounded love channel and pushing into her with the same rutting

hatred that he had used to bugger her before, her screams owing as much to her

violation as to the renewed pain from her bent arms.

When the Southerner moved to tighten her collar, an evil grin came to his face

as he brought the horror to bite her nipple again, and as she convulsed on the

verge of asphyxiation managed to force the gag into her mouth. Satisfied, he

loosened the collar again and pushed his member into her mouth, but being

spent he pulled out after a short time, reveling in her humiliation. He

tightened her collar again to change her restraints, dragging her to a bench

where her wrists were fastened to a winch and her legs spread painfully wide.

He produced a pair of clasps which he closed to her nipples and fastened using

fine chains to a pulley from the ceiling, then clasped her clitoris in the

same manner as her screams rose in pitch under his ministrations. When he

removed the bench from under her, she wailed as her weight now was carried by

her clasped feminine parts and her tormented arms.

He cranked the winch, pulling back her arms until she lowered her head enough

to allow him convenient use of her mouth, tears flowing from her eyes as,

between sobs, she realized her upcoming humiliation. But when he fetched his

jugs, dread at what torments lay ahead prevailed, and her sobs took a heart

wrenching pleading note, which her tormentor enjoyed to the point of arousal.

He stood astride her bent arms, his member ready to enter her mouth in spite

of her shaking head, and with both hands fetched a small jellyfish from its

water filled jug and dragged the tendrils on the taut skin or her muscular

abdomen, grinning as thin red stripes appeared and her body stiffened in the

jaws of pain, violating her mouth just as she started to scream at the top of

her lungs. He enjoyed her gurgling scream dying on his member, and her

subsequent muffled cries as he fetched more of the stinging creatures and

dragged them over her body, targeting the places where her burns still stood

out as he knew the pain would be much worse.

Kayleen was beyond herself from anguish and humiliation, the pain exploding in

waves from her burning body as he dragged the tendrils over her poor distended

breasts, and searing through her when he dragged them on her mons, her inner

thighs and her cunt lips. When he came in her mouth, she puked, and choked,

and almost drowned in her misery as he laughed at her plight and dragged yet

another jellyfish across her distended breast, as if attempting to clear her

throat scream after scream.

Sated, he proceeded to drag the stinging tendrils over areas of her body which

he could not reach from his previous position, and if this brought some

respite to her martyrized front, it did not spare her anything else, as the

hellish tendrils left their mark under her soles, on her legs, on her thighs,

behind her back and on her bent arms. The clasps gnawed at her flesh with new

agonies whenever she twitched or buckled under the caress of the tendrils,

soon biting into the flesh to the point of drawing blood.

With an evil grin, he carefully wound the tendrils of a fresh specimen around

a stick and pushed it inside her ass, most of the tendrils stopping at her

sphincter but a few being pushed inside, her back arching as she screamed at

the top of her lungs while he twisted it left and right.

He did the same with her vagina, smiling as this orifice allowed more tendrils

to enter. He twisted it at length, bringing new heights of agony into her

uninterrupted howling as each twist stung her insides and ravaged her vulva,

until her private parts started to swell and he had to pull in order to set

the stick free, with some fragments of the tendrils still sticking in and

stinging her to maddening pain until her bloodcurdling screams waned.

He freed her bleeding nipples and clitoris from the clasps and tightened her

collar before freeing her and dragging her between two pillars, where he

cuffed her ankles to chains, spreading her legs in a painful inverted

suspension, and twisted her cuffed arms up behind her, chaining them to a ring

in the floor as pain already coursed in her twisted sockets.

Kayleen looked up at what new horror her tormentor would produce, and saw a

small, bristled caterpillar held with his customary adeptness between thin

tweezers. He looked into her frightened eyes and brought the critter against

her left armpit, which promptly exploded into hellish pain when the bristles

brushed the skin, wrenching a hoarse scream from her sore mouth.

He fetched another and rubbed it under the sole of her left foot, her leg

stiffening and then jerking madly as she howled attempting to kick aside the

venomous bristles, whose painful sting was even worse when applied to burned

or wounded skin. Which her tormentor did, slowly and deliberately, along the

full length of her supple legs and slender thighs, laughing softly at each new

scream erupting from her parched lips and enjoying her wild buckling and

twisting under the caress of the hellish creatures.

He briefly moved to her arms, enjoying himself with her cries for a while, but

then targeted her ass cheeks, each brush causing her to arch and buckle like a

mad puppet and compounding the pain from the stinging bristles with the strain

on her martyrized arms. He picked up another caterpillar with his other hand

and started rubbing both on her buttocks, alternating them in a wild dance of

maddened pain and pitiful howls which aroused him again.

He moved to her front, straddled her and pushed his erect member into her

mouth, rubbing the irritated caterpillars on her breasts in rhythm with his

thrusts, until her gurgles and muffled screams brought him to climax again.

Too mad with pain to notice anything else, Kayleen registered the caterpillar

being applied to her vulva only when the stinging pain exploded from her

nether regions, screaming her lungs out in a long cry which resonated under

the vaults of the chamber, only to merge with the next and each subsequent

scream as he repeatedly tormented her feminine parts with the stinging touch

of the irritated caterpillar.

When he used a forceps to distend her sphincter and drop a caterpillar inside,

a new wave of pain rose from her loins as the writhing critter attempted to

wriggle free from inside her, his uninterrupted stinging swelling her insides

and imprisoning him. Her jerks shook the chains as she screamed herself hoarse

until the critter died, but her tormentor folded another under her left labia

and her howls resumed with renewed agonies, only to be rekindled yet again

when this also died, to be replaced by another under her right cunt lip.

He then rubbed a fresh caterpillar against her left nipple, toying with the

jerking piece of wounded flesh as she heaved her chest and twisted in her

restraints in a vain attempt to escape the stinging bristles, then fetching

another with his other hand to trace a double contour of pain on the stiff

buds at the top of her proud breasts.

When her nipples had no new screams to offer, he dropped a large specimen

inside her love channel, sending her buckling and twitching in yet another

paroxysm of howling agony, as the critter attempted to wriggle its way out and

stung her repeatedly. He used the forceps to insert the next into her swollen

vagina, and her howls rose to new heights as the creature died wriggling in the

twitching clutch of her vaginal muscles. Overcome by ecstasy at his

accomplishments, he repeatedly inserted more caterpillars, enjoying the sight

of his victim repeatedly torturing herself into maddening agony.

He stopped tormenting her when he could no longer force open the swollen rim

of her love channel, and let the silent Easterner take his place. She drank

again from the jug, craving the respite it brought, and moaned when a cold

soothing ointment was rubbed on her swollen flesh. He still tightened her

collar almost to the point of choking her when untying her and hanging her

wrists and ankles from chains dangling from the ceiling, about four feet off

the floor, her battered body slumping at the waist.

After loosening her collar, he put a hand behind her neck and tightened his

grip, looking into her eyes as he bent her head to look into a enameled box

containing hundreds of wooden sticks, sorted from mere slivers to toothpicks,

the points hardened in fire. He said nothing, but looked hard into her eyes

as tears filled them again before she closed them in despair.

He slowly pushed the first into the firm flesh of her left ass cheek, twisting

it as she gasped and sobbed, followed by a few others. She screamed when he

twisted one into the soft flesh between her ass hole and her vulva, and

screamed again when a sliver pierced her sphincter. As more were pushed into

the firm flesh of her derriere, blood started to trickle from the tiny wounds.

Her muscular back became a canvas of pain when he started pushing stick after

stick inside, reaching nerves whose existence she never suspected and building

up her suffering until she found herself screaming whenever she took a deep

breath, as the muscles of her back shifted the points from one agonizing

position to another each time they flexed and distended.

He had saved the thicker sticks for her legs and thighs, and he pushed each in

in earnest, deep into the muscles that were bearing the weight of her body,

twisting them as her body alternately stiffened and twitched as the stick

progressed, her gasps followed by shrieks and cries until he left her sobbing

and panting, gasping from the last stick and dreading the next.

Her arms were subjected to the same treatment, her cries louder not because of

the sticks themselves, which were somewhat smaller, but because each movement

brought new pain from her tormented back and legs. And then she found out that

the same applied to her chest, as the sticks were slowly pushed between her

ribs, turning each breath into a stabbing agony and each scream becoming the

first of a torturous sequel.

Having prepared her body, he could then move to the slivers. When he inserted

the first in the flesh between her thumb and finger, Kayleen was agonizingly

reminded of her tormentor's penchant for fingers and toes, her head shaking

in despair as she contemplated the searing pain recurring twenty times over.

But a new horror was wrought on her when he instead pushed a sliver under her

toenail, her scream tearing at her vocal cords as she attempted to jerk her

foot free from his grip. He did not stop at her feet, alternating between toes

and fingers as she alternated between howls and screams until her twitching

appendages brimmed with bloody slivers.

But the worst was yet to come, as he pushed a sliver into her left breast,

just under the skin, waiting until her agonizing jerks subsided before pushing

another in her other breast, unrelentingly adding new slivers at the slow pace

of her raucous fits of screaming agony. After decorating her breasts with

slivers, he twisted into the once proud globes a few larger sticks, stabbing

the quivering flesh with deliberate slowness.

Already swinging between sobbing twitches and crying jerks, Kayleen wailed

when he moved to her crotch and screamed in despair when he pushed a sliver

into her left cunt lip, the first scream of her descent into a deeper hell as

sliver after sliver were pushed into her martyrized flesh. Just as she thought

it could not get worse, he started pushing a sliver into her bleeding left

nipple, protracting the torment in spite of her mad trashing and unbridled

screams and then repeating it on her other nipple.

As he pushed two slivers under her clitoral hood, nobody could say whether her

frantic buckling was an attempt to stem what would come or just the maddened

response to unbearable pain, but when he inserted, another just under the

surface of her love bud, her howling, fitful scream left no doubt about her

condition, and the subsequent ones confirmed it.

As she hung in unbearable pain, her tormentor took to tapping the slivers

piercing her flesh, wrenching new screams from her quivering body each time a

tap drove a sliver a fraction deeper into the flesh. At length, he started

pushing more sticks through her tormented muscles, and her screams rose again

to the vaults of the chamber when he pushed another sliver in each nipple.

She briefly hung by herself when he left, dreading his return, with good

reason as he brought a jug of clear liquid. He filled a small cup and put it

against one of the slivers under her chest. At first nothing happened, and

then she started screaming as the dry sliver soaked the liquid and bulged

inside her wounded flesh, and then howled in pain as the alcoholic liquid

reached the wounded seat of the sliver.

Her tormentor now held in his hands the bridles of her ride through pain, a

flat stick for tapping the slivers in his left hand and the cup in the other,

and alternated between them, slowly at first and then increasing his pace each

time, bringing the screaming Kayleen to a frenzy of despair, unbridled agony

and pitiful screaming which he attempted to protract and, failing that, to

rekindle over and over.

As she hung there, sobbing and crying, he fetched a small steel blade and

put it against the tail of a stick in her heaving back. In a feat of dexterity 

he split the stick in half down to the point where it entered her flesh,

wrenching a new scream from her, followed by a louder one when he pushed a new

stick between the two halves of the existing one, widening the tiny wound in

her flesh and the gulf of pain which Kayleen was drowning in.

He pushed more sticks into her breasts, twisting each into place before

splitting it and inserting another, in preparation for what would follow. He

also skewered her cunt lips and pushed two slivers into her clitoral hood, to

expose her clitoris. Ignoring her maddened cries as the searing pain blazed

through her, he pushed another sliver just under the surface of her wounded

clitoris, tapping on it until it was firmly set.

Then he brought a candle to a stick under her armpit, and watched as fire

consumed it up to the point where it entered her flesh, which turned a fiery

red from the small burn. Her body stiffened and then jerked wildly as the

stick burned slowly, searing the flesh in a new deluge of unrelenting pain

which he soon renewed by bringing the candle against a stick in her back.

Then he paused, allowing the pain to subside enough for her mind to

contemplate what she would have to withstand before all the sticks and slivers

piercing her body could be burned away, one by one. When horror filled her

eyes, he set fire to a sliver in her left nipple, waiting patiently while she

screamed and buckled, until it was consumed. When he replaced it, her torn

voice rose in a scream where despair matched the pain.

Kayleen craved a moment of respite, but her tormentor set fire to the sliver

under the nail of her left pinky. Her screams rose again, on par with any

uttered in the course of her days of torment but maybe more desperate, because

she knew that fingers and toes would follow. True to his preferences, the

Easterner followed up, toe by toe and finger by finger, pausing between each

to let the pain sink in before rekindling it.

Convinced that a predictable pattern induced a deeper fear into victims, the

Easterner brought the candle to the slivers between her fingers and toes, one

at a time, each one wrenching new screams from Kayleen's convulsing body as

her extremities were being seared by the tiny flames.

Kayleen was already delirious, and the horror of having each sliver and stick

in her limbs and back burned away defied comprehension. She wished to whither

away, curl up and die, but all she managed to do was gasp when a stick in

her back was set to fire. Soon the Easterner started setting fire to more than

one, because sticks in her back and buttocks caused pain only at the end, when

burning near the skin.

When he set fire to a sliver under her left arm, instead, the burning agony

started immediately as the tiny flame rose to scorch the skin from the very

beginning and lasted until the sliver was consumed, a protracted agony which

sent Kayleen in a convulsing frenzy of maddened screams.

As more followed, she stiffened, and buckled, and twitchted in pain unlike any

she had suffered to this point, protracted and unbridled searing of the flesh

by tiny flames not being the kind of wound usually encountered on the field of

battle. But in spite of the tears, the screams, and the twitches, in spite of

her shattered pride, occasionally she could be heard saying "Rot in hell, you

bastards. I won't betray her."

Grod observed intently her ordeal, ready to admit that her endurance and

courage were unsurpassed. As she writhed and howled when a sliver in her

muscular abdomen was set ablaze, he noted that fire was effective, possibly

because like most women she was deeply afraid of anything which could mar her

beauty. The rack had also been effective, and he suspected this was because of

how much she valued her fitness.

Too deep in pain for dread, Kayleen still wailed incoherently when he neared

her breasts with the flame, trying desperately to twist her pained globes away

from their doom. All she managed was to solace the leering Southerner, who

smiled when a sliver in her left breast started burning and her screams rose

under the vaults of the torture chamber.

The Easterner set fire to one of the sticks piercing her cunt lips next, and

her howls reached new peaks of horror and agony as she clenched and spread her

thighs in a frantic attempt to extinguish the torment, unable to find respite

in the blessed unconsciousness which had delivered her previously.

With deliberate slowness, the Easterner would set fire to a sliver in the left

breast, one in her groin or inner thighs and one in the right breast, circling

between the most painful targets of his victim's body to maximize the pain

while giving each area of the body the barest chance of recovery.

Hoarse by her practically uninterrupted screaming, Kayleen still found in

herself the strength to snarl "Go to hell!" when he asked "Talk now, before

I set fire here." tapping her clitoris. In the haze of pain, she knew it would

come to that, and however much she wished she could give in, she would not.

Impassible, the Easterner set fire to a sliver in her clitoris, waited until

her heart-wrenching howls, gasps and screams, subsided, then did the same to

one in her left nipple, and then to one in her night nipple. He then set fire

to another in her clitoris, a sliver which had been blackened but was not on

fire yet, and repeated his trail of agony on her convulsing body until her

screams stopped because he had at last burned off them all.

Chapter 9 - The Cruel Hand of Fate

Kayleen hung by her toes in the dark chamber under the ruins of Zhorun's

castle, sobbing softly from the unrelenting bite of the screws gouging the

flesh around her swollen toes and crying occasionally when a fly bit her,

unaware that her tormentors had been woken up in the middle of the night.

She cried when a bite caused her to jerk her legs, sending her swinging slowly

and gasping as pain shot down from her toes, just as in a distant room her

three torturers bowed before the robed figure who addressed them. In the unlit

chamber, her strained arms were a bundle of dull pain, and the throbbing burns

from the slivers hurt even when she managed to remain completely motionless.

"The Priestess has been located, and a warband is on the way to seize her. She

had sent word that any news about the Queen should be relayed to Tharnall

Shrine, and I still have some bright elements in my service." Zhorun's voice

was but a whisper, but the gloating and anticipation were unmistakable.

In the chamber, Kayleen arched when a fly bit her left nipple, again, as the

encrusted blood made them preferred targets. Her cries did not reach the room

where her nemesis was explaining how how his plans would unfold, "Before

proceeding, I have to understand how the Priestess' powers operate, as her ilk

might become a menace to my plans. It is a matter of record that she used to

heal the Queen after battles, so I want her to do the same under my scrutiny.

I want you to really hurt the Queen today, I want the damage to be visible to

the eye and felt on touch, so that when our Priestess meets her friend, she'll

not hesitate to use her healing powers."

Hanging in misery, Kayleen could not hear the dreadful orders, her predicament

was torturous enough as she swung slowly from her bleeding toes. Her tormentors

bowed as more orders were whispered, "She'll be allowed some respite tomorrow,

as if her blabbering had led us to the hideout of the friend she is so loyal

to, and we no longer needed her cooperation. I want her to believe that her

sacrifices have been in vain, so that she'll have less reason to be stubborn in

refusing us the location where the Sorceress hides. With all three of them in

my power, nothing will stand before what once was mine."

When Kayleen heard the approaching footsteps, she almost felt relieved,

although she knew that her release would be brief and would soon result in

more suffering. They cleaned her with buckets of cold water, then the

Easterner tightened her collar, released her, and dragged her to a wooden

rail. Unlike the one where she had spent a torturous night, however, this had

had its edge hacked raw, with dents and notches brimming with ugly splinters.

It took Grod's help, even in her condition, to force her to straddle it. Her

arms were cuffed behind her head, the left wrist to the right elbow and vice

versa, an iron band was clinched on her waist, and then she screamed when they

pulled her legs from under her to fasten her ankle cuffs to an iron bar

hanging from the rail. Her feminine parts leaned on the torturous edge under

her full body weight, and the chains fastened on her elbow cuffs were designed

to keep her from falling sideways without relieving the pressure on her groin.

Her panting cries turned to a howl when the thin, barbed whip wielded by the

wry Easterner lashed her right thigh, her jerk causing her groin to chafe

against the wooden nightmare between her legs. After but three strikes, blood

started to trickle from her wounded privates as each twich and jerk ground

them on the slivers and dents of the hellish wooden device.

The whip landed on her back, leaving a thin stripe punctuated in crimson, and

she cried desperately when her reaction lodged a splinter in her cunt lips. The

next strike coiled around her back, causing her to bend and pull back on the

rail, chafing the soft flesh between the ass hole and the vulva. Her tormentor

then expertly lashed her ass cheeks, sending her pelvis forward with a

agonizing howl as the movement ground more splinters into her bleeding sex.

Slowly, deliberately, the Easterner alternated lashes to her shoulders, which

sent her pelvis forward, with lashes to her belly, which sent it back, or

lashes to her buttocks with lashes to her ribcage, for the same effect. The

bloody stripes crisscrossed her body, still shapely but now heavily marked

after days of relentless torment, and her cries of anguish rose and waned in

rhythm with the grinding of her feminine flesh on the hellish rail.

At length, he switched to a different target and landed the whip across the

soles of her feet, noting that this caused her to pull her pelvis forward,

then on her breasts, which caused her to pull it backwards again with a howl of

agony as the small barbs tore the firm flesh. Her torment rose to a new level

of agony, as the pain from her breasts and soles was sharper and deeper than

the pain from areas of thicker skin. Her cries rose accordingly, hoarse from

screaming and wheezing, her panting chest already glistening with the

perspiration of unrelenting torment.

Over time, her breasts transformed from full, firm globes any woman would be

proud of to striped, bleeding mounds of quivering, tormented flesh. To prevent

her from being overwhelmed, and protract her torment, he moved behind her and

lashed her right thigh, followed by her left armpit, attempting to cause her to

tilt on the torturous edge. After a few attempts her renewed cries told him

that he had been successful, and Kayleen found new agonies between her legs as

her private parts ground on hitherto undiscovered dents and splinters.

Scream after scream, her mind wandered off, in search of realms other than the

world of hurt she was going through, and words escaped her mouth, unimpeded,

foreign to her tormentor but duly noted from the ever present, silent corpse of

the former wizard. Although none had been of any use, he kept saying to himself

that they could carry important clues, blind to the true reason behind his

uninterrupted presence at the torture of his slayer to the detriment of his

other activities: he derived intense pleasure from her torment, her screams,

and was determined to see it protracted as long as possible. The woman he had

paid little heed to in life was now the object of a lust from beyond the grave

which reveled in pain and agony to soothe the torments of undeath.

Something churned in Zhorun's loins, now the province of graveworms only, when

her head bent back and cried in agony, the tendons of the neck distended as her

scream grew and waned. Something stirred when her delightful body twitched on

the rail under the whip, and her supple thighs lifted a bit as the barbs tore

at them. He wanted to savor each droplet of blood, each welt, each scream, and

his empty eye sockets feasted on her bleeding breasts heaving in pain.

The Easterner moved to her front and brought his attentions back to her mauled

breasts, landing a vicious strike on her left breast and waiting for her shrill

cry to subside before slashing at the front of her right thigh, leaving pearls

of crimson along the stripe reaching almost to the full length of her slender

limb. Front or back, the lashes still forced her to respond by tilting left and

right over the hellish edge, to her tormentor's satisfaction.

In a maze of maddened pain, Kayleen was still herself enough to notice that

all stops had been pulled, and as she howled from yet another lash at her left

breast, her eyes confirmed to her that even profuse bleeding seemed to worry

him no more. A new stabbing pain rose from her vagina as a splinter pierced

the rim, her yowl lost in the scream resulting from another vicious strike on

her thigh. In spite of the agony brought by the barbed whip, the grinding pain

from her private parts and the stabbing from the splinters lodging in her flesh

and then breaking when she jerked and twitched was the worst.

As if to contradict her, white hot pain exploded in her left breast as the whip

tore, not for the first time, across the bloodied nipple and a barb lodged in

it before being yanked away by the force of the blow. Her mind returned to the

horror of the burning slivers, the agonies of multiple dislocations hanging

from her twisted arms, or the humiliation of rape, each past horror competing

with the others in search of an escape from her current agony.

Her tormentor whipped her soles again, followed by her ribcage, and then her

buttocks, no longer attempting to cause her to move in some direction but just

intent on keeping her astride the hellish rail, now smeared with the blood from

her wounded feminine parts. Something told her he had a new torment in store

for her, an easy guess which he soon fulfilled.

The Easterner used his fingers to open her clitoral hood wide, then started

alternating lashes on her left and right breast, forcing her to turn sideways

on each blow and discover new agonies between her legs, as her love button was

dragged left and right over the torturous edge. Dread rose in her with the

pain in her bleeding breasts, only to be blanked by agony when her clitoris was

pierced by a splinter and she howled to high heaven.

With deliberate patience, her tormentor continued lashing her breasts until

another bloodcurdling howl rose from her, and insisted on the quest for these

peaks of agony until the lashes on her breasts resulted in little more than a

whimper. Then Grod was called upon to treat her wounds, and her cries rose

again as her bloody breasts were treated at length. She drank avidly from the

jug of her undoing, the consequences forgotten as her tormented mind wandered

in a labyrinth of pain.

The old Southerner was next, and he produced a pair of iron pliers with a grin

that brought the reinvigorated Kayleen new dread, as she compared the agonies

of wooden pliers with what iron pliers could do. Her eyes shut in a scream as

he closed the pliers on the flesh of her thigh, pulled, and twisted, each twist

a new cry as her flesh bruised and chafed under the merciless iron jaws.

He laughed aloud, ogling her heaving chest as she sobbed and panted, and then

closed the jaws on her left calf, enjoying her screams and protracting her

agony until her wheezing cries trailed to a sobbing wail. He moved to the soft

flesh of her left armpit then, savoring her despair as she could easily dread

where he would maul her sooner or later, and postponing the delightful moment.

Inspired by the Easterner's adeptness, he sank the pliers in the firm flesh of

her buttocks and pulled her backward, twist by twist, dragging her wounded

flesh on the rail again as she screamed in hellish pain, and then closed them

on her mons and pulled her forward in fitful screams of maddened agony. Aroused

but unable to satisfy his lust, he sank his own teeth on her left nipple,

twisting it in unison with the jaws on her mons, keeping his sanity just enough

not to tear it off as Grod stepped closer, silently remembering the old man of

their mutual agreement.

Still aroused, he mouthed and bit her once proud but still generously

proportioned breasts while twisting the jaws on her ass and groin flesh, unable

to reach a release and protracting the torment and humiliation of his victim

much longer as a consequence. He stopped the torment only to sink the pliers in

the wooden edge, pulling and twisting the bloodstained wood before her

horrified eyes, in order to raise new edges and dents before dragging her onto

them by her mons, again wishing her pubic hair had regrown, as he fancied

pulling it out with the iron pliers while she ground her slit on the rail.

With a crazed shine in the eyes, he closed the pliers on the nail of her pinky

and slowly twisted it out of its seat among her desperate cries, sinking his

teeth into her breast flesh again. Her despair rose to new heights as she

realized how her fate would unfold next, but the pain, as each nail was pulled

with agonizing slowness while his teeth savaged her breasts, seared her mind

and seeped into her screams and screeches, echoing in the vast chamber like a

chorus from the hell she was descending into.

When he moved to her toes he could no longer bite her, but this brought her

little respite because the pain was more intense and shook her to the bone,

always compounded by the relentless grinding of her bleeding feminine parts,

now punctured by at least a dozen hellish splinters which her own jerks and

twitches dug deeper into the tormented flesh.

Still unable to find release, he grabbed her face and closed the iron pliers

on her tongue, opening the gates of a new hell as the sensitive flesh was

mauled and twisted to the point of bleeding, her choked screams turning to

pitiful gurgles as he unrelentingly tore and twisted, stopping just short of

ripping her tongue out.

Kayleen was already drowning in the nightmarish pain rising from her groin,

where the unrelenting grinding in response to the torments visited on the rest

of her body had already resulting in chafing the skin raw and embedding more

than a dozen splinters, most of which broken or bound to be broken as she could

not help but jerk and twitch in response to the tortures.

The leering Southerner closed the iron jaws of the pliers on her pinky, right

on the seat where her nail used to be, and as blood squirted from the tortured

nail bed a cry of helpless agony erupted from her lips, followed by fitful

gasps as he twisted the wounded flesh in his grip. Finger after finger, he

visited this new horror on his writhing victim, her pain never receding as her

jerks and spasms were now grinding her flesh on the wooden rail, especially

between the sphincter and the vulva where the soft skin had been chafed raw.

Further agonies arose from her bloodied toes as the wounded nail beds felt,

one by one, the bite of the pliers. His bulging member allowed no doubt about

his arousal, and a corner of her mind almost hoped that he would rape her

instead of tormenting her wounded feet further, but it did not happen and she

had to suffer through the mauling of toe after toe in full.

When her tormentor suddenly paused, dread mounted in her and fought with the

urge to open her eyes and see what he was up to, and her fears materialized

when the pliers closed on her mauled breast flesh in a fiery wave of pain

which rose through her body and erupted from her mouth in heart-rending

scream. When her scream waned, her tormentor mauled her other breast, twisting

it a few times to see her face contort in agony each time.

He then pinched the soft undersides, which had been spared the worst of the

whipping, between the very tips of the iron jaws, pulling and twisting her

flesh down the stairs of yet another hell until he managed to rip off some

skin and flesh as she screamed like never before. Proud of his accomplishment,

he moved to her other breast and repeated it, slowly and deliberately, until

she howled in deranged pain again and blood flowed down the wound, which he

treated casually on the spot.

With a leering grin, he moved the pliers over her twitching body, in search of

soft flesh to subject to the same treatment, lingering over her nipples as she

cried in dread but then descending on the flesh of the inner thigh, careful to

keep away from major vessels but pulling and twisting as she buckled in agony

until another tiny morsel of tormented flesh was wrenched from her. The crease

between thigh and buttock was his next target, and again he visited untold

agonies on her until he managed to tear another bit of flesh from her now

bloodstained body.

He suspended her torment and called upon Grod to treat her wounds, and she was

released from the agony of the rail, curling in a ball of whimpering pain as

her hands attempted to soothe the agony in her breasts and between her legs.

She screeched like a maddened animal as the old Southerner cuffed her ankles

to bands tightened around her hips and dragged her under crossed steel bars

hanging from the ceiling, which she recognized when he clasped a fold of flesh

from her inner thigh and hung the chain to one of the hooks.

The renewed horror at hanging from the clasps again spurred her to a vain

attempt at resistance, but after a number of bitter cries and desperate gasps

she was lifted off the floor in a convulsing howl as the clasps pulled on her

wounded flesh. He savored her writhing and then, looking at Grod, encased

her nipples and clitoris in snugly fitting metal cups, securing them in place

with more clamps which added little to her suffering.

With a grin of anticipation he then moved to her head and tightened her collar

until she choked, enabling him to force the gag in her mouth again. He pushed

his hard member into her screaming mouth and, blocking her head between his

legs, closed a pair of pliers on each nipple in a frenzy of arousal, the cup

preventing the pliers from shredding the flesh but allowing them to effect

pain in abundance. Twisting and pulling, he forced her to scream his member to

climax, and such was his arousal that he continued until her bleeding mouth

was forced to scream him all the way through another release while the pliers

tormented her clitoris.

He then positioned between her legs, his eyes bulging under the influence of

some drug, and to her horror savagely pulled away the metal cups, clamps

included, before penetrating her with frenzied, jarring thrusts each of which

pulled off one or more clasp, incrementing her agonies as the remaining clasps

bore her weight by tightening on her whipped and wounded flesh. He closed the

pliers on her breasts, twisting and pulling, but stopped short of shredding

flesh or nipple, although he spared neither.

Still in a rut, his face pink red under the swarthy complexion, he next

penetrated her ass, her raucous screams now a mere echo of the agony she was

being subjected to as her spent voice was taxed beyond human endurance. The

last clasps gave by tearing at her skin and she fell to the ground with a cry,

but he turned her on her back and penetrated her again on the floor.

He pulled her up by her collar, still impaled on his rock hard member, and

brought the pliers to bear on her clitoris from behind, pulling and twisting

as she twitched on his member, twice sending Grod away with a snarled, "She

still feels it" punctuated by her anguished cry as the pliers twisted her to

renewed agony. Only reluctantly, panting, did he release her at last, her

clitoris shredded to the point of being barely recognizable and her nipples

only slightly better off. He rose, ignoring the disapproving look on the

faces of the other two.

Grod, obviously the most skilled of the three in keeping his victims alive,

treated her wounds at length, but then cuffed her left ankle to her left wrist

and her right ankle to her right wrist before dragging her under a chain from

the ceiling, at the end of which she recognized in horror a vise, sized to

crush the breasts of a well endowed woman. Her breasts.

She could not move her gaze from the wooden jaws of the breast press, cruelly

hacked and dented just like the horrid rail, and a muted "No" rose to her lips

as the waves of pain from her tormented body receded before the memories of

the torments wrought by similar instruments during her previous ordeals. The

image of Lyral writhing in its grip flashed through her mind, but brought

guilt instead of new resolve, because something deep inside told her that she

would break today, that her tormentors had been allowed to maim her body and

that she would never rise out of the resulting hell unless she conceded them

what their Master required.

Her fears materialized when Grod closed the device over her bloodied breasts

and tightened its jaws, sinking them into the firm flesh in an agony of wooden

jaggies, dents and splinters which sent new rivulets of blood down her already

bloody chest. She screamed and screamed again on each turn of the vise, only

to explode in a howl of agony when he pulled her up by her bulging mounds,

lifting her over two feet off the floor, all the wounds on both breasts

reopening under the painful pressure. Blood flowed down freely before

subsiding as circulation was reduced, but her screams continued unabated and

rose to new heights when he treated her wounds as she hung in agony.

She swung lazily in a nightmare of unrelenting pain until her gaze noticed

that Grod was up to something, He had fetched a bulbous wooden handle, like a

short club, and was testing that its three segments opened correctly when a

screw was turned. A smaller replica of the same device lay nearby, and he

tested that as well before folding it back and moving near her.

When he pushed it up her ass hole, realization hit Kayleen and the memory of

past violations surged within her and escaped her lips in a scream of horror

and despair. Something within her wanted to cry "No!" and "Please!" or

"Enough!" but only mangled nonsense resulted, her panic now beyond even the

rational option of surrendering the information they wanted.

The rough wooden head tore past her sphincter with some difficulty, and she

screamed mostly because any movement brought new torments to her constricted

breasts, but when he inserted the device in full she could feel its length in

her bowels and screamed in dread at the first creak of the screw, but gasping

at the pain from in her breasts breast. Turn after turn, the segments of the

device opened within her and tore at her insides, distending her sphincter

from the inside just like the cone had distended it from the outside.

He turned the device inside her, causing actual pain this time, the harbinger

of the agonies to come as the segments separated further within her and started

tearing her innards to the limits of their elasticity. A dull ache formed at

the rim of her ass hole as a ridge on each segment started tearing at it,

rising to higher levels of pain on each turn of the screw. Then agony mounted

turn after turn as her bowels distended and her rim muscle tore and bled, her

screams a nightmare of agony renewed whenever he twisted the device.

Instead of tearing her open to death, however, Grod walked her on the thin

line of agony by unscrewing the pear, twisting it, and then screwing it again,

each time wrenching unbridled screams of maddened pain from her parched lips,

even treating the tearing wounds on the rim of her ass hole between a twist

and the next in order to protract her agonies.

After removing the pear, he treated her and let her drink some more, but then

picked up another, larger wooden pear, its curving surface sporting dull

wooden studs and with jagged ridges at the base. Kayleen eyed it with

horrified incredulity, unable to believe at this new twist of her nightmare,

her mouth frozen in a muted "No" as her head shook spasmodically.

She screamed in despair as he forced the pear inside her love channel, her

bitter tears lost on his unmoved expression, her frightened eyes two liquid

pools of tormented madness which bulged with horror as he twisted the pear,

raking her insides and wrenching a scream of despair from her taxed throat.

As he slowly screwed the segments open, pain rose again in her screams, both

from her tormented breasts and increasingly from her ravaged insides, as the

dull points pressed against unprotected tissues and the segments distended her

innards. Fire surged inside the muscular rim of her love channel as the pear

opened to the point of tearing at it, reopening previous wounds which bled

anew and tormenting the places where the ridges crossed the distended tissue.

A new agony surged within her when the tip of the device touched her cervix

and started grinding into it on each turn of the screw, wrenching new screams

of unbridled agony from her in spite of there being no spike or blade, just

dull wooden points grinding on raw tissue. The whole device was now smeared

with blood, dripping from her wounded insides and from her torn muscle ring,

so much that he suspended her torment and treated at least the latter.

The resumption of her torment brought renewed agony as he started twisting the

device, the raking of the dull points a veritable agony as if a monstrous

infant clawed her innards raw, the whole device an obscene parody of

childbirth and a hellish replica of its travails with no outcome to follow.

With deliberate slowness he would unscrew the pear, twist it once or twice,

then screw it again. Unlike the anal pear, the vaginal pear could be screwed

open to a girth which had to be seen to be believed, a curse wrought upon the

victims by the necessities of childbirth. Kayleen had no mind for such

thoughts in her pain-wracked condition, but her tormentor was experienced in

the use of the device, and knew he could push her down a very long trail of

agony before reaching the limits of what even an ordinary woman could endure.

Turn after turn, twist after twist, he widened the segments, her screams

rising each time to unbelievable heights as she discovered new depths of her

personal hell. When he twisted the device, she shook in a fitful howl which

reverberated through her whole body like a chord from some diabolical

musician, and when he turned the crank her loins writhed as blood gushed from

her torn muscular ring.

Nearing the maximum extension of the device, he added a new torment by

fastening a chain to the free end of the pear and lifting her pelvis by the

chain, reducing the pull on her breasts but distending her vagina even further

in an uninterrupted pull which fueled a heart-wrenching howl the likes of

which had rarely resonated even in this chamber of horrors, but which was

topped when he disengaged the chain fastened to the breast press and let her

dangle from the pear, a slowly swinging pendulum of unbridled agony.

As intended, the upside down position stemmed the blood loss somewhat,

allowing him to protract the torment and even renew it by unscrewing the pear,

grab her by her shoulders and twist her body in a half turn, as the tortured

scream rising from the wasted husk of the former Warrior Queen covered the

sound of the wooden studs rasping at her innards and then rose in pitch as he

dropped her by a few inches, the pear yanking at her innards and tearing at

the ring of muscles which bore most of her weight.

In order to carry out his Master's orders, he dropped on her tortured left

breast a few drops of sizzling thin oil, which flowed freely on the skin

leaving an angry burnt trail which split in a web of agonizing stripes which

would certainly qualify as visible while causing little actual damage, and

forced her to twist sideways churning the studded pear inside herself for new

depths of agony.

Each sizzling droplet brought new howls above and beyond her uninterrupted,

hoarse screaming, and traced new trails of blazing pain over her tortured

skin, but also wrenched new howls from her tortured innards as she jerked and

turned under the sizzling heat. He no longer needed to drop her, which could

cause her muscles to give, and concentrated on the oil instead, dripping some

inside her thighs and then landing a drip on her bleeding clitoris which

resulted in a spastic jerk followed by a inhuman howl which trailed off in

fitful cries, to be rekindled when he dropped another, and the next, the first

two of a nightmarish sequel which ended only when she passed out.

It took more than cold water and smelling salts to bring her back, and when

she drank from the jug, she trembled and coughed. Her teary eyes closed in

despair when they focused on the leering visage of the old Southerner,

literally drooling at the prospect of torturing her again.

He placed her sitting against a post, her arms cuffed above her head and her

thighs opened wide, pushing her pelvis outward. When he added iron bands at

the knee and thigh to her ankle cuffs, it no longer rested on the seat and

hung exposed between her splayed thighs. Although she was already well

restrained, he added more bands at her elbows, shoulders, waist and chest,

effectively immobilizing her.

"A sudden move might get you hurt." he mocked, while his gaze wandered on the

canvas of hellish torment which was her once splendid body, now a tormented

bundle of marks, welts, bruises and burns, her mostly spared face the only

remnant of her former beauty. Blood dripped from her torn innards, and tears

dripped from her worn eyes, as she sank into mute despair awaiting whatever

horror the most sadistic of her tormentors would devise for her.

Grinning, he uncovered his flaccid member and awaited her cry of despair,

saying "Now, I know you would like it, but an old man has his limitations. I

would have thought that the pear would have satisfied you for a while, but it

seems you're insatiable. I will oblige you."

He sheathed his member in a rigid leather harness mimicking an over-sized

penis, and smeared a paste on its surface before rubbing it in sand, enjoying

the look in her eyes immensely. He then kneeled before her and nudged her torn

sphincter before pushing up into her, his hands on her hips forcing her down

as a howl of agony escaped her lips, followed by another as she pulled herself

free only to be forcibly brought down again. Scream after scream, he ground

her insides on the horrid device, the sand scraping her already torn innards

raw and the paste burning like liquid fire.

He pulled out, wrenching from her mouth a last wail of agony, and pushed up

her love channel. He fetched his pliers with a grinning "Remember these?" and

pulled her up and down by pulling on her nipples, almost face to face and

savoring every scream, every agonized gasp, drinking her tormented agony from

her very lips as her blood dripped on the stone floor. In spite of the

unearthly torments, however much she craved it, unconsciousness eluded her,

and her bleeding vagina was scraped raw as he protracted her torment beyond

any reasonable measure of endurance.

"What a mess, girl. It's time to fix it, I'd say." he mocked, pulling out of

her, panting, with a sated expression on his swarthy visage while his victim

screamed and trembled from the her burning insides, twitching and shivering

as blood dripped from her wounds. Her clenched eyes opened, possibly alerted

by the smell, to watch her tormentor heat ghastly implements in a brazier.

He examined a short, curved blade mounted on a ivory handle, then a thin

copper hook, and when satisfied by their appearance moved to her and touched

the hook to one of the innumerable tiny wounds caused by the barbed whip,

causing her to shriek in pain.

"Grod insists that bleeding wounds should be properly cauterized." he grinned,

savoring the horror on her face at the thought of how many tiny wounds brimmed

over her body. He put another hook in the fire and started stabbing wound

after wound, her gasps soon gathering into screams and fitful howls as he

unrelentingly poked her flesh with the burning copper hook.

She had withstood far worse than the small burn of the copper hook, but its

uninterrupted application on wounded flesh caused pain to mount without mercy

and rekindled the burns already inflicted on her skin during her previous

ordeals, something which her tormentor knew very well as he changed the hook

frequently to keep it hot and allow her no respite.

The worse came when he started on the larger wounds, such as scraping her nail

beds, causing her voice to rise in horrid, protracted howls of agony, or

circling her nipples, or sending her down yet undiscovered depths of depraved

cruelty by scratching the raw flesh of her torn sphincter and love channel,

cauterizing it one strip at a time while her howls resonated in horrendous,

protracted frenzies of unbridled agony.

Her tormented body writhed and trembled in its unyielding restraints, allowing

him unrestricted and accurate access to the places where he could cause the

most unbearable pain. With the heated hook he slowly traced each wound in her

exposed vulva, drawing new screams of gut-wrenching agony whenever the hook

sizzled on her burnt flesh. He opened the lips and slowly traced the insides

of each, enjoying her writhing to the point of adding two hooks, one to trace

the wounds and the other leaning on her love button, so that each tremor and

jerk dragged the point across the vulnerable flesh, proving that Grod was not

the only one adept at causing the victims to torture themselves.

After protracting her torment, to the point of faking the cauterization of

wounds which his imagination spotted in the most delectable places, he put the

hook aside and fetched a pair of tweezers. He added two iron bands, one above

and one below her breasts, doused his victim in cold water, closed the

tweezers around her left nipple and doused more cold water, until the bleeding

and burnt flesh stiffened.

"This is going to hurt." he whispered in repressed anticipation, and then

dragged the crescent shaped blade across the full length of the nipple,

careful to scrape without cutting, as her body stiffened and then heaved in

unparalleled pain. Her wail rose to a cry and to a heart rending howl, but he

kept scraping until he reached the end of the nipple as Kayleen banged her

head against the post in a desperate attempt to end the pain.

After restraining her head with another iron band, he closed the tweezers

around the nipple again, uncovering a different portion, doused with more cold

water and then scraped the exposed portion of the tormented piece of feminine

flesh raw in a deluge of burning agony. Her howl rose again in desperation,

to be followed by another as he repeated the procedure, and by others, until

her nipple was scraped and burned raw, a rod of agony nailing her chest to an

inescapable world of uninterrupted pain.

When he moved to the other nipple, her mouth pleaded and cried, offering to do

whatever he wanted, although still not revealing anything about Lyral, so he

looked up at Zhorun, who nodded silently. With an ecstatic grin on his face,

he proceeded to douse it with water and scrape it with the heated crescent

blade, peeling off the outer layers and exposing the pulsating flesh

underneath. Her screams rose again, on par with the screams caused by her

other nipple as far as intensity, but tinged with desperation as the

conscience of her failure crept under the blanket of pain she was wrapped in.

When he was done, Kayleen trembled and shivered, unable to move but free to

suffer, her broken voice wheezing after innumerable screams but ready to rise

again in a cry of despair as he blew on her excoriated nipples, rekindling

the ungodly pain they had just suffered.

And then he knelt between her legs and grabbed the folds of her clitoris, the

heated blade in the other hand, savoring her broken voice pleading him aloud

for a few moments of pure pleasure before dragging the hot blade over her left

fold, scraping it as the smell of burnt skin rose to his nostrils and her

scream of unbridled agony rose to his ears. He enjoyed the scraping of her

fold, but it was just a prelude to what he liked most, and he made sure she

never had a chance to stop screaming and ruin his masterpiece.

He pulled on the clitoris with the tweezers and doused it with cold water,

then scraped its short length with the heated copper blade as her voice jumped

at him in a howl of delicious agony, the first of a sequel as he kept scraping

in small increments, changing the blade very often to make sure it was always

hot and sharp. As before, they were face to face and he protracted her agony

so that he could raise his gaze and savor the suffering from her very face,

any accidental burns on his fingers a small price to pay for drinking at the

well of her agony, and licking her tears of pain as he slowly burned her love

button raw amidst her delirious howls and fitful screams.

When she was freed and Grod treated her burns, she barely noticed, wracked by

pitiful spasms of wrenching pain and coughing, her mind clinging to the notion

that she had lived through another day of torment, that now she would be given

some respite, albeit under some form of torturous predicament. So when the

Easterner dragged her to a table she screamed like a wild animal, trashing

madly and requiring all three of them to secure her to the table.

She was cuffed spreadeagled on a marble table, with iron bands on her

shoulders and thighs, the head encased in an iron mask which restrained it

completely, denying her the slightest movement. The cold marble was soothing

on her burned back, but above her forehead dangled a bronze contraption which

her gaze could not focus upon. She still moaned and cried as the pain from any

of her many wounds and burns roared its head again.

A droplet of cold water landed on her forehead, just above the nose. After a

while, another followed. Slowly, unrelentingly, but not at regular intervals,

a droplet landed on the exact same spot. The cold water soothed her somewhat,

in spite of the unrelenting pain from her ordeals, but after a while they

seemed to get heavier.

Her tormentors left, bringing the torches along and leaving her in the dark in

the sole company of the unrelenting droplets. Her head started to ache, and

she felt dizzy. In some corner of her mind she remembered the "water torture

from the East", and she sobbed in despair in the realization that she would

soon experience its effectiveness firsthand.

Chapter 10 - Machinations and Retaliations

The wizard once known as Zhorun listened without comment to the report from

his henchman about the capture of the Priestess, Lyral. When he left, however,

the circumstances troubled him. She was just a girl, and no warrior, yet when

the animated corpses lunged at her, it took her but an invocation to bathe

both in eerie white light which turned them to ashes. If he had not sent a

warband including living henchmen, the capture would have failed.

The tomes he had discovered on the subject of undeath, the origin of his great

triumph over the limitations of mortal flesh, hinted at the power of the Faith

over creatures from beyond the grave, so no further confirmation was required.

This meant he was at risk in her presence, at least until her maidenhood was

taken, as this was known to rob Priestesses of their powers.

This was a major setback. He counted on raising a host from the grave to fight

the armed forces still serving the Warrior Queen, but the Priestesses would

thwart this. If he started killing or abducting them, the rest would hide or

find protection exactly with those armed forces. Besides, sooner or later

someone such as the Sorceress, Shandra, would start drawing connections, and

he felt not confident enough to forgo secrecy yet.

His best option was to scrutinize her power and develop a spell to counter or

thwart it, although this would take time. He would raise corpses and study

their destruction at her hands, of course, but another thought hatched and

grew in him. Her powers had a common root, this was true for all forms of

power, and this root had to be in healing, because it was the effect other

forms of power, such as Zhorun's own wizardry, found hardest to replicate.

This was the core of her power, and this he would study by turning his three

torturers loose on her friend, the Warrior Queen. Something stirred within him

at the prospect of the delicious torments they could visit on her, once freed

from the need to preserve her life. They would still have to exercise some

care, as even a Priestess was helpless if the victim was already dead, but

they would be free to try most anything else.

Recalling the recent sessions, however, he concluded that the Southerner would

become a problem under the new circumstances. It was probably better to stick

to the notion of questioning both prisoners about the Sorceress, although this

was secondary now, and prohibit any activity which could endanger the

Priestess' maidenhood. He wrote down his orders and had them delivered,

impatient to proceed.

He silently entered the torture chamber, the lack of light not an obstacle for

a corpse whose eyes were long gone, and moved near the table where she was

still restrained. His henchmen had opposed his order to keep her under duress

even between sessions, as moments of respite were necessary to keep the victim

from dying or going insane, but her suffering was ecstasy to him and he would

partake of the nectar of her agony to the last drop.

The splendid woman lay in her restraints, sleeping in spite of the droplets of

water dripping on her forehead. Chang had explained that the water torture was

not really painful, it just played on the dread of the victim, and the ordeals

the woman had been through had left her on the brink of collapsing, so once

the effect of the drugs faded her body jumped at the chance of recovery in

spite of any dread her mind might harbor.

Her resilience and endurance were such, that she might even recover by

herself, although not to the point of regaining her former beauty. As his

netherworldly gaze wandered on her bandaged form, he heard footsteps and

receded into darkness to avoid the light of a torch borne by the Easterner.

The man operated a tap on the water torture device and let a flow of water

splash on her forehead, until she awoke sputtering. Her eyes closed as her

movements rekindled the pain from all over her horrendously marked body, the

extent of the damage partly revealed by torchlight in spite of the bandages.

Although most wounds and burns were in passable conditions, there were so many

of them that the others stood out. Some wounds oozed serum, some burns had

blistered, her breasts were swollen and her nipples were two sickly

protrusions of throbbing flesh, two flowers of crimson on her bandaged chest.

The bandages in her pelvic area were encrusted in dried blood. She sobbed in

pain and dread, grateful that her restraints did not allow her to see more.

"You kicked to kill me. Now you pay." said the Easterner. Kayleen's mind was

not at her best, but she gathered that this was not her ordinary questioning,

this was something personal. Her reflections were brushed away when intense

pain shot from her left hand, as the man had removed the bandage and was

rubbing rock salt on the bleeding nail bed of her middle finger. Her screams

rose in the poorly lit chamber and lost themselves in the darkness, to the

secret delight of the hiding Zhorun.

His hands crimson of her blood, he rubbed salt on her fingers and toes, one by

one, mercilessly, uninterruptedly, and then moved to her other wounds, even

reopening a few. She screamed and writhed in renewed agony, scratching her

face against the restraints still holding her head immobilized.

He circled his hands, crimson with her blood, until he saw in her gaze the

dread for the wounds he had not assaulted yet, and uncovered her nipples

before squeezing them between his salt covered fingers. As he twisted them,

her howl of agony rose on par with the loudest ever uttered in the dreadful

chamber, and more followed as he slowly tormented her flesh.

Tightly restrained, Kayleen could do almost nothing but scream in vain, her

existence again a nightmare of blazing pain targeting the femininity she used

to treasure intimately. Her tormentor protracted her agony, but without drugs

she soon found some respite.

She was reawakened by more cold water, and saw his bloody hands descend

between her legs one hair split before white hot pain blazed from her love

button, as salt burnt the raw flesh. She howled to high heaven again, but

nobody listened except the spawn of the grave hiding in the darkness, and her

subsequent howls found a delighted listener in the corpse of the former

wizard, who decided that this deviation from his orders could be tolerated.

She passed out twice under the unrelenting torment before the Easterner

decided that she had been punished enough, and left her sobbing and crying in

the darkness. She slowly drifted again into fitful sleep, another attempt from

her exhausted body to obtain some respite.

Zhorun stayed for hours, anticipating the events that would unfold upon the

arrival of the Priestess, then hid again as more steps approached and the old

Southerner's voice resonated in the chamber, "Wake up, Whore Queen! It's time

to play." To follow words with action, he grabbed her nipples and pulled up,

awakening her to a world of hurt as she screamed in despair.

Her eyes darted from under her head restraints to a sack he had put on the

marble table. His gaze followed hers, and he smiled cruelly, "Yes, I brought

stuff. Nettles, spiders, pliers ... I hope I've not forgotten anything." Tears

came to her eyes as he pulled out a jug containing one of the hairy spiders,

whose memory still haunted her mind.

He straddled her trembling body, disrobing and putting a leather sheath on his

erect member, savoring her wail of despair, and lingered on the entrance to

her love channel, the leather rubbing painfully on her wounded flesh as she

gasped and sobbed, then pushed in viciously with a snarl.

Her position and restraints were not meant for what he was doing, so he could

not penetrate her fully, but each thrust crushed viciously onto her vulva,

wrenching a scream of desperate pain as her wounds reopened and the remaining

grains of sand rasped her innards again. After coming at last, he leaned on

her sobbing chest for a while, savoring his own variant of paradise while his

victim sobbed in the hell he had imprisoned her into.

Another gate of this hell opened for her when he tore her bandages, fetched

some nettles and started rubbing them on her breasts, her screams losing

themselves in the darkness when he brushed the raw flesh of a nipple. His gaze

was fixed on her suffering mounds, following every tremor, every twitch,

protracting her cries and sobs until his lust aroused again.

He straddled her head and fetched two jugs, each with a hairy spider

scrambling inside, and waited to address her until her teary eyes widened at

the sight, "I'm afraid I forgot my tweezers. If I drop these on your tits,

picking them up will be rather difficult, considering how much they appreciate

raw meat. But if you make this old man happy with your mouth, I mean really

happy, not with the gag and stuff, he will be too tired to go on."

Kayleen could not prevent herself from staring at the hairy horrors inside the

jugs, gripped by utter terror at the thought of the unspeakable agonies they

would visit on her wounded flesh. But something inside her still refused to

submit, no longer strong enough for defiance, but not weak enough to concede

defeat. So she just kept sobbing, until disbelief replaced anticipation on the

swarthy visage of her tormentor and he growled, "Stubborn to the very last,

Your Haughtiness ? Let's see what happens if I rip your tits off."

He put the jugs aside, furious because he had planned to drop the spiders on

her breasts, after she caved in, and enjoy her fear while she discovered that

the spiders were not actually interested in human flesh, his little game

ruined by her stubbornness. His hand raced reached for the pliers, but another

hand, large and strong, closed on his wrist and pinned him to the table.

"Our orders are to let her rest." whispered Grod, his grip unflinching under

the hateful gaze of the old man. The two faced each other for a while, then

the Southerner, red with anger under his dark complexion, picked up his sack

and left without a word. Grod also left after a while.

Unseen, Zhorun waited silently, his mind now focused on the imminent arrival

of the new prisoner. He had given strict orders about how she ought to be

treated, but he wanted to be able to act personally if need be.

After less than an hour, he heard them approach, the three of them carrying a

single torch, as ordered. The Priestess was ... minute, or at least looked

minute besides Grod, as she was actually as tall as Chang. She wore flowing

white robes, and looked young and frail.

The three stopped early enough to keep the bandaged body of the Warrior Queen

outside the area lit by the single torch, and then forced the prisoner to

kneel. She was blindfolded and wore the wizard gag, a clamp on the tongue

which distorted pronunciation enough to make spell casting impossible but did

not preclude speech.

Under Grod's gaze, the Southerner started ripping off her white dress, the

only noise in the room coming from the torn cloth. He could not see her face,

but could see her lithe, slender body, the creamy skin and perfect shape now

revealed to all onlookers. The old man whispered something and his hands

manhandled her repeatedly, until Grod cleared his throat just as Zhorun was

considering incinerating the old fool on the spot.

When she was stripped naked, Chang placed cuffs on her ankles and wrists,

narrow and light cuffs quite unlike the heavy irons used for the Warrior

Queen. The trembling, pale body looked too frail for even a single session in

the torture chamber. When her elbows were cuffed together, a wail escaped the

gagged mouth and she shook the auburn head a few times.

When the Southerner pulled her wrists and ankles towards each other, bending

her in a hogtie, she cried in dismay, causing the Southerner to comment, "We

are going to have soooo much fun with you, girl." Once done, he sat enjoying

her contortions until she stopped, sobbing softly.

Zhorun waited until the three left, bringing the torches along and plunging

the chamber in utter darkness, then moved silently closer. Lyral wailed in

despair a few times, then fell silent as another moan echoed in the chamber.

"Help! Please help. Is anybody here ?" cried the young priestess through her

gag, her words distorted but understandable. She rolled on her side, yowling

at what she considered pain.

On the marble table, a voice she thought she recognized echoed in Kayleen's

mind, a safe haven in the rolling waves of pain. The voice called again, and

her own hoarse voice called out, "Lyral! Lyral, for heaven's sake, I'm here."

Lyral's voice trembled, "Kayleen ? Kayleen, is it you ? Answer me, please.

Keep talking." The gag made protracted talk fatiguing, and she assumed Kayleen

also wore one. Dread mounted in her at the thought that Kayleen might have

been here since her disappearance, and concern tinged her distorted voice.

"Kayleen, I'm blindfolded. Are you all right ? If you cannot move keep

talking, I'll find you." she offered. It turned out to be easier said than

done, because Kayleen spoke sparingly, her voice echoing in the chamber, and

wriggling on the cold stone floor in a hogtie was arduous and painful, but the

young priestess managed to come near the table where Kayleen lay, following a

long torturous trail punctuated by gasps and yowls.

On the table, Kayleen was shedding bitter tears as the world crumbled around

her. She had somehow betrayed her friend, unintentionally revealing her hiding

place, and now Lyral was another prisoner in the same hell she inhabited. Yet,

her first words had been a desperate call to be healed and freed from the

agonizing pain coursing through her body. The once proud Warrior Queen felt

unworthy of addressing her former friend, and yet craved her healing touch,

guilt and despair heavy on her chest as she answered her calls.

The table looked insurmountable for Lyral's hogtie, and she was panting from

the exertion and aching all over the body, so she stopped for a pause and

attempted to get a grasp the situation.

"Kayleen, how long have you been here ? Since your disappearance ?"

"Yes, almost. Days." whispered Kayleen, stifling a cry as pain rose again from

between her legs.

"Are you all right, Kayleen ? Your voice sounds awful." said Lyral in garbled

words, full of concern at the smell of blood.

"Yours is not much better, either." coughed Kayleen, a feeble attempt at some

humor to avoid facing the inevitable.

"Kayleen, please! There's blood on this table. What did they do to you ?" said

Lyral, her concern palpable in her words in spite of the gag. She tried to get

up, but failed and rolled on the floor with a yowl. Kayleen kept still.

"Please, Kayleen, you must tell me. I can help you. Are you wounded ?" these

were the words which she used to say when she came to her tent after a battle,

to heal the wounds she had honorably sustained in a fair fight.

"A little." answered Kayleen, using the same words she used then, but the

bitterness of her tone did not escape her friend.

"Angels of heaven, if you're admitting it ..." she said, leaving the rest of

the sentence unspoken, and doubled her efforts to get up, but fell on the

floor again, hard. She attempted to stifle her sobs, but failed.

"Sorry, Kayleen, but of the two of us the gymnast has always been you. I

cannot reach the table. My wrists are cuffed to the ankles and I cannot do

much more than wriggle about blindfolded."

Small as it was, this chance to be of help tore through the pall of guilt that

hung on Kayleen's chest, "Try to circle the table and feel for some torn

bandages, they would be near my left foot. If you put your back against the

leg of the table and hang onto the bandages with your teeth, you should be

able to get up on your knees."

Lyral was nowhere near the physical fitness of her friend, but she was young

and dedicated, and after many painful failures managed to pull herself up,

leaning against the table and gasping at the pain in her knees. The smell of

blood and sweat was intense, and she also recognized the sickly smell of

wounded flesh. Her nose, probing blindly, touched Kayleen's bloodied nail bed

and jerked as her friend screamed briefly before stifling her pain.

"Kayleen, you're wounded! I can smell it, your foot is wounded." she said,

almost falling back on the floor. She had somewhat expected it, and she

dreaded that her friend was hiding the worst, but she was not prepared to face

it. She knew what to do, but in order to heal her she had to touch her, and

there was no way her hands could reach her friend.

"I would heal you, Kayleen, but I cannot reach you with my hands. I'll try an

older technique, but I've not used it since I was a novice. Please be still."

she said, attempting to bring her lips to touch Kayleen's flesh. This form of

healing had always reminded her of a mother kissing a scratch on a child's

knee, but for significant wounds wasted much of the healing potential.

Lyral touched her friend's flesh, and noted with concern that it was hot and

dry, and the concern deepened when Kayleen flinched in her restraints as her

lips brushed an angry burn. Lyral concentrated, her lips barely touching the

skin as she gathered her power, and then let it flow to Kayleen, a warm

soothing glow barely visible in the darkness.

But the act of healing was not one-way, as the healer absorbed unto himself a

fraction of the woe of the healed, and the old technique was not the best for

sheltering the healer. Although no physical damage carried over, Lyral was not

ready for the depths of agony coursing through Lyral's wracked body, and broke

contact with an anguished cry, falling to the floor, while Kayleen wailed in

despair as her too briefly suspended agony resumed.

"Kayleen! Oh, Kayleen, what horrors have you been through ?" sobbed Lyral,

still shaking and panting. Overwhelmed, her horror took the shape of a

pressing urge to know, the irrational need to put words around the unspeakable

agonies she had a glimpse of, a urge she would later regret after

understanding how much answering weighed on her friend.

"Tell me, Kayleen, please. I felt it. The burns, dislocations ..." she pressed

on, her own voice trembling, "Tell me, please. They tortured you."

"Yes." whispered Kayleen, "They've been torturing me for days." Hearing those

words spoken aloud in her own voice hurt, but the worst was yet to come.

"They ... they raped you." said Lyral, her voice trembling. "They burned you

there. They did ... things." she sobbed.

"Yes." whispered Kayleen again, wishing she wouldn't.

Lyral sobbed by herself for a while, then fell silent. After a long while,

Kayleen called, "Lyral ?"

"Are they going to torture me, too ?" she asked quietly. Kayleen felt a stab

to the heart as her worst fears were spoken out loud, and could not bring

herself to answer.

"Then I've better heal you before they rape me," said Lyral flatly, wriggling

towards the table. Another stab went through Kayleen's heart at the words of

the friend she had betrayed, but she said nothing. Getting up a second time

turned out to be as difficult as before, but at last Lyral managed it and

neared her lips to Kayleen's foot again. She was ready this time, and

sustained the onslaught with but a tear under her blindfold.

The warm feeling of healing, of Lyral's healing, suffused Kayleen's body and

soothed the dull pain, reaching every recess of her body and regenerating

tissues and skin. Her moan of relief rose to a cry as her nails grew back, her

wounds closed, even dislodging the sand rasping her womb, and her body was

restored to its former glory.

Lyral, exhausted by the effort, barely managed to keep from falling down

again, but whispered with a smile, "You sound better now." Herself again, the

Warrior Queen rattled her restraints in vain, but managed to touch her friend

briefly and say, "I already owed you much, but this goes beyond everything you

ever did for me. Whatever I can manage to keep you from harm, I hereby vow to

pursue at any cost."

"Well, just thanks was enough, but thanks." said Lyral, then managed to lower

herself on the floor with little harm done. She was exhausted by the effort,

and felt like sleeping for a week, but she still had questions.

"Who is behind this ? When you disappeared, we considered kidnapping but ruled

it out because we could not think of anyone with the motives and the means to

perpetrate that."

"Be careful, Lyral. There is Zhorun behind all this, he used his magic to

cheat death, and he might be using his magic to listen. Watch your words."

"He did what ?"

"I don't know the proper term, but he's like a walking corpse, rotten and yet

animated. He can see even if his eyes have been eaten by grave worms, and he

can speak even if he no longer has a tongue. Some of his former associates

flocked to him, and he can raise the dead to do his bidding."

Lyral lay still for a long time, then said, "I dispatched two such creatures

before the warriors captured me. Zhorun was a powerful wizard in life, and he

must have located some ancient text which escaped the cleansing of the land

from these abominations. Undead. Unable to rest in their graves and full of

hatred for the living, and the worst were the wizards who chose this fate of

their own will, to cheat old age, or defeat."

"You'll see for yourself. He's always present at my interr ... torture."

"He's probably exacting his revenge, and enjoying it. I remember reading that

the undead had this insatiable impulse to cause the living to suffer. In past

times, a bitter war was fought against them, and my kind played no little part

in their ultimate defeat and the eradication of the foul knowledge concerning

how they could be spawned. Not thoroughly enough, apparently."

"He hinted at armies he would use to conquer the kingdom ... how many corpses

could he raise from their graves ?"

"I don't know, but he has not started yet. Your disappearance caused quite a

stir, but such an army would not go unnoticed. So he wants the kingdom for

himself, and he wants to take his revenge on you, and he'll let me know why he

had me kidnapped sooner rather than later ..."

Suddenly, Kayleen heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and knowing what

this meant whispered intensely, "They're coming. Lyral. Do not let them find

you beside me, and don't tell them anything, don't speak a word. No matter

what they do to me ...  or to you. Heaven knows I wish I could spare you this,

but you'll have to be strong."

Chapter 11 - Interwoven Fates

When the three torturers arrived, a soft wail of fear rose through Lyral's

gag. Kayleen felt her stomach knot at her friend's despair, but tried to hide

her dread, not wishing to give them any further reason to harm her friend.

Her weakness had wrought Lyral into this bloody nightmare, and she had hid it

to get her own wounds healed, but she was now resolved to amend for it all.

Above her restrained head, Grod's voice asked summarily about the location of

Shandra, just as she expected. She would not answer. She would not fail

another friend. She would endure, this time, to the very end.

"Look at this tiny little morsel," murmured the Southerner while gazing at

Lyral's pearly breasts. He removed her blindfold and dragged her to the

ladder, where he cuffed her hands and feet, impatient to begin, "Maybe you're

more talkative than your friend there, girl. Anyway, our host would like you

to tell him where he could find a Sorceress by the name of Shandra. Would you

like to oblige ?" Lyral shook her head, trembling and closing her eyes.

"I hoped so," said the Southerner mischievously, then wore a pair of leather

gloves and rubbed a bundle of fresh nettles under Lyral's left foot, smiling

in anticipation when she gasped and shrieked in surprise and pain.

Grod and Chang were silently studying the Warrior Queen, still restrained on

the marble table, her renewed body a feast for the eyes, but also a force they

feared. She felt defiant, and was about to insult them, but thought better

not, not while they were on guard. Grod tightened her collar meticulously, and

removed her restraints one limb at a time, cuffing the wrists and the ankles

to the waist band. Only then did he drag her to a bench, her knees chafing on

the stone floor, and cautiously cuffed her wrists and ankles to it.

The cautiousness of her tormentors was of some consolation to the Warrior

Queen, and also tilted the scales of the dilemma she was facing. If she

allowed herself to scream and plead, Lyral might lose heart, but the three

would not lower their guard. She'd have to put on her best show.

Meanwhile, Grod was tightening iron bands on her arms and thighs, then around

her forehead and cheeks, effectively immobilizing her head. The band at her

waist was removed, and she would soon understand why. At the corner of her

vision, Lyral shrieked through her gag when the Southerner rubbed nettles on

her belly, and Kayleen thanked the bands for preventing her from seeing more.

Grod's hands searched Kayleen's nether regions and pushed something cold into

her urethra, painfully distending it while she buckled in her restraints.

Lyral's eyes widened as she saw the burly executioner insert a bronze plug

into her friend's privates, but immediately filled with tears as the old man

rubbed nettles behind her left thigh. Through tears, she saw Grod wheel over a

post, with a large tank hanging from the cross beam.

Tightening Kayleen's collar, Grod managed to forcibly push a spider gag into

her mouth, then produced a linen strip with a knot every inch or so and

dropped it into her forcibly open mouth, causing her to gag to in vain. When

he lowered a pipe from the tank and started pouring water into her immobile

mouth she buckled, wildly straining to escape the pouring water. Panic rose in

her mind as the primal fear of drowning bubbled under her newfound resolve.

She gurgled and sputtered, her soaked blonde hair sticking to her cheeks.

As more and more water was poured, the devious strip was forced down her

throat, growing inside her as it soaked water, and causing Kayleen to gag

spasmodically in order to expel it. Her gurgles and chokes increased, as the

strip had reached her larynx, allowing water to enter her trachea down into

her burning lungs. Lyral cried as the old man rubbed nettles under her

armpits, distracting her from the suffering of her friend.

When Kayleen entered a fit of coughing and turned pale, Grod pulled the strip,

knowing that it had entered her trachea, but did not stop the water, watching

her bulging eyes lose focus as her lungs screamed for air. He poured more

water and let the strip sink further down, the knots now clogging her

esophagus and causing her spasming throat to burn in the combined effort to

expel the intruder and drink the water.

Lyral, in spite of her own predicament, could not help looking at what her

friend was undergoing, unable to clearly understand what caused Kayleen to

gurgle and choke, buckling in her restrains under pitiful fits of coughing and

sputtering. The Southerner, following her gaze, smiled and dragged nettles

under her breasts, obtaining her instant attention and an anguished cry.

Grod pulled out the strip almost all the way, satisfied himself that the white

cloth was pink from watered down blood from her chafed innards, and rose to

resupply the tank. Although not all the water poured into Kayleen's mouth had

been actually ingested, her belly was already visibly distended.

When Grod dropped the strip into her aching mouth and poured more water, her

body started buckling savagely and her gurgles rose in pitch as she tried with

all her forces to expel the heavily salted water, but her tormentor poured

more and more until the strip entered her esophagus again. Kayleen's body

convulsed in her restraints between stifled screams, pitiful gurgles and

repeated fits of coughing as she vainly attempted to expel the knotted strip

while the liquid burned in her throat, lungs and esophagus.

Grod continued pouring more salt water, keeping an eye on her heaving chest

and tormented face, then pulled out the strip and pressed with all his

strength on her distended belly, causing her to expel salt water mixed with

blood in a pitiful gurgle which could not completely hide an anguished scream,

which she stifled with the last ounce of her resolve as she saw him bring the

pipe into her mouth a second time. The torment was repeated a third time, a

fourth time, and then Kayleen lost the count in a watery hell of saline agony.

Lyral cried in despair while the Southerner dragged nettles along her soft ass

cheeks, lingering on the flesh between buttock and thigh, savoring her creamy

body withering in torment, so unlike her blonde friend and yet so enjoyable as

it twisted in its bonds.

"Tell the Master where he can find the Sorceress, girl. You can't hold on

forever. It gets worse from now on," said Grod to Kayleen. No answer came.

When he changed the contents of the tank, her nostrils flared as the acrid

smell of bile reached them. Horror swept over her face at the thought of what

awaited her, but her frantic efforts to shake her head were thwarted by her

restraints and the strip entered her gaping mouth again.

The foul liquid caused her to vomit, but Grod increased the flow and she

started drowning in bile, gagging and choking as the nightmarish liquid burned

bitterly her throat and carried the strip farther and farther down her

scorched esophagus. Her desperate heaves shook the bench and the iron bands

cut deep bruises into her newly pristine flesh, but she was forced to swallow

bile until the strip slowly disappeared down her mouth.

She vomited again when it was slowly extracted, spitting bile and blood as

Grod pressed onto her belly to empty it. When the cloth was dropped into her

mouth again, she closed her eyes in silent despair, sliding into the second of

many cycles of suffocating agony to follow. until she finally passed out.

Kayleen came to with the acrid smell of salts in her nostrils and a funnel in

her stuffed mouth. It was not just a gag any more, but a stuffing of cloth,

felt and some kind of tar, and her anus and vagina also felt stuffed, plugged

watertight as she would soon find out. Three pipes ran from the tank above to

her orifices. She closed her eyes, gathering her will, just as water flowed

from the tank, forcing her to gulp or drown.

Her attempts at drinking the water flowing into her mouth were derailed when a

short braided whip landed across her breasts, taking her by surprise and

wrenching from her a gurgled scream, followed by a fit of coughing and choking

as the water disallowed her from catching her breath, and invaded her lungs.

Another strike of the whip landed under her soles, followed by another on her

front thighs, each spaced apart to allow her ample time to drown herself on

the uninterrupted stream of water.

Water was also flowing into her nether orifices, and her bowels were already

cramping because of the cold water filling them. Grod poured more water into

the tank, bucket by bucket, occasionally whipping her into frenzies of

sputtering, coughing and choking. Her plugged bladder was starting to burn.

Meanwhile, Lyral wept bitter tears as the Southerner kept her arched on the

ladder, nudging her nipples with the hellish nettles so that she had to strain

her muscles to keep the burning leaves from the delicate buds which had never

known pain before this day. "Sooner or later, girl, you'll tire. And I doubt

you have the resilience of your blonde friend. Of course, you might want to

let us know about the Sorceress," cackled her tormentor.

Kayleen's eyes filled with bitter tears as the pain from her belly, bulging

under the amount of water she was ingesting, rose steadily. As more water was

added, her bowels felt like freezing, shot through by cramps from the cold

water, and more and more inflated as her throat frantically gulped the pouring

water to avoid drowning, each occasional failure causing another torturous fit

of sputtering and coughing.

She watched in horror as her belly distended to alarming proportions, like she

was months pregnant, her muscles screaming as she felt about to burst under

the pressure. The water was also painfully distending something within her

womb which ached terribly, although she could not name it. After careful

consideration of her distended abdomen, Grod fetched a hefty wooden club and

with all his might smashed it onto her belly.

The blow sent water back towards her mouth, but was also transmitted all over

her insides, reverberating in a wave of pain which caused her to gurgle and

sputter, her scream stifled by pure force of will. The next blow taxed that

will, and the same did the next, but she managed to hide her pain from her

friend, wishing Lyral could do the same as the Southerner dragged nettles over

her inner thighs, leaving red rashes on the pale skin.

When her belly was forcibly returned to less horrific proportions, the water

pouring uninterruptedly from the tank found its way into her again, and her

eyes widened at the realization that her tormentor had placed salt water in

the tank, and her throat and lungs would soon burn with saline agony as each

repetition would increase the proportion of salt over fresh water.

Lyral could no longer afford the luxury of concerning herself with her friend,

since the Southerner was dragging nettles across her soft breasts, and the

shrill pitch of her young voice echoed under the vaults as if she had been

screaming for both herself and her friend.

As the devilish torment was repeated over and over, Kayleen's newfound

strength was sorely taxed and only her will endured, in spite of the agonies

reverberating inside her when the club landed on her bruised belly. Her bowels

and womb were bursting with water, and she was on the brink of unconsciousness

because of prolonged oxygen deprivation. Her lungs were screaming for air and

her throat was ablaze, and when Grod started over again, she passed out.

She woke up again, the first thing in her ears being Lyral's screams as the

old Southerner was twisting nettles around her friend's nipples. Grod was

tightening a tourniquet around her lower belly, having already placed one on

her waist and another just under her ribcage. The knotted hemp rope bit her

skin already, and the bench had been tilted so that her feet were now about a

foot above her head. Her bladder burned with the urge to relieve herself.

Her bowels and womb had been emptied, but were now being rapidly filled again,

the liquid flowing with much higher pressure from two separate tanks looming

large, well above her feet. Exhausted, Kayleen tried to fight dread as the

growing discomfort in her womb and bowels suggested that it was not ordinary

water that she was being invaded with, but soon she had to fight pain instead,

as her insides started itching and then burning.

When she started twitching, her tormentor opened the tap of the pipe flowing

into the funnel in her mouth, and salt water poured down, compounding the pain

inside her with the renewed torment of her lungs and throat. She gurgled,

unable to drink the saline concoction, and sputtered in fitful buckles of

breathless pain, discovering that the tourniquets were digging into her flesh

as water distended her insides again.

"The water inside your womb is distending it, girl. This is only the

beginning. You'll feel when it bulges, when the tubes burst, and then you'll

expel the water and it starts over again," said Grod quietly.

Two searing nuggets of pain started blazing in Kayleen's womb, feeling as if

the mounting pressure of the scorching liquid was distending some pathway,

forcing its way down channels never meant to sustain such agonies. Her belly

was now pushing against the ropes, the knots digging deep and chafing the

skin, and more water was being poured down her throat as she choked onto it,

each gulp a spasm which sent shivers through her restrained body as her lungs,

more and more compressed as water pushed up her diaphragm, screamed for air.

Most of the liquid was entering from her mouth, in spite of her position, and

soon she found herself coughing to asphyxiation as water seemed to fill her up

completely, gushing in her windpipe. Her muscles pushed helplessly against the

ropes, attempting to gulp down more water, but this only increased her pain as

her compressed belly bulged through the deeply set ropes.

When her face turned blue, Grod removed the funnel and started tightening the

tourniquets, sending her into coughing fits of agony as the water was forcibly

expelled from her mouth in desperate bursts. Out of her mind in pain and fear,

Kayleen was prevented from screaming only by the gushes of water and fits of

coughing, because her insides were still experiencing the unrelenting pressure

and now the nuggets of pain in her womb were blazing in agony from the tight

constriction of the tourniquet.

As her stomach was emptied, allowing her the breath of air she craved, it let

some room for more water to press into her bowels and womb, increasing the

unrelenting pain from her insides. Ignoring the suffering in Kayleen's teary

blue eyes, her tormentor pushed the pipe into the funnel again. The foul taste

of salt water caused her to retch, the vomit unable to escape the throat and

mixing with the downpouring liquid as she sunk again in the watery hell.

Lyral twitched on the ladder while the Southerner laughed at her screams of

fear and pain, teasing her "You sing like a summer bird, My Pearl! If some

nettles are all it takes to hear you sing, what are we going to hear when we

start with some real torture ?"

Over the subsequent iterations of the torment, Kayleen almost cursed the

renewed endurance and strength brought by her healing at Lyral's hands, as she

had to endure them one by one, the salt water scorching her womb and pressing

into her uterus and tubes with unrelenting, mounting pain each time more water

was pressed in, until finally she lost consciousness.

Kayleen came to while the Easterner was cuffing her elbows together, bending

her arms over a beam crossing the top of a wooden post she remembered with

dread. He pulled her arms down until he could cuff her wrists to the back of a

wedge pushing into her lower back, arching her body outwards. Her legs were

doubled over and bent painfully outwards at the knee, the ankles cuffed wide

apart to another cross beam.

The pain of her restraint and even the bruises on her belly were nothing in

the aftermath of her previous ordeal, as her insides from throat to womb still

burned and throbbed, while the collar tightened by the cautious Easterner did

not allow her to breathe normally and even drink some of the contents of the

jug offered to her, the burn in her throat stronger than her sense. Yet, as

her gaze focused, her eyes widened in dread at the sight of the implements

heating in a brazier before her.

Once she had been secured, the wry Easterner loosened her collar and wore

thick gloves, which allowed him to pick up a thin, red hot steel needle and

push it into her left thigh, its sizzle covered from a scream she managed to

turn into an agonized breath drawn through clenched teeth. A cold needle

pierced her other thigh next, followed by another red hot needle in her

distended calf.

Her tormentor alternated cold needles and red hot needles, each causing her to

writhe in agony while attempting to stifle her screams, pausing between each

to let her experience the pain in full. Her ears picked up screams which were

not her own, and her tormented gaze fixed on the pale flesh of Lyral, pulled

tight on the rack by Grod. For a moment, her horror at the thought of the

innocent girl suffering the agonies of the rack overcame even the pain of the

needles, but her call of "Lyral" turned into a scream when her tormentor

pinched her belly and pushed a red hot needle through her flesh.

The call caused Lyral's gaze to focus on Kayleen's twitching form, sending her

further into despair at the sight of her friend's tormented face while the

Easterner pushed tiny hot needles in her tender soles, each causing her to

stiffen, twist her visage in the effort to resist the pain and buckle wildly

in her restraints. When her head hung, she was doused with cold water.

Kayleen could not keep her eyes on Lyral's distended limbs as Grod cranked

back the rack, just like he had done with her, sending the atrocious pain of

sudden release through her limbs, because her own tormentor pushed a red hot

needle under her left toenail. Dread combined with pain behind her mounting

scream, which left her lips as a tormented hiss, as this rekindled the

memories of her past ordeals and signaled the start of the assault on her toes

and fingers.

The assault followed, and brought her down untraveled roads of mounting pain

as needles were also driven in the soft flesh between fingers, while each nail

was tormented by either a red hot or a cold needle, which turned out to be

barbed when he pulled out one to replace it with a red hot one. So another

cruel pain was visited on her as each cold needle was bloodily pulled out and

replaced by a red hot one.

When he started pushing needles into her torso and chest, Kayleen let out a

stifled scream as dread as the recollection of past ordeals overcame her, but

her tormentor continued slowly pushing cold and hot needles into her writhing

form. After her back, his attentions lingered on her ass cheeks, which needle

after needle he turned into a bloody pincushion.

Kayleen, in spite of herself, trembled when the wry Easterner looped a thin

silk cord around her left breast, followed by another around her right breast,

tightening them until her mounds turned into turgid globes of taut flesh. When

the first needle, a cold barbed one, was pushed into her flesh, it took all

her newfound resolve to stifle a scream which would have risen up in the

vaults of the chamber, just as the garbled screams from the stretched Lyral

rose as she trembled under the pull of the rack.

Slowly, the Easterner pushed more cold needles into each globe, delaying his

recourse to the red hot ones to bring her to the ultimate brink of agony

before sending her down a new level of torment. After pushing a needle into

each nipple in spite of her spasms and jerks, he pulled out the very first

needle inserted into each breast, slowly, the barbed tip tracing a searing hot

trail of agony through her flesh which the subsequent insertion of a short,

red hot needle in the same spot reopened immediately, dragging Kayleen into in

a nightmare of gasps, hisses and burnt flesh from which no respite was allowed

until much later, when her breasts were so thick in short needles, most

already cooled off, that her tormentor found awkward to insert any new ones.

She was released from her restraints, her body still brimming in needles, and

made to drink again, the pause allowing her to hear again the desperate cries

from the rack where Lyral quivered as Grod cranked her yet another notch, her

neck and mouth distended in a drawn out cry of unspeakable agony.

Her breath constricted by the collar, Kayleen was pulled up by her ankles

cuffed to chains from the ceiling, then the Easterner doubled her at the

waist, pulling her arms to her front between her splayed thighs until, helping

himself with a boot on her crotch, he managed to pull them forward enough to

bend her elbows under her knees and tie her wrist cuffs behind her back to a

rope, which he proceeded to shorten until he could cuff her wrists to each

other.

Kayleen's bent position exposed the tendermost part of her athletic body while

pushing the needles all the way down into her compressed breasts, bringing new

tears to her contorted visage. Just hanging there would have been torture

enough, but her tormentor pinched a fold of soft flesh from under her left

thigh and started piercing it with fine, red hot needles, so fine that he

could push dozen in the folded flesh in the grip of his leather glove. The

nonstop torment caused her to gasp and hiss, her breathing a wheeze as her

body glistened in perspiration, which mixed with the crimson rivulets of blood

and the smell of burnt flesh as the sizzling mixed with her stifled screams.

The fine needles caused little blood loss, the wound cauterizing as it formed,

but kept her in searing pain far longer, compounding the stabbing from her

breasts which got rekindled upon each jerk with the agony of burnt flesh. His

hands gripped the now exposed crease between buttock and thigh, repeatedly,

first left then right, slowly pushing needle after needle through the soft

flesh in a trail of agony which reverberated on her contorting face as she

strove to keep her anguish from bursting in screams.

Her tormentor's hand pinched a fold of flesh under her thigh, and a new pain

seared through her as the first hot needle pierced it, while Lyral's agonies

on the rack echoed through the room drowning her stifled gasps and the

occasional cries escaping her clenched teeth. With leisurely relentlessness,

the Easterner pushed more and more of the accursed needles through her thighs

and calves, drawing a canvas of agony on her slender, exposed limbs as a

prelude of the worst to come and splashing her occasionally with cold water.

Lyral's cries rose to a pitch as the rack pulled her taut, and then waned as

she passed out. Grod suspended her torture and slowly cranked her distended

body back to normal, inspecting her pale limbs for signs of dislocation.

Kayleen's mind wandered in a hell of searing pain and burnt flesh, attempting

to escape what she reckoned would follow. Within her, the dread of the torment

in her feminine regions grew needle after needle, her shame deep at being

unable to face the specific pain with the same bravery she exhibited in

combat.

A wail of despair grew behind her teeth when the Easterner pushed the first

needle through her left cunt lip, followed by the first actual scream of the

day, although promptly stifled, when the next pierced the rim of her vagina.

In her restraints, she could barely writhe as each needle was pushed through

her cunt lips, the tips fiendishly pointing inwards as the heat seared her

feminine flesh. In spite of the unrelenting agony, she managed to stifle her

screams yet again, buttressing her resolve on the pitiful shrieks escaping

Lyral's gagged mouth under the unrelenting pull of the rack.

In spite of the needles in her ass cheeks, the wry Easterner returned his

attentions to her buttocks, but focused on the rim of her sphincter, piercing

the tender flesh with more of the fine, red hot needles, driven through the

muscle parallel to the surface. Instead of sinking into the flesh, endangering

blood vessels, the needles dug through one, one and a half inch of muscle and

then emerged, the tip ready to cause further agonies on each jerk and twist of

her tormented body.

To Kayleen's dismay, however, the torment of her sphincter was just a break in

the assault on her femininity, because the Easterner pulled open her cunt lips

and pinched them to her inner thighs with more fine, red hot needles, ignoring

the blood trickling on each jerk and her anguished hisses as each needle

caused her head to shake in unspeakable agony.

When he pulled open the folds of her clitoris and pierced the left one with

another red hot needle, Kayleen's body stiffened before shuddering in a long,

drawn out breath of sibilant agony which she renewed when another needle

seared the flesh of the right fold, exposing her love button as more needles

stitched the folds to her flesh.

"Tell where Sorceress is," said her tormentor, dousing her with cold water

after waiting for her answer, "More pain now".

More needles were driven in the muscle at the entrance of her love channel, in

the fashion used on her sphincter, the tips still hot sizzling on contact with

the dry wall after piercing the fleshy rim, each a stab of unremitting agony

which shook through her hung body, bubbling into a scream which she refused to

let out of her mouth as her face contorted in untold agony.

Her resolve staggered when a red hot needle was pushed into her clitoris, her

mouth opening in a helpless, silent cry before closing under pure force of

will as the smell of burnt flesh rose again to her nostrils and the needle was

pulled out. Even Lyral, stretched on the rack, turned her head when the next

was placed on her love bud, the tip burning into the flesh, but was held firm

instead of pushing it in, until her tormentor's finger forcibly pulled it,

slowly elongating it into the atrocious burning needle, sliding it in one

hairsplit at a time while Kayleen's hisses and gasps rose in pitch and her

shaking blonde mane revealed her unspeakable suffering, which was repeated

until her tormentor had to admit to himself that there was no longer room on

her tormented feminine flesh for more needles.

Her tormentor removed swiftly the mostly cooled needles from her, ignoring the

occasional drops of blood as most wounds had been cauterized by the heat, and

then lowered her on the floor, releasing her from her restrained position only

with precautions far beyond what Kayleen's trembling body would suggest.

After a litany of pitched screams, Lyral passed out again, unable to withstand

the pull of the rack. Grod tried reviving her with cold water, without

releasing her, but she woke up between screams and passed out again when he

cranked her another notch.

The Easterner cuffed Kayleen's elbows and wrists together, fastening the

latter to a ring, then cuffed her ankles to a six foot steel bar, spreading

her legs wide and adding iron bands at the knee and thigh before pulling up

the bar using another chain from the ceiling, her body arching as her hips

were pulled above her head while her arms were twisted in their sockets.

The Easterner moved to the brazier and verified the implements heating there,

oblivious to the dread mounting in his victim as she strove to look inside,

and to the despair echoing in the room as Lyral shouted her lungs out while

her limbs were stretched again on the rack. Kayleen closed her eyes, praying

softly to herself, as her tormentor pulled from the coals a red hot four-inch

skewer, bringing the forked tip near her restrained arms.

Her body stiffened and then exploded in a frenzy of buckling and shaking as

the skewer pierced her flesh, its sizzle drowning in her desperate hiss of

agonized despair, the first herald of the screams crowding in her throat. The

pain was far worse than what she had withstood so far, because the searing

tips reached to the bone and scraped it inside her burnt flesh.

After her pain subsided, her tormentor inserted another skewer into her arm,

sliding it slowly along the muscle instead of stabbing down, the pain mounting

unrelentingly as her throat burned with bile and her jaw ached as she tried to

keep her howls from breaking out. One after the other, he also skewered her

forearms, in spite of her frantic buckling and spasmodic jerks.

Next were her fingers, again, but on an unprecedented level of agony as a

short skewer was slid into her first finger, scraping the small bone in the

first agonizing step of a descent in hells she had not visited yet, as each

finger and toe was slowly subjected to the agonizing treatment. Her throat was

sore and burned with puke, her eyes had shed all her tears, and the cries of

Lyral were distant echoes of her own suffering as the skewer slid into her

last toe, her leg convulsing along its entire length as she managed to stifle

an agonized howl, clinging to her determination because it was the only thing

left she could cling to before sinking in an ocean of pain.

The skewering of her long, supple legs with long, searing hot needles which

bent inside her muscle as he pushed the tip into her bones dragged her further

into that ocean of pain, sending new waves of agony bellowing behind her

clenched teeth and crashing on her resolve with the unrelenting, excruciating

agony of searing hot metal. During a brief instant of respite, she heard

Lyral's garbled voice cry "I won't talk! Oh, Kayleen, I won't fail you."

In her torment, her friend's words were a stab at her heart but also a much

needed source of new resolve, just as the impassive Easterner pulled a six

inch skewer from the brazier and inserted it under her left breast, dragging

the forked, red hot tip inside her, scraping one rib after the other as she

twitched and buckled, bile rising into her mouth and fanning the blazes of

more agonized howls, her hisses now so desperate and frothing that they would

count as screams to anybody but her, rekindled by a bucket of cold water.

After repeatedly skewering her breasts, the wounds bleeding moderately as the

heat cauterized them as they formed, her tormentor allowed her a pause and let

her drink from the jug, the liquid clearing her mind and bringing new strength

to her pain-wracked body. That strength was soon taxed when he slid short

skewers onto her ribs, causing more gasps and hisses to issue from her

clenched mouth, and even more when he skewered the sides of her breasts to

bring the tips to slide on her sternum in yet another nightmare of pain and

burnt flesh, which he protracted until her hisses waned into wheezing sobs.

But instead of releasing her, he brought the jug to her lips again and then

pushed another hot skewer into her crotch, piercing her left cunt lip and

scraping the tip onto the pubic bone, her desperate cries gurgling behind the

dam of her resolve as she stifled them into hisses. Her tormentor fetched a

short skewer and slid it into the soft flesh between her anus and vagina,

followed by another as she spat and gurgled in unspeakable agony.

Slowly, he pushed a longer skewer through the whole length of her right cunt

lip, sliding it over her pubic bone, the twin tip scraping it on each jerk and

twitch of her tormented body. Drool frothed at her mouth, which opened in a

rasping, silent scream when another skewer was slid into her vulva, sizzling

her small lip and the vaginal wall before scraping bone as she jerked in

renewed agony and gasped desperately.

Instead of continuing, her tormentor paused to bring a sloping bench under her

belly, raise it until she leaned on the wood and then fasten the bands at her

thighs and waist to it. Out of her mind with pain, Kayleen enjoyed her brief

respite, unaware that he just wanted her restrained for further torment.

He took care to heat the next skewer until it turned bright red, then pushed

it into the lower rim of her vagina, piercing it on the left and then on the

right, stitching the sides together while the sizzling heat caused wisps of

smoke and her body shuddered in unbridled agony and her mouth twisted her

features as she desperately clenched her howls behind her gritting teeth.

When Kayleen's twitches subsided, he slowly slid another skewer through the

upper rim, piercing its walls and stitching it close while her contorted face

trembled under the effort to stifle the scream mounting in her throat as the

twin tip scratched bone again. Her mouth opened in gasps and hisses when

another thin, bright red skewer was driven through her swollen lips and under

her clitoris, with his fingers pulling and bending the bud so that instead of

piercing through, the needle traversed the full length of its underside

stitching it to her mons before entering the flesh above and joining the

others in scraping her pubic bone as she trembled in agony.

With the sizzling needles in place, her tormentor used both gloved hands to

skitter two or even all three at the same time into her bone, pulling them out

a bit to drive them in from a different angle, plunging Kayleen into

unexplored depths of uninterrupted agony. Her gasps, hisses and gurgles rose

almost on par with the pitiful cries from the racked young body of her friend

Lyral, and lasted until the skewers cooled off.

As she was released, she heard Lyral's hysterical sobs as the Easterner

approached her, while Grod treated her wounds and the jug brought new strength

to her parched lips. The thought of asking Lyral about what was in the jug

coursed briefly through the pain wracked paths of her mind, losing itself in

dread when she realized that it was now the Southerner's turn, and he was

ogling her body while poring over a small collection of knives and blades.

Unable to avert her teary gaze, she lingered in horror on the implements. Most

had been built from bone, some gleaming new and some yellowish, or reddish,

she shuddered. These were not blades designed to dispatch an opponent, quite

the opposite, they were short and poorly honed to cause shallow wounds.

Meanwhile, the Easterner was tightening a tourniquet around Lyral's waist, her

sobbing eyes awaiting the impending pain, and Kayleen saw in her friend's

countenance all the weight of the ordeals wrought upon her young, frail body,

her limited strength spent, her endurance consumed already, a nightmare of

pain unlike anything she had ever sustained in her formerly sheltered life.

Kayleen paid little heed when the Southerner dragged her to a platform, made

her kneel on it and cuffed her ankles wide apart, forcing her to open her

thighs painfully wide under her own weight. Her eyes sought Lyral's eyes, now

shut in pain as she screamed under the tightening grip of the tourniquet, and

ignored the Southerner cuffing her wrists above her head to a chain hanging

from the ceiling. But when the swarthy old man fetched a yellowish, cracked

bone blade and pushed it into her left shoulder blade, her attention returned

to her predicament and a scream escaped her lips before she could stifle it.

Grinning, her tormentor pushed the blade further down, tracing a jagged wound

in her muscular back. Although he had stayed clear of major blood vessels, the

wound bled immediately, yet he followed up with another cut into her right

forearm, along the muscle, her own jerks and twitches trashing the blade

inside the wound as she gasped and hissed in agony.

"Oh my, who would have guessed that a little knife would cause Your

Haughtiness such discomfort ? I thought you were a proud warrior," mocked her

tormentor, cutting into her muscle.

The cut of blades in battle she knew already, and it hurt, but this was

nothing of the sort, this was devilish torment, and dread mounted in her as

her horrid experiences allowed her to recognize these first cuts as just

preliminaries.  She closed her eyes as his fingers traced and probed the place

where he would stab and cut her next, and soon her anguished intakes of breath

could be heard almost as clearly as Lyral's screams of despair, while blood

oozed lazily from her cut flesh.

After a dozen cuts, all delivered with excruciating slowness while pressing

the dull blade on the skin to cause its uneven edge to cut jagged gashes, the

old man protracted the pause between a cut and the next, watching her bleed

before making her drink again and treating the cuts, smearing a thick paste

which slowed the blood flow somehow, and stitching them summarily.

Lyral screamed in uninterrupted agony as the Easterner tightened the grip on

her fingers, her soaked body trembling in fear between a turn of the

tourniquet and the next. Tears streaked her pale face, and after crying her

lungs out she passed out and had to be revived with cold water.

The Southerner placed his finger on Kayleen's left calf and then pushed the

blade into the flesh, dragging it slowly along the length of the leg as she

twitched and hissed, turning her head under the foolish compulsion to watch

the blade dig into her. The yellowish white blade was crimson with blood, and

the edge was dull enough to require considerable force to cut through muscle,

tracing shallow creeks of crimson through her flesh as the howls she wanted to

suppress crowded behind her clenched teeth.

"You could still entertain us with news about that Sorceress," said the

Southerner, dousing her with cold water while she clenched her lips.

With time, Kayleen's and Lyral's bodies started looking similar, both crossed

by reddish lines, but while Lyral's where but rashes and chafed skin,

Kayleen's were ugly, bleeding gashes, although the occasional treatment

reduced blood loss. While Lyral screamed with abandon through her gag as the

Easterner tightened a tourniquet on her left breast, Kayleen managed to just

hiss, gasp and buckle as the Southerner pushed the blade under the nail of her

left ring finger, compounding the torment of her hands already bleeding from

the cuts in the soft flesh between the fingers.

But the true measure of the difference in the torments became obvious in the

comparison between Lyral's tear streaked visage and Kayleen's contorted mask

of agony, as the Southerner dragged the blade on the tender sole of her left

foot, and then pushed it under the nail of her big toe as she jerked her head

back, her mouth open in a silent, drawn out scream at the indifferent vaults

of the torture chamber.

Even Lyral, in the pauses her tormentor dispensed lest she passed out too

often, watched with horror between her own tears when the Southerner stabbed

the soft flesh inside Lyral's thighs, pulling the blade up and lifting her

from her kneeling position at blade point while blood flowed slowly, and she

gasped through fits of unspeakable pain, still clinging to her resolve as the

howls she refused to let out resonated in her chest.

When her leering tormentor sunk his blade under her breast, she screamed

briefly, a lapse which was followed by a long, agonized breath as the blade

cut her flesh, but which did not repeat when he stabbed her other breast.

Stymied, the swarthy Southerner gripped it and pushed the blade into the soft

underside, enjoying her eyes clenching in agony, but unable to exact another

scream from her in spite of the repeated gashes slowly dug in the pulsating

flesh of his trembling victim, wet from occasional buckets of cold water.

Undaunted, he gripped her left nipple between two fingers and started dragging

the blade along its length, careful to scrape rather than cut, first pulling

away from the breast, then turning the blade down through the tip of the

delectable flesh and then reversing the cut along the underside of the wounded

nub. Kayleen's hisses rose to a feverish pitch while he ravaged her nipple,

and she gasped and shook her head to no avail. When he moved to her other

nipple, her jerks and twitches prevented him from achieving a clear wound, but

not from trying repeatedly, so her right breast slowly became a canvas of

bleeding pain drawn in stifled screams and agonized jerks.

The Easterner resumed Lyral's torture by tightening a tourniquet around her

plump left breast, causing the girl to tremble and shriek in dread, trashing

in her restraints at the prospect of more pain.

"Your friend does not seem to like Chang's attentions, Whore Queen. I fancy

laying my hands on her again. Later," said the old Southerner.

Smiling, he brought the blade on her crotch and traced with his fingers the

contour of her cunt lips, enjoying her jerks and spasmodic attempts at turning

the blade, which littered her privates with small cuts of her own doing. When

she stopped jerking, not buying into his little game any more or just

exhausted, he placed the blade on the muscle around her vagina and cut,

smiling at the tormented hiss which shook her splendid body.

After repeatedly cutting the rim of her love channel, and its walls in places,

her tormentor disrobed and smiled before pushing her down on her back,

penetrating her wounded sex on the platform in short, rutting thrusts, each

one sending blazing pain through her bleeding body as she barely managed to

deprive her tormentor at least of the satisfaction of hearing her scream.

Lyral instead screamed and howled as the Easterner tightened the tourniquet on

her breast, and passed out again when the pain became unbearable. She was

revived with smelling salts, and started sobbing immediately, crying and

quivering when her tormentor tightened the rope again.

Exhausted, Kayleen drank blindly from the jug offered to her while they

treated her wounds, none deep enough to endanger her life but so many that she

would be unlikely to survive. In the haze of unprecedented pain, she thought

that her tormentors had picked Lyral as the one which could be scared into

talking, and as such no longer needed restraint in torturing her.

She ignored the Southerner when he cuffed her elbows together and pulled

painfully her arms from under her back, fastening her wrist cuffs to the

platform and forcing her to arch her back and push her hips up in the air,

exposing her wounded crotch. Her collar was fastened to the platform, and only

when the Southerner tried to force a spider gag into her mouth did she mount a

feeble attempt at resisting, which he tried to stifle by twisting her wounded

nipples in the vain hope of forcing her to accept it. It was Grod who

tightened her collar, until she went blank from lack of oxygen and the gag

could be forced in when she was allowed to breathe.

The old Southerner straddled her head and fetched a different knife, the blade

apparently the fish-bone of a large fish, which he examined at length before

pushing it into one of the gashing wounds he had cut on her slender thigh,

cutting her agonized scream short by pushing his flaccid member into her

throat and enjoying her gurgling and coughing.

"Now I am going to reap the reward of all this hard work", he whispered.

Lyral, who had been allowed to see the scene, closed her eyes in horror, but

could not close her ears as the laughing Southerner slowly dragged the blade

through the wound in her thigh, reopening it while Kayleen's muffled screams

surged through her stuffed mouth. He waited until her cries subsided, then

stabbed another wound on her other thigh, pushing encrusted blood aside and

drawing fresh blood and fresh howls of unbridled torment from his victim.

The small blade visited many other wounds, each one a new fountain of agony on

her tormented body which oozed fresh blood until her tormentor cared to

staunch it again. Now that she was tightly restrained, however, he could use

it to carry through his original intent, so he brought the blade against her

right breast and started tracing the contour of her areola, cutting a red line

around it with the tip as she shouted into his already hardening member.

He pinched her right nipple, pulled it out and traced its entire length with

the blade, outwards, around and backwards, so enjoying her jerks and cries

that he immediately repeated the feat on her other nipple, reopening the cut

he had been so proud of. Kayleen screamed into his member, repeatedly, feeding

his arousal as he tormented her wounded breasts, protracting her agonies until

her cries brought him to come into her mouth.

Lyral was spared the sight of her friend's violation, because she had fainted

again while the Easterner tightened the tourniquet on her heaving chest and

was taking longer than before to revive.

Spent, the swarthy Southerner poured more syrup into Kayleen's choking mouth

and summarily treated her wounds, then moved between her legs and placed the

tip on her mons, pushing the blade into the flesh between her pubic hair in a

short, shallow cut, wrenching a short cry from Kayleen's sore throat. He

followed up with a second and a third, observing the three form a bloody

triangle on her mons. With his other hand, he grabbed the curls of blonde hair

and pulled, drawing a pitched shriek of inhuman agony from the trembling

Kayleen as the pulled hair slowly wrenched away the triangle of skin.

"I guess you're not going to tell us about the Sorceress," he mocked. When her

cries subsided, he cut another triangle in her bush and pulled it away also,

just like the subsequent ones, smiling as each little scalp brought new howls

of unbridled agony from his twitching victim, savoring each one as Lyral

watched in horror, unable to avert her gaze, almost forgetting the tourniquet

being tightened around her chest.

The Southerner protracted the flaying of Kayleen's mons long enough to achieve

another arousal, and when his member hardened he interrupted it and penetrated

her, grunting as he viciously pushed into her torn sex, enjoying her fitful

jerks when he brushed the flayed flesh. On each thrust, her cries rose through

the gag under the vaults of the chamber, and turned into anguished howls when

he stopped just before coming, pulled out and ejaculated on the raw flesh.

After catching his breath, he resumed the flaying of her pubic area, and when

nearly done stopped to consume something he had prepared, smiling as Kayleen's

eyes widened in recognition. In a few minutes his member hardened, and

penetrated her in a rutting frenzy of vicious cruelty, pulling out at the last

moment and spraying his salty semen on her to compound her torment again.

Kayleen cried aloud in despair when he thrust into her yet again, and

withstood his third assault howling to high heaven, but on the fourth time her

eyes glazed over and, in spite of the drugs, she passed out.

She returned to the hell she had just left with the strong smell of salts in

her nostrils, hanging upside down with her legs painfully spread wide and her

arms bound in a reverse prayer position behind her back. The Southerner

cackled at the thought of how this position, intended to curtail blood loss,

exposed her sex, and tightened an iron band around her waist to prevent her

from jerking around too much. More cold water was splashed on her.

The Easterner had also started to douse Lyral regularly, attempting to keep

her awake while he tightened the tourniquet on her chest while she screamed at

the top of her lungs.

The Southerner also closed tight bands around Kayleen's knees and thighs, and

finally screwed two iron rings tight around her breasts, wrenching new screams

from her sore throat as her wounds reopened. He fetched both the dull and the

thin blade and started cutting the sole of her left foot, the thin blade

following directly into the gash dug by the large one, delighted as he could

at last enjoy her howls of agony as they were meant to be heard.

When her screams subsided, he smeared some paste on the gash and then

rekindled her pain by clipping together the edges with small, vicious clamps,

staunching the loss of blood while plunging her another step down the

staircases of agony. The clamps were too small to allow for a spring, so he

had to tighten them using pliers. Immensely satisfied with his own cleverness,

he started clipping the bleeding wounds on her breasts, savoring her pitiful

screams as each clamp dug into her quivering flesh.

"Now, now, we don't want too much spilled blood, do we ? Unless our Whore

Queen changed her mind, I mean. Too much spilled blood means we have to stop,

and we still don't know where this Sorceress is," mused the Southerner.

Having contained blood loss for the time being, he proceeded to dig red lines

of agony through Kayleen's slender legs, protracting her torment by pausing

often, then moved to her buttocks and started cutting across the existing

wounds, lingering on the soft underside near her thighs and in the crease

between the cheeks. Each time, once her cries subsided, he clipped the wound

dutifully. Later, he delighted when her screams rose to new heights as he

scraped her ribs to the bone under Lyral's horrified eyes.

Leaving her ribs to bleed, he slowly traced a few lines of crimson agony

through her muscular abdomen, clipping each shut meticulously before starting

another, then reached for her breasts. He pushed the dull blade into the

quivering flesh, dragging the thin blade back and forth as she howled in pain

and wheezed, short of breath as each scream caused further pain from her ribs.

He briefly paused her torment to smear her nipples with the yellow brown

paste, but soon resumed, tracing another deep gash in her firm breast, as if

drawing in each a star of red lines pointing to the nipple. Her screams were

now hoarse, wheezing, but she twitched and jerked in agony whenever the blade

bit her flesh, so he slowly protracted her torment until her nipples swelled.

He pinched one, savoring her cry as the wound reopened and dread rose within

her, pulled it and traced the dull blade outwards, around the tip and

backwards on the underside, proud of his technique and enjoying her spasmodic

jerks, inhuman cries and pain-wracked visage. She was now properly restrained,

and he was able to repeat the hideous torment on her right nipple, slowly

savoring her hellish cries. Noticing that she was starting to lose it, he put

the jug at her mouth and pulled her head up in order to let her drink.

Lyral was still screaming her lungs out, her wet body writhing as her plump

pale breasts turned crimson under the grip of her tormentor's tourniquet. Her

parched cherry lips stood out in her pale, contorted visage as she drowned in

unprecedented pain and misery. The Southerner called at her, "Look, girl,

watch as I carve open Your Haughtiness here. Maybe I can find what she's so

full of. Just remember you're next."

Kayleen's newfound strength was immediately taxed as her tormentor brought the

dull blade on the soft flesh of her inner thigh and dug another line of

bleeding agony in it, cutting across her previous wounds and protracting the

torment while avoiding major blood vessels. Her cries rose shrill when he

clipped the wound, and rose even more when he cut her tender flesh again.

After tormenting her thighs, he returned to her swollen nipples, fetching two

elongated bronze clamps which he clipped along the length of the left nipple,

on the edges of his previous cut. When both nipples were so clipped, his hands

both free, he plunged Kayleen into yet another level of horrific agony by

tracing a new gash along the full length of each nipple with the dull blade,

back and forth, the thin blade following immediately inside the throbbing

wound as she bellowed in nightmarish pain, consuming her voice in hopeless

howls of utter despair as he protracted the gouging of her feminine flesh.

She was given a brief pause and more syrup, but her screams soon rose again

when the wound was clipped and he traced another line of hellish agony in the

tender flesh between anus and vulva, clipping it quickly in impatience at what

he had in mind next and dousing her with more cold water.

After reviving her yet again, the Easterner released Lyral from the

tourniquet, letting her hang in tears and watch the torment of her friend.

The Southerner started cutting Kayleen's cunt lips, first one then the other,

slowly dragging the dull blade along their length and following up with the

thin blade as she buckled so spasmodically that he cut himself once. When her

desperate howls subsided, he smeared her clitoris with the brown paste,

smiling in anticipation while she cried in dread.

He traced another gash to the left of her cunt lips, and another to the right,

then started practicing shallow perpendicular cuts on the edges of her cunt

lips, pulling them open and clipping each against the outer edge of the gashes

on each side, while Kayleen's maddened cries echoed in the torture chamber.

Slowly, he did the same with the folds of her clitoris, pulling them open and

clamping their bleeding cuts, revealing her swollen nub of feminine flesh.

He pulled it out and traced its length with the dull blade, savoring her cries

and twitches as he practiced the same technique he had visited on her nipples,

pausing often to let her catch enough breath to renew her cries between a fit

of coughing and the next. When her gut-wrenching howls subsided into wheezing

screams, he leaned over her and penetrated her torn and distended sex, from

above, with a enraptured expression on his swarthy visage as each thrust

wrenched new howls of maddened agony from Kayleen's devastated throat.

When he was done, Kayleen hung in utter pain, her body wracked by spasms as

rivulets of blood coursed down her shaking chest. He used the pliers to clip

her wounds, smiling as this ministration intended to staunch blood loss caused

her to howl with new pain, then rested the dull blade on her clitoris,

savoring her cries of dread and despair. He bid his time until her voice

waned, then started digging with both blades, rekindling the flames of

previous hellish agonies and slowly protracted her torment as long as he

could, while her body trashed in her restraints and her howls of unprecedented

agony echoed under the vaults of the torture chamber.

Chapter 12 - Lyral's Fears

In the darkness of the chamber below the ruins of Zhorun's former castle,

Lyral's sobs subsided slowly as the pain from the day's ordeal receded. She

was sitting on the floor, her legs wide open, cuffed at the ankle and knee to

iron bars crossing behind her neck and continuing up to her wrists. Legs and

arms were braided along the bars, rekindling the agonies of the rack in her

strained muscles whenever she flinched because of the rash from the nettles.

As her mind cleared, and her sobs waned, she took notice of a noise in the

room, a pitiful moan occasionally bursting into wheezing cries of helpless

agony. Horrified, she called through the gag, "Kayleen! Where are you ?"

She thought she heard the words "Lyral, help me please" slip between moans,

but her concern and the uninterrupted litany of her friend's agony were enough

to bring her in the vicinities, although pain shot through her muscles each

time she ambled crablike on the stone floor. Unable to see, she was close

enough to smell her friend's presence, and prodding about bumped her face into

cold rock, so she started circling around what she thought was a pillar.

Only after searching at length, taxing her tormented muscles, did she realize

that the rock was where her friend should be, so she called out, "Kayleen, do

you hear me ? I am near, I can smell you, but all I can touch is this rock."

Kayleen's rasping whisper sent shivers down Lyral's spine, "It is ... me. The

rock hangs off my feet." The rest of her words, if any, died in a cry. Unable

to make sense of this nightmare, Lyral forced herself to calm down to call

upon her powers, concentrating until a pearly glow started to light the area.

A gasp of horror rose from her throat at what the soft light revealed. The

Warrior Queen hung from her wrists, her slender figure pulled taut by a large

rock fastened to her ankle cuffs. Her body was wound in coils of knotted,

coarse hemp rope, cruelly tightened over her wounds and compressing her

breasts onto her chest. The nipples protruded through the rope, tightly bound

with thin cord to her love bud, pulling it up and exposing its wounded flesh

to the chafing of a savagely tight crotch rope.

In the darkness, Zhorun receded before the pearly glow, its pure light burning

his undead skin even at distance. He silently cursed before the revelation of

the power Priestesses wielded, largely unused today but presumably strong

enough in the past to completely cleanse the kingdom from his ilk. He watched

as Lyral managed to grab onto the hanging rock, at which Kayleen pulled up her

strong legs and helped her up, jerking and twisting as the effort rekindled no

end of agonies in her wounded flesh.

Lyral put her tears aside and concentrated again, kissing her friend's blood

encrusted leg to deliver her power, grasping at Kayleen's bonds as her

friend's body shuddered while the wounds stopped bleeding and healed, the skin

reforming on her mons and even the blonde curls of pubic hair growing back.

The healing coursed like fluid bliss through Kayleen's body, leaving her again

her former self, although once the effect subsided her wrists started aching

as the cuffs supported her own weight, part of Lyral's and the slab. She could

speak now, "Lyral, heaven knows I owe you my life again. Are you all right ?"

Lyral was still in pain from her ordeals, unable to heal herself as her power

was spent, but she did not want her brave friend to know that. A strange

feeling stirred within her as her lips lingered on Kayleen's muscular thigh,

and her nostrils smelled her sex, a deep tingle Lyral could not quite pinpoint

but which merged with her relief at perceiving her friend whole again. She let

herself slide on the floor and asked, "How late do you think it is ?"

"Early night, I'd say. We have a few hours of respite" answered Kayleen.

"Then it begins again, Kayleen ? Every day ? Bloody torture by day and

merciless restraints by night, until either of us caves in ?"

"Until the tables are turned, Lyral. I almost managed to set myself free once,

but Zhorun summoned more guards by magic and I was subdued. Our only choice,

at present, is to endure whatever they visit on us. By holding on, we buy time

for our friends to locate us and prepare our rescue."

"Maybe we could tell them where Shandra was. By now, she should have guessed

that something is wrong, and they would find nothing."

"And then what, Lyral ? They would think we lied and start all over again. And

if they found her, what would be our fate once we were no longer of value ?"

"I'm sorry, Kayleen. I am ... scared. I've never been through a pain like

today, and I was about to tell them where Shandra is at least twice. I cannot

understand how you managed to endure the horrors they are putting you through

for over a week, but I know I'll never be able to."

"Don't underestimate yourself, Lyral. Initially my torments were not as horrid

as those you witnessed, yet at the time I also thought I could not stand

another day. We must be strong, Lyral, because if Zhorun is putting off the

conquest of the Kingdom to capture the three of us, we must prevent him from

succeeding even if we don't understand why."

Lyral could find no fault in Kayleen's reasoning, and in any case was so tired

that she didn't even try. Healing by itself was tiring, and her strength had

been sorely sapped during the day. Maybe, if she managed to rest, she would be

able to heal herself before daybreak.

When the torches from the three tormentors brought light to the chamber again,

Lyral was still sleeping, but Kayleen was fully awake. When the Southerner

approached her, not even bothering to ask her to talk, she tensed, considering

her chances to catch the old man off guard, but her eyes betrayed her intent

and he smiled evilly, "Plotting nasty tricks, Your Haughtiness ?"

He lowered her on the floor and without untying any rope dragged her by the

nipple cords across the stone floor, her strong body wriggling to keep up as

pain distorted her features. Tightening her collar, he pushed her face down

onto a sloping wooden platform, its surface crisscrossed by creases drawing a

diamond pattern of pointed wedges. He cuffed her wrists and elbows behind her

back, pulling them up painfully before allowing her to breathe normally again.

He tightened an iron band around her waist, then clamped her nipples and

pulled the cords around her neck, elongating her firm breasts into distended

cones.  When he let go, the wooden points dug painfully in the soft undersides

of her firm breasts, while he bent her legs wide above her back and cuffed

them at the far corners of the post, pushing her front ever more onto the

wedges.

"Now, I hope you can wait telling us about that Sorceress," he mocked.

After contemplating the twitching rosette of her anus, he disrobed and

penetrated it viciously, enjoying the muffled shriek of pain and humiliation

which shook her. He kept pushing violently, each thrust rewarded by his victim

impaling herself on his member in order to pull away from the pointed wedges.

Lyral watched in horror the violation of her friend, unable to avert her gaze,

essentially ignoring Grod as he unfastened her from the crossed bars and

cuffed her elbows, ankles and wrists together, then fastened iron bands around

her knees and thighs. She was forced to drink from the same jug which she had

seen used for Kayleen, wondering at the purpose of the syrupy liquid.

Meanwhile the old Southerner, spent but not sated, fetched a wooden club,

sculpted like a large phallus and nudged Kayleen's reddish sphincter, drooling

as she trembled, pushing it in only after teasing her repeatedly. Her body

convulsed on the wedged surface as a hiss of agony escaped her clenched lips.

This protracted humiliation was but the first. He fetched a larger device and

pushed it in with vicious abandon, distending her sphincter as she hissed and

shook under the unrelenting assault. He moved the other devices before her,

and waited until her eyes widened in fear before picking up one of frightening

girth, which he pushed in and pulled out with his full strength, tearing her

sphincter while she managed to stifle her howls into gasping hisses.

"Now that we've found the right size, we start the fun." he said, pushing it

in with intoxicated abandon. The pain in her ass was unbearable, the muscles

of the walls straining and chafing while the relentless tearing at the

sphincter widened its bleeding wounds. New waves of agony shot through her

buckling body, prodded by the pointed wedges as she tried to stifle her

screams and howls.

Lyral's attention returned to her own predicament when Grod tightened a thin

iron chain around her plump breasts, filling her eyes with terror as she

begged, "Please, not this. Please."

"Tell the Master about the Sorceress, girl. You'll spare yourself and your

friend there further pain," answered Grod quietly. When she sobbed silently,

he pulled the chain taut, lifting her on her toes as she screamed in fear.

The Southerner pumped the device tirelessly, a feat for his age, enjoying

Kayleen's protracted suffering while blood trickled from the tearing wounds on

the rim of her sphincter. Cramps surged in muscles which seldom saw any, and

the torment continued uninterrupted until his member hardened again.

Drooling, he changed the device with one which he wore around the waist, and

penetrated her vagina with his real member while pushing the wooden one into

her bleeding asshole again. He felt his victim's body shake under the scream

of outraged agony she would not let out of her lips, grabbing her hips as he

repeatedly thrust into her, until his semen mixed with blood.

Still excited, he picked up another wooden implement, three inches wide and

proportionately longer, teasing her chafed love channel repeatedly and

enjoying her jerks before pushing the device in with both hands. He protracted

his thrusting with gleeful abandon, painfully distending the rim of muscle at

the entrance and scraping the walls as she hissed in agony.

Lyral wept and shut her eyes before the ravaging of her friend, not realizing

that the desperate hisses of stifled agony would be no better, but opened them

when the chain around her breasts tightened painfully as her flailing feet

left the floor and she hung by her constricted breasts, screaming from a pain

unlike any other she had encountered before.

Kayleen's tormentor angled the wedge so that each thrust crushed the sensitive

tissue inside the upper cleft of her vagina, wrenching desperate hisses of

agony from her clenched lips. Each thrust ripped her torn wounds wider while

she convulsed between gasps and hisses, hiding the unbearable pain behind her

contorted visage but unable to still her convulsing body.

He let the four inches of the next implement dangle before her teary eyes

until her mouth formed a silent "No" in absolute horror. With triumph in his

voice, he whispered, "Beg for the flesh, if you want to be spared the wood."

Kayleen shut her lips, her features hardening like her resolve, clinging to

something she did not want to give up. Her tormentor, enraged, grabbed the

monstrous phallus and pushed it in, slowly and deliberately, savoring her

jerks as it tore her apart while she ground her front on the pointed wedges.

To increase her pain, he tightened her collar, pushing the device in only when

he saw the muscles clutch it, savoring the sight of the tearing wounds along

the rim widening under his thrust as a scream wheezed through her constricted

throat. With unrelenting cruelty, he alternated thrusting while her spasming

muscle clutched the device to pulling when she caught her breath, rending the

torn muscle while she convulsed in unbridled agony.

"I haven't heard you beg, Whore Queen. It won't stop, you know. I'm in no

hurry," whispered the old man as he pulled out the wedge again.

He deliberately protracted her torment until the sensitive flesh on the upper

cleft of her love channel tore, stopping just as his victim stiffened and

jerked in unbelievable pain, clenching her teeth and pressing her face on the

platform to keep her surging howl from breaking out in earnest. Kayleen shook

and buckled as the agony from her torn femininity mounted and waned, while her

tormentor doused her trembling body with cold water.

Meanwhile, Lyral had been watching the horrid violation of her friend while

hanging from her soft breasts, now turned into purple globes of constricted

agony. Occasionally Grod prodded them with a pointed wooden stick, sending her

into jerking frenzies of fitful screaming, but the mounting agony did not

blind her to how much harsher were the torments inflicted on her friend.

Kayleen was briefly freed from her restraints, only to be turned face up, her

back on the wedges and her legs pulled up by cuffing her ankles to her wrists.

Her nipples were two blazing embers of clamped agony, and her front bore the

bruises of dozens of wedge points.

But her voice rose in tormented hisses only when the Southerner penetrated her

exposed vagina, deliberately pushing his member into the wounded cleft at its

top, ripping it a bit wider with each frenzied thrust, savoring the hellish

pain on her contorted face while her body convulsed in agony. When at last he

came, he smeared his salty semen on the wound to enjoy a last gasp from her.

Lyral watched the scene in absolute horror, forgetting the pain from her

constricted breasts momentarily, unable to avert her gaze until she puked at

the Southerner's last act. Unable to believe at what Kayleen was enduring

without passing out, her thought returned to the syrupy liquid the torturers

fed them, recalling from her apprenticeship that sugar was to be avoided when

under pain, and recognizing the taste of stimulant herbs. She realized that

the same beverage had also been fed to her when Grod stabbed her left breast

again and she screamed in agony herself, instead of passing out.

Kayleen failed to hide a sob of despair when her tormentor, while pouring more

liquid into her parched mouth, fetched another sick instrument of violation, a

wooden phallus whose surface was studded with knobs, but managed to stifle her

agonized scream as the Southerner drove it into her bleeding asshole, each

knob gouging her innards after violating the sphincter.

"Take this, Whore Queen. Let me see your hips dance!" he shouted.

Instead of pushing it back and forth, the swarthy Southerner twisted the

device left and right, wrenching a new agonized hiss on each turn and enjoying

the sight of her hips turning accordingly, frantically attempting to lessen

the pain. Although the knobs were not sharp, the slowly protracted twisting,

punctuated by Kayleen's gasping hisses, gouged her innards, drawing blood in

trickles which washed away when she was doused in cold water.

Her mind wandered off in the haze of hellish pain as he switched to a larger

implement of torment, still obstinately refusing to scream as the knobs dug

new creeks of blazing pain into her wounded innards, but unable to prevent the

abysmal suffering from surging through her clenched teeth.

Lyral kept screaming whenever Grod prodded her bulging breasts with the wooden

fork, no longer seeking Kayleen's eyes in the pauses her tormentor allowed,

not aware of the fact that her friend felt each scream as a stab of guilt

straight into the guts, a little thing before the agonies of torture but

painful on a deeper level.

Kayleen registered a new blazing pain when the swarthy Southerner introduced a

knobbed wooden monstrosity into her ravaged love channel, pushing it deep in

before twisting it so that the knobs crowding the tip tore at her cervix,

shooting new waves of hellish pain up her body as she shook, her teeth

chattering after drawing a loud, agonized breath.

Each twist of the horrid implement compounded the agony of her torn flesh with

deep gouges on the inner walls, which started bleeding when the torment was

cruelly protracted in spite of her pitiful, wheezing hisses and labored

breathing. She was given some of the accursed beverage laced with drugs that

her parched throat nonetheless craved, but she sputtered most of it as the

swarthy Southerner twisted the device while she was drinking.

"If one is not enough, let's see if two can make you sing," he growled.

When he inserted both implements, doubling her pain, and started twisting them

in opposite directions, bile rose to her mouth as she tried to contain an

inhuman howl of agony, managing only to stifle it into a wheezing scream full

of despair. This man, with his fixation on sexual tortures, was her true

nemesis, the one she dreaded had guessed her deep fears and could one day

break her will. But rage surged in her at the thought, and between two

agonized hisses she spat a "Not today!" whose meaning nobody guessed.

Lyral could not see her friend's reaction, because the pain shooting from her

purplish breasts when Grod prodded them overwhelmed her, her legs flailing in

mid air unimpeded by the loose chain connecting her ankle cuffs at the same

rhythm of her desperate, anguished screams.

The Southerner so enjoyed tormenting Kayleen that it took him some time to

notice her new resolve, and he was taken somewhat by surprise. His hands

slowed in their relentless assault, and his gaze inspected his victim's

visage, her clenched teeth now almost smiling in triumph as she managed to

contain the horrible pain into mere gasps.

For a while, Kayleen exalted in her little moral victory, gritting her teeth

when he started rasping both implements back and forth, ravaging her orifices

as the knobs gouged the flesh and drew abundant blood, so much that Grod put

aside the torment of Lyral's bruised breasts and neared. But the Southerner

smiled evilly, and suspended the torture.

"I'll wipe that smile from your pretty face, girl!" he whispered.

Kayleen's legs were doubled under her thighs, cuffing the ankles to the iron

bands clenching them, and her arms were bound behind her back in a reversed

prayer position. She was now bleeding profusely, but the Southerner produced

more of the clips he had used the day before to staunch the loss from her cuts

and started clipping the wounds inside her innards, smiling as this turned

into a new torment for Kayleen's ravaged sex, at least where the wounds could

be reached. She was doused in cold water again.

He then moved her under a metal post and started pinching folds of soft flesh

from her inner thighs and closing clasps on each, smiling as he could see in

Kayleen's eyes the recollection of her nightmarish suspension from the same

clasps a few days ago. His member hardened when he pulled her off the ground,

her stifled cry of despair music to his ears. He pulled her up until her

wounded feminine parts reached a slender steel band jutting from the post.

Her eyes widened when he fetched two wooden wedges of frightening girth,

deeply creased along their tapering length and viciously knobbed. She had

already experienced in earnest how the alternating creases and ridges tore at

the rim of her orifices, and the knobs promised even more dreadful torments.

He inserted both halfway into her rectum and vagina, in spite of her buckling,

and fastened their base to the steel band.

With an evil smile, he started using the pliers to tighten more clips on her

wounds and her cunt lips, her clitoris, and her pubic hair, which he evidently

was obsessed with. Kayleen cried silently as each clip brought new stabs of

agony to her wounded flesh, but buckled and hissed when he used the pliers to

tighten them on the torn edges of her ripped vagina.

"No longer so high and mighty, are you ?" he mocked.

The room fell silent, except for Lyral's sobbing wails, and the silence

brought even her eyes on Kayleen's hanging body. Her mouth opened wide at the

sight of her friend's predicament, unable to grasp the nature of the torment

but trembling in horror and dread at its wickedness.

With swift confidence, the Southerner wound together the fine chains hailing

from the clips into bundles, joining bundle to bundle until all bundles joined

onto two handles, preparations which brought tears of despair to Kayleen's

eyes, on whose mouth Lyral recognized the words of a prayer. He wrapped the

handles around pulleys from the ceiling.

With his full weight, the Southerner pulled down on both handles, pulling his

victim by her clipped wounds up the serrated girth of the wooden implements,

wrenching such an anguished howl of torn agony from Kayleen that even her

supreme effort at containing it only managed to reduce its volume and pitch,

but not its blood-curling intensity. A second scream followed, the equal of

the first as he released his pull and she fell down, the knobs rasping her

innards while her position limited the loss of blood but not the pain.

Kayleen was pulled onto the serrated girths again, still howling in sheer

agony behind clenched teeth and renewing her repressed bellow when pulled

down, trembling in devastating fits of coughing while her tormentor paused to

savor her misery. He poured some syrup onto her mouth, then pulled her up

again, laughing as the clips wrenched curls of blonde hair from her

bloodstained mons while her torn vulva bore new deep gashes caused by the

clips digging through the flesh.

"Now we're starting to hear you sing, Your Haughtiness," he growled.

The swarthy Southerner pulled his victim up and down with unrelenting,

inebriated abandon. but in spite of his enthusiasm, or maybe in its wake,

paused frequently, repositioning the clips on the parts where they slid out of

place, turning each pause from a moment of respite into a new agony as the

pliers tightened the iron clips all over her wounded flesh.

Kayleen's battered nether parts turned slowly into a mounting hell of searing

pain, shaken by howls and cries which crowded behind her clenched teeth and

seeped through in drawn out hisses of gut-wrenching torment, which shook her

resolve just like her body convulsed from the wracking pain of the

uninterrupted torture. Biding his time, her tormentor started shortening the

chain leading to the clips placed on her most sensitive parts, such as the

clitoris or the horrid wound above the vagina, increasing her torment notch

after notch and protracting it unrelentingly beyond all boundaries of cruelty.

When her reaction to the hellish pain subsided into stupor, the Southerner

removed the wooden devices from her bloodied innards and then, as she breathed

in relief, penetrated her violently, ripping her torn vagina even wider and

savoring the despair in her primal, agonized howl before she caught herself in

a supreme effort and stifled those which followed.

"Hah! Feel it, Whore Queen!" he shouted repeatedly in a frenzy of thrusting.

Lyral witnessed this last violation of her friend while being released from

her breast suspension, and shrieked in terror through her gag at the sight,

curling in a ball of trembling flesh, too scared to do anything but sob when

Grod asked her to reveal the location of the Sorceress.

Kayleen floated in a sea of utter agony, lost in maddened pain, but recovered

a little after drinking from the jug brought to her lips by Grod, enough to

realize that her wrists had been cuffed to a short steel bar, and her ankles

to another, and she was hanging in a slump. Below her was a rectangular tank,

and Chang was lowering her into the liquid.

The tub was full of water, soothing cold water, and her sigh of relief sounded

incongruous even to herself until it turned to a surprised scream as her

wounds started burning, because the water was so saline that she didn't even

sink, so she pulled herself up in a jerk, distending her long, slender legs

and the strong arms to avoid touching the surface.

Meanwhile, Lyral's shriek of unbounded terror echoed in the torture chamber as

the Southerner grabbed her, in spite of her frantic attempts to avoid him by

wriggling on the cold stone floor. Had he been able, he would have probably

ignored Zhorun's orders and raped the little frightened morsel on the spot,

but in his conditions he just cuffed her ankles together and closed iron bands

around her knees, thighs and waist. He bent her arms behind her neck before

cuffing her elbows and wrists together, pulling her ankles until he could

fasten them to her wrists in a hogtie which arched her back and exposed her

soft, plump breasts, still trembling under his touch.

Kayleen's back burst in searing agony when three barbed strands of thin

leather traced bloody welts across her shoulder blades, causing her to jerk

and contract her muscles, splashing into the salty water. A second strike

landed on her side and coiled around her buckling torso, leaving three angry

welts on her muscular abdomen.

She stifled a scream when the salt reached a place in her pubic area where the

clips had pulled hair and skin, and pulled herself up spasmodically at the

thought of the agony she would face if her privates got immersed in the salt

water. Another lash coiled around her thighs, causing her to twirl in her

bonds and receive the next one on her firm breasts, the three lines of fire

leaving a bloody mark which caused her to hiss in sheer pain and turn again.

Without pause, the three strands raked her shapely ass cheeks, each strike

tracing three crimson lines of intense pain. Although lighter than the

bullwhip, this whip had steel barbs every inch or so, and the Easterner

wielded it with skill and surprising strength. Once dozens of bloody welts

marked her buttocks, he sent the whip coiling around her side, pulling so that

she whirled in mid air, exposing her front.

On the next strike, the barbed tips raked her torn mons, and she contracted

her legs involuntarily, plunging her bloodied ass cheeks into the salt water.

Her body stiffened and a protracted hiss escaped her mouth, and she pulled

herself up, twitching in the vain attempt to escape the harsh caress of the

concentrated saline solution.

The whip drew three crimson lines across her taut belly, and she drew a breath

of suppressed agony in the effort to keep her muscles in tension and avoid any

further contact with the accursed liquid below her. Her tormentor lashed her

breasts again, and she almost fell as her face contorted in pain, but at the

last moment she managed to push herself up again. She had to distend her body

in order to keep it away from the harsh bite of the salt water, and this

position exposed her exquisitely to the harsh kisses of the whip.

Her breasts quivered when he lashed them again, and she stiffened desperately,

receiving the next three lashes on her breasts rather than falling in the

water, then he coiled the whip around her side and turned her around, lashing

her strong back and occasionally her arms. At the third strike on her left

arm, her muscles gave and she fell into the salt water, jerking and trashing

as she stifled a gasping howl of burning pain and managed to pull herself up

again, trashing as the salt burned her whipped front and breasts.

Her tormentor moved to her soles, not because they could contact the water but

because each lash caused her taut leg to twitch, and she clenched her teeth to

avoid falling with her bleeding feminine parts into the saline agony below.

He lashed her calves, and her legs twitched, and he lashed them again. She

turned in her bonds, receiving the next strikes on her front thighs.

Lyral writhed on the cold stone floor, moaning in pain from her strained

muscles and sobbing in dread of what the Southerner would do to her arched

body. Deep inside her, she thought that he would ask about the Sorceress, she

would cave in, and it would be all over, and yet she knew it would not. But

the old Southerner fetched a pair of wooden pliers whose jaws were covered in

stiff boar bristles, and waved them before her teary eyes.

The wry Easterner coiled the whip around Kayleen's upper chest and pulled,

raking the barbs along her breasts to force her to turn again and lash the

soft back of her thighs, a strike which wrenched from her a deep, rasping cry

of suppressed agony as she brushed the water. He lashed her soles again, and

then sent the tip flying between her legs, forcing her to spread her thighs in

response, the legs bending at the knee and plunging her into the salt water.

She tried to suppress a howl of utter agony, managing to turn it into a

hissing breath of despair, but took a few seconds to pull her convulsing body

up again, and kept buckling and gasping in mid air as the water burned at her

wounded privates, almost ignoring the lashes of the whip on her back as the

pain from the concentrated salt in her open wounds surpassed it.

The worst thing about this torment was that salt water continued to burn after

the initial immersion, seeping into the wounds and wreaking its harsh caress

with unmerciful persistence. Kayleen tried to stiffen her muscles and keep her

body distended, in spite of the barbed whip, but the Easterner knew where to

strike to cause her limbs to give.

Lyral screamed when the jaws of the pliers closed on the soft flesh of her

thigh, pricking it with hundreds of bristles. In spite of her experience with

the memory of her friend's torment, she had rarely been exposed to pain before

and found the pricking of the bristles unbearable, not realizing how her

tormentor laughed at her, anticipating her real torture once Zhorun's

restrictions about her maidenhood were lifted.

Kayleen's body, especially her breasts and ass cheeks, had been slowly turned

into a crisscrossed canvas of bleeding welts, spottily encrusted with salt

from over a dozen plunges caused by the whip rending her breasts, her soles,

her armpits and her bleeding crotch. She cried to herself, sinking her mouth

in her arm to stifle the scream, when her tired muscles gave and her whipped

nipples brushed the saline surface.

Her tormentor pulled her up, tightened her collar and cautiously changed how

she was bound, pulling her arms painfully behind her. The ramifications of

this simple change became horribly evident to her when he pulled her up again,

because now she had to stiffen her legs and her arms behind her back to avoid

plunging her loins into the water, lewdly exposing her full front to the whip.

"Talk now", said the Easterner, impenetrable as always.

"Now our friend from the East had a really nice idea," said the Southerner,

interrupting the torture of Lyral to savor the sight of Kayleen's strong,

athletic body writhing under the whip while trying desperately to keep her

slender legs and strong arms straight, arching away from the liquid and

exposing the firm, striped breasts and the crotch, where encrusted blood stuck

to the blonde curls above her sex.

When the tips slashed between her cunt lips, Kayleen's limbs contracted and

she fell into the water, a scream of rage and agony hissing through her lips

and turning into a suppressed howl of trembling torment as the salt water

washed over her wounded flesh. She managed to pull herself up again, but now

the water had seeped into her wounds and she hung in midair, jerking and

buckling, her head shaking back and forth and her eyes shedding bitter tears

while she stifled the world of hurt roaring up from her violated orifices.

The Easterner brought the whip onto her arms, pausing between each lash as she

tried to cope with the pain and jerked as her loins still burned relentlessly,

until her buckles caused her to turn in mid air and her pubic area plunged

into the water, her clenched mouth suppressing another gut wrenching scream.

Her buckling and hissing became frantic as she splashed about in agony, no

longer able to pull herself up because her bent arms offered no leverage.

He lashed her twitching shoulder blades, and the cleft between her striped

buttocks, watching her writhe in a haze of maddening pain until she tried to

turn around again, failing with a suppressed howl as the tips of the whip

raked down the breast which she had exquisitely offered, a masterful strike

which incurred Grod's silent approval as the Easterner had managed to bring

the steel tips to brush her breast flesh at the edge of their downward arch.

Lyral's voice rose in a frightened scream as the Southerner crushed her left

nipple between the bristled jaws, twisting and pulling while she jerked in

pain. Drooling, the old man cupped her other breast and closed the jaws around

its plump softness, dragging the bristles over the pale flesh while she

quivered and howled in anguish.

Still agonizing from the harsh bite of the salt water all over her wounded

orifices, Kayleen trashed about, screaming into her clenched teeth, trying

again to turn around and encountering again the searing pain of Chang's whip

on her breast. But the pain in her feminine orifices, the unrelenting bite of

the burning salt, hurt her on a deeper level, rousing terrors she had never

encountered before, so after several more attempts, which resulted in further

bloody cuts across her left breast, another thought occurred to her and she

pushed her ass up, plunging her head and torso into the cold water.

The little relief she gained for her smarting wounds was immediately

overshadowed by the sting of the salt water on her whip marks, especially the

cuts on her left breast, and bubbles rose under the water just as her head

jerked up in a sputtering scream which escaped her will just as it had escaped

her lips. The movement brought her wounded loins back into the water, washing

a new wave of agony into her wounded orifices.

Unable to find respite, Kayleen's body buckled and splashed, alternating

between plunging either the chest or the groin into the saline torment, each

dive increasing her own misery as the salt clung to her skin and seeped into

her wounds. The Easterner lashed her back and her buttocks when her lower part

was underwater, and her thighs and calves when she submerged her chest,

occasionally bringing the tips to coil around the crease under her ass cheeks

and swing into her wounded sex.

When she looked on the verge of drowning, his whip coiled around her chest

and, dragging the barbs across her breasts, forced her to turn around,

offering her an apparent chance to relieve her wounded femininity from the

salt water, at the price of straining herself into an exquisitely exposed

position. The lash immediately exploited her vulnerability, landing on the

blonde curls above her sex and wrenching a strained hiss of abysmal torment

from her parched throat.

Lyral shook spasmodically in her restraints when the Southerner's hand closed

on her pubic hair, pulling her off the floor with one hand around and the

pliers crushing her right nipple with the other, enjoying her twitching while

she screamed in abandon. Laughing, he started to pull her higher and let her

fall, to rip at her pubic hair and trash the nipple.

Kayleen's unrelenting agony found little respite from lifting her privates

above the salt water, because the repeated immersions had allowed the water to

seep into every wound and crevice, including her dripping blonde curls, and

now the salt kept biting unrelentingly at her open wounds, causing her to

buckle and strain in mid air, an inviting target for the whip which landed on

her legs, her stiffened belly, her breasts and her arms, pausing after each

strike as a new fitful hiss rose from her convulsing body.

The intermittent whipping protracted her torment long enough to let her get

some relief as the salt in her wounded privates diminished somewhat, long

enough to cover her from hand to toe in bleeding whip marks, and long enough

to tax her muscles under the strain of keeping herself above the water. Dread

mounted in her face at the realization that the Easterner's recent lashes had

been targeting her tired limbs instead of the soft spots of her slender body,

and dread tinged her gasps when a limb trembled as the barbed whip raked it,

compounding the ache of protracted fatigue with the bite of wounded flesh.

Her strong body faced the barbed whip in a protracted contest of

determination, her resolve strong enough to hold herself up even when the tips

landed on her feminine parts, clanking on the iron clips still keeping her

wounds from bleeding too much. She held out when her tormentor tried again, so

he started coiling the whip around her and pulling to turn her around, but she

resisted even that. When the tips cracked on her left nipple, however, she

turned in reaction, and each subsequent strike forced her to turn some more,

until she turned around and splashed into the salt water with a cry of

defeated despair she could not stifle, although she managed to turn the

subsequent howl into a desperate hiss as salt washed over her wounds again.

Lyral continued screaming desperately as she was now being lifted and dropped

by her nipples crushed between the Southerner's bristled pliers, almost

joyfully playing with her pale, soft body now marked by the rashes left by the

relentless application of the blisters.

Unlike before, the wry Easterner used the whip to keep the twitching Kayleen

from escaping the harsh bite of the salt water, by countering not only her

attempts at turning around, but also those at lifting her pelvic section above

water, slashing the back of her thighs and the cleft between her legs whenever

she attempted to pull herself up. Her saline torment continued unabated until

her labored breathing turned to a wheeze, at which she was finally lowered on

the floor, still gasping and convulsing from the salt in her wounds.

Ignoring her pitiful wheezing, Grod tightened the collar onto her windpipe as

he dragged her to a heavy three-plank bench, placing her with her back leaning

on the sloping middle plank. Her arms were twisted up behind her, the elbows

tightened together in some restraint she could not see.

For the first time in days, her wrist cuffs were removed, although her wrists

immediately fared no better than her elbows. Her ankle cuffs were also

removed, and her ankles encased in heavy wooden stocks, so she surmised that

the same had occurred to her wrists. Against her better judgment she drank

avidly when the jug was brought to her lips, and the constant harsh sting of

the salt rekindled somewhat as her mind cleared.

Grod moved behind her, busying himself with her wrists, and she felt the

stocks tighten and dull wooden knobs dig into her joints. Dread mounted in her

as she recollected how Grod had a penchant for tormenting bone and muscle.

She heard the sound of wood knocking on wood just as pain shot from her wrists

through her body, wrenching a low gasp from her tired throat. Now the knobs

dug mercilessly into her wrists, in spite of her attempts to relieve the

pressure by twisting herself in a slightly different position, and she drew a

long, desperate breath realizing that this new torment was just being started.

Lyral sobbed softly, her pale curves marked by rashes from the bristled pliers

still encased in iron bands, although in a less strenuous position. The

Easterner produced a swath of damp white cloth, which he soaked abundantly in

a red powder before wrapping it tightly around her calves. As he tightened it

in a knot, Lyral started twitching from the sting of the hot pepper on her

sensitive skin, crying in fear at the sight of reams and reams of cloth.

Instead of continuing the torment of Kayleen's wrists, Grod set up a pair of

stocks around her knees, allowing her frightened gaze to inspect the devices

at length. Each knee was encased between twin wooden planks, each with three

wooden knobs, and four steel rods ran through the corners, keeping the four

planks in line.  After setting them up, Grod drove with his hands a wooden

wedge between the two planks pushing on the inner side of her knees,

tightening the device into a source of harsh discomfort. The next wedge he

pushed down with a mallet, each strike wrenching a gasp from her while the

pain in her constricted knees increased and the knobs pressed onto bone.

Again, instead of pursuing the torment of her knees further, he moved to a

different position, and pain started shooting from her elbows, trapped in what

she assumed was a similar contraption. Her ankles were next, and Kayleen

hissed furiously as each strike of the mallet sent lances of hot agony through

her pain wracked body.

But the real pain started once Grod started pushing thinner wedges along the

edges of those already in place, increasing the pressure slowly and gradually,

moving from the ankles, through the knees and the elbows, to the wrists, each

time pausing to let the pain compound the unrelenting grip of the other stocks

as Kayleen sank in a waves of unrelenting torment which wrenched gasping,

shivered moans from her clenched lips.

Meanwhile Lyral was delirious from the burning hot pepper on her soft legs and

thighs, twitching in her restraints and screaming her lungs out as the

uninterrupted pain brought her over the edge, filled with dread at the thought

of what the pain would be like once the Easterner finished wrapping her body

in hot pepper. She writhed and jerked with such intensity that the Easterner

decided to put aside the caning of her soles, as there was no need to force

this victim to grind the powder over her own skin.

Wedge after wedge, Grod trapped Kayleen's joints in a circle of searing pain

where the smallest movement brought unbearable torment, engendering further

jerks which pulled the victim in a vicious spiral of agony which ended only

when she passed out or was unable to jerk further. Since the drugs fed to her

kept Kayleen awake, her exceptional resilience proved her worst enemy as each

thin wedge driven into her restraints plunged her in a protracted frenzy of

gasping hisses, spasmodic jerks and unrelenting agony.

"The pain will get worse, girl. You'll break eventually," whispered Grod.

Her tormentor only needed to drive a wedge in a while to push her down one

more step on the staircases of hell, and he protracted her torture, splashing

her occasionally with cold water, until no more wedges could be added without

crushing the joints or causing her to crush one in her agonized buckling.

Again she drank from the jug, and then Grod fetched four wooden planks which

he placed around her slender legs. In spite of the unrelenting pain, her eyes

widened at the thought of how these would crush her legs, and soon her fears

proved correct as wedges were driven between them, encasing her legs into twin

slabs of wooden agony whose grip engendered new hopeless howls behind her

gritting teeth, her face contorting from the pain and the effort to hide it.

Her forearms were next, and the pain from the limbs she could not see was if

possible even worse, her head shaking left and right as her body convulsed in

the vain attempt to find a position which provided any relief. She was no

longer subject to intermittent frenzies of jerking agony, now the compounded

pain was so intense that she just buckled and quivered in uninterrupted

torment, her gasps and hisses following one another as fast as they escaped

her mouth. Her body was covered in perspiration and short, wheezing breaths

racked her lungs between a suppressed scream and the next.

Her tormentor let her suffering run its full course, biding his time until he

produced another set of planks, which ignoring the dread in her eyes he

proceeded to set up on her thighs. The inside of the planks, instead of knobs,

bristled with raw wooden wedges of different sizes, the larger meant to press

onto the bone and the smaller to grind the soft flesh of the female thigh.

Lyral's body was now wrapped in hot pepper soaked cloth up to her ribcage, and

she was still convulsing in horrible pain, in spite of her physical

exhaustion. Her voice was hoarse from the protracted screaming but still

rising in occasional pitched shrieks as the grinding pain from the red hot

pepper waned and waxed according to her twitches.

When the wedges crushed Kayleen's thighs between the planks, she had to cling

to her resolve in order to suppress the urge to beg for mercy, for a moment of

respite, for no more pain. She had to allow herself a fitful scream, which

echoed under the vaults of the torture chamber, somehow more intense and

gut-wrenching than Lyral's uninterrupted cries.

In the haze of uninterrupted torment, Kayleen suddenly felt stabs of intense

pain rise from her right elbow, and the echo of a cracking sound convinced her

that her jerks had broken it, adding another drop to the world of hurt she was

drowning in. She saw through teary eyes that her once slender legs were now

horribly swollen, and her gaze fixed in horror the sight of her tormentor

starting to encase her left foot in some wooden contraption.

The device, not unlike the ones presently tormenting her, consisted of raw

wooden planks, bundled together with iron bands which could be tightened with

a screw. The inside of the planks had been roughly hacked raw, and creases on

their outside allowed the insertion of wedges under the iron bands.

As he hammered wedge after wedge, the device tightened and her foot turned

into a searing furnace of white hot agony, where each movement chafed the

skin, scraping the raw flesh between wood and bone, and slowly crushing the

creaking bone. She was still able to suppress her screams while the hellish

torment of her foot plunged the rest of her body in spasmodic jerks, which

wrenched ominous creaks from her crushed limbs, and when Grod put her other

foot through the same torment managed to withstand even that, but her face hid

nothing of the unbelievable agonies she was going through, and her contorted

features tightened around each suppressed scream in the supreme effort not to

let it escape, her will to endure the last defining trait of her very self.

Lyral jerked spasmodically as fear gave her new energies, shrieking as she

attempted to prevent the Easterner from wrapping her pale, ripe breasts in the

burning cloth, but her efforts were doomed to failure and the cloths were

savagely tightened around her mounds, sticking them together as the hot pepper

started burning the delicate flesh.

Kayleen craved the respite of unconsciousness, but she was offered the jug

instead, and she drank from it, regretting it when the pain deepened as the

drugs in the beverage took hold. Her tormentor wanted a last attempt at

breaking her will, and produced a bundle of wooden tablets held together by

thin cord which he wrapped around her chest after pulling up her breasts by

the nipples, so that the roughly hewn and splintered inside of the tablets

rested on the underside of her breasts.

When the tables were in place, he placed two wooden planks on the sides of her

ribcage and tightened three iron bands around the whole contraption, at which

Kayleen recognized that the tablets had creases where wedges could be placed,

the device being an enlarged variant of those tormenting her feet.

Grod placed the first wedges by hand, and then started hammering them in, each

one crushing her breasts onto her chest and compressing her ribs, causing her

breathing to become rasped and shallow as deep breaths turned increasingly

painful. Instead of continuing with wedges on her ribcage, however, Grod moved

back to her wrists and hammered another thin wedge between them.

Now fully wrapped in cloth, Lyral kept screaming and twitching with abandon as

the Easterner fastened her ankle cuffs and neck collar to rings in the stone

floor and lifted her in order to push a wooden pyramid under the small of her

back, wrenching new screams from her as the weight of her buckling body rested

painfully on the wooden tip of the wedge.

The unrelenting pain shooting through Kayleen's tormented joints was fanned to

new heights, her mind spinning in dread as she thought she had heard the noise

of cracking bone and her chest burned in agony from the effort to draw in

enough air to fuel the howls surging from the depth of her agonies. Her

tormentor let her convulse through the new wave of pain, and then, after

dousing her in cold water again, drove a wedge between her elbows.

She would have been screaming her lungs out now, if not for her constricted

ribcage and the last vestiges of her resolve, so the sounds escaping her

gaping mouth turned up as wheezing, almost inaudible wails of pitiful torment,

busting into fits of sheer agony when a wedge was driven between her ankles,

and then into choked gurgles when another was forced between her knees.

When he started driving wedges between her limbs, after pouring syrup into her

mouth, Kayleen's convulsed jerks reached new heights of intensity as her

wheezing screams burst through her clenched teeth in spite of her incredible

resolve in the face of the creaking sounds from her joints and limbs, each

marking a place where the bone cracked under the pressure.

Lyral's screams rose in pitch as she felt the cloth tighten around her limbs

while she writhed on the wedge point, unable to withstand the relentless burn

of the hot pepper ground all over her body by the tight wrapping and by her

own uninterrupted jerks. She was so engrossed in her own torment that she had

lost track of what was happening to her friend.

With devilish ability, Grod had managed to place the wooden restraints so that

Kayleen's bones were always on the point of cracking, without actually being

pushed beyond, so that her own jerks caused multiple small cracks instead of

actual fractures. As he added new wedges, new agonies shot through her

constricted joints and limbs, and when she jerked in reaction some constricted

bone or joint would crack as a result.

To protract the torment, all he had to do was to keep her jerking, because she

was now too exhausted and short of breath to keep twitching under the pain of

her crushed bones alone. He reached the saltwater tank where she had suffered

at the hands of Chang, and tested the water, but then, faithful to his

technique, just kept adding wedges between her limbs and around her ribcage,

discarding the thought of pouring salt water on her wounds as unnecessary.

His head rose in surprise when a robed figure neared and turned a ladle,

pouring a trickle of salt water over Kayleen's lap and then moving above the

breasts. She buckled and jerked as the salt stung her wounded skin, and then

hissed in sheer agony when the water reached her devastated crotch. Her

gasping wails and convulsed jerks lasted until the robed figure was satisfied

that salt water no longer caused her more pain than she already was in.