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Chapter
24 The Price of
Defeat
Takla groaned as the door of her cell was
thrown open. Bewildered she looked
about her. Where was her
bed? What was she doing lying
on a cold stone floor? Where
were her servants, her guards? Then
she remembered. The nightmare
of her defeat came back to her. She
had lain manacled on the floor of the dungeon until, overcome with exhaustion,
she had fallen asleep. She whimpered
as the Lelawabi guard yanked her roughly to her
feet. He turned her away from
him and she heard the chink of a key in the lock of her
manacles. Pushing her forward
he propelled her through the door of the cell and into the prison
corridor.
Several pairs of waiting guards seized
her. To her chagrin her kilt
was torn off, leaving her naked except for the gem encrusted ornaments that
symbolized her rank. She stood
nude and shaking before her male
captors. Her stiff arms
were forced in front of her and tied together with coarse
rope. Another rope was tied around
her neck and she was dragged forward and up the dungeon
stairs.
She blinked as she entered the prison
courtyard. It had been completely
dark in her cold cell. She saw
that some sort of escort awaited her.
Several score Lelawabi warriors, spears at the ready lined up on either
side of her. While the troops
were forming up, one of the guards tethered her
ankles. It allowed her to make
only a half-step. A sense of
despair descended upon her. With
so heavy an escort escape or rescue would be almost
impossible.
With a tug she was started forward.
The procession moved through the gates and into the
street. There she saw to her
shame that the street was lined as far as she could see with her former
subjects. She now understood
the object of her captors. She
was to be paraded through the streets so that her own people could witness
her humiliation.
“Uuggh!”
She was staggered by a vicious
blow to her back. Stumbling forward,
her feet caught in the tether and she dropped to her
knees.
“Unnhh!” Another
blow came down on her shoulder.
“Get up, slave. Show yourself
to your people.” Using her
bound hands, Takla struggled to her feet.
A quick glance revealed her
assailants. On either side of
her marched a guard with a heavy length of cord wrapped tightly in
cotton. She recognized them for
what they were. They were called
“starters” and were used to drive reluctant slaves to do their
duty. Wrapped in cloth, they
would not cut the person they were used against, but they could easily inflict
a painful bruise.
Another blow from a starter landed square in the middle of her
back. This time she was prepared
for it and did not cry out or stumble.
Moving as fast as she could to avoid the starters, she minced her
way forward, desperately trying to keep her
balance. The men with the starters
followed close behind her, laying on with their cruel goads whenever she
hesitated or slowed. They also beat her at their own discretion; whenever
they thought the watching citizenry needed an example of the humiliation
of their queen.
The parade through the city seemed to take
forever. She was taken through
almost every street in a journey that lasted four
hours. Weeping citizens of the
defeated city lined the route, watching the subjugation of their
queen. By the time she reached
the stadium, she was almost sobbing from pain and
humiliation. Her back and shoulders
were layered with a hundred bruises and she was close to physical
collapse.
Words cannot describe the shame Takla felt as she was herded into the
stadium. The seats were filed
to capacity with the soldiers of the Lelawabi and the higher ranking members
of Suruani society. All there
to witness her pain and degradation.
Some members of the Lelawabi jeered as she entered, but her own subjects
were silent, except for many who wept at the sight of their queen’s
degradation.
Before her stood a large scaffold, on top of which were two large upright
wooden posts. As she climbed
the stairs to the top of the platform she noticed that large ringbolts had
been screwed into each post at regular
intervals. She knew immediately
what awaited her. Her fear became
so overwhelming that she was almost sick.
But it was not fear of what was going to be done to her, but fear
of what she might do under the punishment she was going to be forced to
endure. Her lips moved in a silent
prayer to Striah, the goddess of strength and
endurance. She would need all
of hers if she was not to disgrace herself before her
people. More than anything else
she feared the shame of being reduced to a screaming animal, begging for
mercy. It would be the ultimate
humiliation.
Her hands and feet were untied and then made fast to the ringbolts, leaving
her body stretched tightly like an
“X.” The ropes had
been pulled tight, denying her any freedom of movement, and cutting into
her soft skin most painfully. Then
a powerfully built warrior mounted the platform behind
her. He carried a whip made of
the finest leather.
Takla trembled, but her public scourging was not to begin just
yet. First there was one more
debasing act she must endure.
Behind the warrior with the whip came a man dressed in the tattered
garments of the lowest slave. The
iron ring through the center of his lower lip and the notch in his ear identified
him as the basest of criminals, a man who had been enslaved as punishment
for rape. There could be no lower
form of humanity in Suruani society.
A Lelawabi warrior used his spear point to prod the man in front of
Takla. “Honour your queen
scum,” he ordered. “And
do it as you were instructed.”
The slave moved toward Takla.
Even before he reached her she could smell
him. He stank of urine, sweat,
and accumulated filth.
Involuntarily, she tried to shrink away from his vile presence. but
could move her body only a few inches.
The man reached out a grimy hand to touch Takla’s
face. Almost sick with disgust,
she turned her head away. Up
close the man was even more repulsive.
His filthy hair was uncombed and crawling with
lice. He grinned at her with
rotting teeth. His breath stank
of decay.
His repulsive touch moved from her face to her neck and then behind her
head. His hand closed over her
ink black hair, forcing her face toward
his. “No!” Takla exclaimed,
trying to turn away from his slobbering
lips. But he used her other hand
to hold her fast and pressed his mouth to
hers.
Takla’s gorge rose within her
throat. Suddenly she was sick,
spewing vomit down her breasts as her stomach heaved
uncontrollably. This display,
however, did not deter the slave at all.
He no longer attempted to kiss her lips, but he wiped off her breasts,
giving each one a hard squeeze as he did
so. Her stomach still churning,
Takla suppressed a cry of outrage as he took her right nipple in his
mouth.
He sucked hard, drawing her coal black nipple into a hard
point. A chill of fear coursed
through her as his crooked teeth closed on her erect
bud. But at the last second he
refrained from biting her. He
obviously had been told how far he could
go. But that did not stop him
from touching every part of her body.
At the end of half an hour, Takla’s skin was
crawling. The slave was kissing
his way down the inside of her thigh, his lice-filled head brushing the dark
thatch between her legs. Already
she could imagine the tiny creatures moving into her pubic
area.
And then without warning, the guard who had escorted the slave grabbed his
hair and jerked his head back.
There was the flash of a knife and a gurgling scream as the slave’s
bright arterial blood gouted forth, splattering her legs and pelvis with
gore. For a few horrible
seconds the slave writhed on the scaffold and then went
limp. With a sneer the soldier
used his foot to push him over the edge, the body hitting the dust of the
arena with a dull thump.
Two female slaves then mounted the
platform. To her chagrin, Takla
recognized one of them as Melawni, her girlhood friend and former
general. The lower lips
of both women were pierced with gold rings, denoting them as slaves of the
highest order; servants and sex slaves for members of the Lelawabi
court. They carried with them
buckets of perfumed water and soft cotton
cloths.
Their heads bent in shame, the two female slaves dipped the cloths into the
water and proceeded to thoroughly wash Takla’s
body. The gentle touch of the
wet cloths on her body would have been almost erotic had she not been so
ashamed of the public display of her
helplessness. So far, the plan
of the Lelawabi king to completely humiliate her had succeeded all too well,
and her ordeal was only just beginning.
Takla could think of nothing to say to
Melawni. How could she wish her
courage when the woman could see her that her queen was about to be tortured
and humiliated? And then she
was gone and any opportunity to speak to her went with
it. Takla regretted that she
had not said something.
But now her own nightmare began. It
would be the true test of her metal as a
queen. The powerful warrior chosen
to flog her cracked the whip several times to build up tension and instill
fear in his waiting victim. A
leather thong was tied across her mouth.
She trembled with fear.
Takla tried to calm her hammering
heart. “I am still queen,”
she thought. “That cannot
be taken away from me. And I
will act like a queen until I die.
I will not beg for mercy.”
The sound of the lash rushing through the air brought her back to rude
reality.
Crack!
The whip exploded against her back, knocking the breath from
her. If she had not been winded
by the blow she would have screamed, or tried
to. She bit down on the leather
strap that had been tied in place across her
mouth. It was intended to keep
her from biting her tongue off, but it also served to help her keep from
screaming. She was a
queen. She would not disgrace
herself.
Crack!
“Ooopphh!”
Air burst from her lungs
as the heavy lash struck again. The
pain was almost indescribable.
Visions flashed through her mind of the hundreds of victims she had
sentenced to the lash in her five years as
queen. Had they all endured such
pain?
Crack!
The pain was even worse, but this time she had expected it
and fought back the urge to scream.
She was aware of a dampness between her
legs. To her shame she realized
that her bladder had loosed itself.
A yellow pool of urine mixed with the vomit at her
feet. Now she understood the
full terror of the lash. In all
the years she had seen it used, she had never dreamed how truly painful it
was. A frightening thought flashed
through her mind. If every blow
hurt more than the last, how would she
endure?
From the king’s royal gallery, Featherstone watched the proceedings
avidly. He trained his binoculars
on the dark queen. She was a
remarkably beautiful woman as were most of the Suruani
females. Tall for her race, she
stood about five-foot-six and had an exquisite figure, which was
admirably displayed by the frame
that spread her limbs. He focused
the binoculars on her beautifully rounded breasts, noting how they jumped
each time the lash struck her back.
Then he lowered his gaze to the downy V between her
legs. He had been told that all
Suruani queens were virgin and remained so until they decided to marry and
surrender the position. “A
virgin queen,” he muttered, and she would soon be
his. Once she had been properly
broken.
The lash wrenched her taut body again.
He studied her face. The
pain of her ordeal was clearly mirrored in her distorted
features. Her
A faint cry from the tortured queen refocused his attention on the centre
of the arena. That was about
the tenth lash. The mighty queen
of the Suruani was beginning to break.
He smiled and settled back in his seat to enjoy the
show. Soon she would be
his. His phallus quivered at
the thought.
Crack!
“Aaagghh!”
Takla’s cry was
clearly audible this time. Her
body shuddered from the force of the
blow. Twelve lashes and her back
was a mass of welts. The whip
stuck with penetrating force each time.
The pain of the lash seemed to sear right through her
body. Tears trickled from her
dark eyes as she thought of her ruined
beauty. It would take
the magic of a healer of great
skill to mend such damage. But
she knew that it would be unlikely that the conquering king would have her
healed. She was to be degraded
and disfigured as an example of the total subjugation of the Suruani
people.
Crack!
“Eeeaaaggghh!”
Takla’s resolve
was shattered. She shrieked
hysterically as the whip conquered her.
Her cries echoed throughout the stadium, but there were few cheers
of celebration. Instead, the
assembled Suruani citizens bowed their heads and let their tears join
hers. But the beating did not
stop. Only a signal from the
king could order that. And he
wanted the beaten queen to be properly
humiliated.
Again and again the lash landed.
Takla screamed uncontrollably, not stopping even between
blows. Then, at the twentieth
stroke, King Desari raised his hand.
Takla’s head drooped. She was close to fainting. He wanted her
fully conscious for the last part of the
ordeal. With a further gesture
he indicated that the royal stairway be lowered to the arena
floor.
Through a haze of misery, Takla watched Desari
approach. Then a shock of cold
water splashed over her. The
sudden dousing revived her. She
raised her head. Her ordeal was
approaching its climax.
Desari mounted the scaffold and moved in front of his defeated
enemy. He could hardly help gloating
at the condition of his victim.
This was the enemy who had so long defied
him. The warrior queen who again
and again had turned back his armies.
Now she was his. Soon
her humiliation would be complete.
Unsheathing his gold hilted dagger, he cut the leather strap and removed
it from her mouth. Gently, he
raised her head so that he could see the pain and humiliation in her anguished
eyes. “So my queen,”
he said quietly, “have you suffered enough?”
Takla took a shuddering breath. She
hardly trusted herself to answer, fearing that she would begin to weep
uncontrollably. She opened her
mouth to speak, but could manage only a
nod. Gone was any thought of
defying the Lelawabi monarch. That
would only invite even more cruel
torture.
Desari’s fingers closed tightly on her jaw, pinching her mouth
open. “Answer me
witch. I am not one of your warrior
whores.”
“Y…y…yes,” Takla
stammered. Her voice broke, close
to weeping.
The point of Desari’s dagger moved to Takla’s
nipple. “Address me properly
bitch, or you will never produce milk from that teat.”
“Yes, my lord, please have
mercy.” She was completely
terrified. Her stomach seemed
to rise in her throat.
“Now louder. I want everyone
to be able to hear. Shout it
out the way you screamed.”
Takla wept bitterly, but she dared not refuse the king’s
demand.
“Mercy,
my lord!” the sound of her anguished words echoed throughout
the silent stadium. The only
other sound was the mutual sobbing of her subjects as they watched the
humiliation of their queen.
“Better,” said Desari. He
grinned broadly, “Now it is time to mark your new
status.” He half
turned. Behind him was a servant
carrying a wooden box. Reaching
into the box, he took out two iron
rings.
Sobs shook Takla’s body as she saw what he was
holding. She was to be marked
for slavery, but not with the gold rings of a royal concubine, but with the
iron indicative of the basest of slaves.
Reaching into a leather pouch he wore around his waist, Desari produced a
glittering needle-like tool made from the finest Suruani
steel. Takla knew its use; it
was a marking awl, used to puncture the flesh of slaves prior to their
ringing. She straightened her
back. At least he was going to
use the proper tool for the job.
“Aaahhh!”
Takla’s sharp cry signaled
the puncturing of her left areola.
Then she bit her lip against the pain as Desari worked the awl back
and forth in the wound, widening the incision for the
ring. Crimson streaks ran down
her belly to stain the scaffold.
Takla turned her head away as Desari pried open the ring, using a small pair
of pliers for the purpose. The
incision he had made was not quite large enough for the thin band of
metal. No doubt the king had
deliberately chosen an awl that was too small in order to increase her
pain.
“Uunhh!”
Takla’s grunt of pain told of her torment as the ring was forced
through her breast, just below her
nipple.
She did better with the other one, enduring both the piercing and placement
of the ring without a sound. Desari
sneered. “The white demon
will be pleased to see that you have so much spirit when he takes your virginity
a few hours from now. But in
the meantime I still have two more baubles for you.”
Desari had the awl in his hand again.
He dropped to one knee in front of
her. Takla felt her sweat turn
cold as he probed her nether region.
Then there was a sharp pain as the awl penetrated her vulva just below
the place where its fleshy folds hid her tiny
clitoris. She moaned in
pain. When was her humiliation
going to end?
“Aaaahh!”
Takla
protested as he twisted her awl in her nether
lips. Then she screamed agonizingly
as Desari inserted the ring. The
one he used there was particularly large, and its dull edges ripped her tender
flesh brutally.
Desari stood up. “Now for
your other lip,” he said.
Takla tried to turn her head away, but he caught her lower lip between
his thumb and forefinger and pulled it away from her
gums. With a quick motion he
jabbed the awl through her distended flesh so hard that it penetrated almost
level with her eyes. Then he
inserted the final ring. It was
iron, as were the others and clear evidence of her new
status.
There was just one more act to perform to complete the
ceremony. Reaching into the box
one more time, Desari took out Takla’s iron collar; the one she would
wear for the remainder of her life.
It was heavily constructed and fitted with a padlock and short iron
chain. Lifting her hair, he clamped
the ultimate symbol of her slavery and defeat into place and stood
back.
“Here stands the queen of the
Suruani. Takla, once called
‘the invincible.’ Humbled
by my hand and that of the gods, and now queen no
longer. She is now my basest
servant. I give her as a gift
to the white demons to do with as they
wish.” Having finished his
speech, Desari raised his spear in
triumph. His soldiers
cheered. Takla and her former
subjects wept.
Ayashe looked out on as strange a world as she could have
imagined. A girl of the north,
she found the heat and humidity of Pelucidor
stifling. Quickly, she shed most
of her clothing, stripping right down to her skin and then dressing again
in only her socks, boots, a single pair of pants and her
undershirt. But even these garments
proved too much. With the exception
of her cotton undershirt, all of her clothing was made of wool or fur and
she was soon sweating profusely.
Soon her white cotton undershirt was so wet, that the nipples of her
small high breasts showed prominently.
“Father would kill me if he saw me dressed like this,” she
thought. She wondered what the
effect would be on Sawatis and Lemaire if she ever caught up to
them. Inexperienced as she was
with men, she knew that the male animal was quite strongly influenced by
almost all aspects of the female body.
“Perhaps I should put on another shirt,” she
thought. But then she would be
suffocating in the heat. She
decided against it. “If
I meet them I’ll just cross my arms over my breasts and they will never
know.” Gathering up her
pack and rifle, she started on down the
trail.
She had little trouble in following the trail of the two
men. Every so often one of them
had left a mark on a tree trunk.
Probably they had done it so they could find their way back to the
tunnel. In this strange world
with no sun that was the only method of determining which way they had
gone.
She went slowly. There was no
telling what dangers lurked in this bizarre underground
world. She had already blundered
into one of Featherstone’s men.
She didn’t want it happening again.
And there might be other
dangers. It was very
hot. In this sort of climate
there might be all manner of strange beasts
about. She had already seen monkeys
and colourful birds she took to be
parrots. Who knew what else might
be lurking in the dense forest?
Eyes wide, Ayashe just stared at the
city. She had never seen anything
so amazing. An entire city, maybe
even an entire civilization, miles below the surface of the Canadian
arctic. Who would have dared
think of such a thing? She wondered
if the people might be friendly.
They looked like pictures she had seen of Africans in the National
Geographic Magazines she had read at
school. However, she noticed
that many of the citizens of the city were armed with deadly-looking barbed
spears. It would be best not
to take any chances, and she had noticed that Sawatis and Lemaire had taken
a trail around the city. It was
tempting to sit and watch the people of the strange new world, but that would
not get her caught up to the two men.
Silently, she pulled back into the forest and took up the trail once
again.
Takla’s dark complexion lightened with fear as gazed on the
demon. She had feared this above
all. To her superstitious mind
there was nothing more terrifying than being in the presence of a being she
considered supernatural. She
feared above all what the demon had been promised he could do to
her. The loss of her virginity
to such a monster would be the ultimate in fear and
humiliation.
Her wounds were partly healed. The
white demon had demanded a healer work on her before he had his way with
her. As a result the terrible
wounds on her back had already partially closed, and the punctures make by
the awl had healed. But even
those blessings were not without
drawbacks. They had made her
stronger, and thus better able to endure the pain that the demon wanted to
dish out. And she was in considerable
pain now.
She was in the demon’s private
quarters. To her chagrin it had
once been her own suite of rooms.
She was in her own bedroom.
And fastened in brutal bondage.
Her heart had jumped into her mouth from the first moment that she
had been brought into the room. In
the centre of the floor, was a device she had often seen in
use. She broke into a cold sweat
when she realized it would now be her turn to demonstrate its
use.
She held her head high as she was led to the torture machine and forced into
a kneeling position. If she was
to be tortured then she would still act like a
queen. Her body might be given
pain, but her enemies could not control her
mind.
As soon as she had assumed a kneeling position, a large clamp had been close
over her ankles. Then she had
been bent backwards over a rounded timber in the middle of the frame that
had been fixed in place so that it fitted perfectly into the small of her
back. Takla had moaned softly
as the rough wood pressed against the partially healed welts on her back,
but that slight discomfort soon proved to be the least of her
worries.
The action of bending her backward forced her legs apart, so that the royal
vulva was perfectly revealed, and its lips partially
parted. The demon licked his
lips as he viewed the reddish-pink flesh
within.
As her back arched over the rounded timber, the demon and the assistant each
seized one of her arms, and manacled her wrists
together. A length of chain was
secured to the links joining her wrist irons and pulled tight, stretching
her body taut.
Takla grunted in pain. Her knee
joints were in agony as the ligaments protested at the unnatural angle in
which they were shackled. Arched
back so that her full high breasts pointed to the ceiling, Takla’s breath
came in gasps. It was a sight
that Featherstone found irresistibly
beautiful.
He cupped the area between her legs, pressing down on her mons veneris with
his thumb. His other hand settled
over her quivering right breast, and kneaded the soft
flesh. “So it has begun,”
thought Takla. She clenched her
jaw. As long as possible she
would try to hold out, to show no fear.
To act the part of a queen.
She no longer had any illusions about her ability to withstand
torture. She had shamed herself
before her people when she had been tortured in the
stadium. The thought of her
humiliation in the arena brought her a deep sense of
shame.
Featherstone fingered the dark-skinned beauty’s vulva, slipping his
thumb between its folds and sliding it into her
vagina. She was very
tight. As tight as the tall Canadian
girl had been before he loosened her up.
Well, he would soon loosen this one up as well.
He rolled his hand over her
breast. It was very firm, almost
like that of a young girl. He
tugged lightly on the iron nipple ring, delighting in the fleeting look of
fear and pain that swept across the virgin queen’s
face. He would soon put that
look there on a more permanent basis.
Takla’s body began to shake.
She could not help it. She
was already in terrible pain and discomfort, and her torturers were just
getting started. The demon’s
touch on her breasts and vulva had given her a preview of what was to come
and she was absolutely terrified.
She knew now what the victims of her own torture sessions had felt
like. The pit of her stomach
churned with fear. Swallowing
hastily, she tried not to be sick.
“Aaahh!” She gasped as the Lelawabi assistant moved a lever
jutting from the rounded beam she was stretched
across. The beam elevated slightly,
arching her back still further and increasing the painful tension on her
knees and arms. Featherstone
watched the fallen queen as she trembled in pain.
Who would have thought that such
a simple device could cause such agony?
And he had not even begun to use the full potential of the
machine. In reality the machine
was nothing more than a simple rack with a few adjustable
components. The shackles that
held the dark queen’s legs could be slid back and forth to anchor her
legs anywhere from her ankles to her
knees. The beam in the middle
of her back could be raised or lowered.
He decided to raise it a little.
He was rewarded with a grunt of pain and a flash of the whites of
the dark queen’s eyes. Now
she was nicely arched.
He moved behind her. The shackles
on her wrists were attached to a length of chain that was connected to a
small winch. Cranking the winch
would tighten the chain, stretching the dark queen’s body and producing
incredible pain. It was time
to make her suffer. He turned
the crank. Takla moaned in pain,
her firm breasts rising and falling rapidly as her breathing
quickened. He turned it again,
dislocating Takla’s shoulder joints.
She screamed in pain, and Featherstone tightened the winch one more
notch. She shrieked again, as
her hip joints were slowly pulled from their
sockets.
Featherstone relished the shrieks of fear and
pain. The black queen’s
body was now twisting in terrible agony as she fought to escape the
torment. But each movement of
her tortured body simply made it worse, as had been
intended. Resisting the urge
to rape her immediately, he moved away from his struggling
victim. Sitting down on a bed
of cushions, he settled down to watch her scream.
The shrieking woman was magnificently
beautiful. Her ebony skin glistened
with sweat, highlighting every luscious
curve. Her arched back displayed
her quivering breasts to perfection, and they in turn emphasized her narrow
waist and flaring hips. After
a few minutes he could stand it no
longer. He stood and moved to
the back of the rack and slackened off the
rack. He licked his
lips. It was time to take what
he had come for.
Takla watched the demon as he slowly
undressed. Her eyes widened in
fear. He loomed over her, taller
than she could imagine any man she had ever
seen. He was like thoth had looming
over the female demon. Briefly,
before another wave of pain swept over her, she felt a sense of shame at
what the thoth had done. But
fear soon replaced both feelings.
The demon had removed the clothing covering his lower
extremities. A sob came to her
lips. The demon was the
thoth. No normal man could possess
so huge an organ. She opened
her mouth and screamed and he approached her.
Then he was on her. Grasping
her head in his hands he tilted it back and in one quick motion thrust himself
into her open mouth. Takla’s
screams ended abruptly as the huge organ filled her
mouth. Too terrified to resist
she let him take her. By the
time she realized her mistake it was too late.
The demon’s organ was immense.
It filled her mouth and throat to her tonsils, making it almost impossible
to breathe. Gasping for air she
let him rape her mouth. Again
and again he drove into her, forcing her jaw
wide. The strong smell of his
semen filled her nostrils. It
was the first time she had ever smelled a man’s
sperm. Then suddenly, it was
over. The demon pulled his dripping
phallus from her mouth. Still
erect, she could see it throbbing with
excitement. Then he moved between
her legs.
“No!”
Takla
begged,
“No! I am queen of the
Suruani! You cannot do
this!” Featherstone
grinned in triumph. He had no
idea what the dark queen was saying, but he could
guess. Gripping her firm backside,
he thrust into her.
She screamed as he took her. As
in his previous conquests he drove hard into his victim, ripping apart her
hymen and burying his shaft deep within
her. Then he stopped, enjoying
the feel of her warm vagina gripping his phallus like a vise, and listening
to the sobs of his latest victim.
Dishonoured, Takla, could not hold back her
tears. Against all reality, she
had hoped that somehow her virginity would not be
taken. It was the final act of
degradation and signaled the loss of her status as queen of the
Suruani. Even if the Lelawani
were somehow overcome, her own people would no longer accept her as their
queen. She had been shamed by
the enemy and a warrior who was so disgraced had no status in Suruani society,
except that of the lowest slave.
Featherstone watched the fight go out of his
victim. The act of rape seemed
to have broken her spirit, and she lay unresisting, her breasts slowly rising
and falling as she wept quietly.
Partially withdrawing, he began to ravage her with a series of powerful
strokes, attempting to bring himself to
orgasm. The dark queen’s
face showed little emotion.
Dispirited, she lay as still as a corpse while he rammed in and out
of her, a low whimpering the only sign that she was
alive.
Angered at the lack of response, Featherstone bit her breasts, his teeth
breaking the skin, and hammered her
brutally. But even these acts
could not produce a reaction.
Finally, with a groan, he climaxed, and rolled off the fallen
queen.
Takla was hardly aware the Featherstone had
stopped. She lay in a state of
torpor, barely even aware of her
surroundings. It was only when
she was released from the rack that she realized her ordeal was
over. But now she no longer
cared. What more could her captors
do to her? They had taken everything from her, reducing her to the lowest
level of Suruani society.
Barely able to stand after her ordeal, she was only vaguely aware of the
presence of king Desari. The
Lelawani monarch stood gloating in satisfaction at the complete destruction
of his enemy. “Take her
to the slave quarters,” he ordered, “and make sure that she is
fit enough for her final degradation.
We will show the people of the Suruani just what their queen had been
reduced to. Assign a healer to
her. I want her strong enough
to endure her final humiliation.”
Takla was carried from the room by two female slaves, both of whom wept as
they saw the state to which their former queen had been
reduced. But they dared not disobey
their new master. The Suruani
were now a conquered people, without rights and without
resistance.
It was strangely dark when Larra awoke and it took a few seconds for her
realize that she was inside a small room.
She saw that she was in the bedroom of what was probably a peasant
hut, although how she got there she could not
remember. She tried to rise to
one elbow, and found that she was very sore, especially in the region between
her legs. Then the memories came
flooding back. The thoth, the
escape with Melissa, the attacking Lelawabi
warriors. Where was
she? How had she gotten
here?
Suddenly a familiar face peered around the corner of the
doorframe. “Ah, you’re
awake, said Melissa. “Trust
you to come to as soon as I leave the room for a few
seconds.” Then Melissa’s
head disappeared. Larra could
hear her talking to someone in the other
room. “No, you can’t
come in. I won’t let you
see her naked. You wait until
I get her robe on.”
Melissa’s head appeared
again. In one hand she was carrying
the long white robe she and Larra had worn when they fled the Suruani
city. In the other she had an
earthenware jug and a wooden cup.
“I expect you are thirsty,” Melissa said, filling the
cup. “Drink
this. Just a little at first
and then more later. I’ll
get you a little food and then Lemaire can see you.”
Larra felt considerably revived by the food and
drink. Melissa helped her sit
up and then brought the robe over to her.
“Let me help you get this on.
I have been beating Lemaire off with a
stick. He is very anxious to
see you.” Melissa slipped
the robe over Larra’s shoulders and tied it at the
front. Then she stepped
away. “There,” she
said, “I think you look decent enough to receive
company. “OK, lover boy,
you can come into the room now.”
Immediately, Lemaire entered the room.
“I’ll leave you two alone for a little
while. But no high jinks, Larra
is not up to that sort of activity.”
Lemaire sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Good to see you again bright
eyes. I feared I might have lost
you. Melissa has filled Sawatis
and me in on your adventures.”
Lara reached out and took his hand.
“Then it is only fair that you tell me what you two have been
up to,” she said. Lemaire
nodded.
“It started after you took off by yourself across the Great
Bear…
“…and when we saw you and Melissa being chased by those spear carrying
warriors we opened up on them. That
sent them packing, but we were afraid they might come back, or even worse
get Featherstone and his men to come after us so we slung you two over our
shoulders and carried you to the safety of the
trees. After that things got
a little strange. Turns out our
clash with the enemy tribe was seen by quite a few of the people fleeing
the city. They decided we were
some sort of gods who had come to help them and they followed
us. Problem is we didn’t
speak any of their language, but we were able to communicate a little by
using sign language. They guided
us to this farmhouse. We’ve
got quite a little army. About
a thousand or so men, women, and children.”
“Those are the same people who tortured me,” said
Larra.
Lemaire nodded. “I guess
so, but now they are our allies, and I reckon we should help
them.”
Larra puzzled over the situation.
She was in a bit of a quandary.
Help the people who had sent her against the thoth to be brutalized
and raped? She would have to
think about that one for awhile.
“Jean, would you help me up?” she
asked. “I have something
personal to attend to? Lemaire
nodded his understanding. Placing
his hands around Larra he helped her to the
doorway.
“You shouldn’t be walking,” protested
Melissa.
“I have to walk or pee the bed,” Larra
answered.
Melissa nodded. “I’ll
show you where the privy is. You
boys wait here.”
Melissa guided Larra outside. As
Lemaire had said, he had an army.
Hundreds of Suruani men, women, and children gazed at her in wonder
as she emerged. Larra realized
that most of these people had never seen her
before. Only the members of the
Suruani ruling class had witnessed her humiliation in the
arena. As she returned the stares
of the downtrodden people, she realized that Lemaire was
right. She had to help these
people.
Takla stumbled as she was dragged to the edge of the Suruani
city. She knew where she was
being taken, to the quarries. But
she no longer cared what happened to her.
If it was to be her fate to labour in cutting and moving stone, so
be it. Strangely enough, Desari
was part of the expedition. She
wondered why her triumphant enemy bothered to do her the honour of accompanying
her to the quarries. Perhaps
it was to gloat one last time.
Suddenly, she was jerked to a halt by the chain attached to her
collar. She raised her
head. They had stopped in front
of an iron grating covering a hole in the
rock. “Here my queen,”
said Desari, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “is where I have decided
you will spend the remainder of your
days. I hope you find it as enjoyable
as the lowest of your subjects.”
As he spoke, one of the Lelawabi soldiers pulled back the
grate. Takla was prodded to the
edge of the hole. Understanding
suddenly swept over her. She
knew what was at the bottom of that hole.
“Yes, my queen,” said Desari.
“this is where the most vile of your subjects spend their
lives. This hole in the ground
is the home of the most depraved of thieves and
murders. I hope you enjoy your
time with them.”
Takla’s knees buckled. She
could hardly believe the horror of the
situation. But as she crumpled
to the ground her arms were seized and she was jerked to her
feet. She was dragged to the
edge of the pit. “I have
a gift for you,” Desari shouted into the
pit. “Behold your
queen. Do with her as you
wish.” As he spoke, Takla
was thrown bodily into the opening.
She screamed as she fell, but she did not fall
far. A dozen hands caught her
before she hit the bottom of the pit.
In the distance, she heard Desari
laugh.
“Enjoy yourself my queen, I am sure your new companions will.”
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