A Tale of Ties and Binds - Chapter 12

Chapter 12. A Slaver of Slavers

The final lesson the Picentes needed to learn about warfare was the need for rest afterwards. It had always been the Greek custom to take a day or two off, to rest those weary arms, to let the new slaves do all the work.

And so, the Picene women enjoyed the carnal pleasures of their captives. Trussed on the floor of every shack, and bound to every pillar in the great hall, a naked Histri captive struggled in her bonds and moaned with fury and humiliation. At any given moment, one of the Picentes was fondling, prodding, rubbing, tickling, nibbling, grinding against or burying one of their slaves' heads deep between their legs, and how the villagers loved their new bondage pets. Even more so before the sleeping potion wore off.

As the defeated warlady of her tribe, and therefore the slave most in need of humiliation, Ceinlys Lachtnatorix was tied to one of the posts on the beach - the same posts to which the Picentes would bind their nubile bribes to avoid a raid in days gone by. Every moment of every day, she would be overlooking the battlefield and remembering the time she tried and failed to capture Penelope of the Household of the Scylla.

Though she was cold, naked, gagged and exhausted, the warlady only laughed. Day and night, while her fellow Histri were being raped, Ceinlys' guttural amusement could be heard throughout the village.

On the final day of rest, Penelope lifted Serena's head from her lap and decided she would ask what was so funny. She pulled Zia away from her new slave because she needed a translator.

She slipped the fur gag from the warlady's mouth. "Your forces were defeated, your reputation destroyed, and your sisters enslaved. Yet why do you laugh?"

After Zia translated, and Ceinlys laughed her reply, Zia's face turned to shock and anger. "She says the message in the sand was discovered the day after we escaped. What does she mean?"

Penelope's parting gift had been a message to the other Greek slaves serving the tribe. 'Enslave the mistresses' it said. "What happened to the rest?"

Zia asked, Ceinlys replied with an even more gloating laugh, and Zia translated, "She says the slave uprising was swiftly and forcefully suppressed. Every slave was taken from her duties and bound tighter than ever inside Ceinlys' longhouse. Each day they receive... lashings... until they bleed."

"Lashings?" asked Penelope. Humiliation in bondage is one thing, forced lickings are one thing, but pain as punishment is simply barbaric. In all her campaigns and all the wars she'd fought in, Penelope had never encountered a culture that bled their slaves. That behaviour was abhorrent. "It's my fault," she realised. "I need to return and free them."

She slipped the gag back between Ceinlys' lips and started back towards the village. She was halfway through planning her counterattack when Zia tugged on her arm.

"Wait. I have been thinking. I do not belong here, no more than you do. We both want to get home, but my home is in Dacia and yours is in Greece. Our homes are at war." Zia looked out over the ocean. "I will lead the attack. I will take some Picentes with me on one of the Histri longboats and rescue the slaves. After that, I will find my way back home."

Penelope dismissed it immediately. She felt guilty letting others fix her mistakes.

Her expression of doubt prompted Zia to continue. "The Illyrians are bonded to the Household of the Celtic Knot, Penelope - your enemies. You cannot return, but I can. They do not know me as they know you. I know you are proud - almost too proud - but you must not return. Your way is forwards, not backwards. You helped me escape the Histri, now allow me to return that favour."

She makes sense, Penelope conceded through much inner turmoil. Despite her pride, Penelope had only just narrowly avoided slavery again. To throw that all away by returning to the lion's den would be foolish. "Zia of Dacia, I would be honoured if you fought for the freedom of Greek slaves."

Zia snorted and tried not to smile. "Yes, well. We should both go before I change my mind."

"Indeed," agreed Penelope, smiling. She couldn't help but give the short girl a hug, Zia's scruffy-haired head nestled between her breasts. "You're not so bad... for a barbarian."

"And you are not so bad for a Greek. Farewell, Captain Penelope, Slaver of Slavers."

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The four Greeks - Penelope, Daphne, Adara and Serena - packed what few belongings they had stolen or taken in battle and were gone by first light the next day. Narcholeptix had offered to give them a cart to carry Serena. It was the least her tribe could do since they had no horses to give. But Penelope insisted against it. The blonde hostage - the Celt's sister - would walk like the rest of them, though obviously with a gag between her teeth and her hands behind her back. Maybe a tempting rope between her thighs if Penelope was feeling particularly cruel.

And so the adventures set out with two less than they had arrived. Guard had become the plaything of the witch in the mountains and Zia the Dacian was on her way home. The Histri were no longer chasing them and the Picentes were enjoying their new state of thraldom.

The Greeks were making their way south along the coast for half a day when the track they were following came to a fork. One path would keep them going along the coast, the other would take them west and further from home. Instinctively, the group kept following the coast, but it was only when Penelope noticed Serena was tugging too enthusiastically on her leash that she realised something was wrong.

"Stop!"

"What is it?" asked Daphne several paces ahead. She unslung her net expecting the worst.

"We can't go this way. Following the coast will take us to Messapia."

"Is that a problem?" asked Adara.

"It might be," admitted Penelope. "Thessaly was at war with the Messapians ten years ago. Before I became the matriarch, I was earning a name for myself in the army. The conflict with the Messapians was my first real war." She looked at her hands - the hands of a woman in her third decade - and remembered when she was just and innocent young girl. "It was a war thirsty for sweat and other juices, and I gave it much and many. Nobody quite remembers how the war started, but we all know how it ended. We captured their queen in the last decisive battle at Uzentum, stormed the palace and stole all her phallic slaves. She wouldn't need them anymore. We took so many captives that day we had to confiscate half the Messapian fleet just to bring them back with us. I did my fair share of looting too. There were many things I did back then that I would never do now. I don't think they'll take kindly to Daphne or me."

"How will they know we're Thessalian?" asked Daphne.

Penelope gestured at Serena. "We can't keep her quiet the whole time. If she talks, it'll be the end of our freedom. We head west."

Over the next days of travelling, the road twisted and turned through the mountain ranges and around lakes and over rivers. Each night was warmer than the last and the marks of civilisation began to appear in the countryside. They passed by quarries with cleanly cut cliffs, and the track gradually showed more signs of wear and use.

The Greeks had to wait another few days until the road led them to life. A travelling merchant riding a horse-drawn cart was heading the opposite direction. She stopped to spruik her wares briefly and Penelope indulged herself with a small pot of honey. She said it was the only coin she had and could not purchase anything else. This was not entirely true; she had the coins she'd taken from Serena during the uprising, but so little that she didn't want to spend it on stone idols of foreign goddesses and hand-carved wooden phalluses (she had other methods of pleasing herself).

"These roads aren't safe these days," said the merchant with a grin. "You ladies take care. Never know what could be hiding in the bushes." With that, she cracked her reins and was back on her way.

Adara asked permission to simply rob the merchant, bind her to a tree and steal her horse and coin and whatever else was valuable.

It's an enticing suggestion, thought Penelope. A horse to carry them in a cart, enough gold to buy whatever they need and whatever other toys the merchant was hiding. There was no-one else around, and they could easily get away with it. But the woman was just trying to make a living for herself, and in Penelope's opinion, they should only steal from those who would do them harm. She informed Adara that Thessalians did not steal from the weak as the Spartans do. "We're not in Sparta."

"Nor are we in Thessaly."

That night as they camped under the stars by a bubbling brook, Daphne and Adara slept peacefully under a shared linen blanket. It was Penelope's turn to take the watch, and the watch was always supplemented by Serena's face forced between their thighs. But Penelope had a different plan that night.

She untied Serena from her hogtie before retying her spreadeagle between the nearby rocks and trees. The blonde teenager mmphed with curiosity - she hadn't yet been spent a night outside her hogtie. But that curiosity changed to nostalgia when she saw Penelope standing over her, upending the honey pot to allow a thin trickle of sweetness across her breasts. Beads of the gooey mix slithered down through the ravine of her cleavage and landed in sticky droplets across Serena's midriff.

Penelope could see her hostage's nipples becoming hard in the cool air. She knelt down to straddle her, their legs intertwined, and she slowly poured and massaged more honey across the blonde's magnificent breasts. Serena purred like a kitten as her jugs were kneaded by the experienced captain and she barely seemed to notice when the gag between her lips was replaced by Penelope's soft wet tongue, soon followed by the honey-coated place between her legs.

Many itches were scratched that night, and Penelope's tongue was sore from overuse. She tried not to talk too much the next morning lest she give away what transpired. Neither Adara nor Daphne had a clue, and Serena wouldn't be able to tell them even if she hadn't been gagged. Her tongue was even more exhausted.

If Penelope remembered her lessons well, and she did, she would have guessed they were now clearly within the territories of the Etruscans. The confirmation came when they happened upon the first proper city any of them had seen since leaving Greece all those moons ago. It was a stone-walled metropolis built upon a hill overlooking a large lake, with banners flapping in the wind and a long and paved causeway leading up the cliff. The sounds of hammers hammering, bells ringing, young girls playing tie-up games in the streets and horses and other livestock could be heard across the valley. A multilingual signpost informed them it was indeed an Etruscan city called Velzna.

"Civilisation at last," smiled Penelope, and the rest eagerly agreed.

After the gradual climb up the causeway, the travellers found themselves standing outside the city's gatehouse - ornately carved and painted as blue as the sky. A trio of soldiers stood before the gate, finely armoured and powerfully armed. They wore triangular bronze breast plates and plumed helms with bright pink crests. Their shields were shiny hemispherical bronze, but their weapons were strange. Where most soldiers would carry whips or nets, these Etruscans armed themselves with spears as tall as Adara (quite tall) which were tipped with phallic-shaped heads. More soldiers patrolled atop the ramparts, and a few of those carried familiar bolas.

One of the guards approached them as she lowered her spear and shouldered her shield. "Halt! Show us your tits."

Our tits? "Why?" Penelope asked.

"Show us your tits or leave." The soldier prodded the air between them with her spear threateningly.

"Fine, fine." Confused as they were, the travellers complied with the order. Penelope reached down into her bodice and uncupped a fine round breast, showing the soldier that it was indeed a breast by giving it a soft squeeze and a light jiggle. Adara and Daphne did the same, though Adara's Spartan breasts jiggled especially well. Daphne's nipple was a much more interesting shade of pink, as all redheads' nipples are, and the soldier was quite entranced by the foreign shade.

"And her," said the soldier as she thrust her phallic-tipped spear towards Serena. "Jiggle hers as well."

Penelope shrugged as she tugged sharply on the leash and pulled Serena forward. The blonde hostage was indeed a welcome sight for the soldier, with thick blonde hair, a firm bust, wide hips, youthful features and bright blue eyes, gagged tightly and bound tighter. Penelope squeezed, rubbed and absolutely fondled those twin mounds, listening to the girl moan and purr into the linen rag between those sweet lips.

"Alright," nodded the soldier as she relaxed her stance. "I've decided you're all women. Now what's your business here?"

"We're just passing through," said Penelope. "Food, sleep, shelter and the like. Why did we need to show our breasts?"

"To make sure you're not phallic slaves, of course!" The soldier sounded as though such a question was absurd. "Go on, through the gates, before I change my mind."

Penelope sensed an argument on her tongue so thought it best to move along. The last thing she wanted was to be mistaken for a phallic slave, regardless of how strange and unlikely that was.

Once passed the gates, they entered into what looked like a makeshift marketplace spread across a large and busy courtyard. There were women selling fruit, women selling livestock, a woman with strong arms mending the broken wheel axle of a cart, and another woman in leather apron hammering and folding and sewing and boiling armour. Daphne saw this and instantly went to buy some. Her armour, until now, had been the Picene interpretation of real Greek armour and was lacking in civilised style. She could even trade in her current garbs for a better price.

A shrine to one of the minor Etruscan goddesses stood alone in the centre of the courtyard. The circular structure was ringed with short granite columns, and attached to all of these were naked captives. Women and phallic slaves were chained standing with their hands above their heads on alternating columns with a phallic slave and a woman facing each other, all gagged with leather balls strapped into their mouths and puddles of drool forming at their feet.

They seem tired, Penelope observed as she wondered why they were there, as though they haven't rested for days. They must be prisoners.

One of the slave girls was busy having a freewoman pinch her exposed nipples, though she was too exhausted to flinch or struggle as the woman laughed. Another slave girl was being pleasured by the tongue of a large dog as a group of little girls looked on and giggled hysterically. And a phallic slave was groaning into his gag as a freewoman perched herself across his knees and bounced up and down on his meat. All this was happening while the other captive of each pair sorrowfully looked at their partner in bondage, watching as they were used for someone else's enjoyment.

They're meant to suffer, Penelope realised. How hard it must be to watch such passion day after day, right in front of them, and never have the chance to join in. It's a punishment of sorts, she understood, but a punishment for what?

Above their heads were wooden placards with inscriptions. For the women they read, "I considered him my equal", and for the men, "so they gave us equality".

Continued in Chapter 13

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