The Forge

Chapter 3 : The Forge

Raven checked her crossbow by feel for the fourth time in twenty minutes, it's solid functionality a comfort in the alley's darkness.

"Any sign yet?" The breathy voice in her ear was almost too low to be called a whisper. Raven listened carefully, then knelt and peered around the corner between the alley wall and a rain barrel.

"Not yet," she whispered back, standing.

"Damn!" Laia's voice was filled with frustrated eagerness. Shorter than Raven's six feet by a good five inches, her lithe frame had tightened during the last few years, Raven noted with satisfaction, shedding the last of her lingering baby fat in service to the rebellion. Nothing, however, seemed to dull her childlike exuberance and optimism. Perhaps that was why Raven loved her. Laia looked at her askance. "You're gettin' that worried look again, Rave..."

"I just have a bad feeling about this one, Love." She looked down at Laia sternly. "Remember, if anything goes wrong we call it a botched job and haul ass back down the alley. No heroics. You're here to keep the cutpurses and muggers off our backs, not to go runni -- mmpgh!" Laia cut her off, rising up on her tiptoes and pressing her lips against Raven's. After a long moment, the two women broke their kiss and Laia dropped down flatfooted, her long redheaded braid flopping around the sword slung on her back.

"Nothing's going to go wrong, silly! My darlin' skewers some sodding royalist and then we skip off to a nice cozy bed somewhere." She grinned to show that she had more in mind than slumber. "What could possibly go wrong?"

---

Coren stood on the wharf, watching flames engulf the good ship "Persephone". Jet curls spilled carelessly down his back while the fire's orange light tinted his forelocks a menacing umber. His dark features and light skin marked him as a Tucian, whose great-grandfathers had sent the Hlovoth hordes fleeing back to their icy steppes and who had joined the Apherium only after crushing the first three armies sent to take the dark and rocky land by force. While tall and broad-shouldered, it was Coren's eyes which dismissed all question that four generations had thinned the warrior's blood in his veins.

Now he served the Apherium, first through bitter campaigns with the Royal Army, then in the Guard, and now as Captain of the Guard in Apherion itself. Small-scale rebellion is always endemic in an immense empire like the Apherium, but recently one faction had begun to grow far too large. Reports from Coren's spies gave differing names for the group, which was composed largely of women and centered around worship of female deities. One of Coren's men had suggested "amazons" in jest, and the name had stuck. Coren smiled grimly. He wondered if the fact that the rebels were women was what had led his predecessor to underestimate them so badly. Badly enough, in fact, to let one put a blade through his gullet. Poor Roderick.

In the harbor, the "Persephone"s foremast cracked and toppled as it burned through. The ship's captain had accepted a large sum of money from the rebellion to transport the queen of the amazons to their island stronghold after her escape from the dungeons of Apherion. That the escape had been foiled had been enough to satisfy Coren's nominal superior, Lord Stephen. Coren however, had seized upon the chance to unravel the conspiracy by exploiting the small mistakes made in haste by rebel agents desperate to free their queen. One such mistake had been the captain of the "Persephone".

Unfortunately for him and his crew, he was a man with a dangerous habit of boasting a bit when he was in his cups -- occasionally to the wrong people. Coren had ordered the crew lashed to the deck and the captain himself shackled to the mainmast. As his men had tossed torches into the pitch-soaked hold, Coren had thrown the captain a hand axe. The man had looked puzzled for a moment before the realization had sunk in. While he wouldn't be able to chop through the iron shackles or the thick mast before the ship became an inferno, he might just be able to hack through his ankles...

On the wharf, Coren turned his back to the blazing ship and began the long walk up the hill to the guardhouse, a half-mile away. His men should have been fed by now, or he'd toss that sycophantic local Prefect of the Guards to the hounds himself.

---

Raven yanked her head back around the corner into the alley. "He's coming..." she hissed. She hurriedly pulled the stopper from a tiny phial and dipped the point of her quarrel into it. The bronze turned slightly green when it touched the amber liquid. Careful to avoid touching any of the fluid herself, she stoppered the phial and tossed it in the gutter.

"Are you sure it's him?" Laia's voice betrayed her excitement.

"Yes, I'm sure!" Raven hissed irritatedly, "Now stand back..." She raised the crossbow and sighted down its length. One of the bow's arms grated briefly on the alley wall.

As he trudged up the hill past warehouses and shuttered shops, Coren's mind was far away. He had hoped to find some reference to the rebel stronghold among the captain's records, but a careful search of his charts and logs had turned up nothing. It was beginning to look as if the "Persephone" had been a dead end.

A tiny sound echoed in the deserted street. Some part of the soldier's mind identified it for what it was -- the rasp of steel on stone -- and hurled him aside with reflex born years ago and many a bloody league away. An arrow slashed through the space where his chest had been a moment before, seeming almost to precede the harsh snap of the crossbow that had fired it.

Coren landed awkwardly on the rough cobblestones, his cloak tangling itself around him as he rolled. He reached instinctively for his swordhilt, only to find it tangled in the wet fabric of his cloak. Shit. There was no time to draw it anyway. A woman charged out of the alley to his right, a long sword glinting in her hand and a look of gleeful murder in her eyes. Her flaming red hair caught the dim orange glow of the far-off "Persephone" as if the blazing ship itself had risen in human form to exact its revenge. The curved blade slashed downward and Coren rolled frantically, narrowly avoiding the razor-sharp steel.

The assassin cursed and stabbed down at him again. Once more, Coren rolled yanked himself desperately aside and her sword point rang on stone instead of plunging into his belly. This time, however, his shoulder thumped to rest against a sturdy wooden rain barrel. Coren had no more room to run, and nothing with which to fight back. Then his eyes fell on a thin fletched shaft protruding from the rain barrel. It was the quarrel which had so narrowly missed him, it's point barely penetrating the weathered oak of the barrel stave. The amazon assassin raised her weapon for the death stroke, a triumphant warwhoop on her lips. Coren looked up to meet her eyes.

"Don't count coup on me just yet, bitch!" Then, in one swift motion, he snatched the arrow free and drove it deep into the amazon's thigh. The point grated on bone, and Coren released the shaft, letting his motion carry him into a clumsy roll that carried him away from immediate danger. That, he thought, ought to distract her for a moment.

"Stupid... impetuous... thoughtless... little VIXEN!" Raven cursed as she shoved her foot in the crossbow's stirrup and hauled back frantically on the bowstring, here eyes on the melee in the street. When the redhead screamed in pain, Raven's heart leapt to her throat. Hurling the crossbow aside, she sprinted into the street just in time to catch her lover as she collapsed. Raven eased the shaking woman to the ground just as a powerful spasm wracked her. "Oh, Goddess... Rave... I... ungh!" She stiffened again, her back arching inhumanly.

It was then that Raven noticed the bloody quarrel protruding from her thigh. Her heart sank like a stone. There could be no help for Laia. She stroked her lover's cheek, choking back tears of her own.

"Shhh, Love. It'll be okay... I'm right here." Her voice trembled, knowing the lie.

"... so dark!... Raven... I... love..." Then Laia shuddered softly and sighed away the last of her voice. Raven watched as her eyes slowly glazed. For a long moment she simply stared. The scuff of boots on cobblestone broke her reverie.

"For what it's worth," said the big man with the long steel blade in his hand, "I arrest you in the name of Lord Stephen of Apherion, Regent to the King."

For a moment, there was silence. Then the dark-haired amazon's face twisted from tearful sorrow into a snarl of animal rage as she gripped her dead comrade's sword with whitened knuckles. "You murdering son of a bitch!" she growled, the words soaked in black hatred. Then, with a scream, she launched herself at Coren in a fury. Her shoulder dipped left, feinting as her right hand drove the amazon sword toward Coren's chest. Metal rang as Coren hastily parried her blade with his own. His return stroke sliced through empty air to chip the stone wall in a shower of sparks. This woman flows like water, he thought, narrowly avoiding a decapitating sidestroke.

And so they danced in the darkness, accompanied only by the clang of metal on metal and the scuff of boots on weathered cobblestones.

Raven grunted and yanked herself backward, avoiding by a hairsbreadth the slashing arc of the long cavalry sword. Goddess, he's too damned fast, she thought. Not as fast as me, but strong enough to make up for it. She gingerly touched the bloody slash across the tops of her breasts where the villain's blade had sliced through her blouse and shallowly into the flesh beneath. Of course the bastard had his own share; his shirt showed crimson over slices on his arm -- not his sword arm, damn him -- and dark stains spread too slowly down the side of one leg.

He didn't seem affected at all though, unlike Raven. She could feel herself tiring, slowing. This has to end soon. She blinked back the sweat on her brow and purposefully lowered her sword just a bit too much. A subtle thing, but she could tell that the arrogant bastard took notice of it, by the way he stepped forward with his blade high. There was no way that she could counter his swordstroke now, her own blade was hopelessly out of position and getting more so each moment as the distance between them shrank. Another moment and...

Coren never saw it coming. Just as he was about to strike, the amazon's boot snapped out and up with the speed of summer lightning, catching him in the jaw and snapping his head back like a hooked fish. Only the blessings of thick muscles and strong bones saved him from a broken neck or jaw. As it was, Coren's vision swam with stars and he flailed backward, off balance, until his back slammed into a masonry wall.

Though the fog he heard the sound of boots on pavestone and a woman's voice, black with fury. "You killed Laia, you filthy lickshit bastard! This is for her!" Dimly, Coren could make out the amazon standing close in front of him, her sword rising for a death blow. His hands empty, Coren did the only thing he could think of: he launched himself off of the wall and straight at the cursing woman.

The soldier's move caught Raven off guard. The man's shoulder caught her in the chest, driving the air from her lungs in a great grunt of surprise. It's not fair, she thought. That kick should have dropped him like a rag doll... he must have the constitution of a bull! Her sword clattered to the street as he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her from her feet. His headlong rush was carrying her... oh, Goddess, the far wall!

Glass was far too precious a luxury to be wasted on the decaying shops and trade-stalls of the merchant's quarter. For the establishments near the docks, windows tended to be secured at night with shutters of thick oak. It was one of these sets of shutters into which Coren slammed the amazon with all his strength. Her scream of agony as he crushed her body against the heavy wood was almost overpowered by the crash of masonry, embrittled by time and salt air, shattering like cheap pottery under the sudden impact. Hinge bolts wrenched free from the wall itself, the shutters toppled inward into the shop they had once protected, taking the rotten sill and the pair of combatants with it in a cloud of brick dust.

Coren hauled himself shakily to his feet and spat out a lump of masonry. The building into which they'd fallen was one used by the local teamsters who hauled goods from warehouses on the wharf. A small smithy occupied this corner of the open hall; Coren could feel the heat radiating from the forge even though it had been obviously been damped for the evening. Nearby stood an anvil and a long, oaken work table, pitted and scarred from years of hard use. Piles of scrap iron and racks of tools lined the walls. The smell of horses and oxen was strong, and nervous snorting from beyond an open doorway which, Coren assumed, lead to the stables and wagonbarns.

He turned to find that the amazon, too, had levered herself from the pile of debris. A dagger glinted in her hand and she was much too close. She slashed at his chest and he snatched himself backward. The work table halted him with a solid thunk on his backside. With adrenaline-aided speed, Coren threw himself back onto the table, scrabbling backward down it's length with the amazon warrior in hot pursuit. Suddenly there was no more table. Coren flailed in midair for a moment before crashing down onto the forge's wood-and-leather bellows. Smoldering embers deep in the belly of the forge blazed with new life, reigniting the half-burned coals on top and flooding the smithy with a new cherry-red glow.

Raven cursed and jerked her head away from the forge. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she had been staring almost directly at the forge when that murdering bastard stoked it up again. She blinked for a moment until the lingering green-and-purple afterimage faded enough to see, then turned her attention carefully back to the smithy. He can't have gotten far, she thought.

Cautiously, she made her way around the bellows to the other side of the forge. No one was there. She hesitated for a moment, uncertain in which direction her quarry might have run. The flickering ruddy light of the forge gave an eerie substance to shadows and hinted at motion in everything.

There was a small noise behind her and the amazon whirled about, then screamed in pain and surprise as a long leather tentacle snapped itself around her dagger wrist, sending the blade flying into the darkness.

Before she could react, the guardsman yanked the oxwhip, pulling her off balance and closing the distance between them. Raven pulled and twisted frantically at the whip binding her wrist but it had wound tight, snaring her as surely as a rabbit in a noose. She pulled back, but the bastard simply walked his way hand-over-hand down the length of the whip.

Raven tensed, then snap-kicked at his head, but this time her foot swished through empty air where his jaw had been. Unbalanced by the kick, she had no chance to defend against the fist that slammed into her solar plexus. The blow drove the air from her lungs in a choked scream and doubled her over in pain.

"Guuungh... Gahhh..." she gasped weakly. A strong hand caught a fistful of her bangs and yanked the her face up to meet the openhanded slap than spun her backwards into a wooden tool rack. The amazon, the shattered rack, and an assortment of iron implements crashed to the floor in a tangled heap.

Raven lay dazed amidst the scattered tools the floor, blinking away stars and trying to draw air into her tortured lungs. Her chest burned like fire and she knew that even if none of her ribs had cracked she would be a mass of bruises for weeks. The scuff of cavalry boots behind her forced her back to the present. Scrabbling in the debris for something, anything, to serve as a weapon, her hand closed around a cold iron rod. She gripped it with whitening knuckles. Wait, she told herself, play dead and wait until he...

"Bastaaaaarrd!" Her cry of defiance surprised Raven herself as she twisted and swung the rod with all the force she could muster at the dark shape looming over her. Even as she felt it impact with a solid thump and was rewarded with a grunt of pain from the darkness, the amazon was scrambling painfully to her feet.

Coren cursed himself and clutched his bruised left shoulder. He should have known better than to think that this bitch would go down so easily. The amazon slut had caught him in the meaty part of the shoulder with something damned heavy. Now they circled one another warily, the long branding iron in her hand feinting and twisting. She thrust it forward, then rushed him, swinging. But the bitch's timing had been just a hair off and Coren stepped inside the blow and wrapped his arms around her waist and, lifting her bodily, heaved her back toward the glowing coals of the forge. The amazon stumbled backward, then screamed in surprise as her calves met the firebricks of the forge and she tripped backward over the cherry-red firepit. Overbalanced, she teetered on the edge for a moment before dropping the branding iron and flailing backward towards the red-hot pit, eyes wide with terror.

Coren's hand shot out, snatching a handful of her blouse and snapping her to a halt a handsbreadth from the inferno. The amazon dangled helplessly only inches above the crackling coals for a moment -- the guardsman's grip the only thing between her and certain immolation -- before Coren jerked her to her feet and, in one quick motion, hurled her headfirst into the oily water of the tempering trough.

The water was lukewarm, but after the searing heat of the forge, Raven felt as if she had been plunged into an ice bath. She struggled to lift her head up and out of the water, but a strong hand held her under. Panic swelled inside her. She couldn't breathe! She twisted and thrashed, stirring up years of uncleaned muck from the trough's bottom, but the pressure on her head refused to budge. Her chest was on fire, she had to have air! Goddess, it couldn't end like this! Raven reached behind her, flailing for the hand that held her, clawing desperately at it, fighting the darkness that threatened to overwhelm her.

And then her head was yanked roughly out of the water by her bangs and there was air. Raven gasped and sputtered, trying to suck in a full breath as water from her hair cascaded down over her face. No sooner had she filled her lungs than the hand on her head pushed down again. The last sound she heard before her face was forced beneath the surface of the dirty water was a low, scornful chuckle. Again she struggled, but this time there was no escaping the blackness which closed over her...

---

Raven woke with a start from an awful dream where Laia had been killed and she herself had been drowned. She rolled over to kiss Laia awake but found that she couldn't move. Still groggy, she wondered what kind of game Laia was playing this time. Then, blinking the world more into focus, she looked around her. She was kneeling naked on a dirt floor, her arms extended over her head and wrists lashed to the trace-rings of a wooden ox collar. The collar was, in turn, suspended from a thick rope which disappeared into the darkness overhead, presumably to a fixture on the ceiling. Thinner but no less sturdy ropes snaked from tidy bindings on her ankles to iron stakes driven into the earth to her sides, holding her legs wide. Several lamps burned near her, but the room's main illumination came from --

-- Oh, Goddess, the forge. No!

Raven's heart died as she truly recognized her familiar surroundings for the first time. It hadn't been a dream. It had all been real...

"Laia...?" she called softly, praying she was mistaken.

A too-familiar figure stepped into the light from the darkness beyond. "I'm afraid your friend Laia won't be joining us tonight... or any other night for that matter," he said casually, wiping something in his hand with a rag, "It seems she's suffering from a slight case of 'death'. Quite sad, really. She had the misfortune to encounter a crossbow bolt dipped in stonefish venom. Very nasty." He stopped wiping the bolt and held it to the light as if examining it. Then he held it out as if offering it to the amazon. "Yours, I believe..." he deadpanned.

Raven snapped. She hurled herself against her bonds, screaming incoherently. Tears of frustration and sorrow streamed down her face as she raged at this man who beaten her and killed the one she loved. Her struggles caused the ropes to bite deep into her skin but she fought anyway, oblivious to the crimson trails running down her arms. When, at last, her berserker rage subsided she slumped exhaustedly in her bonds, retaining only enough energy to glare up at him, eyes burning with hatred. I'll kill you, she vowed. For Laia, I'll kill you...

She's vowing to kill me now, Coren thought as he looked into her eyes. How sweet...

Absently, he tossed the crossbow bolt into the forge, where it flared briefly and disappeared. Then he stepped slowly forward to stand before the kneeling amazon, who surged vainly forward against the ropes in the hopes of reaching him. He let her struggle for a moment, then squatted down to her eye level, just out of reach. "Far be it from me to point out who attacked whom without warning..." Coren abandoned his half-smile. "But there is one thing I WILL know... and that is who sent you."

The amazon assassin spat on him. Coren wiped the blood-tinged spittle from his face with one hand, regarded it for a moment, then casually wiped it in her hair. He sighed. "I had hoped to do this the easy way..." Rising to his feet, he turned away just as his captive launched into a tirade of curses.

"You cocksucking, lickshit, whoreson! Murderous, horsefucking..." Coren listened -- impressed despite himself -- as she continued, clearly warming to the task as she went on. He made a note of several of the more colorful phrases, including several in Cirrasian, before he reached for the oxwhip on the worktable. He had considered shipping this one back to the dungeon in Apherion for interrogation, but prisoners in the care of the Rogue's inquisitors had a nasty habit of dying, often before any useful information could be wrung from them. So he would take care of this himself. Not that he wouldn't enjoy it, he reflected, gingerly touching the bloody gash across his aching chest. Then he whirled and slashed the oxwhip down across the bound woman's torso.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaagh!" The amazon's scream of startled agony echoed in the open room as the leather sliced into her flesh. Coren paused for a moment to let her look down in shock at the thin crimson line, already beading with blood, that now ran from her shoulder to her hip before he raised the whip and cut another across her back. At the touch of the whip, her back arched in reflexive agony. Once more the barn reverberated with raw screams of female pain. The whip rose and fell, each lash flaying another strip of skin from the helpless woman.

"Y-you son... of... a bitch," she panted between lashes, "I won't... tell you... any - uuuuuuuuuuuunnnnngh!" The oxwhip opened a new slice along the tender cheek of her ass.

"That," said Coren, his eyes narrow, "is not what I want to hear..."

"Nooopleeeaseaaaaiiiiii!" Raven screamed as the whip tore into her again. She had resolved not to give him the satisfaction of hearing her beg, but that resolution crumbled in the face of overwhelming pain. Her entire back was on fire, crisscrossed with furious red slashes. Slumped heavily with only the ropes at her wrists supporting her, Raven could feel the tiny trickles of blood as they ran down her ass and belly. But she had not betrayed the Sisterhood, and that thought provided some measure of comfort.

A rough hand clasped her chin and yanked her head up. Raven blinked away sweat and tears to see the guard captain looking down at her, his face clouded with menace. "So, Little Bitch, are you ready to talk yet?"

She tried to muster enough saliva to spit at him again, but failed. "Go... f-fuck... your... self..." She croaked through dry lips.

"Hmmmm. I think you'll regret that. " He said darkly, dropping her chin back to her chest. Then, suddenly, he whirled and the whip sang through the air again, tracing a line of agony directly across both of Raven's nipples and the flesh in between. The amazon wailed in pain, her every muscle tensing against the ropes holding her spread. Had her wrists not been bound, she would have torn at her own breasts, insane with the desire to stop the pain, but as it was she could only kneel and clench her teeth, unbreathing, as tears streamed down her flushed cheeks. She couldn't take much more of this. She had to end it...

"Please," she said in what she hoped was a believably heartbroken voice, "No more... I'll talk..."

Her captor's dark eyebrows rose. "Good," he said, leaning close again, "Now tell me... who sent you?"

Raven paused for a moment for effect and to catch her breath. "It was Gavina Longchamps... of Miranoire..." In fact, Gavina Longchamps was an aging whore and sometime-courier for the rebellion, but no more than that. Raven had met her only twice, the last time more than a year ago. The two women had disliked each other from the first moment, a feeling only deepened by Gavina's obvious interest in Laia. Oh Goddess, Laia... Her choked sob was only partly an act.

"Gavina Longchamps..." murmured the guardsman. "You're certain?"

"Yes... yes, it was her... d-don't hurt me again..." She trailed off as he began to chuckle. The chuckle swelled into a laugh that chilled Raven's bones.

Coren looked down at the amazon assassin who'd come so close to putting a blade through his belly. Now bound and beaten bloody, she still looked a touch too defiant to be giving in so easily.

His open hand slammed into her tear streaked cheek, knocking her backward to the limit of her restraints. "Gavina Longchamps, my little bitch, has worked for me for the last five years! I pay her quite well for the information I want, and she is much too greedy a woman to slit the throat that keeps her in silk and champagne. Besides, if she wanted me dead, she'd certainly do it with more finesse than you've managed...

"Which means," he turned and reached into the forge, "that you LIED to me, bitch!" The fiery glow of the coals underlit his face, lending it the appearance of a demon fresh from hell as he raised the branding iron, its tip glowing cherry red. The amazon's eyes widened to the size of saucers at the sight of the brand in his hand as he approached.

"No! No, please... pleeeease! Oh Goddess! I didn't mean it...."

Kicking a sawhorse up in front of her, Coren pushed it against her chest, the crossbar biting into her tits. With his free hand, he reached between her legs from behind and lifted her ass as he pulled the sawhorse back. She grunted as the crossbar grated across her wounded chest, then her bloody stomach, to smack finally against her hips. The ropes at her wrists now held her bent forward over the sawhorse, while the ones at her ankles tightened enough to prevent her knees from bending.

"Please," she whimpered, "Don't..." She stared at the glowing brand for a moment and then, as if she had drawn on some inner strength, something in her seemed to harden. She seemed to resign herself to her torture. "I won't tell you anything!" She hissed. A tiny trickle of blood rolled down from the corner of her mouth.

Coren scowled briefly... then the edges of his lips curled upward slightly in an evil smile. Well, he thought, there's more than one way to skin this defiant little cat....

The branding iron clunked onto the work table with a crackle, the wood beneath its head instantly beginning to char and blacken.

Raven tensed with surpass as his fingers grazed her pussy. Suddenly she was very aware of her exposed position: bent naked over a sawhorse, legs spread and ass raised. She swallowed nervously. "Wha-what are you doing?" she demanded, then yelped as the flat of his hand slapped down on her beading asscheek.

"Well, Little Bitch," came his voice from behind her, "since you don't want to tell me the name of your contact, I'm going to have a little something from you just so my time hasn't been wasted..." He stroked her cunt meaningfully. Reflexively, she tried to jerk away from his touch but the ropes at her ankles transformed the motion to an ineffective twitch. His fingers combed through the curly jet hair of her bush and traced her labia with deceptive tenderness. Despite herself, she stiffened when his finger touched her clitoris.

"Stop it, you bastard!" she snarled, "Son of -- ungh!" This last as he rolled her clit between thumb and rough forefinger. Other fingers forced their way roughly past her labia and up into her helpless pussy. Raven struggled and thrashed as his fingers curled and scissored inside her, finding her tenderest spots as if by magic and stroking them relentlessly. To her horror, she felt herself begin to moisten. No, she thought, she couldn't let this happen!

And then it stopped. The soldier pulled his fingers from her pussy with a wet slurp. The touch at her clit disappeared as well. Raven sighed with relief, cursing herself for the instant of regret that had been her first reaction.

The clink of a belt buckle from behind her brought her back to earth. Something warm and hard pressed against the inside of her thigh and rough hands took her by the hips. Raven screamed and fought, but what little movement the ropes had allowed her was now stayed by the iron grip on her hips. "No!" she screamed, over and over, as the royalist bastard maneuvered the head of his cock between the glistening lips of her womanhood.

Raven grunted when his first thrust split her labia and stretched her cunt around the head of his tool. She tightened every muscle against him, fighting the invasion with all of her strength, but the soldier used his thick cock like a maul, forcing her open. His broad hands dug deeply into her hips as another growling shove buried most of his length in her. She gasped convulsively. It was too much! She couldn't -- !

"Aaaahh!" The amazon mewled and thrashed as his cock broke through the last of her defenses and rammed the final few inches into her, its thick head nestling against her cervix. The big man's tight abdomen slammed painfully into her flayed ass, his sweat stinging her wounds.

Coren twisted his cock inside her and was rewarded with a stifled gasp and a twitch of convulsive pleasure from the impaled woman. She was, he reflected, warming up nicely. Slowly, he withdrew until only the head of his tool remained to wedge her tight pussy open. Then, tensing every muscle, he remounted her with all of his strength, cleaving the walls of her cunt from lips to womb in one brutal stroke. The smack of his hips meeting her blood-streaked ass was drowned by the helpless assassin's scream -- of agony or ecstasy he couldn't tell -- and the creak of the ropes as she spasmed against them. With a smile of satisfaction, he began to fuck her properly, and soon her teeth-clenched moans were keeping time to his thrusts. Coren took her with deep hard strokes, churning her juices to froth and filling the air with the earthy scent of human lust. The spicy odors of sweat and fear and the sharp tang of blood swirled about them in a heady cloud. Her struggles felt weaker now, and her cunt was certainly wetter.

"Aaah!... No!... ungh!... I... ohhh!... won't... aahh!" Tiny backward thrusts of her ass belied her words. Coren could hear her breathing coming faster from exertion. Her mouth -- silhouetted against the red glow of the forge -- hung slightly agape, ruby lips glistening. Releasing one of her hips, he slid a sweat-covered palm up her back. The bound amazon gasped as the salt stung her wounds, and then again as the soldier's hand clenched a fistful of her tangled hair and yanked her head back.

"Feel it, little bitch?" Coren's cock slammed up into her, driving a low moan from her lips. Again, and again, and again...

For Raven, the world narrowed to the desperate fire in her loins. Panting like a bitch, she rocked back and forth the inch or two that her bonds allowed, straining to meet her rapist's thrusts. A voice in her head screamed for her to fight, to deny the climax she could feel building below her belly. For a moment, she tried. She squeezed her eyes shut and struggled to think of something -- anything -- besides the huge cock raking the coals in her pussy. But even as she did, her concentration shattered under the soldier's next brutal drive. She gasped and trembled, her body stiffening as her impending orgasm spread fiery tendrils along her spine. Goddess, one more thrust would send her over the edge...

He stopped. The same hands which had rammed her hips backward to impale her on the big man's thick shaft now held her motionless on it. As if from a distance, Raven heard someone whining, high and plaintive. After several racing heartbeats she realized it was her own voice. She could feel her climax receding, slipping slowly away without the violent fucking which had fed it. "No..." she whimpered.

"So you liked that, did you?" The soldier's voice was deep and throaty. She could almost hear his evil leer.

"I... ohh... p-please..." Then she gasped as he felt his manhood move slightly inside her. Very slowly, he slid his cock back to its full length in her grasping cunt, fucking her just hard enough to hold her on the ragged edge of cumming but not hard enough to push her over to the release her body craved. Yet some part of her still resisted. "I... I... won't..." she whispered, almost a prayer.

"Oh?" came the rough voice. The cock inside her slowed almost to a stop. Desperation surged through her as she trembled on the verge of orgasm, then began to slip back...

"Noooo..." she sobbed, "... so... close... please..." Raven tried in vain to push her hips backward, to force the one last stroke she needed to climax. "Please...!"

"Tell me who sent you, and you can have it..." His voice was a growl, and the hand in her hair tightened its grip, jerking her head back slightly to punctuate his words.

Then, like a fortress whose walls could no longer stand, Raven's spirit finally broke. Her lips seemed to form the words on their own as she betrayed her sisters. "Her n-name is Circe... Circe the Fox... in Rianisbad... oooohhh, Goddess!... p-please let me cum..." she whimpered.

For a panicked moment, Raven feared that he didn't believe her. Then the crossbar bit into her hips as the man who had broken her rammed the entire length of his thick cock into her cunt. She grunted with surprise and pleasure, her long-delayed climax exploding inside her. She howled and came, her juices gushing down over him in a flood of release.

Then, at the height of her climax, a burning pain lanced through her body. Her captor pressed the branding iron firmly against her ass, searing her flesh as she came. The incredible pain of the hot steel flowed into the ecstasy of her orgasm and she screamed, shoving her ass back against cock and brand with equal passion. After what seemed an eternity, the iron clanked to the floor.

"You're MINE now, Little Bitch..." he growled hotly in her ear, his cock stabbing deep inside her. Two savage thrusts later she felt his own heavy seed jet against her pussy walls. She imagined it coating her inside, thick and hot... filling her to overflowing... sealing his victory...

"Yes," she whispered, sagging defeatedly, "I'm... I'm... yours..."

She would spend the rest of her life trying to convince herself she hadn't meant it.

---

EPILOGUE

The Prefect of the Watch was becoming more obsequious by the minute, a behavior which did not endear him to Coren in the slightest. His mumbled apologies and mindless, terrified agreement with Coren's slightest statement was enough to conjure fantasies of running a pitchfork through his fat belly.

Immediately on his return to the guard house, Coren had ordered a pair of local guards to go and collect the woman from the teamsters' hall. When they failed to return after an hour and a half a second pair had been sent out, this time Coren's own men.

He listened to their report in silence, gnawing the last few bites of a hasty midnight supper of cheese and bread.

"There weren't no girl, Cap'n, live or dead. Oh, there wuz ropes like you said, but it lookit like they been cut. An' we found the two locals, all right. One'd had 'is haid bashed in by sumpin' long an' heavy... oh, an' hot, too, 'cause 'is hair'uz all singed. The other'un got hisself gutted by his mate's sword, from the looks of it. And... um..." the guard looked briefly back at his partner for support, "...there's a kinda message painted on th' wall."

Coren looked up with interest, one eyebrow raised. The guard swallowed nervously before continuing. "It looked loik it wuz wrote in blood... an' it said 'Coren will DIE!' in big letters."

Swallowing the last of his wine, Coren paused thoughtfully and then nodded his dismissal. The two guards gratefully backed out the room as the Prefect started in with sycophantic enthusiasm...

"I'll mobilize all the men I have! We'll search the city! She can't have gone far --"

Coren cut him off with a glare. "Shut up and leave me alone." The Prefect halted in mid-rant and smiled weakly. He seemed ready to open his mouth again -- to apologize no doubt -- so Coren reiterated. "Go!"

The Prefect got.

His muddy boots made a mess of the Prefect's desk as Coren leaned back in his chair, twirling the empty goblet and pondering. Tomorrow he would have to find a ship to Rianisbad.

After a moment, he smiled, then chuckled softly as he remembered that he had certainly never told her his name...

Waist-deep in the icy water, Raven watched the battered rowboat glide slowly out to a moonless sea. Orange flames, already licking up around Laia's body, grew higher as she stared; soon they would engulf the tiny craft and its lifeless passenger completely. A lump formed in Raven's throat as she watched her lover float away.

"I'm sorry I can't do better for you, Love." she murmured at the retreating boat. "You know, I thought of joining you, but I..." her voice trembled on the edge of tears, "...I can't do that just yet. Our last job isn't finished." Gingerly, she touched the painful brand on her backside. The Royal Seal. "There's a man I have to kill..."

And then, at last, Raven let herself weep.

... To Be Continued ...

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