Tanys Defiant Page 10

  Tellac seemed appeased by this and found a lid for Tanys’ crate. The lid was little more than a series of horizontal slats, nailed across a crooked frame that loosely aligned with the edges of the crate. Tellac pushed down firmly. Tanys stifled a gasp as the rough wooden slat across her breasts pressed in tightly. Flickers of pain shot through her body as Tellac hammered iron nails into the framework, sealing her inside. She watched him work through the narrow gap in the slats that covered her face. She could hear Greck and Costa discussing the price of the two girls from across the room. At last the hammering stopped, and Tellac moved on to the sealing of Misha’s crate.

  Tanys’ crate stank of mold and helplessness. The shadows of real fear danced at the edges of her reason as she tried to move, the splintered wood biting into her bare flesh as she struggled, unable to shift more than an inch or two from side to side. Likewise, her limbs could find no leverage against the tightly sealed lid of her coffin. Tanys fought back the fluttering wings of panic, forcing herself to remain calm and to prepare her mind for what she would have to do. The jingle of coins marked the completion of her sale, and Costa took his leave of the old man and the half-giant. The iron door wrenched open, letting in a blast of icy air that whistled through the slats of the wooden crates, eliciting troubled moans from the two girls bound naked inside.

  Tellac stooped and lifted Tanys’ crate to stand it on end, facing toward the fire and the dark outline of silver-haired old ghast who scratched thoughtfully at his chin, considering his options. Dragging his foot as he crossed the room, he paused before Tanys’ container. Greck smiled evilly, reaching through the slats to tickle Tanys under her chin, chuckling at the way she struggled to avoid his touch. His hand strayed downward, and her body jumped at the icy touch of his fingers, tracing a line from her navel, down to the little patch of dark hair, just peeking out above the broad slat crossing her hips. He gave a little tug at the slat and found it as unyielding as Tanys had. Greck frowned and looked hopefully toward Misha’s crate, causing Tanys’ heart to leap.

  “You already nail both of ‘em shut?” Greck asked irritably.

  Tellac grunted an affirmative.

  “Damn fool,” Greck muttered, “we might as well get going then. There’s no sport to be had here!”

  ****

  The tarp that the two slavers had cast over the back of their wagon helped keep out the night’s chill, but afforded no view of the streets down which the cart bumped and jostled down shadowy streets, carrying the crated women toward the delv of the blood-magi. Tanys’ limbs ached with impotent fury, her buttocks, shoulder blades and nipples rubbed raw against the cold, damp wood of the crate. Beside her, Misha whimpered every time the cart bounced across an uneven cobblestone.

  “Tanys,” Misha whispered fervently, “I can’t take much more of this!”

  “I know,” Tanys answered, as softly as she could manage, her voice edged with pain and muffled by the short length of steel she held concealed between her teeth, “think about something else, and it will all be over soon.”

  “I can’t,” Misha moaned, “I just can’t!”

  “Think of Carathan,” Tanys insisted, “Think of what he’s going to do when you rescue him. He’ll be so grateful to see you, he’ll probably tear your clothes off straightaway and take you, right there in front of everyone.”

  “I’m not wearing any!” Misha said, “Oh, Tanys, is he all right?”

  “If Carathan were in any real danger, we’d be smelling the charred flesh of his enemies by now.” Tanys laughed.

  Misha laughed too, a musical little giggle that drove away the cold and discomfort of the endless journey to the blood pits of the mage-lords. By the time the wagon dragged to a shuddering halt, Tanys’ spirits were revived, and Misha’s as well. Tanys grew silent once more as she shifted the tiny pry bar she carried within her mouth as far back as she could without swallowing it. The muffled voices of Greck and another slaver carried on the cold, dead air, and once again coins jingled.

  The tarp flew away, and Tanys saw a pair of grotesquely muscled, hairless ghasts standing at the back of the cart. Even paler than most of their kin, they each wore only a rusting metal codpiece and a tight leather mask with two small round eyeholes surmounting the featureless face. The masks hung open just below their noses to reveal wide, slavering red lips pulled tightly across glistening ivory teeth that were filed to dagger-like points. Misha cried out in fear, but Tanys said nothing as the monstrous pair hefted the two crates over their broad shoulders and carried their latest acquisitions through the graven obsidian doors of the Terjaan delv.

  The spiderweb of corridors descended ever downward, past rooms full of guardsmen, eating, drinking, gambling, or indulging in less savory amusements. An attacker hoping to penetrate the delv would face a small army of heavily armored ghasts. Not one of these vigilant guards even spared a passing glance to the two crates passing in the hallway aback the pallid blood-slaves. Eventually, the warm, bawdy noise of the upper floors gave way to the weird thrum of strange engines and the piteous shrieks of distant creatures enduring unspeakable torments. Large black rats scuttled fearlessly through the corridors, squeaking when the blood-slaves kicked them in passing. The shadows grew deeper as they descended, and the air reeked of blood.

  Turning a corner, a fiery emerald glow dazzled Tanys’ eyes. They entered a large chamber, filled with a pervasive throbbing noise, like the beating of some titanic heart. A flickering glow of witchfire illuminated the high vaulted chamber, and, all along the walls, myriad glass tubes ran from floor to ceiling through which a dark, thick liquid ebbed with the pulse of the vast, unseen pump. The blood-slave carrying Tanys dropped her crate painfully to the ground, propping it against what had appeared to be a long section of pipe suspended above the floor before it was obscured from her view. A heavy thud and a faint whimper told her that Misha’s crate now rested beside her own.

  Through the slats, Tanys could see the center of the large, circular chamber. The floor of the room seemed to be made up of sections of metal grate, set into a steel framework that suspended everything above a shadowy pit below. A circular dais of steel plating, surrounded by strange machinery, formed the focal point of the room. A single glowing green crystal suspended from the ceiling above the dais illuminated the whole chamber. Atop the platform, a single gaunt, hairless ghast, clad only in black leather pants, a bloody apron, and glass-lensed goggles, leaned closely over a steel table, in the shape of an oblong “X”, streaked with evil stains. Iron shackles at the four corners of the X bound the wrists and ankles of a naked prisoner. The helpless man hung, immobile in his bonds, his skin a cold, bluish hue. A long, translucent tube snaked from the base of the platform’s machinery up between the man’s legs. Affixed to the end of the tube, a steel probe disappeared into the man’s inner thigh, held in place by a length of black cord pulled tightly around his leg. Blood pulsed weakly through the tube, draining from the man’s body into the machinery below.

  The attending ghast with the stained apron pressed his spidery fingers to the man’s throat. The man groaned once, trying to raise his head, and then was still. The ghast smiled coolly and motioned for the two blood-slaves to assist him. As the heavily muscled and masked ghasts answered their master’s summons, Tanys worked the small piece of steel from beneath her tongue and squirmed as best she could to raise her hand to take it from between her lips.

  Across the room, the ghast that Greck had called “the Doctor” was using a long, curved knife to open the chest of the bloodless victim on the table. Humming tunelessly, he scooped out organs with one hand, deftly slicing them free with the knife in the other. An expressionless blood-slave held an alabaster urn, into which the dead man’s viscera went. The other slave held an ebon box. Tanys looked away as the knife took the victim’s manhood and the Doctor arranged the organs neatly inside the black box.

  Tanys’ right hand slipped upward between her breasts, trying to reach the little pry bar she held in her mouth.
With painful slowness, she stretched within the cramped confines of the crate, trying to reach the key to her freedom. She heard the Doctor issue an order, and she looked again to see one of the blood-slaves hefting the butchered carcass from the table as the other lifted a section of metal grating to reveal an opening in the floor. Tanys’ breath was coming faster now as the Doctor turned and began to approach the two crates where she and Misha waited helplessly.

  She quickly concealed the piece of steel in her mouth as the Doctor stepped closer to inspect the crates. Lifting his goggles, he squinted at her through the slats with large, yellow eyes. His tongue flickered nervously over thin lips as he held Tanys’ burning gaze. He seemed to see something in her eyes that peaked his interest.

  “A rare one this!” he exclaimed to his blood-slaves, though they seemed to pay him no mind as they tossed the mangled body into an unseen pit beneath the table, “I think I’ll want to take my time with it.” He stepped back and turned his attention to Misha’s crate. “Let’s start with this one.”

  “Tanys?” Misha called out, her voice laden with fear as the blood-slaves approached her crate.

  Tanys could not answer; already she was frantically at work, trying to reach the bit of steel between her lips. Straining so hard she felt as though she might dislocate her shoulder, Tanys’ fingers brushed against the tip of the tiny metal bar. Then Misha cried out as her crate was lifted, and the base of it knocked against Tanys’ crate. The jolt knocked the pry bar from Tanys’ mouth. It fell, slipping through her fingers and bouncing down between her body and the slats of the crate. Tanys’ heart leapt in horror as the little piece of steel thumped heavily and came to rest beneath the arch of her right foot. Tanys shoved with all her strength against the lid of the box to no avail. She flexed her fists and groaned in frustration.

  “Misha!” Tanys cried out, “Misha, hold on!”

  Wood splintered and the southern girl screamed as the blood-slaves broke apart her wooden cell to seize her with their pallid hands. The Doctor looked on, dispassionately as the slaves carried Misha, still struggling vainly in their grasp, to the table. They stretched her arms and legs across the X-shaped slab, binding her wrists and ankles at the corners. The Doctor watched in silent approval until the slaves stepped away, leaving the southern girl writhing weakly in her bonds. A panicked whimper escaped Misha’s lips, her eyes wide and pleading, her small breasts heaving with fear. Seeing his patient prepared for him, the Doctor started toward the table. Tanys called out to him.

  “What did you mean when you said I was ‘rare’?” Tanys demanded. The desperation in her own voice frightened her.

  The Doctor paused as if deciding whether to ignore her or not. Then, slowly he turned and walked back to Tanys’ crate.

  “What did you mean?” Tanys repeated, facing him now through the narrow gap in the slats of the lid.

  “You are half-blooded,” the ghast replied coldly, “that much is obvious, human, yes, but what of the other half? Something I do not recognize. What was your mother?”

  “I don’t remember my mother,” Tanys answered honestly. Could it be that this evil blood-mage might hold some clue to Tanys’ heritage?

  “Hmn,” he mused, “I will know soon enough, when I am finished with the fae-kin. I can then seek the truth of your blood.”

  “I must know!” Tanys exclaimed, pressing her body hard against the narrows slats of her cage, “Forget the girl, my blood is here for you now. Come and taste it.”

  “Yes,” he said, “your blood will be exquisite… when the time comes.” He slipped the goggles down over his yellow eyes and started to turn away again.

  “Wait!” Tanys cried, “I have more to offer than just my blood.”

  The Doctor paused, scowling, his expression unfathomable.

  “You must work very hard down here,” Tanys ventured, “you and your men. Up above, the warriors drink their fill of wine and… companionship.” Tanys’ body writhed suggestively in the narrow confines of her prison. The Doctor’s eyes followed her hands as they brushed across the edge of the wooden slat nailed across her hips before slipping back inside. Her fingertips traced the gentle crease between hip and thigh, arcing down into the shadow of her womanhood. Tanys moaned, “Let me serve you.”

  The ghast’s lips parted slightly, his tongue flickering. He took an involuntary step forward, almost lured into Tanys’ trap, but he scowled then and laughed harshly. At his call, one of the blood-slaves crossed the room, leaving a sobbing Misha stretched prone upon the steel table. “This girl wants to pleasure you, slave!” the Doctor chuckled, “Why don’t you show her what she’ll have to work with?”

  Tanys breath caught in her throat, and she prepared herself to spring upon the guard the instant he released her from her crate. Instead, she watched in horror as the blood-slave calmly removed the rusted codpiece that covered his loins. A jagged, puffy scar was all that remained to indicate where the slave’s sex had been.

  The Doctor laughed again, “Don’t worry, girl, your turn will come soon enough.” He walked away then, ignoring Tanys’ curses. The masked eunuch sneered and spat, spraying Tanys’ crate with thick gobs of spittle before he moved to follow his master to the table. Almost as an afterthought, he reached back and shoved her crate roughly, toppling it backwards over the pipe against which it leaned.

  Tanys cried out in pain as she landed hard, feet upward. The wood raked painfully against her backside as she slid down, much of her weight supported only by her neck. Misha screamed, but Tanys could no longer see her. Then she felt the lost pry bar slide to a stop, pressed firmly between the back of the crate and her left buttock. She twisted her body, ignoring the pain, and retrieved the little slip of metal with her left hand.

  Jamming the bar tightly into the juncture of a slat and the frame of the crate, Tanys used it to leverage a slim gap between the boards. Using the strength of her legs, she drove her hip hard against the slat. It creaked and snapped as she worked against it. Misha’s terrified cries covered the cracking sound as the first slat gave way. Others soon followed. By the time the Doctor noticed the noise it was too late. The warrior-woman of the Raven Tribe stood triumphantly above the splintered ruins of her prison.

  “Kill her!” the Doctor shouted, sending the startled blood-slaves into action. From the table before him, Misha looked up at Tanys with tears of admiration and relief. The black cord around her leg held in place the bleeding tube they had already inserted into her body. With a chilling grin, the Doctor pulled an adjacent lever, and the machine began its work on the helpless girl, a dark line of Misha’s blood, snaked down the tube and into the machine.

  The first blood-slave to reach Tanys staggered backwards from the blow of a heavy stave of wood salvaged from Misha’s broken crate. The wooden plank remained affixed to the side of his head, even after Tanys released her grip on it. Perplexed, the monstrous slave pulled it free with a mighty heave of his corded arms. It came away with a sickening pop and a spurt of dark blood. The slave stared dumbly at the long iron nail, dripping with gore, protruding from its tip. He swooned and fell dead at his fellow’s feet.

  Tanys circled the remaining slave warily, wielding another flimsy club. She stepped in to strike, but he batted the cudgel from her hand with a stinging blow. The metal grating of the floor dug painfully into the soles of her bare feet and proved treacherously slippery. A fine pink mist drifted up from the pit below, and Tanys did not want to think about what might be down there.

  The hulking slave lunged at her, and she dove, barely clear of his massive grasping hands. She slipped and fell hard upon the floor grate, the woven steel rods biting into her naked flesh and knocking the wind from her. She felt his hand close around her ankle, and he drug her back, facedown across the rough steel bars of the floor. Tanys twisted in his grasp and kicked hard, connecting solidly, and was free again.

  Standing, she faced the blood-slave a few paces away. The whispering song of a blade seeking blood alerted her to the new threa
t from behind. She drove forward, just as the Doctor’s knife traced a crimson arc across her shoulder blade. The pain served only to focus her thoughts as she rolled with the momentum of her leap, escaping the clumsy attempt by the blood-slave to grapple her. On her feet, with both enemies in front of her, Tanys attacked.

  The huge blood-slave crouched low with arms wide to receive her charge, and Tanys raced with wild-eyed abandon as though to fling herself into his crushing embrace. At the last moment, she sprang, launching herself into the air, using the slave’s massive shoulders as a platform to spring clearly over his head, scissoring her legs to deliver a spinning kick to the Doctor’s face. Tanys’ breasts bounced heavily as she landed on the platform beside the captive girl on the table. Misha’s face was pale, but her radiant smile answered Tanys’ mischievous grin as she pushed the lever back, shutting off the machine that had already drunk deeply of the southern girl’s life essence.

  “What are you?” the Doctor hissed, stripping away the shattered goggles from his bruised face.

  “I was hoping you’d tell me,” Tanys scoffed, “but you didn’t seem interested in conversation earlier.”

  The Doctor huffed, in disgust, brandishing his knife again as he advanced. The blood-slave let out a wordless howl of rage and charged.

  Tanys smashed an alabaster urn full of entrails across the blood-slave’s face, sending him reeling. The Doctor thrust at her with his knife, but he was no warrior. Tanys easily side-stepped his cut and levered the blade from his grasp, sending him sprawling on the floor, where he nearly fell into the open section of grating that the slaves had lifted away to dispose of the man’s corpse. Knife in hand, she leapt upon the disoriented blood-slave.