The morning sun was still low over the width of the Su’Ra River, and dozens of vessels crowded the invisible and rarely obeyed lanes of travel as they moved in and out of Kifu’Nemhat, the steady winds blowing in from the Sobe’kaimun Sea making travel upriver a mostly painless affair. Usually. Already the shimmer of heat on the far horizon to the south formed, the day’s scorching heat already well on its way in with no major weather predicted by the stormcallers.
Handling the rudder, Samira guided their small, heavily laden skiff through the mess of river traffic, enjoying the feel of the sun upon her dark flesh, the pleasant sensation of the warm, life-giving sun upon the still-healing whiplashes that marked her flesh, a punishment from one of her master’s slave mistresses, mostly because of her three companion slaves who could not grasp that obedience was preferable to punishments for disobedience. Would not their servitude be much more bearable if they simply accepted the fact that they were now property of the Imperator until such a time as they would again be free?
Granted, the goblin and human would probably not live to see the end of their servitude, which could last for decades, but what did Samira, a kerryn, and the elf-witch Galvaera have to fear? Their lifespans were practically endless in comparison, and, for Samira, once she had uncovered the long-lost secrets of the Old Gods, perhaps her life would in fact be endless.
Or something akin to life; the mysteries of the afterlife were not yet entirely clear to her or her people.
“We are losing the wind! Adjust the sail!” Samira called, angling the skiff to avoid a larger patrol ship ahead, one of the mazoku legion’s vessels, under the command of the Imperator.
Already dripping with sweat, the gigantic human woman, Astrid, reluctantly picked herself up from the wooden deck and did just that, wiping at her reddened, fair-skinned face. She was an accomplished sailor, so it was no challenge for her to find the proper alignment. Samira fought to ignore the warrior’s scent, though, thick with fresh sweat and untold layers of old sweat inside the padding of the steel breastplate she wore, padded with furs and leather. The outlander, in spite of her weeks as a slave to the Imperator, had not adapted well to the scorching heat of the desert land.
“This land is cursed! The Many Hells themselves could not be hotter! Damn my luck!” Astrid snarled, sinking back to the deck, wiping more sweat away and tugging at the spiked collar around her neck with one finger.
“Maybe try taking that oven off your chest?” Bekksie suggested, the goblin’s high-pitched voice revealing her displeasure with the human. Her small but shapely form sat atop the casks of wine they had been tasked to deliver, where she busied herself picking at her nails with her dagger. “And then you can do us all a favor and go for a swim to wash that smell off you.”
To Samira’s keen nose, the goblin could stand a dip into the river as well, and perhaps should consider a new pair of boots after burning her current pair; those smelled quite unpleasant, a mix of strong, baked-in foot odor and…sex? Perhaps it was something particular to the goblin’s scent, given the large size of her feet, but Samira didn’t think so, and didn’t wish to dwell upon it further.
Astrid snarled, raising a balled fist as she turned toward the goblin, her face red from outrage and the heat. “Don’t think these infernal devices will stop me from teaching you a lesson, goblin! I have killed countless of your kind in my homeland! Foul creature!”
“Try it, barbarian, and I’ll have so many knives stuck in you, you won’t need that oven you call armor to sink to the bottom!” snapped Bekksie, her hands suddenly filled with a half dozen throwing knives each. “Everything I’ve heard about your homeland says its a backwards shithole compared to here!”
Galvaera, flame-haired desert elf sorcerer, her brown skin a lighter tone than Samira’s own, sitting cross-legged upon the small boat’s prow in an attempt to meditate, let out a heavy sigh, her shoulders sagging before she raised her purple eyes to glare at the human and goblin. “The magic within these devices is not meant to stop us from harming each other, not unless our master and mistresses will it so. If you must kill one another, please do it quickly so that the rest of us will not suffer your stupidity, only our…master’s…wrath upon our return.”
Astrid snarled and slammed her fist into the deck with a crack of wood, then crossed her arms and glared off toward the shore, while Bekksie made her knives disappear into her light but voluminous clothes and flashed a few rude gestures toward the warrior’s back.
The ‘infernal devices’ Astrid spoke of were equipped upon all of them, placed there to insure their loyalty through rewards of pleasure, or painful punishments; mostly they had experienced punishments thus far, though; their mistresses were nothing if not sadistic. First of all were the slave collars, the first of the devices they had placed upon them soon after they had been purchased from the slave market, simple and somewhat crude iron rings, set with spikes along the outer edge that could deliver painful shocks to the ones who wore the master rings keyed to them, and, in the case of Samira and Galvaera, could drain their magical reserves and prevent them from casting spells entirely.
Each of them had also been pierced with multiple silver rings to further enhance their ‘pleasures’, one through each nipple, another through their clits, each capable of delivering a pleasant vibration that could easily make them climax, or painful shocks, cold, and heat, should their masters desire punishment instead. All of them had also been fitted with a thicker, fourth ring through the septum, this one proving to anyone with eyes that they were slaves, if the collars hadn’t done that already, but also having a most insidious enchantment upon them. Should their master or mistresses simply command them to kneel, the magic in the ring would force them downward until their faces were on the floor, and painfully too if it were resisted, as Astrid had found out several times before finally learning.
“And what good are you, sorcerer, if you cannot removed these foul devices and the demon tattoo from us?” Astrid asked, breaking the few moments of pleasant silence. The woman turned and glared at Samira. “And you, cat-priest, is there nothing your gods can do? What good are you or they?”
Galvaera groaned, rolling her eyes as she was again disturbed out of her meditation, and turned her glare back to Astrid. “Firstly, the nature of these devices prevents spellcasters wearing them from attempting to work magic upon them without punishment. Secondly, I have not yet attained the level of skill required to even perform such a spell; though I am perhaps five times your age, human, my studies are not as simple as picking up an axe and swinging it around at a block of wood! And thirdly, if you can’t count that high, it’s this many,” she said, and held up three fingers, “the magic of the tattoo is far more powerful than you could possibly comprehend.” Huffing, Galvaera crossed her arms and closed her eyes, her long, knife-like ears twitching with frustration.
Before Astrid could blow up again, Samira spoke, attempting to keep her own frustration out of her voice and sound reasonable. “You misunderstand our situation, warrior. Though we are not free to go as we please, we are free to make our servitude as painless as possible, even if the Imperator and his mistresses takes great delight in seeing us suffer. It is the nature of the mazoku, you see, and that of the demon lords they worship. The symbol placed upon our flesh is tied to the power of the demon lords; the suffering and pleasures of mortals give them power, so it is to their advantage that they treat us so. In time, once we have proven our loyalty, then we too shall see some of that power bestowed upon us, a reward for our devotion.”
“And your gods allow this?” asked the warrior, frowning.
“Until such a time as they are again risen to prominence,” Samira replied, looking to the sky. “You perhaps do not comprehend the amount of time that has passed within the vastness of the desert since the height of our gods’ power? Witness those pyramids,” Samira said, pointing to her left at the quartet of stone pyramids, looming high over the river upon a stone plateau nearly a mile away. “Do you not see the ravages of time upon them? Thousands of years have passed since they were built, and so to have thousands of years passed since my gods have been worshipped properly in these lands. My people, we seek to remedy that, and return them to the their proper places of worship. It is not something that can happen quickly, certainly not within a single human lifetime. But in some decades or centuries, their power will grow, slowly at first, and then not even the demon lords will be able to stand against them or we kerryns who venerate them.”
Astrid didn’t respond immediately, her face scrunched up as she tried to process what Samira had told her. At last, she shook her head, the golden braid swinging before she wiped more sweat from her face. “Ridiculous! What good are your gods if you must wait for their power? Better to take matters into your own hands and crush your enemies yourselves!”
“Typical barbarian,” Bekksie said, snorting. “Just beat your enemies with sticks until they stop moving.”
“I’ll beat you with a stick!” Astrid snapped, rising to her feet.
Samira rolled her eyes and shoved the tiller to the right, then the left, rocking the skiff and forcing Astrid to grab at the mast, lest she go for a swim. The others looked at her quizzically as they held to the ship or the cargo. Samira flashed a wide grin at the gigantic woman, ignoring the others. “Did you not see the hippopotamus? It would not due to run headlong into one of those, not this far from shore. Very dangerous beasts. We are losing the breeze again.”
Astrid glared at Samira, but after a long pause, their speed dropping, adjusted the sail and went back to stewing in her spot at the base of the mast, thankfully without further argument.
Hopefully the rest of their voyage upriver would be more pleasant.
* * * * *
This story features the following themes from this year’s Kinktober list.
Tangle/Trap
Stretch/Grope
Sadistic/Imaginary
Strip/Encase
Squeeze/Secret
Quicksand/Harem
Clean/Dirty
Dramatic/Punish
Balance/Hood
Wax/Mummification
Magic/Fantasy
Natural/Camouflage
Hostage/Doll
Vintage/Ancient
Revenge/Mischief
Candy/Potion
This story contains the adventuring party experiencing: Multiple males dominating multiple females, bondage, capture, ropes, leather, heavy BDSM, suspension, being bound together, bit gags, ring gags, stuff gags, whipping, nipple rings, nose rings, clit rings, slave collars, orcs, kerryns (catgirls), goblins, humans, elves, mazoku (tieflings), swords & sorcery, pulp adventure, blood, sacrifice, bound sex, orgy, group sex, footjobs, handjobs, blowjobs, vaginal sex, anal sex and maybe more I’ve forgotten to include here.
This is a story written as a call back to the old pulp style sword & sorcery adventurers, so some themes are dark and a bit graphic, but that’s kind of the name of the game with this setting. If Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was too much for you, this might not be the story for you (but that’s not until Chapter 6)!
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