The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The Marktplat echoed with the tramp of boots.

In the attic Katryn scrunched up closer against Anyet; her friend turned to protest, but Lizbet, on the other side, shushed them both.

It was a grey, overcast day, the low clouds which had blown in from the Southern Sea sliding like a slate ceiling over the town. Most of the men were at work, in the mines or in the foundries on the southern edge of town; the anxious faces at the windows overlooking the Marktplat were wives and children. The Marktplat, the market plaza, largest of Freyviik’s open spaces, was largely empty, the merchants indoors, waiting out the impending rain.

Katryn, Lizbet, and Anyet were staring out a dormer window, tight up beneath the roof of Anyet’s tall home, and had a perfect view of the entire square.

Those wearing the boots had come in through the west gate. That in itself told everyone whose troops they were, but Katryn had found it hard—impossible—to believe, until she saw them with her own eyes.

Then all doubt vanished.

They entered the square six abreast, marching in step so perfectly that their feet touched down with a single hard sound. Their clothing was outlandish, and scandalous, and frightening—tall black boots, and black bodystraps. Straps at waist and thigh to which were buckled scabbarded blades. Straps across chest and shoulders, holding long bladed poles across rigid backs. Straps on arms and wrists, and at the neck, a thick black collar. Their hair was tight against their heads, slicked back and shiny and cut at the neck. Beneath the straps, nothing but bare naked flesh.

Their skin was as grey as the sky.

They entered the square, four ranks, then eight, then twelve. Backs perfectly rigid, heads held stiffly, staring blankly ahead, marching in unison.

Behind the seventy-two came the first rank of others; equally stiff, marching in perfect step, but the skin of these next was pink, and tan, and brown. They carried nothing, and above their calf-high boots they were utterly nude. They had no hair at all.

All of the marchers were women.

Katryn felt frozen, not shock-terrified but pinned in place by a deeper, more meaningful fear. Next to her, Anyet and Lizbet were equally still, silent but for their breathing. They watched in silence as the women kept filing into the Marktplat, clicking in perfect unison.

Then they stopped.

The silence felt total; the normal sounds of town life in sudden abeyance, waiting for the words or deeds of these frightening visitors.

The girls heard the clop of horses.

Around the rear ranks of the now statue-still marchers came two horsewomen. In contrast to their charges, they were clad, but what they wore only served to make them lewder, a glossy black that fit like a second skin. Black leather gripped them tightly across every curve, highlighted every arc and dip. From obscenely far below their navel came a long curve of nude skin, a smooth swath that ran between shining black from the mons over the navel, between the black-cupped breasts, all the way up to their thick collars.

Those women rode around and then in front of the standing ranks, and stopped.

Waited.

Anyet shifted, and then the fidgeting was contagious. It was hot in the attic, although even there the “clothes” the women in the square below wore would not have been enough to prevent chills.

In perfect ranks, they stood motionless.

The silence was illusory—Katryn realized that she could hear the distant sounds of the forges, hear the weather vane creak, hear a bird cry. Only the square was silent, as the women in the square stood motionless, and the women watching from the windows waited to see what they would do.

“They’re not breathing,” Lizbet whispered.

Katryn and Anyet looked at her.

“The grey women. They’re not breathing. See, you can see the naked ones breath. A little. Their... their chests move. But the grey ones are closer and they’re not breathing at all.”

The grey ones were closer—they were almost under the window. Fear wiggled in Katryn’s belly but she slid forward, looked closer.

They weren’t breathing at all. Grey nipples pointed forward, motionless.

She gasped, but quietly. “Their eyes...” she began.

A door boomed open; the Raedhaus. The councilors had doubtless been told, the Lord Mayor...

The girls could not see the Raedhaus from where they lay, but they could hear the mixed tread of the men issuing from it. Guards, and those they obeyed. Marching—not in step, not impossibly in step, the regular march of individuals—the short distance from the Raedplat to the Marktplat.

They appeared in view; not the Lord Mayor, but his wife instead, and flanking her a handful of councilors. They were in their robes of office, but Katryn could tell how hastily they had dressed. Behind them stood a motley handful of liveried soldiers.

The Lady Mayor approached the paired horsewomen and stopped before them. She was flanked by the captain of the watch and the head of the Miner’s Union. Captain Vryl was in full armor, her cuirass glinting even in the dull light. Even Master Jarras had buckled on a sword over his robes. All three looked pale.

“Who are they? How did they get in?” Anyet whispered. “The Western Gate...”

“Who is your leader?” the Lady Mayor demanded. “Who has brought you here, uninvited?”

There was a stillness, then one of the mounted women spoke.

“We are slaves of our Dark Queen,” she stated, “as are you, now. We have come at Her command to take possession of Her town. This cohort is led by your Ligatrix; behold, she comes.”

The woman stretched out a hand and, as though conjured, another woman approached. She was also in black leather, but hers was cut as though it were clothing, tight-fitting pants, a double-breasted vest, spiral sleeves. She rode easily from the rear of the column, and even in the saddle Katryn could see how tall she was. She radiated authority, and certainty, and the two mounted women dropped from their horses as she arrived among them, bowed, and turned again to face the trembling delegation. The mounted woman rode between them and stopped, facing the Lady Mayor.

The girls started as, with the rasp of steel, Captain Vryl pulled her sword from its scabbard, and stepped forward to this new rider. She glared upward at her, close enough to touch...

And dropped to her knees.

“Ligatrix.” she proclaimed in a loud voice, pressing her face to the mounted woman’s boot. “I have obeyed. All has been done as She bid me do.” She laid her sword upon the cobblestones.

All three girls’ mouths slid open in shock. Captain Vryl...?

A glance at the faces of the Lady Mayor and the man from the Union told Katryn that she was not alone in her disbelief. The Lady Mayor looked as though she had been struck.

“You have done well, slave,” the mounted woman said to the woman caressing her boot. Her voice chimed musically in the otherwise silent square. “The gates opened at my command; as instructed, the guards there are as devoted as you. Rise, and await my bidding.”

“Yes, Ligatrix! I obey!” the captain replied.

She rose quickly to her feet and turned to stand at the mounted woman’s side. Her eyes were wide, fanatically so, and stared at her former friends without shame or regret.

“Lady Mayor,” the woman proclaimed, her voice like soft-struck chimes. “This town is now under the direct control of my Queen. You need have no fear. This cohort is here to refit and prepare for action elsewhere. My Queen is solicitous of Her citizenry. Government shall continue as before; you shall remain Lady Mayor. I will serve Her, and you, as Ligatrix. During the stay of the cohort within your town, I personally shall advise you of such temporary measures as may be necessary to ensure the maximum of harmony.”

Katryn was surprised to find herself nodding. Yes, yes. What the woman said sounded so reasonable...

“Our Queen is solicitous of Her subjects’ welfare; none shall be harmed if they give no cause. All that is required is that you do as you are bid. Obey, and you will discover that Her rule is blissful and without trouble.”

All they had to do was obey, and there would be no trouble. The musical voice of the Ligatrix was so pretty, and so forthright.

Katryn glanced at Captain Vryl, who stood quiveringly at attention at this terrifying stranger’s heel, and came back to herself with a cold rush of fear. The town guards subverted. The Marktplat full of terrifying and scandalous strangers, slaves of the dark queen, here to...

The Dark Queen!

She had returned!

Sauriann was taking over Freyviik!

1.1

Copper was the reason for Freyviik. Copper, and the triumph of cupidity over fear.

The town clung to the side of the Dol Zhuldur mountains, flush against the border of Surdor. The veins of metal men had found there were rich enough to justify this foolishness, though the town was careful to never trespass into what the Dark Queen once claimed as Her own. Careful to never venture across the peaks and find what wealth, or what terror, lay beyond. Sauriann had been gone many ages of men, but dark creatures still dwelt in Surdor, awaiting, it was said, Her return. It was yet a place no man dared go.

But on the far side of the mountains from Her former realm men did venture, and dare to dwell and do business, and grow wealthy on copper and brass and bronze. Bells and statuary, ceremonial doors and roof cladding, cutlery and coinage and weaponry and pins. Freyviik grew prosperous and felt secure, even beneath the smokes of Surdor.

For twelve times twelve years it had been thus. Ever since the founders dared lay their cornerstones so near Her domain.

Rumors of Her return came, and went, and had never proven true. Yet... within the year, the watchtowers Freyviik kept in the mountains had burned down, or the men within them had been slain and the towers abandoned. Survivors spoke of new smokes and the glow of eldritch fire, from deep within the black plains to the north.

None had believed. None had wanted to believe.

Katryn suppressed a shiver as the columns resumed their march. The great hall of the Raedhaus would be theirs, would be where the eerie troop of silent grey women would encamp themselves and take stock. The Ligatrix had dismounted, and gone with the Lady Mayor and the councilors to inform them what terms and what tribute Freyviik’s new Queen would demand. The Ligatrix’s melodic voice still drifted soothingly up to the window where the girls lay; before she disappeared from view, Katryn thought she saw the Lady Mayor smile.

She shivered again.

The boots clicked on the cobbles, a tramp of perfect unison, but now there came new sounds as carts entered the Marktplat, large wagons on thin wheels tall as a man. Katryn’s eyes widened as the wagons came into view.

The wagons were being drawn by women.

Their thighs, huge strong things, glistened with sweat as they pumped in unison, six women to each wagon. They stared blankly forward, their arms crossed before them and lashed to cross-pieces which they pushed forward. Sweat covered them and ran down their nude torsos into the black boots which covered them to the thigh.

The grey women had passed from view; the flesh-colored ones were following them off the square, towards the Raedhaus and its great meeting hall. Katryn and Anyet and Lizbet watched the wagons and their straining female engines roll by. The wagons were heaped high but covered, and Katryn wondered what they contained.

A sixth wagon was the last; behind came a final rider, a woman tall and dressed in black leather, in the same scoop-fronted style as the women who had introduced and flanked the Ligatrix. Unlike the army before her, the rider rode slowly and looked around. The mere act of examining the Marktplat was so human, so normal, that it seemed like a great surprising thing to Katryn, and she watched the woman as she followed the wagons from the square, even as Anyet and Lizbet had pulled back to stare at each other and speak in fearful whispers.

“What.. what are they going to do? Why are they here?”

“Captain Vryn... she must have let them in. Opened the West Gate. But she... but she’s... she couldn’t have!”

“You saw her—saw her... kneel...”

“They said they were just here for a little while—maybe they’ll leave soon.”

“But the Dark Queen is taking over the city! What will she do?”

Questions without answers, tumbling out. Katryn remained at the window, watching...

The woman looked at her.

From across the square, just before she rode from sight, the woman turned and looked up beneath the eave of the tall town house, directly at Katryn.

She smiled.

Then she was gone.

Katryn stared.

Her friends were still... not arguing, just babbling.

“They were all naked. In the cold!”

“Did you see their eyes?”

“And those wagons—what are they bringing?”

Katryn still looked out the window, but her low voice stilled them both. “I don’t think,” she said slowly, “I don’t think we’re safe. If Sauriann is back, if she really is claiming the town—”

“Girls!” Anyet’s mother’s voice echoed up the ladder into the attic. “Come down here right now!”

1.2

Katryn pushed her soup around the bowl with her spoon.

The dinner table was subdued. Katryn, her mother Marie and her brother Erzo sat in silence. At her father’s place, a metal lid kept his meal warm.

He had gone to the Raedhaus for instruction. All heads of household had.

A noise at the door, and the table went still. Relief as it opened to reveal Katryn’s father. Worry was clear on his face, but he smiled at them. In his hand was a small bundle of papers, which he laid on the table next to him as he sat down.

“There is a curfew,” he said, as he lifted the lid from his plate. Steam curled up from beneath and he set it aside. “No one is to be about after dark.”

He took up his utensils and began to eat.

“Is that all?” Marie asked.

He nodded. “For now. There will be more.”

“Is... She... really taking over the city?”

Stefan gave his wife a grim look. “It certainly appears that way. There is little we can do against a full company of Olithoi, not now that they are inside the walls. And with the captain gone over...” he shook his head.

“But the militia number a thousand! There are not so many of them.”

“They are Olithoi, Marie. We cannot fight them.”

“What’s an All Thoy?” Erzo asked.

Stefan smiled at his son. “A warrior who cannot be killed, for she has given her life to Sauriann. Stab them and they do not bleed. Cut them and they do not notice. A troop of men might bring one down, cutting her to pieces, but a full company of them? And we are not warriors.”

“They’re funny colored,” Erzo observed. “And they’re naked.”

Katryn’s father smiled but did not reply, and returned to his soup.

“Did the Captain really open the gate to them?” Katryn asked.

He nodded. “She did.”

“Why?”

“She is in the dark queen’s power, Katryn. Our neighbor commands great sorceries, and can seduce men and women to her service.”

“But... but she’s Captain Vryl. She wouldn’t do that.”

“She would not have, no. But her mind has been clouded, Katryn. There is nothing she would not do for her... for Her, now.”

He finished his soup and turned to his meat. Katryn realized that she had stopped eating, and turned her attention back to her own plate.

“What will we do, Stefan?” her mother asked.

He frowned. “We will leave,” he replied. “As soon as it seems safe to do so. The Mayor has ordered the gates closed at the Ligatrix’ instruction. But I will find us a way from the town, and a time when no eyes will be watching. Then we will leave.”

“Leave? But they would see us.”

“Marie.” Stefan laid his hands on the table. “We will not take a wagon. We will not take the road. We will carry what we can and we will flee. To linger here is dangerous.”

“But... our house. Our business.”

Stefan’s eyes were grim. “Belong to Her, now. We will take what we can carry and flee, Marie. Freyviik is no longer free.”

2.1

There was no talk at the schul the next day but of the invaders. Katryn, Anyet, and Lizbet had seen them better than anyone else, and thus had momentary spotlights as curious and worried girls surrounded them.

Telling her tale for the two dozenth time, Katryn realized it almost sounded banal. Yes, yesterday afternoon the army of the Dark Queen invaded and took control of their town; a frightening host of zombie women, bound and animated by sorcery. Naked—that fact seemed the most incredible, and many girls would not believe it. Others did. But today the sun was up and the girls were all in schul—and the boys in theirs—and that cold fear which had gripped Katryn the night before had weakened its grip.

Schul lasted through fifth bell—and the bells rang in their time, as they had the day before and the day before that—and then Katryn, Lizbet, Anyet, and a fourth friend, Rakael, were at liberty to return home. In poorer households, they would have gone straightaway to chores, or to work, but their families were old Freyviik and all had servants, except Rakael’s, and she had done her chores yesterday.

“Wish I had been with you to see them,” she complained for the thousandth time, as they walked up one of the winding back streets.

“You’ll see them soon enough. They haven’t left,” Anyet replied.

“Could we go to the Raedhaus?” Rakael asked.

The other three looked at each other.

“No,” Lizbet answered finally. “Not today.”

When the summer came, it had been the plan for Katryn and Anyet to travel; to spend a schul session afar, in cities of the Southern coast where their fathers knew other merchant families who would take them in; to Perelan where Anyet’s mother was from, a great coastal city where Katryn’s uncles and aunts and cousins dwelled. Perhaps the girls would find husbands on their trip and not return—for Freyviik was small and though many of their schulmates would marry local boys they knew, to a merchant a marriageable daughter meant a commercial contact, and the more auspiciously placed for business, the better.

Lizbet, the wisest of them, had found a place at Nhalmea, the great Academy many leagues north; she would journey there in late summer, the first Freyviik girl to tread those halls in nine years. The pride the town felt at her acceptance was second only to that of her glowing parents.

Of course, all this was now thrown into chaos.

Katryn thought again of her father, the night before—would they really leave? Leave everything, the wealth they had built, the home they knew? All their friends? In this day’s light of normality, that seemed so drastic, almost foolish.

The Ligatrix had stated that her company was here only a short while. Surely, when they left, life would return to normal? Sauriann might tax them, might demand weapons or goods, but-

The four girls turned the corner to the Marktplat, on the way to Anyet’s home. Anyet, in front, stopped dead; they all did.

The square, usually a nexus of activity and life, was empty, cleared, except for the women at work in its center.

Sauriann’s women. Thralls.

Six of the draythralls stood, chests heaving, arms lashed to the crosspieces of the wagon they pulled. At the rear of the wagon, another four women, nude, bald, booted, lowered something large and black down to the cobbles of the square. Around these workers were another four women, grey-skinned, clad in black straps, weapons sheathed but oh-so prominent.

And, supervising, was one of the women in glossy black leather, so smooth that Katryn could not see the seams. Her stomach was hard where the long tongue of flesh reached down her middle, and in her navel something glinted ruby red.

The reassurance of the day at schul melted swiftly away.

The four of them were not the only watchers; other girls, boys from the boys’ schul, merchants who would normally be selling from open stalls. All watched in silence as the laboring women stood the black stone erect.

It was smooth, though not regular, tall as a standing man. Like a piece of stone washed in a river for centuries, it had smooth shoulders and rounded bumps; it did not look like a person, only like a glossy black stone.

The thralls stepped aside. The woman in the black suit moved forward, circling the stone, her face betraying no thought, her eyes roaming over its slick surface. Then, a small smile.

She leaned forward and licked it.

A tone, like a chime, like the Ligatrix’ voice. But it faded quickly, dwindling without moving away, and then Katryn could no longer hear it at all.

The leader snapped her fingers, a sound which echoed in the still square, and walked away. Behind her, the Olithoi pivoted as one, and stepped crisply; the thralls fell in behind them, and then the draythralls. The small procession, an exact echo of the night before, left the square in perfect step, their boots clicking against the cobbles.

Once they were gone, the townsfolk remembered to breathe.

“What is it?” Rakael whispered, staring at the strange monolith.

The other girls just shook their heads.

They were careful to skirt around the very edge of the square as they went to Anyet’s house.

2.2

Father was home early; although he often worked into the evening, the curfew was set strictly at nightfall.

Dinner was quiet again. Somehow the usual relation of the day’s events, what had happened at work or schul, who had come calling or what gossip they had told, all seemed no longer important enough to merit discussion.

After dinner, her parents put Erzo to bed. Katryn and her parents retired to the study to read. The sconces and the candles were amplified by mirror-polished brass, giving the room a soft glow that had always made Katryn feel reassured. Even tonight the warm glow worked its magic. She read one of the scrolls her mother had brought from Perelan, a tale she had read before, of a sorceress and a tower and the princess who escaped from there...

There was a loud rapping at the door.

Her father rose to answer it, candle in hand. Katryn’s mother followed him, stopping in an interior doorway to watch. Katryn peered around from behind her.

Stefan peered through the slot, then drew back the bolts and pushed the door open; an eerie greenish glow stole into the foyer.

One of Sauriann’s thralls stood outside, coldly naked in the light of a glowing stick she held aloft. Her eyes... her eyes were devoid of color, glittering marbles in an expressionless face. In daylight they would have been white and her skin some dusky hue; in the eldritch light of the torch she held, her eyes were a jade green, her skin a serpentine dark. Her lack of hair was as startling as her complete nudity.

“You are Stefan Marczorik,” the thrall said flatly. After a pause, Katryn realized it was a question.

“I am, Stefan replied.

Katryn realized that the cold woman outside the door was not alone. Several other stiff figures stood behind her, and the icy thought that they had come to take her father away spiked through her.

“You are to quarter my Mistress’ troops, Stefan Marczorik. Step aside.”

He hesitated, then stepped back into the foyer.

With the click of boots, two women came past the thrall at the door and into the house. Another of the nude thralls, her eyes as pure white as the woman at the door, her head as bald, but her skin was peach rather than brown. Behind her entered one of the grey-skinned Olithoi, her eyes the same blank orbs but her skin slate grey, and the reddish hair on her head was slicked tight against her skull.

“I... how long will you, they...” her father stammered.

But the woman at the door pivoted and walked away. Katryn could see other figures in the street beyond her, skin dully reflecting the watery moonlight. They moved as a slow mass further down the street; opposite their house, another nude figure held a green torch in front of an open door.

The women in the foyer stood motionless, hands at their sides, heads high, staring blankly at the staircase. In the orange light of her mother’s candle, they almost looked alive, save that of the two only the thrall’s chest rose and fell with breath.

Her father reached out to close the door, but just as it came to, fingers shot between the door and the frame and halted it, then drew it back open.

“I also, Stefan Marczorik,” a musical voice said from the darkness.

It was the last of the women in black, the one Katryn had seen the day before, the one who had seen her where she lay in the attic.

She was of average height, shorter than Katryn’s mother; her hair was long and brown, tied back with a single knot to hang like a horse’s tail. Her eyes were a strange, deep-sea blue. Her torso, nude from breast to breast and from mons to collar, was a deeply tanned nut brown.

She stepped into the foyer, looked at Katryn, and smiled.

3.1

Yesterday’s illusory normality was gone from the schul.

The Ligatrix’ women had been quartered all over town. Not in every house, nor solely in the best and largest. Rakael lived with her father alone in the low quarter, he a servant only, yet they had a thrall now under their roof. Katryn’s and Lizbet’s family each quartered three; Anyet’s large house had been asked to hold none.

There had also been violence.

At the VerDeer home, the father had refused to keep a thrall under his roof. From what the neighbors could tell, he had been immediately slain. No one knew where his wife and children were now.

Their home stood empty.

No one could focus on the lessons. Whispers and notes about the invaders, whose homes they were in, what they looked like and what they did—which so far appeared to be nothing, not even to eat—were all that the students concentrated on.

“Their eyes are so creepy.”

“And their skin, especially the grey ones.”

“My matti says they’re called Alli-thoy.”

“The other ones have weird skin too, all waxy and... and smooth.”

“And naked!”

“My father won’t let us see them; we have to stay upstairs.”

“Mine too.”

“I touched ours.”

That last brought a storm of condemnation and curiosity. But apparently, the thrall in question had shown not the least notice of the surreptitious touch, and the girl had run off afterward.

“Katryn has one of the ones in clothes at her house,” Anyet observed. Katryn had kept quiet, but as the herd attention turned on her she had to admit that, yes, she did, although her father and mother had sent her straight upstairs and she didn’t know anything about the rare invader who still spoke like a woman.

She didn’t mention the glance they had shared.

“The one in our house has dark skin, like those people in the picture books,” a different girl said, and the hushed gossip continued.

3.2

3.3

Katryn hurried along the empty street. There had been an Olithoi at the last intersection, and despite the blank white eyes and rigid, straight-ahead stare, Katryn knew that it—she—had seen Katryn and paid attention to her the entire time she was in view.

Curfew was minutes away; the sun was a glimmering sliver, sinking behind Mount Gorvyl. Katryn broke into a run, the clopping of her feet echoing down the street. Anyet had not wanted her friends to leave, not after the frightening behavior of her father. Only at the last minute had Katryn been able to leave her and go home.

The door to the house was unlocked and Katryn pulled it open and darted inside.

“Matti?” she called. The dining room was dark, but there was light down the hall, in the study. Katryn slipped out of her shoes, hung her coat on a peg, and went down the hall to where the orange glow spilled out on the carpet.

“Matti, I—”

“Your mother is not here,” said the woman in black leather, lounging on the long sofa. “She and your father have gone to the meeting, as they were instructed.”

She lay on the sofa, feet on one armrest, head on the other. Her leather... leather suit was skin-tight, hiding nothing. One strong, wiry arm trailed on the floor, the other was flung above her head to hang over the sofa’s edge.

Katryn’s eyes flicked around the room, then away to the stairs.

“Your sibling is upstairs,” the woman purred. “Do not worry, Katryn, your parents will return soon. Come in. Talk with me.”

Part of Katryn wanted very much not to do just that, wanted to run upstairs and shut the door of her room and pull her chest of drawers across in front of it.

She did not.

Gingerly, Katryn walked into the study, sat down in the upholstered wooden chair with the brass tacking and the feet carved into dragon claws.

“Very good, Katryn,” the woman said, and shifted from her reclining position to sitting upright. Muscles in her stomach flexed as she moved, and Katryn’s glance flicked to the nude skin only just above her sex then looked away, to the glass-covered lamp. She looked back at the woman’s face, and found the woman staring intently at her. Her strange blue eyes considered Katryn, held Katryn’s gaze in her own, but although Katryn’s imagination had those deep blue eyes sucking her into some mesmeric spell, they simply stared at her, then slid aside.

“What do you want to talk about?” Katryn asked, amazed at her own boldness.

“Us,” the woman said offhandedly. “You and I. I thought perhaps you would like to ask questions. You may, if you like.”

“Um. Why are you here?”

The woman smiled, a small smile, the same smile Katryn had seen her use that first day when she saw Katryn under the eaves. “Why am I here? That is lots of questions, you know, far more than one.” She stretched on the sofa, reaching to either side, curling her fingers into her hands, then flicking them out. “I shall answer three of them.”

“One: I am here in Freyviik because my Queen instructed me to come here. But that’s not the question you meant, nor the answer you sought. Two: my cohort and I, we who obey the Ligatrix, we are here because my Queen has decided to use the resources of your town, resources She has carefully allowed to accrete for many years. She has decided that now the time has come to use these resources. To what end, I do not know, and it is not necessary that I know. I need only obey. But She has instructed us to come here and given us the knowledge of what we will do, and that is all that slaves require.”

The woman stared at Katryn throughout her answer. Katryn shifted in her seat—the woman’s attention, even if not overtly bewitching, was intense.

“And three: I am here in your house, Katryn, because I am interested in you.”

Katryn’s mouth was dry. “Me?”

“Yes. You.”

She swallowed. “What do you—what do you want to do to me?”

The woman’s eyes were bottomless. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. Not yet. What would you like me to do to you?”

The question prompted answers in the back of Katryn’s head, answers that startled her and that she would not give.

“I won’t...” Katryn trailed off. What could she say? That she would resist? Fight? That her father would stop the woman from doing anything her? None of those things were true.

“What is your name?” Katryn suddenly asked.

The woman paused. “My name is Sharrul.”

“Why are you doing this, Sharrul? Why are you here?”

“I? Because I obey, Katryn. Do not think that I am somehow different then the Somoi or the Olithoi standing mindlessly in your larder. I am a Courser, a hunter for my Queen. The bonds in my mind are as strong as they are in all of Her slaves; nor do I ever desire to resist them. They are not just in my mind, they are my mind, the very core of my mind. I am nothing else but obedience. That, is why I am here. Because She commands and I obey.”

Sharrul’s eyes had gone distant, her face relaxed. She stared past Katryn, seemingly forgetting that Katryn was there.

No longer held by Sharrul’s eyes, Katryn could not help but look at the rest of her, her tight curves and shameless, erotic clothing. Katryn wanted to touch her, to feel her body, the small voice that had secretly answered Sharrul’s question about Katryn’s wants growing louder, more certain in its perverse desires.

Katryn pushed it down. “When are you going to leave?”

The distant look that had come over Sharrul while she was speaking of obedience lifted, and she smiled her small smile once more.

“Do not worry, Katryn. We will not be here for long.” Her head cocked and she looked away down the hallway. “Hm. I believe I hear your parents returning.”

Katryn went still, listening. For a long moment, there was nothing, then the opening of the door.

She heard her mother going upstairs, checking on Erzo, but her father came right to the light of the study, and, just as Katryn had been, he too was startled by the leather-clad woman seated on the sofa. When he saw Katryn sitting opposite her, his face creased in worry, and Katryn found herself reassuring him without thinking about it.

“I’m fine, Patti. We were just talking.”

“Indeed,” Sharrul said, and they both looked at her, Katryn with sudden worry: the chime, the distant music, was suddenly present in her voice as it had not been a moment ago. “There is no reason to worry,” she told Katryn’s father as she stood up. “We were, in fact, merely talking.”

Stefan nodded slowly. “Talking. Yes. Do you... is there something I can do for you now?”

The Courser shook her head. “No, thank you, Stefan. I have tasks to attend to. My orders have me abroad at night. Leave your door unlocked.”

“Yes,” he replied, his head turning to follow her as she walked past him and away down the hall.

“Patti?” Katryn asked. After a moment, he ceased watching the departing Courser and turned to face Katryn. His smile was tired but very real.

“Patti, where were you? Where did you go?”

Stefan walked into the study, made as if to sit on the sofa, then changed his mind and walked instead to his reading chair, which he sank down in heavily. “We were at the Raedhaus. The Ligatrix and the Lady Mayor are issuing a proclamation tomorrow, and they... and those of us who would have been disinclined to obey it, or even to question it, they wanted to tell us first.”

“What is it?”

He sighed. “I’m going to have to work in the forge, Katryn. All the men are. The Ligatrix wants weapons and armor and she wants them now.”

Katryn stared at him. “But you’re a merchant. You don’t know how to make a sword.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. All the men are to work in the forges, all day and possibly part of the night. Until the quota is reached.”

“No, Patti. Don’t go.”

“Ah, my Katryn. I must go; how would they not know if I did not. But it will pass, Katryn. Even if the quota we must fill is a lie, there is only so much metal in the warehouses, and so much coming from the ground. And the Ligatrix is honest, I think, in her eagerness to be gone from here and fighting her Queen’s enemies. This will pass, Katryn. We must only survive it.”

Katryn stared at her father. His words were so different now than the night before...

He leaned forward, and flicked his eyes at the study’s entrance. “Soon,” he said in a low voice. “Soon.”

4.1

Schul was subdued.

Everyone’s father was at the foundry. So were older brothers—the boys’ schul was half empty. Every able bodied male, save those already at work in the mines, was learning first-hand how to smelt and hammer, or work a bellows. Half of them were constructing new workspaces, re-placing anvils that had been set aside, repairing gear discarded as broken.

The worry they all felt was ameliorated somewhat by the sudden appearance of a deadline. The new moon, the dark of Aluun. Word had somehow spread that the Ligatrix would take her army away the day after Aluun was gone from the sky; less than two weeks away. There was no confirmation, no posted proclamations or first-hand knowledge, but it seemed to match with other rumors, at least those which were not too wild to simply discount.

Katryn could sense the truth of it.

Aluun, the Moon of the White Sands, the Huntress moon. Chasing her sister Resh’ta, the Bloodmoon, forever across the skies. A town of miners and those whose livelihoods came from the earth had little use for astrology, astronomy. They followed deeper spirits, whose favor brought wealth and discovery, whose displeasure brought collapse and knockings in the deeps.

But now, the night heaven was suddenly of importance to all.

Once again, little from their texts—aside, perhaps, from celestial orbits—was actually learned. What use arithmetic, what use rhetoric, what use preparing for the future when tomorrow was so uncertain? Even the instructors seemed disinterested.

After schul they went to Lizbet’s house. There were two of the Somoi there, but like the thralls in Katryn’s house they only stood in a small room, and waited. Sometimes another slave would come and activate them, and they would leave together, returning later, although this had not happened with the ones quartered in either Katryn’s or Lizbet’s homes. Rakael had told them about it, and others besides.

The stone in the Marktplat... Although Anyet’s house was not occupied, the stone’s strange attraction, the presence of it that pushed out thought and sat in the mind as the stone itself sat in the square, that was enough to rule out their returning there, at least today. Anyet herself seemed disinclined to go home, although she said that her father was fine.

Lizbet’s house was near the west gate, the gate that faced the road to Surdor. It had long been a quiet, well-to-do neighborhood; the gate opened only to let mine workers in and out. Now... but the pall there was no greater than anywhere else in Freyviik. The town held its breath and waited to see what else the invaders within it would do.

The girls went to the garden, in the small yard behind the house, and talked listlessly, discussing the rumors from schul and speculating on the work at the forge. Tomorrow, perhaps, they would go and see, would walk down to the south gate and look out upon the metalworks that flanked the town’s southern wall, or perhaps they could convince a militiaman to let them up onto the south wall from where they could see better.

Katryn thought of Captain Vryl and wondered if that would be a good idea.

They would not go today, though curfew was an hour yet, because the clouds were thickening, boiling black masses pressing in from the mountains, rolling down toward the town. Lightning flashes were visible already on the higher slopes.

They went inside.

Lizbet sat with Rakael and helped her with her fluxions, the complicated mathematics that only Lizbet seemed to truly understand. Anyet and Katryn sat in the window seat and talked quietly, watching the occasional passerby. Lizbet’s mother brought them all tea. It grew dark rapidly as the clouds arrived, but no rain fell.

“Look,” Anyet said suddenly, stabbing at the window. Katryn turned.

Captain Vryl was walking stiffly down the street, flanked on one side by two guardswomen and on the other by a pair of the grey-skinned, white-eyed Olithoi.

All of their steps were perfectly synchronized.

They passed the window where Katryn and Anyet sat. The other girls had not heard Anyet’s imperative, but they sensed the sudden silence and joined them in the window. Rakael gasped. Lizbet’s mother clasped her hands and stood behind them, watching.

The gate itself was only four houses from Lizbet’s house, and from where they sat the girls could see it clearly. The small procession came to a stop facing the gate. The captain signaled, and the two guardswomen—of all the town militia, only a bare handful were women, Katryn recalled—walked from behind her. One of the swung the small postern gate closed; the other began to unlock the chains that raised the portcullis.

The captain signaled with her other hand, and the Olithoi strode over to the winch, gripped the poles, and began to walk. The gate closed and the locks undone, both guardswomen joined them. In a trice, all four were pushing their way around the capstan.

The portcullis rose.

There was a flash of lightning and an immediate roll of thunder, and the girls all jumped.

Beyond the rising gate, shapes appeared.

The captain walked to where the other four had finished turning the capstan and the guardswoman was locking the risen portcullis. Captain Vryl pivoted and stood at attention. The others flanked her again.

Sweating and panting, naked women in thigh-high black boots dragged the first wagon in through the gate. Their eyes were glazed over and staring, their steps in perfect if labored unison.

Instead of the covered mound of cargo the other wagons had borne, this wagon held passengers. Nine hooded figures, their features invisible within their black cowls, stood within. They swayed but did not otherwise move as the wagon rolled into the town and drew even with the Captain and her charges.

The wagon stopped.

Captain Vryl stepped forward to the rear of the wagon. She swiftly threw the bolts on each side of the rear gate, and lowered it.

Then she got down upon her hands and knees.

The rearmost of the hooded figures turned, and extended a naked and female foot down, stepping onto Captain Vryl’s back. She stepped down with her other foot, then stepped down from the captain onto the cobblestone streets. The delicate feet disappeared again within the folds of the flowing robe.

Without haste, the other eight figures disembarked as well.

The women in the window watched in silence.

The robed women gathered again on the street, and faced the captain as she rose. A female hand extended from the first robe, gesturing. The captain replied to words that the girls in the window could not hear, then pivoted and returned to her place at the side of the road.

The robed figures—all nine with bare, female feet, their skin not all the same color but their robes all darkest black—walked around in front of the stopped wagon. They gathered again behind the leader, forming a diamond shape, and then began to slowly walk into the town, in the direction of the Marktplat, the Raedhaus and the great hall. And Anyet’s house.

As they passed Lizbet’s house and the staring girls, there was another flash of lightning and thunder that rattled the windows.

During the flash, the lead woman must have thrown back her hood. Her head was bare now, her hair long and black, her skin a waxy gold. Her almond-shaped eyes...

..her eyes..

...looking at them...

...eyes...

...were glowing green, Katryn finally managed to think, as the woman turned her head and continued down the road.

The wagons began to move again, the legs of the draythralls flexing beneath taut and glistening stomachs, their arms lashed to the crossbars they toiled behind. Six women pulled each wagon, and there were six of those; the remaining five held only covered loads.

4.2

Katryn was sleeping fitfully, sliding between strange dark dreams and dim awareness of the black interior of her room. The white moon outside was waning, would soon be gone, and then the slaves of Sauriann would leave Freyviik.

“I have come for you,” came a soft voice, a musical voice, and it took Katryn a moment to realize that Sharrul’s voice was in her dreams and not in her darkened room. In her dream, Katryn was on an empty heath, her night dress tossed by a fickle warm wind.

“Come to me,” came the whisper, and dream-Katryn turned, and turned, seeking the source of the voice; the moons were rushing, sinking, diving for the Earth like kingfishers for a pond, trailing stars, and then it was dark, black, the sky empty and the low bushes near Katryn nigh-invisible in the inky blackness...

But it was not black, it was... green, watery green, like the bottom of some exotic glass cup from Perelan, by the sea. Katryn could see again, see better, could make out the branches of the bushes and the blades of grass under her feet, all in shifting marine hues, she could see...

Could see Sharrul rising before her, hands entwined over her head, head bowed, rising from the wet earth, her skin wet and black and glistening, a long tongue of lighter flesh running from her face down between her black breasts, across her navel, to her smooth mons...

Sharrul’s head rose, and her eyes snapped open; they were green, not glowing like the Defilers’ (where did that name come from?) but green-irised, illuminated by some inner fire. They seemed feline, bestial, and they pulled at Katryn’s soul...

“Come to me,” Sharrul said, and Katryn watched her full lips shape the words, and found herself stepping forward...

There was a hissing, and a hand on her shoulder. Katryn put her own hand on the other hand to dislodge it, so that she could approach Sharrul, but as she touched it she realized that the hand was not from her dream and she was not on the heath but was back in her little bedchamber in Freyviik, and she rolled over and looked up at her father.

“Katryn,” he said almost inaudibly. “No words. We go.”

4.3

They left Freyviik to the east, slithering down from the wall by a rope. Stefan held his pack in one hand as he dropped, the last of their little band, and his compatriot on the wall pulled the rope back up.

He gestured, and they scurried down the hill into a small gulley. Stefan, Marie, Katryn, and Erzo; also a young couple, Tanni and his wife Margit. Escaping the town all of them called home.

Furtively, they stole down the hillside away from town, staying low, keeping the children quiet. Erzo had understood the need for silence and, even when he fell and skinned his knee, did not cry out.

None were woodsmen, nor even farmers, but if anyone was on the walls and saw them, there was no outcry, nor reason to search for them before morning—if even then. Katryn had told no one they were leaving and she knew that her father and mother had neither, and if they trusted Tanni and Margit, so could she.

It would be a hard week’s travel on foot to the outskirts of Huldir, the next tiny principality that dared stand so close to Surdor, but there was food enough in their packs. The storm that had come with the robed women (“Defilers,” memory whispered) had brought no rain, only lightning, and the ground was firm and not overly treacherous.

From Huldir they could purchase horses, with her father’s credit or with the silver they had brought-

A roar tore the night, a bestial cry that froze Katryn’s blood.

It was no wolf, no creature that lived here...

“Hurry,” Stefan hissed.

They ran, or jogged, as fast as the moonlight allowed. Ahead was the woods, thin here where the townsmen took their fuel, thicker the farther from Freyviik one went.

There was a second roar, and a third which answered it; all were behind them, in the direction of the town.

Stefan gestured at the road that led east, winding along the forest’s edge, and Tanni shook his head violently.

“No,” Tanni said, “on the road they will find us easily. We must take to the woods.”

“What hunts us now rides no horse!” Stefan insisted. “Distance is our only hope.”

They passed under a few large trees and then were on the road, their feet on the hard-packed earth raising dust visible even in the moonlight. Without pausing, Stefan set off at a brisk pace down the road, east, away from town.

His family followed him without question. Tanni paused, hesitated, and then he and Margit came running after.

There was another roar, and closer.

Katryn’s breath came hard in her chest, and Erzo was gasping, but Stefan kept moving and they could only follow. There were trees on either side, but not thick, and the road was clear in the moonlight-

Something darted past them on the left.

Katryn did not shriek. Her hands found the long knife at her belt.

There was another great roar behind them, a deep bass sound ripping its way from some monstrous throat, and Marie sobbed.

Stefan stopped, turned, waited for them to catch up-

A figure stepped out of the woods and walked up behind him; he had not seen. All the rest of them froze. Stefan saw their eyes, their fear.

Slowly, Stefan turned around.

“I hate killing children,” Sharrul said, her mouth full of fangs.