The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“The Loosing of the Dark”

(mc, f/f, nc)

DISCLAIMER: This material is for adults only; it contains explicit sexual imagery and non-consensual relationships. If you are offended by this type of material or you are under legal age in your area, do NOT continue.

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‘The Loosing of the Dark’

Part Three

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8.

The wind blew hot and cold up over the southern wall.

Cold, when it came from the sky, blowing over Freyviik from the wintry steppes to the south and west. Hot, when that same wind blew along the ground and then through the forges, among the sweating, hammering, steaming men and the molten metal they worked and pounded. The wind blew amongst them, then hit the wall and could go nowhere but up, bringing with it the stink of the men and the smoke of their fires, up to where Katryn stood watching them.

She had not seen her father.

Tanni, the young man who had attempted escape with them, came stumbling out from under a workshop awning. He was brawling, punching and gouging at another man, both of them dressed in little more than rags and grime. At times, half of the forgecamp seemed to be fighting with each other.

Katryn watched as Tanni rolled on the ground, dodging kicks, then seized a leg and upset his opponent. Quickly, he was on top, pinning the man, twisting his arm back savagely and emitting a howl of triumph.

Then a fumbling down below, and a sharp grunt, and Tanni began to pump his hips up and down, taking the man below him, rutting into him with fierce triumph. The man howled, and Tanni howled, and their voices sounded alike.

Katryn looked away.

By now she almost wished not to see her father. This was the eighth rough coupling she had witnessed in the forgecamp, men fighting and clawing and the victor then dominating the loser in the most intimate way. Before the army had arrived, Katryn had heard only sneering, giggling rumors of such behavior, of men doing such things to each other. Now in the camp below her it was ubiquitous.

Beast-men. Lesser men. Lower than they had been before...

Before...

Her life before, her memories, were there, were clear, but somehow a veil had been drawn between her and the girl she had been.

Sauriann’s will. Come down over Freyviik and down over Katryn’s mind.

The wind twitched and blew downward for a moment, from the sky, cool and clean.

“Katryn.”

She turned and found Lizbet standing on the wall. She too was bundled against the cold.

“Hello, Lizbet.”

“Katryn, I need your help.”

Katryn sighed. “What is there to do?”

Lizbet frowned. “I don’t know, Katryn. We cannot run. We cannot hide. We cannot resist. But I will not let my last moments of freedom simply slip away doing nothing.”

The wind blew hot again, stinking of flesh and metal, and bearing the sharp grunts of fornicating men.

“What, then?” Katryn asked.

“I want to go to the Raedhaus.”

“The Raedhaus? But why?”

Lizbet clenched her fists. “Because that is the center of their power. Because that is where they take their captives. Because if I am to do anything, if there is anything to be done, that is where it will be.”

“But what can we possibly do?”

The plural was not lost on Lizbet, and she smiled. “Katti—I don’t know. Perhaps nothing. But... isn’t it true that Sauriann works through foci? In the old sagas, sometimes, men would break the items of her enchantment and thereby break her power. Maybe... maybe there’s something in the Raedhaus, something that came in one of those wagons. Something that we could destroy.”

“Like that black stone?”

Lizbet looked fearful. “Yes. Only... only something we can destroy.”

Katryn stared at her friend for a long moment. “You deserved to go to Nhalmea, Lizbet. I only wish that you could have.”

Lizbet smiled wanly. “Will you help me?”

Katryn stared down at the forge camp again, then chuckled. “Oh, certainly. Why, all we have to do is to get past a small army of undead warrior-women, Defilers, our own enslaved town guard, maybe Anyet and her parents, and then find a magical trinket that may or may not exist and destroy it, somehow, without being ensorcelled by it first. Sure, count me in.”

Lizbet blinked, then began to laugh as well, and then she was hugging Katryn, holding her, and the two of them were laughing together as the tears came and the wind blew hot and cold.

After a while, they climbed down from the wall and walked towards the Raedhaus.

* * *

8.1

The Raedhaus was not the oldest building in Freyviik, but it was the oldest building constructed of stone. Miners are not masons, and for their government the councilmen had hired stonecutters and masons and decorative artisans from around the Southern Sea, at great expense—both for their talent and for convincing them to work on the very doorstep of Surdor—and created a structure that reflected the town itself, wealthy and tasteful but somehow subdued, as though sober quality rather than grandiose fancy would not draw the attention of Her dread eye.

If that was the thinking, it had obviously failed.

Although most of the Raedhaus was reserved for councilmen and ministers, and off limits to the lesser citizenry, the court of appeal was open to all, and thus in normal times the entry doors were open, flanked by a purely ceremonial guard.

Today the doors were open, and there were no guards at all.

Lizbet and Katryn stood on the far side of the Raedplat, the small square where elections were held and proclamations made, and looked at the building. Smoke came from some chimneys; the many balcony doors were closed. Other than the two of them, the Raedplat was deserted.

They stood at the edge because from the center one could see down the street into the neighboring Marktplat. Neither of them wanted to see the black stone, or who might be standing snared by it.

“Well,” Katryn said, facing the Raedhaus. “There it is. Where inside do you want to go?”

The Raedhaus had many rooms; the court of appeal, the great hall of assembly, the privy council. Many small offices and storage chambers. Katryn had been in more of the rooms than most; her father had twice been a councilman, and when Katryn was small he had shown her the offices where he worked. Artists from Perelan were at that point still finishing the great murals in the privy council and the hall of assembly, and he took her to that hall to watch them as they lay on the scaffolding and delicately applied their brushes.

“I don’t know,” Lizbet said. “Where would they keep... it?”

Katryn shrugged. “They might hide it in one of the basements. They might have it out and on display, in which case it would be in the hall of assembly. Or perhaps they have it in the Lord Mayor’s office. Assuming that it even exists. What will we do if we find it, anyway?”

“We’ll break it, or if we can’t, we’ll pop it in a sack and run.”

There was the soft slap of feet on stone.

Mina, a classmate of theirs, entered the square, coming from the Marktplat. She was naked and smiling vacantly. Katryn and Lizbet watched as her bare feet carried her quickly to up the Raedhaus steps and in through the open doorway.

“Do you know what I am thinking?” Lizbet asked.

“That anything that could do that to Mina will have no trouble subduing us?”

“No. That if we were properly attired we could walk right in and draw no attention.”

“But she wasn’t wearing... oh.”

Lizbet looked at Katryn, then reached down and pulled off her sweater.

Of course, Katryn thought, we might equally be herded right into the room where the naked women go for... for something. But then, that will probably happen anyway.

Katryn began to strip off her clothes.

When they were both completely nude, they piled up their clothes and put them on a deep windowsill. Katryn hoped that no Somoi would come and make off with them before the girls got back.

Not that, in all likelihood, we will be coming back.

A week ago, Katryn would never have dreamed of leaving the house naked, much less parading across the Raedplat. Now she followed an equally naked Lizbet, shivering with the cold, without a stitch on, making directly for the Raedhaus door.

Her friend was pale, dappled with beauty spots, with straw colored hair that she never seemed able to truly tame. When she was hot, or cold, or shamed, she turned a pink color just like the tiny flowers that grew in the schul garden. Katryn had seen Lizbet naked before—sometimes they would go swimming, in summer, in certain deep pools in certain creeks, when no one was looking.

She had never before looked at Lizbet’s nude body with desire. She could not help it now.

They walked up the stairs and through the open doors into the main hall; from it, a pair of great doors on the right led into the hall of assembly, a smaller pair of doors opposite led to the court of appeal, and at the rear of the hall a great staircase led up to the private offices of the government of Freyviik.

Unexpectedly, there were guards flanking both doors.

Lizbet paused, and Katryn stopped behind her. A pair of Olithoi, grey-fleshed and immobile, stood on either side of the room’s two doors, both of which were open.

Lizbet started moving, and Katryn followed. She walked right down the center of the hall to a place between the doors, turned to face the hall of assembly, and walked between the guards.

Katryn stopped where Lizbet had, turned, and gave an involuntary squeak.

The Olithoi on the left was Captain Vryl.

She stood stiffly, staring vacantly at the slave opposite her. Her flesh was a slick slate grey; her eyes were not white, but the brown in them was fading like a painting left in the sun. She wore the Olithoi uniform, black leather boots, black leather straps on thighs and across beneath her breasts. Her breasts were exposed, and her nipples were only a slightly darker grey than the flesh surrounding them. Her hair was slicked tight to her head, glistening, and cut at the base of her skull.

Around her neck was a thick leather collar.

Lizbet was already in the room beyond; neither the Olithoi Vryl or her fellow-guards had noticed Katryn’s reaction. She hurried between Vryl and her matched guard into the great space of the assembly hall.

It was full of boxes. Coffins made of some dark wood covered the floor beneath the high hammer-beam ceiling. For a moment Katryn thought of faerie legends, of vampir and the dead who slept by day. Did the Olithoi sleep in these?

Most were open, some were closed, emerald green gems embedded in their lids. Katryn could see nothing in the open ones but the dark wood of the sides and bottom.

Lizbet had stepped to the side, against the wall and out of sight of the Olithoi. She was breathing heavily.

“That was Captain Vryl,” she whispered.

Katryn nodded. “She’s an Olithoi now.”

“I wonder... I wonder if they plan to do that to the rest of us.”

“Maybe you have to join them willingly,” Katryn replied, and thought instantly of Sharrul. And Sharrul’s body, and how she felt, and tasted, and... she shivered uncontrollably. Lizbet would think it was fear.

Unless she looked between Katryn’s legs.

There was motion at the door and the girls flattened themselves against the wall.

In walked a Somoi, her flesh the tawny gold of a far-off land, her eyes blank white orbs in almond frames. Her taut body was framed between shining black boots and her thick collar, her sex bald as her head.

In behind her came—Mina.

The two of them walked into the room to the nearest of the open coffins. The Somoi turned. Her blank eyes swept across Lizbet and Katryn but she gave no sign of having noticed them. She gestured to the coffin.

Mina stepped into it.

There was a ripple, and Katryn realized that the inside of the coffin was mostly full of some clear fluid; as Mina sat down in it, Katryn could tell that it was the same clear grease her mother was using on the leather she sewed. The same slick grease that glistened in the hair of the Olithoi.

The jelly from the kine of Mount Vhuul, in which obedience was distilled.

Mina lay down and the grease closed over her face. Her eyes were wide open.

The Somoi made a gesture, and Mina opened her mouth; bubbles rushed from it, then she inhaled, her stiff nipples poking just above the surface, a dimple appearing over her mouth where the clear gel poured into her lungs.

An exhale brought a few more bubbles, then Mina breathed in a little more grease.

And stopped. Her tongue probed up, between her lips, and withdrew.

She closed her eyes.

The Somoi lifted the coffin’s lid from where it leaned against the box, and fitted it on top, sealing Mina inside.

A black stone atop the lid slowly came alight, until it was a soft emerald green.

The Somoi came erect and stared at Katryn and Lizbet, standing naked against the wall.

Katryn’s heart hammered.

Then the Somoi turned slightly, and walked out of the room. The girls exhaled in unison.

“They’re not dead,” Lizbet said; it was as much a demand as an analysis.

“No,” Katryn agreed. “They’ve been packed. For shipment.”

They looked at each other.

“The... whatever. The talisman. It. It’s not here. Let’s... keep looking.”

Katryn nodded. “Where?”

“Upstairs.”

There was an archway and a staircase in the corner of the hall; they would not have to pass Captain—Olithoi—Vryl again. Lizbet took the lead and they slipped out through the rear passage. A stair curved upwards.

* * *

8.2

Three stories up, the stair let out onto a long hall with many doors. At the far end of the hall, a second stair rose up, leading to the privy chamber; halfway along the hall’s length, the main staircase from the entrance hall below met the corridor.

They crept down the hall, Katryn once again intensely aware of her own nakedness. Lizbet’s ass ahead showed a pink flush from where she had pressed against the wall in the great hall; her coloring was so different than Katryn’s own, her hair above and below sandy blonde where Katryn’s was dark mahogany, her skin pink and cream where Katryn’s was olive.

Katryn could not help staring at her, wanting her.

A door on the right was open; sudden voices spilled out of it.

“Obey. Yes. Obey. Yes. Obey. Yes. Obey.” A soft but unceasing chant. Lizbet looked at Katryn, then peered around the doorframe. Katryn knelt beside her and stuck her head out below.

A woman—Katryn knew her but did not recall her name—was seated, naked, on a chair. She was chanting, staring into the corner, eyes wide and glassy. Around her walked a black-robed figure: one of the Defilers. She, too, was chanting, but in a language Katryn did not know, her speech seeming to echo as deeper, more wicked meanings within it revealed themselves in the mind a second after the word itself entered the ear.

In her hands, the Defiler held a long black needle; it seemed to drip with a gaseous venom. The Defiler circled the woman in the chair, chanting, whispering dark secrets, drawing the tip of the needle along the woman’s flesh. Circling one breast, ringing her navel, sliding up an arm. Then moving to the head, along the lips, across the face, trailing through the wavy brown hair.

Finally, the defiler stood directly behind the woman. She raised the needle and placed the point on the very top of the woman’s head.

“Now, and forever, you will obey Sauriann. You are a Somoi, a will-less slave. A drone in my Queen’s eternal service. Do you surrender yourself to Her?”

“Yes,” the seated woman replied tonelessly. “I will obey.”

“Then now is when your will forever dies,” the Defiler replied, and pushed the needle downward.

It slid directly down into the woman’s skull; her mouth went wide in a silent cry, her eyes stared and her hands fluttered at her sides.

The Defiler’s hand touched the top of the woman’s head; the needle had been inserted wholly into her brain.

The woman’s hands came to rest. Her mouth slowly closed.

“Slave. Rise, and follow me.”

“Yes, Mistress,” the woman said in a flat tone, and stood.

They turned towards the door.

Lizbet’s hand was already pulling Katryn back from the door, and they darted on bare feet back down the hallway; if the Defiler saw them... but turning at the staircase to look, they saw that the Defiler had led the woman the other way; her nude backside was walking away from them, the defiler’s robe beyond, leading. A single trickle of blood reached down between the nude woman’s shoulderblades.

The two turned and descended the stairs, the new Somoi making a perfect pivot.

Lizbet and Katryn looked at each other.

“The privy chamber,” Lizbet whispered, and Katryn nodded.

They crept back down the hall. The room where the woman had forever lost her will was empty now save for the chair she had been seated in. Other doors were closed.

As they reached the stairs, a naked figure stepped up into the hall, almost bumping into Lizbet. The girls froze.

It was Anyet.

She pivoted in place, paying them no heed whatsoever. Her eyes were wide and staring, and the blue color in them was paler than it had been before. She wore black thigh-high boots, a thick black collar, and nothing else.

Over each shoulder was slung a pair of large bags, whose weight strained the cords that held them, the cords deeply indenting the flesh of Anyet’s shoulders. Anyet was sweating heavily, her skin glistening slick with perspiration, dripping onto the floor.

“Anyet,” Katryn hissed.

Anyet paid no attention, and began to walk down the stairs. Her legs strained with each step, the weights hanging heavily on their cords.

Katryn and Lizbet watched their friend descend the stairs. It took long moments for her to climb down the three flights, but no other figures, slave or Defiler, appeared. At the bottom, Anyet stopped, pivoted, and began to climb back towards them. Her eyes were empty and fixed.

“A cart-horse,” Lizbet whispered. “They’re turning her into a cart-horse.”

She drew near them again, glistening barely-there breasts rising and falling heavily with her panting, and Lizbet stepped in front of her. “Anyet,” she said. “Stop.”

Anyet stopped, and came erect. Her wide, slowly bleaching eyes stared through Lizbet at the wall beyond.

“Yes, Mistress,” Anyet said in a flat tone.

They stared at her, then Katryn stepped forward and pulled down on Anyet’s straight blonde hair.

On the very top of her head was a smooth jet-black bump, where the needle was.

Katryn stepped back. Anyet did not move.

“You... can go back to what you were doing,” Lizbet said.

“Yes, Mistress.”

Anyet mounted the few remaining stairs, pivoted in place, and began to descend again.

Lizbet and Katryn hurried down the hall, away from the stairs and their forever will-less friend. There were doors on left and right; and behind the door on the left they heard low chanting.

They kept going.

Another curved staircase; at the top, a small antechamber, and then the door to the privy council. Katryn had never been inside. Her father said it was a not overly large room, but sumptuously decorated, with a table to seat ten men.

The door was not locked. Lizbet gingerly pushed it open.

Inside was the opulence of a merchant city; the table was in the center, and arrayed around it were chairs upholstered in rich velvet, cupboards with crystalware and fine art objects, statuary and paintings atop the muralled walls. The table itself was largely bare, save for a sheaf of papers at the far end, in front of the Lord Mayor’s seat, and standing next to them a black-draped object the size of a fist, on a small golden pedestal.

Katryn and Lizbet shared a glance.

“Is that...?” Katryn whispered.

Lizbet put a finger to her lips. She closed the door, and they crept down the room on either side of the table.

It was still a crazy fantasy. Behind Katryn the wall was cut glass windows beyond which were ornate balconies; outside, the town sank ever deeper into slavery.

Then they stood beside the Lord Mayor’s chair. Katryn could... feel... the object beneath the black cloth. It gave off a music without sound, like the voices of the Coursers, the Ligatrix. The stone in the square. It whispered to her, tempting her to tear off the cloth and reveal.

“Names,” Lizbet whispered. Katryn blinked, looked at her, and Lizbet pointed at the papers.

“Names,” she said. “Everyone in town. And...” she held up a sheet and pointed. The names of Anyet’s family were clearly written in a fine hand, with a line of symbols next to each.

“They never came here for the mines,” Lizbet said. “Or the metal.” Her eyes were wide.

“Katryn—they came here for us.”

“Very good,” a musical voice said, and the two girls whirled.

It was the Ligatrix.

The tall blonde woman stood in the doorway, dressed in tight black leather, like the Coursers but not the same. Katryn could see now that she had tattoos around her waist, in the cleft between her breasts, on her elegant long neck; sorcerous marks like those on the papers they held. The air around her seemed to crackle with command, to demand that Katryn obey her simply for who she was, and Katryn wondered how such a woman was ever made into a slave.

Beside and behind her stood the head Defiler, the one Captain Vryl had welcomed into the city. Her eyes glittered darkly in her expressionless face; her honey-toned feet were all else that showed around her black robe.

“You are perfectly correct, Lizbet,” the Ligatrix said. “My Mistress sent us to gather you all in, and put you to Her purpose. Her great plans are in motion; now is the time all shall become Her slaves.”

The Ligatrix’s musical voice made that sound so reasonable, so desirable. Slaves.

All slaves.

Katryn waited for Lizbet to say something—but what was there to say? No threat they could make would be real, no defiance anything but delusion. She slumped.

Lizbet grabbed hold of the shrouded object, and threw it crashing through the window.

The Ligatrix cocked an eyebrow as she watched it go. “Ah, Lizbet. You continue to impress. Brave even to the point of foolhardy; never willing to give up. Such an asset you will be.”

“I’ll... never....” Lizbet panted.

“Yes, you will. Her direct attention will turn you effortlessly into Her most eager slave, Lizbet. As it did to me. She will direct you and you will remake yourself, to please Her. There is no escape from this fate, for it is what She wishes.”

They stood trapped at the end of the room. The only exit was through the Ligatrix, or off the balconies.

The Defiler stepped forward, took her robe in her hands, and opened it.

She had six breasts.

Katryn and Lizbet stared—the Defiler’s chest and upper stomach were hidden by six golden-skinned, heavy-tipped breasts. She began to chant, softly, words Katryn could not understand, and languor fell upon her, a sense of hopeless calm. There was, truly, nothing they could do. Except submit, and accept.

All would be slaves.

Lizbet’s face had gone slack. She took a step forward, then another, walking towards the open robe and the nude and alien body beneath. The Defiler’s sex was bald, her lips a nut brown color, like the ones on her face, moving in a chant Katryn no longer even heard...

Lizbet reached her and dropped to a knee. Black droplets appeared on the Defiler’s brown nipples, and Lizbet leaned forward, mouth open-

“No!” Katryn screamed, and hurled a chair at them.

It caught the Defiler square and hit Lizbet a glancing blow; the Defiler tumbled backward. The chant stopped.

Katryn charged the Ligatrix, but the tall woman stepped backward with a small smile, and Katryn swerved, grabbed Lizbet’s arm, and ran for the doorway.

By the time they had reached the bottom of that set of stairs, Lizbet was running too. In the hallway below, a second Defiler was leading a nude woman to a room. Hearing their approach, the Defiler turned, but they slammed into her and knocked her to the floor, then ran past.

Anyet was laboring up the main stairs. Lizbet and Katryn clattered down past her.

The Olithoi were not in the main hallway. The front door was open. They ran towards it.

From the open door on the right, that led to the court of appeal, stepped Sharrul. She held out an arm. A clawed arm. Her fingers were knives as long as daggers, and they blocked the hallway.

They stopped.

Sharrul smiled. “Ah. Katryn and the golden child. Hello, girls. Nice no clothes you have on.”

“Please,” Katryn said, “let us go.”

“Oh no, Katryn. You have important roles to play in Her plan. She places great value on both of you.”

There were footsteps on the stairs behind them, not running, but faster than Anyet’s measured tread.

Katryn fell to her knees. “Sharrul. Please.”

Lizbet stared at her.

Sharrul’s claws dwindled, became black-tipped nails. “You still do not understand, Katryn. Her will is all. Obeying Her is the reason I live. It is my only purpose. I could more easily rip out my own beating heart than disobey Her command, and I would want to rip out my own heart a thousand times more than I would ever want to disobey.”

She smiled, showing sharp teeth.

“But.” She turned to Lizbet. “The Ligatrix is here for you, golden child. My Queen has set the Ligatrix over me, and I must obey her, but she has as yet not instructed me about your fate. And my Queen has bid me only to win over Katryn.”

Lizbet and Katryn blinked, stared at the black-suited creature in front of them.

Then Katryn whispered, “Run. Run, Lizbet.”

Lizbet stared at her. “No, Katryn, I—”

“Run!” Katryn screamed up in her face.

Behind them four Defilers and a brace of Olithoi had come off the stairs and were advancing rapidly.

“Stop,” came the musical voice of a Defiler.

Lizbet ran. She darted past Sharrul, who turned her head to watch with a small smile, and disappeared out of the open door. The Defilers and the Olithoi marched after her.

Katryn remained on her knees.

The Ligatrix descended the stairs, gave Katryn a look from under an arched eyebrow, and stopped in front of Sharrul.

“Pet,” she said with a sneer. Sharrul grinned at her. The Ligatrix reached a hand and stroked Sharrul’s face, then cupped a breast.

Sharrul purred.

The Ligatrix marched off down the hall and out of the building. Sharrul watched her go.

Then Katryn and Sharrul were alone. Sharrul looked back slowly, her face expressionless.

“Come, Katryn,” Sharrul said. “We have... introductions to make.”

Katryn rose to her feet.

* * *

8.3

Katryn followed Sharrul into the court of appeal.

The long hall was empty; the windows which ran along two walls were closed, and covered by draperies of Black Leather. A partition of the same hung along the front of the room, separating the dais where the magistrates would sit from the rest of the hall. The chairs which usually filled the space were gone.

Sharrul walked to the dais, mounted the steps, and held aside the Leather. She looked at Katryn, summoning her.

Katryn swallowed, and mounted the steps.

The magistrates’ platform had been transformed into a bedchamber, the high seats removed, rugs laid down over the ornate stonework. Goosedown mattresses lay on the floor, covered with a dozen dozen pillows, their colors bright even in the filtered light.

Two Coursers looked up from where they lay.

One was dusky, the skin of her belly like powdered chocolate, her face strong and fine with black eyes and straight black hair. Her nostrils flared as she stared at Katryn.

The other was golden, with almond eyes and broad cheeks, and Katryn thought of the Defiler as this woman stood up with languorous grace and approached her, though her glossy Black Leather held only a single pair of breasts in its tight grip.

The golden-skinned one came to Katryn where she stood in the entrance and stared into her eyes, her own eyes a velvety gold color only just lighter than her skin. Behind her, the other Courser rose to her feet and Katryn shivered with sudden emotion, sudden desire. The golden-eyed one seemed to sense it, and let her eyes fall to Katryn’s nude body. She leaned forward, eyes closing, and inhaled.

Hands slipped around Katryn from behind.

“Welcome,” Sharrul whispered. “To our lair.”

Sharrul gripped Katryn’s breasts in both hands and squeezed; Katryn moaned. She was suddenly alive to of her own nudity, her vulnerability, her offering, the contrast with the three Coursers in their Leather. Sharrul held her for the others, displayed her, Katryn’s stiff nipples poking between strong fingers. The other two stared at her hungrily, eyes running up and down her body as Sharrul showed it to them.

The dark-skinned Courser crept forward, crouched low, hands almost to the ground. She pushed her face to Katryn’s thigh, inhaled, then licked her with a long stroke, from thigh up over Katryn’s hipbones, tongue flicking off her belly. Katryn shivered and pushed her breasts into Sharrul’s cupping hands.

“Do you,” Sharrul breathed into Katryn’s ear, “want?”

Two pairs of eyes, on opposite sides of Katryn’s navel, stared up at her.

“Yes,” Katryn whispered. “Oh yes.”

The eyes flicked down and tongues emerged, fluttering against Katryn’s skin; Katryn shuddered as Sharrul’s hands left her breasts to slide down her sides, gripping her hips. The other two licked up and latched onto her nipples, sucking, teasing.

Sharrul kneaded Katryn’s hips in strong hands and licked Katryn’s neck, up under her hair, down her shoulder...

...and bit her, slowly, deeply, fangs sinking far into Katryn’s neck.

Katryn cried out, a sharp wail, and Sharrul’s arms closed around her body, holding her. She released the bite and licked again, and again, lapping at the welling blood, and with her arms she lifted Katryn from the ground and carried her forward, between the other two, to the feather mattresses and the pillows.

Sharrul laid Katryn down on a pile of softness and straddled her, sitting across her belly, and her eyes were burning green jewels. Katryn’s neck hurt like fire but she yearned for Sharrul’s touch, her kiss, and when Sharrul leaned down to offer her bloody mouth Katryn reached up to it, pushed forward and tasted salt, tasted her own blood, tasted Sharrul, and Sharrul pushed down onto her, kissing, tonguing. The wound burned but its fire was spreading through Katryn as lust, her sex felt alive and hungry, she bucked under Sharrul’s weight, her pussy demanding-

-touch, breath then lips, and Katryn gasped as a tongue slid along her sex, licked, the mouth around it embracing her, sucking. Her back fought to arch as Sharrul held her down, and the pain in her neck was a hot pulse that echoed in her head, echoed in her sex, and as Sharrul broke their kiss and sat back up to knead Katryn’s chest, Katryn snarled at her.

The tongue on her pussy flicked down, teased its way in, and Katryn’s snarl became a yelp as it speared her, filled her, and she bucked her hips down, wanting it deeper, growling and fighting as Sharrul pinned her arms and grinned at her as she writhed.

Katryn’s growls took on the rhythm of the tongue inside her, flick flick flex, flick flick flex, and at her clit the upper lip, no, a second tongue, began to tease and taste, and Katryn’s growls became whines, helpless, devoured by pleasure, and her pleasure spiked higher and higher and the feeling was white lighting shooting throughout her body as the two tongues worked her sex and then, then she was coming, bucking, jolting, screaming, and as her cries slowly dwindled, so did the room, until the last thing Katryn was aware of was the weight and feel of Sharrul’s body as she laid down on top of her.

Then she slept.

* * *

9.

Katryn woke and was hot.

She was naked, lying atop silken cloth. Dimly, she remembered coming to this place, but thinking was difficult and she felt so tired. Too tired by far to move, even to look around. Consciousness was clearly a mistake that would hopefully be fixed soon.

Someone was next to her and Katryn rolled her head a little, finding a black-clad shoulder. No, not black-clad, black-skinned. She opened her mouth to say something but her throat was dry and her mouth was sticky, making it far too much work.

The woman lying next to her must have noticed her motion, for the shoulder moved and the woman turned, revealing a beautiful honey-toned face with golden eyes. The eyes studied Katryn.

“You should rest,” the woman said.

Her golden skin was a wide stripe down the center of her torso, running between obsidian black shoulders, black breasts, black sides.

Katryn’s neck hurt, and her mouth was dry. She pushed a sticky tongue at her lips.

The woman rose, and left Katryn’s field of view. She returned with a golden ewer, from which she poured a goblet full of water. She held the water to Katryn’s mouth, and Katryn gratefully drank.

“You should rest,” she repeated.

“Ya,” Katryn concurred, nodding muzzily. She rolled backward, facing the ceiling, and closed her eyes.

* * *

10.

When she woke again, it was dark.

She did not know what time it was. Had no sense of time at all. Beside her, Tyu’vul and Luu Shou slept. Sharrul was gone.

She did not know when she had learned their names.

Katryn looked at her hand.

Normal. She turned it over, but her flesh was still a pale olive, not a slick jet black; her breasts were her breasts, soft pink tips, pale flesh beneath.

She touched her teeth with her tongue. Flat.

She felt her neck.

The wound was there, a soft arc of tenderness, but faint. Healed, or mostly so.

Ever so slowly, she got to her feet.

She felt... different, but not shockingly so. Silently, she brushed aside the partition that demarked the lair.

A great cauldron sat in the center of the room. A Defiler knelt beside it, feeding a small flame beneath.

Sharrul stood with her back to Katryn, watching the Defiler. As Katryn pushed past the flap, Sharrul looked over her shoulder and turned around.

“There has been a delay,” Sharrul said. “We are not ready for you yet.”

“I’d like to go home,” Katryn replied.

Sharrul shook her head. “There’s nothing there for you.”

“Please.”

The green light was there in Sharrul’s eyes. She stared at Katryn. Katryn wanted to kiss her, to suck on her mouth, and more. To suck between her legs, until whatever would be, was.

“Then go. But come back soon. We will be ready within the hour.”

Katryn nodded, and walked unsteadily past her. In the main hall, the guards were present; Captain-now-Olithoi Vryl standing rigidly against the wall beside the entrance to the assembly hall. There was only the barest hint of color in her staring eyes.

The Olithoi standing next to her on the other side of the open door seemed familiar, and then Katryn remembered her, walking swiftly to hew and stab...

She had both arms again. And no sign of any wounds.

How long did I sleep? Katryn wondered. She was aware of her nakedness but felt neither shame nor fear as she crossed the hallway to examine Vryl’s mindless features more closely. No, not mindless—will-less. Nothing but her Queen’s will moved Vryl’s flesh any longer, not even to breathe.

Our Queen, Katryn thought.

“When did they come for you, Captain?” she mused aloud. “How long had you been Her slave, when you opened the gates to the Ligatrix? How did She reach out and pour Herself into your mind?”

A though struck Katryn, and her mouth quirked into a smile.

“Answer the questions, slave.”

“i became Her slave four months ago,” Vryl replied tonelessly. “Galitsa was my lover; she was one of Her slaves. Our Queen instructed Galitsa to come here, to seduce me; we met for sex in certain places outside the city. While i slept, she whispered of my Queen’s glory and inculcated in my mind a desire to obey Her. i gave myself into Her service in the dark of Aluun and became a slave.”

The dark of Aluun.

Four months ago.

“When is the next new moon, slave?” Katryn demanded.

“Tomorrow,” the Olithoi replied.

Tomorrow! Katryn had slept for days. Slept, and...

She only had an hour. Dismissing vryl from her mind, Katryn turned, and strode out the main doors.

She was already leaving the Raedplat when she remembered her clothes. Clothes... it was cold outside, she realized, the sky a leaden grey, but Katryn felt it only as information, as a fact upon her skin. She did not feel the chill inside, beneath her skin, at all.

She went to find her clothes anyway.

They were where she had left them—along with Lizbet’s. Lizbet. Hurriedly, Katryn dressed herself.

She left the square headed for Lizbet’s house.

* * *

10.1

The door of Lizbet’s house was open; no one answered when she called. Katryn could scent—scent—no one in the building. She dashed around the house; it was empty entirely, and felt as though it had been for days.

Stepping down from the door to the street, part of Katryn wanted to find Lizbet. She could... hunt her, track her down by scent and by... other means. Her fingers flexed. Hunting Lizbet down was suddenly what she wanted to do. To hunt, to find. To chase.

But she did not have time. Her own home was not far.

The house looked strange as Katryn approached—but it was not the house that had changed. She was seeing it through different eyes. It was now just a place where she had lived, a den that she had outgrown. The only thing that bound her to it-

The door opened, and a Defiler stepped out. Katryn stopped, and watched as the robed woman stepped lightly out into the street, then turned.

Erzo bounded out of the house behind her.

The Defiler turned to walk up the street, paying no notice to Katryn as she stood there. Erzo followed at her heel, his step jaunty, full of life and color and utterly out of place in the silence of the town around him. He saw Katryn.

“Katti,” he said, and raced past the robed figure to embrace Katryn’s legs. “Where have you been?”

She looked down at him. “Erzo. I’ve been... busy. Where are you going?”

“To schul,” he replied. “Mistress Ko is one of our new instructors. We’re all in the same schul now, all of us younger kids. Even the girls,” he added in a low voice.

“Young Erzo is a most promising pupil,” the Defiler said. Katryn looked into the robe, saw her intense face and piercing eyes. “Who knows in what great way he may serve our Queen?”

“Katryn, are you back in schul?” Erzo asked.

“I’m... no, Erzo. Not right now.”

“Oh. Will you be coming home?”

“I... I don’t know. We’ll see,” she replied.

“I’d like it if you’d come home,” Erzo said.

“I would too. But it may not be for a while.”

“Do not worry, Erzo,” the Defiler said. “Katryn too must serve our Queen. But you will not be apart for too long. Our Queen looks after all in Her care. She rewards and takes care of Her servants. Katryn may go away, but you will see her again. Now come, we must go to the schul.”

“Okay, Mistress Ko. Good-bye, Katryn.”

“Good-bye, Erzo. Be good.”

Katryn watched the two ascend the hill until they turned the corner. Then she crossed over to her house, and slipped in the front door.

The Olithoi was not in the basement. Nor was anyone downstairs. Someone had cooked breakfast, and washed dishes were in the drying rack. Erzo? Her mother? Mistress Ko?

Katryn slipped up the stairs. At the top, she could hear the soft chanting.

“Yes,” came her mother’s voice. “Obey.”

The soft repetition accompanied Katryn as she approached the sewing room. She did not hear the Somoi; with one hand she swung the door open.

Her mother sat in the sewing chair, but she was not sewing. She was nude, save for a pair of thigh-high black boots and a thick black collar. Both boots and collar glistened with the grease Marie had only just rubbed into them, after she had sewn them for herself.

She was not sewing. Instead, both of her hands were above her head, together, palms and fingers flat.

She held a long black needle point-down against her skull.

“Yes,” Marie said softly. “Obey.”

The Somoi stood behind her, hands at her sides, white orbs staring blankly at the opposite wall. She said nothing.

“Matti?” Katryn asked softly.

Her mother did not reply, or look at her. “Yes,” she said, balancing the needle atop her head. “Obey.”

“Matti? What are you doing?”

The Somoi’s head swiveled.

“Yes,” her mother said. “Obey.”

“Katryn,” the Somoi said in a flat tone. Katryn looked at her.

“Katryn, Marie is doing what she is meant to. She is destroying her will so that she may better serve our Queen.”

Katryn’s breath slipped from her lips.

“Yes,” Marie said. “Obey.”

“Katryn, all who live here are Her slaves. You are Her slave. This is how your mother will serve. Do you wish to deny her the chance to obey?”

Katryn looked at her mother. She didn’t want... didn’t want.

But she did. She did, now. She was going to return to Sharrul and finish her own transformation. Marie—her mother—had been ensorcelled and brainwashed into this just as Katryn had been seduced into becoming a Courser, and it didn’t matter now that once these fates would have terrified them, because this was what they both wanted now, and now was when all decisions were made.

“Katryn? Will you deny your mother her obedience?”

And obedience was pleasure. Endless, mindless pleasure.

“Yes,” her mother said. “Obey.”

“No,” Katryn answered. “I will not deny her, and I will not deny Her.”

“Our Queen controls us all,” the Somoi replied, and turned her head forward. “All must obey.”

“Obey,” Marie intoned. “Yes.”

“Obey,” the Somoi answered, and lightly touched Marie’s flattened hands.

“Obey,” Marie echoed, then trembled.

“Forever.” Her arms flexed, and she slowly pushed the spike down into her brain.

* * *

10.2

Katryn loped up the street towards the Raedhaus. She had had enough. It was time.

The pebble hit her in the ribs.

“Hisst!”

Katryn turned.

It was Lizbet, crouched in a shuttered fruit vendor’s stall.

Katryn looked up and down the street, then slowly walked over to the stall.

Lizbet was in tattered workman’s clothes, grey and brown, perfect camouflage for the wood and stone of the town streets. If one were hunting her by sight. The clothes, and Lizbet’s face, were streaked with dirt from some hiding hole, but her eyes were bright and her energy undimmed.

“Katryn,” Lizbet whispered. “Quickly, come with me. We can get out through the cistern drain. I have gone and returned already, and—”

Katryn shook her head. “No.”

Lizbet winced. “Katryn—”

“Lizbet, listen,” Katryn said with force. “No. You do not understand. I am going back to the Raedhaus and I will be transformed. I want this. I want it more than anything. More than anything I’ve ever wanted. I know that my desires have been implanted in me by Sharrul and by Sauriann and I don’t care.”

Lizbet made to speak but Katryn shoved a finger against her lips.

“Lizbet, I know what I am doing. I know that I will be Sauriann’s slave forever, that the Katryn who walks out of that building will be an obedient puppet on Her strings. I want that. Slavery is my destiny, Lizbet, and it is one I will embrace. I need it. I want it. It’s all that I care about.”

There was a distant click of boots, that might have been coming nearer. The two of them looked up and down the street, but the sound dwindled and passed away.

Lizbet made to speak, but Katryn kept her mouth barred. She stared hard at her friend and Lizbet’s eyes widened. They reflected a flash of green.

“Lizbet...” Katryn growled. “Listen. When I am being transformed... all of the Coursers will be there. All of them. I know this. If you can get out of the city, now, without being seen—Her huntresses will not be on guard to catch you.”

They stared at each other as Katryn slowly lowered her finger.

“I was wrong,” she whispered. “There is one other thing I still care about.”

Then she turned away, and ran up the street.

* * *

10.3

All nine of the Defilers were in the court of appeal.

They stood around the black cauldron, chanting softly, one of them on her knees feeding the flames beneath with slips of paper on which were written dark runes. The cauldron was bubbling, slow spheres rising from the bottom where the green fire licked around the dark metal, rising to stretch their surfaces above the meniscus, then collapsing and slowly melting away.

Around the cauldron, black writing was traced on the floor, a magic circle that seemed to shift and blur as Katryn at it. Another, smaller circle stood alone and empty a few paces away.

The head Defiler, with the golden skin and almond eyes, pulled back her hood and approached Katryn where she stood in the doorway. The Olithoi who flanked her in the hall stared blankly at the pair opposite them, and paid no notice.

Katryn remembered what the Defiler looked like, beneath her black robe.

“Katryn,” the Defiler said, pointing with a long acid-green fingernail, “disrobe and stand in the circle.”

Katryn looked down the length of the room. The hanging curtain had been pulled back and the Coursers were all there, lounging on their pillows, long bodies stretched out in languor. Her eye met Sharrul’s, and Sharrul smiled.

Katryn took off her clothes.

Barefoot, she walked the few paces into the room, and stepped over the dark runes into the small circle. She had expected to feel something, some thrill of magic, but all she felt was air on her skin.

The Defiler stood before her and reached out, took hold of her arms and faced Katryn towards the cauldron.

Two of the other Defilers had produced long barbed hooks from beneath their robes, and pulled back their cowls. Their eyes burned with the same intensity as the one standing before her.

“Katryn,” the Defiler said, and Katryn looked at her and was pulled helplessly into her eyes. She could see through those eyes, far down into the Defiler’s mind, and Katryn could see the great dark Eye that lived there, and she knew that She could see her.

Soon She would live in Katryn’s mind as well.

“Katryn,” the Defiler whispered, her voice somewhere outside of her eyes, which were now all that Katryn could see. “You are Her pet. Her huntress. Her Courser. You will run down Her prey and deliver them to Her. It is your destiny.”

“Yes,” Katryn agreed. “It is my destiny.”

“You must give yourself to Her, Katryn. As you are clad in your cocoon, as each bond claims you, you will proclaim and confirm this destiny.”

Katryn did not understand, but all would become clear, and she would obey. “Yes.”

She had not heard it begin, but there was chanting now, female voices raised in harmony, repeating blasphemous words. Their echoes rolled and broke in Katryn’s mind, dark secrets that she would soon understand, and embrace.

The chanting rose suddenly in volume, and Katryn tumbled out of the Defiler’s eyes. The Defiler’s robe had opened revealing her six breasts, but Katryn did not look at them, kept staring into the green fire that had replaced the darkness of the Defiler’s eyes. The Defiler raised a metal rod whose end had been worked into a complex pattern.

At a word, the tip erupted into green flame.

Katryn was dizzy. The chanting was clouding her thinking, and the cauldron was bubbling, making the room steamy and scenting it with a heavy perfume. With effort, she focused on Sharrul, at the back, and saw that all three Coursers were agitated, crawling around each other, staring intently at Katryn’s naked form.

The glowing-tipped rod moved and it caught Katryn’s eye immediately. She followed it as the Defiler swung it slowly back and forth, weaving it around. Watched it as it slowly curled towards her naked sex.

Moaned as it seared her sweat-slick mons, leaving behind an intricate dark mark.

One of the defilers slid her barbed hook into the cauldron. When she withdrew it, a long strip of Black Leather hung from the hook, dripping with steaming clear ooze. The Defiler raised the hook, letting the strip dangle, dripping, flicking it around.

Then like a whip, the Defiler snapped the hook at Katryn.

The scalding leather wrapped itself around her upper thigh with a crack, stinging, burning, and clinging to her flesh as though it were a live thing, coming off the hook and coiling about Katryn’s leg like a snake, then tightening to hold fast.

Katryn’s whole body clenched in pain as the searing strip tightened around her, then she threw up her head, inhaled with a gasp, and said:

“I belong to Sauriann!”

The second Defiler stepped forward with a second steaming black strip and snapped it at Katryn; it curled around her arm, stinging, burning, tightening.

“I am Her slave!”

The first had pulled another strip from the cauldron; a loud crack, and it lashed around her torso.

“I am Her animal!”

Another lash, and a scalding black band curled around her back and breasts, cupping her almost lewdly, tightening like a fiery lover’s hands.

“I am Her pet!”

Again. A wrist-flick and a crack, and fresh pain.

“Her huntress!”

Snap, crack.

“I will,” Katryn faltered, panting. A black strip curled burning around her calf. “Will bring Her enemies to Her.” Snap, sear. “Will bring them down at Her command.” Snap, and pain lashed around Katryn’s throat and clung across her shoulders. “Will kill at Her will.”

The pain was intense, burning, and dimly Katryn knew that it was not harming her, could not burn her, but it hurt, hurt as though her old self were being seared away one strip at a time. She sucked in a ragged breath, burning Black Leather gripping her and yielding not at all.

The Defilers lashed her again, in unison, binding forearm and middle thigh. “Her will,” Katryn gasped, eyes blinded by tears, voice ragged. “I—” Crack, lash, “—obey—” Snap, slap, “Her will.” Snap. “I,” Snap. “am,” snap, “Her pet.”

A whipcrack and black leather curled around Katryn’s face, searing her flesh, tightening around cheek and forehead. “I, hunt,” she gasped. Double whipcracks and searing stiffness embraced her stomach, her sides. “I, kill,” Her world was dwindling, her only awareness the tightening bonds, the searing pain as they gripped her. Lash, lash. Crack. Little flesh was left that the strips could take hold of, and the strips crossed each other and overlaid, meshing, but the Defilers did not slacken; instead they struck faster, lashing Katryn’s bound form with ever greater vigor, as droplets of molten grease flew around the room.

“I,” Katryn gasped, able to see from one eye only. Crack, curl, sear. Her arms, her legs, were strips wrapped on strips, steaming and infinitely tight; her torso was bound and rigid. “I,” she moaned, as black leather curled around her fingers and bound them into immobility. “I,” she screamed in a ragged voice as a scalding band hit her head and she was suddenly blind.

Katryn screamed, her voice tearing, deepening, changing, becoming a roar, a shriek of violence and power that shook the room, shook the town, rent the sky. The other Coursers joined her, roaring to the heavens.

“i,” Katryn whispered, her lips and her sex the only parts of her flesh still visible. “obey.”

She pitched forward and was caught by the Defilers, whose hooks clattered onto the floor.

They carried her forward to the cauldron, though Katryn could not see.

“Obey...” she whispered in a barely audible voice.

“...yes.”

The Defilers pitched her into the cauldron.

* * *

11.

The army left the day following the dark of Aluun.

At the head of the army rode the Ligatrix on her black steed. Behind her the three Coursers on their mounts, and then ninety ranks of Olithoi, marching nine abreast in perfect step. Grey-fleshed and dressed in strips of black leather, hints of color were still present in many of their staring eyes.

Behind the Olithoi, the Somoi; still living but will-dead, dressed only in the tall boots and the black collars. Many of them were bald, but most were not, hair topped uniformly by a single shining black button. They marched alongside the wagons, eighteen groups of them, and the drayslaves in the yokes strained and sweated and pulled in perfect step.

Atop the final wagon, a lidded cauldron swayed only a fraction, well tied to the cart itself. In the cauldron the newest Courser slept, and dreamed a black and wonderful dream, and changed.

In the very rear, in a miasma of dust and odor, came the fresh heart of the army: a thousand beastmen grunted and snarled and strained at the leashes which linked them. They wore metal collars and bits of armor; their phalluses dangled heavily between sinewy legs. As they marched in the rough semblance of lines, they sneered and struck at one another, knuckles thick and heavy; but they kept their weapons in their sheaths. The Mistresses would tell them when it was time to draw blood.

That time was not far off.

* * *

Epilogue

The click of booted feet receded. The street fell silent, and dark.

With the slightest rasp of metal, the sewer grate rose, and slid aside. Erevand peered cautiously up and down the street. There was no one visible in the moonlight. He waited, watching the shadows.

A year ago, Freyviik would have been illuminated. The mines had made the town rich, and wealthy burghers valued safe streets and the freedom to enjoy themselves until the morning. Now when night fell, only the green fires on the watchtowers burned.

Nothing moved, yet still Erevand lingered. He had been pursued since the Grellan Pass, sometimes hotly, and none of his tradecraft had served to throw the pursuit off. They knew he was in Freyviik, even now, but Freyviik was a nigh-empty city and there were many places to hide, and many tools to throw off his scent.

He waited.

Nothing moved.

He raised himself from the sewer—just water, now, little waste flowed in an abandoned town—and flattened himself against a wall. Farther down the road, houses were being dismantled, their wood and metal and stone put to other purposes, but here in the middle the reclaimers had not yet begun their work. Gingerly, silently, he slid along the wall; scurried across a gap; clung to the shadows.

His target, his purpose, was only just ahead.

The door would be open but Erevand did not use it. He slipped into the alley between the house and its neighbor, and with his arms and back crawled up the wall. Using his legs to hold himself in place, he tested windows. One proved unlatched.

He slipped into a bedroom. Finally, he was here—his goal for the last five months of flight across the dark queen’s new lands. The house Marczorik. His father back in Perelan would be proud.

The bedroom he was in must have been Katryn’s; everything had a fine layer of dust. A guttered candle stump sat in a sconce next to the bed.

Erevand was under no illusions what had happened to his relatives.

The door between the bedroom and the hallway was closed. Gingerly, silently, Erevand pushed it open. The hall was dark and quiet. He moved into it, and closed the door behind him.

From his father he had learned the layout of the home; his uncle’s office was downstairs. In the darkness of the hall, lit only by moonlight from an open door, he moved toward the stairs. Placing his weight with practiced patience, goading no untrodden board to squeak.

The open door was on his right. He peered in as he slipped past.

And froze.

A figure sat in the moonlight, in a chair, rocking. She was bald, the light from the open window glinting from a smooth head with a small bump on the very top. She was seated facing a wall, not looking at the doorway, but certainly with it in her vision.

She was nursing a baby.

Erevand didn’t move. The woman in the chair stared forward with blank, featureless eyes. Had she seen him?

The baby turned, a chubby fist reaching into the air, then settled down again.

Light flared in the hall.

Wincing, Erevand spun, pulling out a long dagger. There was a figure on the stairs, holding aloft a torch that burned with an intense green flame.

“Hello, cousin,” the figure purred.

Cousin? Was this... Katryn? His grip on the knife tightened.

As his eyes adjusted, he watched her step forward. She was a vision from night dreams, her curves smooth and tight, dressed in a black outfit that fit like her own skin. Where the dark garment was absent, a broad swath reaching from her upper chest to her, to just above her crotch, her skin was olive and lovely. Her face... her eyes...

Her eyes were lit from within, like emeralds over flame.

She smiled at him and stepped forward again, turning her attention into the room. “Hello, mother,” she said, and Erevand could not help but look again.

The bald woman, the naked woman, the woman with the blank white eyes, had the face of his Aunt Marie.

The baby moved, and the woman in the chair pulled it back from a breast, turned it deftly, and applied its mouth to her other breast. She took no notice of the people in the hall.

“Cousin,” Katryn—was it she? Erevand had seen no portraits—said. “I have been pursuing you for some time now. Tell me, what errand of yours brings you to this place of my Queen’s?”

His fingers were slick on the grip. “You are... Katryn?”

“I was, and am something like. Surely you did not come to find me?”

He shook his head. “We knew your fate. I have come for papers, documents, legal titles...”

“And to prove yourself to your father, I think,” she said. “Nor do you yet understand my fate, but you will know it better. Would you like to lie with me?”

“What?”

“To rut. Copulate. Fornicate,” she purred, “with me. I have caught you, but you were a good prey. Resourceful. A bowshot would have ended you but such was not my Queen’s command, and I had the leisure to follow you to your end. I have you now; would you not enjoy to fill my flesh? Before the Defilers have their way with you.”

He swallowed. His member was rock hard, responding to her body, responding to her words. Yes, yes, it urged him, consequence is immaterial. Bury yourself in her.

“N-no,” he said. “I do not surrender.”

She laughed. “You do not need to.” The torch sputtered and went out; the hall dropped into dark. Erevand thrust forward his knife and it was taken from him, lifted from his hand like a parent taking a sleeping child’s toy.

Now she was behind him and there were knives on his throat.

“You are,” she purred, and a soft hand slipped into his breeches and encircled his cock, squeezed it, “quite certain?”

He groaned, almost coming from her touch, heedless of the blades at his throat. “I... Please. Katryn. Let... me go.”

She exhaled and the hand and the knives left him. He stood in the dark hall, frozen.

“Katryn?” he whispered. Slowly, he turned around.

In the blackness of the hall, two glowing green jewels stared back at him.

“Prey,” she rumbled, and leapt.

* * *

END ‘The Loosing of the Dark’