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Authors: Frank P. Ryan
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Fáil?’
Sister Hocht sighed, a low-pitched guttural croak, and her head fell back, her eyes boiled white.
Slug Beast and Lizard-Dung
Kate knew that Faltana was nearby even though she couldn’t see her. She could smell the rancid odour of her and she could hear her laboured breathing in the glimmerless dark as she arrived to grasp her arm and check her pulse. Though any sense of contact should have been welcome in this chamber of unfeeling, Kate felt nothing but disgust at the regular visits from her tormentor, knowing that Faltana was terrified of what would happen if Kate died on her before the Witch’s purpose was served.
A flare of light: it was no more than the sickly glow of a wyre-stone, its candle-like illumination framing Faltana’s hand, but Kate was so accustomed to pitch dark it forced her to clench her eyes tightly shut as if she were staring into the noonday sun.
Faltana’s voice hissed so close into Kate’s ear she felt the wet of her spittle, ‘Open your eyes, lizard-dung. I know you hear me.’
Through lids swollen with cold and hunger, Kate struggled to see the creature she so hated, etched in sweat by the lurid glow. Seeing Faltana gave her a focus for her loathing, that dark bulk, that slug-beast, a denser evil within the darkness, her empty eye socket rimed where the light glittered over her sweaty countenance.
‘Why don’t you just kill me?’
‘I shall – be assured of it. But not yet. No! In her wisdom my mistress orders that killing is too pleasant an end for you. But pain! Ah, the delicious thoughts of that. I crave your pain as you crave the coming of your saviour.’
Kate shivered. She couldn’t help the trembling that racked her body. But she tried to make her voice stronger than she actually felt. ‘You don’t dare to touch me. I heard what the Witch said.’
‘Ah, do I not? Is that what you fondly wish for – what you hope for?’
Kate struggled to create a half-laugh, half-cough in her dust-dry throat. ‘Not if you value the one eye you have left.’
The surviving eye of the Chief Succubus glittered back with loathing. It travelled over Kate’s shackled limbs in a slow writhe of pleasure. Faltana’s spit-flecked whisper crawled into Kate’s ear. ‘He senses it – this saviour or yours. He feels what you feel.’
‘Liar!’
‘You know I do not lie. He feels it – every sting. Surely it doubles my delight. But enough of foreplay. Let us engage in earnest.’
The first stroke of the Garg-tail gouged Kate’s skin, as if it had been brushed with a red-hot poker. Faltana was careful not to lash her – the scourge of the lash would show in ravaged flesh and livid scars. This torment raised a scalding weal of agony, but nothing that would permanently scar her flesh. It was followed by a pause, as precise as the weal, a minute or two to allow the agony to subside, which encouraged the growing dread of the next weal. Kate closed her eyes, shut them tight, again.
‘Think you still that he doesn’t feel it?’ Something sharp – a nail, like a talon – gouged the burning track of the weal, causing her to squirm and writhe. ‘Yeees – yeees! Upon my poor lost eye, as I feel it still, so also does he. He feels each lick, even more than you do.’
Kate sensed how the arm of the slug-beast rose again, that leisurely, almost delicate crescent of contact, the slide of agony gauged to unerring precision behind the pale flat glitter of the single eye. She tried to jerk her body away, but her feet were manacled with irons to the floor. Her heart shrank from the coming pain. But her body was too exhausted to tense any more.
‘Yeees! Let him savour it as we do – mmmmmmmmm!’
As the venomous barb hit a nerve Kate was unable to stop the scream.
‘Ahhhhh! It sings!’ The liquid sound of her tormentor’s lips opening, the slightly rasping sounds of the tongue licking. The barb suspended, waiting for the moment the agony peaked and began to fall, before it
Sister Hocht sighed, a low-pitched guttural croak, and her head fell back, her eyes boiled white.
Slug Beast and Lizard-Dung
Kate knew that Faltana was nearby even though she couldn’t see her. She could smell the rancid odour of her and she could hear her laboured breathing in the glimmerless dark as she arrived to grasp her arm and check her pulse. Though any sense of contact should have been welcome in this chamber of unfeeling, Kate felt nothing but disgust at the regular visits from her tormentor, knowing that Faltana was terrified of what would happen if Kate died on her before the Witch’s purpose was served.
A flare of light: it was no more than the sickly glow of a wyre-stone, its candle-like illumination framing Faltana’s hand, but Kate was so accustomed to pitch dark it forced her to clench her eyes tightly shut as if she were staring into the noonday sun.
Faltana’s voice hissed so close into Kate’s ear she felt the wet of her spittle, ‘Open your eyes, lizard-dung. I know you hear me.’
Through lids swollen with cold and hunger, Kate struggled to see the creature she so hated, etched in sweat by the lurid glow. Seeing Faltana gave her a focus for her loathing, that dark bulk, that slug-beast, a denser evil within the darkness, her empty eye socket rimed where the light glittered over her sweaty countenance.
‘Why don’t you just kill me?’
‘I shall – be assured of it. But not yet. No! In her wisdom my mistress orders that killing is too pleasant an end for you. But pain! Ah, the delicious thoughts of that. I crave your pain as you crave the coming of your saviour.’
Kate shivered. She couldn’t help the trembling that racked her body. But she tried to make her voice stronger than she actually felt. ‘You don’t dare to touch me. I heard what the Witch said.’
‘Ah, do I not? Is that what you fondly wish for – what you hope for?’
Kate struggled to create a half-laugh, half-cough in her dust-dry throat. ‘Not if you value the one eye you have left.’
The surviving eye of the Chief Succubus glittered back with loathing. It travelled over Kate’s shackled limbs in a slow writhe of pleasure. Faltana’s spit-flecked whisper crawled into Kate’s ear. ‘He senses it – this saviour or yours. He feels what you feel.’
‘Liar!’
‘You know I do not lie. He feels it – every sting. Surely it doubles my delight. But enough of foreplay. Let us engage in earnest.’
The first stroke of the Garg-tail gouged Kate’s skin, as if it had been brushed with a red-hot poker. Faltana was careful not to lash her – the scourge of the lash would show in ravaged flesh and livid scars. This torment raised a scalding weal of agony, but nothing that would permanently scar her flesh. It was followed by a pause, as precise as the weal, a minute or two to allow the agony to subside, which encouraged the growing dread of the next weal. Kate closed her eyes, shut them tight, again.
‘Think you still that he doesn’t feel it?’ Something sharp – a nail, like a talon – gouged the burning track of the weal, causing her to squirm and writhe. ‘Yeees – yeees! Upon my poor lost eye, as I feel it still, so also does he. He feels each lick, even more than you do.’
Kate sensed how the arm of the slug-beast rose again, that leisurely, almost delicate crescent of contact, the slide of agony gauged to unerring precision behind the pale flat glitter of the single eye. She tried to jerk her body away, but her feet were manacled with irons to the floor. Her heart shrank from the coming pain. But her body was too exhausted to tense any more.
‘Yeees! Let him savour it as we do – mmmmmmmmm!’
As the venomous barb hit a nerve Kate was unable to stop the scream.
‘Ahhhhh! It sings!’ The liquid sound of her tormentor’s lips opening, the slightly rasping sounds of the tongue licking. The barb suspended, waiting for the moment the agony peaked and began to fall, before it
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