Shadow of the Mountain (Fantasy, M/M) (COMPLETE)

[Camguy2050]

This story just keeps getting better and better i know you just added that chapter but i just want to keep reading and reading

[privateandrews]

Great to see you back. I just love how this story is unfolding , Your story telling is just amazing.

[Charmides]

Hey again, folks, and many thanks for all your patience! I just wanted to assure you guys that I've been working on the next installment, and it should be up sometime today. (Without giving anything away, it's been a bit of a monster to write, both length-wise and regarding content, so I hope you'll forgive my lapse between updates.) My master doc tells me that this story is creeping up on 60,000 words, which is, you know, a little disconcerting. No regrets, of course (he writes while giggling giddily).

And to the folks who've been kind enough to offer a few comments -- [mention]Volobond[/mention], [mention]sharpliketoday[/mention], [mention]DeeperThanRed[/mention], [mention]Mummyboi[/mention], [mention]Camguy2050[/mention], and [mention]privateandrews[/mention] -- as always, I couldn't be happier you guys seem to enjoy reading this thing as much as I do writing it. See you after the next installment, friends! Talk soon.

[Charmides]

PART 8

A fresh coil of rope swinging from is belt, Garret returned to the inn. It past noon already, and he was overdue to meet again with Amadi.

Amadi wasn’t in their room. He wasn’t downstairs. He wasn’t at the bar. Garret asked the barkeep if he’d seen someone of Amadi's description, to which he responded with a belch and by rasping, “Piss off.” Amadi was gone.

Garret stood in their empty room at the inn. No Elias, no Amadi. Both gone, like fireflies scattering at sunrise. Garret could feel his fingers going cold as he reached into his pocket and closed his palm around Inyatala’s stone. This city was like the forest outside of Thorn Village, but worse. A dark place, a secret place — and if you weren’t careful, you’d stumble into a dark briar patch, and get tangled up in something that you couldn’t escape from.

Garret stared out the window, the murmur of the crowd outside slipping in under the windowpanes, like the sound of piranhas swarming, ravenously seeking out their next meal.

What could Garret do now?



***



Thomas came to a beautiful revelation: He could still feel joy. It existed now. Here, in this moment, this present, because now is the only time that has ever existed, or ever will exist. So, Thomas felt the breathless, breakneck joy of the now as he lurked through the alleys and backstreets of Red Haven, dragging his new baggage along with him.

Supple and small, with soft muscled limbs and a graceful figure, bright gray eyes, smooth skin. Beautiful meat. And terror in his face. Thomas could see it, as he dragged the baggage along, still wrapping the young man in a half bear-hug, using his spare hand to smother his voluptuous lips in an unshakable hand-gag, the victim’s cheeks bulging out over the top of his hand from the tightness of it, his eyes perfect circles of fear…

That fear… now that was what brought Thomas joy.

But the meat kept struggling, trying to kick him — Thomas realized, as he crept through the shadowy areas of the city like a rat stealing a crumb from a crowded dining table, that he would have to do something soon to secure his prize. And since he had no rope or other material on him, he would have to get creative.

Thomas made a sharp turn into a new alley, the sun baking them from directly above. No one around. But, this alley had an interesting feature. A clothesline, stretched between the two brick walls, adorned with clothes left out to dry.

Perfect.

Thomas removed his hand from the meat’s mouth, just long enough to strike him open-handed across the face. The crack vibrated in the alley as if it were a cave. Not hard enough to damage Thomas’s new toy, but enough to leave him still and silent for a minute or two. Thomas dumped his prize in the middle of the alley, tore down the clothesline, and got to work.

At first, Thomas thought that he would just tear the clothes off the line, and use the rope — but he quickly saw that the rope wouldn’t be long enough for his purposes. But then, he realized that there were other ways of keeping his captive motionless.

One of the garments hanging on the line was a huge long-sleeved red shirt. It seemed that whoever hung these things out to dry was a rather large fellow. That was just fine. It gave Thomas an idea.

He pulled his dazed captive into an upright sitting position on the ground, and forced the shirt over his head, pulling the arms into the sleeves. Predictably, the sleeves were far too long. Exactly what Thomas had been hoping for. Thomas took the extra lengths of the sleeves, dangling over the meat’s hands, and pulled them behind his back. Now, the meat looked as if he were hugging himself, his arms constricted around his body by the sleeves. Thomas yanked the arms as far back as they would go, then tied the ends of the sleeve together. Simple, but devastatingly effective. Thomas could already start to hear the meat groaning with discomfort as he returned to his senses, and watched his body begin to squirm against the tight makeshift bindings.

“Hnng…” The meat’s eyes fluttered. The meat licked his full lips. That was probably what cause Thomas to do what he did next.

Thomas straddled the meat's lap, and planted his mouth on his captive's. This wasn’t just a kiss, or a show of force. It was a devouring. Thomas felt nothing in this but the pleasure of flesh, his cock growing rock-hard against his thigh as he sucked on the meat’s mouth, pulling at his lips, tasting him, even as the young man began to struggle under Thomas's heavy, muscled body.

“Gmmph! Blmmhmph!” The muffled pleading only made Thomas harder, and he began to grind into his captives lap. He forgot that they were in public. He forgot that at any moment, a pedestrian could round the corner and spot them. Nothing could turn the beast away from his prey.

Thomas finally broke away, and reached for the pile of clothes he stripped from the line.

“Help!” screamed the meat — or tried to, at least, his voice was a dry whistle, either from shock or fear, who could say. “Help, he’s evil, he’s going to — GRMMPH?!”

The pair of gray underwear that had been hanging on the line was not unlike the shirt. Both items clearly belonged to a very large man. Thomas shoved and stuffed the briefs between those remarkable lips, until both cheeks were full to bursting, and the meat’s already pathetic voice was reduced to nearly nothing.

Before the meat could even try to spit out the wadding (and who knew if he could, considering how large it was), Thomas grabbed a very long, thick woolen sock and pressed the center into the meat’s open mouth. He wrapped the sock around the whole head and tied it tightly, as a cleave gag to secure the rest.

“Hmm,” Thomas said, stroking his chin as he straddled the hips of his wriggling, mumbling captive. “Evil. You think I’m evil.”

Thomas took the second of the two socks, and pressed it into the meat’s mouth, right on top of the first one, tying a secondary, equally tight cleave gag. Now the socks biting into the meat’s mouth were so thick and wide, you couldn’t even see the enormous stuffing behind them; just the cleave gag, which on its own would have kept the meat’s mouth stuck wide open with its own savage effectiveness.

Thomas leaned in close. All he could hear was his own breath, and the pitiful nose-breathing of his fearful new toy.

“Boy,” whispered Thomas. “We haven’t even gotten started.”

Thomas jumped off the meat, and started to pull down his pants. Sheer panic struck his captive, who began kicking wildly with his legs — but without his arms, he was fighting a losing battle, and it didn’t take long for Thomas to rip the pants off and secure the meat’s ankles with his hands.

Thomas liked what he saw.

Thick, toned thighs. A package bulging against snug briefs. Thomas flipped the meat over, deaf to his muffled protests. A round, perky ass, the two globes bouncing and straining against the briefs as the meat writhed on the ground.

Thomas reached up and touched his chin. Damp. He was actually drooling.

And now, he knew what to use the clothesline for.

But first, he took the knife from his belt. The long, curved, thin knife he had taken from Elias’s shop. It felt so nice to use that knife. He felt miles away from Borhim and his lackeys. He felt like himself again.

He pressed the dull side of the knife against the meat’s neck. The meat visibly shuddered from the sudden sensation of the cold metal, and went still.

“I have no use for a corpse,” said Thomas. “If you keep struggling like this, that’s all you’ll be. A corpse. Do us both a favor. Behave. Grunt once if your understand.”

A pause… and then, the meat nodded it’s shivering head.

“Hmmph.”

“Music to my ears.”

Thomas took the clothes line, and began by tying it around the meat’s waist, so that he had two equal lengths of rope extending from the knot just below the meat’s belly button. From there, Thomas yanked the two ropes down, onto either side of the meat’s bulge, between his legs, and behind his back. It gave Thomas no small pleasure to yank the two ropes upward, digging into the meat’s full ass cheeks (prompting a startled whimper from the meat’s overstuffed mouth). There, he maneuvered the ropes back around to the meat’s navel and repeated the process again, and again, and again, until the rope was used up, and Thomas tied the final ends of the rope with a flourish, locking the ropes permanently in place.

Thomas decided to gift himself a moment of indulgence. He leaned down and began ravenously kissing the meat’s bound ass cheeks, made all the more visually stunning by the tightness of the rope and the briefs.

A meal, thought Thomas. A full meal, I’ve caught a full meal — a full meal and a half.

He finally relented, lifting his lips from the quivering flesh. He reached for the pile of clothes again, and grabbed a large, brown pair of pants.

Thomas grinned. He expected it would be the right size for what he had in mind. He took his knife, and cut off the right leg of the pants, so that he was left with a long tube of cloth.

Thomas seized the meat’s legs, and fed both his feet into the larger of the two openings in tube. He pulled the tube up his body, pleased to feel his plan working as the fabric became tighter, the higher he moved up the meat’s wide, smooth legs. By the time Thomas had moved up as high as he could go, the strong fabric was absolutely skintight. Thomas stepped back and observed the results.

Just as he’d hoped. One pant leg from the giant of a man who once owned these pants was more than enough to trap his meat in a viciously tight leg-binding. And best of all, Thomas had only been able to maneuver the cloth right to the top of the meat’s thighs. Meaning, he still had unfettered access to his crotch and ass.

Thomas sat cross-legged on the ground, and pulled the meat into his lap. He felt his own erection nearly bursting from his pants, grinding up against his prize’s backside. One arm, he used to wrap around the meat’s chest; with the other, Thomas began to fondle his crotch-bound package.

“So,” said Thomas, gently kissing the meat’s neck, using all his self-control not to simply lunge forward and take a bite out of his flesh. “You think I’m evil.”

The whimpering was as fearful and pathetic as ever. Thomas saw a tear glistening on the edge of the meat’s bulging cheek. Was there ever, Thomas wondered, a time in his life when making another creature cry would have given him pause?

You kicked it to death, thought Thomas. The dog. You kicked it to —

Thomas felt the bulge he was kneading slowly begin to inflate. The meat’s whimpers turned into a woeful, panicked moaning. The meat knew he had lost, and Thomas knew that he had won.

“Tell me I’m evil,” said Thomas, taking his hand and slipping it into the meat’s briefs.

The meat, for the first time, stopped whimpering. He made no sound.

Thomas closed his fingers around the meat’s slowly engorging shaft, and began to pump it.

“Tell me I’m evil,” said Thomas, a steely edge creeping into his voice.

The meat was silent. Thomas pumped faster.

“Say it. Say it, and I’ll release you.”

Thomas heard a sharp intake of breath through the meat’s nostrils. Thomas smiled, and pumped faster.

“Say it. It can’t hurt your chances…”

A pause. For a few moments, the only noise was the soft pumping of the meat’s cock, and the internal pounding of hot blood. Then, finally:

“… Ymmph mhmmph….”

“Again.” Faster.

“Ymmph mhmmph —”

“Again.” Still faster, and Thomas felt the meat on the edge, as gorged as he could be, the cock quivering, beginning tremble —

“Ymmph —”

Thomas released the cock and pushed the meat out of his lap. Then he stood up, over his new baggage, the smell of sweat and lust and fear clogging up the air. The baggage looked up at him, with eyes wide and watery and bewildered.

“Too slow,” said Thomas. “You’ll learn to be more prompt next time. We have time. All the time we need. That time is now.”

Thomas took the last thing he needed from the pile of clothes; a large white sheet. He wrapped up his captive inside, head to toe, and tore off a few extra strips of cloth from the unused pant leg to secure the sheet around the meat’s body, at the shoulders, waist, ankles, knees, and thighs.

It was a great joy for Thomas to fling his new baggage over his shoulder, still feeling the hot cock through the fabric. He planted his hand firmly on the meat’s succulent ass. With his captive secured, Thomas began again to slink through the under-parts of Red Haven, ducking the guards and the crowds, known only to himself and the shadows.

The meat’s tearful mumbling and pathetic squirming felt like the most natural thing in the world to Thomas. As he made his way back to his hideout under the inn, he felt, for the first time since he’d met Borhim, that he was on the right path. He would make sure his new property was properly taken care of, back in that dusty basement. Then, to the market, to buy the thing that would free him from Borhim forever.



***



Hendrick had no idea how to get into the dungeons.

He had staked himself out on the sidewalk, just around the corner from the door that he knew would lead him to Elias. He watched criminals being taken inside, and he saw guards coming and going. But he didn't exactly see any casual civilian strolling in, so it would likely be unwise if Hendrick was the first one to try it.

And even if he did get in, what then? It wasn’t as if he would be able to lay waste to his adversaries, like some legendary war mage. Whatever he was, whatever “power”he had, he had no idea how to make the natural world listen to him. Yes, there had been moments of strange, supernatural intervention in his life before, when he’d been in trouble — the root that freed him from Thomas, for instance — but this would be different. Once inside, he wouldn’t have time to wait around and pray for an apple tree to pop through a wall and mangle his enemies. No, he needed a plan.

Already, Hendrick had paced around the block at least a dozen times, thinking, hoping that no nearby guards would accuse him of loitering. Now, as he peeked around the corner at the guard’s door in the city wall, he recalled just how easy it was for him to get captured. After all, Hendrick must have seen at least six young men like him already, dragged into that doorway, often with their arms and ankles shackled, a few of them with large ball gags being shoved into their mouths. If Hendrick didn’t find a way through that door, there’s no doubt he would end up…

… Oh.

Well, maybe there was at least one way Hendrick knew he could get inside.

But what then? He didn’t know. There were so many things that could go wrong, he could hardly count them.

Hendrick thought desperately through other options. Disguising himself as a guard? Pickpocketing a key and waiting till dark? Maybe "nature" would give him an earthquake, and open up a tunnel in the ground, leading him to Elias? Each option, more difficult and unlikely than the last.

Hendrick sighed. His wrists were only just recovering from his torment at the hands of Thomas. But, it seemed like this had to be done.

Hendrick looked around. How to get this all rolling…

He noticed a man pushing an apple cart, a little ways up the street.

It would have to do. Hendrick stole himself. He took a look around, to make sure there were some guards nearby. Indeed, there were, two of them chatting on the sidewalk not too far from the apple-seller. With one last deep breath, Hendrick started marching toward the apple cart.

As he approached, the man with the cart slowed, eyeing Hendrick carefully.

“No charity here, lad,” said the man, his head hairless, save for a pair of frizzy brown mutton chops. “On your way.”

“Oh, no,” said Hendrick, hopefully loud enough so that the guards could hear, but not loud enough to be unnatural. “I’m no thief. How much for an apple?”

“I didn’t say you were a thief.”

“Well, that’s good. Because, um, I’m not. So, the apples?”

“One copper each.”

“Uh…” Hendrick made a show of checking his pockets. “Darn. Seems that there's hole in my pocket.”

“Shame,” said the apple-seller, and he began to push past Hendrick with his cart.

Here, Hendrick almost panicked. He didn’t want to be too obvious, so he couldn’t just grab an apple and run. He shuffled, trying to stand in front of the cart — and felt the heavy thump of the cart’s front wheel rolling over his foot.

“Agh!” Hendrick cried, hopping briefly on his unbruised foot… the promptly stumbling forward into the cart, sending it teetering onto its side.

“No, no, no —” the apple seller shouted, trying to right the cart in time — and then, crash, the whole thing landed on its side in the street, apples exploding in every direction. One of them rolled directly at the feet of the two guards down the street, who were watching the whole ordeal with incredulous, impassive faces.

Hendrick turned to the apple seller, whose face was now approximately the color of a ripe beet. With a sheepish laugh and a nervously shaking hand, Hendrick reached down and pulled an apple off the street.

He cleared his throat. “Um… So… I guess you don’t want these anymore?”

It’s likely the only thing that prevented the apple seller from pulling Hendrick’s head off was the quick intersession of the guards, who with gale-swiftness appeared in front of the violently sputtering man, just before his fingers could reach Hendrick’s neck.

“All right, all right, we’ll take it from here” cried one of the guards, pushing back the apple seller as he spouted volcanic threats that involved body mutilation, torture, and the eternal torment of Hendrick’s ancestors.

In short order, the apple seller cooled off and started sadly picking his wares up off the street. Meanwhile, the guards pulled Hedrick’s hands behind his back. Hendrick's heart skipped a beat. Here we go, he thought.

Cold manacles clicked tightly into place, and a firm hand on Hendrick’s shoulder directed him to walk. So Hendrick began his procession to the door in the city wall, barely a block away, a guard on either side of him.

“That,” said the guard on his left, “was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen.”

Hendrick sighed. “I agree completely,” he said. “But, you know, food, it’s rather necessary, and as you can see I’m not exactly a sultan, I’m just trying to do what I can to sur-vmmph?”

Hendrick had wondered what the guards would do with his confiscated apple, but he hadn’t quite imagined that they would stuff it into his open mouth, as they now did. The guard on his left shoved the thing in mid-word, stretching his jaw a mile and forcing his lips to clamp down on the blood-red skin. His teeth sunk into it, locking his jaw in place; it was too big for him to bite through immediately, without working at the flesh for a bit. Meanwhile, his mouth was sealed up tight.

“Chew on that, street rat,” said the one that had gagged him, and they both chortled good-naturedly, as if this was part of their everyday routine (which it probably was). Hendrick sighed through his nose.

The door screeched opened, then banged shut, and suddenly Hendrick was underground.

The guards led him past the rooms where common life happened for the guards; the washrooms, the dining rooms and kitchens, a few offices and servant’s quarters; through the labyrinthine hallways, and eventually into a wide stone room. On one end of the room was a wooden desk, behind which sat a man with long blond hair and cheekbones that could cut glass. A number of narrow, barred cell doors lined the walls. Through the bars, Hendrick could see that they each were no larger than a broom closet (smaller, in fact, likely no more than three feet by three feet in dimension), and had a single metal pole running from the middle of the floor to the middle of the ceiling. And about a quarter of these cells were occupied.

Various young men from the street had been forced into the cells and bound to the poles, in a variety of ways. A few had their arms bound over their heads with rope, others had their hands bound to their sides, and were fixed to their pole via more rope bound or leather belts bound around their bodies. All were gagged, some less severely — a few cleave gags, some thin, some thick, some knotted — and a some more severe, such as a couple of leather harnesses that stopped up the mouth and wound around the whole head, as well as some ball gags and panel gags. The looks on these young men’s faces ranged from exhausted to resigned to annoyed. Clearly a few of these folks were repeat offenders, and eager to get their sentence over with as soon as possible, wriggling with frustration in their bonds, or else slumping over in defeat.

Suddenly Hendrick’s infiltration plan didn’t seem like such a brilliant idea.

Cheek Bones looked up from some forms he was filling out, brushing a lock of hair from his ice-blue eyes. “What did this one do?” he asked.

“Causing a ruckus in the streets,” said one of the guards, as he brought Hendrick over to a cell and reached for the keys on his belt. “Turning over carts, stealing. He needs some time to cool off.”

The other guard went up to Cheek Bones’ desk, and eyed a plate of crackers and cheese sitting next to a pile of papers. “You shouldn’t bring food in here,” he said. “We’re starting to get ants.”

Cheek Bones looked up, then smirked. “You’re one to talk, bringing an apple in here.” He nodded toward Hendrick, whose face went slightly pink from the mention, and from the apple bulging obscenely out of his mouth.


The guard by the desk snorted a laugh. “Guess you got me there,” he said, grabbed a cracker, and left the room.

By now, the guard with Hendrick had gotten the cell open, and pushed him inside. This was obviously a procedure the guard was well-familiar with. He unshackled Hendrick’s wrists only for the barest of moments, before locking them again behind the pole. Then he stepped out of the cell, closed the door, and locked it. He looked into Hendrick’s eyes with a smile, and jangled the keys in front of his face.

“Just stand there nice and quiet,” he said. “We’ll get you out later, if we remember to.” With that, the guard locked the door, and left the room. Now it was just Hendrick, his fellow prisoners, and Cheek Bones, who sat at his desk just out of Hendrick’s sight, obscured by the wall of the cell.

Okay. He was inside. Now what?

Whatever fantasies Hendrick had imagined when he’d planned this little adventure — conjuring up roots and vines out of the walls to subdue his enemies, moving through this underground maze like a hot knife through butter — were getting dimmer and dimmer with every passing moment. He certainly wasn’t able to get out of these manacles, and even if the forces of nature would be kind enough to lend him an ear, nature wasn’t exactly known for picking locks, was it? And how exactly was Hendrick supposed to “converse” with nature with this apple stuffed in his mouth?

For a while, the only sounds in the room were the scratchings of a quill on parchment, and a few scattered whimpers and muffled pleadings from the other prisoners. Hendrick commanded himself not to panic. There must be a way out.

Hendrick noticed that the apple was starting to loosen in his mouth, the pressure of his jaws finally letting his teeth sink in a little deeper. This sort of gag never struck him as permanent. Maybe it wasn’t so much to keep him quiet, as it was a message: “Keep this in your mouth, or else.”

What would he do, then? Send up a prayer to the forces of nature? Suddenly, in the confines of that uncomfortably small cell, every extraordinary thing that Hendrick had done, all of the talk from that priest about the “worldly forces,” all of it… it seemed like nothing. Coincidences and nonsense.

Hendrick spied a large black ant, scaling the wall of his cell. It stopped at about his eye level, mandibles twitching.

Okay, thought Hendrick. It’s ridiculous and couldn’t possibly work. But it’s my only chance.

He started to making an active effort to chew through the apple. It was frustratingly thick, and for a couple minutes Hendrick really thought he would be stuck with that red globe in his mouth forever — but then, with a loud crunch, he with through. The bulk of the apple fell with a wet splat onto the cell floor. Hendrick spat what was left of it from his mouth. Feeling like more of a fool than he ever had in his life, he addressed the ant.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” he whispered, “or what you could possibly do to help me, but please, just get me out of here. Show me a sign, something, just to let me know that you can hear me, just to…”

Hendrick’s words dried up in his throat as a figure stepped into view of the cell door. Cheek Bones, with a key in one hand, and another hand behind his back. He unlocked the door, swung it wide, and stared at Hendrick.

“Whatever god you’re praying to, give it a rest,” he said. “The only person who can hear you is me.”

“No, wait, you don’t understand! Please, I have to get out of —”

Too late. The guard lunged forward, and plunged the big, brown leather ball gag in his hidden hand into Hendrick’s open mouth. It was nearly as big as the apple, but this time, Hendrick had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to work it free.

It was like one of the other, elaborate ball gags he had seen stopping the mouths of some of the other prisoners. This one had a series of straps that encompassed Hendrick’s whole head, entrapping his skull and face in some sort of harness. Cheek Bones wasted no time in buckling each strap to maximum tightness, the pressure of the ball between Hendrick’s lips only increasing with every tightening.

“Try biting through that,” said Cheek Bones, and left.

“Nmmph! Prmmph, hmph!” Hendrick moaned desperately, his manacles rattling against the pole he was bound to. If this got any worse, his hopes of escape would be —

Cheek Bones appeared again, with at least a dozen leather belts thrown over his shoulder.

Hendrick could hardly manage a single muffled protest before Cheek Bones got to work, binding him much more closely and securely to the pole. He started at Hendrick’s shoulders, winding around the pole, then buckling, then repeating the process over and under his chest, then twice around his upper and lower waist. The cold metal of the pole pressed into Hendrick’s back as if he were suddenly welded to it. Then Check Bones took a smaller belt, and bound it around Hendrick’s ankles, apart from the pole, fixing his lower legs together. But then he used the remaining belts to attach the rest of Hendrick’s body to the sleek metal anchor; straps over his already bound ankles, his upper and lower shins, knees, upper and lower thighs, and then one bound with excruciating tightness directly over his crotch.

Hendrick squirmed and groaned as Cheek Bones stepped back to examine his work. “Glmhmmbmph!” he cried, his cheeks inflating and deflating uselessly behind his stopped-up mouth.

Cheek Bones cocked an eyebrow. Then he lifted up his last device — a long roll of wide, thin leather, which he let unroll naturally for a good four feet, like a long, smooth bandage. With no preamble, he started to wind the leather around Hendrick’s mouth.

Hendrick struggled, the panic he’d fought before finally setting in as the pressure around the ball in is mouth only got tighter and tighter. Hendrick could just see himself, the outline of his lips sucking on the ball perfectly clear through the thin, tight layers of supple leather being bound around his head, again and agin, until finally Cheek Bones reached the end of the roll, and tied the ends off tightly behind Hendrick’s neck.

“Mmmp?” Hendrik whined meekly, feeling his cheeks bulging over the gag.

Cheek Bones snickered. He closed the cell door, twirled his key ring in his hand, and locked it.

“Next time,” he said, “try not to interrupt my paperwork.” He strode out of sight.

Trying to breathe deeply (or at least, as deeply as he could, all things being considered), Hendrick looked down at his body. He’d lost track of the number of belts binding him in place. His frantic eyes flickered back to the ant on the wall. There it sat. Unmoved, unmoving.

“Gmmp!” Hendrick cried in frustration. He suddenly felt like crying. His thoughts of escaping withered in his mind. What was the worst case scenario here? They were keeping him for minor charges. Disturbing the peace, petty theft. They couldn’t hold him forever. Right?

Just as it occurred to Hendrick that, no matter what he’d been arrested for, there was nothing he could do if his captors decided to keep him for as long as they wanted — he heard a noise from the room outside the cell, from the direction of Cheek Bones at his desk. The sudden violent scrape of chair legs on stone, then wood clattering to the floor. Then a voice.

“What the hell is — gllk! Mph-hrrg! Grmm—”

Then, a dull thunk, and silence.

By now, every prisoner had gone silent, as surprised by the sudden cacophony as they were by how quickly it ended. And then, another sound. A noise that Hendrick had no idea how to identify. The sound of rain on a roof, or sand spilling through an hourglass; a high, cascading noise with the texture of sandpaper.

Movement on the ground outside the cell caught Hendrick’s eye.

Ants. Countless thousands of ants.

They appeared like a moving puddle of oil, a black mass of legs and mandibles, spilling over each other slowly but surely in the direction of Hendrick’s cell. They scrambled through the bars, they rolled up to his feet — and finally, Hendrick whimpered in shock and fright as they began climbing up his feet and legs.

It’s a dream, Hendrick thought, as the ants marched up his waist, his chest. The gag, the straps, this city, this whole nightmare is a dream. When I wake up I’ll be back in Thorn Village, the morning after Thomas went up Mount Thorn to the Beast… and he’ll be gone, and I’ll be with Garret, and everything will be safe…

A chilling vibration began to shudder around Hendrick, seemingly from every direction. For a moment, he had no clue what was happening. But then, slowly, he realized what the ants were doing. They were chewing through his restraints.

Hendrick had no idea how long such an undertaking would last, from such tiny creatures. But he was shocked by their efficiency. After hardly five minutes of chewing, the belts began to fall to the floor around him. As each one fell, the pressure lifted both off of his body and is heart, and a victory bell began to toll in his mind:

It’s working. It’s actually working.

The lats of the straps fell, and now only the gag and the manacles were left. A dread passed through Hendrick’s chest as he remembered, without keys, he still wasn’t going anywhere —

And then he saw a squadron of about a dozen cockroaches creeping through the bars of the cell door, marching over the sea of ants, carrying along the set of keys from Cheek Bones’ belt.

Hendrick grimaced under his gag as the roaches reached his feet, and began ascending toward his hands, their tiny feet pricking at him like a hundred pinching needles.

“Dmhmmgmm, bmm mmgmph,” he said, the words, as expected, totally smothered by the gag. (“Disgusting, but okay.”)

They reached his hands, and Hendrick snatched the keys. It took him a few minutes to find the right key and fit it into the lock — but soon enough, Hendrick heard the glorious click of a lock opening. The manacles dropped to the floor. Hendrick hurried to undo his gag, first pulling the excessive leather off his lips, and then unbuckling the straps of his harness ball-gag. The large brown ball left his lips with a soft pop, and Hendrick felt the blood begin rushing back to his face.

He unlocked the cell door and opened it, the ants parting before him as he stepped out into the room. By now, Hendrick had started to notice that he had the full attention of the other prisoners. Some looked horrified; some looked awe-stricken; others, grossed out; while still others started begging through their gags for release.

That would have to wait, because Hendrick turned to Cheek Bones’ desk and realized what had happened. It was as if a small version of Hendrick’s most elaborate druidic fantasy had come to life. Two roots had slithered out of the wall, between gaps in the stones, each grabbing one of Cheek Bones’ hands. Then they had retracted back into the earth, leaving Cheek Bones to stand with his arms splayed in a wide Y shape over his head. What’s more, a third root had snaked between his lips, cleave gagging him and pinning his head to the wall. (This probably explained the thunk from earlier, as well as Cheek Bones’ current unconsciousness.)

Hendrick walked up to him, just as he started to stir. He reached up toward his face, and touched the root. It slithered out of his mouth, and Cheek Bones blinked back to wakefulness.

“I… what…” he murmured, his eyes finally focusing on Hendrick. His face hardened with fear as he tugged on his restraints, abruptly realizing his situation.

“Let me go,” he snarled.

Hendrick swallowed, doing his best to act like the hero he was trying to be. “Elias. Where is he?”

Cheek Bones thought for a moment. Then, much to Hendrick's surprise, he smiled. “Oh. I know who you mean. That’s Kent’s new prisoner. He told me all about it. Sorry, kid. You’ll never se him a—”

Before his could finish, more roots abruptly erupted from the cracks in the stonework behind the bound man. The wrapped around his legs, squeezing them together, around his chest, pinning him to the wall. Every slithering plant began to visibly tighten. Cheek Bones gasped as his chest began to constrict.

“Stop,” he wheezed, “make it stop!”

“I don’t know if I can,” said Hendrick, which was pretty much the truth.

The roots softly whined as they tightened, like old wooden furniture settling into place. The strain mounted, and Cheek Bones’ whole face started going red, as he desperately tried to maintain a steady pace of breath. Hendrick watched with mounting apprehension, then dawning horror. Would these plants actually hurt him? If they didn’t stop, would they even go so far as to…

“Okay!” yelled Cheek Bones, with the last of his breath. “Okay, okay!”

The roots stopped tightening… then loosened. Slightly.

Cheek Bones caught his breath, then said, with a voice suddenly tremulous and uncertain, “I’ll give you directions. Please, don’t hurt me.”

Hendrick nodded. “I won’t. But I need to know where Elias is. I need to know how to find him without alerting any more guards. And I need to know what the quickest, quietest way is back out into the city.”

“Fine,” said Cheek Bones. “There’s a map in my desk drawer, I’ll show you —”

“And if you try to send me into a trap,” said Hendrick as the idea came to him, suddenly feeling much more powerful than he had in a long time, “or try to attack me with your guards… I can guarantee you, these roots will only release you once I’m safely out of these tunnels.”

The roots tightened very slightly, in mild agreement.

Cheek Bones told Hendrick everything he wanted and more.

With his destination and his escape plan ready, Hendrick grabbed the ring of keys and started to leave (which prompted the root which had been cleave-gagging Cheek Bones to slither back into place between his lips). The only thing that stopped him was a sudden chorus of muffled moans. The other prisoners. Could he really just leave them here? Would it be right to let them free? What if some of them had actually committed genuine crimes?

Then, Hendrick considered all the guards that were likely still lurking in this underground maze, and how difficult it would be for anyone to navigate this place alone. Surely saving Elias would be more than a one-man operation. And that gave Hendrick a very useful idea.



***



How long had it been? Elias only had one way to measure time. Breathing. Each breath was a focused effort, a desperate inhaling of air through what felt like a straw. How many labored breaths had he taken already? How many more would he be forced to take?

His arms, glued together behind his back by a strong leather arm-binding device. His muscular body, bound with rope; a harness around his chest, coils and coils of rope restraining his legs. An inflatable gag, forced into his mouth, and then blown up to its maximum size, sealed into his excruciatingly stuffed cheeks with a skintight panel gag. His whole body, forced into a human-shaped black bag and laced tightly inside it, like an ink-black mummy from an ancient tomb. A hood over his head, applying even more pressure to his gagged mouth, and blindfolding him, leaving him only his nose to breathe from.

And on top of all of that, this room was a nightmare. It was like being trapped in a satin-line coffin, ten sizes too small. The narrow cell was padded with thick and fluffy stuffing on each side, so that there was only a tiny space in the center where he could stand, and even then, he was pushed in on all sides by the stuffing. This was more than confinement. This was more than restraint. This was a sensation of not only being trapped by rope and gags, but of being trapped by one’s very own body. Elias was trapped inside himself, inside his mind. Movement, impossible. Speech, barely audible. And the minutes and hours ticked by, marked only by the constant, arduous struggle for breath.

They’re waiting for me, thought Elias. Garret and Amadi are waiting, and they’re not safe without me. I thought I could keep them safe —

A sound. From outside the cell. The first noise that Elias had heard in who knows how long, aside from the rush of air in and out of his nose. Footsteps.

Could this be it? My only chance at rescue? Escape?

With what little energy was left to him, Elias struggled desperately in his impenetrable cocoon, mewling and mumbling into his gag. Even with all his strength, he was unable to move more than half an inch in any direction. But he fought to make a noise. He writhed and cried out.

“Hmmmphlmm! Gmmmph!”

The footsteps approached the cell door. And then, miraculously, the door opened.

Elias’s bound body spilled forward into someone’s arms. He groaned, half believing that it was Kent, back to torment him, but part of him still believed…

“Hlmmmph!”

“Oh, shut up,” said a wholly unfamiliar voice. “I’m just here to feed you.”

The hood was pulled back. Even the dim torch-light of this dungeon was enough to make Elias blink in the brightness of the sudden light. His eyes focused on the man cradling his body; a porter of some kind, black hair, scruffy and in need of a shave — but with a strong frame, and firm hands, clearly not anyone to let an escape attempt happen on his watch.

The porter pressed some sort of valve on the front of Elias’s panel gag, and another miracle; the huge gag started to deflate. When it was small enough, the porter unbuckled the whole gag and removed it. Elias happily drank up the air as the object fell from his dry mouth.

“Listen to me,” said Elias, in a crackling voice after countless hours of gagged silence. “Kent isn’t what you think he — mph?!”

The porter wasted no time in taking a crust of bread, soaking it with a cup of water, and stuffing it into Elias’s mouth.

“What, you think I don’t know he’s corrupt?” said the porter, dunking more bread in his tin water cup with a smile. “It’s Red Haven, buddy. I know.”

The porter shoved the second hunk of bread into Elias’s mouth, now fully packing it. Elias had been too stunned to even start chewing, instead still trying to reason with his new captor. The porter sighed, soaking yet more bread.

“You’d better start chewing,” he said, “because I’m not gonna stop stuffing up that massive gob of yours with food, so if you choke, it’s your own problem.”

Suddenly Elias realized how desperately hungry and thirsty he was. It was blissful, the feeling of water running down his throat, and even this stale bread was incredibly delicious.

Resigned, Elias slowly began to chew.

“Good man,” said the porter, stuffing in more bread, almost faster than Elias could chew it.

After a few minutes of this, the porter ran out of bread, and clamped his hand over Elias’s food-stuffed mouth as he chewed and swallowed the last of it. Then for a brief moment, the porter’s hand left his mouth.

“I have to leave,” said Elias. “You don’t understand. And don’t you dare gag me again, you need to listen to —”

Predictably, infuriatingly, the porter stuffed the soft inflatable gag back into Elias’s mouth, strapped the leather panel on even tighter than before, and, ignoring the angry protests, began pumping.

“Don’t gag you!” The porter laughed as Elias’s cheeks began to swell. “Normally, beefcakes like you aren’t such chatterboxes. But what else am I supposed to do, when you won’t stop yapping?”

“GRMMMPH!” It was too much. Elias writhed forward, struggling wildly — CRACK. His forehead made contact with the porter’s nose. The porter snagged back, blood beginning to trickle onto his lip, as Elias crumpled to the floor, his body flapping like a beached fish.

The porter didn’t take long to recover. He bent over and punched Elias hard in the stomach. Elias’s bound and bagged body doubled over in pain; the porter used this moment of stillness to add in a few extra, spiteful pumps of the gag, and then the hood was immediately pulled tight over Elias’s face and head again.

“That,” said the porter, “was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

Elias heard the porter walk away and open a door, maybe to a closet somewhere, and then, he returned.

The porter pushed Elias onto his stomach, and then, Elias felt something attach with a click to the back of his ankles, as if something were being connected to a loop of leather that already existed, sewn into the bag he was trapped in. Then, another click behind his shins; thighs; ass; waist; upper back; and then one more behind his head.

Elias tried struggling again, and realized what had happened. The porter had bound his body to some kind of portable metal pole, as long as he was tall. Now, he couldn’t even flap like a fish. He could only squirm futilely, pathetically, in an erect position, his body anchored at over half a dozen points to this device that would barely let him move his head.

The porter heaved the still struggling and mumbling Elias back onto his feet, dragged him back to the padded cell, and stuffed him inside once more.

“Prmmmph!” Elias wailed into his gag, unable to think doing anything but struggling for his long lost freedom. “Hmmphmmph!”

“Too bad,” said the porter with a chuckle. “You’d better get used to it. Because you’re going to be here for a long, long, long —”

CLANG. The sound of ringing metal, and a body crumpling to the floor.

“… Mmph?”

Elias’s body was hauled out of the padded cell again, this time by many hands. He was laid gently on the ground. His hood, pulled away. Elias’s sight adjusted again to the light —

Hendrick. Hendrick, sitting beside him on the floor of the dungeon, looking down at him with a frying pan in his hand and tears in his eyes.

Behind Hendrick, a few strangers that Elias didn’t know (strong young men dressed in rags and dirty cloaks) were already starting to pull out rope and bind the porter, who lay unconscious on the floor.

“It’s okay, Elias,” said Hendrick. “You’re safe now.”

Elias couldn’t help but start to cry, from the joy, the surprise, the relief. I was supposed to save you, he thought, as Hendrick began the long process of undoing his restraints. I was going to save you, my apprentice, my friend. Now, you’ve saved me. I will never forget it.



***



Thomas returned to the warehouse. It had been a busy afternoon.

A good few hours had passed since the capture of Thomas’s new meat. Since then, he’d been seized by a fever of creativity, and had put his plans into motion. Now, he approached the warehouse where he knew that Borhim and his subordinates would be waiting for him. And he arrived pushing a large, flat, two-wheeled wooden cart, stacked with coffins.

It had been no difficult thing to sneak the coffins away from the local undertaker. (Especially once he’d been stashed in a closet, body bound, mouth stuffed with cotton.) Five coffins in total. He pushed them toward the wide warehouse doors, which stood half open. His body and head were hidden by a large, black hooded cloak; Thomas had finally remembered that if he was going to fulfill his greatest desires, he had to remain unseen, not just so that no one could recognize his head, but also, for his own thrill, his own excitement. He would lurk. Oh, yes, he would lurk very well. And what a striking image he must have been, too! The hooded shadow, pushing the cart of coffins. A beautiful tableau. It was worthy of him.

Thomas pushed the cart through the half open doors. Already, the afternoon was dying, and the sunlight in the windows was softening into the golden hour… and this evening, the light promised to be unusually red. Dark orange and yellow sunlight rolled through the windows, and splattered on the bare warehouse walls. Thomas grinned wide under his hood. Beneath his cloak, he reassuringly clutched at the object hanging from his belt, the thing he’d been so eager to get from the market. He parked his cart of coffins, and approached Borhim.

Thomas was surprised that Borhim and two of his lackeys were up here, on the warehouses’s main floor, and not in the basement. But there they were, the two lesser Venesthian slavers, sitting on two stools and enjoying some drink from their wine skins (as Thomas knew they enjoyed doing, every afternoon at about this time), and Borhim, pacing behind them, a suave, pensive ogre. As Thomas rolled into the warehouse, all three froze. Borhim stepped forward to address the stranger in black.

“Hello, friend,” said said, wearing his most amiable carnival-smile. “Do I know you?”

“No,” said Thomas, pulling back his hood and revealing himself, eyes glittering crimson in the slanting sun. “No, you don’t know me at all.”

Borhim’s smile melted immediately. A contemptuous curl of the lip replaced it.

“And where,” said Borhim, with a voice like a distant hurricane, “have you been? You may not disappear. One of my employees has vanished. Whether taken by the law, or by competing flesh-peddlers, I don’t know. But clearly, there’s nothing else for us here in Red Haven. We’ve sold all that we can sell, and we can collect more merchandise elsewhere. We leave presently. Fetch the wagon, prepare the horse.”

Thomas laughed like a hyena. He almost doubled over. His eyes began to water.

Borhim stood there, waiting for the fit to end. But it didn’t. It just kept going on and on and on.

Borhim turned back to the other two slavers. “My friends, please prepare for our departure. I’m overdue to have a few words in private with our protege.”

“Yes, Master Borhim,” they said together, and stood from their stools… but before they took two steps, they each began swaying on their feet. To look at them, you’d think they had both been hit by a wave of nausea. One of them placed a steadying hand back onto his stool, slowly taking controlled breaths. The other’s knees began to buckle, and he sank to the dust.

As Borhim watched with confusion as each of his employees began a slow journey to the ground, Thomas wiped a tear from his eye.

“I was just thinking,” said Thomas, as the sputtering bursts of laughter began to subside, “about how funny it is that you don’t drink. Are you sure you don’t want any wine? I’m sure your friends would be happy to share!”

Borhim slowly looked down at the ground. The two wineskins his employees had been using lay at his feet, gurgling the last of their contents out into the dirt.

Borhim looked back up at Thomas.

“Will they die?” he asked.

“Oh, no, they’ll just fall asleep for a bit. But before we go any further, can I show you something?”

Thomas whirled around, and pulled the lid off one one of the coffins on the cart. Then he hauled out a long, shivering shape and held it in front of him, between himself and Borhim, like a holy symbol to keep a devil at bay.

It was the new meat. But bound a little more thoroughly than before. All the previous clothesline bindings were still in place, except for the sheet. Now, over the huge bound shirt and the tight single pant-leg containing both of new meat’s legs, were coils and coils and coils of rope, nearly mummifying the young man with strong hemp. His mouth, stuffed with underwear and cleave gagged with two huge socks, was now so smothered in layers of clothes and bandanas that it was impossible to tell where his mouth was under the immense gagging. And while Borhim couldn’t see it, yet more stuffing had been added in front of the sock cleave gags, lodging the meat’s mouth permanently open. The meat’s eyes peaked over the gag, watery and terrified.

“I thought you’d like to see this,” said Thomas. “The rock, upon which I’ll build the rest of my life. A life that has no need of you.”

Borhim stared for a moment. Then grinned.

“I know those eyes,” he said. “I never forget a pair of eyes. You’ve found him. Our escapee. Our escaped merchandise.”

Thomas’s smile faltered. “What?”

“It seems that after all this, you can still redeem yourself. You’ve been kind enough to fetch my property back for me. Excellent. Simply give him to me, and then I will let you leave my service unmolested.”


Thomas’s eyes were wide. Anger came easily into them. “This one is mine,” he said. “I caught him. Me. Not you. He’s not yours.”

“Is that a refusal?”

“Yes.”

“Refuse me again, boy, and I will deliver you unto such a world of pain as you have never imagined.”

Thomas sneered. He pushed the new meat to the ground, where it lay quaking and whimpering. He took a step toward Borhim.

“Get on your knees, old man,” said Thomas.

Now it was Borhim’s turn to laugh. Just one loud “Hah!” that made the rafters shake. Then he took a step toward Thomas. Than another. He had never seemed more like a lumbering giant than he did now.

“I am known in secret places all over this world,” said Borhim, moving ever closer. “In Valia, in Venesthus, in the frozen cities of Aboreth, over the breadth of the Mirror Islands, and beyond. What I have seen, you will never see. What I have achieved, you will never achieve. What I am, you will never be. I am Master Borhim.”

“No, you’re not,” said Thomas, pulling the crossbow out from the folds of his cloak. “Not anymore.”


SHNK.

The bolt lodged itself feather-deep in Borhim’s chest. Borhim looked down his chin at it. For the first time since Thomas had laid eyes on him, Borhim looked genuinely surprised.

The large bearded man with the eyepatch shuddered where he stood. His eyes rolled back in his head, his mouth opened in a silent snarl. Then, like a tower, he crumbled. A plume of dust erupted from the ground where he fell. A moment of wild twitching, and then, Master Borhim became still. Blood pooled around him where he lay, dead in the dirt.

Thomas walked over the the body. Prodded it with his foot. Nothing.

A sensation of beautiful light-headedness swam over him. Thomas was in control now. Thomas was free.

He knelt in the dust, watching the pool of blood slowly grow. He breathed in deeply the metal smell of the blood. He reached down. Yes. He was beginning to engorge. For a moment, he squeezed himself. And then, Thomas passed through to the other side of the moment, stood up, and got to work.

The other two slavers were unconscious by now. He’d expected the third one to be here. Five coffins. One for Borhim, three for his minions, and one for new meat. But then Thomas remembered, there was one captive that Borhim hadn’t quite been able to sell. He was likely still in the basement, and would certainly fit in the spare coffin as well as anyone else.

Thomas pulled six coils of rope out from one of the coffins, and marched over to the unconscious slavers. On his way, he winked at the new meat, who was still laying on the ground, tears rolling down his face.

“Now this,” said Thomas, “is how you start a collection.”



***



Thomas pulled his hood up over his head again and pushed the cart out of the warehouse. It was very heavy. Each of the five coffins was filled.

He wheeled the cart around to the back of the warehouse, where the river ran through the city. Evening was thick now. Red light flashed off the water. Thomas put his cart right by the water's edge, pushed against the heaviest of the coffins, and watched it tumble into the current below.

Then he left. Only four coffins now. And the weight of the load was so, so much lighter.



***



Garret had sat and waited because he wanted to believe they would be back. He had waited for hours. But they hadn't come.

He only had one lead. The warehouse. Only one path forward.

Garret wondered what Elias would say. What Inyatala would say. Even what Hendrick would say. But he knew that they would tell him to wait. To be safe. They would want him to be cautious, because they cared about Garret’s safety.

Well, Garret cared about them, too. And that was why he had to go to the warehouse alone.

He travelled to the run-down neighborhood by the river, where he knew he would find the place the slaver had revealed to him. On one side of his belt hung his sword, and on the other side, his coil of rope.

As the afternoon grew old, Garret tried to calm himself, by imagining that it was just another evening out in the practice field at home. At any moment, Hendrick might appear, teasing Garret for spending all his time out there, practicing alone, turning into a “meditative vegetable.” And then he would sleep in a familiar bed, and the next morning, the world would be safe and sane.

But still, the buildings of Red Haven loomed. And somehow Garret knew that he may be walking into the fight of his life. One he wouldn’t be able to win.

He rounded a corner. A warehouse came into view. Garret walked straight toward it.

The road was deserted. Except for one person. A man in a black hooded cloak, pushing a cart of boxes down the road —

No, not boxes. Coffins.

The coffins rumbled and twitched from side to side as the wooden cart rolled and bounced over the uneven road, almost as if the dead inside them were trying to break out, to rejoin the world of the living.

Garret spared the coffins one last uneasy glance as he passed by the hooded coffin bearer. If it was an omen, then he would have to ignore it. His path was set. There was nothing for it, but to follow where it led.



***



Thomas slowed to a stop.

He turned back, eyes wide, mouth agape, watching Garret as he walked away.

How.

How is he alive.

He was bound and gagged on Mount Thorn. He should have died. He should have starved, or been killed by wild animals, or… or…

There was always the Beast.

Thomas’s eyes narrowed, as he glared at Garret’s shrinking figure, his mind bursting with rot and pain and pleasure. He smiled.

Well. If the Beast couldn’t do it, then I guess it will have to be me.



***


As the warehouse loomed ever closer, Garret felt something cold on the back of his neck. He turned around.

The hooded man with the coffins had disappeared.

Garret entered the warehouse. Soon he discovered the basement. Empty. Nothing and no one. And nothing aboveground, either. Except for a pool of blood. It lay there, black and motionless in the middle of the floor. And as the sun went out, and darkness overtook the city, it seemed to Garret that the pool of blood was spreading, like a shadow, so that by the time night had fallen, the world was drowning in it.





To be continued.

[DeeperThanRed]

I can't overstate how happy I get when I see this story gets an update. It's one of the best TUG stories I've ever read, yet you seem to outdo yourself all the time. Long waits are more than justified.

This was one of the tenser chapters, and the length really did the atmosphere justice. Amadi's bondage was very creative (and to be frank, hot) and Thomas somehow got even more scary. He's the biggest threat around now.

Hendrick's jail break was the highlight for me, especially with how him and Elias were tied. (One part of me hopes they'll also pay Kent a visit too, haha)

The ending set the ominous tone perfectly. It feels like things are coming to a climax. I'm really looking forward to reading what comes next, but hope you'll go easy on yourself. Thanks for your work as always.

[Mummyboi]

Well worth the wait.... can’t wait for moreqqq

[Volobond]

Amazing work! I loved the scenes with Elias and Hendrik so much! I always love seeing this story evolve and grow!

[sharpliketoday]

Another great chapter. Thank you! With a disciplinary system like that I'd probably be a repeat offender, though

[dahanband]

can't wait for this story to continue.
To meet Garrett and Thomas again, it must be great.
Please write faster.

[privateandrews]

I get so very excited when I see a new chapter has been posted, and iam NEVER left disappointed . Loved the use of clothing as means of securing and silencing a victim. I cant wait to read more..

[Kratos]

I really Hope the next chapter is posted soon

[MountainMan_91]

Just got caught up,and wow this is absolutely masterfull.

I really enjoyed Garrets little quest into the dungeon.

Congrats on an epic tale my friend

[Mummyboi]

Be cool if he was still in dungeons.... that it was a dream after he ate food.... that would be a true twist in his plans to save his buddy.

[Charmides]

PART 9

One morning, long before Mount Thorn sang its dark song and demanded a sacrifice, Garret and Hendrick stood in the practice field just outside of the village.

“Don't you ever get tired, holding your sword like this?” said Hendrick, his arm quaking with effort of holding up his practice sword, directing it toward the straw dummy in the middle of the field. “It’s not natural.”

Garret laughed. “It just takes time. Time and discipline.”

Hendrick smiled up at his friend, and before he could stop himself, let his eyes wander over Garret’s body. Garret stood shirtless, the morning mist catching on his skin and giving it an otherworldly sheen in the light. His sculpted muscles lengthened and contracted as he slowly practiced his morning forms, a series of swings and thrusts that seemed more like a dance than a prelude to battle.

Hendrick tore his eyes away before Garret could notice. Did Garret really not know? The two of them had known each other since they were kids, but with every passing day, Hendrick became more and more certain of two things. First, that Garret had no idea how beautiful he was. That elusiveness, that strange, hard innocence, only made him more devastatingly attractive. And second, Garret had no idea how Hendrick felt about him.

A tremulous sigh and a clumsy lunge forward, as Hendrick tried to mimic Garret’s movements with the sword, the grace, the posture, but it was as impossible as scaling a cliffside with nothing but your bare hands. Hendrick looked down at his own bare chest, and felt a familiar sense of shame. He had never been overly concerned with his own beauty — he was an apprentice to a leatherworker, and more likely than anything, he would live and die in Thorn Village, unknown to the world, except for the people who would live and die in Thorn Village right alongside him.

But still, he was allowed to feel shame. He was allowed to look down at his body, which, though toned and lean from work, was slim, almost frail, and incontestably weak. When he’d started training with the sword, with all the other young men in town, they’d given him a hard time about keeping his shirt on while they all practiced in the evenings, laughingly asking if he wanted to die of a heatstroke. Torn between two discomforts, Hendrick decided to join the others in practicing without a shirt. The teasing stopped, but the awkwardness remained.

Then one evening after the usual group practice, after most of the others had left, Garret had stopped Hendrick with a warm hand on the shoulder.

“You did excellently today,” said Garret with a smile.

Hendrick stared at the ground and chuckled, trying to accept the lie in good humor. “Well, excellently for me, at any rate. I didn’t drop my sword once, and not a single toe was lost.”

“I was thinking,” said Garret. “I need more time out here. The evening practice isn’t enough; I’m thinking of beginning a morning routine. If you’d like to join me, I’d be happy for the company.”

It was a miracle that Hendrick had been able to stop the blood from rushing to his face, and he said, “That… That would be great. Really. That is, if you don’t mind me holding you back.”

“You?” Garret laughed. “Never. Come on, let’s get something to eat.”

So they started practicing together. Or rather, Garret practiced, while Hendrick watched and occasionally waved his own sword around. Yes, after a couple of weeks, Hendrick could feel himself getting ever so slightly stronger, but that wan’t saying much.

Hendrick’s arm was on fire. He tried to finish the form, but with a grunt of exhaustion, he let the sword topple into the grass. He knelt down, breathing heavily.

Garret paused, looking over at his friend. Then he did something Hendrick had never seen him do before: He stopped in the middle of a form, and sheathed his sword. Then he knelt down in front of Hendrick.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.


Hendrick could hardly look him in the eye. “Listen… You’ve been very kind. But I think we both know by now that I’m a lost cause. I’m sorry. You keep on practicing… I’ll catch my breath and go home…”

Hendrick stared into the grass. For the past couple of weeks, it had been wonderful to be near Garret, to talk to him on the walk to the field, and on the walk back. But if Hendrick had ever thought that these morning excursions would be a way to make him feel less ill at ease with himself, or even a way to make him feel closer to Garret… those thoughts grew dimmer every day.

Then the worst possible thing happened. Hendrick felt it coming just before it happened, and struggled desperately to stop it, to force it down, but he couldn’t. Hendrick started to cry. Silent, shaking sobs.

What in the name of the gods is wrong with me? Hendrick thought, hiding is eyes with his hand as the poison of total humiliation saturated his body. There’s nothing to cry about. I’m not a child. Why am I crying? Stop it, you’re a fool, an idiot —

If Hendrick had looked up at that moment, he would have seen Garret’s eyes go wide with shock. What had just happened? Garret had been hugely enjoying Hendrick’s company in these past days, enjoyed his grin, his inner joy, his self-deprecating humor; parts of him that Hendrick never seemed to show to the other guys, but parts that Garret was thrilled to catch glimpses of. All Garret suddenly knew, knew for certain, was that he’d missed something. He’d been too focused on his sword, and he’d missed something.

So Garret did the only thing he could think of, which was to pull Hendrick into a tight, warm embrace.

Hendrick’s body went as taut as a wire, but Garret just kept applying gentle pressure. Maybe words existed that could calm Hendrick, but Garret wasn’t exactly a poet, and he would never know what those words could be. This was all he could do.

“Hey,” he said softly. “It’s all right, I’m here…”

Hendrick slowly loosened, and for a few terrible, blessed moments, he allowed himself to cry. It was over before a minute had gone by, but before that minute had passed, Hendrick felt a strange sensation of eternity. He felt that he could be trapped here, in this field, in this embrace, for the rest of time, and that it wouldn’t at all hurt either of them to be trapped like that.

Hendrick delicately pulled away.

“Wow,” he said, forcing a laugh and picking up his discarded shirt to wipe his eyes. “I knew I was a big baby, but… well, what depths we sink to. I’m sorry.”

“Hendrick, I have an idea. I don’t think I want to keep practicing in the mornings. I thought… I thought you might enjoy it the way I did, when there aren’t a lot of people around, crowding you, distracting you… I think we should go get some breakfast. And whenever you’re free, we should get breakfast again. No toes will be lost.”

They both laughed, real belly-laughs to break the mysterious tension between them. Hendrick nodded, silently thanking Garret with his eyes. They collected their things. Hendrick put his shirt back on.

As they walked back to town, Hendrick was relieved to realize that he didn’t care about being skilled with a blade. He simply didn’t want to be worthless. Not in his own eyes… and not in Garret’s. And when the two of them sat in the back of Elias’s shop, eating muffins and chatting and laughing, Hendrick didn’t feel worthless. He felt vibrant, and heard, and seen, and alive.



***



The slaver that Garret had tied up, gagged, and left in an alley — that slaver had a name. His name was Ritzak.

It had been hours, and darkness had swept into the alley where Garret had stashed him. At first, Ritzak thought he may be able to escape from the rope, even find a thin barb of metal or glass and unlock the manacles. But no such luck. He was bound with two long coils of rope, binding his wrists and ankles into cuffs and yanking him into a hogtie that was nearly painful in its tightness (and certainly would have been painful to anyone who didn’t have Ritzak’s experience and training with ropes). Further coils were bound mercilessly around his legs, and his chest, into an unyielding harness. String had been used to bind his fingers together, severely limiting his ability to untie the knots, which weren’t even close to his bound hands anyway. And most infuriatingly, both of his socks had been wadded into his mouth, one into each bulging cheek. Then the sleeves of his shirt had been ripped off; one served as a tight cleave gag, keeping the stuffing plugged into his mouth, while the other functioned as a blindfold.

“Glmph…” Ritzak sighed as he tugged at his bonds, a trickle of sweat running down his dark, bald head. Serves me right for leaving the wagon alone, he thought. But how could I have possibly known that this kid would know how to handle ropes?

Through the blindfold, Ritzak could tell that the sun had set, and he felt the cool of evening start to chill his skin, made all the more uncomfortable considering he’d spent the past who-knows-how-many hours struggling, and was coated with sweat. Ritzak knew his limits. It was almost time to resign himself to his temporary fate, relax (as best as he could), and collect some small amount of strength before the next day dawned.

Far-off footsteps. A distant voice reverberated in the alley, howling with laughter and slowly getting closer.

“Liar, liar!” a male voice cried. “I saw you topple over, don’t make excuses for yourself, you weren’t going anywhere.”

“I was humoring them,” said another male voice, this one vaguely familiar. “I wouldn’t want to ruin their show.”

“Oh, just admit it! You’re furious that those Desert Rats got the better of you.”

“The slurs don’t help.”

“But I’m right.”

“… Well, the gag really wasn’t fair. And I wouldn’t put it past them to use trick ropes.”

“Aha! I was right!”

It must have been one of the volunteers from the show, someone that Ritzak and has colleagues had tied up as part of their act. This alley was hidden enough that these voices were the closest anyone had come to Ritzak since that mysterious young man had left him in this makeshift box in an alley, constructed out of wooded boards and old pallets.

This could be Ritzak’s only chance. Humiliating as it was, he drew a deep breath:

“HLMMMPH! HMMMMBPMH! PLMMMPH”

“If I got the chance,” said one of the voices obliviously, “I bet I could really get one of those circus-men in a tight spot. No tricks, no special untie-able ropes.”

“There’s the old confidence back! We could go back tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Well, I thought I might make a trip outside the city, get some exercise in…”

“BRMPHMPPH! HLLMMMPMPH!”

“Have another swig and get your courage up, man! We’ll go together tomorrow. It’ll be a balm to your pride.”

“MMBMMPH?!”

A pause, as one of the men presumably took a drink. “You know what? That might be the best idea you’ve had all day.”

“I don’t know, I think suggesting to the Desert Rats that we take you off their hands before you got free was pretty —”

“HMMMMMPH!”

The voices stopped. “Did you hear that?” said one of them.

Ritzak rolled his eyes, grunting and yowling into the gag as best he could. Gods grant me patience.

After some confusion and hesitant murmuring, the footsteps began shuffling toward Ritzak. He continued to cry out behind his gag, writhing on the ground and trying to rattle the side of the rickety prison he was stuck in.

Finally the two men arrived, and lifted away one of the boards, revealing Ritzak’s bound form. He waited in the darkness of his blindfold as the two of them dragged him out into the alley proper. The blindfold came off; Ritzak blinked away the fog, after being stuck sightless for hours, and got a good luck at his rescuers.

Indeed, Ritzak remembered these two from one of his performances earlier that day. The larger piece of meat was a man called Cal, the tall blond muscled one; this one, Ritzak had tied up and gagged himself earlier on. Of course, then his friends had hauled him away after he’d failed to escape, and one of them was here; a young man with dark features and black hair that wound into short curls, with the severe, toned physique of an archer. They stared down at Ritzak, passing a glass bottle between the two of them. They’d clearly been at it for some time.

Cal dropped the blindfold, and his mouth fell open. “It’s him! He’s the one from the wagon! The one that tied me up!”

The other one knelt down for a closer look. “No kidding. And how’d you end up like this, old friend?”

“Grmm…”

The dark-haired one snickered. “What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”

“Nester, maybe we should untie him…” Cal let out a loud hiccup. Ritzak noticed, with some satisfaction, that there were some very clear rope marks burnt into Cal’s wrists. It seemed that he’d been stuck in those bindings for a while.

“Cal… you’re too nice for your own good.” Nester smiled like a jackal. Ritzak could smell his abominable breath. Then with a clumsy hand, he started running his palm down Ritzak’s back, rubbing and squeezing, till it finally settle on his well-built ass and gave it a firm smack.

Ritzak’s eyebrows shot up a mile into the air. “Hlmp?!”

“If you want to get even,” Nester slurred, “get even.”

“... What do you mean…?”

“I mean, whatever you want. These Venmesi… Veneshmish… oh, you know what I mean… They’re not bad looking, and this one’s got legs for days.”

In a slowly increasing panic, Ritzak started to flail his hands about, looking desperately for anything he might have missed over the last couple of hours. A knot. A loose coil of rope. Something —

He felt the tip of his finger brush something sharp. A nail. A nail was sticking out of one of the boards from Ritzak’s improvised prison. He could pick the lock, if he could just get the nail free…

“No,” said Cal. “I’m not drunk enough for that. I don’t think I ever could be. Let’s just set him free and report this to the guards…”

“Too late now. He’s heard us scheming to do… awful things to him.”

“Utter bullshit, he heard you scheming, he heard me objecting.”

Nester reluctantly stopped groping Ritzak’s ass and stood up to face Cal. “Why won’t you just let me have some fun for once, okay? You’re into this, right? Come on. I saw how excited Little Cal got today, all trussed up back at my place with the others. They might not have seen it, but I did.”

It was difficult to tell if the redness in Cal’s face was due to the alcohol or not. “I’m gonna untie him now.”

“Cal, Cal…” Suddenly imploring and whining, Nester grabbed the front of Cal’s shirt and patted his chest reassuringly. “Buddy. Listen to me when I tell you this: You won’t get this chance again.”

“No,” said Ritzak, “you won’t.”

In their confused drunken haze, Nester and Cal turned around, to see Ritzak standing before them, the ropes and the manacles laying in a pile at his feet. Before either of them could register that they were in very, very deep trouble, Ritzak lashed out with two calm, precise punches, striking the two young men in both their temples. They crumpled to the ground like puppets that had their strings suddenly clipped.



***



They weren’t out for long, maybe only half an hour. But that was all Ritzak needed.

When Cal and Nester came to, they were laying on the alley floor, in a precarious situation. They had been stripped down to their thin white briefs. Both their legs had been bound, with long coils wrapping them up from their ankles to their thighs.

Most uncomfortable was the positioning of their arms. The two had been tightly lashed together, but not back-to-back. The front of Nester had been pressed up against Cal’s broad back, with Nester’s arms wrapped around Cal’s midsection, and bound together a little above Cal’s belly button. Likewise, Cal’s arms had bee bound behind both himself and Nester, so that the two pulled each other together into a perverse embrace, with Nester grinding up against the more muscular man, with more rope wrapping them each securely to one another like a parcel.

They’d both been gagged. Ritzak had never believed that one gag fits all, so he had experimented to see what the two of them could withstand. Nester’s mouth was slightly smaller than average, and could fit one and a half of his own socks. So Ritzak felt obliged to cram the rest of that second sock inside, and to then hold it in with Nester’s two pant legs, one of which was used as a cleave gag, while the other fit over his mouth and the entire stuffing and cleave.

Cal’s mouth was much more impressive. Not only could he take both of his own socks (which came from some rather large feet), but Nester was able to finish the gag by tearing off strips from Cal’s discarded shirt, and plunging them one by one between his crammed, pouting lips, until the tremendous mound of fabric was so huge it threatened to burst out of Cal’s tightly packed cheeks. And then, of course, the pant legs were used in the same way Nester’s had been, to cleave the stuffing and wrap around the whole business. An extra four strips of cloth had been used to finish Cal's stuffing, and Ritzak took a malevolent pleasure in stuffing in every single one.

As the two of them began to muffle confusedly, wiggling around in the alley, Ritzak stood and dusted himself off.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “Don’t take this too personally. In all frankness, you’ve caught me at an inconvenient time, and I couldn’t help but take out some of my frustrations on you. I’m sure you understand."

Their shocked, muffled cries intermingled as they looked down at their bodies, beginning to really struggle in earnest.

“Ah. And since you said you ‘enjoyed’ this kind of thing, I took the liberty of adding some further stimulation.”

By now both Cal and Nester had realized that, in addition to all the bindings keeping them from moving, they’d also each been subjected to absolutely ruthless crotch ties. Under their briefs, each of their genitals had been bound up tight with string, their balls sectioned off, and their cocks encircled as if by fine nets. Their packages had then been crammed back into their front pouches, which could hardly contain their trapped erections. And over that was another crotch rope, winding around their waists, trapping their packages permanently in their underwear, and including ropes that dug with almost painful tightness up both of their asses.

Cal shook his head, pleading, trying in vain to push out the behemoth ball of cloth that was lodged in his gob. Nester groaned, struggling, unable to do anything but to grind up uselessly against Cal’s rear end, stimulating them both and only adding to the torture.

Ritzak grabbed the two of them, and hauled them into the rickety box where he himself had been trapped.

“It may be a long night, my friends,” he said with a smile. “I suggest you get comfortable.” And with that, he placed a board in front of the opening, secured it with a spare piece of rope, and walked out of the alley, the distressed, needy groans and his captives effectively smothered and silenced.

Ritzak would not allow himself to panic. He had told the young man with the sword where he could find their operation. But that was no matter. If that young man had went there on his own, he was walking to his own dark fate, resigning himself to a pair of manacles and an auction block. But Ritzak had to get back. Master Borhim had told them all that he planned on leaving that night, before sunrise. Ritzak would be mortified to keep them waiting.

Shortly, Ritzak arrived at the warehouse. He went inside, peering around with a lantern. He explored. There was no one outside. No one in the basement. No one anywhere.

A terrible part of Ritzak thought that maybe he’d been too late, and the others had left without him. But a thought that was infinitely more terrible descended on him, when he discovered the pool of blood in the middle of the warehouse.



***



Lord Venarin Castero, a man in his late twenties with a wolfish gleam in his eye and a bottomless family fortune, knew that he had excellent taste in boys.

Castero lived in his own two-story apartment in Red Haven’s wealthy central district — well, three floors, if you counted the secret basement. That was one thing Castero had earned early on in his time as a connoisseur of the flesh; weighty secrets required weighty investments. He had no trouble handing over money to a very discrete construction project, if it meant his boys would have a place to live. Or at least, a place to be stored.

This evening, he was busy admiring his newest addition. The dark-skinned young man that he’d bought from Borhim was a real treat; a thickly muscled creature with strangely bright eyes. He was scared enough that he didn’t put up any fight when he’d been transported to Castero’s home. And Castero knew that by the time this new boy realized there was nothing to be afraid of, he would also realize that there was no reason for him to want to leave. He may even enjoy his time as Castero’s new, discreet help.

Castero stood in the drawing room, staring ravenously at the new boy, who stood against the wall next to an open doorway. He was dressed in the attire that Castero preferred all his servants dressed in, legally hired or otherwise; a thin, very tight-fitting white uniform, with a slight V-neck and white gloves. To Castero’s, the new boy looked particularly delicious like this, the supple cloth supporting his pectoral muscles and his crotch in all the right ways.

Of course, the entirety of the new boy’s uniform wasn’t obvious to the naked eye. The reason he stood so close to the wall was because a number of steel wires connected the back of his uniform to the wall, keeping his stuck upright and his posture perfect. Further, his wrists were similarly wired to his thighs, keeping his hands bound at his side. The same was true of his ankles, bound together. Even the fingers of the gloves were sewn into a single mass. It was extremely subtle, extremely expensive workmanship, and it was so convincing that Castero could bind one of his boys in this uniform, attach him to the wall, and have a huge dinner party filled with Red Haven’s best and brightest, just about all of whom had no idea about Castero’s preferences and habits. And that’s just what Castero did, as often as he could.

This new boy kept looking down at his body. He wasn’t exactly trying to get free, but he was gently testing the bonds, seeing exactly what kind of trap he was encased in. It thrilled Castero to no end, to see the new boy’s muscles rolling under the tight white fabric like that.

“I have a question for you,” said Castero. “I have nothing to call you. And I won’t invent a name for you. That would seem very rude to me, if I were in your position. So. What is your name?”

The new boy looked up at Castero cautiously, his lips quivering.

“Mendu,” he said.

“Mendu. Excellent. Well, Mendu, that’s the last word I want to hear from you for a rather long time.”

Castero began to reach into his pocket for something, when his butler appeared in the doorway, a squat little man in formal black attire. “Lord Castero, you have a caller. An associate of Master Borhim.”

Castero’s eyes brightened with curiosity. “Well, send him in.”

He strode up to Mendu, his long blue robes lapping hypnotically around his feet, and in an instant he was an inch away from Mendu’s face. Without another word, Castero pressed his lips onto Mendu’s, crushing his new boy’s tender mouth with his own. At first there was bewilderment, even resistance… but after a few moments, Castero felt a deep, carnal satisfaction as Mendu began giving in, kissing back with legitimate force.

Castero broke the kiss just as one of Borhim’s assistants strode through the doorway.

“Lord Castero. Thank you for seeing me.”

“Anything for Master Borhim,” said Castero, running a hand down Mendu’s chest. “You’ve caught me just as I’m adjusting myself to my new purchase. Fine merchandise.”

Castero reached down abruptly, and grabbed Mendu’s package through the tight white pants. Mendu’s mouth opened wide in surprise as Castero gave an investigative squeeze, and then used his other hand to pull a large sponge out of his pocket and push it between Mendu’s lips.

“Please, tell me what I can do for you,” said Castero, pushing the sponge in insistently as Mendu moaned.

The slaver — Ritzak was his name, Castero was thrilled he remembered, since he always got the assistants confused — cleared his throat. “There’s been an incident. Master Borhim may be in trouble.”

Castero laughed. “I’m sure Master Borhim doesn’t need my help,” he said. “He’s a big boy, he can certainly look after himself.” Now that the first sponge was efficiently packed away, Castero reached into his robes with his long fingers and retrieved yet another sponge. Mendu’s eyes widened when he saw it, and he shook his head, uttering some adorable whimpers of protest, but one more squeeze of his cock and balls and Mendu complied, opening his mouth wider and moaning as Castero started to pack the second sponge inside.

“True,” said Ritzak. “But I’ve been looking everywhere for him. He’s gone. I may be overreacting, but I fear something may have happened to him. However, I think I know of someone who knows where Borhim might be.”

“Oh?” Castero pulled a huge white ball gag out of his robe. Unable to resist, he leaned forward and gave Mendu’s lower lip one more long kiss, then pressed the white ball into his sponge-stuffed mouth, buckling it tight enough that his cheeks distended over the top of the straps. Mendu’s eyes became half lidded, and he moaned rhythmically as Castero continued to massage his package.

“I don’t have a name,” said Ritzak. “But I know his face.”

Castero was silently flattered that Ritzak had come to him. But, who else was there to go to? It was very risky to deal with guards; only a few of them had the proper bribable disposition. Castero, on the other hand, had all sorts of hirelings, and all sorts of tendrils snaking throughout the city. A guard can be fired for getting bribed, even punished. But no one punishes Lord Venarin Castero.

He released Mendu’s cock and balls. Mendu’s body shuddered.

“Hmpphlmm…” Mendu panted behind the gag, his muscled chest heaving.

“Just give me his description,” said Castero, stepping over to a dresser and pouring himself a cup of wine. “You’ve supplied me with many boys over the years. It’s the least I can do to return the favor.”



***



It was late, and Officer Kent had spent the early hours of the night locked in his office, picking at paperwork and staring absently at the candle on his desk. Guards needed to be paid, schedules had to be arranged, and the actual work of guarding the city continued; monitoring nearby bandit raids, providing escorts for politically important people, keeping the herds of common folk safe from dangers outside the walls. Kent took some pride in his work. The way he saw it, the city owed him and his guards more than they would ever know. Accepting a bribe here and there, and living with the consequences (and the gold) that came along with it, seemed to Kent to be a very fair thing indeed.

Kent abruptly decided that he wouldn’t sign one more document that night. Work would keep until the morning.

But first, he needed to lift his spirits. Time to pay that new captive a visit.

Kent left his office, and on his way to the exit, he took the long route through the labyrinthine tunnels underneath the city walls. Elias would surely be glad of a chance to have his hood off. If only for a moment.

As Kent turned the corner and entered the cell-lined hallway that led to Elias’s prison, he grinned to hear the frantic gagged shouts coming from behind the door. It was even louder than the pleading Elias had been doing when Kent had left him! If anything, his desperate frustration had only increased. A little bit of Kent’s tiredness faded away, and he bounded up to the door with a spring in his step.

He knocked. “Hello? Is someone in there?”

“Brmmhmmph!”

“You’re inexhaustible.”

Kent undid the locks on the door and swung it open. There was the black body sack, writhing in place. Kent couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be in such a position. Sometimes the other guards would put the new recruits through ordeals like this; put them in inescapable bondage for twelve hours, even twenty four, just to see if they could handle it. Kent was happy to allow it to happen. His realm was one of controlled chaos, and that was exactly what he saw when he saw Elias, this man who would expose Kent’s corruption if he could, caught bound and wriggling uselessly in his isolation cell. Controlled chaos.

Kent reached over the bound form’s head, unlaced the hood, and tore it away.

“I wanted to let you know that night has come,” said Kent. “Your sense of time must… be…”

Kent’s small smile withered and died. It was the porter. The dark, scruffy man staring back at him with a flushed face and wide eyes.

Elias was gone.

A bolt of fire flashed through Kent’s eyes, as he leveled his gaze at the porter. Then, slowly, through gritted teeth, he said:

“Where is he?”

The porter mumbled into the huge inflatable gag engorging his cheeks. His eyes flashed in the direction of a nearby hallway.

Kent examined the layout of the tunnels in his mind, and realized immediately which exit Elias must have been headed for.

“Thank you.” Kent slammed the door on the porter and his gagged scream of anguish. He re-locked the door. And he began running through the halls, a snake in a maze, tracking down a loose rat.



***



“It’s right up here,” said Hendrick, leading his band of escaped prisoners.

The instructions that the vine-bound guard had given Hendrick guided them all very well. Hendrick was able to lead Elias and the half-dozen or so other young men that he’d freed through the intricate tunnels, without alerting nearby guards, and eventually, toward a secret exit; the sort of hidden door that the guards would be able to use in case something went wrong, and their base was infiltrated. For now, it would serve as a wonderful escape hatch.

The hallways became grubbier and less well-kept as they ventured on. The torches lining the walls became so few and far between the Hendrick and Elias simply tore a couple torches from their holders and lit the path themselves. Finally, Hendrick led them all around a corner, and they were met with a dead end. Built into the stone wall before them was a metal ladder, narrow and flaking with rust, stretching up to the ceiling. And in that ceiling, a small square door.

“Let me see if it’s safe,” said Elias. He handed his second torch to Hendrick, and climbed up. Everyone watched intently as Elias carefully pushed on the metal square. It came loose, and with a reluctant metal moan, Elias forced it out. He poked his head up into the darkness. The only noise was the nervous breath of the escaping prisoners, and the crackle of the torches.

Elias looked back down at them, with an expression of huge relief. “It’s safe,” he said.

One by one, the group began ascending the ladder, disappearing into the square of darkness. When they had all gotten through, Elias put the metal square back in place, and everyone gazed around and realized exactly where they were. Outside. They were outside again.

They stood in a dingy alley, out of the way enough so that no one saw them as they clambered up through a secret door in the ground, but close enough to some of the busy streets near the main gate of the city that even from here, they could see the tiny pinpoints of torches and lamps as citizens rode on horses and conducted late-night business.

Elias turned to the group. “Everyone. Listen. You’ve all been so brave. Now, it’s important to remember — there’s no need for anyone to act guilty. No one saw that we escaped. You may want to leave the city, before anyone realizes what we’ve done. You may want to disappear into the back alleys. Do whatever you think is best. But now, we must all be calm. We’ll walk out into the street, and we’ll walk as if we have nothing to hide. All right?”

They all nodded. Hendrick felt a sudden and sharp needle in his stomach. At first he couldn’t pinpoint it, but after a moment, the cause was obvious. Nostalgia. This was exactly the tone of voice and demeanor that Elias had used with Hendrick countless times, during his years as an apprentice leatherworker. For a moment, Hendrick was back at the leather shop again, learning about riveting a saddle, or polishing a boot. It was a feeling of blissful safety.

Elias led the way toward one of the busy nearby roads. The lights grew brighter and brighter.

It was only when the group was less than half a block away from merging into a main thoroughfare that Hendrick thought he heard something odd. Something rhythmic and cold, like a distant machine. Hendrick shook his head, confused, supposing that he was hearing things.

They reached the intersection where their dark little alley spilled out into the busy street. Firelight danced at their feet as Elias faced them all one more time.

“You’ve all done so much. For me, and for yourselves. Thank you.”

Then he stepped out into the light, and the rest followed. Hendrick followed, too, but he walked slowly, sticking near the back of the group.

He wasn’t imagining the noise. It had gotten louder.

He stopped in the middle of the street. “Elias?” he said.

Elias turned back to him. “Yes, what’s the matter —”

Elias’s face turned to chalk, and the words died on his tongue, as he saw something behind Hendrick. Hendrick whirled around.

Emerging from the darkness of the alley behind them was a figure, tall and broad and gleaming in his armor. His metal footsteps grew so loud to Hendrick, that each was like a splinter of ice in his brain.

Officer Kent stopped at the mouth of the alley. He glared at Elias. Swiftly, he pulled something from his belt, and pressed it against his lips —

Kent’s horn sounded. The note was shockingly loud, with the strength of crashing river water. Hendrick’s hands involuntarily clutched at his ears. It was like a wolf howling at the moon. Howling for its pack.

The guards who had been peppering the streets stopped dead, and turned toward Kent. Before the note even stopped sounding, they started sprinting over to where he stood.

Kent lowered the horn. He pointed toward Elias, Hendrick, and the escaped prisoners. “Seize them!”

Hendrick was too stunned to move — then, a large hand gripped the back of his shirt and pulled him backwards. He thought he was caught, but then he saw that a guard had almost clubbed him over the head, the club hissing downward inches in front of his nose as Elias pulled him back.

The street erupted into chaos. A horse-drawn carriage came to a standstill as the two horses began whinnying and rearing up on their hind legs, frightened of the guards streaming over the cobblestones in front of them. Hendrick’s eyes flashed one way, then another — already, he saw that three guards had tackled one of the young men that he and Elias had freed, pinned him to the ground, and were shackling his hands behind his back, one of the guards even pulling a leather ball gag out and shoving it into the captive’s wide, frightened mouth. Another two of the escapees had been caught at at sword-point against the wall of a nearby building, and guards were busy wrapping their torsos in loop after loops of tough hempen rope.

A few of the escapees must have gotten away, ducked through the crowd and avoided the guards, but Hendrick didn’t see it — he was hauled off of his feet as Elias, with all his strength and agility, threw Hendrick up onto his shoulder and began running through the crowd.

As Elias ran, with Hendrick bouncing on his shoulder, Hendrick thought, Is there something I can do? I have no time, I don’t know what’s going on, but please, if there’s anything I can do —

One of the two whinnying horses stopped crying out. It seemed to become slightly calmer. The carriage driver had come down from his seat and was trying to calm the two animals, fiddling with the straps holding them in place; but before he could re-tighten them, the calm horse suddenly bolted away from the carriage, jumping over the guards and the rag-adorned young men they were binding, right up to Elias and Hendrick.

Elias saw the opportunity, and wasted no time. He jumped onto the back of the horse, and pulled Hendrick down, so that the smaller man sat in front of him on the horse, which was clearly impatient to fly.

“Yah!” Elias yelled, hanging onto the reigns tightly as the horse shot away down the street.

“Stop them, stop them!” Kent’s voice shrunk behind them as the buildings passed in a blur. The clamor and the shouting in the street faded, and Elias slowed the horse to a trot.

Bothe Elias and Hendrick were breathing heavily.

“What do we do now?” said Hendrick, his voice breaking.

Elias took a moment to breathe. But then, another noise — more hooves on cobblestones.

The two of them turned around, and behind them, coming around a corner, was an armored figure on a horse, flanked by three more horsed guards. Kent was riding toward them like a gale.

Elias swallowed. He had been about to take Hendrick back to the inn. But that would lead Kent straight back to Garret and Amadi. They would all be trapped at the inn, and their mission would come to an end.

They had to go elsewhere.

“Hold on,” said Elias, and kicked at the horse, which snorted and blasted forward.

Elias led the horse down one road, then another, taking sudden turns and trying to be as unpredictable as possible, but Kent was always behind them, even getting closer.

Then Elias made the turn that lead him and Hendrick to where they needed to be — the wide street that lead directly to the city gates, where they had first entered.

The horse roared toward the gates — but it was after dark, and the gates were shut tight.

Elias slowed the horse. “Another way, we need another way —”

“No, wait,” said Hendrick. He saw that Elias intended to get through those gates. And maybe Hendrick could do something.

“Keep riding. The gates will open.”

“Hendrick, there’s no time for —”

“The gates will open, I swear. Trust me.”

Elias dared to looked behind them. Kent was close enough that Elias could make out the whiteness of his bared teeth. If there was another way, he would have taken it. But this was all they could do; ride a horse at a closed gate, and hope against hope for triumph.

“YAH!” The horse launched itself over the street toward the gates.

Hendrick only had five or so blocks to work a miracle. He placed a shivering hand on the horse’s neck, taut with muscle and jolting with every hoof fall.

You can hear me, better than I ever thought you could, better than anyone ever has. There’s more than me at stake here. I have a friend to save. Not for me. For Garret. Please.

The wind screamed in Hendrick’s ears, so loud that he couldn’t hear another wind building. This one was a wind that built up in the street, gathering in the air, funneling down from the sky like a waterfall. Dirt and dust rose up in plumes around the horse as it tore through the haze.

There were two guards standing next to the closed gate, and both of them were knocked off their feet, so powerful was the force of the wind. As they scrambled to stand back up, a groaning noise like the pained wail of a giant shook the street.

A root the size of an ancient oak tree shot up through the cobblestones under the gates, right where the two doors met. With a clang, the root burst through the lock holding the doors together; and then the wind pushed against that door like an ocean breeze in a sail, the immense weight of the door shifting, an inch, a foot, another foot —

The horse shot through the gap in the gates like an arrow. Then the wind reversed, and the gates shut behind them with a bone-shuddering GONG.

They kept riding for a few minutes. Then they finally realized they were safe, and stopped. They had made it to the woods outside the city. They had left the path. They were alone.

Hendrick looked up at Elias. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Elias looked down at Hendrick with his mouth hanging open, and his eyes wide. He tried to speak for a few moments, opening and closing his lips like a fish out of water. Then finally, the words started to come.

“Was… Was that you?”

Hendrick was too tired to deny it, or feel any unease at all around one of his most trusted friends. “Yes.”

Elias closed his eyes. Then he hugged Hendrick tight, right there on the back of the horse.

“My boy, I always knew you were remarkable. But my imagination had such limits.”

Hendrick sighed with a choked smile, patting Elias’s arm as it wrapped around his chest. “I… A part of me feels powerful. Another part of me… feels afraid.”

“I’m going to make us a camp, and I’m going to make a fire. We’re going to sleep here and make a plan. And you will have absolutely no reason to be afraid tonight. I’m here with you. I’m here.”

Elias was as good as his word. He started a fire, and they made a camp. And when they eventually fell asleep, Hendrick was surprised and happy to realize that he wasn’t afraid. At least for the night.



***



Garret was there, when Elias and Hendrick made their escape. After finding the pool of blood and the empty basement in the warehouse, he had returned to the inn, to meet with Amadi, maybe even Elias, if he was ever going to come back, and to tell them what he had learned.

But there was no one there. Garret had a terrible feeling of isolation that trenscended loneliness. He had left Thorn Village to find Thomas and Hendrick; he’d gone off into the world with his friends to fulfill a mission. But the world had swallowed his friends, one by one, and now he was alone.

No amount of meditation or training could prepare him for such a profound feeling of helplessness. Where could he go? What could he do?

He couldn’t sleep, at least, not yet. He stood outside the front door to the inn. He watched as people passed by in the darkness, and every time a figure passed him, he was foolish enough to allow himself hope that Elias or Amadi would step towards him. The sting in his gut never lessened, no matter how many times he was wrong.

Then, a block away, a chorus of shouts, and the sharp drumming of galloping hooves. It was coming from the direction of the town gate. Garret had spent hours standing there, waiting, hardly knowing what he might have been waiting for. Without knowing why, only knowing that something was happening, and that he somehow ought to bear witness to it, Garret raced toward the commotion, oblivious to the shadows that crept along behind him.

He rounded a corner. And there, hardly twenty feet away, stood a horse, facing away from him, toward the city gates. And on that horse, plain as day, was Elias. And sitting in front of him was a smaller figure, with unruly red hair and a wiry frame. Garret couldn’t breathe. It was him. It was Hendrick.

The change from helplessness to happiness was so great, so overwhelming, that Garret immediately felt tears welling up in his eyes. Hendrick — his friend, his best friend, the one he’d tried to practice sword craft with in the mornings, to get him to see his own usefulness, to get him to love himself. The friend who had made Garret laugh so many times, who had always been stalwart and trustworthy, who had always been kind. The feeling of fellowship inside him blossomed into something new and hypnotic and wonderful.

Garret drew in a breath, to shout out Hendrick’s name, so that his friend would turn around, and then Garret would be able to look into his eyes —

A dozen hands shot out of the darkness behind Garret, and two of them clamped themselves over his parted lips, smothering the name before he could even call it out.

As the hands wrapped around him, his ankles, his knees, his wrists, his elbows, and pulled him into a nearby alley, the shock was so great that before Garret even knew what was happening, it was too late. He felt a sharp blow to the back of his head, and the last thing he saw before his vision went dark was Elias and Hendrick, riding fast away from him, so fast that he could never catch them, and just as the world blinked out, the wind began to blow.




To be continued.

[dahanband]

ah thank goodness...
I have been waiting for this story for a long time.

[Charmides]

I really can't apologize enough for the endless delay on this latest installment, friends. I know that there are a few of you folks out there who've been super generous with your time on this story, reading and leaving comments, and I hate to think that I left anyone in the dark! Not to jinx it, but I think I could actually have a productive summer. All the same, I'll be much more communicative from now on, I promise! Anyhow, best wishes to all of you, and stay safe.

[sharpliketoday]

Loved absolutely everything about this chapter. Especially the servants' uniforms with hidden bondage. And that beginning made me feel so bad for Hendrick. But he shouldn't feel like that after these adventures at least

[Volobond]

So creative and amazing! I love every second of this story, my friend!

[DeeperThanRed]

There's no need to feel bad for the infrequent updates. The length and quality of the chapters more than compensate for the time we have to wait for them. It never ceases to amaze me how much care you put into your characters and plot, and this one is no exception.

Right off the bad, it made me so happy to see more of Hendrick and Garret's relationship. It's always been an integral part of the story but it took the backseat for a while for the other subplots. This flashback fleshed out their dynamic greatly, showing the innocent lack of awareness on Garret's part and Hendrick's hidden insecurities. They're both so supportive toward each other and their banter is so natural.

It all makes that cliff-hanger more painful. Jokes aside, I'm really interested in this change, as it seems like Hendrick will be the one who saves Garret this time.

Aside from providing some fun and extremely creative bondage goodness (especially Mendu's part was very hot), Ritzak and Castero proved themselves to be a very dangerous alliance. Between them, Kent and the unseen threat of Thomas, the heroes are in more peril than ever.

Also, the more lighthearted parts helped to balance the increasing tension. I loved how Cal and Nester had tables turned on themselves and tied up in an embarrassing position and Kent pettily left the porter bound and gagged.

Anyway, I hope you're doing OK. Great to hear that we might hear from you more often, it's great to have you around! Keep up the good work and please don't go hard on yourself.

[MountainMan_91]

My friend this was a great piece!

I agree with DTR, Please never feel that you need to rush to geta chapter out!

Ritzak is an awesome addition, as is Lord Castero in a nice growing cast... I just knew they were gonna get him! The weaving of your storyline is perfect, they come so close to all being free and together then it gets ripped away, they come close again and again lose it! Absolutely marvelous storytelling.

Kept me on the edge of my seat!

As for Hendriks magic I totally called it back after chapter 3 I think! Hehe.

Such a touching flashback too!

[dahanband]

No sentence or word can describe the feeling I have for this story!

My God, wonderful in every way.

[Mummyboi]

Love this story

[dahanband]

So, Garrett got into trouble again, and Thomas kidnapped him!

very good!

We have to see if Elias and Hendrik can save him or not!

Don't be tired buddy! This story is really worth the wait! Please continue with power, of course very quickly ...
 

[privateandrews]

I always worry that another chapter will not happen, but then it does, and I have to say each time I find my self more impressed ,involved and excited (goes with out saying insanely horny).. You have a fantastic story telling ability ,your attention to the characters and locations is some of the best story telling I have EVER read... The time between chapters is SO worth the wait.. I do worry more wont follow but then they do... I find it amazing how you go back and forth with the characters and how and where they are … Your ability to have each man be he hero or side character constantly bound and so wonderfully gagged keeps me in awe of your writing... One day you should when this amazing tale finishes have it made into a book for sale and if you could find some one to do some illustrations to add to the book that be the cherry on a very big and lovely cake … I would most defiantly buy a copy or two.. Keep up the good work my friend. x

[Viperbound7]

Glad to see this updated, its one of my favorite ongoing stories!