Dream Captive Page 11

  They were flying, in the seer’s mind. He had gained access, at long last. Now to steer them both, to teach her how to use this power in the world of men - to his advantage. Tesra wanted to look up, to contemplate, or else to dive below, but his purpose was different. Abandoning his place beside her, still in the dream world, he mounted her, climbing her bare back as though she were a great flying bird. Willing the device to appear, he manufactured a bit and bridle for the girl to wear. She balked, but there was little she could do, not with her body so deep in the throes of submission. If he wished to imagine her seer’s spirit in bondage of this type, then she must live with it.

  Round her middle he made appear the leather strap, cinching it tight. Tesra was saddled now and he would dig at her sides with spurs to direct her. The last thing he needed was the whip, small and sleek, appropriate for disciplining a flighted filly.

  Tesra learned quickly who was master of her powers. When she attempted to soar to her ridiculous goddess she won a pretty set of lashes to her exposed hip and thigh. Her attempt at a dive met with a cruel reigning in that left her neck sore and twisted.

  ‘Are you ready to cooperate?’ he asked.

  The inner Tesra nodded her bridled head obediently, desperately. ‘Yes, oh yes,’ moaned the outer Tesra, at the mercy of his power to orgasm her pussy on the deck of his cabin, ‘my master.’

  Master. She’d called him master.

  Marcellus held back the roiling orgasm. If he overwhelmed her too completely she would no longer be a seer but merely another mindless cunt like the cuddly Drusia. ‘Pay attention, slut. We are flying.’

  She reached for him and he denied her. ‘Take me,’ he demanded, ‘where I want to go.’

  Tesra sprouted wings. He used her like a falcon, her every flap covering hundreds, thousands of miles for them. No longer limited by time, he flipped through days and weeks, the sea below them shrinking to a circle, a whirl of storm. The names and manifests of ships appeared in the blue, the chatter of conversation filled his ears, the talk of governors and admirals, the whole of Talassia’s government and planning sliced open for him, sheared like an anthill. He could even see the emperor, alone, contemplating his own future.

  The future, yes, this was it. The girl was taking him there. He’d managed to redirect her esoteric powers to concrete ends. Speaking of which, there was a wall ahead. A living wall of golden water - another thing he had not anticipated. ‘Turn!’ he cried. ‘We are going to crash!’

  At the last possible second she did, but not before her wings were caught in the swirl of the endless waterfall. They were both plunging now, perhaps to their death, but Marcellus did not care. From out of the thin air he had seized what he wanted. The information. The only kind of vision that mattered to a pirate.

  A Talassian treasure fleet was preparing to sail. Out of the harbor of the imperial capital itself, bound for Cartishia, far to the east, loaded with gifts and women for this potential new ally of the ever-expanding empire. There was a princess, too, daughter of the dreaded Emperor Teranos, destined to be his emissary, and bride to the aging monarch of that faraway island nation.

  It was to be heavily guarded, but three-quarters of the way to its destination it must pass through a narrow strait, a waterway walled by high rocks allowing the passage of but one ship at a time. Marcellus, the king of pirates, would split the fleet at this juncture, demolish the flotilla of naval escorts and take the treasure galleons.

  ‘Sir,’ cried Tesra, whether out loud or in her mind he did not know, ‘help me!’

  He clutched at her, keeping her close as they careened to earth for a landing. She was about to make him the richest pirate who ever lived and there was no way he was going to lose her now.

  Chapter 6

  ‘This is madness,’ grumbled Rodrigo, passing the spyglass back to the king of pirates. ‘Half the Talassian navy must be out there.’

  Marcellus examined once more the tiny, rounded image with its specks and dots, a scale model reflective of a view much larger, a space of half a mile, encompassing the reality of the situation. ‘So too is half the Talassian treasury,’ he countered. ‘Look there,’ he pointed to the enemy fleet, from which they were well hidden at the moment behind the mighty, teeth-like cliffs. ‘It is as I said. Already they are reconfiguring single file. They will pass this way.’

  Rodrigo took back the glass confirming the accuracy of the prediction. The Talassians were going to attempt to sail through the Strait of the Barracuda, rather than take the longer, safer way round the archipelago.

  ‘The emperor must be in great need of this new alliance,’ Marcellus speculated. ‘Perhaps there is more truth than rumor to this supposed rebellion by his generals.’

  ‘And your little sea witch told you this too, I suppose?’

  ‘It requires no witchcraft, Rodrigo, to see what is to be done. They will put the galleons in the middle, exposing the warships to the front and rear. We shall wait till the last of the galleons has entered the strait, block the remaining man-o-wars behind and pick off the ones in front leaving the treasure ships completely unprotected.’

  ‘If you accomplish this,’ mused Rodrigo, ‘your name shall be added to the annals, as one of the great brigand kings of all time.’

  ‘I wish only to add gold,’ he clapped the shoulder of the man whom he still held out hope to call friend. ‘To your coffers and mine.’

  ‘My sword,’ pledged Rodrigo. ‘For blood.’

  ‘You are my arm,’ confirmed Marcellus.

  ‘And you my heart,’ saluted Rodrigo, leaving the king alone upon the deck of his ship, first among pirates, lord of predators. He could only hope the plan would succeed. Tesra had been able to provide little in the way of detail subsequent to his first vision. His use of her mind had impacted upon her more severely than he’d expected. Upon awakening himself from the crash he’d found her still unconscious, barely breathing. Nursing her in his own bed he finally succeeded in getting her to open her eyes just yesterday. Two weeks had passed in which the pirate fleet had been sailing at a murderous pace, all the while preparing for the raid of their lives, a venture which would see them all rich as the emperor or dead as the skeletons of the deep where their ships would swiftly be dispatched.

  Marcellus was a skilled warrior as well as a decent tactician and he had the element of surprise. Half the crews of each ship had been dispatched to positions high upon the rocks. From this vantage point they would serve the dual purpose of harassing and disabling the warships while leaping down upon the galleons to seize control. The other half would be employed in hit and run tactics, manning the much streamlined fighting ships, which had the advantage of speed over the heavy Talassian warships.

  The difficult part - one of many, actually - would be determining at what point to engage the choke point, blocking the pass with the great floating sheaves of fire and smoke to be thrown down from the height of the rocks. Once deployed, these would cut the front half of the Talassian fleet from the warships behind. The sooner this was done, of course, the fewer ships to deal with after. But if the treasure ships were interspersed they might have to risk losing treasure to minimize the danger. There was also the problem of cutting off their own ships, leaving them to the mercy of the muchly angered Talassian navy to the rear. Marcellus had prayed much to Nephisis, who, as is well known by all who travail the seas, favors the free men, the buccaneers who make their living from the sea, rather than the arrogant empire builders who seek to tread upon the ocean beneath them as though it were some road laid for their benefit. Such men would as soon pave the mighty seas with stone, burying over the pirates and all other denizens of the deep than they would pay one iota of homage to great bearded Nephisis, he of the quick eyes and jolly laugh.

  ‘To you, noble Lord of the Sea,’ he raised his sword, the polished metal gleaming off the rays of the shining sun. ‘Goes the day, t
he victory and the spoils thereof.’

  Tesra turned her head weakly towards the door, the effort taking all her energy.

  ‘Vorra and I have been sent to take care of you,’ announced Drusia, sounding anything but caring. ‘While the men are occupied.’

  ‘Where is Marcellus?’ she managed, her eyes darting back and forth between the two gleaming-eyed girls just now entering the captain’s quarters.

  ‘He’s getting ready to fight your little battle,’ Vorra sat on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Quite the little fortune teller, aren’t you?’ Drusia sat on the opposite side.

  ‘What are you saying?’ She tried to sit up. ‘Marcellus has told me nothing of a battle.’

  Drusia pushed her back down, rather abruptly. ‘What a pity,’ she mocked. ‘With the two of you being on a first name basis and all.’

  Tesra tried to remember. Dimly, she had seen Marcellus yesterday. He sat where Vorra was, feeding her broth, telling her everything would be all right. She had taken some kind of a fall. In a dream, of all things. He’d explained to her about the ship, reminding her of her own kidnapping, but it hadn’t seemed so horrible anymore, not compared to the other thing, the plunging in her mind, the crashing. A chill came over her as she remembered. Marcellus had seized possession of her dreamscape, forcing her to convey him over the plains of the known and unknown. He’d harnessed her in leather, forcing her, bitted and enslaved to carry him on her back, the wings of her mind carrying them whither he would go. But he had not sought to fly over the inner space for its right purpose of worship. He wished profit. He had sought to be as a god himself, and in so doing had forced her into the wall.

  The Wall of the Unknowable. The impenetrable barrier that no mortal may cross.

  ‘Let me go.’ She tried once more to regain her freedom.

  Marcellus had broken a law, whether he realized it or not, and there was to be punishment, not from the Talassians but from a far greater power. Unless she warned him. But the two slaves held the much-depleted Tesra down with ease.

  ‘You’re like a little doll,’ Vorra stroked her hair. ‘A yellow-pelted doll.’ As if on cue Drusia pulled the sheet down, exposing the girl’s naked body.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Tesra warily, other memories returning to her, of things done to her before by these women.

  ‘We’re going to find some ways to pass the time,’ Drusia said, lifting the girl’s limp wrist and tying it with the cord. ‘Since we’re locked in here, thanks to you.’

  ‘Locked in,’ she mumbled as one arm and then the other was drawn taut over her head and secured to the head of the bed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We’re locked in,’ Vorra opened her legs, placing them wide apart. ‘While we wait the outcome of the battle.’

  ‘It’s a foregone conclusion, actually.’ Drusia produced the nasty-looking silver clamps. ‘Since your good friend Marcellus has signed our death warrants.’

  The clamps were for Tesra’s nipples. The girls applied them one by one, carefully, mercilessly on the already peaked nubs. The pain ripped through her, hurting like nothing she had ever known. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘I am not well.’

  Vorra was busy working on Tesra’s clitoris, making her wet enough to receive the large wooden shaft, fashioned in the shape and size of a penis. ‘You’ll feel a lot worse when the Talassians blow this ship out from under us.’

  ‘Pray it’s only that,’ said Drusia somberly, adding a fresh twist of anguish to each captive nub. ‘Better an eternity at the bottom of the ocean than even a single day as a slave of Talassia.’

  ‘Drusia knows what she’s talking about,’ Vorra confirmed, surprisingly calm as she began to push the device into Tesra’s defenseless sex. ‘She was a slave on one of their galleys. Isn’t that true, Drusia?’

  Drusia licked her lips in anticipation of kissing Tesra. ‘I begged to die,’ she confirmed. ‘On one occasion I chewed my own arm bloody and jumped into the water hoping to attract the sharks. For my punishment I was given to the ship’s dogs for a night. Do you know what Talassian dogs are trained to do with slave girls, little fortuneteller? I’ll give you a clue. They are all male and they are not interested in playing fetch.’

  ‘Tell her about the beatings, Drusia. With the whip of nails.’

  ‘Shut up, Vorra,’ she snapped. ‘Before I forget that we are supposed to be getting along right now.’

  Vorra took out her anger on Tesra, plugging her fully with the wooden cock. ‘I’ll take you on any day,’ she challenged. ‘King’s bitch.’

  ‘At least I am the bitch of the king,’ Drusia taunted, her lips brushing the moaning Tesra, ‘and not one of his underlings.’

  ‘I hate you,’ said Vorra, fucking Tesra all the harder.

  Drusia made no response, her tongue now fully inserted in Tesra’s mouth, having easily breeched her slack and pouting lips. Beware my king, she thought. If you can hear my mind, then stop before it is too late. Stealing the knowledge of the future was one thing, but to act upon it, this was tantamount to desecration, an open defilement of what is holy and orderly. For such a sin a man can only die, and in the worst possible way.

  ‘Pay attention!’ Drusia slapped her face, drawing her back to the pain. ‘I’m not going to bother abusing you if you’re not even going to pay attention.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tesra submissively, opening herself to the girls’ tortures, the petty teasing and taunting mixed with the very real agony of the clamps and shaft, ‘I obey.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Vorra thrust the device to the hilt, only to pull it all the way out. ‘Now beg me to fuck you.’

  ‘Do it,’ Drusia pulled at the clamps, which unlike the discrete attack of the whip brought a hell that had no beginning, no ending.

  ‘Please,’ grunted the nymph from deep in her throat, her own needs compounding the duress, ‘fuck me.’

  ‘Fuck me, mistress,’ Vorra corrected.

  ‘We are both your mistresses,’ Drusia pulled the clamps toward her, pointing Tesra’s breasts to the back wall.

  ‘Oh, please,’ she bucked her hips, fearing she would tear the ropes, or else the nipples from her own breasts, ‘fuck me, mistresses.’

  ‘Only the lowest of slaves comes like this,’ Drusia told her. ‘You do know that?’

  Vorra thrust the artificial cock in and out, fast and deep. ‘Beg to come, slave.’

  ‘I beg... to... come... mistresses.’

  Vorra rested the shaft against her clit. ‘Work for it.’

  Tesra did not need to be told twice. Like a madwoman she impaled herself, spasming and writhing, her own personal earthquake. The slaves watched, mocking, sneering. Tesra was beyond caring, beyond preserving any shred of dignity. She’d have done anything, said anything just for this relief.

  They allowed her minimal recovery time afterward. Pulling the shaft free of her sex, Vorra handed it to Drusia who put it to her lips, making clear what it was she was to do next. ‘You’re our little slave, aren’t you? The slave of slaves. Little Yellow-Pelt, King’s new pet.’

  Tesra opened wide, taking the hard, slick object to the back of her throat. It tasted of female sex - hers and others. How many girls had yielded to this device, their precious love-giving power cruelly exploited by a mockery of human anatomy? For a moment she lamented her gaping pussy, but Vorra had no intention of leaving her alone. As soon as the wood was gone she replaced it with her tongue, at once roiling the girl with yet more unwanted orgasms.

  ‘Slut,’ Drusia kept repeating, as if the words did not apply as well to her. ‘Hot-cunted little slave slut.’

  ‘Yes,’ Tesra confessed, astounded that such a confession could come to mind much less reach her lips. ‘I am a hot-cunted little slut.’ But not a slave. Never a slave. Desperately she clung to this idea as the women continued t
o have their way with her, turning her in all positions, ultimately forcing her to please them as they climbed one by one onto her face. It was while she was servicing Drusia this way, licking this glistening cunt of which Marcellus was so fond that she heard the first of the cannonballs.

  It’s begun, she thought. Too late now for redemption. For win or lose this battle, Marcellus was doomed to lose the war.

  ‘Hard to starboard!’ shouted Marcellus. ‘Do not let them escape!’

  The fat galleon was no match for the corsair. Like a hawk bearing down upon its prey the pirate ship Treasure Dream closed the gap down to nothing, its hull scraping satisfyingly against the heavy treasure ship. There was a shout of joy from the pirates as the first wave went over the edge, overwhelming the small number of Talassian marines stationed onboard. Slitting their throats and leaving them for the fearsome sharks, noble sea dogs of Nephisis, they made their way into the hold to find their booty.

  ‘Second wave, hold!’ commanded the pirate king, barely restraining the drooling pirates. It was a problem, of course, occupying so many treasure galleons at once; their ranks stretched thin as it was. Immediately turning the wheel he dispatched them to the next ship, an even larger one that at the moment was spinning in the water, slowly, leaning heavily to one side.

  It was going to sink on them!

  ‘Signal to Rodrigo!’ he shouted to the flag-bearer. ‘Tell him to intercept. We don’t want to give the old man of the sea this much gold!’

  Though in truth they owed this much to the god and more. The plan could not have gone better. Not only had they bottled up every last one of the treasure ships and disabled the five intermingled warships, they had actually succeeded in sinking two others behind and running the rest off. Marcellus doubted they would be that scared of the pirates, but it was quite likely in the melee, with so much smoke and fire that the admirals had assumed themselves under attack from some much larger force; perhaps the fleet of the mighty Alliance of the Serpentine City States rumored to be unhappy with the massive tributes levied by the new emperor, or even some rebel faction of their own forces.