--- Chapter 2: Attempted escape, and punishment ---
I gasped air. Water. Fresh water! I plunged my head back into the blessed, muddy, warm liquid and just drank. I was alive, I would survive! Water!
Finally I sat up and looked around me, laughing for the first time in what seemed like years, my full belly wobbling as I did so, dirty water flowing down my face. The little stream I was lying face down in was just two feet across, but it had been more than enough for me to drink to overflowing.
The stream was running in a small sandy, stony ditch that led down to the sea. The color of the rock was a pleasant, light brown, and the landscape was dominated by wide flats with the occasional towering crag or low hill.
The only vegetation to speak of were clusters of thorny bushes here and there, and some ancient olive trees spread across the flats, their asymmetric trunks and dark green and white-gray leaves only augmented the feeling of being in a quiet, desert land.
The coast we had landed on was one long, inwardly curving beach of coarse sand, slighter lighter than the rest of the landscape. From the sea the ground sloped slowly upwards toward some higher, steeper hills. A small distance above those hills loomed the dark cloud, creating a shady region that covered most of the interior of the land, except for a belt of sunlight here at the shore, some hundred yards wide.
I had a feeling we were on a an island created by a fiery volcano, such as I had read about. Only there was no mountain cone of impossible height, nor flames and molten rock being spat out. There was just the great, black cloud billowing outwards over the hills, dark and ominous. Was this a fire-peak just waiting to erupt? I shuddered.
I did not like being trapped on an island like this. It was probably uninhabited as the Sea of Seven Perils were known for being largely unmapped, and mainly populated by monsters such as sirens.
Not that it was any chance of me seeing her as some dreadful, evil monster ever again. Her heartfelt remorse at what she had been part of had touched me as, I had to admit, her skillful hands.
I found myself thinking it would actually be pleasant to have her around me. She could help me explore the island and the mysterious cloud, find shelter, and, most importantly now, food. And maybe we could do what she had suggested. Make love. Oh Gods, yes! Make love with a true goddess.
I turned around to face her, and found out she was not there. There was no sign of her anywhere on the open beach, and there were no tracks following mine to the little stream. I squinted. There was no-one over at the small boat, which was lying on the beach by the sea a little while away. Hadn't she come along to drink? She had got to be thirsty as well.
That was at least what I had firmly thought, when she had made her little joke about mating as we had reached the island. I had all but ignored her, jumped out of the boat, scanned the area fervently, having eyes only for any sign of fresh water. When I had seen the ditch I had run over here as fast as I could, crying for her to follow me. Had someone taken her instead?
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I walked back to the boat, eying the dark cloud suspiciously, and solved the mystery at once. Footprints, of small feet made by a light person, were leading in the opposite direction of where I had run to find water. The forefoot, I noticed, always having dug deeper into the sand and soil. Siren had run away from me.
She had run in the direction the current was going. I could now clearly see the water flowing along the coast, the waves not obeying the light breeze at all. Demon-currents and sleeping volcanoes, what a place!
I stood staring at the prints for a few minutes before I reached a decision. Siren ought to be let free to run. Clearly, in my eyes at least, she had absolved herself from her past misdeeds by her remorse. Also, I had no hold upon her. I had taken her from the islet that was her home and brought her on this hopeless journey, and she had repaid me by giving me the first, true sexual experience of my life. I ought to have done what any decent, true Gray Knight was honor-bound to do: Let her be free to run, shrug, and concentrate on my directing own life, seeking a way of the island and take up my post at the frontier town of Gnarlstraits.
I didn't. I think it was the feeling that had consumed me as she lay across my knees and I thrashed her, that decided it for me. It was not just giving the physical pain, though seeing her squirm was exciting enough. No, it was how empowering it had been to bend her to my will. To force her to accept that my way was the only way. I wanted to feel that feeling again! I wanted to hunt her down and thrash her with my belt until she begged me to let her be a good, good girl!
As in a fever I attached my sheathed sword to the belt and clasped it around my belly. Then I set off, following the tracks of the run-away Siren, my hunger for the moment forgotten, the black cloud just a wisp of smoke to me, my manhood pointing straight up - eager to catch up with the woman.
===
It was, in the end, all too easy. She had evidently no concept of how to hide from a pursuer, and she, a creature partly of the Element of Water, had stayed near the ocean. I would have hidden in the hills where the darkness of the looming cloud and the hard soil might have daunted the searching eyes of someone following me. But she left tracks all across the wet sand, her soaked feet creating beautiful footprints every time she passed over any of the few, low headlands along the way.
So, it was merely a question of time. And since I was following a small woman who was not very strong, who was used to have the power of her magical hair to help propel her forwards, it did not take very long before I caught up with her.
I had just climbed another headland to see yet one more beach when I noticed her now walking along on the sand, her left foot limping slightly. The sword-belt was chafing my naked skin, the sand and small stones slightly smarting and burning the soles of my feet, but I grinned and jumped down onto the sand, running towards her as fast as I could.
She must have heard me, for she became startled and turned around to face me. To her credit she did not attempt to run anymore: She was smart enough to know when the game was up.
"Listen Ward, I-" she began when I came closer, holding her hands up.
"You!" I shouted.
"Ward, I did not really mean-"
"You bad!"
"Don't take off your belt! Please!"
"You, you run!"
"Yes, I ran! I want to get back to my home, my people." There was anguish all over her lovely features, and her big, slanted eyes were full of fear. Fear of me. "I swear I won't sing to call me to me ever again! I know it was wrong, Ward, and-"
"For run," I growled, shaking the sword-belt and cursing myself for not being better at speaking the language, "ten of this!"
"Ten!? No, Ward, please! You hurt me with that damned belt!"
"Hands on feet!"
"W-What?"
"Hands!" I went over to her, grabbed her right hand, "on!" and pushed her back forwards with the other, "feet!" making her bend over.
"You want me to take it like this? Curse you, Ward! Curse you!"
"You move, again," I said. My tone was aggressive, manly, dominant, but inside I felt a strange mixture of lust and triumph. I got to teach her once more! Yes! She would soon plead for mercy!
"What do you mean?"
"You move, I use this again. Then ten and one. You move again, ten and two."
"Oh by the powers of Wind!" she groaned, her legs shaking a little as she stood in that uncomfortable position.
"By power of me," I said tersely.
Then I raised the belt and flailed her buttocks with it, putting my strength behind the blow. The leather made a wonderful cracking sound on her tight skin, and she yelped loudly in pain. But she did not break away from her stance.
"Call one!" I ordered, high on lust and power.
"What? What do you mean? Oh. One!"
Slowly she counted out the strokes as I delivered them on her bottom, creating a sense of macabre rhythm. Crack! "Eww! Two!" Crack! "Eww! Three!"
After number six, when a drop of blood was released, she did beg me for mercy.
"You no call. Six again," I replied, and to her horror gave her the sixth stroke a second time.
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