Shacled

The Citadel

© 2020 by Pitchblack

Chapter Six. Shackled

While she trudged through the dark hallways, Annie felt the cold stone floor beneath the sole of her bare feet. Each step was like a prickling sting through her skin, sending a cold shiver running up her spine.

When she had come to the citadel, she had been a decent woman, demurely clothed. Everything had changed the last hour. Now she was bare naked, bereft of any clothing, a nameless prisoner beneath the dark fortress towering above her. Not only that, she had been bullied around, teased and turned into wanton slut, having no moral inhibitions whatsoever. Crying and moaning loudly for everyone to see and hear, she had indulged lecherously in sexual pleasures.

Her juices still dripped from her pussy. She only had to look down on her thighs to see the spatters of her own cum running down along the legs. Being led out of her cell she had expected to be tortured, but not in this way. Pain and pleasure, both of them felt so embarrassing, making her cringe inside with shame. She shook her head and cursed herself, for the last thing she wanted was to be subjugated by these loathsome women, who didn't attract her at all. If she stayed here for longer, would she be turned into their mindless pleasure slave, ready to serve them willingly on any occasion?

Occupied by her unsettling musings she didn't recognize that they had left the corridor and entered a dark room. It was more like a cavern, the walls and ceiling crudely carved out of the rock under the citadel. Annie's eyes instantly welled up from the acrid smoke billowing out of a gloomy forge at the end of the room. The exhaust must have been clogged up, for the surrounding walls were blackened and greasy. Through the haze of her tears, which she couldn't rub away due to her cuffed hands, she recognized stacks of old metal junk piled together. Different set of tools, hammers, pliers and other unknown instruments lie around on rough wooden workbenches or hung from hooks on the wall. A loud rumbling noise from one of the corners told that the room wasn't unoccupied.

While Mathilde halted her trussed up prisoner in the middle of the forge, Bethany continued on towards the source of the sound. A hollow thud sounded through the cavern, followed by some earthy curses made in some guttural speech. Soon she returned with a stocky, almost dwarflike figure in tow. His garment was as sooty and blackened as his surroundings, the broad leather apron draped over his entire chest and reaching to his knees outworn and smeared with oil. He made some rumbling sounds, while he nodded agreement as Bethany told him her wishes about what should be done with the prisoner in front of him.

After he gave her wrists and thighs a thorough look he even measured the collar size of her neck with a knotted cord before he vanished in some dark corner of the room. For the last move Annie had to bend over her body and bow, for the stunted blacksmith barely reached her chest. By the clinking sound he seemed to search one or more of his numerous piles. After a felt eternity he returned to the middle of the room while he dragged an assortment of chains and iron manacles behind him.

"Get the lass down and ready!" he snorted towards Bethany, "Or do I look like an ape ready to climb up on her legs?"

"You are hairy enough, for sure." cackled the addressed woman, "besides your brutish manners."

But she followed his command by pressing her prisoner down on the floor. Annie had to sit in front of wooden footstool, while her outstretched feet were placed on top of it. For one moment she thought of resisting or even to run away, but Mathilde grabbed her collar hard and unrelentingly, ready to choke her if she dared a false move.

"No," she groaned audibly, "Please, no!"

Her only words of protest she was able to utter when the dwarf approached her, fetters and chains dangling from his hands. Her eyes went wider out of anxiety and fear with every step he drew nearer to her, while the metal clinked and rattled blatantly.

Bethany's rough hand seized her hair and pulled her head up and back to stretch her neck out. Her head bent back, she was only able to see straight up to the ceiling. Wriggling about on the cold stone floor with her bare ass cheeks, she felt that the lock on her leather collar was opened and the contraption removed from her neck. A brief chance for escape, but her hands were still cuffed and surrounded by her guards and the blacksmith she wasn't able to get up from the floor.

While she twisted her hands to find a release two massive, blunt iron bands briefly passed through her view. Both ends protruded rounded plates like a hasp with a drilled hole in the middle. The plates on one side were permanently threaded together with a thick iron ring holding the two halves of the collar together. The other ones were similar in style but left open.

Swinging out both parts the smith twined the bands around her throat. When she rolled her eyes down, she was barely able to notice the broad iron ring which encased her neck tightly. With knotted fingers the blacksmith pressed under her chin both plates together to lock the neck iron into place. At first a rectangular ring was pulled over the two protruding plates to band them tightly together.

"What are you doing?" The words rushed from her mouth, along with her breath, as he brought forth a large bow shackle and aligned the holes in the end of the two arms with the ones in the plate of the neck shackle.

"Stop.... It's too tight. I can't breathe." she pleaded desperately when he threaded a thick bolt through all the holes and screwed it into one end of the bow. With each turn of the bolt the iron bands gradually compressed her throat, leaving her barely room to breathe until the whole contraption was tightly secured around her neck.

A choking sound escaped her throat due to the tightness of the neck shackle pressing into her larynx. She had despised the leather collar, but the metal one was much more rigid and restricting. The thick, cold iron felt unrelenting and rough, chafing the soft skin of her throat. A much heavier weight, which pulled her neck forward once her head was released from the grip of her tormentors.

Yet, the heavy shackle around her neck was only the first restraint placed on her body. When she looked anxiously down over her chest, she could recognize a thick iron chain, fastened to the bow shackle and running down over her chest, between her breasts all over belly to the ground. Somewhere between her thighs a thick iron ring was fastened to its end, which sprouted two additional chains. The dwarf reached between her legs and pulled both of the chains up from the ground and towards her legs. Now Annie could recognize the two manacles which were fastened to the end. Built in a similar fashion as the collar around her neck, they were held together by a thick iron ring at one end, where also the chain was attached. Smaller in size, they were broad enough to be fitted around both of her ankles.

Annie cringed with revulsion when she thought about that she should be fettered in such a horrible manner. She desperately wanted to run away from this dreaded place, from this horrific people. It would be her last chance. Once her body had been cast into all this iron, the heavy manacles and chains around her limbs would drag her down, restrict her movement to nothingness. She wouldn't have any chance to escape this dreaded dungeon, a prisoner forever. She tried to get up from the floor, but at the first sign of resistance, Bethany pressed with her full weight on her shoulders to hold her down. Being in the better position, she was able to hold the wriggling and twisting woman down, although it was not an easy task.

Her body held tightly in place Annie's feet trashed in the air, kicking and waving to avoid being shackled. Until such time, as Mathilde grabbed them and pressed them on the foot stool again. She needed her full weight to keep the struggling prisoner in place. Both women cursed at her, while they tried to subdue her desperate victim.

In helpless rage she desperately wanted to force their hands away, to run away from them, but the women kept her held tightly in place.

"Please...." she started to whine, when she realized, that she lacked the power to win this fight. Anger and frustration almost choked her throat while she resorted to beggary, the only possibility available to change her fate.

"Please, just take them off. You don't have to do this. I'll... I'll be... a good girl", she whimpered, her voice breaking as she pleaded with them.

"Yes, yes, anyone here looks as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, when we get down to the nitty-gritty." Mathilde snorted, unimpressed by Annie's wailing, while she nodded towards the dwarf to continue on.

All her prisoner could do was to glare down at the blacksmith as he bent over to wrap one of the iron cuffs around her right ankle. Annie wanted to kick at him, but held to the floor she had no leverage and could do nothing to stop him as he closed the manacle and locked it with an another bow shackle firmly around her slender ankle. The second cuff was applied to her left ankle in the same manner. Both of her legs were now fitted with a pair of cuffs, each of them linked to an iron ring, dangling from the chain between her knees.

When they let go of her, she was unable to move. She stared at the heavy black chain, reaching down from the collar towards her shackled feet as if it was a poisoned snake, ready to strike any moment. The iron links felt chilly on her skin, as they wound down between her bare breasts, her belly and down between her thighs.

"Get up, you lazy bitch," Bethany had to stab her in the back to break Annie out of her stupor.

Biting her lower lips, her face screwed up from her growing frustration, she struggled to stand up again. The chains and fetters seemed to her like heavy stones, which dragged her down and hindered every one of her moves. Not only physically but also in her mind, which seemed to become more and more depressed from anxiety and fear.

It took some time and effort to contort and twist her restrained limbs until she was able to place the soles of her feet back on the ground. When she tried to unbend, both thighs still trembled from the exertion of fighting herself up from the floor. To straighten her further on and stand completely upright was impossible. The chain, which stretched between her neck and ankles didn't match her height. The damned thing was far too short to let her raise her upper body in full. Instead, she had to hunch down, to bow her neck before her guards, unable to look them in their eyes.

The women hadn't lifted a finger to help her. She didn't want to plead them again, for all her former begging had fallen on deaf ears. Her bondage didn't allow her to make large steps too, as she recognized when Mathilde turned her around to lead her towards one of the tables nearby. Her walk was accompanied by the clinking sounds of the chains, swinging back and forth between her fettered legs, rubbing against the bare skin of her chest.

She felt as every ounce of her power, of her resistance had been sucked out of her body. She stared down to the ground, unable to bid defiance when the leather bindings were removed from her arms. Instead, they were replaced by iron manacles which were cast around her wrists. A short chain connected them together, keeping her arms bound before her belly. The heavy iron dragged her shoulders down furthermore, as it if was not enough to bear the weight of the shackle around her neck and the chains attached to it.

"You look pretty in your new clothing," teased Mathilde, "they suit a bitch like you much better than silk and satins. A pity that we are the only guards here. One or two of the soldiers from outside would love to have it off with such a sweet girl, helplessly fettered and unable to fight back."

Annie stared blankly at her, too tired to dignify the wicked woman with an answer. Still, the hatred and repugnance she felt must have shown on her face or deep in her eyes.

"So, miss arrogant one," Mathilde rambled on, unimpressed by the defiant look of her prisoner, "you will come off your high horse soon enough. After a day or two in the cistern you will beg to being treated as gently as we did before."

When both of the women started to walk her out of the forge, she had to follow their lead. The briefness of the chains hindered her limbs in a most unpleasant way. The unrelenting steel left her trussed up with only small movement possible for her tethered feet.

Annie's sauntering steps stopped short when her guards reached a small entrance at the end of the corridor. The iron wrought grate, which sealed the tunnel leading further on opened with a nail biting squeak. It seemed that this part of the dungeon was seldom used. Before she was pulled over the threshold Mathilde lit a small lantern, for there was no visible sources of light further down in the ensuing passage. The audible click of the key inside the lock barring the gate made Annie shudder. It sounded like a promise of eternal imprisonment to her. The way back to her normal life was sealed beyond reach. If the former treatment was only the outset of her ordeal then she feared the days to come.

At a slow pace they followed a narrow passage which twisted down into the darkness. With each step further down, the walls seemed to become damper and covered with moss and mushrooms. Cobwebs congested on the low ceiling and around the walls, for there had been nobody walking this path for a long time. More than one of the sticky strands ended to her dismay on Annie's head. With a disgusted squeal she tried to shake them off, but the loathsome substance clung to her face and hair. She hated being trussed up like this, unable to use her hands for cleaning. The only possibility for her to avoid getting dirty was to hunch even lower, despite the humiliating feelings she had doing such a thing.

Annie wondered what was in store for her. The place called "cistern" Mathilde spoke off had no immediate connotation of threat to hear. Although she feared that it was a sinister way to break her resistance in this dark catacombs, she couldn't imagine what it could be. How long she would have to stay there? Maybe the two women would forget about her captive. Cast into one of the most remote pits in the citadel, left chained and shackled to rot away all alone in utter darkness, she would never see a human face again. All alone, the loneliness of this place and the suffering would snap her mind and turn her into a driveling idiot, lost in raging madness.

Annie's dismal musing was halted when the passage widened up and they entered a bigger room. Her heart leapt into her throat when she recognized that the light from Mathildes lantern didn't light it up. She couldn't determine if the chamber was built from stones or already hewn out of the rock under the fortress. Was this already the cistern, she asked herself anxiously, or does she had to move further on. She felt already exhausted at this point of their way. The weight of the shackles and chains weighted her down, made every step a straining endeavour. The heavy iron used seemed to be appropriate to restrain a much more vigorous person then a slender woman like her. How much she would give to rest.

"You can't make me go further on!" Annie sobbed and turned towards her captors, "I can´t barely walk in this horrible chains!"

"Don't worry, bitch. You're right where you should be!" Mathilde grinned, while she gave her desperate prisoner a brutish push from behind, "No need to get upset. I am sure you will love to stay here."

Annie stumbled along a few footsteps into the darkness. Unable to keep her balance, she almost tripped over the chains between her feet. At the end of her barely thwarted fall she slumped against a single stone column in a heap of tangled limbs. Feeling the pain from her fall cursing through her muscles she was unable to sit or even stand upright.

Apparently she had reached her destination. For the last stretch both of the women seized her arms and dragged her body upright into a sitting position with her back against the column, which seemed to occupy the middle of the chamber. Under the dim light of the lantern standing nearby Bethany removed the shackles holding her hands together. After a short moment of freedom her left arm was pulled to her side and slightly back beside her buttock. The rattling of chains and the cold touch of iron brought back some of her senses and she watched in horror as a large metal cuff was cast around the wrist and fastened in place.

She felt hot tears spring to her eyes despite her best efforts as her limb arm was irremovable attached to the cold stone rising up behind her. She could only passively watch as Mathilde sank with an audible huff to her knees beside her prone body. The hands of the guard reached out for her other wrist to drag it behind her back and cast it into iron to confine it the same way to the stone column as her first hand. When both guards let go of her arms, she feebly tried to pull them forward, but they moved only some inches before the chains, which connected the shackles around her wrists to the stone behind snapped taut and stopped her movement.

Mathilde watched the feeble efforts of the dazed woman to free herself with a sadistic grin. She had loved to touch the soft skin, all the erogenous places of this luscious body prostrated before her. Helplessly chained to the column her prisoner could do nothing to prevent if she would once again lay hands on her. The soft nipples on top of this marvellous shaped breasts glistened brownish purple in the flickering light of the lantern. Like ripe fruits ready to be picked off. For a short moment the wardress was tempted to rub them and grant her exhausted victim another orgiastic experience. Her hands went forward almost on her own. She could feel the warmth of the silken skin under her fingertips as they approached the object of her desire.

Yet an impatient snort of Bethany interrupted her reverie. The old hag had watched her closely, her face showing no sympathy for her comrades doing.

"Let´s go! My old bones start to ache in such a damp hole!" she snapped while her face showed her eagerness to get out and away.

With a sigh Mathilde gave the compelling flesh in reach a soft flick before she finished her endeavour. Annie was such a nice plaything. It was a real pity to let go and back off.

"Better to spread your legs wide and present your oozy cunt, nice and ready to be shagged!" she rumbled, while she looked down at the prone body of the naked woman in front of her. Her chained and manacled prisoner seemed to have recovered from her exhaustion and brought her feet together in a feeble effort to protect her intimate parts and save her dignity as much as possible.

"Let´s call it a day." she gave in, casting a last glance at Annie's face. The embarrassed woman obviously wasn't able to appreciate Mathildes advice, but stared with big eyes at her surrounding, unable to understand her situation or realizing what was in store for her. Sooner or later she would figure it out. At least when the dark waters would raise again and flood the stone chamber with all its current inhabitants. But this would be only the beginning; the water wasn't the only unpleasantness invading from the depths below.

"Wait! Hold on!" Annie cried out, when she watched Bethany taking the lantern and both of the women made a move to leave the room and her fettered prisoner behind in this ineffable place.

In view of being left alone a sudden surge of power caused her to rebel violently against her captivity. The chains on her hands and body rattled and clanked when she tried to get up, but there was no way to escape. The futile fight against the unyielding iron showed her the severity of her bondage to the full extent.