Caught in Darness

Author's note: Explicit violence and gore, reader discretion is advised. There are no sexual situations in this chapter, but it sets the stage for the next ones. (for those that like plot)

In darkness, time passes unseen.

By the meals the servants brought he could it had been about a week since he was captured. To a human, a week alone was being forgotten. To an elf, it was merely a delay. The elven lady in the cage next to his had awakened after sleeping for about two days. She was famished and he parted with one of his meals one night so she could regain her strength. The servings were pathetically small, so on that night he shared his, he went without. The days passed in silence. If she remembered anything about their lovemaking, her dignity would not or could not handle talking to him. Even with their cells still joined as one, he decided it was best to stay respectfully on his side.

Then the day came that his food was brought to him without a tray. It was dumped on the floor of his cell by the three foot tall creature that served them. He scoped up anything edible with his fingers and sucked them hungrily. Today they were served rotten fish remains and something that felt like seaweed on his tongue. When that didn't edge his hunger he licked the remaining spill off stone floor – curdled milk. Then he heard it - a soft demure chuckle from somewhere in the room.

She was here.

The under-elf had come in silently while he was ravished his servings. She was watching him in the darkness with that heat-vision elves had. His pause was short lived. It didn't matter how he ate his food, so long as he got as much of it in his stomach as he could. But now he understood why they hadn't given him a tray.

"do you like the dark?" her voice sang sweetly from across the room. "Do you want the light? Yes?" she spoke his language very fluently now. The days off had been spent preparing for further interrogations it seemed. "You like my words, no? They are more softer I would think, yes?"

"You speak my language now." He answered the dark.

"I can be very soft." She cooed from another place in the room. His head turned to face the new direction the voice was coming from. "And I can be very hard..." her tongue rolled the last syllable off.

"Things you want, I can give." She spoke from a new location, he tried his best to keep facing her.

"Things you have, I can take." The mistress spat the words venomously from beside the elf woman's cell. He heard his cell-mate shout in alarm and scurry away towards the middle of the cell. The mistress voice sang out with those magic words that worked the cage's bars. The partition rose from the ground and separated the prisoners. Panic rose in the elf woman's breath; she pleaded something in her native language. The mistress spat something guttural back and struck the elf woman with something hard. He heard her body crumple to the ground and heard her whimper. She crawled back to her bedding and huddled there in fear. This one's pride was failing, her composure was decaying in the presence of their captor. It wouldn't be long before they could get anything they wanted from her. When they had it all, she was would be dead.

That, he could not permit.

"You protected her, the time before." The mistress was speaking to him now. Her words inflected curiosity. The elf woman was just leverage now. Leverage against him. "You want to protect her?" her question was in earnest. Silence followed it.

"I do not want her dead." He responded.

"I can hurt worse than death...but not death." she breathed huskily inches from the bars next to him. "You will hear, then you will watch..." the certainty in her voice never gave him reason to doubt her.

"Why?" he asked the darkness. "you want me to talk? Ask me. Torture me. Why her?"

"In the dark, you only protect what has value... You protected her. You value her." she whispered only inches from his ear. He turned slowly into it, and could feel her hot breath on his cheek. She was inside his cage, and he never heard the bars open. Boldly his hand reached out but touched nothing where her face would be. She was gone.

Metal bars screeched as they were bent aside, and his fellow captive screamed in the darkness. Her limbs flailed about and kicked ground and bar alike. Something had her and was dragging her out. There were thumps and thuds of something on flesh, and each sound was followed by a groan of pain from the lady elf. It didn't take many to cease her struggling. She moaned shallowly, the sound one makes when beaten into submission and half conscious. Metal chains clinked as they were pulled and moved. Clasps banged together and bolts slid into openings. All of this he could here, but he could not see who was doing it. His companion whimpered in the darkness. Her soft moans were all that filled the room now. He could hear them clearly as if she was right beside him.

Then she screamed. And the smell of blood filled his nostrils. He gripped the bars and growled angrily at the darkness.

"She dies. You die." He threatened through gritted teeth at the darkness.

"I can hurt worse than death, without death." She remarked. There was a faint glow of heated metal in the room. And then he saw it.

The elven lady hung from chains and manacles from the ceiling. Her arms and legs spread out and suspended. Blood pooled on the stone under her and ropes dripped from her to the ground. Then the smell of bile hit his senses and he knew those to be the elf lady's entrails. She had been gutted.

A mangy servant creature, a mongrel of some kind was holding a heated iron bar under the body. From its glow he could see the gruesome scene before him. Soft malicious words floated on the air with magic power. The entrails levitated back inside the body cavity of their own accord. On cue the mongrel touched the metal bar to the wound, cauterizing the flesh. The smell was horrendous, and his nostrils took it all in hungrily. But his anger relinquished. This was part of her game. The elf woman would be tortured again and again to the mistress's pleasure. As long as it elicited a response in him as well.

The man turned around and put his back to the bars. With one knee propped up and his elbow across it he rested his chin in the nook it created and withdrew to his inner mind. She would not win this fight. Not yet. He ignored them as them released the elf woman and threw her barely living body back into the adjacent cell. The room was dark again and quiet. He never heard them leave. All he could hear was the whispy breaths from his cellmate as she clung to life.

The room stank. From their filth, and the blood. The room was silent accept for the breathing of the prisoners. Something moved. A breath later he jerked his hand up to his neck to catch a leather strap that was about to wrap around his neck.

"You're getting sloppy." He growled in the darkness. She hissed viciously in his ear from the other side of the bar and yanked hard. For a female under-elf of her age she was surprisingly strong and the strap pinned his hand against his throat. He didn't struggle, he should have rolled away from the bars where she couldn't get him, or take this opportunity to grab her. But escape wasn't his intention. It was his intention to make anything he could difficult for the mistress.

He relented, and the strap caught his throat and pulled his head against the bars. She pulled it as tightly as she could but his neck was too thick for her arms to overpower it. For the time being, she relished in the red flush the skin of his head, and the bulging veins in his cheek and forehead from the pressure she was exerting. The strap had a buckle and she snapped it together and whispered a magic spell that sealed the latch. Only then did she let go and allow the man to get accustomed to his new leash. Studs on the inside of the leather pressed against the skin and made breathing uncomfortable. A lesser man would choke to death from the pressure.

The bars of the cell opened, as did the round door to the room. For the first time in many days a warm red glow struck his eyes and he could see through that door. He rose to his feet and looked around the room trying to take in details.

"Come, slave." Was all the mistress said as she walked out of the room. Some force inside him compelled him to obey and he strode from the cage and then out into the hallway. The collar was magic. He stopped walking and found he could fight it, but it gave him a headache. There was some other power there that he didn't want to test, so for now he followed the mistress down the hall.

This was a dungeon. Cell blocks lined the walls. Some were empty, some were occupied, some even with the remains of previous occupants. The hallway was rounded, and all the doors circular. Smooth solid slick stone. Only the floor had a flat surface or any groves. What looked decorative architecturally, was actually a very practical way to prevent escapees. A rounded hallway had no places to hold onto or hide in.

They came on half a dozen armed solders. Lightly armed, and not armored, they wore casual clothes, though rich in fabric and frills. The style was very light and flowing, the slightest breeze sent lapels, sleeves, and frills undulating around that person. The two under elf males held smirks of contempt and certain lust in their eyes for something inside the cell. They parted for the mistress and her slave as they entered. Silently the two males took up posts in the hall.

The creature inside had been beaten bloody. She hung from twin chains that stretched across the room and attached to opposite sides of the wall. A iron collar hung around her neck and length of chain held taught to a ring in the floor. The tension between the three put excruciating strain on her neck and upper spine. Her body was covered in bruises and scratches. Dried blood covered her wounds but little of it fell to the floor. She was one of them – a Zecair, an under-elf, like the mistress. To him, she looked almost like the Elthair, the surface elf he left in the cells. Zecairs were dark fae, twisted spirits that fed off the suffering of others. Their war with the surface Elthair was a timeless, and vicious one. And it seems he was caught in the middle of a minor skirmish between the two.

"She is dead." His mistress sneered. "Will be soon. Give her one last pleasure." She laughed a haunting laugh and floated away to put her back to the wall. The human stood, confused. What was he to her now? An instrument of entertainment? An instrument for her to get her sick lusts satisfied? Or was there some meaning to this, an insult to the dying? Whatever it was, it was another of the mistress's tests.

She was indeed doomed. He could see a break in two ribs, the broken half didn't move as she breathed, the rest of it disappeared inside of her. The black skin was turning a reddish purple there, and in a dozen other places that marked broken bones. Her left cheek had been shattered and protruded outwards, almost breaking through the skin. One eye was a bloody mess that stared blankly. The other orb was a cloudy white, with a vacant stare at the ground under her. Her fingers were mangled, dislocated and broken so many times they looked like gnarled stubby branches of a swamp tree. Some merciless force kept her alive and conscious. And his mistress wanted him to... mate with her? She wore no clothing, her sex was open to him from her kneeling position, but her body could not take the strain. It would not be a lovemaking, it would be just be more torture.

One last indignation for the condemned.

He walked to the beaten dark Fae and placed too gentle hands on her cheeks, careful not to press too hard into the shattered bone. His fingers slid backwards through her hair and over her ears to hold her head between his palms. His hands found her once long, and sensitive ears cut, bloody stumps. His touch was oddly soothing to the life between his hands and for one brief second, coherence returned and the one working eye looked up to regard him. There was no emotion in it, just a blank registration that he was there, and that he was touching her.

Then, with a quick snap, it was gone forever.

He let the lifeless head fall to dangle from the body and stood up. He expected outrage and retribution for his disobedience. As her turned to face the short, elder under-elf he was surprised to find her smiling. That wicked smile he saw before, before she took the light away. With a flash of her hand the chain soared through the air and sliced through his ear.

Show pain! He beat down his instincts and forced himself down onto the ground and wailed in agony. The warm wet blood flowed through his fingers as he cupped the ruination of his ear. Her laughter was melodious as it echoed off the walls. Her bloodlust was in full bloom, he failed to sate her sadistic desire, and it needed must be sated.

So be it.

The chain flashed out again, but this time he stepped into it, and the razor edges clipped his ragged hair. His speed caught her off guard and he body checked her into the wall. The impact forced the breath from her, and gave him a moment to regard the two armed males rushing into the room. Their wickedly serrated steel swords mirrored the hunger for blood that their masters starved for.

The first one came at him with a quick lunge. It was a lazy stroke, he apparently hadn't seen the man sidestep the mistress's razor chain. And that was his mistake. The human grabbed the hilt with one hand and jabbed the attacker in the throat with his fingers. The guardsman choked on his breath and staggered backwards. The man kicked his knees in from behind, making the soldier lurch forward onto his knees. A fierce hand grabbed the males head and yanked it back. That soldier glimpsed the serrated edge of his own sword one last time before it plunged downward into his gaping mouth.

The second guardsman and stopped and watched his comrade's gruesome demise. It was a reaction the human had counted on - he would use their own sick bloodlust against them. He glanced once at the mistress and saw her biting her bottom lip in a lustful look. All thoughts of violence against him had been put aside by the spectacle of the grizzly murder. But her other bodyguard did not stay entranced for long. His steel was quicker, and his moves more probing and cautionary, he would not make the same arrogant mistake as the blood fountain sitting on the floor. The wicked sword backed the human up against the chained corpse of the female they beat, he ducked under her stretched arms and chains. This forced his opponent to hack through her corpse to get to him. Severed limbs scattered the floor, and the stone grew more slick with blood from another body. Their footing became less sure, but both combatants stayed on their feet. The human remained on the defensive, waiting for the right moment to strike. For the moment he let his far adversary exhaust his techniques without connecting. But his dodges were less and less effective, and that serrated blade cut into his arms more than once. It was a painful sting, that hurt worse for the tearing action of the blade's teeth.

The human found himself corned against one of the walls sprouting the chain. His hunter kept his distance for the time being and paced left and right. His weapon only slightly greased from the few strikes he was able to connect with.

"Kill the cornered animal." The mistress commanded with glee. She was eager for another life to end. The man bowed his head curtly in her direction, a motion that confused her, but gave his attacker the moment to strike. The lunge was meant for his head, to impale it right at his nose and pop out the back of his skull. At the last moment he substituted a length of the heavy chain for his face and leaned back away. The blade skewered one of the lengths and was wedged as the serration bit into the steel and snagged. The man balled a fist but left his first two knuckles raised and drove them into the back of his assailant. The blow landed between the shoulder blades and he twisted the knuckles against the spine as he dug into the flesh. The resounding crack of the shattered vertebrae told him his strike worked as the male went limp to the ground from a broken back.

Gasps and chokes from the bewildered and prone bodyguard were music to the mistress. The man dragged the male across the slick floor by his hair and presented his gasping body to Her.

"I do not share your pleasure. But I will let you saver it. He failed you, my lady, bleed him. I'll be resting in my cell..." He breathed the words, in an almost whisper. Under-elven hearing was superior to most creatures, and his words were seductive and succulent to her ears. This was the moment he had been waiting for, where he could position himself in her standing. The road beyond will be as cruel as this moment, but it was the only way to survive. For him, and the girl he came here to get.

The man left her for the hallway. He did not stay to watch her draw up that chain around her bodyguard's neck and slowly squeeze the life from him. Blood flowed were the razors bit into his neck, but not fast enough to spare him from the suffocation of a crushed windpipe.

He never managed a scream.