He stood wary. All around him were the curious stares and hateful glares of the Zecarin nobility under the rule of Her, The Majestic. They wore thin silks of purple, red, and white. Some of the males walked around shirtless and wore swords in their waist sashes. The heat in the room was formidable as ducts in the floor piped in hot air from natural thermal springs and lava beds. The floor and pillars were tiled brownish-pink marble. A reddish light glowed from sconces on the far wall and a chandelier above.
"This is the creature that freed the traitor." The Majestic said loudly to all gathered as she made her way through the dozen gathered. "See how he grovels now!" She whirled on him and that chain flew from around her torso and struck him across the chest. It left a red slash that bleed, but he did not flinch. I must let her dominate me, or else they will not respect her. Mule thought. He stared at the floor and didn't look up to any of them. To make eye contact would show that he hadn't been broken yet. And his plan rested on that.
"He was abandoned by the female he came here to free." She laughed haughtily. "Now he is just another slave." The thin metal chain flew again at him. The razor edges worked into the metal length of it tore through his flesh. His thighs, his arms, and his cheek soon bore the marks of her weapon. That last cut to his face made him drop to his knees, but he fought back the pain and breathed forcefully. It struck his back a dozen times more, then his shoulders as he dropped to his hands and knees. She whipped him with that razor chain again and again, each strike leaving a fresh mark. Mule collapsed to the ground and balled up, panting and bleeding from a hundred small wounds. Any normal man would have lost consciousness from the pain perhaps, so he feigned it as best he could as he went limp to the ground.
Strong arms grabbed him and hauled him up. Behind them faded the laughs and sneers of the gathered under-elves. He was tossed in a corner and left as the crowd drew their attention to the next spectacle. One of the soldiers in red mail came in dragging the elf maiden by her hair. They had cut her long blond hair down to short little curls, just enough to get a handful of. She seemed unhurt, but did little to resist the horrible treatment. They tossed her onto the spot spattered with Mule's blood. As she rose to her knees her hands went slick with his red blood and a look of horror shone from her eyes.
"That is the human's blood." The Majestic said in the common language of the surface. "I made him bleed. For his crimes." She glided over the stone tiled floor to the elf lady and stood before her with her chin held high. There was no blood on her white silk dress, nor on her, but her chain was coated with it. "I will make you bleed for yours too, but not so simply as I did with him." Slim dark fingers reached down and lifted the maiden's chin, their eyes met, but the girl stared blankly back with a broken stare.
"Wake him!" She shouted gleefully. A soldier in the red mail of the elite smirked as he went to one of the heat vents near the floor and pulled a spear from it. The steel tip glowed with a faint reddish hue in the air. The Zecair soldier walked casually towards the prone man and waved the heated weapon over his body.
"Smoke the animal!" came a nobleman's voice that jeered the soldier on. The warrior wrinkled his nose in disgust and touched the flat of the tip to Mule's rump. The skin sizzled for a few seconds before its desired effect sent the human rolling away screaming. The soldier followed, prodding the man, herding him towards the center of the hall and the elf lady. Mule stood and clutched his arms, steeling himself from the pain. The crowd egged him on with insults, calling him an animal and a walking piece of meat in the Zecair language. He understood their taunts, but ignored them as if it was just noise. When he stood next to the bedraggled elf, the crowd grew quiet. The Majestic had cleaned her chain and had just finished wrapping it back around her body. She looked up at Mule with a cruel smile.
"She is dead." The Majestic said calmly. "She will be soon. Give her one last pleasure." Those same words had been spoken in a cell when he was brought before another broken, battered corpse of a captive. He had killed that one, rather than humiliate her further at the wishes of The Majestic. With so many elite soldiers in this room, and the lords and ladies that commanded them, he doubted he could be so brazen as to disobey this time and live. The Majestic knew how to play the game, and she had him cornered.
The hot spear prodded him in the back with a soft hiss. He scowled as he moved towards the elf maiden. She had grown more pathetic looking in their time apart. They took away her hair, shredded her clothes to mere wisps of thread that barely covered her waist, and beaten and bleed her countless times by the scars on her milky skin. This wasn't what he wanted. The Majestic had ruined her for him. And now there was no reason for The Majestic to keep her.
Mule pulled his loin cloth aside, and pulled out his cock. It was sweaty, and smelled of his musk from the heat in the room. With one hand he grabbed the elf woman by the hair and pulled her head back. Her mouth instinctively opened and that's when he thrust his cock inside it. She didn't resist him, her eyes were a blank stare, and neither did she take any part in it. Mule was left to do the work himself.
