The Eternal War: The Dragon's Valkyrie

Retribution

Cold hard metal bit into Saidy's wrists. The guard that had pinned her pulled her arms back and lifted her up. Saidy felt the cold run into her veins as well. Being bound had always meant pain would follow. She struggled in the shackles. The loss of being able to move her arms freely filled her with a fear she'd thought she'd never relive.

The oni had kept her free of bindings other than when she was captured or tortured because she would have to fight at a moment's notice if her Dolletus willed it. Otherwise, she was kept in her cage while Talik beat and degraded her into a malleable slave. Only once she learned the rules that were created to ensure her death at every turn, was she permitted to leave her cell.

"Eh, boss, what should we do with the wolf?"

"We'll take him with us until we sort out this matter. Girl, order the wolf to follow."

Saidy hung her head. She did not want to do anything but find a way out of this town and never return. Her vision flashed as the guard holding her rapped his fist on the back of her head. She felt the ache radiating from both blows she'd taken to the front of her skull.

"Come, Ash." A defeated tone rang from her throat.

Ash obeyed as the guard pushed her along the road and over the bridge. The rest surrounded and watched Ash in case the wolf made any attempt to escape. Each one had their hand's poised on their sword hilts—ready to draw and strike at the slightest twitch from the wolf or Saidy.

The jail in which Saidy was meant to be held wasn't far from the water's edge on the other side of the river. The interior was dimly lit by torches on worn wood walls along a narrow hallway. The end of the hall was lined with iron bared cells that held no light save that which seeped in through the one window in front of them. The floor was worn stone that colored a dark grey in the dim flicker of the torches. The whole place smelled of piss and other excrement.

Prisoners pulled on their bars and hooted as Saidy passed them. The guard shoved her into the bars of one of the empty cells, pressing his body into hers to keep her pinned. He fumbled with his key ring. The jingle pulled Saidy back to her time in Talik's dungeon. The familiar click of the lock and protest of rusted iron sounded just like the cell she'd spent most her life in.

The guard that held Saidy's arms shoved her against the wall as he removed her shackles and another stripped her swords, then her armor. Saidy resisted instinctually as they stripped her down to only her thin undershirt. She'd not done much other than move against them, making it harder for them to take her clothes off, but none of her movements prevented it.

She was accustomed to the lack of dress from her time with the oni. However, she felt more uncomfortable this time because the oni never leered at her the way these men did.

"Well boys, it's not every day we get to throw a beauty like this into the cell!"

The two other guards that held her affects chuckled.

"Indeed," one of them said.

"What do you say we have some fun with her?" said the other.

The guard who took her shackles pressed his body into hers, pinning her to the wall like he had the bars. He grabbed each hand, shackling it to the wooden wall. Saidy knew what came next—the whip.

She tensed her back. After the many years, she found if her muscles were taught, she felt the pain a little less. Any amount was better than bearing the full sting of it.

"Say, Brot, when's the last time you saw a redhead?" one of the guards who'd removed her gear said.

"Hmm... long time I'd reckon. Weren't there some rumor about a redhead goin round? Or was that the Red Hand?"

Saidy jumped when she felt the cold iron of his chain gauntlet tickled her spine: "Will you two shut it? I'm tryin to get my cock hard here and listen' to your two mouths run isn't helping!"

"Shove off, Gerald! We gotta watch your saggy cock fill her before we get a chance! Got to do somethin while we're waiting for your shit to drain from her," Brot said.

"Say, wasn't that rumor about a girl who'd escaped The Abyss?"

"What the!" Gerald said has he leapt away from Saidy.

"Aye! That's it! It was some redhaired girl what escaped the oni!"

Both of the other guards to turned to see what had spooked Gerald.

"What's that all about, now? Her cunt make you cum already?" Bort chuckled.

"No, you fuck! Look!" Gerald lifted the back of Saidy's shirt again.

The other two gaped at her back. The ripples of scar tissue that covered every inch was unmistakable.

"We need to get the captain," Gerald stated.

"Agreed," the other two replied.

Saidy listened in confusion as the grating of the iron door shutting chirred behind her. Why had they not whipped her and instead looked at her back? The dark revelation made her veins fill with ice as she realized why they left.

They intended to turn her over to the oni.

Saidy's eyes flicked around her wall shackles as she yanked on them, praying the iron would somehow break or rip from the wall. But she was far too weak from hunger to accomplish such a feat. Even with a full stomach, such a task would still have been luck.

Still, she continued to pull at the shackles as they bit into her wrists. Blood ran down her arms, but she continued to pull and jerk herself in hopes a miracle would grace her again.

"What a fuckin ass, eh?" one of the other prisoners whistled.

Saidy paid no attention to him or the fact that with every jerk, her shirt fluttered above her butt. Escape was the only thought that filled her mind. She refused to be returned to the oni. She would chew her hands off to escape her constraints if needed. The thought had already pushed its way to the forefront of her mind but panic and desperation compelled her to continue pulling at her chains.

A crack resonated from the wall. Saidy paused as a few bits of punk wood fell from behind the board that her shackled were affixed too. The oak boards had begun to rot from the filth that covered this place.

Saidy's heart fluttered in her chest—there was a chance!

"If what you say is true, we need to collect her, now!" a voice echoed from down the hall.

Saidy felt her heart drop in her chest. They'd returned too soon. Worse, there was a fourth with them. Two or three—even one would be a challenge for her without her swords, especially with her hands bound.

She yanked on her shackles again. Death by the guards would be better than suffering the punishment of the oni. Her heart quickened in her chest as she heard the clicking of their boots on the stone floor drawing closer.

"Stop struggling, lass," Sam's voice sighed.