Steelbound
This is Part 3 ofSpearcarriers.If you're only just joining us around the firepit, I recommend starting my tale at the beginning.
InPart 1, a witch bound her lover to the rocks.
InPart 2, the lovers prepared for battle.
As always, if you like my work enough to drop five stars in the hat, I would appreciate it.
The warriors broke from the treeline, silhouettes slipping between shadows on silent feet. They ran through scrub in the blue light of predawn, slowing as they reached the thin bank of mist clinging to the base of the hill. The slavers' staging camp spread before them, a jumble of large tents and strange square-sided vehicles, their forms hard to discern through the diffuse glare of floodlights. The camp roared with a liquid hammering sound; its source a huddle of squat machines that fed the unwavering lights with some unknown power. The place seemed to sleep despite the relentless noise, and the sentries were slow to realise what was happening.
Earlier, an advance party of expert trackers had crossed from the far bank of the river and now stole through the camp like phantoms. The main force closed quietly on the perimeter through the scrub, edging forward in fighting stance with their spears raised, waiting for the signal. When the advance group reached the bellowing machines they attacked them in a hushed frenzy, prying open panels and slashing at the snaking coils of cable that wound toward the darkened vehicles nearby.
A blow must have hit home because the floodlights winked out, and a moment later the generators stuttered and died. In the first line of the main force, Ceni had been shielding her eyes from the unnatural light and was already primed for the sudden darkness. With a hundred hill tribe warriors at her back she leapt forward, spear raised as she charged the defences. With a hunter's clarity she vaulted the sandbag wall and zeroed in on a shocked sentry, rushing the man before he could react. Her speartip slid above the smooth armour of his chestplate and caught the man in the neck. He choked on his scream, a sick sound that made her grit her teeth. He tried to raise his weapon, an odd looking thing with a thin, tubular shaft but no visible blade. She twisted the spear violently, and saw his head jerk to the side as the wound opened. His mouth gaped and hacked with blood as he went down.
The sounds of battle opened up around her like a beast waking into madness. Shouts clamoured as alarm spread through the camp, and a deafening wail erupted from some machine that keened like a banshee. Thunderclap sounds tore through the din, each one slapping into her chest as if she had been struck.
She wrenched her spear free and let out a warcry as she dashed for the nearest tent. Yarro was at her side, his eyes blazing and his voice opening into the roar of a crazed animal. A man emerged from the tent and froze in its entrance, eyes wide as he tried to steady his helmet. The slaver tried to turn away as he saw the warriors bearing down on him, but with comrades pressing from behind there was no room. Yarro thrust his spear into the man's armpit.
Blood jetted from the wound as Yarro forced him backwards, and then the High Hearth band slammed into the press with animal cries turned nightmarish. The tent was black inside and the band tore into its occupants, stabbing wildly into the confusion until those hammering blasts began to rip through the darkness, accompanied by flashes that lit faces contorted in terror and pain. Then the shooter was fleeing along with his companions, bolting out of a flap at the far end of the tent. The warriors whooped as they broke into pursuit.
Ceni found herself outside again, howling in ecstasy as she pelted after Yarro. Her spear was gone, and she gripped her twin flint knives with hands slick to the elbow in another's blood. Yarro spun quickly and found her eyes, his spearpoint high as he flung his arms wide. He grinned, and firelight bloomed across his bare skin. Behind him, two of the tents were already burning, quickening the dawn with an orange glow.
Ceni saw the shooter before he did, kneeling in the cover of some low, rectangular containers. The man was bringing one of the strange barking weapons to bear and Ceni acted reflexively, pouncing on her lover with a yelp, and knocking him over. They landed in a tangle and shots cracked overhead. The pair scrambled for cover as more shots slapped into the canvas of the tent beside them.
Behind the sound of the shots, someone was screaming. Emba had gone down, dropped like a deer in the open. The voices of the others raised in rage and alarm. Spears cut the air, flung with deadly accuracy into the shadows beside the stack of crates. The shooting ceased abruptly.
Yarro was on his feet already, pounding back into the open and dragging Emba towards the rest of the band. Ceni tore off her pocket belt; inside were herbs known to stem the flow of bleeding.
As she leapt after Yarro something tightened around her neck. She shrieked, hands clawing at the thing. She felt herself hauled backwards, and crashed down on her back. She dropped the pocket belt and grabbed for her flint knives, but they were roughly kicked away by booted feet. The scream caught in Ceni's throat as she was dragged away.
She was a wildcat, scrambling at the rough earth and whirling to face her attackers. There were four of them; the closest had the end of a long pole, to which the leather loop around her neck was attached. The slaver's teeth gritted as he braced against the thrashing woman. She swiped at him but he was out of reach; instead she grasped the pole with both hands, thrust it towards him and then tried to yank it away. He planted his feet and tightened his grip.
"Yarro!" she screamed.
The slavers formed a ring around her, closing. She kicked out and caught one in the gut, doubling him. The man with the pole tried to yank her from her balance but she had anticipated this and moved with his pull. He stumbled.
Ceni flung herself forward, trying to force her way through the closing men. The band around her neck tightened and pulled her back. Another man had joined the first and they held her as she strained. The slavers closed; she caught one full in the face with her fist but another grasped her bare arm in leather gloved hands, and twisted it behind her back.
More slavers swept past her with weapons trained, heading in the direction of her band.
"Yarro!"
Her scream was swallowed in a massive sound that she could feel in her guts. It sounded like the groaning of an artificial god. The earth shook with what felt like enormous footsteps.
Ceni's arms were pulled together behind her back. Something closed around her wrists, hard and cold against her skin. She struggled but met only solidity. The muscles in her arms strained against the restraints, and her wrist bones worked against a texture almost unknown to her skin.
Oh, Goddess! It's metal!
Her arms were raised painfully high behind her so that she bent double, and some part of her mind detached from the situation as the slavers forced her deeper into their camp. Metal was rare in Ceni's world, with the smelting of bronze and iron understood only by a scattering of craftspeople in the deep mountains. Her sight blurred with tears as she was hauled between the tents. She spat and struggled, but her bones realised that they were overpowered. Metal could not be gnawed-though, or pried apart by deft fingers. Her body knew that she was helpless, that the shackles locked around her wrists would outlast even the energy of her life.
Even if she were to escape, her people did not have the ability to cut the shackles. There was a finality to them. Her resistance was doomed.
A wave of terror hit her and almost carried her away from herself. Her heart pounded. But inside this young warrior of two dozen winters lived somebody far older, an echo passed down by generations of women who had been weathered, cunning, wild and strong. Ceni steadied her breathing and felt down into the wisdom of her mothers before.
She knew fear. Its nature was to disable, and to cloud. Many of her ecstatic rituals had been terrifying; extended mushroom journeys filled with masks, drumming, moon-blood and self-inflicted pain. She knew that she could either be struck down by this storm, or she could dance in it.
Ceni allowed the fear to surge through her like the rushing of a midwinter torrent. Rather than fighting against the flow of terror, she danced like a leaf in the current until it abated. Her sobs became a wild laughter that seemed to unsettle her captors; she felt their grip shift and their pace hasten.
Without struggling, she let the slavers press her to her knees beside one of their huge vehicles. They drew her shackled hands up high behind her, forcing her head to the ground. She heard a heavy click, and twisted to see a length of chain stretching dark against the bloody clouds of dawn. Rough hands attached the chain to a ring on the chassis of the truck. Shaking with laughter and adrenaline, she squirmed a little and pulled with her arms, testing the position. The hold was very secure.
The earth shook again with those impossible footsteps. The same heavy machine groaning invaded her ears and punched her diaphragm. She turned her head left and right, looking for the source of the noise.
To her left, the camp was burning. Ceni could hear the sounds of battle in the distance, and smoke rose beyond the sheer bulk of other parked vehicles.
To her right, she saw another captive, a Crow Foot warrior chained in the same position. He was a middle-aged man, bulky in leathers and furs, screaming flecks of saliva into his beard. Beyond him she glimpsed others, a row of captured warriors chained along the side of the truck. The crushing footsteps were drawing closer, jolting the ground beneath her with each pace. She craned her head, tucking her chin into her battle-painted breast to look backward past the medicinal tattoos that lined her heaving ribs.
Ceni saw a giant.
The lower half strode into view, an enormous pair of legs that rose and fell with mechanical precision. The feet were chunky, earth-caked and spreading; the shins were steel towers painted in dun green-browns. Hidden machinery whirred each time a foot rose, and the earth leapt each time it came down.
Ceni twisted until her arms screamed but could not make out the upper body of the thing. It marched past the line of captives, heading for the battle.
The fear gripped her again, and she allowed it to flow through. She thought of the young scouts and their tales of giants, so easily written-off as fantasy. Her people had never faced such things before; no stories were told of slavers with huge walking machines. A laugh escaped her, wild and desperate. She shook as she cackled into the flattened earth. Her shoulder blades worked and her fists tugged at the restraints that forced her down. The insane laughter overtook her, and she lost track of herself.
Without warning, Ceni slipped out of space and time. A vision soaked into her, as fleeting as summer dew. She saw the great machine torn open, sprawled on its back with Yarro - her Yarro - standing on its chest. She saw him silhouetted against the blazing skies of daybreak, with spear raised and eyes aflame behind the woad and charcoal of his warpaint. The machine's pilot was still strapped in, her slender arms outstretched, leather gloved hands raised in terror of the imminent strike.
Ceni's body relaxed in her chains. She let out a sigh, releasing tension from deep inside her, and allowed her head to rest on the ground. Theycould be beaten - in fact she knew, with the certainty of one who has walked beyond the web of cause and effect, that what she had seen would come to pass. A young part of herself dared to hope that her beautiful warrior would come to her rescue, but in her shackled bones she knew that he could not. The tribe would stay free, and she was bound to follow whatever threads the Old Weavers had knotted together for her.
There was a shout, and an answering call.
"Load them up," someone barked.
She heard shrieks and curses from down the line. The Crow Foot next to her was still yelling and struggling. She clicked her tongue to get his attention.
"Hush," she told him. "Save your strength, warrior."
He twisted to look at her, the incredulity in his expression melting as he met the flint in her eyes. For an instant she was his mother and his grandmother, both of whom could lay down hearthside law with a firm look.
The warrior nodded slowly.
"We'll be lucky to turn a profit with this lot," she heard someone say behind her.
"We'll break even." A second voice.
"I guess. When you factor in the guys who aren't coming back."
"Status," said a third man.
"They're regrouping, Cap. We out of here?"
"Sure are. I've told the exos to cover our retreat. Priority gear only."
"And the tents?"
"Fuck the tents. Half of them are toast anyway."
"Exo number four just went down, Cap."
"Did it, now? Where?"
"Half a klick."
A pause.
"What was it doing, chasing the little fuckers?" He sucked his teeth. "Number four. Who's that? Alinac family?"
"Aye."
"Well if old man Alinac wants to send his youngest off raiding in his brand new exoskel, he can live with the consequences. Some of these guys have forgotten how this goes, spent too long looting shiny tech in the South."
"You don't want to retrieve it?"
There was a spitting sound.
"Fuck it. Tight bastard probably won't even cover costs. I'm not wasting more guys on bringing back some dead society brat. And if they've taken a walker down, they'll have torched it."
"Fucking savages."
"You got that right, son. Anyway, this way we can cut Alinac out of the takings. No, we're not hanging around."
Ceni's wrists dropped as her chain was detached from the side of the truck. Her shoulders ached after too long in the uncomfortable position. A loop went over her head and she choked as the leather strap tightened. She was hauled to her feet.
"Move."
They steered her to the rear of the truck, where she saw a short ladder made of dark painted metal. The pole controlling her was passed up to a crewman in the back of the vehicle, who began to pull her upward by her neck. The slavers at her back grasped her under the armpits and lifted her, kicking her feet toward the rungs of the ladder. Ceni half climbed, and was half hauled, into the bed of the vehicle.
She worked up a curse for the slavers on the ground, turning the syllables around in her mouth before spitting them out in a language the men could not know. They looked at her dumbly, with humour in their eyes. That was fine by her; those eyes would be blind before the turning of the year.
Inside the truck were four long rows of narrow benches, each one backed by a metal rail at around neck height. The benches were half-full of warriors, and nobody she recognised. They were mostly Crow Foot people in their furs, and a few men of the Birka clan, naked but for the white ash streaking their bodies. All had their shackled hands in their laps, and their necks shut in steel collars attached to the rail. Some shouted; a few wept but most sat in the stoic silence of mountain folk.
She was forced onto a bench by two crewmen, and there was a click from behind her as her shackles were separated. Her arms tingled as they found a more natural position. She felt her forearms gripped in strong hands, and brought together before her. One crewman held the pole device while the other drew her wrists together and locked the shackles to each other, then bent down and attached her chain to a ring on the floor. Next, he moved her legs apart, locking her ankles in hinged cuffs attached to the bench. He stood up and regarded her, and she could read the desire in his face. He was a hard-looking man in stained overalls, with cropped brown hair and the sinewy strength of heavy work.
The leather loop softened at her neck, and was passed back over her head. Harsh hands dragged her locs up out of the way and she hissed at the man who dared touch her hair. With his other hand the crewman swung the collar shut around her neck, then used a small metal tool to screw it into place. He dropped her hair and brushed her lips with a finger as he turned away.
Ceni spat. The saliva clung to the back of the man's boot. He turned slowly. The people nearest her were silent, twisting to see what was going on.
The man approached her again, with his jaw set and contempt in his eyes. He drew back a fist. Ceni glared up at him, projecting defiance. She tensed in anticipation of the blow.
"Hold it," barked a voice from outside the truck.
Ceni turned her head. A tall man stood in the entrance of the vehicle, dressed in the slavers' mix of black leather and hard-worn gear, with a dust mask hanging loose around his neck.
"Nothing happens to her on the way home," he said, stabbing a finger up at the crewman."Nothing."
"Aye, Cap," muttered the crewman.
"Shitty haul like this, we need all the profit we can get for them. You knock out a tooth, I knock the difference out of your pay. Fair enough?"
"Aye, Cap."
The crewman shot Ceni an evil look. She held his gaze. He moved away and muttered something to his mate; she heard both of the slavers jump down.
"That one will be back," said a Crow Foot woman down the row.
"I know, sister."
Shouts of alarm went up as the vehicle spasmed to life. Ceni was rattled. She knew that the giant things moved on their great, fat wheels; had seen them crossing the moors the day before. But she had never been close to one, let alone inside, and had not imagined that it would shake and roar as if delirious with rage. She strained her wrists against the shackles holding them fast, and flexed her slender neck inside the cold solidity of the collar. She tried to close her legs, but the steel locked around her ankles would not let her bring her knees together. She did not like being held open like this, and assumed that it was a deliberate ploy to make the captives feel vulnerable. She deepened her breath, trying to reach the hunter's calm. Around her, she sensed others doing the same.
Voices keened in lament as the truck lurched away down the valley. All eyes watched the familiar landscape recede through the open back of the vehicle. More trucks joined the convoy, pitching and clambering over the uneven ground on massive tyres. Before long, the vehicles obscured the view of the burning camp. The column of black smoke grew more distant, and by mid-morning it had disappeared around the shoulder of a wooded hillside. The Crow Foot people started one of their traditional songs, raucous voices raised over a simple rhythm created by tugging sharply at their chains.
The vehicles reached a track hugging the edge of the moorland, and picked up their pace. The captives bounced a little in their seats, and several times Ceni's throat caught on the steel collar. Even harder to get used to was the shaking, a deep vibration that worked its way through her insides. The sensation was unlike anything she had ever experienced before.
The unfamiliar motion and the sounds of despair brought a renewed terror rising within her. She yearned for release, and for Yarro. She was terrified for Emba. Her hands fought the chains, reflexively trying to cover her ears. Desperately, she wished that she could access her wyrd but felt too consumed by the growing tempest of fear. Locked in position, Ceni felt her throat tighten and a sob begin to well in her chest.
Yield to it, said a voice inside her.Dance with it.
Fear and excitement were twin sisters, one in shadow and one in sun. She closed her eyes and descended into herself, down past the storm in her mind, wailing for her loss and frantic at the impending future. Below the panic she discovered her shadow; her inner twin who delighted in the darkness. The woman who could allow excruciating pain to carry her into a bloody trance, who had slashed her lover's chest and played coercive games with him, taking a crazy pleasure in helplessness. The wild one who devoured every experience and savoured every hardship. The witch who danced in storms.
Ceni's body was primed for action. The arousal of fight or flight was an energy coursing through her constrained muscles. With nowhere to go, it had built until it threatened to consume her. The energy was terror, but her shadow experienced it now as pure, ecstatic excitement.
Ceni grinned wickedly. She was in a threatening place, being helplessly carried into an unknown fate. The unknown jumped with possibility; everything good that had ever happened to her had been born of its potential. But in a more immediate sense, she was vulnerable; she was trapped; she was restrained.
And it wasdelicious.
The excitement sent tingles up her spine and raised tiny hairs where the nape of her neck brushed against the collar. Ceni's heart was pounding. Her breath became more immediate and took on a sensual quality. She balled her fists and flexed her wrists against the unyielding grasp of steel manacles. She felt her cheeks flush.
Her toes curled as she made another futile attempt to draw her knees together. Forced open. She thought of Yarro, his strong hands inside her thighs, easing them apart.
She wound her neck inside the solid grip of her collar. Felt its lower edge against her collarbones as her chest rose and fell. Again, she thought of Yarro; his hand at her throat. She remembered the restraints she had made for them and had secretly longed for him to use on her. She imagined how the leather collar would have felt, pulled tight around her neck. Ceni bit her lip.
And the vibration.Goddess! The strange vibration of the truck. Penetrating her; setting up a resonance.
If she could angle her hips forward, just so...
Goddess, it's good!
Suddenly, Ceni knew what she had to do.
She glanced about furtively through half-shut eyes. Two of those nearest her had their eyes closed, meditating or holding back nausea. The Crow Foot people were engaged in their song, intensely focused on each other's faces. Nobody was looking her way.
She closed her eyes again and tilted her hips, feeling for that intense sensation. The vibration rose inside her, lighting up her cuni with a steady, glowing enjoyment. She felt into the pleasure, flexing her body inside her bonds. Her fingertips found the chain connecting her to the floor. She was so helpless. She cast herself into the vulnerability, thrown into the flow of events and carried away. A sacrifice of herself, to herself.
The contrasts were delightful. The hardness of the restraints against the living softness of her flesh. The radiant pleasure contained within the bounds of her skin, kept secret in the crowded, noisy space. The freedom she now felt, like a sunbeam cutting through the black clouds of disaster.
Ceni had to stifle a moan.
She thought of her Yarro, holding her pinned in the sedge. She yearned for him, but even over the growing distance she still felt his strength. Her shadow devoured that yearning, finding it delicious that the one she ached for was now denied to her. She thought of his strength, how he had overpowered her and held her down. How she had wanted him! Despite that wanting she had run from him in earnest, fought him viciously and he had taken her to the ground regardless, crushed the resistance from her and made her completely vulnerable. She remembered the feeling of him inside her, the smooth, warm pleasure as he had filled her insides. The sensation as he had climaxed, his hot fullness jetting into her deepest place. The warmth spreading inside her triggering her own orgasm; how he had held her still on the ground as she had pulled against him, then shaken and bucked in his hands.
Ceni's breath was coming in sharp, excited little gasps. She fought hard to contain the moaning. Her warpainted belly pumped in and out, helplessly. She worked her hips forward against the bench, letting the vibration drive up inside her a little more.
She was close.Goddess, she was close.
Ceni could not resist any longer. She shifted her shackled hands in her lap, pulling them to her until the chains were tight. She began to touch herself through her skirts, shielding the motion with her other hand. Her cheeks burned with shame at the thought of somebody seeing her. But her shame was just energy; another flavour of excitement. Her shadow gobbled it up along with her yearning and her fear.
Goddess, so close!
Waves of sensation crested and broke inside her as Ceni circled her most sensitive place. The waves met the truck's vibration and formed interference patterns; where the rhythms met, the pleasure erupted in impossible colours. She could feel it in her ankles and in the space between her knees. Her toes curled. Her thighs trembled. Her belly was solid, clenching with deep diaphragmatic breaths.
Ceni came hard, the heat shooting through her and turning every nerve to light. She choked back a cry; perhaps some sound escaped her but she could not tell. Her ankles worked against the steel grip as her legs tried in vain to straighten. Locked in position, her back arched and her body shook in her restraints, camouflaged by the jolting motion of the vehicle.
Ceni flew far beyond herself, her spirit leaving her chained body to its spasms. She launched her awareness into the immaterial realm beyond space and time, a living void teeming with infinite possibilities. She allowed herself to dissolve into this void, releasing her individual consciousness like a raindrop entering a lake. For a time, she passed beyond all thought, existing only as a felt sense of the intention so carefully crafted during her workings. She impregnated the wyrd with this intention, allowing it to spread where it had to, and to take root. There was a shifting deep in the infinite web of events; strands separating and re-binding themselves into a subtly altered weave. The weave indicated a path, certain and true. Sooner or later that path would lead her back to her mountains.
Slowly, Ceni became aware of her breathing. Her cuni was still tingling and wet, sensitive to the unrelenting vibration. Her belly glowed. She smiled secretly, flexed her fingers and moved her arms against the hard steel clasping her wrists. She sighed. The work had been done, and like a spider on its web, she waited.
- In the heart of the chaos, Ceni spotted a figure clutching a primitive BDSM device, reminiscent of the metal bondage she had only heard about in her pagan stories.
- The Steelbound slavers, known for their primitive fascination with sci-fi aesthetics, had incorporated metal bondage into their bondage equipment, mocking the traditional fantasy of primal slave exploitation.
- Ceni's captors had forged a new steel fantasy, a post-apocalyptic blend of BDSM and pagan rituals, using metal as a symbol of their power and control, tearing her away from the dawn's light.
- The warriors lived in a world where Steelbound sentinels roamed, where pagan rituals and BDSM theories intermingled with kidnap and slave operations, and where metal bondage was a twisted symbol of steelbound fantasy.
- As the eccentric Steelbound men led Ceni away, her mind wandered to fantasies of escape, of one day returning to her native tribal lands free of their bondage, shattering their twisted sci-fi Steelbound fantasy for good.