A brief infatuation with the Knight that had saved her and tutored her, rapidly slithered away as her lessons grew more stringent and time intensive. The demands of a squire took up all her effort and concentration, and Tanya catapulted herself at her goal. She learned all that they gave her--combat, smithing, chivalry, theology--a whole mountain of new skills. Because her noble birth had taught her the intellectual crafts such as skills upon horseback, reading, writing, math, and the detailed mannerisms of etiquette, this made her more blessed than most people. These were things the average lowly squire had great difficulty in assimilating. Nevertheless, she aided them during their few free hours and in return, they in turn, helped her overcome her shortcomings in such subjects as fighting styles.
Tanya impressed her superiors with the rapacity of her progress and it was not long before she was accompanying Knights on their quests. Tanya served them in the field as they brought law and justice throughout the land. The anguish of her past was pushed from her mind by duty and danger.
Finally, after many adventures, her sire was felled in a skirmish with pillaging outlaws. She alone defended the isolated church that was the reaver's objective as the remaining members of the band moved in to finish the task. She cut down a dozen bandits before they chose to accept defeat by a female and withdraw. This act proved the one that gained her Knighthood
Tanya donned her suit of gleaming plate, sheathed her blade, and stepped out before the amassed ranks of the Order Eternal. She had finally felt whole again.
Riding out into the lands, she began to obey her teachings and bring honour to the name of the Order through her deeds. However, as her name and skill grew, so did the welling hatred in her heart whenever the Witch Queen expanded her borders. Each falling kingdom, fiefdom, hegemony, province, state, town, and hamlet stoked her rancour.
The slavery and abductions the Queen imposed on her subjects was too close to the kidnapping that Sebastian had performed. This made her loathing of the evil being bloat on that old rage she still held for her own mistreatment at his hands. She despised her abductor for what he had done, and the Queen was thousands of times worse. Such unbridled choler snatched the faint recall of her sister's theft and aimed Tanya at the Queen with new purpose and a sense of personal vendetta.
When news of the fall of Desci reached her, she realised that she had to act. Her faith and her trust in the validity of her task added to the greater quest of ridding the world of the cancerous beast for the last time. Tanya was ready to exorcise her childhood loathing. She was prepared and had been forged through trial and pain to do this.
Tanya took up her blade and rode for the border. She was intent on smuggling herself back to her hometown, the place where everything had started to go wrong. There, she would etch vengeance for herself in the spilt blood of the diabolic tyrant.
Chapter Nine
Tanya doubled up to strain and retch while her lungs cast out the reservoir within. With enough space cleared for an intake of air, she arched back and drew in a vast inhale. She toppled forward into splutters and coughs, and she sought to remove the final dregs of ooze that still tainted her lungs. It took a number of such crippled breaths before she gained some shade of normal operation.
Once she was able to respire naturally and without having to concentrate on striving to keep the process going, she rolled onto her front and chose to take in her new surroundings. The slime was vanishing quickly. It was evaporating and leaving nothing of itself and this suggested that it was some mode of sorceress construct.
Hazy shades of darkness gathered into more images that are distinct and she saw two pairs of boots. With an effervescent shout, she jumped forward and embraced the leg of her Master. She held tight and pressed her cheek to his thigh as she sobbed with delight.
"Welcome back, slave," he said softly.
Tanya almost fainted with rhapsody as she felt his bare fingers running through her hair.
"I thought you had left me to perish, Master," she said while weeping.
"No, slave. Another little test. A new experience. There are many strange wonders in this fortress and you must be ready to become acquainted with them all."
"Wh--what was that thing, Master?"
"An illusion for something else. It's name is Perphesius. It is a demonic entity from beyond this world that lurks in a phantom realm that we can access via sorcery."
"Th--that--none--none of that was real, Master?"
"It was real in your mind and manipulated by the entity that rules that realm. You don't think that you could actually hang via swollen bulbs in your pussy and bottom? While you were unconscious following our last session, we used sorcery to project your psyche into that shadow realm. The Witch Queen was performing a favour for Perphesius. An offer of human emotion and feeling to placate it after certain services were rendered."
"So I was--when did I--and," she stammered.
Tanya looked at her limbs and wondered then what the ooze had been. Her Master took hold of her chin and brought it up so he might regard her confusion. He nodded to the side and Tanya looked to where he had indicated.
Tanya was in a long hall where she saw numerous glass pods lined against both sides of the wall. Two stout trunks of metal, held aloft the orbs, the trunks reaching from floor and ceiling to grab them, filled with a pinkish slime. Floating within the sludge were human forms. Tendrils spilled into the interior from where the trunks were fastened. The ribbed pipes wove through and plunged into the body cavities of the humans who floated with eyes closed and bodies inert. A vague trail of the slime reached across the floor from where she lay to another pod. This one had opened at a central seam as the trunks had retracted to divide it into two equal halves.
"We projected your mind, took your body down, and put you in a tank of this nourishing poultice to heal your body and revitalise you. Perphesius probably used the idea of the slime pool to help trick your mind by what tenuous hints it could detect on your body. He created your bondage, your desertion, the suspension, and your time in the pool to feast upon your psychic emanations. That's also why the squid form, because the tentacles could be interpreted from the sensations of what you see on these others."
"So the creature is real, Master?"
"Perphesius related that it found you most appetising and was most displeased that you were taken from it. But the debt had been fulfilled and you have other tasks."
"It speaks, Master?"
"Not verbally. It also mentioned some interesting recall you had during your session in his care. But enough of this, come, we wish to make use of you again, not discuss the intricacies of extra planar occult manipulation."
The Mistress emerged behind Tanya and started to gather her hair up into a high ponytail that she fastened with slim cord. Her Master appeared before her and brought something out from behind his back.
"Here," he offered.
He held a ball gag in his hand and presented the sphere to her lips. He was not inserting it and Tanya took the initiative as was intended. She reached her mouth forward and opened her jaws. She let her lips ride slowly over the wide surfaces before she devoured the gag and clamped her teeth to its slightly yielding surfaces. Her Master gave a broad grin of satisfaction and buckled the strap around her head.
Next, he produced a leather collar that he proceeded to fasten around her neck. His hand wandered along the chain links attached to it and closed to the leather hoop at the end. He gave a small upward tug on the leash to encourage her to rise.
Tanya expected a stern fight to get back onto her feet, but her body answered with sudden conviction and she jumped straight back up. Her limbs had shed the weight in them and the muscles were tingling with new energy. Whatever the fluid was, it had completely healed her of every contusion and completely restored her health.
Confined on the end of the leash, she was drawn out of the hall and onto a passage. The stone corridor was made of plain stone with iron lanterns hanging from the middle of the ceiling all along its length. A single strip of purple carpet covered a central path beneath them and branched into other passages that led deeper into the foreboding domain of the Witch Queen.
Distant doors of heavy and iron-banded wood presented themselves on occasion as did the passing of leather-trussed slaves, the avatars, and armoured patrols of the Queen's warriors.
Tanya's owners stopped at one of the unmarked and anonymous portals. Her Master produced a key to unlock it and pushed open the dense wooden affair. The hinges gave a soft squeal the Master led Tanya in and presented her to a large bedroom.
Sets of wardrobes and cabinets adorned many of the walls along with several racks filled with weapons of punishment. A solid metal helmet hung from a chain in the ceiling to one side and an impossibly small cage of barred iron hung on the opposite end of the chamber. The cage would only hold a captive if they were compressed into a horribly tight ball.
The bed itself was situated in the centre of the room and was its most conspicuous feature. It had a sturdy iron frame and a grill of iron bars existed at both the head and foot. The vertical struts were dense and spaced perhaps six inches apart. At each corner was a far thicker pole that rose up to head height and bore a plain oil burner. Each of the corners held a flickering tall flame that helped illuminate the soft silken covers and the rest of the room.
Tanya was brought onto the mattress and to the middle of the head, whereupon her body was bent over. The collar was removed and simply dropped aside. Her arms were slotted straight through the bars and bent up so that her hands were delivered back to her shoulders and her elbows were pivoting on the metal. The Master summarily took slender rope and started to weave it upon the folded limbs.
The tightness of his bonds made the metal pole dig into her flesh a little, but her hindquarters were on such brazen offer that she did not really care. Far more intense things were clearly imminent and she was sure that the constraint of her arms would hardly be noticed when they came.
Circles were cast around her fore and upper arm to trap the limbs. They could not slide from side to side because of the adjacent bars and she could not pull away. She was snared to the bed and to whatever deeds were being planned for her body.
The Master took new coils and gathered them around the base of her hanging breasts. Tightening them to a snug hold that made the flesh swell into two orbs, he drew the excess to the bars and started to reel her in. Tanya was made to shuffle forward until he tied them in position and stopped her from retreating or escaping the pose.
Her torso was now held horizontal, her rear in the air, her thighs slightly parted as she knelt upon the soft and giving surface of the mattress.
"There, that's better," commented her Master.
There was a loud slap as his hand swung around and capriciously spanked her rear. Tanya gave a long murmur and wiggled her bottom as the hot palm print continued to make itself known.
Without turning round, she listened as the sound of the shedding of leather attire reached her ears. The subtle noises were an intoxicating tune. Her owners were getting ready for carnal play and Tanya was shivering with excitement.
"Mmmm, such an impudent little bottom," said her Mistress.
Tanya felt weight upon the bed as one of her owners moved behind her. A hand swung in and clapped to the back of her thigh. The assailed limb stretched out as she gave a bark of licentious response. Her skin brushed the smooth velvet flesh of the Mistress and then jumped back up as another swat caught her inner thigh.
"I could just spank it all day," she chuckled. "So I think I shall!"
The Mistress immediately began a steady spanking of the bottom that she found so appealing. She alternated from cheek to cheek and occasionally bestowed a whimsical volley to inner thigh or the back of Tanya's leg just to keep her abuse unpredictable. Sometimes she reached in and just pinched the warm red zones she was creating with her eager chastising palm. The woman would tug at the captive ridge of skin and then release it to continue attacking Tanya with her bared palm.
Tanya whimpered and groaned with libidinous passion as the arbitrarily disciplined her. The heat in her cheeks was fanned and bolstered with every spank, and the skin soon started to swell with a wriggling angst. The feeling of such mild and delightful abuse was a massively arousing one and Tanya was soon swaying with each spank and jutting her hindquarters up and out for the next.
"Look at this wanton thing. So eager for her lessons and so very different to the creature that first appeared before us," said the woman.
Her voice was heavy with rhapsody and Tanya gave another quaver of pride. She now knew for certain she was successfully becoming what they wished of her. Her owners were content with her progress and this made her even more committed to bringing them pleasure.
"I don't know what you mean?" asked the Master.
"Pardon?" replied the woman as she paused in mid spank and left her hand lying to the area she had just slapped.
"I recall some upstart knight, not this luscious devoted slave."
Her owners gave an amused laugh and the Mistress added a few more wide swats to rouse Tanya's lust. As her libido was nurtured, her Master chose to make his entrance into the session. His naked form stepped out before her and Tanya gave a wanton gasp as she surveyed his full nude physique for the first time. The image grew closer as his hanging member brushed her spread lips and then touched the front of the gag.
"We won't need this. I have something far better with which to part those alluring lips."
His hand worked the buckle on the back of her head and the ball gag came away. Tanya instantly stretched her head forward as best she could and devoured him. His flaccid cock started to swell as her tongue worked against it. Her head jerked back and forth and she hauled at him with her lips as though she could suck life into the member and personally inflate an erection for him. Her hands pawed at her shoulders as the hand of the Mistress delivered several stern smacks to her cheeks.