Chapter 254

254 Servant of the Axe – Neutered in Chains

They came to neuter me on the third day. He had two brutish soldiers with him, so I didn’t resist much.

In the end, they held the chains, the chains held me, and my captor held up my teeny tiny severed member.

“It’s so small!” he chuckled. “How were you ever going to reproduce using this?”

I shrugged. “I’m only two. I haven’t been thinking of reproducing at all.”

“Well, I suppose you think you’re just growing a new one.” He said, flinging it into a nearby brazier of coals.”

“It had occurred to me.” I said.

“Yes, it occurred to me, also. That is why I have this pouch.”

I managed not to roll my eyes. I could smell some of what was in that pouch. “I suppose I should ask what’s in the pouch?”

“Indeed.” He said, putting on a leather glove. Not a thick one, but supple hide, like pig or possibly lamb. It was pinkish-bronze, much like the skin of the Daurians themselves, save that it was discolored by numerous oblong spots.

.....

“This,” he said, “Is anti-regeneration powder. A mix of ginseng, and wolvesbane, aconite and silver. Something for each manner of regeneration.”

I screamed as he filled my genital pouch with the stuff, of course. It stang like all manners of bloody hell.

Wolvesbane and aconite mainly work on lycans. Silver on other shifters of form. Ginseng, I shouldn’t have to tell you, is a medicine. Still, the mixture has no right being pressed into a bleeding wound.

“Ah-ah. And still conscious, I see. How unfortunate for you.” He lowered me until my hips were resting on the edge of the small tub.

“Rape him until he is unconscious.” He told the brutes, and this, also, was done to me.

Incidentally, when you think of sins as violations of the code between gods and men (or other sentients), be sure to ask yourself why a child being held immobile and violated still receives Lust points.

What was it? A day, perhaps two? My wounds hadn’t healed entirely, and I could feel the injuries, both front and back.

I suppose it was supposed to drive me to despair; or maybe to emphasize that he could inflict so much pain from limited points of contact. Honestly, I didn’t know or care what he wanted.

Me? I wanted to take a bath and scratch all over those injuries. Just because my System said neither was infected didn’t mean I needed to leave them alone.

Oh, and I wanted enough health to break free. With my new strength, I was reasonably sure I could snap his neck.

I was, slowly, starving. A servant fed me broth from a long-handled spoon, and kept the rest of the soup for himself.

Or maybe I’m being overly dramatic. My reserves of biomass were being drained; a few more days and I’d lose that thin layer of blubber all over.

My scales had already lost their luster and were taking on darker, duller shades.

And then he was there.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Single digit of health, thank you for asking.”

“Ah, I know. So often, we torturers endure near a week of waiting for our charges to be at full health before breaking them again. I feel it is an important part of the process. So sorry, but in your case I do need to keep you prepared to be executed at any moment.”

“Because of prophecy?”

“No, because those are my orders. Those orders may come from prophecy, but ...” he shrugged, “they might just have come because you deserve them.”

I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing.

He joined me, checking the tautness of the chains. “It amazes me that you still have a sense of humor.”

“Does that ever work? Trying to get your victims to think of things as their fault?”

“My guests ARE at fault.” He insisted. “Nobody innocent can be brought into my care, because there is no such thing as innocence.”

Well, I knew I wasn’t innocent. Had I known anyone innocent? Huh. He might have been right about that one, except that I couldn’t tell him so, which meant...

“I’m reasonably certain innocence exists somewhere in this world.” I told him.

“Not with either of us.” He said. “I think, tomorrow, I shall begin with your left pinky. Have your claws ever been filed down to the quick? Ah, I suspected they had. Don’t worry, I’m told the pain actually becomes endurable once past the first finger joint.”

He smiled, “Not that anyone’s ever stopped screaming.”

Once he was gone, I stretched my neck out, as far from my body as I could. The curse reached around the sides and tried to get in through my throat chakram. Then I would snap my head back suddenly, hoping to lop those tendrils off on my collar.

The curse had become wary, cautious, since that first attempt. And it never produced any results. Even I had to admit it was just a way to pass the time.

There were two other curses upon me, that I hadn’t noticed until I’d started focusing on the one. Oh, and the one I’d actually managed to drown.

I had nothing even vaguely resembling a clue about what they did. Where HAD they come from? My captor could have put them there, if he had more than a clue about what he was doing. Not having the mana to do anything about them...

Or did I truly lack a source of mana? There are different flavors of faith, based on the activity and emotional context.

In theory, I should be able to tap the torture for Pain or Suffering... I didn’t really care WHAT, I just wanted some good to come from it.

Wait...

I hadn’t been tapping the night, the darkness, the shadows that lurked everywhere inside the malodorous tent.

[You have successfully tapped the environment for a point of Shadow mana.]

Heh.

HEH.

It wasn’t much power, but I had SOME. Enough to cast Shroud, just once.

The air was stale and unmoving, the fire was too far away, and more in a state of constant smoldering. I was suspended above the earth...

By chains of metal. Metal. I was an idiot.

Tainted by blood and pain, the energy I could pull from them was... Well, it wasn’t going into me, that was certain.

I pulled what corrupted energies I could endure from them, spiraled it around to purify it, and then returned it to the chains. Doing so exhausted me, left me sweating and suffering.

And it strengthened my chains, slowly removing rust flakes, even as the more deadly invisible patina of emotions coated the area beneath me.

I awoke to find him positioning a ladder in the area of my left hand.

“Good morning.” He said, “I see that you finally begin to struggle, if only when I am not around. MENG!”

One of the brutes entered. “Prepare his left hand as I’ve told you.” He said.

I tried to scratch Meng, but he had the advantage of two hands against my one, and an eagerness to dislocate my fingers. These were tied against my hand, save for the pinky, which was tied to a length of what felt like pine.

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And, over the next few hours, I gradually lost two joints on that finger. At some point during that process, I lost my serenity, and then my sanity. At least, when I regained my focus, I noticed that I hadn’t spent any of my development points.

And then, looking down at the blood slowly draining from my mouth, down past my broken left wrist, I realized what I HAD done.

The broken body of my tormentor laid beneath me, pool of blood rapidly spreading from his neck. It was the sort of angle I could have managed.

One of those angles that made people think I had broken my neck.

Well, crap. I screamed in pain, slowly transforming and wriggling my ankles, until only my good wrist kept me suspended.

Someone beat on the back of the tent with a stick. “Hey, hey! Sun’s going down, keep it quiet. Gag that monster or something!”

I almost passed out from the effort of landing on the floor. Damn it!

I couldn’t do that, not yet.

Damn. Damn. I set about, looking for a weapon. Some poison. Something, anything, to help me defeat Meng and...

And I was an idiot.

With a single talon on my right hand, I sliced open the side of the tent that smelled the worst. As I suspected, it bordered on a toilet tent. Behind the tent was a kitchen area.

On the other side...

On the other side was the unknown.

Slice, step step, slice, and I was in and then through the tent where he had slept. Where he kept a ring of keys.

The collar came loose, the curse took its place, and everything became clear.

Why was I trying to escape? That was just idiocy. How would I receive the great Kumanchu’s orders, unless I returned to him immediately?

Well, not immediately. I needed to get some distance from where the dead body I’d left behind was soon to be discovered.