Hello my beautiful Steemits, a tear comes to my eye as this story comes ever closer to its end. Yes, yes I hear your rapture at the glimmer of hope that the torture will soon be over! But don't dispare my children, I have another book ready to for fill your masochistic reading pleasures.
Now begone, I have chapters to weave, may your eyes bleed with ->
Chapter 19
Ruff had wandered the castle for what he felt was hours and was still no closer to finding Motyl or any of his royalty targets. He had manage to avoid most of the remaining guards, only needing to kill two or three that stepped around the wrong corner but time was running out and sooner or later the battle outside would make its way inside.
As he sat to contemplate his situation hidden behind a large wall banner, two guards meet within earshot. “How goes the battle?”
“Not well, but we are holding the basted at bay, I need to find Princess Junta and inform her of the situation.”
“She and the rest of her strange company are in the basement church, for the ritual they are holding.”
“That lot gives me the willies and this ritual, it is evil I say!”
“Don’t let the Princess or Lady Sarai hear you say that or your guts will be all over the floor, now this way and mind your words around them”
The guards passed by Ruff and he pursued at a safe distance, mindful of crossing path with other guards. In minutes Ruff was at the basement church, the guards had left the main door ajar when they entered. He slowly slipped through into an ante-chamber, unsettling chanting was coming from behind a second set of doors ahead, looking around he found some stairs off to the right and took them up to what was a balcony overlooking the church floor.
Below was a sight both erotic and evil, women of all ages were murmuring in a low tone but loud droning chant. Most were naked, others were smeared in what Ruff could only assume was mud and shit as the stench made its way to his nostrils. At the far wall were tables full of fruits and vegetables but most looked to be turning foul or rotten. At the centre were three sacrificial crosses, ones that Ruff knew all to well their use. Two had frightened, naked women lashed to each of them, the centre one was still empty.
Fear and hate welled up inside him as he realised what was happening below. “Fucking witches!” he whispered to himself as his teeth grind with hatedred. To the far right were the two guards, who also look just as uneasy as he did, stiff and wide eyed at the spectical before them.
A woman steps away from a group of witches towards the guards, as she passed the crosses the two women, both looking more like sisters, pleaded to her. She stopped, looked over at them, it was a moment where she just stood there, no words came from her mouth, just a harsh stare. Abruptly the woman continued to the guards. Both guards knelt as if to royalty, which indicated to Ruff that a good chance she was one of the Princess’.
After the guards gave their report she dismissed them and they couldn’t leave the room fast enough. She turned around and Ruff got a full proper look at her. She was beautiful, her body was soft and ample as one who had had children but was still a delight to a man’s eyes, he guest that she was close to 30 summers old. Then a shock went through him as Ruff glanced back to the two women on the crosses, they were younger copies of her, she was sacrificing her own. They were too old to be her daughters, so Ruff concluded they were the sisters and with that, that the woman was Princess Junta. “Great, she is beautiful and psychotic! Why can’t a bitch just be ugly and psychotic?”
Junta then looked to an area below Ruff and an evil grin spread across her face, a grin that gave even Ruff shivers, she proceeded to walk towards that direction. Ruff stayed low as not to be seen and made his way further around the balcony to keep up with her. He soon found what had taken her attention. Hanging against a wall was a pitiful, broken and deformed creature, that was once a man. Junta pressed her naked body hard against the creature’s loins, which made him cry in anguish. Junta sexually taunted the creature over and over several times, thrusting her breasts into the mans face, rubbed her cunt all over him, and at one point she sucked upon the only unbroken member of his body till it was hard, then bit down hard on it. Ruff could not guess at what the man’s crime was but he knew that Junta was taking pleasure in dishing out the punishment.
Doors opened abruptly, making the room jump at the suddenness and in walked four ragged witches, two pulling chains shackled to a young naked woman with a crude leather sack over her head, the other two slapped and berated her from behind. Ruff needed no guesses that it was Motyl. Behind her followed another woman, naked but clean, whom Ruff’s manhood stiffened at her beauty, with four more witches tending her. And finally a robbed, hooded figure entered almost unnoticed by all others and stepped to one side of the door.
This had caught Ruff’s curiosity as the figure was out of place in a room of naked skin. As he stared, the figure stopped then turned slowly around and looked towards Ruff’s position, he stiffened, wanting his body to react and hide but he could not move as if held by a spell. The figure looked up at him and its eyes fixed on him. Ruff gulped as he saw the face of a young girl, a summer or two younger than Motyl, stare back at him. She lacked colour and life, yet was alive. Ruff braced for her to scream at any moment and to give away his position. Dumbfounded shock released him, instead the girl lifted a finger slowly to her lips and indicated for him to be silent. She then turned away and continued, until she stood near the broken man.
The woman had stopped as Junta approached her, Motyl screamed and struggled as she was blindly lead and beaten towards the centre cross. The room was now stiff with silence and Ruff could hear their words as Junta addressed her in anger.
“Mistress Sarai, where is the woman? Who is this child?! I want..” The woman now known to him as Sarai, slapped Junta hard across the face, making her stagger back, no-one reacted.
“Princess Junta, tonight you may become the bride of Hor and Queen of the witches but right now you are shit on my feet, don’t you dare speak to me like that or I will rip your heart out”.
Ruff coed to himself, “Yep, their both sexy psycho bitches!”
“Now, this child ‘is’ the one called Butterfly, I had to lift a curse from her, as she was in pain from a wood-witch binding spell”. The woman produced the idol stones that Motyl always need to insert, both were broken and discoloured. The other witches mocked and jeered, indicating that they disliked wood-witches.
Sarai stepped over to Motyl, who was now secured to the cross and removed the leather sack, revealing a drugged and disorientated Motyl. To Ruff, Junta seemed taken aback by Motyl but she said nothing.
“What I find most interesting with this child is her eyes, they are like a cats, and this..” The woman roughly lifted Motyl’s hair away from the side of her face to reveal her ears. Most of the witches in the room gasped with curios shock, but Ruff needed to re-position himself to finally see the big secret abnormality, that Motyl had hid from him all this time.
At first Ruff blinked at what he saw, believing his eyes were playing tricks but after giving them a rub he was sure. Motyl’s ear was not round like a normal person, but were more of a cross between a tear drop and a dogs ear. The pointy tip pointed not straight up, but slightly backwards, at an angle, as if it was a shooting star coming down from the sky.
Junta spoke, “Her defects from birth they both are, the eyes I had always seen and despised. But the ears, the ears I have so longed to see are so pathetic. Eyes of a cat, ears of a dog, I believe her mother must have fucked animals! She is not human but a freak of nature!” She and many of the witches laughed, but Junta’s was filled with vile spite.
Motyl suddenly lunged at Sarai, everyone jumped including Ruff, but her bonds snapped her back. Even in her drugged stupor she knew what was happening, she was pissed, red raw pissed that her defect had been put on display, for all to see. Junta lashed out with a fisted backhand, that drove Motyl’s head back in a sickly way. “Heal bitch!! Heal like the bitch dog you are!”
A cry came from the broken man against the wall “Leave her alone!”
Junta snapped around and a wicked grin filled her face as she hurled taunts at the man. “We are going to slice that lovely little bitch and make her bleed like a pig! I might even take those strange ears of hers and shove them down your throat or I might even feast upon her cunt, like daddy and our uncle did, how dose that sound, brother!”
Ruff stiffened at the revelation that the broken creature was Prince Michel. Motyl could have been right, that he may never had anything but good intentions for the kingdom and its people, but it was all too late now to know.
Junta spun around and danced back to the crosses, with a cackling laugh and raised hands she motioned for the ritual to begin. Witches immediately started chanting in one accord, others danced and spun around the room, while the rest of the witches screamed as they gathered rotten food and hurled them with insults at the three victims.
The only ones that did not join in the ritual were Sarai who was now in a meditating trance, the robed girl and Prince Michel. Ruff moved again to a better position to use the bow unobstructed. His intention was to kill the woman first, as she would no doubt be the user of a sacrificial knife that was held up in the hands of a near witch. Ruff knew enough of witch rituals to know this to be true, but if she chose Motyl first, an arrow was going to be ready for her heart.
The tempo of the chanting changed and Ruff cringed. Sarai opened her eyes yet was still in a trance, the ugly, cruel twisted knife was offered to her from out of the crowd. She held the knife high in the air in her two hands and recited an unintelligible ancient phrase that, as far as Ruff guessed, all witches used and then she turned to the three crosses. Two witches raise from the crowd and lashed what looked to be a thin wire, around the neck of the princess to the left of Motyl. They pulled hard, making the wire cut into the princess’ throat that a trickle of blood could be seen. Sarai clasped hold one of the woman’s breast and raised the knife under it. The woman gagged a scream at what was about to come, while Michel and the other Princess begged to Junta to stop the madness.
Sarai began to slice upwards along the chest bone slowly removing the tit. The two witches on the wire began to strain on the thin thread, pulling it through flesh. The Princess jutted and jived with the pain, her choked screams ending with the wire breaking through her windpipe. The screams of the other princess and Michel, drowned out by the escalating chants of the witches. Ruff had little pity on the dying princess, as it saved him the time and effort of killing her himself.
It was when he saw Motyl stiffen on her cross, he knew she was now awake to her dire situation and panic grew in her face. Cheers and cries of excitement flooded the room as the Princess was fully beheaded by the wire and her quivering tit, shuddered in Sarai’s hand. She made a proclamation to the crones but it was in a tongue that was very ancient and foreign sounding to Ruff but he could pick out words that were antiquated Dolaski and some in long forgotten Iconic. Sarai held the tit out to Junta, Junta repeated some of the words then bit into the tit as if she was biting into a cake. Ruff’s stomach turned at the sight, which surprised him. Sarai spoke in common tongue’
“With this breast may many children of our Lord Hor suckle upon you and be feed.”
Again two witches came behind the second princess and lassoed a wire, she, now being well aware what this meant screamed loud and hard and tried to fight with all she had, till the wire went tight. Sarai approached with the knife but this time she thrust it into the girl’s abdomen just above her vagina. Sarai proceeded to cut slowly in a sawing motion around the girls vagina as the witches beheaded her with all their strength. As before, Sarai held the vagina with ovaries aloft, as she proclaimed in the ancient witch tongue, held it out to Junta and again she chewed on the flesh with glee.
“With this cunt, may you bare forth many abominations for your husband, Lord Hor.”
Motyl squirmed in fear for it was now her turn, Michel had pleaded till his voice was hoarse. Ruff immediately aimed at Sarai and released. The arrow had yet to leave the bow, when a hand came from behind and grabbed hold of it. Ruff in a flash drew his sword spun and drove it deep into the body that now held his arrow. His eye fixed upon the face of a young girl, his eyes when wide with horror at what he had done, remorse filled his sensors, he wanted to scream but a hand covered his mouth, her hand.
“Sshh!” The girl hissed at him, her eyes fixed below, making sure no-one heard their commotion. Ruff frowned with puzzled surprise, as he looked her more closely. It was the figure in the robe, a child, her eyes were a dead grey and her skin pale slate, as the dead are known to have. Her hair was once brunette but it took on a dead dark grey. She looked down and Ruff realised his sword was still embedded in her chest. He Slowly removed the sword expecting blood to gush out but none come, his sword still clean as if it never entered.
“Wait, it is not time and she...” the dead child nodded towards Motyl “..Will come to no end, her god has heard her prayers!” she said in a flat, husky tone with no emotion.
“Like fucking hell I’m going to...” The dead child smacked Ruff on the forehead, which left him gobbed smacked.
“You will wait Ruff Hay, or you will be the death of her and of yourself and I can not afford to lose you, not yet!”
“What the fuck dose a dead child want with me?!”
She battered away his question and griped his arm to draw his attention back below. Sarai was brandishing the blade once more but now she held a chalice out and spoke in common, “Hor our Master and King, we drink to your new covenant between us mere mortal sluts and you, the true god of this bile world. Accept this young child slut as a worthy sacrifice, pleasing to you wicked ways.” Sarai turns to Motyl and cuts her under one breast and places the chalice underto catch the flowing blood. Motyl screamed and tried to struggle free.
Ruff snaped his bow ready but again the dead child holds him, “Wait till she drinks, she will be weak.” Ruff glares at the girl, hating her more with each passing moment that Motyl suffers.
Sarai raised the blood filled chalice and yelled at the top of her voice in both the ancient language and in common “To our God King and his new bride.” Sarai siped the fresh blood, she smiled with glee as the blood slid down her throat. She then offered the chalice to Junta, but before she could take hold, Sarai lurches over and starts to vomit, dropping the chalice to the stone floor.
Junta and most of the witches were puzzled as to if this was part of the ritual, but a few older hags jumped to Sarai’s aid. After another heave of blood filled vomit Sarai screams out in anger “Tainted! It is acient blood not young...” another vial belch of vomit splashes over the floor. One of the hags licked a sample of the blood from Motyl, she reacted also with a dry reach then pointed with accusation at Junta. “She has poisoned our Mother, this blood has centuries to its flow!”
A second hag roars, “Take hold of the bitch and tear her apart!” Witches stumble and fought to reach Junta and take hold of her. In that instant of mayhem the church doors burst open and armoured knights rushed in to hack at witches. Witches screeched as they were caught off guard but they rallied and returned the blood bath with spells and curses, falling armed men quickly.
“Now, between the eyes!” rasps the dead child, without a second though Ruff loosed the arrow, finding its mark square in the middle of Sarai’s forehead. Sarai’s body disintegrated into ash and bones. Other witches also aged quickly before soldiers eyes and died. The remaining witches, fell quickly to swords and Ruff’s arrows.
Ruff and the child made their way to Motyl as soldiers massacred dying witches, he cut Motyl down and cradled her into his lap on the bloody floor. Ruff dabs at the wound under her breast but the blood would not stop. The dead child bent down and placed her hand over the wound, she chanted strange words in a sing song tone and soon the wound stopped bleeding and healed over with a hard scare.
The child stopped and looked to a worried Ruff with a curt smile “The blade was cursed to never allow a cut to close, I have taken the curse away but that is as good as it will heal.”