Episodes from a turbulent life

A Conan storybyrendszeretlen

PART ONE 3

THE MWENE 4

PRIVILEGE OF RANK 4FATAL WORD 6TRIBUTE 8A FATHER’S DAUGHTER 10SENTENCE 12

THE MUTAPA 15

RABBLE 15CONAN’S FATE 17HOPE OF THE PEOPLE 19LABYRINTH 22TOO MUCH FIGHT .... 25CAT AND MOUSE 28BLINDED 30TIME AND TORMENT 32TORTURED SOULS 35CLUTCHES 37

Sacred tree

Part One

Protagonists

Image: Boris Vallejo

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Sacred tree

The mwenePrivilege of rank

He lay back with a luxuriant moan on the mattress, his strong arm rested behind the crook of his neck, the whiff of his exertions strong in heavy-sweated armpits. Eyes closed letting the after-warmth of sex waft over inside and out. Beneath his butt he could feel the cold stickiness of his manseed where she had neglectfully let herself leak. But otherwise this new woman tribute he had been sent was promising.

He could be a generous man. When a whore pleased him, he knew how to reward. Later he might give her the privilege of helping him with his decision. Maybe even let her watch and enjoy the consequences of her choice.

Meanwhile, he lay back, a deep moan releasing itself from his dampened chest as she worked on him. It was for him to rest, as mwene that was his right. This tribute, however, still had her work cut-out to keep him amused. The heat from outside was heavy and making things hard to breathe, not helped by her mouth working fervently on his toe. Her mouth sucking on it, her tongue greedily devouring it. But the way she went at it, it was clear what she was implying, hinting at more than sucking on his big toe. The symbolism could not be missed, the hard bony toe a substitute for something else she was indicating she’d prefer. But in his time, - when he was ready. There was a lot more in him still, a lot more she could extract. He was in no hurry.

There were bigger fish to fry. Outside, down in the courtyard, the rebels. Awaiting his bidding. The ones who’d been a pain for months. Costing him reputation, earning him threats from his emperor. He had had them lined up outside in the burning sun. Awaiting his displeasure. Taken prisoner, brought in last night and thrown into chains. Kept hungry, thirsty, in a stinking darkness. As befitted their kind. With these ringleaders taken, the rebellion that had kept his army occupied for months was effectively over. Just a handful of ragtag hangers-on left. All that was left was to dispatch these leaders. Then the mwene could breathe easily under his emperor’s smile.

Mid-morning he’d ordered the scum brought up from the dungeons to the courtyard beneath his balcony here. Tied to stakes under the baking sun, left to await his pleasure. But they could wait, the Barbarian and his men. Let them bask for the last time in the freedom of the sun on their backs. They’d spend the rest of their short miserable lives in uncertainty and terror. Let them stand in silence and chains and await his pleasure. Learn that their miserable lives had just got worse. And would get worse still. What more fitting way of re-balancing the struggle. Let them pondered their fate while the mwene fucked a new woman-slave.

Lifting his head, he gestured at the whore, she had his permission to work her way up his leg. He was the mwene, delegated to crush the spirit out of these people. Assigned by the emperor-chief to subdue this land. To exploit its wealth and resources. Fabulously wealthy, sitting astride seams of that rare ore the whole world seemed to crave. Underground where now the conquered toiled as slaves, worked to death coughing up their guts in the dust, filling the coffers of the empire. Feeding their future wars.

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Sacred treeThe swine could wait, that rabble out in the yard. Especially that infamous one. They had been a pain, a gnat biting persistently at the arse of the empire. They had snatched some pockets of resistance, they had kept the mwene’s men more-than-busy these past months. Among the local populace keeping hope alive, these brawny brutes and uncouth rebels, renowned, stuff of local legends, these men outside in their rough homespun and stench. Their very freedom had been symbol of optimism in these god-forsaken lands. A hope that in the next few days with their torment and execution the mwene would see crushed. The people would be granted a day off from their toils. Even those condemned to toil for the empire in the bowels of the earth. Brought out into the light for a holiday. Brought out from their sweated toil to witness their renowned heroes put to death.

A burning pain in the arse for months, that leader of theirs had long been the mwene’s target. An extreme irritant that had been keeping alive the futile hopes that some day these people would again be free. An inspiration. A pain in the arse. The uncouth brute had a charisma this conquered rabble rallied to. A fame for which men would sacrifice their very lives. And they had, in their hundreds. Throwing themselves into suicidal attacks. A fanaticism that had held the might of the empire locked down for months. His enemies at court had used the chance. Accused of incompetence. A mwene that could not put down a rabble of peasants. The brute sweating it out below had cost him reputation, would have cost his position if he had not thrown every resource at the problem. Offering cash, land, freedom for family working as slaves in the mine. Eventually something had to give, one day a fish had to bite, finally something had. Sold out for a few pieces of gold. The brute and his henchmen were ambushed and now were awaiting his displeasure below. But nothing could repay the torment that brute had made a mwene suffer.If a leader of that fame had the power to inspire, then the manner of his dispatch too would arouse. Demoralise, depress. Put out the very flicker of inspiration, with his agonising death the mwene would crush out the glimmer of any hope. The hope this barbarian had kept alight. The mwene would snuff out that flame. But before that long-awaited moment came, the dog would learn the cost.

Let them bask for the last time, that gang of murderous scum below, let them enjoy for now the pleasure of the sun burning on their heads. For them, the mwene had better plans. He pushed the woman’s head to the spot where her mouth was best placed. Let the scum spend the short rest of their miserable lives in uncertainty and terror. Awaiting his decision. Let them suffer in silence under the broiling sun and await his presence. Let the scum outside sweat and broil. He gave an enjoyable gasp, she had swallowed him. The mwene had better things to do.

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Sacred treeFatal word

He’d faced the prospect of death a hundred times, - at least. It was still hard not to feel a shudder of dismay that it had come to this. Like this. Betrayed, sold out to an implacable enemy. Sold out by one of their own.“Tomorrow. He dies tomorrow.” .The mutapa had been seemingly addressing his men as he turned and left. Just as if his prisoner simply wasn’t standing there. But Conan knew the words were meant for him. To stroke another shiver through him as the icy feel down here crept over his bare skin.“However the mwene sees fit.” Definitely meant for him. Reminding Conan of the sickening display of his nemesis cavorting for him on his balcony.He had lived frequently on the brink of death. What matter that tyrant had decided that they would end his life the next day? The door to his blackened dungeon had slammed to with a heavy doom-laden bang. Through a chink in the planks Conan saw the light of the flickering torch disappear leaving him encased in a black underground tomb. The roof was low, he stood bent forward, his hand on the roof above for support. Feeling the darkness wrap itself around him, feeling the shiver of the air settle like a alien skin on his naked flesh. After a day stood roasting in the suffocating heat, even sun-leathered skin was painfully stinging from its burns. And for all that scorching heat in his flesh it could not keep out the cold here deep underground.

It had happened before, betrayal, attempts to sell him out. At least a half-dozen times. The ones who had dared try had been left rotting, their bones picked dry by carrion. A warning to any others that might think to try something on. But clearly this time someone had dared - and succeeded. It took only one successful time. Unluckily the bitch Fate had not been looking the other way that night. Not like the many other times the mwene’s men had gone back to barracks empty-handed. And to a bollocking they’d resent till they got their hands on the rebel bastard. As now they had.

Executed. Tomorrow he would die. He expected nothing else. That decision had long since been reached. He’d played his own part in that sentence. Since he’d chosen to stay and fight, leading this insurrection against a superior might. No trial, no face-to-face with his accuser. No need, he’d expected none, his crimes were a proven fact. His irritating successes against them warranted nothing less. But with their betrayal, with his capture and his friends’, chances were the brave fight was over. End of the fight-back. Brought here in chains, under heaviest of security and close guard, they’d instantly been dispatched deep into the bowels of the earth. Into the deepest reach of dungeons where no light would penetrate. Or where no one could mount some rescue attempt.

Hardly surprising there’d been attempts to betray him. The mwene had it all, the army, the power, the wealth. The nation’s finest enslaved and labouring in the dust underground to dig out the ore, their own ore. Sold by this tyrant to the highest bidder. Sold for funds to hunt the insurgents down, funds to tempt the impoverished into betrayal.

Somewhere near the barred door, they had left food and water. Gingerly Conan sought it out in the blackness. There’d be nothing else to give him strength. Deep in the belly of this fortress Conan had been kept isolated. Where were the others? Together or kept apart too? Feeling the chill of wretchedness seeping into his bones in his total blackness, with the bread and flagon of water he felt out for the damp walls and lowered himself to the floor. Bitter that the triumphs of fighting back were over. His short rough-spun kilt was no protection, his near-bare arse shivered on the

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Sacred treedampness of the rock floor, no protection against the chill. It would be a long night in this pervasive cold. Even after the long punishing march to this fortress these last days, kept weakened by hunger and thirst. And today held for hours under the blistering sun, frying their skin, roasting their brains. Even though he was exhausted, even though his body ached for rest, there’d be little sleep that night. Bitter at the demise of their fight.

He was not afraid of death. He was a warrior, a fighter. He had gone into battle dozens of times knowing that day could be his last. But from everything he had seen of these conquerors, he had no reason to doubt the nature of his dying. A symbol. From what these poor oppressed people had endured these last months, his would not be an easy death. A deterrent, - no doubt. That mwene would use his dying to crush to dust any last hope that had kept the people alive. Deter anyone from further uprising. The seemingly endless road to him drawing his last breath would be turned into agonising deterrent. Fate had always promised he would suffer. Fate would make him pay for every shaming victory he had ever wrought from these oppressors, every humiliation he had squeezed out of them. Punished for the glimmers of hope his fight-back had kept alive. Pay tenfold.

It was not being dead that he had reason to fear. It was the journey there. He lay down on his side on the hard rock floor. The damp cold rose up and swallowed his body whole. His arms he wrapped protectively around his chest, knees pulled up to his belly to keep his body-warmth. But soon he’d be trembling, soon he’d shiver in the grip of the seeping cold. The night before he died would be long. And cold.

The threat from the north had been feared, the empire had been sweeping down conquering all in its path. Initially the king had brought in Conan to tutor the young prince, to teach him the ways of the warrior - just in case. These people lived by trade, they had had no need to fight, they had prospered for decades by selling their ore. But that in itself had made them a target.

The marauding thunderbolt from the north had struck. Not some jealous warring faction, another petty-minded enemy tribe that could be bought off. A powerful army had swept over them like a firestorm, armed, well-equipped, a warrior-nation. Who lived by subjugation. Who profited by conquest. Conan shivered, deep in some underground dungeon he remembered. He had come here to teach fighting strength. Retained as mentor to the young prince, to train him in warrior skills. But what chance when the hammer-blow struck? These conquerors were sweeping relentless south. In desperation the king turned to what he had, he upped the price. Persuading with his coins Conan and his friends to stay on. Hired for their skills, mercenaries hired for the fight he could take to the enemy. But despite his effort to turn their young men’s efforts into a fighting force, their brave efforts had been nothing against the ruthless efficiency of a war-machine. The enemy had swept in hungry for the treasures mined from under the ground, they had swallowed the resistance whole. Overwhelming numbers had crushed the fighting in days. And in reprisal for resisting, the conquerors had banished their young men to hard labour underground. Paying reparations to their new masters from the north.

Now, the others too lay shivering in some cell or other. Conan’s friends, captive, awaiting execution, too. Heavy-hearted, Conan lay down on his side on the hard rock floor thinking of how he had failed. Getting themselves betrayed, captured, imprisoned, condemned. In the loneliness of this chill blackness, seeing the others shivering in some other part of these dark dungeons. Knees pulled up to his belly to keep in some warmth, arms wrapped around. They too would be staring unseeing into the solitary blackness. Reliving the horrors they had witnessed these oppressors commit. Knowing the future held no better for them. Trembling, - with the cold.

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Sacred treeShivering at the thought of what the next day would bring. Unable to sleep. The night would be long. Soul-chillingly long and cold.

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Sacred treeTribute

The mwene had been standing on the balcony overlooking the courtyard. Despite the suffocating heat rising off the courtyard, dignity demanded he slip on a cloak over his naked body to view the scum below. He stood back in the shade looking down at the stinking rebels who had threatened his reputation. For hours now this scum that had been such an irritant had been broiling under the vicious sun. Arms wrapped over the low crosses behind them. Standing on their own two feet, but on a few the sun had obviously done its work, their strength drained, dried out, legs buckled under them, hanging, their minds fried by the intensity of heat. All, though, had still reacted when their enemy was spotted, come to mock their defeat, he was conscious of their hatred turned up to him. Looking back in contempt at the enemy they had fought, eyes burning with hate for him as strong as the sun. Especially that scum Conan, the way up to his defeat, his spirit still seemed undimmed. The chill night in the dungeons had done nothing for his attitude.

What did a mwene care? He had them now. And soon he’d snuff out their lights. He saw their curious look when he was joined by a naked woman on the balcony. “Guess. Which one would you choose?”He vaguely enjoyed the thought.“Feast your eyes, scum,” - the taunting thought went through the mwene’s head. “ ... the last pair of tits you will ever see.” His arms thrown idly over her shoulder, a hand demonstratively mauled at a firm breast to emphasise the point. For the scum below to see, to envy. To underline the difference between their states. He moved close up behind the whore, the open front of his robe pressed against her naked back. Holding her near the rail so the scum below got a full sight of her in her glory. In the growing heat of the day, he felt her skin stick hot against his bare belly. His tongue licked idly at an after-glow of sex that had cooled on the back of her neck. All for show, done for the bitterness of the scum down below broiling under the vehemence of the scorching heat.

“Tell me, which would you guess is the leader of these scum? Guess. Which would you choose?”Testing her, knowing how keen a new slave always was to please.She’d had her men, at home she had been able to pick and choose. Down below, her eyes were met by the upward gaze of the six men, filthy dirty, dishevelled. Arms roped back over the crossbars, their strength scorched by the searing cruelty of the sun, Squinting into the light, looking up at where their enemy was standing. Him and the sun maliciously mocking their defeat. Through the grime and dirt, though, these men still looked like some of the best she’d ever had. Wrists bound over the back of the crossbars, pulling taut powerful muscle in their chests, knotted arms etched incredibly by the strain in their arms. Wearing leg irons to keep them controlled. Enviable manly physiques chained up like mad beasts. Dressed in just short revealing homespun tunics, grubby, unkempt, signs of hard beatings on them. She’d been around her father’s men enough, though, to recognise the conceit of warriors. She’d had enough warriors vying for her to know the physical power of such men. Even in defeat, secure in their toughness, tall, powerfully built. Their spirits looked far from tamed by the presence of whips and chains.

She looked down at them, playing the mwene’s game. Knowing her future depending on pleasing. Her eyes played over the striking physiques looking up at her. Uncaring why the mwene should ask her that question about which manly brute was in charge, knowing it gave her a chance, seeking only to please the one who mattered. On edge to do nothing wrong.She faked a growl from her throat as the mwene’s hand broke from the hold on her

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Sacred treewaist and stroked at the firmness of her breast. Her back sunk back into him as his fingers toyed with her nipple bringing her back to life there.“Which one, eh?” he asked.He squeezed hard on a firm nub. Pinched her hard for fun.

She deliberately doubled her wince, to flatter his sadistic pleasure. Her eyes dismissed the youngster. No longer a boy, yet only just a man. Handsome with the full flush of new manhood. She wouldn’t have minded a few years back playing the older woman and showing him how to make proper use of himself. But he did not possess the authority to lead an insurrection that had harassed and irritated like crazy these new masters for many months.

Playing along with the mwene, her body gave a ripple of mock lust as he toyfully played on the hardening nub. Her head went back playfully, her long hair swishing over his shoulder, though not losing sight of the powerful men ogling her nakedness from below. Whose looks were embarrassingly following the downward path of the mwene’s mauling hand.

The big giant, it was tempting to think he was in charge. A head above the rest, muscle on the chest that reached for the sky, bigger than any wine-barrel, shoulders like carved from rock. The very perfection of the warrior clan. Who’d make the enemy piss themselves as he swung a battleaxe. Who’d lead his men from the front. But not him, that answer was just too easy.

She let the commander feel her moans seeping from her throat, wriggled her backside against her new master to let him know she looked forward to his growing strength. His hips pushed forward, far from subtle, a growl of intended pleasure light in his throat, the growing heat at the tops of his legs indicating his intention.

“That one!” she declared. “On the left”.The prisoner did not have the stature of the giant. Nor the god-like looks of the boy. Coarse, wild. But there was something in his being. He bore himself like a leader of men. And a ferocity in his gaze as he watched the performance on this balcony. Strong across the chest, a tight narrow waist, standing on firm pillars of long muscular legs. Above all there was something about his bearing that called out, here was a leader of men.

She pretended to shiver with excitement at the touch of him groping his growing strength against her bare backside. Her future depended on flattering this man. Demanded in tribute, her people newly defeated by the mwene’s troops. A hostage, - if she played her cards right, her future lay as this man’s concubine. If not, she’d enjoy a fate as a barrack’s whore.

“Indeed your father’s daughter!” the mwene absently moaned in her ear.Lustful he rubbed his growing hardness against her delectable arse.“And now tell me. How would you have such a scumbag killed?”

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Sacred tree

A father’s daughter

Not eaten more than swill in days, only enough water to keep them alive. Now forced into wakefulness in the blackness of his cell, shivering. With the cold, with the chill realisation of defeat. Earlier that day forced out into that courtyard under the mwene’s rooms. Proud fighters all, prodigiously strong, tough like old leather. But weakened by lack of sleep and food, their sturdy bodies enfeebled by the bitterness of defeat. The sun had borne down on them for hours. Skewered to those stakes to bake. And stood burning up for hours. Their strength sapped by the callousness of nature. Skin stinging, brains frying. Attending the presence of their nemesis.

Conan had been a regular bed-fellow with death. At risk whenever it came to a fight, - and he himself had dispatched plenty defeated on the battlefield. Butchering, slaughtering, wounding. But now his own dying was to be a lesson, he was sure, a warning to these people whose gold he had taken in payment for defending them. His dying - a lesson to any that had dared hope. Him and all those friends captured with him. Young Prince Drax, too. The young lad he had tutored into a fine young fighting man. So smitten by devotion, he had insisted on fighting by his “hero’s” side. Against better judgement, Conan had agreed. Yet proud too, proud this young prince who once had shown so little promise had learned so well from his mentor, proud that Drax had borne adversity so well. Had Conan gone soft? He had lived a solitary life, he had never known family. At best for him “family” had been the brave men who had fought by his side, the fighters who had covered his back. Conan had never had any illusions either, such men were open to offers, some would sell him out if the price was right. As this time someone had. You did not risk getting too close. Doggedly throughout his life Conan had avoided commitment, getting close ran the risk of letting down your guard, finishing up with a knife in the back.

Young Drax, though, had won Conan over. Good-looking, a ready smile, a young man’s humour, an indefatigable belief that this nightmare would come to an end. Under Conan’s tutelage, Drax had steered his outrage at his people being conquered into rapidly developing a general’s skills. Despite his youth, under Conan’s steely guidance, Drax had taken up the gauntlet, leading the bedraggled remnants of his people into the hills. Nearly wiped out when these conquerors had raped their lands. A bedraggled hotch-potch of those remaining and not killed fleeing to the hills to lick their wounds.

There Drax had inspired, he had grown to the challenge of leading the fight-back - despite his youth. More now than just their prince, not longer a mere symbol. Showing the leadership Drax had keenly learned from his big-muscled mentor. From a spoilt youth Conan had shaped the kid into a leader of men, Conan had watched with fierce pride the way Drax had developed into a fine fighting-man. His rank as prince a magnet to loyal young men, Conan’s own fierce renown then forging them into an effective fighting force. Harrying the oppressor, robbing them of their own gold. Springing ambushes, stealing back into the darkness of the night. Keeping the enemy on their toes. Conan had got fond of the kid, he showed potential, a genuine leader of fighting men, Conan was surprised at himself, getting close to the young man - in a way he could not have believed. Almost like he imagined an older brother would feel. The nearest Conan had ever known as family.

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Sacred treeThe mwene had stood gawping at them from above, now he was joined by a woman. A good looker, hair long, hanging down behind. Stood before the mwene by the rail, naked to the waist. And the rest visible through the bars. His whore, one of many, no doubt. Maybe a slave-girl, one of their own, forced into serving the tyrant’s lusts while her brothers were slaved to death in the mines.Conan squinted up at the balcony against the glare. Sickened by the sight of his hand mauling the girl. Sickened because it was just a show, done for them, done to taunt and infuriate.

She’d had her men. Any number. Her father was, after all, head of the clan. She was a handsome catch. She could pick and choose, only the best. Her bed had been peopled only with potent young men willing to please, willing to catch her eye. All of them handsome and strong like these prisoners down below, - muscular, proud, appendages under their kilts to match their hard torsos.

But life was different now. Her father’s clan had fallen to the emperor’s troops. Wall after wall of troops conscripted into war had crushed her own father’s soldiers. Days of fighting ended with their city overwhelmed, her father imprisoned in their stronghold. Over-run. And now tributes had to be paid. Tributes and hostages. Just like her. Left to fend for herself. And to keep her father back home pliant and biddable. And paying on time the tributes that fell due.

She was being left to plough her own course. Concubine to the mwene or barracks’ whore. She was used to men fighting to prove themselves to her in her bed, eager to please. Now the boot was on the other foot. But she was learning as fast as she could. Matching a mwene’s cruelty with a guile of her own.

“You know what we do back at home?” She answered the mwene’s question through a pretend-moan. She could feel behind her that his groping had aroused his interest again. Obediently she wriggled and squirmed against the growing heat at her backside, playing for him, pretending she was beguiled with what was happening to him down below.“How would you have him killed?”The mwene had repeated his question with a harsher tone when she hesitated. Of course, she had hesitated, his pawing was making her feel sick. His other hand had run down her bare front, signposting at her navel where it was going. It was hard to breathe. Was it the suffocating heat out in the sun? Or the bitter acid of surrender burning in her gorge? Resentment at this abasement stinging in her guts? An extended finger clawing like an animal downward over the delicious flatness of her stomach. Artfully she feigned lustful enjoyment, letting this new master over her body enjoy the way her belly pulled in, like she was eager to assist his finger’s downward path.

“You know how we deal with our enemies?” She managed a pretend-gasp for him as his finger thrust at her insides. Not too gently. But after his antics in the bed she’d hardly expected anything else. The intensity of heat from the courtyard below robbed her of her breath but still she let her body shudder against the sweat on his chest leaning into her bare back. Desiring to please, needing to. Discomforting having six prisoners and their guards gawp up as her womanhood was roughly entered by the mwene’s hand, it was a revulsion she had to force herself to suppress. She hid her embarrassment, shutting her eyes. And tamely she inveigled her backside seductively against him, trapping his hotness solid between the fold of her soft wriggling crack.

She whispered in pretend-arousal, telling the mwene what she knew he wanted to hear.

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Sacred tree“The cross,” she gasped. “Such scum only get the cross.”

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Sacred tree

Sentence

“Indeed you are a king’s daughter,” the mwene uttered.He took it as evidence of his power over her body, the way her hot back trembled into his bare chest. Her head was back over this shoulder, the seductive flowing black locks draped over his back. Maybe she was playing at it, she probably was, she most likely thought she could fool him. He’d had tributes enough to know how to make a woman give. This one was no virgin, not unused to a man’s touch toying at her trigger spot. But maybe still stupid enough to think she could fool the man who ruled over her fate. Ridiculous cow! The barrack’s would teach her otherwise.

He observed her breasts rise, the tips hard and enthralled for his gaze. He looked down beyond thrusting nipples and saw the upward glances of the barbarian and his scum. Voyeurs to his game, unwilling observers of his supreme power. Ruling over this whore, over them, over their bodies, over all their lives. The mwene would order him broken. By the look of the brute he would take some working on, there was too much fight in the man. On the other hand, the mwene had just the man for that job, broken plenty of other scum who needed to persuaded of the weakness of their conceit. By the time the scum was dragged out to face the people who had worshipped him as their champion, he’d be a different man. The mwene would see him first smashed, - body and soul.

Yes, the cross. He’d already decided on that. It was a brutish death. Not one of their own ways to execute. One the mwene had adopted from one of those barbarian clans he had smashed. Fiendishly effective. Staggeringly persuasive. And hellishly public.

“Any other advice?”The mwene’s question barely registered on her. Two fingers were deep inside grinding on her love spot as he forced her backside into himself behind. Despite the resentment burning in her throat, abandoning her futile thoughts to make the mwene slave to her guile, her body was made to respond. Forced again to give into his demands. She sought to please, she had to.“ .... Before his people. That’s the way.”Her words came out through ragged pained breaths. Desperate gasps as she reluctantly fought for air.“ .. Do it ... in public.”His hips backed up the rhythm of his thrusting hand. A deep animal growl groaned in his throat as he masturbated against her arse.“Slow. Long.”Her hips took on life, forced to follow suite, disgustingly rocked by his fingers jammed up inside her. Like she was pleasing herself, - determined though to pleasure him, to save herself.“Hours, ... days.”Words struggled to take form, croaking over the moanings she forced to break in her throat. Down below, shamefully she could see the prisoners watching her. She didn’t care. She had a life to live. This was going to be her life.“ .... Dying over many days.”

Anger was adding torment to the dizziness that had his head in a whirl. Weak, exhausted, broiling in this heat for hours. Tormented by buzzing flies. And expected to stand there watching this sickening display. The sight of their nemesis mocking their eyes with this stomach-churning show. Forced to watch him groping his whore. Done to annoy, done to taunt.They had never met, never come face-to-face. Yet for months Conan had lived and

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Sacred treebreathed this man performing for them on his balcony. This moment of looking into each other’s eyes had played in Conan’s mind a hundred times. But never like this. Never strung out in the sun, tasting the bitterness of defeat, awaiting sentence, expecting death. He’d seen what this man could do. Seen the young men taken in reprisal when the rebels had inflicted another humiliating defeat. Scourged, backs flayed to the bone. And left to bleed to death. Maggots eating through their wounds. Left as a warning. Others staked out in the blistering sun. Left to starve to death. In public view. Hoping to turn the people against the rebels, bribes if someone turned the scum in.

Through the bars of the balcony Conan could see what was happening, He felt sorry for the slave, - she had to live, people had been forced into doing anything to survive. He could see her body brutishly taken by the force of the mwene’s invasion on herself. Could anyone enjoy having the tyrant grope and maul her, putting her on display to mock his captives down below? Made an object of his cruel games? Conan knew this show was meant for them, to anger them, to frustrate them with the fact of their captivity. The girl was just a pawn, a tool in the mwene’s cruel tricks. Conan could not put a stop it. But he could beat his nemesis at his own game, he turned his eyes away.

The mwene had seen the barbarian’s death in his own mind too. Nailed, he’d have the brute nailed through the wrists. And he’d give the brute support for his weight too. Not choke to death, no hurried demise. Just leave the scum to suffer, displayed for his people, nailed to weaken, to slowly rot. On public display, the people’s hero, light of their hope.The toughest lasted the longest. But first the scum would watch as these others were slaughtered, his friends. Before his own eyes. Steaming in his futile thundering rage at the way his nearest were butchered. Watched by him, watched by the people dismayed at this sight. The end of their hope, their faith in things going back to the way they had been, their heroes being butchered before their eyes.Taken by his lust for the agonies of his scum below the mwene grabbed brutishly at the womanhood in his grip. Groping in rising intensity, mauling at her slit, - as his mind’s eye revelled in the sight of this scum meeting his end. One after each other butchered before him. A long drawn-out slaughter of the people’s hopes that this scum had kept alive. The gasps clenched from the whore only fuelled his lust for the scum’s blood. Her body was going rigid as he clawed out of her groans of agony from this scum. His hand thrust up inside her pushing her back, rubbing her sweaty arse against his lust-bloated cock. Masturbating her backside onto his flaring hard-on. Engorged with the thought of that barbarian enduring his long-drawn out desserts. The whore’s hisses feeding the mwene’s craving to see that Conan suffer, brutally nailed to the tree.

“I’d see him scourged.”Pain was mixing with need. Survival and pain mixed, acutely conscious of her fate, intent on pleasing the man, publicly raping her royal being with his groping hand. To divert the mwene from the intensity of his lust, to deflect his fervour from the mauling inside herself, her eyes sought out the man she sought to condemn. Her need to win over the mwene depended on pleasing, on feeding his evil imagination with this prisoner’s fate. “In front of the rabble he led,” she added. “Torture him in his dying. Torture his image of himself.” Her torso was forced into rocking in rhythm to the grasping fingering between her legs. “ ... Rip it to shreds. Along with his flesh.”Her bare backside was pushed into her master’s fiery crutch.“ .... so any followers .... finally know …. he’s finished.”

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Sacred treeShe gasped suddenly. Her body went rigid for a moment, the hurt throbbing in her blood making her clasp together her hands. The pain between her legs making her wince.

She had seen the move, she’d seen the condemned man down below scowl. Looking at her and shaking his head at this naked display of lust. Showing his disgust for her.“ .... so his people see he is no hero ... ,” she spat out. Taken with angry. No man shook his head at her in revulsion.“ .... see him dying long, ... painfully long ... ,” she gasped. Her vengeful snarl was twisted by a pained jump sizzling sharply down her thighs.“ ... See his flesh .... ripped from his back. Just flesh and blood. That’s all the brute is.....”Her hips were speeded up with the mwene’s hand, rubbing himself on her, inflating his solid heat gyrating against her backside. “... let them see that ....”Torn by the conflicting sensations overwhelming her. Disgust and need to survive mingled into one. “A mere male. Suffering ... a suffering man .... in anguish .. see his despair ..”Her bare backside was being squirmed against him, like he was going to come. Groped incessantly by his hand, struggling against the heat. Beads of sweat coated her upper lip.“ .. broken by his agonies. .... breaking before them .... their hero .... broken before their eyes.” She gasped. The sheen of shame on her breasts flashed in the heat.“ ... Till the brute pleads ... begs his master .... to end it all .....”A sharp intake of breath broke to convince the mwene.“ ... show them .... their champion can take no more.”

Her eyes snarled at the figure that had turned his head away from her.“These so-called heroes … ,“ she started. Her eyes narrowed at the barbarian, “... they think ..... they’re made of iron. But eventually .. they break... Crack. She gasped at the pain stabbed inside her.”“ ..... Sob like any other man.”She snarled. No man showed her his disgust. Not some stinking barbarian.“Break him!” she snarled.She gasped, shaking with the frenetic rhythms that were shuddering down her legs. Weakening her knees with this pain. She struggled to get out her words. The aggressiveness behind was flooding her being. “ ... their hero .. ” She was gasping, ragged ...” .... make him plead. Beg his mwene ..... to finish him off.”Her torso shot up against the sweaty chest behind. Rigid. Her throat bursting with a loud cry.“ .... He won’t, of course. ..... Not easily.” She trembled. The heat of her master against her back. His hardness rubbing into her backside.“Let Nature have its way”. She gasped. “Break the swine.”

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Sacred tree

The mutapaRabble

“Put them to death.”The mwene was not going to waste his breath on such scum. “Every one.”He had kept them waiting. Outside the great portals. The rabble horde reunited. But forbidden to speak. Under pain of even greater pain. They’d awaited his displeasure all day in the sun. And summoned now to his presence he made them know their rank further, they were shit. Made to await his bidding. He had been ready for them for some time. But he kept them waiting. Again he had fucked the fresh whore, - just for something to do while he passed the time. Time when they would be nervously waiting to attend his grace. Knowing their fate was to be pronounced.

“All sentenced to death.”The mwene spoke firmly addressing the mutapa who would carry out the sentence. Dismissing the scum as worth nothing. Which they weren’t.“What, no trial?”Of course, it would be him. Their leader. Still looking defiant despite the heavy yoke that bore down on his shoulders and held out-stretched his arms. “Silence!”Despite the thwack from the mutapa’s club into his guts, recovering fast Conan bristled defiant. Turning an angry glare on this underling who had dared attack. Glaring as if Conan was demanding how a fool dared anything so rash. His steely gaze warning how foolish that move had been, how he would make the idiot pay. The pair of them stared hostile into each other’s eyes. Difference was, the mutapa was not made vulnerable by a disabling yoke. His feet were not shamed by short leg chains. And the mutapa brandished his heavy punishment club.

Scornfully the mwene perused the sorry bunch, no longer the brave heroes who had inspired an insurrection. In leg irons and chains to their wrists. Filthy, stinking, bedraggled. Beaten into weakness by the cruel sun. Now brought to his quarters, made to assemble before his dais, standing below his head-height as was his due. He cast an eye down over them. The wretched gang who had kept his army busy these past months. Taking humiliating losses, suffering pack trains attacked and ore lost. Now he sneered down at them, filthy and dishevelled, stinking rank of their own piss no doubt. No brave heroes now.

Overnight the mwene had had this leader kept isolated in his dungeons. Now after his broiling in the sun, they had forced him into this yoke. Just him, his special status symbolised by the unbreakable restraint. Only for him the stretched out by the yoke. Singled-out. Only he had had to shuffle forward with the shortest of leg chains. Shuffling into the might of the mwene’s presence with the most shameful of gaits. Done to show this swine Conan was nothing, the once-idolised rebel leader, done to show this Conan was worth shit. And that his fate was to be different from the others. Symbolised by these manacles.The mwene watched intently. The war of glares between this rebel and his mutapa. The rebel scum looked like he was fitting himself for an attack. Every bit of his being bristling with hostility towards the mutapa. The mwene watched closely. The insolence stinking out of every pore confirmed his judgment. This brute who had waged war and kept his own soldiers on the run. Whose arrogance in his rebellion had nearly cost the mwene his job. Had caused him loss of reputation, a

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Sacred treecommander who could not put a rabble-insurrection down. Standing there as if he were not weighted down by chains. His conceit belying the yoke that disabled his strength and was condemning him to subjugation. The mwene was right, the dog still had much to give. Much to repay. Before torture squeezed the last gasp of life out of his throat. He watched the pair, - knowing. The scum would regret that defiant fire in his eyes, the mwene knew. There were still some days before sentence was to be carried out. And the mutapa was a philosopher, he had his code. Scumbags were to know their place, slaves were to show respect. Deference, fear. If they needed help, the mutapa had his means. That was exactly why he was the mutapa. He kept order. Without any qualms. And the mutapa was not one to be daunted by some once-idolised rebel forced into a yoke and chains.

The mwene continued. Observing with interest that the hostilities between captive and the mutapa persisted. “These .. ,“ waving his hand dismissively at the stench of Conan’s men ... giving instructions to the mutapa ”... they are to be put to work in the mines. No quick end, no short few days stretched on a cross. Condemned to work off their debt. For the rest of their short miserable lives. Work them till they drop. Work them to death. Dying working for the empire they despised.” Conan’s men knew full-well what that meant. The mines were the reason they had been overrun. Conquered, to supply the wealth of the mines to these oppressors. Most young males had been sent there. There they would be worked into the dirt. Coughing their guts up in the overpowering dust. Starved into weakness, beaten back to their feet, a long enduring death digging ore to make the enemy rich. None who had entered the mines, it was said, had ever returned.“Forget the sun,” the mwene mocked. “Forget the light of day. ... And today you saw your last pair of tits.”

With a gesture of his head, the mwene dismissed the scum.“Take them down.”But his eyes stayed fixed on Conan, the mwene was not finished with him. As leader he had a higher price to pay. This scum of a leader was made to remain.

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Sacred tree

Conan’s fate

The soldiers jostled the rabble out of his presence. Like they knew without being told that the mwene still had business with the dog caught in the yoke. In silence, the mwene observed his remaining prize as his men use their clubs to drive the dog’s scum out. The barbarian, the mercenary, the pain in the arse who had kept alive the people’s hopes. Standing there, the yoke across his powerful shoulders disabling his attacking arms, broad shoulders that had wielded his battleaxe and cut swathes of gore through the mwene’s troops. But now that fearsome power was helplessly disabled in the yoke, his muscular arms reaching over its back and inescapably roped on the top. Those fighting arms, once powerful monsters of might that had brought down his sword down onto a foe and slice him in two. The huge muscle-heavy chest was lifted by the back-strain of the yoke. But still it was an imposing vast plain of manly might. Without armour that daunting force had gone into battle. The mere sight of that threat could weaken men’s knees. But today the mwene had it captive here, in the mwene’s hall. Surrounded by guards, watched over by the stern discipline of the mutapa standing close-by. The room stood in hostile silence as the rabble that had been his intimates were shuffled out. Shuffling out to their drawn-out death, serving the empire in the mines. A tense silence now reigned. And only animosity was left to fill this hall.

The cur stood, broad-chested. Haughty, hostility in every pore, hatred in his glare. Eyeing the mwene for daring to keep him waiting, for holding him there. But the mwene took his time. Letting his eyes wander over that powerful frame locked in his yoke. Eyeing the monster that had caused him so much pain. Enjoying the fact that the dog would be made to pay in full for every embarrassment. Secure in the knowledge that this barbarian was no problem anymore.

“In two days, this people here celebrates their feast.”The day of the Sacred Tree. Not even these invaders had managed to suppress the people’s earnest beliefs.“On that day your sentence will commence.”An offence, Conan knew, the day deliberately chosen to offend. The people would take that as another unforgivable transgression. Against their customs, affronting sincerely held beliefs. But Conan was not from these parts, his relationship with his god had always been questionable. Whatever the day of execution, it would be all the same to him.

“As leader, your crime is the greater. A punishment will fit the crime.”Tell me something I didn’t already know, Conan’s look sneered in contempt at this man who had ruled over conquered tribes with an iron fist.Conan visibly snorted. As if he was supposed to value this life?“Of course, - it goes without saying - you will pay with your life,” the mwene intoned. Why say it then, Conan thought. But he knew why, - trying to put the shits under him.Sounding nonchalant the mwene went on. “On the day of celebration, you will be put to the cross.”

Even a man who had faced death a thousand times had to pause at that thought. The death penalty these oppressors had brought with them. Conan had heard the facts, he had seen the horrors. A death of evil means. As much to teach the people a lesson as to punish the crime.

“The payment will be high. Paid for in the only rightful way. With suffering.”The mwene hesitated, hoping to hold the barbarian’s attention. Intrigued that he

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Sacred treecould stare back impassive. As if the dog had heard this a hundred times.“Not an easy death.”The mwene watched carefully. Frowning, a ripple of anger. Had the scum shrugged his shoulders? As if saying, what did he care? Saying, he could not be hurt.“Nothing else can be expected.” The mwene was sizing this man up. Reckoning that even if he was afraid, he’d give no sign. And foolishly provoking the mwene into desiring just such a sign. Before much longer, the mwene would demand he give up just such a sign.

For once, thought Conan to himself, we are talking the same language.“Any idea how long such a man can die?”Conan’s lips curled in indifference. Truth-to-tell, he had seen enough suffering of men on a cross. His men had managed to rescue a few. But more often the wretches had died of their agonies, in untold long-drawn-out suffering.“Hours .....”The mwene stared. Pausing for the effect.“ .... It can be days.”Want me to guess which option you have worked out for me, Conan smirked back in silence?The mwene spoke with a coldness. Like it was noting to him. But secretly he was annoyed the dog could face him with such haughty indifference. Irking him to make sure that changed.

“Days when the carrion calls. When the crows peck out the eyes.”Conan gave a derisive snort at the thought. As if he was supposed to tremble at the thought.“Vultures can be timid,” the mwene, hoping to make some effect. “They’ll circle for hours. Till they know the victim can’t fight back. Then they swoop. No matter the carcase is not dead. Living meat is more sweet.”

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Sacred tree

Hope of the people

“Death cannot be enough. Hardly a punishment to fit the crime.”The mwene slouched back on his seat. Appearing indifferent. But itching to drag some reaction out of the dog.“Tables turned, you’d do the same.”Annoyed - and intrigued at the same time - that he could not get the slightest flicker of concern out of this barbarian. Was it all for show? All bravado? Was he secretly pissing himself? Too trapped in his pride to reveal his real fears? Time - and the mutapa’s skills - would show.

“Before nailing you. Before enduring unending suffering. ... a further price to pay. Forfeit your pride. Surrender your shame.”Despite himself, despite his show of seeming indifference, Conan’s curiosity was caught. Managing just to suppress the frown questioning what those intriguing words meant. Feeling shame affronted his sense of being, it went to the heart of him. No way were these oppressors going to make Conan feel shame. He had no reason to feel shame.

“Put on display. On the day of celebration. The people will be driven to come together. To honour their gods. And gather to see their hero scourged.”Done that, seen that, felt that. Conan was no stranger to the whip.“Stood before them, stripped of all his success. The stuff of their paltry legends stood there. Naked. And beaten. Beaten till he falls, till this body - “ the mwene gestured contemptuously at the legendary might uselessly trapped in his yoke - “ .. till THIS can take ... no more.”The mwene sneered from his dais down at the dog.“Flogged.”He waited. Letting the words sink in.“Scourged.”Pausing, playing for some impressive effect.“Thrashed. Whipped till this ... this human flesh can take no more. Till it cries. Till it begs.”Beg? Conan stared back, eyes now ablaze with contempt. Not going to happen. He swore it. Begging was not going to happen.

The mwene waited. Glad to see he had aroused some emotion.“Till ... THIS breaks.” The mwene’s head gestured contemptuously at the legend caught helpless in its bonds.Conan glared back in return. Affirming, it had never in his life happened yet. Beg! Yet deep-down aware of slight signs of a worrying tremor. Sensing the nature of this man. The mwene’s face affirmed his suspicions. This was not a man that gave up easily, this confrontation could be Conan’s greatest challenge yet. Years of experience with hard-nosed men told him that this mwene WAS that evil.“Broken. Before the very people the scumbag has led astray. Putting their faith in ... this. Human broken flesh.”He slouched back. Content in his own skin.“A fantasy. A myth. Nothing more.”The mwene’s eyes scourged the might he had imprisoned.“But when the whip cuts into his flesh ..... When leather slices through to the bone .... What is this champion in which these fools have put so much faith? A man. Skin and bones. A mere wretch that hurts. That cries out and pleads when it can take no more.”

Conan was no stranger to staring death in the teeth, that had always been his way of life. He had always known too that should he fall into the mwene’s hands his end

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Sacred treewould not be swift. Or easy. Courage had never failed him before. He had never begged before any enemy. Yet a shiver of realisation down his backbone betrayed the reality, this tyrant would not give up easily, he was used to getting his own way. He looked into the eyes of his enemy, this was the kind who would challenge everything Conan had. Who would be satisfied with nothing less. Was Conan looking evil in the face?

The mwene nodded, Conan took that as a signal. The mwene had dismissed him. As if he had eyes at the back of his head, Conan twisted round. The end of the yoke smashed a guard in the face. Hard, he went down, blood pouring. Reacting faster than the guards, he twisted the other way. The other yoke end smacked into another guard’s head, cracking him on the side of his skull With such force, the guard was catapulted to the side. Going down. But the twist had made Conan vulnerable. The mutapa’s long club caught him across his lower back. A smack of ebony thudded hard across his back, pounded pain the length of his backbone. Sudden pain ricocheted Conan upwards, arching his back. Into the smack of the club into the back of his skull. Conan tottered forward, pain burst in this head, a fog blurred his vision. More guards rushed forward, grabbed the advantage, gripped him by the yoke, by the time his head was starting to clear they were already pulling him forward, out of the chamber towards the door. Conan twisted in the yoke like fury, trying to escape the grip, fighting to shake them off their hold on his restraints. Determined to fight his way back the other way, back to the dais - and kick that mwene to death. Even if that was his last move in life. But more hands contemptuously shoved Conan the other way, jostling him roughly towards the door, the mwene’s henchmen close around to keep him under control.

To the grunts of effort and the barbarian’s cursing behind, the mutapa fixed his eyes on the mwene. Looking to his commander seated on his dais. Nothing was said, it was not necessary. The mutapa knew his duty, he had his means. The mutapa was tasked to deal with any breach of discipline, his club to hand. The unspoken message was clear. Without even nodding to accept the silent order, the mutapa scowled at the two guards that had been floored. His silent anger at their incompetence driving them to their feet. Racing to catch up with the captive. One wiped his hand over a bloody nose as he went.

As the doors were opened for them, though, again Conan forced himself to twist himself around, strongly taking his guards unaware. His arms out-stretched in his yoke unbalancing one, jamming him back into the wall.“... That plan of yours ....” Conan shouted over his shoulder into the chamber, he raised his head haughtily and addressed the mwene at the other end.“ ... one flaw. Conan does not beg.”He never finished the words. The mutapa’s club stabbed Conan straight in the gut. End-first, the hard-wood smacked Conan right in the middle of the belly. With such force Conan started to double-up. Man-handled and twisted round, pushed and shoved as he tried to get his breath, jostled out of the door.

Hands shoved at him. Thumps and punches pushing the insolent scumbag out of the chamber. Shoving roughly at the hope of the people, the mighty stuff of legends. The muscular might that had kept the people’s hopes alive. Jostled and bumped, eager to shut the brute up, shoved out of the door. Propelled out of the chamber where he had dared challenge the mwene’s right.The doors banged tight. Suddenly, a blow caught the struggling Conan in the back of the knee. Needing to prove himself, Bloody-nose had jarred his foot hard into the leg of the arrogant slave. Fuelled by his shame, his kick propelled the unsuspecting prisoner tumbling forward. More messy shoves from the grips on the yoke send the

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Sacred treesucker flying, pitching him down on his front. Blows leapt at him. Trapped by the yoke stretching out his arms, unable to turn over or move, no means of defence. Pinned to the ground by the barrage of boots stomping onto his back. Jarred by kicks booted into his side. Shouts of righteous anger paying the scumbag for his insolence.

Conan had taken many a kicking, he had always survived. This too he’d endure. But no chance to fight back, not a chance to defend himself, stretched out on the stone floor. Forced onto his front in the yoke. Helplessly pinned down. Kicks pounded, boots landed. In his back, into his sides. Slowly the kickings slowed. As their anger felt appeased. A few half-hearted blows thumped into his sides. A farewell foot jarred Conan in his backbone. Teaching the dog to respect the mwene’s might.

Conan lay, on his front, arms spread out in the yoke, catching his breath. Sensing a body by his head. Not surprised when a hand twisted in his hair. Grimacing as he was helped to his knees by a pull yanking on his scalp. Pulling his muscled weight up by the hair. Unable to help himself, feeling like the pull would rip the hair out of his head. The mutapa. Standing over him, staring down at his prisoner hauled on his knees. Cold, not fired up with the heat of the fight. Staring into Conan’s eyes. No anger. Just icy determination.

The mutapa yanked the head over to the side. He leant forward, burning his eyes into the dog on his knees. “Seems there is still some fight in you.”Sneering into the dog’s frustration, seeing that the cur had tried to collect spit in his mouth. The brute had tried to gather up some saliva. But his mouth was bone-dry, parched. The mutapa let the swine see his sneer, let the dog know the mutapa could read his thoughts.“Have to do something about that.”

Conan curled his lip.“Other have tried.”His eyes returned to stare. Giving back undaunted defiance.“They failed too.”Conan saw a lightening in the corners of the mutapa’s mouth.“Better men that you.”

The mutapa held Conan by the hair, his skull twisted over on one side, forcing him to stare up out of the corner of his eye.“Maybe they didn’t try hard enough.” The mutapa answered him back, matter-of-fact.The knee kick caught Conan under the chin. Cracking his head backwards. Bones cracked in his neck, the sharp jerk jarred the yoke across his shoulders as his guards tried to hold him firm. The pull in his scalp had not let go. The mutapa yanked him round, staring now full into Conan’s face.“Don’t intend to make that mistake.”

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Sacred tree

Labyrinth

The barging and shoving went on. The punches to his neck, thudding swipes at his back. Like the mutapa’s men could not wait. Like they had piled up months of frustration. Like they could not get it out of their system fast enough. Which they couldn’t, this piss-head had annoyed them more than enough. The sight of him helpless grew a greed for his cries in their manly groins. The temperature rose as the chill of the air settled on Conan’s bare arms. Conan’s temper fought them back. Using his strength to shove them off. Using his guile to suddenly stop and crack the yoke into a head. Using his weight to barge a guard to earth. He paid for his insolence, he paid with punishing blows to his back. The heat from his efforts mixing with the reddening flesh that endured their bitter blows. The path through the tunnels was long and twisted. Getting cooler as they descended, getting more chilled, breath starting to plume. Conan lost all sense of direction. He’d escaped from captivity often enough. But finding the way out of this labyrinth would be hard. As the mutapa intended.

It was more a cave where they brought him. Waiting to receive him, thick chains already hanging down from the roof. Soon his legs were trapped, chains on his shackles stretching out to rings hammered into the cold rock floor. Watching as from above a creaking wheel brought down the thick chains. Unbreakable shackles clamped on his wrists before releasing him from the yoke. The mwene had his ideas for this dog, he had no plan for the scum to escape.For Conan this was all too familiar, he’d been imprisoned like this before, thrown into dungeons in chains. Clamped in shackles, beaten, trying to break him. For him they held no dread. And he made every move against him a challenge. Shoving back, fighting against their grip, taking hard blows to his neck for his audacity. Besides, he knew they wanted him executed. Not killing him now, - in two days’ time. To be shamed before the people he had inspired. In two days’ time. This cave was not the place or time to die. The mutapa had other plans for now.

By the time they had his feet in the leg chains, Conan had sized them up, these soldiers, the mwene’s men. But like soldiers everywhere they could always be bought. And Conan knew where a stash of gold was kept. Just needed to find the chance.The mutapa, though, Conan suspected he was something else. He kept discipline over his men by force. By the threat of brute force, - he was powerfully built. The way he wore his tunic, deliberately betraying the strength in his shoulders, exposing the power in knotted arms. And he ruled over these men by force of his temper, Conan could tell they feared him, the way they jumped immediately to his orders, they fell over each other to please. Keen not to incur his wrath.

He had been watching the dog being trapped in these chains. Leaning back observing against the cave wall, arms folded knotted across a powerful chest. Watching every move, watching the slave for every sign when he resisted. Getting a measure of the man. Nodding approval when his men punished the dog for his fight again. Giving off from that cold wall an animosity that mixed duty with greed. Greed to see this cur crying out in torment. When they’d got their prisoner in his shackles, the yoke removed, the mutapa gestured, with a nod of his head he ordered them to stand back. Staying leaning back, his eyes rooted, a long hard stare. Sizing up the prisoner, hands in thick shackles by the side of his head, unable to help himself. Unable to hit back.Seeing this feeble attempt at intimidation, Conan return the stare in kind. Inviting the confrontation. A battle of the wills. He planned for only one man to come out of this on top.

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Sacred tree

The mutapa sauntered over. Easily. In charge. Standing right in front, his gaze eating up the slave in his bonds. “The shirt.”The mutapa merely gestured with his head, footsteps eagerly approached. A number of heavy tugs on the thick homespun top had it ripped away. But Conan was not to be tempted, his eyes never left off the fight. The crucial battle was happening in front. Burning up the space between their eyes, the battlefield on which the pair waged a war of wills. Two implacable foes locked in a pre-combat struggle for the upper hand. The mutapa showed he was in no hurry to examine the manly power the stripping had exposed. To assess the strength he meant to break, - knowing there was more to break here than flesh and bone. Breathing slow, looking relaxed. His gaze boring through into Conan’s mind. Seeking weakness. Finding only rebelliousness. Expecting nothing less.

Stripping him was all about putting him down. This long delay was meant to intimidate. All of this was about putting Conan down. None of this held any surprise, in this there was nothing Conan did not expect. Nothing of this kind was going to work. The cold air settled shivering on his bare skin, Conan made the effort not to feel it, not to show it - in case the mutapa might read that as fear. He had been in the clutches of oafs like these often enough to know. He had been a pain in their backside for months - they were going to pay him back, tables-turned he’d do the same. Pulling himself up to his full height, he showed them spirit, not daunted by their threats or chains - this mutapa was going to know who he was dealing with. There was here the usual problem, that problem of lesser men being provoked by his size, - experience said that would always play a part. Oafs like these had to have him in constraints so he couldn’t let them have it, - like this, they were going to go for him, they not be able to stop themselves. Cowards like these - they got off on sensing the trapped helplessness of true warriors like him. From such spinelessness they got their hard-on’s. A build and spirit like his was red-rag to a bull.

But with the mutapa it was more than a fight over strength, this was a battle of wills. And Conan suspected his new foe had other tricks in his armoury. So Conan had gained a new adversary. He had expected to face-down the mwene, he had been locking swords with his forces for months, the mwene was going to exact every bit of payback he could squeeze out of Conan. Personal and professional revenge mixed. But now this other factor had come on the scene, the mutapa. The mwene’s henchman but a man who also seemed driven by more than his duty.

That explanation did not take long. Conan was gripped by the jaw, firmly, like saying Conan had eyes for only one man, his master, the mutapa.“This assignment ... your punishment .. it came to me as a reward. For services to the mwene.”Conan returned his stare. He listened. Not bothering to shake himself free of the grip. That would mean he was sufficiently offended to try. Conan’s gesture telling he did not care, this mutapa did not count for anything. No need to swat away a fly.“And it came as a gift from the gods.”Conan heard the arsehole hesitate - for dramatic effect.“They know ... I have good cause. Reason to see this task through to the end.”

Again the long pause for effect formed a scornful thought in Conan’s head. And ....?“Lost wife, lost my son in a raid. Innocent people riding for safety with the pack train. For protection from your rabble.”Conan saw the connection. Personal.“Cut to pieces. Unrecognisable. Unarmed women and children.”And what ....? Conan was supposed to feel sympathy? What about the hundreds

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Sacred treethese tyrants had enslaved? Murdered. Tortured to death.“That’s war. People die.” Conan answered the mutapa’s loss. Shrugging his shoulders. Showing contempt.Conan had seen men slashed to pieces, agonisingly tortured to death. Young men even now were enduring a lingering death in the mines, coughing up blood with their guts. His friends were headed there too, young Drax included. No sympathy.

The mutapa nodded. Sagely. Seeming unmoved by the prisoner’s indifference.“They do. They did.”His face still impassive. But a coldness bristled on the mutapa’s flesh. More than the chill in the air. Speaking to his soldiers.“Lift.”The wheel began to creak.

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Sacred tree

Too much fight ....

The temperature had lifted. Because it had taken no time for Conan to realise this was some kind of rack. The chains on his arms were turned on the wheel, pulling up, till his chest was lifting, pulling him to his toes as the chains scraped across the floor. The realisation that the torture was about to begin had his heart beating, the heat on his flesh battling with the chill of the air.“Enough.”The mutapa had the pulling stopped when Conan was stretched to his tiptoes.The grab at Conan’s jaw this time was harder, squeezing.“You said something about loss .... ?”Conan was not going to ingratiate himself by repeating himself.“This is personal, scum,” the mutapa scowled. “Ever have reason to doubt it ... just try me.”

Suddenly the mutapa’s hand surprised him, grabbing in his hair and yanking the head over to one side. Forced to look into his adversary’s snarl. “Got a mouth on you, barbarian.”The mutapa had started tapping his ebony club against the hardness of Conan’s chest. “Too much mouth.”Staring hard into his prisoner’s face.“Gotta do something about that.”The club had moved again, now scratching noisily in the thick stubble of Conan’s cheek, down from the ear and scraping noisily off Conan’s chin.Still trapped by the hair, forced into the mutapa’s scowl, Conan just returned his look, defiant. His eyes said it all, Others had tried.“The mwene has decided. The day of celebrations. The day you die.”If you expected to see a shadow of fear pass over my face, prick, - thought Conan - you’ll have a long wait. He had known the prospect of death countless times, death for Conan brought no new fears.

The man had taken to stalking. Walking around his prisoner, stripped to the waist, stood stretched to his toes on the rock earth, hands trapped in shackles high above his head. A battle of wills, Conan reminded himself. Between him and the mwene. Now fought between himself and this mutapa. Conan had gained a new foe. The battle against these oppressors was lost but not the war. The fight still went on, Conan was not a man to be beaten, - not when it came to facing-down weaklings like these.The mutapa was behind, Conan felt the tip of his punishment club touch between his crushed shoulders, Felt it trace itself slowly down his backbone. But in this war of wills he did not twist round, Conan could not afford to turn and face his enemy behind. That might be read as anxiety, nervousness. He stood disdainful, eyes-front, conscious of the hurt that stick could do if thwacked into his backbone. But still facing front, defying his adversary with the contempt of his strong muscled back.“Lift.”.

Again the creak of a rusty wheel turning. Again Conan felt the bar haul on the chains on his arms, lifting them, pulling up his chest, stretching his stomach, his extended toes now leaving the floor.“Fight. Too much fight in you still.”Conan gasped. Unseen, from behind, the thwack had thudded into the side of his thigh. A blow into hard muscle. But still the surprise had shocked him.“Can't have that.”The club was now stroking a warning against the bruised thigh. Conan prepared

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Sacred treehimself for more.“Not when you appear before the rabble. Not when they come and bid their failed champion farewell.”And just the reason why Conan could not afford to let them beat him. The people would see their champion die. But they not see him cringe, they had put their faith in him, they’d not see their hope of freedom broken. His dying would send out a message, a different one from the mwene’s plan. That the spirit of freedom could not be broken so easily, the fight still went on.“More.”The wheel creaked, the chains pulled Conan higher. He’d been punished like this, Conan knew the pain of being suspended off the floor, he’d been made to stand it for hours, his whole musculature dragging strain through the sinews of his arms, the gnawing pain as hanging clawed its path through his joints. But he’d survived before, he’d survive again.“Too much fight. Gotta do something about that.”The thwack landed in just the same spot, right on the reddened mark burning on Conan’s thigh. But now his legs had been pulled open by the stretch, the chains on his feet pulling wide-open his thighs. The hard blow on the widespread thigh broke in a grunt from Conan’s throat.

“Others have tried.”Conan spat contempt out on the tail-ends of his grunt of pain. “They failed too.”Close behind him Conan heard a snort. Countering his contempt with the mutapa’s derision.“More.”The snarled order got the wheel creaking, widening his legs even more, opening his thighs till they were stretched beyond shoulder-width. Conan knew the vulnerability of this position. He could hang here a long time. But in his experience there was usually only one reason why his enemies had opened up his defencelessness like this.“Maybe.”Conan sensed the mutapa close behind, close by his back.“Maybe though they didn’t try hard enough.”

It wasn’t that Conan planned on becoming a martyr for Drax’s people. It was the pride, - like hell was he going to be beaten by cowards like these. As Conan suspected, he felt the mutapa’s club touch up against his backside. It moved. Moved downwards, tracing the line of his opened crack till the tip was tapping through the loincloth at the entrance to his back passage. “Others have tried that too,” Conan sneered.He was still clothed there but the mutapa’s move was symbolic, Conan’s voice was laced with warning.“They lived to regret it too.”Conan spoke slowly. Deliberately. “Slaughtered. Every one of them.”Keeping any trace of nervousness out of his tone. Like saying, Been there, done that. Nothing to fear in that trick either.“Not one of them breathing still.”There was a heavy silence. As if the mutapa was absorbing the threat.“Drop.”It was practised, they done this before. Just one short downward jerk before the chain gripped Conan again. Suddenly dropping his weight downwards. Abruptly feeling the tip of the club jar against his arsehole. The club held in anticipation of his fall. Held firm. Jamming itself at the entrance.In shock Conan pulled on his arms, he lifted himself upwards, yanking himself off the attempt to penetrate his arse. Hanging off the power of his arms. Pulling with the might of his shoulders. And regretting his automatic move, his foolish response. The

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Sacred treedrop had been symbolic, the loincloth still intervened. But Conan had given in to his instincts, he had let this coward think he had shown a sign of weakness.

“Can't have that.”The mutapa was still behind, Conan could feel the heat of his excitement glowing against his own bare back.“Can’t have the barbarian going on a rampage. Slaughtering. Can we?”No warning this time. The bastard must have just nodded. But the drop was longer. And the grip on the club even tighter. Jarring upwards. Jamming the tip of the club hard into Conan’s entrance. Again instinct won. Conan yanked himself back up, pulling his stretched backside off the threat to invade his arse.“Can't have that at all.”

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Sacred tree

Cat and mouse

The mutapa was playing cat-and-mouse. Raising and dropping the chains. He’d kept toying with Conan’s strength of will, promising to rape Conan’s backside with his club repeatedly. Sometimes rewarded by the sight of Conan trying to save himself. Sometimes laughing in mock admiration when Conan manage to resist the temptation. Not for any reason, just to annoy the shithead.“Too much god-damned spunk.”The mutapa had returned to the front to mock Conan’s still defiant glare. Sliding his club in a light rubbing motion on Conan’s thigh. Massaging the bruise from the blows he had thwacked into stretch-hardened muscle. Massaging and warning at the same time.“Can't have the barbarian going up before the rabble with all that spunk.”

Conan snorted back in derision.“You reckon you have any choice?”The mutapa’s lips pursed. Like he was giving the idea some thought.“Like I said, Others have tried it too.” Conan continued, he sneered his contempt for this man who thought he could do better.Conan still hung off the chains, legs still splayed by the pull on his feet. Vulnerable to attack. Expecting any moment to see the blur of attack as the black club swiped through the air and whooshed upwards between his legs. He still burned from that earlier punch. Not something to enjoy, he knew that from experience. But he doubted the mutapa meant him to have any use for that equipment again.

“Like I said too, Maybe they weren’t trying hard enough.” The mutapa was keeping up his threats, making the shitbag prisoner to his taunts.Conan just laughed back in his face. Knowing the others certainly had tried their damned best all right.“Don’t intend to make the same mistake.”Conan’s lip curled in response. “You’ll not live to see that day,” he taunted. A mocking smirk painted his mouth.

“The mwene has set the date. When. How. Where. Your dying - a deterrent. Dying in pain. Extreme pain.”Contemptuous Conan wondered what the man thought he was getting out of repeating himself. Like he still thought he could wring out of him some sign of fear with keeping talking about Conan meeting his end. Hadn’t Conan made himself plain?“The day of celebration.” The mutapa paused. As if thinking. Then nodding to himself. Like he’d worked it out.“That’s a night. Plus a whole day. And another night.”Conan got the message.“Long enough,” the mutapa was nodding to himself. Warning Conan at the same time.“Enough to knock the spunk out of you.”The club made its move. Like a snake attacking. Faster than Conan could react. But there was no defence. Not to an upward strike clubbed hard into his balls.

The cry could not be stopped. The glory of the mighty bull struck at the heart of his pride. Surprised, taken by the shock, Conan yelled out at the extreme pain. The air burst into a sweat, a hot sweaty cry of manly pain. Bouncing off the bare rock walls.

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Sacred treeThe force crushed manly pride into Conan’s body. Flattened in a burst of hurt. The pain yanked on the shackles around his wrists, shocked pulled him upright. In some vain hope of escape. Then it dropped him again, the noise of thick chains rattled, vying to light up the air, contesting with the echo of his cry.

The mutapa contented himself with the sounds. With the bawl, with the cursing. The pain between the rebel’s legs had taken the strength out of him. He’d ordered the scum dropped to his feet. The mutapa knew how much it cost a man like this to be unable to stand proud on his own two feet. To be robbed of his defiance by that agony eating him up in the crutch. Dropped suddenly so his legs did not take his weight. Forced into slumping, legs folded underneath. Managing not to betray his hurt by further sounds, teeth clenched, jaws crushed. But betraying harm by the helplessness of his once-mighty legs, revealing that the hurt in his beaten balls was eating the bastard alive.

The agony withdrew, the pain did not ease. Conan slowly forced himself up, till he was standing on his own two feet again. Legs together, his screeching balls not longer so open to attack. But the mutapa still contented himself with reminding Conan of his pain. Placing his ebony weapon over Conan’s limp cock and stroking it backwards and forwards, smirking into his angry watery glare. Pressing that black punishment stick against the agony of Conan’s cock, massaging it backwards and forwards over the heavy loincloth. Then giving it a rest, letting his victim feel the prickle of getting aroused. Despite the beating, despite the agony, feeling arousal, aroused by his enemy. Being made to feel the first signs, his body moved by his enemy. Before the mutapa again began the slow massage of his punishment club along the shaft. Repeating himself, going through the cycle. Letting the barbarian know that the mutapa had control over every bit of his body, - even that part which made him the man he was. Stroked into the beginnings of arousal, got going by the very club that had hammered him in the balls.

Conan reminded himself, this was all about putting him down. So what if he got a hard-on? In its full glory it could give the suckers something to talk about over their beers. Nothing to be worried about there. He calmed himself. This was the only humiliation before the real beatings began. But such moves only humiliated if Conan lent a hand, it was only humiliating if he let it be.

“Two nights. One day, To knock the fight out of a barbarian.”A new fire in the mutapa’s eyes said it all, he’d go for it every minute. He’d squeeze every bit of pain out of each-and-every move.Conan nodded sagely. Like doing the calculation for himself.“Others have tried. You can only do your best.”The mutapa’s eyes lit up even more.“Oh, I will.”Conan never got out his mocking reply, Think you’re good enough?

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Sacred tree

Blinded

The mutapa got the shitbag. Right in the nuts. Before Conan got his gibe out. The mutapa’s punch took Conan in the balls. A blow into manly pride already hurting from the evil kick from an ebony club. A blow that hit out with the speed of an attacking cobra. Catching the victim completely off-guard. Bending Conan up in shock. The bawl of pain ripping open his jaw. The jaw that burst again in an explosion of pain when the fist followed through and jarred Conan’s head backwards, nearly toppling him backwards off his feet. Suddenly something caught Conan across the mouth. A shock, taken by surprise. A split second later something was slicing across Conan’s open mouth. His head was tugged even further back, thin leather cord was cutting into the sides of his mouth. A cutting constriction tore across the corners of his mouth. Pain pinched into his cheeks, followed by a tight pulling in the back of his head.

“Like I said ....,” Conan was cursing and still flailing his head against the surprise attack. “ ..... Gotta do something about that mouth of yours.”When his head was released, Conan swore. Gagged. A muffled idiotic curse spluttered through the tight gag silencing his mouth. Crushing his tongue. Conan kept his head down, knowing better, forcing himself to calm down. Cursing himself for being caught out, vehemently cursing this mutapa to burn in the fires of a living hell. Conan panted for breath, his head hung down as he heaved in calming air. Filled his pained-emptied chest with life restoring air. And cursing at the tightness of the gag that was cutting across his mouth. Cursing that he’d let himself be taken unawares. Sawing with his head. As if that was somehow going to loosen the gag that was cutting into the sides of his mouth. But keeping his head down, hiding his face till he had control over his emotions, in charge enough to give back the mutapa like-for-like. Calm enough to give off his hatred by the fire in his eyes.

Looking down he saw the tip of the club caressing his front. Tracing its path down Conan’s ribs. Conan was reminded of the speed of that attack. Knowing that he had no defence against a blow there into his chest. He’d take the pain, he’d have to give back the hurt.“Too much fight. Too much spunk.”The tip of the ebony stick was tickling over the rocks of hard muscle framed under the ribs. Tapping gently, meaningfully, meant to be menacing. A tapping that in the blink of an eye could turn the punishment stick into a punch that penetrated through to his guts. Smacked agonised innards crushed into his backbone.,Defiant, burning with hate, Conan did not grace the mutapa’s mocking words with lifting his head and glaring into his adversary’s taunts.“Too much mouth. Had to do something about that.”Conan kept his head down. But cursing the bastard. Too full of himself.

Conan cursed away to himself, caught unawares, watching the club descend over his belly, stroking at the loincloth as it went, downwards to the fiery aches that had been set to blistering flames by the mutapa’s fist. Conan cursed, the mutapa had indeed already done something about his mouth. No more taunting and scorn. But the least Conan could do was to curse with his eyes, his glare could still warned the mutapa of the man he was dealing with.

The club end brushed over Conan’s limp cock, the tip found Conan’s nuts, the threat nuzzled at the burn in his balls. A reminder of the speed with which this man could burst into attack. A confirmation of that gnawing ache that chewed at Conan’s crutch. A promise of further pain to come.

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Sacred treeWarning Conan raised his head. His eyes on fire with warning, looking straight into the mutapa’s toying smirk. The menace in Conan’s stare reminding that others had tried to break him. None had managed yet.

“You’ve a mouth on you, dog,” the mutapa cursed. “Best you practise keeping it shut!” He laughed, the dog dared laugh at Conan’s anger.Conan shook his head. Saying with his every defiant move that he refused, that was definitely not going to be. His fiery eyes promising a threat on the mutapa’s life.The mutapa laughed back in Conan’s face. He dared mock.“You think you can curse me with that look?”

Before his words were finished, something went over Conan’s head. Coarse and scratchy, it rubbed against his face. The world went black, his sight disappeared. “Mock me with that look?”Conan swore. Knowing a hood had been thrown over his face. Conan sawed with his head, he swung his head around to dislodge the bag. Feeling as he did the cord tightening around his neck, holding the hood in place. Gagged, bagged. Deprived of sight, robbed of his speech. Unable to see, not able to curse these bastards to everlasting hell. Angry at being fooled, letting himself be taken unawares, wildly in his temper shaking his arms in their chains. But knowing his anger would not avail. This was well planned, exercised. Not a single order had passed the mutapa’s lips. His men had known what to do.Just as Conan felt the pull of the chains, lifting him further. Again no order, the mutapa’s men were turning the wheel without Conan hearing them being given the word. To the crank of a rusty wheel Conan’s feet were lifting off the ground. His legs were being pulled apart, as their chains on his ankles claimed him back down to the earth. The cruel stretching of Conan’s body began.

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Sacred tree

Time and torment

He hurt, he hurt like hell. He had been tortured before. But hard crushing blows to his balls was as bad as it came. Even if he had told himself his fucking days were done. There was a pain like nothing else from a hard thwacking to the balls. A pain that persisted long after the blow, that burned, that flared unaccountably into flames. It hurt, it went on hurting. But Conan swore into that pain, he swore he’d not let these bastards win. He was being singled out it seemed. It was him they wanted broke. Conan was the focus of their attention, they were going to knock the fight out of him before he went to face the people.He hung. In stretched rigidity. The cold of the air fighting with the heat on his bare skin. Tense, waiting, knowing. Yet one thought plagued him, despite every hair on his bare torso prickling to anticipate their next move, one thought would not let him be. Him. Him and only him, the mwene was going for only him. Did that mean they did not know? Did they not know that they also had the rightful prince in their hands? Drax was languishing in some dungeon somewhere. Maybe already dispatched down to the mines. To be worked to his death. But still alive. Still capable to escape - with the help of Conan’s best men. Did these bastards not know? Surely if they did, Drax would be here instead. OK, so Conan would die. But they’d not break him. The legend would still live on, the fable of the great hope for freedom would survive. And with it the hope that Drax might manage an escape - there was a real chance that the fight would still go on. The war was not yet lost.It was a plan, maybe not much of a plan. But there was no defeat, - not yet. All that was needed was for that bitch Fate to look the other way for a change. And for a good dose of luck. There was still a chance to put one over on these bastards. Conan through his dying could keep the flames of hope alive.

The pulling had stopped. Conan had switched senses. Conan was racked to the extremes. His arms pulled up tight, his belly stretched, taut, vulnerable to that ebony attack. His legs tight out-stretched, his balls again open to some underhand assault. No defence. He could not see. Instead he fought to hear. His ears pricked for the sounds of men moving around. Feeling the turn of the wheel pull upwards his arms, feeling the leg irons stretch his feet out the other way. But he’d heard nothing. Just the rusty crank of the wheel. Conan was surrounded by hostility, men who got paid to extract his pain. He was in the hands of a mutapa who had lost family. Who blamed Conan for his loss. And now he was hanging in their dungeon, fully stretched-out, legs and arms. Anticipating, waiting. Left listening, trying to hear the slightest warning sound. To prepare himself mentally, for blows he could not defend himself against. Inside the hood, the heat rose, the trickles of sweat gave witness to an understandable unease. But nothing. Nothing at all. All was still. As if they had left him. But Conan was certain they had not.

He hung long in silent suspense. He hung in the chillness of this cave, a hood forbidding him sight. Even a gag robbing him of the power to shout out and trick his enemies into betraying their position. He hung in physical tension, strain telling in his armpits, pulling at his belly. He hung in mental stress, wondering when, anticipating how they’d come for him. Listening, listening like some wounded prey knowing the predator is near. Listening like its life depended on it. Tension built into his every muscle. Every pore in his body primed for attack at any unguarded moment. Listening, though he knew his life did not depend on it. Yet every warrior instinct warned to be ready for imminent attack. Yet nothing, attentive through every hair on his bare flesh that prickled to sense out warning signs, Conan detected nothing. It was like he’d been hung out in this

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Sacred treestraining X, then abandoned, then left all alone. Body pulled upwards, body pulled down. No defence, crutch exposed, torso vulnerable. Left with just his strength of will left to stand up to these oppressors. Hung like that for a seeming eternity. Hung like a beef carcase but a living human carcase. Left for the crippling strains to take possession of his body. Abandoned till the pull in his joints turned to screeching pain. Yet knowing this would not be, time only seemed to stand still. Knowing he was not alone. Knowing that soon an attack would come.

Afterwards, after the mutapa had satisfied his lusts in those endless beatings, forced back in his freezing cell, Conan questioned whether his life had gone wrong. Afterwards, taken by a sombreness of mood, in that endless sleepless night. Shivering with the cold. Burning up from the beatings, unable to sleep from the fires that raged in every muscle. More than once in the past campaign he’d asked himself, Had Conan gone soft? Had getting more mature addled his brain? Conan had done everything in his life. He’d been shit-poor, he’d had riches beyond his dreams. More than once he’d been taken captive and sold into slavery. Beaten and abused. He’d also been the leader of men, he’d ruled a kingdom, with a harem of women from which to choose. Mercenary, pirate. Brigand and king. He’d done everything in his time. Only he’d never done routine. He’d never committed to anything other than his own destiny. All for one, Conan.

The stretched waiting had gone on forever, time really had stood still. Shocked, suddenly he cried out. A blow thwacking him across his belly. Across the softness of his waist. Strong of muscle, hard in might. Yet exposed, stretched. Too much of a temptation for the mutapa’s evil to resist. Just one blow. But hard, breathtakingly hard. Taking even the tension-ready torso by surprise. Conan was coughing, his body shaking in its suspended stretch. Confirming, - he was not alone. Telling him how vulnerable in his blindness he was. Then nothing, nothing again hit him, no follow-through, no second punishing blow. Just an endless waiting. Till cruelty struck again.

In the blackness of his pain, dumped again to freeze in his cell, Conan shivered through a sleepless night. Always he had abhorred routine. Why then for years now had he tutored young Drax? How had that happened? How the hell had he got himself here? Stay in one place for years? When had that happened before? Aching from the heavy beatings and the blows to his pride, Conan had lain on the earth in his cell, shivering from the pains and sweating in the chill air. First the lure of gold had kept him tutoring Drax, the offer of endless easy payment to stay in this place. Till the attack, till the conquest, till circumstances had led Conan into heading a rebellion. Leading finally to this capture - as maybe he’d known all along that time would come. Captured and sentenced to death. How had he let himself get into this? A seemingly hopeless rebellion against a mighty conqueror, leading an insurgency of a weakened people against a well-armed and aggressive foe. A fight destined to lose. Yet in truth, it had been a good fight, they had kept the enemy running, they had stayed one step ahead. Just as ruthless, just as fearless.They had not lost, they had fought a hard fight, they had harried, they had hustled. Never taking the enemy on face-to-face. Hitting when they least expected. Attacking where the enemy were weak. Even more ruthless than the aggressors themselves.

Thwacked across his lower back. Out of the blue, out of a heavy deathlike silence, a crippling thud into his backbone. A blow so hard it meant to send the torso swinging. But stretched so tight, nowhere for the pain to go. An eternity since the last blow. Playing with him, toying with him, cat-and-mouse. Knowing he could not stay all the time on full alert. Relying on the fact that at some point his mind would drift. Pain

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Sacred treewent ricocheting up his backbone. Exploding inside in Conan’s guts. Crackles of sharp pain sizzling down his legs.

Conan reacted angrily, to being fooled, to being toyed with. Playing him. Unexpectedly going for him. Then again nothing, a heavy silence filled the cave. A long silence, a longer delay. Because it was only the silence before they came for him again. Conan pricking his senses to pick up any warning sign. Hearing none. The tension of needing to track his attacker building in his blood. Needing to anticipate him in order to fool him. The anger at letting himself be caught off guard pumping in his ear. Now there was a hand, in his mind’s eye Conan saw the bastard mutapa mauling him. Not now with a sudden thump from the club. Taunting his helplessness, a hand behind stroking finger tips across the sweaty breadth of his shoulder blades. Instinctively Conan twitched himself, trying to shake himself free of the bastard’s touch.

Reflecting afterwards, it was clear, Conan had trapped himself, he had found a cause. Conan had never known a cause. Only money had interested him, gold and wealth. He’d found himself, he’d found himself loved. Adored by the oppressed. Adored because his resolve not to give in gave them hope, Conan had let himself be flattered. His victories kept alive a hope. A hope that could remain steadfast, - even when the oppressor took reprisals and sent fifty more young men to their lingering deaths in the mines. Conan had never needed others, he’d always fought alone, he lived for himself. Being adored as the hero of the people, - he’d succumbed to the flattering. Not some ancient legend of which old men had woven tales around the campfire. Conan had become a living champion. Heart and soul of the people’s hope. For whom young men would sacrifice their lives.

Shit! In his stretch, he had not shaken off the mauling shithead. Undaunted Conan saw the mutapa’s hands still mocking him, a finger tracing its path slowly down Conan’s backbone. Stopping at each bone. Slicking in the sweat of Conan’s strain. A painfully slow pawing of Conan’s proud spirit. Mocking him, laughing at his helplessness. Stretched so tight, impossible to shake himself free of this taunting of his pride. The enemy’s hand laughing at him. Making him rage, making his anger sing. Playing his emotions with a mocking hand.

All that love and flattery had crystallised in the form of Drax. Spoiled brat turned eager pupil turned able leader of his people. All the work of Conan, paid in dutiful worship by Drax. Conan had never had family, he’d had his women, some of them lasting for weeks. But the hero-worship of a younger brother, having someone bursting to learn every trick Conan had acquired in a murky life. Learning with worshipping admiration Conan’s every dirty trick. Proud when Drax grew strong in his mentor’s shadow, strong enough to hold his own - such things had been alien to Conan. That had been Conan’s weakness, that genuine love of one man for another that had kept him here. When the conquerors had crushed their army, the old Conan would have walked away. When his paymaster could no longer pay. Conan had stayed. That love for Drax had kept him there. Conan had not gone soft. He’d found himself.

The annoying mocking hand had persisted. Stroking at Conan’s backside, pawing at his arse. Done to anger him, Conan knew. He made himself not react, he forced himself in control. He was playing into the bastard’s hand every time he had shaken off the mauling fingers. Being played for a fool. For all his pride, for all his anger, he could not shake off the mutapa’s groping. For all the legendary might and fearless courage Conan was going to have to take all of this. Knowing they thought that all it took to get him riled was a toying finger sliding down his backbone. Because they believed there was nothing Conan could do to stop any of this.

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Sacred treeThere was. Conan relaxed, he let it happen. He could be pawed but he could not be provoked. His emotions could not be played.

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Sacred tree

Tortured souls

Another interminable pause had dragged on, tension in every pore. Gone for now the groping hand, for an enduring tense agony no attacks. Conan began feeling a satisfaction that the mutapa had given up on that game, his refusal to rise to the taunting had been working. Feeling, though, the presence of evil lurking in the room, waiting, holding back. Conan imagined the mutapa not enjoying the frustration that his prisoner could not be riled. Conan pictured the bastard, he could see the craving weakening in his breeches. The evil on his face that had fed the strength in his groin slowly turning limp with frustration.

Inside the hood the heat had soared, sweat flowed off his hair, the foul air made it hard to breathe. Outside a silence enveloped him. A silence heavy with hostility, thick with threat but betraying nothing, no warning signs. Conan sensed the menace shivering all around him, chill on his sweating skin. A creepy nothingness of a battlefield a day later, the eerie whispering of the dead silenced forever. A thick shroud of impending peril trembled around. An air unbreathed, foul with the stench of death and fiends. Utter silence, abandonment. But Conan had been around such types often enough, they’d not abandon him. The lust to have power over his helplessness would not let them be. Conan suspected that mutapa would not let it go so easily, he’d have to keep playing the game, still toying with his prisoner’s helplessness, till he had total power over his captive. The craving to be hard in his breeches would be egging him on. Getting excited at keeping his victim in suspense, suspended, vulnerable, taut in every nerve. This playing with time and torment getting the mutapa in the crutch. Deliberately torturing himself, tormenting his hard-on by holding himself back. Conan understood the eagerness to hurt. Knowing how the sight of himself stretched and vulnerable would prickle in a sadist’s balls. The mutapa playing with his own emotions by delaying the attacks. That mixture of eagerness and frustration working in his groin. Forcing himself into that punishing control would be driving power into the force bulging in the bastard’s breeches. Tormenting himself, an enemy so exposed, getting to him, getting him hard in the dick. Building into an aggressive hardness, a hard-on of cruelty. In his mind’s eye Conan saw the mutapa silently stalking, crossing in front from left to right. His eyes burning into this victim torso, eating up the thrill of the shock to be beaten out of that powerful belly. Every step torture for him, every moment he did not lash out anguish, every resistance not to lash out torment. The power in his breeches becoming almost irresistible. And every time he did resist the mutapa was rewarded by the pain-pleasure of frustration. A pleasure that burst with consuming power each time it was released. The reward of Conan’s pain, the mutapa’s prize the burst of shock when the club again found its mark. The might in his breeches demanding only more. More. And more. And more.In his head Conan saw it. The stalking, the eagerness. His ears, though, heard nothing.

Pain cracked again across his lower back. Shock sent spasms up his backbone. Pain sliced crackles of rigid pain up his taut arms, clenching his hands together into tight fists. A hard blow. Delivered unsuspected from behind, gift of muscular shoulders. Delivered by a bastard getting off on hearing Conan hurt. Off the rebel who owed them his pain. Hung tautly-suspended, sweat forming on his skin. Hanging here, stretched, exposed. Food for the hardness in the groin.

The mutapa had just watched so far, letting his men do all this the softening-up. The surprise attacks, the shock-blows. The groping of his rebel pride, the sudden twists to his balls. His men not new to beating up the scum they had conquered, not shy about

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Sacred treeflaying the skin off the backs of some rebel taken in battle. But he’d trained them to torment, taught them to love the value of the unexpected, inflict the shock of the unsuspected. He watched, appreciating how diligently they had learned form him. Taking it in turns, unleashing their silent attacks on this unprepared torso. Knowing their teacher was watching them, judging their efforts. Needing to please, needing to show they had learned as he had ordained. Surprise attacks, long passages of anxious tension in-between. This dog that hung stretched into this X of his vulnerability. If they had not kept him so fully stretched, his men would have read the nervousness in the dog’s every pore. Time passed for the scum with agonising slowness when awaiting his next thud of punishment into the body. Knowing he had no defence. Just his stubbornness, just his pride. Assailed by his fears. The fear of how long this punishment would last. The worry of what happened to his pride when his fears could take no more.

He watched his men appreciatively, feeling pride in the skills he had taught. Feeling more the growing twitch to get his hands on this piece of rebel shit, -now that his men had warmed the shithead up. Got his rebel emotions racing, got his fears jumping. The mutapa chose the time was now right, his men had done his bidding, prepared this scum. His time was come, time to placate his own revenge. Leaning against the wall, silence heavy in the chill air, the mutapa impatiently contemplated his task. The barbarian was big. Hauled up like this, the rebel’s muscular presence threatened to dominate this gloomy space. Even hooded, even gagged, even stretched into this vulnerability, his muscle-etched frame seemed a match for the surprise thuds his men dished out.

He observed closely the swine, patiently he breathed in the tension sizzling in this cool underground air. The dog was playing the defiant scum. But the sweat on his torso betrayed he was not invincible. And that the dog knew it. Exposed, the strains on his body gave witness to the nerves jumping in that foul flesh. The mutapa had dealt with big men before. Men who thought all their brawn offered some kind of defence. Often it took little determined effort to persuade them otherwise. That was what he did, the mutapa, that was what the mwene expected of him.Experience had taught, the mutapa was convinced this barbarian was not going to be some easy ride. The brute was big, plenty of hard-muscled brawn to fool him into a self-belief in his invincibility. But there was more, there was a burly toughness that seeped defiant out of his pores. He must have taken a couple of dozen surprise thwacks by now. They hurt, you could see by the way that even a body stretched that tight recoiled and crumpled under the force. The attacks took the oaf by surprise. He blurted out in shock into the gag. But still that torso in all its vulnerability seemed to be egging the mutapa’s men on. As if he was taking this beating as a challenge. Proving to himself how much he was able to take. Showing them too. Snarling at the mutapa’s efforts, sneering that they had not done anything serious to him yet.

The mutapa observed him, patiently. An active act of watching. Thinking, planning, anticipating. Seeing the thick sheen of sweat on the expanse of hairless chest. Not missing a slow trickle down the deep furrow in-between. Slowed in the chill of the air. The bare torso stretched into its inflexible X. Glistening wet with the strain. Gleaming in the torches with the sweat of effort. Shimmering with the tension of anticipation. Tense in the effort of listening out, scenting the next attack. The waistband of its loincloth damp, slung low as the torso was pulled upwards, as the legs were stretched down.

But he was the mutapa, this was what he did. Break tough-heads, bend tough-nuts to the mwene’s will. He was not daunted by some barbarian throwing down the gauntlet, defying the mutapa to come and try his best. He was up for that, he was rarely challenged by the obduracy of tough-assed men. And when one hard-assed prick such as this came along, the mutapa had never been one to run away from the

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Sacred treefight. The barbarian thought he was one tough-ass, did he? Well, the mutapa was just the one to test his hard-assed limits. He had plenty of surprises in his bag of tricks. Who knew, with this barbarian the mutapa might find a few more. But one thing was certain. There could be only one winner. The barbarian wanted to take the mutapa on, did he? He thought himself up for the task? But one thing was a dead cert. The barbarian was not going to enjoy the ride.

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Sacred tree

Clutches

Unexpectedly the mutapa grabbed his victim by the throat. Trapped in the bag, the material damp with the dog’s sweat, gasping at the surprised of the attack, no warning. Saying nothing, just squeezing, crushing the windpipe on the dog. Denying the filth air. Not expecting it to react, though, relying on it denying him that pleasure. Not counting on the dog squirming under his crushing grip as it was strangled. Not expecting the cur to fight for air, this failure to fight as sign as its pig-headed insolence. The filth did not disappoint. It hung, it let itself be choked. As expected, as predicted. The mutapa had read the dog right.He stalked. Silently. He waited. He let time stretch. He allowed fears to grow.

Such straining suspension could not absorb the shock of the blow. A thud from the mutapa’s club hard into the scum’s back. Pain spluttered out in a shocked grunt, burst out of a gagged mouth, splurted into the blackness of an airless hood. The filth’s tight-stretched torso shook, its chains rattled. Shock thwacked out of it by a zealous mutapa. In celebration of a revenge, in a fight in this dungeon that was personal.

Conan seethed at the mocking arms circling his tight-stretched waist. Sliding around his sides, slicking in the sweat of his tension. From behind, Conan felt a body pressed against his. Hands tauntingly sliding around to his front, fingers opening over his straining belly. Hot breath against Conan’s bare and cold-sweat back. Arms meeting in front, hands resting on his loincloth.“No need for this.”The mutapa, his disdainful voice.

He had hunted, he stalked. Stalking this haunted prey. Noiselessly, hounding the scum’s tension on soundless feet. Eyeing the vulnerability as he had glided around the back of the filth. The mutapa’s eyes taking in the carved vulnerability of this suspended stretch. The powerful torso defencelessly caught on his rack. Joints pulled to the extreme. Its once-fearsome strength deeply defined, muscles lengthened, yet its power callously restrained. The formidable physique on this rebel scum completely his to control. But not yet its rebel will, that was the mutapa’s goal. A will to be subjected to torment, mentally tortured by the long bouts of nothing, waiting, tension gnawing away at its strength. This physique was used to action, trained in lashing out, giving vent to feelings. Strain-stretched, lashed by the terrors of this suspense, this stubborn resolve was on uncertain ground when it had no visible foe to fight. No fight to take on, no face to face - just the suspense clawing at his nerves as it trembled in anticipation of the next punishing thwack into is hateful flesh. Against his bare arms the mutapa felt the filth’s discomfort quiver. The stress of the suspense, the endless waiting showing in tremors on its sweated skin. The chill of the air meeting the heat prickling in its nerves.Hanging like some butcher’s carcase, stretched like some vulnerable human X. Near-naked in this chill cave. With no defence. Emphasised by being subjugated to the arm of its enemy circling around its side and gripping on his manhood. Not hard, not punishingly tight, not meaning to hurt. That was not the point, the mutapa was driving home his message. The point that the filth could do nothing, it had no defence. Against anything. Its proud strength, its formidable physique, its ruthless fame as a warrior - it counted for nothing here. The hated muscled hulk hung helplessly rigid, caught powerless on this rack, straining in a stretch between unforgiving chains that yielded no give.

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Sacred tree“A dog has no need of this.”The mutapa breathed his taunt into the scumbag’s bare back. Toyingly the mutapa’s arms were circled around the filth’s waist, his own chest pressed against the filth’s damp back. The touch of his fingers had slicked in the thick viscous sweat of strain. Down over this taut-muscled belly, gliding in the slick of its nerves. From the effort of struggling with the stretch, fighting its nerves. Sweat from holding down its temper. Nothing a man-bull like this hated less than being mauled. Taunted by the contemptuous hands of his enemy groping its flesh, mocking its will. Proof of its defencelessness. Gagged the bull could not curse - it would only sound like an ass. Stretched it could not fight - all that muscular power could not hit back. It could only seethe. Seethe in its frustration and helplessness. The mutapa felt through his toying fingers the tension in the filth’s waist tremble. With hatred, with rage. Sensing a seething heat in that flesh rise.

Hands slipped into the waistband, into the gap caused by its stretch. Fingers extended, pressing down into its belly. Doing nothing, just lying flat, one fingertip feeling the sweat-clogged bristle of its hairs down here. The mutapa’s chest pressed into the filth’s bare back. Like some bitch might embrace the filth lovingly from behind. But no lover, - its enemy. No lustful wench, - its adversary, its torturer. Doing nothing, just resting his hands on the filth’s skin, inside its remaining covering. Letting it know, letting the scumbag know it was possessed. This muscular might was no longer something the scum owned.“No need of this.”

Fingers had come to rest on the cord in front. Toyingly slowly, untying the knot that held the loincloth in place. The heat from the filth’s belly burning against his hand. The flickers of temper meeting the chill of the mutapa’s fingers. Undoing the cord slowly, Feeling the temper rising, sensing the anguish of frustration that raced through the filth’s blood. Craving for the ability to hit back. Something it would be always denied. For as long as the mwene let the filth draw breath.

Letting the cord drop to the floor. Easing his hands into the waistband and pushing the loincloth down. Fingers helping, slicking through the sweat of the filth’s belly, groping into damp pubic hair. Slick with the filth’s heat, damp with its temper. Fingers catching at the limp manhood that hung useless like the rest of the muscled filth.Needing help around the back, the damp loincloth was caught on the tightness of the filth’s arse. Thumbs behind, in the waistband, pushing down, easing the thick homespun clinging to the sweated flesh. Feeling the heat, sensing the tension, the anger of the man trembling in fury against his hands.“Only gets in the way.”

Thumbs pushed into the stinking crack. Their path eased by the cloying sweatiness of its heat. Angering it more, meaningfully pulling its crack wider apart when the thumbs were at its base. Reminding it, the scum had an arsehole. There where the mutapa’s stick had tapped. Where it might come knocking again.

The mutapa toyed with its anger. The loincloth was trapped on the outward pull of the thighs. The bull’s arse was stripped. Its cock half-exposed, limp and lank. Not stripped naked, not given even that dignity to show off its manly size. But shamefully laid bare. Its temper flaring. The brute would have hit out, the filth would have killed. But it couldn’t, that would now be forever denied. The brute had to suffer, it had to take what came.

To make the point, around its front the mutapa felt further into the depths of the homespun cloth, Groping and searching for the scum’s family jewels. Finding them hot and sweaty, still wrapped in the heavy cloth. His fingers clutched at them, gripped in is palm. Then just rested. Just waited. Letting the thoughts ache. Letting

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Sacred treeits rebel blood race. Letting its gagged temper rise. Doing nothing untoward. Except letting the filth know a torturer had hold of its balls, the claws of an implacable enemy was holding its manly pride within his hand. But doing nothing, just showing. That his enemy could.Just showing, he could. A promise of more to come. Plenty more. Before the mutapa really tried. Started to master its rebel will.

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