Chapter 8

I was in a haze of pain and delirium. I do not know whether the old Egri woman who was known as the Closer beat me me for the three days she said she would or whether it was 30 days. Time lost all meaning for me in her prison stable once Akrith had left me in her evil clutches.

As a humanhorse, I had become used to pain—and even when I carried Akrith into battle I was ready for death. I had worked the fields on first arriving on Sevir, hauling a plough under a burning sun trying to break up the parched ground, or toiling in the stinging rain while hauling some implement through cold, wet mud while naked and chained, and all the time being beaten for not working harder when all I wanted to do was curl up and die. Yet what this Closer administered was sheer agony and I had never wished for death more.

The potion I was obliged to drink in order to end any possible seeding was foul and its effect was immediate. My stomach was gripped by burning cramps and yet I was spread out on a curved rack which pushed my belly forward to better receive the lashings the Closer delivered. If there was one joy, though I confess amid the pain the delight was soon lost, it was that finally my waist and wrist chains were removed. It was not done as a kindness however, but so my wrists could be chained above my head out of the way and of course there would be no belt round my waist to give me even a modicum of protection from the whip across my belly. I was chained out in a star shape with legs and arms stretched and wide on this wickedly curved surface. Even my neck was strapped down and my head clamped so twisting my neck was almost impossible. If I opened my eyes and managed to see through the tears all I could see was the same patch of dirty ceiling above me.

I screamed of course, at least until my throat went dry and all that I could offer was a faint, strangled croak. There was no need to gag me, for while this was a prison stable and occupied at night by the other humanhorses the Closer owned, there was no one to come to my aid. The other humanhorses would be chained up for the night and hooded so they could get what sleep they could (and I knew that when exhausted the chains and hood did not delay one instantly falling into an all-too short sleep before being roused to work again) but even at night I was beaten. I have no idea how I managed to sleep, but I did somehow.

More than once through all this I wondered if giving birth, however painful or distressing to drop some monstrous creature as a result of being fucked by the Egri young male Corth would have been preferable to what I was enduring now. At least Akrith, my warrior rider, would have been there. Even my companion humanhorse Cerys would have offered me some comfort.

Now I was alone and prayed that death should take me, but the Closer was too skilled and careful not to allow me that welcome release. I came to understand that as I was stretched out in my chains and pinned by my neck strap the old Egri woman knew how to prolong all this to the point of almost killing me: she would allow me just enough time to recover before commencing lashing me again. Either her or some female assistant, I presume, for even she would need her rest especially at her advanced age. My task was to survive and suffer, and even if I thought I could take no more, somehow I did.

I also knew, because the Closer reminded me, that when she was done whipping me and the seeding stopped, I would be closed up between my legs. I would not be able, even if permitted by my owner, to have any part of a human—or Egri, for that matter— inside me again. I may, as the delirium cleared, have begun to wonder what form this may take. A chastity belt probably, I assumed.

However when I finally saw what was being prepared for me I screamed in horror. The old Egri woman did not hold a chastity belt, which one way or another would have been removable, but had simple needle and thick, wiry thread: I was to be sewn up between my legs, save probably for a small gap to allow me to piss.

The old woman grinned in a twisted way as if was the part of all this she most enjoyed. The potion and the whipping was over and now she would close me permanently. “I will afterwards apply a lotion over your sewn-up hole, horse,” she told me as she held the long needle up to my face so I could appreciate its length. “The lotion will heal the wound but also heal the slit. You will be closed not just by needle and wire but by your own vile body. No male will enter you again.”

I gasped that I did not want a male, and never had done. I wanted the caress of a female, but the Closer merely laughed. “That too will be denied you, horse,” she chuckled. Then she took hold of my nether lips, worked her long, bony fingers into and around them and began to press the tip of the needle into my tender flesh. I screamed and begged for mercy as a new pain lanced through me. I even called her ‘Inria’ in the hope that would help. It didn’t. The needle went through the first side of my cunt. I was lost and I screwed my eyes tight in prayer to whatever god or gods were listening.

“Stop,” came a thundering voice from the other side of the stable. The needle stopped, and I heard the Closer spit a curse.

“What do you want?” The old woman snarled. “I am a Closer and can’t you see I am busy?”

“And I am Mage,” said of all things a male voice. “I command you to halt or I shall burn you where you stand.”

I opened my eyes slowly, hardly daring to believe I was hearing a male speak like this to a noble woman. The old woman cursed and retreated and a new figure came before me. But this was no Egri male, standing in flowing robes decorated with swirls of gold and silver. The clothes I had briefly heard that the mages on Sevir wore.

It was not someone of this planet, but a human male.

His name was Ruben, and what I learned from him was he was a Dutchman. His English as so often is the case among those living in the Netherlands was excellent. Perhaps better than his Egrin, which meant he preferred to talk to me in my tongue.

He was a Mage indeed, and his position and rank—as well as a fireball sent flying over the Closer’s head as she hesitated to obey before she relented—ensured she surrendered me to Ruben’s control. I was unchained and able to walk, albeit on very groggy legs, to his transport.

The vehicle was more like a hansom cab than the rickety wagon I had hauled until a few days before in the service of Akrith. This was pulled by a team of three humanhorses in line, each decorated with a magnificent plume on their shaved heads and arms bound behind them in a heavily decorated leather sheath. These were no standard humanhorses, but in far better condition and appearance. Even their iron hooves were decorated with gold and silver inlays that caught the sun as the would prance in perfect unison to haul the cab. Ruben did not drive the wagon himself, but would sit inside the cab, and left the driving to a gold and silver cloaked Egri woman with a multi-thonged whip who was mounted astride the leading humanhorse. She too wore a plume that matched the both the horses’ breasts belts, their hooves and the robe of the Mage.