Category: Fiction

Pain of Love 4

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“By the Seven, what in the bloody hell are you smiling at?!” exclaimed Farzan as he dragged the wickedly curved blade along Grayne’s bare chest. The eighteen-year-old northerner simply smiled in response to his stomach and chest being slowly sliced open. Farzan grimaced in frustration as Grayne seemed to stare through him with a stupid grin. Farzan resisted the urge to plunge the knife into the young man’s heart and be done with it.

Farzan shouted an unintelligible, guttural sound and stormed away from the stone table. He flung the bloody knife to the floor with a hollow clang.

A cloaked and hooded figure scurried to the door behind the dour-faced torturer. A gentle pale hand reached out from the dark robes and kept the door from swinging closed.

Farzan ran his hand aggressively up his own pale face and pulled his black hair in frustration. “It has been almost a fortnight and still he does not break! Two weeks of painful torture and he continues to test me!” the hook-nosed Dorn said to the robed minion who followed him through the stone passageways. “How does he resist?”

“Master Farzan, may I suggest changing tactics?” said the feminine voice from deep within the robes that lapped at his heels.

“What are you going on about?” he said as he halted suddenly, causing the robed woman to step aside to avoid colliding with him.

“When a man becomes accustomed to pain, he becomes immune to it,” she said, avoiding his furious eyes. “Grayne’s body will give out before he yields.”

Farzan grabbed her wrists suddenly and pulled them painfully towards him. She gasped with pain as he demanded, “Never say his name! He will not say Croget’s name; he does not deserve a name of his own!”

“Master, he will die if you continue like this,” she pleaded. Her hood fell away as she struggled to pull her hands away. Curly black locks fell chaotically around her porcelain skin. “You have to give him time to heal.”

Farzan stared at her suspiciously and after a lifetime of his penetrating gaze said, “Yes, perhaps you’re right,” He cast her away and said, “If he will not be broken by physical torture…” Farzan murmured to himself as he walked away, leaving the cloaked assistant behind him. She pulled her hood up over her black curls, and her pale face sunk into the shadowy recesses of the cloak.

The torturer’s assistant returned to the room that contained the bloodied and beaten Grayne. The northern man was naked and lashed to a flat rack that leaned up against the far wall. His eyes were closed, but he breathed shallowly, letting her know that he yet lived.

She pulled a bucket of soapy water next to the rack and dipped a rag into the tepid water. She began to clean his wounds on his chest and face with great care. She took time to not only clean every horrible wound, but to also clean the dirt and sweat from his entire well-muscled body. Although he slept, he had a silly grin on his face. The woman tilted her head questioningly at the man and continued washing. As she cleaned his thighs he seemed to smile more, but when she reached his genitals his eyes shot open and his smile became a hard, stern line. Their eyes met and her hood fell away revealing her fair skin. Her curly black hair fell over her face and her dark eyes closed as her face flushed in embarrassment. She stood and dropped the cloth into the bucket.

Without looking at Grayne, she suggested, “If you do what he wishes…if you say what he wishes, I can convince him to spare your life.” She pulled her hood up, again and busied herself cleaning the torture equipment. “He will listen to me.”

Grayne spoke for the first time in a week. His voice was low and raspy as he said, “I don’t think he listens much to you. In fact, I know he has no respect for you.”

“You know nothing about him. He is a very powerful man, with many responsibilities!” she said as she wiped a long blade clean of Grayne’s skin and blood.

“I know you want him to notice you. You desperately want him to notice you,” Grayne said, finding sick amusement in the reversal of torturers. “However, his heart belongs to another. It belongs to a young man with a limp wrist and a poor sword arm, whom I killed,” he said with a smirk. “It’s impossible to compete with a corpse, isn’t it, my dear?”

“Shut up! Croget was a respected companion! You don’t know anything!” She screamed as she advanced upon the naked and injured form of Grayne.

“I’m sorry, m’lady,” said Grayne with a genuine smile. “I’d bow, if I could…” With a suggestive downward glance he concluded his emotional assault by saying, “Now, where were we?”

Pain of Love part 3

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Her naked hips and lips were a wild toboggan ride for the young man. Grayne started at her mouth. Her plump lips always seemed to be pouting and she gave his fingertip a soft kiss as it passed. With a single digit, he traced a wiggling meandering line from her chin and down her neck.

From there his finger’s path began an uphill journey. Grayne took his time as his finger slowly traversed the fullness of her right breast. He pretended his index and middle finger were a tired traveler attempting to reach the summit of some dangerous mountain. Once the digits reached the summit, it has a quick ride to the bottom of the other side. He was quick not to forget the other hillscape as his fingers made a quicker ascent and descent of her perfect left breast. The fall of his finger was followed by a trip across her rib cage and then it took a gentle creamy downward turn and then a sudden dip and a drastic rise as the slope crested to the beautiful pinnacle that was her ample hip. Summer giggled and grabbed his hand. “Stop it,” she begged with a pout of her plump pink lips. “You know I’m ticklish!”

The pungent fragrance of sweaty love-making mixed with the aroma of burning wood filled the small cottage. A single bed took up a large portion of the one-room chalet, and two young lovers’ naked bodies were splayed across the bed in the aftermath of passion. The fireplace added to the heat of their lovemaking.

Grayne tried to hide his grin. He pursed his lips tight to avoid showing his teeth. “I remember my father and I built a wheel sled, when I was a kid”, Grayne said, quickly changing the subject and staring into Summer’s deep green eyes that squinted back at him with a hint of confusion. “You know, you put small wagon wheels on a sheet of wood and race down a hill?” he said as his finger sped off her hip and down her thighs like an imaginary wheel sled.

Summer brushed her curly red hair out of her face and smiled at her lover. He smiled at her and said, “I think I love you, Summer.”

“You know what I think, Grayne?” she said swinging her bare leg over him and climbing on top of him as if he were a stallion in need of breaking. “I think I want you again.” She plunged her fingers into his thick curly brown hair and pushed his face into her chest. Before Grayne took her breasts in his mouth he paused to say, “The Starks have it all wrong. It’s Summer that’s coming, not Winter.”

She groaned as she enjoyed the sensation of his mouth on her breast and she took him in. She gasped as pleasure filled her and radiated upwards to every part of her body. Tingling with exctasy she managed to breathe the words, “Shut up, Grayne. You talk too much.”

Pain of Love part 2

                    marbrand

                                                                 II

“What is your name?” bellowed an angry voice behind the darkened veil that were Grayne’s eyelids. The words pierced the darkness of the young man’s mind like a jagged-edge sword. The angry voice cracked his skull and forced him back to consciousness. One eye opened slowly letting in the flickering light of a dying lantern that danced in a breeze he could not feel. The wounded soldier’s hands were shackled by cold metal cuffs to the wall behind him, as were his feet. His battered form was suspended helplessly from a stone wall like a flayed pig in a storefront window.

Only  eighteen years old, Grayne was a man in the prime of his life and at the peak of physical condition. His short chestnut hair was cut in an effective military style, but today it was chaotically disheveled and soaked with dried blood. His well-muscled body, lean and without any signs of fat was now covered with open wounds. His larger than average nose was broken and bloody as was his weather-beaten face, covered in three days growth of brown facial hair. The scent of his own blood was all he could smell.

Ordinarily, the young man was not what one would call a pretty-boy. However, the girls who enjoyed a more rugged man often would give him an extra smile.

No one would smile at his bedraggled form now.

He struggled to remember the details of the past day. He knew he was a soldier. He knew his name was Grayne. He knew he was injured badly, but he didn’t need memory to realize that fact. The constant stream of pain that was pulsating, throbbing, and slicing from different parts of his body was a constant reminder of the frailty of his form.

“Where am I?” he asked as he took in his surroundings with a single eye that was almost swollen shut. The other eye was not sending any information to his bleary mind, and it hurt whether it was opened or closed. The pain mixed into a confusing stew of open wounds that was his broken body. There was a man before him asking him questions, but Grayne ignored him, instead scanning instead his surroundings. He saw he was in a circular stone room and immediately he assumed he was in a tower in a keep or castle. Light illuminated the room only by lanterns. There were no windows in the tower and Grayne had no idea if it was night or day.

A booted foot slammed into his stomach returning his attention to his captor. Blood and spit dribbled from his mouth. “I ask the questions! What is your name?” demanded his hook-nosed captor. Grayne closed his eyes as he grimaced against the pain. When he opened them again, the dancing light of the waning lantern showed the darkened stone room and dimly revealed the shadowy form of his abuser. The man wore the plate armor of a knight, but with no helm. Grayne could see a sharp hook nose leaning above his mustache and he made note of the man’s thick unruly growth of black facial hair. His captor’s hair was black as coal and his skin was freckled from the sun, but had a paleness that indicated he had not felt extended periods of sunlight in many years.

Any trace of defiance slipped from him along with the saliva and blood that trickled from his mouth. “My name is…,” he said struggling. “My name is Grayne,” he moaned. He had not the sense of mind to remember his training or he would have recalled the first rule of being a captive. Never give your name.

“Good,” the hook-nosed knight said. “What is your rank?

“I…I’m just a soldier.”

A fist slammed into his already bloody face. Pain exploded from his nose and Grayne’s consciousness faded for a moment. He awoke before his torturer spoke. “You expect me to believe that a simple soldier was sent behind enemy lines and managed to kill a high ranking officer?”

“I’m…” he struggled to speak as he swallowed some of his own blood. “I’m sneaky.”

His torturer seethed. “You’re trying my patience. I know what you want. You want me to kill you. By the Seven, I’m not going to do that!” He caught his breath and turned away. In a whisper he said, “Not yet.”

“You’re smarter than you look,” Grayne groaned matter-of-factly without the hint of a smile. His eye scanned the room, looking for something he could use to escape, or with which to kill himself.

“Do you know whom you killed?” asked his captor turning back to him.

“No,” answered Grayne honestly. He couldn’t remember much of the man. He knew he was a dandy, a weaker, womanish man, but could not recall his name.

“His name is Croget,” said the torturer, turning away.

“Was,” corrected the victim.

Crack! A forceful blast to his skull forced the young man into blessed darkness.

The cruel knight grabbed Grayne’s short blood-caked brown hair and whispered into the young man’s unconscious ear. “Croget was a beautiful man, and you will say his name. By the end, you will say his name. Only then will I grant you death.”

Pain of Love part 1

 A Game of Thrones story

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“Can we stop? I want to hear the story,” the boy said, looking up expectantly at his father. The six-year old child looked minuscule compared to the gigantic bear of a man. The boy turned and he saw the look on the man’s face, hidden as it was under a scraggly red beard. It was a look that said that they were in a hurry. He was ready, though, and the happy ear-to-ear smile on his face was enough to shatter his father’s grim demeanor. The big man let out a grunt and with his giant paw tousled the boy’s already messy brown curly hair. “Okay, Grayne, but let’s not diddle-doddle. Your mother is waiting.”

Grayne let out a shriek of happiness, his troubles temporarily forgotten. He ran to sit in the crowd of boys and girls whose mothers stood around the perimeter. He found an open space and before he sat down he took a moment to find his father in the crowd so he could give him another toothy smile. His mother had told him many times, “Let him see all your teeth. He will never tell you no when he can see the back teeth.” Grayne saw the big man waiting. He stood at least a foot taller than the tallest woman in the crowd. With his arms crossed, and a grim countenance on his face, the women gave him extra space. Grayne looked past his father with dread at the horizon, for the grey clouds indicated a storm was coming. The boy was long ago weary of the many storms of a summer that was in its death throes, but had not accepted its own demise. The smell of dampness filled his nose.

Grayne smiled and made himself as comfortable as possible on the hard ground. A tall figure in tattered black robes stood on the flimsy stage. The boy could not determine the shadowy figure’s gender under its dark billowing robes. Even when it spoke, the voice was a whisper that carried on the wind and gave no indication of the gender of the speaker. A blast of cold wind suddenly stormed through the crowd stirring up dirt, dust and dead leaves on the ground and those not strong enough to hold onto the trees. The people collectively pulled their clothing closer against the storm’s windy harbinger that swept through them. The children gasped and shivered in response to the piercing gust. Only the black-robed performer seemed unaffected by the icy chill of the coming storm.

“Who can tell me of The Seven?” the robed, seemingly genderless storyteller asked the gathered throng of youngsters with only a whisper. “Can any of you name even one of the seven new gods who hold our destinies in their merciless hands?” the hooded storyteller asked as it pointed a long bony finger at a boy with blonde hair and a dirt- stained face. The boy let out a gasp and was silent.

Grayne’s father had many times told him of the new gods, and the boy was eager to show off his knowledge. The robed actor continued pointing at various children in the crowd until Grayne shouted, “The Maiden!” His voice wavered and cracked, but he made himself heard over the wind.

“Correct,” whispered the shadowy person. “What are the others?”

Grayne looked back at his father, hoping for some recognition for his correct answer, but instead saw the giant shifting uneasily from foot to foot. Grayne returned his attention to the performer. He listened as the children named each of the gods that made up The Seven. They named them all as the hooded storyteller coaxed the names from them; the Maiden, the Father, the Smith, the Warrior, the Crone, the Stranger, and the Mother. The mention of the Mother-Above caused the boy to think of his own mother. She had fallen ill and had lingered in a state of confusion for almost two weeks. Her body wasted while she seemed to have no concept of her surroundings. A medicine-man had taken her in, but each day she showed no signs of recovering from her mysterious languishing malady. Grayne felt helpless and wished the gods were real and that prayer could save his mother. “The Gods are cruel,” his father had always told him.

Grayne watched with nervous anticipation as the storyteller moved though the field of seated children, telling a story of the Seven. He half-listened, his thoughts were not where he was, but where he was going. Only when the storyteller neared Grayne did he return his attention to the performance. The grim entertainer strode over and around the seated children determinedly until he stood above Grayne. For an instant the cold wind seemed to die. He looked up, but all he saw were black robes of the tall storyteller. Suddenly, the boy was staring into the shadow-filled hood of the figure as it bent down before him. He let out a little squeak like an injured mouse as the hooded figure spoke to him with words that felt like sticky cobwebs, and breath the smelled like wet earth.

Grayne dizzily listened to the grim figure’s words for what seemed like hours, barely hearing the shrieks and screams that erupted from behind him. In a blur of motion and with a crack of bones, the cloaked figure was cast aside as if he had been smashed by a charging bull. His father was beside him and before Grayne could react he was thrown over the man’s massive shoulder. The big man crashed and stomped his way out of the crowd.

Only when they were safely from the crowd and what seemed like miles away did his father gently remove Grayne from his shoulder and set upon his feet. “Are you okay?” his father asked the pale and shaken child as cold raindrops began to fall.

Grayne nodded without a word. The wind had stopped, replaced with a hard rain that chilled them both to the core.

“What happened? What did he say to you!?” his father asked the shaken boy more demandingly than he intended. He closed his eyes and tried to console Grayne by saying, “It’s okay, son. Whenever you’re ready.”

Grayne licked his lips and looked silently at his feet.

“Boy, it’s okay,” his father said calmly. “You don’t have to say anything.”

The two walked in silence, hand in hand for several miles making their way from the small village to the darkening woods, before the boy spoke. “Father, the storyteller…said I was cursed.” Grayne paused to lick his dry lips and he continued. “My curse is my strength. I will outlive everyone I care for, and my true suffering will come not from the pain of my injuries but from my ability to endure them.” The sound of the rain pounding furiously through the trees was the only sound until Grayne asked, “What does that mean?”

His father’s grip tightened on his son’s hand. The man closed his eyes then sucked his lips in over his teeth as he took a deep breath. Quietly, the gargantuan man stopped at a hollow log. He pointed at the log and nodded at it, and the boy crawled inside without further questions.

His father stood outside as the torrent soaked him for many hours. Grayne fell asleep listening to the rain tapping against the bark of the log and dreamed of his mother.