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Anthro Sex Squad Story 2 - Winfred's Story

By Killenor

Arc 1 - Origins

Chapter 5

Dominik wondered just where he was now.

It was surely foolish to leave the carriage, but with no entourage, no horses, and a broken axle the carriage wasn't likely to take him far anyway. Now he was lost. Worse yet, with his wild, colorful clothing and obvious girth, he was bound to be noticed. Hopefully it wasn't bandits, fae, elves, or feral creatures that found him... but with a city so many miles away... he hated thinking about odds.

"Wonderful plan you idiot boar," Dominik sighed to no one in particular, "Trenton has run dry, why not ply the trade in Gurftheim City? Courtesans are in great demand since the king declared prostitution legal and nobles unaccountable for infidelity. And what a deal on that cart! I shall never buy from that huckster again!"

A strange, almost hideous sound cut the silence around him. All about the area the trees came alive with feral birds squawking and scattering at such a sound. It chilled Dominik's heart to hear it for it sounded as though something were being flayed alive, screaming with pain and unquenchable rage even as it died.

"Well... if that gets to me first, I shall surely never buy from that huckster again."

Twisting the top of his ostentatious cane, Dominik made ready to draw the blade from within. Certainly not one to fight wild beasts, he decided that some steel made as much difference here as it did in a back alley brawl or a duel of honor.

Whatever it was... it was quiet again.

And it was getting dark.

Huddling up against a hollow in a large tree, Dominik hoped only that whatever beast had made such a noise was now well fed... and maintained a wide territory. Now shivering with dusk's onset, he gripped his sword-cane as a frightened child might hold a blanket. He dared not sleep, but he also dared not move until morning.

But at some point, staring into the blackness as night fell around him, he nodded off.

***

Eyes snapped open in the dark.

How long was I asleep? Dominik wondered to himself. That he was still alive was a miracle, but what had woken him was a mystery.

A sniff of the air told him volumes. Oil, fire... a lantern was lit somewhere nearby. Lanterns meant civil-folk! Possibly something better than a local tribe even!

He caught his optimism after a moment. Bandits used lanterns too, and so did wild hermits. As he moved to investigate the smell, he couldn't brush the picture of some strange old man, clad in skins and carrying an axe, stalking the forests and calling himself "uncle" or some-such nonsense while chatting with imaginary friends or bones or whatever.

Finally he saw something, a flicker in the darkness, light reflecting from trees. A shadowy figure moved behind the light source. But alone... and definitely one of the civil-folk.

Dominik followed at distance, sniffing for some clue of this person's stance. He smelled badger... wolverine... blood, but dried blood... and... something else.

Soon, his ears picked up the sound of flowing water. This person was heading to a stream! Thirst reminded him that this was a very good thing, even with a potentially crazy person. It was just one man, after all, and his charm could possibly work on someone who had been alone for a long time.

"Hail there badger!" Dominik cried out suddenly, flinching as he startled some nearby creature which bolted for some safety in the undergrowth.

He braced himself as the badger-man whipped about, startled at the intrusion.

"I mean no harm!" Dominik yelled, putting his hands out to his sides, "I seek only some water and someone familiar with this area. If you can help me, I would be out of your way as fast as I can."

The shadowy figure set his lamp down on something and seemed to consider for a moment.

"Very well, come have your water..." the man said haltingly, "It's not my river you know. Fear not boar-man, you have nothing to worry from me. I am... quite satisfied... at the moment and merely come to wash. It has been long since I've had civil company. Perhaps if you tell me some good news I can remember where a well traveled road is, or perhaps where I have stored some vittles for hard times.

***

Winfred awoke.

It was dark.

She couldn't see anything at all...

...and she hurt.

Nothing in her life could have prepared her for the pain that crept in like thousands of insects from every part of her body. If she had a dozen years she couldn't count the different sensations. How any one being could know so much... do so much... boggled her mind.

The worst pain must have been that which was tied with loss. Her innocence... taken. Ripped away by a callous, uncaring soul and replaced with such torment as she could not have known. If her mother had taught her anything, it was that her innocence should be saved as a present for the great male that found her worthy. Then, she said, it would be the most wonderful day of her life. But now, in tatters, she felt less than nothing.

Even her banishment had not been this terrible.

But there was something else... missing. She couldn't describe it. She didn't know where it was missing from. Something she had never felt that she possessed before was missing.

She flexed her fingers and toes, all present but each movement sending little stinging jolts through her limbs. A twitch of her tail told her that, despite it being bent between her and the rack, it was still there. Her face... her ears, she could still feel them... and how acutely she felt them. But the feeling was still there.

Suddenly, it came back to her. In the darkness she could see just as if it were happening again. That grinning face as the vile old badger violated her... stole her innocence at the same time as digging his claws into her tender flesh... Biting her neck... Slapping her face... those... horrible tools!

And then... he seemed to glow... no he wasn't glowing... the room was darkening... no... no... both!

He was stealing the very light from her body! Something ephemeral and intangible and he was taking it from her!

That had been when she had passed out. Just after he had... finished with her. She had sunk into a black sea of pain to the sound of that maddening, hysterical laughter.

And now, a new color was building in the black room.

Red.

It filled Winfred's vision and set itself alight within her. Such rage as she had never felt. Her pain flowed away from her damaged limbs, leaving only pure will of muscle. Peripherally, she hear the splinter of wood and the pop of rivets as the wounded little female tore her way from the rack and fell to the floor.

Aches were growled away and the stench of blood from her reopened wounds excited her tortured mind. The beast that Winfred's pain had unleashed sought only vengeance and to visit an even greater pain upon its tormentor. In the darkness it waited, knowing that the beast blacker than it would soon return home. He would be expecting another round of agony and would think to delight in her suffering.

Oh, how he would find the tables turned.

***

"... and that's why I left Trenton. Same old story, business went dry," Dominik said, flashing his hands in a dramatic flurry, proud of his sly telling which told nothing at all, "I do believe Gurftheim City will have greater opportunities for my... particular trade."

"You know, you still haven't told me quite what it is you do," Hreugh said shiftily and poured himself some of the root-tea that was brewing over his new campfire, "You play with words and voice like a virtuoso, but you don't sing or tell stories. You dress like a man of the circus, though I doubt you've ever handled the feral creatures of this world or stood in a ring. You speak of 'failed opportunities' but not once have you mentioned what those are."

"Well, I did not care to burden you." Dominik said, his tired mind grasping for a diplomatic solution to this badger's questioning, "I know you aren't used to company and figured there must be a reason. Besides, I rather tend to rattle on when I get on the subject of business."

"I have plenty of time," Hreugh replied, "please, the worst you could do is offend me somehow."

Dominik shrugged, having no idea that all the while Hreugh's very tone was working against his reservations. How could he have known that he sat beside an ex-royal interrogator? And furthermore, what harm could this unarmed old badger really do?

"Come now," Hreugh said comfortingly, like a grandfather to a child, "You're not going to offend me. I've been around cities before and seen just about every disreputable thing you can imagine. It'll do me good to hear about something exciting again."

"Um... well alright," Dominik sighed, "I am a purveyor of the fleshy and sensuous delights. I find women, spruce them up, and then they make me money in gratitude. I play matchmaker to lonely men, for a nominal fee, and give them nights they would never forget. The oldest profession and I am the proprietor."

"You're a flesh-monger then," Hreugh said plainly.

Dominik was rocked on his heels by the bluntness and sheer colloquialism of Hreugh's proclamation. He sputtered just for a second and then battled to compose himself and put a good face on everything. The slight error, however, was far from lost on Hreugh.

"Well then tell me," prodded the sly badger, "how is it such a charming man as yourself could not find business in Trenton? I've heard the ruling families are rather lenient in those parts. Did a new ruler take carnal privilege away from the whole region whilst I've lived in this forest? How could a business like THAT simply 'go dry'?"

"Well..." Dominik dumbly sputtered, "It was a new leader, as you said, though he did not suspend carnal privilege. In fact, he received special dispensation to enhance those laws in exchange for the normal monetary tithes. It seems that the king is making demands that more children be born in his realms so he allows the barony to enact what laws they desire for the sake of greater populations. Gurftheim City, being the capital, is exempt from the harsher treatments, likely since the king fears those closest to him.

Barren women have been disappearing in the night, never to be seen, and all whores capable of bearing are expected to do so. Their children are taken to be raised in the newly erected "Soldiery Academy" as a simple and dispensable infantry for the royal army. Women are practically criminalized for not being pregnant and not giving up their babies."

Hreugh considered the obviously flustered boar's words and let musings dance in his twisted mind. Had things truly become so chaotic of late in the realms of his home?

How he envied those still in favor with the royalty, those infernal bastards. Of course the useless were disappearing, and he knew that right now as they spoke, some barren whore was tied to a grand royal interrogator's rack. Sounds of screaming, begging, pleading, and ultimately pain would fill those dark stone chambers. Enchantments would prevent the captives from hearing anything but the soft, maddening sounds of the chambers and the voices of their torturers. There could be forty racks with screaming victims in the same chamber and each would feel totally alone, with only the dripping of water, the scrabbling of hungry rats, and the maddening giggles of their faceless tormentors to break the monotony.

Yes, thought Hreugh, this would have been the best of times to be an interrogator.

The foppish boar was talking again.

"... after that I knew I just couldn't continue operating an underground brothel. The only recourse for someone like me was to use children too young to breed. CHILDREN! Who would stoop so low simply to earn some coin? Is it not bad enough that the populace is robbed of their sons for soldiery but that they should sell their daughters as whores as well?! No! All my charges must be old enough to properly ply a trade, not lay crying as some sweaty bastard ruts about. I knew then that I simply had to leave! Say what you will of Gurftheim City, but it is a cesspit where at least SOME sanity reigns."

Dominik's chest heaved from his oratory exploits, sweat glistening upon his bristly brow. Somehow he never quite realized the depths of his passions and convictions until he had practically shouted them at some lonely old badger hermit.

"I'm sorry," he sputtered, "I should have kept my sense of propriety. Do forgive me."

Forgiveness, thought Hreugh. Truly he had tortured people till they begged for death for less than shouting at him. If he were not sated from a practically gluttonous night of torture, he might have really considered showing this moralistic pig how he showed forgiveness.

But no... this was an opportunity. A way back in to society and the public. This was his chance to reclaim that recognition that his art craved!

"Take no mind of it," Hreugh's silky words comforted, "You are tired and you seem so passionate about this subject. I can forgive a little loudness for the sake of one so moral. Truth be told, I live here alone because I could not bear the corrupt regime and was cast out due to... morals. I tell you what, why don't I show you a good place to sleep and tomorrow I will help you. We shall get you to a proper host of people who will appreciate your talents."

A firm old arm wrapped around the tired boar's shoulders. At such comfort and acceptance... and a slight touch of magic from his host... Dominik felt as though the weight of the world had lifted from him. He felt comforted. Certainly once this kind old badger helped him get into the city, he could come back and return the favor. Who knew, some day sanity might return to the realms and women could be free to do that which they wished of themselves.

Not far away was a hollow. A nice little place that Hreugh kept for the event that his home became unsafe. It was so easy to lay this intruder down... no one would miss him. It would be so easy... cut a tendon and he would never walk again. He would have a brand new toy.

No!

He had to keep this one alive. This boar needed to leave. Hreugh had bigger plans than just another victim and simply could not be tied down with extra baggage. No... he just needed a little look into his dreams. Those could tell him how he came from Trenton... and then he could implant directions to Gurftheim City and be on his way! Soon enough, he would have everything he needed and none would be any the wiser.

Wringing his hands with delight, Hreugh summoned the magicks that would allow him to rape this poor man's mind.