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In which circumstances worsen and Nezia's fate is sealed. To provide a content warning, this chapter is considerably more intense than the first one and contains rape, violence, death and blood. The entire rest of the series is going to be like this (third chapter coming soon).

Part Two: Tribute

A deepening rumble awoke Nezia before dawn, the freighter's engines upping their pitch. Listening to the noise coming through the vent by her cot, she could hear the whine of the turbines accelerating. They were going faster now, considerably so.

Nezia dressed quietly, too anxious to stay still. The others in the berth were still sleeping, or trying to (the rats watched her carefully, tense until she slipped away). A few others, insomniacs and inveterate worriers, haunted the corridors. They made no move to go above deck. Curfew still held until first light.

The ship's passage through the waves was sharper than it had been the previous day, hard, irregular jolts running the length of the ship. A nauseous whisper of seasickness curled worryingly in the pit of her stomach. Nezia had to pause and focus hard on the floor just in front of her feet before it went away.

Then, mindless of the curfew, she slunk above deck. Easy enough to hide in the shadows, she figured, with the blackness of her fur and the petite sleekness of the frame it covered.

Wind bore down upon the freighter, bringing with it stinging hints of rain. The sky was starless and perfectly black, with only a pale, diffused hoop of moonlight penetrating the clouds. Nezia could feel the ship hitting waves but could not see them, the whitecaps utterly obliterated by the dark. Even the freighter's running lights had been turned off and she could differentiate the deck from the sea only by the palest reflection of moonlight off of the water. The ship itself was an elongated hole in the middle of the world.

Something was wrong.

Nezia very nearly retreated back below deck, where there were lights and her surroundings had proper shape and dimension. Then she thought about being stuck below if something were to happen and her fur prickled on end.

She edged further out onto deck, trusting muscle memory to deliver her along a familiar path.

Before she could go far a sudden streak of orange light creased the blackness some distance to her left, over the open ocean. It was as though a line had been drawn across the air by the tip of a red hot poker. Nezia heard a rippling crack, what she realized a second later was actually the many smaller cracks of a projectile moving faster than sound. She heard it right next to her, as though the noise had been blasted directly into her ears from a centimeter away, then simultaneously behind and in front for miles and miles. She yelped, fur bristling upright and her claws springing free from their sheaths. Then the glow was gone, swallowed noiselessly by the sea.

Her first thought was of the Inquisition rockets which she had seen fired during her desperate escape onboard the freighter…but those had been slow and high, tracing great arcs before exploding and raining fire down upon whatever lay below. This new thing…

Before she could think any further, Nezia heard a rush of footsteps, crew members racing to get to their positions. Marines, probably. She looked back, realized that she could no longer see where the stairwell below deck was, then felt a paw close on her wrist and tug her down, against the side of a ventilation stack.

Nezia thumped down into a pocket of even more complete blackness, too startled even to yelp. A fractured tide of apologies bubbled to the tip of her tongue, but then she noticed the incompleteness of the paw gripping her wrist, how it was shy a few fingers, and relaxed a little.

Kill-sin.

Unseen footsteps rattled past a moment later, indistinct shapes rushing over the stretch of deck where she had been standing only a few moments earlier. All quiet again. Kill-sin's paw relaxed and withdrew, the vixen blowing out a tiny breath.

“What…?" Nezia began to ask, but could not summon the proper words to encapsulate her questions, to tame her fright, to…even to thank the vixen for what she'd just done.

“A tracer shell," said Kill-sin. Her breath smelled faintly, incongruously, of peppermint. “We are being chased."

“Chased?" Nezia squeaked, and though this was all but useless the vixen still favored her with a halfway sympathetic glance. Once more Kill-sin took Nezia's paw and this time placed something cool and cylindrical in the center of her palm. Nezia tested it carefully and was startled by the crinkle of cellophane. A sweet, perhaps wrapped in golden foil like the fancy ones displayed in shop windows.

She unwrapped it and placed the lozenge on her tongue. The taste of peppermint was so sharp and clean that it brought tears to her eyes. The faint gleam of Kill-sin's teeth, framing a crooked smile, blurred and turned abruptly to fractals.

“But I thought you said…" Nezia had to shift the mint into the corner of her mouth before continuing. A tingly thread of drool ran from one corner of her mouth. “You said my cookie was the first sweet thing you'd seen on the ship."

It was strange how completely this new startlement had overtaken her, given the enormity of what lay behind them. The shell. The chasers, unseen in the starless dark.

“I am an inveterate liar and cannot be trusted." Said the vixen. She settled back, her paw vanishing from Nezia's.

They sat there for some time, Nezia cowering like a grouse before a hunter's gun. She kept looking to the darkness beyond the ship, unable to decide if silent suspense or another shell flash would be worse.

“Thank you." She said at last, voice small and miserable.

Once more a faint curved gleam of white lifted from the blackness. A pained smile.

“Did you really think we would escape?" The vixen asked.

Nezia thought to the end of their previous conversation. No need to replay it. She drew her knees up tight against her chest and buried her face into both paws. When the next shell came, off to the right this time, she registered its passage only as a blur of orange around the corners of her vision. The odd, elongated crack of its transit made her ears pin. Beneath her, the timbre of the ship's engines lessened and the deck shivered. Gradually, bit by bit, they began to slow. By then the peppermint had melted to a sugary puddle at the back of her tongue. Nezia could not reconcile its sweetness with the sour totality of her fear.

A marine found her in the gray just before dawn. He kicked her leg with the side of one foot, jolting Nezia from a tangle of thoughts which swirled in small, dark circles. Above her was an ochre furred antelope wearing sergeant's stripes.

“Get back to your berth." He ordered gruffly.

Nezia looked beside herself but saw only empty space. She couldn't decide when Kill-sin had slipped away. Meekly, she obeyed the marine. Before she went below she caught sight of a low gray shadow on the horizon, far behind them. A smear of black smoke stained the sky just above it. Their hunter, racing to catch up.

Nezia shivered and thought of begging the marine to let her stay above deck, where she could see the sky and not be so completely trapped if the next shell holed them below the waterline, but she had no more treats to give and the antelope's glare was absolute.

She slunk down below. The intercoms crackled and there was dead air for a long time before the familiar western waltz started up. More people slumped in the corridor now, others pacing in tight, agitated circuits. Rumors beginning to spread, the reality of their predicament not so easily hidden.

The rats were up and tensely huddled when Nezia returned to her berth, the rabbits still drowsily waking. The boy looked at her and smiled faintly. Nezia felt an invisible paw squeeze her heart.

“We're being chased." She said, addressing the room. It did nothing to ease the the cold, numb dread which conspired to drive the breath from her lungs.

The rats barely glanced at her. They already knew. The reaction of the rabbits was more pronounced. Both parents turned, velvety noses wriggling and ears set frenetically a-twitch. The pink of their eyes was pronounced in the low light.

“You can't know that," said one of them, the mother. Both paws were busily twisting a fistful of fabric at the front of her dress. “Someone like you cannot possibly know that."

At any other time Nezia might have sat down and been quiet, but now her fur bristled and she shook her head, making no attempt to disguise the anger she felt. Not only with the poor clueless rabbits but everything. Everyone. The whole damned chorus of contempt and mistrust she'd so meekly endured…an effort which now seemed absolutely pointless given their new predicament.

“They shot at us," she growled, feeling a low, vindictive pleasure at the way the rabbits shrank, feeling now the same fear that she did. “They are coming. You need to be ready for that."

Silence for a moment, the rabbits staring mutely, the rats silently watching with wary interest. The boy squirmed silently between his parents but said nothing.

“They haven't hit us," said the boy's father at last. “And we're slowing. So perhaps they are a friendly vessel which made a mis—"

“Pirates." Grunted one of the rats, neatly interrupting the rabbit. This was the patriarch, his scarred lip twitching upwards into an even deeper snarl. If he was frightened he gave no sign.

Nezia looked over, halfway surprised. So did the bunnies.

“Pirates?" Echoed the boy, eyes wide and bright.

“If it were Inquisition they'd have sunk us already and shot anyone who floated up," the rat continued. His tone was flatly dispassionate. “These are pirates who have fired warning shots and are now coming to collect tribute."

“Trib…" The mother rabbit shook her head sharply. “But we don't have any money left." Her voice was very small. The rats looked away. Nezia chewed at the inside of her cheek. Outside, she could hear people moving along the corridor and clamoring at the nearest stairwell, panicky voices demanding that the marines let them above deck.

Nezia drifted out to join them, unable to bear looking at the poor, stupefied rabbits. She was swept into a tide of people, the narrow corridors claustrophobically crowded. Rumors and curses, fractured assertions of doom crackled in a dozen languages. The Inquisition was coming, or pirates, or a warship from a western fleet here to demand they turn around. Everyone felt trapped, certain that the sea would come rushing in at any moment if their pursuers decided to finish the job.

She wormed her way through the crowd with all the feline agility she could muster, one sleeve of her blouse tearing at the shoulder, some of the tiny copper bells on her jodhpurs gone jingling to the floor. It was a struggle to keep her claws sheathed and all panic subdued. Dozens of voices shouted at the marines guarding the top of the near stairwell. Nezia caught a glimpse of bayonets pointing downward, blades trembling in the open air. She looked for Martin but did not see him. There was the antelope sergeant instead, no longer looking so fierce. His fur stood on end and he kept telling his men not to fire.

From somewhere distant Nezia heard the wail of a siren carrying across the water. A shiver ran through the refugee crowd and some internal motion pushed them forward, up against the marines and their bayonets. Nezia mewed, suddenly certain that the narrow stairwell was about to be filled with blood and gunsmoke, but then the marines shied back and she was up into the fresh air again. She bumped against the antelope, her nose pressed against the blue fabric of his uniform coat, and for a moment their eyes met. Then he grimaced and pushed her away, Nezia sent spinning against the railing of the ship.

Their pursuer was near enough now that Nezia could smell the sourness of coal smoke and see messages being blinked via lantern from its bridge. The other ship looked dangerous and blade sharp, a pair of long naval cannons mounted upon its front deck. They were angled towards her, the twin bores seeming large as train tunnels.

A warship.

Nezia felt the fur on her tail prickle upright and was certain for a woozy moment that she would be sick. The deck was suddenly very crowded, refugees milling confusedly about, uncertain what to do now that they had gotten out from below. Some harried the marines and demanded to know what was happening. Others watched the blinking lights aboard the warship.

“They're going to send a group over in a boat." Said someone next to her, an old fox with salt white fur. He had a coastal accent, like Itzel's, and Nezia found herself seizing upon this one characteristic as proof that he was informed on nautical matters and thus knew what was happening. She was hardly alone in this, for a tense silence fell over the people who had heard the fox.

“Who are they? They're not flying an Inquisition flag…" Said a wooly ram.

“They're not flying any flag at all." Remarked someone else.

“Pirates." Said the old fox grimly. He did not sound panicked and Nezia clung to this as a good sign.

It felt like the old days again, when the war had just started and nobody knew what would come. That had been a time of rumors and a wild oscillation between panic and hopes that perhaps everything could still turn out alright.

“What do they want?" Someone asked the fox, but the old sailor (if that was what he'd been) only sighed and looked elsewhere. He'd reached the end of his ersatz expertise, or he did not want to cause a panic.

Nezia drifted away from the railing, allowing others to take her place. As she did, she saw a pair of sleek motorboats come from around the other side of the pirate ship. They were open topped, each large enough for a dozen passengers. The sorts of boats used for sneaking commandos ashore in unfriendly places or zipping speedily into harbors and causing havoc.

Nezia looked for Martin among the marines, spotted the wolf briefly on one of the higher promenades upon the freighter's bridge, then lost him again. Only a few familiar faces in the crowd, people she'd worked alongside in the kitchen or brushed past in the corridors. She saw the white rabbits, standing uncertainly beside one of the ventilation stacks. They'd taken the time to change into their nicest clothes and looked as though they had gotten lost on the way to a seaside resort. No sign of Itzel or Kill-sin.

Martin reappeared a moment later, this time standing alongside a stout little otter in a white jacket and a peaked captain's hat. The otter clutched a microphone in both paws. His fur was mussed and he'd not buttoned his jacket correctly. The lapels hung crookedly across his chest.

Odd how little details of this sort stood out amidst the chaos.

The captain's lips moved in silence for a moment, then he looked sharply to the side, glaring at someone unseen. The intercoms crackled to life, almost apologetically.

“There is nothing to worry about, we are safe," said the otter. A tremble in his voice undercut the attempt at reassurance. “What these men want is material. They want money and volunteers to join their crew. If we comply then no harm will be done to us and we may continue unmolested to the Outer Shale."

A cry rose from the deck, Nezia cringing at the volume of its noise. The captain's announcement was utterly drowned out. She shied against a wall, trembling, trying her best to become invisible.

“Volunteers?" Someone said, voice high with disbelief.

“Slaves, to be sold at an Inquisition port." Insisted another person.

“Won't be me." A dapple furred hare muttered. She squeezed in against the wall to Nezia's right, trembling like a leaf.

Nezia felt eyes fastening upon her, saw others being quietly singled out. Now that everyone knew some of their fellow passengers would be volunteered to the pirates, there were calculations being made. A terrible, crackly air of fear hung over the crowd like the static just before a lightning strike.

She looked up at the bridge again but Martin was gone. Down below them, near enough to the ship to be unseen, the pirate motorboats growled, coming in to dock. The pirates would be let in through special doors near the back of the ship, just above waterline. This was where she'd first boarded, what felt like a lifetime before.

Nezia stepped away and slipped through the crowd, ducking low, trying hard to keep her panic contained. She found the family of rabbits almost by chance, encapsulated within their own little bubble of incredulous calm. It was as though they hadn't heard the captain's announcement at all. They'd produced a little bit of money from somewhere, worthless western banknotes, as though the pirates were mere toll collectors coming to process a transit fee.

Only the boy seemed frightened.

“Get out of here." Nezia said, teeth gritted so they would not chatter.

The boy's parents looked at her but said nothing. There was such an aura of willful confusion about them that she felt halfway surprised not to have been physically shoved back, like an iron filing repelled by the opposite pole of a magnet.

“Hide your son at very least," she persisted, gripping onto the shoulders of both parents. It was difficult to resist an urge to shake them. “Don't you realize what's going to happen?"

Something about her tone, or perhaps the audacity of her touch, finally seemed to snap the rabbits from their fugue. The mother slapped her paw away, as though swatting an insect, and shied back.

“Get away from us!" She hissed, then grabbed her husband by the elbow and was hurrying back towards the stairwell. Nezia wasn't sure if they would be safe below deck, but it had to be better than being out in plain view.

She thought for a moment about following them but could not say that she trusted any of the people in her berth. The whole ship suddenly felt alien and hostile, a place utterly opposed to her very existence.

The captain was still speaking, words blurred by static and barely intelligible over the noise. Nezia saw a small glittering shape arc from out of the crowd and shatter against the back wall of the bridge promenade, only a few feet removed from the captain's head. The otter ducked smartly away, his address abruptly concluded.

Out came the marines, bayonets fixed and gas bombs at the ready. Now Martin took up the microphone. He looked considerably less polished now, charcoal fur risen in puffs and his fangs bared, though more from fear than anger.

“Disorderly behavior will not be tolerated!" He shouted. A shiver ran through the crowd.

Nezia slunk towards the maintenance promenade, thinking of the dark little nook where she had come across Kill-sin the previous day. It wouldn't have to work for long. Just until the pirates came and went. Or maybe she would run into Itzel and the little river otter would do something to hide her. All of these ideas seemed to occupy a bizarre superposition in her mind, at once ironclad and immaterial.

A paw grabbed tight to her elbow just as she reached the stairwell.

“Where are you sneaking off to, caravan trash?" A voice came, hostile and harsh.

Nezia jumped. The woman accosting her was familiar, a northern ewe who worked in the kitchens. She'd wanted to make candies from the condensed milk only the previous day. Her eyes were narrowed, dark with terrified anger.

“We can hide together—" Nezia began to blurt, then was yanked away from the stairwell. Her feet went out from under her and she tumbled to the deck.

“Fucking vagrant here wants to hide and leave the rest of us to the pirates!" The ewe trumpeted. Nezia squirmed and tried to get back up, the world around her reduced to a dark thicket of feet and legs. Someone stepped accidentally on her wrist and she was certain, for a panicky instant, that she was about to be trampled. There were angry voices now. Nezia saw a small group rush down the stairwell, making a break for the lower decks. The ewe saw this but made no move to stop them.

“Please!" Nezia cried, then someone kicked at her and she had to roll away, a foot glancing from her thigh. A sparkle of pain jittered the full length of her leg. She had just enough time to realize that she was about to die here, beaten to death by a panicked mob, when something exploded behind her with a sharp hissing crack and suddenly there was a new rush of feet, men shouting and laying about with sheathed bayonets and rifle butts. Nezia tried to sit upright, was bowled over by someone trying to flee and cracked her head against the deck. Stars clouded her vision and when they cleared she was lying on her side, dizzily watching a squad of marines force the crowd away from the stairwells leading below deck. Someone had thrown a gas bomb down onto the maintenance promenade and stinging vapor drifted upwards, putting tears into her eyes.

A person was crumpled, insensate and bleeding, across her legs. Nezia managed to sit up again, still feeling dazed. And suddenly there was Martin, pistol drawn and teeth still bared. The front of his uniform was spattered with blood. The wolf saw her and blinked hard.

“Martin…" Nezia reached out but the wolf shied back, eyes flickering across the deck to make sure nobody had seen her gesture. Then he was gone.

Nezia tried to stand but succeeded only in sagging against the nearest wall, a spell of dizziness nearly undoing her legs. She looked to the haze clouding the maintenance promenade, knew that she could never stand it, and so reluctantly allowed herself to be herded back with the other refugees. There was a warm stickiness running into one of her ears and when Nezia touched the side of her head her fingertips came away wet with blood.

For the next half hour the marines prowled the freighter, ferreting out hideaways and mercilessly beating anyone who tried to resist. Nezia heard the distant bang of gas bombs exploding below deck and saw throngs of bedraggled would-be fugitives limping along at bayonet point, eyes red and swollen. Some of them had been burnt by the cordite ignition of the bombs and there were lacy trails of blood-spots leading here and there. An odor of singed fur and scorched flesh hung in the air.

Nezia wasn't sure when Kill-sin arrived, only that the vixen was suddenly right next to her, huddled into her rags and wiping impatiently at her eye. Nezia tried to touch Kill-sin's shoulder but was warned away by a sharp growl.

Two groups had been formed, refugees huddled in one large mass and then crew and crew auxiliaries nearer to the bridge, behind a cordon of marines. They were a protected class, Nezia figured, and was just about to try mentioning that she worked in the kitchen (there was Hart, standing uneasily behind a pair of marines) when the ewe tried this and was roundly ignored. Once more Nezia found herself the subject of a hateful glare, as though she had somehow been personally responsible for all of this.

It occurred to her that she might pray and beg the saints for preservation, but Nezia couldn't think of anything that she had not already offered in vain before.

All was quiet when the pirates came. Nezia heard their laughter before she saw them, heard the click of their claws against the deck plating and smelled tobacco smoke and an iron tang of dried blood. There were a dozen of them, each armed to the teeth. Most were sea otters, their fur shaggy and their faces blunt, eyes tiny and malevolent. They towered over most of the prey refugees and even some of the marines. A few wore leather gas masks with round insectile viewing lenses made from dark glass. They carried swords and braces of machine-pistols held in leather bandoliers strung across their chests, a few even had grenades of western make, the type with long wooden throwing handles and string-pull priming tabs.

Their clothing was eclectic and ragged, stained with salt and engine grease. Some of it was leather or scraps of fur, black with blood and reeking of death. One or two were naked beneath their personal arsenals, pelts crisscrossed with scars and fur dyed with jagged black tattoo patterns. Several wore Inquisition markings, a circle of eight red arrows all facing outwards, but they did so crookedly, with a sort of irreverence that made Nezia doubt their loyalty to anything other than mayhem and plunder.

Besides the otters there was a dark furred fisher-cat, young enough to seem boyish beneath his scars, and a slim maned wolf who lingered at the back. Nezia's eyes caught upon him, since the wolf was the only one dressed in normal, albeit faded clothing. He looked like a country gentleman, with a limp cravat at his throat and a pair of round golden spectacles perched upon his long muzzle. They magnified his amber eyes, giving him a slightly owlish appearance. The wolf stepped delicately over each splotch of blood on the deck and surveyed the refugees with a disgust that was half anger and half skittish fear, holding tight to a black doctor's bag with polished silver clasps. One of the pirates, a sea otter with a long scar across his forehead, said something to him in a casual tone.

“Yes, yes…" The wolf grumbled impatiently, flapping one paw at the pirate. The grizzled otters only laughed at his insolence as the wolf picked his way forward over the grimy deck. Nezia could not help but be surprised to hear a western city dialect come from the doctor's mouth.

The other pirates fanned out, engaging in their own errands. The fisher-cat and a black furred otter prowled along the line of marines until they found the captain, then began to bother him with cruel inanities. Nezia could understand just enough to know that they were complimenting his clothing. The captain was made to give up his jacket, his hat, his pocket watch…

Another pair of pirates went with the first mate up to the bridge and returned with a big canvas laundry sack, heavy with valuables. The pirates poured it out over the deck, then nudged at jewelry and money clips and heirlooms with affected disinterest, as though all the accumulated wealth of the refugees was nothing more than a pittance to them. Nezia saw a pair of emerald earrings, items which had once belonged to her grandmother, and was all but overcome by a new pang of loss.

The doctor stopped a few paces short of the edge of the crowd, upper lip curled into a grimace.

“Filth." Nezia heard him mutter. On his jacket she could see a faded enamel pin showing the red arrows, of the sort that the Inquisition had handed out at rallies in the days before the war, back when they had been called something different and people had treated them like a bad joke.

The scarred sea otter stepped up next to him and clapped the doctor hard on the back, smiling at how the maned wolf flinched.

“We are looking for volunteers to serve as crew aboard our vessel. Only male predators need apply," the otter said, his coastal accent doing odd things to the broader western dialect he now spoke. “Applicants must be of sound physical health. Combat experience is preferred."

It was an oddly formal petition that the scarred otter produced. Nezia supposed that this meant he was in charge. A pirate captain. The otter kept his paw companionably upon the doctor's shoulder as he explained that a medical examination would be necessary. No disease was to be permitted aboard the ship. No familial or social degeneracy. No—

“Which of you was in the service, huh?" A second otter suddenly demanded, cutting off his fellow. So…perhaps not a captain after all, though Nezia could scarcely imagine this new figure leading anyone. He was easily the smallest of the sea otters, scrawny and frenzied, visibly drunk. “Who deserted? You can tell me. I was a navy man myself. Only I skipped out when they said I had to swear a new oath to…to protect and defend a bunch of grass eating fucking vermin, to pretend like my teeth aint meant for eating meat! I bet there's lots of you. I bet you can't wait to—to—"

Whatever else he'd been about to say was apparently unimportant, for the scrawny ex-sailor lunged abruptly at the front of the crowd, paws outstretched and teeth bared into a vicious grin. He scrabbled wildly, hooked his claws into a ruff of brown fur and came back with a little dapple furred hare. Her fellows shied back with a collective moan of fear. Not a paw was raised to help.

Won't be me, the hare had said not so long before. Yet here she was.

The marines, watching from across the deck, seethed and muttered but did not move. All eyes kept flickering to the ominous black shape of the pirate's warship. The twin barrels of the deck guns. Everyone knew what would happen if they tried to fight.

“Grass eaters like this," the otter snarled, shaking the hare like a doll, nearly lifting her wholly from the ground. She squeaked and whimpered, tears running down her face. The otter tossed her down and pinned the hare with one foot, making her wheeze. “They want this filth to lord it over you, to replace you! To—"

At this the scarred otter squeezed one paw across the back of his fellow's neck with faux-fondness, forcing the smaller otter's rant to trail off into a pained whine.

“If you'd like to stand astride the new world that's coming, then volunteer _quickly. _ Otherwise, linger in the muck." The scarred otter said, beneficent meanness showing in his smile.

Nezia stared, paralyzed with horror, a bizarre urge to laugh nibbling at the back of her throat. The scrawny otter shook free from his companion's grip, scowling, but clearly knew better than to press his luck. He bent to grab hold of the hare's ears and dragged her, kicking and whimpering, to the center of the deck. A very different type of 'volunteer.'

“We also need a mechanic, if you'll remember," the doctor said to the scarred otter. “Since the black-thumb in my infirmary is not likely to pull through…"

Two of the predators from amongst the refugees leapt up, a fox and a jackal that Nezia did not recognize. They were young and scruffy, animated by an alloy of terror and feral excitement. Paws slapped and scratched at them as they passed, people glaring and even crooking their paws to make folk curses. The scarred otter met the new recruits with a nod and let the doctor make his examinations. His eyes scanned through the nearer portion of the crowd with the practiced, detached ease of a professional slaver. Moans of fear began, people cringing and cowering. Suddenly Nezia felt a finger jab her shoulder.

“Take her, take the caravan cat!" Someone howled. Nezia thought for a second that it was the northern ewe, but this was someone new entirely, an unfamiliar person who had seen her clothes and knew what they meant.

Other voices started up, matching the cry. Nezia stared, too horrified to even feel betrayed.

“Black cat up against the wall there. Fucked up vixen next to her." The otter said sharply, cutting off the noise. Nezia felt a space open around her, people melting away like shadows before a light. Kill-sin tried to shy with them, to become small and invisible, but she was pushed back by a wall of frightened paws, as though the fact of her selection might be contagious.

At once Nezia felt paralyzed, numb and cold with terror. A colorless border of static had rimmed her vision and was constricting slowly tighter. The context attached to things vanished. It seemed that every fresh moment brought with it a new realization, icy and horrible, that this was real and actually happening to her.

She thought back to another time. Herself in the midst of a huddle of people, all of them moving silently through an evening's dim, ringed by soldiers, until they reached a place where ditches had been dug. This felt as that had felt. The slow, helpless inevitability. The terror that became sharp and total only as the rifles were leveled.

Only these pirates weren't planning to shoot her. Her end wouldn't be so quick or dispassionate.

“Cowards! The saints are watching!" Came a sudden voice from across the deck, and Nezia was startled to see Hart stump forward, the old deer trembling with helpless rage. The pirates hooted and jeered, amused by this sudden burst of defiance. One of the marines grabbed Hart and hauled him back, the deer still spitting curses. Nezia saw a few of the people she'd worked with sink suddenly low, ears pinned and eyes averted.

She had no time to focus on any of this, for suddenly the doctor was by the scarred otter's side, peering at her and Kill-sin with a faint grimace.

“Why _her?" _ He asked, flicking a finger at Kill-sin. “And the cat, she's caravan filth. Thieving. She'll cut our throats in the night." Still, his eyes were fever bright when he looked at her and Nezia did not at all like how the long fur at the back of the maned wolf's neck prickled upright.

Nezia supposed that she should have made an effort to look fierce, but there were already tears spilling down her cheeks and she could not help but cower. The corner of Kill-sin's mouth began to twitch. Her eye flicked around and out, searching in vain for an escape route.

“The Inquisition pays a premium for escapees." Said the scarred otter. Nezia waited for him to say something about her, but the pirate didn't bother. He grabbed her by one ear and tugged her forward, Nezia going with a whimper. She knew on some level that this hurt, since she mewed and went tense, but no actual sensation seemed to register through her shock.

Kill-sin was shoved forward and fell to her knees, mutely trembling. A few of the other pirates echoed the doctor's first question. She was mutilated and skinny, utterly unfuckable (so said the fisher-cat, who now wore the captain's white jacket), but again the scarred otter brought up the notion of an Inquisition bounty and they begrudgingly fell silent.

Rough paws patted over Nezia's clothing, hunting for valuables. Someone yanked her silver necklace away and the fisher-cat began plucking the bells from her jodhpurs before realizing that they were made from common copper. A pair of dark furred fingers stroked roughly between her legs for an instant, then Nezia was pushed to the center of the deck and made to sit. Trembling, she looked to Kill-sin, then the other unfamiliar faces around her. All women except for the two actual volunteers, who stood separate. Nobody looked at her. They all wore identical expressions of shock, terror and resignation.

The little hare who had been snatched first had been stripped nearly naked before the scrawny otter was chased away by his fellows. Not here, they'd warned him. No matter how brashly they acted, the pirates were on edge.

Nezia looked towards the bridge and the marines. Martin stood there besides the captain. His eyes found hers for a moment and Nezia silently pled for him to step forward and somehow rescue her. Even if it meant choosing someone else, even if—

Again the wolf looked away, eyes fixed upon the deck plating. He didn't move even when the pirates began prowling around the cadre of auxiliary mechanics who had crowded behind the marines for safety.

“Damn you, we need them!" Nezia heard one of the marines snarl and for a moment there was an impasse. Then someone from amongst the mechanics lost their nerve, a sandy furred bunny with one missing ear stood straight and shrieked that she would not die for the sake of a slave.

Nezia knew what would happen even before it did, her stomach performing a sickly little swoop as a pair of laughing pirates moved to intercept a scrambling figure. No matter how speedy or strong Itzel may have been, she was still a tiny river otter facing off against two larger men. Some of the marines tensed, but one of the pirates showed them the red mark of Itzel's brand.

“Property," he insisted. “Our property, not yours. …Are you really gonna kill everyone here over a slave?"

The marines did not move when Itzel was taken. The river otter shot a hateful look back at the crew, then went limp and forced her captors to drag her. They threw her down amongst the others with unhidden pique.

Nezia shuffled nearer but could not summon any comforting words, she was trembling too badly. The look in Itzel's eyes had become distant and strange, the otter staring into open space with hollow, numb flatness. A phantom sensation trembled nonsensically upon Nezia's lips for an instant, the halfway desperate insistence of Itzel's kiss. How different the little otter was now.

“There, got us a spare black-thumb," said the pirate who had grabbed her, demonstratively dusting off his paws. “That it? We full up?"

Counts were made, loot was gathered and with shocking suddenness they were being forced to move. Nezia tried to look again at Martin, but the wolf was still turned away. She could see his tail trembling and his ears tightly pinned. She opened her mouth to cry out, to at least shame him, but could not manage a single noise.

What would it matter anyway? In two weeks he would be wearing a new uniform on the Outer Shale and all of this would be a distant memory.

And she…

They were prodded and pushed into the motorboats, huddled down amidst cans of fuel. Nezia peered over the side of the boat, into the vast swell of the sea, then sank back down with a tiny mew of terror.

The pirates hazed and shoved their new crew-mates just as much as they did the captives, smearing their fur with soot and grime so that they matched everyone else. The fox and jackal tried to smile their way through this, even as the pirates stole their few belongings. It was share and share alike aboard their happy ship, the sea otters insisted…though neither of the volunteers were brave enough to try out this philosophy for themselves.

Nezia ended up sandwiched between Itzel on her right and the poor, dappled hare to the left. The hare mumbled prayers as they motored off across the choppy sea, the black figure of the warship growing before them.

“Listen to me," Itzel said abruptly, snapping from her fugue. “Whatever they do to you when we get onboard, don't fight them. If you fight they will kill you."

Nezia knew that the otter had to be speaking from experience.

Panic began to well within her but Nezia managed, just barely, to tamp it down. No matter how horrible this was, it would certainly get worse if she lost her head. Yet, the practiced detachment in Itzel's eyes also scared her badly. As did the realization that there was no foreseeable end to this. The pirates had her prisoner now, in a place surrounded by open ocean in all directions.

The next moment Itzel was grabbed, one of the pirates dragging the little otter to the center of the boat, where there was a bit of empty space. Paws tore away the little otter's tunic, baring the white fur of her flat chest and toned belly. The fisher-cat pinched cruelly at Itzel's nipples, making her flinch, then shoved her into someone else's arms.

“Welcome home, slave," he said with a sharp toothed smile. “I bet you missed this."

The little otter went limp, even when her legs were pushed open and someone crudely spread the soft pink lips of her lutrine pussy.

Nezia squeezed her eyes shut, a whimper trapped behind tightly gritted teeth. She wanted to make like the hare and pray, but none of the words would come and she could not even make the cantos of reverence stand straight in her mind. She cringed down, waiting for the grab of a paw.

“Not here, damnit," came the scarred otter's voice instead, rising above a growl of engine noise and pirate jeering. “Wait 'til we get aboard."

Hesitantly, Nezia looked. Itzel had been bent over the gunwale, one of the sea otters pressed up behind her. He impatiently stroked at his sheath, trying to coax enough of his length out so he could teach the runaway a lesson. For a moment he and the scarred otter glared at each other, then the would-be rapist scoffed and shoved Itzel into the bottom of the boat.

“I got first dibs on the bitch," he said, daring anyone to contradict him. “First dibs once we get hauled up!" His cock was dark purple and blunt, intimidatingly thick. Was this how all of the sea otters were equipped? Nezia could not bear to dwell on it.

The scarred otter rolled his eyes but said nothing. He sat back down besides the doctor, who looked harried and faintly seasick. The maned wolf kept glancing back at the freighter, as though he feared that their latest victim might suddenly give chase.

They came up to the stern of the warship and were lifted aboard by means of chains attached to the aft and stern of the motorboat. Unseen machinery rumbled and squalled. Nezia looked over the side of the boat, down into the blue-gray chop of the sea below. She thought for an instant about jumping but was again overcome by such an instinctive terror that it turned her limbs to jelly and clouded her vision with black stars.

Then there was riveted steel beneath her, rusty and streaked all over with oil, paint a distant rumor. The whole of the warship looked astonishingly shabby now that she saw it up close. They were set down with a bang that rattled her from head to tail. But Nezia could not focus on this for long, because then there were new pirates crowding close, grinning with frenzied delight. Their number oscillated in her mind, dozens, scores, hundreds, an endless horde of rapacious violators.

It seemed that the whole crew had come to see their new possessions. Most of them were sea otters, with a sprinkling of other species. All predators, all with sharp teeth and cruel eyes.

“Fresh fuck-toys!" Someone howled, a tall black furred jackal dancing in the midst of the crowd. He wore a tattered Inquisition flag like a cape. Claws scraped at the sides of the boat and now Nezia watched with surreal fascination as her captors now became the most zealous of defenders, striking at each groping paw with the flats of saber blades.

“Fuck-toys and new mates also!" Said the scarred otter, then unceremoniously shoved the jackal and fox into the crowd. They vanished like stones thrown into deep water.

“All of the cunt is ours," the scrawny otter shouted, brandishing a phosphorus grenade at the interlopers. “We stole it so we get first goes! First goes!"

A low, hungry growl rose from the crowd. They pressed ever closer.

“Toss them a slave or two," the scarred otter decided. “Before they get ideas."

At this pronouncement the scrawny otter scrambled back and grabbed the hare by the ears, holding her with possessive fervor.

“Not the bunny," he said, not quite able to raise his voice to a properly menacing snarl. “I took her, she's mine!"

The scarred otter maintained his gaze, just long enough to make the smaller otter squirm, then laughed to himself and looked elsewhere, across the other captives. Nezia cowered beneath the dispassionate weight of his gaze, praying that he wouldn't pick her. She wanted to beg, to crawl low and squirm and promise to do anything that would keep her away from a fate like that.

Then suddenly the fisher-cat leaned over and grabbed Kill-sin by the arm, dragging the vixen forward.

“Oh for fuck's sake, you'll just piss them off." Said the scarred otter.

“If she's all that's left at the end of this…" The fisher muttered unhappily, but acquiesced and let the vixen crumple to the bottom of the boat.

Nezia was too frightened even to be glad for Kill-sin's sake. Once more she was being looked at, scrutinized and surveyed. A paw came out…and grabbed onto the long, spade shaped ear of a tawny furred roe deer sitting next to her. The doe squealed and tried to beg, hooves clattering against the bottom of the boat, then she was pitched over the side and a howl of delight sounded from the crew. Many of the roving, rapaciously grabbing paws vanished and Nezia saw scraps of torn clothing flung skyward. The doe shrieked, then the noise was muffled and Nezia could hear men fighting and snarling, vying to see who would be first to use her.

Nezia pressed both paws over her ears and sank down, eyes huge and vision blurring with tears.

“Gods, oh gods, _please…" _ She whimpered.

They threw out a plump, matronly little lop-eared rabbit next (another rising wail, abruptly stifled) and now there were only a few people trying halfheartedly to clamber in and physically seize a captive (a fuck-toy, as the psychotically grinning jackal had put it) for themselves. The pirates of the boarding party relaxed, putting away their blades and bombs. Nezia saw Itzel dragged up to the front of the motorboat, the scarred otter holding her up by the scruff of her neck like a hunting trophy. The little otter hung there naked, grimacing with pain, her tail trembling.

“We've recovered a runaway," the scarred otter announced, bellowing in order to be heard over the depraved cacophony enveloping the warship's stern deck. “An uppity slave bitch who thinks she's too good for our company!"

A vicious, delighted roar rose from the crowd, but this time there was no frenzied rush to come and claim Itzel. Everyone knew there were rules now, semblances of order.

“Skin her!" The jackal suggested, earning a few vengefully happy whoops. The scarred otter smiled this off.

“She's a black-thumb, so do not cripple her," he said. “…But aside from that, don't be gentle. Teach the bitch a lesson!" With that he shoved her forward, into a sea of grinning horribles.

Behind him, the impatient pirate who had tried to rape Itzel on the brief journey over shot to his feet.

“Damn you!" He snarled, glaring at the scarred otter. “I had first dibs!"

“And you may still, if you hurry." Said the scarred otter with cruel nonchalance. Nezia waited to see if perhaps the pirates would kill each other, but she was not to be so fortunate. The impatient otter shook his head, muttered something unpleasant and leapt after Itzel. Nezia heard a chorus of lutrine yowls, then the chaos of an unseen brawl. She hoped that Itzel would be able to slip away and hide someplace.

“You wanna partake, doc?" The scarred otter asked, glancing over. The maned wolf had not moved a muscle since they'd boarded, his ears tightly pinned and his arms wrapped protectively over his doctor's bag. He stirred at the sound of the otter's words, shook his head impatiently, then glanced again to the sea, at the distant shape of the freighter. They had restarted their engines and were running now, the sea churning at their stern.

“We should sink them," the maned wolf said abruptly, overcome by a sudden near-manic horror. “Filth and crawling vermin over there. Inferiors. Savages. They'll breed like flies if they get away."

“Four or five shells to reliably, quickly sink that vessel…for no further gain on our part." Mused the otter.

“For the sake of social hygiene." Said the doctor, but was only laughed at.

“Come on," the scarred otter teased. He seemed to enjoy the maned wolf's discomfort. “I bet the caravan kitty would keep her claws sheathed if you asked nice—"

“I have work to do, Mr. Greenglass." The doctor snapped, upright sternness masking a brief spasm of uncertainty. Nezia felt the maned wolf's eyes on her for a moment and saw the long black fur on the back of his neck rise in ragged clumps. A sickly, diseased feeling accompanied this and she was very glad to see him depart.

The scarred otter—Greenglass, the doctor had called him—laughed. Nezia listened to the prayers of the dapple furred hare sitting next to her and again tried to mimic, but still her thoughts would not focus. Not even out of reflex, in service of cantos recited a thousand times before.

She'd not been able to pray back in the forest either. Even in the darkness after the volleys of shots, when there had been nothing left besides blood and silence.

Please don't let them take me, she wanted to say, to beg that the gods and saints let her ascend in a beam of light, as happened to martyrs in the cantos. But of course she remained exactly where she was.

The next moment the scrawny otter came forward again, eyes focused intently upon the hare. It was time at last to enjoy the fruits of his plunder. But before he could get to her the hare shot to her feet, suddenly enough that Nezia flinched away. The hare produced a sharp silver crescent from a fold of her tattered dress, a sharp fragment of mirror glass. She looked across the boat at the pirates, then drew the splinter across her throat in a single swift motion.

For all of the awful things she had seen during the war, Nezia had only ever read about throat-cutting and was startled by the volume and vivid immediacy of the hare's blood. It jetted from one side of her neck in particular, glittering in the sunlight, so red that it seemed to glow. The scrawny otter skittered back, his face soaked with crimson.

The hare sank back down, calm as anything, then slumped forward and was limp and shapeless in the bottom of the motorboat, legs restlessly twitching. The pirates stared and around her Nezia could see the other captives making silent gestures and hear them murmuring wishes that the hare have a swift and peaceful journey. She looked herself over and was distantly surprised to find that not a single drop of the hare's blood had touched her.

“Fucking bunny bitch!" The scrawny otter howled, finding his words at last. Blood flecked his teeth and one of his eyes was closed against a stinging spatter of red. He stepped forward, nudged at the hare's corpse and then kicked her savagely in the ribs, quaking with impotent rage. Bitch, bitch, fucking whore slut cunt, he kept snarling.

The other pirates of the boarding party laughed.

“You could still have her," said the fisher-cat, stepping casually over to survey the scene. The white of his stolen captain's jacket had been marred by a lacy spatter of scarlet. “Hasn't stopped you before."

“She…that one was still alive when I started." The scrawny otter muttered, shivering with embarrassed anger. He made to kick the hare again but slipped on her blood and had to grab the nearer gunwale to keep from falling.

“Eh, bunny pelt will be worth something," said Greenglass lightly. “Wrap the vixen in it and sell them both next time we get to a friendly port." He made a gesture and the scrawny otter reluctantly dragged the corpse of his would-be victim to the front of the motorboat, leaving behind a dark smear of gore. Nezia stared at the floor, feeling a fading, sticky warmth around her toes. She looked for the piece of mirror glass, but of course the fisher-cat had already picked it up. He examined the bloodied shard, then snickered and tossed it into the ocean.

“Anyone else gonna do something dramatic?" He asked, eyes sweeping across the frightened huddle. “No? Good. 'Cause if you try and then fuck it up, I will personally spend a long time ruining you."

With that he reached out and took her. Nezia had spent a long enough time waiting to be grabbed that when it finally happened she felt a bizarre sense of relief, if only for a moment. There would be no more horrible waiting, no more sitting and enduring the noise of unseen atrocities. Then her eyes seized upon the fisher-cat's paw, tight on her arm, and new horror replaced the old.

“Wait…" She began to say, but the fisher casually cracked her across the muzzle with the back of his free paw, hard enough to snap her head to the side. Nezia felt no pain at first, only a curious numbness at the side of her mouth. She registered the taste of salt at the back of her throat, then felt warmth soak the fur under her nose. One of the sea otters came to join the fisher, his paw finding her throat and forcing her to stand straight. He was easily the largest of the pirates that Nezia had seen, tall and broadly built enough that he would have made Martin look small. Nezia quailed at his touch, the frightening strength coiled in his paw. The otter was already naked and hard, cock bobbing in the open air. The fur just over his groin had been dyed black in a tattoo; a pair of crossed saber blades framing a very different sort of weapon, the otter's cock thick and blunt, already issuing impatient drips of pre.

They tore her clothes away, blouse ripped down the middle and the seams of her jodhpurs giving with a whisper. They tossed it all away with a tinkle of copper bells and suddenly Nezia found herself bare and horribly exposed. She took a shallow, blood-scented breath, the world feeling strange and distant around her, every sensation muted by a fog of numb horror. A familiar insistence pounded at the back of her mind, that this simply could not be happening.

“She's caravan folk?" The tattooed otter asked curiously as Nezia squirmed in his grasp. “Never seen one of them before." He squeezed her throat a little tighter, enough to constrict her breathing to a miserable, frightened wheeze. Black spots frothed at the edges of her vision. Nezia kept her paws balled tight at her sides, no matter how strong the instinct was to scratch.

The fisher-cat nodded with a grin. He'd stepped behind her but still Nezia could see a hint of his muzzle out of the corner of one eye. His breath ruffled the fur between her neck and shoulder, both of the fisher's paws dropping to frame her hips as he rubbed against her, the firm weight of his bulge apparent.

“All the women in those caravans are trained whores." The fisher-cat said, shuffling down his pants. His cock pressed against the underside of her tail for a moment, hot and slick, impatiently throbbing. Nezia was momentarily surprised, then relieved to feel no barbs. Not truly a cat then. Probably couldn't breed her, if…

Others pressed past them to choose victims of their own and the tattooed otter grumbled at the interruption. He and the fisher exchanged a glance, then moved to escort Nezia over the side of the motorboat, onto the deck of the warship.

Nezia squirmed, frightened that she might be grabbed and pulled into the greater chaos, but her status must have been clear enough for even though paws greedily pressed and groped, mussing her black fur, nobody made a serious attempt to drag her away.

For a moment she was frozen, overwhelmed by the scale of the depravity around her. It had been one thing to listen to it from within the motorboat, but now…

The poor doe lay amidst a tangle of squabbling otters only a few feet away, all but hidden beneath her attackers. Her one free paw hung limp and the otter at her front, hips pumping hard against her muzzle, did not seem at all interested in letting her get any air. The pirates growled and grunted, rubbing impatiently against any hint of exposed fur, desperate to destroy every hint of a person (a slave now, Nezia thought sickly) not yet broken and debased.

Of the lop eared rabbit there was no sign except for a cluster of impatient otters some distance removed. There were stairwells leading below deck and up from one of them Nezia saw the black furred jackal emerge, leading a limping, cowering marten on a chain. The marten was naked but for a leather collar around her neck, thin to the point of emaciation, fur brittle and cut through with raw red lines that might have been inflicted by claws, a lash or both. The look in her eyes was one of blank, hollow desolation.

The jackal shoved her forward, giving her to the crew, but they bent her over only listlessly, all real attention reserved for the new arrivals that the boarding party had brought back. It was a conniving, overeager air which animated the pirates, all of them utterly desperate to make their mark before too much abuse wore the new fuck-toys out.

Then someone tossed a rope up over the far gantry of the machine which had hauled the motorboats up on deck and Nezia saw a pair of grinning pirates pull Itzel aloft. The little river otter had been hung from her tail and dangled upside down in midair. Her brown fur was badly mussed and splotched with wet streaks of white. Her legs had fallen open and Nezia could see thick lutrine seed drooling from the poor otter's abused sex. Someone pushed Itzel and made her swing, then she was seized and her muzzle forced open around the girth of a sea otter's cock. He fucked the little otter's throat with such vicious force that Nezia thought for sure that she was about to see the other girl's neck broken. But Itzel endured, writhing and kicking, all but strangled. Nezia lost sight of her.

Suddenly she was being pushed down, bent over an empty oil drum. Warm, greasy metal pressed against Nezia's stomach. She squirmed, tail whipping wildly and teeth tightly gritted. The fisher settled behind her, paws framing her hips, and Nezia felt claws dig into the side of her head, the tattooed sea otter grinding the full length of his cock against the side of her muzzle, letting her know just how much she would have to take.

A whole medley of whimpering pleas bubbled uselessly to the tip of her tongue, then the otter forced her mouth open and shoved himself in, so hard and sudden that she jolted from head to toe, hips forced unwillingly against the fisher's. A fractured thought came to Nezia, that if poor Itzel, who was so much smaller than her, could survive this then she could as well.

The fisher laughed, running one paw up the center of her back, then Nezia felt the blunt head of his cock despoil her sex. She was hardly a virgin, but this still felt like some monstrous parody of a deflowering.

Her rapist took his time to hilt into her, enjoying the way she whimpered and squirmed, delighting in just how clearly she hated it. A hard, horrible ache shivered between Nezia's legs.

“Trained whore?" The tattooed otter grunted, holding his entire length down her throat. “She can't suck cock worth a damn."

“Maybe you're too big for her." The fisher suggested. This made the otter laugh.

“Worse problems to have." He said. Nezia felt a huge paw grab hard onto the scruff of her neck, then the otter was fucking her muzzle with hard, cruel strokes. She struggled uselessly in his grasp, tears running down the sides of her face and an awful, sickly strangling feeling constricting her chest and darkening the edges of her vision. What air she could get only came when the otter pulled back for another deep, painful thrust. It came in hot, musky sips, just barely enough for her to be certain of continued consciousness. Her bloodied nose printed splotches of crimson across the tangled fur above the otter's sheath. Nezia thought of closing her eyes and trying to make herself distant, as Itzel seemed to have done, but there was no way. The fisher tormented her even as he fucked her, paws roaming to pinch and scratch and fondle. He found her nipples and dug his claws into them. It felt like being stabbed with a needle. Nezia whimpered.

“None of these cats ever have tits worth a damn." The fisher muttered, words edged by harsh panting.

“I'll take a set of tight holes over a pair of tits any day." The tattooed otter said, in a tone that suggested unassailable wisdom. All Nezia could think of was the marten. Was that going to be her in a few days or weeks? …If she even survived that long.

“You'll like this one then, the way she _clenches…" _ Said the fisher with a shaky laugh. His thrusts were growing shorter and faster, hot spurts of pre making the battered walls of her pussy sting. Humiliation burned within her at each new word exchanged, how clearly and casually her rapists were enjoying this. Just how easily they'd subdued her and would surely continue to torture her until…

An urge rose, to bite down and inflict some hurt in return, but then she remembered the fisher's threat back on the motorboat. The flatness of his eyes as he'd threatened to ruin anyone who fought back in any way at all. To make it slow.

As if on cue the fisher reached between her legs, a pair of fingers finding her clit. He pinched it cruelly, wringing a shriek from Nezia. She writhed, a sob of pain muffled by the cock jamming her muzzle, trying in vain to get away. It felt as though someone had taken a brand to her. But the fisher kept hold, and he groaned in delight at just how tightly she clenched.

“Stop, please please please!" Nezia tried to beg, but managed only a sharp, miserable little cry. The fisher pounded into her, free paw gripped tight to the base of her tail, making sure that she couldn't withdraw even an inch. On some level Nezia knew that this would not last for much longer with the way the fisher's cock throbbed inside of her, but all the rest was overcome with pain and panic. Her paws came up and she pushed impotently at the tattooed sea otter's thighs, just enough sense preserved to keep her claws hidden. Fortunately, he only kept fucking her face, no retribution taken.

The fisher thrust into her a half dozen more times, his thrusts hard and ragged, then Nezia felt a hot splash of liquid warmth soak her womb. Finally, mercifully, her rapist's claws loosened from her clit and the fisher focused instead on grinding his hips against hers, determined to completely empty his balls. A warm spatter of drool soaked the fur at the center of her back. Even amidst everything else, Nezia could not help but shiver in disgust, newly humiliated by the completeness of her degradation.

“Fuck…" The fisher groaned. His paw came back down and Nezia cringed, expecting more torture, but the fisher only rubbed her stomach with expectant fondness. “Have fun with my kits, slut."

Nezia insisted to herself that this was not possible, their species were too different, but could not make herself feel certain. A whole dark, dreadful gulf opened up at the pit of her stomach and now the seed which had flooded her womb burned with poisonous potential.

The fisher pulled out and left her with a desultory spank. Nezia flinched, shivering with the force of her bottled up sobs. Her clit ached and her sex felt raw and bruised. The ugly warmth of the fisher's load drooled unhurriedly down the insides of her quivering thighs.

“All yours." Said the fisher, then was gone.

Nezia had no time to feel even the slightest relief before the tattooed otter took her by the scruff, flipped her onto her back (Nezia managed to take a full gulp of air, but even this was tainted by the taste of his pre) and then he was fully on top of her, her legs spread wide by the otter's weight. She tried to squirm, to at least find a more bearable position upon the riveted metal of the deck, but then the otter's cock was forced all the way into her and she submitted with a pained, miserable whimper.

The sea otter was larger than the fisher and thick in a way that made Nezia think that she would physically tear. For a bizarre instant she could only think of the first time she'd ever taken Martin's cock. Taken his knot. The prickle of fear she'd always felt, right before the feline flexibility of her body saw her through. She tried hard to relax the frightened tension between her legs.

No matter what she did, it hurt. An ache so deep that it took her breath away, as though she were still being choked. No breath in her lungs so she couldn't even cry out.

The otter took her paws when she tried to brace them against his chest and pinned them to the deck, high over her head. This position felt somehow even more helpless than what she'd been in before. Nezia saw leering faces appear over her rapist's shoulder, but the tattooed otter snarled a quick fuck off and they retreated. A little. Waiting their turn.

“Gods you're tight," the sea otter panted, as though he thought she might appreciate this as a compliment. “Never had a cat before."

Off to the side Nezia heard something thump to the deck and saw Kill-sin being rousted from the motorboat by Greenglass. The scarred otter looked down at the tumbled over figure of the vixen.

“I will not tolerate wallflowers on this ship," he called, in a way guaranteed to attract attention. “Go and mingle. Have fun!"

This was the first time Nezia had seen Kill-sin look absolutely frightened. The stoic blankness had all gone and her remaining eye was bright with terror. For a moment they locked gazes, then Kill-sin picked herself up and tried to limp away. She made it only a few steps before a pirate with golden rings in one ear caught her by the tail and dragged her off, out of sight. Nezia heard laughter, then a high vulpine yelp as a blow landed.

It was hard to focus on any one thing for very long, there was so much noise and pain, too much shame and angry, useless humiliation boiling up inside of her. Each new thrust from the tattooed otter made her whimper, made the otter grin and know just how total his domination was. When he let go of her left paw in order to squeeze her throat instead, she did not stop him. Even when her air went and black spots clouded her vision.

It was through a gray, hazy veil that she felt the otter finish, his hips grinding against hers, spreading her legs so far open that she felt the tendons creak and strain. His cum was thicker than the fisher's and there was enough of it that it seemed to overflow her immediately, soaking her womb and making all of the little hurts along the inside of her sex sting even worse than before.

He let go of her neck and Nezia coughed, wheezing. Something had pulled where her neck met her shoulder and she kept wanting to hunch into the red hot pain there, so that just one piece of hurt might be slightly assuaged.

The tattooed otter stood and stretched, and Nezia was just dizzy and dissociated enough to think for a moment that it was over. Then those leering faces came back and this time there was nothing left to stop them. Paws closed upon her wrists and legs, tail and throat. For an odd, painful moment Nezia felt herself being tugged in different directions, then one opportunistic figure fell upon her and suddenly there was nothing but fur and cruel, clawing paws in all directions. A ring of lutrine teeth closed upon her shoulder, hard enough to make her mewl, then her mouth was being held open and a blunt, pre leaking cock shoved down her throat. She spasmed when a new cock pushed into her sex, and again at a rough, glancing touch against her tail-hole.

“No…" She tried to beg, but of course nothing could be heard and there was nothing she could have possibly done to stop them anyway. Up above her, Nezia could see that the clouds had cleared and the top of the sky was beginning to darken in preparation for evening. Soon there would be stars. Had she really awoken only that morning with the certainty that she would soon be in a safe place?

She felt a paw lift her tail and then the blunt head of a lutrine cock align itself impatiently at her tail-hole before shoving in. A new ripple of pain transfixed her, like an electrical shock only worse. It felt wet, somehow, like she was being drenched in liquid flame of the sort that the Inquisition filled their rockets with. She writhed and kicked, or tried to but could not move. Her newest rapist hilted into her with another pair of thrusts and grunted his approval at the tightness of her tail-hole. Nezia wept and choked, gagging on the next slick spurt of pre that was shot down her throat.

“Stop…" She managed to say when her mouth was next free, but the otter had only stopped fucking her mouth so he could paint her face with his cum. The pirates snickered at the contrast of his load against the blackness of her fur, and again when her tail-hole was filled and she sobbed at how badly her rapist's seed stung.

Nezia saw Itzel again, the little otter being made to crawl on all fours across the deck. She had on a leather slave collar now and when the pirate walking her demanded it she rolled over like a tame pet and then spread her legs so that he could fuck her cunt.

On one of the walls a betting pool had emerged in chalk, wagering on who would successfully breed her first. The jackal had the longest odds, of course, but still loudly claimed that he could pull it off if given enough opportunity.

Nezia tried to crawl away, to find a dark corner where she might be overlooked, but new paws found her ankle and she was dragged to the center of the deck and thrown down, limp and despondent. She looked to Itzel but the little otter's face was being pressed into the deck. The tip of her tail trembled when she was bred yet again, but the otter offered no other reaction to her own degradation.

Again, tiredly, Nezia tried to pray but could only manage one line of a canto before the tears overcame her and she could only curl into a miserable little ball. A foot nudged painfully at the small of her back, once and then again, forcing her to straighten. Paws spread her legs once again and she managed to get a little further into the canto before the pirate between her thighs held her muzzle shut with one paw.

“Nobody's listening." He said with flat annoyance, then shoved into her with deliberate roughness. The fur between his legs was speckled with blood by the time he finished.

Most of the pirates were drunk now, the gathering evening dim punctuated by fires—pools of oil poured into the cut off bottoms of barrels and then lit—and dancing and music provided by a ragged band of slaves brought up from below. Their songs grew ever more discordant as members were snatched, pinned and passed roughly between gangs of sea otters.

In the middle of this Nezia was cast aside and for some time found herself occupying a bubble of dark solitude. She tried to look for hiding places again but was too hurt and exhausted to move. Even turning her head felt nearly impossible.

Itzel was being made to dance in the firelight, the poor little otter heckled and jabbed at by saber blades when all she could manage was a pained shuffle. Nezia had to stop watching when they bent Itzel over and began trying to jam the thick end of a liquor bottle up her cunt.

In the shadow of the warship's bridge, at the edge of the (party? Was this what passed for festivities here in the second circle of hell?) insane depravity, Nezia saw Kill-sin again, the vixen being shoved back and forth between a pair of giggling otters. She had fresh scratches on one side of her face but had retained her clothes. The vixen kept her head ducked and shoulders hunched, trying to make herself as small and uninteresting a target as possible.

“Why would anyone from the Inquisition bother paying for her?" One of the otters, soot stained and patchy furred, was saying. He seized hold of Kill-sin's muzzle and examined her scars with a grimace. “It's not like they could ruin her any worse than they already did."

“They always find ways. Can be damn sure of that." Said the second otter with malevolent certainty. His fur was salt white and this gave him a faintly ghostly appearance. He patted Kill-sin between the ears with perverse gentleness.

“…Wasted a perfectly good space on the boat that could've been filled with prime fuck-meat. Instead we gotta look at this shit." The first otter muttered. He stuck out one foot and tripped Kill-sin, sending the vixen sprawling onto the deck.

The white otter snickered at this, then produced a black cloth bag from his belt and, in one smooth motion, whipped it over Kill-sin's head. The vixen tried to resist, paws coming up to remove the bag, but the otters pinned her onto her back with practiced ease.

“There, now you don't have to look at it anymore." Said the white furred otter. He tore away the vixen's rags and pressed open her legs. Kill-sin tried to kick but the otter rammed a fist into her stomach and the vixen's defiance failed, her snarl declining abruptly to a pained wheeze.

Nezia trembled silently, hating herself for watching, hating even more the instinctive relief she felt that this was happening to someone else instead of her. A sheen of guilty tears blurred her vision as the white furred otter broke the vixen in, her dusky vulpine sex stretched tight around the girth of his shaft. Kill-sin cried out once and then was silent, trembling with the effort of staying still and not giving her rapist the satisfaction of seeing any distress.

The first otter snickered, pacing a circuit just past Kill-sin's head. He heckled and jeered for a few halfhearted moments, then entertained himself by pouring water over the cloth covering Kill-sin's face. The vixen writhed and choked, high, sobbing yips of terror leaking through the soaked bag. She must have clenched down, for the white furred otter's thrusts grew hard and jagged, his teeth tightly gritted.

Nezia shut her eyes as more pirates drifted over to investigate the vixen's cries. One of them found her instead and she was dragged by her tail over to the fire Itzel was being made to dance in front of.

“This one's the caravan tramp, right?" The pirate asked, tossing her down. Itzel shivered weakly at the sight of her but did not dare stop her arrhythmic shuffle.

The fisher, lounging casually on a tattered armchair that someone had dragged onto the deck, smirked.

“Tightest cunt I've had in a while." He bragged.

“Not after I finished with her." Said the tattooed otter. He pushed Nezia onto her back and made her spread her legs. They all laughed at the mess between her thighs.

“Hey caravan slut," came the voice of the first pirate, the one who'd dragged her over. “Do you dance? Maybe you can teach the runaway over there some proper steps."

“They all dance," said the fisher. “It's in their blood."

This seemed to be good as gospel so far as the pirates were concerned, for Nezia suddenly found herself being kicked and prodded upright. She just barely managed to get to her knees and lingered there, trembling and cringing beneath the cruelly expectant gazes of so many men. More than a few had raped her across the breadth of the evening, flashes of errant sensation and awful memory dug into her mind like splinters. How they had grunted, panted, raked her hips and back with her claws…

The point of a saber blade came out and jabbed her in the ribs, hard enough to draw blood. She tried to stand but her knees buckled. Nezia whimpered with fright as she fell. The fisher hissed his disapproval.

“Either you dance or you go down below," he snapped, standing above her. From the corner of her vision Nezia saw Itzel hesitate, pity and concern flickering across her face for half a second before the fisher rounded on her. “What's your problem? Keep dancing."

Itzel obeyed. Nezia took small, shallow breaths. Down below meant going where the slaves were kept. If that meant being away from the pirates…

Still, she tried once more, frightened of what they might do to her if she made a show of giving up. Again she reached her knees but could go no further. The fisher's lip curled into a contemptuous grimace.

“Dumb bitch." He pronounced, then kicked her down and returned to his chair.

Nezia lay on the deck plating as the pirates bickered over who would take her to the slave quarters down below.

“Just throw her overboard." Muttered the scrawny sea otter. He didn't appear to be over the loss of his own fuck-toy.

“Shut up, Reed." Said someone else, and the otter—Reed—collapsed into an indignant sulk.

A first few stars were beginning to come out now, pale points of white against a blue-black sky. She tried to think of how her mother had told her about these same stars, charting each one to a saint…but every bit of her hurt too much and there was darkness curling in from around the edges of her vision, making the world feel flat and distant.

It was Reed who was eventually drafted by his fellows to take her below. Nezia could not even begin to feel worried about this. It was only a grim sort of numb inevitability that settled over her when Reed paused at the first dark corner and pushed her muzzle against the swelling thickness of his sheath.

“At least you caravan trash are good for something…" He panted, forcing her mouth open.

Nezia tried to turn her head away but was too weak even for this attempt at defiance to register, or perhaps the otter was too focused on satisfying his own depraved wants to delay by beating her. He smelled so strongly of blood that being pressed up against him like this made Nezia feel ill. A flash of memory; Reed kicking at the hare, shrieking abuse at her corpse.

He shoved his cock hard into her muzzle, making her gag, claws digging painfully into the sides of her head. Nezia squirmed, tears filling her eyes. A part of her wanted to bite down, to end this, but some coldly rational voice insisted that it would not be so easy. They would not simply kill her if she hurt one of them. Not quickly, at least. She thought of everything that had been done to Itzel—a captive they intended to keep—and suddenly could not imagine what the pirates might inflict upon someone marked for death. For ruination.

Nezia shut her eyes and remained only just present enough to make sure she would not suffocate. There was a cold, dissociated feeling all around her now, fugue-like in its intensity. She did not whimper, cry or even recoil in disgust when the otter reached his climax and drenched her face with thick ropes of sticky lutrine seed. No reaction or dread as he dragged her down below deck.

Away went the stars, replaced by a cloying, stale darkness that smelled of coal smoke and engine grease. Nezia could feel eyes on her and hear grunts and sobs leaking from the nearer rooms and alcoves, some of the pirates taking the opportunity to inflict more pain in private.

She tried to consider the layout of the ship and how the corridors and stairways connected, but her mind refused to cooperate. The idea of escape, or even of somehow adapting herself to this hellish place seemed utterly impossible. Her eyes stayed open but she no longer truly saw. At last they came to a final stairwell where the blackness was truly impenetrable. Reed opened a steel door which had been crudely modified to have no latch on the inside. From below Nezia could smell a suffocating stink of old blood and new death. Little furtive movements sounded, scratching and scuttling.

“New one coming down," Reed called into the darkness. “Clean her up, don't let her die. You fucking scum know the drill…" The last part came more as a disgruntled mutter than active instruction. He let her go, without bothering to give so much as a push, and Nezia tumbled limply down the metal stairs. She supposed that it hurt, distantly. The place on her temple where she'd been cut that morning (entire eons ago, it felt to her) had begun to bleed again and her nose was dripping.

She lay on grimy steel in the midst of complete blackness, trembling with pain, broken in every way. Above her, the door slammed shut. After a while little green spots of diffused light emerged one by one, from different places around what seemed to be a single large room. They were tiny and faint, framing the suggestion of bent, creeping figures, but Nezia could not decide if any of this was real…or if it even mattered. Paws patted delicately over her, but though she thought that they would pinch and scratch, would spread her legs and hurt her again, they only raked lightly through her fur in search of hidden valuables. Nothing there, of course.

“Pitiful, this one," came a flat, northern accented voice from behind one of the orbs of pale green light. The voice's owner had soft fingers with no pads. A rabbit. “You think she's worth giving any water to?"

If there was a reply, Nezia did not hear it. She was too busy staring at the light hovering before her. It blurred and doubled, her eyes sliding out of focus.

“Stars. Saints." Nezia mumbled. She tried to reach out to touch the green glow, failed, then the blackness came rushing up and the world went blank for a very long time.