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Anthro Sex Squad Story 2 - Winfred's Story

By Killenor

Arc 1 - Origins

Chapter 9

Wethers came to.

Somehow he had ended up lying in a bed, armor still uncomfortably on, and covered by a thin blanket. He blinked in the dim light from a low lantern. How long had he been out? It should have only taken a minute or two to clear his body of the remnants of Hreugh's vile bindings, though he had never removed such powerful magic from a bare soul before. He sat up, surveying the room. A flood of action returned to his mind, and he looked instinctively for the men he had felled.

The webbing was gone, the men were gone... so too were Hreugh and Winfred gone. Nothing remained of the struggle in this room and the door to the entry-way where he had thrown his sword at Hreugh was closed.

His sword!

Wethers quickly cast his eyes about the room. His sword was gone! Hastily he flung the blanket from him and leapt to his feet. Remembering that when last he saw it, it had been sticking from Hreugh's spine, he raced to the door and flung it open.

A pool of dark blood was the only remaining hallmark that Hreugh had fallen there. Around it, splatters of gore remained as if his blood had sprayed everywhere. No body was to be found in the room, though streaks and bloody footprints told him that Winfred had not cared to leave her former master just lying there.

He heard water, gushes of it pouring from a hand-pump. A great breath steadied him as he rounded the wall connecting the room he had just exited with an adjacent hallway. A few steps down lead him to a scullery of some sort. A lamp was burning, shedding the only light from inside. He saw a flash of fur move past and the sloshing of water in a large basin.

More stealthily than an armored body would suggest, Wethers crept around the door-frame. With barely a sound he came to stand fully within the room. The scene he witnessed was at once appalling and heart-breaking. The stilled and bloody body of Hreugh was propped against the wall in a chair, his throat now only a mess of gore and his head hanging onto his shoulder. Winfred, still covered in the blood of her tormentor was busying herself cleaning her own handiwork, wiping at the hideous wounds her own teeth had inflicted. Tears streaked her cheek-fur and nonsensical words gibbered from her lips.

For all that he abused her, tortured her, and forced her to be a whore for him, she still mourned his passing. Still she wept despite delivering the fatal strike to her tormentor of many years. The enormity of it all weakened his knees, and he braced himself against the door. In the moment that he wished that he could shed a tear for Winfred through his burned skin; he made just enough noise for her to notice.

Her long hair, uncut for seven years, whipped out wide as she turned in only an instant. Only a second more brought her lunging toward Wethers, teeth and claws bared instinctively. Only Wethers' wits saved him. He dashed behind the door-frame as the ravening beast he had unleashed crashed into the spot where he had just been. An errant swipe lashed out from around the frame, scraping across his armor with an earsplitting screech.

"Winfred!" Wethers called out in alarm, "It is I, Wethers! I'm not here to harm you!"

The wild eyes on the face that whipped around the corner frightened him to his core. The beast within her had been caged away for so long that now it sought every opportunity to escape. But in only an instant, recognition bloomed across her face as she became aware that she was not at all threatened by this shrivel-skinned man. Wethers held his breath just a few moments more before he was sure that she would not attack.

Winfred's face grew confused and quickly transformed into concern.

"Basement," she breathed, "T-they're still all in the basement."

"Who? Who is in the basement?" Wethers pressed.

"He... he put them there..." Winfred strained to force the mental images out, "you must go free them. I... I have to finish here."

"Wait. I came for you. I need to make sure..."

Clawed hands lashed out in the blink of an eye, catching Wethers completely unawares. The wolverine-girls powerful hands locked under the armpits of his armor and a strength Wethers had not seen since his old friend Issa jerked him eye to manic eye with Winfred.

"Go. Get. Them." Winfred demanded, "The basement is through this washroom."

The mania remained, boring into the oddly shaped pupils of Wethers. Normally not one to be beholden to fear or the commands of others, there was something in her eyes that told him that he should just go ahead and oblige her. If nothing else... perhaps Hreugh had other captives he just didn't know about. With a jerk, Wethers was lifted from his hooves and carried back into the room with the unsettlingly cared-for corpse of Hreugh and deposited in front of the stairwell that would take him to the basement.

Without a word, Winfred released him and turned to resume her work. Wethers let out a slow shuddering breath, trying to steady himself from the shock of Winfred's bestial nature and the potential horrors that awaited him in the basement. His fears behind him, he made his way down the steps.

As he neared the door at the end of the stairs, his sensitive nose picked up a mixture of loathsome scents. Death, filth, blood, waste, disease... all combined with the reek of the magicks of pain and suffering. Not a sound could be heard but his own halting breath as he took the knob and opened the door.

The foul smell was nothing compared to the heavy wet stench that billowed out from the darkness. Accompanying the odor was the sound of dozens of drips. Something was leaking in the room below... many somethings.

The room beyond was pitch black and the sliver of light from the dim hallway only showed the bare stone floor. Wethers pushed his way in, eyes wide trying to peer through the gloom. With his eyes unable to prevail against the light-less room, he fished around in a pouch around his belt. A brief search yielded a small pill that shone with the light of a blazing bonfire.

The scene that greeted Wethers was one of pure horror. People, most of them humans, were strung up and strapped down all over the wide room. All of them were in various states of torture, some missing digits and limbs, some with their skin flayed open and peeled back, and some strapped into terrible devices. It didn't take much for Wethers to realize that every single one of them was dead.

Blood had, at some point, come flooding out from seemingly every orifice in each of their heads. Their eyes were all ruptured and their jaws were slack, with just a few drips of excess fluids drip drip dripping out at random intervals. As Wethers took a final step into the room he saw that the floor was flooded, with fleshy chunks floating in the pool of red.

Stepping gingerly across the horrid floor Wethers made his way over to one of the corpses lying upon a rack. It was a man, very freshly placed by the look of him... only perhaps an hour dead. His eyes were ruptured with what looked to be tiny wires. The same wires could be seen sticking from the man's nostrils, mouth and ears. Worst of all, much of his blood was still pooled in his mouth and every few seconds tiny bubbles would float to the surface as the corpse's chest deflated. Finally, Wethers noticed, he had some sort of headband on with a small silver dot in the center of the forehead. Curious, Wethers decided to remove this odd band, as it did not seem to be a restraint of any sort he knew of.

As he pulled he found the cause of the deaths of everyone here. The wires were attached to the headband and slid from the man's head as he pulled. The wires were all about a half-foot long and vibrant silver despite the gore dripping from them. With a final jerk Wethers removed the wires completely. He quickly found this was a mistake as the wires, now free from constriction sprung open and lashed all about. Were it not for his armored bracers he had no doubt that the razor-sharp wires would have reduced his arm to a shredded mess.

"They start off looking like nails," came a voice from behind him. He dropped the band and jerked around, ready to defend himself.

Winfred stood in the doorway, carrying a cleaned-up Hreugh in her arms as easily as if he were a large doll. She sloshed her way inside to an empty rack and laid the dead badger-man down. A minute was spent arranging his corpse like he was being prepared for burial.

"He made me put one on each of these people's foreheads. They are designed to spring open if anyone ever escapes this room. He always called it his 'final measure'. I knew what I was doing... but I couldn't refuse him... not ever."

"What manner of monster could do this?" Wethers muttered in shock.

"He was a Grand Royal Interrogator... this was nothing." she said, turning to face him, "He would often tell me of everything he had been... everything he had ever done. It was... like a bed-time story for him. Erotika and torturos, those were the magicks he favored. He was a master, better than anyone he had ever heard of. He worked for the king until... he once told me about a golden holy warrior... a dragon lady he said... the only person he could never break."

Wethers was rocked by this admission, but before he could press her for more she was already speaking again.

"He would always tell me a story of his past when he was replenishing his own erotika from me... raping me. He couldn't hurt me and so he would always tell of others he hurt, or times he had been wronged. He came to acquire me after his slave-trading days were ended by some other 'holy warrior'." she sighed heavily, "and now it seems I am being saved by another one of you holy warriors. But you just broke the spell that bound me to him... I... I am the one who killed him."

"Y... You are free now." Wethers stated, wishing he could demand answers of the other holy warriors even though now did not seem the time. "You need not continue his path. You can chose anything you wish, pursue your own life! You can go out into the wide world and make your own way!"

Something... it was his words. He had said almost the same thing her father had said before he left her to the wild.

Free.

She hated being alone. After half a dozen years of constant attention, she simply couldn't imagine...

"I won't be alone again!" Winfred shouted suddenly, "Freedom brings loneliness. My father taught me that. Freedom might be a wonderful thing for other people but I..." tears welled in her eyes, "I c-can't! I can't be alone again!"

She rounded on Hreugh's corpse and slammed both fists into his stilled chest. Wethers flinched as he heard the dull crack of breaking ribs.

"DAMN YOU!" she screamed, slamming her fists down again, "I HATE YOU! HOW COULD ANYTHING YOU DID MAKE ME WANT TO STAY WITH YOU!"

Again and again she struck, each blow caving the shattered chest in further. Tears flowed freely as she continued screaming in rage and beating her ex-master. Finally she punched his face, crushing his muzzle, and stalked across the bloody floor. When she reached what Wethers decided was a large wooden armoire she grabbed onto the locked handle and wrenched. Her tight and powerful muscles, disguised beneath fur and her knee length hair, strained and bulged at the door. The wood was thick, but not thick or sturdy or new enough to resist an angered civil-wolverine with a goal to accomplish. The wood cracked and splintered and finally broke away from the hinges.

Winfred threw both the doors wide, held together by the locked handles, and grabbed a huge clear-glass jar from the open armoire. Hefting it as easily as one would heft a wine-bottle, though it was at least as large as her own torso, she ran back to Hreugh's body and slammed it down onto him. A great crack appeared in the jar. She stepped back and smashed it down once again. The jar burst along the crack and poured out a steady stream of white, sandy-looking powder.

"We should leave now," Winfred said dispassionately, "unless we want to be burned up."

Wethers was already to the door by the time she said it. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Winfred was still standing at Hreugh's side. He also noticed dim blue flames dancing over the lightly powdered areas of blood and over Hreugh's form as well.

"I thought you said 'we'" Wethers shouted.

"I also said 'unless'" Winfred replied coarsely.

"No! You're free, and it may be your choice to end your life or not, but I'm telling you, this won't help you!" Wethers shouted, "There is more to freedom than loneliness, come with me and I'll show you!"

The flames were growing, spreading, catching to the greater portion of Hreugh's body. No smoke was billowing yet but Wethers could feel the heat that was already being generated.

"Those holy warriors Hreugh told you about. I... I knew them." Wethers continued, unsure if it was a lie or not, "But you, you saved my life. If I knew... If I had taken revenge for those people out on Hreugh... it would have destroyed me. He destroyed my friends, he took your childhood from you, don't let him end you now! Come with me! I'll show you what real freedom is, it is more than loneliness! I won't ever make you be alone again if you'll just come with me now and live!"

Something he said must have reached her. She turned to stare at him, watery eyes streaming despite the heat and growing flames.

"I promise to show you what freedom is." Wethers urged.

She ran to him as the room was engulfed in flames.