Vengeful Slave
The night’s sounds were suddenly replaced by screams. The dark-haired woman shuddered slightly at the sound. Sara slid back against the wall to get farther away from the narrow beam of moonlight that sifted through the bars of the small window.
Time had stood still for the woman. She knew only that night and day came. None were different… each passing day gave her only the walls of her stone prison. All she had to keep her company was the random screams in the distance, and her memories of a life once free from such a place.
Sara twisted her long curly, matted hair around a finger wishing they would come for her. Death would be better than the loneliness of her prison. Sometimes she thought that was part of her punishment. Why couldn’t society accept her for what she was? She had never done harm to anyone…except for the few that deserved it, and those few had paid dearly. Never again would she let a man touch her the way that man had. He might have owned her body by the laws of the land, but he never owned her mind or her abilities.
The door rattled and opened. The man dropped a tin pan of food on the floor, spilling half its contents. He said, “I don’t know why they waste good food on the likes of you.”
Sara spat at the man and said, “Keep talking like that and I’ll give you some of what my master got.”
The guard quickly exited, fear obvious in his face. She stood, walked to the narrow window, stood on tiptoes, and stared at the cross, the object of her death. Death on the cross always promised to be a slow painful death.
From the day she had been born, her life had been destined for this to happen. Even though she had not foreseen all the events that played out, the rapes, the beatings… she had always known how she would die. From the moment she learned of her abilities, she knew what would happen at the moment of her death.
The door opened once more and a man with long gray hair entered. He wore the mask of fear, but he did for what his duty called. The man, her former master, a good looking man for his age, said, “You know our law requires that I escort you to your execution. I mean you no ill will.”
“You mean no ill will, “she shouted and laughed mockingly at the man. You want me dead. You want to see me suffer for what I did to you.”
The man closed his eyes and tried to forget the pain, but he knew he would remember it everyday for the rest of his life. Each day he would be reminded of that horrific moment. At last he knew that on this day he would see the instrument of his torture die cruelly. He said, “Come with me and if you try something there are a dozen men with arrows waiting to kill you.”
She frowned and asked, “I am to die anyway, what makes you think I fear death?”
This visibly shook the man. He said, “I have to do this or they will kill me. I brought these charges against you, I must escort you.”
Her laughter was light and uncaring as she said, “I promise not to kill you on the way.”
He knew she spoke the truth, but was worried about an undertone to her statement. The man wondered what she might be hiding. There was always the chance that she had someone ready to try a rescue attempt, but it would take a small army to do that, and he doubted that impossible.
At that moment one of the burly guards arrived and said, “It’s time to get on with it, the sun will soon rise.”
He didn’t wait for Sara to come to him. He went to r and roughly grabbed her arm, leaving the bruised imprint of his fingers. She didn’t resist as he pushed her toward the door and by the man that had been standing guard. Her master backed away from the girl as if she carried the plague.
For the first time in months, Sara stepped out into the open air. She stopped, took a deep breath, and said, “It;s such a nice day for death to visit.”
The guard jerked her arm, causing her to begin walking again. He said, “Yes it is, your death.”
She only smiled at her master who walked beside her as called for by customs . She leaned close and whispered, “Enjoy the sunrise, for you will never see another.”
He looked at her and wanted to flee, but knew the guards would as soon kill him as her. A hundred archers stood ready for action, waiting for either of them to bolt. War was almost nonexistent so the warriors looked for any excuse to use their weapons on a living person. To bolt and be filled arrows would be an easier death for Sara, but that wasn’t what she wanted. She needed her death to be painful, the pain was needed for the things she must do.
They approached the cross and it loomed larger in front of her. Its ominous shape cast an eerie shadow from the rising sun. Amused, she thought at least the sun wouldn’t be in her eyes for a while. It’s funny how when facing death, mundane things can matter. Sara knew by the time the sun was in front of her, its heat would have begun sapping her strength, while the pain sapped what the sun didn’t take. She wondered if she would live to see the sun set and the relief the night would bring from the heat.
Standing before the cross, her master said, “Take off your clothes.”
Public nudity wasn’t uncommon for slaves so she wasn’t embarrassed by the request… still, she thought that in death she should be allowed some dignity. Sara untied the dress at her bosom and let the long garment with a full skirt drop around her feet. She had never worn panties so this left her fully exposed. The cooler morning air drifted across her exposed breasts and caused her nipples to grow embarrassingly hard.
The cross-had been built just for her. Its size had been intended for her petite body. A foot from the ground was a small platform. It was tilted downward indicating it was never meant to support the weight of a body. Its only purpose was to help prevent the nails from tearing through her palms.
The guard and another man helped her step onto the inclined platform. They supported her so that she didn’t slip from it and fall to the ground. Her former master then approached with a hammer and several large nails. Sara grimaced, knowing what was to come.
One of the men pulled her right arm out onto the cross member and held her palm outward against the wood. Her former master placed one of the nail’s point again her palm and pushed it firmly into it. With one strike of the hammer, the nail pierced all of her hand except for the layer of skin on the back. She screamed in pain. She saw no need to be stern in the face of death and pain. She expressed her pain vividly. With another strike of the hammer, the nail pieced the final layer of flesh and entered the wood. Another tap secured the nail firmly in place, leaving an inch of the nail protruding above her palm.
She screamed just as loud as the procedure was performed with the other hand. No care was taken to lessen the pain, in fact, it seemed that everyone, including her former master, received pleasure from her pain. Sara hated them for what they were doing to her. She had allowed them to enslave her and then put her to death, but she would see to it they paid for their unpardonable actions.
The man that had been her master then moved to her feet that were held tightly in position by the two guards. Sara knew this would be more painful, but she had no idea how much more painful. Even the point of the nail pressed against the arch of her foot was more painful than when pressed against her palms.
The hammer impaled the nail deeply into her foot. She could hear her own bones crunch even underneath the sounds of her screams. Her screams were those of torment, not of pain. Those screams made some of the strongest in the gathered crowd to wince. The few slaves in the crowd wept, for they knew it could be them,
As the hammer fell once more, the sound of the impact with the nail was never heard. Just as her scream began to trail off, it was renewed and reinforced with even more pain. Through the grace of some god looking over her, the nail went through on the second blow. Yet she had one more foot to go and she would have given anything to avoid that torture. She wanted to stop it then, but she new it was to be… she must allow it.
When Sara returned to consciousness the deed had been done, she was nailed securely to the cross. Men were filing buy to fondle her young naked body. She screamed out words for the first time, “You feel you must torture me and kill me, but why must you humiliate me with your touches?”
The men touching Sara ignored her words and inserted fingers and other objects in her pussy. Some of those objects caused pain. They cheered when she became aroused. No matter how she fought that arousal, it happened. The combination of pain and physical stimulation caused her to squirm in sexual arousal. She cursed them even more for making her enjoy her torment.
The sun was high overhead and the crowd was beginning to wither. She knew she must speak now while she had the strength and had had the ears of most of the villagers. She said, “I want to tell you why I am here. I want to tell you what will happen to you. My life is yours, I do not beg for my life because it’s through my death that you will be punished.”
The man that had been her master hit her firmly in her muscled, flat stomach and said, “Shut up you bitch. There is noting you have to say that these people want to hear.” Turning to the guard he said, “Gag the wench.”
A woman in the crowd, a woman of influence, said, “Let her talk, we care not for what she says, but she has the right to speak by our laws.”
Sara spat at the woman and said, “I will tell you fine people of Lazarus and why I am here…why I am being put to death.”
The crowd grew silent. They had often wondered what had happened the night she had been arrested. Her master was bleeding, but no one ever spoke of the cause. Sara said, “The night I was arrested and cast into that horrid place you call a prison, I hurt the man that was my master. Ask him what he did that night.”
Once again the man called for her to be gagged… again they refused. She said, “That night he returned with a new slave, the child of a family that was too poor to feed her. These people were so poor because of the taxes the elders place on the family. She was bound into slavery for the same reasons I had been.”
Sara paused as she forced away a tear that threatened spill out onto her cheek. She said, “That night he was going to rape that girl even though it was against the laws of the village. If, she, or I, had reported it, we would have been punished. I had to stop the same thing from happening to that girl that happened to me at the same age. That’s when I had to…”
She was cut off by the words of her former master and he shouted angrily, “She is a witch, and we should have burn her at the stake or hanged her until she was dead.”
The woman, an elder, that had allowed Sara to speak, asked, “If this is true, why wasn’t it brought out in her trial. Her punishment would have been suitable for a witch.”
The man began to weep and confessed, “I am ashamed by what she did to me. I don’t want anyone to know.”
The gathered crowd became even more silent as they stared at the man. Sara laughed, even though she was in incredible pain, and said, “Master, tell them how I made you take the knife that night and cut off your own cock and balls. Tell them how you screamed like a child as you did so.”
He charged at the woman on the cross, but the two guards stopped him short of her. She had been condemned to die and the act was in process. No law in their land allowed it to stop or to be interfered with. The elder woman asked, “Slave, if this is so, why did you allow this man to say that you mutilated him and why have you not used your powers to free yourself?”
Sara fought against the pain to keep her voice steady and replied, “This entire perverted culture must be stopped. Too many have been harmed and enslave. I intend to stop it.”
“How?” demanded the woman.
“You will see the answer upon my death,” said Sara, weakly.
The pain tore at her palms and feet, but the worst pain was in her shoulders. They felt as if they were being torn from her body. She wanted to scream and to beg for release, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t. It was this pain she needed for the things she must do.
The elder woman began to confer with other elders. Nothing like this had ever happened before. In the end, they decided it might be safer to take her down and let her live. When the order was given, Sara shouted angrily, “I have prepared a long time for this day, you are not about to deny me this."
When the two guards approached the girl, an invisible force threw them backward. Each time they tried, they were repelled… each time, Sara screamed in pain. The girl would pull against the nails as if trying to rip them from her body. She used that pain to project it outward, repelling the men. When she recovered enough to speak, Sara said, “Leave me be and I will see to it your deaths are easy. Cause me more pain and you will feel my full wrath.”
The village elders were left with a quandary; they knew not what to do. They could only hope she was a dying witch filled with empty threats, yet they had just seen a sample of her powers. The elder woman said, “Everyone except the guards leave the area.”
Sara laughed hauntingly and said, “You can run, but you can’t hide.”
The people stopped their retreat and turned to stare at the witch on the cross. No one spoke a word. They were frozen in a world of disbelief. Finally, one woman said, “If you mean to do us harm, please spare the children.”
Sara, growing weak, said, “None of you ever bothered to spare the children you brought into this village and raped. Why should I spare yours?”
She then saw the tear in the woman’s eyes and the fear in the eyes of the children. Sara said, “You alone may take the children from this village.”
The man that had been her master said, “She doesn’t have the power to harm us. If she had that kind of power she wouldn’t have stayed in my possession, or spent those months locked away in that cold prison.”
Sara hissed, “I stayed and let you beat and rape me because I cannot use my power for self gain. You think I have not the power to kill you? Did you not notice that when all the other villages were having droughts and watching their fields wither and die, yours prospered from the frequent rains?”
The fear in the face of the villagers became evident. The former master said, “I’ve had enough of this dribble. A corpse cannot cast spells.” He grabbed one of the guard’s swords and ran toward his slave. He pushed the sharp point into the tender flesh of her stomach.
She felt the cold steel inside and she screamed from the pain. Her already weakened body shook from the impact and the pain that tore at her soul, stealing her life. Sara looked up through the dim fog of pain and saw the woman leading the children over the distant hilltop.
Sara’s heart fluttered and stopped. She found it true that life continued another fifteen seconds after the heart abandon your body. She smiled as death took her. She reveled in the pain and used it as her last weapon.
Fire erupted from the corpse’s chest. The fire was as blue as the clouds. It touched every building and citizen of the village. When the fire faded there was nothing to indicate there had ever been anyone living in the area. The only thing visible was a woman’s lifeless body hanging limp on a scorched cross.
The end.