Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

There was no fighting back, of course: Carpello was not a strong man, but he knew how to use his considerable weight to his best advantage. This street whore with the droopy hair and the floppy breasts would be shrieking in terror and pain before the night was over, and no fennaroot haze was deep enough to protect her from that.

As she eyed him in what he was certain she considered a seductive manner, Carpello thought she looked like she had just smelled something disagreeable. He longed to beat that absurd pout off her face. Standing fully erect now, rock-hard in his excitement, he moved to take her. RishtaRexawhatever pulled the thin tunic over her head, exposing a soft roll of flab hanging over her skin-tight breeches. Carpello, distracted by it, ignored the breasts he had been trying so diligently to glimpse earlier; having them bared in front of him wasn’t nearly as enticing.

‘You’re fat,’ he said, amused.

She giggled, sucking on one fingertip and beckoning him closer.

Carpello smiled, but made no move to unfasten his belt; there would be time for that later.

When he punched her in the face, she screeched, a short, high-pitched, wavering cry, and as RishtaRexawhatever tumbled over the table, spilling the wine and fennaroot onto the floor, Carpello felt himself about to burst. She rolled onto her side, still too lost in her drugged haze to cry, and pushed herself up on one arm, shaking her head as if to clear it. Then Carpello kicked her in the ribs and she fell back to the floor again, wheezing, fighting to catch her breath.

RishtaRexawhatever reached up feebly to ward off the huge man descending through the hazy fog of her nightmare, but it was too late.

He was on her.

Normally he preferred to start slowly, squeezing a breast a bit too firmly, or biting a little too deeply, and sometimes he would be gently corrected, told he was playing too rough, and then, then he would deliver his first few punches, still nothing brutal, not that early, for he liked to feel his excitement build, the great waves of pleasure in his loins intensifying and he raised the levels of brutality: beating, biting, scratching, choking- until he felt himself explode in pleasure.

But tonight he was too angry, angry that he had allowed her so much fennaroot; that he had allowed her tunic and hair to infuriate him; that he had not made her put her skirt back at the start… Although he was aroused, the little slut had already cheated him out of a night of true ecstasy by forcing him to hit her so hard and so early. She was a sneaky whore, a trickster slut prostitute with a roll of flab, two floppy breasts and a filthy, sneaky demeanour, and he hated that about her, and now he would make her regret tricking him into punching her.

Carpello’s heart was hammering; he was soaked in sweat and panting. He had to get himself under control or he would fall over, dead… He raised his fist, his fat fingers closed together tightly in a vicious human cudgel. On the floor, RishtaRexawhatever squirmed, moaning and slapping at his great bulging gut with her hands, tiny little things in comparison with his; Carpello barely felt them.

‘You ruined what could have been a pleasant evening,’ he gasped. ‘You tricked me, and I don’t appreciate that. I wanted this to be a nice night for both of us, but now you’ve ruined it, and I have to punish you.’

‘No, plea-’ RishtaRexawhatever’s voice failed as Carpello’s fist slammed into her face, shattering her nose and sending frothy, mucus-filled blood splattering across her cheeks and onto his expensive rug.

‘There we go,’ Carpello shouted, almost singing, rubbing his erection furiously against her stomach as she writhed, desperate to escape. He reared back again. ‘One more just like the last, what do you say?’

The prostitute screamed, the fennaroot fog well and truly dissipated now, and a great white light burst in her mind as unbridled terror took over. She wailed like a child, terrified of the dark, still hitting fruitlessly at his immeasurable bulk, but he didn’t budge. RishtaRexawhatever tumbled away into the dark recesses of her mind as she waited for the great hammer of his fist to fall back into her face.

There was a thud, an audible grunt.

Then Carpello fell off her. He slumped to the floor and she heard the wine goblets clink together. Something broke – maybe the ceramic plate she’d sliced the fennaroot on.

Then there was silence, broken only by her ragged, uncontrollable sobs.

‘Up here, dear,’ a soothing voice said after a while. Rishta-Rexawhatever felt someone take her by the forearms and she lashed out again, shrieking, ‘No! No! Get off!’

‘It’s all right,’ the same voice said calmly, kindly, ‘It’s all right. He’s gone. She felt the hands take hers; they were small, a woman’s hands. Slowly she forced open one eye – the other was already swollen shut – and she could dimly make out a pleasant-faced woman kneeling beside her holding a blanket. ‘Here, wrap yourself up in this and let me help you up,’ she said. ‘What’s your name?’

Name? The question rattled around in her head; after a while she whispered, ‘Rishta.’

‘Here we go, Rishta, drink some water, and then let me look at your face. Is anything broken?’

‘I- I don’t know,’ she croaked. ‘I hurt all over, but I don’t think so.’ With the strange woman’s help she managed to limp to the armchair the merchant had been using, but the stench of his musty sweat rose up from it and she started shaking again. ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘I can’t sit here.’

‘All right,’ the woman said, helping her up again, ‘let’s try here.’

As Rishta sat down on the ornately carved sofa, adrenalin flushing the last of the drugs from her system, she tried to regain some composure. For the first time she realised there was a second man in the room with them. Carpello lay still on the floor. ‘Is he dead?’ she asked in a soft voice, as if he might hear.

‘Gods-rut-a-whore, but I hope so,’ the woman replied, then added, ‘Sorry.’

She didn’t sound in the least bit sorry and despite herself, Rishta laughed. Pain flared from her broken nose. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve heard worse. Who are you?’

‘I’m Brexan Carderic. This is Sallax. Please don’t worry – we came to get him.’ She gestured towards the hummock of flab splayed awkwardly across the floor. ‘He’s a killer, a traitor.’ Brexan pulled a chair up and sat down. ‘Rishta, I need to set your nose. It’ll hurt like a rutting mule kick, but it’ll have to be done. I see you’ve had a bit of fennaroot-’

A bit too much,’ Rishta admitted. ‘I might throw up.’

‘I don’t care. I hate these rugs anyway. You can chuck up all you like. If you’ve got a little fennaroot in your system, this won’t hurt as much as it would if we waited an aven or two.’

The prostitute trembled. ‘Do we have to? Is it bad?’

‘It’s fine if you want to smell what’s cooking off to starboard for the rest of your life.’

Again Rishta laughed. ‘All right, go ahead, but try to be quick.’

‘Okay, let’s have you lying down. I think it’ll be easier that way.’

Rishta pulled the blanket tighter and allowed herself to be stretched out on the soft cushions of Carpello’s sofa. ‘Maybe this way I can bleed and throw up on his furniture too,’ she mumbled, trying not to show her fear.

‘We’ll make an evening of it,’ Brexan agreed. She reached for the girl’s shattered nose, clasped it firmly and, without warning, shifted it back into place. As the cartilage crunched beneath her fingers she felt her stomach flop and a gust of nausea blew through her.

Rishta’s screech faded to a moan.

‘You rest there for a while,’ Brexan said. She looked around and picked up the napkin that had been covering the fennaroot platter. ‘Here, for the blood,’ she said, passing it to Rishta.