Chained - 1

An enormous boulder nearly the size of a hill giant smashed apart only a few metres away, and a spray of shrapnel blasted across the siege engine’s crew. Two members close to the strike died in an explosion of blood and brains, though the rest of us fared the storm of debris relatively unscathed. Whether the Demons’ aim was improving or it was luck, I didn’t know. Though given the sound of Devils screaming nearby, it made me suspect the former. Luck had no place being anywhere near Hell. The tension of the chains screamed, but the metallic sound was nothing compared to their pressure making my nerves sing. My focus stretched through them; every twitch and flex of the links apparent as we forced the chains to pull the trebuchet’s arm back in place.

I licked away the moisture beading on my lips, the acidic copper taste and heat of the Devil’s blood filling my senses. The taste has become all too familiar. Awareness focused within the chains till the ratchet cease clicking and the arm’s mechanism locks in place. A kick of annoyance sends the Devil’s remains spilling away. Her name hadn’t been something I had bothered to learn. Now, with her head sprayed over me, even the features were beyond my recall. Here near the ramparts overlooking the grey plains of Hades, fodder like it came and went with regularity.

“Sidero! You took a bath in her brain juice; you’ll be lucky if your chains don’t rust,” Nerezza said, her husky voice growling low under the grunt of the loading team.

“They don’t have brains, just a blood sack. I’ll make Thana lick them clean later,”

My words are light comfortably used to the banter from the other Kytons on the crew.

“Only if you finish engraving the crest across my back,” said Thana, voice light with amusement.

“Finish her raven off. You need to start with the face on my thigh,” Nerezza demanded, her tone insistent.

“Pushy bitch!”

Even while replying to Nerezza, I could only wish telling her to fuck off wouldn’t risk complications. While the material of my chains rated above her own, Nerezza was still my elder and held sway. None of the Kyton had considered scarification tattoos till I had etched my flesh to push up resistances. Now wearing them had become a fashion trend among us on the front, and my skills were in demand. The idle pastime had stopped me from joining the ape faced Devil in cursing banishment back to the Ninth Plane of Hell.

“Loose!” Cojet said, the shout drowning our banter.

Indeed, the crew leader’s bellow sounded well above the noise of the battlefield. The sheer volume of noise powered by the lungs in his barrel sized chest likely audible to Devils and Demons alike a kilometre away. His bellow wasn’t just for our crew but also eleven others down the line. The crew chief was a Devil called an Uhlobo, in shape a cross between a silverback and black granite; he could wrap long fingers around my skull with length to spare. Like the earthen primate, he stood well above my height, and though he shared the long reach, he had no trouble walking upright. The Legions formed of Uhlobo Devils secured this section of the front for Lord Asmodeus; Kyton and other Devils, while considered useful to them, were on this stretch vastly outnumbered. Though as foul-tempered as he was, Cojet held the trebuchets’ teams to a steel-edged efficiency.

The trebuchet’s tension shifted as the counterweight dropped, and the arm flung upwards. A spray of makeshift spikes shrouded in hellfire tore through the air between the banners on the rampart our crew used as target guidance. Hide slaps against metal as the counterweight rocks the trebuchet’s arm, the sling hitting it with every motion. The sounds above us were loud even over the constant wind of this place. Black pennants embossed with Asmodeus’ symbol fluttered hard in the never-ending wind emerging from Hades. The Greek God, who was the Plane’s namesake, not bothering to obstruct the Demon’s passage. Though at least he didn’t object to the fortifications that Asmodeus had set up on the border countless eons past.

As soon as the sling finished flopping about, the command came to make ready. The crew leader hadn’t finished yelling when Thana’s and Nerezza’s presence joins my own within the chains as we worked together to draw the arm back. It felt like they were rubbing against me each time our minds brushed close within the material while we pulled them link by link through the pulleys.

Familiar focus showed in their features beneath the chain veils, the tightness around the sulphur-yellow gaze extending down through all the whip tight muscles of their bodies. Once they would have looked a fearful sight, the pair of them perched across a blackened steel beam from me. The dull steel chains that shrouded them writhed in motions that made clear their excitement at the work. I could feel the energy of it in the chains as we moved together. They mirrored the movements of their chain shrouds in the tensing of the trebuchet’s own before each ripple of noise from the ratchet. Three of us worked as one to reset the trebuchet’s arm faster than modern machinery could even manage.

“Two points to the left,”

Thana’s gaze shifted to the pulley on their side an instant before my own fixed on the one near my side. I braced with a pair of infernal steel chains around the crossbeam as the platform under my feet moved. The red links were glowing against the blackened steel as if still hot from the forge, even though they sat colder than the space between stars against my skin. Demons not immune to temperatures worse than the arctic had fallen to their links.

We continually reset the trebuchets as the assault dragged on for cycles, till at last, the horns echoed out to stand down across our battle lines. Even then, the crew didn’t relax until Cojet gave the order to reset the station. The three of us together worked to ease the chain’s tension while others collect and rack the gear. Unhurried and relaxing their presence now in the chains feel like lovers caressing intimate places, a sense that evaporates when Cojet calls out.

“Sidero, join the dispatch and forage teams. Get something good for me,”

My teeth cut into my bottom lip as I glare the crew leader’s way for the rare stupidity of that instruction. Among the slaughtered beyond the wall would be Abyssal toys, and they didn’t run into the spectrum of good. It was hard to tell with his helm and grunting voice, but Cojet’s vibe felt pissed. Maybe at my lack of concern for the blood and brains of his kind that still decorated my chains; though equally, perhaps not enough crew members had died, bets within Hell tended to the extremes. Unlike his weaker kin, the crew leader wore full armour, the taste of the enchantments crawling across my tongue and dance across my senses.

“Oh blight, you’re up,” Thana says before waving for me to go.

I didn’t bother to reply as quick steps took me past Cojet to collect a carrier from the gear rack. As he glares at Thana, I shake my chains and smile behind the metallic veil as his curses burn the air. The unblemished steel it had worn through the cycles of fighting, now decorated with frozen gore, and part of a cheek slithered from his vambrace. His snorted response made the mood clear, and it wasn’t a noise made while angry. After cycles of fighting, he’ll be screaming with someone in their shared time during this break.

“You got something on you, boss.”

The carrier was a neat spatial gadget capable of carrying tonnes, yet it was smaller than a toddler’s fist. Bouncing it on my palm, I turned to go even as Cojet spoke again.

“Get going, Sidero, or I’ll flay you,” said Cojet, his tone still a growl but heavy with lust, not anger.

“Promises, promises,”

His chest inflated within the armour as air rushed in to fuel his bellow, only for Thana’s and Nerezza’s call to distract his mock ire. Their husky voices growling playfully for attention even as they climbed the trebuchet’s chains to check for wear.

“Oh pick me, flay me oh mighty one,”

“No. I’ll scream better, boss,” Nerezza said, the low tones prominent in their teasing even without mimicking my term for Cojet.

Not sure if the scariest thing was they’d like nothing less, or my physical changes that meant I’d be holding back orgasms if he did it. Pleasure and pain I’d once considered finely separated sides of the same coin. Now it wasn’t a coin, but an orb where all had become one. While hearing of people not experiencing pain was one thing, experiencing only pleasure regardless was disconcerting. Of all the shocks I’d experienced here, its impact on my ongoing mental processes bit the deepest.

Kyton, like someone cursed me to become, weren’t true Devils but held a place within the Hierarchy of Hell. They were here before Asmodeus’ arrival with the first infernal Legions. The great mother who hatched me planned to remain here no matter his fate. I intended to gain redemption, for if any Devils found I had a Mortal Soul, there would literally be Hell to pay. As one of them, there were many roles to fill, whether it be foundries, siege engineer crews, interrogator, torturer or just playmate for those that leaned that way. As a Mortal Soul in Hell, those had positions determined by the Hierarchy’s rule books, but certainly not freely roaming.

I, Sarah Noth, now being of Hell, with a reforged body, and free will, yet unsure of my mental state, do bequeath nothing of mine to end in this place.

Idle thought causes a chain to shift and pluck the carrier from my hand. A mere moment of idle will altered the sharp tip to form a net and enclosed it, like filigree holding a gem. Heading for the wall where the foraging team banners are being raised precisely according to regulations, I pick up the pace to join the ranks in front of them. My path taking me past other Kyton, so similar in build to me, each shrouded matching chains. Despite this, each to me was unique as a face even from a distance, subtle patterns making obvious differences to my instincts. Though being one of a handful in existence wearing red infernal steel chains, most Devils here would know my name.

Yet even for me, the chain shrouds covering us were all most Devils paid heed to when they saw us. The weight should have been impossible for our lean bodies to move in so easily, yet the chains that enfolded us moved as we willed. Few wear them as but a scattering of chains overlaying flesh, a token modesty even as it reminds others not to cross us. For most, it is a heavy veiled dress, a shroud of danger moving to our will. From the crisscross skull cap formed by the links to the spikes dancing around our ankles. My reward from my mother once weighed me down with a mass I could barely move. Now it dances about me, a burqa of ever-shifting flame-red steel, that signals my presence among the others.

They know me as Sidero, the most recent hatchling of the Kyton’s great mother. The first in eons found by Her Eminence’s Unholy attendants nestled within the accursed chains enfolding her vile greatness. My siblings have either found destruction or long graduated to materials beyond chains made of mother’s unique infernal steel. So the sight of them was a banner call to gawk at the princess.

Well, Gosh! Aren’t I the lucky one? Though luck still has no place being anywhere near Hell.

The usual grumbling occurs as higher ranked Devils jump places among the teams; arriving last they just form another line ahead of plebs like me. When the all-clear signal is issued at last, the front rank heads towards the opening gate, and while they funnel through it, others take faster routes. Erinys and other flyers grab the sky rather than waiting for the mudfoots. Breaking from formation, other Kytons join me in racing for the walls. Chains reaching out, weights and spikes became hooks that rise and lift us to the heights of the wall.

Curses spit at us from those just exiting the gate as we land among the dead and dying demons. As my chains lowered me from the walls, I spotted a fallen siege tower at the furthest point: steel plates, broken and buckled, were still useful for the forges. An attack appeared to have scored a lucky strike, and the Demonic forces disorganised as always hadn’t bothered towing it back.

Leaving to others the foes closest to the walls, lengthening my stride and racing away. With every step, smaller dropped items obviously out of reach vanish into my inventory. The tower’s steel would be lovely alone, but there was sure to be Demonic fodder within, weighed down with armour to provide ballast for the tower’s motions.

Spikes end broken existences all about as my path continues, ignoring the experience notifications, only one thing begs a detour. An ivory fleshed Succubus, nearly dead and twitching in a net of burning steel. The hard soles of my feet stepping on a body lying across her legs demanded attention. The Demonic flesh pressed down with my extra weight makes the flames burn hotter. Lines of ivory flesh as clean as a northern beauty lead my gaze up to her oval face. The small eye-teeth and human-like ears making it clear this one is a lesser amongst them, even if I hadn’t been able to taste it in the air. Her dark eyes smoulder at the pain caused by making the flames against it burn hotter than her dark red hair.

“Free me, I’m of Lilith’s line,”

Her voice carefully inflects the proper infernal tones, yet she wears the wrong outfit for one returning.

“You’ve got the wrong year’s colours in your crest,”

“These are the right ones,”

The crest is always wrong and what we call out in case of scrying. The Succubus just made things easy by choosing the wrong counter-response. Words cut off as she, and the net vanishes. Cejot wasn’t getting anything good, but he’ll make do with slutty and cute instead. If she wants to defect or whatever, then she’d best be convincing of her ill intentions. Maybe she’d wise up and really switch teams.

Spikes flicker as the path to the tower takes me past other nearly dead Demons. Mostly battle fodder, my minor contribution in their demise likely only nets me five or twenty experience here and there. Though making my way past hundreds, the trickle from notifications long disabled adds up. Another reason to spot a rich target far away, it gives a line of fast experience but still justify the choice if needed to my chain’s commander.

The carrier taps across the plating, stripping armour quickly from the frame, exposing the crushed bodies within. It’s unsurprising, given how far out the tower was, that only the common foot soldiers are within, crushed bodies of Dretch weighed down with awful armour. Since they’d served their purpose as a bookend to keep the tower stable, the forces hadn’t even bothered to drag any out when it had collapsed. Still living, Abyssal energy hums in the air, vibrating against my senses, hammer strikes in the forge of reality falling off true. Blades formed on the ends of the chains and guided by the vibrations, I point their way home.

By the time I’ve stripped the eight-floor tower to its frame, and I’ve picked the bodies clean, the carrier is giving off a sense of fullness. The pulses from it cascade along the chain still holding it and make me wonder how the Succubus is enjoying the hotel stay. The shock wave catches me in midair as I leap down from the tower’s framework. Unexpected, and unheard of, the ground rises towards me, flexing like a wave heading towards a beach. Overhead, the peeling laughter of an obviously deranged Erinys fills the air, even as the ground drops away just before I hit. With barely enough time my will sends chains spearing downwards into the earth, and before it bucks upwards again, they slow my motion.

The metal frame squealed like a torment Soul as the force of the earth twisted it in place. The steel beams left behind from my scavaging bounce in time with every bone-jarring motion. In prior existence in Sydney I’d never felt an earthquake but this one seemed extreme. The ground launched itself upwards again and slapped hard against the bottom of my feet. A fragment of Abyssal steel carried with its motion stabs straight through flesh and bone alike. The pleasure of it spiking through my foot rides up my leg and gallops in a throbbing wave deep into my core, leaving my vagina twitching in its wake.

The tower’s frame come toppling close even while I’m pushing the chains to dance me out of reach. Every jarring motion setting the metal through my foot twitching with more delightful sensation. As the ground continued to dance away, the chains formed a spider like suspension around me, holding me aloft as I rode the waves. The power I had somehow allowed the material of the chains, and its attachments, shift in form, from weight, to spikes, to blades, or anything I imagine. It also allowed them to lengthen or contract with no apparent shift in width, no need to add mass or take it away, it just occurred.

Even with my eyes closed, I can tell how they are moving around me. Like having my eyes closed and moving my hand around, position and pressure from the chains I controlled rippled within my mind’s eye. So empowering, yet also alien and distancing. When a spike stabs through Demons alive or dead, all I feel is a shift in pressure. One moment resistance, becomes a squelch or a scream as the pressure shifted away. Is this what a drone pilot experiences or even less? I feel sorry for them, at least I’m close enough that I still know fully what I’ve done. Close enough to be aware of what my actions and choices have done. Is it enough to keep me grounded? If so, for how long?

The earthquake rolls on for long minutes, and the eternal fortifications, the siege walls of Hell crack and shatter in its wake. Overhead, the laughter of the Erinys continues as she rains fiery arrows of destruction down on mounds of bodies. Every buck or slippage of bodies rewarded by an arrow that tosses bodies around with the force of its impact let alone the following explosions. As a body slides from a pile close to me, the arrow catches it before it even stops moving, showering me with flesh and bones.

“Stop blowing everything up bird brain.”

My voice sounds weird as I raise it to call aloft. Its growling, husky tones are edged with the pleasure the metal in my foot has brought. Her laughing response comes with a flurry of arrows that pulverise bodies around me. The desire to bring her down itches across me as things ooze from my chains. Though I can extend them some ten metres, the Erinys stays well beyond my reach, at least for now, but I’ll remember her.

The sound of my voice prompts me to raise the injured foot to tend to the spike. Every wiggle as it scrapes against bone would have caused my breath to catch from pleasure when still mortal. Now gritting my teeth to hold in the moans and resisting the temptation to play with it I tear it out in a single motion. Vision narrows as lightning orgasms exploded in my mind, and my body twitches in the aftershocks. The jagged spike having caught on bone going through had pulled them out when forcibly withdrawn. Fragments of bone and flesh fall away when shaking the spike flicks them free, and lets me consider the uncluttered steel.

Shattered steel had left a spike, with edges of serrated fish hooks down one side. Knowledge that I hadn’t possessed in life was instinct now. As my gaze slid across it, those instinct aid my understanding of how the construction was mishandled along with how the blow must have struck. The Abyssal steel provides a delightful burning sensation against my fingertips as my foot finishes healing. The cessation of pleasure, which should itself been agony, is spiteful and wicked, leaving me hanging on the edge of a frustrated orgasm. While the pleasure from my burning hands is enough to keep me twitching, alone it’s not enough to push me over the edge.

The spike disappears into my inventory, an ability that no other Devil seems to possess before temptation calls me to do something extreme with it. Perhaps I’ll make use of it for carving the face Nerezza wants. If nothing else it will be an interesting study to see how long she can avoid twitching from the steel’s caresses. Immediate pleasure versus long-term gratification of having the tattoo scar she desires.

By the time the ground has ceased its convulsion, my own twitching has only just subsided, and I race towards the wall. The Erinys I left behind, but a glance finds that her destructive arrows have found moving targets rising from the mounds. Maybe she wasn’t completely insane, but I did not know how she’d know they were going to heal. I had my Analysis skill, but it was limited to line of sight. How the heck was she able to tell which mounds had Demonic life within? No way was it luck as every mound I’d seen her drop arrows on spewed forth survivors. Rising to their feet to flee only brought them death.

She looked just as dangerous as the rest of her kind, lean black leather-clad valkyrie types, with blood-red hair and wings blacker than soot.  Finely pointed ears I would have considered Elven, before seeing them adorning so many types of Devils in this place. Her strangeness doesn’t end with laughter but includes the unmoving wings that still somehow keep her aloft. Where other Erinys have bows wrapped in flames of sullen, angry red, she has a bow sheathed in searing white flames. As with the others, she’s a beautiful deadly cheerleader of the condemned and I want to pluck her like a chicken.

With teeth grinding from the frustrated pleasure I head striding towards the wall, flipping her the bird as I ignore the sudden silence in from behind. Nearly a hundred metres closer to the wall, her laughter starts again, and explosions follow on its heels.

The devastation of the wall is concerning, with large sections broken or even collapsed. Even the main gates have been buckled off their mountings. Both doors are now laying on the ground with rubble sitting atop them. If the earthquake had struck even an hour earlier they would be at Hell’s gates. Unless they’ve already returned to their home Plane they might well attack again. Wizards and Mages who are already worn down by the Siege, plus support work teams are looking to clear the rubble and restore what had fallen.

“Daughter, return to me now. Your commander has been already told.”

The whisper of the great mother’s voice hissed low but clearly in my hearing, even with the workers’ loudness close at hand.

Not pausing to consider the reason why. I race through the workers heading for the trebuchet. While my chain’s commander will have been informed, the rest of my chain and Cejot will still have questions. Plus, I still had the carrier with Cejot’s toy to return, the carrier at least was essential, regulations had strict fines on equipment. If I didn’t move fast, the Portal to Nessus would be jammed with supplies and troops coming through, and my passage would have to wait. One thing I had learnt, the only thing mother possessed patience for was causing the downfall of enemies.