Iris | The Devil

“What kind ‘o horns are those?” The portly giant spat out the words with as much spit as spite.

He held the young, twin-horned girl almost three heads above the ground, leveling her eyes with his as he grasped her skinny neck with a sweaty hand. She clasped at his hand in a desperate attempt to loosen his grip. He squinted while surveying her tear-stained face, then cracked a cruel smile packed with brown and yellow teeth, along with a couple of gaps that had been left unfilled for some time.

“Look like an elf fucked a goat or somethin’!” The man’s mouth shot out a cloud of foul stench into the girl’s face right as he relaxed his hand enough for her to grab a deep breath.

“That one must remain unsullied,” commanded another’s voice. A smaller and much more well-dressed man approached from the shadows. Moonlight illuminated his handsome, clean-shaven face with a head full of dark hair—a strong contrast to the bald and scraggly bruiser.

The brute shrugged and lowered the girl. She wrenched herself out of his loosened grip and backed up into the post she was shackled to. She felt her stub of a tail pressing up against the damp wood through her tattered dress.

“You’ve a name, girl?”

Iris. She almost said it. Something about the icy, arrogant tone of the handsome man almost compelled obedience.

She bared her teeth, slowly hissing as she recovered her breath. A sharp pain shot along her jaw and down her neck, causing the world to spin as she doubled over, nearly fainting from the slap the brute landed on her jaw. She landed on her hands and knees in the grass, eyes wide with shock and full of tears.

“You best answer ‘im,” the brute spat out. “He ain’t the patient type.”

The handsome man shot the brute an annoyed look and crossed his arms, “I believe you have another that you can attend to?”

“Aye, boss. Shout if ye need me.” The brute turned about face and plodded back into the main encampment.

Iris pitied the other woman that the bruiser had been lusting over. She put up a heroic last stand, killing almost half-a-dozen assailants, but as her comrades fell, the rest of the bandits dogpiled her.

The other knight sisters of the party had gotten off more easily, particularly the captain. Her head exploded inside her helmet in an instant when the mountainous bruiser brought his warhammer down on her.

Iris tried to push thoughts of others out of her mind. She had plenty of terrifying memories of what men do to unwind after murdering, pillaging, and enslaving women. She had survived so far and even managed to escape from a group of bronze masks that had captured her.

“You know, you should be thanking me.” The handsome man patted Iris on her head, gently combing her hair away from her eyes. “There is no future for one of your kind in the Church.”

You need to stay away from the Church at all costs. Mother Trine’s words still clung to Iris.

She had tried her best to hide among the crowds and alleyways within the city, but on the open road… The Tal-Qoran wilds were not safe for hiding and sneaking, especially for a young girl. Ducking into the wrong cave, hiding in the wrong bush, or swimming in the wrong river would spell certain death. The roads were the safest means of travel, but also the easiest to get caught on.

How many times had she traded hands now? First it was the bronze masks she escaped, then bandits—or smugglers? Then knights of the Church of Sorcis all the way in Tal-Qora. They just executed devils, didn’t they? But they wanted to take her all the way to Sorcis on the far side of the ocean…

Now she wasn’t sure what fate awaited her. The brute and his companions could easily pass for bandits or a sell sword company, but the handsome man seemed more noble than mercenary.

“Your name, girl?” The voice grew impatient and angry. Shadows, puppeteered by the flickering of a nearby campfire, danced across his face as he lowered his head towards hers, a menacing scowl beginning to form.

“I-Iris!” she stammered. She was too deep in thought and scared that she didn’t give continued resistance a second thought.

The handsome man’s face relaxed. “Very well, Iris, you will refer to me as Master or Master Iskorn going forward.”

She had never heard that name before, but it certainly didn’t sound Tal-Qoran. Were cruel-sounding names a common thing in Sorcis?

The man knelt next to her and undid her shackles, then grasped her firmly by the wrist and began leading her towards a large tent in the center of the encampment.

The camp looked like it had been in use for some time. Its weather-worn canvas tents formed a neat grid-like pattern with a large clearing in front of the central tent’s entryway. The perimeter consisted of rows of wooden stakes pointed outwards, with the occasional lantern or brazier to illuminate the woods beyond.

Several well-armed bandits were on patrol, their hand torches weaving between the tents or illuminating the perimeter. Inside the tents, many of the bandits still seemed to be awake as their lights cast shadowy mimics of their activities onto the sidewalls. One tent had a huddled group of bandits playing what appeared to be a dice game. A second tent had one man exercising while the other tossed and turned in his bunk. The third had a bandit that appeared to be reading a book as he eagerly scratched at his groin.

There was no sign of the rose-haired knight sister the bandits had captured alongside Iris.

Iskorn barked orders as they passed two of the brute’s loitering comrades. “You, with the eyepatch, tell Jacob that when he’s had his fun, to bring the remaining captive to my quarters. You, with the ear, you will assist me.”

An ugly thumb of a man with a single ear and the boil-ridden majority of a nose accompanied Iris and Iskorn into the large tent.

A sweet fragrance immediately rushed into Iris’s nostrils as she entered. It was nearly dizzying. Despite the plain exterior, the inside was ornate with lush red and purple fabrics. Spread throughout the room was a large platformed bed, various tables, and magical apparatus.

Noble? Perhaps. Merchant? Perhaps. Mage? Definitely.

“Make sure she doesn’t bite her tongue off. On the splay will do.” Iskorn gestured towards a five-pointed table with affixed shackles.

The table was designed to hold a person at an incline with their legs spread apart and arms extended outwards like a star. One-Ear slipped something metallic into Iris’s mouth, something strong that held her mouth wide open and wrapped around the back of her neck like a collar. He tightened it to an uncomfortable level as it pulled her lips back into an involuntary smile and prevented her ability to bite.

“Wai, wha—” Iris could barely talk and was quickly scooped up by One-Ear who clumsily tossed her onto the splay and began shackling one of her wrists. She began to struggle, screaming as drool slobbered down her chin. She planted one foot firmly in the center of the splay and shoved her other foot as hard as she could into One Ear’s chin before he could finish shackling her second wrist.

“Fugg!” shouted One-Ear, who fell back a few steps, “I bit my fuggin’ tongue!”

Iris had only slipped the half-shackled arm free when the thug landed a vicious punch on her upper belly, knocking the wind out of her. Had she been free of the shackles, she would’ve fallen to her knees and crumpled onto the floor. Instead, she dangled from one arm while gasping for air.

She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to, but she couldn’t. It was like her ability to breathe was paralyzed.

“Fuggin’ bitch, I swear!” One-Ear hoisted her back up onto the table and secured her free arm before moving on to her legs.

Iris finally managed to pull some air into her lungs but realized there was no escape now. She wouldn’t be able to free her arms anymore.

“Boss, ain’t she kinda short for this?” An exasperated One-Ear looked over at Iskorn who was preparing various flasks and instruments. “I can’t get ‘er ankle down far ‘nuff,” he continued, pulling down on Iris so hard the shackles dug into her hands and wrists.

Iskorn looked over at the two of them, sighed, and then brought over a long metal chain and a lock. “Make do with this. Around the shins and thighs. Tight. I do not need her kicking or bucking wildly. We have no hycal, so we will have to endure the screaming.” He walked back to tinkering at the workbench. “Frankly, there is no guarantee hycal would even work on her.”

As One-Ear secured her, Iris’s thoughts turned to what Iskorn meant. Endure the screaming. Many terrifying possibilities flooded her mind. Was he a doctor here to harvest her organs or a mage in search of reagents? She was a rarity, after all.

“Pleash,” she begged, struggling to form proper words through her collared mouth as tears streamed down her face, “I don’ wan’ da die.”

Iskorn paused his tinkering and placed his tools down as he turned towards her. “Iris, I told you there would be no future for you with the Church and that you should be thanking me. Now, why would I then proceed to kill you after offering you that glimpse of hope?” A cruel smile formed on his lips. “Well, I suppose some of us do have that twisted sense of humor.” He let out a mocking chuckle, then took a deep breath before continuing at his workbench. “No, you will be quite alive and healthy after this procedure. This is more a matter of compliance.”

Compliance? What did that even mean? As she pondered, Iskorn had approached her bound body with a pair of instruments. One looked almost like a long, sharpened fountain pen. The other tool was some kind of large needle. He tossed a rag towards One-Ear.

“Hold her down by her belly. Use your full forearm and plenty of your own weight. If she bucks, it will take much longer to complete the crest. If the screaming is too much, use the rag.”

One-Ear pressed the hard bone of his forearm deep into Iris’s belly as he leaned on her. She managed to keep breathing under the man’s weight, but was then subjected to his foul body odor. She felt Iskorn’s elbows press down on her thighs as he lifted up her ragged dress, exposing the bare skin beneath her navel.

She felt something cold and wet spreading across her lower belly, but was unable to see it due to One-Ear’s hunched body blocking her view. It felt sticky with how slowly it spread, but now it felt like it was sinking—or crawling—into her. Iris started to squirm, but was held firmly in place by the two stronger men. The cold grew deeper and more intense, like a cold vice gripping her insides. She let out a soft welp, panting hard.

“The less you squirm, the sooner it will pass. That said, you are doing well, girl.”

How comforting.

Iris couldn’t hold back a scream as she felt her insides turn to ice. A sharp crackle of pain shot up her spine and along her arms and legs. The pain continued to worsen and grew beyond anything she had endured before. It felt like hot blades were crawling along the insides of her body, slicing both nerves and muscle.

One-Ear had stuffed her mouth with the rag as she let out howl after wretched howl. She prayed to Sophia for mercy. She even prayed to the Church. Anything to make it stop, to end this cruelty. Please, save me. Anyone. Anything.