The third in three sequential stand alone shorts that began here.

“Ophelia Open,” Ophelia told the maître D. She often wondered why she hadn’t changed her name back to Weizmann, but in her heart maybe she knew.

The man had a thin lacquered black comb-over and calculating brown eyes. He smiled warmly, but not to give anything away. It was his job to assume that everybody who came to his restaurant could be royalty or undesirable and everything in between. He would sit on the fence with this woman until he had placed her.

“You have a reservation?” he asked it as if it were a statement.

Ophelia wasn’t listening. Instead she was gaping at the opulence like a tourist, just stopping short of an open mouth. This was a new place to her, either that or Richard hadn’t brought her here when they were married.

“Miss Open?” the head waiter prompted her.

“Oh sorry, it’s Mrs, well ex-Mrs actually, I assumed…” Ophelia flashed her baby blue eyes in amusement.

“Oh yes,” the man said quickly, up to then he had wondered if Ophelia was a mistress to someone, although the being dark he doubted it as blondes were the vogue this season. “Mrs Open, your husband, pardon me, ex-husband, called to say he would be late. May I show you to your table?”

He didn’t wait but turned with a wave and led her to one of the grander tables at the back of room. Nothing but the best for Richard, she thought mirthlessly.

The seat of the chair was well-padded but that didn’t stop Ophelia feeling the nascent tender ache from last week’s encounter with Wentworth. That had been an embarrassing and avoidable encounter that she only had herself to blame for. Well herself and little sister Sophie, she amended. But that little matter had also been attended to, or so she had heard. Little sis had positively gushed sparkles about her executioner; it seemed that a good spanking had done her the world of good.

Ophelia found herself wondering about Wentworth and his relationship with Patty. Maybe if she hadn’t still been in love with Richard… but no, he wasn’t really her type. A father figure was one thing, but the muscle-bound ex-marine was too serious for her liking and when Daddy spanked… she winced again and adjusted her behind in the chair, Patty could keep him.

She thought about Richard and where it had all gone wrong. The letter in her purse had said he wanted to try again, her heart did an unexpected lurch, but what was the point? Sure she still loved him but… she tried to remember all of the reasons she had left him. At the time she had cited the spankings and long embarrassing corner times. Sometimes he had made her stand there for hours, or so it had seemed, while he made business calls with little in-jokes at her expense. She had been certain that everyone knew she was a spanked wife. But none of that was it, not if she was honest. She even knew about the other women, arm-trophies Richard called them and strictly business. It was distasteful to be sure, but Richard was always upfront about it. Did she believe him when he said he didn’t touch? Before the marriage he had warned her otherwise so why a change?

Hell it was 1960 and the papers were full of the permissive society and she couldn’t expect a man like Richard to be faithful. But part of her had believed him when he had told her he was. Then she had met his secretary, Alice Duvall, she bristled again, as if the memories were fresh. She had suspected the woman from the first and all those business trips…

But it was two events in particular that had turned her heart. Alice Duvall’s sick smiling face on the cover of Newsweek as she hung on Richard’s arm to claim him like, like… and the spanking.

The spanking was worse. Ophelia had burst in on them. Her, bare bottomed over his knee getting the spanking of her life. Until Alice had seen Ophelia looking on, Ophelia could have sworn that she hated it. Richard had insisted it was entirely punitive. But then the women’s eyes had met and Alice had smirked through her tears. Bitch.

Since the divorce Richard and Alice had become an item. The spider bitch had wound him into her little web and Ophelia had cleared out to let her. Damn the woman.

“Hey baby,” Richard said suddenly as he stooped to kiss her.

“Oh, hey,” she returned an uncomfortable smile.

Richard smiled back as he dropped into the seat opposite. His cheeks dimpled and squared off his jaw. He was wearing a sharp suit that angled down from his broad shoulders giving his body a V-shape. The pin-stripe exactly matched the premature grey in his hair just as the charcoal of the rest of his suit’s colour matched his eyes.

“Sorry about being late it was…”

“Business,” she finished for him.

They both laughed, but there was no warmth to it and their chuckles fell flat leaving a moment of awkward silence.

“I wasn’t even sure you would come,” he said evenly. “I mean after that business that Wentworth handled for me…”

Ophelia blushed and looked down demurely.

“I had it coming,” she said with a face, “Besides I guess you were too busy with… what was her name?” bitch-Alice, she thought bitterly. “Anyway I didn’t expect the personal touch. After all it was just business wasn’t it?”

He winced and sucked his cheek in on one side with a sour look.

“Oh come on, you know it was,” Ophelia said placating him, sorry now to have been so sharp. “How is… Alice anyway?” she said the name like poison and added archly, “are you still paddling her fanny when she’s a bad girl?”

“You know me,” he said quietly. “But she doesn’t take to it too well sometimes.”

“Ooh,” Ophelia said in mock sympathy, “Is the great Mr Open too hot for her to handle?”

Richard didn’t answer as he picked up the menu and pretended to consider lunch.

“There’s nothing serious between us,” he said at last, “she is just another one of those women I used to have around before we were married.”

“Yes and you warned me you wouldn’t always give them up,” she said angrily, “I was warned and we both know I only wanted the prize. So fair play Richard, see, it was all my fault.”

“I… I loved, love you,” he said quietly, “From that first… I didn’t have to marry you but I did. I thought that the other girls would be fun if you could handle it. But I gave them up, all at once I found I had grown up and didn’t need them anymore.”

“Until Alice Duvall,” Ophelia accused.

“I spanked her,” he shot back; “She had it coming. What was the big deal?”

“Yeah, I bet. She played you like a fool. That little bitch had her hooks into you and you let her,” Ophelia yelled. “And then when we, when I… scammed you for the money you sent me to that… you let someone… oh,” she spluttered angrily, “You… you spank her, but not me.”

Several people in the restaurant looked over and even Richard looked uncomfortable. But Ophelia didn’t wait. She threw down her napkin as she stood up and stormed away.

*

Ophelia had got two blocks before Richard’s cab pulled alongside matching the pace of her hot heels on the sidewalk. If she was mad then he was angrier still. The little brat had thrown their marriage over on account of a spanking? She had messed in some dangerous and expensive business trying to get him to spank her? And all of it had been about Alice? He was furious.

As the car slid up to his wife he eyed the jounce of her hips and bottom in her tight skirt. It wasn’t the only thing was that tight he noticed. But he was still too mad just then.

He slapped a five dollar bill on the back of the driver’s seat and told him they were taking on a passenger. Then he opened the cab door and leapt out.

Ophelia struggled hard, harder when she saw that Richard was her abductor, but he tossed her easily over his shoulder and hauled her into the back seat of the cab.

“Hey what gives Mac?” the driver exclaimed.

“My wife,” Richard growled as he tossed another five at the guy.

The driver looked uncertain but Ophelia chose that moment to enter the conversation.

“Richard Open you bastard,” she spat at Richard.

The driver hesitated a moment longer and then counted the money in his head. Some marriages were just like that, he guessed and besides the guy looked like her could afford it. The car pulled away fast.

Ophelia tumbled back with her dignity scattered and fell sideways in a heap on the back seat next to her ex-husband.

“Richard you… where are we going?” she gasped.

“Home,” he replied and leaned forward to give the address to the driver.

*

Ophelia stood on the sidewalk looking up at the familiar brownstone and tried to stay mad. Behind her Richard paid off the driver who grinned as he barked cheerfully, “Good luck Mac,” before pulling away.

“Richard…” Ophelia began and then squealed, “Richard” as she was hoist over her husband’s shoulder with her bottom in the air.

For Ophelia the next few moments were series of rails, plaster-embossed ceilings and unfamiliar angles as she was bundled upside down up the steps and into the house.

“Richard,” she wailed, “Put me down.”

To her surprise Richard obliged. Only instead if setting her on her feet he sat down on the top step of the second floor and dragged her pell-mell across his lap.

“Richard you can’t…” she gasped, acutely aware that somewhere was a maid and who knew who else, “Not here.”

Her words ended in a shrieked as his hand blasted down on the seat of her skirt.

“Alice Duvall means nothing to me, never has, never will,” Richard bellowed as he spanked her.

“Shush,” she hissed, still more worried about her red face than her red bottom.

He pounded at her behind with his paddle-like hand until shush was driven from her and she was again yelping her discomfort.

“Not here, please not here,” she wailed.

“Get up those stairs,” he growled as he finally set her free.

He didn’t wait for her compliance and she found herself tugged like rag-doll up another flight of stairs to the intimate rooms of the house.

Once they reached the bedroom he glared at her and unbuttoned his jacket before tossing it on the bed. Then as she watched, he slowly began to roll up his sleeves until Ophelia gulped and began to back away.

“Now Richard,” she remonstrated, “I’m not your wife remember, you can’t spank me.”

“Spank you?” he said quietly, “I’ll spank you alright and the rest.”

“Richard,” she squealed and turned to run.

It was easy enough to get her over his knee as he sat on the bed, but her tight skirt was another matter. At some point the zip broke and a silk slip bulged through the opening.

“Careful that is…” she wasn’t sure she cared right then.

Then skirt, slip, panties all went south and Ophelia was left in her suspender-stockings and a bare bottom.

“When I am done here you will fetch your hairbrush from the dresser,” he told her.

“My…” she looked up; everything was just as she had left it with no sign of Alice Duvall.

Then the spanking began and she kicked her legs theatrically. The weeping and wailing lasted for long minutes as Richard spanked her over and over until her neat full rounds were as red as her face.

“You… you little fool,” he scolded, “I love you, you…”

“Richard please,” she yelped, but to no avail.

He spanked her for several long minutes until his had stung and his arm ached like a novice.

“Now fetch the brush,” he said sternly.

“Yes Richard,” she replied meekly.

Then she got unsteadily to her feet and tottered over to her dresser and took up her hairbrush.

“You little idiot, I’ll teach you to…”

“Teach me Sir,” she said in a small voice.

*

Ophelia’s bottom was on fire and tears streamed down her face, but she was home. How could I have missed this? she thought, but I have. She had tucked her elbows and knees under either side of Richard’s thighs as he soundly spanked her across his lap. He handled the hairbrush like an expert as it blasted down mercilessly on her exposed bottom until she howled at each impact.

“This is only the beginning you absolute brat,” he barked.

“Yes Sir,” she wailed breathlessly as she kicked her ankles.

Finally, her second spanking was over and Richard sent her to the corner for a good cry.

“Damn it you brat, we didn’t eat lunch,” was his only comment as he his belly complained, but to see Ophelia where she belonged; red-bottomed and in the corner was worth it and they both knew it.

For one evil minute he thought of ringing down for a sandwich to have Maria see Ophelia put in her place, but another insistent hunger pressed upon him and he had a better idea.

Meanwhile in the corner Ophelia reached around and tentatively prodded at her bottom. Her crying and breathing were under control and she had idly begun to wonder if a divorce could be annulled.

“You know there is only one thing for it?” he said from behind her.

She didn’t turn. He had trained her to well for that.

“Will you marry me Mrs Open?”

Her discipline broke and she rushed at him for a kiss. The momentum carried them on to the bed where his hands painfully found her bruised behind. Ophelia didn’t care. He was a big man and today he was hard, harder than she remembered and she wanted him.

Ten minutes later he had her again; this time on all fours while he pounded at her hungrily from behind.

“Hey, you didn’t answer me,” he said at last, as he collapsed onto the bed next to her.

“Oh I think I did,” she grinned archly and reached for his manhood.

He wasn’t ready for her, not yet and she wondered if he might respond to some oral stimulation.

“I’ll ask Alice to resign,” he said earnestly, “I’ll give her some dough and ship her out to another company. Some people owe me some favours.”

“You swear you never touched her when we were married,” Ophelia said huskily.

“I would have said. I did a few times when we first married, like I told you but… not since… and never with her until…” the usually assured Richard was desperate not to say the wrong thing but determined not to lie.

Ophelia kissed him to silence.

“And is it right that Alice Duvall doesn’t care to be spanked?” Ophelia’s eyes narrowed.

What was she up to? He thought.

“Well which girl does?”

“Afterwards, I mean, when girls like me feel all safe and forgiven?” Ophelia pressed him.

“Not half the time anyway, not when I’m pissed at her,” he told his renewed wife.

“Then…” Ophelia licked her lips, “Offer Alice twice her salary, triple if you like, but on one condition.”

“Oh?” Richard said suspiciously as his eyes crinkled up at the corners.

“As a requirement for her service, send her to Wentworth once a month for a full work out,” Ophelia smirked. “Once a month for the duration of her employment.”

Years hopefully, she thought, that ought to fix the gold digging bitch.

“Ophelia I can’t…”

“Just make the offer, give her a fair alternative, so long as it is much less lucrative, but make her the offer,” Ophelia giggled, “See what she says.”

“You really are a nasty brat aren’t you?” he growled.

“Probably, but I am betting so is she,” Ophelia smirked.

“Okay, I’ll offer her a year’s pay as severance and a detachment to another company on double pay,” he said angrily, “And two year’s pay as an end of year bonus and… treble pay, if she accepts your plan. But she’s not like that, she won’t take it. I bet she’ll just resign and tell me where to stick my job.”

You gullible schmuck, she thought affectionately. Suddenly she didn’t care what Alice Duvall did so long as Richard took her back. He could spank her silly for all she cared.

“Now you little brat bend over the bed. I have had enough of your machinations.” His voice was dark.

Ophelia pondered how she would handle another spanking and came down for acceptance when she saw his penis twitch. Then he reached for his belt on the floor.

“Oh come on, at least wait to see if she takes my suggestion,” she wheedled.

“You have already been mean whatever she says, so you had better pray you have her right or maybe it will be you who gets to see Wentworth,” Richard growled at her.

Ophelia levered herself onto all fours and stuck her bottom up. She doubted that Richard would do that, but she was certain she would get some more belting if he was right about Alice. But she was certain he wasn’t.

Then the belt seared into her bottom and she bit down on her lip. Oh jeez, this is going to be…

The belt struck again and Ophelia yelped, I must be crazy, she thought, and then grunted at another impact on her behind.

“Ooh Richard, please… ow, that hurts,” she snapped testily and then screeched, “Richard,” as the belt continued to ply its trade.

*

What a totally gross office building, Alice Duvall thought as she stood in the hall next to the sign on the door. What is a justice adjuster anyway? I don’t even know what I am doing here, she lied. Richard had made it crystal clear what was required of her for their new arrangement.

That bitch Ophelia had wormed her way back to the golden goose and wanted her out, although transfer to some dumbass company in Washington on double pay wasn’t bad. It almost made up for missing out on the prize. That had been her first response anyway. Then as he had offered her his hand, his hand for Christ’s sake, like she was what, his aunt? Not that she wanted a kiss from him, not then, but she was entitled to the chance to slap his face for giving her one.

“No hard feelings,” he said.

No more hard feelings from me anyway, ever, she sneered quietly.

“Oh no, you and the bitch deserve one another,” she had smiled sweetly.

Richard had frowned then and he moved to the stance that so often led to a spanking for her.

“Just kidding,” she said hastily.

He had sized her up for a moment and then said, “Look I wasn’t going to offer you this…”

She suddenly smiled more warmly and tried to look sincere.

“Oh yes?” she asked.

“You could always stay on with increased pay and a better bonus…”

Alice hadn’t even cared about the conditions, she didn’t listen. Double-double pay and a double bonus was better than a transfer to Washington. Hell she would go down on whoever he said for less, him if he liked. She had smiled so benignly.

“Hell you and Ophelia are perfect together, you never should have divorced her,” Alice said with her second best smile.

Now she found herself in a dingy dump down town. The door opened then a dumpy past-it blonde with glasses stood there. She had to be 30 at least.

“Miss Duvall for her hiney shellacking,” Alice said pertly and then affected a yawn, “Which asshole is going to paddle me today?” How bad could it be, she thought dismissively, but her mind was on how she was going to spend her bonus.

Patty frowned and led the newcomer into the office. The file on her desk called for a monthly standard or standard plus as required. Wentworth’s secretary quietly crossed out standard and added another plus sign to the specification. Then with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes she said, “The asshole will see you shortly.”

End of this cycle.

Our story began here.

More Trouble with Witches
Katrin felt nauseous as she looked upon her homeland. Timbre was not as she remembered it. Everywhere she could see smoke, palls of it rising in columns on every horizon. The roads too were not the firm clear affairs of memory; those had been used for fast moving travellers and merchants. Now the tracks and lanes of every village were chocked with refugees all fleeing north and east away from the war.

The news was that Motra Mundy had fallen some weeks before, but worse still there were exiles from every town Katrin had ever heard of. Some had determination in their eyes and had resolved to make for the capital Timon, but she could not help agreeing in her heart when an old cynic at the roadside had spat and murmured: “Timon will fall soon enough.”

It was enough to make her wish she hadn’t come. But if the world was to end she would be with Fear. But he was somewhere up ahead on the road to Timon and she despaired of catching him before the coming battle.

Earlier the ship had made landfall on a beach some miles south of Timon and Fear had set out as soon as the hull touched the beach. Amber and the other women had to contact Meredith’s coven and were to follow on. So in the event he had left before Katrin had been discovered in the hold and never suspected that she and Tabitha were stowaways.

“He’s gone,” Katrin wailed.

Meredith looked more bemused than angry but Amber sage had enough wrath for the both of them.

“Yes he had gone,” she said angrily, but she could see the despair of abandonment on Katrin’s face and could not find it in her to scold further.

Later the witches had gathered in a barn some miles from landfall where they had met the rest of the coven caparisoned for war.

The wind had got up and whistled through the old beams of the barn until they creaked and howled with a pain that echoed that of the land about them.

At one end the senior members of Meredith’s regained coven stood in a huddle while half a dozen or more others gathered around the walls and kept their own councils.

Katrin recognised some of them, Hemple, the shape-shifter Peel and the old warlock, Gas-something. She remembered them from her earlier encounter with the coven with Fear when they had tracked the Beast. But most of the others were unknown to her or were just faces she might have seen before. But Katrin adjudged them no great power on account of their exclusion from the knot of leaders conferring with Amber Sage. Or maybe the others were just indifferent.

The only ones not of the coven besides herself were Tabitha and Erin, both of whom stood where they had been bidden since the stowaways’ discovery in the ship’s hold. And for once Katrin decided that both girls’ looked decidedly nervous. Not that Katrin could care now. The fate of Timbre hung in the balance and Fear had gone.

The wind kicked up again, like some great demon without but desperate to get in. Katrin shuddered and thought of the beast. Suddenly without Fear she felt exposed and vulnerable. Did the Wolf know she was here? Did he care? Fear had been right, she should never have come.

At the far end of the barn Katrin saw Amber look at her and then at the other two. She well knew that face and unbidden to her mind came images of devil root and switches. Despite it all Katrin gulped and quickly looked away.

Amber fixed her eyes on the girl and frowned.

“It is as prophesied,” Demdike Runecaster muttered, “I saw it.”

“Yes and did you foresee me blistering their cherry red behinds for a year and a day?” Amber held her anger tightly under her breath.

“Katrin must be reunited with the Black One,” Demdike urged.

Amber shot an anxious glance at Meredith Greydove.

“She means Fear,” Meredith told Amber.

“I thought you had seen that Fear would kill Katrin,” Amber said in disgust.

“Not I,” Demdike said smoothly, “I merely counselled him to do it. But my sight was as then unclear.” The old seer seemed unabashed.

“Maybe you don’t see so clear now either,” Amber snapped back angrily.

Demdike shrugged.

“And what about the other two?” Amber continued under her breath, “I could murder that Erin. She knew they were there, she smuggled them the little witch.”

“Discipline must be maintained I suppose,” Meredith sighed, but she didn’t seem much given over to regret.

“That is meet, for we must have no dissent for what is to come,” Demdike croaked, “But the De Lacy girl must be sent on.”

“I agree, and anyway, I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes when Fear finds out she defied him,” Meredith replied.

The two elder witches looked at Amber who shot another glance at Katrin and then to the younger witches. Then with a sigh she nodded.

“Then all that remains is the other one,” Demdike said.

“Our old friend Draken, yes, can you see what he plans?” Meredith asked the seer.

“That path is clouded for now, but tomorrow I will again cast the runes and…” she shrugged, ignoring Amber’s snort of derision.

“We will be ready come what may and hope it is enough,” Meredith said in the grimmest of voices.

As if to underscore her words the wind set to howling again and the three witches shuddered. It was a night for demons and for long moments they fell silent like rabbits hiding from the fox.

After a few moments Amber spoke. “Well then, let’s send Katrin on her way and deal with…” she looked at Tabitha and Erin, “…those two. I trust there is no requirement that they can sit down for the battle.”

“I saw no horses in the runes,” Demdike cackled, “and in my experience a good witch works better with a fire in her behind.”

“Perhaps you should spank us all then mother,” Meredith said sourly.

Amber remembered her youth under Meredith’s tutelage and blushed. It had happened she remembered. But the crone Demdike only chuckled.

*
The wind had finally died down and the air had become still and almost oppressive. The night had even become a little warm, which was just as well given what was needful.

Perhaps it was the calm before the storm to end all storms, Amber thought as she looked up at the crystal black and star-speckled sky. It was as if the heavens had been splashed with buckets and buckets of precious gems until there was almost as much colour above as night. Now a million billion eyes looked down like gods holding their breath as the fate of mankind hung in the balance.

A bench had been set up outside the barn doors and Amber had arrayed it with all manner of herbs and branch cuttings until it looked like green grocer’s stall in the market. Most of the fare was for the preparation of medicine, which would be needed later in the coming battles, but some of it had more immediate uses.

Amber looked back at the two young women secured in the pillory set in the middle of the barn. Both were naked and looking very sorry for themselves and dreading what Amber may be preparing for them.

“Come on, this isn’t funny,” Erin Stone wailed.

Tabitha had been spanked often enough now to keep her mouth shut. She was certain that this was going to get very much worse before it got better. Although quite how it could be worse than being bent over at the hips in a pillory she was not sure.

For one thing she hadn’t liked the look of the bundles of twigs on the end of the table. Some of them looked thick enough to use as canes and would certainly make decent switches in their own right. Still others, being slightly thinner, put Tabitha in mind of the makings for a stout birch rod.

Then there was the mortar and pestle that Amber was fussing with. The elder witch had her back turned and it was too dark to see colours beyond the barn, but Tabitha thought she saw some devil root. She felt decided queasy and a tickle of sweat ran down her spine to lose itself in the cleft of her bottom.

Nor was this the only cause of warm dampness and the young witch felt her bud harden in expectation. Down girl she thought, you don’t want this, really you don’t. But the warmth continued to grow and through her mind ran images of Meredith’s firm thighs firm beneath her tummy and a sharp hand on her bottom.

“Hey let me out of this contraption,” Erin wailed again, but no one paid her any mind.

From her position behind the two women Meredith had a good view of their bare bottoms. Not bad, she thought, but decided she ought not to enjoy the show too much. Nevertheless she could not help but make comparisons between the two girls. Oh thy hypocrisy is boundless, ran a mantra through her mind.

Whether conscious or not, Tabitha had kept her legs straight and her back dipped so that her small high-set bottom was well presented. Erin on the other hand was trying and failing to make her slightly larger round bottom less obvious by tucking in at the knees. Although this did not push her bottom up so much, it did thrust it obscenely back so as to make an inviting target.

Meredith shifted slightly on the milking stool she had found and adjusted her thighs. These were Amber’s students not her coven mates, she had no requirement to assist. She licked her lips, but maybe with two of them to deal with Amber might… she didn’t follow the thought. It was unprofessional and tomorrow her coven might go into battle. My mind should be on higher things.

*

Two kings stood side-by-side and looked out into the night. Neither of them spoke, but on this evening they were as brothers. Behind them in the distance was the city of Timon, its curved high walls silver white against the night sky, vast and splendid like some great crown on the land.

Then there over to the east it was just possible to see the mountains as dark on darker; a break in the star-dashed sky like tears on a black paper star chart.

But it was the south that held their attention, although as yet there was no sign of the enemy and one might have supposed that the land was at peace. But all day riders had come and gone with news. The Western Host was on the move and would arrive within three days.

King John towered over his fellow royal, who himself was by no means a short man. But next to the more stolid Peron, John had a slim gaunt look and was older by nearly a decade, a happenstance that had until now had led him to cede leadership of the war to Maelon. He pursed his lips and look back at his capital. In a week would those walls be black like the sky?

Beside him King Peron sighed. John looked down to meet the King of Precips’s eyes as if sizing him up. At least the man found the strength to smile and after a pause and with a great effort the dour John smiled back.

“A beautiful night,” Peron sighed.

John looked up again as if seeing the sky anew. “Yes,” he said with an appreciative nod. But both were stalling for time and they knew it.

Earlier it had been decided not to accept siege and to meet the western army head on. Many had counselled against it, even Dr Fear and Gort. But this time reinforcements from the fleet and Precips itself had swelled their ranks and they had some weight in numbers. They might yet meet the foe on something like equal terms.

In any case a siege was certain death for them. There were no more allied armies to come, no more wizards who were not already present and Dniester had assured them he knew of no more dragons this time.

“In any case,” Gort the High Hand had told them earlier, “No dragon can stand against the Wolf.”

Dniester had nodded as had Dr Fear.

“We were lucky at Precips, the foe had little magic to counter my friend,” Dniester said quietly. In his heart he still saw the dead laid waste by his will and for the first time in his long, long life he felt old.

Now King John looked over at the line of mages watching the two kings patiently. They had the look of crows in the night sizing up carrion. But it was an unworthy thought, John Armarlon berated himself. They were not crows but hawks come to defend his lands. He looked back at them and smiled. But try as he might, still he saw only feeble crows. Then with a sigh he spoke.

“Come cousin,” he said to Peron, “Let’s have a council of war. We have a battle to win.”

*

Amber had asked Peel, Demdike’s young daughter, to apply cotton oil to the naked witches’ bottoms. Amber had chosen young Peel because having a girl of their own age touching them so would humble them more.  Also from the scowl on Peel’s face throughout the proceedings, she judged that the Runecaster girl had no prurient interest in the shaming.

Not that a prurient interest was bothersome, but cotton oil was a soft sensuous commodity to tenderise and yet toughen the skin. Amber didn’t want to appeal to Erin and Tabitha’s sensitive erotica natures at this time; it would detract from the punishment. But she had judged her girl right and Peel went at her task as if she were rubbing down a horse, drawing gasps and squeals from the two miscreant witches. Then Amber put the last touches to the fire baste for afterwards and set about trimming the devil root for the final part of the punishment.

“Isn’t that going too far?” Hemple whispered at her shoulder.

Hemple was a young witch, little more than a girl herself. She had wild orange hair that hung to a heavy fringe to where dancing green eyes regarded the punitive preparations in awe.

Meredith, Gasgook, the coven’s warlock, and Demdike had spanked her often and sometimes she had been sent to cut switches, but never had she been seared with devil root or other such things.

“Disobedience this close to the time of peril must be quelled,” Meredith assured her.

Her leader too had come close now to watch the arrangements unfold.

“But Demdike said…” Hemple licked her full lips and blinked hard in wonder as she imagined the trials to come.

“It was foretold yes, but that does not mean we are only actors on a stage and all must take responsibility for their choices,” Meredith sighed.

“But…” Hemple began.

“Erin and Tabitha knew what they risked,” Amber said sharply, “Maybe they hoped to slip away to battle before we found out, but they knew.”

Hemple looked as if she might speak again but Meredith warned her with her eyes and the young witch lightly massaged her rear in trepidation.

“Now Meredith, I mean to have them both soundly birched, but can you warm them first? A sound spanking will sting them nicely on their oiled behinds,” Amber suggested.

“My pl… duty,” Meredith said archly.

Amber cast the elder witch a glance and smirked. At least Meredith had the good grace to blush before taking a heavy spatula from the bench. Then with a wry smile she crossed the barn to confront the twin targets. Only once she stood behind Tabitha and Erin did she became stern.

“Stop wriggling,” she said, “and stand up straight, well as straight as you can. I want to see those bottoms.”

Tabitha obeyed at once. It was almost as if she was eager, but Meredith just put it down to her training. Erin on the other hand, bucked her knees even more and had to be told two or three times before she was cajoled into swallowing her pride and abandoning all dignity to stick her bottom out.

“Lovely,” Meredith said sweetly and then let fly with the improvised paddle.

Tabitha squealed, but then managed to stay silent as the spanking continued.

“It is so not fair,” Erin complained.

Her face burned with shame from sticking her bum out like music hall act and she felt like spitting frogs.

Meredith smirked at Erin’s reluctant obedience; it put her in mind of a hound in the slips or a young Amber Sage oh so many years ago. But her main attention was on Tabitha’s pert red oiled bottom as it shone like a ruby in the torch light. Spanking it was a joy.

The witch kept to her task for a few minutes before changing targets to take in Erin.

“Ow, you…” Erin yelped angrily.

So much bottom, so little time, Meredith mused.

But Amber was in no hurry and Meredith was able to spank Erin at length until her attitude was very much reined in and tiny tears bubbled in her eyes. Meredith even had time to switch back to Tabitha for a few long minutes before finishing up spanking Erin again. After two rounds of spanking both witches had glossy red bottoms submissively angled back at her in the firelight.

Amber gave her a quizzical look and Meredith realised that she was at liberty to go round again. She should, she knew, they deserved it, but restraint was a virtue.

“I give you two birds, basted and prepared for the cooking,” she beamed.

Amber affected nonchalance and rolled her eyes up at the quip. But she couldn’t help allowing herself a small smile.

*

Gasgook was an old man with wizened white hair that merged with his beard to frame his entire head. The effect was all the more startling as he had no moustache to soften the look. It had been he who had been called upon to discipline the two girls and he took to the task as one who had been put upon and with none of the glee that Meredith had harboured. With one birch rod in his hand and at his feet was a bucket holding three more, he sternly contemplated the two well-presented cherry red bare bottoms.

If could have seen their faces he would see that Tabitha was resigned and focussed. Her eyes a little curious as she wriggled her bottom in the still air of the barn.

Erin, on the other hand, looked pensive and nervous, her eyes scanning back and forth as if she wished she could see behind her. All defiance was gone now and she gulped.

Gasgook waited. The smaller bottom on the left was ready and obviously expected to be first. The other flexed its glutes and bulged back at him as if it might flee. But there was no harm in being obvious, he thought.

The brand of thick twigs swiped across Tabitha’s bare bottom with all the burn of a torch and she gasped. A million little bees tingled and sang in her hinds and each one competed for her soul. The next stroke was worse.

“Nyah,” she grunted and began to duck her head out front, gaping like a fish for some air.

Erin looked sideways in horror at her friend’s face and wished she had never seen a ship.

“Omigosh,” Tabitha shrieked at the next blast of rod.

The pain and relentless assault did not get any better.

Erin tested the frame that held her and then shot a glance at Amber. Okay, I’m sorry, you have had your fun now let me go, she wanted to say, but she was witch enough to know she was in for it.

Tabitha could take it, Erin knew that, this was just another walk in the park for her. My bottom is not like hers, she quailed inwardly. But it seemed from her response, Tabitha couldn’t take it. And if she couldn’t… spanked, I knew I would be spanked, not this, Erin cursed.

Then Tabitha began to shriek and didn’t stop until it was Erin’s turn.

“Please Amber,” Erin sobbed after just three strokes, “I’ll be a good girl.”

And for the first time in her young life she meant it.

*

Both girls had taken two dozen strokes now and there was not a tear between which was the most miserable. They were both crying hard and both had a vivid bubble-rash all over their bottoms. In fact they both looked so raw it was a wonder they didn’t bleed.

“Listen up girls,” Meredith said sharply. “This is military grade discipline; we are no longer playing games. Mark these bottoms well…”

There were nervous giggles at Meredith’s unintended pun and she growled in frustration.

“This is serious,” she shouted and the barn fell silent.

Then she nodded at Gasgook and he took up the next rod.

“Please, please, please, please,” Tabitha muttered at the sound of the scrape at the bucket.

But between her legs, soggy little pussy perked up. You sick little kitten, she chided herself, you deserve this. Then she howled like a banshee while little pussy purred. She hated this, hated it, but like puss she love hating it so much.

“Now come on,” Erin spluttered through her tears, “No more, please, I have learned my lesson really I have.”

Next to her Tabitha rocked and yelled in the pillory, announcing to the world that she had had enough while Erin knew her turn was yet to come.

*
The ooze that Amber applied to Erin’s bottom was like soothing balm at first. She had guessed as much from Tabitha’s cooing next to her. But it was too good to last. By the time the devil root was inserted into the rosebud between her cheeks the drying gunk had already begun to burn.

“Not the root, please,” Erin whimpered.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take it out after an hour or two,” Amber said, “Just as soon as you tell us what you did wrong and why you were such a naughty girl.”

Then root and paste sang a discordant harmony in both bottoms and after much gasping and groaning, both girls joined the chorus.

“I won’t smuggle anything anywhere ever,” Hemple whispered earnestly.

“Nor me,” Peel agreed.

Both girls’ eyes were out on stalks, and prayed to the gods in thanks that Amber wasn’t in their coven.

To be continued.

It was the hum that kept Leah awake. The relentless hum that touched her ears just below audible that could only be heard if you listened for it; or if you were trying to sleep.

She had been told by the captain before he went into stasis that she would get used to it. And indeed as she went about her daily tasks around the ship she no longer heard it. But it was always there, a low tickle of a hum as the Endeavour of Free Trade cut a swathe through hyperspace.

She wasn’t a newbie of course and all ships had their idiosyncrasies and little sounds. But the Endeavour had the most annoying background hum she had ever experienced.

“Oh-eh,” Leah growled angrily in frustration as she kicked off the bed covers and sat up. “I rename this ship Insomnia.”

She ran her slim well-trimmed fingers through her short boyish blonde hair and glowered in the mirror beside her bunk. Leah wouldn’t have thanked anyone for pointing it out, but she had an elven look about her with big wide-open brown eyes.

She yawned and stretched before standing up and tried to focus on the small console by the door. It was blurred green in the half light of the cabin and it took a moment for Leah to rub the sleep from her eyes and see it clearly.

Since Leah had taken her four month turn at being awake, she had had the main ship’s readouts patched through to her personal console. Not everything, it wouldn’t have fitted on screen, but just the headlines. Yawning again she studied the small green lights of the display, almost willing there to be a problem. There wasn’t.

She pressed a tab and the read-out changed to a HD view of hold one and then at a touch, the next cargo bay. The screen showed row after row of containers with not a hint of a problem. Leah scrolled through the entire cycle twice before being satisfied and then she called up the manifest.

Sometimes there were interesting goods in transit and often the personal belongings of colonists were not security locked. In any case it was easy to invent a reason to open one up.

Once she had found an old bicycle and ridden around the ship for days before coming bored. Another time she had found an old Earth pin-ball machine. It was strange what people wanted transported through deep space. She continued to scroll.

Leah had done this many times since the rest of the crew had gone into cryo-sleep and had found a few things too. But nothing had been as interesting as the item marked Golem. She paused when she reached it.

The specification read that it had originated on Poprad 9, a Slavic world where they made weapons she had heard. But if it was a weapon then why was it going to New Jerusalem? Leah pulled down an info page and cross-referenced both planets. Nothing.

With a huge sigh of frustration she CP’ed reference numbers off the manifest entry and did random searches for them. It was futile, she knew, she had done this a dozen times since she had found the Golem entry. Out of frustration she hit the ‘magic’ AI search refinement. It was a near useless auto-search feature no one in their right mind ever bothered with.

The screen offered a choice of recipes for cream pies, ‘further searches for agri-tech,’ and… she perked up, manual procedures for handling dangerous cargo.

“Dangerous cargo?” she gasped and pulled down the record.

It was clearly listed as domestic-social. Not industrial, not agriculture and definitely not dangerous. Why then did this Golem, whatever it was, have a dangerous category tag number?

Leah stripped out of her sleep suit and hit the shower. Five minutes later she was in a fresh coverall and heading for cargo bay six at a jog. It was unlikely to be a problem, but she didn’t have anything else to do.

*

The cargo bay was like a small town with streets not of houses, but rows upon rows of containers. It was a permanently twilight world where the ambient lighting provided just enough illumination to see, although the auto motion sensors brought up bright spots to Leah’s location wherever she went. This light did not so much as burst on, but grew and faded organically so that wherever she stood she could read or work, but beyond the pool of soft glare the shade segued away to the dimness of grey and white.

She found the Golem container on her second attempt. But she had had to double back and check a remote console first to get the row number.

“Okay dokay,” she breathed when she found it.

The container of one of the medium sized ones that stood sideways on to the gantry deck. She knew that it went back exactly eight meters and the square side presented to her now was four meters by four.

“I have had smaller apartments,” she muttered as she punched up the entry plate.

If it was a security risk then she should be denied access. The plate buzzed and she held her breath. The dull grey display on the access plate turned orange. Leah sagged in disappointment. Orange meant it was locked, but that she could override it. That posed her with a dilemma.

If it had turned red, then she would know it was secured and closed to her. A shame, but that would have been the end of the matter. But green would mean that she could open it without it getting flagged on the roster and she could have had a nose about to sate her curiosity.

Orange meant, don’t open except in an emergency.

“Damn,” she hissed. “Do I?”

But what emergency could she claim? ‘I found a mislabel transit tag.’ It sounded lame. Leah knocked with her small fist on the hard out-ness of her mystery as if she were lost and it was a cottage in the woods.

“Is there anybody there?” she said in an affected sinister voice.

She couldn’t risk it. It would be her arse if the supervisor saw the log at the end of the voyage and if he took it to the captain… Damn. As a parting gesture Leah wrapped out ‘dum-dum da, da, da, dum-dum da dum’ and then stopped with her hand hanging impotently in the air. Crap, she thought and turned to go.

From inside there was a faint ‘da-da,’ or so she thought.

“Shit,” she gasped and whirled around. Did she imagine that? She shoved her ear to the side of the container for the longest time.

It could have been metal fatigue or… then a thought occurred. With long positive strides she walked to the end of the row, every step picked out by the following spotlights. Then once at the cargo console she pulled up the security tape. Setting it too maximum volume she replayed the scene at the container.

The sound was faint, but it was there. Now what? She didn’t know what to think. No one ever played the security tapes unless there was a problem later, but if she opened it and said… ‘I heard a sound and’… the tag, she thought. Of course she checked it. It was no big deal. She had spotted the strange tag on a routine check and went to check the plate status…

Leah almost ran back to the container and again engaged the plate. Using her personal access code she switched orange to green and then paused. The word ‘open’ flashed at her. She had heard a sound. What if there was something inside? To date it hadn’t bothered her, did she really want to bother it? Before she could consider further her finger tapped the display as if by its own accord and the container hatch sprang.

It was one of the new types that popped out and then slid back by itself as it parted in the middle leaving a two meter rounded-off square hole in the side. Almost at once the container’s ceiling lights came on in a cascade series taking about two seconds from the back to light up the whole container.

It was the longest two seconds of Leah’s 10 year career in the freight business.

First she saw a shape and then as the light swept towards her, saw an outline. It was the shape of a man, but halfway to being the size of a bear. For a moment she was put in mind of a sumo, but this figure was too sleek. Then the lights went beyond the shape and lit it from the front.

“What the…?” she gasped.

It was like a man. It was even dressed in clothing of a sort. But its flesh was greyish and apart from a semblance of dark brows had no hair. If the damn thing wasn’t two and a half meters tall she would swear it was a man.

“What are you? A statue? But…” she took a tentative step forward and reached out to touch it. “You’re organic… I think.”

Its flesh, and she could only reach its hand, was neither warm nor cool; an android perhaps?

Leah decided to consult the cargo console for any references on Golem, but she was already of a mind that it was some sort of domestic servant converted from military use.

“You stay right there,” she said absently as she moved to go. “I want to make sure you are not a danger.”

“I do not take my orders from you,” it said, “Or any woman.”

Leah leapt back from it with a startled gasp.

“What… I mean, who are you?” she asked.

“I am the Golem,” he said and added, “There is danger?”

“Eh… no, I mean… I don’t know,” Leah suddenly felt anxious. “Is there? What was that a question?”

“You awoke me and used the word danger,” the Golem said. “You seem anxious and are clearly distressed.”

“No I…”

“Since you are uncertain I must investigate,” the Golem told her.

He moved surprisingly quickly for one so large and outpaced her easily as he moved out onto the deck.

“Come on, just get back in the box,” she called after him.

“Who is in authority here?”

“Well… I am, but…”

“That is not possible,” the Golem said with certainty.

“What because I am a woman?” Leah bristled.

Golem cocked his head as if considering and studied her with shiny black eyes. They were hard and had a stern edge to them, but Leah sensed no malice.

“Because you opened the box and spoke of danger and are unable to take responsibility for or give an explanation of that statement,” he said simply. “Now I must make an independent assessment for danger.”

“Just get back in the freaking box,” Leah said wearily. “You had a danger tag and I checked. You made a noise so I opened the box. You can go back to sleep. There is nothing to see here and no fire…”

The Golem looked about him.

“Compared to the inside of the box there is much to see here and why do you deny there is a fire? Having raised that possibility I am now required to check,” he said simply.

“It is just a freaking expression okay. There is no fire, there will be no fire and you can go back to sleep,” she yelled at him.

This was getting desperate. Should she alert the captain and awake him from stasis? How would that look? ‘Oh I opened a box and let some kind of security…’ what? What was it? It clearly wasn’t a robot.

“Your anger and foul words are misplaced. It is clear that I must take control of this situation until someone in authority turns up. When will that be?” Golem rounded on her and appeared to size her up. “Do not lie, I am conditioned to determine the spoken truth.”

“In about three months,” Leah blurted. “I mean, I am the…”

“So you lied about being in authority and now admit that you are not in charge here,” Golem interrupted her, “And that is the truth you believe.”

“Listen if you don’t get back in the box I will have to wake the captain and…” Leah said impatiently.

“Please be silent,” Golem cut her off in a stern voice, “I will ascertain the situation and then decide what must be done. Tell me did you have authority to open the box?”

“Noo, not exactly, only in case of emergency,” she replied.

“Is there an emergency?”

“No, it would seem not,” Leah replied, “So you see you can go back…”

“So you admit that you opened the box without authority?” Golem interrupted her again. “The information console, how do I access it?”

“You need a code,” Leah said with a hint of triumph.

“Then supply me with one,” Golem ordered.

“No you obnoxious brute, just get back in the freaking box,” Leah yelled.

“Where is your husband?” Golem said. He seemed genuinely taken aback by her defiance.

“I don’t have a husband,” Leah threw back.

“Your father?”

“My what…? What the hell would my father being doing on a…?”

“You are a foul-mouthed, unruly, unsupervised brat,” Golem said. “Now give me the code so I can ascertain the situation.”

“Frak off you freak,” she yelled, “Now for the last time get back in the stinking box.”

The Golem turned to regard her with unblinking eyes and then advanced on her soundlessly and impossibly fast. Seizing Leah he turned her about and then dropping to a crouch dangled her over his left knee and gave her one hard optimum slap on the behind.

“Now for the last time, give me the access code,” he said calmly.

Leah, who had never felt so much as a pat to her tail in anger, struggled to draw breath against the blazing sting in her bottom. Finally she gasped, “Frak you…”

Golem took a pinch of the back of Leah’s coveralls and tore the back portion of them away exposing her bottom.

“Omigod,” Leah exclaimed and tried to reach in back to cover herself.

The Golem slapped her hard once more, this time across her bare bottom painting a portrait of pained surprise on her face.

“You have a sound spanking coming,” the Golem said, “There is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. Give me the codes now and when I am through I will put you in the corner to have a good think about what you’ve done and we will say no more about it… for now. Fail to give me the codes and I will spank you silly for… 10 minutes and then you will give me the codes. And then I will give you another sound spanking for your obstinacy.”

Leah clamped her mouth shut and reviewed her options.

The Golem didn’t wait and two seconds later he began to spank her.

“Jesuschristtobuggeryshiteandfrakingtohell,” Leah yelped and then all words were taken from her as she struggled to draw breath.

Leah fought bravely for several minutes kicking and angrily growling as she got the spanking of a dozen life times. Then a spluttering caught in her throat and she began a mewling sound.

“You goddamsonavabichbastard-ooh-oh-yah wah,” she bawled and promptly descended into tears.

For the Golem, his charge’s welfare was paramount and he spanked her no harder and no gentler than he adjudged she could handle. Even so, her bottom was welted and swollen in two raised ovals all over both cheeks and what had begun as a bright red sheen had now darkened to a rugged russet.

“Now little one,” he said finally as she broke to great bawling wails. “Tell me the code.”

Leah grizzled some hoarse wailing sounds before she was able to speak and then she croaked, “Go to hell.”

“Such blasphemy,” the Golem said sadly, “You leave me no choice.”

Leah fluttered in panic as it dawned on her what would happen. And then it did.

As promised the Golem spanked her for another 10 minutes as she kicked and wailed, bawled and sobbed and finally promised and pleaded. By then her bottom was as dark and tender as two Victoria plums and twice as plump.

“The code please,” he said firmly.

Leah blubbed an incoherent wail of words and numbers, which were broken by sobs and pitiful gasps for breath. But the Golem easily separated the content from her distress and set her on her feet.

Once released she did a slow knee-pumping dance with her hands locked to her boiling behind; her face a purple visage with three perfect circles of pained submission for her eyes and mouth. The Golem thought she resembled a baby bird, an apt image for such a fledgling he felt.

Then ignoring her he turned to the console and transferred system control from Leah to himself.

“Ah, I see. You were not permitted to open the cargo but you did,” he sighed. “You know this leaves me no choice.”

“Please, oh please, I’m sorry,” Leah sobbed, “Just get back in the box. I’ll never open another container in transit as long as I live.”

“Should I awake the captain then?” he asked her.

“No, oh God no,” she pleaded.

“Then I will assume command of this ship until your scheduled shift is up,” the Golem intoned, “Any questions?”

Leah shook her head.

“Now what did I tell you?”

Leah had almost stopped dancing around the deck and had managed to get her breath under control.

“You’re the boss,” she sniffed.

“No, not that you foolish girl,” he sighed. “I told you if you were obstinate that I would have to spank you again.”

Leah gaped at him, but not for long. In a trice he had seized her again and flipped her over his knee. The third spanking was more moderate in power but felt 10 times as bad for Leah and by the time it was over she had promised him the moon and apologised for just about every crime she had ever committed in her life and a good portion of the misdeeds in history.

*

Corner time was mortifying. Especially as she was condemned to a nose to the wall posture for as long as it took the Golem to review all ships systems and thoroughly check-out every bulkhead and nook in the ship. This took him just about three hours and 45 minutes or by Leah’s miserable reckoning, three days.

“You won’t move will you?” the Golem said as he left her in the corner, “I will only have to spank you again if you do.”

After that Leah didn’t dare take her nose from the corner, she just didn’t dare.

*

The pain in Leah’s bottom flared with every step, but her ‘captor’ had insisted that as the cargo was safe and secure they should move to the living quarters and operational areas of the ship.

“Can I put some fresh clothes on?” she asked miserably.

“You have fitting attire?” the Golem asked her.

Leah frowned.

“A dress or skirts perhaps?” the Golem looked more and more like a man to her. His face was alive with emotional expression as if a million thoughts were running through his head at once. “Skirts below the knee I mean,” he added.

Leah glowered at him as she tried to hold up the torn remnant of her overalls behind her. A dress, what was this guy on? She thought about the evening gown in storage. It was bright red with a slit from ankle to hip. Somehow she didn’t think he would approve of it and an image of going back across his heavy-set knee sprang to mind.

“No,” she said sullenly.

“Then your next task is to make some,” he ordered.

“Make some…? How and with what? What planet are you on?” she started in disbelief.

“Ah,” he groaned in frustration, “Nudnik.”

“What?” Leah wondered if she should be scared.

That was a point, she considered, I am apprehensive and… she winced, pissed off, but why I am not terrified of this monster?

“Well you are no balabatish are you?” he sighed.

“What are you talking about?” she snapped at him in irritation.

“Watch your tongue maidel, unless you want to go across my knee again,” he warned her.

Leah gulped and looked up nervously at him. It hurt her neck.

“I’ll make some suitable clothes and you will watch and learn,” the Golem told.

“Why don’t we just check the inventory? I am sure there are some clothes that meet with your approval in the hold I can borrow,” she said rolling her eyes at him.

Less than two seconds later she was across the Golem’s knee getting a spanking to rattle her teeth and put a fire in her tail that made her bottom glow in the dark.

“I was only sayyyiiiing,” she shriekd.

“And I, my shaineh maidel, am only spanking,” he groaned.

*

It had been three days since Leah had been able to sit down. Not that she had had much opportunity. The Golem had decreed that she should work instead of relying on machines. So complete with a headscarf she now stood in a smock-top and skirt washing her other clothes in a discarded hydraulic fluid container.

“Look I have things I need to be doing,” Leah said sullenly.

“All that is needful is for you to address yourself to the tasks I have set you,” the Golem replied. “I will see to all else.”

The Golem did not even turn to look at her but sat scrolling through security tapes at a tremendous speed.

“There must be a hundred cameras, each with weeks of continuous footage,” she told him apprehensively, “That’s years and years of…”

For some reason she felt nervous now. He was watching the back tapes at about 60 time’s normal speed.

“There are 186 cameras and 15 years of real time footage of your period of duty,” he replied, “But I am only looking at the motion activated portions, I won’t take long.”

“But there is nothing to see,” she insisted.

“Not even your various mischief?” he looked at her now.

She blushed.

“I haven’t done anything.”

“So far I have identified 17 transgressions of ship’s regulations and 47 further incidents that I consider unseemly and improper,” he growled, “And now you tell lies again.”

She shot a glance at the screen and saw herself doing a strip show for the camera. She had forgotten that.

“I’m not,” she wailed in panic.

Too late she saw his face and backed away.

“Look I’m sorry but…”

The Golem crossed the room and upended across his knee in a moment. Her skirts were easily raised and to her shame he quickly lowered her undershorts to her knees.

“I’m sorry okay, I just…”

The spanking was hard and fast and lasted a good few minutes.

“This is for your lies, your punishment for opening containers and other matters we will come to,” he told her.

“Wah… please, I’m sorry, so sorry…” she blubbered, but no avail.

The Golem did not release her from the corner for a good two hours after that.

*

The Golem had finished listing her crimes and now stood in front of her in the rec room. He had fashioned a thin flexible rod from she knew not what, but it was as thick as her little finger and about a meter long.

“When you are directed, I want to you raise your skirts and lower your under things then bend over the table,” he said.

“But why? I mean I didn’t know…” she was close to tears now and wrung her hand sin desperation, “You can’t do this to me, please…”

“You didn’t know you would get caught you mean,” he scolded.

That was true, she blushed.

“Now obey me or I will spank you again until you do,” the Golem said.

Leah swallowed and took a deep breath. She reached under her skirt and tugged at her under shorts to take them down past her knees. Then with slow delicate movements she lifted the hem of the skirt and bent forward across the table.

“You will take three strokes for each breach of your ships regulations and one for each of your impropriety,” he announced.

Her mind raced. How many was that?

“You will now ask me for 98 strokes across your bare bottom,” he said sharply.

“How many?” she gasped.

“It is a thin rod and your bottom and hips are yet strong,” he tapped her proffered bare bottom with is stick.

“Come on, please I…”

“Obey or I will spank you soundly before we begin.”

Leah gulped and snatched a pleading look over her shoulder. I swear I will never, ever open another cargo container as long as I live. Then in a flash of insight she imagined that maybe that he had been put there to catch her out.

“You really wish me to spank you? Very well…” the Golem began.

“Alright, alright,” she gabbled, “Please Mr Golem give me 98 strokes across my bare bottom… please.”

The Golem obliged.

“Jesusohchrist…” she yelped and then followed up with a few “Omigods,” while she still had breath.

“Tomorrow I will spank you for that blasphemy,” he told her sharply.

Then the stick rose and fell with unrelenting and unmerciful strokes; one every three seconds, 20 a minute for almost five minutes. The first stroke was as a knife cut across the middle of both cheeks, with each following contact exactly one width of the rod bellow it until it reach the join between her thighs and bottom. Then the Golem began over again.

Leah didn’t have it in her to appreciate his skill until much, much later when she could bear to face a mirror for a tail end inspection. All she could do was yell out at each stroke and mournfully sob and five minutes was an age when a stick was slicing away at her bottom.

That night she had cried herself to sleep belly down in her bunk. But sometime in the night she had awoken and checked the vivid ridges that covered her entire bottom. They fascinated her and she prodded at them with winces, engrossed in the pleasure of her pain. It didn’t take long for her hands to wander elsewhere and she was soon lost in reliving her strange ordeal.

*

About a week after her thrashing she wandered into the showers to get some more water for washing. Somewhere the water was already running and for a moment she was puzzled.

“Hello?” she called, but even as she spoke she turned the corner and saw the Golem stretching himself under the shower, the cascade of water running over his shiny hard muscled skin.

But it wasn’t his billowing torso that held her gaze but the fully formed as-thick-as-her-wrist member that hung half way to his knee. She gasped and retreated before he saw and spanked her for peeping. Although it might have been worth it, she decided, and then risked another peek around the corner.

She had got tired of pleasuring herself alone and now she wondered if the Golem might be a man like any other. So with her old mischievous-self reasserting itself, that night she went naked to his room to find out.

He had taken up residence in the one of the vacant crew quarters, although she had to wonder how he could fit on the bed. Does the Golem even sleep?

“Hey big man,” she whispered, “Maybe you could use some company?”

The Golem was immediately awake, if he was ever asleep.

“You…”he gasped in shock. It was the most human reaction she had yet seen form him.

“I said…”

A moment later the Golem had hauled Leah across his lap and let his hand come blasting down on her bare bottom.

“I was only… please…”

Does this man… Golem she amended, do anything else but spank? But inside she wondered if she were that surprised. Maybe this contact with him was better than no contact at all.

*

Leah had been as good as gold and as meek as a mouse for weeks now. It had taken a while, but eventually she had knuckled down to what was expected of her. Occasionally of course she would fail and the spanking she received was something to behold. But recently she could get through a week or more without getting spanked. She even felt a little proud that she could please him.

Then one day she woke up and found her ship uniform laid-out on the bunk at her feet. What did it mean? She didn’t have time to ponder long, for no sooner had she seen the clothes when a strange sound began.

It took Leah a moment to drag the identity of the noise from her brain. It was the shift change alarm.

Leah looked at the clothes and wondered if she should risk a spanking by putting them on. But if the Golem hadn’t put them there, then who had? She then realised that her other clothes were gone. A spanking wouldn’t be so bad, came an unbidden thought, after all it has been a few days. So kicking back the covers she grabbed the uniform and put it on.

She reached the mess deck in time to see the captain staggering into the room. He was yawning like beast out hibernation and drew his arms above his head for a stretch. Before the Golem she had thought of the captain as a large man, almost like a bear with his short black curls and close-trimmed beard.

“Anything to report Leah?” he asked.

Leah blushed and reached out to activate the console. On a hunch she entered her old codes and found that they worked.

“Good bye Leah, be good,” flashed an automated message.

“Eh… no not really…” she said tentatively.

“Not really?” the captain eyed her suspiciously.

“There was an odd tag number on one of the boxes,” she explained, “And…

“Oh, it happens, put it in your report and I’ll check it out before we go back to sleep,” he yawned again, “Graham will be up in a moment to take over from you and then after a meal we can get back to the long sleep.”

Leah gulped, not really knowing how much to tell him. What if he viewed the tapes? She blushed. Ordinarily there would be some 50 years of unmoving corridors and bulkheads, a person could go insane. It was a low risk unless she reported anything amiss. It occurred to her what they would see and she blushed.

And then she remembered the company had sole rights to the tapes and if they ever did… they could sell the footage to the networks, she wanted to die.

“I guess,” she said quickly, “There was nothing to worry about really.”

The captain nodded.

As soon as his back was turned Leah broke into a trot and headed for the hold. By the time she reached the cargo bay she was horribly out of breath. But the Golem’s box was sealed. She pulled up the access history. According to the log, the box had never been open.

“Was this the box?” the captain said as he came up behind her.

She jumped and stepped back flustered.

“Eh… yes?”

The captain used his own access and then frowned.

“Odd…” he muttered.

“What is it?” Leah asked anxiously.

“Oh nothing,” the captain shook himself, “I have heard stories that’s all. I guess there was something to them after all.”

“What?” Leah was afraid now, more afraid than she had ever been of the Golem.

“Do you know what a Golem is?” the captain asked.

Leah shook her head.

“It’s a Tzadik, a righteous one. They use them on New Jerusalem to… affect changes and protect people as they… oyfkumen…  it sort of means start a new life I think, literally awaken,” the captain explained, “And to think there is one on my ship.”

He sounded awe-struck as he stroked the container.

“They say it is a privilege to meet one, but rare. Some say that you can only meet one if you are destined to or are one of the oyfkumen,” he smiled, “But what do I know? Probably just an alien or some hi-tech being those folks on New Jerusalem have hooked up to.”

When he turned back to look at Leah he saw she had the strangest look on her face.

*

Leah resigned her job on faith and made her way to the capital on New Jerusalem. She had told no one where she was going or why? Well she could hardly do that as she had no real idea herself why.

The city looked old, even though it was barely a hundred years since the colonist had come. It was certainly built in the old style, rising like it was born of the living rock, its yellow sandy tones burning like gold in the morning sun.

The transit station was under the city, but for some reason Leah got out a stop before on impulse. It would take all day to walk into the city from there, but all the while the city would be ahead of her as she approached and she would see it. It would feel like a pilgrimage or homage to… was she crazy?

Once out of the station the heat was oppressive and she felt a fool for wearing the clothes she had made with the Golem. She had found them in her personal storage when she had resigned and oddly she had been pleased even though they were the ugliest and worst made clothes she had ever owned.

Now they scratched and chafed in the morning sun. God what will it be like by noon? Leah eyed the air-conditioned transit lounge and considered getting the next train in, instead of walking.

“Leah?” said a voice.

She shaded her eyes and turned to see a tall young man in native dress. He had a tall black hat and a short-trimmed beard like the captain’s.

“Yes?” she answered carefully.

“The Golem said you would be here,” the man said simply.

“Who are you?” Leah whispered, she was now amazed and… frightened… maybe? Someone else knew of the Golem then. She wondered what else he might have told this man and blushed.

“I am Joshua Ben Cohen,” then man said proudly, “And I think… I think I am to be your husband.”

The end of the Golem.

It had seemed like a harmless agreement, Georgina thought, although now she could kick herself as she hovered at the door to the shared house. Surely he wouldn’t go through with it? The pang in her belly was close to nausea and the heat was rising in her face right up to the fringes of her dark mop of straight jet black hair. Her petite frame had got her enough teasing as it was and plenty of girls as well as boys had teased her with spanking threats for behaving as a brat.

The key in the lock sounded way too loud and she was sure if Jack was in he would hear her. But she slid the door back like a mouse and crept in all the same. Yeah, like I need to, she told herself, there is no way he would dare spank me.

The week before a whole sequence of careless acts on her part had led to some seriously heated words from everyone in the house; all addresses to Georgina. The laundry escapade had been a genuine accident, but she had to admit that letting the bath overrun had been stupid of her. But her finest hour had been the fire.

Well everyone burns toast and the fire alarm was a constant companion of many of Georgina’s fellow housemates whenever they hazarded the kitchen. Well okay, she thought ruefully, mostly it was her, so she guessed the rest of them had a point. But how was she to know the curtains would catch fire?

“You left the toast unattended,” Jack had roared his incredulity moments after putting out the small blaze with an extinguisher placed there for the purpose. “I really ought to put you across my knee.”

Jack was in the forefront when it came to spanking threats to Georgina’s bottom and he was the only, she thought, who might actually mean it.

“Spank her Jack,” Tim called out.

“On the bare bum,” Jane agreed.

The lose assembly of disgruntled housemates had suddenly coalesced into a posse.

“Come on,” Georgina had blurted nervously and backed away. The show of fear on her part was a big mistake and Jack had advanced on her menacingly.

“I really, really think I should,” Jack growled.

He was a big guy with the classic barrel chest and square jaw. Usually Georgina never missed an opportunity to watch him play rugby and although a romance that close to home was not a good idea, Jack had figured prominently in quite a few night-time fantasies.

“J-Jack, I’m sorry… ‘kay,” she blustered. “You can’t… sp-spank me.”

“You’re always sorry,” Jack snarled, “Spank you, if I had had you under my authority back when I was a pre, I would have caned your pretty little arse to buggery. It’s such a pity you didn’t go to a decent bottom-bashing school to learn some respect for others.”

“Jack,” Georgina replied tentatively in a voice that was suspended between a warning and nervousness as she still backed away.

“Spank her, spank her,” the others took up a chant.

“Listen, I hear about that new job Monday… I’ll get a raise and pay for the bloody curtains, ‘kay?”

“Hmmm,” Jack pondered, “Seeing as England play on Sunday and I know they will win, I am in a good mood. So get the job, pay for the curtains and if England wins, I’ll let it go this time.”

Jack was teasing, she hoped, but the others were still pressing him to spank her and this time it was no joke.

“I’m serious,” he said sharply.

Georgina guessed England had a better than even chance and even if they lost, she would get that job and she always could pay for the curtains anyway. The whole thing would blow over, it usually did.

“Okay, I guess I agree,” she said with a blush.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Jack warned her, “And if you try and duck out of it I will find you and spank you wherever that is. Get me?”

Georgina nodded vigorously. “But only if all three don’t happen.”

“Cop out,” Tim groaned.

“Shake on it anyway,” Jane insisted.

It was embarrassing but she had shaken on it to much teasing.

That had been before. It was an easy enough agreement to duck out of; Jack had only been making a point. But in the end England had lost 22-23, an unexpected result. No biggie, except that Jack would be seriously pissed off and disinclined to cut her some slack.

The second blow had been that the new job had been deferred. She had told everyone ad nauseum that it was in the bag and now the shits had put off the decision. If she hadn’t have been so distracted by this disappointment she would have remembered the curtains before reaching home. This last failure was a big mistake and even though she had had a week Georgina knew that the shop that had them in stock was now closed.

Jane looked sympathetic as she crept in. Georgina had told her about the job when she had bumped into Jane at lunch time and the smart tall redhead made a sad face. But Georgina’s eyes were on Jack and the ruin that had been the curtains.

“Sorry about the job Georgie,” Jane said.

“The job, you didn’t get the job?” Tim snarled as he came in from the lounge.

A full house, Georgina winced.

“No job…” Jack too looked over now. “Then there had better be some new curtains in that bag.”

The Radley bag on her arm was barely the size of two fists.

“Eh, no… I’ll get them tomorrow,” she said quickly.

“Tomorrow? Fine,” Jack sighed.

Georgina started to relax.

“But today you are so getting that spanking,” Jack told her.

“Oh yes,” Jane said brightly with a broad grin.

“Jack… come on,” Georgina, “Come on guys.”

Jack unfolded his thick arms and moved towards her. In a panic she tossed a mug from the table at him and then a soggy tea towel. The first broke in the sink having missed.

“Hey that was mine,” Jane wailed.

“You are so going to get it,” Jack growled.

Georgina made a break for it and reached the front door. She was through it and down the street before anyone could catch her. Although but for the lack of his shoes, Jack might have done. Even so in very short order he was on her tail and chasing her down the street.

“Jack, come on Jack,” she yelled back at him as he closed on her.

Night was falling and most of the late shoppers had already cleared the streets. The club and pub-going crowd had yet to turn out leaving the streets about as clear as they ever were before midnight. But there were still three or four people shrugging against the cooling twilight as Georgina reached the bandstand at the end of the High Street.

It was here that Jack caught her in a parody of a rugby tackle; passing her at a trot he tucked her under his arm.

“Jack, you can’t, please…. Jack,” this last was squealed as he sat on the edge of the deserted bandstand and pulled down across his lap.

“I have a good mind to take your knickers down you brat,” he scolded her. “You have had all week to sort out the curtains and you still can only think of yourself.”

“I’m sorry, really I am, Jack, Jack… Jack…” she squealed again as he tugged up the back of her short skirt.

Unfortunately for Georgina she was wearing a thong and now one or two passers-by stopped to gape at them both.

Jack’s hand landed with a sharp splat across the round of her bottom and she squealed.

“Please, Jack, please not here… Jack,” she squealed again as his hand landed with a firm spank.

Some of the residual shoppers and home-goers chuckled at her plight and one or two looked as if they may congregate for the show.

“Jack, please,” she shrieked at another impact, “I work near here, people know me… Jack.”

Georgina’s bottom was beginning to redden now, rivalling her face for colouration.

“I warned you didn’t I? I warned you I would spank you where I found you,” Jack told her darkly.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but not here please,” she begged.

“Not here? Then you agree you deserve a spanking?” he teased.

“Yes, okay,” she cried urgently.

“On your bare bottom,” he pressed her.

“Not here,” she hissed, her blush now reaching her ears.

“If I spank you at home then you will apologise to everyone and take your own knickers down?” he asked her.

“Please,” she gasped out a stage whisper.

He spanked her again.

“Make up your mind,” Jack urged her, “This crowd is beginning to get bigger.”

“Ooh,” Georgina wailed in frustration.

“Since you can’t decide we’ll up the ante,” Jack said cheerfully, “I still have a cane somewhere from my days as prefect. After your spanking you can take six of the best. Here or at home, your choice?”

His hand gave her a sharp swat and someone laughed.

“Jack… you bastard,” Georgina said in a hushed voice out of the side of her mouth.

“Eight then,” Jack said in a loud voice, “Any advance on eight?”

“Alright,” Georgina agreed, her eyes taking in the dozen or so laughing strangers and willing there to be no one she knew.

“Alright then what?” he pressed her.

“You can spank me,” she whispered.

“What was that?” he asked conversationally.

“You-can-spank-me,” she slowly growled, her blushes reached new levels.

“Oh I know I can; so?”

“On my…” she was acutely mortified now and added in a whisper, “On the bare.”

“And?”

“And cane me,” she mumbled under breath.

“Sorry?”

“Jack,” she spat angrily.

“Okay you’ll do. I’ll accept,” Jack chuckled and let her get up.

There was short ripple of applause and Jack made a small sardonic bow as Georgina made a hasty retreat.

*

“It looks like we had Georgie all wrong,” Jack said as he led Georgina back into the house. “She has agreed to take her spanking like a good girl, haven’t you?”

The others were gathered in the lounge and Georgina shot him an angry glance and let her glower take in the room.

“Haven’t you Georgina, or shall we go back to the bandstand?” Jack said sharply.

“Yes,” Georgina said quietly in a sullen voice.

Jack folded his arms.

“Oh alright,” she said grumpily. “I’m sorry about the curtains.”

Jack cocked an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry,” Georgina sighed. “I guess I screwed up.”

Jack let his eyes drop to Georgina’s midriff and she blushed.

“Okay, okay,” she said impatiently and rolled her eyes.

Tim and Jane grinned expectantly. Then with a small groan Georgina reached under her skirt and tugged at her very brief underwear, pulling them down to her knees.

“Right off,” Jack ordered her.

Georgina blushed and with an angry pout stepped out of her knickers. Meanwhile Jack placed an armless kitchen chair in the middle of the room and sat down. He then crooked his finger at her.

“Ooh,” Georgina groaned and then with another pout she stomped across the room and flopped across Jack’s lap.

Jack delicately lifted the hem of her short skirt and placed in the small of her back. Tim grinned as Jane gave a mocking wolf whistle.

“Now where were we?” Jack said as he let fly with the first slap.

The spanking was short and efficient leaving a bucking gasping Georgina kicking and yelping in a few short moments. By the time Jack had finished spanking her small tightly split bottom it was beet red to match her face and a few tears of humiliation had sprung to the corner of her eyes.

“Now young lady,” Jack said in a scolding tone, “I want you to go to that corner.” He pointed at the only vacant corner in the room beside the TV. “And leave your bottom bare, you look so much cuter that way.”

“What?” Georgina protested.

“Shall we make that an even dozen?” Jack asked.

Georgina was about to ask what he was talking about when she remembered the cane.

“Oh come on, please Jack, not…” she gaped at him not knowing what was worse the embarrassment of standing in the corner or the prospect of the cane.

“Shall we go back to the bandstand then?” he chided her.

She knew he wouldn’t go that far now, but the accusation in his eyes hurt her somehow.

“This is so unfair,” she bristled and stomped over to the corner only to stand a meter away from it glowering at the wallpaper.

“Take a step nearer and put your hands on your head,” Jack said in a commanding voice.

“Where’s my phone,” Jane giggled, “This has got to be one for Facebook.”

Georgina whirled around just in time to be framed face and bottom in a camera shot.

“Delete that,” Jack barked at Jane, “Or you’ll join her.”

Jane blushed and after some silently mouthed insolence ostentatiously hit delete. As soon as he was certain he had been obeyed Jack turned back to Georgina and with a twist of his finger indicated that she should face the wall.

*

Jack kept Georgina in the corner for a good half hour before he had her turn around. Thoroughly cowed she could not take her eyes from the cane in his hand.

“Eight?” she said quietly.

He nodded.

She sank dejectedly on one hip and pulled a face.

“It is going to hurt isn’t it?” she said with a lower lip pout.

He gave her a half wink and nodded again.

“Jack perhaps…” Tim began.

“It’s okay Tim, I guess Jack finally gets to thrash my backside for me. I suppose I do deserve it,” Georgina sighed.

She was actually a little curious and in any case she had decided to that if she didn’t amend her attitude then Jack might keep them all amused with some extended corner time for her.

“How do I…?”

“Bend over… no… better bend over the back of the back of the sofa,” Jack said firmly.

Georgina trotted over to the sofa and folded herself over the back of it.

“Bottom up a little more,” Jack ordered her and blushingly she obeyed.

“Count them please and do remember to say ‘thank you sir’ after each.”

Georgina pursed her lips and archly glared at him.

“You know 12 was more usual for the upper sixth and they were more than 10 years younger than you,” Jack said idly.

“I’ll count, I’ll count, Jeez, I was only…” Georgina said hastily.

The first stroke left a clear white line across Georgina’s pale bottom, but it wasn’t as painful as she had feared. But out of the corner of her eye she saw a pensive Jane jerk.

“One,” she breathed softly, “Thank you… Oh…” and then the stroke began to bite and she gasped, “Thank you Sir.”

The first stroke stayed greyish white on pale for a long moment and then Jack caned her again.

“T-two, thank you Sir,” Georgina groaned.

The first stripe across her bottom slowly turned pink and began to swell up a little; this in stark contrast to both the paler line of the second stroke below and the fair skin of her behind over all.

At the third stroke there was a louder crack and Jane jumped more than Georgina did, the latter merely rolled back her eyes and clamped her jaw shut. By now there were three clear dark pink ridges across Georgina’s bottom.

“Three, thank you Sir,” she managed at last.

The fourth stroke landed right across the lower rounds and set her bottom wobbling.

“Eeh…. Yah,” Georgina gasped, “Fffffooorr, fankyoo Sir.”

She did a little shimmy with her bottom and clutched at the cloth of the sofa’s seat covering.

“Halfway through now,” Jack told her.

Georgina nodded and the yelled as she lurched her head back at the fifth impact.

“Yah, mmmmh,” she growled, “That’s… eh… that killed me.”

Her bottom bucked up and down and she clawed at the sofa with her elbows to keep herself down.

Jack coughed.

“Sorry,” she gasped, “Eh… five, thank you Sir.”

After the sixth stroke and the accompanying scream Jack let the six hard lines of dark red fully develop as tramlines before he lined up for the last two.

“Doing well girl,” he said.

“Yeah, thanks, my new hobby,” she quipped with bravado.

“Don’t get cheeky or you’ll be in the corner all night,” Jack growled at her.

“Sorry,” she said genuinely. “You take the protocol for this seriously don’t you?”

She remembered him telling her about his sixth form days at his public school and that she had been intrigued.

“Bottom up and out a bit,” he replied.

“Sorry I…”

“Not at all, but I want to enjoy these last two and you look so cute,” he said gently.

“Bars…steward,” she muttered.

He grinned and lay on the seventh as hard as he ever had.

“Yeee…ahhh,” Georgina rocked and almost jack-knifed to her feet. “Sssssefen, th-thank you Ssir.”

Jack didn’t wait and lay the final stroke on equally as hard.

Georgina screamed and slammed her hands to her bottom as she growled-out and then lay panting over the back of the settee.

Jack waited a moment and then tapped the back of the furniture with the cane tip.

Georgina took several breaths and then hoarsely croaked, “Eight, thank you Sir.”

“Thank you, now you may rise,” Jack told her.

Unsteadily Georgina got to her feet and wiped away a single tear from her face.

“Thank you Sir,” she said extending her hand.

“You remembered,” he smiled as he shook it.

“God I could use a drink,” Georgina smiled, tears pooling at her eyes. “That’s assuming I don’t have to go back to the naughty step.” She shot a rueful look at the corner.

Jack shook his head. “Not today,” he said, “But you have one week to fix the curtains and if you ever let the bath overrun or burn toast…”

Georgina gulped and even Jane was blushing. Both sensed they were living in a new regime.

Ends

Petunia had scouted ahead first to make sure the coast was clear. Well it had been her turn and anyway she was the oldest. That left Amelia ‘Bother’ Botherington and ‘Spiffy’ Susie Watkins to sneak up behind in her train.

They both thought that Petunia, Spiffy’s elder sister, was a bit wet, but she did have her uses. First among these was that she was the oldest of the three and therefore took all the heat when Aunt Hortensia and Uncle Mort were discussing why they were not yet married. Another use of course was that she could easily be impressed upon as the senior girl to take all the risks for them.

The risks being, getting caught after one had sneaked out to the ‘speakeasy’ in town for a snort and a spot of sizing up the boys with some chums. Alcohol not being outlawed in Hampshire, well not yet anyway, the speakeasy was actually the Red Lion, which was hardly that dare as the vicar and his wife were known to frequent it on Friday nights. But that was about as racy as Haughton got and the Country Mouse Flappers, as they were informally known, just had to put up with it.

It didn’t matter that they were all now over 21, well damn well near it in Spiffy’s case, as Aunt Hortensia was of a mind that young women should not be considered sentient until they were at least 30 and even Petunia at 24 just did not yet qualify. As for Amelia and Spiffy, it was unthinkable that they should be anything but seen and not heard.

The thing of it was, that in their own little ways none of the girls entirely disagreed with Hortensia, not in spirit anyway. After all this was Hampshire and there were limits. Nor did it trouble them overmuch that Hortensia and Mort weren’t actually blood relations to either of them. It was just that no girl worth her salt could stand by such fusty rules no matter how sensible; certainly not girls who aspired to be the snazziest flappers in all Hampshire. Well Petunia didn’t, she thought it all very silly. But she didn’t altogether count and anyway she just had to be included otherwise they couldn’t be a club as no one who was anyone had ever heard of a club with only two members.

No it would not do to knuckle under without a rebellion of some sort, it wasn’t the modern way and it certainly wasn’t dare. And in any case, without the danger and friction of rebellion there was just no fun. Getting caught and punished, while tiresome, was just an occupational hazard.

But what neither of the girls was ready to admit was that these carefree days of dare were coming to a close. Amelia even secretly suspected that Petunia had rather set her heart on getting married, although why anyone would want to marry Charles Ingram was anybody’s guess; he was positively ancient.

“Listen up, I think Petunia’s been captured,” Spiffy whispered loudly. Captured sounded so much more dare than caught, she thought with a grim satisfaction.

The bubbly blonde had two little frown lines marring her forehead under short tight curls. Her eyes were just a little too large and deeply blue to be fashionably beautiful, but then as style went she did stick out so in all the wrong places.

“Are you listening to me?” Spiffy hissed.

Amelia eyed Spiffy’s big behind as it made a bid to escape the obscenely short hemline and muttered “ah-huh.”

“I said, I think Petunia’s been caught,” Spiffy whispered again.

Amelia crawled from behind her and alongside to peer around the same corner.

She was somewhat more fashionably sleek than her friend, as was her dark brown hair which was cut to a neat bob that hung to her shoulders to frame her triangle face. The daring fringe covered her brow entirely and was a frequent subject of scolding from Hortensia who was wont to ask, “How ever can you see anything?”

“I think you are right,” Amelia giggled, the aforesaid hair curtaining her face.

“Are those other two frightful girls with you, I thought they were in their room?” Hortensia could be heard saying.

The door to the drawing room must have been open for the house was old and solidly built like Amelia’s grandmother who had once owned it and who had now retired to Brighton. It was a ghastly place, the girl’s always thought, the only thing Amelia liked about it was the black and white checked tiles on the hall floor which matched her favourite dress which was the bees knees.

“Our goose is cooked; shall we go and face the music?” Spiffy suggested.

“Not on your life, that just wouldn’t be jazz. Besides we will be kept in and miss the village dance if we do,” Amelia replied.

Spiffy might have answered that they could always sneak out anyway, but she supposed that was beside the point.

“Come on,” Amelia whispered.

The two girls crawled like the trench-bound Tommie’s they had seen in their childhood news reels, although no British Army sergeant-major would have suffered his men to waddle-so as they moved about on all fours and certainly not with the backsides sticking up in the air.

“Aunt Hortensia, please,” Petunia squealed.

“Mortimer, do your duty,” Hortensia could be heard saying.

“Ooh, oh, this is shameful, I will die,” Petunia whined.

Petunia was so wet, Amelia thought with an eye-roll. But as they got to the door and peeked in they could see the cause of the girl’s distress. She was skirt up, bloomers down with her bare bottom mooning up across Uncle Mort’s knee. Luckily Hortensia was focussed on the sinful girl’s bare behind and did not see the two younger girls in plain view framed by the door. Had the erstwhile flappers indeed been on the Western Front then Kaiser Wilhelm might have had rather more luck in his conquest of France and perpetrating the downfall of the British Empire.

“Ooohch, ah,” Petunia squeaked as his the palm of Mort’s hand stung her bare bottom, “This is awful, oh don’t let him auntie.”

Amelia and Spiffy exchanged smirks and paused far longer than they ought as they enjoyed the proceedings. Then Amelia nudged her friend and on hands and knees they scurried on up the hall to the foot of the stairs.

Inside the drawing room Petunia was spluttering in staccato distress as she yelped and wailed her way to sobsville and a tomato red bottom. Amelia and Spiffy were openly giggling now, so much so that they were heedless of the creaking stairs and this time they were heard.

“Is that you Amelia, Susan?” Hortensia cried.

The two rebels were still in a muddle when the older woman came into the hall and they only just managed to get to their feet.

“Oh there you are,” Hortensia said sharply, “I had feared for a moment that you had been out on some escapade like Petunia here.”

“Oh no, Aunt Hortensia,” Amelia said quickly. It went entirely without notice that Spiffy was still facing up and not down the staircase, an alignment quickly amended by a curt right turn.

“You’re looking for Petunia no doubt,” Hortensia continued her monologue, “Well she has been a total fright, come and see.”

Amelia and Spiffy exchanged looks and then affecting reluctance strolled casually down the stairs to the drawing room.

“Ow,” Petunia yelped as well she might for her bottom was indeed tomato red now and getting darker and shinier by the spank.

“That’s quite enough now. Put the little hellion in the corner for a spell.” Hortensia was becoming bored with the whole affair.

As she was set to her feet you could forget the daggers, Petunia looked bloody great broadswords in her sister and fellow ward’s direction, but not for long. For on sanction of another spanking she was directed to the corner and “on no account let your hem slip.”

“I want to see that naughty bottom until it thoroughly cools down,” Hortensia scolded the girl.

“But auntie I am too old for this and Uncle Mort will see,” Petunia whined even as she obeyed.

“Nonsense girl, now do as you are told,” her guardian snapped, “I don’t know what you are suggesting.”

Uncle Mort did and gave the other two a wink.

What followed was a rather awkward late evening gathering as Petunia cried softly in the corner nursing four very red cheeks while her secret partners in crime tried hard not to giggle as they watched her. The only other sounds were the mantle clock, which painfully pinned the seconds of the young woman’s ordeal, and the occasional rustle of Mort’s newspaper.

Uncle Mort was a stern but friendly cove who was only a little above 40 and who had served with distinction in the Great War. He wasn’t overmuch given to fussy dressing, but he did sport a rather walrus-like moustache that more properly belonged to an earlier age.

Aunt Hortensia was rather younger, although by how much the girls could not tell. She liked to give out that she was a matron of the old school, but she had scarcely been out of school herself when the war had come, although in its dying days she had served as a nurse.

She wasn’t a complete fright when it came to fashion either, and often went in for hobble skirts that had been very dare when she had first obtained womanhood, which if one was not 20 and 21, had not been so very long ago. So quite how it was that she had been chosen to oversee the girls when their respective parents had gone out India, none of them were sure. But everyone agreed that both Mort and Hortensia, for all their posturing, were more relaxed guardians than either of their cane-wielding fathers. Perhaps far too relaxed, Amelia pondered and as she considered this further, she wondered if the Country Mouse Flappers didn’t need a more worthy opponent.

*

“Spiffy,” Amelia said thoughtfully as they lay on her bed.

“Mm,” Spiffy answered absently.

Somewhere Petunia was still crying and Spiffy could well imagine that she was in her room melodramatically lying face down on the bed as she bemoaned that the world was against her. For Spiffy and Amelia it had been a narrow escape and she revelled in the fruitiness of it as much as she might if she had heard that Petunia had been carried off by pirates. Big hairy whip-wielding pirates who would tie one naked to the mast and…

“Spiffy are you listening?”

“Oh… eh, yes, you were just saying…” Spiffy wondered what she had missed.

“I was about to say that don’t you think we get away with cold blooded murder?” Amelia said impatiently.

Spiffy frowned and then sat up.

“I suppose,” she said carefully, “What do you mean exactly?”

“Well I know that we do get caught like Petunia was, sometimes at any rate…” Amelia pondered aloud.

“Not as often as poor old Petunia,” Spiffy scoffed as she cut in.

Amelia joined her in a laugh and then frowned again.

“Yes, but what I mean is…” she sighed, “Look what if we never got caught?”

“Not ever?” Spiffy tried the idea on for size and wasn’t sure what that world would look like.

“Not ever,” Amelia said emphatically, “Just hypothetically I mean.”

“Oh hypo-whatsit, well I suppose it would be rather fun in a way…” but she broke off uncertainly.

“Would it though? I mean wouldn’t things get a little dull? Think of the village dance. It is a dreadful little commonplace jig when you think about it. So why do we go?” Amelia was excited now and willed her friend to see what she was driving at.

Spiffy pushed her lower lip out and shrugged.

“Because Hortensia doesn’t like us mixing with the apprentices and those travelling salesmen types I suppose,” she finally decided.

Amelia winced and made a gesture which asked ‘and so?’

“If we push her too far then we have to box clever or she boxes more than our ears,” Spiffy answered with a shrug.

Amelia sat up and tucked her legs under her knees excitedly and bounced up and down.

“Yes that’s what I mean, we don’t want to get caught but it is always possible. Get captured and pay the piper. Otherwise it is just like a game of forfeits without the forfeits.” Amelia’s eyes danced as she studied Spiffy for a glimmer of understanding.

“But… it’s not that big a deal anyway is it? I mean… well I mean, listen to Petunia, she absolutely hates a smacked botty and having Uncle Mort see her bare behind but we…” Spiffy began to see what Amelia was driving at.

“…we know that it is pretty grim when it happens, but afterwards it is just a bit of a lark. You know like at school, we compare marks and rub on a bit of cold cream and it all gets a little bit… you know…” Amelia completed Spiffy’s sentence with a blush.

“Yes well a young lady doesn’t talk about that kind of thing,” Spiffy said pompously.

“Well forget that part then, but we can’t can we? I mean to say, it’s like…”

“Pirates,” Spiffy said excitedly.

“If you like,” Amelia wasn’t sure, she always thought about white slavers, but maybe it was the same.

“It would hardly be exciting if they only spanked a girl,” Spiffy said in a dreamy voice. She thought about shameful exposure and whips and…

It was the same then, Amelia thought and blushed again and then mockingly said, “By Jove she’s got it,” covering her own little foible. Then she added with a sigh, “At last.”

“Oh I see, you think… what do you think?” and then with less certainty Spiffy asked, “I mean I get it… I think, but… well what can we do about it?”

“We need to up the stakes a bit,” Amelia said thoughtfully, “We need to give Hortensia more opportunity to catch us, you know, to test our mettle a bit, but also we need…”

“…bigger consequences, I know, I see that, or at least, I see what you mean. But even supposing I agree, how do we… arrange that?” Spiffy sometimes despaired of Amelia’s grasp of the details.

Amelia thought of writing to their fathers and letting slip that they were running wild, but they might send for them or pack them off to Brighton. But at least it was an option worth considering. But then what? It might get Petunia a good thrashing, she paused to think of the older girl howling under the cane or worse, but it wouldn’t make Hortensia any better at catching them, would it?

Not that she wanted to get capture. But it didn’t seem very dare of them to be able to get away with so much and face so little consequence on the few occasions they were caught.

“What about that mad bird, what was her name? Mable something, you know, that friend of Hortensia who is awfully Bohemian and a stickler for discipline at the same time.

“You mean Edwina Maple,” Amelia gushed, “Oh yes, she is very modern, well after a fashion, such strange ideas. If we invited her down for the summer and…”

The two young women got into a huddle and began to draw up plans.

*

It took a lot of dare and rebellious thinking; not to mention a couple of undignified sacrifices, but finally Amelia and Spiffy came up with a plan.

For the purposes of their operation they had to exclude Petunia, which meant their little club had to have sub-committee or a club within a club, the name of which had yet to be decided. Abortively they had kicked around a few ideas whilst writing letters to both their fathers and a certain Edwina Maple; all in the name of Uncle Mort and Aunt Hortensia of course. There were no outright lies, but just hints that advice would be welcome.

“What about the Hellfire Girls,” Spiffy suggested.

“Catchy, but it does rather outshine the Country Mouse Flappers for a name,” Amelia said doubtfully, “Besides it does sound rather mannish.”

“Oh we can’t have that,” Spiffy agreed.

“What about the Devil May Care Club?” Amelia fluttered her eyelashes, this was quite fun.

“Oh yes, the Devil May Care Club for Beastly Punishments,” Spiffy made moustache with her pen and fluttered back.

“Oh quite dreadful punishments,” Amelia giggled, “We shall be keelhauled naked in front of the townsmen’s guild.”

“And whipped.”

“And thrashed until we can’t stand up.”

“Or sit down,” Spiffy said archly.

The girls collapsed in heap of giggles.

*

Miss Edwina Maple was youngish and had style. She wasn’t exactly a flapper, being an actual woman above 30, but nevertheless Amelia and Spiffy thought she was very dare. She wore her reddish brown hair bobbed like Amelia’s, but she had her fringe just on her eyebrows for that more intelligent appearance. The flapper look was modified in other ways too. For instance she wore black and white checks, but small ones, and none of her hemlines rose above three or four inches below the knee.

The only thing about her Amelia didn’t like was the woman’s nose. It was too big and pointed, so quite marred her beauty and made her look hawkish. Spiffy didn’t agree, although she didn’t say so. But she did rather think Edwina’s eyes were rather calculating, cynical even.

Now they were all sitting in the garden. Well, all but Amelia and Spiffy who had opted to stand and lean against the balustrade between the veranda and the rose garden; the consequence of a bothersome but necessary part of their plan.

Only the day before Amelia and Spiffy had been ‘caught’ coming in late with the distinct smell of alcohol on their breath. Mort had spanked them both soundly and after an hour in the corner they had been sent to bed without supper.

“You are having trouble with your girls,” Edwina said simply.

Hortensia who had rather a short-term view of the world quite forgot that she hardly ever caught the girls out and instead remembered recent events as typical and asked, “How ever did you know?”

“You wrote to me,” Edwina replied, not the least surprised that Hortensia had forgotten.

“Did I? Oh… I must have done,” Hortensia said hesitantly. Then she remembered the letters from Major Botherington and Colonel Watkins out in India. “That’s what messrs Botherington and Watkins told me. How did they know? Both letters arrived within the week.”

“You make them sound like a music hall act,” Edwina said pleasantly.

Mort and Charles Ingram both laughed, the latter having called on the off chance of something. No one but Edwina noticed, but Charles stole a glance at Petunia.

“The gels parents don’t you know,” Hortensia said seriously.

Edwina leaned forward and patted her friend’s arm and said, “I had rather gathered that.”

“Oh yes I see,” Hortensia affected to laugh.

“What did the good military gentlemen advise?” Edwina asked.

“Oh the usual parental cautions, the colonel even said I was too soft on them, but he did refer me to an old disciplinary colleague of his, a certain Major Merriman.” Hortensia sighed, “He said the man might have some ideas if we needed them, but left it up to Mort and I”

“And does he?” Edwina asked casually without looking up from stirring her tea.

“Major Merriman recommended a good dose of the cane and even went as far as to suggest the birch rod after a sound… oh, what was it? Something to do with figs or ginger or some such diet…. What do you think? ” Hortensia took on a pensive look and leaned forward as if she might miss some great pearls of wisdom from her friend. She was desperate to appear modern, but she didn’t want to let anyone down, least of all the girls.

Edwina ran her eye over the three young women and allowed a small delicate smile to play across her lips. Spiffy glanced at Amelia who was doing her best to look demure, but Miss Maple looked like a cat a mouse; a country mouse perhaps.

“You know I think I can help you. What else did the major say?” Edwina asked innocently.

To most definitely and daringly be concluded…

A conclusion to yesterday’s tale.

The cigarettes were foul and even Amelia suspected that walking down the middle of the road after midnight whilst swigging a bottle of brown ale was less than ladylike. But Spiffy had to agree that it was very dare and totally modern.

“I don’t really like smoking,” Amelia spluttered and made as if she had a bit of fluff on the end of her tongue.

Spiffy took a long drag as if savouring a fine wine and then coughed.

“I do see what you mean,” Spiffy said absently, “Perhaps we should try absinthe instead.”

“Or opium,” Amelia agreed.

“Is that dare? I mean I had a great uncle who smoked opium and he was ancient. And didn’t Sherlock Holmes smoke the beastly stuff too?” Spiffy asked.

“Sherlock… oh you mean the deerstalker chappie, detective of some sort wasn’t he? Surely that is quite dare.” Amelia countered.

“Well yes it would be but…” Spiffy took another slow awkward drag on her cigarette and coughed. By that time she had quite forgotten what she was saying and drank some more brown ale instead.

An owl hooted nearby and both girls stopped and tried to spot the bird in the old oak at the side of the lane; it who-hooed them again. Spiffy wondered if owls hunted better in the full moonlight and switched her gaze to the silver sphere that seem to be caught in the spindly branches of a beech tree. It was quite beautiful, she thought, and tons better than smoking.

“I have been thinking,” Amelia said.

“Well you should, it is the modern way and totally dare,” Spiffy said encouragingly.

“No silly, I mean I was thinking about this Major Merriman chap that Edwina introduced Hortensia to,” Amelia said seriously, “Or was it the other way about? Anyway… eh… what was I saying? Oh yes. I mean he is rather handsome and all that.”

“Jolly strange though,” Spiffy countered. She remembered his swagger stick and comments like ‘fillies need a damn good thrashing now and then.’

They had met the man yesterday and Edwina, who had now become more or less a permanent feature in the household, had persuaded Hortensia to let him come to stay also. He was a tall ramrod straight sort of cove with broad shoulders and the most distinguished sideburns. Amelia had been quite smitten from the first, although she had to reluctantly admit that a man who was at least as old as Hortensia could not be very modern and certainly wasn’t dare.

“Remind me, are we getting captured tonight or not?” Amelia asked.

“Oh not, I think, my behind is still a little tender from that last spanking and while the major is around… well you know, corner time and all that,” Spiffy wrinkled her nose in distaste, although that might have been on account of the cigarette that she now surrendered to the roadside with a flick.

Amelia’s stomach did a little flip and she thrilled at the thought. Were army majors like pirates, she wondered? But she thought it better not to ask.

“Hortensia will be in bed by now anyway,” Amelia sighed. The woman was really no challenge when it came to japes.

*

The side window was open as they had left it and gaining entry to the back room was no challenge at all. But Spiffy imagined that she was sneaking aboard an anchored ship and made to be quieter than she needed. Although usually up for such games, for some reason Amelia wondered if the army took women and wondered what the discipline was like.

“Oh what oh,” Spiffy gushed as they finally made it.

“What oh,” Amelia agreed half-heartedly.

The only real risk was getting up the one hall past the drawing room where, if they were up, Hortensia and uncle Mort would be sitting. But tonight the door was closed with no sign of a light from under it. Amelia felt a pang of disappointment at the challenge.

A dull thud followed by a slow rattle then a clunk startled them. With a giggle both girls hunched down and shushed each other. Somewhere up the hall from the stairs was some masculine laughter and another rattle-roll of what they now realised was a game of billiards in progress. From the sound of it, Mort, Charles and Major Merriman were still up and at it with the whisky and cigars.

Spiffy rolled her eyes and stood up.

“Come on,” she said, “Up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire.”

Amelia cast an inquisitive glance at the billiard room door and the shrugged her agreement. There was no point being quiet now, Hortensia would be deep in the arms of Morpheus and there was no chance of being captured. Indeed, once they reached the top of the stairs they could hear the sound of rather feminine heavy rhythmic breathing that was akin to, but mercifully short of actual snoring.

“Good evening ladies,” Edwina said brightly as she stepped from the shadows, “We were looking for you earlier for a four at bridge, but you were not in your rooms.”

Spiffy lurched visibly and Amelia’s head prickled from the sudden shock and she clutched her chest in fright.

“Oh you gave us quite a scare,” Spiffy gasped.

“I sent Hortensia to bed, but I thought I had better wait up for you,” Edwina said pleasantly, “After all your guardians have asked me to help oversee your guidance.”

“How kind,” Amelia said in a neutral voice.

“Yes, quite,” Spiffy was more nervous.

“Where have you been to such an hour?” Edwina sounded stern now, as she could be when the theatre of her life demanded it.

The girls exchanged looks, each wondering if the other had the same buzz of nerves.

“Just to the speakeasy,” Amelia said carelessly.

“The where?” Edwina wondered if she had misread the situation.

“She means the Red Lion,” Spiffy supplied hastily, “It is alright, the padre goes there all the time.”

“Is this the same Red Lion that Hortensia and Mort have specifically forbidden you to frequent or is there another?” Edwina said tartly.

“It looks like we’re captured Spiffs,” Amelia said more breezily than she felt.

In fact she hadn’t felt as apprehensive about getting caught in mischief since she had come out and landed on Hortensia from school at 18.

“You have been naughty, naughty girls and both deserve a good sound spanking on your bare bottoms,” Edwina said with faux severity and not a little relish.

Amelia felt a rush of blood to her head and words caught in her throat as Spiffy muttered something she didn’t catch.

“I suppose we had better get it over with then,” Spiffy added sullenly. “Will you… or Uncle Mort…?”

Then she remembered the major and Charles would be present and felt the heat rise to her cheeks.

“Oh no, I think not. You are too accustomed to a quick smack bottom and some transitory shame. I have your measure my sweet young girls; you are brats both of you. I am going to see that you are disciplined properly for a change. Now go to bed and think on that,” Edwina told them.

“Yes ma’am,” Amelia whispered almost meekly, but Spiffy was more spirited and glared at the woman.

Then Later in Amelia’s room they both lay on the bed looking up at the gently spinning ceiling.

“This is a rum do,” Spiffy said angrily. “I mean I know we wanted to make the rebellion worthwhile and invited in some decent opposition, but how were we to know the rules had changed. Surely we deserve a by? And now we know this Edwina is no pushover we can be more careful.”

“What do you think she will do to us?” Amelia whispered with dread and a hint perhaps of eagerness.

“Oh, I bet we will get a spanking from Mort and that will be the end of it,” Spiffy sounded almost disappointed.

“But the major and Charles…” Amelia gasped as she remembered.

Spiffy clutched at her friend in wide-eyed horror. This was beastly, she thought, but maybe, she consoled herself, it was also a little dare too.

*

The following afternoon, glad for once to not be the centre of attention, Petunia had taken Charles’s arm and had persuaded him to go for a walk with her. This was a blessed relief to Amelia and Spiffy who now only had the Major to contend with as a witness when they were punished; and that was quite embarrassing enough.

“I say, are you sure about this?” Mort asked as he eyed the two girls standing on the veranda dressed only in short slips and their stockings.

Hortensia too looked uncomfortable but seemed to be mollified when Edwina nodded.

“Persistent fault displays disrespect,” the Major said evenly.

“Quite so,” Edwina agreed.

Only Mort looked unconvinced, an attitude perhaps subliminally transferred to the Major, for the latter rose from his garden chair and made to leave.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” he said to Mort.

Spiffy was openly relieved, although Amelia felt a strange pang of regret for some reason and closed her eyes. She could see Major Merriman on a horse in a white uniform and chewed on her lip.

“Just a minute,” Edwina interjected, “Hortensia… don’t you think we could avail ourselves of the major’s expertise?”

Hortensia looked indecisive and Mort frowned.

That morning the guests and they had come to an understanding about how to proceed.

“You remember what we discussed?” Edwina pressed them.

“Ah…” Mort stroked his moustache and became pensive.

“You really think they deserve to be caned?” Hortensia asked.

Spiffy gaped and Amelia opened her eyes in horror. The garden held birdsong now to torment them with the ordinariness of the day.

“Surely major, you are a man of the world and when duty calls…?” Edwina sounded exasperated.

“Put like that,” Mort said, his eyes now firmly on his wife.

Hortensia blushed and wondered if all of this wasn’t getting beyond her control.

“Can’t you cane them yourself Mort?” she tendered.

Spiffy tried to catch Hortensia’s eye with a significant look of protest but Amelia could only shrink into herself and tugged down the front of her slip as she worried her lower lip with her teeth.

“Spank them soundly yes, duty and all that, but caning is an expert job,” Mort said thoughtfully, “Must be done properly for the girl’s sake.”

“And as for the rest…” Edwina said demurely.

“Oh yes,” Hortensia said brightly, having forgotten the details again.

“Oh I… I think perhaps for gentle young ladies… my remarks were for…” the Major was decidedly uncomfortable now and wished he hadn’t spoken. Earlier he had been thinking of the tough army wives and the rugged courtesan types who required figging before a caning just to get them to take notice.

“I have some experience of these delicate matters,” Edwina offered, knowing his mind. However she had already resolved to suggest that such things be reserved for future use. Not that she thought the girls weren’t ready. No it was their aunt who was too soft.  “Hortensia, make your mind up to it, these girls have been running rings around you for months. They are laughing at you.”

“We weren’t laughing,” Amelia blurted.

Hortensia gave her a sharp look.

“But you have been playing me up and running rings… well as Edwina says?” she said.

Neither girl answered and dipped their heads.

“That’s it,” Mort growled getting to his feet.

He grabbed the nearest girl, in this instant Amelia, and dragged her across his lap. Her slip rose behind and offered the assembled grown-ups a good view of her fashionably pert derrière.

“I say,” the Major gasped.

Previously Mort had spanked to get attention, being somewhat apprehensive about harming his charges, but today his eyes had been opened and thoroughly fed up with his wife’s handling of things brought the full weight of his arm down with a will.

“Uncle Mort,” Amelia shrieked.

“Uncle Mort nothing my girl,” Mort snapped and spanked her again as the opening to a long volley.

“Ooh, it wasn’t meant to be like this,” Amelia wailed, her legs kicking theatrically like a woman running in a hobble skirt. “Ah… Mort… I mean Sir… I mean ahh…”

Spiffy clapped her hands to her mouth and watched her friends spanking with awe.

“Major, you have a cane to hand?” Edwina said quietly in his ear.

He nodded dumbly, his eyes still locked on Amelia’s pretty behind, which to his mind was by now pretty red.

“Perhaps you could fetch it,” Edwina whispered, adding gently, “Once they are waiting in the corner of course.”

Major Merriman nodded.

*

The spanking over, a rather tearful Amelia was made to stand and face the outside wall on the veranda with her hands on her head so that the hem of her short slip rose up off her bare bottom.

Mort had then turned his attention to Spiffy who made an even bigger fuss as she was spanked.

“Got a seat for it any rate,” the Major said in admiration.

But although he was appreciative of Susan Watkins heroic bottom, it was the more slender dark haired Amelia that held his focus.

Mort spared no efforts on Spiffy and spanked her for even longer than he had spanked Amelia. He reasoned that a he had set his head on two completely red bottoms and if Susan needed more work it was his duty to supply the effort.

“Oh gosh, Uncle Mort, Sir, ouch, please, nooo ouch…” Spiffy wailed out protests as they came to mind, “This really isn’t jazz, ooh…”

No but perhaps it is very, very dare, Amelia thought from her position in the corner. Despite fact that her face was hot enough to boil water for tea on, she couldn’t help wondering what Major Merriman thought of her.

“Now my girl, let that be a lesson to you,” Mort scolded as he finally allowed Spiffy to stand.

“Oh we are far from done yet I think,” Edwina said ominously.

Amelia thought of white slavers and gulped. Spiffy thought that her bottom stung worse than it ever had, damn Amelia and her crazy plans. She risked a look over her shoulder at Mort. He was not exactly the answer to a maiden’s prayers, but he did look a little pirate-like she supposed.

*

“The young can be so very foolish,” Petunia said imperiously.

She and Charles had returned from their walk in time to see the first caning. Now the two of them sat taking tea with the Major, Mort, Edwina and Hortensia while Amelia and Spiffy heaved sobbing breaths as they struggled with ‘corner time.’ Only the corner was in fact the flat wall next to the French windows where they both stood with the hands on their head and bare bottoms neatly displayed.

Earlier Charles and Petunia had watched Major Merriman slice a dark rattan cane across Amelia’s bare bottom as she bucked a yelled whilst leaning over the back of a garden chair. It was obviously quite an ordeal for the girl as well as a vigorous assault on her dignity.

The Major had ordered her to bend right over and thrust her bare bottom back at him as he struck in hard with the cane. Each biting stroke laid expertly one below the other. Every three or four strokes he had stopped and scolded her to make her keep position, a trial that she failed so often that in the end she received no less than seven penalty strokes on top of her allotted 12.

“Oh you beast, you beast,” Amelia sobbed once the correction was complete.

“Not a bit of it,” Major Merriman said severely, “You deserved every one of those.”

“I suppose,” Amelia sniffed, “But… ooh, it h-hurts so.”

“Meant to my girl, and I hope you have learned your lesson,” the Major scolded her.

“Oh yes indeed Sir,” Amelia said earnestly, “Well quite for the moment anyway. Although I expect…”

“That’s the ticket. Keep up this attitude and I’ll take you into London next week and a spot of dinner,” Merriman said brusquely, “Now for the other one.”

“Can’t we talk about this?” Spiffy said wringing her hands.

“Cane does the talking and if you don’t listen I’ll have Miss Maple here take you inside for a good figging and you’ll spend the afternoon thinking on it before hand,” the Major barked at her.

“But, but, but…” all she could think was Petunia seemed to have Charles and now Amelia was well on the way to securing the Major, who did she have?

“No but’s about it, bend over that chair at once or I will certainly offer you some penalties,” Merriman ordered.

Spiffy made more of a fuss than she ever had and once Petunia was settled in her seat she couldn’t help but to tease as she had once been teased.

“Don’t be so wet Susie, you know you thoroughly deserve a drubbing, now be a good sport and present your big BTM as you should or I will be compelled for family honour’s sake to ask the Major to give you another dozen. Isn’t that right Aunt Hortensia?” she chortled.

“I-I suppose it is. Come on Susan do attend, after all this is for your own good,” Hortensia chided her young charge.

But unused to quite so robust a punishment, Spiffy yelled quite a bit and on several occasions she launched herself upright, bringing the proceedings to a halt.

“Now do that again and I will start the whole thing over,” the Major cautioned.

“I am so dreadfully sorry,” Spiffy wept, “But it does hurt so… yeow.”

The next stroke interrupted her apologies and she shot to an upright position and clamped her hands to her throbbing bottom.

“Very well,” Major Merriman sighed, “We will start again.”

Spiffy, who had already had near a dozen plus a few penalties spluttered into sobs, but profusely apologising she bent back over and offer up her behind for sacrifice. In fact it wasn’t until much of the afternoon was stowed away and more tea was ordered that Spiffy joined Amelia at the wall.

“They have been thoroughly dealt with in my view,” Charles offered as he took in the welted tramlines that stood out on both girls’ reddened tails.

“Do you approve Charlie?” Petunia gushed, taking the man’s arm.

“Indeed I do,” Charles replied, “You can expect a good dose of the same once we are married if I get one jot of trouble from you.”

“Oh yes Charlie,” Petunia agreed even as she blushed.

“Do I take it…? Do you have an understanding Petunia?” Hortensia asked eagerly.

“Oh yes Aunt, Charlie popped the question and I… oh look,” Petunia offered up a ring she had been shielding from eyes.

The all-round congratulations were interrupted only by Edwina who cautioned, “And don’t think you are out of the woods yet as far as the Major and I are concerned,” she scolded her, “You will deport yourself like a lady from now on and you can expect the same until you are safely married.”

Petunia blushed but didn’t argue.

No one noticed Amelia looking back over her shoulder to catch the Major’s eye, no one but the major that was; and he winked.

The end of this cycle.

This is the conclusion of the domestic transformation of Sylvia. To catch it from the start go here.

Michael Trench was surprisingly nervous about introducing his girlfriend Claire to his circle. He had told her of course, all about the lifestyle and she had been fascinated. But it was one thing to have a salacious conversation over dinner and quite another to be confronted with the reality. After all Claire Summer was a sensitive woman of 22 and not what one would call worldly.

Claire for her part had been excited all week about meeting Michael’s friends. She had already briefly met the Peters in London, a nice couple. Gerald Peters had been deliciously toppy she had thought and Sylvia was beautiful.

Her only concern was that she might not be pretty enough. She was hardly trophy material and despite the best products she could afford her non-descript very dark-blondish hair hardly cut a dash, not even with highlights. Even her eyes were muddy grey rather than blue, and she had always thought that they were too widely spaced, which although some said made her look girlishly friendly it was hardly sexy in her view.

As for her bottom, it was way too big. Nothing she wore was good enough to suit and yet the damn thing did insist in following her around.

“You have a gorgeous bubble bottom,” Michael always told her, but what did he know?

“I gather bottoms are they main thing in your society?” she had tried to make light of it.

He hated the reference to ‘your society’ as if she were a tourist. Hadn’t he spanked her often enough in the bedroom?

“You are up for this aren’t you? I mean we don’t have to do the scene thing…” he asked her for the 19^th or 20^th time. “Not that it is a scene thing, not really, but…”

Claire blushed, she very much was and in fact she had not been able to think of anything else for weeks. And when Michael had explained that domestic discipline and spanking was more than a game for him she had melted into a puddle. Not that she told him that.

“I can see why you are hesitant,” she had told him, “It is all rather unfashionable. But I don’t mind really I don’t. I have always quite liked the idea of love, honour and obey and all that. It is so romantic.”

Michael remembered the conversation well. But she was a city lawyer who earned as much and, if he was honest, probably more than he did. Besides he was hardly Gerald Peters. He had at least had the confidence and courage to discuss this with his friend Gerald and had told him that.

“Listen Mike, I am hardly ‘Gerald Peters,’ myself, not as you mean,” Gerald had said, “You think I came out of a factory somewhere knowing all the answers. It is a pose and takes years of experience. We all start somewhere.”

“But I am not sure Claire really understands…”

“You told her? You have a spanking relationship?” Gerald had cut him off.

Michael had nodded thoughtfully.

“Believe me, if she is coming then she is on board. Much more on board than Sylvia was at this point in our relationship I would say.” Gerald had been emphatic.

*

The Hunt Ball was in full swing and the county notables had assembled at Hamley Hall for the festivities. The grand old house must have seen many such occasions, but it was somewhat amusing to Sylvia that the majority of the attendees did not hunt and never had. Well not foxes anyway.

Sylvia knew that during the summer some girls were stripped and outlandishly attired to be sent off with a ‘posse of the perverted,’ as Samantha Willoughby-Gates described it. It was that kind of set and already one or two of the unassigned girls had been spanked. Sylvia had no idea if they had done anything wrong or if they had been hired to set a tone and disarm any newbies, well like her, she supposed. Although she earnestly hoped that Gerald would have no cause to give her a public spanking. But if he did then she would suffer it as she deserved for that was the way of things now between them. Sylvia found the thought strangely thrilling.

Things had settled down between Gerald and Sylvia, and Mary and Drake come to that. If you counted Mary and Drake as an audience then Sylvia had already suffered her first public spanking and had survived. Now she felt truly one of the girls.

“Have you thought about pony training?” someone asked her.

“What was that?” Sylvia broke into her train of thought and turned around.

Elisabeth Strident was one of Gerald’s closest friends and was fast becoming one of hers. It had been Elisabeth who had guided her through her first such gathering.

“Oh I heard you were looking to expand your repertoire with some instruction and pony training is so much less stressful than being a fox girl,” Elisabeth said cheerfully.

“I wasn’t thinking of being either,” Sylvia laughed.

“No, but you did want to learn something more hard core I heard, that’s what Mr Drake told me. Oh don’t worry, he was discreet, but approached me for some ideas,” Elisabeth whispered.

Sylvia lowered her voice, “I was thinking of something more akin to what Mary went through.”

“That is pretty hard core then, but… perhaps you should consider something rather less full-on until you find your feet. Publically speaking I mean,” Elisabeth suggested.

“Pony training, isn’t that just dressing up?” Sylvia asked seriously.

Elisabeth gaped at her. “Hush your mouth,” she hissed in mock shock, “Before somebody spanks you.”

Both women eyed a 30-something woman who Sylvia was certain she had seen behind the bar of the local pub. The woman was standing meekly facing the near wall under a tumble of familiar red curls with her generous curves well-displayed. Her full bottom had been seriously spanked and the woman could not help looking very woeful as she cast an occasional ill-disciplined glance over her shoulder at the rest of the room.

“She requires more training,” Elisabeth remarked, “If I did that I wouldn’t sit down for a week.”

“I am not sure she will either,” Sylvia smirked as she studied the mottled red on the woman’s bottom.

“Oh hello, who is that with Michael?” Elisabeth asked as she turned her attention to Michael Trench and his new girlfriend.

“Oh that’s Claire Summer, a lovely girl, we met her in London,” Sylvia said.

*

From the moment that someone took her coat Claire stood gaping. The scene was grand enough anyway for one of her background. The décor was first rate with dozens of expensively dressed people set in small groups around the room. But what really demanded her attention were the nude and nearly nude women standing facing various walls and alcove corners

“M-Michael,” she hissed, “Those women have been spanked.”

“Yes, so I see,” Michael Trench said casually. He carefully studied Claire’s reaction.

“Oh gosh,” she muttered under her breath.

“Don’t stare,” Michael chided her.

Claire blushed and snatched her eyes away.

“Claire, how are you?” Sylvia said warmly as she approached and acknowledging Michael.

The couple exchanged a quick air kiss with their new friend.

“Shall I introduce you or do you just want to walk around and get the feel for the place?” Sylvia asked, noting Claire’s wandering gaze.

“Oh sorry, I…” Claire blushed again.

“I know, it is a lot to take in the first time,” Sylvia said smoothly; then she noticed Claire had no white flower or badge. “Oh, I thought you would be protected.”

“Protected?” Claire asked.

“Oh sorry I forgot, yes you need to wear something white on your breast, a broach or most girls wear a flower,” Michael began to fumble in his pockets as if searching for something even though there was no flower to find.

“You might get hauled away and spanked if you don’t mind your manners here,” Sylvia giggled, “It isn’t likely, but guests and first timers… well it is just a precaution. Some husbands permit it as a general rule,” she added.

Sylvia’s hand strayed to her own absence; a small sore point between them. It meant that she was potentially fair game to any dominant in the room.

“You don’t have one,” Claire accused.

“No but…” Sylvia began.

“Then I won’t,” Claire said happily, then turning to Michael she whispered shyly, “I want to make this work.”

“But you don’t understand…” Michael began.

“Michael, I have made up my mind,” Claire told him sharply.

He shrugged.

*

“Does it hurt?” Claire asked the redhead facing the wall.

“Go away,” she whispered.

“It looks sore, sorer than I have ever had but…”

“Please go away, I am not supposed to talk to anyone,” the woman wailed.

“I’ll just tell whoever that it was my fault…” Claire said cheerfully.

“That won’t save her,” said a dark voice from behind.

Claire turned to see an older man in his 40s looking at her. He was well-built and of slightly above average height. His heavily lined face reminded her of Sean Connery in his late Bond years, although this man was wearing no wig and had short wiry steel grey hair which was pure white at the temples.

“My name is Drake,” he said smoothly as he offered her his hand.

“Oh hello, I was just asking…” Claire began.

“I could see that, but you’re not supposed to are you?” Drake said in a scolding tone.

“No I guess not,” Claire winced nervously.

“And you haven’t introduced yourself, that’s rude,” Drake told her.

“Oh sorry,” Claire blushed and slapped her hand to her mouth.

Drake waited.

“Oh, oh sorry, Claire, Claire Summer,” she gushed.

“Come with me Claire Summer,” Drake said sharply.

“Oh but I am with…” Claire squeaked.

“Are you going to add disobedience to your sins?” Drake intoned.

“No I…”

“Come with me.” Drake didn’t wait to see if he was obeyed but walked away across the room to the open French windows leading onto the terrace.

Claire looked around for Michael or Sylvia but couldn’t see them.

“Oh shite,” she muttered and making a decision she scurried after Drake.

Drake was waiting for her at the end of the terrace with heavily folded arms.

“I think I need to teach you some etiquette,” Drake scolded her.

“Oh?” Claire sounded disappointed.

Then Drake took her arm and sat down on the edge of the low wall surrounding the terrace. He tipped Claire easily across his lap and the set about tugging up her skirts.

“Mr Drake I…” Claire squealed.

Drake ignored her and pulled the last veil of her underwear down her thighs.

“Oh my gosh,” Claire gasped.

Michael could spank hard, sometimes under her boyfriend’s slipper she even gritted her teeth and found it difficult, but this was something else. Never before had she been so soundly spanked. Great power-driver blasts of paddle-hand first stole her breath away and then all coherent thought. In moments the last shreds of her dignity drooled from her mouth and she began to bawl like a music hall slapper-at.

“If you are going to join us you need to learn your place young lady,” Drake scolded her.

“Yes Sir,” she shrieked.

Drake spanked her harder if anything at this acknowledgment and she began to cry.

“I’ve learned, I’ve learned,” she wailed, a tear rolling off her nose.

“I am glad to hear it,” Drake chuckled, “Now when I am done here I want you to go and find a corner like the one you saw that lady standing at and face it with your hands on your head.”

“But I…”

“If you don’t I will spank you in front of everyone,” Drake growled at her, “And one more thing, tell your boyfriend that Drake requests that he spank you soundly again later for your impertinence.”

This Claire understood and she cried, “Yes Sir.”

“Good girl, now go and do as you are told,” Drake said affectionately.

“Yes Sir,” Claire gasped as she danced up and down grabbing at her rear.

“Oh and make sure you leave your bottom uncovered,” Drake ordered as he got up to go.

“Oh shit,” Claire moaned as she continued to dance, “Ooh.”

Gerald was talking to Michael when he saw Claire rather sheepishly creep in from the terrace with her evening dress bunched up and held in front of her waist. The girl’s knickers were dangling around her knees and were only kept from tripping her up at the ankles by dint of Claire’s grip on them. She seemed to be searching for something and frantically looked as if she might flee. Then she saw something and scurried towards it giving Gerald a good view of a cherry red bottom that was more than a match for her face.

As Claire found and settled herself in a corner in the far alcove that was almost but not quite out of sight Michael saw her too.

“Oh God, she had only been here 10 minutes,” he groaned. “I thought she would be alright with your wife.”

“I rather think she has been learning about spankmanship,” Gerald said sardonically.

“I suppose I should rescue her,” Michael sighed.

“Why don’t you leave her there for a while,” Gerald suggested, “It will do her good.”

Then he turned and went to look for something else that needed his attention.

*

“Gerald this is…” Sylvia began as she saw her husband approach.

But Gerald didn’t take her words in.

“Do excuse us,” he said as he took her arm.

Then it was Sylvia’s turn to be lead away to the terrace.

“Looks like she has been a naughty girl,” the deserted guest sighed.

Outside Sylvia was upended across Gerald’s knee without explanation and quickly bared.

“What have I done?” she wailed.

“Have you seen our friend Claire lately?” he growled as he spanked down on Sylvia’s by now exposed bottom.

“You mean the flower? I tried to… but she… what happened?” Sylvia blustered.

“She got a lesson in spankmanship,” Gerald said sharply, “The same lesson you are going to get.”

“She insisted… she’ll be alright…” Sylvia wailed.

“She will, but you my love are going to get a very sound lesson.” Then Gerald set about giving Sylvia her first truly public spanking.

“Gerald,” she shrieked, but it was for show, in her heart she knew he had every right. That was just another truth about spankmanship, but she would learn and she would welcome that understanding.

Then Gerald spanked all the harder and she began to call out, gathering some little attention in the process. Sometimes lessons were hard.

The End

Our story began here.

The Reconciled
When Erin awoke it took her a moment to work out where she was. It had been the slow hard pressure of the ground under her that had first driven her from slumber, but it took a moment for her memory to catch-up. Next came the dry burn of boiled sandpaper at either end of her being. Her dust-filled mouth could be eased by working her jaw, but the unrelenting sore ache in every nook of her bottom only got worse with wakefulness.

Then she remembered with a groan. War is hell she thought bitterly; magical war is hell all over my arse. Utilising the corners of her thumbs she rubbed sleep from her eyes and staggered to her feet. It was worse than she thought and every muscle in her body screamed for mercy.

The previous night she had lain prone face down on the floor bawling like a kid and wishing she had never heard of Pandorian and all its evil ways. Now she would have almost traded another spanking for a soft bed and decided that witch had not devised a worse torture than sleeping on the hard floor of a Timbre barn. Then with half her mind on the location of the nearest latrine she immediately revised that thought as million birch twigs flared in her bottom. The bandy-legged stagger to the back door of the barn shredded the very last of her dignity

Tabitha had slept like the forgiven and yawned herself gently awake. She always felt clean and refreshed after a good spanking and the previous evening had certainly qualified as that. Only Dniester ministrations could have purged her soul better. Nevertheless her bottom felt like two hot coals in a finger tender parchment sack.

Shyly she looked around the barn and saw that most of the others were rousing too. She guessed they had seen it all before.

“How are you today?” Meredith asked.

“I’m alright ma’am,” Tabitha said meekly.

“They tell me you were a hunter before you went to school,” Meredith said conversationally.

Tabitha nodded.

“Take this,” Meredith extended her arm with something in her hand. “It is a witch knife. The others already have one, but you weren’t supposed to be here.” It might have been a reproach but the elder was smiling at her.

Tabitha sat up and immediately regretted it. Rolling onto all fours she chomped down on her lower lip and took a moment. Meredith couldn’t help grin at her.

“No hard feelings I trust?” Meredith asked cheerfully.

“No ma’am,” Tabitha said emphatically as she arched her back and thrust her bare bottom back and forth to waggle it like a dog, “I’m sorry to have put you to so much trouble.”

Then she looked at the knife in the elder witches hand and took it.

“What does it do?” Tabitha asked as she eyed the knife.

“Here take it,” Meredith pressed her. “It is just a knife really, more of a symbol than anything, rather like a mage’s staff. We use it to cut offerings of nature’s bounty and for certain spells.”

“It is made of stone isn’t it?” Tabitha said examining it.

“Yours is,” Meredith told her, “It’s special and I have a hunch you will suit it.”

Tabitha nodded.

“Eat and wash quickly, we must be away,” Meredith told her.

*

Katrin had been walking all night. Nor had she been alone. For on every track and lane that led to Timon people had pressed against her, mile after mile of them. So many in fact that the roadway had been churned to nothing by a million footsteps or more and at times she had had to walk on the verge lest she sink ankle deep in mud.

Ahead and behind for as far as she could see was a glowing snake of a thousand torches that danced about her and lit the way. Although here and there small groups had dropped out of line and had gathered around fires at the roadside.

Katrin hoped that these delays were only on account of the night, but she couldn’t help but suspect that some had merely dropped where they had fallen and would never rise again. She shuddered at the thought, more determined than ever to press on.

Every once in a while the lines of people would thin out as the going got easier so that she was able to make good time. But then a knot in the crowds would form as some delay was encountered and Katrin had been overcome by dread. Is this where I will die, she wondered? But always after minute-stretched moments the obstruction would ease and she would again make some progress.

It was after one such occurrence that she finally crested a hill and saw Timon for the first time. The city was far bigger than she remembered, although she had only been there once and it was unconscionable that it could fall to any foe.

“Keep left people, keep moving,” said an authoritative voice.

There were soldiers now, calm and cheerful like city watchmen marshalling a festival crowd. It gave a semblance of order and offered with conviction a sense that all was not lost. Katrin could have wept.

She could see that most people obeyed and filed on down the main road that led to the city. But every once in a while a soldier would pull a young man from the slow moving queue and murmur in his ear. Most would nod.

It took a moment for Katrin to work out the why of it. Then she made out another line snake away to the right, a smaller line of all men making for a hill on which stood some banners.

Her eyes scanned the coloured pennants and poles of glory for anything she recognised, wondering why there were so many noble standards standing there against the last of the night sky picked out by the firelight. Then she saw them, the hundred-hundred lights of camp fires, the allied army massed in vale beyond, thousands of them amid a city of tents and corals of horses.

*

The side of the hill was eroded where hundreds of feet had made their way to the top. Fear thought that the ripped away turf that revealed the bare rocky earth under it had probably been there before the army had made its camp, but the most recent visitors certainly hadn’t helped. In any case the raised fissure gave him somewhere to sit and watch the sunrise, perhaps his last respite before the coming day.

“Are you Dr Arlon Fear?” said a weary voice a little to his left.

No one called him Arlon or referred to that name; no one here anyway and to hear it startled him. The speaker was old by his voice, but in the pre-dawn he was little more than an outline, although he gave the impression of nobility from the bearing. The man was certainly wearing copious amounts of armour from the metallic clatter he made.

“Who is it?” Fear asked getting to his feet, thinking perhaps that it was a messenger. But the more he thought about it, the more he knew a regular messenger would not have used his given name.

It crossed the mages mind that the man was an assassin and he slipped into the patterns warily ready for a counterstrike.

“You are the Magus Fear?” the man asked again.

Fear could now make the man out. He was in his advanced middle age, although apart from some battle scars he was in good shape. Nevertheless the man had a tired gaunt look about him as if he had seen much fighting. Then Fear noted the broach and the golden braid that adorned the warrior’s right shoulder, a general then, Fear thought, a commander of horse from the style of sword and the horse head medallion he wore.

It took the magus only a moment longer to identify the man he had never met, but of whom he had heard so much about.

“I am Fear,” he said.

The general before him returned an appraising look and all but looked the mage up and down with something that might have been disdain.

“I am Sir Mark De Lacy, Katrin’s father,” Mark said formally.

“First Commander of the Timber Horse I hear, Katrin is very proud,” Fear told the man, his voice firm but gentle.

“You are my daughter’s…” Mark paused; he had guessed from Katrin’s letters that the man was more than just her master and teacher, “…close friend and tutor,” he finished carefully. Some words could not be recalled.

“I am, and more I hope,” Fear said warmly, “So we meet at last.”

“I should…” Mark sighed, “Oh to hell with it, my daughter is her own woman and the proprieties be buggered, in war a friend of a friend is…”

Fear extended his hand so that it hung between them like a promise or a threat.

Mark eyed it cautiously.

“After this war and Katrin has completed her studies… I would ask for her hand,” Fear said, his arm still extended.

Sir Mark nodded and then without committing himself to this news he took Fear’s hand and shook it firmly.

“And how is my daughter?” Mark asked.

“I left her…” Fear was about to add in Pandoria when he saw another figure approaching.

He was tired and it had been too long, he cursed inwardly, but he could swear… Sir Mark, disgruntled by the fellow’s rudeness swung around to see where the Magus was looking.

“Good gracious,” Sir Mark exclaimed.

“Katrin,” Fear barked anxiously, “What in the name of the gods are you doing here?”

“That is what I want to know,” Sir Mark bellowed.

“Hello Daddy,” Katrin said meekly.

But her eyes were on Fear.

Until that moment the Black Magus had not known that in his heart had believed he would never see her again and it was as if all space and time was suddenly compressed into that moment. But Katrin was no stranger to that fatalism, with a woman’s intuition she had feared that truth since he had tried to sail without her.

But it was Sir Mark who broke the tension. In a reunion as violent as it was sudden he strode forward and seized his daughter into his bear-like arms totally heedless of the tears that leaked into his eyes.

“Katrin,” his voice strained and he made as if to crush the life from his only child.

Then as suddenly as it began he stepped back as Katrin dashed forward in to the embrace of the dark mage who had usurped his place in his little one’s heart.

“I thought, I thought, oh…” Katrin sighed over and over.

Sir Mark studied the dark man who held her with new eyes. He had the look of a tiger tenaciously guarding his prey and the old warrior thought of his late wife and then of Delia Cane and Downley.

Finally the embrace ended with a kiss and Katrin stepped back with a broad grin.

“I left you safely in Pandoria,” Fear growled, “What are you doing here?”

“That, young lady, is what I would like to know,” Sir Mark said gruffly, “Is this how you care for my daughter Sir?”

Fear bristled, but he had no recourse against the man’s anger. “What are you doing here?” he exclaimed, taking up the theme, his anger too now rising.

“I… I wanted to see you… to be with you…” Katrin said childishly as she tried and failed to meet Fear’s eyes. There was more, but there were no words. Everything she was or could be was here and not in Pandoria.

“I ought to tan your backside raw right here in front of everyone,” Sir Mark bellowed.

Katrin’s face went puce and she hastily looked around and saw that even some way off there were young soldiers looking their way now.

“With rods of blackthorn dipped in pepper oil,” Fear promised.

Katrin gulped. Her father’s spanking threat was as hollow as it was embarrassing, but her new master’s words held truth.

“Spank her by all means Sir,” Fear said sharply, “But when this battle’s done I will not spare my arm a jot on that account.”

Sir Mark snorted in amusement.

“I think perhaps my daughter is better left to you,” he chuckled. “I trust you will not fail me twice.”

“Oh no Sir,” Fear growled.

“Then I have things that need my attention and will leave you to it,” Mark chuckled again, “I am glad to have met you. Fare thee well in the coming hostilities.”

Fear turned then and took Sir Mark’s hand.

“And you Sir, and you,” he said as the two men shook.

Then the general was gone.

“As for you, I make no idle threats, as soon as I get a minute…” Fear scolded Katrin.

Her father gone she flew at him and kissed him to silence and made to hold him until all the stars went out.

*

By the time they reached Fear’s tent Katrin was naked and he but a pair of breeks from being so. They had shamelessly embraced and stripped all but their intimate clothing all the way down the hill, drawing envious gazes from leering soldiers and cheerful comrades-in-arms.

Now with Katrin’s full round bottom cupped in his hands, Fear considered spanking her on account, but his passion was rising and would brook no delay.

Turning her about he bent her double on the small enough support of his travel cot and entered her without preamble from behind.

“Ah,” she gasped, “My love, oh… ah, my love.”

He grunted, rutting her like a beast devouring mutton at a feast and pressing into her with a groan. In moments that lasted years they came together and tumbled forward carelessly onto the narrow bed. Slick and naked it took an age for him to gain a breath and they both clung to each other in open-mouthed wonder and laboured for air.

“I want, I want, I want…” she whispered.

“Yes,” he said in a thick voice that tailed off to a groan as she flicked his chest with her tongue before going lower.

“Take me everywhere,” she spoke as a sigh.

“But I’m not…” but then he found he was as she took him her mouth.

Unseemly and undignified sucking noises ensued as she drew the pout of her lips down over his engorged member again and again. Never had he been so big and he had to doubt that it could possibly fit all the way to… then with him still ensconced in his mouth she drew him in and kissed him towards the base above his ball sack. The world spun away from him all a fuzz, as like a lemon-salt oyster she tasted him on her tongue as she went back for more.

*

The second time that she tasted him he pulled her up, or tried to, for she was voracious.

“Let me…” he whispered huskily.

She shushed him and with a final lick to lubricate his staff she swung about and offered him her rear. Then seizing her hips and careless of her intent he pushed his plum-sized head at her narrow opening and gently eased himself passed her gate.

“Harder, don’t… ooh…” she groaned and he leaned into her taking her deeply.

“I should spank you,” he hissed in her ear.

“Do what you want with me,” she groaned.

This time it took longer. Much longer and the relentless fullness of him seemed to fill her all the way to her eyes as she pushed back hungrily. But finally she felt something like a flexing fist and hot seed flooded her innards as she clawed at her sex.

All this and more came to pass over and over as the grey dawn went from dark to pale.

To be continued.

Our story began here.

The Battle of Timon
Katrin was awoken by the sound of boots on gravel. Then before she had even opened her eyes she heard muted shouts of marshalling sergeants amid the cacophony and reluctantly she allowed thoughts of the day to touch her mind. She reached out then, but Fear was no longer beside her. Why was that important, she pondered as wakefulness caught up with her?

The taste in her mouth was a little sour and the urge for the pot competed with her thirst for her attention. So she sat up and opened her eyes.

There was a warm orange light as the beige canvas tent glowed all around her in the morning light and Arlon Fear was crouching in the sunny gloom at the foot of the bed.

“Good morning,” she smiled, the love-light warm in her eyes.

Fear straightened up and smiled back.

“You’re awake then sleepyhead,” he teased.

He grinned as she pulled the covers about her naked form and peered at him under a bird’s nest of raven hair that cascaded across her face like straws in the wind.

She nodded and her own grin widened.

Then his smile left his eyes and he turned to retrieve his black robe.

Katrin watched Fear finish getting dressed with a sense of foreboding. Thoughts of the coming day could no longer be ignored. If the battle did not come this day, then it would be upon the next.

The tent had a lacklustre feel now as if they were going through the motions of ordinariness. It was hard for Katrin to imagine that she may never be alone with this man again.

“Can’t you stay a little longer?” she asked sullenly.

Fear regarded her with a hard stare and then purposefully snatched up his staff as if warding off his emotions.

“You know that I can’t,” he sighed.

Again she nodded, but this time she looked sad.

“Listen to me,” he said with sudden hard edge to his voice, “I have not forgotten that you disobeyed me. You will not do so again. Once you have washed and bathed, I want you to find the healers and offer your services at the rear. If things do not go well do not go to Timon, flee south-west. Take a horse if you can and try and get to Gansk. From there you can find your way back to Pandoria.”

“But…” Katrin began to protest.

“Obey me,” he barked with a flash to his eyes. “If all fails here you will be needed at Pandoria. Now go to the rear and find work with the healers.”

The heat rose to Katrin’s cheeks and she gave him a pout. But he held her gaze until she nodded her assent.

“I love you,” he whispered and stooping to her they kissed.

She held on to him like it was the last time and then he left.

*

Sometime that afternoon word reached them that the Great Western Host was drawing near. They had made far better time than any had imagined and the order went out to strike camp.

“There is a ridge to the east of Timon, with a slight southerly slope between. We will set our command post atop of the high ground with our ranks aligned up along the top of the slope guarded at the flanks by the ridge on the left and the city on the right,” William Armarlon told his senior officers. “Their majesties have decided to combine our cavalry and place them on our left flank beyond the ridge. In that way we will make the most of the cover and have a hammer blow in reserve should the opportunity arise to use it.”

All around them men were striking tents and gathering weapons for the tactical withdrawal east and among the clanking of iron and urgent shouts came singing.

“Are there any questions?” the Duke of Timon asked.

There were some shrugs and exchanged glances, but most shook their head. What was there to ask? By the end of the next day they would be dead or they would be victorious.

As the men left him to attend to their various commands, William looked southwards dreading what he might see. However the horizon was mostly clear, and but for a few circling crows and the last straggling refugees, devoid of life.

“It will take all day to strike camp and move it north,” his aide said.

William nodded absently. That was what he had told his brother and their ally Peron. But he doubted that the enemy would reach them before nightfall and by then they would have secured their defensive positions.

It was a good plan and made the most of their inferior numbers as it did not tie down their cavalry in defence. This left it free for the counter attack. If this had been any other battle he would be feeling confident despite being outnumbered, but this conflict would be decided by magic.

*

The next day word reached Peron about an hour after dawn. The Great Army of the West was moving up fast and would be with them by noon.

“The gods help us,” he muttered.

“And so it begins,” William Armarlon said from somewhere behind him.

The rest of the general staff looked at King Peron expectantly as if he might say something else but the King of Precips could not meet their eyes. What was there to say?

Then someone laughed. “Will you stand with me your majesty? Shall we bear this burden together?” said a voice.

King John strode from behind the assembled ranks beaming as if he had just issued a party invitation. In response Peron’s eyes crinkled at the corners and he began to chuckle.

“I will,” Peron whispered and then with more heart, “I will.”

“And I,” said one of the officers.

Others joined in the assertion and in a moment the mood had changed.

“We have a good battle plan and I for one welcome the foe,” the Duke of Timon added to the chorus.

“Well-spoken William,” King John said cheerfully. “Now there is only one detail to which we must attend.”

“Those mages,” Peron agreed with a nod, anticipating his ally’s thoughts.

*

Noon came and went and a strange calm befell the amassed ranks of the allied army. Officers had been coming and going all morning but none of them had anything new to report. Although at eleven the General of Horse, Sir Mark De Lacy, rode up and said that all final arrangements had been made and that his men were in position. Then with a ‘good luck’ and a ‘fare thee well’ he rode away.

The Duke of Timon felt a knot in his stomach and remembered the part Sir Mark had played in their abortive attack on the West. As he watched the retreating back of his old comrade he wondered if he would ever see the man alive again.

But then an officer handed him a note and the press of duty overtook him. Now all reports had ceased and all but the furthest extent of the outriders had returned. There was nothing to be done but wait.

William glanced at his brother who sat his horse with aplomb and a steady look in his eye; he might even be enjoying himself. But the assembled staff officers merely looked bored now and only Peron held himself with concern. His shoulders looked as if his armour was now too heavy and there were two sharp lines marking his brow.

On the lower slope less than a furlong from his position a dust devil swirled along parallel to the ranks of waiting warriors. William followed it with his eye and idly wondered if it might turn on them. And then it died with the breeze leaving the army marooned in still air like a ship becalmed.

Far to his right a horse whinnied and another began to kick at the traces rattling its war gear. If the Duke listened hard he could hear such sounds all along the lines, like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. This gentle melody was marred only by the intermittent buzz of solitary horse fly.

But as he listened another insect hum caught his attention, a more rhythmic sound on the very edge of his hearing. Then it was gone.

Next to King John a mounted courier sighed and began to blink hard as if awakening. He was a callow youth with carrot red hair who was not above 17 and who looked far too young for war. The boy pulled a cork stopper from a pewter horn and took a swig of water. William had to laugh as the courier struggled with the bottle and fumbled with the top for long nervous moments before pushing it home.

Then the insect hum was back and William surrendered to his own drowsiness. But this time the sound did not fade and the Duke fancied he heard a bell above the chimes of the harness.

“What’s that sire?” the redheaded courier asked.

Several ears pricked up and then let their attention drop again. The long wait was apt to play on the mind of the inexperienced. But William heard it too. An indistinct drone that seemed to end on a… he strained to hear, a bell?

“It sounds like… voices,” the boy said hesitantly.

King John pulled a face and shook his head doubtfully. But now he was listening too.

“I hear it,” said a voice from the assembled staff.

“Sagy-sah, sagy-say, ompoomi-da; saggy-say sagy-sah ompoomi-da,” was carried to them on the wind and then a small bell rang.

*

At eight minutes past one the Western Host spilled over the far hills like black water as the vanguard tumbled pell-mell towards them. In its train came dark blocks of cohorts, slowly but surely advancing on their positions like the teeth of some huge monster. Wending between the oncoming ranks were small lines of slowly chanting priest-witches. This army was vast, having near twice the ally’s numbers. It was a grim sight.

King Peron looked like a greyhound that had caught a scent. His horse skittishly danced as the king looked up and down the ordered ranks for any detail he might have missed.

While King John opted for ostentation and drew his sword then then charged up and down the lines urging the men to hold-fast.

“I think my brother is going to make a speech,” William laughed; battle had now come and he was ready.

“Good, for I have no words on this day,” Peron replied.

John made three turns on the battlefield before coming to a halt at the dead centre.

“Comrades,” he screamed with more authority than any man in the history of the world. “My brothers and sisters in arms…”

Peron knew then that he may be the director of this battle, but King John, ruler of the great Timbre Empire would command it.

“Once again the armies of the West have come to our lands. And once again we have risen to meet them. There is nothing new here today. Look at them and their pretty little formations. Look at the heedless rabble and the unwashed witches that come dragging on their tails,” King John sounded as if he were addressing a village hall, yet his words were quiet and firm and heard by all. “Once again we will meet these unwelcome guests in the land of Timbre as our forefathers have before. But do you remember your history? Do you?”

The King now paused for effect. Every man and a woman in the army knew the histories and the great victories of old.

“Just weeks ago we met this rabble in Precips and cast them out as we have many times before. But who remembers when they conquered us?”

There was muttering now and some men called out.

“When have they ever?” King John answered them.

“Never,” came a shout.

“Never,” John bellowed and 40,000 voices answered him.

John broke now from his position and reared his horse.

“So I say to you,” he called to them, “Once again we meet them and once again we will have… victory!”

He rode then in triumph as if victory was already theirs for the whole length of the line while 40,000 men screamed in a chant, “Armarlon, Armarlon, Armarlon…”

The enemy tried to answer him with drums, but horns and trumpets from the Precips contingent drowned them out.

But still weaving its spell among the celebrations was the relentless song, “Sagy-sah, sagy-say, ompoomi-da; saggy-say sagy-sah ompoomi-da,” followed by that bitter little bell.

*

Arlon Fear could feel the waves of dark magic fouling the air like stale smoke and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. As he scanned the patterns, he saw them tremble as if a shadow was trying to supplant them and push them aside. It was as if a hundred million spike ants were burrowing under the fabric of reality.

“What do you see Fear?” Gort asked, the strenuous mage now standing at his side resplendent in golden yellow.

Fear frowned at his colleague and saw from his eyes that he did not sense it.

“It has begun,” Fear replied, but now he was troubled, for if Gort did not see the obvious then how could he combat it?

*

The crone was as a walking corpse and twice as foul. Her clothes were barely worthy of the name and it was beyond understanding how even the Wild Magic had sustained her life for so long.

She held aloft a twisted stick draped in feathers and bones and twirled thrice in the air before muttering something under her stench-ridden breath.

“Sagy-sah, sagy-say, ompoomi-da; saggy-say sagy-sah ompoomi-da,” sang her followers as they came on behind her.

Already they were within arrow range of the front ranks of the Timbre troops, but as yet not a shot had been fired.

“Sagy-sah, sagy-say, ompoomi-da; saggy-say sagy-sah ompoomi-da,” the crone added to the chant.

Two dozen voices countered with, “Saggy, saggy, saggy, sah,” followed as ever by the nasty little bell.

The men in the front rank, who up until then had viewed the small foray with amusement, began to feel uneasy. One or two of them were even sick. Then men who had stood in the face of certain death many times before began to feel the terror and made as if to break ranks.

“Sagy-sah, sagy-say, ompoomi-da; saggy-say sagy-sah ompoomi-da.” The terror spell worked its will, weaving among the mortal men and turning their hearts.

Suddenly then the bestial cat leapt from the long grass and landed on the dead-faced crone with a wailing scream. Before a single priest-witch could react the old priestess’s head had been torn from the shoulders and now rolled on the ground. None would mourn her, not even her own.

The next witch in the line who knew the lead chant well let his mouth hang open indecision for a heartbeat too long. For in another moment the wild cat’s dread caterwauling was joined by the feral shouts of a dozen other voices.

A near naked Hemple reached the procrastinator first and took his throat with her knife. Others may have overwhelmed her, but the first two who tried died on the spot clutching their necks as if slashed by an unseen blade.

Once on the Silver Shore Tabitha had told ptarmigan to wait passively for her knife, but now seasoned warrior witches and foul priests stood agape as she danced among them taking heads.

Brusquely Amber Sage strolled into the melee ordering heads from necks with a spell and putting up warding spells for the sisters like Tabitha who had to come close for the knife work.

“Meredith can you…?” Amber was not wont to give orders here, but so far the more powerful witch had held back.

“Where there was terror there will be resolve,” she said simply and cast a mutter-supported hand in the direction of the allied ranks.

Two of the Shadow Dreamers rushed at her, the air before them fizzing with hellish hornets, but Meredith dusted the insect-spawn and then set the two to become at once toads and rats so that their bodies twisted in the conflict and they spewed blood.

The remaining eight and two more pacts of priest-witches that had been closing on other positions first waivered and then broke, a hell-born tiger-beast lunging at their heels.

“Peel, fall back,” Amber ordered the shape-shifting witch.

Finally the previously paralysed archers let fly with a volley and the first wave of Shadow Dreamers together with their supporting warriors perished or fled the field.

“Did you see what Meredith did?” Erin gushed excitedly.

Amber turned to see her friend and pupil grinning from ear to ear whilst holding up a rat by its tail.

“Best I could do I am afraid,” Erin said sheepishly.

“You turned a witch into a rat?” Amber gasped. Sure she could do it, just, but not under battle conditions.

“Sorry,” Erin winced, “I got a bit squeamish about knife work.”

Amber rolled back her head a laughed.

*

All along the battlefront, sorties of Western warriors were repelled by well entrenched defenders. Only where there were no witches to counter the Shadow Dreamers did they make any headway. But they were not the only magical forces at work.

Fear and the other mages had set-up on the right flank where less effective adepts and journeymen could be placed nearby on the walls of Timon safely passing on magical intelligence.

At intervals behind the lines there were mages and wizards to counter various magical attacks, but for the most part they could only detect such assaults. After all a water mage might creatively counter a direct attack but there was little he or she could do against a spell that cast a whole phalanx of regular veterans into a funk.

The Fire mages fared rather better and although in terms of fire power they were barely equal to a company of archers, they did have the ability and skills to be immune from the Shadow Dreamers terror spells and pick out the leadership of various chapters and incinerate them where they stood.

“Our people are overstretched,” Fear yelled above the din of the fighting, “We have far too few witches and Wild Magicians on our side.”

Maxine du Jared at his elbow nodded. It would seem that Fear and Amber had been right all along, thaumaturgy in this instance was no match for powers that could by-pass the physical world and directly influence the soldiers on the ground.

Maxine herself had little to do for now. Even though she could raise an ocean and dash it onto fleets at sea, the most she could do here on a grand scale was set the ground to frost and slow up the enemies cavalry.

Nevertheless, in private she had dabbled in forbidden magic that had enabled her to boil the water content of person in seconds and with some effort she could extend that to a dozen warriors or more, she had no doubt. But that was but a drop in the sea in this fight.

“We could try forming a concert,” Maxine yelled.

Fear nodded, but he was at a loss to what the target should be. Not unless Maiestatis showed himself and then what?

“Concert be damned, let me show you what a war mage can do,” Gort growled.

A moment later Gort the High Hand had lifted from the ground like a harrier and with ever increasing speed soared over the battle field. Below him a rain of fire from the fire mages showered the Western Army and from his lofty vantage he could see the puddles of death delivered by his comrades amid the fray. But it was not enough, he could see that now. A flight of arrows did almost as much damage and the Allies had far more archers than it had fire mages.

But Gort was no mere Fire Mage and with a thought and barely a sweep of his arm a dozen fire balls spun from his hand and splashed like waves among the enemy. Where each ball of plasma landed small lakes fire expanded in all directions engulfing hundreds in their wake.

A great cry went up among the Allied troops and where previously they had fallen back, great sections of warriors pushed forward and began to recover lost ground.

Not content, Gort affixed his mind on his staff of office and filled it with flame. Then in a great rolling whip he unleashed tongues of white hot fire along the attackers’ lines. This was even more effective than fire balls and whole companies ceased to exist.

“I take it back,” Maxine screamed gleefully at Fear. “Sic ‘em boy, kill them all Gort.”

Fear tried to be horrified by the sight of death and Maxine’s enthusiasm for it, but part of him rejoiced. It was working and if he could just hold them back on the ground then…

His train of thought was interrupted by an unearthly scream. The loud eeriness of the sound was somewhere between the wail of leviathan and the roar of a dragon. It was the howl of a wolf like no beast Fear had ever heard before. And then he saw him. Maiestatis, the Wolf Lord, the Warmonger and now he feared, the Three-Who-Are-One in the combined power of the Triptych.

The creature was at once merely a man and a giant, his demonic form bursting to escape the mortal facade it had usurped. And although on the scale of the battle he was a dwarf, all eyes were suddenly drawn to him and transfixed so that there were none who did not shudder.

Maiestatis howled again and the great Western Host surged forward.

“We must hold them,” Maxine yelled.

Half a league away Maiestatis strode through his minions, his eyes scanning the opposing mortals for any who could trouble him. To his left he quickly found the Magister and dismissing the distance between them he devoured each one in turn with his eyes as he marked them for death. He was not complacent, but for each one he had a plan. That left Gort high above him as he put the Army of the West to the flame.

Always challenged by the present, it took the Wolf Lord a moment to focus as he saw the two armies rise and fall in death and defeat, and survival and victory by turns as his visions cycled through the past and present.

Then among it all was an archer, a mere youth from the farthest end of the Western Plains. The boy stood just yards from where Maiestatis’s mortal form now surveyed the battle and in all versions of the past and future the boy shot arrow after arrow unerringly into everything he aimed at.

The Wolf Lord let out another terrifying howl and then waded through his minions as they fell dead at his touch.

“Boy,” he hissed, “The War Mage above; end him for me.”

The archer glanced upwards and wondered at the shot. But before he could answer his dread lord, Maiestatis laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder and drank his soul leaving nothing but his aim.

The boy, a dead thing now, bleeding from his unseeing eyes, staggered for a moment and then notched another arrow. It sailed further and faster than any he had ever shot.

Gort barely noticed the shaft that screamed past his head. It was not the first and any that came too close he smashed them to ash with a thought. Nor did he notice the next six or the seventh, which all came near with deadly speed, but could scarce be called a threat.

Below, the archer, one of many when viewed from the sky, seized arrow after arrow from a frame that stood adjacent with a demonic speed now. Each arrow was collected and fired in a blur so that the ghoulish marksman became the equal of his whole company.

Above and much too late Gort realised the danger and extended his will to counter the rain of deadly darts that were launched at him. Had they been mortal or one fewer he would have prevailed, but the last escaped his sanction and glanced off his staff. Then like a shard of ice the necromantic spike speared his side and deep into his heart.

It was a death he may even yet have survived. A War Mage was ever hard to kill, but what little of his will there was left smashed into the ground from a hundred yards above, where a dozen Western Axmen fell upon him and Gort the High Hand was no more.

Uncaring the demon released his hold on the archer, who fell dead to the ground finally expended for the life of a magus.

*

Katrin saw the Mustard Mage, as she remembered him, hang in the air and knew at once something had changed. Then like a broken golden kite he seemed to twist and fall, tumbling to the ground until he passed from her sight among the melee of angry soldiers on the ground.

Just minutes before she had gained Timon’s outer battlements after some premonition had pulled at her. The healers had set-up in impromptu hospitals within Timon itself, leaving Katrin with no choice of obedience to her master. But that was far from her thoughts as she watched the death of Gort. Was this what she was meant to see then? All around her the old men and boys left warding the city gasped in horror and there were startled screams.

Katrin thought of Rachel then and wondered at the girl’s feelings for her former mentor. They were never close, but Pandoria without Gort… Katrin heaved a sob. Yet deep within her she knew that this was not what she had meant to see.

Free of the fire the Western Army rallied itself and again surged forward. Now the Shadow Dreamers were in their element and as their song took hold, whole companies of the allies broke ranks and fled back up the slope.

Katrin felt sick. She could even smell the terror of her countrymen as they ran and for the first time in her life she knew the meaning of defeat. Is this what you show me, she cursed the universe, is it? And then she doubled over crying.

But the world was not done with her yet and something compelled her to look again. Amid the fleeing troops she made out a dark figure who stood his ground. In moments the last of the warriors had broken past him and he was alone.

It took no sixth sense, if that was what had brought her here, to tell her that it was Arlon Fear who now stood like a solitary battle pike on the field. Oh the gods no, she wailed within herself, please by all that is holy…

As she watched a storm of arrows almost blotted out the sun in an indecent haste to smudge the Black Magus from the world, and in a blink she could see her love no more.

Katrin’s heart filled her mouth and she went numb. Nothing could have survived such an onslaught. Why hadn’t he dashed the arrows from the sky?

But the storm passed and among a forest of knee high sticks in the ground Fear still stood unwavering. Katrin found the strength to breath.

Calm then befell the battlefield and the only sound was the chanting of the Shadow Dreamers punctuated by that damn bell. Ten thousand men who should have charged forward held back and Katrin again held her breath.

“Sagy-sah, sagy-say, ompoomi-da; saggy-say sagy-sah ompoomi-da,” was carried on the wind, “Sagy-sah, sagy-say, ompoomi-da; saggy-say sagy-sah ompoomi-da,” and a hollow metallic clang.

It was enough and all at once the enemy surged ahead.

Katrin trembled then. An unstoppable quaking seized her body and her knees crumpled beneath so that she had to hold on to the wall. But the shake did not stop and all around her others staggered to hold their feet.

Then as she watched, far out on the battlefield the ground rolled as smoothly as an ocean until a great crack opened cleaving the grass. The Black Magus, master of Fire and Earth, had seized the land and melded it to his will.

Katrin saw the crack grow into a chasm and men who would have slain all in their path staggered at the abyss and then tumbled before it. Her fellows were too shaken to cheer, but the dying are rarely so silent and Katrin had to clamp her hands to drown out a hundred-hundred screams.

The earthquake lasted for several minutes and when it was over near a tenth of the Western Host were dead. Better yet, there was now a great ditch between the armies, a trench of twisted shattered ground.

*

King Peron had never been so afraid. The terror had seized him from nowhere and it was all he could do to hang onto his horse and not flee. But others were not so strong and whole battalions of soldiers flowed past him in a torrent of fear for some imagined haven a league beyond the battle he adjudged.

“Rally to me, rally to me,” he yelled.

But there was no conviction in his voice and for the price of his spit he would have turned and fled with his men too.

Unknown to the king, Meredith Greydove and her coven had found a spot behind the lines to form a circle and hold hands. At once they sensed others doing the same and in a chant as old as the mountains they gave all they had to counter the Shadow Dreamer spell.

“What is it?” Tabitha gasped as she burned where she touched Erin and Amber in their place within the circle.

“Hold on,” Meredith yelled, but she felt as a woman drowning in a sea of evil as the terror, like winter mist chilled her and surged up to engulf them. “Hold on.”

Magic can break a soul. Sometimes slowly, sometimes fast, but magic-shattered souls there were, and this day would see more yet if Meredith’s coven could not hold. The terror rushed at them and surrounded them to blind senses and still they held…

The threat was slowed but not yet defeated but before the covens could claim a triumph the Shadow Dreamer chant abruptly stopped and a new threat began.

“The ground, it is shaking,” Amber screamed.

“It is the demon,” said another in terror.

“This is not Wild Magic” Meredith said.

Amber focussed and looked for the patterns of Earth Power as she had been taught. There was only one who could do this. She grinned, about time you did something Fear, she thought happily.

By now Peron had gathered his courage and joined by King John and the Duke of Timon they put renewed spirit into their men and little by little the ranks reformed.

“We are not done yet boys,” John said affectionately, “Those Pandoria magicians have not deserted us.”

By the time the ground stopped shaking lines of warriors had returned to formation wondering why they had ever been afraid.

High beyond the battle lines Katrin should have felt relieved, but something still compelled her and deep inside she knew that she had not yet seen all.

“My lady, the walls are unsafe, the earthquake has undermined them,” said an old watch sergeant commanding that section, “We must fall back to the inner ramparts.”

Katrin nodded absently. But in her heart she knew that Fear needed her. It made no sense of course; the man had just torn up the battlefield single-handed and probably won the war for them, but…

*

Fear studied the retreating Westerners and regained some of the hope he had felt before the fall of Gort. The Allies now just about matched the foe for numbers and they had the added advantage of the high ground. Even the Shadow Dreamers had fallen silent and in any case before the quake Fear had sensed that Meredith and her ilk had begun to turn the tide. It also boded well that neither king had fled.

But the ground was littered with the corpses of the dead, many at his hands, both friend and foe alike, although thankfully, most of his fallen comrades had died by an honest sword or arrow. It was a grim sight and in the late afternoon sun the bodies had begun to stink.

The Black Mage looked for Maiestatis now. The last of the Triptych was all that mattered now and as he and Dniester had defeated his brothers, so he would deal with Maiestatis and send him back to hell.

As he scanned the warriors that faced him he was pleased that in adversity they had not the discipline of his own side, convincing him that without the Wolf Lord they would flee or surrender.

But then he saw one among them, as one does when someone stands out against a rabble and Fear narrowed his eyes. It was not Maiestatis, but nevertheless Fear sensed danger.

The man who drew near was not a man at all. Not by his appearance. He was a shrivelled ugly thing with bluish white paper dry skin. Everything about him spoke of death, he even moved like one who had died and had forgotten to lie down. But it was his eyes, like two dead polished coals that made Fear shiver.

The cadaverous creature was less than 20 yards away now and only separated from Fear by the broken ditch that was left as a consequence of the earthquake.

“You are Dr Fear,” he said, his voice like sand running off parchment. “I have heard so much about you.”

“Draken, I presume,” Fear replied.

The warlock inclined his head in acknowledgement that suggested he was flattered.

“Where is Maiestatis?” Fear growled, he had no more time for minions.

“You will meet him soon enough,” Draken said sardonically.

Fear was on his guard now. What did this necromancer want with him if he had not come to fight? Surely he did not intend to die?

“So what business do you have with me?” the Black Mage asked.

“With you?” Draken sounded like one genuinely puzzled, “No my brother, you are for Maiestatis.”

Fear frowned. There was something he had missed. He had battled two demons now and Maiestatis was no greater than they? The Western Host had tried and failed to triumph and now they had a stalemate surely. That was why the demon hid from him?

“You speak in riddles dying one, or are you already dead?” Fear sneered. He had no understanding of this level of sacrifice. What did Draken have to gain? “What do think you do here?”

Fear readied himself to blast the creature out of existence, although a witch of the seventh circle would not go down so easily and this warlock had the power of the Triptych behind him.

“Do? I do nothing,” Draken said gently, “It is done.”

There was a shimmer and suddenly the magus found it hard to focus on the warlock. The natural elemental patterns were disrupted in a haze of Wild Magic and Fear knew that few if any of his colleagues would even have seen it. Then he realised, Draken believed himself invisible as he retreated back into the ranks of the Western Army. What was that all about? He wondered, suspecting that he had been distracted while some cunning trap had been set.

Fear gathered himself and braced against any unseen attack. But there was none. The sun still shone and the only sounds for the moment were the flies feasting on the dead and occasional cry of a dying horse. No, that was not all. There was a scrape to his left, like the claws of a dead rabbit on hard ground. Then he heard the metallic ring of a sword being taken up. Fear sensed dread and foreboding so strong that it was tangible, but there was no magic that he could discern.

Then a man he had previously taken to be dead staggered to his feet with a groan. Fear almost blasted him where he stood until he saw that he was of Precips; a marine from his light armour.

“You gave me a fright friend,” Fear said, relaxing a little, “Come on, let me help you back to the lines.”

The man grunted angrily and although Fear could not see his face, from the man’s posture he looked as if he was glaring at the enemy.

“Over here,” Fear called him, “This way. You are in no shape to fight again this day.”

The man ignored him and slashed angrily at the air with his sword. There was some clumsiness to his movement and the sword blow was inexpert. But who was he fighting?

Then Fear saw the reason. Another of the fallen men had gained his feet, this time one of the Westerners. Oh the gods, Fear cursed, there must be many wounded out here unattended.

The wounded Westerner was so battered that something reminded Fear of Draken as he lumbered awkwardly towards the other wounded man as if to do battle.

Fear might have dropped the lame soul, but he felt sorry for him and then he heard another scrape behind him. Turning he saw another warrior had risen, but this man was different. For all down his left side he was bloodied and Fear saw that not only did he have no arm, but half his face was missing. The man was as clearly dead as any the Magus had ever seen.

Then all around him corpses got to their feet lashing out the nearest mobile cadaver in a slow parody of a fight already lost. There were hundreds if not thousands of them now.

Fear backed away. An entire army of the dead had risen to refight the battle, broken warriors now all sharing gory damnation. There must have been half as many as there were yet living on both sides, Fear realised, but why?

Then far to the rear of the Western lines a horn sounded three times; a sound so low and ominous that Fear felt his teeth on edge and nausea tremble in his guts.

Then as one and in strange synchronicity, the entire army of the damned swung their dead faces to regard the Allied army on the rise above them and began to advance.

To be continued.

Maddy Merry sat back and examined the latest figures. The hotel had done well this quarter, in fact since the business with the crooked bar manager had been resolved the year before, things had gone very well.

The only fly in the ointment was Abaconti himself. Even after she had proved herself the old man had kept more than a weather eye on his first and favourite hotel and nothing she ever did quite entirely pleased him. She looked up at him as he stood framed by the window. She knew he was over sixty now, but although it showed in his face, his posture was firm and strong like his unrelenting eyes that seemed to watch her every move. So far the meeting had not gone well. Her buttocks clenched involuntarily and he had not responded favourably to her suggestion that he now relax his vigilance of her a little.

“There are bigger hotels in the chain, some of them in the most desirable locations on Earth,” Abaconti had told her the last time she had hinted that he should perhaps now back off, “You may have your pick.”

This time he had responded no more favourably.

“I just meant that… well I know we agreed that you would give me the same support and guidance as your daughter, I thought perhaps…” Maddy blushed.

Abaconti eyed her carefully weighing up every detail of what he saw. The woman had come a long way since her over confident debut in his service. Her dark red-brown hair was well-groomed and hung over one shoulder of her smart grey business suit in a striking braid. She had even taken to wearing trousers, albeit in a feminine style. But he still had plans for her, big plans and unless she wanted to wriggle free of his close supervision altogether then she would do it his way.

“You wish to end our arrangement?” he let the words hang.

“No I…”

“Good,” he said curtly. “Last quarter I set you three targets. You only had to meet one of them to escape my ire and achieve two to get another bonus. You remember I hope.”

“I got a cover story in the…”

“I got a cover story, you merely picked up the glory, which would have been enough I agree, but then we had that little matter with the prostitute in the bar,” Abaconti sighed.

“It didn’t make the newspapers I made sure…” Maddy explained.

“You tried your best to squash the story but again I have to report that it was my influence that swung it, so all in all I think target one, get us a higher profile came out as no-score draw, which in my book hardly counts,” Abaconti said dismissively. “So are the bookings up?”

“They are holding firm, but we raised the bar so high last quarter that I…”

“Are the costs down?” Abaconti said sharply.

“They are in general terms but the damn chandelier in the lobby needed unexpected repairs…” Maddy sounded strained, she knew that a cost was a cost, “I know, I know, expenditure was up by 2k,” a damn spit in the sea given the running costs for the hotel.

It was true, she had done rather well on the costs side of things and the target for bookings was all but impossible. But those were the breaks. If hadn’t been for the avoidable problem with the drunken sex worker in the bar he would have been pleased with her.

“Given our arrangement I think you need an incentive,” Abaconti said firmly.

Maddy blushed, she hated this part; the embarrassment was worse than the pain. But she nodded.

Abaconti brightened expectantly and there was an awkward silence. Last time he had caned her, but he had arrived with the wherewithal on account of an unresolved matter. More usually he applied the paddle to her bare bottom and that was in her charge. Her blush deepened.

“You want me to…” she swallowed.

“If you would,” Abaconti said with a tight smile.

Maddy got to her feet with slow deliberation and almost sauntered over to a locked cabinet on the far side of the office. The American sorority paddle was in plain view when she opened the mahogany door, the swirl of the knot in the wood like an accusatory eye. Above the blemish Greek letters were embossed on the hardwood surface, next to which were the words ‘To Mr Abaconti, with gratitude from the girls at…” she couldn’t read the Greek it had faded, but Maddy guessed it was the same as the lettering. Maddy licked her lips and reached for the tail-stinger, then paused.

“You know Mr Abaconti, a 34-year-old hotel manager getting a spanking is…” Maddy said, suddenly wheeling on her boss.

“Yes?” Abaconti asked, an edge creeping into his voice.

Maddy pouted and then turned back to retrieve the implement.

“I was only saying,” she muttered and then sheepishly stepped towards him and offered him the paddle.

“The usual position if you please,” Abaconti told her as he took the blade of wood.

Maddy sucked in her cheeks and made a quick about turn to approach her desk. The edge of the table-top made a line long the top of her thighs as she pressed against it and she sighed heavily. Then she unclipped her waist catch and unzipped the fly on her suit trousers letting them fall in a puddle at her ankles.

“That’s no way to treat clothes,” Abaconti tut-tutted her.

An impatient breath escaped Maddy’s lips and she stepped out of her suit bottoms and stooped to pick them up. Once she had hastily folded them and placed them on the desktop she grudgingly slewed around to face the desk again.

“Are you giving me attitude today?” he scolded her.

“No Sir,” she said quickly and slid her knickers down her thighs and stepped out of them too.

Abaconti studied her pale bare bottom for a moment and was about to press her further to prepare when she leaned forward and placed her elbows on the desk. This caused her moderate sized bottom to jut out at him, especially when she dipped her knees to support herself against the side of the desk.

“Thank you Miss Merry,” Abaconti said and made his approach.

The cold wood patted her behind and she did a little shimmy for him. He doubted that she realised this and patted her bottom again. This time she pressed her backside back some more and held it still.

He could see a slight tan-line and where the skin was palest she had small clusters of goosepimples, although there was no chill in the room.

The paddle landed with a mighty thwack and she grunted. Maddy hated the first one most. There was a disconnect between the swat and the expected pain which lulled her; not that it wasn’t hard. It was just that just as she thought she had coped, the delayed bite seared her and she struggled to hold position.

Abaconti spanked her again, this time harder and watched as the gooseflesh sharpen as a deep red flooded the impact area. Maddy made a strangled sound under breath and raised one leg at the knee.

Then he picked up the pace. Five swats landed in 30 seconds and she bucked and rocked over the desk, giving out gasping squeaks at the last two. She thought of two red coals turning slowly in the fire, but Abaconti settled for an image of a pair of ripe tomatoes. It was immensely satisfying, he had to admit.

“Mr Abaconti, I… I…” she made a grimace like a cold smile and a small hiss leaked from between her teeth.

Her bottom shimmied again and she did a slow little dance with her knees.

Once before she had jumped up and grabbed her bottom. Abaconti had put her in the corner and a half hour later had begun the whole thing over. It was good training and she never left position again.

The paddle having made seven visits already, landed again and she barked angrily. Tears spilled from her eyes now and she was breathing heavily.

“You take this much better than many I have had to spank,” Abaconti said.

“Thank you Sir,” she said in a strained voice.

Her bottom was puffy now and at the edge of the impact zone there were raised welts that looked more than a little sore. She was a two dozen girl if he remembered. That was where she broke. But she had done well and today it wasn’t necessary. But he did have to make a point. She would shrug off a mere dozen by the next day and he would have wasted his time.

Abaconti let her feel the blaze for a moment or two and then slowly, taking more than a minute, he added eight more biting blasts that made her yell and squirm. To his surprise she started to cry.

“Are you alright Miss Merry,” he asked paternally.

She couldn’t speak yet, so she nodded, but he noted that her knuckles were white where she gripped the desk.

“Two more and then we are done,” he said gently.

She nodded again and pushed her bottom back to brace it. There was that shimmy again, he thought.

She arched her back a brayed out, “Nyah,” as the penultimate swat landed, a sound she repeated with a concluding sob for the finale.

Then she hugged into the desk breathing rapidly through her nose until the boiling tumult in her bottom had subsided to partially bearable.

“Now Miss Merry, while I review all the books for this quarter you can go to the corner as usual and think on how you will meet the targets for our next meeting,” Abaconti said at last.

“Yes Sir,” she said in a very miserable voice.

Then with a careful gait she tottered to the corner and finally allowed herself a good cry.

Picture courtesy of Firmhandspanking.com

Harmony guessed she probably should have known. Probably nothing, she should have known. But somehow her temper and big mouth always got her into trouble. Just then the penny literally dropped and she growled in frustration. It had been her job to keep it pressed to the wall with her nose whilst holding her hemline up. But every time she moved the darn thing slipped and tumbled to the floor under the chair.

She quickly leaned back and close to panic she scanned the yard to see if he was coming back. The breeze chose that moment to pick up and the curtains to the French windows billowed-in and left her exposed to anyone in their or the neighbours back yard, which thankfully at the moment was nobody.

For some reason she hadn’t let go of the hem of her short A-line summer skirt, this even though there was nobody there to see. God he had her well-trained she scolded herself with a blush. But she had already cut way too big a portion of peril by doubting his resolve. Bare bottom corner time right next to the open French windows was about as much consequence as she could stand; especially when corner time came with the firm instruction that her panties had to be at her ankles. Not all the way off, mark you, but most definitely hobbling her around the ankles.

“If you even think about pulling them up, I will keep you like that for your chores for the rest of the weekend,” he had warned her, adding, “garden chores too.”

At 22, Harmony was a lively cheeky girl, and even if her mouth did sometimes run far too fast for her brain, she was popular with almost everyone. It was just that sometimes her fiery red-headed temperament got her in to trouble.

That was where Martin came in. At 28 he was the level head in their partnership, but then he needed to be. She had known he was the one since the day she had barbecued the 25-year-old grad student’s sneakers at the frat beach party in a fit of anger.

He had spanked her, right there in front of everyone and then told her, also in front of everyone that if she didn’t apologise he would spank her again on the bare bottom, right in front of everyone.

She had been a proud feisty 19-year-old back then and for the longest time she weighed the threat while everyone had laughed. To this day she didn’t know what she hoped would happen, but the die had been cast and seeing no way out she had offered him the bird with a double ‘fuck-you’ accompaniment.

He had effortlessly put across his knee and her shorts and panties had gone south and then she had learned of Martin’s resolve. It had taken until graduation to live down that summer of 1969 and by then they had been engaged.

Nor had that been the only time he had spanked her. He was the only man in her life who had ever known how to handle her and given her sassy mouth and temperament, that had meant spankings.

Mostly he had spanked in her in their bedroom using his hand. But sometimes, well quite often, if she were honest, he had spanked using her own hairbrush and then put her in the corner.

Corner time was a bitch, especially when she was required to stand bare-bottomed heedless of any friends or callers. Not that it was usually that overt. Mostly she had experienced being nose to the wall just yards from an unsuspecting visitor.

The worst and most embarrassing escapade had been when she had dared him to do his worst when her brother and sister-in-law had come for lunch one Sunday. He had spanked her soundly just half an hour before their arrival and she had still been in the corner as they had turned in the drive.

“Martin, please,” she had begged, “Come on…”

He had eyed her with that steely gaze of his.

“Do you promise to behave now?” he had asked.

Well she was standing in the corner of the family room wearing nothing but a tank top and her socks. So what else could she say but, “I promise.”

He had allowed her to put on an apron for the final preparations just as they entered the house. Even then her cherry red bottom had been left bare and she had had to keep her front forwards or stay behind the kitchen counter right up until she served.

“I should get changed first,” she had said pointedly while looking at Martin with pleading eyes.

He had broken off from a football story with Steve her brother to consider this. It had been one hell of a squirmy moment and not so much in a good way.

“I suppose you should,” he had said at last.

She must have looked comical as she sheepishly backed away from the counter. The glint in her sister-in-law’s eye suggested that she had at least half guessed what was going on.

All this had been before Martin’s trick with the penny.

Now often when she was out of line he made her hold a penny to the wall with her nose as she stood holding up her skirt behind. This was all very humbling and even a little embarrassing. Except that was when she had been spanked on a summer’s day with every window in the house open and made to stand in the corner by the open glass doors to the yard. Then it was very embarrassing.

And that was where she found herself today.

Harmony stole another glance into the yard then made an undignified scrabble on the floor to grab the penny. It was a bitch to place just so and almost impossible to do it unaided. But finally she got back into place.

Darn the man, she seethed. The last and only time he had caught her dropping the penny he had warned her that he would secure her thumbs behind her back the next time she was so careless. Then she would be spanked and have half hour added every time he had to reset the coin.

Outside she heard Martin at the gate and knew he was coming back. Harmony held her breath; maybe he would release her now? Then disaster struck.

“Martin,” said a masculine voice.

“Hey Frank,” Martin replied.

Frank was their neighbour, mercifully on the other side from the one that had an outlook into the room, which was just as well as he was almost always in his yard.

“I thought I heard some… applause earlier,” Frank said innocently, “Catching a game on TV?”

Harmony gaped into the wall and nearly dropped the penny again.

“No I have been checking out the car after…” Martin countered.

Darn the man, couldn’t he lie. But she knew Frank wouldn’t be fooled. She could almost hear his eyes swivelling towards the open yard door. Thank God Martin hadn’t put her in the opposite corner.

“Sorry about earlier,” Martin continued, “Was your car okay?”

“Oh sure,” Frank said dismissively, “She barely touched it.”

“Well… let me know if there are any damages and…” Martin began apologetically.

“Hey forget it,” Frank said expansively, “But hey, your wife,” he whistled, “She has some mouth on her.”

“Yeah,” Martin sighed, “Sorry about that.”

“Not that… you know, I’m just saying… I mean she was the one driving, I was just parked and I only ran over to see if she was okay,” Frank said placatingly.

“Yeah,” Martin sighed, “She was just scared, sorry about that.”

“Anyway, I’ll let you get back to the… eh… um… game,” Frank brought the conversation to a close.

Just then another voice came from outside.

“Hello Frank, Martin,” it was Mrs Pearson on the other side.

Harmony felt her heart surge with panic. The drapes were still or at least looked to be as far as she could tell from the corner of her eye, so hopefully she was still obscured from sight. But with two neighbours just yards from her place of shame Harmony was on tenterhooks.

“Hey Mrs Pearson,” Frank called over.

Harmony guessed from his silence that Martin had given the woman an unspoken greeting.

“Did anyone hear that spanking earlier?” Mrs Pearson asked as casually as she might have ordered bread. “Sounded like a girl, a big girl too. Aren’t your girls a bit old for a spanking Frank?” She sounded mildly disapproving, but it wasn’t clear if her displeasure was directed at the supposed naughty girl or the punishment.

Harmony went goggle-eyed and nearly swallowed her own head. Little flames touched her face and threatened to spread.

“Nah,” Frank chuckled, “My girls are still away with those friends of theirs at Lake Tahoe; been there since the semester ended.”

“Well I could have sworn that I heard an old fashioned spanking,” Mrs Pearson said, sounding aggrieved.

Harmony’s eyes darted back and forth as she pressed closer to the wall. Go away, she cursed the woman silently.

Someone coughed and Harmony imagined she could hear Frank’s embarrassment when he said, “I eh… thought I heard some applause earlier, maybe it was that.”

“No, this was definitely a spanking, believe me I would know,” Mrs Pearson said impatiently.

Harmony was about melt away when it got worse. A short gust of wind kicked up the drapes and exposed her to the yard.

“Oh my lord,” Mrs Pearson gasped. “Mercy me, can you see that?”

Harmony couldn’t help herself and the penny went tumbling to the ground with a tink-tink-tink and she whirled around to see the extent of her exposure. Mrs Pearson was gaping her direction with a shocked hand clamped to her mouth.

“Nope, not a thing,” Frank coughed, “See you Martin. Good luck with… the eh… the game.”

For a moment Harmony stood all a gangly with her panties plainly at her ankles framed by the door and then she dived for the drapes still dancing in the wind and tried to hide.

“Oh, oh I… I see,” Mrs Pearson spluttered, “I thought I heard a ruckus earlier… I mean… applause yes, I guess that’s what it was. Yes… I think I left the… goodbye Martin… oh… goodbye Harmony.”

The stop light-faced Harmony eyed the penny and wondered if there was any point picking it up as Martin came through the door.

“What did I tell you?” he said glaring at her and then the penny on the floor.

Harmony could only gape.

“The penny,” he sighed, “I told you not to move.”

“I know but…” Harmony wailed.

A moment later she was across his lap with her bottom bare again.

“Martin the door, the windows,” Harmony hissed.

Martin snatched up the hairbrush from where he had left it by the chair and let fly. The splat landing belied any handclap and must have been heard over on the street side.

“Martin,” Harmony screeched; her face screwing up as if she had been sucking lemons as her spanking began in earnest.

It took five more swats before Frank’s mower started up and a moment before that Harmony heard him cheerfully whistle. But by then she was already deep into full on broken boo-hoo sobs.

A cooling breeze for when she was back in the corner might be just the ticket, she thought miserably; so long as the wind wasn’t too energetic and Martin allowed her the luxury of closing the drapes again. God, she hoped he didn’t dream up any garden chores like he threatened.

The end

Somehow she knew before she did it that she shouldn’t. But it had ever been a battle between them. He would say ‘you can’t,’ ‘you mustn’t,’ and ‘don’t.’ And she would say, “I know” while thinking ‘only if you catch me.’ Well he had caught her red handed and it had happened again.

Now her world was all pins and needles and nervous nausea churning in her tummy. Almost worse was the zing of the bee-sting fire he had lit in her now exposed bottom. It was so hard not to rub and dance around the room while bawling like a kid. Well she had done enough of that today already with worse to come once the visitors had gone home.

Visitors, the worst word in any language, they would be here at any minute and why today?

“Please Sir, please, please, please, I’ll be good,” she had pleaded once she had got her breath back. “Spank me again, anything but that.”

“Oh I will,” he said in his stern baritone, “Later. But right now you get that cherry red behind of yours in that corner and stay there.”

“But… Kathy, Mark… don’t let them see me like this… please,” she begged.

This was another contest for them; ding-ding round three. She had lost the first two rounds already. Sometimes if she cried, if she promised, then he would relent, but only if she conceived of a very imaginative alternative and begged him for it. It was a funny sort of victory, but right now she would have taken it.

“Cane me, cane me hard. Make me do a thousand lines and cane me for every mistake, give me two thousand,” she wheedled, “Make me do it every week for a month and, and… ground me. Ground me with… with two hours corner time every night.”

This last promise could rebound too. What if they had visitors again? It was hard to imagine that they wouldn’t, not for a whole month. But that was her all over, she never thought ahead.

“Get your bottom in that corner where I can see it and don’t move until I tell you to,” he barked at her, “Or I will accept your suggestions and more on top.”

So round three had been dud too, she miserably thought – three falls and a submission. Now she was out for the count; red hair, red bottom and in the red corner.

A car pulled up outside and she jerked back to the present. Oh God, please, please, please let it not be them, please let them cancel. It was a long two minutes, but no doorbell rang.

Perhaps if they were late he would relent.

She thought about round two. The spanking had been bad, that is to say good. Well he would say so. “A good sound spanking,” he would say, but what was so good about it, she thought ruefully.

The evidence from round one had been irrefutable. There on the table had been exhibits one, two and three. The coat, the hat and the credit card statement: busted.

Ding-ding round two; “you wouldn’t dare.”

What a dumb thing to say, she could almost admit she deserved the spanking that followed.

He had given her that ‘look,’ the one that said, “Really?”

In return, and this was good, like she wasn’t in enough trouble, she rolled her eyes at him.

“Would you be so kind as to fetch your hairbrush?” Only it wasn’t a question.

“Oh come on,” she wailed, “Kathy and Mark will be here soon.”

“Better hurry then.” He had folded his arms.

She had refused. She had stamped her foot and refused. Well after she was out of earshot, she did.

“I won’t do it,” she said and repeated it all the way back before handing him the hairbrush.

“What was that?” he said sharply.

“Nothing,” she muttered, her eyes downcast, but then she quickly added, “Nothing Sir.”

Then it was over his knee and with her trousers and little cotton pants down. “Look I’m sorry,” she had said.

He let the hairbrush make his reply, loudly and fast so that the spanks sang back at her in an echo even as he spanked her again.

The gritting of the teeth stage was quickly overtaken by the ankle crossing and panting like a Labrador on a beach stage. Dogs didn’t sweat, was the idle thought that crossed her mind as she realised that she was. Then it was on to the barking stage. This was accompanied by the bucking and clawing at the crosspiece of the seat stage as the barking became more of a howl.

“I’ll be good, so good, please Sir, please,” the begging stage already, he must be pissed off with her.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she honked, her tears had real moisture in them, a veritable cascade of great rolling rivulets of water that ran with make-up down her face.

The prospect of the corner had seemed like a good thing then. Corner time and a good old rub and I’ll never be a naughty girl again. And so it went on, the same old same old.

But the corner wasn’t a good thing, especially when he hadn’t let her rub. She sniffed and risked a tiny probe around her backside with her fingers. But if he were to see… her hands were quickly snapped away.

The car outside seemed louder than the one before and she felt a fresh wave of tummy tingles. Maybe it wasn’t them, maybe… long minutes passed and she tried to let go of the apprehension, there was still time. Then the doorbell rang.

Ding-ding, round four was going to be hellish.

End

Our story began here.

Arch Magus
The sun was well towards the west now and the shadows of Timon’s eastern walls extended far out form the city towards the allied right flank. The late afternoon glow was slipping into a premature blood-red, casting a pall over the shambling army of the dead.

No doubt the allied commanders were casting anxious looks in the direction of the Pandoria contingent on that wing. But with Gort dead and Fear out on the battlefield there was no clear leadership among the Magister. All in all there were barely 20 fire adepts and mages in any case, and few others had offensive magic for this kind of warfare. So it was a wizard who spoke first.

“I have seen this before,” Dniester said quietly, “But never on this scale.”

Maxine swallowed hard unable to tear her eyes from the army of the dead as they advanced.

“Can they be killed?” Maxine asked nervously.

“Well technically not,” Dniester sounded as if he might chuckle at a private joke, “Being already dead, but they can be destroyed.”

Maxine and two or three of her colleagues swung around to confront the old wizard. But Dniester said no more and merely stroked his beard as he studied the latest development with academic interest.

“Well you old fool,” Maxine said urgently, “How?”

Dniester took a deep breath as if trying to recall and then said, “Hacking them up usually renders them ineffective; they are almost harmless if you can decapitate them.”

“Some of our men are beginning to run,” said an anxious young water adept. One of Maxine’s hangers-on Dniester didn’t wonder. She was certainly pretty enough.

“Fire is probably best, but unless it is well prepared mage fire it tends to take a while,” Dniester said absently. “I used to be able to toss a pretty good one as can some of you. But strictly speaking it is not my area.”

On the battlefield below a mass flight of arrows filled the sky and peppered the forward staggering cadavers so that many appeared as two-legged hedgehogs. It did nothing to even slow the advance.

Maxine was about to take command and try to send word to any of her colleagues who could use fire when around 50 head-sized globes arched high over the allied troops and landed with various degrees of effectiveness among the zombie army.

Perhaps 150 of the creatures were so badly charred that they fell destroyed. But twice that number staggered on more dreadfully than before, appearing now as human torches.

It was several moments before another rain of fire reached the death-ridden hoard and this had much the same effect.

“Well it’s working,” Maxine said tartly, “Sort of.”

By then the first of the zombies reached the forward edge of the allied troops. Dniester was particularly gratified to see a big fellow with an axe cleave one of the monsters down the middle. In fact all along the front the battle fared encouragingly well, but then the real threat became apparent.

For every three or four creatures felled, a mortal man went down to a bloody sword or spear. But a moment later the dead man got to his feet to join the walking dead.

Maxine gasped and clapped a shocked hand to her mouth.

“Even if the men stand, there will be too few to fight the living Westerners later,” she groaned.

“They won’t stand will they,” said Denton Barry, a white mage of some standing. “Come on, I know a few tricks, we have to stem this tide.”

“Where is he going?” Maxine wailed, “We need a plan.”

Dniester had finished pondering the problem and saw no easy solutions. But he did rather think that he knew what Denton might have in mind.

“Maestro, have you ever seen what a natural tornado can do to cattle on exposed ground?” he said by way of answer.

“He can do that?” Maxine gaped.

“As easily as you can bring a maelstrom to the sea,” Dniester chuckled.

Maxine whirled around with a fresh eye for the battle.

“This is too easy,” she yelled.

Dniester was nodding and in unison they said, “It’s a decoy.”

*

The witches had found a stand of trees to the north of the battlefield. Technically they were behind enemy lines, but since Fear had showed his hand the Westerners had fallen back somewhat to let the army of the dead do its work.

“If every dead soldier gets up again and fights for them, then, then…” Erin was in a panic. “We have to stop them, we just have to…”

Meredith was in agreement. She didn’t say that it was far worse than that. She didn’t say that if Draken had evoked a summoning and had broken down the very walls of death then there was no limit to what might rise in Maiestatis’s cause.

The elder witch looked at Amber who looked as sick as she felt.

“We must close the door,” Amber said.

“Close what door?” Tabitha asked. But she had never been so excited.

“Mother, will the…?” Meredith began.

“The summoning will end with Draken, but that is not the threat here,” Demdike crooned.

Amber rolled her eyes up as the seer went into another of her cryptic sermons.

“It seems pretty bloody threatening to me,” Erin shot back at her.

“Hold your tongue girl, have some respect,” Meredith snapped at her.

“The girl is right, Draken could win this fight alone, but it is not all that is at stake here,” Demdike replied.

Meredith and Amber looked at her and waited for some more words of wisdom.

“Well?” Meredith said at last, letting her impatience show.

“I cannot see… the Wolf is…” Demdike was shaking her head.

“Oh for f-flibbertigibbet’s sake,” Amber groaned.

“Never mind that now, let’s find Draken and end the bastard,” Meredith said sharply. “Demdike, cast the bloody runes and tell us what the heck is going on.”

*

Fear stood in the middle of a vast mob of the dead eyeing them with disgust. Not one of the creatures came to within a dozen yards of him and so far he had stayed his hand. Maybe they sensed he could smite them or maybe the compulsion they were under was too specifically focussed upon the Allied warriors.

From somewhere a wind tore at his coat and he hugged it close to his throat and blinked hard against the sudden rise of dust. Behind him a tornado of all things was tearing a swathe through the ranks of the dead hurling them into the air and smashing them to broken bones and pulp.

Fear shook his head, this gruesome army was all very spectacular but it wasn’t going to win the Wolf Lord’s war for him. The demon knew that and Fear did too. What had he missed? It was time, he decided, that he found out.

The march of cadavers had thinned out now and Fear was able to blast a great wedge of them from his path so that half a thousand shambling wretches were frozen black and brittle like a petrified forest. Then utilising an air magic spell that he should not have been able to master, he launched himself across the great ditch he had made and landed in no man’s land.

Quietly over the years he had dabbled in magical pursuits outside his discipline and struggled, albeit less than he should. Now he felt invigorated. The short jump-flight manipulations of the Air patterns had been too easy.

“I have never been so strong,” he said aloud in wonder.

It should have been a troubling thought, but he had too much to do to dwell upon it.

*

With no time for fancy tricks like the stunt Draken pulled with his invisibility, Fear opted for a heat haze wall between him and the Western Host. The last thing he needed was to ward off over eager arrows. Not until he had located Maiestatis anyway.

The haze would make it hard for the enemy’s eyes to identify him and allow him to draw in close. But maybe that was the Wolf Lord’s plan. To draw the only one who might yet destroy him onto his ground.

Fear stopped and scanned the patterns, first one at a time and then overlaid so that he could see any signs of Wild Magic in the spaces between.

He drew a sharp breath and studied the weave of reality anew, his heart rate rising and the sweat pricking his palms. Something was wrong. He shook his head. There was nothing amiss as such and yet… He looked again at the ground and at the sure firm Earth which was his chief domain. The border between the ground and the air was stark where the afternoon sun beat down upon it, stark hard and… cold; why cold?

The ground was absorbing heat far faster than it should. Fear scanned hard, relaxing his mind so that he might glean patterns of Wild Magic. The ground was wrong somehow, he knew it and yet there was nothing wrong.

Then little by little he saw the corruption, at first just small twists in the Earth lines and then whole bulges in the ground where it should be flat. Looking with his eyes he saw nothing. But something made him step backwards.

Then trampled turf began to tear and rip apart from beneath.

“What in hades…?” he gasped and braced at the air with is staff.

The horse head was a surprise. It was mundane thing of ancient bone and rancid clay. The head was quickly followed by two twisted hooves that the creature used to drag itself from the broken ground. Then once it staggered onto the grass Fear saw that it had but three legs and could only lurch with a stuttering gait.

The rat-like slugs that tumbled out of the hole in the equine beast’s wake were far more disturbing. There were hundreds of them, all fossilised skin and teeth. Then as Fear watched, every creature that had ever died on this ground erupted out and clawed their way from hell onto the once clean soil of the world.

“Behold Maiestatis’s world,” Fear muttered under a bitter breath.

It was not just the one hole that opened, but all across no man’s land dozens of pits twisted apart spewing forth lions, tigers and bears, all rancid with decay and advanced fossilisation and all lumbering in one deadly direction.

Fear ran strategies through his mind and wondered how far this canker could spread; how many tornados, he wondered, could smash this bestial army?

Then he saw not one, but two skeletal dragons lunge from the ground and silently croak fireless breath as they impotently tried to fly. Fear shuddered. These creatures must be ancient and the gods alone knew what else would come.

“Tell me,” pain whispered in his ear, “Could you not extinguish such lowly ones from your world?”

Fear was on his guard, but apart from the growing menagerie of the dead, he could see nothing this side of the enemy lines.

“Unleash your power, break these ancient bones,” the tortured voice hissed.

Fear was calm now and tore at the veils of the world with his sight. Hell was erupting all about him so that he saw the world in darkness; a mirror of the one that men saw. For here, where it should be light it was dark and where natural shadows should be there was crystal white frost.

Amid it all was Maiestatis grinning with agony and watching him with cold burning eyes.

There is a trap here, Fear thought, but where?

“At last foul one,” he sighed, “I have come to send you back to hell with your brothers.”

“Oh why bother dark one, for can’t you see that I bring hell to me,” Maiestatis sighed with a voice like ice.

“I see it,” Fear replied, “But it is too cold for hell, surely?”

“Hell is how I devise,” Maiestatis challenged.

“No,” Fear spat, “How I devise.”

The ground then began to tremble. A little at first and then with the power of the earthquake he had wrought earlier that day.

“Shake harder little man,” the Wolf chided the Mage, “Maybe you can rattle those bones.”

“Rattle? Or burn?” Fear shot back.

As he spoke the ground across the plain fractured, not as with the quake, but like shattered glass. Then glowing red it began to boil as lakes of lava spewed from pits and crevices of the day’s magical battles.

Maiestatis did not linger and fled the way he had come, but Fear did not see where.

“I’ll settle with you later,” Fear roared and then turned his attention back to the sea of fire he had created.

The ground was gone now, giving way to a lake of liquid rock that oozed like smoking mud sucking in the ancient dead and incinerating them as they drowned.

“My poor, poor pretty’s,” Maiestatis sang in his ear, “But Draken can soon make me more. We will fill the whole world with its dead.”

*

Tabitha heard it first. It was an unearthly scream that made her think of a bandersnatch. The coven as one dropped to a crouch and hid behind what little cover the undergrowth offered.

“That was close to,” Amber hissed.

They had been skirting the battlefield for an hour now, several times having to press deeper into the scrubby woodland that lay to the east to avoid detection.

They had been following Gasgook who sensed, so he said, a great source of Wild Magic beyond the enemy’s right flank.

“Wouldn’t Draken be with the Wolf Lord at the heart of the army?” Erin had asked.

“Well if he is then he will be beyond our reach,” Meredith had sighed, “But if I remember the wretch, that would not be his style.”

“Besides, if Gasgook is right, then what else is on the eastern flank? We should investigate at least,” Amber had agreed.

So little by little they had picked their way through silver birch and dwarf oaks, whilst hiding or hexing their way past outriders.

Once they had encountered a whole troop of cavalry. Tabitha had coaxed each horse like ptarmigan for supper and away from the others where the rider had been dealt with in turn. But it hadn’t taken long for their comrades to catch on that their fellows had gone into the undergrowth and were not coming back

Then it was if all hell had come a calling. But these men were no priest-witches and after Meredith had worked a transmogrification spell leaving two riders sitting astride bears, the scouts had fallen easily.

“Some of the horses escaped,” Tabitha cursed.

Meredith frowned and did some hasty thinking.

“Turn the wounded and captives into… squirrels for a day and leave the rest to the bears,” she said hastily. “That ought to confuse them for long enough, by morning we will be gone.”

Amber didn’t like it. All this magical activity so close to the enemy was bound to draw some unwelcome attention. But there was nothing else for it.

After that Tabitha, who was a huntress of old, took the lead and the coven ranged even wider into the woodlands.

Then they had heard the scream.

“What was that?” Amber hissed.

“I don’t know, but it came from where I sense a strong presence,” Gasgook said calmly.

“I’ll go and look,” Tabitha whispered and before anyone could speak she was gone.

Meredith looked at Amber and they exchanged their fears. Suddenly ranging behind enemy lines to hunt the world’s second most dangerous enemy didn’t seem so intelligent.

But Draken was one of their own and the damn Magister, with a few exceptions, were not best placed to deal with him. Amber took a small gulp.

Among the coven, she, Gasgook and Meredith touched upon the Sixth Circle in power. However, Draken’s gifts lay well within the Seventh and who knew what powers the Triptych had granted him.

Just then something broke through the undergrowth and Amber drew her witch knife. It was Tabitha.

“It’s a… a kind of man… I think… I think…” Tabitha swallowed hard.

“Draken,” Meredith said with some distaste.

“He doesn’t look too good,” Tabitha said breathlessly.

“He never did,” Meredith said, pulling a face.

“No, I mean he is crouching down, like he is in pain,” Tabitha gushed.

Her chest was heaving and there was a sheen of sweat on her naked thighs. The witch was wearing no more than a singlet and knife belt and for a moment Amber wondered why Fear hadn’t chosen her over Katrin. But then she blushed, the thoughts betrayed her own tastes, not Fear’s.

Erin saw the direction of Amber’s gaze and scowled.

All this was missed by Meredith who stared at the trees ahead as she wrestled with her fear.

“It’s now or never then, let’s go,” Meredith said in a determined voice.

*

Draken had never doubted before, not since he had first chosen to serve Maiestatis. The demon had known things about Draken that no one and nothing else could have; his omnipresence was godlike. Until now the warlock had never doubted the final victory.

The Wolf Lord had augmented Draken’s power over the dead beyond anything he could have gained form a hundred years of study. Furthermore he had promised his chief servant immortality. But now he thought on it, Draken remembered all the evasive cryptic answers to his questions and further he remembered how many servants had fallen to the demon on a whim.

Somewhere a bird sang to taunt him and he became aware of the hard ground beneath his knees. It made him feel… he choked on a sob, mortal. And just when had he fallen to his knees? Then he remembered the sudden pain, the all-encompassing soul-reaving that he had felt when Fear had destroyed his creatures.

Draken looked around and saw that the sun was now low to the horizon and just scraping the tree tops in the direction of the battlefield. But that was not the only glow in the sky. A great fire was burning and the smell of ash and smoke was carried to him on the breeze.

Just as the Magister had crushed his zombie hoard, so Fear had destroyed his second army of the dead; the real one, the one that had counted. But Maiestatis saw everything, he must have known that Fear had such power he must have known… what? The world was wheels within wheels and Draken had been above it all, on top of everything with the Wolf Lord, the Warmonger, but it wasn’t so. Draken was just one more deception, one more decoy for Maiestatis’s hidden hand.

Well he was not done yet. He still had the power, he still had it all. He would raise a still greater host of demon spawn to rule the world. He would raise everything that had ever lived, ever died, fish or foul, beast or man…

Deep into his schemes, Draken did not see the semi-circle of women and one man closing on him. He did not see the present leader of his old coven muttering ancient words and preparing to strike.

Meredith had never been more afraid; she had more cause than most to fear the warlock. But if Meredith was afraid there was another who was terrified.

For Amber, Draken had been the subject of her nightmares for years. She remembered now the baby and the girl in the woods. She remembered Tobias and…

Draken stiffened and a cold calculating cunning crossed his features. His smile was visceral and never once touched his eyes as he sniffed the air.

“Fee foe fie fum…” he chuckled, “Welcome sister Meredith,” his gaze shot around to stare at the witch, “Welcome sister Amber,” and then whipped around to confront Amber. “You will all make pretty recruits for my army of the dead.”

Hemple screamed then and breaking discipline she ran at the warlock bearing her knife.

Draken directed a half-hearted fist at her and then opened it with a five finger point. Hemple was thrown back and slammed hard into the ground. That he did not kill her betrayed his confidence.

Gasgook made a two handed gesture that echoed Draken’s own and a gust of wind blasted at the necromancer stinging at his flesh.

It seemed to Amber then that darkness fell and all that had been vibrant was now grey and dead. She added her power to that of Gasgook’s and felt Draken’s in return.

“What do you do Greydove? You think I will roll-up into a worm or a rat for you?” Draken sneered.

Erin who had been thinking of doing that very thing hesitated and took a step backwards. It was then that Hemple rushed at Draken again. As she launched herself a shimmer surrounded her and twisting in the air she fell as a sandy brown rabbit in a heap on the floor.

Angrily Erin cast and Draken actually staggered before turning on her the young witch.

“You have some power little one,” Draken chuckled patronisingly, “Pity it is so wasted here. Now you will die.”

The simple pronouncement chilled Erin to the core.

“No foul creature, no,” Gasgook yelled and with an onrush of power he charged and actually knocked Draken back two yards.

Amber too chose the moment to strike and the smell of sulphur burned in her nose. The resistance was incredible and something rent at her existence and she glimpsed her own mortality.

“You cannot beat us all,” Meredith said with more conviction than she felt and ripped at his throat with her mind.

“Three such powerful ones,” Draken hissed, “So close to overmatching me, so close, but…”

All three of his attackers were blasted back. Perhaps because he had plans for them, Amber and Meredith landed hard, but were alive. Gasgook was not so lucky. He seemed to twist where he stood and then burst open like a melon on a rocky road.

The remaining witches screamed in anger and frustration and one or two rushed at the warlock as Hemple had done, instantly meeting the same fate. To their credit the other women did not flee, but held the circle casting for all they were worth. They were many, but it was hopeless.

Draken had not seen the girl who jumped on his back until that moment. She was a small dark creature with a look of the Southern Desert about her; a Silver Shore girl, no doubt. He shrugged her off with a spell.

Tabitha felt the searing heat of a force emanate from Draken as she clung about his shoulders. It almost threw her, but she could see the patterns of it as Fear had taught her. It was a laughable attempt, she thought as she countered it.

Draken gaped and suddenly confused began to stagger and claw at the girl on his back.

“You cannot…”

Tabitha bit him and wrapped her legs around his chest. She could hold her own as well as his, she laughed inwardly at the pun, but the man was no ptarmigan and her offence for now was purely physical. He could shrug off her hexing as easily as she could his.

“Tabitha, flee,” Amber wailed in despair.

Draken growled and prepared to end the bitch Sage once and for all.

It was then that Tabitha remembered the witch knife Meredith had given her. Launching herself upwards she clasped now it two hands and blessing it with her will she plunged it deep between Draken’s neck and his collar bone.

“No,” Draken gasped, “No.”

Tabitha was finally thrown clear as the necromancer clutched impotently at the hilt of the knife protruding from his shoulder.

“No,” he said again, “I am immortal.”

Then he fell dead.

*

Fear felt Draken’s demise and knew that no more creatures would rise from the ground. Not that there had been any immediate danger of that. For where there had been largely flat grass, now lay an expanse of orange lava oozing to find its level and already crusting a brownish-grey on its surface.

This last effect Fear encouraged by extracting and dissipating the heat so that glowing cracks formed around small islands of rock that slowly merged together. The scar of the land would last for centuries perhaps, a permanent mark on the landscape where the Battle of Timon had been fought.

It had been hard to control such power and Fear had once again had to resort to the Ubermind, that separation of his dispassionate and his emotions selves. He felt like a god.

As if from above he imagined that he saw all the armies of the world laid out, each warrior carved on his mind, each a small play thing to be snuffed out or preserved. Now it was time to end this, the Western Host was his to destroy.

“It feels good doesn’t it?” like the lava Maiestatis oozed into his consciousness. “One such as you has not walked this world for a thousand years.”

“One such as I?” Fear asked, only vaguely curious now, for such concerns were beneath him.

“An Arch Magus, a master of his crafts and one who can draw upon the Wild Magic as if of the Seventh Circle,” Maiestatis hissed into the void of Fear’s mind. “You have even drawn upon the Air Magic and perhaps Water too, haven’t you? These arts should be closed to you, or would be if you were not as you were.”

“There is no such thing as an Arch Magus,” Fear muttered with what was left of his emotion, but the last of his self-denial and modesty was crumbling. Dispassionately however he knew that Maiestatis was right. He had changed and had been changing since… all his life had led to this moment. It was an epiphany and he surrendered to it.

“Draken was weak, it was always you Arlon Fear, always you,” Maiestatis said silkily. “This body of mine, this king will die soon, the vessel of yours, its power allied to mine… oh think, think.”

There was a pleading tone hinting at hope and fear.

“You are nothing,” Fear said absently, “I destroyed your brother before the Triptych was realised.”

“No, that was not it at all,” Maiestatis’s voice but a breath now, a breath that touched Fear’s lips as closely as his own.

Just a little closer, just one or two more breaths and they would be one.

“The Triptych cannot be destroyed, just the hosts, by destroying my brothers you set them free and the three became one in me,” Maiestatis continued, his explanation occupying all that was left of the one who was once Arlon Fear.

“But you needed the girl,” Fear frowned; something was troubling him still, something he could not quite let go. The girl was it? What girl?

“She was unimportant, her early subjugation would have merely ensued this outcome all the sooner,” Maiestatis sounded impatient and just a little further away.

Fear nodded, another decoy then, it was unimportant he supposed, but still there was something.

“Fear, Arlon,” the voice called, it was very far away, “Master please.”

“You are just a decoy,” Fear muttered, the Ubermind was him he was the…

“I love you,” Katrin yelled.

She had come across the battlefield as soon as the Magister had destroyed the army of the dead. Even then it was all but impossible to get across the lake of fire until it cooled.

She felt the hot sticky ground even now. There was a disgusting smell where the leather of her boots had begun to burn.

“Arlon,” she screamed once more and then almost angrily she barked, “Look at me.”

“Who orders Fear?” Fear snapped and turned from Maiestatis who was no more an arm’s length away now.

Katrin looked so small and vulnerable to the Arch Mage Fear, he should do something, shouldn’t he?

“Arlon,” Katrin was pleading, not knowing what to say.

The demon was near, right there, but Arlon just stood in a stupor. What was wrong with him?

“Fear, forget the girl, look at me,” Maiestatis snarled.

As he spoke he grabbed Katrin as if he had a great invisible hand and tossed her in the air to dash her into the ground. The Ubermind saw it all, the tendrils of Wild Magic in the patterns were as clear to Fear as those of the Earth or Fire. He twisted them with is mind, unspinning them as he traced them back to his source.

“Leave her be if she is so unimportant,” Fear snapped at Maiestatis.

“As you say Arch Mage,” Maiestatis said hastily. He seemed afraid now.

“Why was she so unimportant? Why did you want her?” Fear was asking himself now, as if there was something just out of the reach of his mind.

“Arlon, come back to me,” Katrin yelled.

This happened once before, when I… when she… I lost her, Fear remembered.

“Katrin,” he yelled, “Get out of here.”

Just in time Fear stepped between a blast from the Wolf Lord and his beloved apprentice. He was sent sailing across the smouldering plateau of cooling lava.

“Fool, you could have had the world,” Maiestatis sneered.

As Fear gained his feet he could see the Wolf Lord for what he was. Not the broken war chief the demon had subsumed but the shades of shimmering patterns of something that was not quite right. It was the same canker he had seen within Katrin on the day he had cured her, on the day the he had last been lost to the Ubermind. He had so nearly lost her again, he knew.

“Fool? Not I,” Fear sighed, “I already have the world.”

He smiled at the still terrified Katrin and then turned to confront Maiestatis.

“Will you blast me with lava? Send a tornado of fire to engulf me?” the Wolf Lord laughed mirthlessly. “Little Man.”

Fear frowned and then reaching out with his mind seized the cankerous patterns wrapped around the captured soul and unpicked them.

“Impossible,” Maiestatis screamed. “What are you doing?”

Fear adopted his customary posture and leaned on his staff as he spoke.

“It is called magic,” he said.

And then the last of the demon was unbound and the shell that had once been a man fell to the ground.

“Thank you,” the prince said as he died.

“Arlon,” Katrin wailed and rushed at Fear and seized him into her arms.

“I told you to stay behind,” he scolded her.

He didn’t sound like he was about the compromise just then, but Katrin didn’t care.

“Is it over, is it?” Katrin sobbed.

Fear sighed and turned towards the Western Army. It still outnumbered the Allies by a healthy margin, but left to a conventional fight King John and Peron would prevail eventually. But too many would die.

*

Lord Commander Varis of the West stood morosely trying to get his head around recent events. He was a big man who had long been a general. But still he had never thought to be first commander.

Now he had to weigh his options and it seemed prudent to hear the enemy out. Maybe the way things were they were ready to surrender, but one look at the damn magus in black told him that it wasn’t so.

The Shadow Dreamers had fled with the fall of the War Chief and he noticed that the three or four mages that had rallied to their cause were nowhere to be seen. Still he had witches and sorcerers aplenty yet to draw on, loyalist from the west that were not so faint of heart.

He had accepted a summons to meet with King John and the Magus. And the small contingent now stood at the edge of the lava field eyeing each other like cats on a garden fence.

“What terms do you demand?” he decided to bluff it out.

“I can answer that,” Fear said.

The new Arch Mage indicated the lava field and then put is face close to Lord Varis’s ear.

“You agree to surrender unconditionally and I agree not to open up the regions first volcano under your camp,” Fear hissed.

Varis gulped and glanced at King John and then back at Fear. Then with the smallest of motions he nodded.

And so ended the Battle of Timon and the War of the Shadow Dreamers as it would come to be known

To be continued.

Carrie gave a heavy sigh and put down the book in frustration. Her book, Spanking Tales for Girls, was one of her favourites, but sometimes she didn’t want to read about spanking she just wanted…

She sighed again. At 28 she should be out clubbing or joining a BDSM club or something, not moping around expecting the world to come to her. She was pretty enough, even she knew that. Her thick red shoulder-length hair was close enough to auburn to turn heads in the street and she had a good figure. Although the later came from hours of running to work off her frustration.

Carrie sighed yet again and put the book away behind a tome on UK Tax Law 1927-1939; it had had dust on it before she adopted it as her hiding place.

The Christmas wish list was a tradition going back to her childhood, but sometimes it felt a bit silly for a woman pushing 30. Especially when she could never even write down what she really wanted, let alone have any real expectation of getting it.

She picked up the blue Basildon Bond leaf again and rolled her eyes up at the childish green ink she had written in. It was complete with big circles instead of points on her i’s and j’s. In her mind the note read: one overlarge spanking rugby player, one headmaster from the 1930s, two ninja spanking assassins and… she could plausibly write volume two of Spanking tales for Girls, but she didn’t have the nerve.

Carrie ran her eye down the list of stockings, perfume and music and then added the Time Out Movie Guide. Then again she sighed.

She much preferred the list she hadn’t written: one overlarge spanking rugby player, one headmaster from the 1930s, two ninja spanking assassins and… and a good sound spanking on account.

With two weeks to go to the big day (well the small slowly paced day that was never as big as you hoped it would be) Carrie went to bed in readiness for the final push on the shopping front.

That night she dreamed that it snowed and that the sound of sleigh bells had awoken her. Looking out the window she dismissed the sudden appearance of Victorian lamp posts, the unexpected arrival of so much snow in mid-December and the total lack of cars in the street. But she was rather puzzled by the sleigh that sat in the middle of a car-free street.

Pulling on her thick soft robe she yawned and stumbled down the stairs to the front door. But to her surprise it was wide open and thick drifts of snow and brought the street idyll into the house.

It was then that she noticed two things. One that the lounge door was also open and two that there was now a great big open fire roaring away in what had been a thoroughly bricked-up fireplace before she had retired to bed.

“No wonder it’s not cold,” she muttered entering the room.

For some reason she thought she had better check on her list before going back to bed, although it was the security of the hidden book she was really concerned for.

“Is this what you are looking for?” said a voice.

Startled, Carrie whirled around and saw a small man sitting cross-legged on the arm of the armchair. He was dressed in the semblance of Christmas Fair Elf or Santa’s helper and smiling mischievously at her.

The strange creature was holding her list in his hand and was perusing it with interest. Only it wasn’t the list she had written in green ink on the Basildon Bond, but the one she had composed in her head.

“Interesting wish list you have here,” the elf, if that was what he was, said.

Carrie blushed.

“I didn’t write that,” she blurted.

“Oh I know,” the elf said silkily, “And that’s another thing, making false wishes is a crime where I come from, he may punish you for that later.”

Carrie blushed even more. Somehow she didn’t need to be told who ‘he’ was. Once she had seen an elaborate copperplate engraving of an old style pagan Father Christmas with a box of birch rods in the back of his sleigh alongside the sacks of toys and parcels.

“’He’ doesn’t even exist,” Carrie said defensively.

“Oh, you’re really gonna get it now,” the elf said in a sing-song voice and chuckled.

Carrie gulped and somehow believed the little man, but instead of fear she felt a strange excitement in her tummy and a sense of expectation.

“Why are you here anyway?” Carrie said sullenly.

She often became rude when she was nervous or scared.

“Oh, but to give your first gift on account,” the elf said smoothly with another smile.

“My first…” Carrie thought about the rugby player and blushed.

She turned to look hopefully at the door for any sign of a large square-shouldered man with big hands. Maybe the elf thought she was going to flee for in a moment he had grabbed her and upended her across his surprisingly large and frim lap.

“Look you can’t do this…” she spluttered, “I mean… I mean… it is just in books and… and…”

Carrie became more and more uncertain as one by one the elf trundled up the layers of her clothes until he had exposed her baggy sleep-shorts.

“Plenty to work on here,” the punitive elf chuckled.

He patted her bottom twice before tugging the shorts over Carrie’s two firm hills of flesh.

Carrie, who at once wanted to run and to stay, was panting hard and she experienced feelings normal reserved for her dreams about Brad Pitt. But come to think of it they often ended up with her in much the same position.

“What are you doing?” she squealed dutifully. It was her usually instinct to be dense about anything to do with spanking when it came up lest anyone guess.

“A good sound spanking on account,” the elf chuckled.

His hand stung her bottom more sharply than she was expecting and she yelped. Nor were the next dozen swats any softer and soon her laboured breath took on a fury of its own and she began to struggle.

“You can’t do this… this is… someone might see,” Carrie wailed.

“No, not at all, not today at any rate,” the spanking elf reassured her, “But that may come later.”

The elf spanked her for what seemed like hours and whenever she found the breath or the will to complain he merely reminded her that she had requested ‘a good sound spanking’ and that would take time.

“Personally I would put you in the corner afterwards too and have you there to greet the rest of the household with bare bottom displayed when they got up, but I have to stick to the letter of your wish list,” her spanker said.

Finally after a long, long time she was unable to hold out and a small chuckle of tears erupted from her and she began to cry.

“Tsk, tsk, tears at your age, you wait until he deals with you, then you’ll know crying,” the elf said in disgust. “Okay, you’re done.”

Carrie was suddenly set on her feet where heedless of her dignity she proceeded to bounce around the room with her hands clamped to two hot bottom cheeks.

“You have 12 gifts, remember the song; your list is still incomplete. Make sure you choose wisely,” the little man added, but he sounded rather faint now, as if he was fading.

“That hurt you… you… owwie,” she wailed and twisted her head around to try and inspect the damage. Her bottom was like two smooth holly berries and hotter than a Christmas toddy.

Then in all her thrashing about she realised that she was encased in her bedclothes and light was pouring through the bedroom window.

Although clearly she had been dreaming the intensity clung to her as if she had bathed in treacle and she tried to hold on to it with a growing sense of grief. But in a moment only the sting in her bottom remained.

“Damn I must have…” she couldn’t think what she had done to hurt her tail end, but whatever it was had fed into the dream.

It took her a moment to clamber sleepily from bed and then with her back to the mirror she pulled down her shorts. To Carrie’s astonishment when her bare bottom burst over the elastication of her sleepwear it held two smooth raspberry red ovals and was not a little hot and sore.

For a brief moment Carrie felt as she was falling and her heart lurched. Then she saw the little man sitting cross-legged on the shelf behind her in the mirror. He winked.

When she turned around she was alone.

She had all the answers. She would turn up and then give him a piece of her mind. What did he know anyway? He was so old, he must be 60 at least, well 50 anyway.

She made it all the way down the hall with that attitude and knocked. Anyway, she was way too angry to wait this time, especially when she knew he would take his own sweet time answering, so she breezed in and threw his office door open wide.

“Come…” he began.

He had that hard look as if he was permanently angry and now his expression darkened as he scowled at her. For the first time she felt a hint of uncertainty.

“Miss Anwar…” he said sharply, but somehow he didn’t look surprised.

“Mr Cohen I have to say…”

“Miss Anwar,” he barked, cutting across her. “Turn around and go outside. Then you will knock and wait.”

His steel grey eyes regarded her carefully, almost disdainfully. What was she wearing, he thought? And her hair, it was more mutilation than style; grunge maybe, or had that fad passed? And what did she mean by coming into his office with ripped attire, what was she spending her clothing allowance on?

For her part she had become flustered by his stern manner and for a moment she forgot what she was going to say.

“Miss Anwar,” he snapped, “Get out.”

She jerked and with a heavy roll of her eyes turned around and stormed out. This time she knocked heavily, letting her annoyance show. A minute passed while she tick-tocked her head back and forth indolently waiting for his moment of petty power to pass.

“Come… in,” Cohen said at last.

She sighed belligerently and again swept into the room.

“Listen Ben,” she began.

“Ben,” he gasped, “Miss Anwar, this is not an art school, I am the director of apprentices and you will address me as Mr Cohen or Sir. Even if we were on first name terms, which we are most definitely not, then my name is Benjamin…”

“Whatever,” she sighed impatiently and rolled her eyes again. “What I want to know is, how come you took me off…”

Cohen slowly stood up and bellowed at her with his eyes.

“Wh-what?” she asked, a further hint of uncertainty creeping into her voice.

“What you want to know is of no particular concern to me at this moment,” Cohen said icily, “What I want to know is why you are wearing that… deviation from the college dress code and who the hell you think you are, bursting into my office like this?”

“This…?” she said puzzled, her hands indicating the strategically spliced drainpipes and overlarge wasp patterned mohair slop-top.

“Is this your way of telling me you are leaving us?” Cohen pressed her.

She frowned and became startled. She was here to tell him what was what, but things were getting away from her.

“No I…” she said hesitantly and then more snootily, “What you on about?

“What am I…? Miss Anwar, take those, those… clothes out of my office, in fact take them off college property altogether and come back tomorrow suitably attired to make an appointment to see me,” Cohen snapped out commandingly. “Then once we have discussed your behaviour and the disciplinary consequences of this outrage, then and only then might we discuss your concerns.”

“This is bullshit,” she snapped angrily, “Anyway, tomorrow will be too late, the course starts tomorrow morning and you have to…”

Cohen heavily sucked in air and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t have to do anything. One more word, just one and I will take a cane to your bottom,” he said softly.

“Do what?” she said incredulously and sniggered. “What you on about?”

“I said, and here you are skating on the thinnest of ice, that if you do not shut up and leave this office at once to return at an appropriate time in a more respectable mode of dress then I will resort to corporal punishment,” he hissed, “To whit, the cane. I am sure you have heard of it.”

She laughed nervously.

“But… but that’s…”

“You know that it is still an option at this establishment, it was even in the newspapers; I assume you can read. You even signed the agreements and no doubt sniggered during the induction speech by the head of college,” he said wearily.

“Yeah but… it’s not real is it? Not really real I mean,” she spluttered, “It is like one of those weird shit things from the olden days, like the Queen owning all the swans, Texas still having slavery on their statute books or… or Berwick-Upon-Tweed still being at war with Germany… Ain’t it?”

Cohen considered this for a moment and then nodded sharply. Then with slow deliberate movements he walked across the room and opened the far cupboard. From inside he pulled at something that clanked and rattled before coming away in his hand.

Anwar could see that it was a rather knotty sand-coloured stick that was about a meter long. At one end there was a curve which formed a handle like a classic cane from an old movie or St Trinian’s.

He sliced it once through the air and made her jump.

“This was once in regular use here. Being… and here I use the word loosely, an adult college, CP was never formally abolished when the law changed. I used to use it on a weekly basis up until the millennium, but since then it has rather fallen out of fashion. Most apprentices opt for alternative sanctions and the college insists that I give them every opportunity to do so.” Cohen’s fulsome monologue was greeted in stunned silence.

Anwar visibly gulped and she suddenly felt rather light-headed.

“You mean that instead of all the fines I paid and that three-day exclusion last year…” she said in a strained voice.

“I mean that now you have been warned I will cane your bare bottom if you say another ill-considered word and do not leave my office at once.” Cohen held the cane to his chin and flexed it with both hands.

She nodded gently and stared at him with a horrified fascination. Then after a moment she held up one tentative finger.

“Yes Miss Anwar,” he said wearily.

“When you say disciplinary what’s its and having me come back…? Am I going to get suspended again?”

Cohen appeared to consider this for a second and then muttered, “Very likely.”

“And the fine…? Last time I had to pay 50 quid and they said next time… and anyway, if you don’t listen now then… then… well that training I want starts tomorrow, if I am suspended I’ll miss it,” she sounded almost contrite now and added, “Eh… Sir.”

“Yes well, the old days did have their advantages didn’t they? Perhaps next time you will…” Cohen sighed.

“Okay,” Anwar said suddenly, “I’ll do it, I mean… I’ll do it the old way Sir, if I don’t get suspended or a fine.”

Cohen frowned.

“Are you bargaining with me Miss Anwar? I warn you I don’t do bargains,” he said.

“No…” she said slowly, “But if… I mean… you’ll be fair and… and…”

He sighed. It hadn’t been so long he supposed. He shrugged and went back to the cupboard. He put the cane back and took out two more things and returned to his desk. One was another cane, a slightly less intimidating one. The other was a triple form in white, green and pink.

“I fill out the details afterwards. For now sign the consent form and then take those ridiculous clothes off. All of them,” he told.

“You want me to…” she tugged at the mohair and gaped.

“I am going to go down the hall for a short while. Before I go you will sign the form and then I will leave you. When I get back I will find you naked and bending across the desk with your hands folded behind your back,” he explained. “If not, I will tear up the form and you will go home and return tomorrow as is usual.”

She blushed and then looked at her feet. Then after a moment she purposefully crossed the room and signed the form. He was almost impressed and then he left.

*

She had shed her clothes easily enough. After all it was no big deal and she was intrigued. But she had to admit that she felt completely silly knelling against Mr Cohen’s desk and bending over. It was awkward for one thing and her knees hurt where they press into the wood at the back. Also with her hands in the small of her back she felt unsteady as if she might fall.

Added to this was the cane just inches from her nose. She hadn’t really considered it before and hadn’t thought to move it. But now that she could see it up close she began to wonder how I would feel. Something did a flip in her tummy and licked at her lips apprehensively.

What if someone else came in? Heat touched her cheeks, surprising her, she had streaked for a dare once, but this was different. A footstep in the hall made her start and for a second she almost bottled it.

Even though the sound was a false alarm she realised that someone was going to come in: Mr Cohen and he would see her… she blushed, an alien sensation… see her naked.

The knock at the door threw her and she felt a surge of panic. Was it Cohen? Why was he knocking? The door wrapped again. Go away, she urged the visitor silently.

The door opened and someone came in. They made it halfway across the floor before stopping.

“Oh… I… sorry, I was just…” it was a woman’s voice, mercifully not a student she guessed. Then the woman muttered, “I’ll just leave this note… eh here… yes… sorry, I didn’t know.”

The blood flooded Anwar’s face and scorched her to her ears. This was crazy.

By the time Cohen did get back she felt was actually grateful.

“Is this right?” she said apprehensively. It was hard to talk with the desk pressing under her jaw.

“Miss Anwar, I am surprised you went through with it,” he said hesitantly.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t had a girl in this position before, but the total nudity was unusual and a consequence of her outrageous behaviour and attire. Also it had been a while and most women, especially those like Miss Anwar who were overfilled with entitlement and resentment of authority, did not submit so readily anymore.

“Me too,” she answered ruefully, adding as an appropriate afterthought, “Sir,” adding, “Oh Sir… someone came in…”

No doubt it was one of the office staff. Then he saw the note and recognised his secretary’s handwriting. She had been here years and had in times past had seen it all before.

“Never mind about that,” Cohen growled.

But suddenly he was unsure. The girl was more womanish in figure than he had counted on and her narrow waist and the full curves of her bottom affected him somewhat. He even felt something tighten in his trousers.

Cohen took a deep breath and crossed the room to take up the cane. He was committed now and his bluff had been called. The question remained how many to give?

Her dress code violation had earned her a standard six and her insubordination another six. But 12 was rather harsh for a novice and he doubted that she had ever felt so much as a slap before. For two pence of sense he would spank her instead, but that might not look good if there was any come back. If she took it badly his arse was covered, technically anyway, but if it came to that then he had a hunch that this would be the last caning ever given.

On reflection he decided he could honourably reduce six to four in both cases. That seemed fair.

“Very well Miss Anwar,” he said brusquely as he took up the cane, “You will receive eight; four for each offence.”

“Yes Sir,” she said nervously. It sounded too few, she thought.

“You know what that offence was, don’t you?” he asked.

“I… I guess…” she muttered. She actually wasn’t.

“Think,” he barked.

“I didn’t wait for you to answer and… and… I guess I should have… you know… sorry,” she couldn’t quite find a form of words. But to head off any embarrassing admissions she said perkily, “I guess I need an attitude adjustment.”

“Your attitude, yes,” Cohen agreed.

“Sorry,” she said again.

He took a breath and tapped her across the bottom with the cane. She gasped.

“So eight it is,” he said firmly, “You may put your hands ahead of you to hold on.”

“Yes Sir,” she sighed.

The stroke was impossible and she slammed the flat of her hand on the table in surprise. Both her eyes and mouth shot open and hung there.

Cohen saw the hard white line stand out across her pale flesh and he waited. After a moment the edges of the impact streak became darker pink and the skin began to rise a little.

The next stroke bit harder than the first and Anwar gasped. Two lines of pain continued to sing across her bottom for an infinite moment and she clenched her jaw.

Cohen watched the two dark lines develop as she fluttered on the desk top like a broken bird. She also made a hissing sound and became laboured in her breathing. He knew that the pain was still growing because she dipped at the knees and pushed her bottom out, describing small circles with it as if to shake of the sting.

He laid the third stroke across her bottom just below the first strokes and she grunted.

“Feeling it Miss Anwar?” he asked.

“Yes Sir,” she said in a tight voice and only after a long moment.

The fourth stroke caught lower still and drew another line on the lower curve of her bottom about three inches above the top of her thighs.

“Fffff,” she hissed and made a whining sound.

By now the four strokes stood up in ridges and had gone from pale to dark pink. Nor had the colour stopped there, but had ‘bled’ out into the surrounding skin so that the whole underside of her bottom had become a bright poppy-red.

The girl was breathing heavily now as if she had been running and her hands fumbled for the edge of the desk.

“I trust you will amend your attitude with me in future,” Cohen said darkly.

“Oh yes Sir,” she said almost eagerly.

He struck the fifth stroke so that it crossed the fold where her bottom met her thighs and she yelled. From then on her breaths came as pained groans.

Cohen waited for a moment longer so that her resolved faltered and then caned her just above the first stroke.

“Ahh,” she shouted.

She looked back at him, awe written on her face and he could see that water had pooled heavily in her eyes. Cohen struck her again, this time across the upper strokes at an angle. She greeted the penultimate stroke with silence as she drew a breath and then a croak turned into an angry growl. He counted three or four beats and then sliced in the final stroke and she shrieked.

For a long moment nothing more happened, and then he saw her shoulders were shaking and he imagined she was laughing. He wouldn’t have been surprised. And then she made a throating noise and he realised she was crying.

“We are done now Miss Anwar,” he said quietly.

She nodded.

“You may get up,” he told her.

Painfully she levered herself upright and tentatively massaged her rear.

“My… my clothes Sir?” she sobbed, “May I… may I put them on… or…”

She didn’t know if they were banned to her, remembering what he had said and with eight lines of sawing pain deep into her bottom she would have gone naked at a word from him.

“Get dressed Miss Anwar and then go home,” he said gently. “Come and see me at the end of the day in a more suitable condition and we will discuss this burning issue of yours.”

She nodded miserably, but there was only one burning issue that concerned her at that moment.

“Thank you Sir,” she sniffed, and then careless of her nudity stooped to gather clothes from the chair where she had left them.

Cohen turned his back and waited.

Finally she said, “Thank you Sir,” and he turned to see that she was now smiling through the tears and holding out her hand.

She remembered once how she had mocked the handshake tradition in the refectory as she and her friends had read from the college handbook. Now it seemed like closure.

“Very good,” Cohen said, shaking her hand, “I trust that was a lesson for you.”

“Yes Sir,” she gushed.

“I’ll see you later then,” he said, pursing his lips.

She blushed shyly and nodded. Then holding her bottom gingerly she made careful steps towards the door. But once there she stopped and turned and then gave him a small pout.

“Sir?” she asked tentatively.

“Yes Miss Anwar.”

“Does this mean that… well next time… I, eh mean, instead of suspension or… eh the fines and stuff… will I have to see you?” she was still blushing.

He frowned.

“Well, um, unless you withdraw the permission slip then… well yes,” he pulled a face, “So I suggest you behave yourself.”

She snorted derisively.

“Fat chance of that Sir,” she said ruefully and then she was gone.

Ends.

Our story began here.

The Spoils of War
Everything felt flatter than the lava-blasted plain outside and Katrin could neither sleep nor celebrate. All night she hugged into Fear as he slept like the just, her eyes staring up at the window and the strange orange glow that emanated from outside where the fires of the battlefield cooled off.

Fear and Katrin had been housed in one of the towers of Timon overlooking the last scene of the conflict. As the undisputed ranking representative of Pandoria, Fear had been afforded all honours. Although nothing had been further from him that night and he was exhausted. For months life had been a battle and that day he had fought at least three more, the last with his self.

Now he had new burdens to endure. He was the hero of the hour, the vanquisher of the West and the great saviour; a crown far heavier than any that John or Peron wore.

Furthermore he had discovered his true nature. It was something to find that one was the first Arch Magus in a thousand years. Katrin squeezed her man hard, deep within she was terrified he had been forever changed.

At nightfall word had reached Katrin from her father that he lived, although she had not seen him. The note, not even in his own hand, said that he had many wounded and dying to attend to and would see her in a few days. She took some comfort that at least he had survived.

Fear groaned in his sleep and rolled over. Did he too dream of the dead? Katrin sucked in a hard breath and held onto it as if it were her last. So many had died, here and elsewhere; names and faces ran through her mind, Gort the High Hand had not perished alone. She barely knew the man, but suddenly thoughts of him made her precious last gasp escape with a sob. Then another came and the dam came close to breaking as all the horrors of war crushed in on her.

Fear murmured something in his slumber, protesting imagined enemies and Katrin remembered how she had nearly lost him. At that moment it was too much to bear and then she broke in howling tears.

Half-awake now, Fear drew her into his arms and kissed her forehead. He was solid and real and she held to him even as she sobbed. Nor did she stop for the longest time and not until the glow from the dawn overmatched the lava-light did she finally sleep.

*

The sunrise was clean and pure. Its warm hard light seemed to shred the dust and smoke of war as it purged the morning mist. Even the broken walls of Timon looked as if they would stand certain and forever. Better still, the light breeze brought the scent of honey berries to mask the smell of the dead and somewhere someone was ringing a bell.

Fear sat-up with a start and frowned at the sound. In his dreams the Priest-Witches had returned, but now he heard a sweeter sound. One day I should hunt the last of them, he thought, but then a soft breath from Katrin steered him to better things.

Dimly he remembered that she had cried in the night and he had been scant comfort. But all things pass, even war it would seem. He looked down at Katrin and smiled. She slept soundly now and he would not have woken her for the world. Perhaps after breakfast he and she would…

The thought was left hanging as a knock at the door brought a frown to his love’s face and she smacked her lips in her slumber.

“Who is it?” Fear hissed softly while still managing to sound annoyed.

When no answer came he staggered to his feet and pulled on his great black robes.

“Maestro?” said a hard but gentle voice beyond the door.

Fear crossed the room and opened it.

Dniester bowed slightly and then came ramrod straight as if seeing his old student for the first time.

“Dniester,” Fear cried happily, “I hear you did well yesterday.”

“I did well…? Then by that token, you did very, very well,” Dniester winked.

Fear became uncomfortable.

“We will talk about that another time, once you are more accustomed to your new… status,” the old man made his best stab at a sympathetic face. Quickly changing the subject he said, “The King, both kings in fact, have been asking for you. And Denton wants to discuss the Magister’s position on captured witches and the like.”

“Can’t Maxine lead on this? I mean…” Fear sighed.

“Maxine is… preoccupied and has volunteered to get a preliminary feel for the witch situation. I rather suspect that since you have overshadowed her part in the recent hostilities she has pushed her ambition into the background,” Dniester chuckled.

“And you? Why can’t you sort the politics out?” Fear asked wearily.

“I am but a humble adept, maestro,” Dniester said expansively and made a slight bow.

“A humble dragon ruling, zombie slaying pain in the…” Fear muttered.

On the bed behind him Katrin groaned and rolled over. But she showed no signs of waking and Fear turned back to Dniester.

“Very well,” he said, “I’ll be along shortly.”

*

A league from Timon another city stood abandoned. This one was of burnt out fires and canvas flapping in the morning breeze. Here and there were piles of abandoned weapons and smashed open boxes; the latter the detritus of last minute looting.

On the open hill nearby there were three great crowds of people milling around. Between each group were varying numbers of soldiers all eyeing the remnant of the Western Host suspiciously and awaiting orders for their disposition.

Amid the guards and prisoners was a hooded figure in blue leaning on a staff that came level to her head. Maxine Du Jared had come to see the Western witches for herself and to be reassured that there were no great talents there ready to do mischief. Not that Maxine was best placed to assess the wretched creatures, but she didn’t altogether trust Meredith Greydove and her ilk, not yet anyway. Although she had to admit that the covens had acquitted themselves well in the fight.

In the world that followed, much more account would have to be taken of such people, but then she had always known that. Maxine knew the dangers and for once she wished that Dniester and Amber Sage were on hand to inform her. In any case, for the time being it had been decided to contain these witches and any magic users found for a further decision.

This left the rank and file soldiers to contend with. These warriors were to be dispatched home with a minimum of their weapons as if nothing had happened. It wouldn’t do to hold them, either from the point of view of cost and the danger of making them martyrs. In any case, most experts expected that the West would fall to civil war within weeks and allowing a new generation of warriors who had not experience the heavy defeat emerge as the new leadership did not seem prudent.

This group, the largest, was of mainly men; hardened warriors all, many of whom were well used to defeat as well as victory. They were patient and malleable for the most part and formed up into neat lines to await their marching orders to the recaptured Motra Mundy and a ship home.

But there was a smaller group. This one, mainly women, looked drawn and tired. Now surplus to requirements in the great Western war machine, they had the stark choice of attaching themselves to a defeated and moneyless male warrior or returning to the drudge’s life most of them had gone to war to escape.

Tomas eyed them sympathetically and wondered in passing if there might be a woman for him among them. It had been a long road for the Western Plains and it seemed that it had been all for nought. He sighed heavily and leaned on a post that had been set-up as a way marker. His sword slapped at his hip and he smiled. He still had a profession then, that and his armour assured him of that at least. Furthermore, he was alive. When he had seen the tornados and the ground open up in flames he knew then that he might die.

But there was self-deception in his laboured optimism. At the back of it all the nausea of defeat clawed at his stomach and he felt spacey and small like the bitter little bell of the Shadow Dreamers. Only today someone had pulled out the clapper leaving him as impotent as they had been.

The light gust picked up a scrap of tent canvas and sent it like tumbleweed across the grass, an ill-omen of his fate, which for him now seemed as aimless.

“Sir, Sir,” said a young breathless voice, “Where do we go? I can’t find my squad and…”

Tomas glowered at the boy and almost bit his head from his shoulders, but something held him. The young warrior had the look of the eager, one of those that had come for adventure. His reddish brown hair was tied back in the Western style and there was a slight hint of a moustache on his upper lip.

Tomas regarded the boy for a moment and then he said, “You and me both boy. Come on; let’s get this rabble into some semblance of order.”

The officer’s words carried to the nearest stand of dejected souls and several dull eyes slowly swivelled to look at him, one of them even spat on the ground.

Tomas felt his hackles rise and at the corner of his eye he saw listless non-com try to slip away.

“Sergeant, get that man’s name and you there, yes you straighten up that line,” Tomas barked. It was going to be a long few weeks and an even longer march home.

*

Nansi Pyke sat dejectedly on a hump in the grass sucking on a reed. For all intents and purposes she was no longer a sword leader and with the army in disarray no one would have any use for women under arms. Not in the West anyway. Despite this several of her former comrades looked to her for what to do next and in the small hours that had followed the defeat, she had wondered about slipping away with as much war gear as she could carry and setting a free company of lady mercenaries.

The idea had not survived the harsh light of day. After all, who would be hiring mercenaries now, let alone women? And in any case she had had her fill of fighting. But she was certain of one thing, she would not return to the West where women were good only for drudge work. If it came to it she would go south or north and hire out as a servant there. After all, she had heard that things were better in the East for women who could read.

“Ma’am?” said a voice next to her.

Nansi looked up and saw a bedraggled Under-Sergeant Rondel. She was a hopeless girl and had never been fit for military service in the first place. But Nansi knew that she too could read and for the first time felt a kind of empathy for the woman.

“Rondel,” Nansi sighed, “What can I do for you?”

“Are you going back?” Rondel asked nervously. The girl was ever nervous.

Nansi took a deep breath and followed it with a heavy sigh.

“No,” she said simply with a shrug.

Rondel returned a tight smile and nodded. “Nor am I,” she said.

Good for you, Nansi thought and tossed away the grass stem she had been chewing.

But out of habit she was still wont put some distance between her and the others, so she said, “So what do you want, a medal?”

“I can cook,” Rondel said eagerly, “Maybe we could… you know, find work in the city?”

“The city we came to plunder?” Nansi scoffed.

“I was thinking of Motra Mundy,” Rondel said tentatively. “I mean it’s a port isn’t it, full of foreigners and… well I am betting that servants on low wages will be the last to return.”

Nansi puzzled this for a moment. The girl had some brains after all. It wasn’t a bad idea, better than any she had had.

“Why me,” Nansi asked, “I mean… well I don’t even like you and didn’t I…?”

Rondel blushed and looked at her feet. “Maybe that’s why, the fact that you thrashed me I mean. At least you gave a shit when I messed up.”

Nansi gave the girl a hard stare as she considered.

Encouraged, Rondel continued speaking, “We could start a business maybe… placing the right girls for service and… maybe we could buy up war surplus with the profits, they are bound to be going cheap…” she was already scheming in her mind, but without the confident leadership and management skills of Nansi Pyke…

“Partners?” Nansi suggested.

“As far as profits went, but you’d be the boss,” Rondel said eagerly, “You could even, you know…”

“Spank you?” the former sword leader laughed.

“Only when I messed up,” Rondel blushed again. “But I was thinking there will be lots of people, you know, like Sergeant Callous, like me come to that, all needing a firm hand… I wouldn’t know how to handle them.”

“You know Rondel, I think you might be on to something,” Nansi grinned. “What’s your name anyway?”

“Sara,” Rondel said shyly.

“Alright… Sara, let’s see who else we can round up.”

Behind them a long line of tattered and dejected soldiers filed down the road heading south. For now they had it all to themselves as they retreated home, but in the weeks to come there would be hundreds and then thousands of refugees returning to rebuild their homes, among them the rich and noble all wanting new servants.

*

King John patted his wife’s hand and took a final look at the broken walls of his capital. There was much damage and little gain from the war, but at least they had won.

Neither would John Armarlon forget that his victory was in no small part due to the steadfastness of his ally King Peron of Precips. They would have to talk about closer trade ties at some point.

The other key allies were the Magister of Pandoria of course, things would never be the same there and the whole bloody lot of them would need careful handling from now on.

“Are you ready dear?” Queen Matilda asked him, “They are waiting.”

John nodded.

“We had better wait for Peron, after all he was our great general,” John soothed her.

“Oh tish, you are the one…” she began.

“I am going to pile as much credit as I can where it is due, well as far as Peron is concerned anyway,” John said cryptically.

“And that…eh… Arch Mage everyone is talking about?” she cocked a magnificent eyebrow.

King John made a see-saw motion with his hand. “Magic is all well and good in its place, but…”

“I see,” Matilda smirked.

“Oh don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful and I will say so,” John soothed her again.

“But not too publically,” the Queen teased him.

King John shrugged. The war was over and there were new politics to consider.

To be continued.

An entry in the Winter Spanks Cold Hands Warm Bottoms Blog Hop (2-4 January, 2014). Comment for your chance at a prize.

=

Princess Sofia Molotov unleashed her full shapely pout at the ever stiffer wind and the heavy snowfall that accompanied it. Winter was hard upon them and soon she would be a prisoner in the castle for the rest of the season. Already her father had forbidden her from going out and none of dvornik would be available to escort her on one final adventure.

Luckily Sofia was generally considered too petite to handle the horse-sled alone. Indeed she was so petite that it was her father’s proud boast to prospective suitors that her waist could be encompassed by the span of a man’s hand. A ridiculous claim, she thought, because as narrow as she was it took almost two hands for such a feat. But still, this perception of her frailty only worked to her advantage as so far no one had thought to put her away her sleigh.

Donning snug fawn hunting breeches and a jerkin, she covered the ensemble with a sable coat and a huge fur hat to cover her long dark braids. Then as quiet as a snowflake on water, she made her way through the kitchen entrance to the yard.

Most of the servants were still sleeping on the hard stone floors, with only ragged cast-off coats between them and the chill. Although here and there more industrious serfs were shaking themselves awake to begin the task of making breakfast. But if any saw her then it was none of their affair.

Sofia reached the stables almost without incident, only staggering briefly as she stepped into the biting chill. She was thankful then that a hundred stoats had surrendered their winter coats for hers and pulled her cloak about her. She loved this part and grinned to display a row of perfect teeth in greeting.

As she did so a cloud of breath burst from her throat and tumbled whitish-grey towards the sky. Better still was the creak-crunch of her boots upon a hand’s-depth of snow and she gleefully stamped her feet as she made her way to the stable to enjoy the softly yielded squeak of her steps as she walked.

But it did not go all her own way. Without servants she had to remove her gloves to put on the horse’s harness and the tangy steel burned her fingers as she worked until pins and needles assailed her and she had to allow her hands the retreat of her pockets. In the end it took three attempts to ready the sleigh, but after that it was as easy as runners upon snow. Then she simply slipped away.

Luck was with her that morning as not only did none of the guards see her, but by the time she reached the forest under the castle, the wind had dropped and the snowfall had reduced to nothing but a light flurry.

“Hey you wondrous day,” she yelled to the trees in crisp aristocratic tones, “Catch me if you can.”

It took a moment to breech the line of fur trees, but then she let fly with the whip and sailed on into the crystal white sea of ice with great grey-brown masts of leaf-stripped trees lining her route.

*

It was mid-morning and some 10 leagues from the castle another was abroad. Like a great bear, brown-black against the snow, he stepped into the track between the trees and regarded the foolish scar of the nobleman’s runners on the ground.

Who would be about this close to Christmas? Surely not a hunter, he mused. The man sniffed the air and frowned.

The woodsman, Ivan Ivanov, hefted his great axe and studied the tracks. He saw at once that there were no outriders and that the sleigh was running light. Very light, he decided. If the traveller had not clearly been alone, Ivan would have concluded that there was a race in progress. Damn these nobles, had they nothing better to do? He heaved a great sigh, this boded nothing but trouble for him.

For a big man Ivan made good progress as he strode across grizzled white drifts and shards of fallen branches. Another storm would soon come to close the road, he thought and for once he was grateful for the itch of his great black beard.

“As soon as I find this lost fool I will make for the fire and home,” he said aloud and followed his words with a grunt to make the image of a man-bear complete.

Being well used to the forest it did not take Ivan long to track the fool. A mile on there was twist in the path and way became suddenly steep. A woodsman or a hunter on foot would have struggled ably on the slope, but for a single horse hauling, it was hard a gradient.

So it was that the childishly small horse-sled had taken half a tumble and was anchored at the turn. The occupant appeared unhurt however, although like the sled, the person was diminutive in the extreme and for a moment Ivan wondered at the age of the driver.

“About time to,” the figure spoke, betraying herself to be a woman.

Despite the diminishingly small chance of being discovered by a man before either beasts or deadly night frost claimed her, she seemed remarkably casual about his sudden appearance.

“You had best turn back,” Ivan answered, not liking the girl’s tone, but knowing better than to comment.

If she belonged to the landowners noble house she could have him put to death for… well anything really. And from her clipped haughty tones she was clearly highborn.

“I want to get to the mountain,” the girl said as if that explained it all.

A puzzled Ivan was about to ask which mountain she meant when he saw the razor peaks of Urals in a break in the cloud; two days distant in fair weather. He looked at the sky doubtfully.

The girl was pointing now at the highest and sharpest of the peaks in the range as if it were candy in a sweet shop. Ivan’s heart sank. This girl was going to be trouble for him. For one thing there was at least one range of hills between that mountain and where they stood.

“Best you wait to spring then Ma’am,” the woodsman suggested.

“But I want to go there now,” the girl said petulantly.

Ivan eyed the mountain and then the girl.

“The Tsar and all the soldiers in Peter couldn’t take you there before spring,” Ivan offered.

“Don’t you know who I am?” the girl said indignantly.

Ivan swallowed hard and studied the girl. A beauty to be sure, but she had none of the look of a Kelch or Kern. But if he got it wrong she would be offended.

“I am Sofia Molotov, my father is Prince…” she began haughtily, saving him a guess.

Ivan didn’t listen to anymore, the Molotov lands were miles away; his master was her family’s enemy. Was the girl mad? Ivan pulled at his beard. If he took her to Kern Castle he would be freed. He might even be made a dvornik and allowed to own his own serfs.

“These are Kelch lands my lady, but we border my master’s estates,” Ivan told her, “Count Peter Kern.”

Sofia drew a breath and reached for her dagger. It was a small sliver toy and no match for this giant’s axe.

“I can pay you,” she said arrogantly, or at least that was the mood she was going for.

Ivan nodded.

“To take me to the mountain I mean,” she added.

His pale blue eyes were as steel then and they pierced her like the wind.

Her own eyes were a softer clearer blue like the sky, but for all their beautiful nobility she missed the danger in his face.

“I am not beholden to you,” he growled, omitting the token of respect, “For silver I will set your sleigh upright and point you at your father’s lands.”

It was the best course for both of them. Nobles were tricky and even for a chance of a reward it was better to stay out of their business.

“You arrogant pig,” Sofia sneered and drew her dagger.

The pin-like blade bounced impotently off his thick coat and he seized her wrist where it held the silver hilt.

“How dare you,” she wailed, tugging at him like a weasel on a bear.

The dagger slipped from her mitten and found its way to his pocket. It was worth more than a year’s work if he fenced it right.

“Give me that back,” she ordered him, her small fists pounding on his chest until he held her wrists.

“What would your father do if he knew you were in the land of Kelch?” Ivan barked at her.

Her wondrous blue eyes glared at him, but only for a moment. Although she proudly held his gaze, her pout gave her away. She would be whipped so soundly that she would not sit down until halfway to spring. Then she blushed, that would happen anyway once she got home. If father ever finds out I am here he would marry me off to the first bear to come along. She eyed the man who still held her wrists. Even this one, she told herself and prayed that she exaggerated her fate.

“Let me give you a taste of what I would do,” Ivan growled.

He lifted the small noblewoman easily and draped her across his lap as he sat on the seat of the sled. The fur of her coat slid away to part smoothly up the back to expose the pert domes of her sued breeches uppermost across his knee.

Nor did he stop there. Despite the chill he tugged at the leather cords pinning the attire at her nipped waist and quickly unlaced them so that her breeches might be drawn down her alabaster thighs.

“What are you doing?” she shrieked.

“Come now, even for nobility a spanking is always given on the bare,” he chuckled.

“I’ll have your head, I’ll hang you, I’ll…” she raged as she bucked.

By now her smooth pert bottom was exposed to his gaze and the marble perfection was complimented by the hint of blue veins from the cold. As she struggled across his knees the heat of their bodies produced a border of vapour around them, a hazy cloud that captured the forenoon apricity like a halo.

“Is that a request you will make to your father or your father’s enemies?” Ivan rumbled in a heavy baritone.

Sofia’s eyes widened and she realised any option would get this beast gold and her whipped just for the start of her misery.

Ivan didn’t wait for her to consider this and brought his bear-like paw with all the sound and bite of a laundry paddle. The pistol crack of the impact ricocheted back at them off the forest as Sofia was robbed of her breath.

There was no finesse of the governess or scolding pater familial to the spanking. For even as a million clichés of bees and wasps attacked her tail another spank landed she was quickly overcome and bawling for mercy.

“I understand, you win,” she shrieked, “I didn’t mean to… ahh.”

Her bottom held his attention as he laid on rapid spanks, his fingers like knouts finding the curves and noble cleft of her tight once-white bottom; turning it first hard pink and then winter berry red.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please… eeeeeh,” Sofia kicked her legs.

Ivan spanked her until she not only protested her pride away but surrendered it absolutely and began to cry. But he was in no hurry. A sound spanking was tame compared to her threats, tamer even than anything she could expect from friend or foe alike for her folly.

“I’m sorry, I‘m sorry,” she blubbed as the spanking lasted for a good 10 minutes until he set her on her feet.

The two hot berries of her bottom glowed in the snow now and she danced woefully, her eyes like two deep overflowing pools. He was surprised that she did not cover the jet triangle at her front or haul up her breeches as she massaged her wounded tail.

“You…” she spat and then blushed and averted her eyes as she failed to match his.

Ivan folded his arms and studied the girl and the increasingly leaden sky above them. Even the mountains had slipped from view now and the snowflakes that fell made gentle crisp impact sounds as they landed.

Still self-absorbed, Sofia wondered what was redder, her face or her bottom. And the everlasting sting… nothing short of cords burned so. Moreover, it was infuriating that even with this peasant she did not amend her attire until directed, but such was her training. Besides, if this man was anything like her people then she could expect to be resoundingly spanked again for such defiance.

“Now we are in a pretty pickle,” he sighed. “Castle Molotov lies far to the south and you will never reach it alive this day.”

Sofia flushed again, but this time from fear.

“Both Castle Kelch and Kern are both beyond reach too,” he pondered aloud. Not that he could surrender such beauty to either of those dark foreboding places, even if it was his duty.

“Please… I’ll… my father would pay you anything,” she pleaded. “I swear if you return me home you’ll get gold and land enough to be a kulak.”

Ivan tugged at his beard to consider this.

“You think I can bring mountains to you like gifts on a platter,” he grunted, “You say that now, but what happens when things don’t match your foolish notions?”

“Is it really so far to the mountains?” she asked, suddenly feeling a fool.

He nodded.

“You swear to get me home as soon as the storm passes… as soon as you are able?” she asked him shyly.

With another beard pull he gave her an emphatic nod.

She licked her lips and he fancied he saw schemes being hatch behind her eyes.

“On one condition,” he said.

Her hands hovered nervously in front of her still exposed front and she shivered.

“Until that time I will have no preening from you and you will do what you’re told or suffer the consequences,” he told her severely.

One of her hands strayed to her bottom but she nodded.

Just then the wind whipped through the trees like a courtly harp and he narrowed his eyes. As if to support his caution somewhere a wolf howled, quickly answered by another.

Seeing his doubt Sofia said hastily, “I swear it.”

“Then pull up your things and get back in the sled,” he told her, “We might just make my house by nightfall.”

“I think I’d rather walk,” she said ruefully rubbing her bottom.

He snorted in amusement and then said, “There might just be one more chance to get you home by tomorrow.”

“And if not?” she asked. Her eyes widened just a jot in apprehension.

“Then you and I will be together until spring,” he answered with a shrug and then moved over to push at the sled,

“Oh,” she said and then as it sank in more urgently exclaimed, “Oh.”

“Yes well, quite,” he sighed, giving her a significant look over his shoulder.

As Sofia put the last of her clothes in order she felt her heart race. This adventure was much better than a few more days at the castle and there was no chance she wouldn’t be home for Christmas was there? After all she was a princess and everything always came right for her.

“Can I help?” she asked as she followed in his wake.

He gave her a long hard stare and then glanced again at the sky.

“You can cut me three dozen lengths of birch twigs,” he said, tossing her the silver dagger, “About yay long,” he added holding his hands a cubit apart. “It is going to be a long winter and life will be hard for us. I suspect that I will very much need all that you can collect.”

Sofia blushed and glowered at him. But she picked up the dagger and tucked it in her belt. Damn the man and damn the profusion of ready birch trees, she thought. She would feign puzzlement but knew well what he wanted and why. Now he had her word she would think longingly on her father’s cords before the spring, she just knew it.

“You never know,” he said doubtfully, “We might just get you home tomorrow.”

But the chorus of wolves under a low grey sky sang a different tale and Sofia wondered idly if she minded as much as she should.

Facing out was embarrassing, but at least the front of her blouse covered her down to the top of her thighs. However, every time someone passed down the hall for the lavatory or to get something from the storeroom they had to pass her.

Tammy tugged at her blouse again in agitation just thinking of it.

Some of them just averted their eyes as they passed, after all none of them knew when they might be next, but one or two tried to catch her eye as they smirked. These were the worst and it was hard not to glance back. A blush festival followed these times, not that a shame-face wasn’t a more or less permanent state of affairs so long as she was in disgrace.

Once before she had been sent on an errand into the main room dressed just as she was now. There the rest of them were gathered and getting past a dozen pair of eyes wearing just a blouse and socks was about as mortifying as it gets; well almost, she also remembered worse things. There weren’t any holes deep enough. That time had been quite bad enough.

“Mrs Eldridge, he says… I mean may I… I have the other c-cane please,” she had to say half naked in front of everyone as if nothing at all was amiss, but her voice was a croak.

“What was that dear?” Mrs Eldridge had asked. Was she for real?

Tammy glanced around the room with her head bowed. They were all watching with varying degrees of openness. She could swear that Jenny even had her book upside down. Many of them were nudging each other and laughing. Well she did herself when it was one of their turns.

“May I have the other,” she had swallowed, “cane?”

“Do speak up,” Mrs Eldridge had said impatiently.

There was open laughter now.

“May I have the cane, please?” Tammy had said quickly and a little louder.

“That’s better,” Mrs Eldridge scolded her; always that d… darn p-word, she thought, not daring to curse even in her thoughts.

Now she was waiting again. God she hoped he had the cane he needed this time.

Then his study door opened and he leaned out.

“Come in Tammy,” he said wearily.

Head down and still blushing she ducked in quickly, grateful to be out of the public eye at last.

“Now where were we?” he said in a bored voice. “Ten strokes this time wasn’t it?”

The cane was already in his large strong hand. And if she could have found the courage to look up she would have seen the matching strong jaw and disapproving disappointment on his face.

“Please Sir it was eight,” she squeaked.

“Are you arguing with me girl?” His voice was sharp.

“No I…”

“We’ll make 12 then, that will suit you so much better,” he told her with an air cut of the cane. “Now bend over and grab your ankles.”

“Oh Sir,” she wailed.

“At once or I’ll make it 14,” he warned her.

“Yes Sir,” she groaned as she obeyed.

The posture pushed her bottom out behind, now well exposed beneath the hem of her blouse. Now she had to wait.

The clock ticked by, one of the old fashioned carriage types. It was the same one that marked out the minutes and hours of her corner time. As if it wasn’t bad enough, it took each moment and slowed it down to a crawl. Tammy tried not to count, but the sound was hypnotic, emphasising her bottom’s peril rather than distracting her.

The first stroke was a shock. Like déjà vu she heard the fore stroke after it struck and then seemed to feel it twice. She greeted it with a faux yelp for form’s sake and then grunted in earnest as it really hurt.

There was a plum line square across both cheeks and he measured the next stroke against it, placing it sharply below.

This time she was ready and riding the wave of sting she held out for three beats before she hissed. Now her bottom was scored with two neat mauve lines.

Over the next minute and a half the next six came at irregular intervals. It was a bitch to hold still and twice he had to warn her not to move. At seven she had even dropped to a crouch in order to ride out the burn. That had earned her one last warning.

She was breathing hard now and tears stung at her eyes. Crying was a bitch too. The teasing was worse then.

The ringing of the phone was a welcome interlude and she took a better hold of her shins.

“Sure, can do,” he told the person on the other end. Then he said, “Oh me, well you know… right now I am dealing with one of those… exactly so…” he laughed.

There was a long segment where he didn’t speak and then it got technical and he had to write something down.

All this took an age and the ache in Tammy’s knees and back began to rival the sting in her bottom. Began to, but in no way overtook it. Then at last he finished the call.

“Now where were we?” he said, swiping at the air with the stick again. “Six of fourteen wasn’t it?”

Tammy baulked and half stood up.

“Please Sir,” she wailed, “It was eight and it was only 12 Sir.”

It should have been eight in total she thought ruefully.

“Well which is it, eight or 12, make up your mind,” he growled at her, “Anyway, are you arguing with me again?”

“No Sir, it was…” she sniffed, half swallowing the next word, “Never 14, only 12, we were on six, I mean eight,” she said insistently, becoming flustered.

“I’ll tell you what, let’s start your 14 over again and then we will be sure won’t we?” he said pointedly.

“Ooh Sir,” she groaned.

“You can count them with effusive thanks,” he added as he struck her hard across the bottom.

“Ah, nyah,” she grunted, and then slowly she hissed, “One, thank you Sir.”

The next one caught her where she sat and she fair shrieked for it.

“Two-whoo, thank you S-sir,” she said miserably.

Four minutes later he was done and having totally surrendered she was sobbing hard.

“Now get that behind of yours back out in the hall and face the wall. You can stay there until tea time,” he scolded. “And I want your hands on your head.”

“Yes Sir,” she sniffed.

This time she would be spared meeting accusing and amused eyes, but everyone would see near two dozen hard welts on her bottom and tea time wasn’t for hours.

Another collection of short stories has been published by LSF if anyone was looking for a last minute stocking filler. This one is called the Uber Brats.

Dr Barton is persuaded to take in a disruptive girl who goes by the name of Uber-bitch, a kind of punk nickname. Dr Barton surveys her – underneath the rags, spiked purple hair and face piercings, he can see she is only 20 or 21 at most. He tells her she must obey the rules or face punishment. Thinking she is invincible, she very quickly disobeys by refusing to take a shower; during the ensuing scuffle she kicks and punches the housekeeper, Ms Ellis, who soon administers the required discipline. The next day, the girl’s behaviour has not improved, earning her another spanking from Dr Barton. Nevertheless, progress is made, however slow, and Uber-bitch reveals her name to be Jenny. Jenny feels very aroused as she spies on Ms Ellis receiving a caning from Dr Barton – it makes such an impact that she later tells Dr Barton she is a naughty girl and deserves to be punished. Dr Barton gives her what she seeks – he knows her so well…

This volume also includes the following short stories: Blame Game at St Matthew’s; The Bet: An Equestrian Spanking; Cane Marks; The Grampus; The Appointment; Agony Aunt; A Doctor Canes; The Beach Bums and the Clubhouse Rules; and Canings from Daddy and My Husband.

Available here.

Sister Mercy, her jaw set tight, was wringing her hands. Before her the young novice Maria was naked and kneeling at the block while Sub-Prioress Augusta laced her upturned bare bottom with a long thin switch.

The once smooth rounds of the errant girl were now rilled and purple red with welts as she gasped and yelped under the assault.

“This is how you do it, this and this,” Augusta snapped as she laid on stroke after stroke, only pausing to include Sister Mercy in her ire. “I don’t know what in our Lord’s name you were doing. You are not here to tickle them.”

Sister Mercy blushed and went on wringing her hands. She so hated to get things wrong, but although she knew the novices would come to no real harm and that the corrections were good for them she hadn’t in her heart to treat them as was needful.

Also watching the chastisement was a row of near naked novices shivering in both apprehension and cold in the unheated cloister. Even Sister Mercy could feel the hard chill of the stone beneath her sandals and heaven alone knew how the winter bit at the bare feet of these girls.

At least the girls who had already been attended to by Augusta had something to warm them. Mercy looked over at the row of welted bare bottoms, all a rash now with hard purple and blue-black welts that no woman could sit upon until New Year.

Oh but when the bell sounded they would have to, Mercy winced, remembering how it was not so long ago when she too had been under the switch; the same switch that bit down yet again and then some more as Maria clung on to the wooden block doing the dance of pain. Mercy grimaced; some of the welts were by now looking quite raw.

“This is how you do it, this, can’t you see?” Augusta continued to rage as she whipped the girl. “Then if you have a mind to, switch them all again. It is twice the contrition for twice the lashing, don’t you see?”

Mercy wondered if Augusta had ever felt the switch, but of course she had, probably worse than she administered. That was the nature of the order.

“Alright girl, I haven’t got all night,” Augusta said at last, “Get up and go to face the wall.”

Maria’s tears burbled like a brook and as she gained her feet she hunched into herself, singing a wordless song of pain as she went. Then cowed, she tottered gingerly over to the wall to stand next to her fellow novices.

Mercy remembered the searing burn of such times and how cleansed she was when it was over and she could face the wall in contemplation. She hadn’t resented old Sister Nome then as she did the sub-Prioress on the girls’ behalf. No doubt she was weak as Augusta said she was.

“Next girl,” Augusta bellowed.

And a small dark woman scurried forward and woefully bent across the block. Her big bottom was already speckled with brown and yellow spots from a thrashing at some point in the recent past. But that did not deter the girl from sticking her bottom right up as she had been trained. Such a good girl, Mercy thought ruefully. She is more accepting than I perhaps.

*

“It is quiet out of the question,” the Mother Superior said as she looked doubtfully at the snow.

“But Mother,” Sister Mercy said, wringing her hands, “The people of the village… they will need those things… it’s Christmas.”

“Christmas indeed,” Mother sighed, her eyes rolling up as they might have done when she was still a novice. “The villagers would better spend their time on their knees in prayer rather than feasting.”

It was true that the weather was hard upon them and snow drifts that had stubbornly held at a yard deep were now rolling into low hills to obscure the track to the village. Mercy looked at the dejected faces of the novices she had gathered to help her, both had been as eager as she to go to the villagers’ aid.

“But Mother…” Mercy tried once more.

“You foolish girl, hold your tongue,” Augusta snapped at her, “Mother has spoken.”

“Yes Augusta,” Mercy groaned, “Yes Mother.”

*

The three of them found the going hard, especially ladened down with chickens and hams for the village feast. But it was not as hard going as it had been now that the Lord had seen fit to send a break in the weather. And certainly not as hard as it would have been on the villagers had they not made the attempt.

But Mercy had thought it prudent not to ask Mother again. After all, had He not sent the break in the weather? No, better to take the sign and not trouble her superiors with it; the burden was hers and not for them.

Behind her Catherine and Jessica laboured with her, their steps finding an easier footfall where Mercy had trod before. Just like King Wenceslas, Mercy thought, how appropriate.

*

“You did what?” Augusta was seething.

It wasn’t quite the response Mercy had been looking for.

“Mother said she would pray for me,” Mercy offered, “She didn’t seem mad at all.”

It was true. Mother had just rolled her eyes and shrugged. As she had walked away she had muttered something like, “I don’t know what we are going to do about that…”

Mercy assumed Mother was pleased and had gone away to think on what other worthy tasks she set her.

“Mother didn’t seem…? You are mad, I am mad, you have driven me mad,” Augusta raged.

“Oh I am sorry,” Mercy frowned, “I had just assumed…”

Augusta sucked in air through her nose.

“If you are going to behave like a novice then I will treat you as one,” Augusta said finally, “Now disrobe.” To the two novices she barked, “You too.”

In a moment Mercy, Catherine and Jessica were naked. The only thing now that separated them was that where the novices had shoulder length hair, one red and the other blonde, Mercy had her hair non-descript dark blonde shorn to her scalp. They were even all close together in age.

“You,” Augusta snarled at Jessica, the tall blonde girl, pointing at the block with her switch, “Over.”

Jessica put her nose in the air for a moment and then almost proudly she walked to the block and surrendered herself like Lady Jane in the famous painting. In her mind no doubt she was a martyr, having done no more than bring succour to the village. But in half a minute with a dozen scores across her bare bottom she was free of such pretensions and bawling like a new girl.

Augusta knew well how to humble the proud.

The sub-Prioress was in no hurry and the switching lasted longer than Maria’s earlier that day. The girl would be hands-under -thighs for days when she tried to sit for meal times, or Augusta was no punisher. Augusta remembered being a novice and the trick of sitting on her thighs to keep her bottom off the hard bench with her hands. It was the dickens if she was caught. Not sitting-up during grace was a mortal sin. Perhaps she would catch the girl out and give her another lesson later this week. A hard lesson, but someone had to do it.

Finally broken and sobbing, Jessica placed herself against the wall while Catherine took her turn.

“This is all my doing,” Mercy said, wringing her hands.

“Sister Mercy,” Augusta sighed, “Has anyone ever told you how really wet you are?”

Catherine fared no better than Jessica and if the truth were told, much worse, for she howled to rival the storm and lashed at the floor with her hair in her struggles.

Later the novices were both dismissed. Taking slow painful steps they eased their way to their cells while the now guilt-ridden and un-whipped Mercy looked on.

“Now,” Augusta said sharply, “Get your bottom over that block, we have much to do and I want to be abed before midnight.”

Mercy swallowed. She had switching coming no doubt, but midnight was hours away, Augusta could just as easily have said she wanted to be abed by 10 and still leave an age.

Augusta tapped the wooden block and scowled at her.

At first the worst part was the hard floor under her knees. That was less comfortable than even the cold rough wood under her belly. But she was able to help her legs by putting weight on the flat side of her arms down to her elbows and steady herself with her hands on the floor. This pushed her bottom up to point at the ceiling, an indignity she was pleased the novices had not seen.

All this trivia ran through her mind until the sword of justice cleaved her in two and she screamed. The white hot line was as the fire of hell across her stone cold bottom and far worse than she remembered. But that was not the worst of her trials. Augusta did not pause but laid on another swipe and then one more as she had so often promised.

“Do you feel that and that and that,” Augusta yelled, “You foolish girl, when will you learn? When will you learn?”

Mercy, already rasping with breath, squealed in an un-sisterly manner and slapped at the floor with her hands for some relief.

“Next time I tell you to whip a girl, you will do it well or I will do it for you and then whip you,” Augusta barked, “Do you hear?”

With each word a blow fell, but after a moment the sub-prioress saved her breath for the long, long task in hand.

*

Mercy walked as hobbled all the way to her cell. Each step a flare in her bottom as each line of fire reignited. At least I was not left to the cloister floor or wall until matins, she thought ruefully. Then finally reaching her cell she eyed the scourge on the wall with regret. Tonight she would have no need of it.

Then lowering herself face down on her cot she pondered on the difficulty of scourging one’s own bottom and regretted the departure of Sister Claire who aided her in such regard. Perhaps… yes, she smiled; Augusta may be of help here. But willingly or unwittingly, there was the rub. Mercy would pray on it. Then she lowered herself carefully onto her front to listen to the midnight bell that heralded Christmas Day.

“Thank you,” she whispered, both she and the village had their gift.

Merry Christmas.