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Chapter 148 Gauntlet of Cruelty
Andrew McMahon looked on with a solemn countenance, trying to
maintain the dignified bearing of a chief justice while his men made the
preparations for the Gauntlet. But he found it difficult to remain stoic when a
loud tearing noise drew his attention toward Jasper Slegg.
The first mate was tearing at the flimsy fabric of Erika's obscenely
tight-fitting shirt with the energy of a miner scraping the last bit of ore
from a gleaming golden nugget. McMahon felt his erection harden like a
For her part, the blindfolded beauty was helpless to defend
herself as Slegg ripped the top from her torso. She heard a coarse babel
of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Malayan as the sailors cheered her semi-nudity, and
she blushed in shame as she felt the chill of the sea air stiffen her nipples.
"Look at the wench, lads!" Slegg
sneered as he slipped behind Erika and cupped her naked breasts in his
sea-weathered hands and ground her taut, pinkish-brown nipples between his
thumbs and index fingers. "She's
ready for the gauntlet, she is!"
As Andrew McMahon feasted his eyes on Erika's nudity, he felt
tremors of pleasurable anticipation course through his body. During his long
shipboard career in her majesty's navy he had seen a number of bare-chested men
run a gauntlet of their shipmates, usually for shipboard thievery, a crime despised
by everyone from captain to cabin boys.
But never had he seen a woman, much less a luscious beauty like Erika
Weiss, subjected to the harrowing ordeal of the gauntlet.
He tore his eyes away from Erika for a moment and glanced
starboard where Deng-shan had begun cutting two-foot lengths from a coil of finger-thick
nautical rope. "Ye'll
need but thirty-four, Deng, nou that wee little Mao is
gone." The ship's carpenter nodded
his assent.
"Tranh!"
McMahon bellowed to the ship's cook.
"Aye captain?"
"Hie yer skinny
erse to me cabin and fetch
the two swuirds in my storage bin!"
"Aye, sir!" Tranh answered
and sped off toward the stern.
Meanwhile the crewmen of the Yang-tze
Dragon had formed a
disorderly line and were filing past Deng, bumping into each
other clumsily as they gawked at the bare-breasted miscreant who stood
trembling but erect a few yards away, her long golden hair fluttering softly in
the breeze. Tiny beads of nervous
perspiration had begun to dapple her pale torso, and her pink-tipped love-mounds
seemed to glisten in the sunlight. While
they ogled Erika's semi-nudity, each of the sailors took one of the lengths of
cord Deng had cut and then joined one of two lines that had formed along the
length of the foredeck.
Erika, still blindfolded, saw nothing of this, and could only
suffer in shame as she felt Slegg slide her
tight-fitting leggings down a few inches.
She could feel the morning breeze rustling the uppermost tendrils of her
pubic fringe, even as the cool air tickled the inch or two of buttock cleavage
that Slegg's lecherous fingers had now put on
display.
Jasper Slegg slid a hand into the back
of Erika's leggings and fondled the naked bottom he had sought to ravage in the
Bird Cage the night before. "Aye, it's the gauntlet for yer pretty arse, dearie," he whispered into Erika's ear. " 'oo
says a poor sailor's dreams can't come true?"
Meanwhile, Slegg noticed, as his fingers
slid deeper into Erika's leggings, Captain McMahon had been in conference with
the two Chinese, explaining their roles in the proceedings. A moment later Tranh burst into view, returning with the pair of cutlasses
for which he had been dispatched.
As Slegg pushed Erika toward the two
rows of sailors brandishing their freshly cut lengths of rope, he heard the Captain's
voice thunder. "Ye're
tae close thegither, ye fuils!
It's a gauntlet for the luv o' Jaysus,
not a Chinee fire brigade. Ye'll
be bashin' each ither with
the raips.
Step back, mon!" he yelled pulling Froggy away from the other row of men. "Step back the lot 'o ye."
Erika shivered. Though she
could not see the two columns of men stretching for perhaps twenty yards in
front of her, she could hear the bloodthirsty sailors, growling like sea
wolves, snickering at her nakedness.
"What about it, Lucky?" the blind-folded beauty heard Froggy's deep voice reverberate from the front of the
line. "You gonna
help me work on those big tits?"
"By the gods of Genghis Khan, I will!" interrupted the
deep voice of Khasar the Mongol from the middle of the
wolfpack.
Erika shuddered with trepidation. Of all the men in the Bird Cage, the
mustachioed giant from the
The clamor of raucous voices grew louder as the moment of
punishment grew nearer. She recognized Lucky's voice, and the excited jabbering of Raka and Tattoo, the Malayans who had molested her in the
corridor before taking to the infirmary. Further in the distance she could hear
the bestial grunts of Orang and Tiger, the peculiar
high-pitched chattering of Tranh the cook, and Deng's
gruff baritone. To a man, the sailors
of the Yang-tze Dragon seemed
impatient for her punishment to begin.
Suddenly Erika noticed that Slegg's
lecherous hands were no longer on her body.
Probably, she reasoned, he had joined the ranks of the men who had
formed the gauntlet.
But his place behind her had been taken by something else – cold
hard steel; one of the cutlasses, no doubt, which the captain had sent
for. Erika held her breath as she felt
the sharp tip of the cutlass pressing into the deep groove between her
buttocks. The blade was being held
there, no doubt, by one of the Chinese mandarins who had been proclaimed her
'escorts'.
"Be sure to walk nice and slow, wench," she heard Slegg call from the far end of the line. "So that every man
gets a couple of swings."
"Time!" McMahon's bellowed. "The escorts may begin the
procession."
Erika felt faint, and weak at the knees. Clearly she was going to
be forced to walk (or hopefully run) between the two lines of sailors, each of
whom had armed himself with one of the thirty-four weapons Deng had prepared.
She tried to compose herself, to think clearly.
Seventeen men to a side, spaced perhaps a yard
apart. Twenty yards of torment, she
knew, but, since there was to no escaping her fate, she might at least make the
best of it. How long could it take to
run twenty yards, after all? As long as she did not fall …
Erika took a deep breath and was about to take a quick step
forward, resolving to ignore the pain and to race through the gauntlet as
quickly as possible, when she felt the tip of the sword jabbing into her
buttocks, propelling her toward the two columns of attackers.
Knocked a bit off balance by the prod of the cutlass, Erika had
taken but two strides before coming abreast of the first men of the line and
receiving the first of the lashes. The
stinging blows came from both sides and then, as she gamely struggled forward,
from both fore and aft, each man targeting the front of her body as she
approached and directing his cruel lust at her back as she passed.
Froggy had fired the first shot, lashing
furiously at the ripe breasts which only hours earlier had cradled his lusty
cock. He had marked them with his semen
last night and now he meant to mark them with his lash.
THWICKKK!!! Erika groaned as the rope-whip slammed into
her naked breasts.
"Double up your rope and aim for those tits, boys! Make 'em dance!" Froggy growled, taking aim at Erika's heart-shaped buttocks as she edged
past him.
THWICK! The blow rekindled
the flames in Erika's bottom-cheeks, still tender from Slegg's
vicious flogging in the stoking room.
THWICKK!! "Aahhh!" As she moved
forward, Erika felt the slender cords of the rope-whips biting into her breasts
and back and shoulders. She bit her lip,
fighting off the pain as she tried to accelerate, to move more quickly through
the fusillade of firepower which awaited her.
Until the felt the sharp point of the second cutlass against her
left breast and was forced to slow her stride.
"Not so fast, fraulein!" General Wang's icy voice snapped from a
yard or two in front of her, as the rope-whips continued to fall on Erika's
naked flesh. "It is I who shall
set the pace, not you. Would you cheat
these honest sailors of their pleasure?"
THWICK!! THWICKK!!
"N-no," Erika gasped in strangled tones, as a pair of lashes,
delivered in tandem by Raka and Tattoo, seared the
soft feminine flesh of her flanks.
THWICK !!
Raka lashed at
her shoulders as she staggered past him.
THWICK!! While
Tattoo delivered a slicing downstroke to the tops of
her shapely bottom-ovals.
As the blows rained down Erika continued to trudge forward slowly,
now fully appreciating the utter dreadfulness of her plight. In front of her,
General Wang was still walking backward at a measured pace with cutlass
extended so that every blow from behind drove her soft breast against the point
of his saber. Behind her, Hsi Fong
followed closely, the sharp tip of his sword jabbing repeatedly at her yielding
buttocks, forestalling any thought of flight or retreat.
And so it was that the golden-haired, bare-breasted sea-nymph had
no choice but to walk forward, slowly, into the withering crossfire of lashes….
THWICCKK !! – a wicked belly
burner that found the edge of her golden fringe.
THWICKK !! --- a cutter
across the top of her hips
THWICKK!! A searing cut across her left breast that caused Erika
to lift her roped wrists to protect her treasures.
"Hands down!" the general snapped, as he flicked the
cutlass at her left wrist, drawing blood.
Erika cried out in pain and lowered her hands only to feel blows
from either side slicing into her tender breasts.
"Aghh!! Aghhh!! She cried out in agony, the pain for a moment
halting her progress,
giving the men around her time to strike again.
THWICKK!! TWHICKK!!! A pair of backhands across her buttocks and shoulder blades
were struck with such force that Erika was driven forward, into the path of
fresh lash-wielders.
THWICKK!! Another stroke across her throbbing tit-globes.
THWICKK!! A thigh-burner
that tore open the flimsy leggings.
"Stand back!! Give me room!!!" It was Khasar's
voice, just ahead. Summoning all of her
strength Erika stumbled forward, hoping to escape the wrath of the giant
Mongol.
But once again she was frustrated by the keenness of the sword-point pressing
against the undercurve of her breast.
THWIIIIIICKKK!! An audible whoosh of air gave Erika a
split-second's notice of the Mongol's mighty blow. But there was no time to evade the vicious
stroke which struck her full across both breasts with such force that she was
driven to her knees.
"AAAGHHHH!"
Erika cried out in agony, her right nipple ablaze with pain. The hulking Mongol was every bit as strong sa he looked. 'Get up!
Get up!!' Erika screamed silently to herself. 'Keep moving!!'
She struggled to her feet and felt Khasar's
doubled-over whip snap across the sensitive tips of her breasts yet again, but
she surged forward bravely, wincing in pain as the swarthy Mongol lashed
viciously at her bare back.
THWICKK!! The hellish
impact knocked her sideways into the waiting arms of the two men on her
left. The seamen seized their
opportunity gleefully, grabbing her and enveloping her in a sea of clutching
hands and prying fingers. One pair of hands fondled her naked breasts while
another hand dove inside the front of her leggings and clawed its way through
the ringlets of pubic hair toward the soft lips of her sex. When she felt a finger inside her she tried
to spin out of the reach of the two men and did so, but her tender breasts paid
a stern price as she twisted free of their gouging grip and back into the
opening between the two rows of sailors.
Disoriented, Erika
staggered forward, only to find that she had stumbled headlong into the men on
the other side of gauntlet.
"Grab her, Orang!" she heard a
man yell from behind her. A moment later
Erika felt Orang's powerful hands on her shoulders,
holding her in place, while Tiger, the man opposite him and behind her,
delivered a trio of lightning-like lashes to her bare back and the top of her
buttock crease.
"Let 'er gae!" thundered the
voice of the captain. "Hou is the lassie tae run the gauntlet if ye're holdin' on tae her like a
ewe at a sheep-shearin'!"
Erika staggered forward as Orang propelled
her back into the gap.
THWICKK!! THWICKKK!! "Aiiiiiii!!"
A stinging overhand found the tops of her breasts just as one of the men she
had passed whipped a diagonal stroke that left a trail of fire from her left
shoulder to her right hip.
"Aaahhh!!"
Erika gasped in pain. She was on
the verge of exhaustion but forced her legs to push forward again. How many more can could there be, she
wondered. Her course of doom was only
twenty paces long, but every step had been a frightful ordeal.
"THWICCKK!!
THWICKK!! Two more blows, a
breast-cutter from the left and a belly-burner from the right.
'Keep moving! Keep
moving!!' she screamed to herself as she felt Hsi Fong's sword jab into her
plump buttocks.
"Guess who?" snarled a voice as yet another stroke from
a rope-whip stung her taut nipples and stopped Erika dead in her tracks. "I may be last -- but not least," growled Slegg as he took the whip low and launched a vicious
uppercut at Erika's vulnerable crotch.
THWICKKK!! The lash burned
through the thin leggings like a hot knife through butter, setting Erika's
vulva on fire. She stumbled blindly
forward, trying to get past Slegg, but Deng-shan, his
counterpart on her left, slowed her with a powerful stroke that scalded her
ribcage and almost drove her to her knees.
"Aaaaahhh!"
Erika cried out, praying that she would not go down, not at the feet of
Jasper Slegg.
She lurched forward again, trying to get past this last pair of men, but fell heavily
face down on the deck when Slegg extended his leg and
tripped her.
THWICCCKK!! Slegg slashed at
the ripe curves of her buttocks and then at her naked shoulders as Erika, using
her last bit of strength, crawled forward on her belly, her bare, burning,
breasts scraping against the ship's metal deck with every inch of her
progress. Slegg
aimed a third stinging blow at her back, and then unburdened himself
of a litany of vile curses, as Erika, with unshakable courage, continued to
struggle forward.
Slegg delivered a final wicked slash to the backs of her legs,
shredding the tattered remnants of her leggings, before Erika, inching forward like a
salamander, passed him, thus completing the grim course of the gauntlet. A moment later she collapsed face down on the
deck, panting, more dead than alive.
"Well done, lads," thundered McMahon. "And well
done, lassie" he added under his breath as he glanced at his watch and
then at the beautiful young woman quivering on the foredeck. It had taken her one
minute and forty-six seconds to negotiate the dreadful gauntlet. Not bad at all. In his time he had seen strong men do worse,
much worse. This girl had a spirit to
match her looks. But, he smiled grimly to himself, it remained to be seen
whether her indomitable spirit would survive the three remaining parts of her
stern sentence.
General Wang, too was pleased. At first he had been a bit disappointed that
the beautiful blonde had not been stripped naked before being forced to run the
gauntlet. But the whistling rope-cords
had savaged her upper legs front and back, and the skin-tight fabric was now in
ruins, clinging patchily to her pale, half-revealed buttocks and her sun-kissed
thighs. Nudity could hardly have been more enticing.
And while the rope-whips had surely stung, the red-bearded captain
had known his business. The slenderness
of the cords, the tight spacing of the men, and the predictable impatience
which had led many of them to rush their blows had kept even the worst of the
lashes from doing any lasting damage to Erika Weiss's creamy flesh. But it had been a spectacle, the sight of
that topless temptress fighting her way through the withering crossfire of
lashes, which he would not soon forget.
Still prostrate on the deck, Erika Weiss felt Jasper Slegg's toe thump against her tender ribcage. "On yer feet, milady,"
the gravelly voice rasped. "Time to Kiss the Wooden Lady!"
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