To Hunt A Magick

Chapter Six: Rainie Impounded

Rainie shivered in the cold metal carriage, her shoulders ached from her arms being bound behind her back, her head ached from lack of sleep and all the crying she had done, and she was very tired from having lost control and using her powers. Now she was headed to her death, all because she had cared for the wrong person.

Tears flowed again down her cheeks, a painful ache bloomed in her chest making each breath a struggle, and for the first time in her life, she wished she did not have a heart at all. Laying her head against the cool metal carriage, Rainie fell into an exhausted sleep, her dreams a painful reminder of everything she had lost.

"Wake up you filthy dog, you will have time enough to sleep when you are dead." A cruel voice barked, kicking Rainie awake.

Rainie jolted awake, her side aching from the vicious kick, she looked up at the man towering over her, his eyes were dark, he had a gold ring in one of his ears, and he was missing some teeth. Grinning he reached down and jerked Rainie up by her hair, making her whimper from the pain.

Laughing the man threw her out of the carriage onto the cold hard ground. Rainie tried to scramble up, but a mean-looking woman shoved her back down. The toothless man grinned, "Now, now dog, you must learn your place if you expect to survive." Rainie frowned, what did he mean, survive? The man noticing her frown laughed, "Aw the dog is confused, how pathetic. Listen here, if you do what we say when we say. We will deem you harmless, and you will be sold to the highest bidder to be their personal pet to do whatever they wish. If you cause problems or disobey us, well then you will earn yourself a one-way ticket to the stake. Am I understood dog?"

Rainie gazed up at him in horror, unable to speak. The woman behind her suddenly kicked her and barked, "Speak when spoken to mutt, unless you would rather we made sure you cannot talk at all."

Gulping in fear Rainie quickly nodded, "I understand."

The woman kicked her again, "I understand what?"

Whimpering Rainie quickly replied, "Sir. I understand, Sir."

The man grinned, "Good girl. You may be a fast learner." The man looked at the woman, "Get her cleaned up, have Wilbur work her over, and begin her training, she is supposedly a water so put her in room four. I think this one will be an easy train and a quick sale, so tell him not to ruff her up too much."

The woman nodded, grabbed Rainie by her hair, dragging her across the ground to what looked like a stable for horses. Once inside the stable, Rainie could see multiple stalls, each stall was bare except for a wooden water trough in the center of the stall. There were hooks around the walls with various ropes, straps of leather, and a flogger. A metal gate hung outside each of the stalls complete with little locks.

Rainie noticed that some of the gates were closed and huddled in the corners of those closed stalls were people, bound in all sorts of positions, some huddled in corners terrified, some kneeled beside the troughs their spirits broken, and some were not alone; these were the hardest to look at because the man or woman in these stalls were being beaten with a flogger by a guard, their pleas for mercy muffled by leather straps around their mouths.

The woman stopped in front of an empty stall, threw Rainie in, and slammed the gate shut. Smiling she said, "Do not worry mutt, Wilbur will come care for you soon, and I will be back to check on you later."

Rainie watched the woman stomp off, trembling she scooted back into the corner of the little stall, and waited. She wished she had never trusted him, now she had lost everything. Gran, Dawn, Rainie frowned, Dawn. She had forgotten about Dawn. Had she been subjected to these horrors? Was she still here? Did they sell her or did they?

Before she could think about it anymore, a large guy with a wispy beard and greasy blonde hair opened the gate to her stall. He was wearing a brown leather butcher's apron and brown leather gloves. He slammed the gate behind him and grinned down at her, "Well, are you not the prettiest little thing. We are going to have so much fun."

Wilbur's idea of fun was torture to Rainie. He started by bathing her in freezing cold water, then he dressed her in an itchy cloth sack that had a hole for her head, and holes for her arms, with the bottom open for her legs, and it only reached to the top of her thighs.

After he had deemed her clean, he claimed he needed to work her over to start her training. He made her kneel facing the back wall of the stall with her hands on the wall in front of her, while he hit her repeatedly with the flogger. If she cried out, he hit her harder, if she moved or let her arms fall, he hit her harder. He kept repeating, "A good dog does what it is told. A good dog lives to grow old. A good dog does what it is told."

Rainie had never been in so much pain. She wished it would end. She wished he would just kill her. Rainie did not know how long he hit her, but when the blows finally stopped, she thought that maybe, just maybe the nightmare was over, but to her horror, it was not.

Wilbur grabbed her by the hair, jerking her head back, and spat, "What does a good dog do?"

Trembling Rainie replied, "A good dog does what it is told. A good. A good dog lives lives to grow old. A good dog-" Rainie stopped, she could not get the words to come out. She opened and closed her mouth several times, she just could not finish the horrible little rhyme.

Wilbur shook her hard, but she could not do it. Shaking his head, he flung her down, walked over to one of the hooks on the wall, grabbed a mean-looking leather thing, and stomped back over to her saying, "Well, looks like you are not ready to be a good dog. A few days with the muzzle should help teach you, if not well then, I am more than happy to silence you forever."

Panicked Rainie tried to scramble away, but he was too quick for her. He sat down on top of her pinning her arms to her side, sliding the leather thing on her head. It had straps that tightened at the top and back of her head, the front of the piece was made out of metal that was welded into a smile with three slits for breathing, and when it was in place the top part of the metal smile reached just under her nose and the bottom went down past her chin and back towards her throat.

It was like the metal smile had replaced her mouth and chin, with the leather straps locking it in place. He made sure to pull the straps tight so the leather would bite into her skin and the metal would chafe against her lips. Rainie tried and failed to open her mouth, panicked she tried to wiggle out from under him, but he just sat and watched her squirm. After a few minutes, Rainie gave up and cried. She was hurting, exhausted, and they were treating her like she was some kind of animal, only worse than she had ever seen any animal be treated.

Laughing Wilbur got up and grabbed something else off one of the hooks on the wall, kneeling down, he jerked Rainie into a sitting position and roughly fastened a thick leather collar around her neck. The collar had a metal ring in the center for a rope to be tied to, so they could lead her, and under the ring was a heavy metal chain that hung down about two feet. The chain split in a Y with little metal cuffs at each end. Wilbur cuffed Rainie's hands, each to one end of the Y chain. He then grabbed another set of chains from the wall, made her lean forward, and he shackled her ankles.

When he was done making sure she was chained tightly, Wilbur forced her to resume her kneeling position with her hands on the wall and began hitting her with the flogger again while chanting, "A good dog does what it is told. A good dog lives to grow old. A good dog does what it is told. A good dog lives to grow old. A good dog does what it is told."