Unpleasant torture scene..

Her mind was not on her work that day as she walked down the stone stairs to her dungeon. It was strange to some, the possessive way she referred to her workspace, but she was like that. Besides, in a peculiar way it was hers: nobody else would dare encroach on her territory, and she liked it that way. That was where she honed her skill, practiced her art.

She entered the room, bolting the door behind her; she barely glanced at the prisoner, bound and gagged, on the chair in the centre of the room. She ignored him as she went to her desk and began to gather her tools. She gave the prisoners paperwork a cursory glance: he was to be questioned about his involvement with the abduction of seven children. She paused in gathering her equipment, then changed her mind. She went to the other side of the room, and found a nice solid hammer. A few moments rummaging through her assorted bits and pieces produced a handful of nails, none in very good condition. She brought these closer to the prisoner, then removed the gag from his mouth.

He was terrified, just like all the others. Though she rarely left the royal compound, the whole country knew her by reputation. She was the only female in this line of work, and she was more effective than any of the men. She struck fear into the hearts of even the strongest of men, this small woman who was barely more than a child.

The man in the chair was crying, begging for mercy. She watched him expressionlessly, as he slowly became more hysterical, offering her anything she would like to let him free. After a few minutes, she grew bored of his blubbering, and swiftly slapped him across the face. The sound echoed around the room, and the shock dried his tears instantly.

“Oh please, God, have mercy…” he whimpered, the terror still in his eyes. She merely looked at him, then smiled, a cold, humourless smile that chilled him to the bone.

“Your God can not help you now,” she whispered silkily, “Even He knows better than to cross me.”

She struck so fast that the prisoner had no time to prepare; with the hammer she had been holding so negligently in her hand, she swiftly bashed one of the nails into his leg, just above the knee. His scream was piercing, echoing around the room and down the corridor. She continued to smile as she grabbed his face, made him look into her eyes.

“This is gentle. This is nothing,” she stated in her flat, emotionless voice. “If you do not tell me what I need to know, this will get much worse, do you understand?”

The prisoner frantically nodded his head; without so much as blinking, she tapped her hammer against the side of the nail in his knee, making him cry out in agony again.

“I need a verbal response, please.”

“Yes, I understand!” he shrieked, tears welling in his eyes once again. She smiled briefly, then walked behind him to her desk.

“What have you done with the children you took?” she asked, looking through the documents she had been provided: seven children had gone missing from the city in the last two months, and all evidence led to his involvement. But this weakling was obviously not the leader; all they needed now was a name.

“Nothing… I… I swear I had nothing to do with it!” he stuttered, tears once again falling down his face, but the pitch of his voice told her this was not the truth. She walked back over to him, and placed another nail over his other knee. Smiling contentedly, she took her hammer and, slowly this time, tapped the nail into his body, amid his cries and shrieks of agony. She gave him a few moments to adjust to this new pain before she spoke again.

“Do not lie to me. You will only make this worse for yourself. Now, tell me the truth this time. What did you do with the children?”

Slowly, between sobs and gasps of pain, he began to explain. How they had taken the children one by one, had stored them in his cellar until they were ready to transport them. Then his contact had come by with a stranger from another country, who had viewed the children, examined them, and asked after their age and condition. The pair had sold all seven children to this foreigner for ten gold pieces each.

Her eyes flashed at this information. There is only one trade which pays so highly for children. She contained herself until he had finished speaking, then moved in front of him, her face less than an inch from his.

“Give me a name,” she ordered, her voice deceptively soft. As she had mastered her craft, so too had she mastered the art of controlling her temper until she could unleash it. The prisoner, so unaware of the barely contained violence so close before him, then gave her the one piece of information she needed.

“His name is Varna, of the west side of town. He owns an inn there, I don’t know what it’s called. Please, let me go,” he pleaded, his voice cracking with the pain that was becoming bearable.

Her smile grew wider, and she felt a ripple of pleasure go through her, knowing that she could now do whatever she wished to him.

“Thank you for that wonderful information. I will make certain he is picked up tonight.”

“So, you’ll let me go?” the prisoner asked, hope written across his face. She didn't answer, just moved to the door and called the guardsman who always stood by the stairs. After a brief whispered conversation, the guard moved away again, and she turned back to her prisoner – now her victim.

The look on her face struck more terror in his heart than anything he had seen or felt yet that night. Her expression was excited, happy even; yet her eyes were full of a cruelty he had never seen before.

“You said I could go…” he whispered, barely able to form the words. She laughed, a chilling sound devoid of humour, or even humanity.

“I never said you could go,” she said, her smile widening as she anticipated the night ahead. “You have just admitted to me that you have been selling children into sexual slavery. That forfeits all your rights to release; I will keep you here until I am done with you.”

The prisoner could not even scream through his terror as she approached him, her rage barely contained beneath her icy calm exterior. This was one of the few crimes she could not condone, and to have this man here at her mercy was a peculiar kind of justice: she would have to apologise to the King later, of course, but the prisoner would be of no further use by then.

Abruptly, she raised the hammer and smashed it down onto the first nail; there was a sickening crunch as it was smashed to the base into his knee. His screams were deafening, but it was music to her ears; this was justice.

As his screaming calmed to a pathetic blubbering, she put the gag back in his mouth, and grabbed a scrap of cloth from the table, binding it tightly round his eyes. His immediate reaction was to panic and try to get free, but his wrists and ankles were still tied to the chair, and the nails in his knees had crippled him even if he could get loose. She picked up another nail from the table beside her, and humming softly to herself, drove it all the way through his wrist with one hit from the hammer.

She knew her job well enough that she avoided any fatal injury: he would not die until she was through with him.

She continued this pattern through the rest of the night, humming to herself as she put nails through various parts of his anatomy, taking it slow enough that he would adjust to each new wound before making the next, each time pushing the pain to new heights.

When she ran out of nails, she reversed the hammer, and took to removing them, one by one, as painfully as possible.

Every man in the vicinity that night had nightmares for a month after, the laughter they heard coming from that room chilling them much more than the screams of agony.