The pair were looking for any clue to the queen's disappearance that the seneschal's men might have missed. After a few minutes careful searching, Branco noticed some small tufts of what he took to be golden silk sticking out of a joint in the woodwork of the old bookcase. He pulled them free and handed them to Flamia.
"It's some strands of my mother's hair!" she spluttered, holding it up to the sunlight.
Branco returned to the bookcase and after a few minutes close inspection was able to spring open the concealed trap to expose the cramped passage beyond. The knight drew his sword, stepped into the void and cocked an ear, but there was no sound save for the gentle sighing of an updraft.
"Where does it lead?" asked Flamia in a whisper.
"Down," replied Branco darkly, "listen little-one, go quickly to the guardroom on the main landing and bring the sergeant, tell him to follow me down with as many men as he can quickly muster."
Flamia nodded, her pale blue eyes huge with fear as Branco lit one of her mother's bedside candles and disappeared into the dark. As soon as he was gone Flamia picked up her skirts and raced down to the guardroom, but the room was empty. The guard had been stripped down to the outer walls only as the search parties had been dispatched into the surrounding countryside.
In a panic, Flamia ran back to her mother's apartments and stood looking into the awful void. She lit the remaining candle and then she took a very deep breath and followed in Branco's footsteps.
Gargo had the furnace beginning to glow with the help of the little grull who sat patiently to the side, pumping the bellows with his hairy feet to feed the crackling fire with air.
Vulkan had strung Amariza up alongside Lilliphane so that the royal pair hung immobilised and ready for their next trial. The queen watched Vulkan with mounting dread as he sorted amongst a vast array of branding irons until her found one he liked with an unmistakable cock and balls motif and this he brandished in front of Amariza.
"Where do you want it bitch?" he leered at her – the face?" he touched the cold iron to Amariza's soft cheek. Then between her breasts, "what about here, hm?" he trailed the iron lower, enjoying the flutter of her belly as he drew it across her abdomen, "or maybe down here, over your royal cunt?" he tossed the iron to Gargo, who plunged it into the smoking coals with a lopsided grin lighting up his big ugly face.
Amariza's vision blurred as two huge tears of pure terror welled up and began to trickle down her face. The prince groaned as he watched, leaning in close to lick off the salty fluid. She averted her face as his coarse tongue swirled over her skin.
"Kiss me, slut," her murmured into her ear, "kiss me, or I'll put the brand on your snotty, fucking face."
Helplessly, Amariza parted her lips and allowed Vulkan to close his hungry mouth over hers. He plundered her hungrily; his incredibly long tongue slithered insistently around her teeth and palate, lapping playfully at her own small tongue. He kissed her languorously for several minutes, sucking the sweet saliva from her, tickling at the back of her pharynx until she baulked repeatedly.
Gargo handed Vulkan the branding iron and stood close bye, his podgy hand rummaging beneath his apron to grasp his cock as the prince first advanced upon the insensible Lilliphane.
Amariza sounded like she was going to wretch as he took hold of Lilliphane's right nipple and dragged her large breast downward, flattening the heavy bowl. Vulkan raised the iron and pressed it down on to the sweating flesh, his eyes glittering as the damp skin crackled and seared beneath the dully-glowing iron.
For her part, Lilliphane, half demented with the satyr's contagion, simply rolled her head and cried out in a tired, half-hearted kind of way, mercifully oblivious of the indelible mark that had been burned into her flesh.
Gargo put the iron back into the fire as Vulkan returned to Amariza and began to kiss her again. The poorly ventilated chamber had become unbearably hot from the forge and the queen, could barely breathe for the stench of burning flesh filling her nose. She yelped into his mouth as he slipped all four fingers into her exposed sex and began to massage her, his thumb crushing down on her clitoris, masturbating her, teasing her whilst they both waited for the iron.
Gargo harrumphed to signal the brand was ready. Vulkan took the hot steel from him and went to stand in front of the queen. Amariza was shaking from head to foot, her cross-eyed stare fixed to the glowing end of the iron as Vulkan waved it slowly to and fro before her nose, letting her feel the intense, dry heat prickle her flesh.
"Please," she breathed, her voice a distant flurry of autumn leaves as her face began to quiver and crumple, "d-don't b-burn me… I'll d-do anything… anything at all."
Vulkan hesitated, letting the iron swing down by his leg. He smiled a gentle, relenting smile. Amariza smiled too, tremulously at first, her lips quivering and then widening with relief as he began to turn away.
Then suddenly! As quick as a serpent striking he swung back, his arm shooting out to plant the smouldering brand in the centre of her lower stomach.
Amariza screamed as the metal bored into the pale skin of her belly just below the navel, the pubic hair caught under the iron vaporised with a tearing, crackling sound. Vulkan groaned through his teeth as he glared fiercely into her startled eyes, the intense pain was writ large in the deep blue orbs as she stared back at him, tears once again beginning to flood down her cheeks.
The satyr flung away the smoking iron and thrust his quivering cock-meat into her sex, grasping on to the rounds of her buttocks with his strong hands, pulling her away from the wall as he ground himself into her, ramming away at her as she continued to scream out in a mixture of shock and agony. Once again, Vulkan roared out as his buttocks clenched up like two boulders and the climax smashed through his loins, pumping yet more hot gouts of semen into her ever so tight sex chasm as she fell fainting against him.
Behind the dungeon trapdoor Branco heard the Queen's ear splitting cry. The knight felt about in the darkness for the locking mechanism, his desperate fingers fumbling in his haste, finally he was able to throw the handle and thrust his shoulder against the door.
Vulkan heard the door crash open and turned to look over his shoulder just as Branco charged into the dungeon, broadsword held out before him.
The king's champion stood transfixed as he stared around at what looked to a God fearing knight like him to be a scene straight from Hell. The fat, ugly dungeon master, naked save for his work scarred leather apron standing beside the glowing forge. The Princess Lilliphane hanging from the wall, her sweat soaked flesh excoriated from head to foot and her breast scorched with an obscene phallic brand. The queen, also shackled and helpless, with the all but naked Prince Vulkan standing between her thighs, their posture clearly one of copulation.
Branco advanced slowly, looking around in anticipation of an attack from another quarter.
"Step away from the queen," he rasped at Vulkan, "quickly!"
Vulkan released Amariza's hips and stepped back, his cock sliding out of her sex with a viscous, sucking slurp that was audible throughout the silent chamber.
Branco's breath hissed out through his tightly clenched teeth as he watched the satyr's heavy load of spunk begin to drip from the queen's gaping sex lips in long, glistening strands. His grey eyes narrowing to the merest slits as he took in the grotesque cock and ball brand seared into the otherwise perfect plain of her stomach. The knight began to weave the tip of his sword around in figures of eight as he advanced upon the unarmed satyr.
"I don't know what kind of hellish hole in the ground you crawled out of chimera," he growled vengefully, "but I'm going to send you right back down there."
The prince looked quickly about; there were no weapons to hand and without at least a sword, or some length of steel he knew he could not withstand Branco's imminent assault. He looked briefly for the fat dungeon master, but Gargo and his little grull seemed to have wisely faded into the walls.
Vulkan was on the verge of grabbing hold of the queen and threatening to snap her neck when the countess appeared in the doorway behind Branco. Jessica immediately summed up the situation and stepped into the chamber, creeping up behind the knight on the toes of her boots. Vulkan smiled at the champion, speaking quickly and loudly in order to cover the countess' approaching footsteps.
"Well, well, well," he crowed, "if it isn't the king's champion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't I kick your sorry ass last week? Didn't I make a donkey's dick of you in front of little Princess Flamia? I hear the king couldn't stop laughing about it for three days."
Jessica had only the multi-thonged scourge Gargo had given her the previous day, but she hoped that would be enough as she whirled the long falls above her and brought them slashing down around Branco's head, the sharp leather ripping into the knight's eyes and blinding him. Vulkan leapt forward, rolling under the expected blind sword lunge Branco made and bowled the knight off his feet, standing back as the countess broke a heavy stool over the knight's head and shoulders. Branco roared like a bull, slashing out with his sword, coming within an inch of eviscerating the nimble countess as she sprang back out the way. However, Jessica had given the super-fast satyr prince all the time he needed to hop in behind the knight and bring him down with a string of vicious chops to the neck.
Princess Flamia finally made it down to the dungeon level after taking more wrong turns that she could remember. The strangely attired Countess Jessica, who passed bye unseeing at one of the many intersections and whom she followed, maintaining a discreet distance, finally guided her in the right direction.
Now Flamia stood, heart pounding, behind the half open door and watched the final few seconds of the struggle between the hateful Vulkan and her beloved Branco.
The teenager had to jam her fist into her mouth as she took in the sight of her mother and aunt dangling from the dungeon walls and the hugely endowed satyr hauling brave Branco's unconscious body about as if the brawny knight were a mere child.
As the enormity of Prince Vulkan's ghastly treachery became obvious, Flamia slowly slunk back into the dark and began the long ascent to her mother's chambers. Her horror at what she had seen in the dreadful dungeon threatened to break out of her in a fit of uncontrolled screaming at any second. Flamia clamped her tiny hand over her mouth as she climbed, terrified that she would hear the pounding tread of the frightful satyr behind her at any moment.
The princess burst out into the daylight and slammed the bookcase quickly closed behind her. She stood, chest heaving for a minute as she regained her breath before racing off to find her father – he would know what to do she told herself.
Leopold was rolling on the floor with the wolfhounds when Flamia ran into the throne room. Around him stood a handful of footmen, all wearing expressions of consternation as they watched the king 'acting the idiot' with the dogs – as he had been for the past hour.
The princess hesitated when she saw the seneschal and two of the old dukes lounging vacantly in the three royal thrones, one of the dukes was drooling from the mouth as he played idly with his penis, something she never would have imagined could happen in the throne room.
Her father giggled inanely as she knelt to tell him about the terrible goings on in the dungeon, wagging his finger at her.
"Now, now, now, Flamia," he spoke as if she were a naughty child, "you know there are no dungeons in papa's castle, mama made him seal them all up before you were even born."
Flamia looked up at the senior footman.
"What has gone on here?" she asked, fear once again tugging at her entrails.
The footman shook his head, backing away nervously, "witchcraft Highness," he breathed quietly, "all gone missing, or mad – it's a curse!"
Flamia tried again to make her father listen, but he seemed stubbornly incapable of rational thought, preferring to wrestle with the hounds rather than listen to her.
With tears of panic and frustration running down her face, Flamia ran from the throne room and out along the empty halls. With almost all of the knights and men-at-arms out of the castle searching the countryside, the once safe and secure keep now seemed empty and daunting. Without thinking where she was running, the princess soon found herself in the stables, where her gentle gelding stood patiently in his stall.