The drums were deafening in the City of Bones as word had been sent ahead of the find of the huntresses. At the entrance a ramshackle and ragged group was led along towards the main gate. Twin stones pillars marked the entrance on either side, each depicting horrifying imagines of massive bestial cats and great snakes. The designs were created with a geometry in mind clearly, sharp angles carved into the stones. The stone buildings followed similar designs. It was enough to be impressed, if one wasn’t being let along bound and at spear point.

Johnathan North looked around in wonder at the city before him, the beating drums filling his ears and the ears of those around him. Considering the women that had brought them here, he’d expected huts of sticks and mud. Not… this marvel of geometry. The scholar in him wanted to examine the place. Though, considering circumstances… he doubted their being brought here was a good thing. Quite the opposite as he noted the sounds of jeering within the city proper.

Six men had survived the onslaught in the night. It had been swift, brutal, and impossible for anyone to expect. All were dressed in a foreign manner compared to those women escorting them. Steel armor had been stripped from them and thus they wore ripped and worn tunics and trousers, leather boots worn almost to their soles clattering loudly upon the stones with every step. Their hands were tied with thick cords of rope, each one attached to the wrist of a huntress.

John swallowed hard, the humidity of the jungle beyond the city still very much present. Sweat perspired upon his pale brow, matting his blonde hair into clumps. He dared to follow the rope attached to his bonds. He looked up, and up, and up. Standing near him at twice times again the height of a man was his escort. Her deeply tanned skin was adorned with a number of markings. Her form was lean and muscle lent itself to her trim shape. Modest curves filled out here or there, her breasts bared without reservation. A yellow spotted pelt draped her shoulders, the belt around her waist bearing a primitive looking skirt to protect some modesty. Her feet were wrapped in rough leather sandals. At her side, an ivory club. One that was still stained red from two nights past. Dark hair was cut into a short bob and adorned with sharp teeth for decoration. A similar style to each hunter.

Out of the corner of her brown eyes her gaze flicked to John, causing her to pull her lips back into a grin. Her teeth had been sharpened and filed. A little tug from her rope sent him stumbling to keep his balance. The blonde haired man let out a cry as he ended up falling flat on his face on the stone walk way. She sneered and jerked him to his feet, nearly dislocating his arm from the force of the pull.

As they passed by the entrance John could see in the distance a massive pyramid like structure. A temple perhaps? A palace? Hard to say, at this point anything went. The street was a straight shot there however. Lining it was a crowd of similarly tall women on either side. Some looked like warriors, others looked like civilians. Try as he might, John couldn’t catch sight of any men among their number.

Suddenly he watched the rope that had been holding him to the huntress beside him drop to the ground. John blinked and looked to the side. His fellows were similarly freed, their hands still bound but no longer being tugged along.

“What the hell…” The man next to him muttered.

One whirled around and looked at the amazon that had been escorting him. “The fuck is your game?” The deckhand demanded.

That particular woman looked at him blankly before looking at the huntress that had been escorting John. A nod was offered. The significance of that was made apparent when the offended huntress promptly backhanded the deckhand across the jaw. John winced as he heard a loud crack, the man’s jaw broken. He immediately turned his own gaze at his feet. A mistake as it turned out as one of the man’s teeth had flown through the air and landed right there.

The huntress stood over the man as he moaned in misery and pain. She reached down on the ground and picked up one of his fallen teeth, pocketing it. Judging from her bracelet of tiny teeth John got the feeling this was a hobby of hers. That chilled his blood more than anything else. Her large hand seized the deckhand’s hair and roughly shoved him forward with a chuckle.

John felt a shiver down his spine as he felt warm breath upon his neck. The scent of unknown fruits tinged the breath of his escort. A finger traced up his spine and she whispered something in his ear in her language. With the little push from her finger he got the message; move.

He swallowed hard as he started walking. Blue eyes darted around. Women twice his height jeered at he and his fellows as they marched through the city street. One met his gaze and drew her thumb across her throat. Another, a younger woman there with some friends spat on John as he passed her, laughing with her fellows who gasped. A dare perhaps? Anger and indignation welled up in him, followed by deep humiliation as he wiped the gob of spittle from his face. She’d probably been ten years younger than the twenty six year old sailor.

One of their party tried to make a break for it and dart through the crowd on one side. A rather buxom woman in rough linen clothing stepped in his path and casually pushed back on him with her hand.

“Bitches, gah! Let me go!” He yelled as he fell onto his ass.

The middle aged woman set her dirty bare foot on his chest and kept him pinned their effortlessly. The man scrabbled, howled and clawed at her long leg, trying to push her off him to no avail. After a moment she let up only to bodily lift him up and hug him to her body. His head went between her ample assets and no matter how he kicked and squirmed it was futile. His cries were muffled between the ample mounds, starving him for air.

At her side was a young girl, easily matching John’s height. Her daughter he realized. She chuckled and pointed at him to her girl. What was she saying he idly wondered? How to suffocate a man? The proper treatment for captives? Whatever it was the little girl smiled and nodded dutifully. After a final long squeeze the woman released her hold on the man and sent him sprawling out onto the ground. The huntress behind him grabbed him by the hair and roughly shoved him back towards the distant pyramid.

The procession went on and on, the crowd mocking them in their strange language while drums pounded from the direction of the temple. Suddenly John felt his arm grabbed about halfway to his destination and he found himself face to thigh with one of the guards. She smirked down at him in a predatory manner, her teeth not filed and perfectly set. She grabbed a fistful of his tunic and ripped the sweaty fabric away like wet cheesecloth. She looked at the fabric appreciatively and promptly tucked it into her belt.

“H-hey! Wait!” He said without thinking, the memory of the deckhand flashing through his mind.

The guard lifted a brow and idly pushed him over into the crowd. Women parted slightly to give him room to fall, giggling and laughing as the bare chested sailor fell upon the ground. John smacked his head against the ground, jarring him and scrambling his brain a bit. “Gah… fucking hell…” He cursed softly.

He looked up and saw the women around him staring down at him. A woman about his own age lifted her bare foot up over his face. Her sole was worn from walking without shoes, dirty and grimy. Without further preamble she pressed it onto his face, a laugh going up the crowd and a deep flush flaming across John’s face.

“Geddof!” He tried to say. As he opened his mouth his teeth scraped off some of the dirt stuck to her sole and the rancid taste filled his mouth.

John nearly gagged. Especially when she dexterously gripped his nose between her dirty toes and squeezed them between them. He squirmed and tried to get out from under her so he could breathe though it was no use. As his legs flailed he felt another foot press firmly between  his leg and start rubbing down there, someone else from the crowd toying with him for amusement. A jolt of unwanted pleasure shot through him at the massaging of his crotch.

Eventually both stopped and he felt a strong grip on his arm again. He never thought he’d have been happy to see his escort again. She pulled him upright and promptly shoved him back into place, a sneer upon her face. John gasped relatively clean humid air and happily continued along the path.

As he walked and looked at the crowd he noticed something. There were indeed men among their numbers. Like their women they possessed deep tanned skin and almond shaped eyes. Unlike them they were smaller, matching the height of the prisoners. They stood meekly behind their women, some possessing collars and leashes around their throats. John met the eyes of one and what stared back at him were hollow haunted orbs. Not a man, but a shell of a man. John shivered as he walked, looking back at his escort. She followed where his gaze had been and chuckled, shoving him along.

Finally they arrived outside the wall surrounding the temple. They passed under the archway leading inside and entered the courtyard.

At the base of the pyramid was a wide open space. It possessed bloodstains upon smooth stone floor. Streaks of blood and gouges in the ground indicated clawing of fingers desperate to not be dragged somewhere. Lining the space where statues of various deadly animals, jaws opened and hungry. A smaller crowd was here, these women better dressed with gold heavily adorning their personage. A noble class?

At the top of the pyramid stood a much taller woman, easily three times the height of a man. She was dressed in fine dyed clothes and had a gold headdress adorning her head. A queen of sorts? Possibly. John found his escort had stepped forward and bellowed something in her language before sweeping out a hand to the gathered captives. He was getting a sneaking suspicion she was a leader of some kind. She bowed her head to the woman who leaned forward upon her golden throne.

The queen stood and tapped a feathered staff upon the ground, stating something. Her voice was powerful and rich and carried through the grounds. John was cursing the language barrier, unsure what was going on here. She continued to speak before gesturing to the sky and then to the captives gathered before her. She then sat down upon her throne and waved a hand errantly.

Unsure whether that was good or bad for them, John immediately figured it was bad as his escort turned to one of the other huntresses and nodded. She gripped the rope of the deckhand she’d broken the jaw off and dragged him onto the arena of blood stains. He fought tooth and nail to be dragged out there, stumbling and slipping over a bloodstain that was actually rather fresh. The drums were thunderous in here now, pounding at John’s skull.

The blonde felt like he should run but found a big hand on the nape of his neck. He swallowed at the warning, his escort having returned. One wrong move and she could easily snap his neck. Her rough fingers started to massage at his neck with the kind of casual fondness one might show to a dog or cat. The mental comparison shamed him.

The deckhand couldn’t get out any articulate words, his broken jaw preventing that. It was all gibberish of a man maddened by fear. The huntress cut his bonds with a black glass knife and nodded to some women at the sides. Four women, completely naked and their bodies covered in tattoos of various beasts shuffled onto the platform. They pinned him to the ground and tied his arms and legs to pegs in the smooth floor.

A middle aged woman dressed in a feathered cloak and possessed of a silver headdress stepped out onto the platform. She lifted her hands to the sky and the sun above speaking once more in her strange tongue. Everyone was silent as she spoke. Well, everyone but the deckhand, nonsensical words shouted up as he eyes were wide with terror. John felt his own heart racing at a hundred miles an hour, the anticipation of whatever was to come killing him.

From within the feathered robe the woman (a priestess of some description perhaps?) pulled a black glass knife and held it up to the heavens. The pounding of the drums returned, low and setting an undertone in the background. The much larger woman mounted the man at her feet at the waist. Even sitting John estimated she had a good foot over him. Somehow he felt even smaller, a child in a land of giants.

The man beneath the priestess writhed and screamed incoherently, frothing at the mouth as he tried to squirm away. Even had he not been bound the woman was simply too big for that. She lifted her blade up. John tried to look away but found the large rough fingers upon the back of his neck stopping him. His escort tightened her grip, not painfully so but enough to force his gaze upon what was to come.

John then realized exactly what a blood curdling scream was.

The blade sank into the soft flesh of the belly, drawn across it to slice a nice opening in the deckhand’s stomach. The man started convulsing and the priestess reached her hand up through the opening in his stomach, pulling out to reveal a small still beating heart in her bloody hand. The screams stopped soon after as did the struggling. A cheer rose up from the crowd as the heart was presented to the sky.

Why was he looking at the ground now? More to the point was that vomit? Funny, when had he thrown up? John’s legs felt weak and he was pale, paler than normal. He was vaguely aware of another of his fellows being dragged kicking and screaming up to the platform. What… what was this? What the fuck was this?

“Let me fucking go! No, stop! You bitches, I’ll kill you, I swear I’ll kill you! Gah, let go!” The man, one of the royal marines, screamed, ranting and raving the whole way he was tugged along.

His screams and cries fell on deaf ears. The body of the dead deckhand was pulled away and the marine was soon tied up in his place, forced to lie in a pool of fresh blood. John watched as the priestess repeated her gruesome ritual. Whatever god mandated this was no god. They were the devil incarnate.

The priestess didn’t cut into this one. She instead removed his clothes, tossing them to the crowd as she made a spectacle of the entire affair. The tall woman set her bare foot upon his head, forcing it onto its side. The man continued to scream. “Get off of me you fucking cunt!” He started biting at the air, trying to bite at her foot in a display of resistance.

The priestess snorted and said something, drawing a chuckle from members of the crowd. She pressed down harder. Harder. It wasn’t long until the cursing stopped and the screams of pain started. The giant woman put her full weight upon the marine’s head, a sneer upon her pierced lips. John could hear the crack and knew what was coming before it happened. Once again, looking away was denied to him.

*CRACK!* *SQUEALCH!*

Bones, blood, and bits of brain matter were all crushed into an unrecognizable mess that was once a human head. Another cheer rose. If John had anything left in his stomach, it was gone now. The priestess ground her foot into the mess, wriggling her toes to get the blood all over her foot. The body below twitched and spasmed briefly before falling completely limp. The tall woman chuckled and stepped away, letting the body be taken away.

Two more followed. The priestess was a goddess of death incarnate, deaf to cries and begs for mercy. She crushed another man’s skull beneath her other foot and took another heart, going so far as to toss the muscle to the crowd. John had long sense pissed himself in terror, tears forming in his eyes as he felt his knees weaken beneath him. Which was actually better than the only other member of the group, who was whimpering and crying out for mercy as he was dragged up to the platform.

“No! No, please! I don’t wanna die! Please, John! John help me! Oh, God help me!” He cried. He threw himself on the ground and clawed at the stone, cracking and chipping his fingernails. It didn’t even put a halt in the steps of the woman dragging him.

John realized the grip his escort had on him had loosened. His eyes flicked to the platform. The black glass knife lay discarded there. Fuck this. He wasn’t going to just sit and wait to die to amuse these savages. If he was going to die, he was going to die like a man should and not like a pig walked to slaughter.

The sailor found strength in his legs, wrenching himself from the grip of his captor and sprinting forward. Adrenaline fueling his strength, heart thundering, John dove for the blade. He gripped the handle in his bound hands and smirked victoriously. The man got to his feet and held the blade out before him, spinning to face his captor. Or rather his captor’s inner thigh. Which was right in his face, mere inches away.

Rough hands seized his arm and squeezed. “Gaaaaah, fucking hell!” He screamed, the blade falling from his hands and chipping upon the ground.

John felt his heart sink as he heard shouting and angry growls. He was lifted bodily off the ground and found himself face to face with his captor. In any other circumstance, she would have been a thing of beauty. Unmatched by any of the girls back home. Exotic, foreign, sensual almost. Now, however, her lips curled into a snarl. Now she was frightening, enough to freeze the blood in anyone’s veins.

John however, knowing well death was assured, had nothing to lose. As such, he spat in her face.

The sound of the priestess’ voice sounded out behind him. She sounded none too pleased. The huntress, her expression twisted in fury looked past John and said something as well. After a moment the priestess spoke again. The huntress actually looked surprised and then looked at John again. The surprise faded; in its place was a rather chilling smile. She nodded her head and said something.

John found himself on his feet again and being dragged back into place. The grip on his neck was painful this time. He forced his head high and watched the last of his comrades meet his end. The four naked women from before had each taken hold of one of his limbs and were playing a game of tug of war. Joints popped and the man screamed as the pulled and stretched him. One of the said something to another and giggled.

It wasn’t long until there was a wet tearing noise and the giants were each left holding one of the man’s limbs. His limbless torso fell upon the bloody stone, the man still alive and screaming. The four women laughed and tossed away their limbs, taking their positions once again. John wondered if that was how he was going to die. Torn apart for the amusement of these giant women.

He felt a tug and realized it was his time. Only, he found himself being led away from the slaughtering grounds. His captor was tugging him along out of the temple and into the streets, smirking as she did. John’s brain swam as his imagination came up with all manner of gruesome fates. Was he going to be given to that relentless crowd? Killed out in the streets? Maybe tied down in the crossroads and used as something for bored members of their kind to torment? Given what he had seen thus far, John wasn’t willing to rule anything out.

They walked for a time, the streets a little more clear. Eventually they arrived a rather large stone dwelling. The huntress pushed him inside, shutting the door behind her. Inside was a home built for someone twice his side. He felt small again. Extremely small. His earlier defiance was cold in his chest as fear of the unknown set in. He looked up at the huntress, who was kicking off her sandals and shucking off her cloak.

After a moment she roughly gripped John by the hair and dragged him to a side chamber of the house. John let out a grunt as he was tossed onto a bed of pelts and furs, unable to get his bearings by the time the giant started tearing away the rest of his clothes. An expression of relish was upon her face as she did so, clearly feeling a bit vindictive towards him. He remembered the exchange at the platform. Then the memory of their men flashed through his mind and his eyes widened in realization.

“N-no! Get away me! Stop!” John howled, trying to kick out at her.

The huntress seized his ankles in an iron grip and grinned savagely down at him, exposing her sharp teeth. No. No, no, no. Oh God, she meant to make a slave of him. This was worse, worse than being killed! The fear must have shown in his blue eyes as she allowed herself a chuckle as she leaned in, the masses of her bare breasts swaying ever so in the dim light. Like this he was only reminded of her strength and size as he writhed helplessly beneath her.

John tried to kick out at her, earning an amused snort for his trouble as she effortlessly dragged him under her. “Wait! I’m sorry, please, stop!” He begged.

The giant woman didn’t understand John and clearly didn’t care to as she sat upon his legs and used one hand to pin his wrists above his head. She ran her tongue along her sharpened teeth, her grin wide and her eyes alight with amusement. Her eyes trailed over his form, the fingers of her free hand ghosting down his chest and over his stomach. As she gaze reached to his manhood she giggled at the sight of his half erect member, flicking it idly.

Pain flared up and John howled, writhing under her and squirming as he tried to escape. It was no use. He’d never felt so helpless before in his life. He’d come on this expedition to see exotic new lands and people. Well he was getting an eyeful now. As well as plenty of other things.

The huntress, clearly not pleased at his preparedness started idly stroking between his legs. The pain from her flick started fading, replaced by pleasure slowly. It didn’t help that his gaze fell upon those marvelous assets again, her bare breasts swaying gently. “Gah, no… please…” He gasped though his body certainly reacted in the opposite.

As she managed to get him to a respectable height she frowned still, muttering something under her breath in her strange language. Was she actually… judging his length? The idea, considering her size, that any man could be of a respectable length was ludicrous. The sail hissed as she shifted her weight atop him, sheathing him within her.

That’s when he understood why this was worse than that altar.

She was rough. Very rough. She ground and pounded away at his pelvis without much restrain, resulting in immediate pain. It was a miracle his pelvis didn’t shatter right away under her assault. The huntress took what she wanted without shame or care. In fact, as John howled in pain she seemed to grin wider. She was a demon, some kind of monster and this had to be hell itself.

John couldn’t articulate words properly between both the pleasure of her slick and warm folds around him and the paid as she pounded his pelvis. He managed gasps and cries of pain but words were beyond his addled mind. Blue eyes stared up at this dusky skinned woman as she gripped him possessively and took whatever she wanted. It was emasculating to the highest degree. She was beautiful though, beyond any girl back home.

The huntress leaned over him and promptly spat in his face, stinging his eyes. Repayment for his earlier defiance. John bitterly wept as she finished him off easily enough and achieved her own bliss. Once she was finished with him she stood and roughly grabbed him by the hair. His legs buckled under him, unable to so much as fight. It was too much. Too much for his mind to process.

The huntress opened a little hatch in the bottom of her floor, revealing a little box like space below. Without much regard she tossed the blonde in and kicked the hatch shut. There were little bars made of wood above and a latch was promptly shut. He could see the world above him, but there was no escape. The space, his little home, was barely big enough sit in. It was a cage, like one might give to an animal.

A sob escaped him as he looked up, the form of the giant woman towering beyond the bars. She had a jug of some sort in her hands and promptly upended it, splashing water on him. With that she set it aside and walked away, the slaps of her bare feet fading away. Wet, emasculated, and alone, John curled up and wept. His crew was gone, killed horrifically. Now he was a slave. Where was God now? In the silence that followed that thought, John felt even more alone.