Chapter 1 - All at sea
Tariq leaned over the guard rail of the vessel and looked at the foaming sea below.
The boat seemed to be gliding over the clear, blue water and left white flecks of foam in
its wake. The boat was powered by forty oars and so sported eighty women to power them and
drive them they did. He was one of the men that saw to that. The large blades dipped in
and out of the water in keeping with the deep call of the drum that was still audible on
the top deck where he stood.
Tariq was naked but for the briefest of loincloths, row-decks were hot, sweaty
places and superfluous clothing was shunned. All he needed was a cloth for modesty and a
whip, his ever present leather quirt. Innocuous enough to look at, but burned like a
firebrand when he sent it whistling across the back and shoulders of any woman he
suspected of slacking. That was not the only reason he flogged the slaves on though. More
often than not, he did it just to remind the slave that he was there, watching, prowling,
ready to strike the instant she even considered slacking from the cadence demanded by the
drum. Tariq did not tolerate slackers, none of the drivers did and Tariq, like the other
men, enjoyed lashing the sweating slaves on. He lashed their backs, shoulders, their arms
and their breasts when he timed it correctly. He had the orders to keep the dogs rowing
and it was a job he did with a keen eye for brutality.
Talasian slave galleys differed from their Provincial counterparts in one important
and fundamental way. On a provincial galley, all onboard were women and all were slaves,
with the odd exception sometimes of the captain, but on Riff galleys, all the deckhands
were men. Often the galley was owned by the Captain himself, at other times, the Captain
was in the employ of a galley operator and he was responsible for hiring the men to drive
the slaves that rowed the vessel. On Riff galleys, it was the same as on Provincial ones,
the galley slaves were the lowest of the low and were worth only what they could haul.
Now though, Tariq was taking time off to catch his breath and taste some fresh air
instead of the sweat laden air of the stinking row-deck and afternoons were his least
favourite time of day. Then the row-deck sweltered with the heat generated by the
sun-laden deck above and everything throbbed with heat. Tariq was a seasoned desert
fighter of the Riff army, but the heat of the galley even got to him, especially when it
was laced with the turbid humidity of slave sweat and the stale air gasped out by the
toiling wretches. Tariq needed some fresh air and a few gulps of cool water, not the warm,
brackish slime given to the rowers. Now, Tariq looked at the water and thought deep
thoughts.
He was every inch a tough fighter, His strong, well honed body was sentient with
strength and the odd scars and disfigurements spoke of fights and encounters, some
forgotten, others not so easily dispelled by time. His dark hair was wild and free and his
beard, a mass of swart hair that threatened to hide his brooding, handsome face. Girls had
never been in short supply for the handsome Tariq.
“Hah, brooding on your last day aboard Ruth then Tariq?” The voice was cheering,
welcoming even and was announced by a friendly embrace of Tariq’s broad, hard shoulders.
Tariq glanced to see the slave galley’s Captain had joined him at the guard rail. “I don’t
mind saying lad; I was sceptical on taking on a board hopper. It was only the surety of
your old army ally that made me take you on. I don’t like taking men on who simply use the
galleys as a means of getting from town to town as so many of them do, but I have to
admit, you have been a good man to have around this last three months. If you want to stay
beyond port Makash, you’re welcome to!” Tariq grunted something, but his mind was clear.
“No Captain, I said Makash was my final aim. Fine, it’s taken three months to get
here, but I was in no hurry. Perhaps I needed that much time to get my head clear. I was
glad of a place to haul out in, but I will be leaving as soon as we reach port.”
Tariq’s mind was made up. He was glad of his many friends and contacts that his
army days had made for him. Such men were useful to have as allies for information and
favours such as the man who had been principal in getting him a job on Ruth, but now he
was relieved to be leaving the claustrophobic confines of the galley. He was used to the
great outdoors; the great Stone Desert was his assured place where there were no doors to
bar his way, and no guard rails to prevent him from stumbling into a blue, wet oblivion.
He wanted firm, solid ground. He was tired of the endless vista of land that passed him by
without ever stopping, the wooden deck, the ethereal boom of the drum, the endless crash
of oars grinding in their rowlocks and the splash as they ploughed their way through the
water. He was sick of the stench of sweating galley slaves, he was even sick of using them
on his mattress at nights. At first, it had been a novelty to drive a luscious slave with
a whip all day and then use her with equal ruthlessness that same night. To feel her
strong, well toned body gratefully taking his hard, even brutal thrusts, or to have the
same pretty creature ride him as she had the bench all day and work him into a
loin-racking, explosive orgasm. But even that sort of pleasure can pale after a while, or
so Tariq found and he wanted the land, the town. He had a job to do and Makash was the
place he had to do it in. He had gleaned that much at least.
With palpable reluctance, Tariq took his whip from his waistband and started down
the small flight of steps back to the sweltering, searing hell that was the row-deck. It
always occurred to Tariq how much this appeared like a descent into Hades. How leaving the
broad, sunlit light of the deck into this gloomy, heat blasted inferno, where toil was the
only aim and to escape the lash the only reward. Surely even hell could not be any worse
than the misery these chained, sweating, miserable dogs endured.
He strode down the aisle, looking at the familiar sweat soaked, whip streaked backs
of the slaves, running his leather whip through his hand. It was four feet of braided
cowhide, designed to be fiercely painful, but inflict little damage above a livid weal,
which were evidenced all over the bodies of the labouring slaves. He was assailed as ever
with the din of the drum and the clattering of the oars in the rowlocks as they constantly
and rhythmically took the strain. He heard the slaves grunt and groan with effort as they
worked and heard the slap of the whips across some slave’s wet, bare body. His senses were
awash again by the stench of the galley. The sweating slaves’ bodies, the stale, gasped
out air gulped almost in desperation by the girls in an effort to maintain cadence and
then there was the unmistakable smell of tightly leashed, unrelieved lust that fair oozed
from the labouring dogs as they sweated and groaned. Tariq spied one girl and decided to
deal her a cut to sharpen her up.
“Hey there, look up, haul you animal!” he called and delivered her two sharp
swipes. The girl yelped and redoubled her effort to haul and Tariq decided to slice her
oar-mate a couple of times too for good measure. It was of no consequence either way.
Later that afternoon, before the meal and the dreaded punishment details that ended the
day for the oarswomen, they would be driven to near exhaustion with the whips and constant
harrying that were the hallmark of the overseer’s trade.
That night, sleep eluded Tariq and he paced the upper deck in the dark, listening
to the wind and the gently lapping waves. He was so desperate to leave the galley and
reach Makash it was almost a rash and this, his last night aboard made sleep an elusive
bedfellow.
It was almost with reluctance that aided by the light of his lamp, he made his way
to the row-deck. He passed the small, ironclad lockup that now housed three lashed slaves.
He heard one of the inhabitants chains clink as she moved just a little to ease the cramp
in her tired limbs and the ache across a bruised and bloodied back and shoulders. Tariq
opened the door to the row-deck and descended again into the sweltering, evil smelling
gloom. Though the full-blast heat of the day had abated, the deck was still stiflingly hot
and he could hear the soft breathing of the slaves in slumber. The deck, usually a
cacophony of clanking oars and beating drums, was now uncharacteristically quiet in the
fetid heat and gloom of the night. The sleeping slaves lay all over the deck like litter.
Some were slumped over oars, others lay out on the row-bench whilst her oar-mate lay on
the deck, just about as much length as her chains would allow. The stench was ever
present and as pressing as ever, the sweat, the squalid, unwashed lives the wretches
endured made the stench rise from them and then there was the rank, flat smell of hot
woman musk fair dripping from the sleeping slaves’ gashes, Tariq was sure of it.
Tariq picked his way over the weary, sleeping crew until he reached the one pretty
he was looking for. She was lying on the deck asleep naked but for her loose red pants.
This was the slave he was seeking, the one called Rebekah.
Tariq had found himself favouring this one, but he was careful. He knew that
favouritism and galley slaves were unhealthy bedfellows. The other slaves quickly resented
any girl they thought might be gaining favour from a particular overseer and Tariq knew
that this pretty slave would have little to thank him for if he showed to the others that
he was anything less than a driver and a master on her as well as all the others. Indeed
in order to allay any suspicions, he drove Rebekah a little more boisterously on occasions
and even assigned her to a punishment detail, in-which she suffered a sickening four and
twenty lashes of the cat, but that was where his pretence ended, for when he wanted some
recreation from a slave, this was the one he turned to.
He kicked her, more a raise with his foot and began scrambling with her chains to
release her. She knew what he wanted and all the slaves knew that they could be selected
anytime by any of the drivers to give them sexual relief in whatever manner they ordered.
It was comply or be brutally flogged for not doing so. The slave rubbed her eyes and rose,
picking her way over the recumbent, sleeping slaves to leave the row-deck with the master.
At least she would get to sleep on a mattress and eat a reasonable porridge for breakfast
instead of the usual gooey, slave slop.
In no time, Tariq was riding his pretty slave in his own, inimitable and ruthless
way, taking his pleasure as selfishly as he pleased. Tariq was by no means one of the less
attractive overseers, and the pretty slave was happy enough to lower her stale pants, open
her legs wide and let this strong, good looking brute take her and use her as he might and
no sooner was Tariq pumping himself to climax in the hot, sweat bedewed body of the slave,
than she too reached her own crescendo in an ecstatic and long awaited orgasm of her own.
She had spent too many hot, sweaty nights thinking of men, too many long, pain-racked and
exhausting days labouring and longing for a man to let this opportunity to take some
relief of her own pass and to take it with a man that was even a good looking one was a
change indeed.
All about the copulating pair, men slept, sweating, stinking and inevitably,
Tariq’s groans of relief and his violent taking of the slave woke the overseer next to
him. The sight would generally be enough to give the man ideas of his own and he would use
the slave too. So it was that any girl taken to the masters’ deck for sex would be used by
as many as nine or ten before she was allowed to lie and sleep the days labours away,
dripping with semen and stinking of her use and abuse. Rebekah was no exception on this
occasion and Tariq was glad enough to pass her on after he had used her and let others
fill her belly with their own seed.
The next day found Tariq prowling the row-deck and lashing the working slaves as he
always did and the slave that had relieved him of his seed the night before was not spared
the lash on Tariq’s account. Any bare, sweating, labouring back was there to be driven and
drive it he did and his sweet bedded slave’s body was worked with all the rest.
He was happy to be leaving the row-deck drivers were all like him, prowling and
also like him, probably hating the row-deck as much as he did. The difference was, most of
those men were wedded to the accursed galley, not him, he was set to leave the boat and if
his plans worked, his old life forever.
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