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Homecoming

• Chapter 13 in the Chronicles of the DragonRider

Warboss Grognark yawned mightily as he stepped from his hut, blinking against the noonday sunlight. He'd slept in, all right. Well, why SHOULDN'T he? He had a tough job. Needed his rest, obviously. And it wasn't as if there was anyone who could complain. Thanks to his brilliant leadership, this human city was now theirs, and soon, he'd prove that they could HOLD it, too. There hadn't been a serious counterattack yet - only a few skirmishes, to test their defenses. But it was coming soon, he knew that. And he'd be ready. And well-rested!

Scratching his cheek, he walked across the muddy plaza. There were a few soldiers standing around near the Warg-dens as always, making bets by the sound of it. His large tusks arching as he grinned, Grognark walked over to join them. He never could resist a good wager, and he never got tired of reminding himself about how cleverly he had solved the Warg-situation.

Humans seemed to think that the Wargs were like pets to the orcs - but they couldn't be more wrong. The Wargs - huge, mutated wolves - were smart. Maybe not quite as smart as orcs, but smart enough to negotiate. They were useful allies, and loyal - more trustworthy than the average orc, even. But they needed to be kept happy, and that was often problematic.

Like the orcs, the Warg in the camp were almost all male - they were warriors, having formed a Horde to come here to destroy this human city in revenge for the losses and humiliations they had suffered during the last attempt. Now they had taken it, however, and until they had proven that they could hold it against a full human offensive, none of the females who had been left behind in the hidden camps down south would be moving up here with them. That went for orc and Warg alike.

For the orcs, this problem was easily rectified. There had been many women in the city, and the majority of them were now available for the entertainment of the soldiers - though he had, of course, picked out the best of them for himself and his staff, as was his right as Warboss. But the Wargs were another matter. Most slave-women refused to service them, even under the threat of whip or death, and the wolf-like creatures weren't built right for holding a girl down to give her a good rapin'. But Grognark was smarter than the average orc - that's why he was the Warboss, after all! And he'd solved the problem.

When they'd fought into the city, and ravaged through it rounding up slaves and plunder, they had found one young girl clinging to a human infant. She'd begged her captors to let her keep it, to take care of it. Most Warbosses would have ignored it. Some orcs considered human infants to be a delicacy (not Grognark - too much fat, not enough meat, he thought), so there was always someone hungry for a taste. Raising slaves was too much trouble when there were always more human villages to raid for grown-up ones, anyway.

But Grognark saw an opportunity. He knew that the Warg would get bored and horny soon. So he made the girl a deal. He let her keep the infant and guaranteed its life, but in return, she would serve the Warg with her body. And so she had, every day, ever since, without complaint. "50 copper sez he tear her open when he pull out." One of the soldiers grunted to the other, grinning. "She iz used to it. I take that bet!" The other one retorted. Grognark, who was standing unnoticed behind them, grinned widely. The Wargs were happy with their new bitch, and the soldiers often amused themselves by watching and making bets - morale was up across the board, all for the price of a few measly milk-rations - which he didn't even need to worry about anymore. Ever since that other, brown-haired slave-girl had gotten knocked up by someone, she had been breast-feeding the child - and it probably wouldn't even be doing that much longer.

Grognark took a closer look at the scene, trying to figure out what the smart bet was. The Warg was one of the bigger ones, and he was buried - knot and all - in the girl's ass. He could see the sphincter bulge out from here. No wonder that first soldier was willing to stake such a bet. The Warg was thrusting with full power, shaking the body of the girl beneath him hard enough to rattle her teeth. Her eyes were closed, and her breath came in rapid bursts as she fought the obvious pain. The first time one of the Wargs had found her ass instead of her pussy, she had screamed loudly, he remembered - and that had been one of the smaller ones. She was learning to cope. Good.

Nodding, he stepped forwards. "I got 2 silver that sez, she gonna bleed when he pulls out, but not split." The soldiers jumped slightly, then grinned when they saw who it was. "Warboss! Always takin' the long-shot bet, aren't ya?" The one who had accepted the bet for 50 coppers scratched his head. "Okeh, I'll take ya bet." Grognark nodded, and leaned on the wall of a nearby hut as he watched the scene conclude. The girl, naked on the ground with mud covering most of her arms and legs, was clenching and unclenching her fists, trying to distract herself from the pain.

He could see traces of slimy Warg-cum on her pussy - this one wasn't her first guest of the day. Woulda' been a surprise. She always spent most of the day out here in the square, offering her body to a procession of horny Wargs. He once had one of his adjutants count the number of 'guests' she took care of on a whole day, in order to settle a bet (he couldn't be bothered to get up that early himself), and had learned that on an average day, she would have at least 30 visitors. Most of them simply took advantage of her pussy, but some of 'em had realized that a tractable human bitch offered a rare opportunity. They would demand that she use her mouth - a trick that a Warg-bitch couldn't duplicate - or instruct her to guide them into her ass, like this time, for an even tighter fit. And in every case, without complaint or protest, she did it.

Grognark nodded as the Warg's pace hit a fevered pitch. Even if they were forced to retreat from this city, he'd make sure to bring this one - and her precious baby - along. Humans grew up slowly. She could keep being useful like this for many more years! And she'd only get better at handling it. After five months of this, she'd already gotten much better at handling the Wargs' enthusiastic matings, which was why his bet wasn't as long-shot as it seemed.

Finally, the Warg made a yelping howl and thrust all the way into her, clearly cumming. The girl did not react much, though she seemed to relax a bit - he had stopped moving, at least for a bit, and that probably lessened the pain. Grognark snickered. Yeah, keeping Wargs happy was a pain in the ass. He coulda' told her that. Now the Warg was just standing there, panting for a bit. The soldier who'd made the bet for 'torn' was already shouting at him to pull out, though. The Warg turned its canine head and flashed them a toothy grin, before stepping over the girl's skinny back with his forelegs, turning around to the 'knotted' ass-to-ass position it always ended up in. Then, grimacing slightly, he started walking forwards.

The girl screamed briefly, before biting it off, clenching her teeth. The mud was slippery, and the Warg was strong. Bound together by the knot in her ass, the Warg dragged her along the ground for several yards, her sphincter bulging out dangerously. Nervously, Grognark rubbed his chin. Had he made a bad bet after all? The soldier certainly seemed to think so, hollering triumphantly for the Warg to finish it off.

Then, finally, the knot came free, and the Warg's bright-red tool swung back down between his legs as the girl collapsed on the ground, tears streaming from her eyes. Grognark - and the other two orcs - moved quickly to get a better angle, so they could see who had won. "Hah! Long bet, you say!" Grognark shouted, pointing to her ass. It was hanging open, a black hole with raw, red edges - but there were no tears or fissures, and the milky-white cum that ran from the open orifice was tinged pink by flecks of blood. The orc who had accepted the bets grumbled. "Ah well. At least I get 50 copper to help me cover Warboss's bet."

With a smile and some extra silver jingling in his pocket, Grognark sauntered out of the main camp, and out into the ruins of the human city. It had been wrecked pretty solidly during the siege, not to mention the looting that followed, so most of the buildings had been either burned down, or knocked over by errant catapult-ammunition. Siegemaster Grall never COULD aim worth a damn. Of course, no self-respecting orc would live in a human building anyway, but those buildings that HAD survived were still useful - as storehouses and slave-quarters, mostly. The castle was a complete loss, which was a shame - they hadn't managed to loot half of the shiny stuff in it. Of course, it tumbling down hadn't exactly been PLANNED...

As a warrior, Grognark had to admit a grudging respect for humans - well, human WARRIORS, anyway. They'd fought 'till the end, with fierce determination. Even after the city fell, and their doom was certain, the surviving knights had retreated to the castle and fought harder than ever to hold them off. He'd ordered the ogres sent in to break the human ranks - and spirits - but it had backfired somewhat. One of the human knights had managed to injure an ogre enough to send it into an uncontrollable, berserk rampage, and by the time they managed to get the big brute calmed down, he'd knocked through so many of the internal walls of the castle that the whole thing wobbled in the breeze. He'd barely managed to pull all his soldiers out of it before it collapsed in on itself.

And so, while some of the slaves were working the fields near the town - under the watchful eyes of the slavemasters - to provide provisions for the soldiers, others were digging through the ruins of the castle looking for valuables. Slavemaster Morgo had initially complained that it was too dangerous - lots of human weapons and armor were buried in the castle-ruins along with the royal treasury - but after a few enterprising slaves had been crucified for attempting to secret away salvaged weapons, it seemed like they had gotten the message. Wargs would patrol the ranks of the diggers when they returned from the castle ruins, sniffing for any sign of metal that shouldn't be there - and regular sweeps through the slave-quarters would uncover any attempts to build a cache.

And of course, most of the FEMALE slaves were busy keeping the soldiers relaxed. Walking past the large, mostly-intact building that had once been a tavern, and which now served as the main brothel, he heard the usual combination of screams, groans and moans issuing from there. Most of the women had resisted at first, and it had only been screams coming from there... but as always, a few of the women had learned to enjoy it. Orcs were better equipped than human males, Grognark knew, and there were always those who could appreciate that. And, of course, some of them just figured out that they'd be treated better if they ACTED like they enjoyed it - or at least didn't scream so loud. It was something Grognark had encouraged - women who had proven popular with the soldiers received additional food-rations, and sometimes even better chambers, if possible.

Grognark knew the importance of maintaining good morale. That was one of the things that made him smarter than the average orc - and, for that matter, the average Warboss. He knew that many of his peers preferred to control their soldiers through fear, dealing out harsh punishments for any mistakes and demanding perfection. They claimed that they were merely 'demanding respect' from their troops. But Grognark also knew that several of those Warbosses had turned up dead after some minor raid, with wounds that didn't really look like they'd been inflicted by a human weapon. Grognark had found that making his troops happy encouraged them to fight just as hard as regular executions for 'cowardice' might - and he could actually walk around camp without constantly looking over his shoulder for an approaching knife.

Walking down the main street - or rather, what had BEEN the main street, when this was still a human city - he idly looked over the crosses that lined it - most of them occupied, but a few left empty as a silent reminder that there was ALWAYS room for a few more. He liked crucifixions as a method for dealing with troublesome slaves. They continued to serve as effective warnings even after being reduced to skeletons, and there was no need to waste time in gathering the slaves for a public execution - it was just a matter of having the condemned affixed to their final resting-place during the morning or evening-hours, when the slaves were marching from their quarters to their work-place. He preferred doing it in the morning - the slaves always seemed to work a bit harder afterwards.

Better yet, the execution could be swift or drawn-out, depending on the severity of the crime... most of them were nailed up there, and bled out within a day at most. Those who had screwed up BIG TIME, however, were tied up with ropes, and usually took at least three days to die from thirst and exposure. There were a couple of those up there right now, weakly moaning for water. They'd been hanging there for two days, ever since they were caught trying to escape in the dead of night. They'd fashioned a crude lockpick from a piece of wire, and managed to open their slave-collars. Good thing the sentinels had been awake and aware - successful escapes always encouraged a wave of imitators. He'd commended the nightwatchmen on a job well done, and made sure that they got extra meat in their rations for the next few days - it was important to encourage them. He knew the human counteroffensive would come soon, and it wasn't unknown for humans to strike at night.

Pondering this, he proceeded to the outer walls, where a number of slaves - under the direction of Siegemaster Grall - were reinforcing and repairing the city walls. They had taken surprisingly little damage during the siege - thanks, once more, to Gralls abominable aim - and it had been thanks to a single breach and the bravery of Worgan's Wargriders that the city had fallen so easily. Seeing this, Grognark had made the decision that they would attempt to fix the wall and hold it against the inevitable human offensive. The work was proceeding on a good pace, though Grall complained loudly - as he had since they started - that his job was to knock walls DOWN, not shore them up.

Having been reminded of Worgan by his visit to the breach, Grognark decided to swing by the officer's barracks and check up on him. The young half-orc officer was still not widely accepted, though the skill he had displayed during the invasion had gone a long way to improve matters. Most Warbosses refused to promote half-orcs past the rank of squad-leader, but Grognark had recognized Worgan's skill and bravery at an early point. He'd also realized that the young soldier would fight like a blood-crazed ogre for anyone who showed him even a shred of acceptance, and decided to capitalize on it. Worgan had not let him down, and having a skillful and fiercely-loyal officer on his side was well worth the heat he'd caught from the Shamans and the more conservative Warbosses.

To Grognark, anything that was useful had value. Warg-riders had long been used as potent shock-troopers - young or particularly lightweight orcs riding old, large Wargs. Half-orcs were ALWAYS lightweights, however, and by inviting as many half-orcs as he could find into his Horde, he had created a much larger force of Warg-riders than was usual. And during the siege, it had paid off... as soon as the wall was breached, the humans had rushed to block it, with spearmen and shield-carriers aplenty. But Worgan had led his troops through the breach like a hurricane wind, before they'd had time to set up properly - and that had been the turning-point of the battle. He'd sent part of his troops to rush up on the walls, cutting down archers by the dozen and destroying ballistae - while his main force had used hit-and-run attacks to harass any human forces that approached the breach, making it impossible for them to mount a solid defense. Soon, half the Horde had poured in through the gap, and the city fell in flames...

Worgan, he was delighted to see, had been doing great for the past few months. Once he realized that he had been the main force between the city's fall - and that everyone knew it - the half-orc's confidence had skyrocketed. He still suffered occasional taunting from other orcs, especially when engaging in behavior they considered 'humanlike', but rather than meekly back down from it as he had in the past, he'd taken to fiercely staring them down. A few duel-challenged had also been dispensed, and so far none had been accepted - a sign of respect if ever there was one. Grognark wholeheartedly approved - the sooner Worgan started acting like a proper orc, the sooner the Shamans would get off his back over the promotion.

Privately, though, Grognark had to admit that Worgan DID occasionally engage in some strange conduct. One of those strangenesses was sitting demurely on a cot in the other end of the room while he and Gorgnark chatted - a human slave-girl. Young, pretty, one of the first he'd picked out for the officer's pool. It wasn't unusual for an officer to find a 'favorite', and request that the others left her to him, but Worgan had actually taken her into his quarters! Given her a bed to sleep on - a human cot taken from a burned out building, at that! He had asked permission from Grognark first, of course, but Grognark had been pleasantly drunk at the time, and somewhat suspected that Worgan had specifically waited until then to pose the question, knowing that he'd have been less-than-pleased under normal circumstances. But at the time, he'd been very happy, and seen no reason to deny his favorite officer a mildly unusual request... and as an officer and a soldier, he knew that he had to stand by his word, drunk or not. The unspoken rule was that unless you were so drunk you don't remember it anymore, it still counted.

Ah well. At least Worgan had good taste. Maybe he was just being unusually possessive and protective of 'his' slave-girl, due to all the times in his life that bigger orcs had taken things from him. Didn't stop some of the others from claiming that Worgan was treating her as a 'girlfriend' instead of a slave, despite the fact that she was still wearing a slave-collar, and spent most of her time chained to a post in Worgan's hut. Grognark didn't know what was really true, and maybe that was for the better.

Leaving Worgan's hut, he sauntered back towards the main camp, with a vague plan of watching the soldiers train and maybe dispense some sage advice from his significant combat-experience. Then, he heard a loud, penetrating scream from a large building that had once served as a grain-depot, but had since been repurposed by the Horde. He had heard enough screams in his career to identify this one as coming from a female human in extreme agony - with a generous dollop of hopeless desperation mixed in. He sighed and rubbed his temples. There was only really one likely explanation for it - and it meant that he'd soon have a headache.

Stomping up to the old grain-depot, he kicked open the large, wooden door and marched in. It stank inside, even by orcish standards. A number of immense, orange-pinkish humanoids were squatting or snoring in piles of increasingly moldy straw inside. Ogres. Dumb brutes that were dragged along by the Horde to serve as 'heavies' - with their thick skin and immense strength, they were unparalleled at breaking through defenses and laying waste to foes. Unfortunately, they were also dumber than a bag of rocks - noticeably dumber than the Wargs, even, as the Wargs never got tired of pointing out. Few of them were capable of thinking further ahead than their next meal. Worse, they had a memory like a sieve, and THAT was the fact that was giving him a headache.

Sitting on the floor not far from the door, one of the ogres was holding a woman by the legs, and pulling her down over his erect cock. She was the one doing the screaming. A number of other women were chained to a post nearby, whimpering and crying as they watched the grisly display. The woman had never been particularly pretty - the ogres didn't really care, so the orcs always unloaded the ugliest of the female slaves on them - but by now, she looked downright malformed. The skin on her abdomen and chest was bulging out, showing the rough shape of the ogre's cock. The tip of it was right below her breasts. Blood was already pooling between the ogre's legs, running steadily from the woman's groin.

The ogre lifted her up and thrust her down again, eliciting another piercing scream, which vanished into a gurgle as she coughed up copious amounts of blood, staining her breasts red. Her lungs had been torn, clearly. She was obviously a goner. Nothing could be done about it now. Cursing, he leaned back against the wall and waited for the dumb thing to finish. Would be hard to catch his attention 'till then.

Didn't seem like it'd take long, fortunately. The ogre thrust the woman down on his raging erection a few more times - each impalement resulting in fresh spurts of blood from both her pussy and her mouth - and then roared in orgasm as his hips jerked spastically. The woman's stomach ballooned out comically as her tissue was soaked with cum, and with a slimy sound, she barfed up a solid stream of blood-flecked ogre-sperm as well. Grognark shook his head in stunned disbelief. He hadn't seen that last bit coming, though he probably shouldn't have been surprised. Ogres were literally hung like horses. Draft-horses. BIG draft-horses.

The woman jerked spastically a few more times, still impaled on the ogre's cock, before the brute casually lifted her off and dropped her on the floor. Blood and cum were streaming freely from both ends of her, but here eyes were still moving. Somehow, she was still alive, if only marginally. With a sigh, Grognark pulled a bone-handled dagger from his belt, walked over to where she laid, and - with a smooth, quick motion - jabbed the blade through her ribs, directly into the heart. She jerked once more, then was still. He didn't mind making those slaves who had earned it, suffer - but this one hadn't really done anything wrong, 'cept to be marginally uglier than her peers. She hadn't really deserved that fate.

The ogre looked down at him dumbly, and he glared back. "There goes another one. You really no remember what I told you two days ago, hunh?" The ogre scratched his head with one hand. The hand was noticeably larger than the head. "Uhhh... I dunno. Yuu... talked. About lunch?" The ogre looked around as if he expected a buffet to suddenly materialize. Grognark ran a hand across his face, feeling his headache mounting. "NO, crap-for-brains! I tell you to not be rough with the women! When you hit somethin' inside, DON'T PUSH NO MORE!" He'd given this speech at least a dozen times in the past few monts. He kept hoping that the sheer repetition would eventually make it stick.

And yet, within a week or two - and sometimes, like this time, much less than that - it would happen again... one of the ogres would go 'all out', and another woman was broken. There had only been so many women in the city... the first crop of 'uglies' were already gone, and he'd been forced to skim the main brothel for 'marginally unattractives', which had caused some grumbling from the men. Not everyone agreed on what made a human woman attractive, after all. Even his idea of sending any female slave who caused trouble to the ogres, instead of the crosses, had helped little - though it HAD made the remaining female slaves EXCEPTIONALLY well-behaved.

He'd been wracking his mind to come up with a real solution, but it didn't seem there was one. The ogres were horny, and too stupid to handle the human women with care. The problem wouldn't really go away 'till the Clan-Lords back home agreed that the settlement was defensible in the long-term, and allowed the womenfolk to come here... the best he could do was hope that the human attack would come - and be repelled - before he ran out of women to give to the ogres.

Walking around the room, he delivered some solid kicks to those ogres who had slept through the wailing - ogres were notorious for sleeping through ANYTHING short of a direct attack, and even then, it had to be a hard hit - and gave the whole bunch the 'handle women with care' sermon again. Several times. In his loudest and most commanding voice. He even stressed the point that if they kept breaking them, there soon wouldn't be any more left. They all nodded, without so much as a glimmer of recognition or retention in their small, piggish eyes.

Groaning, he left the ogres' den, feeling his headache kick in full-force, as it always did when he had to deal with the ogres. It annoyed him that he couldn't get through to them. His orcs, half-orcs and even Wargs followed him happily, their morale soaring - but with the ogres, the best he could hope for was that his shouting and cursing stuck with them for more than a couple of days. With a sigh, he headed back towards the main camp again. He needed to relax a bit after all that shouting.

Walking back into the muddy plaza, he noticed that the number of soldiers standing around near the Warg-dens were bigger than usual. Walking over there, he soon saw why. The blond girl was still hard at work, a muscular Warg mercilessly assaulting her pussy, but next to them, a pair of younger Wargs were biting at each other, fighting over who would go next. Sex AND violence. No wonder the show was drawing such a crowd. He briefly considered sticking around to watch, but decided against it. He needed to work off some frustration himself.

Unlocking the wooden door of the slave-hut, he stepped inside and looked around. Around a dozen of the prettiest girls they had found while taking the city were there, chained to posts, mostly naked, all dirty. Maybe it was about time he asked the slavekeepers to pull them outside for a bath again. His eyes gravitated towards his current favorite - the obviously-pregnant brunette. He liked the way her belly jiggled when he thrust into her from behind. But, of course, she was holding the baby right now... feeding it. He clicked his tongue in annoyance. He'd guaranteed the child's life, and he wasn't entirely certain just how delicate human children were - certainly not as tough as orcs. More to the point, if the child staved, he might lose his Warg-entertainer. So he looked around for someone else to do.

His eyes fell on a slender redhead, sitting not far to the right of the pregnant one. On a few other occasions, when he'd come in here looking for a bed-warmer late in the evening, he'd found her, the pregnant brunette, and the blonde with the baby sticking their heads together, chatting quietly. Friends, perhaps? Not really important. He hadn't tried that redhead before, to the best of his memory. Maybe it was time.

Fishing the master-key out of a pocket, he released the lock on the chain attached to her slave-collar, and pulled on the chain. "Get up, girl. You're coming with me today." The girl nodded, silently, and rose to her feet, meekly following along behind him as he walked towards his hut with a firm grip on the chain.

Entering his lavishly-decorated hut, he gave the chain a good yank, causing her to stumble forwards and fall to the floor, while he closed the door behind them and locked it - just for good measure. He didn't predict any trouble with this one, but better safe than sorry. You let a slave run away from your bedchamber, you will NEVER hear the end of it, even - and indeed, ESPECIALLY - if you're the Warboss.

The girl made no move to get up again. She just kneeled there on the floor, staring down at the rug - though Grognark doubted that she could appreciate the intricacy of the traditional orcish patterns weaved into it. He looked her over once more - his hut was much better lit than the slave-hut, after all. Her skin was very pale and fair, especially in contrast to her bright-red hair, and her body was slender, while still curving in all the right places. She was quite young, clearly, but her breasts were blossoming nicely. Her features were delicate - at least, he thought so. Most human faces looked delicate to an orc. But there was something 'bout her eyes... like there was still a bit of spark in them. Unusual.

Grognark rubbed his chin, trying to remember who he'd seen with her. Oh yeah... Rurkar, the Bowmaster. Leader of the archers. He was known to have something of a soft touch with the slave-girls, claiming that he thought of them as 'practice' for mastering the art of pleasing the females. Apparently, it worked - he was quite popular with the orc-girls back home. If she'd been spending most of her nights with him, it was not surprising that she still had a bit of fight left in her.

Well, there was nothing wrong with that, Grognark reflected. Everyone had a different reason for enjoying human slave-girls, and Rurkar's certainly wasn't the worst he'd heard of. Most of the guys just liked to have a pair of available orifices that they could use and smack around as they saw fit. Some of them actually liked the way humans looked - their exotic, pinkish skin, their airy, delicate features, their slender, subtle bodies. Grognark could understand both of those reasons just fine too.

But he had his own reason: He just really loved to torment and humiliate human women. He loathed the arrogance of humankind, always thinking themselves smarter and better than everyone else, calling orcs stupid and ugly. So he took his own little revenge by forcing their women to debase themselves to a far lower level than they'd ever even claimed the orcs to occupy. He knew well that it was petty, but it always made him feel better. And having a new victim just made it even more fun.

Pulling off his light leather armor along with the rest of his clothes, he sat down on the edge of his hide-covered bed, still with a good grip on the chain attached to the girl's slave-collar. "Get up, and get over here." He commanded gruffly, pulling at the chain for emphasis. She stumbled to her feet and walked over to him, making no effort to conceal her naked body - either because she knew it was futile, or because she'd just gotten used to it. She hadn't had clothes to wear for months.

He gave the chain another pull, and pointed down at his crotch, where his dark-green cock rose proudly. "You're not much of a talker, are you? That's fine - I've got a better use for that mouth of yours, anyway. I'm sure Rurkar's taught you how to suck - so wet your lips and get going." She winced somewhat, but obediently licked her lips and kneeled down in front of him to begin. Human women were always particularly loathe to give oral pleasures to orcs, he knew - something to do with the warts that covered the shaft, apparently. Any orc worth his balls had at least half a dozen, and many prided themselves on having far more than that - the little nubs of hardened flesh provided extra stimulation, making them more popular with the girls. From what he'd gathered, human men didn't have anything like that. Grognark snorted. No wonder so many of the slave-girls soon learned to enjoy the attention of his men despite the situation.

Leaving the theorizing aside for the moment, Grognark leaned back a bit and relaxed, enjoying the sensation of the girl's lips and tongue caressing his sensitive member. Rurkar had taught her well indeed - either that, or she was just a natural. She wasn't able to take more than half his shaft into her mouth, but he was no ogre - he knew better than to break the merchandize by trying to force it. Besides, it was the head that really mattered, and her tongue danced around that masterfully. With a suppressed groan, he felt the cum begin to churn in his balls... but it wasn't quite time yet.

Grabbing her head with both hands, he pulled her up, away from his now spit-drenched cock. Her face registered a mixture of surprise and relief, but he knew that wouldn't last long. "Enough of that for now, girl. There's somethin' else you should attend to..." He spread his legs wider, and pushed her head down in front of his cock. "My balls could use a good bath. Get your mouth and tongue in gear." For a moment he could feel her resisting as he forced her face into his groin, but only for a moment. Then her nose was buried in his sweaty crotch-hair, and he felt her tongue trace spittle across one of his wrinkled balls. A spark of fire might still be inside her, but she wasn't stupid enough to refuse him... yet.

He could hear her retching quietly as she worked his balls over, one at a time, first licking the surface, then sucking it into her mouth to let her lips work at them for a while. He enjoyed that sound almost as much as the tender treatment of his testicles. He was well aware that the taste would be vile. Orcs didn't bathe much, and wearing armor ensured that you were always steeped in sweat - particularly on a warm spring-day like today. After walking all over the city and getting worked up about the ogres, his balls no doubt smelled - and tasted - like a fetid swamp.

For ten minutes, he watched her choking down bile as she gently caressed his balls with her tongue, all the while keeping his cock fully erect. It was an old trick but a good one - the longer he was hard before cumming, the bigger the load. Now it was time for the second punch of the combo. "All right, that's good enough, slave. Now get your head up and finish what you started on my cock." He grunted at her, and she quickly complied, apparently deciding that his cock - warty or not - was still preferable to his balls.

As she started bobbing her head up and down over his rock-hard shaft he smiled unpleasantly down at her and gave her the usual warning. "I'm about to blow my load in your mouth, slave. And when I do, you better swallow it all. Every. Drop. You miss even the slightest bit, and I'll deal you a hundred lashes... and drag your pregnant friend in here to finish your job." The last part wasn't part of the normal warning, but remembering how he'd sometimes seen the three girls chatting together at night, it came to him in a flash of inspiration. And it seemed to penetrate, all right - she paused briefly and glanced up at him, with a mixture of hatred and fear in her eyes. Then she resumed, her tongue and lips joining together to tease the long-awaited load of strong, thick cum out of his aching balls.

Finally, it came, blasting directly down her throat as he reflexively held her head in place. It was as thick as jelly at first, and several spurts came rapidly. He could see her swallowing as quickly as she could, her cheeks ballooning to contain the overflow as her eyes rolled up from the effort of keeping her mouth closed. All her instincts were probably telling her to spit it out, to choke and cough, but she fought desperately against them. Relaxing slightly as his dick continued to spurt, albeit with reducing intensity, he removed one hand from her head, and placed it against her throat - not choking her, just laying it there so that he could feel it moving. He could feel her drinking it, swallowing again and again as she gulped down big mouthfuls of his cum, fighting against the tide of the jizz. Her breath came rapidly through her nose, and even that was sputtering. To his delight, he saw two small streams of cum running down from her nostrils - he'd truly managed to fill her to overflowing.

Finally, as his climax slowed to a few spastic spurts of thin, watery cum, the girl was able to relax, the last of the huge load disappearing down her gullet. Clearly remembering Grognark's dire warnings, she then let her tongue play around every inch of the cock she could reach, digging out drops and dollops of cum from wrinkles in the warty skin, while sucking the last few drops straight out of the crack on top. Finally, hesitantly, she lifted her head, revealing a dark-green cock covered in spit, but not a single drop of cum in sight. She was breathing heavily through her mouth now, trying to catch up on her need for air.

"Very good, slave. But you missed a little bit..." he pointed to her face, right under her nose. With a terrified look on her face, she lifted a finger and ran it under her nose, then lifting it to stare at the white slime clinging to it. "...but you DID make a very good effort. So I'll reduce the punishment, and give you a chance to redeem yourself." His semi-flacid cock swung pendulously between his legs as he rose from his bed and picked a long, nasty-looking whip off of a peg on the wall. "Bend over and take ten lashes without complaint. Otherwise, the other ninety will follow." She nodded silently and turned around, bending over with her knees on the floor, showing her ass - a fairly skinny one, he noticed - to him.

The whip was the kind used by orcish slavemasters for basic punishments and for hurrying slaves along - enchanted with a minor spell by the Shamans, it made a nasty, stinging impact, but despite being of a length and configuration that would usually be capable of stripping flesh from bone, it could never break the skin or draw blood. Thus, you could motivate your slaves without making them incapable of working. And of course, they were also quite popular for 'correcting' slave-girls. Licking his lips, he unwound the whip and flicked his wrist testingly. It had been a while since he'd last wielded one. Hopefully, he hadn't lost his touch.

With a sudden movement, he let the whip fly, cracking across her left butt-cheek, leaving a long, angry-red welt. A strangled grunt was heard from the direction of her head. Yep, he still had the touch. Three times in rapid succession, he lashed out again, painting a bright-red X on each of her buns. Pausing briefly, he could hear her teeth grinding against each other - she was biting down hard against the pain, clearly. Flexing his arm a few times, he pulled the whip back for a good, long windup, and let it crack again - with enough force to leave a line straight across the entire arse, with only a slight gap at her ass-crack. A swallowed sob could be faintly heard. And they were only halfway done...

Satisfied that he still had his old accuracy, he lifted the whip for an overhead snap, letting it fall right between the two pale-white globules. The red line of pain, thus, traveling straight down her ass-crack, playing across her sensitive sphincter. Her entire body shook visibly with the exertion as she fought not to cry out from the pain. Grognark grinned. This was going well, indeed. "Spread your legs further, slave." He barked. She almost whimpered at the implications of that command, but stopped just short of crying out... then, inch by inch, her knees parted, lowering her arse a bit and offering open access to her pussy. He could clearly see the slightly-puffy pussylips, the vertical cut of the opening...

The whip lashed out twice, so quickly as to almost be but one time, and another X was painted, this time across the sensitive tissue of her pussy. All her muscles tensed at the impact, and he saw her hide her face in her hands to quiet the high-pitched whine that he could barely perceive coming from it. "Roll over." He commanded. "But keep your legs spread." Arms shaking with exertion as she sought to bring her body under control, she pushed herself over unto her back, staring up at him with eyes filled with pain, ill-disguised loathing behind it. Her legs, however, were obediently parted.

Swiftly, he let the whip lash out towards her still-immature tits, then scowled at the result even as the girl nearly bent double in agony. He'd only hit ONE of the nipples - the other half of the stroke had impacted just below the intended target, leaving a painful, red line across her right boob, but only striking the most sensitive part of the left one. Ah well. Maybe he WAS a bit rusty. Time was when he could've castrated a fly with that whip. Still, he felt confident that the last strike would hit its intended target. Patiently, he waited for the girl to get herself under control again, straightening out her body and parting her legs anew. She still had her hands clamped over her mouth to silence the faintly-heard sobs, and her elbows jerked reflexively, like she desperately wanted to cover her sensitive breasts with those hands instead. But she needn't have worried. He wasn't about to waste his last strike on those.

The whip lashed upwards this time, painting a red line up the center of her pussy, briefly parting the outer labia with the impact, and striking harshly across the most sensitive part of her body - her tiny nub of a clit. Her eyes seemed about to jump out of their hollows as she bent double once more, her hands flying to her crotch as she rolled over sideways, curling up in a fetal position. She still didn't cry, though - the air seemed to be whistling silently from her mouth, like from a leaky bellows. Grognark grinned broadly at the sight. Immensely satisfying. His dick was slowly hardening again. Best to put the next stage into practice before it hardened all the way...

Leaving the girl to recover on the floor for a bit, he walked over to a roughly-hewn cupboard where he kept his drinks. Locked, of course, so nobody stuck their snout into it when he was out. After unlocking it, he poured himself a big mug of ale, and picked a piece of dried-up root out of a jar that stood strangely out of place amongst the bottles. Quickly chewing the root, he washed the vaguely bitter taste down with beer, and then dunked the rest of the mug. He felt a tingle in his loins as the root began to take effect. A clever touch, he thought - his father had been a Shaman, and while he'd chosen the path of the Warboss for himself (and become a great disappointment to his old dad with his progressive approaches), he'd picked up a bit of herbalism from watching his father's work. He knew certain roots, herbs and berries that had interesting effects, and usually kept a few around - both for utility and entertainment.

The girl on the floor seemed to have gotten her breath and regained some of her composure, though her body was still visibly raked by barely-suppressed sobs. Her hands were still firmly lodged between her legs, as if cupping the damage could somehow reduce the pain. Picking up her chain where it had fallen during the punishment, he pulled her up to her knees. "Get up, slave. You handled your punishment well, but I'm not done with you yet." She gasped a bit as she was jerked up by the collar, but obediently assumed a kneeling position again. Her eyes were still downcast, but he could tell that the spark he'd noticed before burned even brighter now. She hated him for punishing her for little to no reason, and for threatening to get one of her friends involved. Good. This wouldn't be nearly as much fun if she didn't break...

Stepping closer, so that his semi-erect cock dangled in front of her face, he delivered the next punch of his combo. "Slave, my bladder is starting to strain... I need a good piss. And you're going to be my toilet. Open your mouth and drink it all..." Predictably, she recoiled in horror, pulling on the chain. And, for the first time, she spoke. "NO! That's disgusting! Ridiculous! I won't do it! I don't care how many times you whip me! I WON'T!" Grognark's grin grew wider and nastier. He quickly pulled on the chain, dragging her back close to him, and gripped her around the throat with the other hand, lifting her up.

She was still struggling, despite his infinitely superior strength. "I WON'T DO IT! If you try to force me, I'll bit your dirty, smelly dick off, I SWEAR!" She barred her teeth at him, but he just laughed. Then, with a sudden movement, he lifted her feet off the floor, and smashed her into the nearest wall by the throat. The impact shook the wall, and left the girl dazed as he released his grip, letting her slide into a whimpering pile on the floor.

"Listen to me, slave. You know about the ogres, don't you?" He started talking in a hissing, penetrating sort of voice, his eyes narrow. He knew that she was hearing it all, even though she was still whimpering and trying to pull herself up. "They are great, big brutes. But they get bored, just like orcs do. They need entertainment. They need women. So I give 'em some. But they don't know when to stop. I was there just today. Watched one of them being raped to pieces - literally. She was all torn apart. Barfing up blood and cum at the end. Fucked to death. An exquisitely painful way to go. Of course, that makes it hard to keep them supplied. We already gave 'em all the ugly women. So now, we just send 'em any girls who act up. Rebel. Talk back. Refuse."

He saw her eyes staring wildly at him through the red hair that hung in front of her face. The fear, the terror, was almost palpable. It had been worth it to learn how to speak the human tongue so well - most orcs didn't understand the power you could wield just by speaking the right words and were satisfied with an at-most rudimentary understanding of human language, if that. But he knew. Words could inspire fear and obedience more effectively than the cruelest whip. Of course, having a certain gift of the gab helped too.

"Can you imagine what it must feel like? Something as large as one of your arms, pushing up inside you, tearing you open, filling you completely - and then it just keeps pushing. Tearing you apart inside. Squeezing and crushing your organs. To end your days like nothing more than a dirty rag, filled with cum and then discarded." He reached out, one hand closing around her chin like a vise, lifting her head and forcing her to look into his eyes as he deliberately filled them with malice. "Say 'no' to me one more time, refuse me one more time... and you won't have to speculate. I'll drag you down to the ogre's den myself. They'll be delighted to have a new toy."

He could feel her pulse through the skin. It was beating extremely fast - even in the midst of combat, he had never felt his own blood flow that fast. She was picturing it, all right. Realizing that even the most demeaning act of submission was preferable to an agonizing and humiliating death. Her breath came in spurts, like she was biting each bit of air off. She couldn't control her lungs well enough to take a deep breath. Terrified tears were flowing freely from her eyes, streaking the dirt on her face. "Please... I'll be good..." she hiccupped between rapid breaths, her chest shaking with the effort. Looking at her face this close, he realized that she was probably younger than he'd estimated at first. Little more than a girl, in human terms. She must've been a fiery one indeed, before his Horde came, to have kept a spark of that fire for this long. But now it was gone - teased to the surface by pain and humiliation, and now extinguished with pure, undiluted fear.

He shrugged inwardly as he pulled her away from the wall by the head, leaving her pooled, crying and shaking, in the middle of the floor. Breaking her seemed less of an accomplishment now that he'd realized how young she was. But still, it HAD been fun, and his bladder was starting to ache now - the root he'd eaten before had run its course, and its effects would not be denied. "Then pull yourself together, get up on your knees, and drink." He stated coarsely. She pushed herself up from the floor, nodding quickly, and assumed the same, kneeling position she'd had before - except for that now, her mouth was open, jaw trembling slightly, tears still running down her face.

Grabbing her head with both hands, he maneuvered his semi-stiff cock into her waiting mouth, and felt her lips close tightly around the head. "Drink it all. Every drop." He growled. No specific threats this time. They'd be redundant at this point. Then, he relaxed, and let the piss begin to flow. The first couple of spurts hit the back of her throat hard enough that he could actually hear it, and he felt her gagging in response - but with impressive speed, she got the gagging under control and started swallowing.

The flow was fast, strong and steady. Over and over, he filled her mouth with his acrid piss - over and over, she swallowed it, adding the weight of the sour, yellow fluid to the thick cum he had pumped into her stomach earlier. The diuretic root had done its job well, and a day's worth of water and beer was filling his bladder almost as fast as it was emptied. For nearly five solid minutes, this continued, though the stream ran somewhat gentler for the last couple. In all that time, she did not stop swallowing, she did not cough, and her lips never relaxed their tight seal around his cock. Not a drop escaped - every bit of his rank urine disappeared straight down her gullet, to fill her stomach.

Finally, he released her head and stepped back. Her mouth slowly closing in response, she suddenly grimaced, coughed, and started retching as she leaned over, putting her shaking hands on the floor. Perhaps the realization of what was filling her stomach now only just hit her... but Grognark simply shot her a dirty look, one that voluminously said "Go ahead, give me a reason." And by sheer force of will - or perhaps, force of fear - she got her gag-reflex under control again, resuming her obediently-kneeling posture, even though she was still shaking violently, and a noisy growl could be heard from her stomach. Grognark grinned broadly. "See? Wasn't so hard once you got down to it, was it? Well, we're almost done for tonight - I just need to take care of this, then I'll send you back to the hut where all your friends are waiting..." The 'this' he was referring to was, of course, his dick - which was now standing fully-erect again, aroused by the broken shell of a woman he had before him now. Almost time for the final test...

"Get on all fours, and lift up your ass." The command was simple as were the implications, and she obeyed immediately - or at least as quickly as her still-shaky limbs would allow. Her ass was still covered by the highly-visible red welts from the whipping, and they'd continue to be visible - and painful - for many days to come. Which just made this all the sweeter to him. Kneeling behind her, he grabbed her bony haunches with one hand and guided his rock-hard member towards her tiny, brown asshole with the other. It was still visibly throbbing from the impact of the whip, but seemed vanishingly small. Had Rurkar ever availed himself to it? Had anyone? Well, it was highly unlikely that she was still a virgin there, after 5 months - but it was entirely possible that she hadn't been stretched down there for a long while, so that was almost as good.

Pushing hard, he felt her sphincter part before his cockhead - well-lubricated by her saliva and his own piss - entering the tight asshole within. With that, he could put both hands on her haunches and get a good grip. There was no reason to hold back, obviously. The rest of his dick wasn't very well lubricated, but the resulting friction didn't bother him much - not nearly as much as it bothered the girl, at least. He could feel her shiver in pain as he thrust into her with all his strength, keeping her ass still with a vise-like grip, giving her no chance to inch away from the painful intrusion. The warts on his cock tickled against the tight circle of the sphincter, stimulating the place where his whip had impacted it earlier into new painfulness.

Deep inside, he hit something else, as he knew he would. Fear always got the bowels moving. It didn't bother him at all. In fact, it would've ruined his plan if it HADN'T happened. Taking no notice, he continued to thrust with unabated violence, pushing against the contents of her bowels, enjoying the tight, moist heat, and the knowledge that he was inflicting significant pain on her in the process - but that she dared not open her mouth, not even to beg for mercy. After all, the jostling he was giving her was shaking her badly-battered stomach as well, and she was clearly struggling with keeping the contents of it down.

Too aroused by the events so far to last very long, however, it took little more than 5 minutes before Grognark reached his climax - the second of the day. A respectable load of cum boiled into the slave-girl's asshole, but - finding it mostly full already - the majority of it wound up rushing back along the sides of his shaft, dribbling out around the edges - the sphincter, battered repeatedly by the passing warts, had mostly given up on keeping a watertight seal. As he pulled out, a large dollop of cum followed, before she deliberately - and with some exertion - closed her sphincter tight. Probably not because she was eager to keep the rest of the jizz inside her, but because she was afraid of what would happen to her if she crapped on his carpets.

Looking down on his still-hard cock - it always took it a few minutes to calm down - he saw that it was modestly covered in his cum, while also sporting some rather visible brown stains. Walking around the girl - who was maintaining her submissive stance, afraid to get up without a direct order - he grabbed her by the hair and lifted her head up 'till it was level with his dick again. "Look at that. You've dirtied my cock. Clean it." Her hands began to lift towards it hopefully, but he could tell by the look of resignation and horror in her eyes that she already knew what he was about to say. "With your mouth."

Her neck-muscles strained. He could tell that she was fighting the urge to retch again. But fear, once again, proved stronger. Hesitatingly, she leaned forwards, opening her mouth as far as she could as she took his shit-stained cock inside it. He 'harrumph'd. "It won't get clean that way, slave. Put your tongue to use! Or did you change your mind about paying a visit to the ogres?" He felt, more than heard, the terrified whimper that was her reply. Then he felt her tongue caressing the length of his cock, dancing around each individual wart, diving into the opening in the tip, licking down the edges of his foreskin... just as thorough as after the first blowjob, if not moreso.

Smiling, he watched her eyes, empty of spark, and indeed of humanity, as she licked the shit-stains off his cock. She'd passed the final test - she was well and truly broken. She wouldn't rebel again, not even in a small, internal way. He let her continue the cleaning for a few minutes, until he was sure it'd be spotless, before he pulled the gradually-deflating shaft out. Sure enough, the shaft was glistening with spittle, but there was no trace of brown, or indeed white. Satisfied, and somewhat tired, he went over to his front door and unlocked it, sticking his head - and nothing else - outside. A couple of bored-looking sentinels were flanking his door as always - more custom than necessity - but they came in handy from time to time. "Oi! One of you lazybones, take diz slave back to tha hut!" The one on the right - who seemed to be in the middle of trying to scratch a hard-to-reach place on his back with his spear - quickly stood at attention. "I do that riteaway, Warboss! Always reddy!"

Grognark rolled his eyes at the patently obvious attempt to distract him from the blatant inattentiveness. "A'right! Take diz chain. Take 'er by holes first, tho - she needz it." He handed the chain of the girl's slave-collar over to the guard and pushed her out through the half-open door. The guard nodded eagerly, and began dragging her towards the field-latrines. "Tha holes, then tha hut. I gotcha." Grognark sighed and closed the door again. The guards weren't chosen for their intelligence. Quite the opposite, really - he gave them that assignment in order to keep 'em out of trouble. They probably didn't even think to wonder how he'd know that she badly needed a visit to the latrines - in order to turn her stomach inside-out.

There was a white cum-stain on his carpet, still... but the cleaning-slaves would take care of that tomorrow. Yawning, he sat down on his bed. It was still early, but he decided he'd take a nap anyway. Wake up in the dead of night, and go check that all the sentries were awake and on the watch. Yeah, that was the ticket. Just the thing for a thoughtful, clever leader to do. "Smarter than your average Warboss..." he mumbled to himself as he laid down on his bed-furs and closed his eyes.

The sound of explosions and screaming roused Grognark from his slumber. Bleary-eyed and confused, he rolled off his bed and fumbled in the darkness for the haft of his battleaxe, before his brain kicked in and he made a few quick observations. First, HIS hut wasn't on fire. That was good. By the sound of it, lots of other things were on fire. He could smell the smoke, hear the crackling of the flames. Lots of confused shouting. This wasn't some random, drunken idiot who had accidentally kicked a torch into something flammable - it could only be an attack. The humans. A night-attack just like he'd feared. And apparently, the sentries had been asleep at their post.

Swearing, he dropped the axe and started pulling on his armor. The red glow filtering through the small windows of his hut was enough to see by, which didn't bode well. With the tight-fitting leather and chainmail covering most of his body, he assumed a determined expression and picked up the axe again. Even if it had been a well-executed surprise-attack, they weren't beaten yet. He'd knock some discipline back into the troops, and they'd repel the humans. Of course they would.

Boldly, he strode out through the door, but even as he did, something struck him. Not an arrow, as he'd halfway expected, but a thought. Why wasn't he hearing any struggles? If the enemies were close enough to set things on fire, the sounds of battle should be ringing out from the plaza - the ring of steel on steal, the sickening crunch of a weapon biting through flesh and bone, the screams of the wounded and the dying... but there was only confused shouting and the sound of running feet.

Outside, he looked around, trying to get a feel for what was going on. Several of the huts were burning merrily - officer's quarters like his own, if a bit less lavishly appointed. He hoped that the owners had made it out alive. He NEEDED those men, despite their frequent complaining. Further away, he could see more lights, and a column of smoke darkening the night further. Roughly the direction of the common barracks. Great.

Reaching out, he grabbed a sergeant who was running towards one of the burning huts, carrying a half-full pail of water. The sturdy orc stumbled, fell (splashing the pittance of water he was carrying all over the ground), and half turned to shout - then saw who he was facing and changed his mind. "Wut'z going on, sarge?" Grognark asked matter-of-factly. The sergeant shook his head and climbed to his feet. "I dunno, Warboss! Nobody know! Fire come out of nowhere, straight outta the night! Settin' fire to everythin'! Grall iz dead! Burned in his hut!"

Grognark's brow wrinkled. Fire out of nowhere? Never a good sign. Dragging the sergeant behind him, he walked out into the middle of the plaza and gave a ringing, ear-piercing bellow, instantly drawing the attention of all the troops who were milling about there. Quickly, he dealt out orders in every direction - most of them amounting to the same thing: Gather the troops, gather the slaves, and organize fire-fighting chains from the wells to the fires. Get the fires under control, find out who's still alive, and see to the wounded.

Satisfyingly, the troops all jumped to obey immediately, their disorganized milling-about turning into military precision in a split second. Runners left in the direction of the barracks and slave-quarters to organize the fire-fighting efforts there. But all the time, Grognark's mind was churning. What was happening here? It wasn't an ordinary attack, not even an ordinary sneak-attack. Wizards? He knew that human wizards could do a lot of stuff. They could throw fireballs pretty far. Maybe they were hiding in the hills around the city, bombarding them from a safe distance? He should send Worgan and his Wargriders out to sweep the perimeter...

He was just about to grab a messenger and send that order, when he saw it. A gout of flame emerged directly from the blackness of the sky, and hurled towards the ground. He felt the heat on his skin as it impacted the nearby Warg-den, blasting the top of the rough stone structure apart, and causing the rocks to visibly melt in the heat. Most of the Wargs were already out on the plaza, watching the orcs and trying to find out what was going on, but a few had apparently been slow to rise, and yelps of intense pain could be heard from the collapsing structure as those who had survived the initial strike dashed out of it, fur aflame, to roll around in the mud. Some of them might even survive. Wargs were tough.

But that wasn't important. The men hadn't been exaggerating. That fireball came literally out of nowhere. It hadn't arched from a nearby hill, or anything like that. It came straight out of the black sky. But there was nothing up there! What was he dealing with, a force of flying, invisible, fire-throwing wizards? A chill ran down his spine. What if that was it? He knew that human wizards could do a lot of things that orc shamans couldn't. What were the limits? He didn't know.

Narrowing his eyes, he stared up into the black, willing himself to see something. It was completely black up there - a solid cloud-covering was blanking out the stars, and the crescent moon was too new, too thin to penetrate it either. It was like a blanket of black velvet, spread across the entire city. But just for a moment, he thought he saw something. White. A white blotch, moving rapidly, appearing and then disappearing only to appear again further away. A ghost? No, that was ridiculous. Ghosts didn't throw fireballs.

The blotch disappeared again before he could figure out what it was, and for a moment, he just stood there, staring into the sky while the soldiers around him started forming chains and passing buckets of water to the burning huts to begin the fire-fighting effort. Absently, he grabbed a passing healer and told him to go help the wounded Wargs. It was important to keep their morale up. Ignoring them during a disaster like this would piss them off immensely.

Then he saw it - two glowing, green points in the sky. They didn't seem to be moving. Just getting bigger... slowly. No. They weren't growing. They were getting closer. Then he finally figured it out. There was something up there. The firelight was reflecting off of it. A glossy black. Invisible against the darkness. Like a hole in the sky. What's glossy black, flies, and has two green lights on the front? He knew the answer to that one. But there was no point in running. Even a Warg couldn't outrun a flying dragon, so there wasn't much point in HIM tiring out his legs.

Quickly, he went over everything he knew about dragons in his head. It wasn't much, and none of it was good. Highly resistant to magic. Extremely tough scales. Devastating breath-weapon that could burn through any mundane defenses. And the black ones were the baddest of the lot. Best way to fight 'em was with magical weapons and defenses. This would be a really good time to have a powerful Shaman by his side. Too bad he'd alienated them all with his untraditional leadership-methods.

Almost absently, he looked down at the axe in his hand. The runes engraved along the edge glowed faintly - one could easily assume it was a reflection of the firelight, but he knew better. It was a nice, enchanted edge. A gift from his father from when he became a Warboss. Before he'd disowned him. As far as he knew, it was the only enchanted weapon in the entire camp. Well, there were worse epitaphs than 'Died fighting a dragon'. He'd really hoped for 'Died of ripe old age surrounded by wealth and women', though.

Then he noticed something else. That bit of white, again. The dragon was getting closer. The white bit was along its flank, it seemed. On both sides. What was that? Momentarily preoccupied with that mystery, he barely even reacted when the dragon landed directly in front of him. The impact shook the earth, and the huge, black body - now clearly visible in the firelight - seemed to fill the entire plaza. The soldiers and Wargs - who hadn't seen it coming at all - jumped, panicked, and scrambled backwards. But Grognark didn't panic. Not because he was fearless in the face of near-certain death, but because he was, after all, smarter than your average Warboss. The wheels in his head was turning rapidly now, trying to put it all together. Why was the dragon attacking them in the first place? Why had it landed in front of him instead of just obliterating him with a blast of flame from the sky? What was the white thing on its back?

As the dragon's head moved to the side to glare at the Wargs, he could see it, and the final piece fell into place. Well, actually, it just raised more questions, but it gave him the answer to the IMPORTANT question: "How do I get out of this alive?" There was a human woman sitting on the dragon's back. It even had a saddle. She was dressed in black armor - albeit not very much of it - and it was her pale skin that he had seen in the sky. She had a sword across her back, and an almost impossibly voluptuous body. Even if she hadn't been sitting astride a dragon, he would've recognized her as a serious threat.

He'd heard that some powerful wizards and human chiefs had sometimes managed to tame dragons. Never heard of someone doing it with a black, though. Whoever she was, she was obviously extremely powerful. Way above his paygrade. But if she'd landed, that meant she wanted to talk. Negotiate. Once again, perhaps for the final time if he screwed up, he would have a chance to prove that words could be a powerful weapon, used correctly.

Breathing deeply, he let the axe hang negligently at his side, and took a step forwards. "Hey, human! You wanna talk with me?" he bellowed. The pale woman on the dragon's back lifted a delicately-shaped eyebrow and nodded. Then, she acrobatically flipped her body off the dragon's back, landing beside it, one hand on the hilt of the sword strapped across her back. "You're the boss around here, right?" She asked without preamble.

Grognark nodded. "That's right. So what do you want?" She glanced around, at the burning buildings and the frightened soldiers. "I want the slaves. All of them. And I want you to leave." He swallowed. She wasn't asking for much, huh? Still, a Horde fleeing with their tails between their legs was still better than a Horde burned to a crisp and scattered like ashes on the winds. So he shrugged his shoulders like it was no big thing. "Okay. I'll get the men ready to march tonight. We need to put out the fires first, though, so we can gather whatever supplies we've got left. It's a long walk."

With forced carelessness, he turned his back on her to shout some orders at the terrified soldiers, who shakily reformed the fire-fighting chains and resumed the efforts. "Very well. I'll check on the slaves in the meantime. My steed will stay here, though. If he sees any of you make even one funny move, there'll be roast pig on the menu tonight - get me?" Her voice rang out coldly behind him, and he quickly swallowed an angry reply. It REALLY got to him when humans referred to his proud people as 'pigs'. If anything, humans looked more like pigs, with their pink skin and plump shapes. But now wasn't the time. "Don't worry. You made your point." He simply said, and wandered over to knock a couple of stunned soldiers out of their apparent paralysis.

Anitra walked briskly across the muddy plaza, feeling some slight satisfaction at the speed with which the orcs dodged out of her way. She remembered this place - she remembered it well. It had been a main marketplace - how many times had she come here to buy vegetables for dinner, or shop around for new clothes? Now that she thought about it - hadn't this been the place where she'd first met Blake? Walking across this plaza on her way home, she'd heard a billowing sound, like sheets flapping in the wind, and her adventure had begun. Now, it was all but unrecognizable. Covered in mud and crudely-made huts. Most of the proud buildings that had bordered it were now charred ruins.

She didn't have time to dwell on it, though. She knew where to go. Blake's sharp nose had been able to tell the stench of the orcs from the stench of unwashed, human slaves, allowing him to pound the orcs with flame while avoiding the slave-quarters. This area was obviously the officer's quarters, and Blake had fingered this one hut, near the edge of the 'encampment', as holding slaves. There was a fairly limited number of possible reasons for keeping a small number of slaves so close to the officers... and she'd probably be dreading what she'd find, if she didn't already know exactly what that hut contained.

The door was locked, of course. She could have demanded a key, but what was the point? It was built to withstand terrified, downtrodden slaves, not armed adventurers. A solid kick, and the hinges tore straight out of the wall. Dried mud wasn't the strongest of building-materials. The smell inside was unpleasant, but not as much as the sight. A dozen naked or nearly-naked girls were sitting around, chained to a couple of posts, shivering in fear as they bunched around the back wall. They'd heard the shouting outside, smelled the fire. They didn't know what was going on. Even as mistreated slaves, there was room to fear a worse fate.

Then, as she stepped into the room, they realized that she was human, and a babble of relieved voices rose from them. "You're here to rescue us?!?" was the general gist of it, but some of them seemed to be more vindictive, and wanted to know if she was done killing all the orcs yet. She took a deep breath. "Calm down. Yes, I'm here to help you. No, the orcs aren't dead. I made a deal with them - they're handing over all the slaves and leaving to avoid a fight. Now sit still while I remove your chains..."

As she pulled out her sword and began cutting through the iron chains three at a time, one voice rose above the now-quiet whispering of the hut. "Anitra? Is... is that really you?" Looking at the source, she only just barely recognized her old friend, Selena. Her stomach was hugely swollen - she was clearly in the later stage of a pregnancy. The girl had a haunted look about her. No surprise. She'd always been the meekest and gentlest of their little gang. This nightmare must've taken its toll on her even more than the others. And flanking her was Anaya and Thalia! Both dirty and ragged, but recognizable. Anaya was holding a young child in her arms, hugging it close as if to protect it. Her eyes were bulging, staring at Anitra as if she was some crazy, impossible illusion. She'd always been a dedicated one, a loyal underling ready to leap at Anitra's command. Thalia, on the other hand, barely looked at her. She seemed... broken. Heartbreakingly so. Thalia had always been so full of life and energy, jumping about and coming up with crazy schemes.

Almost all of the old gang was there, she realized... except for Nadine. Cute little Nadine, always the blushing romantic, but more mature than she let on. It had been Nadine who had covertly asked her about Amazonian birth-control herbs shortly before Blake picked her up. What had happened to her? Striding over, she severed the chains of her three old friends with a single cut. "Yes, it's me. Nice to see you all again - wish it were under better circumstances." She could see Selena's eyes filling with tears. "Anitra... we all thought you were dead... and your mother too! It was horrible!"

Anitra winced as she turned away slightly, cutting through some more chains. "I'm sure it was... but I'm alive, as you can see. I've been far away, but I heard what happened here and rushed back to help you. I owe you that much. We were a team, back then, weren't we?" She gave them a half-smile in the darkness. "Incidentally, do you know what happened to Nadine? I'm not seeing her around here..." Thalia spoke, for the first time. "She got taken away. An orc used to drag her out of here every night. Then one day, she didn't come back." She still didn't look up. Didn't meet her eyes. Anitra swallowed. "I'll find out what happened to her. Don't worry."

With a final sweep, she cut the last of the chains. "Now, all of you, get out of this place. It smells. Don't worry about the orcs outside - they won't touch you. Oh, and the big dragon? He's a friend. I suggest you gather around him - he'll look out for you. I need to go check on the other slave-quarters." She'd expected more resistance to the idea of walking out into an army of upset orcs to crowd around a dragon, but apparently, most of the girls had become so used to slavery that they simply obeyed any sufficiently empathic command. One by one, they got tiredly to their feet, helping each other where they could, and shuffled out through the broken door single-file, the shattered remains of their chains dragging through the dirt or dangling limply from their necks. Anaya and Thalia both helped Selena get to her feet, and supported her out the door. Anitra almost reached out a hand to help as well, but in the last second, thought better of it. She owed it to them to get them out of this nightmare, for old time's sake - but the past was past. She had a new life now, and they didn't fit in it.

Following the trio out of the hut, she stomped across the plaza to where the orcs' general was standing, shouting in orcish at a couple of others - most likely minor officers, from what she knew of chain-of-command. Generals mostly didn't bother shouting at common soldiers. That's what sergeants were for. He noticed her coming and dismissed the other two with a wave of his axe - an axe she was still keeping a close eye on, what with its magical glow. "Something wrong?" he asked, in his surprisingly good common-tongue, as she drew nearer. "Perhaps. I talked to the girls, and they mentioned that one of their numbers had been taken away some time ago, never returning. Brown-haired girl, gray eyes. What happened to her?"

The orc rubbed his protruding chin. "Someone from in there who got taken away? Yeah, I know who that'd be. Worgan took her as his favorite. Keeps her in his quarters now." Her heart leaped in her chest. They'd firebombed several barracks and huts before... "And where would those quarters be?" she asked, keeping her voice carefully level. He point towards the rising pillar of smoke and ash where their first bombing-run had taken place. "Over near the barracks. Second hut from the right. It's got a ragged banner stuck to a spear out front - you can't miss it. Oh, and I've sent runners 'round the camp, letting everyone know not to mess with you. You shouldn't have any trouble."

She nodded and left without a word, half-running towards the barracks. They hadn't hit any of the smaller huts. She'd be all right, probably. She shot a quick thought to Blake, informing him of her intentions, and asking him to keep an eye on the slaves she'd freed so far 'till she got back. His answer was a quick affirmative. If he was annoyed with her wasting their time on a side-trip like this, he didn't show it.

Making her way quickly through the dark streets of the ruined city, she was continuously assailed by memories. She'd walked those streets in the bright light of day, and in the cool twilights. There was the shop where she'd bought that delicious cake, and there was the corner where she'd bargained with a wandering merchant for a necklace... she even passed the remains of the building that had been the 'base' of her little gang - an abandoned cheese-chop, which was now nothing but a pile of ashes and rubble. Even as the scattered orcs she encountered quickly dodged out of her way, the memories crowded in thickly around her.

Yet through them she ran, and within a couple of minutes, she reached her goal. It had once been the main pens - bleating sheep and complaining cattle had been pushed into this area every market-day, as the farmers of the surrounding lands brought their surplus in to sell. There was no trace left of the pens themselves, and the field had been converted into barracks, training-grounds, and her goal - a series of smaller huts that served as personal quarters for minor officers.

She wasn't quite sure which of the haphazardly-placed huts qualified as 'second from the right', but she instantly recognized the banner. She'd seen it swaying over the main gates of the city wall often enough - a brightly-colored pennant set in blue and gold, showing a unicorn and a griffon on opposite sides of a crown and a sword. Symbolic, if memory served, of the royal family's right to rule (the crown and sword), their peaceful intentions (the unicorn), and their willingness and ability to defend themselves from aggression (the griffon). A stark and beautiful symbol of the city. Now, it was a ragged shadow of its former self, dirty and missing several patches, hanging from an orcish spear. Whoever this 'Worgan' was, he must've played a key role in the invasion to have claimed such a trophy.

The orc standing outside the hut looked different from the rest. He was more slender, and taller - or perhaps just less stooped in his stance. His tusks were fairly small, and his skin a lighter shade of green than the orc he was loudly arguing with, threatening hand-gestures and grimaces accompanying shouted words in their rough-sounding language. A half-orc, she realized. Would Selena's child look the same? Hopefully. He wasn't actually bad-looking, the protruding tusks and heavy brow giving him a sort of brutish charm, which his sculpted physique did little to dispel.

Shaking off the distraction, she walked towards the arguing pair. Most likely, one of them was 'Worgan'. The half-orc noticed her first, glaring over the shoulder of the other half of the argument, who consequently noticed the stare and turned around. Pointing at her, he shouted a few more things in orcish, threw up his hands, and stalked away. The half-orc just narrowed his eyes and stood his ground 'till she was right in front of him. "Worgan, I presume?" she asked sarcastically. He nodded. "I know why you are here. You want Nadine. I do not know why, but I will not give her to you."

Anitra raised an eyebrow. There was something strange about the way he was talking, and it wasn't just the slightly-stilted common he spoke. Did orcs commonly refer to their human slaves by name? Almost certainly not. Well, maybe this one was just odd. "I made a deal with your chief. He agreed to hand over all of the slaves. ALL of them. In return, I don't burn you all. Don't orcs follow the commands of their chiefs?" Worgan's cheeks vibrated as he gnashed his teeth, his eyes burning. "I am an orc, but I am also myself. There are things I will do for my Warboss, and things I will not do for my Warboss."

She sighed and loosened the black blade from its sheath. It would have been naïve to think that she could get through all of this without cutting down a few fools as an example. "Very well. In that case, I do not think your 'warboss' will have many complaints if I cut you down where you stand." The half-orc's eyes narrowed, and he pulled a nasty-looking curved sword out from behind his back. A fairly short blade, easily wielded in one hand, with the back of the curve covered in saw-like teeth - designed to catch an opponent's weapon or chip its edge, no doubt. His stance was tense, yet elastic. He clearly had ample combat-experience. But she had superhuman strength and speed, along with a magical sword that could cut straight through steel. He didn't stand a chance. And that was the strange part. He had to know as much. That orc he had been arguing with before must have been a messenger, conveying the chief's orders, as well as the reason. She had no doubt that word of her appearance had spread through the camp faster than the fires she'd started. And yet, this one still stood against her. Did he simply want an honorable death? If so, she could certainly provide that...

Glaring at each other over their drawn blades, the two faced each other in the light of the still-burning barracks, while rows of orcs carried buckets of water to throw at the inferno. Some of them paused in their duties to watch the brewing conflict, but a quick cuff on the ear from a neighbor soon reminded them that they had work to do. Anitra tensed her muscles. She knew she had the advantage in speed. Best to finish this quickly, with a single, overwhelming attack. He'd block, no doubt, but he did not know the strength of her sword. She'd cut right through his saber, and him, in a single stroke.

"Please! Stop it! Both of you!" A familiar voice cried out. Emerging from the hut behind the half-orc was Nadine - looking much more herself than any of the other girls had done. She was clean, and even wearing a simple dress. A slave-collar laid around her slender neck, but there was no chain connected to it. The half-orc seemed to hesitate, his eyes flickering to the side as he heard her approach. Then, to Anitra's surprise, she laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Please, Worgan. Don't. She's an old friend of mine. Let me talk to her." His eyes flickered towards the line of orcs carrying water for the fire, but they all seemed occupied with trying to save whatever was left of their barracks. Then he relaxed and lowered his saber. Still trying to figure out what was going on, Anitra lowered her own sword, and glanced at Nadine.

"All right, 'old friend'... care to tell me what's going on here?" she asked, eyebrows raised. Nadine blushed, looking even more her old self. "Well... Worgan's not a bad guy!" It came out with surprising vehemence. "He protected me. Even though he's been bullied for it by the orcs. He cares about me." She pulled half-heartedly at her slave-collar. "I'm only wearing this to trick the others. He never chains me unless someone is coming to visit him. He doesn't treat me like a slave. He... he treats me better than my last boyfriend did!"

Anitra groaned and ran a hand over her face. Nadine always HAD had a strange affinity for the 'bad boys'. Her previous boyfriend had been the leader of a local street-gang. She had repeatedly claimed that she could 'redeem' him. Well, they didn't come much badder than a Warg-riding half-orc, she supposed. "All right. He was nice to you. I get it. I won't cut him up. Now come along - the rest of the gang's waiting back at the plaza. I'm getting all of you out of here." Nadine bowed her head and shook it. "I always knew you'd follow in your mother's footsteps eventually, Anitra. You've become a splendid adventurer. I'm glad that you're here to help the others - they've had a terrible time. Particularly Anaya. You know she always idolized you. She nearly went crazy when you disappeared."

She lifted her head and looked straight at Anitra with unblinking, gray eyes, more clear than she could ever remember seeing them before. "But I don't need saving. I'm staying with Worgan. I know it won't be easy. But it's not easy for him, either. We comfort each other. We need each other. Please, just tell the others that I've been killed. That there was nothing you could do. My parents died during the siege. I've got no siblings. There's nothing here for me." Anitra opened her mouth to protest. It was crazy. Nadine had always been foolishly romantic, but this took the cake. But then, something occurred to her, and instead of shouting, she laughed. "All right, Nadine. I'm hardly one to complain about odd choices in love. I came here to free you, and that also means that you're free to stay if you want to."

Nadine smiled beamingly, and jumped forwards to give her a hug, which Anitra awkwardly returned while sticking her sword back in its sheathe. Then she let go, smiled up at her again, and jumped over to her half-orc lover, who returned her affection rather more competently, one muscular arm curling tightly around her back. Rolling her eyes, Anitra sighed, and then fixed Worgan with a level gaze. "All right, we got all that worked out, then. But just one more thing. If you ever hurt her, I'll find you - somehow, somewhere - and feed you to my dragon. A little bit at a time. Clear enough?" "Oh, Anitra!" Nadine pouted protestingly, turning her head from her lover's chest to glare at her. But Worgan just nodded. "I would not want it any other way." Groaning at the sheer sappiness of the scene, Anitra turned and walked briskly away, waving airily over her shoulder at a friend she knew she'd never see again.

When she got back to the main plaza, it was noticeably different. The fires were all out, except for a few torches left stuck in the cobblestone to provide some light. Most of the orcs were gone, except for their boss, who was leaning against a fence, surrounded by a handful of nervous-looking bodyguards. Here and there, orcish herbalists were treating badly-burned orcs and Wargs, before helping them up on improvised stretchers to be carried along. But all in all, the plaza was dominated by just one thing: People. Humans. Slaves. Most of them were dirty and haggard-looking, with little to no clothes. Some bore visible marks of whips and fists. Most were sitting, others lying down, asleep or just too exhausted to do anything else.

There were, at a guess, a thousand of them. A thousand ragged, dirty, tired slaves, covering the plaza like a smelly blanket. Blake rose from the center of it, sitting calm and still, like a mountain rising from a sea. As soon as she entered the plaza, she felt their countless eyes on her. The sea of forsaken souls buzzed with quiet words. Most of them seemed hopeful, but a few looked more uncertain. She could understand that. They were glad to be rescued, sure, but this wasn't quite the way they'd expected.

The chief noticed her as well, and strolled over, with his jumpy-looking guards in tow. She had to admit that she was somewhat impressed by him - he seemed almost fearless, maintaining his composure despite the sudden twist of fate that had ruined his occupation. "I am surprised to see you returning alone..." he said quietly as he got closer. Over the buzzing of the crowd, his voice did not carry far. "I had a chat with Worgan. We reached an understanding. The matter is settled." She replied in the same quiet voice. "Are these all of the slaves?"

He nodded. "I took the liberty of having my men round them all up before they started packing. We've emptied the slave-quarters and brothels entirely, and Worgan's the only one who's been keeping a personal pet." She glanced across the sad mob. Suddenly, it didn't seem so big. More than 5000 people had lived in Caristad proper, and in the surrounding lands administrated by the city-state, there had been at least another thousand worth of peasants, who would retreat behind the 'safety' of the city-walls in times of trouble. And this was all that was left - no more people than could fit on the main marketplace. All the soldiers had been killed during the invasion, and the catapults had no doubt crushed more families than just Nadine's. The old and infirm had been slain on the spot, useless as slaves or anything else. The children... well, she'd heard the stories about the orcish 'delicacies'. And on top of that, who knew how many of the original slaves had been executed as examples, or killed trying to escape, or just worked to death?

She swallowed, then nodded. "Good. Convenient. Now, I suggest you hurry up and get the last of your men together. I think they're done putting out the fire in the barracks now." She nodded back the way she'd come from, where the sooty glow was rapidly dying, to be replaced by a column of thick, black smoke. "You'll want to leave the area as fast as you can. If you wanna know why, just stick around for my speech..." She gave him an airy wave, and started weaving through the crowd, stepping carefully around the sitting forms as she made her way towards Blake. She could hear their murmurs of uncertainty. She felt more nervous than during most of the fights she'd been in. She'd once heard somebody say that "Most people fear death first, public speaking second." Seemed 'bout right to her. But it had to be done.

Near Blake, the girls she'd personally rescued from the hut were sitting, with her three old friends at their center - Selena was actually leaning against his scaly flanks. No-one else seemed to dare touching him. The three girls looked up at her questioningly as she drew closer, but she just shook her head and briefly touched her lips. She'd handle THAT bag of worms later. Blake gave her a crooked smile - he already knew what had happened, thanks to their telepathy - and raised one of his forelegs, giving her a stepping-stone up to his back. From up there, she could see the whole crowd, spreading out on every side. The last of the orcs were leaving quickly, carrying stretchers, but the big boss had apparently decided to stick around for the show. She could feel that all eyes were on her, and cleared her throat.

"People of Caristad! I am Anitra, daughter of Arthenia the Amazon, who once protected this city with her strength!" This simple statement sent a ripple of gasps and cheers through the crowd. Few had known her, but everyone had known Arthenia, if only from a distance. "After the death of my mother, I was swept up in a grand adventure, but when I heard word of the fate of my hometown, I hurried back. You need no longer fear. Your lives and freedoms are secure!" She only barely managed to keep a straight face. A shining hero returns in triumph? S'yeah right. She only came here 'cuz she was feeling guilty about abandoning a couple of her friends. The rest of them, she couldn't care less about. But hey, if you gotta play the hero, you might as well play it right to the hilt...

"Wait a minute! If you're really here to help us, why were you TALKING with those damn bloody orcs? Why aren't you KILLING them? Do you know what they've DONE to us!" One loudmouth near the edge of the crowd - who had, apparently, left his sense of gratitude in his other pants - heckled her. Several cries joined him with "Yeah!" and "Kill them!" being the most prevalent. She needed to nip this in the bud. On her mental signal, Blake gave a resounding roar. The crowd fell deadly silent again, and several of the closest tried to back away from the huge beast, as if they'd only just become aware of him.

"What would you rather have?" Her voice rang out over the sudden silence. "Life and freedom? Or death and vengeance?" She shot the orc-boss a glare across the heads of the crowd, as if to tell them that she wasn't THAT friendly with them. "I COULD kill them all. But how many of you would be caught in the crossfire? Or simply cut down by the fleeing orcs, who are well-known to do just that when they can't bring their slaves along?" The murmurs of the crowd started up anew, but with a somewhat more nervous tone. Apparently, they saw her point. "I negotiated. They get to leave with their lives, and YOU all get to live as well. It is a fair bargain. If it makes you feel any better, keep in mind that their fellows in the wastelands to the south probably won't be impressed with their performance here..." She noticed the orc-chief wincing on the other side of the crowd. Apparently she'd hit a sore spot.

"You will stay and protect us, right? Please?" It was a different voice from before - a woman, or rather, a young girl, somewhere in the middle of the crowd. Anitra took a deep breath. "I will stay here tonight, and see off the invaders. Tomorrow, I must return to my quest. There is much more at stake than a single city. I cannot afford to tarry longer." She could already hear the moans of despair rising from the crowd. She quickly headed them off. "BUT worry not! A column of knights and infantry is approaching from the fortified city of Mimbre even now! Before noon tomorrow, they will be here. Mimbre has always been a staunch ally of Caristad. With their help, you can rebuild this place, or relocate to other cities."

A cheer rose up from the crowd, and she saw the orc-chief blanch on the other side of it. Quickly, she shot a few orders to his bodyguards, and walked rapidly towards the barracks, moving exactly like a man who absolutely refuses to run, even though he knows he really should. She didn't blame him. The Knights of Mimbre were rightly famous for being very, very good at what they did, and for being absolutely merciless when fighting whatever they perceived of as 'evil'. If the orcs weren't far away by the time they arrived, they'd chase them down regardless of the fact that they were already retreating, and slaughter them to the last man.

After dispensing some final advice to the crowd - to find places to rest, and to gather whatever food the fleeing orcs hadn't already grabbed - she jumped down from Blake's back to face her friends. They looked at her expectantly as she waited for the rest of the crowd to disperse, before shaking her head. "Nadine is gone. Nothing I could do. Sorry." Selena closed her eyes, and two large tears rolled down her cheek as she sniffed loudly. Still a sensitive and gentle girl in spite of everything, it seemed. Anaya and Thalia just looked away and swallowed their grief. All out of tears, probably.

Then Anaya looked up at her again, fixing her with an almost fanatical stare. "It's okay. At least you came back. I knew you weren't dead. I KNEW it. Even if nobody else believed it..." She talked very fast, almost stumbling over the words. "Look!" She held out the child she'd been clinging to all the time. It was a young boy, with the beginning of a head of golden hair, and piercing, blue eyes. He seemed oddly familiar. And definitely didn't look like a half-orc. She blinked as she started putting the pieces together. "It's your brother! I protected him. After you and your mother disappeared, I convinced my mother to take him in. She was killed in a fire during the siege." She paused briefly, as if struggling with grief, then forged on. "I've looked after him. I've protected him. I've... I've done what I had to do. To keep him safe from the orcs. He's all I had left of you."

She held out the child, as if expecting her to take it, an unreadable expression in her bulging eyes. Anitra reached out one hand, and ran it over the thin, golden hair of the boys' head. He looked up at her, then hiccupped and looked back at Anaya, reaching his stubby little arms out towards her while murmuring in that strange language all babies talked at first. Anitra shook her head, and withdrew her hand. "You're the one who protected him. He's yours, now. I can't take him with me, and I can't break off my quest. Too much is at stake. Look after him for me. Raise him well." She felt like she had something lodged in her throat, and quickly swallowed. Then she reached for Blake's saddlebags and pulled out a heavy leather bag. "Here." She handed it to Anaya. "I've got more of this than I know what to do with.

Anaya hesitantly took the bag, feeling its weight and hearing the jingle. Her eyes widened - a feat Anitra would've thought impossible, considering how wide-eyed she was to begin with. "Gold?" Anitra nodded. "Enough to last you a lifetime if you're careful. Consider it my payment for your services as a nanny - given in a lump sum." She glanced at the other two girls. "I hope you'll share some with Selena and Thalia, though. They've had it rough too. And Selena... well, she's going to need money soon." Selena smiled up at her. "I could manage. I'm not the kind to quit, no matter how hard things get."

But Anaya, feeling the weight of a child and a large bag of gold in her arms, shook her head, as if to clear it. And when she looked up, she was much less wild-eyed, and much more like Anitra remembered her. "Don't worry, either one of you. We three have stuck together through everything so far. We won't be divided now. Even if our numbers were cut down... we'll stick together. You gave us our freedom, and money besides. We'll be fine. I promise." Anitra smiled in response. She didn't know why she hadn't seen it before. Anaya hadn't really wanted to hand over the child. She'd looked after him for so long - she'd gotten attached to the boy, moreso than SHE ever had. That's why she'd acted so maniacally before. She was afraid that she'd have to part with the boy she'd more-or-less adopted.

The four of them spent a few more hours together, sitting there and talking about old times. They pestered her for tales of her adventures, of course, and she gave them abbreviated (and sanitized) versions of a few of her encounters, while refusing to elaborate on her 'grand quest', couching it in mystery and intrigue, while dropping hints of some magical curse that made it dangerous to speak of out loud. But as the first flashes of fake dawn began to appear, she bade them goodbye and wished them well, as she rose to Blake's back and flew to the central gate of the City Wall. From atop it, she watched the tail-end of the orcish retreat filtering out of the city, moving south with a double-time march. With Blake calmly telling her that he'd keep watch for any sign of foul play, she laid down on his broad back to take a nap...

Anitra managed to get a couple of much-needed hours of sleep, while Blake watchfully observed the orcs retreating towards the horizon. There were no signs of any attempts to circle back or play any other sort of tricks. Clearly, the orcs were just eager to put as much land as possible between themselves and the fanatical Mimbrate Knights. Behind the tall walls of Caristad, they would've stood a good chance of repulsing the offensive, but out in the open, they stood no chance against armored knights. Few did, indeed.

As the sun rose in the sky, Blake craned his neck and looked north, across the ruins of the city. Bright burnished steel glimmered in the sunlight, like a suddenly-appeared sea in the middle of the continent. Certainly, Mimbre had spared no expense in evicting the orcish infestation from their southern border. Would they be happy to avoid bloodshed, or disappointed at the lost opportunity for glory? A bit of both, probably. Either way, it was time for Blake to rouse his rider and get moving. Dragons and knights rarely got along too well, and with the orcs gone, the Knights of Mimbre might be looking for someone else to test their mettle against.

With Anitra swaying sleepily in his saddle, Blake took to the skies, circling up over the city that was, at the same time, familiar and alien. He, too, had many memories of Caristad - he had lived near it for years, and towards the end, flown across it on many a night, seeking his prey. Now it was a wreck. Well, that's how it always went with these short-lived races. Cities sprung up all over the place like mushrooms, and before you turned around twice, they'd been reduced to rubble again.

Almost without thinking, he set course for Inferand's cavern. He'd flown that route enough times that he caught the lifting winds over the plains with no effort whatsoever. It would be fun to see the old coot again - he certainly had plenty of stories to share. And there were a few things he wanted to ask the wise old dragon... he always seemed to have an answer for everything, after all.

Ten minutes later, they landed in front of the cave. It was as invisible as ever - just another huge, unwieldy boulder, amongst hundreds of others on the barren mountainside. You'd never guess that concealed behind it was the entrance of a spacious cave where dwelled the dragon-hermit Inferand. As Anitra silently slid down his side, Blake sunk his talons into the large boulder, and with a grunting effort, lifted it aside to reveal the cavern within.

A thick stench billowed out to meet them. A stench that they both instinctively recognized - the stench of death. Rot. Decay. The source was abundantly clear. There, right on his doorstep, laid the sad remnants of Inferand. There wasn't much left of him... tough though a dragon might be in life, in death it was just another meal for the scavenging insects and rodents of the world. The tough scales and the hard bones were mostly all that remained - but even from that, the cause of death was quite clear. The huge dragon's skull was crushed, flattened almost - beneath the very boulder that Blake had just lifted out of the way.

Blake swallowed, winced, and looked away. "Damn... Inferand. Hadn't expected that. We all gotta go sometime, I guess, and you've lived longer than most. But crushed under your own front door? That's no way to go for someone who've been through so much." His voice was quiet, talking more to himself and whatever shreds of Inferand's spirit remained, than to Anitra. She was not as heavily affected as Blake - she hadn't known Inferand for more than a night, and barely even that. But it was still a sad sight, and a sad thought. A noble and ancient creature like him, dying because his hands slipped on the way out of his cave. It seemed ridiculous, but what other explanation was there?

She heard Blake draw a deep, shuddering breath, and glanced up at him. It seemed strange to see him so emotional and serious, considering his usual emotional range of 'playful' to 'violent', but Inferand had been like a father to him - his only 'family', such as it was. It was no wonder he was having a hard time controlling himself...

Then, Blake breathed out, in a fierce, earth-shaking roar of flame. The fire was more intense, more incandescent, than any she'd ever seen him breathe before. Burning red around the edges, the heart of the flame that now washed into the cave was completely white. She felt like she was staring directly into the sun, and quickly averted her eyes, spots dancing across her field of vision for several minutes afterwards.

When Blake closed his jaws again, the final sparks of the fierce fire licking around his jowls, there was nothing left on the doorstep of the cavern. Even the scales and bones had not been able to withstand the intense heat, and had been reduced to a fine ash, scattered by the impact. Only a circle of red-glowing, half-molten rock signified that there had ever been anything there. "That is a dragon's funeral." Blake said hoarsely, his vocal cords clearly strained by his previous breath. "Usually, it takes several dragons to pull it off, but being black has its advantages. Rest in peace, Inferand." He dipped his head towards the cave, saluting Inferand's spirit, while Anitra mirrored the gesture. Then he lifted the boulder back in place.

For a few silent minutes, they stood with their backs to the cave, gazing out at the splendid view that the clear, brisk spring-day provided them. They could see the remains of Caristad, a few small columns of smoke rising from it, marking the smoldering remains of last night's fires. The shiny mass of the Mimrate forces were pouring through the undefended city gates, probably quite confused by the lack of resistance, though it was rather hard to tell their emotional state for sure at this range. Around the city, the farmlands and roads stretched in every direction - the fertile lands providing a rich harvest every year, left mostly untouched by the orcs, who wanted the bounty of those fields as much as anyone else. Caristad would rise again - maybe not quite the same, but there'd still be a city there, as long as the fields flowered in the springtime.

With a sigh, Anitra stepped closer to Blake, and dug into his saddlebags. "Well, we can't stand around all day admiring the view. We've already wasted too much time on this. It's time to get started on our search for the next tablet-piece... there aren't many left now, y'know." Blake grinned down at her. "Ah yes, our great and important much-is-at-stake capital-Q quest. So what's out next destination?" Anitra skimmed the documents. Only three more pieces remained, and the next one on the list was... "The Southern Sea. We're heading for the Island of the Amazons." Blake nodded, and as she jumped back in the saddle, they took off into the bright blue sky, leaving the past behind them.

The End

Next on the menu - Chapter 14 of the DragonRider Chronicles: Island of the Amazons!