Desperate Measures Chapter 1: The Capture (Patreon)

At the third heavy strike the door explodes open in a shower of chunks and splinters.  Two of the servants behind me let out a frightened cry.  The army defeated, the castle guard beaten, every barrier and defense fallen, nothing now stood between me and the orc horde.

The burly orc who smashed the door fills the opening, ax still in hand, but he does not cross the threshold.  It is the first one of his kind I had ever seen in the flesh.  The illustrations I had seen in my books hadn’t done his race justice.  While no taller than my father his arms were thicker than my thighs and his short neck as wide as my waist.  He wore a patchwork of furs, cloth, and hardened leather armor, all of it coarse and practical and so out of place here in this opulent setting.  His brutish appearance shot fear through my heart but I keep my composure.  Knowing Silima was behind me gave me the courage I needed.  His piss yellow eyes scans the room once before he steps back to clear the doorway.  There is a brief muttering in orcish between him and a fellow soldier I could not see before he suddenly snaps upright then bows low.  Someone of great importance had just entered the other room and given the depth of the soldier’s bow I can only imagine it is The Scourge herself.

I pray for a miracle.

Still knelt in the dead center of the open area of the room between the door and the grand pillow laden bed which the attendants were hiding behind I face the doorway directly.  I was not foolish enough to show open defiance but neither would I grovel. Regardless of her godlike reputation I would not give the enemy the satisfaction of seeing me pleading for mercy.  While I may not look it now I was still a prince of Isthalas.

Stepping past the bowing soldier and through the doorway is a warrior that made him seem a sweet little puppy by comparison.  Standing a head taller than him she has to dip her head slightly to avoid hitting it on the frame of the door.  Her overwhelming presence fills the room like a bonfire.  

Towering at over seven feet tall her imposing physical frame is a match for her larger than life reputation.  She is not a stout block of muscle like the male orc outside the door.  Wider at the shoulders and hips her physique is leaner and more shapely, still powerfully built yet her hourglass build is still distinctly feminine.  I had never seen a woman like her.  Her thick thighs and sculpted inverted tear drop calves were those of an elite athlete, her bare arms taut with defined sinewy muscle, even her surprisingly elegant neck had a form that could belong to one of the grand old sculptures of the gods that stood in our great hall.  While statuesque hers was a figure that had seen the wear and tear of battle.  Pale scars criss-crossed her olive green skin here and there.  One particularly nasty scar ran from her forehead to her cheek on her left side bisecting a gray dead eye.  Her other eye gleams with a warm and luscious amber color.  The sides of her head are shaved leaving her pointed ears exposed, again the left one showing signs of old injury.  Her inky black hair is pulled back into a tight braid bound by leather twine, intricately carved bones and three long white and black feathers dangle from the tie.  As all of her people did she had two lower tusks which peeked up through her broad darker green lips.  The flesh and bone of her facial features are wide and thick, their proportions foreign to my eye, yet strangely captivating.  If even I, and elf, could see it I assume that among her kind she must be considered a very beautiful woman.

For one of the great military figures of the world her attire is surprisingly simple.  She wore a vest of interlocking hardened leather plates crafted expertly to fit snugly around her narrower waist yet expand out at the top to provide room for her ample bosom.  Around her waist hung a matching leather kilt that left her knees exposed.  Fur lined boots of supple leather rounded off her sparse dress.  Even someone like me, clueless in the ways of combat, could see this was a warrior who valued speed and freedom of movement over brute blade stopping armor plating.  Affirming this assessment was the cutlass and dagger that hung from her belt, not your traditional orc weapons.  The craftsmanship of each item was impeccable and wholly practical.  There are none of the decorations or banners or medals or any of the grandiose things one would expect of a famous general.  Despite this, or perhaps because of it, her natural intangible magnificence shone as bright as the midday sun.

Another orc woman follows in behind her, one of her Valkyrie warriors who, in any other company, would have been a unmatched pinnacle of a physical specimen.  She was dressed in similar manner to her leader except instead of kilt she wore a tight fitting loin cloth.  The way the garment bulged in a manner like no female I’d ever seen instantly affirmed the gynandrous legends about these women that I had always assumed was a fiction.  If this was true perhaps the other stories were accurate as well, this sends a shiver down my spine.  She stands back and to the left of her leader, none of the others enter the room.

Keeping to my role as a maiden on the verge of capture I keep my focus on the person with the power, careful to keep my eyes cast low in submission.

“This is her?”  The High General asks in a powerful voice that is simultaneously silky smooth yet hazy and husky.  

My breath catches in my lungs and I swear my heart stops a beat as there is a pause.  The other woman looks me over carefully from where she stood.  A trickle of sweat crawls down my spine as I wait to hear if my disguise would be seen through.

“Yes General.”  The answer finally comes and I can breath again.  “This is Princess Tamriella.”

The language they were speaking was a Northern dialect of Orc, one of the many tongues I had learned over my century long studies.  It was not a common language to know for my kind and they likely did not realize I could understand them.

The Scourge stands and assesses her captive.  I stay perfectly still, hands upon my knees and head bowed.  She slowly walks all the way around me, her soft leather boots barely making a sound as she moved.  I could feel her intense amber gaze scanning up and down my body.

“She is…fetching.”  The scourge says.

“To some perhaps.  Skinny, weak, fragile.  How do they nurse with breasts so small?”  The other replies.  “She looks easily broken.”  They share a laugh.

“Elves are more resilient than they look Drunda.  No, she is very fetching.  She will be sought after.”  The Scourge nods approvingly and smacks her lips.  “She is a fine prize.”

“Is she to remain unsullied then?”

There is a long delay as the General continues to ogle me, the words that follow fill me with dread.  “No.  Put her with other slaves.  Let the men have some fun with her.  We can clean her up later for gift or auction.”

This whole time I had been weighing up whether to let my linguistic knowledge be known but on hearing this I decide to reveal it.  I had to do anything I could to delay the reveal of my identity for as long as possible.  Being thrown to the mercies of the common soldiery would surely be the quickest way for the truth to come to light.

Lightening my already naturally soft voice I say.  “Please.”  The pair immediately stop and both turn to look at me.  I bow lower in a show of total surrender and, somehow, manage to keep my even tone from conveying the nearly unbearable fear gripping in my heart.  “Please my Lady.  Show me mercy.”

She turns and steps forward to loom over me.  “You know our tongue?”

“Yes my General.”

“Who taught you?”  Her voice is clipped and harsh but a genuine curiosity peeks through.  I had impressed her.

“I am self taught my Lady.  I am a student of song and the music of Gog of Engrith bewitched me in my youth.  I learned your tongue so that I may understand the meaning of his words.”  All of this was the truth.  I could hear the many differences in accent and cadence between my speech and theirs but the actual communication was as clear as could be.

“Gog of Engrith?”  The moment she says this my heart drops and I realize the grave mistake I had just made.  “You sing Gog’s words?  You spit on his memory elf!  His songs are not meant for a woman’s lips!  An elven woman least of all.”

I bow so low that my forehead nearly touches the marble floor and scramble for an excuse.  “I only came to know this later my Lady.  I only knew the music at first.”

“Pah!”  She scoffs.  Suddenly her hand encompasses the back of my head and her fist tightens around and through my just recently done up hair.  I am lifted to my tip toes and forced to look up into her much larger face.  She leans so that we are nose to nose, her hot breath washing over my lips and cheeks.  “You think this impresses me?  You think this will gain you sympathy?  I should kill you now you lying elven whore!”

At any other time in my life I would have wilted in sheer terror, but not today.  I think of my family, I think of my people, and I think of loyal Silima crouched in the corner with the others.  The grip tightens even more and I feel the platinum comb crumple in her strong fingers.

“Nnngh.”  I wince.  “It is not a lie.  And…I am many things my Lady, but…I am no whore.”  I whisper through hissed grunts of pain.  “I have never known the intimate touch of man…or woman.”  Again this is the truth.  Over thirty years ago a marriage had been arranged for me between my family and another noble house within the kingdom.  As soon as the girl was of age we were to be wed and until then I was expected to remain chaste, and so I had.  “I am a virgin my General.”

This confession changes the dynamic in the room far more than my fluency in their tongue.  The Scourge raises a brow and looks over to her second.  “Can this be true?”

“Unlikely, but not impossible General.  These elven nobles have peculiar customs.  She may have been marriage bound.”  With that Drunda steps forward and reaches into the neck of my kimono.  It was only due to our haste that my engagement pendant hadn’t been removed but it proved to be a stroke of luck.  She pulls the glimmering mithril pendant out and lets it hang loose over my clothes.  “She is indeed promised to another.  Ha!  A pure elven princess.  What a prize!  She could command a king’s ransom.”

The Scourge lifts me even higher and leans to take a long deep sniff then slowly lets the breath out through her mouth as a smile forms and widens.  She lets me back down and releases me.  Immediately I return to my kneeling position.

“Not a word of this leaves this room.”  She commands.  “She is not to be touched except by me…until I decide what to do with her.  Keep her close.”

“Yes General.”

The General kneels down in front of me and grabs my hair again.  Twisting my head she looks down at me with her one good eye.  “You will not defile our language again with your simpering elven voice unless speaking to me, lest I remove your tongue.”

“Yes…my General.”  I grunt as she cranks my neck.

Letting go she stands again and points around the room.  “Take her paints and perfumes, take her jewelry, take her preening tools, and take some of her clothes.  Keep them aside from the other plunder.”   Then, almost as an afterthought, she adds.  “And take one of her servants too.  She will require attending.”

“No!”  I rise only to be greeted with a sharp kick into my abdomen which causes me to crumple straight back down to the floor again breathless.  “No…”  I gasp.  “…leave…them…”

I am silenced by the sound of cold steel leaving a scabbard followed by the sharp tip of a sword pricking the back of my neck.  “Your days of giving commands is over princess.  Do not test my patience slave.”  The General’s stern tone left no doubt that she would end me in a second if I disobeyed.

In silence I watch the other woman calls in the other soldiers.  They loot my sister’s room of valuables and the items the Scourge had ordered collected is wrapped in one of the fine silk sheets and tied in a bundle.  The three attendants, terrified and frightened, scream as the second in command approaches them.  Having not understood the preceding conversation they hadn’t a clue what was happening and they weep in fear.  I pray with all I had that Silima would be spared but, true to her kind nature, once it became clear that the invaders were taking another captive she volunteered to spare the other two.  My gambit of admitting my purity had worked, it had bought me some time, but in doing so I had now linked loyal Silima’s fate with mine.  My quiet prayers turn to curses as I denounce the gods for their callous cruelty in allowing this horror to take place.

Chapter 2