Chapter 6: The Scent of Prey (Part 2)

Lyra screamed against Gruk's palm. The sound was swallowed before it could become anything more than a vibration. She kicked out, her heel connecting with the chieftain's thigh, but it was like kicking a tree trunk. The orc didn't even flinch. He just squeezed again, harder, his thumb digging into the soft flesh above her nipple, and then released her with a grunt that might have been approval.

"Good teats," he said again. "Tie her up. We'll have some fun before we decide what to do with her."

They bound her to a post.

It was not a post, exactly---more like the stripped trunk of a young tree, driven deep into the earth at the edge of the fire pit, probably used for tethering animals or hanging meat. They forced her arms above her head and lashed her wrists together with a length of coarse rope, then looped the rope over a notch in the wood and pulled until her arms were stretched taut, her shoulders aching, her body drawn up onto the balls of her feet.

She could not cover herself. She could not even try. Her hands were pinned high above her, and every instinct that screamed at her to shield her breasts or press her thighs together was useless. She was utterly, completely exposed, and the orcs knew it.

They had taken the hand from her mouth once she was secure---there was no one to hear her scream out here---but they had stuffed a wad of foul-tasting cloth between her lips before they did. A gag, torn from some unidentifiable piece of fabric, tied roughly behind her head. She could still make noise, but it came out as muffled, desperate sounds that only seemed to amuse her captors.

The firelight played over her body, and the orcs gathered to look.

There were perhaps a dozen of them in the camp---some sitting, some standing, all of them watching her with expressions that ranged from idle curiosity to something far hungrier. A few called out comments in their guttural tongue, laughing at things Lyra could not understand but felt in her bones. One of them, younger than the others and missing half an ear, walked right up to her and stood there, arms crossed, studying her nakedness with the unhurried fascination of someone examining a piece of art they did not quite understand.

"Human females," he said, slowly, as if tasting the words. "So soft. Look." He reached out and prodded her hip with one blunt finger. "No fur. No hide. Like a skinned thing."

Another orc---this one female, Lyra realized with a jolt, broader and heavier than the males but unmistakably female in the shape of her body beneath her leather wrappings---snorted and said something in their language. The young orc laughed and stepped back.

Lyra's face burned. The shame was a living thing inside her chest, clawing at her throat, making her eyes sting with tears she refused to shed. She was naked, bound, gagged, and surrounded by monsters, and every second that passed was a fresh humiliation. The rope bit into her wrists. The rough bark of the post scraped against her bare back. The position forced her hips slightly forward, and she could feel the warmth of the fire on her inner thighs, on the most intimate parts of her body that she could not close, could not hide, could not protect.

The chieftain approached again. He had a horn cup in one hand, something dark and pungent sloshing inside it, and he took a long drink before speaking.

"Gruk says you were with an elf." His yellow eyes fixed on hers. "You belong to her? Her slave? Her pet?"

Lyra shook her head frantically, the only answer she could give.

"No? Then what? You walk naked through the forest for fun?" He laughed, a deep, ugly sound, and several of the other orcs joined in. "Humans are strange, but not that strange."

He stepped closer, and his free hand came up again---not to her breast this time, but lower, his fingers brushing against the soft curve of her belly. Lyra jerked back, or tried to, but the post held her fast. The chieftain's hand trailed downward, slowly, deliberately, until his fingertips grazed the top of her pubic hair.

She made a sound---a strangled, desperate noise that was half sob, half snarl---and twisted her hips away. The motion made her lose her footing for a moment, and she slipped, her full weight yanking against her bound wrists. The bark scraped her back raw. The rope burned.

The chieftain watched her struggle with the same detached interest he might give a fish flopping on a riverbank. Then he withdrew his hand and took another drink from his cup.

"Leave her," he said to the others. "We'll have our sport later. First, I want to know more about this elf. Gruk---"

Whatever he was about to say was cut off by a sound that made Lyra's heart stop.

A whistle. High and sharp and eerily familiar---three descending notes that cut through the camp noise like a blade through silk.

Every orc in the clearing went still.

The chieftain's head snapped toward the tree line. His hand moved to the axe at his belt. "What---"

The first arrow took him in the throat.

It came from the darkness beyond the firelight, a slim shaft of pale wood that appeared as if conjured from the shadows themselves. It punched through the chieftain's neck with a wet, crunching sound, and he dropped his cup and staggered backward, both hands clawing at the protruding shaft. Blood poured between his fingers, black in the firelight. He made a gurgling noise, took one more step, and collapsed.

For one frozen heartbeat, no one moved.

Then the second arrow struck---the young orc with the missing ear, catching him in the chest and spinning him around before he crumpled---and the camp erupted into chaos.

Orcs scrambled for weapons. Shouts rang out in their guttural tongue. Someone kicked over a stack of supplies. The fire flared as a log shifted, sending a shower of sparks spiraling into the night sky.

And through it all, Lyra hung from her post, helpless, as a silver-haired figure dropped from the branches of an overhanging oak and landed in the center of the camp with the silent grace of a falling leaf.

Aelindra.

She moved like water---no, like lightning. Her bow was already slung across her back, and in her hands were two curved blades that gleamed with a faint, bluish luminescence. She spun, and an orc that had been charging toward her went down with a gash across its chest. She ducked under a wild axe swing, came up inside the attacker's guard, and drove one of her blades up under its jaw. The orc gurgled and fell.

Three of them were down. The rest were hesitating, caught between the instinct to fight and the sudden, visceral knowledge that they were facing something far more dangerous than a lone elf.

Aelindra did not give them time to decide. She was already moving toward Lyra, her blades singing through the air, and the orcs that stood in her path either scattered or died.

"Hold still," she said as she reached the post---as if Lyra had any choice in the matter---and one of her blades flashed upward. The rope binding Lyra's wrists parted with a single clean stroke, and Lyra's arms dropped, numb and useless, to her sides.

She would have collapsed if Aelindra hadn't caught her. The elf's arm slid around her waist, pulling her upright, and Lyra found herself pressed against the cool leather of Aelindra's armor, gasping for breath around the gag still stuffed in her mouth.

Aelindra glanced at the cloth, made a small sound of disgust, and hooked a finger under the knot. "Spit it out," she said, pulling the gag free, and Lyra did, gagging at the taste, her jaw aching from being forced open for so long.

"Ael---" she started, but her voice came out as a croak.

"Later," Aelindra said. Her pale green eyes swept the camp, counting the remaining orcs. Nine of them still standing, but they were backing away now, clustering together near the far palisade. "Can you run?"

Lyra's legs felt like water. Her arms were tingling with the return of blood flow. She was still naked, still shaking, still reeling from everything that had just happened. But she looked at Aelindra---at the blood on her blades, at the fierce, steady light in her eyes---and she nodded.

"Good," Aelindra said. "Then run."

She grabbed Lyra's wrist and pulled her toward the gap in the palisade, and together they plunged into the darkness of the forest, leaving the burning camp and the shouts of the surviving orcs behind them.

They ran until the sounds of pursuit faded, and then they ran some more.

Dawn was beginning to grey the eastern sky by the time Aelindra finally slowed, her breathing ragged but controlled, her blades still drawn. Lyra stumbled to a halt beside her, bent over, hands on her knees, her whole body trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline and the lingering terror of the past few hours.

She was still naked. Of course she was. The thought almost made her laugh---a hysterical, broken sound that she choked back before it could escape.

Aelindra sheathed her blades and turned to face her. In the pale grey light, Lyra could see the tightness around her eyes, the tension in her jaw.

"I woke up and you were gone," Aelindra said, and her voice was quiet in a way that was somehow worse than anger. "Tracked you to the camp. Saw them tie you to that post." She paused. "I should have heard him. I should have---"

"It's not your fault," Lyra said. Her voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. "You saved me. Again."

Aelindra looked at her for a long moment. Her gaze flicked down---just for an instant---to Lyra's bare skin, the gooseflesh rising along her arms and thighs in the cold morning air. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

"We're still half a day from Thornwall," she said instead. "We need to keep moving before those orcs decide to track us." She glanced at Lyra's bare legs, her bare feet. "Can you walk?"

Lyra felt the chill on her skin, the roughness of the forest floor beneath her soles. She was naked. Still naked. But she was standing, and she was free, and the woman in front of her had just cut down half a dozen orcs to make sure of it.

"I can walk." She straightened, testing her weight on the cold ground. "I can do anything as long as I'm not tied to that post."

Aelindra's mouth quirked---not quite a smile, but close. "Good answer."

She turned and started east. Lyra followed.