Naked, Tied, and Gagged

Chapter 6: The Scent of Prey (Part 3)

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.