Back to Barley, for my reward.

The witch was an orc, she said; a savage race that lived in the plains to the south. Apparently an orc mage was very rare indeed, and she'd left her home to learn all she could about her gift. She'd been in training for three years, focusing on the raising of dead and the healing of the near dead, before I'd arrived to shatter her independence.

Now, she followed me back to Barley, cleaned and clothed and chained by cloth manacles. I'd ordered her to keep her head down and act defeated. The funds for fixing their problem would be handy, and even if they slashed my earning for just capturing the witch I would still be significantly more wealthy than before.

Admittedly, it was not a very high bar.

I'd wondered what would happen when the effect of my cum wore off, if the command's would persist even beyond. As it happened, I need not have worried. She wasn't as receptive to my orders, but she still obeyed as my ****. I slowed my pace to draw even with her and placed my hand on her taut ass. She shivered at the touch, her breath going short, and I started fondling as we walked.

As we walked, as my adrenalin faded and my rational mind began working once again.

Even if she was a criminal, and had caused the deaths of many with her undead, what I had done was far worse. She had merely killed people, I had broken the 'person' she was before and shattered the mind of that farmer's wife. And the worse bit of it all? I couldn't find it in myself to feel the slightest amount of guilt. It seemed as though, with my embracing of my blood, that I'd been rid of such tiring and bothersome emotion.

I pulled my hand from the witch and ordered her to return to her act of defeat; we were approaching the village.

The reactions to my capture of the witch, towing her along in a tattered dress with her illusionary face, were gratifying, to say the least. Shocked eyes and more than a few admiring glances. They probably would have stayed fixed on their faces, if not what I said next.

"I'll be taking the witch with me when I leave." I announced to the elder and the crowd; they'd gathered as I explained to the elder who my companion was, and that the job was done.

"But-"

"I'm not actually giving you a choice." I noted, cutting them off. "I will accept a small cut to my pay, and I will take my leave by tomorrow or the next day. If need be, I will have this defeated wretch eat in the pig pen, where she belongs."

"But-"

"What difference does it make, elder?" I asked, genuinely curious. "You will suffer no more **** or pain from this wench, what difference does it make if she is dead or ****?"

"It makes a difference to the families of her victims." The elder said, pointing off to the side. I followed the finger towards a group in the crowd, the aforementioned families. I gave a shrug in response.

"And I'll be happier with a ****, and the slavers will be happy if and when I sell her. You could argue that a greater number of people will me happier and more enriched this way." I smiled as I delivered the rhetoric of Ecclisicantus, some dusty philosophizer that wrote a few books some centuries ago. The elder struggled with that for a moment; lacking the education of a merchant-born. "Yes, yes, there is love involved on your farmer's side, and what-not, but frankly that doesn't matter. They weren't strong enough to decide the fate of this witch, and I was and that's all that really matters."

I heard muttering in the crowd, a whispered 'bastard', and the bawling complaints of the families, but the elderman's response was the only one I cared for. "Fine. You will have one third of the bounty-"