Your magic frustrates them but they get you surrounded anyway

Withdrawing the tiny key from its place on a chain round your neck, you quickly unlock the silver manacles encumbering the half-dozen frightened women in front of you, including Marzena. Impertinent as always, the latter started doing stretches and enjoying her rare freedom of motion before getting around to trying to cast anything.

Your armored dress was designed to flatter your figure more than to protect, and it showed off your legs nicely. With fewer than threescore defenders left on the field, you, with your sharp features, silky golden blonde hair and bare milky-white thighs were attracting a lot of attention from the Gaelicans warriors as they approached, whooping incomprehensible threats and war cries. A prominent-looking warrior near the front pointed you out specifically and made a rude gesture.

Under the command of the Brown Marmots were, aside from the usual assortment of cutthroats and brigands who made up the infantry, a half-dozen skilled elvish archers who had followed Aeson for a long time. Over half of them were female, which no doubt excited and amused the barbaric mercenaries, but more importantly they were excellent shots - they used ornate selfbows that were small and lacked the range or power of a longbow or crossbow, but made up for it by being lightweight and quick to draw. Aeson held up a hand as they nocked arrows. "Wait! Give the magicians a chance to work their tricks before you provoke the enemy into a charge..."

The girls all give you worried looks as you undo their manacles, leaving them where they fall. You try to appear as stern and commanding as possible to them, even though you're not a magic user yourself and younger than most of them. Several of them just squeeze their eyes shut and wave their hands erratically in the general direction of the enemy - if it has any effect, you can't tell. You stand immediately behind them so they won't be tempted to run.

To her credit, the witch whose nosy friend precipitates this whole mess, Hannah, a slender waif with a nervous disposition, manages to work some real magic, smoothly making gestures and muttering arcane words under her breath - following her pointing finger, you can see a small cloud of biting flies and other stinging insects erupt from seemingly nowhere and descend angrily upon the Gaelicans. Utterly defenseless against such attacks, ten of the burly men end up dropping their big fancy swords and running back towards the road, swatting and waving their arms frantically. That heartens Aeson's mercenaries a bit.

Another witch - an older one with a sour disposition called Yara - spits at your feet. "I'd like to do this to YOU, 'Countess' - but here's a demonstration." Where she points, the vines rise up from the bog, growing unnaturally fast and sprouting thorns as they entangle another few mercenaries. The men trapped thus howl in pain and clumsily try to cut themselves free, to no avail.

The foremost among the mercenaries points directly at you and the spellcasters. "Wiiiiiitchcraft!" he bellows indignantly. "Bring them down before they bring their demons! Chaaaarge!" You can't help but grimace - there's no going back now.

As the horde of fifty-some enraged, blue-painted, naked barbarians closes in on you, Aeson's elite archers loose. Shafts whistle through the air, and nearly all of them plunge into tender flesh, bringing forth cries of pain and fury. Alas, the arrows your own mercenary company favors are small and have narrow armor-piercing heads... they embed themselves deeply in unarmored bodies but produce little bleeding. The dozen Gaelicans hit by arrows falter in their charge, but do not fall.

"Throats and heads! Aim for their heads!" Aeson barks coldly. However, in the face of an oncoming charge, this proves to be a mistake - the archers take their time lining up shots at the small, swaying targets of the enemy's fierce half-blued faces. One elf woman fires a perfect kill-shot, slaying a Gaelican warrior instantly. But the others take too long and have to give up their shots to get back behind the spear wall before they're cut down in the charge.

Marzena, infuriatingly, turns around and flips up her skirt to the mercenaries, shaking her pale bottom and spreading her legs wide enough to show off her pubic stubble and the pink slit of her sex. "Marzena you slut...!" you shout indignantly at her...

But then, while still turned halfway around and showing off her bottom, Marzena reaches over her shoulder and hurls a ball of sickly yellow sulfur-smelling flame at the charging warriors. It strikes one unfortunate man straight in the chest and sets his whole upper body aflame. He is transformed from a proud warrior to a gibbering, staggering wicker man - a human-shaped torch. This causes such a shock that the nerve of the five men around him breaks, and they stop in their charge to try and beat out the flames and douse them in mud... and in the process, they are sickened by the fumes given off from the flame and collapse to their knees, retching.

Unfortunately, the efforts of your ranged attacks leave twenty-some enemies to slam into your ranks. Although several are skewered by spears, as it turns out their greatswords are an ideal counter for spears and shields - the cunning savage Gaelicans cut the tips off of spears and splinter shields in half with every swing. Aeson - a fine swordsman in theory - shows his true colors and starts making a 'tactical retreat' away from the line of battle. Though you also have a sword yourself, you certainly don't intend to get anywhere near those huge flashing blades.

The Brown Marmot spearmen are only able to survive by backing up and drawing the shortswords and dirks they carry as backup weapons. They duck, and thrust, but sometimes finesse is no match for sheer **** and the fellow with the longer sword... really, you thought with a blush, there was something unmistakably sexual about the clash of warriors in the field. To your surprise there was an undercurrent of excitement in the battlefield's terror, for you.

When you next turned to see his location, Aeson was gone, vanished into the forest, as were his elite archers except for one lass who hadn't been swift enough to escape the charge and was now laying dead (or playing at it), the humans under him being left to their fates. They fought adequately given the circumstances, but they neither inflicted heavy casualties on the Gaelicans nor fought to the last. A few of your surrendering mercenaries had their heads cleaved off where they knelt and begged for clemency, but the Gaelican captain shouted at his men and told them to capture as many as possible for ransom and entertainment.

Half of the thirty-some spearmen that Aeson had left behind were dead or grievously wounded. The others were face down and being roughly stripped of their weapons, kicked, and beaten with the flat ends of blades - except for the half-dozen women among the soldiers, who were treated relatively gently (though that boded ill in a different way).

You, Marzena, and Hannah had retreated when the line broke but now found yourselves surrounded by six scruffy Gaelicans, your backs up against a tree. "So here's the teasing slatterns leading that pack of wee untested children. Is that the countess herself? Feh! Captain thought it was just another motley of bandits. You'll be coming with us all the same, 'lady'."

"Aye, give her to the cap'n, I just want a crack at that fireball-flinging slut with the pointed hat. She owes our lads some payback, starting with me." Another Gaelican next to him chimes in and nods wolfishly. "I say all of them do. Fie on marching back with 'er right away. I say we ask captain to make camp right away and enjoy these bitches. Didnae say we couldn't, aye?"

You were out of options. It seems like you will need to get the attention of the sellswords' leader and convince him that you (and your attendants... maybe) need to be treated with the decorum due to nobility, or else your immediate future is going to be... messy.