“You used us as bait?!” Astrid snarled, looking up at Ryouka defiantly, already sweating in the morning warmth. “Yes. And…should I feel bad about that? Because I won’t, not even a little,” Ryouka said, having a good, mocking laugh at Astrid’s expense. “That’s what dumb animals are good for, don’t you think?” The warrior could only snarl and glare, then jerked at the heavy chains that bound her...
Samira’s eyes opened slowly in the darkness of the chieftain’s bedchamber, though she was careful to keep her breathing slow and steady. Her ears twitched again, having awakened her moments before. Something subtle but distinct in the distance, echoing through the caverns. Shouting, the clash of steel on steel. So, it had begun. Still bound with the ropes after the orc chieftain had used her...
Was it over? There hadn’t been any fresh pain in a while, and the cavern too had been silent for several minutes. Astrid groaned, daring to try to move, and found the ropes were just as tight as ever, even those accursed bindings around her breasts. The heat of the sun overhead had faded, a coolness starting to settle in from above. Evening must have finally fallen in this hellish, gods forsaken...
“My luck has been absolute shit since getting dragged into this mess,” Bekksie thought, gnawing uselessly at the wooden bit between her teeth. The wood felt like it was hard as a rock! Her fingers ached from the way they’d been tied, as did her arms and legs, and she was basting in sweat inside the stout sack the bandits had stuffed her in. “What’s the big deal? One little cut and this guy has it...
“You need not keep your secret from me, my dear Astrid. I know what thoughts drive you, deep down. You are a woman, after all, beneath all of that warrior’s bravado. Why run from your true nature? Why continue to struggle against what you are?” Astrid shook her head, biting down on the thick ring that had been wedged between her teeth and secured there with a leather strap around her head. The...
“Wouldn’t it be better to travel at night, out of this accursed sun?” Astrid snarled as she settled the last of the wine casks into the wagon, having no trouble hefting them given her brutish nature. She stepped back and wiped sweat from her face, flung it off her hands onto the packed stones at her feet, just off the dock. Galvaera, beyond fed up with her situation as it was, had little patience...
The morning sun was still low over the width of the Su’Ra River, and dozens of vessels crowded the invisible and rarely obeyed lanes of travel as they moved in and out of Kifu’Nemhat, the steady winds blowing in from the Sobe’kaimun Sea making travel upriver a mostly painless affair. Usually. Already the shimmer of heat on the far horizon to the south formed, the day’s scorching heat already well...