Full Confession Ch. 02

Ruck swallowed a stream of wine from the skin. "Had I troubled to ask them to come on this fool's errand, they would have flatly refused -- assuming they could stop laughing long enough to speak. And I don't blame them."

"Nor I. But I do marvel that you could be prevailed upon to come after me."

Ruck was silent for a long time. "Your mother can be persuasive," he said. "And whether you know it or not, she yet retains considerable wealth."

"She promised you a reward if you found me?"

"Yes, my lord. Not enough to have enticed my men -- not nearly enough. But I decided I would devote twenty-four hours to the search."

"And why have you chosen to stay with me now, Ruck, instead of leaving me to my hopeless quest? I know you have no particular affection for me."

Another long silence, while Ruck quaffed the wine. Then he tossed me the skin. "In order to collect my reward, I must return you to the Countess alive and well."

I drank the wine, which was delicious. "How did you find me?"

"I followed your trail through the forest for several hours this morning, until I came upon a dead goblin and goblingirl. Your handiwork, I presume?"

"I snuck up on them. Attacked the goblin from behind and killed him without much trouble. The goblingirl ... she told me that Satta had been sold to the orcs. She begged me to take her home. Her name was Grrss'k."

Ruck watched me for several seconds, waiting for me to continue, but I could think of nothing more to say.

"That's just what the goblins called her," he said. "Whatever her name was, it wasn't that."

"Ruck, did I do the right thing? To the girl?"

His smile was a wry and wintry twist of the lips. "I'd have done the same, my lord, and called it a kindness."

"Are not the goblins your partners in business?"

"I have business with them on occasion. That doesn't make them my partners." He reached for the wineskin and I handed it back to him, my head already swimming. Ruck took another long draught. "I left the corpses and followed your trail south, straight into these woods."

"Do you suppose Sw'ss'lm'rr will come after us?"

"I doubt it, my lord. The fae think nothing of vengeance. And our little campfire will be thoroughly repugnant to it. But it would be best if we stay alert. I'll take the first watch."

Next morning my spirits were considerably improved. Ruck and I ate in the predawn dark and started on our way at first light, traveling for an hour or more in silence.

"You know, Ruck," I said at length. "For the first time I'm feeling that I might truly be able to rescue Satta."

"Oh? How do you propose to perform this miracle, my lord?"

"Well, I just think that with your help my chances must have improved significantly."

"Zero chances multiplied a hundred times still leaves zero, my lord."

"Ever the optimist, Ruck. But I can't help thinking--"

Ruck stopped short suddenly, upheld a hand for silence. "Did you hear that?" he whispered.

Several seconds passed as we stood motionless, and then I heard something faintly in the distance ahead of us, the rustling of movement through the brush; as the sound grew louder, Ruck and I darted for concealment behind the rotting trunk of a huge fallen oak.

Peering through the tangled roots, I observed the emergence of a diminutive figure proceeding steadily through the forest. The figure was human, and undoubtedly female, but unlike any I had ever seen before. Her frame seemed all muscle and bone, yet despite the protrusion of hipbones and ribs she did not have the skeletal aspect of a starving waif, for what fat she possessed was so providentially disposed as to preserve a strikingly feminine figure, accentuated by the prominence of her heavily-worked muscles. Her buttocks were round and firm, her breasts pendulous. They did not sag like some crone's ancient udders, though the weight of them strained the skin by which they hung from her chest. Instead they swayed, large and firm and vastly arousing. From her pierced areolas hung a pair of iron rings as big around as my middle finger and heavily encrusted with rust, and around her throat was locked a matching collar of rusty iron. The breast rings clattered together dully as she hurried along, struggling to maintain a steady jog while bent beneath the weight of a massive bulky pack strapped tightly to her back.

I stared, mouth agape, while she rushed past some twenty yards away. She did not see me, her eyes fixed on the ground just ahead of her, and she was out of sight within seconds. Only then did it dawn on me that I had seen a genuine orcpet, in all her piteous glory.

She was scarcely out of sight before there appeared a pair of monstrous beasts following close behind, easily matching their pet's harried pace with long, unhurried strides. I did not need to be told that I was seeing a pair of orcs: Great hulking brutes of humanoid shape, fully nine feet tall and weighing over 400 pounds apiece. Their vestigial lips were drawn back to reveal flesh-tearing fangs and enormous curving tusks rising from their lower jaws.

I could not so much as breathe for fear of revealing my presence to them, and not until the noise of their passage had faded to silence did I dare to stir. "Lud's balls!" I muttered, standing warily upright, still watchful for more interlopers.

"What was that you were saying about our chances, my lord?" muttered Ruck, still crouching behind the fallen trunk.

I could not deny that the near encounter had shaken me, but I felt that I had ineluctably put my fate into the hands of Lud Himself. "I'm not deterred, Ruck. If the orcs were twenty feet tall and breathed fire, I would still face down a horde of them in order to save Satta."

"That's all very well," said Ruck. "But no amount of resolve will serve in lieu of a plan. What strategy do you propose?"

"My strategy is simple: We follow wherever these orcs lead us. If Satta is there, we steal her away."

I was determined to enact this plan before Ruck had an opportunity to disclaim it, but even as I took my first step in pursuit of the orcs another figure suddenly appeared, hastening after the first three.

It was a second orcpet, whose physical condition was not appreciably different from that of the first girl. Her breasts were more meager, though the rusty rings which hung from her areolas were no smaller, but she too was bent beneath an enormous pack which must have weighed nearly as much as herself. Her eyes were fixed ahead of her, mouth agape and body trembling as she struggled to maintain her arduous pace.

Her face, flush with exertion, bore the unmistakable evidence of orcish mistreatment. Three deep furrows slanted across her cheek, as if she had once been raked by a bear's claws. The uppermost began above her brow and slanted across her left eye, the ruins of which were crudely sewn shut; the next had laid open the entire left side of her nose, exposing the gaping depths of her nostril; the last had mangled her mouth, cleaving away half of her upper lip and part of the lower, and revealing the pink upper gum. Only two teeth remained on that side of her mouth, both of them crooked inward.

The sight was even more shocking than Grrrss'k's mutilations had been, and I uttered a reflexive gasp of horror. To my considerable surprise, the girl heard my exclamation and glanced in my direction as she sprinted by not ten feet from where I stood. She gave a sharp squeal of surprise, which ended abruptly in a grunt of pain as she lost her footing and pitched face-first into the underbrush.

I instantly rushed after her, and she almost as quickly struggled to get back to her feet; but in her haste she tripped again over her own feet and fell onto her belly.

I grabbed the huge pack strapped to her back. She struggled valiantly for several seconds, then fell still. "Don't run," I said, striving to keep my voice calm and steady. "We won't hurt you."

She looked at me over her right shoulder, and I saw that the undamaged half of her face was not uncomely, though her one eye glared at me balefully. Her dark hair, cut raggedly short, was plastered to her head with sweat, which poured in streams from her trembling body. She was a very petite girl -- only a finger's width over five feet and weighing less than one hundred pounds. Her buttocks, though small, were firm and exquisitely figured; and though I lacked an orc's tremendous handspan, even I might have encompassed her miniscule waist with my two hands.

"We only want to talk to you," I said.

Ruck appeared by my side. "What do you intend to do with her, my lord?"

"Maybe she will have information we can use," I said.

"We haven't much time; the orcs will note her absence eventually."

I addressed the girl: "What is your name?"

"Bukbuk," she said, voice low.

"Bukbuk is what the orcs call you?"

"Bukbuk," she repeated in the tone of one issuing a challenge.

Ruck was growing restless. "If we detain her, the orcs will come back for her; if we let her go, she'll just tell her masters that she's seen us. We will have lost the element of surprise, for what it's worth."

For the moment I ignored him. "Bukbuk, I am looking for a girl who was sold to the orcs by the goblins three months ago. The goblins called her Rukka, but ... her real name was Satta ... "

"This will get us nowhere, my lord," said Ruck.

"Listen, Bukbuk," I said, dropping to my knee beside the pet. I grabbed her hair and jerked her head back, frowned into the wreckage of her face; the scars across her face were deep, almost to the bone, but showed months or even years of healing. "Did your masters purchase a new girl from the goblins three months ago? Answer me, and I will let you go. Answer me."

Bukbuk seemed not in the least intimidated or frightened. "Old sluts wear out," she said, her speech oddly slurred by the injury to her mouth and lips. "New ones get broken in. Bukbuk's the only slut who won't wear out."

Ruck interjected: "How long have you belonged to the orcs?"

"Not long enough," growled Bukbuk. Her eye, red-rimmed and bloodshot, defiantly held my gaze.

"Answer my question, Bukbuk, and we'll send you back to your masters. How many girls have the orcs bought from the goblins in the last three months?"

"The Masters come for Bukbuk," grunted the pet. "Humans should run now."

"Answer me!"

I heard Ruck draw his sword. "My Lord, this is fruitless. I suggest we dispatch this creature and then discuss our options."

"If we kill her, what do we do with the body?"

"Leave it, or take it with us. Or hide it. Whatever we do, we must be quick--"

Ruck's counsel was interrupted by sharp barking call from nearby. I realized instantly it was one of the orcs calling Bukbuk's name.

"Here, Master!" squealed the pet. She jerked her head violently, so that I lost my grasp on her sweat-drenched hair, and then she lurched to her feet with surprising alacrity and sprinted away.

"Might I suggest headlong flight, my lord," said Ruck.

Before I could respond, one of the orcs appeared, drawn no doubt by Bukbuk's cry. It lumbered forward, brandishing a huge wooden cudgel to the end of which a large jagged rock had been lashed. Bukbuk immediately scurried toward it, waving an arm wildly back in our direction. "Humans, Master!" she shrieked. "Humans!"

"Well, shit," muttered Ruck.

The orc stopped short, perplexed by the pet's violent gesticulations, and turned its massive head toward me; I felt myself frozen in shock and fear, my limbs refusing to respond to my brain's urgent call to flee. I stared into the orc's huge protuberant eyes, and saw foretold in the dull orange orbs my certain demise. The beast glared at me with what might have been either rage or astonishment.

At that moment a second orc appeared, not quite so large as the first, but carrying itself with what seemed a mien of authoritative aplomb. Seeing Ruck and me, it glowered menacingly; then glanced down at Bukbuk, who was now on hands and knees at its feet, and then looked back at Ruck and me.

"Barooker malugoom!" snarled the orc -- or so its speech sounded to my ears.

Bukbuk spoke then, her voice thin and piping. "Master Shadrac demands to know how many humans are in the vicinity." She reached between her legs and began fondling her vulva with her left hand, while her right reached unerringly for the orc's turgid organ, hanging like a foul and obscene fruit from its crotch. She gripped it with her tiny fist, slowly stroked the massive shaft.

My first instinct was, absurdly, to remain silent. Ruck, too, seemed disinclined to speak. The orc, Shadrac, spoke again.

"Master Shadrac assures the humans that they will not be killed," said Bukbuk. The orc's cock was swelling rapidly under her ministrations, and she abandoned her own masturbation to devote both hands to the task; already it was longer and thicker than her forearm, its huge dark head as big as her fist.

"How do we know that he will keep that promise?" asked Ruck. I saw that held a white-knuckled grip on the pommel of his sword.

The orc responded tersely.

"Master Shadrac wonders what choice the human has," said Bukbuk. She leaned closer to her master, distracted by its ever-distending cock, and pressed her body against the enormous shaft; such was the length of it that she grasped the great knob of its glans and rubbed it fervently against her sopping vulva.

"We are here with twenty other humans," said Ruck. "We are hunting goblins."

The two orcs exchanged a few words. Judging from the violence of his voice and gestures, I fancied that the bigger one was counseling Shadrac to simply attack and be done with us. But Shadrac eyed us with what seemed more than mere animal cunning. Cutting the other orc short, he addressed a few words to his pet.

"Master Shadrac wonders where the twenty other humans are hiding themselves," she said, her words punctuated by irregular gasps as she writhed against the orc's cock.

"They are even now moving into positions surrounding you, from which they will momentarily launch an attack."

A brilliant lie! I marveled at Ruck's quick thinking, and even more at the air of supreme confidence he exuded as he confronted the two behemoths. The lie clearly discomfited Bukbuk, who gazed whimpering up at her Master. I supposed that she had no illusions about her fate should she be captured by humans. But Shadrac narrowed his eyes shrewdly and spoke at length.

"M-master Shadrac does not believe the human," stammered Bukbuk. "Master says twenty humans would make a great stench. Master smells only two."

"As to that ... " said Ruck flippantly -- then suddenly raised his sword and bull rushed the two orcs. I watched, flabbergasted, no longer enamored with my companion's brilliance.

Bukbuk squealed and scampered away on all fours, while Shadrac met Ruck's charge with an almost negligent swipe of one great arm, as big around as my thigh. He knocked the sword from Ruck's hands, followed up with a blow from his other fist which caught Ruck full in the face and dropped him in a heap.

I stared, aghast, first at Ruck's crumpled form, and then at the orc's glowering face.

"My mother is very rich," I gulped.

Then I turned and ran.

I took no more than three strides before I tripped over a root and sprawled on my face with a cry of dismay. I scrambled to my feet, and immediately felt the orc's clawed hand on my shoulder. It spun me around, and I was confronted by what might have been an amused smirk on Shadrac's broad, brutish face. Then I saw a blur of motion and something vast and adamantine struck the side of my head, rendering me instantly unconscious.

Against all expectation, I later woke.

Several hours must have passed, for night had fallen and the only source of light was a small campfire. I recovered my senses only gradually, remembering the confrontation with the orcs, my brief flight, the one named Shadrac looming over me, and then--

Why was I not dead? I had never heard of orcs taking a male captive; they were always killed outright, probably devoured. I could only suppose that the orcs, having spared my life, must have had a truly hideous fate planned for me. Perhaps a ritual sacrifice to one of their foul gods.

With that panic-inducing thought, I attempted to rise and flee, but found that I had been bound hand and foot with coarse rope. I worked my wrists and ankles, attempting to loosen my bindings, but they merely bit deeper into my flesh. I rolled onto my side, moaning with fear, then cried out and lurched violently as a figure appeared by my side.

It was an orcpet; my sudden recoil must have startled her, for she immediately scuttled away from me on all fours and halted with her back to me, whimpering as she peered over her shoulder.

"What do you want with me?" I demanded. "What do they want with me?"

She winced, glanced toward the campfire. I became aware of the titanic snoring of the orcs, reposing in a pair of lean-tos by the fire.

"Please do not move, Master," she whispered.

I was surprised to note that her voice was not Bukbuk's, as I had assumed it would be; I realized that this must have been the first orcpet we had seen. I studied her intently by the unsteady light of the fire. She had been branded, a large circular mark seared into her forehead, and most of her hair had been lopped short above her ears, though tufts of it sprouted haphazardly around her head. A single long lock of hair fell forward over her face, partially obscuring a deep, crooked scar which angled upward from her right cheek, across her badly broken nose, and over her left brow. Only by the greatest of good fortune had both her eyes remained intact.

Unlike Bukbuk's disfigurement, this pet's wound was recent, showing only a few week's healing. Perhaps it was this scar, subtly altering the look of her, which had prevented me from immediately recognizing ...

"Satta?" My heart lurched, my eyes blurred with tears.

Still on hands and knees, the orcpet crawled reticently back to my side, where she sat on her haunches and gnawed her lip.

"It's name is Blugruh, Master," she murmured, and though her voice seemed somehow different, flatter and more raspy, I recognized it now.

"Satta," I said, my voice breaking. "I found you! I knew I would find you. I'm so sorry, so sorry I let this happen to you. Sorry I couldn't save you."

She would not meet my gaze, her eyes rising no higher than my chin. "Master should not have come for this one. Its holes are not worth the risking of Master's life."

"No, Satta," I said, weeping helplessly now. "Don't say that, my love. I know that charm wasn't yours; it was planted by the Countess. I know your love for me was true, and so was mine for you!"

"Please do not be distressed, Master. Blugruh is very sorry for causing so much trouble and hardship."

"Satta, now is our chance, perhaps our only chance!" I held up my hands, bound at the wrists. "Free me while they sleep, and we can escape!"

Blugruh glanced furtively at the sleeping orcs. "Please, Master," she said, voice quavering with fear. "Blugruh is owned, Blugruh obeys her Masters. When Blugruh is good, she is happy."

"I can kill them both," I said with grim determination. "Free me, and I can kill them in their sleep!"

"Please, Master! Blugruh is frightened, Master!"

Her fright seemed to arouse her. She took one of her large nipples between her fingers, began to pinch and fondle it savagely, so that it grew rigid and protruded half a thumb's length. Then she gripped the huge iron ring which hung from her pierced areola and twisted it one full turn, groaning.

"Don't be afraid," I insisted, nonplussed. "Quiet now, you'll wake them!"