Collared

The girl who'd been the "eager" one of the last three made eye contact with Alia, and a look passed between them, perhaps a shared understanding. They were all possessions of the Horn now, and survival depended on doing what they were told.

The Horn commander said, "Now you have all tasted your new life." He chuckled at his own joke. None of the girls laughed. "But you are not yet collared, and not yet trained. This was just to break you in, so you understand -- you are objects. You're possessions. You should prepare yourselves for your new lives. Be obedient and compliant and your life will -- mostly -- not be too hard. Except when your master wills it. Try to resist or think of yourselves as Imperial women with free will, and it will go very hard for you. Me and my men are simple soldiers. We aren't nearly as... creative as your soon to be owners."

He turned and gestured towards the river. "Now get in the river and clean yourselves. Don't think of trying to swim away. Our horses can move much faster than you can swim and we can easily ford the river."

Obediently, all the girls moved to the water's edge and stepped into the water. They went in up to their waists and began scrubbing themselves. Some dunked themselves under the surface, including Alia. She scrubbed herself and sucked water into her mouth and spat it out, over and over, trying to rinse her mouth of the taste of Horn spunk.

She thought about drowning herself. She held herself under the water until her lungs were burning, and wondered if she could actually do it. Then someone touched her shoulder, and she rose out of the water, wondering if the Horn commander had suspected her intent and come in after her.

It was the "eager learner." She had brown curly hair and while she was not exactly pretty, she was pleasant-looking, for a lowborn girl. Her breasts were firm and pointed, her stomach taut and flat. There was a spattering of brown freckles on her chest and face.

Not lowborn, Alia corrected herself. Just another possession like me.

Something in the look the girl gave her made Alia think she knew what Alia had been thinking. Perhaps she had considered it herself. Looking around, Alia suspected many of the girls were, and was almost surprised that it didn't look like anyone was actually going to try to either escape or drown themselves.

"Yala," said the curly-haired girl.

"Alia," said Alia. Yala was clearly a lowborn name, and Alia recognizably highborn, but they spoke to each other like the equals they now were.

"We probably won't be able to help each other," Yala said. "But I'll pledge to you if you'll pledge to me."

A pledge of friendship. Between highborn and lowborn. Unthinkable a day ago.

"I pledge to you, Yala," Alia said.

Yala smiled, a genuine smile. "I pledge to you, Alia."

Alia glanced at the shore. The Horn commander was watching them all. "Enough!" he said. "Out of the water."

As they moved as slowly as they dared back to the shore, Alia saw the petite little girl who'd almost been raped, and muttered, "I wonder why the commander just didn't let him have her."

They both realized at the same time that someone was moving with them, only a couple of feet away. They turned to Lisha, who had, absurdly, covered herself with her bare arms, as if there was anything left of her modesty to conceal. Her eyes were wide, protuberant, red-rimmed. She looked at Alia and whispered, "I speak Horn."

Alia blinked in surprise, wondering where another highborn girl would have learned the savages'

language.

"He said," Lisha whispered, inclining her head at the Horn commander, "'She's not collared yet.' I think they're not allowed to rape us until we're collared."

"Whatever that means," Yala muttered.

"Stop talking," said the Horn commander, and they did.

Still naked, but cleansed, the girls all stood in a line again, waiting to see what happened next. Alia hoped they'd be given clothes.

Instead, the Horn all came forward again, each of them taking the same girl he'd used earlier. Alia's scarred veteran soldier took her by the elbow with a small smile. Lisha shuddered as the pot-bellied Horn grabbed her, and the petite girl trembled and seemed on the verge of fainting when the man who'd covered her with his jizz grabbed her roughly.

Yala smiled at her Horn captor, and acted as if she was happy to go wherever he was taking her.

They went to their horses. The Horn commander said, "It will be a hard day's ride to Hasadan, where you will be collared and your real training will begin."

The Horn who'd taken Alia lifted her onto the back of his horse and lay her across its rump, on her belly. There was a thin cloth beneath her. To her dismay, he tied her wrists together with ropes and then did the same to her ankles, and proceeded to strap her down like an extra saddlebag, with her arms and legs reaching around either side of the horse. Her bare breasts and stomach were already rubbing uncomfortably on the cloth, and her back and bare bottom were exposed to the sun.

"As Kravas said, a hard day's ride," said the Horn with a smile, as if he were sharing a friendly joke with her. "Will be very, very uncomfortable for you. That's by design. You'll be sunburnt and rubbed raw when we arrive. But if you're a good girl, I'll let you rest a little when we stop, and not tie your ropes too tight. Would you like to be a good girl?"

She looked at him, and thought of Yala, and smiled. "I will be very good, sir," she said. She ran her tongue over her lips slowly. "I know I wasn't very good before. I'm sorry for being such a silly whore who doesn't know anything. But you'll let me try to be better, won't you, sir?"

He grinned. "You may do well. Maybe won't be so hard for you." As he walked around the horse, he smacked her hard on the bottom, and she suppressed a yelp of pain.

Looking up, she saw Yala actually sitting up on her horse. She was facing backward, so she'd be riding back to back with her rider. Her arms were bound behind her back, and her legs were spread so she had to grip the horse with her thighs, like a man. With her naked bottom rubbing against the saddlecloth, and her privates open to the sun and the eyes of all, it would hardly be comfortable for her, but Alia thought it looked a good deal less uncomfortable than being slung across the back of a horse like baggage. Yala met Alia's eyes, and gave her a small smile of sympathy, then nodded her head to the right.

The petite girl, the little wisp of a thing, had been strapped across the back of her horse much like Alia, except on her back. Bent backwards, wrists tied "over" her head and underneath the horse, she would have her head hanging upside down the entire way. Her breasts, belly, and the small flower of her sex protected by no more than a little peach fuzz, would be exposed to the sun.

But even she would perhaps have it better than the fat girl who, Alia saw, was actually yoked by the neck and following her rider on foot. Barefoot. Naked. With her hands tied behind her back.

Choking down her horror, wondering if they would all make it alive and intact to Hasadan, Alia tried to adjust herself to what little degree she could as the Horn urged their horses forward. She felt the beast rocking beneath her, as the sun's rays began to beat down on them.