Majutsu-shi no Chikara Ch. 14

The smaller ork, the one the other orks spoke to with noticeable deference, growled something else -- but Naenia's reply was cool, distant.

"My skill in healing is limited... you're lucky I can close the wounds we opened to clean out the festering." The human sighed heavily, drying her hands on her cloak. "He may have recovered with only the medicine -- perhaps not."

Naenia looked to be reporting her words to the chieftain -- one Nurcan knew to be among Kamakshi's daughters, though she wasn't entirely certain which one and she certainly didn't care. The rampant nakedness, open fornicating, and brutal savagery on display in the Sidero camp had been jarring, at the least. Only because Akuji had demanded an extension of Sidero's "truce" into the summer following the coming winter (and that had been a bargain only grudgingly accepted, it seemed) had Nurcan agreed to practice her art on one of the orks that likely wielded a spear that caused her such misery. Never mind that many in South-wold were beginning to blame Matta's ghost for the whole horrific series of events, but Nurcan still very much blamed the orks of Sidero (especially Naenia... Kamakshi, damn her if she chose to answer to a different name).

"He will live." Nurcan sighed again, weary to her bones. "I need sleep."

"Inkar offers you meiyo in Sidero's camp, and says you can sleep here, in her bed." Naenia answered after the chieftain's grunt.

"Meiyo." The ork chieftain nodded, lifting her chin and crossing her arms across her breasts.

"Meaning?" Nurcan grumbled, climbing to her feet.

"Honored guest -- you will not be eaten or challenged. You shall be afforded what northerner's call guest-right." Naenia shrugged.

"Hospitality." Nurcan shook her head. "It's hospitality."

"Sidero have no mules, but you may rut any male you like." Naenie translated for Inkar. "Inkar-Chief will sit with you, if you rut, to make sure no males break your weak human body."

Nurcan scoffed, ignoring the flush of heat in her neck at the suggestion. She had seen orks before. These creatures looked nothing like the tribes further south that hadn't sent a raiding party in several summers. They lacked the warty, crouched bodies and lopsided features. If anything, it was as if someone had carved them from wood or sandstone to look like a human and, realizing their mistake at the last minute, had added their tusks and claws. Their jaws were too wide for most humans, and there was a definite sameness among them -- something Nurcan considered aberrant even among orks -- that was likely as much from whatever magical backlash occurred during Damon's time among them as the fact that most (if not all) had spawned from Kamakshi's loins... or her children's brood.

They didn't even fully resemble the twisted nightmares that still haunted her sleep, from the night of the attack on South-wold... had the moon passed full again, since then? The vigilant scouts of Sidero had become a permanent fixture on the horizon of South-wold, in that time. Akuji's return, the poison, Matta's murder, Damon's return and subsequent departure again... the thrice-be-damned troll. So much had happened that Nurcan felt another surge of exhaustion creep up her legs.

"I just need a place to sleep in peace." Nurcan scowled but tried to bow her head in polite deference to Inkar-Chief.

A barking laugh, glimmering yellow eyes, and the guttural ork-speak of the chieftain was quickly translated -- Naenia's lips quirking with mocking amusement.

"She asks if you want her to rut you, so you sleep without fear." Naenia's voice was sickeningly pleased with itself, and Nurcan wanted to slap the she-ork's face for the brashness of being so familiar with her. "She can smell the need on you. Any ork would know that scent on you."

Nurcan glowered back at Nae... Kamakshi, damn her!... as if the nymph weren't bad enough, these damnable orks were just as lusty and hedonistic as they were bloody-minded and doggerel. The truth of whether her mind hadn't occasionally wandered that direction didn't matter... scent be damned, too.

"Will it shut the both of you up and wipe the smug satisfaction from your filthy ork faces?" Nurcan snapped, but the heat in her voice lacked orkish inflection and the insult was lost... doubly so in translation, it seemed, as both females took to laughing heartily at her furious blustering.

"Kamak-" Nurcan had intended to excoriate the ork further, but Naenia froze cold and Inkar-Chief barked angrily at her for several seconds -- her face purpling with rage and her eyes glinting amber chips shining from the shadows on her face.

"You would do well to never say that name here, again." Naenia cautioned, her tone grave but her face a flat mask. "The Betrayer is dead, and Inkar-Chief will kill any who dare to resurrect her."

Nurcan tried to answer, only to find Inkar-Chief's iron grip at her neck squeezing with an insistent, purposeful warning. The human couldn't breathe, and she didn't know enough magic to attack the ork -- her dagger seemed a pitiable distraction, and her stave was still propped near the entrance of the yurt where she'd left it. Spittle, tiny hot drops of breathy rain that smelled of flowering clover and plum in sweltering summer, hit her cheeks and lips as Inkar-Chief hissed her warning again.

"She tells you to agree." Naenia stood placidly, offering no aid even though she'd sworn Nurcan would come to no harm... even though the Sidero chieftain had offered her hospitality... those things seemed forgotten, or too far away, and the human felt more vulnerable and alone now than she'd ever known before.

...

Naenia shut her eyes at the beautiful sound of orks in rut, the smooth flesh glistening with sweat as bodies slapped together and grunted. From the single tent propped against the outside of Inkar's breeding bed, she listened with pained eagerness -- ignoring her companion who tossed fitfully beneath a thin blanket on her piled hide mattress. Nurcan's bed was an expensive gift for a single night, and a courtesy Naenia had thought Nurcan might turn down after watching two dozen strong-limbed, well-hung orks parading about the camp as the cooking fires were allowed to burn low in the early nightfall. Naenia silently grumbled, giving the human the occasional scowl where she lay, even as her black-clawed hands busily fussed and fidgeted at her breasts and groin.

Damn you, human. Naenia swore inwardly, not for the first time. Her loins ached with desire, the stench of rutting orks -- in spite of her exile -- filling her nose and arousing her with a painful heat. She salivated, she sweated, she panted as quietly as she could manage. Her command of herself had slipped, somewhat, since Damon's magic had invaded her body. She had allowed herself to relax her stranglehold on power utterly... now, her sense of magic felt strained... cramped like overused limbs. Perhaps that was why Kuruk had been so difficult to subdue. Perhaps she was secretly desperate for Damon's approval... his return... his power.

The wee life growing within her hadn't yet quickened, but it was there... hale and hungry as no other whelp she'd ever grown. Even when Kamakshi had been swollen with her six daughters, she had only felt this vigor after the whelps had been moving restlessly within her.

Her fingers were furiously rubbing at her slit, grinding through the black-brown folds and abusing the nub of pleasure beneath the hood of flesh. She wanted that sensation, again. Damn him and his soft human flesh, his dark eyes like a stag... and his quietness pulsing with the terrible energy that was part of him, yet not part of him.

The tent flap whipped open and Inkar thrust her head and shoulders within the opening.

"Naenia." She interrupted the gray-brown ork's masturbation, granting Nurcan an uneasy moment of quiet.

"Mph." Naenia nodded her acknowledgement and crawled from the tent.

"Where are you...?" Nurcan groused from her sleeping hides, deliberately ignoring the too-young fire burning in her belly that wanted to get a sampling of one of the smaller males outside her tent.

"You are guarded." Naenia didn't even glance back as she disappeared. "Do not wander."

"What was that face, earlier?" Inkar grunted, two paces from the tent. "When I said I would kill them all -- the face you made... and you make it now."

"Hunger for two things, but only one mouth and only one can be eaten." Naenia frowned knowingly, having already given it more thought than Kamakshi ever would have done. "The human word is regret."

"It is stupid." Inkar snarled, fretting her lip and mashing her breasts beneath her crossed arms. "Why does the slave feel this wasting hunger?"

"More oaths... I carry his whelps, now." Naenia admitted with a shrug. "If you try to harm any of them -- even the old one sleeping there..."

"What could you do, exile?" Inkar's eyes narrowed dangerously, claws flexing.

"When Damon gave me his seed, I became Naenia... ork of South-wold. I will kill any who seek to harm them."

"Even your own flesh and blood?" Inkar stepped back, eyes widening -- suddenly very afraid that the Betrayer might resurrect herself in that moment.

"Even the flesh and blood of Sidero." Naenia nodded. "I would hate it more than anything I have hated. More than chains, more than human cities... more than Damon and his magic that made you so..."

"Then you need our alliance as much as the humans." Inkar frowned grimly, squaring herself to Naenia and glowering. "You need our tribes as one, so that your blood oaths do not tear you apart and ruin everything the Betrayer sought."

"Does Inkar-Chief know ambition?" Naenia stood back, cocking one hip and slanting her brow. "Does Inkar-Chief already have a plan?"

"I do -- and I will tell you nothing of it." Inkar gave a deliberate nod of the head. "Does the slave think she is clever?"

"The Betrayer's memories are ghosts within me. Your enemies to the south are my enemies, but I cannot leave South-wold to fight them." Naenia squatted down, digging a claw in the dirt between them. "Sting, with venom... cut small pieces... moving without rest... and cut the head from Orenda's shoulders."

"Gharial." Inkar interrupted.

"It lives?" Naenia stopped herself, glancing up from beneath her blue-gray eyebrows. "You have seen it?"

"Two of our lizards have seen it. Would it answer Sidero's call?" Inkar tapped her foot impatiently as Naenia stood back up and worked her jaw thoughtfully.

"I know the old words, if Sidero's magic still holds the beast... if it is the same beast."

"You... would look for it, if you believed you could control it?" Inkar sneered.

"I cannot leave South-wold unguarded... but Gharial eats more than a troll, and I cannot keep such a creature there." Naenia thrust her jaw defiantly, snorting her refusal.

"Then give me the words." Inkar held out her clawed hand, as if the words themselves were a thing that would fit in her hand. "Give them to Inkar-Chief and I will make peace with you."

"You cannot face Gharial alone, Inkar-Chief." Naenia narrowed her eyes. "It will kill you."

"I will take Sidero's Wolves and my Chief-kin." Inkar scowled gravely, her chin tipping upward. "Inkar-Chief is no fool. The lizards are small -- not stupid. Sickly, but clever to survive in the wetland."

"Then use them." Naenia nodded her approval. "Apart from peace..."

"What do you want, exile?" Inkar made the insult clear.

"I cannot rut humans... Kuruk... hmph." Naenia blushed hungrily. "Let any Sidero who dares to rut with me be free to seek me out. Peace, and let your Sidero see me through other eyes that my hunger does not go unfed."

Inkar laughed. Suspicious before -- but now that the exile had confirmed it -- the savage humor of it pleased Inkar greatly. To see the Betrayer's shadow pleading to rut, where before the Betrayer had commanded and controlled.

"Don't fear, exile." Inkar snarled, grinning wickedly at the outsider that wore her mother's skin. "I will see Sidero wash all trace of the Betrayer from you... in their eyes and yours."

"After, I will tell you." Naenia harrumphed, already feeling herself slick with eager arousal.

...

"Nurcan." Naenia nudged the human woman -- younger than her and yet so much older thanks to one fledgling sorcerer. "Wake up."

"I'm awake, damn you." Nurcan groaned, rolling from her sleeping pile of hides and furs. "I'd rather a canvas cot or thick blanket over a reed mat to this mess."

"How strong is your healing?" Nurcan's eyes shifted about -- obvious anxiety in her face and manner that Nurcan found supremely unsettling.

If this she-ork was nervous, it could not bode well.

"I could likely mend a broken limb or gut wound, given time and..." Nurcan rubbed sleep from her face and sighed heavily. "...that one you had me treat earlier could tell you better than I."

"Bruises, cuts..." Naenia frowned and nodded. "Bones could break."

"Whose?" Nurcan tilted her head up to look askance at Naenia. "How much trouble have you caused, now?"

"Many... and none." Naenia answered. Outside, orks were mustering in the last chill of night before sunlight spilled over the mountains to the east. Birdsong filtered through the trees from far off, a good omen that the Sidero had become welcome in this part of the Willow Wood.

...

"Sidero." Inkar barked, as three score orks scrambled to their feet and jostled closer to reply in patchy unison.

"Inkar-Chief!" They cried, the sound drawling, jagged, and splintered such that it twisted around like a great wyrm among them.

"Among us an exile wears the Betrayer's skin." Inkar snarled, thrusting with her tusks and lifting her chin angrily. "I will see the Betrayer's stink washed from the exile in Sidero sweat, blood, and rut."

Silence. Stunned, slack-jawed and wide-eyed silence among many of her orks, Inkar noted. It was expected. To wash the exile would be a challenge none of them had known. Naenia had admitted that Abhilash was the first to bathe her, as the shaman's seed spilled into her. Inkar wondered if her Sidero would be equal to the task -- she wasn't sure that she could stomach the attempt without something potent to help her forget who Naenia had been before. There weren't spirits and drink enough to silence that furious part of her mind.

Inkar had contrived something proper, to ease her own wrath.

"Who among you are strong enough to do this?" Inkar gave the question a flatness, the sound of doubt and dismissal. It was not scornful derision, it was not the voice the Betrayer had used -- yet just as expert in its manipulation among them.

"I am strong." Tuwile stepped forward, eyes shining with fear in a face carved with grim resolve. The welts and bruises from Uduak's and Muna's frequent attention still darkened large swathes of his flesh.

"I am strong." Nahia and Thato, as one, stepped forward -- far less fearful and more clearly angry.

Then more. By twos and threes until the whole of the camp had given its voice in answer -- even the two kobolds and the former Orenda with their strangely shaped faces and shaggy pelts. It was expected, once the first half-dozen had stood forward. It was proper.

Inkar nodded.

"Set here a rutting post." She pointed at her feet, then walked away.

...

"What are they doing?" Nurcan looked at the sudden bustling activity, whooping and hollering among the Sidero as the orks broke from their audience with the chieftain. "What did...?"

"They are going to wash me." Naenia's face was a flat mask, emotionless and dull... resigned.

"Wash...?" Nurcan could scarcely comprehend what might pass for an orkish bath.

"It is Sidero's way." Naenia gave Nurcan a wan, almost human smile. "You are lucky to be here to see it."

"What kind of ritual...?" Nurcan couldn't finish the question, as a great timber stake thunked point-first into the packed earth near the center of the tiny village. Another post, canted so that the two formed a crux lashed together at a height near Nurcan's head... just below the hollow of Naenia's throat.

"An ork ritual." Naenia shivered in anticipation, skin rising with bumps like plucked fowl.

Naenia was dragged away roughly, though she wrestled to keep her feet beneath her and match the pace of the orks hauling her toward the crossed posts. She knew they wouldn't all try to rut her -- their words were mostly a show for their chieftain. It would be lucky if more than two mustered their rut-sticks to mate her -- not that anything could come of it. More likely: most of them would beat her, spit on her... Claw her or piss on her. She could see the warring hunger and hatred in their eyes. Naenia felt the temptation to use her power -- to coax them all to rutting and heat.

She knew better of it, especially of the Chief-kin who bore Damon's seed in them already. The oaths had been made. Naenia fretted her lip in her teeth between her tusks, taking a deep breath to try and quell the churning serpent in her gut. Inkar had built a thing Naenia... that the Betrayer had used to amuse herself with captured seed-slaves. It lacked the studded nails that pierced a slave's arms and legs, or the strap that would clinch the neck to make them gasp and their faces blacken for want of air.

As her arms and legs were tied along the crossed posts, her breasts were mashed painfully around the bulge of coarse hempen rope holding the posts together. Lashed with more rope, her limbs were splayed where she stood; toes pointed awkwardly to the insides of the beams, causing her knees to bend toward each other to avoid pressing against the logs holding her up; her haunches arched out clumsily from the twist of her legs.

Inkar ripped Naenia's tunic off, casting the shredded garment aside and barking a command that Nurcan didn't understand.

Several orks carrying wash basins or small barrels trotted over to pour water over Naenia's naked form.

Is that all? Nurcan wondered as a dozen such buckets deluged the bound she-ork.

Inkar leaned in and sniffed, made a face, and turned to hunch her hips and pissed on Naenia's leg. Nurcan recoiled, mentally and physically, but dared not intrude. What could she do?

Another ork -- a big thug of a male -- walked forward and likewise emptied his bladder on Naenia, aiming his penis so the steaming stream of urine arced up the she-ork's thigh and across the small of her back. Even as the stink of ork piss filled Nurcan's nose, rivulets of it ran over Naenia's buttocks, between her clenched cheeks, and trickled down the insides of both legs.

Feeling mostly forgotten, Nurcan made her way around the broad circle of orks gathered around Naenia.

That was when she heard a slap, a snarl and a confusing exchange of ork-speak that was too fast to follow (even if she had known the meaning of it). Now, Naenia had three orks at her back and one facing her head-on. They were striking her, spitting on her.

Nurcan could just make out the heavy-lidded, dull expression on Naenia's face. She could see the brown flush at her neck, rage or arousal Nurcan didn't want to guess -- and found herself reasoning that orks would likely tend toward both at once. When a meaty thud reached Nurcan's ears, she could see the flash of anger light Naenia's eyes and heard the hiss of drawn breath. More he-orks and she-orks came forward to douse Naenia in urine -- some managing to splash the backs of her shoulders.

Two hideous, shaggy, malformed orks -- more akin to what Nurcan remembered from South-wold's ills in the past -- carried forth a hissing and sputtering kobold whom they aimed squarely at Naenia's face.

Horrid fascination drew Nurcan's eyes, as the kobold's hemipenis squeezed out from its cloacal sheath and a fine spray of noxious serpent musk painted the bound she-ork's brow and face.