Murkuk Ch. 02

"Thrashall show what happen to liars!" bellowed the Master, drawing back his fist. The blonde whimpered, squeezed her eyes shut.

Before the blow was delivered, a voice called out stridently from the darkness beyond the campfire: "Release the girl, orc!"

The voice was human, male. Kuk turned her head with a gasp, craned her neck and saw a shadowy figure approaching from out of the gloom. Two orcs on the far side of the fire immediately rose and charged the figure with blood-curdling uluations. They were engulfed in a searing flash of light, their battlecries cut short by a deafening thunderclap.

Kuk blinked, half-blinded. The orcs were gone without a trace. The pets erupted in screams of terror, clutching at one another. The orcs remaining at the campfire stood dumbfounded. Thrashall released the blonde and, knocking aside the captives in his way, stalked toward the figure.

"Kill the human!" he roared.

The other orcs still had not moved. "It is a Wizard!" cried one, awestruck.

Thrashall had drawn his axe and was brandishing it as he passed the terrified pets. "Humans have no magic left!" he snarled. "They killed their wizards!"

The human interloper had advanced closer to the fire and was more easily visible now. He was of indeterminate age, though certainly not old. His jet-black hair fell to his shoulders, his dark beard was trimmed to a neat point. The features of his narrow face were unremarkable, except for the piercing gaze of his deep-set eyes. His arms were raised, his lips moving silently. Kuk thought to glimpse another shadow moving furtively behind him, much too small to be an orc.

Thrashall bore down on the human without haste. "Why you not dead, if you a wizard?"

The human did not reply, but regarded the orc with wry amusement. Then with an abrupt gesture and a single sharp word, he unleashed a torrent of flame from his outstretched palm. Thrashall bellowed, struck full in the face by the magical fire. He was instantly immolated, transformed into a writhing, thrashing pillar of fire.

The two remaining orcs muttered fearful imprecations, watching their erstwhile leader's agonized death-throes. Kuk had never before seen fear in the eyes of the Masters -- the sight of it both ennervated and aroused her.

Thrashall's flame-shrouded body fell to the ground, still twitching. The wizard stepped past it and around the fire, approaching the last two orcs. Behind him came another human, a female, naked as an orc pet. Every inch of her flawless body and face had been tattooed with intricate runes; from between her buttocks hung a long wolf's tail, doubtless appended to a plug in her rectum. The aerioles of her breasts had been pierced and ringed like a pet's, and on a chain was suspended between the two rings hung a human skull; it's lower jaw was missing, the teeth of the upper jaw filed to points. The girl's face was set in a grimace, her teeth bared -- they too had been filed to points.

Suddenly the girl stopped short. Her body stiffened, her clawed fingers curled slowly into fists. Her eyes rolled upward, until the whites seemed to glow amid the dark tattoos of her face. The tendons of her neck stood out like cords, her body trembled violently. The wizard, meanwhile, had also stopped ten meters from the snarling orcs, and was incanting rapidly in a rising voice. Uttering a final harsh monosyllable he thrust his hand forward, palm outward, toward one of the orcs. At the same instant, a strangled groan escaped the tattooed girl's throat; her body jerked once, as if something were being torn out of her, then she sagged and staggered backward a step.

An invisible force seemed to strike the orc at whom the wizard had gestured, and it was propelled backward several meters through the air to strike the stout trunk of a young oak tree. The trunk shattered; the tree bent but did not fall, the dead orc wedged in the crook of its broken trunk.

The last orc stared wide-eyed at the wizard, holding its stone axe in nerveless fingers. The wizard leveled a threatening gaze at him.

"I spare you!" the wizard proclaimed in the language of men. "Return to your people, and warn them against further incursions into this kingdom!"

The orc hesitated only long enough to bare his fangs in a trivial display of defiance, then it turned and fled through the forest, back toward its tribal lands. After several seconds the wizard glanced at his girl, who stood near the fire with shoulders slumped, breathing heavily, her body limp and drained. A small rivulet of dark fluid trickled down one of her inner thighs. Blood.

The wizard showed no concern, but regarded the girls in the camp for the first time. The few dozen orc pets were staring at him wide-eyed with fear, whimpering and clutching one another. Farther from the fire, the much smaller group of human girls seemed no less frightened of him. He approached the human captives, made a sweeping gesture with one arm and muttered a short incantation. Back near the fire, his girl grunted sharply and bent as if she had suffered an unexpected blow to the stomach. The locks which held the heavy chains on the humans suddenly snapped open, and the chains fell to the ground.

"You are safe now," said the wizard, addressing himself to the blonde girl.

She looked up at him distrustfully. "We are all deeply indebted to you, My Lord," she said. "But I wonder as to your intentions."

The wizard looked over his shoulder, and his eyes fell on Kuk. "You there!" he called peremptorily. "Fetch blankets for these young ladies!"

"Yeth, Mathter!" cried Kuk with instinctive servility. "Kuk obeyth, Mathter!"

She leaped to her feet and hurried about the camp, snatching several blankets out of the tents. She approached the wizard with tremendous reticence, half-crouched, eyes cast downward. She dropped to her knees still five meters from him, whimpering softly.

"My intention," the wizard was saying, "is very simple. To send a message back to the orcs that their incursions will no longer be tolerated in this kingdom." He noted Kuk's return and gestured to the humans. "Distribute the blankets," he commanded brusquely.

Kuk responded with breathless anxiety. "Immediately, Mathter!"

Rising to a half-crouch, she handed out the blankets one by one. There were only six blankets, so most of the girls were forced to share them. The blonde, however, took the last one from Kuk's hand, wrapped it around her body and rose to face the wizard. She stood with prideful bearing, her chin high, as though she were dressed not in a filthy, lice-infested coverlet but in sumptuous silks.

"You are the daughter of Sir Joreff, I presume," said the wizard.

"I am Samarra de Ralia," she acknowledged.

"I am honored to meet you, My Lady. Your father fought most bravely against the orcs. His death was tragic."

Samarra nodded curtly. "And what, Sir, are your intentions for us?" she asked.

"You are free," said the wizard simply. "I intend to escort you back to the city of Ralia."

Samarra seemed to relax very slightly. "And what of....what of the orc's unfortunate slaves?" She looked down at Kuk, who did not meet her gaze.

"It may be too late for me to save any of the pets," said the wizard. He, too, glanced at Kuk, and though she could not bring herself to look straight into his piercing dark eyes, she lifted her head and stared at his mouth. The wizard's appraisal continued for several seconds, and then he shook his head ruefully and said, "Too late for you, I'm afraid."

"Is there nothing you can do?" said Samarra, with such sincere compassion that Kuk stared up at her in wonderment. "Nothing you can do for any of them?"

"Most of them have been among the orcs too long to ever be successfully reintegrated into human society. But I can assure you that their lives will not go to waste. There are many uses to which I might put them."

Samarra's expression hardened. "Like that unfortunate creature you brought with you?" she demanded.

"My girl is not as unfortunate as you might believe," said the wizard, with the barest trace of impatience. "She chose precisely the life she wished to live, and she would never willingly give it up now. Regardless, none of these pets would be capable of taking her place. But do not fret overmuch for them; they will live much more productive and pleasant lives in my hands than they ever would among the orcs."

"It almost seems death would be a more merciful fate," said Samarra softly.

"They will not regret being rescued by me," averred the wizard.

With that he intoned a brief incantation, gesticulating with his hands. Kuk suddenly found herself intensely aroused, her nipples and aerioles stiffening on the instant, her labia and clitoris hugely engorged. She cried out in surprise and delight, her loins already drooling. The wizard turned and walked back toward the campfire, and Kuk's pleasure receded with each step he took. Whimpering eagerly, she lurched to her feet and rushed after him.

The other pets began to writhe and grimace as the wizard approached, their bodies responding helplessly. They gasped and moaned, and looked about in consternation for the source of their unexpected pleasure. The chorus of ecstatic groans reached a crescendo as the wizard swept past the pets, with Kuk hastening after him. When the wizard reached his girl by the campfire he stopped abruptly. His spell clearly had not influenced her; she stood with shoulders slumped wearily, gazing into the fire with lusterless eyes. The wizard murmured quietly to her, gently stroking her cheek.

Kuk hurried nearer to the wizard, the searing pleasure in her loins intensifying to an almost excruciating ecstacy. She groaned piteously, desperate to writhe against the wizard and attain what would surely be a cataclysmic release. But then, just a meter shy of the wizard, as her pleasure and desire reached an unbearable incandescence, she felt herself halted by an invisible wall of force. She strained against it, sobbing with frustration, but could get no closer to the wizard. It seemed a physical barrier, though she could see nothing there -- she pressed herself against it, crushing her breasts, thighs and belly to it, but it did not yield.

Most of the other pets were beginning to realize that their titanic arousal derived from the wizard. Two dozen of them were crawling toward him, those in front attempting like Kuk to press themselves against him. His girl, unprotected by the invisible barrier, was pushed aside by the puling pets. The wizard, scowling, commenced a new incantation. His girl steeled herself, grimacing. A moment later, as the spell was cast, she groaned deeply and sagged to her knees.

Kuk, continuing to writhe futilely against the magical wall, felt her limbs suddenly seized by the wizard's magic, and she was held altogether immobile except for her eyes. Glancing about in mounting alarm she saw that all of the orc pets were rigid as stone. Kuk felt trapped inside her body as if within a statue -- a statue enflamed with lust.

The wizard bent over his girl and helped her tenderly to her feet. She appeared utterly drained, her body trembling with fatigue and bathed in sweat. A small stream of blood spilled from between her labia for several seconds, but it gradually came to a stop. The wizard turned and, ignoring the motionless pets, called out to Samarra, "If you are prepared to depart, Lady de Ralia, let us delay no longer."

The human girls had been unaffected by either of the wizard's spells. Huddling under their filthy blankets, they stared awe-struck at the unmoving pets. Finally Samarra de Ralia shook off her reticence and stood.

"Take us home, wizard," she said with admirable bravura. The other girls followed her reluctantly.

The wizard smiled. "With pleasure, My Lady."

Picking his way past the immobile pets, he started back down the path, followed by his girl and the humans. Kuk watched with dismay as the wizard departed, the pleasure draining rapidly from her body. Several of the pets began wheezing plaintively -- the only vocalization their unresponsive vocal cords would allow. The wizard, without a glance backward, raised his hand and gesticulated. Kuk saw other pets beginning to rise and follow after the wizard; then she felt her own body turn, animated by some alien force, and her legs began striding without her volition after the wizard. All of the pets were being carried along at a steady trot by their bodies.

Kuk desperately wished to run and catch up with the wizard, but she could not will herself to move any faster. She tried to touch herself, imagining what it would be like to consummate her unbearable lust, but her hands refused to respond; with an inward groan she surrended herself, not caring where her body carried her, only hoping that one day she might be allowed to attain that explosive release which she knew would come at even the slightest contact with the wizard.

The lust within her, which had ebbed to a dull aching need, receded no further.