The Band Pt. 01

"Are you alright?" The satyr asked, big brown eyes looking at Arryn with all sorts of concern. The orc had walked over and looked less concerned, having sheathed her sword. Arryn didn't feel too ashamed about being exposed, the satyr was too, though satyr's often were.

"No." Arryn shook her head, finally answering. She stood, helped by the satyr, and looked at the bull. It was still in the process of dying. Arryn kicked it right in the balls as hard as she could and the bull shrieked. Then Arryn knelt, placing a hand against the bull's chest. It looked at her with wide eyes, blood still pumping out of that wound.

"Burn." Arryn said, twisting her fingers to fuel magical fire that coursed into the bull's chest. It shrieked and writhed as the fire burrowed inside and spread, until the bull fell back and then was consumed into a funeral pyre that burned brightly and left nothing but a pile of ash and blackened ground.

"Whoa." The orc said. "That was cool. Couldn't do that before?"

"I was a little tied up. I would like to find my clothes." Arryn said, brushing herself free of dirt. "Then, I would like to visit an inn and have a word."

The orc looked at the satyr, the satyr nodded.

"Well, tell you what." The orc said. "We're on a contract to find a tribe of beasts and...do more of all that. The same tribe that they were from. If you want in, we could definitely use your help. Never had a caster on the crew. Never had anyone else on the crew, really. You'll get a cut of the coin and if you want to move on after, we won't hold it against you. And in return we'll help you visit that inn. Gold, revenge, fun, what else could you want?"

Arryn looked at the two. She pursed her lips. She wanted revenge. She could use the help. She could take a few beasts on her own with magic but she certainly couldn't take an entire tribe by herself.

It was a win-win on its face.

She nodded.

"Arryn." She said.

"Shanzi." The orc said. "And Willow is the satyr. Welcome to the party."

"I do enjoy a party." Arryn said, twisting her fingers and producing a dancing ball of fire above her palm. "And the fireworks that go with them. Now, about my clothes..."

Chapter Two

Beastmen herds are ruled by two figures; the Herdsmaster and the Shaman.

This herd was eager and that made them rowdy. They had piled fresh wood onto a bonfire in celebration of the coming sacrifice. The clearing was filled with the noises of celebration and ecstasy and violence and that was what the herd was best at. Tonight would be a festival of flesh and bestial release, and all they had done to gain such a prize was promise not to raze a barely worthwhile village.

The Herdsmaster lounged on a slight hill at the edge of the clearing, overseeing his domain. He had gathered some fifty beasts to himself and in this land that was no paltry number. It was nothing compared to the many thousands of the great western herds, but they were not in the west, they were here. The mighty bull provided the vicious backbone of his herd, numbering only seven in total. They were difficult to kill and more difficult to control, but they were not prone to leadership and they were prone to follow a leader that gave them what their beastly hearts desired. The Herdsmaster watched two of them engage in a brutal fight over an eagerly waiting cow, one of three, that was bent over a fallen tree with her legs spread, wet pussy glistening and dripping and waiting for one of the massive bulls to sink their cocks to the hilt inside her. The bulls were fully erect and circled each other, cocks bouncing even as they slammed into one another with vicious efficiency. They would fight, they would bleed, and eventually they would both fuck the cow from either end.

Most of the bulk of the herd was, much like the Herdsmaster himself, deer. Smaller, thickly muscled, they numbered nearly forty of both buck and doe. Bucks clashed, antlers clacking together and fists pummeling. The bulls sometimes partook of the doe and the Herdsmaster did not care, the strongest of his herd were welcome to breed as they wished. Two does knelt before the enormous cock of a bull and their tongues worked the shaft in tandem, a single hand of each cradling an enormous ball. Bucks fought for the right to the remainder of the does and the Herdsmaster was pleased with the vicious displays.

The Shaman was the only predator that the herd had welcomed. She was much smaller than any of the others in the herd but wielded power that often surpassed that of the Herdsmaster. Her body was canid in form, reddish fur and a white underbelly from her upper chest to her inner thighs. She leaned against a gnarled staff and watched the festivities. She alone was draped in woven necklaces interlaced with items of the forest around them, items that provided her powers. She was young for a shaman and the Herdsmaster often found himself admiring the firm, furred breasts that stood out on her chest. The darkness of her nipples that stood stiff in the cool forest air, or from arousal at the scene before. She did not often partake in the orgies and instead was more selective of her mating pairings. AS of yet, she had never selected the Herdsmaster, nor would she. It was deeply frowned upon for the leadership to conflict in that way. Even so, the Herdsmaster found his cock swelling at the sight of her body. It grew to vast proportions and stood out from his hips, so large that it did not stand upright but instead straight out from his seat on the throne. The vastness of his squared tip began to glisten with precum and the shaman turned her eyes to him. She was impassive and turned her attention back to the bonfire and celebration beyond. The Herdsmaster resigned himself to fucking the human sacrifice and stroked himself at the thought of it. He knew his sons and their bullish comrade would take a moment to partake and it would leave the sacrifice ready to take his immenseness.

A beast shrieked and it was not in pleasure, drawing attention. There were many sounds to be heard but the glade fell silent except for the wet thudding of an object rolling toward the bonfire. It splattered the beasts with blood and soon came to a stop, the dead eyed face of the Herdsmaster's eldest son staring blankly into his father's eyes. The Herdsmaster rose, filled with an endless rage that he released in a bestial roar, all else forgotten. The Herdsmasters rage found a target when a human woman strode into the glade without a care for the nearly fifty enraged beasts that watched her.

"You dare?" The Shaman, the only one that spoke the human tongue, stepped forward. She lifted the gnarled staff and pointed it at this human woman. The slight thing was dressed in simple clothes and armed with nothing but a cocky confidence, infuriating the Herdsmaster.

"They tried to fuck me, yes, I dare. Sometimes you get to fuck something, sometimes it fucks you right back. Circle of life, you filthy things should understand that."

The Herdsmaster roared again and three of his bulls eagerly charged at the woman. Arryn raised a hand and drew sigils in the air. The Shaman tried to shout a warning but it was too late. A gout of flame sprouted from her palm, conjured up to easily consume the bulls. They only had a moment to shriek in horror as the fire licked at their bodies, then they were little more than blackened bones and charred flesh in smoking piles before the woman. A buck keened when an arrow appeared in his eye, his body stumbling as if death was not something he could accept just yet. An orc, slightly taller than the does of the herd, charged from the tree line and a steel longsword flicked back and forth, cutting apart a half dozen beasts. The rest scrambled for their weapons as chaos erupted. The Herdsmaster watched in horror as the bonfire flames came to life, licking out and seizing a bull to wrap it in living tendrils before pulling him into the bonfire with a horrendous shriek.

The Shaman raised her staff and the forest came to life, vines snapping out at the slight woman with the magical prowess. The bonfire defended her, long tendrils slapping vines and branches aside as the herd focused on the battle they could fight. The orc was engaged by the rest, and the Herdsmaster heaved up a massive, rough iron sword and waded down from his throne toward the orc. Arrows continued to fly, felling beasts who had little opportunity to fight back against the unseen threat. Already half the herd was dead, smoldering or writhing as their blood soaked into the loamy earth of the glade. The Herdsmaster's sword slammed into the orc's longsword, sparks flying. The orc's eyes were wild and excited and she gleefully began a back and forth dance of violence. The arrows stopped and the herd fell away to watch, as is their custom when the Herdsmaster engages in battle.

Arryn was impressed by the power of the Shaman. The naked fox-like beast advanced on her, calling up the earth to try to swallow Arryn. Dodging away, Arryn thrust out a burst of fire that the Shaman absorbed with that gnarled staff. Arryn used that moment to call up a gust of wind from the rear, knocking the fox off balance, hoping that Willow would use the moment. There was no need for a fair fight, Arryn thought, a fair fight is the one you're likely to lose and losing a fight means dying. Arryn did not intend to end a day of very nearly having a bull's cock split her in half by dying. The fox stumbled and Willow took the opportunity, slightly off the mark but still sinking an arrow into the Shaman's shoulder. Enraged, the Shaman came for Arryn with a vicious sequence of magical blows and closed the distance. Arryn had never used a staff but was beginning to think it would have been a good idea when she started dodging swings of the gnarled staff. She drew up the air to form a shield, crossing her wrists and absorbing a furious overhanded blow. The Shaman's snarling face was inches from Arryn's, drooling and baring teeth. Arryn held that shield of air and dropped her right hand, reaching to the small of her back to one of the small black leather sheathes that rested there. She had never liked staffs because they were big, unwieldy, and often gave her away as a caster. So she used knives.

It usually surprised anyone she fought. Like the Shaman, who grunted a noise of surprise when the knife was sunk into her belly. The herd shrieked and panicked, beginning to scatter into the trees as their Shaman fell to her knees and began to die. The Herdsmaster ignored it, knowing he had lost everything but too enraged by the loss of his sons to do anything more than try to rip this orc in half. They traded blows back and forth, looking for the weakness in the other's defense. Shanzi sidestepped and drew blood in a thin line across the Herdsmaster's rippling belly. He snarled and swung his sword with a single hand, backhanding the orc with a blow from his free hand when she parried the sword. They fell apart, both bleeding and both breathing hard. He roared, spittle flying at the orc. Then he fell, a knife suddenly parting the muscle and flesh at the back of his leg and dropping him to a knee. The slight woman had attacked him from behind.

"I had him." Shanzi said, pouting.

"You still do." Arryn said. Shanzi shrugged, stopped pouting and stepped forward into a swing of her sword. The Herdsmaster roared his defiance even as Shanzi whirled, her sword slicing cleanly through his neck and silencing that roar. The Herdsmaster and Shaman laying dead, along with the bulk of their herd. Those that remained had fled and would continue to flee, having failed to fight they would take flight, as the beasts often did.

Willow strode from the forest, bow slung over her shoulder, looking at the carnage.

"That was easy." She said. Shanzi hefted the enormous head of the Herdsmaster and looked it over, especially the many points of his antlers that sprouted out.

"Would have been harder without the caster." Shanzi said, looking at Arryn, then at Willow. "Can we keep her mom, huh, can we?"

Arryn snorted a laugh and Willow shook her head, rolling her eyes at the orc. Then she looked at Arryn.

"We could use you, if you'd want to stay with us. Even split on any jobs we finish."

Arryn thought about it and found herself strangely interested in the offer. She'd been running scams on rich nobles and merchants for so long she'd gotten used to it. It'd been a good few years since she'd had a fight and it did feel good to get stuck into a brawl again. To use her magic skills for something other than lighting a smokeless fire to hide from bounty hunters and the like searching for her. She'd figured on lighting the inn on fire and moving on to a new mark but something about the offer...

"Yes." She found herself saying, a grin splitting her face and the feeling of relief that flooded her was proof that her body knew it was the right decision.

"Only one thing left to do." Shanzi said, wiping her sword clean of blood.

"We should let them know that the village is safe from the herd now." Arryn said. "They'll be so grateful, I'm sure."

"Indeed." Shanzi said with a wide, wolfish grin.

Everyone in the inn rose from their seats, startled by the door suddenly being kicked in. Two guards were tossed into the room, flailing and tumbling until they came to a rest in the center of the room. Both men were bloodied and scrambled away from the three figures that entered the inn. Shanzi tossed the Herdsmaster's head in after and one of the guards shrieked, pushing himself away on his heels from the bloodied and severed head.

"I thought you'd be happy!" Arryn said, striding in and kneeling in front of the guard. She ignored the woman behind the bar who had gone a ghostly white. "We solved your problem for you! Isn't that what you wanted? When you staked me out there, naked and spread for their enjoyment? Oh my, wait, was I some sort of offering!? No, nonsense, tell me it isn't so!"

"Please-" The innkeeper stopped when Arryn held up a single finger.

"You know what really pisses me off?" Arryn said, standing. "You have the absolute gall to stand there and beg me for anything. How many others have been offered up? How many? How many did you let beg for their lives? How many did you listen to their screams for mercy? Or did you just walk away and pretend nothing happened while you lived in a fucked up sort of peace?"

By the look on the innkeeper's face, Arryn had her answer.

"That's what I thought. That makes you someone that puts on a kind face as a lie. Someone that drugs victims. Someone that leaves them in the woods, knowing what would happen. The thing that I hate most, is that you can't own up to it. That you have the nerve to beg me for anything."

Arryn had crossed the inn while she spoke, now leaning forward into the innkeeper's face. The woman looked at the floor as if it might open up and save her.

"They would have killed us all." The guard whimpered. Arryn snapped her head around to stare at him, the one that had been so rude when she'd arrived. The one that had touched himself at the sight of her naked body. The dried cum stain he'd probably left on a tree to the thought of Arryn's body was more useful than he was. Shanzi strode over to the guard, her massive frame looming over him, sword sheathed on her back. No one moved.

"Well lucky you." Shanzi growled, leaning down and grabbing hold of the guard's collar and lifting him up to his feet. "We're only going to kill some of you."

The guard yelped but Shanzi snapped his neck before he could make another noise, letting his limp corpse fall to the wooden floor. The inn collectively gasped, fearful and looking for some escape. Arryn caught the innkeeper's eyes darting toward a wooden door framed in iron. It was set out of sight, something Arryn had hardly noticed and would have assumed was a storeroom. But the innkeeper woman had some interest in it. Arryn extended a single hand and drew the sigils to call forth a burst of air from the inside of the door, pressing against the secured hinges and creaking against the wood. The hinges gave way, breaking free from the frame and the door crashed outward, shaking the whole building.

"No!" The innkeeper cried out, then shrunk away and quivered when Arryn turned her attention back to the woman. There was something important in behind that door. Arryn reached over and grabbed the woman by her tunic and dragged her, screaming and kicking, over the bar. Willow had notched an arrow to her bow and Shanzi had her sword drawn before the occupants could move.

"Go." Shanzi said, Willow trotting after Arryn. "I've got this."

Arryn pushed the innkeeper ahead of her and forced her toward the door, where a darkened stone stairwell lay beyond. Arryn snatched a dead torch from a sconce and brought it to life with a quick movement of her fingers, holding it up to peer into the depths.

"The fuck?" She said. "How far down does this go? What is going on in this town?"

The innkeeper did not answer. Arryn pushed her down the first step and the innkeeper stumbled, only barely keeping her balance so she didn't plummet down into the darkness. Willow and Arryn followed her down, step by step into the blackness.

Arryn counted some fifty steps in a spiralling stairwell that descended down, finally coming to a heavy door constructed of flattened iron bars. Willow knelt and fished out a lockpick set and before Arryn could draw up flame or wind to force the door, it swung open on oiled hinges. There were more torches here, including one flickering far down a stone hallway. Arryn focused heat and lit them, a dozen torches bursting to life and revealing the room.

"Fuck." Arryn breathed out.

It was a vault and it was packed with items that must have been taken from other victims. They had been at this for decades, to collect so much. Heaps of gold and valuables, suits of armor, racks of weapons, it was a veritable hoard of valuables ripe for the picking. Arryn couldn't help but think about just how many bodies this represented. They had collected wealth but there was no way that they had only targeted those with things of value.

"You must have given them hundreds, thousands of people." Willow said. The innkeeper opened her mouth but Willow struck her, driving the back of her hand across the innkeeper's mouth and knocking her down.

"I wouldn't speak." Arryn growled. Then, she heard something. Ahead in the vault, where the lone torch had been lit, something was rustling iron against stone. Arryn moved ahead slowly and soon her torchlight flickered against a right angled corner of stone. Another iron gate was set there and inside was a simple bed and wooden bucket. It was a cell. There were two more that Arryn moved past, all empty, until the last.

Here, the cell was different. It glowed with a reddish hue because there were protective sigils etched into the stone walls, ceiling, and floor. They were active and while Arryn was no expert, she did recognize some. They insulated this cell from prying eyes, from those that could scry over great distances. They were subtle and expertly crafted. Many novices would craft an insulating sigil but it left something that scryers referred to as 'voids'. The absence of anything was suspicious, almost as suspicious as the finding of what one is looking for. These sigils would present as something else entirely, leaving no void and calling no attention.

A scryer might only see this place as a storage cellar.

That was interesting, this town was not large enough for an expert wizard to reside in. It wasn't more interesting than the individual inside the cell.

Heavy iron chains hung from thin wrists, padded on the inside for some measure of comfort, and etched with still more reddish sigils on the outside. There was enough length for the prisoner to walk the cell, but no more than that. Bright, gleaming blue eyes looked out at Arryn from underneath a mop of long black hair, the ends tinted a matching but faded blue. A grayish skin glowed with living blue runes and signs that were tattooed directly onto the flesh. A small, pointed nose jutted up above full lips that were pulled into a look of curiosity, underneath full cheeks with a single blue tattoo on the right.