by Nunn, PL
“You’re his pet—he’ll feed you as he sees fit.”
Yhalen said something crude and nasty under his breath, standing with the chain pulling at his collar in the middle of the tent.
The end of the chain was attached to a spike driven into the hard ground and try as he might, Yhalen couldn’t budge it. There was enough length to allow him some small bit of freedom in the tent.
He could lie upon the pallet or relieve himself in a hammered bronze pot in the corner. The ogre’s armor rack was empty and there were no stray weapons lying about.
There was nothing to do but sit upon the fur-covered pallet and feel sorry for himself. To feel guilt and shame for not only what had been done to his body, but also for the pain his incompetence—his bad luck in being captured—would cause his family. He did not ever, ever want his mother to know what he’d suffered at the hands of the ogres. He shivered miserably merely thinking about it, and wrapped his arms about his knees.
He was sore still, but not unbearably so. Nothing that had been done to him last night would cause more than fleeting discomfort, unlike what the others—this Kragnor Deathclaw—had done. He clenched his fists, trying to block out the memory, trying to block out the ghostly after-images of sensation that made his skin twitch and his eyes tear. Injuries that he’d somehow healed by sucking the life force from the surrounding wood.
Oh, and hadn’t that been a revelation. He’d never shown talent for healing before—even though it was in his blood. Never shown more than passing sensitivity for the underlying essence of the great forest and all she encompassed. At least no more than any other young Ydregi warrior who was more interested in proving himself a man than searching for the secrets the Goddess had hidden in nature.
And he’d been satisfied with no simple harmless magic, but had accomplished the forbidden, and not only borrowed from the forest, but withered and killed it in his desperation.
Wary and nervous, he pulled at the still damp length of his hair. The bulk of it was still too wet to properly braid, but the shorter strands by his face were dry enough to work with, so he sat about separating hair for the small ritual braid. He unraveled a thread from the bedding and tied it off, feeling better for that small dignity.
Eventually, with nothing else to occupy his time, he relented and lay back on the soft furs of the pallet, drawing his knees up to his body and facing the door, determined not to sleep and be caught unawares, but merely to rest his body.
He slept anyway. Drifted off into peaceful darkness for he knew not how long, and awoke to the sound of loud voices outside and the jangle of armor and weaponry and the barking of dogs. He chased the sleep away with a frustrated curse and sat up, legs folded beneath him, hands covering that most sensitive part of him, back straight and head high. He wouldn’t cower again. He promised himself that. They would force no further acts of cowardice from him, no matter what they did.
He flinched a little, regardless, when the tent flap was pulled back and the broad-shouldered figure of the ogre he’d been given to, entered. A step into the tent and Bloodraven paused, eyes drawn to Yhalen in what might have been a casual assessment of his newly collared slave. He stood for a moment, staring, armor spattered with bits of dirt and mud and what might have been blood, hair sweat damped and clinging in places to the ochre skin of his face. Then he said something, short and soft, before ambling over to the armor rack and shedding the leather and metal, piece by piece, until he stood shirtless, clad only in boots and trousers. Yhalen heard an audible sigh of relief from him, to have the weight of so much armor gone.
Bloodraven moved finally towards the pallet, gold eyes fixed speculatively on Yhalen.
Don’t flinch away, Yhalen told himself. Don’t cower before him. He lifted his head and met those glittering eyes. Black rimmed, with long slitted irises and filled with intense intelligence and pride.
Arrogance. He was smaller than his brethren by far, but this one—this one, Yhalen thought, considered himself superior.
Bloodraven said a word. A sharp command that Yhalen could only blink at, not comprehending.
Then one large hand reached out and caught the chain, sliding up its length until there was only a hand span of it between the collar and the ogre’s fingers. He pulled up and Yhalen had little choice but to scramble to his feet on his own or be hauled there by the metal encircling his neck.
Standing, his feet on the pallet which gave him an extra hand’s width of height, the top of Yhalen’s head still barely reached Bloodraven’s shoulders. Flatfooted on the floor he’d be staring at the lower portion of the ogre’s chest.
Another ogre word and Bloodraven reached out and touched the locks of Yhalen’s loose hair that trailed over his shoulder. Clean, it glinted very much the color of the beaten bronze collar around his neck, liberally streaked with dark strands of auburn and brown. In the midst of high summer it would lighten, but it held the colors of fall now.
Yhalen shivered, losing his battle to keep his eyes on the ogre’s face and instead finding them drawn to the large hand that brushed his shoulder as Bloodraven touched his hair. He wanted to step back, away from the touch, away from the closeness of the large body in front of him, but Bloodraven’s other hand still gripped the chain, holding him fast. The hand in his hair shifted to grip his shoulder, forcing him to turn, so that his back was unwillingly to his captor. Bloodraven pulled the chain so that the collar slipped around and let it drape down Yhalen’s back. The weight of it rested against his back, against his buttocks, forgotten momentarily by Bloodraven as the ogre lifted the mass of Yhalen’s hair with both hands, letting it spill between his fingers.
Then Bloodraven said a sharp word and accompanied it by a knee to the back of Yhalen’s leg, making the limb give way and spilling him to the furs of the pallet. He tried to twist around, instinctively wanting a more advantageous position, but the ogre had wrapped his hand in Yhalen’s hair and used it now instead of the chain to keep him in place, pressing his shoulders down to the furs as he crouched down behind the trembling human.
Yhalen shut his eyes, digging his fingers into the furs, trying to find a place in his mind to escape to—his favorite glade in the ancestral forest, the place he’d always escaped to as a child in physicality—beautiful and ethereal and rife with the gentle essence of the Goddess. If he could find that place in his mind now—if he could drift there amidst the soft grass and the small tinkling spring and the peaceful gnarled trees, he could endure this.
But it was hard to concentrate on such peace with the ogre’s thigh shifting between his legs and the sound of rustling cloth as the ogre unlaced his trousers, exposing himself. Yhalen couldn’t see, but he felt the weight of the erection as it was released and allowed to rest on the small of his back, felt the soft hair on Bloodraven’s balls as they pressed against the top of his thighs. Heard Bloodraven unstop the jar with the scented grease and felt the ogre coat his length before leaning back and unceremoniously prodding between Yhalen’s clenched buttocks with it. There was no gentle coaxing this time. No exploratory finger liberally greased to ease the way. The thick head simply pressed insistently against Yhalen’s opening and forced its way past resisting muscle with inevitable success.
The overheated girth of it sliding inside his unwelcoming body was agonizing. He was filled to capacity in the span of a few breaths, his body stretched so wide it felt as if he’d split in two—but he didn’t. He bled well enough—felt it trickling warm and wet down the inside of his thighs, but his body adjusted and accepted the huge organ that had burrowed within it.
Bloodraven grunted in satisfaction, shifting so that his knees on the floor pressed against the edge of the pallet, so that Yhalen’s feet, hanging over the edge were spread on either side of Bloodraven’s thighs, giving him no room to squirm away. As if the hand pressing his shoulders and face into the furs allowed any chance at escape. As if the chain and collar around his neck did.
The only consolation he had was that he uttered not one plea, nor did
he scream or cry out. No sound at all escaped him save for involuntary grunts as the ogre began to pound into him in earnest, and the fur he turned his face into, muffled those.
This time Bloodraven finished quickly, taking his pleasure and spilling his hot seed within Yhalen’s bowels before pulling out and rising, tucking himself back within his trousers and relacing them shut.
Released, Yhalen collapsed onto his belly, legs spread wide, various wetness oozing.
“Gersha ne kurat,” Bloodraven said, repeating it when Yhalen didn’t move. The chain was caught again and pulled and Yhalen reluctantly dragged to the edge of the pallet before he could make his watery limbs work and get his feet under him. Walking was intolerable. It hurt bad enough to make his eyes tear and with that excuse to justify it, he let the wetness trail freely down his cheeks. He stumbled in Bloodraven’s wake, pulled along like a unwilling dog to the half filled basin.
“Gersha ne kurat,” Bloodraven said once more and spun Yhalen, taking the wet rag and swiping between his legs. Yhalen shivered, jerking away.
“Don’t—don’t!” he cried, mortified. To be raped by the creature was torment enough, much less be cleaned of the evidence afterwards by him. “I can do it.”
He snatched at the wet rag, hardly able to see straight from the tears and the shame and the hurt.
Bloodraven lifted a brow, repeated the phrase that Yhalen assumed meant to clean himself once more, before taking up his sheathed sword and dagger and fastening them about his waist and leaving the tent.
Yhalen’s knees gave way and he crumpled, sobbing and furious with himself for the weakness. He sat for a long while, wet rag clutched to his chest, before his knees began to ache from the angle they were bent and his body began to tremble from the cool of the evening—or perhaps the advent of shock.
Shakily he rose, wringing out the bloody rag in the basin and bending to wash the blood off his thighs and more cautiously dab between his buttocks to clean away the mess there. More warm tears traced a path down his face as he did. With chattering teeth he gingerly put the rag back in the basin and crept back to the pallet, easing his aching body down and pulling soft furs around him as he curled in upon himself.
He’d not cried much before this, save for the reflexive reaction to the pain. He couldn’t stop it now.
Alone, with the hurt slowly fading, he couldn’t make the tears stop, couldn’t hold back the sobs as it hit him—truly hit him that this might be what the rest of his hopefully brief life would be made up of, being used in the basest manner at the whim of creatures that he couldn’t overcome. Treated like a dog—worse than a dog, because men didn’t rape their dogs.
Men. These weren’t men and didn’t play by the rules of men. What their motives were, other than to swoop down on the lands of the south to pillage, murder and rape, he didn’t know. Grandfather had gone to the gathering at Nakhanor to discuss those possible motives and human men’s actions in regard to them. The thought of what his grandfather would think, to see him crying like a woman—made him stifle his sobs and try and pull his shattered nerves together.
He was in somewhat less embarrassing a state when Bloodraven returned, damp and clean from what had probably been a stop by the brook. On his heels came Vorjd, who had in his arms a great stone bowl that smelled of roasted meat. The slave put it down with a word and left, returning in short order with a wineskin. He left this time not to return, and Bloodraven sat down on the stool by his armor rack and stabbed at the chunks of meat and what might have been roasted root vegetables with his knife.
Yhalen’s stomach growled rebelliously, assaulted by the smells and so empty that it made his eyes water from the prospect of food. He wouldn’t beg for it. He’d starve first. So best not to look at all.
Best to turn his back and sit there, knees drawn up to his chest and think of unappetizing things, like rotting flesh riddled with maggots and stinking with decay.
The pallet creaked with weight and Yhalen flinched, caught unawares and cursing the ogre who could rise and move so quietly despite his size.
“Fajkur,” Bloodraven said and stabbed a piece of seared meat with the point of his dagger and extended it to Yhalen.
Yhalen stared, wide-eyed, hunger warring with pride.
“Fajkur,” Bloodraven repeated, irritation creeping into his voice. It seemed ridiculous to go hungry and be punished for it when the meat was right under his nose, unasked for. He hadn’t groveled for it.
So what harm taking it?
He snatched it, somewhat more desperate than he’d have liked. It was warm on the outside, but still rare within and blood and juices ran down his chin. But it was unbelievably good. He felt lightheaded from the taste—from the sheer wonder of it inside his mouth. He finished his chunk and licked his fingers, staring under his lashes at the rest of Bloodraven’s supper still within the bowl. The ogre picked a few more choice hunks for himself, then sat the bowl down with its few remaining scraps and waved at Yhalen, repeating the word Yhalen assumed meant ‘eat’. He didn’t hesitate this time.
And when he’d finished, Bloodraven caught his arm and pulled him almost into his lap, this time with the intent of tipping up the large wineskin and allowing the strong bitter ogre brew to stream into Yhalen’s mouth. He’d probably have had a hard time handling the great skin himself, but it was embarrassing to be fed from it so. Still, with his back to Bloodraven’s chest and his naked rear pressed against his groin, he supposed wriggling about in indignant struggle ought to be avoided He swallowed more than he’d have chosen for himself and choked and coughed from the bitterness of it. The ogre laughed and pushed him away, sitting both empty bowl and wineskin aside, while he pulled off his boots and ran long, strong fingers up and down the arch of his feet. Bloodraven produced a short, thick pipe and stuffed it with strong smelling dried herbs, then lit it and took a long, slow drag of scented smoke. He lay back finally with his trousers loosened, his feet and chest bare, and one hand behind his black haired head as he rested on the piled mass of his pillows, sucking at the pipe. Lashes fluttered over gold eyes, and the angular face relaxed into lines of contentment. The sounds of other ogres encroached the walls of the tent from outside, loud and raucous with the occasional cry of pain drawn from victims Yhalen preferred not to put faces to, but here it was quiet and calm and still.
Huddled against the far end of the pallet, Yhalen thought Bloodraven might have drowsed off.
Hoped it to be so, for the ogre might well sleep the entire night away and not bother him further. But it was not to be. Without quite opening his eyes, Bloodraven murmured a few soft words.
Yhalen, of course, had no inkling what the ogre said. Perhaps it wasn’t even directed at him.
Perhaps whatever narcotic was in the pipe had plunged Bloodraven into a half waking dream.
But the golden eyes slitted open and the phrase was repeated. One large hand slid to the chain resting on the furs and gently tugged Yhalen towards him. Yhalen reluctantly complied, crossing the distance over the furs on hands and knees until he knelt between the ogre’s legs, trembling with horrified expectation.
Once more the phrase was repeated and Bloodraven’s hand slid down to the loosened opening at his crotch, pulling lazily at the laces until the flaccid length of him slipped free.
“No,” Yhalen said softly, understanding, finally, what the ogre wished and refusing to willingly participate in his ravishment.
Bloodraven’s hand tightened on the chain, forcing Yhalen’s head down until his face was close enough to the ogre’s crotch to feel the heat emanating from the organ there.
“I won’t,” he spat, teeth clenched. “Rape me if you will—I can’t stop you—but I won’t cooperate in it, monster.”
He crouched there, face pressed to Bloodraven’s lower belly, hands braced on Bloodraven’s hard thighs and thought, that if the ogre really wished, he could be forced in this as well as the other. The hand moved to his hair, fingers tightening around his neck, applying press
ure. If the ogre snapped his neck, he thought dismally, at least it might be the last indignity he suffered at their hands.
But after a moment of painful tightness, he was jerked backwards, flung to the end of the pallet as the ogre rose, fastening the laces of his leather trousers, then pulling on his boots. Bloodraven grabbed the chain again, this time at the far end and with a jerk of his arm, yanked the spike out of the earth.
He wound the loose end around his fist and jerked Yhalen to his feet, dragging the young man behind him, out of the tent and into the darkness of night. Yhalen staggered, trying to keep up with Bloodraven’s long, purposeful strides. He went to his knees once, in the trampled grass between a row of tents, and the ogre paused to jerk him up, finally flinging Yhalen before him and back onto the grass at the edge of a bonfire around which gathered a great many full-sized ogres.
Bloodraven barked something, loud enough to be heard over the racket of a dozen ogre voices. The clamor died, numerous gold eyes darting towards them. Bloodraven said something else, seething and disdainful from the sound of his voice.
A large body shifted from the gathering of large bodies, gold glinting in the light of the fire, eyes narrowed and face tight with controlled anger. There was no mistaking him this time. It was most certainly the ogre that had led the party that had captured Yhalen. The one that had come very close to killing him. Kragnor Deathclaw, according to Vorjd.
Yhalen froze, like a rabbit surrounded by wolves, nails digging into the hard earth, eyes glued in horror at the approaching ogre. Kragnor Deathclaw didn’t look at him, his eyes instead fixed on Bloodraven, his huge hand—a hand so much larger than Bloodraven’s—caressing the scarred hilt of his dagger. He said something crass and amused, and the ogres behind him laughed. But there was nervousness in the laughter—for even Yhalen saw that there was animosity between these two. And it was an animosity that the others were wary of.
Bloodraven spoke, calm and cool, as he tossed the end of Yhalen’s chain to the ground between Yhalen and Kragnor Deathclaw.