by Guin Archer
“Roprah is one of the Xxyx’s los’kah. She mates with him often.” He cleared his throat and patted the big beast on his shoulder. “He has sired many offspring off Your Sekhmet. They are a good match.”
One of your males? Plural? You hussy, you!
I couldn’t help but be a little proud of my girl if she was scoring with all the males. The fact that she had more than one was amazing. She really was a big, bad mamma-jamma.
“It is time for the Jiktau,” Kor said out of seemingly nowhere. When I turned back to him, I found him staring back out to the settlement.
At the risk of sounding like the ignorant I was…
“What is the Jiktau?”
The assessing glance he threw at me made me flinch. I knew I wasn’t this fucking fallen angel they all thought I was. I tried to tell them all that. I wasn’t pretending to be shit. Faking it, I knew, would just get me into more trouble than I already was in.
“It is the choosing of the Mahzri. It is they who deem a male fit for their first skol and status as Zikta or Gishtak.” He moved his Mahzri closer to mine, close enough to touch me if he reached out one of his long arms. His voice dropped more, growing more serious, but also…gentle. “You have not been on this land long, have You?”
I…didn’t know.
How long had I been away from my Earth? How long since my first death? I assumed I woke up immediately after each of my deaths, my body transported by some dark-magic to a new place, but I couldn’t be sure. Time was marked by seasons on Intau and by the rulership of their kingdoms. The Reign of High Lord Hardor, for example, could span the lifetime of an orc – a couple hundred winters compared to a human – and so I was left with only knowing ‘when’ I was by the weather and who ruled whichever country I arose in.
The torturous lives, too, tended to blend one into another. I know I’d seen at least five ‘natural’ winters on Intau. It was difficult to keep track in the far north where it was winter almost endlessly. A frozen wasteland of never-ending ice and snow.
By that basis, I figured I was somewhere around forty or forty-one now.
So, not knowing what else to say, I just shrugged my shoulders and bowed my head.
Kor grunted.
“Tell me of Your marks,” he said after a time of riding in silence. When I jerked, he persisted and looked his face pointedly towards my deformed hand.
“No,” I rasped right back. I felt suddenly freezing even in the tepid night air. I shivered under my cloak. “They are not something I wish to talk about. Ever.”
“You should never have been made kut, Innintani.”
What was I going to say to that? I knew what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him that no one should be made a slave. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t any different than Tan or Orla or Ruune. I was the same as any Gishtak on Luintak. I should’ve been free. Free and treated fairly and with respect as another living, breathing, feeling being. None of us should be thrown under the lash when we disobeyed orders that were designed to make us less than a steaming pile of dog shit compared to everyone else.
None of us should be raped because we weren’t seen as anything more than a vessel for their cocks to shuttle in and out of.
I kept silent.
A low barking sound, more like a horn blowing, descended on us from the wind. I felt Sekhmet stiffen under me and watched her pull her faceplates away from Roprah’s chipped and cracked ones. Then, she trumpeted loud and long.
“Woo!” I scrabbled for her shoulders to hold on since I had no reins. Even if I did, they wouldn’t have slowed down her catapulting run away from the Udon. The reins the Zikta used with their Mahzri was only one long piece of leather, fastened at either end to rings embedded in the left and right sides of the beasts just above their forward legs. Pulling on either end of the reins would prompt the Mahzri to go in whichever direction their riders prompted.
Sekhmet was outright running for the settlement, her trumpeting being met by another’s.
The wind blasting by me set my cloak to billowing, my hood flying off at the start, and my bells chiming incessantly. The run was almost as smooth as her fast walk and once I realized I wasn’t going to fall, I really began to enjoy the rush. I moved onto my knees, spreading them a little for balance, and arched up to peer over my girl’s right shoulder. When my hands hit her upper arm, she reached across herself to layer one sizable claw over both of my much smaller hands.
Looking behind me, I watched the Udon fade off into a bronze and gold outline on the dark horizon.
“Big Mama,” I told her fondly in my tongue, “you’re a lifesaver. I love you.”
She stopped her trumpeting only long enough to chitter quickly at me.
I took that as an ‘I love you, too, sweetie’.
Another female Mahzri met us at the outskirts of the settlement.
The torchlight on the black sandstone buildings, places that were solid, long-lasting structures rather than the hut I’d been in my first night with the Udon, lit against her dark hide. She was shades lighter than Sekhmet. She was more iron or steel rather than charcoal, like she’d been dusted by soot. Her plates were a little haggard, too.
It took me a minute for comprehension to dawn that she was old.
She and Sekhmet locked arms together, then nuzzled each other excessively. I knew I wasn’t crazy when I interpreted their quiet titters to each other as loving.
Then, without warning, the new female let go of Sekhmet to round her front so she could face me directly. She ‘looked’ me up and down before tugging me bodily off my girl’s back. I yelped and flopped around for a second until I realized she had a nice, firm hold on me and I was pressed with my body curled up into her chest. Her neck arched, bowing her head way down to ruffle her mouthplates and tendrils into my forehead and face.
One entire arm cradled along my back, her big claw cupped under my ass and mashing my thighs together with her long digits, while the other petted my side not pressed into her. She ‘talked’ over me to Sekhmet, both of them alternately making kissy-face with each other and warbling in their beastly speech.
I pressed my hands over my cheeks when they began walking side-by-side through the streets to hide my red cheeks.
I couldn’t remember back to when my Ma used to do this, but I felt obscenely and unquestionably like a baby or toddler handed off to a relative for cuddling. Especially with the stroking and occasional ‘kiss’ for me.
I half expected a meant-for-baby-cooed “isn’t she just darling” to erupt from either of them at any moment.
The females moved as freely through Granzee as the Mahzri did through the Udon. No one tried to stop them or move them. No one said anything. Instead, the Gishtak gawped at the two of them with wide eyes before either bowing their heads deeply or smiling so wide I thought the corners of their lips were going to hit the tips of their ears and their underbites would fall away without the support.
Or maybe they were looking at me?
The new female only set me down once we’d come to a stop beside a sunken arena.
I stepped up to the high walls, where there were only two sets of wide, shallow stairs down into its depths, and peered around. The pit was huge. I’m talking bigger than the Roman Colosseum. It was maybe fifteen feet from the top of the unguarded wall to the dirt floor. The walls themselves were made from the same red glass that Luintak was most famous for.
It was infamous for the Udon.
I was left alone at the wall while the two females walked its perimeter, chittering and warbling on about something I was utterly clueless about. I left them to it. Wasn’t any skin off my nose.
Turning around, I surveyed the yawning courtyard of space surrounding the pit. I called it an arena because there were step-bleachers arranged strategically around the pit and a large dais closest to it. The dais, when I moved to the edge of the sandstone monument, had a floor raised almost to my chin. It bore only an immense throne carved from the same stone right in its center.<
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There were odd indents in the backrest of the throne and purposely cut slots out of the armrests nearest the backrest. It was like it was designed to have additional space made for some body part I had no familiarity with. It wasn’t like the orc-people had tails or extra arms or anything. They didn’t have bladed spines. Nothing to make the design make any sort of sense.
Pushing away from the dais and the throne, done being interested in it, I puttered off towards the buildings. Not, however, too far away from Sekhmet and the elder female. I needed their protection. I wasn’t going to be taken as a slave again. No way, no how. I’d throw myself headfirst into the pit so I broke my fucking neck before I let anyone take me again.
I’d feel better if I could find a weapon to keep on me, though.
A distressed cry from my girl had me turning around from my halfway point to the buildings. She was galloping all-out towards me, the other one at her flank. Fear bubbled up in my gut and I crouched defensively, my hands loosely curled, as I looked for the threat.
…I didn’t see anything.
Sekhmet scooped me up, clacking and barking angrily down at me. It was only as she bundled my cloak tight around my limbs, balling me up, that I figured out she was mad at me.
“Da fuck! Don’t bark at me, you bitch!” I struggled to get free of the binding fabric and her too-strong arms. Like always, I was a dinky little shrimp boat without hope of freedom. “You’re the ones who left me alone. If you didn’t want me walking off, maybe you should’ve put a leash on me. Bitches. Assholes. Put me down!”
Not happenin’.
Instead, barking to the elder one in agitation, she stomped her way out in the same direction we’d come. All the while, I had the distinct impression she was scolding me like a child. I huffed and did my darndest not to stick my tongue out at her petulantly.
That wouldn’t win my case of being an adult at all.
The Udonak was more than halfway to being assembled by the time ‘we’ returned to it. The Horde stayed on the far outskirts of Granzee, not quite touching its borders, but close enough to see vague details in the walls of the sandstone buildings. There were underground streams and rivers that ran the expanse of Luintak’s lands – Mari’et told me that – and some of them bubbled up into pools. There were pools scattered throughout the huts being erected with calm efficiency.
Sekhmet bypassed them all.
She carried me straight to a vaguely familiar structure of dark canvas on the large side of wow. There, powerfully-built orc men were just finishing lashing the canopy to the hard-packed earth. Outside and nearby a flap of a neighboring tent – not a hut – were my attendants. My ladies. They were ferrying a plethora of things from a gargantuan pile of stuff into the hut.
Sekhmet parked herself right outside, keeping me wrapped up into her, and peered down at me with the most maternal, disapproving look I’d ever had the misfortune of receiving.
My lower lip pouted automatically.
This’s ridiculous! I’m being ‘bad-girl’d by what’s essentially a really fucking smart horse. She just grabbed me up like I was some naughty toddler that poked her finger in the wall socket and now she’s glaring at me. Bullshit!
“Let. Me. Go.” Each word was enunciated with a grunt as I kept trying to break free.
She snorted at me.
Rude much.
A volcanic chuckle met my ears from behind and I arched and stretched my whole spine backwards to see Hulk coming at me. His lips, gruesome slit and all, were pulled ever so slightly in one of his barely-there smiles. I scowled at him darkly, which only served to make him look giddier.
Fucking giddy! What the fuck nine-foot orc had any right to look giddy?!
Sekhmet finally let me go, but not to be free. Oh no. She handed me right over to the ugly bastard like I was a tidily-wrapped present.
I fought him, too.
“Put me down,” I snarled at him in the Horde’s Tongue.
He didn’t.
He bowed to sweep through the doorway. Dizziness swamped me, making me grunt when my head dipped towards the rug-strewn floor, then back up rapidly. His hand caught my scalp and prevented my neck from snapping uncomfortably from the swiftness of his movements.
Once we were inside, he banded an arm around my waist to keep me pinned to his front even as he dropped my feet to the ground. I tried to run. I tried to shove him off. But, really, it was like trying to topple the Leaning Tower of Pisa over with a fucking pool noodle.
That bitch hadn’t fallen in all these years and it wasn’t going down without a serious fight.
When his fingers released the lashes of my cloak, freeing it from my shoulders, I had the disheartening feeling that things were about to go sour – in the most intimate way, of course. And when he found the laces at my left hip that secured the bodice of my gauzy dress to me, that feeling turned to certainty.
“No! No no no!” I screamed and kicked my legs wildly, clipping the bastard until he crushed me, face down, into the bedding. As sumptuous as it had been the first time, still smelling like me from all the times I slept in the sheets in the omma, it caught me gently under his terrible weight.
“Uumat,” he whispered in my ear with reverent hunger.
Mine.
My arms and hands scrabbled for leverage, trying to pull my body out from under him.
My shouting could’ve brought down mountains, but no one came to my rescue. Frustrated and devastated tears stung my eyes. No one ever came. No one ever saved me. It didn’t matter who these people thought I was. Innintani. I’d curse the fucking word. I never wanted to hear it again because, no matter what they preached, it wasn’t going to save me from being raped.
My heart wrenching in my chest, I shut myself up. If no one was going to save me, I wasn’t going to give them the pleasure of hearing this beast destroy me.
“Uum kisa-uu,” he rasped his endearment for me again, though I still didn’t know its meaning, and skimmed his hands over my trembling, outstretched arms. They came down to my shoulders and wove under the cowl of my dress. He eased the clinging material gently away from my skin.
Gritting my teeth, I snapped my head back and scored a direct strike to his face. The clip of his bullring against my skull just about rattled my brain and I saw stars in my blackened vision for a second before I crawled away.
My headbutt had taken him by surprise.
At the ‘head’ of the bed, I whipped around to glare daggers into my rapist. He had a trickle of blood oozing down over his silvered bullring and he was blinking at me in obvious surprise.
Probably wasn’t used to his victims fighting back.
“I will take every piece of you I can,” I warned him flatly, my fisted hands blocking my chest protectively against his gaze. “I will tear you to ribbons and throw your black heart into the fires to watch it burn.”
He blinked, long and slow, then smiled.
Ah, fuck!
He lunged for me and I bolted, springing from the bedding like a jackal out of hiding. I made it only a literal foot off the bed when one of his hands shackled my right ankle. With my balance stolen, I fell to the ground, my arms stretching out to catch myself.
At the last possible second, I realized I needed to cushion my fall. I had to allow myself to follow through in my descent and only ease the force of my fall, not stop it outright, or I was going to end up with broken wrists. So that’s what I did…and once I was flat on my belly, I was being reeled back in.
My ribs still hurt some from when Mathai landed on me out that window and that not-horse kicked me in the stalls, so I was winded. It took me too long to recover.
The Tohtahk used my inaction to his advantage and plucked the ties loose to my dress, opening it up so he could take it off me. He was in the process of rolling me to my naked side when I stretched my leg out and kicked back, roundhouse-like, and clocked his ear and cheek with my heel.
It made his head jerk and I felt inordinately pleased with myself, if
only for a second.
He wasn’t phased. Not hardly. Instead, he yanked my dress off roughly. The fabric made my bells chime and I hated them. I fucking hated them. Despised them so much because they made this barbaric, awful moment cloud in a symphony of light and joyous sound.
Blind rage made me stupid.
If I couldn’t hurt him, I was doing the next best thing and taking the bells off.
I scored my nails into my flesh, digging for the incredibly thin, woven metal of the bands. I felt the keratin tearing away when it proved more forthcoming than the jewelry. Mewls of distress came out against my will, turning to outright sobs when the bastard snatched my wrists up and tugged them forcefully away from my skin.
“You fuck. You slime. You beast!” My curses were in English as I heaved and wrenched against his might. I was back to battling against him instead of myself.
He cooed down to me, his nose and bloodied bullring finding purchase against my temples and face. He nudged me like the Mahzri did each other, a soft nuzzle of sweetness that didn’t belong in this moment.
He moved to between my thighs, muscling my knees wide apart with his monstrous hips. His trou were still on, but the ties at their sides were loose. This allowed his raging cock to spring free and tap against his stomach. Vomit encroached in my throat as I looked at it anew, knowing I was as good as dead.
He snuck a hand under my back to force my chest up while the other released my hands to bunch up the bedding.
Free again, I turned rabid. I raked my still-intact nails across his chest, ripping out one of his piercings while I went. This earned me a savage bark of sound from both tones of his voice and a sharp, punishing smack against the outside of my thigh. I barely registered the pain of that slap, still in the throes of my desperate fighting.
I bit and hit. Kicked and scratched. I gave it everything I had against him, but it was all to no avail.
I was sobbing openly – and silently – when he finished positioning me the way he wanted me. He used one massive hand to shackle my wrists at my stomach while I was on my back. When he finally pulled back, he did that nose-glide-down-my-nose thing, then a tender brush of foreheads, before he crawled his way lower until one of his shoulders and his other hand kept my thighs spread.