Lilith's Collar
Copyright© 2025 by Billy Drakkar
Chapter 2
Fantasy Sex Story: Chapter 2 - Farholde sits on a crumbling empire's edge, having displaced goblins for lands and mines. Amid human wars, orcs become mercenaries, evolving into organized threats. Forbidden sites of Lilith's worship dot the land. Hero Jheren stops a dark ritual but gets collared, turning into female Jhia, bound to the goblin Hobbs, and the orc Goresh. Jhia battles new desires while learning of the empire's plots to harness Lilith's power. Trapped in schemes of men, goblins and orcs, Jhia navigates her new life
Caution: This Fantasy Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Mult Coercion NonConsensual Reluctant Slavery Lesbian Heterosexual TransGender Fiction High Fantasy Magic BDSM Humiliation Rough Oral Sex Transformation
A month ago.
Hobbs sits back in an imperial mess tent turned into a goblin warren, balls-deep in the throat of a ruined village girl, wishing the Empire would supply prettier women. He’d been told there were beauties among the war spoils, the kind with soft, clear skin and fat, juicy tits. But those girls weren’t found in the goblin tents. They only seemed to get the homely ones.
The imperials had learned that goblins need a steady diet of cunts and throats to stay motivated enough to murder for them, but they figured the green little monsters wouldn’t be picky.
The girls they send to the goblin regiments look like this one: a dull-eyed, dishwater-blond nothing with a pair of milk bags that still sagged despite their small size. She’s got scars around her neck from rope burns, a mouth lined with too few teeth, and a rut-ruined hole between her legs that gets wet when someone pisses on her. Yet, Hobbs thinks, at least this one knows how to work a throat. He’s trained her well, better than the other wretches.
He pats her head, feeling the way she shudders when he does it. She’s not scared, not anymore. If anything, she’s eager, waiting for the warm flood in her belly and the euphoric high that comes naturally from goblin jizz. If he yanked her off now and told her to crawl under the bunks and wait for his next urge, she’d do it, tail between her legs and the barest flicker of hope that maybe she’d get another seed-ration before the sunrise.
She gags and coughs. He likes that; it’s like a musical drum, a wet vibrato against his cock’s head. He presses his thumb into her cheek, making her eyes water as he turns them up to meet his scrutiny.
“That’s it, push past it,” he growls. “Swallow around that cock, the way your throat works when you do gets my balls working hard to make your supper.”
Hobbs glances over at the neighboring cot where Grish is busy working over his own whore. Grish is bigger, uglier, with a flat nose and a jaw that juts out like a shovel. He’s rutting the girl while she lies on her back, legs in the air. Grish stands between them, shoving her knees apart, and pushes into her with heavy, grunting thrusts.
Hobbs thinks Grish lacks creativity, but the way the goblin’s face lights up as he pounds away, eyes rolling back, you’d think he was fucking the high empress herself.
The woman beneath Grish is moaning, though Hobbs knows it’s mostly habit. Her skin is sallow, ribs poking through in ladder rungs, and her legs are covered in purple bruises shaped exactly like goblin fingers. She’s been bred before. Her nipples are cracked and dribbling thin, blue-white milk. There are two goblin children somewhere in the back of the camp that look just like Grish, down to the splay-footed toes and the jutting chin.
“Squeal!” Grish snarls, slapping her flank with a meaty hand. “You want me to breed you, don’t you, you fuck-hog?”
The girl whimpers obligingly, and Grish snorts. They all whimper. It’s the best way to keep the abuse to a minimum and make a goblin like Grish feel powerful, and come faster. The girl had learned that compliance was a matter of survival, and Grish could make things much worse for her.
On the other side of the tent, little Ketch is busy teaching his comfort girl a trick with her tongue. He’s more patient than the rest, and his student is bright-eyed and still has most of her teeth, which is rare in this company. Ketch keeps instructing her to “whirl it” and “make a circle, dammit,” and each time she fails, he gives her a gentle bop on the nose, like housebreaking a puppy.
“Look,” says Ketch, pausing to admire his cock. “Look, I’ll show you again. You have to—” He demonstrates, flicking his tongue in a spiral motion, licking his lips, and making his point clear. Hobbs thinks Ketch looks like he’s way too good at that not to earn a tease later.
The girl tries, fails, then giggles. Ketch doesn’t slap her; he just sighs and leans back, letting her resume her work. It’s almost domestic, Hobbs thinks, if you ignore the stink of sweat, piss, and the musky tang of everyone else’s nut that fills the tent.
Throughout the tent, some thirty goblins are rutting, resting between ruts, or are bargaining and arguing over holes to rut in. The debauchery and filth around him paint them all as little better than animals. Hobbs tried to picture himself elsewhere. He tried to imagine the taverns he’d heard soldiers speak of. Where the whores were clean and pretty. Where they danced and sang for you while you recovered between rounds. A place where those same soldiers had returned from broke, because whores like that could earn coin.
The tent flap snaps in the wind, and beyond it, the cold air smells of cedars and campfire. Hobbs closes his eyes, letting the girl finish her job while he hangs on to the scent. When he cums, he holds her nose shut to make sure nothing leaks while she seals her lips around the base of his shaft, gulping. She keeps sucking, as he knew she would, trying to get as much nectar out of his piss hole as she can. When he pushes her off, she wipes drool from her mouth on the back of her hand, then crawls under the cot to curl up on the soiled rags and hides that make up her bed.
There’s movement at the entrance. The figure that stands silhouetted against the campfires is a squat, broad-shouldered orc with arms like beer barrels and a gut that hangs over his belt. His tusks are short and rounded, and his armor, marked with the sunburst insignia of the imperial auxiliary, is pulling double duty as a sausage casing.
He’s here to fetch them. Hobbs can smell the impatience from here.
“Oi, cocksocks!” the corporal barks. “On your feet, now.”
Grish finishes with a snarl, pulling out and wiping himself on the girl’s hair before standing up. Ketch tugs his pants on and gives his comfort girl a gentle pat, which she returns with a hopeful little smile. Hobbs stands last, tucking himself away and ignoring the pointed stare the orc gives him. Around the room, the other goblins do the same.
The orc paces into the tent, steps making the planks on the ground rattle on the frozen mud.
“Commander’s orders,” the orc says, “Grish, Hobbs, Ketch, with me. The rest of you, stay here and keep your peckers in your pants.”
The other goblins grumble, but obey.
The orc turns to leave, pausing at the exit.
“And clean yourselves up, for Lilith’s sake. You’re not animals, not unless you want to go back to the pens.”
Hobbs’ jaw tightened. He thought of the iron bars digging into his spine and learning to bite and scratch before he could speak. The Empire had kept infants in those cages, fed them just enough to survive, and beaten obedience into their bones. Now they had the gall to act superior when a goblin behaved like what they’d made him.
Ketch giggles. Grish spits on the floor. Hobbs stares at the orc’s sagging ass as he waddles away, then at the girl under his cot. She looks back at him with wide, wet eyes, and for a second, Hobbs thinks she’s going to beg him not to leave.
Instead, she gives him a small, dumb smile and buries her face in the blankets, content in the high he’s left her with and ready to wait for his return.
Hobbs follows Corporal Eck out, past the rows of tents and guards huddled around campfires, to where the commander waits. Night is close now, the sun orange and low, lighting the camp in a rusty haze. Hobbs keeps his hands in his pockets and his ears pricked for trouble. In the empire, goblins are only ever two steps from being killed to satisfy an officer’s foul mood for even imagined disobedience.
He thinks about the girl, about her tongue and her obedience, and for a moment, he almost pities her. Then he thinks of the children being raised as fodder for the empire, and the pity evaporates.
They’re all fodder, in the end.
The orc leads them through the cart-rutted lanes of the encampment, boots crunching through the crusted snow. The official start of spring had been weeks ago, but winter hadn’t released its grip this far north. Hobbs keeps his head down, his thoughts far from his surroundings. He distracted himself from thoughts of whatever suicide mission that they were meant for with dreams of his next life turning out far better than this one. Grish and Ketch walk beside him, the former cracking his knuckles, the latter humming tunelessly.
The commander’s tent is set apart from the rest with a canvas twice as thick, with guards posted at the flap. The interior glows with the golden light of oil lamps, and the reek of incense and spices rolls out from the entrance. Inside, a circle of brass-bound chests and collapsible desks forms a throne room for the man in charge: an imperial officer who sits behind a desk where a helmet, forged to resemble a snarling wolf, rests. The man had a thin, patrician face, and eyes the color of a goblin whore’s shit.
Hobbs knows him by reputation. Here is Captain Oster, the man who once ordered an entire company of goblins skinned alive, roasted alive, and fed to the other goblins for falling back during a skirmish. Hobbs bitterly remembered their taste. Oster likes to be feared. He also likes to remind everyone precisely where they stand. Most goblins that stepped into this tent never returned to their own.
“Here they are,” grunts Eck, snapping to attention.
Oster doesn’t bother to look at them right away; he’s busy studying orders and reports that surround the helmet on his desk. The orc waits, arms folded. Eventually, Oster curls the paper he holds into a scroll and gives the goblins a long, slow once-over. His lips curl in contempt.
“Are these the best you could scrape up, Ekk?” he says.
“Yes, sir. All three made it through last season’s thinning. That one,” Ekk jerks his head at Grish—”has two confirmed officer kills. The little one is best with locks and poison. And this one,” He gestures at Hobbs. “reads and writes, can even do numbers. Means he’s got a mind.”
Oster seems unimpressed. “Goblins with minds are dangerous. I prefer them savage.”
He stands, hands behind his back, and paces in front of them.
“You’re here because the Empire needs things done that proper soldiers can’t do. You’re here because you’re expendable. But if you’re very lucky, and don’t fuck this up, you get to live another day.”
He circles them, boots quiet on the woven carpets.
“Tonight, you hit the Cithian camp. You three,” he looks at them in turn, “will go in and sow chaos. Targets are officers and the spell-slingers. You see a wizard, you cut their throat. You see an officer, do the same, but bring back their sigil. If you see something that looks important or expensive, bring it to me. You see a whore, keep it in your pants and move the fuck on. Clear?”
“Sir,” they say in unison.
“Don’t get caught. Don’t get clever. You get one chance. Each of you bring me proof of an officer kill, or don’t come back.”
Ekk grins, showing yellowed tusks. “They’re ready, sir.”
Oster dismisses them with a flick of the wrist, already bored.
Back outside, the orc brings them to a supply tent, where another orc with a split lip and a head shaved to the scalp is handing out rations and kits. There are racks of knives, clubs, and a battered trunk marked with goblin runes: forbidden, dangerous.
Ekk points at the trunk. “You three get your pick. Lilith’s touch makes it all nastier tonight. Don’t waste it.”
Grish is already pawing through the trunk, grabbing a black bladed dagger and a length of garrote wire. Ketch selects a bundle of glass vials of poison, each stoppered with a different-colored wax. Hobbs waits, letting the other two take what they want. He’s already got the only weapon he needs: his mind.
He watches the shelves surrounding the quartermaster. There are items like bone charms, tiny skulls painted in blue ink, leather straps wound with copper, tangles of dead beetles bound in resin, along with many other cheap spell components. Hobbs knows what most of them do, or at least what they’re supposed to do. He selects three: a raven’s skull burnt black (for darkness), a sphere of milky quartz (invisibility), and a vial of iron flecks (for shatter).
He pockets them and turns to see Ekk watching him.
“You’ll need to prep those,” Ekk says. “Spells don’t work if you haven’t got the juice in you.”
“I know how it works,” Hobbs replies. “I get three a night. Maybe four, if I’m careful with my mana.”
Ekk shrugs. “Just don’t blow your load early, Hobbs. Make it back, you make me look good. I’ll make sure you get a fresh girl out of the next bunch, I’m sure you’re tired by now of the one you got.”
Hobbs looks to him, “Only if I can keep them both.”
Ekk scoffs, “Don’t be greedy.”
Ketch grins, eager. “What happened last month?”
Ekk bares his teeth. “They got caught by the Cithians. Skinned and hung by their toes. Heard they’re still screaming.”
Ketch stops grinning.
Grish spits, then stuffs the garrote into his sleeve. “I don’t plan on screaming. Plan on killing.”
Hobbs keeps his thoughts to himself. He knows the odds: three goblins sent to kill officers in a camp with hundreds of enemy soldiers. Only the empire would think this a good idea. Still, he prefers these odds to what would happen if they refused the order.
He fingers the raven’s skull in his pocket, channeling his mana into it, the promise of perfect darkness. With the new moon, the magic will be less likely to flicker out or be countered. He wonders, briefly, what it might be like to impress the empire enough that he gets sent from the front lines to the academy to study real magic. Then, he remembers he’s a goblin. If they thought he had any real power, he’d be dead.
The orc quartermaster throws each of them a cold sausage and a brick of molded bread. “Rest up. You leave at dusk.”
Hobbs and the others are carried by wagon to the trenches at the extreme front of the line. Grish is quiet, brooding, already picturing the bloodbath to come. Ketch is bouncing on his toes, excited and scared at the same time. Inside the trench, Hobbs sits quietly, considering the future. He could run, maybe, but they’d likely catch him and make a painful example of him. Where would he go, besides? No, better to see what the night brings.
He closes his eyes and imagines the Cithian camp, men whom he is allowed to kill, allowed to vent his pains against. Then, quietly, he wonders if, just maybe, he’ll ever get to decide something for himself that matters for more than trying not to die.
The Cithian camp sprawls across a stony hilltop like a clump of deadly glowing mushrooms, each tent lit up from within, every torch blazing. They’re ready, Hobbs thinks. They know every new moon is a goblin holiday.
Grish leads the way, belly-crawling through the field of spent arrows and the frost-covered corpses of recent battles. He has the strongest drive, the lowest center of gravity, and a deep, suicidal urge to die gloriously. Ketch brings up the rear, light on his feet, softly tittering as he goes, hands clutching his vials like they might vanish if unattended.
Hobbs keeps to the middle, checking for trip wires and listening for patrols. The Cithians aren’t idiots; their perimeter is thick with traps, bells on threads, sharpened stakes. Twice, Grish nearly blunders into an alarm, only for Hobbs to hiss him still and let Ketch disarm it with nimble fingers.
At the enemy trenches, they search for a way to cross and move unseen, but the defenses appear too formidable to risk. Ketch uncorks a wax-stoppered vial and pours out a dollop of black fluid onto his hand, licking it off before Hobbs can tell him not to. A minute later, Ketch’s skin ripples, sweat beads pop along his nose, his mouth splits into a wild goblin grin, and he’s up and guiding them along a zigzag path as if he can see a way to dodge every buried glyph, every alarm, and every alert gaze.
Ketch’s brain runs hot when he’s high. He’s perfect at this, right up until the crash. Hobbs follows, admiring how the little bastard uses his gifts with the eagerness of a dog chasing a squirrel. He leads them down into and back out the other side of a trench crawling with Cithians. There are fewer awake than Hobbs expects, and most are bedraggled, slumping exhausted against the muddy walls while their neighbors sleep around them.
The three goblins gather themselves in a muddy, smelly hole that was last week’s latrine for the camp soldiers. They are accustomed to worse odor; the stench of their own tent has dulled their sense of smell. Ketch shivers and appears to be suffering a seizure as he fumbles for another vial, downing half its contents in one desperate gulp. The three of them wait for the antidote to kick in before moving into the camp.
They reach the first tent. Inside, the light is muted, voices low: a watch officer and his scribe, hunched over a board game and a flask of something sweet and sharp. Grish holds up two fingers, then slits his own throat with the edge of his hand. Ketch grins, understanding.
Grish goes in first, crawling under the canvas and appearing between the two men like a conjured imp. He grabs the officer by the hair, yanks back hard, and slashes his throat. The scribe’s mouth falls open, and Grish jams his knife in it before slamming his head against the table. Blood spatters the game board. A thin stream of smoke flows up from the back of the scribe’s head, traveling to reform the black dagger in Grish’s hand.
Hobbs ducks in behind him and searches the room. There’s a coat on a hook, stripes of rank on the collar. He rips it off, tearing the insignia loose. Ketch darts around, opening the flask and splashing its contents over the tent floor, then sets it alight with a spark from his flint.
They’re gone before the bodies stop twitching.
They look further uphill for the next target, a larger tent with a ring of guards outside, standing at attention. This is trouble; there’s no way through without breaking formation or drawing eyes.
Ketch offers a solution, yet again. He uncorks a vial and dabs the tips of several darts. He hands one to each of them, keeping the rest for himself.
They wait for a patrol to pass, then launch the darts together. Two of the guards stagger, clutching at their necks, while the third topples backward, dead before he hits the ground. Hobbs runs forward, darkness spell at the ready, and lets it burst in a sphere around the entrance. For a heartbeat, the world is blind.
He slips inside, following his nose, his ears, and touch. There are four men at a table, panicking. Hobbs feels for the closest voice and slashes upward, feeling the wet heat as the man’s guts spill out. Another turns to run out of the darkness and catches Ketch’s dart in his eye, dropping with a whimper.
The spell wears off, and Hobbs sees the last two men: one grabbing for a sword, the other fumbling at a signal whistle. He dives for the signalman, pinning his hand to the tabletop with a dagger. The sword-bearer makes to cut him, but Grish is there, catching him from behind with the garotte, cutting off his scream before sawing the wire through the rest of his neck.
Hobbs collects the insignia from their uniforms, then feels a wave of heat as Ketch ignites another flask. The three retreat, smoke rolling behind them.
The alarm is up now. Horns wail across the camp, boots pounding on frozen earth. Hobbs ducks behind a latrine and waits, letting squads of angry Cithians stream past in pursuit of phantoms. Grish and Ketch are nowhere in sight.
Hobbs moves on his own now, zigzagging through the confusion. The next tent is the largest, draped with blue banners and heavy perfume that only adds to the stench of old sweat. This will be the general’s den.
He circles, finds a crack between the tent and the groundsheet, and slides along its bottom like a snake. Just outside, he waits, breath frozen, listening to two officers argue over a map. They’re distracted, shouting about troop movements and casualties. Perfect.
He casts his darkness spell again, flooding the tent with thick black magic. Hobbs follows the voices, lunges for the first, and stabs upward until the shouting stops. The other man tries to run, but Hobbs trips him, then pins him down and mangles the soft spots at the back of the neck with his dagger.
When he releases the spell, the tent is a charnel house, and Hobbs is alone except for the bodies.
He roots around for insignia; he has enough, but greed is its own reward. He finds a large decorative vial containing an elixir of healing, the sort that is bought for more than a commoner could earn in a lifetime. The red liquid within glows softly, silver light suspended within it like stars. This might actually buy his freedom. He wraps it carefully and stashes the jeweled vial in his coat. He then notices something strange: a pair of boots sticking out from beneath the general’s cot.
He checks them. They’re not empty boots. The general himself, hiding like a rat. The man is trembling, eyes rolling in his head.
Hobbs smiles. He kneels, pulling the general out by the ankles, and puts the tip of his knife to the soft flesh under the chin.
“Please,” whispers the general. “You don’t have to—”
Hobbs leans in close. “I do.”
He slits his throat, then cuts the insignia from the man’s lapel. He lets the blood soak the rank, then tucks it away for Ekk.
The tent flap rips open. A squad of Cithian guards, wild-eyed and furious, piles in. Hobbs rolls to the side, grabs a blue banner, and hurls it at their faces. He pops the shatter vial against the tent pole, and it explodes. Shards of wood fly like arrows towards the new arrivals, and the canvas collapses, burying the men in their own headquarters.
He slips out through the chaos, half crawling, half running, letting the confusion of fire and death cover his retreat.
The entire camp has now exploded as if a full-blown battle were taking place. The soldiers abandon the fires meant as distractions and prioritize hunting the goblins. It’s every goblin for themselves now, and Hobbs is far less worried about Grish and Ketch than he is for his own skin. He is at the center of the enemy encampment and surrounded by Cithian soldiers. He pulls out the sphere of quartz, mentally calculating his remaining reserve of mana and how long the invisibility will last. It’s too soon to rely on the spell to get him out of here.
With soldiers closing in on him from all sides, even Hobbs, who has little faith that gods exist above a world this ugly, sends up a prayer to Lilith, to whatever spirit that can keep a goblin alive when bigger and more dangerous things are everywhere.
Hobbs darts between tents, scurrying under the flaps at their sides each time trouble approaches. The quartz stays in a death grip while he hides under cots, behind footlockers; anything bigger than a goblin becomes his lifeline. At any moment, he remains ready to cast his final spell and run out the rest of his mana while fleeing invisibly for his life.
His luck runs out when he ducks into a tent full of live chickens that squawk and try to fly out of their closed cages in vain, feathers beating against the sides with raucous panic. Hobbs’s scent provokes instinctive terror in creatures small enough to be devoured by a goblin.
Then he hears it, a yowl of goblin fury. Grish is on the move with no attempt at stealth. He’s been found, and the nearest patrol moves off in pursuit, more interested in the obvious goblin than in chickens. Hobbs moves out behind them, flattening himself in the shadows between tents.
A burst of magic overhead illuminates the area beyond, where Grish stands clutching the hair on the severed head of a wizard with one hand while brandishing his dagger in the other. A dozen soldiers converge on him, pikes and swords at the ready.
Grish has nowhere to go and knows it. He charges them, smashing the head of the wizard into the face of the first Cithian he reaches with a wild overhead swing. The first pike to touch him spears him through the palm as the next soldier stabs at him. Grish bites through the pain and the man’s throat at the same time, tearing free a mouthful of flesh before letting his knees buckle, and rolling under the forest of pikes that fork towards him. He drives the knife up into the soft gut of the one who speared him and flings his own blood in the eyes of another, laughing when it blinds him.
They shout orders, but Grish can’t hear the words over the roaring in his ears and the snapping of his own ribs as boots land again and again. He covers up, rolls, grabs an ankle, and bites deep. The goblin works at chewing through the man’s leg, while the steel tips of pikes pierce his flesh. The soldiers keep stabbing, in fear-fueled adrenaline, even after the goblin is dead.
A man whose left leg ends at a ruined ankle keeps screaming.
Hobbs had turned to flee when Grish charged, and didn’t look back. Finally, he makes it far enough to feel that the invisibility will hold past the front line. He casts his final spell and vanishes from sight. Hobbs moves quickly out of the camp, following their earlier route in reverse to return to the trench. The point at which they had crossed before was far more active now, however.
A sudden shriek, high, shrill, and full of pain, cut through the cold air. Hobbs presses himself to the side of the trench and peers over the edge to see that Ketch is surrounded below. The glass vials from his bandolier are now in the hands of Cithian soldiers, who toss them back and forth, laughing as they prod and jab at their catch. Ketch is on his knees, arms bound behind him with a length of hemp cord. He’s bloodied, nose flayed open, and one eye swelling shut, but there’s something frantic and wild in the way his tongue flicks back and forth, tasting the air. Even mortally fucked, he looks for a way out.
Hobbs feels the old, sour taste of fear rising at the back of his mouth. Six men are laughing now, not loud, but with the low, satisfied grunts that come from the enjoyment of making something suffer. If Hobbs reveals himself now, he’ll join Ketch, and the boots of those men will be breaking his ribs and softening him up for worse to come. He creeps guiltily, down and through the trench, while the soldiers play rough. Hobbs does his best to ignore the sounds of Ketch whimpering and being broken while he finds a place where there is enough purchase in the mud that he can climb back out the other side and into the killing fields.
Alone, Hobbs crawls across the frosted field. He drops the invisibility spell just before mana sickness kicks in. He moves slowly across the withered ground, icicles that have formed on blades of grass crunching under his belly as he drags himself across them.
Behind him, the shouts and laughter fade, replaced by the far-off sounds of war horns sounding mournfully between Cithian camps. He keeps his head low and sights the distant line of trees beyond the field, the sparse starlight painting them a dead blue against the horizon. He’s exhausted, and his hands and feet are numb with frostbite. Dragging his belly and dick across the cold ground isn’t fun either. He forces himself to keep moving, fighting the urge to jump up and run. The enemies behind him are so incensed and alert that he would be racing arrows if he doesn’t get out of range first.
Hobbs hears the popping of a flare and immediately spreads out akimbo on the ground, his right cheek pressed to the earth, while his eyes roll and his ears perk in focused awareness. He impersonates a corpse among the many in time to watch as the field around him is bathed in yellow light. Hobbs dares to take shallow breaths, minimizing any chance that some eager Cithian might try some target practice on his small form. For the moment, while the flare still burns above him, he passes the time exploring his own thoughts while he stares at a nearby mound of orc bodies directly in front of his gaze.
The orc bodies are twisted and broken, their limbs protrude like broken branches in a woodpile. Blessedly, the stench of death and decay is muted by the cold. The bodies were stiff and frosted over into a grotesque monument, a twisted tribute to the carnage of war. Hobbs couldn’t help but wonder how many lives were lost in that single, chilling mound. A mercenary banner juts upward from the mass. An orc with an imperial arrow in the back of his neck was held upright by the banner’s pole and topped off the twisted corpse pile.
Hobbs studied the banner as the shadows cast by the flare walked during its descent. The flag was slack, only occasionally fluttering enough in the slight wind to reveal its sigil.
On the pennon, with an ocean blue background, was the image of a green hand clutching a three-corded braid. The cords of the braid were red, gold, and purple. They extended from both sides of the clenched fist to drape and unravel at the bottom hem.