Chapter 6

Memory came slowly. For a time, there was nothing but pain, and the taste of warm broth, pouring along his tongue, past his lips, the feeling of the rocking of the boat beneath his body, the humidity and the heat. Then, in flashes ... he saw the burning village, the small folk – too small to be adults, but too adult looking to be children – fleeing before the immense green men that emerged from the darkness, red eyes blazing, axes dripping with blood. Then...

Then it all grew fuzzy.

Awareness faded.

When it returned once more sight came with it – his eyes cracked open and Scimitar Darkblade once more knew himself, and knew where he was, for he recognized the hideous cawing noise at his ear. He jerked upright, his head swam, and he groaned. “Deathshade ... please ... I am already near enough to the grave...”

No time to be sleeping on the job, spiderborn, Deathshade spoke to him, his beak clicking as he leaned over the narrow rafter to peer down at the ebony skinnedd elf. We’re prisoners.

“Of who?” Scimitar asked – before the soft sound of surprise drew his attention. Jewel Millwheel was sitting up from where she had curled in the corner of the small, dark cabin. Her body was as slender and beautiful as ever – yet she had a haunted look to her eyes, and her body had been smeared with filth and oil from her time belowdecks. She threw herself, despite this, at Scimitar and her arms squeezed about his ribs.

“Oh Scim!” she exclaimed. “I was so afraid!”

The feeling of her body almost overcame the throbbing pain in his skull. Almost. Scimitar clenched his teeth, and bore it, while Jewel continued to babble.

“They killed everyone, and everyone they didn’t kill, they took, and you were so brave, but when that horrid winged thing struck you, I was sure you were dead, but you yet breathed, so I fed you broth and-”

“Shh, Jewel, shh!” Scimitar said, his hand going to the small of her back as he realized he was laying in a cheap hammock that seemed to have been made of scraps of sailcloth and bits of clothing tied together. The fact that a good deal of the clothing was Jewel’s was made apparent when his comforting hand slipped lower than her back and felt the sudden termination of her clothing – her pale rump filled his palm, and her cheeks flushed brightly, easily visible thanks to his underground adapted eyes of crimson.

“Oh Scim, I feared you would never wake up...” Jewel whispered, then leaned forward – her lips nearly touching his. The agony of his pounding head was not quite able to keep his manhood down, despite its best efforts, and so he was tenting rather impressively as her tongue and his met, her mouth smothering his questions and complaints in a soft, warm, wet neediness, the neediness of a girl who had been frightened near to death and now felt what all mortals did in such time: A need to feel life between their legs ... within their bodies. Her thighs scissored against his hips as she scrambled onto the hammock, and the lack of her leggings made it dangerously easy for her to grind her hot, sopping wet pech cunt against the bulge of his cock, soaking his blankets with juices far more fair than the sweat and fevers that he had been supplying for the past few days of fitful sleep.

The break came not from Scimitar’s weak protestations or Deathshade’s chuckling amusement, but from the door to the chamber bursting open and a creature that Scimitar only remembered from shadows and flames stepped into the room.

There had been three kinds of attackers at the pech village. The majority had been the green skinned beasts. But this female was of the second most common type – they seemed to come in colors of purple, teal and pale green, and this one was teal. She was taller than her greenskinned allies, rangier and thinner, with massive tusks that protruded from her lower jaw, giving her a piratical apperance only accentuated by the bandoleer of skulls that covered her truncated tunic, which was raggedly torn at the shoulders to leave her muscular, tattooed arms bared. A three horned hat perched atop her lime green hair, while her eyes glittered in gold and amusement alike.

She was also endowed enough in terms of fine feminine curves that a single tit was the size of Jewel’s head – and firm enough to bounce copper pieces off.

She spoke, in a drawling language that Scimitar had never heard before. Jewel, meanwhile, slid off Scimitar, spreading her arms wide. “S-Stay away from him!” she exclaimed, while the female beast strode forward, laughing and gently brushing Jewel aside, so she could look Scimitar over with her golden eyes. She licked her lips, and her long fingered hand stroked the bulge that still strained between his thighs. Scimitar groaned despite himself, while the beast tapped her chest with her free hand.

“Trolloc,” she said. Then she pointed at him.

“ ... Scimitar,” Scimitar said, hesitantly. “Scimitar Darkblade.”

Trolloc shook her head, then shouted. A moment later, two more beings came in. One was a male version of her.

The other was Melindan. She looked as haunted as her daughter, but she had been dressed in a similar tunic and leggings pair as Trolloc and her fellow beast. Her eyes widened as she saw Jewel and Scimitar. “Scim!” she exclaimed.

“Mother,” Jewel said, her voice cold, causing Melindan to flinch.

But Trolloc gestured to herself. “Trolloc.” She pointed at the fellow beast, though he was purple to her teal. “Trolloc.” Then she patted Melindan’s head. “Goblin.”

“ ... goblin?” Scimitar whispered, then his eyes widened. “Ah.” He pointed at himself. “Spider Elf.”

“Spider Elf,” the Trolloc girl said, nodding slowly. Then she pointed at herself. “Azighad Marrowcrack.”

Scimitar nodded. “Scimitar Darkblade,” he said.

The other trolloc rumbled to Azighad, and she laughed, then responded with a spate of amused, drawling words that Scimitar could neither follow nor parse. But then Deathshade cawed and cackled. She has the right of it – you’d have better been named Horsepike.

“You can understand her?” Scimitar asked.

Of course, the cantankerous bird crowed, his wings mantling, then spreading arrogantly. Birds speak all the tongues of the ground walkers. They’re not hard.

Scimitar scoffed and shook his head. “Translate for me, then,” he said, while Azighad regarded him speculatively. The bird, that is, not Scimitar.

“What is this bird?” she asked. “We couldn’t chase it away from you.”

Scimitar shrugged. “He is Deathshade – my companion. But I have questions for you. Why did you attack a helpless village? Why-”

“Attack a helpless village?” Azighad snorted, loudly. “We didn’t attack your village. We picked up a shipment of captives from a goblin transport heading back – and from the sound of things, you people put up a hell of a fight. One of the Hoard’s frigates were sunk.” She shook her head and put her hands on her hips. “It seems to me the warchiefs have bitten off more than they can chew – but that’s not me or mine’s problem.”

“Who do you serve, if not your ... chiefs?” Scimitar asked, hesitantly.

Azighad laughed, then smacked her palm against her chest, causing the skull bandoleer she wore to rattle and clack, the empty eye-sockets holding a deadly promise. She leaned forward and purred. “Whomever pays best in blood or silver, we follow. We’re heading to a neutral port, to see what the freebooters there will pay for some strange pale goblins and a spider elf like yourself.” She put her finger on his nose and pushed him back into the hammock. The motion left him swaying mentally – his body was so weak that even a gentle tap like that left him sprawled backwards. He gripped the edges of the hammock and managed to glare up at her.

“You’re pirates,” he said.

“And proud of it. My father and grandfather spilled blood for the Hoard. They speak a good game, about shattering chains and freeing people from their old ways. Me? I don’t give a good goddamn about some other slave when it’s my back that will be breaking on that anvil.” Azighad tossed her hair back with one hand, her long light blue ponytail draping over one shoulder. “Ain’t that right, Thurgat?”

“Right it is, Captain Marrowcrack,” Thugat, the other trolloc, said.

“If you take us back to the High Queen at Sunshadow, she and her court will pay handsomely for me,” Scimitar said, trying to keep his voice even.

“You may even be telling the truth, my ebon cutie,” Azighad said, reaching down to tease the tip of his ear with one blunt finger. That small gesture shot a tingling rush down Scimitar’s spine and his weakened state left him unable to resist the small mewl that escaped his lips. “But we’d never survive the voyager there, not with your people riled up, now would we?” Her eyes sparkled. “Though...” Her eyes slid along his body. ‘Hmm, there are reasons enough to want to go for more of these beautiful elves, eh, Thugat?”

“They’re a bit skinny for my tastes,” Thugat said, chuckling – even as his hand reached down, taking advantage of his long arms to manage to grip the heavy buttocks of the blushing Melindan. Seeing his former adventuring partner and the wife of his best friend gasp and blush and squirm as she was groped filled Scimitar with a rush of anger and eagerness in equal measures – his shaft was straining against the thin, crude blanket that he had draped over his hips. Azighad noted that, and her voice crooned out.