Chapter 15

If you believe the myths and tales of ancient warriors in battle, then where Taiwo and myself stood, half-crouched back-to-back on a rock in a chasm while looked down on by a dozen or so enemies with only a rock in our hands as a weapon, it would have warranted the phrase: ‘This was a good place to die.’

It might have been a good place to die against muscular female humanhorses and weapon-carrying males on their backs, had not a distant rumble grown in volume, causing everyone to look towards the mountains in what I took to be the north. Along the chasm came the noise and the first trembling signs of a wall of water heading our way.

I should have realised why this chasm with a mostly dried up river bed existed. It was a gully carved over millennia by torrential storms pouring out of the nearby mountains. Now the chasm was about to be in full flood. As Taiwo and I stared north we could see signs of this impending flood rushing our way. I knew we had a greater fight ahead, and even the best weapons wouldn’t help us now.

“Can you swim?” I yelled at Taiwo, over the rising noise.

“No,” she said. “I can fight but not swim.”

I wanted to say that was okay because we would still be dashed against the sides and rocks of the chasm even if we could survive the torrent hitting us. That was when one of the men on the female humanhorses called to us.

“English?” He shouted in either an Australian or New Zealand accent—I never could tell them apart. Then he repeated the word in Egrin, though he actually said “Earth woman of the water lands,” which was the Egri definition of an island.

“Yes,” I shouted back in English, and repeated it in Egrin.

“Then get the fuck up here fast!” At that the man shouting at us, who like the other males was wearing a simple shirt and kilt arrangement, hopped off the back of his impressive naked humanhorse and having thrust his spear in her unfettered hand, pushed his mount down the chasm slope towards us. Several other of the men on his side did the same and the naked women, still with their saddles and stirrups, slithered down towards where we were. The man shouted at the females to make a human chain, and as one they obeyed so the lowest woman—the humanhorse of the Aussie—could extend the spear out to Taiwo and myself.

I understood we would not be fighting now and shoved Taiwo forward so she could clamber up to the outstretched spear and haul herself up the shaft. I followed the black girl as fast as I could. Already the first of the water surge was engulfing the rock on which we two had stood moments before, and more water, foaming angrily, was coming fast. I felt the swirling waters begin to slap round my bare feet and ankles as I scrambled up the slope and a branch, born by the river, banged so hard against my lower leg that I thought I would fall and slide down into the flood. Somehow, I held on and groping almost blindly felt the end of the spear shaft in my hand. Swiftly, I was hauled up out of the reach of the roaring, tumbling maelstrom and hands—human hands—pushed and assisted me out of the chasm and to safety.

I stared at the men around us and saw some were carrying rudimentary bows. I knew our rock in hand defiance would have been short lived. I started to express thanks for our rescue when I saw the spears that had saved us were being handed back by the naked females to the men and were now being lowered, rough stone point first, towards us. The man who had called out to me was shouting an order.

It was an order to bind me and Taiwo.

I don’t know how much these people—all human, I could see—knew about bondage but what they did to secure me and my companion was effective and simple. My elbows and wrists, and those of Taiwo, were tied tight behind us and the rope brought under between our legs and up to where the long end was used to make loops bound around the base of our breasts. Thus, the crotch rope and the breast rope were painful this way, forcing our breasts out (and in Taiwo’s case, making them even more prominent than before.)

Taking no risks, we two new arrivals were tied with a noose round our neck and the rope attached to the saddle of a male rider obliging us to walk alongside the female humanhorses, with a spear point at our backs as extra insurance. I began to say that there was no need to treat us this way but my reward, and that of Taiwo who remained silent, was a gag. A piece of wood, roughly shaped, was pushed into our mouths and tied off with thin cord round our heads.

Gagged and bound, Taiwo and I were led by the party of male riders and female horses for what seemed a fair distance before we came to our destination. Our journey across the plain had been uneventful, which was welcome as I imagined the spears and bows of the men would not deter every creatures from attacking. I could not speak and no-one in the party spoke and the only sound I heard was the breathing of the humanhorses as they bore their load without complaining. Unlike myself in horse service, they were not gagged, and when one of the party, acting as an outrider on the flank, stumbled over a root or a stone, she went down without a sound. Nor did she make any noise when her rider hauled her back to her feet and whipped her legs before climbing back into his saddle on her lower back—the man could see over the shaved head of the woman just as well as a high-mounted Sevir woman could when riding me.

Either this humanhorse was very determined not to make a noise, or couldn’t. The latter idea scared me as I wondered if she had her tongue removed. I had an idea these people, despite being human, were more barbaric than the Sevir women. I admit however I had marvelled at the strength of these horsewomen: none of them were any bigger than me but they had clearly been well trained to carry a greater weight than either an Egri or Tankic female on their backs.

I also noted that the humanhorses, unlike my time as one, did not have a belt locked on their waists. Instead, their wrists were free of cuffs and their hands able to grip a narrow, leather-like belt fastened round their waists so their arms could be akimbo for the rider to put his legs through. The belts, as far as I could see, were not buckled on: they were sewn closed round the woman’s waist.

As we walked across the barren plain and the sound of rushing water long faded behind us, I became aware of the fact that above us several bird-like creatures were circling, perhaps following us as a potential source of meal, either by one of us perishing or the men here killing some wild animal and leaving the carcass behind.

I gathered they had an entirely different function however, when one of the creatures swooped down and landed, claws on the bald head of the Aussie leader’s humanhorse (the woman did not flinch to her credit) and made several cawing noises at the man. I got the feeling when the man made a similar noise back and the bird flew off to resume circling above it was likely acting as a look out. Perhaps that was why these men knew where we were; although I hadn’t seen any flying creatures on my return that was probably because I was pre-occupied with chasing and helping Taiwo. We had been scouted from above and a message in bird-like language relayed to the men.

The party promptly changed direction and before long I noted the character of the ground beneath my feet was changing: the featureless plain we had landed on had precious few plants but there were gradually more beneath my feet. The arid ground gave way to darker, softer soil and short spiky green grass complete with small bushes. I even began to see signs of small trees struggling to establish themselves. As we crested a ridge, I saw trees for the first time since my return to Sevir—trees that in many ways were very similar to those seen on Earth, mostly similar to pine trees. Among the clusters of trees in the valley below was a collection of stone and wood buildings, little more than huts.

Our destination, I presumed. In the middle of the arrangement of buildings were four upright wooden poles set close together around a pit where a low fire burned. Against one of these poles there was a tightly bound female, naked as we were. I assumed that Taiwo and I would occupy two of the others.

The only difference between ourselves was the female already bound is she was not a human—at least not like myself or Taiwo or indeed any female I had ever seen before.

In short, she was green-skinned. A pale green, but green nonetheless. With deep red hair too, tumbling down to her shoulders. I might have thought she had been doused in some sort of green paint or liquid, but as we got closer I could determine enough natural marks or blemishes on her flesh which told me green was her natural flesh colour. This female creature had been whipped, and in a way it was relief to see bright red blood—the same that would drip from my body or Taiwo’s (or indeed Cerys, for I still thought of her)—running from the places where the lashes had bitten into her belly and thighs.

Oh, she had a human shape in that she had breasts and hips and a waist you might expect on an earth female. Her face exhibited high cheek bones and her large eyes were slanted in the way an oriental person’s would be, yet her face was a different shape in that it was almost wolf-like in some ways. The gag she wore—identical to mine—revealed sharp teeth with long incisors digging into the rough-shaped wood that filled her mouth. Her dark red eyes met mine and held them as we captives were herded towards her. She briefly flicked a look at Taiwo and then back at me before she shook her head imperceptibly.

I had no idea what she was trying to indicate to me, but I presumed the message was either ‘this is hopeless’ or ‘be very careful.’ I was, I admit, assuming the shake of the head was universal, for I knew the Egri used the same gestures for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ exactly as we humans do.

More than that there was something fleetingly familiar about her and I couldn’t place where I had seen a creature like her before. Not on Sevir, I was sure.

Then it hit me, and I gasped around my gag. This strange green female was the very embodiment of a creature called an Orc. I had seen them in movies and on TV and here was a living specimen, almost identical to the typical studio characters and artist-created images familiar in fantasy. Had Earth people somehow tapped into a universal creature, and if so, was she the demented and mindless killer so often portrayed as humanity’s vile enemy? I was glad we were bound a few feet apart, as I had no wish to find out.

As we had arrived a few men had come out of the huts to stare at us and behind one hut I had seen there were several shaven-headed naked human females in what I can only describe as a pen. They weren’t saddled for riding but they were each bound at the throat and tethered to the fence. They, like the men, watched us curiously as we passed but no one said anything to us. The bird-like creatures who had circled overhead had swooped down and settled on the roof of a hut, though one immediately took flight again and began a slow, wide and high circle of the village. A look-out system, par excellence, I thought.