Chp. 5 – To Bayreach [MF] [Fantasy] [Plot] [Anal] [Choking]

**Note: I’ve been writing this as a series and I’m gonna be adding chapters to the titles from now on. Lots of plot in this one which is why it took longer. Smut is in the comments as part 3 and 4, ’cause I wrote too much for Reddit. Enjoy!**

Slaver Shire Billows felt like a new man. He’d upgraded his whole set up. With the two thousand, seven hundred gold he had left, he’d managed to buy a sturdy steel cage wagon for his cargo. That had cost five hundred. He traded his horse for a bit more coin, bought two strong work horses instead, and still had a thousand gold left over. That coin he dispensed for the slaves, plucking them up as he made his way down south. Now, Shire was nearly at max capacity. He only had one more pick up before heading to Bayreach for his payment.

Yes, Shire felt great. On top of the world, even. No demon, no god, nothing could ruin this –

“The retard pissed herself again,” Venter snapped from behind. His mirth melted away.

“Then she’ll sit in it!” He barked over his shoulder.

“It smells bad.”

“It’s *piss*.”

“Could you stop the horses and open the cage, clean it up?”

“I gave you rags half a week ago.”

“*Half* a week ago. They’ve soaked through, you old shithead.” She growled. Somehow, even chained up in a cage, Valery Venter, General of the Long March Company, Duke’s Bane, the Scourge-From-Yulin, remained a constant source of irritation. His initial terror of her had melted away into awe, which mutated into annoyance. It was hard to be scared of her when she wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

“You’re the Scourge-From-Yulin! Figure it out.”

“What, you want me to pull a piece of paper with a title on it out my ass and wipe it up?”

“Got any better ideas?”

“Yes. Stop the wagon and clean this mess up yourself.”

“Not happening, Venter.” Shire said. Last time he got in to clean up a mess, she nearly bit his nose off. Shire didn’t have a pretty nose, broke it too many times, but he liked it to stay attached to his face.

“I’ll let you fuck me.” She proposed.

“I’d sooner stick my dick in a minotaur.” He grunted, though the idea of sleeping her did warm his cock.

“I probably wouldn’t feel it anyway,” snorted the ex-general.

“I am perfectly average sized.” Shire snapped, and she shrugged. He’d bound her hands together, then tied those to the bars of the cage. There were about fifteen slaves all locked up now. Venter, four Pure Elf sister he bought as a four-for-one deal, two male Dwarves, an ugly Goblin he’d tricked, and then seven more humans plucked from various towns and battlefields on his way back down. One of those humans happened to be a product of generational incest, so she frequently lost control of her bowels and babbled like a demon at night. Her family, a minor noble house, had been eager to get rid of her. Shire wanted to just tie her up and toss her in a river, but he wanted to make a first good impression on his employer.

Besides, he once slept through a whole battle. Some loud screams at night didn’t bother him a wink.

Shire had never been this far south, nor this far east. He’d gotten a letter from Derry telling him to go to some town called Bord. Shire had never heard of the place, but after procuring a map, saw just how far east it was. This was their third day on the road, and Shire frequently dozed off on his wagon. He bought a nice pillow to sit on a couple towns back, and it was doing wonders for his butt. It was the best damn thing he’d bought in the past month, and he felt a deep emotional connection to it. If he had this pillow when he was in the army, he would have stayed another ten years.

The further down this road he went, the less people he saw. Occasionally a solitary figure in a dark cloak would pass them without making a sound, and Shire didn’t like that at all. There were rarely merchants, and they’d passed a bleached skeleton on the side of the road the other day. Shire wasn’t one to believe in signs from the divine, but he thought that maybe, just maybe, this Bord place wasn’t so great.

There was a shift in the wind and Shire got a nose full of the piss from the cage. A couple of slaves grumbled their discomfort but didn’t say anything. There was something draining about being enslaved, he guessed. Being chained up for days, knowing you were going to be sold to someone. Maybe it was existential. These people were faced with the fact the rest of their lives had been plucked from them. All that they could do was wait, and that made them quiet.

All of them except Venter.

“Hope you like the smell of that.” She said.

“I was a Sergeant in the Royal Yulin Army for twenty years. A bit of stale piss is nothing.”

“Really? You? A Sergeant for the King?” She whistled low. “They sure haven’t upgraded in the last two decades,” He didn’t take the bait. “Those boys as the Siege of Yawn had their heads on backwards.”

“I know. I was there.”

“With Sergeants like you, it was no wonder the Royal Army was killing itself on Yawn’s walls,” Venter cackled, and Shire frowned. A lot of men he knew died trying to climb those walls. “You know, it was my idea that broke the siege, though your shithead generals took the credit.”

“Yeah, I know. We *all* knew it was your idea,” He waved his hand in the air. “The Long March is a noisy mercenary band and wouldn’t stop talking about it.”

“They were a good group, loyal.” She said.

“Everyone is loyal to a heavy purse.”

“Money moves nations,” Venter rattled her chains. “Armies. A lot of people get crushed under golden mountains. What about you, Sergeant? Blood money weighs heavy on people.”

“I’m not too worried about it,” Shire shrugged. They passed a dog carcass, split open and picked clean by birds. “I’m just the middle-man for you all.”

“Eh?”

“I just collect you. My *boss* ships you off.” Shire smiled. Something about that felt good, like he was absolved from the blackest part of slavery. He wasn’t all bad, because he wasn’t doing the selling. Shire was perfectly content with being half-bad.

“Who’s the boss?” Venter probed. Shire saw no reason to hide the identity. She’d know soon enough. He fished through his coat pocket for the paper. Shire sometimes forgot the man’s name. Hard to remember someone you never met.

“Dvini za Krotka, calls himself –”

“The Lord of Chains,” spat Venter. There was a sharpness to her words, the kind that Shire didn’t want ever associated with his name.

“You know him?”

“He’s a heartless wretch.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

The wind shifted again, freeing him of the burden of piss stench. More groans from the back. “You do what you have to do. Sometimes the gods decide your life is going to be hard, so you swallow your guts and deal with it. That’s all I did. I just did what I was good at,” He heard the hard edge in her voice, and Shire shuddered. “You’re no better. The only difference between us is where we sat during the battle.”

Couldn’t disagree with that, not one bit.

“Then what about za Krotka? How’s he worse?”

She snorted. “Dvini only gives a damn about himself – no one else. The man can’t be bought, sold, or convinced otherwise. He’d stomp on the divines if it meant he got what he wanted.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad to me.”

“You’re just an employee to him. You think you’re worth anything?”

Shire shrugged. “My Lieutenant seemed to think I wasn’t worth much either.” Which, to be fair, he wasn’t.

The chains snapped as Venter spun and tugged on his shirt collar through the bars. He yelped and yanked himself out of her grasp. Shire made a note to move her to the other side of the cage when he next had a chance. “Only one thing matters to the Lord of Chains – himself. No amount of gold, blood, or terror is too much to him. He’ll ruin you, just like he ruins everything he touches.”

“Sounds like you two have a history.”

“I’m going to stick a knife in his balls the first chance I get.”

“Well, good thing you’re locked up then, eh?” Shire said, scooting to another side of the wagon further from Venter.

“Can’t keep me locked up forever. Whoever I get sold to won’t keep me long.” She promised. Shire thought about that. Venter was a bad enemy to have. Shire couldn’t think of anyone else worse off the top of his head, barring kings. She was a murderer on the grandest scale and a brilliant military mind. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that she’d either escape her buyer or murder them. Then, Shire guessed, he would be next on the list.

They trundled on in silence, the sun crawling across the sky like a golden spider. Bord appeared between the trees, and it didn’t look nearly as sinister as he would have thought. The frontier town was a single, dirty road flanked by crooked wooden houses with crumbling chimneys spitting grey smoke. People milled around on porches and in the streets, playing cards, laughing, drinking, or staring at the newcomer with his wagon full of slaves. Shire wondered what the population of Bord was, or how it thrived.

On the other side of Bord were the biggest fucking trees Shire had ever seen.

They dwarfed the modest forest they just left, their withered trunks covered in hundreds of branches, which were covered in thousands of leaves. Roots lurched out of the ground like sea serpents, and the wind rushing through their canopy produced the most ominous sound he’d ever heard, one low, cresting note that crawled over his skin and sunk in his bones. Shire had heard thousands shriek for mercy, a wall collapse, the roll of a cavalry charge a thousand strong, the madness of a broken siege, and the haunting sounds of people weeping over corpses in the smoke and ash that followed.

Nothing compared to those almighty trees and their groan. Shire shuddered.

“Unnerving, aren’t they?” Venter asked, and for once Shire was glad she was talking so he didn’t have to listen to the rustling.

“What are they?”

“They’re called the Survivors. Not sure why – it’s what the Ash Elves call them. That’s their story to tell.”

“Weird name for a forest,” mumbled Shire.

“Well, what’s your name?”

“Shire.” He said without thinking.

“Weird name for a person.” She said, and Shire hated her all over again.

He stopped his cart in front of a wide, two storied building with two chimneys. A heavyset man stood on the porch with his hands on his hips. There wasn’t a speck of hair on his bald head, but he had the biggest beard Shire had ever seen. His face was lined with wrinkles and he was frowning. His frown only deepened when Shire hopped off the wagon and his slaves started making noise, barking and causing a scene, begging for help that wouldn’t come.

“Shut up!” Shire said and kicked the side of the wagon.

“I’m going to cut your tongue out, Shire.” Venter hissed.

“Then I’ll make sure everyone knows you were plowed by a minotaur before that happens,” Shire hissed back, and her face went dark red. That shut her up. He tightened his weapons belt and turned to the hold man. “Hail!” He smiled and waved.

“You ‘ere fer the pickup?” The man said in the strangest accent Shire had ever heard. He was having a lot of new first-times since becoming a slaver, and that was a weird thing to experience at his age.

“Yes, I believe a Dwarf left something for me.” Shire nodded. He reached in his jacket and pulled out a flask. He ran out of Whitewash a week ago, but up north there was a popular dark liquor called Browning. Shire didn’t know if it was cognac, or whiskey, or just latrine water, but it tasted awful and got you drunk. It was perfect, and he took a sip.

“I’ll get ‘er fer ya.” And the fat man disappeared inside. Shire blinked, not really expecting it to go this way but…Well, he took another sip of Browning just for good measure and his mouth watered in protest. He spat on the ground, and briefly wondered if he was destroying his body with all the alcohol.

Shire didn’t have long to think as the man dragged out the slave. Shire was expecting a woman, but he wasn’t expecting an Ash Elf. He gawked at her. She wore a slim, raggedy tunic that left nothing to the imagination and short shorts that hugged her ass and lifted it up. He thought he could see her pussy through the thin fabric if he focused enough. She had long, alabaster hair, flawless dark-grey skin, long ears that bobbed as she thrashed, and unnerving red eyes.

“I’ll rip your throat out, fattie,” She squealed, trying to dig her heels into the ground with no avail. “Rip it out and use it as a flute!”

“She’s got a bit o’ a mouf on ‘er.” The man grumbled.

“I’m familiar with that.” Shire said. Venter snorted behind him.

“I’m not going anywhere.” The Ash Elf protested, but that meant nothing considering her ankles and hands were tied, and there was a chain manacle around her throat.

“Sorry, miss, but you’re going to –”

“Bayreach, I know,” snapped the Elf, cutting Shire off. “I’m going to flay you alive and eat your guts.” She snarled.

“I like her.” Venter called from the back.

“Shut the fuck up, Venter,” Shire shook his fist at her before looking back at the Elf. “Yeah, to Bayreach. Your mouth isn’t going to be doing to any favors, unless there’s a dick in it.”

“I’ll rip your cock off with my teeth and grind your nuts into dust before snorting what’s left over.” She snarled. An uncomfortable silence settled on all of them, even Venter.

“…Right,” Shire said with a cough. He grabbed the chain from the fat man. “Thanks.”

“Not a prob’em, we don’ like ‘er mouf.”

“I can imagine why,” mumbled Shire. The Ash Elf bucked and tried to pull against him, but she gave up and he ended up slinging the chain over his shoulder and dragging her across the ground. She yelped when she hit a rock. “This would be so much easier if you cooperated.”

“Who would cooperate with being enslaved?” She shrieked at him.

“You could be the first one ever.” He offered

“Eat my ass, you dusty cretin.” That wasn’t the worst idea, but he was beginning to think she was running out of insults. Since she was already bound, he fished his key out of his pocket, and undid the steel door. She thrashed like a fish in his hands, but he spent years with slippery privates and corporals. A reluctant Elf was nothing, and he tossed her in with a thud. She slithered for the exit, but he closed it on her face and she struck her forehead against a bar with a ding.

“Ow, ow, ow,” She moaned, rolling around between he feet of the slaves. “Is there piss on the ground here?”

“This is how you welcome new people?” Venter asked Shire.

“You’re literally slaves.”

“And?”

“I…Just, shut up,” Shire pinched the bridge of his nose. “Bayreach is still a hard half week ride away. The faster we get there, the less piss and shit you have to sit in.”

“A man your age should rest,” suggested Venter. “You’re going to work yourself to death.”

“When I die at least I’ll have the solace of knowing the Great Dark doesn’t want you and I’ll be free from this torture.” Shire lamented. He scrambled back on the wagon and eased onto his pillow, his only friend out here. Maybe he should give it a name. That would be weird though, giving a name to something that he sat on.

“Do you have any idea who I am?” The Ash Elf weaseled her way over to the far end of the cage, next to Venter and Shire. She pushed her face against the bars.

“Uh…” Shire turned the horses back around.

“I am Giladi Sirkova, daughter of the Dark Lord Bruin Sirkova, First of His House.” There was pride in those words, but Shire thought that was something else in her tone. He couldn’t pin point what it was.

“Cool, and you’re sitting next to the Scourge-From-Yulin.” He said.

“The who-from-what?”

Venter rattled her chains. “That’s me.”

“I don’t know who you are.” The Elf said flatly.

“I don’t know who you are either.” Venter said.

“Wow, wonderful, none of us know each other. What a surprise, that a reclusive Ash Elf doesn’t know a murderous mercenary general and vice versa. Anyone have any more useless titles to share?” Shire snapped over his shoulder, looking at the rest of the slaves.

“Well, my name is –” One of the Pure Elves started.

“Shut it, pinkie,” Giladi hissed. “No one cares. You’re clearly not a part of this.”

“I just thought –”

“I’m reluctant to agree with an Ash Elf, but she’s right, none of us care.” Venter said. The Pure Elf’s head drooped, and she sniffled.

“I just want to go home.” She whispered pathetically.

“And I want to be forty years younger,” Shire groaned. “But we don’t get what we wish, and the gods don’t care, so can we all just sit still and have some peace and fucking quiet for a couple hours?”

“You can’t keep me chained forever,” Giladi said. “I’ll outlive you all!”

“By the gods, now I have two women who won’t shut up,” moaned Shire. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“Become a slaver?” Venter offered, and Shire couldn’t argue with that.

They trundled back the way they came, and Shire fished a map out of his satchel. It wasn’t too hard to navigate his way to Bayreach – there was only one road that wet to Bord, and it showed on the map as a long black line isolated from the network of roads that strangled the continent. The sun was beginning its descent. It would be night soon, and that’s when the incest girl would start crowing. Maybe she was afraid of the dark. He wondered who would buy her for sex but remembered that there were plenty of nasty perverts out there. Shire didn’t think too hard about it.

As it got darker, the slaves started to whisper to each other. If Shire focused, he could hear what they were saying, but honestly, he didn’t care enough to figure out what they were saying. Their hands were bound in manacles, which were tethered to the bars of the cage. The only one free to roll around was Giladi, but there wasn’t much room left to do even that. She was squashed between feet and legs.

Shire leaned forward wiggling into his pillow and loosening the reins on the horses. The road was long, straight, and was impossible to fall off of. He would get some sleep during the night, even a couple hours were all he needed. The wagon rocked back and forth. The whispers of slaves lulled him to sleep. Right before night overtook him, Shire took a big swig of Browning.

​

​

​

“Mommy! Mommy! Where is my mommy?” The retard started babbling again and Valery did her best to ignore it.

“Shut up,” hissed the Goblin. There was a thud of flesh as he kicked her which naturally made it worse.

“Where am I? Mommy! Mommy!”

Valery rested against the bars of the cage, and after spending so long sleeping like this, she found it fairly comfortable. She had no problem sleeping through the girl’s screams. Spend enough time on the road, and you learn to squeeze as much sleep as you can out of the time you’re given. It’s one reason Valery wasn’t surprised to hear Shire snoring as the horses dragged the wagon forward.

Shire. Odd name for a man, she thought. She knew plenty of people with plenty of strange faces and identities. Came with the business. Slavery wasn’t usually what men did after war, and she had to wonder why he chose that path. Valery supposed that being a soldier gave you a grey moral compass, and she wasn’t one to judge. How many people had she ordered dead? Thousands, at a minimum. Valery didn’t think about it too much, because she didn’t feel bad about it. She couldn’t get hung up on the morality of slavery – she was no priest.

Sometimes, the gods decide you’ll have a hard life, and you swallow your guts and deal with it, as her father said.

Slavery didn’t worry her the way it worried the others in the wagon. She’d weaseled out of stickier situations. The most unfortunate part about this whole ordeal was being tied in a piss-soaked wagon for days on end and getting fucked by that minotaur. She frowned at the memory, and it always came back in shards of memory as she was skewered on its cock. Reluctantly, she rubbed her thighs together and felt the heat in her loins. How could she be turned on by that?

Valery chased the memory off with more thoughts, the retard’s screams her backdrop. She thought about who was buying her. Dvini za Krotka. Even the idea of the Licani made her flush with rage, and her chains rattled lightly as she shook. As a mercenary general, she made it a habit of never making things personal. You couldn’t turn every shitty situation into an offense against yourself and couldn’t worry about blood under the bridge. It stank of iron, and when you dipped your toes in there was always the threat of the current dragging you away.

Dvini was the one exception.

“What’s your title mean?” A voice called, drawing Valery out of her head. She opened an eye and saw the black silhouette of the Ash Elf – Giladi, she said her name was.

“Eh?”

“The title that man gave you.” Giladi said. Valery had met only a handful of Ash Elves in her thirty years of life, and always found it unnerving how their red eyes lit up in the dark like lamps. They looked like demons out of stories meant to scare children, which Valery guessed is why they had such a nasty reputation.

“Oh, the Scourge-From-Yulin, that,” Valery mumbled, looking over at the other slaves. They were all dressed in shadow, whispering to each other like lovers afraid of being caught. Only the incestuous girl made any noise. “I was a mercenary general of the Long March Company and had a lot of good years making money by pissing on the dreams of dukes and monarchs. I’m from Yulin so, there it is. Not much to it.”

“Yulin?”

“The Kingdom of Yulin. It’s the largest blob you’ll see on a map, though the borders change so much it’s never totally accurate. The largest and most successful kingdom on the continent. Only the western kingdoms across the sea are rumored to be larger.”

“Hm,” Giladi peered over Valery’s shoulder. She realized how close the Elf was. “And the man?”

“He calls himself Shire.”

“That’s a dumb name.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“And we’re going to be sold?” Giladi asked. She didn’t sound too worried herself, not like her Pure Elf cousins did.

“Guess so.”

“We have slaves in Wrunelend, but it’s not an industry like this. They’re tied to Dark Lord’s by blood.”

“Huh,” muttered Valery. She didn’t really care. The mysteries of Wrunelend could stay there.

“How’d you get caught if you’re a successful general?” Giladi asked. Valery winced at the question.

“Minotaurs.” She said, and the heat returned to her legs.

“Minotaurs?”

“I got blind-sided,” growled Valery, clenching her teeth in irritation. “There’s a duke who uses minotaurs for war and whatever tactician he hired isn’t an incompetent cock, because he used them to sweep my cavalry charge – which would have turned the battle for us. I should have seen it coming but…” She should have seen it coming. Valery Venter wasn’t famed for making mistakes like *underestimating* people. Her failure chewed at her like bedbugs.

“I didn’t know you could weaponize minotaurs.”

“Well, surprise,” grunted Valery.

“Are you going to stay a slave?” Giladi asked, her beady eyes narrowing. Valery snorted.

“Not a chance.”

“Confident.”

“You don’t seem too worried yourself.”

“Even if I can’t escape, there’s a chance I’ll outlive my buyer, so,” Giladi shrugged. “Ash Elves aren’t as prudish as Pure Elves, anyway.”

That was a good point. Elves had those dreadfully long lives. Valery always wondered how they remembered everything, or if their memories just faded away the older they got like it was with humans. What was the point of staying alive that long? There was no sense of urgency to the world when you knew that death was so far off.

“How you’d get caught?” Valery asked.

Giladi paused for far too long. “There was a, uh…Spiderling Matriarch in the Survivors, I think working for this slaver who is collecting us.”

“A Matriarch?”

“Mhm. She…Restrained me, and then handed me off to some Dwarf. Called himself Derry Volks.”

Valery frowned. There were too many names coming up of people she wanted to leave in the past. First Dvini, now Derry. It wasn’t a ridiculous partnership – Derry was first loyal to coin, just like any good Dwarf, but she was reluctant to meet him again. Last time Valery laid eyes on him was through the biting yellow flames. Flames she ordered to be lit.

“Not good news.”

“You know this Volks guy?”

“If you’re on the wrong side of the law, or the wrong side of the moral compass, you know Derry Volks. It’s a big name.” The words came out tasting sour.

“He didn’t seem dangerous, though his face was badly burnt. I guess a scar like that makes anyone seem nasty,” pondered Giladi over the shrieks of the incest-girl as the Goblin kicked at her. “Wonder how he got it.”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Valery muttered.

“You know anything about the person buying us? Seems you know a lot.”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“I’ve spent my whole life in Wrunelend, and my first experience with the outside world is being enslaved. I’d rather not go into this blind.” Giladi said. Fair enough.

“The guy’s name is Dvini za Krotka.” Valery hissed.

“Za Krotka?”

“It means something out west, where that wretch is from. Not sure what.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a bad history with him. So, he’s a bad guy?”

Valery glanced over her shoulder at Shire’s hunched form, listened to the steady clop of hooves and the creak of the wagon wheels. She thought back to her first days in the Long March Company, long before she was their leader, long before she was even somebody to remember. Valery reached far back into her memories, when she was just a steel eyed girl which a grudge and a sword, pledging her life to mercenary work because it was a better life than farming land that was raided every other year.

Like a kettle of boiling water, the memories threatened to burst. Valery remembered a tall, lanky Licani, the only one among them, with a hard look and bright yellow eyes.

“You’ll see.” Valery muttered, and turned her shoulder to Giladi to get some sleep. She tried not to think too much on it.

​

​

​

Half a week later they arrived in Bayreach. The ancient cobblestone road gave way to dirt, and the forests turned into a thick jungle. It felt like coming home, in a way. Shire was glad that this time the pirates didn’t jump out from the trees and harass him like the first time. It was ridiculous that they made him pay ten gold just to get to Bayreach. Shire had been reluctant at first, but a sword tip pointed at you was mighty convincing.

Venter and Giladi talked constantly and Shire learned to tune it out. He used to tune out privates complaining about foot rot, rations, and home when there was nothing that could be done about any of that, so Shire could ignore the two harpies he’d picked up. Their wagon passed under hanging palms so large you could reach out and touch them. Shire stood to snag a clump of bananas, his knees clicking. He quickly sat back down when he spotted the narrow eyes of an emerald tree python watching him.

“Fucking snakes,” grumbled the slaver as he drank the last of his Browning and tossed the bottle into the thicket. He burped as the ground lurched downward in the final descent to Bayreach. The closer they got, the more people appeared, until his cart was one in a sea of hundreds, all rocking and creaking, shouts rising up over the mass of life.

“Out of the way, old fart!” A half-breed shouted at him, pulling a wagon of fruit.

“Eat shit, cunt!” Shire roared back. The half-breed shook its head and pulled away into the crowd.

“Get behind me!”

“You’re going to ruin my pots!”

“I have a very important meeting with the governor!”

“Out of the way!”

On and on cried the nobodies, and Shire desperately wished he had more liquor. The jungle thinned out as the giant wooden walls of the city appeared. Legend had it that Bayreach’s walls were made out of the hulls of the original fleet that landed here, and there was some merit to it based on their appearance. The massive slabs of wood were worn from centuries of wear but were strong as any rock wall of the northern kingdoms. They curved toward the city, just like the undersides of a ship, and the tips of them were decorated with masts which flew the flag – a single white piece of cloth.

People were funneled into the gates, and from there were spread out into the wide merchant street of the city. Bayreach was in tiers, each level of it sitting on huge piers. They entered at the highest point, and then the land dropped into the bay. A bell rang in the distance, and as Shire guided his wagon down ramps and through the rickety wooden streets, he could see the colossal ship coming into port, its four masts carrying eight sails bundled up.

“No need for a ship that big.” He muttered, wondering what the little holes in the side were for.

“It’s for war.” Valery said behind him.

“Eh? That thing?”

“It’s from the west. See the square holes on the side? They’re for these things called ‘cannons.’”

“What.” Shire stated. Twenty years and he’d never heard of a bloody ‘cannon.’

“They shoot explosions and can rip a hole in a castle wall and turn a man into a pink mist.”

“Sure, Venter, and I’m a god from the Great Dark.” Shire laughed. That was ridiculous. Why would a *wooden* ship shoot something that exploded? That didn’t make sense. The whole thing would burn.

“Believe what you want, but out west they’re a different breed. They don’t share their secrets.”

“Then what’s a ship like that doing here?”

“Beats me. Trading, maybe.” Venter said. Shire didn’t like the look of it. Staring at the ship gave him the same feeling he got when looking up at castle walls, wondering if a crossbow bolt was going to take him out or if a tub of hot oil was waiting for him. He stopped looking at it and turned back to the task at hand.

They spent the next hour traveling around the city, staying on the ‘roads’ as much as possible. On the second to lowest level, he pulled in front of an ugly building that was tucked between two larger ones. It was black, and a pair of Dwarves sat on boxes in front of the portcullis, chewing tobacco and eyeballing him and his cargo.

“You the new guy?” One asked as he climbed off the wagon.

“Aye, name’s Shire Billows. Mister Volks hired me for collecting.” Shire said. The two Dwarves looked at each other, tugging their mustaches.

“You’re a bit…” One started.

“Old.” The other finished.

“Never too old for new experiences,” Shire said with a smile. “Volks down there?”

“Aye. He’ll have you do the paperwork,” said a Dwarf before pulling a level that raised the gate. It clattered into place.

“Right. Paperwork.” Shire muttered. Guess no matter how old you got, you still had to sign fucking papers. He made his way down the steps into the dungeon, only then realizing just how hot it had been outside. His back and pits cooled. Did he really sweat that much? He sniffed himself out of curiosity. Huh. Maybe that’s why the women were so stiff with him.

Shire knocked on an iron studded door and poked his head in. Derry sat behind a modest oak desk stacked high with papers, bent over and scribbling away. He looked up when Shire entered and grinned wide, which only made his burn scar warp and twist. “Ah, our eldest employee! You get the package?”

“The Ash Elf? She literally won’t shut up.” Shire said.

“Really? I would have imagined they were more stoic. How many did you collect?”

“Fifteen.” Shire said. Derry took a paper from the stack to his left and beckoned Shire over.

“You’ve just gotta fill this out. It’s not hard. How many men, how many women, their races, and then put numbers for the exotics and non-exotics. Exotics are anything that isn’t a Dwarf, human, Pure Elf, or half-breed. This helps us keep track of supply, as well as cost for keeping them, then selling them.”

“What if there’s someone special?” Shire asked, peering over the document. It was a lot more straight forward than the papers the army had him fill out.

“No one is special in this business.”

“Valery Venter.” Shire said and regretted it almost immediately. A shadow fell over Derry’s face. Shire liked the Dwarf, he really did, but the man gave off a presence of not being fucked with, and that was something Shire was willing to respect. The Dwarf’s face twitched, and he reached up and scratched at his burn.

“You better not be joking.” Derry said in a tone that made it very clear what would happen to Shire if he was.

“Venter is the Scourge-From-Yulin, and I’ve fought with the Long March Company,” Shire shook his head. “I wouldn’t joke about that.”

“Show me,” Derry forced the words out. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. Shire nodded and went back the way he came, the Dwarf hot on his heel like a demon eager for a soul. They stepped out of the chill of the dungeon and back into the heat of the day. Shire shuddered at the temperature difference.

“By the gods,” breathed the Dwarf when he spotted Venter, who didn’t look particularly pleased to see him. “It’s really you.”

“I imagined us meeting again under different circumstances. Or, ideally, not at all.”

“Dvini just wanted to talk to the Ash Elf, but this he’ll want to see,” Derry turned to the guards. “You two, process the rest of the slaves. Me and Shire here are going to take the Elf and Venter to the boss.”

“We gotta do paperwork?” One groaned.

“Damn right,” snapped Derry. “And if you don’t do it I’ll split your skull down the middle and take your salary for myself.”

Nothing whipped a Dwarf into shape like threatening to take his gold. They stiffened and nodded, rushing over to open the gate and start dragging the kicking bodies out. When one of the slaves struggled a bit too hard, the Dwarves had no reservations in clocking them over the head with their wooden cudgels. They moved with surprising dexterity, and Shire had to admire their efficiency.

Derry grabbed Giladi’s chain and tossed Venter’s to Shire. “Follow me.”

“I’m not going –” Giladi started by a silent punch to the gut from Derry caused her to double over and puke up the bananas and water Shire had given them for breakfast that morning. Neither she, nor Venter, had anything more to say about that while Derry led them through the winding alleyways of the city where beggars scrambled away like frightened rats. They’d strip you down just as fast too, Shire knew.

Derry didn’t even knock on the three storied building that overlooked the bay, throwing the door wide open with a bang. He marched upstairs, yanking Giladi along and nearly causing her to trip. Shire stared longingly at the fully stocked bar on the first floor. He had to tear himself away, following the Dwarf with Venter in tow.

“Derry, you’re –” A smooth, cold voice stopped short.

Shire met Licani before, even fought by a couple, and they were usually big, scary brutes. Nearly twice as wide as a man and inheriting all the natural terrors of their species, a Licani of any kind could eviscerate someone in seconds. Their bulk made them natural berserkers, though slap a shield on one of their arms and they became unbreakable walls of iron.

Dvini za Krotka was not that kind of Licani, clearly. He had the height, which Shire saw as he stood, but that was about it. He wore boiled leather armor that hugged his frame, which was thinner around the stomach and shoulders than Shire would have guessed. His neck wasn’t a bundle of muscle and veins either. Dvini was surprisingly thin, though he didn’t look malnourished. Shire looked down at the man’s hands, which ended in long, dark claws. The thing Dvini had that other Licani didn’t was a hard look around the eyes. Most Licani had a feral appearance to them, with near constant curled lips and furrowed brows, snarling and snapping when they talked. There was a placid calm that hung over him, and he walked with purpose.

There was something about him, something about how sure he was of his presence and appearance, that made Shire more worried about Dvini than he’d ever been about any other Licani.

“Hello, Valery.” He said in that alarmingly smooth voice of his. Where was the bass, the bravado, the rough gravelly tone that his kin had?

“Fuck you.” She snarled. Derry punched her first in the ribs, then in the side of the head when she doubled over. She hit the ground with a rough thud and a grunt, but her nasty expression didn’t change.

“No need, Derry,” Dvini held a claw up. “She’s always had a rough tone.”

“The bitch is going to get what she deserves.” Derry seethed. There was a lot of bad blood in this room, and Shire made it a personal goal of his not to be in the middle of situations like this. What had he gotten himself in to?

“You collected her?” Dvini turned his razorsharp eyes to Shire, who straightened as if the Lord General of the Royal Army was talking to him.

“Yes, sir.” Shire snapped a salute. Derry and Dvini stared at him.

“You…Don’t have to salute him, lad.” Derry said.

“Ah, sorry, force of habit. Twenty years in the service does that to you.” Shire let his hand drop.

“You’re an army man?” Dvini asked.

“Aye. I was a Sergeant in the Royal Yulin Army.”

“For twenty years?” Shire heard the doubt creeping into his tone.

“I’m a man who knows when he’s comfortable,” Shire shrugged. “Being an officer comes with too much bullshit. Too much fluff and politics.” That seemed to be a satisfactory response, even eliciting a small smile at the edge of Dvini’s lips.

“Yes, politics can be quite tiresome. Well, I can commend you on your work, Sergeant. Not only did you follow Derry’s instructions regarding the Ash Elf perfectly, but you also brought me the most feared woman in the whole of the northern kingdoms. Congratulations,” He turned his attention back to Valery, whose glare could have lit kindling. “You’ve been promoted to Overseer.”

“…Eh?”

“You’re now third in command, right behind Derry.”

“But…I just started.”

“This isn’t like the army,” Derry shrugged. “Besides, you’ve got all the skills.”

“Thanks?” Shire asked, really unsure of how he got promoted for doing the bare minimum, and now wondering how hard it would be to back out if this ship started to sink.

“We will talk about your pay increase later,” Dvini said with a wave of his claw, and that sort of talk had Shire forgetting all about his troubles. “For now, I wish to catch up with an old friend.”

Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/bsgjnc/chp_5_to_bayreach_mf_fantasy_plot_anal_choking