****Author's note****

Yes, another chapter so soon! I'm on spring break so I am trying to write as much as I possibly can before I have to go back to school. Enjoy!

Also, we've officially reached the point of all my rough drafted chapters being finished and posted now, so forward will be a little more "uncharted territory" until we reach the end of the story. I do have a general outline though so I think I'd estimate we are about halfway through. Thanks for sticking with me this far! Can't wait to get the rest written and shared!

There was a curious fuzzy feeling filling Alaesia's mind as she kept her eyes trained on the orc, Zathra. Much like other orcs, he was on the smaller size, but his appearance was surprisingly welcoming; a stark contrast to all the other orcs she had ever come in contact with. He had a sickly yellow tint to his complexion, but his face was less beastly than Barbaurak. The longer she studied his face, the more she became convinced Zathra didn't quite look like he was even fully orcish. In fact, to her eyes, he looked somewhere closer to human. He wasn't particularly awful looking for his humanish appearance either, though something inside Alaesia made her skin crawl at the thought.

Zathra had taken it upon himself to take Alaesia's lead in his hands, but he hardly needed to. She kept close to his shoulder, obediently trailing after him, like a well trained dog. Whenever his charge began to slow or stumble, he would occasionally glance back at her, and give her an encouraging nod as she followed along, which made her warm in the cheeks.

He had half-cocked smile and a glint in his eyes that made her wonder what mischievous plans were running through his mind as he chatted with her, "Ye'll like our ship. It's not a big 'un, seein' as our captain is just startin' out, but I like to calls it cozy. Only has a single mast, but mark my words, give us lot a season or two, and we'll be running a whole fleet."

Barbaurak, who was leading them along the riverside, was very clearly a full blooded orc, gnarled and irritable, with not a hint of humanness about him. Alaesia couldn't help but hide behind Zathra whenever Barbaurak leered in her direction. The ill-tempered orc shared a similar skin tone to his gentler companion, he had massive burn scars that webbed up and down his body, seemingly having melted his flesh into an awful, unearthly facsimile of a face. The wax-like oozing visage truly instilled terror in Alaesia, but everything will be okay, she thought. As long as Zathra is here, she found herself fully believing, without knowing exactly why, Barbaurak won't harm me. Zathra is a kind... He wouldn't lie to me…

"Quit yer yawping… yer gonna bore me and the tark to death… An' in case ya forgot, this is dangerous territory, so keep it down!" Barbaurak snapped. He was revolted with Zathra's methods, and how the snaga sharlob clung to Snake-Tongue's words like they were honey. She was a scrawny piece of meat, hardly worth a single meal, and definitely too frail to be put to work. Being their only captured slave, this blood-haired snaga would maybe catch a bidder's eye, if only for her striking color; he wouldn't put it past some orcs to scalp her to make a crest for their helmets.

But Barbaurak dismissed the thoughts; it wasn't his job to figure out the use of slaves, that was his captain's job. As long as he delivered new catches, he'd have his rations at the least, though with the dry spell in slave catching lately, he wouldn't likely get to replace his gear anytime soon, as he had wanted to.

His ship's captain would have at least one pinkskin slave to sell; and they turned a better profit than orcish-snaga for their tender meat. Granted their fresh catch seemed a little on the lean and stringy side, even for a human; she probably wouldn't bring in that high of a price. Barbaurak licked his lips; perhaps the captain would just feed her to the crew, if he didn't think her worth the effort of transporting. Barbaurak was already in half a mind that the slave was more trouble than she was worth.

Two orcs down, the dead of the pair of blood brother's, and only one slave captured was a poor rate indeed. The slave trade for pinkskins was running drier by the day it seemed. Either they were becoming much smarter at hiding or their numbers were dwindling. Perhaps it was a little of both. The little band of slavers had been lucky to come upon the wandering woman by chances on their way back to the ship, empty handed from a slave-hunting excursion.

It felt particularly fortuitous that she had literally been at the edge of the river. If only more pinkskins would so easily offer themselves up to the slavers, he mused. A passing curiosity as to why this human had made such a novice mistake, tickled at the back of Barbaurak's mind, but pinkskins often confused him. He didn't quite seem to have the same knack of taming them that Zathra did so he preferred to let his underling handle dealing with them. Now that she was in their custody, it quickly became impossible to ignore that Alaesia had started to vie for Zathra's attention, almost instantaneously.

Barbaurak scowled at his subordinate, "Snaga ought to fear their masters, not drool over them like starved caragors."

Zathra scratched along his neck and jawline, which was just as similarly melted into massive scars, exactly like Barbaurak's mutilated appearance, and taunted his leader, "Listen here. It ain't my fault if yer getting a mite bit jealous of the way snaga just flock to me! Ya gotta have a gentle touch, and before ya know it, they'll be eating outta yer hand!"

"Jealous, my arse. You know just as well as me, that jealousy and a 'gentle touch' ain't got nothing to do with it! You and yer witchy tongue more like. Just look at the stupid doe eyes she's making at ya! That's foul, that's wot it is," Barbaurak rolled his eyes, but that wasn't going to stop the subordinate from rubbing it in his superior's face.

Zathra held out a hand to Alaesia, who took it in her own without hesitation, making him throw a sideways smirk at his leader, "Barbaurak's just in a mood , never mind him, lil lass. Would you like to hear more about our boat then?"

As Alaesia nodded, Barbaurak rested his hand on the hilt of his sword menacingly, "If ya don't mind yerself, ye'll lose that sly tongue of yours."

To no one's surprise, but much to Barbaurak's groaning abhorrence, the threat elicited a soft plea from the slave woman. Despite her obvious, quaking fear of the hideous orc, she tried standing forward before Zathra to placate his leader, "P-please don't h-harm him! I b-beg of you. Spare Z-zathra punishment. I… I-I'll take it in his p-place!"

"Cease your stupid games, Snake-Tongue!" Barbaurak spat at Zathra, who ducked out of cuffing reach, "You know full well that whatever spell yer weaving over this snaga, she's far more likely to piss me off enough in her current state of mind. Mayhaps my blade will get 'bewitched' and gut her all of its own accord! Yer gonna turn this hunt into a total waste if she keeps oogling ya, all love-sick and the like!"

There was no warning or sign that anything was wrong, when Alaesia suddenly stopped in her tracks and fell to her knees with a gasp. She wraipped her arms around her abdomen as her guts contorted and warped with a sudden wave of cramping. Both Barbaurak and Zathra's eyes snapped in her direction in sheer confusion, as their captive hit the ground while writhing and moaning.

"Wot the bloody blazes was that?" Barbaurak's eyes flicked between her, Zathra, who retreated back to the snaga's side, and the path behind them. He let out a low, angry hiss at Zathra and gestured to the streaks of blood that he now noticed along the dirt, "I thought you had taken care of her wounds, Snake-Tongue! Wot are you ev'n good for if ya can't do yer bleeding job! This stupid tark is laying a bleeding trail ev'ry where she goes! She's gonna get us all killed, bleeding all over the place in warg territory!"

"What's wrong, lass?!" Zathra hurriedly tried to give Alaesia a once-over, checking her limbs, and even pressing his fingers to her throat to check her pulse, but he was at a complete loss. He barked back at Barbarauk, "I did heal her, alright! I aint never seen this before. I've got no idea where she's bleeding from!"

As the underling orc protested, Barbaurak silenced him with a hiss, "Figure it out then, you git. That trail is gonna bring all sorts of trouble down on our heads!" Without a further word, he started back the way they had come from, kicking dirt over each blot of blood as he could, just trying to obscure the scent of tark blood as much as possible.

Alaesia felt Zathra's hand and claws near her throat and blindly kicked out at him with a sharp cry, "NO! D-don't touch me! You c-can't be here! You d-died!"

"Lass! Hush now!" Zathra tried to grab her, but by the look in her eye, he realized she was no longer gazing at him, nor his enchanted disguise, but her eyes seemed to pierce right through him to something beyond. All hint of color had drained from her cheeks, sending a bolt of concern through the orc that perhaps she had lost too much blood already. "Wot do ya mean? I want to help ya, lass. Yer hurt, tell me what's the matter."

As Zathra took Alaesia's face in his hands, he tried to restrain her from pushing away, only to cause her to fight back more. At the same time, he grit his teeth in preparation for opening his mind to whatever thoughts were passing through the human's own mind. In doing so, a dark wave of terror shuddered up from his palms, settling into a cold pool in the pit of his chest. There was a flash before Zathra's vision, a figure of an uruk, with blazing yellow eyes and a raven-like countenance that made even him feel small and powerless.

"Skai!" He hissed, closing his mind to hers. The human slumped, drained from the mental exhange and too weary to protest as he tried to pull her upright to a sitting position. "Yer ol' master then, eh? 'E must'a quite the impression on ya. Can't promise ya much better after we sells ya, but I promise I'll watch out for him 'til then."

As Alaesia started coming back to her senses, she couldn't help but curl from another wave of cramping. Zathra's presence still loomed over her, like a foreboding reminder, but rather than assault her, he just gave his shoulders a small shake, "Come on, lass. Ya gotta tell me what's wrong with ya. What nicks did tha' brute rough ya up with, so I can mend em?"

Alaesia's mouth was dry and hoarse as she tried to respond, "They… t-took it out… of m-me–"

A shout cut across the dusty air, causing both the orc and Alaesia to snap their head in the direction of the call. Just a ways down the trail, Barbaurak was hurtling back as fast as his lean legs would carry him. He snarled, somewhere between an attempt to shout to catch their attention, but like he was trying to keep his voice down at the same time. He waved one hand as he came closer, and pointed at something in the eastern distance, "Get 'er up! UP! We need to move, now!"

"On yer feet, lass! Ya need to get up and move if ya don't wanna be dragged!" Alaesia heard Zathra trying to coax her to get up, but all pretense of niceties had been dropped. His tone had suddenly turned sharp and tense.

When she looked up to find Zathra's reassuring face, a wave gripped her stomach, and his visage seemed to flicker between the lovely face she was hoping to see, and a disgusting, mutilated face whose lips curled in an urgent demand. Alaesia recoiled in her hazy confusion, the pain and shift in his demeanor having drawn her out of the orc's manipulative enchantment. Now she saw him for what he truly was, and the partially melted grimace was worse than even Barbaurak.

Before she could utter a cry in protest, Barbaurak shoved Zathra out of the way and seized Alaesia by her mess of hair; they didn't have time to wait for her to obey. He dealt Alaesia a hardened blow directly in her aching gut, completely knocking the wind out of her while snapping at his orcish companion, "We just might be able to slip outta here if we keep silent and move fast!"

All she could do was gasp for air as he began to roughly haul her behind the pair of orcs as they began to flee some unseen pursuer. The trio didn't make it very far. Alaesia watched in horror as a great beast launched itself from the tall grass and pounced over her to tackle the orcs. The force of its impact brought both the orcs and Alaesia crashing down. Her head cracked against the ground with such force, her vision popped from a sudden flash of white, then darkness.

****Translations****

Tark - Human

Snaga sharlob - Enslaved human woman

Skai - Shit