*****Author's Note*****

Long time no post! School really did a number on me and I was super burnt out, but I have slowly gotten back into the swing of things! I hope to be able to finish this story by the end of the year! I hope you enjoy this next chapter!

36

As the warg and olog lumbered along, they made fairly quick progress traversing what seemed to be mostly obscured trails, as if they were keenly aware of what routes would be the quickest to travel, in spite of the rough terrain. Some paths were narrow, and clearly had not been crossed in a significant amount of time; snaking hedges of vines clawed with barbed coils as the group passed by. Alaesia had to bury her face into the warg's oily, matted pelt to shield her face from the thorns, lest the foliage do any permanent damage. There was little she could do to keep her bare legs from tearing through the worst of the plants, leaving her to suffer in silence while her skin seared from a thousand tiny cuts.

The swaying of the warg, in combination with its stench, along with the uruk rider's foul odor sent ripples through Alaesia's stomach. Ugol would only glance at her from the corner of his red eyes, but he did not spare her any punishment at the slightest peep of noise from his human charge. At first, she had been tempted to try rolling from the warg's back, but it would have put her right into the path along which the olog, Ur-Pagurz, was trudging. From the way he mindlessly shoved his way through the undergrowth, she doubted she'd be able to get out of the way before the giant crushed her underfoot.

From where Zathra and Barbaurak were tethered, they couldn't quite see the slave they had captured first. They could hear her
occasionally cry out quietly when the underbrush became particularly thick and cutting, but they, themselves, weren't faring much better. Hanging from the back of the undead olog, their own limbs scraped and caught amongst the vines, cutting up any patch of skin that was bare. More than once Barbaurak's legs became fully entangled by the barbs, which only dug deeper into his flesh when Ur-Pagurz trudged onward. The orc snarled in agony as plant and olog vied over posession of him. It was all Zathra could do, to try using his own legs to kick through some of the more brittle vines to help alleviate his companion's misery before the mindless tug of war could pull him into pieces.

Their unfortunate circumstances went ignored by Ugol, who was doggedly intent on arriving back at his ship as soon as possible. Minding a gaggle of snaga as well as the undead olog was beneath a hunter like him. The sooner he could be rid of them, the sooner he could get back to tracking down fresh prey. Luckily, with his warg, and an undead thrall with boundless energy, there was little need to stop for a breather, and before the sun had made its descent beyond the distant horizon, they broke through the underbrush to a clearing where a large vessel was anchored alongside the shore of the river.

From her half dangling vantage point, Alaesia couldn't make out much detail, but an unnerving silence filled the area. At least in the underbrush there had been sounds of bugs and small creatures skittering about. Within the clearing itself, life was hiding itself away as best it could, as if it knew the danger a crew full of orcs would pose. Instinctively, Alaesia's own breath became shallow, as if it would help the unwanted attention of her latest captors.

A warhorn blast cut through the silence, somewhat startling the warg upon which Ugol and Alaesia were mounted, making it buck and snarl, sending Alaesia tumbling off its back. She hit the ground with a thud, only just having the wherewithall to roll to the side before Ur-Pagurz could trample over her.

"Skai..." Ugol cursed, reeling his mount around, and dropping off it to seize his charge roughly, and haul her upright. "Where do you think yer going tark?"

The call announcing Ugol's approach made the ship's deck and the shoreline come alive with all sorts of orcish men and as Ugol moved to beat Alaesia across the face for his trouble, a commanding voice rang out from the upper deck, making the uruk begrudgingly stay his hand.

"Ah, Ugol returns with spoils fer 'is ole captain! Haul that lot up 'ere so's I can gets a good look at 'em!"

Something about the voice made Alaesia's hairs stand on end, somewhere between familiarity, and instinctive dread. She gripped at Ugol's thick wrist as he held her fast by the collar, trying to choke down the urge to beg for mercy. But desperation got the better of her, "N-no..."

Ugol glared down at Alaesia with his red eyes, resisting his own urges to knock her jaw for daring to speak as he dragged her forward. As he led Ur-Pagurz up the gangplank, he noted as she sank on her feet, in a feeble attempt to resist. He sneered at her fearful gaze taking in the sight of orcs and uruks, like himself, lining the deck, "That's right, sharlob, ain't any escape for you now."

As Alaesia was overwhelmed by the sight of the highly adorned crew, clad in gold, glittering armor, and highly polished weaponry, the sense of familiarity grew ever stronger in the back of her mind. Almost exactly like the slave ship that had taken her from Udun to Nurn, she could swear even the orcs were the same. With the familiarity, so too her sense of dread grew.

"Found this sharlob and a couple of poachers, capt'n. Olrok says she's worth a fortune. Looks like she's straight outta the breeder pit." Ugol threw her forward before his captain. Barbaurak and Zathra were unceremoniously ripped from Ur-Pagurz's shoulders and similarly cast before the crew's leader, who had stopped in his tracks, standing above Alaesia. The trio each groaned from their stiff and aching limbs from the trek, but only one seemed to capture the attention of the captain.

Just as she started to raise her head, a clawed hand slammed against the back of Alaesia's skull, snarling itself into the thick of her hair as the captain lifted her entirely by her scalp. Unable to supress a surprised yelp, she lifted her chained hands to resist, but found herself face to face with a vibrantly green-skinned orc she knew she had met before.

"Flay me..." Captain Frogblood spat, leering at his new slave. "I know this 'un! There's no mistakin' that bloody red hair of 'ers!'" His face quickly darkened from surprise to dangerous recognition. He snapped his fingers at Ugol, ordering curtly, "Get us back on the river. We'll pick up the rest of the hunters on our way. Then bring those other two shrakhs to my quarters. I need to know exactly how they ended up with my brother's slave!"

Frogblood's living space probably once had plenty of room for navigating, but many seasons of the slave trade had left him with a hoard of riches that filled the room, not unlike one might expect of a dragon. He had to kick a couple of chests out of the way, to make room for his new prisoners to be shackled and forced to their knees before him. Despite the golden interior of the room, there was no warmth there as he settled upon what could only be called a throne while waiting impatiently for new chains and shackles to be linked between all three prisoners, then secured to either wall to fully restrain all of them.

Barbaurak was worse for wear from being stretched and cut up, but he stared defiantly at Frogblood. At the same time to Barbaurak's right, Alaesia held herself hunched over, eyes averted as she tried to focus on the slow rocking of the boat as it was launched from shore to distract herself from her capture once again. On her other side, Zathra gave the chain between them a soft tug, trying to get her attention. Even if she wasn't technically his captive anymore, he couldn't help his instinct to try to reassure the tark woman. He murmured under his breath, hoping it might ease the heavy weight of dread that was growing over her, "It'll be alright lass, you'll live."

Alaesia refused to look at him, shivering at Zathra's words and the weight he could sense within her only grew heavier. He glanced at Frogblood, and back at her, beginning to piece together what he could of their connection. Could it be that this gaudy orc was blood brothers with the shadowy, owl-like uruk that she had shown Zathra in her vision? Zathra grimaced internally, realizing she was very likely to be sent right back to her old master if that was the case.

Frogblood pointed his trident towards Barbaurak first, "You don't seem ta know 'ow ta keep yer head down, do ya son? Tell me, then, why the blazes is my brother's slave here an' not wiv 'im?"

Barbarauk curled his lip in a sneer, "I don't know who yer brother is, limey shrakh."

Zathra wished he could give his companion a good smack upside the head for antagonizing an orc who could easily slaughter the both of them, but Frogblood took up the task himself. He spun his trident around, slamming Barbaurak in the jaw with the butt of the weapon. Alaesia cowered as Frogblood raised his voice, hissing, "Ya think I won't just kill ya and find out when I get's to Nurn, snaga scum? Let's try this again! 'Ow'd ya feel if I gut ya from belly to brain?!"

Barbaurak looked like he was about to spit something back, but Zathra interjected, "We really don't know anythin' 'bout yer brother, Captain." Frogblood's head snapped towards the other captive orc, who dipped his head respectfully, "We're just o' pair of new slavers, in Razmat's crew. We'd just found 'er this mornin' at the riverside and were heading back to our ship."

Frogblood stood before Zathra, hooking his chin with the barb of his trident and lifting his chin to look him in the eye, "Ya admit to poachin' my territory then?"

"Only on Razmat's orders sir, we didn't know he was pickin' a fight with the famous Captain Frogblood. This land was so barren of slaves, we wouldn't dare to think it was claimed otherwise..." Zathra carefully extracted himself from the barb, noting Frogblood's rage beginning to mellow. Alaesia noticed Barbaurak's sneer shift, out of the corner of her eye, turning ever so slightly upwards. Despite his half-melted visage, he seemed to smirk, as if pleased with how quickly Zathra's silver tongue was able to enrapture their captor.

Frogblood returned Zathra's slight smile, grabbing his shoulder and shaking it, almost like one might do with a good friend, "Ah, ye ain't worth staining my lovely deck over. I ain't gonna kill ya. Lucky you, I was on my way ta see my brother in Nurn!" The orc captain leaned closer to Zathra, as if to share a secret with him, "Word 'as it the fort was overthrown, and I just know's it was my brother tha' did it!"

Without warning, Frogblood's countenance turned dark once more and he grabbed Zathra by the throat, snarling, "So don't think yer filthy magic tricks are gonna save yer hide, elf-blooded scum. Yer all coming with me as a present to congratulate him on 'is victory!"

Zathra choked, gasping for air, snarling back in surprise, "Yer uruk bastard of a blood brother took Nurn?!"

Frogblood was about to snigger at the orc's shock that he saw through Zathra's charismatic magic, but stopped, "Uruk? The blazes you on about? My brother is Ku'Gohn the Gourmet! The leanest, meanest orc in Mordor and you lot'll make for the best feast 'e's ever had!" The captain shoved Zathra back, cracking his head against the wall of the chamber, turning to return to his throne when a soft voice caught his attention.

"No..."

All three orcs turned to look at Alaesia, who still stared at the floor, not daring to look up, nor to meet Frogblood's gaze. He tilted his head towards her, an incredulous eyebrow raised in her direction. "No? Bold little snaga, aren't ya? Who do you think you are to tell me 'no'?" The orc captain loomed close, tasting her fear in the air, grabbing a handful of her hair once more. "Whatever ye've got ta say, let's hear it!"

Alaesia trembled, not knowing what had made her speak so defiantly aloud, trying to avert her gaze from Frogblood's intense eyes. When she bit her lip, he shook her roughly until she choked out in a whisper, "K-Ku'Gohn... is d-dead..."

***** Translations *****

Skai - Damn

Snaga - Slave

Tark - Human

Sharlob - Human (female)

Shrakh - Shit