The
Elven Chronicles
Episode
Three
The
Fugitive Bride
Chapter
8 Grotharia
The narrow path leading
to Grotharia was not difficult to traverse, but Ralasharia treated it with
great care. “It does not
appear to be guarded, but the Grotharg’s are cunning foes in spite of
their brutish appearance. It
does not pay to underestimate them, as many have
found. The path may have traps
hidden along it and it would not pay to become caught in
one.”
Honoria
nodded. She could certainly agree
with that sentiment. She kept
her eyes open, but saw nothing to be worried about, however, about halfway
down Ralasharia suddenly stopped.
“See here,” she said, pointing to a stick about the thickness
of Honoria’s finger that lay directly across the
path. Honoria looked, but saw
nothing sinister about it. It
seemed to be an ordinary branch that had fallen to the path from one of the
trees arching over the trail.
Ralasharia knelt beside
it and carefully scraped away a little of the gravel that covered the end
of the stick closest to the cliff side of the path and Honoria saw that the
stick was longer than it appeared and ran under a pile of rocks at the base
of the cliff. “Kick this,”
Ralasharia said, “and it will release this small rock which holds in
place this larger rock which in
turn…”
She didn’t have to
finish. “That would bring
down the entire cliff face,” said
Honoria.
“And bury anyone under
it,” Ralasharia finished.
“We will leave it as it is rather than trigger
it. That way if the Grothargs
check they will not know that anyone has come this
way.”
They continued their careful
descent, discovering no more traps until they reached the
bottom. Here the trail widened
and the going was much easier, but once again Ralasharia stopped and inspected
the path in front of them.
Carefully the Elf paced the width of the trail and then finally stopped,
as close to the rock cliff as she could
get. “We will walk
here. Stay close to the cliff
and follow me. The main path
conceals a pit that no doubt has something unpleasant at the
bottom.”
Honoria followed Ralasharia
as closely as she could. “Are
we to be plagued by traps the entire time?” she
asked. “It will take us
forever to cross Grotharia.”
“Only on the main
trails,” Ralasharia answered.
“Once we are free of this canyon we will strike out across
country. That has hazards of
its own, but at least we are not forced to move at a snail’s
pace.”
“Why do the Grothargs
not post sentries at the entrance to their lands?” Honoria
asked. “It would seem a
more likely way to guard their lands.”
“The Grotharg’s
are an uncooperative bunch at best,” Ralasharia
answered. “They tend not
to be interested in anything, such as guard duty, that does not turn an immediate
profit. On occasion a strong
leader can force a number of them into line, but most of the time if they
are not terrorizing their neighbours then they terrorize one
another. No Grotharg would bother
to guard an isolated trail on the chance that something might come down it
every now and then. The traps
are much more effective as they need be checked only once every few
days.”
The small canyon down which
they had been traveling suddenly widened out and Ralasharia headed away from
the trail. Once she was once
more moving through the trees she picked up the
pace. She spoke quietly as she
walked. “Grotharia is not
heavily populated. The Grotharg
lifestyle leads to a high casualty rate leaving most of Grotharia as
wilderness. With luck we will
be able to make our way around any Grotharg settlements without them even
knowing we are there. However,
if they pick up our scent we will have to make a run for
it.”
Honoria, who had never even
heard of Grothargs before meeting Ralasharia, became steadily more apprehensive
as they headed deeper into Grotharg territory.
She kept her eyes peeled and
perhaps that was why she saw the smoke
first.
It was off to her right,
and not on their line of march, but Ralasharia stopped and considered it
anyway. “It’s probably
just a settlement,” she said, “but it might be a good idea to
investigate it anyway.”
The area they were in was
thick with trees and boulders, providing good cover, but Honoria could not
help thinking that it also provided numerous places for an ambush as they
moved cautiously toward the smoke.
It took them a good hour
and twilight was approaching before they caught sight of their
objective. It was a burning village,
victim of the internecine warfare that permeated Grotharg
society. A palisade ran around
the twenty or so building that made up the village, but the gate that would
have barred the way into the village was wide
open. Whether it had already
been open and the villagers had been caught by surprise or whether the attackers
had smashed it open was impossible to tell from Honoria’s vantage point,
but one thing was clear, the inhabitants of the village were suffering terribly.
Ralasharia muttered something
just loud enough for Honoria to hear.
“The thargs of the Iron Hand have attacked a village of the Red
Stone Tribe.” She hunched
down behind a large boulder and watched the incursion.
Dozens of Grothargs rampaged
through the village, looting burning, and taking prisoner or killing any
villager they could get their hands on.
It looked chaotic, but there was a cruel pattern to
it. Most of the dead were Grothargs
of fighting age, the huge “tharg” males who had been cut down in
the defence of their village; others were the younger males of no use to
the conquerors or too intractable to be worth taking into
service. Their bodies littered
the compound, their greyish-green corpses splattered with the blood of their
wounds. Here and there was the
body of a female; the “bitches,” many of whom had fought alongside
the thargs, some being just as skilled in the use of weapons as their male
counterparts. But most of the
females faced a crueller more brutal
fate.
Dozens of captured bitches
struggled in chains, heavy iron collars linking them one to the
other. They were now slaves of
their captors and like slaves subject to the whims of their masters.
They had already been separated
into three groups – those who were mature females; huge hulking brutes
standing almost seven feet tall, and equipped with savage fighting
fangs. Their huge breasts bounced
as they fought to escape their shackles or screamed in rage at the
invaders. A second group consisted
of the underage females, those too young to
breed. They had been herded into
one corner of the compound and were watched by a number of Iron Hand thargs
armed with spears. The third
group was the one that attracted the most interest from the
invaders. It consisted of the
younger but mature bitches, those who had not yet chosen mates, but who were
physically mature. It was they
who were paying the highest price for the defeat of the Red Stone
Tribe.
“What are they
doing?” Honoria asked, her eyes wide with
disbelief. “Oh they are…
Oh no!”
Ralasharia only
nodded. There was no need for
explanation. Both women watched
as the Red Stone bitches were ravished by the conquering Iron
Hand. The fact that they were
not human did not make the scene any more
pleasant. The Red Stone bitches
screamed in rage as they were pinned down; some by three or four Iron Hand
warriors, and were cruelly raped.
Honoria was unable to tear
her eyes away from the scene although watching caused her own stomach to
churn. She knew only too
well what the captured females were
experiencing. The Gortharg males
were huge in all aspects of their anatomy, their sex organs rivalling those
of a stallion, and only the fact that most of the nubile bitches were close
to them in size allowed them to accommodate such a huge
member. Still, they fought and
screamed like female victims in many a human society and Honoria felt her
gorge rise in revulsion.
Finally she tore her eyes
away from the horrid scene and sat with her back to the rock, her head in
her hands. Ralasharia said nothing
but she placed a comforting hand on Honoria’s
shoulder. After awhile she
spoke. “Come,” she
said softly. “There is nothing
we can do here.”
The crept back the way they
had come until the Red Stone village was out of
sight. “We will try to make
our way around the village. I
suspect that the Grothargs are too busy to detect
us.”
Honoria
nodded. “Busy” was
not the word she would have used
She could see the wisdom of moving while the Grothargs were occupied
with brutalizing one another and the fact that night was falling would probably
help them even more.
They crept through the twilight,
still moving from boulder to boulder and keeping to forest cover as much
as possible. Ralasharia seemed
have little difficulty finding her way even as it got darker although Honoria
stumbled occasionally. They circled
about a mile to the west of the village.
Honoria could clearly see where it was from the glow of flames and
even at that distance she could still hear the howls of the thargs and the
screams of the bitches.
Moving quickly they entered
the forest on the other side of the village and began to climb a rocky
ridge. By this time Honoria’s
legs hurt although Ralasharia was striding along as if she was just beginning
the day’s journey. As if
guessing her condition the Elf turned her head and whispered over her
shoulder. “Just a half hour
more and we will stop. We should
be far enough away by then.”
Honoria did not bother to
answer, but put her head down and kept on climbing up the
slope. That was why she ran into
Ralasharia who had suddenly stopped in front of her.
“What…?”
Honoria gasped and then froze.
Watching them from no more than a dozen yards away was a group of
Grothargs. Even as she spotted
them they took out their weapons and screaming battle cries and howling like
beasts they
charged.
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