The white-haired elf pointed to herself and said, "Maeve." She quickly moved her finger to her companion and finished, "Tove." Dorky caught on to the introductions and replied with his name. "What do we do now?" he added. He was met with a shrug and spread hands. Apparently, they didn't share a common language. As he looked around and rummaged through the room, one of them, with a knife appearing from nowhere, began to cut the taut tent fabric, leaning her whole body into it. The other tore the material with a loud rip, holding it with both hands and jumping backward. They were clearly in a hurry to escape, even if blindly. Luckily for them when the flap gave way, rays of the setting sun flooded in. The tent was one of the outer ones. Wind from the steppe began to blow dust and dozens of small, dried plants inside. Tove, clutching a handful of stolen items under her arm, bent down, passing to the other side. The boy looked wistfully at her perfect bottom and bruised, beautiful, smooth legs. He was terribly thirsty. Maeve gathered herself to follow suit, and then their gazes met. She urged him on with her hand and looked at him questioningly. The boy held Darma's club in his hand and stared at the ground. "I didn't come here alone. I can't just leave her, understand?" he whispered. The elf looked at him for a moment, astonished. Then she came close and squeezed his arm. "Vayo kon dioz, umo belo," she said farewell in a language he didn't understand, turned, and was gone in a moment. Utterly distraught, he questioned his decision for a moment, but then he remembered the huntress's gaze and, determined, headed in the opposite direction to save her.

  He moved silently as a cat, taking tiny steps through the narrow corridor. When he reached the slave pits, he put immense effort into calming his nerves and refraining from acting at the wrong moment. The guardswomen were all too visible, and he certainly didn't want to be spotted by them. One of them, in string panties barely covering her sculpted, dark-brown buttocks, had been shifting her weight from foot to foot for a while, tapping her furry boots. The boy was bored and felt his withered penis sticking to his pants with a wee trickle of semen still leaking from it. "Oh gods, what an orgy that was!" he thought, recalling the recent events in the punishment chamber. His pleasure and pride were interrupted by a sudden, fearful thought that Garba might wake up, and then she would probably order him to be skinned alive. Could he blame the elves? Probably, but that wouldn't save him from punishment. Fortunately, the guardswoman, laughing and pushing her companion, went off to relieve herself, so his current problems were halved. Without waiting long, he stormed into the room and, with a move he'd observed from Maeve, precisely struck the Orc-woman who stood with her back to him, with the club. The blow landed on the back of her head, sending the powerful female into dreamland. When she fell flat, the runaway braced himself and rolled her into one of the pits, using the club to effectively pry open the grates. He pondered the effectiveness of head blows delivered to unsuspecting opponents. Or perhaps the power lay in the choice of weapon? The club was very heavy but felt great in his hands. When a person twisted at the hips and swung lightly, the entire mass seemed to shift towards the tip, dealing crushing damage to any unfortunate surface in its path. If he strengthened his muscles, maybe he could learn to wield such a weapon? For a moment, vague visions of future victories passed before the young man's eyes: impressive piles of squashed goblins and monsters, heaped into a mound on which he stood, shirtless, oiled and tanned, with luscious girls of various races and kinds kneeling at each side, gazing at him, pleading...

  He awoke and, beaming, ran to the pit where Darma was held. His heart sank at the sight of her bruised, swollen body and the bucket filled with bloody water, but he was happy as a fool because the Orc-woman was apparently in good spirits. He made contact with her and rushed to the winch to lift the hated grate. A few minutes later, limping and supporting each other, they ran across the inhospitable steppe towards the distant hills. The unspoken threat of terrible punishment gave them wings. When the terrain finally began to change, they literally clambered on all fours up every small incline. After the fourth or fifth bush, they weren't even jogging anymore, just walking. When they could no longer lift their legs, proud Darma simply sat on the ground for a moment and, hugging her weapon to her chest, fainted from exhaustion. It was already quite dark. The boy watched with fear the lines of torches moving across the steppe below them and begged the gods for help. They had no water or food. Both, in their own way, had experienced immense exertion over the past few days. The dry, inhospitable environment offered little chance for recovery. He couldn't even lift the Orc-woman, let alone run further with her on his back. She was bigger and stronger than him. For lack of a better idea, he searched the area and found a large clump of prickly pear cacti. Disregarding the irritating, skin-and-clothing-tearing pricks, he gathered a whole shirtful of sweet, dark red fruits, then dragged himself back to where she lay. Dirty and sticky with juice, he painstakingly removed the hairy spines from the food and began to gently feed the sleeping female. First, he ran his sticky fingers over her lips. Later, bringing his face close to hers, he watched the sprouts with fascination. The moment he used his thumb to pull down her lower lip, her eyes flashed open, and her mouth stretched into a faint smile. "I forbid you to fuck me in my sleep, you little pervert," she whispered, stretching. "Besides, I'm not in shape. And why are your fingers so sweet?" Dorky snorted and showed her the pile of fruit. She immediately reached for four and shoved them into her mouth. She ate, watching him with narrowed eyes. "You're a fool, Little Fox. If you can move, you should run. You know well that when I recover, you'll come with me to the camp, and there... your days are numbered." Dorky gazed into the darkness. The pursuit torches were dangerously close. "It doesn't matter that much," he said, "and besides, if I ran away, I couldn't, you know..." "Fuck me in my sleep and rub prickly pears on my mouth?" she asked, pursing her lips for a kiss and raising her eyebrows. The boy laughed. There was something strangely comforting in this flirting conversation, in the face of their terrible situation. He suddenly longed to hug the Orc-woman tightly, so he lay down beside her and awkwardly put his arm around her. Using slow movements and helping herself with her legs, she turned him so he was facing her back and snuggled him close, embracing him with strong arms. After a moment, she reached for another fruit and fed it to him. And then she fell asleep, snoring lightly.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  A few moments after dawn, Farme, her face smeared with charcoal camouflage and her light hair hidden under a black hood, looked at them in disbelief. "What the hell is this?" she hissed in an amused whisper into Narma's ear. The other sister looked as if she had swallowed something she desperately needed to spit out but for some reason couldn't. They bantered with the barbaric woman, pushing each other into their arms and squealing with laughter. "I could watch them like this all morning, but you understand, we have to get out of here," Narma said, then snapped her fingers a few times by her sister's ear. The latter sprang to one knee, shielding the disheveled boy, torn from sleep, literally with her own breast, as she was still wearing nothing but too-small briefs. "By my honor!" she cried, seeing whom fate had brought them to meet. "Good to see you, girls." She flopped onto the ground in a relaxed position. "Are you sure?" Narma began to tease, pointing at her sister's and Dorky's nakedness and making some suggestions with her fingers. "You're here on a little rendezvous with your sweet human, and we're interrupting you..." "Enough of that, damn it!" hissed Farme, peering from behind the bushes towards the plains. "Someone's looking for you, and in considerable force. Considering where we are, there's going to be serious trouble. Narma and I thought we'd have to rescue you from a kobold mage, the trail was as weak as a dog's dick, and here we are, we stumbled into the territory of these crazy Krush women..." "Alright, alright, foulmouth," Darma smacked at her, stuffing a few handfuls of fruit into her mouth. "We're bolting. I missed your litanies of curses," she added conciliatorily. Without bothering to bind Dorky, they simply took him between them and began to quickly sneak through the thickets. Before a few hours passed, each of them was pricked, scraped, stung by insects, and sweaty, but alive. The rescue team also had water in a waterskin and strips of dried meat, which were divided equally, not omitting the prisoner, though Narma briefly looked at her sister questioningly. "The Little Fox showed honor," the Orc-woman said firmly, giving him her portion first. "He could have escaped, but instead, he defeated the guardswoman and got me out of deep trouble." The corners of Farme's mouth turned upwards. "Dumb as a boot, but brave. Are you sure, boy, you're not an Orc?" she asked, chewing her ration. She unlaced her boots and let her feet rest a bit. The dense bushes offered only small patches of shade, and the heat bothered them. "What else can you tell us about him, Darma?" she continued. "Has he already used that weapon a male carries below his waist?" "There will be an opportunity to find out," Narma echoed her, "as soon as we reach the settlement alive and Babeno gives him a flick for escaping. Do you know, young rogue, that it's because of your foolish behavior that we're risking our necks here? Well, that's in the past now. It seems you've grown fond of being our property." She finished, giving him no chance to respond. They gathered themselves and moved on. Darma bandaged her cut leg, and replaced her missing clothing by wrapping the straps of the leather bag she carried on her back across her breasts, from which the handle of her favorite club protruded. Dorky inadvertently recalled where that weapon had been for some time, but decided he wouldn't share that story with the Uurb clan's Strong. Some things are better left unsaid. Step by step, around ever-new, endless clumps of cacti and thorny bushes, they headed back towards the encampment.