Darkness had fallen over the once beautiful elf village.  Hours had passed since the one called Gorgamesh had left, Doshvin in tow.  It had been hours of hellish torment for the elven priestesses and healers.  Long hours filled with repeated, brutal beatings and even more brutal rapes.  None were spared, save through death, least of all the one that had dared to think she could defy their leader.  She had received special attention, used and abused in ways she had never known were possible, beaten for the slightest imagined infraction, forced to scream until her throat was so raw that she tasted blood and every swallow of thick, whitish release from her tormentors burned like acid.<br/><br/>In a haze of pain and horror the elf girl called Shaelee now trudged along with the other captives as they were herded through what had once been their peaceful home.  Now it was little more than a smoking ruin, homes burned to the ground, the streets littered with scattered belongings and the bodies of the fallen.  Most had been left where they had fallen, their blood seeping between cobblestones and into the earth, but in some places special attention had been paid to the dead.  One of the village elders had been hung just outside the great hall, his body secured to the doorframe by numerous black feathered arrows for which the orcish archers were known.  Further along the avenue an elvish guard had been literally torn limb from limb, his hand still clutching his sword in the middle of the road while most of the rest of him lay in the gutter yards away.<br/><br/>After that Shaelee didn’t want to see any more, could not look.  She walked with her head down, her tangled and dirty hair partially obscuring her view.  Not even when the orcs that guarded them roared a command or one of her fellow priestesses screamed in pain after being hit or kicked, even made to crawl if they could not walk, did she raise her eyes.  She just watched her dirty, bare feet, concentrating on putting one in front of the other, focusing on not falling because she knew if she did she’d never get up again.<br/><br/>The uproar of the orc encampment was an abomination to the ears.  The screams of men and women filled the air, terror, pain, despair that was thick enough to taste on the tongue.  Not all of the elven men of their village had been killed in the battle, they saw many of them bound and left lying in the dirt, some wounded and unconscious, others watching in horror as their fellow elves were tortured for the amusement of their captors.  There were a number of unbound elves as well, all female, nearly all naked except for collars and bracelets of thick, dark iron.  Some served their orc masters, bringing food and drink.  Others served in a more intimate capacity.  What horrified her sisters as they were paraded past were the sounds of ecstasy from some of these last.  What struck Shaelee was that screams or moans, it didn’t seem to matter to the beasts that rutted with them.<br/><br/>Their final destination was a large tent that had been erected in the center of the encampment.  There were many tents, but no other so large as this one.  Where most seemed made of whatever materials sufficed, be it cloth or some thin hide, this one was constructed wholly of some heavy leather that had been well oiled to repel the rain.  Over the opening hung the bleached skull of some great beast for which Shaelee had no name, but even in death its fangs made it seem fearsome.  Spooked by all that she had witness, all that she had endured, Shaelee hesitated, reluctant to walk beneath the skull and enter the tent.  A blow to her back pushed her forward and sent her sprawling in the trampled grass just inside the tent.<br/><br/>Expecting a blow she wasn’t surprised when one came, a kick to her side that stole her breath and rolled her onto her back.  One eye swollen shut, the vision of the other blurred by blood and tears, she watched as the orc lifted his foot to bring it down on her with all of his considerable weight, then closed her eyes as death finally came to claim her.  She opened them again as a scuffle took place next to her, another orc knocking his fellow aside so that his foot landed in the dirt next to her head.<br/><br/>“Oy!  You want to get us all killed for this elf whore?” the newcomer demanded as he pointed at Shaelee.  “Warboss said to bring this one alive.”  He reached down and grabbed her by the arm, jerking her to her feet and wrenching her shoulder hard enough to make her scream before he shoved her forward.  “When Gorgamesh throws her in with the rest, do what you want.”<br/><br/>Stunned to still be alive almost as much as she was to realize that she was only because the brutish orc leader had commanded it, Shaelee was taken to the where the others were being held to off to one side of the large tent.  There she finally collapsed to her knees.  Naked, covered in blood and dried orc semen.  She was covered in bruises and scrapes.  One side of her face was black, swollen and misshapen.  Broken.