The brutish spawn carried their burden easily, followed by the quiet and dazed Anna.  As they exited the wagon, Lauralana could see they were in a large cavern.  Moonlight spilled in from the entrance, which was choked with creepers and vines full of bright flowers.  But to elven eyes, those vibrant greens and colors where not enough to hide the unwholesome taint that seeped into them, nor the bones and decaying bodies clutched among their roots.  And while the night air was still, they swayed ever so slightly, waiting and hungry.<br/><br/>It was not toward the beautiful curtain of death but away from it she was carried.  Deeper into the tunnels, all of them lit by a pale luminescent fungus that clung to the wet stone walls and ceiling.  They passed the bustle of spawn and orks and humans, glimpsing forges where weapons and armors were being hammered out and barracks and other signs of preparing an army.  They also passed chambers filled with females, glassy-eyed like Anna, laying amidst straw naked and complacent as their swollen flesh writhed from the spawn filling them.  And then they passed through a curtain of fine silk and into a round cave with a clear pool in it's center.<br/><br/>The water steamed, heated by some natural spring and making the air warm and damp.  The spawn carried Lauralana to the edge of the pool and lowered her into the heated water before withdrawing back to flank the lone doorway they'd brought her through.  A table sat at the water's edge and upon it were piled a collection of oils and soaps and cloths, luxuries of raiding deposited haphazardly.<br/><br/>And well away from the water stood a rank with a gown of pure white, long and elegant and set with diamonds and pearls.  It was finer even than the one her own queen had worn when she had taken her lifemate.  A bent and hunched crone of a spawn stood beside it, grinning with a mouth full of crooked yellow fangs.  "At last..." she hissed, "Make her clean girl... make her ready... the master's bride must be perfect..."