It was late in the afternoon, nearing dusk. A lone orc sat near a crackling fire, his attention focused on the carcass of a small boar. With no skill, he was working roughly to strip the beast of its hide. He grunted with the effort, his dull knife being unable to get a neat cut between skin and meat. He started to tug at a little strip of hide near the back leg, but before he could get a grip, his attention was diverted by the crunching of sticks. The clearing the orc now sat in had recently been a copse of young saplings skinny enough for the orc to snap them with bare hands, but he had not done so alone. Two more orcs entered the small encampment. One held a rope; on the other end was a naked young woman, bound by the wrists. Despite her current state of appearance, it was clear she could easily be described as beautiful. Her once-golden hair was matted with mud and leaves. Her milky skin was striped with superficial cuts from walking through the brush. Her thighs were covered in fresh yellow and purple bruises the size of orc fingers.<br/><br/>"Hezzit gun be mad." The tone was disapproving. "You took his new toy." There was a guttural switch from common tongue to the orcish language as the three monsters argued with each other. A light scuffle shortly ensued where the piglet corpse was thrown and the rope was dropped. The young woman looked down at the unsecured rope, eyes wide with indecision. Before she could work up the courage to take action, the orcs had settled down and the end of the rope had been picked up again.<br/><br/>"We far nuff 'way. Hezzit ain't gun find us." There was another round of insults in orcish and the piglet was unceremoniously chopped in half with a cleaver of a sword.<br/><br/>As they began to prepare their meal, the woman looked on in disinterest. Yesterday, she had been Elly Woodbright. Today, she was Orc Cumdump. The leader of the orcs, Hezzit, had led his little band of eight or so monsters on a raid against her family's wagon. She had no idea what happened; she had been pulled from her seat and hit her head quite hard, passing out. The fate of her father and brothers was undetermined, but probably dead. And if they had been killed, there would be no one to ask the Guild of Heroes to come rescue her. Last night, she had been in sore need of a rescuing and it had not come. But last night, she had only entertained the interests of Hezzit, much to the ire of the other orcs. This morning, she had been abducted once more by these three treacherous orcs who had spent the hours telling her exactly what they were going to do to her as they put as much distance between their old band and them as possible.<br/><br/>And there wouldn't be any waiting for turns.<br/><br/>She shuddered at the thought as she sat down, eyes looking out into the dense forest in resignation. She would rather die. She just needed to figure out how to have it happen swiftly.<br/>