“Move faster, lazy sluts!” The dwarf slaver shouted, cracking his whip. The weighted leather tip slashed a red line across the flank of the nearest orc. She raised her head, her roar of pain muffled by the thick leather bit clenched between her teeth. After a few seconds, the captive lowered her head again and shuffled forward, a bit quicker than before. She hefted the stout wooden barrel on her back as if it weighed nothing, hindered only a little by the heavy iron chains on her hands and feet.

Around her, a long line of other orc women labored, carrying barrels and crates of supplies from the riverboat to the slavers camp, under the watchful eyes, and stinging whips of a dozen or so slavers; some hunters from the camp, others come upriver with the boat.

With a groan, Jurda lifted the barrel up, setting it across her shoulders. The orc turned, shuffling up the ramp out of the boat’s hold and down the gangplank onto the shore. From there, a second line of slaves would carry it up the steep hill into the camp’s supply dump. The barrel was not heavy, not for a full grown orc, and not compared to the crate of heavy iron chains she had carried before it. The barrel sloshed as it moved. Dwarf beer, Jurda guessed, for the slavers. The barrel smelled strongly of alcohol. Never the less, she cringed, feeling weak. The sun was high in the sky and its oppressive rays withered her and the other orcs, accustomed to the dark twilight hours.  

“Careful with that, dumb bitch!” One of the dwarves shouted angrily. Fast as a rattlesnake, the tip of his whip flicked out, leaving a welt across Jurda’s naked buttock. The orc winced. A cruel whip like that would have drawn blood from a dwarf, would have flayed the flesh off a softer human or elf. An orc’s hide was tougher than that. The blow was painful, but not damaging. But it did the job of reminding the orc who was the master and who was the slave. The dwarf held the whip, he was the master. Jurda wore a collar. She was his slave and would obey.  

A soft, angry growl escaped Jurda’s gagged mouth as she set down the barrel, carefully. She glared angrily at the dwarf for a second. If she were a little closer… The heavy shackles locking her wrists in front of her were no great hindrance, quite the opposite. With an orcs great strength swinging them, the metal rings could break a slaver’s bones. Jurda hadn’t managed that, only bruising some of the men, but she’d seen other slaves manage it since her capture and arrival here. When the barge headed downriver, it would carry several injured slavers, not all hurt while subduing wild, yet uncaptured orcs. Even collared and ringed, a slave orc could still hurt.

But hurt was all she could do, Jurda knew. The shackles prevented her from running and, once on guard, the slavers generally had little trouble recapturing rebellious slaves. Slaves who injured their betters might find themselves strung up by the arms, high in the air, as an example to others, and whipped each day until they bled. For others, the punishment was to be locked in a small cage, barely large enough to accommodate a full grown orc with her head sticking out the top. The inside was lined was dull spikes, to punish any struggling. The cage could be hoisted high into the air over the gate, or lowered into a dank pit half filled with water and filth, according to the whim of the slavers.

For hitting the slaver ladling out mush for the slaves, Jurda had spent a week curled up one of the punishment cages. Seven days unable to stretch out her arms and legs, or move at all, quickly cowed her spirit, for a time at least. And after seven days with no food and only such water as the slavers begrudgingly gave her, Jurda was pathetically grateful to be fed even the horrid slop the slaves were given.

The dwarf, a veteran slaver, noticed the orc slave eyeing him angrily. He stepped back, making sure he was out of the short range of her chained arms and cracked the whip again, drawing a welt across Jurda’s breast. “Back to work, or it’s the punishment cage for you.” Glumly, Jurda lowered her head in resignation. She turned and shuffled back up the gangplank to collect the next crate of supplies.

As the last of the cargo was unloaded, the orcs were lined up, on the bank of the river. A slaver went down the line, carefully, linking the chains on the orcs’ hands to the chain belt at their waists, now they no longer needed their hands to work.

“On your knees! Heads down!” The slavers ordered, cracking more whips for emphasis. Along with the other orcs, Jurda sank to her knees on the soft earth, slipping back into a dull lethargy. Since her capture, the orc woman had spent most of her time in enforced idleness; chained in the cells with the other captives, waiting for the next time they would be fed, or the rare time they would be taken out and allowed some brief exercise. Or when she and the others were taken out for work, kneeling and waiting for the next order to be given, to be allowed to do something, even if it was only what the slavers ordered.

The orc pined for the old freedom of the badlands. The thrill of stalking prey through the thorn brush, the excitement of a kill or the bloody struggle with predators or another orc over the meal. Such things seemed only a dim memory now, dreams of another life.              

As she waited, more slavers came down out of the camp, leading more coffles of chained orc slaves. The newcomers were ordered to kneel in line behind Jurda and the others. Then another lot was brought out and another. It seemed as if the whole compound was being emptied. Meanwhile, on the boat, the crew were busy. The empty hold was being converted. Wooden partitions were being removed. She could hear the rattle of chains as they were spread around the hold.    

“Up!” The slavers ordered. Silently, Jurda and the other orcs obediently rose to their feet. At the slavers command, they shuffled forward, towards the boats gangplanks. As she climbed up into the boat and then back down into the hold, Jurda looked around, eyes wide. This was new. She didn’t know what was happening, but after weeks of captivity and slavery, she knew anything new would be bad for her and the other slaves. Then, the slavers ordered them to kneel. As she sank to the floor of the hold, Jurda saw heavy rings had been bolted to the deck of the hold. Thick chains ran through the rings, across the length of the boat. More chains soon linked the orc’s collar and the cuffs on her hands and feet to these chains.

“They’re transporting us…somewhere.” Jurda thought. The orc had dimly been aware, from conversations overhead from slavers talking, that the orcs they captured were sent down river to some slave fair to be sold and the gold from their sale used to buy the supplies and hire new hunters to keep the slaving camp running. Now it was her turn to be shipped downriver and sold! She gave a low groan of distress, but by now it was too late. She was securely chained to the hold, unable to rise or move from her position. The two captives on either side of Jurda pressed close against her as the hold was packed full of slaves.

When the last of the orcs were dragged down into the hold and chained in place, the heavy wooden coverings for the hold were slid back into place, closing it up. Jurda and the other captives were plunged into total darkness. She could see nothing, hear only the panting breath of a hundred orc women, the rattling of chains as they shifted around, and the dull thudding of boots running across the deck scant inches overhead.

After an interminable time, the boatmen cast off from the slaver’s dock. The orc’s prison began to rock and sway, eliciting moans of dismay from the captives as they floated downriver. At times, the rocking motion of the boat seemed almost peaceful. At other times, the boat shook and bounced as the sailors navigated their way down swift waters. To the orcs, with no way of knowing where they were headed, know way of telling how the sailors above them were handling the twists and turns in the river, these were brief moments of terror, an uncommon emotion for the orcs, but their helplessness, trapped in the hold drove home the fear of this unknown trip.

“What if the boat founders? Or sinks?” Jurda thought with horror. The orc doubted the slavers would be able to unchain all of the slaves in the hold before the boat went under the water, assuming they would even bother to try and save them. Chained in the hold, unable to escape their prison, they would all surely drown, helplessly! At that moment, there was a bang to one side as the barge bumped against something, a rock or a log floating in the river. Without warning, Jurda felt a warm liquid spreading across the deck between her legs. The orc realized she had lost control of her bladder. She was far from the only slave to piss herself in fright. Between them and the orcs who threw up from the motion of the boat’s rocking, the atmosphere of the hold soon became oppressively vile.

It was a great relief to the slaves when the riverboat passed the rapids out of the badlands and into the calmer waters of the lowlands. On the banks of the rivers, the cragged cliffs and hills of the orc badlands gave way to rolling farmlands and open countryside of the civilized lands. Not that the orcs could see any of this, though. They remained trapped in the dark hold, unaware of where they were being taken.

The journey down river lasted for three days, though in the gloom of their prison, night and day were one seamless void for the captives. They were not given any food, nor water apart from a few drops that dripped between the boards when a wave splashed onto the deck of the riverboat. The thin gaps in the boards also let in the only fresh air the hold received. In such circumstances, captives from any race less hardy then the orcs would not have lasted the trip; as it was Jurda had never felt so weakened by hardship. The punishment cages back at the slaver’s camp had hardly been worse.

Finally, the riverboat reached its destination. The first the captives knew of their arrival was the dull thump as the hull of the barge scraped up against the dock. For a moment, the orcs thought they’d hit another rock and whimpers of terror echoed through the hold. It took a moment before they realized the barge had stopped moving for the first time in days. Overhead, they could hear the sailors moving around, tying the vessel off to the pier. When they had done that, the hatches of the hold were pulled back. The orcs groaned in relief as fresh air wafted in. Overhead, a night sky and a full moon illuminated the hold for the first time in days.  

“Lady’s Blessing what a stink!” A human on deck remarked as the earthy smells of the captives wafted up out of the hold. “Do the filthy beasts always smell so foul?”

“Only when they’re in heat.” One of the sailor’s joked. “They must have heard you were coming!” He and the other sailors laughed. “Come on, the sooner you get them washed down and the boat clean, the sooner they’ll stop stinking.”

The man who had spoken first stepped into view, standing at the edge of the hatch. Jurda craned her neck as much as the restrictive collar and chain leash allowed, looking up at the man. He was dressed odd, in a long cloth garment dyed a dark purple. Complex sigils were stitched on it with silver and gold thread. The orc had heard stories about the “wizards” of the civilized lands though she’d never seen one before. The wizard looked down at the captive orcs as if examining livestock in a pen at a farm, a frown of distaste on his face.

From a pouch on his belt, the wizard drew a small, delicately shaped vial made of some light blue stone. Mumbling an arcane chant in a low voice, the wizard drew out the stopper of the vial and tipped it over. A thin stream of water poured out, far more a container of that size should have been able to hold. As it hit the deck, the liquid expanded, rising up, forming a figure, roughly half the size of a full grown man. It was humanoid, with a head of long hair that flowed down across graceful shoulders in a shimmering waterfall. The body was vaguely feminine, with small, round breasts and a thin waist leading to wide, curving hips. Long, sinuous legs perched gracefully on the deck. Around one ankle was a band of gold, glowing with magical runes. A chain of golden light ran from this band up to the lip of the bottle the water had been poured from. The moonlight shimmered as it passed through the clear, bluish water, giving an ethereal quality to it.

The wizard spoke a command and the water elemental moved. It raised a hand, palm turned out, at the hold and the chained orcs. Without warning, a jet of water suddenly came forth from the palm. The water arced down, to a group of slaves. The female orcs grunted loudly in complaint as they were struck. At another command form the wizard, the elemental slowly panned its arm, moving the spray of water across the holds occupants. Jurda grimaced as she came under the jet of water. It was cold and the pressure of it against her hide was like the sting of the whip.

On deck, a couple of sailors manned the riverboat’s bilge pumps, sucking the water up as it filled the bottom of the hold. After several minutes, all of the slaves had been hosed down, removing most of the filth and grime that had accumulated during their imprisonment. The slaves knelt, dripping and shivering in their chains. On deck, the wizard spoke another command. With almost a look of reluctance, the elemental fell in on itself, forming a stream of water once more that flowed back up into its vial. With a magic word, he sealed the stopper in once more.

“Good job.” One of the sailors told the wizard, clapping him on the back. “This is a lot easier than washing them off by the hand pumps. It usually takes days to fully scrub out the hold after hauling a load of slaves.”

Meanwhile, the slavers climbed down into the hold and began the long process of unchaining their captive cargo for unloading. The chains binding Jurda to the hold were undone. With a groan, the orc straightened up, her limbs and back protesting this sudden movement after so long bent over. She was dragged over to the previous orc. A thick chain was run from the front of her collar to the back of the other slaves. A second, shorter, chain, was clipped, connecting the rings piercing the two captive’s sex’s.

“What’s the point of chaining them like that?” The wizard called down a question to the slavers busy chaining the orcs into a coffle.

“Bit of motivation.” The slaver replied. “Orcs are strong, stupid brutes, and don’t like following commands. The bitches are a bit more pliant, one reason why we prefer to enslave them, but not much. You put a collar round a big she-orc like this one,” he said, slapping Jurda’s buttocks, “Put a chain on it and pull, half the time she’ll stand there, not budging, with a stupid look on her face.”

“If you want her to move, you need to attach the chain to something sensitive, like the nose, or nips or pussy.” He pointed to the rings piercing the orc woman. “Tug on one of those…” Jurda grunted sharply into her gag as the slaver grabbed the chain between her legs and pulled sharply. She jumped, shuffling forward to try and relieve the pressure. “She’ll move easy as you like.” He laughed, giving another painful tug before letting go. Jurda grunted angrily into her gag, but chained as she was, the orc could do no more than glower at the slaver as he moved to chain the next slave in place behind her.

When the orcs were chained into a long coffle, the slavers got them moving, with whips and shouts. As the captive in front of her started to move, Jurda shuffled forward, eager to avoid another painful tug on the chain between her legs. She grunted curses into her gag as the female behind her was slow to move, and the chain joining the two orcs suddenly went taut with painful consequences for both of them. Grunting and groaning, the slaves shuffled up the ramp out of the hold and down the gangplank onto the pier.

On the dock, second set of slavers were waiting to take charge of the captives, so the riverboat men could start the long process of poling their barge back upriver to the camp with another load of supplies. Jurda saw a mound of crates and barrels on the dock, waiting to be stowed away. A group of slaves knelt beside the cargo, waiting to carry it, under the watchful eye of a taskmaster. They weren’t orcs, though. They were human and dwarf females, naked. Their heads weren’t shaved, and they hadn’t been ringed the way the orcs had, but the metal chains on their hands and feet and the iron collars around their necks left little doubt as to their status. As the column of orcs shuffled off the boat, the taskmaster barked an order. With weary groans, the human and dwarf slaves rose to their feet, to begin the long, arduous process of carrying the inanimate cargo down the dock to replace the living cargo that had just left.

Meanwhile, Jurda and the other orcs marched uphill from the docks. They passed through a human settlement. This late at night, most of the houses and shops were closed up and dark, though in a few of the windows, curious heads poked out to watch the coffle of slaves shuffle past below them. Soon, the column was out of the town and marching up a stone highway, heading into the countryside...