The idiots in the underbrush two bushes down were making too much noise. Grishnak gritted his teeth, listening to the vegetation rustling revealingly as the goblins hiding in it moved about. Likely as not, some argument had turned to fists and knives, or maybe one of the goblins had inadvertently hidden himself on top of a fire ant nest. “If they give us away, I’ll wring their necks!” Grishnak thought, clenching his large, bony fists. “That is if the pointy-ears don’t kill us first!” 

Grishnak was tall for a goblin, standing near four feet tall, at least a quarter of that from his large, bulbous head. It was flanked on either side by wide, bat-like ears and pointed with a long, sharp nose. Like most male goblins, he was bald, with mottled green skin and had large yellow eyes and a wide mouth filled with small, sharp teeth. He was dressed in a short tunic and hood which he had camouflaged for the occasion by rolling in a mud patch, followed by the dry brown leaves which coated the forest floor. 

The rest of his raiding party were concealed here and there in the underbrush around a small glade, nearly a full score of goblins. The tribe’s shamans had said that, according to the entrails of the new moon sacrifices, this would be a good spot for an ambush and Grishnak wasn’t eager to spend the rest of his life as a newt so he’d led his raiders out from the tunnel the slaves had painstakingly dug, traveling under cover of darkness to that spot. There they hid, waiting for whatever it was the shamans had foreseen. Now, though, it was near midday and the goblins were getting restless. 

After a minute, the rustling finally stopped. Maybe one of the two quarrelers had managed to stick a knife in the other’s belly. Grishnak certainly hoped so. To his relief, there were no further outbreaks of stupidity among the rest of the goblins, at least not before, a quarter of an hour later, they heard the sound of a large party coming through the woods towards them. With the rest, Grishnak froze, clutching his weapons. If these were pointy-ear warriors or worse, rangers, they were in deep trouble, caught on the surface in broad daylight, far from the safety of the tunnel mouth.  

To the goblins’ relief, and delight, it wasn’t a party of soldiers. As they got closer, Grishnak heard the melodic notes of elven singing, setting his ears on edge and a short time later a group of elven maidens appeared entering the clearing. Like all of their kind, the maidens were tall, slender and graceful, in full bloom of life. A dozen in total, they were each dressed in shimmering white dresses of cloth woven so fine as to be near sheer, ornamented with gold and silver jewelry of delicate elven craftsmanship. 

The elves were clearly traveling somewhere, though not very far given the lack of baggage or pack animals, the next village perhaps or some grove of importance to their fancy elven goddesses. What was clear, though, as they came into the clearing, was the maidens were clearly not afraid of being attacked, feeling perfectly safe deep in their wooded homeland. None he could see carried weapons, though that didn’t rule out tricksy elven magics, he knew. 

Grishnak flashed a crooked smile. This would indeed be a good raid. If only the idiots in his raiding party were smart enough to wait until the maids were in the best spot for an ambush, instead of losing their heads and attacking the moment they saw a target…

As it happened, the rest of the goblins kept their cool better than Grishnak would have expected. All of the elves were well in the clearing when one of the raiders could wait no longer and sprang from his hiding spot. With a high, keening war cry the goblin hurled a set of stone and leather bolas. They spun wildly through the air before catching one of the maidens about the knees. 

Seeing the element of surprise was now blown, Grishnak likewise sprang up and hurled his own bolas which arced across the glade before wrapping itself around the arms and chest of another elf. The rest of the raiders followed suit. A score of bolas flew across the glade. Some collided in the air, becoming entangled, but plenty hit, twisting around arms and legs or knocking over the elven maids. 

Drawing a long, chipped, rusty dagger, Grishnak charged into the clearing, cursing as the bright sunlight hurt his large sensitive eyes. They needed to pounce on the elves while they were still confused and entangled in the bolas. Already, two of the maidens who’d been fortunate enough to be missed by the volley took off sprinting back the way they came, hoping to get away amongst the trees. With another curse, Grishnak ordered those raiders closest to the maidens to give chase, knowing if they let even one elf go she would bring the rangers down on the goblins in a flash. Howling, the goblins pounded after them. 

For a moment, it looked as though the maidens might get away. They ran swift as the bounding deer, crossing the clearing in a flash, but just before they made the safety of the tree line, the two fugitives  ran headlong into a patch of briars which, in their haste and terror they hadn’t noticed until it was too late. Once among the vines, the maidens found their dresses caught instantly on the thorns and bristles. Hopelessly entangled, they were caught in place as their pursuers caught up. Pausing, the goblins began a lively argument over which of them would go in after the elves which was eventually  won when the largest of the trio picked up the other two and hurled them bodily into the briars. 

Grishnak, meanwhile, came to the nearest maiden. She was a beautiful lass, slim and youthful with pale blue hair and eyes. She was bent over, trying in vain to pull off the bolas which had entangled her legs. Seeing Grishnak looming over her, knife in hand, the young maid threw up her hands, babbling something in a soft, terrified voice. Grishnak’s elvish was none too good, but he got the impression she was begging him not to kill her and pleading for mercy. The goblin gave a toothy grin. Little did she suspect, Grishnak and his raiders had no intention of killing the maidens, though they might find what the goblins had planned for them a cruel mercy by comparison. 

Grishnak reached into his tunic and took out a short coil of rough, but strong, rope. The raiders had come well prepared to take captives. Suspecting the maiden’s understanding of goblin was no better than his command of elvish, Grishnak pantomimed to the girl, ordering her to lie down and place her hands behind her back. Understanding his intentions, the elf turned pale with fright but her choices were clear in the goblin’s hands: the rope or the knife. Trembling, she laid down and crossed her wrists behind her back. 

Hopping on top of his captive, Grishnak wasted no time in lashing her hands together tightly, ignoring the maid’s yelps and cries of protest. After knotting off the binding, the goblin rolled the captive elf onto her back and took up his knife again, drawing a wail of fright from the maid. A few quick slashes through the girl’s dress and he grabbed a fistful of the material and yanked hard. The thin, sheer cloth ripped easily, the delicate garment ruined in an instant, leaving the wearer stripped naked save her jewelry. 

Grishnak grinned, enjoying the look of stunned shame and horror on the elf girl’s face as her slender, ageless body was bared to the goblin’s leering gaze. His eyes were followed by his hands which groped towards her perky round breasts, much to her outrage. There wasn’t much Grishnak liked about elves, but he definitely liked elf women…once suitably humbled and trained of course. When his captive’s indignant squeals and screams became more annoying than amusing, Grishnak grabbed the ragged remains of the maiden’s dress. A few quick slashes with his knife provided several tattered strips of cloth. Several of these he stuffed in her maiden’s mouth, muffling her cries while the last was tied across her lips to keep the gag in place. 

As she grunted and groaned through the cloth muzzle around her mouth, Grishnak paused, briefly, to see how the rest of the raiding party had fared. So far, all had gone smoothly. Those maidens entangled in the boas had surrendered without a fuss. Those few that had tried to resist fared no better, unarmed and outnumbered nearly two to one. The goblins were busy stripping and binding their own captives now. The two maidens who’d run had been extracted from the briar patch, minus their clothes which remained entangled on the thorns. Now, hands tied behind their backs, they were being herded to rejoin the others. 

Seeing things were well in hand, Grishnak returned his attention to his own prisoner. Retrieving a second, longer coil of rope from his tunic, the goblin quickly wove a tight harness around the elf-mades slender torso which had the dual benefits of trapping her arms tight against her back and squeezing her breasts in a most pleasing manner. Another length he tied around her waist before pulling the free end between her legs hard, drawing another squeal from the helpless maid as the crotch rope dug uncomfortably into her. Its sole purpose was to inflict discomfort and humiliation on his captive. Finally, the bolas around her legs were disentangled and a short rope hobble tied between her ankles. 

Much as he would have liked to dally with the maiden longer, teasing and tormenting her with all the cruelty goblins were infamous for inflicting on their captives, Grishnak knew they couldn’t linger here forever. He glanced around the glade. By now, all of their captives had been stripped naked, hands bound behind their backs, feet hobbled and cloth gags tied over their mouths. Most also sported chest harnesses and crotch ropes like his wore. They squirmed and writhed on the ground, sobbing and wailing as the goblins pawed at their breasts and crotches.

“Okay you sons-of-bugbears!” The raid leader barked at his forces. “Get ready to move out!” There were grumbles and curses from the other goblins till he added, “Do you want to still be here when some ranger comes and finds you sticking your dick up his sister’s twat?” That got the goblins moving, pulling their captives to their feet. “We’ll have our fun down in the tunnels where no one will interrupt us!” The captives didn’t react to this, nor some of the other lewd suggestions the other goblins threw out, which confirmed to Grishnak that none of them understood the goblin tongue. 

The elven maidens definitely understood what it meant, though, when the goblins began tethering them together at the neck. The captives sobbed and wailed, realizing they were being abducted, but there was little they could do about it. They were already helpless, bound prisoners of the goblins and shortly now they were going to be marched off into slavery down in their captor’s underground kingdom.

“March, elf bitch!” Grishnaked barked. Sure, the elves didn’t understand the words, not yet anyway, but they definitely understood the painful spanks he delivered to each of their bottoms, going down the line. Reluctantly, the first few girls in line began to move, stumbling forward in the rope hobbles. Once they had started, the whole lot had to move forward or be dragged by the ropes at the neck. Sobbing and moaning, the coffle of elf slaves marched from the glade. 

Much as he would have loved to watch the alluring sight of a dozen elven beauties, stripped and bound in coffle stumbling along, Grishnak eyed the forests around them warily. Though none of the maidens had escaped to raise the alarm, the goblin was certain the forest rangers had somehow been alerted nonetheless, tricksy elf magic no doubt, and were even now speeding to the scene of the ambush. At any moment, he expected to feel an elven arrow in his back or hear the frightening sound of a ranger’s horn, sounding the attack. The sooner they were underground, beyond the reach of those damned rangers, the better. 

The captives knew that too, just as they were painfully aware that once their abductors got the maidens underground they would be beyond all hope of rescue or escape. The elf maids did all they could to delay that awful moment for as long as they could, shuffling as slowly as they dared. Several times, one of the girls stumbled, bringing the whole coffle to a halt each time. It could have easily been an accident, the captives unused to walking with hobbles binding their feet or it could have been intentional. Either way, Grishnak and his raiders had no patience or sympathy for their captives’ plight. The third time it happened, Grishnak took his knife and cut several supple switches from a nearby tree. With these, he and two more of his goblins punished the maidens. Thereafter, the goblins prowled up and down the coffling, switches ready should any of the elves stumble or even slow her pace. 

Thus encouraged, the coffle quickly crossed the remaining miles until they came to a narrow gorge, lined with ancient moss-covered stone. At the deepest part of the gorge there was a cleft in the rock leading to a cave. At the back of this was a tunnel from which the goblin raiders had come the night before. 

Seeing the dark, ominous opening, the coffle of captive elves balked, knowing once they’d gone in their fates would be sealed. Grishnak and his raiders plied the switches mercilessly until at last the captives accepted the inevitable. Sobbing brokenly, the elves shuffled into the cave, never to see their homes again…