A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 05: Fire

Author's Note:

A Drow's Dilemma began as a one-on-one roleplaying project and has been converted into a chapter-by-chapter format for weekly posting with the permission and assistance from my partner. It will contain a considerable amount of sexual themes such as femdom, lesbian, straight, 'reverse' rape, BDSM, group sex, romance, and other themes. This particular chapter contains nudity and lesbian content. The main goal of the story, however, is to tell an epic tale of adventures, gods and goddesses, fae, and nymphomaniacs. This episode and every episode to come will be available for free on Literotica for the foreseeable future.

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Episode Five: Fire

It wasn't until after the second explosion - and explosion it was as the invaders breached the western wall - did the people around the city begin to understand what was happening. Panic filled the streets as Orcs quickly ran into the heart of the city. Random fights began to break out everywhere between anyone who could properly hold a weapon. Between the darkness and ruddy firelight, the hulking figures were terrors in the night that fought with ferocity unprecedented.

Caleldir, still far off from the actual fighting and in a part of the city where people still didn't know what was going on, snatched up his spear and strode towards the noise. Whatever was causing that was clearly more of a threat than some cheapo trying to sneak into the performance. It was not long before his sensitive nose caught the scents of fire and wounds. Very faintly, he heard the sounds of metal-on-metal, and the deep boom of an explosion. They were under attack! Caleldir's hand went to the horn at his belt. A high, clear call sounded out through the night. It was a familiar noise that everyone in the troupe knew the meaning of.

Satisfied that he had sounded the alarm, Caleldir turned down the market road, headed west towards the battle. His face blanched when he saw twenty orcs thundering towards him. That was sixteen more than he was comfortable fighting. Still, he had to buy a little time for the troop to rally, so he stood fast in the middle of the road, blocking the orcs. "Good evening gentlemen." He said to the orcs. "I would find another route if I were you: I am afraid that this is not a fair fight." As expected: the orcs did not heed his advice. The fight was on.

Caleldir knew that he could not take on twenty of them, but if he ran around a little, he might distract them for a bit. And so he did, using his spear more as a vaulting pole than a weapon as he danced around the attackers, stopping his run only to prick any of the orcs who looked as if they wanted to head off somewhere else. All the while, he kept up a ream of taunts. "Come on!" He mocked. "Your arthritic grandma would make for a better warrior!" Most of a minute passed by. He managed to slightly wound four of them, and make all of them very mad. As he dodged another attack, he looked back towards the alley to the tent. He had given them enough time. It was high time for him to get out of here before he made a mistake and got himself skewered.

Suddenly, he stopped. A cold, slick feeling had slid through his chest. He looked up at the massive orcish warrior whose blade had gone through his heart. "I am so sorry." He said, coughing some blood out of his mouth. "You have no idea what kind of mistake you just made." He looked down at his hand. It was colorless, and nearly transparent. Everything went dark.

--

Ashyr sprinted off towards the sounds of fighting, and she clambered up a ladder to sail boldly across the rooftops. She didn't care to warn or wait for her guard... companion. She needed to... well, she didn't really know what she needed to do. This was not the plan. This had never been the plan. Ashyr was supposed to sew a little chaos, plant the rot so the fruit would spoil from within. Then it would pop with just the barest prodding.

Soon she got to the western half of the city as was met with guttural screaming and fiery arrows. The figures on the streets below were not lithe, graceful assassins, but hulking masses of men and women. Orcs. What were the odds of an orc invasion when there was also a drow one in the works as well? As a drow, she was trained to assume that any coincidence she encountered was not coincidence at all. Suspect everything and everyone. Trust no one.

She leapt down upon one of the orcs who had so foolishly went down a dark alley alone. The drow would have attempted to capture and question it, but the fight abruptly went out of hand and she had to kill it. Her dark figure limped slightly as she exited the alley alone and onto the main street. Chaos and fire. Her face lit up with the insane thrill of it, the same expression she had during her brief fight with the harpies. She would just have to make do.

After discovering what was going on at the west wall and determining that she should have no part in the aggressor's side, Ashyr ran as fast as she could back to the edge of the market district where the caravan was set up. She was being paid to protect them, so so she would at least make an appearance. For a little while. The city guards and the hired helpers of the troupe had already mobilized and were fighting a knot of orcs on the path of destruction towards the large tents. The drow slipped in from behind and picked off several of the hulking figures until the guards looked as if they could take care of the rest.

The dark form of Ashyr shot away again, though much more slowly than she would have done. The first orc had injured her leg just enough to make it uncomfortable. One gave chase as he shouted quite obscene things even by a drow's standards. Most of his words were rape-themed, not an unfamiliar concept in her lands. Usually, though, it wasn't the men threatening the raping. Especially not at the top of their lungs. She led the beast into the market district proper, but he was quickly gaining on her. Damn her recklessness. Fighting the guy was inevitable, so she turned and fought when they were mostly alone. The "alone" part was very important. There was no way she'd be able to take on multiple guys would risking herself too much. She darted, he lumbered. Ashyr walked away. He didn't. She was not unscathed this time, either.

The drow hid against a wall in a dark alley. Ashyr took the edge of her undershirt and was about to rip it. Then she looked up at the shops around her, a thought occurring. She looked both ways down the street, determined that she was quite unwatched by orc and guard alike, and stole into a shop that seemed to sell adventuring supplies. All she took were some bandages, which she used to wrap her arm that had previously dripped with blood.

Another thought came to her. In the darkness a slow, devilish smile spread across her features.

--

Once again, the world was grey smears and deep red splotches slowly returning to focus. Caleldir stood still in the middle of the street, his hands over his face, trying to get his pounding head under control. His senses had returned. As always, he did not know how long he had been out. A little over an hour, probably. Either his hearing had been damaged or the attack had died down, because this neighborhood at least seemed deathly quiet. Distantly, he heard the faint shouts of men and women, but whether in battle or the clean-up of one, he could not tell. Either way, the orcish attack seemed to have failed.

Once the spinning and pounding died out, he looked around. Some thirty-odd orcs lay haphazardly around him, in the familiar state of mummification. The stones beneath him were centuries cracked and weathered, and the houses nearest him looked as if they had been lifeless and abandoned for centuries. He peered in through the shattered windows and breathed a sigh of relief. No civilians seemed to have been caught in his crossfire. Thank heaven for small mercies.

Picking up what remained of his shattered spear, he turned down the road towards where the troupe had set up for their performance. Hopefully, they had not suffered too much in the attack.

Still feeling woozy and faint, Caleldir stumbled into the encampment without much regard for whatever was going on. He no doubt made for a rather terrifying figure: shattered weapon, a huge blood-encrusted gash in his clothing in front of and behind his heart, hands dripping blood, half-lidded eyes that seemed to glow a cold blue, and skin that was vampirically pale and slightly transparent. Curiously, however, he was completely unwounded. Although the city guards who first caught sight of him recoiled in fear, running away screaming as if they had seen a ghost (which, really, they had), by the time the second group found him he had recovered enough that he looked normal, or at least as normal as someone wearing broken armor and covered in blood could be. He did not put up a fight when they took him into custody with a bit more severity than was strictly necessary.

It was not long before someone recognized him as the one member of the troupe who had not had papers. Combining this with the fact that two of the three members of the troop still unaccounted for were the Drow woman (whose race was not doing her any favors) whose own papers had been the most likely tampered with, and the old half-orc (whose race was even more suspicious given that of the attackers) were both known companions of his made Caleldir the most obvious culprit found yet. His bloodied but unwounded appearance did not help his case either. And so, he was hauled off to locations unknown, but more than likely unpleasant.

--

The orcs had fought aggressively for about the first hour of their raid. But it soon became clear to them that there was no taking the city on this night. Or on any other night while several of the city's strongest warriors were alive. Stories would be told from that night in both Port Afon and the mountains to the north about a tiefling who fought like three demons and brought down anywhere from thirty to fifty strong orcs. Close behind him was a wizard of great power and great collateral damage. There were a few mysteries in the mix, such as one that was darkness incarnate that swooped in - often literally - just when the defenders needed help the most. No one really got a good look at the lithe figure. Some said it was the spirit of Port Afon itself. Another strange thing was what the Orcs quickly called the dying grounds. It was a spell of some sort that nobody claimed. Everyone who entered ended up dead with the life drained out of them. Such entropy would have had to come from a very, very powerful spell. Even after the fighting was done, people refused to get anywhere near that place.

The city had fared remarkably well against the attack, all things considered. Most of the damage had been contained to the western half of the city, though it seemed that a small group of the aggressors made their way into the market district. It was interesting, actually. They must have not been there very long before the guards chased them away, but not before they hit a weapon's shop and burnt it to the ground with the owner still in it. The fire burned the edges of the surrounding shops and did little else. Other than that, there were reports of a few broken windows and a couple missing objects, but all were relatively inexpensive items that may have also just been misplaced. Most were just thankful to be alive.

A very singed and blood-splattered dark elf - both with the dark ichor of the orcs and the browning red from her own wounds - walked with utterly exhausted step towards the caravan. She stopped short when she realized that the shouting she heard was coming from her destination. She stopped short in the shadows close enough to see and hear what was going on. No one seemed to see her in the graying morning. Guards swarmed the area. They were gathering all of the troop in for "questioning." Ashyr hissed her displeasure at the sight. This was not their fault. It wasn't even her fault and therefore theirs by proxy. All city guard present seemed to think they were in league with the orc attack, of all the baffling things.

A battle-worn red furred man presided over everything away from the caravan's hearing, but easily close enough for her to understand. He looked like a guy she didn't want to meet. The guy spoke to a city guard in fancy uniform, presumably a captain of some sort.

"-All that you can." The red guy finished saying.

"Sir, are you sure? We've never had any trouble with them before." The captain said. He looked concerned, uncomfortable. Scared, even, especially when he looked to his leader.

"Yes. There are some things... off with their papers. They had a major part of this. I'm sure it's not a coincidence." Terrifying hate cross the demonic man's face. Ashyr knew that look. The people from the theatre troupe would not be enjoying any mercy from the city. He would not let them leave the city alive. There was probably going to be torture involved. "My people will be safe from them." The Tiefling finished.

The Drow took a moment to think before she stole around to the back of the area. It was concealed from her mostly by pillar and wall. There was a spot, however, that a very skilled denizen of caves could squeeze into. She dropped into the shadows of a tent and began searching about frantically.

There. There she was.

Ashyr darted forward and grabbed the woman from behind, a hand firmly on her mouth to prevent any surprised noises. The drow made hushing, comforting noises as she dragged her target back. Both Celeste and Ashyr made it back over the wall without any of the guards noticing. Ashyr did not stay, however. She went back over the wall and hid again in the same spot. She waited in silence for any caravan guard that came within reach. She would need all the help she could get.

--

Underestimation. Underestimation was Gurzan's oldest friend and most potent ally. People looked at his heavy-set brows and assumed that he was stupid, at his small eyes and thought him unobservant, at his graying scalp and and slightly paunchy stomach and thought him old and weak. None of those were close to being true. Well, the old part was. Gurzan had long ago surpassed his short-lived orcish ancestors, and was approaching ancient for even the human side of his heritage. But though he was far older than his middle-aged appearance indicated, his cunning mind had grown only sharper and his senses keener with age. His powerful arms, though not quite what they had once been back when he had been the circus strongman in addition to a guard, were still many times stronger than those most men a fourth of his eighty years. When the attack came, he did not waste any time in surprise. Foregoing his spear - a tool meant for herding customers like a shepherd herds sheep - in favor of a large battle-axe he had hidden in his luggage, he lurked hidden on the edge of the encampment, keeping silent watch. He killed three attackers in brutal silence, before the orcs stopped coming completely. He despised his bestial cousins. They had the potential to be among the world's most feared soldiers, but they lacked discipline and organization. They fought with sloppy ferocity rather than with cool headed skill. They were only too easy to defeat.

When the fighting had died down, Gurzan's small ears perked up the sound of the city guard marching in force to the encampment. That was bad. No doubt Lord Faust blamed them for the attack. Well, he would not do his people any good by getting captured with them. Better to steal away and plot to assist them another day. With shadowy silence that belied his heavy frame and armor, he slipped through the camp, collected some personal items (including a dull silver and bone whistle) and slipped out. Quietly, he watched the arrest, cursed himself for his inability to do anything, and promised to remedy that fact soon. But as he watched, he noticed something. A shadow, even quieter than he himself was, slipped in and out with enviable ease. It was the Drow. If anyone knew the reality of what had happened this night, it had to be her. She was always a suspicious one. By her manner, this was likely some plot of hers than had gone wrong. Which was only to be expected when one was dealing with barbaric, predictably unpredictable, consistently undisciplined orcs. He noted with some surprise that the Drow had seen fit to rescue Celeste. That was not altogether expected. Apparently the dark elf was capable of something like love. Unless it was just that degenerated form of love called lust that drove her, which was slightly more realistic of a motivation for the murderous drow. He despised drow even more than orcs: for they were just as wild and chaotic without even the excuses of low intelligence and short lives to blame their follies on.

He silently watched the dark elf return to watch the rest of the caravan for a while. She soon grew tired of the, apparently, and turned back to leave. He would rather not confront her with Celeste around, and, since the human was presumably hidden somewhere nearby to be collected again soon, now was his opportunity to talk to Ashyr without Celeste.

When she got to a quieter part of the city, he decided that his time for stealth was at an end. He closed the distance between them. She was good, he knew, and would detect his presence the moment he shrunk the gap. So he did not bother trying to hide anymore. He stood up in front of her, axe in his hand. "This attack seems like your work, child of Lolth." He growled. "Give me one good reason I should not send you to your spider-queen."

Knives appeared in the crouched drow's hands, but otherwise there was no indication of how startled she was by the sudden appearance of some unknown stalker. She'd had an inkling of being trailed before, but... well, she had foolishly shrugged it off. Once she determined that it was a half-orc and a fellow troop guard and not a full orc aggressor, she put her weapons back, looked both ways, determined that they were alone (Celeste was a block over hiding in an empty building), and rose to her full height, which was not very threatening in comparison with Gurzan's sheer massiveness. It was clear that the dark elf had not gotten through the battle unscathed. She was not used to such numbers in battle. Usually it was a bear or a couple guards or a few wolves. Those she could dispatch no problem. Hundreds of hulking orcs? That was a real problem. She still looked slightly burnt around the lower edges of her armor and limbs - not to mention the few other gashes and bruises from other brief spats she participated in.

"Gurzan. Good. You're here." She said. The drow seemed to ignore the threat in his words. "I was beginning to think I was too late to rescue anyone useful." Her white teeth flashed a quick grin. "I was just as surprised as you were with the orcs." Her eyes narrowed "...Unless you weren't surprised at all." She didn't really think he had anything to do with it. With what she'd seen of him, he was a painfully upstanding citizen. "Not that it matters. The big red fuzzy guy with the horns intends to take all this out on the troop's hides. Seems hardly fair. We should break them out."

"Surprises are for those whose eyes do not watch nor ears listen." He said shortly. "Surprise is a luxury of the foolish and inexperienced. I do not indulge in surprise. But you know in your spider-black heart that I am not the cause of this attack." He lowered his weapon. "But whether you are able to name the culprit behind this attack or not, I suppose that your point is a fair one. I do not like orcs. I like drow less. I have little cause to believe you an improvement on your kindred. But I do like old Artur, cheerful Caleldir, fair Celeste, and all the rest. Lord Faust's cruel, short-sighted pragmatism is a fact well known. I will not sleep nor eat until my people are free."