Kira woke with a jolt, and momentarily forgot where she was. Her hand instinctively went for a dagger, but she stopped herself at the last second.
Oh yeah
, she thought.
We've been traveling all day.
"Did you nudge me?" asked Kira.
"We're here. Time to wake up," said Talla from behind.
Three travelers and two horses made for tricky travel. That morning they had decided—or rather, Avara decided—that Avara would ride her horse Greyfor, while Kira and Talla would ride together on the sorceress' horse. Kira was a bit put off at having to share at first, but she had to admit, it was quite comfortable. She sat in front of Talla, and eventually realized—being the much smaller individual—she could simply lean back into the woman, and she eventually fell asleep. Her head rested between the hanging bits of wolf fur, not to mention the woman's teats, so it was surprisingly comfortable.
She had slept most of the way to Yotul, but now they had arrived.
"Ah," she said, smiling. "Civilization. Ancient and wicked. My kind of place."
The city had a defensive wall around it made of stone, and buildings within were all clay or stone, with flat roofs and balconies up top. People sat atop these roofs as if they were simply another room in the building. There were no proper guards at the entrance, but some armed burly men and women did look like they kept an eye on the comings and goings.
The dead bodies hanging in the gibbets at the city entrance were impossible to miss.
"Probably thieves," said Kira. "Not like us, right?" Her humor was lost on her party.
Once they entered the city, Kira was overwhelmed with sounds and smells. The noise of the crowd at midday filled her ears. Somewhere people hit drums and blew flutes. Camels groaned and spat and goats bleated. All manner of scents filled her nostrils. Some pleasant, some not so pleasant. Meats cooking at the fires of street vendors. Incense pouring from homes. A resident throwing a bucket's contents out his window and into the street. A man and woman fucking up on a roof, the woman's hands against the edge. It was all so overwhelming.
They passed through a cloud of smoke, and Avara coughed. "Such chaos," she said with a scowl.
"I know," said Kira. "Isn't it great?"
The people wore slight clothing, and most of it was browns or greys. Nobody in this area looked especially wealthy. Many of the men went shirtless, and some women wore clothing that exposed a single breast. Very rarely, a woman with both breasts out passed by, their only clothing the skirts about their hips.
"When they've got both breasts exposed," said Kira to Talla, "that means they're available. So keep that wolf pelt on if you don't want to get groped."
"Shouldn't you be concerned with your own clothing, then?" asked Talla.
Kira looked down at her bared torso and open vest. "What, me? Not at all, this is a completely respectable vest." She tugged at her vest and pulled it together a bit, effectively covering her small breasts for the moment. "Not my fault I can't stand restraining clothing."
They passed by an area dotted with a few naked people locked in stocks, their heads and hands stuck within the three holes in a board. Public humiliation for crimes, no doubt. It seemed Queen Siggy dealt out justice, whether fair or not remained to be seen. They were mostly men, with plenty of filth and garbage thrown onto their bare bodies, but one older women at the end was currently getting mounted from behind by some rowdy young townsmen.
Most everyone stared at the three newcomers wherever they went. Kira and Talla got looks, certainly, the interesting pair riding together atop a rare horse in town. But Avara most of all. Orcs were most certainly a strange sight to them.
They steered clear and wide of her, but didn't mind passing close by Kira and Talla. One of the men looked up at them and smiled, and brushed his hand against Kira's exposed thigh. "Hey there, lovelies. Fancy a rest in the shade?"
Talla immediately slapped his face with a riding crop and they moved onward. "Such rude manners," she said.
"Talla, you can't just go around slapping people in the face with a whip," said Kira, looking over her shoulder up at her. "That's how you get knifed in a town like this."
"Touching us without permission is how you get knifed in a town like this."
They continued on. Kira directed where to go, and together the three winded their way through the busy and bustling streets of Yotul. Eventually they made it to a low and wide building with a garden of vines off to one side where some young people sat and drank date wine. Hookah smoke came trailing out the windows, and no less than three prostitutes loitered about near the entrance. Goats rummaged about in an alley around the corner.
"Ah, home sweet home," said Kira. "This is the Goat's Milk. A fine establishment if there ever was one."
They dismounted and stabled the horses, which cost a bit more than it should have, but found it cool and calm inside the inn and wine house. Kira saw a few familiar faces.
"Bofur! How long as it been, you old dog, you? Samsa, good to see you haven't lost the other eye yet."
There were still plenty of faces she didn't know, though, and was always aware of who was behind her, where her twin daggers rested at her hips.
The building was mostly made up of a large common room filled with rugs, pillows, furs, and low tables. Hookahs and fires dotted the place. People sprawled about, either drinking, eating, smoking, sleeping, or fucking. Some threw dice. There were a few private rooms along the back, but this was an inn where you slept wherever you pleased, more or less. A man led a pair of goats straight through the common room from one end to the other.
Kira approached the bar, her two partners awkwardly hanging back. She leaned an elbow on the counter. "Bralor, my old friend! Good to see you still standing upright."
A stout, older, angry looking man frowned at Kira. "So you still live too, eh? I lost a bet, it seems. There is to be no fighting here this time. No blood on the furs like last time."
"Blood on the furs? Me? Bralor, Bralor, you paint a poor picture of your good friend. I would never. Here, meet my partners. Talla here with the pet wolf around her shoulders, and the big green lady is Avara. An orc."
"I can see that. I'll give you a room. To avoid the inevitable fight. You'll owe me, I assume?"
Kira counted the few dinars left in her coin purse. "Er, yes, Bralor."
"Huh. Turns out I do know you, don't I? Very well. You will pay tab, or you will die trying, yes?"
"Yes."
"Good. Now drink up." He shoved forward three mugs of date wine, and they drank up.
**
Avara was wary.
She was already missing the wide open plains and the fresh air. The walls in the city were too closed in, too many narrow little pathways, and more than anything, too many people. Making their way through the streets was bad, with every set of human eyes staring down the orc, but inside the Goat's Milk she found some small refuge.
Their party settled on some pillows and rugs around a low table in the corner of the common room. Avara drank her date wine. It was good, if rather weak. Most likely watered down.
"So anyway, as I was sayin'," said Kira. "We've got to come up with the plan. Tonight is still too early. We need to scope things out, get a good look at the queen's palace. I know a contact who supposedly knows a secret entrance into the place. I'll sniff him out today and get the goods. And then tomorrow night, that's the night."
"We still need to find our fourth member," said Avara, her glowing green eyes never stopping in their scanning of the room. "Our whore."
"Oh, sure, sure, yeah. You're in the right place for it. They're everywhere around here."
The girl-woman was correct. There were indeed many women who looked as if they were willing to sell their bodies for money. They wore silk skirts or loincloths around their hips, but their breasts were bared, giving truth to Kira's earlier words about bared breasts meaning a woman was available. There were short ones, tall ones, thin ones, voluptuous ones, small-breasted, large-breasted, light skin, brown skin, black skin, short hair, long hair. All types.
"So as I was saying'—" Kira was cut off by a sudden commotion coming from outside. It sounded as if some kind of crowd was forming.
"What's that?" asked Talla, arching a black eyebrow.
"Trouble of some kind?" asked Avara.
"Or fun. Come on, let's get a look," said Kira.
Avara found herself following along once again after the little woman, and when they emerged from the Goat's Milk they saw a flow of a great many people snaking down the street.
"Let's follow them," said Kira, and the group moved on until they arrived at one of Yotul's larger streets. "Look, there!"
She pointed at a massive palanquin. The transport was gilded with gold and the inside was completely hidden by silk curtains that surrounded the entire square. She counted maybe twenty big, burly, shirtless men carrying the structure, each bearing one of the four great poles. Armed guards followed along on foot, a mix of men and women in black, spike-adorned leather gear.
"It's Queen Siggy and King Bofod, it's got to be," said Kira, following along with the crowd as the palanquin was carried down the street. "Looks like she's meeting with the people today. Apparently she does that sometimes."
The city's reaction was split. Many people cheered, waving their hands out, wanting to get close to the palanquin. But many others jeered and booed and even threw a handful of filth in the queen's direction.
"The crowd," said Talla, looking concerned at all the noise and commotion. "They both love and hate her."
"That's right," said Kira. "It's all pretty divisive here. The ones who are into reveling all day and night are fans of the queen because she encourages that. A lot of them are demon-worshipers like her and want to join her cult. But then many others hate the woman, call her a usurper, evil, wicked. Want her out of the city, along with all of her demon-worship."
"Hmm," said Talla. "Which demon does she worship?"
"How would I know?" asked Kira. "Maybe a cousin of yours or something."
Avara froze and the blood in her veins went cold. There, walking foremost among the guards, she spotted two other orcs. They were armed with heavy steel, and wore black leather skirts and brassieres. They were roughly the same size as Avara with similar frames, although one was shaved bald and another had close-cut hair that spiked up, shaved on the sides. They swaggered, and Avara spotted the sway of their large penises beneath their skirts.
