The world ached and Cole wanted it to stop. He'd settle with the tightness behind his eyes or the rope that rubbed sorely against his wrists and ankles, but anything be stop the nausea-waves that came from the tender back of his head. He was also upside down or his captors were marching him across a grass ceiling, neither possibility helping his blurry eyes and brain. Cole had been tied to a wooden pole, trussed up like a pig on a spit. He couldn't see whoever had his legs, but the large man in front of him wore a fur vest and leggings, a bit of blood staining the edges. Cole was found himself carried through a fire-lit camp, mismatched tents and thick-haired beasts of burden beginning to line the 'roof'. Tusk-mouthed, muscular humanoids looking at him with cheers and jeers of congratulations, the flicking light stretching the features into grotesque shapes as bone-torn meat dripped down their chests. One of his bearers raised his end of the stick higher, showing off the trophy to earn another round of hooting calls.
"Can't you all just shut up?" Cole barely mustered, tired from pain and a half day without food as his stomach growled louder than his voice. Even a beast-man can't live on sex alone, he was uncomfortably reminded with another hollow lurch. The fur-shirted man was pushing through into a tent, laying Cole down on a thick carpet, the wool smelling a little like one of those hairy beasts. Three moon-globes illuminated the large shelter in pale light, the green orcish skin of his captors becoming clear. Trinkets lined the edges of the surprisingly large tent, heraldic shields with moving imagery, skulls of monsters without eyes and too many teeth. A white-bone throne sat as almost as tall as the cloth ceiling, blades and spears and a warhammer with a head the size of Cole's trunk propped against it, ready to meet any challenger. Cole's captors knelt before their resting chief robed in dire bear hide that enshadowed their form. One of them had managed to grab a skewer of meat, holding it behind his back as he held Cole's axe in the other.
"Got some electrum, Chief Ironside. Prop'r Baron's mint too." One of them passed Cole's coin pouch up, which a strong, feminine hand claimed.
"It's all the Baron's mint, Boargut." The chief answered slightly wearily to the vested orc, either from the hour or her men. "Unless ya two genius' figured out how to mine electrum without getting the pickaxe stuck in the vein, again." The two males paused for a moment before shaking their heads to the ground. She tossed the pouch back to its finder, before shifting to the other man.
"What about the axe, chief?"
"It's stone, Flatfist." She said his name with the same tone as 'idiot', resting her hand against her unseen temple. "What are we gonna to do with a stone axe?"
"Maybe it's the craftsmanship of it, you know, authentic minotaur design." He hoped, turning back to the tied Cole to bail him out, his thick eyebrows looking especially pleading. Orcs went usually pretty by most people's standards, and Flatfist had something very pug-like about his squash-nosed face. The half-minotaur was too busy focusing on the skewer in the orc's hands anyway, the scent gnawing at his stomach. The hunger was worse the kidnapping right now. The dire bear shrugged, rising up from the polished throne, at least a head taller than either of the shaking orcs.
"Oi, bull-boy?"
"Wuh?" A green hand grabbed Cole's chin, making him turn towards his axe as Chief Ironside waved it in front of his face.
"This axe, you make it special?"
"What?" The axe was lowered, revealing the orc woman's glinting, frustrated eyes. The two orcs behind her sidled up, anticipation etched on their faces.
"You make it special? Like the edge tells ya ancestral history in a complex lettering using seemingly random scratches." Cole furrowed his brow, as if he was missing a punch-line to some joke.
"I mean, I made it because the straps on the last one snapped and an axe head went into a river? So it's got better straps?" She let him go with a sharp sucking of her teeth, pivoting towards her slumping tribesmen, flourishing her garb in Cole's face.
"Greeeaaat." She tossed the axe into Flatfist's arms, knocking him onto his arse. "Leave half the electrum on the throne, keep the axe if ya want it. If he sells well, ya'll get half again between two. And go grab dinner, I can hear ya guts whining." Ironside shooed off the pair, though not before taking Flatfist's meal and ripping a piece off for herself. The chief crouched down to Cole, drawing a knife from her shadows and cutting his bindings off. Though most of her details were shadowed, he noticed several thin scars across her toned limb.
"Thanks, I think." He said, rubbing his slightly raw wrists, his eyes drawn to the aromatic skewer bobbing in the talking robe's other hand.
"Eh. Rope burns don't make a pretty slave, and besides, you're not dumb enough to run, I hope." The knife slipped away and she helped him upright, patting his back and arms. "Ya got slave meat on you, so don't do anything stupid and ya'll be treated just fine. Last fella we sold was an elf,
musician lucky enough for him, else we'd have put him on luggage duty. Ya could fetch a good price too, if the nobles fancy any exotic barbarian servants."
"I'm not a barbarian." He snapped, before clutching at his whining stomach. "Just because I use an axe, doesn't mean I'm some kind of raging savage." Barbarians just lost themselves to anger and did stupid things. Cole liked to think of himself as more 'accident-prone' than blood-frenzied.
"You alright in the head? Most people start trying to bargain their freedom or make idle threats when they hear they're gonna to get sold, not get pedantic over life choices."
"It's not a. . . I'm just hungry." He caught himself, deciding not to anger the orc chief however tempting.
"Here." She slapped the skewer in his hands, sighing much like how she sighed at her orc men earlier. "Scouts heard ya fucking up a storm near the Ship's Lake, got an eyeful too from what I heard. Though I guess it's just 'the lake' now. Thanks for destroying some of our cultural landmarks by the way, I hope those mermaids were worth it, they at least seemed to have a good time."
"It was a shitty beached hulk that had been looted to the bones." He replied between voracious bites of the pale meat.
"Yeah. But it was our shitty beached hulk."
After a few more mouthfuls of what he hoped was boar, Cole's stomach ceased its complaints. He patted his stomach happily, the dull ache behind his eyes gone as his new owner sat on her throne counting her half of his electrum. The elder minotaurs back home had been able to throw orc raiders around like toys, but Cole wasn't so sure of his chances against an entire, well-fed tribe. And the business end of Ironside's hammer was something he fancied stay clear of.
"So," He called over, resting the skewer aside a silver chalice. "I'm sure you hear this often . . ."
"Want to not be a slave then?" Cole could hear the smile in her voice, as the thick bear cloak continued counting the magnetic coins. "Let's step outside."
The tribe toasted and cheered to their chief as she strode out into the fire-lit camp. Weapons shook and skewers waved as she held up her hands to the green mass and called out, "As was decided from our tribe's wisest chief, this slave will be given the choice to challenge a clan member to wrestle for his freedom! If he wins by strength of arms or strength of display, he will be set free. If he fails to impress us, well, he's probably safer with us than out in the big scary world. So slave, what do ya say?" Cole felt the hundreds of pairs of eyes suddenly turn on him. When he had hoped to experience some foreign culture, see their ways of life, he hadn't expected to get thrown into such a deep end of it.
"Is this not a bit quick?" He sidled up the chief, a little thrown with the offer.
"Best time for it. I fed ya, ya can grab a drink and ya'll want to be at ya best. This is it bull-boy, take it or leave it."