Chapter 1 - Tilling the Plot
The world twists and burns around her, corrupted in a heartbeat. Her mind hasn't even settled into understanding what had just happened before she finds herself in chains, pulled from the carnage surrounding her family's farm plot.
At some point she must have finally passed out, because now she is awake, tied to a stout pole holding up some sort of tent. Her arms are stiff, and a little tug proves she is bound securely. She is also as naked as the day she was born. The thin lines of silver metal chains--wrapping around her neck, dangling over her breasts, and finally arching behind her to bind her wrists--do absolutely nothing to cover her body. Someone had even tied back her long flaxen hair just to keep her exposed.
Maybe if she tugs--the delicate ropes don't seem strong enough to hold even a child--she could get free. So she tries. She pulls and writhes, finding that the thin lines hold fast, as well as whatever holds her wrists and neck against the pole.
"They're enchanted. I tried too." The tired voice of another woman reveals someone else chained up behind her.
Elli can't even turn to look at her, but it's almost a comfort to know that someone else is there. Alive.
"Do you know where we are? What these monsters want with us?" It didn't hurt to ask, even though she suspects the other woman must be just as disoriented as she is.
"No ideas yet. But we can't be far from Bridgefall, I think."
She nods before remembering the other bound woman can't see it. "I'm from the lands around that town." The more Elli sits and thinks, the more she starts to remember.
Her family worked a decent-sized plot for the lord's manor. Her father and most of her siblings would have been in the fields, working since before sunrise. She was responsible for starting breakfast, and had just come back from the well.
"Can you see anything useful on your side of the tent?" The other woman pulls the serf girl from her thoughts.
Elli looks, but the space is fairly bare beyond the rugs under her equally bare behind. "No, and if there were, my legs probably wouldn't reach far enough."
"That means they don't intend to keep us here for long." She can feel it when the woman sighs, the slight downward tug of the chains digging into her hair and back.
"Think we can somehow lift this center pole between the two of us?"
They struggle for a few long minutes, but it holds fast, unbudged even when Elli throws her weight behind her. And all the while, they listen for the dreaded sounds of their inhuman captors.
"I'm sorry. For what little that's worth." The words surprise her just as much as the defeat in the other woman's voice. "All this. I'm fairly damn certain it's my fault."
Now how could that be?
Elli works things over in her mind, sorting out the recent memories.
She'd walked back into the cottage with fresh water. Her little sister had left the sheep's milk on the doorstep for her, but the bucket was overturned, spilling white froth onto the dirt. The door was ajar, and she heard scuffling from inside.
Wary, she had ducked low to look inside. It would be uncommon for someone to ransack a simple farmhouse, but not unheard of. Maybe a desperate thief or wild animal?
Instead she found monsters. Skin mottled in grays and greens, metal helms over heads from which horns and long, pointed ears sprouted. The two inside her house weren't very big, but they both held black, rough-edged blades. And those pointy ears weren't for show. They turned towards the door the moment they heard her take a breath in surprise. She pummeled them with the clay dishes and her long-dead mother's cast-iron cookware until they lay on the hay floor.
"I," Elli stutters, pulling herself from the memory of those twisted faces, no longer moving, no longer snarling at her, "I'm sure it can't be your fault. Whatever these things are, surely."
"No, the more I think about it, the more certain I am." Her chained companion's breath hitches with tears Elli can't see. "It's all my fault. I just... the spell wasn't supposed to do that. It wasn't supposed to create an opening. All I wanted to do was see! And now..."
Elli can't help the way she stiffens, and she is certain the woman noticed. "So, you're probably not a simple hedgewitch. Maybe a sorceress?"
"A true sorceress should have known better than to make a mistake."
"My ma used to tell me, 'You can't help using the skills you were born with. And you can't know what you don't know. But dammit all, Elli, put that barrel down and go finish your chores before you play around.' That's all the practice I ever got, making stuff fly around."
Her companion draws in a breath. "That's it then, they captured us for our magic." And that realization sets a chill in her bones too. "It explains why they would raid an entire town and only have two captives."
"Well, shit." Elli can't remember what happened after she probably killed the two monsters in their cottage, sending the heaviest, hardest objects she could think of at their heads faster than they could react. After that was darkness. And maybe some sort of vague sense of pain in her head, but otherwise, nothing.
They hear the flap of a heavy tarp being thrown aside before they are no longer alone. The other woman, the sorceress, tenses, but holds her tongue as heavy footsteps and the jangling of armor echo around the small tent. A moment later, and a monstrous visage cuts into her field of view, just as twisted as the two she fought, but bigger. This one's skin is smoother, the gray tone more evened out. He reaches out with a meaty hand to force her chin up, straining the metal chains around her neck.
"Lookit you, not so tough now are you little dog?" He growls, lips paling as they twist around yellowed tusks. The tip of one looks like it had broken off recently, all jagged points and edges and only half the size of the other. His breath is worse than manure. "If it were up to me, I'd have you crawling around on the ground like a worm as I let my soldiers beat you for practice. But it's not. We'll just have to see how lucky you are."
She doesn't know who this big monster is, or what exactly she did to earn his wrath.
He barks orders to two other monsters built like him, and the grunts force both women to their feet. Elli finds herself--hands still bound behind her back--facing the sorceress's long auburn waves of hair. Her neck lead is attached to the other woman's wrists, and the sorceress's lead is held in Broken-Tusk's grip. The other two monsters flank them as he tugs on the lead, marching them into the cold air outside the tent.
Night has fallen, though Elli can't be certain how many days have passed since that horrible morning. There isn't a town in sight, only tents and the flames of torches to light the way. It isn't hard to guess their destination. At the center of the encampment, the monsters had built a raised platform. It may very well have been a gallows, but the only things up there were a large golden seat--like a throne, if she had to guess--and beings shrouded in dark red robes and hoods. Blood red, she reconsiders her assessment as they march closer, the flames burning higher.
Broken-Tusk stops them at the foot of the wooden staircase leading up, and large hands on their shoulders force them down onto their knees. While Elli is sure the sorceress kept her gaze fixed resolutely ahead, she instinctively bows her head and stares at the remnants of grass below her.
Movement. Footsteps. A hushed reverence. She tries ignoring the crowd as they approach, though she catches the sense that many types of monsters are gathered. Some are those small ones with those long ears, others are big and bulky and tusked, and some are slender and horned. All grow quiet as the footsteps stop.
"I have decided. Bring me the first prisoner." The voice is clear and calm, easily carrying the weight of power behind it. Elli forces herself to look up and watch as the sorceress is unhooked from her, and led up to the top of the platform by one of the hooded figures.
