Alessa pulled at her husband's sleeve.
"W-we can't go out there," She whispered in terror.
"GATHER OUTSIDE! ANYONE FOUND HIDING WILL BE EXECUTED ON THE SPOT!"
"Alessa, we don't have a choice," Hallen told her, sadly.
Hallen pulled her along gently out of their house and into the town. The streets were plagued with Orc warriors, six and half feet tall monsters, rippling with muscle, who brutally pushed their human captives down the street and towards the town square. Plenty of homes and shops were merely burnt down husks of buildings, who knows what happened to their former inhabitants.
Alessa still couldn't accept that this was real. They had known that an orc tribe was loose in the woods around their town, but the town militia had fought off orcs before. This time, they had called for men from nearby towns, and the king had even sent a few of his knights.
It hadn't mattered, the orcs had smashed through the knights and conquered the town in a matter of hours. Alessa had hidden in the cellar of her house with her husband as she could hear the sounds of violence, hear buildings burn and crash to the ground.
Soon after the orcs secured the town, Hallen had been brave enough to venture out and get information. Each moment he was missing felt like a year to Alessa, who could do little more than cower in fear. Eventually, he returned with news.
Since the orcs had taken the town, they had killed most of the soldiers, but weren't killing townsfolk. Instead, they had broken the town into equally sized pieces, a few blocks of houses each. They were taking these groups of townspeople one at a time to the town square, performing some sort of demonstration, then, unbelievably, letting most of the townsfolk go!
After some time, Orcs came to their house and started pounding on the doors, demanding they come out. Alessa was terrified and just wanted to hide, but Hallen kept talking to her. If they just did what the orcs demanded, they would be let go, and they could move far, far from any orc tribe.
They were pushed together with several of their neighbors, who did little more than exchange frightened glances with them. After about a hundred of them were gathered together, they were herded towards the town square like cattle by a dozen vicious looking orcs, each armed with an array of swords, bows, and spears.
Right outside of town square, they were stopped. "Wait your turn," a scarred orc told them.
"What do you think we are waiting for?" She asked Hallen.
"I'm guessing a group is in there right now. Which means we'll be next. Alessa, please, just listen to me. Just be brave, do whatever they say, and we'll get out of this okay, I promise."
"Okay, Hallen," She said, but she just didn't believe them.
A few minutes later, the orcs shouted something in their language, letting out another round of laughs. Then, townsfolk started to walk past, their heads held low.
"I don't get it, they're being set free, right? Why are they so upset?" Alessa asked.
After that, she saw it. Val, the baker's wife, naked from head to toe, was hoisted over the shoulder of a particularly large orc. The orc held a rope in his hands, that rope was connected to a metal ring around the neck of Va's lhusband, Derek. Val didn't seem to be moving at all, and Derek's eyes were glued to the ground as the orc led him away.
"Hallen, this was a bad idea," Alessa said.
"It's too late now!" Hallen whispered to her, as two orcs walked past them.
"INTO THE SQUARE!" one of the orcs shouted, waving his hands and herding them into the square. Once in the square, they were stretched out into a line two people deep. They had been huddled around some sort of contraption, it looked like a table with some device on top, but it was covered with a cloth.
Another orc stepped out in front of them. This one was just as tall as the other orcs, but he carried himself with an air of importance that the common soldiers lacked entirely. He started to speak to them in the common tongue, and he displayed an impressive control of the language that Alessa didn't know orcs could possess.
"I am Jorumond, of the Klathos Tribe of orcs. You must be frightened, and rightfully so. You have been conquered. Being conquered will have its price. But be at ease. If you do not resist, only some of you will pay that price, most of you will walk free,"
The townsfolk started to whisper among themselves with relief, but the orc barked at them. "DO NOT SPEAK! You are not yet free. Until you are, you will obey my every command. Disobey me, and you won't live long enough to regret it."
The townsfolk silenced themselves immediately. Alessa felt almost weak in the knees with fear of this creature, as it walked up and down the line of villagers.
"Here is what happens now. You must pay the price of your weakness. Your strongest men are now dead, we will do you a kindness and take several of your weakest men with us as slaves. But first, I will choose one of your women, to be my new personal slave. Then my men will pick a few women as well.
