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Author's Note
: This story, Terrible Company, is sprawling sword-and-sorcery fantasy satire with a diverse cast of characters. Over its many chapters, those characters will have interactions (both with each other and others) that cross many of the lines that exist between Lit genres. I have come to believe that breaking the story into those different categories, as best I can, is the best way to expose the most readers to parts of the story they might dig, and that they might then be encouraged to read on.
Each chapter is written as a self-contained episode, and although there are running gags that continue through the series that enrich the experience, they shouldn't prevent one from starting anywhere in the series (including the final chapter) and enjoying it for what it is.
This chapter features:
Val, the female Orc Warrior/Fighter
Katsa, the female Human Arcanist
Mathilda, the female Dwarf Healer
Ayen, the male Half Elf Thief
Ivy, the female Human Bard
Enjoy!//
Ayen groaned as he peered around. The wall in front of him was sliding very quickly. And bouncing. He could see how a wall might slide, if there was some sort of secret passage that was in the process of revealing itself, but the bouncing seemed a bit much. His head hurt, and it wasn't until he smelled the horse that he realized he was on a horse at all.
All his muscles ached and groaned as he tried to move, including his wrists and ankles although he was pretty sure those were joints and not muscles. He could hear conversations going on around him though the words were indistinct. Val and Mathilda and Katsa and another man. Lots of words. Words layered on top of words. The more he tried to make sense of it the more he realized it was two separate conversations happening simultaneously, and he could not figure out who was talking to whom or what about.
He was upside down. Or at least, halfway upside down. His wrists and ankles were bound, and he was strapped over the back of a horse. He tried moving around but every bit of struggle in his arms just tugged at his legs, implying they were bound together.
"Whaa'm'ah..."
The conversation around him slowed to a stop and Ayen groaned louder.
"Oh good," came a voice that set his teeth on edge. "You haven't damaged him." Fear put strength into his sluggish limbs, but the bindings were too tight to get free.
"A'course 'e ain't damaged," Mathilda snarled. "Jus'ta bit sleepy is all on account'a wot we gave 'im."
"It should wear off completely in the next three hours," Katsa said, though she sounded distracted.
"That's wonderful news," said the woman in husky tones. Eloquent in a way that Ayen would have been quite happy to never hear again in his life. The smokey, luxuriant cadence of a woman Ayen would have been happy to never see again in his life. "It's almost a shame to wake him. He looks so peaceful."
"
Yeah
," Mathilda said slowly, " well if 'at's all there is to i', Ah think we'll jus' be on our way then."
"Of course," said the male voice, a man Ayen recognized as having followed him to Hayeston not so very long before. "If you'll all just follow me this way, we'll arrange for a suitable reward for his majesty's safe return."
"No no," Mathilda said, backing away. " 'at won't be necessary."
"
What?
" the Arcanist squeaked.
"Le's go."
"waaaaaaaay..." Ayen croaked. He couldn't quite form the 't' sound. "waaaaaay..."
"C'mon," Mathilda said, pushing Katsa and Ivy. Ayen just managed to turn his head and look past his own arms as the rest of his friends walked away. It was tough to tell, strung upside down like he was, but it looked like the Bard was crying.
"What about the—"
"Keep the 'orse," Mathilda called, as they passed through the gates.
"Well don't just stand there," the deep woman's voice said. "He's your king. Cut him down."
Two pairs of hands reached below him, carefully pulling the ropes away from the underside of the brown mare and taking knife to them. As soon as they were cut through, the guards grasped him by the shoulders. Ayen's world spun as he slid over the top of the horse, and his feet swung weakly below him.
"Welcome home, my Lord."
Queen Lisbeth stared up at him while a mixture of expressions, which Ayen had neither the capacity nor desire to parse, passed through her delicate Elven features. The Half-Elf recoiled, head retreating behind his shoulders, as she took another step closer. Her thin frame belied a strength and speed that exceeded his own, but that wasn't what made her dangerous.
She reached up, fingers bent softly, to cup his cheek. Ayen tried to wiggle free, but his pathetic twisting did not dent the grip of the burly men to either side of him. The fact of his near-incapacitation did not halt his tired fight, which further served to draw the queen's smile just that much wider.
"My Queen," Ayen slurred, and though his body was sluggish his mind raced.
"Bring him," she lilted. The guards said nothing as they dragged him out of the courtyard and into the castle.
The Queen was a radiant young woman of pure Elvish ancestry, and blessed with a face that seemed to have only yesterday entered into full adulthood. Her girlish figure and subtle curves could fool the casual observer, though her propensity for elaborate, staged events generally ruled out the possibility of a 'casual observer'. It wasn't until one looked her in the eye, and she looked back, that her two centuries of age were apparent.
Ayen tried repeatedly to get his feet under him, without success, as he was hauled down hallway after hallway. Dread built quickly in his chest when he started guessing where he was being taken. Up the main stairs and to the right, but not straight through into the north wing. Up two more flights of stairs. The deeper they went into the castle the more lavish the accoutrements. Opulence was a holdover aesthetic from Ayen's father's time on the throne, and Ayen noted no less than a dozen places where the overall effect had even been muted in his absence. His mother's tastes were different, but no less eye-popping.
"In there," Queen Lisbeth said, gesturing, as she continued on in a different direction. Ayen's heart sank.
The Queen's receiving room was the largest of the rooms in her personal chambers. Its decor had changed very little in the decades he'd been gone. His legs did little more than wiggle beneath him as he fought.
"
Bind him tightly,
" came her voice, from one of the neighboring rooms.
The two guards set him down in a chair and pulled his arms behind the back of it. He winced and grunted as his wrists were tied, to each other and the chair. The two men, of a size and height not dissimilar to Val, made short work of him and stepped aside.
"We can't have him getting away
again
, now can we?"
Ayen looked over, noting that her voice was no longer coming through in echoes, and immediately regretted it. The first thing he noticed were her legs.
Queen Lisbeth had shed her outer layers. The lace undergarments she wore now were well-tailored and fit her to perfection, and Ayen was fairly sure she'd been wearing them underneath the whole time; it would have been just like her to flaunt her depravity under the noses of others. A pair of heeled slippers put a dangerous curve in her calves, and the measured steps she took across the marble floor gave the impression of a large cat stalking. Embarrassment had him turning his head, and he was shocked to see the same two members of the royal guards standing at either side of the main door. They were eyeing her openly.
"Try not to think about them," Lisbeth purred.
"
Buthey
..." Ayen swallowed and wrestled his tongue under control. "But... they..."
She startled him by tucking her finger under his chin and drawing his head toward her. She had to bend forward to be at eye level with him, and Ayen swallowed hard at the display of flesh. The Queen was not a curvy woman by any means, but still managed to accentuate what she had with an absolute minimum of fabric.
"Things have changed while you've been gone,
my Lord.
