The victory was short-lived. A sweaty arm rounded her neck and she was pulled from the ground. She flailed immediately, hoping to catch the elf off guard but he was too sturdy, too well-fed for it to have any effect. She bit with all that she had, scraping with weak, flimsy nails at the arm, but it came to nothing save a trickle of blood. The arm tightened on her neck.
Only what you need, she thought. A philosophy for highroads when she lived in the dirt.
The world blurred and dimmed and her legs and arms ceased the work she commanded of them. The warm feel of piss ran down her leg. She felt the ground, dry and cold, only dimly as her knees struck it, and then her face. She struggled against the fog in her brain but her body still would not respond. She could feel a tug at her braies and then her lower half in the cool air.
“Wha’ the ‘ell is been done ‘ere? Looks like a fuckin’ wolf’s been at it.”
“I fink I might be sick. Haw-haw.” The other agreed, laughing stupidly. He’d ignored the moans of his friend to spy a look at their prize.
“Reckon it’ll be the arse then.”
The largest propped her on her knees and she felt a warm gob of spit land on her lower back. He swabbed it toward her arsehole and she bucked with all she had to stop him.
“’Old her down, fuck sake.”
The smaller of the two moved to her head and ground her face into the dirt with his forearm. She heard the large elf spit again, but did not feel it. The feel before that had crept into her feet returned. She could see the lay of the two men in her mind. At least the parts of them that touched the earth. She felt the knob of the bastard’s dirty penis press against her and she screamed. A burn in her brain like a coal spread and the earth beside her roiled.
“Go ahead, girlie—”
The earth flew up in a jagged wedge and caught under the elf’s armpit. She could hear the flesh tear with a sickening wet sop. The bone and sinew gave so little resistance that Óraithe would have wondered if she missed had she not been able to hear the damage as the earth drove past her attacker’s shoulder, catching the elf’s ear and lodging in the side of his skull. He made a clicking noise over and over and shuddered, his half-erect penis twitching against the cheek of her arse. The arm landed next to her and sprayed blood across the naked lower half of her body. It was warm and viscous, but comforting. She let the dirt fall away when her head was released from under the other elf. He fled, screaming before she could clear her mind enough to act.
The corpse of the leader had fallen to the dirt when Óraithe stood and turned to consider him. The side of his head was missing but the gormless look on his face seemed to gall her all the more because of it. She screamed again and began to stomp at his cock. It tore from his body at the fourth kick but she continued to crush the pitiful lump of meat, images of the year flashing across her mind and renewing her rage.
She stopped when the lump beneath her feet was half-dry with dirt and stared at the corpse. She spit on his face and breathed deep. The air was putrid with blood and shit. She thought of the first time she’d smelled the two and she hated that naive girl she was.
Óraithe moved to her braies, picked them up, dusted them clean, and wore them. She looked to the elf she had caught with the spike earlier, but he had crawled away, or limped. She did not know which, only that the blood was profuse and led away from her. The light of the morning was coming on now and the guards would soon be out to see what the night had left them.
She sat down in a spot where the ground was dry and considered the dead elf in front of her. She had done it, barely, with her own strength. Óraithe looked at her hands. They were dirty and bloodstained. She would need extra water today to clean them.
The morning light reflected off of the sweat on her enemy’s body. She looked again at her hands. Under her brittle, cracked nails was skin and blood. There was no amount of muscle she could put on to make herself the physical equal of a creature like the one she’d killed. Or like the old satyr. But was the Gift so reliable? The Drow came to her mind. She was smaller than Óraithe by nearly a head. Pear-shaped but taut like pulled string. She had to be, Óraithe figured.
The young elf stood, looking to the guard posts. They would come soon and only ask questions if they had someone to ask. There was nothing to be done but drag herself back to the satyr and perhaps sleep a few days. Her body was heavier than she ever remembered it being and there was the feeling of a knot somewhere deep inside her head, throbbing and nagging her for the work she’d done. The feeling annoyed her. Punished by her own body for refusing to become a semen soaked husk.
The satyr sat facing the wall as was his way. The braies and her legs had dried in the morning air on the slow walk over. She dragged herself to her sleeping area and dropped to her knees before shifting to
